There was a time when all that mattered was how fast a guitarist could play. While many were able to shred, only a select few could not only shred but do it in the context of a great song. Chris Impellitteri did both. With his band Impellitteri he released classic records like Stand In Line and others. Now, the band is releasing a best of set spanning 1987-2010 called Wake The Beast, and Chris recently took some time to talk about it.
Please press the PLAY icon for the MisplacedStraws Conversation with Chris Impellitteri –
On how the compilation came about – It’s been a long time coming. First of all, we recently were able to retain the legal rights for our masters, which means we could finally legally release the music to virtually every country. For years, we’ve spent, I’d say 80% of our careers, broadly spend in places like Japan and certain places in Continental Europe, and we’ve done really well there, so I’m not complaining, I love it and I love our fans and family there. Unfortunately, we kind of noticed over the years that we seemed to gain a lot of new fans, the problem was they were kind of forced to buy imports or exports, and they were really expensive and they were hard to get a hold of. So we were always in this frustrated realm where we don’t wanna slap the hand that feeds you, and that was really territories, especially in Asia, where they were funding a lot of our records, but at the same time, we also knew that to survive and to build our brand and our band globally would have to release some music in other countries, we can just keep giving our licenses away and locking up the rights. So that was something that happened, and then recently, we decided to let a guy named Giles Lavery manage the band, and Giles reminds me kind of like a Rod Smallwood who manages Iron Maiden. He loves the band, he’s really passionate. He’s a visionary, he’s actually an amazing vocalist too, like a metal vocalist, but he’s just passionate, and he was the one that really brought it to us, saying, “Dude, you gotta release your back catalog because people want this stuff”, supposedly. We kind of orchestrated a plan and got the legal rights back to the music, and now we can release it, so that’s kind of how this is kinda evolved. 1:18
On how he met longtime vocalist Rob Rock – Rob and I, we crossed paths. We played in a band called Vice in the mid-80s. We were pretty young, we were doing cover music, meaning other artists‘ music and original music. We actually met when I was loaning some equipment to the Gregg Allman Band, remember the famous Almond Brothers? So Gregg Allman was playing a show in Connecticut, I lent Gregg some of my equipment, and Rob Rock was actually opening for Gregg, and I remember I was there and usually I don’t stay for the shows. It’s funny, Rob Rock is his true name, it’s literally his birth name and people think it’s some weird stage name it’s not. He didn’t call his band the Rob Rock Band, it’s called the Robert Allan Band. So they opened and I was like, “Who was the singer? This guy is amazing. He’s hitting all the high notes with power, and he’s got this amazing vibrato”, just really angelic, but then to roar like a lion, I was just like, “I gotta work with this guy”. So I remember like I’m this young punk kid, I literally went up to him after the show going, “Hey man, do you wanna be in a real band, like a metal band, make records, tour the world?” And it was like a stupid childish pitch, but it worked. So that was it. We connected right there, literally within a week, we were rehearsing at that same place, that same venue during the day, and just as soon as we played together, we just knew we had a chemistry. So that’s how it happened. How we kind of evolved. 3:41
On putting together the Stand In Line lineup – I guess I probably should start at the beginning to answer your question. So the Impellitteri black EP really cemented who the band was sonically. It’s almost borderline thrash metal. It’s like Iron Maiden on steroids with all the technical shredding guitar solos, Rob Rock is singing like an alto or soprano, just screaming. It was filled with energy, we had a great drummer named Loni Silva back then, and that black EP, it kind of created this massive global cult following. As hard as that is to believe. I remember in England, there was this amazing magazine, which I think exists today, but it just changed their format a bit, called Kerrang Magazine, and Kerrang at the time was like the biggest rock or metal magazine, and they gave us five out of five stars. All of a sudden, record labels wanted to talk with us about signing us, and we were playing live shows, and the shows were great. Then Rob Rock decided, “You know what, I wanna go in a different direction”. So there was a really famous record producer named Deiter Dirks, and Deiter had just finished the band Scorpions, a really well-known in-demand guy. So they brought Rob to Germany, which meant he left Impellitteri and we were like, “Oh my God”, we just got signed, we have a deal with Relativity through Sony Music, and people around the world are talking about our band, and we just lost our lead singer. He was 50% of the sound. It’s like, “Oh my God, what do I do?” So this is the entrance of Graham Bonnet. When I was a young kid. I was giving guitar lessons when I first came to LA, and I remember Jimmy Waldo, the keyboard player of the band Alcatrazz with Graham, heard about me, came over, check me out, and said, “Hey, would you be interested in auditioning to replace this guy Yngwie Malmsteen?” At the