Interviews – Stan Bush – The Ultimate

Hello and welcome to the latest GeekCast Radio

Network interview. This time around this is going

to be featured on all things Transformers and

GeekCast Radio. I am your host TF2 and Mike.

And joining me is the 35 -year musical prodigy

veterans, Mr. Stan Bush. Hello, sir. Can you

believe it's been 35 years since you started

your career? Yeah, I guess it's been a while.

How's it going? It's going, it's going. And 2014

is the year of the Ultimates because Stan's new

album, The Ultimate, which... drops on St. Patrick's

Day, March 17, 2014. Did you plan it that way?

No, no, it just kind of worked out. I coordinated

with the European partners, you know, the label

there, they were going to put it out. That was

the date they came up with, so we said, okay,

that's the date. Yeah, the sad thing is there's

absolutely no greed in this cover art at all.

Oh, you heard me. That's funny. All right. So

the last time I talked to you about one of your

albums was 2010's Dream the Dream. What has been

going on with you since then? I mean, I know

normally you would tour for each album. When

did the Dream the Dream tour start and end? Well,

the Dream the Dream, let's see, that album, around

that time I performed at the Transformers convention.

and i guess it was 2009 that was actually the

year before dream the dream or the summer before

um yeah since then i've just mainly been performing

around l .a and doing uh you know working on

writing and recording the new album it's been

it's been to a couple of years that we've been

working on it so um my producer holder holder

faf he and i I've been working recording and

writing and so forth. And also I teamed up once

again with Lenny Macaluso, who I wrote the touch

with, you know, Lenny's great. We, we wrote a

bunch of stuff together for the new album. Awesome.

Now you've got the, the ultimate has 11 tracks

to. Two are previously released, and the other

nine are all original to this album. The two

that were previously released was the Heat of

the Battle single and the Touch Power mix. Are

you always doing that? Are you always taking

previous singles and throwing them on to the

next albums? Well, sometimes there's, like, it

seems like there's usually about three years

or so between albums, and, like, Heat of the

Battle was written three years ago, pretty much.

2011. Yeah, I went ahead and put it up on the

website, and we did a video and everything with

it. So anyway, yeah, it was sort of between albums.

We decided to release a single or two just to

kind of keep the momentum going. The other one

that you mentioned, the Touch Power Mix, is in

the last Transformers game, Transformers Fall

of Cybertron. That was sort of the reason we

put that one out. In a partnership deal with

Hasbro, they agreed to allow us to release a

music video containing footage from the game.

Anyway, that came out over the holidays. It's

on my website, so standbooks .com. Very cool.

Um, so what was the, what was the process or

what was the feeling coming off of Dream the

Dream going into writing for this one? What was

the, I mean, most of your themes are upbeat music

and, you know, good messages and everything else.

And that's, that's, that's a great thing that

you do. But what was it between, because Dream

the Dream had a lot of, of slow songs on it.

And this one has maybe one or two, because I've

listened to this last, I don't know. two days

since I got it. So what was the process in going

from Dream the Dream to the choices you made

for this album for songs? Yeah, you're right.

This one rocks more for sure. It just kind of

came out that way. I wanted to make the best

record I could. It's just one of those things.

It's always hard to write good songs. That's

why if you take the time and you really put the

energy in, it works out well in that regard.

The Dream the Dream album, I was happy with that

one too. This one I think is even better. Let's

see, one of the songs, Thunder in Your Heart,

was a song that was released back in the late

80s and it was in a film called Rad. Anyway,

my partner Lenny Macaluso, my co -writer, he

wrote that with... This other person, it was

in that movie. And then what happened was we

did a music video, I'm sorry, a commercial. It

was for a beer commercial for Australia. Carlton's,

was it Carlton's Draft? Yeah, I think so. And

anyway, they needed to replace, it was the original

singer was John Farnham. And I guess they were

having problems with Farnham's manager or something

like that. So they wanted... asked me to sing

a new version for the commercial. And I was like,

wow, this is a great song. So I decided to go

ahead and record it for the new album. So we

did a full version after we had done the commercial.

So that's how that song came about. And the title

song, The Ultimate, Lenny and I wrote that one.

as well as Unstoppable. Unstoppable, we did a

cool patriotic music video. That's on my website

as well. That's just released too last week.

So it's called Unstoppable, and it's a song about,

it's very uplifting. And you kind of hit it on

the head with that positive uplifting, go for

it, sort of believe in yourself kind of deal.

