IMPELLITTERI with CHRIS IMPELLITERI

By capitalchaostv on March 28, 2025 • ( 0 )

Chris Impellitteri is an iconic guitar player and a huge inspiration for many players. He has been named one of the fastest guitar players of all time by magazines like Guitar One and Guitar World, while Burrn! Japan, voted Chris as the best rock guitarist. In 2023, Impellitteri was inducted into the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame.

Capital Chaos TV – Are you, you’re Italian?

Chris Impellitteri – I’m a mutt. So, yes, I’m, I’m Italian, I’m Russian and I’m English., I’m a little bit of everything.

Capital Chaos TV – You come from a religious family. Did you go to any particular church?

I actually don’t believe it or not. I have a pretty messed up childhood. I think everybody by now knows. But so it was, I grew up with my mother and father till I was nine and they died. Then my grandparents took over, they adopted me, and then so they weren’t religious by any means. I, kind of just grew up and I don’t really know, how I grew up. I grew up. That’s all I know.

Capital Chaos TV – You grew up a little in Connecticut?

I did. Yeah, I grew up, I think when my parents were alive, I believe I lived in an area called Coventry, Connecticut. And then when my parents passed away, my grandparents moved me to an area called Ledger Connecticut. Um, and then by the time I was, I don’t know, I must have been a late teenager. I basically went to Los Angeles to kind of find my place.

Do you, do you recall the hot club band at the time when you moved to Los Angeles?

I do remember Poison, as a matter of fact, those guys I think used to come to our apartment for parties on, you know, Saturday night because we had the cool place where everybody wanted to come. Um, so I’m trying to think when I, so I came to L.A. two times. The first time I came, me and my buddy drove all the way across the country from Connecticut. And we are so excited because we heard man, Van Halen made it at Gaza’s. I remember we got here and walked in and went, oh my God, this is what is. this? We were not impressed and we were like, is this, we drove all the way, you know, from Connecticut to California. But then we were exposed all of a sudden to the Whiskey a Go Go and then we saw some very cool bands and got very involved and kind of um. I don’t know, intertwined with the whole strip and, but I’m thinking when we got there, we were much later than a lot of those bands like, obviously the Van Halen thing started it all right, at least for, for our kind of thing. Then that was followed by your Motley Crue and your Ratts and all of that stuff. Um When we came out, I believe we did our first record in 1985. We had, I think we started to develop a pretty big following. in LA. I remember the first show we ever played was the country Club in Reseda.

That was our first show. I remember. It was actually a really good show. It was killer, and it was really cool. We started meeting a lot of people. I remember Ozzy’s band came to see us and I think Motley and people like that. So, it was really wild. but to be honest, we never also really fit in with the strip because we were much more bands like Deep Purple than Poison. Even though now as I get older, I actually really like Poison, you know. But, at that period of my life is more about Deep Purple and, you know, Van Halen and stuff like that.

How long did it take for you to fit in and feel comfortable?

I’m not sure we fit in yet. We’re still, working on it, you know, it was never really our focus to be like a big metal band in California or be part of that strip. We just wanted to play music and we knew when we first, well, when I say we, it’s me and Rob Rock when we first started playing together in New England in Connecticut, we had a band called Vice and it was really, really popular. It was kind of like. we played all of New England, which could go from Massachusetts, New Hampshire all the way down to New York City, you know, that kind of thing. And we had a pretty huge following and we were, you know, we were learning how to craft songs and, you know, become what we became today. And of course, we were playing covers. And. so that was. kind of our, our place, our LA, right? When we finally came out to L A, it was really, our focus wasn’t to be a strip band, you know, play the strip every night. Our focus was let’s try to make the best metal record we can make as a band, right? And we were really into, we want to be like a band like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden on steroids, you know, with like the Vivaldi and the Al Dimeola and all the crazy shredding, right? Stuff like guys like in Yngwie and Paul Gilbert would do later, but we wanted to be in a band, not instrumental type thing. And we focused on that and we did this thing called the Impellitteri black ep which for our fan base has become this cult album, right? It was the first thing we ever did and that exploded in places like England and Japan and got us a lot of notoriety. Yeah, we weren’t. I mean, no one really knew who the hell we were in California and so we kind of in some ways. Yeah, we had a couple of minutes, we were somewhat popular in L A but it was much more about what was happening in Japan, some places in Europe, especially England, you know, so horrible answer for your question. It’s like, I guess the answer is with the, how do we know we fit in? I don’t know if we ever did fit in with the L A thing because we were never a hair band. We were never glam, you know. No. Yes, we did definitely have hairspray and I’m sure we have the guy liner and pictures because everybody including Pantera at one point, we’re doing that, but we could never relate to those other bands that were what people consider hair now, you know, we were just too much in the Deep Purple, Rainbow, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Ozzy, stuff like that.

