In a recent interview with ‘Real Music With Gary Stuckey,’ Frank Hannon talked about his career with Tesla and its latest live album, ‘Full Throttle Live.’ During the chat, he also gave insight into the band’s dynamic and compared its history to that of other rock groups, like Soundgarden and Van Halen.
First, Hannon shared his observation on rock band patterns by saying:
“I’ve examined a lot of other bands, and it’s the same old fricking story. In fact, my father-in-law is Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers, and he was telling me that – When I first met him 23 years ago, he was like, ‘You know what, man? Every f**king band is the same. It’s the same bulls**t. They get together, they create something great, they fight, and they break up. The Allman Brothers broke up fricking 20 times in the ’70s!’ And it’s true.”
Giving Soundgarden and Van Halen as examples, he went on:
“You look at Soundgarden, and they broke up. Now, God bless Chris Cornell. That was tragic, but they broke up, and then they tried to rebuild it. Van Halen, same thing. Every band has like a 10-year run. The first ten years where they break it out and fricking deliver killer music, and then they implode, and they break up. And then they get back together, and they have to rebuild it.”
About what set Tesla apart from them, the guitarist added:
“Luckily for us, we did that and have maintained momentum for the past 23 years of surviving our breakup. But it’s the same old story, man. [In] rock and roll, we’re not reinventing everything. You know, this is all – Every band has the same fricking hang-ups. It’s very difficult. What we do is not easy. I’ll tell you, man. Coordinating a band and a crew and a bus and the hotels and the flights, writing songs, recording them, getting together… All of that stuff is not easy. So, that’s a news flash for you.”
When Tesla went on a hiatus in the late ’90s, the grunge movement was on the rise, causing some rock bands to fall off the radio and MTV. So, the interviewer asked Hannon how this era affected his band, which he answered by referring to the reasons behind its breakup:
“Well, the ’90s were definitely a harder period for us. But really, it wasn’t grunge; it was our own fault. ‘Bust A Nut’ is a great album, but we were already internally having problems. So the external stuff you’re talking about — grunge — it didn’t really matter for us and our fans, ’cause we were never really the poster child [for ’80s rock] anyway.”
Explaining the band’s position during that period, the guitarist continued:
“Even during the glam days, we weren’t on the cover of all the magazines as being a glam band. So, when grunge came out, and Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all the style changed, it didn’t matter because we weren’t really affected by those trends anyway. So, I don’t blame grunge — for us. [For bands that] were really cheesy or whatever, then maybe grunge kind of killed those bands. But for us, it was more our own fault. We were burnt out and partying too much and had problems.”
After a 4-year-hiatus, Tesla reunited with a sold-out show at ARCO Arena in Sacramento in October 2000. 23 years later, the band’s getting ready to hit the road for a new tour, starting with a two-night show at House Of Blues in Las Vegas on October 6, 2023.
