Tesla

The Gauntlet: How is everything going?

Brian Wheat: Good. We are in St. Paul Minnesota today, the Twin Cities.


The Gauntlet: Isn’t that where you shot the band live DVD earlier in the year?

Brian: Yeah, same venue, same place.


The Gauntlet: How long have you been on the road?
Brian: About one week, we are just getting started.


The Gauntlet: Are you guys the road warriors you once were?

Brian: Yeah. We don’t do it like we used to staying on the road all the time, but we will do a month on and three weeks off. In the old days, we’d do 8 months on with a week off and then back to it. We tour a lot more civilized these days.


The Gauntlet: You guys all have families now.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. We have wives and some of us have kids. And we are in our forties, except for Dave who is in his thirties. He just turned 30 this year. He brings the average age down of the band.


The Gauntlet: The road will age him really quick.

Brian: We have been touring the last 22 years. Someone asked on Rockline the other night ‘what’s it like on the road?’ They just wanted to know if we still got our freak on. We go out, we do interviews, we do sound check, we do VIP, we play shows, we go to bed, then get up and do it again. It gets into a routine. In the old days, we just drank and did drugs and partake in women; then we’d play a show. That is the difference between now and then.


The Gauntlet: Was Tesla a big party band back in the day?

Brian: Yeah, we just never talked about it that much. Some of our contemporaries in the day just talked about the chicks and the drugs. We just focused on our music but we did our share of substance, absolutely.


The Gauntlet: I don’t recall ever hearing stories from bands about partying with Tesla. Nothing wild at least.

Brian: We managed to stay out of trouble believe it or not. We did party though. We never really partied with the other bands; we weren’t in that clique thing. We were just a band that kept a lot to ourselves. I think a lot of that comes from us being in a band from Sacramento. We weren’t part of that LA thing where bands hung out and were in each other’s videos. That is probably why you never heard of it. And we never talked about it. We always were able to talk about our music and show versus that kind of stuff.


The Gauntlet: Was it a good thing being the black sheep from Sacramento?

Brian: Absolutely. It made it so you can’t pigeonhole Tesla. You can’t say we are part of that swarm of bands that came out of LA in the 80’s. We have a different tone. I think it separates us from a lot of the bands at the time because we were from Northern California. We were off on our own up there. I think it was a good thing.


The Gauntlet: It can also be a bad thing. Those LA bands in the 80’s were close knit.

Brian: Yeah, but look who is still around today.


The Gauntlet: Did you ever imagine you’d be releasing albums almost 25 years later?

Brian: No. When you put out your first record, you just want to be able to see your album in the record shop. We never really passed that. After we got back together in 2000, we started to look at it different. We started to look at it like we got another shot and we should treat it a little more precious. Now if you ask me if I can see us doing another record in 10 years, sure, why not. If everyone is healthy and alive, this is what we do. This is what I do, this is my job. I am the bass player in Tesla, I go on tour with Tesla and earn my living. So in 10 years time, unless the world ends or band breaks up which I don’t think will happen as we have tried that already and couldn’t do that right, I think yeah. We will be doing something. It may not be as frequent. Right now we are on a pretty big tear. We are in a pretty productive phase right now.


The Gauntlet: The new album is really good. Instead of one or two good songs like most albums coming out now, this is a solid album with great songs.

Brian: That’s a good place to be in right?


The Gauntlet: If someone came to me and said they had .99 cents and wanted a new Tesla song, I’d have a hard time picking one favorite. This is really an album and not a collection of a few singles for the radio that will die out in a week.

Brian: I think that’s the thing when people ask why record sales are down. Bands think about the one or two singles on the record. We have always taken the approach of recording a great album versus one or two great singles on it. We have had a couple great singles that were top 10 Billboard songs, but we have never had one of those records with three monster hits. Our records have always been solidly consistent and it is what people expect from us. This record was to get together the best songs we could. We went through 25 song ideas to start with and ended up with 12 songs. There is actually a 13th song that should have been on the record that is on iTunes. We just wanted 12 songs on the record but this should have been on it. That was our goal though, a record that people would enjoy all the way through.


