Metal Singer Alan Tecchio Looks Forward and Back

Alan Tecchio is in demand, and for good reason. The Closter native is an absolutely superb heavy metal singer. With his multi-octave range and emotional, dynamic delivery, Alan has established a sound that is both memorable and truly his own.

Over the past 30-plus years, Tecchio has laid down vocals and written lyrics for some of metal’s most memorable albums, including Hades’ speed metal classics “Resisting Success” and “If At First You Don’t Succeed,” Non-Fiction’s heavy masterpieces “Preface” and “In the Know,” and Watchtower’s prog-metal piece de resistance, “Control and Resistance.” He’s also been behind the mic for excellent efforts by Jack Frost’s Seven Witches, Autumn Hour, and most recently, Level Fields and Mike LePond’s Silent Assassins.

Currently, Tecchio just finished tracking his parts for the upcoming third Silent Assassins album led by bass guru LePond, who also plays in Symphony X. The highly-anticipated album, “Whore of Babylon,” is the follow-up to last year's stellar "Pawn and Prophecy," on which Tecchio shines against the galloping power metal of "Masters of the Hall," the barnburner "Avengers of Eden" and the epic title track.

In addition, he’s completing songs for the sophomore effort by Level Fields, a band whose members span the globe. We had the pleasure of hearing an unmixed version of a heavy, convincing cover of The Cure’s “The Same Deep Water As You.”

On Level Field’s 2018 debut, "1104," Tecchio sounds better than ever, commanding attention from the start on the brooding lead-off track, "Disowned." Additional highlights include the musical and vocal twists and turns of "Enough," the imploring "Get Over It," and the manic "Extra 1104."

Tecchio has certainly had a storied career. We recently sat down with the man to update us on his current work and take a trip down memory lane.

What projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m finishing up my work on the third Mike LePond’s Silent Assassins album. Mike is a phenomenal player and a great guy and is just awesome to work with. I played with him in Seven Witches. That’s how I got the invitation to sing with him in his solo project. Mike writes a lot of classic metal themed lyrics, castles and dragons and kings and classic literature. One of the new songs is based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and it’s one of the most challenging things I’ve ever sung. It’s very complex. There are a lot of peaks and valleys in the vocals and I like that he challenges me like that. (Symphony X guitarist Michael Romeo) actually tracks me and he’s also brilliant to work with. All three recordings have been great experiences for me as a singer.

You’re also working on the second Level Fields release. The band’s guitarist and drummer live in Germany and you and the bassist are here in New Jersey. Is it weird having never played together in the same room?

No, not really. It’s a virtual band but it sounds natural. (Guitarist Marco Ahrens) initially approached me a few years ago. He was a big Non-Fiction fan and had written a song called “Enough,” which became one of the songs on the first record. Truthfully, I didn’t really want to do more than one song at first. Then he sent me the song “Disowned” and I found it to be such a great tune that I thought, ‘let’s continue this.’ Marco brought in Andreas (Tegeler) on drums and I brought in Clint Arent on bass (Arent also played with Tecchio in the band Autumn Hour). At that point it became an actual albeit virtual band.

Now that we know what you’re up to now, let’s go back to the beginning. When did you know you could sing?

My mom was big into the choir at church and encouraged me to explore singing. Later on when I was in high school hanging out with friends and listening to metal and Zeppelin and Sabbath we would all sit around singing and I felt like my voice was pretty good. When my friend Sam Helsel put his own band together I went to see them play at a party and they opened with Rush’s “2112 Overture” and “Temples of Syrinx.” I was so blown away by that. I wanted to be a part of something like that. I didn’t sing very well at first to be honest. I learned over time to develop my voice. I went to a lot of different teachers which definitely helped.

As a teen you played in a band called Prophecy.

That was with Sam and (future Hades guitarist) Scott LePage and Joe D’Angeli (known now as the NJ Batman and founder of the Wildlife Conservation and Education Center in Garfield). We would go to Paramus Park Mall and hang out and just ‘be Prophecy.’ Prior to Prophecy Sam and I played my first real gig at a battle of the bands at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood. We called ourselves S.A.T.O. after the Ozzy song and every band we played against was a hip-hop group. We had about 20 friends in the front row supporting us but everyone else hated us!

How did you then get into Hades?