It's, I don't know how that, I think the touch

was the beginning of that stuff for me, and it

seemed like it just kind of stuck. It's like,

to me it's like I don't know I just have this

really optimistic view of humanity and I think

we have amazing amount of power that we don't

even realize you know that you can you can make

you basically make your own reality in the world

and I mean I've had a good run I've had a great

career and singing a lot of big stuff and films

and TV and commercials and what not and making

a bunch of records it's very cool it's To me,

it's like, I don't know, I'd rather sing about

something positive and, you know what I mean,

and just try to be a force for good in the world,

you know, as much as possible. Oh, yeah. Oh,

yeah. And I mean, you know, some of the other

tracks on here, let's see. So, you know, you

mentioned Stand in the Fire, Thunder in Your

Heart. I also like The Journey. I actually did

an experiment with this album. as far as how

I listened to it. I listened to it all 11 tracks

straight through, and then I took out Heat of

the Battle and The Touch because I had already

heard them. You already knew those songs. I already

knew those songs. So I wanted to hear the album

without them because when I imported this into

my iTunes and I created the playlist for just

this album, I didn't even look at the... I didn't

even really look at the track listing that well.

So I'm sitting here listening to this, and I

listen to the first two songs, and I'm like,

okay, this is cool, you know, something to believe

in the ultimate, that good, slightly different,

and that's good for what you had did on Dream

the Dream for the first two tracks. And then

I get to Heat of the Battle, and I'm like, hey,

wait a second, I heard this already. So what

I did was I unselected Heat of the Battle and

The Touch just to see how the album would play

without them. And it plays really well. But at

the same time, now that I've heard it all the

way through with all 11, I'm like, okay, well,

I'll leave them in. Yeah, yeah. Because it does

make a whole package. But I was just like, I

was, because I don't know what I was expecting

out of this. I was expecting something that was,

you know, that stayed true to your style, which

it does, and something that was slightly different.

I don't know if I would... I might actually try

this next time. I might put Heat of the Battle

at the end with the touch to see how well...

I don't know, I just... It's just a play -around

thing for me. I guess it changes your perspective

if you already know the song. It's funny because

I hadn't listened to Heat of the Battle in a

long time, like a year or two, and then I put

it on. It's like, wow, this thing rocks, you

know? Yeah, it does. It is a very good song.

Yeah, it is a very, very good song. We remastered

it, too, so it's pretty slamming, you know, and

it really adds to the album. But, yeah, I'm really

happy with the whole thing. Stand in the Fire,

like, totally rocks. It's a cool thing. I really

like it. The other thing, too, that I do a lot

of times in songs is change keys so it doesn't

stay sort of the same key all the way through,

like the chorus will lift and change into a different

sort of modulate. I like that. I think it's effective.

It makes it, to me, musically more interesting.

Right. Yeah. Right. I think... And I know I just

said I've been listening to this thing for two

days, and you'd think I'd know off the top of

my head. I think, is it in the Ultimate that

you have kind of the military march, or is it

in Unstoppable? No, it has the, you're right,

the Ultimate has the military march thing at

the end, yeah. Yeah, I love that. I thought that

was great. I was like, that was something I was

not expecting at all out of that song. I started

listening to it, and I'm like, okay, this, hey,

wait a second. No, that, it's... Thank you. That's

a really cool thing. Like, back in the 70s, I

remember there would be, like, songs, first of

all, every song wouldn't be three minutes long,

three or four minutes long. Back then, you'd

have five -minute, six -minute songs, and sometimes

they would go off and do some trippy musical

thing or, like, cool segues. Music was more sort

of open, you know, then. I really miss that,

you know. You can do kind of cool little interlude

things. you know, trippy things that, uh, that

make a song special, you know, and, uh, I like

that. Now there is, and I don't, you'll, you'll

have to remind me here. Cause again, I don't

remember which track it was on, but, um, there's

a track on here where your voice sounds like

you're talking through an auto tuner. Now I know

you don't use auto tune and you don't like auto

tune, but what track was that? You did. I know

it sounds like a loud speaker, like a megaphone.

It's, uh, that was on memory of you and that's

uh yeah that's like a flex effect they call it

in film and and whatever they call that's the

word this but it's like it sounds like a megaphone

you're basically uh um you you talk oh yeah that's

uh that was a kind of a cool effect like the

guys dreaming about um this girl and uh anyway

it made it made kind of a neat thing and a break

it was like a breakdown kind of part in the song

Yeah, I mean, it was cool. It just, it was, again,

it's something I was not expecting out of you,

because to me, because we've all seen what autotuners

do, you know, and autotune, in my mind, is probably

one of the worst things musicians can do nowadays,

but it's a gimmick, and sometimes people need

gimmicks. But I heard that, and I was like, whoa,

wait a second here. Let's talk about the album

art. How did you come up with this design for

the album? That was created by this artist in

Italy. He's really good. Nello is his first name.

