Just a few days before our beloved Riot storm all over Greece playing 4 shows in 4 different cities, as well as playing for the first time ever in Cyprus, Donnie Van Stavern is at the other end of… a Zoom call. He shares a few stuff about the tour, the new album, he laughs a lot and he says what are his complaints about the other four guys (actually, only TMH). But, what matters is what’s gonna happen in Nicosia, Athens, Agrinio, Thessaloniki and Trikala. You know, it’s what you’ve been waiting for, so enjoy it! Interview: Yiannis Dolas
Rockpages.gr: How do you feel about playing in Cyprus and coming back to Greece for this mini tour?
Donnie Van Stavern: It’s great! We have a special place in our heart for Greece, as you know, we’ve played there many times before, and you know, it’s one of those markets that’s really good for Riot overseas. We’ve made a lot of friends, so we’re very excited. We’ve we went over there for Up The Hammers a little while ago, but we wanted to go visit more areas, because sometimes they’ll just book us in Thessaloniki and Athens. But, now they added a few more; Cyprus was added in there, but now there’s four Greek dates. So, we’re excited to go back, because we have great fan base there, and a lot of people and some musicians that we’ve come to know and love. So, it’s one of those markets that we really dig. There’s a few markets in Europe, but Greece is one of those that has just got that (putting hand on heart), it just always happens to be really good. So, we’re excited to play. And it’s a small little run. It’s just like, Portugal, Spain and Greece and that’s it. And then we’ll finish out the year. And then next year, in the 2025 we have plans to get back over in that region, do some Scandinavia, Italy, and some other stuff so, but we’re looking forward to Greece. We always do man! It’s going to be a fun show. We got a lot of new songs to play!
Rockpages.gr: Coming to the new album I think that so far it’s the best for RiotV. What do you think?
Donnie Van Stavern: Yeah, I mean we love it, and it comes from the heart, because when we decided to continue, after the untimely passing of Mark, in 2012, you know me and him were still friends, he lived with me, so it meant a lot to keep going once Mark passed away, and I decided to keep it going, since we got the blessing from his father, who told us: “don’t let the music die with my son. Please continue”. I wanted to do it the right way. There’s a lot of bands that use the name of a band the wrong way. You know, we’re not sponging off the past history of Riot, we’re only continuing my power metal era forward that I’m a part of, as an original member of “Thundersteel”. So, that’s why we continue to write like that.
The three albums we have, it seemed like it was just quick. Me and Todd were talking the other day, like, “can you believe we have three records out, and we’re over 10, almost 12 years old”. RiotV is like, wow… Next year, it’s the 50th anniversary of Riot. So, we reached a milestone, and those three records mean a lot to us, that the people are still there with the band, as we represent Mark and the legacy, “Unleash The Fire” went over great… “Armor Of Light” went over great and then the new one, when we started doing it, we went through a lot of changes with the record label and the lockdown and stuff, so we had a lot of time to come up with different ideas. And I thought, I told Mike “let’s, let’s make an album with a lot of different styles, like the past. That’s why, on this, you’ll hear me write like, “High Noon”, or “Hail To The Warriors”, like “Thundersteel”. And then you’ll hear Mike, right “Open Road” and “Higher” and stuff like that from his era. But, then you’ll also hear stuff where I wrote, like, “Feel The Fire”, which is a more rock song sounds like Accept, or Judas Priest, or early Riot, like… “Killer” or “Crimson Storm”, you know? So I said, let’s get back to some of our roots, instead of just ripping heads off. We are a rock band that are metal.
So, we wrote that and then Mike and me wrote “Love Beyond The Grave”, which is a good groove song, sounds like “Hard Loving Man”, old style. So, when we listened to, we put all our styles together, Mike and mine, and we just think we put it in a good order. And we said, “man, this is a good, solid record. It kind of touches on a lot of the eras of Riot. And, we think it’s a good record”. And even Bruno, who produced a lot of our great records, Bruno Ravel from Danger Danger. And he was in Westworld with Mark and Tony Arnell, he produced it like he did a couple of our RiotV records. Even him was very pleased with the album. So, we were happy with everything, the sound of it, and the way the songs came out. So we made the few videos, and we just been getting great response. I mean, we’ve never had, you know, views of like, close to a million or over 500,000 in our videos. And so the band continues to move forward. So, we’re very lucky that the fans have stuck with us and that they dig this new record. I think it’s a great record for RiotV.
