BraveWords.com correspondent, Erik Tweedy recently sat down with hard rock legends Y&T; to discuss touring in Europe, their current US tour, the music business and their new Facemelter release. The band comprised of Dave Meniketti (vocals and lead guitars), Phil Kennemore (bass - who was recently diagnosed with cancer and has temporarily been replaced by WAR & PEACE's Brad Lang), John Nymann (guitar) and Mike Vanderhule (drums) recently kicked off a seven-week US tour, their biggest since 1987.

BraveWords.com: You just got back from doing a few big European festivals, including Download and Sweden Rockfest. It seems that Y&T; are still as popular as ever over there and in other world markets. What do you attribute this to?

Meniketti: "It is hard to make sense of it completely. We started out there early enough in our career. It was on the Black Tiger record, we were already touring over there and the European fans really appreciate it when bands come over and start early on in their career instead of waiting to make it big in the states and then coming over later. So, maybe that has something to do with it. They got into the band from the very beginning, even back in our Yesterday And Today days they liked the band. We were getting a lot of press and a lot of good vibes over there. We nurtured that all the way to the mid-'80’s and then we stayed away. We didn’t even know if we were going to be popular back there when we finally went back and started playing again in 2003. It picked right back up again, the fans were dying to see us the whole time and wish we would have been back sooner."

BraveWords.com: Y&T; played at Donington (now Download) in 1984 with arguably one of the greatest festival line-ups ever. What was it like playing there in ’84 versus playing there in 2010?

Kennemore: "Totally different; the first time we played it was a one day gig, with AC/DC, VAN HALEN, OZZY OSBOURNE, GARY MOORE, Y&T;, ACCEPT and MÖTLEY CRÜE opening. That’s one day and in my world, that’s a great festival. These three or four day things, they’re cool I guess. That sleeping in the dirt and all that stuff for three days is crazy. There’s just too many of them going on. When there is like 90 bands and five stages, it is just too much. When we did Download this year, and as massive it was, it seemed like a blast. As a fan I would just be going 'this is too much.'"

BraveWords.com: Over the past several years I have seen Y&T; play at a few festivals in the US, including two of the biggest, Rockfest and Rocklahoma. Why is it that in Europe you can open up the festival guide and there is something like 200 rock festivals each year and in the US there are less than a dozen? Is there no market in the US?

Meniketti: "I think the market is there. I think it might be a little bit tougher. Seemingly, and I don’t know that this is really true, but in my mind from what I see, it seems like the European crowds just come to shows a little more regularly than sometimes in the states. Maybe it’s because it’s been such an institution that’s been there for so many years they look forward to it every year. They plan their lives around it. I know for us, they always say don’t come out and play club shows in the summer in Europe, because everybody saves their money for the summer festivals. After the festivals, come and play, which is what we are going to do by going back over there in the fall. We were hoping it would pick up like that again in the states. We were hopeful with Rocklahoma being so successful. We heard all kinds of people were going to do spinoffs of that."

Kennemore: "It appears in America that people are trying to do it with the success of Rocklahoma that really opened the idea that people should be doing festivals here. That’s cool and they should. There are some people getting into it that don’t really know what they are doing and that’s ruining it. The other thing that is ruining it is that when someone like Live Nation or AEG gets in and takes over Rocklahoma and now you have it standardized. You know who is going to be at those shows. The cool thing about Rocklahoma was you had a few bands that were bona fide headliners like Poison, but then you’ve got a lot of bands that you might never have seen before. You’re not going to see ENUFF Z'NUFF and all these bands you might have always wanted to check out at those festivals run by AEG. There’s a fine line, you need professional guys that have a vision who know the hard rock/heavy metal genre and bands that they can bring in that a lot of people want to see that are not household names. A lot of people don’t know the bands. All they know is they look in the Billboard charts, 'were you in the top 20 in 1986?' 'Oh you weren’t', see ya. The whole thing that Rocklahoma was; is now gone. They were so successful, AEG said 'wow, look at this, they’ve done the ground work. We are going to show them all the guidelines of how to sell the tickets, run the security and blah, blah, blah and then we are going to run it.'”

Meniketti: "I think at the end of the day, what he (Phil) was saying, that is probably the difference between Europe and America. They do it every year; they’ve got the people that know how to do it every year. If you’ve had year after year of doing it, you know what your expenses are going to be each time, what to expect from the crowd and so forth. You’ve got a lot of guys coming up trying to do it and some that just don’t know how to do it right. And that’s the problem. There’s not a lot of backlog of people that have been doing it year after year in the states so that the people can be ready for it and come to it every year. It’s a hit or miss thing."

BraveWords.com: I’ve seen the videos from Wacken and other European festivals and the fans are going ballistic. There are 50,000 people there and they are right on the rail and the flags are flying. You play at a festival in the US and you have reserved seating right up front. How do you like that?

Kennemore: "The worst thing about the festivals in America is the VIP sections where they will take the whole front and the guy that can afford it gets these lounge chairs and leave them blank all day until TED NUGENT comes out or whoever the hell they want to see and the really die-hard fan that has saved every damn penny to see Y&T; is stuck 500 feet away and we are playing to a big empty lot. If you are going to make a VIP section, at least don’t take the true fan out of the picture, that’s just bullshit."

