In regard to TRANSISTOR, Tony had this to say: "I couldn't be prouder. I feel like I just gave birth to a beautiful kid. I'm proud of the entire album. We all are, and we all feel really good about it. What else can I say? Oh, and we have a good album cover for the first time in many, many years!"
Instead of doing an interview in the traditional question and answer format, I decided to just let Tony talk about each song before we played it. So, here is TRANSISTOR track by track (not necessarily in the order they appear on the album), in Tony's own words:
"Wide Awake" - "(This) is probably the most TNT-like song on the record, or the song that would remind people the most of older TNT, yet still has the new sound attached to it. I think it's the old sound in a new package, new wrapping, new production."
"Crashing Down" - "It's one of my favorites. It was written very quickly. We needed an extra track for the record and Ronni and I ran off to the other room in the band house in Norway for about a half-hour, and came out with this, and went literally straight into the studio and recorded it about an hour later. It has a contemporary sound, and (it's) definitely getting into some new vocal stylings. The whole album has some different things going on."
"Into Pieces" - "I'm an awful guitar player, and I've been playing for many, many years and I never really got very good! Actually, the story behind this song is that I was picking up Ronni's acoustic and I just had these two chords that I had been playing back in New York. And I sat down and I just kept playing them. And they were these two really kinda' cool chords, for me, you know (laughs), and Ronni started singing this melody, and it became the joke of the whole writing period. We had this little chorus going and we sorta' kept singing it. Every day we'd write all of our other stuff and then we'd, you know, get the sangria out and the song would be the theme song for the drinking portion of the day. And at the end we were like 'maybe we should record this', and we made a demo of it, and we came back, and it was very controversial among all the band members and management and everybody. But in the end, I of course won, and it is on the album!" (I, for one, am very glad it is! - SK)
"No Such Thing" - "I've been getting a lot of positive feedback on this one, and I happen to like it myself!"
"No Guarantees" - "This is our little dip into the world of punk rock."
"Because I Love You" - "This is pretty self-explanatory!"
"The Whole You're Inn" - "We were all sitting around after a rather long night of partying with very, very bad headaches and hangovers and we were watching 'Leaving Las Vegas', which is not the movie to watch when you're feeling like that! Not a good movie to watch, we were all just like, trying to hold back our, you know! And he (actor Nicholas Cage's character) ends up staying at this hotel called 'The Whole You're Inn', and we needed another song that we were going to write in the studio the next day as a band, just go in and bang out something. And I remember immediately turning to the guys and saying 'well, there's the title, so whatever we do tomorrow, that's the title of the song'."
We also played three other tracks from the album, but I'll have to paraphrase what Tony said about them, as the tape recorder pooped out for a while and I don't have a way of getting the direct quotes! The eleventh track, "Under My Pillow", we didn't get a chance to play. So to continue on:
"Just Like God" - The vocal effects on this song were achieved via Tony playing with one of Ronni's guitar pedals hooked up to the microphone during the recording.
"Fantasia Espanola" - If my memory serves me correctly, this song was inspired by a woman who worked at a local bar that the guys seemed to find on a regular basis while writing the album! :)
"Mousetrap" - According to Tony, guys "will relate to this song." Actually, I think the girls can too!
Tony had this to say to wrap up the TNT portion of the interview:
"You know, it's interesting. I've done a few interviews with people who have never heard of us before, and the response I'm getting from them has been even more enthusiastic than the older fans. That says a lot to me, because I think that what's hard for a lot of the older fans is that with the musical style changing on this record, I think that a lot of people have a hard time because in their mind they're sort of picturing one thing, and they're not getting that when they listen to this, and I can understand that can be odd. But if you can just take this as a piece of music for what it is, and let it stand on its own, I think that with a few spins and an open mind and open ears you will grow to appreciate it." (Wild applause from those of us in the studio!)
Tony also brought us up to date on Westworld:
"I have a side project that I have been working on. It's been out in Europe and Japan since January and it features myself and Mark Reale, the guitarist in Riot, and Bruno Ravel, the bass player from Danger Danger, and John O'Reilly, who played drums with Rainbow and many other great bands. They're all Long Island guys, and it's a great band. It's a very retro kind of album, very late seventies, early eighties sort of sound to it, very stripped down, and very natural production. We're very, very proud of it and Spitfire was kind enough to release it in America, and basically the world outside of Japan and Europe. They have also signed us for two or three more Westworld albums, so this is an ongoing project for me. I wouldn't call it a solo project, it's not that, it's still a band."
Tony then elaborated on how the project got started. "I had done background vocals on a Riot album about two years ago and became really good friends with Mark. The producer up in Milbrook, NY who did that (Riot) record called me and said 'I have this idea', and he threw it at me and I was like 'that sounds a little strange, I don't know'. So I said that the only way to see is if we can write songs together. So Mark and I got together for a couple of days over at my place and the songs were there immediately. I love this guy. He is a true veteran of the music business. Anybody out there who has been listening to hard rock or has any history of hard rock has to have heard of the band Riot. Probably one of the most classic hard rock albums of all time is FIRE DOWN UNDER, which came out I think in 1980 or something. He is an amazing guy, to be in the business as long as he has and be as down-to-earth, and such a sweetheart as he is, and I love working with him. We are starting work on a second Westworld album now which should be out sometime in the year 2000."
Finally, Tony brought us up to speed on the TNT collection that Spitfire is putting together. "(It will be) at LEAST two CDs. It's going to be called THE BIG BANG - THE TNT ANTHOLOGY, and it will be out in late October, early November. (It will be) remastered, (and) there are gonna' be some little rare demos in there, bonus tracks, things people have never heard before, along with the first three albums in their entirety. And possibly some tracks from REALIZED FANTASIES and also FIREFLY and maybe even a new track possibly, if we can get to that."
Well, there you have it. I'd like to take this opportunity to again thank Dennis Clapp at Spitfire (who was at the station that night, too!) and especially Tony Harnell for the great interview. Both of you have an open invitation to return to the radio station whenever you'd like! And of course, thanks to Yutaka for giving me space on his page for both of my interviews with Tony!
-Stephanie