From Out of the Skies, Bulletboys have arrived with a new record this year, and the follow-up to Elefanté is full of surprises for fans, new and old ones alike. It’s always a pleasure to chat with the great Bulletboys frontman Marq Torien, and just before the band embarked on their first-ever journey to Australia, I was able to sit down for a in-depth phoner with Marq, discussing everything from the new record and tour to a few exciting announcements. 

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I’ll just get started right off talking about your new album, From Out of the Skies, I’m really excited about that…

Well, thank you!

…Of course, because I know anything Bulletboys is always going to be great, but especially because I’ve been seeing the steps and stages along the way on social media, right from when you first started recording in Studio 606 last year. Lots of great things surrounding the album, but let’s start with songwriting – what was your approach initially going into this record? 

To try to outdo Elefanté. *laughs* I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been asked that question before…you know, we released Elefanté about three years ago, and we received so many accolades and amazing reviews, and we charted Top 5 with it at CMJ National Rock Radio Charts, and we got a taste of a little bit of success with that record, and when I put together this record, I wanted to do something that was completely paying homage to my R&B roots, my punk rock roots, funk roots, and metal and hard rock. So, I wanted to write something that was different for the eyes and the ears of our fans, but also for new fans, just to facilitate something that’s basically, from our supposed genre, that came from a different place and that also showed the prowess of the different musicalities that this band has. 

That’s cool – I definitely really love the sound of the first single, “D-Evil”, so what’s behind that one?

You know, all the songs on this album basically have some sort of correlation with the city of Los Angeles, where I’m from, so a lot of these songs are storytelling of different situations, people, what have you, being born and raised here. “D-Evil”’s just basically a song about people taking the other side and trying to do something in a positive light, but trying to facilitate evil. In the song, it says, “You’ve got that evil up inside you”, and the other voice is saying “No, no, I don’t want any of that”, you know? *laughs* “I have to deal with that every single day”, and the chorus is, you know, “Y’all are living your lives like it’s the end of the world”, so that statement is that a lot of people have lived in that type of situation here. They start believing in their own self-truths and self-lies, and all of a sudden you’re caught up in this crazy game of trying to be this famous person here in the city – some people make it and some people don’t. So that’s basically what that song’s about. And I’m very, very fortunate to have one of my best friends on that song, Mr. Jesse Hughes from the Eagles of Death Metal, who came in with his amazing voice and sang the choruses and pre-choruses with me. It’s just magical that he came in and sang on this stuff, I just love him and love the band. 

Awesome, it definitely all came together really nicely. That is interesting about the Los Angeles connection there, I hadn’t really picked up on that in the record, but it is making sense now that you mention it. We have talked about that before too, your L.A. roots, so it’s good you’ve got that correlation. 

Thank you, you know, I have a couple catch phrases and basically, we’re bringing the Southern California swagger with this record. We’re also bringing a punk rock and a punk-n-roll chic vibe on this record. It definitely embodies the sounds of L.A., and for all intents and purposes, every song has a flow to it. So, the record flows, it was written kind of in old-school format where if you listen to the whole record, it just flows down, you’re able to have peaks and valleys and twists and turns on it, so definitely, this record is quite a different record for us. But we are completely stoked, and with all the rad accolades we’ve been receiving for this, it’s been very, very humbling. 

Oh, I’m sure. And it is interesting because you guys, I think, have a very unique sound anyway, but a lot of people do associate you and the Bulletboys in general with the 80’s Hard Rock/Glam Metal scene – you played Hair Nation Festival, things like that…but your sound has changed considerably in recent years, and especially from Elefanté and now Skies, it seems you’ve got this classic/modern blend with your own twist, it’s like you’re morphing over time. 

