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 With three albums already in the bank and their fourth album almost ready to hit record shop stands, Lynam have ploughed their way firmly into the upper echelons of rock n roll. With their big balls to the wall arena rock sound, they've developed a huge following, helped in no small part by the huge amounts of touring the band do, and have done, playing at times in the past more than 300 shows a year.
They're heading out on the Motley Cruise alongside rock heavyweights
Vince Neil, Skid Row and Ratt, and then it's back out on the road once
more, with dates already scheduled right the way through February and
March.
Komodo Rock's Mike Elliott caught up with front man and guitarist Jacob
Lynam to find out more about the band, their new album, and their
extreme touring.
Mike Elliott: You've got a new album that's ready and set to come out?
Jacob Lynam: Yeah, it's a brand new record, it's called 'Tragic City
Symphony', and it's going to come out some time this year, in 2008.
It's a straight ahead big sounding rock record, big sounding drums, big
sounding guitars, full of arena anthems. We've got some really cool
special guests on it; the whole band Hinder played on one song, and we
also got Tom Keiffer from Cinderella that made a guest appearance on
it. We're just really really fired up about, we can't wait for
everybody to hear it.
ME: Any idea when this year?
JL: Probably I'm thinking second quarter or so, March or April or somewhere around there.
ME: You're trying to find a label for it right now?
JL: Absolutely.
ME: Presumably you'll be looking to get that out not just in America, but around the world.
JL: Everywhere, absolutely.
ME: With the guest appearances, how did the Tom Keifer appearance come about?
JL: The way that came about was we played with Cinderella a couple of
shows last year, and I gave Tom one of our records, Slave to the
Machine, the first record we did. He called my manager and asked my
manager to have me call him, because he was a big fan of the record. I
called him, and he told me that it hadn't the CD player since I gave it
to him, and that he absolutely loved the record. He loved the
production on the record, and he wanted our producer Jason Elgin to mix
a song for him. I was like we're actually in the studio with him now,
so if you want to come down and you guys talk, we'd love to have you on
a song, and he was so kind to do so. He came down to Birmingham where
we were recording and he spoke to Jason, and he played slide guitar on
a song called Enemy.
ME: Was the Hinder thing similar?
JL: With Hinder, we toured with those guys for two months. We all
headed off and we all became really close friends, and we asked them if
they'd be on the new record, and they wanted to, so they came down, and
performed on the same song Tom Keifer. We've got everybody on it!
ME: So it's a bit of an all star cast on that one then?
JL: Exactly!
 ME: Talking of touring, you're heading out on Vince Neil's Motley Cruise. Are you looking forward to it?
JL: Really excited about it. I've never been on a Cruise before, so
it's gonna be a lot of fun. Obviously the shows on that Cruise are
going to be amazing. It's all bands that I love, everybody from Ratt,
Skid Row, Vince Neil, Slaughter, it's just going to be awesome. We're
really fired up about it.
ME: How did that come about? You look at the lineup, all the bands are 80's bands, and then there's you.
JL: What happened was Vince Neil's manager contacted me, and said that
he had bought the CD a while back, and said he was a big fan of Lynam.
He's all the time keeping up with newer bands that are keeping the
torch alive as far as rock music is concerned, and he said they
absolutely loved our CD, and would love us to be a part of it. We were
blown away so we're like of course, we'd love to be on it!
ME: Your making real tracks with a lot of people that have presumably influenced your sound at various times.
JL: Absolutely. That's the thing, it seems that all the old school rock
people, new school people, just people who are into genuine straight
ahead rock music always seem to find us somehow, which is a great thing.
ME: Your quite well regarded as a touring band, you play a lot of shows.
JL: Oh yeah.
ME: Is that something you always wanted to do, or just something that happened?
JL: A little bit of both actually. It was always something I wanted to
do, and it kinda happened. When we first started this band, we got
together and we booked just a couple of shows. Then we'd have like one
or two shows per week, and people just kept booking us more and more,
and the next thing you know, we were playing six and seven nights a
week. For a year and half straight when we first started, we played six
and seven days a week. We never took an off day or anything, and played
more than 300 dates a year.
