For the issue of Gitarist that will be in stores later this week, I had the pleasure of interviewing Adrian Vandenberg about the new Vandenberg album ‘Sin‘. However, space is limited in the magazine and not everything we discussed fit in the space we had available. Fortunately, there is plenty of space here for the other interesting subjects we discussed.

Starting with new Vandenberg singer Mats Levén, coincidentally one of my favorite singers. His arrival was surprising though, given that the last time I interviewed Adrian, Levén’s predecessor Ronnie Romero appeared to be there for the long haul. “No matter if you’re a musician or a baker, Covid messed up everything for everyone“, Adrian explains. “Ronnie lives in Romania and planning shows was possible a bit earlier in that part of the world than it was here. We had already cancelled our European tour four times at that point, which is a dramatic situation for an agent, of course.

Some clubs had already gone under during Covid, our English agent even ended up with burn-out symptoms as a result. By the time we finally could start planning the tour, Ronnie already had some other things going. So we said goodbye to Ronnie out of necessity.“

Finally

“Johan Cruijff once said that every disadvantage has its advantage. In this case: finding Mats. When I first contacted him, he said: I’m glad you finally called. I asked: what do you mean, ‘finally’? He said: when I read that you had started MoonKings, I was disappointed that you hadn’t asked me. Turns out that when he was in his mid-twenties, his mother brought the first two Vandenberg records back with her from London. So he knew all the songs by heart.

We more or less started working on the songs immediately. Ping-ponging ideas for the songs I was working on and at some point, I flew to Stockholm to go over the vocal melodies and the lyrical ideas. Before we knew it, we made a little record. I’m super happy with the results. You know him and some other people do, but he still remained kind of a secret to the audience at large.

He partly was to me as well. I actually kind of ‘forgot’ him, because I do remember him surviving working with Yngwie Malmsteen. That made me think: shit, of course! When we had to quit working with Ronnie, I stumbled upon Mats and checked what he was up to these days on YouTube. And it turns out that it works really well.

Especially because after ‘2020’, it seemed like a great idea to go just a bit heavier. Everyone who has been in the business for as long as I have eventually gets mellower through the years, endlessly playing ballads and whatnot. I enjoy doing something else than what I and other people are expecting. So instead of mellowing out, I decided to go into a higher gear. I’ll always be like an unruly teenager that way.“

Same Page

‘Sin’ also sees Vandenberg working with producer Bob Marlette again: “The reason I started working with Bob, is because the first time we spoke on the phone, he asked me: how do you see this band and yourself sounding? I said: primarily as if you walk into the rehearsal room of the band in question, it’s in-your-face and the band has the best rehearsal they could possibly have. That’s how I want it to sound. As if Led Zeppelin or a similar band from the seventies are 25 year-old guys now and have the technological possibilities we have now. He said: that’s exactly how I see it as well.

That is how it came out and I am super happy with the sound we achieved. Because it went incredibly smoothly. We developed and instant friendship. We still call each other frequently and we can’t wait to start working on something together again. We laugh our asses off when we do, because he also has a great sense of humor.

The funny thing is: in the late seventies and early eighties, he had a band with Rudy Sarzo and Frankie Banali, who played together in Quiet Riot. When we started headlining in America with the first Vandenberg record, we did a few shows with Quiet Riot as our support act. That’s when I immediately hit it off with Rudy and Frankie. I did not know that link was there when Bob and I spoke for the first time, but it was pretty much the first thing he told me. He’s incredibly musical. He did everything: from Black Sabbath to Tracy Chapman and everything in between. But we are very much on the same page musically.“

For guitar talk with Adrian Vandenberg, including talk about his new Peavey Vandenberg models, check out the September issue of Gitarist!