Dean: Yeah, life got in the way.

Isn’t it terrible when that happens?

Dean: Bills. You have to pay the bills.

Mike: Reality.

Bills and reality. What made you guys decide to get back into the fold again?

Mike: We’re just all friends. We still talk all the time and we just thought it would be good to collectively do something with our talents that we have gained over the years. Why the hell not?

Dean: Life’s too short.

Yes, life is too short. So the whole original lineup is back together?

Mike: The original four guys. We’ve always had bass players that came and went but the original four guys are me, Geoff, Carey, and Dean. We’ve had a few bass players before Paul. Actually Matt Hurich who was on the first record wasn’t even the original.

You’ve had a Spinal Tap of bass players.

Mike: Well, Paul’s a great guy but he’s in Colorado and we’re in California. It’s hard to get together and write a record.

Dean: He’s got bills too. A mortgage.

Mike: Reality set in again.

That damn reality. Tell me how you guys first met up and formed Leatherwolf.

Mike: Actually this is funny. I wouldn’t be surprised if today was the 25th anniversary. It was in 1982 that we had our first show at Woodstock. February 12th or something like that. It was somewhere around Valentine’s Day. I was a senior in high school. That was our first club date but we played a lot of backyard parties before that. We played backyard parties. That was the thing in the early ‘80s. People opened up their backyards and got a keg and just went crazy. We would play anywhere. Set up in somebody’s backyard and play every Friday and Saturday. Sometimes three or four nights in a row. Or two different parties on a Friday. That’s how it started out. We started out as a cover band playing Judas Priest covers and Iron Maiden and Scorpions. We always had a few originals but we never really had a solid singer. I was just the guitar player when we first started and we just had a lot of instrumental originals. We had a lot of songs that were just instrumentals. We knew someday it would evolve into an all original thing but we were just having fun and taking our time with it I guess you could say. We were living for that moment.

They don’t seem to have backyard parties going on anymore.

Mike: Yeah.

It’s hard to get something like that going.

Mike: It’s the communities. People don’t really like heavy metal bands playing in backyards.

Dean: It doesn’t go over with the Homeowners Association too well.

Those people just aren’t any fun.

Mike: I’ve been to a few lately. Matter of fact didn’t you guys film the “Behind The Gun” video in a backyard?

Dean: The cops showed up. Mike: They were cool.

Did you include them in the video?

Mike: We’re trying.

Do think they’ll go for it?

Mike: Well, we’ve got them on film. We just haven’t come up and edited it together yet.

I can’t wait to see that one. You guys came out with a new record called World Asylum. Tell me a little bit about it.

Mike: That’s a good record.

Dean: We were once again in the singer issue. Looking for a singer. Mike was busy taking care of his life so we found Wade Black who is a good singer to come in and sing the songs. Geoff and I pretty much wrote most of the vocals but it was an interesting record. It took us about a year and a half to do it. A couple of different guitar players. A couple of different bass players. Geoff played bass on the record on four or five of the tunes. It’s my first time engineering a record and recording. Really an interesting experience for me learning how to get tones and make a record sound halfway decent.

So it’s the first time you guys got behind the soundboard.

Dean: Yeah, we didn’t mix it. We went to Denmark. Jacob Hansen who is a killer engineer put the icing on the cake for that particular puppy.

Why did it take a year and a half?

Dean: Well, we had to work every day. We hold day jobs.

Life got in the way again.

Dean: Well, not really. Life was fun, work was work, and music was music. It was nice to work and then be able to be creative.

That’s the way I feel too. I have a day job and then when I come home I do my webzine.

Mike: That particular point in time, I wasn’t really able to participate in the project so it took them a little while to find somebody who was capable to pull it off and do the vocals on it. I’m looking forward to doing a new Leatherwolf record though.

Why did you decide to return to Leatherwolf?

Mike: It’s like a bad cold. You can never get rid of it. I just really respected the product they put out. The World Asylum record was really good and Dean’s turning into a great engineer. Just working with Dean and Geoff, we’ve known each other going on 26 or 27 years so it’s a natural thing.

Isn’t it wild to sit there and think about knowing someone for almost 30 years?

Mike: Yeah, some of us have changed, some of us are the same.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Dean: It’s probably a little of both.

Dean, tell me why you decided to take part in the engineering part of the record.

Dean: It’s all we could afford. The funny thing is it really started out to be a demo to get a record deal so we could go and get a deal and then go into the studio and do a record. It just never happened. The singer that we got to do demos didn’t fly so me and Geoff just decided to stop making demos and just make a record. So we pulled out Pro-Tools for idiots and figured out how to use it on a couple of mics and bam.

Did you guys manage to sign with anybody?

