Chad Bowar: How did you come to join Seven Witches?
Alan Tecchio: I was introduced to Jack Frost, (who founded 7W) by bassist Kevin Bolembach who I played with in the group Non Fiction. We collaborated with Jack on the song "Hell Or High Water" for Jack’s solo CD Out In The Cold. That experience was so gratifying for all of us and as a result Jack asked me if I would be interested in singing for 7W.
Did the large number of lineup changes in the past give you any pause in joining the group?
Not really because again, the solo CD songwriting and recording went so well that I was not really hung up on the fact that Jack had been through a number of different band members in Witches. I know he gets a bad rap that he’s hard to work with or whatever, but I can tell you that he is not like that at all. He’s no doubt the best vocal producer I’ve ever worked with. Jack also gets a bad rap that he pays his band members a lot of money and therefore they speak highly of him as I just did, but unfortunately that is not the case either. He splits whatever money we make equally which honestly is not fair because he shoulders most of the responsibility and does most of the work.
You’ve been in music for a while now. Give us a brief background of some of your previous projects.
I sang for signed bands Hades, Watchtower and Non Fiction in the past and also an unsigned act called All Time Low. I made a lead vocal appearance on the Power CD Justice Of Fire and have done guest vocals on
several other metal bands’ CDs over the years. I also currently have a dark acoustic type of project with my guitarist friend Justin Jurman that is called Saturnine Smile. That is on hold though due to the 7W schedule.
Were you concerned that your lyrical style might not match what Seven Witches had done in the past?
I was concerned for Jack’s sake since his existing fans were used to a more traditional metal lyrical style. But once he expressed confidence in my ideas, I was cool with it. Moreover, our European label Regain was originally
not into my vocals, lyrics, etc. and it meant more than I can say that Jack had my back with them. He defended my influence on Amped instead of kow-towing to the label and making me redo my parts and words. That took balls and fortunately Regain is now totally behind the CD. It took some time for the CD to grow on them. I have to say that it was a relief to hear that our U.S. label Candlelight was into it from the start.
How did the writing process work for Amped?
Jack would e-mail me four track versions of the songs and I would then dump that into my four track and write the melodies and harmonies. The lyrics were created sometime during my four tracking. I usually got the main
vocal melody first and then wrote the words to that. The harmonies were done for the most part after I settled on some basic lyrics. There were times though that I got a good idea for a theme and started writing the words without having any idea what the music was. That was the case for the song "Fame Gets You Off."
"Sunnydale High" is about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Are you a big fan of the show?
Way big. That was some of the best writing and acting ever put on television in my opinion. Not all of the episodes have stood up over the years since some were based on timely events and issues but for its time, that
show ruled. I can’t believe how great it was, especially since it was spawned from such a horrible movie.
