Latest News

December 8, 2000 (Friday)

According to several people who went to see WestWorld in Japan, the band played really well on both nights.

WestWorld Japanese Tour Set List
1. Illusions
2. I Belong
3. Skin
4. Uneasy
5. Elastic
6. Shame
7. Limbo
8. Guitar solo
9. Get a life
10. Black Shadow Symphony
11. Ivory Towers
12. Suicide
13. Bring The Water To Me
-------
14. Outlaw - Riot
15. Intuition - TNT
16. Uninvited (Tokyo only)

For those of you who are curious how Tony did, I heard his performance was almost perfect! Tomoko Shinohara went to both shows (she was even invited to the backstage!), and she's going to send me pictures. They'll be posted here as soon as I receive them, so stay tuned! :)

December 1, 2000 (Friday)

Even though I promised to keep this site updated more often, I just can't find a time to sit down and do it anymore :( I was hoping to rebuild the site during Thanksgiving week, but unexpected work killed that idea. Anyway, here are some news I've collected since the last update.

E-mail from Morty Black!
I received e-mail from Morty a few weeks back and here's what he told me :

We've been in the studio (Ronni, Diesel and I), and we've been recordin 5 songs so far. In other words, we have 5 demoes at this stage. We hope to go into the studio for one more session before christmas. The good old TNT sound is back!!! We're waiting for Tony to put down som vocals on these songs now, and I hope this will be done as soon as possible. We have given him room to do his work with Westworld first. I wish him all the best on that project. We have also been recording more songs for the Rypdal & TekrCD.

He e-mailed me again later and said that they were going back to the studio on Nov 27 to finish R&T3, so hopefully it's done by now!

No WestWorld shows in NY/NJ :(
According to the official WestWorld web site, the band has fired their manager, and the plan for shows in NY/NJ area has been scratched off. Their Japanese tour in December is still planned though. Also, Tony and Mark Reale will play at a concert called Ultrasound 2000 in Burbank, CA on March 10-11, 2001.

November 5, 2000 (Sunday)

Chosen Few!?
According to Paal Kristiansen (the webmaster of Paal and Terje's TNT page), his reliable source says that TNT has already recorded at least 7-8 songs for the next album. One of them will be called "Chose Few". Stay tuned for more info :)

November 1, 2000 (Wednesday)

Thank you for your patience!
After almost 9 months of absence, this page is updated :) Thank you for being patient! I have a few news and I'll start with TNT.

Diesel is back!
Morty Black said that Morten "Diesel" Dahl is back in TNT, and they have recorded a few demos for the new album. I have no details on what it will sound like or anything. Cross your fingers and let's hope that they will tour again after the album is released!

WestWorld Japanese tour
The new album of Tony Harnell's WestWorld called Skin has just come out this fall, and they're going to do 2 shows in Japan in December. The dates are : Dec 4th, 2000 - On Air West in Tokyo and Dec 6th, 2000 - Big Cat in Osaka. It is said that they would do a few gigs in NY/NJ area before their departure to Japan. I'll post as soon as I hear something. Also, Tony and Mark Reale did some promortion in Japan recently and they got together with a few fans to bowl :) If you can read Japanese, check out the interview of Tony and Mark at Hotexpress's page.

February 20, 2000 (Sunday)

Terje Rypdal's new album
Terje Rypdal's new album is coming out in Norway on February 28th and Ronni is on it. I'm not sure if it'll be released elsewhere yet. It's called "Double Concerto / Fifth Symphony" and as you may already guessed, they're playing with an orchestra on this new album. For more info, check this page out. Thanks to Jeff Rinehart for the info!

Missed The Tour Bus?
In case you missed Tony's interview on The Tour Bus last night, they have the interview as well as three songs Tony and Mark played unplugged (Illusions, Suicide, and a new song called "Limbo" from WestWorld's upcoming album "Skin") in RealAudio format on The Tour Bus web site.

February 19, 2000 (Saturday)

Tony and Mark Reale on The Tour Bus!
The first update in the new millenium and I can't believe it's been a half year since the last update! Anyway, Tony Harnell will be on the radio show called "The Tour Bus" with Mark Reale (Riot/WestWorld) at 8PM (EST) tonight! If you're in NY/NJ area, tune to WDHA 105.5FM. If not, go to

The Tour Bus to check the interview out online.

