With his pedal to the metal and hands gripped upon the wheel, James Durbin is ready to unleash some Screaming Steel! The American Idol finalist is back with a vengeance on the aptly titled second album under the Durbin moniker. While this latest effort is a departure from the Prince of Metal storyline explored on 2021’s The Beast Awakens, it’s still an unadulterated celebration of all things heavy and old school. We sat down with Durbin yet again to discuss the Prince of Metal’s unfinished saga, what makes a wicked guitar solo, and the “Man on the Silver Mountain”, Mr. Ronnie James Dio.
Greetings James and welcome back to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
James Durbin: I’m good. I’m here! I’m alive *laughs*. Everything is good. You know, I gotta tell you. The craziest thing happened. My kids and wife and I, we just got back from a 3 night, 4 day stay in Joshua Tree. It changed something in our daily rhythmic pattern. As soon as we get home from a long drive, our son is outside and he hears a meow, and he’s petting this cat. He comes inside real quick in a rush and he asks my wife and I, “What color eyes did our old cat Ozzy have?” Our cat, Ozzy, that’s been gone, lost, presumed dead for a year and a half, came back last night.
No way.
JD: Right? Crazy! And my album cover is a cat, so we’re surrounded by cats. Not that I like cats or anything, but we have 7 *laughs*. Now with the return of Ozzy, we have 7. 7 is the most magical number. It’s pretty crazy.
Even more magical than 3!
JD: Exactly, yes. Way more.
That’s awesome. Funny enough, in our neighborhood, there’s this cat who I believe is still alive. Every time we think she’s dead, there she is walking down the block, PC. I’m 25 now and I’ve seen this cat for most of my life. Every year she gets bigger and bigger and bigger, like Garfield. I’ll see her walking across the street with a rabbit or mouse hanging from her mouth and it’s like, “There’s PC, alive and well!” Cats are wild creatures. They know their way around!
JD: Yeah, it’s crazy. We haven’t seen him in, like I said, a year and a half. He’s been gone. It’s just crazy. It’s wild. We got him in Nashville, so for him to come out here, all the way back to California, live with us for so long and then disappear and just wander back. *meows* “Hi! Feed me!”
Well I’m so happy to hear that. I’d also like to congratulate you on your new album, Screaming Steel. When did work get started on this album and what did you set out to achieve with it?
JD: With this album, originally I wanted to do it as a follow up the Prince of Metal. Originally I wanted to dip right back in where the Prince of Metal left off. That was the original plan with it, but as I was writing it and beginning to write it, I think the first song I wrote for the album was “Rebirth”. There’s a couple of them that are older ideas. “Where They Stand” was originally an Americana, singer/songwriter, storytelling song. “Tear Them Down” was a little bit of an older one. “Beyond the Night” was a little bit of an older one of the idea. “Beyond the Night” came to me around the time that “Riders on the Wind” came to me for the first album. “Rebirth” was the first fully fleshed out song following finishing recording and releasing The Beast Awakens, and then before knowing fully well what I wanted to do. If you listen to “Rebirth”, it is very much still that kind of a story.
“Rebirth” was like what was gonna open up the second album, which is funny that it ends up closing the second album, which might be a re-intro back into the story of the Prince. But of course, when you rise to Valhalla, when you die in battle, “Battle Cry”, “By the Horns”, “Rise to Valhalla”, of course, you are “Reborn”. That was the concept behind that. In that way, I began writing it as soon as the first one ended, but I also had to do the Cleanbreak album. As soon as The Beast Awakens was released, I had to jump right into Cleanbreak, and then just life and gigs and everything. So yeah, it was pretty shortly after there.
It’s funny because I was going to mention how this album was a departure from the storyline introduced on The Beast Awakens. Ironically, even though it closes the album, I noticed how “Rebirth” musically and lyrically lies close to the debut as far as having that Blind Guardian-esque power metal feel to it. Are there any factors that came into play which led to this more straightforward lyrical approach and are there any recurring themes listeners should look out for when listening to this album?
