SURVIVOR'S BILLY GARCIA

Dreams can come true but you first need to have the dream.  Reality show ratings champ Survivor™ has revealed one of its most endearing characters and an unabashed dreamer in castaway Virgilio “Billy” Garcia.  Garcia is an instantly empathetic everyman whose life seems to be centered not only on chasing Survivor’s™ million-dollar prize but also in achieving a whole dreamscape of ambitions.  Next on the castoff’s to-do list is stardom as the leader of his own heavy-metal group, Forsakken.

Now, heavy metal is an oft-derided art form but if it has done nothing else it has endured.  Forty years on and it is still the dream of many a young boy, (and a few girls), to run their fingers up and down a fret board as thousands pump their fists from the footlights. For Garcia the fruition of this particular dream took a great leap forward when he was picked to appear on Survivor, which provided him with an audience of millions and perhaps even a backstage love connection with co-contestant Candice. Could a spot on the Ozz-Fest be far behind?

Having a respectable record of success at such endeavors, (joining the Marines, attaining a Black Belt in Judo, winning an amateur wrestling gold medal, the Survivor™ casting, etc), Garcia knows that preparation and hard work is only part of what it will take. Amidst satisfying his press duties for Survivor™, training to wrestle professionally and writing music for the debut Forsakken album he graciously took a moment to phone in these thoughts on being a successful dream warrior.

We have much love for the metal and much love for Survivor so I was feeling your pain when they aired your expulsion from the Island.  It was pretty savage?

Yeah, well you know, I saw this interview with Warrant back in the 80’s where they said, “Good publicity, bad publicity, as long as you get publicity. . .” and that is the way that I am trying to take it right now.

But you know where Janie Lane is right now though, don’t you?(laughs)

(Laughing) Yeah, he has had better days but at least he is still in it.

Were you much of a fan of that “hair-metal” era?

Oh yeah.  I think that hair-metal was a significant part of metal because without it you wouldn’t have had some people going into the harder stuff if they hadn’t heard the hair metal first so I never put down the pop-metal stuff. Just as long as there is metal out there it is good.

This Survivor thing must be pretty nice for you because it will get the name of your metal band out there? Actually, are you even able to play or are you too busy with Survivor responsibilities?

They have kept me really busy with a schedule of interviews and then leading up to the final episodes they kind of want you to stay out of the spotlight so I haven’t been able to gig but that is OK because it gave me a chance to look really hard and seriously at my band and determine if each spot, each position, is filled with the way that I would like it.  “Is this a full-time band or just a bunch of guys doing this as weekend warriors?” I have been taking a really hard long look at it and I am ready to make a couple of changes just to make sure that we live up to this world class level that we are on.  I am on the world stage with Survivor and I want my band to live up to that.

How long is it before you can get out there to play?

That is a good question.  I have to check in with CBS on just about everything because they have their agenda and they need to know that I will be everywhere that I am supposed to be so a long tour right now is out of the question.  The finale happens in December and once that happens they said that I am free to do other stuff.

Does the band have a manager setting stuff up for after December?

No.  At this point I am still under contract with CBS so I have to go through them but what is cool about that is that I can get the band’s house in order while I am doing Survivor and I can spend a lot of time putting together the music that I want for the debut album.  With somebody representing the band right now they would be wanting me to have my act together and be ready to go and it would be like, “Whatever you got that will have to do because you have got to get out there. . .”  They are not going to sit around and wait, they have got to make their money you know?

At least you would have somebody to push for a metal version of the Survivor theme to open up the finale!(laughs)

(Laughing) That is a cool idea! I did hear that there was a jazz musician who was eliminated before me and that he wants to perform with the in-house band on the finale and that is all cool but I am a fan of Survivor and the way that it works is that you pretty much sit up there.  They don’t want to take away too much from the final four.  What is nice about me is that they are going to touch on me for a little bit longer because of all of the controversy surrounding my departure.

I know that you are not allowed to see the other contestants until the finale but as the time grows shorter are you nervous about facing Candice again?

You know, I talk to her on a regular basis. I am just not allowed to see her until the finally. I am going to ask her out because she is a really sweet person and she has taken all of this very well.  She has been very supportive of me as a musician and my metal band and she says that she wants to see me get out there and do it.  I will ask her out and I really don’t know how far it will go or if it will go anywhere but at least I will get to have some fun with the whole thing.  It will keep people talking.(laughs)

Even if that doesn’t work out I know that it has to be nice with the ladies about now?

