Interviewed by Brian Rademacher
Date: August 2008

Dario Lorina : Hey Brian, it’s Dario.

Brian Rademacher: Hey man, how’s it going today?

Dario Lorina : Good, but it’s hot out here in Las Vegas. It’s monsoon season but the last couple of days it’s been 110 degrees but there’s no humidity here.

Brian Rademacher: Tell me what Dario was like as a child growing up in Boston?

Dario Lorina : I was a fairly normal kid, with a normal household and family. My parents have been together now twenty-five years. I went to school, rode my bicycle, a skateboard and played football and broke bones.

Brian Rademacher: Did you have any posters or anything hanging on your walls in your room?

Dario Lorina : I had WHITESNAKE posters, skull and crossbones posters; it was definitely a rock and roll room.

Brian Rademacher: Do you remember what was the first concert you ever attended?

Dario Lorina : I was like four or five years old and it was Little Richard and I was told I fell asleep towards the end of the concert. That guys a legend you can’t beat that.

Brian Rademacher: What were some of your favorite CD’s growing up?

Dario Lorina : I wasn’t as hip of a kid riding the school bus to school. I had a Walkman tape player. VAN HALEN was my number one I would listen to and SKID ROW, MÖTLEY CRÜE, FIREHOUSE, SLAUGHTER those were my guys.

Brian Rademacher: In 2005, the band you founded CYRUS ZAIN released their self-titled CD. Why did that band dissolve? (Video clip of CYRUS ZAIN)

Dario Lorina : This was a band I first joined when we came to Vegas; I was about 14-15 years old. All the guys were much older-in their thirties and forties. We had a five song CD that sold pretty well on CD Baby and then Europe grabbed a hold of it. We did several shows and we opened for DOKKEN and George Lynch was one of my idols, But George wasn’t in the band at the time but DOKKEN is DOKKEN! Then I started playing with Jani (Lane of WARRANT).

Brian Rademacher: Were you in any other bands before CYRUS ZAIN that released any material?

Dario Lorina : No, that’s it.

Brian Rademacher: Do you remember the first song you learned how to play?

Dario Lorina : Well my guitar teacher, when I first walked in, my first lesson asked me what song I wanted to learn. I told him Joe Satriani. The guy rolled his eyes and laughed at me. Well sure enough I learned the riff on my own and went back in there and showed him I can play it. But the first song I learned was a JEWEL song because of the open chord switching. I was also jamming to SABBATH riffs and trying to sound like METALLICA.

Brian Rademacher: You also teach guitar. Was there a particular student that stands out in your mind that is currently in any band?

Dario Lorina : Right now most of my kids are pretty young. I taught from five years old up to sixteen, seventeen and I’m still teaching them to this day. I have a few students that I think can go on to do some pretty cool things; they practice hard even if they don’t have a lesson. They have a lot of potential.

Brian Rademacher: Can you give me any information about Reverb Nation? They have some tunes of you playing AC/DC covers like “Whole Lotta Rosie”, “Back In Black” and “You Shook Me All Night.”

Dario Lorina : YThose songs were recorded in 2007. I got a call from Lez Warner who played with the Cult that wanted to put a band together called the LAS VEGAS ALL-STARS. When everyone is not busy just get together and do a few cool shows and we recorded four AC/DC songs, Jizzy Pearl from LOVE HATE sang them, it was fun. I think the songs sounded pretty cool actually.

Brian Rademacher: You played with many high profile artists. Were there any that you would consider staying with instead of going out on your own with KARNEVAL?

Dario Lorina : Well here’s the thing... with CYRUS I was still young, the ALL-STARS, all those guys had a pretty good career and that was for fun and when I played with Jani Lane, who was incredible, playing WARRANT songs and Jani songs but after all that I was still only seventeen. I wanted to get together with guys in my same age group that wanted to play originals. That’s really the route I would like to go.

