Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Anew Revolution

July 11, 2006

Anew Revolution, featuring former members of Unloco (vocalist/guitarist Joey Duenas) and Slaves on Dope (bassist Frank Salvaggio and drummer Rob Urbani) is an indie band in the truest sense, releasing an EP and touring the nation without any label support. If the empowering anthem “Rise” is any indication, this is a band that could make a name for themselves with their melodic hard rock. Greg Maki of Live-Metal.net recently caught up with Duenas, Salvaggio and lead guitarist Shaun Stockton at the band’s stop at the Recher Theatre in Towson, Md., on the “Summer of Sin” tour, their second jaunt across the country supporting Dope.

Frank: Well, it was kind of a mutual friend. We knew each other, both our ex-bands knew each other from the past and we toured together, and he said why don ’t you hook up with each other and see what you get. So Rob, the drummer, and I decided to take a drive out to Texas and start to meet up and hang out with Joey. We started writing music and before long we were in the studio. We took some time to figure it all out, decide where we wanted to go, how we wanted to sound and keep at it until the new year came over, and that was when we really started working on live shows. Then we got Shaun late last year, about a year ago right now. We’re coming up on a year with Shaun, aren’t we?

Joey: Yeah, coming on a year in August.

Frank: And then we will have been touring for a whole year.

Joey: Shaun was the guy that we had been searching for a guitar player for ever and ever, ever, ever, ever. There’s a lot of good players in Austin, but it’s just that thing that just because you can play really well doesn’t mean you have that charisma, that certain spark that kind of will transpose within a band and on stage.

Frank: You have to be a sexy bitch.

[laughter]

Shaun: I was looking in the paper for wanted guitar players and I saw “Wanted: sexy bitch on guitar,” so I called them up.

Frank: I think it was the “sexy bitch” part. He didn’t see the “guitar” part.

[laughter]

Joey: It’s funny because we had a guy that was a really good guitar player, awesome guy. So he helped us out a lot with shows and sometimes writing. He was a man around the scene and stuff like that, but he just didn’t have an idea of what he wanted to do. And Shaun was pretty much gung ho. At one point, we were like, “Alright we need to hire somebody. We’re gonna hit the road, and we’re two weeks from going on a tour.” He just rang the doorbell one day, just showed up, didn’t even play or whatever, just kind of hung out for a little bit and we got to know each other or whatever. He was very cocky, saying that he knew all of the songs. And after a barrage of auditions with a lot of other cocky people who all said they knew the fuckin’ songs, he actually knew it. He actually stumped me on a couple of things, too.

Frank: I guess that’s when we actually got our legs, when he came into the band and we had a whole tour lined up, really big shows, very big radio shows in the upper Midwest.

Joey: Shit, our first show was—

Frank: In front of, like, 10,000 people.

Joey: With Sevendust.

Frank: Sevendust, Chevelle. And so from that point on, we’ve never looked back and sold a bunch of albums on our own, toured one national tour with Dope, another national tour with Switched and a little run on our own and now back with the Summer of Sin tour. And then we’re gonna take a little break, write and record a new record, have a release out on an indie label by the fall.

How did it feel after being in other bands to be writing, recording and playing with new people?

Joey: It felt good. It felt really good. I mean, not to dog my old guys or whatever, but it felt a lot different. It felt like the air was kind of dry and that there wasn’t so much politics and history behind every little move you make. In my older band, there was a lot of who’s doing what and who’s getting what.

Frank: Well, it’s the same for us. I think it also helps to play with talented people, people who are experienced. I think that’s what we are all searching for. The last thing we wanted to do was really start over. A lot of bands do that, you know, a member of a past band decides he’s gonna get four new guys. It could work sometimes, but it’s an uphill climb. This is an uphill climb but with a lot more of a smooth ride because of the experience of all of us and the musicianship amongst all of us.

What kinds of things did you learn from your previous bands that you’re able to benefit from now?

