Artist: Paul Shortino  

Date: 11 June 2009  

It's been five years since his last full studio album and now one of THE voices of Rock returns with a new album 'Chasing My Dream'.  We catch up with the man himself to chat about the new album, his touring plans and of course his alter ego Duke Fame. 

MM -  Well what can I say, ‘Chasing My Dream’ is one hell of a great album!
Paul - Well thank you, I’m really happy with it too, it's the best thing I’ve did in years.

MM - Why so long between albums?
Paul  - I've been wrapped up in a lot of production with younger artists.

MM - Is that through your production company?
Paul - Yes, Music Works Entertainment Production, I've just finished with a band called Black Tora.

It started in December last year, Michael Voss the producer was sending over some material.  The first track that I did was 'Mystical' and then we got 

close to the end of the project and I needed to come up with some other tunes.  So I sent him some tracks 'Chasing Your Dream', 'Nocturnal', 'To The Cross' and 'Promises'  I also sent him over a track called 'To The Cross' and that was co-written with the drummer from Rough Cutt.  

MM - The album has a deep bluesy rock feel to it, was this you intention from the beginning?
Paul - Yes, since my Rough Cutt days and the Quite Riot record I’ve returned to my roots, kind of old R&B, some blues, Motown.  I listened to a lot of black singers when I was young and I think I’ve been able to bring that out a little bit more in my later years.  I don’t shoot for those ball busting high notes anymore.  I can still hit them here and there, but I don’t focus on that so much, I try to stay in the meat and potato part of the voice. 

MM - Yes, you can tell that from the opening track.
Paul - Thank you, it’s been a lot of fun doing this.  I was a little relented in doing this but it was my wife Carmen that put the deal together.  It started when I did a track for AOR Heaven called 'Rock Me' for the 'Voices of Rock' album, that's how we got into this. They then asked my wife if I would be interested in doing a full record with the producer and I said ... hey why not!

MM - What was Michael Voss like to work with?
Paul - It was really a pleasure, because he’s a good human being.  Right from the moment I talked with him.  Spiritually he’s really down to earth and a very spiritual kind of person, which was kind of cool and it was a real pleasure working with him.  I wish we were working together in an environment where we were together, these days you can just sent over stuff and next thing you know you have a record. 

MM - Would you work with him again if the opportunity arose ?
Paul - Oh absolutely!  

MM - Speaking of working again with people, I know JK Northrup co-wrote ' Promises'.
Paul - I co-wrote it with JK and a gentleman on the piano a guy named Johnny Mac, who actually wrote the piece and Jeff took the piece and cut it up and edited into a song, because originally it was an instrumental.  This guy would just come around to my studio, we’d open a bottle of wine and just play for hours and I'd just record him.  So JK took that song and cut it up.  I have a partner in my production company Music Works, JT Garrett came along and played piano on it.  There are two piano parts on that song.  We needed another song and it was actually written for someone else, then I wrote the lyrics for it and changed the melody a little bit.  I sent it over and they liked the fact it was just stripped down and it had a little bit of an Eagles vibe to it.  They were really happy with it. 

Actually I recorded ' Nocturnal' and ' Chasing Your Dream' in one night, two weeks before the due date.  I recorded those two songs in one night, I sent the tracks back and then re-recorded the music. Then I sent them over 'Promises' as we needed another track.  ' Plan of Attack', that was the only track where we had an American guitarist on, Johnny Deveridge.  We needed another so I wrote that one in half an hour and he got to play the solo on it.  So 'Promises' was actually the last song I did for the album.   

MM - Speaking of Jeff Northrup is there any chance of you working on another album together?
Paul - Actually we were producing this young girl together and we actually, while we were working on this girl, (laughs) I mean working with this girl! oh that sounds bad doesn't it?  We talked about doing a record together.  Carmen had already made the deal for this record, so I told him it would have to be in near future. I would love to work with Jeff again because he’s a great songwriter and great guy. 

MM - Yes 'Afterlife' was one of my favourite albums of 2004.
Paul - That was a very interesting record, Jeff was going through a divorce at the time of the whole record, so a lot of the material was based around his relationship.  ‘Like A Stone’ was written for her, his relationship was like a stone ... “Cold As Ice”.  He’s doing better now he has a new lady in his life who is understanding.  It's really hard to find someone who understands a musician. 

