Bassist JOEY VERA: 'The Thing With All Music Is That It's Not For Everybody'

Greece's Metalzone recently conducted an interview with legendary heavy metal bassist Joey Vera (ARMORED SAINT, FATES WARNING). A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Metalzone: How about the identity of what is heavy metal. Do you feel it's lost within the experiments and the adoption of new elements?

Joey Vera: I don't really necessarily think that. It depends on maybe who you ask what their identity of metal is. Different people might give you different answers. As long as the music has some sort of loud aggressiveness to it. And let's face it, it all has to have some semblance coming from BLACK SABBATH and if it doesn't have that maybe it's not metal.

Metalzone: So how do you feel about the new bands with female vocals and smooth kind of melodies the kind that gets into MTV and every pop radio you can imagine?

Joey Vera: With female voices or just melodic? Well, you know, like I said, I sometimes feel like there's too much out there. The problem with starting with MTV and becoming a someone in the Internet with the mass media, and lets everybody and their brother becomes famous, it doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing. Everybody can be a star. Anyone can have 15 minutes of fame now. Anyone. I don't necessarily think that's always a good thing. It was much more precious commodity in the '60s and '70s when they didn't have mass media for music. They were sort of like a secret society. Only very selective few had… the people that had talent really got noticed, they had something to say and they came out and made huge impact. But nowadays it's much harder to find that. Everybody and their brother, like I said, can have 15 minutes of fame. Anybody can be a model, anybody can be a record producer, anybody can be a star chef, anybody can be a musician, anybody can be a reality TV personality, and I don't think it's really offering a lot to society anymore. It's lost its heart and soul.

Metalzone: What criteria can we use to tell the good from the bad stuff?

Joey Vera: It comes back to how the bands were in the early days. In the early days, if you were a fan of music, you had to search it down, you had to walk down to the record store, and look through all these giant LPs, if you wanted to find something new you had to go look for it. Share music with other people, or if you heard something on the radio… Nowadays, there's so much information out there, and it's so much easier 'cause I can look up something I would have never heard of. A band from Lithuania, for instance, and I wouldn't have that access if it were 30 years ago. There's so much more information but that means there's so much more to read through. So it's more difficult to search for people who have something to say. And you shouldn't wait for someone to tell you what you should be listening, or what you should like that's advertising on radio or TV. If you want to find something new you need to go on the Internet and other places and look for it.

Metalzone: Do you think there can be an era like the '80s again?

Joey Vera: No. We've already been through it. The only way I can compare it is with what we all call nu metal especially here, 'cause it's not really happening in Europe, like KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, AS I LAY DYING, UNEARTH. When I started to go see AS I LAY DYING or UNEARTH play live, in small clubs, in front of 400 kids or so, the only thing I could compare it with, even though the style was a little different, it reminded me of 1984 all over again. It was exactly the same. The same age group was there. The hairstyles are a little bit different, clothing a little bit different, but it reminded me very much the energy of it all. It reminded me very much of the '80s. That's the closest thing I've seen as a resurgence of the '80s. Not so much that the style is going to be the same. But the energy itself. The crowd and how big it's gotten, it's the '80s all over again. They're headlining shows in front of 3000 people so it reminds me of the '80s all over again. Musically, stylistically, it's different but it will never be the same again. Think about the '80s what it came out off, the new wave era, and it was something completely new. Totally different than the music before it. You can probably draw, parallels between early VAN HALEN and new wave '70s hard rock, or even early '80s metal but there aren't many bands that fill the gap, PRIEST was one of them but… not exactly. It was definitely a resurgence of the '70s hard rock, but totally different. It took a lot from punk rock. A lot of the energy and the attitude.

Metalzone: Taking advantage of the fact I am talking with you I'd like to ask you something that has always bothered me personally. I always wonder about progressive music. I think music is supposed to be a communicative action. The musician is trying to give a message out to the listener. A feeling, a mood, a moment. When the music is so complex that the listener is getting lost within it do you feel it fulfills its cause?

Joey Vera: The thing with all music is that it's not for everybody. Some groups appeal to a person and some other groups appeal to another. A group is trying to play and they're making it so complicated that they are not connecting with their listener or they are not fulfilling what they should be doing. That doesn't mean that someone else in the same room doesn't get it. Maybe the confusion is part of what they like. Maybe it's supposed to be confusing and so they are connecting. I can be pop and still not connect with the listener.

Metalzone: I wanted to ask you cause you can't imagine the bands coming out saying we're progressive, we're TOOL meets SMASHING PUMPKINS, we're whatever and you're trying to listen and you think you know where they're getting and in the middle of the song you get lost. And then there's repetition and stuff the musicians get and feel the guy was great in doing that and I just feel stupid.

Joey Vera: They're not accomplishing what they should be accomplishing. Sometimes that's what separates the great bands from the really great bands.

Metalzone: That's what I think too. I think that if something is good everybody can get it.

Joey Vera: There is one thing that's been said about the universal appeal. Of course it's organic, if something has universal appeal and it's a brightly colored bubble gum… If something has universal appeal and it's good then it's good it doesn't matter. It's just good. A band like U2, for instance. Whether you like them or not they're just good. They're a good band.

Read the entire interview at this location. To download the chat in MP3 format, click here.