TARA LYNCH

~ YES, SHE IS EVIL ENOUGH AND SURELY HAS RISEN ~

~ Interview mit TARA LYNCH ~

Manchmal wird man eiskalt von heißer Musik erwischt. Nach nur zwei Songs des Albums `Evil Enough´ vom neuen Stern am Musiker(innen)himmel – TARA LYNCH – wurde mir glasklar, das hier keine durch prominente Unterstützung gehypte Retortenkreation auf den Markt geworfen wird, sondern dass eine mir völlig unbekannte Künstlerin ein längst überfälliges Debüt gezaubert hat, ähnlich wie unsere Damen von ROSY VISTA nach zu langen 35 Jahren. Höchste Eisenbahn für mich als selbst ernanntem Emanzipationsbeauftragten, zu erforschen, woher dieser wunderbare Phönix kommt und aus welcher Asche sich GUI-TARA erhoben hat…

Hi Tara, I am still completely flashed by your album, because you seem to be coming out of nowhere and really caught me by surprise. Even your well done homepage couldn’t lift the mysterious fog off what you did all the years before, when the metal scene would have needed someone like you. I don’t hear a perfect debut like this too often and when you find out who is contributing to this, you must already be a star over there. So please give us a little insight in your past. 

I’ve been a musician since age 11, but did not decide to go pro until recent years. With only one life to live, being a woman, there were some things I wanted to do first like raising children. I’ve got one going off to college and the other one on his heels, so this is perfect timing for me. During those years, however, especially living in Los Angeles for all of my adult life, I’ve made many friends in the music business, some of which appear on my album and some of which tour with me. This album is indeed my debut, but I did work very hard on it for a couple of years. Because I write all the words & music and do the demos by myself, it took some time to put together. So now, here I am, sharing it with the world and couldn’t be happier! 

And you really should be! It is still unbelievable that someone with this voice and these musical skills hasn’t been working as a studio musician or been helping out in some bands.

Anyway – you are on tour right now and I think you’ll be playing 22 gigs. How did you prepare for the hard work live onstage? It wouldn’t surprise me if I’d find out that you face the crowd with the heart of a lion. I tried in younger years, got a little experience but always peed my pants before a show. How do you feel right now? And by the way: we’re speaking about opening for the legend U.F.O.! 

Playing live just really comes naturally to me. I truly believe I was destined to do this all my life, but the timing had to be right and the timing is now. I don’t at all regret not having done it earlier. It truly is an amazing feeling and a real honor to be out there playing live for all the wonderful people in the UK and Ireland as special guest of the legendary UFO on their final tour. I’ve been really amazed to see some of the fans singing my lyrics back to me at the shows. I am so happy my music has touched so many people. And it’s been wonderful to see that I’m picking up a new fans along the way as well. I love seeing them after the show and signing the CDs. My songs are extremely personal, as they are literally bits and pieces of my life’s story and it makes me so happy that people can relate to and enjoy my passion.

Damn, I need a flight to the UK RIGHT NOW! Good to hear that you have a great time – enjoy every single minute of it. But now to something completely different – as the MONTY PYTHON guys would say. Well, not really but let’s have a closer look at your debut and what brought you all the way to this point in life. First of all, who cooked up the title `Evil Enough´ ? Is there a story to tell? When did you start writing and was there a special trigger that made you think: I’ll start…NOW. (by the way: do you know MONTY PYTHON and do you like British humor?) 

I absolutely love Monty Python and very much enjoy British humor. The title of my album is something I came up with as a result of something an ex used to say to me all the time. He would say “Tara, you’re evil enough” and that would be followed by many different things ha ha ha ha. Because of this, I did not have to think long and hard about my album title… this came very naturally. I started writing for my album in 2015 while I was in Belgium recording some solos for BEYOND THE LABYRINTHs album `The Art of Resilience´. I thought if I was being asked to record guest solos on someone else’s album, it’s about time I finally do my own.

HA! Gotcha. You DID do some studio work, even in Belgium. How or where did the guys of BEYOND THE LABYRINTH get to know you? Anyone else you want to mention? Bands or artists we might know or should listen to? Coming back to your music, what were the hardest tracks to finish and which were the most fun to make?

I also did a very short tour in Germany last November 2018, but that tour got cut short due to the headliner canceling the rest of it. I met Geert Fieuw of BEYOND THE LABYRINTH on one of those concert cruises some years ago and he heard me play on board and we became good friends. So when BEYOND THE LABYRINTH was recording their fourth album, he asked if I would like to be a guest and of course I said yes.

I would say that the hardest are the instrumentals, because there are so many things going on (my crazy writing of course) and since I am playing all of the guitars on the album, it’s a lot of very intense work. The vocal tracks are the most fun, because I get to do it all… guitars, vocals, synths. 

