The bass playing and songwriting talents of Chuck Wright are featured on some staples of my record collection, and I’m sure yours as well. Quiet Riot’s Metal Health, Giuffria’s self titled, House of Lords’ self titled, Impellitteri’s Stand in Line: The list goes on and on. As of a couple week’s ago, another album can be added to this ongoing list. Sheltering Sky is Wright’s debut solo endeavor; an epic and introspective musical journey that sounds unlike anything he’s ever released before. We had the chance to sit down with Wright to discuss this unexpected solo foray, as well as his 40+ year career as one of the most in demand bassists in hard and heavy music.
Greetings Chuck and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Chuck Wright: I’m doing great! A little tired because last night I had my event, Ultimate Jam Night. It was called Britain Rocks, so we were doing British artists. I decided to make it part 1 because in doing research, there are too many amazing artists out of England. That’s part 1. We’ll probably end up doing a part 16 eventually *laughs*. It’s a blast. I got there at 3:00 in the afternoon yesterday and got home at 2:00. It’s a long day, but it was a blast. I’m excited and happy. The response to the album has been amazing. I just read your review, which was great. I know you guys are more metal, so I’m sure when you first heard it you went, “What?!” *laughs*
I’ll be honest, I was definitely surprised! It’s funny because I was talking with Andy Timmons a little over a month ago about this exact same thing. He put out a new solo album and when I got the press kit, I was told, “This isn’t metal or shred, but we think you’ll dig it anyways.” While it’s mainly a blues record, it was amazing. Personally, I’m very open minded. I look for the best in everything, and while this record is not a metal or hard rock album per se, it excels in what it is, and that’s a little bit of everything.
CW: There actually is some hard rock on there. It’s funky hard rock, except for “Army of Me”. That’s alt hard rock, industrial, whatever you wanna call it. I never intended on making a solo album. When the pandemic hit, I sat down and started writing. My first piece that I wrote was “The Weight of Silence”, which is about the feelings I was having looking at this post-apocalyptic world with major cities without anybody in them. I wrote this piece myself, recorded everything myself. I edited together this video with drone footage illustrating what was going on and put it out.
Troy Luccketta, the drummer from Tesla, reached out to me and said, “Man, I love this track! It’s killer. It would sound great with drums on it.” I go, “You know, I never thought about it, but yeah!” He has a studio and threw them on. At the same time, one of my favorite guitar players in town, Allen Hinds, a fusion player, threw some guitar on it. All of a sudden, it started turning into a different thing. I reedited the video with Allen and Troy in it. Derek Sherinian played some keyboards. You might know him from Dream Theater and his solo career. I put that out and I just started writing songs.
That video, to my surprise, won Best Instrumental and Best Video at the Rock Music Alliance Awards, two days before my album’s release, which was last Friday. I didn’t know I was nominated. I was up against Joe Satriani, John 5, and all these other incredible artists. I was in shock over the whole thing, because that was the first thing I really did. I just sat down and wrote music that I wanted to listen to. I never intended to do a solo record. That’s why you’re gonna get progressive rock, jazz fusion, alternative rock, some Led Zeppelin ballads, a Robert Plant and Allison Krauss type of folk thing. You’re gonna get a full on Celtic rock song that could be in Braveheart, with the incredible vocals of David Victor from Boston. There’s 41 guests on the album. It turned into this thing where I would be working on a piece and think, “You know who would be great on this song? It needs a shredding guitar solo.” So I’d get a hold of Scotti Hill from Skid Row. He just nailed the solo section. Then I put the lap steel on it to give a fresher sound throughout the song. It just happened that way.
In running Ultimate Jam Night, we’ve had well over 2,000 musicians in there since 2015. I’ve made a lot of friends, new friends. I’ve obviously made a lot of great musician friends throughout the years, but in recent years, there’s certain people I see a lot. I’ve become close friends with them and would reach out to them saying, “I’m working on this song, what do you think? Want to play on it?” They would all dig the music, which was the most important thing, and then they would add their little thing to it, which was great. That’s why it’s called Chuck Wright’s Sheltering Sky as opposed to just Chuck Wright and the name of the album is Sheltering Sky. I do have a conglomerate of amazing musicians on this.
