Tony Harnell

Ever since his debut album, TNT's Knights Of The New Thunder, Tony Harnell has established himself as one of the premier vocalists in the Hard Rock genre. His voice can reach soaring high notes while also managing to convey sheer emotion. Through the years, his work has been nothing short of mind-blowing. Tony has always managed to remain innovative while pushing the envelope to create fresh-sounding original music. He has also written some of the catchiest songs I've ever heard. And his lyrics manage to convey emotion while inspiring thought. A sign of a true artist and in my opinion, a poet.

2001 is a great time to be a Tony Harnell fan. After a long post-TNT hiatus, Tony has been steadily putting out great music with both the re-formed TNT and his new outfit Westworld. And things are just getting better as Westworld has signed a new record deal with Z Records that promises to deliver a killer Live album, recently recorded in Poughkeepsie, NY, as well as a new studio album. We will also see a U.S. release for the phenomenal Skin album [Read our review of it. -Editor], Westworld's sophomore effort and in this writer's opinion, the album of the year.

I sat down with Tony recently to discuss Westworld, and the result was one of the best conversations I've ever had. Tony is a very intelligent and honest person, and both fans and casual readers will really enjoy his candid thoughts. Put on your seatbelts as we take you on this roller coaster ride with one of the world's most powerful vocalists and songwriters. Enjoy!
-Henry Bocanegra

House of Shred: How are you doing?
Tony Harnell: I'm doing great!

HoS: That's cool, let me just throw a few questions at you.
TH: OK, Let me have it!

HoS: Is Skin, the best album of your career?
TH: Hmmm... In the world of Hard Rock, I would have to say, in my opinion, yeah. There were things about (TNT's) Transistor that I'm really proud of in terms of songwriting and the originality of that album. But I think that purely from a straight-ahead Rock N' Roll album, yeah I definitely think so. I have a lot more to do in other forms of music, but I think that this is where my career's been up to now, and I think that in terms of Hard Rock music this is probably the best thing I've done. Vocally, especially, I think. I'm really proud of it.

HoS: You mention different genres of music, does that mean that you feel you haven't made your best album yet?
TH: No, I haven't.

HoS: Well, as a fan, that's good to hear. (Laughs)
TH: (Laughs)

HoS: I love Skin, by the way, I think it's very good, I think it's the best album out there right now. And I've turned people on to it, and they really go ape-shit over the album.
TH: Thank you so much.

HoS: Do you want to talk about Skin track by track?
TH: Sure.

HoS: "Skin"
TH: I think that the song lyrically is really just my personal feelings about the way the media, magazines, television, movies, portrays women in a really almost unattainable way. And I think that it's hard on women, and I think that it's hard on men. It kind of sickens people to a certain degree and makes them think that if they don't have this model girlfriend, that they're somehow inferior. And I think that it makes women think that they don't stand up to these perfect, beautiful people. I think it's kind of sad, and I think it's a lie. Most of those women, even though they are beautiful, they are touched-up and manipulated and all kinds of stuff like that. That's sort of where the album cover came from as well because I did a series of black and white photographs in Greenwich Village, through store windows, of mannequins. And all the photographs on the cover are of mannequins.

HoS: So you took those?
TH: Yeah, I did. I just thought it was really striking, and I thought it really fit with the whole idea behind the song of like this sort of perfect, plastic fake beauty kind of thing, you know. And I think that the song itself musically is really cool, it's got almost like a middle-eastern flavor to it at times. It's kind of very 70's sounding yet it can get a little bit modern at the same time.

HoS: Yeah, it's got kind of a Zeppelin vibe to it. It's very different from anything you hear out there right now. "Ice Queen"
TH: "Ice Queen." Another kind of personal song for me, I'm sure a lot of guys can relate to the lyrics in that one. And musically it's very, again, middle-eastern, I think. There's some touches of that here and there. And again, maybe a little Zeppelin here and there. But I think that, in my opinion, we have really developed a style on this album as compared to the first album.

HoS: Absolutely.
TH: And I think that there's something happening here on this album. I don't think we're quite there yet. I have a feeling that the next album is going to be the definitive Westworld album. We sort of had to get these two under our belts to figure out what we sound like. I think we're getting somewhere, I mean not everybody loves it, but I'm very happy with it.

