By: Rick Landers
Photos courtesy of L. Virgil.
Rock has a legacy of communicating rebellion, with street smarts and an eye towards defining distinctions between generations, the rich and poor, the isolation of youth and the anger when dreams are shattered by realities. And it may not always be the lyrics that reflect the plight of the underdog, as much as the grit and primal nature of the sound of rock. Few places have risen to the occasion to offer up rock like Detroit and its surrounding working class suburbs.
Out of the Detroit area came Hank Ballard and Bill Haley in the early ‘50s. The ‘60s would offer up the stark proto-punk of Iggy Pop and the Psychedelic Stooges, along with a convulsion of Detroit rock from the MC5, Bob Seger, The Frost, The Rationals, Mitch Ryder, Savage Grace, John 5, Mark Tremonti, Bill Haley, Del Shannon, The Woolies, Marshall Crenshaw, Alice Cooper, ? and the Mysterians and Grand Funk Railroad.
Today, the rebellion reaches near panic proportions in a State where the auto industry tanked, leaving thousands out of work and a fertile ground for rock. Flint, Michigan has been especially hit hard and when we heard that Lordd Virgil had released a track about the demise of Flint and the true grit of the hard workers in that city, we decided to give it a listen.
The track is a straight “in your face” look at the victims of the rust belt economy, but it’s not a wimp-track about Flint’s plummeting employment, but a rebellious stand on behalf of the toughness and resilience of the people of Flint. “Flint, Michigan” has gone viral and Lordd Virgil has drawn attention to Flint, as well as to his brand of Detroit rock.
Virgil has had success with some past tracks including: “Tip of My Tongue” and “Inside”, off his second album, Anno Domini album, produced by multi-platinum producer, John Hughes II. But, “Flint, Michigan” has been putting Lordd and his group on the map.
(L to R) Rob Johannis, Tony Smith, Lordd Virgil, Mark Stevens Photo: Matthew Dolinar
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Rick Landers: The Detroit area has a reputation as a breeding ground for great rock ‘n’ roll. How’s the music scene these days and what groups – besides yours that we’ll get to in this interview – are getting some traction?
Lordd Virgil: The music scene in Detroit is just as ripe and diverse with amazing talent as it ever has been, if not more so. Poverty breeds excellence. In order to survive the economic downturn that Detroit has suffered over the past twenty years, you either have to become the best at what you do, or starve. There is no room for the mediocre. This type of desperation has fueled the fires of many genres of music in the Detroit area.
Most notably, it has continued the legacy of a real, genuine, authentic, gritty, street-level, honest type of rock that cuts right to the bone. This is the sound that was created by Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad, The MC5, and continues in the sounds of Kid Rock, Dirty Americans, Pistol Day Parade, and Ty Stone.
Rick: How did you get into playing guitar as a way of living as opposed to heading to a car factory for a job?
Lordd Virgil: That was an easy choice. I didn’t want to move to Mexico or China.
Rick: Tell us about your track that highlights the troubles and challenges facing Flint, Michigan and how that song came about.
Lordd Virgil: The inspiration for the song came to me when I attended the funeral for Gary Buckner. Gary was a friend, a musical mentor and a local legend. As I followed in the funeral procession, I watched as the hearse drove down a street littered with dozens of huge potholes and heaving pieces of broken pavement. Then, as I continued to drive to the cemetery, I realized how sad it was that the dignity of a funeral procession, with a car that could have built in Flint no less, should be overshadowed by the decaying neighborhood in a haunted city that felt like it too was dying.
As I was walking back from the mausoleum after the ceremony, I realized that I knew more people under the ground than above the ground. I walked by the graves of my aunts and uncles, friends from school and other musicians and concluded that this was hollowed ground and what right did anyone have to talk about my hometown in the negative ways that I’d been reading about all my life.
The people of Flint made General Motors rich and General Motors, in turn, made us poor. Ultimately, it’s our own fault. It’s still “We the People” right? So, it’s really up to us to clean up the messes that have been made by previous administrations and generations. Flint is full of the hardest-working unemployed people in this country. Any corporation that dares to bring us 150,000 jobs and we’ll make them rich too.
