Jim Santos - Norway Interview

After six years of relative inactivity, New Jersey's 'Norway' returned to action in January 2007 with the release of their latest studio album, the appropriately titled 'Rising Up From The Ashes' issued through MTM. HardRockHouse caught up with Jim Santos to find out more...

Jim, firstly to start the interview off, would you care to introduce yourself and the other members of Norway to the readers of HardRockHouse.com.

Norway is :

Dave Baldwin: Lead vocals, Keyboards
Jim Santos: Guitars, Keyboards, vocals
Joe Slattery: Bass, vocals
Marty Brasington: Drums

Norway

As a guitarist who are your personal heroes and influences?

Really varied here.. I grew up listening to the hard rock coming out of the late sixties into the early 70's ,so after The Beatles, who for me caused it all, I was greatly influenced by Jimi Hendrix, Clapton (Cream/Blind Faith) Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple & Black Sabbath. But at the same time my circle of musician friends listened to everything. We would play in coffee houses doing Cat Stevens and James Taylor songs, the jam on the blues for hours, and play in bands that played the heavy stuff.We loved it all. Later I got into the more produced sounding stuff like Kansas, Styx, Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd.. then the 80's stuff Bon Jovi, Def Lepard, Scorpions, etc. These days I still listen to a lot of Beatles, Todd Rundgren, My Chemical Romance, Green Day and U2 -not your typical AOR fare .

How would you describe Norway to our readers who may be unfamiliar with your work?

Just a typical New Jersey rock band, where songwriting is king. We really try to make each and every song on every record "the best song we ever did" . No filler is our goal. According to all the write-ups over the years we sound like a mix of Journey, Bon Jovi,Foreigner, Giant ,with a dash of Bonfire thrown in...and occasionally a hint of the Scorpions, but mostly to the light AOR Journey-ish side.

How did you come with the name Norway ?

An often asked question! The short story is that early on we needed a name for the band,but had already booked a gig! The promoter wanted to know the name of the band. Our bassist at the time and original singer Glenn Pierson used to be in a band called NORTH,so the bassist was starting to say Nor...Nor... and Glenn is telling him "don't use North! don't use North !" .So he blurts out NORWAY ! And we've used it ever since.

Norway the band released their first album in 1997, Night dreams, was this your first recorded release or had you been involved in any bands before this ?

Well, all the band members had been in various local bands up to that point. In the early 80's I was in one of the largest cover bands on the circuit playing punk! It's true. The band was called The Touchables, and we had a steady following and played sold out clubs 5-6 nights a week. At the same time original singer Glenn Pierson was in one of the bigger metal cover bands Maxx. The other guys have played with different bands. Bassist Joe Slattery had played with Ken Dubman and Ted Poley before Prophet, and had jammed with Ray Gillan. Marty was a session drummer. Later in the 80's I was with an original hard rock band called Tender Trap that got some good reviews ,we were compared to Nazareth, and almost signed to Geffen Records. It was shortly after that time I hooked up with Glenn Pierson to start NORWAY.

Our current vocalist Dave Baldwin, was a well known singer in a huge area cover band Voices, and also sang with Tradia and Departure.

Night dreams was released via AOR Heaven, how did an American band gain an European record deal ?

Well in sort of an ironic twist, we were "discovered" by Magnus Soderkvist who was was with MTM at the time. He passed our music to Georg Seigl who encouraged us to release it as a record and got us started by buying 250 copies upfront! Later all the European distributors were selling it, but we really owe it all to Georg and Magnus.

Jim Santos

That album was very well received by the European press and drew many favourable comparisons to more well known bands. Did this take you by surprise?

Sure did! Especially that this music was now officially dead in the US and we thought no one wanted it. What was hard for many to understand was that many of these comparisons were to bands we've never even heard of! Some of the popular European bands were completely unknown to the general public in the US at that time. Oh sure, the collectors and hard core fans knew, but trust me, no one knew who Magnum or Bonfire was in the US. or even The Storm or 707!

Actually we were almost ready to give up at this point and had written an album of "alternative rock" in an effort to get signed, but fortunately at that point we did the Night Dreams release and came home to AOR.

