Ross Valory On New Album "All Of The Above," Journey, Touring Plans, Hobbies & More
it's the palro cast now with Daren Bel let's get ready to listen to your favorite artist outro if we do this are you ready I was ready Ross as a person okay who whoa he's here he Darren is here all day ready thank you for slating that now aside from talking to Media a good day for you so far Ross it's a great day in fact you know uh how you been it's been so long Darren well what's also been so long is you coming out with a solo album so all the above is this is true this is true and I I must say that not being familiar with your work I took the time briefly said here to to go to your podcast and check out your video on YouTube and I seled about five or six artists that are somewhat in the ballpark like Chicago de purple Judas Priest and Kenny Loggins and the majority of these clips happened to started with your question which is shall I call you rich or Richie or Richard or dick Kenny Ken or Kenneth Etc so we can settle this immediately my name is Ross you could call me raw and I will call you dare okay that that works for me so I'm going to keep giving you compliments because you checked out my work and you did your homework and there you there you go you know when I think of the bands that made me want to play bass and guitar in the first place that was your work with journey that was pretty topof the- line Right There For Better or For Worse that Separate Ways video made a big impact on me still decades later holds it holds up but yeah it it was one of the first in this time I guess wasn't it and incidentally have you seen the parodies of that oh yeah Cruiserweight had a good one um that shred Shredder Shredder oh it's just fantastic speaking of which uh of Al other alternate songs did you hear you heard Glee's version of Don't Stop Believing right did do we ever hear Alvin and the Chipmunks do it very few no check it out people check it out it's the Glee Arrangement and it's done very well but yet I digress here we are I I must say naren that this is one of the first solo artist interviews so here we are yes and I'm very glad to be here and thanks for taking the time with me in all seriess well your discography Beyond Journey beyond the solar record the storm which I could talk to you for a long long time about the Todd runger Etc but let's talk about the solo record how long did you actually spend recording it well it was done in stages in and about joury tours and journey activity which was always very thick and and involved I began about 11 years ago uh cutting the first song uh you you've got the album right yes and you listen to it yes um Absolut thank you so much that wasn't clear to me and don't be confused people but you know I just got here but thank you Darren yeah I began about 12 years ago cutting the first song chronologically which was Wild Kingdom oh okay yeah well and and and that began with my musical cohort Eric levy on on roads and I played the cayia P patch on actually on a DX7 of all things but the song was written with that sound and so uh that's how it developed and then I brought in Carl parazo and walfredo Reyes Jr who did all the percussion on that and I actually did and then brought in Mark Russo of the yellow jackets and duy brothers yeah and I did the base last actually so that's how it began um and uh subsequently I cut tomland uh in 2016 uh tomland if I may say is actually a a a base solo idea that I began developing in the 70s and I finished writing it per se in the mid 80s in my off time and in 2016 I figured the right musicians for that song would be prie Prince and my Shawn and of course Eric Le who was on every song on my album so the theme Here is uh in having picked the right musics for the right songs while Kingdom having this Caribbean possibly AFR Cuban Latin feel to it having Carl perzo and walfredo on that was perfect Carl is also on many of the songs because it suits his Mastery or percussion but tomland was the second recording done here at at the sandbox and so um uh quite a few songs got actually recorded before the lockdown and that includes Low Rider with yet another combination of musicians and the combination of incident and Nish shabor and seor blue with yet another Different Twist in terms of personnel um there are things that I cut afterwards uh but for the most part most of it was done before the lockdown so everybody has this two and a half year hius what happened there so uh in the meantime during the uh the downtime there did a lot of post- production work uh we actually took uh all of the material uh with our close associate and co-producer Steve Jarvis and we went to 25th Street 25th Street Studios in Oakland and actually reamped and reprocessed all the inputs all all the tracks uh not that we used them all in that way but we went in and basically reprocessed all the tracks on on all the songs and came back out of there with the 25th Street uh sophisticated sounds uh we we used uh processors and devices that we didn't have on our own including Fairchild and uh GMO uh we used the big room with its fully tuned full range speakers and microphones to reamp sounds and uh then we came back and mixed here with Jacob Stow also co-producing with h Eric Levy and then we did our mastering uh with Mr Romanowski at Coast mastering in Berkeley just over the hill so it's been about 12 12 years in total U hit and miss according to who was available uh in terms of musicians and whether we could uh uh agreeably work with the lockdown mandates so it's been a long time it's been a long time in the process and worth the wait and you called out the tomland track as the second one you did great music music video for very atmospheric but it's interesting to me to hear that it started off as a Bas solo of sorts because I hear vocals being added to that it sounds like a real song of sorts yes addressing your last statement there are so many people who have said exactly the same thing Darren um it it began as an idea uh that that I have and can continue to play All By Myself self and it makes sense but as an arrangement and the way it was orchestrated many people have said where are the vocals well in this modern new world of remix that may happen at some point yet I am happy with it the way it is so