time, Yngwie was still in the band, they were just not getting along. So I remember I went to the audition. There were only two guys, there was me and a guy named Steve Vai, who you probably know. To be honest, they were a lot older than I was, Steve is obviously older as well, and so they were a Steve and they should. Steve was definitely the right choice. I was too much of an arrogant young punk. I would’ve been, “Gotta be more metal than you are”. But Graham and I, we just had a friendship. We stayed in connection over the years, and then it was right at the time of the EP when Rob took off and it was like, “God, what do we do? ” Kind of like when David Lee Roth left Van Halen, but on a smaller level, what do we do? So Graham Bonnet and I started talking and he goes, “Hey, what’s up?” And I said, “I’m kind of bummed. We lost our singer”, and he goes, “Well, I just ended Alcatrazz, I’m not doing anything”, I was like, “Okay, do you wanna see if we can write some music?” So it was gonna be a challenge because I love Graham Bonnet, he’s insanely talented, amazing vocalists, but the way I write music, his stuff at that time with Rainbow and Alcatrazz is quite a bit different than the direction than if you listen to the Impellitteri black EP. “Lost in the Rain”, you can hear we’re aggressive. Graham’s voice, I wasn’t sure would be right for that, so we decided why don’t we do more of a tribute to a band like Rainbow, which Graham was known for, which was a completely different direction. Even though I love Richie Blackmore, big influence, it was different, and you can hear it on the sound of Stand In Line. It definitely, to me, sounds kind of like we’re doing more of a tribute to Rainbow. But that’s how it happened. The first song I remember we wrote was “Stand In Line”. I actually wrote that riff on a keyboard, believe it or not. I remember as soon as he opened his mouth, we started doing the record, I went, “This guy’s on a different planet than most people as far as his talent”. There’s a reason why he replaced Ronnie James Dio in Rainbow, so insanely talented. So that was kind of how Stand In Line began. 5:58
On the rivalry and relationship with Yngwie Malmsteen – I never thought there was any rivalry. By the way, I have nothing but respect for Yngwie, he absolutely influenced me, just like Van Halen, Randy Rhodes, Tony Iommi, I could go on and on. I’ve been influenced by virtually every guitar player. Yngwie was already very, very successful. I don’t know why would there be any fear from him or a rivalry that we were coming in. We get labeled as he’s shred guys. I’ll be honest, I definitely brought a little bit of that on myself. As a kid, you work really hard, you practice eight, nine hours a day, you’re always trying to master your craft and be the best you possibly can be, so that you definitely have that competitive spirit. I know that when we came out with the Impellitteri black EP from day one, I made one thing very clear to our band guys and our manager, I said, “I don’t want this to be the Chris Impellitteri ego instrumental or solo show. This has gotta be a band”. It’s four or five guys equally contributing, even if I’m writing the bulk of the music, Rob writes all the lyrics, all the vocal melodies, he does that. The bass player comes and does all of his own contributions, which is James (Amelio Pulli), our drummer, same thing. So when you hear Impellitteri, it’s a band, it’s not me the solo artist. So if people like us, give credit equally to all of the guys in the band, it’s everybody. I guess we can all say the same thing, you think we suck we can hopefully spread that around. For me, there was no rivalry. After a while, I did get annoyed with a comparison, but to be fair, I got it. Graham joins Impellitteri, we do Stand In Line, we do a music video that was really popular on MTV, and now here’s the thing that people need to understand, and especially the critics acknowledge the people said, “Oh, was just ripping off Yngwie”, be really careful with that statement. If you look in the “Stand In Line” video, I’m playing a Ritchie Blackmore Stratocaster, I’m wearing almost an identical, almost as an homage to Ritchie the white boots, all of that, it was from Ritchie Blackmore, who had been doing that since the late 60s. It wasn’t about copying Yngwie, who I love, again, I’m not saying anything negative towards him. But if you’re gonna basically stay we were doing anything, it was really credit towards the whole Rainbow kind of thing. I guess going back to your question, I never really felt any rivalry, never bothered me. There were times, when people kept going on just an Yngwie clone, or Yngwie wannabe or whatever and I’m thinking, “Well, I’m flattered that you put me in the same sentence because he’s a great player”, but the reality is, if you really were to listen to Chris Impellitteri the guitar player, listen with an open mind, listen to who I am. I think it’s obvious that probably my biggest influence, the three biggest influences that I have early Eddie Van Halen when I get my guitar amps, the tone dialed in, everything I’m always trying to mimic “Eruption” or “I’m The One”, and even a lot of the fast stuff. People don’t realize I’m using a lot of the Van Halen patterns, the picking patterns that he did in the song called “Spanish Fly” where does he really fast, articulate stuff. So it’s Van Halen, followed by Randy Rhodes. Then actually, I’m sorry, there were three guys that really should get the credit for the speed thing because I was doing that long before I ever heard guys