HAIL! - DAVE ELLEFSON & TIM "RIPPER" OWENS

\r\nMetalzone.gr’s Vassilis Tserpes and Elena Mihailidou did an interview with Dave Ellefson and Tim Ripper Owens when they were in Athens for a live performance with the all star band Hail!
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\r\nThey talk about the idea of the Hail! Project, the chances of them releasing a cover album which would contain 2 songs of each member’s choice but not from the band’s they’ve been in. Tim talks about his upcoming solo album and Dave says he will be in Tim’s band for the upcoming tour.
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\r\nWatch the chat among with the experts from their appearance in Greece in the video below\r\n

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\r\nEditing/ Programming : Kostas Purevil Kyriakakis \r\n

\r\nHAIL VIDEO INTERVIEW on metalzone.gr
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\r\nMetalzone: Hello from metalzone.gr, thank you for the interview, welcome to Greece…
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\r\nHail: you’re welcome, hello.
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\r\nMetalzone: this is something from your MySpace page: “metal icons unite to pay homage to the genre of metal!” what is that all about?
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\r\nHail: (Tim) what was that last part? What did it say? What was it?
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\r\nMetalzone: “metal icons pay homage to the genre of metal”
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\r\nHail: (Tim) well we just like to call ourselves metal icons and superstars; it makes us feel good about ourselves, yeah I cause I get to go home and feel really good about myself. What we are trying to do is build ourselves up as big as we possibly can around our families so we don’t have to do too much on our own (laughs)
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\r\nMetalzone: ok, so that means somebody else wrote it
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\r\nHail: (Dave) Yeah, the whole purpose of this is we, you know, are from other bands and we have our fans who want to hear us play some of those songs, Judas priest etc, and we do a lot of other things now, you know, Tim has a solo album, I have other things that I do, and we’ve come together from countries far-far away from where we live, to play music as a team, right? And what’s nice about it is Greece, Turkey, you know, Austria, Croatia, these places that we go, they don’t get all kinds of tours so the fans we encountered enjoy seeing several people that would not normally be in the same band all together.
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\r\nMetalzone: so should we wait for the proper release any time soon?
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\r\nHail: (Tim) you know, I’m not sure about originals but someone earlier today had a great idea, they said “why don’t you release a cover album?” with all the songs that we have probably done in our own bands and maybe each of us picks two classic cover songs that we want to cover… That was the first time that something hit me, I thought: “sure that could work!” because you know, the whole point of this is that yes, we have original projects but if you could do it in Hail it’d be great but it’s the excitement of getting us together, and playing the classic favorite songs for the fans. It doesn’t only excite them, it excites us! We might lose that a little bit..
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\r\nMetalzone: is this about the fans or is it about you, about when you took your first steps in heavy metal? I can imagine you and I’m thinking of something close to Judas Priest… right?
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\r\nHail: (Tim) if I were to cover one? Yeah, I would cover something, I could go back and cover something maybe from the Rocka Rolla album, you know “Cheater” is one of my favorite songs and you know that’s the kind of stuff that we want to do right now.
\r\n(Dave) you know, you mentioned “Wrath Child”, that’s one of my favorite songs, you know? The early Iron Maiden, or sometimes I want to play Saxon or early Ozzy, the first Ozzy records are great albums, you know? Sometimes… Growing up, our influences, they are what shaped us, when were like teenagers, right? So the songs we want to play aside of our own are the songs that we grew up with as a teenager, you know? Hail metal and all that? That’s what we call a bad hail, you know? We say hail hollow… (Smiles)
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\r\nMetalzone: so after al these records and all these years, what is the feeling that comes back to you when you visit a country you have visited before with your own bands?
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\r\nHail: (Tim) yeah, I have come here like six times…
\r\n(Dave) you know, we played in the same show together in 2001, he was with Judas Priest, at the stadium, we played right before he did!
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\r\nMetalzone: yes but the feeling of playing in a small club?
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\r\nHail: (Tim) you know I was saying this earlier; I was actually satisfied playing here like this, because the crowd was so energetic and they are actually louder and they’re more into it than a big festival crowd. Yeah 60000 people aren’t the same, I am not saying I wouldn’t do it, of course I would do it, Hell yeah I would do it! – “HAIL! Yeah I would do it!” (Laughs) but this show is a touch, I am allowed to interact with the people, it’s fun, you know?
