All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Firehouse Guitarist Bill Leverty Discusses His New Single, "You're a  Natural" | Guitar World
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Revered for its innovation, the 80s remain iconic for its pop culture and transcendent music.

As the illustrious decade drew to a close, however, a drastic musical shift whisked away an entire era seemingly overnight and many influential Rock and Heavy Metal bands were suddenly rendered irrelevant.

The music became an afterthought, the image became obsolete, and the days of the guitar heroes were all but extinct.

FireHouse, however, was among the few bands of a particular mold to withstand the altered landscape as a new decade unfolded.

Guitarist Bill Leverty and drummer Michael Foster would form what has become a lifelong friendship that originated while the two came up through the Virginia club scene playing in the band White Heat. The pair ultimately joined forces with bassist Perry Richardson and vocalist C.J. Snare in 1988, and by 1989, the quartet would no longer be known as White Heat; FireHouse was born.

Fueled by the soaring vocals of Snare and Leverty’s fiery riffs, FireHouse’s self-titled debut album, released in 1990, went double platinum in the United States.

Additional accolades followed, including earning the prestigious distinction of being named the Favorite New Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Band of 1991 at the American Music Awards, Metal Edge Magazine’s Best New Band of 1991, and Young Guitar Magazine’s Best Newcomer of 1991.

While Leverty was heavily involved in all eight of the FireHouse studio albums, the talented guitarist has also released five studio albums over the years, the most recent being Divided We Fall (2020).

I recently sat down with Bill to discuss, among other things, the history behind FireHouse, recording the band’s double-platinum debut album, solo efforts, approach to songwriting, and his upcoming StageIt show.

Andrew:
Bill, before we get started, I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask how you’ve held up through the pandemic.

Bill:
Well, thank you; I’m holding up pretty well. Not much in the way of live playing, which sucks because that’s what we love to do the most. FireHouse has been locked down since mid-March of 2020. We’ve done three shows; one of them was a private show, one of them was here in Virginia, and one of them was in Wyoming. We got some shows coming up here in March, so we’re really looking forward to that.

New projects – I put out my fifth solo album during this time [Divided We Fall]. That was nice to get those songs done and get that out.

Andrew:
What was the music scene like in Richmond growing up?

Bill:
Growing up, I wasn’t really part of the music scene until I got to be about 16 or so. As a kid, I was influenced by my parents’ records first and then I got a few records as a kid. I had a babysitter and she had a guitar; she taught me a four-chord progression when I was really young and that’s about all I really did with the guitar at that early age. It wasn’t until I was in the eighth grade that I took some real guitar lessons and started playing. That’s when I really got into playing guitar seriously.

The scene in Richmond, once I got to play bars and stuff, there were just tons of bars around that had live entertainment. That all changed when they raised the drinking age from 18 to 21, and then half of them shut down. And then half of those that remained shut down in a matter of about 3-4 years after that, because business was so tough. There was a great scene around here when I was a young man; just so many places to play. As a person who was a fan of music, I could go down one street and there were probably five bars just on that street alone that had live entertainment – Rock ‘N’ Roll. Then, if you walk another couple of blocks, there were probably about three more. Within a mile radius, there were eight or nine clubs that had live Rock ‘N’ Roll.

Andrew:
Your history with [FireHouse drummer] Michael Foster dates all the way back to 1984. How was that bond initiated?

Bill:
Well, our drummer that we had in [White Heat] before Michael came in had to leave the band. So, we auditioned probably about 20 drummers, and the last one we auditioned was Michael. The other 19 that we auditioned, a lot of them were really good, but we wanted to listen to everybody. Michael came in — it wasn’t the best-looking drum kit in the world; it was green and didn’t really fit our look — but we were like, “Let’s just hear the guy.” And he had such a groove and he could swing – then we heard him sing. That sealed the deal for all of us. Ever since then, Michael and I have been playing together. It’s been a long time; he’s my best friend.

