Power (Daniel Dalley & Alan Tecchio) Interview

Hi Daniel, hi Alan, welcome to TrueMetal.it.

I would like to start from the very beginning, Daniel why did you decide to start Power in the 90s? You composed all the songs, have you ever thought about creating a solo project?

Daniel: Hello! In a lot of ways, POWER is a solo project since I do just about everything but sing. I have many musical sides to me and POWER is just one of them, yet the most important one to me!

Alan, how did your collaboration with Daniel start and when did you join Power?

Alan: Dan called me up around the time that my band Non Fiction was pretty much coming to an end. He offered me the opportunity to sing on the Justice of Fire release and after hearing the songs I agreed to do it. It was a complete return to the kind of music that I started out doing in Hades in the 1980’s but with a more modern flair and a guitar hero kind of approach. That had to be around 1993 I think…

“Justice of Fire” first came out in 1994, what are your memories of that period and what other musicians were involved?

Daniel: Personally, I was moving away from the pure neo-classical metal stuff that I was doing at that time with my first release and started to focus primarily on the heavier vocal oriented stuff which is first in my heart to do. Around ’93/early ’94 I was sending demos around called “Fire of God” which had 3 metal songs on it with me singing. I couldn’t find a singer at that time of those demos, so I decided to do the vocals myself just to get the thing done. That demo led me to getting very good write-ups in several prominent guitar magazines such as Guitar Player Magazine and a few others which was nice and some label interest. Then I was approached by a record label to record an album of my music and decided to start writing all new songs which is how POWER all began. So, in the Spring of ’94 I had this record deal and studio time that needed to be scheduled but no other musicians to work with yet! I was given the number of drummer Mike Watt who wound up playing on the first release and he gave me the phone number of Alan since he happened to know him. Alan was the only person I wanted to sing on the album. Alan agreed and I was totally stoked! I was actually a great admirer of Alan’s voice from the stuff he did with Non-Fiction and some of the Watchtower stuff that I was familiar with also. It was kind of strange because when I was writing the lyrics and vocal melodies for the Justice of Fire album originally before I even knew Alan, I always had his singing and voice in mind. I always heard his voice on these songs as I was writing them!

The songs had an articulated structure, without being completely prog, with a personal approach to power metal. If I’m not mistaken, classical music and soundtracks are also among your influences.

Daniel: Yes. Big time influences and inspiration. Especially horror movie soundtracks. On the metal side of things I always loved bands like Megadeth, King Diamond, Cacophony and Apocrypha too.

For classic metal, the early nineties were not an easy time. What was received the album? Did you also play in the United States and Europe?

Daniel: SONY Records in Japan picked it up for Asia and I had a touring band for live shows and we played our first gig in Belgium at an open-air festival where Mercyful Fate was headlining. It was so cool because there were so many people there singing along to the words of the POWER songs when we were playing, and the album wasn’t even out that long yet, maybe a few months or so. We also did a headlining tour of Europe too. Alan couldn’t do the live shows since I believe he had prior commitments, so I had to get someone else for the live shows. I would of course preferred to have Alan do all the live shows though. People on tour were always asking, “Where’s Alan!” We only played a few shows in America, mainly as warm-up shows before going to Europe.

What reasons led to the band’s split-up?

Daniel: Everything that could have gone wrong in my life at that time did go wrong. Record labels, personal, you name it. So, I reluctantly decided to step away from music professionally for awhile. I did later on start a few other side projects though but nothing really caught on like I hoped.

Let’s get to today, the name of Power surprisingly re-appears with the complete re-recording of “Justice of Fire”. Why did you decide to do it?

Daniel: Well it really bothered me that the album JOF was no longer available for people to hear or know about. I really liked the songs on the album from a songwriting perspective, but I never liked the original music production sound of it. I thought the production was very bad and the songs never sounded the way I actually heard them in my head because of that production. So I decided to re-recorded, mix and master the album myself at my studio this time. The only thing I didn’t record were Alan’s vocal tracks which were done by Jon Ciorciari at Jrod Productions in NY. I do though have tons of new music written especially over the last 5 years or so, but I really had it on my heart to release JOF first with all new performances and production. So when I was done recording everything but the singing, I contacted Alan and we had lunch together to catch-up on life and music and everything and I told him that I re-recorded the entire album and asked him if he would once again sing on it and he said YES! I was so happy because Alan is the ONLY singer to sing those songs! To make it even better Alan just killed it on this album, even much better than on the first release in my opinion! I just wanted to make sure that my production did his excellent singing justice and I’m very happy of the way it all turned out.

Alan your vocal performance is even more powerful and aggressive in this new version of the album. How did you approach songs that you had already sung over twenty years ago?

