Seventh Heaven
An Interview With Billy Greer

... continued from Page 1

HoS: Can you tell me a little about the experience you had, going to Abbey Road to record the symphonic album?
BG: It was a great experience, first of all. The weather was crummy.

HoS: Really? (Laughs)
BG: Yeah, imagine that... crummy weather in London in January! There was a storm that blew through that lasted about three days. Winds of about forty-five, fifty miles an hour. Going to the studio was great. We had recorded our parts of the record here in the states and took the tapes to Abbey Road with our conductor, Larry Baird, who also scored the music for that album (Always Never the Same). We got to hang out in the studio and listen to, I forget how many pieces the orchestra was, a big old room full of people and it was just awesome!

HoS: I'll bet! Plus, given the history of the building...
BG: Yeah, there was just a vibe about it, knowing that so much great music had been recorded there by The Beatles. The studio manager would come by every so often and say hello. (The same with) Alan Parsons... "How's it going today, mates?"

HoS: There's a guy with some talent, huh?
BG: Absolutely. It's amazing - the sound, the production that still stands up today and to see some of the equipment they used.

HoS: They were such innovators in ways that people don't even realize. It's amazing that you can even listen to something like Sergeant Pepper's, given the equipment they had.
When you guys got together to record Somewhere to Elsewhere, was it just generally a good feeling all around?
BG: Oh, we had a great time! It was just completely relaxed and laid back. No pressure from any record companies. We picked the songs, we knew what we were going to play and there wasn't somebody looking over our shoulder saying, "We need a hit! We need a hit!" We picked some really good songs that Kerry had catalogued. He got in touch with Phil (Ehart, drummer/manager) and said, "I've been in this 'Kansas writing mode' for a while. Maybe you ought to come out and listen to some of these songs because you might be interested in doing some of them. Phil and Rich went out and they picked ten songs and we just went from there. We went out to Kerry's in Topeka, home turf for everybody. There on his farm there was no pressure. You know, you walk outside and you're standing in a stall with Kerry's goats...

HoS: (Laughing) Yeah, Rich said that by the time he left, he was friends with the sheep! He said you'd go out to take a leak and you're like, talking to a cow. He was cracking us up! (Check out the semi-legendary "dickhead interview" in our archives. -Ed.)
BG: (Laughing) Yeah, you go out to take a leak and you've got like fifteen animals just staring at you! I mean, it really doesn't matter if you urinate on the ground in a barnyard!

HoS: (Still laughing) That must be pretty nice, actually! I'm sure Kerry's got some pretty nice equipment inside the building.
BG: He does. He's got a really nice console and he's got these Darwin units that are like ADATs, except instead of recording to a tape, they record to a hard disk. There are eight tracks on each one and he's got three of those and then we did the record in Digital Performer, as well. He's got it all happenin'; an excellent studio... powered Mackie monitors. We had a big cutting room, so we were able to set Phil's drums up and get a
decent drum sound. He had demoed all these songs and sent mp3s to us, so we got to use the new technology.

HoS: Was Jake (Livgren, Kerry's nephew) singing on those demos?
BG: Jake sang all the demos, yeah. What a great talent he is!

HoS: He's a good singer! I've got (Kerry's most recent solo album) Collector's Sedition and boy, he's really good. It's in the genes, I guess.
BG: I guess so.

HoS: Look at the Time is a good song, but hardly a challenge for your voice. Did you pick that track as the one you would sing?
BG: No, I didn't. Several months before Kansas recorded their record, I had decided to do my own CD and whether I got a label or not, I was just going to record it just to, you know, document my time here on Earth. Honestly, I had become a little frustrated over the years just being relegated to the role of back-up singer. After I decided to do that, Steve announced that he was doing a solo project, because he had all this material that really wasn't in the Kansas vein, so he started his and asked me to play bass on that. Then, the guys from the band The Sign asked me to play on their record and I did that. I went directly from that into recording the Kansas album and Kerry approached me and said, "I've written this song I'd like you to try. Would you be interested in singing it on the record?" I said, "Yeah, sure." But, no, it doesn't push my vocal ability or my limits as far as my range; it's actually in a little too low of a key for me, but at least I finally got to sing (lead) on a Kansas record.

