Gary James' Interview With Joey Allen Of
Warrant



From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s Warrant was one of the most popular bands around. Their debut album, "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich" went Double Platinum. The single "Heaven" made it all the way to number two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. They did it again with the album "Cherry Pie", which also went Double Platinum. Warrant sold over ten million records world wide. The group did some extensive touring as well, sharing the stage with the likes of Queensryche, Poison, Cinderella and Motley Crue to name just a few. Holding down the position of lead guitarist in Warrant was and is Mr. Joey Allen. Joey spoke with us about the history of Warrant.

Q - Joey, where is the marketplace for Warrant's music today? I ask only because it's been reported that Rap has overtaken Rock and Rock 'n' Roll music in popularity.

A - Yeah. I don't know if it's the new popular genre. It's definitely popular. I don't think that today's music enthusiasts buy CDs anymore. I used to buy LPs and 33s and 45s, cassette tapes. I remember 8 track tapes when I was real young and my parents were turning me on to play people like Jerry Reed and Glen Campbell. If you're talking about new music, we create new music because, number one: it's a great outlet creatively, and number two: it allows us to have a good story when we tour. So, it gives promoters and the band kind of a fresh tour package so to speak, not that we play a lot of it 'live'. Usually we play one or two cuts off a new record when we play 'live' 'cause generally for us being what I call a legacy artist, people want to hear the hits. To have a hit in today's world is a different proposition.

Q - Very difficult. The system that was once in place to break new artists is no longer in play.

A - I couldn't agree with you more. Now you've got TV shows like The Voice and American Idol that kind of dictate the majority of record sales in America. It's unfortunate because there's a lot of good music out there that just never sees the light of day.

Q - Maybe the same could be said of the time when vinyl was in it's heyday. Music didn't get played because it just wasn't promoted properly. And that's signed bands. The bands that never got signed just didn't get noticed and never saw the light of day.

A - That's a fact. I toured for many years and saw bands that were uber-talented and never got the break they deserved. My band in the late '80s and early '90s tried to support as much local music as we could. It was a different time. It was difficult to help sometimes.

Q - Is it true that you were in twenty different bands before you signed with Warrant?

A - Probably pretty close, yeah. At least two dozen. I'd have to go back and count, but I don't know what defines a band, if a 'live' gig defines a band or when you get together with your buddies to jam for more than a week or two, or more than a jam session or two, if that's a band. When you're young and you're learning your craft, just in those yeas I was in three or four band at least. So, about twenty bands, yeah.

Q - You joined this band, Knightmare II in 1979 that also featured Erik Turner, who later formed Warrant. You left Knightmare II to get an Associate degree in electronics engineering. What were you planning to do with that degree?

A - The time line is, I'd have to say '82 or '83, Erik and I met each other and we were in Knightmare II. That was about the time I was twenty. Warrant didn't start until 1984. So, Erik and I were in a band called Knightmare II in Orange County for about six months in '82 I think it was. Then he moved to L.A. and started Warrant in '84. At that time when I graduated high school in 1982, I went and I got my degree. It was just an Associates Degree in electronics engineering. At the time, as young kids do, you're doing odd jobs. I was painting fences and I saw one of those ads on TV that said, "Get your degree in electronic engineering." One of the De Vry ads or I.T.T. ads. I actually thought that my dad would pay for my education because my dad had a background in engineering and he actually didn't pay for my education. He made me pay for it, which was probably the best thing he ever did for me, but I worked in the consumers electronics field. I worked at Jackson-Charval Electronic Guitar Shop. They also had an electronics division that did active guitar electronics as well as amplification. So, I built a lot of the first prototypes there for those amps. I moved to Hollywood and I ran into Erik again and Warrant was strong on the scene in Hollywood, but had yet to see a record deal and that's when I ran into Erik literally on the corner of Sunset and Doheny in Hollywood, right across the street from Gazzarri's. A few weeks later I auditioned for the band and I was in the band.

Q - When you guys were playing these L.A. clubs, was the "pay to play" thing in practice?

A - I think it was for some up and coming bands. That was something I was never really aware of because Warrant didn't pay to play. Warrant had enough draw where we would have enough people buy tickets. So, I do know about it now, that it was a common practice that promoters did at the time. When a new band wanted to play they said, "Okay, well, you don't draw any people, so sell tickets." So, they basically gave them a block of tickets and they said, "You have to sell a hundred tickets to be on this bill." It was that type of thing. So, people can call it pay to play. You're basically selling tickets and the promoter is protecting themselves, which working with promoters I understand to a certain degree. I don't think it's a great practice by any means, but I understand why someone in business would want to do it. We drew enough people to where we didn't have to do that.

Q - Did A&R guys come out to see the band when you were playing these clubs? That's what the hope was for bands then, that some record company rep would discover them.

