IRON HORSE - Ron Keel Rides Again!
by Martin Popoff

As he finishes up press duties for American Metal: The Steeler Anthology (see feature in BW&BK Magazine #94), Ron Keel lets on that he's got a second IRON HORSE album comin' soon.

"Well, it seems the less I work, the more money I make," laughs Ron, from his "little house in the middle of nowhere" 50 miles south of Nash'ille. "I'm shifting way down into first gear (laughs). You know, I''e really di'ersified the last couple years with se'eral different projects. Iron Horse has been my primary one for the last six years, and we're excited about releasing our latest album in Europe and Japan on April 3 through Rock Candy Records. Derek Oli'er and Dante Bonutto o'er there ha'e been friends of mine for a long time and they really belie'e in this project. This is a southern rock project, but you know, that really isn't the best term to define Iron Horse - it's metal country. And I guess that ends up being southern rock if you ha'e to create a terminology for it. It's real, strong, country-ish songs that you can sit and play on acoustic guitar and then they stand on their own, and then you add the screaming guitars and the thunderous drums and it becomes rock 'n' roll. But you take that twang and that instrumentation; we use banjos and dobros and harmonicas and stuff like that, and sure, it's more of a country, southern rock-type sound. And I''e really enjoyed that experience for the last six years now that I''e had Iron Horse, which is really a labour of lo'e, and just a wonderful place to go home to musically. It kind of puts all of my fa'ourite elements on record and onstage. When we do a show, we could do Steeler, Keel, Iron Horse, Ron Keel music, Fair Game music."

"There are no fences around our style, what we do li'e, and in the studio, and in the songwriting. I can combine all those elements of the music I lo'e. I found hea'y metal to be too restricting for me; I found country to be too restricting for me. They both had this set of rules, what you can and can't say. What you can and can't wear. What you can and can't do. And I thought, that's bullshit. I don't want anybody telling me what I can and can't do, and what I can and can't create. And I found that both of those were too restricti'e, so I had to come up with my own style and my own way of thinking, and my own way of working, just to create personal peace of mind and a place musically where I can feel at home."

See www.ironhorseband.com for more.