House Of Lords

This "5 and Dime" interview was conducted in person with House of Lords bassist Chuck Wright when his other band Quiet Riot rocked the Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland on May 1, 2005.

Chuck, everybody knows Quiet Riot. Tell me a little bit about the band House of Lords.

House of Lords was put together with Gregg Giuffria and myself in 1988. Gregg called me up and said that Gene Simmons of KISS would sign us to his new custom label with RCA/BMG if we put the right band together so we started hand-picking guys. Ken Mary, the drummer, was playing with Alice Cooper. Guitarist Lanny Cordola was in the last version of the band Giuffria. James Christian was selected as the new singer. We had a lot of success with our first record, between MTV and the big push from RCA/BMG. For our second album, we had business problems with management, and Lanny quit. We added guitarist Doug Aldrich, who's currently in Whitesnake. He did 99 percent of the album and toured with us. We split up after Gene Simmons lost his record deal and things went awry. A couple of years ago, I was able to get a record deal out of Frontier Records, and here we are with a new record. Our sound is progressive melodic rock, with an emphasis on over-the-top musicianship.

Talk about your band's current CD "Power and the Myth." Tell me about its musical direction, where we can hear it, and where we can buy it.

For this new album, we tried to make it sound like we've stayed together all those years. For me, it's hard to go back and write like that. I don't think any more like I did in the 80's. Lyrically and musically, it's a lot more mature. We wanted to finish it sonically, with big background vocals. But we had problems with the record label, and Gregg Giuffria bailed out at the last second. So that aspect of our sound is not present. It's on Cleopatra Records, it's available at Tower Records and through the internet.

Are there any touring plans?

There are no touring plans, maybe a show here and there. This time around it was a studio project. Everybody lives so far away. James is in Florida, Ken is an established producer in Arizona, Lanny's got a myriad of projects, and I'm a full-time member of Quiet Riot.

What does House of Lords have in store for its fans in the next 12 months?

I can't say if we'll even do another record. The label is planning to release a DVD of all our videos. We're negotiating that right now. Some of the videos no one has ever seen, like "Slip of the Tongue," which is an awesome performance-type video. People are really going to dig that one. I'm also putting together a collage/video of all my House of Lords photo albums. That should be fun as well. We have a couple of shows planned for Europe in November 2005.

Feel free to promote anything else you'd like that applies to House of Lords.

You can find House of Lords info on my website, www.chuckwright.com. The back catalog you'll have to track down over the internet.

Please share your thoughts on Dimebag Darrell.

I was not that familiar with Dimebag, but my Quiet Riot bandmates Kevin Dubrow and Frankie Banali knew him well. I was not a fan of Pantera but his murder was horrible. I was touring with Alice Cooper a few years ago, playing in Washington D.C., and the sniper situation at that time was unsolved. We were playing an outdoor venue and Alice was paranoid about it. I've heard David Bowie say that he's afraid of being assassinated. I don't know if that applies to rockstars like it does politicians. Somebody jumped onstage at a Quiet Riot show recently and smashed a beer bottle over their head. People still get a little crazy and concert security will always be an issue.