Interview with Keith Knight of ASKA

Introducing Keith Knight of ASKA.  Keith plays bass and has been with the band since their beginning  twelve years ago.  Keith also contributes with the song writing.  He plays the bass with an addicting passion.  He loves what he does and it shows.    If you would like to listen to them check out my mp3.com station or their mp3.com station and of course check them out at http://www.askaband.com/.  This interview conducted in November 2001.

Q:  I know that you left Michigan to come to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. What year was that and why this area?

A:  I moved from a really small town north of Detroit called Harsen's Island.  I grew up having to take a ferry across a river to get to school everyday.  In the winters, sometimes we would get iced in and we would have to jump on a coast guard cutter to take us across.  Once on the other side you either get on a bus or have a friend there, waiting to pick you up.  So getting to school was sometimes an adventure in itself.

Through my high school years I pretty much played in one band.  We played all over Detroit and the surrounding area.  At that time the Detroit club scene was dead.  The local radio did absolutely nothing to support local bands or clubs unless the clubs advertised, so I joined a musician's referral service and sent some demos out.  I had several offers from different band from all over the states.  One offer was to play on a cruise ship.  The pay was real good, but it was all cover tunes and I wanted to play originals as well.  The other offers were from bands from small towns nowhere near large cities.  I received a demo from a band in south Fort Worth.  I listened to the demo and thought, hey, this has potential.  I broke out my atlas and looked up Fort Worth. Thinking like a typical Yankee, I thought the only thing that came out of Fort Worth was country music and everybody rode horses to get to work.  Then realizing that Fort Worth and Dallas were really close, having two big cities right next to each other could really be worth checking out so I flew down to Texas in early November of '89 for an audition.  The band was ok, but I loved the Dallas - Forth Worth metroplex.  I was sold and had to move here.  The band told me I was in before I returned back to Michigan  so I told them I would be down right after Thanksgiving.  That weekend, I rented a U-haul trailer and packed up my pickup and down I came.  It was a pretty exciting time in my life. 

The band lasted about 2 to 3 months before it fell apart.  Then in May of  '90 the lead singer found an ad looking for a bass player in the newspaper.  He told me to call the number and check it out, if I liked it, I was to see if they needed a singer.  I called and tried out.  A week or so later, I was in ASKA.  I told my former lead singer that he wasn't needed.  The rest is history.

Q:  How long have you been playing the bass and what other instruments do you play, if any?
 
  A:  I've been playing bass now for about 18 years. I started out playing guitar, then one day I picked up a bass at a friend's house and that was all it took, I was hooked.  I traded in my guitar in for my first bass.  It was a Magnum Jazz, a poor quality Fender Jazz copy.  I still play guitar a little.  I play it mostly for writing purposes.

Q:  What other bands have you been a part of?

A:  In the very beginning, I was part of several unnamed bands.  If we had names, I don't remember 'em.  Just a bunch of young kids jamming.  Later along in high school, I pretty much played in one band called Ruckus which was mostly heavy metal.  After high school it turned top 40, so I bailed.  When I got to Texas, the band I joined was called Faux, a hard rock to light metal band.  They pronounced it Fox.  That didn't last long and shortly after that I was in ASKA.  Twelve years, thirteen overseas tours, four CD's and a newly signed record deal later, I'm still in ASKA.

Q:  How long have you been with ASKA?

A:  It will be 12 years this May.

Q:  What was your first impression of the band? Had you heard any of their songs before you auditioned?

A:  No, I never heard any ASKA music until I called.  They played me some stuff over the phone, but you can't really tell what anything sounds like over the phone.  At the audition, we started going over some cover tunes and it sounded pretty tight.  Then they taught me some of their originals, which was some really basic stuff from the first demo.  Didn't really blow me away or anything, but I was thinking that they were pretty good musicians.  Then they told me to listen to the new stuff that they had been working on.  The first song I believe it was "Could You Do This To Me."   That's when I started getting impressed.  Then the next song was "Delta Force," that's when I was sold.  After we finished jamming, we talked for about 2 hours, watched some videos and listened to some music.  They told me they wanted to let the newspaper ad run out and couldn't make a decision that night, but did tell me I was the top choice at that point.  A week later I received a phone call and was asked if I was still interested.  Sure enough, I was in.

Q:  What did you think of getting to go overseas and tour in countries that are really hot for heavy metal?