Now, we don't play as much as we did at the very beginning, but we're
still always playing, and we're definitely one of the bands that plays
non stop.
ME: That's an amazing amount of touring.
JL: It's also one of those things, when it's in your blood, that's all
you really want to do, it's all you really know how to do, so you just
do it.
ME: Do you think playing so many gigs have helped you become a better
band? You're out there doing it constantly, refining the sound, you get
tighter as a unit.
JL: I would like to think the more you play together as a band, the
tighter you get, it definitely helps. It can go either way to be
honest. At some point you play so many gigs, you get so comfortable
with each other, you kinda get lazy, and it starts going the other way.
I feel like we can definitely look at each other, and know what each
other is thinking.
With us, of course we like to be tight musically, but more than
anything, the way that we are, if you come see a Lynam, if someone is
paying, however much they're paying to get into our shows, we want them
to leave 110% satisfied. We want to make sure the visual is there, the
emotion is there, that everything that they wanted to feel, and
everything they wanted to leave behind they got leave behind at the
door, and just have a great time.
ME: That's awesome! That's how I feel how I it should be. That's what
music is all about, and so many bands seemingly don't feel like that.
It's like why are you doing it then?
JL: Exactly. I think the visual is every bit as important as the music,
because if there's no visual, the person might as well stay home and
listen to the CD. You've got to give them something more.
ME: The music got to be good, we don't want to hear bad music, but we don't want to hear the CD regurgitated.
JL: Exactly.
 ME: With the touring, do you plan to head outside of North America any time soon.
JL: We would love to, we would love to go to the UK, to Japan and a lot
of the other places, but it all depends on promoters extending the
invite to come over. It's very expensive to tour over seas.
ME: Oh completely. You've also got the video for Tanis out now, and the
first thing that I saw on the video was the Fastway t-shirt.
JL: Oh Yeah!
ME: Is that a band your particularly fond of?
JL: That's a band I absolutely love, I used to be obsessed with them. I
think they're so great, It's weird after Fast Eddie left Motorhead and
he started Fastway, the singer he got, Dave King, I always loved his
voice, I always thought he was one of the greatest metal singers, and I
always loved all their songs. A while back, years ago, I went to a punk
show at a place called Five Points Music Hall here in Birmingham, I
think it might have been Less Than Jake or something like that, but a
band called Flogging Molly was opening up for them, and that was Dave
King's band!
The only bad thing was, as much as that band meant to me, and as much
as that band influenced me, when I saw Flogging Molly play I thought
they were great, but I never knew it was him. I could have sat down and
talked to him that night, he was hanging out at the merch booth, and I
had no idea that it was him until maybe 2 or 3 months after that, so I
missed my one opportunity to sit down and talk!
ME: Other than Fastway, what other bands have influenced your sound.
JL: Of course Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses, KISS, Def Leppard, and even
newer people like Green Day, Weezer and Foo Fighters. Anybody that's
got the big rock sound. It's weird to say Green Day, but their last
record sounds more Arena Rock than any other record I've heard in
years. I'm a big fan of big rock. I'm just a fan of good bands, good
music.
ME: On your Myspace page, you talk of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster,
who I thought were brilliant on their last album. Where's the
connection there between you guys?
JL: We're really good friends, and I played lead guitar on their record, and co-wrote a song on there with them.
ME: On the last album?
JL: Yeah. On the first album I co-wrote a song and played guitar as
well, and we share a producer. I pretty much did all the solos I think
on their first record, and a couple on their last record. We actually
did a tour with them last year as well.
ME: So what's the plans for the future? You do the Motley Cruise, and then where are you heading after that?
JL: Right after that we come back and we do a bunch of shows over here,
and then we're just staying focused on getting the new record out, and
then hopefully do a big, big tour over the summer. That's what we're
hoping.A big thank you to Jacob for taking the time to talk with
us. You can find out more about Lynam at the bands Official Myspace
Site, including all of the bands latest touring news, at this location.
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Cant wait for the new cd!! 
