Anthony Esposito played a tasty bass for George Lynch in Lynch Mob, Ace Frehley, and now for Jake E. Lee in the Red Dragon Cartel.
But he also did a ditty in a little-known band called Pisser with guitarist Richard Fortus and drummer Frank Ferrer who both currently play in Guns N` Roses. He’s a guy who wears many hats including horse rescuer and stage director/art designer. He had a nice little chat with me from his studio in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania.
Anthony: I have a great K.K. story about one year with Lynch Mob. We did four shows in Phoenix at this small bar called the Mason Jar. And then we went to L.A. and our first big show in L.A. was the Foundations Forum Conference. They had a big hotel in LAX airport. Rob Halford was the keynote speaker that year and Judas Priest was playing. I don’t know who booked the bill, what genius put us on, but it was our first big show. Extreme was on first, then it was Judas Priest, and we had to follow Judas Priest. I was like are you guys kidding me?? Our first big show and we have to follow the gods of metal??
So, we sat down in the conference room and Judas Priest was sound checking and we were waiting to soundcheck because we were on after them. George and I were sitting in the front row of the conference and very few people were there for their soundcheck. I think it was the first show where Scott Travis was on drums, and he played his drum intro for “Painkiller”, then he just slammed the snare and he went into “Heading Out To The Highway” off of the “Point Of Entry” -album and George turned to me at that moment and said “Ant, we’re getting blown away tonight”.
There’s no way we can follow Judas Priest! We saw the itinerary and we’re like we’re on after them? Are you fucking kidding me, there’s no way! How are you going to follow Judas Priest, good luck! C’mon, they’re gods and we were like the music to leave the room to haha.
Priest was a big influence. Ian Hill‘s bass is very much like mine.
You’re in the middle of producing a band. Which band is it?
I produce bands all the time. I finished up an EP with this band called Mobile Death Camp. It’s got a couple of guys from GWAR in it, they’re really cool. The lead singer/lead guitar player used to be in GWAR, he was the bass player. They’re doing a seven-song EP, I just finished that one up. I’m also working with a great band from Connecticut called The Warbrothers. It’s four brothers, two sets of twins, two years apart. They’re in their 20’s and they were raised on Judas Priest and early Van Halen. They’re talented, a really good band.
There’s another band, Dogs of Reason, from New Jersey. They’re very kind of like Blackberry Smoke/Rival Sons/Black Crowes sounding, very good band. I’m working on that album now. Hopefully, supposedly, Jake is supposed to come out and we’re supposed to start working on a new RDC (Red Dragon Cartel) record. He lives in Vegas, and I live in Pennsylvania and supposedly, he’s kicking around some licks from what I hear through the grapevine, so hopefully that will be soon.
Oh nice! This will be good breaking news coming out. So, you guys are going to do a new Red Dragon Cartel album?
Yeah, it’s awesome, I can’t wait to do another one. I don’t know, it’s Jake’s band, Jake calls all the shots. I know he’s working, kicking around some licks but that doesn’t mean it’s going to end up making it to the studio or not. It’s all in his hands, you know. I did hear that he’s kicking around some licks so that’s kind of a good thing.
I also work for a label called Legacy Artists, and they do these recordings with almost all-star line-ups. I mixed one song that has George Lynch on guitar and Frank Tesla. I’m working on one now that’s going to have Gilby Clarke and Warren DeMartini on guitar, Brian Tichy on drums, I play bass on it. I think Robert Mason is going to sing it. Robert was on the second Lynch Mob -album and he’s been singing for Warrant for like 12 years now.
“Wicked Sensation” is the song I know you most for. I read somewhere that the “Wicked Sensation” album was more of a commercial success than the “Lynch Mob” -album, but I actually thought “Lynch Mob” was a pretty strong record. Maybe it just kind of fell through the cracks, what do you think?
