There are few singers in the world of hard and heavy music as busy as Johnny Gioeli. Despite first making a name for himself 30 years ago as the voice of Hardline, Gioeli is busier today than ever. Between fronting a new incarnation of Hardline, Axel Rudi Pell, Crush 40, and participating in a slew of side projects, it’s nothing short of miraculous that he found the time to sit down with us to discuss yet ANOTHER creative vehicle, Enemy Eyes. Their debut album, History’s Hand, is making waves for all the right reasons. Not only is it a killer slab of melodic metal, but it’s Gioeli’s 100th studio album. Yes, 1-0-0. We sat down with Gioeli to discuss this milestone, the ongoing Hardline legacy, and the logistics of touring in the 2020s.
Greetings Johnny and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Johnny Gioeli: I’m great Joe! What’s going on my metal brother?
Not much! Just talking to one of the all time great voices in metal, coming to you live from Chicago.
JG: Thank you bro! I appreciate those kind words. I’ve been at it for a long time. I’m an old guy, so I’ve got a little bit of experience under my belt.
Yes, you’ve been around, but today we’re going to be talking about something brand new and that’s Enemy Eyes. When did the idea for this band come about?
JG: It was about a year ago. What happened was I’ve had a very long career. I’ve been playing professionally since I was 11. This is album number 100 to my career, which is just insane to even think about. I always felt like this was the puzzle piece missing. I came up listening to Dio and Sabbath and Ozzy. I just always wanted to do something a little heavier to round out my career. So about a year ago, I started discussing the opportunity of doing something heavy with Frontiers. Serafino (Perugino) thought it was a great idea to put this project together. It was about a year ago that the whole idea happened, not that long.
Whereas Hardline is an AOR band with their heavy moments, and Axel Rudi Pell lies on the power metal side of things, Enemy Eyes is a straightforward, no frills metal band. Expanding upon what you were saying, who were your favorite metal bands and what were your favorite metal albums growing up? Who were your biggest influences as a vocalist?
JG: Oh man, good question. Like I said, Ronnie James Dio was definitely one of my biggest influences. Anything Ronnie did, I loved, as a kid and even now. Ozzy, just for the whole thing. I don’t need to say any more about Ozzy. He was the whole package. Sabbath, Rainbow, Scorpions, that’s what I grew up with. Klaus Meine has always been a great influence of mine. Some people say they hear a little bit of Klaus in my voice. OK, maybe it just kind of happens. As far as major influences, all those guys for sure, but I listen now to all kinds of music. I love Architects. I love Pop Evil. I listen to everything. My playlist is ridiculous. It’s all kinds of music, because I find the art in everything.
Even if I don’t particularly love a style, I listen to the writing and what the person is doing and what the band is doing. I always find something out of it that is just cool and interesting. Enemy Eyes, for sure, has been an album, History’s Hand, that is no question one of my most favorite albums to create. Something I want to note is as I wrote it, I recorded it. It’s not like I wrote it and sang it and then I went back. What you hear is exactly from the paper to the microphone and there was no going back. Those were original one takes of those lines, as I wrote them *shows lyric sheets*, right to the microphone. That’s the way I work. That’s how we built this album, which is so cool and spontaneous.
In that regard, would you say this is the most organic album you’ve been a part of?
JG: That’s the perfect word to use. Definitely. It started with an idea of how we wanted to construct the album, the sound we wanted. As a writer, you can’t be looking towards what you think people want to hear. You gotta create what you want to create. That’s real art. We all got together and said, “OK, this is what we want to try to accomplish. This is what I’m feeling. This is what you’re feeling.” So yeah, “organic” is the perfect word to describe how we built it.
There was nothing premeditated or “We have to sound like Breaking Benjamin.” Nothing like that at all. It’s just like, “Hey, check out this riff. What do you think?” “Oh my God! Ahhhh!” And then boom. It went from there, so yeah. Most fun I’ve every had! With this kind of music, I just felt like I had way more creative freedom. There was nothing you could do that was a mistake. It wasn’t like, “Oh, you can’t do that.” No, if you wanted to add a weird effect or whatever, do whatever the hell you want. I just felt like I had much more freedom with this album to do that in this style of music.
There is a lot going on here. While it is a straight up metal album, there’s some doomy, Sabbath type songs on here. There’s also some Helloween style power metal on here. You guys did a great job encompassing everything within the old school metal spectrum, and perhaps even modernized it a bit.
