{"id":22478,"date":"2023-06-25T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-25T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=22478"},"modified":"2023-06-20T19:52:30","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T19:52:30","slug":"chris-holmes-interview-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=22478","title":{"rendered":"Chris Holmes Interview Exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kenny caught up with the enigma that is Chris Holmes just before he hit the stage on his recent performance in Crymlin as part of his UK Tour. Sit back relax and have a giggle its the one and only Chris Holmes.<\/mark><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a chat with me Chris!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2018No problem\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Welcome back to Wales. Can you remember the last time you were here?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ve ever been here\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw you in Cardiff with W.A.S.P.<\/strong> back in the day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oh yeah, I\u2019ve played there, is that in Wales?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Cardiff is the capital city of Wales.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You learn something new every day, y\u2019 know?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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How are you, Chris? You\u2019ve had a rough few years.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018<\/strong>Yeah, I\u2019m good, I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, going through the radiation and the chemo wasn\u2019t fun. I finished treatment exactly a year ago. I\u2019m still feeling the effects of the radiation, it was done in my neck, I can\u2019t swallow too good. My voice is getting better, I sing now. For the last year on the road, the singer sang all of my songs, it was weird playing them without singing, but I\u2019m gonna do them on this tour.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, your voice is much stronger now?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It hasn\u2019t got any stronger, it\u2019s just come back.\u2019 I lost a lot of weight; I went from a hundred and twenty kilos down to eighty-eight. I\u2019m back up to ninety-three kilos now.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell me about lockdown Chris, were you productive? Were you writing music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah, I\u2019ve got a bunch of music stored on a computer. In lockdown I recorded every song I ever wanted in my life from the internet. You can say that I bootlegged it, who cares about bootlegging? I never made any money from my publishing anyway. I sat for hours just getting every song and storing them on SD cards.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any new material from Mean Man?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Not right now, my computer went down. When I get that back up and running, I can record all the stuff and listen back and submit it to everyone else, depending on how I want to do the next album. Last album I did, it was actual people playing, the one before that I just programmed it all with Pro Tools.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have the rehearsals for the tour gone well?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah, yeah, we did three days and we\u2019re good.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about your current band Chris.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ve got the same drummer I\u2019ve had for about five or six years, Stephen Jackson, he\u2019s from Carlisle, he plays in a band called Heartbreak Remedy, when Mean Man is in the UK, he plays for Mean Man. The bass player is a guy named Charles Lambert, he\u2019s from Montreal and he speaks fluent French, I call him Chuck. We were going to tour together and then Covid hit, when Covid started dying down, Bam! I got cancer so we had to cancel everything. We did five shows in Canada together and I did a Q & A after a showing of my movie, the Mean Man documentary. I came out and I answered questions for around half an hour, and we played five songs. That was good. Florien plays guitar and sings back-up vocals.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it\u2019s a stable line up?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oh yeah, yeah. Usually, I have some guys from the Wicked Jackals, but they had some shows booked during this tour, so what can you do?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you looking forward to this UK run of shows?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes! I haven\u2019t really played properly for a long time.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You live in France; can you speak much French?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No, my wife does all of the translating.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you miss living in Los Angeles?