Mark Ashton talks to Dann Huff about the business of being in GIANT and ignites the spark behind their new album, Time to Burn, and their new recording deal with Epic Records.
BRIGHT EYES...
It's not very often that a band can match the brilliance of their debut album. Rock history is littered with flops and disappointments, yet occasionally an act comes along which seems to have an unending ability to pen songs from heaven. GIANT is one such act.
Perhaps their new album for new label, Epic, Time to Burn, doesn't have the peaks of their A&M debut, Last of the Runaways but with eleven cuts of equal quality, it will probably grow to be loved even more. I put it to band leader Dann Huff that Time to Burn is more consistent than their debut.
"In our opinion, we only actually became a band after making the first album. Maturity definitely pushed us into new areas. Hopefully the improvements will continue with each forthcoming album."
What about the live performances? Have they helped the band develop?
"Out of playing live, you find out what you want to write about. The time spent not actually playing, when you're travelling between shows, really teaches you a lot. You really get down to some serious talking about exactly what you want the band to be."
Did the material for Time to Burn come easily?
"The actual recording and writing period was similar to that of the first record. The time delay was due to record company litigation. We had the chance to get out of our A&M contract, which we really wanted to do. That took about a year all told."
We're obviously getting into a testy area here, but can you tell us broadly why you would want to change labels after making such a successful debut?
"There's no bad blood. It comes down to the fact that we put out our first album and six weeks later A&M sold the company to Polygram. When the corporate mechanism changes like that, the people involved aren't concentrating on the records. They're more concerned with whose job is secure and trying to reorganize everything. It just happened that our album was in the midst of all that. I believe that they worked our album as hard as they could and yet I had so many people coming up to me from other labels saying, 'Boy, if you'd been with us, we would have tripled your sales.' And eventually it got to us."
How many copies of Last of the Runaways did you actually sell?
"About 350,000 in the States, which isn't bad by any means, but it's nowhere near what we had anticipated and felt we deserved considering the amount of airplay we received. Apparently people were ringing up the radio stations asking where they could buy the record because the shops didn't have it. I love the people at A&M, don't get me wrong, it wasn't a personal thing. It was simply a matter of them not getting the product in the shops. We just felt that if we were going to work this hard on our music, we wanted a record company that was a hardball hitter. I don't think A&M thought anyone would come up with the money to get us out of our deal, but Epic came through for us."On to the new album then. Why did you record it in the US this time after recording Last of the Runaways in the UK?
"It's related to touring, basically. We planned to spend a lot more time on the road promoting this record, so we didn't want to spend three or four months away from our families recording the album, then go out on a long tour. I think that if we'd all been single, it would have been different, because we enjoyed making the first record in England so much. It would have been great to do it again."You've stated before that you're a lover of albums rather than collections of singles. In the same way as NELSON, you've created an album which has many potential singles. It's difficult to explain the difference. Giant don't have the same, 'We must try to hit single' mentality as most other bands these days.
"One of the reasons we released 'See You In My Dreams' as the big single first time was because we had nothing remotely as obvious. With the new record, the label feels that almost every track is a potential single. It's a problem, though, because it's difficult to get a whole record company united behind one song. Our job is to put out the best album we possibly can. A lot of albums sell on the strength of one big hit single. The rest of the tracks usually suck."
QUEENSRYCHE spring to mind as a comparison to Giant in that neither write corporate rock music, yet both achieve success due to their undeniable talents.
"We don't write prefabricated made-for-radio songs. I hate records which revolve around singles. Some of the pop people at our label ask us why our songs are so long, but we just tell them that they can always cut them down for singles. Conversely, after the first album, people came up to me and asked us why we faded the solos at the end. So this time we decided to go for everything. If you get bored, hit the fast forward button. We play music because we enjoy it. So why conform to radio on our albums?"Was there a difference in your song-writing this time round?
"One of the most exciting things this time around is that Mike (Brignardello, bass) started to write a lot of the lyrics. On the first record, that was our weakest link within the band. Not so much that we don't have thoughts of our own, it's just that it's our most untapped well of ability. Now we're having to sit down and think about what we have to say. How do we interpret our world? Then we have to put it down as a lyric. So we've been using established writers who have that vocabulary built up. We get very serious about our lyrics, so we want them to be as good as possible."That's good to hear. There are certainly several bands I could mention which could learn a thing or two about lyrics from Giant. Another of my pet hates is the three-song album syndrome. Bands these days seem to spend all their time concentrating on three specific songs and allowing all the other cuts on their albums to be sloppy, haphazard attempts thrown together as fillers.
Do you have any tips for young bands who are still interested in making great albums?
"The only thing you can do is to get your licks in when you can. You have to play the game to a certain extent, but be true to your artistic senses whenever possible. Provide the label with the best songs you can."In the meantime, grab yourself a copy of Time to Burn. It's what rock music is all about. No gimmicks, just great melodies, phenomenal guitar work and real songs.
Mark Ashton
Riff Raff
July 1992
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