BraveWords.com: I know that the Y&T; fans are pretty passionate, have you heard any backlash so far by opening the shows with ‘On With The Show’ instead of ‘Open Fire’?

Kennemore: "‘Open Fire’ has been our opener for 25 years and it has been a big deal for us. Over the course of the years, we have tried different things, like ‘Mean Streak’ and nothing worked better than ‘From the Moon’ and ‘Open Fire’. But, you know what, we didn’t know even when we did the record that we would use ‘Prelude’ and ‘On With The Show’, but we’ve done it. I never wanted to open with anything other than ‘Open Fire’, because it set the stage for me. This is working for me. Rock fans have to remember something. When a band’s been around as long as us, I know there are those songs you want and got to hear and we want to give them to you, but you’ve got to give us a little space to feel refreshed or otherwise your gonna bog us down to the point where we don’t even want to play anymore. You’ve got to give us that little bit of room. I’m not saying that ‘Open Fire’ won’t be the opener anymore, but right now we are pushing the Facemelter release. A lot of times what we have been doing is coming out and doing ‘Open Fire’ at the encore."

BraveWords.com: I have been to a few of the shows on the US tour and from my view, it seems like quite a few of the fans already know the new songs. So, are the fans buying the music or downloading it for free?

Meniketti: "They are doing both. At the first two shows we noticed how people were just starting to get the vibe of the new songs. They’re getting into it, but the reaction of the previous month in Europe and even the earlier California shows with the new material has been as loud or louder than our regular stuff. On this leg of the tour, when we play ‘On With The Show’, the first song, they’re excited but they really react when they hear something they know. The next song, ‘Lonely Side Of Town’ is twice as loud as ‘On With The Show’ and some of the other new ones. The fans are just going to have to get used to the new stuff eventually. It has definitely helped that we had a video for ‘I’m Coming Home’ because that song comes off great live, even the last 2 shows where they’ve been a little timid with some of their responses. It works a little bit better. It’s just trying to get people more used to something. It’s only been a couple of months since the record came out and some of these people haven’t heard one thing yet. They came to the show expecting to hear their favourites and they know we have a new record out, but, they’re not familiar with it yet. We understand. They definitely like it though.

Kennemore: "I feel like with the intro song you can get away with something like that because it is the intro and they are happy just to be seeing you and there’s all this excitement.

Vanderhule: "When we were at Sweden Rock, right away, it was still soon into the new record. I always look around to see who knows the words and it was all ages and there was this kid sitting on dad’s shoulders singing the words. So, it is not just the adults.

BraveWords.com: You’ve got the new CD, made a video and you have over 70 shows booked around the globe, is it starting to feel like 1985 again? (Except for Phil’s back)

Kennemore: "I had back trouble then, but for different reasons (laughing).

Meniketti: "It kind of does feel like it. This is the closest thing that I can think of to ’85 because of the fact we are on a tour bus again in the states. We haven’t been on a tour bus since literally ’86 or ’87. So, it is kind of a throw back to that. It is also quite a bit different because we are all in a different state of mind of sorts. There’s probably more booze on the bus than ever before because we are drinking it slower.

Kennemore: "There’s not as much debauchery going on and there’s not as much 'let’s hurry up and party' going on. So, some things have changed, plus everybody’s married."

Vanderhule: "We are drinking a lot more water."

BraveWords.com: How much fun did you have writing the lyrics to the song ‘Gonna Go Blind’?

(The whole band points at Phil) "He wrote it!"

Kennemore: "Anyone that knows Y&T; knows that there has always been the story thing, like 'Barroom Boogie', a little story and fun. It is really funny to me how people are so fucking serious about their music and the shit they listen to. If you talk about a little masturbation song they are like 'that is so below and beneath you.' Dude, the day that the 13 year old boy dies in you and you can’t laugh at a fart joke or a jack-off joke, fuck you dude, it’s over. Have a sense of humor. My answer to that is, I don’t write a bunch of shit I don’t know, I write about what I know. There’s ’Stroke Me, Stroke Me’ and all these other things and they’re not really about what they are saying. With a novelty song, you will have people that absolutely hate it or think it’s the greatest song ever.

Meniketti: "I invited some friends over, first time they could hear the record, for a pre-release party. I have some sick sense of humor friends. As soon as my friend (blank) heard that, he literally lit off his feet and he was like 'Oh my god, that’s the greatest song I’ve ever heard, that’s going to be a hit single.' He couldn’t say enough about it."

BraveWords.com: I have every Y&T; and Yesterday and Today studio release and Facemelter includes a Meniketti first as far as I know. We’ve got Dave dropping the F-bomb during ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ with the line 'Who The Fuck Are You'.

Kennemore: "It was extremely intentional. The whole song is about internet trolling and those guys that piss you off. John had this whole WHO thing going (Who are you). We were worried about this and if this Who thing was cool to do or not. And my idea was, let’s go with it and let’s really go with it and just say Who the Fuck are You. We know we are doing the Who, that’s what I wanted to let you know. Don’t think we wrote it."

