Interview by Marek Steven
Photography by Mark Hunter

“The wizard steps into the light, A white dragon, standing by his side”
White Wizzard—“Dragonslayer”

Once every few years a metal band will arrive on the scene fully formed with a fresh sound and outlook that’s timely and ahead of the curve. Sooner or later the music world catches on, fashion follows suit and imitators begin to appear. Since first hearing The Sword’s amazing debut album Age of Winters in 2006, the first band to have that effect on this writer has been the recent recordings of LA’s White Wizzard.

White Wizzard is the brainchild of GTO-driving bass master Jon Leon. His vision was to form a heavy but melodic power-metal band to shake up a scene that’s been dominated by same hardcore bands for 10 years. After his original lineup had some local success with the High-Speed GTO EP, Jon completely changed the lineup and got some even more killer new material together. These tracks then caught the attention of the legendary, visionary UK metal label Earache Records. The Nottingham-based label plan to release the EP first and a new album of material to follow. White Wizzard’s debut album will mix the melodic power of classic metal like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest with the technicality of Rush and vocal power and delivery of Dio and early ’80s Survivor. That said, White Wizzard have a heaviness and song-writing confidence that annihilates any suggestion of plagiarism.

Right now metal is hotter than ever. Everyone and their mother is stitching patches on their denim and buying up classic heavy metal T-shirts. Quality, true metal bands like Cauldron, Enforcer and Powervice are springing up all around the world. White Wizzard are well placed to help lead this global denim and leather attack. We spoke to the suitably excited and extremely verbose Jon Leon about the band’s careful formation and future plans. We also discussed the historical link between wizards and metal and why the women in LA are so very hot.

It must be exciting times for the Wizzard. Your new material is pretty much the only music I’m listening to right now!
Yeah, we’re real excited about the new stuff, too. I’ve just written a whole batch of new stuff that’s for the new full-length record. Those three songs on the Myspace are a good indicator of where it’s going and we’ve got some great stuff set to follow up those songs. Hopefully we’ll have a 10 or 12 song record that’ll be pretty amazing.

I’m really looking forward to that full album. Does it feel like the band is about to do something special and you’re waiting for it to kick off?
It does. I mean obviously it’s an interesting situation because on the debut EP the singer is so different. Everything changed so much after that. It’s funny because Earache’s dropping the EP in June and that’s almost old news for White Wizzard in a way. But it’s new to the world so it’s an interesting place to be. I’m really excited about the new material and the new band. I think it’s much more epic and much more world-reaching. But I also really like the old stuff too. I think there’s definitely some really catchy stuff that’ll have us some radio play and hopefully get White Wizzard’s name out there. I’m setting it set it up to knock it down. Hopefully with the full-length record we do we can break it wide open in 2010.

Obviously signing to Earache Records is great news, right?
Yeah, definitely. It’s great. We’re really excited about it. I think Earache is trying to reach out and create something good out there to take over and just blow up. White Wizzard’s an interesting signing for them because they think there are some songs on the EP that I’m sure some of the death metal crowd are probably going to turn their noses up at. I appreciate the fact that they’re taking a little bit of a risk. Earache’s always been a cool label in the sense that they’ve always been really dynamic with the bands they choose to bring on board. They were at the forefront of the extreme genres when they were first happening in the late ’80s early ’90s. I really have a lot of faith in who’s there and what they can do. I feel like if we work hard it’ll be a good symbiotic relationship and something will blow up from it.

What inspired you to form the band originally?
I was frustrated with the metal scene in general for many years. I was sick of down-tuned, aggressive stuff. I appreciate it, but I just found myself listening to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio, Motörhead, early Metallica, Merciful Fate, Diamond Head and the Scorpions. So I wrote a bunch of songs and formed the band. I was longing for that kind of music. I’m not saying that this type of music needs to take over again and all forms of metal need to disappear. I think all forms of metal should be up there. I just think that this form seems to have been lost in everything over the years and I think it needs to have its place again. It’s just my favorite type of music. When you mix really good songwriting with the power of heavy metal and the guitars with everything working right—and you have a good sense of melody — I don’t think there’s anything more exciting or powerful musically. I just finally kind of got sick of everything and said, ‘Look I’m going to start my own band.’ I went into my room like a scientist and started writing songs and spent weekends in front of the computer with my bass and my guitar. We got those songs laid down and it turned out great. We were really happy at the results from the EP and we started going out there and playing some shows.

