HELLYEAH (VINNIE PAUL & CHAD GRAY)

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:03:24 +1000

Last month we had the privilege to speak to Vinnie Paul from HELLYEAH and now with the boys from HELLYEAH here in Australia for a few shows we were lucky enough to sit down with Vinnie and singer Chad Gray to talk about the Australian tour, work out if and how they can record their next album on an iPhone, watch some golf and just what they get up to when boredom strikes… oh and they told us they’re coming back next year for a festival too…

We give you the men from HELLLLLYEAH…

Vinne Paul: Hey look, you just put it on the microphone setting and it’s ready to go. Next thing you know, next year, next album you just bring in your iPhone into the studio and just ‘Arrrggggggh’ (he gave us his best growl) and just hit U47 on there and it’d have the tone you want ha ha ha

Chad Gray: That’d be amazing ha ha ha

Now the album has been out now for a month in Australia and a couple of weeks elsewhere around the world. What’s the initial reaction been like around the world since its release?
CG: Great
VP: We feel very good about it. The reaction’s been fantastic everywhere, the new songs are going down really, really great live, it was like having a kid that took extra long to be born, we finished this thing back in April so for us to do a month long tour in the States and a month long tour in Europe and for the record to finally come out it was just a big relief for people to finally be able to hear it, so we’re really proud of it. And to come in at Number 8 in the United States and be in the top 50 in Australia and do very well around the rest of the world is pretty amazing.

Every time I listen to it, it grows on me more and more, I love it.
VP: Well good, I gotta be honest, those are my favourite records the ones that take a minute because when they do, that’s a sign that it’s real man. Sometimes you hear something and you love it the first time and it burns out like that you know.

The last time you were here as Hellyeah was 2007. How do you feel in that time away from this glorious country that you’ve grown as a band?
CG: I mean yeah, you’re gonna have a natural progression as you become more comfortable, I think the first record was an experiment and it just kind of worked, we went into this album with a break, I was doing Mudvayne stuff and I think it gave us quite a bit of time to reflect and really get a grip on where we were going. I don’t think we strayed or deviated from where we were heading. We didn’t all sit around and have a big pow wow and be like ‘ok this is who we want to sound like, or this what we wanna be’ we just needed to get together and start working. Once that happens it’s a pretty fuckin magical experience, I mean there’s just shit that comes out of you that’s like, wow, this is great. Every song is the happiest, greatest thing I’d ever done, then we’d write another one and it’d be the greatest thing we’ve ever done and it was like that all the way. But its very diverse, its not like one general road that we’re one, we just write and we’re very true to ourselves as artists, we don’t paint with another band or persons brush, we do our thing, we don’t questions what we do. You’re gonna have snags and its hard work if you give it your attention, it will come to you. Even if you work poorly you have to work. You know, to get it to open up, it was fantastic and I love the record, very very proud of it.

Is it different when you’re writing, you know that these are for Hellyeah and these are for Mudvayne?
CG: No, I’m not that kind of writer, I don’t have notebooks full of lyrics and stuff you know what I mean, I’ll maybe write an idea down or I might want to touch on this subject or whatever. Sometimes I don’t have any idea at all, I hear the music and we just kinda start going and lyrics just start of coming out of me and the song just kind of dictates to me a melody or an emotion, I just kind of run with it and it builds and builds and builds and fuck it.

Your first show in Australia is here in Sydney tomorrow night at the Metro. What can fans expect from this Aussie show opener?
VP: The band. The songs. The fans. And that constant circle of energy that we share with the music back and forth back and forth, we don’t bring laser light shows, there’s not gonna be any magic dragons jumping out there’s not going to be any explosions, its all about that real music between us and the fans and the energy that we transfer back and forth. That’s always good.

I’m coming to see you tomorrow night, and looking forward to it!
CG: Oh cool
VP: Hellyeah!

So, what are your favourite songs to play live?
CG: All of em.
VP: I’m right there with Chad, all of em ha ha. There’s not ever one on the Hellyeah set list that I’ll look down and go ‘oh that fucking song?’ Every now and then when we throw ‘Waging War’ in the set, I’m like ‘alright get ready to hunk or dunk cause we’ve gotta throw down on the motherfucker’ but you know for the most part they’re fun songs, every thing about them as far as the way they’re structured and everybody’s part that’s part of it, its all about the song and getting that message and that vibe across to the people and they come across well.

And having a second album now gives you that choice…
VP: More songs ha ha
CG: Well the last record we just played the whole record, this time we, I think our goal eventually as this record has more time to sit with people is that’s kind of the goal of the band to be able to play every song that we’ve written which would be great, but it ain’t gonna happen tomorrow ha ha ha. There’s about 15 songs, 14 or 15 in the set so it’s good.
VP: There’ll be a good dose

Now you’ve both been to Australia a number of times with your respective bands, Vinnie you’ve shared a memory with us last time, but Chad can you give us a memory of Australia to share with your Aussie fans?
CG: Shit man, there’s one, if we’re talking about Mudvayne is we were on the Sydney Big Day Out, I think it was 05, and we were in Sydney and the PA blew, it was kind of a cool feeling but it sucked because they never did get it going and our slot was over by the time they got it figured out. It sucked but it was kinda cool, knowing that we blew the PA up ‘That’s some power!’ but I guarantee HELYEAH would’ve blown it up probably a few songs earlier than we did.

Our attention is briefly turned to a magnificent golf shot up on the screen. It was pretty cool. Now Vinnie you’re drinking a Bloody Mary but have you guys tried much Aussie beer, if so what's your favourite?
CG: I’m in to Cascade, I love it.
VP: What about that one I bought you earlier the ‘Clear and Crisp?’
CG: The Extra Dry? That was alright.
VP: I’m not really a beer dude so I stick to vodka, this about 6 of these.
CG: He’s on number 6 ha ha.

What do you guys get up to whilst on the road to relieve the boredom...or is these never a boring time for HELLYEAH!!!!
VP: Any kind of prankdom that any of us can get in to, I mean, you gotta remember for any band that tours for any length of time, if you’re a headliner or whatever, you spend anywhere from 22 to 22 and a half hours of the day being bored as fuck, so anything you can get in to that just busts up the routine or just to have some fun and to laugh, hell on days off we go and play golf and sometimes on show day. I’ll go fishing if there’s a pond around, anything you can do just to bust it up, go eat some chicken wings, go to a strip bar whatever it is that’s its available, just something that break that routine so you can got a little something there so you go OK I’m not a robot.

Now we have heard a rumour that you’ll be back sooner than most would expect, any truth that we’ll be seeing you back in Australia early next year?
CG: February, yeah, that’s the plan right now and doing Soundwave hopefully, so hopefully after we kick a little ass on the next three nights we’ll earn our way to a decent slot, I mean that’s the one thing I’m concerned about. I mean we’ve done them all, we’ve played festivals at 11:30 in the morning and you’ve gotta earn it, you’ve gotta work your way up to the really good slots.

What will be good is the weather.
CG: Weather is gonna be great, I’m stoked ha ha.

Well apologies for the weather we’ve put on for you today (it was pouring rain).
CG: Oh no dude, trust me, if this is Winter, we’ll take this Winter any day compared to the ones we get ha ha.

Have you heard much in the way of Aussie metal bands/about the Aussie metal scene?
CG: Not really, I was talking to somebody earlier and I was saying how excited I was to check it out because Australia ain’t no slouch man, you’ve turned out some great bands over the years and you’ve really gotta keep an eye on what’s going on here, but yeah I’m stoked, I don’t think I’ve ever played here and saw any local that I just wasn’t like ‘Wow’ you’ve got some really great bands. And your country supports it too right? I mean your Government literally gives people money to play in bands and I think that’s fantastic. Because all you ever hear in America is that they’re cutting this school program or cutting that school program or cutting this or cutting that, it’s just cut cut cut. Here its nice to see the people, especially your Government actually really supports and embraces it, it’s great.

Chad, what are the plans with Mudvayne once this tour is over?
CG: You know what, my only plan right now is to put all my energy in to HELLYEAH, I think HELLYEAH deserves it and if I were playing with Mudvayne, writing, recording, touring, whatever, I would give Mudvayne 100% of my attention. Anything you do you’ve gotta do it to the fullest extent of what you can do. Right now, I’m all about HELLYEAH and that’s all I can say about that.

After finishing up here, I see you head straight back to the States after here for some more shows. How much longer are you out on the road in support of ‘Stampede?’
CG: Man we get a break I think in October for 7 days and then we go to Japan, back to Europe and we’ll be over there for a while, we’re trying to get another like a South East Asia plan somewhere, I mean we’re going man, the frequent flyer miles are going to be going ape shit here in a little bit ha ha.

So in 2014 you can take a break?
VP: 2011 at least, 2 solid years, we want to give this thing a really good opportunity to bloom and to go where we want it to go.

Just lastly, have you got a message for your Australian fans?
CG: Come to the show, experience, if you’ve got the record that’s one experience, I mean HELLYEAH is HELLYEAH for a reason, we call it HELLYEAH because that’s how we deliver it. We didn’t call the band ‘Yeah’ or ‘Yes’ we called it ‘Hellllyeah’ and there’s a reason, so come and check it out.
VP: That’s right

And as Vinnie once told us, ‘Every night’s a Friday night’!
CG: Absolutely
VP: Every night’s a Friday night and we want to say thank you to all our fans for all the year of support for our previous bands and for following us in our endeavour that we do now called HELLYEAH and to continue to follow and we’re looking forward to kicking some ass the next couple of nights. Come on out.
CG: Hellyeah.

If they miss you this time, check it out in February...
VP: Hellyeah ha ha
CG: Absolutely, but don’t miss us this time, this is going to be a whole different deal. Tomorrow night is one vibe and February is another vibe, experience them both because tomorrow night is going to be off the Goddamn chain.

Well we’ll spread the word and we’re looking forward to tomorrow night.
VP: Any idea whether Mel Gibson is gonna show up or not? Ha ha ha ha ha I was hoping we could get him up on stage and maybe get him to do a little screaming into one of those tunes with Chad. He sounds pretty good on those phone recordings; he’s got some balls ha ha ha ha.

Chad finishes the interview off with his best Mel Gibson impersonation. Not suitable for this time slot ha ha.

*Check out for ‘Stampede’ instores here in Australia/New Zealand out via Riot Entertainment! Click here for the July Australian tour date information....

THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:00:42 +1000

American band ‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’ are currently back in Australia in support of their latest album ‘This is War’ and on a tour that hits Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. The bands guitarist Tomo Miličević was nice enough to take a few minutes to talk about the shows, their amazing videos and get this, his love of Lady Gaga.

He may have also let slip who was headlining a certain festival in February in Australia that they’ll also be playing on, but we thought it best not to get Tomo in trouble so we won’t spoil the surprise. Let’s just say, it’s pretty amazing ha ha!

So if you can, make sure you head out to see ‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’ while they’re in town as from what Tomo told us, this will be one amazing show!!

Check out all the Australian tour info from the Frontier Touring website right here....

First thing’s first, welcome back to Australia.
Thank you very much; it’s been far too long.

3 years I believe?
Actually 4.

That’s crazy!
I know.

Now you’ve already played Perth, how was it?
Perth was great, I mean we’ve never been to the Western part of Australia before, so to go there and kick off the tour on that side of the country was pretty magnificent as we would say. I think the show was really good, the crowd was crazy and from what I gathered it was a good time had by all.

Now for fans that that haven’t seen you before what can fans expect at a Thirty Seconds to Mars show?
Total fucking anarchy ha ha! Honestly we pretty much just challenge people to have the greatest time of their lives and to let go of all inhibition while they’re in our presence ha ha ha.

Well I’m actually coming to see you on Friday so I can’t wait to see it.
It’s gonna be really cool man, we’ve played Hordern Pavilion before and we’re playing it again and if I’m not mistaken I think it may already be sold out, so it’s always an exciting thing to walk in to.

What about for those that have seen you before. Anything different planned for this tour?
Well you know we definitely try and do things differently everywhere we go and I think that it’s kind of hard to describe. I mean we really tried to utilise interaction between the audience and the band as a big element of our production you know? It’s the best and most effective form of production, the participation between the audience and the band and we do really well with that. I think people come to our shows and they really kind of expect to, I think we’ve set a standard for participation ha ha and people definitely do! So I think what people can expect is to be involved ha ha ha and that’s the best part. A bunch of people just getting together and having a drunken sing along is just kind of a good time you know ha ha.

Now one word that has been used to describe your music is ‘epic’ is this something you strive for as a band?
I don’t think that we do it consciously, but I think that it’s kind of like a natural thing for us, to end up with something epic. We certainly don’t sit down in a circle and hang out and say ‘hey we gotta make an epic sounding record’. I think that its just something that happens as a result of the music that we listen to. You know, most of our favourite bands are epic in nature as well. You know, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Cure, U2, Depeche Mode, I mean these are bands that are epic in the way that they sound and the things that they do. I think because that’s the music that inspires us, or that type of music that I think is pretty natural to us to, I suppose leaning to that sound. I mean to us what someone might describe as epic is what sounds right to us.

‘This is War’ is very much a fans album, you ‘enlisted’ fans from around the world to contribute, whether it be sounds, singing, their face on the cover. What was it that gave you the idea to extend what is usually something personal for a band to then be shared with fans prior to the end result?
I think that for us, its starts from the very beginning to be honest. We’ve always been interested in having a shared experience with people and making sure that those doorways are open rather than closed. To have an open line of communication and I think that for this record we all kind of got together and were having pretty in depth discussions about how we can enrich the experience, not just for us but for the listener. What we came up with was ‘The Summit’ which turned out to be a very difficult thing to do, but also the right thing to do and you know, I think its great because now when we play those songs off of ‘This is War’ live, The Summit is alive and well and the audience is really truly part of the song rather than reacting. They’re actually part of the product, I mean without those people participating in the places that they did on the album, the song really wouldn’t sound the same live so its really cool to actually hear that come to life at the shows.

With songs that are generally around the 5 – 6 minute mark, is it fair to say that you make music for fans and to be played live? What I mean by that is radio works on a 3 minute song standard, yet it’s almost like you don’t care about that. Is that intentional?
Well it’s not intentional and we don’t care about it, we just really don’t think about it to be honest. You cant really be in a studio and be making music and then say to each other ‘OK guys, today we’re going to work on the radio single, so we gotta make sure we keep it under 3:30…’ it doesn’t really work like that. You just write music and its done when its done and its right when its right. If it happens to be a 3 minute song when its right, so be it, but for us, we like them a bit longer, maybe it’s because we have ADD, I don’t know?

The one thing that has always astounded me about you guys is your videos, they are amazing, like mini movies! How much work goes in to putting your videos together?
Jared is obviously the guy who is doing all the work on those videos and I can tell since I’m around him all the time, that the amount of work that goes in to making a ‘Thirty Seconds To Mars’ video is profound. The guy literally kills himself to make those videos, and I think that for us its really a labour of love, because for us its so much more than just music. The visual element of ‘Thirty Seconds to Mars’ is equally as important, if not more important than the music, because we love that stuff. We love making videos and telling a story in a different way and giving people something else to kind of dive in to and giving people a different world to escape to and that filmic quality of the videos is obviously a direct relationship to Jared’s experience in that world and I think that just his eye and his artistic direction is always just going to end up that way because he thinks big you know. So thank you for that but it’s just another thing that we just do ha ha!

Just on the videos, I want to touch quickly on a couple of things. What was it like playing on a glacier?
Oh it was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. Just the fact of being able to go there and being able to experience that place, it was so much more than making the video. It’s hard to describe that stuff to people, you know, we do this stuff and it always has a double meaning because we’re there making a video and also there to have this crazy life experience and you hear people say this all the time, but the journey is the destination type thing and for us that’s absolutely true, we love getting two things out of it. The ‘Beautiful Lie’ video which is what you’re referring to is one of my favourites definitely to watch, it’s just beautifully shot and I think Jared did a really great job on that one.

Also being the first American band to shoot a video in China? How was that?
Yeah exactly, that was a real adventure, I mean, my God, you go to China and then you realize that there is a big world out there ha ha ha. China’s very different, I mean it’s a very, very cool place and being an American and being from America it’s a very, very different place and the fact that we were welcomed into that Country to be creative and do our art was very cool of those people, they definitely are very protective of their culture and they’re not really interested in anyone coming over there and making a mockery of anything so I think I have a lot of respect for that.

Just personally, ‘From Yesterday’ is my favourite song and video of yours.
Oh great, well we’ll try to make sure and remember to play it for you in Sydney ha ha

What do you have planned for the next single, video wise?
It’s funny that you ask because we literally just started having conversations about that today. We’re not sure yet, so check back with me on that one ha ha!

Do you know what the next single will be?
No, that’s the problem. It’s up in the air, the good news its up in the air between several songs rather than which one is it? ha ha

Now we’ve heard there’s a possibility that you’ll be back on Aussie shores a lot sooner than people may think, any truth to the rumour we’ll see you early next year?
I’ve recently been informed that I am allowed to talk about this and yes it is true we’re coming back for Soundwave festival, so we’re really excited about that I hear it’s a really cool one.

Now I don’t want to focus on Jared’s acting as we’re not here to talk about that, but is it fair to say that him having that talent you have has helped you transcribe to the passion and emotion that you put into a live performance on stage?
See people often ask this question actually and I’m happy to answer it. It’s actually not like that at all, you know I think from the outside it may seem like that skill helps, but the fact is when you’re playing music and you’re on stage you’re more yourself than in any other moment. So I would say that is has nothing to do with it because we’re all being completely who we really are up on stage and everything else is kind of like an act ha ha ha ha! It’s actually the most raw and honest that you’ll ever see us, that’s where we just open up and let go and I think that’s great and I think that’s kind of what it’s all about and I think that’s great to have that kind of ability to just go up there and completely be yourself, to not have to worry about anything at all and you know for that two hour period that it’s totally OK to be 100% who you really are.

Your cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ is amazing, I think better than her version, just personal opinion, what was it that made you choose that song to cover?
Ha! Well you know there’s a thing in London, in the UK they have Radio 1, BBC 1 which is like their national radio station and they have a program on that called ‘The Radio 1 Live Lounge’ and they invite bands to come in and do covers of other artists that are currently on their charts. We did this a few years ago for the first time and we covered Kanye West’s ‘Stronger’ and it was actually voted the best ‘Live Lounge’ cover in the history of the show which I guess is around 10 or 11 years now, which obviously is like an insane honour when you think about probably the number of people that have participated in the thing. Then they invited us to do it again and they were asking us which song did we want to do, and they send us a list of songs to choose from and we saw Lady Gaga ‘Bad Romance’ and we were like I think we should keep it in the tradition of doing something totally opposite of what people would expect from us ha ha ha but we had a lot of fun with that. By the way, that’s a great song. If you just break it down to its roots and the melody and the lyrics, it’s an awesome song so we had a really good time kind of reinventing it and make it our own.

I’ve always said that her stuff you can play it as a rock band and it actually sounds like something you wrote.
She’s amazing dude. I mean people can say what they want about her but she is mind blowing, she is the real deal. Bottom line. She can sit down at the piano and blow you away, so there’s not a lot of people that can do that.

What’s next for Thirty Seconds To Mars?
I mean for us, its just touring and touring and touring and bringing ‘This is War’ to as many people as possible. We have a new video out there, ‘Closer To The Edge’ its our new single and we just want to play for people and to visit as many places as possible before we go back into the studio and work on a new album.

Pleasure talking to you and I’ll see you on Friday night.
Likewise, sounds good man

ROB HALFORD

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:33:18 +1000

When we last spoke to Rob Halford it was in our summer for promotion of his album “Winter Songs”, ironically now that its actually winter here, we had the opportunity to once again talk to the nicest guy in Metal who has just released a new Live CD and DVD film called ‘Live in Anaheim.’

The Metal God took some time to discuss the live album with us, his new record coming later this year, a memory or two of Ronnie James Dio and gave me a visual I’ll probably never stop laughing about.

Turn it up!

I wanted to ask about ‘Live in Anaheim’ the official soundtrack has just recently been released and is a collection of Judas Priest, Fight and Halford material, basically a snapshot of your career, almost a best of but in a live environment. Is this the perfect release of where you are now to showcase exactly who you are and have been?
Yeah it’s a little bit of everything isn’t it really? I think was an important gig for me because ironically enough it was the last show I did with Halford 7 or 8 years ago before I went back to Priest, so to finally get around to having the opportunity to release it now is kind of interesting. Its like a look back but its kind of also focusing on some of the things that the Halford band is doing for the rest of this year before Priest roars out again in 2011, so it’s a little bit of everything.

What was it specifically that led you to release this particular show out of no doubt all the shows in the archives?
Well you know, we’ve got loads of material, we filmed nearly every show that the Halford band and the Fight band was doing. We had cameras set up on the stage and the sound desk, some of it sounds like crap, some of it looks like crap, a lot of it is brilliant, so its just a case of wading through it all. There’s so much stuff in the vaults, but I think the Anaheim one was valuable. I mean everything looked good, everything sounded good and in the order of release, since this Metal God records company came into being, we’ve slowly been bringing out all of this material from the past and setting it up through that way of release and this is pretty much right now the last thing that we have for the foreseeable future because we’re gonna move on now with some new material that we want to share with everybody.

The DVD release of ‘Live in Anaheim’ is due out I believe at the beginning of August?
Yes it is yeah, it looks fabulous, I mean the sound, Roy did a fantastic job on the sound, all the editing, the colouring, everything, its just a really great show to look at. It’s got a tremendous amount of passion and fire in the performance and again it’s a little bit of Metal history really.

It’s actually more of a film that just a performance?
Again you just try and make the whole experience as interesting as you can, so although the film is the main feature there’s other bits and pieces floating around as well, you know just to make it entertaining and interesting.

You talk about it being a great snapshot of your career, was that the idea behind making it, to give everyone that perception?
Yeah I mean, there’s bootlegs all over the place ha ha as you could imagine, so if you’re a real fan and you want to add something to your collection, this is probably the best way to go around doing it, because you’re getting something really top class in quality.

You are on the OZZfest bill for the first time since 2004, back then it was with Priest, but you’re playing now as Halford.
Yes, I was thrilled about that I put my two pennies in to say I was available if you’ve got a slot for me and lo and behold I got the news a few days later of come on lets go and have a bit of a knock together and go out and have some fun, so I’m looking forward to that.

What can your fans expect to hear at these shows?
Well we’ve got the San Francisco show coming this Saturday so that will be on You Tube within about twenty minutes ha ha ha ha ha and you’ll be able to kind of get an ear full of the material that we’re playing there. I would imagine we’ll pretty much do the same in the OZZfest set, we haven’t got as much time actually, I think we’ve only got about 45 minutes for OZZfest so it’ll be the bulk of the show that you’ll see from San Francisco is what you’ll see at OZZfest and the Montreal Metal Fest which is a week on Saturday over in Canada.

Can we expect any new material to be debuted at these shows?
I’m thinking about it, yeah, I mean we’ve got this new record coming out in October I think it is, the ‘Made of Metal’ record and we’ll be airing one or two ideas just to give the fans a listen and check that out. But the new record is very diverse it’s all over the place. I mean that one track ‘The Mower’ that just came out is not really indicative of the rest of the material, every track is very very different. It’s probably the best display of everything in Heavy Metal you know, right from the early blues to the extreme moments like ‘The Mower’ and everything in between.

With a catalogue spanning over 30 years, how hard is it to put your set together when you are playing with Halford as opposed to a Priest show?
Well I was just listening to the set we’re going to do. I just went for a walk around the park here in San Diego and I was listening to the set list and it sounds pretty solid, it took a while to figure it all out. I mean in essence this is about the Halford band obviously, just to reintroduce the music that I still feel can do the business, also just a kind of to have something to do ha ha, because as important as it is for Priest to take a break this year, it drives me mental. I have to keep busy, I cant sit around, I want to do something. So this is why I’m just taking to the opportunity to have a bit of a knock and have a few good times with the Halford band and release some new material and let everyone get a vibe about Metal God records and the clothing company and everything else, more than ever you’ve really gottta go out and do this thing otherwise its gets lost in the mix. There’s so much stuff going on in the world, you know, in Metal, but if you don’t stick your head up and go ‘hey have a look over here, check this out’ its easy to get, not necessarily overlooked but it’s confusing, there’s so much wonderful stuff that you get lost in the big ocean of metal you know. So a lot of combined reasons to just get out and have a knock and have some good times.

To be in the game for nearly 40 odd years, yet your enthusiasm and desires to constantly be innovative/try new things is as strong as ever.... What is it that drives you so strongly?
Without getting too intense on it, I just love living life and I think that it’s a blessing to be in any kind of band and to have the support of your fans with you. I mean I can’t do what I do without all the wonderful fans that check out the shows and the music and so forth, so its many, many things really. This is all I ever wanted to do, this is all I ever wanted to be, and so you just take every opportunity that you can, because it ain’t going to last forever. I mean the music will always live forever but you just face reality and I’m not a young guy any more. I still do my gig as far as what the voice can do and that’s the main reason I’m still going out there, I mean when the voice says goodnight ha ha ha ha ha that’ll be it mate. I’ll be round the pub ha ha ha. I mean I’m just having a joke here, I don’t really think about it to be honest Troy, I think once you start thinking about how long you’ve been at it and how much is left you kind of get a bit confused there so I just take it every day at a time and have a great time and do as much as I can for Metal.

You are heading to play Japan's "Loud Park" Festival in October this year, what are the chances of you heading across to Australia for some shows as well?
We’re looking at it right now Troy, I mean there’s nothing set in stone but I said to management and to the agents, I said look we’re over there, we can easily just nip down to Australia even if its only for a couple of gigs, so they’re working on it, and as soon as we know what’s available we’ll put it on our website.

Of course the Metal world was saddened by the passing of Ronnie James Dio recently, how did his passing affect you?
Well as a personal friend of mine it was absolutely shattering you know, I mean I’d only seen him a couple of weeks earlier at the Golden Gods awards in Hollywood. We had a bit of a natter, talking about this that and the other, and of course two weeks later he’s gone. It was just like my legs went out from under me like they did for a lot of people, fans and other musicians. We knew he was ill, we knew he was getting treatment and so I think everybody was kind of optimistic and sadly he was taken from us, and its just terrible. I was like down in the dumps for days and days and days, all I listened to was Ronnie. I just listened to all of his music and that was just a comfort as I think we use music in our lives when we have tragedies that we have to get through on a personal level, but anyway, God bless him. His music and his voice will live on forever.

Do you have a favourite story or experience involving Ronnie James Dio that you care to share?
Just that when we did that ‘Hear N Aid’ thing all those years ago, it would just amaze me that he was able control it so masterfully, because you had all of this different talent. You had all of these different high profile people in Rock and Metal and he was like the guy in charge and he just did it so well. I think that was just a reflection of even then how much he was loved. People were ready to do whatever needed to be done to give him the best moment in that song, so that’s just a really strong memory for me. And recently on the tour, the Metal Masters tour with Priest, Heaven and Hell and Lemmy, just being with your mates and being out and having a bit of food and a drink is the best feeling in the world really. May he Rest in Peace.

Yes, definitely.

With Judas Priest kind of being on hiatus this year, well at least visibly... Are there any plans/dates etc slotted into the calendar in the foreseeable future with Priest?
Oh yes, absolutely that why I’m just roaring through what’s left of this year and doing as much as I can. I’ll be going back home at Christmas, back to the UK and then seeing the guys and we’ll be ramping everything up for Priest to go back out through 2011 and into 2012 again.

I did see the show last time you were here and it was amazing.
It’d be great to come back, we’d love to do the British Steel show for you because I don’t think we did that did we? So there’s a lot of countries who would love to see that show. If you’ve checked out the British Steel DVD it’s a bit of Metal magic that is, so anyway, fingers crossed we’ll be seeing you sometime next year.

Now something a little bit different, you leant your voice to a couple of characters in the video game ‘Brutal Legend’, how did you get approached to be a part of that?
I just got an email from somebody, I can’t remember now; I think his name is Troy as well, from ‘Double Fine’, the software company in the San Francisco area. But the fact that it was going to be a Heavy Metal game, the main guy had his mind set on some of the players that he wanted to approach and I’d never done anything like that before. I’m absolutely rubbish when it comes to playing those games, I’ve got no coordination whatsoever. The only thing I can do is like that Nintendo Wii, like with us in Priest ha ha we’re doing the bowling and the golf, that kind of thing and anything that’s a bit frantic. We can’t get our heads around these mad video games that the kids play, but I met this bloke and we talked it through and I could tell that he was sincere and genuine and about his love heavy metal. So it was all pretty straight forward. It was a bit like recording like I normally do, but it was like talking rather than singing. You know he would give me the direction and prompt me to perform the lines and so on and I had a good time doing it and I think it turned out really well.

Ha ha I just got the best image of you guys backstage in the leathers playing on the Wii..
Ha ha ha ha ha yeah, it’s really funny.

You have a new Halford album coming out later in the year and with your last album being "Winter Songs", can we expect anything out of the ordinary with the new Halford release?
Not out of the ordinary I don’t think, no. You know I think I can honestly say that I’ve done it all. I don’t have anything left to prove really in terms of what we’re trying to do in music. If anything if I’m proving anything that’s left to prove its that I’m still committed and dedicated to being a Metal musician. So these songs are all over the place and they go from the blues all the way to the extreme feature of that Mower track that came out recently. It’s a good record and interesting songs you know, exciting and puts you all over the place so hopefully you will enjoy it.

Lastly, how has the Metal God Apparel and Metal God records been going? Any new products you wish to plug whilst you have an opportunity for some free advertising ha ha!
Well thank you, Metal God apparel is doing really well, and its ironic really, because in terms of you can’t illegally download a T-shirt ha ha ha! I mean I’m sure there’s some knock off’s in China that I’ll find out about but its doing really good thanks. And the Metal God record company is solid now, I was like the Metal guinea pig now I’m getting it all sorted and all knocked in to shape and we’re ready now. We’ve been encouraging people from all over the world to send us their music and the next step, probably next year is probably looking at the talent that we want to release on that, so its doing really well thank you.

Thanks Rob for your time.
Cheers mate, all the best and I’ll see you soon!

BLIND GUARDIAN (HANSI KURSCH)

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:39:09 +1000

Returning with their epic new album “At The Edge Of Time”, Blind Guardian once again stamp themselves as one of the leading metal bands in the world. Since 1988, the band have released album after album of innovative metal transcending the lines of speed metal, progressive metal, power metal, symphonic orchestral arrangements and celtic influences, combined with epic fantasy like lyrical themes. “At The Edge Of Time” is no exception and having released a cover of the Australian rock classic “You’re The Voice” originally performed by John Farnham which has already gained radio airplay in Australia, the reputation of Blind Guardian is set to extend even beyond the metal community.

Still recovering from the World Cup exit of Germany just hours earlier, the bands lead singer Hansi Kursch revealed some fascinating insights into the writing and recording process for “At The Edge Of Time” as well as explaining just how the band came to cover John Farnham.

“At The Edge Of Time” is due for release via Nuclear Blast in Europe on July 30 and America on August 24 and in Australia will be distributed by Riot Entertainment!

Hansi, thanks for taking the time to chat with May The Rock Be With You ”At The Edge Of Time” is a few weeks away from being released now in Europe, you must be looking forward to finally letting the fans hear your latest “epic”….
Definitely, it's always the biggest challenge you know. The first step is to accomplish the album, the second is reveal it to the journalists, but the biggest obstacle and the biggest question mark is always the fans and how they will relate to the album because that is who you are doing the album for! So far I am very confident, I must say because even during the songwriting we felt like this must be the kind of album that will attract the fans who are already into Blind Guardian and maybe even people who are not familiar with the band. It is a very metal sounding album that defines the band in a very accurate way I think.

Musically, you have a crossover appeal into various genres of Metal and I am sure this is represented by the fans of Blind Guardian worldwide. Do you see “At The Edge Of Time” satisfying all categories of Blind Guardian fans?
Yes I think so, this album really stands out because of it's quality and diversity. As you mentioned we do have different genres we have covered over the years. There are fans that support the thrash metal Blind Guardian, some follow the Celtic way and others the progressive way and then there is also the orchestral bombastic direction. In a very positive way this album is a stong compromise between all of these elements. I'm pretty sure even the very old school sceptic Blind Guardian fans will find some very nice spots on the album.

It’s been about four years since your last album “A Twist In The Myth” was released, how long did it take you to write and record this album?
Well if you took everything together you would end up with something like two and a half years. We had one and a half years of touring but there was no songwriting in between that. After finishing the touring for “A Twist In The Myth” in November 2007, we immediately started working on a song called "Sacred" for the computer game so from that point on we really kept a focus on the songwriting. We did take some vacation in between, but given we are four people and we each have a word in the songwriting arrangements, there was always someone working on the songs.

With the "epic" like and fantasy based nature of your songs, how do you tackle the songwriting, does the music come first or lyrics/storyline and then music?
In 95% of cases it's the music that comes first because I feel you need a certain approach in the music to come up with the right lyrical element. It probably would work the other way around you know and we have done that in some places where I have come up with a lyrical concept first. But for me it's easier to follow the musical road first and then come up with the lyrical issues. Once the music has reached a certain level and resembles an accomplished sound arrangement then I start digging for the right lyrical issues. In normal cases the music speaks such clear language that you don't have any doubts about the topic.

In the case from the very beginning when we did the song “Majesty” for example on “Batallions Of Fear” it was very natural from the very beginning that this song would be about Lord Of The Rings, there wasn't even a discussion. This rarely happens nowadays as there is always discussion about which direction the lyrics could go. I do a lot of research when it comes to the lyrics. Not just the stories themselves but also about the author and the environment the story was written and that inspires me to come up with a different perspective either on the story or some thoughts the story has inspired.

Lyrically are there any key lyrical themes on the album?
Not necessarily, “At The Edge Of Time” the title itself speaks as a clear language, as most of our material is generally connected to time. Time is a very essential issue for Blind Guardian in general and on this album lyrically I have some very strong links to time.

What are some of your favourite or most proudest songs on the new album?
Well firstly I have to mention ‘Wheel Of Time’ because that was the toughest one to complete. The song went in so many different directions, it was first meant to be a song composed for the orchestral album but it had such an individual character that it was impossible to keep it in there. Then we really had to fight to turn it into something that would fit onto a metal album. Musically I like the interaction on this song between heavy band orchestration and real orchestration. Lyrically and musically I also have to name a “Voice In The Dark” which is a very intense song and reminds me very much of our very early material which many people had thought we would never do again, as well as including some strong elements connected to “Night At The Opera” and “A Twist In The Myth”. That shows how good the combination of different styles can work and gives justice to everything we have done in the past. Lyrically I think I did justice to George Martin’s story of ice and fire where I relate to a very short description in the book where I am relating to one of the main protagonists and I think my descriptions of visions and of consequences worked out very nicely.

So is it fair to say that based on what you have just said, “Voice In The Dark” was an obvious choice for the first single?
Yes it was an obvious choice in the end due to it's intensity that would make an impact with the core die hard Blind Guarduan fans from the 80's and 90's who see the song as a strong thrash or power metal kind of song.

And you have just recorded a video for the song too, what can you reveal about that?
Yes we have recorded it and I have just seen the first sections of it. It's an animation video with some performance to be mixed in. It deals with the lyrical topic and that's what I like so much, the lyrical issue of ice and fire. I tried to get as far away from the story as possible but still capturing the major elements of the story. The same thing happened with the producer of the video who took my lyrics and used then to shape the direction of what he understood to be the lyrical intentions. He delivered it into a story about a shaman who is going to sacrifice a boy. If you really check out these three elements - the story of ice and fire, the song “Voice In The Dark” and then the video...it all combined greatly but they do speak different languages about the same thing. The video should hopefully be finished in the next 10 days.

You have released a cover of “You're The Voice”, an Australian classic song performed by John Farnham. How did you even know this song and what was the compelling reason to do a cover of this song?
You would be surprised how successful that song is here in Germany. For me this song is a 23 year long story. If you turn on the commercial radio you will still be able to hear that song played twice, maybe three times a day. It is one of the most successful radio songs here in Germany and was a number 1 hit back in the 80's. That was around the time we were recording "Batallions Of Fear" and I did nothing else but listen to metal music back then. I literally hated all other music because I was so dedicated to heavy metal back then as most kids were at that time. Then suddenly “You're The Voice” came out and it was played everywhere. Then one of the producers who were working with us at the time and was one of the best vocalists I have ever met and who sung on every Blind Guardian album since "Batallions Of Fear" as a backing vocalist, well he said if you want to listen to a vocalist who is better than any other vocalist going around, then check out John Farnham. So I carefully started listen to John Farnham and that song. It is a song with a very strong attitude attracting me as a very pure metal head! Ever since then I had a passion for that song, as did Andre. When we were taking about recording a cover version for this album, this was the first song that came to mind. Literally, I think that the songs chorus has had an effect on Blind Guardian over the years. It has similar elements with a catchy melody and a strong hook line that everyone can sing along with, but has a high amount of quality in there and they were the key factors in knowing it would be suited to us recording it and I hope we did justice to the song!

Blind Guardian has existed for over 20 years, what are your thoughts on where metal is at in 2010?
I think it's progressing in the right way, even though I can't begin to count all the different genres of metal around these days, but I think all in all it's metal music. I think in the last 10 years there has been a significant progression in many areas and I am really happy to see there are people picking up metal music and driving into into sometimes suprisung new directions. Whether it's a band like Tool. System Of A Down or Disturbed or even Meshuggah, these bands really come out with new ideas even though more traditional bands like Nevermore they deliver high class modern style of music and I am really happy with that as I would be disappointed if everything today sounded like it did in the 80's!

What is the likelihood for an Australian tour at some stage on the horizon?
Well there is certainly high interest and we are still in regular contact with our Australian promoter who wanted us to come over many many times already since the last tour, however we do not tour when we don't have a new album out. The likelihood is that we will come to Australia as part of a tour that also includes Japan and parts of Asia which may happen in early 2011I cannot wait to come back.

Hansi, thanks for your time, good luck with the new album and hope to see you out here soon....
Thankyou Scott, I hope so too, it was nice talking to you!

BOYS LIKE GIRLS

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:42:13 +1000

After initially discussing the perfect, almost Halloweenish weather, our mutual love for Butch Walker via my tattoos and tattoos in general, I must say it was a pleasure to sit down and talk to Martin Johnson and Paul Digiovanni from the band Boys Like Girls who are here for their second tour of Australia in support of their newest album ‘Love Drunk’ out now through Sony Music.

The guys took the time after a big night to discuss the show, the future of the band and just how the internet stops them from only eating bologna.

I give you the Men from Boys Like Girls.

Firstly, welcome back to Australia, I was at the show last night in Sydney and have to say that I loved the energy of the show.
MJ: Thank you so much man.

Especially the 64,000 guitar changes.
PD: too many changes ha ha.

I have to ask, how many picks do you throw out a night?
MJ: Probably like $20 worth, I need to make sure that everybody gets a chance to grab a pick and can go away with a souvenir and it’s definitely something to spice up the show. Its funny that you like that move as I stole that from Butch Walker, he was one of our first tours and he taught me the pick throw so I was like, I gotta bring this to the show.

I’m waiting for the pick tricks!
PD: Oh yeah throwing in the mouth and all that
MJ: I don’t know if I’m up to that level yet but I’m working up to Expert Picker

(In a discussion about their picks I then gave the guys each a May the Rock be with You pick and explained that we use them to throw out at shows for people to pick up and go home and check out the site. They loved the idea).

Now, during the show last night you stopped during ‘Heart Heart Heartbreak’ because a girl was getting crushed at the front. Have you ever had to do that before?
MJ: I think its really important that our fans get to have a really safe show and know that its really important to us that they know that they’re safe when they come to a Boys Like Girls show and its like we love our fans to go crazy and people throw each other around and we encourage it, we ask for circle pits and we have people come up on stage sometimes and you know just really go crazy but its just really important that nobody gets hurt, you know if they are and its important sometimes and usually I wont stop the show unless they’re having a problem. There was a problem getting a girl out and it was just important as they were getting a little rowdy and the first part is taking care of each other and have a really good time with your best friends listening to Rock music you know and then going crazy comes second.

Many bands wouldn’t do that kind of thing so that was really cool.
MJ: Thanks man.

I see Bryan flicks his bass around and I do play guitar as a hobby and tried to do that once and almost knocked myself out.
PD: Me too ha ha.

So have there ever been any injuries?
MJ: Yeah there’s been a couple of injuries, its funny because we’ve really learned each others space pretty good, the other day Bryan was doing one of those moves and he came up and he kind of looks like Rudolph the Red nosed reindeer right now because he smashed his nose off the microphone, he scratched it pretty good. Usually its just clumsy stuff, I mean he’s more the wild child, he’s fallen off stage a couple of times, one time, and you know we have those risers? Well we call them Ego risers, you get up there and just show them who’s boss, well one time I was in Canada, we were in Montreal and I went up and I slipped off and I hit my chin right on the riser and I was seeing stars for a minute. We were playing an older song called ‘Up Against The Wall’ and there’s a video of it I’m walking around completely bewildered singing the song in a really low octave and then I kind of came too and got into it, I was really worried on stage that I had a concussion so I ended up being alright.

Was that really the first time you’d played ‘Go’ live last night?
MJ: It’s the first time we played it live; I’ve never even done it for an acoustic set. Some girl had come to the meet and greet and the song meant a lot to her, she had just lost her Mom and her friends asked for the song and for us the most important thing when we’re playing a live show and a lot of bands its really important to them that they play the new songs or play whatever song will get them the press, what makes us happy is playing the songs that the fans want to hear and what the fans like, because you see the way the fans react to songs and we love every song we play so its up to the fans to choose what we play live and we make sure that we play some of the radio tracks every night and keep everybody stoked and if they have requests we do our best to honour it but that one was just really important for that girl to hear last night and it’s a really important song to me and I think it was really cool and we might add it to the set now, it came out really good.

It worked well where it was...
MJ: Thanks man, we hit them with up tempos pretty quickly so it’s good to chill it out for a minute and do a mini acoustic set in the middle and I think we might add it to the set, so thank that girl for the inspiration.

You were here last in February 2008 for the Soundwave festival, how if any way do you feel that as a band you have changed in those 2 and a half years between trips Down Under?
PD: Yeah that feels like it was about 15 years ago, we’ve done so much stuff, come out with a new record, grown as a band so much, its just completely different. No but that was really cool, it was a fun thing we did with a bunch of our friends, we had a really good crowd, it’s really cool to have been gone that long and to come back and we’re playing like that show last night was just insane and it was a really cool feeling and I think we’re gonna have to start just coming back more and more often now.

The new album ‘Love Drunk’ is a great record, now it’s a somewhat different sounding record to your debut release, was this intentional?
MJ: I don’t think so, I think we were just really trying to up our game you know I think we would’ve felt like we were treading water if we put out another record that sounded the same and I felt like we’ve progressed a lot in those 3 years of touring and when we made the first record we were really just trying to define ourselves as a band and find our sound and over 3 years of consistent shows every single night it ramped up, it got heavier it got more intricate but more simple at the same time and we really wanted to bring our live sound to the record. And we felt the pressure of course, I had a really hard time with, I had the songs, I had a couple of songs and the way we work with songs its all about presentation and a pop song is a pop song on acoustic guitar. You know it can be trained you can make it into a techno beat you can turn it into a remix, give it a native backbone, you can make it really modern and pop, you can make it a piano ballad and you can pretty much do anything with it and it was like how do we want to sonically speak so we went with 2 dualities on this record a lot of the old record is mid tempos we wanted to really go for dualities and speak to total pump up jams and then like the down tempos that really spoke to you lyrically and then hopefully it came across in the right light and I’m really, really happy with what we did and excited to do it again with a new record and totally bring it in a different direction.

