Classic Rock - issue 11/2021

JOE BONAMASSA “NINE MONTHS AGO I THOUGHT MY CAREER WAS OVER” MÖTLEY CRÜE NIKKI SIXX: THE CLASSIC ROCK INTERVIEW Plus! ROLLING STONES BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN BLACK STONE CHERRY & more! “Bon was on that self-destructive path” THE FAST AND FURIOUS STORY OF BON SCOTT’S FINAL TOUR Plus: If You Want Blood – the “magic” gig behind the album ISSUE 294

NOVEMBER 2021 ISSUE 294 8 The Dirt New Bruce Springsteen photobook covering the years 1974 to 2016. Stevie Nicks reveals her take on Lindsey Buckingham’s sacking from Fleetwood Mac… Scott Gorham leaves Black Star Riders… Welcome back Carcass and My Morning Jacket… Say hello to The Velveteers and Ghost Hounds… Say goodbye to Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Roger Newell, Michael Chapman… 18 The Stories Behind The Songs The Rolling Stones 20 Q&A Matt Heafy 22 Six Things You Need To Know About… The Wayward Sons 24 Cover Feature AC/DC 38 The Record Company 44 The Classic Rock Interview Nikki Sixx 52 The Screaming Jets 56 The Gospel According To… Joe Bonamassa 60 Ministry 69 Reviews New albums from Joe Bonamassa, Santana, Biffy Clyro, Jerry Cantrell, Dream Theater, Pineapple Thief, Mastodon, Bullet For My Valentine, Caravan, Alcatrazz, Samantha Fish, Tom Morello, Steely Dan, T.A.O.… Reissues from Judas Priest, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Sepultura, Whitesnake, Pearl Jam, The Beatles, Sixx: AM, The Black Keys, Neil Young, Steppenwolf… DVDs, films and books on Dave Grohl, Metallica, John Mellencamp, Nikki Sixx, The Velvet Underground… Live reviews of Black Stone Cherry, Mason Hill, Manic Streeet Preachers, Sisters Of Mercy, Those Damn Crows… 87 Back To Live With gigs back on the agenda, we talk to The Dead Daisies, Praying Mantis and Chris Sumby, promoter of the Stonedead festival. Plus full gig listings – find out who’s playing where and when. 106 The Soundtrack Of My Life Steven Van Zandt 24 AC/DC “On stage Bon was still the same amazing frontman he’d always been. But off stage something wasn’t right.” GETTY SUBSCRIBE AND GET A FREE GIFT WORTH £39 p78 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 3

WELCOME Shameless promotion alert! Yep. This month I’m going to use this space to alert you to something that isn’t in the magazine. Hey, you’re holding it in your hands and the contents page is just a couple turns away, so you don’t need me to tell you what you have to look forward to reading this month (spoiler alert: AC/DC, Nikki Sixx, Joe Bonamassa and so much more!). What I want to tell you about here is the launch of the second season of Classic Rock’s podcast, The 20 Million Club. We began the pod last year – it’s hosted by legendary DJ Nicky Horne, with guest appearances from the CR team – and each episode explores one of the biggest-selling rock albums of all time. We ask: what’s so good about it? Which are the greatest tracks, and which could you live without? What would you change about the record? Who comes out of the album best? And of course: why did it sell so many? This season we’ve also introduced The 20 Minute Club, a weekly minipod to discuss a hit single that was in the chart the same week as our featured album was released. You can listen to the first episodes of the new season of The 20 Million Club (and all of last season too) via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you get you get your podcasts. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode. So far in the new season we’ve taken a deep dive into Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction and Metallica’s Black Album… Happy listening. And happy reading. Until next month… Subscribe! COVER: STEVE EMBERTON/ CAMERA PRESS Siân Llewellyn, Editor Save money, get your issues early and get exclusive subscriber benefits. Visit www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk for our latest subscription offers. This month’s contributors PAUL ELLIOTT Over his years of writing for CR, Paul has probably written the most words about AC/DC. So why break the habit of a lifetime, eh? This issue he ventures behind the scenes at Glasgow Apollo on April 30, 1978 to document the evening the band recorded If You Want Blood You’ve Got It, and investigates how AC/DC developed as an astonishing, unstoppable live power (p24). ROB HUGHES Rob has been writing for CR for a very long time now. This month he braved a chat with Ministry’s Al Jourgenson to get a measure of the man (p60), and also rifled through the record collection of Steven Van Zandt (p106). When not scribbling for CR, Rob is a weekly guest of BBC 6Music presenter Marc Riley, with whom he hosted the podcast The A-Z Of David Bowie. IAN FORTNAM Reviews Editor Ian Fortnam wrote for the likes of NME, Vox, Uncut, The Face and Kerrang! before joining us on Classic Rock (more moons ago than he’d probably care for us to mention). This issue he found the time to get the story behind the Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up from producer Chris Kimsey (with a little help from Keef). You can read the results on page 18.

