Excerpt taken from:
Tyler Olsen, Canwest News; The Chilliwack Times

Ted Moore, centre, fronts Bon Jovi tribute act Blaze of Glory. Randy Robertson, Mike Champigny, Mike Russell and Doug Grant round out the band.

Ted Moore always wanted to be a rock star and there was a brief moment in 1995 when his dream seemed in reach. But by 2003 Moore was living in Chilliwack, counselling troubled teens and repairing busted computers.

Next week, Moore and his new band Blaze of Glory will hit the stage of the Summit Theatre in Langley’s Cascades Casino.

If that performance is anything like the band’s first concert in Kamloops last year, they will be greeted as rock stars – nay, rock gods.

The mostly female crowd will sing along with Moore, pump their fists in the air and maybe even paw at the fair-haired father of two whose initial rock dream fizzled out 15 years ago.

With all that attention, Moore doesn’t care that if all that enthusiasm has less to do with Blaze of Glory and more to do with Bon Jovi, the undying singers of hits like Livin’ On a Prayer and Wanted Dead or Alive.

Moore’s band is a classic tribute act, recreating the look, sound and feel of a popular act – in this case Bon Jovi.

“We’re not the rock stars. It’s not like we’re going to get big heads about this because Bon Jovi are the rock stars,” he said.

But there is also something about taking the stage to standing ovations and shouts of enthusiasm that delights Moore, who said he is drawn to the stage.

Moore cut his teeth in Lower Mainland music scene in the late 1980s and early ’90s. But after a key music industry contact died, and his latest band, Locomotive Dream, broke up in 1995, Moore decided to settle down and get on with his life.

So he went to university, learned to be a teacher, had two girls, and heard, not infrequently, that he looked and sounded like Jon Bon Jovi.

By the middle of the decade, Moore had moved away from teaching and was operating his own computer business in Chilliwack. But he also noticed that there was a potentially lucrative market for tribute acts.

After years of research, Moore finally assembled Blaze of Glory last year with experienced Lower Mainland musicians.

And when the band debuted in Kamloops last year, Moore described the environment as “surreal.”

“It was bizarre and an experience I never had in my life,” said Moore of the packed crowd, which cheered the band onto the stage.

And even though he’s playing someone else’s songs, Moore said playing like a rock star is a dream come true.

“I would have loved to see this kind of response to material I had written. It would have been wonderful,” he said. “But the experience is the same.

“The difference is I don’t have the millions of dollars from the songwriting royalties and the private jets.”

What Moore does have, though, is the perfect yardstick for his band’s performance.

“100 per cent means we’ve reached complete authenticity,” said Moore.

And while he said his band will never perfectly duplicate the Bon Jovi experience, that target gives Blaze of Glory something tangible to aim for.

“No one’s going to be Bon Jovi other than Bon Jovi,” he said. “We are proudly second best.”

Blaze of Glory truly comes from another time, when the world was ruled by rock gods with big hair and loud guitars, and radio was conquered with anthems sung by millions all around the world.

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Front man Ted Moore admits he’ll be a lot more nervous singing for a Chilliwack crowd, than he is performing for 10,000 screaming rock fans.

As lead singer of Blaze of Glory, the “ultimate Bon Jovi tribute experience,” Moore tells The Progress he is totally stoked about finally being able to play for a Chilliwack audience next Friday night.

He’s been in Chilliwack on and off for 20 years, but this is his first real chance to play live for friends and family.

The singer-songwriter says he left the music business years ago, after a big record label deal went sour, and headed to SFU to became a teacher. He spent six years at the altar of higher education, and didn’t sing a note.

But the musically inclined Moore was eventually was drawn inexorably back into the biz a few years later. His Grade 7 students in White Rock kept telling him how much he looked and sounded like Jon Bon Jovi. He’d heard that one before in his music career — a lot.

Moore thought about how the tribute phenomenon was really starting to take off. The bands were being booked in big, classy venues like casinos and corporate gigs. That was something he’d always aspired to, with a one-stop-shop for a wide demographic — from kids to seniors.

He set out to make it happen. A few years ago, when he put on his concert duds and sunglasses, and climbed the stairs to the stage again, he became Jon Bon Jovi almost to a tee.

Talk about having your cake and eating it, too.

The online reviewer called the band “remarkably powerful” and “a spectacular tribute” to the music of multi-platinum selling artist Jon Bon Jovi.

Blaze of Glory is Moore on vocals, Randy Robertson on guitar, Mike Champigny on bass, Mike Russel on keyboards and Doug Grant on drums.

They’re performing Feb. 19, at the Echo Room on Main St. Tickets $10. Check out video and more on their wicked website at blazeofglory.ca.

Here’s how the rest of the Q&A interview went with Moore:

What’s it feel like to have a local gig coming up?

“We’re pretty excited about it. Blaze has never played here. Most of our shows end up being a long ways away in other provinces. This one is about playing for my family and friends and neighbours. They know me on the strata council, or running a computer company, or working as an education consultant. And now they’re going to see me as a rock singer. It’s rewarding. I’m going to try to do the show as I always do it.”

How did Blaze of Glory come together?

“| conjured up the idea for the group. I saw some of the tribute acts out there. Some were impressive, others not so much. I found it was important to not only sound like the band, but to look like them. There’s a large pool of talent in the Lower Mainland. So I started hitting the clubs, and I hand-picked each guy. It took me weeks and weeks of cruising the clubs and shopping musicians. I figured I would need contingencies, but I got my first choice. I’d pitch them my spiel and they’d say, ‘Ted, let’s do it.’ One was on tour with Doug and The Slugs, another in Prism, Crome and more. But they have actually grown fond of this group.

Any pre-show rituals you can share?

“Before I go on I like to have the band together for the last 10 minutes. We’ll go through the day, in a bit of a round table. We let go of everything that’s happened that day, and we manage to expunge the evils of the day. That’s a big ritual. Oh, and I always wear black socks for the show. Does that count?”

What do you play?

“I do pretty much what Jon Bon Jovi does, which is play acoustic guitar and lead vocals.”

You avoid backing tracks and every note is performed live. Why?

“I think we’re one of the few bands that does that. We’re pretty lucky with four lead vocalists, who are all lead singers of their respective bands. You might think that would be a recipe for disaster, but we have nothing to prove. We’ve been together for a few years. There’s none of the posturing or chest-puffing. When you’re on stage all the time, you can get carried away. But we keep it humble, and we remember we’re not the rock stars, Bon Jovi are the rock stars.”

Do you practise a lot?

“As the singer, knowing the band is there means a lot. We’re well-rehearsed with at least 150 hours of rehearsal time logged. I waded them through hundreds of hours of Bon Jovi concert footage when we first got together. We’d sit and study certain aspects of their performances, all the way from 1983 to the present. So yeah, everyone’s got the moves down and the clothes. We figure, if you’re going to do it, do it right.”

How did you avoid the spandex era?

“Ha ha. That was one of the first questions the guys asked at the beginning: which era were we going for? The one with poodle hair cuts and spandex? No, Bon Jovi got out of hair metal phase and headed into middle-America. That’s where we’re going to hit, from 1995 to 2001, and even some of the current stuff. But the fans, that’s a different story. People have a fondness for that time period, and the Bon Jovi fans who come out, take the opportunity to dig out all their fringed leather jackets, spandex and big hair, and come out to the show to have a good time.”