Joey Ayvazian was a founding member of Virgin Steele and played with them for almost 15 years. It is a great pleasure and honor for us to host him in the pages of our magazine as he rarely gives interviews and this gives us the opportunity to learn a lot of interesting information about those early years of Virgin Steele. A round of applause and many thanks to Mark Balogh.
Interview: Sakis Nikas
Rockpages.gr: 1981 marked the year of Virgin Steele’s formation. Before that, were you active in the music circuit? Did you play with other bands?
Joey Ayvazian: Yes, I started playing the drums in my teenage years. I played in a few bands at the time. Friends would come over and we would jam in my basement. My cousin was a few years older than me, and he had a Gibson Les Paul and a Marshall stack. I used to go play over at his house a lot to…
Rockpages.gr: I guess you were friends with Jack Starr and decided to form a band together, right?
Joey Ayvazian: So, this is actually how Virgin Steele started (or should I say, was the beginning of the foundation of the band)…the truth of the matter is…it was pure dumb luck how we all met each other. I remember driving home from work one afternoon on route 110 in Huntington. And there was a guy walking down the highway with the guitar case in his hand!! It’s not something you see every day, so I pulled over and said….“need a ride”, he said yes, so he jumped into my car, and I asked him what are you doing with this guitar walking down in the middle of the highway! He said: “I’m going to an open jam in Huntington village tonight. So I asked him if I could come…and he said definitely. I went home, got my drumsticks, went down to this open jam which was in an apartment above a clothing store in the village of Huntington. There was a bunch of musicians there jamming…bass players, guitar players, drummers, singers etc…so we all took turns playing so when I got my chance to play the drums I played with Jack Starr. He and I decided after the jam that we had something going here and the next day I brought my drums to his house and set them up in the basement and we started jamming…and that’s how it started!
Rockpages.gr: Did you audition lots of singers before ending up with David DeFeis?
Joey Ayvazian: We did do vocal auditions for a while, but nobody was really that great. Then one day Dave DeFeis comes down. I’m trying to remember the song he played on the keyboards…if I had to guess it was a Black Sabbath or a Rainbow tune, but I’m not exactly sure…he was incredible and his voice was amazing! He invited me over to his house so he could play some stuff on his Hammond B3 organ. He had a full PA set up in his basement. He played a few more songs and the decision to bring Dave into the band was crystal clear immediately!
Rockpages.gr: David brought along with him Joe O’ Reilly. Was it hard to tell original bassist Kelly Nickels that he had to go or he had already made up his mind?
Joey Ayvazian: Kelly played with us for a little while, and I think he just decided to move to LA before I even met Joe O’Reilly…he was interested in the LA scene more than the Long Island scene
Rockpages.gr: How was the New York/Long Island scene back then regarding heavy metal music?
Joey Ayvazian: Well, the scene here on Long Island back in the 80s was serious. There were bars open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and on any given night there was 100-200 people out there during the week and 1000+ on the weekends. There were pretty big clubs on Long Island then. “Hammerheads” was probably the biggest and on a weekend night you would have Equinox, Twisted Sister or Zebra and the place would be packed. So yeah, the Long Island scene was pretty heavy.
Rockpages.gr: Take us back to the recording of the first demo tape in 1981 which was essentially the first Virgin Steele album…
Joey Ayvazian: From what I remember, Dave and Jack wrote a bunch of songs together. They presented the ideas to Joe and myself. We would work through them and create the bass and drum parts. We decided to record them. I think the studio was called Sonic Sound and we went and recorded there. We worked quickly…. we played all the songs in one day…drums , bass ,rhythm guitar and then Dave went and did his vocals Jack did his guitar solos and it was just a real rough mix and that was that. Remember we had no money…so we did it in lightning speed (laughs)!
Rockpages.gr: Do you remember which is the date of the first ever Virgin Steele live show?
Joey Ayvazian: I actually don’t…we played so much back then. but if I had to guess I think it was the stage door in Deer Park. I think that was our first show but I’m not exactly sure.
