Author: Nigel A Harris
They’ve sold over 2 million records. They’ve performed on the same stages as Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Journey. They’ve been featured on MTV, VHI and the Head Bangers Ball. They’ve performed at the Sweden Rock Festival, Rock Fest Barcelona, Bang Your Head Festival and headlined the Busan Rock Festival. They’ve experienced over 10 Sold Out Tours of Japan.
BURRN! Magazine voted their Founder/Guitarist – The Best Rock Guitarist!
On September 30th, 2022 Global Rock Records released their 3 CC compilation album – “Wake The Beast: The Impellitteri Anthology”
The group we are talking about is “Impellitteri” which just so happens to be the last name of their Founder/Guitarist Mr. Chris Impellitteri.
Q – Chris, I’m impressed! I didn’t think I’d ever hear music like yours being performed again. Everyone’s been telling me there’s no interest in Rock unless you go overseas. We’re talking about radio, concerts, record cos. If they even exist anymore, but, from your perspective – just how true is all of that?
A – Well, when we go to places like Europe or Japan, we play to audiences as big as 30,000 people at our shows. So, for me to say people are not interested in Rock music or Heavy Metal or whatever we’re called is kind of hard to fathom .However to be fair, Gene Simmons of Kiss said something to the effect that ‘Rock is Dead’. I think he probably meant based on the support mechanism or infrastructure of the United States of America. To be fair, it’s certainly not embraced like it once was. Anybody can see that, just watch things like the Grammy Awards. They’ll have a Heavy Metal Category but it won’t be televised on t.v. for audiences tp actually see. It’s kind of swept under the carpet, almost like a private ceremony kind of thing. Radio, there’s Classic Rock of course. I live in Los Angeles so we have things like KLOS, but again, that’s another problem in itself, but they really tend to play stuff like from the Doors, late 60’s, early 70’s, Led Zeppelin. They’ll play Van Halen. I know they’ve started to embrace new bands. It’s like from 5 o’clock to 7 o’clock. They’ll play new music which is great, but, if you have to go to all the other states in the U.S, I’m not really sure how many radio stations are really embracing it. So, I would say it’s in that lull. However, I do believe that all things come in cycles. For me to say it’s going to be back tomorrow, I can’t predict that, but, there’s certainly plenty of people that really embrace this type of music. That’s just my perspective.
Q – Why, when we turn on Awards shows like the Grammy’s or the American Music Awards, haven’t we seen Rock bands get the same attention as Pop groups? Why didn’t we ever see Van Halen, or Judes Priest or Deep Purple? Those acts were filling hockey arenas?
A – My perspective, and it doesn’t mean it’s correct: I look at the people especially in the industry in Los Angeles and a lot of the executives, these are people that probably went to great colleges, they’re the type of person that has a very corporate mentality. So, they follow trends. In the inner cities Dance Music really took off. Rap took off. Then of course when you went into the mid 90’s, the Britney Spears Disney generation was exploding. They realized they could exploit that market. These are businessmen. These aren’t people that are really passionate about music. They’re looking at dollars. They want the fastest return on investment as possible. So, they take the safe way out. Remember Rock music has always been much more about, almost if we were talking politically; it’s about freedom of speech, right? Having the liberty to do what you want, not having to conform to rules. That’s why we all love playing Rock music, because we can do anything we want although albeit it I’ve found over the years Rock music and the industry and the critics sometimes are somewhat hypocritical. They want to come in and say it’s freedom of expression. Do whatever you want. Be yourself. The reality is when you kind of deviate from what’s expected they’ll be all over you and rip you apart. So, it’s a contradiction.
Q – And, don’t forget at the end of the day it still is a business. The public just can’t seem to grasp that. But, the bands that understand that concept are the ones that have survived over the years.
