Doin' it for the love. What more can one ask?

Wiley Arnett knows how it feels to play music for the love - and XMFan is happy to report the feeling is back. With a new band in the stable and a new album in the mail, Arnett is once again providing old school power metal to fans that enjoy their guitar chords well done.

XMFan recently had the opportunity to speak with Arnett concerning his days as the guitarist for Sacred Reich, as well as the welcome news of a brand new album from his current band, The Human Condition. The dust particles that once rested on the neck of Arnett's ESP axes are now gone, and Mr. Arnett and crew seem more than ready to give it a go.

All we can say is let the revival begin.

XMFan: You joined Sacred Reich before the first album was released. Fill us in on what happened around that time.

Wiley: Back in 1985 there was quite a bit of activity going on at the local level in east Phoenix and south Scottsdale. We had Flotsam and Jetsam, and Icon had been signed to Capitol Records a year or so before that. Some of that attention started to inspire local musicians, and the result was a lot of garage bands. A few of those started to break away and do more than just cover tunes. Sacred Reich was originally a cover band that did Metallica, S.O.D. - pretty hardcore underground stuff - while others were doing stuff like Dokken and RATT. So Reich was one of the first bands I saw locally that covered hardcore bands.

The original guitarist, Jeff Martinek, wound up joining the Navy about eight months before the band got signed, which created the perfect opportunity for me. Growing up I actually liked the guitar players from bands like RATT and Dokken, but I saw an opportunity and had to take it - I heard Testament - and thought, "Wow, there are some talented players in the heavier genre." It didn't take me long to get authentic about playing harder and faster. We started having fun with some cover songs and soon began writing originals. There was a pretty cool local buzz, and the local bands got along well - often times they'd share rehearsal spaces to make the monthly rent easier. It was a really conducive atmosphere.

Metalblade Records was coming out to Arizona once or twice a month to see Flotsam and Jetsam for a while, and consequently we were exposed to Metalblade. We were warming up for Flotsam on their showcases. Then we started getting some attention of our own, and wound up getting our song "Ignorance", which was the first song we wrote after I joined the band, featured on the Metal Massacre VIII album from Metalblade in 1986. From there it was a really great time.

XMFan: With the success of Surf Nicaragua, you were able to tour the world for a few years in the late 80s.

Wiley: We were fortunate to have some good support in key places and were able to generate some momentum early on. We actually toured for nine years. After releasing Ignorance we did our first North American tour, which consisted of four shows. (Laughs) We rented a twelve-passenger van and a trailer, and started driving. Our first show was in Ohio, which was like a two-day drive, then a few stops in New York before ending all the way up in Toronto. We drove all the way home from Canada with no shows. It was pretty funny, but that was our first tour of North America. (Laughs) We were having a lot of fun at this point, and we agreed we were lucky to do it.

After Surf Nicaragua we got quite a bit of positive attention - Europe in particular - where we were invited to do a few festivals while touring there. We really enjoyed playing to the larger crowds of twenty to thirty thousand people, and recorded a live import record called "Alive At The Dynamo" in Holland in '89. The second time we played the Dynamo Open Air Festival in '96 there were over fifty thousand metal fans in attendance. That was a huge honor, and you can imagine that it was a very big deal to us. In retrospect that was as good as it would get.

XMFan: How about the bands you toured with back in the day?

Wiley: For our first trip to Europe we opened for Motorhead for five weeks, which was incredible because we were big fans of Lemmy and the boys. Our third tour out there, for "The American Way", we actually played with Venom minus Cronos. They warmed up for us for four weeks in Germany, which was kind of intense. We were having three to four thousand kids a night - which isn't selling out auditoriums - but this was definitely a step above your local bar circuit. Other groups we enjoyed sharing the stage with included: Danzig, Death Angel, DRI, Voi Vod, Sepultura, Faith No More, Forbidden, King Diamond, Dark Angel, and Trouble just to name a few.

