I don’t know what it is about Italian guys from Boston that can sit on the phone for 2 hours during the NBA Finals; and talk and talk with such enthusiasm for life that it becomes contagious. I do know however, that Vince Ciampi the guitar player for Blue Tiger had me so enthralled by his animated and enthralling stories that by the time I got off the phone with him; the game was just about over, and I forgot that I was watching my favorite sport and team go down! I know that his enthusiasm is just wild and it seems the rest of the bands are too. They will be opening the added day of Rocklahoma on stage 3 at about 3:00pm and if you Glam Rock fans out in Rocklahoma don’t show up to this performance, you may be missing one of the best live shows you will get to watch at the second annual music phenomenon Rocklahoma!
Vince did speak for the entire band; but I could just feel the humble and excited feeling from him, that I am sure all of his band-mates are feeling. Though there have been some changes to the original line-up (Tommy and David), the new line-up which includes; Art Dauwer on Lead Vocals, Vince Ciampi on Guitar, Tommy Lanzillo on bass and David Epstein on drums. Even though Original drummer Mike Maguire and the two original bass players Pat Moynihan (87-89) and Sean Ciasiera (89-91) are no longer with the band, Vince speaks fondly of all present and past members. In music people move on and either go on with their lives or get involved in different aspects of the business. This is defiantly a feel good group who can get onstage knowing that there are no hard feeling, no regrets. Though people sweep in and out of our lives, he knows that every member is just as equally important as the ones from the past to the present; it does not seem to be in Vince’s or Art’s nature to hold grudges or feel bitter about the past; what is important is today, and the wild ride they have been on.
AAM: It seems to have been a whirlwind year for the band, when exactly did the craziness start?
Blue Tiger - Vince: Well, being approached to let someone make the Blue Tiger tribute site, then friends going up so fast, Sam McCaslin (the owner of Retrospect Records) just approaching us out of nowhere; newspapers and magazines wanting to do stories on us, We guess the truth is, the craziness started with the site and just kept getting more crazy. We may have had 1,000 friends; suddenly Sam Signs us, August 11th, 2007, the CD comes out and by October, 1st 2007, we are told our new Cd Untamed Spirit is nominated for an All Access Magazine award in the Glam Rock category. Before you know it, November comes around and we fly there; win on November 3rd, as we are doing more and more talk shows and cable interviews and magazines, we are soon approached by Retrospect for Rocklahoma. Now it’s only a few days away! This is seriously crazy stuff! It was some year; start a year ago we thought it would just STOP! However, it just hasn’t; hehehehe, we get some slow down times but the wonderful things just keep happening.
AAM: What year did you first get together, and finally break-up?
Vince: We got together is 1987, it was a mistake for us to be put together, a total accident, but it seemed to work. The final break up was early April 11th 1991, was the date, the feeling was that it just wasn’t worth it any more, there was a lot to Blue Tiger, and the time had come to end it.
AAM: Speaking to you, you are such an alive and energetic person; all the members are from Boston originally, do they all have that same outgoing personality, and “GO FOR IT” spirit?
Vince: We are actually from Revere, MA actually, right off the beach; ah, yea, pretty much, the 2 new members (bassist Tommy Lanzillo & David Epstein are childhood friends of both Art & Vince) yea, we pretty much have the Boston/Revere "Go For It" mentality!
AAM: Your page started as a fan tribute page on MySpace (www.myspace/bluetiger1), as it started growing, how surprised where you? Also has the band had to take over the running of the page?
Vince: Ah Shocked? See, we started getting friends all over the world on our My Space page, I mean, the world, so, we took over the site ourselves last May, when we got signed. It just felt it would be better to reach out to our fans, be there for them ourselves; so we jumped in and we are still jumping all over, insane.
AAM: We have seen a lot of bands come back and even a new generation of Glam Rock type bands come back. Do you think Glam Rock is back, and will it stick around awhile?
