Do you think you're Evil enough? Tara Lynch Speaks Out

Hi Tara, hope you are well and I'd like to welcome you to Hell (as Venom would say), so I believe you arrived in Hull yesterday before the show started, how are you find Hull?

"Well I think it is a beautiful city I was amazed by the building around the city hall, there just amazing to see."

As a child were you influenced by anybody in you're family been musicians also?

"Well my father listened too pretty much all his life and he did actually play the drums when he was a kid but I never saw him play them later on in life only the Congo drums. My big brother who is almost 6 yrs older he picked up the guitar and I just natural wanted to play also.  My brother still plays guitar to this day but he doe not do it professionally and I picked up the guitar at the age of 11 and never looked back."

So what guitarist have inspired you to play the guitar professionally?

"There are so many to be honest, from Richie Blackmore, Uli Jon Roth, Steve Vai, Tony Macalpine, Vinnie Moore, Yngwie and of course Michael Schenker is my personal Jesus and or course Tony from Black Sabbath who influenced by style. (Ed: would you say you were more of a Shrapnel Records shredder?) I think I am more defiantly a fan of the instrumental guitar stuff but I also like vocal guitar work too and some of my all time favourite bands would be Iron Maiden, Megadeth, The Scorpions, you name it. My musical taste is massive but it has to move me.

I don't think I am copying any one, I tried to devolve my own style of playing to be honest. I am self taught and we are all influenced by our heroes but if I had to pick some of my favorite guitarists there would be Michael Schenker, Gary Moore, it was his vibrato that did it for me so thank you Gary Moore. 

For the heaviness of my sound I'm going to say it was Black Sabbath for me. (Ed: I would have to say your guitar player very much reminds me of Tony Macalpine). Well thank you so much for that comment, he is an amazing player and he worked on my album playing the keyboards and not the guitar for my record."

Can you remember you're 1st guitar you had?

"My 1st guitar was a Gibson SG copy some unknown name piece of shit but did it make me happy? When I 1st started to play guitar I would play for several hours a day and never stopped and to this day I have to limit myself to just hw much time I can play the guitar. my fingers get sore. Right now I am playing Ernie Ball guitars and I am endorsed by them. "

How many guitars do you think you own so far?

(Laughing) "I stopped counting at 80 I'm really serious, I would never sell any of my guitars. 

Moving on I have to ask and I am sure I am not the other journalist to ask this, but are you related to George Lynch?

(Laughing) "No I am not, in any shape or form. Lynch is a very common name here in the U.S. its like Smith."

I was reading you're biography and it said you are a pretty multi talented musician, guitarist, bass player, drummer, violinist and pianist and you are all self taught that is impressive. How come you wanted to play all of those instruments?

"I started with the guitar and started later on with piano and drums, the drums happened in high school when I guitarist hears a drummer you start to have an argument that drums are always harder to play the guitar. So you say no way guitar is way harder then drums, and then you make the bet with a drummer and you give them 2 hrs to come up with a song I choose for you. And I ask them to chose a song for me to play on the drums within the next 2 hrs, so after 2 hrs I would play his song beat to beat. When it came to him he couldn't do a damn thing.

After guitar I am probably best at drums and I play a lot of my demos on drums and I write every song and I write for all the instruments and record them all 1st and make a demo. Make no mistake I am not a drummer I am a guitarist who can play the drums which is a huge difference. So on the album I wanted the best drums I could get that is way I got Vinny Appice & Glen Sobel to play on the record, who were totally perfect for the record.

I write the drum patterns 1st then I come up with the guitar riffs and melodies. I usually start with a drum beat and take it from there. I write in some strange keys sometimes that some of the guys don't know what I am playing and it just comes out of me naturally."

How did you hook up with Brent, Vinny, Tony, Glenn, Bjorn, Phil and Mark in the 1st place?

"Well we all live pretty close to each other in L.A. Phil Soussan has been a friend of mine for many years and I met Vinny through Phil and you end up at the same parties and you hang out at each other homes and you make friends. I didn't go after former Yngwie members at all, Bjorn has been a friend of mine for many years and when I wanted to make a record I wanted him to be part of the recording and Phil also. So originally I wasn't going to sing on the album because I didn't think I had a good enough voice to be part of the album.

So I asked Mark to record his songs and I do all the demos but I play all the instruments and I do the vocals too for them. Brent (my producer) along with Phil and Vinny and when they heard my vocals on the demos Brent was the one who started asking me why I am not singing on this record? I told him that I didn't think I was that good enough to handle the vocals, so in come Mark and the guys ambushed me and started drilling it into me that I should handle some of the vocals on the record., they said my vocals were good enough and I was crazy not to do them.

