The Apparatus

By most accounts, the Summer of 1990 was a scorcher. The higher latitudes of suburban Chicago normally protected us from extreme heat, but I remember wondering if the Earth had tilted on its axis and moved my home town a few degrees closer to the equator. Despite the torrid weather and the broken air conditioning unit in my car, my friends Dan and Deke accompanied me on an early August road trip to see D.R.I. on the Thrash Zone tour. As we barreled up the interstate, conversation eventually turned from my vehicle's lack of climate control to the show's opening act; a Missouri-based quartet called Anacrusis. As luck would have it, Dan had a cassette copy of the band's latest album, entitled Reason. As he pushed it into my primitive (but functional!) tape deck, Deke eloquently described the band's sound as "metal, but kinda fucked up".
 
As the first side drew to a close, I could do little more than nod in concurrence. What erupted from my Radio Shack-quality speakers was essentially thrash metal, but there were ample doses of prog and early alt-rock scattered throughout its ten tracks (extended to twelve on later editions) that thwarted classification. Unifying its twisted riffs, angular mood shifts, and sophisticated song structures was a singular voice that appeared to speak from the darkest reaches of the human psyche. Alternately moaning, whispering, bellowing, and shrieking, it added a degree of emotion that was simply mind-bending in its depth and sincerity.
 
D.R.I.'s audience of punks and thrashers wasn't entirely receptive to the challenging nature of Anacrusis' music, and I do recall a bit of heckling during their set. Nonetheless, their performance sparked an undying fascination that started with Reason and continued through to the aggro-prog mastery of 1993's Screams and Whispers. Things essentially went quiet for the band after their break up in 1994, although guitarist/vocalist Ken Nardi has (in addition to his solo projects) kept the memories alive with a comprehensive tribute site at http://www.anacrusis.us . What started as a simple note of enthusiasm over the sheer breadth of media available on the website quickly materialized into a full-blown Q&A session, and Ken was gracious enough to devote considerable time and attention to each of my queries. It is my sincere hope that this interview will provide sufficient inspiration for our readers to check out the most criminally underrated metal band of the '90s. I also recommend listening to Ken's innovative solo work, some of which pre-dates trends that arose several years after its conception.

 

Kevin, John and I have always remained close friends over the years. We always felt like family and had all been through a lot together during those years in ANACRUSIS. OF course there were times when we hung out more than others, but the break-up of the band was amicable and there were never any hard feelings towards one another. Kevin and John put together a 70s & 80s cover band a few years ago and the three of us spent a lot of time together when they began playing out live. Kevin still plays in that band, though John decided he wanted to move towards original material again. I haven't spoken to Kevin much over the last couple of years, but John and I still talk all of the time and hang out together when we get a chance.

I don't think we could have done that if we wanted to. Certain members of the band may have disagreed with the musical direction at times, but as the main songwriter/arranger I knew our strength would always lie in originality. There were always better players and better singers out there, and I believe the only reason we ever made it out of the basement, was because we tried to do something a little bit different than the rest of the bands at the time. 

 

Kevin, John and I have always remained close friends over the years. We always felt like family and had all been through a lot together during those years in ANACRUSIS. OF course there were times when we hung out more than others, but the break-up of the band was amicable and there were never any hard feelings towards one another. Kevin and John put together a 70s & 80s cover band a few years ago and the three of us spent a lot of time together when they began playing out live. Kevin still plays in that band, though John decided he wanted to move towards original material again. I haven't spoken to Kevin much over the last couple of years, but John and I still talk all of the time and hang out together when we get a chance.

I don't think we could have done that if we wanted to. Certain members of the band may have disagreed with the musical direction at times, but as the main songwriter/arranger I knew our strength would always lie in originality. There were always better players and better singers out there, and I believe the only reason we ever made it out of the basement, was because we tried to do something a little bit different than the rest of the bands at the time.

I have always been aware of what I am and what I am not capable of as a singer. I have next to no vocal range (screeching aside) and am a pretty mediocre singer as singing goes, but to me there is a big difference between a good singer and a good vocalist. I feel that I am a good vocalist, that is to say that my voice presents the lyrical element of the band in a strong and passionate way that fits what our music was all about. I could make a long list of vocalists that are fantastic in this respect, though none of them would ever make it past the first round of American Idol auditions. As a singer, I'd rank myself somewhere between Rob Halford and William Hung.

