Champaign, Illinois guitar wizard Lou DiBello chose to stretch himself as a songwriter and artist, by literally lending his voice to a number of songs on his new album.
American Hard Rock is comprised of eight new original compositions, rife with the soaring, riff-oriented melodic hard rock that DiBello is known for over a more than three-decade career, as well as a cover of Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein.
DiBello produced the album himself and plays lead and rhythm guitar on all nine tracks, bass on a few others, and performs lead and backing vocals on five songs – the most vocals that have ever appeared on one of his exceptionally crafted solo albums. Drum chores on the record are shared by Ron Phelps and Bobby Whiles, while Stacey Krecji plays bass on two songs, as does Mike LePond. Krecji also plays keyboards on three songs.
On previous solo albums, including 2017’s Heat Wave, his previous album, vocals were not as prominent, and were usually performed by veteran vocalist and DiBello pal, Carsten ‘Lizard’ Schulz.
“Although there were about half and half vocals versus instrumental on Heat Wave, on this new album there are six vocal tunes and three instrumentals, but even more significantly that that is that I sing lead vocals on five of those six songs. And, as well, I have been playing almost all of the songs live, including singing, and I have a pretty good idea of how they go over with a crowd,” said DiBello, who has been a staple on the Illinois/Indiana rock scene since he turned professional as a precocious 17-year old in the late 1980s.
“I have developed a pretty versatile solo act where its just me and my guitar and I use either some sequencing or a couple of tunes that I have Mp3 backing tracks. I do everything from shows that come off like a full band, to real low-key restaurant type gigs, where I will do a lot of blues and sort of laid back instrumentals. And while I was playing a couple of small places around here doing instrumental stuff, a lady who runs one of the bars I regularly play said I should start singing along. So that got me thinking because I had done it years ago when I had a blues-rock trio and sang lead, and I have sung back up in lots of other bands over the years. I decided to start singing more and being able to do that has opened up a ton of opportunities for me because I am playing more than ever and making more money playing than ever. So, including more vocal songs on American Hard Rock seemed like a no-brainer.”
Like many musicians in the modern era of music consumption, where streaming has begun to outpace downloading and physical copies, DiBello is still married to the idea and significance of creating a full album of music with a coherent theme and tone. Hence the release of American Hard Rock as an LP and not just a rash of singles.
“I am as old school as they come, and that’s just what you do when you’re a real musician that plays real music. Whether its Ross the Boss, or Judas Priest or AC/DC, that’s what real bands do – they make albums. Certainly, the availability of digital is great, but I sell copies of my previous album Heat Wave at many of my gigs, because if people enjoy the show, they want something to take home with them. And somewhat surprisingly I am still selling physical copies of the Heat Wave CD on CD Baby online – not very many, but pretty continually,” he said.
“So, for me, that’s what you do. It’s not even really an option. I have been recording professional quality recordings of original music in bands or as a solo artist for more than 30 years. I have done five solo albums and released albums with four bands – all independent stuff throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and for me, that’s just what you do.”
One of the standout tracks on American Hard Rock is the aptly titled Beast Mode: Engage, which features friend and frequent collaborator Carsten Schulz doing the only other lead vocal performance not done by DiBello himself on the album.
“I haven’t chosen a single yet but Beast Mode: Engage is pretty much a no brainer. I actually had the beginnings of this song going around in my head while I was still working on Heat Wave, or just as I finished it up. It’s a term I have heard a lot and thought was pretty cool. I was watching an interview with a female UFC fighter and they were talking to her and she was saying how she was a really nice person except for when she was in the ring, and then she went into Beast Mode. And I have heard the term in connection with football too,” he said.
“And I remember it came up in a conversation I was having with Mark Lopes from Ross the Boss’ band and we were talking about it in relation to music and how it’s the mindset a fighter has to get into when they’re going into a fight, or it can relate to what a rock or metal musician does when they go play on stage. It can also be just a general mindset anyone can have when they need to get into the headspace to take care of business.
“I basically had the chorus and almost the whole arrangement and everything right when I first started writing it. It turned out on the record basically as it was going around in my head probably for more than a year before I actually recorded it. I asked [mixer and mastering engineer] Rolf Munkes to put a bit of a Terminator voice with his German accent that says, ‘Beast Mode: Engage’ at the beginning, and he did, and it all came out great.”
Another contestant for the role of a potential single from American Hard Rock is the very bluesy and evocative Love is Blind.
“This one has a kind of a Gary Moore feel and it goes over great live. And it’s a song I actually wrote a long time ago. I have a pretty legit background in playing blues. I played in a house band at a Chicago style blues club for about a year and a half down here near where I live. And we would also back up the singer that did full on Chicago style blues and some R&B as well as many touring blues artists who were coming through town. To be honest, when I first really learned to play the guitar, one of the first things I learned how to play was 12-bar blues. When I was a senior in high school I would go into guitar class and the teacher would have me go up to the front of the class and solo while he played a 12-bar blues rhythm, even though I didn’t know what I was doing technically, it would sound pretty good,” DiBello explained.