Joe D’Angeli got an opportunity to audition for Hades as a drummer but he told me a little bit of a white lie. He asked me, ‘do you want to go jam with the Hades guys?’ I was like, ‘alright, I guess, but I don’t really know their songs.’ He didn’t tell me it was also an audition for me. Then I got there and realized it was a dual audition. I did not get the gig then but a few years later the planets aligned and I was successfully recruited by Scott LePage to join Hades. We recorded our first album, “Resisting Success,” in 1987 and we were very lucky to get almost every good opening slot at L’Amour, mainly due to (bassist Jimmy Schulman’s) relationship with the owners of the club. They just liked us and they liked him. We slowly developed a following in Brooklyn as a result. After that we had strings of Northeast dates opening for bands like Flotsam and Jetsam, Manowar and Nuclear Assault among others.

Then we got an opportunity to go to Europe for the very first time after releasing our second album, “If At First You Don’t Succeed,” in 1988. The tour was kind of a disaster and the beginning of the end of the band. We were booked to play very obscure places in even more obscure towns. Fans had never even heard of some of these little villages. Also, traveling in this tight little van in very close quarters, the disappointment really brought out probably the worst in all of us.

What are some of your favorite performances from the two Hades albums? What was it like making your first albums? What made the band special?

Well, once I got familiar with them I thought Hades had great songs and cool lyrics that were very melodic. They were definitely the big local metal band in north Jersey and everyone knew it. They had a kind of mystique that made them even cooler than most other bands. Making those records for me was intimidating yet fun and gave me my first taste of recording in a real studio. Our engineer on “Resisting Success” was Dave Blake at Fox Studios in Rutherford, NJ, and he was actually blind! It was jaw dropping to watch him work the mixing board. To this day it is something I will never forget. As for the songs…for sure “The Cross” on Resisting Success is an important song for me. I dedicated it to my mother who had passed away just two years before I joined Hades. Other songs that stand out to me would include “Opinionate!” which we often opened shows with. “The Leaders?” would also be up there as it is one of the most known Hades tracks and a great set opener as well.

How did you end up in Watchtower, a prog-rock band from Texas, as your next career step?

Their singer Jason McMaster was leaving the band because his other band Dangerous Toys had just signed a major label deal. He called me and said I was perfect for them. Initially I said I can’t quit Hades. We were going to Europe to see if we could open some doors and we had worked so hard to get there. But things got so bad on that tour that I sent a postcard from Belgium to Texas saying I’d like to audition if the gig was still open. Pretty much a month later I was back on a plane to Europe with Watchtower after landing the spot through an audition in Texas.

What was the transition like going to a technical prog-metal band?

It was very hard. Jason’s voice was really high. All that singing I did was very hard and very hard to do on the road night after night. But I found a way to do it and we had a great time. I really enjoyed working with them. Hades had some technical parts as well but nothing on the level of Watchtower.

Why did you leave Watchtower?

Ron Jarzombek, the guitar player, ran into problems with his hands and it was a 3-year process for him to get back to playing. I had just moved to Texas and was hoping to stay on the road with the band. There was no job there for me as a result. I couldn’t stay stagnant and the opportunity to join Non-Fiction came right around that time. Dan (Hades guitarist Dan Lorenzo) wanted to go in a different direction, with downtuned guitars and a little more heft than Hades. I’ll give him credit; he was ahead of the curve way back then. There were a lot of bands that came out with detuned instruments after Non-Fiction. I was excited when I heard his riffs. I knew I could really sing cool stuff to them.

Non-Fiction’s albums, “Preface” and “In the Know,” came out in 1991 and 1992. (A post breakup album, “It’s a Wonderful Lie,” was released in 1996). How did the grunge explosion at that time affect the band?

Our management tried to position us as an East Coast Soundgarden. But Non-Fiction wasn’t alternative. It was definitely more of a metal-based, Soundgarden-esque band in my opinion. But we were accepted by a lot of that crowd because we were somewhere in the middle. We were played all the time on (influential Seton Hall University radio station) WSOU and that really made a difference in our draw. We did great tours with Overkill and Savatage and countless local and regional gigs as well.

