Fans of 1980s rockers Alcatrazz got an early Christmas present in the form of a new package of live music, featuring songs from all three of the band’s studio albums, performed by three of the group’s original members, late last year in Japan.
Those members are former Rainbow, MSG and Impelliteri frontman Graham Bonnet, currently fronting the Graham Bonnet Band, keyboardist Jimmy Waldo, and bassist Gary Shea. It marked the first time that all three former Alcatrazz members have performed together onstage since the band broke up in 1987 – that’s 30 years folks!
Alcatrazz music has always been a part of Bonnet’s repertoire in live concert situations and continues to be with Waldo at his side in the Graham Bonnet band. But they decided for a one-off special occasion to play an entire set of Alcatrazz material, accompanied by Shea, which occurred over three shows in Japan – in Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo, with the final show being recorded for posterity.
That recording, Parole Denied – Tokyo 2017, was released as a two-CD plus DVD package by Frontiers Music on Dec. 7, with the live show features on one of the audio discs and the DVD, with a bonus CD highlighted by a number of previously unreleased Alcatrazz studio demo recordings. Waldo co-produced the album, alongside Giles Lavery. Besides Shea, Waldo and Bonnet were Graham Bonnet Band drummer Mark Benquechea and then guitarist Conrad Pesinato.
“We knew we wanted to record at least one of these shows and in Japan the quality of recording over there is so good. Everything is so well produced that we knew we would get a good recording. So, it made sense to get Gary over to play some Alcatrazz stuff. We played our usual Graham Bonnet Band set and took about a five-minute break and then came back and did all the Alcatrazz stuff with Gary,” said Waldo, noting that it really wasn’t much of a fuss putting a set list together for that special second set.
“Most of it was things we like to play anyways. There were a couple of things like Ohayo Tokyo that we had never played before, so that was a challenge. But we really wanted to do it for the Japanese fans. We thought it was very appropriate. As with most shows, the set just happens kind of naturally. Graham and I look at each other and say, ‘well, it would be cool to play this, so you want to sing it?’ Really, it’s about the vocals. Whatever he is comfortable singing, I am comfortable playing. So, it wasn’t difficult.”
Waldo was one of the founding members of Alcatrazz in 1983, alongside Bonnet, original drummer Jan Uvena (formerly of Iron Butterfly) Shea and an upstart young Swedish guitar wizard named Yngwie Malmsteen. Malmsteen left after the band’s successful 1984 debut album, No Parole for Rock and Roll, which included the hit single Island in the Sun, and was replaced by another young up and coming guitarist, this time an American named Steve Vai. He played on the next album, Disturbing the Peace, which was the band’s first record for Capitol Records, before departing in early 1986. The final Alcatrazz album was Dangerous Games, which came out towards the end of 1986, with the band breaking up after the tour in support of that record.
The band came back with just Bonnet from the classic lineup from 2006 to 2014, after which Bonnet folded the tent, bringing Waldo back into the fold as keyboard player for his solo band, yet, as mentioned above, still playing Alcatrazz songs live, especially when in markets where the band had great success, such as Japan.
“I think the reason why we have been so successful that has been the music and also because of Graham. Both just struck a chord with the Japanese. The music that we do and the presentation are just something that they really like. And they also seem to really love Graham’s voice. They like his writing, they like the band Alcatrazz, all the songs and the players. It’s just one of those things that worked, where we were in the right place at the right time,” said Waldo from his home in California, noting that Bonnet already had a reputation in Japan for his work in Rainbow and in the Michael Schenker Group.
“We never thought much about it, we just did what we did, and it turns out that the Japanese loved it. So, when we realized we had a following, we decided to go there with Alcatrazz as much as we could. I think they appreciate the effort we have put in to play there and put on a good show and I know that the promoters over there love Graham. Graham has always said that he loves playing in Japan and Japan has loved him. He has made a real effort to keep that relationship going over the years. Which is why it made sense for us to do these shows with Gary in Japan, because Gary was a big part of Alcatrazz back in the day.”
