Interviews
Interview with Tom Gimbel of Foreigner
Foreigner is one of those bands that like a fine wine still get better in age. Foreigner is on a winter tour through arenas and casinos.
Empire Extreme got to talk to Saxophone/ Multi-Instrument player Tom Gimbel about the tour and talk about his career which is nothing short of amazing.
EE: How’s this tour going so far?
TG: It’s good, we’re up in the frozen north, on the cold as ice tour and we are loving it. People rock up here and we’re frozen solid. Up in Edmonton and Calgary Canada. We have had sold out shows, playing hockey arenas and hitting up some casinos.
EE: We covered you guys last year with Whitesnake, how was doing that tour?
TG: Those were fun shows, the outdoor venues. That was fun playing with Whitesnake and Jason Bonham.
EE: Hows it feel to be one of band members that have been with Foreigner for a while?
TG: Yes it feels great, I’m just happy I use to be called the new guy, now I’m the old guy (laughs) I never get tired of playing these songs.
EE: With Foreigner, you guys can play 2 hour plus shows just off the Hit songs.
TG: Yeah we like to joke around with Mick, that he we don’t enough time to play all these great music and songs he wrote. We tell him “You made to many hit songs” (laughs) that’s a great problem to have, huh? People come up to us and say “ I knew everyone one of those songs, or I didn’t know that was a foreigner song.”
EE: How did you get into being a multi-instrument musician?
TG: It was always just one thing after another that kept presenting itself. I wanted to be a drummer, but everyone wanted to be drummer in those days so I grabbed a guitar and played. My parents made me take piano lessons, my sisters were going so they told me I had to go. My sister had a flute and I was listening to Jethro Tull, and I checked that out. That started me off with the woodwinds and then when I went to musical college, they said you had to play the saxophone to graduate. It’s been wonderful to find a band that I can play all these instruments. Ya I get to do the flute in the beginning of Star Rider.
EE: Ya, last year when you guys played Star Rider, I was instantly brought back to my childhood and got the chills. I always loved that song and forgot about it for a while and then heard it and just brought forth that youth.
TG: alright, yeah. It takes you back. That’s one of the most magical part about music how it can take you back in time.
EE: How was it like working with Aerosmith?
TG: It was great, it was like everything you would imagine and more. It was all clean and sober, I was there at the time they were all about health. I went to Steven Tyler’s house once to practice vocals, and I get to his house, he goes “let’s go for a jog” it was through the woods of Massachusetts. Then he says “now let’s do the exercises” I was like “while we are running” and he goes “yeah” and starts doing vocal warmups.
EE: How was it like to do the Wayne’s World stuff?
TG: what a ride, the SNL people were incredible. We played on that show four times. The first time was with Tom Hanks. It was just phenomenal. Then in Wayne’s World 2, we had the live performance. That was fun. I remember Joe Perry walk up to the director with a cigar in his mouth and saying “pleasuring doing business with you” (laughs) it was great fun.
I can’t wait for Foreigner to come into Baltimore on March 22nd at Maryland Live Casino. Such a great band to see live, I always recommended going and seeing them live. Foreigner just takes you to a different world and makes you forget all the troubles for a little while.
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Interviews
INTERVIEW WITH MERCURY OF PRIEST
Empire Extreme got to sit down and talk to Mercury of Priest when the band came into PA at LoveDrafts.
The show was amazing all the bands that we seen put on a great show for the fans. Vampires Everywhere killed it once again. Last time we seen Priest we only got to see them open for Powerman5000 and got like 6 songs, this time Priest was headlining and we got to see much more which I was excited to see.
Priest played a good mix of old and new and even a few songs off the album “Dark Pulse” which is out in May. We got to see 13 songs played and even Mercury come out into the crowd a few times and when they played “Obey” even blessed some of the crowd. It was great hearing songs like “BlackListed”, “Signal in the Noise”, “History in Black” and “Vaudeville”. It was such a great night of music and a great conversation with Mercury. If you get a chance to see this band play in ur town, it’s a must
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Interviews
INTERVIEW WITH OF VIRTUE
Where does the band name come from? Wanting to be the best version of yourself at all times. The name is a reminder to hold ourselves accountable.
How is the music scene in Michigan? The Michigan music scene has always been vibrant and in my opinion, important. Do we get the credit we deserve? Absolutely not. But for the state that brought you Motown, Eminem, Lizzo, The White Stripes, I Prevail and so many other incredible artists – it’s kind of hard to believe that Michigan remains a hidden gem.
