Before MTV Unplugged truly became the phenomenon that it was in the 1990s, Tesla was making its mark across the country with their own acoustic-oriented album Five Man Acoustical Jam. Featuring the hit single “Signs,” the album broadened Tesla’s audience significantly and was a radio staple. But when you listen back to all of the material Tesla has written over the years (whether the power ballad “Love Song” or the bluesy slide number “Heaven’s Trail”), the band’s success was long deserved.
After a 6-year hiatus in the late 1990’s, Tesla resurrected in 2000, much to the delight of 80’s rock lovers everywhere. Since that time, it’s been a series of ups and downs for guitarist Frank Hannon and his bandmates. Between the less-than-helpful band managers and eventual departure of rhythm guitarist Tommy Skeoch, the conditions for creativity weren’t necessarily the best. Those issues are basically a thing of the past now, however, with Hannon and bassist Brian Wheat acting as band managers and new guitarist Dave Rude taking on rhythm guitar duties.
When Hannon talked with Ultimate-Guitar writer Amy Kelly recently, you could sense that he had a newfound excitement for his role in Tesla. Whether it was because of the upcoming record (due out in September), his recent Marshall endorsement, or the impending Rocklahoma festival in July, Hannon had the kind of enthusiasm that you don’t often get in a seasoned performer.
UG: The band is about to release its new DVD Comin’ Atcha Live! 2008, which I understand has over 2 hours of concert footage. What else can we expect from it?
Frank: Yeah, there’s an over 2-hour-long concert that we did in Minneapolis in February. That’s all shot in hi-def video. Intertwined in that concert are interviews talking about songs. There’s an interview segment that we did showing an old photograph of us with Steve Clark. We did “Song and Emotion,” which we dedicated to Steve Clark from Def Leppard. We told stories like that in between some of the songs. That part is really cool, and I’m really psyched about the concert itself because we actually played pretty good that night!
Then there is a bonus feature section that has 4 different segments of us in different scenarios. One of them is on the bus, another one is us walking on the streets of Seattle going to the Space Needle. Another one is hanging with the fans, and we interview a bunch of fans. There’s another segment that’s about 30 minutes long of each guy going through his equipment, and the camera gets some great close-ups of our guitars. I describe the 3 different Flying Vs that I use in the show and the difference between the Flying Vs themselves. Brian describes his Hofner basses and his Thunderbirds and talks about how he got his basses from ESP. It’s really cool.
Is the Flying V your guitar of choice right now?
Yeah, it’s a newfound love. When I was in high school I had a Gibson Flying V that I bought from the guitar player of Steel Breeze, which was a band that made it out of Sacramento when we were kids. They were like heroes of mine. I had a white Flying V back then in the club days. When you’re young you sell things and get rid of things that you don’t realize that you like.
Anyway, I was in Guitar Center a couple years ago playing a Flying V, and it reminded me of the guitar I had in high school. I bought it and I just fell in love with the whole feeling, the way a Flying V feels and sounds. The way it feels when you’re playing up high on the neck, it’s just got a great feeling. I started getting a fetish again! I just picked up another one – I got a used one for like $250. It’s like a cherry-red color. Yeah, I’m up to 5 now.
That’s interesting to hear because I recall that you were an SG player for quite a long time.
I’ve never been just married to one guitar. I always thought that was cool when a guitar player just played one guitar and that was it. I like to experiment and explore different things, different textures. It’s kind of like Joe Perry. He’ll play a Strat on some things and he’ll play a Les Paul on others, and then he’ll play a Gretsch on other things just to get different sounds. There are so many variables in the guitar world of different sounds. But I still play a 335 and an SG a lot, the Vs, the Les Pauls. I even get into Strats. I love that bluesy Stevie Ray sound that you can only get out of a Strat. On our new record I’m experimenting with that. So, yeah, I love all guitars.
I’ve noticed that you often comment on the vibration or shaking that certain guitars deliver. Would you say that the feeling of a guitar plays a major role in whether or not you’ll play it?
Absolutely. To me, it’s all about how it feels. That’s what I notice about guitars that don’t have maple tops. A Les Paul is great and there are a lot of great-feeling Les Pauls, but they have that design where they put those really nice flame maple tops on them. That gives it a whole different edge, like a brighter kind of sound.
The guitars like SGs and Flying Vs, that are just made out of one piece of solid mahogany without the maple top, they seem to kind of vibrate and resonate a little differently. They feel a little bit more alive in your hands to me. Maybe it’s crazy. You can play several SGs side by side, and one of them will just feel great. They’ll all feel great, but one of them will feel great because it will shake and vibrate and resonate more.