HoS: It really sounds like a band effort now. It sounds like you guys came together as a unit. John and Bruno really shine on this record whereas on the first record, while it was good, solid playing, they didn't really stand out. Their playing on Skin is outstanding.
TH: They were sort of involved with the songs from an earlier stage than they were on the first album. Mark and I basically finished all the writing on the first one and brought it to them. On Skin, they really got involved pretty early on and I wanted them to be much more involved, to have a good time and to really do their thing.

HoS: "Uneasy."
TH: "Uneasy," I think is one of the more, shall I say, "poppy" songs on the album, which is great. I love pop music and as you could tell from a lot of the stuff that I've done in the past I really like catchy pop songs. I really like this song a lot, it's probably one of my favorite songs. I think it came out really well. I love the lyrics a lot on that one. And when I write my lyrics I really don't think too much about them so they kind of come from somewhere. So, when I get lyrics like that, I just kind of feel pleased because it's a cool thing when you get lucky and you get good lyrics. I just think it's a neat song, it's just really cool, its got a great feel to it and the chorus is great and the guys play great on it.

HoS: "Limbo" is probably my favorite song you've ever done.
TH: Wow.

HoS: If I were to guess, I would say that "Limbo" is a very personal song to you. I'm saying this because of the way you sing it, the pure emotion of the vocals.
TH: I do love the song. I think the melody is absolutely beautiful. It's interesting how it came about. We just sat down and Mark started playing me something and he was sort of humming this beautiful classical melody that almost sounded like a perfect classical piece. And he was doing something slightly different and I heard something within what he was doing, but it was different. And I just sort of said, "Wow, wait a second" and I just started spitting out this whole thing and the whole thing just came out in one shot. And both of us thought it was really cool. Because it's not really obvious, the melody is very pretty, and the chorus isn't really a big obvious chorus. It kind of just falls gently from the verse, right up to the chorus. It just kind of makes sense somehow melodically. Lyrically, it's a pretty personal song. It's interesting, when you live in a place like New York City that has so many people so close together, it's interesting because it can be the loneliest place in the world. I think the people that live out in the suburbs or in the country probably have more contact sometimes with people, by contact I mean actual conversations on the street or whatever, than the people in New York. New York can be an extremely cold and lonely place. I just think the song sort of reflects a moment. When I write my lyrics, I usually have kind of an idea. When I sit down, I usually have about three or four songs that I need to work on. And I just kind of take a look at each one of them and whatever one I'm starting to get immediate lyric ideas for I just kind of run with. The interesting thing about a lot of the stuff on this album, especially that song, is that I had probably 50% of the lyrics to that just based on rehearsals. Because what I did was I put the melodies together and I rehearsed with the guys a lot and I would like mouth whatever came into my head because the most important thing to me was to just get the melody idea across. So I'm usually just good at spitting out things that come into my head and I don't think about it too much. I just let things come out and then what I do is I come home and listen to the tapes from rehearsal and I pick up lines here and there. I probably listened to about 4 or 5 rehearsal versions of that song and was really able to sort of find a story in there. Then that story just kind of took shape and then I just kind of added the emotion that I felt the day that I wrote the song. 'Cause day to day, you kind of feel different about the world, you know, so it really depends like whatever day it is that you're writing. I figure that I was probably a little melancholic that day which is always a good day to write a ballad.

HoS: I think "Limbo" is a perfect song, it is everything a ballad should be. When I first heard it, I must have listened to it like ten times. I just love the song.
TH: I find that that song, people either really, really love it, they embrace it like you do. Or, I've gotten the opposite reaction a few times where it's their least favorite song on the record.

HoS: Really? I can't imagine that...
TH: Yeah, but that's a good thing, because it means that it's powerful enough to either really move somebody or really turn somebody off. That's the sign of a good song. Good songs will usually do that, they'll either be loved by people or hated by people, and I can live with that.

HoS: And it also says that you have very diverse fans. (Laughs)
TH: Yeah, definitely.

