By David L. Wilson "Carry On Wayward Son," ":Point of Know Return" "Dust in the Wind" Is there need to say more? Not really. Though it is trite to say, the music really does do the talking when it comes to KANSAS and that talking has become a roar in recent months due to the reformation of the group's origional lineup. The result of this renewed colaberation is contained on the progressive rock powder keg KANSAS has to call, "SOMEWHERE TO ELSEWHERE." "SOMEWHERE TO ELSEWHERE" was originally conceived by guitarist Kerry Livgren sans any involvement by the present day KANSAS. To Livgren, though he hadn't been a member of KANSAS for sixteen years, the full power and effect of these compositions could only be felt if the original KANSAS were to record them so, a reunion was born. The entirety of the origional band along with current bassist, Billy Greer, descended upon Livgren's home studio and recorded the tracks that made it to CD. Both guitarists, Livgren and Richard Williams, have described the time that they spent recording this disc as the happiest musical times of their lives and that comes across glowingly on each track. "SOMEWHERE TO ELSWHERE" is a KANSAS album in the tradition of "POINT OF KNOW RETURN" and "LEFTOVERTURE" with shades of "SONG FOR AMERICA" and a thouroghly modern production. Livgren and original bassist, Dave Hope, have commited their lives to their families and no longer tour with KANSAS but Richard Williams is still out there walking the boards and laying down guitar licks that would melt lead every night with KANSAS as special guests of YES as they tour North America. Williams phoned from his home in Georgia just before the tour began and had the following insights into why KANSAS and its music not only survives but prospers into a new millenium. DAVID: Well, there is a new KANSAS record on its way to stores with the original lineup and though I know many fans are beyond excited about that fact, are you? RICHARD WILLIAMS: Yeah, I love it. It is a great record. DAVID: I would have to guess that the fact that this version of the band hasn't been in the same room together for fifteen years it must have been a bit emotional for everyone involved? RICHARD: Yeah. I enjoyed making this album more than any previous one because we just had so many laughs. It was just the best time recording it. It was fun to be able to go back to Kansas because I hadn't spent much time there in a while. DAVID: Where is the band calling home now? RICHARD: We have been based in Atlanta for twenty years now. DAVID: So, you are back in Kansas with Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope. . . RICHARD: Dave was just there for a weekend and he played on two cuts, Billy (Greer) played on the rest. DAVID: Billy has been with the band for ten or fifteen years, hasn't he? RICHARD: Billy has been with us for fifteen years now so, he is the "new" guy but he has been in the band longer than the old guy was! (laughs) DAVID: When you came in to record the record was there a lot of material that had been waiting for this reunion or was this all stuff that was written specifically for this reunion? RICHARD: Some of it was written after we had picked material. Kerry had about twenty songs when Phil (Ehart) and I went up to his studio and we picked ten, Kerry was just on a roll because he had just finished doing a double record of his own and he was still writing. While he was writing he had these songs that he really thought that KANSAS needed to do them and so he put them aside and after we had already picked the material that we wanted he just kept writing and there are two or three songs that he wrote after we picked the material that we wanted. This has all happened really quickly, it was only February that we were listening to the material and now the album is done. DAVID: Who made the first step in bringing the original band together to record this album? Was it KANSAS as it stands now or was it Kerry? RICHARD: Kerry plays with us every time we play in Kansas City and last year he played a show with us and he mentioned that he had some material that he thought we really needed to hear and it was a kind of "let's see what if," you know, that kind of thing. We kept tossing it around as a possibility, I guess, Kerry really opened the door. There never really has been a closed door, I mean, he has submitted material for almost every record that we have done since he left so we have kept in contact but this was never really a planned reunion. "Hey, in twenty-six years let's do an album with the original band." It just wasn't like that and it was just that the right material was in the right place at the right time and the right mood in the band, everything just fell into place. We were all pretty soured by the business end of the record business so we really didn't want to have anything to do with that and we financed the project ourselves. Originally, we were going to be our own record company but he more that we dug into that, the more we found that we knew nothing about it and that is when we got in touch with Magna Carta. They were just the perfect company for us and there has been no pressure from them and all that they want form us is a KANSAS record. There was no, "Hey babe, we need more hits." There was absolutely no pressure on us and that is how we have always worked best, just let me be me. DAVID: When you went