Rocky Newton of Lionheart

Second Nature, Grand Slam, and More...

Interview by Ken Morton

Second Nature is the comeback Lionheart album released in 2017, featuring the all-star lineup of Dennis Stratton (formerly guitarist with Iron Maiden), Steve Mann (current guitarist and keyboardist with Michael Schenker), Rocky Newton (former bass player and backing vocalist with McAuley Schenker Group), Clive Edwards (former drummer with UFO, Wild Horses, and Uli Roth), and newest member Lee Small (former lead vocalist with Shy and Phenomena). Out of print for a few years now, Metalville Records now presents a remasted version of Second Nature, complete with bonus tracks! With their third album The Reality Of Miracles being an absolute triumph for 2020, the hard to find Second Nature is a welcomed addition to the New Year as we await the next Lionheart magnum opus.

Highwire Daze recently caught up with the one and only Rocky Newton to discuss the re-release of Second Nature, working with Michael Schenker, Victory and Def Leppard - plus his current participation within the ranks of the almighty Grand Slam. Read on...

How did the reformation of Lionheart come about for the album Second Nature?

Quite simply, the band never really broke up from the early ‘80s but we all kind of went off and did different projects. Steve and I went on to play with MSG. joined Iron Maiden and it just kind of fragmented and we lost touch for a bit. But always remained friends.

And, in 2016, there’s was an AOR Festival in the UK, which is sadly no longer going, called the Rockingham Festival in Nottingham, which happens to only be about 20 miles from where I live. The promoter got hold of me and he’d always been a huge Lionheart fan and said, “Would you guys consider reforming to do a one-off show at the Rockingham Festival?” which was in, I think, the October of 2016. He called me back in the summer. I phoned around

to the rest of the guys and everybody was up for it, except for our original singer, Chad Brown, who had left the music business completely and just wasn’t interested at all.

So, we thought about it, and we said, “Well, we want to do it.” We’ve kind of phoned around and then Lee Small came recommended to us. So, we got together with Lee, rehearsed, did the show, which went down fantastically well. We got such a good response and a lot of press out of it. People said, “Well, why are you doing all this work to just do one show? You should do some more.” We sat down for a while, “If we’re going to do this, we should do an album.” So, we then sat down, and we wrote some new songs and we had a load of songs from back in the day, which have only ever been demoed; which we wanted to update with modern production and redo. So, Second Nature was 50% songs which were written in the ‘80s but updated and then 50% brand new songs. That, in a nutshell, is the story.

I actually bought Second Nature a year ago, when it was super high to buy on eBay. Now, it’s being re-released, so...

What happened was, we had a deal with King Music Japan. Japan was always a strong territory for us, and then we signed with a label called AOR Heaven, who are based in Germany. So, it was only ever released in Europe and Japan. Presumably, just on import anywhere else. We always felt a bit shortchanged by that. Our deal with them expired 6 months ago.

So, then our current record label, which is Metalville in Germany, we said to them, “Why can’t we have a global release on this to tide us over between the last album we did with them, The Reality of Miracles?”, The next one which we’re in the middle of writing right now. So now then, we thought well, we’re going to remaster it and place in a couple of bonus tracks, just to give it a bit of added value. So that’s that story.

Don’t Pay the Ferryman. What made you decide to cover that song? And did Chris de Burgh ever hear it?

Well. we’ve always loved the song. I can’t remember whose original idea it was, but we ticked around a few ideas and then just had a stab at it and it sounded really good. So, we said well, you know, hey, let’s go for it.

Chris de Burgh has heard it. We got hold of the keyboard player in his band, who is his musical director, and sent a copy of it to him. And he said he played it to Chris and he thought it was great. And the guy, I can’t remember his name. He wrote back to us and said he thought we’d done a fantastic job with it. We never directly spoke to Chris. But through his music director, we had a good response and said they loved it. So that was kind of vindication enough for us.

Paperback Writer by The Beatles is a bonus track on Second Nature. What made you decide to cover that song and any chance anyone from the Beatles can have heard?

I would doubt that very much if they’ve heard it. I mean, we’re all huge Beatles fans. That came about because, as I’m sure you’re aware when you release an album in Japan, there’s kind of this unwritten rule that the Japan release always has a bonus track. And to be perfectly blunt, we didn’t have a spare track kicking around. And so, we thought, what should we do? Let’s do a Beatles track and we hit up Paperback Writer and decided to make it a lot of different. And anyway, that’s why we did that.

So well, let’s go back in your music career. Working with Michael Schenker, what was that like? And do you still keep in touch with him?

It was a fantastic opportunity for me and I loved every minute of it. I got to tour the world. I ended up living in LA for 5 years from ‘88 to ‘93. I don’t keep in touch with Michael as such. Michael is a bit of an enigma. You know, he doesn’t really have a close circle of friends. He’s very much, a loner. That’s the way he likes to live his life.

