Tim "Ripper" Owens (ex Judas Priest) & Tom Collier (Held Hostage)

Tim “Ripper” Owens is the former singer for Judas Priest who now sings for KK’s Priest, The Three Tremors and his own solo career. Tom Collier is the guitarist and singer for the band Held Hostage. The band has a new album out now with guest vocals from Tim. In this episode we discuss the new album, Covid boosters, Bolivian cocaine, mental health and more! I haven’t laughed this hard on a podcast in a while!

00:00 - Intro
00:56 - Tom's Story
01:20 - Tom Meeting Tim & Shows
03:15 - KK's Priest
04:43 - Held Hostage New Album
07:30 - New Songs & Production  on the Album
10:35 - New Song "Be a Man" & Manning Up
13:02 - New Song "Rise" and Suicide
15:55 - Raising Money and Songs About Veterans
17:58 - Joe Lynn Turner
18:33 - Tim's Sense of Humor
19:33 - Covid Vaccine Boosters & Testing
22:02 - Bolivian Cocaine
24:10 - Meet & Greets
25:23 - Seattle Cover Band & Chris Cornell
26:50 - Other Projects for Tim & Solo Career
29:24 - Mental Health Charity
29:55 - Outro

Held Hostage website:
https://www.heldhostageband.com/

Tim "Ripper" Owens website:
https://timripperowens.com

Mental Health Charity website:
https://www.nami.org/Home

Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com

Transcript

Chuck Shute: 0:00

Hey guys, we have Tim Ripper Owens here along with Tom Collier. And they're here to talk about their new project held hostage. It's an old school American rock, metal sound. And if you grew up listening to that kind of music in the late 70s, early 80s, you're gonna love this. So, we're gonna discuss the new album, plus COVID Kancil culture, Bolivian cocaine, mental health, veterans and Oh, so much more. And I don't think I've laughed this hard in an interview in a long time. A quick note though, it is a zoom call, so sometimes zooms a bit finicky sometimes they freeze up. So just try to be patient with that. And sometimes there's a silence not because of a technical difficulty, but just because I'm laughing so hard, so enjoy So, Tom, you're gonna have to tell me I mean, everybody knows Tim's story. But I don't know a lot about you, Tom. So tell me your background and your your story. Like were you in other bands before hold hostage or?

Tom Collier: 1:05

No, I started hold hostage back in 8485. And I've always been had the same band but I stopped playing for a while you know, I I was a single dad raised my son by myself and I came back in 2014 2015. I decided to come back and play.

Chuck Shute: 1:19

Okay, so then how do you two know each other?

Tom Collier: 1:23

Our manager, my manager introduced me to Tim.

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 1:26

Yeah, it was his manager tops out three, three trimmers on some stuff we do and show on pack from cage and, and three charmer. So we have this connection. And that's how we got introduced

Chuck Shute: 1:40

fan. Yeah. And you recorded the first album in 2018. Now you got this new one. out now do you do live shows together? Or how do you do live shows that all

Tom Collier: 1:50

we're doing right now? That's what we're here for? We got one but three hours. Yeah,

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 1:55

you know, they'll do shows whenever they do some special shows you want to do something? I'm guessing I'll come out and do you know, seven, eight tracks from from what I you know, both the records and it's kind of fun. You know, it's just a special guests kind of night know, Tom was saying half the set, and then I'll say half the set.

Chuck Shute: 2:15

Okay, now, are you both in Ohio? Is that?

Tom Collier: 2:19

No, I'm in New York, upstate New York. And he's in Ohio. But we're in New York right now. Yeah, he travels to come hang with

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 2:25

us. Yeah, check up in the Syracuse kind of area. And as you know, Weedsport tonight, the old famous Weedsport. And I'll just drive here, it's about six hour drive. And, you know, do the show and hit back in the morning.

Chuck Shute: 2:40

Okay, so is there more show scheduling, you're not going to tour you're just going to do shows locally.

Tom Collier: 2:46

While we're planning toward them, and that together represent like you're going to Australia going on a

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 2:53

lot of touring coming up and having a solo record, Ripper coming up. And just so much stuff coming up busy wise. And so they're going to try to put something together and do something. Yeah, we'll

Tom Collier: 3:03

be touring East Coast in I think in November, we're set up actually, we're on the phone this morning about some shows, where they will probably tend to all stay at school store here pretty soon. Okay, nice.

