Metal Psalter Sleepy Hollow's Bob Mitchell Interview Page 1

Chris: What’s going on, Bob?

Bob: Not much. What’s going on, Chris?

Chris: Bob, a lot of people are excited about this Sleepy Hollow reunion, man. There’s a lot of guys on the site literally jonsing over this news, myself included.

Bob: That’s really nice to hear. We’re going give them a lot more to talk about, so…yeah, the band is officially back together, we’re writing songs now and the album is going to be called Skull 13. It will be initially released on vinyl, and then we’re going to try for a CD and digital release.

Chris: Very cool! What record company is doing it?

Bob: Yeah, High Roller Records. They’re vinyl specialists. They’re based out of Germany, and the guy who owns it is a friend of mine.

Chris: Nice. I know it’s all preliminary, but are you looking for a spring release?

Bob: We don’t know yet. We’re starting to write now and we’re supposed to play a show at the end of the year. I think we’re going to track as we write, so it’s possible it may come out in the spring. It’s really up to my friend Stefan who owns High Roller. With him, the sooner the better, but I told him let’s do something for 2011. You know, I want to present the band as picking up where we left off, and it’s not going to be a nostalgic act. We utilized that same vehicle for my last reunion that I did with my other old band, and it worked out pretty well. That’s what brought us back, so here’s what you really want to hear. I’m utilizing that same formula for Sleepy Hollow. There actually was a Sleepy Hollow MySpace site up and we did it really as a test run to see if anybody still cared, and in one week’s time we had about, about 378 plays, 400 some odd friends and 400 some odd views. So I said, great, they want this, so I took the site down because I didn’t want keep the site up with old stuff. When we have some of the record written we want to put some of that stuff up along with the new artwork. We’re also updating our logo, and, you know, we want to present it as we were, but updated. We’re picking up where we left off and giving you something better.

Chris: A lot of these bands you look at them and you ask yourself why the hell are you getting back together? And then there are underground bands like Attacker and Sleepy Hollow that you just clamor for. We need that shot of adrenaline, man, because this crap from the supposed underground is really crap.

Bob: First of all, bands like myself and Manowar and (Judas) Priest, they came from rock ‘n roll. And that’s where these kids are failing. They don’t understand that you have bands like Priest and bands like Manowar because you first had the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Who; you first had the Kinks, who were the first band that created the power chord back in 1964 when they write “You Really Got Me”. And the Beatles were the first band to write a heavy metal song in “Revolution” and continued that trend with “Helter Skelter”. A song like that, in that time, must have been an incredible jaw-dropper. You know, they went from “yeah, yeah, yeah” to…oh my God! They became Slayer, man! If anybody knows anything about metal or Lemmy, his idol was Chuck Berry. How Lemmy sings like that now, I’ll never know. [laughs]

Chris: Years of fun, man!

Bob: [Laughs] Yeah, for sure. He roadied for Jimi Hendrix. See, that’s the problem with these young bands; they don’t know or understand rock ‘n roll. I’ve had 32-years in my career.

Chris: What gets me are these damn American Idol drones that pay no dues whatsoever and get million dollar contracts for doing essentially cover tunes. These kids have no musical education.

Bob: And I’m right with you on that. They also don’t understand the true meaning of show business. It’s rock ‘n roll; it’s not supposed to be perfect. When people ask me what I do besides nursing I tell them I’m an entertainer. I never say I’m a heavy metal singer. Right away it conveys a certain connotation, like you must be really stupid or on drugs. Then they ask me what I sing, and I say ‘oh, I sing hard rock and heavy metal. And they say, ‘Oh, that’s nice. That’s cool.’

Chris: It’s bad you almost have to segue into it.

Bob: You have to segue into it. You know what? That’s part of the work. These younger bands, they don’t have guidance. Coming up in the business, I had guidance. There were older bands guiding me, there were entertainers away from rock and heavy metal that were guiding me, and that’s where I learned the aspects of show business. And that’s what they’re failing to understand. It is show business. I mean, do you think Joey Dimaio runs around the way he does at home? No, of course not. He’s just Joe.

Chris: Like Alice Cooper. One of the sweetest guys on the planet, but for that hour and half on stage you don’t want to be near him…

Bob: But see, Alice comes from the old school of show business. That’s how he survives today, plus the fact that he’s a great songwriter. Plus the fact that he comes from rock ‘n roll! He was a Beatles freak. I mean, if you’ve ever seen a picture of little Alice Cooper in his Beatles jacket and that haircut [laughs].

Chris: He was also in a band sort of like a hybrid of the Beach Boys and the Beatles. And then he had the Spiders, then to Alice. He’s a lot like (David) Bowie in that even if you don’t agree with his direction now you look back and think, ‘Holy shit, this guy paved the way.’

Bob: And metal fans have to respect those people. A lot of them don’t, and that’s a shame because then you’re truly not a rock fan.

Chris: I‘ll never understand it; like when Halford came out. You had idiots sitting there on MTV in disbelief that he was actually gay. People saying they’re going to dump their Priest stuff…then it’s not in your blood. It’s a lifestyle for us, you know? These kids now, some are holding the flags, but a lot of bandwagon jumpers are here too.

Bob: Chris, there’s a difference between creativity and emulation. It’s emulating what’s bad. That’s the core of our problem with my profession: a lot of these bands, they just don’t understand rock ‘n roll. Look, I’m very honest in my interviews. When people ask me who influenced me I tell them; they ask why I wanted to be a singer, and I tell them: Dean Martin.

Chris: Dude, I love Dean, seriously.