Joey: Save your money. [laughs] Save your money and—

Frank: Be careful who you step on on the way up because you’ll be hitting them on the way down. Also, too, the touring thing, the ability to know the venues, know the promoters, know the cities, to know the fans, know what they want and know what works to the best of your capacity.

What is your typical songwriting process? Do you have a set way or does it vary from song to song?

Joey: We usually take all of the notes of the scales, put them in a big box, pick it up, shake it around.

[laughter]

Joey: No, usually, something pops into somebody’s head, man, whether it be Shaun or Frank or me or Rob or whoever, and it’s kind of like, “Dude, I have this thing.” To me, it’s always been with music—and Frank mentioned this other day, too—that Jim Morrison, when he started The Doors, he didn’t know how to write or sing or anything. He heard the fans and he saw a crowd and that’s kind of like the way we do it. We don’t really know—I mean, we know the scales, we know the notes and all that stuff—but it’s kind of like you can hear the song from start to finish, you can hear the crowd and see the crowd’s reaction and you automatically know how it’s gonna go.

I know you guys had some trouble with the original name of the band [Ashes from Ashes]. How did you settle on Anew Revolution?

Frank: I think it was just a little bit of like anything, you’re really excited to get it out and you think of names. We probably had like 30, 40, 50 names on pieces of paper. And each one of them was, like, OK and OK and OK. Joey had thought of Revolución, like the Latin side of things. It kind of had a really good whip to it, so we just decided to take it another level and went to this, Anew Revolution, because of what we were. It kind of encapsulates a lot of everything. It’s the way the world feels today, the way people feel today, the way we feel today. To us, our musical message is a new revolution.

Joey: It’s funny ‘cause you can look at it in terms of us going, OK, you know what? The music industry is pretty shitty right now and something needs to change and there needs to be definitely a turn of the tide. And you can look at what we do as being sort of modern rock. But if you think about it, all the indie rock is now the major rock. And what we’re doing right now, doing an indie deal, touring with no label support, I think we are the indie band now. It’s ironic, but we’ve made out OK.

Yeah, you guys have been able to tour a lot and put out an EP all by yourselves. How important are the record labels today?

Frank: Absolutely zero. I mean, I don’t want to say zero because they’re important to bands to a certain degree, but not nearly as much as they used to. And not to mention, we are selling records on our own and selling tickets and T-shirts and merch and stuff. That’s what it’s about ultimately for a band, to get the message out through playing and through getting your music out however way possible, online, here, everywhere.

Is it easier to do that today than when you were starting out in your other bands?

Frank: Easier in the sense where the online helps you get your name out, harder that people are not buying the records. They’re getting your music, they know who you are, but they’re not purchasing it. That’s why major labels are not signing as much, because they realize that the CD has no more value to a person. It doesn’t have as much significance as it once did. What’s been held up as such an important piece of somebody’s life is now on somebody’s computer and you can have 24 different versions of it.

Joey: Well, the industry is really at fault, too, thinking that they had a medium that could not be unlocked, thinking they had a medium like, “I can charge 50 bucks for this record if I want to because there’s no way you can get it.” People kept telling them, “Hey, times are changing, times are changing.” And they’re sitting there with their fingers in their ears, “Blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah.” All of a sudden, they’re paying for it.

Frank: I heard a story once about how the major companies when they invented the CD player—an old manager of mine said they had been to a meeting in the ‘80s about what the development of the CD player would do, how they should dictate the prices of CDs. And they all sat there and said, “What should we charge? What’s the value of this CD?” A CD player at the time was very expensive, so they said they could have conceivably made the CD $10. They said no because the CD player is worth so much money, it overvalues the CD player and devalues the product. But had they said back then $10, it would have been embedded in people’s minds that that is what it was worth and it would have never gone down. It’s a lot like a loaf of bread. You put a loaf of bread at $10 and you bring it down to $1—it’s a little different because it’s more of a necessity with bread, but it’s the value of something. $22 ten years ago and then it’s $9.99 now. People remember that shit, and then they realize they can get it for free on top of that. It’s significant.

