Kevin Baldes – Lit – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive
Written by Rob Lane
Sunday, 08 June 2014 03:00
Do you remember where you were when…
I remember exactly where I was when I heard the opening riff to ‘My Own Worst Enemy’ by California band LIT. I was on route to Manchester for what turned out to be a really awful Star Wars Exhibition in 1999 with a couple of friends – remember this was when The Phantom Menace was released! One of my friends was already familiar with the band and gave me the low down and from then on I was hooked. That song and album, which were vastly more memorable than any Darth Maul related tosh, went on to multi-platinum success and now almost fifteen years to the day I’m once again travelling to Manchester to see the band return to the UK to perform the album ‘A Place In The Sun’ in its entirety!
Of course, I wanna hear all about what it’s like to have people react so great to an album that is a decade and a half old, right? Well no, I actually wanna go back a little further and hear all about the pre-LIT days when they caused a stir on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip in the band Razzle. Bassist Kevin Baldes isn’t too sure when I bring this up. “Well, as long as the whole interview isn’t about that?” Dammit, it kinda was!
You performed in Razzle towards the end of the Hair Metal Era on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood. Do you recall how you first came together and the direction of the band?
Back around 1984 I was introduced to A. Jay and Jeremy (Popoff). We’d all grown up on bands like Iron Maiden, Van Halen and the whole ’80s era and it’s kinda what we started off as. I was just sixteen years old when I played my first show – A. Jay was on drums, I was playing bass and we were called Razzle even back then. It was together for maybe three or four years and as we got a bit older we realized that what we started as kids wasn’t really working for us in our young adult years so we re-configured a little. We were changing anyway but the name just wasn’t fitting the idea anymore of what we wanted to do.
Was that a result of the changing musical climate of the time when the 1990s crept in?
Some of it yeah, but some of the ideas we had when we were just starting out were fine as kids but it was, what we call, very ‘Pop Warner’. We were beginning to set our sights higher and starting to change, getting into girls more and becoming young men so all our ideas were growing too.
How was the scene around that time?
We did the whole Sunset Strip scene which, looking back now, we realise how fucking exciting that really was, even at that end movement. You hear people talking about the glory days of the 1960s and Woodstock, but the Sunset Strip for us was our Woodstock, it really was a free for all, just having fun and getting drunk. We’d show up on The Strip early, around seven or eight o’clock, and we’d be drinking whiskey and getting our quick fix so by two o’clock in the morning we’d have just about sobered up, after flyering all night, so we could drive home! We got to see a lot of really cool shit back then but music was beginning to turn over and change quite a bit around that time.
As a young band it was perhaps easier for you to make a musical transition than a lot of the older more established bands?
We grew up on Heavy Metal and bands that I guess were a little heavier than what was popular, so when stuff like Pantera came out we became really big fans. Even back then we all listened to many different genres of music so everyone was always pulling for different ideas – we did then and we still do now. Jeremy’s really into country, A. Jay too along with big band stuff, Nathan (Walker) loves his punk rock, and me, I don’t even know what the fuck I’m into, just all kinds of things. That’s what makes it LIT and that’s also how it was even way back when we were Razzle.
We worked our asses off too and really tried to bring a big show. All our favourite bands would have these huge stage set-ups but they’d be playing arenas whilst we were in the smaller clubs like Gazzarri’s, The Whisky and The Roxy but that wouldn’t stop us. We’d have this U-Haul full of so much gear that we’d have to strike down the house drum riser and set it up on the floor because we’d have all these ramps behind the drum kit. We always tried to set ourselves apart and really bring a big show which I think was what helped us get noticed. I don’t regret those days at all, it was a beautiful time.
Was the band mainly playing in your hometown in Orange County and the Hollywood area of California?
In the beginning it was all around Hollywood simply because the venues were All Ages, but it wasn’t until later on in Razzle’s existence that we began to play clubs in Orange County. Different venues were always popping up but eventually we began playing this place called Club 369 in Fullerton, around the time we changed our name from Razzle to Stain. We seemed to strike a chord there and we were off and running. Shortly after that we got signed but later found out we had to change the name again in 1996 because there was already a band called Stain.
I think what was really cool for us, was that every year things just got better and better and that’s what kept us going. You could say we were being fed the ‘crack’ of Rock n Roll. Good parties, good music… the shows were fun and people were coming out so we wanted more of that, and we wanted it bigger.
Going from the beginning right up to present day, a familiar face from the Sunset Strip days ended up working on your most recent album. How did you hook up and get Butch Walker on board to produce ‘The View from the Bottom’?
We’ve kinda known each other from when we were all playing The Sunset Strip, us as Razzle and Butch when he was in Southgang. He knew who we were and vice versa but it wasn’t until around 1999 when his band Marvelous 3 were breaking out and LIT were beginning to do really well that we met up, toured together and created a friendship. Obviously we all really look up to him as a musician, writer and producer and I think it was Jeremy who just threw it out to him and said we’d be honoured to work with him.
For me it’s without a doubt one of the best Hard Rock albums of the last ten years. As a fan of Butch and his past work it was clear he’d begun to shy away a little from that huge Hard Rock sound. Was he open to returning to that style when you began to work together?
Totally or he wouldn’t have done it. He comes from that era and he saw our vision so absolutely he was into it. We got to chat a lot about the early days too over large amounts of wine!
That Hard Rock / Hair Metal scene seems to follow you around and you’re currently doing live shows with Lynch Mob, featuring Keith St. John (Burning Rain) on vocals, Jimmy D’Anda (BulletBoys) on drums. How did that come about?
I grew up in Buena Park, California. My family and the family of George Lynch’s wife were very close and we’ve known each other for quite some time. So when I was on vacation in Nashville last year I get a phone call from George who needs a bass player for a last minute gig in Japan. I literally had hardly anytime to rehearse, so was up until 2am every morning with headphones learning the parts. The structure of the songs came easy because I was a fan but you have to spend time figuring out all the tiny parts. I got home from vacation on a Monday night, rehearsal Tuesday and Wednesday, flew out Thursday and didn’t land until Friday night in Japan and then we played three o’clock on the Saturday. I was so nervous, I had a beer on the drum riser and don’t think it was until the last song that I dared take a drink!
Live LIT Photos by Wendy Elaine Photography