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\u2018No, I was just there recently. In Cannes, the police are really nice, in LA they\u2019re pricks. I got tired of it; I was bothered every time I got in a car by a cop. Good cop, bad cop, I don\u2019t give a crap. I got sick and tired of it, it\u2019s the way that I look. I understand what black people must go through; I don\u2019t think it\u2019s very nice. They think I look like a drug addict criminal; I choose the way I look. To most cops in LA I look like a criminal and I got tired of it. In the UK I don\u2019t even see any cops! The cops in France are cool, they don\u2019t look at me like I\u2019m a criminal. I was just back in LA for two days because my father had passed away, I had to go and take care of everything.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My condolences Chris.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s the way it is, this planet. In a hundred years from now, this planet will still be turning, who knows what shape it\u2019s gonna be in? But we\u2019ll all be gone. I don\u2019t miss LA, the rock music scene, just aint happening, it kinda died out in the Nineties, a lot of the clubs are closed, it was a better decision to leave.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve always wanted to visit LA, see the Sunset Strip, Rainbow Bar & Grill etc.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If you\u2019re not from there, it\u2019s probably fun to check it out, I was born in LA so it\u2019s a lot different. I\u2019ve been going to that garbage all my life. I didn\u2019t come from out of state to make it in a band, I was stuck there, so it\u2019s a much different situation.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were you pleased with the reaction to the Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes film?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah, yeah, I\u2019m pleased with it, it just shows, a few of my friends have said, it shows a different side to you Chris. Instead of sitting in a pool drinking booze, a lot of people have a vision of the way I am. If that\u2019s all I did in W.A.S.P. I wouldn\u2019t have played in W.A.S.P., I did a lot more than drink alcohol. I actually made it onto a stage once or twice! (Laughs) That\u2019s not what most people think though.<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is it, having your wife as your manager?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I couldn\u2019t imagine, if I didn\u2019t have her, I wouldn\u2019t be doing this right now. I\u2019d probably be sitting in LA, I\u2019d either be in jail in LA, or I\u2019d be sitting there playing with Pro Tools somewhere in a closet, doing nuthin\u2019 trying to find some band in LA to play with me. I\u2019ve tried and tried and tried, nobody will really play with me. When I did find people, they would want to be put on a salary, it\u2019s all about money. I didn\u2019t make any money in W.A.S.P., I never got my publishing, I didn\u2019t understand how it worked when we signed the deal and all that stuff, I was taken advantage of by someone I considered at the time my best friend. I didn\u2019t understand how the situation worked back then, nobody told me, nobody explained it to me. They knew that I didn\u2019t understand it.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most musicians get into music to play music. Not to be an accountant.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019re right, the accountants and the people that know what\u2019s going on take advantage. It\u2019s really sad, when I actually looked into what\u2019s going on, it really jerks me wrong that I would actually be a friend to somebody like that. All these people say to me, God, you should be back in W.A.S.P., no, no. You screwed me once, you\u2019re not gonna screw me twice. No way. I did go back to W.A.S.P. in \u201895, I was promised it was a whole different ball game, everything will be cool. No, it was the same crap as before, it was the same narcissism as before, I just hung out on my own and did my job.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who inspired you to pick up a guitar Chris?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Jimi Hendrix was my first. My second would be Johnny Winter, my Mom always listened to the Stones and the Beatles. I would like to say Eddie Van Halen, but I was already playing guitar by the time I met him. I met him way before he was in Van Halen when he was in Mammoth. He was probably a bigger inspiration than Hendrix because I was friends with him. Inspiration as in, using a Marshall, how to set your equipment up on stage, how to treat other people, very important. I was in a dressing room in 1987, Van Halen\u2019s dressing room at the Omni theatre, snorting blow, guzzling down booze with Tony Iommi and Eddie Van Halen and who walks in? Blackie Lawless, thinks he\u2019s our friend. Eddie looks at me and goes \u2018Who in the fuck is this dickhead?\u2019 and Blackie walks right out. Ed could see the bullshit with people, he could see who\u2019s full of shit and who\u2019s not full of shit. He knew David Lee Roth was the way Dave was, Dave was exceptional with his lyric writing and Ed knew it was worth having him around.