HoS: "Black Shadow Symphony."
TH: Yeah that's one of my favorites too. I don't know what it is about that song, it's really interesting. I was actually at my gym and I was in the sauna. I was in there for about 15, 20 minutes and I was sweating my ass off. I kind of went into this weird frame of mind that I just wrote the whole damn song in my head. So I had to run out and I just kept humming it to myself over and over, the riff actually (Hums riff). So I had this riff in my head and I heard the chorus melody and I heard the whole thing. And I ran home and just started humming and singing the different parts into the tape player, so that I wouldn't lose it. Mark came over the next day or a couple of days later and we like wrote the whole thing in about... he helped me finish it in maybe 15, 20 minutes. I didn't write the lyrics until much later. I loved the melody and the music so much and it just kind of has this very sort of 70's Rainbow kind of vibe to it, big bombastic epic kind of rock thing from the 70's, you know? So I just kind of sat with it for a while until one day I was thinking about the state of things and getting really, really pissed off at basically how the media, again, twists people around. They just start analyzing everything and people believe everything they read and it makes me crazy. Because, the reporters weren't there, I mean obviously, sometimes the truth is the truth and that's it, but when they start embellishing and throwing in their opinions about why this and that and the other thing, it gets me crazy. Because none of us were there and there's no way that we could tell what really happened, what really goes on.

HoS: I agree.
TH: And I think that there's a lot behind these sort of sensational events like for example school shootings. And I have a lot of personal passion about things like that. I have very strong political beliefs and I don't really want to get into them right now, but I just think that we're going about this thing all wrong. And I don't think the media's helping one bit. To me, "Black Shadow Symphony" is my metaphor for the media and what they are, this ache symphony of doom and they can't wait to analyze and try and put their spin on everything.

HoS: Incorrectly in a lot of ways.
TH: Yeah, most of the time. And I think it's our responsibility as people and as a society to listen what they have to say, but to also try to get information about everything ourselves. Don't just take what they say as gospel because 9 times out of 10 there's another story behind that story and people get prosecuted very, very easily. I think it's important for people to keep an open mind and have compassion and not be so quick to judge.

HoS: The thing is that people don't want to bother.
TH: I know.

HoS: Instead of looking into a story, they'll just look at the headline, at the surface, and just kind of base their opinion on what they see in the first ten seconds. I know you didn't want to get into it, but since you brought it up (laughs), I will ask. I know you're very conscious both politically and socially, and I have read your recent comments on the Westworld website regarding school shootings, violence, kids with guns, etc. Is there anything you want to say about that?
TH: You know, I don't want to make a big political statement. I do make them in my songs. I say what I feel, and people are certainly allowed to disagree with me and hopefully still enjoy what I'm musically doing. They don't have to agree with my political beliefs. I just think something has to be done about the gun situation. It's dangerous and I think it's out of control. And I'm sick of hearing about these school shootings. It makes me literally — I'm not even kidding — I literally get sick to my stomach. I don't feel good. When I see these things I just wanna shake somebody. I mean, here you have a kid that took the gun out of his dad's locked cabinet, and it just makes me wonder. Yeah, maybe he was "off", but why was he "off"? What else was going on there? I just don't understand what we're doing. The worst part about it is, everybody wants revenge. Everybody is out for blood. Everybody has that this eye for an eye mentality. I've traveled the world pretty extensively, my father lived in Japan, I lived in Europe for many years. I've seen a lot of different societies and how they work and in many ways, the United States is pretty progressive. But it's interesting because, as progressive as we are, we are just as behind. We're very primitive in certain ways. We're probably the only fully civilized nation, and super-power, that actually still has a death penalty. And I just don't believe in it. I don't believe in it and I think that it's really insane to take teenagers and send them either to jail for the rest of their lives or to give them the death penalty. I think that's completely insane and I cannot fathom what possible good it can do for society, or for the kid who committed the crime. The only thing that it does is, I suppose, is give the family of the victim some sense of closure. But what are we saying to our kids? We're really saying to them that if "Johnny" punches you in the face on the street or if "Johnny" stabs you in the back, it's ok for you to stab him. An eye for an eye is totally fine and revenge is the way that we should live. I think it's ridiculous, I think it's disgusting. I mean they do this in the Middle East, not here. We just have to be better than that. This kind of thing really saddens me. This thing about this kid who was like 13 years old and he body slammed a 6 year old girl. I don't think he meant to do that, I'm sorry.