Its gone platinum I believe?
MJ: It hasn’t gone platinum in the States, the first one did world wide but we don’t really think about the numbers that much its not really important to us you know so many kids have it from file transfers and downloading and that’s what’s important is that the kids actually have the music. Obviously we’d love to live in an era where everybody still buys records but its just not the case so you have to embrace the fact that fans still have the music because that’s what’s important is that they have the music, they love it they share with their friends and they come to the shows. So we just accepted the fact that its 2010, its time to rock and roll with it, we don’t really think about the numbers we think about the kids that are at the shows.

Are you filming this tour for plans of another DVD release?
MJ: We have some footage that we’re working on a couple of projects film wise and it’s still up in the air and we’re writing and touring and working on the new single ‘Heart Heart Heartbreak’ worldwide and just excited to continue to open people’s ears. We have some footage that’s been done and we’re kinda at a little bit of a crossroads right now beginning to write the third record and continuing the touring cycle for this and figuring out how we’re going to wrap it up correctly.

Now I’ve had a couple of people ask me to ask when you’re going to update you ‘Martinsays’ blog?
MJ: When I’m nice and ready it will be updated and I’ve been thinking about bringing a new entry for a while but I feel like there’s a lot of pressure because I haven’t updated it in a while.
PD: Its gonna have to be a real good one.
MJ: It’s gonna be a good one and I’ve kind of come into a little bit of a new mind set so we’ll see what happens.

The internet has been a major factor in the bands success in getting signed and you mention file transfers before, how important is it where soon you may not have to release physical records and it’s all about the internet?
MJ: It already is, it’s a singles based market, the music industry is completely flip flopping into deals with booking agents and deals with concert things with Live Nation and the script has really been flipped and the age of the boombastic major label deal is done, and people are really starting to see peace and one of the biggest pop stars right now are just releasing shorter records and its scary, and people are starting to put out free music and you know we’re just happy to be able to tour and we’re gonna do whatever we can do to get music to our fans. We would’ve done this for free, its not about having a house in the Bahamas we don’t really give a fuck about that, we care about the kids singing along and being able to do this as a living and not eating bologna and being able to see the world and do it and we’re just happy to go along with the flow, I mean music is never gonna die, it’ll never die, it keeps people alive, it keeps people same, it keeps people happy so whatever we gotta do to bring that we’re gonna do it.

I wanted to ask about the 3D video you made for ‘Heart Heart Heartbreak’ how much fun was that to make and how hard was it to make?
MJ: It was really different.
PD: Because it was kind of like a Samsung thing and us and they told us what to do for a lot of it, it was like play up to the camera and swing your shit around and it was cool, like we didn’t really know what to expect, we went and watched some of it while we were filming and they said we’re the first band to ever do a 3D video so it’s a pretty cool thing.

On videos, your clips are always entertaining enough to make you want to watch, perfect for the 3 minute attention span of most people these days. How much fun is it making videos?
MJ: Yeah I think its important to really showcase the music and its tough, videos aren’t really shown on TV anymore and the budgets are cut in half so you’ve cant really bring to the table as far as what used to be brought as far as entertainment value, you scrape for it a little bit, I think its important to illustrate a cool story and keep the attention span and really bring the music to life a little bit and bring it to light and some of my favourite songs, I remember the music videos a lot too, I think its important to keep that alive I really thing music videos are important part to give fans a visual.

I have to ask because everyone always does it, when are you going to move to Australia?
MJ: Hopefully really soon, I fuckin’ love it, I just like the attitude, everyone’s just down to help, you know the fans are just really grateful and just really stoked to have us here and it makes me want to play 10 times more, you know it’s like you come down and you do the 24 hour flight and to be received like that its just people are really stoked to have you here, it really means a lot, there’s no entitlement, the people are just really happy to see you play, just really makes us want to come back and do it all the time and become a staple, you know I want Australia to be a staple in our touring routine so, expect to see more of us here and we’re really, really enjoying our second trip over here.

As a headliner now, not an opening act? I mean over the years you have toured with some great artists, and a favourite of ours is Butch Walker. As a veteran of the industry, did you get any tips from Butch other than pick flicking?
MJ: Yeah for sure you learn something from everybody we’ve toured with, you take a little piece, even if a band’s opening for you sometimes a band chemistry type deal, how to solve problems, and you find that you imitate and bring it in to your own fashion, from a band that we toured with, you find different pieces that worked for you and let it go, we were all pretty green when we came into this live performance wise and I think just the touring experience and what we learned from watching so many bands live and had a great opportunity to tour with so many good bands and it really helped us a lot.

Lastly, what’s next for you guys?
MJ: We’re gonna go home and start working on the third record more full and really flushing out where we want to go with it sound wise, we just continue touring and wrapping up this record cycle, we have a couple of things in the works as far as visual stuff that I cant really talk about so much but we’ll surprise you with it, but you’ll see it when it comes up, the stuff we’re filming and the camera oriented and expect new music from Boys Like Girls really, really soon.

Thank you guys for talking to us.
MJ: Really, really a pleasure talking to you.

JOHN 5

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 13:23:30 +1000

Unless you are a fan or either Marilyn Manson or Rob Zombie, or you are a guitar head, then you could be forgiven for having not heard of John 5 before. But once you read his jaw dropping resume, then you would be scratching your head thinking how could you have not? Either playing with or contributing to or recording with, John 5 has worked with Rob Zombie, Rob Halford, Marilyn Manson, David Lee Roth, Lita Ford, Paul Stanley, Meatloaf, Scorpions, KD Lang, Robin Zander, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Rick Springfield and even Salt N Pepa! Now that’s a diverse line up....

Unsuprisingly, given that resume John 5’s now fifth solo effort “The Art Of Malice” too is a diverse piece of work. Whilst I certainly appreciate instrumental guitar albums and the likes of guitarists Steve Vai, Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani etc, I certainly don’t proclaim to be a “shredder” and therefore from instrumental guitar albums I seek songs, rather than necessarily song after song of jaw dropping pyrotechnics. Over an enjoyable 45 minutes or so, “The Art Of Malice” balances the two almost perfectly, whilst also stamping a distinct identity/personality...which you don’t have to look much past the album cover for that :)

On the eve of heading out on tour in the USA with Rob Zombie and literally in between recording takes for some bonus tracks for a soon to be released version of Zombie’s latest “Hellbilly Deluxe 2”, John 5 gave us the lowdown on his instrumental guitar album “The Art Of Malice”.

Hey John, thanks for chatting with May The Rock Be With You! Now to start with, legend has it that you almost always have a guitar with you….what about right now haha?
Yes that’s correct and actually yes I do! I am in the studio right now, doing the interview with you obviously but there is a guitar right here....can you hear it? (with that, a few strums of a guitar can be heard...)

More so than your previous releases, I think this album is bound to take some people by surprise given it is rather diverse in musical styles and you don't necessarily need to be a major guitar head to enjoy/appreciate it, do you see your music in a similar way too?
You know I just love the guitar and I love music. It doesn't even really matter what kind of music, just so long as it's good. That's one of the reasons why people might listen to me as a guitar player because I'm not just a clone of Yngwie (Malmsteen) or Paul Gilbert or something like that. I kind of just did my own thing and I think that it's working. I guess if I just did the same thing as everyone else did then it wouldn't really be special. So it's working out really well, I love this CD a lot!!!

Unlike some instrumental guitar songs/albums, which focus purely on unleashing the full arsenal from the artists bag of tricks, with The Art Of Malice" whilst you do accomplish this too, there is still a distinct focus on the songs and on a song such as “Can I Live Again”, a very restrained guitar performance? Did you find it a difficult situation to restrain/balance your playing in order to put the song first?
You know I don't think so. I have put out a number of records and on this one I wanted to do something different. Speaking about that song ‘Can I Live Again’, I just love David Gilmour and I love melody too. There's not one person that could say does he play slow, does he play with feeling. Yeah...listen to 'Can I Live Again’. Does he play acoustic stuff, yeah listen to 'Last Page Turned’. There's country stuff, there's really fast metal stuff.... There's everything on this CD and that's because I just love music. It's really cool, it's like a guitar players wet dream haha!

When did you start writing for this album? Or is it a collection of songs you have had laying around over the years?
Well I have had song ideas, but primarily I had a complete vision for this record and what I wanted to do. Even 'Fractured Mirror' which was the first instrumental song that I really loved which is what really got me into guitar, so I wanted to pay tribute to that. There's a little bit of my life in every one of these songs. Everything was well planned and thought out, it wasn't just a bunch of songs thrown together.

Why was the time right now in John 5’s career to be releasing an album such as “The Art Of Malice”?
Well I think it's more a case of I have never stopped learning and that's the thing with me.... I think a lot of guitar players get so famous and so big that I think they believe their own hype you know... But I just always want to keep learning and evolving and improving with everything. I am never really satisfied with what I am doing so I think I will always keep growing and growing and growing.

How differen’t is the process for you when writing for an instrumental album versus your contributions to say Rob Zombie etc.
Yes it's completely different. It's really tough writing an instrumental song as it's all on you. There's no vocals or anything like that, it's like a little symphony, you have to just keep it all moving and relate to each other. I will usually start with a riff and then do rhythm tracks and then I'll move to the crazy lead stuff. But I want to keep things fresh and exciting too, and also melodic. So yeah, it's really tough and a challenge to do. But luckily I love playing guitar so much that it's a pleasure.

What does being John 5 the songwriter/guitarist offer that John 5 guitarist for Rob Zombie doesn’t and vice versa?
That's actually a GREAT question, I am glad you asked that! What you said is true, I really do have the best of both worlds. I don't have to fight to get a little guitar solo on a zombie album, which I guess it doesn't really call for, but it's kind of there. So it's great to have the freedom to then do all the craziest music I want guitar wise. I could do a bluegrass song if I wanted! So yes it really is the best if both worlds and being in Rob Zombie it's the best band and best situation I have ever been in, in my life.

Now did I hear you say earlier that you are currently writing/recording some new stuff for Rob Zombie?
That's where I am right now actually. He's in doing some vocals now in the other part of the house. We are just writing some new songs, we are going to have a special edition of Hellbilly Deluxe 2 out with some bonus tracks. it's going really well man.

On this album you have some tributes & acknolwedgements to obviously some influences on you in David Lee Roth and Ace Frehley, as well as some songs that are obviously personal to yourself... Is there a song on that album that you feel is a representation of yourself?
I love “The Nightmare Unravels”, I really love that. I also love Steel Guitar Rag’. I really love those two songs, but then again I love the whole album.

You have had a continuing theme of country influenced tracks on your solo album. Where did this country influence come from?
Well the first thing I was exposed to was when I saw a little boy who was about 8 years old playing banjo when I was like about 8 years old and it blew me away. I have always been interested in country music because it is so different to metal and rock. In country you have flat picking and finger picking and double stops and banjo rolls and steel guitar bends, there's just so many things going on with it. So I have always been interest in country music. Then I joined K.D Lang’s touring group and there was a multi instrumentalist there who was just an incredible musician and from there I said to myself, I am really going to get into country guitar playing. It's so much fun to play but so challenging but just completely different from rock all together.

The album is called "The Art Of Malice" and you have a very distinctive and in a way contradictory yellow and blue cover. Do you care to share your inspiration behind the meaning of this?
The color scheme is that I always want to keep people on their toes. If any really heavy band or dark image band, you know you are going to get dark colors, black and dark red and an overall eerie vibe. But I wanted to change it up and make it so colorful and crazy to get people shocked at the color. Not only are they shocked at the music and everything else, but then you have that cover too haha! I want to keep people guessing. The cover is very vibrant and certainly leaps out at you in the store! The title, well it's kind of how I am..."kill them with kindness" because I am so nice haha. But those are the dangerous ones and the ones you have to watch out for!

Ok, here’s some free time for you to give an advertising plug for the latest guitars you are playing/custom models etc with FENDER haha!
Well I am just enjoying playing those guitars and the Squier version of my main model is out and people are just eating that up because I wanted to have a guitar out there that was priced to sell for the kids to buy. People are just going crazy for it!

I know we are out of time now, but just one last question. Do you know if at any stage Australia will be on the Rob Zombie touring horizon?
Touring Australia with Rob in February in 2011, I think the plan might be, but I a not totally sure. Australia is one of my favorite places in the world and I am not just saying that because I am talking to you. I love Melbourne and I even love Perth! So yes, hopefully see you guys in Australia next year!

You can check out a review of “The Art Of Malice” by clicking here!

LACUNA COIL

Sat, 3 Jul 2010 13:31:17 +1000

For Italian band Lacuna Coil, their most recent release “Shallow Life” recorded with acclaimed producer Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Pearl Jam) marked the band’s highest American chart entry, as well as stamped the band’s footing firmly in countries all over Europe, Japan and the far reaches of Australia. With the smouldering looks of co-vocalist Andrea Ferro, the band has captured the imagination of the worldwide media, gracing covers of magazines such as Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone and Metal Hammer!

In “Shallow Life” having expanded the songwriting duties across all members of the band, Lacuna Coil delivered an album that explored new musical directions, offered more diversity in terms of song styles, but still retained the familiar Lacuna Coil sound.

Whilst in America during June for a bunch of tourdates, our USA correspondents Lisa and Jamie Miller had the pleasure of chatting with guitarist Cristiano Migliore at the Rocklahoma Festival. Aside from interrogating him about Italian red wine, check out what Cristiano had to say about the band’s experience at Rocklahoma, touring the USA, the meaning of Lacuna Coil and more....

Evolution of Lacuna Coil...
“We are all from the same City, Milan which is up near the Swiss border. It's probably like the biggest city, industrial city in Italy. We met through going to the same bars and clubs so we were friends before we even started playing together as a band. I have known some of the guys in the band for maybe 15 years. We were all playing in local bands and just drank and hung out together and when the chance presented itself we decided to give it a try. We never ever imagined we would be in Rocklahoma today”

Rocklahoma Festival 2010...
“We came in this morning as we had a show last night supporting Sevendust in Chicago, but I would of loved to have seen ZZ Top play but unfortunately it wasn't to be. Today though I have seen Sevendust and Hail The Villian. I love playing festivals it's a great atmosphere, people are here to have fun and the shows are usually really great.

It's too bad we only get to play for 30 minutes because it would be awesome to get up there and play more songs. But I have to say every show on this tour the crowd has been great and tonight should be no different. We seem to be gaining more fans every night. People after the shows have been coming up and saying "I have never heard of you guys, i love your music etc etc.”

The name Lacuna Coil...
“Well we used to be called Ethereal but then we found out there were other bands with that name. So we had to come up with something original that we knew nobody else would have. So we have Lacuna which is a Latin word meaning "lack of something" and coil which is the English meaning "spiral". So basically it means empty spiral...”

Songwriting, what's the process...
“Up until our latest album, the majority of the songs were written by Marco our bass player and myself and the other guitar player would write some songs here and there. But on ‘Shallow Life’ we all contributed together and I think you can actually tell as it's a lot more diverse than our other albums. I think it's the best way to do it as you bring more to the table, rather than just having one person writing stuff as eventually you are going to run out of ideas.”

Experiences touring USA...
“We have been here many many times since 2001 which was our first American tour. That was very short only 15 days but we went across all of the USA. Since 2003 we have started coming over regularly and have toured with bands like Type O Negative, Anthrax, Ozzfest, P.O.D... We have done so many tours I have started to forget them haha!

We are four weeks into our current USA tour and have so far played with Five Finger Death Punch, Drowning Pool, some shows with Seether and even Hellyeah! We have played with a real variety of bands and musical styles, but each night the crowd has been amazing. This is something we have noticed about the USA, when you play in Europe it's more like people stick to their specific genre and are maybe not as accepting of differen’t kinds of music on the one concert bill.”

How does Andrea handle being the only female...
“I can tell you she is a tomboy haha! We have been together for 13 years or so now and you have to get used to it. It's just the way you live your life. Everybody is on the bus, band and crew and you don't really have a lot of privacy but we have the fortune of really getting along great. Yes we fight, but it's just like family and we soon get over it!”

Travelling so far away from home...
“Well I am married and my wife is back home in Italy of course so that's the downfall of traveling so much and so far. But it's part of the deal though... However for us out on tour no matter what country whether it be the USA or Australia or wherever, you are always on the go and busy doing stuff. I thunk it's easier for us being out on tour than our family and friends who have to sit and wait for us to come back.”

What’s on the horizon after Rocklahoma and USA tour?
“After USA then we are off to South America. We are looking to do japan in December for a few shows and we are thinking of heading to Australia again. But I don't think we will get back there till the next album is finished. We are starting to work on new songs now and hope to have that out early next year.”

* Live pictures featured from Rocklahoma courtesy of www.jrmpix.com.

CINDERELLA (JEFF LA BAR)

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:14:49 +1000

Hailing from Philadelphia, Cinderella were formed in 1983 by singer Tom Keifer and bassist Eric Brittingham, they quickly added guitarist Jeff La Bar to the line up and eventually drummer Fred Coury. Cinderella’s formative days were around the Pennsylvania and New Jersey area’s. In a story that is part of the Cinderella folklore, it was Jon Bon Jovi who upon seeing one of the bands performances, alerted his record company, Mercury, who immediately signed the band. The bands debut album "Night Songs", was released in June 1986, selling over 3 million and peaking at 3 on the Billboard charts. Singles "Shake Me", "Nobody's Fool" and "Somebody Save Me" enjoyed rotation on MTV and saw the band planted firmly in amongst the other “pop-metal” outfits that populated the airwaves at the time. Just don’t term them a “hairband” as our USA correspondent Lisa Miller found out when chatting with the band’s guitarist Jeff La Bar at the recent Rocklahoma 2010 Festival in Oklahoma, USA. "Well we weren't called that back then, in the 80's we were a rock band! It was 10 years later after the fact that we all got termed "hair bands", just like grunge got termed grunge after the fact!

In 1988 the band returned with their second album, "Long Cold Winter". The record was another huge success, selling in excess of 3 million copies with tracks like "Gypsy Road", “The Last Mile”, “Comin Home” and "Don't Know What You Got (Till Its Gone)" signifying a more mature and blues influenced sound in comparison to the bands debut. Their third album, "Heartbreak Station", was released in 1990 followed by "Still Climbing" in 1994. Both albums featured some of the bands strongest work and moved even further and further into blues and country based territory.

With the widely documented vocal problems of singer Tom Kiefer over the past decade or so and many rumoured and cancelled festival appearances in recent years, the most familiar lineup of Keifer, Brittingham, LaBar and Coury are now back out on the road and ready to ROCK like never before. But it isn't just the fans who are excited by the return of the band to the main stage as La Bar comments. "Yes we were scheduled to play Rocklahoma in 2008 and three weeks into rehearsal Tom lost his voice and we had to cancel the whole tour, but we were rumoured to be playing here many times. I've heard those rumours for years but now it's really cool to finally be here!". Despite being unphased by the likely expectations "we have done this for long enough now not to get nervous", Cinderella were certainly one of the buzz bands at Rocklahoma 2010 as far as the crowd was concerned, given it was to be their first performance in a few years.

Whilst Tom has been working on getting his voice back to what we know and love, the other guys have tried their hand at various other projects. At this point in time though La Bar is realistic in the bands expectations of what is in store for Cinderella in 2010 and beyond. "The fact that the band is back out again, that's achievement enough given the journey over the last couple of years. Tom seems to have corrected his vocal problems of the last few years with the help of doctors and vocal coaches, which gives us hope we might be able to get back on the horse and do this for a while. We used to do this kind of touring every other summer, so that’s what we hope to get back doing".

As for this summer the band are certainly riding that horse hard and fast with a bunch of USA shows supporting German rockers Scorpions for the best part of 2 to 3 months. In addition the band heralded it's return to European and English shores in the biggest way possible, having just returned to the USA after appearances at the iconic Sweden Rock and Download Festivals, as well as shows in Spain.

La Bar gave an insight to what fans can expect with Cinderella 2010, and that’s a show without compromise. "Unlike times in the past where vocal parts have had to be changed around and melody parts given to Fred or Eric and let Tom sing lower, this time around it hasn't been the case. So now we have converted a lot of those vocal parts back to the original. Tom has been working with a doctor and one of the American Idol vocal coaches and he's been singing back to normal his parts and even getting some range back from in the 80's, so he's been singing like a champ.”

Late 2009 saw the release of a live album “Live At The Mohegan Sun” which was recorded back in 2005 during the VH1 sponsored "Rock Never Stops" package tour, which Cinderella headlined, supported by Ratt, Quiet Riot and Firehouse, the show held in Uncasville, Connecticut on July 21, 2005 is now officially released worldwide by Frontiers Records.

Now that Cinderella are firmly back on the scene and with Tom’s vocal issues hopefully well and truly behind him, only time will tell if or hopefully when we will see a new Cinderella studio album or even the long lost Tom Keifer solo album!

HELLYEAH (VINNIE PAUL)

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:41:08 +1000

Vinnie Paul is best known as the drummer of one of the greatest Heavy Metal bands of all time in Pantera. After their break up he went on to form Damageplan, a band with brother and also former Pantera member Dimebag Darrell. But when tragedy struck in 2004 when Dime was taken from us (I won't go into it here but look it up if you need to), it could’ve easily spelled the end of Vinnie’s career. But in 2006 Vinnie was ready to pound the skins once again and so he joined up with Mudvayne vocalist Chad Gray, guitarist’s Greg Tribett & Tom Maxwell and bassist Jerry Montano to form a band called Hellyeah!

After an album, tour, DVD, more alcohol consumed than probably humanly possible and a new bass player in Bob Zilla formerly of Damageplan, Hellyeah are now just about to release their second album ‘Stampede’. The band love what they do, they get out there and play live music for their fans and enjoy every second of it. On the eve of it's release and their Australian tour we had the honour of speaking to this Metal icon who tells us all about the album, the legacy of Dime and just why it isn't 1994 anymore.

Pour a black tooth grin and check out what Vinnie had to say.....

‘Stampede’ is the new album and it’s as heavy as I’ve heard in a long time! After an album and tour as a new band previously was it easier to come back in and make a second record after working together for that period?
I think definitely, you know the first record almost felt like an experiment to us, we had just got together, we really didn’t know each other, but luckily we had a great chemistry and we were able to really write some songs that we felt were special songs and going into this second record we just had so much more confidence going into it just because we’ve toured together for a year and we really knew each other better we know what we wanted out of Hellyeah and I think it really came through in the music.

How did the songs come about for this awesome slab of rock?
You know we’re pretty simple, we record everything as we write and that way it captures all the natural raw live feel that you had, the dangerousness that’s goin’ on and we get in a room and it either starts with a guitar riff or a drum part or something, we just start jamming and then we start listening to things and putting it together and of course Chad will write the lyrics and come in and lay his part down to it and we’re all kinda producers in our own right so we’re all really put an ear to it and we all really work great off each other so we give a lot of feedback we give things a lot of listens and we think we get what we’re looking for out of it.

You also took the producer chair again on ‘Stampede’ was that always the plan?
Oh yeah, you know, I feel like me as a producer enables me to be more than just the drummer, it helps me become part of the song writing it helps me arrange the songs, it helps me sculpture and contour the sound and really be a part of the record you know. Instead of just coming in and knocking out the drum tracks in two weeks and leaving, I wanna be a part of it from start to finish.

You hit the road prior to the record dropping what was the thought process behind doing that instead of waiting for the album to be released?
We were just chomping at the bit to get back on the road you know, we knew there were some great opportunities to play some Summer time festivals in Europe, the same thing here in the United States and there were so many great bands out touring, we just thought it’d be a good way to get the fans reaclimated to the band and just let them know we’ve got a new record coming.

And you just played Download?
Oh yeah, that was awesome man. The last record that we did, the first one actually, our record company never even released the record in Europe so for us to go over and play Sonisphere, Rock AM, Rock Park, all those big festivals was really a thrill for us and then of course The Download show, the British fans always treat us fantastic and really that was the only place that people really knew us and we played Download before and that was the only European show we did and that was awesome man. It was the only sunny day, it’s usually rainy and kinda crummy, it was a beautiful day and fans were really into it and it was a great time.

Your last album was released on the major label of Sony, this time around you have teamed up with our fellow Aussie brothers "Riot Entertainment" for the Australian and New Zealand release of ‘Stampede’.....what was it that attracted you to Riot?
We needed a label that was really into the band you know? The band did so good in the United states last time around and we did pretty good in Australia but we really want to focus on making this band a total international band, we want to be able to tour Australia, we want to be able to go to New Zealand, we want to be able to go to Japan you know, South East Asia, all over the world so we were able to get Sony to release us for International releases so we signed with Spinefarm for the rest of the world and we felt like the strongest label to get us to go with in Australia was Riot just because they really, really wanted the band and that’s what we wanted, someone that was hungry.

Now you’re heading back to Australia next month for some shows and as I’ve learned Texans and Australians can drink a lot. Are you prepping your liver for the trip over?
Always man, my liver never gets a break, I drink a lot of water in between my drinking but that’s one thing I’ve just always loved about Australia it reminded me of just one big Texas man, the people are so friendly, they like to drink, they like to party, they like to BBQ and they like to have a good time like we do so that’s one of the most attractive things about coming down there, its awesome.

Seriously though, what are some of your fondest memories of Australia?
Well the craziest thing I remember was when we played the Sydney arena and after the show was over there was this big 25 – 30 ft fence out the back where all the cars pull in and the busses and everything and I remember walking out the back door and the fans didn’t want to leave, they were stacked all the way to the top of this fence, I thought this fence was going to fall over swaying back and forth and they were just chanting ‘Pantera… Pantera...’ it was insane, I’ll never forget it man I mean I never felt more loved in my life.

What can we expect at these shows?
Well you know we’re not a band that brings any kind of theatrics or anything like that, it’s all about the band, the fans and the music, you know and we just transfer that energy back and forth to each other and that’s what makes it real.

The video for "Hell of a Time" looks like you had a pardon the pun, hell of a time making it! For people unfamiliar with ‘Hellyeah’, would you agree that this song and video is a perfect introduction to what ‘Hellyeah’ is all about?
Absolutely you know, it’s a back to having fun that’s what we wanted to do with this band, we didn’t want it to get wrapped up in being trying to be the heaviest band in the world or the most intense band in the world or anything, we looked around and there’s so many bands and music out there that’s dark and gloomy and the world’s coming to and end and my life sucks and we decided you know what? What happened to fun? What happened to having a good time? So we put that back in to the music and I think it really comes through in that video, you know that song is basically about your average kinda person that has to go out and bust their fuckin’ ass and they’re working 5 days a week and they cant wait for fuckin’ Friday night so they can say Fuck this shit lets go drink, let’s go have a good time let’s not worry about the boss telling me what to do, I wanna go have a good time and with Hellyeah, every night is Friday night, we want people, I don’t care if its Sunday, Monday, Tuesday we want people to feel like it’s Friday night when they’re out.

When you’re here in Sydney it’s a Thursday night so let’s do that!
Let’s do it man!

I’m married to a Texan so on a trip over there last year we went and visited Dime’s grave to pay our respects and there we noticed so many others had done the same, leaving gifts and messages, a real testament to the Legacy of Dimebag would you like to share some thoughts on the legacy that he’s left?
I’ll just say he was a one of a kind person, of course my best friend in the world, my brother and uh, I just thank God every day that he left us with the amazing memories that he did and the amazing music that he left us, and the beautiful thing is the fans have not forgotten him, they still cherish him and his legacy just grows bigger and bigger daily. I just wanted to say thanks for everybody for showing us the love they always have.

What did you think about Nickelback’s song ‘Side of a Bullet’ as their tribute?
Yeah you know Dime and Chad got a long great, I’ve been great friends with Chad and all the guys in Nickelback for a long time and that was a really very special tribute and once again I’d just like to thank them for doing that.

You have been in the business now for the best part of three decades, as far as music is concerned, what are your thoughts on where metal is at in 2010?
Well, you know after doing the Summertime run here in the States and playing over in Europe I think it’s still pretty damn strong, I was really impressed with the fans and the reaction we got everywhere we went and I feel like the one thing that nobody can take away from musicians ever is their live performance, you can rip their music off the internet or discs or you can watch DVD’s but there’s nothing like being at a live concert and that’s the most beautiful thing in this world and the strongest thing we all have going for us forever.

You have your own label in ‘Big Vin records’ how is that going and are there any new projects on the horizon for it?
Well right now I’ve put it on hold because I’m so dedicated to what I’m doing with Hellyeah but the last thing I put on the label was a band called ‘Seventh Void’ it was Johnny and Kenny from Type-O-Negative’s band and it was a really really great record and hopefully we’re gonna re release it internationally this Summer and it should be available there in Australia so hopefully the fans down there will get to check it out because it’s a really cool record.

Now those guys lost Peter Steele earlier this year so it must be tough on them...
It’s been very, very hard on them and all of us were close to Pete and my favourite Pantera tour that we ever did was 1994 ‘Far Beyond Driven’ with Type-O-Negative, we did like 6 months together, we were just like brothers, so it was just amazing. It really was a sad day when Pete passed.

The one thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of your fans are so loyal to the Pantera era but can’t or wont to latch on to Damage Plan or Hellyeah. I don’t understand it at all, as time moves on, can you maybe throw something out there to give them a kick and realize that it’s not 1994 anymore?
Well, you know, I can appreciate the fact that they love Pantera, I mean Pantera was a very special entity, but you know, all great things come to an end at some point and for me to carry on in my life I had to carry on doing what I wanted to do. The same thing with me and Dime with Pantera, you know, the other guys did not want to be a part of it anymore, they did what they could to destroy it, so we wanted to play music so we put together a band called Damageplan, we didn’t want to make it Pantera part 2, you know the fans wanted it Pantera part 2 but as a musician, as being an artist you want to do something different, so I feel like all three of the bands that I’ve been in have all been pretty different from each other although there’s gonna be some similarities and comparisons but you know its for me, playing in Hellyeah is a total release because I love it, I enjoy everything about it and if the fans want to come along for the ride, great, if they don’t, we’re gonna keep kicking and they can keep listening to their 1994 Pantera records you know.

Now with the release of ‘Stampede’ I noticed you’re doing a couple of special editions including one in a skull?
Yeah, it’s so difficult to get people to even want to have a hard copy of a record anymore you know so you want to put together some special things to really give them a reason to have it and the skull was just something that we came up with, we thought that would be a special collectors edition for the die hard kind of fans and the one with the lenticular cover where the images change as you move it, I don’t think its ever been done before but it’s a really cool thing, its hard to describe so when you get it, take a look at it and check it out.

And why call it Stampede?
Well if you look up the dictionary with the term Stampede it basically means it’s a heard of wild animals that cant be stopped on any level you know and that’s how we feel about ourselves when we get on stage. We just wanna get up and kick as much ass as possible and so we felt like we were bringing a Stampede.

Hellyeah is obviously going to be an ongoing project, but when you’ve got people like Chad with Mudvayne is it hard to do something when you really feel like you want to?
Nah man, that was one of the things that really lured me to this band in the first place as I knew there would be some breaks between the records and the opportunity for me to do some other things like putting the Seventh Void record out and stuff like that and after being in Pantera and Damageplan for as long as I was there was never any breaks so it was just like make a record, tour. Make a record, tour. Make a record, tour. So it was a cool thing and plus we all have so much respect for each other that we cant wait to get back together and work together you know when we started working on this record back in May I just remember how pumped up and excited and how fresh everybody felt. And when you play in a band and you’ve been with the same 4 guys or 5 guys or whatever it is for such a long period of time you know it almost gets to be like your wife, and sometimes you love them you just don’t really want to be around them you know? So it’s refreshing to do it this way.

And we’ve actually got the release of the album this Friday and its set for the 12th July everywhere else, so thanks for letting us get it early.

Its awesome man, it just came out today in Europe as they got it early and you guys get it early and our good ol’ American friends here have gotta wait another two weeks, its kinda cool because you guys will be able to spread the word and let everyone know what you think about it.

I just wanted to ask one thing about the ‘Behind the music’ for Pantera that was done. Did you ever see that and were you happy with the way it turned out?
You know, it’s very difficult for me to watch, I never have watched it all the way through as I’m not interested in seeing the end. I thought that a lot of it was pretty spectacular and at one point in time we were probably the biggest heavy metal band in the world and an unstoppable force and we were a brotherhood and unfortunately drugs and egos and things got in the way and really fucked it all up you know.

That’s it man, just wanted to say thanks and can’t wait for the shows next month.
We’re really; really excited about coming Down Under and playing and hopefully you’ll make it out to the show man.

Take care.

*Check out for ‘Stampede’ instores here in Australia/New Zealand from Friday out via Riot Entertainment! Click here for the Australian tour dates in July....

DROWNING POOL (CJ PIERCE)

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:52:16 +1000

Not many bands can lay claim to having 3 singers and still be around in the industry these days, but Drowning Pool are one of them. Through adversity of losing their original singer to a heart condition and a personality clash with their second, they persisted and now with third singer Ryan McCombs they’ve just released their newest self titled album ‘Drowning Pool’ and guitarist C.J. Pierce was cool enough to take some time out to talk to us about the record, touring, fans and just how much he misses Australia.

Take it away C.J.

You recently released your 4th studio album, 3 years since your last, how has the album been received?
Seems like its going great man, seems like all the hardcore fans have picked up on it really fast, they’re playing along, they’re singing along to all the new songs

Was the writing and recording process for this album any different to previous efforts?
Yeah you know it seems with every record there’s a different process with recording and writing you know we did a lot of writing on the road this time. We’ve just been busy touring, we spend the best part of 2008 – 2009 just staying on the road so we definitely got in the habit of writing on the road. But we’ve been through a lot man, this band’s been on quite the roller coaster ride

So did you have any songs that you had in the vaults and you thought this was a perfect time for it or was it all new stuff?
It’s all new stuff, with each writing process there’s always different riffs and song ideas that are left over. I’m just trying to stay in the habit of writing music, whether it’s for the next Drowning Pool record or just for anything. I love writing music so I have a lot of different things and a lot of different styles but this is all fresh stuff and surprisingly the first single here in the States called ‘Feel like I do’ was probably one of the first ones we started working on so its kinda funny how that made it out as the first single. It was just a fun riff that I wrote on the back of the bus that evolved over the last 2 years to what it is now.

Was there a specific intent/meaning behind having this as a ‘self titled’ release?
Yeah we felt like for the first time in this bands career we’ve had solid ground so we’ve been through a lot with different singers, unfortunately our first singer David passed away from a heart condition, cardiomyopathy of the left ventricle and then we didn’t really connect with our second singer on a personal level and I kinda feel like you’ve gotta be friends first before you can write music together, that’s just how I feel. And with Ryan we did ‘Full Circle’ and here we are making this new record, and we really know what we want to do with it. We’ve known Ryan for 5 years now and it just feels like this is what we finally wanted to sound like, it feels like our first true record.

So taking it back to the start basically?
Yeah… taking it back to the start

Setting out to make this album, what was the band's overwhelming intention with regards to the sound and the impact you wanted to make on listeners? Was it just that? To make it sound like a first record?
Um, well not to make it sound like a first record it just kinda feels like that because we’re just so comfortable with each other and we have a good deal, with new management and a new label, but the main thing with any record, you wanna write better songs and I feel like we’ve definitely come a long way in our writing process. And also sound quality there’s so many new toys and studios now days, we listened to all our records production wise and we just wanted something that sonically beat everything we’ve done to this date, which we definitely have

I was first introduced to Drowning Pool when ‘Bodies’ was used in the WWE for I think it was Summer Slam in 2001, how much of a launching ground was that for you?
Yeah, we had 3 things happen at once that really helped us out, that probably being the main one being on WWE, being on wrestling definitely got the song out there, but at that time MTV still had the buzz clip video so we had a lot of video play and then of course being on Ozzfest in the Summer of 2001 and all that happened in the same month, like you get up one day and 2 weeks later everybody knows your song, it was really fast man.

Do you have a continued relationship with the WWE?
We do, I’m hoping to use some stuff from the new record you know, its always been back and forth, I know they get a lot of offers from a lot of bands and different wrestlers but our music just kinda fits with that for some reason, whatever comes out of us naturally seems like its great for wrestling or video games.

You were a part of Cruefest 2, a tour I wish I could’ve seen, how was that and did you learn any tricks of the trade from Motley Crue?
You know actually I learned a little bit of tricks of the trade from Mick Mars, you know, again, I had met throughout the years everybody else in the band but Mick until we did Cruefest and runs his rig pretty cool, he’s got a bunch of little tricks, he’s got almost like 3 rigs going at once, it was awesome to see how he had it all set up but I grew up listening to Motley Crue, I grew up listening to heavy metal and I definitely had their poster on my wall and here I am working with Nikki Sixx and on tour with these guys, so its been killer man.

Kinda surreal huh?
It’s so surreal.

And now about to join Ozzfest 2010 are you pumped to get out and play the new material for people on such a huge scale?
Yeah I can’t wait to do Ozzfest again man, we’ve done it in 2001 part of 2002, we did it the first show we did with Ryan was Ozzfest 2005 and we did it again in Dallas in 2008 so its really cool to be part of the Ozzfest family and the Ozzfest tour, its just a great show to go out to.

What was the hometown like in Dallas?
Oh man, its always fun to play in the hometown, we have a lot of friends and family here and to get to play for them on a big scale like that its great

You were here in 2002 and you had to reschedule your Australian shows in 2008, with this new album released what are the chances we’ll see you hit our shores once again some time soon?
I loved the Big Day Out tour man, I wish we could get back on that, that was one of the best times ever. We’re always trying to get back down there and when we did the Big Day out tour I was contemplating getting all my worldly possessions and moving to Australia. It’s just a beautiful country and everybody was so super cool, the rock fans there were like none other, everybody just went way out of their way to be super nice. Yeah we’re trying to get back, I don’t know the exact details of why we didn’t play on that tour, I know a lot of fans were mad about it but there was something with the promoter like always, whoever put on the show it fell through and it was really horrible for us because man I was just on fire about getting there but we definitely want to come play in Australia. Absolutely.

It was billed with Puddle of Mudd last time....
Yeah it was billed with Puddle of Mudd and we met up with them shortly after and they were bummed about it as well, we’d played with them before and we are friends and we were looking forward to doing that, but the powers that be let it fall through. So we’re trying to get there again for sure

The one thing I love that you guys do is a VIP package where fans can meet you and not many bands do this. What prompted you to make yourselves this accessible?
You know, just modern technology and stuff like that, its really cool, every time we make a record and move forward we try to think what else can we do for our fans and when I was growing up listening to music I went to so many rock shows and I never had a chance to meet any of my favourite bands, I would’ve died for a chance to meet any one of my favourite bands. So, I didn’t meet anybody, so when we got signed and starting touring professionally is when I got to meet the other people in the bands that I was a fan of so that was one of the things that we wanted to do is have a package for a little bit extra, you get stuff, you get a t-shirt you get a bunch of extra stuff, you get to hang out with the band, you get to see what kinda goes on back stage and just offer that to our fans

And I love the signed guitar you offer on your website too, that’s really cool!
Yeah I have a new model coming out, a CJ model which wont be out until November and I’m gonna replace that, kinda like a basic model of the black eagle I’ve been playing but yeah working with BC Rich has been great and they’re just a great family of people to work with and that was another idea that I have a lot of people come up to me after the show and jokingly say ‘Man can I have one of your guitars?’ so I hear that a lot so I thought it’d be cool to have another package like that where you can actually get one of my guitars, we all sign it, you get to hang out with us, you get a guitar out of it, it’s a pretty cool deal.

I wish more bands would do that....
Yeah a lot of people hide on the bus and don’t wanna hang out; I don’t understand that at all.

After the sudden death of Dave, then Jason leaving the band, was there ever a time you felt like you shouldn’t go on?
You know, I’ve never ever felt like that, Mike, Stevie and I we love playing music together, we’ve been friends since High school and I’ve been a lover of music, I’m always gonna play music, people ask the question ‘what would you do if you weren’t doing music?’ and I would find some other facet in the music world to be working in but its ups and downs, 1 step forward and 2 steps back, whatever they say, 2 steps forward one step back. Again, we love music and we just love playing together so we just keep going.

And not only have that, what was the process of finding Ryan with him now being that right person to fill the spot of the front man?
Yeah with Ryan, we actually knew Ryan since we got started in 2000 and Dave was actually the one that turned me on to his band and Dave actually became friends with him first, we did a couple of tours with them and he’s just one of those guys we stayed in touch with over the years, there’s just a handful of guys you make friends with in other bands that you just kinda click with, so it seemed like once we got him going it was the right match for us, that was 5 years ago man and its been great ever since

And the only guy to do 2 albums with you…
Only guy to do that you know, third times a charm or three strikes and you’re out. We all get each other and we all have fun so that’s what it’s all about.

And his voice is great for the music
Yeah he’s got a good rock voice, got his own little style kickin’.

Drowning Pool is a big supporter of the US Troops and has played over in Kuwait and Iraq for the Troops, how did all that come about and what is your current involvement in support of the Troops?
Right that all came about, we always wanted to do something for the troops. I think anybody here in one way or another has a relative or a family member that’s in the armed forces and hopefully doing everything for peace. That’s the outcome we want in any situation, we got involved with them back in 2005 was the first time we went over, it was a radio DJ here in Dallas that was going over and invited us to go with her, she just hooked it up, that was the first time we met up with the USO and we went over twice, we’ve done a handful of stuff in different bases, played stuff in South Korea as well on bases, and we do coalition bases as well its not just United States, we’ve done a lot of bases, we actually did a show in front of the Australian army, I didn’t realize you guys carried the 50 calibers on them, those guys are tough, super cool carrying a 50. But hopefully the end result is always the same for peace. What we’re doing now, the current thing we’re hooked up with is ‘The Wounded Warriors Project’ which is to try and help our soldiers when they come home, those got wounded by the war, lost and arm or a leg or they have some kind of disability, you know help them and try and raise some money for their family so they can just keep living.

I mean that’s another thing that a lot of bands wouldn’t even consider doing so that’s very thoughtful and cool of you guys...
Yeah we try and stay out of the political thing, this side or that side, if its right or wrong, at the end of the day its like our friends and family and you’ve gotta take care of your family, that’s really how we look at it.

What’s next for Drowning Pool?
We’ve got the Ozzfest coming up, there’s a handful of tours that may happen in September, I can’t say who but any of they’re good choices so any one of them I’d be happy, but we’re gonna keep touring the rest of this year and I’m gonna keep twisting my managers arm and try and get us on the Big Day Out tour again I’d love to get to Australia.

If not the Big Day Out ask him about Soundwave which is our new rock festival we have here, much different to the Big Day Out, that would suit you.
OK, Soundwave, I’m gonna write that down, let me ask him about that as well, anything to get us over there man, again its been way to long and we have a lot of fans in Australia and it’s a great rock country.

For further information on the band, their VIP packages and tour dates – check out www.drowningpool.com

TONY HARNELL

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 21:39:02 +1000

For fans of Tony Harnell, the coming weeks promise to deliver you one of the most landmark releases in the career of one of the greatest voices in rock! Under the banner “Tony Harnell & The Mercury Train”, “Round Trip” is a stripped down, reinvented retrospective of Tony Harnell's past classics originally recorded with TNT, Westworld and Starbreaker, with one brand new song ‘Anywhere But Here’.

In recording and reworking the songs, Tony enlisted the services of some friends in New York who were not part of the Metal/Hard Rock scene. Listening to ‘Round Trip’ with open ears and an open mind, you will be rewarded with what is bound to be one of the years most astonishing albums...an album that not only displays the prodigious vocal talents of Harnell, but reinforces the strength of his songwriting over the last 20 plus years. Regardless of whether or not you are familiar with TNT, Westworld or Starbreaker, this is a collection of awesome songs...period!

