Interview date: 24.02.2007
Before Sunday’s Demon’s Eyes show, where they warmed up young and old at the Orpheum in Graz that night, I got the chance for a short chat with the “frontman” of our beloved Deep Purple imitators. He invited me, along with his Willy Resnik-lookalike drummer Andree, into a tiny little room lost somewhere deep in the catacombs backstage.
Rockline: Good evening, guys, how are you doing?Robby: Great, fantastic, couldn’t be better!
Rockline: Any nerves before tonight’s show?
Robby: We’re a bit worried about the drummer, but I think everything will go according to plan (laughs).
Rockline: Speaking of drummers, what’s it like standing on stage with a legend like Ian Paice?
Robby: It’s great, a truly incredible feeling! The guys I play with (Demon’s Eye) are all real musicians in every sense of the word, proper professionals, but still, playing with Ian Paice takes the quality of the playing to a different, much higher level. Which we’re definitely happy about, because playing with Ian gives us a new, different take on the songs we perform. And of course, the whole thing is a very special kind of challenge for us.
Rockline: Is the material you play focused mainly on the famous Mk2 lineup, or do you tackle songs from other eras too?
Robby: I don’t want to give away our setlists, but I can say we love playing all the Deep Purple eras, including the Mk4 era with Bolin, who was a phenomenal guitarist and suits us really well. Come Taste The Band and Last Concert In Japan, and stuff like that.
Andree: Like the song Wild Dogs, if you happen to know it?
Rockline: Of course, from the album Teaser, great song. Interesting, so these are songs most of the audience doesn’t expect up front?
Robby: That’s exactly the beauty of it! What do people expect from us? Mostly a bunch of old Deep Purple classics that every kid on the street knows by now. I can take this opportunity to say that Demon’s Eye’s fan base wasn’t built around songs like Smoke On The Water and the like. We mainly focus on songs that Deep Purple fans have never heard live. They’re all just good songs, and some of them even Deep Purple themselves never played.
Rockline: I’m sure they sound good in your hands.
Robby: Not bad, yeah (laughs).
Rockline: Besides playing Deep Purple, do you have any material of your own?
Robby: We have a live album called Made On Stage. It’s basically Deep Purple covers from the classic Mk2, as well as the Mk3 and Mk1 periods. There’s nothing else planned for now.
Rockline: Interesting that you’re Irish, while most of the rest of the band is more or less German. How did you end up working together?
Andree: We met Robby about a year and a half ago in Nurnberg, at one of the jam sessions. We were just looking for a new vocalist at the time, and Robby soon turned out to be the ideal candidate.
Robby: Actually, Andree came up to me and kissed me (laughs). I was just wandering around Nurnberg at the time, and after we met and a few e-mails, we got the ball rolling together.
Rockline: Anyway, Demon’s Eye is already a pretty old lineup.
Andree: Yes, the band has been around since 1998, so about nine years, which is no small stretch.
Robby: Which means we have to come up with something really special for next year (laughs)!
Rockline: Thanks, guys, for the chat.
Robby: Thanks to you, I hope you enjoy it.
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