Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode 773 - Chris Caffery Reflects on His Solo Journey and New Album “20 Years of the Music Man”

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode 773 - Chris Caffery Reflects on His Solo Journey and New Album “20 Years of the Music Man” · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  I was a bit of an idiot in some way because I wrote these riffs
• 0:06
  and at that point in time I was writing the riffs and then
• 0:09
  putting lyrics afterward. But I went to go play the music
• 0:13
  live and I'm like, you, dummy, this is really hard to play and
• 0:18
  sing. And I didn't really think about
• 0:21
  the fact that, you know, you can do what Paul Stanley did in
• 0:26
  Detroit Rock City and hit a power chord and sing the verse,
• 0:29
  you know? What's up everybody?
• 0:38
  It's Kefi at ghostcultman.com. I am so stoked to be joined once
• 0:42
  again for I think the third time in my career, but the second
• 0:45
  time for Ghost Cult with the great Chris Caffrey.
• 0:48
  How are you doing, man? I'm good.
• 0:49
  It's good to see you again. It's great to be back and I'm
• 0:53
  really excited about a lot of different things, but it's great
• 0:55
  to be back to be talking about my, my release coming up and,
• 0:59
  and God, I, I blinked my eyes and 20 years went by.
• 1:03
  So it's crazy. I was like, I better get this
• 1:06
  stuff out before it's like 30 years of.
• 1:10
  Well, we also, yeah, we also had, you know, like a whole
• 1:14
  global psychotic break in there somewhere and.
• 1:17
  Yeah, exactly. They'll kind of tell people it's
• 1:19
  like, you know, no matter what anybody had planned, you know,
• 1:22
  we, we got kind of stopped, you know, so it's like then you had
• 1:26
  to restart the car, change the engine, kick on and.
• 1:30
  Get it off the cinder. Blocks.
• 1:32
  Tune it up. Get.
• 1:33
  Ready to be rode. But you are one of my favorite
• 1:35
  people ever. I'm very grateful that we've
• 1:37
  gotten the meet in person. You know, they always say don't
• 1:40
  meet your heroes, but sometimes they turn out to be the best
• 1:42
  people in the business. I've never heard anyone say a
• 1:45
  bad word about you. You've always carried yourself,
• 1:48
  you know, with a certain character that I really respect,
• 1:50
  not just your art, but yourself. And I think that's really
• 1:53
  important and something we're kind of losing these days in the
• 1:56
  business a little bit as the younger generation comes in.
• 1:58
  I know I sound like get off my lawn, but a little bit, get off
• 2:02
  my line. But you have a new, this great
• 2:05
  solo record coming out, this double record, 20 years of the
• 2:08
  music man on the great and I mean great Metalville Records.
• 2:11
  I'm a huge fan of that label and everything they do.
• 2:13
  We've done many interviews with their artists and I'm always
• 2:16
  very humbled and appreciative of them.
• 2:18
  So let's talk about like, obviously there's all the things
• 2:20
  swirling. You're always doing something.
• 2:22
  You're always so busy, TSO, Sabbath College tour,
• 2:25
  everything. But let's talk about this record
• 2:26
  specifically. And like you, like you said,
• 2:28
  yeah, it's a good time to get it out now, right?
• 2:30
  And get in front of people again.
• 2:32
  Well, it was actually a complete 20 years that that stuff was
• 2:37
  recorded in and a single that I wrote last year at this that's
• 2:41
  on this record to do you see what I see now song that
• 2:44
  actually is one of the few songs throughout the years that I was
• 2:48
  recording my solo stuff that had another singer on it.
• 2:51
  There was Iraq Attack was on my war record and that was Aliba
• 2:57
  was singing, you know, and I just did background vocals with
• 3:01
  him. But I had the song Solitaire on
• 3:03
  House of Insanity and that was me and Zach Stevens.
• 3:06
  So that was like, you know, and then there was, you know, a
• 3:08
  couple people might have done a little things in, in backup land
• 3:12
  here and there at Aulani Park. He'd done some engineering, some
• 3:15
  keyboards and some mastering for me and and he done some
• 3:19
  background vocal stuff on the last few records I've done.
• 3:22
  But you know, other than that, it was all me.
• 3:25
  And when I saw Soto with TSO and we were filming the the
• 3:29
  pay-per-view during the Covad time, he was like, hey, calf
• 3:33
  man, how come you don't have me sing on your records?
• 3:36
  And I was like, well, first of all, I sing on my records.
• 3:39
  And it's like, that's kind of why.
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  I mean, you're a hell a lot better than me.
• 3:42
  And, and I don't want to make have you make me look bad or
• 3:45
  sound bad, but it's like, you know, he's Jeff Scott Soto.