Yeah, you pretty much summed it up in a nutshell. I mean, that’s exactly what we’re doing. We, collectively, were able to really dig in and just say, “What would be good for us?” You know, sometimes we’re worried about our families, friends, and fans all the time, and basically I kind of stepped back and really said, “What would be good for us?”, you know? And Chad goes, “For us to do our own thing, what we want to do. Let’s not put this pressure on us that we have to write constantly for the older fans or for this and that, let’s write for us.” So these past two records, we really wrote them for us, and not in a demonstratively selfish way, but in more of a…trying to find where we were coming from, and especially how would we have reinvented the band, where we were going to go to. I never wanted the Bulletboys to be known for just a sex joint cock rock hair band, you know, from the music from our past and stuff. It’s very eclectic still, when we go into our second record still, we did different things…”Hang On, St. Christopher”, we had that as our single, so there was always something different that we were throwing out, rather than being part of all the rest of the bands that came out from that time. So we’ve always had this eclectic thing and eclectic sound, and I’ve always thought we had this punk rock sneer and the band’s attitude, and people are always like, “Oh well, you guys are kind of like Van Halen”, and I’m like, “Well, we’re not, we’re kind of like the evil Van Halen”. *laughs* You know? 

*laughs* I love that!

For real, and I mention that statement all the time, because we kind of were, and now we’re like…when I talk with my really close friends, I say we’ve been kind of labeled as the villains of our genre, because a lot of bands don’t understand what we do, and don’t understand how we’re getting away with doing new music. Like when we play our shows, people are screaming new songs and songs that they are familiar with from Elefanté, and our new songs too, so some of the bands that we play with from our supposed genre, they’re going, “How are you guys doing this? I mean, you’re playing a song called ‘Symphony’ off your record, and everybody’s singing it. I’ve never heard it.” *laughs* It’s like, you’ve never heard “Symphony”? Come on! So that’ll happen and they’ll be like, “No, I need to go get that record!”, and it’s like, “Well, it’s obvious I’m completely behind the times because the crowd isn’t”. So we get that a lot, but we also get the fact that we like to play with other bands out of our genre, and we’ve done that many, many times. I feel, in this day and age, that we should all be playing out of each others’ genre. We toured a lot, to be really, really honest with you, Chelsea, we did most of our touring in the 90’s, so we came in the tail end of the 80’s, and everybody that always wants to bring us the old, “Yeah, you guys are from the 80’s”, we’re actually from the 90’s because we did tour and release most of our records in the 90’s. So a lot of those bands from that other genre, from the Seattle genre or what have you…we have a lot of fans from all genres. So we’re like this anomaly because of the fact that we do that, we have all creeds, all colors, all sexualities, all everything, because we love everybody as a whole. We have no ego in my band, we’re more on a punk rock level. We love on everybody, we do more benefits than we actually do anything else, we’re always giving back to the community, that’s a very big thing to me. We came from a genre that was very selfish, where I believe that a lot of bands were very – and I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way in saying this – it was more of a “me”-generated music, and by being still able to be in this business and facilitating music in this business, I’ve changed a lot. I’ve gone through a lot in my personal life, so I really tried to step up musically, as we all do collectively in this band, to do something on a positive note. So that’s where we always are and we’re always doing these different things, so we don’t do the normal things that maybe bands from our genre do, and we never became…what Guns ’N’ Roses did, you know, how huge Guns ’N’ Roses were, or Bon Jovi, so we were always kind of this underdog band, and going back to the record, this new record facilitates that because the sentiment on this record is basically the underdog who never wins. So that’s what this new record is all about, it has those feelings throughout the whole record, but it also has a light at the end of the tunnel, and that’s kind of where we are as a band. I don’t mind the moniker of the villain because we’re fun-loving villains, and a little villainy is pretty badass in rock’n’roll these days. *laughs*

Oh hell yeah, definitely! *laughs* I always love interviewing you, Marq, you’ve always got this great positive outlook and you seem like a really positive person. You know, you were saying about making the decision to write what you want to be writing and doing things your way – not only is that good for all you guys in the band personally, but I think in making that decision to do your own thing rather than attempting to appeal to any specific target, you’re also widening your fan base even more by doing that. 

