Artist: David 'Rock' Feinstein  

Date: 9th December 2010   

MM - Hi David, I'd like to start by congratulating you on your superb new album 'Bitten By The Beast', it's very much in the old school rock style, which I love.
DF - Why thank you.  I'm kind of a one dimensional technical guitar player, I play basically one style.  I think that even if I tried to play something differently, I don't think it would come out any different to how I usually play.  I've been asked before if I intentionally set out to make it sound old school and I didn't.  There was nothing intentional to it, it's just the way it turned out.  I agree it is very old school though.  

MM - Well there's nothing wrong with old school, that's the kind of music I was brought up on! (laughs)
DF - No there's nothing wrong with it all. (laughs)
MM - I remember seeing you many moons ago with The Rods when you supported Iron Maiden out on tour. 
DF - Yes I think we did something like a 30 date tour with them back in 1981. 
MM - Yes we were all just young pups back then enjoying our music (laughs).

MM - How long did it take to put the album together? 
DF - Well some of those instrumental tracks I've had around for a while and I just kept looking at them. 

For the last 8 or 10 years Ronnie and I have kept talking about doing something together.  Of course he lived in California and I'm was out here in New York, we were 3,000 miles apart so it was very difficult for us to make the time to do something together, with us living so far apart and everything.  Then every time we would see each other we'd talk about it.  We thought maybe he'd sing a song on my solo album or I'd sing a song on one of his albums, then about a year and a half to two years ago Ronnie was coming home more frequently, because his mother had taken ill.  He called me and said he'd be in town and maybe we could get together and do a couple of tracks together. I thought Yeh, this is going to be great, we're finally going to get around to doing something together. 

The day before I picked Ronnie and Wendy up at the airport I'd only just wrote the song 'Metal Will Never Die' and I'd put the song together rather quickly.  Usually a song doesn't come together that quickly, usually I'd just have an idea for a riff or a concept for a song, but the whole song doesn't usually come together so simultaneously.  That song pretty much did, the melody, the riffs, everything just pretty much came together.  This was just the day before.

Ronnie called me and Carl and I were putting together some songs for The Rods and when we heard 'Metal Will Never Die' in demo form, we both agreed that this was a song for Ronnie, because it sounded like a song that would be right up his alley.   We choose that song and we chose another song for him to sing.  When I went to pick Ronnie up I had this CD with both songs on in rough version for Ronnie to hear.  He'd never heard the songs before and we went to the studio and he listen to these songs and we played them for maybe a couple of minute.  Then he went straight in and sang them both like a world class performance for both of these songs, even though he had never heard these songs before.  It was all very sporadic.  He was able to take a song and give it his identity, he did such an amazing thing with these songs.

So then we had these two songs and at that time we didn't know if they would go on one of my albums or one of The Rod's albums.  We really didn't know anything other than finally we had these two songs recorded.  I had a few songs that I was working on and had nearly finished with for my solo album.  I started recording around November last year (2009) and it was around the time I was recording those songs that Ronnie was diagnosed with Cancer.  I was in a really emotional state and some of the songs, particularly songs like 'Kill the Demon' is basically about Ronnie and his fight with Cancer. 

I was going through such an emotional time but in the end I got the album done and I was speaking with Ronnie and Wendy and I said that I'd like to use one of the songs that Ronnie had recorded on my solo album.  Then the other one could go on the album that the Rods had done.  So last March (2010) I went up to California to see Ronnie, he said to me ... why don't you come out and bring the record and we can master it together out here.  I will take you out to the studio and we can do it out here together.  So I went out there with the record. 

At the time Ronnie wasn't feeling too well, he was plagued with Cancer and was in a lot of pain, but he had a very positive attitude and even though he was suffering a lot, he was determined that he would make a full recovery.  So on one of the days I was there we went to the studio and we mastered the album together.  I got to spend a lot of quality of time with him while I was visiting him for the week, then I came back home and the news came through that he had passed away.  It shined a whole different light on the album and the songs.  Now the song 'Metal Never Dies' feels like the most important song I have ever written as it's part of his legacy.  It means so much to me, not only because of the song itself, but because we got to spend so much time together while doing the album.  It's almost like it was destiny for me to write that song and for Ronnie to sing it.  This album really does mean to world to me.