On the strength of this album the band signed a deal with Now And Then/Frontiers stable for the second album Arrival. I believe you recorded the album in the UK, how did you find recording in the UK and who’s idea was it?

Well I was able to live in the UK for almost a month recording that, so it was both the best of times and the worst of times. Now & Then had just purchased Startracks Studios and wanted to capitalize on that by having us record there. We were excited, but in order to get it done Now & Then wanted us to record almost 24/7. I came out with Joe and Marty and spent 16 hours a day in the studio cutting all the drums, bass and rhythm guitars. Then Glenn flew over and I would work all day doing guitar parts and keyboards, and he would come into the studio about 6:00 in the evening when I was beat and sing til 3 or 4 in the morning. I often had to leave by 8 or 9 as I was exhausted. So we were able to work fast, but almost with no interaction which was completely foreign to us. Quite honestly we were pretty bummed out by that arrangement. In the end, we had to wrap it up because another band was booked in the studio, so we went back to the US and I booked another 72 hours of studio time to finish up there. Most of my guitar solos, keyboards and 1/2 of Glenn's vocals were done back here in the states.

You also played the Gods Festival back in '99, what are your memories of that gig and are there any plans to bring Norway back to Europe?

Once again it was the best of times and the worst of times. NORWAY has generally over the years not been a touring band. Any shows we have done, usually require a few weeks of intensive rehearsal to get it together. Plus we have many overdubbed guitar parts making it impossible for me to cover. We were going to bring a 2nd guitarist and a keyboardist. When we we're invited to play the GODS, the plan was that ARRIVAL was to be released that week. Based on that, our entire set was all the new songs, with only one or two old ones. In hindsight that was bad.. the album was held up so we did a set no one knew, also the 2nd guitarist I planned to bring didn't pan out and there was major equipment issues on the stage. So it was a tough spot for us. Now this is no secret, but we believe in an honest show...no computer tracks or anything.. but every band there was running a computer or CD's in sync with the show flying in more shit then the Air Force!! So quite simply we were outclassed and felt we didn't give our fans our best that day.

But the best was meeting so many of them from all over the world. We will remember the show fondly just for that, and for hanging with the other groups at the hotel.

There are no plans to tour at this point. If the new record does really well, perhaps there would be some way to make that happen. It all comes down to a promoter putting the package together.

So when the The Arrival album was finally released, were there any tracks you were particularly happy with?

Our favorite tracks are Givin It All, One Night Alone, Heaven In Your Arms and Cant Live Without You. These songs,we believe, are the embodiment of the "NORWAY" sound. Great songs, lyrics, clever arrangements, big harmonies. We're very proud of those songs.

After the usual promo activities surrounding the release things went quite on the Norway front, why was this and why did the band's original vocalist leave during this time?

Well, about a year later we wanted to start the next record, but Now & Then did not want to pick up the option for the second record. I think the financial winds had started to blow and they were feeling the pinch. Anyway we went back and forth for another year with them, until they agreed to do a record for a ridiculously small amount of money. Then still, they stalled us with no money, until I asked for us to be released from the contract, which they did. All this time takes a toll on a band. People change, their priorities change, and along the way you get busy with life and the "day job" most of us hate, but have to work to support our families and our music! So by the time we got to 2003, Glenn was feeling some of these personal pressures, and essentially after not working with me on music for 6-8 months, we agreed to split up the partnership and I would carry on. So I had no singer, no record deal, and essentially no band.

Moving on to 2006 Norway finally announced details of a new album. What were you up to in the intervening years, I believe your rhythm section were involved with Ted Poley?

Yeah, since it was such a long hiatus, Joe and Marty were free to do whatever. I'm glad they got to go back to Europe a few times and play with Ted. After Glenn left, I didn't work on the record for a while. Then I decided to hell with it. Ill finish it and release it independently like Night Dreams. So I had these drum tracks Marty played in my basement, and I recorded the rest of it pretty much myself except for the vocals and bass.

So how did you get David Baldwin involved in the band?