Chuck Shute: 3:12

Could you maybe like open up for one of rippers other bands like KKs priests or something like that?

Tom Collier: 3:17

We would love to but that's a big show. I mean, that's the record label usually takes care of that stuff. I mean, that's what like, wouldn't take a priest to solve this problem. I mean, you guys are probably booked for next year. I mean, everything coming out now. It was booked two years ago. Yeah, I mean, the shows you're seeing now or from two years, the big tours like what KK priest would be doing? Okay, my overspeed

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 3:40

Yeah, no, that's that. Is it people. People wonder why these priests did tour? And I'm like, Well, it's because most of the tours out there were that now we just decided to probably do a new record. torrents.

Chuck Shute: 3:50

Oh, so the KKs priests doesn't have any dates lined up or anything?

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 3:54

I'm not sure. I mean, I think it became so late into the game with the COVID thing. I think it was like do we wait this long to tour? Or do we maybe start working on a new record at some point here so when we do tour we can have two records tour on so

Chuck Shute: 4:08

right. And I think I heard you say that KK wants to do more like a bigger shows like festivals and things he doesn't want to do, like club shows and stuff.

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 4:16

Yeah, I mean, he's not going to go to club shows or small venues. I mean, it's gonna have to be a pretty good size type event, you know? And that's just, you know, you know, it's that point of his career, but why would you want to go do something else? And, you know, maybe even some good supporting spots, go out on the road with snow co headlining and supporting in festivals and things like that,

Chuck Shute: 4:40

ya know, very cool. So the new stuff that held hostage I don't even know how would you describe this i To me, it's kind of like ACDC meets Ozzy meats, Nazareth. I don't know if that's a good description, or how would you describe it?

Tom Collier: 4:53

Great American rock.

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 4:55

I think it is. I think when I heard it, I mean, it's, you know, you hear the AC DC vibe here the the rock vibe, you know you hear the the even the the kind of La guns kind of stuff coming in there from the 80s that stuff you know you hear this cuz it's just a hard rock, rock rock hard rock heavy stuff, you know and it's in this new record I even like even more

Tom Collier: 5:18

than it was a lot of fun while the new record the first records are representing he basically he stepped in and did some stuff with this record. No Ripper, he had free rein on the vocals and like he I told me he produced the record, I mean, produced the vocals on the song. And this whole album, it was just great. He would send it to me with when he sends you tracks. This is totally different requests he sent me for each song 10 tracks wanted me at 14 tracks. I think it was rise. I was like holy cow. It was it was just great stuff. I mean, he get the basic tracks sent to him. But I mean, what he did to it was just incredible. And he constantly would send notes with everything. He every time he sent me a track. He said he wants to try this this and I try and send it back to him and it just worked. He was a great, great thing when he did with us very helpful.

Chuck Shute: 6:01

Okay, so did. Tim did you do any of the songwriting or is it all you Tom? Well, I

Tom Collier: 6:07

wrote 11 of the songs, but I wrote the music to the master and my rhythm guitar player wrote, we wrote the vocals together the second and third verse to the master. Okay. Yeah, very aggressive songs. I write restaurants I wrote myself. Okay.

Chuck Shute: 6:21

And then so tell me about that. Because this way when you look at I'm like, I love this album cover. Please explain to me because it's the hammer, which you've used for the first albums. But now there's an American flag draped over it. And it's, it's burning. So I don't know was this? Was this an accidental burning? Or somebody purposefully burning the flag on fire?

Tom Collier: 6:40

No, no, it's actually what we're setting the world on fire with the music so that hammer was drawn by Stannis Decker that he does like maggot death, and everybody's from France. So the hammer in this thing, we own the rice of that hammer. A lot of people thought it was Thor's hammer. If you look at it closely, it's got the HH logos on it. So the the so there was the first album when it crashed through the earth. You see the molten lava come through on the epic album. So we kind of added that at the bottom of the hammer. Just you know. unflagged Okay, all right. And no civilization. In America,

Chuck Shute: 7:14

okay, good. I just didn't want anyone to misinterpret that and think it was like anti American or, you know how people do that these days?