A – Yeah. Impellitteri.I jokingly say is a story from tragedy to triumph: because even now as you’re talking to me, I bet many of your readers are going to look at this name and go – who? They’re going to think Impellitteri is a disease. They have no idea of what we’ve accomplished in many countries around the world. It’s funny when I was a kid I used to get a magazine called Circus Magazine. At that time it was a really popular Rock magazine. I remember always looking in the back of the magazine. I’d always see bands like the Scorpions. I didn’t really know much about them and then years later having all the success they had, they broke out in America. (Laughs). So, we, Impelliterri always waited for the American market. (Laughs). But, we’ve been doing this for so many years now, I have realized that yes, it is a business. First, we’re musicians. We probably spend about 8 hours a day playing, just making sure we master our craft, writing music, basically maturing, evolving as artists. Then everything else follows and part of that is business. How are we going to strategically stay alive and keep this band alive in it’s markets that have embraced us? That takes a lot of effort and work and there’s a lot of people around us making very smart decisions.
Q – Chris, there are very few bands that have named themselves after one of the guys in the band. Was there any concern or resentment from the other band members about that?
A – No. It was actually someone in the band that mentioned it to one of the business associates. I’ll be honest, when I came to L.A. I must have been 18 or 19. Me and the bass player or drummer or whatever would get a bunch of musicians together and we’d start to play together, formulate a concept of what we wanted the band to be like. Then of course before we knew it, we had a band. The problem is Los Angeles during that time was everybody was looking for a shortcut to stardom or success. It’s what would happen when you’d get a great singer and then the band that just got a major label deal, that got signed, all of a sudden decides to steal your singer. And, the singer of course jumps because they’re like ‘Oh, major label, Big tours. Let’s do it’. We would lose members, we had some amazing musicians. So one day someone said, ‘Do you like Van Halen?’ I said ‘Of course. That first record is probably my biggest influence on the Rock side’. And they said, ‘Why don’t you just name it Impellitteri?’ We laughed, that’s a horrible name. I can barely even spell it and say it. But somehow it took off. So, we used it. We didn’t have the issue because a few other people during the initial stages of the band decided to move on. We didn’t have to worry about the people coming to see us in the clubs during those days saying, ‘Hey, man how can you keep calling it that band when those other guys are gone?’ So, we figured it was safe and hence that was it. It stuck. I wasn’t really sure we were going to keep it. It was really during the Impellitteri Black EP that was a test to see what the response would be. Boy, when we realized that thing especially in places like England, Japan, especially in Tokyo or Osaka, Germany, Italy, Spain that EP just exploded. At that point it was too late to change the name.
Q – Are you able to name any of the singers that left your band?
A – No. There’s no one I want to name. For the most part the nucleus of the band has been myself, Rob Rock, and James Pulli the bass player. We’ve had some amazing musicians in this band. Glen Sobel was our drummer for many years. Glen now plays with Alice Cooper and also Johnny Depp in the Hollywood Vampires. On recent records we had Jon Dette who played in the band ‘Slayer’. Dave Spitz, wasn’t on the record. He was only on the videos and touring for ‘Stand In Line’. Dave also played in Black Sabbath with (Tony) Iommi. Again, there’s more and there’s plenty more people who have contacted us at one point when Rob had left the band. We wanted a singer. We had some pretty big name people calling us. I was even going ‘Are you sure? Why are you calling us? You don’t need us’.
Q – You’ve done over 10 Sold Out shows in Japan. Do you have any idea why Japan likes your group so much?
A – You know, I honestly don’t. Well actually, I do have a theory. Impellitteri the band, you listen to our music especially the guitar soloing, the orchestration with the vocals, the one, three, five harmonies, almost like ‘Queen’, it takes a lot of effort and we have to be educated musicians. We kind of have to master our craft. People have given us pretty high regard as far as our ability as musicians. I think Japan because it’s a very educated society, they really appreciate that, embrace that because they realize the way I play guitar solos, it’s challenging. It’s like trying to be a virtuoso on violin and I mean that humbly. I’m not saying I am, I just kind of use that as an example where they sometimes say, ‘Oh, you’re an insanely talented guitar player’. I think it’s because of the discipline. It’s taken a lot to accomplish this ability to be able to master the instrument and play the way I play. So, at least from the guitar fans in Japan, I have a feeling that’s why they embraced the band. It’s the same thing with our arranging, our music. Even though it’s simplistic for the average listener to embrace, when you listen to the chorus one, three, five and the orchestration, that’s another thing they really find intriguing. It’s somewhat complex and again a very educated society. So they embraced that versus if I was just playing three chord AC/DC, music. I don’t think they would embrace us.
