" The eighties? Glad they're over ," according to Geoff Thorpe, guitarist and founder of Vicious Rumors. Also band leader and spokesman of the five-piece from the well known San Francisco Bay area. " The nineties gotta be it for Vicious Rumors, " he explains enthusiastically. " We have a deal in our pockets with Atlantic, one of the major record companies, and our new album is due out any day now. A dream has come true. At last, I would say, because we've been fighting for this long enough. As far as I'm concerned, the nineties came just in time. Now, the games can REALLY begin." It has been quiet around Vicious Rumors for quite a while. Almost two years, to be exact, because a European ' tour '  of no less that three gigs actually was the band's last feat of arms. That was in may of 1988 to be exact but maybe it would be wise to give a short re-run of the entire Vicious Rumors story. As stated earlier, the band was founded by Geoff Thorpe on 1979 and he's the only original band member that is still in the band now, almost eleven years later. During those eleven years in Vicious Rumors he worked with thirty musicians, give or take a few until he had gathered the ideal line-up in 1986 that he has been able to keep up until now. We are now talking about singer Carl Albert, drummer Larry Howe, bassist Dave Starr and besides Geoff himself second guitarist Mark McGee. The first real feat of arms of Vicious Rumors goes all the way back to 1982 when the band's song "I Can Live Forever"  landed on the " New Oasis " compilation record which had been composed by the radio station KMEL.

In 1983 and 1984 that was succeeded by another two songs on compilation records, namely "Ultimate Death" on " U.S Metal II "  and "One Way Ticket" on " U.S Metal IV " , both on Mike Varney's Shrapnel label. on the latter we can also find Chuck Billy's ridiculous first attempt at being a singer with his old glam (!) band Guilt, but that's a different story.

Back to Vicious Rumors. The response to the various compilation albums was so overwhelming that Mike Varney decided to contract Vicious Rumors for two albums. He also hooked Geoff up with a new, up until then totally unknown guitarist.
" Yep, for the umpteenth time we were looking for a second guitarist, " Geoff remembers, " And Mike Varney had a tape of a certain Vinnie Moore." As soon as I heard that, it was a deal; the guy was phenomenal. In retrospect, Vicious Rumors was nothing more that a stepping stone for Vinnie. His career had to be launched somewhere and that became Vicious Rumors. Shortly after the recordings of the first album we went our separate ways."

Indeed, Vinnie Moore had already left before the record came out and shortly after that singer Gary St. Pierre packed his bags as well. Apparently this was a disaster for Vicious Rumors because it was exactly them that were mainly responsible for the sound on the excellent " Soldiers Of The Night " LP.
But Geoff had no intention whatsoever of giving up and he decided to look out for adequate replacements. Which he found in Mark McGee and Carl Albert. And against all odds the second album " Digital Dictator " easily surpassed it's predecessor.
It appeared out that Mark and Geoff formed the perfect tandem together and Carl Albert turned out to be a world class singer. Therefore it can easily be explained that " Digital Dictator " showed up in the year lists of several members of the AMH editorial staff. And we could all witness the fact that the band succeeded in even improving the high level of the album live in may '88 at the Aardschokdag, preceded by a truly outrageous performance at the Dynamo the day before. All of this in the light of the European tour that, apart from these two performances consisted of a show at the London Marquee. Not exactly a tour according to the book. Looking back now, Geoff doesn't really see it as being a tour either.
" At first instance, we only went to Europe for one show and that was the Aardschokdag in Zwolle. And up until today that is still the absolute summum of our career. It was such a shock for us, so overwhelming... There we stood, being used to playing in obscure nightclubs, suddenly in front of 10.000 people ( they're always good at exaggerating, those Americans - Andre ). It was two o'clock in the afternoon and nevertheless the two thousand people in the front rows went completely bezerk. People singing along with the lyrics, stuff like that, I will probably never forget that anymore! Well, and because we were in Europe for a few days anyway we arranged those other two gigs shortly in advance, at the Dynamo and at the Marquee. Dynamo was super and the Marquee also, as far as the band is concerned, we just ran into some bad luck because Testament was playing at the Astoria at the same time, literally a couple of hundred meters from the Marquee. As a result, we didn't get much of a crowd but such things just happen. You' ve got to realize that we didn't have a manager at that time and no toursupport whatsoever from the record company. In fact we didn't have a record company at all because our deal with Shrapnel and Roadrunner in Europe had ended with " Digital Dictator " . So, we took care of just about everything all by ourselves, although I've got to admit that Roadrunner has been a tremendous help. And even though it may have only been three gigs, it certainly was a fabulous experience."