there can always be another version and another tracking number fingers crossed for that there you there you go yeah any I'm very happy with Tom land is the first release and another track of note no one wins a war what a powerful title for a song is that about any one particular part of your life or is that just being a veteran of 50 plus years in the music industry you now know that all of the above the answer is yes yeah it was a time in my life in which there were decisions to make and not being sure uh and the song reflects questioning life and and what to do and and and it's it's a conversation there's you could Envision it as a conversation between two people one questioning life and the other giving the answer and uh like another song in the album it is tentative it is plaintiff it is is delicate it's like what am I supposed to do and it's reflecting in the way it's played so to me it's very emotive and and uh uh it's one of the few songs that that happen very quickly and there's not much to it instrumentally uh what happened quickly was the five string base part that is the foundational part and the result Melody uh many of my songs have taken a while to brew and be reshaped and and reformed but no one wins the war is one that happened very quickly got it so one thing that I'm curious about anytime I'm speaking to a legend I I called you the legend you did not say hey uh Darren as a parameter of this interview you must refer to me as a legend no the these words when I say to somebody who's been on the road for as many years as you there's two categories they either have everything that they've ever done or touched like your Rick neel's of the world or they have absolutely nothing and you'd have no idea that a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer lives in that house like Paul Stanley which one of the two are you because I can't tell uh I live quietly in a typical uh neighborhood and and I've lived in several homes throughout my career and there have been occasions in which next door neighbors didn't find out that I was a rock star until years later um it we live quietly and and privately if you were to walk into my home uh you wouldn't necessarily see that it's a Rockstar's home except for one room that's that's it's a like an entertainment music room that is pretty well filled up with record Awards and if few instruments but it's not like I'm on display uh here at my studio where I am free to decorate as I please thank you dear I've taken all the other all the other record record albums and and related memorabilia and pasted them up everywhere in the building except for where they might interfere with Acoustics got it so yeah um I guess I wouldn't say I'm not conspicuous or ostentatious but uh you know I'll be at the Safeway store and somebody will go hey you look familiar you know so I have the ability to have enjoyed celebrity and being known but I have the ability to sort of turn it off well no I have better yet I have the ability to go through life without being crowded by well-wishing admirers you know I it's it's somewhere in the middle between the two that you described if you come into the aridium in New York you'll be mobbed but then if you go next door will that's a compliment well depends on who's playing right uh if it's you or one of your cohorts they'll go oh yeah there's Ross Valerie and then you go to the star Stardust Diner tutors down they go I don't know who that is it's this what do you want on your burger exactly so so is there a touring planned in the works in support of this record not yet not yet I've been happy enough and most of my energy has been spent uh in off time and and available time on recording uh all of the above represents uh all this material that's been sitting for years if not decades and there's a whole bunch more and one would say well you know you got all this stuff that's been sitting what about new stuff well as the old material has been brought forth new ideas and new songs are developing and that's where my energy has been at I would love to play I would love to perform but when I do so there are certain requirements practical requirements this is about choosing a venue and having promotion having a full sophisticated but simple production lights and sound in repertoire what will I play for what audience but next in importance is how do I get those musics that I would want that could play all of the material in one place at the same time a lot of these guys are a l lot busier than I am you got Carl parazo who's on the road with Carlos Santana sure a lot you've got Mark Russo that's out there with the dues as he has been for years he's busy so um uh there there's just a lot of players that I would love to have to cover the bases and be able to play all the material or most of it so that that's a practical problem but then there's the the uh uh the reasonable question regarding putting together a staff and a production team and having a budget um I it'd be nice if I could just slip into a festival or be added to uh the bill on the venue and have a core group of people that could simply just play what we do well rather than um having the the need to cover the album uh ultimately I would like to cover the album or most of it and have some of those key players in place or at least to have um their choice of a substitute player I have I have a core group of people that are local and not quite as busy that I've been working on with this my new material which includes Vernon black Vern and Ice black he also appears on incident mishor Senor blue and uh low riter and uh there's a fine drummer Paul Spina who's also local up here on incident in Sor blue and there's a fine player also on saxophone Bobby Strickland who I've worked with in the past he played in Cyclops with me and uh he and I were part of the Todd rren Orchestra for the second win project so there there's a possibility of taking just this Core Group including of course Eric Le uh and doing something but it's just not on the books yet I'm I'm in between promoting what I'm doing with you and others as I will in the near future I'm working on all the other material and uh what I could say about that is as people will hear the album uh they might be surprised that a lot of the material is disparate and