Ronnie Parks
Bonfire
•
May 9, 2020
Ronnie: Well, everything is okay under the circumstances, but I am happy to be talking to you.
Ronnie: Oh, everything is closed, you know? There's no concerts, no theaters, no movies, you have to basically stay in your house and you are only allowed to go to the supermarket or if you have a special job like a doctor or something like that or some kind of important job, you know? You can do your job, but otherwise you have to stay at home. They closed all business and its also like that in Europe too. I talk a lot to the guys in the band and they have the same situation. Everything is closed, all over. I have talked today to some people in Canada, doing some other interviews and its also the same up there. All over the world man, people are in their houses and they cannot go out.
Ronnie: It is very difficult and a lot of concerts were cancelled. I mean, right now I would be on tour. (laugh)
Ronnie: I hope so too.
Ronnie: Ah, I started playing music at five years old and I am fifty-three years old now. I was very influenced by Kiss actually. Being close to NYC, I was aware of Kiss in the 1970's so I got into Kiss at young age and it really made me want start playing music. Of course, I was always into Black Sabbath and AC/DC, all different kinds of music like that you know? Nowadays I listen to everything. I like when something is really good and that inspires me like "what a great sound", something new, something fresh. That inspires me.
Ronnie: Yes if its sounds good even jazz or classical music and R&B as well. I like every music.
Ronnie: Yes, I started playing piano at 5 years old and then I switched to the guitar. I wanted to play guitar but my hands were small at five years old and I couldn't grab the whole neck of the guitar, so they made me started at the piano first (laughs).
Ronnie: Well, I actually played guitar for many years, until I was about maybe 30 or 40 years old. My brother was doing a Bon Jovi tribute band in New Jersey and they were looking for a bass player, so he asked me if I wanted to try play bass and I said: yeah, how hard can that be? I am a guitar player. But all the guitar players think that the bass is easy (laughs) what its not.
Ronnie: No! (laughs). So that's how I started to get into bass and then I just played in more band, did more things and I never went back to guitar. I never stopped playing guitar, I still do, but bass is my main instrument now.
Ronnie: Yes, its not that easy because its really a different thing. Specially if you sing and play guitar, when you go play the bass and sing its different (laughs) you kind have to start all over. It got a different feel to it and you have to really try to play a bass like a bass, not like a guitar playing playing a bass. Its not so much about soloing, its more about sitting in the right pocket with drums. When the drums do a feel, you do a feel, you know? Different things like that. You have to do the drums and the guitar, not just the guitar part.
Ronnie: Its not harder than the guitar, I think its underappreciated. People are not like "wow the bassist is so great". They don't really realize, but if it missing they would. If you are a bass player, the worst thing you can do is stop playing. Everybody looks at you like "what happened? What is wrong?" (laughs).
Ronnie: As I started to pick up the bass and started to learn different things, I read an interview with John Entwistle from The Who and he mentioned that when he started playing bass, the electric bass, wasn't really existing. That whole thing was just kind of new. So that kinda told me that there are no rules, they just invented this thing and I can figure out myself and do my own style.
Ronnie: Well actually Fistful of Fire we recorded in a recording studio in Ingolstadt, Germany and I'm not sure of all the stuffs that he's using there. It might be Logic, it can re-amp things and do a lot of stuffs. He has a lot of great equipment, so he makes the recording much better. That is where we recorded and did everything, from Temple of Lies, Bite the Bullet and also Fistful of Fire.
Ronnie: I am endorsed by Lane amplification from UK and I use ESHB from Germany, they are not so known, and their biggest endorser was Peter Steele from Type O Negative. They are nice basses.
Ronnie: Oh, it was not a really of cultural shock to me, because I was used to how everything works here and its not so different in Europe. There are some differences, but I travelled a lot in my life, I have been in so many places and now I've played all over the world, so it was a little bit of cultural shock but not so much. A lot of people in Germany speaks English so it was easy to communicate, and I work on my German, so I can also speak some German and I can understand a lot of German. So, it's good, it was easy. I was not sure of what to expect but I am very pleased with everything and I'm very happy about it.
Ronnie: I was in a couple of bands in USA and I was also playing with David Reece and he had sang one album for Accept and I did so much stuff for him with his solo record, that he says "the next phone call I get from somebody for me to work, I'm going to bring you with me" and the next call he got was from Germany, it was Hans Ziller that called, he went over and brought me with him. We started playing with EZ Living which was Hans solo band and then the next year Bonfire split up and we became the members in Bonfire.
