:: 03.25.06 ::

CLASSIC ROCK REVISITED INTERVIEWS SROCK

:: 18:48 ::


http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/Interviews06/scottrockenfield.htm

Queensrÿche / Slave to The System drummer Scott Rockenfield:

The Best Of Both Worlds

By Ryan Sparks, March 2006

Drummer Scott Rockenfield has been a force in the metal world for over 20 years with Queensrÿche, a hugely successful juggernaut of a band that has helped influence a handful of today’s newer generation of progressive metal bands. That being said there may be a lot artistically that you don’t know about Scott, for example his soundtrack work which got him nominated for a Grammy Award or the fact that he runs a few of his own businesses in addition to playing his main gig with the Ryche. As if all that wasn’t enough for one man to handle, now his ‘other’ band Slave to The System, which has been a work in progress for about 5 years with ex- Queensrÿche guitarist Kelly Gray and Brother Cane members, Damon Johnson (vocals / guitar) and Roman Glick (bass) have just released their fantastic full length self titled debut CD. Slave to The System is a full on rock ‘n roll fantasy, chock full of killer riffs and hooks, with an emphasis on creating music for the pure joy of it, just a bunch of friends making some great music together, free of some of the usual stress and hassles which sometimes comes with the territory. I had a chance to speak to Scott at length not only about his new band, but also some of his past projects and film score work not to mention the upcoming release of the highly anticipated Queensrÿche disc Operation Mindcrime II which will be released in April.

CRR: I was surprised to learn that Slave to the System isn’t really a new band and you had in fact recorded an independent release back in 2000 or 2001 is that right?

Scott: Do you have the full length?

CRR: I do.

Scott: I can give you a bit of a history on that. I’d say 80-85% of the CD that you have was done when we first got together and the history is, back in late 2000, early 2001 if my memory serves correctly, is when we decided to do a project together. I may answer a bunch of your questions but I’ll give you a history of the band. Kelly (Gray), who was in Queensrÿche with us for a few years, we did the Q2K record together, we had just finished that tour and he and I had always wanted to do a project together. We were gonna have some time off after the tour, so to make a long story short, he brought up the idea of getting together with Damon and Roman from Brother Cane who Kelly had worked with before, producing the Wishpool record for them back in the mid 90’s. He mentioned the four of us getting together to see if we could make some music, they were really interested and so was I, but I had never met the guys before, Kelly was the constant but the rest of us had never met. Needless to say, the excitement was high so we flew Damon and Roman into Seattle and we parked ourselves over at Kelly’s house, he has a nice studio in his home that he had built; we basically set up shop and started working on some songs together. The cool thing Ryan is, from day one when they showed up, we started jamming on some stuff, three weeks later the record that you have in your hand was pretty much done. The chemistry was instant and it was just really cool, it was a totally relaxed situation and the chemistry and personalities together were great. We just had some fun, made some rock music and kinda step out a bit of the boxes that we’d all been in with our other projects.

CRR: So when you say the record was done in three weeks, you had no songs written beforehand, everything was done from scratch?

Scott: From day one, we just started jamming together, we would record and write everyday as we were going and it just fell into place; literally three weeks later those guys flew home and 90% of the record was finished except for a few touchups that we did. So anyway to go back to your original question, the CD you have was the project that we started with. What happened at the time was, we pressed it up, we got an internet site going and we were going to sell through the normal chain of events independently and we did, we sold maybe a couple thousand records and got a really great response, the fans loved it. We got some great press, not a lot but a few press things came into play and at the same time we filtered it to some people that we knew in the industry, but trying to knock down doors and get people to listen to you, even with our respective histories it still wasn’t easy, we didn’t have someone representing us at the time and we all had our ‘day jobs’. One of the people that got it was Spitfire Records, they called us last year after a few years had passed and out of the blue asked us if we had done anything with the CD. We told them we hadn’t and they were really interested in taking on a new project, they were very excited about it and they offered us a deal, we signed with them last summer and now we’re getting ready to launch. Also to add to the equation and the story, I say about 80 or 85% of the record was made back then because in the interim period before we had the deal with Spitfire, we actually got back together and went back and recorded a whole second batch of songs that we were thinking of releasing independently once again. Two of those songs “Ragdoll” and “Cruze Out Of Control” were added to the finished version which you have. It was a surprise record deal and I guess patience was a virtue with us not really stressing about anything. We wrote songs relaxed and we wanted to be stress free, we didn’t want to be as the name of the band implies, Slave to the System, because we’d been that before with our other bands in some respects. It’s all good but it was kind of an opposite metaphor I suppose and we were making fun of ourselves because we didn’t want to be slaves to the system.