A - Yup. That's exactly what was going on at the time. I got in the band in March of 1987 and the band was already drawing very well on the scene. I was the last guy in the band prior to a record deal. That was the idea, to get Artist's Relations or Artist's Repertoire as they were known, A&R guys out to shows and try to land a deal. We had guys swarming at a lot of shows and finally we got one that signed us. I think it was '88.

Q - Warrant actually recorded a demo tape for Prince in September of 1987. Did he contact you? Did you contact his label? Why did he pass on your demo tape?

A - Prince was managed by a company called Cavallo-Ruffalo-Farnola, and we were managed by the girl who basically had a lot to do with finding Prince or bringing Prince out to the world, a girl named Jamie Shoup. She's still a good friend of ours. She actually came to a show of ours last year (2017) which was awesome to see her again. But she said, "I'm working with this band in Los Angeles." That is when the L.A. scene was really happening and she said, "I need some money for a demo," and he at the time had his label in print, Paisley Park. He had first right of refusal. He got the demo tape. He liked the tape and then he wanted to see us live. So we recorded a live show and sent him a VHS tape, because it was back in the day of video. So when he saw the live show, that's when he passed. So, he didn't pass on the music, he passed on the actual show.

Q - What did he expect you do to onstage?

A - I don't know. Prince was uber-talented. Maybe he was looking for more of a ... I don't know. Maybe the show sucked. (laughs) I couldn't tell you what was going through his mind at the time.

Q - So, Prince passes on the band but Columbia Records signs Warrant. Did you submit a tape to them or did they come out to a club and see you?

A - They had a tape. It might have been the same tape as Prince. I don't remember because we did a bunch of different demos for a bunch of different people at the time. We did one for A&M Records, a guy named Aaron Jacoves. It was more of a song for a movie, Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure. It never made the movie, but it got Columbia, if I'm remembering right, out to a show that we played in Reseda, California which was ten miles northwest of the Hollywood Rock scene. The night we played there Jani Lane, our singer had the chicken pox. So we had an Artists and Repertoire guy coming and we wanted to at least play for an hour. I think we made it to fifty minutes and called it a show. That's the actual show that got us signed. There were a few people involved. One of 'em was Ron Oberman from Columbia. A guy named Bret Hartman worked at Columbia at the time. He had a lot to do with it and then a few other people at Columbia. I just don't recall their names. Those were the main two people, Ron Oberman and Bret Hartman.

Q - You also had a guy named Tom Hulett as your personal manager. That name rings a bell. Wasn't he associated with Concerts West?

A - He owned Concerts West.

Q - Along with Jerry Weintraub.

A - Yes. What happened with Jamie Shoup was the relationship with her wasn't getting us our record deal and we were growing impatient to get that done. So, I was the one that called Jamie up and said, "Hey, we want to move on. We hope you understand. It's not a personal matter that it's not getting done." She was totally great about it. She said she understood. We went over to Weintraub because at the time a guy named Eddie Winrick that worked for Tom Hulett and Jerry Weintraub was out looking for bands of our genre. And that's how we got involved with Tom. At the time, Tom was still at Weintraub Entertainment.

Q - Wasn't Tom Hulett associated with Colonel Parker?

A - Yes. Tom Hulett got into the business and this is from what I understand: Tom told us he was a football player at Washington State if I'm not mistaken. He was the quarterback. Elvis and Colonel Parker were at a game and they walked down to the locker room after the game and introduced themselves and asked Tom Hulett if he wanted to get into the music business. At the time Elvis was the biggest thing in the world musically, so Tom took the option to go ahead and get into the music business. He started promoting Elvis. I don't know if that was his first gig, but it had to be pretty close and that's how he got in and that's how Concerts West started.

Q - As Warrant is enjoying all this success with the hit records and the heavy touring schedule, did you or anybody in the group see what was starting to develop on the horizon with Grunge music? Did you ever go to Seattle and catch Nirvana with Kurt Cobain?

A - We never saw Nirvana, but we did have a band called Alice In Chains open for us at at the Paramount Theatre when we played in Seattle. We played Seattle several times. I mean, who knows if you're gonna see that? A new genre of music coming along that's going to decimate popular music as we all knew it at the time. There are tons of bands, Alice In Chains being one of them, that a lot of guys in my band were very fond of. Yeah, we didn't see it. Music changed quite a bit from when I grew up in the '70s where music labels used to cultivate artists and spend time on artists and let them blossom in a career and give them several records to do so. Buy the time we got into the game, that model was well gone. It was a good time for a change anyway. The type of music that we played had pretty much been ruling the roost for a good decade. So it was probably a good time for a change and there was some great music that came out of there, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam, just tons of great music that came out of Seattle. People grow up on a certain genre of music and then at a certain time when they make a decision to either get into the business or go to college, they still listen to their music, but then there's younger kids that come along that have different music likes and dislikes of music and it just depends on what popular culture is shown. At the time, the populace was showing Grunge Rock, or whatever you want to call it.