Speaking for myself, I always thought lyrics were just as important as music and so I always made it a point to put as much effort into our words as was put into the notes we played. On our first album SUFFERING HOUR there are songs that may seem (lyrically) out of place with our later material, but this is only because several of those early songs were written in separate bands prior to ANACRUSIS. To me, songs like "Present Tense", "Imprisoned" and "A World to Gain" were the blueprint for what would follow and would be the future standard for our other albums. By the second album REASON we really began to hone our style as Kevin and John also fell in line with more introspective and personal lyrics. We did sometimes make social or political statements, but I always wanted us to stick to more "universal" themes, whether it was love, anger, frustration, oppression or whatever. To me, this left the songs open to the listener's own private interpretation and allowed them to better connect with the lyrics as they related to their own experiences. I never really got into the IRON MAIDEN school of topical lyrics, where you read a novel and then write a 5 minute song about it. It's like a musical book-report. I always refer to MAIDEN'S lyrics as "Heavy Metal cliff-notes". They are great at what they do, but that was just not our style.

So, to answer your question, I'd say that every ANACRUSIS song came from our own personal experiences or the experiences of those around us.

Not on an academic level, but definitely from a common man's perspective. I have always been fascinated by human behavior, my own included. I can't imagine that most people aren't. I am not someone who feels that people are basically "good" by nature. I believe most of us want to be "good" (whatever that means to each of us) and see life as a struggle with our own will to overcome personal weakness or frailty or whatever. I haven't met a person yet who was trying to be a worse person than they are. I have been a born-again Christian since 1996 and to me, that system of beliefs best explains this struggle as I see it. I have always viewed this world as being something other than what it was meant to be; that there was something dysfunctional about it and us on a grand scale. Left to our own understanding, I think we come up with all sorts of reasons to explain the workings of the world, but a once-perfect creation, now in an imperfect, fallen state is what makes the most sense to me personally.

Well, actually that was in my pre-ANACRUSIS band called HEAVEN'S FLAME which also featured our MANIC-drummer Chad Smith. It was in that band that we began to tune lower and lower before settling on the drop-B tuning. Musically, that made the most sense and was basically the equivalent of the 7-string guitar, which came along later. I knew nothing really about intonation at the time and just found that acoustic strings held the tension better when tuned down that low. In ANACRUSIS, we used Ernie Ball's "Skinny Top, Heavy Bottom" sets on our guitars and John used the lower 4 string from 5-string bass sets. He eventually got a 5-string bass before we recorded the MANIC IMPRESSIONS album. Because of our tuning, he tuned it normally and thus, had an extra high string, rather than an extra low-b that a standard-tune bassists would have had. In other words, he thought of the low-B as an E, his low-E as an A, etc.

On the 1st album, we used all separate foot-pedals for our FX. On the 2nd album (REASON) and the 3rd album (MANIC IMPRESSIONS) Kevin and I both used a BOSS ME-5. By the last album we had upgraded to ME-10s, but used the effects loop to run through our PEAVEY Roadmaster heads for natural tube-distortion, rather than the transistor distortion built into the pedal-boards.

There are basically 3 guitarists that influenced my style almost entirely. Growing up a life-long KISS fan, ACE was a huge influence on me. We all know he isn't anywhere near the greatest technical player, but I still believe his phrasing is awesome. To me, ACE's solos were always exactly what they needed to be for the song. His solos were often simplistic, but he used things like repetition and 3-over-4 picking style that could make even single notes sound interesting. His solos always seemed very well thought-out. When you heard a KISS song, you always remembered the solo and could sing it back; a song within a song, just like a solo should be. As for his influence, I always used things like unison bends, which I learned from ACE's solos.

The next would be DAVID GILMOUR. What can I say about him that hasn't been said by so many others? Every single note is consistently in the right place. Again, not a speed player at all, but his solo "sing" and have more emotion than anything I heard in anyone else's playing. He has an incredible gift for melody, phrasing and timing. I ripped him off a lot in my solos.