As well as Japan, Alcatrazz is still revered in many parts of Europe and also has a solid fan base in South America. Bonnet continues to tour regularly throughout the U.K., Europe, Japan and elsewhere, without really making a serious commercial dent in the U.S.A. which Alcatrazz never did, even when they had the likes of Malmsteen and Vai on board.
Waldo believes the fact that they were never part of the glam-based ‘hair metal’ scene that was the hallmark of heavy music in the1980s, and that the songs they wrote were of a somewhat more mature tone and more than the Poisons, Ratts and Twisted Sisters of the world, meant they were never going to catch that wave to MTV acclaim. But Waldo said he, and especially Bonnet are okay with that.
“It’s a world market for us. When it comes to the Graham Bonnet Band, the United States is at the bottom of the list of where we do want to play. Ironically, we do really want to play up there in Canada and the few times that the dates have come up over the last few years, it has interfered with a major European or U.K. tour. So, we haven’t been able to work that out, but I know what the audiences are like up there from my days playing in the clubs back in the 1970s, and I know they are passionate about the kind of music we do now, and the kind of music Graham has done in the past,” he explained.
“Back in the day, there were certain things bands had to do to be accepted, especially if you were a new band, as we were at the time. An established band like Iron Maiden was huge already. The didn’t need to try to be a hair metal band because they were already Iron Maiden. U2 was not a hair metal band, because they were already U2. To be a new band on the scene at that time doing heavy rock, if you weren’t hair metal, you could just forget it. And we were not and were never going to be.
“And that’s not just because of Graham, it just was never going to be my look. I just wasn’t interested in that scene and those kinds of songs. And that’s nothing against those bands, but we were never going to be a Ratt or a Motley Crue, as successful as they were, and they were very successful, but it wasn’t us, and that’s okay.”
Waldo said Bonnet brought more depth and soul to his lyrics and melodies which was not fashionable in the U.S.-based metal scene at the time. Indeed, critics and commentators both then and now concede that perhaps the music of Alcatrazz was a bit ahead of its time.
“A lot of people have said that, be we never thought about it. We never thought we were reinventing something or doing something that was new or ahead of our time. We just wrote the music that we did, and Graham writes lyrics about real life – his life. About 99.9 percent of what he writes is about personal experiences or things that he has seen. It’s all real-life stuff,” he said, continuing to extol both the compositional virtues as well as the seemingly endless power of the now 70-year-old Bonnet’s singing voice. Incidentally, Bonnet turns 71 on Dec. 23.
“I have always loved Graham’s lyrics; he is a wordsmith. He is an excellent writer. He can sit down and put pen to paper and whether it’s a letter or lyrics to a song, he is just a good writer. He has a great command of the English language and he also knows a lot about a lot of things. Graham is a very intelligent guy and he can see something on television and not necessarily write about the specifics of the show, but it will set him off writing about something. He is so aware of what’s going on around him, and is a very interesting guy, and all of this comes out in his music, and always has.”
Bonnet continues to write and record and tour with Waldo at his side every step of the way, providing a tangible link to their collective past in Alcatrazz, but also as a valued partner moving forward into the future. As for any more reunions with Shea, Waldo said it is unlikely, although he and the bass player have always remained friends and have stayed in regular contact with one another over the past four decades since the pair were in their previous band New England together in the late 1970s.
“It was fun. Doing those shows and recording them was a blast. I love Gary, he is like a brother to me and we evolved through New England and onto Alcatrazz and we have been playing together forever and been friends forever. So, the whole process from the rehearsals, through a few warm-up shows in Texas was great. And it was also cool because we dug up a lot of old stuff from the catalogue. Once I heard it, I remember it, and a lot was on old cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes,” he said, adding that the vast majority of his time is working alongside Bonnet, but that a few times a year he and Shea will gig with other former band members of New England.
“Other than that, Graham and I are at this 24/7 – it’s a constant thing in our lives. It never stops. We’re as busy as we ever have been, between rehearsals, writing, recording and touring. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
For more information, visit http://www.grahambonnetband.com, https://www.frontiers.shop/alcatrazz, or https://www.facebook.com/grahambonnetmusic.
- 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.
