With such a strong body of work to choose from Danny Vaughn clearly has a lot of confidence in new release ‘Traveller’ when he calls it “the best album of my career”. And well he might. Already given a very strong review on this site (which, in case you missed it, can be found here) this is a stunning album from start to finish and the quality of the song writing is simply outstanding. With the album release via Frontiers just around the corner HardRockHouse caught up with Danny to find out more about ‘Traveller’ and his plans to play the album live later this year.

Danny Vaughn

When we last interviewed you a couple of years back we pretty much covered all of your past career…so I thought that today we would mainly talk around the new album.

DV - Well that’s good! (laughs), you know the past is the past and it never actually changes. It is the same story!

You’ve called this the best album of your career. What makes it so special to you?

DV - I think in a way it’s the one I’ve been trying to make, subconsciously, for some time. And to me it’s a nice fusion of what I was known for in Tyketto and what I have done more recently with the Vaughn albums. It didn’t have an exact plan when I started out to do this thing other than that we had a broad outline of how we wanted it to sound and how we were going to record. And even up until the last few weeks I didn’t have all the songs completely set and determined, as a matter of fact the title track was the last one we did.

And so between that and putting together such a good sounding album at these budgets is really hard to do. A lot of these guys do stuff out of home studios and such and you can tell (laughs). That is not a slight against anybody but ‘Don’t Come Easy’ cost $250,000 to make and whilst I’m sure a lot of that was pissed down the drain it does help get that kind of sound when you can use A&M studios at $3000 a day. But Traveller’ was all done off pretty much off our own backs and when it all comes together like it has and with it being my first time completely in the producers seat and everything working out so well it really pleases me that we were able to make this album sound the way that it does.

There seem to be some recurring themes in some of the lyrics and titles…

DV - Well it is one of the first albums where I had several sort of concepts; I mean I’m not a concept sort of person really but once in a while I will have some ideas and think that would be kind of neat and so I construct something from it. I’ve always wanted to have one of my Father’s paintings on one of the album covers but never did because they didn’t coincide or whatever but this time it really worked out. My girlfriend and I were going through some prints of his from past paintings he had done and that one popped up and she just said “that’s the one, right there”. And so all that kind of stuff makes the album very intimate to me and very special that it has come out so well.

It is a very striking cover, and certainly fits with some of the titles such as ‘Badlands Rain’ and ‘The Warriors Way’.

Its definitely not your typical Photoshop album cover (laughs) which I’m very pleased about. And again, that’s not putting anybody down because people have to work within budgetary constraints but I’ve been very lucky really, I mean I worked with a great artist on the ‘Fearless’ cover and I always liked that a lot. But with this one I was so pleased because my girlfriend put it all together, the layout and she designed the logo and it is great to be surrounded by people that care very much about what you do and work with you. The reaction on the faces of the guys at Frontiers was just priceless. They just saw it and were like “Wow! We don’t have covers like this usually” and I said “you’re damn right you don’t” (laughs). My father, aside from being a very well known children’s book illustrator for more than 40 years, he lives out in the Arizona desert and does South-western American Indian art and has done for about 15 years. And it doesn’t matter that we are related I just think he is one of the best artists I have ever seen.

You’ve been touring with a British band for a couple of years now and it all seems to have really gelled in the studio…

Well it all kind of started sometime after ‘Fearless’ came out and once again we’re going to be talking about money. It became impossible financially to keep bringing five people over from America and tour at the level that we tour at. So Michael Arbeeny and I talked about it and he agreed we couldn’t keep doing it the way we were and he said “What you ought to do is round up a British band”. And Tony Marshall came to mind as we had known each other for some years and the thing I remembered the most about him was that he had a great high singing voice and with my kind of stuff it really helps to have that as very few people are able to replace Brooke from Tyketto. So I contacted him first and it worked in a domino effect from there, Tony immediately suggested Steve McKenna who was working with Ten but they were on again / off again so it didn’t really take Steve away from his work with them. Pat Heath came at me from quite a few sources; Tony was very honest and said to me “look we’re going to be playing a lot of the Tyketto stuff and I am not a Brooke type of player, we’re going to need some kind of whiz kid to come in and play that”. Now I had never had two guitarists and so that was the first time we talked about it and Pat was suggested by quite a few people, not least of which was Chris Green from Pride who is one of the best guitar players in England. Chris said to me “you have to hear this guy Pat” and so he came to me with quite a reputation. So the band kind of pieced together over time and on this album, particularly with the guitar arrangements, they recognise each others strengths, there are no egos involved, and there was no problem with them working out who should play what on the album at all.