So I said OK I will do them for 'Banished from my Kingdom' and if I like the way they come out then I will record more vocal tracks. If it didn't work out I would of asked Mark to record more vocals and maybe other guest to record as well. In the end it didn't suck and it sounded pretty good to me, I guess I surprised myself and I realized that maybe I am a vocalist so I ended up doing the rest of the vocals on the remaining songs."

Your vocal's very much remind me of Lana Lane, have you heard of her? Vinny played drums for her live and I am sure he did recording sessions too for her. You both sound similar in vocal techniques .

"You know, I have never heard of her. I do not know who she is and you can't know everything."

Just how long did it take to record the album 'Evil Enough'?

"Well it took from start to finish 8 month in total. It took so long to record because of the time scale with the rest of the musicians doing other projects so the schedule was crazy so I had to wait for Vinny to get back from his tour and also Bjorn and so on and so on. So in the end the stars have to line up so we can all be in the same room recording."

What do the songs on the album mean to you, what are they about?

"Well it's an autobiography and each song is an aspect of my life either it's a person or an event each song is a personal letter about something. The album is a dairy and I am sharing it with the world. I wrote all the music and lyrics so Mark just came in and did the vocal tracks."

So why the title for the album and cover for the record?

"Well I had an ex boyfriend who use to use that term all the time 'are you evil enough?' So I guess it kind of stuck with me when I was write the record and lyrics this is pretty evil of me because the song 'Trustless' is about my husband and I am still married to him to this day. Some people would consider this evil to out do him this way, but I am evil enough to to some pretty wicked things. So there is you're album title, just saying it as it is. I did not have any other titles for the album.

(Ed: The artwork reminds me of a painting that was done for the 'Halford' band where Rob would be standing on top of a pile of skulls, was the album cover done by the same artist?) The artwork was done by the same artist who has worked with Danzig, The She Devils and bands like that. His name is Richard Vilea I am not sure if I will work with him on the next record, it depends and I come up with the concept for everything and I came up with the cover for the debut album.

I found a picture of Hell and I through a picture of myself standing there and I explained to him that I wanted a lot of men around my feet. The next concept will be very interesting to see what I decide to do. The next album will include more vocals for sure and will only have 1 or 2 instrumentals."

Will you be having the same musicians on the next record?

"All I can say is that I will be having some of the same musicians on the next record, but I cant tell you who they will be."

Just how well is the album selling for you so far?

"So far so good, I mean in Europe it was released 21st March and it has been selling well on this tour so far and I sold lots on my website and through my distributor. The album is released through my own label but I also have a deal with Cargo distribution. I may sign to a label if they make me an offer that I can't refuse. It is hard to sell records these days with digital downloads and streaming."

When do you think the next album will be released?

"Well I would say that I will not be putting it out until 2020. The debut album after a couple of songs originally had to be changed as I was not happy with the production and the person i was originally working with, so when I got Brent involved we started from scratch and it works out great. I had Vinny and Bjorn re do some tracks and it took longer than it should of done but the final outcome is much better now. The next album will go a lot more smoothly that is for sure."

I know you have released one promo video for the song 'Antidote' , will there be another video for this album?

"Yes I think I might do another 2 more videos, but not sure of the songs yet. We will have to wait and see."

So moving on how well is the tour with U.F.O. going so far for you?

"Well we have done 22 shows and we only have 3 more left to do. So fr they are going great for us, and the reason I got on this tour was because I was doing a tour in Germany UFO manager saw me on tour and approached me about it. The tour I was doing was with Bonfire & friends which had Joe Lynn Turner, Phil Mogg, Geoff Tate, members of Survivor and Toto and many more people. The whole tour pretty much blow up from the beginning leaving Joe to play some shows with me, the rest didn't kind of happen sadly. That one show got me to meet UFO manager and to talk to me about doing this tour."

Do you plan on touring the U.S. after this tour?

"Yes for sure, I can't tell you who I will be on the road with just yet."

What has been the best show for you so far here on the UK & European tour?

"The best show for me so far had to be Glasgow in Scotland, the crowd were amazing they cheered us was we walked on the stage and before we even played a song. It is very interesting for us to play in the UK as some of these cities are pretty reserved and stand there so quietly and polite, it's like to hey like what they are hearing?? At the end of the show they just explode and I have people coming up to me telling me how much they love the show. I am not doing any festivals this year, you have to book them a year in advance."

Well Tara thank you for taking you're time out and for doing this interview. Do you have anything to say to the fans reading this?

"Yes thank you for coming to the shows if you were at the UFO concerts. Thank you for buying my CDs and t shirts and for supporting my music and band. Thank you for the interview Jason.