Tagged: Peter Espinoza
So let me introduce to you…..! [Part 1]
The recording-project that we’ve been working on for the past few weeks is coming together. Laying down the vocals on Sunday, hopefully we’ll be done with the mixing and mastering very soon as well.
While that is still in the making, I’d like to introduce you to the guys that I chose for this project. :)
First out is guitarist
PETER ESPINOZA
[Pic by D.Qwarfort]
My story…? Well, let’s see.
The whole thing started way back in 1984 when I started the band SAD WINGS. We released an album on Ebony Records. (see video below)
I then went on to playing with my own band ESPINOZA until 1988 when I ended up as one of the contestants of the Swedish Guitar Battle.
I went straight to the finals, and I still remember that night. All the other guitar geeks were warming up backstage and I thought they all sounded so good that I wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.
So, I thought “fuck it” and went to the bar and got totally shitfaced.
Then by some miracle I went onstage and managed to play everybody’s pants off – I won the whole thing!
That’s when the guys of NASTY IDOLS first noticed me. They had another guitarist at the time, but then we met again at an Alice Cooper concert in 1989 and they asked if I wanted the gig. I was with them for about five years, played on Cruel Intention, Vicious, Heroes for Sale and Boys Town.
I quit the band for a while and focused on other things, released another album with my own band Espinoza in 1995 before I founded the (neo classical) band MAJESTIC.
Me and the keyboardist used to sit in his basement and just play totally sick stuff – you know, we wanted to kick the asses of Stratovarius and all those types of bands. We were constantly trying to outdo eachother, it was a great time! I don’t have any of those recordings anymore, but you can imagine – it was impossible listening to and if anyone wanted to try copying us, they would most likely fail.
Eventually we managed to write songs that people would actually listen to, and we sent them to musicians that we wanted to work with. Jake Samuel (ex-Talisman, current frontman of the Poodles) didn’t cut it back then, haha!
[Comment: However, current frontman of FIREWIND – Apollo Papathanasio did get through to the second lineup of the band and sang on their second album “Trinity Overture” (listen below) ]
In 2001 I recorded two albums with REPTILIAN before returning to Nasty Idols….and well, the rest is history.
[Review of Reptilian here: http://www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=1&id=1882 ]
YNGWIE…
If I’ve got any cool stories? Let me see. Well, we were touring with Yngwie Malmsteen and Yngwie was having dinner while we were doing our sound check. So, just to fuck with him, I started playing “Yngwie style” as a joke. After his dinner, he walked up to me and said:
– You make a damn good impression of me. You know what that means? That means you’re a good guitar player!
That was just too fucking funny!
And now? Well, we just released our new album with Nasty Idols (see video below) but I still enjoy doing side projects if someone interesting calls, like you just did with this thing.
Who knows what the future holds, it’s sure ain’t over yet! :)
They’re Nasty and they’re Back!
Tripped over a padded envelope in my hall when I came home the other day. It was the new NASTY IDOLS CD. :-)
I’ve followed this band for 25 years.
The first time I saw them was August 15, 1987 in a park here in Malmo. They headlined a music festival, and they were still unsigned. After that show, I did everything to get hold of a demo cassette or anything at all with this band, cause their live performance totally blew me away!
Back then, there was no internet (can you even REMEMBER that there ever WAS a time with no internet??). I had to go to the LIBRARY and ask a librarian to help me go through newspaper archives to get any info about Nasty Idols.
The first lead was to journalist Maria Francke who had reviewed one of their demos. I wrote to her – and she sent me that Nasty Idols demo-cassette as a gift. I was super happy about that.
(One of the very first songs by the unsigned Nasty Idols – they had a different guitarist back then, they upgraded the band with Peter Espinoza later)
Inside that cassette, there was an address and a phone number to “Andy Capone” that the singer called himself – who later became Andy Pierce. :) Well – this is all a very long story but I remember their days before they were signed. They did everything themselves, this band was a marketing-machine!
Bassist Dick Qwarfort was a graphic designer and would make professional looking logos, covers, press-kits…. When they released their single “Don’t Walk From Love“, it was also out of their own pockets from beginning to end, and they would personally go to the record stores in town and ask them to sell it. I remember seeing it at Åhléns in the center of Malmö for instance, right on the counter where you had to go to pay for your purchases. I’m sure that helped them quite a bit on their way.
I used to call the local radio station MCB requesting their songs or asking them to bring in Nasty Idols to be interviewed live on the air and shit like that. I was still in high school, and it’s funny when I think about it, because Nasty Idols’ career and mine took off around the same time, basically – in 1988.
I got my first job writing for Kvällsposten, they got their first record deal. We’ve walked on parallel paths ever since.
To make a very long story short – here we are, 25 years later. :-) And listening to the new album makes me remember once again WHY I’ve liked this band for so long. They kick ass – plain and simple.
They have a unique talent to write catchy songs that stick like glue already after the first listen. Andy’s vocals adds to the badboy attitude that they’re selling and they have basically always delivered the goods. Maybe I wasn’t a big fan of the “Vicious“-album but even that was a great album, just wasn’t my cup of tea at the time. Looking back you see things in a different perspective though.
The new album “Kalifornia” is rougher and tougher than it’s been in a while. Bands always say that, but it’s very clear from the very first riffs. Andy’s voice is different, he’s chosen to sing in a different style than usual, but I still can’t quite figure out what I think he sounds like now. Definitely cool but not the “usual Nasty”.
[My name was on the very first Nasty Idols CD “Gigolos on Parole” – and here it is again. Nice when bands don’t forget the people who have supported them for years, very much appreciated. :)]
Slightly darker, heavier, raunchier. But still American style sleaze. If you’re into that, you’ll love it. My favorite up to date was “Boys town“, their last album.
But I have a feeling that this will be a new favorite to add to the collection. :-) I’ll probably be sitting here till my hair goes gray, headbanging to Nasty Idols. Some bands just never go out of style!
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 