Recapping the last 24 months

Q: It seems like yonks since you were last here, in Japan but it’s only just coming up for two years. March 2023 to be precise. A turbulent couple of years for you. Starting with your health, how are you these days?

JD: Yeah, well, I'll just say the same as I say to everybody really. I'm in the gym every day. Age appropriate training now. I'm not the maniac that I used to be but Monday to Friday, five days a week, I'm in there. I do 15-20 minutes. A little bit of weight training, stuff like that. The diet is as it has always been, clean as a whistle and even cleaner now. I monitor everything that I eat but I've always had a good diet and honestly, Glenn, I suppose it's the same as everybody. You have good days and bad days. Some days I feel great, other days I feel okay. Then I'll have an off day. And then I have the days where I do not function but you can say that about everybody at the end of the day, I suppose. The last cardiology appointment that I had, they did an ultrasound on my heart. The cardiologist basically said that “the right-hand side of my heart is still pumping but not as strong as it should be but

the bypass is working fine; the left-hand side of your heart is functioning quite normal That's where you've got the stents. For a 63-year-old man who's had two heart attacks, you're doing okay.” and I says, “You know, I've trained since I was 10 years old. My diet's amazing. Yes, I did smoke for a while. I was always a guilty smoker and I knew it was bad for me but I enjoyed the cigarettes. I don't drink alcohol.” He says, “Look, you could train 24-7. You could go vegan, but you are one of those individuals who are predisposed to manufacturing vast quantities of LDL cholesterol and that is the main thing which has clogged your arteries and everything. Every cell in your body manufactures cholesterol - you are a cholesterol factory. Let's put it that way. It's hereditary. It's genetics and there's nothing you can do about that. The first one was waiting to happen and it's just fortunate that you were in such a strong physical state when it did happen with your training, your diet, and everything like that. Had you been a person who just didn't care, alcohol, kebabs, all that, you would have gone permanently. You were lucky to come back.” He says, but you would have been gone. And then he said, in my opinion, if you had remained on the statins, this second heart attack would not have happened.

 

Q: April 2024, that second heart attack, was that a psychological blow as well as physical?

 

JD: Oh, massive. It's still affecting me now. I mean, this is one thing I was going to talk to you about because I desperately want to go to Japan. I desperately want to play live. There's no question about that. I want to go but the thought of getting on a plane and being in that little tube up there, I'm like, oh, I don't know. Can I do it? Because obviously now having had the two heart attacks, any twinge, anything, its ‘boom’, the alarm bells go off immediately. Even though I know what the full-blown thing is like. I'd finished building a load more stuff for the cats. I'd extended all their bit and I'd made these pergolas outside and stuff. So I just kept myself busy and I was literally just putting some little solar lights up, just pinning them to the wood and I was like, oh, I recognise that. So I took a slow walk up to the house. Sat down. Anita came through. She was like, are you okay? I was like, it just feels a little bit, let's just say it just feels a little bit weird. And then it went. Next thing I knew, there was two ambulances at the house. I'm on the sofa, fucking wired up the fucking machines. And then stuffed into a wheelchair, taken outside. Made fucking half the villagers come out…’What's happening?’. I was rushed straight back to the fucking same ward I was on when I had the first one. And there was a nurse on there, this male nurse called Andre. Wonderful guy (when I was in there the first time, he actually brought one of his guitars in for me to just sit and play) and he walked in with a fucking clipboard and he said, “You can't keep away from this place. What the fuck are you doing back here?” The scary thing with the second one was that it came out of nowhere. The first one, I've got to admit, I knew because on tour I was having chest pains every night. I was blaming it all on indigestion and stuff like that. But I think at the bottom of me, there was something inside going, you're a fucking idiot. You know what's going on here. Those chest pains went on for years. Fucking years. It was just gung-ho fucking stupidity. That's what it was - and I'm fucking lucky.

 

Now

Q: You quite rightly took a long time to recuperate and think about life. You've obviously made decisions; the main one is to leave Venom Inc which is well documented elsewhere so let’s start talking about this new single of yours.

 

JD: The song itself was written, oh Christ almighty, about 18 months ago and it was still when I was just exploring vocals, to say, well, can I do it? You know, if I can make a noise, what kind of noise am I going to make? I'm not going to be fucking Glenn Hughes. I know that for a fact but it was when I did the Resurrected thing, I thought, well, there's something there. I had passed it around to some friends who would give me an honest opinion and they were all like, that's pretty good. Anyway, I wrote Losing My Faith and that came about because every night we turned on the news channel, there was a war, here was a murder, there was some kid had stabbed another kid in London, there was famine. It was just like, what the fuck is going on in the world? And that's what it is. It's me losing my faith in humanity. It's got nothing to do with him upstairs or him down there. It's like, they don't fucking exist. It's about the human race fucking everything up. There will be do a limited run of 12” inch vinyl of it being done by some of my friends in Italy.

