Chuck Wright is the bassist for
Heaven & Earth. The band also features: singer Joe Retta (The
Sweet), drummer Richie Onori (The Sweet) and keyboardist Arlan
Schierbaum (Joe
Bonamassa) and founder/British guitarist Stuart Smith.
Chuck plays bass for Quiet Riot too. You may recognize him
from his days with House of Lords as well. Chuck has worked
with a lot of bands over the years, which can only be a
testament to his talent! I met Chuck a few times back in his
House of Lords days. He was always a cool guy. I recently had
the pleasure of interviewing him.
1. Any person (living or dead) that
you would like to meet and why?
If you are referring to anyone throughout
history, the obvious answer is Jesus Christ. If you are asking
about musicians, I’d say John Lennon. He was one of the most
influential songwriters of all time. I’d love to get a one on
one account of his life with the Beatles and after. The truth
of it all. We’ve all heard a lot of varied stories.
2. Who are some of your favorite
musicians?
Being a Bassist, I’d have to say John Paul
Jones, Jack Bruce, John Entwhistle, Jaco Pastorious, Jeff
Berlin and John Paul McCartney.
Guitarists?? Jeff Beck baby!
3. What's your guilty musical
pleasure?
I love playing drums. When I started out, I
played both drums and Bass but I thought to myself “do
you really want to set up and tear down that drum set”. So I
chose Bass and I love it but drums really speak to me. I’ve
been very fortunate to have worked with some big name Rock
drummers in my career, Carmine Appice. Frankie Banali, Gregg
Bissonette, Pat Torpey, Ken Mary, Glen Sobal…the list goes on
and on.
4. Who did you idolize as a child?
My Mother and I still do. Though she has passed, I still try
to make her proud every day. One of the highlights in my life
was giving my Mom a platinum album award with her name on it.
She always supported my choice to leave military academy and
pursue a career as a musician.
5. Stranded on a deserted island, what
3 cds would you have with you?
The Beatles “Magical Mystery Tour”, Led
Zeppelin’s debut and Jeff Beck's “Blow By Blow
6. The difference between today's
music and the music of the 80's?
I could write a book on that. We have new
technologies, which allow people to record
without really having true talent. We have
the Internet where people just download a
single song (or usually steal it) and not buy
an album to be able to get to discover the
true depth an artist has to share. A lot of
artists are now only putting out one song.
Some of my favorite songs on albums were not
the singles. It’s all a blessing and a curse.
You can reach more people faster than ever
but there so many more people that have
access to get their music out there. Record
labels as we know them have all but
disappeared. It used to be you had to be on
MTV, now you have to go viral on YouTube.
7. Favorite place to perform?
Here in my neighborhood, we have Universal
City, which had the Universal Amphitheater, which is now the
Gibson but sadly it’s being torn down to put up a Harry Potter
amusement attraction. I loved how you could walk to the front
of the stage there and hear the sound system because it was
behind and off to the side of you. So you could hear what the
fans were hearing. It sounded huge!
8. What makes a good song?
Usually it’s the hook in the song, the main
chorus or it could even be the Bass line like Queens “Another
One Bites The Dust”. You have to have something that people
can hold onto musically or lyrically.
9. What are your hobbies?
Lately it’s been riding my bike but I used
to play softball for 20 years
with my musician friends from various bands like Mr. Big, REO
Speed Wagon, Styx and Guns-n-Roses.
10. Favorite food to eat on the road?
Oh that would be pizza but you have to watch
that.
When I toured with Alice Cooper we had Pizza delivered after
every show. I blew up like a balloon.
11. The first concert you ever went
to?
I think I was 11. My Mom took us to the
Hollywood Bowl to see Three Dog Night, Steppenwolf and The
Grass Roots. Funny thing about that is later in life I became
friends with Michael Monarch (Steppenwolf’s guitarist), The
Grass Roots guitarist (Warren Entner) became my manager in
Quiet Riot and in 2008 I toured with Three Dog night lead
vocalist Chuck Negron.
12. Who's the best person you've met
on the road?
You meet so many people so, I’d have to say
the best person I’ve toured with as a hang was Alice Cooper.
We did a 75 city/ 17 country tour together and he and I would
meet for breakfast at each new city and then go out to see the
sights while shopping. He loved getting a deal then he’d give
away whatever he bought to someone in the band or crew. What a
great guy.
13. How did you get involved with your
current band Heaven & Earth?
Stuart and I have known each other for
twenty years or so. Early in 2011, he called me and said “I’m
going to be doing a new Heaven and Earth album and this time
it’s going to be more like a band project.” The other one I
was involved with was really a solo project for him. The plan
was, we would get into rehearsal, he’d bring in an idea and
we’d work on it and turn it into a good song structure. Then
Joe Retta, our lead singer, would throw in his ideas, coming
up with lyric and vocal melody for the music. This has been a
great experience working with a bunch of guys who have killer
chemistry together.
14.What makes Heaven & Earth different
from any band you've been in previously?
We are very lucky to have a label behind us
that truly believes we can turn music around from it’s current
direction and get it back to real Rock-n-Roll. I’ve also never
spent this much time developing songs before. We worked on
this album for over 14 months. Some of the guys had shows with
Sweet, our keyboard player was in Europe with Beth Hart and
I’d been out touring with Quiet Riot so scheduling played a
part in how long the recording process took. Other albums I’ve
done were a couple month process at most.
15. You have a new album with Heaven &
Earth called DIG coming out, can you tell me a little about
it?
The album drops on April 23rd and we just
released the first video for “No money No Love” on YouTube and
it’s taking off. We’ve had 50,000 viewers in just a few days.
This album is like you went into a music vault at record label
back in the 70’s and found an album that never came out but
was supposed to. We totally went for that classic rock
seventies Deep Purple, Bad Company, Rainbow kind of vibe. We
have a couple of epic pieces on it, the opening track
“Victorious” is pretty heavy handed compared to the rest of
the material, some folks say it has a Zep “Kashmir” feel.
There are also a lot of songs that have a strong commercial
viability. Our greatest asset to me besides the material is
our singer, Joe Retta. I believe he is one of the best
vocalists anywhere. He could go toe to toe with Paul Rodgers,
Glen Hughes, Robert Plant, any of those guys. I also think we
have the coolest Album cover to come out in 20 years thanks to
Glen Wexler. He’s done covers for Van Halen, Black Sabbath, ZZ
Top, Rush and worked with Michael Jackson. He’s the best of
the best. He also directed our new killer videos.
16. How is DIG different from the
albums you've created in the past?
As I said before, we really wanted to get
into a time machine and make a record that had the same
strength, sound and integrity of all our favorite 70’s Rock
records. We used a devise called the “Clasp”, that allows you
to record to 24 track tape machine heads getting that fat
sound you can only get from recording to tape and actually go
straight into a computer without any lapse.
17. Do you have any other current
projects?
One of my favorite groups I’m involved with
here in L.A. is “Acoustic Saints”. We reinterpret Classic Rock
tunes using Violin, Mandolin, acoustic guitars, percussion and
I only play my Godin Fretless Bass. Stan Bush is the lead
singer. He’s won Emmy’s and has albums out in Europe. He
actually wrote songs for Quiet Riot and my band House Of Lords
back in the 80’s. We do three part harmony like Crosby, Stills
and Nash. Check us out at
www.acousticsaints.com
I’m also, always out on the road “Bangin’ My Head” with Quiet
Riot. There’s a documentary on the history of the band set to
come out this year. Keep an eye on
www.officialquietriot.com.