CRR: Compared to previous projects, like recording with Queensrÿche for example, which is probably a more lengthy and drawn out process recording wise, this must have been a bit of a breath of fresh air for you as a musician and an exhilarating feeling to just go into the studio, write and record these songs in a matter of weeks.

Scott: Absolutely, you totally hit the nail on the head. I shocked myself [laughing]. We definitely thought that we weren’t going to approach it like we had with our other projects. I definitely didn’t want to do that and I was really excited that Damon and Roman came from a background of being just good rock ‘n roll musicians and with the Queensrÿche thing you’re totally right, I suppose you could say when Queensrÿche makes a record it’s more along the lines of a Rush. We spend a lot of time doing things, we change things and we generally nitpick more and that’s just kind of how the chemistry and nature of how Queensrÿche works and its fine but it’s a totally different ballgame to how we did it with Slave to the System. Was it a breath of fresh air? Absolutely, it’s kinda nice ‘cause I get the best of both worlds, I can be a sort of casual rock musician with Slave to the System, I don’t mean casual in that we don’t put a lot of care in what we do, it’s just a more casual approach and I think the result is a bunch of really great casual rock songs that for whatever reason right now are really starting to hit home with the fans. Then I get the Queensrÿche thing where I can be a sort of nitpicky artist.

CRR: And I think it would be fair to say that there’s a lot more riding on a Queensrÿche release isn’t there? It’s a bigger machine.

Scott: It is and you got the analogy perfect, it’s pretty much like what you’re saying.

CRR: Do you as a musician get hyped up a bit and excited before a new release hits the stores? Let me clarify exactly what I mean by this question, you’ve got this project which is coming out and the new Queensrÿche CD is coming out in April, you as a musician have lived with the music for so long, you must get anxious to receive feedback from the fans as to how these projects will be received.

Scott: Absolutely. I should say yes and no. Yes that you’re right that I’ve lived with the music for so long, both projects. Especially with the Slave project, I mean I’ve lived with that one for almost 5 years, with the Queensrÿche thing we’ve been so deep into it for so long, for example the Mindcrime II that’s coming out has been a work in progress for 18 months, not full on everyday because we toured in the meantime. We would tour for like 6 weeks and then work on the record for 6 weeks and then tour again, we were going through so many changes and so many different things it was like making Pink Floyd’s The Wall or something like, but it was cool. Needless to say that almost burned me out more in terms of wanting to keep listening to it now in my anticipation of it, than the Slave thing which is somewhat fresher to me because I haven’t been listening to the record for the last couple of years [laughing]. But on top of that I have to say that they both hold their own charm. I am excited to see what the fans think, is one more of an excitement than the other? I think they’re just different. I gotta say I’m very excited about the Slave CD because I think we made a record that hasn’t been made yet, not that Queensrÿche doesn’t do that, but I’m strictly talking about Slave right now. I just think we came up with a really good batch of great rock songs and the feedback has been so nice from the fans that have heard it and believe me it’s not a million fans by any means but the ones that have, have really gone nuts for it in a really positive way.

CRR: I find the disc to be a great mix of classic rock but with a modern twist, musically it’s quite varied. For example you have a song like “Cruze Out Of Control” which has a heavy Soundgarden feel to it and then the next song “Abyss” has more of a laid back southern sound. There is something on here for both Brother Cane and Queensrÿche fans and everyone should be able to get something out of it.

