Published: Friday, 21 October 2022 23:29 | Written by NI Rocks |
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Singer Tony Mitchell contacted us recently to make sure we had a copy of “Unfinished Business”, the new album from Mitchell’s Kiss of the Gypsy. I took the opportunity to arrange a chat with Tony to talk about the new album, his solo albums, the Dirty White Boyz release and more. The interview was recorded on 18th October and can be heard on the Friday NI Rocks Show that was uploaded on 21st October - available now via our MixCloud site. You’ll also hear three tracks from “Unfinished Business” as well as solo tracks and two tracks from Dirty White Boyz.
MITCHELL’S KISS OF THE GYPSY – Eye of the Hurricane
Interview with TONY MITCHELL Part 1 (7 min)
MITCHELL’S KISS OF THE GYPSY – Runaways
Interview with TONY MITCHELL Part 2 (9 min)
TONY MITCHELL – The Mighty Fall (ft Danny Vaughn)
Interview with TONY MITCHELL Part 3 (5 min)
MITCHELL’S KISS OF THE GYPSY – Duty to Party
DIRTY WHITE BOYZ – Dynamite
DIRTY WHITE BOYZ – Ride With Angels
TONY MITCHELL – Hot Endless Summer Nights
WHITEABBEY – Guardian
AVANTASIA – Kill The Pain Away
DRAGONLAND – The Power of the Nightstar
TURKISH DELIGHT – Harder They Fall
TURKISH DELIGHT – Bad to Good
AUTOGRAPH – To Be Together
RILEY’S LA GUNS – Overdrive
MAMMOTH MVH – Talk & Walk
ENEMY EYES – History’s Hand
LEATHER – Who Rules The World
LIV SIN – Antihero
SANDSTONE – King of Cipher
NI ROCKS – Hi Tony, thanks for taking some time to talk to Rock Radio NI. We just heard a track from the new album from Mitchell’s Kiss of the Gypsy which has been released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the first Kiss of the Gypsy album back in 1992. First of all, can you tell us what made you decide to do the album now?
TONY - Well, it was unintentional really, because I was in the middle of recording my fourth solo album. And the intention was to put a couple, two, maybe three songs at the end of the album that I was working on back in the day with Kiss of the Gypsy when I was writing for the second album. I just had various riffs and what have you. So I was going to put that on the solo album for this year; so as to mark the 30th anniversary celebration. But as I started doing that, it became... noticeable that they started taking a life of their own these tracks and I thought well it's sort of speaking for itself and the more and more tracks I wrote the more I thought well, wait a minute I've got five nearly six tracks here why not just finish the album bring it out and we can postpone the solo album till next year because, I mean, I only brought the “Hot Endless Summer Nights” solo album last year. So, it's time to just take a break, put this out, and then come back to that next year. And as I say, it just took shape and they took a lot on a life of their own. And especially having these guys on board, it was pretty special.
NI ROCKS – Are all the tracks brand new or has anything resurfaced from that period in the 90s?
TONY - There was, I mean, there's stuff like “Sin City Blues”, which was a riff that I had, I was working on back in '92, '93, as was “Too Much Love”. The “Too Much Love” riff is actually lifted off the actual recording from '93. I used to just do it on an old, like, four-tracker or a tape recorder. That's what my writing thing, the sort of formula was, back then. So those two tracks were pretty much born from those riffs. But the rest of it's just completely fresh and new. But obviously trying to think of back when, where my head was back in '91, '92, because I wanted that vibe. I wanted that sort of early '90s rock vibe that we all love, I'm sure.
NI ROCKS - Do you want to tell us who you've got playing on the album alongside you and who you worked with for production, etc?
TONY - Well, we had Paul Hume, who I've worked with before in Dirty White Boys. He's also in Demon and Lawless, as is Neil Ogden, the drummer. He's in the same band and worked with him as well. There's Darryl Treece-Birch, who just literally lives up the road from me. We've always been lifelong friends. He plays keyboards with Ten. He just was more than happy to work on this album with me. And also Nigel Clutterbuck from Dare playing bass. So it's quite a special lineup. It just came together really well.
NI ROCKS - Okay, and in terms of production, mixing, etc. Who did you work with?
