This interview came to me courtesy of a good friend who knew someone who went to this college. I hope you find it as enjoyable to read as I did :)
Jet City Word-Man
Knothole
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Part one: September 27, 1995 Vol. 48 Number 4
Part two: October4, 1995 Vol. 48 Number 5
Part three: October 11, 1995 Vol. 48 Number 6
"Jet City Word-Man" A three part interview with Chris DeGarmo by Liz Pizzey.
Part One:
"Queensryche has always stood apart from other rock/metal acts because they are different. Here is a band with intelligent lyrics, genuine musicianship, and a stage presence many would kill for. But don't think for a moment that this band (guitarists Chris DeGarmo and Michael Wilton, vocalist Geoff Tate, bassist Eddie Jackson, and drummer Scott Rockenfield) is your run-of-the-mill, I-have-an-ego-to-match-my-record-sales corporate invention. Never afraid to tackle controversial topics, Queensryche prefers to make music that they like, rather than swallowing their integrity to follow trends of the day. After the multi-platinum success of their 1990 release, Empire, and subsequent 14-month world tour, the members took a well deserved break. The result of that two-year-break, Promised Land, was released October 1994. The album is a deeply emotional look at the collective psyche of Queensryche, and attempts to reconcile the members with the emotional baggage they have accumulated over their 14-year career. Throughout their career, subjects like the environment, government, anarchy and technology have been recurring themes in their music. I thought the release of Promised Land and subsequent world tour would be the perfect opportunity to speak with the band about the environment in particular. In late April I was lucky enough to talk with Chris DeGarmo about his feelings concerning the world around him.
Liz: How does it feel to be playing in the US again?
Chris: It's great, we've been touring in Europe and Japan first, starting in February. We brought about 70 percent of the show over and some of the elements weren't quite finished, although I think we had a very complete show over there. It wasn't quite the exact version of the full thing, and now that it's together it's really nice.
Liz: That's great. I'm certainly looking forward to it when you come to Upstate New York!
Chris: Good!
Liz: You've had the chance to travel the country more than most people and meet a wide range of young Americans, are you optimistic or pessimistic as to the future?
Chris: (laughs) Well, um....I think there's a mixture of a lot of different kinds of people out there. I don't think I've been exposed to probably enough of a ratio of all the people to really be able to make a comment. But I think we've met some wonderful people while we've been out on the road and certainly the diversity should be celebrated. We're not meeting one particular type of person that listens to Queensryche. I find that probably most interesting that there's really a wide variety of different kinds of people that are into the band and following us -- it's not gender specific, it's not age specific, it's not occupation specific. There's really people from across the board that are relating to what it is that we're doing, and I think that's something that's meaningful to us.
Liz: That's great, I've actually found in my experience that all sorts of people are fans of the band. I think I've even turned my mum into a fan!
Chris: Well great! (laughs) I'm optimistic. I mean it's difficult times that we live in right now. There's a lot of chaos in the world. That certainly has been an ingredient in life from when people started keeping track of it, or comparing it. It's certainly a difficult set of chaos (laughs) that presents itself for young people these days. I feel a lot of hope in young people certainly. I don't see people giving up on their dreams or really being bitter about what's being handed to them in terms of one generation to the next. Certainly each new generation that comes into existence on the planet has a different earth to deal with. But I see some positive outlooks out there. We meet people of all kinds. Sometimes you meet people that you wish there were more attitudes like theirs out there, and sometimes you meet people that, you know, you wish there were fewer (laughs) attitudes out there. It all depends on who you meet.
Part two:
"Liz: What do you feel is the role of music in the environmental struggle?
Chris: Well, I think music is just a great communicator... You know, we don’t write music for a cause. There are people that do use music as a platform for some sort of agenda. I think in its most magic form it’s really just an expression of life through the artist, and I think all art when it’s at its best, is just doing that, and therefore has the signature, so to speak, of the people involved in creating it. Maybe that signature also contains their influences and everything that’s shaped them as a person up to that time. Because it’s a reflection of life, people can present viewpoints in their music as well. I don’t know that it is necessarily as healthy to try to ram a viewpoint down someone’s throat as much as it is to maybe pose a lot of questions to someone that leads them to their own conclusions. I really think that if someone can provide wisdom to a young person, it’s not by implanting in them their perspective, but by more or less leading the young person to the threshold of their own mind. I hope that with our music we ask a lot of questions that make us think, but ultimately that people find their own answers. We’re not trying to tell anybody that this is one way or another, but maybe just getting them to think about their own solutions to things.
Liz: What would you say is your environmental philosophy?
Chris: Well, personally, I am a strong believer in the earth, of course, as a giant ecosystem. It’s not a myth, it’s a fact -- although you always find someone with some opposing viewpoints. I just think that everything is designed to interact with one another, and we all benefit from the richness of diversity that’s on the planet.
Humans have certainly, in their higher intellectual capabilities in certain areas, decided that they are supreme masters of this beautiful gift that all of us have been given, and I think we’re exploiting that. There’s a lot of people that don’t have a very harmonious outlook on their position in the grand scheme of life, and think that the earth is just there to be done with what may be done. I really wish that people would consider themselves more as important participants, or stewards. If we’ve been given the ability to reason at some higher level perhaps, then it is our responsibility to be the stewards of this great gift that we have together. That’s my personal viewpoint.
Liz: I know that many artists are environmentally aware as well as Queensryche. Do you feel that the atmosphere of the music industry itself is friendly towards the issues?
