Sweden Rock Magazine correspondent Daniela P. recently spoke with HELIX frontman Brian Vollmer for her blog, In The Rearview Mirror. An excerpt from the interview is available below.

Q: When you got the hit with 'Rock You' did you ever stop and think 'Yeah, I'm a rock star now, this is the big time...'?

Vollmer: "No, because none of us had any money! It's hard to think you're a rock star when you're only making like 150 bucks a week. You can't pay your bills."

Q: You went through a lot of tough times, got disillusioned, felt like you didn't want to do this anymore?

Vollmer: "That's right."

Q: What made you go back to a business that you knew wouldn't change?

Vollmer: "I actually intended to quit at the end of the IAN GILLAN tour in 1989. We got to the end of the tour and I was staying at my wife's place in London, England...or, well, we weren't married at that time, we were.. And, anyway, my manager phoned me from Canada and said that 'Good To The Last Drop' was becoming a great radio hit in Canada, and 'The record company wants you to come back, shoot a video and tour on that song.' I went... 'Naaah, I've had enough.' He said: 'Listen, are you crazy? You worked all these years, now is the time to collect some money and you wanna pass it out? All you gotta do is stay for a couple of more months and see what happens.' So I came back and did the video and sure enough, it became a big hit.

In the back of my mind I thought to myself... Every time I went to quit the band, something would come up, and it would keep me in, right? I thought, maybe it's an omen that I should stay in this, there's something, somewhere down the line for me - or maybe it's just living this great life. That's what kept me in. And I've never thought of quitting since then."

Q: Someone once said that a musician can't ever really retire.Would you say that's true?

Vollmer: (laughs) I'd say yeah. You're driven to it. That's why you're either suited for this life or you're not. But people that aren't suited for it, they don't last too long. You really have to enjoy the life...

I think that as for longevity, as in a career in the music business, you have to have controlled enthusiasm, which means that. I try to keep an average on my emotions, because not every day is The Big Gig, The Big Tour, The Big Album, The Big Song. A lot of those in between days are Mondays - crap like answering the phone, paying your bills, arguing with freaking agents, the dull shit that nobody wants to do. So you've got to keep it even keel,so to speak."

Go to this location for the complete interview.