like Yngwie, guys who really got me into it for the most part, were Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, and Paco Delucia. Listen to the record Friday Night in San Francisco, you hear them play and you immediately go, “Oh, that’s what Chris is ripping off”. So that’s really how I evolved, but we got thrown in. Somebody told me other day, and I guess it’s true, around ’85 or ’86 when we were all on the LA scene and we were the guys doing metal, I think there were probably five or six of us that were kind of known as the shredders, Yngwie was first, there was Paul Gilbert, there was me, there were two guys that I really liked a lot of Tony McAlpine and Vinnie Moore, and then there was got Michael Angelo Batio, I think at that time he used a different name. Then later you have amazing guys like Jason Becker and all of that stuff. I think someone called us like we were like these forefathers who I started it with blending the shred stuff with metal. 10:42
On making sure there is a song behind all the shredding – Without a great riff and a great song, the guitar solo is just…People said something like, “You’re a wanker, you just masturbate on the guitar”. I’ve heard of those kinds of critics. To be fair to them, they’re absolutely right. Without a great riff and a great song, me just shredding for a minute or two minutes, it’s just, “Okay, you’re showing off”. I’ve always tried to treat the guitar solo, even if a lot of times, yes, I know I play fast and technical and all stuff, but I try to make certain the guitar solo, I hope complements the song. Before that song ever gets finalized, it has to start with a great riff, and then it’s gonna have great vocals and a great chorus and something that just moves you and moves you spiritually. It touches your soul. That to me is a good song. To be honest, a lot of that I learned from people like Van Halen and Randy Rhoads. As great as they were, as soloists, they were great composers and creating riffs, they were just really good at it, so I’ve really thought that that’s probably my first strength would be doing riffs and songwriting, the solo thing is secondary. 15:53
On going from having MTV success to not selling records – Well, I can tell you, there are pros and cons to what happened to our career after Stand In Line. So the cons are kind of like what you’re saying, you come from an era where your type of music is really embraced, your concerts are selling out, you’ve got a bunch of loyal followers around the world, and then all of a sudden a shift in musical taste and industry happens, which is the late 80s. That’s really where you go from our type of music into grunge, the Nirvanas of the world, or whatever. So for the average band, a lot of artists at our level or even bigger than us, it was a difficult, a bitter pill to swallow because all of a sudden their careers hit a brick wall. But here comes the pro, we got really, really lucky. So when we did the Impellitteri black EP in Japan, it was an instant cult kind of audience, we immediately, all of a sudden had this cult following, especially musicians. When we did Stand In Line, I don’t know what it was, I don’t know if it was luck, fate, talent, whatever, it’s exploded, it just all of a sudden, we’re competing with bands like Metallica, we’re not competing with the bands on our level anymore, we’re on the cover of the magazines, were on TV shows, radio shows, we’re selling out our venues three, four nights in a row, and I’ve always given credit, because people ask me why, and I honestly don’t know, but I kind of have a theory. Not theorem, the theory is, I think what happened is Graham Bonnet, at that point of his career, he was still coming off of a pretty legendary status of being in Rainbow, people don’t realize when he was in Rainbow, they headline Castle Donington, AC/DC played before Graham and Rainbow, Judas Priest, I remember watching something with Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden, he did some show recently, about a year ago, and he was actually at that show and he’s talking about Graham bonnet. Graham was a legend, and I think what happened, because Graham had played with all these legendary guitar players like Ritchie Blackmore, Michael Schenker, Yngwie Malmsteen, then Steve Vai, and then me. Just by association, whether I was great or I sucked, I don’t think it mattered. I think they gave me a free ticket, a free ticket to success, “Oh, Graham played with Ritchie and Yngwie, and Vai, and now you must be worthy: So I almost felt like, “God, we got a Get Out of Jail Free card”. It was a real gift. I think in some ways it certainly opened the door, and then also what happened grunge never really took off in Japan. So the next couple of records we did now Rob Rock had come back to the band, they were just energetic metal, evidently, I was playing really well as far as soloing and all that stuff. The records just exploded, we just became huge in Japan, and whatever that success was, or even as to this day, somehow overflowed and started to spill out into other parts of Europe. We started to gain a really big following, but again, I still say it’s like a cult following. Even the mass media tend to ignore us, which is cool. So we have to get everything organically. 17:51
