Rock Overdose and Pavlos Giannakopoulos had the pleasure of having a conversation with Danny Bowes, a singer and founding member of the British Hard Rock band THUNDER, who said a lot about the band's history, the upcoming release of their new live album, but also the concert that they will give in Athens on 19 May at Gagarin live stage.
Rock Overdose: Hello and welcome to Rock Overdose.
Danny Bowes: Thanks.
Rock Overdose: When did you start what made you to play music?
Danny Bowes: We all loved music, and started back in the 70s when we were teenagers. We began our musical journeys the way most people do, with friends at school.
Rock Overdose: Can you tell us some words about Thunder story ? How did you all meet ?
Danny Bowes: Luke and I met at school when we were 11, and I joined his band when we were 15 (we are 57 now so that’s a long time ago). We met Harry in 1980, Ben in 1984, and Chris joined us in 1997. All of this info and more is in our book “Giving The Game Away”, which is a very good read, and available to buy on our web shop. A cheap plug I know, but it is good, with lots of embarrassing pictures of me with bad hair.
Rock Overdose: Which are your main influences as a band ?
Danny Bowes: We grew up listening to all the classic bands in the 60s and 70s, like Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Free/Bad Company, The Beatles. So many classic albums were released in our teenage years, and we lined up with out friends to buy them on the day of release. It was a special time, and seems even more incredible now, when so many new albums are not that good these days.
Rock Overdose: I “met” you the very first time on “Backstreet Symphony” album, back in early 90s and I was very surprised about your pure Hard Rock style. Which are your memories from those days at early 90s?
Danny Bowes: In the early 90s we had been waiting a long time to get recognized, so when it came, the success was received with “great enthusiasm”. As a result we were pretty drunk for a lot of that time. It was very exciting.
Rock Overdose: How’d you come up with that name for the band?
Danny Bowes: We wanted a name that was big loud and simple, like us, and Thunder fitted so we went with it. The music has become a bit more subtle since then, so maybe the name is not so representative of our music these days, but it’s too late to change it now.
Rock Overdose: Can you tell us about Thunder discography ? Which album do you prefer most?
Danny Bowes: We’ve made way too many albums to go into detail about each one, we’ll all lose the will to live if I tried. I will say they’re all pretty different, whilst retaining a consistent feel because of the way we play and sing. I always love the last album the most, because it’s fresh in my mind, and I want people to buy it of course.
Rock Overdose: How did you approach your songs as a band? Did you come up with the vocal melodies first or were you writing music first?
Danny Bowes: There’s no set pattern when Luke writes the songs. Sometimes it can be the music that kicks off an idea, or sometimes a lyric, or a melody. It’s completely random.
Rock Overdose: Can you tell us Thunder current line up?
Danny Bowes: I am Danny Bowes, I am the singer.
Luke Morley writes the songs and plays guitar.
Ben Matthews plays guitar and keyboards.
Chris Childs on bass and Harry James on drums.
All of this info and lots of other stuff is in our book (ha ha)
Rock Overdose: The band broke up in early 2000 and returned in 2002. Can you tell au some words about it? What’s the story behind it?
Danny Bowes: We’ve stopped twice, and both times for 2 years. The first time was because having endured several years of struggle against what I call a “positive grunge/anti classic rock” culture, we felt we couldn’t compete any more. Then the internet came along, so we formed our own record label, then reached out to our fans on the web, which worked well and we sold lots of records without any media help.
It became way too much business and not enough music for me (I am also the band’s manager), so I had to bail out after we released “Bang!” in 2008. The rest of the band decided to stop rather than find a new singer. We did nothing for another 2 years, and were persuaded to play occasional one off shows, and then a tour in the UK in 2013 with Journey & Whitesnake.
There were so many people singing all our songs on that tour, we recorded “Wonder Days” in 2014 and released it in 2015 (7 years after the previous album). It’s been an incredibly positive ride since then.
Rock Overdose: How are things going for Thunder in 2018?
Danny Bowes: We had a very busy first 2 months, with tours in Japan and Europe and we did a rock cruise in the Caribbean recently. We’re now getting ready to start work on the next album.
Rock Overdose: The last album “Rip It Up” was fantastic. Where did you get your inspiration for it? Can you tell us some words about this release?
Danny Bowes: You’d have to ask Luke about inspiration in the songwriting, as he is responsible for that. From my perspective it was a hard album to make because we all had to be at our best, because the songs were technically difficult to perform. We did that deliberately, because we want to see how much better we can get. We’re pleased with how it turned out, and the reviews were great. Fans old and new have told us how much they like it, so we’ll raise the bar again for the next one, and see what happens.
Rock Overdose: May 19 we will see you in Athens Greece at Gagarin live stage.
What do the Greek audience has to expect from this concert?
Danny Bowes: The audience needs to be ready to sing loudly, scream, clap, jump about and enjoy themselves to the max. If they think they’re going to be able to simply stand and watch, they’ll have a shock. Thunder shows are a celebration of life. I put a lot in, but expect a lot back, so bring your dancing shoes, you’ll need them!
Rock Overdose: So what the future holds for you?
Danny Bowes: We’re releasing a live album and film later in March, which is great even if I say so myself. A new album will be recorded this year, with a few shows here and there in the summer. I expect proper touring to start again in early 2019 around the album release.
Rock Overdose: If you want send a message to all Greek Thunder fans.
Danny Bowes: Thanks for waiting so patiently for so long, but we will be there soon, and I promise you will enjoy the show, so the wait will be worth it.
Rock Overdose: Thank you for doing this interview.
Danny Bowes: Thanks for asking the questions..
For Rock Overdose
Pavlos Giannakopoulos
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