Published: Friday, 22 July 2022 22:45 | Written by NI Rocks |
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Steve Mann is probably best known to many as a founding member of Lionheart and as part of Michael Schenker’s band, whether it be the McAuley Schenker Group, Michael Schenker Fest or Michael Schenker Group. He has, of course been involved with numerous other bands and projects and it was actually the release of a new album with singer Chris Ousey that led me to have a chat with Steve via Skype on 19th July.
We chatted for about 35 minutes about the Ousey Mann album, working with Michael Schenker, a new project with Robin McAuley, the recent re-release of the Liar albums and, of course, Lionheart. You can hear that interview on the Friday NI Rocks Show from 22nd July along with tracks from Ousey Mann, MSG and Lionheart. That Show is available from our MixCloud page -
THE PRETTY RECKLESS – And So It Went (ft Tom Morello)
LEE AARON – Soul Breaker
OUSEY MANN – I’ll Tell You When To Stop
Interview with STEVE MANN Part 1 (11 min)
OUSEY MANN – Brave New World
Interview with STEVE MANN Part 2 (11 min)
MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP – A King Has Gone
Interview with STEVE MANN Part 3 (3 min)
MCAULEY SCHENKER GROUP - Anytime
Interview with STEVE MANN Part 4 (9 min)
LIONHEART – Still It Rains on Planet Earth (Lacrimosa)
LIONHEART – Declaration (Pre-release mix)
ROSCO’S RIOT – Deceitful Gaze
WILD HEAT – Wild Heat
NORDIC UNION – This Means War
ALTER BRIDGE – Pawns & Kings
FOZZY – I Still Burn
MARCO MENDOZA – New Direction
INCH HIGH – Ask For More
NI ROCKS – Hi Steve, thanks for taking some time to talk to Rock Radio NI. There are quite a few things I want to chat about, but we’ll start with your latest release which is the album “Is Anybody Listening” by Ousey Mann. That sees you working with vocalist Chris Ousey. First of all, we’ve just played “I’ll Tell You When To Stop” from the album. What can you tell us about that track?
STEVE - Well, I just woke up one morning and went to the studio and just started playing; doodling around on my guitar as you do first thing in the morning over a cup of coffee, and I just had this kind of, what I thought was a bit of a Doobie Brothers riff, that everyone's told me since is more of a Pink Floyd riff. But it had that kind of nice, very light kind of feeling to it; a very happy feeling. And when I write songs, I write a lot of ballads and a lot of sad songs. So, whenever I get the idea for a happy song, I'm actually quite pleased. And I just kind of developed it from there. And I thought actually this is sounding quite good. The whole thing just seemed to kind of almost write itself, to be honest. I put a backing track together, sent it off to Chris and what he came back with, I thought was just fantastic. The whole thing just kind of really, really worked very well. I kept hearing this idea in my head on the chorus, and I thought, what is it I'm hearing and, in the end, I decided it was a banjo. So, I put a banjo on the choruses and that just kind of gave it the icing on the cake. And with a little bit of a kind of Queen guitar solo in there as well. And my son did some of the backing vocals on that. Chris did the main backing vocals and on the second or third choruses I thought this would be really nice if we had a kind of answer backing vocals. So I called Jason in, my son, and I said why don't we just kind of put some answers in here. So we went into his studio, which is Studio 2 next door to mine, which is Studio 1 (laughs) and we just put down these ideas and the whole thing just came together and worked out really well.
NI ROCKS – I believe you were approached by Khalil from Escape Music about making the album with Chris and I read an interview you did just a few weeks ago in which you said that you still hadn’t met Chris yet. Is that still the case?
STEVE - Yes, unfortunately that is. We would have loved to have met and done things in a more traditional way if it hadn't been for COVID, but everybody was in lock-down and it was really because of lock-down that we were able to get together and start writing some stuff because we couldn't do anything else. I was supposed to go to Japan with MSG and that was cancelled and then a whole load of shows that were coming up after that were cancelled. And so rather than sit at home and twiddle my thumbs and think what am I going to do; which actually I never do; I just thought, this idea from Khalil from Escape Records to put myself and Chris together seems like a good one. So we started working together, but of course we couldn't actually physically get together because we couldn't travel. And so far we haven't actually met each other face to face. But we've talked many, many times. (Laughs) And he's a lovely guy. I get on with him very, very well. And I know that when we finally see each other face to face it will be a really warm meeting.