to Magna Carta were you at all concerned that you might be cutting off a portion of your audience as Magna Carta is known solely as a progressive rock label? RICHARD: That is what I liked about it. Anywhere else that we have been before, they have not known where to push us. You would have a sales rep that is delivering Rap records, Country and Western records, etc and the only thing that Magna Carta deals with is rock stuff so it is not like they have salesmen out there beating the streets saying, "What do I do with this KANSAS record?" that is a problem with every other record company that we have been with. DAVID: The last record that you did was the symphonic record, right? RICHARD: Yes. DAVID: Was that something that you are happy with now that you have had the time to let it wear on you for a while? RICHARD: It was a lot of fun to do but a lot more work than we could have ever imagined. I am happy with the record and the main reason that we made it, beside the fact that it is something that we always wanted to do, was we wanted to kind of launch a career in doing Symphony shows. We did about twenty or so and it always went well when we did it but we were having a hard time with promoters biting on it. When the MOODY BLUES do it, it is a promoter that does it and it is already a tried and true thing that works but when we were doing it we kind of had to come through the back end. We had to talk Symphony's into hiring us as part of their series and it was just a lot harder to do. DAVID: Did you have to mail them the score for each instrument or did you send them the music as originally played and then they wrote their own scores? RICHARD: Oh, yeah. We have the "A" scores and the "B" scores, depending on how good the symphony is and we have double sets of each in flight cases and we have to fly them in and then the conductor comes in the day before and works with them and then we rehearse with them the day of the show, it is a lot of work but the outcome is really enjoyable. I would like to continue to do some but it is really hard to do if we can't put like ten or fifteen of them in a row. Right now, it is old news to me because of the new record, which is where my priorities are at right now. DAVID: This new record has really ignited a bit of a spark in the Progressive rock community, have you felt that yet? RICHARD: We could not get any press when we did the last album, nobody cared. We are getting more press off of this thing and nobody has even heard it yet, they are coming out of the walls to find out about it. I don't know, this thing is like its own living, breathing thing. DAVID: From the outset you knew that Kerry and Dave would be doing the album but that they wouldn't do the tour, did that concern you at all as far as maybe people being willing to buy the album but not as willing to come out and see the touring band? RICHARD: No. I mean, we have been doing fine since the early eighties without Kerry there live. People already know that Kerry is not going to be playing with us live. Is it possible that he might change his mind and do it (tour) one day? I guess that is within the real of possibilities. I know that he is torn because when he does play with us, he really enjoys it. You see, Kerry is really dug in where he is now and as much as he would want to do it the other side of him is going, "No, you just can't." The fans that know us would really like to see that but they also understand that it is just not going to happen. DAVID: You are out with YES for the summer on a co-headlining tour. . RICHARD: Well, it is not a co-headlining thing, we are more of "special guests." It is definitely a YES tour. DAVID: Well, there are only the two of you so I hope KANSAS will be able to play a bit longer set than most "support acts" would? RICHARD: Yeah, we get an hour. This is a great package. They are very up for it with us and there has been no problem with how much room we were going to have on stage and stuff like that. They have been very easy to work for and that is hard to say for a bunch of Tea Bags!(laughs) I can say that because I am half Tea Bag, my father was English. Their stage manager used to be my guitar roadie so the days of all of the egos and the complications are over, they were over back when we were in our twenties. Now, all we want to do is make the best show possible and to get the best ticket that we can. They are not going to blow us off the stage and there is no way that we will blow them off of the stage, there is no reason to even try. Most people will like everything about the show and it is a lot better than us being out on tour with SAWYER BROWN, which we were offered to do. DAVID: If you had to place this record next to another KANSAS record in terms of sound and style, which would it be? RICHARD: The opening cut is called "Icarus 2" but it sounds nothing like "Icarus." Basically, it is a story. I can't remember the persons name but he was a WWII pilot and during the Battle of the Bulge there was a bunch of American troops that were surrounded behind enemy lines and this one squadron's job was to fly over our troops to the other side and kill the enemy there. Well, they were caught directly over out troops by German fighter planes and they were surrounded and so they couldn't drop their bombs or they would kill al of the Americans. One guy told everybody to leave and run for their lives and he did a suicide mission to draw the Germans away and, basically, he is a hero for what he did and that is what the song is about. People who have heard it have been stunned by it. DAVID: The record isn't out yet so who was lucky enough to have heard it? RICHARD: Oh it was only about fifteen people in Topeka, Kansas and we played two songs for them that were ready to be heard at that time and it was very moving for just a one-time listen. This whole album has got so many great songs. Each song is so unique and different from the other. Robbie sings two songs, Billy has a song that he sings, oh gosh, I am so excited to hear the thing myself!