JD: Metal, steel *laughs*. Blazing! I don’t know. The first album, of course it was a ton of fun, but it also had a very serious tone because I was trying to write from a place of truth, but also mask it in fantasy. Sometimes when I go down that path, I get, not depression, but I get so stuck within that idea of I need to go the complete opposite direction, just fun songs. I wanted this album to be a little bit more Priest when the first album was a little more Dio. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still plenty of Dio on this of that vibe and that whole aesthetic.
I definitely wanted to just sing about my love for metal on this album. I love metal clichés. I just do. They’re just my most favorite thing about metal, that old school, rough around the edges, badly filmed, no budget…that’s where it came from, you know? Think of Manowar: Unabashedly unashamed of being entirely cliché of metal. We are metal. We are by metal. We are for metal. We are made of metal. We are so made of metal that we are screaming steel! *laughs* Blazing high, come on man! Some of these riffs were writing themselves. Getting the chance to write the lyrics was fun.
The first record was so much work. It’s a lot of work trying to write a storyline and then trying to put it into songs, and then make sure that all those songs line up and tell the story. So much of that is done for yourself. I did all that for me. That’s what I was inspired to do for that first record. Trying to force it for the second record, it wasn’t working. I ran into a lot of writers block and then I just said, “You know what? Screw it. I’m just gonna write. Let’s see what comes out.” A lot of these songs flowed from that.
Was it apparent Screaming Steel would be the title from day one?
JD: I was originally thinking Made of Metal. Then I was reminded that the first or second Halford album is called Made of Metal. I was like, “Oh shit! Ah damn it, I can’t do that!” I asked my wife and she was like, “No! You know Rob! You can’t do that!” Dammit! I wanted this Terminator looking album cover of my face and it’s opening up and I am actually the metal beneath. With the first album, the concept behind The Beast Awakens was inspired by a Japanese professional wrestler named Jushin Thunder Liger. When he was unmasked, his opponent was trying to humiliate him by removing his mask, but what his opponent didn’t know was that mask was containing the beast within. So when he removed his mask, he didn’t humiliate him; he actually unleashed the monster and the evil that the mask was containing.
When I left Quiet Riot, it was like, I’ve been wearing this mask. It’s time to let out the beast within. It’s time to awaken this beast. So it’d be cool to strip away my own skin and see that, well, I am made of metal, so it doesn’t matter if the mask is on the outside; it’s on the inside anyway. Then the label was like, “No, we like a flying cat instead.” I was like, “Alright, cool. Take it. Go for it.” *laughs* The artist, José Canales, whose nickname happens to be “Cat”, just took off with the album cover. I opened it for the first time and I cried when I saw the art. It was super cool.
In your case of leaving Quiet Riot, this could even be you taking off the Metal Health mask!
JD: Yes, exactly. Absolutely. There’s a reason that the Metal Health mask isn’t hanging in this studio. It’s hanging in my closet upstairs behind a bunch of stuff, but it’s still there. I can’t get rid of it.
Is there a chance the Prince of Metal saga will continue on a future Durbin release?
JD: Absolutely. I don’t know what it would sound like because I’m in such a…from where the Prince was at the time, where I was at the time of writing it, and the place that I was coming from writing it, and the stories I was telling coming from writing it, a lot of it is inspired by the time that I was with Quiet Riot and the time before then. That was a personal struggle. It was a financial struggle. It was what my choices are, personal or financial or emotional…my hairline *laughs*. Thinking of all those things, there was so much to be able to draw from.
Right now, it would be very positive. The Prince went and played with his kids *laughs*. And the Prince took in several feral cats *laughs*. The Prince went and played 6 shows on the weekend with 5 different bands. I want to. I just gotta figure out an outline of it. When I was writing it as that, there was some threads that I could’ve run through. “Where They Stand”, “Power of the Reaper”, “Blazing High”, “Beyond the Night”, “The Worshipper 1897”, “Tear Them Down”, “Rebirth”: Most of the record, if I ran the thread through it and had written it with that in mind, a lot of it could’ve still run the course of the Prince’s story because there is a lot of personal storytelling within those.
