Helix / Ex(?)-Kaos Guitarist
Rainer Weichmann
Interviewed by EvilG
Transcribed by Vampe
On
Saturday, August 7 2004, myself and Rick made our way to Gander,
Newfoundland to meet up with Celtic Bob to all once again
see Canadian hard rock / metal legends...HELIX! We had all
witnessed their return
to 'The Rock' for the Canada Day celebrations and were quite
impressed with their live performance, enough for myself and
Rick to drive the 4hours into Gander. On the humid afternoon of
the 7th I managed to get an interview with Rainer and one with
Mr. Helix himself, Brian Vollmer [his interview will be
online shortly].
For those older metalers from the east coast of Canada, you will
remember Rainer's band KAOS from he mid 80's which
coincidentally was the opening act for the cross-province tour
with HELIX while on the LONG WAY TO HEAVEN tour in 1986. That is
why a good chunk of this interview is about his previous band,
KAOS. I wanted to get some background on the KAOS story and on
his current involvement in HELIX. In one spot in the interview,
Rainer's wife (singer from KAOS and current backing vocalist
for HELIX), chimed in with some comments. The interview ran
about just over 30mins and as it was I had to drop about 1/3 of
my questions due to time constraints! So let's head into the
hotel where Rainer is stringing and tuning his guitars as our
interview begins...
How did Kaos get together and when did it all start?
That was a long time ago...I don't remember [laughter]. When
it all started, I think we originally had some ideas to form a
band back in about '83, and we had the makings of the band as it
was afterwards. Well that was the first line up with Sandy
Forbes as the drummer and Bernie Brodrick as guitar player &
Glen Party as the bass player. At the time that we had talked to
all these guys about putting a band together. We really didn't
have a focus about "we're going to make this band and it's going
to be Kaos and we're going to do this and and we're going to do
that."
Actually what happened was that we got a call from a buddy of
ours who heard that the CBC was going to put a program on which
was like what is now American Idol & Canadian Idol. At that
point in time it's what they called "The Fame Game" which was a
couple of bands from the local area & the Halifax region that
were to get together to of course compete through different
stages of the elimination process of the vote. Whoever won,
would go onto the semi-final, until eventually there was to be a
"Canadian winner" which at that point you were supposed to
receive a real pittance of a reward [laughs] for being the
chosen best band. We thought it would be kind of neat to
participate in that competition. But at that point in time we
didn't actually have any songs written or a band together at
that point. We thought it would be kind of nice to participate
in this kinda kick-start for the band, a new band. And right
away of course to get national TV exposure with a brand new
band...but it ended up that we couldn't get Sandy to play drums
on that particular show, so we ended up filling that with a guy
by the name of Steve Butler. He is actually now is a booking
agent in Toronto and he books tribute acts, so that's kinda
interesting [laughs]. But anyways, he was the drummer for that
show & we came second place with a song that we had basically
written and recorded just the week before that. So basically
that was how we got started. From there on in I guess we just
started to playing some gigs & finish writing some more
material.
When you listen back to 2 KAOS albums you did, do any of
them still stand the test of time for you?
For
me no [laughs] they need to be re-recorded & re-done [laughs]
because things have changed a little in however many years. I
think overall, when we did record them & we did record them at
our own studio, with our own equipment when we started. I think
the first 2 albums we did were recorded on 8 tracks and there
was a lot of bouncing and a lot of technical differences that
now if we were to re-record them they would sound much, much
better. I think for us its just sonically, when I hear the
albums I hear them much more from a producers point of view,
rather than a players point of view & I think back at what we
could have done differently, but you know the songs are still
quiet strong. Having said that... you know what's a good song?
At the risk of having someone say "ohh it sounds dated , it
sounds like something that was written in the 80's" well you
know, it was! [laughs]. Things change there are bands out right
now that are doing stuff that is very much 80's or the late
70's. I mean you've got a band like The Darkness or Jet or bands
like that or new bands that are sounding very much like what the
older bands were sounding like back then... the basic rock riffs
that AC/DC based whatever you want to call it. It's nice to see
that happen, its nice to see things come around again. You know
for about the last...up until about 3 years ago, the 10 years
prior to that as far as I'm concerned didn't really happen
[laugh] and in the music scene there wasn't much going on apart
from in the real hardcore metal scene.
KAOS
- backstage in Grand Falls, Newfoundland 1987.