A few weeks away from the official release of “Round Trip”, Tony was kind enough to chat about the album and some of the other projects that he has in store for the rest of 2010.

Firstly congratulations on "Round Trip" which I have to say is without doubt one of the most remarkable albums of it's type. Listening to this album, I can't help but think there is a whole new audience out there who are just waiting to discover these songs for what they now are, who have never heard of TNT, Westworld or Starbreaker. There's a whole new legacy to be brought to these songs. Do you see the potential of the album in this light too?
Thanks for being so positive about this release. It's really a pleasure to hear that people are really understanding what this is all about. It's not rocket science, or some grand new idea, it's just a reworking of my past songs with a totally different kind of band. I agree with your assessment of what it could do when it's released. That would be really a great outcome:)

With the completion of this album, did you consider it the step you felt you needed to take in order to feel empowered to now push ahead with Tony Harnell the solo performer?
Yes for sure. If you asked me three years ago I wouldn't in a million years have thought that this was something I wanted to do. But here it is. It's been a very therapeutic and cathartic experience that's taken on a life of it's own. Something that started as a simple project turned into a sort of life changing little step for me. It didn't really have any special meaning when I started, but as it progressed it became so many things for me. I realized for one thing that some of these songs needed more attention than they got the first time around and maybe in this format that could happen. Secondly, after a not so pleasant break up with my old band I really started to feel badly about the entire 20 plus years I spent with them. I hated the songs, wanted to forget it all, take the gold records off the wall and sell them and just pretend it never happened. But I should be proud of that period. I gave a lot to it and deserved to feel good about all those years again. So it hit me that this album was a positive way to get those years back, the songs back and the good memories back for the sole purpose, as you said above, of leaving them behind peacefully.

The collection of songs that you have on the album are a mix from TNT, Starbreaker and Westworld. What was the decision making process that led to the final 14 songs? Did you consider attempting to include Tell No Tales haha?
No, didn't consider that one:) I asked my fans what their favorites were and mixed theirs with mine and of course the obligatory songs that everyone expects. Almost didn't put 10,000 Lovers on there but the new version is so cool it just had to be on the cd. In the end, it was just the songs that sounded the best with this band that made the cut.

The band you had working with you on this album the "Mercury Train" originate from outside of the hard rock/metal arena. Any intetesting stories about where you hand picked these musicians from, or about their backgrounds?
They are all talented, local, hard working New York City musicians and friends. I met them all in different circumstances, but Brandon Wilde brought most of the band together as Brad and Chris are part of his band and I brought Jason in and of course my wife Amy. So it was sort of two different sets of people joining together. They're all great guys and super fun to work with as you can probably hear in the tracks!!

Charging those guys with the task of "reinventing" the songs, did they initially come back with any interpretations/arrangements that you straight out said "that would never work...."?
Not really. I mean, I had ideas about where I wanted each song to go, and they picked up on that and ran with it so we were pretty much all on the same page during the process and it all came together very quickly.

Are there a couple of songs during the process of recording this album that you gained a whole new appreciation of?
Oh yeah, for sure. And though I didn't set out to better any of the original recordings I think in a few cases, at least from the vocal standpoint I may have done just that. But I think Northern Lights is a whole new song in many ways. It's fresh somehow. Somebody Told You hits right on the mark the way I thought it would if the soulful element was brought out more, so yes!

Did you find it challenging at all vocally adapting to singing these songs in a way that your brain/instincts may of tried to do otherwise?
Not really, in fact this was quite easy because I haven't sung these in a long time so doing them in a new way was actually refreshing and helped make me appreciate them again.

Your vocal performance on Shame with Sandi Saraya is my personal fav on this album, with Northern Lights not far behind. Vocally, do you consider that you may only just be reaching your "peak" so to speak?
I hope my peak continues to grow in the future. I am trying to adapt to my voice as it changes and get better as a singer with the changes. It's tough when you have to do your old material in the old style which I will have to do from time to time when I tour or do festivals, but to me if a singer continues to reinvent himself if only just a little at a time as his voice changes he can find new heights and not just keep competing with who he was but be who he now is both mentally and physically. In my mind I never have been good enough and I guess that's what keeps me getting better all the time.

Over the last couple of years you have lent your production/songwriting talents to others. Have you have recently been involved in any projects you care to share??
I worked on an album by the band Pound which is a really great band with amazing songs, that was a lot of fun, they will actually be my band when I play in Europe this summer. And recently I've been working with a fantastic female artist in New York names Kjersti Kveli from Norway. She lives in New York. I hope to continue to do more as time goes on and I am sure I will.

Speaking of "share" you are involved in a concept called Artistshare project. How have you found the experience of opening up your songwriting process to others?
It's definitely weird. I am pretty private in that process so it's unusual for me to let people in that way. It was an experiment I decided to do because a friend was working with the company. I'm not sure it's something I will do again, but it's always good to try new things:)

Listening to "Round Trip" has now got me highly anticipating a Tony Harnell solo album. Is there any update on the likely release of a solo album?
There are actually a lot of songs written, I am still searching for the exact right songs. I will really try to get it out by early next year!!

In November you are heading to Spain for a bunch of shows as a vocalist with the "Queen Symphony"? With Freddie Mercury being an influence, this must be something you are particularly looking forward to? What are a couple of your alltime favourite Queen songs you look forward to performing?
Of course Bohemian Rhapsody would be one and We are the Champions just to name a few. There are some songs that I wish were on the set list but I didn't choose the songs. If I had there'd be some other faves. But I love Spain and I love Queen so it will be fun:)

PEARL

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:49:35 +1000

I can’t say I’ve ever spoken to anyone in Portugal before, but that’s just where Pearl Aday was for this interview. After talking ever so briefly to whom I believe was her husband Mr Scott Ian, I was then able to speak to Pearl, sure we were running late because as she put it ‘Sorry, the guy before you wouldn’t shut the hell up ha ha kidding’ we got into it only to be later on disrupted by a room service order that needed to happen before Scott went off to rehearsal for Anthrax, I learned as she told me ‘Girls, we’re such picky eaters.’ All in a days work and all this made for a great very relaxed interview.

I must say for her Debut album, Pearl has delivered, and she was an absolute treat to talk to about it, touring and about her Dad who just happens to be Meatloaf so I hope you check out the below and her album ‘Little Immaculate White Fox’ because it’s ROCKIN’ and a breath of fresh air to hear a woman out there belting out some rock tracks.

I give you Pearl.

After reading a lot of reviews for ‘Little Immaculate White Fox’ it seems the overall reaction to your album has been amazing, were you worried at all how it would be perceived?
No. No I wasn’t I mean because I’m really confident in the music that we made and I think it’s a great album and I’m really happy with it and we have fun playing it and we know it’s good. You know you cant please everybody so I know that not everybody’s gonna like it but the overall reception we’ve been getting so far like you said has been really positive, people are like really happy with it and really psyched about it and really enjoying it. Its just Rock and Roll you know, we made some good Rock and Roll and you can’t really go wrong that. I’m happy with it.

How did the Song writing happen for your record? Were these songs you’d bandied around for a long time or was it a fresh batch of songs you wrote specifically for it?
There are certainly songs that are older than others on the album ‘Worth defending’ and ‘My Heart Isn’t In It’ are 2 of the first ones that we wrote. We recorded sort of a demo album years ago, a few years ago at Cherokee studios in LA which is now flattened and its totally gone which is sad because there was a lot of history in that building, but we had a band and we played out with a totally different version of the band, we had like 9 pieces we had a horn section and a B3 organ and it was like this big deal. And we played out with those songs back then for a while and we lived with them for a while and we figured out that some of them weren’t quite as strong as we found acceptable, so we took out the weaker ones and we wrote new stronger ones which are like the ‘Rock Child’ and then we went into the studio with Joe Baressi and made what you hear now with the exception of ‘Nutbush’ and ‘Broken White’ which are the 2 last songs that we tacked on at the end with Jay Ruston producing. It definitely was a work in progress but that’s the way that had to happen you know just naturally, organically and being able to weed out the weaker crap.

It really is a great record and I was just spinning it before talking to you.
Nice, thanks I like to hear that, it makes me smile.

And I love the track ‘Nobody’ that’s a ripper.
Cool, its interesting for me to hear, everybody’s got their different favourite you know which is kind of cool its not like there’s just 1 good one that everybody’s attaching onto, in all the interviews I’m doing everybody’s got a different favourite one which makes me happy because there are lots of good ones ha ha.

I know you’ve been asked this a million times, but for our readers, what's the inspiration for the title of your new album, Little White Immaculate Fox?
Oh that’s actually as really cool story. Long story short, my mother when she was pregnant with me it was late in her pregnancy and all through her pregnancy was convinced that I was a boy. So, late one evening, very late in her pregnancy her best friend called her up on the phone and said ‘Leslie, I just had a dream about your baby, it’s a girl and she has blonde hair and blue eyes and in my dream she was laying at the base of a tree sort of like in an emerald forest and she was wrapped in a white fox fur and her name was Little Immaculate White Fox.’ And my Mom said ‘That’s beautiful but I’m having a boy.’ And a few hours later she went in to labour and she had a blonde haired blue eyed girl.

That’s freaky!
It’s kinda cool right? So I just thought it appropriate to call my first album ‘Little Immaculate White Fox’ as it’s sort of unofficially my first name, my real name is Pearl Maria but that was unofficially my first name so this is like my baby so I named it ‘Little Immaculate White Fox.’
 Did your hubby Scott Ian require much encouragement/persuasion to get involved in both the recording and playing live...or was he jumping out of his skin to get involved?
No you’d think that because he’s Metal guy, he’s Anthrax we all know that but he’s also, he’ll tell you himself he’s also very much a rock and roll heart, he’s Cheap Trick, Thin Lizzy, The Who, KISS, AC/DC these are all bands he’ll tell you these are the reasons why he starting playing guitar in the first place. For him, he has a great time playing rock its fun to have a little departure from the norm for a little while you know. For him he didn’t initially start playing with me, it took a while, he only starting playing with me the last 2 years or so. For us it was kinda of like well you play guitar and I sing, and I’ve got a band do you wanna like play with my band? Should we give this a shot, I mean why not? We live together, come on. There was no convincing done at all, he was excited to do it.
 Growing up the way you did what music were you raised on/exposed to? Was it just Bat Out Of Hell, or were you encouraged to find your own musical identity?
You know my parents are Rock and Roll people and they have really good taste in music so I grew up listening to and liking what they liked you know? It was a lot of the Stones and AC/DC and a lot of Soul music too, Ray Charles and Otis Redding, Janis, all this good stuff, so I grew up in a house that just liked good music.

Was there ever a fear of being known as ‘Meatloaf’s daughter’ and always perceived that way?
Um, no, I don’t have a fear of that, that’s just the way that it is you know. No, it doesn’t bother me, I know that when I go out or when I talk to people, its not something I walk around introducing myself saying ‘Hi I’m Meatloaf’s daughter Pearl’ its not how it works, but if people want to ask me about him that’s fine, it doesn’t bother me, I’m proud of him being my Dad, so its OK with me.

Was it hard to move away from touring with your Dad? Was he supportive?
Yeah you know I think we had a little tumultuous time in there because he’s very particular about his show and his band and he had things the way he liked it with me being in there I’d been singing and touring with him for 9 years so for me to leave may have been a little bit tough at first but its something that I had to do and he had to come to terms with ‘OK its time to let her go’ that kind of thing. But it’s definitely turned out for the best you know and where I’m at now is where I’ve pretty much always wanted to be and he’s got a new version of his own band which is pretty killer so it’s worked out the best for both of us.

Was it always a plan of yours to be a solo artist?
Yeah I think so, actually, I know so for sure. This is always what I wanted to do; I just had to figure out how to do it. You live and you learn, I had to find my balls along the way and figure out how I could do it and what works best for me. People ask me ‘well why did it take you so long?’ and its not like I was waiting around for the perfect time, like I’ve hatched my plan and I’m ready to spring it on the world, it had to happen organically, I had to be ready to do it and I had to be in a place where I was comfortable and felt strong and had all the experience that I needed. This is the right time for me now because I’m ready.

You’ve also toured with Motley Crue as a back up singer in 2000, did you learn anything different from them of what to do and especially what NOT to do on the road?
You know by the time I was with Motley I was pretty seasoned because I’d been on the road with my Dad for so many years. They obviously are different bands, different acts, different songs, different vibe, different style which I’m pretty good at adopting immediately; the ropes of being on the road are pretty much the same with everybody. You know I think with Motley the things that I’ve learned are more sort of not so much fundamental stuff because I already had that but funny things like I didn’t actually know that there was, that there is a yellow pages like a phone book that’s like 2 fingers thick of only strip clubs, a book that lists every single club in North America, I didn’t know that existed. We had that on the bus. And then also that you have to change out breast implants every 10 years like rotating the tyres. I didn’t know that. I learned that.

I also didn’t know that!
Yeah you have to change them out every 10 years like get new ones, I didn’t know that ha ha

Now you would’ve come here, were you on the tour to come here before Randy got sick?
No I was just with then from June 2000 through the end of November 2000, when I auditioned, I auditioned for Nikki, Mick and Randy was playing the drums for the auditions, but right before we were set to go on the road Randy got very sick so Samantha Moloney from Hole stepped in and played on the tour.

Now as we mentioned, Scott Ian appears on your album, but you also have Jerry Cantrell and Ted Nugent on a couple of tracks. How did they become involved?
Ted is a good friend of ours and so is Jerry and I think we were in the studio mixing and we had ‘Check Out Charlie’ up and we thought this could really do good with some killer, rippin’ Nuge feedback kinda stuff. So we thought well why don’t we just ask him? it can’t hurt to ask, so we asked him and he said Yes. Same thing with Jerry, you know Jerry’s a really close friend of ours and with that song ‘Anything’ we just needed some haunting, crying guitar some sort of like a little bit ‘Gilmourish’ stuff and Jerry is brilliant so we asked him and he said yeah I’d love to. So he came in and I sat down on the floor by his feet and we just let him go and do his thing and it came out beautifully.

I suppose all they can say is no really can’t they…
Exactly, it can’t hurt to ask you know

You’ve recently played a string of shows in the US in April / May, are there more planned?
We are in the planning stage right now so there’s nothing written in stone, nothing on the books right now but there is some more coming up its just a matter of figuring out what that’s gonna be and how we’re gonna make it work.

And lastly, do you have any plans to come and see us in Australia?
I think so! That’s just the same, nothing in the books right now but there’s definitely talk of that; so I would look forward to it for sure. I’ve been down there with my Dad we were there for a good solid month of traveling all around.

Well we’d love to have you down here.
Right on man, thanks.

1927 (ERIK WEIDEMAN)

Mon, 7 Jun 2010 20:17:54 +1000

It's been 20...”ish” years since 1927 stormed the charts here in Australia in 1988 with their 500,000 plus copy selling debut album ‘ISH’. Featuring the hit singles “That’s When I Think Of You”, “If I Could”, “You’ll Never Know” and “Compulsory Hero”, ..ISH, remains one of the highest selling debut albums ever by an Australian band.

Fast forward to 2010 and 1927 is back in the spotlight with the Erik Weideman led incarnation of the band getting ready to celebrate 1927’s debut album with the 20...ISH Anniversary Tour set to include numerous shows throughout Australia, with the first being in Melbourne on 19th June. Following the reissue of “ISH” in September 2009, fans for the first time have been able to own a copy of …ISH, digitally. On it's release on iTunes, the album peaked at #10. This confirms the band's popularity remains strong today which is also evident by the response from fans to the bands live shows in late 2009 and thus far in 2010 and the reissue of ….ISH.

In the lead up to the Melbourne show, I chatted with Erik Weideman about the upcoming shows and the phenomenon of 1927. With seventeen or so years having passed since 1927 disbanded not long after the release of their 3rd album, the obvious question no doubt is what has Erik been up to during this time? “In the last five years or so I have relocated to Perth and been writing some new tunes and trying to get a record out under my own personal name, which obviously hasn’t yet happened for a number of reasons”.

The last few years has certainly seen a flurry of bands from back in the day re-emerge to the delight of their fans. Here we are in 2010, 1927 are playing shows supported by Wa Wa Nee once again, Hey Hey Its Saturday is back on our TV screens and Big M's are bringing back the classic flavours! It's almost like the last 20 years haven't happened! Offering his own thoughts on this almost insatiable demand still for the 80's/90's “well perhaps it’s because we are bored, I don’t really know, either that or we are just trying to relive those days, there’s always that attraction with things that are retro. But when it’s across the board, you have to wonder whether people are just bored of all that new age sparkly, Stanley Kubrick we have to meet the aliens kind of thing...it’s all a bit boring now isn’t it?”

With no new album released since 1992 besides the greatest hits in 1996, it's understandable to learn there was a fair degree of hesitation in bringing 1927 back onto the main stage “absolutely there was hesitation, it wasn’t necessarily a question of whether the songs where good enough, the hesitation was wondering whether this music fits anywhere anymore? It’s apparent now that it does, but certainly a few years back it was a really big concern for me, is that kind of music ever going to be acceptable again? I have now found that it’s not so bad after all and it’s allowed me to hear the songs again in a different light”.

Partly contributing to the “freshness” of the songs so to speak has been the different lineups that Erik has used over recent years under the 1927 banner and also throughout the history of the band. “the original band never even got out of the studio, so the lineups have always been constantly changing”. In the new set, fans can also expect to hear a bunch of new songs.

So with these renewed interest levels in 1927 and given the digital age we live in, it is not surprising to learn that a new era of 1927 fans have emerged at the recent shows. “well I take the time to talk to people after the shows and there have been people that would have barely been 5years old when 1927 was first around and it’s very often a parent or a friend of a parent or a friend of a friend that has suggested they check out 1927 and then consequently they have come along to see us perform”.

With the legacy of 1927 still obviously having survived over the years and with the music industry being such a radically different beast, I couldn’t help but wonder whether in 2010 Erik could see 1927 having the same success if they were just starting out? “now that’s an interesting question....I would have to say that we would probably struggle if we came out now”. The reissue of “ISH” will certainly ensure the continuation of that legacy, particularly considering the crazy fact revealed by Erik that the album had long been deleted and out of print. “indicative of how crazy the music industry can be sometimes, the damn thing had been deleted from catalogue, so you couldn’t buy it even if you wanted too. Here was this album that people say was one of the greatest debut albums and it won ARIAS etc, etc....but nobody could even go and buy the fucking CD. It’s just crazy to think that it had been deleted, absolutely insane, I am sure the record company has missed out on a bunch of sales taking the time to re-release it....but who knows?”.

Speaking of ‘ISH’, I am sure many of you have wondered what on earth the cover art actually represented exactly? Designed by Erik, whilst having him on the phone I couldn’t resist asking the question. “well it’s actually my representation of an ISH haha, the funny thing was that the album wasn’t even named yet. I have always been a little bit of an artist and at that point in my life I was learning chinese painting and was trying out brush strokes with my new chinese brush and ink. So that’s what that ‘slash’ is. Then on top of that I just threw a bunch of letters from a letra set which I am not sure are around anymore, you used to have to rub on letters like what typesetters used to use”.

With the upcoming show at Melbourne’s prestigious Forum Theatre being no exception, this latest phase of 1927 is certainly giving the songs every chance to shine in a "stadium" type setting, which Erik explains is due to both personal choice and the interest levels from the fans in the shows. “this choice isn’t me saying that I am better than a smaller venue, I think that if you are going to bring something like this back, you have to give it every consideration and try and present it in the best possible way and I think that these theatre shows are the best way to present 1927”.

You can catch 1927 for a special one-off show at The Forum in Melbourne on Saturday, June 19th 2010 and please check the website link above for dates in other cities.

H.E.A.T (ERIC RIVERS)

Wed, 2 Jun 2010 19:24:20 +1000

Every so often a new band comes along that from out of nowhere releases a debut album that completely knocks you off your feet! Back in 2008, that band was H.E.A.T from Sweden who released an album that for me personally captured everything I love about music in a way that very few other bands have. Musically, lyrically, visually...it was an album that delivered on all counts.

Since 2008 H.E.A.T have taken the melodic rock world by storm, with tours all over Europe and the UK and major festival appearances at the likes of Sweden Rock, Firefest in the UK and even Loud Park in Japan. Not to mention even trying their hand at representing Sweden in the iconic Eurovision Song Contest and whilst they were unsuccessful in being chosen as Sweden’s representative, the band ended up with a massive hit single ‘1000 Miles’ as a result.

Now here in 2010, H.E.A.T are back with their follow up album ‘Freedom Rock’ which features 13 tracks of sheer melodic bliss! With a weight of expectations on their shoulders as a result of their classic debut, the band have certainly delivered and prove that they are a legitimate force to be reckoned with and are certainly one of the worlds brightest hopes of bringing melodic rock back to the mainstream.

Guitarist Eric Rivers checked in and gave us an insight into the making of ‘Freedom Rock’....

Firstly Eric, congratulations on the awesome new album Freedom Rock, which I see is currently sitting in the Swedish Charts at Number 15, even higher than the new SLASH album!! It must be a great feeling given how well the album is being received so far around the world?
Oh yeah, it’s the best feeling! That something you’ve fought for and spent lots of time creating is appreciated by so many…

You were just out on the road playing some shows in the UK and have also recently been out touring with Treat and The Poodles for a Swedish onslaught. How did these tours go and what new songs did you really enjoy playing live?
Most of these shows were amazing! Both Treat and Poodles are great guys, so everything worked out good. The song that was the most fun to play live would be Black Night. It has a perfect groove for the crowd to jump, and a jumping audience is something special! Beg Beg Beg is also really, really fun to play live, pure rock n roll, you feel like Angus Young playing that song.

Your first album is regarded by many as one of the finest debut albums in the last decade or two...did you feel the pressure of high expectations going into the writing and recording of Freedom Rock?
We tried not to think about that, but of course the question came up a few times. We said that, “let’s do it as we did the first record, music from the heart”. As long as we write exactly what we want, hopefully the world will see that and like it. And it turned out OK, right?

As with your first album, all members of H.E.A.T contribute to the songwriting process. Given that a few of the songs on your first album came from your bands prior to H.E.A.T, did you do anything different during the songwriting process for the new album?
Well, this time around it was a lot more stressful. Before the first album we had 5-6 years of songs, this time we had barely nothing, and we wrote like half of the songs two weeks before entering the studio. That’s a big lesson learned right there. As soon as we came home from the studio this time, we started writing for the new album!

You once again used the services of Michael Vail Blum for production/mixing the album. Did you have any specific ideas of how you wanted the sound to be different on the new album from the first album?
Well, we wanted a bit different sound than the one that was actually released. We recorded the album in Sweden with Swedish producers, but the record label wasn’t 100% happy with the result. They wanted a bit different mix, with louder guitars. So we contacted Michael Blum again, who made a mix in LA and produced it from there, and apparently the record
label liked it this time!

"Freedom Rock" first was released in Japan, featuring a few bonus tracks and a different song order to the version released in Sweden/Europe...and is that even a different mix I hear? Apart from being a great collectors item, what were the reasons for releasing the different versions of the album?
Since we have different record labels around the world, everyone wanted to have an opinion on how the record should sound, which isn’t weird, but it can become a bit messy. So in the end we had like 3-4 different mixes of the album, and each record label chose their favorite. But I don’t think that the mixes are very different, there might be some guitar licks or vocal ad libs that are different on the Japanese vs the European. The biggest difference is the album cover!

What were some of the biggest things you learnt from the experience of recording your first album, that you changed during the recording "Freedom Rock"?
Lock Dave in a cage and put a gagball in his mouth! The guy has TOO many ideas! Most of them are great, but unfortunately if we would try all of Dave’s ideas, we still would have been in the studio recording the first track, haha. We tried to speed things up a bit and tried to get good first tracks of everything. On the first album we were like “Lets not do that again, we can fix it in the mix”. This time we tried to get great sounds from the beginning, so that the mixing part would be really easy. A bit back to the roots I guess.

As one of the most exciting melodic rock/AOR bands in the world today, for the release of "Freedom Rock", was there much interest shown from other record labels around the world to release it?
Well, there was, and we have a new label (Edel) that will release the album in Europe now! The first album was just released in 5-10 countries in Europe, now, both albums will be released in the entire Europe with this new label. Now it’s just America and Australia left until world domination!

Tobias Sammet features on the song "Black Knight" and he invited H.E.A.T to
tour with Edguy last year. How did this association with Tobias come about?
The first time he heard about us was at Sweden Rock 2008, where he got a CD from our agent. Of course he got drunk and lost the CD but he remembered our band name because he thought that it sounded so cheesy, haha. So he checked us out on Myspace and was blown away. He instantly got an account on iTunes to download the album, and he thought it was the best album released in the last 10 years. So he e-mailed us via our agent, and
a few months later we were on tour with Edguy! He was also the guy who recommended us to the Japanese label who signed us. And now he sings on our album. So we have A LOT to thank Tobi for, he’s an awesome guy and a fantastic singer and musician!

For me personally, equally as much as i love the music of H.E.A.T, it's the imagery of sunsets, palm trees and themes of positivity, time and space that you convey that appeals just as much as the music. Is this something that as a band you have spent a lot of time developing?
Well, not really. All those things kind of came natural with the music. We love the 80’s (duh), and the cheesiness too it. Even though we were born in the 80’s, everything seemed to be pretty easygoing then. We are very easygoing guys who enjoy the little things in life and believe that it’s better to write music that’s inspiring and happy, instead of writing deep
lyrics about how everything sucks (damn you Kurt Cobain!). And in these times with the financial crisis and earthquakes etc, I think that people need good, happy inspiring music to keep them going!

Over the last few years you have toured all over Europe, the UK and Japan, even playing with some of your all time musical heroes. What are some of your favourite memories from all this travel?
Almost every show has a special moment… But if I would mention some, I would say that the Edguy tour was extremely fun and a great learning experience (learning how to drink everyday without getting hung over, haha). Playing in Japan, a country we had just dreamed of visiting was extreme. We entered the stage at 11.30 in the morning, and we had 10.000
crazy fans in the crowd! It truly felt like a dream. And Sweden Rock 2009 was also like a dream. The Swedish summer, the sun setting, 10.000 people in the crowd knowing most of the words to every song… And of course our first big gig playing with our heroes Toto, only 6 months after we formed the band. I have to stop here, there are too many great memories, and hopefully a lot more to come!

By the end of 2010, H.E.A.T will have....
1. toured the world with Rolling Stones and Aerosmith opening for us. Bruce Dickinson will be our pilot and Steve Vai will be our guitar roadie. Lady Gaga will be our private masseuse and Beyonce will drive our tour bus and Gordon Ramsey will cook us food every day. And of course Scotty Rock is gonna introduce us each night… “You wanted the best, but they didn’t
fucking make it…”
2. lost our virginities.
3. hopefully written most of the next album to enter the studio once again for more FREEDOM ROCK!

Thanks for your time and may the freedom rock be with you for the rest of 2010!
Thank you Scotty, always a pleasure! 

Read our review of ‘Freedom Rock’ by clicking here!

CRASHDIET (ERIC YOUNG)

Wed, 12 May 2010 19:39:05 +1000

In what is turning out to be a massive month or two for lovers of all things glam and sleaze, Swedish natives Crashdiet, against the odds, return with arguably their most complete album yet, ‘Generation Wild’. Following the loss of original singer Dave Lepard in 2005 to suicide, the band returned in 2007 with newly appointed singer Oliver Twisted and delivered the more experimental and darker ‘The Unattractive Revolution’. The union with Oliver didn’t last and he headed back to the ranks of ‘Reckless Love’. Faced with the prospect of finding another singer, in a twist of fate, the band ended up with former ‘Jailbait‘ singer Simon Cruz who was originally in the band’s sights after the passing of Lepard.

Lead single ‘Generation Wild’ is a killer bombastic anthem with a video clip that is so killer it has even been banned by MTV Sweden! In a time when sleaze/glam/hard rock is as popular as it ever has been in recent years and with an image and attitude to match the quality of their new release, ‘Generation Wild’ well and truly propels Crashdiet back as the leaders of not only the sleaze rock genre, but as one of the more exciting hard rock bands on the planet.

Virtually straight off the bus after a tour of Italy, Greece and a couple of shows in Sweden, the bands drummer Eric Young brings us up to speed with all things Crashdiet in 2010.

Firstly, congratulations on a killer release with 'Generation Wild', you must be pretty damn happy with the response the album has been getting so far?.....even currently as I write these questions, you are #3 in Sweden ahead of Slash's new album!
THANKS! It’s been going great actually, we are touring quite frequently now and the response has been awesome! I guess the rumour is spreading about the glitter and glam we bring with a punch to the cities we visit so the crowd is growing for every time we play. Yeah 3rd place is just mindblowing ya know? We knew we had a good interest and demand for the new album but I never imagined we would end up that high!

You just got back from playing some shows over in Italy and Greece. How did the tour go? What are a few of the new songs that you thought tore the roof off? and how has your new singer Simon Cruz connected with the Crashdiet fans so far?
Well the tour was both a bit messy and of course as touring often is, freakin' awesome! Like it should be I guess haha! Touring in new countries (like Greece) you never know, partially about how the attendance will turn out and what the people you work with are capable of... But hey, we had fun, we did the shows and people seemed to like it! A lot!

Well we tried out some new tunes but not too many since the album wasn't really released yet. But songs like REBEL, BOUND TO FALL, ARMAGEDDON and NATIVE NATURE really kicked ass and got the asses wiggling... SIMON just is amazing, i gotta tell you, its like he´s always been in the band, not only for us but the fans as well. They seemed to love him and he loved them back so we all just fell in love and had lots of sex! Haha! But seriously, he connected really well and it was a great turnout if you ask me!

Whilst speaking of Simon, given the way things turned out with Oliver Twisted after your last album, did you go about things differently this time around before you finally settled on the decision to appoint Simon as your new singer? Were there lengthy periods of rehearsals, songwriting and beer drinking!!??
We really focused on trying each other out on every level...and by that i mean EVERY level! Drinking, hanging, writing together, working out together, sleeping together, jogging on the beach together, cooking together... Well u get the point. We didn't want to discover later on that we didn't click since we are basically going to spend more time together than i will with my own future wife.

One of the definite strong points of this album is the diversity when it comes to the actual songs themselves, with every song virtually introducing something extra to the Crashdiet arsenal in one way or another. Do you feel there is a specific song on this album that best typifies where the band is at in 2010?
Good one.. I would say, the diversity itself really typifies where the band is today. We are thinking a lot more mature and understanding that the best albums contain something for everyone.

Can you give a bit of an insight to the songwriting process for this album? How much did it differ from past releases and what do you think Simon brought into the mix as far as contribution to songwriting goes?
Simon has been VERY much a part of the songwriting and composing lyrics. This is the absolute best way to go about it if u ask me, let everyone bring something to the table and hear out everyones ideas! We ALL were much part of the whole process of the album and I think thats why it turned out so good. Every inch of every song is worked out to the MAX!

Having written over 50 songs for this album, was it a struggle to select the final 10 songs? How much influence did the record company have in the selection of the final 10?
They had their influence by simply voting on which songs they liked the most! Then of course the labels always wanna toss in some mathematical reasons and calculations on which song will bring in the most money and all that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't haha!

The album was produced by the combination of the Swedish duo of Rampac and also Tobias Lindell mixed the album. Compared to your previous two releases, 'Generation Wild' certainly has a much bigger "sonic" sound. Was this the type of sound you were aiming for at the commencement of recording the album, or did it evolve as the songs evolved during the recording?
We wanted, as i said earlier, to have every part of this album just explode in your face and of course the sound is a HUGE part of how u find an album, at least in our genre. So we just aimed from the start to make it a real ear-bleeder!

Aside from being a kickass anthem, the title track and first single 'Generation Wild', has a killer videoclip to match....so killer even MTV has banned it in Sweden haha! Was the concept for the video something that the band came up with or did your director/producer Marcus Tinnerholm heavily contribute to the concept? The video sure looked like a lot of fun to make, at least for Simon anyway...
Well, we just noticed as we went along with our ideas, that probably it would be censored anyhow so why not go all in? By the way it was even the censored version that got banned. This was a collaboration between us and Marcus but he had the most "realistic" ideas haha... We had the typical artist ideas with exploding pigs and airplanes flying around and crashing in the background. This is of course, a bit hard to make happen if u are not Lady Gaga.

For the release of 'Generation Wild', you have now struck up an association with the Italian based label Frontiers Records who are fast expanding beyond their traditional melodic rock roots and branching out into bands such as Crashdiet, Crazy Lixx, Vince Neil etc. How did this association with Frontiers comes about?
I have no idea actually. That was our Swedish labels trick. All I can say i'm very happy about it and looking forward to a great collaboration!

With the quality of this album and it's obvious appeal to hard rock loving fans worldwide, what are the plans at this stage for worldwide domination outside of Sweden/Europe? By this I refer to both releasing the album and touring in places like the USA, Japan, maybe even Australia haha?
We currently have Europe, South America, Japan in our sniperscope and we are basically touring these parts the year out. Of course we are working for an Australian tour debut, as fast as we get a serious offer!

For a relatively small country, in Sweden there is certainly a big supply of high quality "rock" bands at the moment, do you find that there is a lot of competition amongst the bands?
I don't see it as competition, just do what you do and let the fans decide what they like best. We have a lot of great bands active here in Sweden like HARDCORE SUPERSTAR, MUSTASCH, AVATAR and so on... It’s just all about keeping the rock-nerve alive and it really doesn't matter how many tickets or albums you sell... we all contribute to keeping the rock-spirit going! Including the fans!

Speaking generally, what are your thoughts on where the worldwide sleaze rock scene is at in 2010, compared to when you first blazed onto the scene about 6 or 7 years ago?
Well over here in Sweden it kind of looks the same, around the world I don't really have too much of a clue. Europe has it’s strong believers like Italy and Greece, dudes look like ladies down there i can tell ya and I mean the sleazy 80‘s looking kind of ladies... just like us!

Lastly, by the end of 2010, Crashdiet will have.....
1.Toured the world
2. Gained sum weight
3. Lost sum weight

Thanks for taking the time to answer the questions and maybe we will see you down here in Australia one day!! May the rock be with you!!
No, THANK YOU! Cum to our shows, have a beer with us and party till u puke uncontrollably! 

Check out our review of Generation Wild by clicking here!

TOBIAS SAMMET (AVANTASIA & EDGUY)

Mon, 3 May 2010 21:07:38 +1000

Tobias Sammet would be known to many as the lead singer of one of Germany's biggest ever rock bands, Edguy. Having toured all over Europe, Australia, Asia and North, Central, and South America, the legend of Edguy extends far greater than their native Germany or Europe.  In 1999 Tobias started his side project Avantasia and what was originally planned as a one-off studio affair, was revived in 2007. The album "The Scarecrow" was released in 2008 and was officially amongst the 20 best selling albums all over Europe upon its release, it entered the charts in 15 countries and featured the Top 10 hit single "Lost In Space". On the album featured special guests like Alice Cooper, Jorn Lande, Eric Singer (KISS), Rudolf Schenker (SCORPIONS), Bob Catley (MAGNUM), Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske both ex-HELLOWEEN). The unexpected success of the album resulted in a Festival-tour, climaxing with a headlining show at the prestigious Wacken Open Air in front of more than 85.000 people.

In between releasing a new Edguy album and another world tour, Tobias was also busy working on the follow up to “The Scarecrow”. With the sessions going so well, Tobias quickly changed the initial plans and ended up recording two albums worth of material. Continuing the theme of special guests, with some of the most popular stars from “The Scarecrow” returning for these relelases, Tobias also added a bunch of other guests including Klaus Meine from the Scorpions and Jon Oliva from Savatage!

”The Wicked Symphony” and ”Angel Of Babylon” both released on April 3rd, further demonstrate the prodigious talents of Tobias Sammet. Calling in from his home in Germany just days before heading out with Edguy to support the Scorpions on their farewell tour, Tobias chats extensively about the creation of these two masterpieces.

First off Tobias the new Avantasia albums are amazing and the album sales around the world certainly indicate it’s been a highly popular release already. It’s a pretty amazing response so far, was it expected?
Well, I really can't say because whenever I do an album I try and not expect anything. I've learnt that throughout the years as you either go in expecting too much, or you expect something that turns out in a different direction. So that's why I really didn't have any expectations with these releases, but in saying that we knew it would be a Top 10 album. Ok, that sounds a bit cocky, but the truth is we really expected it to be Top 10 album because the initial response was so massive, really, really massive, so something would have had to go terribly wrong for it not to be a Top 10 album. When I heard though that it was number 2 and that it has taken off in all of Europe, it was a really big thing for me. First of all, the music on the album is what is the most important and second of all, it has to be appreciated in the long term. I don't want people to buy the album and then half a year after the album has been released they start to go "which songs were on the album again?". So there's different targets, firstly I want to be happy with the album myself, that's the most important thing. I want to be proud of these albums in three years time when I look back of them.

When we were informed about the number 2 in Germany I was really happy, but also surprised. The thing is in Germany with this kind of music is that you don’t ever really get a number 2. Metallica may do that, but that's about it because they are mainstream. It's not like in Scandinavia were every heavy metal band has a number 1 with almost every release!! In Germany though it's really difficult and almost impossible and that's why I was so happy. But then at the same time I thought shit, that's so close to being a number 1! So now we have some headroom left for the next album...

Did you originally set out with the intentions of creating 2 albums worth of material, or is that the way it evolved after you commenced writing?
It was never meant to be a double album. It was just when we had the final meeting with Nuclear Blast I said there's so much material, either we are going to release a long list of EP's which didn't really make any sense. to me..or we can just release 2 albums. Originally it was just meant to be The Scarecrow Part 1 and Part 2. We initially had about 21 tracks and chopped off the first 11 tracks and put the rest on the backburner and said we will finish off these when we had really taken care of 'The Scarecrow' and released that. Then we went on tour with Avantasia and did the new Edguy album and then when we finally returned to that material on the backburner, I had more ideas so I said OK let's just add a little more stuff because I have lot’s more ideas. Let’s create some more sideshows to the story. Sasha my producer said “well you can never have too much material so let's do it”. I had some ideas already and then it became 1 extra track, then 2, then 4 and then 8 etc, so I went to Nuclear Blast and said....well I have about 18/19 songs now. That was in early summer 2009 and I didn’t want to release the album in 2009. So I said there is so much time ahead to finish this before any release date. It didn't make any sense to just release 1 album when I had 2 albums of material.

Story wise I was totally free as it all made sense with the original tracks I had. It's not like a fairytale where it's 2 kids go walking through the forrest and come to a house where a witch is living etc....". So I didn't have to explain the songs in that way, it was more based upon feelings and what was going on in, what we would say “the mentally deranged mind” of that main character that I had created. So basically all of those songs are portraying different states of mind and I didn't have to explain what was happening in the story. To cut a long story short, it wasn't the story that needed more songs, it was the ideas that kept popping up all the time, so that’s the reason why it has turned into not one, but two, but three albums!

The Wicked Symphony or Angel Of Babylon – which album is intended to be listened to first??
It is “The Wicked Symphony” that comes first....

In the present day of iTunes and downloadable music, digital only releases etc, the traditional ALBUM where attention to EVERY detail relating to that album and artwork is a dying breed. Whilst hard rock and metal fans seem to be more traditional and still want the CD with album cover etc….going into the recordings of these 2 albums, did you feel any concern that hey, maybe all the hard work involved in these 2 albums won’t be fully appreciated by the fans etc?
Just speaking for myself I didn’t do that whole packaging stuff to have better sales options. To be really honest with you I did it just for myself. I know what makes me happy when I buy albums or buy boxsets...I want to have something to read, I want to have pictures to look at etc. For me it's always been really important that the music you listen to has a face and has a look. I am a big fan of collecting records and boxsets as I said and to me I have a different relationship with music perhaps some of the kids of today. These days for kids it's all about megabytes and terrabytes and downloads etc. But for me, I don't only know what "The Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son" sounds like, I know what it looks like and what it smells like. I am in love with those old classic albums where you unfold it and open it up and you have the inner sleeve and the outer sleeve etc. That whole thing was like a ritual. When I listen to 'Can I Play With Madness' for example it's a light "blue" song, and 'Bat Out Of Hell’ is a very red and orange song. To me the music has a face and I have always tried with each Avantasia or Edguy album to give them their own individual face or character and a name. To me it's part of my life and part of my way and I want these albums to have a solid position at least in my own music history. I want it to have a face, and a look, something that will always be there as it's part of me. That's why I think it's very important to do that.

When I got the package for these CD's I went YES!!! When I got the packaging for the Edguy DVD I said NO....because there was this green censorship/rating label printed on the cover. We paid so much attention to the artwork on that Edguy DVD and then all of a sudden when I saw that sticker I smashed the DVD into the wall and yelled "those fucking bastards". I was that pissed off because I thought the record label were trying to save a little bit of money because it's cheaper to print the label on the cover than to produce separate stickers and stick them on. To me those are things I am very, very serious about because those album packages give the music a face. I want my music to have a face, because it deserves it, it's my baby. I've worked on those Avantasia albums for the better part of 3 years, I owe those albums to make sure they have the right layout and look.

In addition to your traditional musical influences, are you also inspired by some of the great musicals/composers of the modern era, such as the Phantom Of The Opera’s or Andrew Lloyd Webber etc?
Well I listen to some of the stuff, but not on a daily basis. I have a very open mind when it comes to music. One day it could be Mothers Finest, then it could be Meatloaf and then it could be Iron Maiden. If it sounds good to my ears, then it's great. Same thing when I compose, I don't really say oh this is not really sounding like Edguy or this is not really Avantasia. Well of course it is because it's a part of me, so if I think it's right then great, but if somebody else thinks it's not right, well I guess that's their problem! I don't change my name just because my music is not how somebody else expects it to be. But to come back to your question I listen to some of that stuff like Phantom Of The Opera, the classics. I know them, and I own them in my record collection, but it's not like I would go so far as to say Andrew Lloyd Webber is a huge influence etc, it’s not like that. Some heavy metal people say that "I am influenced by classical music" and then you ask them and dig a little deeper they say "oh I have the Greatest Hits of Beethoven", not that Beethoven really had that many hits haha! Whatever you listen to influences you in someway. If you like it, then it influences you, if you hate it then it influences you as you don't want yourself to sound like something you hate!!

The vocalists and musicians you have chosen for these 2 albums, were they chosen specifically because of the influence they have had on you as a singer, or because of the specific sound they could bring to the songs?
Well I hate them all to be honest with you, haha! I asked the people who I thought were great musicians and great singers and who would be needed for the songs for a certain role. Of course there are people who have influenced me and who I look up to and appreciate and who I love as musicians and people as well. So I had my songs and then I looked at them and thought, well who would be needed for ‘Scales Of Justice’ and I thought Tim "Ripper" Owens. I had never worked with Tim before but I knew his voice would be great for that song because I think he has a really powerful, screaming, angry furious voice and thought he would be absolutely right for that song. Same with Jon Oliva for the song ‘Death Is Just A Feeling’, I had the song and thought who could interpret it. I didn't really need a singers, singer, singer, I needed somebody who had attitude and with a characteristic voice. I thought of Jon and asked him and he did such a fantastic job with interpreting the song. It really was a case of who I thought was best to interpret my songs. I really never thought of Jon as being my biggest idol, I think he is a great vocalist and a great actor in a way, as he acts with his voice as much as he sings. For Bob Catley, Jorn Lande and Michael Kiske for example I knew they would be part of these new albums as they were part of the last one and they are part of the story, so you write in that direction and you know how they work. I am a big fan of those 3 voices and when you have been a big fan of what they have done before what they have done before which definitely influences the way you write.