“Where They Stand” had originally, like I said, a singer/songwriter vibe. I did an album called Homeland while I was with Quiet Riot because the music that we were making wasn’t the music that I was feeling. I was inspired to just write songs and write stories. All I had was an acoustic guitar, so I just played them as that. I reworked it to fit this record, which was cool that it worked out that way, but I think there is a lot that…it’s still in me. It’s definitely still in me. It’s just figuring out how I want to do it.
I think the problem that happened was I wanted to do the second album set in space. I wanted to set it in space and that was the next step of the realm, like out of the realm and into the outer realm. I think that I was setting myself up for more difficulty. I was like, “Anything can happen in space!” Well literally anything just happened on the surface of the realm and the underworld of the realm, so maybe it shouldn’t happen in space. I don’t know.
I’m also kind of between sounds. I’m writing everything. This is my dilemma. I’m writing everything, so it’s just coming from a place of personal fulfillment. The first album was, “I have to prove to myself that I’m a riff writer. How can I write like that?” A real beacon of hope for me is Tony Iommi. What can I do with the first three frets? What can I do with the first three strings of the first three frets and keep it within that? A lot of what I write is in standard tuning also. I think with the next record, and for my voice, I’ll be tuning a lot of stuff down *laughs*. My bass player, Mike Roberts, writes in C#. I’m like, “Woo! Maybe that’s a little low, but maybe we could go down there. Maybe that would be a little fun.”
It’s just trying to figure out what interests me right now, what am I going to enjoy writing within. I do like writing harmony parts on whatever my lead line is. Then we get that duel attack sort of thing. I’m not necessarily specifically trying to write in a certain subgenre because it jumps around. There’s some power, some doom, some traditional, some British, some American. It definitely jumps around. It’s just fun. It’s whatever serves the purpose.
That’s a perfect segue into the next question. Whereas The Beast Awakens had this power metal feel to it and this strong conceptual thread running through the entire release, Screaming Steel comes off as a more straightforward traditional metal album, with songs like “Power of the Reaper” and “Blazing High” even reminding me of ’80s melodic metal like Dokken and Rock You to Hell era Grim Reaper. Would you cite those bands as influences? How does tackling this sound compare or contrast to the angle you took on your first album?
JD: My main influences are Dio and Priest. As far as if I can cite a song or an album or a sound or an era, it would be between Dio and Priest, so whatever falls between those. With the first album, I wanted it to sit somewhere between Sad Wings of Destiny and Defenders of the Faith. This one, I did try to lean it a little bit more towards Defenders in aesthetic, in cover, in color, and in melody driven. Melody is always the biggest thing for me. Everything has to have a melody. Every part has to be melodic, every verse, every subsection of the song. You can take that and it’s singable. I can play it on guitar. I can play it on piano and it would sound like a melodic song.
There’s not so much specifics, but when I am getting in the mood for writing something, I’ll usually find a playlist and listen to that. I was listening to a New Wave of British Heavy Metal of modern bands playlist, so seeing what other people are doing out there. When you hear what other people are doing well, it shows you, “That’s a full band and they’ve got that covered.” *laughs* I’m one guy over here writing the entire thing. I’m also inspired by (Haunt’s) Trevor Church, for instance. Just what he’s able to do, as the one guy, is super inspiring. He’s only led by his own desire. He’s only encouraged by himself.
I say I’m my own boss and I’m also my own employee. Sometimes I’m a shitty boss. Sometimes I’m a worthless employee *laughs*. That part gets difficult, but it’s cool to see that there are other people out there that are doing it and doing it well. It’s super inspiring to continue doing it. Like I said, I’m just trying to make myself enjoy the process. Record making isn’t always a fun process. Sometimes when you’re with a label, you have a timeline, or sometimes you have to wait X amount of time before you release something. It’s fun being independent in some ways. I could’ve released “Rebirth” as a single two years ago like, “This is where we’re heading.”, and that could’ve inspired the rest of it, release things as they’re ready. But also, I enjoy having time with it.
