SPECIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION
The Rise And Fall And Rise Again
THE
REAL STORY
BEHIND THE FILM
ISSUE 255
NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE 255
28
Fea F eatu tur res
Queen
28 Queen 28 Queen We look back at the band’s first 15 years – those portrayed in the new BohemianRhapsody film film – from just another band of hopefuls, to global superstars, through worrying slump to ruling Live Aid. Plus (page 44): Dr Brian May tells us on-set stories, behind-the-scenes goings-on and more.
“There was always this great challenge of how far can we push things in any direction.”
48 Enuff 48 Enuff Z’Nuff They were the band of the moment, flying high, poised to write their name in the brightest lights. Then they hit the self-destruct self-destr uct button.
52 Steve 52 Steve Perry The former Journey singer said it was all over; that he’d fallen out of love with the music industry and left it behind for good. Then he started believin’ again…
58 Nashville 58 Nashville Pussy They’ve got the same staying power as the late Lemmy and co., the same tenacity and the same dedication to everything rock’n’roll. Meet the American Motörhead.
62 Wa 62 Wayne yne Kramer America has a gun problem. Most prisoners shouldn’t be in prison. We need rock’n’roll. These and more life lessons from the MC5/MC50 guitarist.
66 Chris 66 Chris Stein The Blondie guitarist talks about New York during the punk years, and illustrates it with a selection of images from his new photo book.
70 Beth Hart After a harrowing early life that would have broken most people, she dragged herself back from the brink and is now “having fun, fun, fun” as she embraces major success.
Y T T E G
Reegulars R
NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE 255
52 5 2
10 The Dirt
Fiftieth-anniversary exhibition celebratesThe celebrates The Kinks’ Kinks’ masterpiece The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society ; Steve Howe named Howe named Prog God at the Prog Awards; Pete Way wants no part in UFO UFO’s ’s 50th-anniversary farewell tour; Black Star Riders part Riders part ways with co-founder guitarist Damon Johnson;Ozzy Johnson; Ozzy endured endured Black Sabbath’s farewell; Kiss farewell; Kiss,, Bob Seger and Krokus Krokusplan plan their goodbyes… Say hello to Blinders and and Those Those Damn Crows, Crows, welcome back Martin Barre, Barre, Coheed And Cambria and Cambria andSupersuckers Supersuckers;; say goodbye to Chas Hodges,, Maartin Allcock, Hodges Allcock, Tony Camillo… Camillo…
Steve Perry “The passion for music came back. Singing again, I was getting goose bumps.”
22 The Stories Behind The Songs Small Faces Although Lazy Sunday was AlthoughLazy was a big hit, drummer Kenney Jones says it was “the final nail in the coffin in finishing us off”.
24 Q& Q&A A Dave Davies The Kinks guitarist on his new album, the 70s, growing up, personal struggles and a new Kinks record.
26 Six Things You Need To Know About Massive Wagons They’re Quo fans, playing live is where they’re at, their songs are less frivolous than you might think…
74 CR’s Social Club
Write! Rage! And more! Just a few of the many things you can find when you head over to classicrockmagazine.com
79 Reviews 79 Reviews
New albums from The Struts, Struts, Whitesnake Whitesnake,, Ace Frehley, Frehley, Blackberry Smoke, Smoke, Nashville Pussy, Pussy, Opeth Opeth,, David Crosby, Crosby, Pink Fairies, Fairies, Crippled Black Phoenix… Phoenix… Reissues from Metallica,, Status Quo, Metallica Quo, Small Faces, Faces, Be-Bop Deluxe, Deluxe, The Beatles,, Helloween Beatles Helloween,, Lyndsey Buckingham, Buckingham, Soulfly Soulfly… … DVDs, films and books on Queen on Queen,, Jethro Tull, Tull, Roger Daltrey, Daltrey, Steve Lukather,, Ian Hunter, Lukather Hunter, New Order… Order… Live reviews of Ghost of Ghost,, Europe,, Garbage Europe Garbage,, L.A. Guns, Guns, King King, King, David Crosby… Crosby…
92 Buyer’ Buyer’s s Guide Bob Mould From Hüsker Dü to Sugar to solo, Mould is a leading posthardcore singer-songwriter with a fascinating catalogue.
97 Live Previews
Must-see gigs from Duane Eddy, Godsmack Godsmack,, Michael Schenker Fest, Fields Of The Nephelim and Nelson. Plus full gig listings – find out who’s playing where and when.
122 Heavy Load 122 Roger Daltrey
The Who frontman on The Who, Pete Townshend’s arrest, not having regrets and the secret of a successful marriage.
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WELCOME
his month finally sees the release of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody Rhapsody – a movie that has been beset with so many difficulties along its journey that lots of people, including Queen themselves, wondered whether it would ever see the light of day. In celebration, we’re taking a deep dive into the period of Queen’s story that the film covers, cov ers, culminating in their amazing, careerrejuvenating performance at Live Aid in 1985. We sit down with Dr Brian May to discuss Freddie, the film, his new book and more besides. Elsewhere, we talk to Journey’s Journey’s former frontman Steve Perry as he returns to the rock’n’roll fray after a two-decade absence, chat with Dave Davies about The Kinks, hang out with Nashville Pussy, get the meaning of life from Wayne Kramer, and so much more. Until next month… Siân Llewellyn, Editor
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This month’s contributors ALEX BURROW BURROWS S
HENRY YATES
PAUL ELLIOTT
Raised in an anarchosyndicalist commune, Alex is seen here playing a cover of Napalm Death’s Multinational Corporations with Corporations with late-80s hardcore punks Millions Of Thatcher’s Victims. He later abandoned a potentially illustrious drumming career to become a writer. This issue he spoke to Blondie’s Chris Stein (p66) and wrote the Bob Mould Buyer’s Guide (p92).
Henry is a busy man who has written for NME, Guitarist, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer, Rhythm, Country Music , Shortlist and and the Telegraph, the Telegraph, and wrote Walter Trout’s official biography, biography,Rescued Rescued From Reality. This Reality. This month he interviews Brian May about the rocky road to the release of the new Queen film (p44). For more visit www.yates creativecopywriting.com
Paul Elliott first wrote about Journey in 1986 with a fivestar review of the classic Raised On Radio album album in Sounds . Thirty-two years later, he finally interviewed Steve Perry, the band’s former singer, for this month’s issue of Classic Rock (p52). “It was emotional,” Paul said. His wife added: “I always knew there were three of us in this relationship.”
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The Struts, Young & Dangerous
Production Editor
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Ian Fortnam
Fraser Lewry
Dave Ling
Be-Bop Deluxe, Sunburst Finish
The Beatles, The Beatles
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Contributing writers Marcel Ander s, Geoff Barton , Tim Batcu p, Mark Beaum ont , Max Bell, Ess Essii Berelian, Sim Sim on Bradley,
Paul Elliott, Dave Everley, Jerry Ewing , Hugh Field er, Eleanor Eleanor Goodm an, Gary Graff, Graff, Michael Hann , John John H arris, Nick Hasted, Barney Hoskyns, Jon Hotten , Rob Hug hes, Neil Jeffries, Jeffries, Emm a Johnston , Jo Kendall, Dom Lawson , Paul Lester, Ken McInt yre, Lee Lee Marlow, Gavin Mart in, Alexand Alexand er Milas, Paul Mood y, Grant Moon , Luke Luke Mor ton , Kate Mossman , Kris Needs, Bill Nelson, Paul Rees,Chris Roberts, David Qu antick , Johnny Sharp, David Sinclair, Sleazegrin Sleazegrin der,
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N E X T T I I S SS U S E U O N S A L E N O OV E V M B E R 1 1 3
This shot and the two below: Hampstead Heath, 1968. Photos by Barrie Wentzel. .
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The Kinks Village Green Exhibition Fiftieth-anniversary exhibition celebrates the group’s masterpiece. Kinks Are The The The 50th-anniversary reissue of The of The Kinks “I was living opposite the Nellie Dean pub in Dean Village Green Village Green Preservation Preservation Society Society,, the sixth studio album Street [Soho, London]. And because the Charisma from The Kinks, Kink s, one of the great British bands of the 60s, Records office was nearby, Genesis were always in there is being celebrated with an exhibition of the same name. – like me, they they didn’t didn’t have any money money,” ,” he he says. says. Taking place at Proud Central gallery in central London, “Everybody was skint. sk int. But it wasn’t about the money. it brings together vintage v intage memorabilia, photography We were all helping each other.” from the era and specially commissioned and handIndeed, back then The Kinks were a very social bunch. signed artworks by the surviving surv iving band members, “Wherever we were going, Ray would always want to brothers broth ers Ray and Dav Davee Davies Davies and Mick Av Avory. ory. meet in the Archway Tavern,” Wentzell says, laughing. Photographs by British photographer photographer Barrie Barr ie “We were friends and there were a lot of laughs.” Wentzell, whose work was featured on the album’s Even so, Wentzell Wentzell remembers a serious side to R ay: original artwork as well as its newly expanded and “He was nostalgic. He was interested in steam trains, and remastered editions, are among the iconic noted that a lot of things, such as corner shops, old pubs images in the exhibition, including a now and even village greens, were disappearing.” T he K ink ink s perfo forrmin ing g in in celebrated photo shoot with the Kinks on The Who’s Pete Townshend later called The called The Kinks Kinks Are Folk ets P ark , Malm lmo o, The Vi Village llage Green Preservation Society London’s Hampstead Heath, set against the album (reviewed on Sw eden, 1 19 968. P hoto b by y Ol Ola S historic backdrop of Kenwood House. page 89) “Ray’s masterpiece”. But despite a positive Sv v enss sso on. “That was one of Ray’s favourite places to do critical reception when it was first released in November photos and interviews, and we’d often chat and 1968 it failed to make the British chart. have tea and currant buns there,” Wentzell tells One thing’s for sure: with the UK at the time poised Classic Rock. Rock. “The shoot that was used for the to join the Common Market (the forerun ner of the album sleeve was my European Union) five years last one with the later, the album’s sentiments original band, which “The Kinks were raw and were very much much ahead of included [drummer] their time in these Brexitdangerous but there Pete Quaife. I used obsessed days. tthat location for “Re-reading the lyrics all was comedy too.” several e shoots, these years later, I cracked including n another up,” says Wentzell. Wentzell. “ Those Photographer Barrie Wentzell with Elton wi Elton John.” John.” were more innocent times. As chief photographer for Melody Maker from from Before that there was no youth fashion. We had only 19655 until ’75, Wentzell spent a lot of ti me with 196 19 just come out of the war, war, rationing wasn’t so long ago. ago. The Kinks. Th To me, Ray was the poet laureate of that period . He ““I think I first met Ray and Dave playing Sunday wrote about ordinary people in ordinary situations football oot with some others from the magazi ne’s but made them sound interesting. interesting. You You don’t hear that staff,” ta , he recalls. “ I shot them on To on Topp Of The Pops Pops and any more.” attended a load of their gigs, though I didn’t always atten Wentzell is also excited by the fact that the longtake my camera because quite a few were in pubs. feuding Ray and Dave appear to be talking to one I loved o the atmosphere. another once more. “The boys have made friends again. “To me, The Kinks This could be the coming together of it all,” he says were the first first punk-is punk-ish h optimistically. “There are no punch-ups any more.” band. an . They were raw All the same, the siblings seem to blow hot and cold and dangerous an a but on the idea of a Kinks reunion. As recently as June this there was w comedy too. year, Ray said it was happening, only for Dave to shoot And A n they th balanced out him down. And in this issue’s Q&A (page 24) Dave says the hea heavy rock’n’roll that in the autumn he’ll be doing “some stuff with Ray with w th son so songs songs n like [60s that will result in new music” and that “hopefully it’ll be hits] Dea Dead End Street a new Kinks record”. and Autumn and an Autumn Almanac Autu Almanac.” .” So many years down the line, could it really happen? Although it might Althou “Of course it can,” Wentzell says. “We never thought ssound oun ou n unlikely, unll un that artists would be old-age pensioners and still make Wentzell was so music, but it’s happening. The fact that they are talking latt la tter eree that t The flattered together is wonderful news.” DL Kinks used use his work The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation on their artwork, art he Society Socie ty exhibi exhibition tion runs at at Proud Proud Centra Centrall in Lond London on “forgot” orgo or gott to request r until November 18. Admission is free. Details at a fee ee un unt until t the t record www.proud.co.uk was reissue reissued. reissued. imon imo n Bradley, ra ley ley,, Lee LeeDorrian, orrian, Ian orrian, a Fortnam, Hannah May Kilroy, Dave Ling, Ken McIntyre, Grant Moon, Philip Wilding This month The Dirt was compiled by Simon
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 11
Manchester-born multi-instrumentalist Maartin Allcock, who had spells with Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, The Mission, among others, has died of liver cancer. He was 61. Allcock also performed as a session player on more than 200 albums from artists ranging from Robert Plant to Cat Stevens. A statement from Jethro Tull said: “He leaves behind a treasure trove of recordings and a feast of memories.”
American music magazine JAM claims to have heard from “a reliable inside source” that Angus Young is piecing together a new AC/DC album which “will include Malcolm Young playing rhythm guitar on all of its tracks”. All the tracks are said to have been recorded during the sessions for the Black Ice album, Mal’s final record with the group. It’s an audacious claim for a band known for their out-take-free approach to recording, but time will tell.
Tony Camillo
Rob Halford is
Died August 29, 2018
planning to write an autobiography though he has no timeframe in which to do it, remarking: “It’ll happen one day.” Judas Priest will celebrate their 50th anniversary in 2019.
Thank you and good night. Maartin Allcock January 5, 1957 – Septembe Septemberr 16, 2018
The man who co-produced Gladys Knight & The Pips’ 1973 chart-topper Midnight Train To Georgia has died of as-yet unknown causes, aged 90. Tony Camillo was also an arranger, musician, songwriter and studio owner owner.. The many bands and artists he worked with include Grand Funk Railroad, the Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Parliament and Dionne Warwick.
Carlos Denogean Died August 24, 2018
North Carolina-based sludge-metallers Weedeater We edeater are mourning the loss of their touring drummer, who died after suffering a brain aneurism. Previously a member of Beard Of Antlers, Salvación and ASG, Carlos Denogean joined joi ned Weed eedeat eater er in 201 2017 7. “Car “Carlos los wa wass an incredibly talented musician, a real joy to be aro around und and we lov loved ed wo worki rking ng with him,” say the group.
Conway Savage July 27, 27, 1960 – September 2, 2018
Australian keyboard player Conway Savage was a member of Nick Cave’s band the Bad Seeds for almost three decades. The 58-year-old had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2017. His bandmates described him as “irascible, funny, terrifying, sentimental, warm-hearted, gentle, acerbic, honest and genuine, with the gift of a golden voice – high and sweet and drenched in soul”.
Kyle Pavone June 5, 1990 – August August 25, 2018 2018
The frontman for We Came As Romans, Kyle Pavone has died of an accidental drug overdose at the age of just 28. The Michigan-based metalcore band broke the news via Twitter: “Kyle’s tragic loss came too early in his life. We will miss his smiles, his sincerity, his concern for others, and his impressive musical talent.” 12 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Dave Grohl (pictured)
is to appear on an upcoming episode of Sesame Street, the long-running kids’ education show that celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2019. The Foo Fighters mainman is a lifelong fan. Speaking in 2011, he said: “I think everybody had Miss Piggy fantasies, she seemed sassy.” Rival Sons have
previewed their first album for their new label Atlantic Records by sharing a brand new track called Do Your Worst. It will be included on an as-yet untitled album due early next year. Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets
have lined up some dates for 2019. They play Aylesbury Friars April 30, Cambridge Corn Exchange May 1, London Roundhouse 3/ 3/4. 4.
Chas Hodges December 28, 1943 – September 22, 2018 the Chas Hodges was best known as the singer/pianist partnering Dave Peacock in the enduring pop rock band Chas & Dave, but his career kicked off during the 19 1960s 60s when he work worked ed alongs alongside ide prod producer ucer Joe Meek as part of his house band, and also backed back ed Jerry Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincen Vincent. t. Born in Middlesex and raised in North London, Hodges also played in The Outlaws with Ritch Ritchie ie Blackmo Blackmore re and and joined joined Albert Lee’s country rock band Heads Hands & Feet before a short stint with The Rockers, who also featu featured red The The Move’ Move’s Roy Roy Wood, Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott and Status Quo drummer John Coghlan. Chas & Dave, who formed in 1975, performed a style of music they called ‘Rockney’, mixing pop, rock’n’roll, roll, music hall and pub singalongs. Their run of hits included Gertcha Gertcha,, The Sideb Sideboard oard Song Song,, Rabbit,, Ain’t No Pleasin Rabbit Pleasin’’ You You,, Margate Margate and and Snooker Loopy. Loopy.
The pair displayed a wonderful, modest sense of humour that melted the nation’s heart. In 2014, talking before their set at the Sonisphere Festival, Hodges spoke of workingg with workin with Blackm Blackmore ore in The The Outlaws Outlaws,, revealing: “Ritchie later admitted that his decision to join us was swayed because we received royalty cheques of a hundred quid each on the day that he auditioned.” Chas & Dave became reliable mainstays of the summer festival scene, from punk all-dayers to hard rock and metal events. They supported Led Zeppelin at Knebworth in 1979. Hodges was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in February, Februar y, but was determined determined to perform again after that setback, and most recently Chas & Dave supported Eric Clapton in Hyde Park in July. Hodges was 74 at the time of his death, having suffered organ failure. He passed away in his sleep. DL
Final tours... Ozzy only endured Sabbath’s farewell; Kiss, Bob Seger and Krokus plan their own goodbyes. Ozzy Osbourne “didn’t have a great
time” on Black Sabbath’s farewell tour last year. The singer was “getting bad vibes” from his bandmates on the worldwide trek for “being Ozzy”. The now-solo Osbourne, who tours the UK next next February February with Judas Priest as his his special special guests guests,, told told Philadelphia’s The Philadelphia’s The Inqui Inquirer rer that that while he had spent a decade of his profession professional al life workingg with workin with guitarist guitarist To Tony ny Iommi and bassist bass ist Geezer Butle Butler, r, his time awa awayy from from them represented “over thirty years”. “[When I’m] with them, I’m just a singer. With me, I get to do what I want to do,” Ozzy added. “I was getting bad vibes from them for being Ozzy. I don’t know, what the fuck else can I be?” Ozzy was also rankled by reports that he’s to quit the road as a solo artist. “I wish people would understand I’m not retiring,” he added. “Is it my bad English accent? It’s called the No More Tours tour, not No More Tours Ever. What I’m stopping is doing what I’m doing now, going around the world all the time.” Meanwhile, following months of speculation, Kiss have confirmed a second,
and presumably final, farewell tour of their own. The American band, who famously waved wav ed goodby goodbyee in 2000, are are to to do it all all again again in 2019. Dates for the world tour, which is expected to last for three years, will be announced in the coming weeks. “This will wi ll be the most explosive, biggest show we’ve ever done. People who love us, come see us,” says frontman Paul Stanley. “If you’ve never seen us, this is the time. T his will be the sho show. w.” Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band and Krokus are also among the latest acts to reveal final tours. The 73-year-old Seger was forc forced ed to to cancel cancel a run of dates dates last year due to a back injury, and has added a few extra North American shows to his itinerary but looks set to step down for good in 2019. The last slim hopes that Seger and his Silver Bullet Band might perform in the UK – which would be for the first time since the 1980s – look to be dashed. Metalheads Krokus, who are to sign off with a huge huge bas bash h in in their their nat native ive Swi Switze tzerlan rland d on December 7, 2019, 2019, are following follow ing the example of Mötley Crüe by signing contracts to bring things to an official close. DL
C H A S O D G E S : G E T T Y
Steve Howe Receives Recei ves ‘Prog God’ Award Steven Wilson also triumphs at Prog Awards. Yes guitarist Steve Howe was named
this year’s Prog God at the 2018 Progressive Music Awards, which took place recently at the Underglobe in London’s Globe Theatre. Howe was the third member of Yes to receive the honour (following Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson) Anderson) in its seven-year seven-year history (the others are Peter Gabriel, Ian Anderson, Tony Banks and Carl Palmer). Hosted by comedian Al Mur ray, the event saw Steven Wilson nominated in three categories and winning t wo of them – Album Of The Year for To for To The Bone Bone,, and the UK Band/Art ist Of The Year, and Caravan picked up a Lifetime Achievement award. There were also wi ns for the PFM, Space Rocks festival, Big Big Train, Alan Parsons Project, Claudia Brücken, Gar y Brooker, John Lees and Phil Phil Manzanera. Steven Wilson releases a concert film, titled Home Invasion, Invasion, on November 2 via Eagle Rock Entertainment. It was shot on the final night of his shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March this year and will be available in various formats. formats. A deluxe deluxe five-LP vinyl set set will follow in March. DL
Steve Howe: recipient of the Prog Awards’ top honour.
“RIP UFO!” Way wants no part in 2019’s 50th-anniversary farewell tour. Along with former UFO guitarist
Michael Schenker, Pete Way will not be taking any part in UFO’s 50th-anniversary shows next year. Fans had hoped that variou s ex-members might join the group on stage for an all-star jam on the final night of their UK tour. But with Schenker telling Classic Rock: Rock: “For me, UFO only exists with the original five members, plus producer Ron Nevison” (see page 99), bass player Way, Way, who left the band in 2008, wants it known that he feels the same way. “I would like to make sure that nobody is under the illusion that I will be appearing,” he says of the jam – which at thi s stage is just rumour. “I will be touring with my new band. Paul Chapman Chapman [former UFO/Waysted guitarist] w ill not be on guitar, sadly, but it was a pleasure to to see him again.” In a statement, Way added: “I wish U FO all the luck in the world and I am sure fans would like to see the original line-up again but for me, I can only say RIP UFO.” DL 14 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Black Star Riders are to part ways with co-founder guitarist Damon Johnson at the end of this year. His replacement is Christian Martucci from the band Stone Sour. Johnson will also sit out BSR’s trip to Brazil next month, on which Thunder guitarist Luke Morley will stand in. BSR are due to begin the recording of a fourth album in early 2019. The sixth annual Louder Than Words festival, an event celebrating music literature, takes place at the Principal Hotel in Manchester over the weekend of November 9-11. This year’s guests include Guy Pratt of Pink Floyd fame, Martin Atkins from PiL and Killing Joke and Squeeze’s Chris Difford. Details at louderthanwordsfest. com Although he’s busy touring with the newlook Fleetwood Mac, Mike Campbell believes that a reunion of Tom Petty’s group Hearbreakers is the Hearbreakers is inevitable. “We’ll play again someday,” he tells Rolling Stone. Stone. “We love each other too much not to do that.” Campbell speculates that any renewed activity would probably involve “four or five [guest] singers”, quite possibly performing Petty’s 1994 solo album Wildflowers in full.
Mark Knopfler releases his ninth solo studio album, Down The Road Wherever , on November 16. Its 14 songs were inspired by a wide range of subjects, including the guitarist’s early days in Deptford as a member of Dire Straits.
Coheed And Cambria With their new album, Claudio Sanchez and co. return to the fan-familiar sci-fi world of their own making. With their ninth studio album, Vaxis album, Vaxis – Act 1: The Unheavenly Creatures, Creatures, Coheed And Cambria retur n to the Amory Wars universe, a multi-levelled serie s of worlds set in time and space that singer Claudio Sanchez spends most of his free time writing songs or creating comic books about. It’s also the first of a five-part ‘pentalogy’ of albums, which means the band should get back to earth some time in the next 10 years. Sanchez pops back to the planet briefly to explain a few things.
and I just don’t choose to tell my story in that genre. I chose a sci-fi fantasy genre, initially just because I was insecure as a frontman way back when. Now I’ve become so comfortable with it, I find it to be more fun, because I’m allowed to take these things and try to form them into these other bodies of work.
Is it easier writing an album like the new one than The Color ? All records are hard because they’re coming from a personal spot. With Color , I was having such a hard time with my environment. This “When I listen to time around, the struggle was where in the new album, it the story I wanted to this thing – was reminds me of those put there even a place? So every record’s going to older records.” have its hurdle.
The band’s previous album, 2015’s The Color Before The Sun , didn’t have a concept, storyline or mention of the long-standing Amory Wars world. What happened? That was really a statement for me becoming a dad. I knew I would would never never have have those feelings again the way I did. I really wanted to attribute attribute those feelings and emotions in song without the cover of a concept. But I always knew that I wasn’t going to abandon the Amory Wars. I have such a good time living i n that mythology and writing songs with those characters. Who is the titular Vaxis, and what does he want from us? Ha! Vaxis is basically the son of two characters, Creature and Sister Spider. He has a very relevant position in the Amory Wars universe; we know he’s coming, we just don’t know how. how. This story is the first one, it’s introducing us to a new cast of characters, their goals, their mission, their love interests and that’s pretty much it. Why is the Amory Wars such a pivotal part of your make-up? Most songwriters are coming from an autobiographical standpoint, primarily,
You said that working on thi s record reminded you of being younger again. What do you mean? When we did the early albums, there was no schedule and I didn’t feel t he pressure of being a professional musician. With this one, I wanted to take some time off. And when I listen to it, it reminds me of those older records. Not because that’s what I was striving for, but that’s what what happens when I’m given the time – it allows me to sort of experi ment and try and live with things a litt le longer. That part of me is allowed to come out, I guess. You were deliberately trying to avoid that creative burn- out? Absolutely.. I wanted to feel excitement in Absolutely creating music, it was important to me. I wanted to feel the pressure and anticipation of creating something again; putting yourself back into a maze that you’re trying to fi nd your way out of. PW Vaxis – Act 1: The Unheavenly Creatures Creatures is out now via Roadrunner UK.
“We’re politically minded “We’re people, therefore our songs are politically minded.”
The Blinders This incendiary trio refuse to shy away from politics - or succumb to rock-star stereotypes.
They get called ‘punk’ a lot. “We’ve always thought of punk as an ethos rather than a sound, but ‘punk’ is a bit of an outdated term, isn’t it? Especially sound-wise.” The Blinders don’t want to get pigeonholed. They’re all of an age where punk is no more associated with youthful vibrancy than the tired cliché of “Good rock’n’roll comes in times of desperation,” says Charlie McGough, effusive bassist with white-hot Manchester-via-Doncaster trio the rock ‘lifestyle’. The Blinders, purveyors of a dark, melodic strand of agit-popping alt.rock, “The stereotypical rock’n’roll star is an outdated image and there’s no swathed in atmospheric surf-guitar reverb. “The greatest songs always come space for it in 2018,” McGough says, smiling. “Times have moved on, the from a time and place of protest.” public don’t want to see it any more, so we can act the way we are FOR FANS OF... With the world lurching from crisis to crisis on a tidal wave rather than as misogynistic drug addicts.” of divisive right-wing populism, you’d imagine today’s rock That said, The Blinders kick significant amounts of arse, community would be involuntarily stimulated toward greatness and Columbia is a veritable wild-fire of incendiary passion, by eve every ry news news bul bullet letin. in. Yet apa apart rt from from a sele select ct few few vo voice icess of of disse dissent nt underpinned by McGough’s bass, driven emphatically into back (Idles, Strange Bones, The Blinders), numb generic complacency of skull and pit of crotch by Matt Neale’s drums and rendered and apathetic denial appear to be the th e order of the day. intense by guitarist/singer Thomas Haywood’s seismic tones and “Bands tend to shy away from taking a stance or addressing a vocal that’s invariably committed to the point of near-hysteria. anything political,” McGough shrugs. “But if you’ve got a platform “We’re currently Ultimately, The Blinders’ railing against dystopia mirrors being influenced by you ought to use it. It always felt natural to us. We’re politically exquisitely the post-millennial angst of our apathetic times. the new Idles album, minded people, therefore our songs are politically minded. Being “I was at the London Trump protest, but left feeling frustrated, and historically The Doors,” says McGough. from Doncaster, our families were involved in the miners’ strike. thinking: ‘What are we achieving here? Where’s the riots?’ There “Thematically and The closure of the pits led to the demise of whole communities.” is protest on social media,” McGough admits, before concluding lyrically, the most Rather than being party political, The Blinders’ striking debut wearily: rily: “But it’s all just peop people le shou shoutin tingg into into the vac vacuum. uum.”” IF obvious influence on the wea new album would be album, Columbia, echoes the dystopian futures of George Orwell’s Bowie’sDiamond Bowie’s Diamond Dogs . 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and in so doing holds Columbia is out now via Modern Modern Sky Sk y UK. U K. The Blinders’ Its dystopian nature and up a mirror to today’s societal ills. headline UK tour runs until November 11. that it references Orwell’s 1984 , though sound-wise there’s echoes of Iggy Pop’sThe Pop’s The Idiot .” .”
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Nikki Sixx has confirmed that the four members of Mötley Crüe have Crüe have been recording new material for the soundtrack to the group’s upcoming biopic The Dirt.
Riches from the rock underground MUSEO ROSENBACH Zarathustra , Ricordi Records,
Italy, 1973. £1,000. Museo Rosenbach formed Bordighera in 1972. Zarathustra, a crown jewel of the underground Italian progressive rock scene during its bustling golden era, is a stunning example of the desire to break standard rock boundaries of the time. Italian prog was way more musically explorative (some might say pompous) as a whole than its European counterparts. Based on Nietzsche’s Superman Superman,, the 21-minute title track (split into five parts and taking up the whole of side one) is very classical in its construction, with bold dynamics, superb playing and memorable melodies. It ranges from dreamy and symphonic to heavy, doomy and bombastic. Dazzling use of Mellotron brings to mind early King Crimson, Genesis and, of course, Yes. Side two consists of three mini-epic tracks, which are captivating in their
‘A crown jewel of the underground Italian prog scene of its era.’ delivery, with raw delivery, raw,, distorted guitar blasts making them seem more intense than the work of a lot of their more ‘symphonic’ contempora contemporaries. ries. On close inspection of the sleeve there’ss an image of Mussolini which, there’ mistakenly, sparked controversy amongst anti-fascist groups in Italy. This and lack of commercial success led to the untimely demise of the band. As with many adventurous cult acts of the time, Museo Rosenbach continued to enjoy cult status over the years. They recently re-formed, and are again recording and performing live. LD 16
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David Bowie’s Bowie’s firstknown studio recording has sold at auction for almost £40,000 – four times its estimate. The demo of 16-year-old David Jones singing I Never Dreamed with his band The Konrads was recorded in 1963. The tape was discovered by the group’s drummer, David Hadfield, in his attic. Bowie quit the band after the demo was rejected by Decca Records. Hawkwind have Hawkwind have parted company with their vocalist and multi-instrumentalistn Mr Dibs after 21 years due to “irreconcilable differences”. Mr Dibs says: “Hawkwind is so much more than the music and band.”
Martin Barre The Former Tull guitarist tours his new album – but don't expect Ian Anderson to make a guest appearance. For more than 40 years Martin Barre was Jethro Tull’s Tull’s guitar player. player. Leader Ian Anderson called time on t he band in 2012, and when he re-formed it last year Barre was no longer in the line- up. The guitarist, now 71, immersed himself in the Martin Barre Band, releasing four four records in this decade alone. Whereas previously he’s drawn on the Tull catalogue and instrumental music, his new album, Roads Less Travelled, spans rock, blues and prog, prog, with a dash of jazz. jazz.
You’ve kept the albums coming lately, the new one’s strong, and your and your band are about to embark on a big US tour. You clearly have fresh wind in your sails. Yes. I’m learning how to be a songwriter and it’s really exciting. As a guitar ist I suppose I’m old and set in my ways, but when it comes to songwriting I feel li ke I’m a beginner discovering the joys of it.
and we connected listening to Seattle bands. For me it was the first ‘modern’ music that had any substance.
Next year you’re doing a Tull fiftiethAnniversary tour with former members Clive Bunker and Jonathan Noyce, while Ian is doing his own tour to mark the occasion. Most Tull fans will find that such a shame. It’s stupid, but Ian’s decided that’s what he wants to do. do. It’s sad because there was was an opportunity to take the music into a whole different era and it’s lost now, it’ll never happen. Musically there was a lot to be done and we could be doing these fantastic tours. But Ian never really wanted to experiment. I’d suggest that we take some girl singers or a brass section on the road, something to make it special – and we were in a position to do it – but but he wasn’t interest interested. ed. He didn’t want to change or evolve. When you stop evolving you stop being a true musician.
“I’d rather win an award for a song than for my guiita gu tar r pl pla ayi ying ng..”
Phil Collins has Collins has spoken of the slim likelihood of a reunion of Genesis with his teenaged son Nic (pictured) on drums. Collins senior, who came out of retirement last year, reveals that Genesis’s Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks have admired Nic’s playing. “They both were raving about Nic,” he says. “Anything is possible.” BMG Records release a new edition of Uriah Heep’s Heep ’s 1972 album Demons And Wizards, with newly reimagined artwork by Roger Dean, on November 23. Available on 180g vinyl and as a CD media book, it’s a part of the label’s Art Of The Album series.
You must have picked up a few songwriting tips from Ian? But he wouldn’t let you into the world of lyrics or melody. It’s been a learning curve, and it’s taken nine months, but this is now a hundred per cent my ow n material. I’ve got so much out of it. Roads Less Travelled sounds sounds like a band
album, rather than a vehicle for a ‘star guitarist’. Yeah, I’m not interested in that. I’d rather win an award for a song than for my guitar playing. It’ll never happen, but that’d be lovely. Seattle is a stand-out track on the new
album. Were you a grunge fan? It’s really about my own experiences of Seattle, going back to Hendrix, but grunge is my son’s music, we’re very close
The flip-side is that it’s given you time to commit to your your own band. That’s the great thing. I started from zero, I had no contacts with promoters or record labels… But your name carries a lot of weight in these circles, surely? It opens the door in from the street, but you’ve got a lot more doors to go through. And it can be detrimental, being a name from a long time ago, perhaps perceived as past his sell-by date. You have a lot to prove even though you’ve got a lot of hi story. But I’m very stubborn and determined and have a lot of energy to get back out there, and that’s what I’m doing. GM Roads Less Travelled Travelled is out now via Garage Records.
M A R T I N B A R R E : E L A Y N E B A R R E / P R E S S
Silver Machine John Mayer’s latest signature electric guitar – released with an unprecedented level of controversy. John Mayer has had his fair share of signature models, and the latest guitar to bear his scribble, the PRS Silver Sky, is possibly the most controversial new guitar of any released in recent times. As news of its spec got out, the online guitar community was immediately up in arms, insulted by its resem resemblan blance ce to to a Fend Fender er Strat Stratocaste ocaster, r, and any player who dared to even point at a Silver Sky was open to the kind of abus abusee only only the the inte internet rnet can impart. That said, it should have have been of little surprise that Mayer, a long-time Strat fan who allegedly became ‘dissatisfied’ with what Fender were doin doing, g, would would opt for some something thing similar from another company. There are several refinements to the classic Strat design that PRS have been poring over for several years, including three-a-side locking tuners and the flatter design of the five-way switch button. One truly inspirational idea is the subtle car ve within the low lower er bout, bout, or rather rather that it’s colo coloured ured in a slightly lighter shade of finish than that of the remainder of the body. This helps the contour to stand out in lower light and actually actu ally helps when playing the guitar when standing. Other facets have been taken straight from Fenders of yore. And while the Silver Sky is hardly
the first solid-body electric to be guilty of the supposed crime of brazenly borrowing from what’s wha t’s gone bef before, ore, it’s amusin amusingg to to hear hear Paul Paul Reed Smith refer to the Stratocaster as “ the other guitar” on the PRS website. The neck has been deliberately shaped shaped to feel similar to Strats Mayer has played from 1963 and ’64, a concept aided by the distinc distinctly tly Fend Fendery ery 7.25-inc 7.25-inch h radius radius of the 22-fret fingerboard, and the trio of 635JM singlecoil pickups have been painstakingly designed to give the Silver Sky its complement of five vi ntageflavoured tones. A bone nut and flush-mounted bridgee help bridg help keep the guitar in tune, tune, and there’s no no doubt that it is a sublime instrument that plays nicely and sounds great. “The Silver Sky is my vision of what a reboot of the electric guitar should look and feel like,” Mayer pontificates, and at £2,299 it’s a whole lotta g uitar. However,, with the price of an American However A merican 60s Fender Strat coming in at £1,639, the know-it-all online forums have wasted little time in pouri ng yet more vitriol on the PRS SilverSky, which really is a shame. More at www.prsguit www.prsguitars.com ars.com Simon Bradley Bradley
T HE SK Y Y’ ’ S T HE LIMIT
T he sev en-string w orld of an an of ten unsung guit itaar hero. There rea are f ew guit ita ar pla lay yers w wh ho m mo ore rea auth the entic ica ally embody the vib ibe e of th the e 70s t th han f orm rme er S Sc corpio ion n Uli U li J Jo on Roth, Germany’s answer t to o J Jim imii Hendrix ix.. Sin inc ce l le e a vin ing g Rudi S Sc chenker a an nd co co.. i in n 1 19 978 h he e has p prroduced n no ot o on nly som so me h hiighly lyo ori rig gin ina al music, but als lso o a au uniq iqu ue i in nstr tru u m ent on w wh hic ich h to top pla lay y i it: t: t th he S Sk ky G Gu uit ita ar. Uli unveile led d the f irs i r s t versi sio on i in n 1 19 983, and t th he c co ore o of f it its s sp pec, alt lth hough h ha aving undergone a an number of re ref f ine inements ts,, h ha as r re emained p prretty const sta ant s sin inc ce. A Am man who can w wie ield lda a s se even-s -sttrin ing g , 36-fr fre et ele lec ctri ric c g gu uit ita ar d du ubbed The R Re embrandt Sky as ef for fortl tle essly ly a ass h he e can d de eserves re resspect. Dean U US SA pro rod duced a l liimite ted d run o of f Sk Sky G Gu uit ita ars betw twe een 2 20 010 and 2 20 015, w wiith thre rettail il p prric ice es s sttart rtin ing g at a aro rou und t th he £ £7 7,7 ,70 00 m ma ark, a an nd Roth thh has r re ece cen ntly announced th tha at a afu furrther 50 e ex xample less, buil iltt by G Ge erman luthie ierr B Bo oris is D Do ommenget, are i in n t th he p piipeli lin ne. Pric ice e s a arre lik li kely t to o b be e, well,l,ssky hig igh h.