Upon their return from Europe Vicious Rumors had gained a terrific experience, but at the same time lost a record company because as Geoff already stated, the deal with Shrapnel was for two albums only. So, they had to look out for a new record contract and therefore the band's lawyers, Elliot Cahn and Jeff Saltzmann ( Testament's managers as well ) went ' shopping '  with Vicious Rumors. In vain, as soon became evident, because none of the labels dared to make the band a concrete offer. " While our lawyers were trying to get us signed somewhere, we met a certain Robert Zemsky who at the time was the manager of Savatage. He thought " Digital Dictator " was great and made it clear that he saw possibilities for Vicious Rumors. We became friends and talked a lot about music and called each other regularly. He arranged for some interviews with radio stations and music magazines every now and then and helped us out with miscellaneous stuff. Just the kind of things that friends do. And at a certain point, he let us know that he was interested in managing the band. It took just about a month to put a contract together between Robert and us but when that finally got signed things went very fast." Very fast is an understatement ! Literally one day after the installation of Robert Zemsky as VR' s manager he managed to come up with a record deal. And with none less that Atlantic ! Geoff laughs when he thinks back about this:

" That certainly has to be an unicum in the musical world. We signed our management contract and I swear, the next day I got a call from Robert who told me that Atlantic wanted to sign the band for seven albums. Of course, there's a story behind all this because a company like Atlantic doesn't usually make overnight decisions. We had presented ourselves to Atlantic in the past and obviously there already was an interest from their side, because they sent someone to check us out three times, twice in Los Angeles and once in Oakland. And that last performance must have done the trick I guess. We opened for Paul Stanley for a thousand people or so, and it was in our home town. Perfect conditions, and the show was flawless. So, the foundation had been set, but thanks to Robert everything was speeded up because six weeks after signing with him we left the studio with the recordings of our new album."

Which proves again that it's dogged that does it, because the story of Vicious Rumors is not exactly a fairy tale. Geoff Thorpe had to struggle for ten years before he got a ' major ' deal and even though the future looks bright for now there certainly must have been times when he was just about ready to give up.
" Oh, of course," he admits, " especially right after " Digital Dictator ". I had finally found the perfect VR line-up but we couldn't put it into effect because we didn't have a record deal. I'd be a liar if I said that I never got desperate. There were times when it almost drove me crazy, that' s how bad it was, it was so frustrating! Because I knew how good this band was. I asked myself several times if there was any use in going on, but each time the answer was yes! And looking back, I know I took the right decision but of course it's always easy to make such a statement in retrospect."

That' s for sure, because Vicious Rumors came this close to not playing for Atlantic at all. Simply because they were all set to sign with a Dutch company...right...Roadrunner. The company from Amsterdam was too slow and therefore lost the possible deal with VR. A stroke of luck for Vicious Rumors, but that's what the band deserved after ten years of hard work. According to Geoff, Roadrunner wasn't the only one that was interested;
" There was serious interest from Roadrunner as well as from the German company Noise Records. And we were this close from signing with Roadrunner. Band-internally we had already agreed on signing and if Roadrunner had been a little faster with sending us the contracts we would certainly have returned them signed and all. A stroke of bad luck for Roadrunner, a stroke of luck for us, but don't get me wrong... Roadrunner is just about the best thing that ever happened to us during our career. They have done a tremendous job with " Digital Dictator " and without their help would never have made it to Europe. They have even brought me to Europe for interviews and stuff before " Digital Dictator " was released, so you won't hear me complain about that. On the contrary, Roadrunner has always supported us perfectly and I will never forget that. But, when you're presented with the choice between Roadrunner and Atlantic, it's bound to be Atlantic that comes out as the winner. Because unlike Europe, in the US, the difference between a small and a large record company is significant, it's a gigantic difference. So, without being negative about Roadrunner, I can state that we' re safe with Atlantic."

