Artist: Tony Mills  

Date:   10 October 2008

Hailing from sunny old England and known to many the world over as the lead singer of rock band TNT, we catch up with Tony Mills, a man with his feet and heart firmly planted in good old fashioned hard rock. 

MM - Hi Tony, good to catch up with you again.
Tony - Hello, No problem!
(True to form and in typical airhead style we'd only just got the "Hello's!" out the way when I promptly cut Tony off, by accident I hasten to add!  A quick press of the re-dial button and we're reconnected and back on with the interview.)

MM - How long have you been back in the UK this time?
Tony - About 4 days.
MM - Do you ever suffer from jet-leg going back and forth all the time?
Tony - You don't so much get jet-leg you just get tired because the travelling on those days is quite long.  I try not to do a concert the same night and try to travel across the day before so I can get some sleep before the actual concert day.  A lot of the flights I take are 6 am leaving for the UK.  Last weekend I came off stage from playing a gig at 2 am and was at the airport for the 6 am flight, so I was back in Birmingham for 10 am the same day. It's bloody crazy to be honest with you.  I like to try and get over there as quick as I can otherwise I'll spend all my money and won't have anything left! (laughs).  

MM - OK, on to the new album now.  The new album 'Atlantis' definitely shows that the band aren't afraid to expel what they'd done before and extend the band that is TNT musically further again?
Tony - Well we certainly don't write songs to satisfy certain groups of fans or certain groups of people, we just do what we want to do.  We don't write albums to satisfy people or a specific market to sell records, that's not what the bands about at all.  The band's about doing what you want to do internally and if people jump on for the ride with that then fine, if they dig the stuff then great, but really the band doesn't care because it has a very introvert attitude, that's never going to change.

The song 'Hello Hello' which is the first song on the new album was written in relation to the old TNT fans to say that we're still here, are you still there?, if you are great, if you're not then fine enjoy your life.  Because the band is going to carry on changing, we cannot write to a specific market because that market has already changed before you know it anyway, so to try and copy the most popular Bon Jovi song or whatever is no good because that market has already moved on.  You can't think like that.

MM - I know I have said this to you before but I do genuinely prefer this new album and the last album to some of the more recent TNT albums that were released just before them.  This new album and the last one are a bit more colourful and they don't sound like they will date as much.
Tony - It's a brave band really because we're not frightened to stick our necks out and approach subject material that nobody else would do. I have to calm some of it down a bit sometimes.  For example with the Peter Sellers track I already had some ideas written down about it and it was really a song about the size of Peter Sellers cock!  I thought to myself, how am I going to sing about this, I think I might have to re-write that because as an Englishman I felt like I was de-facing myself by singing about the size of his cock.  I thought I can't do that!, so I had to re-write it.

But you see the Norwegian humour is very different from our humour and they don't understand why anyone would be put out by such a thing, but I knew because this is work and the whole commercial aspect of this thing, that I had to be careful what we wrote as a rock band and what I sing about.  I have to portray these songs to the English and American rock fans in a way that's convincing without sounding like some mad Viking.  Mr Tekro did a pretty good job of the record and a lot of things he wrote without any help from me I was very satisfied with.       

MM - That leads me on to my next question which was how does the writing go in the band, who writes the words, who writes the music, do you all chip in with ideas of stick to your own bits?
Tony - Well this year I was quite busy doing the solo album so I couldn't get to Spain to start the new TNT album, so I said to Tekro that he would have to wait until I got to Oslo.  He's formulated a lot of musical bands in Spain on his own and he's already written a lot of the melodies and lyrics and he was already happy with them and he didn't really want to change that. 

So when I landed in Oslo I got something to which I either had to say that we couldn't sing this in English because it simply wouldn't work, or else it was more of less finished and it was fine.  It is a team effort, it's just that I didn't get the chance to do as much on this record as I would have liked because I was busy with the solo album.  I think I did a lot more on the last record than this one, but I wasn't dissatisfied with the ideas and Ronnie would always say if I wanted to change anything then that was fine, just speak up.  I said no, actually a lot of these things I wouldn't want to change at all.  The band are quite happy the way they are. 