JG: Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. It’s got a little euro metal touch to it. I’m a melody guy, I think. Anything I do I want to have a little melody in there. That’s just who I am. I think it encompasses a lot of different things and styles and whatever. The power metal guys can hear the power in the music. The traditional metal guys can…what it definitely is not is a screamo album. I just can’t do that *growls*. I find it really cool and interesting. It’s just not me. That’s the only thing it’s not, but everything else it is. I think it touches and cross pollinates all the fans that I have that love either Hardline, Crush 40, or Axel Rudi Pell. It all cross pollinates and works for everybody, at least that’s what I’m being told, so that’s a good thing.
I agree. While this whole album smokes, I firmly believe you saved the best for last with “The Rat Race”.
JG: Really?!
Yes! How did this song come about?
JG: Shit bro! That’s interesting because I almost didn’t put it on the album!
Really?!
JG: Really Joe. I almost didn’t do it because I didn’t know if it really paid off, you know what I mean? I listened to it and listened to it. Still today, I go, “Shoot man.” Thank you man for confirming that it was OK to put on the album! Again, “The Rat Race” was a musical riff that I just felt. The entire song came out of me. I’m looking at some of the lyrics so I can reference it. “The Rat Race”, for sure, we all live in it. I’m just recognizing all the things, feeling like you’re spinning on a hamster wheel. I’m trying to get off of this thing, but I can’t. You’re caught in it. The song, lyrically, just takes on that kind of spin.
A lot of people I find today, it’s kind of disheartening, are looking for reasons to be ungrateful, which is another line. Instead of looking at the simple things that bring us joy, it’s much easier and more and more people are focusing on things that are shit and terrible. This just lays out all that crazy stuff that we do and the things that we say and the things we’re caught up in that are necessarily not that important. Anyway, that’s “The Rat Race”. I love it. “Livin’ in the rat race. Take your chances, take your place. Line up everybody because we’re all in it together. It will swallow you up and spit you out.” Yeah, we get caught up in that. Oh man, I’m glad you like that song! I wasn’t sure Joe!
I loved it! For me, it came off like an 80s arena metal throwback. It’s totally something I could be pumping my fist to alongside 20,000 other people.
JG: Wow! That is wild man! Cool! Some of my favorites on the album, I like “Preying on Your Weakness”. I like “The Chase”. I just find it to be really cool and I can picture…as an artist, when you’re writing this stuff, it’s a natural thing to do to picture it live. When I hear “Preying on Your Weakness”, I know that that festival we will play with 80,000 people, when the intro starts, you can sort of imagine as the artist how that will translate. I’ve been doing this since I was 11 and I still get chills on my arms about imagining what things will be like in the future. I love this album. I’m a runner, so I do a lot of running, and I have that album in my ears all the time. I never listen to my own stuff! Never. I really don’t. Maybe it’ll come across on YouTube and I’ll listen to about 30 seconds and go, “Oh yeah, that was a cool song.” This I’ve had in my ears, so I’m excited about it, as you can tell.
This band features yourself, as well as your Hardline bandmate, Alessandro Del Vecchio. How would you describe your creative relationship with him?
JG: Alessandro is like a brother. There’s no question about it. We have a chemistry. Chemistry’s important man. That’s like Steven Tyler and Joe Perry. When you have that chemistry, you try not to break that *laughs*. Life happens, but in our case, we get along so well. Musically, if you ask me, “Can you crank out an album by the end of this week?”, we could probably do it. We just connected. We know what each other are thinking and how we would approach things. That’s just like any, and I hate to call it this, but business. It’s a business, but it’s not. I don’t think of it that way, but you have to have the right culture. You have to have the right chemistry for things to work. Alessandro has always been there for me and me for him. It just works.
Alessandro played a pivotal role in Hardline’s 2010s resurgence, specifically on the album Danger Zone with “Fever Dreams”. Prior to this, did you think there was any life left in Hardline?
JG: That’s a great question. No, I didn’t. Both Serafino, the owner of Frontiers Records, and Alessandro were immensely the ones that resuscitated and revitalized Hardline, there’s no question about it. They were instrumental in doing so, absolutely. I don’t know what would’ve happened. It was taking some weird directions. Even though, some of the albums prior to Ale, like Leaving the End Open (2009), which is a really, immensely popular album, it took a little bit more of an alternative, weird direction. It’s just where my head was at at that time. Those guys really refocused me on what Hardline really is, that melodic 80s/90s power band. They refocused me and it is what it is today. Hardline is not going to reinvent any new musical wheel, it’s just not. Hardline is Hardline. I thank God for Ale everyday.