Alan: I had such a blast re-recording the songs on JOF but at first did not know if I could do better than the original because I recall Dan really pushing me to stretch out on the first one. But thankfully, I’ve been singing for many years since then and I think over that period of time I really found my voice and as a result, my confidence. When I began to approach the new release, I could not help but notice that Dan made the songs even heavier and more aggressive. That is what lead me to get even grittier and higher with my new tracks. I was kind of surprised that I could sing some of those really high parts and hold the notes even longer than back in 1994. Overall, I am much happier with the new release both vocally and just plain sonically. Dan also added some very cool guitar parts to the songs that are not on the original recording.

Did other musicians participate in this new recording? I’m asking you because, in addition to the better production, I found the drum parts very punchy and effective.

Daniel: Thank you so much! No. Just Alan and Myself. I played all guitars, bass, synth and programmed all the drums. I prefer working that way right now, but who knows if I come across a great metal drummer, maybe that part of it would change, for the recording part anyway. As I mentioned before I also did the production, mixing and mastering which I love to do very much also. Music production is something I would like to start doing more for other bands too.

Daniel, in all these years, what other musical projects have you been involved in?

Daniel: Well in the very beginning it was my instrumental neo-classical solo guitar stuff, then POWER, and also a neo-classical power metal project called ChamberCrypt that reminds me of a cross-between Helloween, Stratovarius and Bach.

Alan your name is linked to some much loved bands in the US power and techno thrash scene. I would like to ask you about Hades, is the band still active? Can we expect a new album?

Alan: Hades is not active to my knowledge. I do not see a new album happening in the future unless they decide to do one without me (which would be perfectly fine with me). There was a bunch of bad blood spilled when the band basically screwed me over and forced me to put another version of Hades together last minute to play The Headbanger’s Open Air festival in Germany a number of years ago. After that, I had a run-in with a former member and he was indescribably rude, nasty and threatening to me and my livelihood. I refuse to play music with people who are not cool, so no– I do not see myself ever doing another Hades recording as a result.

You are also the singer of Watchtower and Mike LePond’s Silent Assassins. Can you also tell us something about these projects and the others you are or have been involved with?

Alan: As far as Watchtower goes, I would love to finish the remaining Mathematics songs which would constitute Book 2 of the Concepts of Math EP. But those guys are not really an active band and they all live in Texas so rehearsing etc… would be complicated. I would love to do it though and hopefully one day they will decide to finish that up. I stand at the ready if that day ever comes. There is no other band in the world like Watchtower. None whatsoever, and it is an honor to play with them.

As for S.A.… I met Mike LePond during the time we both played in Seven Witches. He is just a great guy and a wonderful person. Much like with Dan Dalley, he writes all of the lyrics and melodies and then let’s me have a lot of freedom in interpreting and performing them. We already have three full-length recordings out and I think Mike has the fourth one already written. I hope to be singing on that one in the coming year if he chooses to enlist me once again.

What do you expect from this new edition of “Justice of Fire”? When the whole coronavirus business gets better, do you plan to promote it also on stage?

Daniel: Well, I am writing and recording a lot of new material as well. I would love to play these songs and the new stuff live when the pandemic settles down, hopefully soon. Right now we don’t have anything planned for Europe yet, but if any booking agent is interested they can of course contact me. I would love to play in Italy since I never have been there yet!

Since 1994 the heavy metal scene has changed a lot, now there are so many bands and there are even more different sub-genres. What are your main impressions and memories of your career?

Alan: For me, I feel very blessed to have been able to make so much music in my lifetime thus far. To be able to still do it with my band Level Fields, Dan, Mike, etc… makes it even better. I feel like a fine wine- I keep getting better as I get older and I attribute that to being a lifelong learner who is never totally satisfied with where I am and always trying to improve. I know I have a love or hate type of voice so for those that hate it- I appreciate your opinion and am cool with that. For those that love it- Thank you so much for so many years of appreciation and love. Personally I’ve always preferred to make an impression with my singing whether it be good or bad but to me, being vanilla or just plain “okay” (meaning not provoking a strong reaction) would be the worst thing ever.

Daniel: It was a lot of fun for me then, but I think I appreciate my music and creating music more now than I did then. As far as the metal scene goes, I love the diversity of metal styles these days! It is very inspiring for me as a song writer and fan of metal, even more so now even than in the past. I listen to all styles and sub-genres of metal these days.

After so many years there is curiosity about the musical direction that the Power can take from now on. Are you working on a new album? What can we expect for the band’s future?

Daniel: Well, I am writing and recording new POWER material and it has evolved I would say. It’s basically heavier than my past releases, yet closer to what I always envisioned for it to sound like. I am trying to push my own boundaries actually with the songwriting and guitar playing too. My plans are to release more POWER music and play the songs live once again. Metal is in my veins and I love and need it!

Bandcamp: https://dalleymusic.bandcamp.com/