Well, “Wicked Sensation” was actually released in 1990 or 1991. I think we came out the same year as Nirvana‘s “Nevermind” -record, so we kind of caught the tail-end of the metal thing. When “Wicked Sensation” was released, everybody started wearing Doc Martins, cut-off shorts, and flannel shirts. It was waning and when it came around to the second album, I think it was all Seattle then. Everybody wanted Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains, and Nirvana, and metal was kind of like yesterday’s news as far as MTV and the radio playing it. It was almost passe’. I think it’s a strong record. I think if “Wicked Sensation” came out in ’87 or ’88, our lifeline would have been in a different scenario as a band, it was taking a different trajectory. But we kind of released late in the game to metal and it was waning by then.
So in other words, it did fall through the cracks.
I love that record, I really do. Robert sang his ass of on it. I think it’s a great, strong record, it sounds great, but it just happened to be a good album at the wrong time. Lynch Mob wasn’t the type of band to try to change what we do to try to get on the radio, we just did what we did and did it as well as we could. Whether songs get airplay or tours get done, that’s out of our hands. The only thing we can control is the music, perform it, and play as best as we can every night. It’s really up to labels, radio, and MTV and all that other stuff that dictates what’s gonna sell more or less. I really feel bad for young bands. It’s really hard to make a name for yourself and break in because the present situation and present climate is pretty bad.
I’m assuming Lynch Mob was your first big break right? What was it like being in the commercial spotlight as a musician that hadn’t been in the spotlight before?
Yeah, I was 22 when we did “Wicked Sensation”. I was in a great situation. Two of the guys in Lynch Mob were in Dokken. They had five platinum albums already to their credit, they had done world tours for 15 years, and they were just coming off the Monsters of Rock tour with Van Halen, Scorpions, Metallica and Dokken. So, I had two guys in our family unit that would show me the ropes. They were 13-14 years older than me, they still helped me along the journey. I don’t know how I would have done if I hadn’t had them.
But what was it like? The lights, the camera, the action you know.
Its incredible! It’s what you practice in your bedroom for. It’s the reason why you have a carpentry job or a second job, for that day to get that shot and get in that situation. It was awesome because they already put in a lot of work being in Dokken that we were going out and doing these big tours, and playing these arenas, and our video getting played on MTV because it was George Lynch and whatnot. There were a lot of plus’s that I stepped into that I didn’t realize were plus’s until after the fact because I’m a 22-year-old kid basically given the keys to the carnival. I had the keys to the circus, so I was just having a ball, the time of my life! I lived life the way I thought a person in that situation should live life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iuzw9erGJfQ
The “REvolution” album (Lynch Mob), why did you guys make an album that was basically re-do’s? What was the idea behind that?
There’s actually a story behind that. I went to L.A. for something, and I was visiting my friend Joe Barresi. He was one of those god producers. He did the last Tool record, now he’s in the studio doing Slipknot. He’s one of my dearest, old friends out in L.A. So, I went to visit him, and he says to me that George (Lynch) was recording, he’s in Studio C, let’s go f*** with him. So, we walk over there, and I hadn’t seen George in probably six years and George was doing that record. It was supposed to be a George Lynch -solo album. George had a new ESP guitar coming out that was a seven-string guitar, so he kind of wanted to re-work a couple of old Lynch Mob -songs and a couple of old Dokken-songs around this new instrument he was putting out. He had got a drummer, Michael Frowein from up in Modesto/San Francisco. The drums were done before.
So, I walked in with Joe into the studio to kind of just say hey George what’s up, what are you doing? At the time, I was living in New York, so I never bumped into him. He asked me how long I was in town for and I told him probably a couple of weeks I think and he said why don’t I play on the album? I said why not, it’s a George Lynch -solo album. So, I ended up playing bass on it, and Robert ended up singing on it and then all of a sudden it became a Lynch Mob record. At the time, I had owned a third of the Lynch Mob -name and I said to George if he’s going to call it Lynch Mob you need to cut me in on a share. A salaried person playing bass on a solo album is not the same as if you’re marketing it as a Lynch Mob -record, and I’m an equal band member.
