One of the most underrated Metal acts from the 80's definitelyhas to be BANSHEE from Kansas City! These guys did put out three excellent albums, but due to the lack of support from their record label Atlantic Records, they unfortunately never really got the attention they deserved overhere. So, we thought it would be a good idea to let you know all necessary details about them by hooking up with original vocalist TOMMY LEE FLOOD who turned out to be an extremely impressive talker. This interview, which was kindly done for us by Chuck Cannon, originally was more than two hours(!!) long, so we just had to go for the most interesting aspects here. Hope you'll enjoy it! Before BANSHEE's origin, all four of you had already been playing in different bands. Would you mind telling us the names of those bands and how serious they were?
"I was in a touring band called THE LICK, Terry was in
a group called FROTO (or something like that - Frank), Kent was in a band called
CRYPT KEEPER and Bill Westfall was in a band called OCEAN. We all had to play covertunes
back in that particular time period to tour and to get gigs. But all four of us, the bands
that we were in, we had original songs that we did in our set. My band was probably the
most serious of them all, I mean I was on tour with that band for almost four years
and toured the United States probably four or five times. Terry's band was pretty much
just local, I don't think they went out of town too much. Kent's band CRYPT KEEPER,
probably... I think they only did actually two shows and we immediately saw that he had a
lot of talent, I mean, we basically just stole him from that band. I don't know if we
made any enemies or not, but he saw a better opportunity to come jam with me
and Terry, so he took it and that was pretty much the end of that band. But they had only
played like once or twice, a couple of "Battle of the bands" or something like
that.Bill's band OCEAN was a pretty serious touring cover band also. I met Terry when I
was on tour, we came to Kansas City and did four nights and on my night off, I went out
here in town and saw FROTO play and I was really blown away with Terry and immediately
thought to myself, if I had a guitar player like that, I could make it. And I've pretty
much had taken the LICK thing as far as you could go, I mean, I've toured several times
around the country and we were a great showband. But pretty much the focus was 
on the
covertunes. And originally that band's focus was on originals and we put out a 45 record
which got airplay in the Midwest and we opened up for HEADEAST and THE MOTELS and JOHN
COUGAR and some other projects, you know, we got to go on tour, opening for them. It was a
pretty serious act and on one hand you were treated like a Rock star, but you know that
you're not really, you know, doing your own thing, so... it was kind of a limited
satisfaction, when peoplecome up and say "Hey, you do DIO great!" or whatever
like thatand you're wishing it was your songs. And I think Terry had the same kind of
frustration, because he had so much talent and he liked to write and I liked to write and
my band wasn't writing any more songs, we were just basically learning all the hits off
the radio. So, he contacted me and he said "Look, I saw THE LICK when you were in
town and I think that you're a really good singer and I heard that you saw FROTO, so give
me a call." So, I called him and we had a lot of mutual respect for each other. One
thing lead to another, so I quit that band and moved down to Kansas City and we put
together BANSHEE. Originally we didn't have a name or anything, I just moved down here, I
lived in the old "Seventh Heaven" record store warehouse for two years and
borrowed five grand from my best friends in Omaha and told them, you know, I really
believed in this guitar player and I really thought that I could make this thing work, you
know, as an all original thing. So, they loaned me some money and we did "Cry
In The Night" for about... almost six grand is what it cost us to do that
album. While we were writing the songs and were putting the thing together in the
warehouse is when we met Kent. Wecouldn't find a bass player, so the guitar player from
THE LICK band ended up quitting THE LICK, cause he didn't like the new
Who came up with the name BANSHEE and what
was the story behind it?
"Well, we were sitting in the record store warehouse,
where I lived and that was our rehearsal hall, too and we decided to
put together a list of names and we were gonna pick a name.
So everybody in the band showed up, we all had twenty or thirty
names on a list and we were going through them and a friend of
ours, that worked at the record store, walked over there and he
goes "Dudes, I got the perfect name for the group!" and we go
"What?" and he goes "BANSHEE!" and we all just looked at each
other and said "That's it!" and we never looked any further."
Instead of recording a demotape, you went for an EP
straight away. Could you tell us more about that and why you
weren't interested in doing a demo, like anybody else?! How many
songs did you have at that time and how did you choose the five
that finally ended up on "Cry In The Night"?
"Well, those five songs were actually the first five
songs that we wrote! And as soon as we had those five songs ready,
we picked a studio here in town, that nobody else had recorded in,
because they gave us a really good deal and also because we were
able to control, nobody in town hearing our stuff before it was
completely finished. Because we wanted it to have the most
impact that it possibly could have when it hit the shelves. The
mystery around us just kept growing and growing and people were
really curious what we sounded like! We never let anybody hear
us rehearse. And finally when we felt the time was right, we let
some of the big mouth type people hear us jam and the word just
went out like wildfire. Like "Wow, these BANSHEE guys are really
hot!" And when the EP came out we sold 1.000 units just like
that right out the shoe!"