H.E.A.T have just released their new album “Freedom Rock” which you have guested on one of the tracks. You took HEAT out on tour with you last year…how did that association come about?
I haven't heard the whole new album yet, but what I have heard is great. It was funny because someone recommended that band to me because they knew my personal music tastes and knew I would love it - like all of those AOR bands like Strangeways, Bad English, Europe, treat etc so I listened and was astonished. I stood there with my mouth open and said this is amazing we have to have this band tour with us. It didn’t really make any sense because they didn’t even have a record deal in Germany, but I wanted them to tour with us!! So they did the whole European tour with Edguy.

What does Avantasia allow you to do that Edguy doesn’t and what does Edguy allow you to do that Avantasia doesn’t??
With Avantasia I can write and be a songwriter for outside musicians. I can write my favourite Scorpions song and favourite Magnum song and Helloween song. So it's a little bit like a dreamworld. It's not really a reality, its like I escape into this enchanted dreamworld and do my own personal ‘Best Of’ albums from my hero's. Then wrap it up in a great concept and give it a current “layout”. I think that's a very unique feeling to have, it's like a vacation.

With Edguy it's a band world. It's the comraderie, we go into the studio and nail down a bunch of tracks that we have previously rehearsed and put a lot of work into, then we go out on the road and tour and tour and tour, we see many different cities and we are family.

I don't really want to miss either one of these, it's like one is my family and the other is my "bowling club" where I visit every once in a while, to meet with other men and play!

Well thankyou very much for your time and all the best with your tour with the Scorpions in the coming weeks and see you in Australia again sometime soon!
Yes we shall and hopefully we will!

FOZZY (RICH WARD)

Sat, 1 May 2010 08:04:25 +1000

Fozzy began in 1999 in the backstage area at the Alamodome in San Antonio at a WCW show...that was the day that WWE superstar Chris Jericho met Rich Ward of Stuck Mojo. Starting off as a cover band and playing classics from the likes of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, Fozzy released their debut album in 2000, simply entitled Fozzy, with two albums following in the next 5 years.

Fast forward to 2009 and Fozzy signed a worldwide record deal with Australian based Riot! Entertainment to release their fourth album ‘Chasing The Grail’ in March 2010. On ‘Chasing The Grail’ Fozzy have laid down 14 original slamming tracks that walk the line between old school and modern metal. Having already received rave reviews, it seems that Fozzy are now destined to stamp their authority as a metal force to be reckoned with.

I chatted with Fozzy guitarist Rich “The Duke Of Metal” Ward about the evolution of the new album ‘Chasing The Grail’ as well as what’s on the horizon for Stuck Mojo.

Hey Rich, thanks for taking the time to chat. ‘Chasing The Grail’ is receiving bucket loads of great press. Did you expect such an awesome response and do you feel that people who may not of taken you guys seriously before, are now starting to realise that you are now a metal force to be reckoned with?
No I didn't think the press reviews would be as good and the reason I didn't was because it's been a bit of a common theme for Fozzy since we formed, that the band is a joke. But we created that to begin with, so it's almost been our own fault. We started off playing covers as a fun band and then when we were approached about recording an album we said that would be great, this prolongs the fun! So here we are a group of guys with a great amount of respect for each other and we love making music together and then we decided to start wearing costumes, change our names and come up with a back story, then there was the short film we did for MTV and then we have our lead singer who is a professional wrestler! So we had all these things that made it very easy for people to not take us seriously. Then when we dropped the whole costume thing and decided to do original material we still had the stigma of the past and also the stigma of our vocalist who is still a professional wrestler. So it's always been a bit of a hurdle to overcome.

With this album, when the reviews come out we all took that pose where you squint slightly when you are bracing for impact, expecting there to be no way that the reviews would be so good. In saying that WE knew the record was good and that it sounded really good and that the only flaws would come down to personal preferences of those reviewing it. Music is a subjective art and people either like it or they don't and we certainly appreciate that. Even metal fans who like big riffs and melodic sensibilities we felt there was even a chance that even they were going to hate it because it is still Chris Jericho and it is that band who dressed up!! But so far the reviews have all been positive and that's great for us as there is a lot of money, effort and blood, sweat and tears that goes into making an album.

Just referring back to the origins of Fozzy, it’s kind of ironic that here we are in 2010 with a handful of bands like Steel Panther with the whole storylines and names and outfits who you could almost say are early era Fozzy on steriods haha?
Yeah it definitely is. The thing about it speaking for me personally is that as Rodney Dangerfield says, ‘I've got no timing’. When I formed Stuck Mojo in 1989 being a true metal band but with a rapper, we couldn't even book gigs because nobody wanted to know about us. It took us until 1995 when Century Media gave us a chance, remembering this was still a few years before the trend really took off with the likes of Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach etc. That big landslide of bands didn't hit till about 1998. Then in 1999 I started the band Sick Speed and we were doing a throwback to really classic melodic rock. Then in 2002, 2003 the big wave of everybody wants to sound like Nickelback started. Whilst we didn't sound anything like Nickelback we were still in that realm of big hard rock. With the Fozzy thing I knew it would only be a matter of time before there was a wave of bands who dress up in costume and do the whole 80's thing in a fun way. But I guess it's better to have been there first and not gotten any credit, because at least you sleep at night thinking "I had that idea first you asshole!!"

It’s just that these guys now have the bank accounts....not that money is the be all and end all!
Yes that's exactly right.... Look, I wake up every day as a professional guitar player and I don't drive around in a Ferrari or have a swimming pool in my backyard but I consider it an honour and a privilege that I am still making a living playing music. And it is an honour that has been graced upon me by our fanbase. I recognise there are a lot of great guitar players out there who don't make as much money as me playing guitar...and vice versa. There's a whole lot of really shitty players getting a whole lot more than me. But that's just life! Sometimes gold records and huge bank accounts don't create happiness, so I am thankful where I am in life.

Recognising that Chris is the main lyricist for the songs, have you grown accustomed now to where Chris source’s his inspiration for the songs/lyrics, with topics like Vikings and phobia of Friday 13th as on the latest album?
Yes it sure is interesting reading his lyrics and trying to figure out what is going through his head and what his process is. For me, I can't really write about something unless I am really motivated by it, or passionate about it and that I can tie a piece of music too. But Chris on the other side of things, he writes about topics that interest him. Which I think is pretty cool. He reads a lot of fiction and history and loves bands like Dream Theatre and Iron Maiden where the topics of the songs don’t have to be about life or personal experiences. So for Chris, lyrics can be about a sentence in a short story he reads and he can build something from that to the extent where he can even role play through his lyrics.

With the way that the songs were written which involved Chris sending you the lyrics and then you coming up with the music….was it ever a struggle at times to actually turn Chris’s lyrical wisdom into music?
Well there were three or four other sets of lyrics that I did not gravitate initially too. It's not to say I didn't like them, I was just trying to figure out how to make that set of lyrics come to life. For me as a musician I am very self aware of who I am as a player. I am not a Steve Vai or a Paul Gilbert where I could go and sit in with almost any band and create this musical tapestry that's beautiful etc. I have a very specific thumb print of who I am and don't go beyond that. That's what I consider to be one of the best attributes of a great guitar player and that's to know your limitations and your strengths and not try and wander off into the neverlands. So that's where the biggest challenge lies when interpreting the lyrics and working out how to stay true to his vision, or at least what I think is his vision. I didn't ask Chris to explain his lyrics first. I read them cold, trying to imagine what place he was in when he wrote them. Which I think is another interesting experience with this album, which was later on to sit down and listen back and say "what were you thinking??". The song 'Broken Soul' which is a 70's southern ballad cum rock song...he actually imagined this song to be a dark, heavy, brooding riffy song. But he loved my interpretation. The partnership Chris and I have is based in trust and respect so it's nice to be able to sit back and tryst each other a bit. Then a song like 'Pray For Blood' which is about Vikings and going into battle, I know what that song needs to be...that's 4 or 5 minutes of chaos and aggressiveness, but with a bit of melody to ground the song. Then there is 'Friday The 13th', a song about fear and I wanted to make it really fast, but at the sametime not really angry as I wanted there to be some moments where I wanted Chris to tell the story, so super aggressive vocals weren’t going to be right. This album was a really fun experience for me as it was the first time I have ever written an album and even a song for that matter to a set of lyrics written by someone else. So as with life, new experiences push us to grow as people and as a musician I thought working with Chris on this record really helped to push me.

As producer of the album, did you really have to push Chris vocally to extract the vocal performances that we now hear, or was he pretty much right to go on his own?
There was a good bit of pushing, because when I am writing to Chris's lyrics I am actually writing the melody as well. So I will take all my ideas and record them in a demo form, then send them down to Chris so he can live with them for a few weeks and really internalize the melodies and then he also has a chance to come back and say "hey I am not really crazy on this melody, can we work on it a bit more". So there's a bit of give and take on that stuff. When we were actually recording the songs I found that he was very fixated on working on the tone of his voice and his pitch and singing powerfully. But sometimes he would not be telling the story. I would be like "dude, these are your lyrics...tell the story". Then there were songs where he was telling the story beautifully and we just worked on the phrasing a little bit more and how he sang it. Whether he would put his voice more in his nasal cavity and go higher or whether he would growl a little bit more.

So as the producer, Chris trusts me, and we always have a good chat back and forth. Normally when I record vocals with someone I like to be in the same room as them. I don't like the whole singing behind the glass in the booth, but Chris loves the glass and the booth. So it's always a case of me pushing the button and going "Chris let's try that again and next time when you sing the word hearts, pronounce the letter H better". I prefer to do that side by side because sometimes that glass causes coldness. All of a sudden you could be working three hours together and you don't even realise it, and Chris is mad at me and wants to come through the glass and choke me haha! We all know how that would end....one dead guitar player and there lies the danger in working with someone who is basically a trained killer!

Well I guess that's where the glass is actually in your favour Rich for a bit of protection!
Now that's a good point, so he is actually doing it for my protection....I didn't even think about that!

You recently performed your first live concert with Fozzy in quite a few years and have some shows in the UK coming up on the horizon. How did it feel to be performing up there on stage again?
Yeah it's amazing. We have only played like two shows in 5 years. We played a few nights ago in New York City and it was packed to the rafters. It was an amazing show. Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater came and sat in on drums for a song, the guys from Anthrax were there and Avenged Sevenfold and Hell Yeah. Vinnie Paul came on stage and served us drinks. It was one of those dream gigs. Whenever you play in New York or in LA it's always the who's who of bands as those cities are there stomping ground. We played with some friends of ours, ZO2 who are an awesome band from New York City and a band called Razer from Phoenix. It's always good to play with your friends and bands you respect as ultimately that's how Fozzy was created.

Although my favourite part of being in the music business is recording albums, because when the gigs over, the gigs over and you go back to the hotel and get something to eat. But with an album it's like the pieces you create last forever and I imagine it's a magical experience kind of like film making. No matter what role you play in the making of the end product, there's a lot of people who collectively have had their hand in making that product and have a lot to be proud of. I love that process. 
Just speaking of Stuck Mojo for a minute, you released ‘The Great Revival’ a few years ago, are there any plans on the immediate horizon for a follow up album?
We would love to do a new record and whilst my schedule like you said has been crazy, I have been jotting down ideas and riffs. I would love to get something done by the end of the year and that's my goal. We have a couple of Stuck Mojo festival shows in Europe so we are excited about that. We gotta keep that rolling as it is the first girl I ever kissed and my first love!! Even when Fozzy is my main priority, it's still a case of Stuck Mojo has been my main band for all those years and Fozzy my side band. But now Fozzy has slowly drifted to be my main band and Stuck Mojo my side project, just kinda like how The Duke album was for me. It's nice to have those bands as nobody wants to go and see the same movie every day. Life is nice when you have some variety that makes it exciting!

You must think I believe you aren’t working hard enough as it is, but for me personally your solo album ‘My Kung Fu Is Good’ was one of the most unexpectedly surprising/rewarding albums in the last 5 years or so….do you have any set plans for a follow up solo album?
Well I am actually producing an amazing artist here in Atlanta called 'Walking With Kings', with a great singer. Because my record company for my solo CD folded, I am without a record company. So I have taken some of my more melodic rock ideas and been loaning and collaborating with this band which will be my outlet for now. Who knows, I may even gig with them?? You sometimes in your life you will hear someone sing and you will be like "wow, what happened, why aren't you like the biggest star in the world??". Well this guy Terry who sings in Walking With Kings has one of those voices. God only provides so many of those special kinds of voices and despite my crazy schedule, I would like to record it!

Just whilst we are talking about the Atlanta music scene, one of my greatest musical idols is Butch Walker who you have worked with a bit in the past, correct?
Yeah totally, he recorded one of Stuck Mojo’s very first recordings in the basement of his house in Atlanta. When Southgang moved back from LA, he became a big part of the Atlanta music scene. He had his band The Floyds/Floyds Funk Revival and Butch was like one of the real local guitar hero's. Now people see him as that producer and songwriter guy but before all that happened, he was the dude on guitar....he would hurt your feelings!!! He was just an amazing, shredding guitar player and a great little producer even back then. The relationship just stayed and he would come see us play here and there. Actually he even played on stage with Fozzy at our first gig, before Jericho was even in the band when we were still Fozzy Osbourne. He came out to sing with us and he was kinda drunk and he walked up on stage and he's like "I am going to show these pussy’s how to rock". He is one of those guys who everything he touches for me turns to gold, he can't go wrong on.

Obviously this answer is dictated by Chris’s schedule, however are there any firm touring plans yet for this year beyond your upcoming shows in the UK…..even as far as Australia for example?
Well it's a huge balance between Chris’s availability and schedule. He doesn't usually know his schedule until about 2 months out and by then it's almost impossible to lock in venues. But we have already committed to John Howarth at Riot and he has committed to us that we will be in Australia by the end of the year. It's just a matter of when and where and how me make it work.

ACEY SLADE & THE DARK PARTY

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:27:13 +1000

“Acey Slade, formerly of Murderdolls, Dope & Trashlight Vision fame has just recently unleashed upon the world his new full length solo / band project - THE DARK PARTY. Cleverly bringing together and stretching boundaries between both Rock and Electronic genres, Slade and “The Dark Party” have produced a collection of songs that are both sonically and emotionally exciting, enabling him to smash open the doors to another blistering musical chapter in his already colourful career.

Produced by English Drum and Bass producer Shaun Morris (DJ Stakka), this is without a doubt the singers most reflective and daring piece of work yet and one that will see him challenge himself from here forward. In today's download friendly world, TrashPit Records based in the UK have released the album and were keen to hold onto excitement and pride of releasing Acey’s new album in physical format and create the full album experience.

With a combined total of album sales already over One Million units (not including Downloads and DVD's) from his past bands, and Harmonix Music, the makers of the video game Rock Band 2 modelling two of their characters after Acey's high energy live performance, the release of 'The Dark Party' is sure to allow Acey Slade and his band even more exposure as one of the underground rock scene's most unrivalled, passionate and outright exciting talents!” www.trashpit.co.uk

In the interview below, Acey provides a fascinating insight into the making of the album he refers as ‘a non-hard rock album, for hard rock people'. For me personally, thus far ‘The Dark Party’ has been one of 2010’s most addictive, compelling and rewarding albums.

* Be sure to check out the video for ‘She Brings Down The Moon’ linked in this interview below....now it’s over to Acey!

Firstly, congratulations on the The Dark Party! Speaking of myself personally, even after many listens since it's release, I still find the album incredibly addictive, mainly because it's a step into a musical world in which I have not regularly ventured. Given it's musical diversity in comparison to your past projects, can we conclude that this is the album Acey Slade has always wanted to make?
Thank you! I don't know about always. I've always made albums, musically, that I wanted to make at a given time. I would say this is more something that has been accumulating for years. Like a bacterial infection that eventually forms an abcess that needs to be cut open! They cut it open and you're like, 'Wow! How was that much crap in my body?' Kinda like that.

Taking that previous question one step further, why was the time right at this point for The Dark Party? Was it a case of you now being confident enough to release this kind of album without trying to conform to expectations of what your fanbase would largely expect from you in a musical sense?
Part of the timing was finding my producer Shaun Morris. I mean he really made everything cohesive. And also my guitarist Andee. Those two guys made what were visions and ideas a reality. Another part of the timing was just the sad state of 'hard rock' these days. Why does everyone say, 'It's the Heaviest thing we have ever done!' or 'It's brutal!', as though those things mean that it's 'better' or 'good'. Nobody ever says, 'We wanted to try something new, succeed or fail, we challenged ourselves.' And hard rock fans are not dumb, especially mine! So that was the niche - 'A non-hard rock album, for hard rock people'. That being said, the next album will be different from this one, and the next different from that. There are very few bands like AC/DC, who always deliver the same thing, and almost always do it well. And, if that's what makes them happy - awesome. But, I have too many ideas going on in my head to stick with just one thing. I don't want to be a band that 'sounds like _____' I want to BE the band other people are compared to.

What was the particular inspiration behind calling your band and album The Dark Party?
I think it was a song title. I get little blurbs that I write down as song titles that become band names or album titles, ha,ha! But the idea was a dark, but fun album.

You primarily worked with English drum and bass producer Shaun Morris (DJ Stakka) on this album. How did you find the experience working with Shaun in developing the very distinct style it brought to the songs?
Slow! We had been working on this for about a year and a half. He's had a kid and I've been married and divorced since we started the album. So, I guess you can tell who the producer is and who's the band guy, ha,ha. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. At times challenging. You have me - with a limited knowledge of electroinc music (compared to Shaun anyway), him with a limited knowledge of Rock, THEN me bringing in new music all the time that neither of us were familiar with. He would come up with a drum loop, I'd come up with a vocal melody, then say, 'Right - now let's make it sound like a JPop band!' I like working with people who either nail exactly what I'm thinking, or come up with something totally off base that spawns new ideas. You can tell when people are going though the motions or doing the minimum. Shaun wasn't like that. And now the guys in my band are not like that either. It's a real pleasure to have these people in my life!

Did you find that you had to turn your usual songwriting methods on their head for this album?
You have to mix it up and change the plan sometimes. Especially if you're like me. I'm more concerned with being creative then being current. Hell, if you look at what current is today - it's nothing I want to have anything to do with! So, my old way of writing was picking up a guitar, churning out a riff, march into the 'band' and fleshing it out that way. But with this, Shaun would give me a disk of drum loops with key / bass synth ideas. I would write a vocal, we would track that - THEN add guitar. And it worked out GREAT! So ya know what I'm doing now? Picking up my guitar and writting a riff and taking it to the band, ha,ha... SEE! Keep changing the plot...

"Question everything and everyone", "Nothings gonna change, if you don't make a change", "This is the sound of a little hope to bring"...sorry for stealing your lines, but the point of that was observing that in amongst the "dark vibe", there is an element of positiveness and hope in a lyrical sense spread throughout the album. Lyrically, did you set out writing with any particular themes in mind, or did the lyrics just evolve as the writing progressed?
Yes. And thanks for noticing. Someone once said, 'The hardest thing to write is a hopeful song'. I felt that in the world today, we need a little hope. We need someone saying, 'We can do it!' I didn't want to be a cheerleader, but I wanted to let people know, no matter how bad it gets - it will get better! Unless you die. That would suck. So, don't die and things will get better, ha,ha!

In a few interviews I have recently read, you have already been talking about The Dark Party album 2! Are you still actively working on these new songs and will it see a whole of band involvement in the evolution of the songs? Are you willing to give an insight into the musical direction the new album will take?
Yes. My goal for this band is to make each album different from the previous album, yet still have some continuity. The idea I have for the second album is to have no songs about 'Love' or 'Decadence'. No relationship songs, no party anthems. Well, that's like taking away two primary colors to paint with, right? It's been a challenge, but worthwhile. It's given me new things to think about and I'm listening to what's going on around me more for inspiration. As for the music, yes, it's more of a 'band effort' and more sonic 'muchness'. I forgot how much I missed the pulse of a live drummer thrashing out the beat. It's a good thing!

You have released the album on the UK based Trashpit Records. How did this association come about?
Through my booking agent. He said that the head of TrashPit had terrible taste in hair metal, but loved my band anyway! In all seriousness, TrashPit still believe in the brick and mortar method of doing things. Make an album, package it well, and work your ass off! That they have done and done well! They have believed in me and my band maybe more than anyone!

What is on the horizon as far as touring plans to promote the album?
For the past ten years I've done nothing but tour. In the past, a song was written to play a show kinda, ha,ha. I told you - I'm an entertainer. But now I want a bit more quality over quantity. We will be kicking into high gear this fall after we have some new songs for album two ready. Already, we will be hitting markets I've never played before, so it's pretty exciting! But touring is what I LOVE to do.

As I have been preparing these interview questions, I received an email announcing the Australian tour for The Cult where they will be playing the "Love" album in it's entirety....the relevance of this being that you feature a cover of one of that albums most iconic tracks "She Sell's Sanctuary" on your album, which is a killer version by the way! How much of an influence have The Cult been on you and even this album for that matter and have you have ever seen them perform live?
The Cult are a huge influence. In that they had a huge album with 'Love', then made an album that didn't sound any thing like the 'Love' with 'Electric' - another huge album. Then they made 'Sonic Temple' and that didn't sound like 'Electric'. Like The Cult, I'm more concerned about being a great band that makes great albums that mark moments in peoples lives. Not a Good band that wrote one great song and milked it's format for a brief career. Yes, I've seen The Cult a few times. I always let myself be a 'fan boy' and sing along to every song. They might be one of THE best 'sounding' bands I've heard. Their sound man should get a T-shirt at the merch booth, ha,ha!

What do you think Acey Slade & The Dark Party bring to the rock world as it stands today, that maybe you feel has been missing?
Heart.

I have read that in recent times you have worked with other bands in a production capacity. Are there any artists that you have recently been working with that we should keep an eye out for?
Yes! Billy Liar. What a talented talent with much muchness he is! He really needs to be seen and heard. It's acoustic punk from Scotland - but amazing song writing. If he doesn't get a shot, a real opportunity then the world will miss out on a HUGE talent.

Here's a chance for you to gaze into a crystal ball.....by the end of 2010, Acey Slade & The Dark Party will have:
1. A Lot of Coffee
2. A Lot of Touring
3. An Ulcer.
4. A New Pair of Docs : )
www.thedarkparty.co.uk
www.myspace.com/aceyslademusic

SOUNDWAVE FESTIVAL - SYDNEY

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 08:29:50 +1100

The day had finally come, in what has now become Australia’s premier Rock / Metal festival, it was time for Soundwave. In previous years Soundwave has been criticized for numerous things and this year would be no different. After our 2 hour drive from the city out to Eastern Creek we walk out into a wall of heat. After someone mentioned it was 38 degrees in the shade we knew it was going to be a long, hot day.

That didn’t stop the concert goers by any means, they were out in force to hear live music and to see primarily one band and one band only but would have to wait until the end of the day to do so.

As I walked around the huge grounds of Eastern Creek wondering how I would ever make it to all the bands I wanted to see, I was resound to the fact that it wouldn’t happen, so I had to carefully plan my day to where I could be in one place for the longest time without dying of heat stroke. This is what I did. I knew that Anvil was on at 3:40 so off to stage 4 I went, on the way I stopped to hear my favourite ‘Taking Back Sunday’ song, the final of their set which lead straight into the Eagles of Death Metal set, I watched Jesse Hughes rock out for a song or two so that was worth it but I continued on. It was at stage 4 that I got to see ‘Clutch’ a band I never would’ve thought to see, but they were great, and it just reaffirmed why sometimes festivals are a great idea as people get introduced to bands they’ve never seen.

My plan was to talk to a few people to get a feel for the day and to ascertain just who they were here to see. The best place to do that? The over 18’s alcohol area. $8 beers being sold like they’re the last thing on the planet and ice being treated like gold this was where I spoke to Clint from Currans Hill and Shane from Prestons. These guys were the obvious choice as anyone who would sport a B-52’s shirt to a rock festival needs to get a mention. When asked who they were here to see? The answer. ‘Faith no more’ ok, sure, first people I’ve spoken to, surely others would be here for other bands? Shane tells me that he saw them at Alternative Nation back in 1995, gotta love a fan that sticks with a band but it seems that many also have stuck with them, including JD Cook from Dulwich Hill who also saw FNM in 1995 and has been awaiting this day for many years, Alicia from Lewisham, Ziggy, also from Lewisham and Justin from Parramatta, who when asked who he was here to see, eloquently put it ‘Faith No Fucking More!’

There were others who also included FNM but also gave me some other bands. Julian from Leichhardt also wanted to see Meshuggah, Rachel from Oakhurst wanted to see Paramore, Steve from Melbourne was here to see Isis and Yuliana was there to see Meshuggah. It was a breath of fresh air to run into Nikki from Penrith and Jacqui from Campbeltown sporting some rockin’ hats were there to see AFI and All Time Low. I was shocked as the way it was going I wasn’t sure if truly any other bands besides Faith No More were on the bill!!

Being in front of stage 4 at around 3 it seemed that many had the same idea as me, plant there for the day as Lara from Anandale in her Pantera shirt was there to see Meshuggah and Anthrax who weren’t coming on for another 2 or so hours. Tony and Joe from Canberra were going 1 better and wanted to see Anthrax but also Trivium, on the same stage but even later and then they were of course as the entire crowd was, heading over to see Faith No More.

‘Anvil’ were just about to hit the stage, I’d been waiting for this as I’d fallen in love with these guys due to their documentary ‘The Story of Anvil’ as they hit the stage they were on fire, they genuinely wanted to be there, they love what they do. Is it the best music you’ve ever heard? No. But is it rockin’ enough to throw your fist in the air and shout ‘Metal on Metal?’ Yes!! They delivered a great set of their ‘hits’ and Lips was very vocal in thanking everyone for their support and couldn’t believe the fact they were playing in Australia. It was as heartwarming as the documentary. I hope these guys can continue to do what they love doing and we can see them back in Australia one day soon.

It was Anthrax that I headed down for next as I needed to be close for one of the pioneers of metal, mainstays in the business for more years than you can count. Here is a band that still act like they’re in their 20’s, jumping around and having fun with their art. Scott Ian is a pleasure to watch as they ripped through all their hits and more. I was sad in a way that I didn’t get to hear ‘Bring the Noize’ as I was going to pack up and move to stage 5 to see one of the main reasons I was there, a little band called ‘Shinedown.’ Now, maybe they’re a little too mainstream for this kind of festival, or maybe it was just that Placebo were on the main stage but Shinedown would’ve been lucky to have 200 people watching them. My theory is, everyone that wasn’t there missed out. Everyone that was has called them one of the bands of the day. This was evident by Dave Hellman from Christchurch NZ who was here to see the band and pretty much only Shinedown. Stuck in the front row with Erin from Pyrmont, who was saddened that My Chemical Romance had to pull out but very happy to see Shinedown. Todd from Wentworthville and Shannon from Panrith also made it up for Shinedown but were also going to make sure they headed back for Faith No More.

Shinedown hit the stage and it was with all guns blazing and singer Brent Smith in a leather jacket. Now that is rock and roll. Ripping through a short but sweet set list including ‘Sound of Madness’ and my personal favourite ‘Devour’ that showed these guys are a force to be reckoned with. This is a band that have been around for 3 albums now but only just received a break due to their huge single ‘Second Chance’ and when the opening chords were strummed the 200 strong crowd went berserk. A band that sounds better live than they do on record is rare and I now need to add Shinedown to this list. Give them a listen, you won’t be disappointed.

I took a deep breath as I needed to trek all the way to the other side of the venue to make it in time to see ‘Jimmy Eat World’ who were due to start in 20 minutes. I get my spot; I see that ‘Jane’s Addiction’ is still on. I ask the guys in the front row what has happened. It seems that a couple of bands were running late for the day and had thrown the times out. Score for me and I got to see ¾ of the Jane’s Addiction set. I’ve never much been a fan of Perry Farrell’s voice, but hearing him live and seeing his stage presence was just awesome. Plus to see Dave Navarro up there was a little bit cool. Hearing the 50,000+ crowd sing along to ‘Been caught stealing’ was a highlight and something I wont forget in a hurry. But as they finished, it was time for ‘Jimmy Eat World’ to hit the stage. This is a band who had graciously accepted the spot that My Chemical Romance had to vacate. You either love or you hate Jimmy Eat World and from the mixed reviews I heard after their set, it was evident. I personally have seen them a number of times and in talking to the front row before they came on, waiting patiently to see them, these guys were buzzing and ready.

2 seconds into their set I was in heaven, it was ‘Sweetness’ my favourite of theirs, and that was the beginning of a tearing set from all their albums, some gems like ‘Lucky Denver Mint’ ‘The world you love’ ‘A Praise chorus’ and even throwing in ‘Blister’ in the mix were perfect choices. But as they come to a close they finish their set with the big guns ‘Big Casino’ ‘Bleed American’ ‘Hear you Me’ and the crowd pleaser that had them all jumping, using every last ounce of their dehydrated strength to sing along to ‘The Middle.’ Jimmy Eat World are truly a band you do need to experience live and I feel were possibly my highlight of the day second only to Shinedown.

Until. 1 hour late coming on due to the delays, but it was finally time for the band that majority of the crowd was ready to see. It was time to see the ‘Re United’ Faith No More, and that’s exactly what people did, they came on to a reception you don’t normally hear, a reception of excitement and anticipation. It had been a long time since FNM had played together, especially in Australia and it showed. It showed in a way that they knew it had been too long, they were pumped, they were ready and they kicked so much ass that they had to bring in more ass. Mike Patton truly is a perfect front man, he knows how to command a crowd and at one point a security guard who he had spray him with the water hose to cool down. To finally be able to hear a crowd scream ‘Be Aggressive’ was just amazing, pretty sure a moment that many had been waiting for. The set slowed down a little for classics such as ‘Evidence’ and ‘Easy’ a song really not suited for a festival, especially of this caliber went down a treat and I’m sure if Lionel Richie was there to see the thousands of people singing his song that have no idea it is in fact a Lionel song he would’ve chuckled. All the way to the bank…but was instantly brought back up for the brilliant ‘Midlife Crisis’ complete with ‘popcorn’ whistle solo, something I’m sure not many bands could get away with but for Faith No More, its almost natural, if not normal.

One of my favourite parts of a band’s set is when the huge hit is just thrown in early, not saved until the end. As pretty much exactly half way through we got ‘Epic’ and it was nothing but. I honestly have nothing more to say about that you wouldn’t already know other than it truly was a moment I had been waiting for since 1990. Ripping through the remainder of the set, it was almost a blur as they were just so good. I was hoping, as many others were that when they walked off that they’d come back, surely they couldn’t be done. They did come back, as pardon the pun, they cared a lot. They were beyond appreciative of the crowd and absolutely tore the place apart with their closer ‘We care a lot’ it was a spectacle and everyone left with a massively sun burnt smile on their face.

At one point I was hoping to catch the last 30 minutes of H.I.M but as the times had been thrown out, I managed to hear the closing chord of ‘When love and hate embrace’ oh, ok, so that was H.I.M ha ha. Luckily I’d seen them before, but the smaller crowd (because of Faith No More) cheered and it sounded like they got what they came for.

A 2 and a half hour car ride home that should’ve taken 30 minutes didn’t help the stinking hot day and I hope this is something the promoters will take into note in the future. The festival and the bands, amazing! The venue, terrible. It does in a way put a dampener on the day but what can you do? I enjoyed what I saw, and unfortunately there isn’t 3 of me so I could see all the bands I wanted to due to the clashes but hey, it wouldn’t be a festival without clashes. So overall, talking musically, the day was great, and I’d recommend Soundwave to anyone who appreciates a good rock band, let’s see what 2011 can bring. Request number 1. A new venue for Sydney. Request number 2. Poison. Oh yeah, now that would rule!

ROCK SUGAR (JESS HARNELL)

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 17:17:28 +1100

Having grown up loving equally the pop and hard rock that came out of the 80's, there have been many times that I have wondered what some of the classic 80's pop songs would sound like done as more rocked up versions. Never once however did I envisage hearing a project as ambitious and defying as what Rock Sugar have released with ‘Reimaginator’. For a band that has spent the last 20 years on a deserted island (www.rocksugarband.com for the full story) these guys have lost none of the potential they showed back in 1989 when they threatened to take the world by storm!

We will let lead singer Jess Harnell fill you in on exactly what Rock Sugar is about in our interview below, but for those of you who dare let Rock Sugar violate your musical senses, beliefs and prejudices you will be rewarded with one of the most unexpectedly awesome albums you will hear and a sure fire winner to unveil to all your rock and pop loving friends!!

Don't stop believin'....because pop rocks!!

Jess, congratulations on a killer album....after spending 20 years on a deserted island, you guys sure must be proud to have overcome your deficiencies with music technology and your total ignorance of modern music to produce something so totally original, cutting edge and face melting as you have?
Thankyou very much and congratulations on your killer website. The fact that something like this hasn't been done before amazes me. We are lucky enough to be using some of the greatest songs ever written and it would certainly be nice to say that we wrote them....but this is a big tip of the hat to those that did write those songs on both sides of the fence. The rock side and the pop side, because one thing they have in common is that they are amazing songs. When I talk about the originality of the project and what makes it interesting, whilst mash ups have existed for a very long time such as Led Zeppelin done in bluegrass and The Black Sweden who did Abba songs mixed with metal songs which was really cool too, but to take genres and say we are going to cherry pick our favourite songs from rock and our favourite songs from pop and do them live as a band, with a story and a concept which is 80's music, I haven't seen that before! I am proud we had that concept and that it turned out as well as it did. If it melts your face too...that's so much the better!

For those who might be living on their own desert island and haven't yet given themselves a shot of Rock Sugar, can you give a brief introduction into what your CD "Reimaginator" is all about exactly?
Well the CD is based on the premise of what would happen to a bunch of hardcore heavy metal guys in a band if in the late 80's they were stranded on a desert island and the only music they could listen to for the 20 years were the pop records of a 13yo girl. Basically what made it funny to me was that these guys had been brainwashed by pop and into believing that Sheena Easton is the high princess of Heavy Metal and ended up loving this music. So what the CD is about is taking all the songs that you like from the 80's on the rock side and the pop side and then smashing them together and making them into one song. In other words, we’ll set things up with a riff from something heavy such as an AC/DC song and then I'll end up singing Madonna over it It sounds like it shouldn't work, but the amazing gift we have on this, is that it DID work. The CD is kinda like a surprise party and so are the live shows in that you don’t know what's coming next and after a while you really don’t want to know as it's more fun that way to anticipate what's coming next. It's basically music for people with ADD, every 45 seconds it becomes another song!

"Reimaginator" is a killer CD and has some totally mind blowing arrangements (look no further than "Here Comes The Fool You Wanted"). Can you give us some insight into how on earth you managed to combine the songs in the manner that you did? Did songs have to share some similar elements such as a chord progression or similar lyric, or was there a total disregard for any rules whatsoever?
We really tried to just make it all about the 80's, but I think maybe some things from the 70s seeped in and even 1991 apparently. I had the idea and thought wouldn't it be cool to do a rock that's nostalgic and familiar, but at the same time new, original and creative. As much respect as I have for cover bands and tribute bands, I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to do something a little more different and fun. So I came up with this particular idea and went to my partner in crime for all these years, Chuck Duran, who is an amazingly gifted guy and described it to him and he came back a few days later with “Don't Stop The Sandman” and we started working with that and debuted it over at Firefest in the UK in 2008 and it went over great. From then on, it was really akin to putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Some of the songs came from myself and some from Chuck and we would meet and work through them. “Crazy Girl” is one that I had come up with and my favourite one from Chuck was “Voices In The Jungle”. The funniest thing about this song was that Chuck in the very early stages would send across sound files of the original songs merged together and that song was the one that sounded the funniest, but we worked on the pieces of the puzzle and it came out sounding great! Chuck really had the weight of the world on his shoulders as all I had to do was show up and sing.

I did however get to do something cool and that was adapt the vocal characteristics of the various singers. But Chucky really had the difficult thing of working out, now how do we get from say “Kickstart My Heart” into “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Firstly what kind of mind comes up with something like that in the first place? Well that's Chuck! But then have it make sense and be in the same key and in the same time signature which was a problem in a few tunes. But he always managed to do it, a couple of times it didn't work because the songs were too different and we couldn't make it work, but there was always a good reason. There was no regard for rules, except for the musical ones of this would sound ridiculous if we tried to do it, be creative and pick really great songs! All the songs on here are cool, we just tried to re-imagine them in a way you have never heard before!

There were so many awesome POP songs created during the 80's that could quite easily have gotten the Rock Sugar treatment! Do you think you have a Rock Sugar Re-Reimaginator in you..eg a second CD? Did it surprise you that something like this hadn't been attempted before?
It absolutely surprised me that something like this had never been attempted before. I googled like crazy to see if something had. It's kinda like the guy that came up with putting tips on the end of shoelaces, you mean nobody thought of this yet? It seems such an obvious idea. To this day my proudest thing about this band is not that I am in it, it's that we are the first one’s to come up with this idea and make it public on a big way.

As for the second record, we absolutely do have another in us given we have created this concept with the island and stuff. It's like the reins have been lifted because now the guys are off the island, they listen to everything from the 60’s and 70’s to the 90’s or the 2000’s and now let's just mess with that! The liner notes will be even funnier as it can now be about them trying to use a cell phone or the Internet or whatever. We have a bunch of ideas we have been kicking around, one that we will probably debut in the live show. An idea that came to me shopping for clothes one day and it really is good. What's really exciting is that on rocksugarband.com, people can get on and submit there own ideas for songs. If we do happen to use one of your ideas, I am here to inform you that you will get a big thankyou and credits in the liner notes etc, so please do log on and check it out!

Given the bands obvious musical abilities, were there any creative fires sparked during your time on the island that got you considering recording new material of your own?
You know, I love writing songs and I love writing lyrics. I've been lucky to work with Chuck Duran who is a great songwriter. If any of you out there have any of the Loud N Clear records hopefully you like those songs, we were very proud of them. The thing that's interesting is that the music industry had changed so drastically over the last few years that honestly, making it in a rock band is most closely akin to being the single winner of super lotto! If you think about how many contemporary bands these days become "rockstars" or internationally renowned bands, what are we looking at, maybe 2? The fact of the matter is that at the end of the day we all have businesses we are running. I am a Voice Over actor and a singer, Chuck owns his own studio and is also now doing some work as a studio singer for Disney and some things. So we all have jobs...and one of the criteria was that we have to do something that we could actually have a chance making a living doing and getting radio to play it and people to come and see it. So we asked ourselves what can we do that is conducive to possibly getting some exposure and this came back as the answer. So whilst we love recording new material and for all our Loud N Clear fans out there, we love you guys and if we meet you out on the road we will be happy to sing a few things to you. But if things keep going the way they have been going, we will be focussing on this and we are very happy with it as we are getting to add our creative stamp on some of the greatest songs ever written and have the honour to sing and play them for everybody.

As a "hardcore degenerate heavy metaller" who has been brainwashed by 80's pre-teen girl pop, can you put into words what makes "pop, rock"? Is it the key changes, the melody, the hook lines.....?
Listen, you know what, the definition of a great song has always been can you play this on a guitar and sing it and have it sound good, without any protools, or any autotune? If you can, then you have a great song. A great song will always be a great song whether you do a flamenco version, a jazz, or a pop, or heavy metal version or whatever, it will still be a great song because the seed is there. As for what makes pop rock, well it's more of the feel, the way you interpret it and the glasses you put on to view it with. I have in my collection versions of Beatles songs done in country style, they are the same little Beatles songs. The main thing I hope this thing will do is make people happy as I don't think there has been enough of that in recent years in music and hopefully we can be a part of bringing some of that back.

With all that practice playing on the bamboo stage in front of stick figures, you guys must be pretty eager to play some shows on real stages to real people and see if any of those groupies still exist from days gone by. Do you have any plans yet for any shows?
Absolutely yes for planning for shows. We want to come and play for you reading this....yes YOU, I am talking to YOU!! We are starting with Andrew McNiece’s MelodicRockFest which is in the first week of May. We will also be playing all over the world based on all the action and response we are getting online with different requests from different parts of the world! So yes we are going to be playing all over the place and hopefully not too far from you.

Let us go back to the very beginning. 1989 was a time when hard rock and metal ruled the airwaves. Your band that started it all for you, Loud N Clear were regarded by many as one of the hottest bands in Hollywood at the time. What prevented things from happening for the band back then and see it failing to capitalise on it's "platinum potential"?
I think that the reason that all of the bands that almost made it in the 80's but didn't, was because there was a saturation of metal and in some ways it became manufactured. It was like the labels were just saying find us a bunch of guys with big hair who look cute in spandex and can sing in harmony and let's give them a record deal. They were less concerned about artistic integrity than they were manufacturing a product. But, a lot of those guys were fantastic and I know most of those songs by heart. But then Nirvana came out and that changed the climate immediately. That's why I feel that Loud N Clear never got to where I thought we should, but that's ok because everything works out in the end.

Remember, anything that was huge once, can be huge again and that's been proven many times. What's great now about Rock Sugar is that we are using are songs that people love and were huge in their time, but what we are trying to do is bring them back in a new set of clothes. So maybe it's time for the musical climate to change again and reintroduce the masses to rock with big hair and big stage shows and big moves and importantly, big fun and we want to be a part of that!

With L.A being dominated in the late 80's with glam bands, where did Loud N Clear sit exactly in the whole L.A scene? Who were some of the more infamous or famous bands that Rock Sugar shared a stage with? Did you ever play infamous venues such as FM Station, Gazarri's, Roxy etc or did the band come in on the tail end of the L.A movement?
In the 80's, Chuck and I had Loud N Clear and we were honoured to be one of the biggest drawing bands on the famous Sunset Strip, so we were lucky to play all those great clubs like the Roxy, Whiskey, The Palace and Gazarri's. The best part of that for me was always getting on stages and wondering if that's where Dave Lee Roth stood, I wonder if Nikki Sixx set his pants on fire in that corner right there, I wonder if that's where Jimi Hendrix played or is that where Zeppelin sat when they came to the Whiskey? That's the really, really cool thing. When we first came out we were a day late and a dollar short basically. But we released some great, great music that I am still proud of and I think if we had of come out a few years sooner, a lot more people would probably know that music. By the way, if you know Loud N Clear, then god bless you, and if you are interested in chasing down our DVD from our performance at Firefest in 2008 or our CD releases then head on over to our Myspace page by clicking this link http://www.myspace.com/rockwithloud.

Did it annoy you when bands possessing far less musical ability than Loud N Clear seemed to be able to get a record deal off the back of a poptarts pack back in the day?
No it never annoyed us that any bands made it, we were always happy for them and the fact that they got that golden ticket. Over time there have been less and less golden tickets to go around, as I said earlier about being successful in the music business which is one reason why I am grateful we have managed to be successful in our other projects. One of my proudest achievements i have in my life just individually is that i have always made a living with my voice. Whether it be singing or doing voiceover work, or even both most often. So there's no bitterness, put it this way if we were a poptart we would be a sweet, creamy one, not a bitter, crusty stale one! So we are happy for anyone whoever managed to achieve that and more power to them.

Jess, talking about your skills as a voice announcer and celebrity impressionist and considering your extensive resume, is there a character/movie/TV show that you would now love to get the opportunity to do voices for?
Listen, I do voices for anybody! I'll do voices for the guy at 7 Eleven, I'll do voices for you when we come to Australia and do a show, all you have to do is ask! I have been so lucky to get to do so much stuff and get paid for it which amazes me, because there are so many talented people in the world. I am very proud I get to do a lot of work for Pixar because I think they make amazing movies and I think I have been in most of them which is really an honour. I have done a lot of stuff for the Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and I love the fact I got to do all those great 90's Warner Bros shows like Animaniacs and Pinky And The Brain. Basically I just love doing voices and they can come from the most random of places and people. I am the only person that goes to see a movie and sit there while the movie is going trying to figure out if I should imitate one of the actors in the movie because it may one day be advantageous later in my career!