I never got what I deserved, I got screwed. We ended up going out and doing a two-week tour, then we came back from a break and then he disbanded the whole thing, just shut it all down.
So, you hooked up with Ace Frehley. You were on the “Anomaly”-album, but you also did the following album tour and the “Rocket Ride” -tour.
Well, when I met Ace, he had just left Kiss. It was after the real Farewell tour, the one with all the original members. He had been done, and they wanted to add more dates, and he was like no, no, no, we we’re going to say goodbye, you can’t keep going back and forth, so he left. First, they did a reunion tour, then they did the “Psycho Circus” -album, then they did the Farewell tour, they had played everywhere. After the Farewell tour from what I remember him telling me, they kept adding dates and stuff, and he was like: well, we already said goodbye to everybody, it’s a Farewell tour, isn’t it over after that? He wasn’t interested in doing it all again at that time.
He took time off and he was just chilling out and a mutual friend of Ace and myself introduced us and we went up to his house and we hit it off. We just started working and putting it together. I put a band together for him and we did a small tour so he could get right back to ripping shape as in playing shape to rip guitars on the new CD. I helped him go through all the songs.
He and I went through all the ideas, and we funneled them down. We brought in Anton Fig to play drums and we rehearsed those songs, but we had already done a small tour. We started recording “Anomaly”, finished recording, and then I was in it for like three more tours after that. When I was with Ace, I tour managed, I was musical director, I did the merch, I did everything pretty much. He didn’t trust anyone with money, but he trusted me so that worked out. I was wearing a lot of hats; I wasn’t just the bass player.
What was it like having Ace Frehley ask you to play bass in his band?
My first show I ever saw was Kiss at Madison Square Garden and I literally had last row seats for that show. I remember when he and I were working on the record, the writing and stuff, I brought out my laptop. I showed him some Kiss photos and he was shocked because he didn’t think I was a Kiss fan growing up. Working with him, for 99% of the time, I never really looked at him like Ace Frehley from Kiss. He wasn’t in the makeup or anything and we were friends you know? But, there was these moments on stage where we’d do the rocking thing side by side, or he would do this solo to “Love Gun” and I’d be like holy shit, I’m playing with Ace Frehley! It would just happen at a split-second and then it would go back to business as usual. I’m not really a starstruck kind of person, but there were moments I was reminded of my youth, quick moments. But, we would just hang out, ride our motorcycles, our Harley’s, go ride to Yankee games. We were buds, we were friends.
One time we had ridden somewhere, and we stopped at Burger King to get something to eat, and there was a kid with a Kiss “Destroyer” t-shirt on and little did he know Ace was standing two feet behind him in the line at Burger King lol! It was funny. We did a lot of fun stuff, but then things changed, life takes its journey.
When I was listening to the “Anomaly”-album, I’d think of Ace with the make-up on and then listening to the album it sounded sort of like 1960’s music. The album was pretty heavy too and it just had a different atmosphere or vibe. Am I hearing echoes of old Kiss on “Anomaly”?
Kiss was early to mid-1970’s so I would think that he would be influenced by sixties music, that’s what he was growing up to, you know? I like half the “Anomaly”-record, but the other half is kind of questionable. There are some really strong songs on that record.
He did write songs for Kiss. My favorite song on that album is “Pain In The Neck”. I think it’s great. “Foxy And Free” used to be called “Hard For Me”, that’s a great track. I like “Genghis Khan”. There’s an instrumental song on there called “Space Bear”. I love that lick. “Below The Angels” -song was a little too soft for me…but whatever.
The Red Dragon Cartel -album “Patina”, I was thinking about that name. It sounds Italian. What’s the story behind that name?
So, patina is a term used when you have antiques that are aging or weathering. When metal gets pitted or wood gets kind of colored, it’s called patina. Like the green on the statue of Liberty is a copper patina. While we were making the record, we were watching TV a lot and we would always have on HGTV or DIY network. All the shows would talk about like look at this armoire, it’s got a beautiful patina on it. They kept saying the word patina like every five minutes on these shows. So, I started to scream, “if one more person says the word patina, I’m going to put my fist through the TV!”
