Rock Overdose and Konstantinos Soterelis, on the occasion of the new studio album of LIZZY BORDEN, titled "Midnight Things", had the pleasure and honor to have an interview with one of the most cult figures of the American Heavy Metal scene, singer Lizzy Borden in person.
Rock Overdose: Hello, Lizzy! Welcome to Rock Overdose! How are you?
Lizzy Borden: Hello, man! All good!
Rock Overdose: How are things going for Lizzy Borden in 2018?
Lizzy Borden: Ah, first album in quite a long time, so everything’s going really good. It’s pretty exciting right now, promoting this album. The response that I’ve been given for this album has been amazing. It’s been the best response I’ve had for any Lizzy Borden record, so I’m pretty excited. It’s all going pretty good!
Rock Overdose: This is your first album in eleven years, right?
Lizzy Borden: Yes!
Rock Overdose: Can you tell a few things about the music in this album?
Lizzy Borden: Well, when I started writing this album, I really wanted to try and do something more along the lines of my influences. I always throw in some of my influences on all my songs but, for this album, I really wanted to dig down deep. Most of these influences are from the ‘70s. You know, all the great songs written during that building time of what came in the ‘80s, but it all started in the ‘70s…
Rock Overdose: I’m sorry. Could you name some of your influences? I know it’s very difficult…
Lizzy Borden: Um… [David] Bowie, Kiss, [Alice] Cooper, The Tubes, Blue Öyster Cult… You name it!
Rock Overdose: All the great stuff from the ‘70s!
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, I used to love- I still do, I love all… Anytime you have songs that last for thirty, forty years, it must be for a good reason: because they were good, they were well-written and they were timeless. That’s kinda what I was focusing on: make timeless songs that would last longer than just a touring cycle.
Rock Overdose: Can you spot some differences from the last album, “Appointment with Death” (2007)?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, the differences are… We had George Lynch on the last record, and Dave Meniketti from Y&T. It just felt like I was showcasing musicians and, even though I love all those guys, I didn’t wanna showcase musicians while I’m writing a song. I just didn’t, I don’t know [why]… For some reason, in the ‘70s, they didn’t think about that; they were writing songs. There would be a lead guitar or there wouldn’t be, and it wasn’t all about a guitar solo.
So, I just decided, “Look, I’m not gonna do what I did on the last record, in which I felt like I was showcasing musicians”. For this one, I just wanted to showcase songs. I wanted to write the good songs even if they didn’t have the guitar solo, which I think all of them do. If they don’t have a guitar solo, that’s fine- I just wanted a record. That was the main difference between this one and the last one.
Rock Overdose: Could you tell us a few things about the production? I think that you did the production, or some part of the production, right?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, I produced it with Joey Scott [Harges] who plays drums- he co-produced it with me.
Rock Overdose: Why did you decide to take over?
Lizzy Borden: Well, I produced the last one, as well, and I’ve been involved in the production on every Lizzy Borden record even if I didn’t take credit for it. It’s always, kind of, been that way but, for the last couple of records, I didn’t feel like… Right now, producers, if you hire a producer, you get a slanted amount of time to finish your album and, if you don’t finish it, it doesn’t matter- it’s over. You finish it and you deliver it, whatever it is.
I don’t work like that. You know, back in the old days, you had time and you could do whatever you wanted. You still had a time slot; but, if you went over it, it was acceptable. Now you can’t go over it ‘coz producers have to move on to their next project, so it kinda got cookie cutter. I don’t wanna be part of the cookie cutter thing. I wanted- when the album was done, that’s when it was finished, not before. I just didn’t think I could find a producer that had, that could spend, that kinda time creating an album like this.
Rock Overdose: How long did it take you to compose the new material?
Lizzy Borden: Well, it took probably, all in all, about a year because I just took my time. I started with too many songs… [Laughs] I had so many songs and, then, I didn’t really know what the “Midnight Things” album was gonna be… I just started writing songs. Once I started windling it down to find the songs that would work for this album, that’s when it all started to click for me. I took a little longer than I usually do, but it was… Like I said, I took my time.
Rock Overdose: Why did it take you eleven years to release a new album? Could you describe to us what happened all these years to Lizzy Borden?
