Interview with Tony Harnell of TNT

After releasing several highly acclaimed albums with Westworld, Tony Harnell is finally about to get TNT well and truly back on the map. Kieran Dargan is the man with the questions...

I see you are celebrating a Gold album in Norway with the 'Big Bang' best of collection, although you did say that you had to fight with the record company to get the two new tracks included on there.
They just wanted to put it out. They had a lot of success with Stage Dolls over there with a similar collection, they even paid for Stage Dolls to go in and do some new tracks, which in their mind had no bearing on the overall success of the album, so when it came to ours they were like 'Oh, nobody cares about the new stuff' and they didn t want to do it, but we pleaded with them... 'Let us do it, we ll give you new photos and everything!' We went into the office with the mixed version of 'Satellite' and played it for them. They cranked it up and it sounded amazing, and it finished and they went "It s great but it s too pop. You guys need to do blah blah blah," so we had to fight them and eventually we won. It s funny, after it came out the critics in Norway raved about the two new songs - the old stuff is fine but the two new songs are great, amazing, fantastic &.

Did the reaction from the critics tempt Universal to offer you something for the new album?
We were at #5 on the Norwegian chart and the fucking record company didn t order enough copies. All the stores were sold out, so the following week we dropped way down the chart because people couldn t buy the album, so I got really pissed and I wrote to Universal asking them what happened and I got a letter back from them saying Let this great speech be the last words between Universal and TNT." So that was it, they didn t want to do anything with it, didn t want to spend any money, nothing. They have our back catalogue and they are just happy to keep on selling that. We have sold a lot of records for them. In the meantime we have gotten offers from every major label in Norway for the new album. EMI, Sony etc have all come to the table with big offers, but even though Universal have all the back catalogue and all the publishing they didn t want to know and that s after a gold album that was a top five hit&go figure!

The new EP is doing really well in Japan so I hear.
Well I don t have any sales figures but they tell me that even though EPs don t usually do all that well in Japan it s selling pretty good. It s always hard to get figures from them and I m not overly convinced about their promotion. We used to be the darlings of Japan, but after the last two albums we re not anymore..hahaha!! To me I think the stuff is great, but I think there is a bit of a backlash against me now because of the last two albums, 'Transistor' and 'Firefly'.

Do you feel like no matter what you do now those two albums will constantly be raked up and you re tarred and feathered forever?
Well, I think the people are missing it. I m very critical of my own work despite what people may think. I think they will miss out on a lot if they don t give the new material a serious listen. As far as I can tell there s nothing as unique and original out there right now as we are doing, also we sometimes do things that are quite strange ... strange but cool.

How easy was it for all four of you to get together in the studio for the first time in a lot of years? Did things happen naturally for you or did you have to work harder to make the magic happen?
It was pretty instantaneous really. Ronnie had worked up some songs and I went over and finished them off with him and we wrote a whole bunch of new material too. When Ronnie and I sit down without any distractions, every song we write takes generally a half hour. The hardest thing for TNT is actually all being in the one place at the same time, especially me being in the States and everybody else being in Norway.

Is the new album totally finished now?
Well, not yet. It s all written, all the basic tracks are done and recorded. It s just about half way there with regard to all the candy - the vocals, the guitars and all that. I would say on a whole it s just over half way done.

Doing the album in separate increments, has that been helpful or a hinderance? Has it interfered with the creativity and recording process at all?
Well it has to be like that really. I mean I was in Norway for two weeks, I m just home for two, then I go back again for two and then we have three weeks of shows and then back again for two more weeks. I do find it difficult. There has been plenty of time to get it done but there s always something... you know, problems with the studio or a lack of an engineer because he s on holiday or whatever. We re doing it at Ronnie s studio so it s a little more lax, rather than going into a given studio with a producer for like a month solid. It is a little frustrating not to have more done than we have, then that leads you to have to rush things to get finished and then everybody is screaming for the record to suit their promo and release schedules.

