Interview with Tommy Danger of High Voltage
MVP: It's April 3rd 2005. We are in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a video programmer that’s been on the air a long time. His name is Tommy Danger, the show is called High Voltage. Tommy, do you want to talk a little bit about how High Voltage came to be, and how the last 6 or 7 years of you being in charge has kind of put you on the map?
Tommy Danger: Well, let’s see, back in 1992 me and some friends were sitting around watching Headbanger’s Ball or some shit like that, and realized it sucked and we were mad because we had to wait so long to hear one good video and usually we forgot after a time, and once you got to it you were disappointed because it wasn't really what you wanted to watch anyway. And since I lived near a cable access studio, we decided to start our own hardrock MTV and that’s pretty much how High Voltage got started. It took a while to get a hold of people like Andy and all of the others that would submit videos to us. We sort of paid our dues and the next thing you know we are 14 years in the running, interviewing over 500 bands and enjoying every minute of it. I wish we could do more, but being as sometimes you’re lazy, you don't go out looking for the money to help support you on local WB or UPN or whatever.
MVP: What is the response you get from your viewers? Obviously you have very rabid, loyal, viewership. Curious what the emails are like and what they're requesting and what it is that gets them excited. Why are they tuning into High Voltage every night?
TD: We get some emails all the time of people just looking for their favorite band's video because nobody else would play it, or if they didn't get a chance to watch it that one time, they have to wait the 3 hours until maybe MTV will play it. Lately now MTV does play a little more if you have MTV2 or something like that. They want to see those so they can tape them; they're really hardcore about their favorite bands. They really get into when you interview somebody they know. They think I know these guys very personally. I've known these guys for 10 minutes and that’s it. When you see me talking to them is when I know them. They're very interested in the bands and what they're like and what they don't know, they want to know. Behind the scenes, are they really nice, or are they assholes? Do they give you a hard time? How cool are they? They really like it when we give away autographed stuff. That’s what the emails and the phone calls are, and people beg you to please send them one. I wish I could send everyone one, but it's limited.
MVP: Curious what your take is now, with more videos being produced, more labels seem to be getting on the video bandwagon. How have you seen the labels and their commitment to music videos changed over the years you've been producing and making High Voltage happen?
TD: It's really weird, it comes and goes. It's like a roller coaster ride is the way I describe it. Sometimes there are so many cool videos you think the most creative people in the world are doing videos. The only thing that sucks is that the band has to pay for it even though the label makes millions off it. But, it's a business and they know it, we know it. So, if you want exposure out there, which in this day and age if you don't have a video, you really aren't going to go from that one album that might be a gold to platinum. Sometimes that helps make the jump. Some of the videos I've seen lately are okay, some are crap, some you can tell that no one really cares, which is sad. I think it's a little bit on the down ride and I think it should be leveling out and back on the upswing again, because I've seen some that are really dynamite. So you just go, “Why didn't we think of that years ago?”. It's just one of those things that always comes and goes. There's good, there's bad, there's good, there's bad. There's up and down,up and down. I think that’s the way it always will be.
MVP: There's been a well documented emergence, some people are calling it a resurgence, but it seems like independent, what we'll call alternative rock, for the lack of a better moniker, has really come to a new place here in mid 00's. What is the current state of loud rock, and where do you see it going?
TD: Well you know what's really cool is that a lot of this loud rock is now more mainstream. Zakk Wylde just put out an album called Mafia not too long ago, to me, sounded like Alice in Chains, old Ozzy Osbourne. It's doing pretty good so it's getting to be more mainstream. It's getting to be more accepted, which is good for people like me who really like it. Lamb of God is almost mainstream. Which some people are like “Who the hell are they?”, but a lot of people know them just by name now. So, shows like mine throughout the country that know about Lamb of God, that like them, that want to interview them, that show their videos, helps expose more of the loud rock scene and some of the independents. Whether they're video promoters or whatever it is at labels, they're the ones that help us get the ones that no one ever hears about. Those bands that you ask, “Where are these people from?” like the Deaf Union that Andy sent me. There’s no way in hell I'd ever hear of the band if someone like Andy didn't send me the CD and the video going “Hey! Check this out, I think your audience is going to like this type of stuff.” So, I appreciate that. I know a lot of people I've talked to over the course of the years that we've met, CVC, Billboard, or whatever, we all like that because the major labels only worry about what's on their label. Where the indies have a whole plethora of bands they can deal with, which is cool for us. You can understand the majors; that’s their job. But the indies are the ones that I like the best because I get a whole variety of things. Not just stuck with a “These are the best because we signed them” type deal. So, I think it's great. I love independent, we're in Minneapolis, home of the replacements, how can you not like independents?
