Interview with Lizzy Borden
On October 30th, shock rock fans have reason to celebrate because the icon Lizzy Borden will end his year absense with the release of Deal With The Devil. What's more is that this may be the best album that Lizzy and the band have ever done! I am a fan of Lizzy's dating bak almost to the very beginning of his career, so it was an honor to get the chance to speak with him about the new album. For those of you who have never heard the band before, this would be a great time to get to know them. For long time fans, strap yourselves in for another amazing album by one of the masters of the genre.
Anarchy Music: First of all, I'm talking to Lizzy Borden, and that kicks ass!
Lizzy Borden: (laughs)
Anarchy Music: Okay, it's been 5 years since Deal With The Devil, what was it about this concept that led you to do Appointment With Death?
Lizzy Borden: Well, I haven't been sitting around for the past few years. I did a band called Starwood. We did a record after Deal With The Devil and then we did another record. After that we got the itch to do a really traditional Lizzy Borden record that would compliment Deal With The Devil and take us further. It was a conscious effort to make a traditional Lizzy Borden record.
Anarchy Music: You said that writing songs about death isn't easy, which kind of surprised me since you've been so good at it over the years. Some bands tend to get a little overboard with it and it sounds stupid. How do you keep from crossing that line?
Lizzy Borden: You know, it's hard because any band that's Metal or has a dark side is going to talk about death. I approached it the way I always do with any Lizzy Borden record, which is I invented a character and I played it. But I didn't want to play it in every single song. All of the songs deal with death in some way. Some songs deal with war, some songs deal with suicide. Death is really in the room on every single song. I knew I could do a lot with the character because death is lurking around every corner.
Anarchy Music: Unfortunately that's the way it is in reality as well...
Lizzy Borden: We lost our guitar player, Alex Nelson. Of all the people in the world that we would have thought would pass away... When that stuff happens, it just kills me. You have to realize it and that's how we approach the band as well. Every show could be our last. Every album could be the last album we make. That's why we put so much effort into everything that we do. This could be our last record. That's not our intention, we're already starting work on another record, but you never know.
Anarchy Music: Well, I hope this isn't your last because this is a great record! However, when he's 100 years old, how would Lizzy Borden like to kick the bucket?
Lizzy Borden: Well, everybody wants to cheat death, but they can't. They don't even know when it’s coming. I always see a violent death for some reason. I don't know why. I guess obviously I don't want to feel any pain. For some reason I always see that happening. It would be nice to know that when I'm 100 that I’ll be in my bed and be proud of what I've done with my life.
Anarchy Music: I want death by supermodel, if that's at all possible.
Lizzy Borden: (laughs) Yeah, come to think of it, that would be the best way to go.
Anarchy Music: Something you've been doing for a long time now is focusing on crafting good songs as opposed to just going for the shock value of some of the early work, which I still enjoy. Could you explain what went into that evoluton of giving people a well rafted song in addition to the story?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah. It comes down to your influences. I try to spread myself wide. I listen to all kinds of music, especially when I was growing up. One thing that you can really hang your hat on are good hooks, good melody lines. I can support all different stuff. If it’s supposed to be melancholy, then I want it to be darkly melancholy. If it's supposed to be a pop hook, then it better be a pop hook. We're proud and happy to make the songs the best they can be. I know we're going to get better at it. Sometimes you have to realize that a song's not done just because it sounds good. We gotta keep going. Sometimes you hit a dead end and there's not much you can do with it. Most of the time though you keep digging and don't settle for what's there and try to get something better out of it. What's better is to keep going and find a real gem.
Anarchy Music: You've been with Metal Blade for most of your career. This year they're celebrating their 25th anniversary. What is your opinion of where the label came from and where they are now?
Lizzy Borden: It's unbelievable that a small label has been able to be involved with so many different breakthroughs. Metallica, Slayer, Goo Goo Dolls, now As I Lay Dying just ranked at number 8 on the charts. It's pretty remarkable. Major labels have wanted to buy pieces of the label, but Brian Slagel won't sell. He keeps it focused on making breakthrough music.
Anarchy Music: I read a quote from you where you basically said that the future is in iTunes. I'm a big fan of actually holding the booklet of a cd. You guys put a lot of extra effort into the packaging of Appointment With Death. Is that kind of a rebellion against the future?
