Shannon Wilk – What made you want to play guitar over any other instrument?
Bill Leverty – “I just fell in love with the way it sounded. When I was a kid, I had a couple of records where the guitar was prominent. I had a José Feliciano record, he was a flamenco guitar player, and I listened to that a lot. I also had a Creedence Clearwater Revival record with a lot of guitar-oriented songs. I also had the Simon and Garfunkel Greatest Hits record and most of those were guitar songs other than ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ which was a keyboard song. I think listening to music based on guitar really made my ear gravitate toward that instrument.”
Shannon – What is one Firehouse song that you didn’t expect to get popular but did?
Bill Leverty – “Hmm. Well honestly, I didn’t really expect any of them to get popular. I was so happy some did. That’s a really hard question because I try to manage my expectations. We all try to write songs that we felt were good and songs we would enjoy playing all the time. We didn’t really know if anything would get popular or not. The one we didn’t think would get popular but did, for me, would be “Sleeping With You”. I thought it was more of a sleeper-track. But the record company released it as a single and when the record company puts their money behind something, you’ve got a good shot of having it played on the radio a few times and when something is played on the radio a few times, people tend to get familiar with it and they want to hear it again. So I think that would be my answer for that question.”
Shannon – Is there a possibility for a new Firehouse album in the future?
Bill Leverty – “Absolutely, we’ve just gotta get started on it. We do between 55 and 60 shows a year and they’re all fly dates. We get up real early in the morning and we get home real late. It takes us a few days to recover. So doing that over the last 10-15 years, it’s been hard to take time off and get everybody together to write and record and mix and master an album. We plan to do it, but our live schedule is pretty full every year. So that’s what’s been slowing us down as far as getting us in the studio and recording a new album.”
Shannon – What did you find to be the best and worst part of the music scene in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s?
Bill Leverty – “From my experience in the ‘90s, the best part was when we got on MTV. MTV had such a powerful force in the industry. If you had a song on MTV, you would have gigs pretty much all over the world. I’d say the worst part of the music industry in the ‘90s would be when MTV stopped playing music of our genre and all the radio stations followed. That was the worst.”
Shannon – You touched on your experience with MTV so from your perspective as a rock musician of that time, how important was MTV for getting your name out there?
Bill Leverty – “It was huge for us. Everybody watched MTV back then. Videos were a big part of promotion of music back then. It was enormous the amount of power they got from when they started to their peak. They had so much money behind them and so much power. If you could get your video played on MTV, you could get more gigs and sell more records. Those were the good ol’ days.”
Shannon – When you first decided to start making solo music, what were your biggest goals?
Bill Leverty – “My goals weren’t really all that big, I just wanted to put out some music I had accumulated. I wanted people to hear a different side of me as an artist. Firehouse always gave me plenty of room to be able to do that but there were a few songs that I had that didn’t sound like or fit Firehouse. It also allowed me to sing them. So that would be it.”
Shannon – Your latest album, ‘Divided We Fall’, has been a long time coming. Now that the album is released, are you happy with how people have received it?
Bill Leverty – “I’m extremely happy with how everybody has received it. It was a long time coming, as you said. I wrote the first song for the album 6 years ago. With the busy touring schedule and other projects I was involved in and family, this wasn’t my top priority. So when I wrote the first song for the album, I released it as a single. Then, when I had a good enough idea to pursue, I finished it and released it. I released most of these songs as singles with videos. Once I got 10 songs, I pressed CDs and released them as an album. The good thing about doing it that way is when you release singles you remind people that you’ve got music out. I’m a little AD/HD also and when I finish a song, I’m dying to put it out there. I can’t stand waiting until I have ten because I never know how long it will be until I have ten. SO releasing one song at a time worked really well for me.”
Shannon – When you start working on a new solo album, do you usually have a particular sound in mind or do you more so just write and see what happens?
Bill Leverty – “I write and see what happens. That’s what happened with this album too. I had no preconceived ideas but I didn’t work on a song unless it was something I felt strongly about and would enjoy listening to for many years to come. That’s the thing about this is by releasing singles, I felt like there was no filler on the album. That’s really what I wanted to do – make sure I really enjoy every song on there.”
Shannon – What’s coming up from you in the near future?
Bill Leverty – “We’re looking forward to playing more gigs. We can’t wait to go out and rock n’ roll again and get this virus behind us.”
Shannon – Absolutely. Is there anything else you’d like to include?
Bill Leverty – “Well thank you, Shannon, and thank you to all the fans who have supported us for 30 years. This is our 30 year anniversary. We can’t wait to get out there and play our first record from front to back in order. Hopefully coming to a town near you.”