An old guy told me one time, “You know why?” I said, “Why?” He said, “You forget that a guitar is made out of wood and made from a tree. Sometimes trees grow closer to a river and sometimes trees are bigger than others. They have more open grain.” I’m thinking, “Wow, okay.”
I heard that you received a Marshall endorsement late last year. Congratulations on that accomplishment!
Yeah, I did! I’m really psyched about that for several reasons. First of all, the first amp that I got when I was a kid, I saved my money and that was like a dream amp. For a kid guitar player, owning a Marshall – that’s the epitome, right? Owning a Gibson and a Marshall is that dream. So I mowed lawns and I saved my money, and I bought a 50-watt Marshall when I was a kid. That amp I used on Mechanical Resonance and Great Radio Controversy.
I was using it all the way up until it got stolen when we were mixing the Five Man Acoustical Jam record. Our truck got stolen and all of our personal equipment we had from the old days got stolen and we never recovered it. So then I started experimenting with different things like Hi-Watts, and I even tried to make my own amp for a while. That was fun and everything, but they always say, “Well, it sounds like a Plexi or it sounds like a Marshall.” Marshall is the best epitome of rock and roll amps, period. If it’s not a Marshall, it’s somebody trying to copy a Marshall. I got tired of just goofing around with stuff.
Here’s the other reason: Every freaking manager we’ve had always told me, “Dude, you’ll never get a Marshall endorsement. It will never happen.” “Can you call them for me, man? Can you just give them a call?” “No, I’m not even going to call, man, because it’s just not going to happen. They don’t endorse anybody, blah, blah, blah.” I got told that so many times.
So finally when Brian and I took over managing Tesla, it was like mutiny on the bounty. We fired our manager and said, “You know what? We’re taking over.” I said, “I’m going to look on the Internet, I’m going to get a phone number for Marshall, and I’m going to call them myself. I’m going to say, ‘I really love Marshall amps. Are you interested in helping Tesla out?’” And sure enough, they were super-excited. Nick Bowcott is a hell of a guy. He loves our band and it’s been great. All this time I thought he would have nothing to do with us, and it’s just because you get managers telling you a bunch of bullshit.
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| "I've never been just married to one guitar." |
How long have you been managing Tesla?
Brian and I have been managing the band for almost 2 years now. I’m not exactly sure when we had mutiny on the bounty there, but I should research that. It’s been since we were in L.A. last time. It was right after we released Real To Reel. Brian has honestly kind of been the band spokesman in the business world for a long time. When we decided to take over, I jumped in to help put together all of our merchandise and art work direction. I have artist friend who does all our graphics and stuff. So I handled more of that stuff, and Brian handles the touring part of the management.
Was it overwhelming to take on those duties along with songwriting and playing?
Yeah. It’s definitely a lot more work, but it’s worth every second of it. With this Marshall deal, we don’t get lied to anymore. In the 70s, 80s, 90s, and maybe even still now, young bands do need bigger guns to get them places. But that’s not an excuse to neglect paying attention to what’s going on. It’s easy to get lazy and just let these bigwigs do it. I don’t want to totally say that you don’t need anybody else because you do need to have a team. When you’re a young, up-and-coming band, it does help to have a team of other people giving you some help.
You performed at the benefit concert back in March for the Station Nightclub fire victims. How did you initially get involved with that event?
That was all Troy Luccketta, our drummer. He got involved with meeting the people there. It was ultimately the band’s decision, but we had a friend that perished in that fire. It really hurt our hearts when that happened. We’ve met the survivors before. There are a lot of survivors there that are still in need of help. But Troy took the ball and ran with that one. He got a hold of Dee Snider, and they put that whole concert together. It was a great success and it raised a lot of money for them two years in a row. We’re giving back to our fans. Those are some die-hard, blue-collar, rock-and-roll fans that are struggling to make a comeback after being burned up. That’s just horrible.
Tommy Skeoch was a huge part of Tesla’s sound for so many years before he left the band back in 2006. Would you say bringing new guitarist Dave Rude into the group has been a seamless transition?
It was seamless, but it wasn’t quick by any means. We had ridden a roller coaster ride with Tommy for so long. We love Tommy’s playing, and I’ve been a fan of Tommy Skeoch’s guitar playing since I was 14. I used to watch him play in the clubs. Tommy’s style and my style on rhythm chops always fit together so well. He was in and out of the band for 5 years and there was a lot of turmoil. We didn’t replace him at first, and we went out as a 4-piece for a long time. We opened up for Lynyrd Skynyrd, for God’s sake! One of the greatest guitar bands of all time and they’ve got 3 guitar players! Tommy ended up leaving the band in the middle of that tour, and I had to cover it by myself, opening for one of the best bands of all time.
