Interviewed by David Felix
Date: August 2010

With the release of "Round Trip" and along with his new band THE MERCURY TRAIN, Tony Harnell sat down with Rockeyez recently to discuss his past, present and future. Here’s what he had to say…

David Felix: Hey Tony, great to hear from you… it’s been a while!

Tony Harnell: Yeah, I know, I know… how long’s it been?

David Felix: At least two or three years… right around when the last STARBREAKER CD came out…

Tony Harnell: Right, right… well it’s good to hear your voice again!

David Felix: Same here… Congratulations on the new release! It’s great to hear you back on the scene again.

Tony Harnell: Thanks so much, I’m very proud of it.

David Felix: So let’s start by talking a little bit about the new CD… First of all, what exactly is THE MERCURY TRAIN?

Tony Harnell: It’s a really interesting story… A buddy of mine is really good at coming up with band names and titles of things, like if you had a company and needed a really cool name, he would be the one you call. So I called him up and was like; "I need a band name." And I had some ideas so we were just kicking stuff back and forth and back and forth and he was just sending me lists and lists of stuff and just when I had decided on another name (which I can’t even remember right now), he came up with this! I immediately was like "That’s it! I don’t even know what it is but that’s it!" And then he sent me this little Wikipedia link for it but it was a real project that I believe existed back in the 30’s. It was in New York and it was supposed to be this high-speed train, probably the first in the country and I believe it was supposed to go from Manhattan to Long Island or Manhattan up north… I really can’t remember, but it was fully designed and had progressed to the degree where they were going to start it but I think they lost funding on it or something like that. I’m really not 100% sure but it never really took off. There are drawings of the train and that’s what you see if you have the CD. It’s very art-deco, that’s what it was supposed to look like but that’s how we came up with the name.

David Felix: Well the first thing you notice when you look at the track listing is that a lot of the titles seem very, very familiar. What made you decide to re-do some of your old material as opposed to putting out a brand new studio release?

Tony Harnell: If you had asked me to do something like this three years ago, I would have been like, "What are you crazy? I don’t wanna do that!" But there was a demand for me to play shows. I had this great group of musicians who are friends of mine in New York whom I admire very much and I wanted to play a small, intimate place and here in the city, they have all these small, prestigious little venues with a really cool vibe and I wanted to see if I played there and really changed the flavor and color of my songs if they would work, if they would stand out or if I would just look like some "buffoon" from the 80’s! So we did a couple of shows and got an absolutely amazing response. Then it turns out Serafino (Perugino, CEO Frontiers Records), heard about it because, thanks to the internet, everything you do nowadays is "out there," and he asked if I wanted to do a live album with these guys? And I really didn’t want to do that but I was really digging the way these guys were playing my songs so I thought we could do like a "live spirited" studio album. We won’t take a long time recording that music; we’ll get a very live sound and so on. So that’s what we did and that’s really what spawned it but it’s a very interesting project because originally I was like, "Should I do this? Is this really a dumb idea?" But as it developed, first of all we recorded all the music in just two days. It was a real quick thing and I was supposed to jump right in on the vocals and have the whole thing knocked out in a couple of weeks. But right after that two-day session, my Mom got ill and a couple of other things happened in my life that were pretty serious and I had to just shut down this thing. It got to the point where I had to sit down and write Serafino, "Look, I really don’t know when I’m gonna be able to come back to this record. It could be a year, it might be six months but I really can’t say. So if you want your money back and we’ll just cancel the thing… fine, I don’t care." And he said, "No, no… that’s ok. Just take your time and come back to it when you can." That’s actually one of the really positive things about working with them because being Italian, they’re really into the whole "family comes first" thing. But it turned out to be a real blessing, actually, when I finally returned to the album because what I thought it was going to be and what it ended up being and since the reasons for me doing the record actually changed during that time away and evolved… it ended up being something almost completely different.

David Felix: Was it a little odd at first playing most of these songs with another band other than TNT?