How’s the reception from the fans of the latest album “Omen”? It’s been incredible. From seeing people singing along at shows to us seeing new supporters of all different ages, colors, and creeds joining the journey. Omen has been a pivotal album in our career and we’re proud of it!
If you could tour with 2 bands, which bands would you want to tour with? Spiritbox and Bad Omens. They’re both making waves, changing who the metal audience is, and surely they’d be fun to hang around with.
Where do you draw inspiration for the lyrics? Honestly, the lyrics are our stories. The stories of our struggles, our trials and our tribulations.
What’s been your favorite tour or show? We just got off of a tour with our labelmates, Any Given Day. They treated us to a handful of sold out shows over in Europe, which at this point we call our second home. Those were great shows, but any show we’ve done in Europe is typically one for the books!
If you could bring back a dead musician, who would it be? Prince for sure. An incredible musician I would love an opportunity to chat or make music with!
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Interviews
INTERVIEW WITH TWIN TEMPLE
Being Married and being in a band together. Do you feel that makes it easier or harder?
We love to do the Devil’s work together so for us its a match made in hell.
What’s your favorite horror movie?
That’s hard to narrow down but the first few that come to mind are Rosemary’s Baby, The Devil Rides Out, Wickerman, The Devils Reign featuring Anton Lavey, Mario Bava’s Black Sunday, anything starring Vincent Price. We also got to see an advance screen of “Late Night with the Devil” featuring a very evil performance from our friend Dave Dastmalchian. We’re also looking forward to Bryan Fuller’s “Dust Bunny” and are positive it will be a new favorite. The list goes on…..we are huge horror fans.
Favorite Non Horror Movie?
Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca (which is horror/noir adjacent) and The Burbs (also horror adjacent…haha.)
All of Quentin Tarantino’s films- our latest favorite is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, because 1960’s LA…
What misconception of Satanists would you like to educate people on?
We’re not here to proselytize, force our beliefs on people, or educate people on them Selves, Satanism or anything else. If people are interested in exploring Satanism, we encourage them to do their research and question everything.
If you could bring back any dead musician, who would you pick and why?
We would have loved to do a song with Ronnie Spector who recently passed. Also would have been amazing to collaborate with Jack Nitzsche who arranged so many amazing songs.
If you could tour with any 2 bands, who would you want to tour with?
The Ronnettes & The Shangri-Las.
What has been your Favorite Tour so far?
The God is Dead Tour that we’re currently on is definitely the most evil and blasphemous tour yet. We find it very pleasurable to be able to continue expanding the rituals and seeing our nightmares come true on stage.
You were on “Dragula” with the Boulet Brothers, how was that experience?
It was a fiendish delight to collaborate with some of our fav monsters.
What was it like Touring with Danzig?
Another nightmare come true! We’ve both been fans for a long time and we’re obviously inspired by the wicked world Glenn has conjured. So to get to spend time with him and watch him live every night and to now call him a friend is completely surreal. He’s a legend— but was also one of the coolest, kindest, most unholy people we’ve had the carnal pleasure of touring with.
How’s the reception of the last album “God is Dead”?
Personally, we love the record and are very proud of what we’ve accomplished. As far as other peoples’ reactions…. we don’t know and don’t care! We pleasured ourselves and that’s what matters most.
What got you interested in the style of music you play? And how would describe your music?
We’ve always loved classic American music from jazz to blues to country to rock and roll and so on. We also love the pageantry of heavy metal and theatre. So for us it was a very organic culmination of our obsessions. Rock and roll has always been the devils music.
Have you visited the Satanic Temple in Massachusetts?
No we have not but Lucien did attend one of our rituals so we had a chance to share where we get our babies blood and all things Satan.
Have you had any bad encounters at shows because of the misconception of satanism?
No! We purposefully foster a live show environment where all are welcome, all should come being the most important person in the world which is themselves, whatever that may be. Even Christians! We believe music is meant to bring joy, transcendence… We just want to share the things we love; pink, rhinestones, big hair, great rock ’n’ roll, Satanic ritual, you know… but we have had churches assemble outside our shows, screaming through distorted PA speakers that God is not dead & wishing us all a “terrible time”. Why would their God not want us to have fun? This kind of behavior is only makes us more proud to be who we are and do what we love.
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