The hardening of tone between the two albums is amazing, why the group evolved/moved in this direction?
Robert and Oscar left the band after the first album to pursue a career with their folk band The Shakers. With the folk influences gone, Chris and I reformed the band with members that were into Hard Rock. Drew Cornutt joined the band as our bass player and he was as wild on stage as we were. We were also allowed to explore a harder edged sound with British producer Vic Maille (Motorhead) on the Geared & Primed album.

How was made this evolution towards a heavy rock'n'roll?
I would say that it was actually de-evolution. Chris and I went back to playing Rock and Roll the way we played it with The Enemy, except we were better players after a year of touring and recording. Jeff Mays, who only appears on the song Dragon Park, was a pure metal head and could shred the guitar.

It is not too hard to make heavy rock'n'roll in Nashville? you were never tried by an adventure in Los Angeles?
It's true that Nashville is labeled Country Music, USA by the press but we never found it hard to be a heavy rock band in Nashville. It was our home town and we had a lot of friends and supporters there. We moved to Los Angeles after recording our second album there. We fell in love with the weather and the women. We were not accustomed to the graffitti that covered everything though. I sat in a jacuzzi with Babyface and Flava Flav once while recording Geared & Primed. Babyface was working on his first album and wondering what he would do if the album didn't make it. I didn't understand a word of what Flava Flav (Public Enemy) said. He was my next door neighbor for 2 months. Very friendly guy. We recorded a song for Brad Pitt's first movie, Across the Tracks, and he sat next to me during the screening. He was worried about his career. I told him that he was great in the movie and not to worry. He should have been the one consoling me. I've got a million stories about my brushes with greatness.

There were many changes of line up, did you have evil to find musicians as motivated as you?
There are a lot of great musicians out there and we played with some very good people. Finding 4 or 5 guys with the same vision is very difficult. Chris and I were very serious about the future of the band after Robert and Oscar left. We found Drew for the second album and he shared our work ethic, motivation and vision for the band and stayed until the end. I guess I've always had bad luck with guitar players though. More than one quit the band and left town in the middle of the night. Every one I've met is just about as stubborn as me. That's why Door No. 2 is a 3-piece.

Is there a chance one day to see/hear an album with news or a dvd?
We performed several shows for television and I would like to release a "Best of" DVD in the future. The band also recorded a lot of material that was never released so there's a chance that a posthumous third album may be released in the future. Maybe one to commemorate the 20th anniverary of the band in 2006. I would of course like to record a new third album and release it on my own Screaming Brain label. Time will tell if that will ever happen.

With the passing, which do you think of the two albums of Royal Court of China ?
I always seem to gravitate towards the shortcomings rather than the positive aspects of the music. We produced the first album ourselves and the demos leading up to the actual recording rocked harder and had a rawer edge to them. We tried to get Jimmy Page to produce but he was too busy. John Paul Jones offered but we said no. That was probably the biggest mistake we ever made. We were young and thought we knew everything so we ended up with an album where each member tried to get their parts the loudest in the mix instead of focusing on what was important for the song. I also think the first album lost it's edge and became too clean. That's just my opinion. A lot of people like that album the best. Oscar played some great innovative guitar on that record and Robert had some excellent wah-wah bass and mandolin parts. Chris's drums were big and played well. Most of the vocals and rythym guitar are buried in the mix though. As the singer/rythym guitarist, the final result was naturally dissappointing to me. The Royal Court was definitely schizophrenic during it's career and had may faces. The second album regained the edge and had a larger audience with the change to a harder rock sound and we also had Vic Maille producing. I think having the perspective of a seasoned veteran at the helm brought out the best performances in us all individually and as a whole. He suggested things that we would have never thought of and he never tried to tone us down. Stylistically, the band was very eclectic but I think he managed to meld the influences together enough to create a cohesive album. He also liked to keep it raw and not over-produce things. 8 out of 10 of the lead vocals that made it to the album were the original scratch tracks. Chris played extremely fast on songs like Geared & Primed and Tijuana Go (a song from The Enemy days) and I loved that. Drew had a great raw bass tone and played a Vantage bass with a Whammy bar on it. Very cool stuff. My guitar was actually heard on this record. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of opinion but I liked it!