Scott: Absolutely, god you’ve answered all my questions, maybe I should be asking you “So Ryan what do you think of the record?” [laughing] I think what you’re saying is totally right on though, that’s kinda what I get out of the record. It’s full of dynamics, there are a lot of different colors on it but they all tend to work together. To be honest this is one of the records that I’ve been involved with that I’m one of the biggest fans of and the Queensrÿche thing is totally different because like I said, we spend so much time writing and recording, that its not as spontaneous. I tend to just go from one record to the next, Mindcrime II is done but I’m actually ready to make the next one now because I’m done with it [laughing]. That’s totally fine because it’s been that way with every record that we’ve ever done, it’s just the flavor of how we do it and maybe that’s what’s kept us going for so long, I’m always looking forward to the next one. We’ve even started talking about the next one. With Slave, I’m definitely ready for the next one and we will do another one, but I’m really excited about this one right now, it’s still totally fresh and it’s one that I’m fully involved with. I’m doing all the interviews with Damon but he’s actually busy right now because he’s doing some stuff overseas, so I’m kinda involved in everything. I’m helping to manage the band with Damon and I handle every day to day chore more than I do with Queensrÿche.

CRR: It’s a more hands on approach.

Scott: Absolutely, it’s kinda like my baby. We all do things equally in the band and I feel it’s something special and I think we’re gonna have some interesting things happen for us, and we’re already getting some stuff come our way that’s never even happened for Queensrÿche for whatever reason. For example all next week we’re going to be one of the featured artists on AOL, for the whole week and I’m excited about that. So once again I do get the best of both worlds. I got the Queensrÿche legacy, when that CD hits, I mean the fans are already going nuts, the tour is being booked for September and will start in the States, it’s already turning out to be 3 times as big as the tour we did last year, that’s how big it is. I kinda already know its happening; it’s not that big of a surprise to me because we’ve been around for so long. The Slave thing is more of an anxious anticipation, is it going to do well, is it not?

CRR: Do you think people who are aware of your vast body of work with Queensrÿche and also your projects outside of the band will be surprised at all with your playing on the Slave CD?

Scott: So far the majority of people who have heard the record have had nothing but great things to say about the record itself and what I did personally on it, fans of both what I’ve done in Queensrÿche and some of my other outside projects have accepted it with open arms. I got an interesting phone call a couple of weeks ago when I was in New York, I was live on the radio with Damon and I got a call from the president of VH1 who was driving in his car listening to us and we played like 5 songs off the CD that night and he just wanted to call and say that he was the same age as myself (42) and has been a Queensrÿche fan for years but my performances on the Slave CD was nothing short of stellar. I was like “Wow, thanks, we’re gonna have to get you a video then aren’t we?” [laughing] So I think that kind of answers your question, I don’t think my playing on the record is completely out in left field from what I’ve done before and I think I played the stuff well, I just hope everybody else enjoys it.

CRR: Would you say your work outside of Queensrÿche, for example your collaborations with Paul Speer, has really helped you grow as a musician and would you encourage other fellow musicians to explore these other avenues outside of their respective bands like you have?

Scott: Absolutely. I can’t say enough about what it’s done for my life and what I’ve learned by working with other people and also working on other types of things with other people. I’ve just been that way; I’ve always loved to diversify and to be honest if I stay in one place too long I get bored. The Queensrÿche thing has been running for so long and it’s just a machine, it just does it’s thing when the time comes and we have to do it and that’s totally cool, listen it pays the bills [laughing], but in a good way because it gives me the freedom to do all of my other things and not have to worry about a day job.

CRR: It’s opened up other doors musically for you.

Scott: Exactly, it’s done nothing but good things for me. Whenever I work with outside people like my buddy Paul Speer or if it’s my own compositions, right now I’m working on some possible film projects and some other things for Hollywood, I compose orchestra stuff, a lot of instrumental music as well.

CRR: How long had you wanted to compose music for soundtracks, was that something you had a burning desire to do since you first got into the business?