Next came the Hades reunion album “Exist to Resist” in 1995

When we did that recording Non-Fiction was still somewhat active so we kind of did that on the side while still trying to work on Non-Fiction. Hades was not really back together as a band for the “Exist To Resist” reunion CD. Ironically, some of the songs have a very NF feel to them. It was more about finally releasing Hades songs that we thought would never see the light of day. The production on “Exist to Resist” is pretty dry but I really dig it. Those songs were killer and I am happy with how it all came out even if we were not really an active band at the time.

Then came the full Hades Reunion that began in the late 1990s.

Dan came to me and said he had some riffs that didn’t fit Non-Fiction, and by then there was no Non-Fiction anymore. He asked if I felt like doing some Hades stuff. I really liked a lot of those riffs. What happened next is we remarkably got signed by Metal Blade Records. Brian Slagel, the head of Metal Blade, came into town and took Dan and me to New York City for dinner and we bought him dinner. It’s usually the other way around. He said we were one of two bands to ever buy him dinner, and that King’s X was the other. We knew were in good company. King’s X is a total class act. We ended up putting out three records: “SaviorSelf” (1999), “The Downside” (2000) and “DamNation” (2001). We played the Wacken festival in Germany in 2000. That was such a great time and very unexpected for us.

Next Stop: Jack Frost’s Seven Witches for the albums “Amped”(2005) and “Deadly Sins” (2007).

After the Hades reunion albums I got disillusioned with the music business and put the brakes on it and focused on my day job selling advertising. For two or three years I did nothing musically. Jack Frost (through his connection with bassist Kevin Bolembach of Non-Fiction) recruited me and sent me a song for his second solo record. I put some sick melodies and harmonies on it and it ended up becoming the tune “Hell or High Water.” It was really fun to do and I felt like I was challenging myself vocally.

We finished the song and that’s when he asked me to join Seven Witches. He let me write all the lyrics for all the songs, which I really wanted to do at that point. I love Jack and writing with him is a lot of fun. I think I bring a different vocal perspective to his music than other singers have in the past. We also had a cover band called Jack Frost’s Metal Coalition that was a lot of fun. He was trying to get me to do a show with them this fall but I’m just too busy between work and bands and family.

Tell us about the band Autumn Hour

Autumn Hour was the first band that I put together completely by myself. I deliberately chose guys that I would want to hang out and have a beer with but who of course also had great musical chops. Guitarist Justin Jurman and I had a 2-piece acoustic project called Saturnine Smile going on first that kind of became A.H. once we decided to make it a full band. I had played with drummer Dave Lescinsky in Hades already and he had awesome ideas for the drums parts. Clint Arent and I had jammed in Seven Witches together and he had great melodic bass parts to add to what we were creating. That's how it originally took shape and then we decided to make a concept album called “Dethroned” which I believe came out fantastic. The recording has some somber mellow moments but also some brutally heavy passages. I think it is a super blend of dramatic moods and musical/lyrical storytelling.

How do you balance having a career, playing in all these bands and raising a family?

Simply put– I have a great, supportive wife. Back when Jack asked if I wanted to join Seven Witches I went to her and said I’m going to let you make the call because it would involve me going on the road for a couple of weeks and taking nights and weekends to record and do interviews. She said, ‘you love singing and I would not want to put the brakes on that for you. I absolutely support you.’ She is simply fantastic and the most selfless person I have ever met. I consider myself very lucky– I love my wife Beth, daughter Annabella and son Nicholas and I also love my day job as a restaurant/catering real estate agent. Plus, I especially love the ability to still do music on my terms. Though I may never have been very commercially successful, I am super stoked with my current musical contributions and life in general.

Alan Tecchio Select Discography

Hades

Resisting Success (1987)

If At First You Don’t Succeed (1988)

Live On Location (1991)

Exist To Resist (1995)

SaviorSelf (1999)

The Downside (2000)

DamNation (2001)

Watchtower

Control and Resistance (1989)

Concepts of Math: Book One (2016)

Non-Fiction

Preface (1991)

In the Know (1992)

It’s a Beautiful Lie (1996)

Power

Justice of Fire (1996)

Seven Witches

Amped (2005)

Deadly Sins (2007)

Autumn Hour

Dethroned (2009)

Mike LePond’s Silent Assassins

Mike LePond’s Silent Assassins (2014)

Pawn and Prophecy (2018)

Level Fields

1004 (2018)