The Gauntlet: Without naming names, Tesla isn’t relying on its 80’s hits like a lot of other bands currently.

Brian: Tesla is not one of those bands. Being from northern California and being on our own has kept us like that. We have always played to the beat of our own drum and not the popular drum. If we were successful so be it and if we fell on our ass we fell on our ass. We’d just get up and try again.


The Gauntlet: Tommy was a key member of the band, how was it working on this album without him?

Brian: Well, he was asked to leave. It depends who you ask. He says he left to spend time with his family but that was a bullshit statement. He knows and it is pretty well documented with the problems he has had over the years. It just got to the point where it wasn’t working for him and it wasn’t working for us. We just weren’t on the same page anymore. We were definitely on different pages. Dave Rude's is on the same page as us. Does that make him better or worse? We have 5 guys on the same page now moving in the same direction. Dave writes and he co-wrote songs on this record just as Tommy did. He is not a hired gun, he is one of us.


The Gauntlet: The band has had a consistent lineup except for Tommy’s departure. How has the band managed to keep it together?

Brian: We made it almost 20 years. Sometimes things have to change to keep moving forward and that’s what happened. We weren’t going to stop the ship because one guy wanted to do things a different way than the other guys. If you have a whirlpool going and everyone is going one way and one guy starts going the other way, he gets thrown out of the whirlpool. That is what happened in a metaphoric way. But it’s on to the new record and everyone seems to be enjoying it. The band is really proud of the record and we really enjoy playing it. We are on a creative tear right now. Before the band change, we couldn’t be productive, there were too many distractions.


The Gauntlet: ‘Forever More’ was released on the bands own label?

Brian: Yes. We spent most of our career on Geffen Records, then that was done. We came back in 2000 and signed with Sanctuary Records. That didn’t pan out the way we wanted. When the contract was over, we decided to do things on our own. We started doing this and now we have done it for three releases now. In Europe we are on Frontier Records, a regular label, but in North America we are on our own label. I know how to sell records in America. I can work and tour in America and run everything from here. It makes more sense logistically to me. Tesla is going to be going over to Japan, Europe and Australia soon and we want someone over there that knows the markets and can maximize things. There is still a lot of fruit on the tree for a hard rock band like us.


The Gauntlet: Being around for two generations of fans, you must get a good mix of fans at the shows.

Brian: Yeah, absolutely. We get the older fans and we get a lot of younger kids coming too. They find us on MySpace. That makes me crack up. The first thing I think is that their parents turned them on to us, but then I talk to them and they say it was MySpace. People are still discovering us. It is very much more viral now.


The Gauntlet: Do you now have the moms and daughters offering themselves to you guys for sex?

Brian: [Laughs] Awe man.


The Gauntlet: You can tell me.

Brian: We are all married bro! Uhh. That has happened before. Not since 2000. Back in the old days I have done a mother and daughter team. The old days were fruitful.


The Gauntlet: You went back to Terry Thomas to produce “Forever More.”

Brian: Yes, we went back to Terry Thomas. He did the "Bust a Nut" record. That was a record we weren’t busting out on all our cylinders. It was one we were kind of out of our minds. We wanted to do an album with him in a better situation. When we were in Europe on the tour last year, Summer of ’07, Terry came by some of our gigs. We said we should do a record again and it fell into place. In March he showed up and he was ready to rock.


The Gauntlet: Are you playing a good mix of new and old on tour?

Brian: We are doing about six of the new songs, six to eight of the classics, and a couple of obscure ones. You are always going to hear Signs, Love Song, Cowboy, Heaven, but one night you might hear Hang Tough and not the next. There are a lot of songs to chose from. We try to keep that balance. We have huge discussions about it.


The Gauntlet: I feel bad for Dave. He has to learn the band entire catalog.

Brian: He has a lot of songs to learn and fast.