You know, here’s the thing, Chelsea. I deal with a lot of negativity in this business – and thank you for saying that – I do get in certain situations sometimes where I feel very negative, and I try to get out of those feelings. I have some great people around me, it’s not the easiest to do what we’re doing right now with a band like us. There’s not always the financial capabilities, so we try to do the best that we can with what we have, and we try to appease our fans, and try to do everything, but the fact that we’re still doing this is actually a blessing. We’re very, very fortunate to be doing what we’re doing. We just got back from a fourteen-day UK run, which was really great and very successful, and on May 3rd, we’re heading off to Australia for the first time, and we have four dates out there. So everything’s happening for us right now and we’re really stoked. With our company that we’re with, Frontiers Music Srl, we are kind of an anomaly there too, because we’re not this classic band doing the classic albums, we’ve moved on and they’re letting us grow, which is great. We’re doing a lot of things that a lot of those bands from that label aren’t doing. You know, we traveled to the UK, we’re going to Australia. We’re off on our spring tour here for about a month, and toward the latter part of the summer, we just signed a contract to be doing the Sirius Hair Nation/Live Nation tour. So we’re very, very excited about that.

Very cool! I actually had not heard about that. 

So we’ll be playing some badass venues, yeah! I’m just announcing it today, letting people know, we’re going to actually be shooting a commercial today for the event, and I personally, for my band and myself, I would like to thank Live Nation and give them so much love, and we’re very humbled and very appreciative that we were called to do this. It’s a really big thing for my band, and we work very, very hard and that we’re getting accolades from Live Nation, just want to pass on the love to Live Nation, tell them how much we love them. 

Good for you guys, I love this.

Yeah, man! You know, we’re just doing our thing. For as long as the band’s been around, the fact that we’re doing our thing and we’re getting people that are being champions of our band from other genres, the fact that we recorded this at 606 and Dave Grohl let us in and Jesse sang on this…it’s just very magical to me. It’s a very magical situation and I really feel very blessed, and every day I wake up and I say, “Man…we’re moving it. We’re movin’ and we’re shakin’.” *laughs* 

That you are! And that is exciting about the Australia tour as well, I was going to ask you about that – Is it the first you’ve ever visited, or just the first you’ve toured there? 

No, it’s our first time ever in Australia, I’ve never visited there and we’re really looking forward to it. We leave for there out of LA on the third, then we’re out there playing shows, then we come back. We’re out on our spring tour with a great band opening up for us called 20 Spot, out of Chicago, lllinois. And we also have Enuff Z’nuff, going to be performing some select dates on that tour, so we’re just moving, we keep going. 

And Enuff Z’nuff was on that UK tour with you as well, right? 

Yes, they were – I have a long friendship with Chip and he’s out there doing his thing, they’re getting ready to put out their new record, and they just sound great. I love playing with Chip because he’s an amazing musician. It’s just fun for me, we’re going to be playing with a lot of different bands this year, so we’re really looking forward to it. 

Just a few days ago you – minus Bulletboys, I believe it was just you individually – performed in a Nick Menza tribute, at the Lucky Strike Hollywood, how was that? 

Yes, yes, that was great! I got called in kind of last minute from my drummer, and we were able to jam on a couple Van Halen songs – you know, I love Nick Menza, I can’t believe he’s gone. Amazing drummer, he had a fondness for my band and for what we do, so it was just nice to be there and be able to give back to his family. There was a lot of great musicians there and there was a lot of stuff happening that night, so it was great and we really had a wonderful time. 

I also hear you’re going to be on AXSTV soon? I saw a little snippet on social media…care to share what that was for or is it going to be a surprise reveal?

No, absolutely! Shout out to AXSTV, thank you for having me. It was really, really cool, it’s going to be a special that they’re going to start doing, basically talking about the 1970’s. My show was about 1973, I got to talk about a lot of the bands that were around at that time and their music, their eclectic music…I really can’t get into the bands just because I want everyone to watch the show, but it was really amazing, we got treated so well and it was something that I’ve never done before. There’s going to be a lot of rock personalities on this show for AXSTV, this event’s going to be very, very rad. I believe that Lita Ford was doing something also, she was there before me, and I ran into my good friend Erik Turner from Warrant, who I love dearly, got to see him. And we were real excited chatting about stuff, saying about how this show is really, really great because they actually got guys from our genre to talk about a different genre. So I think that’s really rad of AXSTV, and we’re very grateful that they asked us to do it. 

