Says American Armenian rock musician and composer Derek Sherinyan in his exclusive interview given to 168 Hours newspaper
American Armenian rock musician and composer Derek Sherinyan is paying a visit to Armenia during these days. He has played with rock stars. For example, he has played with Alice Cooper. Derek has played Progressive metal with the Dream Theater and participated in recording the best 3 albums of the band, and almost 400 concerts. The first attempt of his solo career, the Planet X album, became famous with the creation of a band with the same name, which was followed by recording of five CD’s. After that Derek recorded 7 more solo albums. He has worked with famous musicians such as punk rock singer Billy Idol, Slash from the Guns N’Roses band, guitar virtuoso Yngwie Malmsteen. Now Derek Sherinyan is leading the Leopard Room recording studio, helping to discover talented young musicians.
– Will you tell us a little about yourself? Where were you born? Where did you start your career?
– I was born in the US, State of California. In our house there was always a piano, and I started my career in music from childhood playing on the piano. When I was 5 my mother hired a piano teacher and I started attending piano classes. This is how my career in music started. In elder classes at school I was playing rock and dreaming of becoming a rock star. Then I entered one of the best music colleges in America.
I was lucky as in 1989 I received a cooperation offer from Alice Cooper and I was involved in two world tours with them, which was followed by two albums in 1989 and 1991. I have played with the legendary Kiss group in 1992 and so on. Now I am feeling myself like blessed because I am in Armenia; my music but nothing else brought me here. Do you understand me? No one from my family has been here in Armenia. It is my pleasure to come here to Armenia, meet my friends and people generally.
– Do you know that there is a wonderful story about your grandmother, her brave struggle against Turks? Will you tell us about that story?
– My grandmother’s mother, Elisabeth, lost her husband during the Genocide. When Turks killed almost all men in the village, women had to take weapons and fight. I have a picture, in which Elisabeth is with a weapon in her hands after a fight. At that time my grandmother was two-three years old. A close friend of our family promised to take the child, i.e. my grandmother, out of Turkey and take her to America, Boston, where some friends would take care of her. However, that man sold my grandmother to a very rich Armenian family in Boston. Later Elisabeth could escape from the Genocide and after searching for her child, i.e. my grandmother for many years she found her. The story of my grandmother touches my heart, her braveness always gives me courage and I have even written a song about her and entitled it “Prelude to Battle”. There were Armenian sounds in the music and I asked Jivan Gasparyan to cooperate with me and he accepted my offer with pleasure.
– What do you think, what should be done to develop progressive rock in Armenia? Do you know about the situation of rock in Armenia?
– I think there should be many shows in Armenia and many groups should come to perform in Armenia. That will be positive for the development of rock in Armenia. Contact and exchanging information with other countries will bring active life to Armenia. I know Armenian musicians and I am proud of the work the guys from the System of a Down are doing. I am very excited about cooperation with Dorians group. When I was invited to cooperate with that group and when for the first time I heard the voice of the group’s vocalist Gor; that was really fantastic. He has a very strong voice and the group is unique as well. On September 10 Dorians will have a great concert in Armenia, which will be the first attempt of cooperation between the group and me. It will be the beginning of our cooperation. If everything goes smoothly, I want to help the Dorians to perform out of Armenia as well. Our next step will be a concert in Los Angeles.
– Do you see yourself as their producer? How do you imagine your future career? Within the group, alone or as the group’s producer? We wonder as well if there may be any changes in your music style.
– I like playing, I like being producer as well. I don’t think I may want to go for concert tours in the world n the age of 60. I have my own recording studio and I think I will be dealing with music. Concerning the point of changing my music style, I always change it but always the style is around rock because rock is in my blood, but sometimes they transform into different styles – sometimes hard rock, sometimes progressive, and sometimes it is being close to jazz. I like the mix of the styles; there are no specific rules in music.
– What do you dream about?
– My dream… Right now I am sitting in my hotel room and looking at Ararat mountain, I want to the mountain to return back very much; I want our lands back. And my dream at this time is to organize a powerful concert with all rockers dedicated to the 100th year of the genocide, organize a concert in Armenia in 2015. My dream is also to see the Genocide recognized both by Turks and the world. I go crazy when I look at the mountain.
Lusine MOVSISYAN
P.S. Derek Sherinyan also wrote a note for the readers of 168 Hours as it follows: “Derek Sherinyan: It is so good to be in Armenia”