So that night we went to the local bar to hang out and Jake said I think I got the name for the record. I think it’s perfect, but I don’t think youre going to like it too much. And I was like what, what is it? He said, how about “Patina”? And I was like, there’s that word again! He said “we aren’t young, we’re old and weathered, and we can use that old and weathered-ness beauty to our craft as musicians and songwriters.” That had a lot to do with this record. This record doesn’t’ sound like a record made in our twenties, we’re in our fifties and sixties. It’s a very odd record to make at this point in our ages, and after going through life, having good friendships and bad ones, we’ve become weathered. That patina shows in the elements of the songs” I was like, yeah, if you put it that way it totally works.
We took our time on “Patina”, it was a really long record, took a year and a half to make.
I found the album to be very smooth-flowing, light and airy but still heavy rockin’. Your bass playing is really pronounced on it! I could really hear it.
You can’t blame me because we had Max Norman mix it. The biggest album Jake’s done is “Bark At The Moon” and the biggest album I’ve done is “Wicked Sensation”, so we have that common denominator with Max. When Jake joined Ozzy Osbourne, he did “Bark At The Moon”. Max did “Wicked Sensation” with Lynch Mob. Max is a huge, huge producer. He did Megadeth’s big records; he’s done so many great bands. He also did “Blizzard Of Ozz” and “Diary Of A Madman” with Ozzy.
When Jake and I were writing and working on the songs, I told him I thought it would be cool if we got Max involved, let’s get Max to mix it because after a year of working on it, the last thing we’re going to want to do is mix it. Let’s get fresh ears, somebody we trust, somebody we love, someone we have great working relationships from the past with. Jake thought that was a great idea. Max was in Manhattan. The ranch is two and a half hours west of Manhattan, so he came out. We played him the songs and Max said he’d love to mix it and that he really wanted to be involved with it.
We went to this locals only – biker bar, bbq joint. I take Max and Jake into the bbq joint. Max gets up and goes to the bathroom. We’re sitting there drinking some beer, eating some ribs. Jake said he was going to go out to the parking lot to get his wife. I run to the jukebox and put on “Bark At The Moon”. There’s probably like sixteen men and women, all bikers. The song comes on and they all start singing it. They’re singing it and playing pool to it. Max comes back from the bathroom, Jake comes back in. Little do these people know that the producer and guitar player to this record are sitting at the bar lol! Max started talking about the record, his likes and dislikes. Musicians listen to their own stuff and think there’s always things they think could have been done better you know? Nobody’s ever happy.
I wrote all the lyrics and the melodies for “Patina”. 90% of them. Jake did some too but most of them are mine.
When did you decide you wanted to be a bass guy? When did you get it in your head you wanted to play bass as a musician?
Bass found me! I was a product of the public school system in New York and when you’re going into the sixth grade from the fifth grade, representatives from the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades will come to your school and they give you these options for electives. It was either drama, art, or music. I’m not a very good artist, I don’t want to act so I went with music. They have you write down your instrument of choice and they also give you a test to see if youre tone deaf. They’ll play two chords on the piano and you have to say if the second one is higher or lower than the first one. You can’t be tone deaf and play in music. I put down saxophone, but I had braces, so I got up to the teacher and he said you can’t play saxophone and I said why not? He said cause you have braces and you’ll rip up the inside of your lip. They were the metal, old-school braces.
I asked what my option was, and he said I couldn’t play brass or woodwinds, but I could play strings or percussion. I was like strings? You mean like violins? And he said yeah. I was like I’m not playing violin. I’m a fifth-grade boy, no way I’m playing violin. I was like what’s the biggest stringed instrument you have, and he said double-bass. So, I started out playing upright bass in symphonies and stuff and I was really good at it. You’re holding this massive, gigantic instrument and you’re bowing these low, low notes on it and the reasonance is right up against your body because you’re holding this big instrument. It hit me, that tone, that low end, just fills up a room, there’s so much power to it. So that’s when I fell in love with the bass.