HoS: No, I don't think so either.
TH: Man, he's watching this fucking wrestling all the time, which is like, whatever. I'm not gonna make a judgment call about wrestling, but it's supposed to be playful, you see these guys who are very athletic, who are trained, and who know what they're doing, and they go out and try to do these things in their backyards. And they watch these guys on TV, and they see that they don't get hurt! But you get hurt, and you get killed. I cannot for the life of me understand what the jury was thinking about. It's completely insane! And I tell you right now, people will say "Well, what if it happened to you?" If it happened to me, I would not go about it that way. That's not what would make me feel good. To see a person killed or whatever, I mean, yes, in certain situations people need to be taken out of society, I agree with that. I totally think that there are many people that need to be taken off the street. But, let's try to do something with these people, because all we're doing is creating a bigger society of people who have nothing and no understanding of how to live a happy, decent life because they just don't have the tools. They just don't know any better. They've never had the tools from all the way back in the beginning. Yes, we all need to take responsibility for where we are in our lives. It's not like you can sit down and blame this, that or the other thing for your actions or the bad things that come to you. But, at the same time there are certain groups of people and certain situations where people grow up in with their families and tragic situations where you can't even imagine that they're ever going to figure things out. They need help to figure things out. Maybe they can get it together and a light bulb will go off and they'll go "Oh my god, I can actually do THAT, instead of what I'm doing?" So, I just think that it's very much sort of a "Me" tribal society. We're all taking care of ourselves and we really don't care about the other guy and if we continue the way we're going right now, something will certainly break down.

HoS: I agree with you. It's a vicious circle, you have kids having kids and you have these unsupervised children running around being influenced by you know what. I mean how the hell do you explain having a teenager in your house with an arsenal of weapons in your garage, testing bombs, I mean what kind of an idiot is this person? And furthermore, what kind of parent?
TH: That's what I'm saying, if they're ready to convict the kid, then convict the parent.

HoS: And I agree. But the other thing is that there is no reform in the jail system.
TH: Not everywhere, there are a few jail systems that are very progressive. There's a couple that I know of out in Arizona. They're very progressive and they're trying some really great things. And they're working! That's the whole thing, they're working. But society is more focused in punishment than reform and if we keep doing that, we're never going to get to the root of the problem. What are we doing wrong? Just to summarize I just think there's a lack of general love in humanity for our fellow human beings and there's got to be more of that. There really does. And that's all I have to say (Laughs).

HoS: (Laughs) And I'm glad to hear it.
TH: You got me on a roll, see once you get me started, man I can't stop (Laughs).

HoS: Hey man, this is great to hear. I always try to talk about interesting things and current events, and not just ask the typical "what's your favorite CD?" question.
TH: Yeah. I mean, a lot of people are going to disagree with me, there's no doubt.

HoS: Hey, you know... whatever, I think that almost everyone will agree that there is a problem. We have to educate ourselves and we have to be human beings, be loving, and be compassionate with each other. If not, this country can have a civil war or a race war. I mean it could happen, it's not as far-fetched as some people think.
TH: It could be a class war, it could be a race war. All of the above. I really try to be positive and not really envision that. But I'm certainly not encouraged by the current administration.

HoS: Oh God! Don't get me started on that. (Laughs)
TH: Yeah, I can't ever go there man. (Laughs) I can't even fathom it. I have a lot of friends overseas and I'm almost embarrassed to be an American right now in certain ways.

HoS: But it's true. The whole world was laughing and everyone saw the blatant display of corruption that happened with this election. Everyone except Dub-Ya and Rush Limbaugh (Laughs).
TH: The Prime Minister of England, Tony Blair was over here recently and they were talking about some things that they were discussing. And Bush was talking about something or other, and he said, "it would be nonsensical at this time." And I was like "nonsensical?? - What the hell is that???"

HoS: (Laughs)
TH: I mean, I knew what he was trying to say but I'm like "nonsensical??" Ok so, just because I was laughing, I immediately grabbed my dictionary just in case it was something I hadn't heard yet. No. There's no word in the dictionary like that. There's no "nonsensical," there's no "sensical," there's nothing like that in the dictionary. You know, give me a break, a president that can not speak English, that scares me. (Laughs)

HoS: If you call him Stupid, you're giving him a compliment. That's all I have to say. (Laughs)
TH: I know... And moving right along... (Laughs)

