Interview date: May 15, 2008
I spent my third day in Italy checking out the legendary American hard rockers Y&T. Around 7:30 PM I politely asked the concert organizer from the agency Bologna Rock City Emiliana if he could ask the band’s management about an interview for RockLine. The Americans were up for it and told me to knock on the “back stage” door at 9:00 PM. I walked in right on the dot. Dave was just parked at his computer, putting together the set list for the Bologna show, which Y&T were scheduled to play later, at 10:20 PM…
RockLine: How’s the tour going, is everything okay with Y&T?
Dave: It’s been great so far, we’re doing really well. Attendance on the tour has been very good. Okay, except for today in Italy, but maybe there’s less interest in the show today because Italy is a mystery to us. We’ve never played Italy with Y&T before. So the question is how well people here know us. But we’re still trying. We’ll be back here to win over even more people in the future. As for turnout on the rest of the tour, though, it’s been truly wonderful.
RockLine: But Y&T are a band that’s pretty hard to catch in Europe these days.
Dave: Not anymore. We come back to Europe regularly now. We’ve been here every year since 2003. We come to Europe twice a year now. This year we’re coming back again, in September.
RockLine: Tonight looks like the first, last and only show of this tour in Italy.
Dave: Yes.
RockLine: Does Y&T have any surprise in store for this one and only Italian show that we’ll get to witness tonight?
Dave: Of course. Steff Burns, who used to be one of the guitarists in Y&T and now plays with Vasco Rossi and Huey And The News, will play the whole set with us tonight. Our regular guitarist John Nymann had to fly home to the US yesterday in a hurry, because of urgent family obligations that couldn’t wait. So tonight’s gig is going to be a lot of fun.
RockLine: Now that sounds like a “once in a lifetime” thing…
Dave: No doubt.
RockLine: After so many years, so many tours, so many records released, what is it that still keeps a band like Y&T together?
Dave: We love to play, we love to perform, and we love our band. On top of that, we’ve got incredible fans all over the world who want to see us play, every single year. The fans react with real passion to our shows and to pretty much everything we do. Our fans are honestly what keep us alive and help us keep moving forward. They also help a lot in making sure that passion for playing, the one we bring to our music, never dies in us. That’s the main reason. Besides that, we simply love being what we are. Being Y&T and being musicians . None of us is happy if we can’t play music. We’re only fully satisfied when we can play live.
RockLine: Is there a new studio album in the works?
Dave: Yes. We’ll start writing new material next year. I’m also hoping we’ll put out a new Y&T studio album this year. In September, when we come back to Europe, we’ll be recording our shows, and also the shows we still plan to play in Japan and the US. That’s because we want to put out a new live album too.
RockLine: Will the new album be in the old, typical Y&T style, or are you planning something special on it?
Dave: It’s hard to say right now. We’ll get to work next year, and it’s hard to predict until we start recording and writing the new material. I can’t tell you exactly what we’ll go for, but based on the experience of a bunch of live shows we’ve played recently, I see the new album along the lines of classic albums like “Black Tiger” or “Earthshaker”, with a touch of the newer Y&T, of course. Something like that.
RockLine: Dave, what got you excited as a kid and made you decide to pick up the guitar?
Dave: It started with Jimi Hendrix, who was still playing live back then, and there were other guitarists too, like Jeff Beck, Duane Allman and The Allman Brothers. Blues guitarists like Albert King and B.B. King also made a huge impression on me. When I heard the first Led Zeppelin album, where they did these really heavy blues tracks, I thought: “Wow!” That was a perfect example of heavy rock and blues combined. I really appreciate musicians who play with passion and from the heart. That goes for singing too. And I think that blues has that. A lot of heart and soul in the music. That’s why I love playing that style. Especially when I’m playing outside of Y&T.
RockLine: Your studio album “Meniketti”, which you released in 2002, is one of my favorite albums, and you can feel exactly what you’re talking about on it. Can you tell us a bit more about that album?
Dave: I wrote the songs for that record in my studio, which is basically in my house. It took me a few months to give the ideas the right shape as songs. That’s also how long it took to get tight with the musicians who helped me make the album. We recorded everything in my home studio, and I took my time polishing my solos and my vocals. I wanted to breathe feeling into all of it. “Meniketti” is more of a rock blues album compared to its predecessor. My first solo album “On The Blue Side” came about because I already had everything written for it before I even had a band. The difference is that “Meniketti” is a band album. It came together as if the whole band had recorded it together. I really love this album. Precisely because of that special stamp and the more genuine, pronounced musical contrasts you get when the whole band records the material in the studio.
RockLine: How do you take the crowd reactions at shows in different corners of the world when Y&T are on tour?
Dave: In general there are no differences. I think that’s because Y&T fans are in such constant, strong contact with the band that even in places where you’d expect a calmer reaction, you get a loud response back. The Spanish crowd is especially loud, for example, and so are the crowds in California and in the UK. Those are among the loudest. Anyway, we’ve got a truly fantastic fan base around the world.
RockLine: So Steff Burns hasn’t forgotten how to play Y&T songs?
Dave: Not at all. He’s such a good guitarist, and he was in the band with us for almost 10 years, so I think a lot of Y&T is still in his soul. He told me that he may have forgotten some Y&T songs in his head, but his fingers remembered them.
RockLine: How do you see the state of rock music today, compared to the times when Y&T started in the seventies and on through the eighties?
Dave: It’s a lot tougher for rock today. The fans are wonderful, but far fewer of them go to shows now. These days it’s hard to convince an audience to leave their homes and come out to a concert. That’s the current state of the music industry, and every band feels it the same way. Overall, we in Y&T are still very surprised that a nice number of fans still support the style of music we play, because that’s the only way we can earn enough from touring to make a living. Besides, the fact is that we’re all getting older. Us and our fans. They’ve got jobs, they have to take care of their kids, and so it’s hard for them to escape the grind of everyday life. That’s just how it is.
RockLine: You recently reissued some of your classic albums. Did you put them out through your own independent label?
Dave: Yes. Through Meanstreak Music, actually, but we also had to add a license credit for Universal Records, who still own their rights.
RockLine: Why are they so hard to find in European stores?
Dave: I know. We have a few distributors, but not for these particular releases, because Universal Records doesn’t want to give us the rights to distribute in Europe. We’ve been trying to talk them into it forever, but we haven’t managed.
RockLine: That’s it. I have no more questions. Dave, thanks for your precious time, and I wish you guys a killer gig here in Bologna.
Dave: Thanks. It was a real pleasure.
interview by: Aleš Podbrežnik
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