Stereo Can also be played on mono equipment SIR K 66 087 (2SRK 1987) Germany: Z France: WE 666 LC 2112 5150 Established 1998 Production Editor Paul Henderson The Rolling Stones, Tattoo You (40th Anniversary Super Deluxe) Editor Siân Llewellyn Now playing: Ghost Hounds, A Little Calamity Reviews Editor Ian Fortnam Wooze, Get Me To A Nunnery Art Editor Darrell Mayhew Mastodon, Hushed And Grim Online Editor Fraser Lewry Lindsey Buckingham, Lindsey Buckingham Features Editor Polly Glass The Darkness, Motorheart News/Lives Editor Dave Ling The Wildhearts, 21st Century Love Songs Contributing writers Marcel Anders, Geoff Barton, Tim Batcup, Mark Beaumont, Max Bell, Essi Berelian, Simon Bradley, Rich Chamberlain, Stephen Dalton, Rich Davenport, Johnny Dee, Bill DeMain, Malcolm Dome, Lee Dorrian, Mark Ellen, Claudia Elliott, Paul Elliott, Dave Everley, Jerry Ewing, Hugh Fielder, Eleanor Goodman, Gary Graff, Michael Hann, John Harris, Nick Hasted, Barney Hoskyns, Jon Hotten, Rob Hughes, Neil Jeffries, Emma Johnston, Jo Kendall, Hannah May Kilroy, Dom Lawson, Dannii Leivers, Ken McIntyre, Lee Marlow, Gavin Martin, Alexander Milas, Paul Moody, Grant Moon, Luke Morton, Kris Needs, Bill Nelson, Paul Rees, Chris Roberts, David Quantick, Will Simpson, Johnny Sharp, David Sinclair, Sleazegrinder, Terry Staunton, David Stubbs, Everett True, Jaan Uhelszki, Mick Wall, Paddy Wells, Philip Wilding, Henry Yates, Youth Contributing photographers Brian Aris, Ami Barwell, Adrian Boot, Dick Barnatt, Dave Brolan, Alison Clarke, Zach Cordner, Fin Costello, Henry Diltz, Kevin Estrada, James Fortune, Jill Furmanovsky, Herb Greene, Bob Gruen, Michael Halsband, Ross Halfin, Mick Hutson, Will Ireland, Robert Knight, Marie Korner, Barry Levine, Jim Marshall, John McMurtrie, Gered Mankowitz, David Montgomery, Kevin Nixon, Denis O’Regan, Barry Plummer, Ron Pownall, Neal Preston, Michael Putland, Mick Rock, Pennie Smith, Stephen Stickler, Leigh A van der Byl, Chris Walter, Mark Weiss, Barrie Wentzell, Baron Wolman, Michael Zagaris, Neil Zlozower All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected ABC January-December 2019: 38,021 Thanks this issue to Steve Newman (design), Emma Johnston & Jayne Nelson (production) Cover photo: Camera Press/Steve Emberton Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA Editorial Editor Siân Llewellyn Art Editor Darrell Mayhew Features Editor Polly Glass Production Editor Paul Henderson Reviews Editor Ian Fortnam News/Lives Editor Dave Ling Online Editor Fraser Lewry Online News Editor Scott Munro Content Director (Music) Scott Rowley Head Of Design (Music) Brad Merrett Advertising Media packs are available on request Commercial Director Clare Dove clare.dove@futurenet.com Advertising Manager Helen Hughes helen.hughes@futurenet.com Account Director Olly Papierowski olly.papierowski@futurenet.com Account Director Steven Pyatt steven.pyatt@futurenet.com International licensing and syndication Classic Rock is available for licensing and syndication. 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Springsteen In The Frame New photobook covers 1974 to 2016. A new Bruce Springsteen book has been published by ACC Art Books. Featuring the photography of Janet Macoska, Live In The Heartland covers almost five decades of touring from The Boss, and also includes set-lists and corresponding editorial content. The majority of the photos are previously unseen. “My very first live shoot was of Bruce in 1974 as an opening act for Wishbone Ash,” Macoska tells Classic Rock, whose work has appeared in Rolling Stone, People, Vogue, Creem and the New York Times. At the time, Springsteen was two albums into his career and still a virtual unknown, but she recalls: “He looked like this little beatnik guy, and Wishbone Ash’s audience had no idea who he was, but forty-five minutes later they were up on their feet.” During her career Macoska photographed Springsteen on stage maybe ten or 11 times and saw him performing stage on around 20 occasions. The book includes her work with Springsteen until 2016. By the time of his massive-selling 1984 album Born In The USA he had become one of the