Tom Collier: 7:22

Of course, patriarchy.

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 7:24

Yeah, reverse on that. Yeah.

Tom Collier: 7:26

We're definitely patriotic Americans. You know,

Chuck Shute: 7:30

one thing I noticed too, like the song your eyes and I think there was a couple other ones were that when the song ends, it like fades out. And the vocals are still going on. I was like, Oh, this is so cool. This reminds me of like listening to like tapes when I was a kid and the song would fade out with the vocals. That's very rare. That's a throwback. Right? You did that on purpose, I'm assuming?

Tom Collier: 7:53

Yeah, yes, I did. That was one of the ideas I had when I was feeding him. I wanted to smile as if I was white, but you still hear the vocals over top of everything. At the end of the day, I brought the music down as they faded and I kind of brought the vocals up just a little bit just in so it's really cool. I'm sure the second person to notice that

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 8:12

in my contract. I'm not allowed to be faded.

Chuck Shute: 8:18

Oh, that's funny. And then so tell me about this one, the song chaos and this is just an instrumental. So it's it's funny because it still says on Spotify, like featuring Tim Ripper Owens, but I was like, I mean, unless he's like playing the banjo or the tambourine or something. I don't hear any vocals. So why are you doing why?

Tom Collier: 8:36

Why he was playing the second was in the background. Yeah, I'm surprised so that must have poured it over it shouldn't say that. But that was so that was a song like three weeks before we went in the studio. We were we were recording getting rehearsing for the record. And I wrote that song chaos we cut that live in the studio one tape, there's no edits on that. We just didn't I said guys, let's just rock the song out and and that's where we did it. I mean, the whole album was cut wide with click tracks. So everybody was playing at the same time we were in different rooms we could see each other and so I would just give them the look is like we're changing key right now. And it just came together I said if you mess up you're gonna look stupid on the record. There's one take one pot and it was over.

Chuck Shute: 9:15

Okay, so it's it's live but it's live in studio not live and I can't

Tom Collier: 9:21

Yeah, but there's a bunch of people watching us live but yeah, okay in the studio. It was a fun time. We just let everybody come in and we just we just cut loose on us and we're doing one take one take only

Chuck Shute: 9:33

How long did it take you to record the whole album?

Tom Collier: 9:38

day and a half but yeah, but there was a lot of edits and that that was just the basics. Then you got the guitars, you got the vocals you got the you know the mixing and stuff like that. But the basic tracks. We did them in a day and a half. Wow.

Chuck Shute: 9:51

It's amazing what what you can do with recording these days. I mean, because it sounds top notch. It doesn't sound like off in any way. I mean, and That's most of the stuff I listened to these days. It's really easy to record high quality songs. It seems like

Tom Collier: 10:06

our every song is live and we record it. So what I did is we rehearsed like we record, you know, so we got we had a click track going every rehearsal. Everybody just prepared, how are we going to do it? We knew exactly what was happening. And like the songs that I wanted to fade out, we would carry on I mean, sometimes I mean, we'd send your son was six minutes long, that turned out to be four and a half minutes, you know,

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 10:25

cut out my best stuff

Chuck Shute: 10:32

okay, here's another one. I was like, I got a little worried about the song be a man. I was like, Oh, they're gonna get cancelled. You said stand tough and be a man to do everything the best you can. Are you worried that someone's gonna say misinterpret those lyrics? And as you saying women can't be tough?

Tom Collier: 10:50

No, it's nothing like that. It's like, you know, that can be for a man or a woman. But like we're growing up, you know, we're old school guys. It was like it just man up to something. If you made a mistake, it just man up to it. That's all. It's not the, you know, I don't believe the cancel culture. If they want to cancel over song. That's their issue. This song has nothing to do with sexism. It's about standing up and being yourself. Everybody in their life, including myself. down the wrong path was about turning yourself wrong. When I was younger, I partied way too hard. I did so many things. But I you know, then I got married, had a kid and I was like, it was time I man up and went and did something with my life. And that's what it's all about. It's about, in fact, the laughs and be a

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 11:27

day. Yeah. And up and be. But what pronoun can a man up and be? Heat today? What?

