Interviewed by Brian Rademacher
Date: June 2011
Brian Rademacher: Hey Lizzy. How are things going today with you?
Lizzy Borden: Great, its 90 degrees outside and not a cloud in the sky.
Brian Rademacher: Happy Birthday and what are the plans for tonight?
Lizzy Borden: Thank you (laughing) it’s a working birthday because all we’ve been doing is working on this tour but I’m fine with it because that is what I do.
Brian Rademacher: Have you ever thought about retiring because I saw you all the way back in the 80’s at the Cat Club in New York City, I think that was the “Visual Lies” tour and must have saw you eight to ten times since then.
Lizzy Borden: All the time when you have to deal with agents, promoters, club owners and festival owners and all these people who have power trips! It’s worse than boxing. (laughing). Even at this level and above it’s worse than boxing but every once in awhile you do run in to good people that run things professionally. But for the most part it chaos out there.
Brian Rademacher: You will be back in New Jersey on July 9th. Can we expect anything different from your last year’s show?
Lizzy Borden: Absolutely! Last year when we finished the U.S. tour we changed the show around. We took out some of the stuff that was getting a moderate response and adjusted the show and we started in Germany with an adjusted show and it worked so well. Now we tweaked the show even more with some older stuff we never really played and we have one section we have four songs and we are going to let the audience pick the one song they want to hear that night in that particular town. We have some theatrics that is over the top that we are going to bring on this tour. I recently had a meeting with Ralis Kahn who makes my masks; we created some cool new things and have some new surprises.
Brian Rademacher: “The Summer of Blood Tour”... why did you name it that?
Lizzy Borden: It just came out and sounds like a fun title, everyone’s having fun with it. We also have a new T-Shirt that’s based on it.
Brian Rademacher: In recruiting Dario (guitar) into LIZZY BORDEN a few years back did that make an impact?
Lizzy Borden: Absolutely! I mean we had so many guitar players in this band and every guitar player had one thing in common hard to work with. Dario is the opposite he’s such a professional and a fun guy plus he’s unbelievably talented. He’s got the full package and he’s someone I’ve been waiting for since the beginning when we started this band trying to find someone of his caliber that’s so professional and not crazy.
Brian Rademacher: Now you also have AC Alexander, how’s he working out?
Lizzy Borden: He’s working out great too. He brings a whole different element to the band. He has so much energy and a positive guy, great talented guitar player. Him and Dario work well together, they call themselves The Italian Stallions because they’re both Italians. This line-up is the best line-up we’ve ever had bar-none. The combination is finally right as far as personalities go. The show is so much better than anything we’ve ever done because of the personalities and everyone brings something unique to their part of the show that works in conjunction with the whole band.
Brian Rademacher: I don’t know how you can keep it going from the “Visual Lies” tour to now. When I saw you at the Cat Club you were amazing and I was stunned how good you guys were, coming out of the TV and stuff like that in a small club. It was amazing and I’m still glad you’re around with a killer show because there really isn’t much out there these days.
Lizzy Borden: (laughing). It’s really weird how you see thru the generations that different bands have gone onto do different things further than the band before them. It seems these days the more extreme music is getting all the attention. I would say the average age of the audience in Europe with the exception of Germany is in their twenties. It’s different in Europe we are like a new band with a new show to a young audience and they are responding like if we are their band right now and we are.
Brian Rademacher: You don’t have to worry once you get to Jersey you’ll see all the people coming in with canes the older folks
Lizzy Borden: (uncontrollably laughing) Yeah those hard core LIZZY BORDEN fans they stick to what they like! I’m happy about that and we have a lot of old friends on the East Coast. Hopefully all those fans come out and see the new show and bring some new fans with them.
Brian Rademacher: Can you talk about the new masks for this tour?
Lizzy Borden: We created a couple new different things. I still have some of the same masks because they became iconic. I do have some others, every night I have to decide what I’m going to use. This show we are just starting to put the new pieces in and it’s getting exciting. I just worked recently on a new full costume make-up session and it’s so over the top it makes 87’ look like nothing. We got so much to use I have to pick and  choose what I’m going to wear.
Brian Rademacher: Is there any place you never played that you would like to?
Lizzy Borden: Russia. I always wanted to play Russia and now it looks like we may. Russia is the one that seems so far away that now it seems so close. We played Japan a number of times and Europe. Last summer we played a lot of countries we never played and it was amazing and I can’t wait to go back.
