Get Ready To Rock With Skid Row, Warrant, Quiet Riot
Get Ready To Rock With Skid Row, Warrant, Quiet Riot
The Seneca Allegany Resort & Casino Events Center will be rocking on Saturday night, September 17th when three of the most electrifying fan favorite bands of the 80’s and 90’s roll into Salamanca, NY. The “Live To Rock Tour” featuring Skid Row, Warrant and Quiet Riot has been crisscrossing the country to rave reviews as they bring back the nostalgia of the “hair/metal band days” and the fans are ready to let go and return to some sense of normality for the summer and early fall concert season.
Let’s face it … the last 2-1/2 years have been tough - not just on the fans, but also on the music industry and the artists they represent. “Things were going great,” said Robert Mason, lead singer for Warrant, “then all of a sudden a pandemic hit that no one would have even given a thought to happening in our lifetime.”
I caught up with Mason recently at his favorite coffee house to talk about the tour, the camaraderie that exists between the three bands, celebrating their 30th anniversary milestones, his horrible motorcycle crash in 2003 and how fortunate he was that day and what he does differently today so he “doesn’t make the band nervous” as he put it.
Mason made a good point during our conversation that even if you only know 2 or 3 songs of each band, it still makes for a great night out. You get to hear each band play their most iconic songs … Warrant’s “Cherry Pie”, “Heaven” and “Down Boys”; Skid Row’s “18 And Life”, “Piece Of Me” and “Slave To The Grind”; Quiet Riot’s “Come On Feel The Noize”, “Metal Health (Bang Your Head)” and “Run For Cover”.
In a message to the fans, the singer said, “Come prepared to sweat and sing … enjoy yourselves,” adding, “we’re just genuinely happy and it’s not lost on us how fortunate we are to keep doing this, and I hope that translates to the audience. We want them to have twice as much fun as we have!”
For ticket information visit senecaalleganycasino.com.
A CONVERSATION WITH WARRANT’S ROBERT MASON
HULICK: How’s the tour going with Skid Row and Quiet Riot?
MASON: Very well. We’re doing about 30 something shows with them. Honestly I think there’s a good symbiosis between the bands and their fan bases. It’s rock bands that have nostalgia to remember which is awesome! The bands get along … no drama. Everybody goes out on time and finishes on time and the crews get along on days off. It’s a very comfortable situation to find yourself in 30 some years down the road. It’s funny … we sit and laugh in the dressing room and say, “Do you notice anything different?” And it’s like, “Yeah, we’re all happy and we’re all smiling.” (laughs) Who knew this was going to happen?
HULICK: There are a few bands and artists that are doing the same thing as far as having multiple headliners on the same bill, which is great because the fan base these days is different than it was years ago where the musical genres were true to their roots and wouldn’t think to put certain acts together on the same bill. Today genres crisscross and …
MASON: Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be? I was raised that way …
HULICK: Absolutely! I was raised that way too.
MASON: You are correct in that I remember back when you were in high school and you had a friend that was a “Yes” fanatic and he just thought “Rush” was horrible. There was a very genre specific - even band specific - loyalty. And you’re right that people just want to get out and have fun, and the thing is with a multi band bill, as we both keep saying, you get the combined popular songs of all those bands together and that makes for a good night out. Even if the general garden variety fan only knows a couple of hits, they still get entertained because they get three bands worth of hits. Excuse me but is the sound of that traffic bothering you at all?
HULICK: No. I don’t even hear it.
MASON: Oh good. I’m sitting at my favorite coffee place after taking a ride on a new motorcycle I’m breaking in, and then I realized it was 8:00am and I have to call you for the interview.
HULICK: Speaking of motorcycles … you had a bad accident years ago.
MASON: Yeah. It was July in 2003. I got knocked off my bike by a Lincoln.
HULICK: Ouch!!