MVP: I have a video and I'm going to send it to Minneapolis because I'd love to get some exposure on High Voltage, but my particular artist and video is not decidedly loud rock. Do I still send it?
TD: Of course. Just because you might not think that a certain show would like it, I would say send it to everybody. You have to remember, most of the stuff I program, I don't always like. I program because I think that there are people out there that do like it. I listen to people talk about the music they like. I don't say, “Oh you suck because you like that.” Music is for everybody. I don't care what style you like. If you like music, you're alright by me. I don't care if you like new country, old country, jazz blues, punk, hardrock, and death metal, whatever. Music is what makes you feel good. In high school I was victim to it too. You always go by whatever your friends liked or whatever was popular. If you still like that fine. As long as you have a good reason, not because your friends like it. I say, “Andy, send the video all across the country”, because I might like it personally and go, “I think there’s a big audience for this in our area” and play it. I've done it before. I've played stuff like your Johnny Cash video. I love Johnny Cash. My dad turned me on to Johnny Cash. We had a Slayer video, Johnny Cash and then Sound Garden. It's not all about just certain genres of music. I say mix it up, I'll play it all.
MVP: You sift through dozens and dozens of videos and mini-DVDs each week and you watch all of these videos. What would be your advice or maybe some helpful hints, perhaps some do's and don'ts that you can share with the people who actually plunk down the cash to get that mini-DVD made and send it off to you. Would you like to make sure that there’s a CD in there? Would you like to see that there's a bio in there? What is it going to be that's going to get you to pay attention to something that's submitted to High Voltage?
TD: This is me personally; I've always liked 8 by 10's because I collect them. I always thought the promo 8 by 10's were some of the coolest things around. Over the course of the years I've done it, I got a big ass notebook full of them. A lot of them are on my wall, that when we interview bands I have them sign. So that to me is something I always liked. A good bio and a good promo pack is always key for most programmers. Because, when we get it, it's like Christmas to us. We get all these packages and we start rummaging through them opening up all the presents. When you see a really cool package put together, you know those people are really trying to get your attention. So, I will give them my attention just for that benefit. I know they worked really hard just to draw me into it. Now, I might not like it, but I will listen to it. I think that's the most important thing for most programmers to do. Even bands that you think suck, and you've always hated this band, and they have something new, at least give it a spin to watch. You don't have to show it on your show. Watch it; you might change your mind. You might go, “Man, they're going in a new direction.” Don't stereotype them before you get to listen to their new stuff.
MVP: What do you see as the immediate future for High Voltage? Are there any new ideas? Are you still accepting advertising? Is there anything we can do as people who would like to get their music videos played, whether it be a label or a band, to kind of help High Voltage out here in Minneapolis?
TD: Everybody always says, “Yeah, money helps” and it's true. Money does help, let's not lie about it. I don't think that's the thing that will make us become the next MTV of the world, but I think if I wasn't so damn lazy and concentrated my whole effort into High Voltage instead of working another job to pay my bills and help my family, then I'd probably give it 100 percent and go for it and see what happens, at least make it a local success. That’s all I think these shows really want to do. Deep in their mind, it would be cool to be the next MTV, where you're the king of the world, but after a while it would be boring. It's another job. Where, at least now it's a fun job that I do. Locally I'd like to make it somewhat successful. Where instead of being on a cable access station, maybe a local broadcast station that considers advertisement, we tried years ago to do it. Everybody was like “Oh yeah, we like your show content, we think it's a cool show, I've seen it before, but I really can't put it here, but if you were already on that channel I would give you a commercial.” We were like, well, we need this to get on TV and nobody would ever jump at it and do it. So, we kind of got disappointed and gave it up. But, I think money-wise, you can also help shows out not with money but with publicity, like T-shirts. Labels will get into that. You can put the label’s logo on the back or the arms, that’s a write off for them. We give them out to the viewers and they can wear them around town. That's money that we don't have to spend out of our pocket. Everybody's out looking for money, looking for an easy handout. But I think we can go hand in hand and make it work somehow.