If there’s one thing The Beast Awakens taught me, it’s to consider what might be excess. Even now when I listen to this, there’s stuff I could trim off of several songs, or add a little section to something else. Having time with it, I feel like with The Beast Awakens, there was a lot of excess. I could probably shave off 7 minutes off of that album that doesn’t necessarily have to be there. It doesn’t necessarily serve the song, that’s just riffing and extra. I don’t know. I just try to write what I’m feeling. So much of my influence is of the ’80s and ’70s, so if anything feels familiar, it’s by design.
Another interesting aspect of Screaming Steel is this album features a completely different cast of musicians than The Beast Awakens. How did this impact the musical direction of the album?
JD: It didn’t. It didn’t really. They’re studio musicians, I think with the only case being…because I write everything. I write everything here in my studio, so I demo everything also. All of the drum parts that were performed were performed almost exactly to what my programmed drums were. All of the guitar parts were played exactly the way I played them, albeit in tune and more precise. I just like to get through it and get the idea out. Not everything’s in tune or quantized the way someone with a more structured right handed chug can do. I’m not as proficient in my chug.
I think the only real exception for what makes a difference is my bass player. On the first album, I had Barry Sparks. Barry absolutely killed it. That was before I had a live band put together. My bass player in my live band, Mike Roberts, is equally proficient at bass playing and wrote basslines for all the songs. It was like, “There you go. That’s easy!” He lived right here. “The whole record can’t all be Italians that aren’t gonna play these songs. We gotta get one in there that’s actually going to be a part of it.” That was wonderful.
The easy thing about it is I can write the songs, I record all the vocals here, I self produce and self engineer my vocals, so that’s easy for me because I know what I want out of myself. I know what I can get out of myself. To have the time and the ease of doing it, I’m like, “I feel good! I feel good to record vocals! I’m gonna record vocals.” Then I get in here and I’m like, “Nope! I was wrong.” *laughs* I’m not wasting anybody else’s time or whatever. I lost my voice a couple times unfortunately through three kids. They’re always bringing stuff home from school.
It’s all Durbin. It all comes from my mind. It all comes from my voice and from my shitty fingers. It doesn’t necessarily matter who’s playing on it, and I don’t mean that in a rude way. I’m writing everything, so as long as you’re playing it the way that I wrote it, it’s just a way for me to get it out there. There is a possibility that on the next one, I might try to play a little bit more, but I have professional guitar players in my band, so I’ll probably be passing that onto them. Also, I’ve already written it. I’ve already demoed it and recorded it.
I don’t know if I’m lazy *laughs* or if I’m so onto the next thing that I don’t want to sit there and be like, “No, you gotta play it like this. Didn’t you practice? Play it this way. Don’t change the riff. Don’t change the key. Let’s just play it like it is.” I don’t know *laughs*. Sometimes you have that spark and you’re like, “Yeah, let’s get it done guys! We’re so ready!” Other times, you’re like, *sighs* “Alright, you’re gonna be playing it. Might as well learn it right if you’re gonna be playing it right.”
Speaking of guitarists, there’s a slew of guest lead guitarists on this album, each contributing their own ’80s metal flavored solos to these songs. Whose idea was this and who are some of your favorite guitarists?
JD: This was all my idea. I did the same thing on the first Durbin album. On The Beast Awakens, we had a lot of Jon Yadon Jr. who came back for one solo this time on “Power of the Reaper”. Jon ended up playing on 5 or 6 songs on the first record. The first album also had Dylan Rose who is my current lead guitar player in my live band, so Dylan played on “Made of Metal” and “Screaming Steel”. The producer of the album, Aldo (Lonobile), played on “Where They Stand”.
Conan (Gonzales) from Exmortus played on “Hallows” and “Blazing High”, as well as my other guitar player, Moksha, did some stuff on “Blazing High” and “Beyond the Night”. “The Worshipper 1897” has no solo. “Tear Them Down”, the solo was played by Taylor Washington from Paladin. That’s probably my favorite solo on the record. He wrote this concerto, this epic twin guitar mastery. “Rebirth” doesn’t have a solo either. The first album had Jon Yadon Jr. and Marc Putnam and Phil Demmel and Dylan Rose and me. I played the solo on “Necromancer”. There might be one more that I’m missing. I can’t remember, but that might be it. I’m not a soloist.
