Pretty Maids  are a firm value, especially as far as their live performances and this is something they proved once again playing in our country. A unique band that keeps offering quality 29 years later and keeps requiring respect! After their incredible live appearance in Athens, Solid Rock met the great Ronnie Atkins, vocalist of Pretty Maids, for an interview on all matters…

Solid Rock: So with your new CD “Panedemonium” been out for quite some time now, do you feel that the goal for this release is reached after all? What was the main motive for the beginning of song writing for the new album? Apart from the fact that Pretty Maids were off the radar for a long time discographically?

Ronnie Atkins: I feel that “Pandemonium” pretty much feels like we’ve been born again. Let me put it this way, the reason we haven’t done albums these last 3-4 years, apart from the “Wake Up To The Real World”, is that you don’t really sell albums, you got to do it in a way that you can get out and play. If you asked me 10-15 years ago it was a totally different way around, you know. I mean you make an album, that’s how you make the money then that’s when you go out on the road. These days it’s difficult, the music business is fucked up you see, because of the downloading, so what can you do? I mean you still write songs and you still like to write songs and record the music, so I think, with “Pandemonium”, everybody in the band is so happy with the album because it’s the best thing we’ve done in maybe 20 years.

Solid Rock: And the fans are very happy about it, it’s a very cool album.

Ronnie Atkins: Yeah, I think it’s great, it pretty much has a very good balance of songs.

Solid Rock: Yes, it has both heavy metal and hard rock parts…

Ronnie Atkins: Which is pretty much what Pretty Maids is all about, you know, it’s something it represents the band very well. I think it’s some kind of… I feel some kind of 80s stuff in some of it you know, but with a 2010 sound and we really didn’t do it on purpose, that’s the funny thing you know… It wasn’t planned that way, we just did what we did. We just wrote the songs very fast, in something like during three weekends, you know, and it’s very fresh and there was a great spirit in the band when we did the album and that great Spirit is still there with the new lineup you know, we really enjoyed it a lot. We’re really happy about touring again, playing it on. So I feel “Pandemonium” is some kind of re-establishing the band and hopefully taking us where we want to be, I mean I know it’s not about selling millions of albums anymore but I mean…

Solid Rock: Yeah, it’s classic Pretty Maids…it’s a very decent album.

Ronnie Atkins: Yes, it’s classic Pretty Maids, I think it is, it’s got good reviews, I haven’t seen a bad one yet, it’s a long time since I can remember something like that you know… people always have different opinions you know, so I’m really happy, everybody in the band is really happy, and we plan to be on tour for the next half year, as much as possible.

Solid Rock: With a gap of four years in between, did you ever feel that the band was drying in terms of inspiration? How did you keep the flame burning in the band during these four years?

Ronnie Atkins: This band is very much based on very tight friendship between me and Hammer. I’ve spent more time with him than with my wife. We just do what we feel like doing, it’s not like we have to do an album this year, nobody’s going to tell us that you know. Frontiers said, you have to record a new album, but only if you want to. We can always tour without a new album. Of course you do new albums now and then. Up to an age we did a new album every year, something like that, just to survive you know, and I think we did three or four albums that sound pretty similar. That’s why I wanted to have a gap, I needed a break after “Planet Panic”, so we kept away from it. I didn’t touch the guitar for a year and the same happened after “Wake Up To the Real World”, we just did some Best Of’s, something like that, and we did a small tour in 2008. Then last year when we rehearsed for some festivals, last summer, during the rehearsals we wrote the song “Cielo Drive”.

Solid Rock: It was the first song you wrote for the new album…

Ronnie Atkins: Yes, we wrote that in five minutes you know. Most of the time, it’s one song that keeps the whole thing into motion and on this one it was that song. And the rest of it is pretty fresh, you know. And it’s very fresh because we wrote the last song the day before New Year’s Eve, I think it was “I.N.V.U.” the last song we did. Then we sat in the corner just after January 10th-11th with Jacob Hansen, who did Volbeat and stuff like that. Great guy to work with, great guy got to do the next album with him as well.

Solid Rock: “Little Drops Of Heaven” is very popular already, it’s very catchy…

Ronnie Atkins: Yes, I can see that, it’s always amazing…Actually it’s an old song from 2001 that I had on tape, back then I didn’t want to present it to the band. I wrote it around “Planet Panic” actually, it was called “She’s All Bad”, actually I found a copy of it, I still kept it in my head (sings the tune) and Ken came with the title “Little Drops Of Heaven”. It’s a good title.

Solid Rock: It’s very catchy, very radio-friendly song…

Ronnie Atkins: Yes it is, and I was really blown away, down here in Athens when we played the song, it was like playing “Please Don’t Leave Me”, everybody was singing along, I was really amazed by that you know. I think it’s a great song.

Solid Rock: The sound of the new album owes a lot to the classic Pretty Maids aura, but this time I believe that you were aiming to something more up to date. In some tracks I feel a gloomy mystery vibe meaning it’s not a 100% rocking album, the “in your face” way. Where you heading to such a direction from the beginning of the recordings, or do you think that you some kind of naturally received today’s production status?

Ronnie Atkins: Well, I think Jake is very much responsible for the sound of it you know. He’s very much into new things, where we as a band…I’m very much influenced by the bands we grew up with in the 70s. On the other hand, I’m very open. For me, a good song is a good song. And we didn’t plan it this way, you know, it wasn’t meant to be a kind of 80s stuff, but that’s what we do, that’s the way we write. The combination of that and then the new guy Jacob Hansen with whom we never worked before, who also, and we didn’t know, was a fan of the Pretty Maids when we did “Future World”. I didn’t know that, it’s not the reason we picked him, but the combination of these, a good set of ears and the music we do, I think made a good album. He was very dedicated and into the thing, gently proposing changes. One song we totally ripped apart, “Final Day Of Innocence” which was totally different. We came into the studio and it was actually written by me and Ken but we took it apart and now it is as it is. It was great to work with him.

