For nearly 30 years, New Jersey based metal gods Virgin Steele have been delivering their own brand of epic, power/progressive tinged metal to a diehard and still growing fan base. In 2015, Virgin Steele will release their 13th album Nocturnes of Hellfire & Damnation and lead singer David DeFeis recently had a day of interviews to talk about it and everything else Virgin Steele. David was a really cool person to talk to and I really enjoyed getting to hear about his thoughts on the current state of metal music, his love of Queen and Led Zeppelin, and the inspiration he got from growing up in a very musical family. I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know more about Virgin Steele lead singer David DeFeis.
David, thanks so much for taking the time to do this interview today.
Thank you, Don. It’s my pleasure. All here is great. I hope you are doing great as well.
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David, you’ve been doing press as a member of Virgin Steele for quite a while now. After all these years, is there one particular question that you get asked so much that it bugs you?
Not really. Sometimes, some people will get really deep into the lyrical parts of our songs and want to know specific things about the Paganism or the spirituality things. Those can be some really heavy questions that some folks might be taking a bit too literally.
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Virgin Steele’s lyrics do tend to have a bit of mysticism and at times a kind of spiritual vibe to them. Should some of this stuff not be taken so literally or are you trying to convey something?
I am trying to convey something, but I’m not trying to convert anybody to any kind of particular belief or non-belief. I’m just putting out there what my trip is and how I see the world. If you can relate, that’s cool. Everything I sing about I have lived through in some aspect of my being.
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That’s what I always loved about metal music especially when I was a kid. Fans don’t necessarily want to be preached to, but they also like finding a message in there that they can grab on to and relate to.
Yeah, exactly. I definitely don’t try to be preachy and I hope it never comes off like that. I just write about what I feel, what I hear, and what I’m about.
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It’s been almost 30 years since Virgin Steele’s debut album. Does it blow your mind that it’s been that long?
Oh yeah. Next year it’ll be 30 years. I’m like, “Really? Where did the time go?” [laughs]
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Over the years, Virgin Steele has never really changed its sound. You guys have always been very true to the sound that you guys started out playing. Why do that as opposed to trying to change to be a little more modern or something?
That’s a funny word, Don. “Modern.” What does that really mean? A lot of time people use that word when talking about production values, but I think that the band has always been modern from the songwriting standpoint. A lot of bands that get called modern really aren’t. It’s just the same bullshit you’ve heard over and over again. It’s just that the production is modern and giving it a kind of cosmetic facelift. We have always brought new things to the Virgin Steele sound from the compositional standpoint and the new record is really no exception.
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Virgin Steele has always received a lot of praise from fans and even Metallica called you guys out for being influential, yet Virgin Steele never seemed to experience commercial success. What is it that the general public wasn’t getting that your fans were?
Don, I think a lot of it has to do with how the various records were promoted by the labels we were on or not promoted as the case may be. Sometimes people at certain labels will only push to a certain group of people while I feel that this band had a much broader appeal and could’ve gone many ways. The other reason I think is that we never cared about being the biggest band on the planet. That’s not why we do what we do. We make the kind of music that we love to listen to. It was also about maintaining a lifestyle and managing to make a living from it and that’s what I have done so I really can’t complain. It’s still working for me! I’m not going to be greedy and say, “Give me more!” [laughs] If it happens naturally than that’s fantastic, but we’re not going to go out of our way for it. It’s not in our nature.
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You guys put out a video for the song “Perfect Mansions” in 2012, but the song originally appeared on the 1988 album Age of Consent. Why did you wait so long?
I think it wasn’t even something we really thought much about. We had just come back from Italy and Greece where we had done a bunch of shows and I was talking with Edward and he was just going on and on about this song. He’s always been a great champion of my writing and he’s always loved that song. He said we should do a video for that song, so I just got it together and got some people to film us doing our thing and we really enjoyed how it came out.
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That video was epic as fuck. It looks like you guys broke into Ronnie James Dio’s house to film it.
[laughs] Some of it was actually filmed in my house. I’ve never been to Dio’s house, but I did meet him a few times. He was a wonderful man.
This year you guys are going to return your 13th album Nocturnes of Hellfire. What can we expect from this release?
The record is pretty raw. I wanted to go for something that was not so polished. I always loved the rawness of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti that kind of had that live sound to it. I approached this album like that. It’s not super polished and it’s got a little bit of everything. It’s got everything from the aggressiveness of the Noble Savage to the darkness of Visions of Eden and The Black Light Bacchanalia. It also got this kind of gothic blues thing going on. It’s got some amazing solos from Edward and it’s very extreme on the vocal side. There’s a lot more over the top singing. Everything from the roaring thing that I do to the more delicate things. I’m just really happy about how it all came out. It’s an interesting record with a lot of passion.
