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Mark Kendall
TWO POINT ZERO |
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Admittedly not a very “forward” but “more of a quiet and shy
person” the mysterious Great White guitarist comes out from
behind the shadows and his black sunglasses and takes center
stage on his first solo album Two Point Zero showcasing his
voice and his writing talents in addition to his signature
bluesy guitar groove that has drawn influence from the likes of
Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Buddy Guy, and
many other guitar greats.
Guitarist Mark Kendall hadn’t been doing much musically aside
from the Station Fund benefit tour and a few scattered tour
dates with Great White. But, after just sitting on the couch
with his acoustic guitar while watching TV, the songs just
started coming to him, and before he knew it he was recording
them -- first with a tape recorder and then in the studio.
“I didn’t have plans for a record or anything, but I started
coming up with some ideas … I started just picking around and it
started sounding interesting so I started grabbing cassette
tapes…everything kind of fell together…the songs started to come
and everything else developed almost by accident,” he explains.
Intrigued by the idea of having control over the entire
production of an album, and taking on the challenge of singing
and playing guitar, Kendall found it much easier to get his
ideas to see the light of day while working on his solo album
than in the past with Great White. In fact, he notes that if he
hadn’t recorded some of his ideas in the studio before
presenting them to the band, some songs he’d envisioned like
“Congo Square” probably wouldn’t have made it onto an album --
partly because of his easy-going personality and partly because
his ideas would often get lost in translation, when presenting
them to the band in a raw format.
“When you are in a band format and you have a lot of other
input, you do a lot of sacrificing and compromising at it. It’s
kind of neat to do something on your own, you can get all of
your ideas in…and I was pretty happy with it,” says Kendall.
“Like sometimes I hear the whole orchestration of the song, and
I know it’s a really good song but when I present it as just a
raw idea, they don’t hear what I hear. I’m picturing the whole
big picture…I didn’t have to deal with any of that when I did
the solo record. I knew what I wanted…that’s kind of a neat
thing when even if you are wrong it doesn’t matter cause you’re
still going to do it,” he later added.
Luckily for fans, Kendall says that after a lot of healing,
therapy, and most importantly being able to help the victims and
the families of the victims of the Rhode Island fire, he did
start to feel inspired again when he started writing this solo
album.
“I was really starting to feel inspired again, picking up my
guitar, where as before, I couldn’t even play it. I didn’t even
take it out of the case for four months after that tragedy.
Anyways, I guess everybody has to move on, I mean, you’ve got to
at some point.”
As far as the recent tragedy in Rhode Island influencing his
writing, Kendalls says that it was not intentional.
“When I look at it now, maybe there are a few lyrics that maybe
kind of indirectly pertain to that. You hear a little bit of
healing, you hear me talking about the lord a little bit. I
didn’t sit here when I wrote lyrics writing about Rhode Island
or anything, but they say ‘whatever’s inside you comes out’. I
hear a little bit of that. It’s a little bit of healing on the
record I think.
Like even “Where the Lovers Go” it kind of reminds me of when I
was so upset by everything and going through everything, you
feel trapped, and it’s almost like a world you want to escape.
And you just want to go somewhere where everybody’s just loving
everybody…When I look at that song, I think that maybe I was
thinking along the lines of all the fellowship that we’ve gone
through with a lot of the surviving victims and stuff like that,
and that made me feel really good. But I didn’t sit and write
like that. I wasn’t writing for the tragedy but I do see that
now that I look back.”
With Great White vocalist Jack Russell’s latest release For You
taking on more of an easy listening feel, and Mark Kendall’s
first solo release taking the form of a straight ahead rock and
blues influenced album, most fans are bound to wonder if the
next time they record together, the duos softer side will shine
through again, but Kendall says that definitely won’t be the
case. His explanation was simple, they should be different if
they are going to be solo albums.
“We’ll probably be writing a slamming rock record. That’s just
part of Jack. I think all singers really want to sing songs that
showcase their voice, and that doesn’t always entail screaming
and yelling. When I first met Jack in was in a band that was
kind of like a YES/Genesis deal, so he has that element. So when
he went off to do his own solo thing, it turned out a little bit
mellower and I just think that’s a lot of his roots and a lot of
his influences…I have some mellow stuff on my album too, you
might hear a little bit more edgy things because I’m influenced
by those type of things -- like a lot of guitar players from the
past.”
Mark Kendall can be found touring with Great White this summer,
in the meantime be sure to check out his new release Two Point
Zero. More information about the album can be found at
http://www.bigfinmusic.com. Also be sure to check out our
latest interview with Jack Russell, and a concert review from a
recent Great White performance in Burgettstown, PA. |
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