BM: Is it true that you came from a very musical family?
MK: Yes, my father was a jazz trumpet player who could read and write music. My mom was a singer, and my grandfather was a master piano player by the time he was 13 and played all his life. Just about everyone on my mother’s side played piano and sang.
BM: What styles of music did your family introduce you to early on?
MK: It was mostly jazz, but at an early age, I was completely captivated by melody. I used to just sit and sing along to all of their records.
BM: Your father gave you your very first guitar. What was it, and do you still own it?
MK: He bought me an acoustic Kay guitar when I turned nine years old. Sadly, I no longer have it.
BM: Growing up through your teenage years, what styles of music and which artists influenced your playing the most?
MK: When I was 14, it was all Carlos Santana—once again, it was because of his melody and feel. After that, it was Johnny Winter, Alvin Lee, Ritchie Blackmore, Terry Kath (the original Chicago guitarist), and Dickey Betts.
BM: Before settling on Great White, the band went by Dante Fox. How did you come up with that original name?
MK: Our bass player, Don Costa, came up with it. He said it was his friend’s name from San Diego. We were so tired of trying to think of names that I just said, “Sounds good enough to me!” [laughs]
BM: How long did Dante Fox grind it out on the club scene before being discovered by your manager, Alan Niven? And how did Alan find you?
MK: About three and a half years. Alan Niven had introduced Don Dokken to Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch, who became Dokken’s management team. Alan asked Don, “Who is a good band playing around the L.A. area right now?” Don told him he should check us out. Alan actually came and saw us twice and wasn’t sold. But he came a third time, and for our encore, we played “No Doctor” by Humble Pie. He loved it, and that was the moment he decided he wanted to sign us.
BM: In 1982, Alan wanted to change the band’s name from Dante Fox to Great White. For those who haven’t heard the tale, how did that happen?
MK: He liked the band, but he literally hated our name. The night at the Whisky a Go Go that he decided he wanted to work with us, he was standing outside the club after the show. He claims I drove by in a car, stuck my head out the window, and screamed something to the crowd standing on the sidewalk. A kid standing next to Alan pointed at the car and said, “There goes Great White!” Something clicked in Niven’s head right then, and he said, “That’s their name!”
BM: Was there any resistance from the rest of the band when he proposed the change?
MK: Jack [Russell] and I hated it right away! When he told us the idea, we said, “But we’ll lose our whole following!” Alan just said, “Don’t worry about those 70 people, I’m taking this band worldwide!” We said okay, and then later on, we came up with the shark concept and grew to love the name.
BM: After your first E.P. came out, was it a little strange to be dropped by EMI and then immediately signed by Capitol, considering EMI owned Capitol? Can you explain how that transition worked?
MK: The E.P. was actually on our own independent label, and then our first full-length album was on EMI. We were honestly happy to leave EMI America because they didn’t want to do the traditional artist development with us, which was very common back then. We immediately felt no loyalty there. After parting ways with them, we put out Shot in the Dark on our own and scored a marginal hit with “Face the Day” on KLOS in Los Angeles, which actually became the number two song of the year on the station. KLOS was the biggest radio station in the L.A. area, and the track was also getting airplay in Texas and Arizona.
Ray Tuskin, an A&R man from Capitol Records, came down to watch us play at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and committed to signing us on the spot. Everything happens for a reason, so we viewed it more as a miracle than something weird. You aren’t guaranteed a second chance in this business. We fought incredibly hard for that second shot, but your stars still have to line up. Our angels were working overtime at that point, and we were eternally grateful to be rewarded for our hard work.
BM: “Rock Me” was the band’s major breakout hit. What made that song translate so massively with hard rock fans compared to a track like “Shot In The Dark”?
MK: Our songwriting simply improved over time. “Rock Me” was just a very well-written song with great dynamics and a massive chorus.
BM: It was your manager’s idea to record Ian Hunter’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” What was your initial reaction to covering it, and did you know the label would push it as the lead single for …Twice Shy?
MK: We thought it was a good track, but I had absolutely no idea it would ever be released as a single. We completely made it our own, even changing the lyrics in the chorus. Ian’s original version goes, “Da I, I, I’m once bitten twice shy, babe.” We changed it to, “My, my, my…” To be honest, we weren’t that confident with the release. Shows what we know! [laughs]
BM: How do you feel performing that song every single night, knowing that in hard rock history, Great White is often most widely recognized for a cover song rather than an original composition?
MK: We had to put covers on our records—it keeps them from getting scratched! Look, we had plenty of hits that we wrote ourselves. “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” was never a hit until we took it and made it our own. If people think that is our only song, then they’ve never read Billboard magazine, followed the charts of any kind, or listened to any of our 13 studio albums.
BM: On March 30, 1990, while touring for …Twice Shy and Hooked, you took a quick detour to film an episode of MTV Unplugged. That acoustic format had to be right up Great White’s alley. How much fun was that taping?
MK: We were actually on the very first episode of Unplugged for MTV. MTV always treated us awesomely—we even had the number one video on the station for four weeks straight. Don Henley, the Damn Yankees, and us all recorded our sets on the exact same day. We had a great time stripping down our material on acoustic guitars and giving people a completely different look at those songs.
Editor’s Note: When Great White performed Led Zeppelin’s “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” for MTV Unplugged that night, they did it with absolutely zero rehearsal. The very first time they ever attempted to play it together was live on stage for the rolling television cameras.
