INTERVIEW: Kix’s Mark Schenker kicks it into high gear with new CD-DVD
Kix, the hard rock band from Maryland, are having a career resurgence. In 2014, the band saw the release of their hotly anticipated Rock Your Face Off, and they continue to gig around the nation. On Oct. 21, their creative output continues with the release of the two-disc DVD/CD set, Can’t Stop the Show: The Return of Kix.
The new project, featuring a 71-minute documentary about the making of Rock Your Face Off, is a treasure trove for Kix fans. There are interviews with Eddie Trunk, Lzzy Hale of Halestorm and Jeff LaBar of Cinderella, among many others. There are never-before-released live Kix tracks, all recorded over the past three years. There’s even special personal inclusions from each band member, including vocalist Steve Whiteman’s exercise routine, cartoons by guitarist Brian “Damage” Forsythe and a favorite recipe from drummer Jimmy Chalfant. Guitarist Ronnie “10/10” Younkins provides a gear rundown, and bassist Mark Schenker offers a new essay on the band.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox talked with Schenker about the new project, the band’s legacy and the future on the road.
On the origins of the CD/DVD project …
“Well, we had a couple of filmmakers who had gotten in touch with Brian and asked him if it would be OK if they could and come record. We were recording in my studio, and so Brian asked me. I was like, ‘Yeah, sure. Just tell them to stay out of the way basically.’
“And then I figured this would be great. We’ll have some YouTube clips that we can put out along with the Rock Your Face Off record, so I thought this saves some trouble. And we’ll have some cool stuff to go along with the release to put on YouTube, and so as the filming went along and the record was released, the filmmakers started cutting things together for me. We started to kind of look at it and say, ‘Well, wait a minute. Is this really a bunch of YouTube clips or do we have a story that we can tell here? And if there is a story to tell here, then we should focus on telling the story and not the YouTube clips.’
“So we decided that, yes, there was something compelling, and interesting, and fun, and something that the Kix fans might be interested in looking at, and so we started … assembling the clips from a storytelling standpoint rather than just a fun, 2-3-5-minute web clip standpoint. And so we had gotten together most of what we thought would be the film, and I started pestering the label to get them involved.”
On the personal touch of the CD/DVD project …
“The idea was that everybody can put in some content, so, for instance, Brian is a doodler. So he drew caricatures of all the band members, and Jimmy actually went to school to be a chef when Kix broke up back in the early ‘90s. So Jimmy put one of his favorite recipes in the suite. Ronnie is a guitar gear nut, so he did a rig rundown for his guitar rig, and his favorite guitars, and when to use them, and so on and so forth.
“And Steve, everybody [says,] ‘Oh, how do you stay so thin? How do you stay in such good shape? How do you sing so good after all this time?’ So Steve put his workout routine in there.
“So I offered an essay about how the project came together and what my perspective is on Kix, how it exists these days, and so that was my contribution to it.”
On the Kix resurgence …
“We’re getting more gigs where more fans are showing up. It seems to be a bit of a frenzy when we play these days, and we seem to [working] really well. … We don’t have any internal problems in the band. We all love each other. We get along with our agent. Our crew is awesome. We love our crew. Our merch people are great. Everything just seems to be going our way.
“It’s been said a million times, but when you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. I think for us, not only are we allowed to do that, but the people we do it with, there’s no egos, there’s no animosity. … It’s not all about me; it’s all about the collective. It’s about Kix, how can we make Kix cooler, and more fun, and enjoy ourselves more, and so on and so forth. So it’s really a unique time in all of our lives personally because of our participation in Kix.”
On his initial days joining the band …
“Well, it’s been 13 years, and I was playing in a band with Steve and Jimmy called Funny Money. And it was Steve’s project that he started after Kix, so I had pretty much knew all of the songs. So there’s a couple different ways to look at it. It’s like I got the job by default because I was already playing with Steve and Jimmy, and when we decided to start doing these Kix reunion shows, it was like, well, he already knows all of the songs. He can play bass. …
“The writing was on the wall so to speak. … I didn’t really know Brian. I have known Ronnie since about 1985, and Ronnie and I used to hang out quite a bit back then. Bands that I was in had warmed up for Kix, so those guys knew that I was a musician, that I could play bass. So they all knew me from a musical standpoint, so I don’t think it was like, oh, we’ll have to see how he does. I think I have proven myself in the past to be capable of delivering those really great songs the way they were intended to be delivered. I don’t think there was any doubt or any second thoughts on their part.
“For me, it was very easy because those guys are so easy to get along with. It wasn’t a matter of being accepted or going through some hazing period as the new guy. It was just very easy. We were all interested in playing as Kix, so from that shared joy and happiness of doing that, these other personal relationships blossomed. And it ended up being what it is today.”
On the first time he picked up a guitar …
“[I] started out playing guitar when I was a kid, and one of my co-writers I’ve been writing songs with for a very long time, Ron Galvin, he and I played guitar in a band together. … Rob was such an amazing lead player. We would [play] demos, and sometimes our bass player wasn’t available to play on the demos the songs that we were writing. So I would just end up playing bass, and the only reason I played bass is because I had a bass.
On the future and a possible new album …
“With Rock Your Face Off, we took our good old time. … We didn’t put anything that we thought was filler on that record. When we work on a new record, we’re going to do the same thing because we can’t just put out two good songs and a bunch of filler. That’s not the legacy that Kix has put before I got in the band.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Click here for more information on Kix, and find Mark Schenker on Instagram here.