Tom Collier: 11:37

I think two people are too sensitive in this world. Like that. Just, you know, we're not meant to stay up. Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I held the flashlight for my father while he worked on vehicles. Let me tell you something. He screamed and yelled at you. Because I'd be like, you know, we grew up in a different era than these kids did. I mean, if we did something wrong, you know, my father said, No, it was Don't worry. You got knocked on your ass but we were waiting. Hey, we didn't do we listened to we respectful and everything else, you know? Yep. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 12:09

It doesn't like that's an issue these days, though. With with people not being it not even I would even say Be a man but like being adult is maybe that's a better way to say it. Like just growing up. It seems like everyone just wants to be a kid.

Tom Collier: 12:21

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's just, we grew up in the country. I mean, we my closest neighbors still is a mile and a half. You know, it was like we grew up we rode our bicycles to our friend's houses and our parents left us out to the park. It's again, it's nothing to do with anything other than that's the way it is. That's what we're that's where I was brought up. Where we're again, I don't think anybody should be offended by Be a man. I really don't. Because it's like I've heard people say be a woman. Now, that doesn't offend me in any way at all. No. Woman hear me roar. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, yes. No, it's great. There's too much too much of that people.

Chuck Shute: 12:59

Ya know? So tell me about the song Rise, because it says in parentheses on that one, it says, Stop suicide of all ages, is that dedicated to someone who took their own life? Or

Tom Collier: 13:10

we had a couple of Former Members that killed themselves? And also the I've got some friends way out. I want to do

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 13:17

the vocals. And

Tom Collier: 13:19

yeah, one of the one of the vocalists did absolutely. Well, yeah, so a couple of the guys who committed suicide, and in fact, one of them visited me the night before he did it. And I had no clue. So I thought this would be a good idea. And I was I had another friend, it's a veteran that he's tried to commit suicide twice. And I've been helping him with his music and actually helping him record and producing him. And it's really turned his whole life around. So I wrote the song rice, and that was one of my favorite songs. And that's something here's a perfect example of the end of that song. And I tell us all the time, no, that represents that song back to me. And so the chorus is in G. And the pre chorus is the post chorus is any minor, he mix them together, which I would have never thought to do that. He listened to the end of the song. He put sent that to me, and I was like, I text him. Holy shit. That's incredible. I love this. I mean, how did you do that? What would make you think of and then you do David Bowie thing at the end. But I mean, the way he just he just so much emotion in that song too. But when he did that, it was incredible. And again, we the the goal for that song is to help people. It's about stopping, you know, if that helps one person not commit suicide, then you know, it's a platinum platinum song to me. There's nothing better than that.

Chuck Shute: 14:29

Absolutely. That's That's why I bring it up. Because I feel like that's something that more people need to talk about. And I always try to bring up mental health stuff. And you'd be surprised how many people are dealing with that people that I'm like, Oh, this person's like a big rock star and then they'll tell me that like they have anxiety or depression. I'm just like, really? Wow. It's like it's really surprising.

Tom Collier: 14:47

When I did the song a lot of people reached out to me too. It's the same thing was showing me the way back home and I did that song but it was for bachelors and things like that. But this right here, a lot of people that are herded have already read reached out and just said, Wow, it's really helping them. And that's the important part. It's all about helping them guys and making sure that you know, they need to reach out for help. I had no clue that my friend is going to kill himself had not He hugged me goodbye. He spent the night. So we rehearsed in old school house. I bought the squats. We started off in pig slaughterhouse and held hostage did and then I bought the school. So we still rehearsed. We rehearse there for 30 years. And he came over and he said, I'd like to spend the night to school. So we spent, and I like to spend money in school house and I said, okay, and at that point, I was running my own business. I love music. So he comes out, he gives me a hug in the morning. We had coffee together. His daughter calls me at 10 o'clock in the morning says he killed himself two hours after he left.

Chuck Shute: 15:38

That's horrific. Wow. Well, I'm sorry.