Actually, my e-mail has been bombarded with “If she don’t take you I want you. . .” (laughs) Some of it is just crazy.  It is cool and everything but I am not going to go too crazy with that because I learned the lesson of the 80’s and all of the rock stars who caught stuff from getting crazy with that!(laughs)  I think it is about moderation and I really have learned a lot from the 80’s.  I like to say that the 80’s was like “How to be a band 101.” That is the way that I take it.

A lot of those 80’s bands are still going, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Skid Row. . .

Yeah. W.A.S.P. is another one of my favorite bands and they are back. It is too bad that Blackie Lawless didn’t bring back his “cock-cannon” because I was really looking forward to that!(laughs) The 80’s were so cool and I am a huge fan. Dokken, that is where my band gets its name from. I was reading a magazine and I had a dyslexic attack. It said, “. . . for Dokken the new album will be. . .” and I read it as “forsakken.” I said, “Who the hell is forsaken? I have never heard of that band before.” After a while I figured it out but it stuck with me and when I needed a name for the band I went for that, misspelling and all.

You weren’t worried about being mistaken for any of the other bands called “Forsaken?”

Most of them didn’t do anything major.  One was made up of a bunch of guys from other bands and they just released an ep.  I checked it out pretty good when it came time to launch my own website. It actually isn’t all that unique of a thing to have the same idea pop up in multiple places. I am sure that there are tons of bands that have similar names.  I even found a band that had the number “4” in their name from Chicago or someplace like that.

Well it will be your Forrsaken that everyone knows now thanks to the millions of Survivor fans out there.

Absolutely! The spelling is so different as well. The good thing about dyslexia is that it created something that I have been able to make all my own.

How was it that you were cast on Survivor to begin with?

I went to an open casting call in New York City at the Jacob Javitz Center. We had to wait in this long line where they gave you a few minutes in front of a video tape to say whatever it was that you wanted to say and I went on there and did just terrible.  I decided to stick around and meet some of the former Survivors because after all I am a fan.  They opened up a new booth and asked, “Is there anyone who really, really, really wants to be on Survivor?” Everyone else was so involved in their own conversations that I was the only one that heard it and I responded and they gave me another shot and that is how I got on the show.

What was it that you did different on the second try that got it for you?

I just amped my personality up a lot. In the first one I was just low key.

Have you bumped into people that you knew from that audition who didn’t make it and what do they say to you now?

I got an e-mail from a guy who was on line.  We had been hanging out a bit and he decided to take a picture of us with his phone. He was just happy that someone out of that group that was kind of hanging together made it. He wished me well and e-mailed me again after my elimination and was obviously very biased but he was ticked off at Ozzy for getting me kicked off.(laughs)  It was pretty cool that he remembered me.

Now he is selling prints of that picture on e-bay for ten bucks apiece?(laughs)

(Laughing) I haven’t checked into that but I will keep it in mind!

So it was a guy named Ozzy that eliminated you which is pretty metal. Maybe we can see Forsakken on the next Ozz-Fest, that would be a natural tie-in?

Hey, there is an idea!  That is a pretty cool idea actually!  He seems like a really fun person to be around. I have followed his career since Black Sabbath. He is such a cool person and a cool personality and even just to be around him would be cool. I think that there is a lot of mischief that he and I could get into!(laughs)

The story of you finding and then undertaking challenges, the band, Survivor, the professional wrestling, has been quite inspirational for a lot of people, what is next?

I am going to be wrestling for a least one more match but I don’t know how far I will go in professional wrestling.  It is just one of those things that I saw on TV and just had to do it.  I went and tried out and made it but it is a very hard gig.  You really have to be dedicated and really live for it like the guys in the WWE who wrestle four or five times a week.  You should see how they get beat up with the bruising and bleeding and all of the pain.  It is fun though and I really do like it.  It was just another one of those dreams that I went for.  I have got to get my metal band out there because I just can’t live with us just being a local band.  I just can’t accept that.  I mean, no one dreams about being in a moderately successful band.  No one dreams about playing for just twenty people.  Everyone dreams about playing at Madison Square Garden or something like that.

Maybe you can hook up with Motorhead because they combine both the connection to metal and wrestling and they have an incredible new record out?

Oh yeah!  Lemmy has got a great reputation in wrestling.  He has done like three songs now for pro-wrestling so he has got to be a wrestling fan.  That would be a cool thing to get on a tour with Motorhead.  There are so many opportunities open to me which is the thing that is so cool about being on Survivor, once I was on the show it just opened up a bunch of doors that probably wouldn’t have been open otherwise.

SURVIVOR Official Site  http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor13/

FORSAKKEN Official Site  http://forsakken.com/band.html