What do you consider to be some of the major differences between using your vocal abilities in a musical sense compared to doing character voices/impersonating others?
Now this is a really great question! You know, they are all similar flavours used in different ways. I look at myself as like a vocal manipulator. I look at it like I have settings in my throat to create things like pitch and texture and sound quality, do I want vibrato or no vibrato, dark or raspy, piercing or pure? The same thing applies to doing voice over work, a lot of it however really comes from attitude. But there's a big difference in singing various things in various styles. One of the biggest challenges with this record is that it gave me the opportunity to take so many singers that I love and try to put enough flavour of that guy into the song before it switched to the next guy, that you capture a bit of their essence without being a parody. Chuck was really good for me in that way because he would pull me back and go dude, you're starting to sound like the Axl Rose tribute impressionist guy. So I would pull back a bit from that kind of stuff. But still, I think if I look at Vince Neil's adlibs on "Kickstart My Heart" and if you didn't try and capture some of that essence that people know so well, then people would think something was lacking. Certainly with the Steve Perry stuff, that's so iconic that if you don’t try and sound a little bit like that, people are almost going to be disappointed. So it was a fine line, but a really fun one to walk. One of the greatest compliments to come from the Rock Sugar album is people think we are using samples which by the way we are not. They're thinking, “but there is no way that one guy sang all that stuff”! I am real proud that I did, with the exception of one song on there "Prayin For A Sweet Weekend" which was sung so very well by Chuck Duran.

Having spent the last 20 years stuck on that island what are your thoughts on where music and entertainment is at in 2010 compared to 1989?
Well the 80's were such a great decade for music and particularly rock. David Lee Roth once had a great line about Van Halen that I thought was so great. He was once asked “what do you think is the biggest difference between classic Van Halen with you and 2nd era Van Halen with Sammy Hagar?” His response was "well, the first era of Van Halen made you want to drive your car fast, get laid and break the speed limit. Sammy Hagar era Van Halen makes you wanna get a mortgage, settle down and put your kids through college". I thought that was really, really funny and now it's sorta like that. The 80's personified fun. There's a reason for that, go out to your local club or bar and in between the Lady Gaga and 50 Cent records, when they put on an AC/DC song, or Don't Stop Believin', I don't care how old the people are, they react the same way and that's because those songs are so great and so much fun! So the biggest difference between now and then is back then it was all about having fun and a really good time. I've always said that shows should be more like a party that everybody goes too together and I just happen to be the guy that ended up with the microphone, but I am still there to party with everyone else! This is one of the things I want Rock Sugar to be part of bringing back, I want people to go to our shows and have such a good time that they can't wait to go back. So the big difference is FUN, but you know what, now is starting to look a lot like then.

Any last words for the growing legion of Rock Sugar fans around the world?
Lastly, I just wanted to say that we have received a huge outpouring of support from people all over the world thanks to the power of the Internet and I would love to see that continue. So please, if you haven't yet done so, go to rocksugarband.com and register to be one of our friends so we can keep you updated with all the latest news, shows, exclusive offers and all kinds of stuff like that. Please also join us on Facebook and leave us your comments and check out all the latest contests and cool happenings. We also have several videos added to our Youtube, with plenty more in store, but the primary one is for Don't Stop The Sandman. That video was directed by a girl called Kelsey David who did a great job. In a month of active play we have had over 260,000 plays and we are shooting for a million, so please check it out!

As I also said earlier, one of the aims of Rock Sugar was to get played in the radio and this has already happened on some stations here in the USA. So if you have only seen the video and that's all you have heard, please go to our website and check out samples of the whole album, buy the album, tell your friends and request it in your radio if you can! I guarantee if you buy the record it's gong to be the best party album you have ever heard. Watching peoples faces when they listen to the album for the first time never ceases to amaze because they are always so surprised l! If you really want to be part of the grass roots campaign, please reach out to radio no matter where you are in the world....and make sure you tell them this is like nothing they have heard before, a band that combines 80' s pop with 80's metal! Maybe then what is happening here in the USA will happen in your country too and then we will be coming to see you and then you will never get rid of us!!

We appreciate all your support and whether it's with our band or another, please keep rocking because rock deserves to be heard and don't ever let that fire go out!!

God bless everybody and god bless you Scott and May The Rock Be With You for taking the time!

READ OUR ROCK SUGAR CD REVIEW RIGHT HERE!!!!

BROKEN TEETH (JASON MCMASTER)

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 09:41:32 +1100

“Broken Teeth formed in Austin, Texas, in 1999 when Jason McMaster (Watchtower and Dangerous Toys) recruited former members of Dangerous Toys, Dirty Looks and Pariah for a side project that allowed band members to have some fun indulging their dirty rock influences including AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Circus of Power and The Four Horsemen. More than a decade later, Broken Teeth has firmly established its own tattered and frayed identity.
The band has just recently released their rocking new album “Viva La Rock, Fantastico”, featuring 13 all-new tracks and cameo vocals by Canadian compadre, Danko Jones. “Viva la Rock, Fantastico!” (Perris Records) was written on the road during Broken Teeth’s 2008-2009 “Blood on the Road Tour.”

Lead singer Jason McMaster checked in to give us all the info we could possibly need to know about the new album and what’s in store for Broken Teeth for the remainder of 2010!

Jason, thanks for taking the time to talk to us about the new album Viva La Rock Fantastico" which was released in January. There certainly seems to be a buzz growing about the album. Has the response so far exceeded your expectations, or were you confident that this album would generate the level of positive response that is so far has?
The buzz on the new record is a nice surprise. we had no idea what to expect, we just knew we had fun putting these songs together and that at least we felt good about it. At the end of the day, you can only be your own critic and measure your levels on what it is you have just created. So, anything positive we have gotten was of course nice, but not all out expected.

Having written this album largely whilst out on the road, did you find this environment the kind of inspiration required for the raw and gritty brand of rock n roll that Broken Teeth delivers?
It looks that way when you feel our style, but, not needed to make good kick in the face rock. I believe two songs on the record were only written the night before the last day of basic tracking, "Big Spender" and "Bullet". The bulk of it I think was written on the road. I was literally bouncing around in the back of the bus, or vans, or hanging in a hotel room putting riffs and vocal ideas together. I have a small guitar that I was lugging around, plugging into this little porta studio i had, it pretty much made it so easy and spontaneous.

Taking that question one step further, this album marks the first Broken Teeth album written by the bands current lineup and also without the involvement of guitarist Pail Lidel. How did you find the songwriting process compared to past releases?
W were slightly worried to possibly lose the gauntlet on what we had been writing with Paul’s riffs and vibe. He had a complete hand in it, along with myself, we were creating Broken Teeth from the ground up since 1999, making sure the songs were only a few ingredients deep...one bass line all the way through, steady solid grooves, and complete firespitting, knuckle dragging, mouth breathing rock.

"Viva La Rock Fantastico" what was the inspiration behind this being the album title?
I love the old french rock band,TRUST. I have covered their songs before, and Anthrax cover the song “Antisocial”, anyway, I love the singer, his name is Bernie. I always rediscover that record every that band and my appreciation for them. Last year I was singing along with a few songs on a trust record called SAVAGE, and the cadence and flow of the vocals are jagged and fast, I believe only because of the crazy French accent. I told myself that i wanted to do something like that in a Broken Teeth song, and all i could come up with was the silly phrase, "Viva La Rock Fantastico", which is really bad Spanish, or tex-mex, and is just a bouncy sort of spittle of words that i felt resembled what i was trying to borrow from Bernie. I was trying to have the phrase be funny as well as punk, as well as basically say, thank god that Rock N Roll is here saving me from a boring life! A sort of celebration of the rock n roll. What added flavour to this and the song "Big Spender" is that Danko Jones contributed guest vocals to those songs. We are very psyched to have him on this record.

When you first put the band together back in 1999, did you think you would still be going strong some 10 years and 5 albums later, not too mention the interest in the band growing stronger with each release??
We had no intention of making this a real band, a touring band, etc.. we were making the record in 1999 as a barter deal for Perris to use his studio for a different project and never intended to play live at all. Here we are ten years later......I am very happy with the results. It occupied my time, and reminded me how hard it is to write very simple rock n roll, that still packs a punch.

"Something tellin me too.....get your ass back on the road" What are the bands touring plans in 2010 to promote the new album? Do you see Broken Teeth venturing outside of the USA anytime soon?
I know, the grammar on this record, including the fake Spanish title, is incredibly bad....at least i can laugh at it! We have a tour of the midwestern states lined up for May and June, also a plan to do another run of dates in the fall before we go on a 5 day cruise in November. We did the cruise last year as well, with Ratt, Tesla, Queensryche and Skid Row. The cruise is called SHIPROCKED, go to www.getshiprocked.com for info. It’s a blast. I am not sure who the big headliners are this year, but, its a festival type thing, on a cruise ship. Pretty cool idea.

Speaking of touring, for the benefit for those of us that live in galaxies far far away and may never get to see Broken Teeth tear it up on stage, can you describe for us a typical Broken Teeth live show?
BOOM ....right outta the shoot. A lot of swagger, a fine tuned setlist, that has only changed with the releases of new material. The staples of our early records are always in the set, always seeming to us like a our own personal faves or a greatest hits set. We don't have any ballads, or is the song "Stick It In' counted as a ballad? Sweat, fists, sometimes blood and all the other rock cliche's that you need to make rock n roll are gonna be there.

Outside of America, where have you found Broken Teeth's fan base to largely originate from? Obviously with the Rose Tattoo, AC/DC and Airbourne connection here in Australia there would definitely be a fan base in the land down under to tap into! Are you aware of many fans down here in Australia?
I know that Aussie fans know Broken Teeth. We don’t get a lot of response, but, some. the Airbourne guys kind of filled me on on how they heard about Broken Teeth and my other projects, and anyone who loves real rock over there will find us no matter what, i feel that is true. But to be able to point at Oz and say "they know our songs and have our records" I think that might seem like an untruth on any scale, i can only dream of oz getting Broken Teeth for a tour over there.

For someone who has been consistently involved in music for over 20 years now, what continues to keeps the fires burning?
It is a part of who i am. It’s my art, and very important to me. Ones who have high paying straight jobs, wish they had what i have and i don’t want what they have. So, when you look at it, or fantasise it that way, I am what their parents wouldn’t let them be. I tell it in my sermon of rock every performance. 9 to 5 people need rock n roll too, it keeps them sane. Anyone who has a band knows this information. rock n roll chooses you, the songs speak to you. The radio is not your friend, it is only spoon feeding you a song they are told you will like, never knowing if it is a good song or not. The way to beat this is to go to shows, buy records you like, and build your own playlists, or library...its called being a fan. a fan, is what i am, before all else.

Jason, we also have to ask you about Dangerous Toys, who in April return to the stage for some shows. Do you think we will ever see a new album from Dangerous Toys, or at this stage is the intention to only return to the stage?
No new recordings are planned. We did release a 20th year anniversary dvd/cd set (www.seeofsound.com search Dangerous Toys) in January 2010. We have been playing shows as a sort of reunion set, since 1999. We made some records that did not sell well, the audience was so fickle for a time, we decided to play the songs that people wanted to hear, deep cuts, most of the first two records, and run with it. We have a lot of fun, and the idea of making a record in this day and age under the name Dangerous Toys, makes fans just want to hear the old stuff. Why make a record that sounds like something you wrote 20 years earlier, might as well just play the songs you’re trying to write like. Or, call it Broken Teeth!!

I stumbled upon an interview you did about 6 years in which there was the following quote from you "being told that rock/metal is making a comeback is only true if they think that rock is dead, its not dead, the fans are there"....so in 2010, do you think this statement still holds true?
Amen. Of course it does. Fans want to be spoonfed and told what to like. Total bovine. Waiting for your favourite song to be played on a corporate digital timed out computer playlist, the chances are shit. Real fans press "play".

Whether it be through Broken Teeth, Dangerous Toys or any other of the projects you have been involved, for all that you have given to a life of rock n roll, what do you consider rock n roll to have given back to you?
My sanity. I am level when i have a microphone or a guitar in my hands. It’s therapeutic.

Heres a chance to gaze into your crystal ball and make three predictions. By the end of 2010 Broken Teeth will have....
1.Toured and played shows with danko jones
2.Sold a few records
3.Had a shitload of fun

Jason, thanks for your time and may the rock be with you in 2010!

CRAZY LIXX (ANDY DAWSON)

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:12:08 +1100

“Crazy Lixx, one of the most exciting bands to come out of the Sleaze-Rock movement renaissance in Sweden are back with the release of the brand new album entitled New Religion. Formed in 2002 in Malmö, Sweden, the band debuted with “Loud Minority” in November 2007, an album that notwithstanding an underground release, received a great acclaim from the media and fans, reaching position #2 in the national Swedish Hard Rock chart.

The band spent all of 2008 and parts of 2009 touring like hell all over Europe and writing material for the new album, working hard to define their own music style which, even though was often compared to the likes of Def Leppard, KISS, Warrant and Skid Row, has now matured and evolved in a personal and ultra-melodic interpretation of the Sleaze-Arena Hard Rock style.

The final result is “New Religion”, which includes a dozen Hard Rock gems recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm with producer Chris Laney (Europe, Crashdďet, Candlemass). Setting out with the mission to beat the living s**t out of “Loud Minority” new anthems like “Children of the Cross”, “Rock and a Hard Place” and “21 'Til I Die” the guys can consider their mission accomplished and look at 2010 as a key year to break their talent on to the international markets.”

We caught up with guitarist Andy Dawson to discuss the recording of the new album and what’s in store for Crazy Lixx fans worldwide in 2010!

Andy thanks for taking the time to talk about the new album "New Religion" which is due to be released on March 19th. There is certainly a buzz growing about the album. You must be eagerly awaiting the day that it's finally unleashed on the masses?
No problem, I'm very exited about the album, especially since the process of making it has been so intense and long but of course I'll be relieved when it's unleashed. Last year was very productive for me and the band, but also very though. Changing record label, writing a lot of material, recording the album and also playing a lot live on new grounds in Italy, Germany and Switzerland.

'New Religion' delivers a more "arena/stadium" rock sound than 'Loud Minority', which could loosely be described as more "glam". Was this a calculated move by yourselves to try and distinguish yourselves a little bit from the abundance of glam bands in Sweden, or was this just the natural evolution of the band?
Well, we've been focusing on the songwriting first and foremost, but yes, arena rock is what we set out do. Not only to distinguish "LIXX" from other bands of today's scene, but finding ourselves. Personally, my inspiration comes from bands like; Aerosmith, Guns ‘N' Roses, Def Leppard and so on. For me, as far as the way "New Religon" sounds, it feels very natural. The first album "Loud Minority" contains songs from a much wider time period, some songs are over six years old and that is the biggest disparity between the two albums i think.

You are now on the roster of Frontiers Records who these days are pretty much THE home of melodic/hard rock. Was this seen as a necessary step to take for worldwide domination?
Yeah, of course. With Frontiers Records backing us up and believing in us we've really gotten a huge energy boost. It's been making us stronger and I feel real good about us working together.

From a song point of view, the band has certainly evolved with this album being a very consistent affair and offers a bit more diversity in comparison to 'Loud Minority'. A couple of my favourite songs are 'Children Of The Cross', 'Blame It On Love' and '21 Till I Die'. What are your personal thoughts on these 3 songs and any interesting studio experiences you can share when recording these tracks?
'Children Of The Cross' is one of my favorites too. What I really love about that song is the lyrics, I think it's amazing what Danny alone managed to put together there. It's a very pretentious song, a sad tale about child abuse coming from not only Christianity, but religion overall. One part of the lyric I especially like is; "Love taken, God forsaken, Failed by the on they relied on, They are they children of the cross.." Most importantly, this is the only song in the song bank of Crazy Lixx that I really can call timeless to one hundred percent. 'Blame It On Love' is just a great, catchy, softer kinda song with an amazing verse, the chorus is strong but the verse is fantastic. I can't say much about “21”, it's a good hard rock song. During the recording of 'Blame' I used a lot of different guitar stuff like a really old Fender amp, probably from the mid 70's, sounded awesome and you can really hear it in the verses playing against another guitar going through a 'rockman box' the first amp-simulator ever made, together it sounds real cool.

Whilst Danny is largely the chief songwriter, I also notice that you share a few songwriting credits. How much input did the rest of the band have into the evolution of the songs on "New Religion"?
Everyone votes when we pick out the finals but during the songwriting process it's Danny and me working but when done' with a song we play them a rough demo and get feedback from Luke and Joél. Luke is often more aggressive then Joey giving it, hehe. Me and Danny have been working in many different ways, some alone and some together. Starting with sometimes a riff, sometimes a cool lyric thing, a melody or sometimes a whole part. But there were over twice as many songs on the list when picking out the finals.

From a lyrical point of view, where does the band/Danny draw most of it's inspiration?
I don't really know where he gets it. He's without a doubt a great lyric-writer, I think he's the best songwriter I've ever worked with. Those songs I've been a part of (lyricwise) there's been more then one side to it ending up the way it has, the song 'Rock And A Hard Place' is a song about never giving up, an insight look on our bands struggle, basically a rock n'roll lyric. 'Voodoo Woman' Is more of a mystic, sexual story told from a narrator with anxiety up his throat, this song is about a woman with the strongest ability of attraction, beyond magic so.. Vodoo hehe, I always been fascinated by african beliefs in witchcraft and voodoo so had to write a song about it. 'What Of Our Love' is based on real life ,real events and stuff I've been through so not all the songs are you know, fiction.

Chris Laney once again produced the album and even more so than "Loud Minority" every song sounds MASSIVE and very polished. What were the instructions to Chris going into recording?
We made pre-recordings of not all the songs, but almost every song just to fill his head with "Lixx" hehe. We just explained that we wanted a bigger sound, heavier in a way and he made it happened.

Speaking further of Chris's involvement, how much influence does he actually have on the song structures themselves?
On this album, almost non at all, but on "Loud Minority" I think he did allot.

What was the significance of calling the album "New Religion"?
We felt that there was a new line-up, new partners, new music, a new (on some level) sound, and 'New Religion' suited that.

Andy, you weren't part of Crazy Lixx when Loud Minority was recorded. How did you find the experience of being involved in the recording of the new album?
I loved it, some nights we were recording till four, five in the morning but you know.. it was hard work worth doing.

What are the touring plans for the year ahead, particularly outside of Europe? Is there much interest being shown in the band from the likes of Japan, USA or UK?
I really don't no much about it yet but I hope well get a chance to play outside of europe 2010.

Your guitar playing on this album is one of it's definite highlights. Who are some of your major influences?
Thank you! Well, allot of people have been inspiring me not only guitarists, but players like Richie Kotzen, John Norum, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Slash of course have always been a big inspiration. Other then guitarists, Steven Tyler is my number one but other then rock musicians it varies from Lady Gaga to Django Reinhardt.

Heres a chance to gaze into your crystal ball and make three predictions. By the end of 2010, Crazy Lixx will have....
1. Grown Big.
2. Played allot all around the world.
3. Given Luke a new bass!

Thanks again for taking the time to chat and Andy, may the rock be with you in 2010!!

* Check out our review of ‘New Religion’ right here!

ANVIL (ROBB REINER)

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:04:29 +1100

If you haven’t seen the most amazing music documentary ever made ‘The story of ANVIL’ then you need to do so immediately. Anvil are a band that have been around for over 30 years but never made it as many of their peers have, yet they persevered, continued to make music and are now doing what they’ve always wanted to do. That is ROCK for a living. It truly is a heart warming story that needs to be seen or read. That will give you the back story you need to understand just what Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and Robb Reiner have encountered on their way back to being rock stars.

On the eve of hitting Australian shores to play as part of the Soundwave festival and their first ever shows in Australia (you can also catch them playing a couple of shows with Trivium in Melbourne and Sydney), we talked to Robb Reiner about touring, determination and he leaves us with his threat against the people of Australia.

We give you Robb Reiner.

You are out here later this month playing at Soundwave. What are you expecting from your appearance at what is now Australia's premier metal/heavy rock festival?
All that I’m expecting is to I guess enjoy the hot weather that apparently there and were gonna rock for like 150,000 kids that have never seen us and I’m looking forward to every minute of it  
You visited Australia in 2009 for a promo tour for the documentary, what was your impression of Australia and Australian metal fans??
My impression of Australia was that I fell in love with the place, the people and after 6 days I did not want to leave. I thought the whole place gave me the feeling of a cross between the UK and Canada. As far as the Metal fans I didn’t get a chance to really meet many Metal people there so I don’t really have a comment on that, we were just doing promotion for the movie.  
Would you have ever thought that one day you would’ve played in Australia?
I’ve always hoped that we would get there, that’s the best answer I can give you and I believed that one day probably would. Now it’s coming to be and its great and I cant wait.

Now with Anthrax also on the bill, Scott Ian has been known to get up on stage with you a few times, can we expect to see the same happen at the Soundwave shows?
We haven’t talked about it, that’s a spontaneous thing that happens so you never know.  
Speaking now of the "obvious", the documentary. Obviously it has been instrumental in propelling the band around the world, was there ever a time you thought it may backfire and not be a good idea to release the documentary?
After I saw the movie blow everybody away at the Sundance film festival I knew that the movie was going to blow the entire world away and I didn’t have any doubts otherwise.  
Who have been some of the more surprising people who have now come forward claiming themselves to be Anvil "fans"? I think I saw somewhere that Chris Martin from Coldplay is now a fan?
Absolutely. How about Jimmy Page? How about Paul McCartney?

That must be a buzz for you guys
Yeah the list has been growing so big that pretty soon I’ll have to start writing it down. People have really engaged the story of Anvil you know.

And the book, it’s great.
Yeah I know it’s great, that tells the whole back story  
Take this question as you will, but in the height of the madness surrounding the movie release, did you at times feel you had become/were being treated more as a "movie star" than "rock star"?
No I don’t feel like a movie star at all, I feel like that I’m actually starring in a movie, like we’re just in a movie. That’s how I feel. It’s always been about the band and the music and the movie was a way to tell the world the true story about the Anvil boys you know?  
How have your lives changed since its release, particularly as far as the workings of the band is concerned? Has Anvil now become that full time job you always wanted?
Oh absolutely, we gave up our day jobs 2 years ago. We have a real manager, a real agent we have record company distribution, we’re super, super, super famous and everything around us have changed. We internally are still the same people.  
With all the touring, have you begun working on a new album yet? Are there any intentions to maybe re-record some of your back catalogue?
Well the back catalogue is slowly being put out, I think through iTunes and Amazon, it will be eventually domestically released I’m sure. The new album is all written actually its called ‘Juggernaut of Justice’ its totally written we just have to record it and I believe we’re gonna do that in the fall of this year when we get off the road, we’re booked up until sometime in August or something and I believe after that part then we’re going to record the album.

When do you actually get to rest?
I’m resting right now ha ha

The documentary is just amazing, and truly does make you feel that there’s nothing that can’t be accomplished but in watching it the 10 or so times I’ve seen it, I can help but ask was there ever a time you thought that you almost gave up?
No, there’s never been a time, quitting or giving up is something I don’t understand or relate to or believe in. When you believe in yourself and what you’re doing then you just don’t give up on yourself or walk away from yourself so I don’t know anything about that, I’ve never thought about quitting, wanted to quit or was ever going to quit.

So everything in the movie is all genuine? The arguments, it was all exactly how it was?
Absolutely, the movie is a one take wonder. They filmed 320 hours of footage and they filmed everything, it didn’t matter, we were really just being ourselves all the time, that’s all that was required, just be ourselves.

What do you think of where "heavy metal" is at in 2010? Do you think the true legacy and meaning of "heavy metal' is being carried on through the decades?
Yeah well Heavy Metal never dies or goes away, so it’s always there. I’m not up on current contemporary metal bands and stuff so I have no idea but I know the real metal never ever goes away. That’s there for life.

Where Anvil have been instrumental in influencing some of the stars of today, such as Scott Ian, Slash, Lars and Lemmy who appear in the Story of Anvil....who were some of the true underground metal acts who have provided the inspiration to Anvil?
For me. How about Bloodrock? How about Cactus? How about Captain Beyond, yeah I love them, how bout Montrose, Foghat, the list is endless of bands like that. Grand Funk Railroad, I wish they’d be kicking a little more the way I’d like want them to be kicking.  
For someone who has now been in the music business for over 30 years, what are some of the key pieces of advice for young bands wanting to live the rock n roll dream?
My advice is the advice I give to everybody including myself right from the beginning. You have to do this for the right reasons and the right reasons only. And the reason is because you love it. You do it because you love it not because you want to make money with it. You do it for the love of music, of playing. Those are the right reasons.

Now you supported AC/DC for a few shows, I just have to ask, how was that?
Playing with AC/DC was amazing, we played 3 shows with them, 2 of them in the States, 1 in Canada. We played baseball stadium type venues 55,000 people in a few of them and 72,000 in Canada. It was humbling, it was an honour to share the stage with those guys, they’re really great guys. Angus saw the movie and fell in love with Anvil and wanted to help us.

They’re actually here in a week, any chance you might bump into them when you’re in town?
Yeah, apparently, the last show we may have the opportunity to go see it.

The story of Anvil was a one off, there would never be a sequel would there?
Everybody’s been asking about a sequel, we’re living a sequel right now. The epilogue is being lived in real life as we speak.

Are you filming it as you go?
No we’re not filming it.

So you’re just living the dream without the cameras in your face 24 hours a day?
Yeah, well you know we don’t know what the future will bring, there’s so much talk about making a sequel, if they make a sequel what is it gonna be, you’ll never make another Anvil movie like the first one ever. So, I wanna rock, right now its all about making the band rise, the majesty of Anvil is being discovered and that’s what this was all about.

What is so good about this is that when you were named on the Soundwave bill there was such a buzz that a lot of people are going solely to see you guys.
It’s gonna be amazing, I mean we’re looking forward to it you know, the Anvil set every day; we’re coming down there to kill.

Appreciate your time Robb, see you at Soundwave.
Thanks for your support and we’ll see you on tour.

AFI (Adam Carson)

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 22:15:09 +1100

With a dedicated and ever growing fan base across the world, 8 studio albums and one of the most passionate and energetic live shows you will ever see, AFI have certainly cemented themselves as a mainstay in the music business, not bad for a punk band formed 19 years ago in Ukiah, California. Their newest album ‘Crash Love’ has not done them any harm with a somewhat rockier sound from that of its predecessors ‘Sing the Sorrow’ and ‘Decemberunderground’ which is testament to a band that continue to do what they do best and evolve yet will always still remain the same band.

Drummer Adam Carson took the time to talk to us about the making of ‘Crash Love’, their touring plans for Australia and beyond and just how old he feels.

Just to kick it off with a few questions on the new album, the recording of ‘Crash Love’ completely captures the energy of AFI, how did recording this album differ to previous efforts?
Well, for the most part I think the process was pretty similar to other records, you know, its just a matter of getting in the studio and trying to decide how the songs need to sound, to how many layers of instrumentation need to be on there and at what sort of garnishing, I sound like I’m making food or something, what sort of layers should be on the top to add spice and colour.

This album seemed a bit more organic, a little more straight forward and a little more rock so the sound of the four of us playing in a room that we had going in the rehearsal space was sort of just what we wanted to capture when we went in the studio so we made sure that we got really good performances and really good sounds and from there it was just a matter of adding the layers of production that seemed necessary and what we presented was a little more stripped down and a little more direct sounding.  
The sound on ‘Crash Love’ is big, full of guitars and a pounding rhythm section, in fact it’s the fullest I’ve ever heard the band sound. How hard was it to get that vibe across in a recording studio?
Thank you. It seems it should be really easy but in fact it is hard and we actually had to start and stop and then start again to achieve that, you know when we originally started we were at a studio in North Hollywood and we were getting everything up and rolling and sounds that we thought sounded good and as we started to track the first couple of songs, something was missing, it was almost intangible we almost couldn’t really describe what was missing but we all felt it and it took another couple of weeks before we really confirmed that it really wasn’t sounding right so we kind of aborted the session and started over, a different studio, a different environment, a different room and from there we were able to sort of restart and rebuild and get the sounds we liked, the process was no different the second time at that time, it had a little more of a vibe to it.  
You changed producers during the making of the album from David Bottrill to Joe McGrath, who has previously produced bands like Greenday and Alkaline Trio as well as Jacknife Lee who has worked with U2 and Snow Patrol which is a totally different vibe, why the change and are you happy with the end result?
Yeah, I think everything that we recorded with Joe McGrath sounded amazing, the couple of songs we redid with Jacknife Lee was really just sort of an exploratory thing it was really just to see what would come from it. The versions that we did with Joe sounded amazing and could’ve been on the record, we just wanted to get a different approach and it was an experiment that turned out really great because some of the lightly more ambient numbers on the record were done by Jacknife and I think that his songs, there’s a handful, his songs provide kind of a different sound, a little more of a departure moment on the record and it ended up being a really great experience.

You’re of course coming back to Australia in February for the Soundwave festival as well as side shows of your own, what we can expect set wise at the shows? Any surprises?
Um, well, hopefully ha ha, you know we have another record now and our fans have always identified with one era of the band and there’s other fans that maybe are just familiar with the newer stuff so we try and play a good cross section of all our records, its impossible to play everybody’s favourite songs, but we try and create a set list that wont disappoint anybody and the fun part is there’s a handful of songs that we play that are old or songs that we haven’t been playing too much so people who follow the band and follow the set list sometimes will get excited we’ll dust something off and try to make our way through it.

How is the new stuff coming across at the shows?
Pretty well, these songs are the freshest for us and the most fun to play right now just because we haven’t spent years doing them so fortunately people seem to respond to that, you’d be upset to make a record and have people not care about the songs but so far so good.

I got to witness the amazing live AFI show when you were last here in Sydney back in 2006 and was blown away, what are some of your memories of Australia from that and previous tours?
Well, Australia is one of the few places that we had a fan base that was built in before we even showed up, a lot of places in the States and a lot of places to this day in Europe are places that we’ve played over and over and over and we have fans but we still struggle and we’re still trying to build our fan base, playing the same sized venues. The first time we ever came to Australia the shows were sold out and the people were enthusiastic and excited, you know I don’t know, I imagine that just speaks to the level of Rock music in Australia, its so refreshing to play in front of people that actually want to hear music with guitars and with people playing together in a band and not just pre recorded music. I can’t say enough of our experiences there.

Are you excited about meeting / playing with any of the other bands on the Soundwave bill?
I’m familiar with a handful, I haven’t seen an entire list and I don’t really know who’s on what show, but I’m really excited to play with Jane’s Addiction, if you would have told me in 1998 and 89 that someday 20 years later I’d be supporting them at a festival in Australia I would’ve probably thought you were crazy, people always ask you ‘are there moments that seem surreal?’ that’s definitely going to be one of those moments.  
You’ve recently added some more tour dates across the US, how long are you expecting to be on the road for?
Hard to say, we have plans into the Summer, and I don’t know if that means we’re going to tour through the Summer? I hope so, I’m having a good time and the shows are great and I’d be willing to play as many shows as possible. At some point down the road we’re going to have to start thinking about the next record, we’d like to get that out in a reasonable amount of time. There is a point you have to consider packing it in and work on new stuff but we’re still in the process of trying to gauge when that moment will be.  
You as a founding member of AFI have been with the band for 19 years this year, what are some of your fondest memories of being with the band?
Geez, these interviews are making me feel so old ha ha. You know there’s a million different times in our history that stick out to me, one time that seemed really special, we had just signed with Dreamworks and we were writing the songs that were eventually going to be on ‘Sing the Sorrow’ and there’s a lot of hype and a lot of the labels were interested in us and it was a typical major label feeding frenzy where every labels are trying to sign the band but they don’t really know about the band they’re just responding because other labels are. So we had just weathered that and gotten through the whole dog and pony show and we had made our decision and we had finally signed and I remember we started working on music, and Dreamworks were still sort of negotiating with Nitro records about them letting us out of the contract and so there was this vacuum that happened, where we went from a year of all these meetings and decisions and deliberating and trying to decide what to do to finally being left alone and I remember being really excited about the music we were writing and really for the first time just focus on that and knowing that the record was going to get made and we’d have the time and the money to make it right and that the songs were sounding really good, that was just a really special 4 or 5 weeks where we just got to be a band, but we knew for the first time we were a band with a little bit of a future at least. It was really exciting. I mean that was just off the top of my head, there’s a million moments when it just felt really right.  
You would’ve seen a lot of change within the music industry but as a band AFI have adapted to the trends and fads, what do you put that down to? A fan base?
That’s really the case, we recognized early on that the bands that really do try to pander to their fan base and bands that do try to follow what happens musically in the world, it always seems transparent and obvious to me, so we decided early on, that good or bad that we were going to make music that we were proud of and I think that’s been a good rule of thumb for us because if the records a success then we can point to having made a record that is really important to us and really organic and if it fails at least we can say we like it and we haven’t done anything wrong. And I think that more bands should do that.  
Can we expect anything special for the 20 year anniversary of AFI in 2011?
Oh man… I don’t know, that may be a little unfair, I mean Jade and Hunter joined the band in 98, so and to me, I know we made a lot of records before then but that’s what feels like AFI to me and maybe we’ll wait to commemorate it down the road you know. But knowing Davey and I we’ll probably just try to ignore the fact that its been 20 years and try to hide the fact that we’ve spent more than half of our life doing this. I don’t know, we’ll have to see. I’ll let you know…

Thanks for your time and we’ll see you at Soundwave
Thanks for caring. Sounds good.

NEIL ZLOZOWER

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 23:18:36 +1100

In the rock n' roll business for more than 40 years, photographer Neil Zlozower has watched more than his fair share of rising stars from behind the camera. Having also spent significant time with the likes of Motley Crue, Ratt and Van Halen, as they made their way to the top of the charts, "Zloz" got to know the behind-the-music business of rock long before VH1. Beginning his career as a glorified fan, Zlozower has gone on to become one of the most sought-after photographers in the biz and his book releases thus far as displayed on this page are testimony to this.

Giving up a most generous 1 hour of his time, the conversation I had with Zloz was a truly killer insight into the world of rock n roll photography and rock n roll itself!

As well as reading this interview from start to finish, we also highly recommend you check out Zloz’s book releases as featured and discussed on this page!

What was the point when it first occurred to you that music photography might be something that you would want to spend your life doing?
Well to be honest with you even though I am 55 years old, I still don’t know if that's what I want to do for the rest of my life! I started doing this because I was a glorified fan going to rock shows before I was an actual photographer. My first concert was Cream when I was 13 years old. I mean what a way to start off your music career with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. Back then I was a Rolling Stones fanatic and I used to go to Hollywood Boulevard with a friend of mine and go buy 8x10 photos of the Stones and then take it back to my bedroom and put the photo on the wall. Then in 1969 going to shows I started bringing my camera in, which back then you could because they didn't have the big bouncers and stuff like that. So I started off shooting The Stones, The Who, Led Zeppelin and Canned Heat, then I would go back, make prints and hang them on the wall because I was a fan you know. Then in high school there was a record shop across from where I lived so one day I decided to go to the record shop and see if I could sell some prints there. We stuck a deal where we would sell them for one buck each. I got 60 cents, the owner got 40 cents...then next thing you know I am making $30 to $40 a month, which was a nice amount of money back in those days. Next thing you know I planned on going to the Arts Centre School of College to take photography classes after I finished high school. But you know what, I never really planned on being a rock n roll photographer and shoot rock bands for a living. But then whilst taking my pre-requisite classes I kept getting calls from the record company saying "can you shoot Earth Wind & fire, can you shoot this, can you shoot that”. So finally I had to make a decision and go look.....I can either pass up on these jobs as they are coming in and instead go to Arts College for 4 years and come out being a technically great photographer. But the experience I was getting, the real life experience, was something that money couldn't buy. So I decided to fuck school and take the real life experience I am getting right now. So I guess it was at that point I decided to become a rock n roll photographer!

Do you ever think we will have a new breed of “rock photographers” coming through that could end up being just as famous as the bands they shot, as has happened in days gone by?
Well not anymore. When I first started doing it in 69,70,71 there was only a handful of rock photographers doing it. Obviously there was the granddaddy of all rock photographers, my idol, Jim Marshall who to me is the greatest rock photographer that ever lived. Jim used to shoot all the greats like Jimi Hendrix, Cream, the Allman Brothers, Janis Joplin, so he to me is the living god. Then there was Emerson Lowe and Ed Careff, but there weren't a lot of people doing it back then. But now, everybody wants to have a camera, and I get calls every other day from people saying "Neil, I wanna do what you do, what's the best way to get started" and I am like don't even bother you are just going to be in for a life long struggle, especially when you have people like me and Ross Halfin who is an amazing photographer and we have been doing it for 30 to 40 years. How are you going to start off and compete against people like myself and Ross? Unless you have some kind of specific, unique look that nobody else has.

Nikki Sixx in the foreword to your recent book “Motley Crue - A Visual History” says of you “I liked him right away. He was one of us.” Not to downplay your photography abilities…but do you think Nikki’s words in a large part define your success? In that you can relate to the artists you shoot on a level where they are far more comfortable and co-operative when you shoot them?
Well yeah, first of all you have got to build the trust. If you are a photographer and you go off to meet Nikki Sixx and you have your suit and tie and little point Dexter glasses and you are all clean cut and you don't look the part...how is that going to work? Look at me, I love listening music, I am a rock n roll photographer. If you said to me, Neil, if you had to give up listening to music or give being a photographer which would it be? Well it would be giving up being a photographer as I couldn't live a life without music. When I am in the pit shooting these guys I am shaking my head and rocking and I know how to anticipate their movements and things like that. So you could say I live the life too, I like the same things rock n rollers like. I guess I fit in. As I said, it’s all about building the trust and working that trust.

Have you made the transition from film over to digital photography? What are your thoughts on whether digital photography has helped or harmed music photography as an art form?
You know what, I put it off for a long time. One of my best friends in the whole world owns my lab, it's one of the biggest labs in the while world, A&I Photographic Services and when all his other clients were bringing in digital, I was still bringing in film and he was like "Neil one of these days you have got to go digital" and I am like "I'm never going digital, I'm never going digital". Well I started off on digital by accident shooting some jewellery photos for the chance to make $70,000. I couldn't do it on film, so I had to do it on digital so I bought a little low end 7 mega pixel Canon Rebel Digital camera with one lense. Well that turned out to be a wash, I am not a jewellery photographer, I am a rock n roll photographer. I don't want to do videos, I don’t want to shoot sports, I do shoot scantily clad hot chicks here and there, but that is mostly for my own pleasure, I don’t make any money doing it! So anyway, one night I got a call from my friend at St Louis Music and he's like " Neil I need you to do a shoot with the DJ from the Blackeyed Peas tomorrow and I need the shot approved and here with me in St Louis in 36 hours and we need to add our logos and then get it back to LA by Friday" And I am like fuck, the only way I can get this done is by shooting digital and emailing the shots back and forth. So anyway, I did it all on digital, but at that point I still wasn't a big fan of digital. About 2 weeks later I went into my lab and the girl that works there says " hey Neil, since you had never done digital before, we made you a print so you could see how the print looks". Well I wasn't expecting anything but they made me this 14x17 inch print and my mouth dropped open. I was like "oh my god this is fucking spectacular". The sharpness was amazing, the colors were amazing, everything was fucking amazing about the print. At that point I was sold on digital. So I continued to use that Canon Rebel for a lot of the shoots I did and never had a limitation. Then later I had to do a Billy Sheehan shoot for Yamaha and they wanted to make some posters and stuff so they rented me a Canon 5D and that one was a 12 mega pixel and that one the quality was even more insane. Then after that I bought myself one of those, then bought another Canon 5D which I was I am still using for all my digital stuff.

For aspiring rock photographer’s out there reading this (for which I am one!), when you are behind the lens shooting a rock show, what are the key things YOU look for before pressing SNAP?
First of all I want to make sure the guitarist has only got one chin because when you shoot guitarists and stuff sometimes they lean back, and I see photographers sometimes shoot the most unflattering photos of people. It's amazing the stuff I see published in magazines. Doesn't the photographer have an eye? How can they shoot a photo of this guy and make it so unflattering? Don't they a mouth? Can't they say "bro the way you are posing makes it look like you have 3 or 4 chins" so do this instead. But I think some photographers are blind and then how can magazines even print some of these photos? Is the art director blind too? I have worked with some amazing art directors like Tom Jermann who to me is the best art director I have worked with in my life. He has done my Motley book, my Van Halen book, he works for Kiss, he works for Def Leppard and the biggest bands in the world. I have worked with other art directors who I don’t even want to work with because they are just going to make my work look shitty.

Then secondly, it's all about light. I'll be in the photography pit and see these "junior" photographers shoot photos and there is absolutely no light on the subject. I'll be thinking what are you, a retard? Do you think your digital camera is that good that' it's actually going to pick up an image and it’s going to look good, when there is absolutely no light on this person?

That's really my major 2 criteria. Making the subject look as flattering as possible and making sure there is light on the subject.

Given your comments above about where photographers are at today, what are your thoughts then on the whole concept of photoshop to overcome imperfections in the original shot?
You see, I learned the old way, all my cameras are manual, even though I have automatic on my digitals, I never use it. Every time I do a photo session or go to a live show, I don’t use auto focus, I don’t use auto exposure. I think with my brain! With 40 years experience going back to the old days when there was no Photoshop, if you were going to make a great photo you had to look at all the variables that make a great photo. Nowadays photographers of today don’t "make a great photo" they "create an image". They may take the sky from this frame, then take someone’s head from another frame and then put it on the shoulders from another frame and then take it against a white backdrop and put fire behind the photo etc etc. Back in the old days you shot the photo how you wanted it to be and didn't just "fix it in the mix".

Even today I try and get things as 99% right as possible. Paul Stanley phoned me up to talk about doing the shoot for his solo album "Live To Win". I said "Paul have you got a makeup artist you want to use?" and he goes "Neil I don’t need a makeup artist, we are going to get everything retouched afterwards anyways". I said "Paul don't you want to start off with the very best possible image to begin with, why fix it in the mix?" That's just not my mentality on how I work, you have to get everything as perfect as possible to start with. When I get hired by an art director, they come to me because they know what I can do and that they will have that much less work and time involved in Photoshop.

Looking back on the specific era of the 1980’s now in 2009, what are your thoughts on whether the imagery has left a stronger legacy than the music itself?
Not really, not for me. I still love a lot of the music from the 80's, Ratt and believe it or not I still put on that first Poison album every so often. You had AC/DC, but how do you beat an album like Back In Black, when you also have Highway To Hell with Bon Scott! The 90"s certainly sucked, I hated grunge which was all songs about "my life is miserable". Bands like Alice In Chains and Soundgarden were making millions of dollars but they were probably getting ripped off by their management too. The 90's were terrible musically, but in the 80’s there was great music made.

Whilst we are talking about this era, strictly from a musical point of view, what are some of your hard rock albums from the 80's?
Well obviously Van Halen, when they broke into the scene they lit the fire under all of those LA bands asses. I liked Motley Crue but I didn’t really go home and listen to Motley Crue. I loved the guys as people and all. Believe it or not, I also loved the first Poison album, but not crazy about anything else after that. Then of course you have got Appetite For Destruction, which totally changed the face of the music industry at the time. After Appetite, I noticed that all the bands from Poison to Motley and all the other pretty boy bands, their little clothes got a little bit more raunchy and rowdier and things like poofed up hair started coming down and it wasn’t all hairspray and all. Then there is another great band from the 80’s called The Bulletboys which I call “The Bulletpigs” who’s first album was fucking insane, that was one smoking red hot album.