I know you said you weren’t planning on doing a solo album, but at what point did you realize you were writing for something that could result in such. For example, did you realize these were ideas that wouldn’t fit in Quiet Riot or any other outfits for that matter?
CW: I wasn’t writing for Quiet Riot at all. That was never my intention. This was just writing songs that I wanted to listen to for me when the pandemic hit. You gotta remember, I was doing weekend flyouts with Quiet Riot and I was also running Ultimate Jam Night. At the time, that was weekly. I’m coordinating anywhere between 45 and 100 pro musicians for the show. It’s all consuming timewise. Since the pandemic hit, I had the time and I had these feelings from what was going on. I sat down and started writing.
One of the songs on the album is called “The Other Side”, and the chorus is “See you on the other side”. That song came out all at one time. I got the phone call that Frankie Banali had passed. It was expected, but at the same time, it brought feelings of losing my mom. I’ve lost 7 of my best friends over the years. I just wrote this piece of music top to bottom, including the intricate bridge. I had the chorus in my head when I went to the chorus part, the lyric. I finished it with a guy named August Young who Frankie had recently been working with in this Zep tribute band. I included those guys on the song. I wanted to get people involved on the song who he was super close with at that time. That song has 5 guitar players on it, so I tapped into other people for it as it was developing. That’s an example of just writing from a feeling that was happening. That song just came top to bottom done.
Would you say this album saw you taking on a role, not just as a songwriter and a musician, but as a curator similar to your Ultimate Jam Night?
CW: I guess you could say that. Again, I wrote the music, except for the two covers that are on there, and I co-wrote some of the songs to finish them. I oversaw everything. Even the videos, I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but I produced the videos and directed the first one. The first one out, not the original one I was talking about, “The Weight of Silence”, but my video for “Army of Me”, I worked with a 3D animator friend of mine.
Here’s an interesting thing about that song. I used to go in with my late friend Pat Torpey and Lanny Cordola, who you might know from House of Lords. We used to get together and write songs at Pat’s studio and record them. It’s bass, drums, and guitars. Maybe we’d finish or maybe we didn’t. I was looking for something else and I came across these tracks. I went, “This kicks my ass! This stuff is great! I gotta finish this.” I wanted to honor Pat and Lanny’s playing is great.
At the time I was doing this, he was in Afghanistan. He had a school out there for young girls. It was on CNN. When the Taliban took over the country, he went to Pakistan and just now got out of there. It took them 9 months to get out of there. He couldn’t be here, so I finished it with Mitch Perry and other different people. That’s how “Army of Me” came about. We just jammed on it. That song came out in ’95. Pat liked the fact that Björk used John Bonham’s sample of “When the Levee Breaks”, so we just jammed on it and I found the track. I’m not even playing the exact bass part that’s on her record. It’s just from memory. It was so call that I wanted to finish it.
So there’s 3 songs that started that way. Some of them were just me picking up the guitar. Most of the album I’m playing acoustic guitars, keyboards, effects. You’ll hear all kinds of things going on. It’s deep and cinematic. I’m a big Pink Floyd fan. I like that cinematic feel to things. There’s also one song I have 3 bassists on. I play a rhythm, harmonic part and then I do an 8 string bass for low end. On some of the songs, you’ll hear a fretless bass doing what you’d normally hear a guitar do. In between the chorus, I do these really beautiful bass parts on my fretless. It’s bass like that, but not your typical “It’s a bass solo album.”, not at all. It’s a songwriter album and a producer album, that kind of thing. Alan Parsons or something.
As we addressed earlier, this is a very musically diverse album. One song will be a progressive track, another will have a more singer/songwriter vibe, and so on and so forth. Growing up, did you listen to a wide variety of music?
