M&R Rush is a cool AOR band in the late 70�s style from the same town as classic AOR bands like Survivor, Styx and REO Speedwagon - Chicago. The band started in the 70�s but went on hiatus in the late 80�s, in 2004 they returned with the comeback album "Thrill of the chase" and this year they gave us the brand new album "Keep on rockin".
Hello and welcome to the Grandiose interview section at melodic.net, how does it feel?
Marty Mardirosian: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview. We are excited to be able to talk with you about out new CD � Keep On Rockin!
I was thinking of your bandname, how did you come up with that name?
Marty Mardirosian: At the time when the band first got together, having initials in your name seemed to be the trend. Other bands at the time were the MC5, CTA(who changed their name to Chicago), TW4 (who changed their name to Styx) MH Royals and MS Funk�.. M&R Rush�. the M is for Marty, the R for Roger. The Rush came out of nowhere but it was long before the Canadian group with that name hit the airwaves.
Before we go into your newer stuff, I want to ask you one thing about the awesome Pomp anthem "Wrap me up" from your previous album, was it really written in 2004 or is it an old track from the 70�s because you never get to hear these kind of songs nowadays?!
Marty Mardirosian: Thanks for the nice compliment Kaj about �Wrap Me Up�. It is one of my favorites also on out last CD �The Thrill of The Chase�. That song was written in 2004. I really like how Jeff laid down the vocal track and the nice harmonies.
Can you tell me a little about last year�s single "You don�t wanna with a hungry bear" which is can be viewed at youtube.com, it�s a funny song but what�s the story behind it?
Marty Mardirosian: Here in the States Football is very big.. All of us in M&R Rush are big fans of the Chicago Bears. With the Bears making it into the Super Bowl last year - Carl had the idea to write a song in their honor.
He had this vision of all the Chicago Bears Fans singing a chant to GO BEARS GO!!
!
When we recorded it - Carl being a very creative person� tells us.. I hear a Bear singing this song� we all looked at him like it was totally insane. He then started roaring like a Bear in the woods. All of us laughed so hard that we were rolling on the floor in the studio. So we kept it!!!! The whole song was just for fun!!!!
One of our fans made a short video about the song and asked us if we minded if he posted it on You Tube. I think it has about 10,000 plays.
Another fan made a video with pictures to the 1st track �Keep On Rockin�! from our new Cd and it is also posted on You Tube.
We also wrote another tune about a Chicago Team � The Chicago Cubs � Our Baseball Team. That song is Called �I�m Dreamin� and can be heard on our Thrill Of The Chase CD.
I think the new album "Keep on rockin" is a bit more straight rocking compared to the AOR/pomp oriented "The thrill of the chase" from 2004, what album lies closest to the sound you had in the 70�s?
Marty Mardirosian: On our new CD John and Paul - our guitar players wrote about 50% of the tunes. Being guitar players � they tend to write more rocking songs compared to our keyboardist Carl - who wrote the majority of tunes on the Thrill Of The Chase. In the 70�s when we went into the studio we tended to put a lot of keyboards in the mix. Live we always rocked out
with a lot of guitars. So, the new CD lies close to our live sound in the 70�s. In fact the title cut �Keep On Rockin� was written in mind to open our live show.
Another funny thing is that I have always wished a band could do a cover from Journey�s early era and then you came along and recorded a great cover of "On a Saturday niter" from "Look into the future", how come you chose that one?
Marty Mardirosian: When we all were in College we heard the first Journey album and fell in love with the band. This was before the Steve Perry era with Greg Rollie from Santana on Keyboards. We use to play a few tunes off the first two Journey albums in our live show. So, when we came back from our 17 year vacation and started playing again we added Saturday Night to our live show. People thought it was our song and they love it live, so we decided to put it on our new CD!! It is a fun song to play..
It�s very cool to find Chip�Z Nuff guesting on 2 songs on your new album, are you close friends?
Marty Mardirosian: Chip has been a big M&R Rush fan for a long time. We grew up in the same neighborhood as kids. He tells us all the time that we are the reason why he started playing music. This is a big compliment because he is a very talented musician. Our guitar player Jeff Luif works a lot in the studio with Chip on various projects. We are close enough that he has nicknames for some of us��Here is a scoop that no one knows: He says when I play the drums I look like Scissorhands�.So Kaj - you have to come to one of our live shows to see if you agree!!!
You really do have amazing harmony vocals in the same spirit as Journey, Styx, REO Speedwagon - is it hard to deliver live?
Marty Mardirosian: Everyone in the band sings lead and background in the band - except me. So we have 5 voices to work with. We were commenting to each other when we were recording the new CD that our vocals have really improved as we get more experienced.. Like how I said that .. not as we AGED!!! Like Fine Wine!!!!! HA�
When we here comments about the band live.. people normally say that they love the Energy and the Sweet Harmonies!!! Again Kaj, you need to come see for yourself and make it out next year to one of our shows.. Or get us booked for a mini tour in your Country�.What do you think?
I have several favorite songs off your new album like "If you should walk away from me", "Ready" and "Come back to me", what song/songs are special to you?
Marty Mardirosian: Thank You Kaj.. It means a lot to us that you have some Favorites and enjoy our music. Let me comment on your favorites first:
�If You Should Walk Away From Me� was created totally in the studio. Carl played a very very rough sketch of the song once on his keyboards and then we started writing our parts to the tune and finished creating it in about 45 minutes. We laid down the basic tracks (Bass & Drums) on the same day and did not hear the rest of the song until we went into the mix down 5 months later. I was blown away how great that song came together with all the nice vocals through out and the nice guitar parts that were added.
