July 2002

Obsession burst onto the U.S. metal scene in 1982 and released and EP and two classic albums before splitting up five years later. The band's brand of infectious melodic metal captured fans from around the world, and the Japan-only pressing of the band's sophomore release, Methods of Madness, was long one of the most collectable pieces of U.S. metal, fetching outrageous prices from obsessed headbangers. Now, with the band's catalogue fully reissued worldwide, Obsession is reforming with plans for a third album as well as a DVD of live footage and band interviews.

The reunion is progressing very slowly at the moment, so when I contacted original band members Michael Vescera (vocals) and Jay Mezias (drums), we decided to wait a bit for the band's new plans to move forward before doing an Obsession interview. Instead, I spoke to Mike and Jay about their post-Obsession pursuits and the metal that they've been making over the past 10 years. Look for a full Obsession "reunion" interview in a future issue of HMF (hopefully!). For now, here is a conversation with Mike about metal life after Obsession.

Mike has been the most visible member of Obsession to carry on the metal torch, and his powerful vocals have appeared on a host of records with a variety of bands and projects. I caught up with Mike at his studio (MVP Studios) and found out about his upcoming plans as well as the huge catalog of albums he has appeared on since jumping from Obsession into the lead spot in Loudness...

It's good to talk to you, Mike. What are you up to right now?

I'm doing another solo record right now. Actually, Stet Howland from W.A.S.P. is here right now cutting some drum tracks for me. I've got a bunch of different guys, Mike Chlasciak from Halford is doing some stuff, and Roland (Grapow, guitar) from Helloween, just a ton of different guys playing on it. Jay (Mezias, Obsession drummer) is actually playing a couple of tunes on the record, and Mats (Olausson) from Yngwie's band is playing keyboards. It's a bunch of different people.

Another all-star lineup, in other words.

Pretty much, yeah. They like that "guest" thing in Europe and in Japan.

This third record is going to be on a new label, right?

Yes, I signed with Mascot Records in Europe and Avalon/Marquis in Japan. Here [in the U.S.] we're still looking and talking to a few people.

The story of your life...looking for a U.S. deal...[laughs]

Yeah, always looking for a new deal...and in the U.S., just forget it. It's ridiculous here; nobody's doing anything and the money is just so small...it's almost like what's the point...

So do you use your studio primarily for your own stuff or do you actually have other bands that you produce?

I've produced a lot of stuff. I don't know if you've seen that Twenty 4 Seven record [Destination Everywhere] that just came out with Bobby Blotzer and John Corabi; I produced that here. I did Iron Horse, which is Ron Keel's new band.

And Dr. Sin, too, right?

Yeah, a couple of bands from South America, some local stuff. I use it for some things, but mainly for myself.

That's a nice luxury to have.

It really is.

Are you also working on another Reign of Terror album?

Actually, we just finished it, about a month and a half ago. It's being mastered right now, and I think they're looking for an October release for Japan and Europe. I don't know what they'll do here in the U.S.

People will order imports, like they always have to do.

Exactly. Well, I think Dave Chastain and Leviathan might put it out here, but I'm not sure.

Will there be any touring behind the record? How will that line up with finishing the MVP album?

I don't know...there's some talk. We were supposed to go to Europe last year to do some touring. Here, it's pointless to tour. It's always a club thing, and even with packages (of bands) the clubs don't want to pay enough or they don't want to promote it. So we were supposed to go to Europe, but again the tour support wasn't there. It's really difficult. I mean, I did that Killing Machine record, and it got great reviews everywhere. We got offered a Judas Priest tour, or AC/DC, all kinds of really big stuff, and then the label just pulled the plug on us. So it really depends on what the labels will do and if they'll give us support. I'm hoping to be able to tour with my solo record this year, so we'll have to see what happens.

How did you meet up with Joe Stump for Reign of Terror?