biggest acts in the world. “By that point Bruce had buffed up and actually became the superhero that we know today,” Macoska says. “It was a career peak, of sorts. After that album Bruce kind of changed his whole demands in life; whether or not he wanted to continue working with a band. In some ways he reinvented himself.” It could be said that Springsteen is an everyman type of figure, but Macoska sees him as very photogenic. “Bruce doesn’t put out an energy that says ‘ordinary guy’. Right from the beginning he had this incredible charisma,” she says. “And as he got older and developed more stagecraft, it only increased. Also, he started to introduce these little visual tricks with his band as the chemistry between them grew. For a photographer that’s a real treat. Though they are very different as artists, I put Bruce in the same category as David Bowie in that they totally connect with their audience. There’s an electricity. When Bruce goes on stage it’s like Popeye opening a can of spinach.” It was Macoska’s contribution to David Bowie: Icon, a collection of photographs than spanned Bowie’s career, that produced the idea for Live In The Heartland. That and covid-19. “Like everyone else, for sixteen months I had nothing to do but sit inside and worry. So I took a deep dive into the images, some of which I don’t think I had ever seen,” she explains, laughing. “Doing so really put me in a happy place.” The 256-page book retails for a modest £30. “Basically, it’s a fan-friendly book,” Macoska states. “My friend Peter Chakerian, who did all of the research and supplied the set-lists, and I wanted it take the reader back in time and rekindle their memories of these shows – to take them right back there.” Macoska gave Classic Rock the background to four of the book’s most enduring images. Photo 1: “We used this for the cover because it isn’t like the normal Bruce that you see; he isn’t screaming into the microphone with veins bulging. It’s probably my favourite in the whole book. This is one of those quiet moments where he pulls back and plays guitar. And people don’t give him enough credit for that.” Photo 2: “This is Bruce with Clarence Clemons, at Richfield Coliseum, 1980, on tour for The River. I always liked the relationship between those two. So you’ve got Scooter and The Big Man right there. The E Street band have always felt like a big family, which was great for a photographer.” Photo 3: “Here are Bruce [centre] and Little Steven [right] along with Clarence’s nephew Jake. After Clarence died [in 2011] Jake joined the E Street Band and he totally holds his Photo 2 Photo 4 own. On the 2016 tour I saw – my photo is from Cleveland – Jake was brilliant. You can see the camaraderie between them all is totally there.” Photo 4: “Bruce at Richfield Coliseum in 1988, sharing a mic with Patti Scialfa, his eventual wife, on the Tunnel Of Love tour. They married in 1991, but Patti admits sparks had flown from the beginning. Patti has been really, really good for Bruce. She has balanced him out a great deal – even on stage.” DL This month The Dirt was compiled by Dave Everley, Ian Fortnam, Rob Hughes, Jo Kendall, Fraser Lewry, Dave Ling, Siân Llewellyn, Johnny Sharp, Henry Yates Photo 3 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 9

Thank you and good night. John Drake January 1, 1947 – August 29, 2021 Reacting to the news that his former band-mate in the Amboy Dukes, also that group’s forerunner the Lourds, lead singer John Brake (also known as Drake), had succumbed to cancer at the age of 74, Ted Nugent wrote on Facebook: “John had the Motown mojo! God rest his soul!” The Amboy Dukes released seven albums before Nugent went solo in 1975. Ron Cornelius February 14, 1945 – August 18, 2021 The veteran session guitarist Ron Cornelius was born in Richmond, California. He toured with or played on albums by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Charlie Daniels, Glen Campbell, Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald and more. Cornelius, who also worked as a producer, songwriter and publisher, passed at 76 from complications after suffering a stroke two