Have you toured Japan since the world reopened?

Right before the pandemic, we did Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, which we’re getting ready to do again. We also did our very first show, I think we did it in South Korea, massive show. And that was right before the pandemic hit

Have you noticed a change in the audience and the whole Japan experience over the decades?

Shockingly the band, every time we do something seems to get a little bit more popular. And I don’t know how that happens because especially when we did the first record and then in the “Stand in Line” follow up record, the band was pretty popular there. But every time we release records, we seem to gain new and younger audiences and when you’re a dinosaur and we are a dinosaur, you know, it’s, it’s always shocking to see that. So that’s the one thing I do notice every time we go to Japan and I also noticed a lot of girls come to see us and I don’t mean that in some egotistical way, right? I mean that, that you generally don’t have a lot of girls at metal shows or rock shows, right? So that always kind of shocks me. It seems like that kind of I don’t not demographic however you frame that, right? We see a lot of that.

How familiar are you with Tina S and Tim Hanson?

What I’ve seen on YouTube I love, I think it’s great. Really, really into it. Yeah. I, I’m so focused on what we do. I don’t spend a ton of time watching other artists because I’m trying to make sure I focus on what I’m doing. But having said that the stuff I’ve seen on him, I really like him a lot.

With younger people getting into it like that, it definitely, it could be a boom to you.

Well, you know, here, I’ll say this, you probably already get it right. But I find myself having to say this all the time in interviews, Impellitteri has always been a band. It’s really been about four collective or five collective individuals, all contributing equally to make the music you hear and perform it and play it live and all of that. This band has never ever been about me wanting to be, hey, I’m Chris Impellitteri, the ego, instrumental solo guitar player. Now, I don’t mean all guitar players that do instrumental albums are egotistical. I don’t mean that, but that’s the last thing I ever wanted to be. I was telling someone earlier, the whole reason this band was called Impellitteri not to do the violin and make everybody go, hey, sorry to hear that. But I’ll tell you the truth. It happened because when I was nine years old, both my parents, sadly committed suicide. And so I was literally an orphan. and my grandparents who I loved and were young, thank God, they gave me a chance to have a life. They said, listen, you can go to, there’s homeless shelters, you can go to an orphanage or whatever, or we’d love to take you in. As a matter of fact, they told me they would prefer to do that and they did and my grandmother bought me the guitar and she encouraged me to take music lessons just on and on and on. And so, you know, towards the end of their life, my grandfather passed away and she was still alive. But towards her end, I always vowed if I did something with this music, right? I would just use their name as, as kind of like an homage like thank you for, for saving my life and, and thank you for giving me a purpose in life. And that’s why I did it now. Here I am. How many years later and believe me, I listened to I, I go, why do we call this band ImpellitteriI it’s the worst band name ever. No one can say it. No one can spell it, including me. But it is Impellitteri like we’re some monster, right? But. but yeah, that’s how it began. And so because of that, I know this is a long. way around answering your question, but because it’s impeller and I guess the way I play guitar immediately, everybody here we go with the comparisons of the Yngwie’s who I love by the way. Right. But I would always get compared to those guys when yet we started the band, all we wanted to be was like Priest and Maiden on steroids. And yes, with the shredding guitar solos and the screaming vocals. But that was our goal and it was to do it in a band context, never instrumental or separate. Even though yes, I’ve done songs like “17th Century Chicken Picken” is an instrumental that a lot of musicians seem to like. But that was just one off, right? Our whole, our records always have vocals always will.

