Celebrating a legacy that stretches back into the days when melodic hard rock was on the ascendance within the music industry, House of Lords continues to fly the flag high for that popular genre of music. And with the March 24 release of their 11th studio album – and seventh since 2005 – Saint of the Lost Souls, the band is adding to an impressive catalogue of songs that has marked House of Lords out as one of the most prolific groups of the past decade.
Saint of the Lost Souls sees the band expertly bringing to the fore its trademark focus on searingly potent melodies, superior musicianship and songs that are truly uplifting, both musically and lyrically. And while this form of music is not at nearly the same level of popularity in North America as it was back when House of Lords was touring with the likes of Cheap Trick, Ozzy Osbourne and the Scorpions, elsewhere in the world, House of Lords is revered for their proclivity for progressive sounding, musically intricate style.
Comprised of co-founder James Christian, long-time guitarist Jimi Bell, drummer B.J. Zampa and newcomer, bassist Chris Tristram, the band began its life in 1987, breaking up in 1993 before reforming in 2000. Since then, the band has released an album almost like clockwork every two years on average, to great critical and popular acclaim, especially across the Atlantic Ocean.
Although each musician in House of Lords is American, and the band is based in the U.S., over the last 15 years, thanks to a mutually beneficial and successful partnership with Italian melodic rock label Frontiers Music, Europe has become the top market for the group.
“It’s tougher in North America for sure. But our goal moving forward is to build the band back up in the USA, so we signed with a new agent, Ashley Talent International [Quiet Riot, Accept, King’s X, Krokus] whose goal is to get us more dates and raise our profile here at home, which hasn’t happened for House of Lords in a long time. Usually what we do is we put out a record and we go to Europe and spend a lot of time there because the European fans are always there for us. When we go over to Europe it’s like being in the 1980s over here,” said Bell.
“They come out in droves; they know all the words and sing the songs – even the ones from the new record. When we perform a new song from a new record, they already know the words, which is amazing. And that’s why we have a good fan base over there because they really like the fact that we put out new music, and frankly we like it too.
“And we have fans of all ages too. Over in Europe we’ll see a guy bring his kids and his family and the kids are right in the front row knowing all the songs. We have some real die-hard House of Lords fans. And we have the older people who remember us from the first two records and you look out and you can see that they know all the new songs too but you can see their faces really light up when we play the big hits from the past like Love Don’t Lie and I Wanna Be Loved.”
Bell said the advent of social media, which breaks down barriers of age, background, gender and geography, has also played a key role in the band’s resurgence over the past decade or so.
“All the fans are great, and they really get behind the band. We get tweets and private messages on the House of Lords‘ Facebook page all the time, and we created a new website about a month ago [www.houseoflordsband.com] which is really getting some attention. And things are really moving along for this new record Saint of the Lost Souls. It just seems like there’s this amazing buzz about the record and about the band, and we think it’s great.”
And in Europe, the music fans are both eternally loyal once they like a band, but also demanding. They want their favourites to provide new music on a regular basis – and Bell and his bandmates are happy to oblige.
“We truly do want to give our fans new music all the time, because of the fact that a lot of bands, a lot of our contemporaries, don’t do that. A lot of them will just play their hits and not have to worry about writing and recording new stuff. So they play the same songs and that’s okay for them because their fans still love it. But we feel that the more music that we have out there as House of Lords for the fans to enjoy, the better it is for them, and for us,” Bell said.
“And we’ve got quite a catalogue now. We still do about six songs from the old days, from the first couple of records and then we do a number of songs, mostly title tracks from each other records we’ve done since I was in the band and then we play three or four off the latest album. And you know what, it’s fun to do new music. Frontiers is an incredible record label. They’re the show, they’re the main game and they have so many bands from our genre on their label and they really know how to promote a band like ours. They know exactly what to do and they do it, and we get treated great. Obviously we must do good for them sales wise because this is our seventh record with them. If we didn’t we wouldn’t be seven records deep into this amazing partnership.”
With Bell and Zampa having been in the band for more than a decade now, and being talented, experienced musicians who are well acquainted with the signature House of Lords sound, the pair have become an integral component in the songwriting process of the band, with Christian, in fact, entrusting the dynamic creative duo, to be the catalyst for each new project.
Such was the case with Saint of the Lost Souls.
“We write all the time and we have ideas flowing all the time. And we give James 16 to 20 songs for every record. I work with B.J. because he’s a great arranger and writer himself. I go to him with what I consider to be more or less a completed song and I will play it for him. And he will either say that he likes it as is and we go and cut it, or he will tweak it, shorten something, scrap a part here or there – do what he thinks is right for that particular track. Then we will go in and record it in full: two rhythm guitar tracks, a hard left and a hard right, a lead track and then the drums go on and finally the bass. We record it not as a demo but as a finished product,” Bell explained.