We were busy. We played not only in Richmond because we couldn’t really burn out the Richmond market by playing here all the time, so we did a lot of gigs in Norfolk, Virginia – a couple of big military bases there – played a couple of gigs in Fort Eustis also, which is further west of Norfolk; all this while we held down full-time jobs. We’d also take a little time off and drive out to North Carolina and play some gigs. Drive out to Tennessee and play some gigs; Kentucky; West Virginia. All the states in the region that kind of bordered Virginia, we played. We had a booking agent out of Georgia that booked us, we stayed busy, and we were asked to come back. That was the barometer of being able to tell if you were any good or not. And it didn’t have to do as much with whether you packed a club or not, but how much alcohol they sold per person. They were really alcohol salesman for the venues; if you increased your audience, they’d ask you back again. We got to come back a few times with a lot of these venues, then the band kind of broke up and we started a new White Heat with C.J. [Snare] and Perry [Richardson].

FireHouse :: Potawatomi Hotel & Casino
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
That actually ties into my next question. How did you and Michael end up joining forces with C.J. and Perry?

Bill:
Well, we saw them and liked them and they saw us and liked us; both bands broke up at the same time. I sent C.J. a tape of some demos that we had recorded; he loved ‘em and he wanted to sing on ‘em, so he came up to North Carolina to sing on ‘em and just did an awesome job. We had a gig that we booked in Norfolk, Virginia; that was our first gig with C.J. and we went out and played, the place was packed. He walked off stage and said, “Man, I feel like this is the right band for me.” I said, “Well we do, too, bro.” So, we’ve been playing ever since then.

Perry wasn’t in the band at the time. We wanted him, but he couldn’t do it because he had a commitment with another band that he couldn’t break. After that commitment was fulfilled, he joined up with us, so we were complete.

Andrew:
How did you guys eventually decide on the name FireHouse?

Bill:
Well, we had gotten our record deal at that point as White Heat. We got in touch with the trademark office to see if the name White Heat was available and it was not. So, our attorney said, “You need to change the name because you can’t afford to combat this legally.” So, we all came up with a bunch of names and they all sucked, and we said, “Let’s sleep on this and come back tomorrow with some more names.” All of our names sucked again, except Michael had the name FireHouse. And we were like, “Well, that’s pretty cool; let’s sleep on that and see what we think about that.” Woke up the next day, and we all said, “You know, that sounds pretty cool. I like the way that sounds.” We called our attorney and said, “Check on the name FireHouse.” He got back with us in an hour and said, “It’s available,” and we said, “Take it.” It was kind of a hot commodity to have a name that was available because we had gotten our record deal and everything and built a bit of a following as White Heat. Had to change it and that name was available so we jumped on it.

Andrew:
The debut album goes double-platinum. What do you recall from the initial recording process?

Bill:
It was a wonderful feeling to walk into a real studio! We had been in some other studios that were real, don’t get me wrong, but this one was just extraordinary; it was incredible. It was called BearTrack Studios in Suffern, New York. It was a converted dairy farm – an 18th-century dairy farm — owned by the sax player/bandleader for a band called Spyro Gyra; a Jazz band.

We had that place for a couple of months to record. We had gone in and recorded the demos before we went in there with our producer to make sure everything was cool with him and cool with us working with him. By the time we got in that studio and recorded, it was just wonderful. I just remember listening back on those speakers from the very first tracks we laid down – just the scratch tracks – how good it sounded in there. It was good to work with David Prater, our producer, and Doug Oberkircher, our engineer, and be on the track to make an album for a major label. We’d worked all our lives for that. I think we were prepared; I knew every nuance to every note I was gonna play and every solo, and that goes for everybody; everybody was really well-rehearsed when we went in there so we didn’t waste any time.

Firehouse – Firehouse (1989, Vinyl) - Discogs
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
You and C.J. co-wrote the song “All She Wrote,” probably my favorite song from the FireHouse catalog and the one that initially introduced me to the band. Was there any significance behind the lyrics?

Bill:
Well, I think we’ve all been dumped before. There wasn’t any specific incident that triggered that, it was just kind of imagining a story and that was it. It really wasn’t any specific thing that happened where the letter was on the door and all that stuff.