I met Joe when I was touring with Yngwie. Joe came out to a few shows, and he opened up for us on a couple of things that we did. I met him, and we talked a little bit. He's a really nice guy, originally from New York, and I'm in Connecticut but originally from New York too, years ago when I was really small. So we were hanging out and it was a more of a friendship thing. When he asked me to sing on a record, it was originally going to be only a couple of songs. But then he couldn't find anyone to do the rest of the stuff, so I was like, "All right Joe, I'll do it." It was more like we were friends and I'd feel bad not doing it! [laughs] I like Joe, but it's just a little too much like Yngwie for me. But it's cool...like I said, Joe is a great guy, and I can help him out, so...

I read somewhere that you felt that the contributions you got to make to Sacred Ground made it one of the records you were more proud of in terms of how everything turned out in the end.

It turned out really great. Joe had recorded most of the music at this place in New Hampshire, and he just brought the reels and left them with me. I wrote the lyrics and melodies, and then we mixed it, and it came out really good. The new record turned out really good too; the new stuff is a little heavier. There aren't so many mainstream songs; it's a lot more up tempo, definitely more of a Euro-metal kind of vibe.

What is the name of the new album going to be, or has that been decided?

We don't know. We've had a couple of different titles, so I'm not really sure yet. Originally it was going to be called Mark of the Devil but now we don't know. Sacrifice was another possible title. [HMF: The final release is called Conquer & Divide.]

It definitely sounds dark.

Yeah, but we're not sure that Dave Chastain, who's kind of Joe's management/label guy, may want another title. We're also having a few issues with the mastering right now, so that's our main concern, and once that's out of the way, then we'll worry about the title.

So going back to the 80s...after Obsession, you ended up Loudness?

Well, Obsession was doing pretty well at the time. We had the video for "For the Love of Money" on MTV, we were on Enigma/Capitol Records, we were touring. Apparently Loudness had seen the video of me and really liked me. They had auditioned and looked at like 800 guys or something [laughs]...it was astronomical the number of guys they had checked out, with CDs, cassettes, auditions. They couldn't find anybody that they liked. So their producer had gone over to Enigma for another record that the label was doing, and he mentioned that Loudness couldn't find a singer, and Engima was like, "Yeah, we've got the perfect guy." So when they approached Loudness about me, the band was like, "Oh yeah, this is the guy we like." So I got a call out of the blue from their management, asking me if I could fly to Tokyo and audition for Loudness. Two days later I was on a plane on my way over there, and that was it. I guess I never really auditioned...I went out with the guys and we got really drunk on the first night I was there. On the second night we met with the management company and they took me out again and we got really drunk. They took me to a karaoke bar, and nobody knew what that was over here. I had never seen one. So they got me to sing "My Way" by Frank Sinatra.

So there's your "tryout" song...

Yeah! And I sang it, and they were going, "Sing it higher! Sing it higher!" So I kept jumping octaves and I ended up in this really high kind of scream, and they said, "You got the gig." And that was my audition. So I had the gig and we went into rehearsals for a little bit. Then we flew back to New York to start tracking the record [Soldier of Fortune], and we moved out to L.A. to finish it. It was really weird; it just happened so fast. At the time, I was getting calls from a ton of people...Metal Church, Savatage, Steve Stevens, I was up for the Blue Murder thing...a lot of shit was going on, and Loudness seemed the most interesting.

Especially if you were looking for a band that's pretty prominent, at least over there in Japan.

Yeah, so when I joined the band I was the biggest thing to happen over there. I was on the cover of everything, every TV show, radio interviews. It was just insane.

It's good that you were received well. How did live shows go, since a lot of the older material was sung in Japanese?

We didn't do too much of the older stuff. We did "Crazy Doctor", we did a song called "Speed", but we kind of translated some of the lyrics or would just rewrite them. The follow-up record On the Prowl was basically all old songs; I believe there were only two new songs on that record. That album was all old stuff that we just rewrote. It was never supposed to come out in the U.S. or in Europe; it was strictly for Japan. The label at one point got this brainstorm that it should be the record to be released to the world.

Ahhhh, not really...

Yeah, it was nowhere near what Soldier was. But that's basically what Prowl was, just a bunch of old Loudness songs that we redid.

Well, a few of the new versions were pretty good. I remember seeing the video for "In the Mirror" over here.