TONY - It was just basically me because it wasn't anything outstanding. There weren't major keyboard parts or orchestral instrumentation. There was, I mean, “Wild Horses” is quite big on production, and “Time to Hear” was a big gospel thing. But apart from that, there was basically just layered guitars, layered harmonies, bass and keyboards. So it was just back to basics, so it was pretty much me at the helm.
NI ROCKS – Did you all get together in the studio to record together or were people doing their bits at home and sending them in. That seems to be the way a lot of things happen these days.
TONY - Well we did the drum tracking at a place called ‘Synchronized’ in Stoke-on-Trent. I went down there and Neil put his drums down to the tracks. The rest of the stuff was just sent, you know, on stems because I just sent the demos and they obviously put their bits on and put their stamp on it and everything. So, yeah. It seems to be the way of the world these days.
NI ROCKS – The album is released by MR Records in Australia on CD and on vinyl as well. Will both those formats get a European release as well?
TONY - Well, I'm hoping so, to be honest. Communication is quite hard because obviously they're in Australia and in the UK and then they get the marketing guys in the States. But it's been delayed; it was delayed a little bit, so it's only just been released as of the last week or so. But yes, that's what I'm led to believe that obviously it's a CD release and on the vinyl, I think Peter Hoffman from MR Records said it won't be shipped until 24th of November.
NI ROCKS - It's a nice looking vinyl. I was looking on the website, it's a nice looking vinyl.
TONY - Yeah, it'll be brilliant. I mean, that's one of the things that sold me because obviously having a vinyl is just, it's just the best. And I said to him, you know, as long as I get a few vinyls and a couple of CDs, I'm all right.
NI ROCKS - That sounds great. Are you a vinyl collector?
TONY - Well yeah; I mean I used to have loads to be honest, absolutely tons, but we when we moved house I lost all my collection. So I'm just basically picking. Every car boot sale I'm there you know but the thing is you're only left with Val Doonican and Max.Bygraves.
NI ROCKS - You go out looking, hunting for hours and find nothing but the usual culprits.
TONY – And they’re so expensive; aren’t they!
NI ROCKS – We’ll play another track from “Unfinished Business” now. Do you want to pick a track and tell us something about it?
TONY - I can only say “Runaways” because it's the lead track from the album. It's one of the tracks that sort of links to Kiss of the Gypsy the strongest, I think, because it's got elements of a bit of “From the Dirt” in it as well. And it also tells a story - if it's something you believe in, your dream you believe in, whether you're working a nine to five job and you just want to play guitar at the end of the day, or go and play clubs and stuff, or even make the big time, just go ahead and do it. And that's what this one is about.
NI ROCKS – We’ll chat some more about Kiss of the Gypsy later, but I wanted to talk about some of your other recent work as well. You mentioned earlier, back in 2017 you released the Dirty White Boyz album “Down and Dirty” via Escape Music. The line-up included a couple of the guys who play on the new album “Unfinished Business” as well. How did that band come together at that stage?
TONY - That was a weird one because I was sort of out of the loop a little bit. I do a lot of writing for people. I do a lot of recordings for people and all I'd done was acoustic gigs and play my own songs and Kiss of the Gypsy songs and what have you. But I've always been writing and I went back to basics. I thought because I've done a lot of heavier stuff and written heavy metal stuff - I've done the Boneyard Zombies stuff which is like psychobilly stuff; I've done Puppet Master which is bordering on Rob Zombie. I've been all down them roads but so I finally came back to melodic rock / AOR. I thought well this is a box that I've not I've not gone back to since well before Kiss of the Gypsy when I was in a band called Fantasia and it was always very AOR / melodic. I thought I'd like to go down that route again and I started writing again and recording and I thought I'll just throw it out to a few companies because previous to then when I'd been sending stuff off with the bands that I mentioned, The Kingdom of Dead Men and Zombies and what have you, they all said the same thing, they all wanted you to pay thousands for them to release it. I couldn't get my head round that and thought that's the way companies are these days. I did about six songs. I threw it out there and there was a couple of the ones that I sent them to that was really interested. Obviously the Kiss of the Gypsy name and said, can we release it? I just wanted to know a bit more about them and all that. Well, Khalil from Escape got back to me and said, have you done all this yourself? I said, well, yes, I have because they're in demo form. He said, would you mind if I put a band around it? And the first thing I asked was, well, how much is that going to cost you? Because, knowing from previous emails that I've done to record companies, but he said, well, nothing because the Gypsy name. We all know who you are and putting a band around it that people know, like Nigel Bailey, it would be a good thing. And he sent it to these guys and they loved it. So they climbed on board and we recorded it. We did that between my place and Paul Hume's place. He's got his own studio. Well, he had his own studio, but it's not there anymore. So he mixed and mastered that.
