After spending the last three years lending his production skills to artists like Dirty Penny, Miss Crazy, Diamond Lane and the new supergroup Freakshow, Johnny Lima is back with a new album of his own. The new album titled ‘Livin’ Out Loud’, which features Johnny’s most exciting work to date, will be released worldwide on May 4th. Pilar Sanchez from Melodic Rock Radio (myspace.com/melodicrockradio) chats to Johnny to discover what he’s been up to for the past five years...

Hello Johnny, it’s a pleasure to finally interview you after all these years we’ve been in contact! How are you? You’ve got us all excited about your new album.

Hi Pilar! You’re not the only one excited. I haven’t been this excited about one of my albums in years! I really believe I hit a home run with this one.

I have been listening to your album lately and I think it may be your strongest work yet.

Wow! Thank you! I’ll have to agree with you. It definitely is the strongest work I’ve done so far. I think that taking a break from my solo career was the best thing I could have done for myself, as I became quite tired and jaded with this business. If I would have continued on the path that I was on, my music would have sounded the same way I felt. Tired and jaded. After my “break” I was so excited about making music again, and so fired up, that I think it had a huge impact on how this album turned out. I felt like I was doing this for the first time again. Feels great!

Although you say you’ve taken a break, you’ve been involved in quite a few great recordings lately. Doesn’t sound like much of a break to me.

[laughs] Well, I meant that I wanted to take a break from being a solo artist. After the release of ‘Version 1.2’ back in 2005, I really thought that was going to be my last album as I didn’t have much steam left in me and I was really disenchanted with how things have gone in my career up to that point. I took a good year off. I didn’t even pick up a guitar in that year. I had a few gigs at the studio recording locals artists, but that was it, I was pretty much done. Then in late 2006 to 2008 things started getting really busy for me in the studio with Dirty Penny, Diamond Lane, Miss Crazy and Freakshow. Not to mention all the other studio work I had with lesser known artists.

What made you decide to record a new album?

Believe it or not, it was the fans. In 2006 I discovered Myspace. I started a page, posted some of my music and I started getting a lot of emails from fans all over the world telling me things like ‘Shine On’ is still in their CD player, or how my music has helped them through some rough times, or that ‘Something About You’ was their wedding song. I received a lot of amazing comments and emails from people. It made me realize that my music had a huge impact on their lives. As artists we typically gauge our success by how many albums we’ve sold, or how big of a crowd we performed for, but never by how many lives we’ve touched with our music. My fans opened my eyes to the big picture. It made me realise that I wasn’t put on this earth to live a 9-5 life. I was put on this earth to entertain people with my music. Create something that they can use as the soundtrack to their lives. If I make a ton of money, or have huge success doing it, great, but that’s not what’s important to me. Touching lives is more important. It’s good for your karma [laughs]! I was so inspired by the feedback I was getting that I started writing again, and not only was I writing again, but I was writing the best songs I’ve ever written. That’s why I dedicated this new album to the fans. If it wasn’t for them, this album would have never happened.

Since you brought up Myspace, I noticed you are pretty active on Myspace and keep in contact with your fans around the world. How do you feel about promoting your music via Myspace?

I think Myspace has really tipped the scales in the artists favor. Before, we never had a tool we could use to reach thousands of people without spending a ton of money. Sure we had the internet, and you could have your own website, but if no-one knew about it, who would care? With Myspace, I now have the ability to reach out to Def Leppard fans, or Bon Jovi fans, Motley Crue fans, etc. and let them know I exist, and most importantly I can keep in touch with my fans through myspace. There’s nothing more important to me than letting my fans know how much I appreciate them and their support, and Myspace has made the world a lot smaller and made it a lot easier to keep in touch with my fanbase. I’ve also been discovered by a lot of people because of Myspace. If it wasn’t for Myspace, I don’t think I’d be very comfortable releasing an album on my own.

Do you plan on pursuing any other forms of promotion aside from Myspace?