You briefly mentioned above about the 90’s being terrible musically, how then were the 90’s for your work?
Well actually that was a pretty bad time for all the photographers and the music industry. Back in the 80’s there was about 50 American rock n roll magazines. So if you did a Bon Jovi shoot or a Poison shoot or a Motley shoot you, could take that session and sell that session to 50 different magazines. The money was fucking rolling in. Then all of a sudden when grunge came in it wasn't cool to be a rockstar anymore. I remembered the first shoot I did with Nirvana and it would have to be the most pathetic, miserable photo shoot I ever did in my whole life! So given it wasn't cool to be a rock star and given all the "rock gods" had left, all the magazines started folding. Bands like Motley were in their John Corabi period, Ratt were past their prime. there was no more bands wanting to do photo shoots, none of them wanted to pose or cooperate anymore, they were all like "shut up, we are going to do what we want to do, we are just going to sit here and talk and not even look at you, so you better shoot while we are talking". But nobody wanted to look at photos of that!!

In 94/95 I was having a hard time paying the mortgage on the studio I am still sitting here in now, the same location I have been shooting for the last 30 years. So I had to do some fancy restructuring of my business so instead of one day shooting Danger Danger on spec and one day doing Bulletpigs and one day doing Motley. When I was doing these shoots on spec, I could sell each of them to the magazines, each one would cost me about $300-$400 to do, so when you had nowhere left to sell them, I was fuck that. Why should I shoot this band for free, which is what “on spec” means because I was taking the risk and will make my money later on when a magazine purchases your .

So I decided to start working with Fender and Gibson and Sabian and Pearl Drums etc etc. And that's what I did and every single job I did was a paid job as these companies would give you a certain amount of money to go and shoot whoever and whatever. So that's what I did. I am a pretty brutal survival type of guy. I was never going to let the business win over me. I am always going to win. Period!

In the early 90’s, music underwent a major change and with it as did the visual aspects for which the 80’s hard rock era was best known. As with many bands with whom you would of worked with, in 1992 for example you shot Warrant for their ‘Dog Eat Dog’ album, which was when they changed their image to an all black wearing, harder edged vibe rather than just being the ‘Cherry Pie guys’. Were you getting asked for advice from bands such as Warrant into that image change or did bands merely come to you and say “this is what we want to do” turn it into photo’s Zloz?
Well I started working with Warrant in 87’, they were one of the late bloomers that did have a lot of success and when they come out they had that Poison kind of look, but by 1989 they toned it down a little bit. But I was the one who did that photo shoot for them where they we did change their image from the pretty little feminine clothes to the black leather pants and black leather coats and did change their sound. But the next thing you know the fans didn’t want them anymore.

Following on from that, you would’ve seen a lot of change in a number of bands you have shot over the years, made evident in your Van Halen and Motley Crue published books. However, what artists stand out over the years as making the biggest change from one shoot to the next, whether it be image change or their evolution into legitimate “rockstars”?
Well you have Jon Bon Jovi, obviously. I first shot Jon in 1981 and I even remember back when Bon Jovi opened up for Ratt. Then by 1986 Slippery When Wet came out, and Jon was a rockstar. But I guess it all depends what you mean by rockstar? David Lee Roth I started working with in 1978 and he was a little lewd and crewd and certainly not as polished as he was in 1984. To me Slash is a rockstar, Tommy Lee is a rockstar. Depends again what you really mean by “rockstar”.

You've watched a lot of great performers up close; Phil Lynott, Mick Jagger, Queen, the list is endless…..out of all of these, what is it about David Lee Roth that made such an impression on you?
To me, David Lee Roth is probably the greatest entertainer that has ever lived. For starters, I love Dave’s voice. He is not a Steve Perry or one of those guys, but I personally hate Steve Perry’s voice. Some people think Steve Perry is the greatest singer that has ever lived, but his voice makes me sick. I like a voice to be a nasty, like a Bon Scott or a David Lee Roth or an Ian Gillain. I love David Coverdale too, he is one of the greatest singers ever. But David Lee Roth to me is the greatest entertainer, not singer, but entertainer. First of all, he knows how to jerk the audience and get them off. For instance, you would be at a Van Halen show and between songs one of the roadies would come out with a roll of toilet paper. He would come to the front of the stage and duck down and throw it at Dave’s stomach or head or waist or whatever. Then Dave would stand up there and he would turn his head to the left, then turn it to the right, then turn it to the left, then turn it to the right….then he would say “I know who threw that, I know who threw that…..and after the show, I am going to fuck your girlfriend”. To me, that’s fucking brilliant…

I have seen a lot of bands and I have to admit, there was this band from the States in the 70’s called Black Oak Arkansas with their lead singer Jim Dandy, and I used to see a lot of Jim Dandy in David Lee Roth. I am also a big fan of this old singer Louie Prima who did the original version of “Just A Gigolo”. When I see Dave now and his moves and his character, I see a lot of Louie Prima. So Dave’s not 100% original, he has his influences, but who is these days? Nothing is original anymore, it’s just like my photo’s, I take a little of this and a little of that!

People can chase down your Van Halen and Motley Crue books for all your thoughts on working with those 2 bands, so give us a memory or two of shooting the following artists:
Black N Blue – I love Black N Blue, they are one of my favourite bands, especially their last two albums “In Heat and Nasty Nasty”. Probably my favourite tour experience I ever have had with any band was being in Texas with Black N Blue and I have been on leer jets and on big tour buses blah blah. But we were in some 8 seater van going from one shithole Texas city to another shithole Texas city and we were all sharing each others Playboy and Penthouse magazines and fighting with each other and cutting the cheese. You know that tour wasn’t let’s stay at the Four Seasons or anything like that, it was lets stay at some shithole. That was one of the greatest tour experiences of my life.

Zakk Wylde – I love Zakk. Zakk’s like my little baby brother. I started working with him in 1988 and to this day he is like family. About a year and a half ago, Zakk lived at my condo, on my couch for 8 days and that was one of the most interesting experiences of my entire life. I love Zakk dearly, he is one of my most favourite people in the whole world.

Guns N Roses – GNR is the band that changed the 80’s and changed music. They were like the rock n roll version of grunge. When they came to my studio for the first time I was like “hey guys, look in the lense, give me the poses”, but they didn’t want any of that. They were like, “Neil, we will pose for you, but we are going to do it our way”. Of course I was a little pissed off, but we ended up doing that shoot and now those photo’s are kind of iconic as I think they are the last ones of Axl with his hair all teased up.

Dimebag Darrell – Dimebag was great, I loved him. He was an amazing guitar player. I wasn’t a Pantera fan musically, it was a little too hard and a little noisy for me, even though it wasn’t as hard like Slayer. I liked Dime a lot and the whole world misses him. That was probably to me the most tragic incident that ever happened in rock n roll, Dime getting shot on stage. Other than the incident back East where 100 plus people died in the fire at the Great White show, which was the greatest tragedy at a rock n roll show where the venue caught fire. Let’s hope nothing like that ever, ever happens again, that was just terrible.

Slipknot – I love the Slipknot guys, but I am not a big fan of their music, but maybe that’s just me being old and not appreciating it. Just the other week I did a big humungous shoot with them and had all 9 of them in my studio in Hollywood and that was fast and furious like it always is. I mean getting 9 of those guys together and work with is a pretty difficult thing. I love the guys as people, they are really really nice guys. You wouldn't know that by seeing them onstage as they are so angry and brutal and nasty and ferocious, but offstage they are the sweetest guys you can imagine.

Randy Rhoads – I knew Randy since about 77', 78' and he was a very quiet shy guy. He would be the type of guy who you would be talking to and he would look you straight in the eye and hold a conversation, but he would always have a guitar in his hand and be doing scales up and down the neck and doing the most insane stuff on the guitar. But he would be looking at you and holding a conversation the whole time.

Mike Tramp - I met Mike way before White Lion had even broke. He was going out with a clothing designer I knew at the time who was probably the biggest most influential clothing designer back then and she introduced me to him one day at a show at Irvine Meadows. I looked at him and thought, damn good looking kid! But it wasn't till about 2 or 3 years later White Lion broke in the USA and broke really big. Tramp and I became really good friends and we would hang when he was in town and eat dinner and go and eat at a high end sushi joint. Mike and I have spent a lot of time together over the years.

Last year you released a book titled “Fuck You: Rock N Roll Portraits, which certainly had an interesting concept. Can you tell us about that one?
Well that book is one of my favourites. Slash even told me the other week “that book is the favourite book around my house, everybody picks up that book and loves it and then go out and buy it”. The beauty of the book is that it starts off in 1975 with Steven Tyler on stage flipping me the finger in front of about 10,000 people. Then there are shots like Joan Jett giving me the finger in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and then there is Van Halen with one shot of them on the set for the Hot For Teacher! Then there's Tommy Lee, he features quite a bit and there's Slash and then even The Bulletpigs in Japan in front of a Japanese McDonalds. Some pics are live, some are backstage, some in the studio. Some are in the Caribbean with Nikki Sixx and Robin Crosby. So there's a little of everything.... it's a really cute book, it's cheap as it’s only $10 right now on Amazon and would make a great XMAS gift hint hint!

Out of the thousands if not millions of photos you’ve taken, if you had to be defined by one image or photo shoot you’ve taken, could you pick your all time favourite?
Well my favourite shoot would have to be the Motley Crüe blood session. Not the band shoot, but the part with Nikki after the rest of the band had left. It was just me and Nikki and we went and bought a bottle of Jack Daniels, I called up my drug dealer and got a whole bunch of blow and we got sick and crazy. So that was probably my favourite photo shoot. I also have a colour photo of Mick Jagger that is on my website that I really love a lot too that I shot in 1992. I think it's probably one of the best shots of Mick Jagger ever! So they are the two that really stick out in my mind that I love a lot.

EUROPE (MIC MICHAELI)

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 22:08:32 +1100

Born from the underground suburban rock music scene in the outskirts of Stockholm Sweden, a young band called 'Force' won national acclaim in the early 80's after emerging victorious in a nation wide talent contest. Their main influences were British rock bands of the 70's: UFO, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin. Winning a recording contract, core members Joey Tempest (vocals), John Norum (guitar) and John Levén (bass) re-named themselves "EUROPE" and went on to record and release two ground-breaking albums titled "Europe" and "Wings of Tomorrow" in Scandinavia and Japan. The band toured widely on the strengths of these two records, and in 1984 recruited new members Mic Michaeli (keyboards) and drummer Ian Haugland. The success these albums generated on their home soil and in the Far East landed them an international record deal with Epic Records in New York; and in 1986 Europe went on to release their third album "The Final Countdown" produced by Kevin Elson (Journey, Mr Big). The prominent (and now legendary) keyboard riff and memorable melodies catapulted the song into the top ten charts in the UK and USA, and the title track reached number one in 24 countries. The album itself went on to sell in excess of 6million copies worldwide.

It was at this time, John Norum chose to leave Europe to pursue a solo career, and was replaced by another well-known Swedish guitarist, Kee Marcello. Two years later, the band released the highly successful album “Out Of This World” and then “Prisoners In Paradise”. In 1993 the band decided to go their seperate ways and pursue solo careers and other projects.

In 2004, with John Norum firmly back in the band, the original Europe lineup returned to the world stage with "Start From the Dark" - a raw, cutting-edge rock album that delivered a brand new style of melodic rock. After extensive touring, the band returned to the studio to record their 7th studio album titled "Secret Society" which was released in October 2006, an album that even further entrenched Europe back into the worldwide rock scene.

In 2009, the band has now delivered perhaps their most accomplished and assured album yet “Last Look At Eden” which sees the band return to the 70‘s classic rock influences that started the band in the first place, whilst managing to retain those classic Europe melodies.

Right before XMAS, we chatted on the phone with keyboardist Mic Michael.

Listening to the “Last Look At Eden” it certainly sounds like you guys have finally found your "Eden" pardon the pun. Would you go as far as saying that the band, despite it's 30 odd year existence is only now just hitting it's peak?
Well yeah, I think we managed to achieve what we set out to do on this album. What we wanted to achieve was an album that was very loose and more playful than our previous album "Secret Society", which I still think is a great album however. On this one we
managed to pull through what we aimed for. I was talking to Joey during the middle of the recordings and we asked ourselves - Where is this album heading? Where is the music taking us this time? In one perspective we felt it was taking us back in time to what we listened to as kids such as led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and bands like that. But on the other hand we were trying to take Europe a step forward and evolve. So in one sense it's a retro album, but in another it's Europe stepping forward.

With the bands "reunion" now having delivered 3 studio albums, the doubters who may of thought the "reunion" wouldn't last must surely now be silenced....especially evidenced by some of the reviews the new album has been recieving?
Yes, I have a feeling that we are slowly making people understand that we are around to stay here for a very long time. When we started discussions about putting the band back together around 2003 we sat around my kitchen table discussing what we should do. One option was to try and recreate the sound from the 80's and the songwriting that we did then. But nobody in the band was interested in just doing that. If we had of, it would of been very easy to do an album, tour a little bit and cash in and then go back to what it was we were doing before. But we said if we are going to do this, we are going to do it properly and move forward and not try and sound like we did back then. We just wanted to move on as if we had been making albums and developing our musical style over the years when we had that long "coffee break" as you could call it! So that was the decision we made and it now feels like we made the right decision. Even today when I speak to some people I haven't met for a long time, they ask “what are you doing these days?” and I say "I am still with my band" and they reply "what band is that?" When I reply "Europe" they say "oh are you guys still around?" so I think we still have a few years to convince people that we are serious about being back again and that this is for real.

Compared to Start From The Dark and Secret Society was there anything significantly different in the way you went about the songwriting and recording process for, "Last Look at Eden"?
This time there was a bit more jamming prior to the recordings of the album. Some songs we more or less arranged in the rehearsals. For the previous album it was Joey and myself who more or less slept in the studio and worked 24/7. For this album it was more of a group effort which I think is a good thing!

Production duties on the new album were handled by Tobias Lindell, Joey and yourself. Can you share with us what you set out to achieve production wise on this album??
Well firstly, Tobias is very much into sounds and how he records things. He even builds his own microphones and speakers. From his beginnings he came from the pop world, both foreign and Swedish. He is very fast recording stuff and he has so many ideas and works really fast which is fantastic to have in the studio. If we had an idea, he pretty much would go "I've got it here", so there was no waiting around which takes away the creativity if you are waiting for things to happen. He is really fast with all these different processes that you have to go through in the studio. But in his heart he is a hard rocker and has produced a few Swedish hard rock bands before us. He knows what he wants in the studio and we also got together to discuss some albums we wanted to reference sound wise for Last Look At Eden and one of those was the first Audioslave album. That was what we had in mind, but we put more stuff in there. That album has this sound that's almost line the speakers are about to pop out, so that’s what we were aiming for in this one.

What was the inspiration behind calling the album "Last look at Eden"??
Well we had the song by that name and we talked about different songs being the album title, but that song seemed so massive and epic that we wanted to have it as a record opener and we just thought that the title itself had some cool spinoffs and thoughts. It stuck because it was in the end simple. We had different ideas for the album cover, and yes it is a little bit sexual, but it's also about the beginning of life with the seeds in the apple and everything. Actually, the guy who we worked together with to make the cover used to live over there in
Australia, in Perth actually.

Whilst i haven’t had the "Europe" live experience, watching your live DVDs the band certainly rocks a lot harder than some may expect. Given the nature of this new album, you must be looking forward to getting out on the road and playing a bunch of these new songs?
Yes it's fantastic. We have already played a few of the songs live and it's been such a blast to do that. Somehow these songs come alive even more when you play them live. It's such great fun to play these sings live.

So it must be pretty hard these days coming up with a setlist then?
Yes haha it always is. There's obviously one song that we have to play haha!

in late March you are heading to Japan and Taiwan for a few shows. In recent years, has there ever been any serious interest shown from here in Australia to warrant you flying an extra 8 hours for some shows?
To be honest I haven't heard anything, but there is a long chain to go through between the agent and the manager before it comes back to us. I sure hope there is some serious interest in us coming down there. I guess it's a matter of not losing too much money because it's a long ride! But I would honestly love to go there and if we ever do come to Australia I am definitely going to take a few weeks off if possible and hang around and see the country.

Where does the band see itself over the next 5 years or so…established itself worldwide as a touring force to be reckoned with, or focusing more on more studio albums, or all of the above?
The way we see it is to keep the cycle going, record an album and then go out and play as much as we can and then go back to our little nest and start writing again for the next album. Between those times also make some live DVDs and stuff like that.

As co-writer of one of the greatest ballads of the 80's in Carrie and the person who plays one of the most recognisable song openings in music history, what thoughts do you have about the legacy that you and the band have already left on music?
Well it's really hard for me as I haven't thought about it in that way. Obviously over the last few years I have noticed that the music we have been playing over the years has influenced other artists and their sound. In “The Final Countdown” I guess you could say it took the
keyboard player into this type of music and it's now not necessarily generally looked upon as a bad thing in rock music!!

Thankyou for your time Mic, all the best and maybe one day we will see you in Australia.
Yes I sure hope so, it was great talking to you Scott! All the best!

ROB HALFORD

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:04:57 +1100

If Rob Halford the “Metal God” or Judas Priest need any introduction to you, then please go and have a good hard look at Wikipedia before reading any further......

Having just released a collection of traditional and original songs for the festive season titled “Winter Songs”, we chatted with Rob to discuss the new album, as well as his newly launched Metal God Records and Metal God Apparel and reflect on what has been an incredibly productive year for one of the most iconic and nicest guys in METAL!

Its been 7 years between solo albums for you, why was now the right time to release Halford 3 “Winter Songs” and make it a Christmas album rather than what we’d usually expect from yourself?
Well I talked to the lads about this idea over a year or so ago now when I saw there was a bit of an opportunity at the end of the massive Priest world tour to find time in the calendar to release this kind of record. Quite frankly, I guess it was a little selfish of me to say this is what I want to do because no matter where I work with the guys that I am working with, it’s a combined effort you know in terms of what you are trying to do. But I suggested it to them and they gave it the two thumbs up, so that was all that I needed. They were battling away putting all the arrangements together whilst I was out finishing the tour with Priest and the bulk of the material was completed when I got off the road. I did bits and bobs throughout the year and then the bulk was completed when we wrapped up the Priest tour.

"Winter Songs" features 10 tracks, with 7 being interpretations of traditional Christmas songs and 3 brand new "Halford" recordings. What was the inspiration behind some of the traditional XMAS songs you chose?
Yes, there were a couple I wanted to immediately do. I wanted “We Three Kings” because I have always loved that song. Then there was “Come All Ye Faithful” and “Oh Holy Night” were favourites of mine. Then we found “Emanuel” and whatever else by research essentially finding songs that could take the treatment. There are some obvious christmas songs that could work, but I didn’t really want to make a serious record, but musically it’s a very comprehensive display of the bands talents. The musicianship is absolutely brilliant, the lads did a fantastic job. We lightened it up a little bit with “I Don’t Care For Christmas” and “Christmas For Everyone”, but the bulk of it is strong and adventurous. So you really find material that conveys the atmosphere of Christmas and the messages in the lyric manner and you have to make sure that they connect. I think we did a pretty good job, the final 10 tracks do the business.

It is interesting listening to something like “We Three Kings” as a song like that really does work...
Yeah you know, looking back through my career as a metal singer, primarily Priest has always lead me in a life of metal and always will. But even when Priest did covers, you listen to some of those original tracks and you can’t for one minute think they would turn into what they did. Essentially a good song is a good song, and it will take any treatment to a certain extent. So having had that experience it gave me a little bit more of open mindness to look at some of these songs and having a look at rocking them out and metalling them out somewhat more.

Mentioning the “open mind” thing, did you go into this album feeling a certain sense of musical/creative freedom?
Yes, you have to. To me that’s what being a musician is all about. It’s taking the blinkers off and not worrying about the criticism, not worrying about the reaction. It’s just putting your heart in the right place and doing your best effort and letting it out and seeing what happens. But I think certainly at Christmas time people are a lot more open minded in a lot of ways. It’s just got a good feeling about it hasn’t it, Christmas time. So, maybe people are more receptive to things at that time of year that they ordinarily wouldn’t consider. I don’t know, I am just making this up as I go haha. I just love to talk about everything in general relative to music. That’s how I feel, you know. When the rumour hit the world wide web that the metal god was bringing out a Christmas album, everybody probably thought I had lost my mind! But I always end up doing what pleases me and what satisfied me and I am lucky to have a fantastic fan base that is always willing to come along with me for the rid and enjoy the moment.

The fact you haven’t got a rudolph the red-nosed reindeer rendition on it, also helps...
That’s right, yes I have to emphasis that, as I am sure some of the metal heads thought that’s where I was going. But looking at he music I have made over the last 35 years or more, I don’ think I have dropped the ball. I’ve kept it pretty close to my heart and I think this music does what it was intended to do.

Listening to “Winter Songs is an album that you could listen to at anytime of the year, not just at Christmas, do you agree?
Actually, that’s a good point you make Scott because music is music and I know that some of the messages are associated with that special time of the year, but if you just get off on the vibe and the musicianship well you can play it anytime I suppose.

Christmas means many things to many people around the world, what does Christmas time mean to Rob Halford?
Well I will be hurtling around the planet on my Harley Davidson dressed up as a Heavy Metal Father Christmas dropping my presents down the chimneys haha. Well, that’s the dream... I will be spending Christmas back home in England with my Mum and Dad and my immediate family and doing what you will be doing really and all the metalheads I guess.

Speaking of metalheads, what is your message to those metalhead's out there who may dismiss this album because they think the Holiday season/Christmas" is not metal haha?
Well, I would just say give it a go. You know, you can always get those 30 second snippets off ITUNES for example or my website. If you have got any preconceived reservations, just have a listen and I think you will be pleasantly surprised. But in saying that, I think those that support me, know me for what I do and know that it comes with a that there is a lot of sincerity and a lot of belief in my making great music happen with the people that I work with. But if you want to be a Heavy Metal Grinch, then that is fine haha.

You really only have to listen to opening track “Get Into The Spirit”, for all that to be blown away...
Well I think so Scott. I would be lying if I didn’t say I didn’t consider some of the possible thought process that went into the observation of oh the metal god has gone into the XMAS mode. I value my fans more than ever and I think I proved with that first track which is like a full on roaring painkiller vibe that you can do that. You know, “Get Into The Spirit” is a great way to get into the record and be taken on a really good 45 minutes. All the songs have different tempos or composition, or arrangement. There is something there for everyone really.

2009 has been a busy year for you also launching "Metal God Records" and "Metal God Apparel".
It’s going great thank you mate. Metal God Records is a young record company, small independent label and we have opened the doors for everyone to send stuff in. If you are good enough and if you have got something that other bands don’t have and don’t sound like every other band, then I think there might be an opportunity for you to come and hang about with Metal Gods Records and we will do our best to promote you and make you a success.

The clothing company is just an extension of what people know me for up on stage. We are just starting off with the t-shirts as that basically all I have in my wardrobe. Actually, all I ever wear are jeans and a t-shirt. I thought that would be the easy way to start and if it gets stronger, then we can explore other types of clothing down the track.

You know, they are both new businesses, they are both starting off slowly and surely. Particularly in this economy and world wide recession but I don’t think that’s any reason to put the brakes on, you have to keep the ideas and dreams coming. So I have had a really good year, it’s been great.

Speaking about clothing, did you ever think that 30 odd years ago, here in 2009 you would be seeing metalheads the world over decked out in Priest inspired leathers and studs etc??
It’s brilliant isn’t it. I guess when you look at any band with a long life whether it be AC/DC Kiss or Maiden. I know we are looked up on as one of the Grandfathers of metal, which is an affectionate term. It’s just brilliant. it makes you very proud to think that it all links backwards in time to Birmingham back in the early 70’s. It’s been an absolute pleasure and it’s still going on, it still hasn’t fizzled out or wound up. There is always wonderful opportunities to explore and another great metal song to be explored or created. I guess there is always another great metal song around the corner. I am very optimistic about the future of metal!

Here in 2009 we have the Anvil movie gaining popularity with a mainstream audience and then there are bands such as Steel Panther with your Fight bandmate Russ Parish blazing a trail in the UK and USA and Japan. What are your thoughts on where metal is at in 2009?
It’s fantastic isn’t it. It’s in so many dimensions of metal music, it’s a worldwide phenomenon, it’s not just exclusive to one part of the planet. It’s everywhere. It’s as strong as it ever was and I am sure it will be even stronger as we move into the metal future.

Just briefly , you have a big year coming up in 2010 with the 30th anniversary of “British Steel”. ?
Well we started the party a little earlier recently in America because we wanted to film some shows and so forth. We have now done that and I have seen some of the early pieces of film from the shows and it looks absolutely mind blowing. And I am not just saying that because I am in the band. I’m just saying that looking at us at work up on stage with so much passion and determination and the realness. I can’t wait to get that out. It’s going to be an exciting year, even if it’s just that one event. It’s really become an iconic record and the fans have made it that way in the history of heavy metal. We are really excited for that moment finally arrive in the Spring of 2010 when “British Steel” officially turns 30 years of age.

Well Rob, it’s been a pleasure chatting and all the best for a lovely Christmas and a great 2010.
Thanks Scott, have a great Christmas, thanks for the opportunity to chat. I hope we get back to Australia as soon as we can, we had a brilliant time last time. Cheers mate!

BRUCE KULICK

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 00:31:33 +1100

Bruce is heading back to Australia with a special treat for his Australian fans! Bruce's new album, BK3, will be released ahead of its worldwide debut at Bruce's three Australian concerts.

Bruce promises the shows will be worth the wait, and will feature a plethora of KISS tunes from the eight albums he recorded with the band between 1984 and 1996. Hits like God Gave Rock and Roll To You II, Crazy Crazy Nights, Forever, and Tears Are Falling will be nestled alongside many rarities never performed live by KISS themselves.

We caught up with Bruce to chat about his time with KISS, get the lowdown on his new album “BK3” as well as everything else this guitar great has been involved with over this extensive career.

TC - You have been out to Australia a number of times now over the years, you must really love it down here and obviously the fans must respond to you being here, what is it that keep bring you back?
BK - Well you know there were a few years I didn’t make it down and was pretty disappointed about it and was really flattered when I got on the short list of one of the music chains which was what happened in April, and Allans music was looking for some international players to come down and perform and I was like this would be a great opportunity because I wasn’t really ready yet with everything with my record so I figured, well let me come down here and that was April and now I made the plans for December, so for me to come through twice in one year is remarkable actually but I do like the people, I always feel at home there, I remembered any of the times it was the big KISS show which was the first actual KISS convention was done in Australia it was just amazing getting up close with all the fans besides just being in the arenas. I just feel there’s a real affection for my era of KISS as well in Australia which is probably another reason that keeps bringing me back.

TC - and considering Australia is where the KISS army was born!
BK - Yep

TC - Your new album BK3 is due out very soon and for those of us here in Australia we will be able to pick it up from the shows. How would you describe the range of songs on the new album?
BK - Ha ha I’m working on it, its really stressful because I’m trying to do a worldwide release you know and what’s interesting about this record, the first two solo records I actually only wanted to sell them myself and not have any real distribution you know and this record I really want it to be distributed because I have such amazing guest performers on there and I’m trying to work with it, I’m almost going backwards, instead of doing it myself, I want the help of a label and I guess you can imagine that the record industry is not any easier these days. But the record is finished, I’m just trying to, and all the artworks done, you can visit a lot of the photos on my website and everything, but I’m just trying to figure out the positioning for the whole worldwide release right now, it’s a little stressful right now but this is the record that’s worth being careful with. Not only do I feel responsible for Gene to be on there and his son Nick who did such great performances but that’s real important to me that it’s the best of me and I have some great players on there and I just want to get the best exposure I can.

TC - From a song writing point of view, does BK3 feature songs you have written just recently, or are they from the archives over a number of years?
BK - You know, one of the songs called ‘I’ll survive’ which had to do with me getting shot back in 2003 on Sunset Blvd which made CNN and everything, fortunately of course nothing really horrible happened but still it inspired me writing this song, I probably wrote that in November / December of 2003 you see what I mean. So the song writing process started as far back as then, there are a couple of things that are a little bit more recent, like the first song ‘Fate’ it was actually finished early summer when I recorded a couple of tracks for the record, but it did really span over the course of a number of years from 2003 to now. It’s pretty remarkable but it all makes sense in the big picture.

TC - And the instrumental stuff, do you ever go in and just play and whatever you play is what you record or do you have something in mind?
BK - The one instrumental on my record, the other two had at least 3 or 4 on each one of those records, the first two solo records and it was kind of unusual that Jeremy Rubolino is the guy that produced the record for me, when we discussed the recipe of the record shall I say, at one point it came up that there was no instrumental on the record and I did think that was a little odd and I was like, wow, we never even thought about it and I remember at point we tried writing something that could be an instrumental and I kind of just thought it was a little dark and weird and after that discussion, that weekend I remember just sitting down and jamming on something and turning it into the instrumental. Now when it comes to the melodies on the instrumental, that is almost something that is slightly planned out and slightly improvised. By the time we got Lukather there to jam along, I left a lot of a lot of it wasn’t completely formulated, I wanted to see, well alright what would you play over these verses, lets jam, and it was its own animal in the way it was created and I’m real proud of that track because its really unique in the way that we trade off and its not always obvious, its obvious to me when he’s playing and I’m not playing you know but I think a lot of the fans just get off on the energy of it, the ones that have heard the song.

TC - Now you mentioned before Gene Simmons and his son Nick make an appearance on the new album, but you’ve also got people like John Corabi, Tobias Sammet from Edguy, Eric Singer, Steve Lukather and Doug Fieger from The Knack. That's an impressive array of special guests. Did you get the opportunity to work with these guys in the studio?
BK - Yeah I mean, Doug I met through the Fantasy Camp and of course when I asked him would he be willing to sing the song, do you want to help co write it, he was like, no I’ll just come and sing it, you finish it and he loved the track and he knew where we were going with it and he was done in like an hour, I mean he’s a real pro. John and I worked on the track with Jeremy a little bit longer, we wanted it to be the best that John and I have done, we had a lot to live up to, there was a lot of good stuff on the Union records, actually he sang his song twice because he felt like he did a good version the first time we did the vocals but he thought he could do better, so we booked another day in the studio another reason why my record is taking so long ha ha, there was no compromises ok? Tobias I met through Eric of course and we hit it off really well and he happened to be in town to do some shows here in LA and that was a year ago last year and I grabbed him, we got together in a hotel room and worked on some lyrics and the next day taken them to the studio and he’s gonna sing. Nick was a lot of fun too, he got to sing his thing twice as well, Gene was a total pro and we banged that out in an afternoon at Henson, while they were filming for the Family jewels.

TC - Did you get to be on there?
BK - Yeah, there was an episode that they called ‘Memphis Blues’ really more the story had to do about more with Nick actually going to Memphis and starting to record, they almost kinda made the track sound like it was Nick’s song but that was actually Gene’s song and they stuck him in the vocal booth you know what I mean? Reality show with a bit of poetic license of reality. But of course we took Nick in the studio for a different track all together but there were no cameras there for that, you know, me getting Nick to sing and the people that have heard that track, my friend are really impressed, Nick’s like a young Gene but with a very unique style, I get why his Dad was real excited to have me work with him in the studio.

TC - You mentioned John Corabi above; who we think is one of the most underrated singers in rock which prompts us to ask what the status of Union is. Is Union something that hasn't been totally put to rest and could we ever expect another album at some point?
BK - Well you know there is a certain chemistry that my collaboration with John and I creates that I’m very very proud of and obviously us doing Eric Singer project together kinda satisfies that hunger a little bit and having him once again on one of my records. I don’t know I would never rule anything out because John and I do work really well together but I know I captured the best of him on BK3 and you can hear that track on my website, it was on the EP that I was selling, John really sounds terrific on it, so who knows?

TC - Given some of the rock music being released today, in our opinion Union was way ahead of it's time and could easily slot in against some modern bands of today.
BK - Yes they were it was a weird timing. Ahead of the times and it was a weird timing, exactly, well put.

TC - Asylum was the first Kiss album you appeared on, and were even included in the song writing for a few songs. What are your memories and thoughts looking back on this album now?
BK - Well there’s a couple of good tracks there, I’m still really proud of ‘Tears are falling’ I guess ‘Who wants to be lonely’ is on that one too, but my job with them was really to get to learn what it was like to be in the studio with Gene and Paul as they’re both very unique in their approach in how they like to direct the music. I did my job and I was there for them and was very fortunate to hang in there and I didn’t know how long this thing would last and it turned into 12 years which is pretty remarkable.

TC - And through the awesome 80’s hair metal scene, which is our favourite era, so they were good times
BK - Yeah I run into so many people that the first KISS that they saw was my KISS. People from Finland, Norway and Argentina and that’s always very flattering to me, you know, I made an impression on them in a version of KISS that you know, isn’t in the foremost of the KISS world is the 80’s stuff, they seem to push the make up stuff the most but I don’t think the fans ever forget it.

TC - Are you annoyed you never got to wear make up?
BK - Um, I don’t regret that I haven’t, I certainly have good skin to show for it ha ha

TC - As most would already know, you use ESP guitars primarily. What are your favourite models to play at the moment and what will you be bringing out with to Australia?
BK - When I did the photo shoot for the record I really didn’t want to bring a tonne of guitars because I own so many you know and always a Les Paul style guitar is iconic and very important and some strat style guitars on the cover of actually BK3 is a beautiful vintage plus which is one of their relic models that I had modified with a Floyd Rose and a humbucker because they’ve been selling it a little more traditionally lately. You know my friend that I work down there with Paul has a really good ESP that I love and that I’ve used before, I may not even be bringing a guitar, he’s got some good Gibson’s too, I love Gibson’s and ESP’s and I own quite a few PRS’s lately too as I think they’re terrific guitars, you know guitars are really made better and better these days, even the Mexican made Fenders are really great guitars, you know live lately, I don’t know if I mentioned its been 9 years now with Grand Funk so I use like 5 or 6 guitars a night, its a combination of ESP’s and Gibson’s, I like a lot of their viper shapes for the ESP’s I have a couple of those, I have a beautiful white one that I’m tempted to bring but I think I may just use Paul’s guitars you know. This way it’ll be a little easier on my luggage ha ha, the airlines are not too kind too, they’re always losing something, you know that.

TC - Taking a trip down memory lane, do you still own any of the guitars you used from the Kiss era such as the yellow ESP you were photographed with for the Crazy Nights album cover?
BK - You know, I do have that one and when I did my photo shoot for the album art, not only did I do a photo thing with different looks and we took close ups of certain guitars, but I only brought those two that I mentioned, my old Les Paul and the ESP custom but then I had Neil Zlozower come to my home and actually we picked out Vintage Guitar magazine is a real popular magazine here its beautiful glossy and loves to show off the instruments, not only the musicians behind them, you know, I probably had him shoot about 25 items but one of the key ones that they might want to talk about is that yellow guitar that you just mentioned that I still have and it photographed nicely so I’m real proud of that. I even collect some basses I did play bass on some KISS things and I played not all the bass on my record I did but I got into collecting a couple of vintage Fenders and EP3, I used to use that on some of the KISS albums so took some photos of the basses as well.

TC - For your upcoming shows here in December, what can we expect as far as the set list goes?
BK - Well I like to keep it where a lot of the songs are more my era because that would be the big treat of my fans you know so there will be more things from Asylum, Crazy Nights, Hot in the shade and Revenge than obviously than the KISS tour allows so a combination of some of that stuff and a few of the new things from my solo career so its always interesting putting together the set and I get there a little early to Melbourne like 2 – 3 days so I have plenty of time to go over it with the band, so I’m looking forward to it.

TC - Any songs from your Union era?
BK - You know we might do, I mean one of the songs that always goes over well is ‘Love I don’t need it anymore’ maybe we’ll switch that up with ‘Do your own thing’ or something, we’ll see, we’ll do a Union song, yeah.

TC - Taking the previous question one step further and maybe all will be revealed in your shows - however, if you were back in Kiss right now, would there be any songs you would push to play live that they usually wouldn’t choose for a tour?
BK - Well you know, I’d love more stuff from Revenge for them to play because it would be Eric Singer and me but you know they seem to, in one way they’re very aware of that era and when I had some fans ask me to sign these cards that they’ve been selling at Wal-Mart and stuff that have various non make up year photos in there, that’s kind of cool, I just don’t think they do enough of my era, so I would definitely push, I think Revenge is the best non make up album and its right up there in the top couple of KISS albums for sure.

TC - Aside from recording your BK3 album, you have also been busy this year touring with Grand Funk Railroad and being involved with the "Rock N Roll Fantasy Camps", which sure are an interesting concept. What is your involvement with these camps exactly? It sounds like the one in a few weeks will be a reunion of sorts for you, with Meatloaf appearing who you toured with some 30+ years ago, and Ace Frehley!
BK - Well it’s really weird for me, oh by the way Meatloaf there’s gonna be a live Meatloaf show coming out that I’m on, Bob my brother and I both played guitar with him back in ’78 and that was my first real big gig you know, and I think it comes out in Australia at the top of November, so to actually be at the camp with Meatloaf will be interesting, Of course having Ace there as one of the guests is fascinating for me as well as much as I never gigged with him much, obviously we did the unplugged thing together but to have him at the camp will be really cool.

I love the concept of the camp, its really a chance for people to get to mingle with players like myself and some of the superstars that I’m in awe of too, like for me to jam with a band that I have to whip into shape and have Steven Tyler come in to sing along on Helter Skelter you know its just a thrill. I got to jam with Jack Bruce back in London, I got to record my band at Abbey Road and this camp they’ll take the campers to Capitol studios which is very famous as well. Its always very exciting and its not cheap, its worth it and a lot of the people we get are lawyers and doctors and professionals and people get a wonderful birthday present from their spouse or something, it changes their lives and its really improved mine. I’ve met some really successful business people who are closet guitar junkies who have so much admiration for me and have said so many kind things to me in a business way that it made me feel better than having gold records on the wall; do you get what I mean? So its real interesting to have some vice president of some giant corporation tell me I’m a leader and you have your shit together and you’re a great business man because all the years and hard work I’ve done, you know musicians don’t talk in those terms you know its all ‘hey did you get laid last night?’ or ‘look at the tits on that chick’ you know, you’re not talking about what a leader you are, but the truth is, even with Union I had to work really, really hard to get the talent in that band to organise and have some sort of direction. But look at Gene and Paul, that’s why KISS is around all these years, ultimate business men, they’re very bright at it and they do it great and they know how to be good cop, bad cop to each other and look at the success they’ve had. So I’ve learned a lot and had good kind of counselling of my own there.

TC - For those that don’t know your history, you were in a band called ‘Blackjack’ with Michael Bolton and released 2 awesome rock albums what was it like playing with a young Michael back in the day? Do you still play any of these old tracks?
BK - You know Michael was really very driven and he was very aggressive ‘I’m gonna be a star’ and I knew he had talent and looks and drive and these are things you had to have and then when the opportunity came, as a rocker it didn’t really happen for him but as soon as this other door opened for him, he won a Grammy and became every housewives fantasy you know what I mean. Ironically, one of those songs from that Blackjack group I had with him ended up on a Kanye West album, that first one, ‘College dropout’ which sold a lot of copies, I was very pleased with that.

TC - Nice for the bank balance?
BK - Yes it was ha ha I was very pleased.

TC - What advice would he give a young guitarist who is starting out in the industry?
BK - You know, I always liked, I was very fortunate on the street where I grew up in Queens was that there were some other talented people in the neighbourhood, there was a bass player who was really into the same stuff as me, you know The Beatles and Cream and Led Zeppelin. So I always like to tell people, seek out people that are in your area and jam with them, work with them, get together with preferably better people than you because you’ll improve that way you know what I mean, if you’re the best on the block, find a block where there’s someone as good as you or better and go work with them and then start small, in other words, create something unique with some people like that who are like minded and have that talent you never know what you’re going to learn, who’s going to discover something and what you’re going to create. I think that’s the best way to look at it, don’t just stay in your bedroom practising, you’ve gotta get out there.

TC - Who do you think these days is the best up and coming guitarist of the last 5 years or anyone we should be looking out for in the not too distant future?
BK - Hmm... some of these new bands that I like, the guitar playing isn’t really that, you know, its important, if you look at Coldplay there’s interesting guitar work but its not like the Guitar Hero stuff that we talked about, I’ve heard amazing stuff about that Joe Bonamassa, he’s got a signature guitar through Gibson and he’s sold out Royal Albert Hall, Eric Clapton came in and sat in with him you know what I mean, he’s like a great blues player you know? But a lot of the bands, they’ll have a good player but its not about the lead guitar playing, so I don’t have a real answer you know, probably after I hang up I’ll go like ‘oh yeah’ but I have to say the guitar players in Radiohead are extremely creative and that’s a really different kind of band from KISS or Motley Crue or whatever but the guitar work is really creative in some of those bands. The guitarist in Muse has to do different stuff you know what I mean, but you know a lot of the new bands that have hits right now, the guitar is important, its doing something kinda like more closer to what Edge does with U2 than what Eric Clapton did for ‘Sunshine of your love’ ok, you know what I mean? Where there’s a solo that’s as important as the lead vocal.

TC - True, and who has been your biggest influence in music and even now?
BK - Well Jimi Hendrix was definitely my biggest influence I loved of course all the Beatles stuff but guitar hero wise it was him and Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton with Cream I mean I was a huge Cream fan, that’s why I was out of my mind when I got to jam with Jack Bruce and I actually played ‘White Room’ and Sunshine of your love’ with Simon Kirke on drums from Bad Company which is not too slouchy there in front of a couple of hundred people and it was a thrill, a compete thrill.

TC – OK, time for some word association can you give us a few words to describe the following people or bands you’ve played with
Meatloaf – Bat out of hell, a great performer
Michael Bolton – He was always a great front man
Billy Squier – Meticulous and a brilliant songwriter / singer
Grand Funk Railroad – Totally classic, great American band
And of course, Gene Simmons – The consummate, egotistical business man who actually is a puddy cat at heart.

TC - 2009 has been a mega year for Kiss fans with new albums from Kiss, yourself, Ace Frehley as well as each being active touring the globe and Kiss expo's etc. This can only help to ensure that there is are new generations of Kiss fans joining the army. How do you feel to be a part of this legacy?
BK – It’s obviously been an amazing ride for me you know what’s wonderful is that the band continues to be valid and I don’t actually have to wear make up or be on tour with them for people to be aware that I was part of that history so I’m quite fortunate.

TC - Well we’re really looking forward to seeing you down here in December.
BK - See you then.

STEEVI JAIMZ

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:30:00 +1100

“Steevi Jaimz started playing in bands since about the age of 18. His first real band he joined was Treason. It was the tail end of the NWOBHM, and Treason were a metal band in the vein of Sabbath.

After eventually disbanding Treason and forming the legendary (His own words) Crash Ko.
together with Phil Vokins and Ace Finchum, they would eventually go their seperate ways.
By 1984, after years on the circuit a call came from Leicester based glamsters China Rogue.
After the band split into different directions, fast forward to the early spring of 85' and Ace called Steevi to go out to Colorado to again join up with him in local band Idol Threat.
On his return to England in the late summer of 85', broke and hungry to play in any band he
called an ad that was placed in Sounds magazine, said band turned into Tigertailz.
Ace was called as they needed a new drummer. And on they rode... unfortunately Steevi fell at the first hurdle! Alcohol, fights and drugs took its toll and he was let go after just one single and album (Young & Crazy) a very apt title for him at the time!

Keeping active post Tigertailz with a variety of projects such as St Jaimz, Steevi most recently formed a writing partnership and great friendship with the great Swedish producer Chris Laney and Anders Ringman. The result is to have recorded the best sounding music he's ever done with the killer album “My Private Hell”. It still has the glam rock n' roll roots but, the sound is modern and powerful. And so here you have, once again...Steevi Jaimz!”

