Great White: Mark Kendall Talks Metallica / “Streetkiller” Intro – BONUS Excerpt – Transcribed – Taurus Pedal

Posted by On August 19, 2019 0 Comment

The BONUS excerpt above was taken from the full in bloom interview with Great White founder / guitarist Mark Kendall.  It has also been transcribed below.

DESCRIPTION:
Mark talks about Metallica and the Great White songs “No Way” and “Streetkiller.”

Background:  Mark told me he had to leave for band rehearsal.  In a state of panic, I shouted a couple of more questions at him.

BONUS EXCERPT:
This bonus excerpt was not included in the original full in bloom interview with Mark.  You can listen to the entire interview at this location.
________________________________________________

full in bloom:  Why didn’t you include “No Way” on that first self-titled album?

Mark Kendall:  Really it just got outrun by the other tunes we wrote.  I mean, we came with like, “Streetkiller” and “Hold On,” and a few others that we….well, Michael Wagener felt were stronger tunes.

full in bloom:  I always thought that song was badass and had a real commercial vibe to it.  I would have loved to have heard that song with the production from the self-titled album.

Mark:  Yeah.

full in bloom:  Do you have any memory about writing the “Streetkiller” intro?

Mark:  Yeah, I had the idea for the harmonics and Lorne (Black) would just hit like an open E, when I did the intro.  But in the studio, we came up with the idea to use like a Taurus pedal, which was more like a big-low-keyboard, kind of, note.  So, they made a bigger deal out of that, kind of, with the cymbal crash.  But it was funny, a few years after that, or a couple of years, or whatever it was, we heard a Metallica intro that sounded real similar.  I was like, ‘wow, that sounds real close to that intro.’  That’s pretty cool, because we came up with Metallica.
________________________________________________

The transcribed excerpt below was taken from the published interview:

full in bloom:  I’m kind of obsessed with the self-titled (album) and Out of the Night (both engineered/produced by Michael Wagener), those early days.  My very first concert was Great White opening up for Judas Priest.  I was like twelve years old.  To me, as a kid, I thought you guys were better than Judas Priest, and I don’t know if that was because you guys related more to me.  But I just loved the whole white BC Rich, your whole thing with the headband, that whole vibe.  And the self-titled record, I thought, really captured the essence of Los Angeles.  I have always loved that record…And I still love that record.

Mark:  I still like it, actually, and my kids all love it.  I can still listen back to that and it still holds up.  It was pretty amazing.  When we first met Alan Niven (former Great White manager) and we were going to make the EP (Out of the Night), we flew Michael Wagener out from Germany and he didn’t know very much English.  It was a real early part of his career and it was real exciting.  We did that EP and we didn’t really have a record deal at that time, just a distribution deal.  Somehow, through some kind of magic, to this day I’m not really exactly sure, we got a song in heavy rotation on the biggest station in Los Angeles, with no record deal, and that’s how the excitement was created.  I’ve never heard of that before and I have lived in L.A. my whole life.  I have never heard of a band that’s not signed to be in heavy rotation with the Tom Pettys and whatever.  So, that was pretty amazing, total magic.  The first tour was with Whitesnake, in Europe.  So the thing you saw with Priest, that was our second run.  I’m really glad because it gave us a little bit of seasoning, playing arenas and stuff.  We were coming out of like clubs and backyards, basically.  It was a pretty amazing experience.

full in bloom:  Is there a memory that stands out from that Judas Priest tour?

Mark:  One memory I have is playing Glenn Tipton (Judas Priest guitarist) in pool for like ten hours, and it was on a show date.  We had a show the next day and we played until like seven in the morning.  And (laughs) we go, ‘we got to go to sleep, man’ but we were so into it.  It’s funny, we just lost track of time.  We went and took naps.  I remember after I got off stage and I wanted to see what condition he was in and the whole band was walking by and Glenn looked at me and goes, “I don’t feel well” (laughs).    It was awesome….and they did a great show.  Also, just in general, they kind of took us under their wing a little bit.  They had more experience;  they had been on more tours and stuff, and we didn’t know what the hell was going on, we were kind of green.  They were just really good people.

You can listen to the entire interview at this location.

Mark Kendall Excerpt via Soundcloud:

Great White “Streetkiller”

Metallica “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)”