varied there's a lot of variety as you well know Darren uh songs are completely different from each other and there's different musicians suiting different songs um it's a really broad Horizon and it it's kind of it's kind it's kind of it's kind of bold all I can tell you is the next batch which is on the table there are five or six being arranged and and recorded it's even broader than what you hear now and the overall effect and as we put together our our are uh submissions for genre and categories and subcategories the best that we uh can come up with is world world music okay because I mean there's obvious influences on my songs in terms of jazz or Latin or Latin jazz or even Latin Rock but there's a diff completely different style for tomland and yet another style for one wins the war and then there's what is low rider you gotta be kidding me that that was a complete um fluke I've always had songs that I'd liked I thought yeah I'd like to record that sometime and I just threw out the idea and quickly we came up with the proper people to record that but um so what I'm describing is a pretty broad mix it's almost like a bouffet but you listen to the album I think the sequencing from the top to the bottom it's it's it's an adventure um uh in terms of uh Tempo and key and Dynamics I think all the songs thread together pretty well uh as an adventure even they're just they're quite different so uh the point is as I'm continuing to record more material that Horizon's gotten broader so you can't you can't go okay this is jazz so put it on the Jazz playlist or this is Latin jazz you can't quite do that but my My Hope and it's it's not with this big incentive of carving my way into the music business for another career I simply want to share the music and so we'll just see what happens uh as these songs filter separately on the different playlists it it's it's it's kind of a wacky bull thing but the point is I'm not concerned about whether it will be successful or not well isn't just finishing it and having it out the success ex exactly even before the lockdown when we finished incident in Sor blue I was looking at the other uh three players there's only five players on I was looking at the other three as we completed the me the basics and I said that's it I done this is it and they're going what do you mean I'm going this is Success the rest is in sharing it and frankly Darren there were two two ways I could have gone about this my initial idea which is not Unthinkable was give the music away give back what I've been given by all the journey fans the people that supported me and all the other people in that organization I could just give it away hey but I would have to be in business to do that I would have to yet anyhow form an intellectual property company copyright all the material uh trademark my name and likeness and logos and word marks Etc and and I would have to do that much in order to protect it from being abused by other people okay yeah IP the the chice of Ip the the second more practical thing was for would would be for me to consider just going Grassroots simply do the work what I've done and setting up the copywriting and all that and present music to YouTube and you know uh to Spotify Apple music Etc and just see what happens and let it grow but U I came to the conclusion about a year ago that with the corroborated advice of some professionals with experience in the modern music scene hey that would be nice Ross but if you really want to get noticed you you need to make a a little noise no problem you're making noise now I engaged a very fine manager Lil Gary and she and I and other people on the team uh vetted and researched uh publicists and social media strategist for a time period that revolves around the release of of tracks and the album release and so we have all that engaged well dealing with it and and so here I am I did my hair you know well well I have one quick question for you and then I'll let you go because the world wants to speak to Ross Valerie today can I can I throw this one more at you and it's a positive clickbait question sure okay so in writing a book about David Lee Roth uh over the past few years I interviewed your old buddy Ron wixo from the storm and Ron me that when he was playing in the storm towards the end he was playing with David Lee Roth all day in rehearsals and then flying do your last fulfilled kind of gigs now right in speaking around with David Lee Roth fans and people over the years I know that Dave kind of begged to be on some Journey dates and that did not pan out I'm curious if you were ever asked to play bass for Dave because it seems like all of your friends have played bass for Dave certain point between Matt Binet and so I don't recall him trying his I don't recall him uh wait a minute we're losing uh I hear you delay video and yeah okay yeah I I don't remember Dave uhing journey to get on the tour um no he never asked me to play with him uh uh but you you're WR a lot of people I know including Dave Amato I think he was on in that group with Ron but Ron has the funniest stories about rehearsing at Dave's dad's house or something like that it's just the way Dave went about organizing things you know hey any no I I did I did get asked by Ron I mean by by Dave but Ron is just he's a fine player and you know that about a year ago on a moment's notice he landed the spot playing with Steve Miller yeah yeah he that is a prime gig it's kind of like a Wall-E from Chicago when from being percussionist to drummer and Ron didn't he go from percussionist to drummer with Steve Miller Ron wixo I thought he did or at least it was no he uh uh the uh veteran drummer uh had to make a decision to just stop being a traveling musician and it was a very short notice and uh Ron was given a call by Scott breay our former manager of the storm and boom he stepped right in there and he's rocking he's rocking him he is steady and it sounds really good hi Ron that'll be 20 bucks well Ross thank you as I thanks for taking the time with me thank you for the Decades of great music looking forward to Future solo music future gigs Etc and just keep up all the greatness out there I'll let you know when it's time to play and I'll see you at the idium oh oh wow I'm impressed brast
2024-04-15 20:23
