Chuck Wright has been involved with some of the great records and bands of the past 40 years. From stints in Quiet Riot and House of Lords to guesting on over 100 other records, he has literally done it all. Now, he is releasing his first-ever solo record called Sheltering Sky and recently took some time to talk about it and his incredible career.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Chuck Wright –
On why he’s doing a solo record after all these years – Well, now, because I had the time, I mean, the pandemic was a horrible, horrible thing for the world. It all started with, when the pandemic hit, I was looking around and everything had an apocalyptic feel to it, New York City is empty, all these big (cities) are empty. So I sat down and wrote a song called “The Weight of Silence”, about the heaviness of the silence of everything. It’s an instrumental, and I edited myself together a video, incorporating drone footage of all the different famous places with no people, and I just had one character that was left, he’s like the last man on earth in a hazmat suit basically, and there’s a train, an empty train that goes through the whole video. I put that together myself, I put it up. Sure enough, I get a call from Troy Luccketta from Tesla, and he goes, “Man, I love this song, can I play drums on it?” I said, “I haven’t really thought about that, but sure”. He has a studio, so I sent him some tracks to play to, (it) sounded amazing. Then another friend named Alan Hines, who’s a top jazz fusion guitar player in LA here, he’s played with a lot of people, but he put on some guitar that was just brilliant, kind of David Gilmore/Jeff Beck kind of thing with slide. Then Derek Sherinian came on board and did some strings, mellotron, and synthesizer and theremin on it, and all of a sudden I edited together a new video of it. I actually brought in flamenco guitars to reinforce my guitar playing. I play guitars on most of the album, acoustic. But a guy named Ben Woods, who’s an amazing flamenco guitarist, he had a band called Heavy Mellow, they do Iron Maiden covers but in a flamenco style. Very, very cool. So that happened, and then I just started. I had no intention of making a solo record really. I just was writing music that I like. Songs would come to me and I’d start, I would just create and then I would approach somebody that I thought, “You know who would be great for the solo on this?” Let’s say I wanted a Jeff Beck-style solo on this song, so for this one particular one, and I got a hold of Jude Gold from Jefferson Starship, and he just knocked it out a park, it’s a brilliant solo on that song and actually there’s five guitar players on it, so it’s pretty amazing. The song “The Other Side, which actually, speaking of songwriting, I wrote in one sitting. I got the phone call that Frankie (Banali) had passed, and I wrote this whole Song top to bottom, I even had the chorus lyric, and melody came out all in one sitting and I developed the song, “See You On The Other Side” with August Young who was working with Franke at the time in his Zep band. I wanted to include everybody that worked with Frankie during that period on that particular song. 1:00
On having tracks from the late Pat Torpey on the record – There’s three songs with Pat on there, and my first two singles actually, “Army of Me” and “Throwing Stones”, which is the one I just released, his drumming is on there. What happened was, is I was searching through some files, music files, and I came across the songs that Lanny Cordola, who you might know from House of Lords, and myself and Pat got together and we would get together a lot and just jam, we had two albums out as a band called Odd Man Out, that came out like around 2000, 1999, 2000, 2001 with a lot of guests on it, but it was a pretty eclectic, like my record, more just rock. I found these tracks that we had done a few years back, and I just thought to myself, “This is too good to just let it be evaporating, become nothing”. So I decided to finish it. “Army of Me” happened because we were just in the studio. Pat really liked the drum groove because it’s basically Bjork’s song but she lifted, John Bonham’s drum part from “The Levy Breaks”, and that’s what’s going on. We just jammed on it, I’m not even playing in the right bass part. If you really analyze the two, the bass part is close, but it’s not correct. But anyway, I just said, “You know what? It has magic to it, I’m leaving it”. So I had the rhythm guitar tracks, Pat’s drumming, and my bass and then I built the three songs from there, bringing in other players like Mitch Perry on “Throwing Stones” and the best keyboard player in town, Matt Rhode, he plays with Jane’s Addiction and other people. Him and Derek are great, they’re both phenomenal keyboard players. Whoever is right for the part, I would reach out to say, “Hey, what do you think?” And they would wanna do it. They just say, “Yeah, this is great”. It’s not what you would expect. I know a lot of people are gonna go, “Oh it’s a rock guy”, but that’s not what this album is at all. 4:20
On Lanny Cordola – He went through hell trying to get his (students) out of (Afghanistan) since they took over since the country fell. I’ve been sending him what I’ve been working on and we’re always in touch. He’s one of my best friends. He’s basically family. It’s just that he’s over there, he became like Ghandi or something. It’s amazing, but he was able to just recently, within like 2 weeks ago, able to get some of the girls, his students, out of the country. So I’m really happy about that. He’s been really trying really hard and we’ve been raising money for it and doing what we can to help this situation out there. It’s pathetic. It’s sad, really. It’s a crazy world, and my first three videos kinda reflect that. The song “Throwing Stones” is an anti-war message song, but it was written before Russia invaded Ukraine. So when I made the video, I kinda tied it all into what was going on. 6:30