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\r\nMetalzone: aren’t you afraid someone might steal your hat? (Laughs)
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\r\nHail: (Tim) you know what? No…
\r\n(Dave) He has a whole line of hats and shirts and stuff… (Laughs)
\r\n(Tim) no, I am not afraid at all, the fans are awesome, they are just great! Please, bring them on, bring them to the airport even so they can cheer because, there’s nothing better to do, bring them on because, man! If they aren’t there anymore, it’s bad…
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\r\nMetalzone: I saw that your tour includes Istanbul, Budapest, Zagreb, what about other countries like Germany..?
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\r\nHail: (Tim) You go.
\r\n(Dave) Ok, you know, it’s funny… I think Hail works best in countries far away from the big ones like Los Angeles, New York, London – at least initially, you know, somewhere to start from, because south America just loved it, and as soon as we announced we were going to Chile, we started getting offers from all around the world for us to come and play. And we have offers from Germany and other places, but before we go there we wanted to hit some of these other countries that don’t get any mainstream big touring bands to come all the time. And so we thought it would be more fun playing for those people and then sort of coming from the outside work our way in, rather than the typical thing, when you’re in a band and you release a record and you start with the big cities first and you eventually go out. We’re almost doing the opposite.
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\r\nMetalzone: and to sum up this mini -  interview, please name your personal three favorite bands…
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\r\nHail: (Tim) Judas Priest, Megadeth and Sepultura
\r\n(Dave) See? Icon tonight! (Laughs) and for me, I would have to say…
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\r\nMetalzone: Beyond Fear, Iced Earth and Judas Priest only at Demolition? (Laughs)
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\r\nHail: (Dave) Yeah (Laughs)
\r\n(Tim) And my solo record
\r\n(Dave) Yes! And the solo record, Tim’s solo record is awesome, I was kidding with him, he has so many good bass players in it, it’s like a good bass album – a bass solo – with a singer in it (Laughs) No, seriously I would say for me: KISS, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
\r\n(Tim) And for me, I would say, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath with Dio singing and…
\r\n(Dave) So it would be the first mellow album? Dude, I’m there! Can I play bass on it?
\r\n(Tim) It’s with Hail so..
\r\n(Dave) There! I’m in! (Laughs) Vodka till you overdrive! You know, remember the bass line from “Not Fragile”? Whenever I heard it when I was a kid, I was like: “I wanna play the bass!”
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\r\nMetalzone: You are releasing “Play My Game”, your solo album?
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\r\nHail: (Dave) Yes!
\r\n(Tim) And I heard that in Greece CDs are hard to get anymore, I hope we can do something about that, as we said it has the best bass players in it, we’ve got David, Tony Franklin, Billy Sheehan, Rudy Sarzo, Marco Mendoza and it’s filled with guitar players, it’s got Steve Stevens, John Comprix, oh I don’t know, the list goes on…!
\r\n(Dave) It’s great! It’s awesome! It’s a good album!
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\r\nMetalzone: And what about your plans?
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\r\nHail: (Dave) My plans, I’m going to go play bass for him for a while, right? Yeah, cause he needed a bass player…
\r\n(Tim) Yeah, I did…
\r\n(Dave) Yeah, it’s wonderful; I told him when I first heard his solo album, it was just coming out in about two weeks, that it’s different, you know? He did a lot of metal stuff with Judas Priest, Beyond Fear, and I liked that he did something that was kinda like a hard rock / rock album at times, it wasn’t just metal, because we all know he can do metal, so it’s nice to hear when people kind of stretch out a little bit. I did that with a group back in America called F5, and it put some kind of traditional progressive metal combined with some of the others guys that were younger so it had some modern influences in it, it’s something different, but I’m probably known for something old-fashioned. So, we’re artists, we’re kind of unique like that, see as a singer and a bass player we can play with other people, because we get hired and all to do that, but we’re also artists ourselves as songwriters and putting together things and releasing our own albums – you know for him Beyond Fear, for me F5 and Temple Of Brutality, whatever – we can be our own unique original artists and roll out music so I think the fans always like that.
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\r\nMetalzone: Ok, thank you very much
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\r\nHail: (Tim) Thank you
\r\n(Dave) Thank you very much! (showing horns up) \r\n

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