RATT's WARREN DEMARTINI Says New Guitarist CARLOS CAVAZO 'Helps Create A Balance'

Thomas Stanley Orwat Jr. of RockMusicStar.com recently conducted an interview with RATT guitarist Warren DeMartini. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RockMusicStar.com: When you starting planning for this CD, did you use material already written or did you start off fresh?

Warren DeMartini: Mostly, it was all written this year, other than a few specific things. Carlos Cavazo brought in something that ended up becoming the pre-chorus to "Best of Me". This was something he had written back when he was writing for QUIET RIOT's "Metal Heath".

RockMusicStar.com: Really, wow.

Warren DeMartini: Yeah, the pre-chorus part that happens right before the guitar solo. And the guitar part that opens the song "Last Call" was something that I wrote for the last RATT album in 1999, which we didn't end up using. So when we were putting together ideas for this CD, I remember this piece of music, plugged it in and it worked real well in the song.

RockMusicStar.com: Carlos Cavazo joined the band almost two years ago. He is an accomplished guitarist. You must love working with him.

Warren DeMartini: It's really great. When we play live all the dual guitar parts that Robin Crosby and I did back in the day, are slamming again. We are continuing that style with Carlos now. On "Infestation" there are some tracks with some pretty exotic double leads that we really had a good time doing. It's really been great. Carlos has fit in so well, he's sort of cut from the same cloth, he grew up on the same music that we did. He just really fit in extremely well. And he came from an established band like ours, so he knew what to expect. He's not a stranger to the road or a stranger to be in a big band. So, it's really worked out well that way too. He helps create a balance.

RockMusicStar.com: How has your working relationship with Stephen Pearcy progressed over the years?

Warren DeMartini: When Stephen came back to the band in 2007; it came after a very tumultuous period. You know, we didn't talk for five years, we communicated through lawyers. I remember one point however, when I realized that making a new CD with him was possible. When we were rehearsing for the "Best of Ratt" tour for the CD something happened. During the time he was out of the band, I wrote an outro for a song called "Lack of Communication" and that bit ended up on "Infestation" as a song called "Big Bite". Anyways, at the end of that song we kicked in with this new part and he said "Wow!! Who came up with that." It was at that point that I realized that we could get back to writing.

RockMusicStar.com: You have this CD under your belt now, how are you going to promote it? What are you tour plans?

Warren DeMartini: RATT is going to launch the release of "Infestation" on April 20th at the Key club. It was called Gazzarri's back then, located at the end of the Sunset Strip and it's the first real club that RATT ever played. This was the club that everyone wanted to play back when a band was looking for a record contract. It's going to be a record release party there and then we are going to play a couple of one off shows. The official "Infestation" tour is going to start in Europe at the Sweden Rock fest on June 10. From there we are going to do some other festivals and our own things and some special guest stuff. That's all still being put together. That will probably go four or five weeks. The soonest that we could start in the states would be mid-July.

Read the entire interview from RockMusicStar.com