CW: I did. I’m into everything. I got into progressive rock when I was 15. My friend was driving my mom’s car because he was 16. We were driving down Sunset Boulevard and the Whisky marquee said “Yes – $5”. I said, “I heard that band’s really good man! Let’s go check it out!” They blew my mind. I was a Deep Purple and Black Sabbath fan. I actually saw Sabbath at the Whisky for their first LA show ever too. It blew my mind that you could play like that, so I got into other progressive rock bands, one of them being King Crimson. I actually did my 10th grade high school English report on “21st Century Schizoid Man”. My teacher flipped out so much over it and the lyric content that she had the class listen to the whole album. They’re all sitting there going, “Wow, this is really weird.” *laughs*
That was the early 70s. I’m very blessed that I grew up when I did. My favorite era musically is the late 60s to the early 70s. That’s what I’m all about and into the most, and still am. I try to keep things fresh sounding, while still tapping into that. Somebody described “Throwin’ Stones” as “Primus meets Stevie Wonder”. So it’s trying to keep it modern-esque, while trying to tap into that 70s soul at the same time.
You could also argue with that era of music that many of those albums sound like they could’ve been recorded yesterday.
CW: Yeah, and a lot of new bands try to cop that sound too. They go back to recording in analog to get that fat, warm sound. What I would like to see, which I couldn’t do because of the pandemic, is a band get into a room, jam out some tunes, and record it. Instead, you’ve got the producer at the computer, “Give me 8 bars of that change and I can put a whole song together.” A lot of the music today, in my opinion, is very contrived, especially if you’re listening to modern stuff in the grocery store or the mall. Whatever they’re playing, I go, “This all sounds the same to me!” It all has the same approach, same phrasing.
There’s nothing fresh, as far as what’s out there in terms of pop tunes and CHR radio. Back in the 70s, it was all over the map musically. Everything seems to be compartmentalized now. I certainly didn’t want to do that. I have other friends that are making records where it’s like this is the style and they stay within that without even branching out at all. With this, I just made music that I wanted to listen to.
I think we touched upon this, but was there a certain point in the songwriting process where you were writing a song and thinking to yourself, “This would be great for this artist to guest on.”?
CW: Yeah, for example, one of my instrumentals is “Farewell Horizon”. I wrote it on bass first. It’s the only song that was written on bass. Everything else was written on guitar first. Then I would add bass and do some percussion drums. On this song, I went to a friend of mine who’s the most diverse guitar player I know. His name is Toshi Yanagi. You see him on Jimmy Kimmel. He’s a house guy. Obviously when you’re doing a TV show like that, you gotta play all different styles because when an artist comes in, you’re the backup band for them. He’s killer.
I contacted him and said, “Check out this jazz fusion piece I’m working on. Wanna add some Jeff Beck melody and do an Allan Holdsworth type shred section?” He sent back what I thought was an incredibly beautiful part over it. I added violin. Then I had another friend that played with Chris Squire do some keyboards. That’s how that song came about. It’s about the style of music, getting the right kind of person for it. That’s why I wanted Scotti Hill to shred, just burn on this one that’s more aggressive rock.
We already talked about your cover of Björk’s “Army of Me”. The other cover on here is a very Celtic take on The Youngbloods’ “Darkness, Darkness”. How did that come about?
CW: It’s a song that always resonated with me, the lyric and vibe of it. They touch on the Celtic thing a little bit with that melody, but I really wanted to do a full on Loreena McKennitt Celtic thing. I have 3 drummers on that all playing tom toms. They’re all great drummers in major things, but each one of them I’d say, “Just play this pattern and send it back to me.” They all recorded themselves doing this drum part. It sounds great. I have an acoustic group here in town called Acoustic Saints. We reinterpret classic rock using violin, acoustic guitars, fretless bass, and percussion on a small drumkit. We’ve been together 10 years. I went to my guitar player, who’s the fiddle player, and said, “Hey, I’m doing this song. I really wanna do a Celtic version of it. Can you throw some fiddle on it?” He sent me tracks, so that’s how that built. David Victor just did a killer, beautiful vocal on it.
Yeah man, it was total goosebumps! I’m sure it was the Irish in me, but hearing it pump through my headphones was wild. It’s a song I’m familiar with and have heard before, but hearing it presented in that manner was very gripping, which I’m sure goes along with the cinematic atmosphere of the whole album.
CW: Yeah it does. I actually wanted to sing that. I sing on most albums I’m on. I’m a background singer. I go, “Yeah, maybe I’ll step out!” But then I started thinking about it going, “If I have Joe Retta, Jeff Scott Soto, David Victor, and all these other great, talented singers, why should I diminish my own music?” *laughs* I’ve always been about whatever’s best for the product or the outcome of the music that you’re working on, whatever works. It has nothing to do with ego or anything. That’s why I’m not singing.