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 I learned a lot from Ed, I\u2019d see him play and just be envious, I wish I could play like that! One time we were at my house in Pasadena, I had just got this Marshall amp. This was before Sister and W.A.S.P. Ed was in the process of making the first Van Halen album. He was over, we were getting high on pot, some real good weed. I had my Marshall cranked and he was playing my guitar, he was doing some tricks and he goes \u2018Chris, you\u2019d better close your windows, your neighbours are gonna get mad and call the cops\u2019 I was like fuck the neighbours! and I was hoping they would think it was me playing! He was so good. He knew the insides and out of his gear. I learned a lot of tricks from him. If it wasn\u2019t for Ed, I wouldn\u2019t have the sound I have today. He was a big inspiration. Hendrix was a killer entertainer though.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You mentioned Tony Iommi, was he an influence?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I love Tony\u2019s sound and the way he plays guitar, he\u2019s killer. Those riffs. I can sit and play and come up with ideas easily though. I don\u2019t like using an acoustic, it must be an electric guitar\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was your first guitar?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018My sister had a flamenco guitar and I put some super slinky strings on it and bent the neck! (Laughs). So, you could say that was my first guitar, I then moved onto a Fender Jazzmaster, I didn\u2019t have too many guitars, I got an Ibanez destroyer when I was sixteen or seventeen, Eddie Van Halen used it on the second Van Halen album, I had broken my back in a motorcycle accident, and I was laid up in hospital. Eddie came in and asked if he could borrow my guitar. I said well, I aint gonna be playing for a while, he goes \u2018apparently not!\u2019 Then I got an endorsement with Jackson, so I\u2019ve never really bought many guitars.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was it like being a part of the LA backyard party scene back in the day? Did you ever play with other bands on the circuit like Van Halen etc?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah, I met Eddie at a party when he was in Mammoth, he had a guy named Michael Stone on bass and Alex (Van Halen) was on drums, they were playing all covers. Sabbath, ZZ Top, Ed would sing. I used to play at parties too, that\u2019s how it worked back then. If you were in a band, you would play at a party on a Friday and Saturday night. When we weren\u2019t playing, we would go and see Mammoth a lot. That was fun, good old times. Do they have that here in the UK?\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, we don\u2019t have the weather or pools in our gardens!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Oh yeah, we definitely had the weather. Sometimes we would get a friend to go to a gas station and call the police. They would come and bust the party and we wouldn\u2019t have to play too long, we could just party! (Laughs)\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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What was your biggest achievement as a member of W.A.S.P.?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Probably just staying alive\u2026that really is my biggest achievement. I really didn\u2019t give a crap back then; I burned the candle at both ends. When I was young, there was no say no to drugs, if you didn\u2019t do drugs and alcohol, you were an outcast. I\u2019m from California, born and raised in Pasadena, all my friends did drugs. I don\u2019t even want to get into it, I was really stupid. I\u2019m still here, that\u2019s my biggest achievement. How many records did W.A.S.P. sell? I don\u2019t really care, I have some gold records, they\u2019re in a box somewhere at my mom\u2019s, I don\u2019t really give a shit about it because I look at them as a reminder of getting ripped off, rather than I sold 250 million records or whatever. To me that\u2019s a bunch of crap, because I didn\u2019t get any of my publishing so I really couldn\u2019t give a shit. It\u2019s sad, it\u2019s sad. That\u2019s something that at the age of fifteen I would have died for, a gold record? That was my dream. When I got it, I didn\u2019t get what\u2019s supposed to come with it, a nice house, cars and all that stuff. I was always in the dark, that\u2019s the way it is. It\u2019s sad that that\u2019s what that bands about, it\u2019s all about just the money.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are your memories of the Ronnie James Dio charity project Hear N Aid?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It was horrible. I knew Jimmy Bain well, a year before he died, he said, Chris, we personally asked your management if you could come and play guitar and they said that you had other obligations and couldn\u2019t. Did you see me playing guitar on there? You know why I didn\u2019t? It\u2019s because of one man\u2019s jealousy, I went to sing on there, yes, I sang on there because I went with Rod (Smallwood) our manager and Blackie Lawless. Jimmy Bain asked FOUR times and they said I couldn\u2019t play; I had other obligations. That came from Blackie Lawless himself, he was jealous, didn\u2019t want me being seen better than him. That\u2019s what happens when you work with a narcissist. That Hear N Aid thing is a crock of shit to me, a bunch of