Hydrogyn: Interview

Phone interview with Jeff Young, Jeff Westlake and Julie Westlake of Hydrogyn

By Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal

April 8th 2010, Los Angeles CA

Andrew: How's the work on the new album coming along?
Jeff Y: The new album is going to be called 'Judgement'. It's going great. I've been here and the first time I met Julie and Jeff [Westlake] was just over five weeks ago. We've already written a whole album and we're really excited. We think that we have someone that's really unique. It's really heavy. There is stuff in it that fans of bands like Pantera, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains are going to dig.
Julie: It's coming along very well. The guitars are pretty much almost finished up. So we're now just starting to record the vocals so now it's my turn so they're keeping me busy.

Andrew: What do you think of James Lomenzo's input?
Jeff Y: I haven't heard everything James has recorded in his career but he's recorded 8 tracks for our album so far. There are going to be 10 songs and he's already finished 8. It is some of the best playing I've ever heard the guy do, where every time he sends a new track, we're blown away. He's just really creative. He plays the right part at the right time and it's almost like you don't have to mix his bass because when it's not supposed to be too loud, it doesn't come out too loud and when his part is supposed to jump out, it does. I feel like he's been doing stuff that's really memorable. Sometimes songs go by and you don't even notice the bass player. But on this stuff you definitely are going to notice the guy. Everyone that hears the tracks just compliments how great his bass tone and sound is. So we couldn't be happier than he is contributing to the band. Besides being a great bass player, he's just a great human being and really relaxed person, probably one of the nicest guys you could ever talk to.

Andrew: How does Hydrogyn's music compare to whatever you've previously done in your career?
Jeff Y: The new album launches from the classic Hyrogyn sound that they established, but at the same time it has totally been redefined and as I mentioned before, fans of Megadeth, Pantera and stuff are going to like a lot of the album. Because James and I are in the band, there is going to be that aspect of chops-oriented playing. The best thing about is Julie is probably one of the very few singers I've found in rock that can just really sing anything in any range. She doesn't lose her voice. She's got perfect pitch and you and I both know from seeing rock concerts that there are lot of rock singers who may sound great on the album but when you see them live, they just can't pull it off. So that's one of the best things, is to have the confidence to get up on stage and do a two-hour show knowing that your singer is going to be in tune on every note, she's going to sound powerful and not lose her voice half way into the show. For us the main thing is that she came from a country background but she can sing anything from country to AC/DC, including Brian Johnson and Bon Scott era. She's covered Ronnie James Dio and David Coverdale songs in the past. So she just has a really powerful voice. I've worked with probably four or five amazing female singers in my life. She's definitely the cream of the crop. The other cool thing as far as Jeff and my guitar playing goes, when you listen to a lot of two-guitar bands, sometimes when they're playing the lead, you can distinguish who is playing it. But a lot of times when they are playing rhythm, you can't really tell who's doing what or who's style is what. A lot of times they play the same part. One thing Jeff and I are concentrating on is how our styles compliment and contrast each other. Even during the rhythm you can definitely tell who's doing what and there's always a counter point in our guitar work, a conversation going back and forth. It's very natural. We don't actually sit down and work out the parts per se. It's just an intuitive thing that we have between us. If you see the 'Gold Dust Woman' video on youtube, that was the first time we played together. We met the night before that. We never rehearsed the song but you can hear how the guitars go back and forth and compliment each other. We kind of started from that night. It kind of set the benchmark and the template. From there, in every song we've made it critical that our guitar playing has that counter point with each other.

Andrew: You've been a freelancer if I could call you that. You've done jazz, world music and of course metal. Has that helped you?
Jeff Y: My thing is, I've loved all styles of music and I'm not a musical snob. Like there are a lot of jazz and classical musicians who hate metal. Then there are a lot of metal people for whom if it's not metal, it's bullshit. I'm not like that. I've always loved everything from classical to metal, jazz, blues and anything, I'm not huge on pop country but even the Steve Morse and the chicken picking country style of music is fun to play as long as it has soul and heart. I would have stayed in Megadeth longer and explored that further if it was a healthy environment and the drugs weren't involved and Mustaine's raging ego. I was already involved and we had 'Holy Wars' and 'Polaris' already written. We're doing those sound checks on the 'So Far So Good ... So What?' tour. We were already gearing up for 'Rust In Peace' but it just wasn't a healthy environment. I went through a few line-ups trying to get a good rock band together and that's why I've waited 20 years to join another rock band because for me it's all about chemistry. Led Zeppelin is the perfect example. Once John Bonham died, it was gone and they knew it, it's done. It's that kind of chemistry, like The Who and any band that you can list that has that kind of magical chemistry. I wasn't going to settle for anything less than that. So I was patient and because I didn't really find that chemistry, I started exploring other kinds of music. I was always inspired by Randy Rhoads and classical guitar. That's what kind of led me back in that direction. I discovered Flamenco guitar, one thing led to another and I met Badi Assad to do a World Music album. We had a lot of success with that and I did a little stint with my guitar trio. For the Hydrogyn band we all met through Michael Wagner. Julie and Jeff have been friends with Michael for years. I've been friends with Michael for over 30 years and we were always passing each other coming in or out of the studio. We kind of knew each other without meeting. He would tell me stories about them and tell them stories about me. So indirectly he's been responsible for us all coming together. We've known each other for the last three or four years but now the time is just right. So for me, it's great to explore all kinds of musical avenues. I love every style of music but I'm having a blast doing this right now and I'm definitely planning on making this a full time job.