Chris: Yeah, I think that... I wouldn’t generalize completely straight across the board, but I think there is evidence in music and in groups, just as there is in humanity, of people sending out negative messages and negative imagery and this sort of thing. But it seems, probably to a larger percentage, that there are a lot of people that use music as a positive connecting force between people as opposed to something to drive people apart. Also from an ecological standpoint, I think we see a lot of people utilizing their position and visibility, like Don Henley for instance, to get a positive message across to people. Hopefully not necessarily ram a perspective down someone’s throat, but perhaps opening someone’s eyes to things. Everyone seems to have an opinion on things. For each person who tells you that the ozone is depleting, there’ll be someone on Rush’s program saying that it isn’t. I think the best thing that people can do is just try and learn as much as they can, and realize where they are learning it from. Finding the truth is the big quest it seems when people are trying to ‘get smart’ so to speak! (laughs)
Liz: What was the inspiration behind "My Global Mind"?
Chris: I think just looking at the fact that we are all so instantly accessible to one another now. Although there are many positive things as a result of that, there can also be a sort of ‘information overload’ on the individual now. It can be information just coming at you. I think there’s a lot of reference to just ‘news’ in general. It’s kind of different in this last century -- people used to be affected by news in a local sphere around them. They weren’t able to tap in and see actions as they happened worldwide. It really increases the perception of what’s happening in the world, whether it’s to the good, or to the bad, simply because the pace the information comes at you is much more intense now... Geoff is kind of saying, I’m becoming numb to the intensity of the information coming at me, and sometimes I just want to shut down because I loose my ability to feel. It’s kind of a dissertation on desensitizing, you know?
Part three:
Liz: That’s great. It’s actually one of my favorite songs on the album.
Chris: Great!
Liz: How about the video for "Anybody Listening?" How much influence did you have as to where that scenery was filmed? It’s my favorite video, basically for that reason.
Chris: Well, complete influence, all of that was shot up where we live. Much of the song was talking about escape into a personal paradise, and we just felt that it’s not just the scenery, but the concept of home that is something a lot of people find comfort in. Whatever it may be that takes you away, when you’re gone for a long time, home brings a lot of comfort to people’s minds because of a lot of things.. geography family, (not in that particular order -- family, family, then family, and then geography!) There’s a certain atmosphere to the song we felt the imagery really conveyed nicely...
Liz: Absolutely.
Chris: ..there’s a certain sort of something going on in the music that we felt needed that sort of visual.
Liz: It was certainly very effective. Other than the fact that it is home, what are a few of the best things about Seattle?
Chris: Well, a lot of things... You could ask anyone to go on and talk about the place they are from, and they would find great things, and not-so-great things. I can find both for the place that we live. Recently, Seattle has enjoyed quite a bit of attention just because of the pace at which some really great music has come out of the area. I think it’s really receptive right now to people writing their own music, and that’s something that’s been happening certainly for years, but with acceleration of the bands coming out within the last couple of years, it’s a nice atmosphere. I really am glad for the young musicians that are growing up there, wanting to write their own music, because when I was a teenager in Seattle it was very difficult. I mean, you couldn’t get anyplace to play your own music because there was nothing to support it as far as a ‘scene’ there. The only scene that existed was for cover bands and top-forty acts. Heart had come out of there and made some waves, and then we kind of hit out of there, that started opening some doors to people recording their own things. There hadn’t been really that many bands signed out of Seattle, and I think it kind of got the interest perking. Then, of course, we’ve kind of had this landslide of talent out of there in the last couple of years, and it’s great. Music moves around in a kind of liquid form, and there’ll be another city that comes along. It’ll be refreshing to have cities continually having waves to keep that sort of thing happening.
Liz: Are there any environmental issues in Seattle that you are especially concerned about?
Chris: Well, we did a concert at the Gorge, which is this gig that’s overlooking the Columbia River. We did a show there with Heart and we donated all of the money from the show to fourteen different environmental groups in the area. It was a lot of things, not one specific group, generally all the different types of groups that we are interested in. A preservation of the very special situation that exists up there, and we felt pretty good about that. The thing sold out so quick a lot of people showed up, and it was really nice.
Liz: Is there a particular issue over-all that concerns you more than others, or is it just a general concern?
Chris: I think the biggest issue that concerns me is ignorance, which translates eventually down the road into environmental issues. It starts off with education -- with people being educated properly in our country. You constantly hear politicians placing education on the top of their list as they are campaigning, but when you actually see the real action and numbers, education gets passed by when we as a nation should be focusing on it. I’m saying if people had a quality education where they could look around them and make decisions for themselves, I think we’d have fewer problems, generally across the board, in almost all categories. People can argue, "Well some of the most educated citizens are the ones that created the weapons of mass destruction," and get into all kinds of bizarre things, but generally I feel ignorance is a tremendous source of everything from racism to bigotry to environmental ignorance... It’s people that it’s like, you’re knocking on their heads, saying, "hello!"
Liz: Are there any particular environmental groups that you personally contribute to?
Chris: Let’s put it this way, my wife and I contribute to a variety of environmental causes that we feel are making a difference in a positive way. We do more than speak I don’t just sit here and chat and not back it up with something!"
With thanks to Dan "Shag" Birchall, Hanna and Darin at EMI records, Jim C. for coming up with the title, and last but definitely not least, special thanks for Chris DeGarmo."
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