What led you to find the new set of guys?
The first time we went out on the road it was a long road trip and a mixture of things happened. Firstly I felt some of the guys just weren’t really into being on the road. They were pretty happy in their home lives in LA. I want to take this thing all the way. That’s all I want to do. I don’t have any question marks. There was also a thing that some of the guys wanted to be heavier. They wanted to be a bit more thrash. I wanted to do songs, more melodic, tuned guitar kind of stuff. They wanted to push the ante up, be a little more extreme. It just kind of all came to a head at the end of the tour and I realized some changes had to be made in order for the band to be able to survive.

So you got a new band together.
Basically over the next few months I spent my time really searching for the right people for this thing and I continued to write. I went all over the country—all over the world actually—for the right guys because I had a lot of confidence in what White Wizzard could become based on everything. This lineup is a little bit more serious and a little bit more epic and far-reaching.

And this is all pretty recent isn’t it?
Yeah, this lineup has only just finally been solidified really. I’ve got five guys. It’s all they want to do: living, sleeping, eating and breathing this thing. I think they can handle two months on the road. They can handle the frustrating ups and downs without getting too discouraged. I need guys that want to get out there and bust ass. A lot of being in a band is not very fun. It’s hard work and you’ve gotta be willing to do it. We’ve got a great plan. I really think the timing is good and I think if we work hard it’s done right the big stuff can happen.

To me your music has a fun L.A. energy to it. Do you think California itself has influenced your sound in any way?
When I formed the band one of my first thoughts was to bring the good times back into metal. But what’s funny is that for me the good times in metal have been fired by bands that come from the UK. When I put on a Judas Priest record or Iron Maiden record, it means sunny days and good times to me. When I was really young at college back in the day, everyone was just having a good time and they had songs you could sing. They just make you feel good. It’s pretty simple man; it’s all about drinking beer and having good times. And yeah, I do live in LA. I’ve got a cool old car I can pop down every day and drive in sunny weather. Maybe that helps me kind of have a little bit more of a positive sunny vibe about things in general (laughs). I don’t know. But I definitely set out for this music to have a positive vibe on purpose. Ultimately California is pretty nice. Ninety degrees now and it’s sunny. I guess you can’t argue with that. It puts you in more of a happy vibe.

I’m jealous. It’s foggy as shit in London.
Yeah, buddies come around and we have pool parties. It’s pretty fun man. There are a lot of good-looking girls not wearing a lot of clothes. It’s pretty amazing. Good-looking women have been coming to LA for years. And they had daughters and then they had daughters. So you have all these amazing women running around. It’s kinda insane. It makes your head spin. They’re a little bit wilder and less conservative here, too. There’s more debauchery, more general good-time behaviour. It’s what you would see with those hair metal bands in the ’80s, whether it was Mötley Crüe or Poison. You watch all those VH1 shows and realize it all went down here. There’s still that element. The Maiden and Priest guys tapped into it here too. LA was off the chart back in the day for heavy metal.

Do you like any heavier, darker metal, too?
When I listen to dark metal, like you know a King Diamond album, it’s just really haunting and almost scary in a way more than it is negative. I’m not really a negative guy. I’m just not a guy who like feels like I have to lash out at society in the negative, dark way. I don’t know why that is, whether I’m from California or whatever. I kinda have that same mentality as the guys in Maiden and Priest had. It’s odd that the parallels are there. I just love heavy metal music. I love playing music. And I love the power of it. It’s all positive for me. There’s nothing about it that’s dark, you know? But a lot of bands that I think are amazing do some really heavy stuff and have some really intense things to say and they convey it in a very intense way and that’s cool too. There’s a place for all of that. But I’m definitely really positive: I’m healthy, I take care of myself. Like I wanna tour the world, enjoy it for 20 years and enjoy the hell out of it. My attitude right now is just life is not like you’re born in one spot, you die the next, kick back and just relax in the middle. I just wanna go and completely just work it out and play heavy metal music everywhere around the world. What I feel is melody. I love writing songs, man.