Our coolest tour was probably with Pantera on the Vulgar Display of Power Tour. Their album went Gold around the second week of the tour, so there was just an electric attitude on that tour. It was a great time to be in that genre because you could feel the momentum of the bands that were breaking. It was great that the music industry was being forced to acknowledge the hard-core music scene.

I remember the last night of that tour - practical jokes were the game. While we were rockin' the stage, the Pantera boys had covered our cool "=SR=" backdrop with a couple of bed sheets with the words "SUCK IT RITE" spray painted on it. Later in our set I approached my foot pedal to begin a solo and found five pounds of ground beef with a midi cable coming out from under it. Fucking hysterical! Dime Bag proceeded to hit us all with a variety of squeeze bottle condiments - he must have liked ketchup on his beef, because that's what my gear and I ended up wearing! I still have ketchup stains on my Marshall cabinets...

Later in their set, the fun started during "This Love," with industrial bubble blowers. It's hard to look tough when giant bubbles are floating all over the stage. (Laughs) At one point, eight of us joined the group on stage wearing bald head treatment with funny shit like "Un- Cola" written across our bellies, to look like Anselmo. This ended up confusing the spotlight crew member, who could not figure out which one of us was Anselmo. Great times!

I would like to acknowledge Dime Bag for his immortal contribution to hard rock guitar playing. I love you, Dime!

XMFan: So, is Lemmy really a nice guy? (Laughs)

Wiley: Lemmy is really and genuinely a good guy. He could probably see in our eyes that we were little star struck rookies, and he still took us under his wing, partied with us and led by example. He truly is the Grandfather of Metal. Instead of telling you how fucked up things are, he teaches you something. He's the Ace Of Spades.

XMFan: What is the status of Reich these days?

Wiley: We are all close friends - we are brothers. We have all kind of taken up local careers that are kind of a step away from the band. We enjoyed the success we earned, but aspired to do a little better. As we got older our families depended on us to be heads of the households, and it was hard to be gone so much. We had kids, and people's priorities change. Lots of people tell me, "Hey, I heard you were in a band that put out albums and stuff!" But they have never heard of Sacred Reich. (Laughs) We were really successful on a certain level, and I like to describe it with an old saying: "The water is famous to the fish that swim in it." If you were not part of the metal scene, you won't have any idea what we're talking about. If you were part of it, you'll know it was something that was exciting and real and we were fortunate to be a part of it. You know?

When the band disbanded it was more about being practical. We needed to do something that would pay off our houses and show more of a future, because we weren't doing the Gold Records. We might sell a couple hundred thousand. But we just didn't want to be forty years old playing Surf Nicaragua. (Laughs) I still love maintaining my own Sacred Reich website (www.angelfire.com/az/SacredPages).

XMFan: Any plans to get together and do a song here or there?

Wiley: We always say nothing is out of the question, but we have nothing planned as far as working together on new music. However, we are collaborating with Metalblade Records on re-releasing Ignorance and Surf. This will be a three-disk set that includes a DVD of some old school live performances. Phil and I have been working closely just looking back, and it has been a blast to view old photos and put together the artwork.

XMFan: You do have a current band, The Human Condition. How does that project seem to be coming along?

Wiley: It's been a blast. After taking a couple of years off I got to the point where I was only playing my guitar an hour a week. I slowly started to realize I was a little empty inside and missed the camaraderie of sharing musical goals with a group of friends. I was fortunate to have some talented friends drag me out of the house and into a rehearsal room. It was clearly time to make some modest goals, and commit to being musically active. A buddy of ours, Patrick, did the lyrics and singing on our debut release. He was an important part of getting my fire started again, and sure enough I found it easy to get pounding again. I love to express myself with my instrument and I love stomping holes in stages. I like playing mellow stuff at home but was beginning to sound like Eric Clapton Unplugged - Clapton is awesome, but I really needed to begin playing the heavier stuff again.

I looked around me, saw some talented players, and said, "Let's go for it!" So we got together and started goofing off, and slowly but surely got increasingly excited about it. I'm taking it a little more seriously these days, and I'm having a lot of fun doing it. I think the bottom line is authenticity. We are confident that we are doing great stuff, and the magic question is will people agree. This would create an opportunity for us to share our music. Meanwhile, we have nothing to lose. We are rooted in having a blast with music we like to play.

