Warrant singer Robert Mason states George Lynch is difficult like Don Dokken and eccentric
Warrant singer Robert Mason states George Lynch is difficult like Don Dokken and eccentric
Warrant frontman Robert Mason was recently interviewed by Bobby Caughron of XS Rock on the occasion of the release of Warrant‘s new studio album Louder Harder Faster.
Mason was asked whether Lynch Mob guitarist and ex-bandmate George Lynch was difficult to work with to which Mason stated: “He’s an eccentric guy, but he has that artist mentality and I think he gets lost in the art and overlooks some of the social graces sometimes. I think he’ll even admit that. He’s a really intelligent guy with a great sense of humor. He can be as sarcastic and cynical as anybody but I respect that. We all have our moments. He’s older than I am. When I joined Lynch Mob, George and Mick (Brown) were the older guys from Dokken and we, Anthony Esposito and myself, were the kids from New York coming in to like, leave our first big star on the record industry. Yeah, did we bonk heads? Oh, hell yeah! We both did. But he and I just spoke two weeks ago and were joking around about joke band names. We were joking about how all of the good band names are taken. But I think creative people are like that sometimes. I mean, I’m not making excuses for bad behavior, he’s made some and I’m made some….what are you going to do.”
In terms of whether George Lynch or Don Dokken is the difficult one, Mason stated: “Oh, it’s both of them.”
Looking back at his time in Big Cock, Mason advised: “…Not everyone got it. I had people contact me and say you’ll never have a big song on the radio with a name like “Big Cock”. I’m like, “You don’t get it”. I mean, if you have a song on your first record called “Bad Motherfucker” you’re probably not looking for AOR airplay. Our joke was that we were into single entendre. If you’re smart enough to get that joke, then you’re one of our fans. Dave Henzerling just texted me just the other day and said I haven’t listened to this in about six months or a year and it’s still funny. It’s like the first party that you have at your house when your parents aren’t around and all of your friends are there and you’re just drinking, having fun and God knows what else. It was free reign to just be as tongue and cheek and silly. But musically, we really did care about how it sounded. Honestly, there were times when I would listen to those songs, like when I was on an airplane and just sat there chuckling to myself because I hadn’t heard them in a while. The person sitting next to me must have thought I was mental. There’s a DJ in a local club in Scottsdale Arizona, and he knows me. If I come in he’ll put on the song “Scottsdale Girls”. It’s a song where we make fun of a lot of pop bands from the 70’s and The Beach Boys and at the same time say some pretty rude things about, well Scottsdale girls. And I’ll look around the room and people are just rocking out to it and I’m going…Yessss! Life is great. (Laughs)”
In regard to whether there is anything from the Jani Lane era of Warrant that Mason struggles with or doesn’t like to perform as much as the others, Mason advised: “That’s a really good questions and I’ll be dead honest about it. You’re making me be way too candid…but, It’s like my Oprah moment…I promised myself that I wasn’t going to cry. You know, Mr. Rainmaker is one of those songs where it’s really well recorded, and I like doing it live, but if you try to sing it live the way the record is, there’s almost no place between the words to breathe. There are moments when you take a little liberty in the way that a song is sung in order to make it work live. I did it for the first time on stage and I’m sprinting around the stage and I came backstage after the show and Joey Allen is like “Hey, are you alright there bud?” Dude! That songs is fucking hard to sing when you’re sprinting from side to side. So he was joking with me…”Relax little fighter, just take it easy”. I love the way those songs were written and I was a fan before we became friends and we became friends in ’91. Thankfully that stuff falls within my range and I can do my damnedest to try to make it sound good. It’s challenging stuff, I will admit. It’s not like a walk in the park with singing some of those songs, but I’m glad that I’m able to do it.”
You can read the rest of the interview with Mason at XS Rock.