• 3:49
  I was like, yeah, well, one of these days I'll think of
• 3:51
  something. And then I wrote this song and
• 3:54
  the chorus and pre chorus, it kind of ticks over from a person
• 3:58
  singing about a situation to the devil singing about situation.
• 4:02
  It's basically about, you know, control and how a lot of
• 4:07
  governments and and and people will control individuals during
• 4:11
  situations like wars. And when we did the Beethoven's
• 4:15
  last night to her, I just remembered that Jeff did such a
• 4:17
  great job of being Mephistopheles.
• 4:19
  You know, he he really made a great Mephistopheles and you
• 4:23
  know, that was a leva on the records.
• 4:25
  But you know, being that sabotage was getting back
• 4:28
  together, I really couldn't approach him on that.
• 4:31
  I actually did think of this song is something that could
• 4:35
  have been put aside for another Butcher record.
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  But once again, since Sabotage was going, you know, I was like,
• 4:43
  well that was be something that would be delayed too because you
• 4:47
  know, another Sabotage record would happen before another
• 4:49
  Butcher record. So I just wanted to get a song
• 4:52
  out because it's been a couple years since I had released
• 4:54
  Mayday and right away said he would do it and within a couple
• 4:58
  days had the vocal performance. And you know, I had Brian Tischy
• 5:03
  and and McNabb on the song, but then I was listening to the
• 5:06
  guitar solos. I'm like, wow, this is a a long
• 5:10
  solo section. I'm like, let me see, do I want
• 5:14
  to have somebody else come in and and play guitar?
• 5:17
  I'm, I started thinking about Derek a lot because actually,
• 5:22
  you know, with his involvement with Soto is he just came into
• 5:26
  my mind about something there and I know that he offered me,
• 5:30
  you know, if you ever need any solos or, or any keyboard, just
• 5:33
  let me know. So I just texted him and I said,
• 5:36
  hey, you know, Jeff is singing on a song when you do some keys.
• 5:39
  He's like send it over. And then within a day he had the
• 5:42
  tracks back to me. They tracks came back so fast
• 5:45
  from these guys. And then when I played Derek,
• 5:48
  the song completed with Jeff's stuff and my stuff, he was like,
• 5:51
  I need to do more because he really liked the tune.
• 5:54
  So I had like, you know, 14 stereo tracks of keyboards that
• 5:58
  came with him, from him with all these different parts.
• 6:01
  And I was just so excited to have that in there.
• 6:04
  Some like, well, I got to think of a really good way to release
• 6:07
  this song. Maybe I could do a 20th year
• 6:11
  anniversary of the the Warped record I would was planning on.
• 6:15
  Maybe I could use the original title of Goddamn and put out my
• 6:19
  first ever vinyl. So I contacted Holger in
• 6:22
  Meadowville and and they didn't jump on the idea of a double
• 6:26
  vinyl. At that point, he was like,
• 6:28
  well, why can't you just release the song?
• 6:31
  And you know, like Mayday and I had sick of the Shit and some
• 6:36
  unreleased, you know, I had the my light song that that was on
• 6:40
  their thing. And it says maybe if you had a
• 6:42
  couple new songs in this, that we could just do one single
• 6:45
  album. And I was like, let me think
• 6:47
  about that. And I started trying to piece
• 6:50
  together things. You know, when I I found the,
• 6:53
  you know, like last time and, and I miss you sometimes and,
• 6:57
  and some of these songs I had left from faces and some other
• 7:00
  things and I just didn't like the flow of 1 record.
• 7:04
  You know, it was kind of like the single, the new single
• 7:07
  didn't match them really. And it kind of like weighed a
• 7:11
  little bit too heavy to the mellow side so that everything
• 7:15
  started to piss me off, to coin a phrase.
• 7:17
  And I was like, what if I try to put in some of the songs that I
• 7:21
  think people who haven't heard them may really like them now
• 7:26
  and figure out a way to get some stuff back out as new songs that
• 7:30
  even though they're old. So in my head I'm like pisses me
• 7:34
  off. And Music Man.
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  And then the idea of the 20 years of the music Man came to
• 7:39
  me and I re re re re invented the wheel and went back to
• 7:45
  Meadowville and managed to sell the idea of doing the, you know,
• 7:48
  the double LP with the 20 years of the music man because it just
• 7:53
  kind of made sense to do it that way.
• 7:55
  I mean, once I showed the the track listing and everything,
• 7:59
  it, it looked like it was going to be something that was really
• 8:02
  fun for people to hear. And then my biggest task was
• 8:05
  whittling down the list of, I think it was 25 or 6 songs down
• 8:09
  to the ones that were able to fit on the CDs and then picking
• 8:12
  exactly which ones were going to be on the, the LP's.
• 8:16
  And, you know, to get the, the final list together.