NI ROCKS – Was there ever any intention that the band would tour or do something more than that; or is there going to be another album at some stage from that band?
TONY - Yes, there was, but the trouble is, Nigel had a full-time job, but he was getting a bit disillusioned because I think he'd signed quite a few album deals with Frontiers, and they're a bit weird about their artists playing with other people and all that, and it didn't want to give too much away. It got a little bit frustrated. Also, Demon were busy and they were in Lawless as well, so it was hard getting all the band together. I mean, we did a couple of gigs, but it would have, I think it would have took off if we would have all committed to it. It's just sort of fizzled out because everyone was so busy because I had a backlog of stuff to finish too.
NI ROCKS – We’ll play something from “Down And Dirty” later in the Show. Is there a favourite track from that album or which one would you pick to play?
TONY - Well, there's quite a lot on that album that I really like. I like “Dynamite” and I like “Ride with Angels” is one of my favourites. So if you want it rocky, then “Dynamite” or “All She Wrote”, or if you want a softer touch, you've got “Ride with Angels”.
NI ROCKS – OK, we'll pick one of those and put it on later on. Since the release of that album, you've released three solo albums, starting with “Beggar's Gold” back in 2018. Three solo albums in four years is obviously a lot of tracks. Had you been gathering tracks over a number of years or was it a case of writing afresh for each album?
TONY – Writing fresh, to be honest. “Beggar's Gold” was, I mean, I had some great ideas at the time and they came straight off the bat, as did “Church of a Restless Soul”. So it was quite quick. I knew exactly what lyrics I had in mind, what melodies I had in line and what sort of production I wanted from those. “Hot Endless Summer Nights” was a weird one because I always wanted to write an album. Earlier, I mentioned about when I was with Fantasia. In '89, we went to America for the first time because I'd just signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell. So the manager and I, we went to America, we went to all different states. We were there for about nearly two months and there were different investors who wanted to get involved. Some of them saw me as the next Richard Marx, so they wanted to go down that road. Others wanted to put a band and make it more Bon Jovi and this, that and the other. So we just went over to see what they had to say. But the times we had there was just incredible. And the sights and the sounds and all that always stayed with me. So I started writing this album and also I was getting into, are you familiar with synthwave or retro wave? Well, I was into that sort of thing as well, just writing tracks for that. And I thought, this could, if you could morph the two, the AOR and the retro wave together, you would have that 80s vibe, that sort of late 80s vibe. So, basically, it was two projects come together as one for that album, all sort of commemorating the times I had in America in '89.
NI ROCKS – There are some familiar names from your other projects on those albums, Neil Ogden, Paul Hume, Nigel Bailey you've mentioned, but there are also some guests too, Danny Vaughn, also Sue Willets from Dante Fox. Do those tracks with guest vocalists start off with an idea in your head of who you’re writing for or does that come afterwards?
TONY - The Sue Willets one was definitely a dual thing because it had a female part to it, obviously a lot higher than what I could get. And I sort of knew them from when we did a gig at the Just Say Yes Festival with Dirty White Boyz. Dante Fox was on there as well, so I knew them from that. I emailed Tim to see if Sue would be interested in doing it, and also if he wanted to play guitar on it, which he did. And I sent him the track and he loved it. They went into the studio in Telford, I think it was, did the vocal straight away, sent it and it was great. The Danny Vaughn one, well, this track, it screamed to have a second vocal on it. And I'd already done a few gigs with Danny Vaughn acoustically, and we seemed to strike it off pretty well. We had a few jams when he got me up and we were jamming a few Paul Rogers songs and Free songs and Bad Company and all that. We sort of struck up a bit of rapport there. So when I was doing “The Mighty Fall” which at that time was very much acoustic driven I thought I'll just send it to Danny and if he fancies doing a bit then that'd be great, if not it's okay. It's a good song and he got back and he absolutely loved the track and he just said do you want me to do my thing and then mix it and I said you do whatever you want and we'll make it work. It was quite a special moment to hear it all put together.