Sure I do, even though Myspace is the greatest marketing tool we have, I’d be an idiot to think that it’s all I need to promote my album. Many careers have been made because of Myspace (Tila Tequila anyone?) but I still plan on getting my music pushed to radio, playing live shows, placing ads in magazines, etc. You still have to do that. I’m just going to be very selective in how or where I promote as I don’t want to go into debt trying to promote this album.

You’ve always been a solo artist in the truest sense of the word. Meaning, you practically sing and play everything on the album as well as produce and engineer it. Is that the way you prefer to work?

Well, at first it was the only way I could work as I didn’t have the money to pay to have a band come with me into the studio or pay for a producer. With every album I’ve done, I’ve always had the intention of going into the studio with a group of musicians but it never worked out that way. I write all the parts and can play all the parts, so it never made sense to have someone else do it. With ‘Livin’ Out Loud’ I had Danny Danzi, Craig Takeshita, and Christian Wolff do the guitar solos because they’re all extraordinary guitarists. I could’ve done the lead guitar, but it wouldn’t have sounded even close to what these guys came up with. Maybe someday I’ll go into the studio with a band and make a band album - just to see what it’s like!

We’re all aware that illegal downloading is a huge problem and has hurt the music business in a huge way. What’s your take on that?

I sort of have to disagree. Sure, illegal downloading is a thorn on our side and I’m very much against it. I just don’t think that the decrease in record sales was caused because everybody decided they’d rather get their music for free. Record companies keep saying sales are down, yet I keep hearing that sales are up at iTunes. What does that tell you? It tells me two things. It tells me that a lot of people are okay with buying an album without having to go to a store or wait for the mail and are more interested in the music than the packaging. It also tells me that a lot of people don’t think an album has an album’s worth of great material so they just go to iTunes to buy the one or two songs they like. Those that download music illegally need to know that it doesn’t just hurt the artist, it hurts the fans. What I mean by that is this - in order for me to play in a certain market, I have to have sales figures for that market. So let’s say I only sold 500 CDs in England and 10,000 others illegally downloaded my music. Well, I’d look at my sales figures for England and say there’s no way I can perform in England because I’m not selling well enough, but the reality is 10,500 people are enjoying my music and would love to come see me live. I would never know that though. So in the end the fan loses too because I wouldn’t be performing in their market. So if you’re a fan of an artist, by all means, don’t go stealing their music as you would lose in the end as well. In saying all that, I’m not going to sit and worry about illegal downloads. At the end of the day, if people are stealing my music and I’m not making enough money from my music to make a living, then I’ll have to find something else to do in order to provide for my family. Simple as that.

Let’s get back to talking about ‘Livin’ Out Loud’.

Great idea!

I don’t know where to start talking about the songs from ‘Livin’ Out Loud’. They absolutely blow my mind from start to end. I find it really hard to pick out “the gems’’. Every song stands alone as a masterpiece. Just to mention a few… ‘Wildflower’ is a great hard rocker with a whole lot of attitude. It’s got that rock ‘n’ roll drive to it as well. Love it! ‘I’m On Fire’ is great too! ‘Til Love Is Gone’ is tremendous and ‘Hard To Say Goodbye’ could have been in Bon Jovi’s ‘Slippery When Wet’! Could you pick your own gems?

You had to mention Bon Jovi didn’t you?! [laughs] To me, they’re all gems. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t have made the album. I think we’re all too used to a couple of great songs on an album and the rest are umm... not so great. I didn’t want to make an album like that. I wanted to make an album where if you liked song 1, 2, and 3 then you’re going to like the rest of the album.

Even though the key elements are still there, such as those delightful keyboards, (which I personally have to thank you for…), the absolute catchy tunes, those characteristic guitar riffs… your talent shines even more with which I consider is definitely your signature hallmark: Your songwriting, vocals and background vocals. After listening to your whole discography, and especially ‘Livin’ Out Loud’, I think I am allowed to say that you are one of the strongest bets of the genre this year. What expectations have you put on this brand new record?