I think the guitar riff kind of started that one off and C.J. then said I got an idea for that, and he sang, “Bye-bye baby, bye-bye.” It was at the very end of the writing of this song, around the chord progression at the end, we figured the title, “All She Wrote” would repeat at the end and that that fit perfectly. So, it was kind of a lucky thing where all the pieces fit together really well. It didn’t take us long to write that one.

Andrew:
When you guys recorded “Love of a Lifetime,” did you have any idea that it would be hit at the time?

Bill:
I always felt like that was a really good song, but I didn’t think it would be as big as it was. I always hoped it would, but when you get a song that’s in the top 5, it just blows all your expectations away. I expected it to be a song that would make it on the album and that some people would like, but I didn’t expect it to have legs like that and teeth like that.

Andrew:
How many people come up to you to this day and say, “We played that song at our wedding?”

Bill:
Man, it happens so often; we do meet-and-greets every show and I can’t hear it enough. It’s just a wonderful feeling to know that people identify with that song — and some of our other love songs as well – “When I Look into Your Eyes” and “I Live my Life for You.” It is wonderful that people pick our song for their first dance. It’s an awesome feeling.

Firehouse hometown, lineup, biography | Last.fm
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
Is there a particular memory that you have from touring the first album?

Bill:
Yeah; the big one that’s really burned in my mind, and there’s so many, but the big one was our first time playing in Japan. It was just a magic event for us. We got so excited that we were gonna do a gig in Japan. We each learned a little bit of Japanese so that we could speak a little bit of the language. It’s such a beautiful country, the people are so nice, the food is so good, and the crew was so pro over there.

So, we go out to play, everybody’s going crazy and we play our first song. Then, we stop the song, they clap really hard for ten seconds, and then it’s completely quiet. That was something I’d never experienced before. I found out later why — they wanna hear what C.J. had to say. They’re also really polite; they don’t talk while he’s talking.

Andrew:
FireHouse came onto the scene just as the decorated 80s era came to an end, yet you guys mostly seemed unaffected. What enabled the band to weather the storm?

Bill:
Well, we sustained and were able to survive. We all wanted to work, we were all dedicated to making it through the tough time; we didn’t see the tough time coming. I think one of the things that helped, was because we couldn’t get many gigs in America, but we went overseas and played a lot and that kept us busy. And I think ultimately, that is what helped us sustain — the fans overseas that came out to the shows we played. Then the promoters had us back again and again – and even again, in some places – that made it so that we didn’t sit home saying, “Gosh, I wish we could get a gig.” We were getting on a plane and flying to Indonesia.

Andrew:
Did you ever feel you had to alter your playing to coincide with the times?

Bill:
I usually try to play what the song calls for, and that’s usually a melody. So, I err on the side of melodic playing. Sometimes you get hired to play on a solo for somebody’s record or a project, and I always go for the melody first. Nine times out of ten, people are like, “Hey man, I kind of want you to shred!” So, I kind of have to be told to do that because I don’t always feel that it’s appropriate. Maybe it is, but what feels right to me with most of that stuff are the big notes and not a bunch of fast playing. Although, I love hearing guitar players who can play fast and I want to be able to do that and I work to be able to increase my speed and be able to play fast and articulate. But ultimately, I think at the end, what people walk away with – and what I walk away with when I listen to music – is a melody. I want people to be able to walk away from a hum a melody or whistle a melody or hear a melody in their head. You rarely hear a speed kind of melody in your head or a ripping vibe from a guitar, but that’s where a lot of the energy is, is in that fast playing; so, I kind of want to be able to do both. I’m always going to be a student of that.

Firehouse – Hold Your Fire (1991, Vinyl) - Discogs
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
I think the Hold Your Fire album is strong and I don’t believe it got the notoriety that it deserved. The Grunge scene was in full effect by 1992, which I’m sure threw a wrench in everything.

