Chuck Wright
House of Lords issued their eponymous self-tilted debut album in 1988. House of Lords was essentially a Giuffria spin-off which featured keyboardist Gregg Giuffria. House of Lords helped launch (the now defucnt) Simmons Records which was owned by none other than KISS’ Gene Simmons.
House of Lords debuted in Billboard’s Top 200 chart at No. 78. The album was produced by Andy Johns who had worked with the likes of The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Humble Pie and Free among others. It also featured co-writing or writing credit from Stan Bush, David Glen Eisley (Giuffria), Johnny Warman and Mandy Meyer (Asia) and Rick Nielson (Cheap Trick).
Oregon Music News caught up with House of Lords bassist Chuck Wright to talk about the House of Lords debut album. Chuck as you well know has played with the likes of Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent, and (currently with) Quiet Riot among others. We picked his brain about his recollections of the writing and recording of this underground classic.
Were the songs featured on House of Lord’s debut album meant for use for a Giuffria album? The reason I ask is that there’s four songs that were co-written by David Glen Eisley made the cut.
Originally David Glen Eisley was to be the singer in this new band I was putting together with Gregg Giuffria but Gene Simmons, who we were signing with, wanted someone else. Someone with a new voice, then it would truly be a new band in his mind I guess.
When House of Lords surfaced Gene Simmons described the band’s sound as a cross between ELP and Led Zeppelin. Those were some big words. Did you guys feel more pressure to deliver the goods?
Not that much pressure really, all the guys in this band were top notch so it fell together rather quickly. We did the entire album in 30 days including mixing.
In revisiting House of Lords I have found that while the album sounds 80s— it’s aged well. The songs are great. What’s your take on the album in retrospect?
I think there are some great songs on the debut like “Under Blue Skies,” “Hearts of the World,” “Pleasure Palace” and “Love Don’t Lie.” I wish we could remix it though. Andy Johns was the engineer and producer; he went a bit heavy on the reverb for my taste. I find it unlistenable for the most part. Check out the “Live in the UK” album we put out in 2005. It has some of the debut material & sounds fantastic.
How many producers did you guys consider before hiring Andy Johns? What was it like to work with him being that he had such a great history and track record in the world of hard rock?
I didn’t really have a say so in that but was excited about working with such an icon in the business…someone that had actually worked with Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones that was very cool! I worked with him on the Giuffria debut album as well. It was too bad that he started to drink himself silly daily and paid the ultimate price for doing so; passing do to excess. I’ll never forget during the mixing of the Giuffria record, Andy and Gregg were wrestling on the floor knocking things all over the place. He was a real character and had so many stories. He should’ve written a book or maybe I should have had a tape recorder going the whole time and written one for him. There were some real gems about Keith Richards and Jimmy Page or ‘Pagie’ as he called him.
Gunner Kal photography 2013
What do you remember about writing and recording the songs for the album?
We put the material together separately, we worked in pairs and all together. Each song had its own unique development. “Love Don’t Lie” was a song I heard Stan Bush perform at a local club and always remembered it. When we were looking to outside material I brought that one in. Oddly enough, Stan and I have a group now called ‘Acoustic Saints’ and play locally. We do the song from time to time. We’re currently recording an acoustic tribute to Led Zeppelin called ‘UnZepped.’
I think the lyrics on songs like “Under Blue Skies” are exceptional which was mostly Lanny Cordola’s doing. As you said, a few of the songs were demos we did with David Eisley so he had penned those lyrics. I wrote the lyrics to “Hearts of the World” after President Reagan’s plea to bring the Berlin Wall down.
Can you comment on a handful of the standout tracks on the album? “Pleasure Palace” sets up the album nicely.
Yes, it’s a great opener for the album and we used as an opener live as well. It’s a very musical piece and very fun to play.
”I Wanna Be Loved” was the first single and received decent airplay and the video was on rotation on MTV.
The interesting back-story on the video; it was based entirely on Helmut Newton images who is one of my favorite photographers. They are actual scenes which were recreated that are depicted in his photos. We also had a frontal nudity version that aired on the Playboy channel. Gene Simmons was and always wants to push the envelope. I mean, he even has things like KISS condoms. That was his idea of course.
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”Lookin’ for Strange” has some killer piano and has a boogie vibe to it.
Oh yeah, the song about trying to find some new young lady to debauch. It’s another fun one to play live.
“Love Don’t Lie” the obligatory power ballad, which also got House of Lords airplay.
Yes, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a great song written by Stan Bush.
“Slip of the Tongue” if not performed by House of Lords and if it wasn’t keyboard based it would almost enters ‘thrash metal’ territory.
I wouldn’t say thrash…it’s really a fast rock ‘n’ roll song with teeth! Rick Neilson from Cheap Trick brought in that riff. That has lot’s of energy and kicked ass live, so much so, we ended our shows with it.
Do you keep in touch with the guys in the band? James Christian has kept the band name alive by releasing albums, you’ve remained active as a musician, song writer and you still do graphic art?
Actually James stole the name from under us but I’m ok with that now. Glad he’s able to go out there and play clubs in Europe performing our songs and his new ones. I just saw Lanny (Cordola) a couple weeks ago. I haven’t spoken to Gregg (Giuffria ) in a few years.
I’m always doing something. I have over 90 internationally released albums out there now; I’m working on a musical this week and recording. I’m also doing 9 songs for an animated feature that House of Lords drummer Ken Mary is producing. Did you know Ken has won 4 Dove Awards? (A Dove Award is like a Grammy in the Christian music market). I’m doing local shows with my acoustic group and I’m always on the road banging my head with Quiet Riot. I still do a bit of graphic design work but I’ve been too busy working and touring to really devote to much time to it anymore.
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