For many classic rock fans the name RUSS BALLARD is more associated to a number of hits that his name appeared on as a songwriter, but really Russ Ballard has been writing and performing since the mid-60s. From Hertfordshire, England, Russ joined ARGENT (lead by former ZOMBIE Rod Argent), as a singer, guitarist and writer. He wrote a number of Argent classics, notably “Liar” and “God Gave Rock and Roll To You”. Ballard left Argent in 1974 after 5 studio and albums and 1 double live release, and released his first (self-titled) solo album later that year. Over the next decade he would release 6 more. His solo career didn’t take off as much in North America (even though all his records were released here and solo respectably), but a number of his songs would become big hits (and in many cases breakout hits) for a wide range of pop and rock acts. Chances are if you bought a lot of LPs in the late 70s and 80s, you likely have Russ Ballard’s name in your collection, somewhere!
On April 25 Frontiers will release Russ Ballard’s latest recordings, a double feature – Songs From The Warehouse and the Hits Rewired. The first disc is all new songs from Ballard and the second disc is his new recordings of those songs made famous by other artists. The new and the old material sounds outstanding, with new favorites like “Resurrection”, “The Wild”, and “Make Believe World” all showing Ballard (at 79) still writes catchy and timely rock tunes (as well as singing and playing everything himself!), as well as nicely updated takes of his classics like “New York Groove”, “You Can Do Magic” and “Voices”.
Below is from my conversation with Russ Ballard on his new recordings, as well as a bit of his past, including Argent, and some of the songs he wrote back then. After finishing this interview I immediately thought of 101 other things I could’ve or should’ve brought up, but hey – this guy is legendary! Check it out below, as well as the song links I’ve included, and links to Russ Ballard’s new album and websites at the end.
The new album, you’ve done it in two parts.
Well, the Songs From The Warehouse are all new songs. And obviously, the Rewired songs, I’ve had some of them for many, many years because they’ve been recorded by other people or whatever. But Rewired are songs that have been hits by other people, basically. And a couple that I’ve done now.
So, first of all, the new recordings – Can you tell me a bit about how long you’ve come up with these songs? Because I think your last album has probably been a while, correct?
Yeah, the last one was four, five years ago. The songs are usually story songs; there’s quite a few. I’ve been telling people that as you get older, it’s difficult to write so many love songs. I know love songs are very popular and kind of universal, basically, aren’t they(!?) – Love songs, everyone loves a love song. Everybody falls in love, everybody falls out of love, usually. But it’s harder to write love songs as you get older – ‘I love you… Don’t love you. I want you back…. I don’t want you back. Don’t leave me…’ It’s very difficult when you get older. So, I mean, I’m trying to find vehicles to write, stories. Find words, find things that I could turn into a song, basically. There’s one on it called “Courageous”. Courageous came from a news item on the BBC. When I was watching this item, it was a good feeling news item at the end of the usual sort of sad news. They left it with a good feel, a good feeling. They ended up with this girl; It’s all about the family. This girl was about 12 years old. She had a sister who was 8 years old, and a brother who was about 5 years old. The mother had multiple sclerosis, so she was in a wheelchair. This girl had to look after the whole of the family. And she was just amazing; she sort of got up, gave the kids breakfast, bathed the kids, bathed the mother, dressed the mother, dressed the kids. Then you see her walk into school holding the hands of the two kids. So I had to write a song about her, but I saw that news item about 7 years ago. It was an amazing story.
I don’t know if it’s just from the song titles and some of the lyrics, that there’s a bit more of a spiritual basis in this album!?
I find the spiritual area, it’s an area that I’ve used before and I love it because I think it’s where I’m coming from, basically. I like it. There’s so much out here, to write in spirit, you know – ‘feeling good, feeling bad’ and ‘there’s always another day’ and ‘that’s how it is’, you know.’ If you’re feeling down now – tomorrow you’re going to feel good.’
“Resurrection” – that was an obvious single, that one jumps out at you after, it’s kind of an interesting intro you got there, with the vocal…
Yeah. (Russ sings a bit of the intro) You have to get the hook in really early, if that’s possible.