Rockpages.gr: Did you play lots of gigs in 1982 before entering the studio to record the debut studio album?
Joey Ayvazian: We played a few shows here and there but we rehearsed a lot. I seem to remember rehearsing like 3 or 4 nights a week going over the songs working on parts before we got into the studio.
Rockpages.gr: “Guardians of the Flame” marked a significant progress in the band’s sound and style and it’s considered a classic Virgin Steele record. What do you remember from those recording sessions?
Joey Ayvazian: We learned a lot from our first recordings. So when the “Guardians of the Flame” album was going to start we were more studio ready. And you could hear it if you listen to the 1st and 2nd album. But we recorded it pretty much the same. Drums, bass, all the rhythm tracks were done in a day or two…overdubs, vocals leads, piano parts, keyboards and then mixing…it really was an exciting time for us all.
Rockpages.gr: Did Jack and David work together or did they bring songs on their own and guide you all through them?
Joey Ayvazian: Jack and Dave wrote all the music together. I was never there when they were writing. They would get together and work on stuff together. Jack would come down with a riff and Dave would put a part in and vice versa…but Dave wrote all the lyrics. Then we would get together and they would play a rough sense of the song and then Joe and I would put rhythms tracks to them
Rockpages.gr: And then came the Jack Starr departure or firing…it depends on who you ask. What really happened back then?
Joey Ayvazian: Jack was an interesting guy; he was a very good guitar player and he had a lot of good ideas and a lot of good sounds. But he just couldn’t remember the song sometimes and he would make a lot of mistakes live. So that kind of forced our hand to move on from him.
Rockpages.gr: Was it hard for you to choose a side? I mean, did Jack asked you to go along with him?
Joey Ayvazian: Well, I would imagine whenever anybody gets asked to leave a band that they started, it’s never a pleasant thing. So there was some animosity with Jack and all of us but I don’t remember him calling me out and pleading his case to me.
Rockpages.gr: How did the dynamic of the band change when Edward Pursino joined the band? Was it the same; business as usual or something has changed?
Joey Ayvazian: Eddie was on another level of guitar playing compared to Jack. Much more schooled and polished. Excellent guitar player and incredible rhythm player. When he started playing with us it was really tight. You could feel how solid he was. The songwriting pretty much stayed the same where Eddie and Dave would write the songs and bring them to me and Joe. We would put our input in here and there…
Rockpages.gr: Nevertheless, “Noble Savage” was a defining moment for Virgin Steele and it is rightfully considered among the best albums of the band. Any fond memories?
Joey Ayvazian: I have a lot of fond memories of recording and playing the “Noble Savage” album you gotta remember we were young guys having the time of our lives. We were all in our early 20s…when you dream about playing music making albums and going on tour and you’re actually doing it at such a young age. Yeah…a lot of fond memories.
Rockpages.gr: Somewhere in that timeline we encounter projects like Piledriver, Exorcist and Original Sin…all recorded in 1986. What’s the story there?
Joey Ayvazian: So those records, I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point, were all written played and recorded with Dave and Eddie. I think it was our manager’s idea at the time just to make some money and I think Eddie and Dave wrote all those songs in a few days…it’s kind of funny when you look back at it.
Rockpages.gr: Getting back on the promotion of “Noble Savage” you did a couple of tours with Sabbath and Manowar. How was that whole experience?
Joey Ayvazian: Manowar was our first European Tour. It was an amazing experience. I remember flying into Frankfurt, Germany. We were staying in a hotel and we decided to go out and get a beer. We were scheduled to play the next night there. So we walk across the street to this pub. We tried to order some beers in English. Right away people started staring at us…there was a lot of guys in there with long hair and they were staring right at us. They started coming over to us. I remember telling Joe O’Reilly, get ready because we’re going to have a fight. And these guy walked right up to us and say “wergin steek” and I said excuse me…and then he said wergin steek…and I said Virgin Steele??? And he said yes!! And I told him yeah we are playing here tomorrow night and the place went crazy they were there to see us the next night so to say that we got really drunk that night is an understatement (laughs)!