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G E T T Y
MY FIRST
LOVE
Abrrax Ab axa as SANTANA
By Rob Truj rujill illoo The Metallica bassist finds himself stirred by that old old Black Magic (Woman). “My father played flamenco guitar as a hobby and used to listen to a lot of Santana. It was the early seventies, I was probably around nine years old, but I knew that I wanted Abr wanted Abraxa axass. “ Abr Abraxa axass had Black Magic Woman on Woman on it. I was drawn to the Latin flair of this great rock song. I felt Santana had a very dynamic range. He’d [Carlos Santana] bring in heavy guitars for the riff to get everyone excited, and with the use of percussion there was this indigenous quality to the beat, the rhythm, the flow of the music he was producing. Not to mention all those nice, beautiful instrumental moments. “The album cover was really fascinating too. The artwork was psychedelic and trippy, with beautiful women in it that made you look and go: ‘Wow’. There were many emotions stirred with that record. “Santana’s in my film Jac film Jaco o (a documentary on the late jazz bass virtuoso Jaco Pastorius), and I’ve seen him play a few times. The first time I saw him was with my father, in about 1980. My dad passed his love on to me, and I’m keeping it going.” “The second album I bought was Kool And The Gang’s Wild And Peaceful.. It had Jung Peaceful had Jungle le Boogi Boogiee on it, and you can’t argue with that for a groove.”
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New Deluxe and Super Deluxe editions of The Beatles’ selftitled 1968 album, aka the White Album (reviewed on page 90), are released on November 9. The Super Deluxe version, which comprises six CDs, a Blu-ray disc and a 164-page hardbound book, includes a wealth of bonus content. Brian May believes that Freddie Mercury might have been envious of Queen’s current frontman Adam Lambert. “Freddie would love and hate Adam, because he has a real gift from God,” says the guitarist. “It’s a voice in a billion. Nobody has that range, nobody that I’ve ever worked with. Not just the ran range, ge, but also the quality throughout the range. I’ve seen Adam develop just like Freddie developed.” Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tr Tremonti emonti and his self-named solo band have added some more shows. They play Nottingham Rock City November 29, Manchester The Ritz December 1, Bristol Academy 2, London Kentish Town Forum 4 and Edinburgh Liquid Rooms 6.
A new documentary film celebrating the legacy of Joan Jett (pictured) goes on release in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on October 26. Bad Reputation, directed by Kevin Kerslake, features interviews with Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Miley Cyrus and more.
Supersuckers Despite a cancer scare, they continue to purvey pur vey “handcrafted rock’n’roll for connoisseurs of quality”. You can have your goddamn grunge bands, but the real kings of Seattle rock’n’roll remain the Supersuckers. Frontman Eddie Spaghetti has led his crew of beer drinkers and hellraisers through an endless part y that’s lasted for 30 years, 11 albums, and who knows how many nights in the drunk tank. He flipped his RV, and got throat cancer a few years back, but neither the crash nor the disease killed hi m, as evidenced by the Suckers defiant new album, Suck It. So, Eddie…
barely worth doing at at all. I still get a kick out of it, though. We’re like a boutique operation delivering quality, hand-crafted rock’n’roll for the connoisseurs of qualit y.
Foo Fighters play baseball stadiums, for Chrissakes. Dave Grohl’s a great guy, and he’s always been supportive supportive of us, but Foo Fighters are a service able rock band at best.
After your cancer diagnosis, did you change your lifestyle drastically? I still try to remain a reckless a fool whenever I can, but “Even our worst I appreciate things more than I used to, record is better and I don’t get angry little things than most bands’ about any more.
It feels like the days of dangerous rock bands might be over. There was some low-level controversy recently because Mike Ness punched out a heckler at best rec records ords..” a Social Distortion How have you gig. Didn’t that used adjusted the Eddie to happen every night? Spaghetti look as you’ve got older? Well, Mike Ness is almost a fancy lad You do have a beard now. these days. He wears pleated pants and Yeah, I gotta cover up as much of the ‘old suspenders and, like, f loppy hats. He’s man’ face as possible. I still got the upgraded since his days as a punk rocker. cowboy hat, and I still wear the sunglasses He left the trenches from where we still but now they’re prescription. Also one of dwell long ago, so maybe that’s why. He’s the benefits of having cancer was that probably not too worried about his health I lost a bunch of weight, and it’s not insurance. I’m sure he’s covered. coming back. Cancer is a good diet plan. When’s the last time you punched out a heckler? I try to never do that. I don’t care, real ly. I expect people to flip me off and g ive me grief. Generally I have the advantage advantage since I’ve got the microphone. I just verbally humiliate them and call it even.
Supersuckers still tour relentlessly. What’s the worst town to play in? El Paso, Texas. We’ve had the worst shows of our career there. What’s the problem? We don’t play, play, like, mall heavy metal. That’s all they want to hear there.
Suck It, in general, is really about
how tough it is being a hardcore rock’n’roller in a softcore world. Yeah I realised that what we do i s not for everybody – much to my debit card’s detriment. I wi sh everybody loved the Supersuckers like they love the fucking Foo Fighters. It’s for so few people, it’s
After thirty years don’t you deserve a statue or something? Probably. I mean, let’s face it, even our worst record is better than most bands’ bands’ best records. KM Suck It is out on now via SPV.
“Every single one of us in the band loves lo ves Ae Aerosm rosmith. ith.” ”
Those Damn Crows Influenced by grunge, arena rock and a bit of country, they aim to leave a mark on the world.
telling me all the stories about everyone who’s been there, from Queen to Black Sabbath. And then I was playing on the piano that Freddie Mercury apparently played on. We felt very blessed to be there.” Murder And The Motive is an album that pulses with the influence of 90s grunge that the band grew up with, but also incorporates mammoth, arenaBridgend rockers Those Damn Crows started out as school friends, listening to the likes of Alice In Chains, Pearl Jam and Foo Fighters, and worthy wo rthy ant anthems hems – “Every “Every singl singlee one one of us us in the ban band d lov loves es Aeros Aerosmit mith,” h,” jamming jamm ing in the musi musicc room room on on their their lun lunch ch brea break. k. As teen teenag agers ers they they beg began an Greenhall says, and it shows – with a little bit of a country twang which no playing gigs under the band name Shirker. Boosted by an inspiring music doubt comes from his father, who was a country singer-songwriter. teacher, it was a promising start. “It [country] was around the house constantly,” Greenhall says. FOR FANS OF... But soon the guys who would later become the Those Damn “My dad would never want me to just play the song, he would Crows went their separate ways. Then about 10 years later show me how to improvise or do a solo. I realise now that he was a chance meeting got the ball rolling again. trying to make me actually think about music, think about what “Some of the guys had joined a band called Miss Conduct, I would do rather than what Johnny Cash would have done.” and I was writing and recording songs for a publishing company This ability to really think about about the music is also key to Those and their catalogue,” says frontman Shane Greenhall. “I needed Damn Crows’ live performances. some drums done on a track I was doing, and I bumped into “When people come to see us live, they say it’s like a different “We grew up in the Ronnie [Huxford] in our home town. He ended up playing me animal,” Greenhall says proudly. “That’s the way it should be. nineties, so bands some demos that he and Shiner [guitarist Ian Thomas] had been I don’t like it when people go to a show and say: ‘That was just like like Nirvana, Alice In worki wo rking ng on, and bef before ore I knew knew it I was sin singin gingg with with them. the record.’ It should be an experience, not just hearing the music.” Chains, Foo Fighters were influential to us,” “Everything happened so quickly, and it felt so right,” he says, As for Greenhall’s ultimate hope for Those Damn Crows…. says Greenhall. grinning. “It was like we’d just turned sixteen again.” “The dream for us is to get a song of ours immortalised,” he “Wasting Light has In a stroke of luck, the band got the opportunity to record their says without hesitation. “We would love to leave a musical mark a little bit of everything that we love in music: debut album at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales. on the world.” HMK heavy, crunchy riffs, hard “We knew somebody who could get us into Rockfield for and not so hard rock cheaper than normal,” Greenhall recalls. “Kingsley, the owner, was songs with big singalong Murder and and The Motive Motive is out now via Earache Earache Records. Records. choruses… Which hopefully you’ll hear on our album, too.”
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Heavy Rotation Whatt we’ve Wha we’ve bee been n listeni listening ng to this this mont month h
1 Primadonna Like Me
9 Watching Over
2
Do Your Worst
10 While Love Died
3
Stranger Tonight
4
City Girls
The Struts The latest video from rock’s brightest, sparklyest new young things includes cowbells, casinos, a spot of knife-throw knife-throwing ing with Alice Cooper, and oodles of wideeyed, jazz-handed charisma. charisma. If you thought they might have peaked on previous album Everybody Wants , think again. This is easily one of the best things they’ve ever done. Flick through to the page 82 for our lowdown on the whole new album Young & Dangerou s. s.
Greta Van Fleet You can read the review of their album, Anthem Of The Peaceful Army , this issue (page 80), but first let’s start with this latest taster to hit the airwaves. Slower and slightly psychedelic, it adds a theatrical shot of Dio-esque vocals to their vintage palette. GVF’s rise seems unstoppable, their thirst for primecut classic rock unquenchable. Check ‘em out.
Northward Nightwish’s towering, ass-kicking lead singer Floor Jansen swaps symphonic metal for good old rock’n’roll on this track from her new band (with Pagan guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad). Lofstad). Mixing driving hints of Foo Fighters with snappy yet chunky riffs and some pleasantly screamy guitar heroics, it’s a looser contrast to her immaculately orchestrated orchestrat ed day job.
Rival Sons Jay Buchanan, Scott Holiday and co. are back with new music, and it’s right good. After the more pronounced soulful factor of previous albumHollow album Hollow Bones , this new tune from the Long Beach band suggests a return to their bluesier, dirtier rock’n’roll roll side, while retaining the suave classiness that they’ve built upon steadily over the years. Welcome back, fellas.
JP’s s Flori Florida da Blue Blues s #1 11 JP’
JP Harris Something tasty from this robustly tattooed country dude (there (there are a few of them about these days; no bad thing, we reckon). Alabama-born Harris merges his zingy, jangling jang ling brand brand of countr countrified ified chee cheerr with rollicking icking spirit on this this highligh highlightt from from his album Sometimes Dogs Bark At Nothing , which is out now.
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats We’ll take a little trip to the dark side (well, Cambridge) now with the latest track from these proto-metal/psych proto-metal/psych renegades. An up-tempo, galloping swirl of the trippy low-fi vintage sound they’ve ve cultivated over nearly a decade, it should whet your appetite for their new album Wasteland (reviewed (reviewed on page 81).
12 Little Miss Crazy
The Lazys Based in Canada but originally from Australia (where they seemingly soaked up a healthy amount of AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, Airbourne and the like), this hirsute bunch come bearing beer-drinking rock’n’roll rock’n’roll pepped up with louche slide guitar andall and all the swagger.
Handsome Jack Taken from the Lockport, NY band’s new album Everything’s Gonna Be Alright (yours to buy from October 19), this laid-back cocktail of blues, soul, boogie and southern rock brings to mind the likes of Little Feat and Creedence Clearwater Revival, without losing sight of their own slightly off-kilter character. Good music for chilled times.
5
No Law City
6
See The Light
13Apocalypse Now (& Later)
Laura Jane Grace & The Devouring Mothers Chiefly known as the lead singer/guitarist singer/guitarist of punked-up rockers Against Me!, with Apocalypse Now (& Later) Laura Laura Jane Grace takes a detour into pensive, acousticbased tones with this track from her solo band. A gritty yet warming brand of Americana, with nods to Tom Petty, Petty, it’s just a shame it i t ends after little more than two minutes.
Lizzies Riffy, no-bullshit rock’n’roll from Spanish rock/heavy metal four-piec four-piecee Lizzies, which has a video in which the band systematically take down various undesirables and aid their victims, all ending with a big old jam, mixing hints of Motörhead and The Runaways with their own attitude-laden swagger.
14 Different Kinda Girl
The Pearl Harts London’s Pearl Harts pay homage to riot grrrl, 90s girl power, Cyndi Lauper and the suffragettes within the confines of this one song, combining scratchy garagegaragerock guitars and pummelling beats with lashings of attitude.
Austin Gold This is one of our favourites from these Brit rock’n’rollers’ debutBefore debutBefore Dark Clouds , and now they’ve released it as a single. A warm, rousing ear worm of a tune, it blends vintage rock guitar and organ tones with soulful but fresh-sounding vocals vocals (singer David James Smith has been compared to Paul Rodgers, with good reason).
7
Where I’m Headed
8
Diablo, Take Me Home
15 Under No Illusion
Massive Wagons Holy shit! Lil’ old Massive Wagons, Wagons, from Carnforth, made it into the UK To Topp 20 albums chart – the main, official one! That’s pretty bloody good going for a straightup rock’n’roll band operating decidedly outside the mainstream. Still, given that it’s stuffed full of feelgood, no-bullshit romps like this, it’s not hard to see how it caught on. Read our feature on them on page 26.
The Marcus King Band Marcus King is only 22, but he sings and plays with the heartfelt worldliness of someone much older. One of the more chilled tunes from upcoming albumCarolina albumCarolina Confessions(reviewed Confessions (reviewed on page 85), Where I’m Headed is is a gorgeous swirl of brassy soul, southern rock and acoustic layers. Contemplative and uplifting.
Saint Agnes How about a bit of His Darkness Satan for your listening pleasure? Channelling the noisiest side of The White Stripes and Graveltones – all those juddering guitar shrieks and offbeat blues vocals – this is an assured, contemporary hit of garage rock and raw blues.
16 How Is Elvis? Floor Jansen: swapping symphonic metal for good old rock’n’roll with Northward.
RebelHot “How is Elvis, and have you seen him lately?” We have no idea why that line from the first Ghostbusters film film is the first thing that came to mind when we read that title, but it was an oddly pleasing backdrop to this cool, catchy slice of late-60s/ Hendrix-inspired Hendrix -inspired blues rock. Built around an infectious guitar hook, it’s a pleasantly unpolished shot of nostalgia.
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T H E S T TO R I E ES B S EH E I H N ND T H E S O ON G S
Small Faces Lazy Sunday Not representative of the band’s style and released without their knowledge, it nevertheless became a big hit – and, says drummer Kenney Jones, “was the final nail in the coffin in finishing us off”. Words: Richard Purden
PUTTING ON A BRAVE BRAVE FA FACE CE
Small Faces drummer Kenny Jones admits that the band felt hopeless in the aftermath of Steve Marriott’s departure. “We played a few more gigs and that was it,” he says, “it really was very sad. The three of us all felt the same; completely lost and numb, it was like losing a brother. It really felt like someone had died and we didn’t know which way to turn. “We didn’t know what to do, but we knew we didn’t want to re-form. Ronnie Lane was friends with Ron Wood, who didn’t want to play bass any more, and one of his best mates just happened to be Rod Stewart. We were lucky.” And so the Faces – the remaining Small Faces plus Rod Stewart – were born. Some might also suggest it was lucky that Lane was around to intercept a call from Mick Jagger enquiring if Woody was interesting in joining the Stones at this early stage. The story goes that Lane was able to relay a message that Wood was happy where he was. 22
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hile on an extensive tour in the spring of 1968, the Small Faces were blissfully unaware that they’d scored their biggest UK hit single since All Or Nothing – which made No.1 almost two years previously. Lazy Sunday, which started out as something “to make each other laugh more than anything else”, as frontman Steve Marriott put it, is arguably still their best-known song. “We didn’t know anything about it,” drummer Kenney Jones explains today. “Steve Marriott bought a copy of Melody Maker , we read through it, looked at the charts and thought: ‘Fuckin’ hell, we’ve got a hit record here with Lazy Sunday.’” Composed at Marriott’s flat in Chiswick overlooking the Thames, it was inspired by feuds with his neighbours. The then-20year-old Marriott had installed several large speakers in the flat, much to the chagrin of his fellow Eyott Green residents. “He rented this beautiful two-storey t wo-storey apartment with beautiful carpets, paintings, painting s, furniture, fur niture, and it was all wrecked,” wreck ed,” recal recalled led keyb keyboard oard pla player yer Ian McLagan. “And it stunk; the dogs had shit all over the balcony.” In retaliation for the neighbours’ constant banging on the wall, Marriott and his friend Mick O’ Sullivan (the subject of Here Come The Nice and co-writer of Green Circles) also laced the neighbours’ water supply with LSD. While Lazy Sunday is credited to just Marriott and bassist Ronnie Lane, all four members of the band got into the tonguein-cheek spirit of song, sending up their East End childhoods. “Steve wrote most of it,” says Jones. “It started off about the neighbours banging on the walls either side of him, and Ronnie Lane went along with that, but it was mainly Steve. We all added bits, because it was all abou aboutt the the cultur culturee we we were were part of.” Cockney histrionics and an affable enquiry about backache all added to the song’s comical music-hall charm. As did a low-budget promo shot at the drummer’s family home in Stepney in East London. It also featured Jones’s former neighbour pretending to strangle Marriott.
“It’s not something I’d like us to be “We all just went along with the video in remembered for,” he says. “Over the years the end because the song was already a hit,” I’ve come to realise that everyone loves the says Jones. “If you look at the house next song. It’s not one of my favourites. It was door to where Steve is, that’s where my a thorn in our side but I’m stuck with it. I’ve aunt Mary and uncle Bert lived. Uncle Bert had to go along with it, in a sense. But I do had lumbago, so I put that line in there.” see the good side. It’s also awkward to play A suggestion from Hollies singer Allan live. We used to play it with my band the Clarke that Marriott should sing in less of Jones Jon es Gang, Gang, beca because use our bass pla player yer Rick a transatlantic accent was said to have Willis wanted to bring it in, but I cringed inspired the over-the-top cockney every time. We don’t do it any more.” affectations in the vocal performance Following on from the relative (“That sounds like it’s true,” says Jones, immediacy and easy hit status of Lazy “Allan Clarke probably did say that”). It also Sunday, the band struggled to translate further cemented Marriott’s Artful Dodger guise, a role he’d played on the West End Ogdens on stage. At a New Year’s Eve concert in 1968, Marriott walked off stage stage in Oliver! eight years previously, aged and quit, dramatically citing his frustration 13, performing the songs Consider Yourself with wit h the the band’s band’s pop imag image. e. He wen wentt on to and I’d Do Anything. form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton and For all Lazy Sunday’s success, the band gain the rock credibility he craved. members’ feelings for the song haven’t Although Jones went on to enjoy always been all that positive. Jones suggests that Lazy Sunday not only stunted the band’s ban d’s prog progressi ression, on, “It’s not something I’d like us to but was als also o “the “the final nail in the be re reme memb mber ered ed fo for r. It It’’s not not coffin in finishing us off”. one of my favourites.” Recorded as part a successful career with the Faces, and later of Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, their third studio with wit h The The Who Who,, he he says says the Sma Small ll Fac Faces es were were album, it was released ahead of that record “the most meaningful for me because they as the first single from it – against the were we re the mos mostt inv invent entive ive and crea creativ tivee band” band”.. band’s ban d’s wis wishes. hes. “I miss them every day,” he says, “I can’t get “We were trying to lose our teenybopper away from them because I don’t want to.” image and were progressing, especially Today Jones, the last surviving member after recording Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake, of the four-piece, is currently working on which whi ch we wer weree very very prou proud d of,” of,” Jon Jones es says. says. other projects related to Ogdens’ Nut Gone “When another rinky-dink commercial Flake. For all its eccentricities, it’s a groundrecord with Steve singing in a cockney breakin brea kingg reco record rd that that infl influen uenced ced the Sex accent came out, our feeling was that we Pistols and Led Zeppelin and spent six wanted wan ted to be recog recognis nised ed for for our our play playing ing weeks wee ks at at No.1 No.1 in the summ summer er of of 1968. 1968. Lazy and where we were progressing to. We Sunday is still ultimately the album’s best weren’t wer en’t very hap happy py tha thatt Andrew Andrew [Loo [Loogg known song, part of a legacy and a group Oldham, Immediate Records co-founder] that Jones still looks back on fondly. had put it out without our say so.” “They were my friends and my music Despite the band’s difficult relationship buddie bud dies,” s,” he he reflect reflects. s. “I kno know w the the three three of with wit h Lazy Sunday, many people regard the them are dead, but I feel their presence with song as an essential part of the Ogdens me and I know they want me to do this. I’m album’s surreal celebration of a now keeping it alive.” bygone byg one ag age. e. Fifty years after its release, Jones The 50th anniversary deluxe edition of Ogdens’ continues to have bittersweet feelings Nut Gon Gonee Flake Flake is out out now now via via BMG. about the track’s classic status.
G E R E D M A N K O W I T Z / P R E S S
Small Faces: one of the great British bands of the 60s.
THE FACTS
RELEASE DATE April 5, 1968 HIGHEST CHART POSITION UK No.2 PERSONNEL Steve Marriott Lead vocals, guitars Ronnie Lane Bass guitar, backing vocals Kenney Jones Drums, percussion , backing vocals Ian McLagan Keyboards, backing vocals WRITTEN BY Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane PRODUCED BY Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane LABEL Immediate
Dave Davies The Kinks Kinks guitarist on his new album, the 70s, growing up, personal struggles and a new new Kinks Kinks record. Words: Rob Hughes
ave Davies refuses to slow down. Since recovering from a stroke in 2004, the 71-year-old has issued a series of collaborative and solo albums, as well as revisiting his own archive. His latest release is Decade,, which gathers together ‘lost’ songs from the Decade 70s that his sons Simon and Martin salvaged from “under beds, in attics, in storage”. Together they represent a striking, poignant snapshot of a key moment in Davies’s life. Davies founded The Kinks with his brother Ray in London in 1964. The band had a string of Top 20 singles and albums in the 60s and 70s, and in their heyday were one of the great British bands of the era. October sees the release of the 50th anniversary edition of the classic The classic The Kinks Are The Vil Villag lagee Gree Greenn Preserv Preservati ation on Society Society,, with the addition of previously unheard extras. A Kinks exhibition is currently running at Proud Central Gallery in London (see p10).
What’s the story behind the songs that make up Decade? Were the tapes missing, presumed lost? Not lost. Neglected, really. I’d had these songs hanging around for years and they kept nagging away at me, but I was so immersed in the emotions of the time in which they were written that I just couldn’t face going back to them. So I thought I’d let my son Simon have a go at producing them, and he did such a great job. He really brought them back to life again for me. It was really quite an emotional roller-coaster. What were the seventies like for you? We set up Konk [studios] at the beginning of the seventies, which was a good good opp opportun ortunity ity for The Kink Kinkss to reco record rd whene whenever ver we like liked. d. We were going through such a busy time, recording and touring, and Ray was really getting into concept albums. And on a personal level? I was going through some major changes, personally. A lot of my contemporaries made the big mistake of thinking that drugs were the way, but I realised that I had to reassess my whole life. There was a lot of reflection and disillusionment: “What am I doing?” “What’s going on?” I had a spiritual and emotional breakdown in the early seventies. Then I got into yoga and astrology, which I found really helpful. They enabled me to piece together my inner framework in terms of what I was going through. It took me a good couple of years to get out of that rut. And some of these songs touch on that. You can tell I’m in a weird place. It can be a struggle trying to be human. It’s hard work for all of us. So it was difficult going back to specific times and places? Oh yeah, and with all my craziness as part of it. But that’s what we’re supposed to do as artists: to bring out things that aren’t necessarily always pleasant. I always thought that music was a great means to explore the subconscious, as well as everything else it does for us as humans. It’s a way of exorcising a lot of weird shit in us. [Celebrated psychologist] Carl Jung spoke about the collective unconscious. I’m a big fan of Jung, but he only really touched on what was going on. 24 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
One song on the new album, Mid Midnig night ht Sun Sun , seems to be a particularly personal one for you . It’s about my best friend at school, George Harris. We grew up together and played music together and were going to start a band. We were big blues and folk fans, into people like Davy Graham, who was an absol absolute ute gen genius. ius. Georg Georgee is is the the reason reason I do do music, music, real really ly.. The Kinks started to happen, I went away, came back and began looking for him. His mum told me George had died. It was a drug overdose. I was totally devastated. He was so young. Another friend of mine died of a drug overdose too. Those memories still haunt me today. It’s like losing a family member. Every time I sat down to write a song I was partially writing with George in mind. By contrast, Cradle To The Grave is a very nostalgic piece about family and childhood. Ray and I grew up in Muswell Hill in a very loving, supportive family, with wit h six six sister sisterss and and count countless less unc uncles les and aun aunties. ties. Fol Folkk music music grew up out of that kind of environment – small communities, people hanging out at weekends, someone with a banjo and someone sitting at the piano. That kind of sub-plot played throughout all The Kinks’ music. You can find references to that in Muswell Hillbillies [1971], for instance, or Arth or Arthur ur [1969], [1969], which is about family going away and losing touch. The release of Decade also coincides with the new edition of The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Is that cause for celebration? It’s such a very special album for us. I’ve been working on some paintings for the reissue package, and there’s a video of me, Ray and Mick [Avory, Kinks drummer] talking about Vill about Village age Gre Green en and and its various vari ous cha charact racters. ers. Ray has said that it symbolises the end of innocence. innocence. Is that your take on it too? Sort of. But I would always delay growing up as long as possible. There’s a part of me that will forever be like a teenager. I like that youthful part of myself. I think it helps you do creative things. I’ve always had that feeling of being old and young at the same time. So what’s next for you? I’m coming back to England this autumn to do some stuff with Ray that will result in new music, hopefully. Are these the new Kinks songs which Ray alluded to earlier this yea year? r? Yeah. Hopefully it’ll be a new Kinks record. So we’ll see how that goes. Ray and I are both going through a prolific stage at the moment. As you get older you can ponder over things in a different way. wa y. Some Sometime timess you you get mor moree ideas. ideas. I’ve I’ve alw always ays been a very very impatient person, and I still have that impatience when it comes to getting things done. It’s such an exciting time right now. Decade is out now via Red Red River River Entertainm Entertainment/BFD. ent/BFD.
E R P / N I E T K H E V E T S
Dave Davies: “It can be a struggle trying to be human.”
“ Ray and I ar e b o e ot t h g o oi n g t hr o ou g h a p r r ol if ic st a g e o e. I t t’ ’ s suc h an e x xc c i t in g t ime .”
Massive Wagons
They’re Quo fans, live is where they’re at, and their songs are less frivolous than you might think. Interview: Henry Yates Baz Mills is considering what I’d need if
I wanted to join Massive Wagons, the band he fronts. “Loads of shit jokes, bad body odour, and you can’t take yourself too seriously,” he says. It’s the kind of criteria you might expect from a band whose name was inspired by the fullsome bosom bos om of a barma barmaid id in the loc local al pub pub.. But But for all their outward frivolity, these Lancaster rockers have a knack for coming up with stadium-sized tunes, as evidenced by their new album, Full Nelson, Nelson, hitting No.16 in the ‘proper’ UK chart. “It’s been nine years when whe n you you fe felt lt lik likee nobo nobody dy was lis listen tening ing,” ,” Mill Millss reflects, “but now it feels like things are taking off.”
They’re a band for the good times. Like their key influence, Airbourne, Massive 26 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Wagons trade in rabble-rousing livewire shows. “This is feelgood rock music,” says Mills. “The whole who le meanmean-andand-moo moody dy thin thing, g, stan standin dingg in in front front of a wall with your arms folded, you just look like an idiot. As a frontman, I’m making it up as I go along, whether I electrocute myself or fall off the stage. Actually, that happened recently. I’d been reading about Dave Grohl and I thought: ‘What an idiot. How do you fall off a stage?’ But that night I fell on my arse, skidded off the stage and landed on my back. I kept singing, though.”
The title of the band’s new album was inspired by school bullies. The Wagons’ fourth album is full of crunching choruses and ear-boxing melodies. When it came
to naming it, Mills cast his mind back to the school playground of his youth. “I must have written down a thousand album titles. Then I thought, I’ve been in a few few full nel nelson sonss [the [the aggre aggressor’s ssor’s arms under your arms from behind, their hands clasped over the back of your neck] in my time. Back at school I was the smallest in my year and the kid who alw always ays got beat beaten en up. up.””
They write about real life. You wouldn’t call them political, but Massive Wagons touch on weightier themes than their song titles suggest. “Billy Balloon Head is Head is about intolerance,” Mills explains. “China “China Plates is Plates is about social media; people don’t walk down the street and shout: ‘Fuck off,
Massive Wagons: “No we’re not fans of big trucks!”
you’re an idiot’ in your face, do they? Yet people do that to you on Facebook. Robot (Trust In Me) is about some very angry conspiracy theorists I’ve encountered online, who take great offence that you don’t share their opinion that the Queen is a lizard. They pissed me off, so I thought I’d write them a song as well.”
One of their best songs is a eulogy to the late Quo guitarist/vocalist Rick Parfitt. The band’s biggest break to date was opening for Status Quo – and they salute the fallen guitarist on Full Nelson’s anthemic standout. “At our first practice in 2017, our guitarist Adam had this Quo-inspired riff,” Mills recalls. “Sadly, Rick had died that Christmas. There’d been a lot of
high-profile deaths. There was a lot of stuff about Lemmy and George Michael in the press, but there didn’t seem to be a lot about Rick. We’re big fans of Status Quo. So we thought we’d do our bit for Rick. And that was Back To The Stack.”
They’re even better live than on record. If the Full Nelson material sounds like it needs to be heard from the front row, that’s down to Mills’s quirky writing process. “I watched a Foo Fighters documentary,” he recalls, “and Dave Grohl said that when he’s writing writi ng a song song he imag imagines ines peop people le jump jumping ing up and down, and that would become the tempo and the beat. So now now I imagi imagine ne peop people le sin singin gingg along along to our songs, whether that’s in a stadium or a pub.”
They can’t believe their luck. Mills admits that after almost a decade of thankless graft he was short on hope. Then came a deal with Earache Records, that unlikely chart placing – and a new lease of life. “I’ve always been a bit of a cynic,” he says. “I’ve always been the guy going: ‘Nobody’s gonna sign us. They’re not gonna play our songs. Don’t get your hopes up, lads.’ I keep saying it and then I keep getting proved wrong. As far as this band will take us, we’ll do it. We’re not scared of success. There’s other things to be scared of – like spiders.” Full Nelson Full Nelson is out out now now via via Earache Earache.. Massive Massive Wagons Wago ns support support The Dead Dead Daisie Daisiess on thei theirr UK tour in November. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 27
Forty-five years on from their first album, to many Queen remain champions of the world. We look back at their first 15 years, from just another band of hopefuls, to global superstars, through worrying slump to ruling Live Aid. It was no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise, but they kept on fighting. Words: Mick Wall
Y T T E G
“If this is our brightest hope for the future then we are committing rock’n’roll suicide.” Record Mirror Mirror in in the early 70s
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embley Stadium, Stadium, July 13, 1985. When Freddie Mercury skipped like a show pony on to the Live Aid stage, right arm aiming air-hooks at the sea of faces before him, it’s worth wo rth remembe remembering ring that Queen were at a new lo low w point in their career. Following their controversial decision nine months previously to perform at Sun City, jewel in the segregated segregat ed crown of apartheid-ruled South Africa – an act in direct violation violation of United Nations sanctions that would see them fined by the UK Musicians’ Union and placed on a United Nations blacklist – Queen had become pariahs of pop; outcasts of rock; social, musical and political undesirables. undesirables. It didn’t help that Queen had always been portrayed in the press as pompous, aloof, arrogant even. It was there in their music: arch, grandiose, majestic. It was there even in the way they performed: Freddie, pouring champagne over the heads of the audience at Madison Square Garden, boasting boast ing of bring bringing ing ball ballet et to to the the masses masses and and declari declaring: ng: “Darl “Darling, ing, I’m simp simply ly dripping with money! It may be vulgar, but it’s wonderful.” None of that, though, had ever stopped Queen fans from simply loving them, the same way they did the real Royals: unequivocally, unashamedly, undeniably, no matter what. The stink of those South African A frican shows had clung to Queen though in a way it seemed impossible to shake off. Right up to the moment that Freddie plonked himself down at the piano on stage at Wembley Stadium that hot, never-to-be-forgotten day and picked out the blissfully familiar intro to Bohemian Rhapsody – Rhapsody – and all 72,000 people there, plus the 1.9 billion across the globe watching on TV at home, went crazy. From there it just got better. As they segued into the intro to Radio Ga Ga, Ga, Freddie was up and prancing, rolling those shoulders and pursing those lips, eyes sparkling as he waved around that phallic truncated mic stand like a sceptre. Watching a YouTube clip of it now, that glorious moment when the ecstatic Wembley crowd do the synchronised handclapping à la the Radio Ga Ga video, Ga video, the shivers still spiral up the spine. It’s a moment of musical divinity. An actual shot of rock immortality. And Freddie knew it. As Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof put it: “Queen was absolutely the best band of the day. They played the best, 30 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
had the best sound, used their time to the full. It was the perfect stage for Freddie – the whole world. And he could ponce about on stage doing W doing Wee Are Are The Champ Champions ions.. How more perfect could it get?” The answer: it couldn’t. o time for losers. That had always been the Queen credo. Yet only in so much as it applied to the band members’ own aspirations. As Brian May later explained to me: “It wasn’t meant as a put-down put-down or an arrogant thing. When Freddie wrote that it was more directed at himself, a kind of self-affirming thing. You’d say: ‘You can’t do that! We’ll get slaughtered.’ slaughtered.’ He’d just go: ‘Yes we can.’ And he was right.” Any other band might have given up, such were the unpromising unpromi sing circumstances that greeted Queen’s arrival ar rival on to the London scene in 1973. So there was Brian, the nerdy space brain who’d built his own guitar from a fireplace (a what?) and liked to wear capes and clogs on stage; John Deacon, another Bunsen-burning bright boy, who always looked the most doubtful; or as he later put it: “I knew there was som somethi ething, ng,”” but but was wasn’t n’t “co “convi nvince nced d of of it” it” unt until il lon longg after after Queen became stars; st ars; Roger Taylor, Taylor, the blond, pretty-as-a-daffodil
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G E T T Y x 2
Up and coming hopefulls Queen in 1973: (l-r) Roger Taylor, Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon. (They ended up doing quite well.)
ex-public schoolboy schoolboy from Cornwall who’d studied st udied to become a dentist; and up fitted exactly. Bowie Bowie had just retired Ziggy; Zep were already five albums and front the brilliant Farrokh Bulsara – Freddie to his great many friends – who’d a million rainbows in; Yes and Genesis had already demarcated public-school come from a boys’ boarding school near Mumbai, India and was an arty, prog; Rod Stewart and Elton John had cornered the good-geezer/wise-barfly fashion-freaked, Hendrix-obsessed, pan-sexual dynamo who’d renamed market. What use, then, for another bunch of nail-polished, guitar screeching himself Mercury after a line in one look-at-mes? Against that of his own songs. (‘Mother Mercury, backdrop back drop,, what what Queen Queen had to offer appeared highly contrived – look what they’ve done to me,’ from and in 1973 ‘contrived’ was the The Fai Fairy ry King King.) A motley collection of over worst wo rst insult insult you coul could d throw throw at entitled popinjays, you might say a band with pretensions to being – and and the the critics critics said said a lot wo worse rse true album-orient album-oriented ed contenders. – that that had had arrived arrived lat latee for for the gla glam m Even small victories came party, yet still opted for make-up tainted. When The Old Old Grey Grey Whistle Whistle Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof and satin pants while remaining in Test T est producer Mike Appleton thrall to the already past-it hippie fogey-isms of Zeppelin (Ogre Battle, anyone?) commissioned an animated sequence to run on the show as a visual to Or as that redoubtable organ of socio-musicological socio-musicological critique Record Mirror put put accompany a sub-Zep rocker titled Keep Yourself Alive, he admitted he had no it at the time: “If this is our brightest hope for the future then we are idea it was a Queen track. He’d simply “found this white label in my office, no committing rock’n’roll suicide.” name on it, and liked the opening track”. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1973 when Queen’s self-titled first album There’s one thing nobody could deny, though: Queen were always a great was relea released, sed, it was was hard hard to to place place quit quitee where where the the newb newbies-co ies-come-ve me-very-la ry-latel telyy band live live.. They’d They’d been been honi honing ng their their liv livee act all throu through gh the the two two years years itit
“Queen was absolutely the best band of the day. [Live Aid] was the perfect stage for Freddie – the whole world.”