I believe MTM have already announced the possible release date as August/September.
That s not going to happen I can tell you. I m here to tell you that will not happen and you can print that. We re not going to put it out until we are completely 100% happy with it. We are trying really hard to get it done but it has to be right.

Do you think it will make it out before the end of the year?
Hopefully so. There will be a couple of tracks from the EP that will make it but we re not sure which ones yet. I d like to have at least twelve tracks on it but unfortunately I m not in complete control of that. I like ten to twelve songs. In the 80 s we made thirty odd minute albums, you know ... leave them wanting more, haha! I don t want to put ten songs on the album, eight new and two from the EP - that s like cheating everybody. What I d like to do is ten new songs and then add two from the EP and I m fighting really hard for that, and then of course Japan want their bonus track as well.

I always hated that one...the extra track for Japan.
I agree. I hate it because the fans get really pissed off with me and the band, but the Japanese contract always has that clause in there, and it s annoying because it takes longer to record another track. What we have done with Westworld is we usually put the entire Japanese bonus track on there to download for free, so if we can we ll do that. 'Magic Little Nightmare' will go on the TNT website for download very soon.

Do you still read reviews of your material ,and do the negative ones still annoy you?
I wish I could say I don t but part of me has to. I can t stay away. Thankfully the reviews for the Westworld material and the Taste EP have for the most part been excellent, so I haven t read too many bad ones. But sometimes I can get pretty pissed!

Is it fair to say that over the last few years you have gone a little retro in terms of a return to more familiar ground, particularly in the way you have returned to singing in a way that's more openly accepted by the older fans of TNT?
You know, sitting here now, doing 'Firefly' and 'Transistor' and even 'Skin' to some degree, has helped me get back to what I m doing now. To many people 'Cyberdreams' is a mixture of old and new. It s almost like a new take on an old sound. I think it s working that I went so far in a strange direction that people now say oh great, he sounds like he used to. I don t think that s the case at all. I think it s just that we took such a dramatic step forward that now we ve reached a place where not only we can be happy but the fans can be too.

So have you a definite title for the album yet?
Well I have a favourite, as do two more band members and right now I hope we can go with it. It will hopefully be called Sunstoned . Kind of pyschadelic sounding. To me I see it as a metaphor, like people can get stoned or happy by going golfing or shopping or whatever, kind of like a false sense of happiness. You re stoned because you re always in the sun or because you re always happy ... it s just a warped perception on things, haha!! There s another working title called My Religion and there is a song with the same title. It s not about religion at all, it s about the life of being an artist, which is my religion. It s a great song with a sing along type chorus.

So is the new album going to be an extension of the sound on the Taste EP? I assume that Taste was coined to offer fans a taste of exactly what to expect from the new album?
I think it looks to me like a natural extension but on the EP no two songs sound alike. On the album there s a song called When I m Away which has a different tempo, but like 'Satelite', while 'My Religion' is very heavy. There are a few beautiful ballads also, one song called Song for Diane which is almost like an English folk song - everybody is really loving that one, everybody that has heard it has flipped over it. The rest of the album is full of varying tempo songs, some poppy, some heavy with great melodies and guitar riffs.

So is it fair to say TNT are back for the long haul then?
That s my plan. I m not doing this to sell three thousand records on a small company in Europe just so they can break even on the advance. This is the real shit. We really hope to break Germany again. I ve been asking to do some dates for the EP and the general concensus is to wait for the album, which I think is a mistake. We have done two shows so far and honestly, everybody that has seen them has went Holy shit,, wow! We have a lot of shows booked in Norway over the next three months but we really would love to come back to England and just let everybody know that we re back, so if anybody wants us to come over let us know. If we can get ourselves up to a level we want in Norway. That will allow us to pop over and maybe play some shows without having to worry about losing a whole bunch of money. Do you know what the most brilliant tour of England would be? Def Leppard and TNT. So Joe, if you read this I m ready when you are, just give me a call.

Kieran Dargan