In a previously unpublished interview, Jack Russell, who recently retired from touring, talks Great White hits, Guns N' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest.
Jack Russell , classic era singer of '80s hard-rock band Great White , is shown in an early '90s portrait. Russell’s a survivor though. Even later in his career, no matter how bad his health got, when he was onstage and had a mic in his hand, he could always deliver. Until, finally, his body wouldn’t let him any longer.
But what set Russell apart from many of his fellow frontmen was his ability to elevate a rock ballad with not only range but warmth and nuance. See his vocals on Great White cuts like “House of Broken Love,” “The Angel Song” and “Save Your Love.” The pyrotechnics-caused fire at Great White’s 2003 Rhode Island show that killed 100 fans is part of Russell’s story. But it’s not the whole story. The purpose of our interview was to talk music, which Russell and Great White should be remembered for, too.For our chat, the Southern California native checked in via video call from his Denver area home.
It was cool because they’re not what people would expect you to do. What you’ve got to understand is we did an album called “Great Zeppelin,” and there were like 15 songs on there. And it was all live. It was three shows and we recorded it and released it. But it was an amazing record. You should check that one out. But we just wanted to dip into something that wasn’t, you know, such mainline stuff. That was a lot of fun.
And then I move on to Cleopatra , where I’ve got another album coming out. It’s like half Dante Fox rerecorded and half cover songs, just like cool covers that my record company picked out. I’m really excited about it. I mean, I had like a vision -- no kidding, a serious vision of what my life was going to be like as a rock star. And everything came exactly the way it was laid out to me. It was really, really strange.
Well, yeah, I believe that’s all what it is, whether it’s led me down the path to great vocal teachers and ways to save my voice and warm it up for shows and warm down afterwards and take care of my cords, you know, to just having the raw talent -- which is a total gift and I’m very humbled by it. I don’t take anything for granted. And I don’t think anything’s about me. It’s just a gift God has given me and continues to give it to me to this day.
And almost two years later, I walked up to him at the gig, and I said, “You’re not gonna remember me. But about two years ago, I came up to you at The Troubadour and told you I’m gonna to open up for you.” He goes, “Oh, you’re kidding me, mate? What a great story.”Heavier. Those were our “We’re gonna be Judas Priest” days.I think it’s just appreciating that at 62 years old, I’m still pretty good at what I do, and I don’t really want to end.
Well, a lot of people don’t notice this, but the video is different song. We recorded it differently for the video because we had to shorten it for MTV, so we did a different version with different lyrics and a different arrangement. Because it was a seven-minute song and MTV didn’t want to play no seven-minute song from a brand new band in a video, so we shortened it.
It was quite the cool thing because I had never heard the song before, because it was an East Coast hit, it was never really a West Coast hit. And when I heard it, I was like, this is perfect.
80S Rock Hard Rock 80S Metal Hair Metal Glam Metal Great White Jack Russell Led Zeppelin Guns N' Roses
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