Bill:
Well, I don’t know; I think music has to change every few years and I think FireHouse came out at the time, right at the very end of the melodic Hard Rock wave that hit bands like us. I don’t know if it was Nirvana that affected us, but Epic Records – which was the label that we were on – had signed a band called Pearl Jam. They made Pearl Jam a big priority when they put out that record. So, I remember going up to the label and seeing their emphasis on Pearl Jam, and I was like, “Who is this? Let me get a copy of that,” and they gave me a copy and I really liked that album. They’re great — it’s a different sound, but it’s still Rock ‘N’ Roll; it’s still good songs and everything.

I think within the label, there was a shift in dollars on what they were gonna promote and it went more to bands like Pearl Jam than bands like us because I think that the label saw the writing on the wall. Program directors at radio stations and MTV weren’t playing bands like us anymore. They were phasing us out and they bringing in this new kind of sound. I know at our label there was a change that happened there on the Rock side; on the Pop side, everything was still fine. We did a video for “Reach for the Sky” and MTV played it once back then; one time. The record company said, “Well, let’s go back and do a video for your ballad, “When I Look into Your Eyes.’” And we did it with the same director, the guy who did “Reach For the Sky” and “All She Wrote,” a guy named Phil Tuckett from NFL Films. He did “When I Look into Your Eyes,” and we released that and a lot of Pop stations played the songs; it went to No. 7. We still had a top-10 hit that did really well for the label even when they were making Pearl Jam a priority at the Rock side of their label. We still had a home at the Pop side of our label – and a little bit of the Rock side; because a lot of the stations in the Midwest were still playing bands like us. It’s just the big stations on the east coast and on the west coast, the Rock stations, they stopped playing bands like us.

Andrew:
On your third album, 3, FireHouse got to work with legendary record producer, Ron Nevison. Tell us about that.

Bill:
Jack Blades, Tommy Shaw, Ted Nugent, and Michael Cartellone, they told us about Ron and making their record for Damn Yankees. They said, “You guys would love Ron. He would be perfect for you guys.” So, we interviewed Ron and just got along great with him. I loved Ron; I loved his older work with UFO and Michael Schenker. So, that was my kind of bromance with Ron, because he worked with Schenker and I wanted to have my guitar playing improved and the sound of the record be like that kind of sound. I knew he could do it and then some because he also did the Damn Yankees record and it was such a great record. Something along the lines of a cross between the two was what I was hoping for with Ron, and he delivered that.

Ron flew, when I was living in Florida, he came and hung out at my house for about a week. C.J. would come down and write and we just got along great. He made a great record for us — and that was at a time where the music business was even tougher for bands like us.

Andrew:
In 2004, you released your first solo album, Wanderlust. Was releasing a solo project something you’d always aspired to do?

Bill:
No, not really. Over the years, I had written songs that didn’t really fit FireHouse. The way we decided whether a song gets on the record or not, was we’d vote on it. You just pick your best ones, the ones that everyone likes most; the ones that don’t make it, you just put them over to the side and hang onto them. At some point, around 2003, I was finding myself with a handful of these songs, and I thought, “Well, gosh, if I write a few more, I’ll have enough for an album. I might as well do it, I got a studio.” So, I wrote a few more and the last one that I wrote was one called “Wanderlust”. It’s a little more Bluesy, so it didn’t fit FireHouse as much. It fit my voice, so I thought, “Well, I could try to pull these off vocally.” The last song that I wrote ended up being the title track for the album.

Flood The Engine - Self-Titled - Amazon.com Music
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
I’m not sure how often you get asked about Flood The Engine, but I’ve always wanted to ask you about that. It’s a tremendous collaboration, between yourself, Andre LaBelle, Jimmy Kunes, and Keith Horne. How did that come to be?