• 8:19
  I spent the night just going through all my, my music and I'm
• 8:22
  going, jeez. First of all, I had a lot of
• 8:24
  songs out the last 20 years, but it was, it was kind of like
• 8:27
  writing one record, you know, where you were looking to fill
• 8:30
  space. And I'm going, OK, well, I have
• 8:33
  this kind of song and that kind of song.
• 8:34
  And then, you know, there were obvious ones that I think people
• 8:37
  would really wanted to hear, like Abandoned and you're having
• 8:40
  as real as a song that that really has gotten a ton of
• 8:44
  besides pisses me off. That's the most played song that
• 8:47
  I have on the other digital mediums, which I was like, well,
• 8:50
  it's a really cool metal song And it it's pretty close to me
• 8:53
  because, you know, it's about a real life situation that I did.
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  So I just, I pieced it all together and you know, it's,
• 9:00
  it's a really good time for it to be coming out for me.
• 9:03
  It really. Is thanks for unpacking all
• 9:05
  that. I, you know, it has so many
• 9:07
  directions to go. By the way, I've interviewed
• 9:08
  both Soto and Sherennian. That doesn't surprise me at all
• 9:11
  about Derek, Like, oh, I wanted to put more on it.
• 9:13
  Like sounds exactly like him. And if you know him is, you
• 9:16
  know, he's a perfectionist for sure and a tinkerer.
• 9:19
  Yeah. I love your heaven Israel.
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  That's actually probably my favorite song on the both CDs.
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  But for you revisiting some of this stuff that or you know,
• 9:27
  that's only been maybe heard by you or even stuff that's very
• 9:30
  popular, what surprised you the most listening back to the
• 9:33
  finished new product, like, oh, I'm so surprised by how great
• 9:38
  this was or I didn't expect this to make me feel a certain way.
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  Is there anything like that? Umm, I think, you know, to be
• 9:45
  honest with you, I'm beyond me. I'm really kind of surprised
• 9:50
  because I didn't know exactly what songs Metalville was gonna
• 9:54
  want to pick as singles. And obviously there was certain
• 9:57
  songs that were unreleased, but they went with umm, Then she's
• 10:01
  gone. And I was kind of not
• 10:03
  necessarily talking about me. I was surprised at the reaction
• 10:06
  that individual people have given that song.
• 10:09
  I mean, and I'm talking males, females, young, old, everybody
• 10:13
  really likes that song. And I guess now I was able to
• 10:18
  see why the label would pick that to be a single.
• 10:21
  And it's a, it's a definitely a unique song for me to have in,
• 10:25
  in, in my repertoire as, as a single.
• 10:28
  So I, I, I really like working with Wayne Joyner when he's
• 10:32
  doing lyric videos and little by little I've been involving more,
• 10:35
  you know, actual, real stuff into those videos for him.
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  And, you know, when I do the, the video for do you see what I
• 10:43
  see now? It's like me and Jeff, we're
• 10:45
  going to be giving him some footage to use for the, for the
• 10:47
  vocals. But I think that that's
• 10:50
  something I, I, you know, I liked hearing songs that I
• 10:53
  hadn't heard for a long time. Like last time I, I picked that
• 10:57
  up, I'm like, wow, that sounds freaking brutal.
• 11:00
  But I I can remember why it it just there wasn't enough room to
• 11:05
  fit it on faces and you know, faces itself.
• 11:09
  It had so many songs, not necessarily the same, but you
• 11:12
  know, maybe that in that same kind of tempo and everything.
• 11:15
  So one of them had to go. And that was the one at at that
• 11:18
  point in time that was left off to the record release.
• 11:21
  But I was, I was happy to have something else from that period
• 11:25
  of time, you know, and even even that I miss you sometimes song,
• 11:28
  which it, it's kind of a double entendre in the way that title
• 11:32
  can go, because it talks about somebody that was in your life
• 11:35
  that's gone and you'd be like, I miss you sometimes.
• 11:37
  So it's, it's kind of that way. So I, you know, I enjoyed going
• 11:43
  through it. I think it was just kind of the
• 11:45
  the flow of everything to the end, you know, and just getting
• 11:50
  right back to abandon. And I can remember what I felt
• 11:54
  like when I first finished that song.
• 11:57
  You know, it was that was the time in my life where, you know,
• 12:00
  all of a sudden everybody kind of disappeared from where I was.
• 12:02
  I was staying in the Sabotage house and in a story in New
• 12:06
  York. And that's where we were staying
• 12:08
  doing Sabotage and TSR recording.
• 12:09
  But things were starting to to move a little bit away from New
• 12:13
  York City and and you know, I started to be pretty alone there
• 12:17
  at that period of time, which is funny because it wasn't even
• 12:20
  really that long of a period of time, but I was already be like
• 12:23
  traumatized because you know, you, you was like 8 months later
• 12:27
  and there was no sabotage. And I'm like, what do I do?