Tony Harnell: There was a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with TNT when I left. Some of it publicly… not so much over here but in the press over in Europe and it was pretty nasty. I was enduring some pretty nasty attacks… a lot of lies and crazy shit I tried to ignore mostly, but it really left a bad taste in my mouth and made me feel really a bit disgusted at my whole twenty-something years in the band. All the sacrifices I made for the band, all the blood, sweat and tears, pouring my heart into the songs, ruining marriages and all that crap that ends up happening when you’re in a band. I wanted to just take all my records off my walls… all my gold records and just sell ‘em or put them in the basement or something and even during the recording of this album, there was still some shit going on. There were emails, and some more nasty, ugly stuff going on behind the scenes and I was just like, "Uuughh!" But then I understood, finally… when I came back to the album why I was doing this. It just hit me suddenly and I was like, "Oh my God! I know why I am doing this!" It was because these are my songs too and I very carefully chose songs that I felt didn’t get enough attention their first time around. Even with like "Northern Lights." That should have been a single back in the 80’s and I actually think that had it had been a video back then, our lives would be very different today. It’s hard to believe that on just about every TNT album, there were at least one or two ballads and NONE of them were ever videos back in the 80’s when everybody was releasing ballads and those were the "break-through" hits, they never put one out for us. So I resurrected that song and really changed it giving it a more contemporary feel to it and it’s actually one of the songs I think works the best which is why we did the video for it. When we got into the later material, I really though we were writing some great material back in the 90’s/ 2000 period and they just never got enough attention because they were on "Indie" labels and not a lot of people knew about them so that was the other thing. I just wanted to draw some new attention and be like, "Hey, these are pretty good songs even in a stripped-down, different sorta fashion." So when I got back into it with these guys, I really dug-in and just started to play around with the vocals a little bit and it became a really cathartic experience which really helped me spiritually put that part of my life to bed and honor the songs and take a little of the leadership of those songs back. I love the old recordings… they’re AWESOME! I’m not trying to compete with those. I mean Ronnie’s (Le Tekro) a world class guitar player… one of the best guitar players on the planet but this album was about showing how good the songs were, how good the melodies and the lyrics were and just showcasing and exploiting that part of these songs. But this CD and playing with these guys was just a way for me to deal with all that turmoil and just finally put this whole thing to bed.

David Felix: Was there any song in particular that you found a little bit more challenging as far as the re-recording process?

Tony Harnell: Yeah, there were a couple, actually… a couple that didn’t even make the record. We had recorded a song called "Heart is a Heavy Load" from WESTWORLD’s "Skin" and it just wasn’t interesting enough… it just wasn’t different enough from the original and it’s not that all the songs that are on the CD are "drastically" different from the originals. I’d say at least a third or maybe even half of the songs are "fairly" close to the original but there’s always something different or something about these new versions that I felt was strong enough and made it worthy of being on the CD. But challenging? Yeah… there were a few that I couldn’t even figure out why they were challenging. Take "Month of Sundays" for example. When I started to do the vocals, I think I tried to sing it like, I don’t even know how many times and I kept putting it aside and putting it aside, moving on to something else then coming back to it till finally one day, I just put it on again and suddenly I could do it. I have no idea why that happened. That’s the funny thing about making music… it’s where your head is at, it’s where your voice is at and there are a lot of factors that come into play but for some reason, that one screwed with me a little bit until I finally got the vocal.

David Felix: I’m an "old-school" TNT/ Tony Harnell fan. In some cases such as "Song For Dianne" and "Northern Lights," I absolutely LOVE the new versions and even think they came out better than the original recordings. But in other cases such as "Intuition" or "10,000 Lovers," I kind of miss that heavy, edgier side to the songs. Do you find you’re getting that kind of reaction a lot?

Tony Harnell: Surprisingly… ya know, I tell myself NOT to read reviews but I always end up doing it anyway or at least have someone tell me about them. I mean I get like new emails of new reviews dropped in my mailbox almost every day now and I would say that nine out of ten of them are great! Of course there are a few that thinks it’s like… whatever, but the majority of them are really super-positive! I totally get what you are saying and I can’t argue with that but the point I am trying to make is that you still have those old records and you still have those versions and to be quite honest with you, I almost didn’t put either one of those songs on the release at all. But I think that what I’ve learned since I released the album is that… first of all, I think "10k Lovers" is really fucking cool on this record (chuckles)…

David Felix: (interrupts laughing) Don’t get me wrong, I DO like the new version, it’s just that it’s "different" from what I am use to…