Rainer is third from the left, Cindy is on the far right.
When you were touring with the band, you played across the
island at least twice. What are some of your memories, good or
bad, of all the shows you did in the little places you played?
I don't think you've got enough tape for that [laughs]. Oh
well overall I think we had a good time in most of the places we
played. We had lots of stuff happen along the way. You know you
think of the mark on your calendar "Truck broke down here"
[laughs] or you lost money there because they PA's were blowing
up and you had to pay the rental company back. There's all kinds
of good, ups & downs with everything that happens. But I think
the highest point for us was when we first started to really
realize that we enjoyed doing this more than anything is when we
did that initial Helix tour which was back in '86 and
subsequently we did our own tour in '87 with a couple bands
opening up primarily "Gemini" in a couple of places that we
played. That particular tour we have good and bad memories.. I
think the worst memory of that tour, is the fact that we
realized what a nightmare it was to get the whole thing properly
promoted & properly organized when we had...we pretty much did
the whole thing ourselves. We thought that we had some
promotional assistance from different areas and it turns out you
can't be in 2 places at the same time, so while you're trying to
be a band & write your music & coordinate your stage show, you
can't do that & at the same time try to promote a concert tour.
You know it became a kinda impossibility & if we had to do it
all again we'd make sure that we had somebody on board who could
really do the proper promotion on it & it would work out a lot
better.
KAOS in Grand Falls,
Newfoundland 1987.
Rainer and Cindy in front of "Gus" the Kaos tourbus.
I remember a video of yours, "Summer of Love", aired on NTV
and VOCM (local radio) supported the band to some degree back
then. These days hard rock / metal bands don't get ANY support
from those types of outlets. Of course back then, perhaps it was
more accepted or what was the reason?
No,
I think we were lucky, because we to found out that part of the
problem that we had, was lack of support, lack of
promotion...you name it. I don't know, a couple of things fell
into place for us at the right times and in certain ways...
Cindy: We did a lot of back to back in regards to
promotion, like we wash your back, and they wash ours. Like I
went to them, they asked me to do some advertising for them and
they'd do a little ad on TV for the 'Concerts in the Park' and
there were promotion. So I'd say in return will you do this for
us? It wasn't so much that they supported us...that's basically
what happened though. It wasn't necessarily that they supported
us a whole lot. We really struggled to try and get some help.
The thing with that was, at the beginning we did things for them
& in return they did things for us and then what happened when
Much Music (Canadian music station) came on board and wanted to
promote the band a little bit, and wanted to interview us & play
our video. Then, all of a sudden, these people started calling
and people got more interested in us because "ohh Much Music got
interested in you.. so maybe you guys are not a bad band"
y'know?
Yeah and again that was a result of that initial Helix tour
when we got asked to come on board for that. At the time that
came about we were struggling in Ontario playing dates for
little or no money with a management company who was more
interested in what cover tunes that could get us to do & what
bars they could get us to play in. Luckily we had some mutual
friends that were involved in the management of both bands, of
Helix and ourselves. The promoter that promoted the tour, the
original Helix tour here in Newfoundland, was someone that we
knew and at that time it was quite a challenge to get on board
that tour and convince the right people that we were a good
opening act. It wasn't until all of maybe 3 days before the
first show that we had solid confirmation that we were actually
going to be part of the tour! When we did do the tour all of a
sudden we got the extra exposure, Much Music came on board and
all of a sudden things kinda fell into place. And that's why
originally we got an opportunity to do that video which you
spoke of that got aired. Like NTV sent a camera crew down to
basically film that. All of a sudden they had an interest in
some local talent and decided that yeah okay, lets do a few
things on a promotional level to maybe bring a local act up a
little bit into the forefront.
Cindy -On stage with KAOS in
Grand Falls, Newfoundland in 1986.
The band eventually relocated to London, Ontario. This is
a bit of a grey area for me in terms of what happened. This is
before the band ended, you did relocate off the island, I know
that much. So what happened, did that go as well as you'd
hoped or did things not go like you thought they would?