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“The Queen boys had a roof over their heads and an old van. It was like they’d never sold a record.” Music industry manager Don Arden took to complete their first album. Then in October 1973 they got their big break, open opening ing for Mott The Hoople on a 31-date tour of the UK. You couldn’t be ‘contrived’ and pull off performances of cinematic epics like Father To Son and Whit Whitee Queen Queen. Clearly this was a band that knew how to rock. The worry was whether they would wo uld be able able to roll roll with the chang changes es long enough to really catch on. They certainly talked a good game. May laughed when I reminded him once of Freddie’s famous quote from those pre-fame days about refusing to take public transport. “It’s… slightly embellished,” he chuckled. “I did a lot of bus journeys with Fredd Freddie, ie, actual actually ly.. If you ever get on a number nine bus and go upstairs and go to the front left, that’s where Freddie and I used to sit, going up to Trident [studios, which their then managers, brothers Norman and Barry Sheffield owned] to beat them on the heads, to try and make them do something, cos we fel feltt like like we we were were in a backwa backwater ter for for so man manyy years.” years.” The backwater years ended in 1974, with the release in March of Queen II ; more specifically, the hit single Seven Seas Of Rhye. More specifically still, their spectacular performance of it on T Top op Of Of The The Pops Pops. That weekly TV chart show meant everything in that largely pre-video age. As an overimpressionable impressiona ble 15-year old Ziggy-kid with Mott-spots and ZepZep cravings, for me T Top op Of Of The The Pops Pops was where Queen really kept themselves alive in the mid-70s. One wild-eyed shot of them doing Seven Seas Of Rhye had me stealing a ten-bob note from my mum’s purse in order to purchase the single during school lunch hour the next day. It was the same when they came on doing Killer Queen – the most subl sublimel imelyy brillian brilliantt single single of 1974 1974 – lat later er the the same year. As for the adrenalin overload of watching them do Now I’m Here just weeks later. None of that ‘ironic’, ‘we know that you know we’re only miming’ 80s nonsense 32 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Clockwise from top left: Brian May in ’74, Freddie Mercury in ’73, Roger Taylor in ’77.
with Quee Queen n in 1974. Look at the the clip clip now now of Fredd Freddie ie waggl waggling ing his black bla ck nail-po nail-polish lished ed finge fingers rs in you yourr face face during during Killer Queen, wrapped in bum-warme bumwarmerr fur whil whilee Brian Brian and and John John throw throw cool coolerer-thanthan-thou thou,, rockrockidol shapes and Roger pouts as he pounds, and tell me you think they’re faking it. ooked back at now, now, it’s easy to see the rest of Queen’s career trajectory as an enviably upward line of unbroken success. That after the attention-grabbing attention-grabbing Queen II and and the pay-off of Sheer Attack , those two albums released within eight months of each other, their formula for success was firmly established. est ablished. May brought the hard rock (Now I’m Here), Mercury the sophisticated pop (Killer Queen), while Taylor and Deacon were the Ringo and George of the group – the side salad to the steak (although both would later contribute their own significant hit singalongs to the Queen canon.) In fact, the mid-70s found the band in a perilous place. They were big at home in Britain, and through Killer Queen getting bigger in Europe, and had the first signs of a US breakthro break through ugh when both Killer Queen and Sheer Heart Attack Atta ck reached No.12 on their respective charts, but still just wag wagee slaves, slaves, livi living ng in rent rented ed accom accommoda modatio tion, n, sashaying around the clubs at night, scrabbling around to pay the bills the next morning. Roger Taylor later recalled the band coming home from headlining two shows at the 15,000-capacity Budokan in Tokyo in the spring of 1975 and going home to his tiny bedsit in Richmond, and
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Killer Queen: Hammersmith Odeon, December ’75.
“we were still on sixty quid a week”. John Deacon, by now married, had to beg they were fakes. Sure enough, when I walked into their office and announced for the £2,000 he needed as a deposit on a house, while the Sheffield brothers myself it scared the hell out of them. They began talking very fast, chattering who mana managed ged Quee Queen n were were suppo supposedl sedlyy driving driving arou around nd in in Rolls-R Rolls-Roy oyces. ces. away about how they’d just been shopping with their wives buying them Something would have to be done. Quickly. jewellery jewe llery.. They They were were startin startingg to make me sick, sick, so I looked looked at my my watch watch and Enter the most feared manage management ment figure in the London-based music said: ‘Well, we’ve done with the niceties. Now listen to me very c arefully arefully.. I’m business busi ness of of the 1970s: Don Arde Arden. n. Arden Arden (fat (father her of of Sharon, Sharon, soo soon-t n-to-be o-be not here to talk about your fucking wives. I’m here to inform you that you no Osbourne) once described for me how he became involved with Queen. longer represent Queen. It’s over, okay? Finito.’ “Queen was at its height at the time, yet they were penniless,” he said. “They “They looked at each other. They might have put the frighteners on Queen, didn’t even have a car between them. Freddie and the rest of the guys in the but did they hav havee the ball ballss to actual actually ly take take on on Don Don Arden? Arden? No, they fucki fucking ng band ban d were were frien friendl dlyy with with Sha Sharon ron,, and and so the theyy asked asked fo forr [my] [my] ad advic vice. e. I [sa [said] id] my didn’t. They couldn’t even look me in the eyes. They were worried about what advice would be to get their coats on and fuck off! But they th ey said they wouldn’t was comin comingg next. next. Would Would I have have a go? Mayb Maybe. e. But But I wasn’t wasn’t evil to them. them. I did didn’t n’t do that because they were terrified of the Sheffield boys – they had the group have to be. I just told them how stupid I thought they were. In fact I gave them believ bel ievin ingg they they rule ruled d the the stre streets ets of Soh Soho. o. Well Well,, we we woul would d see see abo about ut tha that. t. a bit of a lecture. ‘If ‘ If you’d at least bought them all a fucking car and put a few “Queen was signed to EMI, but the quid in their pockets it would probably deal the label had done had been via the never have come come to this,’ I said. ‘ Why brothers’ brot hers’ own own prod producti uction on compa company ny.. It didn’t you do all that and then think was the same same with with all the deals the band band about screwing ’em? Well, you’ve blown made: nothing was signed directly to it now. They’re gone.’ them, but to the brothers’ production “They hung their heads in shame. company. compan y. As a result, the brothers not I told them that if they agreed to walk only owned their management contract, away right now this instant, they would they owned their recording contract and get a cheque for a hundred thousand Freddie Mercury their song publishing too.” pounds for their trouble and they would As a result, said Don, “the Queen never have to see me again. I pointed out boyss had boy had a roof ove overr their their heads heads and an that if they didn’t agree, however, the old van they travelled in when they group would still be gone but they weree on tou wer tour. r. I could couldn’t n’t beli believe eve it. ItIt was was wouldn’ wou ldn’t get get any any mone moneyy at all, and they’d like they’d never sold a record. I said: have me to deal with. They sensibly took ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ the money. They said: ‘We want you to manage us, “When I got back to the office that Don.’ I said: ‘Okay, get your lawyer to day and told [Queen] what I’d done they send me a letter confirming your literally wept for joy. They were hugging intention to come to me, and I’ll go and me and kissing me. Then as soon as they sort these fucking guys out for you.’ We got their hands on the money I never shook hands on it, and the very next day heard from them again.” I drove up to Soho to see the Sheffields. In fact, as Sharon Osbourne later he th Rising sons: Queen in t “I didn’t actually bother making an explained to me, the band had decided n in te el i heir ho t th f t garden o f appointment, I just turned up. I knew instead to go with Elton John’s 975. , 1 19
“Our songs are like Bic razors – designed for mass mas s consumption and instantly disposable.”
2 22 il 2 o, April yo Tok y
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Queen on the set of Dutch TV show TopPop (Brian May unusually with a Strat instead of his signature Red Special), November 22, 1974.
manager, John Reid. The reason? “ Freddie,” she said. “John was gay too and manager, None of those, though, had ever been released as a single. Yet when Capital I think Freddie just felt safer with him.” Radio DJ Kenny Everett played it 14 times in two days, EMI commissioned A shrewd music biz guru, Reid immediately proved his worth by making the now legendary video, based on images from photographer Mick Rock’s a decision that would transform the band’s lives. It was Reid who put his foot iconic session with the band from the previous year. down and absolutely insisted that the next Queen single should be a track The result was not just the biggest hit of the year, but the biggest hit that, on paper, appeared the least – certainly certainly the most most memor memorabl ablee – in in commercial of all the new material they British music history up to that point. weree worki wer working ng on. on. A mock mock-ope -opera, ra, if you One that perfectly encapsulat encapsulated ed ‘When the suits at EMI heard will,, part will part ballad, ballad, part waltz, waltz, part rocktas rocktastic tic everything that we now think of when we headbanger. It was called Bohemian of Queen: rock grandeur grandeur,, pop camp, Bohemian Bohemia n Rhapsody Rhapsody they nearly think multi-tracked multi-track ed musical ostentation, worksRhapsody. And when the suits at EMI heard it they nearly fainted. This was a joke, fainted. This was a joke, right?’ on-many-levels lyrical imagery, fun, right? Wrong. This was a stroke of genius. frisson, ‘you must be fucking joking’, ‘no We all know what happened next. I’m fucking not’ genius. All wrapped up in a song that would later be revealed as surprisingly autobiographical. autobiographical. oy Thomas Baker, the pop perfectionist who had produced all the For someone who appeared supremely confident, confident, the truth is that by 1975 Queen albums up until then, later recalled his time working with Freddie was in a mental and emotional quandary. Although he’d been in Freddie, listening, listening, mouth open, as the singer demonstrated on the a loving relationship with boutique owner Mary Austin since before Queen, piano an “idea for a song” that he had. he’d been experimenting with men since he was at boarding school. Still “It was going to be a brief interlude of a few Galileos and then we’d get back living with Mary at the time he wrote Bohemian Rhapsody, but now also to the rock part of the song,” Baker memorably recalled years involved with music publisher David Minns, Freddie had also later. “When we started doing the opera section properly, it increasingly begun to enjoy casual gay sex on the road. just got lon longer ger and lon longer ger.” .” As Brian May later explained to me: “The subject of Freddie’s Days went by with the recordin recording. g. Every time a perplexed sexuality never came up. Basically, because none of us had any Baker thought they were done, “Freddie would come in idea that he might be different from us. Is that saying it the right with anot another her lot lot of of lyrics lyrics and and say: say: ‘I’ve ‘I’ve added added a few few more more way? wa y? I mean, we share shared d lots lots of flat flatss and stuff, and I’ve seen Galileos here, dear,’ and it just got bigger and bigger.” Freddie disappear disappear into rooms with lots of girls and screams There had famously been long, ‘journey’ songs on would wo uld emerg emerge, e, so, so, you you know know,, we we assumed assumed that everythi everything ng was albums before; tracks identified by their construction fairly much the same way as we knew it. It was only later that from seemingly disparate elements that built to a we reali realised sed there there was anyth anything ing else goi going ng on with with Fredd Freddie. ie. We We towering towe ring crescendo. The Beatles with A Day were on t tour our in t the he S States, tates, and suddenl sudd enly y he’s got boys boy s Day In In The The Life Life from the Sgt Pepper’s album springs to mind easily, as following him into a hotel room instead of girls. We’re does Led Zep’s Stairway To Heaven. Also, most recently thinking: ‘Hmmm…’ And that’s about the extent of it. Even in the mind of Freddie Mercury, the three-part pop then, obviously, it was never a problem. I always had plenty operetta Une Nuit A Paris from 10cc’s summer 1975 album of gay friends, I just didn’t realise that Freddie was one of The Origi Original nal Soun Soundtr dtrack ack. them until much later.”
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Another day, another iconic stage outfit. Freddie’s harlequin ‘unitard’ was apparently inspired by costumes worn by the legendary ballet dancer Nijinsky in Carnaval in in 1910.
Going hell for leather: this photo and above: Queen at Manchester Apollo, November 1979.
In that context, it’s easy to read the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody as Rhapsody as a cry for impersonation while lying in a bubble bath snorting cocaine in his help almost. Certainly a message in a bottle thrown out to sea by someone £1,000-a-night suite at the Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich. As you do. feeling isolated, isolated, confused, lost. The poor boy, confused between what’s real or Ironically, the bigger and more ostentatious became the Queen modus just fant fantasy: asy: ‘Because Because I’m easy come, easy go, little high, little low/Any way the wind operandi, the operandi, the more they were accused of being hollow, preposterous, blows, doesn’t really matter to me…’ me …’ inalienable. Yet nobody mocked Queen more than Freddie Mercury. “Of None of which was easily detectable to the outside world in the mid-70s, as course, dear,” he told one writer. “We’re wonderfully shallow. Our songs are from this point on Queen really did take on the mantle of rock royalty. The like Bic razors – designed for mass consumption and instantly disposable.” album A album A Night At The Opera emulated Opera emulated the daring and sophisticated splendour Teased about the elaborate stage productions they now toured with, Freddie Fr eddie of its most famous track, and became just as big a hit in its own realm, their laughed and said: “We’re the most preposterous band that’s ever lived.” first UK No.1, their first multiAs Brian May told me: “The platinum platinu m top-five hit in the US, most popular misconception of and gold and platinum stop-offs people outside the people who around the world. ‘get it’, is that [Freddie] took From hereon in, everything himself seriously. [They] didn’t about Queen would be defined in understand that although he took epic proportions. Not just the his work incredibly seriously, success – all of their albums there was always that element of followed A followed A Night Night At The The Opera Opera into into self-parody, if you like, in Freddie. Brian May the upper reaches of the world world’s ’s He was always slightly tongue-incharts, as did most of their singles, all the way up to The to The Game Game in in 1980, which cheek; there was always a little twinkle in his eye. I think that’s what was hit No. 1 in both Britain and America, their last to do so – but also the manner missed by the outside world. It never mattered to Freddie, though, it never of that success, the sheer scale of their endeav endeavours. ours. Not just the increasingl increasinglyy bothered bothe red him. It was was like, like, they they either either get it or or they they don’t.” don’t.” over-the-top songs, but also the videos, live shows, album launch parties and uch hubris reaps its own bitter rewards, of course. And just as Queen of course the personal lifestyles of the band. The infamous launch party in New Orleans in 1978 for the Jazz the Jazz album album seemed like they couldn’t get any higher – Anoth – Another er One One Bites Bites The The Dust Dust featured a guest list of 500: rock and film stars, street f reaks and media (written by John Deacon) from The from The Game Game becam becamee their their second second No.1 hit in the US, followed a year later by their only UK No.1 of the 80s, their loyalists; oysters, lobster, the finest caviar, champagne; David Bowie collaboration Under Pressure – Pressure – they finally flew close to the dwarves serving cocaine from trays strapped to their heads; contortionists, contortionists, fire-eaters, drag queens, naked sun and badly singed their wings. They didn’t make it public, but by the dancers in cages suspended from the ceiling; grand end of making The making The Gam Gamee Queen had all but broken up. “Yes, we all walked out at various times,” May admitted. “You marble toilets ‘serviced’ by prostitutes of both sexes. “Most hotels offer their guests room service,” ser vice,” Freddie get hard times, as in any relationship. We definitely did. Usually giggled. “This one offers them lip service.” in the studio; never on tour. On tour you always have a clear, common aim. But in the studio you’re all pulling in different When the 1979 single Crazy Little Thing Called Love went Love went directions and it can be very frustrating fr ustrating.. You only get twentyto No.1 in America Freddie that boasted it had taken him just 10 minutes to write, doing an Elvis five per cent of your own way at the best of times. So, yes, we
“Although he took his work incredibly seriously, there was always that element of self-parody in Freddie.”
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Freddie Mercury and Brian May (here in 1984) were arguably rock’s greatest ever singerguitarist double act.
did have hard times. Feeling that you’re not being represented, that you’re not Not only had ‘rock’ band Queen abandoned their musical foundation being heard. being heard. Becaus Becausee that’s that’s one of the the thing thingss about about bein beingg a music musician, ian, you stones, also their singer had cut his hair butch-short and grown one of the wantt to be heard. wan heard. You want want you yourr ideas ideas to to be out there. You want want to be be able able to to moustaches that characterised the after-dark scene he now called home. explore what’s coming to you in the way of inspiration. It was a difficult Freddie’s change of image from svelte 70s rock star to short-haired and compromise to find, but always worth finding once you did find it.” moustachioed pop diva was the moment when Queen’s career in America Speaking nearly 20 years later, John Deacon put it more simply: “Once we’d beg began an to to tank. tank. achieved that level level and been successful in so many countries in the world, it “I think there’s a grain of tr uth in that, but there was a lot more going going on, took away some of the incentive.” a number of factors,” May insists. “One “ One of the factors was the video forI for I Want The bottom of the barrel arrived with their 1982 album Hot Space. Space. After Too Break T Break Free Free.. We’re talking about a bit later now, but I know that that was a decade at the top, Queen had demonstrated more versatility than any group received with horror in the greater part of America. Because they just didn’t since The Beatles. It seemed they could do anything, not just bring opera to the get the joke, you know. To them it was boys dressing up as girls and it was charts – opera, dude! – but also Aretha-soul (Somebody (Somebody To Love), Love), effervescent pop unthinkable, unthinkabl e, especially for a rock band. I was actually in some of those TV (Don’t Stop Me Now), Now), music hall (Good (Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy), Boy), rockabilly (Crazy (Crazy stations when they got the thing and a lot of them refused to play it. They Little Thing Called Love), Love), heartland rock (Fat (Fat Bottomed Girls), Girls), Chic-style funk pop were visib visibly ly embarras embarrassed sed about about hav having ing to deal deal with with it. it. So that was one fact factor. or.”” ( Anothe Anotherr One One Bite Bitess The The Dust Dust)… )… With Hot Space they Space they decided they could do disco. He also cited the band’s switch of US label in the early 80s: “We had spent “Freddie and John definitely shared an interest in exploring that funk a million dollars getting out of the Warner-Elektra deal to get on to the Capitol direction,” said May. “I remember Roger’s label. And Capitol got themselves into a heap first reaction to Anot to Another her One One Bites Bites The Dust Dust,, of trouble with [a dispute that raged in the which whic h was was unprint unprintabl able! e! But But he got int into o it early 80s over the alleged corruption of in the end. And I make no apologies for the independent record promoters in the US]. It Hot Space album. Space album. I was well into it at the was basi basicall callyy the the ring ring of bribery bribery that [we [went] nt] Hot Space Space time. It took me a while to get into that on to get records played [on US radio]. There philosophyy of sparseness but it was very philosoph was a gov governme ernment nt enq enquiry uiry int into o it and good for us, it was a good discipline and it everybody shut down very, very fast. got us out of a rut and into a new place.” “Without going into it too deeply, Capitol Brian May The trouble was, disco had already been got rid of all their ‘independen ‘ independent’t’ guys, and done to death, and only recently. By releasing the single the reprisals from the whole network were aimed directly directly at all the ar tists Body Language, Language, a sleek, highly impressive electro-disco who had reco records rds out out at at that that time. time. We We had had Radio Ga-Ga out, Ga-Ga out, which I think bump’n’g bum p’n’grind, rind, they had ali alighte ghted d on the form form just just as was numb number er thirty thirty and and rising, rising, and the wee weekk after after that that it disa disappear ppeared ed rap and soon-to-be hip-hop had reinvented the genre. from the charts completely. We got caught up in all that due to But Freddie couldn’t see it. Now living in New York no fault of our own.” and a nightly habitué of the small-hours gay and Mercury, as ever, affected not to care, as if nothing really S&M clubs where such music writhed and thrived, it mattered. Queen toured South America instead of North wasn’t’t just wasn just the the almost almost suff suffocati ocating ng sound soundss of the tight tightly ly America. “Japan and Europe also became a huge thing for us. wound wo und turnta turntables bles he sought sought to emul emulate, ate, it was was the the Eastern Europe opened up. And we were not seen for quite whole who le limb-ta limb-tangl ngled ed scene. scene. a long time in the States, due to a combination of all the
“I make no apolo apologies gies for the album. It got us out album. of a rut and into a new place.”
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Under pressure? The Wembley Live Aid extravaganza was watched by 72,000 people in the stadium (below) and a global TV audience of 1.9 billion.
circumstances that I’ve described. Plus the fact that Freddie didn’t want to go back smal smaller ler than we’d been bef before. ore. He was was like: like: ‘Let’s ‘Let’s just just wait, wait, and then soon we’ll go out and we’ll do stadiums in America as well.’ Only of course we neve neverr did.” did.”
A few years later I attended the funeral f uneral of Brian Munns, the brilliant EMI press officer who had attended Queen’s career through thick and thin. I was deeply moved to discover he had requested that I Want To Break Free be Free be played as his coffin was ushered into the flames of the crematorium. By then Freddie was dead too, but to hear hear him him croonin crooningg ‘It’s ‘It’s strange but it’s true/I can’t get over the or the Queen traditionalists traditionalists – and there were still many millions of way you love me like like you you do’ do’ brought a happy tear to the eye. For Freddie and them – the release of The of The Works, orks, in in 1984, was an unexpected joy. To Brian, for all of us. call it a return retur n to form would be unjust. It was another move forward, I also recalled the harsh criticism that news that Queen had been added to just less del delibera iberatel telyy weird weird than its muchmuch-derid derided ed predec predecessor essor.. The The electro electronics nics the Live Aid bill had engendered among my colleagues colleagues on the so -called free weree there wer there not not just just to to unbala unbalance nce expec expectati tations, ons, but, as in roy royal al days days of yore, yore, to press. And how none of it really mattered by the time Freddie, Brian, John and become beco me anoth another er QueenQueen-endo endorsed rsed part of of the ove overall rall musi musical cal majesty majesty.. Roger took Wembley and the world by storm that summer. Radio Ga Ga, Ga, written by Taylor, was When, exactly 20 years later, I asked a giant hit, heralding what appeared to Brian May what he would list as be a new new chapter chapter in the the ever-u ever-unfol nfoldin dingg Freddie Mercury’s greatest attributes story of Queen. Even better, though, was as live performer, apart, of course, I Want To Break Free, Free , with its gorgeous from that fantastic four-octave voice, loping rhythm that John Deacon had he replied: “I suppose that again come up with, and blissfully combination of such daring and muted synth solo, played by the great audacity, but also a great vulnerability Fred Mandel, the first significant as well.” Brian May extracurricular musician ever to appear Isn’t that what made them Queen, on a Queen record. The video was a hoot, of though, that ability to be something more than course, with its cringingly short skirts, just a rock rock band? band? crooked women’s wigs, badly drawn lippy “Well, that’s very kind of you,” he said. and droopy cigarettes. The track was “It’s true that to us there were no boundaries. fabulous, joyous and, when listened to alone, Alongside Alongsi de trying to never tread the same s ame away from the hoovering video, a ground twice, there was always this great wonderfull won derfullyy fully fully realised realised deman demand d for for the one challenge of how far can we push things in thing rock music was or iginally invented invented to any direction.” champion: the freedom to be oneself, And on those several occasions when they whoever whoev er the hell that might be, when when no wentt too wen too far? far? one else is looking looking.. “You’d have to ask Freddie.”
F
“There was alwa always ys this great g reat challenge of how far can we push things in any direction.” direction.”
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T O P : G E T T Y ; B O T T O M : A L A M Y
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King of Queen: Freddie ruling Wembley Stadium in 1986.
As the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic biopic finally arrives in cinemas, Brian May looks back at the rocky road to its it s completion, the “bullshit” tabloid rumours, and why casting Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie would have been a “disaster”. Words: Henry Yates
B
rian May can laugh about it now: the fired directors, the departed leading men, the eight agonising years when the Freddie Mercury biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rhapsody, crawled through production, up among the leaders in the bad-luck stakes. “I think the best thing is to look forward, and not back,” bac k,” the the ever ever-di -diplo plomat matic ic Queen Queen gui guitaris taristt consi considers ders whe when n asked asked for his crowning head-in-hands moments. At last, Bohemian Rhapsody is here – and despite that difficult birth, early signs suggest it’s one of the best rock biopics of recent times. From the forensic detail of the sets and costumes, to a soundtrack that takes in unreleased live tracks, this is a time machine for Queen fanatics. But it would be nothing without the lead performance of Rami Malek, whose note-perfect turn is the puzzle piece that May never thought they’d find. “He absolutely smashed it,” the guitarist says. “It’s not enough to look the part. He inhabits Freddie.”
Did you ever think that this project wouldn’t make it? Oh, there were about a thousand moments when we doubted it was going to get made. It was a very bumpy ride, but that’s the way life is 76 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
sometimes. Things are not alwa always ys straightforward, and perhaps in the end they’re better for it. In a way it mirrors the actual history of the band. We hardly had a smooth path in Queen, but some of those moments of adversity do make you stronger, and it’s the same for the film. I wouldn’t even hesitate to say I think it’s wond wonderful. erful.
How do you feel when you watch it – happy, sad, nostalgic? All of that, yeah. Joy and horror and sadness and all those big emotions. I’ve seen it hundreds of times now, in fragments and eventually coming together, and it still gets me, I must say. It’s very emotional. It’s all about Freddie. Yes, Yes, we are in there, but the story is about Freddie and that was always the aim. Obviously Freddie is so precious to us. One of the great breakthroughs early on was [screenwriter] Peter Morgan saying: saying: “This is a film about family.” It’s about all the stuff that happens in a family – some good, some bad, the going away, the searching for independence and then the nurture of the family family.. It’s a film about that stuff, on one level, and then it’s about Freddie’s emerging talent, his amazing resilience and sense of humour.
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“It’s a film which portrays the truth, in a fairly gritty and honest butt also bu also ente entertai rtainin ning g wa way.”
BRIAN MAY A star is born: Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in the film Bohemian Rhapsody .
oung yo he y th te er: t nd a f t an fo ore a Be f fo ore and Queen cas t be f ardrobe… wa er w te (belo w ) a f t
The film ends with Queen playing Live Aid in 1985. Was there a temptation to go beyond bey ond that? No. I think there’s a natural culmination there. And that has pretty much always been the case, from the earliest scripts. We felt that was the pinnacle – despi despite te what what some peop people le hav havee said said in the pres press, s, who kno know w fuck fuck-al -alll abou aboutt it. it. Somebo Somebody dy who shal shalll be namel nameless ess said said:: “Oh, “Oh, they’r they’ree goin goingg to to portray portray Freddie dying in the middle of the movie, and then the rest of it is gonna be about life without Freddie.” Well, complete bullshit. This is all about Freddie, and I think Live Aid is a good point to leave it. Who knows, there might be a sequel [laughs].
And it actually wasn’t rocket science to figure that out. But yeah, that’s one of the rocks that we near nearly ly hit. I think think we wer weree all all nervo nervous us in in the the beginni begi nning, ng, whe when n the the castin castingg proce process ss was was goin goingg on. on. Because yes, that’s a real tough thing to contemplate – somebody playing the part of you. The guy who plays me, Gwilym Lee, I spent a lot of time with him, so he understood me. He’d be picking up my mannerisms and what makes me tick. So when Freddie and me are in the studio, confronting each other, it’s very real. Some of it was imp improv rovised ised,, but but they did it wit with h the the know knowledg ledgee that they understood us from the inside out.
Is it an entirely flattering portrayal of Freddie, Was playing at Live Aid one of the best days to or does it show his flaws, too? be a membe memberr of of Queen? Queen? Yeah, it shows everything. Nobody thinks Freddie’s It was an amazing moment. And pretty much perfect, but he sure was unusual. You see it all. Not unexpected, because we in a gratuitous way. It’s weree the wer the last last band band to be not meant to be messy booked boo ked on the bil bill,l, and and it and licentious, and I think “It’s all about Freddie. that was a good decision. was all sol sold-ou d-outt befor beforee we we weree even wer even ann announ ounced. ced. So Yes, we are in there, But it’s not a druggy we knew it wasn wasn’t’t a Que Queen en audience, and we went on rock movie? but the st story ory is is not expecting much, No. It didn’t need to be. about Freddie.” feeling a bit like the All that stuff is in there. outsiders. To see that But you don’t need to be response was mind-blowing. And you’ll see that in revelling in scenes of debauchery. Not that Freddie the film – and from our point of view, too, which is was parti particul cularl arlyy debau debauched ched any anywa way. y. I kno know w some some whatt you wha you can’t get get from from a docu documen mentary tary.. You’r You’ree people were looking for that. But no, it’s a film looking at a fantasy recreation, but it’s which whic h portray portrayss the the truth, truth, in a fairl fairlyy gritty gritty and and astonishingly real. honest but also entertaining way. Finding the right person to play Freddie was always going to be a nightmare, wasn’t it? I think we all thought it would be difficult. At some points we thought it was impossible. But along came Rami, and we had a great feeling immediately. immediately. I suppose if Sacha Baron Cohen had kept the lead role, you’d never have found Rami? Well, that was a near-disaster. I think we realised just in time time wha whatt a dis disaste asterr that that was goi going ng to be. 78 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Do you think Freddie would have approved of and liked the film? I do. I think he would have felt it was a fair cop, really. It shows all his greatness and all his fallibility and insecurity – the whole bit. I think it shows him very truth truthfull fullyy and and not not syco sycophan phantica tically lly,, but but in a wayy that wa that appr apprecia eciates tes his tale talent. nt. Beca Because use he was was sure was unique. I’ve never met anybody like Freddie in my life, before or since, and it’s probably not going to happen again.
ographed on se t b y to …pho t or his fo y f Dr Brian Ma y D book. 3D n 3 In te ed Queen I upda t
Do you think Freddie could have been a good film star? No. He didn’t have the patience. He was offered a residency in the West End at one point, and he said: “Yeah, I’ll do it. How many shows a week?” They said: ‘Eight.” And he said: “I’ll do a couple.” He didn’t like repeating stuff. Patience was not one of Freddie’s virtues. I think he would have found it difficult turning up every day on the set. I don’t think that would have lasted long [laughs]. Which is your favourite scene in the film? My favourite Rami moment is when Freddie is plucking up the courage to tell us he’s going off to do his solo album. It’s a wonderful piece of acting – and and a lot of that that wasn wasn’t’t in in the the script. script. And when I watch it I feel that is so Freddie. He’d talk quietly, puff on his cigarette, not want to come out with the words. wo rds. Eve Eventua ntually lly he did did it – in a very very cut-a cut-and-d nd-dry ry manner. But you can see the angst inside. That scene nearly got cut from the movie – that’s a little secret – just because there’s always this pressure to make things shorter. But we fought for that scene to stay in, because the realism of it is quite gut wrench wre nching ing.. That That was a diffi difficult cult mom moment ent for us. It’s It’s Freddie kinda leaving his family. You’ve also updated your Queen In 3-D book with exclusive photos from the film set. What was it like being there? Various different emotions, really. In the early days with wit h [dire [director ctor]] Bryan Bryan Sin Singer ger,, itit was was very very taut taut and tense, and I didn’t feel some of the time that I ought to be there – I felt like I was interfering in the process. But nevertheless I was, and I took the camera and captured some moments in the shooting. In the latter part, when Dexter Fletcher took over the direction, it was like a different universe, with everybody very jolly and relaxed. I think the movie benefits from both regimes; it has a very serious undercurrent, but also has some lightness, a lot of real joy and fun.
T H I S S P R E A D : B O H E M I A N R H A P S O D Y 2 x S T I L L S C O U R T E S Y O F T W E N T I E T H C E N T U R Y F X
y:: Malek ’s our bo y t’s Tha t nd an y a th Brian Ma y wi th wi yllor. Roger Ta y
Dop opp pelg lgan ange ger: r: May with ith G Gw wily lym m Lee, who play ays s him him i in n t th he fil film m.
Do you think the film will satisfy the hardcore Queen fans? Yeah, I think it will. It satisfies us. It makes us feel something.. There’s a lot of incredib something incredible le detail. All our technical people were involved, so if you look around at the guitars and amps you see on stage at Live Aid, you’ll see they’re pretty damn perfect and correct. And the guys who built the Live Aid set itself [for the film] were the guys who built the original. Of course, there’ll alway alwayss be things you can find fault with. There is no such thing as a perfect film, and Queen fans will understand when they see itit that that certain certain thin things gs have have been moved around for the story to make sense. You can’t collapse forty years of a person’s life into two and a half hours without cutting out a lot of stuff. I heard that even Roger Taylor’s socks are period-correct. I don’t know about the socks. To be honest, not all of the clothes are exact reproductions by any means, but the significant details are pretty much there. Once the film was in motion, it was not our film any more, it was Fox’s film. They were paying the bills. So we certainly didn’t go into the studio and tell people what to do. If there was something which whi ch reall reallyy rankle rankled d – some somethin thingg that that was obviously not right – then we would say it very quietly to the director and let him sort it out. -
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Did you really play your Red Special guitar with a violin bow, like in the film trailer? No. The funny thing is, the trailer people work from film stock which is their own. So a lot of what’s wha t’s in the trail trailers ers is is not not in the movi movie. e. The The scene scene with me and and the bow was shot as part part of a bun bunch ch of experimental things. We weren’t there for the shoot. And when I saw it I went: “No, that’s not whatt happen wha happened. ed. And And don don’t’t let’s let’s even even prete pretend nd itit happened, because that’s a Jimmy Page thing, that’s not me.” But the trailer people liked it. That’s
Champions of the world: the Live Aid scene from the film.
all I can say. But no, you won’t see that in the movie.
The soundtrack includes your unreleased Live Aid set, doesn’t it? Yeah. There’s some good live stuff, some of which hasn’t been on albums before. But also, there’s some of the early stuff that wasn’t recorded at the time. For instance, Freddie coming to see me and Roger play as Smile. That’s all depicted in the movie. And we weree abl wer ablee to to recr recreat eatee some some of those bits of music, which was a lot of fun. Tim Staffell [Smile vocali voc alist] st] actu actuall allyy came came in in and and recorded it with us, so on the movie soundtrack album there’s a Smile track [Doing [Doing All Right]. Right].