MM - The album launch will take place in Vegas with the Sin City Sinners, how did you get hooked up with them?
Paul -They're some locals guys here in town.  The lead guitarist is Brent Muscat from Faster Pussycat.  Since I’ve moved here in Vegas, I’ve been here about a year and a half now and I go and sit in with them once in a while.  They do a thing where people fly in from other bands and do two or three songs with them. 

The records was coming out here on the 26th and we thought we'd a record release on the 27th, even though it’s a day later.  We had an ulterior motive because a couple agents were gonna be there, who wanna put me back on the road.  Ira Black is gonna drive up from LA and we're gonna do a few songs off the record.  We're gonna do 'Side FX', 'To The Cross' and a couple of Quite Riot songs and some Led Zeppelin songs with the Sinners.  We're gonna do some signing and some give-a- ways.  

I’m putting together a band in the US and if I tour in Europe I'll hook up with some guys in Europe and we’ll do the European Tour with maybe two guitarists depending on the budget.  

MM - So do you have dates lined up yet?
Paul -That’s what we're working on now in Europe, we're dealing with a few promoters and dealing with an agent here in the States.

I’d love to get out on tour, I haven’t done it in a great many years.  It would be fun to get out there and do it again.  It's hard too if you haven’t been out there for a while, don’t know if I can still do it! (laughs). 

MM - If the Rolling Stones can still do it anyone can!
Paul - (laughs) 

MM - So what can we expect from the live shows?
Paul - There will be some Rough Cutt, some Quit Riot, the show will open up with “The Kid Is Back In Town” off the Northrup record.  Probably a track from ‘It's About Time’ and I'll try to push the new stuff, but if we're warming up for somebody, then it will be a mix, but if we're headlining, I’ll be doing a LOT of songs from my past for the fans that never got to see me play live. 

MM - You’ve worked with some big names in the rock world over the years, is there one person or band who if they called you up one day you couldn’t refuse to work with, or are there any new bands that really excite you at the moment?
Paul - Well if it was one band then it would be the band I just produced, Black Tora, who are really gonna shock people.  They’ve got an old school style music style, sort of Deep Purple with Judas Priest. The singer is like Ronnie James Dio, he’s a little biddy guy like Ronnie, little biddy like Prince.  His name is Chris Daniel and he's one heck of a singer.  That’s what’s really drawn me to this band the singer more than anything and they have really good material.

I haven’t really heard much music out there that I really like, because there doesn't seem to be that many good singers out there.

MM - Yes, plenty of bands but not too many with great singers.
Paul - If you go back to the Deep Purple days you had off spring’s, you still have Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio, Joe Lynne Turner, Graham Bonnet from that genre and you have Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale, especially a lot of guys from Britain.  Paul Rodgers etc, these are my favourite singers.  Robert Plant, Steve Marriott, then you have over here Steve Tyler, Lou Gramm ...  there was a time when there was great rock n' roll singers.

MM - Look at how many of those bands are still going, they are Rock Stars.  When you look at many of the bands today you can't see them still going in twenty or even ten years time.
Paul - I mean look at Deep Purple, they're still selling out shows. Look at Black Sabbath/Heaven And Hell, they're still doing it.  I went to see Testament the night before last and I was hanging out with Vinnie Paul from Pantera.  We went to a bar and jammed with the Sinners at the Voodoo Lounge at The Rio.  Vinnie played drums and we did 'Bang Your Head', but while I was at Testament I looked around and saw a whole

new wave of young kids into metal.  There were 12 and 13 year olds in the audience and I was tripping out.   

MM - That’s the thing with the US and Germany for instance where bands will play an all ages gig, here in the UK bands play venues that serve alcohol and kids don’t get the chance to see bands perform live.   I think this spoils it for the scenes future.
Paul - I totally agree with you. 

MM - Yes, that’s how I got started, seeing bands live maybe two or three times a week.
Paul - Things are tough for the kids, there’s not really a lot of places they can go.  I met with a kid yesterday because Derrick Pontier and I were checking out Bass players and this kid Tyler Burgess came round the house and he’s 17 years old.  I thought he was 22!  The kid is totally into the eighties heavy metal scene so we might have this young-un in the line-up.  I mean I have a child older than this kid.  