HoS: And it sounds real good. To me, it's Beatlesque in the same way that Alan Parsons (music) is Beatlesque. It's a pretty cool song. How do you feel Somewhere to Elsewhere stacks up against classic Kansas from the seventies?
BG: There's a new vein running through that album that wasn't there and it's not because of me being on the record or anything like that, but I'm sure it's just been different influences over the years that have come to play. However, some of the tracks or some of the musical passages on Somewhere to Elsewhere have been around since the beginning of the band; even before they recorded their first record.

HoS: Myriad?
BG: Yup. Phil said he remembers Kerry sitting at this old Spinnet piano playing some of those musical passages that were just never developed into songs when Kansas first got started. Then, they resurface here how many years later? Twenty-eight, twenty-seven years later!

HoS: ... and you know what? It sounds like Kansas!
BG: Yeah. Yeah it does.

HoS: I think Myriad is the most Kansas-sounding track on that record. That's the one that really made me sit up when I first heard the album and say, "Yeah, THAT!" I know you guys aren't really concerned with this, but do you know how many copies Somewhere to Elsewhere has sold?
BG: You know, I don't for sure, but I'm assuming probably around fifty or sixty thousand. That's a guess. It could be more, it could be less. I really don't know.

HoS: Are you guys happy with Magna Carta and the distribution and all that?
BG: It seemed like anybody who wanted to buy the record was able to find it and it's still out there, so...

HoS: I see it everywhere. I always put one in the new release section, so people will be more aware of it.
BG: You know, we used to spend tons of money recording... just vulgar amounts of money recording records. For the two records we did on MCA (Power and In the Spirit of Things), we had over a million dollars in those two records! I mean, just burnin' up... big, expensive studios, going to California, putting the band up in hotels. It was just unbelievable the money we blistered through.

HoS: Which you had to pay back!
BG: Ahh... yeah. That comes out of sales. We've only recently started to see little royalty checks dribbling in. You know, I got a check for a hundred bucks and they've gotten even less and less. I guess somehow, we've at least recouped the first record (of the two MCA releases). We're at least getting a twenty-dollar check every royalty period. (Laughs) The last record was done at Kerry's and as far as production, I think it's a good sounding record. We stayed in modest accomodations while we were out there and we didn't go out to a fancy restaurant to eat every night. We just got our first royalty checks from that and it was a good chunk of change for everybody... and we haven't sold nearly as many records as other ones we've made.

HoS: Much better percentages.
BG: Yeah, we're just making more money this way.

HoS: It seems like a much more practical approach with Kerry at the helm in the studio and everything. You're contracted with Magna Carta for another album, right? Have you guys talked with Kerry at all about that? I know nothing's going to happen 'til at least next year...
BG: Yeah, that's all I've heard. I don't know what's been talked about between Phil and Kerry and Rich. I'm kind of out of the business loop as far as when and where and that kind of thing. I know that Phil keeps telling people that it's probably going to be sometime next year, you know, to give Kerry some time to get material together and also maybe try to get Steve involved.

HoS: Yeah, people have been talking about wanting Steve to collaborate with Kerry. I think Steve took some undue flak on the Internet for not really being involved in the writing end and for doing his vocal tracks at home, but maybe they didn't understand that he was (legally) committed to his solo album and he was right in the middle of it.
BG: He absolutely was and he had a brand new baby, so he had other considerations, so I can understand that he's comfortable singing at his home studio and that's what he wanted to do. I for one, being a Kansas fan from before I was a member of the band, would like to see Kerry and Steve somehow collaborate again. It makes for interesting material when those two guys get together.

