[oblo_image id=”1″] My musical journey brings us today to Oklaoma, more precisely to the city of Tulsa, where we get to meet the excellent singer/guitarist Chuk Cooley and his friend guitarist Tony Loretti, the two tell us their story in this deep interview that they have gently agreed to give us. Chuck is a versatile Southern Rock musician. He is a winner of many awards and much recognition, and is also the composer of his own lyrics , though which, toghther with his extraordinary band The Demon Hammers, talks about his hard past and his long life journey. Thank to music ,Chuck has found the strength to continue to believe in himself, becoming a great example of real life. His motto is FIST RAZED HIGHT.
Please tell me about yourself and your inner relationship with music.
I came from a home where music was very important. My father was a musician songwriter and my mother was a singer, although they did not share their passion with the public, it was a strong presence in my home growing up. Since they did not live out their dreams with music, I felt it was my duty and honor to fufill.
Being a fulltime musician is a constant struggle. Fleeting moments of enourmous gratification followed by depths of worry, concern, preperation, and improvement always trying to stay new and exciting for the loyal fans.
You ve had a hard past, and without it you wouldn’t be the person and the musician that you are today. In what way has music been helping you? What has your music given you?
Well it sure dont pay the bills but it is all Im good at. Ive never been a 9 to 5 kind of working guy , I seem to have never been molded for that kind of thing. But I am good at this rock-n-roll dream thing. It helps keep me alive and focused, instead of still being a junkie which I was most my life, I was also a an outlaw , a criminal most my younger years. Music literally saved me from a life of hell that I was truly living.My music has given me therapy and a support team world wide which most call fans, I call them my Demon Hammer family. Without them understanding and loving what I do. I honestly think I would be worthless.Music is who I am , Music is my life and I am ever so grateful that I get to share it with the world.
What are your lyrics about? what message are you trying to transmit to the listener?
My lyrics are for those on the struggle for the drug addicts , the alcoholics, its for the darkly depressed its for those that want to find courage to change and the will power to make a diffrence in their own lives as well as for others. I truly believe Its not how long weve got live its what we do while were alive and what we leave behind for others to remember us by.The message is this, just know when your in your darkest of moments -everythings gonna be alright and the best is yet to come. Weve all gotta fall down so we can learn to get back up , that you can move mountains and be successful , but youve got to learn to accept that life may not have all the riches you dream, but it will have something else more important than that , and that is that you can learn to give love and help others and be grateful to be able to just do that, and that gives you a reason to live.As well as makes you important too.
Chuck Cooley & The Demon Hammers, please tell me about this important project of yours.
Anwers by italian descendent deamon hammers ‘s guitarist Tony Loretti :
I have been a Demon Hammer since CCDH began almost 5 years ago. I have known Chuk since we were kids… over 20 years ago! In the past we got in serious trouble with drugs and violence, and we have always been rebels. But we are true music lovers, and we both use music to fight our personal demons. Now we are older and wiser but we are having more fun than ever with CCDH. We have so much to be proud of including our album and EP, professional music videos, local and regional music awards, and we’ve got to play many great shows and festivals with some very famous bands. AND NOW we are even getting interview requests from Italy! This is exciting for me as my grandparents were born in Italy and I am very proud of my heritage. I have been to Italy several times, and my right arm is fully tattooed with a war scene of a Legionnaire fighting to defend Rome. Perhaps one day CCDH can play there…. Now that would be a dream come true! Onore e Fedelta’ alla Terra dei miei Padri! ~Tony Loretti (T III)
You have won much recognition and many awards with your music, how have you lived such experiences?
Thats a tough question , I guess weve worked our asses off with the time we were given and it shined through, maybe the message had an important part to. I just try to live in the here and now and I am grateful to have gotten so many people to vote for us so we can win those awards. They are important to us and they do mean something and thats, that obviously were going in the right direction.
Could you give us some previews about your future projects and partecipations?
We are in the middle of recording a new cd titled “The Slow Crawl” it usually takes us a year or so to make our cds sometimes 2 years. I have got to live my songs before I can write them. We just released a video titled “World Upside Down” you can see our videos at www.youtube.com/chuk7cooley and you can hear the first set of songs from the cd at www.reverbnation.com/chukcooley as well as hear our back catalog there too. You can order our “Born Rebels” cd at Cd Baby, Amazon or Itunes or you can order it at www.chukcooley.com . We are set to play one of the nations biggest festivals here in America called Rocklahoma May 27,28,29th were schedule to play with Whitesnake,Hinder,My Darkest Days, Skillet,Motely Crue,Black Label Society,Poison,Papa Roach and many many more. We Just played SXSW in Austin which was an awesome event with over 2000 bands and 900 venues with over 40 thousand fans. We are sceduled here soon to make our next video for our song “Creeping Across Razors” which is going to be a sick, creepy horror movie style video.Ive directed the last 3 videos and wrote the story lines for all of them. I love making videos. I am also involved in some underground indie movies coming out here soon as well.
[oblo_image id=”2″] I end this interview by inviting you all to listen and get yourselves taken away by the voice and the notes of the great Chuk Cooley & the Demon Hammers, a band with tons of feeling, a combo that represents a true life story, with the hope of seeing them live in Italy as soon as possible.
Per le traduzioni si ringrazia Andrea Zoccoli bass129@hotmail.com