Do you think you could you handle being part of the Hollywood machine in the longer term, or would would that life eve eventually ntually giv givee you you a nervous breakdow breakdown? n? Well, it’s funny what you can adapt to. You can enjoy being being a part of it for a while, but it’s heavyduty. The figures – in terms of money – are a hundred times bigger than what we deal with every day. It’s a different world. And the amount of wastage is incredible. But a lot of wonderful things happen. And I think tthere’s some magic in this film. Bohemian Bohemi an Rh Rhaps apsod odyy hits hits cin cinema emass on on Oct 24. Quee Qu een n In3-D:Up Upda date ted d Ed Edit itio ion n by Br Bria ian n Mayis publ pu p blis ishe hed d onOc Octt 23 by TheLon ondo don n St Ster ereo eosc scop opic ic Company and is available for pre-order. C CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 79
They were the band of the moment, poised to write their name in the brightest lights. Then they hit the self-destruct button. Since then Enuff Z’Nuff have continued to try to fly high again. Words: Dave Everley
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here have been times when Chip together. He talks with an accent as wide as the these songs,” says Z’Nuff. “We’d get an ounce of Z’Nuff could have rolled over and Lake Michigan waterfront and a rasp like cocaine and a couple of bottles of Jack Daniel’s given up, and nobody would have a malfunctioning hair dryer. “Although the music and go for it. blamed bla med him. business busi ness will brin bringg the the worst worst out in yo you.” u.” One of the peculiarities of talking to Z’Nuff is During the glory days of the late He’s an inveterate networker, too. During our that he frequently uses the word ‘we’ when 1980s, his band Enuff Z’Nuff were fêted as rock’s conversation he drops in the names of various referring to his band’s ill-starred narcotic history, Next Big Thing. They were power-pop princes in people he’s crossed paths with, from legendary despite insisting that he never indulged in anything glam-metal clothing – The Beatles and Cheap Trick music mogul Clive Davis, who signed Enuff Z’Nuff stronger than pot. reinvented for the lip gloss-’n’-hair-spray set. to his label, Arista, in the early 1990s, to fellow “I never fell into the drugs,” he says. “I knew we Bassist Z’Nuff and singer/guitarist Donnie Vie were Chicagoan Kanye West; Z’Nuff worked with the couldn’t do any business if we were all fucked up. one of the great double acts of the era. They were rapper in 2007 on an album by West’s protégé, But you are the company you keep. If you’re blood blo od brot brothers, hers, as close close a pairin pairingg as yo you’ll u’ll find find,, Malik Yusuf. “I thought it would show people that hanging out with somebody who’s all fucked up and together they had the drive, the ambition and we wer weren’t en’t just rock musi musician cians, s, that that we wer weree sixsixon the hard stuff, well guess what – you’re fucked the songs to become stars. trick ponies,” he says, and then laughs a throaty up as well. I include myself, cos that’s my team.” Unfortunately, they also had a superhuman laugh. “Obviously that failed miserably.” The hard stuff was the provision of Vie and capacity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, It’s this enthusiasm for life that has kept Enuff guitarist Derek Frigo, a local hotshot who joined which whi ch the theyy proc proceed eeded ed to do at eve every ry step step alo along ng the Z’Nuff afloat through their turbulent career, and Enuff Z’Nuff in 1988, a year before they recorded way. wa y. For all the gre great at mus music ic the theyy hav havee made made,, Enu Enuff ff got them off the ground in the first place. “There their self-titled debut album. The pair’s chemical Z’Nuff’s career has been punctuated by proclivities often came close to undoing drug-induced self-sabotage, inglorious whatt Z’Nuff wha Z’Nuff was tryin tryingg to to build. build. failure, premature death, bankruptcy, “Everyone was fairly jacked up,” says “We knew we had a good sound. Z’Nuff. “I found myself always trying to a constant churn of record labels and personnel, and ultimately the acrimonious breakk up up fights fights,, trying trying to keep the drug We were very flamboyant, very brea dissolution of the brotherhood between the dealers away from the band. I tried to make two men at the heart of it. As Z’Nuff, a man the road a little bit smoother for us. It never colourful, we looked great.” not prone to under-exaggeration, puts it: “It’s was, it was was const constant antly ly bum bumpy py.” .” Chip Z’Nuff on their 80s beginnings been bee n te ten n step stepss forw forward ardan and d thir thirty ty ste steps ps ba back. ck.”” Bumpy or not, the road eventually led But quitting has never been Chip Z’Nuff’s them to Atco Records, who threw their style. Almost 30 years after Enuff Z’Nuff’s debut weree a lot of obsta wer obstacles cles bac backk then,” then,” he says says of the the weight wei ght beh behind ind the ban band. d. All All the sig signs ns poin pointed ted to album, he’s still flying the flag for the band that band’s band ’s begin beginnin nings gs in in Chicag Chicago o in 1983 1983.. “There “There wer weree stardom. They looked like part – psychedelic glamshares his name. Their new record, the iridescent a ton of groups out here who were kicking ass but metal gypsies in billowing shirts and purple-tinted couldn ldn’t’t get get arrest arrested.” ed.” granny glasses. MTV embraced the Beatles-y Diamond Boy, is as good as anything they’ve released just cou since their late-80s/early-90s heyday. He’d put the band together with Donnie Vie, singles New Thing and Fly High Michelle. Their a wild kid from a broken home. Z’Nuff, five years It’s also the first record Z’Nuff has made without sparkling self-titled debut album sold half a million Vie; Z’Nuff handles vocals, although the spectre of older, took Vie under his wing. “The bond was copies – not Guns N’ Roses numbers, but certainly his former bandmate haunts songs like Dopesick unbreakable,” unbreaka ble,” he says. “The task as hand was: ‘Let’s respectable. Then the label dropped a bombshell. and Down On Luck. ‘I’m living in a world of pain and writee some writ some great great son songs.’” gs.’” “They came to us with a bill for $775,000 and They bought a drum machine, moved into said: ‘That’s what you owe us,’” says Z’Nuff. “We mixing it with cheap cocaine ,’ Z’Nuff sings on the latter, a barely disguised reference to his old frienda flophouse and began writing those songs. They said: ‘We sold half a million records and we still turned-unwilling antagonist. played anywhere that would have them, passing owe three quarters of a million dollars?’” “I put the band together back in the eighties and their tapes on to anyone who would listen. “We Undeterred, they recorded a follow-up, the I didn’t wanna give it up,” Z’Nuff says proudly. “The weree full wer full of of piss piss and and vin vinega egar,” r,” say sayss Z’Nuff. Z’Nuff. “W “Wee magnificent Strength. It matched its predecessor choo-choo train still has some fuckin’ coal in it.” knew we had a good sound. We were very sales-wise, and even Rolling Stone took notice, flamboyant, very colourful, we looked great.” declaring Enuff Z’Nuff to be the hottest rock band hip Z’Nuff is a natural-born optimist. They were opportunists, too. They recorded of the year. But their debts were mounting. “There’s not a lot of pessimism in my life,” a demo at a studio in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. “Here we are, making great records, touring the admits the man born Greg Rybarski in Blue “We’d sneak in the studio at two o’clock in the country,” says Z’Nuff. “It was everything we wished Island, Chicago around the time The Beatles got morning when everybody was done and record for, yet we’ve got no dough. On top of that,
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48 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
G E T T Y
ENUFF Z’NUFF
“I found myself always trying to break up fights, trying to keep the drug dealers away from the band.” Chip Z’Nuff “I met Billy at a funeral, and said: ‘Are you aware of my band, Enuff Z’Nuff?’” he says. “He goes: ‘Are you kidding? I got the Strength Strength album album in my car right now.’ I thought maybe if I get some of the musicians in Chicago to come in and cameo on the record it would help elevate Enuff Z’Nuff’s name.” It didn’t. The bumps in the road got bigger and more frequent. Enuff Z’Nuff cycled through a steady stream of band members and managers. In 2007, drummer Ricky Parent lost his battle with cancer. Three years earlier, former guitarist Derek Frigo, who had been fired in 1993, had died of a heroin overdose; for a while it looked like Donnie Vie would follow him. “I was there for my brother all the way,” says Z’Nuff. “However, if I said there wasn’t any stress and aggravation, that wouldn’t be true.” The cause of that stress and aggravation was having problems of his own. Since the beginning of Enuff Z’Nuff, Donnie Vie had been getting fucked up. And the only way he knew how to deal with wit h that that was by get gettin tingg even even mor moree fucked fucked up. or a man who has spent a large chunk of the past 30 years in a bad place, Donnie Vie hasn’t lost his sense humour. “A bad place? Ya think so?” he says drily. Vie currently lives in California. He’s two thirds of the way through recording a new solo album, the follow-up to 2014’s The 2014’s The Whit Whitee Album Album released released soon after he quit Enuff Z’Nuff for the second and final time. “I should have done it a long time before that. I just wasn’t ready,” he says of his departure. “I’ve just out outgro grown wn it. It’s not tha thatt big big a deal deal.” .” Except it is. Whether he likes it or not, Vie is still inextricably linked with the group he joined as a teenager 35 years ago. But any pride he takes in being part of Enuff Z’Nuff for so long is overshadowed by a mixture of ambivalence and frustratio fr ustration. n. “I made I don’t know how many records, and wrote wro te all all the son songs gs and san sangg ’em, ’em, and and near nearly ly kill killed ed myself doing it,” he says. “It’s part of my history. But that’s what it is: history.” He was a kid named Donald Vandevelde when he met Chip Z’Nuff back in the 80s. “Fucked up, came from a dysfunctional home, manic depression, ADHD, bi-polar, all of that shit,” he says. “Like anyone in that situation, as soon as you can you find something to drink or smoke so you don’t feel like this depressed, insecure piece of shit.” Asked what his poison of choice was, he laughs. “It would be easier to say what it wasn’t. I didn’t like acid. I was a great lover of the stimulants, but then comes the stress and you need something to equalise it, and before you know it you’re in a vicious vici ous loo loop. p. You beco become me this this mon monster ster.” .” Vie’s relationship with Chip Z’Nuff was complex even back then. He credits the bassist with helping
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High on a new thing: Chip Z’Nuff in 1989.
because of our because our prob problem lemss with with subst substanc ancee abuse abuse we weren’t wer en’t focu focusin singg on on the the shit shit that that was all arou around nd us business busi ness-wis wise.” e.” Z’Nuff decided to hit the nuclear button: he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on behalf of the band. It was a risky risky gamb gamble, le, one that cou could ld hav havee turned turned Enuff Z’Nuff from bright young things into music industry pariahs. But it paid off when Clive Davis – the the man man who who buil builtt the the careers careers of an an impr impressiv essivee list of artists including Aerosmith and Whitney Houston – offered them a deal with Arista. “Clive knew when he signed the band that we had a few issues, but he was unaware of just how bad they were,” says Z’Nuff, who claims that Vie was arrested for drug possession the night before bef ore a cruci crucial al mee meetin tingg with with the lab label. el. “But he went with us. He said: ‘I don’t care what it takes to get that vocal out of your brother, make it happen.’” 50 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
He wrangled the vocal from Vie, but that was pretty much all he got out of their time with the label. Enuff Z’Nuff’s third album, 1993’s Anim 1993’s Animals als With Huma Humann Intel Intellig ligence ence,, was released just as the grunge wave crested. The band remained stuck in the traps. Within a year they were off Arista. “We weree never wer never fire fired, d, we we were were nev never er drop dropped,” ped,” say sayss Z’Nuff. “But we found ourselves in debt again.” Chip Z’Nuff being Chip Z’Nuff, he wasn’t about to let everything he’d built fall to pieces. The bassist bassi st hustl hustled ed and cajo cajoled led his wa wayy throug through h the the next few years, releasing a string of albums on assorted independent labels. He sstill had enough charm to persuade the likes of Cheap p Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Styx guitarist Jamess ‘JY’ Youn J Jame oungg and and the SSmashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan to appear on the band’s 11999 album Paraphernalia Paraphernalia..
G E T T Y
Seeing the world through rose-tinted spectacles? Chip Z’Nuff with the 2018 version of Enuff Z’Nuff.
uff Z’Nu d Ch Chip Z’N and t) an eft) (llef Vie ( nie Vie onn Don d Ro Rock ard Har att H uff a ’Nuff Z’N uff Z h En Enuff ith wit 0. 2010. berr 201 mbe cem Dece Hell, De
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turn him from feral street kid into a proper musician and songwriter, and doesn’t deny that Z’Nuff’s drive was the thing that got Enuff Z’N Z’Nuff where whe re they they did did.. But But he he’s dis dismiss missive ive abou aboutt their their perceived roles in the band. “He had a problem with being upstaged,” says Vie. “To this day he goes around claiming he wrote all the songs. He really didn’t. He made a very minimal contribution. Chip was a great player and a star, but he wasn’t an artist.” Vie was uncomfortable at being bundled into the glam-metal movement, but he was too messed up to do anything other than go along with it. “There was Donnie V ie a lot of drinking, a lot of in 2 20 018. drugs, a lot of girls,” he says. “The music and the shows was extra extra-curri -curricula cularr to to the the party. It was like a carnival ride. This thing was spinning so fast. And once that carnival ride is rolling there’s no way you can get off.” Through his narcotic haze, haze, Vie watched his band’s initial promise dissipate. He wasn’t asn’t unaware of the problems, s, just nu numb mb to the them. m. “Oh, it’s my fault that I wasn’t in any kind of mental shape to say this iss wrong, wro ng, tha that’s t’s wron wrong,” g,” he says. “When it came to that atkind in of o decision ecis ec isio ion n making, I’d just disappear.”.” More than once, he says, he tried to make a solo album, only for “other people” to muscle in and co-opt it as an Enuff Z’Nuff record. “Next thing you know, you’ve got a deal, you’re playing shows, you got money and you’re back on the carnival ride. I kept fooling myself, thinking: ‘This time it willl be dif wil differe ferent.’ nt.’” It wasn’t. Vie quit Enuff Z’Nuff for the first time in 2003, only to find himself pulled back in a few years later. It looked like he had as much trouble breakin brea kingg his his addic addictio tion n to to the the band band as as he did to narcotics. He left Enuff Z’Nuff in 2013. It would wo uld be anot another her cou couple ple of years years before bef ore he quit quit drug drugs. s. The The tipp tipping ing point came when he returned from a European tour and was pulled off the plane by the police for an outstanding drug warrant. He could have gone to prison for a long time, but instead the court offered him the option of undergoing a programme to get clean. He seized the
“I made I don’t know how many records and wrote all the songs and sang ’em, and nearly killed myself doing it.” Donnie Vie
opportunity. “It was time to op stop the ride,” he says. sto It worked. Vie says he’s been een clea clean n for for more more than ttwo wo aand n a half a yyears. ears. The T e programme p helped him deal with an array of health issues, ranging from rotten teeth to hepatitis C (a disease common among intravenous drug users). “I have a lot more days where I’m not not happy, where whe re I’m I’m not not all all strun strungg out,” out,” he says. says. “It’s grea greatt that I know I’m not going to be in the studio for the next thirty-six hours because I’m all fucked up, afraid of the sun. There’s a lot of things I don’t miss about those days.” One of those things, apparently, is Chip Z’Nuff. Vie hasn’t spoken to his former bandmate in four years, and shows no signs of wanting to change that any time soon. “There’s no real reason to do that,” he says. “I could never function in that band ban d the the way way he has has itit orche orchestra strated ted withou wit houtt being being med medicat icated. ed. Ther There’s e’s no no way way I could deal with that…” He searches for the word. “Buffoonery.”
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nd so here we are in 2018. Chip Z’Nuff and Donnie Vie have separate lives, separate careers. Despite his upbeat
demeanour, Z’Nuff can’t quite keep the disappointment out of his voice when he talks about his former colleague and friend. “The only time we talk is when it has to do with money, and it’s always through his manager, who is his brother-in-law,” says Z’Nuff. “I love the guy, but I don’ don’t feel feel tha thatt lov lovee is reci recipro procate cated.” d.” Z’Nuff says that Derek Shulman, the man who signed them to Atco Records all those years ago, attempted to broker a rapprochement in 2016 with a view to getting the pair back together to make a new album. According to Z’Nuff, Vie wasn’t interested in the songs he’d written. “That’s why I’m singing on the new album,” he says. “Listen, Donnie and I did a lot of stuff together. But when you don’t have your partner with wit h you you it’s swi swim m or fuck fuckin’ in’ dro drown. wn. And tha that’s t’s whatt I did wha did,, I swa swam.” m.” Vie says he hasn’t heard the latest Enuff Z’Nuff record. Nor does he sound like he wants to. “I’ve moved on,” he says. “All that shit’s in the past.” There’s no fairy-tale ending in sight for Enuff Z’Nuff, but then there wasn’t much of a fairy tale beginni begi nning ng eit either her,, the the brothe brotherly rly bon bond d stron stronger ger in theory than in reality. But as long as Chip Z’Nuff has air in his lungs and there’s coal in the engine, that choo-choo train will keep on rolling. Enuff Z’Nuff’s latest album Diamond Boy is out now via Frontiers. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 51
M Y R I A M S A N T O S
After the kind of success most can only dream about, Steve Perry said it was all over; that he’d fallen out of love with the music industry and left it behind for good. Then he started believin’ again… Words: Paul Elliott
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ome words he sang in 1981 have echoed down the years: ‘Don’t stop believin’, hold on to that feelin fee lingg…’ And yet in the life of Steve Perry there was a long long peri period, od, the best part of 20 20 years, years, whe when n his belief in music, and the feeling he put into it, seemed lost forever. For the man whose richly expressive, high-arcing voice helped Journey to become one of the biggest rock groups in America in the 80s, the now 69-year-old’s solo album, T Tra races ces, is a surprise comeback. It ends a self-imposed exile from the music business that began soon after T Trial rial By Fir Firee, his final album with Journey, released in 1996 – the year in which Oasis and the Spice Girls ruled the British charts, Alanis Morissette’s Jagg Jagged ed Litt Little le Pill Pill was the biggest-selling album in America, Bill Clinton was in the White House and John Major was at Number 10. As Perry says now: “I had lost that deep passion in my heart for the inner joy of songwriting and singing. I sort of let it all go. If it came back, great; if it didn’t, so be it, because I’d already lived the dream of dreams.”
His long absence from public life has made Perry something of an enigma; the guy who had it all and walked away, the legendary singer who fell silent. In all the time that Perry remained a recluse – as he puts it: “living my life in quietness, in privacy” – Journey carried on, bringing in Perry sound-alike singers Steve Augeri, Jeff Scott Soto and latterly Arnel Pineda, a Filipino discovered via YouTube performing in a Journey tribute band in Manila. Journey’s Jou rney’s pro profile file rose aga again in when Don’t Stop Believin’, a Top 10 US hit in 1981 and a classic rock radio staple ever since, becamee more becam more popu popular lar tha than n ever, ever, a glob global al anth anthem, em, after it was feat featured ured in the cult film Monster , the acclaimed TV series The Sopr Soprano anoss and the hit teen show Glee. Perry, meanwhile, made only fleeting appearances in public – singing along to at baseball games, joining alternative rock Don’t Stop Believin’ at group Eels on stage to run through old Journey hits and, more surprisingly, the Eels’ bluntly named It’s A Motherfucker . Before his comeback, Perry had felt he was done with his career in music. He also felt he had done enough. The classic albums he made with Journey and as a solo artist – from
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Infinity to Escape, Frontiers, Street Talk and Raised On Radio – had sold millions. The songs he sang had helped define a golden age of melodic rock. His return to music, so late in life, is not driven by a need for money or validation. It’s the result of something far more meaningful. “It came out of falling in love with somebody and then losing her a year and a half later,” Perry says. “Her name was Kellie Nash. She had stagefour cancer when I met her, and we had made some promises to each other, one of which was that I would not go back to into isolation if something happened to her.” After a moment’s hesitation, he says simply: “I kept that promise.” t’s a late summer evening when Classic Rock catches up with Perry, at home near San Francisco. His high, singsong voice is unmistakable, his manner friendly and engaging. There is also a remarkable degree of candour in whatt he reve wha reveals als abou aboutt certain certain cha chapte pters rs in in his his life life – his his exit exit from Jou Journey rney in the the late late 80s; his searc search h for peace of mind away from the bright lights of rock stardom; most revealingly, his brief, intense relationship with Kellie Nash. In these moments he seems wide open, extraordinarily so for a man who retr retreat eated ed from from fame and from the pub public lic gaz gazee for such long a time. It is when addressing other subjects – specifically his past drug use and the possibility of him rejoining Journey – that his voice hardens a little and his answers turn more defensive or oblique, or rises as he parries a question with an offhand joke. From one such exchange comes a blunt disclosure. Asked why he rarely gave interviews to the press at the height of his fame in the 80s, he replies: “You really want to know? Will you print what I say right now?” He laughs long and hard. “Because I don’t trust journalists! I’ve had good experiences, and some not so good. I’m missing fingers, still, from the lion’s mouth.” He says he hated being misquoted in the press. More than that, what really hurt were the bad reviews the band received. For many critics, Journey’s Jou rney’s eve everyman ryman rock was always a soft target. “I only read three reviews in my whole who le life, life,”” he say says. s. “Then “Then I decided I wasn’t going to read them any more. Every night, we’d get one encore, a second encore. That was my review. I didn’t need to read tomorrow’s paper.”
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Perry with Journey in 1980, and (inset) 1979: (l-r) Neil Schon, Aynsley Dunbar, Gregg Rolie, Ross Valory, Steve Perry.
“I had lost that deep passion in my heart for the inner joy of songwriting and singing.” So what’s changed? Perry says he has. “The passion for music came back. Singing again, I was getting goose bumps. It touches me. Nothing is bigger big ger than tha thatt for for me. So So that’s that’s why I’m talk talking ing to you now. Because I never thought I’d never feel like this again.” hen Perry thinks back to his childhood, he says wistfull wist fully: y: “Music “Music is what what I lived l for as a kid.” Born on January 22, 1949 in Hanford, California, to Portuguese parents, he is an only child. It was at p tthe age of 12 that he first dreamed of becomin bec omingg a sing singer, er, after heari hearing ng soul legend Sam Cooke’s hit song Cupid. As a teenager, Perry, like so many of his generation, fell under the spell of The
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Beatles. In tribute, his new album includes a version of I Need You, one of the first songs George Harrison wrote for the group. In his early twenties, Perry fronted a number of California rock bands, one of which, Pieces, featured an established star in bassist Tim Bogert, who had been in Vanil anilla la Fudg Fudgee and and Beck, Beck, Bog Bogert ert & Appice. It was with Perry’s subsequent band, Alien Project, that he recorded a demo tape that caught the ear of Columbia Records executive Don Ellis. The band broke up in the summer of 1977 after bassist Richard Michaels was killed in a road accident. Soon afterwards, Ellis called Perry, first offering his sympathies, then a new opportunity – an aud auditi ition on wit with h Journe Journey. y. He’d seen Journey play live at LA club The Starwood. The group had been created as a vehicle for guitar virtuoso Neal Schon, a former member of Santana, and Perry liked what he heard: jazz-
M A I N : C H R I S W A L T E R / P H O T O F E A T U R E S ; I N S E T : A L A M Y
Journey at Mountain Aire Festival in California in 1981: (l-r) Ross Valory, Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Jonathan Cain, Steve Smith.
rock fusion, serious chops. But the first three Journey alb Journey albums ums had bom bombed bed,, and and brin bringin gingg in in singer Robert Fleischman to share vocals with keyboard player Gregg Rolie, also ex-Santana, was not working out. Behind Fleischman’s back, Perry met with the band after a show in Denver, Colorado. Later that night, in Schon’s hotel room, he and Perry wrote their first song together, a power ballad bal lad nam named ed Patiently. And with that, Perry was in. The first album he recorded with Journey, 1978’s Infinity, became the band’s first US Top-30 record, and more hits followed. But it was their 1981 album Escape, three albums later, that made them superstars. With Rolie having been replaced by Jonatha Jon athan n Cain, Cain, the ban band’s d’s AO AOR R sound sound was hon honed ed to perfection. Three Top 10 singles – Don’t Stop Believin’, Who’s Crying Now and Open Arms – helped power the album to No.1. “We really struck a chord with Escape,” Perry says now. “But when you reach a sort of peak moment where everything clicks, I don’t think it’s calculable. I think there’s a lot of luck involved. I think that, creatively, we were just in the right place at the right time.” After another multimillion seller, Frontiers, Perry also had a hit with his debut solo album Street Talk and the single Oh Sherrie. And it was at this point E that the power dynamic within the group shifted. R U T A Journey Jou rney had alw always ays been Neal Sch Schon’s on’s ban band, d, but but it E F T was Perry who took too k c cont ontrol rol of t the he 1 1986 986 album alb um H P / R Raised On Radio, on which the singer’s soul E T L A W influences dominated and the guitarist’s role was S I R H diminished. It was also during the making of this
album that Perry’s mother died, which led him to applause and the adoration of people who were re-evaluate his own life. In late 1986, when the loving the music I was participating in, I had to walkk awa wal awayy from from itit to be okay okay emot emotion ionall allyy on on my my Raised On Radio tour ended, he did not tell the band he was quitting. But as Jonathan Cain said: “I knew own without it,” he says. “And that took time. That it was over. It was a sad, sad night.” doesn’t mean I didn’t miss it, it means I had to keep Perry says now that he was burned out from 10 walkin wal kingg the the other other wa way. y. Ther Theree was was some some perso personal nal years of touring and recording. work wo rk to be done done wit within hin mys myself elf,, “The pace was fast, and we never to be honest with you.” stopped.” He also concedes that Perry left Journey, Schon “I don’t trust andAfter he partied too hard in those days. Cain formed the supergroup “It was the eighties!” he says, journalis journ alists! ts! I’m Bad English with singer John laughing. “Everybody was pretty Waite, who had previously missing fingers, much having a good time, put it worke wo rked d along alongside side Cai Cain n in in pop pop that way.” rock act The Babys. Perry still, from the eventually made a second solo The laughter doesn’t last. When he’s asked for a little more lion’ lio n’s s mouth. mouth.” ” album, 1994’s For The Love Of detail, he gets rattled. Reminded Strange Medicine. His reunion of what he said on a recent US TV chat show, with wit h Journe Journeyy in 1996 was dera derailed iled by the describingg his state of mind in the 80s as “toasty” describin “ toasty” cancellation of a major tour after Perry sustained and “crispy” – words evocative of cocaine use – he a hip injury. The band waited two years before says sharply: “Partying comes with all sorts of deciding to move on without him. And Perry toasty behaviours. And that’s about all I’ll say quietly slipped away into a new life. about that.” But then just a moment n the way that Perry describes his later: “I never participated in toasty years away from the music business behavi beh aviours ours bef before ore a gig gig or duri during ng a gig, gig,”” there is a sense of him drifting, and he insists. “But after a gig, I’ll probably enjoying his freedom. He travelled the see you tomorrow after sound-check…” world wo rld,, in in a wa wayy he was nev never er able able to do Having left Journey behind, what as the star of a high-profile rock band. followed, as he freely admits, was He had also made and saved enough a struggle to adapt to a life without money never to have to work again. the band and all that went with it. Moreover, he explains, “I live small. “As much I missed the lights, as I can only drive one car at a time.” much as I missed the stage, the
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STEVE PERRY Hitting the highs: Perry and Neal Schon with Journey in 1983.
But he had not shut himself off from the outside In 2013, after many years, Perry was working on world.. “I was out of the lim world limeli elight, ght, but it wasn’ wasn’t like like music again. “I wasn’t sure how it was going to go,” I wasn’t tracking the reality of life.” And although he says. “It had been so long since I opened up my he had left Journey behind, he was instrumental in soul to that. But I allowed myself to do it with the the resurrection of Don’t Stop Believin’ – – granting idea that if I didn’t like what happened I would permission for the song to be used in Monster , delete it and no one would ever hear it.” a low-budget 2003 film starring Charlize Theron, Then, through Jenkins, and purely by chance, he and in the final episode of The of The Sopr Soprano anoss in 2007. met Kellie Nash. For Perry this is a deeply personal The latter, for Perry, was a tough call. He loved story, but he says he’s comfortable discussing it in The Sop Sopra ranos nos,, and was thrilled to hear that the the public domain. “I totally am,” he says show’s creator David Chase wanted to use Don’t emphatically. “I will tell you how it came about, if Stop Believin’ in in that episode’s closing scene. What you want me to tell you.” The inference in his voice troubled Perry was the is clear: this has profound prospect of his song – a song so meaning for him. full of love and hope – playing “It started when I was “The passion fo for r as the lead character, mafia watch wa tching ing Pat Patty ty editi editing ng a TV boss Ton onyy Sopran Soprano, o, got show about cancer,” he begins. music came back. bumped bum ped off. It was was only only after “Patty told me: ‘I put real people Singing again, Perry was told, in strict who hav havee cance cancerr on the set confidence, how the scene with wit h my my actor actors.’ s.’ And And as the I was getting would wo uld pla playy out out that that he gave gave camera panned across all these Chase his consent. To Perry’s people, I said: ‘Who’s that?’ She goose goo se bumps. bumps.” ” delight, the scene had Tony said: ‘It’s Kellie Nash, a friend of Soprano putting quarters into a jukebox and mine. She’s a PhD psychologist.’ I said: ‘Maybe picking Don’t Stop Believin’ over over songs by Heart and I need a new shrink!’ Patty asked me why I wanted Tonyy Bennett. Ton to know about Kellie. I said: ‘There’s something On the day after that final episode was shown about her that’s talking to me.’ I asked Patty if she on TV, Perry discovered that he was cooler than he would wo uld emai emaill Kell Kellie ie and and say tha thatt her her friend friend Ste Steve ve had ever been before. “I was in an airport,” he would wo uld lo love ve to take her for a coffee coffee.. She She said: said: ‘Oka ‘Okay. y. recalls, “and these people went: ‘Hey Steve! But before I send the email, there’s something Thumbs up, man! Tony Soprano loves Journey!’ It I need to tell you. She has breast cancer. It’s in her was amaz amazing ing.” .” boness and bone and lung lungss and and she’s she’s fighti fighting ng for her lif life…’” e…’” But it was his involvement in Monster , and the He takes a deep breath. “At that moment I didn’t friendship he formed with the film’s director, know what to do. I’d lost my mother and my dad Patty Jenkins, that would change the course of and my grandparents. I don’t think I was ready to Perry’s life. get to know somebody just to lose them. My heart 56 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
said send the email, my head said I don’t know. So I listened to my heart. “After two weeks of me going crazy, Patty says it’s okay for me to email Kellie. I’ll never forget it. You’d think I was writing the best lyric of my life. I wanted every word to be what I felt. After some emails between us, we talked on the phone for five hours one night. A few nights later we went to dinner at six o’clock and we closed that restaurant down at midnight. After that we were inseparable. “I remember telling her, about three or four dates later, that I was crazy about her and I loved her. She said: ‘I love you too.’ That’s when the conversations got really deep. We talked about her cancer, and she said: ‘This is some nasty stuff. I don’t think you wantt any wan any of this.’ this.’ I said: said: ‘I don’t don’t care. care.’’ I tol told d her: her: ‘It’s ‘It’s like two tracks on a rail. That’s what going on over there, and we’ll get through that together. But you and I are over here.’ “One night, when we were falling asleep, she said: ‘If something was to happen to me, promise me that you won’t go back to isolation and make this all for nought.’ I didn’t know how to navigate such a statement. She was looking at the arc of her whole who le lif life, e, and and us getti getting ng tog togethe ether, r, lo lovin vingg each each other. The possibility of us not being together, I just didn’t want to talk about it…” His voice shakes and trails off before he says quietly: “I made the promise. And then I lost her, twelfth of December, 2014.” or the third time in his life, Perry’s career had been shaped by the loss of someone close to him. The death of Richard Michaels had led to Perry joining Journey. The death of his mother had contributed to his exit from the band.
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Having decided to return to music, will Steve Perry still have an audience?
“Isn’t it better for the soul to keep reaching for the things that you’re afraid to do?”
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Street Talk, Talk, than of his work with Journey Jou rney.. There’s There’s a modern modern AO AOR R feel feel in the album’s beautifully crafted opener No Erasin’, and Erasin’, and in the upbeat rock number Sun Shines Gray, Gray, and in a series of smooth ballads there are the soul and R&B influences that informed Street Talk T alk.. And while his voice has changed with wit h age, age, now now oper operati ating ng at a low lower er register, the essential qualities – the Per erry ry an and d Neal Sc Scho nuanced phrasing and the emotional hon n durin ring g Journey’s ind induc uctio tion n in intto the R Roc ock k depth – remain. And R Rol olll H Hal alll O Off Fam Fame e in 20 2017 17.. “Nobody is the same as they were thirty years ago,” he says. “But I do tell He says he still grieves for Nash. “I had a couple you this: I am as emotionally as committed with of years of serious crying,” he sighs, “and every whatt I’m trying wha trying to say with my voi voice ce now now as I was now and again I still get mugged by it. It happened then, if not more.” again just yesterday. But there was something she In the way that Perry sings now, there is said to me: ‘This cancer might take my life, but it a similarity to Robert Plant. And just as Plant can never take our love for each other’. And I have declined to be involved in a full-scale Led Zeppelin found that to be absolutely true.” reunion in recent years, so Perry has consigned his Nash was the inspiration for Perry’s new former band to his past. Neal Schon has said the album T album Trac races es,, but he does not think of this as simply door is open for Perry to rejoin Journey, but Perry a memorial. “Some of the songs are about Kellie,” won’t wo n’t be walk walking ing thro through ugh it. he says. “Some are sad, but there are happy songs “I think the band is doing really well,” he says. too – songs that rock, they’re joyful, they’re “Arnel is a great singer. And I’m enjoying what I’m hopeful. And that emotion, finding my passion doing. I love my new music, even if I’m sad that it again for music, is certainly about her.” took what it took – that my heart had to be broken In the context of Perry’s career, T career, Trac races es has a style to be complete. And after I swore I’d never do this and tone more reminiscent of his first solo record, again, I really believe in what I’m doing with this
new record. Isn’t it better for the soul to keep reaching for the things that you’re afraid to do, not the things that are safe to do? Isn’t it better to keep pushing into the future so that you feel like you’re living your life on the edge as it unfolds? I think that Robert Plant is doing that, and it seems to me he’s loving it. Why go back? Throwing yourself into the abyss of the unknown, and trying to figure that out, is thrilling to me.” Perry’s says his comeback, so long in coming, and so unexpected, might not end with this one album. “I’ve had conversations about potential live shows,” he reveals. “And I’ve got a shitload more songs sitting around. I would love to do another record.” What is most surprising in all of this is that Perry has no regrets about all the time he’s been away: no sense that he might have, maybe should have, made more of his talent. “That was one of the things I pondered at one time,” he says. “But I have no problem with it, which whi ch is is really really amaz amazing ing to me. I think think the wo word rd ‘if’ is really a waste of time. As long as you’re doing the very best you can, in the moment, I don’t think it’s right to look back and think about ‘if’. Instead of looking at anything as a regret, I’d rather move forward. Right now that means more to me than anything.” Traces Tr aces is out now via Virgin/EMI. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 57
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AMERICAN
MOTÖRHEAD They’ve got the same staying power as the late Lemmy and co., the same tenacity and the same dedication to everything rock’n’roll, rock’n’roll, and they’re they’r e also louder than everything else: meet Nashville Pussy. Words: Sleazegrinder
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The tough times certainly weren’t over, either. Not long after Cartwright and Suys got Nashville Pussy together, tragedyy struck. traged “Well, our house burned down – wit with h us in it,” Suys reca recalls. lls. “W “Wee were were sleeping, and our neighbours banged on the door. We didn’t even realise it was on fir fire. e. ItIt was was some some fa faulty ulty air conditioner.. We ended up running conditioner outside, literally naked, and watched our house burn down. So we had nothing to lose anyway. We could either sit around in the ash, or hit the road. We had no reason to tour so hard, we were comfortable where we were, but it was like a sign to go out there.” And go out there they did. ashville Pussy rode into battle during a particularly virile moment in rock’n’roll history. The late 90s saw the introduction of raw, saw-toothed garage rock bands like The Hives, The Vines and the White Stripes into mainstream culture, Pussy cats 2018: (l-r) Blaine Cartwright, Ruyter Suys, Ben whilee the whil the unde undergro rground und rock scen scenee was was Thomas, Bonnie Buitrago. burstin burs tingg with with the heat heat,, excit excitemen ementt and and ferocity of both Scandinavian ‘actionashville Pussy are the American rock’ bands like Turbonegro, The Hellacopters and basicall basic allyy becaus becausee it was tim timee for for a band lik likee that, that, Motörhead. If Lemmy was here, Gluecifer, and feral American ‘glunk-rock’ rippers for a good hard rock band. I really wanted to make he’d tell you as much. Rising from a go of it, because Nine Pound Hammer… I mean, like Zeke, Supersuckers and The Dwarves. “The the ashes of KentuckyKentucky-fried fried rural it wasn’t half-assed, but it was definitely threecompetition was fierce,” acknowledges hardcore band Nine Pound Cartwright. “So you really had to go all out.” quarters-assed. The van broke down for the fifth Hammer in the late 1990s, the quartet exploded And that’s exactly what they did. After bringing time on the West Coast, and we had no resources, onto the underground rock scene and shattered and basically that was it. To our credit, Nashville in ex-Nine Pound Hammer drummer and future every preconceived notion about how rock’n’roll Hookers mainman Adam ‘Rock’n’Roll Outlaw’ Pussy has also been in tough spots where we had was sup suppose posed d to to look look,, soun sound d and and act in the pos posttNeal and fire-spitting six-foot glamazon Corey no resources, and we just let it roll off our backs. grunge era. They were like Chuck Berry with rabies, Parks on bass, Nashville Pussy created perhaps the With Nine Pound Hammer it was more like: ‘Okay, or maybe the Ramones zonked on moonshine and God is trying to tell us something.’ Like God most over-the-top rock’n’ roll spectacle since midsunstroke. They were American werewolves on 70s Kiss. Their stage show was a low-budget eyedoesn’t want us to have this band, because the van wheel whe elss who who bre breath athed ed fire fire,, swa swappe pped d spit spit and popper of leather-on-leather-on-leather, fire broke bro ke do down,” wn,” he says, says, lau laughin ghing. g. bludg blu dgeon eoned ed the their ir aud audien ience ce wit with h sex, sex, slea sleaze ze and breathin brea thing, g, girlgirl-onon-gir girll make-o make-outs uts and reckl reckless ess neck-snapping riffs. They were every teenage homemade pyrotechnics. rock’n’roll dream brought to towering, terrifying We used to literally light fireworks off on stage,” “I always liked Kiss and Suys life. That was 20 years ago, and since then they’ve remembers. “Our roadie had a detonator in never stopped, never faltered or even slowed down. his bag. That was his job, to detonate explosives.” AC/DC, because they The band’s core remains husband-and-wife duo “Our whole stage show fit into a bucket,” had sta stage ge prese presence nce and Cartwright says, laughing. “But we really wanted Blaine Cartwright (vocals/guitar) and Ruyter Suys (lead guitar). Their new album, Pleased To Eat You, is to make it as much of an actual show as possible, they had a show.” out now. It’s their seventh, and probably their because beca use I thou thought ght that was some somethin thingg that that was Blaine Cartwright heaviest yet. As we speak, they are shoving their really missing at the time. I always liked Kiss and belong bel onging ingss into into gym bags bags and pil pillo lowcase wcases, s, AC/DC, because they put the time in. preparing for another European tour. No They had stage presence, and they had Nashv ill lle e P ussy y in in May y ’’98: (l-r) Bla laiine C Ca remorse. No regrets. No Sleep til Strasbourg. a show. I definitely think we brought that art rtw w rig rig ht, Ruy ter Suy s, Jere rem my The inauspicious origins of Nashville backk in Nash bac Nashvill villee Pussy Pussy.. If I had had some T hompson, C Co ore rey y P P ark s. Pussy go back to an ill-fated Nine Pound shitty job and I went see a band, and it was Hammer tour in 1997. “Me and Ruyter had this big spectacle, it made going to that been marrie married d for for two or thre threee years years alre already ady shitty job the next day a little easier. People and we were already working on stuff, but might think it’s cheesy, but cheesy is better we’d been spen spendin dingg all all our time time,, mone moneyy and and than lazy.” effort getting Nine Pound Hammer on Of course, no band can get by on flashtrack,” explains explains Cartwright. “So after af ter I had pots and cleavage alone. So the Pussy made to call home to borrow some money to fix good on their ‘American Motörhead’ the van – we were stranded in Yuma, promise, delivering their audacious debut, Arizona – I think my parents were relieved Let Them Eat Pussy , in 1998. Filled with I was gonna be in a band with Ruyter. savage motorburners like Go Motherfucker “We’d been toying with it a bunch – we Go, Blowin’ Smoke, and Eatin’ Dust, the album didn’t even know what kinda music we’d solidified their sound as a sort of punkplay. Ruyter’s guitar playing is pretty fuelled, triple-speed AC/DC wrapped in versatil vers atile, e, so so we we could couldaa done done gar garag agee stuff stuff or or a southern-fried coating of gutbucket surf stuff, but I think AC/DC won out hillbilly recklessness that suggested they
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Hairr-rrais isiing st stuf f f : Ru Ruy ter Suy s w ith ith Nashv ill lle e P ussy y in in Lisbon, P ortug al in 2009.
