White Wizzard Want the Good Times to Flow

White Wizzard have one goal in mind when producing their music: having a good time. "We're definitely trying to bring the good times back to rock and metal," founding member/bassist Jon Leon told Noisecreep. "That was the whole point of forming White Wizzard -- to get songwriting back in metal and rock, especially metal. If you look at the older-school bands and what made metal great, for me, it was good songwriting first and foremost, and a good sense of melody and melodicism, and that attitude of having a good time and feeling good. That's what it's all about. That's what we wanted to create with the band."

Those good times are felt on the Los Angeles rockers' 'mini-album,' 'High Speed GTO,' re-released this year by Earache Records, on the heels of the band's full-length, which is due in stores February. Two of the songs are streaming on their MySpace page, including the title track.

"The mini-album is basically seven songs," Leon said. "I formed White Wizzard in the summer of 2007, and I wrote some songs. Every band I heard seemed to be downtuned and doing the same, whether it was grindcore or just really gray. I wanted to get some color and dynamics back into it. I just kind of went for it. So I wrote some songs, pulled a lineup together and recorded that mini-album in October of 2007."

He released the album on his own in 2007, but now it has a much broader release. As an example of their good times, Leon wrote the title track of his mini-album about his first love: his black GTO.

"I actually own a 1969 GTO convertible that I drive all over L.A.," said Leon, who writes all of the lyrics and most of the music. "We basically wrote the song about the car. [I was] just inspired by the experiences that we've had in it. It's kind of just kind of gone from there. It's an ode to Los Angeles cruising in the car."

As for their full-length debut, White Wizzard are working with producer Ralph Patlan, and the band already has a handful of songs in the can. They are returning to the studio in September to wrap up the project.

"Ralph Patlan has worked with Michael Schenker, U.F.O., Megadeth and Brian 'Head' Welch (formerly of Korn) and a bunch of different bands," Leon said. "He's an amazing producer. We're getting some great results with him. We're really excited to finish it up."