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By Jeb Wright
Transcribed by Eric Sandberg
When one hears the name “Rudy Sarzo” they think of artists and bands like Ozzy Osbourne, Quiet Riot and Whitesnake. Those in-the-know may throw in Dio and Blue Oyster Cult. Those really in-the-know would add M.A.R.S., Tim “Ripper” Owens and Bassinvaders!
Suffice it to say…Rudy gets around in the world of rock music.
Rudy is once again adding a band to his list. He is the new guy in an old band: The Guess Who.
No…don’t ‘guess who’.
Rudy Sarzo is the new bass player for The Guess Who…and appears on their new album The Future is What It Used to Be, which features guest vocals on several songs by none other than Tommy Shaw.
The world of music is a wild place in 2018, isn’t it?
The Guess Who is on tour…and they have even released a new video [See Below].
In the interview that follows Rudy reveals how he came to be invited to join The Guess Who. He shares his excitement of playing songs from his youth, and I force him to admit how beloved he is by his fans!
This is a one cool chat with one cool cat!
Jeb: I'll just jump right in here…I love The Guess Who. I wore out their Greatest Hits tape in the car back in the day, but I would never have pegged you as their bass player.
Rudy Sarzo: I played in Top 40 bands when I was starting out and whatever got on the charts we would add to our set. That included a lot of Guess Who songs.
Jeb: How did you come to be playing with the actual band?
RS: Very simple. Sass Jordan. I was touring with Geoff Tate's Queensrÿche and she was touring with them. Her husband is Derek Sharp [AKA D#], the lead singer for The Guess Who. About a year later they were talking about bass players because their long time bass player Jim Kale was thinking of retiring.
Sass said "How about calling Rudy?" So Derek called me up and we started talking...I was very excited because I grew up listening to their music and I'm a fan. I was really only just supposed to be subbing when Jim wasn't with them, not a member of the group. I was sharing the subbing duties with Michael Devin from Whitesnake.
There came a time when Jim Kale, a founding member of The Guess Who, decided to retire fully. I happened to be in Las Vegas watching the show and he brought me up on stage and announced that he was retiring and, from this show on, I was going to be the bass player, which was great. Nobody had ever done something like that for me before. I thought that was a beautiful moment. I've been in the band, officially, ever since.
Jeb: Some people gripe about bands continuing as the original members retire or sadly pass on, that's life. But you guys are keeping the band alive the right way. You're not only touring, you've written new songs and recorded an album.
RS: It's a wonderful band. A lot of the people in the group have been there a long time. Leonard Shaw has been there over twenty years, Derek Sharp, the lead singer, guitar player and composer, has been in the band fifteen years now. The other guitar player Will Evankovich [AKA Will E] is also a producer. He just finished producing the new Styx record The Mission. He co-wrote that as well. So these guys have been in the band a long time now. I'm the new guy.
Jeb: On this new album [The Future IS What It Used To Be, releasing 9/14/18] you guys did a great job making it sound like a late ‘60s rock record. Was that something that you purposely set out to do?
RS: I play on some of the record, but it was started about two years ago. Jim Kale plays on some of the tracks and Michael plays on some as well. The band is super busy and the project evolved over time. There were a lot of demos being made with the intention of capturing the essence of what you are talking about...that late ‘60's, early ‘70s sound. That doesn't happen overnight. You have to really work on it to capture that.
One of the unique situations with this band is that you have two really strong producers in the band. You have Garry Peterson the founding drummer, who has played on every single Guess Who record you ever heard on the radio. You have that foundation...that real deal rhythm section, and you have Will and Derek who are fine producers. They're also engineers who know how to get that sound. They don't have to go outside of the band to get that.
Jeb: I love the fact that you made a video for “Playin’ on the Radio.” Nobody does that anymore.
RS: There is actually a cool story behind that. The director of the video is Nigel Dick. His first video was Britney Spears "Do Me Baby One More Time" and he went on to direct Guns 'n Roses "Sweet Child of Mine" and a bunch of other rock videos. He loved the band. He came in and storyboarded the whole thing. In about five hours we had the video done.
Jeb: Five hours?
RS: Yes, five hours, because he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
Jeb: I bet you never filmed a Whitesnake video in five hours.
RS: No, those were twenty-six hour shoots!
Jeb: It's a lot of fun. If you listen to the music and look at the visuals you understand what the band is going for. I even like how the album starts with the song "When We Were Young" because, let's face it…The Guess Who was a couple of years ago.
RS: Yeah…like I said, everything was carefully designed for the record. Things were not just thrown together. One of the things was opening up with "When We Were Young" as a statement.
Jeb: Although the next track is one of my favorites "Runnin' Blind".
RS: I played on that one, yeah. I've gotta tell you. The record is so solid, I'm really proud to have played on it. Michael Devin and Jim Kale, the other bass players who played on the record, did a beautiful job. It's a really solid record.