So having two guitarists you didn’t have to step in and have the casting vote over who played what?

DV - No they worked everything out between them in pre-production and it was all very sensible. If something was more suitable for Tony’s style then he would play it and the same with Pat. And the two best moments on the album for me guitar-wise….well one is the solo on ‘Badlands Rain’ which is stunning and it should be up there anytime anybody complies the great hard rock guitar solos. And I was surprised because Pat is very musically educated guy and he can scale and shred your head off and ‘Badlands Rain’ is a vibey kind of song and I was concerned he would play it like Satriani or Malmsteen and it wouldn’t work and what I got was…well I was totally knocked out by it, its my favourite solo on the album.

And the second one is Tony’s shining moment on ‘The Touch Of Your Hand’ where all the guitars on that one are by him. He just came to me and said “I want that one” and that song had become very special to him and I said “Ok, you got it but that solo had better shine” and it really does and he worked really hard on it. The whole record was done in a very co-operative way, the drum tracks were done in just two days, all thirteen songs and that was a fantastic thing that Lee Morris was really well rehearsed because it freed up time in the studio for us to try other things and we weren’t having to watch the clock.

Lets talk about the track ’Death Of The Tiger’ which is my favourite on the album. Quite a long song for you and something of a departure…

DV - Well it’s definitely been a bit of a monster. The subject matter has to do with a place I visited in Tampa, Florida and its sort of a zoo but not like one you’ve ever been to. You can stay there overnight and they keep lots and lots of Big Cats, either ones that have been injured or circuses are trying to get rid of or they find them in killing fields where people pay money to shoot them in places like Texas. And this one woman takes them all on and you get to interact with them, and be involved with the care and the feeding…..and it just was an incredible experience to get so close to animals like that. Because most zoos will keep tigers far away from you, high up on rocks where you can look at them from a distance. So I learnt a lot about the sad state of animals in zoos and that’s where the song started in terms of what it’s about.

And then what it became was a very deep nod towards Led Zeppelin which is of course a huge influence of mine and the more we worked on it the more I thought “lets just throw the kitchen sink at it and go for it”. So we did backwards guitars and all of that and it was supposed to fade out and then after we put the keyboards on it I couldn’t bring myself to do it. This is one of the songs on the album fans are going to argue about, I always have an oddball kind of song on my albums and this is the one. Melodic Rock fans are split down the middle about Zeppelin, there are quite a few that didn’t get it and so I have a feeling they will debate this one but it’s an absolute favourite of mine.

And it’s one that will presumably be a challenge to play live?

DV - It will be, yes. We’re not doing it right now, we just want to let the album sink in before we attempt to do it live. But I’ve always taken the Queen attitude of playing live which is “don’t try to sound like the album” which Queen never did, apart from using tapes for the mid-section of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ they did everything else as a four piece band. So we have got Johnny bringing his keyboards over for the release party but overall I don’t think they will become a regular part of the live band.

So, after the release party, when so you hope to do get out and play some more shows?

DV -Well aside from the release party we’ve got a couple booked at the moment in May. May 11th we’re playing in Belfast at The Rosetta and May 12th we’re playing JB’s in Dudley which is a favourite spot of ours, and I’m hoping that we’ll fit in some more British dates around those two. In the meantime I’m going to be in Scandinavia in March and April doing a co-headline tour with Terry Brock and I’m really looking forward to that because it will get me to places I’ve never been such as Finland and anytime you get the chance to play somewhere you’ve never been before its just that little bit more exciting. And aside from Finland I haven’t been to Sweden or Norway for around 20 years so it will be just that little bit different.