Funny thing: the participation on `The Art of Resillience´ brought you your first entrance in the `METAL ARCHIVES´ telling the world that you origin from Belgium, haha. For all our devotchkas & droogs out there: You really should check out this record, if you like great AOR. By now it is not surprising anymore that the solos on these three songs are fantabulous but did you actually also sing on `Someone Watching Over You´, because there is a fantastic female voice in the background? Speaking of “those concert cruises” – with which artists did you share the stage? And back to `Evil enough´, your “crazy writing” is exactly what makes these instrumentals so outstanding and enjoyable even for people who normally don’t listen to stuff without vocal lines. There is so much going on in any of them, not only `showing off´ but telling stories with your favourite instrument. You also wanna share some thoughts about the lyrics? 

It is funny, I don’t even know how that happened, because I have always let the world know that I am from America. I guess it was just assumed maybe. I did not provide any vocals on that record at all, just guitar solos on three tracks. I was only playing for fun on the cruise not professionally. Both the instrumentals and vocal tracks are always telling a story of my life’s experiences. When I write, I just say it like it is and when I play it’s all about the emotion I feel in regard to the particular experience I’m thinking of. For example, my instrumental `Feckless Lock´ is a dark and passionate story about a relationship that could never be. The lock is in reference to one of those locks that you put on a bridge in the name of love, only to realize that it becomes worthless, or feckless, when you realize the relationship cannot work. `Trustless´ is about the cliché cheating spouse who lies and actually thinks you believe it. Hahaha. I really love playing `Gui-Tara Rises´ live, because that’s my own personal anthem about my rise in this business and each and every audience gets to experience it with me during the process. I really feel like I am making history here.

Photo: Ingo Stolley

What I learned of you as an artist and a person so far plus the music should be way more than just enough to have your name written in bright letters in alltime music history. Your late rising reminds me a little bit of four german Ladies who were musicians at an early age, never really lost contact and just released their classy debut after 35 years! But that’s another story.

Back again to the heat of the moment. Playing live – that is so important nowadays to step out of the shadows – of course requires musicians that can make it up to you and that you can rely on. You did some travelling, surely met people but how did you make friends like these (please read the `who-is-who´ of the hard & heavy scene on TARAs homepage) as a `newcomer´ or `non-professional´? And please tell us about your current tour-lineup.

Photo: Ingo Stolley

Living in Los Angeles certainly makes it very easy to meet music business folks. Some I’ve met through friends, some through charity events and some just by chance. Then, of course, one leads to another and so on. It’s really that simple… There’s no magical answer for this. It’s the same way you meet anybody in your life that becomes a friend.

My current lineup consists of Bjorn Englen (YNGWIE MALMSTEEN, QUIET RIOT, DIO DISCIPLES), who plays bass on the majority of my album, Joe Lazarus (VOODOO SIX, INHEAVEN) on drums and Kaviani (ERIC MARTIN, JOE LYNN TURNER) on guitar. These guys are all top notch players and fantastic people to tour with. 

Damn! Again I’d give anything for an immediate cheap flight to the UK. Well, we’re slowly coming to the end for this time, but I am sure it won’t be the last to hear news from you. The most important things in life that are also manifested on your album are love & music. But that doesn’t work without humor – let’s test your skills on that one. Would you do me a favor and try to create a little story of two sentences to get a link between your epic album cover and the one I send you? Stupid question number two (I just can’t drop this one): Did you ever meet George Lynch and what is your favourite DOKKEN tune?

There is absolutely no link at all whatsoever between my album cover and the one you sent me. I’ve actually never seen that before in my life. My album cover can be explained simply… I am in perpetual contemplation of my place between heaven and hell because I believe I have a firm foothold in both for different reasons. Obviously my hell involves men who are always tempting me and I’m not so sure I want to leave. How’s that for my sense of humor?! Ha ha Ha ha ha. I have met George Lynch on a couple of occasions, though have never had anything to do with him otherwise… We simply share a very common Irish last name.

Photo: Phillip Göttert

Tara Lynch & humor – check. Yeah, you made my day.

First part of the final question would be the first anyone of my friends would ask: will there be a vinyl version of `Evil Enough´? I don’t know if you are aware that especially in the metal scene, we’re dying for LPs again and to the most of my age this is no fashionable trend, we never sold ‘em and never stopped listening to them anyway.

Part two is my interest in your personal heroes along the way. What brought you to metal and who inspired you most in different decades over the years? 

I would very much like to do a vinyl pressing at some point. I am very well aware of the interest and I am looking into it.

For as long as I can remember I’ve been into rock and metal. From my youngest days where I was addicted to BLACK SABBATH, DEEP PURPLE, SCORPIONS, RAINBOW, UFO, MSG, LED ZEPPELIN, DAVID BOWIE, ALICE COOPER, KISS and then falling in love with bands like IRON MAIDEN, OZZY, DIO, METALLICA, MEGADETH and most recently GHOST. Probably BLACK SABBATH and the SCORPIONS have the greatest influence for me over all. My ultimate guitar heroes would be more than I can possibly mention, but at the top of my list you will find Michael Schenker, Vinnie Moore, Steve Vai, Tony MacAlpine, Uli Jon Roth, Tony Iommi and Gary Moore…to name a few! 

Thank you so much for a very informative and interesting interview. It was a real pleasure and fun to do. Best wishes for your current tour and the future. You surely have risen, Gui-Tara! Cheers, Less