On the occasion of the pre-listening of their upcoming album ''Armor Of Light'' and a few hours before they set the stage of Kyttaro on fire during their performance in Athens, RIOT V musicians Mike Flyntz (guitar), Frank Gilchriest (drums) and Todd Michael Hall (vocals) gave to Rock Overdose and to Pavlos Giannakopoulos an in-depth analysis on how they decided to continue after Mark Reale's loss, what Riot V means to them and they give advice to new bands out there on how they should treat music in general. These and much more touching stuff you will read in the interview below:
Rock Overdose: Hello guys, welcome to Greece and to Rock Overdose. How are things going for Riot at the end of 2017?
Mike Flyntz: We're getting very excited, it seems like there's so much happening in 2018. It's going to be a busy year. It'll be followed by a brand new album with Riot V and it seems like people are gonna really like the album. We're getting inducted for heavy metal Hall Of Fame in California in January. The album will be released on March 24th and then we're looking forward to do a lot of touring. We're very excited.
Rock Overdose: A question that you may have been asked lots of times. After Mark Reale's loss, you decided to continue with Riot, what's the story behind it?
Mike Flyntz: I thought the band would be over with, but I took care of his father, Mr. Reale, and Mr. Reale asked me personally, he wanted me to continue, he thinks Mark would have wanted that and he said he didn't want the music to die with Mark. With Mark's passing away he wanted the music to stay alive, and he was very passionate about it, ''Go out and keep on playing these songs, people are going to forget, I don't want people to forget, I want to keep the music going''.
So we decided to... it was his request! Maybe we could alter the name slightly, maybe we could change the name a little but keep it the same, so people know it's you. So we did exactly what Mr. Reale wanted, we continued and changed the name.
Rock Overdose: Why is there a V after the name Riot?
Mike Flyntz: Well we threw around a bunch of different names and finally we decided to call the band Riot V, after the fifth singer, so it's not really a V, it's a Roman numeral, the Roman numeral 5. It's not really a V, it's Riot Five!
Rock Overdose: Mike you joined Riot in 1989, can you tell me how you get together all these years with the band?
Mike Flyntz: I joined in 1989, what happened was previous to that, when Riot had broke up for a little while, when they returned with ''Thundersteel'' that was the first album with only one guitar player and in 1989, the four members of Riot wanted to do a tour in Japan, which was a major spot and they had never been there before. So that's when Mark Reale decided ''I need a second guitar player like we used to have''.
He met me when I was going to college for music with his cousin, so I got an audition and he came to watch me play and in 1989 I went to Japan with Riot for the ''Thundersteel'' tour. ''The Privilege Of Power'' was being mixed, it was already done recording, it was mixed already and that's why I wasn't on that record, it was finished already. I didn't play the guitars on that record, Mark did all the guitars, the album was recorded when we did the ''Thundersteel'' Japan tour.
Rock Overdose: Todd, you were called to be Riot's singer, who traditionally were all of them great. Were you afraid at any point?
Todd Michael Hall: Well, I think my biggest fear was really just whether or not I would be accepted by the band. After Mark Reale had passed away, that was a little weird for me. But we talked with Mike and Donnie and explained me everything and decided to give it a shot. The only thing I was worried about was whether or not I'd be able to sing the different parts, I was working with the originals, with them already and part of my audition was to record ''Ride Hard Live Free'', ''Metal Warrior'' and so I remember going to Donnie and told him ''Why don't you give me a setlist'' and he gave me one of their setlists they used to play and I got all of the songs to make sure I could do it. And I thought ''you know, I think I should pull off''.
Honestly I didn't know for certain until we played our first show in Italy in 2014 and I got up on stage and said ''Whoah, I guess I can do that''. So, I don't know if afraid is the right word, I wanted to do a good job. To me Riot is a band with a great legacy and I just wanted to be a positive part of that legacy. That was my concern. I wanted to make sure I was gonna do a good job.
Rock Overdose: About you Frank? Υou used to be the newest member in the band for some time...
Frank Gilchriest: Well what happened was we did a tour, I was in Virgin Steele and Mark was in Riot and we toured together. A year or two after that, I got very friendly with the guys and Mark just called me up and said ''I got to play some crazy hot guitars man'' and I was like ''Yeah sure man, I have a studio come on now''. I didn't even know he wanted to play with me but he said ''come on man, stick around, let's play some cover songs''.
So we started playing some cover songs and he liked it and he came back again and again he kept coming and then he started showing me his riffs and we started work and put the songs together and then he was like ''I love how you treated my song, it's really big time, I really think we could be in a band, I just want to make sure you'll be respectful about it, I just want to make sure you can play our older material, if this worked out, you know, start touring''. So he gave me at least ten songs, came back a week later and he was very funny about it, we played the first chorus and he was like ''Stop, that good enough, I love it'', and that's how it went with all ten songs, the whole thing and he said ''No that's enough, I just wanted to make sure you could do it''. As soon as we were done, he was like ''Oh, great, let's make a record''.