Tony Harnell: Yeah! It’s a little more "bizarre" and a completely different song, almost. I don’t think that if it hadn’t had come out so "weird," it would be on the record at all. I literally told these guys originally that I didn’t want to put it on the record but then finally decided, "Let’s see what we can do with it." I had this idea and feel for this rhythm for it and said, "Let’s just see if this will work and how crazy we can get." So we did it and when I started doing the vocals, I really went off on all the crazy, weird back-ground stuff and when I played it for people, they were like, "This is really fun. You gotta put this on there." As for "Intuition," it has a bit of that "country-folk" kind of feel to it but I have to admit, I feel a little bit obligated to put those songs on there or play them "live" because "Intuition" was a big hit in Japan and a pretty-good sized hit all over the world and "10,000 Lovers" became almost like our "signature song" almost everywhere but if I had it my way, I would never play those songs again. It’s horrible for me and I know there are people out there who don’t wanna hear that and I don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings but it’s just that I don’t have a lot of attachment to them right now. What I’ve learned from playing my show in Norway a few weeks back is that even though I stuck "Intuition" and "10k Lovers" in there, I really don’t think I needed to do that. In fact, one of my brand new solo songs… well maybe not "brand new" since it was on the cinematic-demo EP, but I played one song off of that and I swear to God it got the best response for the audience and that was a real "wake-up" call for me. Promoters are the ones who’ve been telling me things like "The only reason we want you to play is if you do the old TNT songs." And here I am thinkin’, "But TNT is out playing TNT songs!" I know I’m the original guy and I absolutely LOVE some of the songs but there’re other songs that I want to play. That’s why in my set over there, I played some of the 90’s stuff, I played some of the 2000’s stuff… but some of the stuff I wanna play and some of the stuff I don’t wanna play but I feel a bit obligated to do them. But I think at this point… at least for a while or at least until my viewpoint changes again, as long as I do a good job and the band and I really perform well together, I can pretty much do what I want… I don’t think it matters. As a matter of fact, we just got offered a pretty decent sized festival here in the U.S. and all the bands are really retro but I said to the guy, "I’m really not into playing a retro/ nostalgic type of set." And he was like, "I don’t care, play what you want!" And I was like, "Really?" and he was goin’ "Oh yeah!." So that’s what I am seemingly getting more and more and I am absolutely thrilled about it. I hope it continues and I think I’ve just been pushing the envelope so hard for so long that people are finally getting it. Sure, there are people who have fallen off of the band wagon, but people are starting to respect that I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do."

David Felix: Tell me a little bit more about the three "unreleased" or more obscure tracks "Down to the River To Pray," "When I’m Away" and "Anywhere But Here."

Tony Harnell: "Down To The River To Pray" was actually on the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?" with George Clooney. It was performed by Alison Krauss and my wife just absolutely loves that song and one day I had my studio up and turned on and she just came in while I was on a break and was like, "Can I just record something?" So I was like, Yeah!" and I just turned the mike around and she sang that and I was like, "Wow… this is really good! Let’s put some harmonies on it!" Then I sang a harmony then she would sing a harmony and then I said, "We should stick this between a couple of songs on the CD." So that’s what we did! It wasn’t even planned; it was just kind of a fluky thing. So that’s how that came about… "Anywhere But Here" is a song I had written with Brandon Wilde," the bass player in THE MERCURY TRAIN, about three years ago and when we had finished the album, I remembered the demo and thought that that was a pretty good demo. "Why don’t we fix that up a little bit, maybe add some background vocals and put it out?" It’s a cool, little song and we did. "When I’m Away" is actually a TNT song that ended up being the bonus track for "My Religion" in Japan. It’s a really obscure TNT song and it’s really funny because when I’m reading reviews, people sometimes think that it’s a much older song and are like, "Tony gave "Anywhere But Here" the psychedelic treatment!" and they don’t even know what "When I’m Away" is… they think it’s a new song but it’s not… it’s an old TNT song.

David Felix: What made you decide on "Northern Lights" as the first video?

Tony Harnell: It was basically a collaborative decision between me and the label but I was lucky enough to get these fantastic film makers that are really dear friends of ours to do it. We were just out having coffee with them one night and I was like, "Hey, I have an opportunity to make a video. I have a very small budget because it’s an "Indie" label but would you guys be into doing it?" And they were like, "Well let’s hear the song." So I sent them the song and they just flipped out and fell in love with the song. They had never heard it before so for them it was a brand new song and they just loved it so they really wanted to do it. They presented me with a beautiful concept… very simple, but beautiful and a friend of mine has this beautiful house just a few blocks from where I live in Brooklyn and he let us use it. We shot the whole thing in one day and I’ve actually very, very proud of it. It was such a low budget… I can’t even give the number because it’s just so hard to believe but I don’t think it’s about budgets. I think it was beautifully shot, I think the song is great and I really think that in many ways it’s the best video I’ve ever done because it’s so honest, it’s so real, it’s not pretentious and it’s pretty much just a reflection of me and my wife. Plus I think she looks absolutely stunning in the video so I’m really, really proud of it.