NI ROCKS - Yeah, that way of working is becoming more and more common; not just because of Covid, but where people are recording their stuff in different areas. Do you like working that way?
STEVE - Absolutely. To be honest, I do, because it makes the difference between working or not working. Obviously, I'd much rather get together and fly to a studio somewhere and book a studio out and actually work with the musicians. But the budgets are so small these days, that you're really working on a shoestring, putting an album together. There's two things you can do – one is time in the studio because you don't have enough of a budget to buy enough studio time to do the album properly. Or you do it over the Internet, and you each have…. I've obviously got my home studio here, so that acts as the base and Chris has got his. In fact, most singers that I work with have their own little recording set up. They have a little vocal booth that they use, a decent microphone and a decent mic preamp. That's all they need. They put their vocals down and then send their vocals over to me and I put everything together. So, for me personally, it works very, very well and it means the difference between putting an album together or not putting an album together. I would much rather work that way and just keep putting music out.
NI ROCKS – Had you worked with Escape Records before or what was the connection with Khalil?
STEVE - I've known Khalil for a long time and I think we first got together about, it must have been a good ten years ago, and he was, or he is, a Liar fan and Liar is the first professional band that I was in. I joined them back in 1977. They were a fantastic band. It was technically a mixture between Status Quo and Queen I think. Basically, the rhythms of Status Quo put together with the harmonies of Queen and everybody in the band basically was a very good singer. And it was a great band happening at the wrong time, because when that got together, Punk came along and just wiped the floor with all the rock music that was happening at that particular time. And so we worked for about two years together and eventually gave up the ghost because there was just no market for our music at that point in time. That was just before the New Wave of British Heavy Metal started, which we missed. And anyway, Khalil went to see - we did a tour with UFO when UFO released “Strangers in the Night”, and we did the UK tour of them promoting that album. Which was the first tour that Michael Schenker didn't do with them, and Khalil came to see us and he was absolutely knocked out by Liar and became a massive Liar fan after that. His whole life, I think he'd spent just saying I have to have something to do with this album, with this band. We recorded three albums, the third of which was recorded for Bearsville in Los Angeles, and they shelved it and it never got released. And so Khalil, the last couple of years or so has ended up releasing “Set the World on Fire”, which was originally released by Blairsville and also he's released the unreleased American album which was shelled by Blairsville. So that's basically sat on the shelf for 40 years and it finally came out last year on Escape Records. So it was very, very nice to see that being released and that's really how Khalil and I started our working relationship.
NI ROCKS – You mentioned working with your son on the new album. Apart from that you’ve Clive Edwards from Lionheart on drums and your wife Angela playing bass. Was there any particular thought behind those decisions?
STEVE - Clive, he's my go to drummer and you know if I need drums, I'll go to Clive and say Clive, right you're playing on this and Clive is so laid back, you know, he just says yep, great, whatever you want me to do, I'll do it. So I love working with Clive. Very easy guy to work with. Has played with everybody and a great drummer. And with my wife, it was a bit like Jason really. I could have started phoning around and looking for a bass player and Angela was downstairs in the kitchen and I just thought, well I'll ask her and see if she's got time between cooking meals. (Laughs) She's a great bass player. She came in on the project and did the business - great feel, fantastic sound. And what more can I ask for? It just seemed the logical thing to do. And you know, if we needed to change bits, she was there on hand and she could just come up and play a chord differently or play a fill or whatever. It just made life very easy and it sounded great. So that's why we did it that way.
NI ROCKS – I know you haven’t met Chris yet, but is there any chance that you might get together at some stage to do some tour dates. Obviously, you’re all very busy but is there any chance of some gigs?
STEVE - We haven't really discussed it to be honest. The project came about just as a recording project, but we've had such good feedback. I don't think we really expected this kind of positive feedback and I don't think we expected to come out with such a good album to be honest. I think we just thought let's work together, write some songs, record them, see what comes out and we'll put it out on Escape. It came out so well that it kind of took us by surprise and the reviews that we've got and the comments coming back I think have taken us by surprise as well. There has been a few people who have said to us, can you see this being a touring band? And, why not? I mean we can certainly use the musicians that were on the album and so that's something that maybe, time permitting, we could actually look at in the future. I'm a very busy man, unfortunately. I've got a lot of things going on and we've got some Schenker tours coming up. And I've got the Lionheart album to finish, so it's really a question of finding the time to do it. But absolutely, I mean, why not that? That would be great.
