Tony Harnell interview (excerpt)

Andrew: With the 90s largely representing a transitional period for music, how did you navigate the gap of time between Realized Fantasies and the Firefly album?

Tony: After the Realized Fantasies period, after that Japanese tour, I came back to New York, and I got married. I started playing a lot of acoustic shows around New York; I picked up surfing again; I was cooking, getting into just being married, and absorbing the 90s music that was coming out. I was not one of those people, and I still feel this way, that said, “Oh my God. Nirvana killed our kind of music.” I don’t think that’s true. I think the labels and the flood of bands they signed killed the genre more than Nirvana did. And I think it was too many bands that sounded similar, with the same producers, and the same clothes, and the same photographers, and the same video directors, that after a while, I just think that the genre sort of ate itself. So, I just really got into a lot of the music. The first band that I really liked was Alice In Chains; I saw them open for Van Halen at the Nassau Coliseum. I think Van Halen had the For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge album out, with “Poundcake” on it. They were amazing. Then I moved on there to some other early 90s albums, and artists that I really liked; Francis Dunnery, who’s not very well known, but brilliant; Jeffery Gaines. Then Alanis Morissette blew my mind. So, just absorbing all of that.

Then what happened was, in ’95 Japan put out the first best-of TNT album, and that was called Til’ Next Time. And that kind of sparked The Flame; we started talking again. Some interesting things happened in the early 90s after the Realized Fantasies thing, as well. Not a lot of people know this, but I was offered — I can’t remember if it was an audition, offered, or just that they were interested in talking to me about it — but Dream Theater approached me before they got James [LaBrie]. I remember going to see them and being blown away, but thinking to myself, “I don’t know where to sing.” And I did get a phone call from Yngwie [Malmsteen] during that period as well. I also made it to the final three that Judas Priest was considering to replace Rob Halford. They really liked me, apparently, the thing that I heard, was that my hair was too long. I thought, “That’s stupid. I’ll fuckin’ cut it, man!” And I did end up cutting it not long after that. And I made the Morning Wood album, which I’m still very proud of, with Al Pitrelli and Danny Miranda. Al’s one of the masterminds of TSO [Trans-Siberian Orchestra], and Danny Miranda went on to play with Queen and he’s still in Blue Öyster Cult.

So, we started talking, though, around ’95 or ’96, and then I think by the later part of ’96, I was over there writing the Firefly record. I think we just brought in a lot of new influences; Ronni had done Vagabond and got into other things, which was good. He got to get some other influences going. I brought in some American, Alternative vibes, and we were gelling again. He was right there with me, and his guitar playing, riffing, sounds, and everything were also different. And so were my melodies and my lyrics.