By Mitch Lafon

FIREHOUSE vocalist, CJ SNARE, has a new side project (with guitarist Chris Green), RUBICON CROSS. The band is punctuated with heavy melodies, ZAKK WYLDE-like guitar riffs and power vocals. Vocalist CJ Snare sat down with BraveWords.com to discuss his motivation in forming a new band and turning up the volume to eleven.

BraveWords.com: How does Rubicon Cross compare to Firehouse?

CJ Snare: “It is a departure from FIREHOUSE. It’s has a heavier edge and if you read the reviews people are calling it ‘modern hard rock’. Firehouse is the mothership for me. It’s my heart and soul, but that’s classic melodic hard rock.”

BraveWords.com: You just released a four song (Rubicon Cross) EP. Is this only the beginning or is this it?

CJ Snare: “The four songs on the EP are not all of our aces. We have the entire record written. Our strategy was to get some music out for the summer, gather some press reviews, get some momentum going, establish a core fan base and then take it to the record companies to try to procure a deal.”

BraveWords.com: Is it still important in this day and age to get a record deal?

CJ Snare: “Just last year Firehouse was in Singapore where ten thousand people were singing the words to our songs and twenty thousand in Korea at the Busan International Rock Festival. I cannot speak to these people, but yet they are singing back the words to our songs. That is strong and I think that record companies still have the power to do that. That’s why I want to try and get the attention of a label to take us global. I’m still hungry for it, I love traveling, I love playing the music and that’s what Rubicon Cross is all about.”

BraveWords.com: Where you looking to put a band together outside of Firehouse or did this just happen by chance?

CJ Snare: “I was on the lookout for... artistic expression. I have a lot of songs that are not ‘Firehouse friendly’. I had presented some Rubicon Cross songs to Firehouse and was told ‘nah, that doesn’t fit our style’. So, I had to do my own thing. I am Firehouse, but that’s just a part of me and there’s a lot more to me. I wanted to expose that to the listening audience. I’m not just ballads. My roots are in metal.”

BraveWords.com:  It is true that nowadays that when you think Firehouse. You think about songs playing at a wedding and I don’t mean that in a negative way. The band has become famous for its ballads.

CJ Snare: “And who would have thought that? When I wrote ‘Love Of A Lifetime’ on my own. I never thought, ‘well, this will be a great wedding song’. I just wrote it and ‘ok, next tune’. The record company flipped out over it and just promoted it. The band I was in prior to Firehouse was called, MAXX WARRIOR. We wrote some heavy straight-up-the-middle ‘80s metal stuff a lot like JUDAS PRIEST or IRON MAIDEN. So, my roots are metal. So, I wanted to show that and not that I hadn’t in Firehouse, but with a modern edge. The response has been overwhelming.”

BraveWords.com: So, when are we getting the full album?

CJ Snare: “Well, our conversation is part of the process. As the word spread (and as I explained our strategy), we will be shopping for a deal. We’re going to take all of our interviews, press reviews, what people are saying, we’ll go knocking on every door and we’ll show them. The important thing is letting people know it’s out there.”

BraveWords.com: Why has Firehouse not made a more heavy metal/ Judas Priest sounding album?

CJ Snare: “Well, our first album was a real metal album. It really was. Not as heavy as the Rubicon Cross, but there were songs like ‘Overnight Sensation’, ‘Shake & Tumble’... that vibe was there, but everyone changes as an artist.”

BraveWords.com: Does being the voice of Firehouse help or hinder a project like Rubicon Cross?

CJ Snare: “Even though I’m the voice of Firehouse. You can tell I’m singing differently. I’m exploring a different range. There’s more aggressiveness in my vocal, the lyrical content and the structure of the songs. Chris is a younger guy, so it’s like an Ozzy thing where you hook up with a new young hot guitar player and you make something new out of it. Something old into something new. It’s also a pro because people do recognize my voice or, at least, they go ‘I like Firehouse therefore I’m going to check this out’.”

BraveWords.com: Starting a new band or more precisely a new brand is very difficult. Why not simply put out a CJ Snare solo album?

