Y&T album

Y&T Hope To Have New Studio Album Out Next Year





By Martin Popoff


Heavens be praised, Dave Meniketti and his current lineup of Y&T
recently tripped through a tundra-like Toronto, playing their first gig
here since... wait for it... 1985!


Tracks from the latest album, 2010’s Facemelter were sent charging
out from the stage in front of an adoring packed house at The Rockpile,
with Dave, in-betwixt, promising the throngs that given the response, he
plans to bring Y&T back real soon.


Wishing to keep it current, given so many chats with Dave in the
past about the past (see my “making of” eBooks, covering Black Tiger and
Earthshaker, at Zunior.com;
Struck Down chapter in my Ye Olde Metal: 1978!), I asked Meniketti (a
genetically modified splice between EVH and The Red Rocker!) to frame
Facemelter for us, in terms of the making and baking...


“Sure, well, this is one of those records where we knew we had to
get back and get creative again. We kept sort of pushing ourselves
against that for a little while and just going with playing material
from all of our previous records. And you know, it was just going to be
obvious after a certain point of time, okay, we’re stable, this band
unit is exactly what we’re going to be doing, and we need to put
something new on the table. So it was kind of about a year in the making
before we actually got the gears rolling, right? Because we’ve been
working so long and hard, playing about 60 to 70 shows a year, and so a
lot of times that ends up consuming your whole year, the way it spaced
out.”





“So we finally just said, okay, we’ve got to make a commitment,
let’s do it. And so at the end of 2009, right after we played our last
show of the year, which was sometime around December 1st, we just said
okay, let’s consciously make an effort to take four months off, January
through April, and let’s get it done. And that’s exactly what we did. We
literally started writing from December through to March, and even,
literally, at the last minute, writing some new stuff about three weeks
before the thing was mixed.”


“So you know, we finished it all up,” continues Dave, accompanied on
tour not only by guitarist John Nymann, bassist Brad Lang and vague
Haze-alike drummer Mike Vanderhule, but also his wife and capable
manager Jill. “The vibe was very, very good. The cool thing about it was
we were so long from our last production record, that we, of course,
were a little freaked-out going into it, thinking, are we still going to
be able to write well together as a band? Well, it was a stupid and
even dumb thing to think, because just like any other thing, when you
know what you’re doing, and you’ve done it for so many years, it just
comes right back to you.”


“And so we were writing, and after the first two weeks, we already
had great material going, and it gave us the inspiration to write the
rest of the record really quickly. And of course, and unfortunately for
us, it was Phil’s (Kennemore, deceased from cancer) last record that he
was going to write with us, and it was a bad time for us, but it was
really good material. It was mostly written by myself and Phil, which is
how most of our material has been done for the last 30 years. It was a
good, straight-ahead thing, and of course the band that we have, with
Mike and John, at that time, the four of us, Mike, John, Phil and
myself, we had knocked out at least four years in a row, or three years
in a row, of nonstop touring, so we were nice and tight. We knew what we
wanted to do, and we just got in there and started jamming and all
these great ideas started coming out, and it was so natural. It was a
really good experience.”





As evidenced at the show, Y&T’s got an under-rated guitar treasure in its frontman, but also a second weapon in Nymann.


“Same heading, but coming from slightly different directions,” muses
Meniketti, asked to contrast his skills with the new six-stringer. “His
style is quite different from mine, but an amazing player, which is
really cool. I mean, this is all good stuff, but everybody’s got
something different to bring to the table. If we were all the
same-headed about everything, I think we would be having a more
one-dimensional sound. As most people know when they pick up a Y&T
record, you’re going to get... you can get some heavy songs, you’re
going to get melody always, and sometimes you’re gonna get some nice,
beautiful ballads and things like that, and it all works. And that comes
from a collaboration standpoint, and just the fact that all of us have a
severely strong background in R&B, and things that are very
musical. No matter who’s writing anything by themselves or together,
there’s any number of possibilities that can come out of each individual
person’s writing, so it’s good.”


Poked to compare Facemelter to a record from the illustrious
catalogue, Dave figures, “If I were to try and do that, I would say it’s
probably closer to Black Tiger only from the standpoint that it’s very
straight-ahead, basic, rock ‘n’ roll, just like that record was. But it
sort of stands on its own because of the years we put into it, the
things that we brought to the table over the years and our songwriting.
It sort of has its own unique flavour, and of course we’ve got new
players on it. We’ve got John and Mike playing on it, as opposed to
Leonard and Joey.”





Come 2014, Y&T will be celebrating its 40th anniversary,
meaning... “The general idea, of course, is we’re going to do a lot of
touring. We’re going to try to hit more festivals next year, but besides
that, obvious point, we’re trying to put together some sort of video of
the 40th, you know, a 40th anniversary video. Somebody, numerous
people, who knows how we’re going to put it all together, following us
on the road, taking video of us backstage, on stage, in the hotels, in
the tour bus, interviewing previous band members, trying to get a full
retrospective kind of thing. Shooting some live shots from the 40th year
of touring--just that basic kind of approach is what we’re thinking,
initially.”


Likely squeezed in will be a new record, but as Dave explains, the
creative process for Y&T is one that goes on hold once the guys hit
the road and “open fire,” so to speak.


“Well, the plan is not cemented. We talked it over and said, here’s
what we’re going to do. But we all have the basic feeling that in the
moments that we have when we’re not playing this year, we’re going to
get together and write. And we’re just going to keep doing that when we
have spare time between touring, with the hopes that next year we can
have something finished and out, a brand-new studio record. I hate to
predict things like that because predictions, when it comes to art, and
especially the way that we work, it’s... you know, I work off of an
emotional level and off of a ‘sitting down and getting into it’ level. I
mean, I don’t write when I’m on the road or anything like that. I’m way
too focused on the tour part, and so things have to sort of be
scheduled for it to work right for me. So you know, we’ll see what
happens, but that’s sort of the general plan, something by next year. I
sort of put it aside when I’m on the road, because I know how much work I
have, to do interviews and meet-and-greets and sound checks, and gigs,
and trying to stay focused and getting enough sleep for my voice every
night. I’m pretty much booked solid (laughs), when I’m on the road.”