Alessandro Del Vecchio

by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —

There are few things  less stable in the world of music than the band line-ups. And if there are several who carry on through the years without personnel changes, it’s probably just an exception that proves the rule. Yet, most line-up shifts are followed with pretty strong reactions from the band’s respective fanbase, and they’re not always positive. What many of the fans-turned-complainers tend to forget about, however, is that it’s music that matters the most. And more often than not, it’s also one of the things in this world which is actually greater than the sum of its parts.

One of the hallmark projects for the record label Frontiers Music SRL, Sunstorm, has recently been caught in the middle of such controversy since the lead singer change from Joe Lynn Turner to Ronnie Romero (Lords Of Black, Vandenberg, MSG, The Ferrymen) was announced.  But as Hardrock Haven caught up with Sunstorm’s songwriter and producer Alessandro Del Vecchio on the eve of the release day of their new album Afterlife, there was no dwelling upon that. It was all about the music – Alessandro’s role in Sunstorm, the project’s current dynamics and his vision of its future beyond Afterlife.  We’ve also discussed his plans related to Edge Of Forever and Hardline, his past (and not only…) collaborations with Jeff Scott Soto, other future projects… and more!

Hardrock Haven: We’re here to chat about the new Sunstorm album out on March the 12^th. Still, in the light of absolutely thrilling news from the Edge Of Forever camp, can you actually start from revealing anything about the new album that’s in the works? The title itself – Seminole – has already been revealed. And as it’s a reference to the Native Americans again, can we expect a continuation of Native Soul in terms of music and lyrical theme?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Yeah, I guess it’s gonna be the natural development of what Native Soul was. The title says it all – obviously, there’s a reason why I chose the Seminole nation and not any other. I mean, they’re the unsung heroes in terms of the resistance against the occupation of the white people. And there’s a reason for that choice, because the moment we live in and my past year – and the past year that everybody had – were mostly a great struggle and it’s still this way. So yeah, the album is gonna talk about the world today through the Native lens. Musically, it’s also gonna be a continuation and an improvement into that direction – it’s gonna be even more into making Edge Of Forever a band of its own, more epic, more Southern Rock… More Edge Of Forever at full speed, I’d say.

Hardrock Haven: So basically how you always wanted it to be. And now onto Sunstorm – I suppose you might be asked about all the controversy surrounding the change of the lead singer quite a lot, but we’ll refrain from that and focus on the music instead. So, with Ronnie Romero now on board, do you see Afterlife as a brand new chapter in the history of the project, or is it more of a continuation of the general idea behind it with a different voice?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, I would say both. Obviously, a new singer with such a personality like Ronnie’s, it’s gonna be different because the voice has got a different character. But what we try to do is not to get our feet stuck in the past. We try to move on, we try to make a record of what Sunstorm would be in 2021 and not just the same reference to the past. And honestly, I think we’ve crossed some borders and found ourselves in some new territories without going too far from the Melodic Rock concept. But we try to sound more ‘us’ and more contemporary, and more Ronnie as well as more me and Simone [Mularoni, Sunstorm’s guitarist and co-writer] compared to just going back to album number one, number two or three or four and kind of repeating the same story. So we try to expand what Sunstorm is, but also pay our dues and tributes to our past.

Hardrock Haven: Right, so initially people thought the biggest strength in Sunstorm is its respective members. But with reviews being generally positive now as they are, what do you personally think is the real strength and the magnet that keeps people interested in this project?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, it’s a combination of Ronnie, Simone and I as – I’d say – guiding forces behind the project, because of our songwriting and the trademark sound that’s in the voice of the singer. And it’s a combination of what you would expect from the five of us actually… I mean, we want to evolve and we evolved actually into more of a band than just a studio project. We wanna play live and the reviews are revealing that indeed – it’s pretty evident that we want to sound like a band and we want to sound like nothing else. And you know, especially at this stage of my career and the career of the band, I just don’t wanna repeat myself. What’s already been done, has already been done. The strength of Sunstorm is always focused on the songs, obviously, and we always try to come up with our best songs and to write our best songs yet. But the strength is in this new and unseen combination that still sounds like Sunstorm – but with a new twist.

