ENDLICH!!!!!!!!!!
1. Mario, please tell us a bit on how an when it all started? It's nearly impossible to get any information about the band on the internet:The band been formed, in 1983, the first singer was Bruce Johnston. In that time our musician were Gil Halo at the bass, JF Preiss at the drums and of course me at the guitar. It’s in the early 84 when Burke had join the band, and where Preiss was replace by John Lawson at the drums, that I have to admit, was a very fast and a technical scales drummer, the one I needed to go where I wanted to go with the band in those years. We made our first EP, “Night of Horror” in 1985 at SARM studio in Longueuil, a small town on the south short of Montreal. That EP contained 5 songs:
Night of Horror
Sword of the redeemer
Hooligans
Sacrifice
World’s end
Two other songs were add to that EP Later, “Virgin Mary” and “ Peace & Sincerity”. Those one were recorded at another studio, with a very good sound engineer, in mean time we made the making of the second EP at the same studio with a new singer who was Allan Boy. After that we made the Clip “Virgin Mary” in a church, in fact that was a Cathedral…! The clip was shot whit no budget in Super VHS and that took all my persuasive power to convince the priest, who was in charge at that time, to let us get in and shoot a Heavy Metal Clip in his Holly place!!! Imagine the scene… That was in 1988. After we had finished to shoot the clip and our first EP was Mixed, Everything was ready for us to take another step, to find a major record deal!!!!
That was in 1989, when we were playing in a club called “The Pub of Saint-Hubert”, a A&R (Artist recruiter) of EMI, from Toronto, came to see us, and was really impress and decided to go further with a record deal. That’s where, exactly at that time, where Burke had disappeared…… No news at all from him, Woosh!!! Evaporate! …. I was upset, all the members of the band and crew were too!!! So later, After years, we knew what happened, he felt in love with a girl and follow her in her home town up North Quebec, what and Jer…… (I prefer to be quiet here…) That’s where I asked my good Friend Allan Boy, to join the band, and we took a new direction, just a bit cleaner in the musical way and vocals! We made another EP in 1989 with 6 new songs, new breed:
Carry On
Nightmare
Only a game
King of the Night
Warrior
Witches
After that we played for about a year, many gigs, and I decided to put a stop to Graveyard after seven years of tryout to succeed!!! In fact, I was studying in sound recording/ engineering and Film making at the University of Montreal, and I needed to focus on another aspect of my life. Since than I produce many artists, more than 20 albums, 15 video clips, 3 TV shows and a Feature.
2. What were your main influences?Main influences…. Mmmmmwell…, depend of the members of GraveYard: For myself, I liked Rush, Yngwie Malmsteen and Triumph. For Burke that was, Mercyfullfate and Queensryche, For Gil, the bass player, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
3. Were there any other bands in your local area?Yes, in the middle of the 80’s that was a lot of hairy bands!!! With Some of them we were in competition together and others were good friends, like: Daggers (Hell’s Dagger), Voivod, Storm Bringer, Sad winder (With the Amazing guitar player Stephane Dufour) and Sword, that I produced the solo album of their lead singer Rick Hughes, and been nominated for the “Rock Album of the year” in 2006.
4. Was there something like a metal scene?Yes a lot of bands there! Very different from each other’s and many gigs to do all around Quebec, Canada and the US.
5. „Virgin Mary“ started it all again. Who uploaded the video and what did you think when you read all the coments on youtube? Did you expect that much interest after all these years?Jeezzzzz! I don’t have a clue who put that there…??? I was amazed about all the good comments we had about our performance and the clip!! Wow! thanks guys!!! You don’t know how many emails I received from kids all around the world to know if there are any Graveyard’s albums available??? If you wanna know, Yes! They are going to be ready at the end of October 2011, beginning of November…!!! With a lot of never seen videos, making of and live shows…!!! SO GET READY!!! SOME NEW STUFF IS COMING TO!!!!
6. Is this the reason for the resurrection of GRAVEYARD or did you want to do a reunion anyway?Since a couple of year, I think I always wanted a reunion of Graveyard, someday, but there was a small problem, Gil (the Bass player) never touched a bass since 15 years, and John (Drummer) either… So I reached Burke, who’s still singing great, with a couple of cover bands here in Montreal, and asked him to do some recording of new songs in my studio, he told me he didn’t had time…. So, I decided to with new musician and Allan Boy, the second singer of Graveyard. Anyway, I was almost the only composer of the band…. So I know how to keep the Vibe!
7. Can you tell us a bit about shooting the „Virgin Mary“ video? Where was it shot?I already answer that question but I can add that: “We are going to release some never seen footage of the shooting of Virgin Mary, stand by!!!!” ;)
8. Are you also planning in doing a remastering on the videos also with enhanced picture and sound quality or is the actual version the best you can get?Yes, that’s what we are doing right now, there’s already one new version of Virgin Mary recolored on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OhRwBorKJAThe remastering of the clip is about to be done, but we keep it for our site. And a bunch of photos and videos are on the road too…!
There’s two other video-clip with us and Allan Boy on youtube, in fact, that was made years later with a kind of “Collage” of a bunch of things that we had filmed in the 80’S:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ha_qXCl8A&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODAWMvtJ8js&feature=related9. „Only a game“ and „Nightmare“ show a new singer. Why did you part ways with the original singer?As I said it before, Burke had left the band without warning anybody, even his Mom was looking for him, so can you trust someone like this????!!!!…. And I’m the kind of guy who’s, (almost if I could say it that way), never give up when I know there’s still something to do and when I believe in a good project, so I wanted to continue anyhow… You know a band is a team and when a member of a team or the family act like this… What you could you do? You have to protect the integrity of the family, and drive the boat straight through. Plus Burke had a lot of drug problems in those years.