Bill:
Well, thanks for asking about that. Well, Jimmy grew up with C.J. in Pennsylvania. It’s amazing to think that two singers that are that good grew up as best friends. It must be the water there in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania because they’re just both exceptional singers. Jimmy came down and stayed in our band house when we were living in Charlotte, North Carolina before we got our record deal. I had a little studio, and a little mixer and tape machine in my bedroom and we were making demos there. We both had a love for the late-great Paul Kossoff [Free] and I said, “Man, one of my favorite songs that he ever recorded was from Back Street Crawler.” He goes, “Oh, yeah!” Jimmy, he knows all the Classic Rock bands. I said, “Man, it’s a song called “All the Girls are Crazy.’” He goes, “Oh, I love that song!” So anyway, we remained friends and stayed in touch, back in the days of MySpace. We were always talking about, “One day, we gotta record ‘All the Girls are Crazy.’’ Well, one day we finally had time to do it; I recorded the music here with Andre and Keith, and then I sent the tracks up to Jimmy to sing on. He lives up in New York, and he went in the studio and sang it and he sent it back to me and I loved it.

The idea was, “Gosh, we gotta do some more so we can put out an album.” So, he came down on a train and stayed here at the house, and we wrote and recorded another four songs with Andre and Keith. I had a little time to mix them and kind of get them up to snuff. We had some more ideas, and then he came down again for another writing and recording session. Then, we had enough for an album. It was a great experience working with him, Keith Horne, and Andre LaBelle and making some Classic Rock music; a couple of cover tunes on that album. It’s fun to listen to, so I appreciate you mentioning that.

Andrew:
Your fifth solo album, Divided We Fall, was released in June. Where did the inspiration come from and how long was the recording process?

Bill:
For the album, it was over six years, because it was a back-burner project that I just worked on when I had some free time and something to sing about. I didn’t constantly work on it; I was touring with FireHouse, I was mixing other people’s records and recording stuff for other people. I have a studio, so I was engineering their stuff. If I was in the shower and had an idea for a song, then I’d come down and do a little sketchbook demo. Then, if I came back the next day and listened to it and said, “You know, that’s worth working on,” then I would. But, it was kind of done in my free time with no pressure, no deadlines, or anything.

I released each song individually as a single as it was finished. Then the last song, “Divided We Fall”, after I finished mixing it, I listened to the other mixes and was like, “Man, I don’t like the mixes of these other songs,” so I had to re-mix everything, which took a while. So, it took longer probably to mix the songs than to record them, but I’m happy with how the album turned out.

Andrew:
Wow, so that album was six years in the making. How rewarding was it to finally get it released and garner the reception it did?

Bill:
It was very rewarding. I’ve never given birth to a baby, but it felt like it. Instead of it being nine months, it was six years. When I released the first song on that album, which was called Ace Bandage, I didn’t really think, “Well, I gotta really get to work here and get another nine songs done so I got an album,” I just put out the song. We shot a video for it and I thought, “Well, that was a lot of fun, now what’s next?” The next thing might be a gig that FireHouse has in Spain or whatever.

Eventually, when I did have all ten songs done and I did release it, there was a lot of anxiety, too, because I wanted it to be as good as it could possibly be. Then at some point, you just let it go and say, “I’m done with this, I gotta move on.” I felt good about every song and I felt good about my playing and my singing. Of course, Michael Foster playing on like seven of the songs, Keith Horne playing on seven songs – you know their tracks are awesome. Andre LaBelle played on three of ‘em and he’s a world-class drummer, too. So, it was just a matter of me feeling like I could do my job; it was great to get it out there. A lot of reviews have been positive so that’s a wonderful feeling.

Bill Leverty - Divided We Fall - Amazon.com Music
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
What’s your approach to songwriting?

Bill:
I have to write something that makes me feel like it’s worth putting my time in to record it and finish it. If it doesn’t get me excited, I feel like it’s not gonna get anybody else excited. So, I think that the main thing is, I don’t work on things that make me feel like they’re pretty good; It has to make me feel really good. I think you gotta try to have a chorus that has a strong, memorable melody, and a hook that gets stuck in your head. Generally, what I do, is I write the songs from that point. I get a title that comes usually from a melody that I’ve got in my head, and then I write the song from the title backwards. A lot of times, the last thing I write, is the first line of the first verse. It’s kind of a weird process, but there are no two songs that I think are written the same way.