Hardrock Haven: And I believe you haven’t worked in this capacity with Ronnie before, so what was the experience like?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: You have to know that Ronnie and I have been friends in the last years and I wasn’t expecting anything but working with a great professional and having fun actually. Working with Ronnie is like working with the greats – like with Jeff Scott Soto or Johnny Gioeli – as he’s a singer in that league. He’s very professional and he takes music really seriously, like we all do, but we also wanna have fun and there’s always the friendship and the fun element behind every message. Even if we talk professional stuff, like music and songs and sound and this and that, there’s always a friendship and a bond that goes beyond that. So I could say that being friends before maybe helped – but I think it’s more of a nature of Ronnie and I working together.

Hardrock Haven: And of course, once the line-up change in Sunstorm was announced, people speculated who the new lead singer might be. And although Ronnie has already quite a back catalog, obviously he’s one of the singers of the younger generation. So do you think it’s actually better that he’ll get even more recognition through Sunstorm instead of someone who’s been around for thirty or forty years and has even more stable position within the music market?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: I’m gonna share with you what’s my idea about that. I don’t know if it’s also Frontiers’ or anybody else in the band, but I hope it’s their opinion too (laughs), because I think it’s for the good of the music. So as you know, I’ve been working with the most of the greatest musicians from the past. And I’m grateful for that and I’m always excited to work with musicians that I had posters of on my wall when I was a kid. But having said that, we gotta look into the future – we gotta create something that’s going to last. And yeah, that’s the new generation in our genre. I mean, Ronnie’s the same age as I, and we’re starting to be the old guys (laughs). We’re starting to be the second or even the third generation, coming from the 2000s, the 2010s and 2020s… So we gotta look into the future. And with all these great singers that we have now in the scene, in this new wave of great singers that we have, why should we always look back when we can push forward and try to build something that can last more than just two or three or four records…? Let’s maybe try to build something that’s gonna last like a career, like ten or fifteen records together… So obviously, if you get a guy from a bigger discography standpoint, maybe he’s in his fifties or maybe sixties and it’s fine, but there’s always that gap of one or two generations and that’s gonna impact the future of the band somehow. You know, a younger singer maybe wants to tour more, maybe still wants to invest into the band’s future and his future… and with the older guys, I don’t wanna say that they’re stuck in their past, but obviously there’s more like the passive income attitude and maybe they don’t wanna tour that much and don’t wanna spend too much time doing those things because they’ve already been there. So at this stage of the band, we just wanna move on and look into the longer future than just one or two records.

Hardrock Haven: Very true, absolutely. You’ve already been quoted as saying that “Swan Song”, which was the first single off the new Sunstorm album, is quite special for you. What are the other songs on Afterlife inspired by in terms of both music and lyrics?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, you know… the whole album has been written during the first months of the pandemic. Everybody was going slower and going deeper – more to the core of feelings and life in general. And I was at a point where I was looking at the world and I was looking at myself and I was guessing what this whole situation would do to ourselves. And “Swan Song”, as I’ve already said, it can be anybody’s tale and anybody’s words. And how many couples have you seen destroyed by either the distance or too much of closeness during the pandemic…? I’ve seen friends of mine breaking up just because they couldn’t stand each other for three months within four walls (laughs), or maybe because they were kept at a distance. And one of my favorite songs on Afterlife and my favorite lyrics ever is actually “Stronger,” out on a release day. “Stronger” talks about how to be strong in a tough situation and how can you come out of such challenging times – such trying times – as a better person and better in everything you do. And with Afterlife, we didn’t expect the pandemic to last such a long time, so I was like, “Okay, maybe when the record comes out, everything will be over and we’ll see an ‘afterlife’ after that.” But we’re already here… still, there’s hope. So the whole concept of the album is very true and very real, but also very hopeful and very positive. It’s like, “Okay, we don’t know what we’re facing, but that’s nothing different than what happens in life.” I mean, life can give you challenges and you have to adapt and change. And like Bruce Lee used to say, “Be like water.” We have to adapt and we have to change. And maybe we weren’t trained and programmed to change all at the same time – because from one day to another, the whole world had to change and had to adapt. And the album talks about that in different aspects – it can be the spiritual aspects or the sentimental, or related to personal life… your heart, your mind, your soul. So it’s taking the whole concept to a broader vision of life.