NI ROCKS - Maybe a second album sometime too?
STEVE - We have talked about that and I think that's definitely on the cards, yes.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play another track from the album “Is Anybody Listening” now. Do you want to pick a track and maybe tell us something about it?
STEVE - Maybe “Brave New World” wouldl be great. That's one of my favourite tracks. This was, again, one of those backing tracks that just almost wrote itself. In fact, to be honest, most of them just kind of wrote themselves. I really liked what Chris did with this. I just thought it was a really, really great melody and I was very, very happy with the guitar solo that I did. It just, allowed me to kind of express myself as a musician in a way that I love to do. And the whole thing just kind of came together very, very well. Very powerful chorus, great verses. I like what Chris writes about. He has a very good conscience about his lyrics and that kind of sits well with me. So, I would say that would be a good one to play.
NI ROCKS – You’ve had a long association of course with Michael Schenker – from the McAuley Schenker Group in the late 80’s and early 90’s, through Michael Schenker Fest and now the new Michael Schenker Group. As a musician do you look at those three separate projects very differently or are they all part of one journey?
STEVE - They're both I would say. They're very different, but they are part of one journey. I've been very lucky that I've been able to follow the progression of Michael Schenker as a musician and as a person. And he's changed a lot over the 30 odd years I've been working with him - 40 years, whatever it is. He was, I think, not in a particularly good place back in the 80s; with the McAuley Schenker Group, Robin was in because Michael needed to share the responsibility. So it was very much a partnership between him and Robin. And I think we were all developing as people and developing as musicians. When Michael Schenker Fest came along, which was 30 years after the McAuley Schenker Group first started, it was a completely different feel, but the whole idea that Michael wanted to do was to go back over his whole past history, starting with Gary (Barden), with the first MSG and then going obviously through Graham (Bonnet), Robin (McAuley) and Doogie (White). And I think that that worked very, very well. There were a lot of people in the band and it was, I think, quite a difficult project to manage. And I think Michael did exceptionally well to be able to handle all of that. I think we all did exceptionally well to be able to handle all of those different styles of songs with different singers. It almost kind of got to a point in the end where we said, OK, that's run its natural course and COVID started and so it seemed to be destiny's way of saying, OK, that's it for that particular project. And then we went back to the whole idea of just having a five piece, which was MSG obviously. Which I love. I think this current version of Michael's band is my favourite because I like the idea of it being a kind of more compact unit. It's easier to manage, easier to handle. There's less people on the tour bus when you go on tour; much as I love everybody, it can get quite crowded (laughs). I love all the UFO songs, I love the set. When Michael sends a set list through and says this is what I'd like to do, my reaction nearly always is wow, that's great, I'm really, really looking forward to playing that set live. And so, I think it's really over the last 30-40 years, been a progression and I think what we're seeing now with MSG going out now is very much the maturity of that progression. Michael's in a very good place right now and I think he always will be. He's gone through his bad stages in life and he's come out of it and he's playing like he's never played before. Some of the melodies and the scales he plays; even now having been back with him for six years, I will listen to his solo on “Rock Bottom” and think that is amazing. So yeah, it's been a whole journey, a whole progression and I think where it's ended up now is a really great place.
NI ROCKS – You’ve played on Michael’s last four studio albums – the two Fest albums and then “Immortal” in 2021 and then “Universal” which was earlier this year. For you, how does that recording process differ compared tp doing Lionheart or something else of your own?