“Then we send it to James and he will listen to it and if he likes it he will start working on it. And if he doesn’t, he will pass on it. We have had many songs that he passed on. But then sometimes what happens after the House of Lords album is all done and James is doing a solo record he will sometimes go back and weed through some of the leftover songs we sent him and use it on his solo record. He has even used some of those songs for albums by his wife Robin Beck.
“So what he does is he produces what we send him. We send him what I call the skeleton or the foundation and he will take it and produce it. He might want to add more to a verse or chop something, and sometimes he will add an entirely new part. He may drop out a section and add a keyboard part or ask me to put in another guitar part somewhere. It’s not always cut and dry when we send him something. But like I said, we have been doing it together like this for seven records and we know exactly what to expect. B.J. and I have nothing to do with the melody lines or harmonies or what goes on keyboard-wise; James pretty much does all that.”
All of this makes sense because Christian is the keeper of the flame, as it were, of the House of Lords sound and the band’s legacy, which was established back in the heyday of the late 1980s when the band was founded by keyboard whiz Greg Giuffria (Angel, Giuffria). In 1988, a year after forming and being signed to Gene Simmons of Kiss’s vanity label Simmons Records, the original singer was replaced by Christian, who has been the mainstay member of the band through its first break up in 1993 and subsequent reformation in 2000. Bell, Zampa and bassist Chris McCarvill joined a revamped lineup in 2005, with McCarvill leaving to rejoin Dokken in 2016, his spot on bass being filled by Chris Tristram.
All along, with the exception of the odd deviation into harder rock or more progressive sounds, the House of Lords vibe has remained consistent.
“It’s melodic riffs, big choruses – James likes to use the word grandiose when describing the choruses. There are very prominent keyboard lines that stand out. And I think those are really the hallmarks of this band, the lively, powerful keyboard sounds and big choruses that actually lift the song. When I first started writing for House of Lords I had never written a melodic hard rock song in my life, although I may have fibbed in telling James that I could do it. But I quickly learned how to write and really lift the choruses, which is different than a lot of people who, when they write songs, they will keep the chorus in the same key. I learned about modulations, things like that. It’s stuff that makes a song more interesting, and that’s what a House of Lords song is at its core. We try to make it interesting, we try to make it soar and we will always try to do something a little different and go a bit above and beyond the norm,” said Bell.
“When I first joined House of Lords, our sound did change a little bit because I am a guitar player and the songs that I write are geared more towards the guitar and that’s how I presented them to James. However, he knows how to take it and make it into a House of Lords song. He knows what’s required in a song element to make it into a song that fits our style – it’s in his DNA to be able to do that.”
Fans who have seen House of Lords play live may wonder why there is no live keyboard player on stage during their shows. Bell said it is simply because the shadow cast by founder and long-time member Giuffria, who left the band for good in 2006 on good terms, looms large. Giuffria became a very successful businessperson outside of the music industry, working in the casino and resort industry and is currently a co-owner of the Biloxi Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
“So a lot of times when we’re out on tour, people will ask about Gregg and why he’s not in the band. And it’s because he doesn’t want to play any more. He’s quite content making millions of dollars in his business and he doesn’t have the desire to tour any more. So when we do go out and play, we don’t bring a keyboard player, we have all our keyboards on a backing track and the main reason is if we showed up on stage with another keyboard player, I think it would be worse for us because people would be giving us hell for not having Gregg in the band.”
Although for the video for the song Harlequin, Bell’s pal, and current Whitesnake keyboardist Michele Luppi was brought in to perform in the video. He also composed the intro for the song, and played keyboards on the entirety of the track.
“I wanted to get him on a track because I knew he had been a huge House of Lords fan since he was a kid and that he was a Gregg Giuffria freak. So I asked him to do an intro for Harlequin and then he played through the whole song and he did this amazing, phenomenal job,” Bell said.
While within the music business, Christian is considered to be one of the best voices representing the melodic hard rock genre, his bandmate Bell thinks his more private nature means he doesn’t get the kind of acclaim that many of his contemporaries get.
“James is a more private person. Believe me, when we go to Europe and we go on tour it’s ‘James, James, James’ all the time. But I sometimes think the mystique of him not being out in the public eye as much makes it an even greater impact when he finally does come out because everybody’s all over him. He does have a Facebook page, but rarely does anything on it. And he’s a busy guy; he is busy producing records and doing stuff. His daughter Olivia is on Broadway, she sings like a bird, and he does his wife Robin’s records and all these other outside projects. Sometimes I have to call him and remind him to do posts and stuff, but it is what it is. He’s a very talented guy, and I can tell you when he does hit the stage for any show, the place goes nuts,” said Bell.
For more information on House of Lords, the new album and upcoming touring plans, visit the band’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/HouseOfLordsB/, or website at www.houseoflordsband.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.
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