months earlier. Olli Wisdom March 8, 1958 – August 23, 2021 From the early 80s until their demise in 1985 Wisdom was the singer of the British goths Specimen, whose mix of punk and glam would later inspire Ian Astbury of The Cult. He also co-founded and ran the infamous London club The Batcave, frequented by members of The Cure, Bauhaus and Siouxsie & The Banshees. From the 90s onwards Wisdom worked under the name Space Tribe. He was 63 at the time of his passing. Roy Gaines August 12, 1937 – August 11, 2021 The younger brother of the blues musician Grady Gaines, who played saxophone for Little Richard, Roy began as a pianist before taking up the guitar to accompany the likes of the T-Bone Walker, Billie Holiday, Everly Brothers, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Aretha Franklin and Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland. Gaines was a day short of his 84th birthday. Robbie Dale April 21, 1940 – August 31, 2021 As a leading DJ for the pirate station Radio Caroline, Robbie Dale had one of the most identifiable voices of the 60s. At its peak, Caroline attracted 23 million listeners. Lancastrian Dale, known as The Admiral, was one of the 10 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry March 20, 1936 – August 29, 2021 Andrew Holness, the prime minister of Jamaica, was one of many who sent “deep condolences” to the family of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry after the singer and producer, whose diverse studio resumé included work with Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Clash, the Beastie Boys and The Orb, passed away at 85. No cause of death has yet been revealed. Born Rainford Hugh Perry in the small town of Kendal, on the island’s west side, Lee was a notably eccentric yet likable character. After earning his nickname of ‘Scratch’ from an early recording, The Chicken Scratch, in 1965, five years later he began producing the Wailers as their commercial fortunes rose steadily. Roger Newell June 28, 1948 – September 10, 2021 Rick Wakeman has paid tribute to his friend and former bass player Roger Newell, calling him “enthusiastic, dedicated and a great guy to be around”. The 73-year-old musician suffered an aortic aneurysm following a long battle with a heart-related illness. Newell had been a member of the 60s cult psychedelic band Rainbow Ffolly. He and Wakeman worked together on the latter’s 1974 prog epic, Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, as well as its two followups, The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Knights Of The Round Table and No Earthly Connection, plus their associated tours. Ron Bushy December 23, 1941 – August 29, 2021 The former Iron Butterfly drummer has lost a battle with oesophageal cancer at the age of 79. Born in Washington DC, Bushy joined the pioneering hard rock band in 1966 and was the only musician to appear to each of the group’s six albums, from 1968’s Heavy to Sun And Steel in 1975. He will be best remembered for In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the 17-minute standard to which he contributed a lengthy drum solo. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was written as a slow country ballad by organist/ frontman Doug Ingle, who remains the last survivor of the band’s bestloved incarnation. Its unusual title stemmed from a miscommunication between Ingle and Bushy. “The studio must be like a living thing, a life itself,” Perry once said of his unique production technique, which incorporated swampy bass sounds with echo-laden, spacey rhythms. “The machine must be live and intelligent.” In 1977, Perry produced two songs for Paul and Linda McCartney at his studio Black Ark, also helming the Clash single Complete Control, before he burned the place to ground in 1983, fearing it was possessed by evil spirits. In 2003 Perry won a Grammy for the album Jamaican ET. “We are truly grateful to have been inspired by and collaborated with this true legend,” said a tweet from the Beastie Boys. DL From 1988 onwards, Newell was part of the Wildcats, the backing band for British rock’n’roller Marty Wilde. During the 90s