Boot Camp - As You Were

Artist: Boot Camp Title: As You Were Catalog#: Parasol-CD-046 Price: $7.50	Tracks on this CD:
	Spent
	Rise and Shine
	Always Waiting For the Next Train
	Bad Blood
	Last Mistake
	Party Girl (I Can't Belive It)
	Inside Daisy

Boot Camp

Ken Gullic-Vocals, Guitar
Michael D. Coon-Guitar
John Scully-Drums
Owen Kinser-Bass

As You Were

"Armed with a bruising, incandescent rock sound reminiscent of vintage Cheap Trick, Boot Camp’s debut CD-EP caries a potent aural kick. Highly recommended."-Ken Sharp-author of Overnight Sensation: The Story of the Raspberries

"Hard rock and pure pop that fits nicely alongside your Love Gun and Heaven Tonight CDs. Boot camp’s a perfect sonic vacation away from today’s stale music sense."-Ron Albanese, publisher of One On Four (world’s only all Cheap Trick magazine)

Boot Camp, based in Dallas since 1991 (with a Stamford, CT resident as lead vocalist!) finally delivers their long promised debut CD of muscular power pop...with a few surprises. After releasing a superb 7" single on Parasol in late 1997, Boot Camp offers this limited edition CD EP co-produced by Adam Schmitt and Boot Camp leader Gullic. In addition to the Brian Leach (Sugarbuzz) and Adam Schmitt performances on the blistering cover of Neil Sedaka’s ‘70s smash "Bad Blood," As You Were contains guest appearances from Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander and ex-Kiss member Bruce Kulick on "Rise And Shine." And, the opening track "Spent" was featured on the Pop Culture Press CD sampler available at 1999’s SXSW.

As You Were is glorious one-stop shopping for the ‘70s pop culture fanatic who thinks that the current batch of new rock bands have strayed too far.

Boot Camp makes the cut

Trio's pop disc boasts two unexpected star turns
08/12/99
By Teresa Gubbins / The Dallas Morning News

After six years, Boot Camp - a band with three members in Dallas, one in New York - displays the determination its name implies by finally releasing a full-length CD. Called As You Were, the disc is a classic piece of pop rock. But aside from its listenability, it also has two notable celeb guest turns from Cheap Trick singer Robin Zander and ex-Kiss drummer Bruce Kulick. In fact, Mr. Kulick will make a guest appearance with Boot Camp at a CD-.release show at the Curtain Club on Sunday. Boot Camp's singer-guitarist Ken Gullic, who works at a record company in New York and lives in Connecticut, is the one with the rock-star connections.

"I'd always been a Cheap Trick fan," Mr. Gullic says. "I'd been backstage 10 times having him sign stuff, although it's not like he ever knew who I was. But I was in Chicago recording a single when they were doing their four-night stand. I had gotten to know his management, and I asked if somebody could be on the record. There's no way I thought we'd get the voice of Cheap Trick on the record."

Having Mr. Zander in the mix helped Mr. Gullic attract Mr. Kulick. "The first time I met him was when I published a Kiss fanzine, in '92," he says. "I thought he added a lot to them even though they were beyond their heyday. He was so stable for them. And I had a huge amount of respect for him as a player. I kept running into him and I befriended his manager, so when we were putting the record together, he said he'd play on it. Maybe he should have heard it before he said yes."

Kiss is how Mr. Gullic met guitarist Michael D. Coon. "I met Mike in a - do you remember the record store Pipe Dream in Arlington?" he asks. "We were both buying Kiss [expletive] in '83. The owner of the store eventually hired us both. We would compete with each other by doing killer W.A.S.P. or Motley Crue displays. We watched Kiss Meets the Phantom, and realized how horrible it was, but through that, we started to think about music together."

They met drummer John Scully at a rehearsal studio. "Meeting John changed music for me - he made it a more enjoyable experience," Mr. Gullic says. "A good drummer can make you feel like you're a good songwriter. He's played with everyone in town - he plays with Too Much TV when they do shows, he played in Hank & Patsy - he's like the [David Letterman drummer] Anton Fig of Dallas."

Mr. Scully brought along bassist Owen Kinser, who also played with Too Much TV and Blender. It wasn't until Mr. Gullic left Dallas in '93 that he realized how difficult it becomes to keep your perspective. "You get caught up in trying to be the next big thing in Dallas," he says. "Who's going to get signed next, who's the next Tripping Daisy - it's a very insular little world. When you're here, that's all you want to be is the next big Dallas thing, you don't care about anything else. But my coming back here and working on the record has relieved us of the pressure of having to play at Trees every weekend. We can be a recording group and play live shows if people like the record."

For now, there's the excitement of having a notorious rock star fly into Dallas for the disc's official release. "We're going to do two songs - the song Bruce recorded and a Kiss song, too," Mr. Gullic says. "He'll also host the Eagle's [KEGL-FM, 97.1] Unmodern Rock Show on Sunday afternoon. "I'm just trying to find people like me who would like this," he says. "Maybe that's 5,000 people or 50. The rock audience isn't so huge. I just know that I would show up for this."

Big O
BOOT CAMP - AS YOU WERE (FANBOY/PARASOL)

Spent & six more. Muscular power pop anyone? Kiss meets Cheap Trick (why, Zander & Kulick guest!) and melodic roots rock is the order of the day with the pedal steel-tinged Party Girl, Keith Richards workout Spent and the spidery riffing Inside Daisy evoking the seventies rock sound with aplomb and spirit. For those about to rock...!