STEVE - The main way that it differs is that Michael does all the guitars now. Back in the McAuley Schenker Group I was sharing guitars with Michael as far as rhythm guitars were concerned and doing some lead stuff. Now the way we do it is slightly different, but Michael tends to work with Michael Voss, the producer, and put down all of his ideas. And then Michael Voss whips them up into a kind of really good backing track because these days you tend not to do demos followed by the album. The demos then become the album. And so it's a different way of working in that sense and that's exactly how we do it. Originally I was going to go down to Michael Voss's studio and then put down all my keyboards, but I said that that means bringing all my computer stuff down and setting it all up at your studio. Why don't you send me stems and we'll do it over the Internet. I will do the keyboards here, send them to you and then you can put them in and then you just tell me if that's working or if it's not working or what else you need. We found that actually works very well. So, Michael goes to Michael Voss's studio, I think Barend (Courbois) does and I'm not sure about Bodo (Schopf), whether he actually goes there or whether he does that in his studio, but it's a kind of half and half. Whatever works best. It's a little kind of mixture between how we would do the Lionheart stuff and how we would do things traditionally actually meeting in the studio. And it's very much a question of whatever works best. We'll just do it that way.
NI ROCKS – You’ve already completed some European tour dates over the past few months and there are more coming up in Europe, the UK, North America and Japan; so you’re very busy! What has been your experience of getting back on the road – I was going to say post-covid, but I’m not sure that we’re really sure that we can say ‘post-covid’ yet! We're still there I think!
STEVE – (Laughs) Yeah, I think we are getting worse. Yeah, what we thought was post COVID. It was actually wonderful. The first dates that we did after the postponed or cancelled Japan gigs were last year in the UK. We did four UK gigs. It was all supposed to be the UK and Europe together, but Europe still had the restrictions while the UK had lifted them, so we did the four UK gigs. And we were a bit wary, a bit dubious at first. We thought, how is this going to be? Because no one's really gonna be coming out to see us. We were really, really surprised. I mean, you know, people turned out in droves. And I think having everybody - musicians and the audiences included – having had two years away from live music, I think it made them realise, like you don't know what you've got till it's gone. In the words of Jonie Mitchell. And I think everybody suddenly realised we've missed live shows so much. And so the reaction we got was absolutely unbelievable. I think everybody just went back and they were just, yes, this is a live show again!! And by the time we got down to Madrid and Barcelona we could hardly play because the noise. I've, posted some stuff on social media. You know, we just had to stop and listen to the audience and they were just chanting and singing. There was so much happiness in the audiences, and of course that made us feel happy. We were very, very happy to be back on the road and the audiences were very, very happy to be able to see bands again. So I think it's made everybody realise how important live music is. And it's something that is very precious and I think it has to be maintained. You know my personal plea to everybody who’s thinking about, should I go out and see a live show? Is providing you take the precautions that you feel are necessary, wear a mask if necessary; go and see the show because we need to keep live music going.
NI ROCKS – The latest albums with Michael feature Ronnie Romero on vocals. He’s a great singer and much in demand and has worked on lots of different projects (Rainbow, The Ferrymen, Coreleoni, Vandenberg, Sunstorm, Lords of Black etc). How familiar were you with his work were you before you started working with him and what has it been like working with Ronnie?
STEVE - I'm a big fan of Ronnie. I have to say I'd seen him with his band playing in Hanover about 3 or 4 years ago.
NI ROCKS – Lords of Black
STEVE – Yeah it was I think, that's right. And I I just kind of watched and thought what a singer. I mean, what a great voice. What a great showman. And then I saw him with Rainbow, with this Rainbow Reunion. I've always been a huge Ritchie Blackmore fan, but when I saw the video of the shows, my allegiance went from Ritchie over to Ronnie. Because I just thought, you know, he's the guy in this whole band that's actually going out and trying to make this thing work. I think Ritchie was very…..well, I think we all know Ritchie was probably doing it for the money and I think he would be probably the first to admit that. And I think his heart lies with his mediaeval music, which is great because he does that very, very well; along with his wife. When I saw these Rainbow shows I just thought then, you know, Ronnie is fantastic. So, when we had the chance to get him into MSG, I thought this is a great, great move and he's been fantastic. I do love his voice, a very emotional voice. He's got a great range, he's good live and so I think it's working out really, really well with Ronnie.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play a track from the latest MSG album, “Universal”, now. Can you pick a track and again maybe tell us something about it?
STEVE - Oh crikey. I’ll have to remind myself what's on it (laughs). Let me just have a quick look here. I think probably the track to play I would say is “A King Has Gone”. It's a great song. It's very commercial. We do it live.
NI ROCKS - Is that the Dio tribute?