Vince: OK its Sort of Back, meaning even the Local FM Radio stations are now playing all 80s music. Tours and events are all over the world, it never left Europe, but even here in the US, we think the only ones that aren’t getting the clue, are the major record labels who don’t see the writing on the wall. Will it have its time return fully, we believe this summer will tell, but, if the major labels don’t catch up to what’s going on, we don’t know, we can hope though, it’s up to the world to stand up and now say, WE WANT OUR MTV BACK!
AAM: Five weeks after your Cd Untamed Spirit was released, you where nominated for an AAM award and won! How shocked where you to be nominated and WIN?
Vince: We were but, we had already told Sam we would be Nominated, Then we told him we Won, Oh yea! He still owes us on a Brick on that! Guess we all didn’t believe we were going to win, but did! We were all in Hollywood for the AAM Awards Show.
AAM: Your first Cd Untamed Spirit is a Retrospect best seller; what do you think the appeal of that is?
Vince: People Like it? Isn’t that like asking if we are great lovers, what can we say? Best we can say is it has the Raw Magic that seems to catch on; all we do is be grateful that someone likes it, and people are listening to it.
AAM: Back when you first got together you where signed to two major record companies, Columbia and Atlantic, why is it that you did not push out a bunch of albums with either label?
Vince: We weren’t signed, we were offered to sign; by Columbia, we tore up the contract in their face. It was a bad offer, great tour; great offers besides being in the band as nothing more than a hired musician’s. They wanted to own everything, that was 88, by 89 Atlantic wanted to sign us, we had like 30 plus songs, we actually owe Untamed Spirit to Atlantic, See, they heard our 3 song demo and said, Send more songs, so, we did 8 more, then said send more, so we did 3 more but we didn’t push it, and by 91 the offer was off the table, and the band went its separate ways. UNTIL THIS YEAR!
AAM: Do any of you regret not really pushing it with the two major labels; Columbia and Atlantic; you could have possibly been major record sellers and selling out major arenas back in the 80’s and early 90’s?
Vince: OK yes, with Columbia; even though they would have owned everything, they made a real offer with tour and everything and with Atlantic like we said, “regret not”. During 1989 and spending most of 1990 doing the recordings for them, I guess we were gun shy. So, the answer would be, yes and no. Retrospect is a great label to be signed to; they don’t want to own you, your name, you’re future. They just want us to be the musicians we are.
AAM: You had the chance to work with Columbia and Atlantic back in the 80’s, but nothing really came out of it, as Vince told me “you didn’t want to be slaves to the record companies”. What is so different now and being signed to the label Retrospect?
Vince: Because, Columbia really wanted to own EVERYTHING; the songs, the name, the band, everything. We would have been nothing more than paid musicians to our own band. Is it worth selling your soul because they wanted that to, Retrospect is great! They own just the CD and that’s it. They are such a pleasure to work with. We highly respect that, and the fact that Retrospect respects us. We also love the bonus; we get to play LIVE at ROCKLAHOMA! We think that most musicians live to play live; we feed off an audience’s energy, and get super hyped with them!
AAM: Back in the late 80’s you played with some great bands all over the place, Was there any one experience that was super memorable to you or an instance where you though “Wow, we really are part of this Rock community?
Vince: One of our first shows was backing up the Extreme; they had just got signed and were getting ready for their National Tour, it was a big event for us. Then we backed up Mass, just before they took off with Stryper, that sort of made a mark, actually it started to seem like every few months we had some great band to back up, or a great show to do, most of the other time, we were in the studio so we didn’t just play the scene, grind the clubs, it’s hard to explain, but, we were also since one year old, being looked at by a Record label so, it wasn’t as if we were out there doing it to find them. You know what we mean?
AAM: In the last year; you have been seen, interviewed and recognized for work you all did on your first album “Untamed Spirit”, what was the biggest surprise after it was released?
Vince: That Retrospect Records found us and did such a great package with it, seriously, then, winning the All Access Magazine Music Award. We owe a lot to Sam at Retrospect and even All Access Magazine, I guess we can say; it has been kinda a dream and WOW year!
AAM: Are you getting any radio play inside or outside the United States? You seem to be on a roll.