How did you find your way from school bass player to Lynch Mob bass player?
I wasn’t really raised on metal. I wasn’t a rock guy. I was into punk like The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Police. I was a punk rocker. Then, I started playing in punk rock bands when I was little. Growing up in New York, you just find your way in one band to the next band. I was in a band managed by Tony Bongiovi and I got into recording. I used to stay at Tony Bongiovi’s apartment, and we were all working the studio. A publicist at Atlantic Records came to see me one night with my band and she said my band wasn’t very good but you’re good, let me help you. She got me a bunch of auditions and Lynch Mob was one of them. That’s how I got to Lynch Mob.
Which brings me to, what’s this Pisser-band? Are there any albums?
There was a band in New York called Honky Toast. Honky Toast was Richard Fortus and Frank Ferrer, who play in Guns N’ Roses now. The singers name was Eric Toast and they had a different bass player so when I joined they renamed the band Pisser. It was Richard and Frank, Eric and me. Richard and Frank were playing with Axl Rose at the time, and I was playing with Ace Frehley at the time. We really wouldn’t get to play a lot of shows because Ace would be touring when they were home and they would be touring when I was home from Ace, so we basically did two or three shows a year, if that. It was probably one of the best, unsigned New York bands that should have done something but didn’t. No, we never recorded any albums. We started recording towards the end but the whole thing sort of imploded.
Do you want to make an album still at some time? Is Pisser done for?
Well, those guys are still in Guns N’ Roses so they’re playing stadiums and making albums. Pisser was a really good bar band, a lot of fun, a great band, I loved being in Pisser. But it just never got really out of its own way. We always had other gigs. They were in Guns, I was playing with Ace, it never seemed to formulate. But, when we were playing New York, literally, the first three or four rows of people would be bands staring at us watching. Richard had left the band and then Bumblefoot played guitar. He was G N’ R with Axl and then Sons of Apollo with Billy Sheehan. He’s a brilliant guitar player. But it’s over. It’s been over for years since 2014. Everyone lives in all different places and theyre doing Guns N’ Roses. We don’t all live in New York anymore. G N’ R are recording so that stuff will be out soon. They released a new song just recently.
Obscenic Arts Studio is your studio. How did you come up with Obscenic?
Scenic Arts was the name of the company I had when I was doing set design and art direction. When youre a painter on set youre called a scenic artist, so I did a spin on scenic art and made it Obscenic Art. I already had the Llc. from my company, Scenic Arts. I just call the studio Obscenic Arts as well. It’s the music division of the Llc.
I live on a really old, 1850’s horse ranch in Pennsylvania, it’s right above Gettysburg. The studio is in one of the outbuildings. It used to be a carriage house where you’d have the horse and buggies and all that kind of stuff. It’s got a creek, it’s really good. The bands love it, they come out, stay out on the ranch, with the forest, in the middle of nowhere. It’s south of Harrisburg and it’s sandwiched in between York and Carlisle. I have cows to the left of me and cows to the right as far as neighbors go. There’s tons of mountains, lakes, and creeks. It’s pretty cool. You get to experience the fall in the northwest and then the winter with the snowstorms and then the summer with the grass. Jake lives in Vegas and I don’t think they have any seasons in Vegas.
Jake was here for almost a year, year and a half. He would take little breaks and go home. He would say he was going to take two or three weeks off and then come back next month. We have one bedroom in the house that we call Jake’s bedroom.
What are you most picky about when it comes to your bass? For instance, are you low action or high action, do you like lightweight or heavier basses-, high- or low-tension strings, the color of it, do you like more than one pickup?