Scott: You know that’s a great question. Yeah actually and I kinda remember when it all really started for me, it was in 1984, I was young, about 20 years old and we were in England.

CRR: Making The Warning?

Scott: Yeah we were making The Warning and James Guthrie who was producing it with us; he had done The Wall and stuff like that. He turned me on to that; he said “You seem to be the type of guy who would like film stuff”. I think Mad Max or The Road Warrior was out at the time and the Road Warrior soundtrack was actually Holst’s Planet suite, an old orchestrated piece that was re-done by a guy named Brian May for The Road Warrior. I liked it so much and James told me that it was actually originally done by Holst. I went out and bought it and got to know it and love it so well that I just kept buying more and more. It became my flavor and to be honest to this day whenever I buy CD’s most of them are strictly film music. I became a huge fan of it and that got me into just wanting to do it and that’s why in 1998 I did my first full project with my partner Paul Speer and we got offered to compose the music for an animated short length movie.

CRR: Which was Televoid.

Scott: Yeah that was Televoid. Ryan you’re very knowledgeable I love it, ‘because I could talk for hours about it, but its better when you know what I’m talking about [laughing].

CRR: I was interested to learn that you were involved in Televoid because the same person who worked on that, Michael Boydstun also did a lot of stuff on the Mind’s Eye animated series which I was a fan of.

Scott: Absolutely.

CRR: I still have a few of those volumes and back in those days that was the ‘in’ thing as far as computer graphics went.

Scott: The Mind’s Eye stuff was really cutting edge. So yeah Televoid was my first project outside of Queensryche and I was the first member to ever step outside the band and do something. Paul and I got offered that project and we ended up getting a Grammy nomination for it.

CRR: Not too shabby.

Scott: I felt pretty good I’ll tell yea. I’m actually sitting in my studio here at home and on the wall is a picture of my wife and I at the Grammy’s. We didn’t actually win the category but we were one of five who got nominated in the Best Long Form Music Video category. Ever since that day, I was the first one to step outside of the box and to get a Grammy nomination, I figured I would keep going at it and I still am. Anyways to answer your question of 3 hours ago [laughing], about whether outside projects have befitted me and would I advise others to do the same? Absolutely, I couldn’t see anyone who would not benefit from more education and that’s what you get when you work with other people.

CRR: Exploring those other avenues helped you grow as an artist.

Scott: Absolutely. It’s even gotten to the point, as I said I’m in my own studio, and I do all my own recordings now, drums and everything. I engineer and mix and do all my own projects and I’m working on one now with a lot of drum stuff and keyboards and I’m doing it all in house. I wouldn’t be able to do all of this if I hadn’t stepped out of the box.

CRR: You stepped out of the box in so many ways. You’ve done CD’s of drum loops and......

Scott: Gee man, you are educated. [laughing]

CRR: You’ve also got your own company Rocken Wraps which specializes in customizing drum kits with some real interesting designs, we could talk about that as well.

Scott: Yeah that’s a whole other machine in itself.

CRR: Are you as hands on with all these different projects?

Scott: The Rocken Wraps thing is interesting that you bring that up and I’d be happy to give you a quick little run down on that, ‘cause all the press on that will help me as well.

CRR: Go for it.

Scott: We launched it a couple of years ago, it was something that I invented in my house just for myself to be different. I was tired of drums looking the same, I don’t know maybe it was my ego; I always wanted to be seen. So I just kinda worked up an idea on how I could do this and it turned out that so many fans liked it once they saw it, so I ended up launching the company public. It is strictly run by myself and my brother, no other employees; we have a small shop set up right next to my house here in Washington. We’ve got four hundred dealers worldwide and we make and manufacture everything on a daily basis. I handle the phones and take all the orders and I do all of the design work. Almost all of the designs on the website were done by me except for a few artists that we have that also add some stuff to the kitty.

CRR: There’s a great picture on the Queensrÿche website of you in the studio with a really cool looking kit where the design is what looks like currency or bills, is that one of your creations?