We mentioned earlier that History’s Hand is the 100th album featuring your vocal talents. Was this planned or sheer coincidence?
JG: That means I should be about 90 years old if you do the math *laughs*. Was it planned? No. What happened was it was a friend of mine who said, “Do you realize you have like eighty something albums out?” This was years ago, obviously. I’m like, “What? No way!” So I went onto my own Wikipedia, in my discography, and I started counting. Then I realized that there were a lot of albums missing, so I started updating and counting, literally “1, 2, 3, 4, 5…” There I was at 99 prior to Enemy Eyes. It blew my mind. Nothing planned. It just so happened that my most favorite album, History’s Hand, became my 100th album. It feels like we’re complete now. Even though we have a lot more albums to make, I feel mentally complete.
Roughly speaking, how many albums is that a year? About 4 or 5?
JG: Yeah, so either I created the album or I was a featured guest or I played on it. That’s what I mean by 100 albums. I think Alessandro, we started to count his, I think he has over 300 that he participated on. So you know that Ale in Enemy Eyes is playing bass. He is, in my opinion, probably a better bass player than keyboard player, and he’s a great keyboard player. It’s really interesting. People are like, “What is going on?!” I’m like, “Yeah, Ale’s a bass player!” It’s pretty cool. It’s just such a great transition from Hardline to Enemy Eyes.
I feel like I review at least 10 to 20 albums that he is involved with in some capacity every year. He’s unavoidable!
JG: He’s a maniac. Some people come down hard on him and say, “Oh, he does too many things.” He’s a top producer for this genre of music. Back in the day when Mutt Lange was doing Def Leppard albums, no one said, “Oh Mutt, you’re doing too many Def Leppard albums.” You know what I mean? “Oh gosh, now you’re doing Shania Twain.” Literally *laughs*. What the hell? Give Ale a break! He’s a top producer and he’s wanted and needed and desired, so he works a lot! The guy hasn’t had a vacation in years. Actually, both of us, we just discussed that. Shit, I don’t remember the last time I had a vacation. We just work man. I’m always in my studio. I’m always working. I love it!
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Hardline’s debut album, Double Eclipse. What memories stand out from making that album and what are your favorite songs?
JG: Oh man, the memories are vast. I don’t think we’d have enough time in the interview to go through the memories, but I recall one amazing memory. I’ll never forget this day. We were mixing the album. We mixed Double Eclipse in certain studios based on the type of song. Even though it all basically sounds the same, believe it or not, it was in different studios. I’ll never forget…when an album, when it’s mixed properly, it turns into what we call the sound of the album. Up until that point, it just sounds like a bunch of tracks, but the songs sound cool and everything, but it’s not refined where it turns into an album.
I’ll never forget Deen Castronovo and I sitting on a couch in the studio. We were actually using Dave (Stewart) from Eurythmics’ studio in Encino, beautiful recording studio that they used to use. It started turning into the album and you could hear it refined. I built this whole thing up and it’s not that exciting for your readers, but for us, it was an amazing transformation of taking a song that started out as a demo to this polished sound. For us, that was the most thrilling thing. We were young in our 20s. We had an 8 and a half million dollar record deal. The memories go on and on.
Favorite songs on the album? For sure “Love Leads the Way”. For sure “Rhythm from a Red Car”. All of ’em dammit! “Can’t Find My Way”, “Change of Heart”, shoot…I’m gonna name the whole damn album! “Hot Cherie”, of course. We probably could’ve done like a Men at Work album. We could’ve taken each song and created a whole album around each song and had a hit on each album, but anyway, we threw them all on one album and that was about the end of that *laughs*.
Well it’s still a classic and holds up very strong to this day.
JG: Thank you!
You’ve also been the longtime singer for Crush 40, who are best known for their association with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. I wanted to ask you specifically about your involvement in a game from my youth, Sonic Heroes, and its accompanying theme song. How many games in were you at that point and what do you recall of that era?
JG: Oh man! Ok, first of all, Crush 40 fans are in the millions, as they are Sonic fans. I don’t think there is a country in the world that you can’t ask anyone involved with gaming, “Hey, do you know who Crush 40 is?” and they would never say no. So Crush 40 developed some of the most epic gaming songs in history. We sold $300, $400 million dollars worth of games, and I just recently learned that because I don’t care about the money part. I’m in this for the art, not for the money.