Lizzy Borden: We’ve just been touring. We just stayed on tour after we did the “Appointment with Death” tour which lasted a few years. Then, we started the anniversary tour and created a whole new show around that and, then, did that for a few years. You know, we’ve been busy with the touring, but… I didn’t wanna make a record because I had an old record deal and I didn’t like the way it was.
And the collapse of the music industry just made it seem like there was no reason to do it. But, Metal Blade Records changed the game and they figured out how to make records in this day and age and make it worthwhile. Once I was convinced about that, then I signed a new record deal and now I’m making records again.
Rock Overdose: How do you feel about releasing a new album after so many years with Metal Blade, a huge record label?
Lizzy Borden: I love it! So far, lots of things are happening with the record. We’ve done the first video and we’re working on the next video, and there’re probably gonna be two more at least, which is really cool. In the last album, the label didn’t want a video and, in the album before that, the label did no videos. So, there’s a big commitment for this record because they believe in it so much.
Then, we’re having a big wild party in Las Vegas, a release party, and we haven’t had a release party since “Master of Disguise” (1989), so this is gonna be really fun. Everything’s kinda gone full circle; the way it used to be in the ‘80s and how it is now, and we’re emulating some of those things that we did in the ‘80s right now. It’s pretty cool to be able to have access, to market the record, especially being a theatrical/ visual band. So, everything’s pretty fun again.
Rock Overdose: What’s the feedback so far from the press, and the fans, of course?
Lizzy Borden: I got two perfect scores in two different magazines, a “10/10” and a “5/5”, which I’ve never had in my life, not for any record. That’s pretty cool! In every review that I’ve read, everyone said the same thing: they absolutely love this record, which I’ve never had before. [I’ve] always had mixed reviews for every record, so this is the first one that’s…
Rock Overdose: Maybe, we’re talking about the best Lizzy Borden album…
Lizzy Borden: That’s what people are saying. More than a few reviews have said that, “This is the best album Lizzy Borden have ever done”. I’m blown away by that; I didn’t expect it, but I’ll take it! [Laughs]
Rock Overdose: Is it easy for you, having so many albums, to release new material and make the best album of the band? Is it easy to write new material after thirty years?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, with each record, I try to approach it differently and, [in doing] so, I have a different outlook… Not like, “This is gonna be the next Lizzy Borden record”… I always look at it like this is gonna be the first Lizzy Borden record. I have that outlook before every record; that’s why they all have a different flavor to them. But, with this one, I really didn’t get any outside influences, so it didn’t get watered down. It stayed with exactly what I wanted and I didn’t waver from that. That’s why it came out pure.
You know, sometimes, when you work with other musicians or whatever, it starts to get watered down because their influences are not your influences. That’s kinda why all the great bands that are full bands are all amazing; [it’s] because they all have the same influences. With my band, I have a different line-up all the time and I have different, younger, band members, and their influences are not my influences. Sometimes, it waters it down; sometimes it makes it cool but, sometimes, it really waters it down. This album, it stayed pure.
Rock Overdose: I see. So, what about the line-up right now?
Lizzy Borden: Oh, I don’t have a line-up right now; just Joey Scott on drums and that’s it. Right now, I’m promoting the album and, soon as the album comes out on June 15th, then I will probably start accepting offers and start branching out and getting my tour together. It’s gonna be a world tour. I think we’re playing markets from all over the world. Then, I will start finding the right musicians to do the new “Midnight Things” show.
Rock Overdose: I see. The new album is titled “My Midnight Things”. Is there any story behind the title?
Lizzy Borden: Well, I usually don’t say what it is about because everyone has a different interpretation of what the midnight things are and I like that. That’s what true poetry is; everyone reads something different into it. If I tell you mine, then it will change a lot of things, so…
Rock Overdose: I understand…
Lizzy Borden: But I wrote it about… The ‘umbrella’ that I used deals with love. “Deal with the Devil” (2000), I did about religion. “Appointment with Death”, I did about death. So, I really wanted to tackle love ‘coz I’ve done it over the years but I wanted to see what else I can dig down deep, what else I could find. Each song is under that ‘umbrella’, but the “Midnight Things”, as a concept… All the songs tied together. When people read the lyrics, they figure out they usually have a different idea on what that is, and I like that.
Rock Overdose: How important is the lyrical side of Lizzy Borden?