Scott: Yeah absolutely, that’s one. That’s a design we’ve had for years. We’ve got a whole thing going as well with one of the biggest tattoo artist conglomeration groups in the world called Tattoo Johnny, and they submit artwork to us now as well so we’ve got a whole new artist series and we’re in cahoots with possibly signing with a huge distribution company that’s not even related to drum products. We’re 2 years into it and we can’t even keep up with it anymore, but its cool, I’m still hands on and I answer all the phones and I probably talked to twelve customers yesterday and they’re all floored when they find out its me, I end up doing interviews when I’m not even supposed to. [laughing]

CRR: If you could offer a piece of valuable advice to a young musician just starting out today, what would that be?

Scott: I think it comes back to what we were talking about a couple of minutes ago, if I had to say it in a short sweet sentence I suppose my best advice would be learn everything you can. For example, if you want to be a drummer, great, practice and learn your craft and be comfortable with it, don’t do what other people tell you to do, this is obviously a lot longer than a sentence by the way [laughing]. Learn the best you can but don’t just learn that one craft. I’m so glad I don’t just play drums; I’d get bored with that. I like to compose my own music and to be able to do that I had to learn to at least tinker on a keyboard and that’s all I do. I’ve never taken lessons or anything that I’ve done in my life, everything has been self taught, but it’s gotten me a Grammy nomination for just hacking around on tools of the trade and it worked for me so I keep doing it. Learn everything you can including the business, don’t think that somebody else is going to handle your money for you and watch your back, watch your own back. I tell my daughter this, I have 3 kids and my daughter, the middle one is nine and she’s really interested in being a pop singer. I tell her “You gotta learn an instrument, don’t just sing” or she’s always going to be trying to find someone else that can make music with her. I want her to be able to stand on her own two feet by herself; at least she’ll feel secure in that and if she ever has to just rely on herself she can, like play piano like Elton John or play guitar like Sheryl Crow. It’s funny that you bring that up because that’s basically what I’ve been telling my kids.

CRR: Who better to pass on his own experiences to them, to give advice and direction, than their Dad who’s a musician himself right?

Scott: Absolutely, the problem is I don’t know if they’re going to listen to me because they don’t clean their rooms when I ask them [laughing]. They’ll probably learn how to play multiple instruments before they clean their rooms and that’s fine I can deal with that. So yeah, learn everything you can including engineering, own your own studio, learn how to record, get a Pro Tools rig or get a computer recording system. I prefer Pro Tools and I’ve been using it for years, if I didn’t have it or know how to use that I’d be hosed, I wouldn’t be able to do half of the things I can do now.

CRR: When you first got into the music business did you have any idea you’d still be doing this over 20 years later?

Scott: No, nor did I ever think the first record we ever made would have a hit single on it in “Queen of The Reich”. I never looked on it as a career, I just went kind of day to day, I loved music and I loved rock.

CRR: That E.P. really reached out to a lot of people everywhere. I can remember the first time I heard it was when I was in High School. In my art class students were allowed to bring in their own records and you could listen to them while you drew or painted and I’ll never forget the time one of my classmates brought the EP in and slapped it on the turntable. That was my first exposure to Queensrÿche’s music, music which still resonates today. Sometimes I can’t believe it’s over 20 years old, the band has changed so much in that time.

Scott: Absolutely, time passes so quickly. Its funny you say that ‘cause I look back when we’re doing a tour, for example this past summer when we did the tour with Judas Priest, for our set we wanted to visit everything from the past, dig in and play some stuff we hadn’t played before, one for our own benefit, to shake things up a little bit and two our fans wanted to hear it. I didn’t even remember playing half of that stuff [laughing].

CRR: I remember reading something where Geoff (Tate) said something about it being hard to go back to the old material and he likened it to an artist going back to his first drawings or first childhood paintings.

Scott: Totally. I felt like I was trying to figure out someone else’s parts for some other band [laughing]. It’s not like some of it was real easy either, we’d have to dig in and figure some stuff out. Some stuff I just changed to be myself now and it worked fine.