NASHVILLE PUSSY
“For what you are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.” Blaine Cartwright with NP in Montreal, Canada in 2014.
drugs. And Lemmy was incredible. ndeed. Especially now, when one of their Sometimes I’d see him between soundstrongest records in years, the Daniel Reycheck and the show writing out handproduced Pleased To Eat You, is out in the world. written writt en lett letters ers to to his his fans. fans. He was was just just inc incred redibl ible.” e.” And while the album does show some hints of The band took the lessons to heart, and ‘maturity’ – there’s a Steve Earle cover, and some developed a work ethic and tour schedule that tasty, classic-rocky Hammond organ riffs – for the made them impervious to the slings and arrows of most part it’s exactly what you want from a dying music industry. MTV, radio, record sales, Nashville Pussy: a fistful of dirty, lusty, dusty, all of it vanished in the ensuing decades, effectively maximum rock’n’roll. Songs like the ferocious Go ending the careers of most of their peers, but Home And Die and the Lemmy-inspired rave-up Nashville Pussy barely noticed. “Well we never deliver the greasy goods with the One Bad Mother deliver even worked within the industry anyway, really,” kind of wild-eyed venom you’d expect from bands Suys says with a shrug. “We were always outsiders, half their age. And according to Cartwright, that’s so it didn’t really affect us that much.” pretty much the way it’s always gonna be. They did have at least one brush with the “The last thing I want to do,” he says, “is, like… mainstream, when the hilariously mean-spirited I call it the Paul Westerberg [The Replacements] syndrome – you’re in this kick-ass rock’n’roll band, Fried Chicken And Coffee from Let Them Eat Pussy was nominated for a Grammy. That happened, and then all of a sudden you’re sensitive – like out seriously. They also, inexplicably, became bigger of nowhere. I don’t like it. I don’t wanna sing than Bruce Spingsteen in France. acoustic songs about how wild and crazy I used to be. I like like Lemm Lemmyy and and Iggy Iggy “We were on TV in France, and that ended up and the Ramones and the beingg great bein great for us,” Suy Suyss Stones. Everybody “We played the same Rolling explains. “It was an I really like stays true to afternoon show broadcast festival, and we had their music to the end. I all over the country, it was think it’s shitty to change more people than us live. They also had Bruce gears on an unsuspecting Springsteen on that show, I still have a lot of Bruce Springsteen!” audience. and now we’re both popular energy to blow off. If I ever there. We played the same wanted wan ted to do some somethin thingg Ruyter Suys festival, and we had more different, I’d make sure I still had the hard rock going. I don’t really see it people than Bruce Springsteen! He had fifty-one thousand, we had fifty-three thousand.” happening – I don’t see us cleaning up.” There were a few bumps along the way, of And they don’t see themselves slowing down, course. There were sparse times and dirty deals. either. They’ve got a whole slew of tour dates Perhaps most notably, Nashville Pussy went planned throughout mainland Europe and the UK. through as many bass players as Spinal Tap went And then… God knows where. through drummers before settling in with Bonnie “We used to say we’re never going back to this Buitrago nearly a decade ago. club or this city or this record label again, and then “Being in this band is a big decision, and it we alw always ays did did,” ,” Cartwri Cartwright ght say says, s, laugh laughing ing.. I mean, wasn’t’t made wasn made lig lightl htlyy by by anybod anybody, y,”” says says Cartwri Cartwright. ght. you don’t look at your tour schedule and go: “Getting out is sometimes their last chance for ‘Wow,, finally, we’re playing Toledo ‘Wow Toledo again! Des D es Moines, great! Fargo, yeehaw!’ But we’ll go back having a normal life, for having a kid or to get health insurance, or whatever. They’re not getting there, and maybe it’ll be fun. It might end up being that playing with us. Anyway, that’s always what it a good show. You can never tell when you’re was, ther theree were were nev never er any any big fig fights hts or anyth anything ing.. gonna have a good time.” Bonnie’s been with us the longest, and she Truer words never spoken. would’ wo uld’ve ve been doi doing ng this any anywa way. y. She’s in for as Pleased To To Eat You You is out now via EarMusic. long as we keep doing this, and I don’t see any Nashville Pussy tour tour the UK in November. reason why we should stop.”
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were probab were probably ly capa capable ble of just abo about ut anyth anything ing.. The The album cover was equally outrageous, featuring Parks and Suys on the receiving end of oral sex. Nobody could handle it, even then; copies of the CD were sold wrapped in black plastic bags. “I didn’t think people were gonna be upset, because beca use if you you loo lookk at at the the cover cover,, the the women women are in charge of the sex act,” Cartwright explains. “There’s some fringe elements out there that just don’t like any sex acts, like if you have a cover like that then clearly some man must’ve thought it up, right? A bunch of people even refused to print the album cover. It really splintered people. Some people just really misinterpreted the message. And if you chime and say: ‘It’s not really like that’, then it’s already too late, they’ve had their first impression and they don’t want their mind changed.” Ironically, the band suffered accusations of sexism, when even a cursory glance at what was actually happening revealed Pussy’s feminist bent. “The women have always been equals,” says Cartwright. “I don’t understand why people don’t see that. I remember when our album Get Some [2005] came out and the Vi Villag llagee Voice Voice made a big deal about not reviewing it. The editor wrote a thing about how they were throwing it in the trash, and how the V Voice oice didn’t support Nashville Pussy’s message. And this was the same editor that was putting Paris Hilton on the cover all the time and saying she was the new face of feminism. I dunno, man. History will reveal all. I do wish more women had picked up the guitar because of us.” “I think they did,” offers Suys. “I do too, but I always hoped it would make a bigger impact than it has.” It probably will. It just might take a hundred years to set in. “That doesn’t help me much,” Cartwright says, laughing. “If I knew I was gonna influence somebody’s grandkids I woulda had my own.” ashville Pussy made their bones in dive bars all ov over er the the US US befor beforee befrien befriendin dingg Motörhead, who took them on tour in 1999. The experience was a life-changer. “They taught us everything, says Suys. “They taught us how to tour. They taught us how to do
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America has a gun problem. Most prisoners shouldn’t be in prison. We need rock’n’roll. Being a parent is tough but can be rewarding… These and more life lessons from the MC5/MC50 guitarist. Interview: Ian Fortnam
ifty years ago, Detroit’s Motor City 5 released their debut live album Kick Out The Jams, a record so feral it inspired successive generations of sonic insurrectionists to take rock’n’roll to new peaks of intensity. The MC5 were Wayne Kramer’s baby. It was the blisteri bli stering ng fire firepow power er of of his his lead lead gui guitar tar tha thatt defin defined ed the the band band’s ’s sound. sound. After delivering three landmark albums, the 5 split in ’72. Kramer fell into addiction and found himself in federal prison for two years. Hooking up with Johnny Joh nny Thu Thunde nders rs in Gan Gangg War War upon upon his rel release, ease, Krame Kramerr latte latterly rly join joined ed Was Was (Not Was), before he embarked on a solo career. Sharp, witty, street-smart and gregarious, the keeper of the MC5 flame set up Jail Guitar Doors in 2009, a rapidly-spreading programme to teach guitar and music lessons to prison inmates in the USA, and has just published The Hard Stuff , a raw and unflinching autobiography. Today he continues to celebrate the MC5’s potent legacy with MC50, featuring Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, Faith No More bassist Billy Gould and Zen Guerrilla frontman Marcus Durant. They tour the UK in November. WHERE THERE’S GUNS, PEOPLE GET SHOT
You feel better for a minute in the beginning, then pretty soon you feel shitty all the time and you’re in a mess. Which used to be the exclusive preserve of poor neighbourhoods – no school, job, place to go, no options, no future. Now it’s everywhere, and so drugs are proliferating. It’s a perfect storm, the greatest failure of social policy in America’s history. Certain people should be in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Drug prohibition’s been killing people for generations, and drug prohibition kills way more people than drugs. TRUMP: THE PERFECT CAPITALIST
From the Right’s perspective, everything’s going great. All my colleagues in the justice reform movement say America’s a system that’s broken. But it’s not. It’s a big hit, a ninety-billion-dollar-a-year industry. What we have now is a result of at least twenty years of systematic organisation by powerful interests on the Right. The Republican Party’s obstructed the Democrats for years, certainly throughout all of Obama’s presidency. The trouble is that nobody expected Donald Trump to emerge as their champion, and they can’t control him. Trump doesn’t care. His interests are the interests of Donald Trump. He’s the perfect capitalist, who puts profit ahead of people. From infancy he’s been ent entitl itled. ed. He neve neverr had had to to be resp responsi onsible ble for anything, he buys his way out of everything, and I’ll be deli delight ghted ed when he’s ind indicte icted d and and sent to priso prison. n. prohibition’ prohibi tion’s s I don’t want to see anybody go to prison, but for him I’ll make an exception.
There’s a very small minority of Americans – but “Drug they’re very loud and well funded by the NRA [National Rifle Association] – who, when they talk been bee n kil killi ling ng peo peopl ple e for for about freedom, are meaning the freedom to shoot somebody. Not necessarily because they’re trying gene ge nera rati tion ons, s, an and d kil kills ls wa way y NO ONE LEAVES PRISON to harm you, but because you don’t like them. A BETTER PERSON more people than drugs.” dr ugs.” The criminal justice system is a total abject failure. Most Americans don’t want to shoot anybody and are really ambivalent about I don’t know anyone who ever came out of prison the Second Amendment which, incidentally, doesn’t say you get to have better. bett er. I kno know w peopl peoplee who who have have gro grown wn up in priso prison n and and hav havee chan changed ged,, but but an AK47 or a rocket launcher. A focus group of gun owners was asked: prison didn’t do that, time did that. Guys age out of crime, especially violent ‘Wouldn’t a pistol be enough? Why do you need a thirty-round clip?’ And crime, around fifty. They get tired of prison, they want to have a house, a wife and job. They just want to get along in the world, they’re not tough guys or one said: ‘Well, what if I miss?. gangsters any more. Only ten per cent of people in prison need to be there, because beca use the they’re y’re so so damag damaged ed they they can onl onlyy relat relatee to to other other hum human an bein beings gs DRUG PROHIBITION IS DEADLIER THAN DRUGS The opiate crisis in America stems from a massive campaign to market violen vio lently tly.. That That mean meanss ninety ninety per cen centt of the 2.3 mill million ion peo people ple in priso prison n in in oxycontin. It’s interesting that when black and brown people in the ghetto and America have no business being there. You can be held accountable for musicians were facing addiction, it was: “Lock ’em up, throw away the key, breakin brea kingg the the social social con contract tract in you yourr commu community nity.. When When you put peop people le in fuck ’em.” But now it’s white kids from the suburbs and rural America, it’s: penitentiaries hundreds of miles away from friends and family you isolate them “We need programmes to help these people.” from the things that humanise them and keep them engaged in the world. The mills and manufa manufacturing cturing centres that served small-town America Prison is a traumatic experience. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you. have gone, as the economy shifted to service and technol technology, ogy, and left a void You’re never safe, you’re with people who are dangerous. They’re not dangerous in their wake. Communities have become redundant. Regular patterns of because beca use the theyy tell tell dan danger gerous ous sto stories, ries, they’re re dang dangerou erouss becaus becausee they they do do survival, the point of your existence and any sense of community have gone. dangerous things. They’re killers. Prison is almost medieval in its fundamental Addiction Addictio n fits perfectly in there. It gives you something to do with your time. concept. And, like the firearms issue, I don’t see it changing in my lifetime. 62 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
S S E R P / Y R R E B
W E N M I J ©
WAYNE KRAM KRAMER ER Kramer circa 1970 with his trademark Stars ‘N’ Stripes Fender Strat.
fllame: th he f f t Keeper o f frrom th hird f Kramer ( t h MC50. ith wit ) w le f t )
THE AMERICAN DREAM: EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
That we can all get rich is an urban myth. The system isn’t set up for you to get rich. But America clings to the dream. Take Las Vegas, a city built by Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Seigel, gangsters whose life’s purpose was to separate you from your money. All Las Vegas does is separate suckers from their money. But people go there and think they’re gonna win. And it’s the same with our unique brand of American capitalism. There’s nothing wrong with success. I’m happy to see people succeed, especially if they contribute or invent something useful and helpful, but I’m not too big on hedge fund guys who don’t contribute anything but just accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars.
going for us. Can a rock’n’roll song bring down Donald Trump or a right wing gov wing governme ernment? nt? Prob Probabl ablyy not. not. But it’s an essen essentia tiall elem element ent of our exis existen tence: ce: food, air, water, music, art. It tells us the stories of who we are and confirms we’ree not we’r not alon alone. e. IfIf we we ever ever feel feel iso isolat lated ed and and sepa separate rated, d, the the solu solutio tion’s n’s alw always ays BEING A GOOD FATHER IS NOT AN INHERITED SKILL I rejected family until recently. The very concept was an anathema to me. in connection. Who needs a family? Families are terrible. You’ve got to hang out with people Back in the sixties, music was gonna change the world, and maybe it did you’d never normally associate with because they’re family? That’s bullshit, on some levels. It certainly created a community and inspired people, and bourgeo bour geois. is. But I’v I’vee disco discover vered ed it at at this this late late stag stagee it still can – and does. One difference between of the game. now and then is that back then young people So many things that happened to me I’d buried around the world were all in agreement that the “When I was eighteen I was older generation was for shit. They were blowing because beca use they wer weree too too painfu painful.l. The The whol wholee idea idea of not having a father. Then realising being the it and we’d a better idea. It was universal; students absolutel absolu tely y certain I was father I didn’t have for my son could be incredibly in Paris were taking over the Sorbonne, American liberating and rewarding. I don’t do it perfectly, students NYU, it was happening in Mexico City, correct and was going but I work work real really ly hard at it. Peo People ple say ther there’s e’s no no and we all smoked reefer and listened to crazy to live forever.” manual for raising kids. Yes there is. There’s a lot rock music and we all got laid and it was great. But of them – go read a fucking book. There’s a lot agreement doesn’t exist now. Right now people of people who have a lot of good ideas about raising kids and how to build in are more fragmented and there’s more distance between young people. their dignity, autonomy and resilience, and we began that at birth with our son. We listen to him. I mean, I have to be the grown-up in the relationship, HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL When I was eighteen I was absolutely certain I was correct and was going to live but he coun counts. ts. He’s He’s a com comple plete te sent sentien ientt human human bein beingg and and I try to trea treatt him him with wit h respect respect.. He does doesn’t n’t lik likee to to be tickl tickled, ed, so I don don’t’t tickl ticklee him. him. I wo would uldn’t n’t go forever. Now I’m confused most of the time, know less about more things and up and tickle you. Why would it be any different just because he’s little. That I’m definitely not living forever. should be more reason to be respectful, not less. As [Marxist philosopher] Antonino Gramsci says: “The point of modernity is to live a life without When I was younger I was too self-obsessed to be a father – artists illusions while not becoming and musicians are self-obsessed to disillusioned.” And this is where I find myself at this point in my begin begi n with with – and my shall shallown owness ess career. What’s the real deal? I’m knows no limits, but I figure I’m just about done being a child myself so an optimist and always have maybe I can look after one. I can’t been. Even Even in my deepest, deepest, darkest darkest midnight of the soul, I never claim maturity, but I know what it is and like to think I’m moving in wanted want ed to destroy destroy mysel myself, f, even that direction. though a lot of my behaviour was self-destructive. I still wanted to get up every day and see what the ROCK’N’ROLL CAN STILL SAVE YOUR day would bring. IMMORTAL SOUL
The arts feed us. The arts confirm all we hold dear and our humanity, which whi ch is is the the best best thin thingg we’ve we’ve go gott 64 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Kick ckin ing g o out ut th the e j jam ams s – MC5 in 1969 19 69:: (ll-rr) Fre red d ‘So Son nic ic’’ Smit ith h, Way ayn ne K Kra ram mer, Ro Rob b T Ty yner, Dennis is ‘M ‘Ma achine ne G Gun un’’ Thompson, Michael D Dav avis is...
Wayne Kram Kramer’s er’s auto autobiogr biography aphy The Hard Stuff Stuff:: Dope, Dope, Crime Crime And And My Lifee Of Impossib Lif Impossibilit ilities ies is out now.
W A Y N E K R A M E R K B A R I C H / P R E S S ; M C 5 : G E T T Y
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This Blondie guitarist Chris Stein talks about New York during the punk years, and illustrates it with a selection of images from his new photo book.
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was at the Sch School ool Of Visua Visuall Arts Arts in New York, and before that I had a close friend who I grew up with in Brooklyn who was a really great photographer. He was getting stuff in the newspapers and worked with [celebrated American photographer] Diane Arbus. He was a big influence. With the new book, I’m trying to give a feeling for the atmosphere and what it was like for us in the city and what the streets were like. It’s not focused so intently on the music scene; I wanted to give a feel of whatt it was lik wha likee being being ther there. e. Were we inspired by New York as a band? There was always this struggle that was going on. I don’t think we considered New York inspiring, but it was great that everyone was connected. Everyone knew each other. There was no big scene, maybe just a couple of hundred people at the most, early on. People were frequently complaining about the city being so dirty and horrible and getting robbed, and I don’t know that was seen as a direct inspiration – even though it probably was affecting everything that was going on. The music and arts scene in New York at that point was not part of the mainstream the way it is now. Young people now see being in the music and arts scene as a career choice, and that just wasn’t part of the equation then, it was very much an outsider thing to do. New York is very similar to what’s going on in London. You used to have all these neighbourhoods, they had all their own characteristics, now they’re all becoming the same. It’s very similar. There were fewer people on the streets, too. It was much less crowded and there wasn’t any kind of huge tourist trade like there is now. I still much prefer Times Square when it was more horrible backk then bac then than it is is now now – I don don’t’t reall reallyy wann wannaa be in a Disney Disney mov movie ie when whe n I’m walk walking ing roun round d the the stree streets. ts. I like street photography. I look at Instagram and there’s some great photography. It’s something I’ve always been drawn to. With camera phones and social media, people are taking pictures that they don’t know are great. Every now and then I’ll see some amazing photo and you can tell the person didn’t realise how great it was, it’s kind of an accident. The fact that everything is being documented is Y T T interesting. I like phone cameras. I use them all the time. I have a film E : P camera but I’m too lazy. There’s a big difference between going out T E with h a camer cameraa that that can tak takee 1,000 1,000 pict pictures ures and one tha thatt can can take take 35. N wit ; S W To me, film now is just a fetish – like vinyl. R R U If Blondie had never happened would I have become a photographer? B X E L A Possibly. Although I probably would have just been in another band. : W E V Photography always attracted me, but I didn’t think of it as a career E T N choice or a money-making thing, I just did it because I enjoyed it. I 66 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Iggy Pop dressing room door “That’s The Idiot tour. It’s the tour Blondie were on with Iggy and Bowie. That was great. It was 1977, but I’m not sure where. It was a great series of concerts and a huge thing for us to be involved with at the time. Or even now, if we did it again! It was terrific. Bowie wasn’t playing a set, he was playing keyboards in Iggy’s band, in the background, but everyone knew that he was there. It was generous of him to do that kind of support for Iggy. They’d been friends for a long time. Bowie was just enjoying travelling around being in that situation. He was really interested in the punk scene. I remember talking to him a lot about all the other bands in New York.” York.”
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CHRIS STEIN Stein and Harry with The Stilettoes “I would just give my camera to somebody else when I was playing on stage. I’ve just handed it to someone else here. It’s a great picture but I’m not exactly sure who took it. Things were just transitional then – before the boys started getting haircuts. We were still in the glitter period then! I’m pretty sure it was CBGB, 1973 or 1974. The Stilettoes lasted a year year,, or a year and a half, before Blondie. Not that long. Elda [Gentile, Stilettoes founder] just died. She was the leader. The band was her brainchild and she named it.”
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Ramones “This was taken in Arturo Vega’s [who designed the Ramones logo, and then became their stage and lighting director] loft. Which is now named Joey Ramone Place! It was Artie’s studio, but where he lived, right around the corner from CBGB. I think this was 1975.” 1975.”
Tramp on ground and little girl “I knew that kid. I knew who she was because she was around the street the whole time. She was taken aback by this guy just laying there – and that was commonplace. Now there’s more disruption and those people just get pushed out of the central areas.”
Point of View: Me, New York City, And The Punk Scene by Scene by Chris Stein is published by Rizzoli, and will be released on October 23, 2018. All photographs © Chris Stein.
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SHEER HART ATTACK After a harrowing early life that would have broken anyone anyone who didn’t possess real steel, with the help of “angels” Beth Hart has fought off her demons, dragged herself back from the brink and is now “having fun, fun, fun” as she embraces major success. Words: Nick Hasted Photos: Kevin Nixon
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hat’s a lot of seats in the Ziggo Dome, a plush new arena on the outskirts of Amsterdam. A daunting expanse of 17,000, to be precise, dark grey, all empty. Seeing the place like this in the middle of the afternoon, the scale of Beth Hart’s achievement becomes especially apparent. At the age of 46, and after a relentless sequence of traumas and addictions, here tonight she’s headlining her first arena show. Three covers albums with Joe Bonamassa, the latest of which, this year’s Black Coffee, hit No.1 in the US, have helped raise Hart’s profile. Working with wit h Deep Deep Purpl Purplee on on 2003 2003’s ’s Bananas, Slash on his self-titled 2010 solo debut, and Jeff Beck on his 2006 US tour also proved her rock credentials. But Hart is more remarkable as a solo performer, her material ranging from rockabilly to grunge, with echoes of the great 70s singer-songwriters of her LA home town as she emotes at the piano. Her mum, elder siblings and schoolmates turned her on early to jazz, blues, Bob Seger and Rickie Lee Jones, the Sex Pistols and Circle Jerks, Etta James and Otis Redding. Redding. These influences fed Hart’s ability to sing a battered, unbeaten woman’s woman’s blues blu es that’s that’s dred dredged, ged, raw and ble bleedi eding, ng, from her own life, which she pours out uncensored on stage. “Her honesty and vulnerability are her strengths,” her husband and road manager Scott Guetzkow Guetzkow says. “Sometimes she’ll burst out crying and she can’t stop. She wears her emotion on her sleeve.” Reaching the arena heights in the Netherlands, wheree she wher she record recorded ed her 2005 alb album um DVD Live At The Pa Para radis disoo and where her 2015 album Better Thann Home Tha Home went to No.1, makes some kind of sense. The steepness of her recent ascent, wholly unremarked on by the general public, is perhaps more apparent in the UK. On December 14, 2015,
triggered my bipolar. At ten I got into drugs, she played to 900 at London’s Union Chapel. On alcohol, then later sex addiction. I was trying to May 4, 2018, eight days before Amsterdam, she filled the 5,200-capacity Royal Albert Hall. numb myself to feel better.” At the sound-check at the Albert Hall, amid the Music, especially when she played alone at the piano, was the sanctuary that let her down least. gilt and candelabra, Hart, in her off-stage civvies, is Hart got her first break when she won Best in command but nervous. She’ll rip up 15 set-lists before bef ore sho show w time. time. “Push tha thatt tempo, tempo,”” she she tell tellss Female Vocalist on the US TV talent show Star her three-piece band. Someone asks if she’s okay. Search in 1993, the year that an early version of Beyoncé’s band Destiny’s Child won Best Group “I’m fricking great, man. I’ve never been happier,” she raps back. “I’m just chompin’ at the bit.” and Justin Timberlake competed for Best Male. But Hart pays particular attention to rehearsing her whilee those whil those stars soar soared, ed, Hart crash crashed ed and burn burned. ed. “I spent all of the hundred and thirty thousand surprise entrance, from the side of the hall, in the dollars in six months,” she dark, as a crackling gospel record plays. She sings As Long says. “So I went busking.” Long This was where her current As I Hav Havee A Son Songg a cappella, taking deep breaths as she “Her honesty and manager found her in 1994, already seemingly washed up roams the shadowy aisles. vulnerability are at just 22. David Wolff had “Give ’em a second. Let ’em Cyndi di Lau Lauper’s per’s man manage agerr breathe,” brea the,” she caut caution ionss her her her str strength engths. s. She She been Cyn at the height of her fame. He’s band as they they crash in. “W “Wee wears her emotion in his late 60s now, with long, need to leave space for the audience to do something. wispy wis py whi white te hair hair and a lean, lean, on her sleeve. sleeve.” ” lupine face. As he fixes me But then again, this is my life. with h his his atten attentio tion n backs backstag tagee And I’m always prepared Husband and road manager wit [for no applause].” at the Albert Hall, he has Scott Guetzkow charisma to burn. eth Hart’s early “I met her singing in the childhood in LA was blissful. Then her trust streets in Santa Monica,” he recalls. “She opens was betra betrayed. yed. “My dad dad was was cheati cheating ng on on up her mouth and starts singing, and after twenty mom, he gambled away our house, and then he went seconds I said to my friend: ‘I will be her manager.’ to prison,” she says. “And we went from this really Two songs in, a guy walked up, listened for beauti bea utiful ful fam family ily to eve everyo ryone’s ne’s heart heartss bein beingg brok broken.” en.” a couple of minutes and flipped a hundred-dollar There were multiple further betrayals, and billl in the gui bil guitar tar case.” her dad’s jailing coincided with further trauma. “I said: ‘I don’t trust you [music industry] guys, “There was a horrible robbery when I was a child,” you’re all snakes,’” Hart recalls. “Finally I said: ‘I’ll she recalls, “when my mom and sister Sharon have a meeting with you if you play cards. Because [who later died of Aids] were held captive all I think I love cards more than music, honestly. So day by robbers who were threatening to cut off I’m going to watch how you play cards, man, for my mom’s fingers. My doctors think that event a couple of hours at least.’”
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BETH HART Calm before the storm: sound-check at the Royal Albert Hall.
Reaching for the sky: Hart delivers a gripping, heartfelt performance.
Wolff passed the audition. Midwesterner in his mid-50s who looks “Her first label dropped her,” he says, “because like a Viking Sean Bean as he wanders the they didn’t think they could count on her. But venues, ven ues, wat watchin chingg for for prob problem lems. s. I did. I never left her. I knew really early on that “I’m the road manager and anything she there’d be difficulties. I guess I’m geared to handle needs,” he says in a gravelly, easy-going “Sing for me!” them without panic. Every emotion that a human voice. voi ce. “If she’s she’s stres stressed sed out, I try to calm Hart and partner beingg can bein can hav have, e, I bel believ ievee I’ve I’ve go gone ne throu through gh with with her down. Whatever it takes, I do.” Scott Guetzkow. her. The only thing that Hart’s seemingly sudden was con consist sistent ent,, from from drug drug leap to arena status was addiction to hepatitis in fact carefully plotted “At ten I got into to bipolar, and then of by Wolff olff.. “We “We discu discuss ss course the ups and downs the markets. I don’t want drugs, alcohol, then her to be a London artist, of a career, was that we never left each other, late la ter r sex add addicti iction. on. I want her to be a UK artist. and we never quit. She’s What cool places can we I was trying to numb go in the suburbs, to get conditioned for everybody to leave, by that sense of to the people? And we myself to feel better.” The audience is skewed middle-aged and up, with abandonment she carries do it in Denmark [where Beth Hart with wit h her. her. It’s a big big part of a very healthy percentage of women for what is Hart has had two No.1 her fear of life. Even to this basicall basi callyy a blu blues-ro es-rock ck sho show. w. singles], and in all these day I would imagine she probably thinks: ‘Man, is She needn’t have worried about the applause. territories.” The Bonamassa collaborations are he gonna leave?’ And the answer to that question The first standing ovation comes after Sister Heroine, “a wonderful bonus”, he says. is: no. I’m not going anywhere.” which whi ch she she dedi dedicate catess to to her her late late sist sister er Sharo Sharon, n, and and “If I couldn’t work any more, and I went back to he Albert Hall show is another makes her shake with her deepest feelings. For the unpredictable, tear-jerking Hart encore she’s on her knees, before rising up with busking busk ing,, he wo would uld stil stilll mana manage ge me,” Hart say sayss of roller coaster, with flashes of rock’n’roll their bond. “And if suddenly I couldn’t make the a primal scream. payments on the house I just bought with Scott, abandon. When she clutches fans’ hands as she Backstagee afterwards, Backstag af terwards, Hart’s nerves haven’t David would mortgage his house, just so I didn’t makes her surprise entry and walks to the stage, gone. It’s odd that people with fragile self-esteem one middle-aged woman clings on as if to a saint. and confidence are sometimes the ones who most lose mine. There was a kid he went to high school with. wit h. He had hadn’t n’t seen him in forty year years, s, need to be on stage, and give the most and the kid contacted him because he’d up there, I suggest. Nailing everything down before the doors open at got cancer. David helped him to stay “It is a need,” she says. “If I felt really really Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome. alive for six years. David is an angel. I’m good about myself all the time, I think just surro surround unded ed by ang angels.” els.” I would still try to make music, but Husband Scott Guetzkow is the other I don’t think I’d be a performer. But there is that need, to feel like people in necessary foundation shoring up Hart’s rise. “I met Scott when I was twentythe audience are telling you that you’re seven. I was losing my hair, and down not a total loser. I never think of them as to my bones. I didn’t have the balls to fans. I think that’s a terrible word. I feel like they’re our friends and they come to take myself out. I was hoping my heart would wo uld just sto stop.” p.” She was sav saved, ed, she support what we’re doing. The best time says, “by this handsome man with the of the whole night wasn’t even being on kindest eyes”. They met in 1999 and stage. It was going outside to smoke, and married in 2000. seeing everyone who was coming to the Guetzkow,, who previously Guetzkow pre viously worked show hanging out, and hugging them for Ozzy and Jeff Beck, is a giant and hearing their stories.”
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Happily drained: Hart backstage after giving her all.
During the show, when she seemed to be at “This is a big friggin’ deal for us!” Minutes her most emotionally racked, strangely Hart later she’s prowling the edge of one of the also looked uplifted. two ramps built especially for this biggest “Thank you,” she says. “You know that old solo gig of her life when, as she starts saying: the truth’ll set you free? Whenever I get into to run down, she tumbles over. There those real songs – nothing showbiz, just about are worried screams from the audience. whatev wha tever er you’r you’ree afraid afraid of, or you’r you’ree ashame ashamed d of, of, “These fucking shoes,” she grouses, barely whatev wha tever er itit is yo you u long long for – all all that that just mak makes es missing a beat. Then she sits on the edge of me feel like I’m standing in the energy of angels. the stage, holding the heels that betrayed It’s weird. I almost feel more comfortable to be her, which glint like curved daggers. vulnera vul nerable. ble. I guess guess beca because use I reall reallyy belie believe ve in my It’s a battle up there for a few minutes as core that the more honest and open I am, the more she fights to regain control, until the ballads chance I have of not only being sober, but also again become the gig’s still centre. You Belong To staying close to the light, to God.” Me, with an Etta James-like vocal pulled straight And the more honest she is, the more she’s from her healing heart, is dedicated to her accepted. accepte d. “It’s a trip, isn’t it? forgiven dad. LA Song All the things you’re afraid (Out Of This Town), from to do are the things that get 1999, when most things in “There is that need to her life were bad, is a piano you there.” blues es worth worthyy of of Tom Tom Wait aits. s. feel like people in the blu ust before show time The footwear comes off for at the Ziggo Dome, audience are telling the fishnet-footed encore, everyone’s calmer and the conspiratorial you that you’re than they were good feeling in the in London. “I wanna audience is contagious. not a total loser.” rock’n’roll all night,” Hart Backstagee afterwards, Backstag Beth Hart sings in the dressing room, Hart is vastly more relaxed amid upbeat banter. “Now, than after the Albert Hall whatt if this und wha underwea erwearr comes comes do down? wn?”” she she muses, muses, show a week ago. She’s already written off the as she totters into the lift in heels, fishnets and heels incident. “You know they say it happens in another tight black dress. “They don’t when I wear slow motion?” she says. “Oh my God! I think that’s ’em,” someone, possibly Scott, replies, laughing. hysterical. It’s got to be in the DVD we’re filming.” Then all is silent backstage. I tell her that tonight’s show still seemed On stage, Hart addresses a noticeably up-for-it stronger than in London. “It was freer, wasn’t it?” audience: “Can you believe this?,” she enthuses. she agrees. “Maybe it brought up that feeling-
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like-a-fool anger,” she says of her fall. “Bianca, our European tour manager, cried for three songs after that, because she felt she screwed me all up. But the beauty of art is that no one dies. It’s not like I’m a brain surgeon – there’d be a lot of dead motherfriggers if I was. We’re just musicians. It reminds you not to take it too seriously.” Her loyal husband looks in to chide her for smoking and to wind things up. Looking back on what’s been the biggest week of her career so far, Hart feels she has come full circle. “I did that show Star Search when I was twenty,” she says, “and I had nothing but happiness and gratitude. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t messed up. I was in remission from bipolar, and I was very focused and disciplined. And I had the best time in the world. And then it just went to crap, for a long time. And now I feel like I’m back in that place, of just enjoying it, man. Being thankful and grateful and having fun, fun, fun. That’s where it’s come to.” Beth Hart: Live Live At The Royal Albert Hall Hall will be released on November 30 via Mascot. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 73
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[email protected]), Facebook or Twitter TO CD OR NOT CD… CONTINUED
Dave Jordan’s letter in issue 254 is not a lone voice. He is spot-on with everything I wanted to say about my disappointment at finding no CD, only replace by a download. As for trying something different, remember: if it is not broken, don’t fix it. Alan Roch Rochelle, elle, via email Responding to Dave Jordan ( great second name – [Classic [Classic Rock issue Rock issue 254], I have thousands of albums on vinyl and CD, and cherish them all – but haven’t played any of them in years! In fact I don’t have a CD player in home or car. Yet via streaming and Bluetooth, I’ve never listened to as much great music. The Classic Rock download Rock download of this month is the first I’ve listened to in a long, long time. Works for me! Quick shout for the Walking Papers, too, best gig of the year so far, WP2 far, WP2 my my album of the year. Check them out. Jonathan Jona than Jor Jordan, dan, via via email email I have no issue with the concept of a download in principle, but the only option available to me was a batch of lossy, compressed MP3 files, which are fine if one doesn’t care about high-fidelity sound, but I do do care care abou aboutt such such thin things. gs. It had had been my
habit to convert the tracks on the CDs that you provided to lossless, high-quality files so that I could take them with me to play in the car or over headphones while at work. This has been one of the main ways I have been able to feed my new music habit now that the radio (it really is crap here in America) is no longer playing good new rock music (many thanks for the terrific sample tracks [like Rival Sons!] over the years, by the way). I would like to request that you either return to CDs or please please provide the ability to download higher-resolution, lossless versions of the tracks. I know that you folks appreciate good sound quality, because every issue has a review of some high-end sound equipment! In all other respects, your magazine continues to be outstanding. The story about The Clash in Belfast [CR [CR 253] 253] was exceptional. Joseph Jos eph Ackerma Ackerman, n, Palo Palo Alto As someone of a (slightly) classic age, please could we kee keep p Classic Rock in Rock in a more classic format: printed magazine and CD. An album is more than just a coll collecti ection on of tra tracks cks (no co cover ver art? art?).). I appr appreci eciate ate it may be a matter of cost, but if it means keeping the CD I would rather pay (a little) more. Steve Pedrick, via email
Congratulations on the latest issue [CR [CR 254]. 254]. The article regarding Led Zeppelin’s big five-o is a joy to read, as is the interview with Billy Gibbons. Regarding a recent email from a distressed fellow reader regarding the lack of a CD, I just want to put in my own two cents’ worth. I think the digital album route is very sensible, as I am sure it helps with magazine production in both speed and cost and is a decent alternative to the CD. I think perhaps a free CD to mark special moments in classic rock history a couple of times a year is a good idea, but beyond that the digital option is more than sufficient. Peter Walsh, via email The CD (or lack thereof) has generated one of the biggest postbags in a while. As you’ll notice, we have a CD this issue, and have some exciting ones planned for the year ahead. SOMETHING FOR EVERY EVERYONE ONE
I’m just writing to thank you for your superb Sept 2018 issue [CR [CR 253]. 253]. I have been a reader of various monthly rock magazines for many years, but haven’t been as revitalised by a specific issue in some time. I picked it up because of the Slash interview (which was great) but also got The Clash in my home town, Belfast, in 1977 (incredible photos), great interviews with Supersonic Blues Machine and Fish (I grew up listening to a friend’s Marillion tapes) and turned on to new records by Crippled Black Phoenix and Clutch. Fantastic! Iain Moore, Darlington, Co Durham THE WORDS OF WILKO
The Gospel According To Wilko [CR [ CR 254], 254], should be requi required red read reading ing for eve everyon ryone. e. One One of the the best best articles I have read in a very long life of rock’n’roll reading. The man is a true National Treasure. Wilko, I love you. Patrick Tierney, Halifax
CLASSIC ROCK ALBUM OF THE WEEK CLUB Every week we choose a classic album – some obscure, some well known – and share knowledge and opinion. Listen and debate with us at: http://bit.do/ http:// bit.do/aotw. aotw. Have your say on the history of rock, one album at a time… and you might just see yourself in print. The Yes Album Yes (1971) WHAT YOU SAID
John Wilso John Wilson: n: I really like this album, and it gets better every time I hear it in its entirety. Usually I listen to half the album in other ways, wa ys, suc such h as a live live alb album um or my ow own n pla playli ylist st mix mixes, es, but hear hearing ing it all together makes for a great relaxing experience. The album’s artwork isn’t one of my favourite of theirs by far though! Robert Dunn: I fell asleep listening to this. Certainly there is a lot of excellent musicianship on display here, but (and this is my problem with prog) a hell of a lot of it is just not necessary. At one point just after I woke up, I honestly wasn’t sure if I had simply dozed off for a few moments or if I had skipped a few songs, it sounded like just any other twiddly bitt from bi from wha whatt I had hear heard d so so far far.. ItIt coul could d be be that that I miss missed ed the goo good d stuf stufff durin duringg
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my nap, but I am not sure that I can listen to this again. Great musicians, too much unnecessary twiddling t widdling.. Glenn Bannister: My unreliable memory tells me I first became aware of this album by hearing Starship Trooper on on The TheFriday Friday Rock Show (in Show (in happier times, when a mainstream rock show could indulge in such things). I quickly added it to my fledgling collection. Although it came from a then relatively recent past, I was young and it seemed to come from a time long, long ago. It already had a mythical aura, something to be revered. Listening to it now, I’m still mightily impressed. I am a little surprised at how busy it all is, guitar, bass and drums often going off at tangents to each other, but never getting lost and held together by the glue of the keyboards and those divine vocals. I don’t recall ever thinking this was ov overin erindul dulge gent, nt, it was acc accessi essible ble,, even even to my nas nascen centt taste tastes. s. Marve Marvello llous us stuff, even if Clap remains completely out of place.