HoS: As a fan, what I'd like to see is... the whole "classic rock" thing has kind of taken the progressive mentality away from the band a little bit because the kind of gigs you're doing are really geared toward...
BG: Yeah, people want to hear the hits. We call it the "Dust and Bolt" crowd.

HoS: (Laughing) I've heard that! That's funny, but it's too bad, really. I know that things are dictated by that in a way, but for me, I wanna hear The Pinnacle, I wanna hear The Devil Game, Apercu... you know, it's a bit of a letdown for the really big fans. I mean, some songs are carved in stone and you can't get out alive if you don't play 'em, but it would be cool for the hardcores if you could shoot us a couple more obscure tracks.
BG: Yeah, we just get so sick of playing some songs.

HoS: Like, Point of Know Return, for instance. It just doesn't do anything for me anymore!
BG: We put that to bed this year for a while.

HoS: You said you're doing (Journey From) Mariabronn, which is great!
BG: Yes, and we've worked up a couple of new ones from the new CD, Byzantium and part of Look at the Time.

HoS: Alright. That's cool. So, are you getting forty-five or an hour every night when you're the opener?
BG: Usually, we get an hour. We haven't done that this year. We've only done headlining gigs so far. When we first worked up the show, we were at like an hour and forty minutes, but most promoters are only hiring us to do, at the maximum, a ninety-minute show. We've cut one song out. I can't remember which one, but we're back to about an hour and a half.

HoS: I know when I go to see you and it's only a fifty-five minute or hour long set, I feel really deflated at the end. I just wanna see you guys play for like five hours!
BG: We're old men, Chris, for crying out loud! (Laughs)

HoS: I'd like to see Kansas put on its progressive thinking cap and do another record that combines all the classic elements with a bit of the modern twist of Glossolalia. I really think you guys could make some noise with that combination.
BG: I think Kerry touched on it in the instrumental section of Icarus II.

HoS: Yeah, that's heavy! MEATWALL! That's what I'm talking about, a little more of that!
BG: That comes through on Steve's record I think because of his influence from bands like Creed and Tool. He's into that really power, heavy kind of thing.

HoS: I think it works in Icarus II and I think it could work in general. I mean, Kansas was a heavy band back in the day, but the thing I've always loved most is the dynamic between mellow and heavy.
BG: That's the thing I really like about playing in this band is the dynamics of the music. I mean, we go from a whisper to a raging scream.

HoS: One minute, there's piano and violin and the next, there's guitars taking your head off! I live for that! I keep hearing about plans for a DVD. What's up with that?
BG: It's on hold right now, unless there's something going on in the background that I'm not aware of.

HoS: I had also heard mumbles of a possible tour with Kerry, but has that gone by the wayside, or... ?
BG: I haven't heard anything about it for this summer. I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility for the future, though. At this point, Kerry's pretty much tied but it might be possible to drag him away for a month or so to do some dates. There are no plans right now to do that. He got up and played with us in Kansas City and I didn't realize until he got up and played on Carry On Wayward Son, how much that second guitar really makes the band rock more! I don't think the band has ever captured on any record or CD the energy that Kansas has when they play live.

HoS: I agree. I've never seen a band rock like Kansas live.
BG: That's an art in itself, capturing energy like that. We've had some good producers, but we've just never been able to capture on record the way that this band can sound live.

HoS: On STE, were you recording the rhythm tracks live with Phil?
BG: I played along, yeah. I always try to do that because I can watch him and play more tightly with him and play riffs that match his bass drum or his rolls. I can riff over his rolls and stuff like that. I try to do that and get "keeper" tracks, but in the case of Kerry's studio, there's no way we could do that without having bleed-over into the drum tracks. We had to go back and completely do all the tracks over. In albums past, I have done that; been able to isolate the bass amp and play along and watch him and play more with him.

HoS: It seems like you lay down a better groove when you play live like that.
BG: Absolutely. That's what we try to do and we always go for the drum tags, so if I happen to screw up on the bass, I can go back and repair certain parts and just punch in and out, you know.