I think even some of the other songs, there’s good cross-section of influences, with songs like “Fearless” and “Soul Music”.
Yeah.
It’s not just pop stuff…
Yeah it’s nice to go places you haven’t been before. I play the piano, I play the guitar, I can play the instruments and it’s nice to find a vehicle. I mean, soul music, it was such an obvious, such an obvious thing to write about – ‘You are soul music, we are soul music, you are soul music.’ And I thought that…it’s nice to find something that was, ‘new’, as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know of another song called “Soul Music”; there probably is, I’m sure.
Do you find yourself writing more for yourself now, as opposed to writing with hopes that other people might record your songs, or…?
Yeah… You know how it is, I think that younger people, when I was growing up, I was the same age as everybody I was writing with. But as you get older, I don’t think younger kids, maybe they don’t want to write with you, because you’re older. So, they write with people their own age, which makes sense. You want to write for somebody older, you want to write for somebody that’s listening to the same music as you, so you want to, and that makes sense to me. But I could do it, I know I could do that, I’m pretty sure, but people don’t come to you as much as you get older.
So, did you separate the new stuff and the old stuff when it came to recording – did you do all of one album first, then the other?
Yeah, I basically did the new songs first, and then decided to do some, ‘rewired’. The idea was to just do songs that had been done by other people, but I’d recorded most of those songs before. I’d done them as demos, or I’d done them as masters, and it goes back to “Winning”, “Since You Been Gone”, I recorded those songs myself, and I had them out in the 70s, a lot of those songs were done. “So You Win Again” was number one for Hot Chocolate in the UK, and that was 1977. So, I did a really good demo for that in 1976. I just kept them basically the same as I made the demos.
Do you find you’re kind of reclaiming these songs in a way, that they’ve all been hits for other people, and not so much for yourself?
I wrote them for myself, to be honest. I only ever wrote two songs, two of those hit songs, when people came to me and asked me to write a song, and one was “New York Groove”, and the other one was “You Can Do Magic” by America. I didn’t write them for me, I wrote “You Can Do Magic” for America, and I wrote “New York Groove” for an English band (Hello), and Ace Frehley recorded that.
When you re-recorded some of these, did you, knowing some of the other versions (like the Rainbow version) did you ever go back and think you liked their arrangement, and did that have any kind of influence on your new versions?
Yeah, because when I did it, I wrote it on the piano. When I went to the studio, it was natural just to play the piano, and I’d go ‘let’s take it’, and I’m playing the piano, which is softer, the piano is always softer than the guitar. When I heard the Rainbow version, I thought they’d actually seen that song better than me. So that’s how I do it when I’m on the stage as well, I do it the same as them.
I think Head East had done it first, and I think that’s where Rainbow got the idea from, from what I read.
Yeah, that’s where they got it from.
So, “Liar” was kind of your first big hit, written for somebody else; that somebody covered!?
Well I wrote an instrumental when I was 14, and that was recorded by The Shadows in the UK, and that was on an album that was a top ten album. But that was an instrumental band, so my first tune I ever wrote was an instrumental. But that did well, and once that had been out, and I thought ‘well if they want me to do it, I must be able to do it’. After that I was writing all the time, trying to write different things, different ideas.
Was it ever kind of frustrating (if that’s the word), I mean over here, people know your name from the songs they see your name attached to, as opposed to you as a solo artist. Did you ever kind of think ‘well why wasn’t this a hit for me, but everything’s kind of been a hit for somebody else?’
Yeah, it did enter my head, but I think, on some of those songs that you listen to a certain one ‘well I could do that, I could improve that song, that demo’… whatever. So I think that’s what people have done. And there’s some really good versions of my tunes out there.
Do you think you’ve heard all of them?
I don’t know. That’s an interesting one (laughs), There’s been a hell of a lot of versions of my songs out there.
But, between all those ones, “Voices” – there’s a band called Wonderworld that did that a couple years ago. Obviously, Uriah Heep, I’m a big fan of their’s, they did “On The Rebound”. Yeah, so there’s lots of stuff out there.