Like I said, my riffing and all of that goes between what can I do with the first three frets *laughs*, or at least those notes on the first three frets and the first three strings. Plenty of it moves around the neck, but I try to stay within a window and write from that Tony Iommi perspective to serve the heaviness and the simplicity. The simpler and the heavier, the better. Maybe the next album will be a doom album? I don’t know *laughs*. I had fun with that on “The Worshipper 1897”, so maybe there’s more of that in me. It’s definitely fun to sing, and easier to sing. I definitely want to continue to have that be a thing with the Durbin albums, that you can always expect to get a different group of guitar players appearing on the album.
I love Glenn Tipton. I think Glenn is just the bee’s knees. You just look at the guy and he’s the coolest, most unassuming dude and he just plays the most…I don’t know. I can’t even put it into words. He’s just metal. Just absolute metal. Tony Iommi, Glenn Tipton, Vivian Campbell, of course. Oh man, who else do I like? Paul Stanley *laughs* *imitates Ace Frehley* and then Ace Frehley! I like Ace Frehley. I was just listening to an interview with Ace. Our friend Chris Jericho interviewed Steve Brown and Ace Frehley *laughs*.
Ace stands up and he goes, “I’ve got on these pajamas. They’ve got bears on them, little teddy bears.” I go, “Oh my God.” He is who he is. He’s Ace! He is him. Gosh, just the classics. I don’t know. If anybody can get something out of me and cause me to feel something, John Mayer. Not everything he does is for me, but what is for me just blows my mind. There’s real intention to what these guys play. Trying to be an intentional player is probably where I get the most inspiration.
It’s funny you mention “The Worshipper 1897”, which is probably my favorite song on here. How did this song come about and, while I think you answered the question already, would you be open to doing a full blown doom metal album?
JD: Absolutely yes. I feel like that’s more…and I don’t want to…it’s not easy. You listen to those songs and you’re like, “This is not easy.” No, not at all. “Children of the Sea”, “The Mob Rules”, “The Sign of the Southern Cross”, those songs are not easy at all *laughs*. They’re in depth, massive works of art, and because they’re writing within that limited Tony Iommi realm, how do you do that and set yourself apart from that? That’s the thing. And also, how do I not step on any of that? How do I not step on Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats? How do I not step on any of the stuff that I did on the first album or “The Worshipper 1897”?
“The Worshipper 1897” came about as I was watching a Black Sabbath documentary. I think that they said “Paranoid” was written in about 15 minutes. They needed to fill in another 2 and a half, 3 minutes on the record, so they needed another song. Tony was like, “Well, I’ve got this riff.” Geezer was like, “I’ve got these lyrics.” Ozzy just starts reading them and there you go. You’ve got this song in 15 minutes. I was like, “Well shit, I gotta try to write something like that!”
I found a tempo I liked and just picked up my guitar and started playing *hums riff*. I had this article I was reading of a cryptid creature that lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains here in my hometown. It was this article, the literal title of the article, again, like the article for “The Beast Awakens” about Jushin Thunder Liger, the article was literally titled “The Worshipper 1897”. It was posted in *sings* The Sentinel, which is our Santa Cruz newspaper. It’s called the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
In this 1897 issue, whatever the date was, there was this story about this creature, this beast in the Redwoods called “The Worshipper”. It guarded this treasure and it came up from the ocean, knocked down all these trees, basically created landslides and mudslides. It would make its way to this cave where it sat upon a throne that was encrusted with jewels. This traveler was following the gold rush and he met this gypsy woman who spoke of these legends that were carved and etched into the stone. “To seek the treasure in the mountain cause there it waits enthroned. Emblazed on the altar, to pray and exhaust and thrice arms itself with the sign of the cross. I watch the worshipper, arc angel, demigod.”