On if their record company tried to get them to change styles for US success – On one record, we did a record called Grin and Bear It, which a lot of people actually love, it’s much more in the vein of like a Guns and Roses, maybe even an Extreme at times, a little funk in there. We wanted to do a record to see if we could do it, and we have songs like “Ball and Chain”, “When The Well Runs Dry”, people love those songs. it’s now more about the groove, that the attitude of the song, and not as much about the technical playing and screaming and all that, and I’ll tell you, people over time really seemed to love a lot of the music, but in Japan, it didn’t do well, people are like, “No, we want you to do all the crazy”, like the Impellitteri black EP. So we did a record called Victim of the System, and we went back to that, that sound, and as a matter of fact, the first song on this anthology is actually the title track “Victim of the System”, and you can hear. That’s the sound, it’s kind of what we’re inspired by or what we are. So in Japan, we’ve been afforded the ability to have amazing lives because we succeeded not only from an artistic perspective of doing what we wanted to do but financially as well. Believe me, I know it was a blessing. A gift. Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth or whatever. It’s one of those fairy tale stories of, “Wow, we did so well, I guess we don’t have to work anymore”, one of those things. It’s because of our Japanese fans and friends and all of that. So I guess where I’m going with this whole crazy long answer is that it allows us to stick to our guns into what we wanna do musically, There’s no reason to chase a trend, it’s senseless. We’re just who we are. 21:48
On if he was ever approached about G3 or a similar tour – I started with Joe (Satriani) and Steve on Relativity Records when their solo records were coming, but I was going in a completely different direction. I was much more of a metal kid, band, band, band, not instrumentalist. I do instrumental songs, as matter of fact, we have a song on the anthology, it’s an instrumental, and it’s called “17th Century Chicken Picking”. I go on YouTube and there’s hundreds of kids learning that song and it’s difficult to play. So I can do that stuff, but it has to be at the right time and place. So we never really fit with those people, and the other festivals you’re talking about, the one thing we’ve always been really careful of, in the 80s, we never fit in with the hair bands, we were never that. We were borderline almost like thrash with melodic vocals and shredding solos and all that, but we were always staying away from that stuff. So I don’t think we’re ever embraced by those groups of people. Because people do ask, “Why don’t you guys ever get invited to do this or do that?” To be honest, I almost feel like we’re the black sheep. We’re kind of like the outcasts, we do get ignored by a lot of that kind of stuff, we don’t get invited, but then you know what? It’s okay because the last show we did, we headlined in Korea before the pandemic, and 30,000 people came to see us. So I’ll take that any day of the week. We play shows in Japan, pretty much sold out, and we’ve done some large festivals over the last few years before the pandemic stuff, we played Rock Fest, Barcelona, Spain, and it was us, right after us was Anthrax, I think it was Maiden headlining hat festival series. We do that stuff, 20,000 people, every person slammed against the stage singing all of our songs. Germany, we do Bang Your Head Festival, same thing. We play these places. I always wonder, “Are two people gonna come see us or will there be a lot?” So we get that gratification just in different countries. Would we love to have that happen in America? Of course, we would. But you know what, if the industry, the people, the gatekeepers, if they control it and they don’t like us, not a lot we can do about it. 24:17
On if the band will tour the US behind Wake The Beast – We get so many people that make comments, talk to their friends and then we hear about it or they contact us direct through social, whatever, I guess so many comments in the United States going, “Please, please come see us play”. It’s like we get that so often and I try to be honest with people. For a band at our level, if you really wanna see what we’re like live, we wanna make sure we can bring you our show and our production. Could we slam everything into a tiny little club and play? Sure, we can do it now, we’ve done it. We did actually some rehearsal dates, I think before we did the last or previous Japan tour, we actually played Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. These were not big. We basically openly told everybody, “Look, these are gonna be rehearsals, live rehearsals. Come on, hang out with us”. We had a blast. It was a lot of fun. A couple of venues alot of people came, New York, I remember, was pretty bare. Connecticut was pretty packed, Jersey, it seemed to be quite a few people there, and it was great. We had great shows, and it was a lot of fun, and we know that if we have the ability to do that in the US, the opportunity, we will do it. But, also it has to make financial sense, and I don’t wanna sound like I’m being greedy, I’m not. But we did have a major offer right before the pandemic, a big promoter contact me and said, “Look, I wanna do a full US tour”, but between you and I, and I guess everybody listening to this, truthfully, we did the math by the time I got done with that and be like, “Oh my gosh, I’m gonna lose probably someone between $50 to $75,000 a month, so I’m just gonna wipe out the checkbook and go, well, that was fun to pay, pay to play” because it was so expensive. So we will do it at some point, but we have to think about how to make it work financially for us to come to America. 26:51
