| 1. What are you currently up
to? |
On tour with
I just finished producing the new Laudamus record that features
several of the guest performers that are on my new Wake The Nations
CD such as, Marty Friedman, Jeff Scott Soto, Howie Simon, Rob Rock,
Kee Marcello and Mattias Eklund. It will be going out on Escape
records. I also just produced the soundtrack for a new Keifer
Sutherland movie called To End All Wars with composer John Cameron
and the Royal London Philharmonic Orchestra. That was a lot of fun.
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| 2.
What has been the highlight(s) and lowpoints(s) of your career
to date?
|
Low points for me was the day commercial hard rock died. It was at
the zenith/climax of the group Nirvana. It seemed that what I
had worked toward all my life (commercial hard rock) and had the rug
pulled completely out from under me. It also was the thing however
that drove me to produce music for film an TV so it's a double edge
sword. I am grateful for that now.
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| 3. Which song(s) are you most proud of and why?
|
I have to admit I'm pretty proud of most of the songs from the new CD
Wake The Nations like Falling Haouses, The Story Of Love and God In
Heaven. I also like songs I've written in the past like Loving You
Loving Me, and Don't Let The Sky Fall On Me. I know others are big
fans of songs like Radio Bikini and You Never Give Up and In Your
face.
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| 4. Could you tell us a little about the upcoming album 'Wake
The Nations'. How did you assemble such a great line-up of musicians? Which ones gave you the greatest buzz in the studio?
If you tour with this album who will be in the band?
|
Wake The Nations was a record I've wanted to make for some time but
felt there may not be a strong enough market for. It was guitarist
Howie Simon who convinced me that there are still a lot of guitar
fans out there that would be into it and from what I've seen so far,
I believe him.
It sort of happened by osmosis. I just asked myself who some of my
favorite guitarists were. Many of them I have known over the years.
Like Marty Friedman played on a Shout album, Doug Aldridge I had
worked with before, Howie Simon of course as well as many others.
Howie Simon did hook me up with Jeff Scott Soto, so other friends
also helped out on getting artists' participation. Niki Baldrian from
AOR Dreamzones also was really instrumental in helping with this as
well.
Some of my favorite playing is Howie Simon's solos, Jeff Watson's
solo, Mattias Eklundh's solo and Pete Lesperance's solo. I also like
the stuff Scott Van Zen did as well. All in all, everyone played
great and it was fun to work with all of them.
The first show we are playing is The Gods festival in England
and the line-up will be me on vocals and guitar, Howie Simon on
guitar and backing vocals, Tim Luce on bass (bassist for Graham
Bonnet and Roger Daltry) as well as Beautiful Creatures' drummer Glen
Sobel on drums.
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| 5. Any personal highlights on the new album and why?
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Personal highlights would be me hearing the whole thing come back to
me when I'm playing the final mixes. You get to hear the consummation
of months of hard work coming back to you. It's a very satisfying and
gratifying feeling.
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| 6. You've been actively involved in fund raising for Sudan. How has
this been going and what brought your attention to this?
|
As far as the Make Me Your Voice/Sudan Project/ CD is concerned, you
can go to www.kentamplin.com or www.makemevoice.com to check out the
CD. I was able pull together some pretty influential like Andre'
Crouch (who did a lot of the soundtrack for the movie The Lion King
for example), all of whom have seen what the Muslims are doing to
Christians and animists in the South of Sudan. They have murdered
over 3,000,000 people and are getting worse by the day. I was able to
testify before several members of the United States Senate and
Congress and were able to get a bill passed that provided
$300,000,000.00 worth of aid to stop the wholesale slaughter of the
Islamic government against the black Africans in the south of Sudan.
I really feel like these people deserve basic human rights denied
them and selling 9 year old girls into prostitution slavery must be
stopped as well as the other horrible crimes against humanity their
government is inflicting.
In fact, I got to meet president George Bush. He is a very kind,
attentive, sincere, hard working reasonable man. It's a shame that
Hollywood has given him the bad wrap they have. In time we will see
how his efforts were the right thing with regard to the war on
terrorism.
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| 7. Shout - how did the comeback album 'Shout Back' fare? Are there any
plans for more Shout material and/or shows in the near future?
|
Shout did OK. I think it could have been better but our budget was
pretty limited and we didn't get to follow it up with any shows. I
don't see any more Shout stuff in the works for the future but I try
to never say never. There were some good things about that CD. I like
the tracks Dreams For Sale (Howie plays a burning guitar solo and the
track has a Lenny Kravitz vibe) and our cover of the old rare Earth
song 'I Just Want To Celebrate' came out great as well.
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| 8. Is there anything you would still like to achieve in the music
business? Anyone you would like work with still?
|
There are all kinds of things I still want to do. I like to score for
films and want to continue the pursuit of this. I also want to
put out a first class flamenco CD as well as a smokin' blues CD. I'm
sure once that is accomplished I will have new desires and goals.
I am looking into doing another record that will involve quite a few musical heroes of mine. I'll keep you posted
as it develops.
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| 9. What do you do in your spare time outside of music?
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I wine and dine my beautiful wife of 19 years and play with my kids.
My son is a big sports head and my daughter is becoming quite the
pianist.
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| 10. Message to your fans...
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Do your thinking for yourself! Don't let the media or Hollywood do
your thinking for you. We live in times of a lot of mis-information.
Find out the facts. I think you'll be surprised at what you'll find.
I hope I have been an inspiration to you and that my faith in God has
opened up a window for you to see a loving God full of peace and
grace.
Peace to all, KT
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