There's never been a CD release of "Cry In The Night", has there?
"Well, when we signed our deal with Metal Blade,
it was in our contract that they were gonna put it out on CD, cassette
and vinyl. So, the only thing I can say is, that I had people tell
me, "I've never seen a CD!", but I've had people tell me that
they've seen that the CD's were being sold on a Metal Blade
Records website. And if they're still selling "Cry In The
Night", they're breaking the law! But as long as people are
getting it, are buying it and liking it, it's better to at least
have the word being spread, than not! But it would be nice to
know if they did put it out on CD, that I could get a copy at
least." (according to Metal Blade Germany, it was never
ever released on CD - Frank)
Shortly after the recordings Chuck had to be
replaced by Bill Westfall... What happened?
"Bill Westfall was a monster bass player! He was
probably the best bass player I've ever seen, but he was in a band called
OCEAN and he also played keyboards and he wasn't a bad keyboard
player. BANSHEE had started to expand our writing, we started to
add some keyboards and Bill Westfall actually played two BANSHEE
concerts as an off stage keyboard player. Because we didn't have
enough material with keys that we wanted having somebody on
stage as a fifth member. And Chuck... it was really weird, we
hadn't signed with Metal Blade or anything, we were still just
doing our own thing and he came back from Omaha and said "I got something really serious to talk to you about..." Me and him
have been in bands together since highschool. I used to be a
drummer, we actually had two bands together and I was the
drummer in highschool. And then I was in THE LICK band and then
eventually got Chuck in as the guitar player into THE LICK band,
so we've been together for ten years. So, it was pretty
dramatic. He got all serious and said, "Man, I got something I
need to tell you!" and I said "What's that?!" and he said "I'm
quitting the band." And I was just absolutely... I felt kinda
scared really, like "Oh god, what's life gonna be without
Chuck?!" And he said, "My girlfriend's moving to California, she
got a job transfer and I don't wanna move back down here in this
warehouse and I feel like it's time for me to move on and I'm
gonna get married." So, he quit the band and said "I know that
your most obvious choice would be choosing Bill, which is
totally cool and if he needs me to show him anything, I'll be
glad to do that and I want BANSHEE to keep going." So, he ended
up moving to California and less than thirty days later we did
our first 
concert in Omaha with Bill. So, Chuck didn't get the
chance to play his hometown with BANSHEE,
which was kind of a sad thing. Because that show
was a major major success. We sold probably... I would
say almost 1.850 units up there, so when we had sold
so many cassettes, we decided, "Hey, it's time to
definitely go to Omaha and play!" And we booked the
show and we sold 1.350 tickets at our first show up
there, which was a major success! We made several
thousand dollars,we were totally into self promoting
the band andeverything, so making that kinda money was a really good
thing and the show was an ultimate success. And about a month and a half later was when Metal Blade called me here at the house and said "We got your cassette through a record store owner in Kentucky that
was selling it out of his little store and we just wanna know why you
guys aren't signed and if we can feature you guys?!" So, it's kinda weird
that Chuck quit the band and thirty days later we were basically getting
signed! And I know that it was really tough for him, because Metal Blade
flew the whole band out to L.A. for an entire week of promotion. We got 150 interviews with radio
stations and magazines around the world and we were
treated like...you know, the red carpet rolled out for us! And Chuck was
living there, so obviously I called him and I think it was really tough for him
to see us in Hit Parader magazine and stuff, knowing that he just quit thirty
days before. His whole life was music, so it was kind of a weird thing.
And of course we handed a $5.000 cheque right over to him. Cause l when
Metal Blade bought the rights to it for five years they sent us a $25.000 cheque. We split it five ways, we gave a fourth each one of the members of the band, not , including Bill because he didn't write that record and we
gave a fifth to the management team. That was one good thing that came out of it."
Have there been any other
companies interested
in BANSHEE as well at the time?
"When Metal Blade called us, we didn't even know how to shop ourselves. We never sent out any promo
packs or anything.
I remember that Terry sent a tape to Vivian Campbell, Terry was
good friends with Vivian Campbell and he was in DIO at the time,
so we sent a tape to Vivian. But other than a few people like
that, we didn't really know how to shop..."
Do you think that the "Metal Massacre" compilation helped
you in any way to get the name BANSHEE out some more?
"Oh yeah! Not only in getting the name out, but also
to make a fire underneath Atlantic's ass, because they knew that
if they didn't pick us up, somebody else is gonna. I mean, we had
another one... Geffen Records actually was really hot...
Atlantic Records shot a deal to us and then Metal Blade shot
their deal to us and Geffen was talking about being interested
in the band, too. But we just went with what we thought was a
good deal. And our manager at the time was really good friends
with Jason Flom, who was one of the main guys out of Atlantic
Records. That was another thing we felt like, you know, with
Jason on our side, we couldn't go wrong, because he's just so
powerful! You know, he's the starmaker! And he thought that the
band was gonna be huge."
