American spirit: Legendary rock band to perform at The Palace
Matt Sayles
Dewey Bunnell, left, and Gerry Beckley, of the band America, perform at The Society of Singers’ 21st ELLA Awards on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014 in Beverly Hills, Calif. The event honored Mike Love, lead singer and co-founder of The Beach Boys, producer Nigel Lythgoe, and backup singers The Waters Family. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for The Society of Singers/AP Images)
Submitted photo
The classic rock band America will take to the stage at The Palace Theatre in Greensburg 7 p.m. March 26. Tickets start at $39 and can be purchased online at thepalacetheatre.org or by calling the box office 724-836-8000.
Tara Rack-Amber|Herald-Standard
In 1971, three young Americans, Dewey Bunell, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek, who met during high school in London, England during their Air Force fathers were stationing, released their first, self-titled album, “America.”
This album featured hits such as “I Need You” and “Horse with No Name.”
The band would go on to have an illustrious career that spans decades and has produced numerous albums and garnered the group not only a 1972 Grammy for Best New Artist, but also a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
After Peek left the band in 1977, Bunell and Beckley continued as America and are still currently touring the globe including an upcoming performance at The Place Theatre in Greensburg March 26.
Before heading out on tour, Bunell had a one-on-one conversation with GO! Magazine about their upcoming tour, their most recent album release and the genesis of the band.
This is an excerpt of the conversation. Hear the full interview in the podcast ‘GO Q&A with Tara Rack-Amber’ at heraldstandard.com.
Q: ”Lets get started from the beginning. How did you guys meet and how did America come about?”
A: “It was a long time ago now, but we met about 1967 in high school in London, England. It was an American High School there. Our fathers were in the Air Force. We were originally a trio back then. It was myself, Gerry Beckley and Dan Peek. So we were like the Three Musketeers in high school. And there were bands formed at the school and we would play at the teen club and so on. That is how we became friends and graduated from high school in 1969 and everybody went their separate ways for a little while, but we came back together within six months and the three of us has been individually writing songs. And so basically our high school band morphed into America right then and there.
“In 1970 and we just had a whirlwind, lucky if you will, everything just fell into place for us in London as these American teenagers. We were literally 18, 19 and 20, I think, years old and we were able to make some contacts, meet some people and play some small events and one thing led to another and we were discovered if you will.”
Q: ”Back whenever you were first starting out and writing your songs, who were some of the band’s earliest musical influences?”
A: “Well, the fact that we three had come from different places in our American youth, our dads were stationed at very different bases, we all had different influences at least geographically. Myself I played a lot of surf music in the early 60s when I was first learning guitar like age 12 or something. So, my early influences were like Dick Dale & The Del Tones and the Safaris and the Ventures, instrumental surf music, just to learn to play guitar. Before that even, as a child we were exposed to the 50s music, I guess. I remember my parents saying I sang ‘Hound Dog’ when I was little and my parents were music appreciators and they would play lots of music around the house and a variety of things from Andy Williams to Johnny Mathis and 50s music.
“But, then when I seriously became interested it morphed from the surf music to The Beach Boys, of course which was surf music, but now it was getting into lyrical things and vocal harmonies. And basically Gerry and Dan were exposed to the same things. Then The Beatles came along and every teenage guy wanted to be one of The Beatles and it got serious with the singer songwriter concept, with this thing about writing your own music. We had had a pretty solid high school band that could play Top 40 stuff and were able to add current music to our set to play for teen clubs, and you know, we played at the prom even. We were accomplished enough to do that, but the real catalyst was original material and that is what got us going in London after high school.”
Q: ”You were the song writer for one of America’s most popular songs, ‘Horse With No Name,’ how did the idea for that song come about?”
A: “Well, living in England it was rainy and dreary and I had spent time with my family and my Uncle’s family in the southwest of the U.S. so I had been exposed to the desert theme if you will. I love the desert. I love nature in general. I am a big outdoors guy. So in England that was something I was longing for, reminiscing about. I wrote that song in an afternoon about the sights and sounds of the desert with a little environmental message about trying to save the planet and nature, but it wasn’t a message song per say. To me it was just a horse was a vehicle to get out in desert and observe the sights and sounds there of. The heat was hot (he said with a laugh).”
A: ”Now this song was also re-envisioned by Michael Jackson on his posthumous album ‘Xscape.’ How did this kind of happen?”