MM - When you recorded the vocals, did you record them all when you were over in Norway? 
Tony - Yes.  I do have a recording facility here in England but the band is very much a band that has to live together during the recording process.  Not necessarily during the writing process but definitely throughout the recording process.  There is no escape from them, they have to live in each others pockets.  I wouldn't really want it any other way.  It's an experience really and unless you're there actually living the record then it won't be as good as an entity. 

You can tell sometimes that the vocals have been done by email on an album because you don't get a convincing performance or a realistic outcome, so Ronnie wouldn't allow that anyway and the accommodation is very good where we live, which is just outside Oslo in the mountains.  That's where we lived together as a band for a few weeks during the making of the record.  So yeh, it all has to be done over in Oslo.

MM - When you're actually singing your parts does Ronnie or any of the others ever say to you ... have you considered doing this a different way, or I think you can do that stronger or slightly different?
Tony - It's more so than that really because on this record, unlike the last album, the producer H P Gunderson who comes from Bergen, he did some direction on the vocals and I wasn't altogether satisfied with what had happened during the recording and we'd split the recording into two sections.  I came back to England for a week and then I went back to finish the record and when I went back we scrapped everything I'd done with the producer and Ronnie Le Tekro produced all the vocals throughout the album after that. 

He is a brilliant vocal producer, because he's the guitarist and he knows the ability of the harmonies there, also he wrote all the music so nobody could know better than him what could be possible on that record.  He had me singing all sorts of bloody things I'd never even thought of so he is a very efficient producer and I don't really see much of a point in the future, in bringing in an external producer when Ronnie's so good at it himself. 

So yes, he did tell me a lot of things I should sing and he also did a lot of vocals himself as well.  I was sat behind the desk waiting of the shout and it never came and there was Ronnie singing his 30 second harmony.  I thought well bugger me I'll go and have a beer! (laughs). It sounds great.   

MM - The album contains a lot of different vibes and dips in and out of the 60's pop sounds like Bowie, the Rolling Stones and maybe the Beatles, and maybe some of the harder sounds of the 70's such as Deep Purple, but at the same time it includes a lot of contemporary newer sounds.  For all it's influences are quite diverse it flows really well, perhaps even slightly more than the last album did.
Tony - I agree.  I think the last album was child in comparison to this album.  This is a very mature album and it's a real ground-breaking piece of work.  We broke a lot of rules in the recording with regards to commercial consistency and we did a lot of things that people really weren't expecting to hear, that isn't going to change and it will happen again on the next album.  I totally agree that there are honest influences on the album like ELO.  ELO kept popping up into my head whenever I was listening to the album after we'd mixed it.  I thought well bugger me, I didn't hear that influence when we were recording it! 

Now I can hear some Queen in there and there's obviously some Beatles arrangements and things like that.  People are shouting up Cheap Trick and various other bands, but I totally agree there's no doubt that Tekro and myself were really born during the late 60's the very early 70's and the music around at that time has really been an inspiration to us.  We've shed off a lot of this inspiration that we've been carrying around all this time on to this record and I think that's great.

MM - The last album was very split camp, I think you either loved it or you hated it, there didn't seem to be any middle ground.  Particularly in some of the reviews I saw on the net, you either loved it to bits or just didn't get it at all?
Tony - I think it was a learning curve for the band, we got everybody together in Spain in Alicante and wrote the songs and came up with ideas.  We took the album out on the road and did maybe 70 or 80 shows and I have to say regardless of who says what on the internet, that's not the be all and end all of what happens.  When we're playing to 40,000 people in Oslo and they're all bouncing up and down to 'Something Special' then I'm sorry but that is the true bottom line.  Did we do something wrong because looking off stage it doesn't look like it to me.  Did we really do something wrong for all these people on the internet?  Fuck 'em!  It doesn't make any difference to me at all, there's a lot of very happy people over in Scandinavia. 