Hardrock Haven: And with the change of the lead singer in Sunstorm, did your approach to songwriting change? Did you try to tailor songs for Ronnie in a different way than you previously did for Joe Lynn Turner?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, actually no. I know that a lot of people would guess I would say yes, but it’s definitely a no. We wrote the songs that we wanted to write. I knew that Ronnie would adapt and sing everything great, so I wouldn’t have had to tame my songwriting when I have one of the best singers on the planet and I know that he could sing also the yellow pages (laughs) and make it sound like a masterpiece! (laughs) So I was like, “Let’s have even more fun!” But I gotta say that with Joe Lynn, it was the same approach. You know, when you have this kind of singers, you can really go wider in your spectrum – it’s not like, “Okay, it’s just a Blues singer, so we gotta stick to that concept.” So I didn’t tame anything in my songwriting, both with lyrics and vocal lines. I wanted Ronnie to shine, but I knew – and I know – that you can be the best singer in the world, but if you don’t have the songs to sing and you don’t have the right melodies, you will never shine. And my aim as a songwriter is always to write the best songs and not to write for the singer – it’s about the best songs.

Hardrock Haven: In the case of both Joe Lynn Turner and Ronnie Romero, were their past works and influences – and I can’t help thinking about a Rainbow connection right now – a point of reference for you in terms of writing?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Yes and no. It’s hard to say, because it’s pretty evident that the natural element for Sunstorm on the last three records – when Simone and I got on board – became more into Deep Purple and more into Rainbow and more into that sort of Hard Rock that nobody does that much anymore instead of going into the Foreigner/Journey/Survivor camp, which probably the first albums were more like. And I guess there’s a little Malmsteen here and there, a little Deep Purple here and there and a little Rainbow here and there, without going too much into one element or the other and still maintaining our trademark which I think is pretty evident now, since we’ve done three albums with the same songwriting and arrangement team behind it.

Hardrock Haven: Obviously, Sunstorm we discussed is yet another showcase of your songwriting skills. And as we recently talked with Issa – talked behind your back, as girls do (laughs) – she said that she thinks writing with other songwriters is what keeps your approach this flexible and this universal. What kind of influence, if any, do all these collaborations have on your development as a songwriter?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, I like both worlds. I like to write on my own and when I hear something, I like to put it down ‘cause I have the vision… You know, I’m not a writer for who it takes maybe months to write a song. I just hear something and I write a song, and I like that. But I also like it when you’re writing with other songwriters because you don’t know what’s gonna happen. You know, it’s like walking in the dark alone and walking in the dark with another person. Maybe that person has a different night vision and they can see doors that you don’t see and they can see ways that you don’t see, and you never know what’s gonna happen. And I feel very grateful that I can write with other writers – either it can be Simone or the other writers that I wrote this Sunstorm album with, or ISSA, or other records. Obviously, there are albums that I don’t wanna go out looking for ideas [for] because I wanna keep the trademark. I wanna keep what we need, like in Hardline, Edge Of Forever, JORN somehow also… But those bands and those albums have a trademark in something and if you’re not in the band, you cannot get that from the outside. But I think Sunstorm will evolve into that for the next album, because we want to keep the sound and we see for the singles that it’s always Simone and I… We don’t see the reason for looking for songs with other songwriters, even if they’re directed to sound like Sunstorm, when we can keep it in our camp.

Hardrock Haven: Issa’s also pointed out that you always try to adapt emotionally to the person you’re writing for. Has it always been this way, or is it something that you had to learn along the way?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: No, it’s always been like that, because you know… emotionally, if I’m gonna be a singer of the material, obviously I’m gonna push myself into more of a personal theme, because I am the voice singing those words. But when I’m writing for others, I always try to respect and make it truthful in the mouth and voice of somebody else. Like I wrote for Sunbomb – for Tracii Guns and Michael Sweet – and lyrically, that was my first, let’s say, ‘Christian Metal’ album. And I had to make it right for Mike and everyone else, so I put myself into somebody else’s shoes, which is a requirement that a songwriter has to have sometimes.