Me being a hard rock and metal guy, I’m obviously biased when I say my two favorite songs on here are “Throwin’ Stones” and “It Never Fails”, which showcase some killer, groovy basslines from you. Who were your favorite bassists growing up, the ones that shaped your sound and playing?
CW: That question has come up before and I realized in answering it that they all start with the letter J. The very first bass player that I got into was Jack Bruce. Then John Entwistle from the Who, John Paul Jones, James Jamerson was the one who did all the Motown bass parts. I wasn’t aware of the influence, but later I was like, “That’s who played bass on all that stuff?” Then I got into jazz fusion with Jaco Pastorius and Jeff Berlin. Then I thought about it and my very first exposure to bass, besides James Jamerson, was Paul McCartney. That almost killed the J thing, but you know what? His name is James Paul McCartney!
Anyways, I started my first gig when I was 15. Keep in mind, at this time, I had been in military academy for almost 9 years, second in command in battalion. I was gonna go to the air force school to go to the air force academy to go to the air force. I joined this band of older kids because I was big for my age. I did my first gig, which was a UCLA fraternity party. I made $75 and drank beer. The girls thought I was cute, so I got out of that. I bought a bass like Jack Bruce’s bass, because the first song I ever learned was “Sunshine of Your Love”. It was a Gibson EB-3.
Cut to many, many years later, I’m on tour with Vanilla Fudge, who you might know with Carmine Appice. The opening act’s bass player inherited $250 million. His dad was the CEO of Pfizer. He had started this music instrument collection at his house. He had this room with Jimmy Page’s Vox amps and Tim Bogert’s bass and all these different things. I went over there and the bass that Jack Bruce recorded Disraeli Gears with, the album with “Sunshine of Your Love”, the first album I ever learned on bass, was sitting right there. I picked it up. It was total full circle, from starting bass to playing the actual bass that inspired me to start.
So that answers your bass question. I’m an old school guy. Even though I like jazz fusion stuff, I’m a four stringer. I do like playing fretless because it’s such an expressive instrument. The one guy that comes out of the J’s is Pino Palladino, who’s one of my favorite for fretless bass playing. I grew up in a great era where you could actually hear the bass in the mix *laughs*. There’s some records I did in the 80s, like Bad Moon Rising with Doug Aldrich. Ken Mary is on that too, great drummer. I can’t hear anything I’m playing! There’s all these guitars in your face. I can’t hear any passing notes.
A lot of that era’s stuff was all about the big wall of guitars and not as much the bass, although with the song “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)”, the bass is in your face. That’s what drives that song. I remember the first time driving and hearing that song on the radio. I thought my speakers were gonna blow up when the bass came on. I remember going, “Yes!” It actually was getting airplay, which shocked me. It was pumping. When you listen to bands like The Who or Yes or Rush, the bass is a signature sounding instrument. Whereas a lot of times, the bass player is just buried. It depends on what they’re doing or who’s producing or whatever. You’ll hear the bass on my album.
Absolutely, but you’re right, that was an advent of the 80s. That, and the drums going from the John Bonham cannon sound to more tinny and compressed.
CW: Yeah, electronic sounding. I worked with Andy Johns who recorded Zeppelin and “When the Levee Breaks”. They set up the drums at the bottom of a stairwell and used 2 microphones. That’s all there was. That drum sound is amazing. It’s huge. There are guys who use samples. It sounds like a kick drum, but it’s a sample of a kick drum. Why don’t you just record the real kick drum *laughs*?
Would you ever consider touring a show similar to Ultimate Jam Night, where you play music from this new album, as well as all those classic hits from the other bands you’ve performed with?
CW: That question comes up a lot about touring behind this record. To do the kind of show and immersive experience the way the music sounds and feels, I would need Roger Waters’ budget. There’s a lot going on to really pull it off. I’m not really into tracks. If there’s 3 guys up there and it sounds like there’s 50 playing, no thanks. I think it’s cool if it’s subtle. Maybe a keyboard part here or there, if you have one keyboard player and there’s 5 keyboard parts going on. Your idea of taking songs from my past, I can take a few from this and maybe a few from other things, that might work, but right now I just want people to hear this and to know what I’m about musically. I’m hoping that this is my legacy and not the first song I ever recorded in 1983. This really speaks to what I’m about musically.