MM - Hey not just in Scandinavia!
Tony - No of course not but that's where the bands main catchment area is.   That's where we've been confined to for the past 18 months playing live.  That's not the case any more but I think we had to sign, seal and deliver that first album to the Scandinavian market before we took any further steps and play a lot of the older material as well that hadn't been played for over 20 years.  So that's what we did. 

Now we're in a very different position, although we're in the same position with the new album in Scandinavia in that we've already put a shit load of tracks into the live show and they've gone down great.  Actually we haven't really taken much out of the show, what we've done is we've extended the length of the show and now we've got around 20 tracks in it.  We've just done 4 opening concerts for the release of the new album and the reception was wonderful so I'm very confident about how things are going to work out. 

We don't intend to record another album for another 2 years, it will definitely be another 2 or 3 years before we even think about sitting down and writing for the next album.  This new one was a very fast one, it was only 12 months down the line and we'd done another album, which took me by surprise really.  So we're not going to do that again and we're going to concentrate of working this album throughout Europe.  I've been talking to various people in Asia and Australia.  The touring plans are being put together now. 

We're going to carry on and finish off what we want to do in Scandinavia before Christmas and then I think maybe the third week in January we're going to head out to Sweden and then we'll take it from there.  Hopefully we're going to cover Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain.  I don't know about England yet, I've been talking to the guy from Bloodstock about maybe playing there next year but we'll see what happens.  We may also go out playing with Y&T along the Western coast of America but the whole intention is to stay out of Norway now because we've really creamed it for the past 2 years and now it's time to take the music further. 

MM - Well I certainly hope that Bloodstock one comes off because otherwise I'll have to pack my bags and get my passport out.
Tony - Well we only made the decision to come out of Norway last week so it's still early days but I've been talking to a lot of promoters about different touring opportunities and so far so good it seems to be coming together nicely.  I'm looking to be working at least 35 weeks a year outside of Norway.

MM - The album has some truly gorgeous tracks on it, one of those in particular being 'Me And Dad', who wrote that particular song and does it have any special meaning?
Tony - Ronnie wrote the whole song.  When I first heard it I thought it might have had a special meaning because his father passed away last year, but he wasn't having any of that when I spoke to him about it.  I said to him that obviously I'd be talking to the press guys and girls and I needed the background on where these creations came from.  I asked him if it was about his dad and he said no not really, it's about dad's in general.  I said OK, that's what I'll tell them then.  I didn't write any of that song at all it was finished before I got to Oslo. 

MM - It's a really gorgeous song and from the middle onwards the guitars in particular remind me of War Of The Worlds, I don't know why, they just do.
Tony - I thought it was very Zeppelinesque actually, the length and the path that it takes through the song, it really diversifies well and then lands back on it's ass again at the end. I thought this is very Zeppelinesque, but obviously Ronnie did all the writing for that and I really liked the song and we've already performed it live on TV in Oslo.  That worked out well.  

MM - Are there any songs on the new album that you don't think might translate very well in the live environment?
Tony - I would say probably 'Taste Of Honey', it's a little bit too sweet, well obviously because it tastes of honey (laughs).  It kicks off like some Santana track and then exploits commercialism for the sake of it and I don't think it's got enough balls so that's not been included in the live set and I think that was the right decision to make. 

MM - I was going to ask what about 'Tango Girl'?
Tony - What about it?
MM - Well I have to be honest here but that is the only track off the new album that I cannot get away with.  I have tried because I like all the other songs but that particular one even after a few listens, I just can't seem to get into it.
Tony - Well isn't that bizarre because that's my favourite track off the whole album! 

We've played it at all 4 concerts and I've even taken dancing lessons and I've had a Swedish tango teacher on stage with me at the big show we did the big Oslo show and also live on TV, doing the tango in the middle of the song during the guitar solo. 