And then him and I just worked alone, I think it was over two and a half years, almost three years, working on our own, jamming, getting our ideas and putting songs together, and then we called Mike and Pete Perez and Mike DiMeo and me and Mark felt like we were auditioning for them, we invited them to come down to the studio to listen to the stuff and we were hoping they'll get excited about the songs we had on board, and thankfully they did and then we did the record and...BOOM, we started touring like crazy, we did a lot of playing together, that's how I got involved, really a cool beginning actually.
Rock Overdose: Can you tell us about the Riot discography? Which Riot album do you prefer most?
Mike Flyntz: For a long time it was ''Inishmore'', I love every Riot album but ''Unleash The Fire'' is an album we dedicated to Mark, wrote for Mark, like ''here it is Mark, this is for you''. He didn't play on it but it is my favourite album because it was for Mark.
Frank Gilchriest: I enjoyed the process I just described and I have a lot of love for the ''Army Of One'' thing, because I was there from the very beginning and literally built it up from nothing, I was very involved in it and I have a lot of cherished memories about that, but musically speaking I really can't put one above the other, to me they're all beautiful, so musically speaking I love them all, I love ''Rock City'' but I love all the others too.
Todd Michael Hall: I would probably say ''Fire Down Under'' and ''Thundersteel'' and I might also put ''Rock City'' too which is one of my favourites, but I agree with Frank, it's so hard to pick a favourite.
Rock Overdose: Which were your main influences as a band about the music you used to listen and as composers?
Mike Flyntz: I'm a big Beatle fan, there can be no more good songwriting that The Beatles, while getting older I went where everybody went, I got through Deep Purple, Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Queen... Queen is one of my biggest influences! If you ask me tomorrow I might give different answers.
Todd Michael Hall: I may answer in the same way, I know the albums that I listen to a lot and I think over time between stuff you hear on the radio, stuff that you buy and stuff other people play for you it's almost hard to know where you come from, for me in my formative years growing in the '70s, I was a teenager in the '80s and I think those are formative influential times for you, and at that time the singer and the frontman was like ''aaaaah'' and they had this range so I was really mind blown at that time where the singer had just a great voice and were so many expectations from Brad Delp from Boston, Lou Gramm from Foreigner, Geoff Tate from Queensryche, Eric Adams from Manowar, we named Judas Priest, I almost feel like a dinosaur in a way because we played in a festival where the singers now have a different style and nobody sings like I do anymore, so sometimes I'm feeling insecure like ''Nobody sings like I do anymore and there's a few of us'', so my influences are based on that time period when that type of singing was so popular.
Rock Overdose: About the last album, who was the main composer and who wrote the lyrics?
Mike Flyntz: Donnie and myself make the music, Donnie always writes more songs than I do and there's Frank rearranging, Todd wrote 60-75% of the lyrics and Donnie wrote some lyrics.
Rock Overdose: Some words about the artwork of the new album please...
Todd Michael Hall: The new artwork is a concept, basically what we're trying to do is ''What title did we wanna have for the album?'' so we ended up deciding for ''Armor Of Light'' because we like the song but also because the artwork would make a good concept. Our original was based to just have a seal, then Donnie came with the idea of including the mighty Tyr and then giving him my body (laughs) and during this trip we're going back and forth with the artist. We wanted something to be kind of a continuation of the mighty seal, our mascot if you want.
Rock Overdose: Can you tell us some words about the new album, tonight we listened six songs, in my opinion it was like ''Thundersteel'' era with more power and speed.
Todd Michael Hall: I think you're gonna hear a lot more diversity with the album, this first set are the pounders but there's definitely more diversity with the album and that was part with our issue, we have 13 or 14 songs, which may be cut down to 11 or 12 so we just have to decide which songs we put on before we get the final mix putting them all together. So what you heard is not the full picture yet.
Rock Overdose: This is a question about the future, are there any thoughts about releasing a video for the album?
Todd Michael Hall: Shooting a video for this album? Yeah, definitely, we certainly wanna have one but don't know for which song yet. So that's the challenge we're having, we need to get them all done, maybe involve the record company to which they want, 'cause the challenge is different people have different favourites, so it's really hard to decide, the album is coming on March, we have a lot of time to choose.
Rock Overdose: Listening to ''Unleash The Fire'' and today to the new songs, it seems Todd that you have been in Riot for years. How can you explain that?
Todd Michael Hall: I was exposed to Riot when I was much younger and really loved the music, and I think it comes down to my voice that fits well with this band, so it's just comfortable for me to sing this material, there's a natural fit. The thing is Riot V especially with Donnie in the band which is the principal writer like on ''The Privilege Of Power'', we tend to be power metal based, not that this is the only thing we play, but we tend to be more based on that, and in that way my high-pitched singing and clean singing is really what fits.
I didn't come here thinking I wanna change Riot, obviously when we record new songs, I wanna put my voice but I'm not in the mood and try to change it all around, I'm trying to keep everything true to what it really was.
Rock Overdose: How easy or difficult is for a band to survive in the USA nowadays?
Frank Gilchriest: I guess every band is unique and different, ''survive'' is a very relative term, what do you exactly mean with ''survive''?
Rock Overdose: If you have another job or if you can live only from the band!