For a benefit song I did for 9/11 (it appears on the Japanese release of Rising Up From The Ashes as a bonus track), I hooked up with many other artists to contribute like a poor mans "We Are The World" . I was introduced to Dave Baldwin, who agreed immediately to come over and add vocals. I enjoyed working with Dave very much. 2 years later he came over to record an acoustic song he wrote, and I asked him if he would sing on the record and he agreed.

How does song writing differ with David Baldwin compared to Glen Pierson?

I was writing with Glenn for a very long time. After a while, you know...you finish each others sentences and stuff. The process of creating gets very intuitive. Our collaboration was more of me coming up with the original ideas and then Glenn would be the sounding board to bounce it off of and tweak it. Whereas Dave is a strong and prolific writer in his own right. For this record it was more of, "Here's my songs and here's your songs", which was exactly what we needed this time. The exception to that was Anything At All, which we wrote in one evening with Dave, Joe and myself.

The new album has been released via MTM, how did that hook up occur?

Of course we knew of MTM since we learned about the Europe scene. We always viewed them as a quality label, and were quite pleased that they agreed to release this record when we approached them. And not at first! I had to beg for months !!! LOL!

I recently review you Rising Up From The Ashes (you can read the review here) an made several negative comments about the production/mix of the album. This is your chance to give you side of the argument, please feel free to shoot me down in flames!

Yes. I hate you for it. But seriously, like I said earlier...we decided to treat it like we were doing demo's. Marty literally set up his drums in my living room and we tracked them like that. Certainly not ideal. From the start we agreed that once we got a deal and some advance money, we would redo the drums in a proper studio . But unfortunately that didn't happen. I had all the plans ready to do another indie release, when Mario from MTM called me to talk again...and we came to basically a distribution arrangement. So there was no money to redo drums, or recordings or mixes or anything. And there was one overriding factor.. time. It was time. In fact it was PAST time, to get another record out. So even though it was unpolished I decided it was time, and apparently MTM was able to hear the song quality as well.

So yeah...the drums sound really lame. And if you build a house on a weak foundation...well that's what you get. But I will say in my defense, I was disappointed by the mastering of the record. I was not afforded the luxury of hearing it before release. In an effort to bring the record up to commercial volume levels (i.e.; make it louder than hell) I felt the mastering engineer totally rolled off way too much of the power and warmth I had to balance the highs and then squished it to death. In a side by side with the actual record, the band and a few other friends have agreed my original mixes were much much better than the final record.

But Dougie, c'est la vie, right? I am exceptionally grateful to the wonderful guys at MTM for giving NORWAY the chance to comeback. They've got great distribution, a good PR company in Artistworxx, and they really seem to know that NORWAY is a great band who has a few more great records in them yet. We have to do well enough on this record to get a proper advance and FINALLY make a great sounding NORWAY record.

This next questions comes from my second opinion:- From your previous two releases, my personal favourite was Destination Unknown. On the new album, whilst each song has it's qualities and I'm struggling to pick one that stands out from the other tracks. Which is your particular favourite from the nine new songs?

Like children, I cannot choose a favorite one :-) , but perhaps Anything At All, is more ambitious than the others in many ways.

What’s next for Norway?

I am busy almost every night promoting Rising Up From The Ashes right now. I have been hard at work working on little bits of songs here and there and hope to begin laying the groundwork for some news songs soon then start working with the band to develop these new ideas. It will not be six years for another record! I' m also working with my friend Kurt Vereecke of the band Frozen Rain, to finish his album. I'm mixing a few songs and adding a few guitar parts. it's great sounding stuff!

And finally, the standard HardRockHouse question, is there anything further you would like to mention that we haven't covered so far?

Thanks Dougie. We really appreciate all the genuine support and warm feelings we've received from reviews in the press and emails from fans. I know we were away, for way too long. It's great to be back, and thanks to all of you for having us .

Peace, love and rock and roll!

Jim Santos/NORWAY

Many thanks to Jim for taking the time to talk with HardRockHouse. The band's Latest album, 'Rising Up From The Ashes' is out now via MTM and you can find out more about Norway and Jim via the following links:

www.norwayrocks.com

http://www.myspace.com/jimsantos