Rockpages.gr: You said earlier that you wanted like some stuff from you era and Mike’s era. I think that the main riff from “Higher” brings back “Angel Eyes” and that’s cool, because it’s your song and you can replicate, or repeat that. Maybe like a hint that you also have that older song. What do you think about that?
Donnie Van Stavern: Well, you know, if it’s not replicating, it’s just our style of writing, so it comes across sounding like me. I replicate a lot of my stuff, like a lot of people say, “man, you’ve written “Johnny’s Back” four times”, you know, like “Metal Warrior” is a continuation of “Johnny”… “Angel’s Thunder” or, you know, stuff like that, is that kind of vibe. And I try to do that even on the new record. When I wrote “Mean Streets”, it’s got Johnny in it and I wrote that to kind of be a “Johnny’s Back” riff kind of style.
I wrote, “Black Leather And Glittering Steel” and all that stuff back in the day. So, I think it just comes off that, that’s our style in Riot, and we want to write new music, but we do want to familiarize with people, when they hear it. Because, some people will say that it sounds a little like “Johnny’s Back” and I’ll say, “yeah, it’s supposed to, we’re Riot! We’ve been writing music for Riot”.
So, if it’s a formula that works, we’ll keep doing it. I’ve written a couple s of songs “Crimson Storm” style, you know. I think that when Mike writes he thinks that also, it just comes out like it, because he was the other guitar player with Mark Reale. So, he tends to write a lot of guitar flair music and melodies and tons of guitar work, and he writes in the style of “Angel Eyes” and “Destiny” and “Night Breaker” and stuff like that. So, we do touch on the past, but we try to make it fresh and memorable for fans. And so far so good. We’ll be playing some of these new songs in Greece coming up, some of the new album….
Rockpages.gr: I saw some of the stuff you’ve been playing recently and I didn’t see “High Noon” and “Mean Streets” oh the setlist, come on! That’s great stuff, is there a chance to play them in Greece?
Donnie Van Stavern: With Riot’s history being 50 years old next year, we have 17 records. We always think if we play a couple of songs up to each record, then we’d be playing for three or four hours. And I mean, that would be great for the fans, but, you know, technically and physically… I don’t know if we could do it! So, it’s always challenging to pick the songs.
RiotV obviously, who we are, we want to play a couple of songs from each record. And then, since I’m from the “Thundersteel” era, we try to play a lot from “Thundersteel” to please the fans, and a few from “Privilege Of Power” and the old stuff. You always gotta do “Warrior” or “Road Racing” or “Swords and Tequila”, those you have to do, we have Riot fans that we have to please! Those are staples.
We recently been thrown in some Rhett Forester stuff like “Restless Breed”. So, we change it up a lot. And we’re doing a few songs from “Unleash The Fire”, a few off “Armor Of Light”, and few off of “Mean Streets”. And then we have a big encore. We always do, like about 25 songs, and then five or six encores, where we just come back and play if we’re feeling good, and if we’re sounding good, and the crowd loves it… We’ll come back and play another one, do up to 28 songs, so it’s going to be a good, long set. Now, tell the guys what you want us to play.
Rockpages.gr: So, what are your criteria for picking which songs to play every time you go on a new tour? If Todd can sing those songs, if there’s an anniversary coming up, or if you are just in the mood to play something from your back catalogue?
Donnie Van Stavern: Well, we kind of figure it out, because, in our career, we’ve done over 60 Riot songs, so we pick and choose. Obviously, when you release a new record, you have to play a majority of it, because it’s your new record. But, you can’t leave out the classics for the fans. Some bands play a majority of the new record. I remember when Maiden came out with “Senjutsu”, they would just play nothing but that and a few classics.