Vince: Oh yea a lot; it’s a bit insane! We are getting play in Italy; just outside of Milan, Where the Radio and TV station have requested the CD for Airplay; we said ok, and then they did a Blue Tiger Giveaway. The same thing in Missouri, in the USA, Germany, Belgium, Swiss, Sweden, and a few FM Radio stations worldwide, then some great Internet radio stations, Smokin Tunz, Galactic World Radio, Dreamscape, Blogtalkradio, the list is pretty big and we are very appreciative that all these places and stations are picking us up.
AAM: Your getting ready to go to Rocklahoma, what has the band been doing to prepare, and how exited are all of you?
Vince: Practicing A LOT! We have been doing what we had to. First, we had the Original Bassist and Drummer. The Drummer now lives in Georgia and the Bassist is in Like 4 of the hottest local bands, so, we figured, we had to replace the Backbone of Blue Tiger, so Back to our Hometown, Revere, MA; where we were lucky to find 2 players that have played together for over 20 plus years, Tommy and David (who we had known a long time and considered friends), they are excited to be part of this, they had almost semi retired themselves. Now that we got together, we have been figuring out the set list, getting it down. We should be more than ready to have a great two shows at Rocklahoma!
AAM: Your taking this all the way; Rocklahoma has given you a rebirth; What are all of you doing to get that Glam Rock feeling back?
Vince: Right now we are more concerned with doing the best show we can. Next we will be working on the wardrobe hehehe, but we don’t believe anyone will be disappointed. We have also been getting back in our Glam Rocker’s mode, dieting and exercising to get ourselves in shape for the physical look of course, but also the stamina we will need for performing at Rocklahoma.
AAM: You are opening Stage 3 at Rocklahoma at Wednesday 3:15 July 9th 2008, and will also be playing another time slot Friday the 9th 5:15pm and Sunday the 11th 5:15pm. How honored do you feel for opening your stage?
Vince: We are so honored to be opening the show on the 9th, real honored. It was a Special Bonus Show that Retrospect gave us and to be the opening kickoff band as well, we already had the Friday Show and it’s such an honor. We were surprised when we were told.
AAM: When you are at Rocklahoma; besides going up on stage and performing, what else are you looking forward to?
Vince: Being there for all our friends and fans that have been so kind to support us; we will be there Thursday and Saturday for interviews and whatever else may happen, we will just having a good time, and soaking in the entire experience.
AAM: Did anything special have to been done to the Cd from the original songs you made years ago?
Vince: Well, the Cd was re-mastered from digital originals, with a bonus track that should be out soon and available at Rocklahoma. The original version won’t be produced any more; the re-master will also have a new back cover and we hope is well received, we just felt it would be better to get a true original feeling from the digital masters, rather than re-recording it all again, that way people get the experience of the original Blue Tiger and not something totally different.
AAM: Some musicians have a hard time writing lyrics and coming up with music arrangements; you’re not one of those bands, why do you think it comes so easy to all of you? (Note: on the phone he just started playing a song for me, new music and lyrics… Ahh a serenade!)
Vince: I guess because many songwriters just love to talk, create, and are always feeling and thinking, it just seems natural to us. We have so many unrecorded songs; over 30. To us the flow and feeling both come easy. We do understand this may not be the case of every musician or even general writers.
AAM: You have a new Cd planned for release sometime in 2008 early 2009, will you be having guest artists on the Cd, and how excited are you to get back into the studio?
Vince: Yes and quite a few have said yes to being guests on it, Steve Bello has said yes, Sam (the owner of Retrospect Records) has even hinted he would be willing to play on it and quite a few others. We think Rocklahoma sort of made the New CD take a back Seat for now; we even did a re-master of the original Cd, with a Bonus Track. It will be released soon, but we have no clear date at this time, sorry.
Once again, All Access Magazine congratulates Blue Tiger on their continuous success this year! Be sure to save AAM a copy of that re-mastered Cd with the bonus track, we’ll see YOU at ROCKLAHOMA!
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