I’m a Fender P-Bass precision guy. I use very old Ampeg amps. I have three heads. One was made in 69′, one was made in 70′ and one made in 71′. I used all Ampeg cabinets. I prefer only P-Bass pickups in a P-Bass and I use DiMarzio pickups because I found that DiMarzio P-Bass pickups have an awesome live tone. All my bass’s have DiMarzio pickups in them. I always use stainless steel strings because I prefer the bite and aggression. I feel a nickel string kind of cuts through a guitar a little bit more. Anything that I can play with a pick I can play with my finger. I don’t slap. I don’t like slapping because with the tone of a slap you lose a lot of low-end bass. I think the bass should be in the low register.
I really like DR High Beams. They’re stainless steel and they’re made by a company called DR. They’re very unique in that you can play a heavier gauge. We drop down a half-step live so I like to play a little bit heavier of a bass gauge and the DRs are amazing because even though it’s a thicker bass string they’re very easy to bend. It’s incredible, I don’t know how they do it. Their tone is incredible. I always prefer my action a little bit on the higher side because when I press down, I really want to get a true cut note where it’s sustained. When you play lower sometimes you risk the possibility of it fretting out a little bit and chopping the sustain which I don’t like.
All my basses are black except for one. I’ve always liked black. My cars are black, my horses are black, my motorcycles are black!
So, you have horses!
I bought the ranch in 2008. I was running a horse rescue off the ranch where we would go to the slaughter auctions and bid against the meat buyers. We’d bring the horses back and feed them and train them. I have two Arabian horses.
How do you think you’ve upgraded yourself such as your style and technique from your Lynch Mob days up until now. What your bass evolution so to speak?
Playing bass with George is very much different than playing bass with Jake. Jake is more of a rhythmic player and it’s more of a seventies style bass playing, where you’re moving a lot more and becoming a little bit more melodic underneath the guitar. George is very driving, and you basically are pumping. With George, I tried to alter my patterns on my bass. With Jake, I tried to get a little bit more motion and melody. Ace is kind of like rock and roll. It’s straight up rock. George is more eighties; Jake is more seventies. With Jake, you’re playing more like John Paul Jones where it’s more melody infused.
Back in the Lynch Mob -days everyone had long hair. What band did I notice where your hair was cut off?
That was the “Revolution”-album, George Lynch. I had long hair in Lynch Mob and I had long hair in Red Dragon Cartel. In Ace’s band I cut my hair. I had spiky hair. He got pissed at me for cutting my hair. I prefer to keep my hair short. Its nice to just shower and be done with it. In Lynch Mob my hair was down to my ass. I used to have a fan underneath my mic stand because when I went to sing my hair was so long, I couldn’t see my bass neck. I had this fan blowing my hair out, it looked stupid like Medusa. I was known as the guy with the fan.
What does the future for you? What are you looking forward to for the future? Musically or otherwise?
I would like to keep working on Red Dragon Cartel, how great it can be. Do more shows, write more songs, and really promote it better. Go to Europe, go to Japan, to Australia. The last time I toured with Jake I got super, super sick. I had bronchitis pneumonia in the bus. I got really sick. I was taking all this medicine and inhalers to try to play and because I’m taking all these meds, I had to eat all the time. I’d get nauseous. It was a great tour still. That was spring of 2019. It was that kind of intensity. I was really sick. After the show I was wrapped in towels and in the corner in the dressing room.
Do you have any favorite movies books foods?
No, not really, I’m pretty open. I like to read a lot; I like to watch a lot of movies but I don’t have any blaring favorites. To me, in life as in music, food, and art, to be blunt its either really good or its shit. There’s really good rap and theres there’s really bad rap. There’s good country and then there’s shitty country. I just like really good stuff. Like stuff that people took their time and thought it out and cared about and took pride in. Anywhere from making a cheeseburger to a novel, you can have the greatest slice of pizza and you can have dominos. Theres a difference! I’ll try anything. It’s either going to be really good or really bad. I like anything, I’m not picky. I do appreciate quality.
What a great interview! I enjoyed the interview , thank you very much! I hope Red Dragon Cartel can do something, good luck!! Your ranch sounds beautiful, best of luck producing.
Interview: Heather Williams