HoS: As an artist, do you feel a responsibility to your audience? I mean, let's take Eminem for example, a person who just preaches and spews hatred against everybody. Some say for artistic reason, I say to sell records because it's what's "in". How do you feel about all this, do you think that as an artist you have a responsibility, or do you think that he has a right to be doing this kind of stuff.
TH: You know, I don't believe in censorship, to me that's not a cool thing at all. But you know, I don't really have a major problem with the guy, I understand why people get pissed off at him. Actually, I think that he is really talented, I think he writes amazing shit. I think that he is pushing buttons on purpose, just like Marilyn Manson, and just like many people before him and many people that are probably going to come after him. I think he pushes buttons on purpose. I think he knows exactly what he is doing. I think he is talking about certain things that maybe he's seen or experienced. But, either him or somebody around him who was defending him made a very good point. I agree with it completely because I've said it before myself. People can make a film about whatever. Somebody can make a movie about horrible, horrible things, about raping women, and horrible violence, murder, you know, horrible stuff. It's fine if it's a movie, it's fiction, but people don't seem to see songs that way. And I really think that there's a parallel to be drawn there between somebody expressing an idea that not everybody might agree with, but that is fair. So, I understand the argument of people saying that we just don't need somebody putting more negativity out there. I certainly would not do something like that. I don't want to add to the negativity that's already out there. But in his defense, I would say that a lot of what he writes about is the life that he knows, the life that he grew up with and whatever. And the funny thing to me about it is, when will the Christian Right people realize that if they just leave it alone, it'll go away. But what they do is that they feed right into it and they make it way more popular than it ever would have been.

HoS: (Laughs) I know.
TH: They're totally defeating their whole thing. If they would just leave it alone, stay off of it and just do their thing, which is totally fine. I mean, think religion is a good thing, I think people need something to believe in. I very much believe in religion. But look, stay out of politics and leave the things alone that are awful and negative because if you draw attention to that stuff it's just going to sell more because people want what's bad. Ooh, mom doesn't want me to have this, so now I really got to have it, you know?

HoS: Well, there's an angle for you, piss off the bible belt and you'll sell a ton of albums. (Laughs)
TH: No. (Laughs) I think religion is very important and I think that it holds people together. I think believing in something in general, a philosophy, a religion, anything like that which enriches your life is an extremely important thing. But it starts to get out of hand, it actually gets scary, where people would actually do really ridiculous things in the name of God or in the name of whatever, and that starts to scare me.

HoS: There are a lot of fanatics out there. Anyway, let's get back to the music.
TH: Cool.

HoS: "Tomorrow's Yesterday."
TH: Just a cool tune. I really don't have too much to say about that song. It's kind of like an introspective lyrical thing. Really cool beat, great riff. I love the background vocals on the chorus.

HoS: Cool. "Out There."
TH: A weird song, originally started out totally different than it ended up. And I really like it, I think Mark plays really great, which he does on every song, I haven't really gone over that. He really found himself somewhere on this album and I think that he's been doing the Riot thing for so long that he's sort of gone into something that maybe wasn't really completely natural for him, you know this kind of speedy, Iron Maiden, dual guitar kind of thing. If you go back and listen to the first few Riot albums, it was not like that at all. It was more like a very cool, very stripped down kind of EuroMetal almost like an American Scorpions or something like that. UFO, Scorpions, but very American. And I think it changed, after a few singers and all that. But I just think that he is so talented, his guitar playing is just amazing, it's so good. He's really a rootsy guitar player, very much driven in the late '60's and early '70's and it's just very melodic and he really plays with a lot of feeling and I just think he's great and there's a lot of songs he plays brilliantly on. You know, like in "Limbo," the solo at the end is just stunning.

HoS: Oh yeah, it's amazing.
TH: The solo in "Black Shadow Symphony," it's mind-boggling.

HoS: His solo on "Bring the Water to Me" is amazing.
TH: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff. I think this record in particular, he really let loose and came up with some absolutely brilliant stuff all across the entire album. I can't say enough about his playing. And what's so nice about it is that it's simple. It's almost brilliant that his playing shines because of the simplicity of it.

HoS: But he was almost doing some of the Machine Gun technique, I noticed.
TH: Here and there, yeah. The solo on "Tomorrow's Yesterday" is quite interesting, and I love it. But anyway, "Out There" has great guitar playing, great riffs, a really good showcase for Mark and a great chorus, kind of a TNT-esque chorus on that one.