Tom Collier: 15:41

It was time to sit down and write a song to help people. And that's what that song is all about. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 15:47

Well, that's what you can do is raise awareness through the music. I think that's great. Absolutely. Is that is fallen brothers. Is that about? I'm assuming that's about veterans, but I don't know you tell me it

Tom Collier: 15:58

is it is about veterans and stuff. It started off. So when I'm writing songs morphed into something definitely that was started off as guys in the band and passed away. There's seven guys in the band has been joining the band because

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 16:10

people pass away a kiss of death. People are dying to leave as

Tom Collier: 16:19

we should have never told them all that stuff

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 16:21

me. My career's went down the toilet. I bought my cemetery. When I did.

Tom Collier: 16:29

That was part of the fallen brothers actually turned into about the military and stuff my whole family's military and stuff. When I'm writing something, it starts with one thing. And it broadens out. And and that's what it turned into is the fallen brothers around the world and brothers and sisters. It's not just brothers and sisters. That song is for everybody. Again, I'm not going to say fallen people. I said fallen brothers, you know, but that's meant for everybody. It's not. It shouldn't offend anybody, you know? And if it does, we apologize for that. But that was never the meaning of this band. This bands out now. We've raised over a million dollars helping families and people in need military, people that are home, things like that. Yeah, there's bands noted for helping people to go get our website over a million dollars. We've raised helping people we've given away and we ask nothing in return.

Chuck Shute: 17:19

Wow. I love that. Yeah, I don't know if you know, I always end each episode promoting a charity. So that's really cool, too. I love hearing stories like that. I think that's awesome.

Tom Collier: 17:27

Thank you.

Chuck Shute: 17:27

Thank you. Yeah. And you said show me the way back home. That one is also about veterans.

Tom Collier: 17:34

And is absolutely about Vietnam veteran. My brother was in Vietnam. So after talking to him, and then I went out met with a bunch of bachelors and stuff. And so I wrote that song. And here in Cuba County, they wanted to they were trying to build a memorial for the soldiers didn't come home in New York. So we played free concerts. I donated every penny from that song to them. And they built there's one more last year.

Chuck Shute: 17:57

Okay. And that's another one that Tim is not on. It's actually Joe Lynn Turner,

Tom Collier: 18:01

right? Yeah. Yep, that was so Joe and I worked together before I'd met Tim. And that's a so we went back and we did an acoustic version of that song and stuff. So yeah, that's chosen in that one.

Chuck Shute: 18:11

What did you think about? If you've seen his new look? He can. Yeah, I'm getting a lot of positive feedback.

Tom Collier: 18:21

Well, Joe has been wearing a wig for a long time, you know, and he's had the puppy or alopecia and stuff. So it's, it's a pretty brave move to do, you know, represent. He's gonna shave his head after the show. During the show,

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 18:33

right? I said, I'm gonna shave my back

Chuck Shute: 18:42

you always been this funny, like in interviews and stuff.

Tom Collier: 18:45

Yeah. He had a great sense of humor, even on stage. He's gonna,

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 18:50

when I was in Judas Priest, we tried to make me at the beginning real evil, and they know like, Alright, we're gonna be serious. There's no Tim. It's just rip ruins. And the first interview that came out was Tim and then we start doing these interviews and there was like, Okay, nevermind, this is all humor. It's all fun.

Chuck Shute: 19:07

Yeah, I heard you do this one interview and you were talking about your thought it was like during COVID or something, you said that you got the COVID vaccine. But you're still going out and you're doing all these shows, and you called yourself a super spreader. And then you said that you killed more people than Charles Manson. I didn't throw my phone out. I was laughing so hard. And the interviewer didn't he didn't even smile. He didn't laugh at all. And I was dying. I

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 19:30

know. Well, I love to talk about that. Because, you know, I had, you know, vac, you get the vaccine. You get two boosters, but you still can catch COVID And I get I have to get the booster up to date to go to Spain in a couple of weeks. But that doesn't mean I don't have COVID coming into the country. I mean, right. being vaccinated, you can have COVID just as easy. It's a fact as someone who's not vaccinated. I mean, we I might live longer than my 55 year old buddy, but you know, but that's what makes me laugh. I call myself a super spreader because if I'm sick, I'm not going to get tested every time I'm sick. I got vaccinated, so I shouldn't be healthy.

Chuck Shute: 20:13

Right. So I think the vaccine just minimizes your symptoms, supposedly, or makes them less it makes them less severe.