I’m really good friends with everybody else in the band, from Robin McAuley and obviously, Steve. I went to see them as Michael Schenker Fest when they had all three singers. Went to see them in the UK. I saw Michael and he gave me a hug and we had a chat and everything was great. But then I was hanging around in the dressing room with everybody else. You know, Michael has his own dressing rooms. I say he’s very much, keeps himself to himself, so, that was fine.

And then I saw them about a month ago, they toured the UK and I went to it and I saw Steve and Bodo and I met Ronnie Romero. And the new bass player who is the lucky

guy. I was obviously slightly jealous. I didn’t get the gig but I know, he’s a lovely guy and he does a fantastic job so, you know, that’s fair play to him. I’ve got enough on my plate with Lionheart and now, with Grand Slam. So yeah, it keeps me busy.

I saw one of your credits. You were on the Victory- Culture Killed The Native album. What did you do on that album? And what was it like working with Herman Frank and everyone in Victory?

Yeah, they were old friends when I went to join MSG. We were based out of Hanover and Germany. I lived there for about 18 months. And that’s Victory’s hometown. And so I got to know all those guys. Peter Knorn, who now manages UFO, he’s more gone into management. He was the bass player. He was a good friend. And so is Herman and Tommy Newton who, I don’t think he’s in Victory anymore. I think it’s just Herman Frank.

Robin McAuley and I did backing vocals on that. I think we went up to Wisseloord. They asked us to go and do some BV’s. I did actually play bass on another Victory album, which I think is kind of uncredited. I think it’s the one called, You Bought It, You Name It. That’s actually me playing bass on that and I did some backing vocals on it as well. Tommy Newton got me in to do that in Hanover. songs which I think are pretty strong.

What’s going on with Grand Slam right now?

I don’t know if you know much of the history of Grand Slam. You know it was Phil Lynott post-Thin Lizzy’s band, and Laurence Archer, who’s an old friend of mine, was the guitarist in that for most of it with Phil. And he and Phil wrote most of the songs. The band, you know, for various reasons, didn’t get a record deal. And then, of course, Phil died, and so, the whole project was forgotten about.

Laurence always wanted to get those songs out there and rerecord them in the way they should have been done. You know, these various bootlegs from then, they did some touring and there are live versions of the songs and there’s some demos, which Laurence was never really happy with. Again, it was a similar situation to the one when we reformed at Lionheart. They had about half, the Grand Slam album - which eventually came out about 18 months ago. They were half old songs but re-recored and reworked a bit - and them some new songs that Laurence had written with the current members of Grand Slam. They did that album, and then for whatever reason which had nothing to do with me, they parted company with their bass player Dave Boyce. And Laurence phoned me and asked “Would you be interested in coming on board?” And I said “Yeah!”

I’ve done a lot of session work throughout the years. The biggest sessions I did were the Def Leppard backing vocals, I did Rock of Ages from Pyromania. And then I did the whole of the Hysteria album, I spent three months in Dublin with Leppard and Mutt Lange, doing the BV’s for Hysteria. So, that was pretty cool.

Is there any chance of Lionheart touring the States anytime soon?

You know what, we would love to. We’d absolutely love to. The first Lionheart album Hot Tonight, we actually recorded in LA. We signed to CBS. We did it at the legendary Sound City with Kevin Beamish producing, who just come off of doing REO Speedwagon. And we all absolutely loved LA. I ended up living there for 5 years. So we’d love to get out to America, but the logistics of the moment obviously, the COVID. It’s impossible to do anything much at the moment But I mean, that aside, I don’t know if there’s a promoter that would kind of take a chance on us, or we might need to get out as an opening act on a big tour or something like that. That would be perfect for us and believe me, we would be out there in a heartbeat. I’ll pack my bag and set off to the airport right now if there’s a promoter there that would make it happen for us.

And you mentioned that you’re in the midst of recording new Lionheart material, any idea if we’ll see a release in, a new release in 2022?

Well, yes, that’s the plan. We’re hoping to have it ready by late spring-early summer. I have yet to do my bass parts or backing vocals, but we’ve got the basic tracks down for 12 All the other guys in Lionheart have other projects they do - I’d been doing a band called Airrace - which that’s now been shelved. This was a nice thing for me to go straight into. They’re totally in my comfort zone. I’ve known Laurence for years and we played together on and off over the years. So I was able to slip into that and we have actually managed to do a few shows.

We did a couple of shows in France and we did one recently at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire opening up to The Dead Daisies in London, which was a fantastic gig. Except that I caught COVID at it. That was about five or six weeks ago. So I’m about two weeks post-recovery from COVID. But thank God, I’ve been fully vaccinated, and so it didn’t hit too hard. But that was fairly tough going for a few days. So yeah, the Grand Slam thing is definitely ongoing. We’re hoping to do a new album with that as well. Laurence has been busy writing and has been sending ideas to me.

Do you have any messages for Lionheart fans here in the States?

Well, just make a noise. Create the demand and we will be there. We’re just so glad that we have the support. Keep buying the album. Look out for the new album. And if it’s at all possible, we will be there.

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