Interview with Silent Rage lead vocalist / guitarist Jesse Damon (Part 1 of 2)

INTERVIEW WITH SILENT RAGE LEAD VOCALIST / GUITARIST JESSE DAMON (Part 1 of 2)
Date: May 15, 2019
Interviewer: Tyson Briden

I WAS ON FACEBOOK RECENTLY AND CAME ACROSS SOMETHING THAT REALLY CAUGHT MY ATTENTION. IT SEEMS FUNNY, BUT WHEN I SEE THESE TYPES OF THINGS, I SEE MY LIFE PASSING BEFORE ME. I AM SPEAKING OF THE 30^TH ANNIVERSARY OF SILENT RAGE’S ‘DON’T TOUCH ME THERE’ ALBUM. OF COURSE THIS WAS A VERY IMPORTANT ALBUM AT THE TIME. THIS WOULD BE ONE OF THE FIRST RELEASES ON GENE SIMMONS’ NEW LABEL SIMMONS RECORDS. WHO REMEMBERS THE MONEY BAG LOGO?

SO HERE WE ARE SOME 30 YEARS LATER. I REACHED OUT TO SILENT RAGE SINGER JESSE DAMON TO SEE IF HE WAS INTERESTED IN POSSIBLY TALKING TO ME ABOUT THE ALBUM. HE WAS QUICK TO OBLIGE. WHAT I FOUND INTRIGUING ABOUT SPEAKING WITH DAMON WAS THE FACT THAT HE HAD SO MANY GREAT STORIES. AS YOU LISTENED, YOU COULD IMAGINE THE TIME IN YOUR HEAD. YOU COULD TASTE IT, SMELL IT, TOUCH IT… WAIT, DON’T TOUCH ME THERE!

AS DAMON SPOKE OF THE TIMES WITH GENE SIMMONS, I WAS SALIVATING AT THE FACT THAT HERE I WAS TALKING WITH A MAN WHO HAD WORKED WITH A LEGEND. GROWING UP IN THE ’80S, SIMMONS WAS AN ICONIC FIGURE TO ME. WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW WAS THE HUMAN ELEMENT BEING TOLD BY DAMON. SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE TO SAY THINGS ABOUT SIMMONS. IN MY MIND, THERE ARE TWO VERSIONS OF SIMMONS, THE ONE ON THE CAMERA AND THE ONE BEHIND IT. PERSONALLY, I AM NOT A HUGE FAN OF THE GUY ON THE CAMERA, BUT IN SPEAKING WITH DAMON, IT BECAME APPARENT THAT HIS TRUE ADMIRATION FOR SIMMONS IS OBVIOUS WHICH IN TURN HELPS ME HAVE MORE ADMIRATION FOR THE MAN. IT ALSO BECOMES OBVIOUS THAT SIMMONS ISN’T AS MONEY HUNGRY AND RUTHLESS AS SOME PORTRAY HIM. OF COURSE SIMMONS IS A CALCULATED AND INTELLIGENT BUSINESS MAN, BUT I HAVE MUCH RESPECT FOR THAT. WE ALL SHOULD. HE EARNED EVERY BIT OF WHAT HE IS TODAY.

REGARDLESS, THIS IS A STORY OF THE BAND SILENT RAGE. I HOPE YOU ENJOY READING IT AS MUCH AS I DID PUTTING IT TOGETHER. CHEERS!

Sleaze Roxx: Hey Jesse.

Jesse Damon: Hi Tyson. Good to talk to you.

Sleaze Roxx: You too Jesse. Thanks for doing the interview.

Jesse Damon: I am always happy to hear that you got to make it to the M3.

Sleaze Roxx: Yeah, it was awesome. I had a really good time.

Jesse Damon: You know it just keeps getting better. The talent pool for melodic rock — the hard rockers, they’re true to what they love to do. So it’s no surprise you know!

Sleaze Roxx: They added that third day and that was awesome. That was the first time I had been. From here on out, I will probably be going every year. The way that they do it with the revolving stage and the bands getting on within ten minutes of each other is great.

It’s got the first album, ‘Shattered Hearts.’ As we are talking about that album, was that how Gene Simmons discovered Silent Rage?

Jesse Damon: He did and I have a little story behind that. It’s short, but it explains pretty much how we got the connection for Gene to call us. Before we go ahead with that story, let me say thank you very much for taking time for this interview.

Sleaze Roxx: Oh, no problem.

