By David Lee When SLAVES ON DOPE migrated South and West from Montreal to Los Angeles all they had hoped to find was some fame and fortune, pretty naïve but typical of bands that make the journey to California's fame factory. The twist in this rock and roll Cinderella story is that the band pretty much skipped any significant dues-paying and jumped straight to the spotlight courtesy of the most revered name in the business of heavy music, Ozzy Osbourne. Osbourne, it is said, fancied the band so much that he reserved room for them on his annual Ozz-Fest trek despite the band having nothing of significance to promote other than themselves. The faith seems to have been well placed as SLAVES ON DOPE emerged from that tour as one of the most exciting and talked about stories of the summer. Here is a band whose name was virtually unknown and whose music was completely without audience until after their thirty minutes of stage time and still the Ozz-Fest fans mobbed their sets every night. Yeah, there is a buzz around these guys, a buzz like a rusty chainsaw on a high-octane blend. Now, finally, there is an album, also courtesy of the Osbourne empire via their Divine Records label, on store shelves that threatens to break the band in a very big way. "INCHES FROM THE MAINLINE" has a lot of texture to feel out but one thing that it is not is soft, this is a very heavy record with all of the punch of Nu-Metalers like STAIND and the DEFTONES without forsaking the old school groan of SABBATH and PRIEST. Me thinks it'll sell a million copies by next summer when the band should be ready to headline their own theater tours instead of opening them. Frank Salvaggio brushes out tones from his bass guitar so low that he should be on an excavation crew. Popping up for some air recently someone thought to jam a phone into his hand with which he called into the BALLBUSTER offices and offered the following bit of history and philosophy. DAVID LEE: So you are at the end of your day of interviews and I know it has to be feeling like work to you by now? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, but you got to do it.(laughs) DAVID LEE: If you want to keep the sex, drugs and Rock & Roll flowing anyway? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, but take away the drugs and the sex is good!(laughs) We try and enjoy ourselves to the fullest. DAVID LEE: I know, I caught the act at least twice so far but I think both times were before the record came out while you were on the Ozz-Fest. FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, that was like about two months before the record came out. DAVID LEE: Right, right but there was still a good deal of press for you guys despite the fact that there was nothing in the bins to promote so that in itself had to be encouraging? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, it is true. There has been a lot of press on us, MTV and stuff like that. DAVID LEE: DL It probably doesn't hurt that you guys are the first new band on a new label that just happens to be run by Sharon Osbourne either? Actually, let me ask it this way, have all of the daily realities, the press, business dealings and things of that nature, kind of taken you by surprise at all or where you ready for all of this? FRANK SALVAGGIO: I think that this label is on its way to learning the way that we are and, obviously, everybody is taking the steps to make this a big label in the coming years and I hope that it is going to be the same with this band. We are not a band that is going to blow up over night. I think that our success is going to be based on our merits and our own hard work and primarily on going out there and meeting the kids. I mean, we are out there everyday, we can't stop going to meet the fans and signing autographs or just talking. We want to find out what they like and what they don't like about us and all that stuff is what makes this whole operation better everyday. You know what they say, if you are not there the business won't run so this business is run by those who own it, us and we are there doing it everyday. DAVID LEE: DL I have to believe that you probably had other choices as far as record labels that would have offered you a contract, why did you choose Divine? FRANK SALVAGGIO: FS I have got to say that something that we have always been is able to take risks. It is not such a big risk but it is still a risk because major labels were after us and we just decided to go with a label that was ready to listen to us and pay attention to us without having to go through the ranks of fifty or sixty people who had to sign a piece of paper for us to get a dollar. This is a label that has an artist, knows that artist and works that artist, that being Ozzy. Sharon has worked with Ozzy for years and knows the needs of an artist so, we know that as a band we will get our fair shake. You can add those facts to the fact that when we moved to LA we had nothing and that was a big risk so we just felt that we could afford to bank on making the right decision. DAVID LEE: Where did you move to LA from? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Montreal, Canada. DAVID LEE: You will be very well traveled by the time it is all done that is for sure. I am looking at this photo of you guys and recalling some of the lyrics of "Tremolo" and it doesn't seem like you guys would be old enough to be using the dates you use in your lyrics, how old are you all? FRANK SALVAGGIO: It is funny because we all do look young but today is my birthday and I just turned twenty-five. . . DAVID LEE: Happy Birthday! FRANK SALVAGGIO: Thank you, I am the youngest in the band. Rob is twenty-five but he is going to be twenty-six in a couple of months. Kevin is going to be twenty-eight, if I am not mistaken and Jason is about twenty-nine. So, we are all between twenty-five and thirty but we have all tried to stay young in spirit so maybe that is why we look so young!(laughs) DAVID LEE: I also have the album cover in front of me and I can honestly say that I haven't seen better artwork for a record in years, this really is incredible. FRANK SALVAGGIO: Thank you. We get that enough from people that it really does reinforce the fact that we did a good job on it. We just said, "Lets make this a concept, the way that PINK FLOYD would have done it." I am not saying that we did it just like them but we wanted to go back to what the big bands back in the day were doing with album covers as opposed to the new bands that have an image that means absolutely nothing underneath, If I look at twenty out of twenty-one albums, the twenty-first being ours, and they are all the same. A lot of it, I am not slagging them for this but not a lot of thought gets put into it, not as much as we do anyway. We wanted to make sure that what you saw was going to shake you up and make you think a bit and it is doing just that. We also wanted to focus on who we are so when you open up the middle of the booklet you see all of us because we are not a band with two members and some hired guns, it is all us. When you meet SLAVES ON DOPE you meet the four of us. DAVID LEE: When you came together to write for this record did you feel that SLAVES ON DOPE had a well defined