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Founding member of Seasons Of The Wolf, razor-sharp guitarist Barry Waddell aka Skully, is no stranger to the music scene. With a basic sound rooted in 80's hard rock/metal, with gothic and prog influences, yet they do not fit into any one genre. However, if you are new to this band, read what Skully has to say and check SOTW out.
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| Q | Give me an overview of Seasons Of The Wolf, when you formed, current line up etc. |
| A |
Dennis (keyboardist) and I had previously been involved with Equinox. I was the singer and rhythm guitarist. That band was from 1984 to 1988. It dissolved and we formed SOTW. We began SOTW just after my younger brother Wes (the singer) got out of high school. October 1988 we had our first SOTW line-up. After a few years of writing songs and recording a couple of local Tampa Bay cassette releases we started working with Phaedra Rubio on bass and Wayne Hoefle on drums in 1994. This would be the actual first real solid line-up that recorded the first SOTW album released in summer 1997. Phaedra left us in summer of 98. Chris Whitford jumped in on bass and we completed our second album “Lost In Hell” and released it in spring 1999. With the same line-up we recorded our 3rd album “Nocturnal Revelation” and released it in November 2001. Chris left the band in 2002. Wayne still remains active on drums but only for studio recordings. So, that leads us to the new 4th album “Once In A Blue Moon”. Over the past few years we worked with several different bassists and drummers looking for a “new member” and we decided to include them all on the new release on whatever particular song that fit their individual style. I also recorded bass on a couple songs. So drummer Mark Empire ended up being our new drummer during the process. We still have not found a bassist willing to commit fully to SOTW in all the very important areas that it takes to be in a band so until then we use fill-in hired guns. We did have Michael Poplees as a fill in bass player but he recently chose to commit himself to another band closer to his area. SO - Yes indeed…. bassist position for SOTW is still open. But, it does not stop us from taking advantage of good live show opportunities. We have very professional players such as Bill Bois and Steve Satyr that fill-in for us. They know the set list! So, that is the brief history and current status of SOTW. We just keep on going………………. |
| Q | When did you first get into metal? What were some of the early bands that were an influence on you? |
| A | In 1974 I had my first band Equinox in Virginia. The phrase Metal was just starting to develop. Mostly it was called Hard Rock back then. I was 14 years old. We did not play covers we actually started learning more by writing our own material at loose jams. I would practice to albums by my favorites bands such as Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Montrose, Deep Purple, and Blue Oyster Cult. |
| Q | I am sure you have shared the stage with some great acts over the years. Who sticks out in your memory and why? |
| A | Blue Oyster Cult – We got to open for them back in 1993. And of course that was a very special time seeing that they are one of my top all time favorites. Dennis and Wes are very much influenced by BOC as well. That is the most common musical ground we have. Maybe that is why our new drummer Mark gets on with us so well. That and the fact we love bizarre horror and sci-fi films and that sort of soundtrack music. We all have very open minds when it comes to music. Anyway - We got to meet members of BOC. Eric Bloom autographed a classic photo of himself with the BOC guitar. |
| Q |
Your 4th album titled "ONCE IN A BLUE MOON" was officially released on July 7th 2007 with 12 brand new tracks. Please take me through your personal favourite track. |
| A | At the moment my favorite is Ghost Woman. It was the last song written for the album just a couple months before the release. We did not even plan it to go on the album. But after we finished writing it we knew it had to go on the album. |
| Q | Also, you are the producer and bass player on some of the tracks. Is production something you are very interested in or something you do solely for your own band? |
| A |
I would have rather not got started in producing – but it was necessary for the band. So yeah – sure I wouldn’t mind producing another band. Dennis and I have worked with a couple other projects in our studio. Mainly Bill Bois and his “X Takes The Square” project. There was another band called “Mirrored Image” that we produced a couple songs for back in 1999, but I believe they are split up now. So, Dennis and I as a team have been learning and working together since 1984. He learned the engineering part and I learned the producing part. And from that we also learn bits of it back and forth. So, really it is more of a team effort between Dr. Samurai and Skully that makes a SOTW album. With each album we get better. It also helped on our first album that we recorded at Telstar Studio with Bud Synder “Uncle Budski” engineer from the Allman Brothers Band. We learned a lot from him about sound, proper arrangements of instruments, and vocal recording techniques. One thing we do enjoy is producing music for Horror and Sci-fi soundtracks. Several independent films have used SOTW songs, and we did get our first main theme scoring project for the film “Blood Stained Bride” There are two new ones coming out soon called “Dead Things” and “Evil Ever After” J |