CJ Snare: “Well, that’s also on the horizon. That’ll be a left turn into outer space. I have a very pop-y side that our Asian market embraces. You go into Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia... You may not think of those markets being in the United States, but you can headline stadiums with 43 000 people in places like India and they want to hear deeper Firehouse songs that I wouldn’t necessarily want to play here (in the US). ‘Don’t Treat Me Bad’ and ‘Love Of A Lifetime’ were written on piano. I have a whole bag of those songs and I’m going to put those on another collection and that’ll be just CJ SNARE.”

BraveWords.com: Let’s talk Firehouse. You recently re-recorded and released your classic hits as the Full Circle album...

CJ Snare: “Fans from around the world have been asking us for, at least the last decade, ‘where can we get all of the Firehouse tracks that we love on one CD?’ There’s fan favorites and band favorites. There’s ‘Christmas With You’ which was an unreleased song. SONY put together a Super Hits compilation, but it wasn’t necessarily band picked or sanctioned. There was a group of oddball songs on there that I don’t know why they picked. They weren’t hits or songs we play live. It wasn’t done by us. So after hearing the fans over and over again, we needed to take some control over our music again and get the lion’s share. People think ‘ah, they’re rich’, but it becomes diminishing returns and as that happens it becomes harder and harder for us to sustain ourselves, to create and to be motivated to make new music and continue as artists. There are the Lady Gaga’s or Katy Perry’s out there who are getting Häagen-Dazs endorsements. Every time you hit them for free on YouTube you have to watch a Häagen-Dazs commercial and they get paid for it. Well, I’m not the Häagen-Dazs guy. I’m a catalog artist, so this is our answer. It our 20th anniversary, Full Circle is our answer to fans’ requests, but it was also a necessary business move for us.”

BraveWords.com: To own the licenses...

CJ Snare: “Exactly. So, when you listen to it... I’m telling you, I have to bend an ear to know the difference (from the original versions). There’s some new productions sounds on it. The sound we had back then was the sound of the ‘90s and I think what we have right now is much more modern and up-to-date sound. The performances of the songs are right on par with what they were before. We all feel very proud of this CD. It represents what we can still do.”

BraveWords.com: Where you tempted to change the songs with the re-records?

CJ Snare: “There were some changes, but they were subtle. We wanted to keep the core of the songs there because that’s what people want. They want everything in one place. They want the hits.”

BraveWords.com: So, what does Rubicon Cross mean for Firehouse?

CJ Snare: “If Rubicon Cross gets a chance and there’s a hit that’s when the phone will ring and they’ll say ‘you need to support it’. Then I would say, ‘I’m not taking food out of my brother’s mouth,’ but I’m also not going to take the winds of the sails of Rubicon Cross’ success. So, it’ll have to be timed up. Firehouse is a seasonal thing because we’re an older band (a classic rock band). January, February and March is our slow season. That would be the time where I would go out and tour with Rubicon Cross. If it goes to success beyond that... you know if we become the new Nickelback or something then it’s ‘ok, I’m an artist, so I have to do this’. I might have to have that hard conversation, but let’s also look at the bigger picture. It would give a kick to the Firehouse catalog big-time. It would help with our notoriety. Look at Bret Michaels and his TV shows. It gave Poison a whole new 15 minutes of fame. He went from being this melodic ‘80s hard rocker hair band guy to ‘he’s relevant’ again. Look at Steven Tyler on American Idol suddenly Aerosmith is selling again. In the end, you can either embrace it or it can break a band apart.”

BraveWords.com: Are you currently working on new Firehouse music for a new album?

CJ Snare: “Well, my truthful answer to that is I think so because the formula that has always worked with Bill and myself is the collaborative effort. I’ve been talking To Bill and Mike. I want to get something grooving, something heavy with that guitar riff cranking over some melodies like the ‘Don’t Treat Me Bad’. Rubicon Cross is the heavy entity, but Firehouse is the mothership.”

For more info on CJ Snare visit Facebook.