Lizzy Borden: For me, I remember staring into KISS Alive when I was a kid and imagining being there while I listened to it over and over and over again. I have nephews that are in their 20's now and they never had that imagination. They never dealt with that. To me, that's what it's all about. It's all about using your imagination to reflect the music and the album cover. It's not so much of a rebellion. It's just a last ditch effort because I see it happening. I'm hoping that when you arrive at each song you’ll get a whole tour guide. I'm hoping it doesn't die. There's so much to the visual side of things, and not necessarily music videos. I know that someday the cd will be gone. There's no stopping it. I'm hoping that when people hear one song, they'll want to buy the whole album, not just one song. Then you've got an album cover and everything.
Anarchy Music: And I always support an album with chicks on the cover, so you've already done right by me!
Lizzy Borden: (laughs) On my first album, Love You To Pieces, we had a girl and that just seemed to be the right way to go.
Anarchy Music: You're taking this show on the road, right?
Lizzy Borden: Yes, we are!
Anarchy Music: Conceptually, it's going to be you as Death playing new songs and classics?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah. Right now we plan on doing heavy duty touring on this record. We want to try to hit everywhere. The show is going to be a building process because we're doing fly in dates and obviously you can't bring all of your props on a plane. I think we're doing the east coast, and then we're going to fly to Europe for a makeshift European tour. That'll take us to the end of the year. Next year we've got a couple of surprise tours that we may be involved in. These will be big tours and we'll be in a support slot so we can't bring the props to that. We might not start our full on headlining tour until May of next year, depending on how these support slots happen. We're playing a little bit more than half of the new record and we're playing 2 songs ff of each of the previous records. The show is based around the concept of the record, and yeah, I get to play death.
Anarchy Music: I'm excited! The only time I've ever seen you in the past was with Yngwie Malmsteen, which I thought was an odd match. So you never know who or what Lizzy is bringing to town...
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, that was a weird pairing. To me, the more packaging you can do with other bands, the more you can make it an event. An event is something that you’ll remember forever. Like I said, we might come through town 3 times on this tour. We're planning on doing quite a lot of touring.
Anarchy Music: Metal Blade re-released Master Of Disguise, which at the time of it's original release I thought was overlooked. I guess the reissue shows that it is a classic. Did you have a hand in that?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah. I had to wade through all of the video stuff. There were literally hundreds and hundreds of hours and I had to whittle it down. That tour lasted from the end of 89 to the summer of 92 so we had a lot of fun. It was a breakthrough album for us. Up until that point the criticism was that this band only makes records for an excuse to put the live show together. I thought that we put just as much thought into the records as we do our shows and we really proved it on this album. That album would have normally cost half a million dollars minimum to make. We were able to pull it off on a small label and make a record that has stood the test of time.
Anarchy Music: That record sounded current for it's time but also forward thinking and I think the same can be said for Appointment With Death. Is that intentional or are you just ahead of the curve?
Lizzy Borden: (laughs) Well, things are coming back around again. Young bands are starting to sound like the bands from the 80's. We made a conscious decision to make a typical Lizzy Borden record, but also to take it a step further. We have a new guitar player named Ira Black and some of the stuff he did was different than anything Lizzy Borden has ever had. For me it's all about the song and how we can make it the best verses, bridge and choruses as we can.
Anarchy Music: Master Of Disguise is my favorite Lizzy Borden record, but I think that song for song this might be even better.
Lizzy Borden: That's a great compliment. Last summer we toured with Wasp and to my surprise there were tons of young kids there. They would come up to me and tell me that Master Of Disguise is their favorite record. It blew my mind because, one, how'd they even know about it, and two, it doesn't sound like anything that's happening today. For some reason it tapped into really what I was hoping to at the time. Making this record, there was a lot of pressure because a lot of people like Master Of Disguise and I wanted to make sure we did it justice. Deal With The Devil also got a lot of response from kids so there was a conscious effort to try to follow that, and hopefully we're progressing.
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Thanks to Lizzy for taking the time to talk with us, and I hope that everyone who is into Metal and Shock Rock will check out the album when it's released. Fan of the bands previous work will love it, and it's a pefect juping on plae for new fans as well. For more info go to Lizzy Borden on Myspace and LizzyBorden.com.