Joey: The beauty of it is the kind of deals that are shaping on indie labels now—distributed by majors or whatever—is that we’re going into a process where it’s a partnership with the band and the label both taking the risk. We’re fronting the money for touring, we’re doing that all on our own, not asking for a dime. The only thing we ask for is to distribute the record. Let people know and we’ll do the rest. And that’s the way I think it should be.

Who are some of your musical influences, for this band in particular?

Shaun: ABBA.

Frank: ABBA.

Shaun: George Michael.

Frank: Backstreet Boys. I personally like a lot of Faith No More, Quicksand, Pantera, Metallica—old Metallica.

Joey: That’s across the board, even with some of the retro stuff, like New Order, Depeche Mode.

You did a New Order cover [“True Faith”]. How did you pick that song?

Joey: It was in a bar. Drunk. I heard it on the radio, I’m like, “Dude, if you throw this thing in a heavy beat and make the guy sing out of one note, it would be awesome!”

Frank: Everybody knows that song. Every club plays it. When you go to, like, a hipper club, that song’s always on.

Do you see any more covers in your future?

Frank: We play some every once in a while. We do a Metallica medley.

What kind of crowd reaction have you guys been getting? Are there fans of Unloco and Slaves on Dope coming out?

Joey: Yeah, you’ll see them out there.

Frank: They’re coming out, actually, this tour more than ever ‘cause it’s similar fans. The beauty of it is that’s the loyalty of music lovers is that if they really like you they’ll always remember what touched them.

What kinds of things do you like to do in your free time on the road?

Joey: Shaun pumps the iron.

Frank: Shaun’s got “pec-turtles.” We call them “pec-turtles,” not pectorals. Every day they start snapping at me. We could be negotiating a million dollar deal right now and all of a sudden he’d be like, “I need food!”

Do you ever have a chance to go out and see the cities you’re playing in?

Joey: Our last tour, we had a day off and some friends of ours in Milwaukee at a radio station called us up and were like, “Hey, Rob Zombie’s playing tonight.” And they hooked us up.

Frank: Passes and everything to see Rob Zombie, hung out with Mike from Disturbed, went to the bar and did shots and shots and shots.

Joey: It’s cool. I’ve actually been here a bunch of times. I love this area. I have a friend who lives here.

Frank: Shaun’s seeing a lot of this for the first time. It’s cool to see it through his eyes and give him the excitement that we don’t have anymore.

[laughter]

Frank: We’re driving on 295 through D.C. and I’m Canadian, so a Canadian is giving a tour of the American capital to an American. “To your left is the U.S. Capitol, Jefferson Memorial and a monument.”

Joey: All you foreigners know where your targets are.

[laughter]

What’s your drink of choice?

Joey: Jagermeister. Jager, Jager, Jager.

Is there a lot of that on this tour, being sponsored by Jager?

Joey: We haven’t seen any.

Frank: I think Dope’s got it on their bus.

Joey: Dope’s got it all.

Frank: They’re hoarding.

Joey: They’re gonna make, like, one giant Jager bomb at the end of the tour and give it to us.

What are some of the bands out there that you’d like to go on tour with?

Frank: Godsmack, Sevendust, Slipknot.

Joey: I would love to go out with Anthrax.

Frank: Iron Maiden.

Shaun: Supergroup.

[laughter]

Frank: Jani Lane’s band. Is that what it’s called, the Jani Lane Band? Are they Warrant again? You know what, there’s so many bands we’d love to go out with. It would be great to go out with any one of the bands that we love and like and respect that we’re fans of or friends of. Bring it on, we’d love to do it.

Since you guys got together in this band, has there been anything that has really surprised you?

Frank: Shaun’s ability to work out.

Joey: A lot of things. We’re constantly learning.

Frank: We’re learning from each other every day. That’s the beauty of it. That’s all we can do, really.

Do you have any long-term goals for the band?

Frank: Take over the world, just like everybody else.

Shaun: One tour at a time.

Joey: Yeah, one tour at a time, we’re gonna take over the world.