Brian Rademacher: Tell me a little about the upcoming show with KARNEVAL for Rock Against Diabetes. I am very interested in this because it’s a disease that runs in my family and I happen to have?

Dario Lorina : I was asked to play last year and the guy who takes care of everything is Darren Buchanan, we hooked up on myspace actually and he knew how big of a fan of Paul Gilbert and MR.BIG and Eric Martin I was and he had Eric Martin playing Rock Against Diabetes and he had me playing alongside Eric. I couldn’t turn that down.

Brian Rademacher: Yeah we hung out with Eric at the Melodic Rock 10th Anniversary show in Indiana last year. That guy is amazing one of--if not the best--person that was there, Eric was so friendly he just wanted to hang out, tell stories and jokes and just have a good time. Great guy.

Dario Lorina : Yeah I believe it. He is a great, great guy and very gracious.

Brian Rademacher: As an upcoming guitarist your name is all over the web, youtube, everywhere and you accomplished so much already. What is your goal?

Dario Lorina : My goal right now, I’m very proud of the amount and level I got to in a short time so far. I really want to get known in my band KARNEVALplaying original songs. I want to be known as a guitar player and I think I’m on a good route, but I was to be in a good band with good songs.

Brian Rademacher: We heard a lot about you, but we first met in person at Rocklahoma 2008. Was that KARNEVALl’s live debut?

Dario Lorina : That was the first live show with KARNEVAL, but it didn’t go off as planned because of the weather and the side stages knocked down by the wind and everyone’s time slot got messed up and changed around. It was still great they set up a center stage tent and it went off great, I think we got a great response.

Brian Rademacher: How did you go about securing a spot at Rocklahoma?

Dario Lorina : KARNEVAL was in the process of being put together, still putting the songs together and rehearsing. As of right now my dad has managed everything I’ve done. He put a call in and I worked with some of those promoters before with Jani Lane and it went from there.

Brian Rademacher: What were your feelings about that event?

Dario Lorina : You couldn’t ask for any better fans at a show like that, they are there for total support for all the bands they saw and as big of a fan of that genre as I am, and KARNEVALare, we had such a good time hanging out, watching them, we said “whoa” we listened to these guys on CD, we listened to them as a kid and our drummer stayed late one night because he was a big fan of TRIUMPH, it’s a cool event, its great to see such a response.

Brian Rademacher: When you saw that storm and the two stages were destroyed what were you thinking?

Dario Lorina : When the stages went down, I was on the main stage which is a solid structure getting ready to play the National Anthem. As I’m getting ready, the rains coming down. I couldn’t see the audience because I’m standing behind the amps. TRIXTER was playing and I saw the rain coming in circular and I see the drummer get up and get off his drum riser and they shut it all down. I went out the back because I had some of my family there. I went out the back and the wind was so strong I couldn’t even walk; I was calling to make sure everyone was all right. By that time rumors started that people were injured and there were deaths. I couldn’t believe it I was calling around to make sure everyone was all right and everyone was and that everyone around the stages was ok. It was crazy.

Brian Rademacher: Yeah I was in the media tent at the time and they had a security person holding each of the posts that were coming out of the ground of the tent, they told us to run over to the main building which was a secure building, It was like The Wizard of Oz.

Dario Lorina : Yeah, I was waiting for Toto to come running across the street there.

Brian Rademacher: Was doing the National Anthem at Rocklahoma intense and you had a red, white and blue guitar and a star vest also. Was that specially made?

Dario Lorina : The outfit, I thought I might as well go with the theme. I couldn’t go with a red, white and blue outfit because of the guitar. So I did all black with the star vest and it really went well with the guitar. That guitar was especially custom made by a guitar company I endorse called Lag Guitars out of France. They made that especially for that performance. The guitar is amazing, red white and blue metal flake with Dimarzio pickups, and it sounded incredible. I never preformed the National Anthem before, I thought it was great and with our country where it is now I was so proud and it was very cool.