I've written another song specifically for it called Eyes of Madness and there's an instrumental called Unleashed, which I did during the pandemic times – that’s been remixed – and I'm also reading a chapter from the book so there's four pieces of audio on it. I've designed the cover and there's going to be a little insert, little lyrics and stuff like that. So I've just sent all that material off to them today and I'll get a certain amount of those and I'm going to do like a bundle with a t-shirt and there's like lanyards and picks and badges and stuff like that as a part of this little bundle that I'm just going to put out. I'm really enjoying doing it; That's the thing, Glenn and I think the vocal thing is starting to get a bit better. Typical of me, if I go into anything, I'll search it out and search it out and search it out. Every night when I finish in the studio, I go up to the house on a night time and Anita watches a lot of TV, but I'm not really a TV watcher so I'll sit with my laptop, headphones on, and it's all been YouTube, vocal tuition, this, that, and the other, learning about diaphragm control, all this kind of thing and I've got to the stage now where I can do it aggressively and I don't get the sore throat anymore. So, I know I'm doing something right in that range in and then the guitar playing as well. I'm tuned up to standard, bottom E is dropped down to D. It's different tuning so it's making me play different and exploring different scales for solos. I couldn't tell you what I'm playing because the theory side, I can't be bothered with it; I just know it sounds good.

 

Q: The pace of it, the delivery, the riff, the melody…it all adds up to a very – for want of a better word - crossover Metal song. It’s not shouty vocals with a gymnastic solo, it’s really tasteful throughout.

 

JD: A lot of people have forgotten that you can have heavy metal with melody. In fact, the majority have forgotten you could have heavy metal with melody. The next thing from me is Eyes of Madness which is in the same vein and there's a track called Generation which is probably more Rock than anything but I totally get what you're saying about the melody. I think Heavy Metal, it sort of went down that route where there's a lot of bands now that are just being heavy for the sake of being heavy. I agree with you. It's like there isn't anything there. We're the same age, so we come from that age of hook lines and melodies and choruses. That's the thing I love about Priest, what I've always loved about Priest. Let's say we go to the Budokan and we're sitting there watching Priest. They tear our faces off with Painkiller or Exciter or The Ripper or something like that and then the very next song, you're singing along to Living After Midnight. I like that. I like the heaviness, but I don't think you need to sacrifice the melody or the catchiness or the hook line for it. One thing I've always done when I've been writing is, I always think, if this is going to be played live, where's the audience going to join in? Which parts are they going to remember when they walk out of the hall? When they're walking out of there, what are they going to be singing? Are they going to be singing one of these songs? I just think that's what makes memorable music. It's another thing that I've always said. You can bash a band like Kiss as much as you want, but fucking hell, look at the songs they've written and for me, that's what it's always about. It's not about, as a guitarist, being so self-indulgent and how many notes can I fit into this solo. That's why I love Gary Moore so much because it doesn't matter how long I haven't heard a particular Gary Moore song for, if I put that song on, I can still sing the solo. As soon as it kicks in, I know where he's going. I appreciate these people who do the gymnastics. When you watch them, you go, holy shit, I could never do that in a million years. Truth being, I would never want to do that in a million years. (laughs) I don't care. Gene Simmons, when they were auditioning other guitarists, he says, ‘We'd have all these guitarists that came in and it just sounds like a fucking angry bee. I want to hear the simple A chord that cracks your ribs.’ That's what Angus Young does. Angus will walk to the stage, play an A, a G, and a D. Highway To Hell kicks off, everybody goes crazy. Another thing I'm trying desperately to do with these songs as well is get back to the simplicity and the naivety that I had when I first started writing. I've actually got a template that I look at when I'm playing. And I've got it marked out now. Really, it doesn't matter, verse, bridge, chorus, solo, chorus, chorus, out, or whatever but I'm looking at the general length of the song now. And I'm thinking, three minutes, three and a half minutes, that's it. Don't bother us, get to the chorus and that's what I'm aiming for with this batch of songs but at the same time, keeping it heavy. You listen to 2112 by Rush, and even though it's an amazing piece of music, you're quite exhausted at the end of it. Twenty minutes of music, all in one go. And yes, there's people who will appreciate that, all the progressive rock and all that kind of stuff, long songs but for what I'm doing now, I think, short, sharp, shock. Wallop in, out, that's it. Done.