Jesse Damon: Anytime when I get a chance to talk Silent Rage and talk about our past, it’s a lot of fun. So ‘Don’t Touch Me There’ is the second album by Silent Rage. It was released in June of ’89. Everything flies by so fast when you have the best times in your life. In some instances, I think back and it seems like yesterday, but I can’t believe 30 years has gone by. The original members that formed Silent Rage were and still are E.J. Curse, Mark Hawkins and myself. We formed the band back in high school and it was called Rage. We set out to conquer the world of course. We wanted to be a big band you know! It wasn’t long before we all knew that was what we wanted to do in life. We all had the bug and we loved going to concerts, watching other bands, etc. Just loving music and trading albums. We were listening to music together. So that’s what we wanted to do and that was perform live in a rock band. It was a long pathway though. We really had to work at it hard to pave the way. We had to play 100 performances before we got to the point of really being ready to go in and record a first album and demoing professionally.

Part of that was meeting our producer Paul Sabu. We met Paul in 1985 and we started to go into the studio with him. We just started recording songs. By that time, which was three or four months, we had recorded 15 songs or so. He said, “I think you guys have a strong album here. We can pick the best of the crop and let’s put it out!” So we did that. It took a little while and we got involved with a smaller independent record label called Chameleon Records or Chameleon Music Group. They happened to be right in our hometown of Hawthorne, California. They were not too far from where we lived. One of the guys working there, who got a job in A&R, was one of the guys that we graduated with in high school. It was very coincidental. So he was instrumental in getting us signed to that. That first album did pretty good. It went number one import album for Kerrang Magazine in 1987. It was released in, I believe, the summer of ’87. We had a radio station, KNAC, which was very popular out here. We got involved in a contest, very similar or actually was the same contest that Bon Jovi got involved in in 1984. It was the Seagrams Wine Cooler National Contest. It was trying to find the best bands around for melodic rock. It was held in Hollywood. We got down to the finals. We ended up being the runner up for the last five bands. We found out after that the winning band, which was called Snakerock — it was a scam. It was fixed. The radio station, KNAC, loved the promotion and loved the band. So much that they took 10 bands from the competition and put out an album. One of the songs that we had on that album was on ‘Shattered Hearts.’ So that got us a lot of radio play. It was kind of our single. The song was called “Make It Or Break it.” We still had “Rebel” on that and it was getting some radio play too! It wasn’t until we decided that we really had to find the right management to really steer our career. So we started looking for it. We looked anywhere we could. We’d go to the record stores and look at albums. We went to bands that we loved too. We tried to find who their management companies were within the liner notes. It was the backsides of albums.

We loved a lot of different bands, but KISS was a favorite band or ours at the time. We found out one of their management’s names, so we made a few calls. We got to talk to Howard Marks from ‘Glixman and Marks’, which handled KISS’ merchandising business. We said, “We’re looking for management. We’d love to have you come out and check us out! We know you handle KISS. That’s one of our favorite bands. We’re an up and coming band who are signed to a smaller label. We’re looking to get a major label signing.” He says, “I’ll tell you what. I have to come out to LA. I’ll come and see you.” So he specifically flew out. He came to a private showcase. At the end of it he said, “I really like you guys! You kind of remind me a little of KISS in the sense that you take everything very serious. You’ve got good outfits. You think about your image. You guys played a really good set. I like your songs. They’re very commercial. There’s a lot of good pluses there.” Then he goes, “I’m merchandising management for KISS. I can’t sign you to the label that KISS is on. We’re not a record label, but I’ll tell you what. I know that Gene Simmons is starting his own custom label and I’m going to pass this along to him. I’ll let him know about what I came and saw. I’ll talk about you guys.” So we were happy about that. It was great for the moment, but we never heard back. That was summertime. It was getting to be three or four months down the road.

Right around, I’d say, October, we got this phone call and it was Gene. He ended up calling our bass player E.J. because E.J. was our spokesman and kind of did a lot of the business for the band back in that time. Everybody within Silent Rage has their own driving force. Mine happens to be writing songs, singing and composing. So Mark and I, had a special relationship. Mark Hawkins, the other guitarist, singer — he and I, liked to put joke voices on our phone machines back then. When Gene called, E.J. thought it was one of us pretending to be Gene. He was going, “C’mon you guys. Quit it! Who is this? Mark or Jesse?” He goes, “No, I’m being serious. This is Gene Simmons!” Then he finally realizes it really was Gene. Then, Gene straight up said, “Hey, I’m sitting here with ‘Shattered Hearts’ on my lap. I got it sent to me by Howard Marks. He told me the whole story. I’m starting a new label and I really like the way you guys sound!” That really was the cusp of the beginning of getting involved. Gene said, “I want to set up a meeting to have you guys come out to my house. We’ll sit down and talk about it because just on listening to what you guys are doing, I think we can make a strong album. I want to sign you!” Talk about motivation! That started it.