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Greta Van Van Fleet Fleet Have they just released the finest debut album of 2018?
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S M U B A L
All Them Wit Witches ches
Greta Van Fleet Anthem Of The Peaceful Army EMI The song remains the same? Yes… and no.
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N N I H I V A R T
et’s get it out of the way upfront: yes, this debut album from this muchhyped Michigan band sails close to Led Zeppelin. Not quite so close as to have Jimmyy Page Jimm Page calli calling ng his lawy lawyers, ers, but but close close enough to prompt anyone who has heard them to gaze wistfully into the middle distance and think of velvet loon pants, 50-minute drum solos and private planes kept airborne on clouds of cocaine. Greta Van Fleet themselves may plead juvenile ignorance and pull all the innocent, “Who? Us?” faces they want, but the fact is that the future of rock’n’roll sounds a lot like its past. On the evidence of this album, that’s not such a bad thing. It might be saddled with the worst title title in livin livingg memory, memory, but but Anthem Of The Peacef Peaceful ul Army really is one of the most exciting records released by a new band in recent years. This is partly a result of the amount of money and attention that’s being thrown at them – this is the first time time in years that that a rock band has been given given a genu genuine ine fighting fighting chance by a major label – but it’s mostly down to the youthful, unmanufacturable exhilaration that courses through its 10 tracks. The same naiveté that allows Greta Van Fleet to echo the biggest of the big beasts of the 70s without without blushing blushing also allows them to properly rock out
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without fear of without of ridicule. ridicule. Mountains Of The Sun kicks in with some freewheeling bottleneck bottlen eck guitar guitar and doesn’t let up for four and a half minutes, while the heroic Cold Wind could have been plucked from one of those Best Of The Old Grey Whistle Test T est programmes that you find on BBC4 on Friday nights. But Greta Van Fleet know how to conjure an atmosphere, too. Album opener Age Of Man Man, with its evocations of ‘wonderlands wonderla nds of ice ice and and snow snow’, billows and floats before erupting into a blinding sunburst chorus. It’s as familiar as a battered old vinyl copy of Houses Of The Holy, but weirdly modern too. An estate agent would would call it ‘timeless’. Anthem Of The Peacef Peaceful ul Army isn’t quite the finished article. Josh Kiszka’s Plantalike vocals hit the high register from the start and stay right up there throughout; more than once you find yourself wincingg and mutterin wincin muttering: g: “Turn “Turn it down, down, sunshine.” And the closing title track lays on the cloying, hippie-dippy sentiment so thickly that you can’t help thinking that perhaps Altamont wasn’t such a bad thing after all. At the final count, Ant Anthem hem Of Of The The Peaceful Army is shaping up to be the finest debut album of both 2018 and 1972.
Dave Everley
ATW NEW WEST Nashville psych-rock adventurists strip back for fifth album. Since 2012, All Them Witches have been doing weird, wonderful and whacked out things with rock’n’roll. rock’n’r oll. Armed with a stockpile of Blue Cheer, Led Zeppelin and their own ideas, they turned it into a colossal psychedelic creature, peaking on 2017’s gloriously ambitious Sleeping Through The War . For reasons known only to them, they’ve scaled back on all that for this self-produced record. And it’s difficult not to ATW feel a little disappointed. ATW is their “most intimate, humansounding album” yet, which is all well and good, but it was their otherworldly, not-quite-human panache that made them so exciting before. The visceral drive of Sleeping rarely appears; instead we get slow blues and woozy jams in Harvest Feast, and cool-but-not-killer psych tones in the likes of Workhouse . It’s still an enjoyable record, with commandingly heady atmosphere aplenty; ideal for late-night spins with deep conversations and/or mountains of marijuana. What’s more, the creeping, hooky menace of Diamond suggests their ear for charismatic hoodoo is still there. ATW TW seems But overall A seems ‘smaller’ somehow, where previous records were… well, bigger . If it were anyone else we’d be more impressed, but ATW can do better.
Polly Glass
Dave Davies Decade RED RIVER ENTERTAINMENT Where’s Dave’s Knighthood? It’s amazing what you can find under the bed: crumpled Kleenex, dead birds… Or a whole cache of unheard Dave Davies, of Kinks fame, recordings, here restored by his sons Simon and Martin. Spanning 1971-78, the songs have stirring period qualities, and once the syrupy, spiritual Cradle To The Crave (which sounds remarkably like Family) lands, Davies fans ought to be purring. We always knew he had a great and underrated voice, that he wrote killer material (Death Of A Clown, Susannah’s Still Alive), but his solo career
has tended to be termed ‘reticent’. In fact the best moments here, Islands and the country blues If You Are Leaving, would easily have settled on contemporary Kinks albums. The latter, featuring Kinks drummer Mick Avory, was recorded in 1971 at Morgan studios, the rest at The Kinks’ Konk, which helps the album sound like a coherent project. And it goes without saying that the guitar playing is terrific, notably on the West Coast-influenced Mystic Woman and the spacey, Zep-tinged Same Old Blues. Good to hear the quiet one speaking up again.
Max Bell
Disturbed Evolution REPRISE The title says it all. Some might still regard Disturbed as forever tied to nu metal. But those days are long gone. On this, their seventh studio album, the Chicago band have eschewed all preconce preconceptions ptions and embraced different styles. So while Are You You Ready Ready does sound like a typical Disturbed Reason To Fight Fight is anthem, A Reason a high-grade power ballad, Hold On To Memories is an emotionally charged acoustic workout, and Watch You Burn could easily grace an REO Speedwagon album. The best track here, though, is Alrea Already dy Metallica’ss Gone, reminiscent of Metallica’ Nothing Else Matters, with David Draiman’s beautifully understated vocals nestling against broodingly tuneful guitar playing from Dan Donegan. Draiman suggests this is Disturbed’s Black Album, and he could be right. The band have embraced their own instincts, and as a result their credibility has soared on arguably their most convincing album since 2000’s The Sickness.
Malcolm Dome
Razorlight Olympus Sleeping ATLANTIC CULTURE
An indie god awakens? A roller-coaster, a pantomime, a really weird ZZ Top video; Razorlight’s 16 years have seen many bizarre and unpredictable phases. Now, eight years after the original lineup fell apart acrimoniou acrimoniously sly and
following an ill-advised stint with a replacement bunch of pirates and pimps, frontman Borrell is back with a band that looks like a band, and a back-to-basics fourth album that recaptures adroitly his initial dizzy rock rush, like a breathless Television. Midsummer Girl, Girl, Carry Yourself and Japa and Japanroc nrock k are are all effective, effervescent Razorlight pogo rock, a 50s prom swing takes hold of Sorry? Sorry?,, Brighton Pier and and the title track, and only Iceman – a Sheeran-esqu Sheeran-esque e Celtic lilt casting Borrell as a down-on-hi down-on-hissluck wedding singer – and the odd cry of “hubris, hubris!” will raise smirks this time round. A must-buy, if only for the brilliant soap-opera twist of watching Johnny Borrell rise from the ashes.
Mark Beaumont
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats Wasteland RISE ABOVE Uncle Acid has seen the future, and it’s f**ked. Led by frontman/ visionary Kevin Starr, Britain’s Deadbeats have quietly clawed their way through their ‘occult rock’ roots in the past few years, and are now tapping brave new worlds. Wasteland,, the psychedel Wasteland psychedelic ic doom band’s fifth album, is a dystopian rock opera, basically,
like a darker and drearier version of the Planet P Project (aka Tony Carey) album Pink World, World, full of fear and static and propaganda and annihilation zones, a nightmare world of grey skies and flickering video screens. And much like Carey’s 1984 prog-pop masterpiece, Uncle Acid uses the deceptively sweet melodies of late 70s AOR to hook you and draw you into his bleak and twisted tales. Hardcore doommetal dummies may not get with this new plan, but the combination of airy psychedelia, lumbering riffs and shamelessly poppy hooks turn headbanger headbangerss like Shockwave City, Blood Runner and the epic, seven-minu seven-minute te title track into cinematic works of art.
(ooh!), with America as “the young girl who is seduced, corrupted and wedded into a Satanic covenant with the beast” (oooh (oooh!). !). Stodgy moments aside, it often delivers – with oomphy power-pop, fuzz-laden hooks and maniacal yowling in the satisfyingly swaggering You’re Toast,, along with subtler acoustic Toast touches and funky jibes in tracks like (It Gets) (A Little) Jumpy . It isn’t a return to those batshit glory days, but it should keep their fans happy.
SEASON OF MIST
Sleazegrinder
Electric Six Bride Of The Devil METROPOLIS Fourteenth album from the dudes who wrote Gay Bar . RememberGay Remember Gay Bar , and Danger! High Voltage? Voltage? Electric Six probably wish those aren’t the only songs of theirs you remembered. You can’t blame them, given how many more spirited hybrids of surfy rock’n’roll, power-pop and noisy hard rock they’ve released since then. Today they come bearing a fevered, poppy yet heavy ode to Lucifer; a metaphor for Russia
Polly Glass
Crippled Black Phoenix The Great Escape Brit prog-metallers’ epic monument to despair. Crippled Black Phoenix aren’t the first band to follow the trail of breadcrumbs left by Pink Floyd, but somewhere along the path they took a wrong turning and ended up lost in the deep, dark woods. Their tenth album should be subtitled The Darkest Side Of The Moon.. Inspired by drummer/ Moon driving force Justin Greaves’s struggles with depression, and weighing in at a monolothic 90 minutes, it revels in its own desolation. Times They Are A Raging Raging swings swings from sparse gloom to dense noise and back
again, Madman Madman is is loaded with claustrophobic keyboards, while the ultra-Floydian, two-part title track is the sonic equivalent of a prism of light that’s been bleached of its colour. But there’s a grim beauty below the surface that saves it from utter bleakness, even if you have to dig deep to find it.
Dave Everley
Soulfly Ritual ROADRUNNER Metal’s one-man riff factory hits another peak. No one could accuse Max Cavalera Cavaler a of being a slouch. Even just since 2008 the former Sepultura frontman has released 10 studio albums (five with Soulfly, four with Cavalera Conspiracy and one with the all-star Kill Or Be Killed) and been on tour almost remorselessly. You might expect him to be running out of steam, but Ritual, Soulfly’s eleventh full-length record, is almost comically explosive and full of exhilaratin exhilarating g moments. The expected clatter of ethnic percussion and those trademark lolloping grooves are present and correct, but Max’s extreme inclinations are the dominant force. The opening title track and the heads-down chug-off of Evil Empowered are Empowered are instant crowd
ROUND-UP: SLEAZE
Beyond The Sky SMALL STONE
When rock hits a high enough intensity level, a cosmic switch is flicked and it suddenly becomes rawk – and when it does, run for fucking cover, man. Make no mistake, Beyond The Sky is is
a bona fide, leather pants and mirror shades RAWK album, the kind of ballsfirst macho thunder that can only be created by a steady diet of AC/DC, raw meat and black velvet posters of topless hippie death goddesses. Vancouver’s La Chinga are breathlessly, recklessly, unapologetically rock’n’roll rock’n’roll in in every way I can think of, and with this album they’ve created a minor
Dom Lawson
Soft Machine Hidden Details DYAD Jazz vets return. Approach, but with caution. With their first new album in 37 years, one of Britain’s great, pioneering jazzrock groups have delivered a diverse record that sounds fresh and modern while also bridging to their early-70s heyday. heyday. Most accessible to rock ears will be the heavywei heavyweight ght title track and the riff-based One Glove and Glove and Out Bloody Rageous (Part 1). 1). The latter – one of a handful that showcase John Etheridge’ss astonishing guitar Etheridge’ playing – is a lively new version of a highlight of the Soft’s classic 1970 album Third album Third,, and links today’s quartet (as does the melodic The Man Who Waved At Trains)) with their most lauded Trains period. On the other hand, Life On Bridges and Bridges and part of the not conventionally tuneful Gound Lift might be a difficult listen for the un-jazzed ear.
Paul Henderson
By Sleazegrinder Poison Heart
The Night Screams
Heart Of Black City
Stuck KING PIZZA
HEAVY MEDICATION
Straight outta Warsaw Rock City, Poison Heart explore rock’n’roll’s grimiest alleys for this walloping collection of goth-tinged,Dungaree goth-tinged, Dungaree High -meets-The -meets-The Addams Family sorta sorta action rock, like if Lords Of The New Church were the house band on a Viking cruise ship. If you’re ready for some darkness, these dudes deliver it with big riffs and even bigger attitudes.
Nasty NY punk rock’n’roll, roll, with a singer who sounds like he’s wringing your neck the whole time while his band kicks and pummels everything in sight. I haven’t heard destructo-rock this savage in awhile, and it’s refreshingly brutal. If Pussy Galore was the Led Zep of noise, these dudes are the Greta Van Fleet. Keep some bandages around – your ears are gonna need ‘em.
The Girls
Black Helium
Gimme Some Lips
Primitive Fuck RIOT SEASON
SELF-RELEASED
masterpiece of pure, uncut slabbage. The song titles – Killer Wizard, Death Rider, Wings Of Fire – – give the game away even before the riffs do, and they all live up to those fearsome designations. There’s a fiery, nostril-flaring groove to and jammers jamme rs like like Nothing That I Can’t Do and Feel It In My Bones , but overall it’s clobbering time.
The Girls are a shockingly young power trio from North Carolina; like, GN’R were already on to the Chinese Democracy shit when they were born. And that’s great news, because somebody’s gotta carry the goddamn torch, and The Girls might be the band to do it. They might be aiming for Van Halen here, but land closer to The Dwarves. And that’s close enough f or rock’n’roll.
We don’t have time to get into it here, but Gaye Bykers On Acid were one of the greatest bands of all time. Black Helium, a one-time Halloween band that suddenly flared up into full flower, remind me a lot of them in that they play brainmelting psychedelic death-fuzz that sounds like The Stooges fucking a pizza to death. Yeah, pizzas aren’t alive, but you know what I mean.
La Chinga: Beyond The Sky is a minor masterpiece of pure, uncut slabbage.
La Chinga
pleasers, but it’s the visceral attack of more multi-paced, deathly blasts like Dead Behind The Eyes and Eyes and Under Rapture that truly startle. Yes, it’s more of the scabrous same, but in the best possible way. He’s still got it.
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ALBUMS
The Aints! The Church Of Simultaneouss Existence Simultaneou ABC MUSIC
The Struts Young & Dangerous POLYDOR Walk this way: superlative second album from fast-rising Derby rockers.
The fourth Saints album? The Saints, from Brisbane, were one of the two greatest punk bands (along with the Ramones). Raw, angry, with a belligerent singer and an even more belligerent guitarist, Ed Kuepper. Three albums of punk fury and primal rock classicism, unmatched. The Laughing Clowns, the jazz-infu jazz -infused sed garag garage e band band Kuepper formed after the breakup of the original Saints in ’78, were so great live that even Nick Cave’s Birthday Party couldn’t match them. The band Kuepper formed in ’91, The Aints (named after an old Saints drum head with the ‘S’ scratched off) were near as dammit as good as both. Not revivalist, merely incendiary. This new band (note the exclamation exclamati on mark), formed with a Celibate Rifle, a Sunnyboy and a couple of wired jazz musicians, are pure Clowns. The 12 songs here, compiled from old bits and pieces Ed wrote starting when he began high school in ’69, through the tumultuous heyday of (pre-) punk, could well be the fourth Saints album, which never happened. It blisters. It belts. Man, it’s so damn good.
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oasting a stash of killer tunes and a frontman in Luke Spiller who combines the flamboyance of Freddie Mercury with the vocal ability of Steven Tyler, The Struts should, by rights, already be the global stars they imagine they are. Having relocated relocated to LA in 2015, they’ve spent the past three years in self-imposed exile, learning their chops on extensive tours with rock heavyweights – The Who, Guns N’ Roses and Foo Fighters. Such a steep learning curve hasn’t been wasted on them, because their second album is stadium sized in every respect. From the opening bars of Body Talks it’s clear instantly that this is a quantum leap forward from their 2014 debut Everybody Want W antss. The sleaziest of guitar riffs snakes its way around an irresistible Lust For Life style groove, over which Spiller drawls: ‘You can pretend you don’t want it !’ like Iggy on Viagra stumbling into a #MeToo seminar. It’s both brazen and brilliant, and alerts you to the fact that this is a band who really mean business. Recorded in LA, Nashville, Miami, Jersey and Bou Bournemo rnemouth, uth, with prod producer ucerss Butch Walker (Weezer, Panic! At the Disco) and Sam Hollander (Neon Trees), Young & Dangerous sounds fantastic, its 82 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
sledgehammer pop crunch delivered with sledgehammer analogue warmth designed designed to hit a deep vein of joy joy in any fan of rock’s rock’s gold golden en age age (Queen, Thin Lizzy, Faces et al). Not that The Struts have retreated down a retro wormhole. She’s In Love With A Camera Camera and Who Am I are bubblegu bubb legum m classics classics whic which h chart chart Spille Spiller’s r’s frustrations with selfie culture and identity politics, while the anthemic Freak Like Me plays on rock’s new-found status as cultural c ultural underdog. underdog. In an age where hip-hop and pop have become beco me the the Instagra Instagram m genera generation tion’s ’s soundtrack of choice, The Struts’ refusal to toe the line becomes more thrilling thr illing with every kno knowin wingg nod nod to rock’s sepia sepia-tinted past, from the Gimme Shelter intro intro to Primadonna Like Me to the Baba O’Rileyesque coda of Ashes (P (Part art 2) 2). While comparisons to The Darkness are unavoidable (Permission To Land is the obvious sonic touchstone), the sheer joie de vivre on Young & Dangerous ensures that it never sounds second-hand. Like all great albums, it reminds you of everything that made you fall in love with this this crazy thing thing called called rock’n’roll rock’n’roll in the first place.
Paul Moody
Everett True
Blackberry Smoke The Southern Ground Sessions EARACHE Southern rockers’ six-track acoustic EP. It’s become common practice for artists with a loyal following to lure them into buying an album twice by reissuing it months later as an ‘expanded’, ‘deluxe’ edition. Blackberry Smoke have at least tried something a bit different, releasing an EP of five acoustic re-recordings of tracks from April’s Find A Light plus a cover of Tom Petty’s You Got Lucky , all recorded live in the studio in the titular Nashville facility. Apart from the laughs and expressions of approval bookending the takes, though, not much is new, and it’s not always for the better. Medicate My Mind benefits from a slightly slower, groovierr tempo, but in other groovie cases these undeniably strong, simple songs sound much the
same without electric guitars. You can barely hear Amanda Shires’ silvery harmonies on Let Me Down Easy , and the lush 12-string guitars of Mother Mountain sound rougher in a demo way rather than offering extra organic edge. Grounded, then, but also a little earthbound.
Johnnyy Sharp Johnn Sharp
Jon Spen Spencer cer Spencer Sings The Hits! IN THE RED
Debut solo album from the fuzz king. In a world of identikit wannabes, we should thank the universe for the rare one-offs out there. And they truly broke the mould when they made Jon Spencer. With his instantly recognisable take on garage blues-rock with a hint of Elvis, this debut solo album carries on the lineage of his previous bands Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Heavy Trash and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: deceptively simple, fabulously rough-edged, drenched in distortion and punctuated with feedback, it’s all-American cool personified. Who else, after all, could make a song about kicking a trash can sound sexy and dangerous without even seeming to try. As you’d expect from the album’s droll title, there’s a tongue-in-cheek bravado at work, with strutting boast-track I Got The Hits and preening closer Cape displaying their plumage like amorous parrots, while lines that would be laughable in less competent hands (‘Baby baby I’m a ghost. Baby baby I’m…spooky! Ghost! ’) instead become mesmerising thanks to the charisma and absolute confidence they’re presented with. Still scuzzy, still weird, long may Jon Spencer walk his own unique path.
Emma Johnston
Tom Morello The Atlas Underground BMG
RATM guitarist kicks it with a celebrity cast. We often see announcements of new albums with a stellar lineup of guests, and imagine a dizzying multiplication of talents. Which sounds great in theory. But it rarely turns out that way.
A N N A L E E / P R E S S
And so it proves with the ex-Rage Against The Machine guitarist Morello’s collaborathon. It works best when it doesn’t try too hard to reinvent the dancerock wheel. On Rabbit’s Revenge, Big Boi and Killer Mike ride in on a Kashmir -like -like riff to condemn police brutality, then Vic Mensa sets fire to We Don’t Believe You, despite claiming ‘Nine-eleven was a hoax, it was never hijacked’, alongside startling laser-fire guitar from the main man. Then Vigilante Nocturno’s stomping, immediate groove hits harder than the style-splicin style-splicing g experiments elsewhere; an example of the latter is the RZA/ GZA-assisted Lead Poisoning, an album-closing anthem reduced to a half-baked rap-rock plod. Pick and mix your own highlights, but as a one-sitting listen expect a bumpy ride.
Johnnyy Sharp Johnn Sharp
David Crosby Here If You Listen BMG DC finds new friends. CLW&S may not have the cachet of the other acronym to which Crosby has lent his initial, but in Michael League, Michelle Willis and Becca Stevens – with whom he collaborated on 2016’s Lighthouse – he has found perfect foils. The press release might claim it’s like CSNY-meets-Björk, but it
really isn’t. It’s more CSNY given half a sex change and brought swaying gently into the 2010s. The close four-part vocal harmonies are stunning, the songwriting is strong and Crosby still gets in his political jabs here and there: ‘Two blind men/Fat fingers on the trigger/R trigger/Rocket ocket men and little hands’, anyone? It’s a bit of a misnomer to call this a David Crosby album, as it’s clearly a collaborative effort. All four musicians have their moment in the sun to shine, while their closing take on Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock bring bring things full circle.
and Bad Hombres rail against the powers that be and Bull’s Anthem is an oddly jaunty animal-rights animal-rights anthem, there’s positivity to be found in the likes of Crazy White Boy Shit (a high-octane love letter to Bad Brains) and a generous dose of humour, not least in Self Important Shirthead, sticking it to the self-obsessio self-obsession n of social media and slamming to a conclusion with a succinct ‘Fuck off and die!’ In giving themselves the freedom to write about anything, Sick Of It All have a fresh sense of can-do-anything fun to balance the fury.
Siân Llewellyn
Sick Of It All Wake The Sleeping Dragon! CENTURY MEDIA
NYHC lifers unleash the fire in their bellies on album 11. It’s 32 years since Sick Of It All formed in Queens, New York. A gang of angry young men with a thirst for social justice and a talent for nose-bloodying punk rock served up at 100mph alongside an all-encompassing sense of community. In 2018 they’re a gang of angry old men, and it’s clear from Wake The Sleeping Dragon!’s raging opening barrage of Inner Visions that they’ve lost none of their vim and vinegar. But while the title track, Work The System
Emma Johnston
The Brutalists The Brutalists CLEOPATRA Staring at the rude boys. Coming on like a louche and sleazy pub-rock band more at home in a dreary, dodgy Ladbroke Grove circa 1979 than in modern downtown LA, The Brutalists are something of a welcome anomaly with their ska-powered take on bluesy, boozy punk’n’roll. Former Quireboy Nigel Mogg’s delightfully yobbish vocals bring to mind an extra-cheek extra-cheeky y Phil Daniels, giving the sound a very English spin, and there’s plenty of fun to be had skanking along Jungle gle to Form & Function and Jun Nasty . It’s not hard to imagine the band providing the background soundtrack to some seedy pub
scene in Minder , with the old piano-driven blues of Nutter the the accompaniment to Arthur stitching Terry up yet again. Make mine a double VAT, Dave.
Essi Berelian
Opeth Garden Of The Titans: Opeth Live At The Red Rocks Ampitheatre NUCLEAR BLAST
Audio (and visual) blow-out from one of prog’s most unlikely crossover successes. Who thought we’d live long enough to hear and see Opeth thunder though the menacing Ghost Of Perdition to a sold-out Red Rocks, that glorious natural open-air amphitheatre amphitheatr e that made U2 international superstars with their Under A Blood Red Sky album recorded there. Believe it. Believe too, perhaps even more remarkably, how Opeth singer Mikael Akerfeldt has morphed into a latter-day Dave Lee Roth, after a fashion. Less scissor kicks and leaping from the drum raiser, maybe, but he name-checks Twisted Sister and is almost as much fun between songs as he is when he’s playing them. Musically it’s welcomingly full bore, with slick, bombastic readings of the intricate The Devil’s Orchard, the light touch of In My Time Of
ROUND-UP: BLUES S
Journeys To The Heart Of The Blues MUNICH
Joe Louis Walker, Bruce Katz & Giles Robson: given birth to a beautiful baby.
Philip Wilding
Behemoth I Loved You At Your Darkest NUCLEAR BLAST Unholy hosannas from satanic metal’s new kings. Behemoth didn’t get to the top of the extreme metal food chain just by sheer sheer dumb luck luck.. The The Polish band’s success is a product of shrewd image building, headline-grabbing provocation and the kind of naked ambition that’s more Gene Simmons than Cronos from Venom. In fairness, Behemoth have the music to back it up. I Loved You At Your Your Darke Darkest st, their eleventh album, is a wall of noise delivered with cinematic intent. The blackened battery and guttural shrieks summoned by mainman Adam ‘Nergal’ Darski – still the only heavy metal singer to have opened a hairdressing salon and been arrested for ripping up a bible on stage – are punctuated by a 17-piece orchestra, acoustic interludes and even a kids’ choir. Despite that, there’s no capitulation to crossover potential here – Darski has left the shiny pop chorusues and winking blasphemy to Johnnycome-latelyss Ghost. The result is come-lately diabolically exhilarati exhilarating. ng.
Dave Everley
By Henry Yates Joe Louis Louis Walker Walker,, Bruce Katz & Giles Robson
P / R E H E N E D Y E K I M
Need and a wonderfully overblown Deliverance.
Ever since Cray, Collins and Copeland’s Showdown! , the blues has enjoyed a proud tradition of the ménage à trois. Joe Louis Walker, Bruce Katz and Giles Robson might look li ke three pangenerational soaks molesting the pub piano, while their mission statement – to strip a raft of standards to their acoustic kernel – sounds like the stuff of musical taxidermy, but the trio have produced a quite beautiful baby. Ostensibly the junior partner, harp player Robson is a revelation, asserting himself on and the reed-busting rattle of G&J Boogie and the lonesome wheeze of I’m A Lonely Man , jockeyin jock eyingg for for posit position ion with Kat Katz’ z’s mellifl mellifluous uous plink-plonk on Hell Ain’t But A Mile & A Quarter and and replying to Walker’s fruity conversational vocal on Hard Pill To Swallow . If there’s a criticism, it’s that guitar monster Walker can’t go as apeshit in this format, but the scratchy intimacy of his break in Feel Like Blowing My Horn is is ample compensation.
Doyle Bramhall II
Tony Joe White
Shades MASCOT/PROVOGUE
Bad Mouthin’ YEP ROC
The sideman’s decade with Clapton ensures he pulls in the marquee names for Shades – – EC himself turns in a smoky solo on Everything You Need , Need , the Tedeschi Trucks Band back up Prince homage Going Going Gone . But the best moments are Bramhall alone, with the ghostly Hammer Ring evoking evoking a chain-gang, and Love And Pain marking marking him out as one of the few artists with the balls to take on the NRA.
Tony Joe White’s credentials as a writer of hits are impeccable – he gave Polk Salad Annie to to Elvis and Steamy Windows to to Tina Turner – but his own work has always taken a little more patience. As ever, sparse and cyclical are the key words, with most songs carried by White’s noneless-flashy strum and a voice like an open grave. It’s a fine li ne between hypnotic and soporific, but he’s usually on the right side.
Gregory Coulson
Rainbreakers
What’s New? SELF-RELEASED
Face To Face SELF-RELEASED
Gregory Coulson has the homegrown R&B thing down – see jiving opener 10/10 , the cocksure Sick Note and and the lift-off chorus of Girls , all three songs as fresh as the genre has sounded in years. But there’s more: Someone To Be There hints hints at Coulson’s two-tone past in The Selecter, while End Of The Line opens opens with an AC/DC jitter-riff that sits nicely with Coulson’s Brian Johnson flat cap.
The Shrewsbury quartet have impressed on the sticky-floor circuit, and Face To Face is the studio debut that suggests they could step up. Heavy Soul has muscle and heart, with the band thundering over frontman Ben Edwards’s reflections on mental illness. But unlike most of the heavy mob, Rainbreakers can shift gears convincingly – see the sunny soul of Lost With You .
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ALBUMS
Marianne Faithfull
Ace Frehley Spaceman EONE/SPV While his guitar playing can still thrill, words fail the former Kiss guitarist.
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ased on the Spaceman sleeve, Ace ‘The Spaceman’ Frehley appears to be in in no partic particular ular hurry hurry.. ShrinkShrink wrapped wrap ped in in spande spandex, x, reclin reclining ing on a silv silver er throne, he’s every inch the coasting, royalty funded veteran. But the numbers tell a different story. Spaceman is the 67-year-old’s third solo album in four years, a hot streak that makes the Kiss mothership look positively sluggish (six years and counting since Monster ).). In fairness, Frehley isn’t exactly painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with these late-period solo releases. releases. Apart from f rom Quantum Flux, the album’s impressive prog-instrumentalfinale, Spaceman is route-one,no-frills, no-fr ills, knock knock-it-out -it-out-and-andfuck-off-home fuck-off-h ome rock’n’roll – and that’s (usually) no criticism. When Ace’s hooks, riffs and solos are on the money, he can still give you the old shivers. It’s frustrating, then, that his vocals and lyrics sometimes act like sandbags on songs that are straining for lift-off. There are strong moments here to sate the Kiss Army – and not just the rumbleand-slash opener Wit Without hout You I’m Nothi Nothing ng, co-written with Gene Simmons over buried burie d hatche hatchets. ts. Rockin’ With The Boys was written writt en back back in the the 70s, 70s, and and with with its its instantly familiar shout-it-back chorus you can imagine the Kiss line-up would kill to get their hands on it now. Your Wish 84 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Is My Command, another Simmons co-write, is a stack-heeled glitter-stomp, pairing Queen-worthy harmonies with Who-style windmilled chords. Bronx Boy might be the best thing here, with Frehley nodding to his early days running wild with an Irish Irish street street gan gang, g, over over thrill thrilling ingly ly feral guitars. On these songs and others, the only thing that’s really missing is a little more pizzazz at the microphone. As ever, Frehley sings decently, but his voice never quite turns the head like his roaring guitar playing, while his lyrics sometimes make Rock And Roll All Nite sound like Wordsworth. Wordsw orth. Take Pursuit Of Rock And Roll, a perfectly serviceable tune scuppered by a club-footed salute to Ace’s formative influences (‘Don’t need no rap or disco for eternity ,’ he honks, ‘I love the Rolling Stones, those bad boys set me free! ’). Then there’s Off My Back, its rousing chord sequence laid low by a volley of failed-relationship clunkers (‘ You gotta understand our time is past/It’s time to separate and I’m talking fast ’). Spaceman confirms beyond doubt that Frehley still has some cracking tunes up his sleeve. But perhaps this intergalactic voyag vo yager er should should slo slow w down down and and chew chew the pencil a little longer.
Henry Yates
Negative Capability BMG Sixties muse delivers her masterpiece. Racked with pain from surgical procedures, a broken hip, arthritis; bereft from the loss of close friends; haunted by the twin spectres of mortality and loneliness; Marianne Faithfull has produced an extraordinary album of raw unflinching honesty and staggering emotive power. Boasting more original material than usual, Negative Capability finds Faithfull at her best, delivering a remarkable eulogy to her friend Anita Pallenberg (Born To Live), inspired by the Paris attacks to compose They Come At Night with Mark Lanegan and By , returning at 71 to As Tears Go By the Jagger/Richards composition that introduced her to the world as an angelic convent girl of 17. A rich, moving, experiencesteeped rendition of equal power to Johnny Cash’s Hurt or Joni Mitchell’s 2000 reprise of Both Sides Now . Nick Cave’s on hand to add vocal power to The Gypsy Fairie Queen, and the production by Rob Ellis and Warren Ellis captures every last nuance of the prevailing mood perfectly, while Faithfull herself is invariably the irresistibly captivating grande dame at centre stage. There won’t be a better record released this month, and very few this year. This is one for the ages.
Ian Fortnam
Del Bromham White Feather ESOTERIC Life as a feather. Original Stray (who’ve been out celebrating their 50th anniversary) guitarist Del Bromham’s solo career may date back to the late 70s, but this is only his third album. It’s certainly his most personal, although ironically Stray fans will recognise his songwriting style which is broader than the blues of his first two albums. Sixty-six-year-old Bromham confronts some of the trials and tribulations of his generatio generation n by cranking up his guitar until it stings, and delivering an array of riffs and solos that prove his musical marbles are intact. As are his emotional marbles, despite some hard knocks. The title track is about the death of
his daughter – about the cruellest fate any parent can face. Wicked Man questions whether he may in some way be responsible for the hard knocks, are about Let It Go and Monkey are learning to unburden yourself. His lyrics are human rather than spiritual, even when he’s appealing for mutual respect on My House, and you probably have to be there or thereabouts to appreciate them, but his blues rock is ageless.
Hugh Fielder
Nashville Pussy Pleased To Eat You EARMUSIC Lock up your parents! They’re nasty. Crude, deranged, full of sass and bad language and even badder licks, the new album from the band Lemmy once called “America’s last great rock’n’roll rock’n’r oll band” kicks the proverbial ass. Hard. With no letup and certainly no apologies. Hillbilly sludge. Primordial grunge. The blues as tossed into a meat grinder. There’s no artifice here, no bullshit. Southern rockers Nashville Pussy are back . Husband-and-wife Husband-andwife team Blaine Cartwright (vocals, rhythm guitar) and Ruyter Suys (lead guitar) are on particularly riotous form on this seventh album (production by Danny ‘Ramones’ Rey). Songs like the bruising One Bad Mother and and brutal Trying To Pretend That I Give A Shit are dirty, belligerent, AC/DC-channelling; rock, the way bandana-wearing pretenders Aerosmith and Jon Bon so clearly aren’t. This band are not backwards in coming forwards: more songs about whiskey, women, stud farms, boozing, getting wasted, swearing and eating outdoors and some shit-kicki shit-kicking ng music. “Just don’t dress up,” says Suys, “cos it’s gonna get messy.” Amen, sister.
Everett True
Pink Fairies Resident Reptiles PURPLE PYRAMID
Away with the fairies. It may not surprise you to learn that none of the members of the Pink Fairies listed on their previous album are present on their new album. There is also a possibility
(it’s hard to put it stronger than that) that there may be two bands sailing under the Pink Fairies name. This is a natural consequence of even the loosest connection to Hawkwind. Resident Reptiles is Reptiles is brought to you by founding Fairy Paul Rudolph (taking a break from his bicycle repair business) on guitar and vocals, former Hawkwind bassist Alan Davey and original Motörhead drummer Lucas Fox. Rudolph might barely have touched a guitar in the past couple of decades but he has no trouble slipping into a garage band mind-set, thrashing away with abandon and overdubbing the occasional solo. The opening title track, with its presumption that we are actually being governed by reptiles, takes us straight back to Fairyland. That’s followed by a song from former Fairy Larry Wallis, Old Enuff To Know Better , and the pattern is set as they veer from swampy to bluesy until they suddenly get incongruo incongruously usly serious on closer Apol closer Apologise ogise where they want the reptiles to say sorry for the British Empire.