What other genres are you right now into apart from classic heavy metal?
I love old prog band bands like Nectar, early Yes and of course, old Rush. That’s about as prog-y as I go. King Crimson is pretty fun. Iron Maiden and Rush were the reason why I became a musician. Those two bands. And Judas Priest to a point, too.

It seems that people are ready for true metal again right now.
You know, basically I think that those scenes have come full circle. I’ve gone through a lot of musical places and played in different bands and toured and done all these different things and it just kinda all came full circle back to the roots of why I started playing music. I don’t know whether or not we can get to a point where we can take the torch one day from those bands. That would be amazing, to be able to blow up on any level even close to that. You know, either way I’m doing what I love. If I’m playing in front of 20 people doing it I don’t care man. I totally believe in this band and I totally believe in the music. It’s not contrived. You’re not compromising yourself. You’re not like, ‘Oh well, I’ll play in a band that sounds like Korn because you know that’s what’s selling right now.’ A lot of guys do that. They just wanna get a deal. They may really love something else.

How are the shows going down with the new set up?
I think we’re just scratching the surface of what we can do as a live band. Everyone who saw the last lineup is just blown away by this one. It’s not even comparable. We really have something special here and over the next few months, we’ll get out there live and hopefully get on some tours in front of some big crowds. I think people are going to react extremely positively to the band. This lineup has been generating a huge response, not only in the recordings but also in the live show.

There is a classic connection between heavy metal and fantasy.
Yeah, there is definitely a sense of escapism or other-worldliness that heavy metal has. That’s definitely always been there. And I love dragons. I have two dragon sleeve tattoos. I’ve always loved The Lord of the Rings. And when I was young kid I was obviously into Dungeons and Dragons.There’s definitely an energy that we tap into: dragons, wizards and those old movies like Conan and Dragonslayer. Fantasy seems to have a bit of a symbiotic relationship, especially with power metal. The artwork and imagery evokes a certain kind of energy for sure. It’s definitely something that helps the imagination. In that documentary Metal: A Headbangers Journey, one thing said that’s so true is that ‘everything about metal is larger than life.’ So I think the art and imagery should depict that. It’s a big part of the genre to have that energy and I want to continue to play on that concept.

A lot of your new songs are about wizards, but not all of them.
We have a couple of songs that are about going out in LA. Going out in the car and having a good time, driving and picking up, you know, bad girls. Metal can also be inspiring. Songs that make you want to live, enjoy life and make you feel good. The song “Over the Top” is about that and getting over some frustrations I had to deal with. The best bands like Maiden and Zeppelin had epic songs and then shorter, catchier ones, too. So there will definitely be more epics to come and also some three- or four-minute melodic tracks with hooks.

I wanted to ask about your classic GTO car and the really fun video for the song “High Speed GTO” from the debut EP,that combines your car with witches and wizards.
The GTO is a 1969 model and it’s all original. I drive it everywhere around LA and the song was written about it. I was talking to a video director in town. I had the idea of driving around with the other guys in the back kind of like “Breaking the Law”. The director came up with the whole concept for the video with the witch and wizard, and he did a great job. It’s just hilarious. He has some ideas for the next video and I look forward to working with him again. We want to continue the story with the next one but we’re not sure how to do it yet. We’ve got a new lineup so we’re trying to figure out how to work that in. Maybe they were killed by the witch and we come back with a screaming new group of guys. The car is still here, man. I drive it every day and I’m sure it will make its appearance in more White Wizzard stuff. It can never be gotten rid of, you know. It’s such a part of the band. You never know, maybe the GTO will be an important element in the band in the future, like a mascot.