The last would be GARY MOORE. I got into him around the time of his VICTIMS OF THE FUTURE album. I'm not a huge Blues fan, so I especially love his playing from the heavier era of the mid-80s (CORRIDORS OF POWER & VICTIMS OF THE FUTURE). As far as my playing in ANACRUSIS goes, he was probably my biggest overall influence. He can play fast, slow and everywhere in between and his solos are always phrased perfectly for the style of the song. To this day, I consider his solo in the "Shapes of Things" cover to be one of the greatest rock solos ever written (and maybe my personal favorite). To me it is a lesson in how to construct a perfect guitar solo. The re-statement of the vocal melodies, its transitions, a few "flashy" spots thrown in for flare and the way it builds right up to the end are, to me, exactly what a good solo should be.

I got into the recording side of things almost from the time I began playing guitar. The first time I listened to THE WALL with headphones, it just blew my mind. I always wanted to put sounds together and mix things with other things, etc. I often felt like I only wrote music so I could have something to record. When I was 15 or 16, all I could occasionally get a hold of was a cassette 4-track recorder (rented). I was in heaven just being able to play one part and then play another over it, and another. Of course, consideration of the actual sound quality came later on and after every bad recording mistake you could make, you eventually learned a little about how to make a decent demo. I never stepped foot into a real recording studio until we went to Kansas City to record the SUFFERING HOUR album, and even that was an old house converted to a 16-track studio.

The reason I mention all of that is to say that I'm not sure bands have it that much easier when it comes to being able to make a demo or home recording, though it definitely is easier to make a good sounding recording than it was back in the 80s or 90s. You still need someone who has the desire and know-how to understand the fundamentals though. I can't complain, because the new technology allowed me to re-mix our old studio recordings and record the CRUEL APRIL material right at home in my condo.

 That's a very interesting question. I would have to say based on the stuff I heard back then that apparently nothing kept bands from making crappy demos if their heart was set on it. haha

Seriously, there were always less expensive alternatives to going into a studio back then if you knew someone with a little knowledge of 4-track or 8-track recording. Also, every town probably had at least one studio that would let you come in and run through a few songs for a few hundred bucks. That made it relatively affordable for anyone serious enough to pool their cash together. We never did it that way, because I preferred to spend hundreds of sleep-deprived hours in the basement making our crappy-sounding demos.

Early on I mostly copied JUDAS PRIEST, IRON MAIDEN and BLACK SABBATH as far as writing riffs and putting together basic song-structures (just like most other people did). As I began to become bored with the typical arrangements, I turned to other influences. I have always been a "song" person. I need to hear melody. All through those years while I was playing and writing metal songs, I was most often listening to things like THE CURE, KATE BUSH, NEW MODEL ARMY, SIMON and GARFUNKEL, NEIL DIAMOND, etc. I always liked the singer-songwriter stuff and never had a "macho" attitude about whether or not something was "cool" or heavy enough or whatever. I mean, I loved loud guitars and heavy drums and the dynamics of heavy metal, but melodically, it seemed like you either you had to have the range of ROB HALFORD, or the over-the-top operatic style of GEOFF TATE or BRUCE DICKINSON if you wanted to put melody into heavy metal. Otherwise, you'd basically end up with SLAYER or VENOM. There wasn't much in between.

When I heard METAL CHURCH and SAVATAGE, that all changed. I loved their songs and their gruff-but-melodic singing with the screaming mixed in. Those two bands probably influenced my writing more than anyone else in the early-ANACRUSIS days. A few months before I met Kevin and John my old band HEAVEN'S FLAME got to open up for METAL CHURCH on their first tour at a local St. Louis club. DAVID WAYNE (R.I.P.) was my vocal hero at the time and I remember going up to him at the bar after sound-check and asking him to autograph my order-form from the 1st METAL CHURCH album (with the neck-brace). What a voice that guy had. I had nowhere near as good a voice as him, but I sure tried my best to copy him early-on.

I think in many ways that the entire MANIC album is almost like a concept album, lyrically speaking. I hate to ruin anyone's interpretation of our songs, because like I said before, I like to leave that open to the listener, however since you asked…
As far as the 3 songs you mentioned, "What You Became" was basically about a person who makes careless or irresponsible choices that they later come to regret. They wake up later in life and realize that there are consequences to their actions. I saw a lot of that going on around me in my late teens and early-twenties and saw that it was often other people who later got to carry the baggage of someone else's mistakes.