Um.....I think ultimately what happened was that when we did
relocate we did so reluctantly without some of the members that
were part of the band in the first place. We had originally made
some decisions that were .. uh.. Sandy our original drummer was
going to come with us, to relocate, the one guitar player that
we had at the time, that was in that band at that point in time
, had already left... Derrick Joyce - because he basically
had some obligations in St. John's and didn't want to leave. So
we had already faced the possibility of getting a new lineup
when we left. Then at the last minute, Sandy basically said he
couldn't leave, he was taking care of his elderly dad in a house
that he didn't want to leave. Finally when push came to shove he
decided he'd best stay and take care of his dad and he couldn't
really leave & relocate. So we basically said okay we've gone to
the lengths, we couldn't really go any further in Newfoundland,
based on what opportunities presented themselves for us here. So
we said lets go anyway and hopefully we'll get a new lineup and
start from scratch...and that's the problem, starting from
scratch when you've already got some kind of momentum going and
then having to suddenly take 3 steps back, get new people
involved, try it, start all over again.
So when we started with a new lineup in Ontario, we found
ourselves again struggling to get gigs, struggling to kinda make
enough money to basically live. You know, when you're on
the road trying to keep bills paid & have money coming in and
play original material.....well it's no different right now. I
record a lot of act's that are just starting, up & coming bands
starting out with original projects. I'll record their first CD
and it'll cost them however many thousands of dollars to do the
album with artwork, and so on & so forth. But that's money
they're putting up themselves. Lots of times there's no record
company involved, there's nobody giving them anything and then
when it comes time to make their money back playing original
music, they're setting up shows in bars and stuff where they've
gotta play for a hundred bucks and maybe a case of beer and
maybe if they're lucky what comes in on the door. They maybe
make money on merchandise sales and so on and so forth, and most
of those guys are either living at home or they're all living
together in a 1 bedroom apartment with no money. And there came
a point with Kaos, with myself and Cindy specifically where we'd
been doing this for 7 - 8 years of trying to get the profile of
the band up. We just one day said... Look we can't do this
anymore, we can't live on a hundred bucks a week and we all had
better get jobs [laughs] and that's what we did. I started
working in the music store full time, at that point in time and
in the mean time still trying to do the odd gig here and there.
It just kinda fell apart, not because of lack of interest of the
members in the band, but I think because of the logistics...the
economic situation surrounding bringing and original act
up with, at that point in time, very few connections in the
industry. It just became very difficult to make a go of it.
Rainer and Cindy on stage in
St. John's, Newfoundland June 30, 2004
So for some young guy who is in a band, who reads this,
who thinks he's going to be a rock star - what would you say to
him? (Apart from dream on) [laughter].
That's not really fair, it can happen you know. I think,
realistically, to be a career musician, there are a few reasons
why you want to do it in the first place. I always say... well
people always ask me well "why did you start playing guitar"
Well I started playing guitar, I think most males, and this
kinda...I don't want to sound sexist here, but there are very
few female guitar players and I think it's because most guys
pick up guitars because they wanna impress the girls. The girls
don't pick up the guitars because they want to impress the guys.
They just pick up the guitar because they like it. [laughs] When
you're a young kid going to high school, and when everyone
around you is playing sports and they want to be in the NHL &
want to be a football player, and you're some skinny kid you
think "what am I gonna do to impress the girls" [laughs]. So you
pick up your first guitar and you look in the mirror and go
"wouldn't it be cool to be like Eddie Van Halen or be like..
y'know , whatever...". Eventually you either grow to realize you
appreciate what you do. You really like your guitar and all that
sorta falls away, and then you do it because you really enjoy
playing. A lot of people DO pick up the guitar because they
enjoy playing. But if you're lookin' at yourself in the mirror
thinking this is what I'm gonna do, and I'm gonna be a rock star
and impress everybody in the world, not only the chicks, I'm
gonna get a big record deal... maybe you're doing it for the
wrong reasons [laughs].
If you're really, really lucky and you're really, really
good... one of two things.. you might get noticed. You'll get
more noticed. Maybe if you're in the right band playing music
that connects with people, with music that is maybe not
technically as challenging as what you as a good guitar player
thinks that you might need to play. So being a rock star might
not necessarily mean you have to be great. And I don't think I'm
a rock star [laughs]!! You're asking...the question was anybody
that wants to be a rock star growing up, that's something that
happens coincidentally to people who might happen to be in the
right place at the right time. Or be really good. But if you
practice for 16 hours a day, for 10 years, you might actually at
one point in time wake up, and then you're too good. You know,
you've got people like Yngwie Malmsteen who maybe don't sell
that many albums compared to some other guys maybe like
Metallica, none of the guys in Metallica can play as good as
Malmsteen or Eddie Van Halen, or any of those guys. But
Metallica probably sell way more albums than Malmsteen has sold
collectively in his entire career. So sometimes you've got to
realize it's not just how good you are, or any of that. A lot of
coincidences can that happen, wherever you are at that point in
you life.