I want to talk a bit about my second favorite Quiet Riot album, QR III. What are your thoughts on that album looking back on it? Do you have any favorite songs or memories attached from making it?
CW: QR III is when I came back to the band as a songwriter. There’s songs like “Twilight Hotel”, which we did a video for, where I’m 100% the writer on that song with vocal melodies and the music. The producer (Spencer Proffer) decided that he wanted to change the words around on the whole album so he could be a writer on everything. It was a really weird time making that record, but I think my influence is pretty strong on that album. We brought in keyboards and grew a little bit. Unfortunately, at that time, Kevin (DuBrow) had burned a few bridges with his “larger than life” personality, so to speak. We weren’t as popular coming back as we could’ve been because of that negative press.
But we’d get together at Kevin’s house. He had this 5 car garage and we’d rehearse above it. Of course he bought this huge mansion. He had a room up above and we would get together. Everybody would come in with ideas and we would just jam them out, start developing songs. Then at 5:00, we would go to Kevin’s “Foot and Mouth” pub as he called it *laughs*, have a drink and continue. People like David Coverdale would pop in once in a while. Even with the turmoil with the record company president, who was also the record producer, and us, it was a good experience. It was an awkward situation at that time that I got into. I didn’t know that. I just thought, “Hey! I’m back!” I came back and there was all this other stuff I was unaware of.
I left Giuffria at that time because both Craig Goldy and I were told come the second record, only Gregg Giuffria and David Glen Eisley were gonna be the writers. Well wait a minute. We write! Why can’t we slip something in? They said, “Oh well.”, so we left. We said, “If that’s the way it’s gonna be, if we’re just gonna be sidemen, forget it.” At that time, that’s when Rudy (Sarzo) left and Kevin called me up to rejoin the band. I was in DuBrow, the original thing that got the record deal at the beginning.
That’s an interesting scenario to think up, that “Twilight Hotel”, “The Wild and the Young”, “Slave to Love”, and so on could’ve been Giuffria songs.
CW: You never know. Actually, “Slave to Love” was written musically by Stan Bush, who’s in my band. He’s the lead singer of my acoustic band I was telling you about earlier *laughs*. We’ve been friends this whole time. He also wrote a song on the first House of Lords album called “Love Don’t Lie”. We did a video for it. I still believe that song should’ve been a huge hit. Gene Simmons signed us, but we did a deal with RCA, which is really a country label. They didn’t have their footing yet on how to deal with rock bands, so I guess we were guinea pigs. That’s a great song. But you’re right, I think a song like “Twilight Hotel” would’ve been on a Giuffria record. I never thought about it.
How did Bobby Kimball of Toto end up singing backing vocals on “Still of the Night”?
CW: I wrote all the music on that too. He’s a friend. We brought in different people. My good friend who passed away, John Purdell, played keyboards on the album. He also sang backgrounds. When you hear “Girls, Girls, Girls” by Mötley Crüe, that’s his voice. Ozzy Osbourne’s “No More Tears”, that’s his keyboard playing. He worked on all those albums and was a very close friend of mine, super talented guy. I don’t remember who knew Bobby, but I remember him coming in. He killed it on that. Really, really great vocals.
Kevin went onto work with Glenn Hughes on a Quiet Riot record. That was one of his favorite singers. Steve Marriott was Kevin’s favorite singer, but they brought Glenn in to do a duet with Kevin on an old Spooky Tooth song called “Evil Woman”. I was a Spooky Tooth fan as a kid. They do a cover of (The Beatles’) “I Am the Walrus”.
I love that cover! It’s wild.
CW: Isn’t it great? I would love to do that live, take that version of “I Am the Walrus” and do it. It’s so heavy. The Beatles version has it’s own heaviness to it, but Spooky Tooth’s has those grinding guitars and heavy organ. It would be great. I’ll put that down for my next Ultimate Jam Night *laughs*!
You should! Spooky Tooth and The Beatles were both English bands.
CW: Yeah, well we opened last night with “Helter Skelter”, speaking of Beatles.