We feel like we’ll play a lot of the new stuff, but you gotta cover all the bases. People want to hear all that stuff. So, we have done a “Fire Down Under” show, where it’s the whole album, and then we throw in a few other ones. We have done a “Thundersteel” tribute show where we throw a lot in the stuff. So, we know all those songs from both those records, and we’ll pull out “49er” from “Narita” and “Road Racing” and “Tokyo Rose” and “Rock City” and “Warrior”… There’s so many songs to choose from, and we have to figure the market. Todd’s pretty capable of singing a whole set, if we’re doing a big tour where there’s a lot of dates together, we have to make sure we arrange the higher stuff where it’s not killing his voice, because physically, the fingers, we can play whatever, but the vocals… it’s that kind of vibe, so we kind of combine it with a good, powerful set. And before we go out, we just analyze it and go, “it’s Greece, let’s look at the whole set list. We’ve played this a million times. Maybe cut this out, do this. Maybe cut this out, do this”. But some songs we have to do, even though we played them a million times… You got to play “Thundersteel”! You got to play stuff like that, so, but we pick and choose, and then, like I said, in the encore, it’s kind of stuff that’s not on the list, but if the crowd’s going nuts and we’re just filling it, we will play these.
Rockpages.gr: What’s the challenge when you are making a new album? To make it better than the previous one? To make something worthy of the band’s legacy? Which one is it?
Donnie Van Stavern: Obviously, we want to make the best record that we can. So, we want to try to top everything. Although we’ve had some classics, we just at least wanted to be up there with some great music that people dig along with the legacy of the band, because Riot’s known for making great music for the last 50 years. Mark used to say that the longevity of a band is through great music. If you start writing crap, nobody will listen anymore. And you know, Riot’s pretty consistent with their albums. So, we try to keep that, what we’ve been doing forever, writing classics.
But, as RiotV, we try to top each of them. I think “Unleash The Fire” was great. And then when we did “Armor Of Light”, I thought that got better. And then when we did “Mean Streets”, I thought that it got better. So, we’re thinking that we keep getting better. So, we try to top everything, but we just wanted to be in the style of Riot. We’ve been, we’ve been able to write some good music that people dig. Like you were saying we have that formula, sometimes it sounds like previous songs, but we try to keep the fans happy.
We just try to make a good record. It doesn’t have to top everything, but as long as it is in good company with what we’ve been doing… And so far, like I said, out of our three RiotV albums, I think we’ve achieved the best one. So, after Mean Streets, we’re going to have to really put a good one together!
Rockpages.gr: Since you are preparing for this tour, I’d like to ask you what are that the things that you like to do for fun on tour?
Donnie Van Stavern: Well, that’s that’s another thing about traveling and touring and stuff like that… Sometimes it sucks, because if you’re just constantly playing, you don’t have time to relax or see things! Like the last tour we did in South America tour, the Latin America, it was rough on us. It was a lot of fly dates. And so, you play a show, you have to be at down in the lobby at 4AM the next morning to catch the shuttle to the airport. So, sometimes you don’t get to see things, but when we had a day off, it was real nice. You get to go relax and, sometimes run into the vans and go see the country and the culture. And we’ve always been into that!
We’re not Metallica. We’re not making millions of dollars. We make some money. It’s not enough to survive on, so to speak, for the long term. But, our payout is when we get to meet people and go and meet different cultures, different food, and see exotic countries and stuff like that. So, we love it when we have a day off. And sometimes we’ll tell the agent, “hey, we’re going to Greece, give us a day off somewhere”. Or we’re going to Italy, “give us a day off so we can enjoy some of the food”.
Greece has always been one of those big market for us, because we have had a day off there before, and it was beautiful. We got to go to all the sites. We got to see the Acropolis and the Parthenon and saw different relics and statues and stuff. So, it’s real nice. Then we get to go eat the food by the Mediterranean Sea. We’re sitting right by it, and we’re eating real Greek food, and we’re meeting the beautiful people of Greece. We have a lot of fans there now that are always there to hang out with us and do things. So, that’s one of the payoffs of it. It’s just not about financial reasons. It’s about going to a place where you’re with people that you feel the same way about them and their culture, and you learn things.
Rockpages.gr: Do you have any ground rules that you never break, when you are touring? Like for example no wives or girlfriends on tour, “no brown M&M’s” in the rider?