MM - Tremendous!
Tony - I tell you it's been absolutely fantastic. (laughs).  I didn't go as far as to have a rose between my teeth and I didn't wear a red flamingo shirt.  I felt sorry for the teacher because she was a tiny little thing and I had these fucking big heavy metal boots on and I'm sure I must have crushed her feet a few times. (laughs). 

Live the song works so well because it's so heavy it's undeniable and I would think it will definitely stay in the show for at least a year.  You'd be surprised how it transfers live.

The songs that we're playing live from the new album are 'Hello, Hello', we open the show with that actually, which works fab.  Although we used to open with 'Invisible Noise' we haven't dropped that, we've simply moved it further down the show.  We play 'Atlantis' which works great and the other song that we've included in the other short commercial track 'Love Of My Life'.         

MM - Were all the songs for 'Atlantis' new songs or were any left over from 'The New Territory'?
Tony - No I don't think anything was left over from 'The New Territory'.  Although I think maybe some of the framework for some of the songs may have been left over from Ronnie's solo album.  I don't know that for a fact but I have a good feeling about it. 

Tony - I'm very pleased with it and I was very lucky to be working with Neil Hibbs on it because he's a very talented guitar player.  He's also a big fan of TNT so he was also out in Oslo watching the new show this week.  I think we did a bloody good job.  I think we wrote the album inside 10 weeks.  I recorded all the vocals in my studio at home and the drums were recorded in Roy's studio in Birmingham.  The bass guitars were all recorded in Norway and the keyboards were all recorded in Los Angeles.  Then it was all thrown together in Wolverhampton and mixed here. 

Considering I haven't even met some of the people who appeared on the record I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out.  I haven't suffered any bad reviews from that album and this was the debut for Neil our guitar player and he's really pleased with the reviews and the support of the public that he's had on it.  We fully intend on doing another project together, we've actually agreed to write a rock opera together.

MM - Oh right!  have you got any thoughts on what the subject matter might cover for that album?
Tony - I haven't yet because I've really got to get my head down for TNT for a while so Neil has some work ahead of him.  I don't write music at all, I'm just the lyric writer.  He's going to work with a classical pianist and start coming up with sounds so I'll take that as it comes.    

MM - Have you had a chance to play any gigs with your solo material?
Tony - Yes I played some in Norway. 
MM - I did wonder because I've seen some photo's which looked like they had the album cover as the back-drop on them.
Tony - Ah those photo's were actually taken from the video shoot that we did because what I did was we did some concerts in the North of Norway in Trondheim and I had a 6 camera crew filming it so we can put a DVD together.  All of that editing is now completed and we just have to edit the sound now.  I don't know whether I'll just put it up on YouTube or MySpace and just give it away or whether I'll package it and sell it on.  I haven't made my mind up yet but the band were great actually, I had Geoff Nicholls from Black Sabbath out on keyboards with me and a drummer from the South of Norway Eric Engebretsen who is a superb drummer. 

The bass player was from the very far North of Norway and the some backing singers from Finland and around Oslo.  We just went out to Trondheim for two weeks and then did the shows.  Because of the commitments with TNT I couldn't take it any further and I know where my priorities lie.  I know Ronnie does his solo things and I can't stop when we have a vacant period, I have to go on and do something else.  Within 4 months we'd wrote and recorded an album that I'm proud of so that's all good.  It feels pretty fantastic. 

MM - I believe that the profits from the solo album are going towards the Foundation For Autistic Children In Norway?
Tony - The solo album yes, that is correct. 
MM - You've been involved with quite a bit of fundraising for that particular charity.  What makes that cause in particular special to you?
Tony - I have yes.  To be honest with you I don't have an autistic child or anything like that, what happened was I have quite a few friends in Norway now and one specific friend, a lady called Stine Scholseth, she was a teacher of autistic children. We spent a lot of time together and became very good friends and I have another friend called Martin Hallager who's a sky-diving teacher and he's been constantly begging me to jump out of a plane just for the hell of it.  I thought I'm not really sure I want to do that, I'm not really sure I want to jump out of a plane just for the hell of it.