Hugh Fielder
Brant Bjork Mankind Woman HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS
Another long strange trip through inner space. The last time Classic Rock experienced the smoky magic of a Brant Bjork show, the whole evening was overshadowed by the (unfounded) news (and subsequent rumours) that Josh Homme was in town and would be visiting the stage to perform an encore set of Kyuss – a band they both played a very large part in – classics. Eventually Eventually we got Kyuss, but without Homme. Which is a shame, as they’ve both come out of the desert with a uniquely skewed musical world view that incorporates psych rock and a defiantly fuzzy and bluesy bottom end. Mankind Woman, Woman, Bjork’s thirteenth record, plots a familiar trail, and while he insists he’s forsaken some of his retro feel the title track owes more than a passing nod to Deep Purple in their pomp. It’s hard to complain, though, when you’re revelling in the undulating groove of Lazy Wizards (yes, really) or the cool spark of a song like Charlie Gin. Gin. There’s much to admire too in the southern twang of the punchy
Swagger & Sway , with its genteel, dropped-down mid-section groove, and the Hendrixy, King’s X-infused Pretty Hairy .
Philip Wilding
Suicidal Tendencies Still Cyco Punk After All These Years SUICIDAL Frontman Mike Muir’s solo album returns to the bosom of its family. Still Cyco Punk Afterr All Afte All These These Years wasn’t meant to be a Suicidal Tendencies album. Its first incarnation appeared in 1995 as Lost My Brain (Once Again!), Again!) , the debut by frontman Mike Muir under the moniker Cyco Miko. Now resurrected, re-recorded and re-energised, it slots into their catalogue as neatly as a jigsaw piece. The joy of Suicidal Tendencies is the fact that they’ve never really veered from the thrashpunk path they pioneered for themselves and the generatio generation n that followed them back in the 80s, meaning none of these songs sound dated, and are more an extended chapter in their story. The peerless Dave Lombardo (Slayer) has been brought in on drums, and Ain’ and Ain’tt Gonna Get Me and Me and Lost My Brain… Once Again, Again, in particular, find him at his thrashing best, complemented by some admirably dedicated guitar widdling. Snotty and fizzing with energy, these treasures may have been gathering dust, but now they’ve been excavated and given a good polish, they’re gleaming like new.
Emma Johnston
The Guess Who The Future IS What It Used To Be CLEOPATRA Back to the future. Some 40 people have played with the Guess Who during their convoluted 53-year career (which has included two different bands at the same time), but the handful of US hits they scored around the beginning of the 70s, of which Ame which American rican Wom Woman an was was their biggie in the UK, were distinctive enough to protect their identity through all the subsequent shenanigans. And it’s that heyday that the band have tried to recreate for their
first studio album in 23 years, reflected in the title. Drummer Garry Peterson is the only original member left – and even he’s taken a couple of breaks from the line-up – but the arrival of bassist Rudy Sarzo (Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne) a couple of years ago has raised the band’s kudos. But it’s the younger members who have driven the Guess Who’s back-to-the-future approach, which involved returning to the recording methods of the late 60s when eight tracks was considered a luxury and playing on vintage instruments and equipment. The result is a clear, clean sound with the recording levels up high so you can hear the different guitar parts and the striking harmonies. Singer Dee Sharp has written the lion’s share of the songs, most of which will shine brightly in the band’s show without detracting from the sparkle of their hits.
Hugh Fielder
Paul Simon In The Blue Light LEGACY Forgotten Simon ephemera, reimagined. Every life has loose ends that need tying. So as Paul Simon takes his final bow on his farewell tour, he also revisits tracks he felt he didn’t get quite right the first time round. On In The Blue Light, Light , old blues and country pieces like 1973’s One Man’s Ceiling Is Another Man’s Floor and and 1980’s How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns are recast as smoky jazz-bar nocturnes, a clutch of songs from 2000’s You’re The One get One get a dusky Latino makeover and Can’t Run But, But, from 1990’s The Rhythm Of The Saints, Saints, becomes an edgy string piece, its South American rhythm and heat fed through oboe and flute. To some degree these re-imaginings re-imaginin gs age the songs, strip them of more youthful textures and slot them into more trad categories, but there’s a real sense of late-in-the-ev late-in-the-evening ening fun to the playful ragtime take on 2000’s Pigs, Sheep And Wolves and a fresh chamber grace to 1983’s Rene And Georgette Magritte With Their Dog After The War Wa r . As a craftsman’s final flick on old canvases, it makes for a fine late Blue period.
Mark Beaumont
BEST OF THE REST Other new releases out this month. The Marcus King Band Carolina Confessions SNAKEFARM The singer/guitarist singer/guitarist showcases brassy soul, blues and rock on this classy fusion of southern velvet and grit. A worldly head on young shoulders. 7/10
John Butler Trio Home BECAUSE MUSIC Engaging and varied collection of mostly countryflecked, often punchy roots-rockers from class-act Australian singer-songwriter singer-songwriter.. 7/10
The Chills Snow Bound FIRE The eighth album from the Kiwi indie popsters is tasteful and eloquent, in the synth-infused vein of Split Enz or R.E.M. – minus the killer tunes. 5/10
White Widdow Victory AOR HEAVEN Fifth album of keyboard-dr keyboard-drenched enched AOR. Second Hand Heart, Late Night Liaison and Liaison and the stirring Fight For Love maintain Love maintain their usual high standards. 8/10
NoSound Allow Yourself KSCOPE Italian post-rockers veer in an electronic direction on this sixth album. It’s immersively experimental but wanes in places. 6/10
Midnite City There Goes The Neighbourhood AOR HEAVEN Hair-metal is extinct in 2018? This super-catchy, air-punching second from these UK-based reprobates blows that theory outta the water. 8/10
Steve Rodgers Head Up High ROULETTE/LANDER There’s no doubt about the dominant gene in Steve’s (son of Paul) vocal DNA. Contemporary, slick, a post-millennial Free. 7/10
Hank Erix Nothing But Trouble LIVEWIRE/CARGO Houston’s frontman steps away with a solo debut that retains his band’s sleek style but adds a more propulsive edge. Impressive. 7/10
Death Valley Girls Darkness Rains SUICIDE SQUEEZE If Charlie’s Spahn Ranch girls had formed a band that was part-Stooges, part-Bikini Kill, all groove, then they’d have sounded like this. 8/10
The Inspector Cluzo We The People Of The Soil CAROLINE A Gallic duo matching choppy Wilko string-strops with razor-honed wit to surprisingly funky effect. And much better than you think. Investigate. 8/10
Eric Church Desperate Man SPINEFARM Whether your faith is narrative blues ( The Snake), Snake), gospel boogie (Desperate ( Desperate Man) Man) or weepy ballads ( Juk Jukebo eboxx And And A Bar Bar ), ), this Church is worth a visit. 8/10
The Bottle Rockets Bit Logic BLOODSHOT ‘This ain’t no hi-tech train wreck, it’s the new way of keeping it real’. And keep it real they do. A fine set of rootsy, road tales from middle America. 7/10
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S E U S S I R E
Anathema
Metallica …And Justice For All: Deluxe Box Set
UMC
Damaged Justice revisited.
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ast year, James Hetfield stated emphatically his opposition to remixing …And Justice For All to give Jason News Newsted’s ted’s bare barely ly audi audible ble bass guit guitar ar a more prominent presence, preferring to conserve the album’s original character accurately, for better or worse. Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, and, unsurprisingly, Newsted himself, have expressed dissatisfaction dissatisfa ction with the album’s sound, innumerable articles have explored the reasons behind the imbalance (chief among them the fact that Newsted’s bass lines closely mirrored Hetfield’s guitar lines and competed for the same frequency bands), and fans have even uploaded their own remixes to YouTube. Still, no dice. Nevertheless, any disappointment disappoin tment at the band’s resolute refusal to fix the flawed original original mix of Metallica’s most complex record is liable to be compensated by the copious vaultpurging artefacts spread across the 11 CDs, four vinyl LPs, DVDs and ephemera that comprise this Deluxe Box Set. Newsted’s contribution to Justi Justice ce is also made clearer, via a wealth of demos and rough mixes, which provide a vivid illustration of the sheer graft that went into the creative process, with Metallica refusing to become complacent or tone down their sound as their stature 88 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
increased. Newsted also resonates through the three crushing Damaged Justice Justi ce live live show shows, s, and and the the remasteri remastering ng of the original nine songs adds a warmth and fullness which enhances the moments during which the bass is more discernible. Flaws aside, back in 1988 Justi Justice ce was mostly greeted with enthusiasm by fans and critics, praised for the musicianshi musicianship p displayed in the labyrinthine song structures, the dizzyin dizzyingg changes of Blackened and the title song a logical extension of earlier tracks like Master Of Puppets. And for disciples of the riff it’s hog heaven, each song a stream of memorable motifs. Weaker moments occur as T Too Liv Livee IsIs Too Die T Die drags early on and Harvester Of Sorrow plods, and Dyer’s Eve lacks the lasting melodies of previous thrashers such as Damage Inc, but each has redeeming elements, and the otherwise high calibre of what’s wha t’s on off offer er win winss out out over overall all.. Justic Jus ticee marked the moment at which Metallica, having survived the tragic loss of bassist bass ist Cli Cliff ff Burt Burton, on, ent entered ered the big leag league, ue, playing arenas and cracking the Billboard Top 10. This immersive collection captures the excitement of an era sometimes overlooked between their twin peaks of Master Of Puppets and the Black Album.
Rich Davenport
Internal Landscapes 2008-2018 KSCOPE Stirring highlights from the prog Scousers’ KScope years. In 2008, Anathema left the doom-metal underground undergro und to pursue a more boundary-pushing boundary-p ushing brand of emotional heft; they were one of the first signees to progressiv progressive e label KScope. Their music since then has been called many things – progressive, postprogressive, alternative – but it’s all been the product of experience, with founders Danny and Vincent Cavanagh channelling their own fraught past into powerful sounds. Where ‘Best Of’-type compilations often accentuate the pre-eminence of former glories, Internal Landscapes is notable for its sense of careerspanning quality, even improvement over time. Some (this writer included) would say last year’s The Optimist was their strongest album yet. Which makes the three tracks from it here, including live hit Springfield , especially welcome. By contrast, 2014’s Distant Satellites is weaker but, oddly, works well as a reflection on an important part of their journey – i.e. Vincent deciding to ‘go electronic’ for the first time. Alongside these more obvious gems are one or two surprises (an acoustic Are You There?, an orchestral J’a J’aii Fait Fait Une Promesse). A sometimes gut-wrenching listen, Internal Landscapes is not without moments of light, and offers a captivating slice of one of the UK’s finest bands.
Polly Glass
John Jo hn Foge Fogerty rty Reissues BMG The one that turned him into a recluse again and the one that topped the Swedish chart. John Fogerty’s 1985 US No.1 album Centerfield suggested that after years of strops and legal misery following his departure from Credence Clearwater Revival, his career was back on track. But the following year’s Eye Of The Zombie (6/10) didn’t make the Top 20, and after a tour on which he disappointed his audience by refusing to play any Credence material, Fogerty went into another huffy hibernation. It was a startling
and startlingly fast decline. Thirty-one years later, for all that his songwriting was peaking again, the problems with Zombie are clear. It was an anti-80s album – almost hysterical with grumpiness on the title track and Violence Is Golden – but Fogerty’s own production was unashamedly of that decade: all shimmering synthesisers and electronic drums, at the very moment his fan base were wondering whether Proud Mary was still rollin’ down the river. Blue Moon Swamp (’97) got him back on track, but seven long years later Déjà Vu All Over Again (6/10) (reissued, like Zombie, without extra tracks) was an attempt to reclaim old ground. On the protest title track, on the gentle I Will Walk With You and on Nobody’s Here Anymore (featuring a Mark Knopfler cameo) it was as if Credence had never disintegrated, although Honey Do showed that his penchant for filler still loomed. John Aizlew Aizlewood ood
Murderer’s Row Murderer’s Row HNE RECORDINGS/CHERRY RED
Killer on the loose again. The mid-90s was perhaps not the best time for bands peddling classic melodic rock, but there’s no denying the formidable talent in Murderer’s Row, a supergroup comprising David Glen Eisley, Bob Kulick, Jimmy Waldo, Chuck Wright and Jay Schellen. Principally Kulick and Waldo’s hard-rocking baby, Murderer’s Row’s self-titled only album was originally intended to be the second Blackthorne one. Instead, with ex-Giuffria/Dirty White Boy vocalist Eisley at the mic (in place of Graham Bonnet), Murderer’s Row established their own identity and in ’97 released a tough yet defiantly hook-laden rock album via a little-known Japanese label. However, so complete was its disappearance disappearanc e at the time that this reissue could be seen as the debut the album never enjoyed. It comes with the bonus of rough mixes of all the tracks, which is nice but a bit pointless. The main attraction is that, at last, Hangman’s Moon, Blood On Fire and the bonkers-fast Overdrive can be cranked up to 11 to better feel the white-hot heat of Kulick’s demented riffing and Eisley’s oh-so-macho bellowing. Whether you opt for the looser rough mixes or the
polished and gleaming end product, Murderer’s Row were undoubtedly a class act.
Essi Berelian
The Groundhogs Blues Obituary (50th Anniversary) FIRE Transformative second album exhumed again. This 50th anniversary reissue of The Groundhogs’ second album, from 1969, sees singer-guitarist Tony McPhee, bassist Pete Cruikshank and drummer Ken Pustelnik shifting their bluespurist goggles and lighting the fuse to landmark records Thank Christ For The Bomb and Split. Although McPhee could never let go of his beloved gutbucket blues, here the trio are obviously straining at the leash to forge a new sound built around Pustelnik’ss jazz-infused back Pustelnik’ beats dogfighting with Cruikshank’s Cruikshank ’s liquid bass lines, sometimes tumbling into precarious improvisation on Daze Of The Weak as McPhee takes his playing into the unknown before it all falls apart. They’re on familiar John Lee
Hooker-style stomp-blues turf Hooker-style on Mistreated, but the slide boogie of Times and the scathing Express Man inject the morose melodic edge that will define future Groundhogs albums. Only the album’s sole cover, a slow reworking of Howlin’ Wolf’s 1956 disaster narrative Natchez Burning, survives the band’s blues cremation, their nascent breakout flying highest on tribal-slide blowout finale Light Was The Day . The single version of the evocatively evocative ly dynamic album opener and strongest track BDD and McPhee’s solo B-side Gasoline provide the extras (sadly no out-takes), but nonetheless the album is a vital document of a great band approaching their peak.
Kris Needs
Angel The Casablanca Years CAROLINE
Seven-CD splurge on glamrock nearly men With a Spinal Tap-esque live show in which the band ‘materialised’ on stage from individual
plexiglass boxes, Angel were marketed by their label as ‘the anti-Kiss’, resplendent in white satin jumpsuits like five Freddie Mercurys. However, despite an avalanche of hype around 1975’s self-titled debut album, and four subsequent studio albums, the world refused to prostrate itself at their stack-heeled feet. With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to see why. Their debut and follow-up Helluva Band, a clunky mix of hard-rock riffage and meandering prog arrangeme arrangements, nts, are the musical equivalent of dry ice – intriguing, vaguely thrilling yet ultimately lacking substance. Having ditched the pomp-rock excesses for a more strippeddown sound on the Eddie Kramer-produced On Earth As It Is In Heaven, by the time of 1978’s White Hot Angel had morphed into a workmanlike power-pop outfit. However, their lack of commercial success caused desperation to creep in for 1979’s Sinful, which saw them modelling a more street-wise image and experimenting, unconvincingly, with disco (20th Century Foxes). None of which detracts from the fact that the band could always rely on a large and loyal live following (known as the
‘Angel Earth Force’) who are in full voice on 1980 swansong Live Without A Net. Newcomers to Angel should approach with caution, then, but a CD of alternative mixes – including their spirited take on the Four Tops’ Walk Away Renee – and a lovingly compiled booklet will send Angel diehards to seventh heaven.
Paul Moody
The Kinks The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Preservatio n Society BMG 50th-anniversary 50th-anniver sary extravaganz extravaganza a for an enduring last stand. The Kinks were the only British Invasion band to be repelled, banned from the US in 1965 and forced to watch rivals the Stones and The Who race past them into the new rock age. Frontman Ray Davies reacted with this quixotic retreat into Englishness and childhood memories. Village Green Preservation is the album’s national anthem, but tremors of disquiet and disillusion shake the rustic calm. Touch these good old days and they turn to dust.
Andrew Sandoval’s remaster is perhaps inappropria inappropriately tely muscular for a record Davies recalls as deliberately underrecorded career suicide, although it punches home the songs’ strengths. The Deluxe box set version then develops the Village Green over five CDs of sometimes redundant mono, stereo, backing track and live versions, alongside artefacts, LPs and singles. The considerable hinterland of contemporary Kinks songs, from Days down, was first rounded up on 1973’s Daviessuppressed US release The Great Lost Kinks Album, then more comprehensively on 2004’s VGPS three-CD version. Could Be You’re re Getting Old and Pictures In The Sand, a song for Davies’s baby daughter, daughter, are added to the latter here, along with Time Song, a haunting, forgotten track debuted at a concert celebrating celebrating Britain’s Common Market entry. Revived as that dream dies, it typically saw trouble ahead. Most valuable and touching are a medley of home demos. At a time of crisis which all this music fought, these are the fragile foundations of The Kinks’ definitive album.
Nick Hasted
Mott The Hoople Mental Train (The Island Years 1969-1971) UMC
From a band that had two lives, a collection From drawn from their fist and most exciting one.
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T T E
here were effectively two Mott The Hooples: the one that had a hit with All The Youn oungg Dudes Dudes and enjoyed a kind of glam-rock chart success in the mid-70s, and an earlier one that never made it yet recorded some great, almost-lost almost-lost rock albums as the 60s becamee the 70s. It’s becam It’s that that first first Mott Mott The The Hoople Hoople who made the reco records rds in in this this new new box box set: set: their their four albums for Island Records, along with a rarities set and a live disc, from a time in the band’s band ’s career career that has never never been prop properl erlyy anthologised; antholo gised; eighty-nine tracks, six discs, a wealth of new material including BBC sessions, studio out-takes and live shows, shows, and, as if that wasn’t’t enoug wasn enough, h, excel excellent lent,, insigh insightful tful not notes es from from former Mott fan club boss Kris Needs. Before David Bowie threw them a new career in 1972, Mott’s guiding light was, in part, Guy Stevens, the extraordinary half-mad, half-genius producer who turned Mott’s chaotic, thrashing sound into thunderous but intimate rock’n’roll (he later pulled a similar trick with The Clash), but also thems themselv elves. es. Almost from the start they were a self-aware (if
never ironic) band, who understood more than most that the band and the audience were the same (‘ We We were were the dudes and the dudes were we ,’ Ian Hunter later sang). Their records sometimes sounded as though there was something missing – and that something was the audience. Mott live were a pulpit for Ian Hunter, a communal experience and the very definition definitio n of post-60s rock’n’roll. Their biggest rockers – Rock’n’Roll Queen, Walking With A Mountain, Thunderb Thu nderbuck uck Ram Ram, even the nutso Death May Be Your Santa Claus – were indebted to both Dylan and the Rolling Stones, but had a swagger and attitude all of their own. This collection takes takes in every aspect of the first Mott, from beautiful be autiful ballads like W Water aterlow low to the country-rock sidebar of Whis Whisky ky Women Women, throwingg in some early takes on the future throwin (a tentative One Of The Boys, a far from f rom tentative Black Scorpoio (Momma’s Little Jewel), and shows
just why this band wer weree so grea great. t. When When the the later later Mott sang about Mott The Hoople on The Ball Ballad ad Of Mott The Hoople and Saturday Gigs, this was the band they were sing singing ing abou about. t.
David Quantick
CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 89
REISSUES
Helloween
The Beatles The Beatles Super Deluxe Edition UMC C White Album: celebrated, reimagined, reborn.
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he featured element of this sevendisc celebration of the 1968 double vinyl vin yl White White Albu Album m on its 50th 50th anniversary is a remixed version of its 30 iconic tracks by original producer George Martin’s son, Giles. There are, of course, many Beatles purists who will only consider any such project sacriligeous. After all, this is The White Album we’re talking about. What was so wrong with it in the first place? Evidently, not much: 19-times platinum speaks for itself. Giles Martin’s got form for improving on Beatles perfection. From collaborat collaborating ing on Love Love to to last year’s widely lauded 50th-anniversary remix of Sgt. Pepper , he’s a safe pair of hands. That Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr offered support and assistance to the project speaks volumes. So was all the effort worth it? Hell yes. Instead of losing intrinsic magic, Martin’s enhanced it. Drums are crisper, cymbal crashes shimmer off into infinity, the bass sound is thicker, its presence defined and accentuated. Vocals gain warmth, warm th, gui guitars tars chi chime me and soa soar. r. Ele Elemen ments ts previously lost in ensemble murk re-emerge as independent entities, as fresh ears locate and open up airy space between blurred blu rred freq frequen uencie cies. s. Everyt Everythin hingg soun sounds ds more emphatic, more… everything. The White Album’s extraordinarily diverse content has been a constant 90 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
presence in rock’s subconscious since the genre’s genesis. Reaction to its epochdefining charms have dulled, familiarity has replaced visceral awe with cerebral respect, but now, sharpened and buffed, the likes of Happiness Is A Warm Gun and Gun and While My Guita Guitarr Gently Gently Weeps eeps shine shine brighter than ever. Some selections have been transformed by the process: Dear Prudence is a is a revelation. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da? Ob-La-Da? You might even make it to the end. Disc Three is Esher demos. The band convene at Harrison’s to nail down workin wo rkingg version versionss of mate material rial con contrive trived d in India. It’s Beatles unplugged, basically. Bin your bootlegs, it’s exceptional. But the gold for completists comes on discs 4-6: the sessions. Early takes, working versions, unfinished sketches; there’s intimacy (Lennon road-testing Juli road-testing Juliaa for George Martin), revelation (13 minutes of Helter Skelter ’s ’s blues inception), surrealism (the unreleased Wha unreleased What’s t’s The New Mary Jan Jane? e? ) and fascinating insight into making-history’s humdrum side (Harrison ordering a cheese, lettuce and Marmite sandwich as Clapton prepares to render his Gently Weeps magical). There’s also a Blu-ray complete with wit h 5.1 5.1 mix, mix, but yo you u shou should ld be sol sold d already. So much more to say, but sometimes fine words just aren’t enough.
Ian Fortnam
Starlight: The Noise Records Collection BMG/NOISE Pumpkins’ premier purple patch preserved. As Helloween’s Pumpkins Reunited tour with Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske continues, this limited-edition box set revisits the music on which their career was founded. Presented on six shades of vinyl, we begin with the longdeleted Starlight EP (7/10), already displaying accomplished songwriting sufficient to distinguish them from the speed-metal morass. Their potential blossoms on Walls Of Jericho Jerich o (7/10), Ride The Sky and and How Many Tears exemplifying the album’s strengths with Hansen’s melodious vocals, anthemic choruses, ear-worm riffs and exemplary twin lead guitars, Gorgar ’s ’s stolen Metallica riff the only real misfire. The Judass EP, deleted three-trac three-trackk Juda Jericho o-style adds another strong Jerich track with the title song. After that, Hansen handed the mic to new find Michael Kiske, whose power and soaring range fit seamlessly with the polished, assured material of Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I (8/10), with I’m Alive and the epic Halloween refining their sound. This line-up peaked with the influential power-metal classic Keeper… Part II (9/10), featuring the often-covered I Want Out and the stirring Eagle Fly Free. An expanded two-LP edition of the deleted The Best, The Rest, The Rare (8/10) compiles staples, re-recorded Starlight tracks and rarities. Rich Davenport
Eddie And The Hot Rods The Island Years ISLAND Their downfall? Their trousers. Neither one thing nor t’other, Eddie And The Hot Rods missed out on biblical hugeness by being on the losing side of a quick-fire game of evolutionary leapfrog in ‘76. The Hot Rods grew out of the gruff R&B end of pub rock, four Canvey Islanders who came on like a snot-nosed junior juni or Dr. Dr. Fee Feelgoo lgood. d. Their Their high high-energy live onslaught earned them a residency at Soho’s Marquee club, where they played speed-laced covers of what used to be called ‘punk
rock’ (96 Tears, Wooly Bully ) to frustrated and surly metropolitan louts of no fixed haircut. One night their support band was the Sex Pistols, who had the foresight not to wear flares. The rest is history. The five-CD The Island Years box (featuring three albums – Teenage Depression, Life On The Line, Thriller – – three Peel sessions, two Radio 1 In Concerts and a ‘Fan Club’ disc of live and studio rarities) is only a joy. The electrifying Live At The Marquee EP’s retro/proto-punk exuberance exuberanc e adds sting to Teenage Depression’s tail, while Life On The Line’s summer ‘77 hit Do Anything You Wanna Do has lost none of its fizz. Eddie And The Hot Rods deserve so much more than their footnote. On the right night they were utterly invincible.
Ian Fortnam
The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown ESOTERIC Magnificent crazy diamond flames on again. Fifty years ago, Arthur Brown’s four-octave vocal operatics, skull make-up and druid robes provided that summer’s most memorable Top Of The Pops appearances as Fire lit up the Top 10, elevating its creator’s status from underground mainstay to unpredictable pop star who might set his head ablaze, strip naked or descend from the heavens covered in sparklers. Alice Cooper and Peter Gabriel were both taking notice. Behind Brown, organist Vincent Crane, bassist Nick Greenwood Greenwoo d and drummer Drachen Theaker pinballed between pummeling R&B and exotic tonal colouring hot-wiring Brown’s extended elements concept theme, and the many highlights of The Crazy World Of included included Spontaneous Apple Creation and Screamin’ Jay’s I Put A Spell On You never sounding more demonic. Co-produced by Track head honcho Kit Lambert and Pete Townshend, the album still stands as one of the most timeless works to emerge from the UK’s counterculture explosion; robust, mysterious and absolutely gripping when in full flight and Arthur’s on heat. To celebrate its half-century,
A P P L E C O R P S L T D .
this line-up’s sizzling only album gets the Cherry Red box-set treatment with stereo and mono mixes, radio sessions, pre-Track pre-Track Brown recordings, 45rpm versions, epic annotation and vinyl LP. Still highly inflammatory.
Kris Needs
Small Faces Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake 50th IMMEDIATE/BMG/CHARLY The One. The monster 1968 concept album. The one that helped spawn psychedelia, psychedeli a, The Jam and Britpop. The one with the chirpy staple Lazy Sunday (as (as Cockney as 1960s pop ever got). The one that originally came packaged as a parody of a giant circular metal tobacco tin. The second side tells the mock Victoriana Victoria na tale of Happiness Stan’s quest to find the missing section of the crescent moon (narrated by Stanley Unwin in characteristic characteri stic style). In this, Small Faces and The Who traced an eerily similar path: from guitar-smashing guitar-smas hing Mod gods to freakish conceptual storytellers willing to risk all for an ounce of experimentati experimentation. on. Recorded Recorde d mostly in the spring of 1968, the music is a bewildering, sometimes bewitching mixture of music hall, righteous Mod, heavily layered instrumentation, heavy soul, Kenney Jones’s thunderous drumming, Ronnie Lane’s ampwrecking bass and Steve Marriott’s iconic voice and vision. Some killer riffs, too (especially on mooted single Rollin’ Over ). ). Does it bear up in 2018? Depends on your fondness for village green preservation societies and 60s-era gobbledegook. If you like Tommy and spaced-out psychedelia, then there’s every chance you will love this. If not, you can bask in the full-throttle emotional pull of After Afterglow glow Of Your Your Love Love. This 50th-anniversary edition comes in a bewildering array of formats: red and blue vinyl three-LP sets with 72-page book; three CDs plus one DVD box set featuring rare live recordings, CD deluxe edition, American single and mono versions. Forty-two tracks on the fuller reissues, where originally there were 12. Ogdens’ was the original Small Faces’ final studio album. Marriott left in ‘69 to form Humble Pie, while the remaining members brought in Ronnie
Wood and Rod Stewart. But that’s another story.
Everett True
Be-Bop Delux D eluxe e Sunburst Finish ESOTERIC Mid-70s gem given an upgrade and a polish. It’s odd how time often consigns once raved-about records to the dark, rarely visited corners of rock history, often due not to downgrading downgradin g reappraisa reappraisall but simply because they fade from memory. One (perhaps the only) good thing that comes from that happening is having such an album popped under your nose, giving it a listen and being jolted into remembering how good it was first time around. By the end of 1975, Be-Bop Deluxe had two creditable Victim and albums ( Axe Victim Futurama ) and a couple of classy singles (Maid In Heaven and Sister Seagull) under their belt, and hot-shot guitarist Bill Nelson was turning heads. They were one of a busload of bands and artist with real success seemingly close but without a sleek enough vehicle to take them to it. Then they recorded Sunburst Finish. Recorded at Abbey Road (maybe some lingering fairy dust landed on the tapes) and released in February ’76, Sunburst Finish was a thrill-ride of balletic melodies, tough riffs, punchy rhythms and some startling guitar playing. From the ratt-a-tatt intro of opener Fair Exchange , through the exotic rhythm of Ships In The Night, Bowie-suggesting Crystal Gazing and the glorious melodic Crying To The Sky with with its swirling, skycracking guitar solo, to stopstart multi-faceted closer Blazing Apostles, it’s an album brimming with inventiv inventive e songwriting and clever arrangements, arrangemen ts, thoughtful lyrics and some taut performances performances.. Most people with their nose to the shop window eyeing-up the new four-disc, remastered, limited-edition box set will already know the original album. Here’s what else is under the lid: an additional 39 tracks including 5.1 and stereo mixes and contemporaneous contempora neous BBC radio sessions; album out-takes, a promo video for Ships In The Night and a couple of Old Grey Whistle Test appearances; an illustrated 68-page book, a new essay by Bill Nelson, and a
reproduction Sunburst Finish tour programme and poster. Although there’s there’s plenty of it, there’s not much of the extras that’s actually surprising. The new stereo and surround-so surround-sound und mixes will be of interest to Be-Bop fans, as will the live BBC sessions of most of the album’s songs, none of which differ significantly from the studio versions. The Whistle Test footage is available on YouTube, although here it’s of a much higher quality. Altogether this a well puttogether package and a welldeserved upgrading of an oddly unsung mid-70s gem.
BEST OF THE REST Other new releases out this month… By Ian Fortnam
Alexis Korner Every Day I Have The Blues… GRAPEFRUIT A three-disc compendium of formative British blues from scene godfather, CCS founder and broadcaster Korner. 7/10
Television Marquee Moon deluxe vinyl RHINO Ludicrously brilliant, toweringly influential, an NYC landmark defining mind-over-cock dual-guitar precision to perfection. 9/10
Various Harmony In My Head CHERRY RED
Paul Henderson
Glen Matlock was ejected from the Sex Pistols ‘for liking The Beatles’ in 1977. He wasn’t alone and they’re all in here. From Accidents to Yacht Yachts. s. 6/10
Lindsey Buckingham
L7
Solo Anthology: The Best Of Lindsey Buckingham RHINO
Erstwhile Fleetwood Mac notso-secret weapon shows off his wares. As is tradition for anyone releasing an anthology or ‘best of’ set, there’s usually the enticing prospect of an extra new song or two to entice a hitherto undecided purchaser to part with their cash. For completists of the former Fleetwood Mac man, there are two unreleased studio endeavours to be found on this three-disc, 51-song retrospective run through the Buckingham back catalogue, which includes material he contributed to the band that made him famous, selections from his solo albums and various songs contributed to soundtracks (National Lampoon’s Vacation and Back To The Future) along the way. The first of the ‘new’ songs is the upbeat Hunger , which, with shades of the jaunty Everywhere to it, could easily belong on the Mac’s 1987 album Tango In The Night , while the other, Ride This Road, is a gentle, finger-picked, harmonydrenched lullaby. Curiously, and possibly due to rights reasons, the familiar Mac material is primarily represented by live versions, the majority taken from Buckingham’s 2011 live album Songs From The Small Machine, but overall this set is a fine illustration of what a quality songwriter (and massively underrated guitarist) he is.
L7 EPITAPH Capturing the indomitable LA hellions’ ‘88 metamorphosis from punk beginnings to delicious slack-jawed proto-grunge mega-graunch. 7/10
Jilted John True Love Stories BOSS TUNEAGE 40th Anniversary Edition of classic concept work. Fancy mice, bus shelter tears, Gordon the Moron, a bonus 7”: all here, all on heavyweight vinyl. 7/10
Nick Oliveri N.O. Hits At All Vol. 5 HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS Former Dwarves, Kyuss, QOTSA, Mondo Generator,, Death Acoustic s avage corrals eight Generator selections of unrelentingly sonic mania. 6/10
Primal Scream Give Out But Don’t Give Up SONY Hitherto unreleased warm, organic, horns-laced original Tom Tom Dowd mix with 16 extras. Soul, gospel, Faces, Rocks Rocks.. A lost classic. 8/10
Cock Sparrer The Albums 1994-2017 CAPTAIN OI! Punk’s greatest unsung band’s second albums box covers their 90s renaissance and noughties return to vintage form. Some lives, some rares. 7/10
Cocteau Twins Treasure Hiding UMC/MERCURY While not as brilliant as Sunburst And Snowblind’s Snowblind’s era, this three-CD box of delights only entrances. Liz Frazer’s Frosty The Snowman? Snowman? Priceless. 7/10
Status Quo Four reissues UMC Quo’s deluxes hit the lean years with 1+9+8+2 (5/10), Back To Back ( (4/10), In The Army Now (4/10) and Ain’t and Ain’t Comp Complaini laining ( ng (4/10).
Dinosaur Jr Earbleeding Country: Best Of CHERRY RED In the 90s when the inkies demanded weekly US alt.rock fodder you could get away with a lot. And J. Mascis got away with more than most. 5/10
Discharge 1980-85
CAPTAIN OI!
Hardcore brutality, crushing political polemic, unremitting rage. Four-disc box of eternally influential second-wave punks’ initial blurts. 7/10
Siân Llewellyn CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 91
S ’ S R E Y U B I D E
Bob Mould: more than just a pioneer of hardcore.
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Bob Mould
Essential Classics
From Hüsker Dü to Sugar and From a nd now solo, Mould is a leading posthardcore singer-songwriter singer-songwriter with a fascinating catalogue.
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art of the legendary 1980s hardcore punk milieu alongside Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat and Minutemen, Hüsker Dü’s evolution from rudimentary hardcore scratch to composers of poignant alternative rock made them easily comparable to their twincity hometown peers The Replacements. Formed in 1979 in Saint Paul, melodic post-hardcore pioneers Hüsker Dü split in 1988 in tragic circumstances following the suicide of the band’s manager and a breakdown between band members at the start of a tour for their second major-label album. Essentially, Hüsker Dü were on the vergee of verg of going going hug huge. e. The The split split and fall fallout out left a deep psychological scar on lead singer/ guitarist Bob Mould, and informed his early solo work. Competitive by nature, Hüsker Dü’s songwriters Mould and Grant Hart were once descri described bed by bassis bassistt Greg Greg Norto Norton n as the Lennon and McCartney of punk rock. Mould was the more prolific Dü songwriter, but drummer Hart (who (who passed awa awayy last last year) was consistently impressive. Evolving their sound beyond their labelmates and peers, the band were one of the first to commit the cardinal hardcore punk scene sin of signing to a major label. The ‘controversy’ dogged Dü for the rest 92 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
of their career. Incredibly, even Joan Rivers brought broug ht it up when when they they played played on her chat chat show in 1987. It was all just jealousy from those who can’t bear a band progressing. Dü’s first two albums, the live Land Speed Record and Record and the 12-track, 20-minute Everything Falls Apart both Apart both showcased that chaotic hardcore abrasion. Their second studio album, the highly influential double Zen Arcade, can Arcade, can legitimately lay claim to being the first punk punk rock concept album, at a time when Green Day were still in primary school. school.Zen Zen Arcade proved Arcade proved Dü’s songwriting clout, and they gradually evolved their sound throughout the sublime pair New Day Rising and Rising and Flip Your Wig before Wig before outgrowing the punk scene and signing with Warners for Candy Apple Grey and swansong W swansong Warehouse: arehouse: Songs Songs And Stories Stories.. Withdrawing after the collapse of Hüsker Dü, Mould’s early solo material of introverted Americana put a full stop on the band, as did the subsequent runaway r unaway success of his power trio Sugar in the early 90s, not least with debut album Copper Blue.. That was followed up by the EP Beaster Blue and File Under Easy Listening before Listening before Mould returned to solo work – which features more highlights than we can accomodate here. Alex Bur rows
Hüsker Dü
Sugar
Zen Arcade SST, 1984
Copper Blue CREATION, 1992
As a teen, Mould grew up on 70s classic rock: Kiss, Aerosmith, New York Dolls. But this double album, Hüsker Dü’s masterpiece, is shot through with prog and psyche influences like The Byrds and Pink Floyd, most noticeably in unsettling closer Reoccurring Dreams. It’s an allegory for the album’s concept: the sturm und drang of youth, the disillusion of (and alienation from) both family and outside life (a familiar LP concept, in everything from Quadrophenia to American Idiot). Bridging their spiky punk with hints of the melodic rock to come, its 23 tracks quickly set Dü apart from generic hardcore bands.
Not one single duff track. Twenty-six years on, Copper Blue has lost none of its brilliant sheen. Following his first two solo works, Mould returned to a power trio line-up by bringing in bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcom Travis. A suggestion of what could have been from a 90s Hüsker Dü, Copper Blue was both a critical and commercial success. By 1992 a whole new generation had discovered Dü, and Mould finally reaped the rewards. The opening monster riff of The Act We Act, the segue Good Idea Idea into Changes… of A Good glorious throughout. The multiple Album Of The Year Year accolades were well justified.