| Q | Do you have a preference for type of equipment? In your mind, how important is equipment to the production of music? |
| A | It is important to have reliable equipment. As far as brands it depends on what you are going for. That is if you know what you are going for. The most important thing though is the player and the performance and the arrangement of “the song”. Once all that is right you can plug in to practically anything and it will still sound good as long as it’s a reliable piece of equipment. But, then in the production mode you take “good” and try to see if there is something you can do to make it “even better” |
| Q | What are your personal top 5 metal guitar solos of all time? |
| A | I’m not much into the solo thing. I have always been more into the cool riffs and “the song”. I play solos but not for the sake of playing a solo. There are a few SOTW songs that do not even have a solo. But, I do like Randy Rhodes work on the Ozzy song “Diary Of A Madman”, Todd Rundgrens work on the Utopia “RA” album”, Buck Dharma’s work on lots of Blue Oyster Cult songs, the dual guitar work of early Alice Cooper especially the song “Halo Of Flies” and Toni Iommi’s work on lots of the first 4 Black Sabbath albums. And for an extra plug I always liked Michael Schenker from UFO. |
| Q | If you were not a musician, what would you be? |
| A | I would work at NASA sweeping floors or turn into a complete hermit and live in the mountains working a farm. |
| Q | I understand you design and make Tribal Style Shark Tooth Chains. Tell me a little bit about that. |
| A |
It is a little side hobby. I got started finding and collecting shark teeth back when I was very young. On vacation trips to Florida. Then we moved to Florida in late 70’s and I kept going to the Black Beach in Venice and collecting the teeth. I ended up with jars of them. So, I turned it into a production making the sharktooth chains. I call them tribal style because I put sometimes up to a dozen shark teeth on one chain with skull beads and bird talons. In the center I use a different goth style medallion or sometimes a crocodile tooth imported from South America. Or whatever might look cool. |
| Q | Staying with the theme of design, SOTW has some fantastic T-shirt designs, who does those? |
| A |
I take whatever we have based around the wolf and our logo the “Quilex” and come up with designs. I put one of the shirt designs together using our Scottish family coat of arms with the slogan “Orna Verum”. Latin for “adorn the truth”. The Quilex is used in the hilts of each sword crossing the coat of arms. We have 5 shirt designs at this time. But only 3 of them in stock. We are working on getting the new “Once In A Blue Moon” shirt. J I have done all the graphic design work on all our album covers so far. We hired a UK model / actress Tara Daynes for the album cover concept for the new album. A good artist friend of ours Christie Cannon came up with the silhouette wolves. Then I did my thing with computer graphic to being together and make the cover. We may do something similar for the new album as well only next with two models and our coat of arms. |
| Q | Are there any plans for the next album, DVD, possible tour to Europe, being in the UK myself ;) |
| A |
We have already started working on SOTW #5 album. And while that is working we have a 12 song – SOTW music video DVD rockumentary with interviews we have been working on. It may still take a couple years to get it all done. It will be over 90 minutes of carefully produced and edited look at SOTW from 1988 to present day. Present day being whenever we finally release the dang thing! Hahaha! No huge tours yet. But, we are confirmed to play Headbangers Open Air 2008 in Germany. So we are working on putting together a small tour around that time. Hopefully something may work out that we get to come to UK for at least a couple shows. |
| Q | I always end on a random question, so for fun, if you had a third eye, whereabouts on your body would you have it and why? |
| A |
I think that would be on my left index finger so I could see around corners and such. Like a periscope. J Ha! Thanks for the interview. We appreciate the opportunity and hope the answers entertained you.
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To check
out more about Skully and Seasons Of The Wolf,
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I would like to thank Skully for answering these Qs & As. “Nikhedonia” all the way, Skully!
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Till next time… Keep It Loud! ANGEL OF METAL
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