Lordd Virgil
Rick: The Detroit area has always been one where each new generation could rely on the auto industry to have jobs available. Is that now gone, is it coming back or are there new industries eyeing the Flint talent pool?
Lordd Virgil: Yes, the auto industry has gone. Industry as a whole is gone. It’s not coming back any quicker than the agricultural revolution. If you want a job in Michigan right now, you either have to create one for yourself or leave the state and it’s not looking like things will be better any time soon.
Rick: Any word on what’s happening to the old Grande Ballroom. There was a push to resurrect the old Detroit rock palace.
Lordd Virgil: As far as I’m aware, the Grande Ballroom closed as a rock venue in 1972, before I was born. Since then, the building has rarely been used and has fallen into a state of disrepair and it remains inactive and open to redevelopment.
There is, however, a movie by producer-director, Tony D’Annunzio, that is scheduled for release in this Spring titled Louder Than Love: The Grande Ballroom Story. It’s the story about the hallowed halls that started it all, told by the artists who helped create its epic stature.
The Grande Ballroom will forever live on in the live recordings that were made there and through the legendary acts that continue to inspire musicians around the world.
Rick: Tell us about your group and what influences you pull together in order to get your own sound.
Lordd Virgil: The greatest influence of our sound is the desperation, poverty, and violence that has surrounded us all of our lives. Musically, we travel a seventy-years-long-highway of blues, R&B, country, and rock that began as far back as John Lee Hooker and Howlin’ Wolf, winds through the streets of the Motown sound, picked up a hitchhiker named Johnny Cash, sped through the neighborhoods of Iggy Pop, MC5, Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad, and Ted Nugent, fueled up on KISS, Queen, Godsmack and Buckcherry and is creeping up on the taillights of Kid Rock and Pop Evil. Keep the passing lane open, because here we come.
Rick: Are Detroit fans as hard-core as they’ve always been or has rock taken a dive like the auto industry?
Lordd Virgil: The more the auto industry tanks, the economy flounders, unemployment rises and politicians steal, the more hard-core Detroit’s musicians and fans of rock become. The greater the hardship, the tougher the music and its audience becomes. People have very little money to spend. If you want them to spend it on your band, you’d better be damn good and Detroit, itself, is in one hell of a lot better shape than Flint.
Rick: Have you thought about heading to L.A., Nashville or New York to make a name for yourself in music, or is there something that keeps you in Flint that offers your music career something unique that you can’t get anywhere else?
Lordd Virgil: I don’t have to think about it. I’ve been to L.A., Nashville and New York. We’ve made a name for ourselves in music and we will continue to make that name bigger, but it won’t have anything to do with where we are located. Today’s market is a global market and with the worldwide access of the Internet and satellite communications, whether you’re in Bangladesh or on Hollywood and Vine, makes no difference. We’re in Flint because Flint is home and whether we live here or not, it will always be home.
Rick: Besides performing, do you teach or leverage your love of guitar in other ways to make a living?
Lordd Virgil: I have taught on occasion but it’s difficult because I was never taught. Other than that we leverage our marketing and merchandising skills to stay alive.
Rick: Now that your song has had an impact on YouTube, how can you exploit that to move forward with your music, as well as help support the people of Flint?
Lordd Virgil: The video for Flint, Michigan, has been seen in 60 countries. The video attracted the attention of DMI Entertainment for the purposes of booking us on national and international tours and we’ve also starting to generate label interest.
The greatest part, however, is how this song has become an anthem, not just in Flint, Michigan, but in every place that has suffered economic downturn and urban decay. People from Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Dublin, Berlin, Warsaw, Seoul and Cairo relate to this song just as well as the people of Flint. The fact that people in 60 countries have even heard of Flint, Michigan, is astonishing. My hope is that someone with bring 150,000 jobs to my hometown and a dump truck for all the applications they will get.