Bob: He’s the reason I wanted to be a singer, and I wanted to be in a band because of the Beatles. Dean was rock star before it was fashionable. And today he is why I still want to be a singer. I listen to Jerry Vale, Vic Damone, Andy Williams, I can go on and on. And the females of the day: Mama Cass, Karen Carpenter…those women had voices!

Chris: Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, Patti Page; man, I raided my parents’ records when I was a kid and found all of this stuff.

Bob: Even the girls today…they don’t get it. When did they want to stop being Ronnie Spector? She’s still beautiful, still sounds great, and a lot of these chicks need to stand up and look around. And, of course, how could we leave out Janis? You’d be surprised, Chris; guys like Slayer, they love that stuff too! They know the history; they come from rock ‘n roll.

Chris: Sadly, it’s not really cool to like the Beatles if you’re a metalhead. It’s been like that since I got into it 30-years ago. I got shit all the time.

Bob: Well, I openly say it, I love them. If you’re a metal fan, you must love the Beatles. They were the first band to have a lead guitarist; they were the first band to put their drummer on a riser. They were the first band to have a lead bass player! Listen to the riffs! Listen to those riffs and you’re listening to Steve Harris.

Chris: Honestly, when I think of “Rain” by the Beatles I totally hear NWOBHM in there. They totally lifted that…

Bob: Yes! McCartney was the riff player before Entwhistle, before Butler, and Entwhistle is my favorite bass player. He’s the first to actually play a lead on bass - “My Generation”. Now DiMaio does it. And these kids fail to see that! You can’t have Joey DiMaio if you didn’t have John Entwhistle. Keith Moon was the first power drummer. These kids don’t get that Ringo is the greatest time keeper in rock. If you break down a Beatles song, it’s all funky and Ringo held it together. They don’t understand how great he is, and he has a lead foot! He would have held the metal sounds down, for sure. Ringo was John Bonham’s idol! Bonham was much like Ringo, pretty much all timing - and he didn’t do much! If you listen to “Black Dog” - they are so way off what Page is playing, yet it’s one of the hardest songs to play on drums. He ain’t killing himself! I think younger kids need to go back and listen to this stuff. Some people may laugh when they read this, but even bands like the Monkees are incredible. “Headquarters” was number one for six weeks before “Sgt. Peppers” came out.

Chris: I couldn’t agree more, man. It all comes down to education, as we said…

Bob: Even Priest…they came from rock ‘n roll. That’s what my passion is for music, man. One thing I’ve always dreamed about doing is going on the lecture circuit and he main discussion would be where metal came from, and I would be there forever telling you where it came from. If you listen to “Star Collector” by the Monkees, you’ve just heard the first prog song ever written.

Chris: Didn’t (Mike) Nesmith write that?

Bob: Yep. Nesmith wrote that. He also wrote “Circle Sky”, a very proggy riff.

Chris: I also find it hilarious that Hendrix opened for them on that tour and got booed off the stage.

Bob: Yeah! That’s crazy. It’s like, singers today, they don’t listen to their singers. You have to listen to listen to your singers if you want to sing. Seriously, there’s a DVD out there called ‘The Best of Tom Jones’, and on that DVD you have Tom Jones doing a duet with Joe Cocker. They sang “Delta Lady” together. Now, picture Ton Jones picking up a verse - bro, I listen to them and I think I have no business being a singer. These two guys are making me think, ‘Man, what am I doing?’ I kicked the damn TV and was like, ‘Man, shut up!’ [laughs]. But it gets better. He also did a duet with Janis! At the end he would always doing his little concert on his TV show, man, he did duets with Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Joe Cocker - he then kisses some girl in the shadows. Let me tell you, if Tom Jones ever decided at one point to want to sing metal, every singer in metal as we know them today would have quit! I saw him in Vegas once and he did ‘Smoke on the Water” - he rocked it! Back to our talk, I think the show business needs to revert back. And these naysayers need to shut the hell up, because they wouldn’t know metal is a lead pipe struck them upside the damn head!

Chris: My ex girlfriend gets so angry with me and calls me a music snob because I rip bands like Korn and Limp Biskit for not being true metal. Sorry, but I take this lifestyle seriously; this is who I am, you know?

Bob: It’s who I am, too. When people try to tell me something about it, I say, no, listen, I’m a fan as far back as Al Jolson, and let me tell you something about Al Jolson. He was the first crossover media superstar in music. Jolson was the star of the first talking motion picture called “The Jazz Singer”. He was the first to use stage make-up, man! He also was the first guy to utilize lighting as an effect. He was the first performer to perform for three hours straight, Chris. And that’s where the phrase came from, ‘You ain’t heard nothing yet’. He was on radio, movies, later on a lot of television - you gotta love a guy like that! He had a beautiful baritone voice! Chris, what it all comes down to is you have to have the passion, and as frustrated as I get sometimes in this business of mine it’s my passion that keeps me going.

Chris: Absolutely! Okay, man, you said there were things you wanted to get off your chest.

Bob: The last two years have been a little rough, Chris. I got into projects I shouldn’t have gotten into, I took on a manager I shouldn’t have taken - he’s a nice enough fellow, but he didn’t do much to advance my career, so I let him go. I put a thing together called the Bob Mitchell Band, and it was supposed to be a strictly charity project, but I was at the mercy of the guitar player who had a studio. And, so, due to personal indiscretions and problems on his part, it was continuously delayed until finally it was delivered to the label in February of this year - we recorded this in 2008 - and the label decided they didn’t want to put it out. They love it, but the sound quality wasn’t up to their standards and they decided to shelve it. And now I’m no longer with that label and it just…well, the label put me into this other project that I wrote and album for, and that got delayed. So I ultimately said, ‘You know what? Screw it all to hell! Goodbye’ Then there was a thing going around the internet about Sleepy Hollow and they actually contacted me. At first I was very hesitant.