Interview with Ron Jarzombek of WatchTower (Marco Grosso of Classix Metal magazine)

1. Before forming Watchtower, which bands did you play in ? What motivated you to form the band?

The band that I played in right before Watchtower was S.A. Slayer. Both bands used to gig in various Texas cities, and I was huge fan of WatchTower back then. Before S.A.Slayer, I was just in bands with my brothers and making various recordings on a 4 track recorder. I'm not an original member of WatchTower, so I'm not sure what motivated the guys to start the band, likely they just wanted hot chicks.

2. Have you recorded several demo tapes, both before the debut and after: did the pieces that ended up in the dishi keep the same initial arrangement or have they undergone major changes?

I'm not sure about WatchTower demos before I joined the band. I know that they recorded the song 'Meltdown' for a compilation album, something about Cottage Cheese (I forget the title), that was with a bunch of punk bands. Before I joined WatchTower, they had recorded at BOSS Studios in San Antonio, where they recorded some of the songs that appear on 'Energetic Disassembly'. I don't know what happened with those records though, if they ever surfaced anywhere, etc... BOSS Studios is where S. A. Slayer recorded the 'Prepare To Die' EP and the 'Go For The Throat' album.

3. Your music is very complex and articulated: how does the creative process and how do you assemble the pieces?

Watchtower was a slow, drawn out process that happened with live rehearsals every week and making cassette recordings, listening at home then coming back the next week and trying to pick where we left off. During the time between vocalists, Doug, Rick and I wrote all sorts of parts of songs, tried to come up with good arrangements for the tunes to get songs, but never really came up with the right formula. Lots of trial and error, really.

4. Why the choice of self-producing the debut album, and how was it received by critics and fans?

I wasn't on the debut album, so I'm not sure what happened with the production, but any critic who didn't like the album should be shot. I know that the fans (including me) loved it.

5. How was the live activity after "Energetic...", and how it influenced the next phase for the processing of "Control..."?

WatchTower was always gigging in Texas with other Texas bands like S.A. Slayer, and Helstar before and after the debut album. I guess after years of playing live and the album being out, word got out and Tom Warrior from Celtic Frost suggested to the CEO of Noise Records to check out WatchTower and that's what got the deal started for 'Control And Resistance'. By that time Jason and Billy were out of the band. I was in but we had Mike Soliz for our singer. We did a lot of cool gigs with Mike, but just one recording. Alan joined about a month before we flew to Berlin to record. Before recording 'Control And Resistance', the only gigs that we had with Alan were there in Berlin, Germany at small clubs.

6. After the first album Billy and Jason left the band. How did it happen and why ? A friendly split or were there tensions?

Billy left due to the good old "musical differences" which was actually the case. Jason left a bit later because he got the opportunity to do some great things with Dangerous Toys... major tours, heavy rotation videos, etc... Not sure how things were when Billy left, but when Jason took off, we were pissed but looking back at the situation, I don't blame the dude at all. He had a great opportunity, so he took it. All WatchTower was doing at the time was playing gigs in Texas, and making demo tapes.

7. How did the inclusion of Ron and Alan happen, and how did it change the compositional and style balance of the band?

When Billy left, they had a hard time finding a guitarist. I was hesitant to join because trying to fill Billy's shoes was rather intimidating, but I eventually gave it a shot after Doug gave me a call. It was a struggle for me to write with WatchTower. I learned that you don't bring in a tune to Doug and Rick and expect it to be played how you want it. It doesn't work. The tempo changes, the feel changes, notes change, etc... You have to bring in bits and see where they end up, then you try to fit that version of your tune into a song. In contrast, when I write with Blotted Science or Spastic Ink, tunes turn out pretty much exactly how you envision them going in. With WatchTower, don't dare bring in a fully constructed song because it's not going to happen. LOL

Alan pretty much sang the vocal melodies that Jason wrote on a few of the 'Control And Resistance' songs. Some of it didn't sound right, so Alan changed various lines to fit his style and range (pretty much the same thing I did with Billy's solos on 'Energetic Disassembly' songs). On 'Hidden Instincts' Alan did something totally different and it worked better, 'Life Cycles' and 'Dangerous Toy' were never played with Jason so the vocal melodies/phrasing weren't transferred over from anything. On the material after 'Control And Resistance' Alan wrote some lyrics, I contributed a bit, but Doug wrote the majority of the lyrics. Ever since I joined the band, the music has always been written by me and Doug, then we'd work parts out live with Rick.

8. How was the deal with Noise for "Control..." and how was the result as promotion and sales?

Yeah, it was happening, Noise set up a tour with Coroner which went great, we had a video that was played on MTV, I remember a really cool evening in Dallas with the record people, things were moving. The album was selling great, mostly in Europe (we heard something like 50,000 copies sold), great album reviews in major metal magazines, I had a few guitar feature articles in Guitar World, Guitar (Japan), things were looking good. Then right after the tour, I went in to get the first of my hand surgeries, then the whole thing came crashing down. Alan had moved to Texas (from New York) so that we could rehearse, write the next record and gig, but after a month or two he could see that we weren't doing anything, so he moved back home. Then came over 2 years of 3 more hand surgeries, barely being able to play, still trying to write and record Tower songs, but it was slow, a not too motivating process. During this down time, the band lost it's direction and hit a road block. I'm sure Noise had some good things planned but we were unable to do anything since I had a splint on my hand for 2 years and could only play with two fingers. Eventually, we ended the deal with Noise, and that was it. Unfortunately, it's been over 30 years and we still haven't received a dime for 'Control' sales.