Brian Rademacher: Do you feel lucky that you accomplished so much at a young age already?

Dario Lorina : I feel very blessed and very lucky. Sometimes I can’t believe how much I have accomplished at such a young age. I have to take a second look back and say at a young age I feel like I’m doing pretty well and thank every one for all the support they have given me and I’m only eighteen. I owe a lot of thanks to my family and Jani.

Brian Rademacher: You played on a makeshift stage at Rocklahoma. How’d you think it went over?

Dario Lorina : You know what? Between myself and the other three guys in the band we had a lot of people there as support, we would have had a lot more people there if people had known our new time slot. A lot of people didn’t know we were still playing, they didn’t know our time slot since we were going to play on the stage that went down. People didn’t know if we were still going to play. A lot of things happened but we still had a good crowd. I had my guitar tech flown in on Saturday, which was the day we were suppose to play and since the stage went down we played Sunday, but people were very supportive and it went over very well.

Brian Rademacher: Do you think KARNEVAL would think about playing Rocklahoma 2009?

Dario Lorina : Possibly.

Brian Rademacher: When can we expect KARNEVAL’s debut release?

Dario Lorina : We just debuted three songs on our myspace site and we have Rock Against Diabetes coming up and we have a big article in a magazine called Vegas Rocks.

Brian Rademacher: Since you do not have a signature guitar pick, do you plan on getting them made at some point soon?

Dario Lorina : : I have a pickcard right now, but I play with the Dunlop M3 jazz picks, and I never see them where you can get print on them. I checked around but have yet to see one.

Brian Rademacher: I am going to mention a few guitarists, some you might know, and some you might not know. I wanted to know what you think of them.
Randy Rhoads

Dario Lorina : Incredible one of my idols

Brian Rademacher: Dimebag

Dario Lorina : I wasn’t a PANTERA fan when I started playing, as I started playing I became a Dimebag fan and he is absolutely amazing. Now when I listen to him and say whoa what a guitar player.

Brian Rademacher: Slash

Dario Lorina : Amazing, the perfect way do describe him is less is more.

Brian Rademacher: Ace Frehley

Dario Lorina : I really became a fan of KISS with the simplicity of their songs. Ace Frehley is a great guitar player.

Brian Rademacher: Yngwie Malmsteen

Dario Lorina : What can be said about Yngwie? Incredible. He has the neo-classical thing down pat. He was the pioneer of it all.

Brian Rademacher: The Edge (U2)

Dario Lorina : I never was a huge fan of a lot of their work.

Brian Rademacher: Angus Young

Dario Lorina : Incredible! Absolutely incredible!!

Brian Rademacher: Buckethead

Dario Lorina: You know I’ve seen some of his video, but never seen him live. I think he’s a crazy guitar player and the funny thing was, he played a private party here in Vegas at a rock club here called Rocks and I was getting text like crazy asking was I the one under the bucket. I think Paul Gilbert gets that a lot too. Who knows who’s under there?

Brian Rademacher: Ty Oliver

Dario Lorina: I believe I’ve seen him a lot on myspace. He sounds great.

Brian Rademacher: Rusty Cooley

Dario Lorina: From OUTWORLD? phenomenal, crazy guitar player.

Brian Rademacher:Dario Lorina

Dario Lorina: (busted out laughing) That’s like asking someone that joke what do you use to eat cereal with and you trick them and say a fork. That is what that is. I do the best I can. I take influences from every style I take in as a guitar player. My heart is in one spot. I try to take in all styles.

Brian Rademacher: When will we see KARNEVAL on the East coast NY/NJ/PA?

Dario Lorina: We played in New York with Jani, who knows? We’re working on it. The band only just got going!

Brian Rademacher: Would you like to say anything in conclusion; I had a great time meeting you in Oklahoma?

Dario Lorina: It was a pleasure meeting you and I thank you for talking with me for this interview. See ya later.