Frank Gilchriest: Oh, to live just from the band! I think it's pretty rare actually, most people have multiple sources of income, it means you have to have a different job, maybe it's related to the band, maybe it's not. But usually you have to have another source of income, or two, or three. That's my case where I have four sources of income.
Todd Michael Hall: You need to have a source of income, and you need that source of income to be flexible. So everytime you go to tour, you get fired from your job, but to make a full time living... It's almost impossible.
Mike Flyntz: We all have multiple sources of income, apart from Riot, we have to, I see it as a passion project, it'd be nice if we made money of it, but I don't see it as a primary motive, fortunately I'm old enough to know that.
Frank Gilchriest: We all just want to play music, and we wish we could do that all the time. And if we did this full time, I guess full time salary would come naturally, it's not a full time thing, you can't just go home and stare at the wall, you gotta put your boots on and go to work.
Rock Overdose: Which are the best moments in the history of Riot?
Mike Flyntz: The best moments? There's a couple different times about my career with Riot, one of the main things was going to Japan for the first time, we were selling records, on our arrival was 200-300 people at the airport, we got to the hotel and there was a beautiful vibe there, we couldn't even get to the doors, it was like watching a Beatle movie, on the outside, on the inside, I just can't forget the pandemonium of the first Japan tour and second tour and then the release of each album, coming to Greece for the first time, they loved the band, shaking the van, pulling my hair, lots of highlights.
Everytime we completed an album, an album that could be around for your life, we're just about doing it again with this album, when you finish an album, it's a feeling of accomplishment and you could have that album for the rest of your life, so that's it for me.
Todd Michael Hall: I would agree on the album thing, each time you finish an album you put so much effort, I have friends and fans to contact me from Facebook and tell them ''hey we just released a new album''...I don't even need to listen to the album to tell them congratulations because I know how much effort it takes to put into an album and it's definitely an accomplishment.
RIOT V (Frank Gilchriest-Mike Flyntz-Todd Michael Hall)
Rock Overdose Pavlos Giannakopoulos
Rock Overdose: Two similar questions, which are your best memories from your live shows in Greece and could you ever imagine that Riot would be such a huge band in our country? What is that made Riot really special in Greece?
Mike Flyntz: I remember my first show in Greece with Riot at Rodon Club in 1998 and actually Frank was playing with Virgin Steele, that was the start of our relationship, it was at the end of a six week tour, any band knows that when you're on such a tour, at the end of the tour you're on fire and that gig was one of the best gigs we've ever played, the band was hot, the crowd was completely intense and we had some fans on stage right at the end, right?
Frank Gilchriest: I was in a different band and it was really intimidating having Riot play before you, like ''I don't wanna go on stage after that'', but we managed to do our thing I suppose, it was a great show, in a great club, the people were high on high and they were like a wave, a tidal wave of human beings coming down the club and then they doused the hell out of me with champagne and terrorized my whole set, I got like hammered, I don't know if you remember.
Rock Overdose: I remember, I remember!
Mike Flyntz: And then when we came back as Riot V, we played and the response of the crowd was amazing, `and we knew it helped us say ''we can do this really''.
Rock Overdose: What do we have to expect from your live shows?
Mike Flyntz: We've been in the studio recording for two months and we're gonna play our best possible tracks.
Rock Overdose: Any from the new album?
Mike Flyntz: No, we decided not to do anything yet because we're still fixing it, we wanna have for this album a special tour, we're just gonna go out there and play classic songs.
Rock Overdose: Which is your advice to new musicians? How difficult is it for a new formed metal band to make a great career in the worldwide music scene?
Mike Flyntz: Get a day job! (laughs) You're asking me how to make a living? I haven't figured that out yet.
Frank Gilchriest: It depends always on what you mean by ''career''. There are novelists that write a handful of books every year and they're very happy, they have a career, there are people that are painters, they paint, and they sell five or six paintings a year but they have a career, they are artists. The most important thing is to have a burning passion and love for what they're doing, then they can take their chances from there, you know what I mean?
If you're aiming to be famous, if you're aiming to be rich, then you should get out of it. You should do it trully out of passion and love and forget your ego out of the door. Forget your ego, forget the money, forget the fame, we're here because we love music, we're not here for money, we're not here for fame, we're here because of music, it's almost crazy, that's what I would tell the young children.
Rock Overdose: We're getting out of time, Todd, top 3 metal or non metal singers of all time?
Todd Michael Hall: To me it would be Geoff Tate, Eric Adams and Ronnie James Dio!
Rock Overdose: Mike 3 metal guitarists of all time?
Mike Flyntz: Can i say Ritchie Blackmore? Would that be metal?
Rock Overdose: Yeah, of course!
Mike Flyntz: Ritchie Blackmore, Brian May, Eddie Van Halen!
Rock Overdose: Frank 3 drummers?
Frank Gilchriest: 3 drummers? Neil Peart from Rush, John Bonham from Led Zeppelin, and Ringo Starr from The Beatles!
For Rock Overdose
Pavlos Giannakopoulos
Transcript & Translation
Dimitris Aloras
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