Prophets of Addiction are one of the few rock bands creating a real buzz online. Thier new release, Face The Music is a perfect blend of glam, punk, and straight up rock & roll. Drummer Wayne Stokely took some time to talk about the band, the new record and what the future holds.
Please press the PLAY icon for the MisplacedStraws Wayne Stokely, Prophets of Addiction interview –
On how he became involved with Prophets of Addiction – Basically having known Lesli (Sanders) for years through the Hollywood scene, through our connection to Pretty Boy Floyd whenever he would come to Dallas where I’m at, I would go see the band, going back as far as like 2013, 2014, whenever they really kind of got going. We just became friends and stayed in touch. Then, around 2015 when he needed a drummer, he gave me a call and asked me if I’d be interested, and I’ve always loved his songwriting, so I was like, “Absolutely”. We got together in 2016 to kind of start writing songs that would eventually become this record. You could just say, life happened after that, different things happen. You had COVID two years of that into it, and it’s been about a seven or almost eight-year process to get this record done.
On the involvement of former Ozzy bassist Phil Soussan – Phil became involved, he’s produced stuff that Lesli’s done going as far back as a band he was in in the early 2000s called City Girls’ Boys. Phil’s always liked Les, his songwriting and everything. So, we had the opportunity to go out to Vegas at Danny Coker, the Count’s studio and do this record and track it and have Phil produce it. He just became involved kind of in the songwriting and not much, not too much the songwriting, but the song arranging and ended up playing bass on it. As far as Phil going forward, I think Phil’s going to play the shows that he can do. We’re kind of in the process of working out live what we’re going to do, but Phil’s going to be involved as much as he can be.
On if the band set out for a Hanoi Rocks meets Faces vibe – You’re kind of the first one to nail that, it was we had a discussion I remember. Our backgrounds are kind of all over the place and the first two Prophets records are kind of more raw and punky kind of street maybe sounding a little bit and me and Lesli were talking and we had a concerted effort that we wanted to make a modern version of a classic 70s rock and roll record like the Faces or a Hanoi Rocks and Michael Monroe obviously had huge influence, the Dolls, Johnny Thunders, all that stuff. I remember Lesli saying distinctly, “For once in my life, I want a perfectly produced record”. So I don’t know if we thought it was going to be as slick as maybe it sounds, but I know that was definitely the goal of making a modern classic rock record, if that makes sense.
On their cover of “Maggie May” – That was a song Lesli brought to the table that he wanted to do. We knew we wanted to kind of punk it up a little bit, rock it up, make it a little bit faster. Something funny, when we recorded it, we forgot to tune it down. So, we played it in standard, and we had all the things tracked before, before Phil’s like, “Oh shit, we forgot to tune this down”. So Leslie had to kind of scream the vocals out of his range a little bit. When we listened to it back first, I didn’t know I liked it or not. Then I was like, “No, this is perfect”. It’s because if you listen to the music, it’s real clean, even though it’s faster, it’s played pretty exact. You just have this snotty punk vocal over the top. I was like, “This is perfect”. People are either going to love this or they’re going to say we’re idiots and it’s sacrilege. That’s exactly how we wanted it. That’s pretty much how it’s been so far. People either really love it and get it or they hate it and think we’re out of our minds…It was done with complete respect. That’s kind of the and that’s another thing you were talking about the sound of the record is the slickness of the music and the preciseness of the music. But when you add Leslie’s voice on top of that, it gives it this grit and this kind of street thing that that we thought was a pretty good combination.
On touring – Well, we actually haven’t done any of this stuff live yet. So, there’s going to be a couple of shows that I hate to be that guy, but we can’t talk about right now that are about to be announced for April of next year that are going to be some pretty big shows. After that, ideally, we would like to get a support slot for somebody to go out for a couple of weeks at a time. That’s going to be the goal, maybe a little bit bigger band. that fits audience wise with what we’re trying to do. If that doesn’t happen, then I’m sure we’ll eventually line up our own, 2 or 3 weeks at a time, kind of run to get out there and start playing this stuff because we really want to get out and play the record.
On plans to promote the record going forward – Something like festivals, maybe some stuff in the UK, maybe we’re looking at trying to get on some of the cruises, and we’re in a kind of weird situation because we’re not like an 80s hair band. We’re not modern. So where does like just a regular rock and roll band fit in these days is kind of what we’re what we’re looking at. But the response, that’s one of the reasons we decided to go with BraveWords Records because they really pitch the idea we want to promote this like people used to in the past. These days it seems like there’s all this hype leading up to release day and then a week later and you don’t hear a single thing about the record. There’s no more singles, there’s no more videos and we’re planning on releasing a video like every 8 to 12 weeks still going forward. So, we want to keep the momentum out there and keep it going, not just let it die after release day.
On working with a record label that understands the genre – Oh, it’s great. We shopped this to a bunch of and we talked to probably four different labels before we went with BraveWords. It was just a typical thing. You kind of felt like, okay, we’re going to throw it out. It’s a glorified distribution deal, and you’re just going to kind of get left behind. Then you look at the number of releases and some labels are, some labels are releasing two and three records a week. We really wanted to go with somebody that would get behind it and stay behind it. Michael Brandvold and the PR team, Dave Tedder. Everybody that works with us and works with BraveWords has been great so far. They really delivered on what they promised as far as that goes.
On how they deal with changing musical landscape – It’s different. We’ve all been dealing with it and this band and other bands and having to play the social media game. It’s almost like a full-time job. Sometimes you have to sit on all the different platforms day and night. So, we’re adjusting to that and at the same time trying to keep, it’s never going to go back to how it was, but we want to keep like kind of one foot in each territory as far as that goes. We’re still going to do physical product. We’ve still got physical CDs, vinyls coming. We push the streaming just as hard. So, it’s really finding a balance and trying to figure it. I think everybody’s trying to navigate that, young kids seem to have figured it out with Tic Tok and all this stuff, but I don’t know, we’re just navigating that.
On if he is a social media guy – I don’t really want to be, but I seem to be the guy that does it for all the bands I’m in. But I’m, I’m a bit of a control freak in that regard anyway. So, if I wasn’t doing it, I’d just be wondering if anybody else was doing it. It’s kind of that thing. It’s a necessary evil, but I don’t, I don’t mind it too much.
On if he enjoys playing in different bands – I have Lillian Axe, which, growing up was always one of my favorite bands, so to get to be involved in that is a complete honor and something you never would have thought would have happened. Prophets is like my rock and roll fix. I have another rock and roll band in Dallas called Planet Size Ego that’s a little different kind of rock and roll, and then I have like a straight up European power metal band called Infidel Rising that’s kind of my baby. So, I get to kind of do everything that I like, which is really cool. Back in the day you were in one band and while you can romanticize that, but that’s just not how it is these days where you can do one band year-round and sustain. So, to be able to do all these different things for all the different, because I like everything, all the different styles is really, is really fun.
On his plans for the next year – We got the Prophets shows that are going to be announced. We’re going to figure that out road-wise for next year. Lesli and I already discussed getting together in Vegas, maybe in March to start writing another Prophets record. At the same time, we go in the studio the first week of January and start the next Lillian Axe record. That’s about halfway written and we’re going to start tracking that. That’ll be out by spring or summer. I’m in a studio tour to follow that. I’ve got a new Infidel Rising record coming next year as well, so it’s, it’s busy, busy, busy.