"In the Mirror" was cool, yeah. There were a couple of tunes that were really cool, but overall it sounded a little old. But there were a couple of cool things on there.

How did the album go over in Japan?

It was great. Over there, anything we did was huge. We'd do Budokan for a couple of nights; we'd do these huge festivals for 50,000 to 60,000 people. It was insane. Anything we did was sold out; we'd go gold in a day. It was really big in that part of the world, even Korea, Hong Kong, parts of China, Singapore...in all those countries, we were huge.

But you never saw Europe with Loudness, did you?

No. You know, we were supposed to go to Europe a bunch of times. We were big in Europe...in Spain and Germany and other parts of Europe, we were huge. But they [the labels] never got us over there when I was in the band. In the U.S., we came over and toured, and during that tour was when it all ended...

Did it fall apart because you weren't getting promotional support for On the Prowl?

Well, the record was doing really well. I forget the numbers, but we were No. 1 across the board on all the college radio stations, and stuff was really moving. But the guys just really didn't want to rebuild Loudness in the U.S. They felt that we should be doing arenas on big tour buses. The thing was, they hadn't come here in a bunch of years...the label, Atlantic Records, wasn't going to put up the money, and Warner in Japan didn't want to put out the money to buy us onto a tour like that. They wanted us to rebuild, do a club tour...and it was big clubs, and we were going to rebuild the band. And it was working, but the guys were getting tough about it. They kept complaining, and they wanted to go back to Japan. It started getting kind of ugly, and by the time we got to Brooklyn [New York], I'd had enough. I was like, "You got me in this band to take on the Western world, and all you want to do is go home." I had been in the band for three years at that point, and as cool as it was to be a big star in Japan, I wanted to do it here [in the U.S.]...I wanted to tour here so people could see us over here. So it got a little ugly, and the guys refused to finish the tour, and that was the end of it. It was sad, but it was almost kind of inevitable, since things had been going down that path for a bit. I still stay in contact with Akira and Masayoshi; we're still friends. But anyway, it was a great band and I had a lot of fun playing with them. Akira is one of the best guitar players I've ever played with. I was trying to talk to them about possibly doing something on my solo record, but it's really difficult. They're really busy, and it gets a little wacky trying to keep in touch online and all that stuff. But maybe someday we'll do something. I know they reformed [the original lineup] and did a few things, but I haven't even heard any of the stuff.

I heard the first record with the reformed lineup [Spiritual Canoe], but it didn't do much for me. It didn't have the feel of what the old Loudness was.

I heard that they did a remake of "Soldier of Fortune" on the last one.

Really? I know they did a record called Soldiers Just Came Back.

It was just the one song. I heard they tuned way down for the song, so it was really different.

A lot of the newer stuff that I've heard has a really low kind of bottom end tuning.

Yeah, when I left the band Akira was starting to experiment with some really wacky stuff with tuning and things like that. It was getting really psychedelic. And I just wanted to sing metal in a rock band; I'm not really up for all this experimental stuff. I knew it wasn't going to go anywhere in the U.S. or Europe, so...

Well, maybe it's best for the metal world that you got to go do some records with other bands...after that you went with Yngwie...or was it MVP?

I started MVP. I started with Roy Z, who was with Bruce Dickinson and he's producing a bunch of stuff too. It was Roy and guy named B.J. [Zampa, drums], who played on my first solo record, and he had played with Tony Macalpine and he played with Yngwie for a bit as well. Had a bass player from New York, this kid Scott, who was really great. So that's when it started, and as things kind of started taking off, that's when Yngwie called me. I should've just run the other way [laughs], but I was like "OK!"

Well, you lasted two albums with him...that's more than most singers make.

Yeah, I did two albums. We did an EP [1994's I Can't Wait, as well as the Power and Glory CD single], and we did a live thing as well, Live at Budokan. We did quite a bit of stuff; I was with him for about three years. When I joined the band, there was still the possibility of pulling him out of a hole. Everybody was excited that I was singing, and we actually got a really big deal and a lot of stuff was happening, but slowly Yngwie just destroyed it...

Seventh Sign was well-received, though.