News from 1999 and before

8/17/99 (Tuesday)

Stephanie Kushner did another interview with Tony Harnell. You can check out the whole transcript by clicking here. Thanks Stephanie! :) You can read the previous interview by clicking here.

8/12/99 (Thursday)

Lars Listerud e-mailed me a scanned image of the interview of Ronni on a Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladed", and Paal Kristiansen translated it to English - he says it's probably not 100% accurate translation, so please forgive him if you find any mistakes :) Thanks guys! This is just a part of the interview (only the part where my name appeared).

Here's the English translation. I've put the lines Ronni said in Italic.

- But we have a low profile. The fans know that heavyrock is underground.

Each time Ronni is in Japan, he does a seminar.

- Yes, there are 400 Japanese guitar players.

- 400!

- Yes, and then they sit there straight in line, and then there is applaud. Then I tell some about techniques, and I finish by playing for them.

Guitar playing is a science for Japanese die hard tekro fans, Yutaka Uchimura for example.

- He is crazy, Ronni says.

Yutaka has written down every guitar chord Ronni has done. Every one of them. On his Internet pages, he teaches everyone with the same "fetish" the notorius "machine gun technique", Ronni's speciality. It is when he shoots notes out of his guitar fast like a machine gun would do.

Yutaka has also made photos of all of Ronni's guitars, then altogether, and published them on the net with detalied explenations. Plus pictures of foot pedals, Space Echo, digital delays, buffer amp, and amplifiers. And guitar picks.

- Isn't it weird to think about that there are boys in Japan who uses all their time on your guitar chords?

- Yeah, Japan is a very boring country. So there are worse things they could do. They could use drugs or use their money on expensive cars that eats gasolin. Music has a good effort. It shakes up their lives.

It's just way too cool that Ronni said my name in the interview on the newspaper as well as on the national Norwegian radio :) Thank you, Ronni!!! Should I tell him that I don't live in Japan and all the pictures of his guitars are from a Japanese guitar magazine? :)

8/11/99 (Wednesday)

I received e-mail from Tony and he added a few coments to the e-mail from Vegard posted yesterday:

I don't think Morty meant that we're too OLD to tour in a car. I would like to translate into English what I think he meant; that we are all too spoiled to be that uncomfortable for that long. But that doesn't mean that we won't do whatever we have to to get this band on the road in as many cities as possible. And I don't think we'll have to resort to a car tour either.

I hope they'll play in as many cities as they can, and I know I will catch them in Tokyo or New York or wherever I can go this time :)

According to the subscribers of The TNT Mailing List in US, BestBuy will have Transistor on the 24th. Some people have already purchasesd it at Tower Record and other places, so go check your local CD stores! If you got your US copy, don't forget to get a Japanese version which includes the Japanese-only bonus track "Free Again" as well!

8/10/99 (Tuesday)

I received e-mail from a Norwegian journalist, Vegard Enlid, this morning regarding the tour with Alice Cooper. He said :

I'm a Norwegian journalist, and I made an interview with Morty Black earlier today for the newspaper in Morty's hometown Trondheim. I asked him about the tour with Alice Cooper and Yngwie Malmsteen, but he said they weren't sure yet. They have to check out the details of the tour before they agree to come along. He felt they had become to old "to sleep in cars", as he put it. So TNT will only join the tour if they feel it would be helpful to them in any way.

I heard that there was an interview of Ronni and Morty on the national Norwegian radio, and they called me "the biggest die hard fan ever"! :) I feel very honored. Thank you, Ronni and Morty!

Lastly, just as a reminder, go get your copy of Transistor today! :)

8/9/99 (Monday)

I heard that several CD stores already started selling Transistor today. If you didn't get it, make sure you'll get one tomorrow! :) For some of you have have it already, yes, "Yutaka" in the thank you list is me! :)

8/8/99 (Sunday)

Accordig to Lars Listerud, there was an interview of Ronni on the 2nd biggest Norwegian newspaper called "Dagbladed". Ronni confirmed in an interview on Dagbladet in Norway that TNT would be touring with Alice Cooper. He did not say when and where it would be so, stay tuned for more info! Also, he mentioned ME in that interview! :) He called me "a crazy guy trying to make a tab of all the tunes he played". I'm very happy! :) Lars is sending me a scanned image of that interview, and I'll post it as soon as I get it.

I heard that Best Buy would be carrying Transistor in US, so if you were wondering where you could get a copy, call the local Best Buy (No, I don't work for Best Buy :)

8/4/99 (Wednesday)

Transistor is already out in Japan, and I uploaded presents for the fans overthere (and those of you who got an advanced copy already) - guitar tabs of all the Transistor songs including "Just Like God" but no "Free Again". Enjoy!