I try to keep a notebook of lyrical ideas, and a lot of times if I’m looking for a line for a song, I’ll go through that book and I’ll find a line that I wrote 20 years ago. My advice to myself is to try to always be thinking of what you can write and turn into a song and keep your songwriter’s antennae up; as soon as that antenna goes down, you’re not gonna write anything. But if you keep your antennae up and always keep trying to receive the information that’s out there, you can probably be productive and come up with something.

Andrew:
What are some albums that mean the most to you?

Bill:
Jeff Beck’s Wired was a really big one. I was just at a point where I could play enough guitar to mess everything up; so, I could put on a Jeff Beck record and learn it all wrong, but I could still play along with it. The music was pushing me forward in some way. I wasn’t playing it right, but I was playing it, which is half of it. It made me want to pick up a guitar and play something more difficult. The Scorpions Blackout record, I played along with that record a whole lot as a young man. I wish I could sing along with that one. That was huge – and their next one, Love at First Sting, was another big one for me – learning how they crafted their songs. Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions record was a huge one as a young kid. I played that one over and over and over again; I loved that album. UFO’s Live record was a big one, so I could keep going – the Dixie Dregs’ Night of the Living Dregs, I’ll leave it at that.

Leverty.com
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

Andrew:
Tell us about your StageIt live streams. What inspired you to pursue that outlet to share your music and talk about your upcoming show on March 4th.

Bill:
Well, I didn’t know about StageIt until my buddy Pete Evick — who’s the guitarist for the Bret Michaels Band – called me up and said, “Hey man, I do this thing about once a week on this thing called StageIt, where it’s this virtual concert that I do from my living room. I wanted to know if you wanted to come up and do it with me.” I said, “Absolutely, let’s do it. That’d be fun.” I drove up to where he lived – he lives about an hour and a half north of me – and we had dinner and were talking about it. It came time to go and he had his laptop set up with a camera and everything on it. We hung out and played a few songs and talked and told stories. He interacted with the people that were watching the show, then we were done. I was like, “Man, that was so cool! Thank you so much for having me.” And he was like, “You should do this,” and I said, “I don’t know, man. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.”

I went home and I couldn’t stop thinking about it because it was so fun. So, I started thinking, “Well, I got to rehearse my latest album in an acoustic format so that I can play these songs. Just one guitar and my voice.” It’s a different animal, completely, because these songs were all written on electric guitar – except for one of them – and they all have a lot of production and lots of parts behind them. I had to kind of just boil the song down to just an acoustic guitar and a voice. Once I got it so that I felt like I could pull it off, I said, “Well, I’m gonna go ahead and try one of these.” I did one and I had the best time. It was so cool, so I thought, “I’m gonna do another one,” so I did the second one. I didn’t want to do all the same songs, but I did most of the songs I did on the first one, which was nine of the ten songs on the Divided We Fall album. I added a couple more songs from some other solo albums. I had a great time doing that one, too.

So, I thought, “Well, you know, I wanna do another one.” This time, I wanna do one with no songs from the previous shows I’ve done, which were mostly from Divided We Fall. So, I’ve been rehearsing some other songs from my solo records. I might do one or so maybe that I haven’t recorded before, and I might do an instrumental and pull out the electric guitar and play. I haven’t decided on that yet. It’s a cool way to do it when I can’t go out and play shows with FireHouse. I can still keep that bug fed.

Anybody that hasn’t seen or experienced a StageIt show, all you do is, you just go to StageIt – you sign up, username and password, and you put down five bucks. Then you’ve got an account. To come to one of my shows, it’s just pay what you can. So, you have to pay ten cents; One note equals ten cents. You can come to my show for ten cents and that leaves $4.90 worth of other shows you can go see of other people that are on there. It’s a really easy process and there are no glitches.

Andrew:
So, the electric guitar might make an appearance for this one, huh?

Bill:
Yeah, man. I think it may be something to do to be different than the last one. Usually, the electric guitar is kind of what I’m used to doing, and I like to get out of my comfort zone a little bit and do stuff that I’m not used to doing, but I think I might do at least one electric song.

Interview- Bill Leverty- FireHouse | Rock Show Critique
All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

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All images courtesy of Getty Images/Bill Leverty

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