Some might say the comparisons between you and Yngwie is just lazy journalism.

I can’t speak for the people that write about it. I know people, sadly, in this day and age, people want Clickbait, right? And so, they’re gonna try to have something out there that, stimulates or influences a consumer to pay attention and maybe click on their article or whatever, right? And I get it and don’t. get me wrong. I mean, Yngwie certainly had an influence on me, but so did Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhodes and Richie Blackmore and I could go on and on and on. And the only time it got frustrating for me is when people wouldn’t let it go. Everything I did was, oh, Yngwie clone. You know, I told someone in an interview the other day about this and I don’t want to harp on Yngwie too much because I do like him and I don’t want him to be think I’m being negative towards him. But I remember someone said to “Stand in Line” video oh Yngwie want to be with Graham Bonnet. And I started laughing going, if anybody paid attention to the Impellitteri “Stand in Line” music video, I’m playing a Richie Blackmore Fender Stratocaster. Richie’s from Deep Purple, the white boots and the whole. black. outfit was a complete tribute to Rainbow because that’s what we were doing for Graham Bonnet, which was Richie Blackmore, right? So, I started laughing going, the guys are saying I’m copying someone. Can you at least tell him I’m copying the right source, you. know.

The new record War Machine. I really like it. I think it might be uh one of your best ones yet. Would you agree with that?

Yes. And usually, I don’t say that I hate when artist goes, this is the best record we’ve ever made. But in hindsight, I think, yeah, I think this is the best record we’ve ever made. Um I can tell you, I’ve heard from critics that generally hate us. I’ve had a couple critics literally tell me they think this is the best hard rock heavy metal album of 2024. Literally, I’ve heard that from numerous fans. I go on occasionally, I go on to the YouTube thing and like our new music videos like “Wrath Child” and we have Hell on Earth and I read the comments and the comments. A lot of them are saying the exact. same thing. And believe me, there are times where you’re going to get those people going. You guys suck. We’re not hearing very much of that. Almost 99% of it is just, oh my God. My mouth dropped when I heard this. And so, we know we did something that just resonated, it connected with people, right? Whether, you know, people will embrace it or not, that’s completely up to them. But right now, the response that we’re getting from this new record, it does lead me to believe. Yeah, I guess we were right. We finally. everything clicked. You know, my work with Rob, James and Paul, the input, the four of us, whatever we did on this record captured by our great engineers, we had Mike Plotnikov who’s a big engineer, producer. And then we had Jacob Hanson mix. it. This whole. team just, they created something. It’s like lightning in a bottle that really feels that special.

Which of your prior records uh are your favorites and least favorites?

I’m going to stick to this and I’ll probably have the same feeling 10 years from now. I definitely love “War Machine”. I think we, I think we got everything right. That’s just where all the elements, everything’s the playing, perfect, the mix, perfect, the recording, perfect, everybody’s playing and Rob singing the writing, everything just feels perfect. So, I love this record. and then I’ll jump back to the very beginning. I’ve always loved our first album, which is called The Impeller Black Ep. It was recorded with; I think a $500 budget. We would record it like one o’clock in the morning at the studio, baby studios, we had to play most of that live and then maybe overdub like a rhythm guitar under the solo or something like that. Um And that record sounds like we put two room mics up and just went for it and played. And it sounds to me like in this day and age, it sounds like someone went to a concert and just put an iPhone up and record it right? So very crude. But it showed, it was the beginning of the band. It showed that. Oh yeah, this band is Priest and Maiden on Steroids with all the crazy guitar solo and like Al Dimeola and in and all of that stuff that had all of that. And then Rob’s voice was like, this is like going to be a new Rob Halford Bruce Dickinson kind of thing. And so, I always will love that record for that reason. Um And then some records that didn’t, I can tell you a couple of our records are purely bombed, I think it’s around 90 or 91. We signed our deal with our label today JVC, Victor. And at that time, everything in metal was just going out of favor in the United States big time. And the only bands that were still relevant, we’re kind of like Guns and Roses and all that. So, we said, well, why don’t we. do. a record? Just to. see. if we can do it, that has much more of a grove feel. Right? And so, if you, if you, I guess. just go YouTube and pull up songs like, um, when the well runs dry, right. That’s