I’ve listened to the kid talking about listening to Rush when he was twelve and that was only five years ago. It’s amazing the surge of young artists who want to do that rock n' roll scene.  They make fun of the eighties but I thought some really great music came out of that time, before it got a little bit weird nearer the end of the eighties, where bands were more bothered about their looks than the music.  But that’s the industry, jumping on the band wagon of course. 

MM - That’s happened with every decade of music.
Paul - It got to the point where they were signing bands that just looked pretty. Then it went from that to Grunge and everyone looked like they’d just come from work.

MM - Yeh.
Paul - At one time rock and roll and fashion were in tune, but then in the eighties it got a little weird with the fashion.  They had a guy called Ray Brown who did everyone's outfits.  He did Judas Priest’s outfits, Dio’s outfits, Rough Cutts outfits, which was cool, but it got to the point where they thought let's go back to jeans and t-shirts. 

I remember we were touring with Saxon in Britain just when the second Rough Cutt album came out and everybody was in red, white and blue, we were playing the Reading Festival.  When we were touring with Saxon we were playing in just jeans and t-shirts so I said maybe we should just go out there in jeans and t-shirts, but Wendy Dio our manager at the time said no, we’ve paid for these outfits, you need to go out there in them. 

Boy we got so much crap thrown at us it was crazy! (laughs).  I remember meeting some of these guys who had been throwing shit back stage and they said yes we throw shit no matter if your good or bad.  I said how can we tell if you like us or not? and they said you don’t.  

I mean I got hit with a piss bottle and the drummer was just soaked.  I remember someone said something to me and I’ll never forget it, this Scottish guy backstage and he said ... "this isn’t a Pop Star concert!  If you don’t wanna have shit thrown at ya then be a pop star!” (said in Paul’s best Scots accent).  

I remember Ronnie Dio telling me that when Black Sabbath played Donnington Geezer Butler got hit in the head with a bottle and played the rest of the set with blood pouring down his face, but that's rock n' roll for you!

MM - Speaking of Rough Cutt, there’s been rumour after rumour about a re-union.  Will we ever see that coming to be?
Paul - Well we were gonna do it, they released this anthology thing on Cleopatra Records.  I’m in the middle of this and the rest of the guys are busy now.  We’ll probably do it in the near future, or even a Quit Riot thing with the guys who were in the band with me. 

MM - Well it wouldn’t be right not to ask Paul Shortino, Duke Fame, how did you ever live that down?
Paul - I don’t! (laughs). Actually Duke is putting a show together for Las Vegas, he’s gonna come back from the grave doing lounge songs, Heavy Metal songs in a lounge style, (Paul then gives us a Rat Pack burst of Highway to Hell) (laughs).  I’m actually putting a project together.  Duke Fame is alive and well!

That got me a lot considering what I did in that.  I remember when we were touring with Accept and Krokus, we couldn’t even get a line check or anything.  They started showing that film in the Holiday Inn’s and the hotels here in the states and Krokus were staying at the Holiday Inn’s.  Then one night before we were all going on, the road manager walked passed our dressing room and said ... "hey aren’t you Duke Fame?",  I said ... “yeh I’m Duke Fame”.  He said the guys would love to meet you so I said "well OK’.  I went down to meet them, then after that we got some imported beer and a line check. 

I remember another time when I was picking up Ronnie Dio from the airport and Reo Speedwagon were on the same plane.  The Dio’s the management had their own limo’s so I showed up in a limo and Reo Speedwagon was getting into a shuttle bus.  I showed up in the baggage area and they walked up to me and asked for Duke Fames autograph, then I picked up the Dio’s and took them to the limo and Reo said ... "hey look! Duke's in a limo and we’re in a shuttle bus what’s with that?!?"   It definitely gets me a lot.  I haven’t done anything bad by it.  People keep coming up and saying aren’t you Duke Fame?  It’s a good thing. 

MM - Finally what has the rest of 2009 and 2010 have in store for Paul Shortino, anything we should keep an eye out for?
Paul - Getting out on tour and chasing the dream of mine.  I really would like to get out and perform more and tour more, so that’s what I got in store. Get off my butt and get out of the studio and get out there and play some music, because I really need it.  

MM - We'd like to thank Paul for taking the time out to chat with us this evening, wish him every success with the new album and tour plans and look forward to catching up with him in Vegas next time we're in town. 

 

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