LONDON FREE PRESS - February 5, 1999 Rock 'n' Roll On The Rocks, Big Wreck Bassist Fears by Ian Gillespie Rock 'n' roll isn't dead. But it's definitely wounded, thinks Big Wreck bassist David Henning, who'll perform with his bandmates at a sold-out show tonight at UWO's The Wave. It's definitely not what it used to be,” says Henning. “There's no doubt about that.” The hip hop world of digital samplers and drum machines continues to grab more and more listeners. In the U.S. last year, rap sales rose by about 30 per cent, accounting for about 11 per cent of total sales, compared to 16 per cent for alternative/rock; in Canada, about six per cent of all recording sales fell into the rap category, while alternative/rock dropped from 20 per cent in 1997 to about 16 per cent last year The statistics raise questions about the vital signs of rock 'n' roll. You'd think Big Wreck would be among the first to decry rumours of rock's demise. After all, the Boston-based band barged on to Top 10 lists on both sides of the border with its hit single The Oaf and Canadian radio eagerly embraced the band's power-chord followup tunes, That Song and Under the Lighthouse. But Henning says the dominant days of rock have gone - maybe for good. He blames record labels and bands. There has been a dearth of good bands in the last few years,” he says. “for long periods - and it's still going on right now - the record labels have just signed as much (talent) as they can. They just throw it against the wall and if nothing happens, they drop the band.” Henning says the music industry's preoccupation with scoring big and scoring fast has meant that bands rarely get a chance to evolve. I was thinking about it the other day,” he says. “ I was watching the Beatles do Hard Day's Night, and you know, it's fun, pop stuff. But compared to what they achieved later on, it's fluff. And I think if that band came out now, in today's day and age, they would've been dropped on their second record and they wouldn't have had the chance to develop to the point where they were doing things like Revolver or Sgt. Pepper or the White Album and so on.” A lot of other bans I can think of - Yes or Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix - they didn't come out with their best stuff on the first record. It took a while. And that seems to be lacking on the industry side of things.” And the other thing is that the bands are just throwing together a lot of (garbage) and throwing it to the record labels…and people are looking elsewhere to hear music. ” Of course, Big Wreck hopes its fans will stick with it. After its current tour, the band heads back into the studio to start on its second album. Meanwhile, Henning, who with his bandmates studied jazz at Boston's Berklee College of Music, will go on listening to the other kind of music he loves: the jazz of musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Bill Evans. But does this closet jazz aficionado sometimes wish Big Wreck could try for a bit more sonic subtlety? We're still in the loud, bashy, rock 'n' roll stage,” says Henning. “I think we'll branch out into more melodic things. But, yeah, there are times when I just wish everyone would turn down (the volume) and go nuts with the dynamics. It just doesn't happen most nights, because the audience is egging you on and you just want to throw it back at them.” There are times when I definitely miss the subtleties. But rock 'n' roll subtleties and jazz subtleties are two totally different ball parks.”