Jeb: On which songs is Tommy Shaw singing background?
RS: "Haunted," "When We Were Young," "Playin' On The Radio"...he sings on at least half the record. He's a really good friend. In addition to Styx, Will also works with Tommy on his solo projects. They both live in Nashville so they're really tight. As a matter of fact, Derek and Tommy are really good friends and Will got his gig with The Guess Who through a recommendation from Tommy.
Jeb: What I also like about this record is that D# isn't trying to sound like Burton Cummings. It's clear from the first song that you guys know what you're doing, but you're not imitating a sound.
RS: You can only sound like who you are; otherwise the audience is going to know you're pretending. We're not pretending to be the old Guess Who, but we are embracing the legacy. Everyone is a fan of the old Guess Who. This is what we've got now and we're going to be the real deal with who we've got.
Jeb: You've been in a lot of great bands, but I would have to imagine that the setlist would have to rival any of those bands when it comes to classic songs. "American Woman," "No Time Left For You," "These Eyes," "Share The Land"...I could go on and on.
RS: "Undone," "Hand Me Down World," "Laughing," "No Sugar Tonight," "Bus Driver." They're not just classics…they're hits.
Jeb: Even though you're not seventeen anymore do you sometimes feel like a kid when you're up there jammin' this stuff?
RS: Sure. I was having lunch with Garry Peterson and I told him "When we're playing a song like ‘These Eyes’ you're probably thinking back to being in the studio with the guys, while I'm thinking about this crazy girlfriend I had at the time back in high school!" [Laughter]
Jeb: You bring up a good point because I could say to you something similar about say, Metal Health [Quiet Riot, 1983]. I was raising hell, driving down country roads in small-town Kansas, cranking "Bang Your Head." That's what I'm thinking of!
What are some of your favorites to play? And don't say all of them.
RS: All of them! Each one brings a whole different memory. They're hits.
Memory is all about turning on the radio and a song comes on, or playing at a high school dance with my band and we're playing "These Eyes." Thirty years later I realized I've been playing it wrong [Laughter].
Jeb: You've got the original guy there behind the kit. A bass player has to function in sync with the drummer.
RS: Yes. One of the interesting things about playing The Guess Who songs on the bass is that there is only one right way to play them and that's the way that they were recorded. I have so much respect for the production on those songs because they are unique performances. There's no cut and paste with ProTools like they have today. There are nuances running through the whole song.
Jeb: So you're not straying much from how the songs were originally recorded.
RS: Because the original drummer is playing the drums the way they should be. There is only one right way to play it.
Jeb: When you were rehearsing did Garry sometimes stop you and say "Uh, Rudy...?”
RS: No…Because I've done this long enough to understand the value of actually playing it. I did research. I listened to the original recordings and then I listened to some more recent performances, and there has been some evolution in places, but the core of the beats and parts...they're all original.
Jeb: You have quite the pedigree with bands you've played with. My friends and I would be discussing various lineups and say "Who's playing bass for them now? Probably Rudy!" Have you developed a reputation as someone who can come in and be ready to play the parts on a moment's notice?
RS: I've trained myself to do that, to be able to transcribe quickly. Sometimes I'm working with guys who grew up with charts and I'm like "OK, that's fine, whatever works for you." For me, I have to digest it. I have to become the music rather than read the music. It's not a script. It's a reality show for me. It's unscripted.
There's a song and I'm going to play it the way it needs to be played it, but I don't read it. I memorize it to the point that I can live it. When it comes to the point of performing it or recording it, I'm just doing it. I'm not looking at notes. There is always a lag between what you read and what you feel. It might go from your brain to your fingers but it bypasses your heart and soul.
Jeb: I just interviewed Joe Bouchard last week and you have played Joe's parts in Blue Öyster Cult. Now, Joe was raised as a guitar player and later switched to bass. When you're learning parts that someone else created can you discern things like that? Can you get into the original player's head at all when you dissect their parts?
RS: That's an interesting question. According to Donald [Buck Dharma] Roeser, they would go into the studio and cut tracks one at a time, which is different from the now common process of recording all the rhythm tracks for all the songs and then building up the guitars and vocals from there. They would record one complete song a day. A lot of these times different band members would not be around. For example, Donald told me that he played the bass on "Burnin' For You."
To that point, it is interesting when a guitar player plays a bass part because they tend to look for different note couplings than a bass player would. A guitar player playing a bass part will lean more towards playing with the guitar rather than with the drums.
Jeb: If I could get personal for a moment. You are obviously a highly respected musician in the industry. You've played with a lot of big bands and no one you've worked with, to my knowledge, has ever said a negative thing about you. Do you ever look back sometimes and think, "Maybe I should have stayed with this band or that band." Do you think your life may have been easier if you had stayed with Quiet Riot?