Rainer and Brian Vollmer in
Gander, Newfoundland on August 7, 2004.
How did you first get involved in Helix & how you did you
get to where you are today with Helix?
Well obviously I had met Brian Vollmer previously in the
80's. But about 2.5-3 years ago....I have studio in London,
Ontario and I've been responsible for a lot of metal bands'
initial releases, some pre-production stuff. I've worked with
Kittie. There is a band that is up and coming right now, they're
going to be on the Slayer tour this summer, a band called Thine
Eyes Bleed. I did some work with them on the original
pre-production for their album. I've done some work with a band
called Blood of Christ who have had 3 albums out internationally
now, well now 4, their last album was not something I was
involved in but their previous 3, I was involved in those.
Basically I've had a lot of young talent come through the
studio. I've got some really good equipment and have made a good
reputation for myself out there.
Brian Vollmer approached me about doing the next Helix album
there, because it was convenient for him and I gave him a really
good rate [laughs] lets just start it with that. I thought well
, it'd be a nice feather in my cap, to do another album with a
name act..a well known recording act. And originally the idea
for the album, you asked Brian previously "why did it take 3
years to do this album", well initially he came in and he wanted
to do 3 songs, to just see what it would sound like and whether
it'd be worth doing a complete album or if it was just gonna be
a demo project for him to show up some new material. At that
time he didn't have a studio album in mind. We started work on
it and did 3 songs and he liked what he heard and said "okay I'd
really like to do an album, but I don't have all the songs
written yet". So then it progressed to having to wait for these
guys (in Helix), as he spoke to you about earlier, with the
scheduling with who was writing the album and so on. It took a
long time to write the songs that we ended up keeping on the
album because not every song was suitable for recording. So
maybe out of 10 songs we might write 15 or 16 and pick the best
ones. That was the process that happened. As time went by, this
album sort of grew, in the creative process, I became more and
more a part of it. I started playing on certain songs - a few
solos on this one, a little bit on that one. We basically
developed a relationship as producer/artist as well as
musician-wise. A couple of months before we released and
finished the album he asked me if I'd be interested in joining
the band and I thought "yeah well, why not!" I can pretty much
make my own time based on what I do for a living. I have my
recording studio, my repair business, so on & so forth.. and I
am pretty much my own boss. At that point in time we weren't
looking at doing any extended touring - 6 weeks there or 4 weeks
here, it was basic weekend work, one off a couple of days here,
a couple of days there, fly out, fly back and I thought we'll
you know to be fair, I can make time to do all those things in
my schedule and I can accept the offer, and that's sort of what
happened.
Not long after that, during the rehearsal process of this
Anniversary show, when Cindy was doing backing vocals, all of a
sudden he called me up one day and said "do you think Cindy
would mind if we asked her to join the band?" Well I said, "give
her a call!" [laughs] I don't think that's my decision. I dont
think she's going to mind your asking her to join the band. It's
kind of an interesting development.
What was it like the first time you played on stage with
the guys in Helix?
I think we rehearsed the show pretty much, as much as we
could. Luckily our first show was a local gig, fairly low
profile. We opened up a set that had us on the bill with Sass
Jordan & Chillawack and we were the first band on. It sorta
seemed like we just went up and played .. and it came and went
instantly. It was just one of those things you just get up there
and then all of a sudden it's over. You don't even know the
passage of time. It was all kind of a blur but I think we played
pretty well [laughs].
Are you still involved with the tribute band to Meatloaf
called BAT OUT OF HELL? (www.batoutofhell.ca)
Yep, as we speak there is still a couple of gigs booked. Next
week or the week after we're doing a festival, it's called the
Jarvis Corn
Festival, its a big outdoor festival, just outside of
Toronto, we're doing that. Then every year for the last 6 years
we've been doing the Western Fair in London, and we've got 2
nights there again this year. We've got another gig coming up
someone in Sudbury, I think sometime in the next week or 2, and
that's pretty much it though. I think after the western fair
gig, that's it for the meatloaf band until the second week of
September. I think once those are pretty much done with, we
might end up putting the band on the blocks for a bit, I mean if
we get a few calls and someone wants to send us to Vegas, we'll
go back to Vegas. We did 3 nights down there a couple of years
ago with that band, and that was a total blast.