STEVE - That's the tribute to Ronnie James Dio. Indeed it is. Yeah. So even more reason, I think. That's the one you should play.
NI ROCKS – You mentioned Robin McAuley earlier. You’ve a long history of working with Robin, obviously going back to the McAuley Schenker era. I read in that recent interview that you’re planning on doing an album with Robin along with Rocky Newton on bass. Can you tell us anything more about that?
STEVE - I can. We've started that album already. Again that came together through Khalil from Escape Records. I've been wanting to work with Robin for a long time, because he and I wrote “Anytime” together, which was a hit for the McAuley Schenker group in America. Ever since then, we've been looking for an opportunity to get together and then about three months ago, Khalil tentatively said to me, would you fancy working with Robin? And I went absolutely. I've been looking for a reason to work with Robin for a long time. He said OK, let's do an album. You and Robin write and record an album together and we'll put it out on Escape. So yeah, I was all for it. We started already. We've got one song, no actually we’ve got two songs; one of which is fairly complete. The other which I'm still waiting for some ideas back from Robin. The problem we've got is that both of us are very, very busy. So this could take a while to materialise, but the way it's worked on these first two songs has been amazing. I think this will actually turn out to be a great album. So, keep your eyes and ears peeled. It could be while it could be next year before this actually materialises, but I think its going to be something that's going to be very, very special.
NI ROCKS – I’ll look forward to that. Robin was on the Show last year talking about his new solo album as well as the Black Swan album. I’ll look forward to hearing what the two of you come up with.
STEVE - It's going to be good.
NI ROCKS - Normally, I think MSG don’t play a lot of tracks from the McAuley Schenker era but I know you’re going back to North American later in the year; so do you do more from that era when you’re in North America as those albums were very popular there?
STEVE - Yes, we haven't actually discussed the set list for the upcoming American tour, but the last American tour, yes, we did. I mean we put tracks in like “Save Yourself” and “Anytime” obviously, “Bad Boys” was in there, so we did a few tracks. “This is my Heart” we did. So there are a few tracks in from the “Save Yourself” album. I mean America being America, “Save Yourself” was such a big album, I think there's a very, very high chance that those tracks will go back into the set. But as I said, we haven't yet discussed it.
NI ROCKS – We’ll maybe play something from the McAuley Schenker era now. Do you have a particular favourite track?
STEVE – “Anytime”. I've got to say “Anytime” because I wrote it. (Laughs)
NI ROCKS – We can’t have a chat and not talk about Lionheart of course. The latest album “The Reality of Miracles” was released in 2020 just a few months after covid hit. With the enforced lock-down since then has there been much progress on working on the next album?
STEVE - There has, yes, it's taking longer than I hoped because every time I get back to doing the album, something else comes along. Another project comes along which I need to do. But we are getting there and it's sounding fantastic and basically all the songs are complete. Lee, I think has one more track or two more tracks to do lead vocals on and I need to do my guitar solos. There's some guitar solos from Dennis that he needs to do, plus we need to get the lionettes together to do the backing vocals. We've just got guide backing vocals in there at the moment. So there's still a few bits and pieces to do, but the light at the end of the tunnel for that one is now very bright, very big. Whether we'll get it out this year or not, I'm not sure because I've got a lot of work coming up, but certainly if we're not out by the end of this year, then it will be out earlyish next year. I've got the other guys in the band breathing down my neck saying come on and cracking the whips so I have to get it finished just to stop them going on at me. (Laughs)
(Note – “The Grace of a Dragonfly” was released in February 2024)
NI ROCKS – I look forward to that. There was actually a track written for the new album, called “Declaration”, which was included on a fundraising album called “Most Wanted Peace”. Which was for Ukraine. What can you tell us about that track?
