A QUICK ‘DIRTY’ DOZEN with RON YOUNG of LITTLE CAESAR

Shane | 20 March 2018 | Reply

A QUICK DOZEN with RON YOUNG of LITTLE CAESAR
By Shane Pinnegar

With their eighth release (six studio albums, an EP and a live album) fittingly titled EIGHT just released, Little Caesar are firing on all cylinders and rocking as hard as ever. Frontman Ron Young took time out to answer A Quick Dozen – or what he called ‘A Dirty Dozen’ for us.

1. Tell us a little about your latest album, Eight. Are there any hidden nuggets the band put in the material that only diehard fans might pick up on?

Our latest album was a pleasure to record and we hope that that comes across to the listener. All of our albums are exercises of worship to the great artists we listen to as fans that lead us to become makers of music. We wear those influences on our sleeves and it is by no accident if you hear an Angus [Young] type solo, or a Paul Rodgers vocal riff. There so many to name on this album and to hear them, note them, or call them out is hopefully part of the fun in listening to it.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realised you wanted to be a musician?

When I was around 10 years old I heard a Jackson 5 song and realised it was a kid singing and making me ‘feel something’… I later learned that that was the meaning of someone who possessed ‘soul.’ From that moment on, I wanted to have ‘soul’ and make people feel ‘something.’ It was powerful, liberating, and magical to me. Then I heard rock bands like Zeppelin doing that same thing to me… and the girls… and I thought if I could do THAT and make GIRLS feel it, I might not feel so awkward in my 13 year old skin.

A hairy, younger Little Caesar

3. Who would be your main five musical influences?

Paul Rodgers, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Rod Stewart and Bon Scott

4. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be?

I would love to do a duet with Paul Rodgers. I once got to sing a duet with Bryan Adams on the Benny King song Stand By Me, when we opened for him in Vancouver. It felt really great and elevated my performance being on a stage with him. I’m sure it would be the same with Paul Rodgers.

5. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before?

Soulful yet gritty Classic Rock, based in Blues and basted in motor oil.

6. What’s the best thing about being a musician?

Being able to put into melody and rhythm what I feel deep in my soul that words have always fell short of expressing.

7. When the band are all hanging out together, who cooks; who gets the drinks in; and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Pharoah [Barret, bass player with the band since 2015] and I were both briefly chefs, Loren [Molinare, guitarist and, along with drummer Tom Morris and Young, mainstays of the band since their 1987 formation, and 2001 return from hiatus] is always the first to grab a guitar, and whoever gets the drinks is also responsible for posting bail.

8. If you weren’t a musician, what would be your dream job?

Super car test driver or sun tan oil applicator at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit photo shoots.

9. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep, or you would like to be able to “do over”?

I would have never sat in the big meeting where I publicly and loudly decreed in front of all the ‘big wigs’ at Geffen, pointed towards John Kalodner (who was A&R at Geffen Records) that the new Blue Murder track had no hook and that kids don’t care about ‘drum sounds’ – which made him hate me forever more.

10. If you were made ruler of the world, what would your first orders be?

That we all should spend less money on things that kill or control people and spend more money on making people happy and healthy.

11. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

Led Zeppelin IV… to me Jimmy Page was a very under-rated producer… to be in the room when they cut When The Levee Breaks would probably have left me with permanent goose bumps.

12. What, for you, is the meaning of life??

To wake up every morning and be the man I THINK is looking back in the mirror, that possesses integrity, a gentle and generous spirit, so that he makes the world a better place by everything he does and everyone he interacts with.

www.littlecaesar.net
https://www.facebook.com/LittleCaesarOfficial/