he was Deputy Editor of Future Publishing’s Bassist magazine, a regular contributor to Guitarist magazine, and even exerted a small influence on the founding of Classic Rock’s sister title, Prog magazine. “Roger was just as happy when we all were playing in the [now defunct] Valiant Trooper in Holmer Green [in Buckinghamshire] on a Sunday to raise money for charity as he was walking on stage at Madison Square Garden to perform Journey To The Centre Of The Earth,” said Wakeman. DL “I came home [from work] late one night and Doug had drunk a whole gallon of Red Mountain wine,” Bushy later recalled of the song’s inception. “When I asked what he had done, it was hard to understand because he was so drunk, so I wrote it down on a napkin exactly how it sounded phonetically… In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. It was supposed to be In The Garden Of Eden.” Bushy passed away peacefully at UCLA Santa Monica Hospital, with wife Nancy and all three of his daughters at his bedside. A statement from the current line-up of Iron Butterfly said: “Ron was a real fighter. He will be deeply missed.” FL GETTY x2; ALAMY x1

GETTY x2; ALAMY x1 Rickie Lee Reynolds October 28, 1948 – September 5, 2021 The co-founding guitarist of Black Oak Arkansas has died at the age of 72, a week after being hospitalised for Covid-19. Having suffered an earlier cardiac arrest, Reynolds was later diagnosed with kidney failure. Rickie Lee Reynolds hooked up with future Black Oak Arkansas singer Jim Dandy in junior high school. The pair formed a psychedelic rock band called the Knowbody Else who released a self-titled debut album in 1969, before changing their name to Black Oak Arkansas. “I grew up in California,” he told Classic Rock in 2008. “I had long hair out there and when I came back to Arkansas in the George Wein October 3, 1925 – September 13, 2021 The entrepreneur who created the Newport Jazz Festival and later the Newport Folk Festival, helping to plant the seeds for openair live entertainment as we know it, has died at his New York home. He was 95 years old. George Theodore Wein (his surname is pronounced ‘ween’) was born in Massachusetts. In 1954 the Newport socialites Louis and Elaine Lorillard invited him to create something to enliven the local summer entertainment. The event conceived by Wein became the Newport Jazz Festival. After waiving his fee of $5,000 for that first event, the line-up of which included Billie Holiday, Michael Chapman January 24, 1941 – September 10, 2021 Cited as an influence by the likes of David Bowie, Elton John and Thurston Moore, singer/songwriter Michael Chapman has died at home of unknown causes at the age of 80. A fiercely proud Yorkshireman, Chapman became a part of the London folk scene during the late 60s, despite never actually living there. His debut album, 1969’s Rainmaker, was produced by Gus Dudgeon and found its way into the hands of another of Dudgeon’s clients, Elton John, who put out the feelers to set up a collaboration. Years later, Chapman claimed ignorance at this move. A 1970 album Fully Qualified Survivor featured Mick Ronson on guitar, though Ronno refused to tenth grade, my hair was three times longer than anybody else’s, except for Jim.” Black Oak Arkansas became an enormous live draw and achieved some chart success, but despite attaining cult status they never quite cracked the big time. Eventually Reynolds left the band in 1976 but he returned in 1984 – and in later years they found a new, unlikely audience amongst America’s motorcycle community. “The two biggest biker bands are us and Steppenwolf,” Reynolds once said. “They’ve got Born To Be Wild and stuff like that that relates to bikers. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why they like us so much, but we love it.” FL Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald, a profit of $142.50 was made. In 1965, as part of a third straight appearance at the event, Bob Dylan assured the Newport Folk Festival of immortality by putting aside the unplugged format to appear with an electric band for three songs. Wein and the live music scene would never be the same again. “What was a festival to me? I had no rule book to go by,” Wein wrote in his memoir Myself Among Others: A Life In Music, which was published in 2003. “I knew it had to be something unique.” Given his legacy, he certainly achieved that goal. DL leave his own group The Rats until Bowie came calling. Unsurprisingly, a heart attack suffered during the 90s proved a big setback. Later that same decade Michael befriended Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, who voiced an appreciation of the feedback harnessed on Chapman’s 1973 album, Millstone Grit. Continuing to explore roots music, especially blues and folk, Chapman made over 40 albums during his lifetime, the two most recent releases being 2017’s Steve Gunn collaboration 50 and True North in 2019. Paying tribute on Instagram, Thurston Moore wrote: “Thank you, hero.” DL station’s Three Amigos, along with Johnnie Walker and Roger ‘Twiggy’ Day. He died from dementia complications at his home in Lanzarote, at the age of 81. Allan Blazek Died August 3, 2021 Born in Michigan, Allan Blazek was a producer, mixer and engineer who worked on some of the biggest records in rock music. From 1975 onwards, having been mentored by Bill Szymczyk, his name regularly appeared in the credits for music made by the Eagles, REO Speedwagon, The Who, Johnny Winter, The Outlaws, Joe Walsh, The J Geils Band, Rick Derringer and more. Blazek was 71 years old. Hank Carter III May 30, 1950 – September 14, 2021 George Thorogood is mourning his band’s saxophonist and multi-musician of 23 years standing. Having served in the Vietnam War, Delaware native Hank Carter III played the iconic solo on The Destroyers’ 1982 hit Bad To The Bone. “Hank contributed to scores of our tunes on sax, backing vocals, keyboards or whatever was needed to add the final polish,” said Thorogood. “May he rest in peace.” Tim Akers Died August 30, 2021 Coming from Hendersonville, Tennessee, Tim Akers was a respected US keyboard player who recorded with artists as diverse as Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Megadeth, Michael Bolton, Glen Campbell and Kid Rock. He also led The Smoking Section, a 17-piece R&B band comprised entirely of Nashville sessioneers. The 59-year-old passed due to complications from pneumonia following treatments for leukaemia. Gari Saint Died August 28, 2021 Philadelphia hard rockers Tangier used social media to announce the loss of Gari Saint, the guitarist featured on their debut album, Four Winds, in 1989. “Gari made a huge contribution to the vibe, songs, and overall sound,” said a statement. “More importantly, he was a brother to all of us: always calm, always cool. He will be sorely missed.” Kenny Malone August 4, 1938 – August 26, 2021 One of the most popular session musicians in Nashville, Kenny Malone, has passed at 83. It was reported that he had been diagnosed with Covid-19. Raised in Denver, Colorado, Malone went on to play drums on Dolly Parton’s Jolene and Dreaming My Dreams by Merle Haggard among hundreds of songs by the likes of Ray Charles, JJ Cale, Dr Hook, Waylon Jennings and Kenny Rogers. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 11

“I did not have Lindsey fired!” Stevie Nicks reveals her take on Buckingham’s sacking. Stevie Nicks has responded to a provocative new interview in which her former Fleetwood Mac bandmate Lindsey Buckingham tells his side of being sacked by the band. Talking to the LA Times, guitarist/vocalist Buckingham claimed that Nicks had issued a ‘him or me’ ultimatum to the group, looking to assert additional control. He also made comments about her personal life, disparaging the singer’s creativity and energy levels on stage. Nicks said Buckingham’s claims were “factually inaccurate” and “revisionist”. Having preferred “to not air dirty laundry”, she said it felt like time “to shine a light on the truth”. “I did not have Lindsey fired,” she insisted of her former lover. “Frankly, I fired myself. I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my wellbeing. I was done. If the band went on without me, so be it.” DL Happier times: Nicks and Buckingham. Gorham leaves Black Star