Sleaze Roxx: That is such a great story, especially being KISS fans.

Jesse Damon: I know. There was time back in the ’70s — I started going to see them. Not right at the beginning when KISS came out which would be ’73, but when ‘Alive!’ came out. Then I saw them again in ’76 and ’77. By that time, there was one of those tours that I dressed up as Ace Frehley and E.J. dressed up as Gene. We even went that far. By the year ’79, we had a close encounter that we were supposed to meet Gene and Paul Stanley. They were going to come to our rehearsals. We happened to know Hank Schnell who was the pyrotechnics director for KISS at that time. He was there from ’79 to ’80 — or ’81. So Hank was trying to talk Gene and Paul to come to our rehearsal. They were going to do the favor for Hank. It ended up that they didn’t make it. Hank showed up and he goes, “The guys had something that came up. They couldn’t make it, but I’m going to pass on any of the stuff you guys want me to, to them. So that was kind of our first — then when we really started making strides in writing in the mid ’80s, we said, “We have got to try and do an album!” That’s when we met Sabu.

Paul was a big push for us because he kind of gave us our sound as a producer and engineer. We liked him as an artist. He was a great singer. He reminded me a lot of a Sammy Hagar meets Dave Meniketti — some of the screamers like Dio, that kind of guy. He’s just got a strong voice plus his playing ability and songwriting. So I took a liking to that right away. I got in good with him and we got along. So the first couple albums really went strong. With getting Gene involved, that was a lot of fun because that was the real industry in a sense. You’ve got a legend like Gene wanting to open doors for us and it really said, “We’re shooting for the stars here guys! I want to make you guys stars! I really want to push a lot into you!” And he did! We had a good chance, but the timing of everything was a little bit late. If this would have happened that we had met up with Gene in ’87, maybe our life expectancy and lifespan would have survived the grunge scene that came.

Sleaze Roxx: The window from ’89 to ’91 was so quick. It was there and then it was gone.

Jesse Damon: Yeah. I’m not sure if you’re aware but Gene was after us to get into the studio after ‘Don’t Touch Me There’ was finished because we were starting to write and we were starting to listen to outside songs as well as write a ton of songs. We got in the studio and we were trying to find the right producer. We really wanted to up the ante. We were talking with guys like Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick. Billy Squire — we had a conversation with him. Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx as a team. They were looking to start to produce. Then Gene said, “You know what? I’m going to talk to Bob Ezrin!” Gene spoke to Bob and Bob said “Yes”. Because Bob was working with Julian Lennon at the time, Bob had a little bit less time to give us. He could give us the evenings, but not the daytimes, so Gene found Kevin Beamish, a secondary engineer/producer who has done a ton of stuff. He came off from doing Y&T. Here we’ve got Kevin Beamish and Bob Ezrin to do the second album.

Sleaze Roxx: Kevin Beamish did one of my favorite albums and that is the Cold Sweat ‘Break Out’ album.

Jesse Damon: Oh yeah. Absolutely. I know all those guys. Wasn’t that a hybrid from Keel?

Sleaze Roxx: Yes, Marc Ferrari.

Jesse Damon: Marc Ferrari, right.

Sleaze Roxx: They just announced that they’re reforming to play the Monsters of Rock Cruise next year.

Jesse Damon: Nice. Maybe one of the most notable phone calls — what would happen is we would talk and have a meeting at Gene’s house and he says, “Today, let’s make some phone calls. We’ve got to nail this!” After we got and landed Bob Ezrin and Kevin Beamish, we talked with Interscope Records and they were trying — I guess Gene had lost the deal with RCA. So he was looking to find the next distributor for him and he went after Interscope which is smart, but it was played out plainly. The genre, they loved it, but it’s kind of taken its course. The big thing is grunge. So it was laid out and they gave us the harsh words. They said, “They’re sorry but they would have, had it been a few years back!” We appreciated it and they said, “Good luck with that because you sound like you have some good people working on that maybe can squeak through and get you guys some notoriety. There isn’t anything that’s for sure, except it look like this new wave of genre is going to happen!” So that was another jolt to the heart.