I read this long article of this story and I just happened to find it on this random website called Santa Cruz Ghost Hunters. They have it in their “legends” section. This website hasn’t been updated in years and I just happened to find this article. It just blew my mind. I loved that it was this creature, that it was this story, that it was this folklore, that it was so close to home and also over 100 years old, this 125 year old story that I guarantee maybe one other guy in Santa Cruz knows *laughs*. It’s the guy who posted it on their website. It’s so old and gone and it was just so cool to be able to write about that, and then to be able to play shows here and tell the other locals about this legend.
You mention how the doom metal vocals might be easier in a certain context, but not entirely, and I agree. When I think about how Dio tackled the doomier Sabbath material, sure he was hitting higher notes and perhaps singing with more drama as part of Rainbow, but with Sabbath…I say this because last week I was at the gym and put Dehumanizer on. At this point he was 50 years old and he sounds so pissed off on that record. The venom that’s coming out of his voice on “TV Crimes” and “I”. Like I said, he wasn’t hitting those high notes, but he was really delivering. I noticed that in your vocals on that specific song, that delivery which makes you believe this story. This isn’t, “Let me tell you a tale.” This is, “HEY! Sit down!”
JD: “Listen to me!” *laughs*
Yeah, it’s as compelling as the riffs! I really appreciate that.
JD: Thank you. Dio had this, I guess you’d say it was venom. Let’s call it venom. I don’t know how else to explain it, but it’s like he was literally spitting fire when he sang. He did this *roars*, “Rise!” It was so operatic and there was intention again. It was drilling it into your frontal lobe of, “Here is the message, and you my child, rise!” That was a fun one to sing because so many of these are so high *laughs* and so difficult to sing at parts. I’m really doing myself a disservice of, “Oh here! You gotta sing these now, one after the other, and intermingle them with songs from your first album that are also all in standard tuning.”
I like telling my band, “Could you guys come to practice next time and tune down a whole step? That’d be great.” I just want to try it. Country singers like Rascal Flatts, they do it. Their records are in standard and they play everything in D tuning, making everything easy. Yeah, why not? Why do I have to torture myself? Don Dokken does it. Why can’t I do it? *laughs* No, I don’t wanna do anything Don Dokken does. I had a beer with Don. He told me all these stories. Then Alex (Grossi), the guitarist from Quiet Riot came over and says, “All that shit that Don was telling you was fake. He lives with his mom.” *laughs* So yeah, you can never trust any of these guys!
I just love Dio, man. They put on the Dio Instagram account that they unearthed a box of Sacred Heart VHS tapes that were still wrapped. I just got those. They’re like $25. I just gotta get a VHS player. I got this for my birthday. It is a handbill from when Dio played here in Santa Cruz, actually here in Watsonville which is where I live, which is where the fairgrounds is. This handbill is Dio, Monstars, and Whitesnake. This probably would’ve been ’84, ’85. It doesn’t say the year on it.
I’d guess if Whitesnake’s opening, it’s probably ’84, because it would be a few more years before they hit the stratosphere.
JD: When we were in Joshua Tree, I just found a Dio Intermission LP, which was weird. I had never seen it before, so it was cool to find that and understand, “Oh, this is on the cusp of replacing Vivian Campbell with Craig Goldy.” I haven’t listened to it yet. I can’t figure out if it’s a live album or not. I think it’s partially live from the Sacred Heart Tour.
I recently just picked it up recently myself. It’s live except for one studio song on there called “Time to Burn”.
JD: Was that one on a record or was it only on Intermission?
No, it’s just on there. I’d say it’s worth having just for that song alone.
JD: Hellyeah! I can’t wait to play it. I got that and I got Foreigner’s 4. I’ve been on a real Foreigner kick lately. I think that being able to do a sort of Sabbathy thing like that, that can be the intention, but there’s still gonna be that Durbin thing of melody. It can’t all be dark and sad. I listen to the Heaven and Hell album, The Devil You Know, and I’m like, “It’s so heavy, but it’s so down!” *laughs* “Bible Black” is just like, *sings* “At last alone his fire’s dying.” It’s like, “Oh man, that’s sad. That’s sad Ronnie.” Then that riff comes in *hums riff*. Some of the Tony Martin stuff too, it’s so, so good.