STEVE - We decided it would be a really good idea to write a concept album and I said to Lee, do you fancy doing that? And he went, I'm there. I love concept albums and he straight away came back with this idea of World War Two. Like all of us, I'm very, very much anti-war. And so if we're going to do a concept album on World War 2, let's make it anti-war. Obviously, with World War Two there were good guys and the bad guys and you can't let the bad guys get away with these things. But war is a terrible thing and it breaks up families. And so, we said this has to be an anti-war album. And as we got to that point, Russia invaded Ukraine and we thought OK this is even more reason why we have to write an anti-war album. Because the position that Ukraine is in, all of us I think virtually without exception will sympathise with the position that they're in. So “Declaration” became very much our kind of anti-war song that was particularly - we felt - suited to the situation in Ukraine. So even though we hadn't finished the song, we thought we have to get a rough mix of this out for this compilation album. So, what you're hearing is a pre release mix; because it is a final mix of sorts, but it will be different to the version that will go on the final Lionheart album. We should have a I think a lot more overdubs and it’ll be a little bit different. So this is a very special release of that particular track which was only for this compilation album.
NI ROCKS – Your label Metalville did a purple vinyl re-release of “The Reality of Miracles” album in 2021. And earlier this year they did an expanded CD release of “Second Nature”, which was originally released by AOR Heaven. Is there likely to be a vinyl release of “Second Nature” sometime?
STEVE – “Second Nature”? Probably not, I think, because what happened with “Second Nature” was that the distribution deal that AOR Heaven had, I think, with Rough Trade ran out and they decided in their wisdom that it wasn't really worth renewing; even though we had another year to run on our contract with AOR Heaven. The result being that the whole album disappeared from digital download sites. I noticed this and so I contacted AOR Heaven and said what's going on? You know you can't stream us anymore. You can't download us. And they explained that they couldn't be bothered basically renewing. That it didn't seem worth their while for one year renewing it. So I said, OK, I want the rights back. So, I've got the rights back. And then licenced “Second Nature” to Metalville, who then immediately put out the album as a remastered version. And so it sounds better than the original AOR Heaven version. So, I think in the end everybody wins and we now have it back on the download sites. But I don't think there will be a vinyl release of that unless the demand is big enough. It takes so long to get vinyl manufactured these days. Everybody knows what the problem is. There’s just not the manufacturers out there and it could take a year to actually get the vinyl done. So, I don't think that will appear on vinyl just yet.
NI ROCKS – Lionheart reformed in 2016 for a live show. Did you think at that stage that something longer term was possible or that you’d ever release more albums?
STEVE – No! The whole the whole project was just a bit of fun. We were contacted by the promoters of Rockingham who said, do you fancy getting the band back together because we're Lionheart fans. So we phoned around each other and everybody said, yeah, that would be good, apart from Chad Brown, the original singer. And so we found Lee. And Lee was well up for it. We had two days of rehearsal and then we did the festival and thought, OK, that'll do. Bit of fun, you know, play the old songs, back to the grind the next day. Then we started getting all these messages on social media saying you've gotta do an album! That was an absolutely brilliant show! Not seen a band like that for years and years! And we got so many requests that we thought, well, maybe we should do an album. So that's when the whole idea of “Second Nature” started and the rest was history really. But originally the whole thing was just supposed to be a one off show and that Rockingham was a bit of fun.
NI ROCKS – With you all being so busy are there likely to be some tour dates in the future for Lionheart?
STEVE - I hope so. I really hope so because it's a great band live. We have so much fun. We’ve obviously been mates for so many years and it's just really, I think finding the local promoters or the booking agency that's prepared to run with it. I think we had some gigs in Spain lined up and they all had to be cancelled because of COVID, but I mean definitely, yeah, I think it is a great band - we get on so well with each other. It would be silly not to get together and play live.
NI ROCKS – We’ll finish by playing something from the latest Lionheart album “The Reality of Miracles”. Do you want to pick a track and tell us something about it?
STEVE - There were some great songs on that album. I would say that one to play, because I'm choosing this, the rest of the band will probably choose something else; but because I'm choosing, I would say “Still it Rains on Planet Earth”. That's just something that's very, very close to my heart. Something that's very, very close to Lee's heart. The end section! No one's noticed this, so I'll let you into a little secret. The end section is based on Mozart's Requiem. I think it's the second movement it's called Lacrimosa and the chords for me, are just some of the most incredible chords ever. So I pinched the chords off Mozart. Sorry Wolfgang! He’ll sue me now; or his descendants will. And I took those chords and put them at the end of this track and just played the guitar set all over him. And I think it came out very, very well and I'm very pleased with it. I think it's a lovely way to end an album.
NI ROCKS - OK, we'll play that one, Steve. Thanks very much for talking to us. It's been a pleasure.