NI ROCKS - Yeah it's a great track We'll play something from those solo albums now. Obviously, you have three albums out there, so you have plenty to pick from. Which one would you want to play?
TONY - Well, while we're on the subject, “The Mighty Fall” would be good.
NI ROCKS – The latest solo album, which you mentioned, was “Hot Endless Summer Nights” in 2021. When might we see the next solo album? We just kind of referred to it being delayed a bit because of the new album. What stage of writing or recording is that at?
TONY - The fourth album, the new one, “Top of the World”. It's about 60% done. It's in pretty much demo form. Some are more advanced than others. I always like to have - if I've got 10 or 11 songs, I like to have about 15 to pick from. And basically it needs to run pretty smoothly; but it's sounding really good. I've got to get my head back into it now though. That's the only thing. Just remembering where my head was at the time.
NI ROCKS – Any prospect of more guest appearances on that album or who are you working with?
TONY - I haven't thought about it, to be honest. There could be. There were a few tracks that probably lend towards anyone who would like to guest on it, vocal or otherwise. But at the moment, it's just in pretty much demo form, so I won't know until a bit further down the line.
NI ROCKS – Getting back to Mitchell’s Kiss of the Gypsy. With the release of “Unfinished Business” has there been any discussion about any live shows or even touring to support the album?
TONY - Well, yeah, we got the old WhatsApp group and we shared conversations about where do you want to take this? Because it would work live because the tracks on the album would work live anyway. And also you've got the back catalogue of the Gypsy album. But we went into it with no preconceptions about attacking the world, setting the world alight again with Gypsies or anything. We said we'll do it as a 30th anniversary. If people got the appetite for it and it takes off, we'll look at that, maybe a few festival slots or we'll take it from there. You've got Dare who're quite a busy band. You've got Ten who's busy and obviously Demon are always out and about. So we'll take it from there. I mean we will never rule anything out about doing shows. Certainly to gig the new stuff would be definitely a priority because I think that's what one of the qualms I had when I used to meet the other guys from the old Gypsies, was they only wanted to do the old stuff and were never interested in recording any new stuff.
NI ROCKS – Obviously early days, but any thought of doing something else, another album after this?
TONY - There's talk of me doing another Puppet Master album, which obviously again is very heavy metal. It's more goth horror type thing; because we do a version of “Sweet Dreams” and it's on something like 7 million view / clicks. It's only the two of us. It's me and the front man. I obviously play guitar and the rest of the stuff, but there's a lot of appetite for that. He wanted to record a new album. So if we can, if we can fit that in next year, then we'll try and do that, but it's not the top priority yet.
NI ROCKS - And anything more from Mitchell's Kiss of the Gypsy, you think, or is that?
TONY - Yeah, well, there again, it's the appetite for it. There's no reason why not. I think the whole purpose was to get something out as a 30th anniversary celebrations because it'd be wrong not to do something. And obviously, really we should have done it last year because the album, the original album, was supposed to be out in '91. which would have been a different story with Gypsies because obviously by '92, the grunge movement started to enforce. If we'd have released it when we should have done, it would have been a different story, I think. All buts and maybes!
NI ROCKS – We’ll finish with another track from “Unfinished Business”. Do you want to pick a track and tell us something about it?
TONY - Well, I'm going to choose “Duty to Party” because it was written because of all the years we've had with the COVID, he says, speaking with COVID. But yeah, all those years we've had with the lockdowns and stuff like that. I thought, here's a feel good track that everyone could let their hair down a little bit. You know, the weekends here, kick your shoes off, get your dancing shoes on and turn it up and just enjoy. So it's one of those tracks that'll just set you up nicely for the weekend.
NI ROCKS - Okay, we'll play that one. Again, thanks for taking the time to talk to us and good luck with the album.
