INTERVIEW: DARIO LORINA from DARK CHAPEL – January 2025

According to a recent press release: “Guitarist/singer/producer Dario Lorina, best-known as a longtime member of Black Label Society (2014 to present), is launching his brand new band, DARK CHAPEL. Led by Lorina and also featuring Brody DeRozie (Guitar), Mike Gunn (Bass), and Luis Silva (Drums), the band’s airtight guitar-craft and sludgy grooves with magnetic melodies, bluesy phrasing, and grunge mystique are spotlighted on their debut album, Spirit In The Glass, which is due out February 28, 2025 on MNRK Heavy. Dario’s gritty delivery on the song takes hold on a hypnotic hook, bleeding into a fret-burning lead punctuated by dramatic bends. Dario Lorina began his professional career in 2006 when he was 16 as the touring guitarist with the late Jani Lane (ex-Warrant). At 19, he joined veteran metal act Lizzy Borden whom he toured with for four years. He released two instrumental records with Mike Varney on Shrapnel Records in 2013 and 2017. On January 1, 2014 he joined Black Label Society and has since been touring worldwide alongside Zakk Wylde, performing on guitar, piano and backing vocals ever since. Lorina dueled solos with Wylde on Black Label Society’s 2022 album DOOM CREW INC., and he joined Zakk Wylde on the January 2022 cover of Guitar World magazine.” I was able to carve time out with my old friend Dario to discuss new music, touring, and much more…

Todd: How have you been, Dario? Been a long time.

Dario: I know. It has been a long time. Yeah, everything’s been great. How have you been?

Todd: Can’t complain. There’s so much going on in your world, but the most exciting part is Dark Chapel. You’ve done solo projects, you’ve been in bands, you’ve been the touring guy. What’s it like for you to step totally 100% into the spotlight, singing, playing, and running the show?

Dario: I’m psyched about Dark Chapel. It’s just the beginning for Dark Chapel and it doesn’t feel too much different than what I’ve been coming up from the past. As far as music and writing, it feels like a continuation of the instrumental albums I did on Shrapnel with Mike Varney, and now it’s just a continuation of singing and songwriting and demoing. It’s now with my vocals on there as well. I’m psyched where Dark Chapel is headed are just getting started.

Todd: You’ve got two amazing singles out there, “Glass Heart” and “Hollow Smile.” Sonically at the root of the music, they sound like a package, but also there’s just nuances that are different. How important was it to you to not make this sound just the same thing over and over and over? Like you said, it’s an extension of what you’ve been doing, but it shows so much growth too.

Dario: As far as where I’m at, songwriting and music wise, that’s just kind of now what’s all come together on these 10 songs on the Dark Chapel album, Spirit In The Glass. I recorded half of the album several years ago, and then I continued the rest of the album in between touring last year. I finished writing and then went in and recorded the rest of the album. So, half the album I did with an engineer Fred Archambault who did my second instrumental album Death Grip Tribulations. He also did some of the mixes on a few of the songs on the first instrumental album. He was there with me at the beginning of this, and then as I brought it all back together, I had engineer Sean McGee and he mixed the whole album. He knocked it out of the park. It sounds great.

Todd: I love that “Glass Heart,” lyrically and musically, it’s so diverse. I love the different layers. How did that song come together for you? Did you struggle with any parts of it? It sounds to me as if you were weaving a tapestry from start to finish.

Dario: I had that riff, that main riff that it’s opening with. I’ll sit with a riff that I have that day or that morning or whatever, and then I just start building off it from there. I liked that I went into the clean verse. It felt like it gave it a whole different vibe. I’m working on the structure and arrangement as a rough draft when I’m demoing something out in Pro Tools. That song came together quickly. For me, once you have the riff and the first verse, the rest of the song just ends up running itself arrangement wise. As I was recording that song when we were in the studio laying all the final tracks of it down, it was giving us a soundtrack to a movie kind of vibe. It was just giving us a certain feeling. That’s why I was psyched to have it as the first single, because it has a bit of a different feel.

Todd: Yeah, I agree with that. There’s just something about it. It’s hard rock and metal, but it’s also calming at the same time; it really hits differently. The opening riff you were talking about to me almost sounded like metal blues.