Lizzy Borden: It’s – to me – the most important. You know, it’s more important than anything. My lyrics have always been about me trying to flush out whatever it is I’m trying to- whatever I’m analyzing and working on. So, it’s poetry, but it’s also a script- it’s also a movie… It’s just so many different things, and that’s the way I look at it. So, when I’m writing the lyrics, it’s the most important part of the song, as far as I’m concerned.
Rock Overdose: You mentioned something about a world tour before. Do you have any plans about visiting Greece?
Lizzy Borden: God, I hope so! I really hope so. We’ve played twice there now and I absolutely loved it! I have so many friends from Greece now.
Rock Overdose: What are your memories from the shows here?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah! Some of my friends that I met there are still my friends. In fact, I live down the street from one of them. So, I just love playing Greece; it’s just one of my favorite places. I hope that it’s going to be part of the tour we haven’t even begun. This is a whole kind of re-building and a re-start. Soon as we find– I don’t even have an agent yet; I’ve been getting offers from all over the world. We’re still…
I wanted the album to come out, for everyone to hear the songs and get used to the whole concept. [That is] because I’m gonna try to make that concept come alive on stage. So, I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure that Greece is part of the tour.
Rock Overdose: Great! I hope we’ll see you soon here!
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, me too! I absolutely love that place!
Rock Overdose: You’ve been making heavy metal for more than thirty years. How did you manage to keep the band alive and deal with all the difficulties?
Lizzy Borden: It’s not been easy. You know, there’s been a lot of downtime, there’s been a lot of times when no one wanted to hear this kind of music. Then, you get the downloading; you’re trying to sell records and, if you don’t sell records, you can’t really do a proper tour. Kids mostly don’t understand that you actually have to pay the ten bucks for the record in order for the band to come to your area and play. When they download it and, then, they say, “Why don’t you play in my area?”, it’s like, “Because you didn’t buy the record”, so it’s kind of… That’s kinda where we are now in the music industry.
Each sale of each record, in whatever territory, it shows where we need to play. It’s all analyzed now; you just look at them and say, “Well, Greece bought so many records. OK, we need to play there”. If they didn’t buy it, “No, we can’t play there”. So, it kinda dictates what’s going on, but, to keep it going, I make sure it’s fun. That’s the main thing: I just try to make sure it’s fun. When it stops being fun, I usually replace all the band members and find new band members that will make it fun.
I stop doing that show and I create a new show. It’s all about creativity and, when the creativity stops, that’s when I move in a different direction. As long as it’s creative, I’m having a blast; so, it hasn’t been hard during those times, for sure.
Rock Overdose: Well, you know, I’m only twenty-one years old, so I don’t know a lot of things about the ‘80s. But, as I see it, it was a great era to play heavy metal. What are the differences in the music industry between the ‘80s and now? Which era do you think is better?
Lizzy Borden: Well, the ‘80s were- it was a whole different time. It was, like, a renaissance for touring and music. I mean, all the blueprints of the ‘70s… They were drawing up the blueprints: how to tour arenas, how to put on a rock show. And the ‘80s perfected it. So, when that was happening, everybody – all the kids – wanted to learn how to play an instrument. A guitar player, a bass player, whatever- they just wanted to play an instrument because they wanted to do that.
Especially in North America, it opened up that market for musicians, and there were so many good ones. Then, in the ‘90s, it turned into hip hop and stuff, especially in North America, and it became…
Rock Overdose: And all this grudge stuff…
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, the grudge took over from the metal. Then, after the grudge, it was the hip hop and all that, and then people stopped playing instruments. You know, the kids did. Now, it’s coming back, I see it now. There are some amazing kids out there doing amazing things, better than anybody did it in the ‘80s, so I see it all coming back. I think it’s coming… There’s a huge difference because the ‘80s was about fun. You know, it was never about confrontation; it was about fun. Then, it wasn’t political, it wasn’t anything; it was just fun.
Rock Overdose: Is it more about business now?
Lizzy Borden: It feels like it’s coming back, and the fun is coming back. You can see it in different bands. They’re ignoring… They’re just going after trying to put on entertainment shows and doing it every night. So, I’m loving that. There were more performers in the ‘80s, and now there’re more musicians. You know, they just kinda stand there and play their instrument, but they have great live shows. The difference is there’s less performers, but I see more of them coming and it’s good. I mean, that’s the difference. There were a lot of stage performers that were influenced by Bowie and Cooper and all the great stage performers of the ‘70s. Now, there’s not as many, but I see a few and they stand out. It’s fun!