Then one day we were all sitting together talking one day and I said if we're going to do a sky-dive let's do it for the charity that supports these autistic children and while we're at it let's see if we can do some other things as well. 

In the mean time I met a woman called Siv-Anita Strickert who has an autistic child and she's a singer.  I said to her why don't we write a song and record it, mix it and release it and give the money to this charity.  Then we could tie all these things in together and really make it work.  So that's exactly what we did.  Luckily I got out of doing the sky-dive but we did write a song called 'Keep The Dream Alive' and we mixed it and shot the video last week in Trondheim.  We went to NRK Studios to shoot it and it's come out great. 

The manager of this female vocalist has compiled together another 12 relatively well known Norwegian artists so in the end we've actually managed to put a whole album together.  The album comes out on the 18th November and it's already A listed on the radio over there which I'm really pleased about.  The track I wrote has turned out to be the title track of the album and the video has come on great, it's been thoroughly worthwhile. 

It has been quite long winded to organise it all and obviously there are the language barriers and everything else, but I'm really pleased that I did it.  It's weird because the teacher who is still my friend is now no longer working with autistic children and she's looking after old people now.  So she's moved on now but I think the only thing we have left to do is probably a live concert to support it, or maybe more than one I don't know.  It seemed to me the more people I hooked up with at the Foundation and the more people I met, I began to realise how many autistic people are around. 

I didn't really realise enough about it really apart from 1 in 84 kids is born with it, I thought WOW!  You don't really hear that much about it so maybe it's time somebody jumped up and down and shouted about it and maybe create some income so the kids get some holidays and that sort of thing.  Maybe some transport and facilities and whatever else we can provide for them. It was obviously well worth doing and I don't want any money out of that, I'm not interested.  It's not that difficult to write a good enough song that can promote their cause and so that's what we did and there you go.  Although the whole sky-diving thing fell on it's ass a bit I think we'll have much more success with these other things we're involved with for the charity.    

I was always very proud of that work and I was much more into it than I was Shy really.  It didn't sit on the fence so much and tended to say pretty much what it wanted to say.  There was no real commerciality about it, there were no real love songs as such except maybe the odd dark ballad. I always thought the band had the courage of their conviction and we were really pleased that we did that.  After it fell on it's ass in 1996 when the guitarist left and I had to try and re-build it, but I didn't really succeed. 

I ended up in Shy at that moment and I felt pretty much like I had failed because I'd had the conviction that I had with Siam but had somehow been pulled back into this more commercial market, which I wasn't happy about.  So after a couple of more albums with Shy I felt exactly the same way again and I thought I cannot keep on doing this because I don't really believe it's what I want to do.  It's too soft. I wanted to play heavier stuff.  So it was time to leave again and join the fucking Sweet, what a mistake that was! 

Thankfully that didn't last very long so TNT were the perfect landing net for me because they're do heavy live, you cannot help but believe what you are doing.  It also suits my voice really well.  The 'Vital Designs' album was a harp back to the Siam days really, I couldn't really resist it.  If I was ever going to finish Siam off properly then the 'Vital Designs' album was probably the right thing to do.  Somebody asked me recently if there was a chance I might Siam back together and that's just not going to happen.  It's spread too far and I don't know where the people are now.  

MM - Another project that you are involved with was China Blue, are you still involved with that band?
Tony - Yes I am still involved with the band, the album comes out on December 5th on Frontiers.  As far as I am concerned at the moment it was a one off studio project and the facility to put that band on the road to play concerts together would be difficult.  The keyboard player lives with the guitar player in Los Angeles, the drummer lives in a different part of Los Angeles and I'm here and singing with TNT.

I actually wrote that album before I joined TNT and funnily enough I haven't even got a copy of it!  I saw on Melodic Rock today that one of the tracks has been released on a compilation album and I could barely remember the title!  I certainly haven't heard the finished song.  There were some conversations about playing some concerts along the Western seaboard but I find it very difficult to believe that that's actually going to happen.  Also the commitments with TNT are far too weighty to allow me to do that.  Also I can't keep jumping between bands. 