Brian Rademacher: “Appointment With Death” came out in 2007 when are we going to see some new material?
Lizzy Borden: I started working on new material a long time ago. I’m not that anxious to run out and do another record. The record I have in mind is so unique it’s even hard to picture. The way I look at “Appointment With Death” is we came full circle we all had the same influences on all the records. Now it’s time to create something new so that’s where my head is at right now. The album I want to do is ten amazing songs. I don’t know exactly where it’s going to go, it could be the heaviest record we’ve ever done. You know you write ten songs and end up loving one. I hope to get something out soon but we have the tour right now, but we are working hard on songs right now. It’s coming out really interesting but I’m still looking for that ultimate producer that I can work with so I can create something so unique that is sounds like we’re breaking ground a little bit.
Brian Rademacher: You always wear a US flag on stage at some point, what does America mean to you?
Lizzy Borden: It means everything especially since we’ve traveled all around the world. We were able to see how other people live in different countries. Everybody we meet, especially the younger kids, they think where I live in L.A. is like Disneyland. It’s the mecca they all want to come here; it’s true I look at my window right now it’s absolutely amazing and our whole country is that way I love it and America means everything to me. When I wrote the song “American Metal” I kind of wrote it about the L.A. music scene at the time. It really means so much more now. When we go to Europe and sing “American Metal” I usually have an American flag joined with a flag of whatever country we’re in. It’s like a unity thing. It’s not necessarily about America it’s about the world now being a unity. I love the way America is run; well not completely (laughing) but I love most of it.
Brian Rademacher: How come we don’t see any new merchandise with the new line-up?
Lizzy Borden: There is at least one new shirt maybe two. I seen part of the new shirt and it’s amazing but for some reason no matter what we make, it’s always the LIZZY BORDEN logo shirt that flies off the shelf. It’s our biggest selling shirt by far but this new one might give it a run for its money because it really shows the excitement of the show.
Brian Rademacher: What is a normal day when you are at home and relaxing?
Lizzy Borden: When I wake up I do 45 minutes of Yoga, then I do 45 minutes of cardio. After that I check my e-mails after that I start singing, recording or writing that takes most of the day and in the evening I’m off to Hollywood to have fun.
Brian Rademacher: Is there any music scene there at all anymore?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah, well whoever comes thru town. A lot of people don’t play L.A. anymore, we’ve haven’t played L.A. since 2002 it’s not because there’s no scene here it’s because the way it’s run. It’s now built for nostalgia and I’m not all that interested in that. This is LIZZY BORDEN 2011 not LIZZY BORDEN 1985, although we do play some songs from those albums for sure. I’m focused on the future and the present and not the past.
Brian Rademacher: Do you collect anything?
Lizzy Borden: I had a massive CD collection but nothing in particular
Brian Rademacher: Do you have all your costumes from the early days until now?
Lizzy Borden: Most of them I have. Some were stolen but I do have some of the stuff. I still have pieces of the silver outfit from “Visual Lies”. Some of the stuff got stolen. When we were on-stage someone backstage was stealing it all.
Brian Rademacher: Are you happy the way your music career has played out?
Lizzy Borden: Oh no way (laughing), musically I learned how to get my ya-ya’s out early on but we did four records in fourteen months, if we were on another label that would have never happened. All we did was work on a record do a little tour come back work on another record it was madness. When I slowed up a little and concentrated on making the records really good from “Visual Lies”, “Master of Disguise”, “Deal with the Devil” and “Appointment With Death” those four records we really concentrated on; all those years before that was crazy; perform, write, record, perform, write and record. Looking back from beginning to now it’s a whole different world. That part of it is fine with me but it was the promotions part of it that always plagued us. Getting the word out for anything we do is really hard without a ton of promotion.
Brian Rademacher:Lizzy it was great talking to you once again, would you like to say anything in closing?
Lizzy Borden: Yeah we can’t wait to see our old friends and some new ones. I’m excited to come back to New Jersey because this tour came out of the blue as we were heavily working on writing the new record. We said the summer’s coming up do we want to be stuck in the studio writing or do we wanna go tour. We had our answer!
Brian Rademacher: Are you taken care of on the road with food from the venues and things like that?
Lizzy Borden: (laughing) No but we do meet a lot of people that cook for us. Some of the promoters are really cool and we’ve known them for years so they take us out to dinner. Quite a lot it’s the living on the road thing and that’s not good. It all depends where we are and the hospitality of the fans and friends we made over the years. Some of the food is amazing and some is horrible.
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