MM - The track itself has that traditional Dio / Black Sabbath feel to it, but the whole background to it only goes to increase it's musical value as a legacy to the great man himself.  I had the pleasure to meet Ronnie once on the 'Holy Diver' tour.  At the end of the show the band set some tables up inside the concert hall and all the fans were queuing up outside, then they reopened the doors and Ronnie and the band came out and met everyone and shook everyone's hands.  That's what people would call a 'Meet and Greet' now and you'd have to pay a lot for money to do that now, but back then Ronnie knew the fans wanted to meet him and just did it. 
DF - He was an amazing person and really cared about the fans.  It wasn't really until I went to the funeral in California that I truly realised just how many people would remember him for not only being the rock star and greatest singers of all time, but that most people would remember him for the fact he would always take the time out to listen to people.  If you wanted to talk to him he would listen to you, and even if you didn't meet him again for another year he would remember you and remember your name and your kids name.  His fans really were all important to him.  I've seen him standing in the rain and sick but signing autographs because that was what mattered to him.  He'd do it until the very last one was done.

MM - I think his music appealed to fans of all the Rock and Metal genres, he inspired so many musicians in so many ways, not just those that played the same types of music as he did.  
DF - I remember years back, a lot of people probably don't even realise this, but we made some really commercial sounding records back in the day with Ronnie and The Prophets.  We recorded a song that Cher had a hit with long before Cher sang it, 'On The Wings Of Love'.  It has an amazing vocal by Ronnie on it. 

Ronnie had the vocal to be successful in whatever style of vocal he chose to do.  He used to have a type of Tom Jones voice and would have made a success of that if he'd continued to do that style of vocal.  He had the talent to sing like that, but he chose rock n' roll because it was inside him.  He had the vocal talent to do any style he wanted to do, I think that's why his voice crosses over and reaches out to so many people, because they understand him.  

MM - Getting back to the album, did you have a set agenda of how it was going to sound or did it just develop that way.  There's quite a few different vibes on it. 
DF - Back in the Elf days we used to do a song like 'Rock's Boogie', which didn't sound like the song on the album, but back in the day the musicians jammed a lot more, with a lot of the musicians playing along solo.  I had the idea to use the title 'Rock's Boogie' because it had the same sort of tempo as those old songs we used to do.  It was also the type of song we would have done back in the Elf days.  The song 'Gambler, Gambler' actually did feature on the first Elf album.

MM - Yes that was going to be my next question, what made you choose that particular track? 
DF - Well that song, I just thought it would be cool to do a song off the first Elf album and I thought that song would be a good one to do as I think it's a good song.  Secondly there was a story around that song that related to Ronnie.  At the time I wrote that song Ronnie lived next door to me.  There was this person we knew who was a bookie and would take bets over the phone, well that's illegal over here to do that but what this person would do was, he would pay you if he could come in and use your telephone.  He would pay you and then after 2 or 3 days he would jump to someone else's phone so he couldn't be traced easily, but he'd pay you for the time he used your phone.

So at the time he was using Ronnie's telephone and during that time he got busted by the police and of course Ronnie got involved a little bit, nothing serious, but that was what inspired that song 'Gambler, Gambler' to be written in the first place.  It was the fact that this guy was using Ronnie's phone and he got busted and I thought that was a neat connection.  I thought that song was good, so that song and 'Rocks Boogie', I kind of liked them both as they give a different flavour to the album.

MM - I understand there is going to be a new Rods album out next year is that correct?
DF - Yes we're currently working on that right now and we expect it to be realised about the April / May time (2011).  It will be the same label that my solo record is on.  That's the label that Ronnie and Wendy set up together.  Actually they started the label before Ronnie got sick.  There's another song that Ronnie sang that will be on that album.  