Sonic Heroes, and I’m thinking of a story. I remember Jun Senoue coming to my studio in Los Angeles. I have my studio in the house. And I remember him describing how he wanted that song to sound. *sings* “Sonic heroes, heroes, heroes!” He wanted that overlapping. I’ll never forget that. I can imagine him singing it, as I have full recall in my brain. I don’t know how many games in that was. I know we did Adventure and Adventure 2. Heroes didn’t come that much later than Sonic Adventure, if I recall, but I’m the worst with that. I’ve never even played the games! I’m not a gamer bro! I would shut it off in 30 seconds.
I had a friend who wanted to show me some of these things like Adventure 2. “Live and Learn”, one of the biggest songs ever. I’ve never played it and I do it on purpose. I don’t want to be attached to any specific character because it could affect my writing. I write for the scene or I write for the game theme and that’s it. But the Crushers, these are the best fans in the world. These songs still live in their hearts and it was a time period, I know you know from your youth, that was just a feel-good, safe place to be. It was fun and safe. There’s a Crush 40 Discord server and I jump on and talk to all the fans. There’s thousands on that server, so if your readers want to join the server, go ahead and do that. I pop in and talk and answer questions. It was just a very important part of a lot of peoples lives in that time period.
You’re right. I remember playing Heroes on the GameCube when I was about 5 years old. I remember those songs and the gameplay. I remember coming really close to finishing it. Fast forward to junior high and I’m really getting into metal, trying to discover every band I can. I come across Hardline’s “Hot Cherie” and I was like, “Wait, I know that voice!” Then I put 1 and 1 together and boom!
JG: That’s it! Joe, you’re right. I’ve been so lucky, so blessed that all that music did, like I said earlier, cross pollinate, where a Crush fan would like a Hardline song. Now with Enemy Eyes, what’s so crazy, is a lot of the gaming fans and the Crush 40 fans are saying, “Woah man! “The Chase” could be on this game or it could be on that game!” And you know what? They’re not wrong. It really could work. It’s just really cool man. There’s this whole world of music that’s just being coordinated together. It’s just cool. I love it.
What are your plans going into 2023, whether it be involving Hardline, Axel Rudi Pell, or other various projects?
JG: OK, so here’s where we’re at. Next month, December, starts a new Axel Rudi Pell ballads album that we’re gonna record. Then January starts a new writing and production for the new Hardline album. That’s then followed by gaming events, touring with Hardline all around the world. I’m on tour with Axel Rudi Pell. We’re planning Enemy Eyes touring. We’re just not sure if we’ll make it happen in ’23 because we really want to build that fanbase. It’s new. It’s metal.
So we’re gonna take a little bit of time because we also want to do a really nice live presentation, not just 4 guys jamming, sweating, and saying goodnight. We want to put a lot of digital visuals into it and real live characters onstage to create a theme, a show, a theatrical event, where you come to an Enemy Eyes show and you’re gonna see a theatrical production. We’re planning all that. We’re writing it all out. That’s ’23. I’m well booked into ’24 bro. And then, around ’25, I may consider doing a little more fishing than singing. I don’t know. I’m getting old man *laughs*! Holy shit, but I’m loving it.
Logistically speaking, and I know there’s a lot to take into consideration here, what are the chances Hardline tours the States, maybe not next year, but in ’24?
JG: It’s always considered for sure. Right now, it’s very, very difficult with work visas, the flight costs. Oh my God. We don’t want to gouge. It’s funny. I was just having this conversation with a gentleman this morning. When you come to a Hardline show, we are grateful. We don’t gouge you to buy a t-shirt. As a matter of fact, we make it cheaper for you to buy a t-shirt because you bought a ticket. You’ve come into the event and given your time and money. Because you’re there, you’re special. In order to make all those economics work in the U.S., we gotta have an extensive tour. These travel costs have to be in line. We would have to charge so much to make it all work and I don’t want to do that to the fans. So there’s a lot of logistic things. It’s not that I don’t want to play here. It’s just difficult right now. We’ll see what happens in a year or two!
The new Enemy Eyes album, History’s Hand, is available now on Frontiers Records. For more information on Johnny Gioeli and all his projects, visit www.facebook.com/johnnygioeliofficial/.