8/1/99 (Sunday)

Since several web sites posted MP3 files of songs on Transistor already, so I'm going to do the same (not to follow the trend, but I didn't want to be the first one to do so and get sued by the band :) Go to the discography page and click "Transistor". All the links from the Transistor page are pointed to the root of my GeoCities page since I couldn't have the direct links to any of MP3 files.

As a big Japanese TNT fan, I felt so sad that there are not many Japanese TNT home pages at all. So, I created one :) If you can read Japanese, please check it out. Also, I'm going to start the Japanese version of the TNT mailing list. If you know of any Japanese TNT fans who don't understand English well, please point them to here.

7/30/99 (Friday)
The transcript of Tony Harnell interview by Stephanie Kushner is here. Thanks Stephanie! :)

7/28/99 (Wednesday)

The TNT mailing list has been moved to onelist.com today for services that were not available with the old one I was maintaining manually. If you'd like to join, please click here for more info.

Stephanie Kushner interviewed Tony Harnell a few weeks ago, and you will get to see the entire transcript on my site very soon. Stay tuned! :)

7/20/99 (Tuesday)

It's good to see that Transistor is getting some good reviews and appearences in the media. The latest issue of Guitar Magazine gave it 8 out of 10! Melodicrock.com includes a fairly big picture of Transistor album cover in today's update. They listed Transistor as #1 in their Play list of best 20 CDs! Also, there is a new ad of Transistor in the latest Metal Edge magazine.

7/13/99 (Tuesday)

Well, well, well, it's already July, and only a few more weeks to go :) Even though I had a picture of Transistor's album cover for a while, I was hesitant to put it on my web page because I heard that a few web sites that had it were asked by the band to take it off. However, Spitfire Records put an ad of Transistor in Metal Edge magazine in US last month, so I think it's okay to post it now. The catalog number of Japanese Transistor is "VICP-60789" on JVC Victor. Anyway, here it is :

And here's the ad of Transistor in Metal Edge.

Dennis at Spitfire Records posted a message below to The TNT Mailing List.

Spitfire will be releasing "The Big Bang", a two CD set with most or all of the "Knights" " Tell No Tales" & "Intuition" along with some tracks from "Realized" and "Firefly"., we are also working with the band on out takes etc. This will be released in Oct. of 99

I heard that WestWorld would be out soon in US as well.

5/28/99 (Friday)

I received e-mail from TNT for all the fans :

Hi Yutaka,
The industry buzz is building right now and the word is out that TNT have got a killer new album. Everyone who has heard it is blown away and have given it the thumbs up!! Tell all fans from around the globe that we need them to start hyping their favorite band, that's us!! Call and request that songs from the new TNT album be played on your favorite radio stations everywhere in the world, wherever you live!! They can start this when we announce singles releases for all the countries. And tell American fans to look for upcoming ads for the new TNT album in the heavy rock issue of Billboard coming out in mid June and ads in other top Hard Rock publications. Alert all American fans to be ready to call their local radio stations when the record is released and request songs as often as possible. We do plan on having a US single that we will announce here as soon as we know for sure and that song will likely be the main focus. It will be released ahead of the album to radio and we'll let you know when we have a date so the fans can jump on it! Start the buzz people, tell everyone you know about TNT and the new CD!!! We have great labels here this time around but we could really use your help. We will give specific radio stations to call in each market as the release gets closer. Thanks everyone!!
Lots of love to all our fans,
TONY, RONNI AND MORTY

5/13/99 (Thursday)

I just received e-mail from Tony Harnell and he told me that Transistor would be released in Australia through WEA, and in South America and South Africa as well. As you can tell, this release will be a big event! Tony gave me the track listing too. There will be "2" versions of Transistor - Japanese and the rest of the world. Japanese version will have a bonus track called "Free Again" (according to Tony, it's a beautiful ballad, kind of beatlesque and very moving), but it won't appear on non-Japanese version. However, non-Japanese version will include a bonus track called "Just Like God" (according to Tony, it's a uniquely heavy, cool track) which won't appear on Japanese version.