Seventh Sign did great, but when we did Magnum Opus, it was one of his "rush-job" records, just rushing to get a record out. It wasn't as good a record. The tours were good...well, in Japan and Europe it was great. Here [in the U.S.], some of the shows were really good, and some of them just sucked. And Yngwie is his own worst enemy...ahh, he's interesting.

At least you got to see a lot more places [than you did with Loudness].

We toured a lot. We toured continually; it was just nonstop. And for the most part, I got along really well with Yngwie. He had a lot of respect for me, more than I've ever seen him have for anybody. I mean, he let me write most of the lyrics and do whatever I wanted on stage. Towards the end, it started getting a little weird, but that seems to be the usual.

So after Yngwie, you finally got to do an MVP record?

Well, I was actually still with Yngwie when I was doing the first MVP. Yngwie actually played one song on that first record, Al Pitrelli from Megadeth played on one song, Doug Aldrich played one...so there were a few guest players on that first one. And Barry Sparks played bass; he's playing with Dokken now.

That record went over pretty well, at least overseas.

Yeah, it did really well; in Europe it did pretty well but in Japan it was pretty big.

You're pretty much gold over there.

Over there, I've been able to sell a lot of records.

Have you gotten back over there much to tour?

Well, with Yngwie we went over a bunch of times, and I went over once for the MVP thing, but that was strictly for promotional purposes; I went over and did some promo stuff. That was the last time I was there. When I did Roland Grapow's record [Kaleidoscope], we were supposed to go to Japan with Gamma Ray. We were touring with Gamma Ray...Kaleidoscope sold a lot of records, and we were touring all over Europe with those guys, and we went to South America too. Then they wanted to take us to Japan with them, and JVC refused to support that in any way. So it didn't happen. I'm hoping now that with Mascot for my label that things will be able to happen.

That would have been a great tour over there; Gamma Ray is pretty big.

Oh yeah, the shows were great. We had Mike Terrana [drums] in the band, the bass player from Grave Digger, Roland and me...the band was scary. And Gamma Ray was great. Then we came back and did some stuff with Stratovarius in Europe, but that was pretty much the end of that because nobody would support it. Sanctuary weren't helping us; they were the management for Roland and they didn't really want him doing too much on his own, since he was still in Helloween at the time.

That's a shame, because that was a great album. Do you think you'll do more work with Roland in the future?

Well, Roland is playing on my solo record. I just talked to him a few days ago. He's got his Masterplan thing now, so he's doing that. Roland is a really nice guy, and I just hope the best for him, because he deserves a lot more than he's gotten from the Helloween thing. He's a great player and a really nice guy, so I hope something happens for him. I'd love to work with him again if it's possible. But everything is money these days, you know...can you afford to make a record? There are a lot of expenses involved, and unfortunately labels aren't paying anymore. They just aren't paying decent budgets. It's very hard.

It's nice for you since you've got your own studio, but then once you've got the record out...

I built the studio when I was doing Windows [first MVP album]. I didn't like any of the places around here and had just gotten the house, so I figured I'd build a studio for myself. Of course, I got a little carried away and bought a ton of gear [laughs]. Then I wanted to start producing bands, so I started producing a few things. So I'm doing a lot of that now, a lot more producing. But mainly I'm a singer and I want to tour.

It sounds like you've got several good releases coming up.

The new record is going to be crazy; it's a really good record. I didn't write everything on this one. Mike from Halford wrote a few things. A guy named Jimi Bell wrote some stuff; he's from up around here, and he played with Geezer Butler and Metal Church for a little bit. It's just a really good record.

So is this one of the few places where you might actually play the piano? You're a trained pianist, right?

Yeah, I trained as a classical pianist originally. I played a few of the keys on the record, but Mats mostly did it. He's a [real] keyboard player, and he comes up with these parts. Playing piano and all that stuff, I can play Hammond [organ] and stuff, but he's just incredible. He's probably one of the best I've ever seen, and to have him here and able to do the record...I figured I'd leave the keys to the guy who does it really well.

Cool. So, when you were touring South America with Roland Grapow, is that where you met Dr. Sin?