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  What do I do? So I just started writing and
• 12:31
  that's where, you know, a bandit had came from.
• 12:34
  But it was at that point in time that I realized when I was
• 12:37
  writing music that I wasn't that bad of a singer.
• 12:41
  And it was kind of fun for me to finish my own songs.
• 12:44
  And I didn't have any desire to join any other band.
• 12:47
  I just wanted to make music. So that's where I headed.
• 12:50
  You are much better than not that bad of a singer.
• 12:52
  Your singing is terrific. And I think this helped me, you
• 12:55
  know, really like, you know, flip through memory lane like a
• 12:59
  picture book about how good a singer you actually are.
• 13:01
  And also because you write for other singers, you know what a
• 13:05
  good song, you know what a good melody is, you know how to write
• 13:08
  hooks. And so I think that comes
• 13:10
  through in a lot of this material also well.
• 13:12
  Thank you. You know what's funny though?
• 13:13
  When I, when I recorded Faces End of the War record, at first
• 13:18
  I was a bit of an idiot in some way because I wrote these riffs
• 13:25
  and at that point in time I was writing the riffs and then
• 13:28
  putting lyrics afterwards, you know, his records went on.
• 13:32
  I had written choruses and lyrics and songs and put the
• 13:35
  music around it. But I went to go play the music
• 13:39
  live and I'm like, you dummy, this is really hard to play and
• 13:43
  sing. And I didn't really think about
• 13:46
  the fact that, you know, you can do what Paul Stanley did in
• 13:51
  Detroit Rock City and hit a power chord and sing the verse.
• 13:54
  You know, it's like, I kept the freaking.
• 13:57
  I'm not Getty Lee. It's not.
• 13:59
  I can't, you know, pat your head and rub your stomach or whatever
• 14:02
  it is. I was like, oh man, some of this
• 14:05
  stuff like is really off time with the, with the riff.
• 14:10
  And it was kind of like, as I went on writing more, I, I, I
• 14:13
  figured that out a little bit better.
• 14:15
  You know, I even, and I'd taken some vocal lessons and I got to
• 14:18
  be, you know, an actual better singer.
• 14:20
  My, the way I use my voice was kind of just like the way I use
• 14:24
  my guitar. There's electric and acoustic
• 14:25
  guitars and hard and soft parts. And that's how I was using my
• 14:28
  voice. I was kind of just fuelling it
• 14:30
  in like an instrument and all the songs.
• 14:32
  So whatever version of it I felt that I needed is what wound up
• 14:36
  in each song. Because that's the one thing
• 14:38
  that is actually pretty cool about my voice is that there's
• 14:42
  lots of different Timbers and things that I can use with it.
• 14:44
  And you know, I was schooled by a lot of really good people.
• 14:48
  You know, there was a leva on the heavy stuff when he first
• 14:51
  heard, you know, my solo record and he was listening to me sing
• 14:55
  and he's like, you figured it out.
• 14:57
  And he knew that I, you know, I've kind of figured out where
• 15:00
  he was able to find that rasp in his vocal cord.
• 15:04
  And and, you know, as time went on, I just became, you know, a
• 15:07
  better singer. It's it's always funny with
• 15:10
  that, though, because, you know, you look at somebody like, and I
• 15:12
  use him always in this example, somebody like Richie Cotson, who
• 15:16
  is, you know, one of the greatest singers on the planet.
• 15:19
  But because he started out as a guitar player, people always
• 15:22
  think of him as a guitarist. So, you know, I'm in that kind
• 15:25
  of thing where, you know, people would I'd look at the reviews of
• 15:27
  my records and and people would be like, wow, that's great.
• 15:30
  You should get a great singer. And I'm like, don't you
• 15:32
  understand? Like the reason why I did these
• 15:35
  records is that so I can make music on my own.
• 15:38
  I wanted to sing when I was a kid, but my brother and the guys
• 15:41
  in my band, they kind of thought my voice sounded a little teeny.
• 15:45
  And at that time, you know, you were listening to Dickinson and
• 15:49
  Halford and Coverdale and and Jeff Tate and and Steve Perry
• 15:56
  and and, you know, you had Luke Graham.
• 15:58
  It's it was just like the singers were so freaking good
• 16:03
  that when you were looking for a singer for your band, you were
• 16:05
  looking for freaking Paul Rogers.
• 16:08
  And it was not always, you know, that easy to find someone that
• 16:12
  good, but it also wasn't that easy to sing that good,
• 16:14
  especially when I didn't know. I mean, I always thought like a
• 16:18
  voice that you were born either born Ray Gillen or you weren't,
• 16:21
  you know, I didn't realize that you could actually school your
• 16:23
  voice. And some people do have it very
• 16:26
  naturally. There's, you know, some little
• 16:28
  kids that are singing, you know, opera like at 5 years old.