Sleaze Roxx: I am sure as a musician that was tough. As a listener and a fan of the genre, it was just as hard on some fans as it was on the bands. I had a hard time excepting it. It became a thing of, “Why can’t I find the bands that I love at the record store anymore?” I had to go to Toronto. Remember CMC International? They were releasing music. They were an independent that were releasing Slaughter, Warrant, Kix, etc. You couldn’t go to your normal record store and buy it. I had to go downtown Toronto and buy it on import. For everybody that loved that genre, it was such a hard thing.

Jesse Damon: Did you happen to see us when we came to Toronto in ’89 with the Sabbath tour?

Sleaze Roxx: No. Where did you guys play?

Jesse Damon: I could look it up. I can’t think off hand.

Sleaze Roxx: If it was a club in ’89, I was too young to get in. In ’89, I was 15. I was almost on the brink of getting into clubs, but not quite. Here the age is 19, not 21 like in the States.

Jesse Damon: On that tour, we started out in Poughkeepsie, New York. We played the Orpheon Theatre in Boston. We played Columbia, [at the] Merriweather Post Pavilion. We played the Boathouse in Norfolk, Virginia. We played Philly, [at] The Tower Theatre. Then we came back to New York and played the Palladium. One of the biggest shows after that — we played that Saturday night and the next night we were guests of Bon Jovi at Giants Stadium. As we’re walking in, we’re looking like a rock band. People are asking, “Who are you guys?” We get in there, we walk down, we get into this section where you can get in and then you can go down on the field. So we did that. As soon as we did, we see these waves of girls starting to point. All of sudden this roar comes up like they think we’re one of the bands that’s going to go up and go on the stage right away. Now Toronto was the Varsity Arena.

Sleaze Roxx: The Varsity Arena. Cool.

Jesse Damon: It held about 4,800 people. You can imagine — just to let you know, I was a big Black Sabbath fan. I went through the era of loving Ozzy and all the original guys. Then they went on. I think there was a couple other singers or was Dio right after Ozzy? Dio was right after Ozzy.

Sleaze Roxx: Yes, I believe he was.

Jesse Damon: Tony Martin who did the ‘Headless Cross’ and sang on that. I guess he had more of a Dio voice than Ozzy, but he did do justice and sang pretty close. He sounded pretty good on Ozzy songs that were sung by Ozzy. He was a hell of a nice guy. The great story I like to tell is that the first day, we go from New York City. We fly up and we’re ready to go. We’re sitting outside the Mid-Hudson Civic. Myself and the other guitarist in Silent Rage, we’ve got our guitars and we’re playing. We’re warming up and singing a little, going, “This is gonna be great!” All of a sudden, Tony Iommi comes walking out and walks right up to us. He sits down with us and says, “Hey mate, so I hear you’re in Silent Rage and you’re going to be opening up for us tonight?” We go, “Yeah! It’s really good to meet you Tony!” I just can’t believe that that happened, but it did. Talk about diffusing a bomb that was about to go off! My head and my heart, just being there and getting to do it. It was a calming feeling. A guy that I’ve always idolized and loved was just a regular guy saying, “Well, you guys do a great job and I’m looking forward to seeing you around on the tour!” Unbelievable! That gives you kind of strength in a sense of “Thank god we’re here!” Cause a lot of times, I think young musicians always question themselves. Now that they’re in the mix and they’re getting their chance, they say to themselves, “Do I measure up? Am I good enough?” I’ve learned that you do what you know and you do the best you can. You draw strength. If you have butterflies or you’re nervous, you just think about the set you’re gonna go play. You kick ass on that and everything works out on its own.

Sleaze Roxx: Now talking about Varsity Arena. I was thinking about it. Was it an outdoor facility or was it indoor?

Jesse Damon: It was indoor.

Sleaze Roxx: Okay. I think that’s the hockey arena.

Jesse Damon: For some reason, I said that but I could have sworn it was a smaller venue. I might be getting mixed up. Looking off of the original itinerary and it’s all it’s got for it. Varsity Arena, whatever that was.

Sleaze Roxx: That is very cool that you’ve kept that. Amazing.