David Felix: With the state of the video music industry today, do you think that music videos are becoming more of a "lost art" form?

Tony Harnell: I don’t know if that’s true. Actually, because of some connections I have, we actually have a shot of getting on VH-1 Classics… we’re working on that right now, it may or may not happen so we’ll see how that goes. We’re working on getting it on national television over in Norway… possibly Sweden as well and we think that will happen. But the internet is pretty awesome for stuff like that. I mean between sticking it on YouTube, Facebook and other websites that I have, it’s been getting a ton of hits! And I think that it allows the label to just kinda stick it anywhere they want! The responses have been just absolutely amazing… just look at the YouTube hits! Nine out of ten responses are very, very positive so I couldn’t be happier about that. No, we don’t have the millions upon millions of people exposure like we did in the old days with MTVand that’s a shame but we do have the internet and I think that that’s a valuable tool. I think it helps sell albums and I think it will continue to help sell albums and I hope we can do a second video.

David Felix: Tell me a little bit about the band itself… how did you go about piecing it together?

Tony Harnell: Brandon I met about ten years ago. He use to be in a band called THIS WAY with the guitar player Chris Foley. They were signed to Reprieve which was an extension of Warner Brothers and actually did two albums and had a bit of a small hit with a song off their first record and then recorded their second album with, I’m sorry his name escapes me at the moment, but he was the main producer who did all the COLDPLAY albums and then they got dropped from their label because their A & R person got fired… you know how that goes. But I met him through this girl I know. Brandon is her cousin and I went to see them a couple of times and I was just mesmerized by him. He’s a great singer, great song writer… and not trying to kiss his ass at all (Laughs), but he’s actually one of my all time favorite song writers. He churns out beautiful, really honest, beautiful, simple songs… very Beatle-esq, gorgeous lyrics and a great singer… just a great, great artist. So I reached out to him and asked him if he wanted to do some shows locally here in New York. Then he pulled in Chris from his old band, he pulled in Brad (Gunyon) who was the drummer in his other band BLACK BUNNY and I pulled in Jason (Hagen) who was the one who really helped me arrange all the songs. He was actually a vocal student of mine and he would come in with his guitar all the time and I immediately recognized that he was incredible and then, of course, my wife Amy came in. I just though it was the coolest thing because she’s got such a beautiful voice and I knew she would sound great on these songs and live she’s just an amazing asset because she’s beautiful, she sings great and she’s something to look at other than me! (Laughs) And I love having her next to me on stage… it’s kinda like a Paul/ Linda McCartney kinda thing. I think it’s a really beautiful thing to be able to share your art, your passion and your career with the person that you’re married to. It’s just the coolest thing ever…

David Felix: I also noticed you got Sandi Saraya to guest vocal on "Shame." How did that all come about?

Tony Harnell: She and I were on the same label back in the 80’s and we both had the same A&R guy so we met back in ’88 or ’89… somewhere around there, and immediately hit it off. She was a fan already and we were just about to release "Intuition" and she told our A&R guy that she was a big fan and wanted to meet me so he set it up and we met and became fast friends. We would hang out all the time but then as time went on, she moved and then I moved and we kind of drifted apart through out the 90’s but then, of course, lovely Facebook came along and got us back together. We started to chat and I was on the phone with her last year and I had just finished the vocals for "Shame" and it wasn’t even something I had thought about before. We just happened to be talking and I was like, "Hey, are you still singing?" And she was like, "Yeah… you know, I sing at church on the weekends and such but I don’t really care about the music industry and I don’t really wanna be involved with it." So I just asked if she would wanna sing a song with me and she was like, "Yeah!" And that was it! I said, "Ok," and literally within days I had the track over to her, set up a recording session in L.A. because she lives in California now and it was done within a week or so. She just nailed it and I kinda produced it over the phone from afar but my buddy did a great job recording her. I was really honored because she hasn’t done any major recording in many, many years so for me to grab her and get her to sing on that with me was really great.

