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Americade Interview
Something exciting is happening in rock music these days and it's called "Americade".
Four guys without benefit of a major recording label, have been igniting
audiences everywhere with their own brand of rock 'n roll.
Based out of Brooklyn, N.Y., "Americade" has already caught
the attention of famed booking agent Frank Barsalona of Premier Talent.
Barsalona was responsible for booking The Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix
and so many other superstars.
Americade's star is definitely on the rise and this is one group that
should be watched closely.
We talked with Americade's lead vocalist, Mr. P.J. deMarigny.
Q. P.J., you've been quoted as saying, "Some
groups want to be mean, vicious, or angry. Some groups like REO or Journey
want to be loved. We just want to be enjoyed." What groups appear
mean, vicious or angry to you? .
A. Well, some groups that want to be hated I guess are Van Halen. The groups
you love to hate. I guess the ones to be loved are Journey. And some want to
be feared like Riot. Riot has a funny sort of stigma too, 'cause one of my
buddies was in that group. He's not my buddy anymore, but we're sort of in
rival groups because of him, not me. Anyway, he just tried to get over the
point more or less, that, 'Hey, listen you and Gerard (P.J.'s brother and Americade's
lead guitarist), you guys didn't starve man, you didn't go out on the road
and sleep in the back of your car, that's what you have to do to be a real
rocker.' And my answer man, is, what does any of that have to do with being
a real rocker? A real rocker is somebody who has love and dedication to the
music he's doing and total artistic and creative control. I think the most
ideal rocker type is Robert Plant, because the man is respected when he sings,
and he doesn't walk around with leathers tryin' to kill people, and he doesn't
find his musical integrity at the bottom of a beer can. He just has a lot of
dedication to his sort of music, and that's what the fundamental thing behind
all of this stuff is anyway. I'm not saying that we don't have an image. Of
course we have an image, we are what we are. We have sort of a wild sense of
humor. It's true that none of the guys in the band do drugs or drink or anything
like that, but that's more or less out of our own choice. You'll probably never
meet four of the straightest people in your life, that's the way we are. We
get our jollies off in different ways. We like to do radio station interviews
and kind of tear apart the place a little bit. We're kind of wild with the
ladies and stuff, and that's the way we do it.
Q. You haven't played many live dates as a group,
so how does a group that doesn't play out much stay together?
A. We thought the way Queen came out in 1973 was the best way to do it. We
decided to do only huge shows in New York's biggest halls. Of course because
it costs so much money we weren't able to do many shows. And because of the
size of the show, and the effects, and the cost of advertising, no promoter
would touch us. We had to promote ourselves. We got our own bucks together
and played just like one job every three months, in a strategic place. We didn't
try to fill the hall. That wasn't what we were worried about. The thing we
most wanted to do was get the notoriety that hey, Americade has to play big
stage and that they have a big show. And we let word of mouth take over from
there. Developing a following in the clubs is O.K. but that's just not the
way we decided to do it. We decided to do just large shows and get known for
doing large and big shows, so that we're known to be a large and big group.
Anyway, if you play clubs before you release an album, you're known as a club
band, because you're not playing in support of an album. Once you have an album
out, you can play the clubs, 'cause then you're a group that's out on tour,
supporting an album. You're not just a club group. And that's how we maintained
our integrity, by playing only once every three months until we had the album
out. Our idea of coming out is Raid. That's what we're going to name our first
tour "Americade Raid." It's all part of our philosophy. We figure
that if you have a 10,000 man Army and you want to capture a town, don't send
'em in one by one, send the whole 10,000 of 'em in!
Q. What happens if this group fails?
A. Our whole thing is, there is no tomorrow. If we fail, probably my parent’s
home is going to be gone, my car, all of the guys in the bands' equipment and
everything else will probably be gone. But, if you believe in something as
much as we do, it's not a chance, it's an investment. Most people don't have
the guts enough to put up their own house, but we do. My parent’s believe
in us. We try to treat everything in Americade like one big family. This is
the way we decided to be. We want family. We don't want to be an overnight
success, or an overnight one hit wonder, you know you do one song and then
you go away. We're setting this up so we can be here five years from today.
Q. From your promo picture, it almost seems like "Americade" is
imitating Van Halen.
A. There's a little joke going on around Capitol Records and all the companies
we showcased for, that they're Van Halen. Like I said before everybody has
their own style. Some groups just do head banging music like Judas Priest or
AC/DC. Some people do happy metal like Boston. Everybody has their own style
including Van Halen. They do good time metal. But we do a wider type of music.
We do a lot more diverse type of music than Van Halen does.
Q. How do you classify your music then?
A. American Metal. American Metal to us is the new face of hard rock. It's
directly at odds with the record company push for the song oriented, post
new wave and the machine oriented techno-pop. Rock fans like me want to hear
bands that sound real on the albums, and it's time American rock bands take
the reins and start playing a larger assortment of hard rock. The underlying
theme of our American Metal album is diversity and unity. Diversity in the
sort of hard rock we do.
Q. "We want to go beyond our records; we want
to transcend our music." What are you talking about there?
A. The tunes are not important. We try to mix the right sounds that fit our
personalities as a group, not to fit the song. The song is not important, it's
the idea of the group that's gonna transcend us. That's how groups stay around
for five or six years and not become one hit wonders. It's a new thing. There
aren't too many groups that have a philosophy like that. They try to mix it
per tune. We're just tryin' to bring out, maybe for better, maybe for worse,
but if the people love us, we figure they'll love our music and we're tryin'
to bring out us in our music.
© Gary James All Rights Reserved
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