Interview By Greg Pratt

It's amazing that Jeff Plate has time to talk on the phone. After all, this guy plays drums for TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA, METAL CHURCH, MARK WOOD and, now, MACHINES OF GRACE (he also mans the kit for the on-hiatus SAVATAGE). But somehow, amidst all this heavy hitting, the man has time to garden. Which is what he's doing when we call to talk shop (After we make fun of his decidedly non-metal pastime, he quips, "I'm not going to tell you what I was planting.").

But put down that rake and hoe, or whatever, and get ready to rock: Machines Of Grace's self-titled debut CD is hitting the shelves/iTunes folders this summer and fans of old school melodic hard rock—what once would have been called heavy metal—are going to eat this stuff up. And check out this lineup: Zak Stevens (Savatage, CIRCLE II CIRCLE) singing, Plate drumming and music college types Matt Leff on guitar and Chris Rapoza on the four-string major rager. With a dramatic, Savatage-esque (sorry) flair to the proceedings, the disc is a throwback to a simpler, more rocking time, but not in a cheesy retro or an embarrassing bar cover band way. It just rocks.
"Machines Of Grace is actually the second name of a band called WICKEDWITCH, which is basically the band Zak and I used to work together in in Boston back in 1989, '90, '91," says Plate. "This band is really that band. You know the story—Zak got the gig in Savatage and a year and a half later, I came into the picture. But the Wickedwitch material is something that just hit at the right wrong time. Grunge had really exploded, the music scene had changed drastically… We had been looking around for a record deal in the States for years and had some lukewarm interest, but when Zak had the opportunity to go sing for Savatage, it was a no-brainer. He had to do that."

A couple of years ago, the idea came up to do the band again and, as Plate explains, the guys more or less figured, why not? Like I say, fans of any kind of old school hard rock will dig this. I mean, I spend my time listening to NYIA and ROTTEN SOUND and pondering the subtleties between the different BRUTAL TRUTH releases, and Machines Of Grace got me rocking hard. Like, really hard, getting back to the basic beauty of a 4/4 beat, the inherent awesomeness in the sound that explains why in a recession AC/DC are one of the hugest bands on the planet, the same thundering coolness that made me love POISON and L.A. GUNS once upon a time (although beyond that 4/4 beat and a slight and very fucking awesome resemblance to FREHLEY'S COMET, the comparisons between the band at hand and said bands is non-existent). So, I'd have to agree: why not?

"The more we talked about it, it was like, 'Sure. We've always loved this material and it's never really got its fair shot' and we had all gotten to a point in our lives where we had time to do this and it wasn't a do-or-die situation," says Plate. "If anything, let's just record the material, do it right, just put it out there and see what happens to it. That's where we are right now; everyone was on board and here we are."

"We're simply starting something we already had, for the most part," adds Stevens, putting in his two cents via email from Holland, in the midst of a Circle II Circle tour. "The members of Machines Of Grace have known each other for a long time. In my case, I often get asked what I was doing before I joined Savatage. A lot of that time was spent with Matt working on songs and now that we have formed Machines Of Grace, many of those songs have been recorded and they make up much of our new album. Hence, Machines Of Grace was born."

One does wonder what these guys get out of playing in this band versus the many other projects they are involved in. For Plate, it's having more involvement in the writing process, something he doesn't get too wrapped up with in TSO, Savatage or Metal Church.

"I was involved in every arrangement of these songs," he says. "There were a couple I wrote most of the lyrics for; Zak did the majority. But as far as certain sections, certain lines, the bridge section or even the chorus, Zak would have a part and I would say, 'How about this?' Boom. It worked. And vice versa. So for me, this is something where I have more of a hands-on involvement with it."

"I think it's going to lend a fresh approach to the rock science as we know it," says Stevens about the band and their album. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here, but each song has a different realm and the entire record front to back is a very interesting listen. As far as the live show, we modeled the record after our live sound we get when we plug in, so the same approach applies to the live shows."

"I think people can expect a new brand of rock that's still based on traditional rock roots," he continues. "All the guys in the band have such a diverse musical background that it really lends to being different, yet has a solid rock feel. I feel great about the record; it took on a life of its own in the studio and we just let it flow from there."

So it's all systems go, as the band prepares to spread the good word about the disc—but just a bit, as Plate says these guys aren't really in an economic situation to just take off and hit the road for 40 weeks at a time. So enjoy it while ya can, and if all goes well, there will be more albums and touring when we can get it.

Which just leaves me with one burning question: are these guys familiar with forgotten '90s industrial rockers Machines Of Loving Grace?

"I remember the name," says Plate. "I couldn't tell you what they did."

"Actually, we started hearing about them when we were trying to come up with names for our band," says Stevens. "When we first came up with Machines Of Grace and did a search to see if the name was taken, we found them. I think they're great—a very cool band and sound. That's pretty much how I became familiar with them, oddly enough."

"We kept trying to think of a theme or a name that would sum up the project, the idea of aging gracefully," concludes Plate. "Not that we're old men or anything, but this was not a new project."

And then Plate—not that he's an old man—gets back to his gardening.

Via BraveWords.com.