Interview: Danny Chauncey, 38 Special

North. South, it's all the same to Peter Grant because he can't tell the difference, so we set this "human compass without a notion" into an ocean that is the South's own .38 SPECIAL as they rejoin the ranks of their native cousins. 

BONA FIDE SOUTHERN TREASURE 

When I was growing up and just getting into music, I heard people mention bands such as LYNYRD SKYNYRD, so, as you do, you go and check them out. But Southern Rock wasn't for me. I went for the VAN HALENs and IRON MAIDENs of this world (which brings back fond memories of my mum standing at the bottom of the stairs screaming, "Turn that bloody racket down!!!"). Then ten or so years on, I find myself reviewing the new .38 Special album, Bone Against Steel. So I do a bit of digging and unearth a monster that has spawned eight studio albums, nine if you count the one, and whose singer Donnie Van Zant only happens to be the brother of Ronnie Van Zant, who died tragically in the Skynyrd air crash. Okay, I'm a little slow!

I guess it was the AOR sound that attracted me to the album, a direction that .38 were criticised for, seeing how they started off in the mid-70s with more of a Southern sound. Well, after experiencing a few personal changes and record label swapping (from A&M to Charisma) they have reappeared to notch up another chapter in their career.

So I banged through a call to the press people at their record company and asked for an interview with the band. And the next thing I know, Danny Chauncey, the .38's guitarist, is on the blower all the way from Atlanta City.



The album is actually made up of a few styles, ranging from the AOR side to the rockin' n' rollin' yee-haw side. Did you decide to keep it as varied as possible?

"When Max (Carl, Keyboards, Vocals) and I joined four years ago, we brought in a whole different kind of thing to .38, but there's a lot of songwriters in the band and we all write differently so it really kind of opened the doors. We're like a new band now, really. It's gone away from anything that it sounded like before. We just all agreed to be patient and let it sound however it sounds rather than trying to be like .38 used to be. Everyone just played using their best instincts as musicians and put it all together and this is the mess we got ourselves into, ha ha."

His light, modest laugh trails off down the line.

Now, through doing my homework, I found out that the song-writing duo and spinal cord of SURVIVOR, Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik, have collaborated with .38 on a number of occasions. In fact, they worked on the first big album for .38 in the States, entitled Wild-Eyed Southern Boys, which produced the hit single "Hold On Loosely," also penned by Peterik. who has returned again on this newie, adding his sparkling talents to such numbers as "The Sound of Your Voice," "Rebel to Rebel," and "Treasure."

"Jeff (Carlisli, guitarist and founder member) really wanted to work with Jim again, and I was all for it. I'd been a fan of his songs before I joined the band. I really enjoyed meeting and working with him. He was a lot of fun."

When it comes to your studio work, do you take time over recording bit by bit, or is it put down live?

"It all depends on the song. We'll normally all start off playing together and record a track that way, and then we'll end up going in and replacing stuff. I mean, when you've got a 32 track digital recorder, it can be a curse because sometimes things are better left as they are. We're trying to loosen it up a little. When I first joined the band, things were getting a little bit too precise for my taste. I like things to have edges. On the new single, 'The Sound of Your Voice,' that's me and Jeff as a one-take live performance on rhythm guitars. As a matter of fact, that was the last song that we cut, and Jeff and I had a great time playing live on it. I mean, the producer (Rodney Mills) liked it, and we are confident in our ability to play. I think that's a lot of it too, the more we play together as a band the better we get and the more confident we get with the sound that we're making. I think in the future we'll do more of the stuff live."

Do you hold with the theory of finding a formula when it comes to producing an album?

"You know, I mean, having success and all that is great. It allows you to pay the rent and go out and tour and be happy and get married, or whatever. I think one of the problems with .38 in the past, after the Wild Eyed Southern Boys album (1981), they started to become an imitation of themselves, sort of like they tried to repeat that formula thing. But to me - and the guys will hate me for saying this - they started to sound tired. And I would hate for that to happen to this band. I think we've just got to use our instincts as songwriters and get on and write, and everyone plays and interprets the songs as their own. I think as soon as we start trying to define what it is we're having the success with and why, in terms of style, that's making a big mistake."

Has the rebirth of Skynyrd on vinyl breathed new life into the whole Southern thing again?

"Well, you know, it's weird because there are Southern bands that are doing great right now. REM are doing great and the BLACK CROWES. So I think that Southern bands per se have not faded away. But the heavy0hitting Southern rock groups, like Skynyrd and THE ALLMAN BROTHERS, didn't make records for a while. And that sound just wasn't there, especially on the radio. But now that the Allman Brothers and Skynyrd have new records out, this year is going to be good."

Does any sort of rivalry exist between the different southern bands?

"In the case of .38 Special and Lynyrd Skynyrd, they all grew up together, .38 was kind of like Skynyrd's younger brother, so there's a camaraderie there. But also, see, I'm not from the South, I'm from California, so I wasn't really tuned into the relationship between the other Southern bands. But a couple of times when we've had a band from the South opening shows for us, there has been the attitude, 'well, we're going to go out and kick these guys.' I never saw that from the other members of this band. They usually go out and cheer on the opening act and we treat them really well. But we had a couple in particular whose attitude was 'Kill." Boy, it was really weird."

At what stage did you decide to leave California?

"I moved from San Francisco to Atlanta about a year and a half ago. I like it here, but I do miss California. All my friends are there and it's great. I stay pretty busy with .38. We do our recording in Atlanta as well as rehearsing and most of the song-writing, so I have to be there anyway."

Did you find it inspirational when you relocated?

"I'll tell you, it was a little uncomfortable. I bought a house, which I'd never done before. It was a little unnerving. But what they say about southern hospitality, it's true. It's really just a different kind of thing. The people are real friendly. In the Bay Area, nobody would say 'hi' to people they didn't know. But in the South, everybody does, and you're welcome over at anyone's house. It's a neat feeling."

You can actually pick up a slight hint of a southern drawl in Danny's speech, so the way of life there must be agreeing with him.



Now, if you go through the lyric sheet that accompanies Bone Against Steel, each song carries a story. So I was particularly intrigued by the title track. Is that a true story?

"Yeah, that's about a train trip that Max took from Los Angeles to Nebraska. He met this disabled oil worker who had had his arm mangled in an oil rig accident, and now the guy is selling firewood for a living, because he just couldn't work anymore. It's the story of his triumph over what would seem like a tragedy. The end of the story is about how he managed to save up enough money to take his wife on a honeymoon to Las Vegas. It's a story about a triumph over those walls that get in the way of all of us."

Peter Grant
Riff Raff
October 1991

Share on Google Plus