(laughs) It is very much a KANSAS record and I would say that if you could combine "POINT OF KNOW RETURN," "LEFTOVERTURE" and "MASQUE" that would kind of be it, it took the best of those. There are some very unusual and different songs that are not like anything that we have done before but it all sounds very much like us. There are some shorter songs but they are not short because we attempted to go for a single but because that is the life that was meant for them. There are nine minute songs and we really didn't go, "Well, this is getting over seven minutes so lets cut it down" those thoughts never even popped in our heads, the song will be as long as it needs to be. That is something that, in the past. the record business has made us really concerned about, "Will we have to edit all of these down?" Well, no we don't, not this time. DAVID: Was it any different to sit down and write a KANSAS album today than it was twenty-five years ago, before anyone had an idea of what KANSAS should sound like? RICHARD: Individually, everyone is quite a bit different than when we started out but I would say that musically this album is closer to where we were in our hearts at that time than any other album that we have done in our twenty-seven years. I mean, this is very much a "KANSAS" record. Kerry has a digital studio and some people have said that if this record was recorded digitally that they wouldn't even want to hear it. People think of digital music as cold and, I guess, if you don't know how to use it, it is not going to sound good but we brought in an engineer that has been working with digital for years and this album just sounds so good. The engineer on this record worked on "AUDIO VISIONS" and "MONOLITH" and he was in the studio when we did "POINT OF KNOW RETURN," he did Kerry's first solo album and this is a guy that we have known for a long, long time. It was not a compromise to use digital. I am glad that we did it this way because it is the best sounding record that we have ever done. DAVID: What no tape hiss on a KANSAS record?(laughs) RICHARD: (Laughing) No, absolutely none! That and they recorded it as high as they could so it will jump right out of the speakers. DAVID: In all of the prepping that I did for these interviews I hardly ever came across the Name John Elefante, what ever became of him? RICHARD: I don't really follow him much but I do know that he and his brother, Dino, moved to Nashville about seven years ago and they have a studio somewhere South of Nashville. I guess, that it is the most happening studio in the area. It has the biggest room and they seem to be doing really well with it. Meanwhile, he is a Christian solo artist and he just put out a record called, "DIVINE GRAVITY." I don't follow any charts let alone the Christian charts but I heard that he was nominated as "Christian Male Vocalist of the Year." I downloaded some MP3 files of his stuff and it sounded great. DAVID: Was the time that he was the singer in KANSAS a particularly happy time for the band? RICHARD: I wouldn't say happy but it was necessary. Steve walked out the door, literally, the day before we were going into the studio. The studio time was booked, the plane flights were booked and so we took off to make a record with out a singer. While we were doing this we were auditioning singers and we would fly back and forth between Atlanta and Los Angeles and we would do them in studios here and there and we were just like, "OK, next, next, next. . ." I was in Atlanta when John sent his tape doing some KANSAS material and he was great. There were some other interesting people who did apply for the job like Sammy Hagar but John got it. Sammy Hagar would have been great but he is a serious rock and roller and that was not all that we wanted to do. John fit in vocally and with the material that he was writing and he was just better than everybody else was and that is why we picked him. It was a tough couple of records to do because he was a lot younger than us, we were these hayseeds from Kansas and he was from LA and it we just didn't get along. It was not like we got along badly but we were from two different parts of the world. DAVID: In contrast to that, it sounds like you are pretty happy with things now? RICHARD: I have enjoyed making this record so much and the saddest moment was when Phil and I walked into the studio and went, "Now what, we are done?" The experience of making this record was so enjoyable. Being with Kerry and everybody was just, it was easy to fall back into the way things were. I guess that the way things were is the way things are now and that is like having the flame put back into it. Copyright 2000, BallBuster, The Official Int'l Underground Hard Music Report