Music Interview: Warrant out for the real Warrant

By Colin Flynn

Amid a slew of bands from the ’80s, all sounding the same, there was a band a little louder than the rest–Warrant. With a few hits, particularly the band’s claim to fame “Cherry Pie”, they distinguished themselves from the other popular hair-metal acts. But the scene of musical sameness Warrant rose up in looks very much like the current music scene.


“There are a lot of cookie-cutter bands now,” sighs Joey Allen, lead guitarist for the group. “There doesn’t seem to be any development put into artists. Accountants and lawyers are running the industry.”


Today’s bands have forgotten why they took up music in the first place–to have fun.


“Getting back into the studio and jamming, I realized how much fun it was,” says Joey. “This is the first time that four original members of the band have been together since Warrant first started. The tour is doing better than we ever could have imagined.”


They may have broken attendance records in clubs, previously held by Van Halen, but Warrant plays with the same heart and enthusiasm wherever they are. “Smaller venues are more intimate and louder because of the enclosed space. It’s all the same, this year we’ve played for crowds of three or four hundred all the way up to 48,000.”


When former frontman Jani Lane left for a solo career, band members Erik Turner and Jerry Dixon called up an old friend, Jaime St. James of ’80s rock band Black N’ Blue.


“Fans are responding really well to Jaime,” says Joey. “I mean, the guy’s got some pretty big shoes to fill and he’s doing a great job. Fans are being perceptive that he is Jaime and are being receptive to the fact that he’s singing his ass off. After all we’re not the Brady Bunch!”


With Jaime St. James Warrant on board and some of Black N’ Blue’s songs added to the set list, all these new additions have fans wondering if Warrant will make some changes to the record industry once more. Assures Joey, “We are absolutely working on new material. We never did really do a follow up album to Cherry Pie. We have been in the studio for the past four or five months and we hope to have a new album out in the spring of 2005.”