A:  It's great!  What an awesome opportunity it has been touring around the world.  You get to travel everywhere and get paid for it.  The people seem to really appreciate Metal outside the US.  There are a lot of Metal supporters in the US, but most seem to listen to the old stuff.  In Europe, South America and Japan they really get into old Metal and the new stuff too like, Primal Fear, Symphony X, Iced Earth and Falconer to name a few.  Then you have old bands putting out great new music like, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Virgin Steele.  I think that most people in the States just take what they are force fed from the radio and MTV instead of going to the small independent CD stores and checking out what is new in the music that used to pump their blood.  Hell, if they are reading this, they could go to a search engine and type in Heavy Metal and see where it takes them.  Metal is all over the web.  I have made great new discoveries on the web.

Q:  Tell me about your experience when you guys went to the studio to record "ASKA", the band's self-titled CD?

A:  It was long time ago in a galaxy far, far away no just kidding.  We were pretty green going in to record that first disk.  We all had a little bit of experience in the studio but none of us had recorded a full album's worth of material  so like most bands at that stage we relied on the engineer.  It took a lot longer and was more expensive than we expected.  Plus, we didn't do anything to fancy because we didn't want to waste expensive studio time.  With each disk the budget got bigger and we used more time in the studio to experiment.  All in all, the first disk was a great way to cut our teeth on the recording process.

Q:  Since you've been with ASKA what's the biggest gig you played overseas?

A:  Let's see I think the biggest show overseas was about 2000 people in Europe.

Q:  Here in the states?

A:  Here in the states was X-Fest in Shreveport, Louisiana.  It was a show for the radio station 99X with Powerman 5000, Coal Chamber and Seven Dust.  There were about 5000 people at that show.  We were the only Metal band in the line up and the crowd absolutely loved it!  Even the other bands really got into it.  They were telling us that our style of music is what got them into playing music in the first place.  It was an out door show on a 100 degree day and we were out there in leather, jamming like we were in a climate controlled room.  It was a really wild day!

Q:  Which do you prefer, small, intimate gatherings or pack-the-place/SRO-type gigs?

A:  The bigger the better!  The larger the crowd, the more your adrenaline gets pumping.  Small gatherings are fun too, but it's just not the same as when you have all those voices screaming back at you.  It's a rush unlike any other.  I think that's what makes ASKA tick as a whole, we love that charge you get when you play live.  We're definitely not in it for the money, although that is nice too!  We just like to jam, and the more the audience gets into it, the more we get into it.

Q:  This is kind of away from the ASKA thing, but how did the musical go? 

A:  It went really good!  But I still haven't heard the CD and I'm not sure it's even released yet.

Q:  How did you get the part? 

A:  George was already involved in the project with the lead role. They discovered him when we were recording Avenger.  The producer heard him laying down his vocal tracks as she was visiting the studio and to make a long story short, hired him as Jesus. When they were needing some people to come in read some parts, George recommended me to come in and read.  When I got to the studio they didn't have any parts assigned.  There were about 8 of us there and the producer quickly assigned some parts to hear what we all sounded like.  As we got going, she made some readjustments to everyone's parts.  I ended up with Paul, which was the biggest part of that section of the musical.  So I had to read a ton of material with Hebrew dialect in the script that I never even heard before.  It was a fun and interesting night. 

A couple nights later I went back in the studio and recorded some background vocals with some union pros that do this kind of thing for a living.  As we were recording, she didn't like the way some of the backgrounds were sounding, so she had each of us sing our parts to find out what voice she didn't like.  She ended up having some of union guys sit out and kept me in on all the parts.  The expression on their faces was priceless; here were heavily trained vocalists, some who are vocal instructors, sitting out while this long haired heavy metal rocker ended up singing all the parts.  It cracked me up!

Q:  Would you be interested in doing another one?

A:  Oh hell yeah.  Next time I would like to do something where I would sing a lead vocal part.  I was supposed to go back and re-record all the lead vocal lines for the Paul character that I spoke the lines for.  But she ran out of time and I don't think she had the budget for it either  but anything is cool with me.  Recording in the studio is always a good time.

Q:  Tell me about your musical influences.

A:  My first influence, like most of ASKA, was KISS.  Then I got into Cheap Trick.  Stayed a huge Cheap Trick fan for many years till I heard "Another Thing Coming" by Judas Priest on the radio.  It was all over but the crying then.  Picked up the "Screaming for Vengeance" album and it's been Metal ever since.  Then I started listening to Iron Maiden and once I heard Steve Harris play the bass, I knew the road I had to take. 