Playing with Black Sabbath was unreal. To see and hear Tony Iommi playing with that sound every night was on another level! And he was the nicest guy in the world. Very complimentary of us. We had a lot of fun with them. Great, great experience!
Rockpages.gr: Speaking of promotion, “Age of Consent” suffered from a lack of promotion…I remember back in the day there was nowhere to be found in Europe. What was the situation in the States regarding that record?
Joey Ayvazian: I think with the “Age of Consent” album we tried to do some things a little different. Songs like “Seventeen”, “Tragedy”, “Cry Forever” were more on the commercial side but you still had “Burning of Rome, “Lion in Winter”, and “On the wings of the night” ,which were typical heavy Virgin Steele tracks. That album has one of our greatest songs in my option… “Burning of Rome” is a classic. It just didn’t get the promotion it needed.
Rockpages.gr: There was a significant 5-year gap between “Age of Consent” and “Life Among The Ruins”. What you have been doing in that time period as the band was more or less on ice?
Joey Ayvazian: You now when I read this…a 5 year gap… its hard to believe. We were always working on stuff. We did play a lot of shows on Long Island then…but 5 years is a long time. I really don’t remember honestly.
Rockpages.gr: Did you agree with the band’s change in the sound and style?
Joey Ayvazian: I thought, and still do that there are some great songs on that record. It was different than anything we had done before. But that’s the journey of music really. Listen to “Crown of Thorns” again…killer track. But again, we were trying to get more airplay.
Rockpages.gr: Why did Joe O’ Reilly leave?
Joey Ayvazian: God had a different calling for Joe “O” He decided to answer that call. We still keep in touch.
Rockpages.gr: Lots of people, including myself, consider the two “Marriage of Heaven and Hell” albums to be the absolute peak of the band. What’s your opinion?
Joey Ayvazian: Well, there was a lot of music recorded at that time. A lot of those songs were parts and riffs that Dave and Eddie worked on for a while. Some of the songs were jammed on a year prior to recording them. Those albums are a great indication of the band’s diverse musical representation. You have power ballads and speed metal…kind of sums it up. There are some tracks I wasn’t a part of thought. But I kind of remember the riffs…
Rockpages.gr: Why did you leave during those recording sessions?
Joey Ayvazian: Well, after many years of doing this it kind of burns you out . And the reality is, I never quit the band. I was just never called upon to do anymore work. From the beginning of Virgin Steele till now actually I have always started and owned my own business. From building McDonalds restaurants, asbestos removal company, to currently owning a large roofing and siding company on Long island. Most notably, which is really interesting to me. I am a co-founder of one of the biggest offshore fish farm in the world!
Rockpages.gr: Did you follow the band’s path after your departure?
Joey Ayvazian: Not really.
Rockpages.gr: Have you kept in touch with Jack, David and Joe?
Joey Ayvazian: I haven’t spoken to anyone since the mid 90’s it was only recently that I speak to Joe O’Reilly and Dave on the phone. I haven’t seen or spoke to Jack since he left the band!
Rockpages.gr: How about yourself…what have you been doing in the last 30 odd years?
Joey Ayvazian: As I mentioned before I’ve always been involved in my own businesses. I did play for a long time with Rob DeMartino in a cover band for fun. And I’m currently playing in the Boystown band. We are going into the studio next month to record some songs for a movie soundtrack. Completely different music for sure. I really like these songs we are doing. I look forward to hearing them finished.
Rockpages.gr: When Frank Gilchriest left the band, I secretly hoped that David would ask you to come back…
Joey Ayvazian: Frank is a motherfucker of a drummer!!! He’s really excellent at what he does. I only met Frank once at a benefit when a mutual friend of ours had passed. We had a long talk. He couldn’t have been nicer to me. A real gentleman. I wish him much success in anything he does.
Rockpages.gr: Would you consider playing once again with them…even for an one-off show?
Joey Ayvazian: Hey as they say…Never say Never!! If there was an opportunity to actually do a Virgin Steele show…it would be very very tempting!!!