Then we had another guy come in for a while that was a good friend but didn’t have the style that we needed. The period of time was so hard that Tesla was kind of defunked and unable to make any money or do anything. So I put together a solo band and went out and toured on my own. I used that band in a way to audition guitar players for Tesla, hoping to find the right guy. I had a young kid in the band who I thought would be perfect, but he wasn’t really interested in playing with us. I searched and I searched.
I went to L.A. and I auditioned guys, but as soon as I found Dave I had a gut feeling like, “This is the guy.” I looked him up on MySpace, and I was listening to his music. I got together with him and it was seamless. When it is seamless, you know it’s right. As soon as I found Dave and we played together 2 or 3 songs just jamming, I was grinning from ear to ear because I knew it was going to be seamless and it was going to be easy. His style of playing just fits perfectly with mine, and he’s a hell of a nice guy.
Did you say that you found him on MySpace?
Yeah, I was desperately seeking and searching. I was so tired of not being able to do anything with Tesla because of those problems. I was searching for the right guy, and I was looking at a guy named Craig Behrhorst, who plays in a band called The Ruffians. They’re a metal band out of San Francisco. I was looking on his page, and that’s where I found Dave. Dave was in his Top 10 friends!
Are you currently recording new material?
We are. We’re in the studio right now with Terry Thomas, an English producer. The record is about 75 percent done. It will be out in September.
Would you say that you’re staying with the classic Tesla sound, which has always had that underlying blues-rock feel to it?
We are always challenging ourselves to stay active and current. If you listen to our last record Into The Now, we challenged ourselves to stay modern. Even though we have old influences and our old sound, we put a modern edge to it. We’re doing that even today. Our new songs have the same direction. We don’t like to stay stagnant or lazy or safe in the sense of playing just the same old rehashed riffs. It’s going to be modern, and it’s going to be a result of our challenging ourselves. At the same time, there is a formula that works. The song is the most important thing, the melody and the song. It’s going to be song-oriented, but it’s going to be modern in the approach.
I did a couple of guitar solos on there that are super-fast and shreddy. It’s probably the fastest that I’ve ever played. Then there are going to be some things that are like one note. I was joking around and calling it the “emo solo” because it’s one note and that’s it! Then there’s another solo I do in a song that I joke around and say it’s for the Guitar Hero kids. It’s probably 1,000 notes in a matter of 20 seconds. It’s running the whole gamut.
Will there be any acoustic material on it?
You know, there is not a whole lot of acoustic yet. There is one song that has got some acoustic textures. When we get down to finishing the record, I’m probably going to want to pull out a little acoustic solo like I did on “Love Song.” On our first album Mechanical Resonance, “Little Suzi” has an acoustic solo on it, and then “Love Song” has an acoustic solo. Both of those acoustic solos were done at home after the record was already done. I recorded them myself and sent them to the producer. I asked him to put them on the record as an afterthought. So that’s probably what I’ll do on this record. That’s a cool little texture that Tesla always puts on a record, those acoustic solos.
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| "Marshall is the best epitome of rock and roll amps, period." |
Are you fingerpicking any of those solos?
Yeah, nothing fancy. “Love Song” is using fingerpicking. Oh, yeah! That other one – the “Little Suzi” intro, too! I wish I would have made that into its own song, that “Little Suzi” intro. That piece of music, that melody, is an original, and “Little Suzi” was a cover tune. But it is a fingerpicked thing in a dropped tuning. That’s right.
The success of Five Man Acoustical Jam really showed that audiences do enjoy the acoustic side of Tesla.
I think I’m definitely going to try to come up with something. The reason that I like to do it at the end of it is because you’ve got the whole record together and you go, “Wow, right here in this spot would be a nice place for an acoustic solo.” I’ve got a piece of music when I was about 17 that was actually going to be the intro to “Love Song” but never made it on to the record. I may try to put it on this record. I’d have to re-record it to make it sound new, so something like that.
That’s amazing that you wrote it at 17 years old.
When we got signed I was 18, and we were playing the clubs when I was 14. So I got a young start. When we did the first record I was 19, and when we were touring with Def Leppard I was 20. I started playing guitar when I was 10 and played my first professional show when I was 12. So this freaking business has been my life pretty much!
You’re playing at the massive Rocklahoma event this July. Did you consider doing it last year?
Everyone told us, “Man, why didn’t you play Rocklahoma?” So we definitely wanted to be involved this year, and I’m glad we are. We’re going to be there with Queensryche, which is great because they’re an incredible band and have integrity. It’s just going to be a fantastic night. We’re there on Sunday night. Yeah, I’m really excited about it. Rocklahoma, it’s like the Midwestern Woodstock of the new millennium!
Interview by Amy Kelly
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