GREAT WHITE Guitarist Discusses Band's Singer Situation

RockMusicStar.com recently conducted an interview with GREAT WHITE guitarist Mark Kendall. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RockMusicStar.com: I'm sure one of the first questions you get asked in interviews these days, is the one I'm about to ask. For all of the GREAT WHITE fans out there following along, can you please clarify what is going on with the lead-singer situation?

Mark: What's happened is Jack (Russell) has had a ton of health issues that have literally made it impossible for him to perform. He was doing it (performing) with (the aid of) stools and we were getting ridiculed. People were saying, "Why are you taking that man out there (on stage) in that condition?" He's getting a lot better, he just had another surgery, so hopefully he pulls it out. In the meantime, we've been using a guy called, Terry Ilous, who used to be from XYZ. He's just filling in until Jack gets well, and the shows are going great. He does a real good job, so that's going great.

RockMusicStar.com: That's good to hear. While some people may be aware that Jack is not out on the road with you guys right now, many people want to know whether or not he will be back with the band at some point.

Mark: He wants to. In fact, he's working out with a trainer and wants to come back. His voice is fine, but he just has to get himself a little more mobile before we take him out. We don't want to do like, wheelchairs in the airport, if you know what I mean.

RockMusicStar.com: I understand. I know that no matter how old you guys get, playing rock and roll, you still want to bring a certain level of entertainment with your live shows.

Mark: Absolutely. We still want to have energy on stage. I don't think he wants to go out, and have to sit down when we play. It's just not good for our style of music.

RockMusicStar.com: Before Terry, you had Jani Lane (formerly of WARRANT) filling in for Jack. What happened with that?

Mark: You're correct. He did a great, great job, it's just - he's got his own solo career and stuff. He did it as a favor for awhile, and then he became unavailable. He did a really good job. I was actually surprised.

RockMusicStar.com: Now that you've been playing with a couple different singers since Jack has been unable to perform, have you adjusted the set list at all, to accommodate their range, or vocal personality?

Mark: Terry seems to have all of his range still, while Jack has a few notes missing from the past. So he (Jack) doesn't like to do certain songs, to where we've been able to kind of pull them out with Terry, because he can hit every note. Jack has always been kind of a perfectionist, and always tries to sing the songs pretty close to the record. He doesn't want to go out, and do like a Freddie Mercury, and singing the songs an octave lower. He hates the idea of using a (pre-recorded background) tape, so there's certain songs that he didn't like to do, that we brought back to the set. So we can play more of the hits, and every song we've done videos for in the past the MTV songs and stuff. It's just a handful of songs. Just a few that we haven't played in awhile.

Read the entire interview from RockMusicStar.com.