CRR: You have to put a different spin on it 20 years later.

Scott: Yeah. A lot of time has passed but god bless the music business, for myself at least I can say after 25 years I’m still doing it and I’ve got new things coming out and I’m still doing it, but it is a lot of work, I get up every day and I go to work.

CRR: I got my copy of Mindcrime II a few days ago and I can say it’s really a great follow up to the first one. It’s like following up The Wall or something of that magnitude though. What was the general feeling in the band now that the record is done, was everyone happy with the end result?

Scott: You know I’ve gotta be honest, I haven’t talked to anyone in the band for a few weeks [laughing]. We just kinda spread out afterwards, the record’s not coming out until the beginning of April, we’re not playing on any tours prior to it coming out so everybody has been just chilling with their families and I laugh about that because I’ve only had the record for a few weeks. It only got finished over the Christmas holidays, I think it was even being finished into January and I had removed myself from it because I had been done for awhile. Geoff was finishing off his end of things in California which is also where it was mixed. I didn’t get a copy physically in my hands until a few weeks ago and I’ve listened to it maybe twice, I just haven’t had time.

CRR: It’s interesting how this promo came out, it’s a watermarked CD.

Scott: So is mine [laughing]. It’s got my name on it and a code number.

CRR: Is that a new technology to make sure that there aren’t a lot of illegal copies being made?

Scott: It’s somewhat new to me actually, I had heard about it. I haven’t had a new record out in a little while, the last Queensrÿche record, Tribe came out in 2003 and we didn’t have watermarked stuff back then, not that it didn’t exist but I never saw it on our stuff so this is really new to me too. I think it’s probably as you say, its probably being done more these days to avoid the crash of the initial release. Before a record is even released, once it’s finished and it’s sent out if it’s not protected in some way, it can just kill the release.

CRR: Advance copies of CD’s are always being leaked out and pop up all over the place on the net. Radiohead had that problem a few years ago, the album ended up on the net and people were downloading a copy of something that ended up not even being a finished product. I think it’s great when bands offer streaming audio or free tacks for download on their sites though, but how do you stop people from ripping off the whole thing?

Scott: Unfortunately in this day and age technology offers people the opportunity to do that.

CRR: I think people have a general misconception of musicians as millionaires, who cares if I download it, how is that going to hurt the artist you know?

Scott: Yeah, I’m just one guy, what’s $15 gonna do? If you get a 100,000 people doing that then that could be a bands full release. If we sell a 100,000 Slave to The System CD’s I’m gonna be very happy, I hope it sells more but if we sell that many then we can keep going and make some more. The record company will be happy and we’ll be happy because we will have made some money, but if it shows up on the net too soon and that 100,000 copies goes down to 10,000 because 80,000 people have downloaded it, it can eat it up real fast. With the Mindcrime II thing, it’s a big deal in terms of the anticipation of the fans and stuff so I think the record company is being extremely cautious to make sure that nothing gets out in the wrong way.

CRR: Tell me what it was like to have someone of Ronnie James Dio’s stature singing on a Queensrÿche CD.

Scott: It was awesome. I wasn’t actually there because that was done down in California with Geoff in December, late in the game but when I heard about it and actually heard what he had done, I thought it was great. He’s been an old friend of ours for a long time, I think it was obvious when we called him that the response would be that he would be happy to do it and he was.

CRR: Is the plan to play live with Slaves anytime soon?

Scott: Yeah we’re off and running in a few days, we’re doing a short run down in Damon’s part of the woods, down in Alabama and then we move to a couple of shows in Florida and then hopefully work our way up the east coat. Needless to say in the next four months we might have a few full on tours happening and we have a lot of new people coming to the band, agents and stuff who are real excited to work with the band.

CRR: Then later in the year you’ll take Mindcrime II on the road.

Scott: Absolutely its going to be a full on deal I think with both Operation: Mindcrime I and II for the whole evening.

CRR: So the plan will to be to recreate both of them live, will you use the multimedia support with screens and stuff or do what you did more recently with live people acting out the parts onstage, is it too early to know how that will all play out this time around?