HoS: Yeah, drums are just so much more of a chore.
BG: Yeah, you gotta get those. Up until the album we did with Bob Ezrin, In the Spirit of Things, Phil would do a take and he had to get it right start to finish. There was no stopping.

HoS: No pressure there!
BG: Unless it completely broke down into an instrumental thing with no drums, he had to play the whole thing.

HoS: Ouch! Especially back in the seventies!
BG: Yeah, you talk about some of those ten-minute epic songs and he told me that by the end of the song he's thinking, "Okay, I almost got it!" His butt would get really tight toward the end! (Laughs)

HoS: He's the man, though. He's amazing!
BG: Yeah, he is.

HoS: So, speaking for the fans, we'd like to see the tour with Kerry and we'd like to see it come out as a DVD with maybe some vintage Don Kirshner clips as a bonus. That would be a fan's dream come true. I mean, I have a tape of that stuff and the quality is kinda crummy, but it's still my favorite thing! Holy shit, could Steve sing!
BG: Yeah, man! I feel lucky because I used to watch Kansas on Don Kirshner's, too and I was like, "God, this band rocks, man!"

HoS: Me, too. I can remember when I was like eleven and they were on Don's label so they were on the show practically every other week. It was on ABC on Friday night at eleven thirty and my mother used to make me take a nap and then she'd wake me up for it because I couldn't make it 'til one o'clock!
BG: (Laughing) That's so funny!

HoS: The Signs of Life record... who approached you about doing that?
BG: Terry Brock.

HoS: You guys are friends from way back, aren't you?
BG: Way back, yeah, from when I lived in Atlanta for years and years and years. Terry's from Atlanta and I used to go out and hear his band and vice versa.

HoS: You guys had like a pick-up band called The Malones.
BG: The Malones. It's still not out of the question that we might put it together this winter and go down to Key West. We've got a friend who works for Jimmy Buffet down at Margaritaville. They've got a band apartment up over Margaritaville where we play and it's basically four or five days of fun and debauchery, you know!

HoS: Let me know, man. Maybe I'll come down and check it out!
BG: Yeah, come down and play with us.

HoS: That would be fun! Any plans to do another record with The Sign?
BG: There's a second record on contract. The thing is, I wasn't as involved in that record as I would have liked. I was able to go up and write with Mark Mangold and Terry for a couple days and get some writing credit on, I think, three tunes. I'd like to be more involved in the writing and the recording process.

HoS: What about singing?
BG: Well, yeah, that, too.

HoS: That's one disappointment for me is that you weren't singing more.
BG: At the time, I wasn't set up (for vocals) at my home studio, because I recorded all my stuff at home. For recording bass, I was okay, but for vocals, I really didn't have the right microphone and compressor and I couldn't make it back to New York, so...

HoS: Okay, that explains that. I was wondering, like... HEY! This guy can sing! Why isn't he?
BG: Yeah. It was more that I just didn't have the opportunity or the time to go back up and sing more. Hopefully, if I'm involved in the second one, which I expect to be, I'll make it happen.

HoS: You're about to release your first solo album and my main question is - why isn't your name on the cover?
BG: Well, this is the brainchild of my record label.

HoS: I knew it.
BG: First of all, they were afraid that nobody would recognize the name Billy Greer.

HoS: Well, you know what, Billy? Don't feel so bad because they did the same thing to Tony Iommi back in the eighties. They were afraid no one would know the name.
BG: Are you serious? I think they underestimate the listeners' knowledge.

HoS: They do, all the time.
BG: Well, at the time, I wasn't even expecting a record deal. I got hooked up with them (Now & Then/Frontiers) through The Sign and I related to them that I would like to do a solo project. So they asked me to send a demo tape, which I did and they signed me to a deal. They didn't want to call it Billy Greer for two reasons: They didn't think people would recognize it and they were afraid the ones that did recognize it would think, "Oh, that's the bass player from Kansas; another guy from a band trying to... ", you know?

