Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice spoke to Shock Rocker Lizzy Borden about his new album My Midnight Things (Metal Blade Records), his appearance and thoughts on in the 80’s documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization part 2 The Metal Years”, his 11 year gap in making a studio album and if he regards himself as a solo artist or a band?
Watch the interview here:
When asked about the musical and lyrical direction of his New album ‘My Midnight things’
“Every album has been different and I go out of my way to do that, this album is no exception. All my albums are theme albums and on this album’s theme I wanted to talk about love but I wanted to dig down deep and find anything that hasn’t been done yet to death. I found a lot of cool ideas like the song ‘Long May They Haunt Us’. That is about the people that are no longer in your lives but you think about them everyday, they are haunting you but you don’t want that haunt to go away. Also a song like ‘Obsessed With You’ that obviously a whole different kind of love. All the songs on the album kind of fit together under the umbrella of Love but there is also a multi-layered individually lyrical component to each song. Musically I went out to write good songs and I didn’t want to showcase musicians, I just wanted to write good songs and that was my whole goal on this album. ”
When asked about his influence to include multi-layers of vocals on the album
“Queen predominately. I grew up on Queen and I just loved the harmonies. I have done similar harmonies on the last four records. For this album I knew the vocals would be the star of the show and I wanted to have different personalities within each harmony so I had to work to try find somethings in my voice that it would almost seem like it would be a different person singing that part of the song. ”
When asked why it took him 11 years to record a new studio album
“I had to wait for the music industry to change. When I released the last two albums, they got released and they didn’t really find the target audience because there was no marketing no nothing so it didn’t make any sense to keep trying to record albums and try to find the audience, I wanted the audience to find my album but it wasn’t happening cause there was no structure because of the collapse of the music industry. The music industry has been crawling back to life and Metal Blade had figured out a way to use social media to be successful. Metal Blade is more successful now then they have ever been and Brian Slagel talked me into making records again. So I signed a three album deal, there will be two more album if not more.”
When asked about how he feels today about his participation in the 80’s documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 the Metal Years
“When we did the movie Lizzy Borden was a huge part of it, about 25% of the movie was going to be Lizzy Borden and then they started getting Steven Tyler and Joe Perry and a lot of big names so our section got reduced. Director Penelope Spheeris then took a different direction with the movie and started focusing on the people that were all in and delusional. I look back and I thought the move was going to be a celebration of that time but it turned out to be a dark look that time. Which was cool. I know when I go to Europe all the kids love that movie and they don’t see it as a dark film of delusional people, they look at it as a celebration.”
When asked if Lizzy Borden is a band or a solo artist?
“We never were never a band, every album I had a different line-up. I have always done everything, it’s never been a democracy. Sometimes I market the band as a band because I think I have a line-up that I think is going to work but it usually doesn’t so then I go back to marketing myself as a solo artist. In reality I have always been a solo artist.”
My Midnight Things to be released on June 15 2018 on Metal Blade Records.
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Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 