The Gauntlet: A lot of bands that have a mega hit get tired of playing it, especially when it is not even their song. Has this ever been the case with ‘Signs?’

Brian: I have never not liked the song. Every night we play it and every night the crowd goes crazy. They want to hear it. You can’t be self indulgent and not want to play the song. Those are the songs that sold the record. You go see Paul McCartney and want to hear him play ‘Hey Jude.’ ‘Signs’ is our biggest hit, it sold the record. If the fans don’t hear it, they’ll be pissed off. I don’t resent any of it. I am very grateful that I am still able to make a living playing these songs 22 years later. When you put it into perspective, if you resent it you are so wealthy and self-absorbed and don’t care about the people paying you to play the songs. I look at it from there point of view and not mine. If I were a Tesla fan, what would I want to hear? I am a fan of music myself. I am a huge Paul McCartney fan. There are several songs I want to hear him play. ‘Signs’ is one of our fastballs. You got to throw the fast balls. You can’t just throw knuckleballs. You throw a slider or changeup at times too.


The Gauntlet: Are you doing anything different to sell the album? When Tesla began, your music was sold on Vinyl and cassette. Now it is digital downloads and CD’s.

Brian: Still a lot of CD’s, but also a lot of the download tracks. We try to do what we can. We sell the physical products in the stores through retailers and also sell through iTunes. You just grow with it. Thank god there aren’t cassettes anymore. I do miss vinyl though. We are going to do a limited edition run of vinyl for this album that we will probably number and sign. Oddly enough I was in Best Buy last night and FYE. There is a vinyl section in the stores now. I saw Metallica’s ‘Death Magnetic’ in vinyl there. It is a small percentage, but verses 10 years ago when there was none; it is definitely making a resurgence. Wouldn’t it be funny if everything went back to vinyl?


The Gauntlet: When did you first realize you were a rock star?

Brian: Rock star. That is a funny word. I don’t think we are rock stars. Rock stars are on the cover of People Magazine. They are at the Oscars or Grammy’s, all those things. Tesla has never been on any of those. I think Tesla is a working class band full of guys who grew up poor in a part of the country where there isn’t a lot of glitz and hype. Nikki Sixx called us tomato farmers because we come from the part of the San Joaquin Valley that grows a lot of produce. You don’t read about us on TMZ either. Our first six records went platinum and they quietly went platinum. Bands that sold less that us got more TV air time and radio time. We are a working class band for working class people. They relate to Tesla. I think that is what they relate to us. Jeff’s voice is very infectious. I wouldn’t say we are rock stars though. If we win a Grammy though, we will all be very happy, but will we be rock stars? Are we well known, by some people yeah. Are we as well known as Metallica, Bon Jovi or Motley Crue, no? We don’t have that kind of profile. I’d be stupid if I said we don’t want that. We want to be successful. I would love to be successful but I always look at the glass as half full. Today the glass is half full even though we haven’t had a Pump, Hysteria, or Appetite for Destruction. Tesla has always carved a niche for itself that is steady. If Tesla were a stock, you aren’t going to get rich off us, but it will always pay dividends.


The Gauntlet: If you had a mega hit album like that, would you have survived as a band?

Brian: Not then, now we can. Back then we would have been caught up in all that. Now we are pretty well grounded. We had it all taken away from us once. We know what we have now is special. If we had it, it would be great, we’d be smarter about it. We travel very economically compared to the old days when we had six buses and stayed in 5-Star hotels. We would rather have that money to put into our homes instead of living the life. I’d rather sleep in my bunk on the bus than in a hotel.


The Gauntlet: You can’t throw a TV out the bus window though. Who in the band threw the best TV out of the 5-star hotel window?

Brian: Why would anyone want to do that? I wouldn’t throw a TV out of my house, why would we throw one out the hotel window? You gotta pay for it. That’s just being a retard.


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Tags:  Tesla, Brian Wheat , Brian Wheat, interviews

Jason Fisher    October 13, 2008