RS: I set out to be with one band. I thought making it with one band was all I needed. Making it with multiple bands was beyond my imagination. I set out to be in one band but God had other plans.
Obviously, the Randy Rhoads version of Quiet Riot broke up because Randy got the gig with Ozzy Osbourne. Before Quiet Riot I was moving around LA with tapes of my original material, trying to find a gig. There were no Top 40 bands in LA. All the clubs wanted were original acts playing original material. I could easily get work in cover bands, playing Disco and R&B back in Miami, but that isn't what I wanted to do with my life.
Quiet Riot was an original band with original material. We did some covers, but I thought they were the band until Randy went to Ozzy and later got me in there. When Randy died I ended up going back to the Quiet Riot that recorded Metal Health and...well…you know the rest.
Jeb: Leaving Ozzy Osbourne to go back to Quiet Riot seems like a good move in retrospect but at the time you had no way of knowing that Metal Health would be a big hit.
RS: Of course. The odds were against us. Anybody making a bet would have bet against Quiet Riot, especially in Los Angeles. I didn't rejoin Quiet Riot to have a hit record, I rejoined to bring the joy back into my playing again. This is something that disappeared when Randy passed away and the tour continued without him.
Jeb: That's when Brad stepped in. That was an amazing video you guys made considering how torn apart you guys must have been.
RS: I wrote the liner notes for the DVD. If you read those liner notes, it's all there.
Jeb: Do you ever reflect back to the old days or are you more of a live in the now dude?
RS: If I ever reflect back…I think about my thirteen-year-old self. He was the one who was the catalyst...had the courage to turn himself into me.
Jeb: That's pretty cool. People at that age don't usually have that kind of vision.
RS: First of all, if you're not driving, you're not going anywhere. And if you have drive but no vision, you're going to crash.
Jeb: I think your story as a bassist is pretty amazing and I don't think you get enough credit for everything you've done. Do you agree with that statement?
RS: I think everybody, in the end, gets what they deserve. I'm not done yet.
Jeb: Do you have other projects in the works?
RS: No. We're just getting started here. The record comes out September 14th and everything we're doing now is just setting up what we're going to be doing next year.
Jeb: So you're really committed to this thing.
RS: Absolutely!
Jeb: Could there be a second album? You guys seem to be making real plans.
RS: Yeah. As I mentioned before, it's all built in. The writers, the producers, the engineers, they're all built into the band. It's a natural. Creative people must create. These guys are constantly writing and creating. Making a record is not an issue.
Jeb: As always, there are going to be naysayers about this band. Give them a reason why they should go see these shows.
RS: Even if you've never heard our music…it's a hell of a band with a hell of a setlist and it's going to make you happy. And that's very rare. It's even rare for me to go to a show and come away feeling happy. This is one of things we do.
Derek Sharp is not just a great singer, he's an incredible frontman. He can bring in a crowd. We play for thousands of people every night. He's one on one with the crowd and I love being onstage watching it.
Jeb: I love hearing guys that have been doing this for thirty or forty years still pumped up about what you do. You're not just saying this for the press. I've interviewed you enough times to tell that you're really excited.
RS: Oh I share this with the guys in the band. We could be going out for coffee or dinner and I'll tell Derek that I love the way he brings the crowd in. It's easier to go onstage when the audience is with you. Then it becomes a party. We are one. We are all there for the same purpose...to have the best time possible.
Jeb: I saw The Guess Who about ten years ago at the Moondance Jam festival in Minnesota. They came on early in the day and, I will tell you this, they were the band everybody was talking about when it was done. I think you guys can have only improved since then.
RS: I wasn't there to see the show you're talking about but I can tell you that I've been playing regularly with them for about a year and a half, and we've improved with every single show.
Jeb: Do you still do your signature bass move where you flip your hands around and play those runs?
RS: Sometimes.
Jeb: You've got to, man!
RS: It has to be real. I can't force it. I have to feel it. It has to be organic.
Jeb: You're not one to smile for the camera if you're not feeling it?
RS: No...because it's going to be a fake smile. Everybody knows what a fake smile looks like.
Jeb: I know hundreds of musicians and I know very few that are as beloved by the fans as you are. Do you realize how much the fans like you?
RS: [Sighs]
Jeb: I know you're humble and you don't want to talk about it.
RS: I am also a fan. I have been a fan longer than I have been a musician. I appreciate that but sometimes I will go up to musicians that I am a fan of, people whose stuff I've listened to and have inspired me. The reason I tell them how much I love them is because it's for me. I want to tell them...I need to tell them. I need to get that out of my system.
So I understand if somebody comes up to me and tells me something complimentary because I know. I'm like them. I'm exactly like that. I must tell them how I feel about them. It doesn't matter how they react to it, it matters that you are able to have that moment to say thank you.
