(Los Angeles, CA) – Mark Slaughter, name sake to the 80’s hard rock, hair band Slaughter, is releasing a new album on May 22, 2015. A solo project, titled Reflections In A Rear View Mirror. This creative endeavor was largely written and recorded by Slaughter himself with the exception of the drum tracks, belted out by Mark Goodin and Michael Wagener behind the board mixing and mastering the project.
Slaughter‘s progression in the music industry dates back to 1981, fronting the hard rock/metal band Xcursion. They released a self titled EP in 1983 followed by a full-length album in 1984 called Ready to Roll, via Rampage Records. With the demise of Xcursion the doors opened for the Vinnie Vincent Invasion. Slaughter joined the band and contributed his vocal talents to their second album, released in 1988, called All Systems Go. Later that same year, they were released from their contract with Chrysalis Records. With mounting resentment towards Vincent’s perceived dictatorship, Mark Slaughter and Dana Strum parted ways and the inception of Slaughter was born.
Slaughter‘s (band) freshman effort, released in 1990, called Stick It To Ya garnished them with 3 Billboard charting songs – “Fly to the Angels” (#19), “Up All Night” (#27) and “Spend My Life” (#39). Touring with such bands as Kiss, Poison, Ozzy Osbourne and Damn Yankees, this would be their most lucrative project to date. Like most other hair bands from that era, Slaughter was railroaded and dropped from the Chrysalis roster with the impending popularity and take over of the grunge era.
The next few years bestowed the band Slaughter with severe misfortunes. Many personal problems plagued some of the band members. In 1993 Tim Kelly was arrested for drug traffic charges stemming from his pre-Slaughter days. As he was finishing his six-month sentence of probation and a stint in a halfway house, Strum was involved in a serious motorcycle accident. It would get much worse. On February 5, 1998, Kelly was involved in a fatal car accident. Kelly‘s vehicle was hit head on when an 18 wheeler crossed the middle line.
Life took its course and Mark Slaughter stayed on the straight and narrow not partaking in the elicit lifestyle that the industry is known for. Slaughter continued to pursue music. Slaughter now works as a voice-over actor and composes music for television, movies and sports outlets. His credits include music compositions for Fox Sports, along with voice over ventures in productions like Batman Beyond, Bloodsport and Animaniacs.
Music Life Magazine caught up with Mark Slaughter via SKYPE recently. Here’s what we talked about.
Sue – Thanks for taking the time to speak with me!
Mark – My pleasure!
Sue – You have a solo release coming out on May 22 called Reflections In A Rear View Mirror. What can you tell me about it?
Mark – My bandmates Dana Strum, Jeff Blando and Zoltan Chaney where playing with Vince Neil at the time. I was writing a bunch of songs for the sake of writing for film etc. and low and behold before I knew it I had a whole record full of songs. So I reached out to legendary producer Michael Wagener to mix all the music and that’s pretty much what I did. It was just a natural course of events of how it all came together.
Sue – You took on the roll of nearly an entire band with the exception of the drums. Why did you decide to go this route? Was it for more creative freedom?
Mark – More creative freedom and the other side of it, is I hear it the way I want it to be done in my head and sometimes it’s easier to do it yourself instead of trying to convey your ideas to other people. It came together really quickly. Mark Goodin is the drummer I used on the record. He was a gentleman that I used to know way back in high school. He played in a rival band. We got reconnected through social media. I said “why don’t we do a record together. Why don’t you do the drums. I have everything recorded, I need some drums on this thing and I’ll redo the bass and tighten up the rhythm section and we’ll put this thing out”. He was into it and that’s how it all went down.
Sue – Can you describe your creative process for writing this solo album?
Mark – Usually I write the song with a guitar riff. Either I write the material myself or I bring in outside writers, a gentleman named John Goodwin who did about 6 of the songs on the album lyrically. It’s just one of those things, however the flow goes, is how I usually do it. Most of the time in songs, especially for rock musicians, you write the guitar riff, then the melody idea, then the words. I did it pretty much that way for the whole record with the exception of one song “Somewhere Isn’t Here”. Where John reached out to me with lyrics and said if you want to do something to these lyrics let me know. I read the lyrics and felt they were very timely and so I put the music to the lyrics afterwards, which is very different than most rock musicians write. Country musicians usually write that way. Not Rock musicians.
Sue – How long did it take you to write this album?
Mark – It was pretty quick to write the entire album, but to record it, it took a year and a half. I didn’t really solidly work on it. I kind of work on it a little bit then work on other things. It was just a natural course of events. It wasn’t something that I put my head completely in. I did it as I did it.
Sue – Any particular track is your favorite and why?