Scott: I think our plan will be to roll with what we’ve been doing recently in the last year or sp, which is to do it the new way with the actors on stage, with the new multimedia stuff, we had all new film footage with multiple cameras up onstage. It’s definitely bigger than what we ever did back in the 90’s. The only difference back then until today is back then we were playing bigger venues which is where we were at in our careers. Now we’re doing theaters which I think works really well for this, so the plan is to bring out a slew of actors with lots of film and staging and just go through the whole thing as a kind of Act 1 and Act 2 rock opera. It will be a summer of pre-production [laughing].

CRR: Can you ever see the day where Mindcrime will be made into a film?

Scott: We’ve talked about it; we’ve had a lot of interesting things come up in the last 15 years since the first one. We even had David Cronenberg interested at one point.

CRR: He would be perfect and I could totally see him doing that.

Scott: Absolutely. I haven’t seen his last film History of Violence yet but I want to ‘cause I like the people who are in it and I really like Cronenberg’s work. So I kinda picture that would be something along the lines of things that you could do with Mindcrime, it would be a really intense deal. Anyway we’ve had some interesting things come up, none of them have panned out, one mainly because our schedules were just so chaotic but I think at some point it would something that could be done.

CRR: Queensrÿche’s music is cinema for the mind.

Scott: Definitely.

 

:: 03.25.06 ::

STTS ON ROCKLINE, PLAYING LIVE

:: 18:46 ::


http://www.rocklineradio.com/


Monday - March 20, 2006
Slave To The System

Slave To The System

They sound like Soundgarden. No, they sound like Thin Lizzy. Wait, there's some Deep Purple in there. No way, they have a Velvet Revolver vibe. Actually, it's Staind, Audioslave, Skynyrd, Zeppelin, Puddle Of Mudd, Fuel and Black Label Society. All of the aforementioned are artists that have been compared to Slave To The System in on line and magazine reviews. Check out the parade of 5 Star comments at Amazon.com We at ROCKLINE gave this album a 5 star rating too based on one listen. Since, we have decided we would give it a higher rating if there were one. It just gets better and better the more one listens to it. All this band needs is more radio exposure and it should take off like the high octane rocket that it is. We can help with that. So, we invited the band to join us on our show to play live and take your calls too. They're planning an electric, full band thirty minute set to show the world they can take these songs to the stage too.

Feel free to visit their website at slavetothesystem.com

Three things strike us as particularly amazing about Slave To The System. First, no one has compared their sound to Queensryche or Brother Cane, the two bands from which the members come. Damon Johnson and Roman Glick hail from Brother Cane and Scott Rockenfield and Kelly Gray are Queensryche stalwarts. Secondly, despite the fact that the gentlemen are veteran players, they have a total and absolute Active Rock sound deftly blending crunchy, chewy hard Rock guitars with searing mid-tempo songs punctuated by Johnson's powerful vocals. The reality is, they sound like Slave To The System, and once you let them inside your head this very well could become one of your favorite CD's of 2006. Finally, this album absolutely kicks ass, period. Sometimes you have to take a stand and do what you believe. That's why we have offered the guys a full show, they deserve it and it's simply the right thing to do.

Join us for this blend of a mini-concert and a traditional call-in version of our show.

Find an affiliate near you, or join us on line for Slave To The System on the next ROCKLINE!

 

:: 03.15.06 ::

STTS ON ROCKLINE, PLAYING LIVE

:: 08:03 ::


Slave To The System will be featured guests on the nationally syndicated radio show ROCKLINE with host Bob Coburn Monday night March 20th at 8:30 P.M. Pacific / 11:30 P.M Eastern.  SlaveTo The System will also be performing live plugged in versions of tracks from their self titled Spitfire Records debut.  For your chance to speak with the band, call toll free at 1 800 344 ROCK (7625).  To locate an affiliate near you, or to learn how to listen live on the Internet, visit www.RocklineRadio.com & www.slavetothesystem.com