crap. It was nothing but a jealousy thing. I don\u2019t care what people say about that, when Jimmy told me that, we were great friends, we hung out together, he said we asked your management four times, I said, why didn\u2019t you just ask me personally Jimmy? He said, we didn\u2019t know how to get hold of you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Do you know why I did the Decline of Western Civilisation? Penelope (Spheeris \u2013 Director) called me personally. That\u2019s why I did it. She didn\u2019t call the management, she talked to me personally. She knew somebody that knew me, if she had talked to management, of course they would have said no. You know how many times I\u2019d be on the road, this is about 1998, I found a bicycle in Switzerland and before soundcheck, I\u2019d wake up on the bus, we were staying on the bus instead of hotel rooms. I would ride the bike around, come back play the show and then at night we would do a meet and greet, I never got paid any money for them, but fans would have to pay to meet us. A photographer I knew says, Chris, where were you today? I said why? He said, we requested an interview for you personally and management said you got other obligations. I was like, I was off riding my bike, I could have done it. It sucks that somebody keeps you down, its sad. That\u2019s why I hate that whole situation.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ve been referred to as the American equivalent of Lemmy on numerous occasions, and you worked closely with Philthy Animal Taylor. Tell us about that.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Philthy is one of the reasons I sing. A lot of people hate my voice, but Phil was one of the reasons why, if it wasn\u2019t for my wife and Phil I wouldn\u2019t have done my solo albums. He was a big inspiration for me, he taught me how to use Pro Tools and how to put drum tracks down. Phil was one of the coolest musicians I ever met in my life. He was famous but had a heart of gold. He didn\u2019t like fake people, he didn\u2019t like assholes, he wouldn\u2019t even talk to \u2018em. Believe it or not, he was a very quiet person.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you left W.A.S.P. in 1991, you formed a band called Psycho Squad, do you think the grunge movement was instrumental in the band not taking off?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We all drank, you know, they weren\u2019t signing bands like mine with the kind of music I did, they weren\u2019t signing anybody at that time. Bands like mine couldn\u2019t get a deal, grunge was happening, and I didn\u2019t play grunge. It was a great band, if it was a few years before that it would have been good, but it was the wrong time.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You seem to be happiest when you\u2019re playing guitar, do you feel that playing is the most important thing to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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\u2018Yeah, my first wife was pregnant, and I wanted to do music more that raise a kid, my mom told me that if I stay around then the kid would get in the way of your music and ruin your career. I made a lot of sacrifices. I just enjoy playing, watching people enjoying themselves and enjoying the music you know? Now, a lot of people see me, I\u2019ve been doing this for forty years, I play a certain way, I\u2019m the only guy on the planet that plays like I do. I got my own sound, and some people still enjoy watching me play. I\u2019m not schooled at music at all, I\u2019ve learned what a major and minor chord is (laughs) I play by feel.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 My guitar sound is a really clean guitar sound, it\u2019s got distortion, there\u2019s ways of overdriving your equipment without getting white and pink noise. If you ever went to a Motorhead concert, now there\u2019s white and pink noise! So loud and distorted but that was Motorhead! Phil Campbell is coming down tonight, we\u2019re old time LA birds of a feather. He\u2019s always treated me with the utmost respect.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris, on behalf of RPM Online, thank you so much for your time. Have a great gig tonight and enjoy the rest of the tour!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Thanks man, appreciate it.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandcamp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenny caught up with the enigma that is Chris Holmes just before he hit the stage on his recent performance in Crymlin as part of his UK Tour. Sit back relax and have a giggle its the one and only Chris Holmes. Thanks so much for taking the time to have a chat with me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22485,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3210,8282,3935,7695,3132,8283,3209],"class_list":["post-22478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interviews","tag-blackie-lawless","tag-chris-holmes","tag-dio","tag-hear-n-aid","tag-metal","tag-the-decline-of-western-civilisation","tag-wasp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22486,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22478\/revisions\/22486"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}