This song is straight from his heart and these lyrics are some of the most honest lyrics Carl has ever written. John and Jeff did outstanding work on the vocals. In fact, John does all the falsetto harmony parts in this song leading us to calling it the McFarland Tabernacle Choir!!!! We have questioned John, Jeff and Paul if Brian May from Queen made a guest appearance on this tune to perform some of the guitar work. All we get is a big smile from them!!!
�Ready� - We opened our shows with this tune for many years. Oddly enough this powerful rocker was never released as a "live" or "studio" version until now. The words tell it all - if your going to an M&R Rush show, you better be "Ready To Rock & Roll! When Paul recorded the lead vocal, all of us were simply amazed at the powerful sound coming out of him!!!!
�Come Back To Me� - We guess you can say, Carl Moszur wrote this for all the musicians out there and the orchestration of music that weaves and holds this song together. In fact, this is M&R Rushs most orchestrated song since "Reach For The Stars", the title cut from our 1980 EP release. We asked Carl to cut a few parts from this song to make it a little shorter to be able to play it in our live show� HIS ANSWER - NO! IT STAYS LIKE IT IS!!!!!!! All the transitions made this song a challenge to play.
�Give Me The Strength� is one of my favorites for two reasons. It is a powerful song with both powerful harmonies and a powerful message. The beginning and ending guitar harmonies were inspired by a church hymn that Carls Mom liked to sing. The hymn was called "Joyfull, Joyfull We Adore Thee. Carl�s Mom was one of the nicest people I ever met in my life. It is a great honor to play on this song with Carl - in honor of his Mother. The second reason I like this song so much is that it shows the diversity of the band - even to the point that I can hear that song being played on a Country Rock Radio Station. Never in my wildest years did I think we would of created a song in that genre. Like I often say �NEVER SAY NEVER�!
There are lots of great bands coming from your hometown Chicago and I was wondering if you would like to comment a few classic rock albums done by Chicago based bands?
Styx-Grand Illusion (1977)
Marty Mardirosian: I remember exactly where I was when I first heard this GREAT CLASSIC ROCK ALBUM! Being 30 years ago - that shows you how impressed I was with this music. I was a big fan of Styx for many years when the rest of the world did not know who they were. This album put them on the Map!!! We had the privilege of playing many shows with them when they were a struggling rock band. After this album hit the air waves they were not struggling anymore!!!
REO Speedwagon-You can tune a piano but you can�t tuna fish (1978)
Marty Mardirosian: Another band that we respected when we first started playing music as M&R Rush and we would play many of their tunes in our live set. I was always impressed by the work ethic of this band touring as much as they use to and still do to this day. We played a show with them about 2 years ago and they were a CLASS ACT TO WORK WITH.
Enuff�z Nuff-s/t (1989)
Marty Mardirosian: Our buddy Chip had a good run and we were proud of him when his single � Fly High Michelle � was getting all the airplay on MTV. He writes some great tunes and we were happy that he agreed to sing on our CD - Keep On Rockin!
Nils Lofgren-Nils (1979)
Marty Mardirosian: ALL I CAN SAY � WHAT A GREAT ALBUM!!
The Smashing Pumpkins-Mellon Collie and the infinite madness (1995)
Marty Mardirosian: We were all happy to see a Chicago Rock & Roll band make it again on the National Scene. It was a long time from the days of Styx , REO, Survivor and Cheap Trick and The Smashing Pumpkins made us proud.
Survivor-Eye of the tiger (1982)
Marty Mardirosian: We played a few shows with Survivor when they were kicking around Chicago before this CD put them on the map. What I liked about Jim Peterik and Survivor was how tight of a band they were live. It was great to listen to them in a club setting.. I loved their first album with �Somewhere in America� on it.
Just 3 years ago we had the privilege to play with Jim Peterik when he first formed Pride of Lions. He wanted to try the new material out on a live audience and he and Toby Hithcock did a 60 minute set with just the two of them playing with studio tracks they had created for the first CD. What a fun show that was for us!!
What�s the best with living in Chicago?
Marty Mardirosian: Besides the great Chicago pizza and big City atmosphere � the music scene is great! From the Chicago Blues to all the great rock bands that made it from this beautiful city. Also, there are a lot of fantastic unknown musicians playing in the Chicago Music Scene. You can hear great music any day of the week in Chicago!!!!
Thanks for taking the time answering a Swedish AOR nerd�s questions
Marty Mardirosian: First thing, I would like to thank you Kaj on behave of M&R Rush for taking the time to do this interview and for your interest in our music.
We would love to have some of your readers rocking to M&R Rush music. Please stay in touch with us by visiting our website at: www.mandrrush.com. You can sign up for our newsletter at our site, it goes out every few weeks and keeps you up to date on what is happening with the band. We would love to have a bunch of your readers sign up. Also, we would like to hear from all of you. Please send us an email at: mandrrush1@yahoo.com and give us a review of our new album "Keep on Rockin" or just to chat. Also, I also would like to hear from some of your readers so they can turn me on to some bands I should be listening to from your Country. We will answer every email. We promise.
We want to say thanks to all of you that have recently been turned on to M&R Rush music through the internet around the world in such countries as yours, Greece, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Canada, to name a few.
In closing� Thanks again Kaj for giving us the press and thank you for your support!! Remember - Never give up on "The Thrill Of The Chase" and "KEEP ON ROCKIN!
|
Win a great package with Terrible Things
Drive A iPad Giveaway
Win an awesome Disturbed prize pack