 

Q: I thought the solo, particularly the first few bars is - and this a is a compliment – very Hendrix…

 

JD: Do you know what it is? I get the Hendrix thing but it’s Frank Marino. (Jeff demonstrates the opening of the solo on guitar). Marino was one of the most underrated guitarists ever. You listen to that Mahogany Rush Live album and it's like, holy crap! Even Zack Wilde will reference Frank Marino. he was astounding. If you go onto YouTube, the actual concert, which was recorded for Mahogany Rush Live, they've got this grainy footage of it and even back then, his tone, it was a very 70s chorus Rock tone but his guitar sound was massive! I just love his playing. I mean, it's obviously very, very bluesy, very Hendrix-y influence, but he's got a lot of these little jazz runs that he'll put in. All of a sudden, they come out of nowhere and you're like, wow! And I love his voice as well; he's a great singer. Anyway, solo-wise, that's where the actual opening to the solo is from. It's all just the root note and the octave of a power chord, those things that Hendrix used to do. There's a lot more of that kind of stuff coming into the songs that I'm writing right now. A lot more Bluesy stuff that I'm putting in, which is going to remain. It's still going to have that heaviness because I would never turn around and say, oh, now I'm a Blues player. I think my playing's always been blues-based in as much as I'm a pentatonic guy. That's basically me. I'm not one of these... I couldn't tell you one mode from another, to be perfectly honest. All this bollocks of sweeping arpeggios and all this kind of stuff, I can do a little bit of that, but to be honest, it bores me. I've always said, if someone said, pick three guitarists and we're going to put them in a bowl, mix them all up, and then that's going to be you, it would be Frank Marino, Gary Moore and Zach Wild and they're all pentatonic, Blues-based players and that's what I love. Years and years ago, I bought a VHS tape from a music store in Newcastle, and it was one of these instructional Lick Library type of things. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was Yngwie Malmsteen. So I took it home, put it on, watched it, and just went, there's not a fucking hope in hell I'll ever do that. Right, next! (laughs) But there was one part of this VHS where he sat down and he played along to a Blues track. It had a Blues backing track, and he was just playing along to it. There wasn't a sweeping arpeggio in there and wow, it sounded fucking amazing. Really tasteful. I've always said about Gary Moore that Gary can play that one note and it's right up the back of your spine and the goosebumps are there but then he can melt your face with some run and then he'll go into another memorable piece of melody. That's what I love about Gary Moore. He can do all the fast stuff - that run he does in Out of the Fields is all the way up my fucking neck - but at the end of it, you've got that melodic solo... It's almost anthemic. That's where I wish that my guitar playing could go to. I always construct my solos now. Hopefully, I would love to think that I can go out and do this stuff live. I really would. I would love to do it. As soon as Losing My Faith went out, I had a couple of friends who messaged me. Private messages, if you're going out live, I'm your man. I've already got the drummer there. (smiles)

 

Q: On a couple of the videos, those reel things you do, you’ve mentioned ‘the book’. Where are you with that?

 

JD: There's a lot of chapters done but I still probably haven't covered everything that I want to cover in it. The thing is, it's a lot harder than putting an album together. I did think to use a ghostwriter or something like that but then I thought the way I've ended up writing it, it is the way that I'll have a conversation with someone and that is, I'll be talking about one subject and then my little brain goes ‘Oh what's down that road?’ and I'll go off on something else. That’s the way I've written the book, just like I'm having a conversation with someone and there's no particular order to the chapters either; it's just memoir after memoir of what I remember from here to there. There’s obviously a lot of Venom stuff but there's a lot of personal stuff in there as well. During the pandemic, I was watching all the old VHS things, camcorder personal footage and there was a VHS I've got of the reunion period in ‘96 and I was like looking at these three guys having fun. I just sat there and there was one point, where I was actually quite choked. I was just looking thinking ‘Fuck where did that go? What the fuck happened?’ I've got a picture of Rush on my phone and apparently, it's one of the last selfies that Geddy Lee took when the three of them were together, before Neil Peart died. When I looked at that photograph, there was three people there who were totally happy in each other's company and all smiling. I just thought. ‘I'm jealous of that.’ When I did the Patreon thing, there was a few months where for the people who were subscribing to the Patreon, I read a few chapters from the books and the feedback I got was brilliant. I'm going to have a think about this because I'd love to finish it Glenn and like I said, there's a lot of Venom fans they won't like the book because I'm telling the truth but this is actually what fucking happened.

Q: As usual mate, we’ve gone on a bit but it’s always so good to talk to you and as you are writing the book the way you talk, it’s going to be an excellent read. Better go, take care and we’ll talk again soon.

 

JD: Alright mate. Speak to you soon.