Interview with Kim Hooker of Tigertailz

The past few months have seen some real highs and lows for Tigertailz. Their "Thrill Pistol" album was released last year, but sadly their bass player Pepsi Tate passed away. The band decided to soldier on and I recently checked in with vocalist Kim Hooker to see what the band was doing.

MM-What are you currently up to?
KH-You mean Tigertailz? We're writing some new songs, waiting to hear about tour plans for 08 getting our website updated - www.tigertailz.co.uk and just getting used to things without Pepsi.-



MM-What has been the response to your album Thrill Pistol so far?
KH-It's been a really positive responce, lots of reviews and it was great to do a proper tour to support it.



MM-Did you approach writing and recording Thrill Pistol any differently than you did with Bezerk 2.0?
KH-We all have our own way of writing stuff. It was great to come up with new tunes that were completely new and not things that had been re-written.

MM-Any plans to re-release “Young and Crazy” or are the rights to that album tied up?
KH-We don't have the any plans to re-release it as yet but we may make it available to download from our website, along with the covers.



MM-When Pepsi Tate passed away last year was the decision for this band to carry on automatic or was there any talk of deciding to call it quits?
KH-We did talk about it. It's not only a question of what Pepsi would want as we know he would want us to carry on. It was a question of how we felt about things, how we should carry on if we decided to.



MM-How difficult has it been to carry on without Pepsi?
KH-Extremely difficult but it's like any artist, whether you paint or write songs or poetry, you can't just turn it off. Pepsi will always be a member of Tigertailz. He never left and he was never sacked.



MM-What have Tigertailz yet to do that you would like to accomplish?
KH-Just to have the recognition our songs deserve. If we get that then everything else will follow on.

MM-If someone came up to you and said they had never heard a Tigertailz album, but wanted to then which one would you recommend and why?
KH-Thats a really good question. I think Thrill Pistol as it's the newest and most relevant album. Plus I like the songs!



MM-How do you think the music business has changed since say 1990?
KH-The music business you mean record labels? Labels will cease to exist in their current form. I think artists will always need a form of label and representation but it won't be like it is now. People like Live Nation will become more involved in the other aspects of artists, merchandice, live performances. Recording and releasing music will start to become a smaller part of their role.



MM-It seems like your band had more in common with the LA glam scene than with glam from the UK. There didn’t seem to be a lot of LA glam style bands coming out of the UK. Is that accurate or not? If so then why do you think that was?
KH-We had our influences at the time such as Motley Crue, Ratt and Kiss. We were never interested in Poison or all the other L.A. bands that came after Crue. Our influences are mostly Crue, Ozzy, Priest, Van Halen Y&T bot the type of bands you would expect from us. Wrathchild were a little before us but I think they suffered from the industry and the way it treated them, just as we did. They had a great look and Stakk Attakk is a classic. I personally think the reason the U.K. never produced a band of any decent quality is becouse it became too diluted. Crue wanted to sound like Ozzy, Sabbath and Priest and then everyone wanted to sound like Poison so the third or fourth generation bands just didn't have the quality of songs and talent. I still don't see any good bands coming out of the U.K. All the 'new generation' of bands who think they're like us are really a mile off, nothing like us at all. We always tried to write songs that would stand up and had a good 'hook' look at Sweet and Slade, Mud, Bowie, those are the bands they should be listening to.



MM-What is the UK hard rock/glam scene like these days?
KH-There's a lot of bands around but I don't see a lot of quality. But I wish them all the best of luck.



MM-What younger hard rock/glam bands do you like?
KH-I don't really like any. The only new bands I like are people like Deathstars, I think they're really fresh and have something new to offer, they don't fall into your catagory I know but that's the sort of bands that interest me.



MM-Pick the band from the following pair that you prefer.
KH-
Hanoi Rocks or Motley Crue
-Crue always, worlds apart.

Aerosmith or KISS
-Kiss for me up until 81. Nothing could come close but then you had Motley Crue.

Wrathchild UK or Poison
-Wrathchild for sure.

-New York Dolls or Slade
Slade, I never dug the Dolls, never tuned into them, but Noddy's boys couldn't fail to write a great song! I recently saw them on tour and they were still great.



MM-Is there anything else that you want to say about your band or music?
KH-Kim, Jay and Matt have agreed that TIGERTAILZ will continue to release music and play Live in memory of Pepsi. The band are looking to play a few shows later this year and will announce details as soon as shows are confirmed.Promoters be advised - TIGERTAILZ are open for business.....Coming Soon TAILZ online Web site brings you the first full interview with Kim, Jay and Matt (to be uploaded here in the coming weeks). Get the official word straight from the band members themselves. In the interviews the guys talk about what they've been through over the last year and how they see the future of TIGERTAILZ. New TAILZ Web site. Talks are underway to refresh this official TIGERTAILZ site. The new site will feature a Pepsi Tribute section plus deliver new features where fans can register and manage their own details and get added to the TAILZ email list so you never have to miss out on what's going on. The new site will also move towards an ecommerce site whereby fans can purchase TAILZ music/video directly from the band as Digital downloads.

http://www.myspace.com/tigertailzcouk

-Thanks to Kim for doing the interview.