HoS: Yeah, that one and the last one, "Elastic." What about "Heart is a Heavy Load"... The Blues!
TH: Love it! I love that song. I actually had that written for about six months before I got together with Mark to start writing. I had it written out and I had sort of a full melody stashed in my computer. So Mark came over one day and I told him, "you know what? I want you to hear something." So I started singing the idea and the lyrics and showed him what I had in mind guitar wise and it just kind of came together, and we still weren't quite sure about it. So we brought it to the band and everybody really liked it and we just kind of worked on it. Bruno did a really great job just kind of "trimming the fat" as he likes to call it. He's very good at "trimming the fat" and he kind of helped us pull it together and make the song make sense. I really love it. I really like my vocals on that song. I like the lyrics a lot as well.

HoS: Do you play guitar?
TH: Yeah, not well, but I play. Just to write.

HoS: "Get A Life."
TH: That speaks for itself, man. (Laughs) The title says it all.

HoS: That's not about the National Enquirer is it? (Laughs)
TH: No, not really. I was more thinking just in terms of...

HoS: Nosy people?
TH: Not even that, we've all run in circles where people talk behind each other's backs. We're all guilty of it and I'm sure that I still do it from time to time, but sometimes it gets to the point where it's really hurtful. I guess I'm just venting a little bit in that one. It's a great riff, a good up-tempo rocker that sounds good on the record. It rounds off nicely.

HoS: The mighty "Uninvited," which you had told me about on our last interview. It's my favorite song by Alanis, but I like your version better.
TH: Well, she probably is either listening to it today, or tomorrow for the first time. I finally got it to her, and I'm waiting to hear what she thinks.

HoS: Cool. I was going to ask you if you had received any feedback from Alanis or anybody in her camp.
TH: Yeah. A friend of mine got to her camp and told her about it. And she's in the studio working on her record right now and she was like, "I gotta hear it," so I'm kind of curious.

HoS: Cool. Maybe she'll call you in for a duet.
TH: She could really hate it because we really didn't do anything different with the song. I mean we made it a little heavier, and I really did sort of purposely sing it pretty close to the way she sang it. But I thought that the interesting thing would be the fact that I'm just a male singer, singing the song the way that she does. I love her so much, I think her second album is absolutely brilliant and most people have probably never heard it, because they have only heard the first album. So the song, I think, is beautiful and I really wanted to do it. So I brought it to the guys and got raised eyebrows. Not everybody was into it. Mark was immediately behind it. He thought it was a great idea. He could hear what the final outcome could be and that was really nice because he was very supportive. And the other guys we're kind of like "OK, let's try it out." When we started playing it, it just started to really come together, and I love the song, so I just really had to sing it.

HoS: Mark Wood really did a great job.
TH: Yeah, he did. He plays wonderfully on the whole album. And he did some great parts and great keyboard stuff. He's a monster, he really is. I was so blown away as to how well it went over live.

HoS: On your first U.S. show [Read our review of it -Editor], that was the highlight of the evening. And it turned the whole crowd into one human goosebump.
TH: (Laughs)

HoS: Really, it was very intense and really good.
TH: That's great. So there you have it, that's the record.

HoS: And the bonus track!
TH: Oh, "Elastic," right. (Laughs)

HoS: Yeah. An 80's rocker, like you called it.
TH: Yeah, pretty much. It's got that energy to it. It's probably got that slight TNT vibe to it. It was perfect for Japan and that's why it's on there, for them. I like the song a lot, I think the lyrics are very powerful and uplifting and you need that once in a while, I think that's OK.

HoS: So Skin is finally coming out in the U.S. What took so long?
TH: There are several different reasons why it hadn't come out in the U.S. and I don't want to get into all of them, but it's just that I really wanted it to be the right label. A big part of it was the manager that we ended up having to fire.

HoS: The infamous Jim Lewis.
TH: Yeah. I don't want to go into any details about him or the situation or whatever, but the one thing I will say is that that is a very big reason why the album is not out yet. Because I'm fully confident that had he not been in the picture, the album would absolutely be out by now. But there are some very interesting things happening around the band.

HoS: Any surprises on the upcoming live album?
TH: Hopefully, we can put in some cool surprises. When we go to mix the live record in the studio, we may actually try to put a brand new song or two that maybe we'll record live in the studio. So we're going to put a really cool package together.

HoS: That's great to hear, because I think the band is amazing live.
TH: Yeah, I think it's getting better and better and I think that in some ways, we're better live than on record.

