Transcript of an interview I recorded with DAN BEEHLER of EXCITER - 20200306. Full article here. MAL-
Dan from EXCITER on the line. Thanks for taking my call. DAN- Great. Nice to hear from you, man. Thank you. MAL- It's great to have you on. coming from Canada in the late 70s, were you aware that you were breaking new ground playing the type of music you were? DAN- Not really. I mean, we got together in 79 but 'Heavy Metal Maniac', you know, in 83 our first song that went around the world was called 'World War Three' that came out on US Metal compilation, Shrapnel Records, in 1982. But there was some hard years '79 up until '82 gelling as writers, you know, fighting the industry, being from Ottawa, Canada, which is a government city and not necessarily a music town like Toronto or Montreal. All the odds were against us and the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal really, you know, we were influenced by heavy bands in the '70s up until that point obviously Black Sabbath along the way really Judas Priest, but once the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal came along that really sparked us But to answer your question 'no' when 'Heavy Metal Maniac' when we did 'Heavy Metal Maniac' we had no idea what was about to happen in the next few years. MAL- Now, I've always thought it must be difficult to drum and sing at the same time but in your type of music, especially so. How did you end up as a singer? We use the singer right from the start? DAN- No, actually, for about the first year John was the lead singer. His voice wasn't too good and Al threw in some vocals here and there and sang a few songs. And we were doing some AC/DC cover songs at the time, a bunch of other ones too. But you know, it's one rehearsal and roadies have set up a mic for me, and I was on my way to be in trying to be Neil Peart, like every other Canadian kid, you know, 17-18 years old. So I sang the very first song I sang for EXCITER was TNT by AC/DC and my brother and the roadies, were all jumping up and down going, 'You're the singer, you're the singer'. I always thought of it as a temporary thing. You know, okay, I have the best voice. Okay, I'm going to start singing. At first I sang a bit with John and then I took over completely, and it was always just a vehicle until we get a singer, you know? When you're young like that, and you're a band, you just want to play, you just want to get out and play live, whatever it takes. So I rolled with it, and as you know, we started to do Judas Priest, like I said, AC/DC always screaming, Iron Maiden stuff early covers, you know, 80-81 I had the chorus board and I could do a scream and then that would lead into our writing of 'Heavy Metal Maniac'. Not that I was Halford or Dickinson or anything but, you know, I kind of got forced into drumming and singing, and then when we first started touring, when we 'Heavy Metal Maniac' really took off, people would come to the gigs because they couldn't believe how, you know, there's no way this guy can call this off. You know, I always did. I still do today. So it's it's very unique But no, I didn't set off to do it. I was kind of forced into it, and then once our first album took off, it was just like, Okay, well, I guess I'm the singer, my Neil Peart dreams kind of went out the window at that point. MAL- Why did the band split up? DAN- Well, how there's a million reasons for that, but to make a long story short, by the time we got to the Black Album, which was called 'O.T.T.' in Europe, you know, the industry had just left us behind. We had no money. I thought at the time that Brian McPhee sort of took over the writing. And if we would have stayed on the path of the unveiling the wicked album, I think, even a little heavier... but anyways, it was just it ran its course. And I was just I was tired of it, the black album came out. We had no tours or anything. And I just left. I was finished from 79 to 88. I was just done. And even though EXCITER had a bit of success with those first few albums up until '85, when John left and with 'Unveiling The Wicked' too, we were a broken band business wise, we had no money up to that point. Everything was, everything was a fight, and I was just done. I was finished. I didn't want to do EXCITER anymore. I just wanted to go off and either do something else or just get away from it. MAL- How did it feel when he might say the original power trio got back together in 2014? Did you feel like you know, (you were) 'getting the band back together'. DAN- God it was something that we thought would never happen. I thought it would never ever happened in my lifetime. So it was great. The first jam we had 2014 was like we'd taken a week off and yeah, it was great. It was a great feeling to have the original band back together. MAL- Tell us about Daniel DeKay. DAN- Well, I tell you, Al and I feel like we're in the best version of EXCITER ever. He lives in Toronto, but he's originally from Ottawa, our hometown, and through friends and family members and through my daughter, he's been a friend for many years, and he's been in, he was in a local band called AGGRESSOR, which I've seen him many times, met his dad many times and people that know him, and when he called up to audition, right away, a lot of guitarist sent in stuff on the internet to, you know, because they knew John had left the band and they wanted to try out for the band and God bless them and there was tonnes of really good guitarists but as soon as DeKay called me, I just knew that he was the guy and because I knew his character, I knew how he could play, I knew just about everything about him and I told Al and Al said, 'You know, I don't even want to listen to that any more of the list' and I said 'No disrespect to any of those guys that send stuff in but' and then he came out for the first rehearsal and did the whole set for the first show. And it was like he'd been playing with us for years. And he's such a great player, and he's so good on stage. And, you know, everybody says he's the kid but he's, he's super professional at what he does, and handles all of our business and stuff. So, you know, that was a bonus. And so we really lucked out and it's like, we got a family member instead of, you know, going out into the world and getting somebody and bringing them into EXCITER and getting to know them. It's like we've known him for years. So we really lucked out getting DeKay. We're super happy with him. MAL- Right now. Take your mind back. Starting out in Ottawa in '79. 2020, you're touring Australia. Now, you couldn't have foreseen that. How did this happen? DAN- Oh, man. No way I mean, you know, even 10 years ago, I had my own band DEALER and John had EXCITER. But like I said, we would have never thought EXCITER would come back together. And every show we play like 2019 and 2020 it's just like, you know, we got a second chance and we never did get to Australia back in the day. So you know, it's a first in that sense, but just to go out there and do those first four albums for all the fans that never saw us and like you said, it's 2020 it's sometimes we gotta give our head a shake and just go oh, my God, you know, we're so lucky that we can, we can still do this and there's still a fan base. MAL- So, did I detect that the setlist is going to be based around the first four albums? DAN- Yes. Yeah, they were the main albums. We do 'World War Three' in the set, which was our first song to get us known around the world and then 'Heavy Metal Maniac'. But those first four albums are key albums and the fans love it, the younger fans love it. And we're just working on a new album right now. We're going to be shopping a demo in the next few months and as soon as we secure a deal we'll record the album. And it'll be obviously with Daniel DeKay and it's 2020 EXCITER. And we're pretty excited about it. We really want to get a new record out there. MAL- Hey, Dan Beehler from EXCITER, thanks so much for taking my call. Looking forward to you touring Australia with Venom Inc. in June. Can't wait. Thanks for thanks for talking to me today. DAN- Thank you so much, and we can't wait to come out and pound some Metal in Australia. We'll see you at the show. Comments are closed.
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AuthorMetalhead who hates bad parking. |