I don't know how to pronounce his last name,

Del Omo or something like that. Anyway, Nello's

great. He came up with the artwork and created

it and everything. I'm trying to remember the

name of his company. Anyway, you can look on

the album cover. But yeah, he's absolutely great.

He came up with this album cover design. I was

like, whoa. He's like, yes. So I immediately

loved it. He's a good friend, too. You've got

the... the sky in here you've got the eagle which

is kind of funny because you mentioned the eagle

in a couple of the songs and um what uh is this

is this cover supposed to be like a sequel to

dream the dream because i noticed that you use

red again and you also use i don't know if it's

the same uh character model But it almost looks

like... I'm looking at the Dream the Dream cover

and the Ultimate cover. It almost looks like

it's the same woman in that red cloth. Yeah,

it's the same guy who did both covers. It might

be a style thing pertaining to him. But yeah,

it does. It has a really neat look to it. It's

sort of like surreal. It is very surreal. Yeah,

it is very surreal because... When I first looked

at this at a distance, I was like, hmm, okay,

she's in a house. And then I looked at it close

up and I'm like, oh no, that's a road. That's

like going from inside out. I was like, oh wow,

that is so cool. Yeah, and if you look closely,

I think the girl is Asian. Oh, is she? I believe.

Yeah, she might be. All right. What are the plans

for promoting The Ultimate right now? Well, I'm

going to do in Chicago, October 3rd, there's

a festival called Melodic Rock Fest, and I'm

going to be performing at that in Chicago. October

3rd is the night I perform. It's a weekend -long

festival with several bands, but anyway, that'll

be the Friday night that I'm headlining. uh,

that, that night. So that's coming up. And then

I, there's a possibility of a show in LA here

in the summer. And, but I can't tell you anything

definitive about that. I already know. I already

know what show it is in LA. Yeah. I think, you

know, But I can't say yet. Yeah. I may know,

like, in the next couple days even, you know,

it's going to come down pretty quick. Right.

I will let you know. Would you be doing Heat

of the Battle there, or would you be doing Unstoppable,

or? Probably both, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like, those

people normally call you up. Do they specifically

ask for the certain theme songs of those? I'm

trying to dance around this so you don't have

to ask, because I know who it is. Yeah. Do you

give them a set list, or do they request certain

things out of you? No, I can do whatever songs

I want. But one thing I... Definitely could not

perform anywhere, anytime without doing is to

touch. I would be tarred and feathered if I didn't

do the touch. Yeah, yeah, probably so. All right,

so outside of those shows, what else is coming

up for you? Let's see. Basically just promoting

the album. I've been doing a lot of interviews,

and the reviews are really good on it. Yeah,

in Europe, the pre -sales have gone well, and

everything's going great. My European partner,

it's through Melodic Rock Records, and melodicrock

.com is this famous website, pretty much the

go -to site for this kind of music, melodic rock

music in the world. And this guy, Andrew McNeese,

is... He's the one who I've kind of partnered

with in this whole venture for the overseas stuff.

Of course, it's in the U .S. It's out on LA Records,

my own label. Anyway, yeah, but it's going good.

Like I said, the release is tomorrow with St.

Patrick's Day. Very cool, very cool. All right,

how was the... How is the release happening?

Are you putting it just on your website? I assume

you'd put it on iTunes. How is that working for

you? Yeah, it's through CD Baby and iTunes. It's

on iTunes. A number of independent sites are

also going to be listing it for sale. And, of

course, it's available on my website, nbush .com.

Right, right. Yeah, and, of course, on iTunes.

Very cool, very cool. All right. What's next

after promoting The Ultimate? Well, we'll just

see what happens. Like I say, I'm going to continue

to perform and record and write. It's sort of

one of those things where, you know, if it's

in your blood, you have to do it. Yeah, exactly.

But it's going great. Life is good, you know.

I got no complaints. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah,

I'm still waiting for that recreation for Dare.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. So, yeah, you

can check out The Ultimate on Stan Bush's website,

stanbush .com. You can follow him on Twitter

and Facebook. All the links will be in the post

for the interview. Stan, thanks so much. I'll

ask you to hold the line, and I'll be back after

this. folks, that was Stan Bush here on the Geekcast

Radio Network once again here in 2014. His new

album, The Ultimate, hits on March 17, 2014.

Go get it, folks. It's rocking. It's awesome.

I'm TFG1 Mike. Unleash the geek in you.