I knew you’d like the keyboards [laughs]! With this album though, I didn’t want too many keyboards which is why there’s only a few songs on this album with them. I wanted this song to have a harder edge but still keep it very melodic. I don’t think I could ever make an album without having some songs with over 100 background vocal tracks, ha ha! I just love the way that sounds. As far as expectations, I really don’t have any. If the album does well for me, I’ll make another. If not, well, I guess I can open up a pizza shop or something [laughs]!

I know several of your songs have been on Youtube and got some people confused thinking they were Bon Jovi’s. I guess that bothered you. Did anybody contact you to let you know about this whole Youtube controversy?

So let me tell the readers about this so they know what we’re talking about. A few months ago someone posted a few of my songs on Youtube claiming that they were demos from the new Bon Jovi album called ‘Dangerous Curves’. This guy even had album artwork for it. Anyway, anytime someone would post a comment saying it was me, he would delete it. For a few weeks people were fooled into thinking this was really Bon Jovi. So, I received this email from a fan of mine saying that someone is posting my songs on Youtube so I went to check it out. At first I was furious because I don’t like people posting any of my music online. I was pissed beyond belief. I filled out the copyright infringement form on Youtube and everything. Then I started noticing something. Sales of my albums started to increase, I started getting more hits on my myspace page, this “April Fool’s” trick was even mentioned on Bon Jovi’s website. The comments on the songs were great. People were saying stuff like “Awesome! Bon Jovi’s starting to rock again!”. My anger faded quickly because I realized that this guy’s prank was actually creating a huge buzz for me on the internet. Perfect timing as well since I was going to release a new album soon. So up until the end of this fiasco, I thought this guy was a hater and trying to start something negative but I found out later that he was a huge fan of mine from Brazil wanting to promote my music. I tell you what, I’ve paid good money in the past for ads that didn’t create this kind of buzz. So at the end of all this, I emailed the guy, thanked him and kindly asked him to remove the songs from Youtube. It was a great prank and I wish I would’ve thought about that a long time ago.

It’s been almost ten years since anyone has seen you perform. Are there any plans to tour? I’m planning on getting a band together in Europe and a band together in the U.S., so I will definitely be ready to perform anywhere. So it all comes down to the fans. If the fans want me to play in their market, they have to make sure all their friends are buying the album as I can’t get any interest from a promoter if I don’t have real sales figures to give them.

You’ve decided to release this album on your own. Why did you decide not to go with a label this time around?

The answer is quite simple - I don’t need a label. I’ve worked with labels for the last 10 years and I think it’s time I do this on my own. I was able to finance the recording, the pressing and I’ll be financing the promotion as well. Why would I need a label if I’m doing all that a label does already? Just so I can say “I’m signed”? Fuck that! No thank you!

Where will people be able to buy the album when it’s released?

I’ll have a store on my website www.johnnylima.com and it will also be sold through various retailers worldwide. So if your favorite retailer doesn’t have it, have them send me an email at sales@johnnylima.com and I’ll be sure to hook them up. AOR HEAVEN in Germany just placed a huge order, so I recommend all my German fans go to www.aorheaven.com to purchase the new album. By supporting my retail partners, you’re also supporting me.

Any last words you want to say to the readers of Fireworks Magazine?

Thank you so much for your support over the years. I hope to be able to bring my rock ‘n roll show to your area soon. Also, if you’re on Myspace, look me up at www.myspace.com/johnnylima. Much Peace & Love to You!

Even though Johnny has put a few of his new songs up on Myspace that will tempt and tease your inner rocker, the full album is a giant crescendo of rock layered upon rock layered upon rock. He has put together a virtual “wall” of rock that towers from dizzying heights. It will blow your mind and exceed all of your expectations. Here is the great return that a lot of fans were waiting for… he announced it, and here it is. Johnny Lima proudly presents Living Out Loud. Out on May 4th. Do yourself a favor.. Go get your own copy NOW!