BM: If you listen to your first six albums in chronological order, you can hear the band steadily progressing into a heavier sound while anchoring it in that classic blues feel. In your opinion, what was the main driving factor behind that sonic evolution?
MK: Not too many bands had heavy blues overtones in the ’80s. Eddie Trunk once said that the blues element is what separated us from all the other bands from that era. It didn’t necessarily make us better than anyone else; it just made us different.
BM: I wouldn’t call it a drastic shift, but your next release, Sail Away, leaned heavily into ballads and acoustic textures—almost a “back to your roots” record. What was the reasoning behind that direction?
MK: Alan Niven actually came up with that concept. We had never pre-planned the direction of a record before that, and we haven’t done it since Sail Away. I thought the record turned out great, kind of in the same way Led Zeppelin approached Led Zeppelin III.
BM: In 1998, you made the decision to release a live CD tribute solely dedicated to Led Zeppelin (Great White Great Zeppelin). What sparked that idea, and out of all their classic tracks, how did you whittle it down to the fourteen you recorded?
MK: We purely did it for the fans. We had booked three special shows playing only Zeppelin material just for the fun of it, and the tapes sat around in a vault forever. Finally, because the fans loved our take on “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” so much, we decided to put the whole thing out for them. We just learned a bunch of songs we liked. I don’t exactly remember how the final tracks were picked, but we purposefully avoided the songs we used to play in cover bands as teenagers. We wanted to tackle Zeppelin songs we had never played before.
BM: Was there ever a discussion to release a companion DVD version of those shows?
MK: No, never.
BM: In January of 2000, you made the decision to step away and take a hiatus from Great White, which eventually led to the other members leaving the group. What prompted that break?
MK: We all collectively decided to take a break because Jack wanted to try his hand at a solo career. I ended up making two records during that time, and so did he. We finally put the band back together in 2006. But I really enjoyed my time jamming with amazing musicians outside of the Great White bubble, like Dick Sims, who played keyboards for Eric Clapton. He was a badass keyboard player who played on the original recordings of “I Shot the Sheriff” and “Cocaine.” His sound was just incredible.
BM: Looking back at that hiatus, did you think the band would ever reform, or were you genuinely ready to call it quits for good?
MK: The hiatus didn’t “cause” the band to break apart. We all wanted that break right from the very start.
BM: When the band did reform in 2006, you went on to release Rising in 2009. What brought everyone back together?
MK: It just felt like it would be a lot of fun to get back in a room and play together again. And I was right—I’m still doing it today. [laughs]
Editor’s Note: At this point in the conversation, Mark surprisingly stated that he felt ‘Rising’ was the worst CD Great White had ever released. It is a rare and refreshing moment when an artist is completely transparent about their own material.
BM: While Jack was sidelined in the hospital, you toured with three different legendary frontmen filling in on vocals: Jani Lane (Warrant), Paul Shortino (Rough Cutt / King Kobra), and Terry Ilous (XYZ). How did you ultimately decide that Terry was the right man to permanently front the band?
MK: Because he blew us away and completely killed it on stage for 80 shows in a row.
BM: From a band perspective, how difficult of a decision was it to permanently part ways with Jack?
MK: We didn’t actually let him go. We originally suggested that he take some time off to go get well, recover, and then come back to the band healthy. Instead of doing that, he decided to sue us for the rights to the band name. His plan was to hire all new musicians and tour under our name, so we were legally forced to defend ourselves.
BM: Elation was the first studio album featuring Terry on vocals. How did the songwriting and recording process differ with him compared to working with Jack for all those years?
MK: Honestly, there wasn’t much of a difference. Terry is a musician in the sense that he brings in ideas on the guitar, whereas Jack just sang. The core mechanics of how we write haven’t changed at all. We still get together in a room and say, “What do you got?” [laughs]
BM: Speaking of your songwriting, I’ve always wondered about your lead guitar work. Your solos—especially your minor-key solos, like the one in “Call It Rock ‘N’ Roll”—are always perfectly placed. How do you map out when and where you’re going to inject a solo?
MK: I wait until after the rhythm guitars and the main vocals are tracked. Then, I just play where it feels right. My goal is always to compose the best guitar melody possible that complements and serves that specific song.
BM: Out of the entire Great White catalog, which specific releases or songs do you feel most perfectly capture your ultimate vision of the band’s signature sound?
MK: The Once Bitten album. That entire record felt the most natural to us.
BM: Changing gears a bit—at what point in your life did you make the firm decision to get clean and sober?
MK: After going in and out of sobriety since 1991, I finally reached a point where I just said, “I’m going to start listening to others instead of always doing everything my way.” My way clearly wasn’t working. I will hit 10 years of continuous sobriety on November 2nd.
BM: Me, along with the entire staff at Blast Magazine, are incredibly proud of you for that, Mark.
MK: Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
BM: If you don’t mind me asking, what was the ultimate catalyst that made you want to get clean for good?
MK: Pain. Plain and simple.
BM: What is next on the horizon for Great White?
MK: After we finish up our current slate of shows here in the US, we are planning a proper international tour through Europe, South America, China, and Australia starting in November, if everything falls into place.
BM: Do you have as much appreciation playing these classic songs live now as you did back in the day?
MK: I am incredibly grateful for all of our songs. I will never, ever get tired of playing them.