With the Meatloaf tribute band, do you find you get bigger
crowds than some of the ones' that show up for Helix?
Its hard to say, because we've played in different
situations, we've played at the C&E in Toronto with the meatloaf
band on one of their side stages, a couple of shows, a few years
ago and we had a lot of people for that. We had a show in
Sudbury about 3 years ago for boat races. It was us and an AC/DC
tribute act and there was thousands of people at that & we just
did a Helix show just outside of Regina and there must have been
8-10,000 people at that. I don't know, I guess it really depends
on the gig. The last couple of Helix shows that we did...we had
fairly good presentation at the time, people wise, there were a
lot of people there. Most of the stuff we've done recently was
mostly outdoor festival type stuff we get a lot of people at
that. It's hard to say what draws more people. So far, the shows
with Helix shows have drawn more people than typically the
Meatloaf band would, only because obviously the history of the
band and the fan base. Whereas with the meatloaf tribute...I
suppose we're just playing for Meatloaf himself, it'd be a
different story. We're not just doing a Helix tribute band! I
don't know it's just hard to say.
Is there any news on, or is there a possibility to release
any of your own Kaos stuff, maybe put it on CD and release it or
re-record it? You now have your own studio, so it's not too hard
to imagine that you could do that!
There
has been some thought put into that, specifically now since the
profile of myself & Cindy has become a little bit more than that
it was than when we were struggling to bring the band Kaos, as
an original band, into it's own. And at this point in time,
specifically in Newfoundland, where the band had a name
for itself that many years back, we've been thinking of exactly
what you've said - maybe re-mastering the original stuff that we
did on the 2 EP's that were limited releases, putting them on a
CD. But I think what I'd like to see happen is, and there has
been some talk of potentially doing it, is to record an album of
maybe 10 or 12 NEW Kaos songs and packaging that as a double CD
album with re-mastered versions of the old original material. So
that basically you get 2 CD's in the one package and you get all
the old stuff on one, and another CD with all brand new material
just to kind of give it a little bit of continuity, rather than
just look back and say this is what we did 15-16 years ago.
Yeah there has been some talk about it. I've just put some new
machinery into my studio right now. I just bought a new console,
it is an analog console, but it has full digital control on it.
One of the reasons that we hadn't done the Kaos thing prior to
myself being able to re-vamp the studio, was that the studio as
it was, was very old school, very analog. If I was doing a
project for somebody I'd have to pretty much put everybody else
on hold, because I had the board set up to mix down somebody
elses' project, and then I couldn't really work on my own stuff,
because it meant changing settings, re-setting everything by
hand and starting from scratch from where we were before on
somebody elses' project. The studio has been very busy, so I
just made a major investment in a very expensive console which
has digital instant recall. So basically if I'm working on
somebody's project yesterday, and then I go and decide we're
going to record some of our own stuff, I just basically have to
push a button and all of my settings recall instantly to where I
left off the week before and then if band "x" comes back and
wants to finish off their project, I don't have to start from
scratch, I can just push a button and everything goes back to
where we were 2 weeks before that. That is going to free up a
whole lot of time and whole lot of opportunities to spend time &
work in our own studio to put some new material together without
stepping on everybody else's toes.
The studio for me has been a source of income, as with
everything else that I do. So I'm basically self employed. So
it's important that I don't fuck up somebody else's project
[laughs] just because I want to record a song. Sometimes it's
not been entirely convenient to find the time between projects
to work on my own stuff , but now as it looks like I'm going to
be able to free up some time and work more effectively and
efficiently in the studio, I think the potential for putting
another Kaos album out sometime with in the next year could be a
bit of a reality.
Can we get "March of the Gremlins (Part II)"? [laughter]
It's perhaps the best guitar instrumental that has even been
recorded here.
It's funny you should say that, because incidentally, last
night, the band that was up here was just great, we got a chance
to go up and play a couple of songs and as we walk up to the
stage the first thing I hear their guitar player playing
"March of the Gremlins" [laughter]. It's amazing how much of an
impact that has had here and how many people remember that.
Maybe that is another reason, an incentive for doing another
Kaos album.
Celtic Bob
and Rainer way back in 1987! Ha!