MM - Any idea of the title of the new album will be?
DF - The title of the album is going to be called 'Vengeance', and the title of the song that Ronnie sang on is 'The Poet'.  

MM - Is it similar to 'Metal Will Never Die'? 
DF - No it's very much a different styled song to 'Metal Will Never Die'.  It's a song that Carl Kennedy wrote for the band, when he brought in the song for us to listen to we both knew that it wasn't really a Rods style song and we knew Ronnie was coming to sing.  We both said that this was definitely something more that Ronnie would be interested to do.  It's kind of a heavy song and I think the fans are really going to like it.  It's different. It's a great song and Ronnie of course did an amazing vocal on it.  

MM - Will their be a tour to promote your solo album and the Rods new album or are you going to combine the both? 
DF - We're going to combine them both.  If I went out to promote the solo album then the Rods would come out with me to play.  We're kind of like the 3 musketeers.  We know how each other performs so it will be the Rods playing some of the Rods new album and some of my new album.  We do plan to come out and tour this coming year (2011), but we just don't know when and where as we haven't booked anything yet.

MM - It's been quite some time since the Rods played over here in the UK. 
DF - Yeh is has, it would be great to come over and play there because we did so well when we were there with Iron Maiden.

MM - It was a high energy rock n' roll band we saw on that tour and that's the sort of band everyone came out to see in the 80's.  The Rods were one of the original power trios. 
DF - Yes that was the time when the first New Wave Of Heavy Metal bands were coming out.  We didn't realise it, we were just doing what we did.  As history proved, all the bands from that time just developed from there onwards.

MM - Comparing to how it is now for bands and to how it was back then, obviously it's not the same but do you ever find yourself looking back on those days as being the 'hey-days'?
DF - Well going out and playing live I don't think is all that different now to it was back then.  As far as our band goes I think we're probably playing better now than we did back then.  When we get together now and play together it's like WOW!, We've never really lost anything, that's pretty much the same.  The business part is different now because of the internet and the effect that has had on the music.  Now you are in contact with the whole world, whereas before when you didn't have the internet, we didn't even know how many fans we had back then, because we weren't able to be in touch with them the way we are now.

Once the internet came into effect and you started to get emails and solicitations from all over the world you soon realised that there is a lot of fans out there.  In that respect the business is very different.  Also back in the day you needed to have a record company and bands needed to have a record deal to have a record out.  Now you can make your own music and put it on the internet and sell it yourself.  In some cases you don't need a record label behind you, but back in those days you did.  If you didn't have a record deal with somebody then nobody ever got to hear your music.  You were kind of at the mercy of the record labels back then and that's the biggest difference about the business part of it today.

MM - What's the feedback been like on the new album?
DF - I've got really great feedback and a lot of the reviewers have been really great to me.  I don't think anyone that I speak to is going to tell me they don't like the album, but the people who write reviews, the response from them has been very good so far.

It was important to me that I was happy with the album and all the way through the album, I never thought about what anyone else might think about the album.  As long as I was happy with it at the end then that's all that really mattered to me.  If I wasn't happy with it then I wouldn't say ... here it is world, if you like it great, if you don't well it doesn't really matter to me.  If I hadn't liked it in the first place then I wouldn't have let anyone else hear it, but I'm really happy with it and I know Ronnie was also really happy with it.

MM - The album is something that you can come back to and listen to time and time again.  I really like it. Thank you very much for taking the time out to talk to us today, we really appreciate it.
DF - Thank you because I really appreciate you taking the time out to talk to me also and I really hope we come out and play live.  Playing live is really what it's all about and to be able to play these new songs live is something that I really hope we are able to do this year. 

MM - I'd love to see The Rods come back and play in the UK some time and I know there's a lot of people out there that would also love to see you do your full rock n' roll show. Good luck with this album and with the new Rods album also.

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