• 16:31
  It's like it it took me some time to figure it out.
• 16:33
  But when I got Pro Tools and I was able to correct my mistakes
• 16:37
  and and do some overdubs and I never used any of the pitch
• 16:41
  shifting stuff, but I was able to listen to something and say,
• 16:44
  well, that kind of stinks. And then and I would do it over
• 16:46
  again and over again. And, and when I finally
• 16:50
  finished, I think it was the song Music Man, I actually
• 16:53
  almost started crying because I was like, wow, I can do this
• 16:56
  myself. And it was a really good feeling
• 16:59
  because whether or not anybody liked what I did, I liked doing
• 17:04
  it. So from that point, I really
• 17:06
  didn't care if a critic or anybody liked it.
• 17:10
  I was like, this for me is fun. You know, I have my piece of art
• 17:15
  that could, you know, get laughed at.
• 17:17
  And maybe 200 years from now, it's a masterpiece.
• 17:20
  But for right now, it's how I felt.
• 17:23
  And it made me feel a lot better.
• 17:25
  And as I wrote more and more songs, I just kept going.
• 17:28
  So I wrote like 70 songs and, you know, recorded 30 of them in
• 17:32
  my first studio sessions that I got with my record deal.
• 17:36
  And now I could have taken, it was a good deal.
• 17:39
  I could have taken money and bought a car and I was like, no,
• 17:42
  I'm going to sit in the studio for three months, order takeout
• 17:46
  food and record way too many songs.
• 17:49
  And that's, that's what I did with Faces and warped.
• 17:52
  It was like I just was so into being in there everyday and
• 17:55
  doing, doing my own stuff and, and you know, as time went on,
• 17:59
  it just kept going and gathered to where it is now.
• 18:02
  And I, and I think that it's a pretty good compilation of, of
• 18:07
  how, you know, the roller coaster inside my brain goes
• 18:09
  musically, you know, there's the sarcastic side, there's the
• 18:13
  instrumental side, there's the acoustic side, there's
• 18:16
  harmonies, there's a lot of metal.
• 18:18
  You know, it's just me. Right on.
• 18:21
  So I only have a few more for you, but so many directions to
• 18:24
  take this. And is it safe to say of the
• 18:26
  unreleased material, this is the best unreleased material you
• 18:28
  have left, or just the stuff that was most inspiring you to?
• 18:32
  It's the best quality of unreleased material I had left.
• 18:37
  So there was really no unreleased material that I
• 18:41
  thought was album quality. I have a lot of songs that are
• 18:46
  not, I like they're not finished by a specific drummer or, you
• 18:54
  know, in, in that kind of way. I, you know, I have tons of demo
• 18:57
  stuff. I mean, it's like, yeah, I have
• 18:59
  lots of unreleased songs and, you know, lots of songs that I
• 19:03
  could finish tomorrow. I mean, as you as you went
• 19:06
  through the records, you know, a lot of Pins and Needles music
• 19:09
  was written at the time of Faces.
• 19:11
  But at that point in time Nick Chimbukas, the engineer, he kind
• 19:16
  of wanted to get involved Co producing me on that record.
• 19:19
  And we wound up taking my songs and digesting them and like
• 19:24
  producing them in a really cool way.
• 19:27
  I mean, the Pins record I think went over a lot of people's
• 19:29
  heads because every song was an album on that record.
• 19:33
  It was all real crazy. That's why it was so hard for me
• 19:36
  to find something to put on this.
• 19:38
  And I actually chose like one of the simplest songs that was on
• 19:42
  that record to go on this one. And the main reason was You Got
• 19:46
  to Be Fucking Kidding Me had the wrong song title on iTunes.
• 19:50
  It came out as It's Sad. So it never actually was
• 19:54
  released under the right title. So I wanted to like, say if I
• 19:59
  did have a day when something made me say that saying I
• 20:02
  couldn't really place it up there, you know, I had to hide
• 20:05
  the titles. So now it kind of goes in my
• 20:08
  little trifecta of funny swear songs, which pisses me off and
• 20:12
  sick of the shit. You got to be fucking kidding
• 20:14
  me. It's like the little trifecta of
• 20:15
  funny swear tunes and it actually gets its its first
• 20:18
  place. But I but you know, songs like
• 20:21
  the Time and Worms and and. Walls I mean that pins and
• 20:25
  needles record went over everybody said I remember doing
• 20:29
  some interviews after I finished it and you know, some of the
• 20:33
  critics who loved faces and magazine people I knew from the
• 20:37
  sabotage time were like, you know, I don't understand this
• 20:40
  record. I was like, oops, you know, and
• 20:43
  I think that one had some really magical moments on it, but it
• 20:47
  was I think a little bit too off the wall and I I I really like
• 20:52
  that. I think that record, I I just, I
• 20:54
  want to have it re released again, you know, with the
• 20:56
  correct titles and, and and put out.