Q: “Those are the kind of things that are basically out of our hands. Any artist will tell you it is a real honor and flattering to have your music performed by other artists or used in TV commercials and films and we have been fortunate that happened. With the Michael Jackson project we heard about it, this has been years ago now, we heard about it a couple years after he had even done it. It some how surfaced as a song that was in the can. Michael Jackson worked a lot all the time with different people and things. We had already had Janet Jackson do a song that was based on a song “Daisy Jane,” a song Gerry wrote. And this thing was called “A Place with No Name” was essentially “Horse with No Name” with new lyrics if you will, but with Michael Jackson’s stamp all over it. We thought it was a curiosity if anything, like a novelty and it was interesting. But, when he passed away of course all that stuff was unearthed, his archives and his catalogue of unreleased material and that was in there. It subsequently came out on the album, ‘Xscape.’ Flattering and interesting and really poignant. If you listen to the lyrics, cause it was coming out when he passed away, it has kind of an eerie lyrical line about going to someplace with no name. So it was poignant in that respect, after the fact of his passing.”
Q: ”You were talking a little bit about the different albums that America has released, and recently you released a collection of songs “Lost & Found.” Can you talk a little about that?”
A: “That is what I alluded to. We don’t record as much, obviously. We don’t have a permanent record deal and things like that, we used to be signed for seven years to Warner Brothers or five years to Capital and so on. So, it is sporadic recording projects now. Gerry records a little bit more, I have to say, he has some solo projects that come out and independently released and things. So, to answer your questions we did go back into our own archives to review a bunch of songs we had recorded and projects from the late 90s into the early 2000s and we found a lot of songs we had done that had not made the cut. You know on a 10 song CD or something they would have been cuts 11 and 12. They just didn’t make it.
“We reviewed them and thought, you know, our fans, ourselves included, we still thought there were some good songs in there, especially after reviewing them after 10 years,12 years, whatever it has been. So we just put those, we sat down and sifted through a bunch of them with our friend Jeff Larson. I have to give him a nod, he has just been great at sort of harvesting stuff out of old hard drives, and old tapes, and we just put them together and sequenced them into a project that we thought held together nicely and put it out as ‘Lost & Found.'”
Q: ”So talking about the show in Greensburg, when fans go to attend the show on March 26 at The Palace, what can people kind of expect?”
A: “Well, In a nutshell we do about a 90 minutes. It is certainly based solidity around our 70s/ 80s music. We have a five piece band. We have a great bass player, Rich Campbell, our drummer Ryland Steen. Ryland Steen and Andy Barr are our two newest members to the band. We’ve always had a solid five piece band that was, our drummer and lead guitar player had been with us for 40 years, and they retired two years ago. So we’ve had a couple of newer replacements. Ryland Steen came out of a band called Reel Big Fish and Andy came out of a band called Cobra Starship. They are younger guys, mid-thirties, they are great. They really gave us a new shot of life up there on the show. And Rich Campbell on bass guitar, who has been with us for many years, so that five pieces.
“We also have a lot of video enhancements on certain songs, which lifted the experience of the show greatly. I think in the last, oh it has been six or seven years that we have had the video behind us. Presumably that will be at the Palace Theatre. Sometimes the facilities can’t accommodate our video, but I am sure they will.
“So, it is an hour and a half, most of that stuff, we do some cover songs, we have been doing, we’ve got a new song, well not a new song, but every year we pull some songs from albums that haven’t seen the light of day for decades, so we are doing a song called “Monster.” We do “California Dreamin'” that we have done for years because we recorded that for a film years ago.
“Anyway, I am very proud of our show and our band. It is very tight, very professional.”
Q: ”So, what does the future hold for America?”
A: “Well, nobody knows the future, but we are continuing this. We love taking the music to the people, that is the most hands on you can get in this business. Regardless, what you can do in the studio to fix music, or with video, or airbrushing photographs, or you know, tweaking your bios. The real deal is live music, in front of real people, with real instruments. So that is what we do. That is 90 percent of what we do in this stage of our career. But, there is always sidebar projects going on. Gerry is always writing. I’ve got a few irons in the fire with regard to a new release.
“It always used to be just that, you make an album, you go on tour. You make an album, you go on tour. That is what this job is all about. Maybe you do a TV show. Maybe you are part of a video; we didn’t do a lot of videos. We never really have.
“So our future is this live show, predominantly with the potential for a new release later in the year, maybe another “Lost & Found II” with some new works that we are working on now.
“But, in a nutshell that is what this business is about.”