It’s, it’s us trying to be Guns and Rosesish. If that makes sense. Right now. We have some stuff that sounds like Impelliterri, like: “Power of Love” on the record. But. anyways, that. record, we thought, OK, this is great. A lot of industry people dug it, released it and our fans hated it. They were like, stop this right now. Go back to being Impelliterri and, you know, do more groove, funk rock. They want us to be metal, you know, because we started a sound with that Impelliterri Black Ep, you know, someone told me the other day, we were probably the first band to kind of almost take that power metal, speed metal, you know, with all the crazy solos and screaming vocals. Um because I think we recorded that in 85 now. Yes, there were bands doing that kind of music, but probably not at that kind of speed. And I don’t mean the solos, I mean, songs themselves. So anyways, those are the good and then we have other records like “Screaming Symphony”. that. I remember in Japan. That was huge. That record, I think I won Best Rock Guitarist and Burn Magazine that year. Um We had a lot of accolades; our shows were selling out night after night in the same venues. So that was a really successful record. So that’s. kind. of, you know, when I look at the records, I kind of think. And, and believe me, there’s as much as I say, I love a lot of our music. There are certain songs I go, uh You sucked. What were you thinking when you did that? Right. So typical artist.

You’re on your second Slayer drummer.

Well, the first one technically wasn’t in Slayer, right? There’s an amazing, amazing drummer who I have the utmost respect for the guy you’re talking about John Dette insanely talented. His feet are like a machine. He is like a metronome and it’s I think a lot of it because he used to tell me he used to jog on the beach and run and just what an insanely talented player loved working with him. And then we go into Paul Bostaph. Paul is a monster. You know, Paul is much more than just OK, we can play thrash. You know, because when we. had to choose. a drummer for this album back into our Spinal Tap mode, right? Yet another drummer, we have to think carefully because we had kind of written the body of music. But we needed someone that was going to take this music to the next level, which means all we need a drummer that could play very intricate, right, intricate fills and fast double bass drumming. But we wanted someone that would provide weight and a heaviness to this music and make the music swing. Even though when you’re playing fast, that’s hard to have a feel. Right. And a groove. And we started looking around at drummers listening to them play live, you know, just YouTube footage or whatever. And we had a handful of very well-known people and a buddy of mine, Giles Lavery, we started talking, I said, hey, what do you think about this guy? And then I talked to Rob Rock and James about it. And so, Giles reached out to Paul. Paul was well versed with Impeller and he seemed to like us a lot. So, we got on the phone, we talked and before I knew it, he was in. and I’m. really glad. we used him because he is a huge part of why this record sounds so good.

I would agree. Any bonus tracks for the Japanese market?

Nope. I think the only thing they’re doing; there’s some bootleg live record they had from us. I think in early, I think it must have been around 96 somewhere around there that they included with their record. It was, it was a recording they owned

Any words of advice for, young and aspiring guitar players?

I think, find your voice, you know, don’t let anybody deter you don’t let anybody, you know, discourage you if you love playing an instrument, whether it’s guitar, drums, bass, piano, violin, whatever. If that instrument resonates with you and you somehow connect with it emotionally, use it because the guitar for me gave me a purpose in life. After losing my parents, it gave me a voice. It saved my life in many ways. Right. So, I encourage people to learn how to play an instrument. It’s really beautiful to be able to express yourself, right? And, and that’s what I think playing an instrument does for us.