• 20:59
  And I think as of now, it's not even I think it's falling off
• 21:05
  some of the major media that the digital media and stuff like
• 21:09
  that. So I'd like to just have, you
• 21:11
  know, like maybe metal bulls just put that back out.
• 21:13
  It doesn't even really need to be an official re release of it
• 21:16
  just to get it back out there again.
• 21:18
  But yeah, there's there's a lot of tunes when you listen to like
• 21:21
  Seasons, Seasons Change was a song that that I had had
• 21:25
  recorded and done at the time of those demos for the Faces
• 21:30
  record. If you listen to A Feeling of a
• 21:32
  White Lie was the song that I had from back then.
• 21:36
  And the Watch song, which is the song I wrote about stripper
• 21:40
  strip bars that was from back then.
• 21:43
  There was there was pieces of a lot of things that, you know,
• 21:47
  were out of that time. And I still probably have, you
• 21:50
  know, another 20 or 30 of those songs floating around that are
• 21:56
  unreleased, but they're back from that time.
• 21:58
  And a lot of that music is really freaking cool, but it's
• 22:02
  just, it's in bad demo versions, you know, not bad, but just not
• 22:06
  releasable as an album. But there's some pretty cool
• 22:09
  music, you know, there definitely is.
• 22:12
  We'll stay tuned and keep our fingers crossed that more stuff
• 22:15
  will be forthcoming in the future.
• 22:16
  Not that you know, not that you need another hobby or another
• 22:20
  project to work on doing everything you do.
• 22:22
  You have been so lucky to work with Just a a dream come true
• 22:27
  type list of collaborators who's somebody out there you would
• 22:30
  love to work with, you have never worked with.
• 22:32
  Unfortunately, Ronnie James Dio, but you know, that was my dream
• 22:37
  gig and dream records, you know, would have been to do that.
• 22:40
  And he always knew that. We spoke about it all the time.
• 22:43
  And he he would sit there and and say the people in a circle
• 22:46
  that I knew that, you know, I've got to do this record with Chris
• 22:49
  one day because I think he knew how much it it would have meant
• 22:52
  to me to do that album. I think, you know, as far as
• 22:56
  other people out there right now, I mean, I would love to do,
• 23:00
  I think it would be fun to do something with the with Richie,
• 23:04
  with Faulkner. I mean, it's like me and him are
• 23:06
  like from the same egg. And I think, you know, me and
• 23:10
  him together could really do some cool metal, but I'm not
• 23:13
  really looking to to do any kind of other projects right now.
• 23:16
  There's so many different, you know, singers and people that I
• 23:18
  that I respect and I like and, and, you know, there's really
• 23:22
  cool ones that are obscure and in in troublemakers in a lot of,
• 23:27
  you know, a lot of ways out there in the business that would
• 23:29
  be fun to work with. But, you know, it's, I kind of
• 23:32
  like to stay away from other people's drama.
• 23:34
  So there's like some people that you could work with that that
• 23:38
  might, might be a nightmare. You never know.
• 23:40
  But I like their stuff. And I'm not going to mention
• 23:42
  names because it'll, you know, be on a blabbermouth thing,
• 23:44
  Calvary said. But it's like, it's always like
• 23:46
  that. I'm always, you know, you, you,
• 23:48
  you find that, that one quote that that gets out there and,
• 23:51
  and it's like, I don't, you know, like I, I really do like
• 23:56
  Richie a lot. And you know, I'd love to work
• 23:58
  with with Roy Z again on, on something at some point in time,
• 24:02
  because he was a lot of fun to to work with.
• 24:04
  It's just spirits of fire never proceeded any any further.
• 24:08
  And and of course, you know, at any point in time, I wouldn't
• 24:11
  mind doing something else once again with with Ripper because
• 24:14
  he's just, you know, he's as good as it gets.
• 24:16
  So yeah, I think it would be fun for me to do more with with
• 24:19
  Soto, you know, down the road in in that kind of way.
• 24:23
  It's just like I said, I I like working with with people.
• 24:27
  I like writing, I like playing with people.
• 24:29
  You know, the guitar players in my banner fun.
• 24:31
  Me and Alan talked about, you know, doing music like Hughes
• 24:34
  Thrall some point in time and, and having a, you know, a cool
• 24:37
  like, you know, the old Pat Travers kind of stuff in a in a
• 24:40
  record with me and him. He he had talked about putting
• 24:43
  together a band of, of, you know, music like that in The
• 24:47
  Allman Brothers where he played keyboards and I played guitar.