Jesse Damon: Yeah, you know you get that. It’s a keepsake that you want to keep especially our first national major tour. Black Sabbath. That’s another gift of Gene Simmons. He walked in. Wherever he went, he basically went and talked to the owner or the president. Leading up to ‘Don’t Touch Me There’ and in co-ordination with RCA, we did a lot of promoting with interviews. In person, as well as on the phone at RCA on behalf of their team talking to the Vice-President and all the A&R people. So before we went to New York, we went and did it in L.A. We met everybody there. Some of them said, “We’re going to and fly to a few of the shows and see you guys!” That was cool. Gene, when it came to the look of the band, he was very much a part of it and very much into it. Trying to have no holds barred. He was at our album cover shoot. He was at promotional photo shoots. The big thing, I don’t if it’s known but he sang back up on some of ‘Don’t Touch Me There’. He did backups on “I Wanna Feel It” — I have to take a look at the order. There was another one. I don’t think so. I think that was the only song. You can kind of hear it. I can hear it.

As far as the promotion side, we did a lot leading up to getting the album together and what it was going to look like. After all of the recording was done — and he’d come down when he could. There was about a six month period that we recorded ‘Don’t Touch Me There.’ We started in the summer of ’88 and went through — he was on the road actually out in Europe. So he’d call us. We’d conference call while we’re in the studio. He’d say, “Play this back. I want to hear what happening!” He’d have some input, but he’d love some of it and go, “Oh my God, this is great!” He has that way about him to keep you going and pushing you. Keeping the fire burning high, which is great. When we got back, we did some more. What happened was that Gene and Paul Sabu, kind of butted heads a little bit. “So I’ll tell you, Gene, why don’t you finish the album ’cause you’ve got a certain outlook in making it. You can do a better job. I don’t know what you’re really looking for, but I did what I could.” I think it was about six, seven songs Paul did and then Gene took over and he brought in a few engineers, but he was there every session. So we have fond memories of Gene coming in and directing. Producing, but also directing.

Sleaze Roxx: I believe in the liner notes, it says Paul Sabu, then it says something about Gene. It may say what tracks Gene did or what not. I was trying to pull it down off my huge wall of CDs. I should have had it ready before we began.

Jesse Damon: It says, “Produced by Gene Simmons and Paul Sabu.” The Executive Producer is Gene Simmons. It is well known that Gene was the end all that it had to go through. Paul really had that kind of, at least that I know of, somebody that was over him, overseeing the thing and saying, “No, I don’t want you to do that!” When you’re the producer, you want to produce it. If anybody you’re going to go to, it’s the band. We were still young. We did demo projects, but to do this. Engineered by Mikey Davis, Pat Regan and Paul Sabu.

Sleaze Roxx: Oh, Pat Regan.

Jesse Damon: Yeah, Pat Regan — great guy. We became good friends with him. He had his own studio in Hollywood called Fortress Studios. We recorded there. Actually we recorded in his apartment a little bit too. He had a setup in his apartment. So we got a song that was recorded there. Everything about the album, even the mastering by Greg Cougeltini was prompted to go there by Gene. With him saying, “That guys great!” I think Paul Sabu agreed. He said, “Yeah that guys really the hot guy, at least right now!” It turned out pretty good.

Sleaze Roxx: It is a great sounding album. I put it on my phone, so I’ve been listening to it in the car for the last week and a half.

Jesse Damon: No way! After the recording was done, we did a video for “Rebel With A Cause.” That kind of has its own history and story as it stood. When that song was first written, it was written with a different title and a different lyric. A little bit of a different feel, but for the most part, it is still the vibe. I ended up changing it and re-working it, coming in with it for ‘Shattered Hearts.’ Brand new title, brand new story and all of a sudden it came to life. Paul Sabu said, “That’s the right way to go!” When Gene heard it, he said, “I think we’ve got to make it even bigger!” So we ended up putting in an intro on it that started with the chorus. We just really put some emphasis a little bit more in areas. Some of the specialty of Gene is with all his experience with KISS. Him wanting to interject a little bit of nuance. That little nuance is people saying they knew the affiliation of Gene working with us, but also saying some of the songs sound a little KISS orientated. That’s just flattering. KISS is a great rock band. So we did the video for “Rebel With A Cause.” We did it at a place called A&M Studios [which is] a famous record label studio. It was owned by Herb Alpert. The big stage that we shot it on was a well-known stage called “The Charlie Chaplin Stage.” Gene was there for support. There was a ton of press that was down there. They were also shooting something called ‘Loud & Heavy’. It was being narrated by Jim Ladd for ELOS. It was a bunch of footage of bands and then in the background answering questions from Jim. Jim came in while we were on break shooting the video and he asked us a bunch of questions. Then Gene did his own. On that was Guns N’ Roses, Megadeth and a bunch of great bands. We were lucky to have gotten on that.