Q - You left Warrant in 1994 and put together The Joey Allen Project. What could you do in your own band that you couldn't do in Warrant?

A - I left Warrant because Warrant was struggling at the time in a big way. There was a bunch of personal struggles inside the band and it was more of a self-preservation thing where I left because I wasn't happy with being at someone else's mercy to where if they were going to show up or not for a meeting. And, not blaming it on anyone that's currently in the band, I had my own struggles. It was more of a soul searching thing for me. I didn't leave because I thought I could do more on my own than I could do in Warrant. It was never like that. I was happy in the band at the time until it started to get difficult. That's when I decided to leave. The Joey Allen Project was more of an afterthought of leaving. I didn't think I could do a solo thing. I never left the band thinking that. I left the band because I needed to find my own way at the time, so to speak.

Q - At one point, 2018 to be exact, Warrant was being booked by William Morris. When I think of William Morris representing artists, I think film and TV actors, not musical artists. I know they booked The Rolling Stones 1969 tour. How good of a job did William Morris do for Warrant?

A - At the time I got back into the band in 2004, we were still with Jani Lane. He was still out doing his own thing. When he got back into the band and we were looking to do a reunion there was an agent at William Morris that was a big fan and actually from Ohio where Jani grew up, and he wanted to book the band. They have a music division there. They book plenty of acts nowadays. At the time when Warrant was in full reunion mode, it was an easy thing to book. I mean, here comes a band that had success that's back together for the first time in, I don't know, ten years. So it made sense. It was short-lived. Jani's stuggles with alcohol proved to be too much for that reunion and unfortunately it only lasted, I don't know, ten or eleven shows. We had approached William Morris to keep on booking the band because we had found a new singer to replace Jani because he just couldn't perform live, and they passed. So we gave them a little moniker, it was tongue-in-cheek to be honest with you, we called them at the time, William Ignore Us. (laughs) They just couldn't care less and I get it. It's no disrespect to the agent we were working with by any means. It was the time. I can understand. Unfortunately it didn't catch us too well at the time.

Q - You're with Pearl Corporation. Is that the same thing as Pearl Drums?

A - It sure is.

Q - You're a guitarist working with and for a drum company.

A - Yes.

Q - That's kind of strange.

A - It's confusing, right?

Q - It is!

A - Education is key to me. I left the band in '96 and got myself Microsoft Certified, so I've always been kind of a nutty guy like that where I just wanted to get educated. My education has proved well for me. I've kept my relationship with Pearl over the years. Steven (Sweet) played their drums forever. I would always go see them at NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants), which is a big musical convention out here in California every January. Pearl took over distribution of an amp line in 2005 and since I had a background in engineering and used to build amps, one of the tenured employees that I knew very well there that is now the President of Pearl, invited me in for an interview. We interviewed and I took a District Sales Manager job and I helped sell that amp line for about three years. We had some success there, but the distribution did not continue for whatever reason. Let's call them executive reasons, and I was asked at that time to move over to the drum division, which I jumped at because Pearl is the number one drum company in the world and to be a part of that team was very inviting to me. So, I want over to the drum division and I've been there ever since. I've been there for thirteen years. I manage the Guitar Center Corporation account for Pearl, Sweetwater.com, Amazon.com and an independent in Southern California called Pro Drum Shop, Professional Drum Shop in Hollywood that's been around for about sixty years. I tour fifty to sixty shows a year and then on top of that, when I'm in hotels I can tether up and get on-line and take care of business. I'm a busy guy. I just can't sit around and do nothing. I love my Pearl job. I love the company. My co-workers are some of the best in the industry. I'm fortunate to have two gigs. I just work a lot.

Q - You sound like one happy guy and I don't often hear that.

A - Yeah.

Q - I hear so many stories about musicians being ripped off.

A - There was a lot of that. My mantra is the only thing I'm entitled to is an opportunity. If I get an opportunity I'm going to take advantage of it as much as I can. To be honest with you, to be negative about anything is a waste of my time. It's just proven to add some success for me and my family. I've got a private life like that I'm very private about. I've got children, a beautiful wife and nothing to be bummed about out here for sure.

Q - As 2019 unfolds, do you feel good about the future of Warrant?

A - Yeah. We're actually talking about doing more new music right now, which is fun and challenging. We continue to tour, primarily in the mid-West. We've got a great following. We're very good at what we do. We've been doing it a long time, so we should be good to be honest with you. And we're looking forward to many more years of touring and creating new music. We just do what we do. It's real important for us to keep the integrity of the music live, which we do. We represent the back catalog well live and we continue to play some new tunes here and there. So, it's an adult touring situation. Everybody gets along very well. There's no drama or in-fighting and we're looking forward to continuing as long as we're breathing.

Official Website: www.WarrantRocks.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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