Ronnie Romero did “Voices” as well, he did Voices on his last album, he did that. I saw Ronnie two weeks ago, less than two weeks ago, Sunday before last, and he did “Since You Been Gone”, I was on the stage and he came up with me and he did Since You Been Gone and we sang it together, which was really nice. He’s going to do it; he’s going to do it. I’ve sent him another song, he wants to do another song of mine. I’m still doing it Kevin, I’m still loving it, same as ever.
Aside from the obvious, like the Rainbow version of “Since You Been Gone”, what have been kind of your favorites of covers of your own songs? Aside from the Ace Frehley and the Rainbow, the ones that were the biggest, I guess.
I think a really good version, talking about Kiss, Ace Frehley, I think that “God Gave Rock and Roll To You” was very good. They saw it so well. They had the right tempo, they saw it really, really well. So that’s Bob Ezrin, I think, produced them. That was really good, that was a good one. There’s been others, Colin Blunstone did a couple of my songs and he saw those really well, from the Zombies. Hot Chocolate did a song of mine, it wasn’t a big hit in America, it was called “So You Win Again”. I did a demo which I thought was really good, they made their version slower, but they got to number one in the UK and that was a really good version.
Did you ever hear the Heep version of “On The Rebound”?
Yeah. I mean he sang it so much better than I sang it because he did it full voice. I was trying to do kind of a silly voice (sings) ‘On The Rebound, On The Rebound’, but they did it really well.
I know Peter Goalby who sang that had actually auditioned for your spot in Argent when you had gone.
Did he really!? Why didn’t they get him?
From what I understand, he was signed to a management company that advised him not to. And then John Verity got it, and obviously you know John.
I know John well. I was with John, he did “I Surrender” for me. He sang ‘I Surrender’, which I didn’t plan, I just wanted to produce it so I was in the studio and John sang it and I basically arranged him.
Did you know John before he took your spot (Argent)?
Yeah, I knew him in ’72, I think it was. John was singing, he supported Argent on a tour and I thought he was really great. When I left the band, I said you ought to get John Verity because John is perfect I think, perfect.
Now I know it’s kind of back peddling, but did you leave basically for the solo career or for other things?
No, I didn’t to be honest. I wanted to start a family to be honest. I knew, because I’d had a couple of hit songs that were doing well, I thought I could do it. I was afraid, I couldn’t stand the thought of actually going on tour for three weeks, four weeks and leaving my kid. I could stay at home and write tunes and I could still go in the studio, I could write the tunes which I could go in the studio every day and write a song. I could go to my music room and write. The publishing company, Island, had my publishing and they gave me the resources to go into a studio and they used to rent me everything I needed. I said I haven’t got a good acoustic guitar, I need a Martin, hire a Martin, hire a Marshall 100, a Les Paul, a set of drums or I’d get a drummer and they’d pay for everything. I’d go up with three songs and at that time and every time I seemed to go in the studio I always had one song that was successful, so it was a good time. Someone up there likes me because I was able to survive with a wife and a kid and have a good living and do exactly what I wanted to do, which was pursue this gift of song in music.
Do you own all your songs? Publishing and that?
I’ve owned them up to last year and I’ve sold 50% of my publishing, which I’ve given away 50% of it. I still have a good life, even though you don’t get so much money from streaming, I still do pretty well.
You still regularly play in the UK and Europe and that I see, but you’ve not been over here I assume for a long time?
I’ve been there, I came over there in ’85 with Roger Daltrey, I played guitar and Roger said ‘sing a couple of your own songs, give me a break’. I’ve played the East Coast, New York, Boston, I finished up in Madison Square Garden with Roger. He was doing a couple of my songs and I did a couple of my songs and that’s good, but I haven’t played there myself under my own steam since 1976.
Has it just been a thing where there’s just not offers or at this stage it’s too expensive or no point to it?
Yeah, I mean I’d always go out there, but it was basically because I left Argent and that whole thing, and I didn’t have that big name that Rod had out there as a band. When I was in the band we were doing really well, but the fact is I just couldn’t leave the family, I didn’t want to leave the family while my kids were growing up.