Nowadays I am still into Steve Harris but like listening to Geezer Butler from Black Sabbath and John Myung of Dream Theater.   I can't play the drums, but I really tune into drummers now.  I really listen and study what they're doing.  My favorite drummers are Scott Travis of Judas Priest, Bobby Jarzombek of Halford, formerly of Riot and Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater.  These guy are true masters of the craft.

Q:  Tell me, in your opinion, the difference in how metal is received overseas and in the U.S. 

A:  Well for one, Metal is bigger overseas because it never disappeared like it did here.  Radio isn't bombarded with Pearl Jam and Nirvana rip offs like it is here either.  The US listeners are like a cult and MTV and radio are their leaders.  What ever they say or play, the people believe, worship and follow. 

Back when metal was in it's hey-day here in the States, it wasn't all over the radio except on specialty shows.  Iron Maiden was rarely on the radio and they still sold out arenas.  Now most bands with a hit can barely bring a draw to a club unless they bring three or four other bands and the local radio station pays for it or advertises the hell out of it.  That is how sad the state of new music is in this country.

Q:  Keith, what's it like for you to play live for ASKA fans?

A:  It's totally awesome!  They are always there, always singing along and are extremely supportive.  Most don't seem to mind that we've had a different drummer at every show.  I think most are happy that we are still playing despite are vacant drummer situation.  If it weren't for the ASKA fans, there wouldn't be ASKA.  They keep us going.

Q:  Tell me where the concepts for "MAJOR MISTAKE" and "THE STALKER" came from.

A:  "Major Mistake" started out as one or two lines running around in my head and grew from there.  By the time I showed it to the band I couldn't remember the melody line to the lyrics.  I played a little of the music I had and George built it up from there.  He gave it his own melody line and changed a couple lyrics here and there to fit with his melody.

The Stalker was written under a different name when George was in high school.  I don't know if he forgot about it and just remembered it when we were writing for Nine Tongues of if was just sitting on it and waiting for the right time to bring it out.  Anyhow, he had these lyrics about the devil that just struck a bad chord with me so I took the rough recording we had of it and rewrote the lyrics.  As with most of my early lyrics, it started out with one or two lines.  As I added more lines the story would be developed from there.  I didn't have the idea ahead of time that the song was going to be about a Jack the Ripper type character  it just turned out that way.

Q:  Tell me about the recording process;  Laying down tracks, etc.

A:  It starts with getting a good set of drum tracks.  This process usually goes the quickest of all recordings.  Once that is done the drummer is usually finished, unless he decides to stick around to listen to the rest of the recording process but it hasn't happened yet.  Once the drums are completed we move on to the rhythm guitars and bass.  We usually double the guitar tracks to get a fuller sound.  Next in most cases, we record the guitar solos.  That can take some time if the guitar solo isn't written before we enter the studio.  Next are the vocals, harmonies and backing vocals. For the most part that goes pretty smooth with George but it is a very timely process.  Then there is the  mixing process, which can be another book in itself.

Q:  Do you like singing vocals?  You do an awesome Rob Halford!

A:  Sure and thank you.  Halford is fun to sing when my sinuses aren't messing with me.  But my main focus is on background vocals since I'm the only one singing the bulk of the backgrounds these days. And now that the band has gone to just one lead vocalist, I have taken more time to concentrate on my bass playing.  I think it shows on Avenger and it will show even more on the next disk.

Q:  Explain to the fans what the process is for getting ready to go overseas and tour.

A:  Well, the main thing is getting all the equipment back up to tour conditions.  Making sure you have enough working cables, that all the wheels on the cabinets are in good condition and to make sure all the electrical equipment is up to snuff.  We have to sort through all the gear boxes and lose all extra odds and ends we might have picked up between tours playing locally around Dallas/Fort Worth that ended up in the boxes with the gear.  Half the time when you have new roadies or some that disappear for a while and come back, they don't remember where some of the gear goes or are not aware of some of the changes that have been made to the equipment,  so they throw the wrong gear in the wrong boxes.  You have to sort a lot of that kind of stuff out.

Then we have to go thoroughly through all the P.A. equipment and make sure all the channels, speakers, delays and crossovers work.  Also we make sure that our personal equipment is in primo working condition.  If you are having slight problems with your guitars at home, it's sure to get worse on tour.  So some of the gear and guitars are taken in to the shop to have 'em checked out before we hit the road.