Did Metal Blade change alot of the original cover and did they really remix a couple of the tracks for the
re-release?
"What they did was, they just remastered everything
in order to make the guitar sound better, but to me the
original version
had a lot more punch! They didn't remix it, they just remastered it
and they changed the artwork. They thought the blood dripping
down was too red and they thought that might be a problem, so
they made it purple. The artwork was the same, they just changed
the colors a little bit. But it was pretty much 99% of the same
artwork, same picture, same mix. It was just a little difference
on the mastering."
What's the story with this "Take 'Em By Storm" album?
It's originally already from 1992, but didn't appear overhere until
the beginning of this year or something...
"There was a guy, I think the company was called
Metal Mayhem Records out of Conneticut and he's a
collector, shopper,
sells collectables through a catalogue and stuff. And he called us up
and said, "Man, I got my hands on "Take 'Em By Storm" and I
think it's the best BANSHEE record I've ever heard and I was
wondering how it comes it never got released, cause I've never
heard it or seen it." We said "Well, we have a thousand units
collecting dust..." and he bought every unit from us and ended
up selling them overseas. And those were basically the only
units that were ever released in Europe."
Was "Take 'Em By Storm" actually recorded for Atlantic Records and they passed on
it?
"No, we did demos of those songs and they never
really gave it a chance. They were just gonna sit
on us for a couple
of years and we just felt like, we wanted to put that damn record out,we're ready to do it, and they didn't wanna do it, so we did it on our
own! And it pissed them off!"
It pissed them off?
"Oh yeah! We did a lot of things that pissed them off!
We bootlegged our record when they stopped selling it. You know,when our fans wanted that fuckin' record and they couldn't get
it, we
bootlegged it and sold it through our fan club and made a lot of cash!"
Why did you re-record "Desire" for the "Take 'Em By
Storm" album?
"On "Take 'Em By Storm", the songs
"Desire" and
"The Spell",those were actually demo songs that we did with Eddy Kramer
for Atlantic Records. And we really liked Eddy Kramer's version much
better. And then when Jon Matthias came into the picture - he
was some fuckin' weirdo and he wanted to be different, he didn't
wanna do the same thing Eddy did, he changed it and we never
liked it. He watered it down and took out the lead vocals during
the choruses and made 'em kind of an R&B thing, kinda wimpy. We never liked that! We liked it more aggressive and
Eddy Kramer's
version was much more aggressive and we just liked it better!
And when we did "Take 'Em By Storm", we only had like eight
songs or whatever and we wanted those songs to be on there.
So I bought the tapes from the studio."
Is there still any unreleased BANSHEE material left now?
"Yes, there is. There was an awful lot of stuff. I bet
there`s about an hour and a half of material that never even got
recorded! And then there's probably about half an hour worth of
demo stuff laying around. I know for a fact that I've got at least two songs here, one was actually gonna be on the "Race
Against Time" record, called "We Can Make It Better". That was a
great tune! And I've got another song called "The Slam", that's
also a really good song. But I think those are the only two that
I've got. We also used to play a couple of songs live that got
never recorded, like "Faces Of Death" or "Freedom Fighter."
What are you all up to these days? Are you still
involved in music? Do you still have any bands going?
"Bill Westfall moved to St.Louis where he builds a
studio, a really nice studio and actually started PRIMAL ORDER,which I joined up and then Bill ended up leaving PRIMAL ORDER
when he moved to Las Vegas. And then I kept PRIMAL ORDER
going with Lee Jackson and Kent Burnham was playing drums for us. We put out a CD called "Meat", it really turned out great, it's a
great CD. Bill was in Las Vegas for maybe like three years and
he got a deal with Atlantic West and right on the quest of the
album coming out, the singer quit as his mom died or
something.
And he tripped out, moved back to St.Louis and the whole
thing fell apart. And he moved back to Kansas City when his
wife got tranferred back here. So, we're all still alive and in the
same town. Chuck Hopkins is some kind of a constructional
engineer computer wiz or something, he lives up back up in Omaha,
he moved back there from California, cut all of his hair off and is
making a lot more money than I do!"
But PRIMAL ORDER is not really going anymore, right?
"No! But the songs on that CD... I wrote all the lyrics and all the melody lines and I even wrote the music for
about half of
them. So, a couple of those are gonna be on my new CD and I use
some of the players to play the tracks on the new material that
I've done. I will put out another CD and it's gonna be called just
FLOOD and it's gonna have six songs on it and it's gonna be more of
a commercial Rock, it's not gonna be as heavy as some of the stuff
that we've done as PRIMAL ORDER and it's definitely not as
heavy as BANSHEE! It's gonna be more commercial. I've got one
more song to mix and as soon as that's done I'm gonna put it out!"
You can order the PRIMAL ORDER CD for
$10 (+$3 to cover the
postage from overseas) from the following address:
Tommy Lee Flood
3728 State Line
Kansas City, KS 66103
U.S.A.