Andrew: It is great to hear all that. There's so much that can be done on the six-string. Why should anyone restrict himself?
Jeff Y: Exactly! The cool thing is, now there is definitely some world music influence on the Hydrogyn stuff because it's naturally what I've been throwing in as my influences. There is some Middle-Eastern sounding stuff and that kind of stuff that you'll hear here and there. It has always fit in rock n roll. There have always been world music influences. I think Led Zeppelin was probably the first world fusion band out there. They mixed everything from Celtic to Middle-Eastern, Kashmir to so many different styles of world music that they brought into hard rock, which was really cool.

Andrew: When you started out the band, you must have had some purpose or goal. How much of it do you think you've achieved?
Jeff W: I guess when I put the band together, I had a purpose for it. The ultimate purpose that has been ongoing is to really be a band that brings good quality and brings a really good overall vibe to what we're doing. And yeah we've achieved some of it. We've got to finish putting the final touches together to ultimately achieve that. We've been through several musicians as a band throughout the five years of the band. The reason why the people who were in the band before are not in the band now, is because they couldn't bring what we were looking for, with the exception of one person which was Jeff Boggs. Jeff had personal things he had to take care of. But the other guys have all served a purpose while they were in here, but they weren't people that can take the band forward. So Julie and I sat down back in November and talked about what we're going to do with the band. We were trying to figure out what would happen and how we were going to go about achieving the final goal, that's when Jeff and I reconnected and talked about a few things. It went from playing on a track on the album to playing on two tracks to 'Hey man, I've got to pack my stuff up and move up there with you guys so we can write a record' and I was like, 'Ok bring it on!' (laughs) so here we are now. I feel really good about the final goal being achieved as far as what the vision was for the band. We've got a great vocalist. I personally think, if not the best she's one of the top two or three in the world in any genre. We have great musicians in the band now. We went out and grabbed people from all over the place. We have Jeff, James Lomenzo and we've got Joe Migs as the drummer who comes in from New York on Sunday to lay down his drum tracks to the album. We've never been in the same room together as the whole band yet, but we send tracks off to guys like Lomenzo and he automatically gets the vibe. The way the tracks come back, you couldn't have sat down and explained them any better to him and its exactly what we were looking for! It'll be interesting in the next couple of months as we put this puzzle together to see what happens but this is really manifested itself into everything that I envisioned back in 2004 when we put the band together.

Andrew: Are you doing anything other than the Hydrogyn album?
Jeff Y: It is Hydrogyn 100 per cent and that's kind of what Jeff alluded to. It's something that you can partially plan it out but I think it's more like universal cosmic intervention that led all of the players that are in this new incarnation of the band. We all met for a reason. James is out of Megadeth for a reason, my buddy Joe Migs the drummer from khz who've been on hiatus. So it's like the universe has just lined up all the conditions and for me once I saw the line-up, finally that chemistry thing I talked about earlier in this conversation, I said this is it. We have all the pieces that make a great band. As I was mentioning Zeppelin, you have to have the great singer that has the charisma and the stage presence, the guitar player, a great drummer and bass player. It takes every element and if you're missing any one of the elements it's just not going to happen. We've all finally breathed a big sigh of relief that we have all the elements in place. We're going a 100 per cent for this full time. We live it 24-7. I'm living here with Jeff and Julie and it's a great experience for all of us.

Andrew: So when exactly is this album coming out and when are you planning to go out and do some gigs?
Jeff Y: We are right now in conversations with an amazing booking agency in Europe. We are looking for the initial first release. We have five different record deals that we're looking at right now. Between record deals and distribution deals we're just trying to figure out the best way to release the album. As you know, it is kind of a weird music market. A lot of people illegally download music, which is a drag for the artist because here we are pulling our hearts out for the album. This is our job just like the guy who digs a ditch or a lawyer or a surgeon. This is our craft and we're making an album. We're putting every inch of our blood and tears into this album, fully aware that as soon as it is out, people are going to steal it. Musicians are right there with teachers as far as how we are not compensated fairly in the pay scale. Everyone just assumes that rockstars are millionaires. That's just not the case. The unfortunate way the business works is, the people whom you need to get your album out there end up taking such a big piece of the pie that at the end of the day the artist is left with not a lot. So we're being very careful about how we release the album and we're looking at a probable fall release. We'll be done with the album in the second week of May. So there may be things creeping out, a track here and there. We've got a few festival shows in the US that are pending. We have a great recording offer in Germany and France so we're thinking we may first tour there, create the template and then come back to the US after that. Once we start touring which should be late June or July, it'll be ongoing for as long as we can get up on the stage and not fall over.

Julie Westlake
Jeff Young
Jeff Westlake
Joe Migs
Jeff Young

Check out the the band's official website.

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