Interview with Dave Rude (TESLA)

Interview with Dave Rude (TESLA)

16 Maggio 2014 1 Commento Alessandro Lifonti

interview by Alessandro Lifonti

versione italiana

MR: Hi Dave, thank you so much for taking some time for this interview. We are very happy to have you here in Italy.
DR: Oh man, thank you for having me. I’ m glad to be here.

MR: There’ s a forthcoming album called “Simplicity”. It will be released on June 6th by Frontiers Records. You already said that this brand new record will take us back to the Tesla roots. Anything else you want to say about it?
DR: Man, I really think Tesla fans are gonna like it. I think rock fans are gonna like this record because it’ s different than what has been coming up lately from most bands. We really didn’ t pay attention to the radio or anything than any other band were doing. We are trying to be contemporary and compete with anybody. We just wanted to make a sound we were really happy with, and that’ s difficult to do for an established band these days. There’ s a lot of influences and pressures on you when you make an album and this time we just said “fuck it…..we do what we wanna do!” Hopefully Tesla fans will buy it, and I think we definitely succeeded at that. We spent a lot of time writing the record before we went in the studio, and then we went in the studio and spent a lot of time making songs to getting them to where we were happy with them, but we didn’ t like over producing, it’ s still pretty live for the most part, most of the music was all cut live, and we didn’ t add a lot of stuff to it because it’ s pretty old school.

MR: Do you ever plan to record an album or it just comes spontaneously while you’ re maybe sitting down playing an acoustic guitar and the melody comes itself?
DR: It’ s different for everybody and for every song, but for me personally I’ m just playing guitar and it sounds “oh that’ s cool”. I had two of these voice recorders that I filled up and Now I’m just using my phone but my phone goes too slow now because I have so many songs on it LOL!

MR: You have such a busy schedule: first US, then Italy, then back to the States, back to Europe again and so on. Will we ever see Tesla in Italy again?
DR: I hope so. You know we are starting to come back to Europe again because It has been 4 years, so the plan is to come back on a more regular basis.

MR: If you had to introduce Tesla to a new fan, and he could only listen to a few songs. Which songs would you suggest him to listen to?
DR: Mmh: Modern day cowboy, Heaven’ s trail, What you give and Love song!

MR: Is there just one song that after many years you think “I could have written it in a different way” (even if you are not with the band from the start)?
DR: Well, you know it would be for me stuff from Forever more which I did write with the band. There’ s definitely stuff that I would have changed looking back but you know, I’ m happy with it, we all are but there are certain things that I would have done a little different. I think every artist looks back and goes “Fuck….I would have changed this” but that’ s why you just have to put it out and be done with it because otherwise you’ d be Axel Rose and you’ ll never put it out!

MR: You sold millions of records, you toured the world, your shows are sold-out. Is there a dream that maybe you are still chasing?
DR: Oh man, this is it. Just to be happy. Have a great family and a great career. We’ re very lucky to make a living of what we do.

MR: If Jeff could be a singer of another band for a day, which band would it be?
DR: I could definitely answer for Jeff and would absolutely be AC/DC because Bon Scott is his all time hero!

MR: Which is the funniest thing that happened to you on tour?
DR: Oh man, there are so many. But I never have good answers for this question.

MR: Some fans want to know if you ever get the old albums re-mastered?
DR: I would hope so but I don’ t think so because Universal Records owns all those and we don’ t have a relationship with them anymore.

MR: How do you spend your time when you are off from tour and studio?
DR: You know, my favourite thing to do is to hang to my baby-boy. He just turned one. I really love to write songs. I write a lot of pop songs and country songs. That’ s what I do outside Tesla.

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