DN:Talk about your new record. Where did you get the idea from? What is the inspiration behind this album?
AA: The new live album happened because I had just spent a great amount of time in the studio, wherein I compiled enough basic tracks for two CDs. We realized that it would be much faster to record a live record and get it out there as opposed to the amount of studio time still needed to finish up the studio tracks, even though a handful of them are pretty much done. The other reason to put out a live record, and especially one from North Star, is that we’ve been playing there regularly for 2 years and the crowds have been fantastic, and we always have amazing shows there. One of the owners, Phil Maniatty, is also a recording engineer, so he recorded us live on three different occasions and we picked the best stuff for the record. I then took the tracks to my buddy Tom Beaujour who mixed the record at his Nuthouse Recording Studio in Hoboken, NJ. Between the work of Phil and Tom, the album sounds really great and I couldn’t be happier with it.

DN: Who are the musicians that play on the record?
AA: Keyboards and vocals are by Mike DiMeo, the bass player is Dennis Metzler and there are two drummers: Vito Luizzi plays on most of the record but two songs feature Richard Rosch on drums.

DN: Who are some of the bands that influenced you when you were growing up?
AA: When I first started to play I was a huge fan of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Kinks, plus B.B. King and Chet Atkins. When I was 11, my guitar teacher, Joe Monk, was a jazz player ala Joe Pass and he turned me on to the chord-melody style of jazz. But my biggest influence of all is Jimi Hendrix; once I became really dedicated to playing the guitar, at the age of about 16, I became obsessed with his music and learned every song I possibly could from listening to his records over and over. In my first band we played about 30 Hendrix songs, including many songs most people had never heard of. We also played songs by Johnny Winter, Mountain, Frank Zappa, Robin Trower, John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jethro Tull, the Allman Brothers, plus all of the blues greats like Albert King, Freddie King, B.b. King, T-Bone Walker, and others.

DN: Do you have any projects that you are working on right now or any in the future? Any plans to tour?
AA: I would very much like to tour with my own band and am currently trying to settle on a booking agent. And I would also like to finish up the two studio albums as soon as I can.

DN: Any cool stories you would like to share with us about the recording process?
AA: One of the great things about playing North Star is that the people go crazy, so we had a lot of cool “audience reaction” stuff captured on the recordings. It was fun to go through it and pick our favorite stuff to include on the CD, which of course provides some silly inside jokes for the band and the regular crowd. And I really wanted to showcase the ‘live” vibe of the band, so there’s some really great band interaction that we were able to present with this release.

DN: What was the most challenging part of making this record?
AA: One of the challenges was to go through all of the music from three different shows; you always want to put more things on the record than you can so at some point you have to decide what to leave off. But the biggest challenge was mixing it just right so it ultimately represents the live environment as accurately as possible, with each instrument sounding as good as it can sound. I think we were able to achieve that.

DN:Is there anyone you’d like to acknowledge for offering support creating this album?
AA: We never wound have been able to make this record with Phil Maniatty, for a variety of reasons. First of all, we struck up a great friendship and a nice relationship from the very beginning, as the band established itself at the club. After working with Phil in the studio, he expressed the desire to capture us live, because it’s just so different than the studio environment. He did an incredible job recording the band and, because of his talent, we have this record to show for it. And of course I’d like to thank Steve Vai for showing his support of the band and the album by making it available worldwide through Digital Nations.