• 24:51
  It's just like, you know, that kind of thing.
• 24:53
  So there there's so many great musicians that I get blessed
• 24:57
  with the opportunity to work with that, you know, the list
• 25:00
  could go on and on. Ones that I'd like to to do
• 25:03
  outside work with. Right on.
• 25:05
  We'd love to see it. High school me would never
• 25:07
  forgive me for not asking you. Obviously what it's been like
• 25:11
  for you to step back and do sabotage again.
• 25:13
  It's been a couple years in the making and and things.
• 25:15
  I know all the US fans are, are dying for you guys to come over
• 25:19
  here and do something extensive. Obviously it has to make sense
• 25:22
  for you, you know, economically in this climate today.
• 25:24
  But what's it been like for you to just come back and, you know,
• 25:28
  do these shows and and take on these songs again that I know
• 25:32
  they mean so much to the fans and you?
• 25:34
  I know it means a lot to the fans and me as a fan, I feel
• 25:38
  that same emotion, but me as Capri the musician, it is
• 25:43
  probably one of the things that's made me the happiest that
• 25:47
  I could explain anything making me in my life.
• 25:50
  I'd miss that. And you know, it's like I have a
• 25:53
  blessing with TSO. It's, you know, the greatest
• 25:57
  freaking show on earth. You know it, it's an amazing
• 26:00
  thing to be a part of. I've been there since day one.
• 26:02
  I, I, I love doing that every single year.
• 26:05
  But you know, I tell it's a people where it's like your
• 26:08
  parents take you to the nicest resort hotel in the world on the
• 26:13
  nicest beach somewhere in the freaking, you know, $10,000 a
• 26:18
  night hotel room. And that's that.
• 26:20
  And then all of a sudden you get a chance to go back to
• 26:24
  Disneyland, you know, and that's what Sabotage is for me.
• 26:27
  You know, the the kid inside me that looked at Kiss Alive and
• 26:30
  and watched Judas freeze when I was 11 and and, you know,
• 26:35
  dreamed of being the metal guitar player was living that in
• 26:40
  Sabotage. You know, that was me.
• 26:42
  It's like when I was singing my solo thing, that was me singing.
• 26:46
  It was a different world. That opportunity for me to be,
• 26:50
  you know, in that KK Downing position on stage and to be that
• 26:54
  guy in the metal band was just what I did on the Gutter Ballet
• 26:59
  tour and what I did with Sabotage.
• 27:01
  So getting that back it, it's just felt like it's crazy when
• 27:07
  we did the the big festival, the first show in Brazil and I
• 27:11
  watched the Scorpion start their show and they started with
• 27:14
  coming home. And it's exactly how it felt.
• 27:16
  Felt like I was home. You know, when I walked onto
• 27:19
  those stages the night before to do soundcheck, I was like, this
• 27:22
  is just, you know, I miss this. This is what I was born to be
• 27:27
  doing was that, you know, that raw metal world.
• 27:30
  It's not like I said, I love playing in TSO.
• 27:33
  It's a it's a, it's a dream gig for so many people and it's so
• 27:37
  much fun and it's the greatest freaking production in the
• 27:39
  world. I always tell everybody it's the
• 27:41
  greatest playground you could possibly have.
• 27:44
  It was a musician on stage with that production and everything.
• 27:47
  But you know, it's like Sabotage was what I did as a little kid.
• 27:50
  You know, I was 19 and got in that band and went out and
• 27:54
  opened for Dio and Megadeth and went out when MTV had
• 27:57
  Headbangers Ball and played with Aleva on the Gutter Ballet Tour.
• 28:02
  It's just like that part of me was missing.
• 28:04
  It was like a gap in the middle of, you know, TSO and, you know,
• 28:08
  Chris Caffrey being the human being that does hot sauce and
• 28:12
  gardening and everything else. It was like that bridge in the
• 28:15
  middle was kind of missing in my life, that balance.
• 28:18
  And I think that balance is back, you know, and his life
• 28:20
  gets more challenging a lot of times when you get older between
• 28:24
  your, your family and health and things you might encounter that
• 28:27
  you weren't expecting, you know, amongst that, as everybody does
• 28:31
  as we get older and other things that happen in the world, as, as
• 28:35
  we're, we're dealing with things, you know, even things
• 28:37
  like COVID and stuff like that. You just, you had a balance that
• 28:41
  I think for me was missing it. And and to be honest with you, a
• 28:45
  lot of that balance was something I was able to get off
• 28:50
  of Paul when he was alive because when I needed the
• 28:53
  support and I needed the balance, I would call him, you
• 28:57
  know, and when Paul passed away, I'm like, who do I call to talk
• 29:00
  about Paul? You know, I can't call Paul to
• 29:03
  talk about Paul. So it was like I always leaned
• 29:06
  on him, you know, throughout everything.