On the history of the record’s original songs – Most of it, besides the three tracks that I told you that we jammed on with Lanny when we were working up some material back then, most of it’s new. There’s a song that I’ve always wanted to do that I’ve had around, it’s called “Giving Up the Ghost”, and I finished that out. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record. Whitney Tai, who’s the singer on it, is also on two other songs, and she’s somebody I met via Ultimate Jam, and I thought she was perfect for “Army of Me, is how it all started. I was thinking, “Who’s the right voice for the song, Whitney Tai would be great”. Then we’ve become really close friends, we wrote together. The song “Time Waits For No One”, she’s a writer on with me, and she sang “Giving Up the Ghost”. So it’s different singers on the album. One of the other great singers on the album, besides Joe Retta’s killer vocal on “Throwing Stones” is Jeff Scott Soto. People know him with TSO, and Sons of Apollo, and his own solo stuff, Soto, Talisman, this guy does everything, and I know that he’s an R&B, funk-soul singer. I had this funk tune and I said, “Hey, do you think you could sing this?” He jumped on it within three hours, I had the track and wouldn’t change a thing. He goes, “Yeah, I’ll knock this out for you”. He’s a really good friend, a great guy, I met him when Yngwie (Malmsteen) was opening for Quiet Riot in 1987, 88, I think 87, he was like the young, pretty young guy, walking off the bus and I was like, “Who’s the guy with all the hair?” Great singer, and a really good person, a great guy. 8:02
On how he first joined Quiet Riot – What had happened was, I had a band, a progressive rock band called Saturn that was packing it out in LA. We were the first rock band in history to have a laser show, we knew we got to develop the technology at Pasadena Tech, so we’re shooting the lasers off mirrors, and we had a screen, we had behind us with laser things going on, and we had two stages that look like flying saucers, it was a sci-fi, progressive rock band. If you can imagine Genesis meets Led Zeppelin because we still rocked or Queen all put together. My guitar player ended up playing with Kevin in his band DuBrow because there was no longer that Randy Rhodes version of Quiet Riot left. He was playing guitar and then Rudy (Sarzo) left to go play with Ozzy and then they asked me to join. They were apprehensive first because of my prog background, but I’m a big fan of Humble Pie and the Allman Brothers and those kind of bands too, so it was an easy fit for me. Kevin and I became really, really close friends over the years, and especially during that time too, I was always going to his apartment or whatever. We just started playing the clubs, doing the drudge work. I remember playing, opening up for a Motorhead in the Valley, then I got in a car and drove to the Troubadour to headline with my band. You have to do a lot of things to stay afloat as a musician as you probably know. We were playing around, and Spencer Proffer saw. Bob left the band, the guitar player, the guy from my band, and I suggested Carlos Cavazo and we all got together, went to see his band Snow, that was playing. So the producer, myself, and Kevin went and we thought Carlos would be great. He had this song in his band called “No More Booze”. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it before, but it’s “No more booze, What a drag”, which became “Bang Your Head”. Kevin loved the music, changed the words. He got the concept for “Bang Your Head” from a phone call he had with Randy Rhodes. I know some people probably know that story already, but Randy said, The kids over here doing this thing called “banging your head” during the shows”. Kevin took that idea, took that music, and turned it into that song. 10:40
On his relationship with Franki Banali – He also played with W.A.S.P. during the interim when the band was no longer, and then Kevin was doing his own thing. I don’t know if you know this, but he’s the drummer on “Mony, Mony” by Billy Idol. One of my favorite records is an album with Glenn Hughes called Hughes/Thrall, I think it’s his best drumming and I’ve heard all his stuff. We had a psychic connection when we played together. Working for him, he wore many hats. He had to be the manager, he had to be the road manager. When rejoined the situation, he took over everything, so he was kind of a controlling figure. So it was kind of like he was my friend, but then on the other side of the coin, he was my boss at the same time, so it was an interesting dichotomy to deal with on a daily basis. 13:15
On joining Giuffria and House of Lords – With Giuffria, that started with them asking me to come in and redo the bass parts on the album, then they asked me to join the band, which I did. We were very fortunate, we had a hit song with “Call To The Heart”. My first touring experience, talk about getting spoiled, started a sold-out tour with Deep Purple on the Perfect Strangers tour, they got back together on their big reunion tour and then we jumped over to Foreigner who had “I Want To Know What Love Is” which was a number one song, so that was totally sold out. So I was totally spoiled. The guitar player in the band was Craig Goldy from Dio. When it was time for us to do a new record, Gregg Giuffria and Dave Eisley, the singer, said, “No, no, no, we’re the writers, you guys. We’re gonna do all the writing”, we go, “Wait a minute, that’s part of the whole thing”, so we both left. Kevin called me and said, “Hey, Rudy’s leaving the band, you wanna join the band and you can write all the songs with us and you can be an equal member”, all that stuff. I said, “Hell, yeah, I know this is a dead end. They’re making me a side guy”. I started as a side guy just filling in, but as a composer, you wanna be involved in that aspect of everything, you wanna be involved in getting your message out