Dario: Yeah, totally. I was getting a Zeppelin feel and I was rolling with it. If I plugged into a different amp and had a different tone going, you could totally get a Zeppelin vibe out of it.

Todd: You pulled some guys together for the album. Are we looking at a tour? What’s the future hold for Dark Chapel supporting Spirit In The Glass, which would be out in about a month?

Dario: I think it’s four weeks to the day today. This is just the beginning for Dark Chapel. We just did our first shows as a band last week opening for Zakk Sabbath in New Orleans and Little Rock. That was a blast. We have our album release show coming up here in Vegas on March 1st, which is the day after the album releases on February 28th. We have Don Jamison the comedian opening the show, so that’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re working on a ton of stuff from here. We are planning to be out there.

Todd: I’ve been blessed and able to listen to the whole album. We talked about “Glass Heart” and how that came together easier for you. What was the hardest song from start to finish for you to complete?

Dario: Let me think about that one for a second. So as far as the hardest song, I’m not sure if there really is one that I can say is the hardest song. When I start any song, I might work on it for a couple of days, a few days of arrangement wise, and then it’s done to me. As I’m working on it, I’ll have some kind of a vocal melody in my head. I’ll come back and explore that melody and put the lyrics on it from there. None of them really presented too much difficulty or I was stuck on for a while. But I can say that “Bullet In Our Chamber,” which is the last song on the album, I was psyched to be able to include it on the album. When we were recording, we were in there doing drums, and I’m like, okay, if we have enough time while we’re in here, let’s just see if we can include this one. It was like 1:00am, and it was the last day of however many days we did drum recording. It was like, all right, let’s throw this on and see if we can get a take really quick.’ The drummer just nailed it in one take and the song just magically built itself and presented this feel; its own vibe to it. The beginning of the album has what you could say is heavy, and then it kind goes off into a different feel with “Dead Weight” and “Dark Waters,” and then it comes back into heavy and ends with “Bullet In Our Chamber,” which is a heavy song. It has a bluesy different vibe to the whole thing, and I love the acapella vocal ending at the end. I love all 10 songs on the album. “Dead Weight” is one of my favorites, and I point to “Bullet In Our Chamber” being something different.

Todd: The thing I like about “Bullet In Our Chamber,” and the first thing I thought when I listened the album all the way through without any interruption, it makes me want to start the album over. It has that kick, and you ended so strong. I thought this cannot be the end. I wound up listening through two more times for three spins in a row Dario. Other than the two singles that are out so far and “Dead Weight,” which you love, are there any specific songs that you really look forward to playing live?

Dario: That’s awesome. “Afterglow,” which is the first one on the album that’s just a heavy drive and straightforward pump up, that’s maybe one of my favorite guitar solos that’s on the album. So, we opened with that on these Zakk Sabbath shows, and that one’s a blast playing live. I mean, of course, “Hollow Smile” has that riff. I love the “We Are Remade” because it gets real metal in the middle of it, kind of throwback vibe. I mean, I’m really looking forward to playing ’em all live.

Todd: I was going to say, it sounds like you’re just chomping at the bid to just hit the stage with all 10 tracks. Dario, we’ve known each other for a long time. I have followed your career from the onset. When it comes to the past, what’s the one piece of advice someone gave you that you wish you had listened to?

Dario: I’m not sure if I can say one that I wish I had listened to, but I think the best piece of advice that’s been given is just follow your heart. If I can think back, that’s been said multiple times. Nothing, I can think of one that I wished I followed, but yeah, I would point to that.

Todd: you’ve also played Zakk. You’ve done stuff with Lizzy Borden and Jani Lane and of course your solo albums. Who’s the one guy out there you’d love to do something with that you just haven’t been able to connect with yet?

Dario: There’s so many. Zakk [Wylde], when I was coming up as a guitar player, was one of my top guys. Playing alongside him is… I’m so psyched about that. I’m 11 years into it and he’s amazing. As far as Dark Chapel opening for bands, I mean, if I were to, in a perfect world, I love all kinds of music, but I’d love to open for or Alice In Chains, or if we went way back and said when Alice In Chains was opening for Van Halen, that could have been an awesome Dark Chapel opening spot, but that’s in the fantasy world. There’s so many out there and especially today, there’s so many awesome bands.