So it was another catalyst of Gene for promotion. He had a 45 foot banner of Silent Rage put behind us. An 80 foot long stage made. Then eventually we’re talking right around April of 1989. We finally got the dates and we had gone in just before the shooting of the video and we landed a creative artist agency. A booking agency. There were two tours that were left. One was opening for Black Sabbath and one was going out opening for .38 Special. We thought, “Black Sabbath, that’s it. That’s the one we want!” No offence to .38 Special. We probably would have done pretty good and had a great time, but I mean you’re talking legends with Sabbath. That’s kind of what I had with that. We were hard rockers. After that, the next thing was to move onto New York just before the tour started. We were there and met everybody. The President of RCA Records on New York and that staff. We spent two or three days doing on air radio. We were going at it like crazy. At the same time, we met the president of MTV and he promised us regular rotation. He got us on Headbanger’s Ball. All these doors opening. We were just kind of taking it in and saying, “We can’t blow this!”

Sleaze Roxx: That’s amazing. So cool.

Jesse Damon: It was a good feeling. It was like all that hard work and all that dream we had was actually coming to fruition. As was almost as if we felt, “God, was this meant to be?” Right before everything happened, we were going to a lot of TJ Martel Foundation rock events. It had a lot of up and coming bands that just got signed. One was Warrant. We felt like we were in the same boat as them. They were about to start off, we were starting off. They got luckier than us and it’s whatever happened.

Sleaze Roxx: You did a cover of ELO’s “Can’t Get Her Out of My Mind” on ‘Don’t Touch Me There.’ Was this a song that Silent Rage wanted to do or was this more of a push from the record company?

Jesse Damon: That song was suggested by Gene Simmons. When we were talking to him early on, the very first call was E.J. talking to Gene. Then Gene said, “I want to talk to the whole band! I’m gonna call back and have everybody over there.” E.J. said, “Well, everybody will come over to my house and talk on speaker phone!” So we did that and that initial meeting was a nice long juicy phone conversation of everybody introducing themselves to a certain degree and talking a bit. Then we started to talk about his feelings on his direction. He said, “What do you guys want to do for songwriting? Are you interested or would you be open to an outside song? I’ve always had a couple songs that I thought would be a smash if a rock band covered these.” He said, “Do you guys know about ELO, Electric Light Orchestra?” I go, “Yeah, yeah! I love Jeff Lynne!” So he goes, “Well, “Can’t Get Her Out Of My Head” was a big hit and I thought that could be hit again with the right band. Would you be willing to demo it and try it?” And we said, “Absolutely!” So we tried it and when he heard it he goes, “This is great! It’s exactly what I thought!” That was a fun song and I thought that that might be a song where it gives you credibility in a sense of coming out with the first single but it’s a song that if it done well, it could help your career because all the disc jockeys across America are gonna play it at some point. They [play] the old ones, they play the new ones. I think that’s smart. We liked how it turned out. It’s fast and in 1988, we went to the American Music Awards with Gene and Shannon [Tweed]. We met Jeff [Lynne] there and Gene had sent him a version of it. He signed off on it. I like it when I hear it. That was another kind of feeling of, “Okay, let’s keep continuing!”

Sleaze Roxx: I asked that question because from past interviews with other artists, there always seems to be a story when it comes to covering classic material. Some do it out of respect for the artist and others are pushed in that direction.

Jesse Damon: Yeah, along with that said, we happened to all know that song and we didn’t want to all say, “Gene actually, we all hate that song!” If that had been the case, we still wanted to be a little cool, politically correct, work with him and at least try something with whatever he suggested. By doing it, having fun with it and making it to what it was, we thought, “Yeah, that turned out pretty good!” There were a couple others down the road after that that didn’t work. He mentioned a few others and brought a few outside songs. We listened to them and we’d say, “Nah, I don’t think so! We’re not feeling that one!” I think with how good “Can’t Get Her Out Of My Head” was, that was why we felt good from the get go! I have to be honest in saying, we wanted to be known as the band that will work with it. It wasn’t, “No, no, just our material!” I think it’s to your benefit to be open minded.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of 2 of the interview with Jesse Damon!

Silent Rage‘s “Rebel Without A Cause” video:

Silent Rage – Rebel With A Cause

Silent Rage performing Rebel With A Cause Video Clip.Produced by Paul Sabu.1989 RCA/BMG.

Silent Rage‘s “Don’t Touch Me There” song:

Silent Rage – Don’t touch me there

Glam Rock Hard Rock melodico :DAlbum: Don’t Touch Me ThereAño: 1989