You know, I’ve always loved AXSTV, and I’m really looking forward to this program now that you’re telling me about it.

Oh, I love AXSTV, I watch it all the time. I mean, I really do, there’s so many great things on there from interviews with Dan Rather to concerts…we don’t get to see that anymore. I was watching a John Fogerty concert the other day, and I was going, “God, I just love John Fogerty!” Oh my God, I’m such a big Creedence fan from day one, from when I was a kid. You see John up there playing and the band sounds incredible and he just looks great and sounds incredible…so, I hope that God blesses me with as long a career as his. 

Aww, absolutely. So jumping back to the album From Out of the Skies, have you started including any tracks off of it in your setlists yet? 

Absolutely, we actually play about two or three songs from the new record, so you will definitely be hearing the new record, plus our big hits and video hits, and songs from Elefanté. We’re just throwing in a bunch of different eclectic songs, so we’re trying to make sure that our hits are there, but also to take people on a great, magical, rad journey with us as we perform live. 

And it always is a lot of fun seeing you guys perform live.

A lot of energy. 

Yeah, so much energy! One of the most memorable ones I’ve seen was the Hair Nation Festival, that was such a large-scale outdoor show, it was a lot of fun with you guys, you had the Pistolettes…

And the horn sections, yes! I love to do that, the big shows, I love to bring in the horns and bring in the gals from the Pistolettes and really take it to another level. Bands aren’t really doing that from my genre, so that’s something that we like to do for the fans and for us, you know, it’s really fun for us. 

And it’s a pretty large-scale U.S. tour following your brief blurb in Australia there, it looks like you’re covering a lot of ground.

Yeah, we sure are!

Well, thank you so much for talking with me about all this, I’ve been excited to talk with you about the new record since I first heard about the single coming out, and when I saw there was a new music video, it was like “Yes! New Bulletboys, awesome”. 

Yeah, man, we love that video, it just was super great, it had a lot of stuff that we’d been talking about, so we’re getting ready to hopefully shoot another video, but we’re going to be shooting different things from the city here, and taking film of different places where we’ve been – of course, the UK, and what have you. Our next video’s going to be really rad. 

And what track is that going to be for? 

You know, I can’t really share that right now. I would like to, but I’d like it to be a surprise for everybody. I wanted to say one thing though, we do have a Japanese release of this record, and on that Japanese release, there was a bonus track added that we did, and we redid the classic song from The Temptations, “Get Ready”. And it sounds just amazingly rad, and was actually supposed to be on our record that was going to drop in the States, but for some reason that song never made it on the record. It should’ve been, but it was actually used for a bonus track for Japan. So there’s a little…intrigue for the record, so for anyone out there who gets the Japanese version, they’re going to be hearing a song called “Get Ready”. So, we’re just really down with that song too and we will probably be playing that live and it will actually be coming out at some point to facilitate what we’re doing with the record here in the States. 

Sounds like everyone needs to get their hands on the Japanese version now.

Yeah, man!

Especially if you’re going to be playing it live. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you on this upcoming tour, so I’ll be catching it then too. So just to wrap things up here, Marq, do you want to just give an outlook of the near future for the Bulletboys, and maybe a little message to fans? 

Yes. Travel, travel, travel, rock the house, blowing roofs off of places, and bringing love and compassion to every place that we possibly can, and I want to thank everybody for being so kind and so loving and so instrumental in making this new record, for us, a success. And thank you, Chelsea, for having me. 

Thank you! And that sounds like a great game plan, I love it. 

Thank you, Chelsea, we love you so much and thank you for your thoughts on the record, I’m glad you love it. We’ve been getting nothing but 5/5 and 10/10, so it’s completely out of control magical to me. I’m just completely humbled by the whole situation for real. 

Thanks so much, you guys are awesome – I’ll be seeing you pretty soon out on the tour!

Thank you for talking to me today, stay blessed!