10. Any more lineup changes?Yep! For the studio we have for the drums parts, Ben Shatskoff of GrimSkunk, good friend of mine and Martin Dwell at bass. I’ll do all the guitars and keyboards, Allan Boy’s going to do all the main voices. For the lineup on the Road, we keep it as a SURPRISE!
11. It's very unusual for an underground band to come up with videos first instead of a propper CD or vinyl release? How come?For us, in those days, that was the best way to reach the big Labels and get signed. For myself, I believe that images and music are going together like peas and carrots, That’s my “Forest Gump” twist. “ That’s the inseparable complement of music composing”. For example, watch a movie where they had removed the music… especially in the dramatic ones where, something is missing… No?!
12. Can we expect more than these three videos? How much vids did you do at all?We done a lot of live shows videos, but the quality of the cameras available in those years was not like today… The only media that was affordable in the 80’s was those big ugly VHS cameras with saggy images… So we have some live footage that we are going to include on a USB key made just for our fans, and on sell on our site in a couple of month!
13. The „fat, ugly headbanger“, as he calls himself, appears in 2 videos. Who is this guy and are you still in contact with him?He he!!!! This is my friend Jerome!!! And yes, I’m still in contact with him via Facebook! In those days He was a big Heavy metal Head banger, and still he’s! Never miss a heavy rock concert in Montreal, sending me his critics by emails! Last time he sent me a live performance of Rik Emett ex-Triumph that he recorded on he’s iPhone at his concert in Montreal, he knew I was a fan…
We were studying together in the secondary school, he was pretty shy at school, and very lonely, and I introduced him to the members of Graveyard and its entourage, and they loved him! And he followed us in most of our gigs across the country!
14. Why did the band split up in 91 without having released anything official?That was in 1990, I was exhausted and tired of touring at that time…. I was looking for a new challenge! So I decided to Leave Montreal for Central America and that, for four years!
15. You've told me that an official release is planned, with old and even new songs. Can you give us some more information on that coming release?Yes the release of the first EP is going to be around the end of October, and the second one beginning of November, same for all the videos, and the special USB Key “crossiforme” with the logo of Graveyard on the top, and with plenty of videos inside it!!! Some never been seen stuff!
16. Will there be any remixing/remastering on the old songs?All the Old songs are going to be remastered in our studio! With all the new technology available! We had just received our new API 1608 board! A Wow + one million!
17. CD or vinyl?Yes CD and some vinyl, for the real lovers of the right good sound!
18. You've told me that you and the other guys try to find out wich of the old songs will appear on the upcoming release! What about the songs that won't make it, due to bad sound quality, etc? Will you rerecord them or will they be lost forever?I don’t know yet, but, I don’t think we are going to record some old stuff, for me, what is done it’s done, you know, time had change! So we are looking further to make some new stuff where we can feel the vibes of today’s in Heavy Metal music! And some stuff that make our fan of those years and the one of these present days really happy!!!
20. I've heard that you already recorded some new stuff. Can you tell us more? Can we expect newly recorded classic GRAVEYARD stuff, new songs or will it go in a complete new direction?No, I don’t think that’s going in another direction, I prefer to say that our material had made an evolution toward the years and followed the sound of the “metal” new breeders as : The Used, or others.
21. Would you say that the band is back or is this just a short living thing?Depend of the Fans!!!! Yes I wish all my heart that we are going to be back for long! You know, my life is MUSIC! I’ve been in the musical and film/video for almost 30 years right now… So, What else I could do?
22. Who are the current members?Allan Boy, Mario Lou Anderson and …. I keep the rest as a surprise!
Surprise? Sounds interesting :-)23. Any touring plans yet?Not for now we’re focusing on the new material to record, the old stuff to edit and the promotion of our web site who’s going to see the light in the end of October 2011. Plus recording our new material, that’s making us busy already for many months.
24. Have you been a metal fan throughout the years?Yes, I always have and always going to be, I find in rock, metal, heavy metal that’s where you find the best performer in all kind of music!!! If we talk about those guitar heroes as: Satriani, Vinnie Moore, Ygwie Malmsteen, Steve Vai etc etc !!! Those marvelous and powerful singers as: Rob Alford, Geoff tate, Bruce Dickinson, and recently Chad Kroeger, Bert McCracken…
25. What Bands or genres do you and the other guys listen too?The other like a lot of different heavy metal bands, for myself I’m an unconditional of “The Used”, I like “NickelBack”, Creed, I like different style too, most of them are the new breed of Britain like, Kean, Muse, Coldplay…. And of course I’m a huge Fan of David Gilmour, especially with his last solo Album, “On an Island” , that I think it’s one of the best ever made. Sound wise; from my scale of producer and sound engineer, it’s the “Holy grail”!!!
26. Any Favorite Band?PINK FLOYD! For the music, the shows “grandiose” and all the album filled with hits!
27. Any Last Words?I would like to thank you Alex, for that interview and would like to thanks all our fans and new fans from the net! AND DON’T FORGET! Our material is coming out at the end of October on
http://www.toxikmusik.ca! GET READY TO ROCK!
Alex Panz for sacredmetal.de/board
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