HoS: Yeah, I guess I can sort of understand that point of view.
BG: So, they wanted to give it a band sort of feel. They felt the European audience would accept it better if they thought it could actually be a touring entity, which it possibly could. I was just talking to Mike Slamer today about that.

HoS: That would be cool.
BG: Depending on the popularity of the record in Europe or even here in the States. If there's interest and the time allows for both of us. He's been wanting to get out and do some live gigs, which he's going to be doing with Chris Thompson, the old lead singer from Manfred Mann. They've got a record coming out probably sometime in July, I think. I heard some of it and it's pretty rockin'! Mike's producing and mixing and playing guitar and Chris is just a great vocalist. Mike was still mixing that record when I approached him about doing mine. He finished mixing that and then they switched labels, so we did the whole Seventh Key record and it's going to be out before the Slamer-Thompson record.

HoS: So, how long did it take you to do yours, start to finish.
BG: I was just looking at my daytimer the other night and I took my first trip out to L.A. in September 2000 and Mike finished the mix and delivered it around the end of January, first of February, 2001.

HoS: So, only four or five months.
BG: Yes, well, we had a good head start as far as material because there was the old Kansas stuff that I re-did. The record company had gotten a hold of the Power demos. I don't know if you've heard those or not.

HoS: Yes, I have those.
BG: So, four of the songs came from that and then the song Missy is a project that I did with David Manion, who wrote the song. Again, this was done about the same time that the Power demos were done. David had approached me and had written a couple of tunes and was heading into the studio and he asked me if I wanted to play bass and would I sing for him and I said, "Sure." So, the song Missy had been around forever and finally found a home on this record. That's one of the songs I sent to the label to get my deal.
I had written some stuff with some other people and when I sat down with Mike, it just took a whole different turn. His style of guitar playing and his style of writing... basically all the other songs that I took out for consideration, we ended up not using on the record. We started writing and we churned out eight songs, I think it is.

HoS: It's nice to finally see Broken Home have a proper release. I love that song.
BG: That's the only truly outside song that we did. It was written by Mark Spiro and I don't know why Kansas didn't release that. I mean, we were looking for hits and to me, that could have been a hit record.

HoS: Especially back then. '86?
BG: We demoed that song and ended up not using it and I don't know why. Maybe because Can't Cry Anymore and All I Wanted... (Pauses)

HoS: Yeah, they probably thought it would be too ballad-heavy.
BG: That was probably the thinking. I thought it was a great song, so I re-recorded it for this project.

HoS: It's nice to hear it with real sonic quality.
BG: I was actually able to salvage two recordings. No Man's Land and Every Time It Rains. Both of those are original tracks from the Power demos. Every Time It Rains you can kind of tell is more of a demo type of recording. We revamped it and re-triggered Phil's drum sounds on both of those songs to the same drum sounds that are on the rest of the record.

HoS: To give it some continuity.
BG: Exactly. I was able to salvage those multi-tracks and actually looked for Forsaken, another song by Steve Walsh and Broken Home, but we just couldn't find the multi-tracks. They turned up later at this rehearsal place down in Atlanta where we used to rehearse. This guy bought some old cases off of us and he just happened one day to be going through these cases and opened up a drawer on a road case and found these multi-track tapes.

HoS: Wow! That never happens to me!
BG: So, the process you have to do when you recover old multi-tracks is you have to bake them in a confectionery oven.

HoS: Really? Why?
BG: If you just run them as they are, the oxide will just pile up like pigeon crap on a windowsill. (Laughs) It literally will just fall off of the tape. Somehow, the baking seals the oxide on there long enough for you to get a couple of passes to transfer it. So, they bake it in a confectionery oven and then transfer it to a digital domain or another analog source. That way, I was able to get the performances of all the guys in Kansas and give these songs a home that I thought deserved more recognition years ago.

