Kissing Judas

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Corey Sullivan: Well, I just didn’t get around to doing it myself.

Morgan Sullivan: They need to just bring back radio. That’s it.

Music News: Tell me about some of your band members. I understand you have a new bassist.

Dave Sullivan: Okay, with our bass player. We pulled in Bret on vocals, and you know he came in and it was just like, This dude is incredible. He fits perfectly for what I had envisioned of wanting to hear our songs sound like, and then was like, Okay, now it’s time to get a bass player. We put, ads out and looked around and everybody’s in five or six bands, or three tribute bands, two cover bands and everything. It was really hard getting somebody and a lot of people would want to audition. And then I’m like, ‘Where’d You Go? Why didn’t you show up?’ They were really intimidated by Rudy and Billy and all that and they’re like, ‘I didn’t want to try’. And this kid, I get a phone call from his dad. And he does a lot of the concessions for a lot of the shows and stuff like that. He said, ‘Look, I saw your ad and I think my son would be great’. And like, ‘okay, well cool, let me know, have him come by. I’ll send you some songs and let him learn them’ and I sent them some songs and also some like video tutorials about how Matt actually played certain parts. And he came in one Saturday and he’s 18 years old at the time. He came in and melted our faces. Yeah, it was just like, like super, super, super cool. I mean, he pulled it off and he stepped in some pretty big shoes and all the props to him for that. That’s something that a lot of people wouldn’t do. But I’ve always had the philosophy and the way that I did stuff is I started out playing guitar clinics and all these things. When I was younger I was surrounding myself and playing with people that are of the highest caliber or better than you or whatever, because it drives you to reach that level. And he came in and he just like knocked it out of the park. The band right now is the perfect fit of everybody and everything. We all just have our place and part that everything just gels together perfectly. And if you listen to the album, you can hear it just it all works.

Corey Sullivan: It’s very rare to have a group of musicians where there’s a lot of talent and not a lot of ego.

Dave Sullivan: Oh, I was told if I was a more laid back, I’d be asleep. I might talk a lot. You know, I’m kind of, you know… We’re all really easygoing. Nobody’s got an ego.

Music News: Okay, that’s Matt we’re talking about now?

Dave Sullivan: That’s Chris.

Music News: What’s his full name?

Morgan Sullivan: Chris Salinas.

Music News: All right. And he’s the permanent band member now?

Dave Sullivan: Yes.

Music News: Let’s get back to “The Road”. You had Billy Sheehan on this song.

Dave Sullivan: Yes. Correct.

Music News: Okay. Did Billy’s playing change it any?

Dave Sullivan: This is a funny thing. Corey had mentioned like, ‘okay, I can understand him playing on “Cheshire”. “Cheshire” is like a fast in your face, guitar, rip your face off kind of song. But “The Road’? And I was like, Well, you know, if you think of Mr. Big and “To Be With You”, that was like one of their biggest hits. And this is in that vein of music, where it’s a very good ballad and one of the three songs that we get the most, ‘that’s my favorite song on the album’. So everybody really loves it. But yeah, Billy came in. Everything he did fit perfectly and they sent me two tracks with the variant, the ending part, where one was clean and one was a little dirty. So we switched it over to the clean and it comes out real melodic. It definitely brought a flavor to it. And Chris was able to pull that off, you know, it took a few rehearsals and stuff like that to get it all down. I’m very honored to have the guys that played on this album, not only the famous people, but the band here. I got my son on drums, my wife on backing vocals, and you know, Brett. He’s just incredible and Chris played on a couple of songs too as well, so it’s all just the way I’d envisioned it. I couldn’t ask for a better outcome.

Music News: I believe you’ve got a video out from one of the songs or you’re working on a video.

Dave Sullivan: Yeah, we’re getting ready to work on a couple of them.

Morgan Sullivan: It’s in the works.

Corey Sullivan: We’re going to be collaborating with a couple friends of mine who are... we’re starting a film company up together. They do a lot of very cinematic short films and stuff. And we’re going to have them help us make a few music videos and try to give them some exposure and some experience doing music videos, because it’s very, very different from narrative pieces where there’s dialogue in different scenes and stuff. They’re very good friends of mine from high school and I think they’re very talented.

Morgan Sullivan: Yeah, don’t get it wrong, cuz they’re young. Their short films are amazing. They’re really good.

Music News: Well, young is where it’s at now. That pretty much the new approach to things, the fresh views. Not rehashing everything. You hire someone that’s been doing it for 30 years and you’re gonna get the same video pretty much.

Morgan Sullivan: Right. I’m really excited to see what they come up with.

Music News: Now, What haven’t we talked about on the album that we should have?

Morgan Sullivan: No, I think I think that’s about it. The one thing I’d like to say is, if you buy the vinyl album, when you open it up, we totally went like old school on that. It’s got the inserts, it’s got lyrics. The CD does have an insert as well. So we just kind of went all out with that and we thought that was a lot of fun. That was part of the fun about us. When you get a CD or you get an album, you want to open it up. You want to see the pictures. You want to read the lyrics. And so people can have that experience now,

Music News: It’s nice to have the lyrics in there. It’s nice to have them this big in the album where you can read them.

Dave Sullivan: Yeah. And the CD has a 16 page full color booklet. A lot of people, a lot of friends say, ‘oh my god, you’re going overboard.’ And it’s a lot to do with that’s what I want, that’s what I had as a kid. Part of the experience was opening up a cassette… I was right past the eight track days, so I had a cassette and you’d open it up and that was your pasttime. You’re reading the lyrics. You’re reading the thank you’s or reading the stories of these bands and it brought you in personally with the bands. With digital downloads you don’t get any of that. You don’t get the personal stuff. You’re lucky if you get lyrics. Brett did all the artwork and the design. I sent him a bunch of photos and stuff and he put it all together and we worked back and forth on that a little bit and he did an incredible job. So he’s not just a singer folks, he can… he has something to fall back on if his voice ever goes, but God I hope it doesn’t go

Bret Gyrich: Knock on wood. Knock on wood.

Music News: Okay, well, then I think I probably have enough here. I appreciate you all meeting with me to do this.

Morgan Sullivan: Yes, thank you know, we appreciate it so much. But I think Brent was trying to talk and then talked over a mom and get it.

Music News: What do you got, Brett?

Bret Gyrich: I’m good. I’m good. Thank you’.

Morgan Sullivan: Thank you for having us. Thank you so much.

Music News: All right. Well, then I guess it’s a wrap.

Morgan Sullivan: It’s a wrap guys.

Be sure to drop by The BFE Rock Club this month on August 12th. It’s going to be a party. As you can tell by this interview, this band is gearing up for National stardom and we certainly hope they achieve it. They certainly deserve it. The proof is in the music and let me tell you, Kissing Judas and their new album release False Saint is the real deal. If you want to ROCK!, then meet me at The BFE Club on August 12th. We’re going to have a BLAST! Kissing Judas is Dave Sullivan (guitar/backing vocals), Bret Gyrich (vocals/acoustic guitar), Corey Sullivan (drums), Chris Salinas (bass), and Morgan Sullivan (backing vocals).

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