Awesome. I’ve interviewed a handful of artists who have played alongside Alice Cooper and I always ask this question. What stood out to you the most about working with Alice? Are there any memorable live shows that stick out in your mind?
CW: The thing that’s interesting about Mr. Cooper is that he’s like 2 different people. I would go shopping with him and and hang out with him. He is genuinely one of the nicest people you’d ever meet in your life. But when he becomes Alice Cooper and he’s on that stage, he’s a totally different person. It’s like you see this thing come over him. I’ve watched it and go, “Oh my God! I can’t believe it’s the same guy!” He just turns into this character. He just becomes that person, Hannibal Lecter or whatever it is. He killed the daughter twice in our show *laughs*. There’s two segments where once he throws her off this thing, and the other time he cuts off her head because she comes out as Britney Spears. I loved being in that band. It was one of my favorite times in my life. I did 17 countries and 75 cities. We started in Moscow and ended in Lisbon, Portugal. We did the States too. I love a big production like that. That’s why when we were talking about doing my album live, I’d love to do a big production show like Pink Floyd.
There were a couple Spinal Tap moments that happened in the Alice Cooper show. One of them was they had him in a straightjacket, grabbed him, and they threw him in the guillotine. Eric Singer from KISS was the drummer at the time. He’s doing the drum roll. The executioner holds the rope. Alice is laying down, ready to get his head cut off. The guy goes, “DIE!”, drops the rope, and the blade stops halfway. The head still falls off *laughs*. It was frickin’ hilarious. Another time, during the show, he’s taking these body parts and building himself in this tube. He puts arms and legs in. Then the head that got cut off earlier, he puts that in there, and he closes the thing. There’s a drum solo and the tube fills up with smoke. The idea is that it opens up and he comes out. He’s alive now. Well he got stuck in there and couldn’t get out. That is an actual moment in This is Spinal Tap! He ended up having to come out the back side of it, ran around, and came out the side of the stage. It was hilarious.
Yeah, those things happened, but it was a great band. Eric Dover, my good friend Teddy Zig Zag who you might know from Guns N’ Roses on keyboards. He has a great solo album that I did with him, Slash, and all these other guys. It’s really good. It’s called Innocent Loser. I think everybody needs to hear it. It’s Americana sounding, like a Springsteen kind of vibe. There’s a little rock n’ roll, little Guns N’ Roses. It’s not as heavy, but really, really great songwriting on that album. His real name is Teddy Andreadis. He should’ve stayed with Zig Zag. He’s Greek.
In closing, what’s the rest of your tear looking like in terms of live shows and future projects?
CW: I’m leaving for a rehearsal right now with this thing called Legends of Classic Rock with Greg D’Angelo, a founding member of White Lion, and Terry Ilous who was the lead singer of Great White for 12 years. There’s also Kevin Jones, a keyboard player who toured with Randy Rhoads and Ozzy, and Marcus Nand, who interrupted our interview, plays guitar for Rod Stewart. I’ve got a rehearsal with them. I was out with them for 5 weeks and we got a show tomorrow in Palm Springs. I’m doing Ultimate Jam Night and trying to get the word out on my record.
I’m about to do an album with a thing called Sahara with Ken Mary and Jimi Bell from House of Lords. I just got the music. I’m not a writer on it, they just said, “Hey, wanna play bass?” They’re hiring me as a session person to play bass. It’s gonna be one of those “We’re a band” things that they do, but this music is exceptional. It’s really, really well crafted. You’ll dig it if you’re into hard rock, melodic rock. It’s really good. It would be like a new House of Lords record, but a little more aggressive. Think if House of Lords and Queensrÿche got together. It has that vibe to it. I was hesitant to do one of those collectives where they just threw people together, but hearing the material, I decided to go ahead and jump in. Working on that is next on my schedule.
There’s a singer on my album named Whitney Tai who you heard on “Army of Me”. We became friends and she sings on two other songs we co-wrote. I’m gonna do bass on a few songs on her album as well. I’m always busy. Ultimate Jam Night keeps me the most busy, but I’m always doing something. It keeps you young. Keeps me going and keeps me rocking!
Chuck Wright’s Sheltering Sky is available now on Cleopatra Records.