HoS: In some ways...
TH: In those kind of special, spontaneous, ways. We have a little brushing up to do here or there, but it's OK.

HoS: I think you've basically shredded away anybody who's ever picked up a microphone.
TH: Oh, thanks! God, thanks.

HoS: We were just blown away. Man, you don't need a P.A.! (Laughs)
TH: Thank you.

HoS: I've heard your voice on some commercials, like the "Oh Donna" (Tattoo) Visa commercial. Was that fun to do?
TH: Yeah, it's great. I mean I really didn't want to talk about that much, because I was afraid how people would react to it. But the word started getting out there so I figured instead of dodging it, I would just come out and whatever. It's actually a great thing to be able to do from time to time.

HoS: Many other good singers, such as Joe Lynn Turner do that as well.
TH: Yeah. I mean, look at me, I'm an artist and I don't do anything but make music. So for me to be able to sing in any way, shape or form and make a living it's very good. Is a very good way to make a living and it's very easy. It's actually a lot of fun sometimes. I can totally separate myself from that and then go back to being an artist.

HoS: Are you looking into getting new management for the band?
TH: There's somebody right now who just started working with us. But I'm basically doing it right now, myself. And it's going OK, so I should have done it all along. But when the time is right, we'll get all that together.

HoS: Are you going to focus on regional, NY area shows for now or will you expand?
TH: I don't know, man. I'm trying to keep it going until we can secure the next record. I would probably like to get another Westworld album out by the end of the year. But I don't know if that's going to happen. I'd like to see it happen early 2002 at the latest. The live album will be out probably by the fall.

HoS: Any other projects you're looking into? You had mentioned exploring other genres of music.
TH: I'm still and always working on my solo album that will be released at some point. I just get very busy with other things and it always kind of gets put on the back burner. But it has to happen at some point soon, before I explode. (Laughs)

HoS: Yeah, that's what you said last time. (Laughs)
TH: I know, but I've just been so damn busy.

HoS: But that's good! It's especially good for your fans to actually get some music. Plenty of it, lately!
TH: I've sort of made Westworld a big priority over the last year and I believe in the band a lot, and I think out best days are ahead of us, so we'll see what happens.

HoS: TNT. I've read that the guys want to make a "vintage" TNT album. Are you going to participate in that?
TH: Well, we're talking right now. I don't know. It's a tough thing for me. I love the guys to death, and we're like brothers. It's a great relationship that we all have with each other. Especially Ronnie and I. I mean, I can envision meeting Ronnie in Spain every ten years until we're like 80 years old and having glasses of wine together and reminiscing. But, musically... actually, it's not just musically, but as a project... it's very difficult for the band to keep together. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of travelling, which is very expensive. So we'll just have to see what happens, you know? It's kind of on hold right now.

HoS: I tell you, when Morty announced it, the feedback I read from the fans was great. They were all salivating. But you know, I do understand your point.
TH: I know that they get crazy about that and I understand because I have bands that I love from when I was a kid that I wish they'd do a record like they did back then. But, you know, people change, a lot. Just like people change as human beings, people always change as artists, even if we tried with all of our might to make an album that sounded like Tell No Tales or Intuition or whatever, it still wouldn't. I can't imagine that it would because everything about us is so different. We can obviously attempt to do that and I'm sure that it would please the fans and it would have a lot about it which would sound like the old stuff. But I don't sing that way anymore, I don't want to sing that way anymore. I have no desire to sing like that anymore. I think it was really cool for the time and everybody was singing high and I sang a little higher than everyone else.

HoS: Yeah, just a little higher, huh? (Laughs)
TH: It was very technical, I listen back and I say "This very technically good." But I think that we've all become much better musicians overall. I think we've become better songwriters, I think I'm singing better than I have in my entire life.

HoS: I agree, man.
TH: I just don't want to go back. I know the fans really want something like that, but I really have a difficult time going backwards. I think that at least with Westworld, it is reminiscent, but it's definitely different and it has elements of it that are fresh.

HoS: Definitely. Hey, thanks for your time, Tony.
TH: Thank you very much, Henry.

The House of Shred would like to thank Tony Harnell for his honesty and candor, and for taking the time to speak with us.

For more information on Tony Harnell and Westworld, check out the official Westworld Website at
www.westworld-web.com.