No, as a matter a fact, I met them here in Connecticut through a friend, and they had wanted to meet me. I called this guy Sean that I know and he's like, "These guys are from Brazil and they really want to meet you. They saw you at L'Amours." And it turns out to be Dr. Sin. And I'm thinking, "Whatever, here's another band..." Then they played me their CD and I was like, "Holy shit!" It was a record called Brutal. The guitar player was crazy, and the band was great. So I met them and talked to them a few times, then they called me and asked me to produce InSINity, their first record with Pony Canyon. That's really how I became friends with them. I guess they had wanted me to sing that record but they didn't know how to ask me, so they just let me produce it.

But you sang one or two tracks on there, right?

I sang one tune. They asked me to sing one song, so I did a thing back and forth with Andria [Busic, bass player]. And then they asked me to sing on the second record [Dr. Sin II / Shadows of Light], and they're really good guys, so I told them to come on up and we'll do something. And Eddy the guitarist is great; he's really scary.

One of those guys was going to play on one of the MVP albums, right?

Yeah, that's Eddy, the guitar player. His name is actually Edu Ardanuy. He's going to play on this one, and Kiko [Loureiro, Angra guitarist] is going to play a track as well, and Rob Johnson from Magnitude 9 is doing a track. Also, Robert Marcello from Iron Horse is doing some stuff; he's crazy too, a great player.

Well, there are a lot of good players out there.

There are a lot of really good players, man. It's just finding the guys who are good writers as well, and don't overplay. It's like, "That's great you can really play, but don't play too much..."

So what's in your player right now? What are you listening to?

A lot of demos that people send me. I listen to a lot of different stuff, some of the modern stuff like Nickelback or Train from here [U.S.]. For Europe, I like whatever's really kind of happening. I'm producing so much stuff, so probably the last thing I listened to was the new Halford, or Dio. I listen to what's happening, but as far as being a producer, I stay up with what's going on in the U.S. and what's modern here. But I still always listen to stuff from Halford or Dio; I'm still a big fan of those guys.

How did you get started as a singer originally?

I was originally a piano player, so I started playing keyboards in bands. But my mom is a singer, and my brother was a singer in a rock band, so I knew that was what I really wanted to do. Then finally one of the bands I was in asked if I'd maybe like to try singing, and I just kind of fell into it. From there I just never turned back. It was like, "Forget about the keyboards...I'm going to sing now!" I would play [keyboards], but I really wanted to sing.

Did you do any sort of vocal training? I mean, to have that monster of a voice and kind of just "decide" to sing...

Well, I didn't always sing like I do now [laughs]. In the early days, I was probably pretty awful. But I was always around my mom; she sang opera and all kinds of different stuff. And my brother sang, so I was always around singers. I never trained, never took lessons or anything really. Actually, learning classical piano really trains your ear, for tuning and things like that. But basically, as the years went on I just got better and better [as a singer]. It was a lot of hard work, really.

Of course it's work...I didn't mean that you would just open your mouth and brilliance happens [laughs]...

Yeah, I know [laughs]. That's what people may probably think, like "Oh yeah, you can just sing great!" Nah, there's a little more to it than that.

Who are some of your influences as a songwriter? You did a Beatles cover on the first MVP record.

As a songwriter, I like guys like Todd Rundgren, or Freddie Mercury from Queen, Trevor Rabin, those kind of guys. I don't know...I like different sorts of things, kind of all over the place. I like Ronnie Dio for a lot of his stuff, and I some like weird, weird stuff, probably things that people might not think.

Well, I think that covers most of your music after Obsession. Did we leave anything out?

No, not really...I'm doing the new solo record, hoping that something will get happening there with the new label and everything. Actually, we're trying to do another Killing Machine record, Stet and I. That first record was on Candlelight Records and they didn't do anything for us...like I said, we got offered all kinds of tours, and the reviews were great, but nothing happened. So we're trying to maybe remix the record and get that out as well. And hopefully we'll get another Obsession thing going; it's kind of "on hold" but we're hoping that it will happen.

       —   Interview by Chris Kells, July 2002