MASON: Yeah I know. I was crazy fortunate because it could have gone super bad a bunch of different ways, but I was incredibly fortunate. I fell the right way and slid a bunch of feet. I spent seven or eight hours at the Mayo Clinic. I slid to a stop and my bike got pushed out from under me, with my arms full of gravel … and I wasn’t wearing a helmet back then … I was wearing a tank top, a work shirt, a pair of boots and jeans. So no gloves, no helmet, which was quite dumb in retrospect, but I wear the full gear now so I don’t make the band nervous. It was no fun … I don’t recommend it. I had a lot of road rash, no concussion, only broke the tip of one finger. I had blisters and really bad scrapes down to the bone in a bunch of places and they had to do some skin work and I had a couple months of rehab. It was no fun and I got the scars to remind me.
HULICK: Wow! I’m glad everything turned out alright, and obviously you were able to overcome that mental block people get when they’re in an accident or a traumatic event, since you’re riding this morning.
MASON: Yeah, I got back on because of a Warrant show. We did a radio station sponsored veterans charity ride and I got to lead a couple hundred bikers for this charity and then I had a show that night. I got the bug again … I’m into cars and motorcycles and stuff like that.
HULICK: What’s next for you and Warrant?
MASON: We got the benefit of 2019 being the 30th Anniversary of “Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich”, and 2020 was the 30th Anniversary of “Cherry Pie”. Everyone knows what happened in 2020 when we had to take about 15 months off because of Covid. We did a “Cherry Pie” Anniversary Tour when we started back up in June of 2021. This year is the 30th Anniversary of “Dog Eat Dog” so it’s kind of given us … not an excuse … that’s the wrong word… it’s given us a different focus to really concentrate on doing a few songs from those records in a 30th Anniversary style. We are always working on material, and everyone has their own material they’ve produced during Covid. I know I’m just full of ideas. I sat down everyday during Covid and tried to put down a guitar riff or something on the piano. Who knows … I get a feeling there could be another Warrant record for us, but right now it’s fun to play those hit songs because everybody loves the nostalgia.
HULICK: What would you consider your best decade as far as your music career?
MASON: (laughs) Oh wow! I don’t know. Honestly it keeps … it gets better … there’s ebb and flow to everybody’s timeline. Everything can be going awesome and then there’s a pandemic. You never know what’s going to happen. I do have so many amazing memories from the 1980’s before anybody knew who I was like getting my first record deal, making my first record and all of that fun … I was in my twenties. Then you get a little long in the tooth, as they say, and older and wiser … at least older and hopefully wiser. Honestly it’s still super fun to do this and I look forward to the next 5 to 10 years to see what happens.
HULICK: What are your thoughts on vinyl making a comeback? You, like myself, were a part of that time.
MASON: Yeah I remember putting on records and flipping them over, having a collection of 45’s, playing my mom’s old 78’s when I was a little kid. What’s cool for me today is getting a hand in designing some artwork and working with a really good designer. It was so satisfying to get an album and take it out of the shrink wrap, open it up and look at all the artwork inside and read all the liner notes. I read everything I could get my hands on … every record my parents had I instantly went and read every word that was printed on it.
HULICK: You sound like me because I did the same thing.
MASON: (laughs) I knew all the special thank you’s and all the publishing companies for every one. Then fast forward to where you are actually making records and you meet these producers or publishers and you’re like … Oh yeah … Steve Olson and Pogo Logo Publishing … and they say to you Pogo was the name of my dog. (laughs) So the mystery is solved. (laughs)
HULICK: (laughs) Right? How funny!
MASON: You were able to make all those connections after the fact.
HULICK: I don’t know about you, but when they had a dedication to somebody in the acknowledgments I would think I have to find out what that meant … what are they talking about, what did that person do?
MASON: (laughs) Yes! Was it an inside joke or what?
HULICK: What’s the best thing about being Robert Mason?
MASON: I’ve got great friends and thankfully people that appreciate what I do. Is there a better gift than that? I get to do something I absolutely love. My dad was a traveling salesman and he worked very hard all through the week and traveled a lot out of state and he lived for the weekends. But he didn’t do something he loved, and it took him until I was in my 30’s to come and say to me, “you know … you figured it out … I know it wasn’t easy and there were sacrifices to make, and it wasn’t always the most lucrative thing, but you actually love what you do for a living and you figured out how to make money doing that.” So doing what I love and having a little leisure time off to have some fun and relax is the gift of being Robert Mason.