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Are you guys going to be touring behind this album at all?
We just confirmed Athens, Greece for the first show, but we’ll be adding more dates for sure. I’ve been in the studio for such a long time. A lot of people aren’t aware of this, but I’ve been at this record for a while.
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After all these years, your voice is still intact and as strong as ever. How do you maintain your voice?
Thank you so much, Don. Well, I drink a whole lot of wine, but I don’t know if I’d recommend that to anyone [laughs]. I also drink a lot of black coffee, also not very good [laughs]. Actually, I honestly stay physically fit. I’m a very active person. If I’m not in the studio, I’m throwing the weights around or I’m swimming, going to the beach and running. I also try not to get absorbed by the stress and insanity of the business.
It seems like over the last 15 years or so, it seems that progressive metal has really developed and grow into its own subculture of sorts. Since then, have you noticed that Virgin Steele has become more accepted in that kind of realm?
Yeah. We actually played at ProgPower in Atlanta in 2007 so yeah, all those different outlets have definitely helped for sure. Doing the video for “Perfect Mansions” got a lot of hits and got a lot of new people turned on to the band. I think the new record will do this as well so yeah, I think things are starting to happen.
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If Virgin Steele could tour with any band alive or dead who would it be?
Queen for sure with Freddie Mercury. Get John Deacon back on bass and let’s do this [laughs].
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So you’re a big Queen fan?
Huge fan. I’ve always loved Queen. Queen II was a revelation album for me. That along with the first two Zeppelin records really sparked my whole trip and are largely responsible for my outlook about what a band should be like and sound like.
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Is that what actually got you into music in the first place?
No, it actually all started before that. I grew up in a crazy household [laughs]. My father was, and still is, involved in putting on live theater plays so I grew up seeing rehearsals of live Shakespeare performances. I also got into Greek tragedies which got me into reading all the myths. My older sister was, and still is, an opera singer, and my other siblings were in rock bands so we had all that going on at one time. I wanted to jump in so I joined my first band at 11 years old and I never looked back. When the Sabbath album came out my older siblings had it so I heard that as a kid and was so inspired it. I was inspired by all that stuff; Led Zeppelin, Mountain, Grand Funk Railroad, all that stuff and all the classical music that my father and sister sang. We had theater, rock, metal all happening.
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If you could sing for any band for just one night who would it be?
Oh man, there would be a couple, but I’d love to play with Jimmy Page.
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What song do you love to sing along with that isn’t yours?
[laughs] Pretty much anything from the Led Zeppelin catalog, that first album especially.
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In your opinion, what is one metal album that nobody should go through life without hearing?
Wow, that’s a good one, Don. I would have to say Queen II. That album would be a revelation to anybody, especially those vocal arrangements on side black. That is such incredible stuff.
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What vocalist do you look up to for inspiration?
Don, there have been so many over the years. I guess you could say, Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, David Coverdale but there are also a lot of female singers that I love. People like Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Ann Wilson from Heart is an absolutely amazing singer. What a voice. I also had two sisters who sang. One of them sang rock and the other sane opera so they were very inspirational to me.
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When I hear certain acts today, like you mentioned David Coverdale, his voice is nowhere near what it was say 25 years ago and you can hear it. The band has to down tune so low in order for him to hit the notes. At what point do you feel that it’s time for a singer to just stop?
You know, Don, I feel like that all depends on the individual. Just because they’re dropping the key, does it still sound cool? Is it still working? If yes, then by all means continue. Hell, Plant’s voice has changed over the years and I love every aspect of it. I love him just as much now as I did back when I heard him on the first album. Sure it’s a different voice now, but it’s only natural so it’s going to age. When do you pack it in? When you have nothing left to say. If you can still use your voice in some way and you still have something interesting to offer the world, then keep going.
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David, finally, finish this sentence: If I wasn’t a musician I would be _____________.
Probably dead. Music is what keeps me grounded. It’s what tethers me to the Earth. It’s also what keeps me getting up in the morning. Music is everything to me.
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David, thanks again for doing this interview today. It was great getting to know you and best of luck to you.
Thank you so much, Don. It’s been a pleasure and I really enjoyed this as well. You had some great questions. Hopefully we’ll cross paths and have some wine and hang out [laughs].
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