Dean: We have a deal in Japan and a deal in Europe. One with Massacre Records and one with King Records in Japan.

Have you found anybody here?

Dean: Not yet.

I wonder why it’s so difficult to find record deals here.

Mike: I guess we’re not 25.

Dean: We won’t sign our lives away for pennies.

Tell me about three or four of the songs on the record that you like a lot.

Dean: Which ones do you like?

With me, I either enjoy the entire record or I don’t. I thought it was a really rocking record.

Dean: I like “Grail” a lot because Geoff wrote most of the melodies but I got to write the storylines. That was interesting for me trying to write stories. The whole thing was interesting too because I always played drums so I never got an opportunity to write melodies. It was hard to write melodies and words in timeframes. It was definitely an experience. I really respect Mike and Geoff for what they do now that I was put in the position to do what they do. That was interesting. I like “Behind The Gun”. I like that one a lot. I like “Dr. Wicked”. That was a funny song because that was written in five minutes.

Damn, that’s pretty quick.

Dean: Yeah, it was. It was weird. Geoff just came up with the rhythm. It was pretty much pieced together and I just knew what to play right out the gate. It was funny. I think that has one of the most killer choruses. What else do I like? “Derailed” is a good one. “Never Again” is a pretty good one too. “King Of The Ward” is a killer song too. I thought that would be the one that would be the commercial tune. One that would catch on. But it turns out “Behind The Gun” is the one that everyone seems to like.

Isn’t if funny how you think a certain song will make a great single and then people decide they like something else.

Dean: Well, it’s weird. You never know. You just never know.

How long has the record been out?

Dean: About six months.

How have people responded to it?

Dean: It’s doing good. We got really good reviews which we were surprised because when you come with a new band using the old name, usually you get beat up pretty bad. It turned out everyone liked the record.

Yeah because people are like “oh my God, there are only two original guys in the band” and whine, whine, complain, complain.

Mike: Well, life goes on. What are you going to do? Priorities happen. If me and Carey couldn’t do it at the time, there’s no reason that Geoff and Dean can’t carry it on. To me when I first heard the record, it was pretty overwhelming to me but now that I sat in with it and I know the record now, it’s one of my favorite metal records. It’s really good.

Are you doing some touring on this record if work permits?

Dean: Well, we’re in the middle of Mike re-singing the whole record.

Mike: Nobody knows that yet. It’s top secret.

Dean: On another note, me and Geoff were pretty much blown away too on just how good it turned out. Making the record was a side job. Then when I was in Europe and listening to it after it was mixed, I was like “oh man, this is good.” I’m totally surprised it turned out as good as it did. We’ve got some dates hopefully soon here in March in Chicago but we’re not going to know until tomorrow.

So that’s still being worked out.

Dean: Yeah, it’s still being worked out. We’ve had a hard time getting shows around the United States and we were supposed to go on tour in Europe in May but that fell through.

Good lord it already fell through and it’s not even May yet.

Dean: Well, we would have had to know by December of last year. We’re setting up some stuff for the summer in Europe for some of the festivals.

Oh yeah, during the summer they have shitloads of festivals.

Dean: We’re looking forward to doing some shows but we’re focusing on recording while that all comes together.

Mike is going to re-sing the whole record.

Mike: Yeah and then we’re going to release it in the United States and a couple of other territories and see what happens.

So Europe gets the record that had the other dude and we get the record that’s going to have Mike.

Mike: Yeah, it’s going to confuse the hell out of people but we are known for confusing people. We are probably known for confusing people at least on the first two records that were self-titled.

Dean: Don’t spend any time thinking about it.

At least you keep people on their toes.

Dean: Maybe.

You said you guys were working on a video that involved the police. What’s the video about?

Mike: Oh, it’s just a song called “Behind The Gun”. It’s a story about the song but we’re not sure if it’s going to work out in the edit. It’s hard to put a story to that song in only a few days. That song is about a father son relationship and the son thinks his father killed his brother. So we had a story about that at one of our friend’s house from Jackson. We went up to his house and shot a storyline around that. We haven’t sat behind a computer and edited it to see if it even flies.

Well, having the police involved in that will definitely help I think.

Mike: Well, it might but that has nothing to do with the story of the song. That would be an added extra.

I hope you guys figure out a way to edit the police officers in that. I think that would be cool. After Mike re-sings the record and you re-release it and confuse everyone and you guys do your summer stuff, what else do you have planned?

Mike: We’re working on a new record right now.

Dean: Having a lot of barbecues in my brand new pool.

That sounds cool. You guys are working on a new record. Have you written some stuff for it?

Dean: We’re in the middle of it. We’ve got some melodies. We’ve basically got the melodies down and some rhythms down.

Mike: We’re putting the skeleton together for everything right now.