TESLA Guitarist Breaks Down New Album Track-By-Track
Special report by Deb Rao
TESLA will release their latest studio album, Forever More via Tesla Electric Company Recordings (in partnership with Ryko Distribution) today (October 7th) and via Frontiers Records in Europe on November 7th. Forever More finds the band reunited with producer Terry Thomas, who rekindles the flame of the signature down to earth song-writing style that launched the band onto the charts during their heyday.
Tesla guitarist
Frank Hannon discusses the current Forever More Tour and breaks down their new album track-by-track exclusively for BraveWords.com.
Tesla is currently on the road in support of your new studio album Forever More. How is the tour going so far and what does your set list consist of on this tour?
Hannon: "The shows are going over very well. Well, we have this opening of the show that we do and we play two new ones right off the start to let everyone know that we are here for the purpose of playing new music. Then we play a couple old ones. We jump right into our first hit, which is 'Modern Day Cowboy' when we first came out. Then we play a couple more brand news ones again here and there throughout the set. We have a few hits that we definitely have to play and then we have a few album tracks that we rotate. Once in awhile we play 'Whatcha Give', or 'Song And Emotion' and we rotate a few of the more obscure ones. Forever More is my favourite Tesla album. We are very comfortable with everything and the live show is a lot of fun."
The North America Tour runs until October 31. Are you planning on going to Europe, after the US run ends?
Hannon: "Well, we are planning on coming home for a couple of weeks and then going back out in November through the middle of December again in America. Then we are going to come home again for the Holidays. Then we will start back up again in January. I did hear going to Australia and Japan in January. Then back to Europe again probably in February. But those are just rumours. Actually, I believe January is a good time to head down to Australia. This would be our second time to go there. Australia is a great country to tour."
How does Forever More compare to previous Tesla releases?
Hannon: "First of all, we made the record in a very short amount of time. Our other records, we spent months and months and sometimes even up to a year. Like on "Into The Now", we spent a lot of time re-writing the songs and kind of developing it. That was our first record after being broke up for five years. So it took us a long time to get into the groove on that one. On this record, we had a bunch of ideas and we didn't waste any time. We just hammered them out. Terry Thomas help us put in all together. He did an amazing job. We set a deadline and we met the deadline. We knew in order to get the record out this year; we had to be done with it by July 20th. We set that deadline and we met it, and we worked our butts off very intensely in a very speedy manner. That sort of kept it fresh. We didn't over think the record. We didn't over do and over analyse it much."
I think that is the key to the album, is simplicity and honest. How did the band come up with the title, Forever More and the artwork for the album cover concept? Also lets begin by breaking down 'Forever More’ track-by-track.
'Forever More': "While we were making the record, we were also doing a bunch of other things. We were flying out to do shows over the summer on weekends. I was listening to the music and I was listening to some of the lyrics on the album and it gave me an idea of eternal or eternity. There were some things in there that were kind of giving me the idea of music is forever and bond hopefully can be forever when you make a bond with a person, but sometimes it is not. With the band members and the band Tesla means Forever, but I thought of the word eternal and I liked the word eternal for an album title but the guys in the band didn't really care for that word. They thought it was too religious or something. But I had already told my friend Duane, I collaborate with Duane Serfass, he is my artist. He is a great artist. I am surprised that no one else has discovered him to make albums because he is a phenomenal artist. I said Duane, I have this idea. We were coming home from Wisconsin on an airplane and I had this idea for eternal being the album cover and taking the letter E, and making it with a long line through the middle and the whole idea of the E. So he took the word eternal and the E and he drew it out, and he searched for eternal on the Internet and he came up with the photograph,’ Eternal Embrace'. Which is the photograph of the human skeletons that were buried in 'Eternal Embrace’. He found the photograph, and we searched and tried to find the name of the photographer but we don't know who took the picture. We searched for it, but we loved it so much, we decided to use it. So I showed it to the band and they all loved it too. But they still didn't like the word eternal. So we decided to use the song title for 'Forever More'. We decided that meant the same thing eternity. We kept the E and we put the skeletons in there."
'I Wanna Live': "That song is really simple and straight to the point. It is a positive message in the same vein as Tesla has songs like,’ Getting Better", 'Call It What You Want', 'Hang Tough'. Songs with positive lyrical messages about life, which has been the underlying theme for a lot of Tesla’s music like, ‘What You Give’, songs like that, are made for positive inspiration. That is what 'I Wanna Live' is about."
'One Day At A Time': "It is sort of the same thing. It is a positive message. Sometimes you are going crazy, but you just got to take things,’ One Day At A Time'. Again another positive message, I think that is what has separated Tesla from a lot of bands, is that we have tried to write songs that are positive."
'So What': "The music actually came to me, when Tesla was overseas in Amsterdam, and we were playing in this legendary club called the Paradiso in Amsterdam. In the basement there was this really super old glass piano in the hallway. I just sat down and immediately started playing the chord progression for A Minor to E, to G to D and is like a descending line, kind of like THE BEATLES. That part came to me, and I wrote a song around that which ended up being the versus in,'So What'. It has some different kind of changes and the lyrics are sassy."
'Just In Case': "This song is a song that Jeff wrote entirely on his own. It is one of those songs that resemble,’ Caught In A Dream'. Jeff had the whole idea completed and he presented it to the band and basically how you hear it, is how Jeff wrote. It is one his songs about God and religious and whether or not he is going to make it to heaven or not. Jeff is not a religious guy but he definitely has the spirit and God in him. He always writes beautiful messages. He is a beautiful person even though he is not religious at all. You can tell by the lyrics and I feel he has God's spirit in him. He is definitely a beautiful, uplifting and fair person."
'Fallin Apart' "is a about getting divorced and things falling apart. You got to just keep hanging on."
'Breakin' Free': "These two songs are both very personal. There were some personal challenges in our lives. One of us was going through a divorce and that is what this song was about."
'All Of Me': "It is kind of the same thing. If you listen to the lyrics for all 3 of those songs it is kind of about that."
'The First Time': "It about the opposite, it is about someone being extraordinary and turning you on and digging it. Life is a constant roller coaster ride. I mean you have to go through ups and downs that is kind of how our music is. Some songs are very up, some songs are down. We are just taking you on the ride."
'Pvt. Ledbetter': "It reflects the war and the state we are in today. We have a fan club now called The Troops. Basically, Troops are people. 'Pvt. Ledbetter' is written about a Trooper or soldier as a person and the family, people that we are singing about in the song, Mrs. Ledbetter. The song is about a fictitious person. The whole vibe of it is about a person, not necessarily anything other than a personal experience.
'In A Hole Again': "Well that is pretty self-explanatory. It is about sometimes when you’re world is crashing down and you just feel like you are just isolated. You don't need anything or anybody, you just want to be left alone in your hole".
'The Game': "That is a song about playing the game with finances. It is hard. Every month you got to pay your bills, and you just got to play the game in order to survive."
Check out the band's video for
'I Wanna Live', below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmT-aQ6EOz0&eurl=http://www.bravewords.com/news/98333 
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