STRIKE 46
MARK ST. JOHN
PAST & PRESENT PROJECTS
Interviewer: Nicola Ciccarone
Q: Let’s start talking about your come back... What’s happening with the new band?
MARK: Stephen and I came up with the idea of collaborating with a singer that was affiliated with Peter Criss at one time and he wrote some songs for him. And as you know I was affiliated with Peter and wrote some songs and so this project all ties in with the Kiss world. So we hooked up with a couple of good musicians from Canada. We did a handful of songs, I brought in some stuff from California and we recorded in Toronto, and it went really good. We put out a CD and if it goes well we’ll think about the next phase of the project, which will be doing a full lenght album.
Q: Do you already have enough material do to a full album?
MARK: Yeah, we have a lot of material that we have to go through, and we just haven’t had the time to go through it all. But we would really like to get to know each other better cause we only just met to create and record this project.
Q: How long did it take to write the songs?
MARK: Well the songs we had were already created, Phil had some songs, I had some songs and we did some rehearsals before we recorded them.
Q: Peter Criss did co-write some of the songs, right?
MARK: Yeah, he did one with me which was ‘Love For Sale’ and one with Phil called ‘Between the Lines’.
Q: Did you call him and say we are going to do this CD?
MARK: No, I didn’t need to, but he has already been mailed a copy and he’ll get paid.
Actually my first reaction was, “Peter is going to kill each and everyone of us!”, it’s true, I know Peter. If I meet him I can’t just say, “hey we are doing a new record with your stuff on it”. You can’t really say that type of stuff to people, I guess it just has to run its course and whatever happens, happens. It’s nothing that I am ashamed of, at the same time I put a lot of work into it and I should get something out of it and he will also get something out of if it. It is a mutual thing, it’s not like someone gets all of it and others don’t. I don’t know how he would be looking at it.
Q: Now as he did the reunion tour he would probably be happy for you.
MARK: I don’t know, who knows what Peter thinks. I haven’t seen him in 8 years, hopefully he will like it. If he doesn’t, I’m sorry, I really haven’t had time to talk to him about it, but I will be speaking to him shortly.
Q: What is your next priority?
MARK: My priorities right now is to finish the record. Because the way I see it is you have to have product to be on the air to give you a reason to tour, you don’t tour without a product. You got to have something to sell and then we’ll go into marketing, merchandising, advertising and promoting and all of that. It’s a slow process and then it will take off, but you’ve got to get the buzz out there, the interest happening.
Q: How did you like the conventions?
MARK: The first one I did I was really scared because I had never done anything like that before and I didn’t know what was going to happen, I didn’t have the faintest idea.
Q: Have you heard about Kiss Conventions?
MARK: Yeah, a long time ago someone offered for me to do one, I didn’t know anything about it, so I didn’t show up and and the guy got really upset with mef. I think it was Phil.
Q: Yeah, I was at Atlanta the airport with Phil, ready to pick you up with the limo. That was a real disappointment as everybody was excited to see you for the first time since Animalize and you didn’t show up.
MARK: But I didn’t have anything to do with that, someone else picked up the phone and made my business plans and I didn’t find out about it until too late, seriously. I think I sent the tickets back that were booked for the 2 people, so he would have got his money back, which is good. But I don’t know the reprecussions of everything else and I haven’t spoken to him since then. That was the first time I was exposed to something like that and when I first spoke to Stephen, I told him all my past experiences as I’ve just told you. And he said, “You don’t have to do anything just be there”, that type of thing. I have to admit I’ve done half a dozen of them now and I’m very comfortable doing them.
Q: Do you mind that people question you all the time?
MARK: Oh yeah, it is the same questions all the time and I am not trying to say anything bad about the band because they helped me and hopefully I helped them. But I’m not going to lie about things. I don’t know exactly what they want to hear, I am a straight shooter, but I am academic about it and I try to be diplomatic. The reprecussions for me is that everything that I say is recorded on tape.
Q: Do you like the attention that you receive from the fans?
MARK: Oh yeah, I think it is great because it keeps me interested in what I am doing. The older you get the harder it is to stay focused, it gives you something to believe in. I didn’t know that I had so many guitar fans out there.
Q: You didn’t expect to have that many followers?
MARK: No, not at all! Actually, most of the songs have had a good response, I haven’t heard too much negativity. So that’s good, it’s lucky. With the Kiss album I was lucky the reviews weren’t bad. And it is still good what I am doing now. Then when it gets bad, that will be another chapter in the book and I will decide what to do then.
Q: Back to this new release, which is your favourite song?
MARK: As long as it is my project, all of them are. It is hard to say.
Q: Did you pay much attention to the lyrics that were written?