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 20:20

Yeah, I mean, listen, I could be one of those good backs and people only kill as many people as OJ did, but I'm gonna go with I'm gonna go with Charles man. To people, so. Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 20:39

Well, it seems like maybe maybe those people are making a bad decision than if they're not taking their own health. It's more therefore than your fault, because you can't stop a virus.

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 20:48

No, listen, I'm not mad at unvaccinated people. I'm not mad. I just hate on vaccine people. dishing dicking are getting on the backs of people and vaccinated people acting like unvaccinated people are the problem. It's like, No, you guys are all out there dancing around the parties. Like you're fine, because you're vaccinated. I mean, everybody could be spreading it. We have to live with it now. I mean, it sucks. It's serious. You still got to take it serious. But you got to live.

Chuck Shute: 21:15

Yeah. So you have to Vax to go like to different countries because America, it's not that strict, but to other countries, you actually

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 21:22

know, right? America, people can't come to America unless you're vaccinated or you're tested. I mean, America was actually the last country that lifted, the you have to be tested policy. Everywhere else in the world. You can go in, I could go in and be vaccinated or tested. But you have to be vaccinated. America was the last country to lift for Americans coming back in that we had to be tested. Now you just have to be vaccinated, you know,

Chuck Shute: 21:49

but once you're in America, you can do whatever you want, kind of sort of, well,

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 21:52

you can anywhere else. I mean, we're funny, as I'm playing Bolivia, they're all They're the people when I land there is telling me how great the cocaine is there. We got the best cocaine in the world. And this is what they're talking to me about. I'm looking at everybody and masks around me. And I said, Can I ask you a question? He said, Yes. I said, you're peddling cocaine to me, which is killing Americans and killing people. But yet you all got masks on so you don't die. What No, I'm confused. I said how do you even snort cocaine? Your own design role that comes out? You don't mean like, somewhere that they're all wear masks sinners, like dead dogs and chickens on the ground? And I'm like, listen, I mean, that masks just the last thing I'm worried about. Yeah. Do you do are you going to try and look okay, I was shot next door in my hotel last night, you know? Yeah.

Chuck Shute: 22:52

Are you going to try the cocaine? Is that something you ever did? Or?

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 22:58

Yeah, of course I tried it. I loved it. But that was a long time ago and being a musician and a singer. You can't do that. You can't You know, I these guys know. You know, but it's funny you say that though? Because I said to him God I just would love to just try a little teeny bit to say I tried it. But I said I would be a show every day. I might. I can't even just give me the water. I only want to drink the water. But yeah, I'm pretty clean and normal on the road. You know, I gotta be I can't do anything.

Chuck Shute: 23:31

Well yeah, you gotta be in shape for your voice right I mean, otherwise you can't sing

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 23:36

Yeah, I don't I leave the hotel like right before the show. I leave to do sound checks once I start touring. And then I when I come off the show the states sometimes I just grabbed my bag and walk right out the door to a car and and leave just because I want to go to the hotel and rest do you

Chuck Shute: 23:53

still do all that sorry what

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 24:00

I was just gonna say say the Bolivian coke had been very good resting in the hotel

Chuck Shute: 24:05

no no now how about are you guys going to do like meet and greets like either for the held hostage show or any of your other do mean greets get cancelled now because of COVID Or how does that work

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 24:19

well on my on my thought of my tours I got sick on this last moment I didn't do any meet and greets. I'll meet fans if I'm leaving sometimes you can't even help it or some promoter or agent would want to bring friends back but I I don't try to do too many of them as much right now because of it around but again listen, I'm vaccinated and booster and supposed to be okay, so I got you gotta live you got to meet people.

Chuck Shute: 24:48

Yeah, cuz that's a big part of the revenue for bands, isn't it?

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 24:53

Yeah, well, I shouldn't come out first. And if Tom comes back coffin and I don't know canary in the coal mine yeah, yeah, I was actually I was okay but dying from COVID until I joined held hostage

Chuck Shute: 25:14

here is dark. I love it. I love the dark humor. sorry not to be too stereotypical because I'm sure you get asked this stuff all the time about how you join Judas Priest everybody knows the story. But this is a question I want to ask you that I don't think anyone's asked you. Because you the people don't understand the story you were in the cover band of Judas Priest. But actually when they called you you were in a Seattle grunge base cover band right so do you ever wonder what if K K didn't call you and or or you maybe turn them down and you stuck with your perfecting your Chris Cornell sound What if you had stuck with that you think your career would have taken a different path?