Meniketti: "It is the first f-word in anything we have done recorded wise. It is a tongue in cheek statement, we could have said 'who are you, who who.' But it’s like 'who the fuck are you, really?' It is pertinent with what we were talking about. There’s these people that just piss you off because they go on every thread and they ruin it for everyone else by calling people names and other shit and your thinking 'who the fuck are you dude, what’s the fuck’s wrong with you?'"

BraveWords.com: Facemelter is the first studio release in 13 years; did you have to dust off the cobwebs in the studio?

Meniketti: "No, I thought it went remarkably easy. It was the first time we recorded a record with John and Mike."

Kennemore: "They (John and Mike) contributed so much. It really made it go well. We had no idea what we were going to get in there and do. We had no idea if we even had one song to do. We got in and with the help of these guys and us as a tight band; we were flying through some really good stuff."

BraveWords.com: I think Facemelter is a fantastic release and it fits right in with the whole range of everything you have put out.

Nymann: "We had no plan that it would come out that way. We just did what we normally do."

Meniketti: "We have done this before where we’ve done a record and we start playing some of the songs live and sometimes they just don’t fit quite as well with the rest of the songs. Every song we play from this record fits exactly with everything else we are playing. And it doesn’t seem like some sore thumb thing that sticks out. It is new and fresh of course, but it goes right into everything else we are doing."

Kennemore: "Thanks, I agree. We had not a clue what was going to come out. I think it truly is right in line with what people call the “trilogy” of Y&T; releases with Earthshaker, Black Tiger and Mean Streak. This easily could have been that next album. It just had that natural thing when we went in and we were not trying to write a hit."

BraveWords.com: Is it time for an acoustic or unplugged treat for the fans?

Kennemore: "My thought on that is, I love acoustic, but Y&T; is not built on that. We are built on the power and passion and how we are set up on stage. On the rare occasion where we do it, it’s like 'well, that was good.' But, if you’re not hearing Dave soaring and ripping; can you imagine if we did ‘Forever’ without Dave’s electric? You want that power. Unless it is going to make it better there is no sense in doing it. By and large, I never want to rule it out because I love doing it so much, but if we can’t make it really good and entertaining then don’t mess up a good thing. I am looking at some of the ones on Facemelter that I think would sound good acoustically. I think ‘How Long’ would be good with the harmonies."

Meniketti: "We did a couple of things years ago where we did a few in store shows. It was pretty cool. First of all, it was one of the few times where you could hear all of us singing so clearly together. We really do have some pretty decent background vocals. John’s a great singer, Phil sings great and Mike sings great and that was a great addition. This is the first band that we’ve had all four of us singing together. John and I did a radio show a few weeks ago and we did ‘Don’t Bring me Down’ with the two of us just singing together, it was great."

BraveWords.com: Are we going to be seeing more new releases or other products beyond 2010?

Meniketti: "New, certainly. We realize that we can’t just do this one record and leave it at that. We’ve got to keep being creative because it feels so good at the end of the day. When these guys show up for rehearsal, there’s just an extra exuberance with all of us and everyone’s smiling that much more. This has been a tight band for over four years and we know this is the band that is going to stick around and it just makes sense for us to be playing the material that we wrote together. We do have one other thing in the works, when we play Japan in early January; we are going to be recording two shows in Tokyo for our next DVD. It is going to be a DVD featuring the stuff from the Facemelter record."

Kennemore: "My plan is to get all of Facemelter along with a couple of the classics. But since we have already released the other classics so many times I’m not sure how many of those will be on there. I certainly would like to get a good DVD representation of every song from Facemelter."

BraveWords.com: Y&T; has been in the music business for over 36 years that is a pretty amazing feat. What do you attribute to Y&T;’s longevity?

Meniketti: "The fans keep us going. Ever since I have been with Phil, there is no question, it’s in our soul. We have to play music or we are dying inside. I thought at the end of ’90 when we first broke up, I thought 'we did 17 good years, I could probably be happy with that and go on and do something else.' No way, I couldn’t do it. I was depressed as hell, moping around the house. I had other things I was doing but nothing was satisfying. It wasn’t until we got back together and played live shows again. The first day after doing that, you wake up, and it was like you feel whole again. And I thought, I can’t not do this. With the infusion of John and Mike in the band, it’s like we kind of started over again in a way. Sure, we are playing material from the very beginning and we remember it all and it’s all a part of our fibre. This is something of a new band of sorts is the way I feel. I tell everybody, the last note I’m gonna play is when I fucking die on stage. Dave has a hemorrhage playing one more solo, that high note in ‘I Believe In You’. (laughing)"

Kennemore: "It is like having something to live for and wake up and be excited about something. What did it is, we got back together again and the big turning point for me was when we went and played Sweden Rockfest, in 2003, and we hadn’t been there in ages and the kind of response we got just blew my mind. It made me realize we can do this, we can keep going and there are enough people that care about it and we are able to carry on and do it. God bless all the fans and the people that bring new fans in because this is all we really want to do."