MARK: I didn’t write the lyrics, but I am confident of the people singing and writing them. I give them their space to do what they have to do and if you don’t, that’s when you start getting problems in the band, cause I know what I have to do, so I give them a long leash.
Q: Who did the production of the album?
MARK: Well, me and Stephen had a lot to with the production and his engineer also, all three of us were involved.
Q: What about the concept of the cover?
MARK: That was Stephen’s.
[STEPHEN: It was just something simple, not the same old boring picture of a guy and a name, something a little more over the top and in tune with things.]
Q: So are you happy with the final product?
MARK: Yes, I am very happy.
Q: The photo looks fantastic, very creative.
MARK: Considering the time and money we spent on it, we still came up way better than what we thought we would.
[STEPHEN: That’s the first thing that everybody said to me, “good job with the artwork”.]
Q: It’s good to see you back in the family, now let’s talk about you and your personal life, as you were in Kiss for just a short time.
MARK: Let’s see, I was born Februrary, 7th 1956, in Hollywood, California, St Judes hospital I think.
Q: Did you grow up in Hollywood?
MARK: The first four or five years my parents lived in Hollywood and then they bought a house in Gardengrove in Orange County, about 335 miles from L.A.
Q: Did you play any sports when you were young?
MARK: Yeah, I played all sports, in fact I played sports before I got into music. Especially basketball, I mean I tried all sports but basketball is what I excelled in. And when I got into High School we started playing CIF with other teams from L.A. and they were all black and I felt that I wasn’t a very good basketball player. I mean they just slip and slide all over you, they jump higher and they run faster and you felt belittled after the first five minutes and I gave it up after that. About the same time I got into guitar, I always played guitar and I liked the sports thing but I always fell back on guitar and during my softmore year I grew my hair really long and back in those days it was hippie hair, it was just one style and I guess that was 1971-72. In that time I started playing a lot of guitar, I started playing at Parties and at Lounges and also at High School Dances, your basic stuff like that. I must have played in at least 40-60 bands, I’ve been in a lot of bands.
Q: What is the main reason why you would change bands so often?
MARK: It’s like anything, change is for the best and you see with my career I’ve always sought out the best guitar players around me. There would be about 3 or 4 guitar players in my area and they were like “The” guitar players and I would try to hang out with them or play with them and eventually I became their friend, then slowly but surely one them had fallen out and they kept me going. But what really blew my mind is that these guys should have made it. I had other problems along the way as I was always trying to be a number 1, cream of the crop and a lot of people didn’t understand that as it takes a lot more than you and your discipline, once you lose sight of that dream, it’s over. So fortunately in my life I had people around me who supported me and pushed me and kept me going because if I hadn’t had that support I probably wouldn’t be doing this. They pushed me to a point where it became a business. And that way there was some long term and short term goals involved, like the whole family type of thing. As far as guitar lessons, I’ve only taken a couple of guitar lessons but mostly I’m self taught as I have hundreds and hundreds of music books, there is always a way to learn, I’ve even taken music off records or cd’s, you try to imitate it and read the music or have someone teach you. So I did all three things, I really jumped right into it. I did all of this because I wanted to be more than just a rock and roll guitar player, so I got into Latin music, Salsa, Samba etc. I also got into the different Jazz areas like Swing and I really like Be Bop Jazz. Then I also started getting into things like Classical and even Flamenco and then I kind of went backwards with the Rythm & Blues and Country.
Q: Do you play any other instument besides the guitar?
MARK: I can play drums, I’m not very good at doing all the roles but I can play any beat and I can play accordians a little bit. I play mostly string instuments with a plectrum. I have a dolsimer, I have a boccolini which is a Greek instrument, it is like a mandolin but only bigger. I have the triangle guitar balalaika which is a Russian instrument, I have a guitar from India, the one with 32 strings that looks like a ball with the neck that comes out, I have a couple of harps, I have 5 string banjoes, 4 string banjoes, I basically have everything that has strings.
Q: What about piano?
MARK: I can play a little piano.
Q: Regarding your family, do you have brothers and sisters?
MARK: I have a brother and a sister, Michael is 4 years younger than me and my sister is 4 years younger than him.
Q: Did your sister ever get involved with music?
MARK: No, but she married a promoter from L.A., she’s been married for about 6 years now. My brother is single and lives around the beach. He just went on tour opening for Motley Crue with his band Lied Low and he just got off the tour last year.
Q: Did your family support your career?
MARK: Off and on, it depends on the type of changes I went through and they went through. At the beginning they never did, until I started bringing home money. As my dad never made that much money, after a while he thought that I was doing something right.
Q: What was your first paid musical job?
MARK: Doing local bars with local bands at pizza parlours, anywhere. We would do covers, anything like that.
Q: What influenced you the most musically?
MARK: There was a time that I did fusion jazz and classical rock in the early 70ies and I was heavily into that.
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