‘The Warriors Way’ is more of a Metal song. Tell us a little about that one

DV - Yeah, that one, ‘Death Of The Tiger’ and ‘Miracle Days’ were all written with the thought that “Well we’ve got two guitarists now” and so we really need to use that and make the most of it and ‘Warrior’ started out intentionally to be written for Bob Catley. He and I have been friends for quite a while now and I’m still hoping I might write something for his next album. So I started listening to his material and his songs tend to go along epic storytelling lines, there’s usually a castle in there somewhere (laughs). And I thought well I never do that, my songs are usually more personal and so for this I wanted to try and go epic.

It’s really a conglomerate of a lot of things but one of the things that started it was that there were a group of Indians within the tribes that were referred to as the Dog Soldiers, a very special warrior society. When they went on to the battlefield they would take a very long spear with them and there would be rope at one end and the other end would tie around the warriors ankle and he would drive the spear into the ground whilst the enemy charged. And that was his way of saying to the enemy “I’m not moving, I stand or fall right here”

You mentioned Bob Catley there and of course you played some shows with him a little while back

DV - Yes and you know it’s a funny thing but no matter how much music you listen too some bands get past you and Magnum was a band I never really caught onto at all. Before we did that tour I didn’t even know any of his stuff and I would listen backstage or watch him from the side of the stage and I thought “this guy has got a really quality voice” and it’s a voice you really want to listen to and so we became buddies and he is a really easy guy to get along with. Buy him a scotch and your friends for life! (laughs). You know he and I are of the same mind in that no matter what happens he never loses sight that you are here because the audience wants you to be. Therefore no matter what goes on you do the show to the best of your ability and he always does and he’s very close to his fan base which is something I greatly appreciate.

There’s a quote here from the interview you did for us a couple of years back where you said “I have been encouraging a lot of different people in the melodic rock industry to take a step back and not be so competitive with each other. Working together we can still make a lot of great things happen”. How much progress do you think has been made since then?

DV - Well I think I was making that statement with regard to all of the little melodic rock record companies that were all a bit like kids in the playground, picking on each other. I think that we have made some kind of progress in that there are now links between AOR Heaven and Frontiers and Escape but overall….I don’t really know…because Frontiers is like the last man standing; a lot of them have gone now and I‘ve had my ups and downs with some of them over the years. It’s a funny little world and very few chances are taken. But I am hopeful for us that Frontiers will increase the bands profile with this record. They’re not giving me the excuse that “Well you haven’t given us a really strong album” so we’ll see what they can pull out of the hat (laughs)

After producing ’Traveller’ are you keen to try your hand at outside production?

DV - Yes, I would love to. Absolutely, I think its something I have got a real knack for, I co-produced the two before this one and I think I have got a pretty good feel for it. But the hardest part is really the business side of it and if you are dealing with a band dynamic…people you have never been in the studio with before….then there is always the chance that somebody won’t be able to perform and will have performers anxiety. But we got very lucky there was no freezing point, everyone came through.

And a final question on Tyketto, do you think you have achieved closure now or might we see the band play together again at some point?

Well we are all still talking and the door definitely remains open for us to do “something” together again at some point in the future. I think I would draw the line at recording together again because what we had at the time…with us all being together in the same place and focusing just on the band and all of the money being put back into the band…you know we can never have that situation again, people have moved on. But we certainly would consider performing together again for a few gigs.

Well we’ll keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Many thanks to Danny for his time and to Steve for setting up the interview. You have probably guessed by now that we at HardRockHouse think that ‘Traveller’ is a very special album but don’t just take our word for it. Check it out for yourself and when Vaughn come to a town near you in May give them the support they deserve.

Related Links

Danny Vaughn - Official Website

Danny Vaughn - Newcastle Gig And Ticketing Information

Danny Vaughn - Traveller Release Party Review

Danny Vaughn - Traveller CD Review