Of course, there are the simple things that most people don't think about when  a musician hits the road like, packing clothes and personal items for tour.  You think, what am I going wear for the next six weeks to three months on the road?  What am I going to take to keep myself entertained for that time?  The first couple of tours we packed heavy and came back even heavier.  Every time we have been on the road, we come back with tons of stuff.  Everything from CD's you can't find here in the states to trinkets from the places you've been.  Plus we get gifts from fans out on the road so we learned to pack light knowing that we would accumulate new possessions from touring.  We almost always end up getting clothes on tour, so we usually start off light in that department.  Entertainment items is a whole 'nother story!  We'll take books, magazines, video game consoles, laptop computers, CD players and speakers and usually we take an acoustic guitar.  The guitar can sometimes make things interesting.  One time we had a layover at an airport in Japan, so we broke out the guitar and started a sing-a-long.  A crowd started to gather around us that were enjoying it and an airport official came by and told us to stop.  The crowd was not happy and we were back to being bored at the airport.  Sometimes we will break it out at our hotel and play and sing till all hours of the night.  So far we haven't had any complaints from the hotels for that yet.

Q:  I want to talk about the last two ASKA CD's.  Tell us what the difference is between "NINE TONGUES" and "AVENGER" musically, lyrically, and subject matter.

A:  Musically "Avenger" is a much more advanced album, with more progressions and more complex song writing.  "Nine Tongues" is a more straightforward disk.  It has a few tunes with easy hooks to catch on to.  You can get know those few songs in just a couple of listens, whereas "Avenger" is a much deeper album and it takes a few more listens to get to know the songs.  With every listen there are new things to hear. Once you start to get to know the music, a whole new depth to the songs opens up and you will hear a lot more that is happening within the songs. 

Lyrics and subject matter on Avenger for the most part, are about ancient history and fantasy where Nine Tongues was more about everyday life.  There are some fantasy style tunes on there, but they are a little simpler and not as deep.  After writing those, we knew the direction we wanted to head with the next disk. Which is how we went in the direction we did with Avenger.

Q:  The record deal that ASKA has signed with Adrenaline Records can only help ASKA.  How did that process come about?  Were you guys approached by Adrenaline?

A:  Yes they approached back in "99.  After hearing Nine Tongue's they contacted us and asked if we wanted to record an Iron Maiden tune for their Maiden Tribute album so we recorded "Flight of Icarus" for them. 

Shortly after that we released Avenger and started touring.  While we were on tour in Italy we met up with the guys from Adrenaline on one of our days off.  They took us out for a killer Italian lunch, doing the whole wine and dine thing.  We talked a little business at lunch but saved most of the business talk for back at the office.  Once back at the office they offered us a deal for Avenger right then and there.  We took the offer with us and discussed all the options.  The offer just wasn't quite right at the time.  It wasn't till recently that they offered us an offer we couldn't refuse.

Q:  Has ASKA ever done any work with METAL BLADE RECORDS?

A:  We haven't done any work for Metal Blade, but we are talking with them and a few other labels as well.   They are all waiting for the next record.  By the time we started discussing deals with these labels we had already sold too many discs for them to make any money on Avenger.  They want to be able to print and distribute the disk from the beginning. 

Adrenaline felt there was still plenty of market to hit.  They are releasing Avenger with two bonus videos for the PC and it will be in digi-pack.  So now we have an Import version of Avenger which will be cool for the fans.  It'll be worth purchasing even if you already have the original disk.

Q:  Can you give the readers and ASKA fans any insight into the next CD?

A:  It's going to be a lot like Avenger but even deeper and farther away from the early stuff.  It's heavier and more complex in the writing.   It's going to be a Metal Head's wet dream and that's all I'm going to say at this point. 

Q:  I love the bass intro on LEATHER and the bass licks in IMPERIAL ROME.  Is this something that you came up with or was it a group collaboration?

A:  George had most of Leather written when he introduced it to the band, so he gave me the basics on the guitar and I gave it my own flare.  The licks in Imperial Rome were collaboration mostly.  I write most of my bass lines for the most part.  If George or anyone else writes a song and presents it to us, I usually play what I want unless he hears something in his head that he wants me to play.  But I still usually improvise on that too.

NB:  Keith thanks for doing this interview!!
KK:  No problem, it was my pleasure!

 Thanks to Keith for taking the time to do this interview!

If you would like to contact me for interviews or reviews, email me at the link below and I will get back with you as soon as possible.

© 2003 Neon Blonde. All material on NeonBlonde.com is protected by
copyright law and by international treaties. You may not reproduce,
distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works
of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).
Artists are free to reproduce articles written about them for use in
promotional materials provided credit is given to Neon Blonde. Any other
reproduction or use of any part of the contents without written permission
from Neon Blonde is prohibited.