9. After only two albums the split for so many years...because it happened and that dared to happen to the various components until the reunion for "Concepts of Math: Book One".

During the last few decades, we had this vision of an album called 'Mathematics'. We actually finished writing it a few times, but some of the songs were going in a "watered down" direction. Weak songs would get replaced by other stronger songs, Jason would sing on some recordings, Alan would sing on some, we made demos with various songs from it, and it was just a struggle trying to figure out where it was all going. At no time did we ever have the whole thing recorded. The full album is written right now, but needs to be recorded. Doug has 4 or 5 songs left to record, lots of vocal lines/phrasings/melodies need to be worked out, Rick has one more song to record drums on, and I need to write and record solos. Then of course I have to magically put it all together and sound cohesive, which is easier said than done. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to make a great meal out of a bowl of Fruity Pebbles cereal, french fries, meatloaf, an apple, and a chocolate pop tart. Good ingredients, but when you put it all together, it doesn't work.

I once added up how much time I've spent on the writing and recordings for Mathematics, and estimated it to be literally between 10,000- 15,000 hours... writing in Austin with Rick and Doug, live rehearsals, writing at home, recording guitar tracks, editing recorded tracks from other band members, mixing and engineering tracks, trying to arrange song sections at home, etc...This is starting from 1990 when we started writing during the 'Control And Resistance' tour. Just 5 songs (from the 2017 EP release) to show for it. What an absolute waste of time and energy.

10. Why the choice of an EP and not an album, and why publish singles released in a long time on the web?

Getting songs recorded with WatchTower is a major struggle... Doug wrote most of the lyrics (because he came up with the Mathematics concept), and so Alan and I have to figure out how to fit the lyrics into the music, and it is a major headache sometimes. Alan can record a song in a day or two, but we sometimes have different ideas on vocal lines/melodies. He communicates very well and is a super cool guy, but we just clash a lot musically, it's just a difference of direction. Doug loves playing live, coming up with concepts, writing, but hates recording and just getting bass tracks is like pulling teeth. Getting drums properly recorded without a budget is difficult and time consuming, so what we've done in that past is Rick records at home then I take the tracks and spend dozen of hours just on getting better sounds, usually sound replacing. I'm pretty sure that Rick hates that and I don't blame him. He doesn't want his drums all sound replaced and mechanical sounding, but that's what we have to do since the drum sounds aren't that good. And on lots of the songs, the drum tracks were recorded literally decades apart, in different studios, and you want sound consistency on a full album. Getting great drum sounds takes a decent budget, and we don't have that. I've had my basic guitar tracks recorded for the whole album since 2010 (when we last finished writing all of the songs) but still have solos and melodies to write and record. Probably the biggest issue with moving forward on the recordings though is just me being so picky about everything. Having said that though, I don't want to just release something that I'm not happy with (performance wise as well as production), so I nitpick to death, and it makes everything take forever. But I'd rather not release anything that put something out that doesn't measure up to previous WatchTower releases as well as other current recordings by other bands.

The EP happened because trying to get the rest of the songs (6) recorded would have taken several more years to complete, possibly another decade. We had a good chunk of 5 songs recorded, so we released those.

11. Again after the EP the silence: do the Watchtowers still exist and will they come back with new publications, or have they dissolved for good?

Who knows, but we've got some good songs that haven't been recorded and released. If the recording industry were to change and bands would get paid for their work, then it would be a strong possibility. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening again. Hopefully I'm wrong. Bands put in the work, but don't get paid. I just imagine sometimes what a cool music world it would be if musicians were getting paid whenever they made recordings. Bands going by sales rather than likes, shares and subscriptions. I mean, can you imagine that? I could quit teaching, get my chops back way up, write and record all day. Damn, that would be bitchin'!!. Nope, you gotta make a living somehow.

12. On a musical level, what are you doing, are you active with other bands? Which ones?

What I'm working on quite a bit these days is making apps. I have 5 out right now on both iOS and Android, have another one ready to go, just making a promo video right now. I'll always be writing and recording new material because it's what I've always done, and still love doing. I'm just releasing digital singles these days, but have two concepts in mind for full CDs that I really want to get done. Hopefully, both will eventually happen. I've been playing locally in a Rush tribute band for the past 10 years, might get into other local cover/tribute things if the opportunity comes up.

As for my other recording projects... There's been no talk whatsoever about Spastic Ink doing anything, but we will have vinyl versions of both CDs likely out in 2021. I'm almost done putting the graphics together. Blotted Science has tried a few times over the past few years to get going again, but it usually goes nowhere because all band/project members have higher priorities.

I haven't had any contact with any of the WatchTower guys in months. Occasionally we may comment or something online on social media or something, or Alan texted me a few months ago that he was vacationing nearby and we were going to have a family get together (but that got canned due to the pandemic).

BTW, thanks for the great questions. It was cool answering them, almost therapy for me. LOL