“And then in the 1990s I had a band that was like a combination of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan and we hosted a blues jam every week for a year or so. So, my love for the blues has always been there. Love Is Blind was written around 1999 or something like that. When I started doing some of the solo gigs locally, I was played a lot more blues and I put that one back in the set and kind of tweaked it around a little bit and got it to the specific arrangement and lyrics that it has now. I always kind of thought of it as a little bit of a ZZ Top idea. It has a humorous, tongue-in-cheek lyric like they have in some of their songs, and with the keyboards that we kind of added in last minute, it has that real gritty Gary Moore feel too.”
Jack and Coke is DiBello’s tribute to the late great Motorhead frontman, Lemmy Kilmister, who died shortly after his 70th birthday in December 2015.
“I was more or less inspired when Lemmy died because that was his drink. I remember reading something about that after he died and one of the lyrics in the songs is, ‘if it’s good enough for Lemmy, it’s good enough for me.’ And what’s funny about that is that I don’t even like Jack and Coke that much. Sometimes I will be doing a show at a bar and someone will buy me a Jack and Coke and I have to drink at least some of it,” he said.
“As I started working it up to do live and then the way the recorded version came off, it’s kind of an AC/DC vibe in a lot of ways too, so I just tried to work that angle with it as well. One of the things about the lyrics to this song, and sort of lyric writing in general, is if you compare Bon Scott’s lyrics to Brian Johnson’s lyrics, Bon Scott’s lyrics always pretty much tell a story. There’s a narrative and there’s a hook and that is the hook of the whole song. Whereas almost all of Brian Johnson’s lyrics are like clichés or little phrases that are strung together that give a general idea of a mood, but don’t really tell a story. I was thinking of that when I was putting the lyrics together, especially the way the bass line in the song goes, it’s really a Bon Scott AC/DC kind of structure. Jack and Coke is another one that goes over great at shows.”
Classic rock fans will also enjoy DiBello’s interpretation of the Edgar Winter instrumental classic, Frankenstein, which is given a 21st century American Hard Rock update sonically and arrangement-wise.
“I don’t even know why I really thought about doing it at the beginning, other than I just liked the main riff and I thought the one main solo was cool. I started messing around with that one years ago, when I happened upon a backing track for it around the time, I did my Axeman Cometh album [2005]. After I took some time off when I had a baby and was just teaching and doing live gigs, around 2011 I started to get back into it in earnest and did some shows with an all instrumental version of my band that had a second guitarist and keyboard player. We did a bunch of my original stuff and some cool takes on some covers and we did Frankenstein. Later when I had my cover band, we did a lot of arena rock songs, and it also had a keyboard player and Frankenstein fit in with that set list too. And even doing my solo guitar shows, I still do it with the backing tracks,” he said.
“So, I have done it live in front of audiences for many years and have really kind of tweaked my version of it in terms of the stuff I play and what I do in place of the keyboard parts. It’s one of those tunes that I have always really liked and have been playing at virtually every single one of my shows for a while now, and it made sense to include it on this album.”
First with Heat Wave and now with American Hard Rock, DiBello’s professional buzz is beginning to grow, and he is hoping to channel the popular and critical acclaim he is generating to break out from being a regional touring artist to something bigger and better, as befits his obvious talent and experience.
“I am working to get hooked up with a really good booking agent that can book me out further than what I am booking myself, and in particular more festivals and different things besides the clubs that I can already book myself into. It’s tough though, because I am an independent artist and there are virtually no record companies out there who support artists in any way in terms of touring resources. So even if I had a ‘record deal,’ in today’s climate, I would still have to do so much of it myself,” he said.
“But I am making those connections and inroads and I am hoping to get out to the east coast and do a handful of solo shows and maybe put together a showcase or two. And I’ve got some connections in the southeastern U.S. Both in terms of maybe some of the response I am able to generate from this album, as well as some performing opportunities, I would definitely like to expand on what I have been able to do up to this point. If I can get more recognition and see what people think of the songs, maybe there is a little more for people to get a hold of on Heat Wave, since there are more vocals.
“What it comes down to is that for me as an artist, if I am writing songs, then I am going to record them. And if I am recording them, then I am going to put out a full album. If I am going to do that, it has got to be of a certain quality. I am pretty much going to keep doing my thing, keep working hard, keep playing as often as I can and hope that it continues to go in the positive direction that it has been over the last little while.”
For more information on DiBello, upcoming shows and American Hard Rock, visit www.loudibello.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