Mark – There’s a song on there called “Deep In Her Heart”, which I really enjoyed doing since it was completely different from anything I’ve ever done. Orchestrating-wise, there was a full orchestra on there. It was interesting to me to play all the parts one instrument at a time. I enjoyed that process. It was about 200 tracks by the time it was all done, which is a lot of tracks. It all made sense. Every instrument had a purpose for being there. I like that because it took a lot of effort to do and creatively it was a new way of doing things for me.
Sue – Although I knew you played rhythm guitar with Slaughter, I was majorly impressed with your talents as a lead guitarist. Was this a talent you’ve been hiding all along?
Mark – Years ago I used to be a guitar teacher. I used to play like that pretty much all the time. But I always found myself in singer roles, more than guitar player roles. It was just something that I didn’t really think of. I was more focused on being a front man than a guitar guy. But doing it was exciting for me. I love to play like that but I don’t get to a chance to do it much. When you’re fronting a band like Slaughter, I do play guitars but it’s not like I’m over the top playing leads all the time. I hold down the back beat where guitar is needed as opposed to look at me I’m a guitar player.
Sue – Any plans to promote the solo stuff with a tour? If so when and where?
Mark – I don’t have any dates as of yet. I’m not really fishing for dates. If there is something that arises then I will put a cast of characters together. I would certainly do that. I would use Mark on drums and then whomever else. But for the most part I have so many shows with Slaughter. It’s kind of like how Paul Stanley does his records away from Kiss. It’s more about an artistic expression as opposed to where I’m going now with my solo career. It’s just something that I want, to continue making art and not staying with one thing. That was my idea when I was making this process.
Sue – You’ve been in the industry in one way or the other over the past 30-plus years. How did you get involved in the TV aspect of it?
Mark – That was a natural course of events. Someone heard some of the stuff I was writing and said “Who’s playing guitar on that?” I said, “Well, I did” and they said, “Well, that’s great. If you can can record this many tracks in this amount of time then we’d like to use it on our TV or film stuff”. And that’s how it all clicked in. People are looking for catalogues in music. I was writing pieces of music that was faceless but it’s used all the time in sport stuff especially.
Sue – You actively tour with Slaughter. Do you ever get tired of playing the songs that made you famous such as “Fly To The Angels” and “Up All Night”?
Mark – Not really. I think for some artist they might get tired of doing it. But we are the artist that wrote, recorded and still perform those songs until this day. It’s not like we are playing someone else songs and it gets to be monotonous. It’s from us and is believable which makes a big difference.
Sue- I’m sure the fans appreciate hearing these songs.
Mark – It’s one of those things that I’ve learned when I went to a Paul McCartney concert. People were freaking out over the Wings and Beatles stuff. He then said, “I’m going to play a new song for ya” and the entire arena sat down. I just realized that there’s certain aspects that people want to hear what they want to hear. As much as we all want to shove new music down people throats, some people are not open to it. It’s not something, as an artist, that you throw a hissy fit about. You continue to write music and you continue to do what you do and enjoy making music. And for those who are looking to hear it and be a part of it, it will be there. For Slaughter we are doing the hits that they know and that’s important.
Sue – Do you have any personal ties with the Military? I know you wrote a single called “Never Givin’ Up” in March 2014 where part of the proceeds went to Red Circle Foundation.
Mark – As much as we travel, we meet a lot of these men and women from all around the world. Sometimes these soldiers get left behind. The government kind of forgets about them when they have issues with health or with family. There’s a foundation that I work with called the Red Circle Foundation. They supply government gap funding. So if a mother is serving in Iran and her daughter wants to join the ballet, this charity will pay for her daughter’s ballet lessons. It’s not just the typical injury assistance provided to the soldiers – it’s other things that assist in keeping the family core together.
Sue – It’s nearly one year since launching “Never Givin’ Up”. Did you attain the goals set for the song?
Mark – Yes I did. Ultimately, I think there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world right now. If you can do a little something to help people in need, it’s the key. I stand with St. Jude and I try to help the military. I do feel that some of these people get left behind.
Sue – Anything you’d like to mention or plug today?
Mark – I want to say thanks to all the fans for all the years. We’ve had really big successes in Canada. We’ve sold over platinum in Canada and that was a big achievement for us because we know how hard it is within the Canadian content to be taking that way. We don’t take it lightly and we look forward to playing in Canada whenever we can.
Sue – Thanks for taking the time to do this interview today. It was great speaking with you!
Mark – Thank you.
This year’s tour dates can be found by clicking here.
To purchase Reflections In A Rear View Mirror click here.
For more info on Mark Slaughter please visit:
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For more info on Slaughter the band, please visit:
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