HoS: I agree.
BG: Every Time It Rains is a song Steve Morse and I wrote together, so I was anxious to get that on there.

HoS: Is there any chance of hearing Kansas perform something off of your record or maybe Glossolalia?
BG: No. That's kind of an unwritten rule that we're not going to do anything from Glossolalia, we're not going to do any Streets songs and we're not going to do anything off Seventh Key.

HoS: Not even Glossolalia, huh? I guess maybe only the hardcores would really appreciate that. You've got so much of the band's material to cover already.
BG: Well, we only have nineteen albums of material to work from, so that's enough without adding outside projects to the mix.

HoS: Yeah, I can understand that. So, is there life after Kansas?
BG: It would be nice, you know? I keep asking myself... I've put this album out and already in Europe a couple of people have called it the melodic rock album of the year, which is very flattering. I don't know if it will stand that test or not, but...

HoS: Well, it's really good.
BG: It's getting really good reviews, at least from the European people and everybody over there seems to like it. There's a lot of buzz and excitement going on about it, so it would be nice to know that I would have an option. I keep asking myself, "Why didn't I do this ten years ago?" I got really comfortable in my position.

HoS: Plus, it's a big undertaking.
BG: It's a huge undertaking and I have more of an appreciation for Phil, who handles all of our business affairs. This was my baby and I had to make the arrangements. I had to book the studio time. I had to book the mastering time. I had to set the musicians up and book the flights and the hotel accommodations and this and that. It's a lot of hard work. I must have made fifteen trips between Florida and California to record this record. I guess I had gotten too complacent, too comfortable. I had accepted that this is what I do and I'm making a living, so I really can't complain. I just lost my drive.

HoS: It sounds like it crept in slowly when you weren't looking.
BG: Anyway, we recorded it at Mike's studio in Los Angeles and I ended up staying at his house. He had an extra bedroom, so I stayed there with him and his family and it was great to renew my friendship with Mike and his family. We really had a good time. Every night we'd usually reminisce over a bottle of wine or something and just end up horse- laughing at some of the things we had gone through together. We've both seen some rough times, post-Streets, so I'm glad to see that he's come out on the other end and doing well and I've done okay for myself, as well.

HoS: That's nice to hear. You guys deserve it. Incidentally, I was really struck by the sincerity of the thanks on your record. You come off like a guy who's truly humble and really grateful.
BG: Well, I've never had a big old ego.

HoS: Well, it's kind of cool, because so many musicians do.
BG: So many bad musicians get by on a big ego. Ego makes up for the lack of talent.

HoS: Exactly. You hit the nail on the head!
BG: If you think you're good long enough, then other people will start thinking you're good.

HoS: It doesn't always work out that way, though. You really deserve this record to be a big success and I wish you the best with it.
BG: Thank you. I appreciate that.

HoS: Thanks for taking the time to humor a big fan.
BG: It was a pleasure.

HoS: I'll see you on the road in a couple of months, then. Take it easy, man.
BG: Thanks, Chris. Take care.

House of Shred would like to thank Billy Greer for being so down to earth. Special thanks to Steve Brownlow for helping to set up this interview. These two guys threaten to give the music business a good name!

Billy Greer Discography:

Streets - First (1981)
Streets - Crime in Mind (1983)
Streets - King Biscuit Live (1997)
Kansas - Power (1986)
Kansas - In the Spirit of Things (1988)
Kansas - Live at the Whiskey (1992)
Kansas - Freaks of Nature (1995)
Kansas - Always Never the Same (1998)
Kansas - King Biscuit Live (1998)
Steve Walsh - Glossolalia (2000)
Kansas - Somewhere to Elsewhere (2000)
The Sign - Signs of Life (2000)
Seventh Key (2001)

Read our review of Seventh Key.

Visit Billy's web site: www.billygreer.com

Click here to buy Seventh Key at
Click here to buy Seventh Key at