Hardrock Haven: Definitely. You’ve already mentioned 2020 being this really challenging year for everyone and there came your song “Push Through” recorded by Frontiers All Stars initiative. What kind of message did you want to send to the listeners?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: The message was to create a song that could be as positive and uplifting as possible. I mean, during the pandemic we’ve seen covers all the time – covers, covers, covers… which is great, but nobody wrote a song and called sixty other artists to be together. So my aim was to create a message of unity – and you know, also send out a message and an image that musicians are not fighting with each other. We’re friends and if you have the confidence to put yourself between those legacy singers of our genre… I mean, it’s kind of cool to see female and male singers, new generation and old generation, shredders and more Blues-oriented guitarists… it’s a melting pot of what Frontiers is, and we just wanted to keep that.

Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. Looking back on 2020, I can’t omit an album you told me was your lifetime achievement back in November. So knowing your history, I have to ask do you kind of feel you’ve come full circle with your involvement in Jeff Scott Soto’s solo album Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) andJeff being involved in the first Edge Of Forever album alongside the late Marcel Jacob?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Yes, definitely. I mean, I’ve been friends with Jeff for twenty years and every time we met – like, I don’t know, probably fifty or sixty times over these years – we were always like, “Ah, we should do something together. We should do something together.” So finally we did it and I guess all those years of kind of smelling each other from the distance put ourselves in the position energy-wise of going full speed when we started writing together. And that shows – I mean, the album is one of my best albums ever and I’m super proud of it. And then we wrote for Spektra [a new Brazilian Melodic Hard Rock act consisting of the singer BJ and the drummer Edu Cominato of Tempestt, JSS solo band and SOTO, the guitarist Leo Mancini of Tempestt and JSS solo band, with the addition of Henrique Canale on bass] which is coming out this year. And now we’re jumping into something else together (laughs), so we’re always doing something, Jeff and I. He’s very creative and I’m very creative, so it’s a very natural, great bond.

Hardrock Haven: Absolutely. While being interview for Hardrock Haven, Jeff has pointed out to the fact that Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) is musically a cross-section of different things he’s done throughout his career and even his influences, like the Queen vibe on “Without You”. Was working on this album and putting all these different things together also a learning experience for you as a songwriter?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Totally. Obviously, working with a professional who’s been there for almost forty years and who wrote such great songs is something you can only learn [from]. And that’s why I’m always excited because especially with Jeff, it’s not just the voice. I mean, obviously we all know Jeff’s voice and tone and everything, but the way he writes – man, it’s so cool. I could praise him and his writing forever, because writing with him is like asking yourself, how can he write such cool, memorable things…? It’s always memorable, it’s always anthemic and it’s always amazing.

Hardrock Haven: So that was 2020, and what 2021 holds in store for all of us is a new Hardline album. Guessing by the updates on social media, it’s a wrap already, so is there anything you can actually reveal about this release?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: You’re gonna love it – a hundred and ten per cent. It’s our best record so far and it’s been an exciting and amazing [experience]. I’m so happy… I couldn’t be happier. It’s a step forward for the band and for me as a producer and as a songwriter. It’s just great and we couldn’t be happier about it.

Hardrock Haven: Among all the other projects you’re into right now, are there any you’d like to mention?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, this year’s gonna be kind of interesting because there’s lots of new albums that are coming out. There’s Skills [formerly known as Escape Machine] featuring Renan Zonta [Electric Mob], Billy Sheehan [Mr. Big, Sons Of Apollo etc.], Brad Gillis [Night Ranger] and David Huff [Giant] is coming out. We’re in a mixing mode and it’s incredible – what a band! Then, I’ve just finished The Grandmaster album, which is the debut of this band that we put together with Nando Fernandes, the incredible singer from Brazil, and Jens Ludwig from Edguy, so it’s gonna be something. Then there’s a new Giant album, and there’s lots of other things. I guess being home and away from touring gave me even more time (laughs) to be creative, so it’s really good.

Hardrock Haven: So we’re looking forward to all of it! And as we’re running out of time at this point, is there anything you’d like to add in the end?

Alessandro Del Vecchio: Well, thank you for interviewing me – and for the friendship that we have now for more than ten years, and all the support. And I’m really looking forward to see Sunstorm being our fans’ new favorite band and we’re pushing forward and pulling all forces and strength and triggers to be the best we can – and to deliver the best music we can.

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