Q – And, I’ve been told England takes music more seriously than other countries, particularly the U.S.
A – It’s just a theory that I’ve had over the years why a certain country embraces us, what is it? I don’t think we’re better than anybody else. There are plenty of great bands. There are plenty of great guitar players. When we first did the Black Impellitteri E.P. we quickly established a cult following of not only musicians but die-hard Metal Rock fans. So, when Rob Black left the band on the Black EP which is another story in itself, the singer Graham Bonnet who came in and joined the band and we did ‘Stand In Line’ , at that time in his career, he was in his late 30’s, he was really, really famous in Japan. He played with Ritchie Blackmore who was a legend because of being in ‘Deep Purple’ and Rainbow. Everybody knows the song ‘Smoke on the Water’. Graham was the lead singer of Rainbow during one of their biggest points in history, at least of the band. They had a hit with ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ and songs like that. They even headlined the Castle Donington Festival in England. When they did it the band that played before them was AC/DC, Judas Priest, bands like that. Where I’m going with this long story is that Graham was really, really well-known when he joined Impellitteri and he was extremely well-known and loved in Japan. I always like to joke it was kind of like a free pass. I think because Graham had played with legendary guitar players like Ritchie Blackmore and Michael Schenker and then played with UFO and played with Yngwie Malmsteen who was a legendary virtuoso player and Steve Vai. Then he joined Chris Impellitteri. I think whether I was good, bad or whatever they immediately gave me this free pass if you will. They just assumed that Impellitteri must be one of those legendary bands to come. So, that’s another kind of suspicion that I have of why we got embraced the way we did.
Q – Would any of the groups you opened for in the past be concerned that you would upstage them, that you would steal the show? I’ve seen that situation happen before with opening acts.
A – Well, the bands and shows I think you’re referring to were actually big festivals in Europe. So, we’re really not opening. I’ll give you an example: we did a Sweden Rock Festival years ago, I think the headliner was Black Sabbath with Dio singing. There were like five stages on the ground. There was like acres and acres of property. There were probably like 30,000 people that came to the show, maybe more. So, there are many different stages, but there’s one main stage which is the headlining stage. And the one show was Impellitteri. I think the band that followed us was Journey and oddly enough the band that followed Journey was a band called Dream Theatre Then Black Sabbath. I think Black Theatre might have been going under Heaven and Hell at that point because of legal issues. So, those were the kind of shows we were doing. Spain, we did do a big Rock Fest called The Rock Fest. I know Iron Maiden was one of the headliners. We were pretty high up on the bill. It was either after Anthrax or us before. I forget which one it was. But those are kind of where you get billing during the day. It’s not like you’re specifically opening for that band, but I will tell you this, when we go out and play those shows we do make certain that we are well rehearsed and we try to make sure when we are playing we are on fire. The bands that go on after us have to work very hard.
Q – I see you have Global Records behind you. But, I also see that JVC Victor is your label in Japan, Australia and Asia. Frontiers Music SRL is your European and North American label. So, what’s left for Global Rock Records to do?
A – Well, Global Rock is able to do everything outside of Japan. So, they can do all of Europe and all of America with our back catalog, so, Frontiers, although it is our new label. So, they have our most recent records which are ‘Venom’ and there’s a record called the ‘Nature of the Beast’. Those are the most recent records in the last 5 years. But, the back catalog, anything before that Global Rock has. So, they’re now promoting and distributing which is great. I love this relationship because they’re really passionate about the band. What’s interesting is a lot of the music that’s being released is brand new to a lot of people. Many people as I said jokingly earlier don’t have a clue as to who we are. They have no idea what this band has accomplished overseas. So, in essence I’m really excited because they’re getting to hear this music for the first time.
Official website: impellitteri.net
© Gary James All Rights Reserved