identity or is that something that continues to evolve? FRANK SALVAGGIO: We actually realized that we had an identity in the studio. I think that it came with the sound. I think that every band goes through the, "What do you want to sound like" or "what should this sound like?" Eventually, we realized that we only sound like us. We had never realized it until we were at the end of it all and mixing the record and we said, "You know, this might not sound like the best record in the world or the most expensively technical record but it does sound like us." I am proud to be able to say that and it is the same with our image, we are just who we are. DAVID LEE: Is the final product of SLAVES ON DOPE evolved from what the four of you wanted in the beginning? FRANK SALVAGGIO: I don't think that we did and that was the problem for the first two years. I think that we didn't know what we wanted other than we knew that we were devoted and we knew that we were focused but I don't think that we knew who we were just then. We were individuals that wanted to be a band and now we are a band of individuals and to us that makes sense. DAVID LEE: You managed to get placement on the new "BLAIR WITCH 2" soundtrack, which should bring you some great exposure. FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, I think that is a good soundtrack with some very cool bands. I am really happy that we got on that. It was a good song for them to choose though it is not in the movie but it is an upbeat, uptempo kind of song. Some of the other songs on the album are pretty dark, which is cool, but this is a bit of contrast and I think that it works. DAVID LEE: Were you a fan of the first 'BLAIR WITCH " movie? FRANK SALVAGGIO: I just saw it again a few days ago on on HBO or something like that and the end is the creepiest thing in the world. The rest of the movie is, eh, but the end is just, I don't know, the acting is just really good. At first I didn't buy it but now in retrospect I am thinking of it as the beginning of a whole new thing in cinema, these digital movies and shows. I think that it ("BLAIR WITCH") is what motivated all of these kind of shows. DAVID LEE: So, you think that we will go through another faze of independent and low budget productions like we had in the early seventies? FRANK SALVAGGIO: My brother is in the industry, he is working his way in and he is a big ta'do with a company that has a budget for eight of those digi-movies. You will always have the "TRUE LIES" and "TERMINATOR" movies but I think that budgets will noticeably decrease as the years go by but then it will go right back up in ten years or so. DAVID LEE: Kind of like what has happened in the music industry? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, there you go. It wasn't an instant change but in a period of five to seven years band's advances and budgets went way down. DAVID LEE: Here in the States we are all so wrapped up in this election thing, any thought on that? FRANK SALVAGGIO: I am too even though I am Canadian. I have been watching and listening and it seems like some of the pessimists are looking to divide and some other people look at this like it is the perfect balance. How else can you tip the scale? It is perfectly balanced and if you were to take both of the parties on either side you wouldn't even notice it move so I don't know if this is as much of a division as it is a voicing of what this country is all about. People are not really certain of who their leaders should be. There wasn't this big charismatic leader it was just these two average guys who ran and if you put them in front of any ten people five would have voted for Gore and five would have voted for Bush. It looks like Bush will win, barring some big legal fight, but I don't think he is fit. I think that he is shifty as is Gore but at least he had experience in the White House for eight years. I would rather take a guy with experience over a guy that doesn't have it if I am going to hire somebody because he is going to do the job. DAVID LEE: We could get a lot deeper but I am definitely not so forgiving of the whole PMRC thing so Gore can kiss my ass. What about in your country? Your province (Quebec) is somewhat unique in that it is culturally divided and every few years looks like it may declare its independence, where are you on that? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah, that is for sure but that is a different thing on its own. There you are actually drawing the line right down the middle of Quebec, French versus Anglo and Allophones, which means "other." I think that the division there is historical and there is a lot of animosity built up there. If the referendum happens again it will be a big issue between the history of what the French people went through and what the English went through, it is a back and forth thing. I think that is truly a division right there because you have two communities that have to live together but it is two completely different languages. At least in this country we know that there is one language that is universal, English. In my part of the province it is one language, French and English is a second language only whereas here in America it is one language only. DAVID LEE: (Laughing) You obviously have not lived in California long enough! FRANK SALVAGGIO: Still, it is accepted here, it is English and no one cares that there is a Taco place every second corner, it is just another part of the community. It is not a big deal and there is no threat of a referendum or anything like that. DAVID LEE: The record has only been out for a month now and you are doing this tour with CRAZY TOWN but I have to think that you will tour far beyond that for this record? FRANK SALVAGGIO: Yeah. We didn't care what tour that we were going to be on we just wanted to play for the fans. We had the choice of going to Europe as well but we said, "Why go to Europe? We have to stay here because this is where it is going to happen for us." The tour ends December 22nd and then we take a break and go to Montreal for a couple of weeks and then we will probably tour through Canada for three weeks and then we are looking at a couple of big tours, I can't say just yet, but that will be our big four to six week/end of winter tour which will coincide with "Tremolo" going to commercial radio. DAVID LEE: Much has been made of the fact that despite the name you guys don't fool with drugs, care to say why that is such a big issue to you? FRANK SALVAGGIO: I could sum it up to you like this, no one in this band does drugs Our guitar player has a beer once in a while but the rest of us don't drink but we are not preachers or advocates for or against it. Some of our friends do what they do and it doesn't bother us it is just that this is our choice. DAVID LEE: Was it happenstance that the four of you came together with the same opinions on drugs and alcohol or did you each seek out a situation where there would be no drugs and alcohol? FS It helped that we all didn't. It is an influence that we have on each other that is good. We have a great love and respect for each other. http://www.slavesondope.com Copyright 2000, BallBuster, The Official Int'l Underground Hard Music Report