Donnie Van Stavern: Yeah, no cheap tequila (laughs)! Well, no! I mean, we really don’t have any. We’re not Van Halen like all that stuff. Our rider… We have certain things on there, or hospitality stuff, but, you know, it’s minimal, we try to work with the promoters too, you know. We don’t do the brown M&M’s thing. We do have our booze on there, and we have to have the tequila, not just to drink, but it’s one of our things; I have to come out on stage -we have a lot of songs with tequila in them- and I “cheers” the crowd. And I always do a shot for Mark. I look up to the heavens, and I do a shot and put a little bit on stage, because it’s his stage. So I do that. So we have that in a few bottles and stuff. The food’s normal, we like sometimes to get some of the ethnic food from where we’re at, like, when we’re in Japan, we always add sushi and Asian food. And when we’re in Greece, we’re like, “Well, can you put some baklava?” Can you put some, you know, different kind of cool things on there? And they’re like, “yeah, we can put some of our home stuff”… With beer as well. We’ll say, look, give us your beer from your country, and we do that in every country, so that’s kind of cool. But, we don’t have any limit, or anything weird. We don’t ask for socks. We don’t ask for condoms (laughs), weird stuff, you know what I mean.
And the wives, we don’t care about the wives. I mean, they have been with us to some countries and stuff. And sometimes, it’s nice to have them when they’re able to see some exotic countries with us, because it’s a memory of a lifetime. But, some of them don’t go, some of them do. Todd’s wife went to Japan just recently. I think Mike’s wife was in Keep It True one year in Germany… They’ll go sometimes, or they’ll go on the ships, the cruise ships, when we do those, because it’s a cruise ship, you probably want to take your old lady… Some of the wives don’t want to fly eight hours to where Greece is, or 14 hours to Japan. But we don’t really care if, if they want to go and they’ll let us know. Say, “hey, I’m going to bring my gal along”. We’re like, “ah, it’s all good”. You know what? I mean? You can’t cheat (laughs)! No, I’m just kidding…
We’re five cool guys. We get along like brothers. We’re very honest and stuff. So we just reach out to one another if they want to do something, bring the wife or something’s going on. It’s really cool. We don’t mind.
Rockpages.gr: Is there anything from the other guys habits’ that you really can’t stand?
Donnie Van Stavern: Let’s see… Well, Mike Flyntz, he needs to dye his beard (laughs). No, I’m just kidding… Todd Michael Hall, he needs to grow his hair back (laughs). That’s the main thing. I’m just joking about Mike, but Todd needs to get his hair back. No, anyway, Todd Michael Hall he’s cut his hair before, and he’s grown it back. He can grow his hair back in two months, get it real long, but he’s he cut it off. I think he looks like Graham Bonnet now (laughs). And he used to look like Hercules, when he had it long. But, I mean, to each his own. There’s little things here and there that, you know, people are probably finicky about one another, but like I said, we’re like brothers. There’s five of us. We have argued. We argued over music, things we do individually and as a band, we’ll poke stuff at each other, but in the end, we can kiss and make up and still be brothers. So, there’s not really anything that ticks us off that bad. The band’s a tight unit. Everybody alive gives it 100% and everybody’s a master at their instrument. When I listen to videos people make from live, we don’t use tracks or anything, what you hear is what you get live. When I hear it, Todd sounds great, and Frankie’s drums are bombastic. It’s great. So, it’s a great relationship. That’s why we work great in the studio too. There’s five guys that work well together and create this music for the fans and the live show as well.
Rockpages.gr: What was the last picture you took with your cell phone?
Donnie Van Stavern: So, the last picture I took on my cell phone, let me see. Where is it that (looking at his phone)… Actually, you know what? I think this is it right here? Hang on, this is funny. You’ll like this. I took one. Well, I took one of King Diamond. The other night I went and saw King Diamond. He’s on tour, and he started in Texas, where I’m at right now. And I know the band. They got me backstage. I toured with King Diamond in ‘98 on the Voodoo tour. So we’re still quite friends, but this one right here is great. Where’s that? Let me get it out here. This is my latest grandson. He’s two months old, and I took a picture of him, went and saw him, and he’s wearing a Riot shirt. See it?