Did you remain in liaison with former members? if so, do you know what they became?
I keep in contact with Chris, Drew, and Robert fairly often. We have all buried the hatchet (luckily not in each other's heads) and talk about the good times and the missed opportunities. Chris lives in South Carolina where he raises horses and participates in Civil War re-enactments. Robert still lives in Nashville and has started his own poster company, Cypography. He creates posters from his artwork ranging from Nosferatu to Belly Dancing. There's a link to it on the Royal Court site. www.royalcourtofchina.com
In fact, there's info on all of the members available on the site. Robert jammed with Door No. 2 in Nashville last year and that was a lot of fun. Robert and I also formed a recording project called Purple Vidalia a few years back and recorded an album that we never released. Drew lives in Atlanta and I saw him last year when Door No. 2 performed there. Although I haven't spoken to Oscar in awhile, Robert keeps me up to date. He's just recorded a new album that I can't wait to hear. I hope that by some miracle I can get everyone together for a 20th anniverary show in Nashville in 2006. I haven't spoken to any of the lead guitarists since they left. I imagine they are all secretly plotting my demise in some back alley!

According to you, why was RCC just a success of regard?
I believe that we had success because we unconsiously never followed a trend. We were just ourselves and we worked our asses off. As a result it is sometimes difficult to find a radio station to play your music but we rarely had people saying that we sounded like someone else.

What do you think of the musical evolution since the Eighties?
I liked bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden. The whole grunge era did just what punk did to the progressive metal bands in the 70's. It pushed music back to pure energy and gave us songs about more than chicks, cars or the devil. I think Heavy Metal got silly in the late 80's until GnR became the NY Dolls of Hair bands. Now it's happening in reverse. Bands like The Darkness are bringing back the best parts of progressive 70's rock and Interpol is bringing back the best of the 80's machine sound. The biggest musical evolution to me are the technological advances made in the recording of music. I have my own recording studio that is comprised of most of the same equipment that you have in big studios. Never before has it been so easy and inexpensive to take your musical idea straight to CD or mp3. These are great days to make music!

Who are the other members of the band ?
Shane Baxter pounds the drums and sings background. Matt K. plays the bass and the V-bass.
Both are excellent musicians and we all share the same vision for the band. I'm extremely fortunate to have found them here.

Which is your objective with Door N°2?
I'd like to see our music playing on more radio stations and that's becoming much more of a possibility with internet stations and satellite radio. If I had my way I'd like to hear Door No. 2 songs in major motion pictures. Maybe Sam Raimi will put a song in the next Spiderman movie. I can only hope!

You have one crowned voice, easily recognizable, do you work it?
No. My wife is a classically trained vocalist and has given me some pointers on how to yell and not lose my voice but other than that, I just try to keep my smoking at a minimum and sing often. I think my voice is the best it's ever been, thankfully.

Out of all the bands you ever toured with, which ones were the coolest to work with, and which ones were the worst ?
Joan Jett and Cheap Trick were the coolest. I was a fan of both bands before having a record deal was ever a thought. I loved Joan ever since The Runaways and she rocked harder than a man. Plus she played I Love Rock and Roll with the Sex Pistols. You can't get cooler than that. She always gave us plenty of time to perform on stage and her crowds became our biggest fans afterwards. Cheap Trick had been on top and then they hit bottom. We toured with them when The Flame came out and they were riding high for the second time in their career. They didn't act like stars and they treated us like their equals. Robin Zander even gave me a potion to cure my flu. REO Speedwagon were the worst. Personally, I wasn't a fan and they had people under the stage playing their music for them. Very cheesy and fake. We were playing colleges with them and getting a better crowd response. Once Kevin Cronin came out on stage during one of our songs because the crowd was going wild for us. He was dressed in a bathrobe and I told him not to slip on the soap. The crowd erupted in laughter. We watched that band DIE!!

What do you think of Internet, the remote loadings, the mp3s...?
I love the easy access to music but I have mixed feelings because of the theft possibilities. Record Companies hate it because they waited too late to get in on it. I personally don't steal songs from song sharing networks because I still get royalty checks from people that buy my music. I also like album artwork and I think the smaller the packaging gets the less of the band's image is available. It's becoming just a lot of band names and songs with no idea of who plays what or who's in the band. I liked album covers that opened up and had big photos and artwork. Now you open a cd and it has to unfold 100 times for you to get an image of the band.

How do you see the future of musical industry?
I see more Indie labels forming and really putting the heat to the feet of the majors. With Internet stores like CDBaby you don't have to have a big organization to sell your product. With recording equipment being so affordable and available you don't have to spend 100,000 dollars to create an album. You can sell 10,000 copies yourself and make more money than if you sold 200,000 copies with a major. That's cool.

Interview by Syl70 (thanx to Pierrick, Mox, Trendkill & Rattlesnake Suicide)