XMFan: If the opportunity arose, would you and the other Humans take to the road?

Wiley: We could probably take three to four weeks out of a year to do some smart stuff - if it is plotted right. If we could develop momentum, it could take priority. It's just a matter of keeping one foot grounded and the other foot in the teenage dream - because we are no longer teenagers it's important not to throw caution to the wind. I did that before, and it was fun. No regrets. Just need to make sure I'm not pushing carts around Safeway when I'm sixty years old. (Laughs)

XMFan: You had a quote on the Human Condition website (www.thehumancondition.us) which said the band would "bring some long overdue old-school vibe to a starving genre." It's great you guys decided to take that musical direction...

Wiley: Yeah. Our approach to the music is very old school. We were fortunate to find our vocalist Ry, who really got excited about what we were doing, and jumped in headfirst. He really breathed some fresh breath into the band - a fresh face, fresh voice, a fresher way of looking at things. I will always be old school, so we are sticking to our guns on the music side and playing some good old-fashioned hardcore metal. Ry does interpret things differently than we did back in the day, and he is the front man, which is having a nice dynamic on the overall band. He makes it easier for the kids to listen, while we still force-feed them an old school approach on some simple rock and heavy brew. Our bass player Twitty played in a band called Bludgeoned and comes from a death metal background. Our drummer Muley hits hard and never ceases to amaze me. I hope that the people reading this will stop by our website and develop their own opinion. We will have a new six song CD titled "The Means" that releases in mid to late March 2005.

XMFan: What else are you doing these days to stay busy?

Wiley: I'm a Director of Purchasing for a small restaurant chain in Arizona that has six locations - one in Tucson, one in Flagstaff, and four in the valley. It's a really cool gig driving around from store to store. Paying off some bills, and buying the house and car that I thought I would get from playing music. (Laughs) But I am very fortunate to work with good people and to be part of a growing company that has been really good to me.

My wife and I will be married for fifteen years in September. We like to travel, and on our tenth anniversary we went to Tahiti. We've also been to Hawaii, Mexico and various other places with tropical environments. We just try to enjoy each other and the world, and try to get out when we can. It's nice to go places with someone you care about - someone to look at these places along with you and learn the history of where you are. I can't complain because life has been good to me.

XMFan: It seems like ESP is your main guitar these days.

Wiley: I've played an ESP since '86. They worked a deal with me, and they wound up making some beautiful instruments. If you look at their current roster you'll see some huge names, and I'm proud to be one of the first eight people endorsed by them.

XMFan: What are a few bands one might find you listening to?

Wiley: In my car I have the new Velvet Revolver, which I enjoy. Jeff Beck and Dave Matthews. I like a lot of stuff - sometimes I've got the Stevie Wonder and Motown funk going on. I like to listen to a lot of stuff, but I don't play a lot of stuff. (Laughs)

When I learned to play the acoustic guitar, around the age of fourteen, I would play Lynyrd Skynyrd open chords. After a dose of AC/DC's Back In Black, I said, "screw this acoustic." Shortly after that I got into Sabbath, Ozzy, Randy Rhodes. With Randy I heard the AC/DC distortion and acoustic on the same record and thought, "Whoa! Now that is the way to go..." He was probably my biggest influence as a guitar player. I was also a big fan of bands like The Scorpions, Judas Priest, Dokken, RATT and that genre. Warren Demartini, Matthias Jabs with The Scorpions. These bands had great guitar players and I was inspired by all of them.

XMFan: Well it sounds like music has given you just as much as you have given to it.

Wiley: It has - it really has. A lot of musicians look back on the backside of their career and think, "If only the record label would have pushed harder" and "we should have been bigger." For whatever reason you hear excuses for a less than Platinum showing in their career. Well for me, and I think the other guys in Reich, we gave it a hell of a run and got a hell of a return.