JACK RUSSELL: 'I've Been Waiting For A Long Time To Put A Record Out'

BackstageAxxess.com recently conducted an interview with former GREAT WHITE and current JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE singer Jack Russell. You can now listen to the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On why it took so long to release JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE's debut album, "He Saw it Comin'" (originally titled "The Gauntlet"):

Jack: "I've been waiting for a long time to put a record out, and I was waiting for one reason, and that was to have the band that I knew was the band that I was waiting for. And when Dan McNay [bass; MONTROSE] got into the band, I knew that this was the band that I was supposed to be recording with. And I said to my manager, 'Okay, get us a record deal. We're ready to start rolling.' So he went out and did, and then we started recording, and about five months later, we had a record. It took a while, because we didn't have a month to dedicate to recording; we [were] touring. Which, I think, really actually worked out for the best, now that I think about it, because it gave us the opportunity to live with the songs a bit after we wrote them, and go, 'You know what? I wanna change this part. I don't like this part.' So it gave us the time to kind of sit with things and make sure they were exactly what we wanted. So that was very helpful."

On whether the chemistry with his current bandmates was instant:

Jack: "It's never instant, because you don't know a person. That's why I've gone through a lot of people since the inception of this band. I don't mean, like, twenty or ten or something like that, but I mean several — I think maybe three or four or something like that. But, you know, that's quite a bit in five years. To me, you don't know somebody until you travel with them; that's how you really get to know somebody. And being in a band is the same way. A person might seem like they're the coolest person in the world, and you start playing with them, and it's, like, 'Ah, this guy's a jerk.' Or there's an attitude that you didn't realize, or he just doesn't have the same belief system that all of us have. So if they didn't fit or they weren't good enough, they got the boot. And when I finally put this together, I realized, as I said, that this was the right band… I just waited around until the right people came along. I knew they would; I was just putting that energy out there. And when it finally came to fruition, it was, like, 'Okay! Yahoo!'"

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE's lineup is completed by bassist-turned-guitarist Tony Montana (as a guitar player and keyboardist),Robby Lochner (FIGHT) on guitar and Dicki Fliszar (BRUCE DICKINSON) on drums.

"He Saw it Comin'" was released on January 27 via Frontiers Music Srl.

JACK RUSSELL'S GREAT WHITE is not to be confused with the current touring and recording version of GREAT WHITE, which features Mark Kendall, Scott Snyder (bass),Audie Desbrow (drums),Michael Lardie (guitar, keyboards) and Terry Ilous (lead vocals).