Rock Overdose: What was it like, being in a band during the beginning of the West Coast metal explosion back in the ‘80s? How was the famous L.A. scene?
Lizzy Borden: When we started, there was no scene. It was the remnants of the ‘70s. In the first Hollywood club we played, it was a place called the Troubadour…
Rock Overdose: I think you created the scene, bands like Lizzy Borden…
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, exactly ‘coz there was no scene. It was just – you know – Metallica playing in front of three or four people at the Troubadour. That’s kind of what everyone went in when they started. When we started, the club was a folk place. You know, a place where people played with acoustic guitars and everyone sat down and ate dinner, and watched music. Then, all of a sudden, in one fell swoop, we’re doing this bloody crazy stage show while people are sitting down, eating dinner, and blood’s going in their soup, and it just changed everything.
The kids at that time- MTV helped a lot to build that scene so quickly. Inside of three or four years, there was a built-in scene with a built-in audience that was coming from all over. Then, you had all the musicians from all over the world that were flying into Hollywood to try to find a band or create one. So, the amount of energy, in just a few short years, from where it was when we started, was absolutely amazing. The only equivalent was the Gold Rush that we had here.
It was an amazing ball of energy. Then, it lasted for about ten years and, then, that was it. But, I feel that energy coming back and it’s really amazing. It’s social media now, instead of MTV, but I do feel that energy coming back.
Rock Overdose: Is there a rock scene in L.A. today, like in the ‘80s?
Lizzy Borden: I don’t know if it’s, like, in one place. In the ‘70s, a lot of UK bands became huge. In the ‘80s, of course, it was Hollywood and, in the ‘90s, it was the grudge scene of Seattle. Right now, I live in Vegas and a lot of the musicians who… To me, Vegas now is the entertainment capital of the world because everybody plays here now, from the biggest bands to the smallest bands. So, this is one area of the world where every kind of music is being played, and the real bands are playing here. This is an important stop and it used to not be… You would just come through it because it was just a small place.
But, now – as I said – I think it’s the entertainment capital of the world. It’s definitely a place to see all the greatest musicians that are still alive and all the newest musicians that are making waves. You can see them here in Las Vegas.
Rock Overdose: So, here’s my last question. A lot of people still don’t know the story about the name Lizzy Borden. Could you tell us about it in a few words?
Lizzy Borden: Well, for me, our group, and KISS and Cooper, and The Tubes and all of that, there’s one thing they had in common with Bowie and everybody: they all changed their name and they all had a different persona on stage. When we started this band, I knew I was gonna do that.
At the time, Lizzy Borden was a folk tale that used to go around. People barely heard of the original Lizzy Borden, which is this woman who was accused of killing her parents with an axe. She didn’t get convicted of it, but she was accused of it. And so it became a folk tale. I liked the name, and I liked the fact that it was a folk tale, and I liked the imagery of it all ‘coz, at that time, we were really into horror movies.
The early ‘80s, there was such a big renaissance for horror movies back then. So, I started with that, but I really haven’t… I don’t even know the story that well. I don’t follow the story; I just took the name and I ran with it. To me, the name was more important than the back story. I never wrote about that back story and I never had anything to do with it. I just wanted to make my own thing with the name.
Rock Overdose: I see. Thank you very much for this interview! It was a great honor for me! The last words are yours. You could close this with a message to your Greek fans.
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, I would say- follow me on Instagram and Twitter, @Reallizzyborden, and our Facebook is Lizzy Borden Band. I’ll say the same thing I say all the time. Go ahead and download all you want, but please put the ten bucks down for the record and buy the record. Just because that tracks if we can come to your location – if you buy the record – and I really wanna come to Greece. [Laughs] It’s for selfish reasons, for them to buy that record. I really wanna bring my “Midnight Things” show there.
Rock Overdose: Great! Thank you very much! Take care! I hope we’ll see you in Greece very soon.
Lizzy Borden: Thank you so much! Good talking to you! Bye!
For the Rock Overdose Webzine
Interview
Konstantinos Sotirelis
Questions
Pavlos Giannakopoulos-Konstantinos Sotirelis
Tapescript: Stergios Gkoutsidis
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