"Our Reunion" is, in general sense, a song about reconciliation. In my case, it was about my father and me. He also played guitar and sang when he was younger and basically gave it up to get married and raise a family. We butted heads a lot when I began to play music and I heard all of the usual parental criticisms about how I was wasting my time and how I should think about learning to do other things for when my music ultimately failed, etc. As I grew older, I realized he was dealing with his own issues and frustration about having given up on music and also that the things he was warning me about were really out of love and concern. Eventually, as I grew older and more mature, I understood these things and it ultimately brought us closer together.

"Idle Hours" was mostly John's song and dealt with the contrast between the peaceful escape found in sleep and the often harsh reality that comes rushing back again once you awaken from that slumber. Conscious misery versus unconscious serenity, you might say.

Ouch. Lindy was my wife at the time and it was definitely written with her in mind. There's no denying that since her name is stamped right on lyric sheet like a bad tattoo. Haha. What can I say? It is the way I felt at the time and meant every word of it. We split up right around the time ANACRUSIS broke up and that was probably my main reason for walking away from music at the time. It was a very rough thing to go through and so much of the band and my music were wrapped around our relationship that I couldn't really see playing some of those songs any more. That is not to say the whole band was about us, but she had been a part of my life almost from the beginning and so that is the way I saw things. I am a person who needs to be inspired in order to play music. Music was never "for fun" for me, but rather was always more of an outlet or means of expression. Unfortunately, at that time, my inspiration was completely zapped and I didn't know what else to do except to start over.

On a positive note, I met someone else right around this same time and we have been together ever since. We will be married 10 years next spring and have a great life together.

13. Many consider Chad Smith to have been the best drummer for ANACRUSIS. From a purely musical standpoint, was he easier or more difficult to work with than Mike (Owen) or Paul (Miles)?
 

There was a very different dynamic with each of the three drummers that played in the band. Mike Owen was there from the very beginning and was a High School friend of Kevin's. He was the Keith Moon of the band and played like a complete madman. Mike is a good guy with a great sense of humor and we had lots of fun with him in the band. He didn't take himself too seriously and he and I would always try to come up with crazy drum parts that were completely out of left-field. We weren't exactly the tightest band on those first two albums, but anyone who saw us live fell in love with Mike's playing just because he always killed himself behind the kit and played his ass off. In 1990 he left the band to go into the Navy, but after he got out he went back to playing around San Diego and Las Vegas and ended up playing and touring with other bands more than the rest of us put together.

Chad and I had been in a band together in High School, so he had always been around ANACRUSIS in the early days. He was familiar with the band and what we were trying to accomplish so when Mike left, he seemed like the natural replacement. We never even tried anyone else out. Chad is the most dedicated musician I have ever known and he would always practice and practice to be better on his instrument. The thing that was great about Chad joining was that it opened so many doors for us musically. Chad could play just about anything I could imagine, and if an idea was humanly impossible, he would change it to make it even better. Even though he was light-years ahead of the rest of the band as a musician, he had a true respect for our music. Chad never tried to step on our toes musically and was happy to make the band tighter and do his very best to play whatever was given him to play. His focus was not on writing, but on performing to the best of his ability. Eventually, money (or lack thereof) became too much of an issue. He had many other opportunities to make money outside of ANACRUSIS and this caused a rift between him and the rest of the band. We decided it would be best for us to find someone who's sole focus was on ANACRUSIS.

Paul Miles, who played on SCREAMS AND WHISPERS was from the local music scene and had played in another local band that we had all liked. Chad suggested that we try him out and he was more than capable of filling the position. Paul probably never got a fair chance to really prove himself since when he came into the band, all of the material for the new album had been written either by me on the drum machine or with Chad while he was still in the band. He came in, learned the parts from the demos and within a few weeks we were in the studio. I'm not sure he was ever fully welcomed into the band and that was both our fault and his. On one had, we may have had an attitude like "you weren't around when we were touring in a broken-down van and playing to 10 people, or recording with no budget, etc" and on the other hand, he really didn't seem to care much about anything that had happened before he joined the band. We basically recorded the album with him, did a couple shows, went on tour for 2 months and then broke up. John and I went to see him play a reunion show a few months ago with his old local band and we all got along great. I have seen him a few times over the years and there have never been any hard feelings. The same goes for Mike and Chad as well.