as well, musically to people. So when they said we could do that, both Goldie and I said, “Adios”, and he went to Dio and I went back to join Quiet Riot. That’s when Kevin was let go of the band and he really was the band, and at that point, I decided to leave too. I did the Chris Impellitteri record with Graham Bonnet, my friend Pat Torpey, and Phil Wolf was the keyboard player. Then at that time, I got a call from Gregg Giuffria again saying, “Hey listen, I have an opportunity here with Gene Simmons. He’s got a custom label deal with RCA, if we could put a killer band together, he’ll sign it”. And I said, “Well, that’s great. Do I get to write songs?” I actually became a majority writer in the band. I was working with a singer at the time named James Christian in a band called Eyes that actually Jeff Scott Soto was also a singer in. Anyway, so I brought him on board and we auditioned a bunch of drummers, I think 24 drummers, and it came down to Matt Sorum, who’s a good friend of mine, and I’ve worked with, I’ve done seven films with him, scores, anyway, Matt Sorum and Ken Mary and I was outvoted. I love Ken, I think he’s one of the best drummers there is, he’s amazing. We saw him play with Alice Cooper. Alice is doing his theatrics stuff, and I’m watching and the drummer going, “This guy is incredible”. We got him down and Ken became the drummer of House of Lords. We became really good friends, and he’s an award-winning record producer, has his own studio in Phoenix area, and I’ve done a bunch of records for him, and then he’s on my album, he plays drums on a track, and actually mixed it too. 14:20
On the current version of House of Lords – What happened was we got together in ’05, Gregg didn’t join us or didn’t feel he could play. H wasn’t up to snuff playing-wise at that point, and we got together in England and did perform live, and it actually came out as a really great live record Live in the UK. At that time, James was negotiating with the label about doing his own House of Lords. At that point, we didn’t have the funding to go into any kind of litigation about it and say, “Hey, James you can’t just take the name”. But anyway, he did. It’s good stuff, and I love Jimi Bell we’re friends and he’s great, but you’re right, it is a different thing, and it’s basically just using the name to get attention. It worked for him, for James to do that. But it’s not fair that he did that, but he did it. One of those things. They keep going, and it’s always good stuff. They write good songs for that kind of thing. Not to denigrate anybody, but there are a lot of really great musicians that have gotten together and they seem to all be making the same record. It’s all very much the same kind of melodic rock. It’s got to be this kind of changes, have this kind of chorus and this kind of bridge. It’s all interchangeable to me when I listen to the different bands that are coming out that were put together, like I’ll take this guy and that guy, and it all seems very similar to me. It doesn’t really have a lot of character to it. 18:00
On Ultimate Jam Night – It started actually, there was this little bar near where I live here in Studio City, was in Toluca Lake, and James Lomenzo and Kenny Aaronoff had a little jam band with Brent Woods, and they would get together and they actually started doing this jam thing. Once in a while, they would call somebody, “Hey, look who’s here, come on up”. It was that kind of thing. Those guys are great, but you could set you’re watched by, “Okay, so it’s 10:30, they’ll be doing a ZZ Top song right now”. It really wasn’t growing, it wasn’t becoming something. They had to go out on the road with (John) Fogerty, both James and Kenny, and they asked me if I would take it over, so I said, “Okay, I’ll take it over but I’m gonna kinda do it my own way”, and I started having 35 guests and it blew up to this thing, and then that place closed. The club owner sold it off and became a different restaurant. So some months, go by and people were coming up to me like, “Hey, what are you gonna do that jam thing, again that you had?” It didn’t have a name, it was just a jam. So I found another venue and talked to them and they said, “We’ll try it out. Let’s try it out”. We did really great, we were there for 55 weeks and totally packed it. That was 2015, and then we moved over to the Whisky to a legendary venue in a much bigger space and more appropriate space for what we wanted to do. We had a backstage area, a green room, we had room for guitar techs, and Mike (Maglieri)actually, the owner of the Whisky, told me when we met with him, that “Residencies don’t really work at the Whisky. So I’ll give you a couple of weeks. We’ll see how it goes”, and look how long we’ve been there. We did have to take some time off for the pandemic but we’re still going. We just did a benefit for Ukraine, raised a lot of money for that. This week’s show is Britain Rocks, Part One because there’s so many great artists from Britain that will be doing probably Part 16 down the road. It’s amazing when I started researching, they’re all from England, all these artists, right from the 60s through now. 20:00
On if he will do a solo tour – This question has come up a lot about it. When people do listen to the album, it would take a lot to be able to pull off the vision I have for this album to be alive. I would need Roger Waters’ or Paul McCartney’s budget really to make it an immersive experience. The record really has a cinematic kind of feel to it. I can imagine doing a strip-down version of doing maybe a couple of songs like “Throwing Stones” and “Army of Me” then taking some other songs from my past, stuff from the Odd Man Out era, or the House of Lords thing or something. So that less guys could pull it off because one of the songs has five guitar players. There’s a lot of things going on. It all makes sense. It’s not just thrown out there, layers of things complementing each other. 23:30