Riders Guitarist to revive Thin Lizzy in 2022. As this issue went to press, news arrived that Scott Gorham has departed Black Star Riders, the group formed in 2013 by erstwhile Thin Lizzy guitarist Gorham and his late-period-Lizzy bandmate, vocalist Ricky Warwick. A statement revealed that Gorham was “stepping down from all recording and touring commitments” with BSR, who have signed a new multi-album deal with Earache Records, to concentrate on renewed Thin Lizzy activity. Warwick explained: “We are very sorry to see Scott go, but with a very heavy world touring commitment for the new record, Scott decided to concentrate just on Thin Lizzy – and being the legend he is, none of us can blame him. We all wish him the best and he will be looking to put Thin Lizzy back out on the road from 2022 onwards, so he won’t be missing me too much.” BSR will not replace Gorham, and will continue as a four-piece with Warwick and Christian Martucci, who joined in 2018, sharing the guitar parts, alongside bassist Robbie Crane and drummer Zak St John. BSR head into the studio in October. The results will be released via Earache in early 2023, followed by an extensive tour. DL 12 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were unable to attend the funeral of their Rolling Stones bandmate Charlie Watts due to covid restrictions. The trio were in New York preparing for upcoming Rolling Stones dates, and thus forbidden from attending for the service in Devon. Steve Jordan, a drummer with Richards’s solo group, is deputising for the tour. UFO, who next summer play farewell shows in mainland Europe, have announced that their last ever show will take place in Athens on October 29, 2022. “It will be a worthy finale to say goodbye to your fans in person,” says singer Phil Mogg. “There are bound to be some very emotional moments on both sides.” Dave Mustaine has hit out at the wearing of face coverings, branding them a form of “tyranny”. The Megadeth frontman told a concert audience in New Jersey: “We have the power to change things.” Aerosmith (pictured) are set to celebrate their 50th anniversary with a catalogue revamp enhanced by music, photos, video footage, artwork, setlists and memorabilia from the personal archives of all five band members. Phil Collins says the current live reunion of Genesis will be his last. Asked about plans for 2022, the vocalist responded: “This English and American tour, that will be enough for me.” My Morning Jacket Back after burn-out and health issues, their first album in six years extols love, tolerance and compassion. Six years have passed since My Morning Jacket served up fresh studio product, with various members choosing to embark on solo projects and live work with the likes of Roger Waters and Ray LaMontagne. But the Kentucky-rooted quintet have finally returned with their ninth album My Morning Jacket, a rich, rewarding, soulful psych-rock experience that addresses some of the bigger questions that modern life tends to throw up. Singer, guitarist and chief songwriter Jim James explains more… Self-titled albums often feel like statements of intent. Is that the case here? Definitely. We weren’t sure if we were going to make another record or not, so coming back with a self-titled record just felt cosmically appropriate. It’s like: “This is My Morning Jacket. Hear this!” Why were you unsure about making another album? I was just really burnt out [after 2015’s The Waterfall] and didn’t know if I wanted to be in a touring rock’n’roll band any more. It’s such a gruelling experience and it can wear you down. But then we did four shows together in 2019, after not having played for a long time, and were able to feel the beautiful energy of it. We turned up for those shows with no expectations, and it was the same thing with the record. I told everyone to keep it really simple, then just let fate play a bigger part. Many of the songs on the album seem to be about reconnecting with the things that matter. All these songs were written before the pandemic happened, so for a while I’ve been feeling really worried about the role that technology, particularly phones