Gary James' Interview With Greg Giuffria Of
House Of Lords
They are the first band to be signed to Simmons Records (Gene Simmons of KISS) and they are some of the finest and best known musicians in the business. We're talking of course about House Of Lords. With their debut album on Simmons/RCA Records just released, I spoke with House Of Lords member and veteran musician (ex-Angel member) Greg Giuffria.
Q - Are you the guy who put this band together?
A - Yup.
Q - Four of the guys in House Of Lords have been in established bands prior to this project. I don't know much about your lead singer, James Christian. What can you tell us about Mr. Christian?
A - Well, we deliberately picked a guy that hadn't been in or hadn't had any albums out or been in an established band to help us have a fresher images, a fresher approach. A fresh voice. A new voice that doesn't necessarily sound like anybody else.
Q - What if things don't work? What's holding this band together if the members know they can go out and get other gigs?
A - We made a commitment. It was very thought out and heart to heart. Roll up the shirt sleeves, work out the songs, just like the first band you put together in high school. The lineup is gonna stay the lineup. We did an eight album deal with Simmons/RCA, so we're in for the long run.
Q - Gene Simmons is listed as an Executive Producer on your album. What exactly was his role?
A - He just oversees everything and makes sure everything goes smoothly. He assisted in picking out the songs. He came up with the name House Of Lords, which I was all in favor of changing from Giuffria. He left me alone in the studio, though Andy (Johns) engineered it and I co-produced it. An Executive Producer, that's a big job. It's not an on-line producing with the songs, but extremely important.
Q - Before you even had a singer, Gene Simmons thought the band was special. How did he know that?
A - Some songs I had written. He heard the songs. He tells me he saw the desire in my eyes. When someone has as much desire as I truly do from the heart to make it happen, then he said we would team up together. And then it was just a matter of me finding the right singer. And bassist Chuck Wright actually found the singer and brought him in. He sang a song and I stopped him in the middle of a song and said, "You're the guy."
Q - How long did it take to put this group together?
A - I put the band together as a unit on May 15th, 1988 and on May 26th we went in and rehearsed for four days as a band. We cut the album in twenty-one days. So I guess it took five weeks. and that's a pretty unbelievable story, but that's the truth. We even wrote some of the songs during the four day period. Some of the songs I had written prior to that, but were sketches. They were demoed with drum machines. It happened so fast it was unbelievable.
Q - Since Gene Simmons named the band, did he ever tell you what the significance of the name is?
A - Well, when we were coming up with the name there were no suggestions yet and he just listened to the music and he goes, "This is House Of Lords." I went, "That's it. That's great." So there were no other suggestions. No one took any other input. That was it. Bang, bang, boom. Unless somebody else has gotten a record deal and put a band together and got the songs together and recorded the record in that amount of time, it's amazing. I think it's forty-five days, the whole deal. Signed and everything. It's real funny and exciting too.
Q - RCA hasn't always been known as a Hard Rock label.
A - Things are changing. That's one great thing about life, isn't it?
Q - Yes, it is. So, why should someone buy one of your albums?
A - One, the musicality and the variety of songs on it. Two, the songs are not all the same. There's just not one song that's the single and all the rest of 'em are throw-aways. There's some real good songs on it. The musicianship is unbelievable.
Q - Are you aware of how collectible Angel is?
A - Yes.
Q - You've still got a dedicated, hard core following.
A - Yeah. I'm pretty aware of it. There's some great fans out there.
Q - So, why did the band break up?
A - We reached a thing where we were headlining Madison Square Garden, The Spectrum, huge halls, but we just didn't have the sales to back it up. The group only sold three million records total.
Q - For how many albums?
A - Six, seven albums.
Q - And that wasn't good enough?
A - We had this hard core x-number of people and they were dedicated fans, and still are today.
Q - If Angel had been around today...
A - Oh, we'd have been around MTV and everything and it would've been perfect.
Q - Did you ever think that maybe you made the wrong career choice?
A - Oh, no. Not at all. Of course I went to college as an architect and studied music. I love this. It's great. I wouldn't change a thing.
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