Transistor Track Listings

Japanese

1. No such thing
2. Wide Awake
3. Because I Love You
4. Mousetrap
5. Fantasia
6. Under My Pillow
7. The Whole You're Inn
8. Crashing Down
9. Into Pieces
10. No Guarantees
11. Free Agian (bonus)

Rest of World

1. Just Like God (Bonus)
2. Wide Awake
3. No Such Thing
4. Crashing Down
5. Fantasia Espanola
6. Because I Love You
7. The Whole You're Inn
8. Mousetrap
9. Into Pieces
10. Under My Pillow
11. No Guarantees

5/11/99 (Tuesday)
I received another e-mail from Alf, and he said Japanese Transistor would be released through JVC Victor.

5/10/99 (Monday)
I received e-mail from Alf Wigen (TNT's manager) this morning and he told me the official Transistor release date.

Transistor Release Date
Japan - August 4, 1999
Europe, USA, and Canada - August 10, 1999

Record companies are :
USA - Spitfier Records
UK - Eagle Records
Norway - Norske Gram

He didn't tell me which record company will release the Japanese version. Also, the tour has been planned but dates are not confirmed so far. Stay tuned!

4/27/99 (Wednesday)
According to Tony's second message to the subscribers of the TNT mailing list, he will be busy promoting Transistor, writing songs for WestWorld II, and of course touring!

4/21/99 (Wednesday)
I received e-mail from Tony this afternoon! I just wanted to share a line from his e-mail with you :

I really enjoy your website and check in with it from time to time.

That made my day :) He also gave a message to all the subscribers of the TNT mailing list. Thank you, Tony!!!

4/16/99 (Friday)
I received e-mail from TNT's manager, Alf Wigen, about what Curveboy posted on the TNT mailing list. That info was NOT CORRECT, hence I deleted it from this page. Alf told me that pressrelease will be issued VERY SOON, so stay tuned!!!

4/11/99 (Sunday)
According to Morty, Transistor will be on sale in Norway on May 31st . I do not know any details other than that. I'm sure it will be released in Japan as well, so stay tuned! (This info is not confirmed by the management of TNT).

4/9/99 (Friday)
I put the info on the hidden Transistor page at RoadRunner Records web site in Japan earlier today, but TNT's manager, Alf Wigen, told me that Transistor wouldn NOT be on sale in June or on RoadRunner Records. Obviously there was a reason why the page was hidden. Since the info was not correct, it's removed from my page. Sorry!

4/3/99 (Saturday)
There is a rumour that the new album will be on sale on May 10th. This is NOT an official statement, so don't ask me for details :)

3/28/99 (Sunday)

Terje Singstad showed my tabs to Ronni a few weeks ago, and here's an e-mail from Terje I received this afternoon (3/28/99):

Hi there Yutaka. I have a message from Ronni to you. He told me to say to you that he thought your transcribtions were just super-great, happy easter, see ya soon.

Thank you, Ronni and Terje!

3/24/99 (Wednesday)

Ronni says that the new album will be out in May! In UK, it will be released from RoadRunner Records. Some 'lucky' people have listend to a few songs from the new album and all of them said 'Great!', so be patient until May :)

3/9/99 (Tuesday)

I've heard that TNT's new album would be called "Transistor" and on sale by July '99. There is no official statement regarding the new album, so stay tuned.

Ronni's solo album Extra Strong String is on sale in Japan on March 21 '99. The record company is Marquee and the album number is MICY-1105.

Ronni played the guitar on 2 songs for Anne Vada's album back in '97. This album is called "Solrenning" and available from Omagatoki in Japan. The album number is OMCX-1026. There is a web site written in Japanese for more info.

2/16/99 (Tuesday)

TNT has finished mixing songs completely! Here's a message from Ronni that Terje Singstad (the owner of Paal and Terje's web page) posted to the TNT mailing list.

Hi, TNT is back, 'HAIRMETAL 2000'. Expect 12
killer songs. The mixes are completed and we kick ass.

Ronni Le Tekrø®

I have no idea if "HAIRMETAL 2000' is the new name for the upcoming album or what. I hope not :)

Ronni and Tony spent a few weeks in Spain back in September and October '98 to write songs. They went back to Norway and finished recording. They have been mixing right now and the new TNT album is planned to be released in May '99. Check this page out for more info. It seems like the new album will be more like Tell No Tales or Intuition than Firefly.

While TNT was recording the new album, Ronni's solo album Extra Strong String was released in September '98, Tony's project WestWorld was released in December '98, and Tony sang one song on the soundtrack of a SEGA game called Sonic Adventure.

Go back to the main page.