MVP: Ok, you just spoke of a couple of your music video kindred spirits. Heavy Pork in Wichita Kansas, Vid Dream in Wilmington, Delaware, Metal Masters in Tampa, Florida, Steve Woodford at Hard Times in Eugene, Oregon, Annie Sealaugh at Musical Mayhem in Portland, Maine, do you guys talk to these folks? Do you guys compare notes? Or is it pretty much everybody's on their own?
TD: I don't really talk to anybody that much anymore. I've been concentrating on trying to make sure my family is taken care of, I've been kind of dropping off in that aspect. But, you meet people at the conventions that we used to go to. You kind of click with certain people and sometimes you reach them on the phone, or every now and then you'd write a letter to the old CVC magazine you'd write something smart ass about them just to get their reaction. It's just to have fun. I wish I could be more like the Tink when I get his age because he has more energy then I do now. If I could have that much energy I would lead a long life, a happy one at that. I'm not unhappy now, the Tink, if you've never met the Tink, he's a character. This guy's living the dream all the way through his 60's. Heavy Pork are some of the stupidest, craziest, people I've ever met, and I mean that in a good way. Some of the other shows I didn't really get an opportunity to socialize as much as I would have liked to with them.
When we did meet it was under different circumstances, like at a loud party where you couldn't hear them anyway. So, even if they did say something to me I couldn't hear them. Or you're in a quiet atmosphere where you're supposed to pretend like you're paying attention to some speaker where you just want to say “La, la, la, shut up and let’s drink some more”. So you know, that’s pretty much that. I don't really keep in touch with them, I try every now and then, but I 'm just really bad at that.MVP: Two-part question, Tommy Danger. Favorite video interview, and second question, the most humorous antidote concerning a video interview you've conducted.
TD: Most of the bands I've done have been really cool. But then again when you're interviewing them and you're helping make them money, of course they're going to be nice to you. One that sticks out is Sevendust, that band has always been sincere. An old band that no longer exists, that probably most people never heard of, an Australian band, called The Poor. God I loved partying with those guys, I got so drunk with those guys. But they're really nice and down to Earth. They would just talk to you like they've known you for a while. You became friends with them because they weren't trying to pretend like they were the best thing ever. One of the bands that I interviewed before I started doing High Voltage, I was working on a video show called The Edge Video Magazine. It was the first show I've ever done. I had interviewed 2 bands before this guy and the first band I ever interviewed was Great White and it was Poison with Brent Michaels. I wasn't a Poison fan who offered to interview Brent Michael. He was the nicest son of a bitch I ever met. I swear to god that guy was so fucking cool But, Poison music is more poppy rock. But when you meet someone like that, you kind of admire them a little bit more. The band that really pissed me off the most, we got in to a fight actually, was Kip Winger. I've always hated Winger anyway and I wasn't really running the show, I was just the host. The producer set up an interview because I was doing pretty good with the other two and I was like “dude I hate this fucking man, but alright I'll do it.” So I went there and I was trying to be honest and objective because he had an album out and one song wasn't that bad. I was trying to get to “ok, let’s play your album.” Reb Beach, was the guitar player. He was pretty cool, he was trying to be nice about it. But Winger was just being the biggest dickhead I've ever seen in my life and was making fun of me more than anything else, which is not a big deal, I laugh at myself more than anybody. But I just got tired of always trying to get an answer out of him when I'm trying to help him out. So, I cut the interview short and then he started yelling “you're the biggest fuck up I've ever seen!” and I said “yeah, well at least I'm not washed up yet.” We started fighting actually and threw a couple punches, thank god nobody actually hit. He probably would have kicked my ass. Which probably would have been bad when “So, why are you in the hospital Tommy?” “Well Winger kicked my ass.” So, I'm kind of glad that no punches got smacked. He probably would have whipped my ass anyway.
MVP: Alright, how do people get in touch with you here in Minneapolis? You are truly the only game in town here and if they need to get in touch, you might want to let people know just how they can go about doing that.
TD: Well thats not true, I'm not the only game in town. There is another show, and actually the guy who does it is the guy that got me everybody else's phone numbers and got High Voltage going for me because I didn't know what to do. I quit the other show because they sucked. But he got me all the numbers and it's called the Review, they're more of an alternative show. They're pretty cool guys, they don't really care. They just do there thing. But to get in touch with me you can just email me, Tommydanger@earthlink.net or you can call my cell phone at 612-229-0517 and we'll try to hook a brother up.
MVP: Okay folks, that was Tommy Danger, here in Minneapolis. That was the interview, thanks!