• 29:08
  And, you know, I think having Sabotage back, especially with
• 29:12
  the fact that he was the one that create who I was in that
• 29:16
  band as a position in that band, I think it it helps me feel
• 29:20
  closer to him. That helps me feel closer to
• 29:23
  Chris. And it just like I said, it just
• 29:24
  balances me out a lot. And I really missed it, man.
• 29:27
  I think that it didn't feel any different or feel like it was 23
• 29:32
  years at all since we played, you know, a Sabotage tour.
• 29:35
  Just felt like it was a couple years and it was, we were just
• 29:38
  back up on stage again. So for me, it was.
• 29:42
  It's awesome, man. It's awesome.
• 29:44
  Right on. Thank you for sharing all that.
• 29:46
  Obviously, I'm hoping 2026 is the years America gets back to
• 29:50
  sabotage or sabotage gets back to us.
• 29:53
  And of course, I just want to, as we close this down, I just
• 29:55
  want to since you mentioned TSO again, I'm just so grateful.
• 29:59
  Charity is a big part of, you know, I think to be charitable
• 30:03
  is one of the best human experiences possible and the
• 30:06
  good work you have done, not just these incredible shows and
• 30:09
  like the Kiss of Christmas, whatever you want to call it.
• 30:12
  I think the charitable arm of TSO shows it means the most to
• 30:17
  me and thank you and the whole everybody that's involved in
• 30:21
  doing that because what you guys bring to communities is huge.
• 30:25
  That's Paul and the O'Neill family and Paul's whole idea of,
• 30:29
  you know, those single acts of kindness.
• 30:31
  I mean, I would go to and from the studio with Paul late at
• 30:35
  night and before we jump into a a taxi, have her a car service
• 30:39
  to go back into a story, a story of from Manhattan when he was
• 30:42
  staying in his writing apt. I would just watch him approach
• 30:45
  people on the street and, you know, it was amazing to see how
• 30:50
  he would walk up to these complete strangers and, and, you
• 30:53
  know, fill their hands with something that could take care
• 30:56
  of them. You know, he he was very giving,
• 30:59
  you know what? I'm not talking about giving him
• 31:00
  a sandwich. You know, he would hand them,
• 31:03
  you know, the the ability to eat for a month.
• 31:06
  And it would be kind of amazing to to see that and experience
• 31:10
  that. And that is what we've done it
• 31:12
  at every single show. You know, it's over $20 million
• 31:15
  has gone back to people that makes everybody feel good.
• 31:18
  And, and, you know, that's just that was just Paul, you know,
• 31:21
  he, he wanted to be able to, to give back to people.
• 31:24
  And, and that is something that TS OS always done and, and will
• 31:29
  never stop doing. And, and it, it feels good to me
• 31:33
  because, you know, at this time when there's obviously a lot of
• 31:37
  people out there that, that aren't as fortunate and, and a
• 31:40
  lot of different situations and people that need help with, with
• 31:43
  different parts of their health. And, you know, like I said, I've
• 31:46
  seen these kind of situations, especially more as you get older
• 31:49
  and you get elderly family members that start to get into
• 31:52
  those situations. You realize how important these
• 31:55
  outside helps become to every situation that these people are
• 31:59
  in. Because the more you can give,
• 32:01
  the easier it makes it for people to be able to help them
• 32:05
  on the outside as well. I mean it.
• 32:07
  And, you know, it's, it's a good feeling to know that we're,
• 32:10
  we're giving back, right? On and that's a good place to
• 32:14
  end. Chris, always a pleasure talking
• 32:16
  to you. 20 Years of the Music Man is out June 13th on
• 32:19
  Metalville records. Next time I hope to see you in
• 32:22
  person at one of these things or somewhere around in the world.
• 32:25
  Of course, we'll keep coming back if you keep making the
• 32:28
  music. Thanks so much for hanging with
• 32:29
  Ghost called me today. I really, I really appreciate
• 32:32
  it. No, thank you.
• 32:33
  It's great to come back and I'm, I'm looking forward to everybody
• 32:36
  getting a chance to, to pick this up.
• 32:38
  And I'm actually really looking forward to everybody here in
• 32:41
  the, the, the lead off single of the day when the the record
• 32:45
  comes out. That that song with soda,
• 32:47
  because it's a it's a pretty cool metal tune.
• 32:49
  And I think that, you know, that shows a lot of the the roots
• 32:53
  that I have in in in metal in that song.
• 32:55
  And I think people enjoy that listen a lot.
• 32:57
  It's a cool tune. Rad man, man of 1000 riffs and
• 33:00
  solos. Chris, thank you so much, buddy.
• 33:02
  Thank you. Have a good night.