Ronnie: Actually, all the albums that we have done was written when I was in Germany. Bite the Bullet, Temple of Lies and Fistful of Fire, I was in Germany at the time for recording the album. Sometimes when I go to Germany I'm there for two or three months, so we have plenty of time when we start working on the album, the way that we normally do is like "so we are doing a new album, if anybody has any songs they can submit the songs, we'll check them out and will pick some songs" and then we start working on them, we demo them up, I write all the lyrics while Hans are working on the melodies and I put the lyrics on it and I give it to Alexx and he sings it. It works pretty cool, it works good.
Ronnie: Well, we write the music first and then we write the melody and then I put the lyrics to the melody. I have read that a lot of people have done that, even The Beatles. I read somewhere that Paul McCartney said that Let It Be first name was Ham and Eggs. (singing the chorus from Let It Be in a very epic way with Ham and Eggs) (laughs). So, you get the melody and then you put the lyrics, because if you write the lyrics first then you have to make the melody fit the lyrics. Its better do the other way, because you still have to make the lyrics fit the melody, so.
Ronnie: Yeah, he is got to be right. He wrote a couple of great songs (laughs).
Ronnie: We wrote the whole album and we was not sure about which song to pick up as first single. We thought that Rock N' Roll Survivor was a really good song, but we had come with an idea for a video for that song of the boxing. Basically, that is how the single is release now, you make a video. We had the idea for the video, and this would be perfect. We have a friend that owns a boxing studio and she is the person in the video and also a professional and three-time World Champion Kickboxer. She said that we could come to her place, make the video there and we asked to be in the video, and she said yes. Tina is really a great person and she is also in a band. They are going to be on tour with us if September happens. If we are all still alive (laughs).
Ronnie: Oh, its Tina Schüssler band.
Ronnie: (laughs) we are not trying to reinvent our style of music; we are just trying to do what kind of music that we still do. Just make it a little more fresh, a little more new and that's why it still works. If we try to do something too much out of a sudden and say like "lets sound like Sepultura" that would be like: this isn't Bonfire, what the hell is this? So, we really try to keep to the music that we are and it comes out easily, all natural, it really works so.
Ronnie: Oh, did you enjoy the album?
Ronnie: I would love to come to Brazil!
Ronnie: No, I have been to places like Mexico, Central America, but I have never been to South America.
Ronnie: Its kinda cool, but anybody can do that. So, you get all different kinds of quality, music and performances. Some are really great and some maybe never would have the chance to be exposed. That is excellent, but some is not so great. I don't have anything against it, but it's not the way I really want to see a band, you know?
Ronnie: Yes, its not very Metal. I do not think that it will ever come to that. I think that there will be always live shows, as long people can come, and this eventually will be over. I don't know when it started to come to South America, but it reached here in the USA probably about February or March and everybody is being in their houses all the time, so they are expecting that by June, July, August or September things could be almost back to normal.
Ronnie: Yes, we just keep going man. Once they open the door, that's it, we are out! (laughs).
Ronnie: Yeah, I have been thinking the same thing! I hope that true. People have been locked in their houses, so when they get the chance to go back outside, everybody will want to go out. Hopefully is like that.
Ronnie: Yes, I have been doing a lot of interviews, pretty much everyday now. Because this is the only thing that we can do. We are just waiting for them to say that we can go back to work. The longer that will last, maybe we will come with some more ideas and to more things, but right now we just kinda hope that it ends tomorrow (laughs).
Ronnie: Yeah, we had a bunch of shows and I would be on tour right now. It was supposed to start on April 2nd and go till 29th and then I would come back to USA and then I was moving to Ireland, then I was suppose to go back to Germany then we were supposed to go back on tour for the rest of the year actually.
Ronnie: Yeah, they asked me to move because living in the USA flying back and fourth started to become a little of hassle and I have to stay there for a while, its expensive and there's a long flight. They wanted me to move to Germany, but my wife is from Ireland, she has family there, Irish citizenship, we are married, and we just tried to move to Ireland. The band said that's goods, so hopefully that is my future.
Ronnie: (laughs) it is really, and I have been doing that for six years now and its really a lot of time away from home.
Ronnie: Yes, absolutely and it will be easier to do things. Because if something comes up at the last minute and I'm in the USA and they are in Germany, its hard to do something really fast. Like if somebody calls asking us to play tomorrow… no we cannot, it's kind of impossible. But if we were all in Germany or at least in Europe we can do something like that, you know? Its better for me to be over there. A lot easier on me too.
Ronnie: Yes, check out the new Bonfire album Fistful of Fire on AFM Records. We would love to see you on tour, everybody please stay safe, stay home and this will be over soon, and we'll see you at the show.
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