I want to figure out as my voice is changing, as my voice is getting older, as my notes are getting a little bit limited. I’m 35, but I use my voice a lot. I’m in 6 active working bands doing all different kinds of music. I’m doing ’80s or yacht rock or acoustic or the Whitesnake/AC/DC/Def Leppard stuff or across the board. Sometimes it’s every 3 songs or 2 songs. Sometimes it’s 3 hours and every song, like this weekend. I’ve had a couple weekends off. February is pretty slow for everybody. First quarter always is, but I’m gearing up for Friday with one band, Saturday with the same band, different towns, travel dates, then I gotta drive 4 hours back on Sunday, grab all my acoustic stuff and go play another gig.
It’s gonna be a travelling weekend, but that makes me think of what’s gonna be fun to write. It might be more fun and challenging, which might be helpful, to inspire me to sing within a different box. Right now, it’s a very big box. There’s no walls to the box. There’s sometimes a ceiling, but just figuring that out, that’s the fun of it too. I also don’t know where my music’s gonna take me. I’ve got this album that just came out. I just got the mixes for the second Cleanbreak album. Currently, those are my only Frontiers obligations, so I don’t know. There might be an independent single sometime next year. I might go that route again. I’m not sure. I’m definitely enjoying myself.
I was going to ask what the current status of Cleanbreak was.
JD: Yeah, so it’s currently just Mike Flyntz and myself. Perry (Richardson) and Robert (Sweet) had a lot of obligations with Stryper and weren’t able to commit to another Cleanbreak album. This one is similar, but different. There’s a lot more symphonic stuff. There’s a lot of Alessandro (Del Vecchio) stamp on this record *laughs*, and also Giancarlo Floridia, who wrote a few of the songs on the first album. The other big difference is the first Cleanbreak album came right after I finished the first Durbin album, so I was musically spent as far as songwriting goes, but I still had two or three cuts on that record. I think on this one I only had a third share on one song.
I had contributed a few songs, but they weren’t chosen. Maybe they were too Durbin for Cleanbreak in the direction of it. Cleabreak is, for all intents and purposes, a studio band to fulfill the obligations *laughs*, but it was fun. I definitely had fun with it. If there’s one thing for certain, Alessandro Del Vecchio is a powerhouse songwriter, singer, guitar player, bass player, producer, mixer, master. He does it all and that’s why so many people wanna work with him *laughs*. He makes it so easy to just sing.
It’s been a couple years since I last spoke with Alessandro. I was joking, but kind of not, when I said there isn’t a week that goes by where Defenders doesn’t review an album that he was involved with in some capacity. His work ethic blows my mind. I don’t know if he’s living in some other reality where there’s more than 24 hours in a day. I just don’t know.
JD: He’s vegan! I know that, so maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe he’s just operating on a different planetary sphere.
In closing, what does the rest of 2024 have in store for you?
JD: I am going to be very busy, but not a ton of it Durbin. I’d like there to be more Durbin shows. We’ve got a full band show. We’re gonna be on Frozen in Time Fest in Fresno in June. It’s put on by Haunt and that is going to be Saturday, June 22 at Strummer’s. It’s got Haunt, Hellfire, Greyhawk, Sabre, Angel Fury, Devilution, Durbin, Knight & Gallow. It’s a stacked bill and a lot of fun. Tickets are on sale. I’m also going to be appearing at Immortal Fest Part 2 on September 1 in Versailles, Ohio at the BMI Event Center. I’m going to be doing a solo acoustic set there.
For all intents and purposes, it is a Christian heavy metal festival. I am not necessarily a secular musician. Durbin isn’t. I just played with Les Carlsen from Bloodgood on the Chris Jericho Cruise. I did music direction and backed him up too, so Les and I became close and he got me booked on Immortal Fest, which I’m really looking forward to. I’ll be doing some Bloodgood covers, some Stryper covers, and then some more of my faith adjacent Durbin songs. I’m really looking forward to that one too because Ohio has always treated me very well. I haven’t been back in 5 years or so.
The new Durbin album, Screaming Steel, is available now on Frontiers Records. For more information on Durbin, visit www.jamesdurbinofficial.com.