G E T T Y
Superior Reputation cementing
Essential Playlist Something I Learned Today Zen Arcade
Chartered Trips Zen Arcade
New Day Rising Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Hüsker Dü
Bob Mould
New Day Rising SST, 1985
Flip Your Wig SST, 1985 Released just eight months after New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig saw Dü’s sometimes wildly contradictory palette settle down into mature alternative rock – but without losing its bite and attitude. Memorable single Makes No Sense At All won Dü a new audience. The majestic Divide And Conquer Conquer features features sociopolitical ‘global village’ lyrics, spookily prophesying 21stcentury paranoia and divisive news feeds. The dark and earnest Games, with its ringing guitar motif, explores Mould’s familiar introspection. The imminent major-label deal would be a mere formality.
Warehouse: Songs And Stories WARNERS, 1987
Workbook VIRGIN, 1989
Despite maintaining elements of their frantic punk fuzz, the follow-up to Zen Arcade, the fittingly titled New Day Rising expanded Dü’s sound into structured melodies. The Who’s Pete Townshend Townshend later lat er told Mould of his admiration for the eclectic Celebrated Summer . Like I Don’t Know What You’re Talking About, it alternates between punk and melodious soulful rock; a perfect microcosm of Dü’s evolving sound throughout the album as a whole. That evolution even included the Minutemen-influenced, jazzstructured experimentalism of How To Skin A Cat.
Fiercely competitive, Mould and Hart wrote about half each of the last three Dü albums. The beauty of Mould’s compositions – single Could You Be The One, the positivity of Turn It Around, the poignant, sunset-watching soundtrack No Reservations (and many other highlights by Hart) – make Warehouse comparable to their best work. Certainly their most accessible, it’s a fitting, if unplanned, final album. Just 11 months later, Dü split while touring the album, following the tragic suicide of their manager David Savoy.
Good Worth exploring
After various internecine band issues, Mould withdrew following the disintegration of Hüsker Dü. He went to live in a farmhouse in rural Minnesota to avoid the media glare and any further fallout of the band split. Reflecting on both the intensity of Dü and his own future, he wrote this poignant set of acoustic-led songs. Recorded at Prince’s studio, was analogous to Workbook was Mould’s psyche: crawling from the wreckage of Dü with the earnest See A Little Light, yet becoming his own person with the assertive Wishing Well. It pointed to the way ahead.
Avoid
New Day Rising
Celebrated Summer New Day Rising
Divide And Conquer Flip Your Wig
Games Flip Your Wig
Sorry Somehow Candy Apple Grey
Hardly Getting Over It Candy Apple Grey
These Important Years Warehouse Songs And Stories
Could You Be The One Warehouse Songs And Stories
Wishing Well Workbook
Hüsker Dü
Sugar
Bob Mould
Bob Mould
Candy Apple Grey WARNERS, 1986
File Under: Easy Listening
Silver Age MERGE, 2012
Modulate COOKING VINYL, 2002
The long-awaited major-label debut. Perhaps predictably, Candy Apple Grey didn’t didn’t live up to the expectations laid down by Flip Your Wig. Despite the misleading opener Crystal, the acoustic numbers and ballads saw Dü lay their frantic punk to rest for good. The more mature and progressive Hardly Getting Over It and All This This I’ve I’ve Done Done For For You You might rank alongside classic late-career Hüsker Dü, but simply reading the tracklisting, with its soulful yet anguished wordplay, is an exercise in bleakness. On Candy Apple Grey , Dü expanded their repertoire but they were yet to find their perfect niche.
CREATION, 1994
Maturing like fine wine, and having entered his 50s with typical style, the appropriately titled Silver Age could almost be the third Sugar album. It too was recorded as a power trio, with bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster, who Mould took out on tour for the 20th anniversary of Copper Blue during the same year. Star Machine, Descent and Round The City Square all have an uncanny resemblance to the driving urgency of those rock anthems which became the Sugar hallmark. ‘Never too old to contain my rage/Silver age, silver age,’ Mould assures us. Too bloody right.
Mould’s excellence as a songwriter is tied to his ability to constantly evolve and progress his skill. But while his foray into electronic music with Modulate wasn’t a total disaster, it always seemed like something of a one-off experiment. The album wasn’t exactly lapped up by Mould’s loyal fan base, and with 2005’s followup solo album Body Of Song he returned to more familiar territory. As well as the two solo albums listed here, also worth investigating are 2008’s District Line and 1990’s Black Sheets Of Rain, the dark and brooding follow-up to debut solo Workbook .
A textbook example of the ‘difficult second album’. Following Copper Blue and the even fiercer Beaster EP, EP, Sugar’s second album peaked at No.7, three places higher than Copper Blue, on the UK album chart. Mould’s most mainstream-sounding work, where hard rock comes close to battling a duel with pop, it’s an appropriately titled album. But behind its playful and laidback folksy exterior lurks a machine ready to explode, as the title’s acronym suggests. It doesn’t meet the thrill of Copper Blue, instead falling somewhere between Mould’s solo work and late-career Dü.
See A Little Light Workbook
A Good Idea Copper Blue
Hoover Dam Copper Blue
If I Can’t Change Your Mind Copper Blue
Your Favourite Thing File Under Easy Listening
The Descent Silver Age
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S T U F F
Diary Of A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star
s & D V D B O O K S
Roger Daltrey Thanks A Lot Mr Kibblewhi Kibblewhite te
BLINK
Who vocalist pulls no punches.
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onversational, witty, revelatory, Daltrey’s autobiography is possibly the most readable account yet of the band’s uniquely fracasfilled journey toward rock immortality. If you want forensic detail (the kind of inconsequential minutiae fans invariably pore over yet central protagonists barely register), then look elsewhere, but for an unvarnished first-person account from the eye of the storm, look no further. Born in Hammersmith, raised in Shepherd’s Bush, Daltrey’s top-of-thetop- of-theclass smarts earned ear ned him a place at Acton Acton Grammar School, a counter-prod counter-productive uctive move that conferred fish-out-of-wa f ish-out-of-water ter rebel status upon the alienated a lienated 12-year 12-year old just as rock’n rock’n’ro ’roll ll arrived into his life. life. Caught smoking, truanting, fashioning baggy trouse trousers rs into into drain drainpipes pipes and, ultimately,, with an airgun, he was ultimately expelled at 15 with the inspiring words of his appalled headmaster, the titular Mr Kibblewhite, Kibblewhit e, ringing in his ears: ear s: “You’ll never make anything of your life, Daltrey.” Elsewhere in his formative education, Elvis had led to skiffle. Daltrey fashioned a series of home-made guitars before hooking up with John Entwistle, then Pete Townshend, then Keith Moon, and the rest, as they say, is autodestruction. In an unflinching account, we discover that across the decades, Daltrey – the bruiser at centre-stage, arcing his microphone like a lariat, angst incarnate 94 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
– was actually The Who’s Who’s voice voice of reason. In 1965, while on tour in Denmark, he gathered the band – that he’d formed, incidentally – together and told them that their diet of pills (uppers, downers, leapers, the lot) was causing them to speed up and, ultimately, fuck up, and that they should quit using them while performing. So they sacked him. They soon realised he couldn’t be replaced, and invited him back, bac k, but but you get the pictur picture. e. Life in The Who, trying to keep the others in check while making sense of the ever-unfolding madness as it impacted on his own sanity, has never been what you’d call straightforward. Which is excellent news for the reader. Daltrey tells it straight: Moon “knew which buttons to push”; Entwistle was “spiteful”; talking to Townshend’s like “walking through a minefield in clown shoes. And a blindfold”. And those seven years Who manager Bill Curbishley spent in the merchant navy? “He was in prison.” We also learn that after the first night Daltrey spent with his wife of 50 years she woke up screaming: “Your hair! Your hair!” His industrial-strength Dippity-Do Dippity-Do hair gel had worn off in the night. She’d gone to bed with a sleek-coiffured mod and woken up with Roger Daltrey. Stick this on your bedside table and you can too.
Ian Fortnam
Ian Hunter OMNIBUS PRESS Hunter reopens landmark diary, with foreword by Johnny Depp. Since being published in 1974, Hunter’s day-today account of Mott The Hoople’s five week late 1972 US tour has been acclaimed for being the first time the drudgery, tomfoolery and relentless obstacles encountered while touring had been recounted in print along with the usual triumphs. Hunter was simply trying to focus his energies from chasing groupies after marrying lifelong partner Trudi, handing his notes to the late Charlie Gillett when the noted writerradio presenter needed to fill his quota with Panther Books. Many of today’s top musicians cite Diary… as their adolescent Bible, Hunter turning his dry wit, down-to-earth attitude and sense of wonder at visiting thenmythical America and humorous details, such as flying for the first time or worrying about his waist-line, while giving priceless insights into the original Mott. Ultimately, the scenarios Hunter describes have changed little, despite life back then seeming quaintly primitive compared with today’s easy techological playground. People are still rude, rock can still elevate like nothing else and bands will always fight, although few can claim to have sneaked into Elvis’s garden while the King was watching TV. Essential, especially for those not yet touched by its magic.
Kris Needs
The Go-Betweens Right Here MOVIEHOUSE ENTERTAINMENT
The film of the soap opera. “We were never going to have success,” sighs Go-Betweens drummer Lindy Morrison on this unflinching documentary. “We didn’t look the part and we were too intelligent.” She’s hopelessly misguided. In truth, they had the songs (Head Full Of Steam, Cattle & Cane, Spring Rain) and more importantly they had the chances. Alas, like a Fleetwood Mac without the sales, they destroyed destroy ed themselves in a spiral of self-inflicted misery and jealousy jeal ousy.. Robert Robert Forste Forsterr
alienated co-leader Grant McLennan by embarking on a relationship with Morrison, who soon dumped him. Then, McLennan’s McLennan ’s affair with violinist Amanda Brown upset everyone else. Just for good measure, heavy drinking bassist John Willsteed made it loudly clear he didn’t even like the music, no matter how enthusiastically it was lauded by nonplussed critics. As Forster laments of the seemingly hit-strewn 16 Lovers Lane: “we might as well have put out a free-jazz album”.
John Aizlew Aizlewood ood
Queen: Performances Robert Ellis THE ROCK LIBRARY Two decades of Queen in all their live majesty. A coffee table book of (almost exclusively) live photography sounds like the kind of thing you’d wedge under the door to keep it open during the summer. Not so veteran photographer photographer Robert Ellis’s visual diary of a band that managed to look like superstars even when they were just a twinkle twinkle supp supportin orting g Mott Mott The Hoople. Ellis pretty much tailed Queen through 20 years of live shows, and some of the photos here are fascinating: an angel-faced Brian May on stage at their first Rainbow headline show in London; a series of shots of Freddie Mercury where he literally looks as though he’s seeing just how little he can get away with wearing on stage. Ultimately,, of course, it ends in Ultimately the stadiums of the world, the band ultimate grandmasters of the great spaces. Ellis’s prose may be a little thin, but it’s all there in the moment: Queen forever flooding the lens.
Philip Wilding
The Death Archives: Mayhem Mayh em 1984-94 Jørn ‘Necrobutcher’ Stubberud ECSTATIC PEACE LIBRARY Fascinating insight into black metal’s most infamous band. Murder. Suicide. Church burnings. All of that has been associated with Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Their story has been sensationalised to such an extent that myth has taken over
from the facts. Now, ‘Necrobutcher’, ‘Necrobutc her’, the band’s bassist, puts the record straight with The Death Archives. This is essentially a photo book, featuring loads of unseen shots, with text from the author giving his insight into Mayhem’s career and development. He provides personal, believable recollections recollecti ons of what really happened, but does it with such a sense of perspective that it makes the suicide of vocalist Dead and the murder of guitarist Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aareseth even more shocking, because of the factual basis. This is a brilliant presentation of the realities behind the infamy, and it makes you appreciate what Mayhem have achieved.
Original Jethro Tull – The Glory Years 1968-1980
are moving away from new ideas and into a comfy routine of touring and compilations, New Order have given themselves a kick up the backside and returned with greater vigour than before. After the departure of bassist Peter Hook and the release of 2015’s Music Complete (their best record in years), the band have been enjoying a fresh peak, as this new DVD shows. Decades is a documentary about a concert in which the band were augmented by 12 synthesiser players whom they then toured with. This notion was both arty and successful, bringing even more fresh blood to the band’s sound. While it was doubtless best experienced live, the concert extracts included here (and the enthusiasm of the 12 young synth players) make this DVD an entertaining addition to the New Order catalogue.
Gary Parker MCFARLAND
Minstrels in the (divided) gallery. Even as author Gary Parker is claiming that Jethro Tull were a band, he is being undermined by his own research that lays bare the group dynamic: Ian Anderson’ss autocratic leadership Anderson’ and the rest of the band’s grudging subservience subservience.. Anderson’ss self-imposed Anderson’ isolation from the rest of Tull doesn’t help, and it’s notable that different versions of some key events in the band’s career are irreconcilable. irreconcilable. None of which diminishes the band members’ contribution to Tull’s innovative, original and sometimes eccentric albums or their theatrical performances that in the early 70s put them up there with the Stones and Zeppelin when it came to cracking the US market. But it’s clear that the band members had to work within Anderson’ss total dominance of Anderson’ the band’s music and style. As guitarist Martin Barre puts it: “You had two chances to record a solo; after that it became a flute solo.”
David Quantick
Malcolm Dome
Hugh Fielder
New Order: Decades Dir: Mike Christie CARAVAN/SKY ARTS
Post-Hooky Mancunian icons’ live return documented. At a time when many bands, including for a while, New Order,
The Gospel According To Luke Steve Lukather with Paul Rees CONSTABLE And you thought session musicians lived boring lives? The autobiography of Toto guitarist Steve Lukather is a lively yet far from libellous read. A-List musicians, actors and supermodels drift through its pages, but despite being infamous for his consumption of “the old sleep repellent” Lukather dishes the dirt only on those who granted permission. All the same, The Gospel reveals some great anecdotes, such as the guitarist being humiliated at an early audition for Frank Zappa’s band, and demanding that Michael Jackson call back at a more civilised hour when he approached to play on Thriller . The book will be a painful read for original Toto singer Bobby Kimball, who was busted for intent to sell cocaine during the 80s as his voice began to wane. Lukather even fleetingly accuses Kimball, who later got the boot for “smoking the shit”, of lipsynching during a second, illfated spell with Toto. Clean and sober at 60, Lukather is in a good place right now and this contented memoir mirrors that status.
Dave Ling
The High-Voltage H What’s hat ha t On Guide Edited dited By y Ian an Fortnam ort (Reviews) and Dave Ling (Tours)
p 1 11 12
Ghost
For a moment you really do believe that the devil has the best tunes.
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o f m y “ O n e s w a s o r a n c e s t f r o m c a r a v i c s u r e m m ’ I . K e n t b e d h e ’ d t h a t d e s s i r s u r p c e n d a n t s d e s o b e a h i s p t .” g r e w u ’ r e r ” l e l l o r n n ’ r o c k
Duane Edd Eddy y The 1950s twang king plays three shows on a rare visit to the UK.
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ixty years after they were first released, in the hands of an 80-year-old man the loping grooves of hit instrumentals such as Peter Gunn and Rebel Rouser can can still teleport Duane Eddy’s audience back to their lost youth of quiffs, hot rods and jukeboxes. And that’s what the 50s twang king tells us he’ll be doing at three UK shows in October.
Why do you tour outside the US so rarely? Well, nobody asks. I do accept invitations. Al so, it’s quite expensive to fly over the ocean, put a group together, stay in hotels, all the logistics t hat go with it. I haven’t had hits for a while, so I sorta depend on people who know who I am to fill the seats. And I’m so old that I joki ngly say that half of my fans have passed on. But thanks to the internet, a lot of younger kids have discovered the music.
“I hunted all over E ngland for the best musicians – then I come home to Sheffield and I find them right here.”
Even with the logistics to sort out, are you looking forward to coming back to the UK? Very much so. I love England so much. It’s the people. My ancestors were from Kent, back in the 1500s. One was a v icar. I’m sure he’d have been surprised that his descendant grew up to be a rock’n’ roller. You kinda have to ease into cultures as you go along. If he heard it a ll at once it’d probably hurt his ears.
Well, Peter Gunn speaks speaks to everyone. It does. That song was al most an accident, but it turned out one of my best hits.
How do you approach your songs live? I put myself in the audience’s place. I f igure they’re either hearing these songs for the first time, or these songs are old friends to them and they’ve heard them many times, so I try to do them just like the records. And the songs that are new, I try to put as much into them so they’ll like ’em as much.
Which songs are you most looking forward to playing? Well, all of them. They were exciting when I recorded them, and when I get the whole band together and they’re rocking up there with me on stage they still hold that excitement. I have Richard Hawley’s band, and they’re among the best musicians I’ve come across. Like Richard says:
Does it ever surpr ise you that you’ve sold a hundred million records? No, because we sold them all around the world. I mean, we sold a potful in South America . We did very well in Japan and the Orient. I got tons of mail from behind the Iron Curtain, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. We sold records everywhere. But Elvis sold a billion records. I sold ten per cent as
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many as he did. I look at it that way, so it’s not not such a big deal.
Eddy is among the most successful allinstrumental players in rock history. He was the first rock and roll guitarist to have a signature model. Eddy was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1994.
These shows are to celebrate your eightieth birthday year. Do you feel that old? I can’t get my mind around it. I just think to myself: “This is not me. I’m not eighty.” I was just running around, playing clubs, having hits, travelling around the world, playing concerts. concerts. I was a young man. I don’t know how this happened. I blame it on my w ife. They say that when you’re having a good time, t ime passes quicker, and we’ve had nothing but for the past forty-five years. Suddenly I wake up and I’m eighty years old. Will you keep on tour ing as long as you’re able? So far, so good. I’ve had a couple of medical issues that I overcame. I’d always avoided the medical community – I didn’t want to get in their system. There are bad things that happen on the road, like the promoter doesn’t come up with his end of the deal. But as I’ve grown older, that’s all changed. They treat me like they’d treat any old man – carefully and sweetly. It’s a great experience being on stage. I’ve had many moments when I can’t believe where I am. HY The tour begins at the London Palladium on October 23.
E R I C F A I R C H I L D / P R E S S
INTERVIEWS
Fields Of The Nephilim With no new album to plug, expect plenty of favourites.
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rontman Carl McCoy checks in as the veteran goths gear up to per form three concerts that wil l encompass All Hallows Eve and The Day Of The Dead.
These shows, including London on Halloween, celebrate “the dark energies of Samhain”. Why is this time of year so important for you? I was brought up believing it was a special occasion. It’s a time of rebirth and death. It’s more than just a date on a c alendar. It’s also the thirtieth anniversary of the band’s self-titled second album and their biggest hit, Moonchild . Will you play that album in its entirety? We did that whole album a few years ago, so that won’t happen again. Moonchild is a good song for that time of year, there’s no doubt it will be included in these shows. Did you personally pick The Church as special guests? No, but I do like them. I’m not really familiar wit h what they’ve done since the eighties, but their early stuff was very interesting. In 2014 you told Classic Rock about composing – or rather “decomposing” – a new studio album. Since then we’ve had just a single, Prophecy. I’m always creating music, my problem is letting it go. I’ve definitely got plans for [some of my new songs] to be heard . Fans are getting quite up in a rms about it. At the Facebook page some are saying they won’t buy merchandise until a new album is released. Most of the fans I meet a re reasonable people that don’t complain. But of course I want some fresh material myself. So could the album come out within the next year? year? Yeah, that may well happen.
D N A L E R I L L I W : R E K N E H S L E A H I M
After thirty-four years as a band, do you still have goals to achieve? The time has f lown by so quickly, and along the way we’ve evolved so much as people and in a musical sense that I feel we are yet to make that truly magical record. It’s still ahead of us. DL The tour ends in Birmingham on Nov 1.
Michael Schenker Fest Why play with just three lead singers when you can have four?
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aving released an album, Resurrection, since last year’s visit with three lead singers, this time the mercurial German guitar hero is fronted by four – Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet, Robin McAuley and Doogie White – along with bassist bassist Chris Chris Glen, keyboard player/guitarist Steve Mann and drummer Ted McKenna.
The first tour that Michael Schenker Fest played was a huge success. That one had three singers, a nd we have added a fourth [Doogie White] and made an album. The thing is getting bigger and bigger. People loved it in America, and here in Japan [where he’s calling from] the audiences are completely crazy. The key is that you’re enjoying being on stage – maybe for the first time in your career. I’m having fun. Something happened to me back in 2008 and all of a sudden I wanted to be on stage. Over those ten years it has developed. It started by talking to the crowd, but now I sing [backing vocals] and tell stories. I can’t believe it is happening to me at this age [Schenker is 63].
How will this tour differ from the one back in November? Since 2016 I’ve played longer sets. There will be songs not performed last time, and of course some material from Resurrection. Although you said the idea was “far-fetched”, you have proposed adding singers Klaus Meine of the Scorpions and UFO’s Phil Mogg, to become the Ultimate Michael Schenker Fest. If they would do that it would be a completion of the cycle. I don’t know if it will happen. Life is like
“I’m having fun. Now I sing [backing vocals] and tell stories.” a train; I’m not driving it and trains have many compartments.
As a former member of UFO, will you be involved in any way in the band’s farewell tour next year – even just getting up on stage with them at their final U K show,, in Shepherd’s Bush ? show
Bands like UFO and the Scor pions are try ing to fool the audience, and I’m not a part of t hat world. It’s becoming a trend to to make a big big deal about playing last shows, and those bands do it because they can’t get anywhere in a normal way. I returned the UFO name to Phil Mogg [in 2003]. It was a precious gift that I gave him for free and he didn’t even thank me. Why should I show up [to play] with UFO again? For me, UFO only exists with the or iginal f ive members, plus [classic-era producer] Ron Nevison. Phil calls his current band UFO, but it isn’t UFO. If [Mogg] shows me no respect or appreciation, why would I do that for him?
Isn’t Mogg a neighbour of yours in Sussex? Phil and I constantly bump into each other – when I use a zebra crossing, Phil’s there walking his dog; or I see him in Morrisons queuing for a Lotto ticket; or he’s going up the hill on his racing bike – but we we haven’t haven’t actually spoken for for quite a while. DL The tour begins in Glasgow on November 5. November CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 99
LIVE!
Godsmack The “we’re not” metalheads play UK dates in November.
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ormed 23 years ago in Massachusetts, Godsmack have amassed 20 million album sales. Frontman/guitarist Frontman/ guitarist Sully Erna, 50, explains why the metalheads have calmed things down a notch or two with their new album, When album, When Legends Rise. Rise. Seven albums into the band’s career, When Legends Rise reveals Rise reveals a growth and maturing of the Godsmack sound. As a band we’ve been around for quite a while, and musically and as individuals all of us have changed. This record is a reflection of that evolution. However, I never considered us a metal band – that would be disrespectful to the likes of Slayer and Megadeth. We always rode that line.
Nelson The former ‘Timotei ‘ Timotei Twins’ Twins’ play a one-off in Nottingham in October October..
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win sons of rock’n’roll roll star Ricky Nelson, Gunnar and Matthew Nelson found fame during the hair-metal explosion of the 90s. Gunnar checks in ahead of a rare appearance in the UK for Nelson, at the Rockingham Festival in Nottingham.
Can you describe what it felt like to have a multimillionselling debut album, After album, After The Rain , and a No.1 hit single, (Can’t Live Without Your) Love And Affection ? Getting a phone call from our manager on your twenty-second birthday saying: “Congratulations, you’re the number-one band in the world right now”, is actually quite scary. We were lucky, we were able to maintain our run for about eighteen months, until Nirvana arrived and everything changed. Did it rankle that Kerrang! christened you and Matthew the Timotei Twins? Not at all. We took a gift of a beautiful vibrator to Alison Joy, one of our biggest detractors at Kerrang!, with a note that said: “Thanks for the kind words, mind you don’t chip your teeth”. We ended 100 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
up having a great relationship with her and the magazine.
Back then, darker times were ahead, and Geffen Records refused to release the intended follow-up, Imaginator . Do you still harbour a grudge towards their A&R man John Kalodner? [Sounding horrified] Oh no. And I know he feels the sa me about me. We’re re both ver y opinionated men. I appreciate that good art cannot be made by by committee. It’s the same with our friends at Frontiers
“We took a gift of a vibrator to one of our biggest detractors.” Records [who released the band’s most recent records]. I can take criticism, but there’s a point where if my name’s going onto something then I must be happy with it.
Why was 2015’s Peace Out Nelson’s final album? Unlike so many of our contemporaries I refuse to ‘phone it
in’ when making a record. We used to give away the live show to sell the record, and now it’s the other way around. Kids believe that music is free, so why should I spend years creating something that no longer has value? I tried to explain that to Frontiers, who wanted everything yesterday,, and they just didn’t get it. yesterday
Do you feel confined within the so-called AOR niche? I little, I g uess. We were never never followers. Growing up under our father’s roof we were raised on the super-melodic folk-rock from Southern California. George Harrison li ved next door. Bob Dylan was always at the house. T hat and the arena rock of the 1970s is where Nelson came from. Like its forerunner the Firefest, at which Nelson played in 2010, Rockingham is a fan-run celebration of that genre. Yeah. Headlining the Firefest was such an emotional thing for my brother and I. It was almost surreal. So we can’t wait to come back for Rockingham. DL Rockingham takes place over Rockingham over the weekend of October 19-21.
Classic Rock ’s ’s review said: “Godsmack are no longer trying to compete with the younger, tougher bands.” I get the point, but I don’t really look at music as a competition in any sense. There’s a lot of bands out there and we all should all be rooting for one another. Does the new album show you as a more positive, confident artist? Things got quite bleak in the past. Definitely. The first album came out a long time ago. You You can’t stay that young, angry kid who’s mad at life. I’m a dad with a seventeen-year-old daughter. How can I scream, whine and complain? There must have been some resistance from long-term fans of the band? We expected the worst, but our fans are also evolving and that makes things easier. The fans we had twenty years ago now have children of their own. Where I’d like to go in the future is to be known for writing really good songs. From 2003, Faceless Faceless,, IV and and The Oracle all Oracle all topped the US chart, 1000hp 1000hp went went to No.3, When Legends Rise was Rise was a Top 10 album. That’s a very slight downward trend. Do you pay much attention to stats? I did at one point. But it could really offset my moods, so I stopped reading interviews and reviews and I don’t pore over the chart any more. I’m not stupid, and I know this could all end tomorrow. Some cool young band will eventually come along and take our place, so I just try to enjoy my career and live in the moment. DL
The tour begins in Birmingham on November 4. November
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Tour Dates ALABAMA 3 Liverpool Bournemouth London
Academy Old Fire Station Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Dec 1 Dec 7 Dec 15
THE ALARM London Portsmouth Liverpool Birmingham Reading Leeds Edinburgh
Malet Street ULU Wedgewood Rooms Arts Academy 2 Sub 89 Brudenell Social Club Liquid Rooms
Nov 28 Nov 29 Dec 1 Dec 2 Dec 5 Dec 6 Dec 7
AMERICA London
Palladium
Oct 19
Camden Underworld
Oct 27
ANTI-FLAG, SILVERSTEIN, CANCER BATS Birmingham Bristol London Manchester Glasgow Belfast Dublin
Asylum SWX Charing Cross Heaven Academy 2 Garage Foundry Whelans
Oct 30 Oct 30 Nov 1 Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 5 Nov 6
A PERFECT CIRCLE , CHELSEA WOLFE Glasgow Manchester London
Academy Victoria Warehouse Wembley Arena
Dec 2 Dec 3 Dec 5
Leadmill ABC SWX Institute Waterfront Th e Ritz Kentish Town Forum
Oct 16 Oct 17 Oct 19 Oct 20 Oct 21 Oct 23 Oct 24
ASH Sheffield Glasgow Bristol Birmingham Norwich Manchester London
RICHARD ASHCROFT Glasgow Middlesborough Nottingham Manchester London
Barrowland Town Hall Rock City Albert Hall Kentish Town Forum
Oct 26 Oct 28 Oct 29 Oct 31 Nov 2
AUSTIN GOLD Preston Buckley Nuneaton Trecco Bay Norwich
Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 23 Nov 24 Nov 25
Waterloo Music Bar Key Club Rockingham Festival
Oct 18 Oct 19 Oct 20
Guildhall Tivoli Queen’s Hall Planet Rockstock Waterfront
Nov 1 Nov 2 Nov 3 Dec 1 Dec 13
Islington Academy Academy Academy Rock City Telegraph Building National Stadium Tramshed Academy Academy Guildhall Shepherd’s Bush Empire Apollo Tivoli Engine Rooms The Assembly Planet Rockstock Picturedrome Corporation
& THE CULT CLASSICS, DAXX & ROXANNE Oct 17 Oct 18 Oct 19 Oct 20 Oct 31 Nov 1 Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 5 Nov 6 Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 15 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 18 Nov 19
DAN BAIRD & HOMEMADE SIN
Motorpoint Arena Metro Radio Arena SECC Arena Arena First Direct Arena Wembley Arena
Dec 6 Dec 7 Dec 9 Dec 10 Dec 11 Dec 13 Dec 14
BLOODSTOCK Derbyshire
Catton Park
Aug 8-11
JOE BONAMASSA Glasgow London
SEC Armadillo Royal Albert Hall
Apr 22 Apr 24-26
Yardbirds Club Islington Hope & Anchor Birdwell Venue Winterstorm Festival After The Storm
Nov 21 Nov 22 Nov 23 Nov 24 Nov 25
DEL BROMHAM BROTHERS OSBORNE Glasgow Newcastle Manchester Nottingham Treccoo Bay Trecc London
Academy Academy Academy Rock City Planet Rockstock Kentish Town Forum
Nov 25 Nov 27 Nov 28 Nov 30 Dec 1 Dec 2
ZAC BROWN BAND, BETH HART London
BluesFest O2 Arena
Oct 27
BUDE BLUES, RHYTHM & ROCK FESTIVAL
Dec 4 Dec 5 Dec 6 Dec 8 Dec 9
London Cardiff
Nov 9-11
The Fleece Camden Electric Ballroom I nstitute 2
Dec 4 Dec 5 Dec 6
BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE Alexandra Palace Motorpoint Arena
PHIL CAMPBELL AND THE BASTARD SONS
Pwllheli Blackpool Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-T rent Glasgow
Hard Rock Hell Festival Waterloo Music Venue Sugarmill G2
PETER CETERA London
Barbican Centre
Oct 29
CHAS & DAVE Wolverhampton Leicester Glasgow Edinburgh
Diamond Suite De Montfort Hall Barrowland Ballroom Usher Hall
The Grand
Nov 10 Nov 11
Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 11
The Venue Fibbers Concorde 2
Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 18
CORROSION OF CONFORMITY ,
ORANGE GOBLIN, FIRE BALL MINISTRY, BLACK MOTH Southampton Birmingham Nottingham Manchester Glasgow Sheffield Cardiff London
Engine Rooms Institute Rock City The Ritz ABC The Plug University Kentish Town Forum
Oct 26 Oct 27 Oct 28 Oct 30 Nov 1 Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 4
COUNTING CROWS, ALISON KRAUSS, London
O2 Arena Bluesfest
Oct 28
CRAZYHEAD Leicester Stourbridge
The Donkey The Claptrap
Dec 1 Dec 8
CROYDON ROCKS FESTIVAL
CORKY LAING, CHANTEL McGREGOR, STEVE NIMMO TRIO, MORE Clitheroe
Dumfries York Brighton
Oct 26
THE WHITE BUFFAL BUFFALO O Oct 26 Oct 28 Dec 15 Dec 16
CLITHEROE BLUES FESTIVAL
Oct 14
GINGER WILDHEART, JUNKYARD, JIZZY PEARL’S LOVE/HATE, MORE Conference Centre
Nov 3, 4
DAMANEK , SOUTHERN EMPIRE CLUTCH Bristol Glasgow Manchester London Birmingham
Academy Academy Academy Brixton Academy Academy
Dec 18 Dec 19 Dec 20 Dec 21 Dec 22
JOHN COGHLAN’S QUO Abingdon London Ilfracombe Pwllheli Witney Sheffield Buckley Leamington Spa
The Northcourt Manette Street Borderline Rocks Festival Hard Rock Hell Festival Corn Exchange The Plug Tivoli Zephyr Lounge
Oct 26 Nov 2 Nov 4 Nov 10 Nov 24 Nov 30 Dec 1 Dec 7
BIGFOOT, MASSIVE WAGONS, MIDNITE CITY, MORE Pontypridd
BUFFALO TOM Bristol London Birmingham
Nov 16
COMMUNION OF ROCK FESTIVAL
WISHBONE ASH, FOCUS, CHANTEL McGREGOR, MORE
Penstowe Manor Resort
Malet Street ULU
Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov 15 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov 19 Nov 20 Nov 22 Nov 23 Nov 24
Croydon
London Manette Street Borderline Nov 23
The Ritz SWG3 Roadmender Beckett University Kentish Town Forum
Oct 19 Oct 26
Inverness Ironworks Newcastle University York Fibbers Manchester Rebellion London Tufnell Park Boston Music Room Norwich Waterfront Studios Birmingham Asylum Cardiff The Globe Portsmouth Wedgwood Rooms Plymouth The Junction
CARAVAN , CURVED AIR
Bude
Phoenix Arts Centre Town Hall
BluesFest, O2 Arena
London
Dec 4 Dec 6 Dec 7 Dec 8 Dec 9 Dec 10
BIG COUNTRY
London
THE CADILLAC THREE, MONSTER TRUCK
ABC2 The Greystones The Musician The Cluny Shepherd’s Bush Bush Hall Academy 3
BAUHAUS
You know the singer. If you don’t know his band, it’s time you did. Together they’re something a bit special.
Cardiff Newcastle Glasgow Manchester Birmingham Leeds London
Grimsby London Barnsley Troon Troon
Blyth Louth
Nov 28 Nov 29 Nov 30 Dec 1 Dec 2 Dec 3
BLACK STONE CHERRY ,
London Kentish Town Forum Apr 16
Manchester Glasgow Northampton Leeds London
Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 4 Nov 6 Nov 7 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 11 Nov 13 Nov 15, 16 Nov 17
BLACK STAR RIDERS Buckley Southampton Leamington Spa Treccoo Bay Trecc Holmfirth Sheffield
TERRY BROCK (UNPLUGGED)
Glasgow Sheffield Leicester Newcastle London Manchester
Feb 23
BLACKBERRY SMOKE Newcastle Glasgow Nottingham Belfast Dublin Cardiff Birmingham Bristol Southampton London Manchester
AVANTASIA
Newcastle University Union Glasgow Classic Grand Inverness Ironworks Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Manchester Academy 3 Derby Flowerpot Hull Fruit Sheffield Corporation Leeds The Wardrobe Stockton-on-Tees Stockton-on-T ees ARC Stoke-On-Trent Stoke-On-T rent Eleven Norwich Waterfront London Malet Street ULU Southampton 1865 Bridgewater Cobblestones Saltash Livewire Oxford The Bullingdon Bilston Robin 2
ROBERT PLANT & THE SENSATIONAL SPACE SHIFTERS
BRANT BJORK, THE SONIC DAWN
SABATON, MORE
BAD TOUCH, AARON BUCHANAN
Y T T E
Gorilla Brudenell Social Club Chinnerys Roadmender Chelsea Under The Bridge Old Market The Fleece Cheese & Grain Globe
…
BIGFOOT Blackpool Leeds Nottingham London
ANNIHILATOR London
Manchester Leeds Southend-0n-Sea Northampton London Hove Bristol Frome Cardiff
R E EC O C M O M M E N D N DS S
The Muni
Nov 3, 4
HUGH CORNWELL Southend-on-Sea Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-T rent Manchester Oxford London Bristol Chester Kendal Clitheroe Stockton-on-Tees Stockton-on-T ees Newcastle Glasgow Dundee
Chinnerys Sugarmill Club Academy Academy 2 Islington Academy The Fleece Live Rooms Brewery Arts Centre The Grand Georgian Theatre The Cluny Oran Mor Beat Generator
Nov 1 Nov 2 Nov 3 Nov 4 Nov 6 Nov 7 Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 11 Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov 15
Pwllheli Hard Rock Hell Prog Festival Nov 17 Swindon The Vic Nov 27 Southampton Joiners Arms Nov 28 Bilston Robin 2 Nov 29 London Tufnell Park Boston Music Room Nov 30 Maltby Wesley Arts Centre Dec 1
THE DAMNED, JOHNNY MOPED Brighton Norwich Cheltenham London Portsmouth Sheffield Edinburgh Liverpool Coventry Oxford
Dome UEA Town Hall Shepherd’s Bush Empire Pyramids Centre The Plug Liquid Rooms Academy Empire Academy
Nov 19 Nov 20 Nov 22 Nov 23 Nov 24 Nov 26 Nov 27 Nov 29 Nov 30 Dec 1
DANKO JONES Glasgow Manchester London
King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Ruby Lounge Camden Underworld
Nov 14 Nov 15 Nov 16
DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL Dublin Cardiff Bristol Portsmouth Birmingham Glasgow Newcastle Manchester Leeds Nottingham London
Academy Tramshed SWX Wedgewood Rooms Pebble Mill QMU Riverside Academy 2 Beckett University Rock City Camden Koko
Nov 6 Nov 7 Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 11 Nov 12 Nov 14 Nov 15 Nov 16 Nov 18 Nov 19
THE DEAD DAISIES Liverpool Sheffield
Academy Academy
Nov 13 Nov 14
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