The response to "My Private Hell" so far has been great and I must say the album has totally crept up and taken me by surprise….it's killer! You must be damn proud with the album?
Hi Scott... Yeah, absolutely. Proud as hell so to speak. The response has thrilled us all, we knew how good we thought it sounded but the fans response was what mattered. And it's been fantastic!!

You worked with Swedish based Chris Laney and Anders Ringman, how did this association come about?
I actually hooked up with Chris via the internet. We just made a connection and the next thing you know we're writing and passing ideas around. I have to say working with Chris was a really great experience, both him and Anders are absolute pros and excellent songwriters/producers. And this is by far the best music i have ever been involved in.

Being someone who personally loves the whole Swedish influenced modern rock sound, one of the appeals of "My Private Hell" is that it draws in elements of this sound. Was this something you initially set out to do or is it a result of working with Chris and Anders?
Yeah, obviously the influence of Chris and Anders comes over in the record, as does my own. So i think not only do you get the quality of the swedish sound, but you also get the english side of the sound from me. And that combination really works well. Sweden already has HCSS and Crash Diet, two bands i really like. There's also quite a few other great new bands over there. So we never really set out to have that same sound, but on the other hand i didn't want another dull English sounding record to my name. Therefore we mixed all these elements into the pot and out came My Private Hell. It's got everything really, massive production, great tunes and plenty of attitude. And it fits neatly amongst those bands records too.

Can you give us a bit of an insight into the songwriting and recording process for the album, with you being based in London and Chris and Anders based in Stockholm.
The early songs (Still Crazy and Little Sistah) were born over the internet when i first started to write with Chris. He sent over his ideas and i went into a small studio in Cambridge and put down the vocals on those demo's. That's all we originally set out to do were these demo's. They turned out so well that we decided to take it a step further and consequently i flew from London to Stockholm to start writing what would be the album My Private Hell. We went into Platform Studios, Chris and Anders's studio there and recorded four more tunes (Amazing, Kikk It Down, Kiss Of Death and Something Good Something Bad) in the time space we had available. But because it had all been self financed i had to return home, wait until i had time etc... and more importantly they could fit me in to their busy schedules, and then fly back over. The last songs we recorded were Don't Say It's Over and I Don't Wanna Walk Away, two of my favourite tunes on the record. It did end up taking a lot longer than we planned, and it was tough waiting and going back and forth from London every few months. But in the end it was worth the waiting 'cos the results are incredible.

The production and sound on the album is MASSIVE, you must be pretty damn happy with the final result?
Absolutely. When i got the first mixes of the tunes they blew me away. Saying that Polar Studios is an incredible place. All that history, Zeppelin, Genesis, Def Leppard, Abba, the list goes on. And i finally got to work in the same place as the greats. Pretty special for me i tell ya. We actually used the same piano as was used on all the Abba hits on the ballad (I Don't Wanna Walk Away) on my record. So yeah, the sound on this album is fukkin' huge. And i'm so proud of it!!

Ryan Roxie has been who I have personally followed through all of his projects form Electric Angels all the way through to his latest solo album, so I was mighty intrigued by "Don't Say It's Over" which is a song he co-wrote with Chris Laney. Did you get the opportunity to work with Ryan at all, or was this simply a song that Chris brought into the equation?
Ryan Roxie is a fantastic songwriter. As soon as i heard Don't Say It's Over i was hooked on it. As i say, it's one of my favourite tunes on the album. The original was a little different, but i think we all did it justice on the record. Unfortunately i never got the chance to work on it with Ryan. I would have loved to but he was busy working on his other projects. That's the only song on the record that neither me or Anders were involved in the writing of. What a great tune it is though, hooks all over it. Kinda reminds me of an Alice Cooper tune too.

You have been out on the road playing some shows recently, with one scheduled in October in Sweden. Are there any more touring plans on the horizon, either to the USA or Europe if the demand warrants it?
We'd play everywhere if we could... We're doing a Halloween show in Vaxjo, Sweden on the 30th. We're all stoked for that. Rehearsals have been going great too. So it should be a rip roarer of a show. After that there should be some more European dates, we're talking to venues right now. People everywhere need to hear these tunes live for sure. And as you say. If people want us we'll be there!!

What was the glam rock scene like in London/UK back in the days of Tigertailz? Is there much of a glam rock movement in existence these days in London/UK?
The scene here in London was electric back in the day. Bands coming out of everywhere, tons of clubs and venues to play. And a guaranteed sell out if you were any good. We (TTz) were the biggest draw by far for an unsigned band. Selling out the old Marquee Club in Wardour Street two nights running. No other unsigned band could touch us or do that. TTz weren't great band, we were just in the right place at the right time doing the right thing ya know. The glam scene here was in full flow when we emerged. And we just spiralled into a huge draw at the clubs. It was a good time to have big hair hehehe. Nowadays it's all changed, but things have to move on. But it has become stagnant again. Not many good upcoming bands here. Well, not any i like so that's just my opinion. But there are very few clubs going on here and if you are a new band trying to sell shows it must be really tough. There's not much of a glam scene, if any at all, in London. Sweden has all the glam going on over there.

The debut Tigertailz album "Young & Crazy" in which you were involved, spawned the Top 40 hit "Livin Without You" which you wrote. Did the success of this single take you by surprise at the time?
It did yeah, but saying that it is a great pop song.It's by far and away the best tune on the Young & Crazy record. And i still have a big soft spot for it. The chorus in that song is so infectuous. It was inspired by REO Speedwagon's Back On The Road and it was actually the first of two songs, Shoot To Kill being the other, that i wrote in Tigertailz. Must admit i did get a big kick out of writing a Top 40 song. I thought the re-recorded version was really awful though. There was no need for an extra layer of cheese and sugar coating.

Do you take much interest in modern music, if so, who are some of the artists that you have taken a particular interest in?
I do... Kid Rock's last record was sensational as was Pink's I'm Not Dead. I'm a big fan of her music. I also took my son to a My Chemical Romance show at Wembley a few years back, i didn't expect much, but i have to say they were incredible live.Black Parade was a great record too. I have to say that the last Guns n'Roses-Chinese Democracy is pure genius. Kasabian are great too. But i still love all my 70's vinyl the best though, that's where my roots lie.

Your time in music over the past 20 years has certainly been a journey full of trials and tribulations. What is it that motivates and drives you to still be involved in the music business?
Hahahahahahahahahahaha, trials and tribulations, that's an understatement for sure... The business is very different to what it was, the arrival of the internet changed the whole playing field as well. Some of the fun has gone too. Bands need to get back to putting on shows and having more fun a la Steel Panther... Personally, i'm motivated 'cos of my love for the music and writing songs, and i've always loved to entertain people. It's in my blood from way back when, and it'll never leave me 'til i die!

What are your words to those that may judge you on your past, at the expense of checking out and judging "My Private Hell" purely for what is and that's a killer rock album?
Narrow minded people never change, so whatever i say is wasted on them. And to be honest the only opinions i respect are from the fans. That's why i made this album, not for some knobhead critic to sit behind his computer slating me for something i may have done 20 years ago. I've been villified for so many years now, and it's very very boring and tiresome hearing those same sad old quotes. Those pricks who live in the past can stay there, i've moved on and made an album that stands up on its own. And i don't live for last year, i live for today... If you love good rock n' roll you'll love this album. If not, too bad it's their loss.

CREED (MARK TREMONTI)

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:58:28 +1100

Back in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s Creed were one of the biggest bands in the world, fan or critic, it’s a fact. With over 30 million in album sales and a live show that was truly a spectacle, in 2004 Creed officially parted ways at what seemed to be the height of their career. In the time apart frontman Scott Stapp released a solo album and the three remaining original members of Creed; Mark Tremonti, Scott Phillips and Brian Marshall went on to form Alter Bridge with singer Myles Kennedy releasing 2 albums. As far as the world was concerned, Creed were never to be heard from again.

Rumours speculating a reunion of the original 4 members of Creed came to fruition in April of 2009 when it was announced not only would the band be touring again but they’d be releasing a new album in November. Has the 6 years apart allowed the band to come ‘Full Circle’ and show the world that they are a brand new Creed? If the chorus to lead single ‘Overcome’ is anything to go by with Scott Stapp’s distinctive vocals telling us “I’m entitled to overcome” it seems that we’re in for one heck of a ride from one changed man and band.

Guitarist Mark Tremonti took some time to talk to us about the reformation of the band, the new album, how the internet has changed music and the future of both Alter Bridge and Creed.

Hi Mark, thanks for taking the time to talk to us
MT – Thank you

So after what was publicized as somewhat of a bad break up, and after 6 years apart, what do you consider to be the major influencing factor that led to a pathway being cleared for a reformation of Creed?
MT - I think it was the long period of time we had apart, everybody got to mature and realize what was, all we had achieved and kind of put everything aside and not bring the past back up but get back together in a room and do it for the right reasons you know, but I think definitely we needed time apart and everybody’s grown up and matured I think maturity is at the base of it all.

I read a quote that said this was “a second chance to make a first impression with each other and our fans” were there any nerves going into this, how has this reception been both within the band and by the fans?
MT - Its been great, as we all got together as I said, we didn’t bring up the past and just looked forward and everybody’s had a real positive attitude and we all have treated each other with respect, and we’re onto our last show here tomorrow and everything’s going great and the fans have been crazy about the whole thing, its been great.

What was the writing process behind these new songs? Were they all new ideas with the mindset of a totally new Creed album or did you have some riffs you were saving for just the right time? That being ‘Full Circle”.
MT - Well when I write I categorize stuff and my biggest challenge in writing with Alter Bridge was not to sound like Creed so I would kinda categorize certain ideas as sounding and fitting more with Creed so going into the record I had a lot of material to take from and you know we just wanted to sound like Creed but sound a little more dynamic and bring what we learned in these last 6 years not playing with Creed and bring it to the table.

How quickly did the songs come together for the new album?
MT - Well we had 2 and a half months to write and record the record so it was the quickest process we’ve ever gone through.

In recent months we have had new albums from Living Colour and Alice in chains that have been largely inspired in a lyrical sense by the events that have led to their return as active bands. Has the reformation of Creed featured heavily in the lyrics for the new album?
MT - Yeah I think there’s themes to the record of being allowed to change as a person and overcome adversity and just kind of reprove yourself and it’s a big theme on the record, especially for Scott. Lyrically and personally just to get back out there and convince people that he’s changed and things are on the up and up

And Scott obviously handles most of the lyrics?
MT - Well we’ll get together on the lyrics and sit down with the song ideas, pull out all his, he writes a lot of poetry and lyrics and we’ll just throw them all out in front of us, I’ll pick up an acoustic guitar, peak over them with him and we’ll kinda pick and choose from what he’s done and place them throughout the songs.

Now you worked with producer Howard Benson on ‘Full circle.’ What were you hoping that he’d bring to the table, and was he your only choice for producing the new album?
MT - No we had a few people that we were looking at but Howard seemed like a logical choice, you know he’s got his pulse on the market right now for sure and he’s mainly just a good wise old owl to watch over the project, he let us do our thing, he didn’t mess too much with any of the song arrangements I think he was just really concentrating on making sure that it was right in the end and he was very proud of the record and like I said didn’t really meddle in things too much.

What are your thoughts on where the rock scene is at in 2009, compared to where it was when Creed left it about 6 years ago, and the fact that you now potentially have a whole new generation of Creed fans that didn't experience you first time around?
MT - Yeah its great, at our shows we have a huge range of age groups out there and you know like you said we have kids out there and we also have people in their fifties out in the concerts, its great to see that, you have parents bringing their kids to the shows and they’re both fans of the music, its great. As for rock music now, I think the biggest change has been the internet, when we disbanded 6 years ago the internet was just breaking and just making big waves and since then its completely changed the way that everybody does things. With record sales and what not, bands just have to survive on touring now but it’s also good for exposure at the same time.

What were some of the major lessons/mistakes you learnt from the first time around, that you have made a conscious effort to improve on/not repeat?
MT - I think communication between band members is key you know, before you would rely on other people taking care of business for you and not really communicating with everybody in the band at all times and I think especially between me and Scott we just have to always make the right decisions especially respect each other and not hold anything in.

What did you learn during your time apart that you are bringing back to the band now? With Alter Bridge, you were playing, Scott was doing his solo stuff but was there anything you picked up with Alter Bridge that you thought that’ll work with Creed?
MT - Yeah I mean just 6 years of experience, we’ve been fighting real hard to stay afloat with Alter Bridge and in that fight you gain a lot of experience and I feel we’re all twice the musicians we were when Creed disbanded back in the day and coming back to do Creed we can let some of that spill over to that Creed sound and make it more dynamic.  
You’ve already taken Creed back out on the road playing shows in the US, have you been playing new material? And how have the songs been received by the fans?
MT - Yeah we’ve played about 5 of the new songs live and they’ve been real receptive, one of the songs is the single ‘Overcome’ and they really dig that and we experiment, just throw a song in here and there to see how they react to it, I think by far the best response has been a song called ‘A Thousand faces’ which might be a single one day, who knows?

Creed’s live show is certainly one that has to be witnessed, pyro, fire, more rock moves than humanly possible and on the Weathered tour you were due to record a live DVD but that never eventuated, and we've heard you recently recorded a show in Houston, can we expect to see all of the above?
MT - Yeah we just filmed that, they’re trying to get it out for Christmas this year so it’s a big rush on that but yeah the concert is the biggest production we’ve ever put together and we’re real proud of it.

I saw you here in Australia back in 2002, when can we expect Creed to make it back down here to Australia to blow us away again?
MT - Yeah, the plan right now is to go visit Australia in June, that’s what’s on the books for now, we just have to get all the agents and promoters together on making it work.

A trademark of Creed and consequently your guitar playing, has always been very riff oriented and the new album sounds like it is no exception. Do you have a personal favourite riff that you have written/recorded or enjoy playing most?
MT - On this record I think a song called ‘Time’ is my favourite song on the record, I think it’s got some of the best music, just the music alone is my favourite on the record as well.

Are you loving getting out playing the hits again?
MT - Yeah it’s great, its just great to see people familiar with a song and as soon as you start it you get the big rush and the big cheer it just brings you right back you know.

Who are some of your major influences from a guitar playing point of view?
MT - You know it switches year after year, when I was a kid I was into speed metal, punk and speed metal at the same time so I kind of I wasn’t really into the solo thing, more the rhythm speed metal and as I grew older I got into the shredders like Paul Gilbert and Yngwie and Petrucci, Vai and Satch and then after I dabbled in that for a while I started to get into more of the guys who focus on the bluesier side, the jazzier side and just the classy phrasing guys like Larry Carlton and Robin Ford and right now I’m trying tackle as much Warren Haynes stuff as I can, Jeremiah Freed, you know, it kind of varies.  
Now that Creed are back and from the sound of ‘Full Circle’ aren’t going to go away in a hurry, is this the end for Alter Bridge?
MT - Absolutely not, no, after this tour ends, Myles is coming to my house in Orlando to finish writing the Alter Bridge 3 record and we plan on going in the studio late January, we also have a DVD that we shot in Amsterdam that should be becoming available at retail at any day, you may be able to get it on Amazon, I’m not sure but we’ve had it available at our concerts and got a lot of stuff coming up as well.

Ever a chance of the Alter Bridge / Creed double bill here in Australia, that’d be great?
MT - Yeah that would be fun, it’s something I’ve thrown out there and we’ll see if we can make it happen

Over 3 albums, Creed have sold close to 30 million records. Do you feel any pressure on you with ‘Full Circle’ to sell a similar amount of records, or is Creed version 2.0 a band that will be satisfied that they have made the best record of their career, regardless of how many copies it may sell?
MT - You know with the internet the way that it is now I think its impossible to sell the number of records that we did previously because its just a different market out there but we’re satisfied with the record now, we’re very proud of it and we’re already successful in that respect.

What’s your stance on the internet, with the whole illegal downloading, I know it can’t be stopped but is it something that you have to accept as a musician?
MT - Yeah I mean there’s no getting away from it, you just have to, its just tough for a lot of bands, we’re lucky enough to have had a history with the band for people to come out to our shows so we know that the tours will be successful but as far as the record sales go you kinda have to write off, you know, write em off, people are just going to get the record for free a lot of the time.

Who have you been taking out on the road with you? Any new bands we should know about?
MT - You know what, right now we’re out with ‘Saliva’ and ‘Like a Storm’, and ‘Like a Storm’ is from New Zealand, really great band, great guys, they’ve been on this entire tour and hopefully if we come to Australia they can come and go play over by home.

Now I also read that you were doing an instructional DVD, the first one that you’ve done, how did that go?
MT - Yeah it went great, its called ‘The sound and the story’ and me and my brother started a company called Fret 12 and we just wanted to kinda reinvent the guitar instructional world and cause I’ve always been a big fan of them and any time one comes out ill buy it and I noticed they were all just kinda plain jane and we wanted to make one that was more documentary style and make it a little more in depth and we made it a 3 hour all high definition DVD with 5 guest lessons on there, so its really in depth. We’ve also gone and finished Leslie West’s DVD which is the second release and we’re hunting down some other big names. And they’re available on the fret 12 website that’s F R E T and then the number 12 .com

You mentioned a third Alter Bridge record before and I read that Myles is doing a solo record, is that what’s going to turn into the Alter Bridge record?
MT - No no, he’s doing his solo record right now and then once he finishes recording he’ll be coming down to Orlando at the end of November.

Now also you’ve played on a few albums, one of my favourites is on the Sevendust record, that solo is just ridiculous, anything else you’ve been working on?
MT - I did a guest solo on Michael Angelo Batio’s or a couple of solo’s on Michael Angelo’s new record but other than that all year this year we’ve been real busy trying to get this Creed record done.

And when do you think with the touring how long are you going to go through, another year another 2 years?
MT - We’re just going to keep going until we can’t do it anymore you know. Just keep on going and keep both bands going and try and make it work.

So on Full Circle, there are 12 songs on the record, are there any extras you had left over?
MT - No we don’t usually, when we go into the studio we don’t usually have a bunch of extra songs, I think we had 2 on this record cycle, one is an acoustic version of ‘Overcome’ and the other is a tune that will probably end up as a B side for a Japanese release or something, but yeah we generally pretty much once we finish writing, you know we don’t write songs unless they give us the chills or we think they’re good right off the bat we wont continue writing it so we don’t write a lot of extra stuff.

And obviously being able to perform them acoustically, I saw a version of ‘Overcome’ and it was just brilliant, it suits it. Is that how you write the music or do you just go in and shred?
MT - Um, both, you know a lot of times a lot of the more melodic stuff is written on an acoustic and the stuff that’s more riff oriented is done on an electric.

Thanks Mark, absolute pleasure, hopefully we’ll see you down here as the show is truly one that needs to be soon so we’ll be spreading the word and when you’re down we’ll catch up and talk more about the tour.
MT - Thankyou very much, yeah come say hello for sure.

JOE LYNN TURNER

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:13:57 +1100

When it comes to iconic singers, Joe Lynn Turner is certainly up there with the best, not to mention one of the most prolific. Turner first rose to prominence on an international scale with Rainbow, featuring legendary guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. During his time with Rainbow, the band had their first USA chart success and recorded songs that helped define the melodic rock genre.

In 1984, with Ritchie Blackmore having left Rainbow, Turner focussed on releasing his first solo album ‘Rescue You’ which was produced by Roy Thomas Baker, known for his work with Queen and The Cars. JLT co-wrote most of the songs with keyboardist Al Greenwood (Foreigner). The first single, "Endlessly," received extensive airplay on radio and MTV. Turner also proved his versatility by working with a diverse array of artists, including Billy Joel, Cher, Michael Bolton, Mick Jones (Foreigner), John Waite (The Babys).

After a tenure in the late 80’s with Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force which produced Malmsteen’s most commercially successful album ‘Odyssey’ Turner reunited with Blackmore, this time fronting Deep Purple and releasing the album “Slaves and Masters”. In the years that then followed Turner worked on a variety of recorded and live projects with some of rock music’s elite, amongst them the likes of Glenn Hughes (Deep Purple), Mike Reno (Loverboy), Jimi Jamison (Survivor), Spencer Davis, Bobby Kimball (TOTO), Carmine Appice (Ozzy Osbourne), Bob Daisley (Ozzy Osbourne), Jeff Watson (Night Ranger), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), John Sykes (Whitesnake/Thin Lizzy) and Steve Vai (Frank Zappa/David Lee Roth/Whitesnake).

Now here we are in 2009 and Turner is as busy as ever having released the 2nd Sunstorm album ‘House of Dreams’ which is chock full some of the years best melodic rock songs. With “Over The Rainbow” featuring former Rainbow musicians Bobby Rondinelli and Greg Smith united and a second generation Blackmore, Turner has been taking the songs of Rainbow all over Europe.

Taking time some out from his touring schedule with Over The Rainbow, Turner gave us some insight into Sunstorm’s ‘House Of Dreams’ as well as a career that has spanned over 30 years and 60 album credits.

Joe Lynn Turner, thanks for taking the time to chat with May The Rock Be With You, it is truly an honour for us. Firstly, you have recently been busy playing shows with “Over The Rainbow” which in 2009 has taken you to Japan, Eastern Europe, Sweden Rock Festival and you have shows in the USA coming up in a few weeks. How did the appearance at Sweden Rock treat you?
JLT: Sweden Rock Fest was awesome! You can check out some video from the show on our My Space page: www.myspace.com/overtherainbowrocks  
Whilst over in that part of the world, you also played some shows in Spain with your other project Big Noize. What has the reaction to Big Noize been like thus far?
JLT: Everywhere we have played the reaction has been great! It was especially amazing in Iraq. The soldiers there were one of the best audiences I have ever experienced.
It sure is an appetising proposition with the line-up that you have and the set list. Are there still strong intentions to record an album under the Big Noize name with this line-up?
JLT: We have talked about it off and on since we first got together. A song that we did in Iraq called “Battlefields,” is available via stream through our My Space site. www.myspace.com/abignoize.

Along with the previously mentioned projects, you have also recently released the 2nd Sunstorm album “House of Dreams”, a collection of songs from the past, as well as the present. In our opinion it’s one of our albums of the year, with every song an AOR/melodic rock lovers wet dream. Was there any particular inspiration behind the individual songs chosen for this album?
JLT: I can only speak for the ones that I wrote and there is always inspiration. All of them have some sort of inspiration even if it is based on another person’s experience that I have observed. Some of the inspirations are too private to discuss anything in depth but I can tell you that writing a song about some of my personal experiences can provide a sense of closure. I really do not like to explain what I was thinking when I was writing too often because I prefer that people draw their own conclusions and adapt whatever meaning of the song to whatever resonates with them. I am not going to blow that magic.

Many years ago now, you co-wrote the song “Walk On” with Desmond Child, which initially appeared on Jimmy Barnes’s “Freight Train Heart” CD, and now your own version appears on “House Of Dreams”. With Jimmy being one of Australia’s most iconic rock stars, we were interested if you have actually worked further or sung with Jimmy at any stage?
JLT: Not anything that you don’t already know about but I agree that he is amazing...writer...singer...great passion.

Whilst Sunstorm could be termed more of a recording “project” than a band as such, do you ever envisage there being Sunstorm live performances if the demand was there and everything fell into place?
JLT: You said the two key phrases right there...the demand has to be there but so does the right situation. Everyone’s schedules would also have to be clear and all of us are busy musicians, producers, etc. It would be a challenge but I do get asked a lot about this. It could happen in the future.

From the moment I personally first heard your voice on “Heaven Tonight” with Yngwie J Malmsteen’s Rising Force through to hearing you now on the latest Sunstorm album, your voice seems to have aged magnificently like a vintage bottle of red wine, take the track “Say You Will” as testimony of this. I am sure you have been asked this a thousand times over, but are there any particular secrets to having kept your voice so strong?
JLT: I do try and eat healthy and get a lot of sleep. It’s important to stay rested and hydrated especially on tour and when you are doing recording days back to back. When I tour, we try very hard not to schedule more than 2 shows in a row. Ideally, it’s best to have one day ON, one day OFF but three consecutive shows dates or more is not ideal. Some of these bands do this and that might be why they have problems. Any indulgences I try and keep in moderation.

After the disbanding of Rainbow in 1984, you moved onto pursuing a solo career releasing “Rescue You” in 1985, which is regarded as an AOR classic in many circles. What led you to head into such a pure AOR direction with this album?
JLT: I came from an “AOR” direction from my past when Ritchie found me with Fandango. I have been told that I always had a melodic appealing radio voice anyway. I like all kinds of music and grew up listening to AM radio (hit radio in the USA). So, that sound comes naturally to me. Having said that, I still love to branch out and do other genres and plan to do that sometime in the future.

In Yngwie Malmsteen, Ritchie Blackmore and Glenn Hughes you have worked with arguably three of the more influential & infamous people in music. Briefly referring to your time spent with each, how did these experiences shape Joe Lynn Turner into the performer and person he is today?
JLT: All three are amazing talents and contributed to changing me, shaping me and influencing me to know what I want how to get it. They also taught me that what you don’t want can define who you are what you will and will not do.

You have released more solo & project albums in your career, than your time with Rainbow, Deep Purple and Yngwie Malmsteen combined, yet the major point of focus always seems to be your time spent with these. Personally speaking, it is your solo and Sunstorm work that gives us the most musical pleasure.
JLT: Thanks for that great compliment.

Whilst we are not trying to suck up here, do you often wish for greater recognition of your recent work?
JLT: I think most artists do. It’s not anything I am bitter about or that I think about often but I do wish more music fans, in general, would appreciate the fact that I am a multi-dimensional artist and not just a hard rock, metal or even a melodic rock (or as the Europeans call it, “AOR) singer/artist.

Over the years, music has taken you to some pretty amazing destinations. To name a few, Russia, Eastern Europe, Spain, Japan, and recently in Iraq performing for the troops with Big Noize. What have been some of your most vivid non-musical experiences from your tours of other countries? Has the opportunity/possibility to tour Australia ever presented itself at any stage of your career?
JLT: Australia has always been a country that I have wanted to visit (tour, play live) but it is so far away and bringing shows there can be an expensive operation although we have been working on trying to get something going there. Russia is incredible and to see changes politically and economically have been a great experience not to mention the fans are very passionate. Japan is one of those “classic rock never dies” market. It’s always a great experience with the culture, the food the gracious people and philosophies. Iraq as an entire experience was an indelible life lesson It left me forever changed. I saw the good, bad and ugly in what can and is happening in this world but I met some of the most dedicated and special people in the word also...our Troops.

Whilst recently in Sweden, your Twitter informs us that you did some song writing with some Swedish artists, hinting at some possible surprises with the direction this song writing has taken. Is there anything you are able to reveal at this stage about what we may expect out of these writing sessions? Is there a particular musical style that you would love to explore one day, that you haven’t yet had the opportunity?
JLT: I have been writing and recording demos in many genres and styles. We even did some commercial more modern rock sounds, contemporary techno dance remixes and modern country. I believe I have the ability to sing just about anything and exploring different styles is what keeps things exciting and invigorating. I can’t reveal too much but if any of this does end up coming out in some form it could be the reinvention of JLT in a way.  
Taking the above question one step further, do you pay much attention to modern music these days?
JLT: Yes, I do and my daughter also keeps turning me on to more modern material although she is also a huge fan of classic rock.

And if so, who are some of the bands that you particularly like or one day perhaps like to work with?
JLT: Nickelback, Daughtry, Matchbox 20, Johnny Lang and I am sure there are more.

As a person who is incredibly prolific in recent years with regular CD releases, live performances, new projects, song writing/collaborations with others, you are certainly testimony to the adage “age shall not weary them”! What is the inspiration that keeps you going? What can JLT fans expect in the coming year or so, a new solo album perhaps?
JLT: Music! I still feel like I’m 19. Music is my passion my life and everything I do is self motivated. I could not live without it and of course, the fans keep me going as wel;ll. As for a new CD, right now I am touring with Over The Rainbow but I am sure there will be another JLT album in the works sometime in the next year or so.

Is there anything you feel that is unfulfilled as far as Joe Lynn Turner and music is concerned?
JLT: As long as people keep demanding my music, I will feel fulfilled.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions and we look forward to what 2009 and beyond brings us as far as all things JLT are concerned. All the best and May The Rock Be With You!
JLT: Thank you and your readers for your support and time. Peace, JLT.

BOWLING FOR SOUP (JARET REDDICK)

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:25:04 +1100

Here at May The Rock Be With You, we love music and we preferably love it happy! You know, the kind of music that puts a smile on your face no matter what kind of mood you are in, lyrics that make you laugh, hooks that stick in your head like glue and a chorus that will have you singing in the shower for weeks! For 15 years now there has been one band that has delivered all the above and more. That band is those multi-million selling, Grammy nominated Texans from Denton County, the fabulous "Bowling For Soup".

Having spent earlier this year in a recording studio in Austin, Texas with producer Linus Of Hollywood, the band now present to the world their killer new album, "Sorry For Partyin". With the "it's so wrong, it's freakin awesome" "My Wena" and witty second single "No Hablo Ingles", it's clear the band have taken things on this album to a whole new level with supersize servings of everything that is so great about BFS!

Rising to prominence here in Australia a few years ago with the hit singles "1985" and "Girl All The Bad Guy's Want", BFS planted the seeds In Australia once again last year playing a bunch of shows as part of a touring package that included Pennywise and Sum 41.

Fellow Australian's this is your call to arms. A call to arms to claim the title of Australia being the biggest market for BFS outside of the USA. A title currently held by the UK...yes the UK, now what's with that?? So join the BFS Army, spread the word to all your friends and let's all adopt new song "Hooray For Beer" as our summer beer drinking anthem!

But first....check out our interview below with BFS frontman Jaret Reddick on the eve of the album release and the bands UK tour...hear that Aussie's, UK TOUR!!!

Bowling for Soup have been together now for 15 years as a band, what are some of your best and worst memories with BFS over the last 15 years?
I don't have a LOT of bad memories...Most of the time, as long as we are all together, we are fine...I mean, being stranded in foreign airports for 15 hours sucks, but you make the best of it when you are with your best friends!

The first few years were a lot of fun, but after we signed with Jive in 1999, we thought everything was set! the next two years were really hard...No money and no support from the label, because frankly, we werent selling any records...Then the UK exploded for us, and it all began to turn around...then the Grammies and so on....

As far as good memories, I wouldn't even know where to start. They are pretty much all good!

Musically each release just keeps bringing more and more into the BFS bag of tricks. Do you feel that you are only just now hitting your peak?
I do...And I am not even sure I am there yet from a writing perspective. I think the Niche is there and we are fine tuning it. But this album is so fucking good, I can't imagine where we will go next, it will either be even more amazing or totally blow!

Your new album 'Sorry for Partyin' is sure to crack a few ribs with the always clever and funny lyrics that BFS deliver, and in hearing the songs you have released thus far such as "No Hablo Ingles" and "My Wena", whilst being classic BFS lyrically, seem to bring in more of a pure power pop influence than ever before. Is this indicative of the album in general?
as far as feel, the album is concise...I really felt like our last album was all over the place..I wanted to tighten this record up and have it be more of a cohesive record. It was hard choosing 13 songs out of 25 recorded and 60 written, but I think we chose the correct ones for what we were trying to do. It just flows!

Further on from that, can you give us an insight into the songwriting process for a Bowling for Soup album. What comes first, lyrics or the music/melody?
It can start from anywhere, really, a riff, a lyric, or a concept. Sometimes I will sing a nonsensical tune into my phone, and it becomes a song. Literally each song is completely different in the way it comes about, I don't know if that means I am still learning, or if it means I can make a fucking song outta anything! haha...

The one thing that BFS are famous for is your music videos. When writing a song do you already have a concept for a video in mind or is that something that comes later on? Also, what can we expect video wise coming up?
It comes later. Mostly video concepts happen over beers....someone shouts out an idea and we start expanding on it. Sometimes we combine ideas, thus the double story lines at times, those are my favorites! The video for “No Hablo Ingles” is almost done...I think it’s conceptual, it is our funniest yet, but it will be hard to top “The Bitch Song” and “1985”...we will see!

You, yourself recently had a guest spot on the mighty Danger Danger release "Revolve", have you brought in any guests for "Sorry for Partyin'"?
For sure! We have Parry Gripp (Nerf Herder) and Scott Reynolds (All), also Tony Scalzo (Fastball) and of course Linus of Hollywood! I love the whole "guest spot" thing...It's like we are all hip hop and shit!

You are about to head off again on tour to the land of 'old speckled hen' and 'spotted dick', is it surreal that the UK is turning into a major market for you now? Maybe one day we'll see Sir Jaret if it keeps going this way....
Ha...I always worry the sword will take off an ear! We have been to the UK 16 times now, the fans there have been amazing to our little band. For some reason they get us, I guess...

Obvious question, are there any plans on the horizon you can reveal yet about Australian touring plans? I don't think there is any doubt that us Aussies "GET" BFS, so hopefully it's just a matter of time before the band takes off here like you now have in the UK?
We are SO ready to come back! The biggest issue is the expense of getting there and moving around once we are there. But I am making Australia a priority on this album! I really think it could work there. But we need help! So hopefully your readers will spread the word and possibly join www.bfsarmy.com and help us get back there sooner than later!

Your live show is one that really needs to be seen. What can the fans expect set wise on the new tour? Are you bringing a 7ft Wena on the road?
We are trying a lot of new visual stuff. The Wena will indeed be making some appearances here and there...you never know! We have added video to our UK tour, so if that goes well, we will likely expand on it. Plus, we are REALLY good at playing our songs, as well as other peoples...Ha!

Your record label 'Crappy Records' is producing some awesome talent and it's great that BFS are taking some of these artists on tour, are there any bands we need to look out for in the future?
We only have three acts and I believe all of them will be blowing up in the coming years. MCLars, The Leftovers (Portland Maine) and Skyfox. I couldn't be more excited about all of them and what they bring to the table. They just make GREAT music!

Lastly, here's to another 15 years with BFS but you now have free reign, any closing comments?
Yes...May the Rock Be With You!!!!! Ha!

Visit www.bowlingforsoup.com and follow us on Twitter! @bfsrocks

Thanks mate, look forward to reading it and having a beer again with you soon one day!
Thank YOU! and yes....We will have beer soon my friend!

READ OUR BFS DOES AUSTRALIA 2008 FEATURE RIGHT HERE!!

KIP WINGER (WINGER)

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:02:32 +1100

I vividly remember hearing “Madalaine” for the first time and just being blown away by the energy, the big vocals, the swirling guitars of Reb Beach, the locked in yet somewhat non-traditional drumming of Rod Morgenstein, the whole package. The album took awhile to get off the ground but then the “Seventeen” video hit MTV and Kip Winger’s smiling face was pretty much everywhere. Personally I always loved the band and really thought they brought something different to the table, but for some reason they seem to be brought up most often when people talk about what went wrong in the 80’s. Probably didn’t help that they were prominently displayed on the t-shirt of Beavis and Butthead’s geeky friend Stewart… but I digress.

Winger was never one to deliver the same formula with every release, as exhibited by their four releases to date. Yet with “Karma” their fifth release coming soon to a retailer near you, Kip, Reb, Rod and John have delivered a hard hitting, guitar heavy record that they say is based on feedback from the fans after the much more experimental “IV”.

So I had a nice long chat with Kip as follows, about the new album, the fans, recording, and composing classical music for ballet, Kip’s latest endeavor and what he seems most passionate about.

Pete: Thanks for taking some time out of your schedule to talk to me.
Kip: Yeah, no problem.

Pete: I’ve been a fan since the 80’s when somebody introduced me to “Madelaine”. I’ve seen a lot of changes in your musical direction over the last 4 studio albums. I notice with “Karma” rather than going off in an entirely new direction you seem to be taking everything up to this point and kind of tying it all together. Is that what you set out to do? Did you achieve what you were going for?
Kip: Yeah absolutely, I told Reb I want to do a cross between the first record and “Pull”, and so that’s basically what we did. Spent a lot of time just jamming on riffs, that’s how we do it we set up with a drum machine and then we start writing riffs, and then when we get some riffs that we dig, we start putting them together.

Pete: Very cool, I would say you did pretty well at achieving a good combination of those two albums. In addition to the evolution of the band, the musical landscape also has changed significantly over the last twenty-odd years or so. Your reputation as a band has always been to pretty much write what you want to write, do you ever feel the pull of your diehard fans that want to hear “In the Heart of the Young” part 2 and how do you deal with that?
Kip: Well that’s what I did on this, I mean…“In The Heart of the Young” was more of an experimental record, the real record of our band was “Pull” in my mind. If you put “Rainbow in the Rose” and “Headed for a Heartbreak” on “Pull” that would be the definitive record until now. So, you know I write a lot of classical music now so I kind of separated those two things. Right now I’ve got a couple symphony premiers and stuff, so when I set out to write this record I really wanted to keep it straight ahead, just in your face rock, and just go with what I’ve heard some of the fans want. Really just trying to bring out the elements of what I’ve known people really dug about our band the most.

Pete: That’s great, it’s actually refreshing to hear somebody say that rather than “no way, we just do what we want” and it just happens to be what the fans want.
Kip: Yeah, I mean I know what people dig about the elements, particularly this record just rocks your face off from song 1 to 5 and then we take a break when “Supernova” comes after that. You know, I just turned it up on this really.

Pete: Yeah it’s really “riffy” compared to “IV”.
Kip: Yeah it is.

Pete: And even when you get to things like “Supernova” I notice that you’ve still got a really wicked groove going on, it’s definitely like you said, it’s more in your face. Again with regard to the music scene these days, it seems to me like melodic rock is starting to come to the surface slowly but surely, this year in particular being a year of some really great releases. Have you seen that too, and are you optimistic about the future of melodic rock, is it important to you where you’re at right now?
Kip: You know I just do music, I got in as a guy in the 80’s and have made records ever since so I just do what I do, I don’t really pay attention to what anyone else is doing to be honest with you, I just try to write the best stuff I can come up with and hope that people dig it really. I listen to other bands rarely, because I’m always composing something so I don’t know too much about what’s going on out there honestly, I just kind of stick to what I’ve got.

Pete: That’s cool, nothing wrong with that, that way you don’t sound like anybody else. Seems like all of you are involved in a variety of projects. Is it hard to focus on getting the writing, recording and tour scheduling done, how do you give everything the full attention that it deserves?
Kip: I just do project by project and I don’t work on the next thing until I’m finished really. So the Winger record took eight months, that’s quite awhile, I mean a lot of people make a record in three months but I’m really particular about the way it sounds, making sure the parts are all done, it’s recorded very well, the mix is happening. I’m very hands on with all that stuff, I do most of it myself. Because I just want to make sure that level of quality is as high up as I can get it.

Pete: Absolutely. I saw in the Frontiers press release and also you mentioned it, that you and Reb wrote the album in about a month, which from the musical complexities on Karma is pretty impressive. How do you guys write together, it sounds like you guys just sit down together, so that’s pretty much it, you guys just get together and jam?
Kip: Well, we’ll go buy a 12-pack of beer and crank up the drum machine, start writing riffs, and once we come up with a cool riff, we start to arrange it. But my big thing is like I want to listen to music, and if I feel like, okay three passages go by and I’m bored, I’m changing it up you know? I don’t do anything that I’ve heard before, there’s a lot of stuff on the 1000 year recycle bin… so it’s got to be really inspired stuff, and I know what I want to do when it comes to arranging, so I just try to keep it interesting, and when you’re listening down, there’s never a point where you’re like, you know what’s coming next, or if you do know what’s coming next, it’s because you want it to\, you know what I mean?

Pete: Do Rod and/or John have much creative input?
Kip: Not as much as Reb and I, you know, it’s always been Reb and I, we write all the stuff. But when it comes to what Rod wants to play, he just plays and I record him basically, and then with John, John co-wrote one song on this which is a new thing for him, and we gave him a big blues showcase on “After All This Time” so yeah they do, although the core of the message comes from Reb and me.

Pete: Next week you are off to Brazil to play some solo shows, in November/December with Winger you are headed to play shows in Europe including Moscow and the other year you even took Winger to Australia. What have been some of the highlights from a non-musical sense with these worldwide excursions?
Kip: I love Australia, it was an awesome rock crowd, the people are so nice. I like Europe, I particularly like Spain and I love Paris, I like the ambience of other cities. America’s cool but it doesn’t have a great ambience, so it’s nice to be in a foreign place and just take it in. I love traveling, it’s probably one of my favourite things to do, so getting to travel as much as I do is very lucky from the point of view of even though I have to work, you know singing on tour is not the easiest thing but it’s great to be able to travel. I like a lot of places man, I’m going to Russia for the first time this year which is really cool.

Pete: Sounds very cool. So in addition to kind of play off the ambience between the states and Europe, etc. you’ve got quite a few dates in Europe set up and talk of more dates in 2010, plus some in the US and beyond. From other bands and musicians I’ve spoken to recently it seems like Europe is the place to start when you’re a melodic rock act, have you noticed that kind of progression as well?
Kip: Well they’ve stuck with the music more than anybody else. They’re avid fans about it, they’re not finicky, once they dig you they stick with you.

Pete: So Australia’s been a country that you first visited doing a promo visit many years ago and you played some shows down under the other year with Ratt. How did those shows go and could you see Winger touring Australia again anytime soon? Kip: I’d love to go back, except the flight was pretty… long… (laughs)

Pete: (laughs) I can’t even imagine.
Kip: Yeah, I’d love to go back, we had a great time with Ratt, it was a great bill you know, the music really lends itself well to each other. We’re going to Europe November/December and hopefully the states after that and then were going to go back over there, and hopefully we’ll get over to Japan.

Pete: Very cool, I’m looking forward to the US dates myself, so as far as a set list for live, do you focus on the newer material or do you concentrate mainly on the classics, or somewhere in between?
Kip: We’re doing both, we’ll play 4 or 5 songs from the new record and then all the hits and stuff.

Pete: When you do play the classics, do you try to keep them as close to the original versions or do you reinterpret them?
Kip: We just do what we do live, if you’ve ever seen the live DVD, it’s pretty, you know, it’s a four piece band, there’s not much you can do, we don’t play with Pro Tools or any tapes or things like that, so those guys sing their asses off and we just try to keep it real.

Pete: That’s the way to do it, so many guys these days are using tapes, and prerecorded digital stuff.
Kip: Yeah I mean it can be cool, I mean like a band like Def Leppard, they kind of have to because the records are so deep, there’s just no way, you’d have to have a 20 piece band. But you know, I’m not so into it.

Pete: Yeah, it kind of feels fake when you do that.
Kip: Yeah I mean it definitely sucks the energy out of it.

Pete: So “Karma” has a great sound to it and is possibly the most sonically pleasing Winger effort to date. For the recording of the album, did you use a producer and/or any other outside help? It sounded like you mostly did it yourself, was there anyone else who helped you out with it?
Kip: No, I mixed it and mastered the record myself dude, I’m just kind of a nutcase when it comes to that, I’m really into learning how to get it better and better, and I’ve got a couple of my favorite mix engineers that I’m listening to what they do all the time. Actually I’m friends with them so it’s “How do you do this? How do you do that?” (laughs). I appreciate you saying that because it’s been a long haul for me to really get the mixing to be p to level that I want it to be, but I’m really happy with this one.

Pete: That’s great, so who do you look up to as far as the engineers and such?
Kip: Mike Shipley. He’s the top, he did our “Pull” record with us and I’ve been friends with him since ’94. I think he’s the best mix engineer out there. And I like Richard Dodd, kind of a guy from another end of the world, he’s an English guy that worked with George Harrison and Traveling Wilburys, so he comes from a whole other end of it. So between those two guys I get a pretty well balanced idea of what’s going on.

