TESLA Still Strong With "Forever More"

by Jus Forrest

MUSIC NEWS - Tesla managed to hit U.K. shores once again this Summer to tour the recently released 'Forever More' album.  Largely based around a subject that's clutching to the very last strands of strength, the album brought with it many an emotional plea.  Despite all that, tonight at Islington's Carling Academy, the band stepped out in fine fighting spirit.

Most Tesla fans were brought up on a diet of Mechanical Resonance, Radio Controversy,  Busted Nuts and the like,  but it wasn't until the long overdue 'Into the Now' album came into being [2004] that Tesla had proved conspicuous in their absence.  Not only did the album fill a void that had been left for a number of years, the title itself was a very fitting one indeed.  Their own musical development was substantial and the album remains one of the strongest of their catalogue.  It brought with it an element of moving on - both musically and emotionally, and thus portrayed truth, reflection and most
of all hope.  'Forever More' brings about much the same themes and its encouraging to establish that there will be more on offer from the Tesla camp in the not too distant future. 

"We're planning on working for five or six years solid you know. We're gonna make another album, we're gonna keep touring and keep doing what were gonna do until we can afford to take a break," explains Frank [Hannon]. 

The last couple of years have provided a treat for U.K. fans in that 2007 brought the bands first U.K. visit in over sixteen years.  One of the most common questions today is what took them so long?

"Well we had managers that didn't bring us here because they couldn't make any money, and because they couldn't make any money then they couldn't come, and we had a lot of our own problems too, like we had toured for twelve years straight and never took a break, and then we broke up.  Then we got back together and then we went through more problems until we finally got Dave [Rude] in the
band.  Once we got Dave in the band it was a lot easier to make our own decisions and make goals and go for them because we were no longer like dysfunctional you know," states Frank.
 
With regards to the recent tour, Frank explains that it's been a great experience for the band.  "It's been fantastic, and you know, Belfast was amazing because the first time we came to Belfast, we had never been, you know obviously never been here before so the fans were just absolutely nuts.  We had an in-store and they were pushing up against the wall for autographs and like going crazy 'Tesla, Tesla'
and we never came back - and I always wanted to come back to Belfast, but that was the first night of the tour, and a lot of the same people were that but they're just older now you know."

Back on home turf in the U.S. fans have had the pleasure of experiencing the 'Frank Hannon Band' during some live dates throughout California.  It was over fifteen years ago when Frank and Robbie Furiosi came together to create the band 'Kaleidoscope'.

"Frank's always writing," explains Robbie, who as well as doing guitar tech duties for Frank on the Tesla tour, also plays drums in the Frank Hannon Band. "He's one of the best guitarist's in the world."  Not only would it prove a thrill for fans to experience the talents of Frank Hannon in a different context, but the concept of the Frank Hannon Band was indeed an interesting one.

"That project started out as my tribute band that I had, playing tribute to Jimi Hendrix. It was mostly guitar based covers -  a lot of Robin Trower, a lot of Jimi Hendrix, and then we started doing some Black Sabbath and then we started doing some Zepplin and it was an outlet for me to just play covers
because I love playing covers and playing tribute to my favorite guitar players. But, I decided that I wanted to have a legitimate album and right at that time I was writing the instrumental songs we started joking around about the space probes that America was sending to Mars and how much money they were spending - billions of dollars - sending these robots to Mars - and we thought it was a f***ing joke because there's so many people starving in the world and in America. We thought it was ridiculous for them to spend all that money to send stuff to Mars when we need, really need help here on Earth and so we thought about making a joke that if they did discover life on Mars they would
probably kill it and eat it, [laughs] then we started thinking well you know what - maybe they'll find guitars on Mars. And maybe they'll bring them back. So that was kind of the concept of the record. Kind of like a 2112 where they find a guitar from an ancient civilization and bring it back because they
didn't find the oil that they were looking for on Mars, 'cos they'd used that up years ago."

Despite the interest in the Frank Hannon Band from various record companies, the project itself was kept very low key.  "I don't want a record company telling me what to play so I purposely just kept it a very eccentric eclectic album and you know its part of a trilogy and I'm working on the other two parts
of it. We're gonna re-record some of it and re-release it. Hopefully by December I will have a new version of 'Guitarz from Marz' and it will be live in the studio along with the original demos that are on the original version."

You can keep up to date with future developments relating to Frank Hannon and Tesla via the official website TeslatheBand.com .  The US leg of the Tesla tour commences in August, when they can also be caught rocking the famous Sturgis Bike Rally in South Dakota [August 6th]. Full itinerary, here.

Jus Forrest