Greg Leon Invasion presents Tell The Children
Interview and Photo by Ken Morton Greg Leon is best known for his stints with the likes of Quiet Riot and Dokken in their early days, and since then has amassed an impressive collection of solo material. Under the name of the Greg Leon Invasion, the musician would launch his own visions starting in 1983. And now in the post pandemic year of 2021, the Greg Leon Invasion has presented Tell The Children to the world – featuring 13 songs of classic hard rock that should absolutely captivate the minds of all types of music fanatics. The Greg Leon Invasion also features dynamic performances from Rick Brandt on bass and cello as well as Ronnie Ciago from Diane and the Deductibles (among many other massive credits such as Brand X and River Dogs) bringing his own supremely imaginative flair to drums and percussions. Here are excerpts from an interview Highwire Daze recently conducted with the band.
TELL THE CHILDREN Greg: I wrote the song years ago. It just kind of came to me. I came up with this riff and it kept building on itself and then the lyrics came to me - and it was kind of fight of good and evil in the world - at the end you realize “Jesus saved you and Satan enslaves you, don’t make a foolish mistake, beleive in the word and your prayers will be heard. Tell the children today.” It’s not a preachy song and I’m not trying to preach to anybody or tell them how to think or how to run their lives. If you do the right things in life, most likely good things are going to happen to you. And that basically all I’m trying to say. Do the right thing. Treat people the way you want to be treated
MEET RICK BRANDT Rick: It’s almost 50 years that’s I’ve been playing. I started playing piano first and then I went to the recorder - that was boring. In the 4th grade, my teacher came in my class and she was recruiting orchestra players. She asked me what instruiment I would like to play. So I wound up on cello and I’ve been doing that ever since. I’m still doing it. I played all over the world. I toured when I was 16 and was touring over in Europe. And I picked up the bass after the cello. The bass and cello are kind of similar - just different tuning. I did some guitar playing too. When I met Greg, I was playing up the street here in this tiny dive bar, My friend had a birthday party and I was playing bass for him. And Greg got invited and was the last guy to play. 56
Greg: They made me wait until the very end because they said no one else would get up to play after I played. But I see this guy and I felt the way he played and it was like what I’d always been looking for in a bass player. Rick: So that’s how we met and we starting playing.
ENTER RONNIE CIAGO Greg: We orginally had a different drummer and it was good - but when Ronnie came up here it was great! He was the missing piece of the pie - the icing on the cake. We played for four hours straight the first time we all got together and we came outside and looked at each other and one of us goes “we should call this a band!” And I was praying this would happen because I was looking for this feel - the real rock and roll feel - nothing phony about it - wer’re all playing, shooting from the hip and just locking into our roots and why we all play music in the first place. We all bring something totally different to the table, but it all comes out as Invasion music and the sound that’s us. Ronnie: We’re all from different backgrounds. I grew up in New York. I started playing when I was 5. My dad was a jazz sax player and I was around music all of the time. I started playing with my dad and then I started playing with local rock groups. I went to Berklee School Of Music and then I went on tour with different fusion jazz groups - and then I started making records with people over in LA and I’ve ended up being on over 500-600 albums today. October/November 2021
HIGHWIRE DAZE