Solid Rock: Some of the new album songs are quite demanding when it comes to the vocal harmonies. Did you, at any point during the recordings, feel insecure on whether you would be able to deliver exactly what you had in mind? How do you keep your voice in such a good shape?

Ronnie Atkins: I can tell you I smoke a lot and I drink a lot. For some reason, I feel that in the “Pandemonium” album I’m singing much better than in the last 2-3 albums and I don’t know why. I think it’s a mental thing or whatever, I don’t know. I also feel that right now, during touring my voice is really strong, I can still reach the notes I could reach twenty years ago, more or less. But I don’t do anything to preserve it or anything like that you know. I think it’s technique and I don’t know why, I just feel it’s stronger right now than five or six years ago or ten years ago. And I felt it when we did the “Pandemonium” album, I felt strong. And I like to combine the clean voice with the more grungy. It is actually a bit of returning back to the 80s style of singing. But cross your fingers, this might as well change. But I’m very positive. When the spirit is good and you feel mentally on top, I think it helps.

 
Solid Rock: When it comes from the heart it helps a lot, no matter if you’re writing songs or singing or whatever.

Ronnie Atkins: Exactly, and that’s what you can hear in the album. You hear that the band wants to play and as I said the spirit is good and you can see that on stage now too. The new lineup we have, we really enjoy each other’s company and we’re having a really good time. And that’s great, it’s the best part of it.

Solid Rock: Hal Pattino is the new member of the Pretty Maids, coming from a somehow harder metal subgenre. I guess your common history and friendship was a critical factor in your decision. How is he doing so far?

Ronnie Atkins: He is great. This is what he wants to do. He is not into the music King Diamond does really, I think he did it to make a living actually. He is much more into this music, you know, we grew up with the same bands, he is very much into Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, all Led Zeppelin, all the stuff from the 70s, he likes exactly the same music as me and Kenny. He was the obvious choice, we didn’t ask anybody else. He was just around doing nothing, so we said why don’t we call Hal, you know? He is a great guy, he’s a great performer and he is always dedicated to what he does. I think he is a big asset to the band.

Solid Rock: With “Pandemonium” peaking high in some charts, do you think it is a good chance for younger metal fans to get familiar with the band’s music? I guess the old school fans are still tied up with the band.

Ronnie Atkins: We see all the fans coming to our concerts and that’s great. On some of the festivals we’ve done this summer, there have been younger fans, well it’s festivals, but you can see that there were people there that couldn’t have been twenty five years ago, so we might attach new fans and I think that the new one “Pandemonium”, with it’s good reviews will, hopefully, get a lot of the new generation of fans on board, we need that. I mean, you can’t live on with only the old timers. Our music is for everyone you know so, I’m happy the old fans are still there but we’ve got to get some new ones. And the funny thing is that a lot of people bought “Pandemonium” and went on and bought some of the old stuff from the 80s, which is good. These days, on tour, we mostly play a lot off the new album and a lot off the old stuff from the 80s. We sort of keep the 90s stuff away because that times were not for this kind of music, you know, it was difficult and those albums didn’t get the attention the albums from the 80s did, it was almost the mainstream thing back then you know. A lot of people, apart from the hardcore fans, are not really familiar with the 90s stuff. So, in this tour we’re doing mostly stuff from “Future World” and “Jump The Gun” and the new album, of course and not really anything else. We’re going to add up more songs from “Pandemonium” as the tour progresses, we’re doing some extra rehearsing. We’re going to do “Cielo Drive” and “It Comes At Night’ as well and we’re going to put one-two more songs from “Future World” that we haven’t played for years or never played at all, and one or two more from “Jump The Gun”.

Solid Rock: If “Pandemonium” was the last album of your career, and we really hope that it’s not, would you feel it would be the best “swan song” release that you could have?

Ronnie Atkins: If we decided that this is it, I’d say that “Pandemonium” would be a good way to stop. Cause then you stop on top. But we won’t stop. As I said, everyone in the band thinks this is the best album that we did after “Future World” and “Jump The Gun”. I think “Spooked” was a good album but it never had the attention, you know. But it was different. I think this one is closer to what the band is about.

Solid Rock: With Ronnie James Dio suddenly passing away some months ago, also predicting that several classic metal bands will call it quits in the next five to ten years, do you feel that it will show the nudity of heavy metal music? I can’t imagine any post 80s metal band selling out arenas or making its name a trade mark for hard rock and metal music. What are your beliefs for traditional melodic hard music for the next decade?

Ronnie Atkins: I don’t know, I think it’s hard times for new bands playing this kind of music. The reason we’re still doing it, obviously is that we are a thirty year old band. I think it is hard for a new band but what we do need is a new generation of bands playing this kind of music.

Solid Rock: Yes, but where are they?

Ronnie Atkins: I don’t know. Nowhere…

Solid Rock: It’s really sad. In another interview with Blackie Lawless, we had asked him the same thing: if at some point bands like W.A.S.P., Pretty Maids, Twisted Sister, Alice Cooper stopped, then who would be the next W.A.S.P., the next Alice Cooper, the next Twisted Sister, the next KISS, Motorhead, Saxon, Pretty Maids?

Ronnie Atkins: What can I say, we’re dinosaurs man…

Solid Rock: Ronnie, thank you very much for your time, it was great meeting you again and congratulations for the amazing concert last night in Athens!

Ronnie Atkins: Thank you!

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