David Felix: Not so long ago, you suffered a very tragic, personal loss with the passing of your mother and although we expressed our condolences through the website and through emails, I would just like to first off extend our deepest, heartfelt condolences on behalf of both myself and the entire ROCKEYEZ staff.

Tony Harnell: That really means a lot to me. Thank you so much.

David Felix: How much did that tragedy impact the recording of "Round Trip" if at all?

Tony Harnell: Like I said before, I had to just stop when she started getting really sick. I cancelled two performances over in England both in 2008 & 2009. The first one was just when she first got the scary news so I needed to be with her during that period and when she actually started to get really, really ill, I had to go and drive her…well, we flew out to New Mexico and then I drove her to a clinic in Arizona. I mean, she really fought hard. We really tried everything… she tried everything in her power to survive even when the doctors were saying there was no chance. So, it impacted the recording in every way and there were some other things that were going on in the middle of all that which I really haven’t spoke about and I’m not going to do it right now, but I will be talking about it real soon and then everybody will know, but it was a tough, tough year. I can easily say that 2009 from one point of view was the worst year of my life… without question. But ya know, looking back upon it now, I also have the point of view that when you go through something like this in your life, you come out of it with a new appreciation for life and for a lot of different things. The drive for me to finish the record and follow through with some performances I had on the books for this year and just get myself up and out of it was all motivated by making her proud, ya know? It impacted me more than I thought it would. We became really, really close at the end. We lived really far away from each other for most of my life and we became very, very close the last five or six years of hers and I’m really grateful for that. But yeah, it impacted everything. It impacted this record, it will impact my solo record which I am working on... I’m sure there’ll be some songs and some lyrics on that which reflect what I feel and so forth.

David Felix: I know you mentioned the Norway Rock Festival which you just played at. Do you have any more shows lined up in support of the release?

Tony Harnell: I really wasn’t supporting the release. That was more or less just a rock festival I was invited to play at. That was actually booked last year and it just so happened that the timing of it was right at the moment when this was being released. It was very good in a way because I got to perform and promote the record at the same time, but the show I did at the Rockwood Music Hall here in the city was the album release and specifically for "Round Trip." I don’t have anything else really booked right now. I’m looking for a really great agent who I can really form a good relationship with over in Europe and here in the U.S. and that will probably be two different people but I am totally open to shows or tours or whatever comes up.

David Felix: So what kind of support have you been getting since you released the CD?

Tony Harnell: The great thing about the music industry right now and the internet is that it’s not like the old days where you release an album and then it’s gone. I could release another video for this in six months and start the ball rolling all over again. The release date is just a formality. And I think people are starting to recognize different qualities about me and my singing and what I do as an artist. If people think it’s "just" a retrospective or "just" an acoustic album, they really don’t have an idea about what it is and really should just check it out and give it a listen because I think they’ll be pleasantly surprised. And even if they don’t know these songs, I don’t think it really matters. I don’t think it has any bearing on the quality of the album. I think, actually, that it’s something anybody could like whether they know the songs or not.

David Felix: What’s next for Tony Harnell?

Tony Harnell: I’ve been writing new songs. I actually have this new song that I really, really love… I just adore it and I think it’s something that is going to open some doors for me. In addition, we are finally shopping the "cinematic" demos. People probably think that I already shopped them and didn’t get anywhere and put them out for the fans but that’s actually not true. We never shopped them to any labels because I didn’t thing they were ready to shop but I’ve had a lot of people tell me that those songs are great so I figured it was time to see if I would get a bite from any labels. We do have some interested labels now and other than that, I’m just writing with a whole bunch of different writing partners from all over the world. Most of them are from Europe, a few are from here but I’m just writing and writing and writing trying to get together the best songs possible to put on my solo album. The style of the record is going to be all over the map but through the production and the fact that I am singing on all the songs, I am trying to get it to be a very cohesive but diverse album.

David Felix: Well that’s about it, Tony. Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Tony Harnell: I’d just like to say to all my fans out there that they’ve been absolutely amazing. I really appreciate all the letters of support that I’ve gotten through my Facebook and on my website and through emails and everything else… they’ve just been super amazing and supportive and I really appreciate that. I do this because my fans are there and because they love what I do so I’m going to continue doing that and hopefully I’ll get to see them all on the road very, very soon.

David Felix: Thanks again Tony. It’s always a pleasure…

Tony Harnell: Thank you, man! It’s been great and hope to see ya soon!