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 25:52

Why and a real job that was just something I did on the side I was never planning on being a musician or in you know I you know when I got the call from them that was just something I did on the side and and but yeah, Chris Cornell actually was a great influence of mine and helped me learn how to sing even better you know I mean, Chris Cornell he was a lot more of a heavy metal singer at that time than the heavy metal singers were so you have Jesus Christ was that he was metal you know and but I just fast doing other stuff. I just got a lucky break. Phone call. And listen, I quit did Judas Priest should be banned because I wasn't singing it very good at that time, and I quit. And I think doing the Chris Cornell stuff got me back in in the shape of doing it but you know, I got lucky break and and, and ran with it.

Chuck Shute: 26:47

Yeah, I mean, it's so many freaking projects. I can't keep track of all of them. Is there anything what else are you doing right now? Besides you got held hostage KKs pre solo what else is current?

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 26:58

Three tremors just put one out last year? Well listen, if you're gonna pyramid band, it's it's a alternative rock kind of progressive rock thing I did. That's coming out guessing or audibly the second record, but the biggest one now that I have come out will be the the solo Ripper record with Jamey Jasta producing the EPS coming out first. And then next year, we'll put out the full length. So six song EP is coming out first. Probably due for the end of October. So

Chuck Shute: 27:26

end of October, okay. And then you will tour as a solo artist, and you'll do songs from all your different projects

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 27:38

now that COVID Let me do what I do a lot of these tours. So now I can start booking that again and ripper and putting this this other stuff out, it makes it even bigger possibilities to do other. Look at some festivals and things like that next year.

Chuck Shute: 27:56

Okay, how do you do? How do you have such a? Is it work ethic? Is it just your talent? Or? I mean, is it cocaine? I don't know. How do you keep up with all these different projects?

Tim "Ripper" Owens: 28:06

Get the Bolivian cocaine back? No, it's, I gotta pay the bills. You know, I'm a musician. It's funny because people get mad at me because I do so many things. And I said, well, so you want me to do one thing, if I did one thing, I would have a regular job and you would never see me doing anything. Now, I sit at home in the studio for people all around the world. All week, all the time. I do it all the time. But then when I get to go on, you know, I stay busy. It helps pay the bills, does pay the bills, and then I but now touring, so it was great because they go to these other countries and I have bands that have backed me up for years and I go there tours and you know, pretty pretty lucky to do it.

Chuck Shute: 28:52

Ya know? Very cool. Well, I know you guys gotta get going held hostage as the album that's out right now. It's on Spotify. Can people order? Does the vinyl. Is that in yet? Or is that still backordered?

Tom Collier: 29:04

Vinyl? Yep, it will be next year on vinyl. We signed with the record company find rock music group. The CD sales has been incredible. They're very happy. So we are definitely going to vinyl. This was our first record when we signed a five record deal. So we're very happy with them. We got some more lab a lot more music coming out.

Chuck Shute: 29:23

Okay, very cool. And is there a charity you want to promote here at the end? I don't know mental health or veterans are

Tom Collier: 29:28

absolutely. Mental health right now. I would say that's one of our biggest things with the song Rise. I mean, our new video releases a couple of weeks on rise, right? A couple of two weeks video comes out for rise and very excited about that. And it's actually a concept for you and nobody in the band is in this video. It's all about the cause.

Chuck Shute: 29:47

Okay, well, thanks so much, guys. It's been a blast. We'll have to do it again. All right. Thank you. All right. Enjoy your lunch. All right, thanks. Thanks again to Tom and Tim. The band has held hostage the owl bomb is called Great American rock. Check out their website for more details. I've also included Tim's website in the show notes along with my own, so you can find new stuff, old stuff, social media links, everything and make sure to subscribe to the show wherever you listen so that you'll be up to date with future episodes. Thank you so much for listening. Have a great rest of your day. And remember to shoot for the moon.