At this stage there’s a lot of bands that have never come over here since the 80s, so I imagine Argent hasn’t been here since you were with them.
No, you get the Zombies, the Zombies still go there don’t they!?
Yeah, actually I saw their last album in the shop, their latest album in the local shop.
I’m seeing Rod, I’ve got to see him next week or the week after, he’s not too well at the moment.
As far as those Argent albums go, do you still have any input as far as reissues or repackaging and stuff?
No, I’ve nothing to do with it, but the only thing I’ve done, I’ve used an Argent song, a song that I wrote for Argent which is “God Gave Rock and Roll To You”, on now on Rewired. I could have done a few Argent songs, but I wanted to just include the songs that I’ve written.
As far as the Argent stuff goes, aside from the hits, do you have any favorites that you wrote that kind of weren’t hits?
Yeah, I liked “It’s Only Money, (Part one and two)”, and I’m still doing that one actually, I still do that song. ‘God Gave…”, “Losing Hold” was a good song, I didn’t write that, Chris White wrote that, that’s a good song. But you had some good things there actually, “Pleasure”, “Liar”, of course that was an Argent song. We did some good. When we were together I didn’t know whether we were losing continuity as a band, you know, one moment we’re doing this, which is my writing, next moment we’re doing that. Maybe if we’d written it together we may have had more continuity, but I listen to things now, I do a great song, it’s a Chris White song, which was “Dance In The Smoke”. You’re too young to remember these, you probably might not.
Well, I’ve got the vinyl in front of me, but I picked up this last year. Have you seen that? (I show Russ the 2 CD Argent Hold Your Head Up, Best Of)
Yeah.
A pretty thorough collection. I know “Hold Your Head Up” wasn’t yours, but that was one that got covered immensely, like a lot of people.
By Uriah Heep (lol)
Yeah, Heep did it. There’s quite a few versions of that out there.
Yeah, I know there’s a few out there. Yeah, good song, but that came from “Time Of The Season”. We used to do Time of the Season, when we played in Germany we used to do Time of the Season, years ago, just as the Zombies split, probably in 1971, something like that, we used to play the (sings a bit of the beat).. You know, used to do that. Rod used to just start playing a solo on the song. We started going (sings the melody)… We started to do that, and it became another song. And Chris White said ‘when we get back from Germany we ought to write a song around that’, and he wrote with Rod, he wrote “Hold Your Head Up”.
What else do you got planned for the new album? I guess you got some shows coming up, do you have any more singles coming out?
Yeah, we’ve got some shows, going to Europe, going to Germany in a month’s time, out there three weeks in Germany. Bavaria is really good for me, I love that area, it’s a nice time to go. But you know, everyone knows my songs there, even my albums, they know my songs and they sing the choruses and everything, it’s beautiful.
I’ve got a great band, we’re very close and I’ve got a guitar player, Roly Jones, who I wrote “Resurrection” with, we wrote together. Marc Rapson on keyboards – he’s good, he’s another Rod Argent; PJ Phillips on bass and John Miller on drums.
Do you still do any producing outside of your own stuff?
Yeah, well I’m producing a band at the moment, I’ve got lots of young friends, 20, 30 years younger than me, so I’m involved with them They’re very, very good and they want to ask me if I could get involved with them. So, I’m doing that, I’ve got a band, Space Elevator, really, really good, I’ve got a girl singer, this is the girl that sang “Since You’ve Been Gone” with me. I was with the guitar player this morning, and I’ve done 14 songs with them, so we’re trying to put an album together. And I hope to get them a record deal, if possible.
Miami Vice was the other thing I wanted to ask about. You had 3 songs in that show!?
Yeah, “Voices” was in one, “In The Night’ was another one in there. People always remember that Miami Vice series.
I used to watch it a lot. There was always a musician as a guest actor or there was good new songs in there.
Jan Hammer did the music, wrote the (theme) music, didn’t he!? They had the 40th anniversary in September, in Florida.
LINKS:
http://www.russballardmusic.com
Outsider Rock 