But, is that completely true? Atlantic is well known for wanting to have a say in the choice of the material that a band wants to record. In that respect, think about Raven or Savatage ( the ' Fight For The Rock' album ), bands that were totally pushed in the wrong direction thanks to Atlantic's interference. But according to Geoff, no such thing will happen with Vicious Rumors.
" On the contrary, I was completely surprised when I found out that I was allowed to produce the record myself. That's very unusual for a major company. Usually, they come up with a few well known people from the producers guild from which you can make your choice, but I proposed to do it myself and Atlantic was fine with that. Besides, all our other proposals were approved as well. To begin with, there was the song material that we definitely want to control ourselves. But we presented it to Atlantic in advance and they said it was fine. The studio that we wanted to use wasn't a problem either. That was Fantasy in Berkeley, the studio where Testament also recorded their latest album. And the studio tech there, Michael Rosen, was also hired by us to record everything together with me. No, so far Atlantic hasn't been a problem at all."

We'll be the judge of that soon, because " Welcome To The Ball ", the third Vicious Rumors LP, will be released on feb. 12th. When this interview was conducted, we didn't have a tape at our disposition so it seems logical, though not totally objective, to let Geoff tell us himself what can be expected.
" Hmmm, what will I say without using too many cliches ? It's not a " Digital Dictator 2 ", but sounds significantly different. That's logical of course because the band had the time to evolve, to get to know each other really well. And because it has taken us much longer to put together the material the whole thing has much more variety than " Digital Dictator " . I have always found Vicious Rumors hard to categorize, but now that will be even more difficult to do. we' re not a trash band, but we' re not a traditional metal band either. We are somewhere in between those two and that gives us more area to cover, which can certainly be heard on the new LP. Some of the songs are heavier than anything we have done so far but at the same time there are songs that are more melodic than our older material. And that has nothing to do with the fact that we' re signed to Atlantic. We would have made the exact same album for Roadrunner. You can clearly hear that we have progressed in those three years, especially vocally. We have a superb singer and since " Digital Dictator " we have learned how to profit from that advantage.
But then there's also an instrumental by Mark McGee entitled " Electric Twilight". On that song, he plays all kinds of acoustic and electric guitars and even the mandolin. But perhaps I should not be saying too much about it, because obviously I'm not the right person to be doing that, I'm much too prejudiced. What I would like to say is that in my opinion " Down To The Temple " is the best track on the record. It's a song we wrote after our trip to Mexico. Next to our trip to Europe, that was the most impressive event in Vicious Rumors'  history. Only a select few bands have ever played in Mexico, so we were totally surprised to be invited over there. But we got the chance to do two concerts in Mexico, so why not? And it was really fantastic ! A hall that could contain 2500 people was sold out twice and the audience was hungry for music because no one ever plays there. The response was incredible. The events that surrounded the performance were impressive as well. A city with 12 million inhabitants and 70% of the apartments are empty because it's still dangerous after the earth quake of a couple of years ago. There was a very weird atmosphere, almost eerie, also caused by the bad economic situation in the country. But nonetheless, everything was perfectly organized. One of the organizers, who had been a history teacher, took us out to visit the Aztec temples and pyramids and he told us everything about the rituals from the early days. How four priests would hold someone, while a fifth priest would rip out the heart of the unfortunate victim. It was all too impressive to not write a song about it. And ofcourse we would love to go back there someday for more concerts."

Concerts, touring, it will all be a lot easier with the financial support of Atlantic. The exact schedule was not completely in order yet, but Geoff Thorpe gave Vicious Rumors a fair chance of touring with Savatage starting mid februari in the US. After that, Europe will follow. At that time, the festival season over here will have begun, so I think it's safe to say that you'll be able to see Vicious Rumors before the summer.