Todd: Dario, what makes you still get up every morning and grab that guitar and play?

Dario: I would still be doing that one way or the other, it’s what I know and it’s what I do, and it’s what I love to do. Even if these songs weren’t on this Dark Chapel album, I’d still be sitting down every day writing music, playing guitar, playing piano, and singing or whatever. It’s just what I love to do. So that is what gets me out of bed.

Todd: Looking back on history and this whole thing with Dark Chapel, there’s so many influences in the DNA of this release. What albums are the one or two that you feel most pushed you and influenced you to be the guitar player you are today?

Dario: Right at the beginning that would be Van Halen I. I was hearing that as a kid in the 90’s, pulling a tape out of my dad’s glove box in the truck, driving around and hearing that guitar coming through those speakers was magical. When I was getting introduced to playing guitar, it was like, okay, well, I want my guitar to sound like that. That is definitely number one for me. The number two slot could be a mixture of so many things, but I love, as far as guitar player is Zakk. I love Warren DeMartini and John Sykes, George Lynch, Paul Gilbert, John Petrucci, of course, Yngwie and Steve Vai, and Satriani. There’s a huge mashup of that number two slot. But Van Halen I would be my number one point through as far as guitar playing.

Todd: It’s funny you list all those albums and those players, and I think you were my age, not your age.

Dario: That was the stuff I was into and stuff that my parents were introducing me to as a kid. As I started to dig on my own, there was this Christmas tape called Merry Axemas, and it had Christmas versions like Satriani playing a song and Steve Vai playing a song, Kenny Wayne Shepherd playing. I loved that tape so much as far as just being inspired, listening to instrumental guitar music. I loved that. I think my very first guitar lesson at six or seven years old, I walked into this music store in Boston. They asked what do you want to learn? It was like, I want to learn “Surfing with the Alien.” He’s like, here’s how you play an A minor chord. We’ll get to that later.’

Todd: That’s funny. Again, you got so much going on in 2025. Spirit In The Glass dropping February 28th is just the first step man. That said… eyes forward… what’s the one lyric that you hope resonates with somebody from this album? You’re known for your riffs and everything else, but you’re a great songwriter. I’m curious about your lyrics.

Dario: I would say out of all the heavy stuff and all the guitars driven on the album, if somebody would say, what does your voice sound like or what is your songwriting style? I would point to “Dead Weight” lyric wise. I really love writing lyrics, whether it’s from a personal or emotional standpoint, or it’s from a creative writing storytelling approach, which several of the songs on the album are. Overall, lyrically, I’m happy with all these songs. I can say that the title of the album Spirit In The Glass, I love the imagery that phrase creates. The lyric is actually the first lyric of the second verse of the song, “All That Remains.” That lyric kind of stuck with me because I love the way of the imagery that it creates, so that ended up becoming the title of the album.

Todd: Fair enough. It’s funny because you said something, and it rings true that just the imagery that different people will put together with the title. This throws back to how long I’ve known you and the first time we really met and hung out. Spirit in the glass, to me, is Jägermeister in a bottle at Roklahoma.

Dario: [laughs] Well, you know that is the meaning of it in that verse. Spirit in the glass would be like alcohol coming into a glass, like enjoying a drink that night or whatever. If you stripped that away and you just think of the phrase spirit in the glass, the imagery that can get created out of it, however anybody wants to interpret it, there’s a wide range, which is why I dug it.

Todd: I automatically went to imagery of a smoky spirit behind a stained glass or something, but again, talking to you it just throws me back to that initial meeting. I appreciate you taking time out as your friend, but also as a huge fan of everything you’ve always done Dario. I hope everybody gets out there on February 28th and gets their hands on this music so they can experience it and build up that demand so we can get a full proper tour out of you guys this year.

Dario: Thank you, Todd. There’s always time to talk and I appreciate all your support and appreciate you. I’m psyched. It’s awesome that you’ve gotten to hear the whole album all the way through, and I’m psyched for everybody else to be able to hear it coming out February 28th.

Todd: Absolutely. Be well and we’ll see you out on the road this year.

Dario: Thanks Todd. Hope to see you soon.

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Category: Interviews