It was a studio album and Andrew McNiece asked me if I'd be interested in working with Eric Ragno and so we got together and wrote an album and then two and a half years later it's actually going to get released and I'm not even going to be here, I'm going to be touring around Europe playing non-stop with TNT, so you could call it a studio project because really that's what it is, and that's what it is for Eric as well because he's playing in other bands as well. 

MM - Are there any other projects that we're omitted to talk about that you'd like to give a mention to?
Tony - I've just been working with a Danish guitar player by the name of Torben Enevoldsen, he's a very good guitar player and I've written some songs for his new album.  He has about 6 or 7 different relatively well known vocalists to sing on the album.  I co-wrote some songs with him on that and that will probably be mixed by Tommy Hansen in Denmark as well, he's the guy who did the TNT album. 

Obviously the charity album will be coming out this month.  I did start some work with a guy from New Jersey called Danny Danzi but I'm not quite sure where that one's going.  I co-wrote a couple of songs with him but I'm not sure if we're going to continue or not. He's a phenomenal guitar player but I think we perhaps connected at the wrong time so I'm not sure whether anything will come of that.  However with the wealth of work that's coming in with TNT I'm going to be pretty much flat out for the next couple of years. 

I also did a punk album with this crazed Swede guy called Linkan Andersson, he wants me to do an EP with him but I'm really not sure if I'm going to have the time.  

MM - Well at the moment just about every CD that comes into our office at the minute seems to have your name on it!
Tony - No, no I can't believe that, that can't be true! 
MM - Crimes Of Passion, Atlantic ...
Tony - Oh god Crimes Of Passion were such good fun! (laughs).  I only did about 4 songs with them but it was good because they came out with White Lion and Glenn Hughes and played some shows over here.  They're great guys and are also a really good live band. To be asked to do a record with them was fine and it worked out well and they were happy with it.  What was the other one you mentioned?
MM - Atlantic.
Tony - Yeh but I did that album in 1991!  It's a re-release on Escape Records. Have you got any more?

MM - Well I know you've been involved with the Lasse Dale album as well. 
Tony - Oh god yes!  Well that's a prog-metal album that I was brought in to write and sing.  I finished that a year ago or maybe at the very beginning of this year.  That won't get mixed and released until next year though.  That was a session project but I really enjoyed doing it because it was very deep.  I've never recorded an album with a guitarist that's been that heavy before.  

MM - Finally is there any final messages that you'd like to give to all our readers and to all the TNT and Tony Mills fans out there?
Tony - Well it's been a startling two years for me.  I think I've been the busiest I've ever been in my whole career.  It's not just the Scandinavian fans, although they are very passionate about their rock.  Everywhere you turn there's a rock band standing behind you in the bloody toilet, they're everywhere! (laughs). 

There's just so many rock acts in Norway it is quite a challenge to work in a band over there.  But the market is very buoyant and the government are very supportive of rock over there and they finance the bands to write the songs and release and record the records.  You just don't get that in England.  It's a market that's just incredible, the fans are proof of the pudding. 

The turn out at the gigs, the sales and the signing sessions are amazing, but I can't just point all the praise to just the Scandinavian fans because we also have fans who regularly fly in from England, Japan, America, Germany and France to see TNT perform live.  They're not satisfied that the band can't come out so they come in.  It's commendable to do that kind of thing.  I've never flown to another country to see a band play a gig. You can only say that if it wasn't for fans like that, your heart really wouldn't be in the music industry, they're all pretty incredible people. 

Cheers, Tone.

MM - We'd like to thank Tony for being such good company tonight in chatting to us and wish him every success with the forthcoming tour and the new album.  Fingers crossed we'll see the band when they hit the touring circuit next year.  In the mean time if you haven't already done so be sure to check out the new album, it is, quite simply, brilliant!

UK fans of Tony's voice will be able to see him in a one off show fronting his ex-band SHY at the NEC in Birmingham on 9th November as part of the Music Nation event.  Check Shy's website for details.

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.