YNGWIE MALMSTEEN Bassist MICK CERVINO Talks About VIOLENT STORM Project

Patrick Douglas of the Great Falls Tribune recently conducted an interview with bassist Mick Cervino (VIOLENT STORM, BLACKMORE'S NIGHT, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On VIOLENT STORM:

"The band and the songs are not really centered on the singer. I view the singer as just another band member. Like another instrument for the recording."

On the departure of singer Matt Reardon (he has already been replaced by Denny Blake):

"(Singers) tend to think in a different way. They think that they should be much more involved than they were required in this particular project, so, (Matt's) doing his own thing. It really wasn't a big issue."

On Yngwie Malmsteen's guest appearance on the VIOLENT STORM CD:

"Yngwie was the first to be involved. We were playing tennis one day and I just said 'I'm doing this recording and I just thought a couple of tracks would be ideal for you to solo on and would you like to be a guest?' I let him listen to it and he liked it but the condition was that I had to let him win at tennis. [Laughs] He put his guitars down and he really took one afternoon. The guy's really spontaneous, very good at just coming up with stuff on the spot."

On JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing's involvement with VIOLENT STORM:

"I met K.K. a few times throughout the years. I went to see JUDAS PRIEST a few times and met him and we got along really well. I mentioned to him, 'I'm doing this. Yngwie's playing. How would you like to do a couple songs yourself?' "

"Their [K.K. and Yngwie's] participation didn't really take over the project. What they did on the songs are what the songs required. It didn't become a Yngwie Malmsteen song or K.K. Downing song. They just played their solos at the right parts and that was it."

On how first exposure to rock and roll when he started taking guitar lessons as a 7-year-old living in Argentina:

"To be honest, I hated it 'til I was about 10. Initially, all I was taught were three chords. I was being taught very Argentinean folk music and I really didn't get it. It wasn't my thing. When I turned 10, I began to be more exposed to the songs I liked and also more chords and then whole worlds opened up and then I really began to like it."

"I was about 13 or 14. I heard Ritchie Blackmore for the first time and then I said 'what's the point of practicing so hard? I'll never be as good as this guy.' At that point, I figured I'd switch to bass and get really good at it so that some day I could play with Ritchie and eventually that happened. It's not something that came overnight, but it happened."