Pete: You mentioned Pro Tools, are you guys analog, digital, a hybrid?
Kip: I use all Pro Tools man, and I sum out of Pro Tools analog when I mix, I come out of all the channels into analog stuff, and then I mastered analog.

Pete: So as a bass player, I know a lot of bass players tend to go direct in the studio as well as sometimes live. What does Reb do, does he bring in an amp, or are you using Pro Tools plug-ins, what kind of stuff do you do there?
Kip: No, I record everything through amps, I don’t do plug-ins for anything, I just don’t dig that. I use plug-ins for echo and stuff when I’m mixing, but I mic everything dude. Everything’s played live, no bullshit with any of that, like if I record a piano, it’s a real piano. Like okay, if I’m writing a pop song with a young artist or something I’ll do the MIDI thing, but when it comes to our band it’s all very puritanical recording. Digital is now to the point where it’s, you know, I cut Winger “IV” on analog 2”, like 16-track 2” thinking that was going to be a huge difference and ultimately it didn’t make that big of a difference. So I’m a big fan of Pro Tools. The key to recording man, is microphones and preamps. So if you have that part f it down, you’ll be fine.

Pete: Besides overall sales, MTV, etc. what do you find to be different about being a working musician today as opposed to 20 years ago? What are the good/bad points?
Kip: Well I mean the internet’s taken a lot of the money away, but it’s also brought a lot of new bands into the picture, so that’s cool. Live playing has become much more important. But for me dude, I feel very lucky, I got in under the radar before the internet, so I’ve got a pretty good name, so I can go out and play and stuff. I get to pretty much stick to what I’m into which is learning how to write music, I work a lot on classical music, just trying to get better as a composer and stuff, so I’m kind of out of the loop with what’s happening out there to be honest with you.

Pete: It’s a bloodbath out there (laughs) but it is what it is. But honestly this year’s been really great from the newer bands coming along as well as the more classic acts putting out good stuff. I’ve been listening to melodic rock for a long time, and your band was one of the early ones I was into, and I really like the new record, and I’m not just saying that because I’m talking to you, but because it brings back memories of listening to “Pull” which was easily my favorite from you guys.
Kip: Well that’s where I was trying to come from and for you to think it sounds good sonically is a huge compliment, because that was tough to beat. But if you listen to them back to back, I mean “Pull” was a magical record definitely, but sonically I think this ones a little beefier sounding.

Pete: Definitely, and there were some heavy/beefy moments on “Pull” so I think you’re right on with that.
Kip: Well no, I mean the music is apples and oranges, I just mean like sonically the sound of the record is bigger if you put one up against the other, you know what I mean.

Pete: Absolutely, and speaking of the classical stuff, you’re always one to push the musical boundaries both with Winger and your solo material, it must therefore be a particularly proud achievement to have your classical piece "Ghosts" being choreographed and performed by the San Francisco Ballet in February 2010. How did you get involved with that?
Kip: Well I studied ballet when I was a kid, and always wanted to write music for ballet, that’s been one of my biggest goals in my life, to write for the orchestra for ballet music. So I’ve studied on and off for 20 years, music theory, composition, stuff with different professors, with different universities, and taught myself what you would learn if you went to go get a Masters degree in composition. I used to date a girl in New York City Ballet and met a bunch of those really high end dancers, and just kind of approached one of them with “Ghosts” and he loved it, and it was very odd, because I really put my heart and soul into it and I sent it to him and he loved it, which is so rare dude, in this business. I’ve sent my stuff out to so many people in the past, or when I was trying to get a record deal, and you get that “no” at every turn and you just try to eke out a “yes” sometimes. But in this case it was “I love this, make it 20 minutes, I’ve got a commission for the San Francisco Ballet, so send it to me when you’re done”. So I finished it, and recorded it with a 30 piece orchestra in New York and sent it to him, and he loved it and choreographed it on the San Francisco Ballet. I saw rehearsals dude, it was a total dream come true, it was amazing. It’ll be done at the opera house in San Francisco, so for a guy like me I dropped out of fucking high school man. I got a GED and said “see ya”. So it’s been a long road, and a composer in residence in Tucson heard it and gave it to George Hanson, the conductor of the Tucson Symphony, and he loved it and wanted to program it. So the musical premier is with Tucson Symphony November 14th and 15th and the ballet is February 9th, 2010.

Pete: That’s amazing.
Kip: Yeah I’m really psyched about it. And there’s a lot more where that’s coming from because that’s really where my heart is you know? Love the band, love working with the band, Reb and Rod and John, the hanging is especially cool, and I love making the rock records, they feed the other thing so between the two of them it’s a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde thing but one really feeds the other. Doing the orchestra stuff gives me a really keen insight on how to make rock records a little more interesting.

Pete: Yeah I can imagine, there’s so much more going on, so many levels of complexity when you’re doing orchestral stuff. So it sounds like the rewards for you are definitely there. Does it feel different from making a successful rock record, and is it better or worse?
Kip: Dude, there’s nothing like putting your music in front of 30 musicians that have lived their lives doing music. There’s no like “Okay, take one! Take two! Can we do that again? Double track that. Okay let’s mix it.” There’s nothing like that, it took me a year and a half to finish that piece, and then I put all of the pages in front of the musicians, and 1, 2, 3 ready go, they just played it down, it was fucking amazing, just absolutely amazing.

Pete: Kind of brings new meaning to the term “professional”.
Kip: Yeah it does, definitely, and you know it’s ballsy, they’ll call you out if you don’t know your shit.

Pete: How long will that run, is it a one time thing?
Kip: The ballet’s going to run for 7 or 8 performances, but then I’m hoping that other ballet companies around the world will commission it. There’s more to come dude, I’ll be writing more of that stuff.

Pete: That’s great, I’ll definitely be looking into that.
Kip: Well there’s a few snippets of it on my web page, kipwinger.com, just look under where it says “music” and listen to “Ghost“ and you can hear bits and pieces of it.

Pete: Great, I’ll definitely check that out. So back to the rock’n’roll, do you believe there are still opportunities out there for younger people just getting in to the music business? If so, what would your advice to them be?
Kip: Try out for American Idol. (laughs) You know TV is the big game for the big stars but yeah man, there’s a lot of bands coming out that get recognized. It just depends on your will to survive, there’s way more avenues to get it happening and there’s a lot of stuff that can be done. It’s definitely worth going for it, I mean it’s the same as it always was, just the venues are different.

Pete: It seems a little hard to adapt from going to where your big deal was like “find me a record label and then I’ll make it” and now I have to 16 different things to be half as successful. Just seems like there’s a lot more work in it to get where you want to be.
Kip: Yeah, it’s a lot of work, for me like if I was 25 now, I’d be like know PhotoShop, and web page design, all that shit, I’m over it now, but there’s a lot of stuff you can do on your own.

Pete: Yeah absolutely, so do you have any last words for your fans out there?
Kip: Just thanks for sticking with us and particularly bearing with me and my need to expand on so many aspects of music. I definitely don’t serve up the same plate every time, but I appreciate the fans that stick with me.

Pete: Very cool, I appreciate your time Kip.
Kip: Have a good one.

Read our review of “KARMA” click right HERE!!

ALICE IN CHAINS (WILLIAM DUVALL)

Sun, 4 Oct 2009 21:56:32 +1100

Taking on the role of the singer in a band can be daunting at the best of times, but stepping into that position in the band ‘Alice in Chains’ made famous by the late Layne Staley is one that former ‘Madfly’ and ‘Comes with the Fall’ front man William DuVall has taken on.

Befriended by ‘Alice in Chains’ guitarist / vocalist Jerry Cantrell and through touring with him on his solo tours, eventually led to what many thought would never happen, ‘Alice in Chains’ reuniting with members Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney and Mike Inez in 2005 and to begin touring with new singer William DuVall. The results of that led to ‘Alice in Chains’ recording a new album of all new material, their first in over 10 years, ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’ an album named, and song written as a tribute to Layne Staley who passed away in 2002.

William DuVall took some time to talk to us at May The Rock Be With You about how his new position came about, the recording of the new album and about how he makes this role his own.

The new album ‘Black gives way to blue’ is awesome, and receiving rave reviews from all around the world, are you in some way relieved that the reception has been so warming to it and to you?
Of course, yes of course you know, the only thing that we can control is the work that we do you know, you can’t ever legislate public opinion so we’re obviously thrilled and couldn’t be more excited man you know, it’s an amazing thing.

How did you get involved with Jerry Cantrell and how did that eventually lead to you taking on the almost daunting position of replacing Layne Staley? Was there ever a time you thought that you wouldn’t do it?
Well, ha ha, I go back almost 10 years with Cantrell, my band ‘Comes with the Fall’ moved from Atlanta to Los Angeles back in early 2000 and he was one of the first people that I met. He’d gotten a hold of ‘Comes with the Fall’s’ first album through a mutual acquaintance of ours and he flipped on it really hard and started hanging out with us every minute, we thought he was joining our band, so that’s kind of what started our friendship. Obviously I really dug and respected his work with ‘Alice’ and we ended up touring with him for all of 2001 and 2002 around the United States and Canada and the UK when he put out his ‘Degradation Trip’ solo album. So we just did double duties, backing him up and his band and also as his support act, and so you know, that’s kind of what provides the back story to what we’re doing now in a lot of ways.

There was a time when I didn’t think id do it, I mean, I have to admit, I thought twice about when this was first brought up to me I did think twice about it because we know the kind of expectation and the potential baggage I would be stepping into. But you know initially when I was asked to join them on stage it was with a very limited, sort of finite goal of playing a few shows. So, that was part of what helped me say yes to it, was it wasn’t like we were trying to undertake some huge resurrection of this band. It was just to play a few shows and those few shows expanded into playing a 23 country tour that took up all of 2006 and then all of that touring through all of those countries and all of those nights together sort of forged something that I’m not sure any of us could’ve really expected. It led to new musical ideas cause you know you get 4 musicians together in close quarters for that amount of time with instruments, new stuff’s gonna happen. It also forged a kind of bond in the 4 of us, I already kinda had one with Cantrell but this really cemented something between all of us and we knew that we could rely on one another, certainly on stage every night and we knew that we were coming up with riffs and ideas and things that were really cool and so and I think it was only after that year of touring in 2006 that we really all knew that we were jumping into the water together to try to do something like a new album, you know what I mean? So initially, you know what I mean, when I said yes, it was yes to this whole huge gigantic thing, it was saying yes to something that was much smaller than that, that then organically led to this sort of bigger story.

What about the expectations and the pressure of being the new singer for Alice in Chains? Did you feel any of that at all?
Well sure, but, it doesn’t exceed the pressure that I put on myself, you know, that’s one thing about the 4 of us in this band we are really our own harshest critics, so if something passes muster with us then that’s really kinda where we draw the line of measuring success you know? But its like I said before, you can’t legislate what public reaction’s gonna be to anything you do, the only thing you can control is what you put into it and then you hope for the rest you know. So, my thing from the beginning was I’m not gonna try to be anything but myself. Obviously I don’t look anything like Layne. In actual fact I don’t even think our voices are that similar, there’s only the most passing resemblance there. I’m not someone that can do a Layne, a dead on Layne impersonation or any of that kind of thing like a lot of people I hear ha ha trying to do that. I’m not one of those guys so I went out and have just done it my way and that’s partly out of respect for Layne you know as well as the band and all of the bands supporters around the world. What a disservice that would be and also what a disservice to myself you know, like Layne was so great in part because he was unique, you know, so to come out and try and do anything but sing the songs from your own place of truth and write new songs from your own place of truth and go out and perform and coming out and accessing it from your own point of experience, that’s the only way to tackle it in my view. Yeah I felt the pressure, I was aware of the pressure from the outside obviously but I don’t think it could in any way compare to the kind of pressure that I would put on myself to do my best, like if I’m gonna say yes to something, I’m going all the way or I’m not gonna do it at all.

As a singer coming into a band with such powerful songs that obviously had special meaning to Layne, given he wrote a large bunch of the Alice in Chains songs, how have you connected with them given that you may interpret them differently? Did you make them your own?
Yeah, I think that’s the only way you can do it, you have to make them your own and sing them from your own place of truth, and just as all those listeners around the world are listening to the songs from their place of truth and experience. You know not everyone that listens to the ‘Dirt’ album was struggling with any sort of addiction, they were responding to the universal emotions in those songs. Even though they may come from specific experiences, the emotions behind them are quite universal, that’s why so many people responded to them in the first place. So as a singer that’s what I’m doing. I’m coming at it from my place of experience, and my life and that’s really the power of music, you know, it’s so transferable and so easily personalized, that’s the greatness of it.

At what point did the decision come to record "Black Gives Way To Blue"?
I would say that, as I said there was a pile of new ideas after the initial touring we did in 2006, and then we were going to take 2007 off from the road and just use that time to assess all the new ideas that we had and see if it was worth maybe taking it a step further. At that point Velvet Revolver asked us to do a North American tour with them in 2007 so we did that and at the end of that tour we were coming up in to the holidays in 2007 late November. Oh and we also accumulated another pile of new song ideas and riffs and things on that Velvet Revolver tour, so at that point we had this major pile of stuff, from that collective, you know from all of that touring we did over those few years. At the end of 2007 was when we said we should really take some time and maybe rent a space and see what we have here, really dig into this stuff and so that’s when. By early 2008 we were like ‘ok we should take this into a studio, we should meet with producers and see what they say’ and then we found Nick Raskulinecz and the rest is history.

How many songs were written for the album and how were they narrowed down to what we have seen as the final product?
I would say we recorded close to 20 things pretty much all the way through you know, we finished them and we whittled it down to the 11 on the album, just really kind of through I don’t know I mean there was just kind of a loose consensus on what fit together best for this particular record, for this particular step we were taking, so all the stuff is really good, and it may, some of that other stuff that didn’t make it onto this album may see the light of day at some point, but for this particular step, for this album, it was just kind of a consensus.

Now you talk about the pressure and being your own worst critic and what not, but what kind of pressure did you feel as a band recording "Black Gives Way To Blue" versus outside pressure regarding deadlines and maybe influences of what others may of wanted from this album?
Well that was part of the beauty of making this album, was that we weren’t on anyone else’s schedule and we weren’t contractually obligated to anyone. This was a completely self financed, self motivated undertaking, so we were liberated from label people coming down and deadlines and all of that stuff. We didn’t have any of that, we finished this album before we even started negotiating with anyone to partner with to put it out. So I think that was essential to the working process just as I think the 2 years of touring we did prior to entering the studio was essential to our entire, to this whole story. It wouldn’t have worked any other way, we had to bond together as a band through a lot of hard touring on the road and then we had to go into the studio free of any outside pressure from anyone else in order to see what we really had and to work at our own pace, to come up with something that either we believed in or that we said ‘hey that’s good but its just not, we don’t need to put this out’ and it could’ve gone either way but again, the fact that we weren’t pressured by anyone and that we didn’t have anyone lording over us was key to the whole thing and the way it came out.

I have to ask how cool it was to have Elton John perform on the title track ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’?
Oh very cool man, we had a demo for that song ‘Black Gives Way To Blue’ and the demo had piano on it that was played by a friend of ours who works for the band as one of our guitar techs. When it came time to consider the proper studio version of that song for the album, the question was, should it have piano like the demo? And if so, who should play it? Should we just get our friend back? Then another person who works for the band and who also worked for Elton John for a period said ‘why don’t you give Elton a call?’. We said ‘yeah right, sure we’ll get right on that and I’m sure he’ll be right over. Sir Elton John’! But then after a couple of days of thinking about it, what’s the worst that can happen, you don’t ask, you don’t get. So we floated a note to him and it turns out he totally got what the song was about and liked it and he said yes. So sometime just about after we’d completed just about all the tracks for the record, we found ourselves in a studio at the Palms Hotel in Vegas and Elton John walked in ha ha! It was a totally surreal experience for all of us because he means a lot to all of our childhood, his music has been an inspiration for all of us. Especially I think for Cantrell, Elton John kinda represents the start of his musical journey, even before the guitar based hard rock. It also turns out that Layne Staley’s first concert was Elton John, so there was a lot of really cool circle things there, stars lining up.

Elton was just a really gracious guy, with his time and with his energy and you know he’s a master musician so he didn’t come in there with any ‘This is what I’m going to play on your song’ you know. He was really open to trying it many different ways, he was open to our suggestions and like any true master of his craft, who is secure in his own being like Elton was cool like that. He was also very self deprecating in his humour, if he messed up in the middle of a take, he’d curse himself with the most funny curses, like one time he messed up and he was like ‘Damn it woman!’ ha ha. you know, that kind of thing and it was funny to hear him laugh at himself and obviously the song is really heavy and has all these somber emotions so it was great to undercut it with that kind of humour. Yeah man, we’re still peaking out over it frankly; we’re like ‘God! That actually happened you know’ cool guy, great musician, great experience for all of us.

You have just played a bunch of shows during September in the USA, mainly playing clubs as opposed to larger venues? How is the new material coming across live?
Man, its ripping, like its totally ripping and its so gratifying for us to see how well the new stuff sits seamlessly along side the older stuff. Its great to watch fans even before this stuff was out, it was great to see them reacting to it the way they were. It was a real gas for us and now that the records out, obviously we’re gonna see more and more of that, so that was a great thing.

Now, Europe is next and we got to see you perform in February this year at the Soundwave festival and were blown away. Were you nervous what the reception would be like? Can we expect to see you back in Australia any time soon?
Oh, that tour was a great deal of fun for us, I had never been to Australia before so it was really special to me to finally see your country and I thought it was beautiful. I though the audiences were amazing and met a lot of really wonderful people there. So yeah, I was very warmed by the reception we got and I cant wait to get back there, we cant wait to get back there. It seems like people are really responding to the album there so we will definitely be back for sure

Not another 15 years like it was before then?
Not another 15 years, no sir ha ha

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GUNNAR NELSON

Fri, 2 Oct 2009 23:33:54 +1000

Back in 1990 the band Nelson came blaring through our speakers and onto our TV screens, with the bands two front men Matthew and Gunnar Nelson, with long blonde hair and colourful attire delivering a positive message of hope, fun and perfect harmonies to the world of music that not many bands were doing at that time. Their debut album ‘After The Rain’ went on to sell over 3 million copies brandishing the number 1 worldwide hit ‘(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection’ and 3 other top 10 singles.

The Nelson family legacy is one stretching over 3 generations and Matthew and Gunnar have continued to make music, having had numerous releases some 20 years on from their debut. Not just confined to their own releases, Matthew and Gunnar have also kept busy with numerous other projects, including the supergroup of sorts “Scrap Metal”. Only just this year, Gunnar Nelson recently recorded and sang with Yusuf (Cat Stevens) and Paul McCartney on Yusuf’s “Roadsinger” album. Gunnar recorded several tracks for "Roadsinger" in Nashville at Blackbird Studios and also performed side-by-side singing and playing acoustic guitars with Yusuf (Cat Stevens) in his first U.S. TV appearance promoting the album on “The Chris Isaak Show”. No strangers to TV, the brothers in recent years have expanded their TV hosting with VH1 and E! channels and Gunnar has just recorded a solo single, “Band in a Van” which is out now on Disney Records which is part of the follow up soundtrack to CARS.

Having just been signed to Frontiers Records, later this year Nelson are due to release a studio album of all new material, their 7th studio album titled ‘Lightning Strikes Twice’, the follow up to their million selling debut album ‘After the Rain’ that never happened back in the day.

Gunnar took some time out from his busy schedule to have a quick chat and fill us in on the new record and just how good Australians are at playing the guitar!

Your upcoming album ‘Lightning Strikes Twice’ on Frontiers Records is being coined as a sequel to ‘After the Rain’. What can we expect from this sequel close to some 20 years later? Why was now the right time to record it? Is the album being produced by yourself and Matt?
Well, you know, Matthew and I have gone on and done 10 records since the first album and as Mario and Serafino from Frontiers so lovingly point out to us, we’ve done a lot of experimenting and they were huge fans of that first record and of course Matthew and I were, not because of the first album we made but because of the times we were in and if you cast your mind back as a couple of guys that were putting together a trip back in 1990 we’d already been playing clubs for 10 years trying to get our record deal at that point and spent a lot of time and a lot of love putting that whole first album cycle together. We thought we were going to get the benefit of gosh I don’t know, 10 records with that band. Nobody could anticipate the shift that was about to happen. No one saw the whole grunge thing coming at all. We were there, we were out on tour, we were enjoying a lot of success and then we come home after playing 203 shows and the entire world was wearing flannel. It had seemed like MTV had changed its agenda, the record company we were on changed what they were doing too, they actually signed Nirvana on our label. So say if we had of released that record 4 or so years earlier things would’ve been completely different. Instead we pretty much went from guys who thought we were going to have another 4, 5, 6 records on that particular line of thought......to guys who were pretty much shelved because it would’ve been embarrassing for a record company to let us go to some other label perhaps, who hadn’t changed their musical agenda. So they just put us on a shelf and just kept us going back into the studio 5,6,7 times. By the time we had released our second record our fans had moved on the world had moved on. I think Matthew and I felt a little deflated because we were constantly being second guessed by the label we were on, rather than being supported. It was a case of, ‘oh no you cant play that’ or ‘you cant do that kind of music’.

For the first time, these guys at Frontiers came to us and said “hey, we’d love to do a record with you guys, huge fans of the band from back in the day, we love that record, but we only want to do a record with you if you can pretend the whole grunge thing never happened, that it was back in the day when the record company still supported what it was you guys did, when you were at your best and if you can make a follow up to the ‘After The Rain’ record that everybody really wanted to hear”. So that’s what we have been doing. What started out to be honest with you, was kind of like this little experiment that felt kinda cute to do and this is gonna be fun and let’s just put it together quickly and see what happens... It has instead turned into something that is so much more than that. This record is really, really good, I mean really good. Its got the same sort of attitude and fun factor of that first album, starting off with the 2 brothers singing together and the pop songwriting with the guitar attitude wrapped around it. However we have now had the benefit of having played for 20 years since, so the musicianship is better. We really stripped it down to what it is, when it’s at its best, it’s all about the songs. The songs are always so strong and back in the day we always felt there were so many people that released albums that really had no business releasing albums. I suppose towards that whole movement of confidence rock and the 80’s, going into the 90’s you know of course there were a lot of people that were kind of phony. There was no way back in the day for people to get instant feedback from friends. There was no internet, there was no way for them to go into a record store and listen to the entire album. All they heard was the single they heard on the radio so there were a lot of artists that were going down there and just putting that 1 single on the record and 9 other songs that were crap. I think kids felt ripped off. I know I did when I went down to buy a record. So when we made that first album our attitude was, I want at least 10 songs on this record that are single quality. I don’t want any filler, I don’t want the fans to feel ripped off. I suppose that’s become a standard, especially for the larger releases that are out there. That’s really the way that Matthew and I have approached things and finally with Frontiers we’ve got a whole organisation full of people that who are not like Geffen was when things didn’t work out. These are people that are fans of the music. They like me and Matthew personally and its the first time to be honest with you, I know it sounds trite, but the first time we’ve really felt supported in all those 20 years. That’s why its time to put out this record.

I know incredibly long answer to a very simple question! But psychologically speaking, I know there is a lot going on and unfairly so, you know, shit happened back in the day and we kind of felt attacked. We felt beaten up and not just by the press that had supported us, even by our own label and we didn’t do anything wrong, you know. So I think its taken all this time to come full circle where being a creature of the 80’s and 90’s so to speak is not a thing to be ashamed of. It’s something that people really dig and its not just because they grew up with the music. I think people are really appreciating that style a whole lot more. They’re appreciating the musicianship and the craft and that it wasn’t something that other people put together. Its not like some Ashlee Simpson thing. Its real music put together by real bands who really played and wrote and toured and I think there’s a new found respect for that now.

What are the origins of the songs that will make up "Lightning Strikes Twice", are they songs that have recently been written specifically for the album, or songs that have been with you for a while now which have finally found their home?
No they were written specifically for this album.

The new Nelson line-up consists of your original drummer, the legendary Bobby Rock, international guitar virtuoso Neil Zaza, and former Aerosmith keyboardist Gary Corbett. How did this line-up come about?
Well pretty organically to be honest. I mean of course Bobby was with us on the first go around and like Matthew and I he felt somewhat slighted. He felt like there was so much more left to be said on that trip that got cut short for no reason and by no fault of our own. As a matter of fact, he heard that Matthew and I were going out with another band that we have called Scrap Metal. He had heard that we were doing shows and also that the reception of the shows was excellent. People were really digging them and as a result he called me up a couple of years back and said “hey what do you think, the timing is right now to put the band back together and see how people dig it?” When he called me a couple of years ago, I said well we can test the waters.

I mean I love playing of course, lets see what we can put together. Of course we couldn’t get Brett because he’s down there with you guys in Australia. He’s busy on tour with John Farnham and he was doing your guys version of Dancing with the Stars and he was doing pretty well. So Bobby was doing a lot of gigs with Neil Zaza who has the same sort of mastery of the guitar. Of course Neil is absolutely a musician on the guitar and back in that day if you cast your mind back, it seemed that everyone had a guitar player that could beat up on the other guys guitar player. You know these guys were really, really good. So that was a super important ingredient and I couldn’t have asked for a better person to step in for Brett than Neil because he’s so so good and such a great guy and so melodic in his playing. It’s like no one is ever going to beat the Aussie genius that is Brett Garsed, nobody could ever be that guy. He is, I mean, I say this lovingly, he’s a freak! This is a guy, he’s like a savant, he grew up and he was born to play guitar, and no one in the United States plays like Brett. You know he’s just really really really good, but fortunately after I spent all these years listening to him I could hear through where he was going and that’s what we’ve got on this record too. There’s a lot of great guitar work on this, but again, a lot of music really takes a back seat I suppose to the musicianship. Unless you’re a band that prides itself on the songwriting and that’s really been the corner stone of what Nelson has always done. We had to make sure that the songs were strong enough to actually do us justice. I know a lot of people with some of these melodic hard rock releases lately, some people have a different theory and they’ll just send in their demos and call it a record. That’s not what we’ve done here, this was done with the same reverence that the ‘After The Rain’ record was made. I mean it was done in real studios with real budgets with real players and the songs were not an after thought so I think people are going to get something that they have been waiting for.

Now you talk about Brett with the Down Under connection and you have always seemed to have a strong association with Australia, with an Australian management, yet you never came here. Are you planning extensive touring to promote the release of this album and what are the chances of Nelson one day heading Down Under?
You know what? There is nothing I would love more than to come play some shows in Australia. That Australian manager is still in our lives he’s still a very good friend and he actually switched over to sports management. He does a lot of work with a football team and it was funny, he heard about this Frontiers release and I got an email from him a couple of weeks ago and he said ‘so what do you guys think about coming down to Australia FINALLY and playing some shows.? Man there is nothing I would like more and like I said remember how this project started off being a little one off release that we were gonna put out with Mario and Serafino there and how its grown into so much more.

I plan on getting top level management together for this record and touring extensively in Europe in Australia and the United States is actually going to be the last stop with this. Its kind of on auto pilot and because its so good it deserves to be heard. It really does and were gonna make sure we put together a killer show. I have to say man, if we come down there and tour in Australia, Brett’s gonna have to join us. He wont have the excuse anymore.

Lastly, when is the album due out, do you have a release date for this?
Well unfortunately it’s been pushed a couple of times and that’s my fault. We have been touring a lot, my brother and I, because it’s summer and all you know. When we first got approached to do the record I think I was too positive in how quickly I could get it done around the tour dates. I’m thinking of having this to the guys at Frontiers within 3 weeks, mixed and mastered and it will definitely be out before Christmas time. We are going to have it sped up and stuff to be released before Christmas and that’s about as much of a date that I can give you right now. This is only because right now I still have a little bit of background work to do. I’m waiting for the concert master because we’re going to have real strings on this thing and I had to wait for the concert master to get off tour with Solomon so he’s available in 3 days. So its that kind of thing, like lets say I could’ve done fake strings on a keyboard and have been done with this 2 weeks ago. But I wanted to put a real string quartet on the ballad I co wrote with Mark Slaughter. It’s a song that really deserves that, so that’s the kind of thing.

So be patient, definitely by Christmas.

Well there are a lot of fans out there waiting to hear it and we’re one of them, so we can’t wait. Hopefully we can talk again when the album comes out.
We’ll definitely talk again as soon as the album’s out. Rock on!

VAINS OF JENNA

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 18:17:24 +1000

“VAINS of JENNA formed in the small town of Falkenberg, SWEDEN in January 2005. Lead Vocalist Lizzy DeVine and bassist JP White had talked the previous summer about putting together a new band. Both had eyed a teenage guitarist named Nicki Kin as the final piece to the line-up along with his classmate drummer Jacki Stone.  During the spring of 2005, VAINS of JENNA was offered a chance to play the world-famous “Whisky-A-Go-Go” in Hollywood. They stunned the crowd with their raw energy, young bravado, and sleazy throwback appeal. Four days later, the band was cutting tracks with Gilby Clarke (ex-Guns N’ Roses guitarist) at his Redrum Studios. In the summer of 2006 the band attracted the attention of skateboarding legend Bam Margera (MTV’s Viva La Bam/Jackass) who signed the band on the spot to his label (Filthy Note Records) & released “Lit Up-Let Down” (October 2006)  Following a small club tour the band headed out on a 55 date US summer tour supporting Poison & Ratt on the main stage of amphitheatres coast to coast. Home for less than 3 weeks the band was back playing theatres on the “Viva La Bands” fall 2007 US tour with Cradle of Filth and G.W.A.R.
 After playing over 250 shows the band spent 2008 writing and recording new music in Los Angeles, played select dates, and appeared on “Jackass 24” (MTV) & “LA INK” (Kat Von D). The bands track “Enemy in Me” single was featured on both.  Early 2009 the band returned to Europe and played sold out shows in SWEDEN, ITALY, DEMANRK and ENGLAND including the SWEDEN ROCK festival. Now the band is back in the US having just released their follow up CD "The Art Of Telling Lies" and make more believers that Rock N’ Roll is VERY much alive!

Drummer Jacki Stone checked in with us to talk about the new album on the eve of their co-headline tour with Dirty Penny!

Firstly, congratulations on releasing the new album "The Art Of Telling
Lies". What are your personal thoughts on the album and the reaction to
it so far?
JACKI: Thank you very much!!! I’m very excited to have a new fresh album
out there! All songs on “The Art of Telling Lies” kicks ass… It’s got a sweet classic
rock feeling to it with a variety of songs, everything from funk, pop, ballads to hard rock… we are all happy with the finishing product and can’t wait to play ALL songs live. The reaction has been great so far! We haven’t heard anything BAD from people. Just POSITIVE reactions all over the world from fans, magazines etc. etc. We are on the Itunes chart in Sweden, hitting 3 on the rock chart and 65 on the “All genres” chart. That feels very cool.

Whilst the music listening population can often be an unpredictable beast,
are you guys reasonably confident that this will be the album that stamps
Vains Of Jenna as a force to be reckoned with in the rock scene worldwide?
JACKI: We aim high and I hope that will happen. With a lot of work, many,
many shows and the right push I think this album can be big. It’s very
much about getting lucky in this business… If the right persons like the
band they can give that little extra to reach out to the world. But we’ve
already sold the album to countries worldwide and building the name as we
speak!

Can you give us an insight into the songwriting process for the new album?
How did it differ from Lit Up/Let Down and where does the band draw
inspiration from lyrically?
JACKI: Nicki and Lizzy did most part of the writing with some help from JP
and me, where we came in with our straight ideas. Our producer Brent Woods
did a great job to get all the best out of us. Nicki usually came up with the song idea and Lizzy worked on the lyrics…then we all worked together on the AMAZING stuff Nicki and Lizzy worked on.

Lit up/Let Down was recorded by ourselves in a cabin in Sweden, over a
week…. The Art of Telling Lies had more work behind it. We were in a real
studio, and had a producer to help. I think the new CD shows that the band
has grown since our debut album. Lizzys lyrics are so much better now too… He worked hard on them and I think they came out really GOOD!

Brent Woods produced the album, who you have used in the past. What did
you set out to achieve from a production point of view, that you perhaps
thought was missing from the last album?
JACKI: Well first of all we knew that working with Brent Woods would make
us even better. The song writing was so much better already, and Brents
touches on the songs, helped as well. The producer has an outside
perspective on the songs and can here stuff that the band can’t… that’s
why having a producer like him is great. Also, the overall sound on Lit Up/ Let Down
wasn’t that good… now on the new one, it rocks!

What was the concept behind calling the album "The Art Of Telling Lies"?
JACKI: To answer that one short… The whole world is build up around lies…
it’s fucked up, but that’s how it is… too many people are using the art of
telling lies in their lives.

Further on the new album, what was the inspiration behind the album cover?
It's an impressive piece of "artwork", here's your chance to give the
artist a bit of a plug too :)
JACKI: VAINS OF JENNA against the world! Hehe… I have never seen a cover
like that… J.P and Lizzy had the main ideas about the covers and I think
like you said, it’s an impressive peace of artwork!
Jimmy Johansson is the artist behind it… Great job dude! :)

A track I was surprised to see on the new album was a cover of Tom Petty"s
"Refugee", which I have since learnt you play in your live set. What is
the band's particular association with this song or do you simply think
it's such a kick ass song like me haha!
JACKI: Yeah we’ve played that live since the summer of 2007 actually! It’s
a great song, Tom Petty rules! It shows that the band knows what some of the roots
to great rock n roll is right? Hehe.

During your time in LA you have made appearances on TV shows such as
Jackass, MTV and LA Ink. How did you find those experiences, given I am
sure it was a whole differen't world from what you would of been used to
growing up in Falkenberg, Sweden!
JACKI: Hahaha, ohh yeah, stuff like that doesn’t happen in Falkenberg
Sweden! It’s great experiences to do TV appearances and radio and so on.
You learn more and more how everything works and are able to se behind the
scenes what’s going on. It’s always fun doing thins like TV.

Visually, the band has a very strong image with things like your myspace,
photo's & artwork, video clips etc. Do you guys come up with all the
concepts for your visual presentation and videos, or is this something
that you totally hand over to an outside director/producer?
JACKI: We are always involved in the artwork, design etc. for the band. If
you are able too I think you should try to be involved a little bit in
everything… All band members have different things we do for the band… JP
and Lizzy are the two main guys that communicates with directors, t-shirt
printers, etc.

You have now travelled many miles all over the USA playing smaller clubs
to hitting the stages in larger stadiums playing with the likes of Ratt,
Poison and Cradle Of Filth. What have been some of the valuable lessons
learnt and words of wisdom gained from these experiences?
JACKI: Yeah, It’s been great!!! All shows matters for sure! Just because
it’s 5 people in the audience doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it all as if
it was 10 000 people! Those 5 people still came out and paid to see you
play! We met many cool people along the way and learned a lot from being on the
road so much as we have… and we don’t plan to stop EVER!!! We gonna be on
those arenas soon again, trust me on that one!

What kind of a fan base are you aware of in far away destinations outside
of the USA and Europe. Could you ever see yourself travelling to far away
destinations to eventually play shows?
JACKI: Absolutely! I know we have fans all over the world! If a promoter
hits us up and wants us to go somewhere far away to play… We will
definitely do it! We love being on the road and seeing new places and
rockin in front of new and old fans!

Whilst fellow Swedish bands such as Hardcore Superstars, Crashdiet,
Backyard Babies, Babylon Bombs and Gemini Five have largely remained
Swedish based bands, why was it that Vains Of Jenna decided to head over
to the USA and take on the world?
JACKI: This was our dream since we were kids… and when we started the band
we had the opportunity to come over here to play and met Stevie Rachelle,
that’s been our manager since then. I strongly believe that the states is
the place to be, so you can be a BIG band that can tour the world… If you
make it in the states, you will have it a little more easy to take over
the rest of the world. BUT there’s a lot of work behind it… IT’S A LONG
WAY TO THE TOP IF YOU WANNA ROCK N ROLL!!!

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, all the best with the new
album and upcoming tour with Dirty Penny! May the rock be with you!
JACKI: Thank you very much! Yeah, we are going out on a 2 month tour with
our buddies DIRTY PENNY all over U.S.A starting in October! Be sure to
check our myspace, facebook and twitter about more updates on the band and
this KICK ASS tour!!! RnR

MIKE TRAMP

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:43:13 +1000

"Mike Tramp & The Rock ‘N’ Roll Circuz", the new album to be released October 5th 2009, promises to be the most profound musical statement by Mike Tramp yet. The album will be first only released in Denmark via Kick music/Sony Music, but also made available via
http://www.targetshop.dk/miketramp/ so that loyal fans around the world can purchase the album Tramp refers as “my best ever, my masterpiece.”

Co-produced with guitar player Søren Andersen, the term “Rock N Roll Circuz” refers to the atmosphere created by Tramp around the band in the studio when recording the album. The album was recorded and mixed in the same studio in Copenhagen.

Having now returned home to Copenhagen, Denmark, the road that Tramp has traveled in his 32 years of rock n roll is uniquely his own. The stories of which can be heard throughout his 5 studio solo albums, his latest no exception.

First rising to stardom over 30 years ago with “Mabel”, Tramp earlier this year re-emerged as a public figure in Denmark via his appearance on the TV show “All Stars”. In October 2009, Tramp will be embarking on his first big tour of Denmark ever and early next year will venture out into the world, step by step.

In this exclusive interview, Tramp reveals all about the new album and about a life of no limits, rules or compromises.

You have a brand new album due on October 5th through Kick Music/Sony Music in Denmark titled “Mike Tramp & The Rock N Roll Circuz”. Can you explain the concept behind the “Rock N Roll Circuz”?
Well it sort of came about during the TV show that I was doing, where from week to week I used a lot of different costumes and outfits. When people were asking what I was all about, I just used to say that this was my rock’n’roll circuz. When later, I prepared to record the album and put it all together, I created an atmosphere around the band that made us visualize this old fallen apart circus. From there we built certain things into the songs and into the album. But it’s still a Mike Tramp album.

Is this album going to primarily be a local release in Denmark?
The album will first be released in Denmark and then bit by bit in other countries. But from day one, I am making the album available on my website and others (www.targetshop.dk), so my diehard-loyal fans around the world can also experience what I call my best album ever, my masterpiece. Copenhagen/Denmark is now my main base and home. I have returned to where I was born and it is the right time in my life to do this. There is so much that has matured here and ready to be harvested. But most of all, I am ready to come back home again.

What can we expect from the new album from a musical point of view? Is it a logical continuation from past solo releases?
Yes it is a continuation from my past solo albums and then it is so much more. An artist hates to admit or say this but even though I am proud of songs that I have written and recorded on my other solo albums I never managed to take the production all the way and obviously I know the reasons why. But this time no stone has been left unturned, no compromises have been made. This album is complete in every way.

Did you record the album entirely in Denmark and did you self produce the album? Generally speaking, how did the recording process for this album compare to past experiences?
The album was all recorded and mixed in the same studio. I am co-producing this album with my friend and guitar player Søren Andersen. I proudly admit than Søren has been a blessing in disguise to this album. He was able to find all the missing things in my music and compliment my songwriting and it has left so completely satisfied with it all.

From a songwriting point of view, particularly with your previous solo releases, you have never shyed away from lyrics that are effectively autobiographical in nature. Has this very personal insight into your life continued into the songs for your new album?
It is the only way I can write and this album is even deeper and more personal than before. But I always hope that in my own confessions and in speaking the truth others will find themselves and find strength, reasons and answers in how to deal with those very personal issues.  Will the 'Rock & Roll Circuz' be taken on the road to promote the album? And if so, where will it go?
Of course. I am starting off with my first big tour of Denmark ever (check my Myspace above for all the tourdates) and early next year I will venture out into the world, step by step. This album can sustain for a long, long time.

Upon your return to Denmark earlier this year, you appeared for a few months on the music reality TV Show "All Stars". What was the reaction of the Danish people to your re-emergence as a public figure, given it's been over 30 years since you first shot to stardom with Mabel?
It was a great chance to show and tell an entire country my life story of 32 years in rock’n’roll. You have to keep in mind that not every one knew who I was. But I I can tell you this much, now they do and it is in a good way. I didn’t sell out, I was able to give them everything I stand for and believe in….

How has Denmark changed from the country you left as a teen over 30 years ago?
Oh it has changed a lot, but at the same time it hasn’t. What I mean is that even though certain things change, the foundation remains the same and that is the heart and soul of a country, with old history. Now you add the modern world of uncontrolled, rebellious youth, riding high on the internet and you have a lot of the same that is in every other country. But I came home and went looking for the good things I remembered and what I love about my country and that is what I stick to.
 Through your involvement with "All Stars" did you find it a satisfying and liberating experience pulling together a bunch of people from varying musical and social backgrounds and imparting some of your extensive rock n roll and worldly wisdom to those you led? Is this something you could see yourself being more involved in down the track?
To be very honest, the thing that I loved most about it was not having to be up on stage being the singer, but instead being in front guiding and leading this choir. And yes I would love very much to be working and helping others in the future, as I have much energy and knowledge that I like to pass on.

Over the past decade, you have taken rock n roll, either as a solo artist or with White Lion, to some pretty amazing countries – eg. Colombia, Brazil, Peru, India & Indonesia. What are some of your memorable experiences from these opportunities from a non- musical point of view?
The thing that always comes to mind, when looking back at ones career is being so lucky to have been able to travel around the world numerous times visiting far away countries and meeting interesting people, and all this while playing rock’n’roll. That is truly the best of all. I have never had a vacation in my life, why should I, my life is a vacation. I am so thankful for this opportunity to be able to live life as rock’n’roll musician……

Referring to your appeal in the countries mentioned above, whether it be as a solo artist or with White Lion, what do you think that this is attributed to?
I think it comes down to writing songs that people can relate to. It comes down to being real, honest and dedicated to what you do. One has to realize that lots of people around the world, live with rock music as their guide through life. Some see us artists as more important than their leaders in government or even parents. Some come close to holding rock music higher than their religious beliefs. Yes music is a powerful thing and when we finally go play their countries, it is an awesome experience that you are left with for the rest of your life.

What are your thoughts on music today? Are there any new artists that you're listening to at the moment that you feel could be the future of music, or do you find yourself continually going back to the classics?
Might be the most difficult question of the bunch. To me music doesn’t change, I play what I always have and I don’t see it change. The millions around me that come and go as fast a speeding bullet I never ever get to check out as there are only so much time and one has to chose what to do with it and I choose classic rock. But once in a while something great comes around and everybody will take notice.

Over the last 15 years or so you have built up quite an impressive tattoo collection including a portrait of Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott. What's been the inspiration for your work so far? And with a whole arm bare, are there any plans for new ink on the horizon?
Oh looking back at the first session in the chair and till today. Well maybe I would have done it different, so now I am a bit more careful. I am dying to do my complete right arm. But I am held back by not knowing what I want and what artist should do it. These days great tattoo artist are solid booked up to a year ahead and it’s hard to know where you will be by then. Once I started getting tattoos, I must admit that Phil Lynott was the only thing I really planed ahead for.

Is there any song from throughout your entire career you’ve written that you can honestly say you're most proud of or is the definitive statement of what epitomises Mike Tramp?
People should get ready for “All Of My Life” on the new album, it speaks for itself, and as many describe it as “Classic Tramp”. I am very happy with that. Still songs like “More To Life Than This” and “The Good, The Sad And The Ugly” are big songs in my life.

As someone who has gambled his life and given his heart and soul to rock n roll, what do you feel rock n roll has given back to you in return?
Just as it is hard to describe a song in words, it is also hard to describe what rock’n’roll is or how it makes you feel. But to me, it is my life style, a pair glasses that I view life through, and a pair of boots that take me to where I want to go and a feeling that is a sense of belonging and comfort of knowing who you are. A religion that allows you freedom to follow your heart and do what you want.

A life of no limits, rules or compromises.