and social media, plays in our lives. Then “Coming back with a self-titled record felt cosmically appropriate.” I realised that being out in nature was a way of reconnecting with myself and other beings on the planet. I got to see the giant sequoias for the first time, and that was the thing that broke it open for me. Every day I was either out walking in my neighbourhood or hiking in the mountains. A couple of the the songs – Least Expected and Lucky To Be Alive – suggest that you’ve suffered health scares in recent years. Can you elaborate? Heart issues and inner injuries and back surgery. I’ve had three or four major things that have happened as a result of being in a touring band. But I had this moment of gratitude, after coming out of one injury, for still being alive and being able to appreciate the simple things, like watching the sunset, and trying to find the beauty in that, even when things are so fucked up. The album’s overriding theme is embodied on Love Love Love, which calls for more tolerance and compassion. Many of us don’t have a good relationship with ourselves, and that’s really the heart of that song: you can’t love anybody else until you love yourself. I’ve always been very cruel to myself, but in the last couple of years I’ve been able to make some progress, through meditation, therapy and being around nature. I actually had a really beautiful experience where a second version of myself came to me, held me in my arms and said: “Jim, you need to go easier on yourself, buddy.” So I’m trying to work on that now. I think it’s the way forward for us all. RH My Morning Jacket is out on October 22 via ATO Records. MY MORNING JACKET: AUSTIN NELSON/PRESS; STEVIE NICKS & LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM: GETTY

Ghost Hounds JAY ARCANSALIN/PRESS These Pittsburgh blues rockers specialise in sounds both timeless and priceless. Maybe it helps, but you don’t have to be a penniless sharecropper in the Mississippi Delta to play the blues. Living proof of that is Thomas Tull, songwriter and guitarist with blues-rock six-piece Ghost Hounds, who is as well-known in the band’s Pennsylvania home base as part-owner of NFL team the Pittsburgh Steelers – and his successful film production career – as he is for his music. Yet his band’s new album, A Little Calamity, blends blues, soul, hard rock and country with the effortless swagger of southern rock masters. Full of nagging hooks, lithe riffs and pithy lyrics, it exudes the passion of road-toned outlaws injecting vintage rock fumes into their veins rather than a private equity billionaire. Tull insists his first love was always music, and although he used his riches from successful businesses to invest in movies through his company Legendary Entertainment, producing titles such as Inception, Superman Returns and The Hangover, he has been playing guitar in bands since high school. And he initially scratched that itch with Ghost Hounds’ first incarnation. “It was the genesis of an idea that was not fully expressed,” he says of Ghost Hounds Mk 1, which was put on ice after one album as Tull’s movie production business took off. But then in 2018 he met Brooklyn-based guitarist Johnny Baab: “We just instantly FOR FANS OF... “I love the Stones. They had such a great appreciation for blues, for soul and also for country, you know, which really came out in their 70s stuff. I hope you see that spectrum with us, cos we’re all huge blues fans – the ‘Ghost Hounds’ name comes from Robert Johnson. And Waylon Jennings is a huge hero, too.” bonded.” Baab suggested Bennett Miller (bass) and Blaise Lanzetta (drums) to reignite the band, but what really turned heads, apart from Tull’s songwriting (alongside writer/producer Kevin Bowe), was the voice they found to front them – the trilby-wearing, wise-cracking figure of Tré Nation. Their first encounter, says Tull, was “like something out of a movie”. “John saw a clip on his buddy’s wedding video, just 18 seconds or so, and there was this guy singing. It blew us away. We’re like: we have got to find him.” Duly found and hired, Nation’s gutsy, charismatic pipes lit up 2019’s debut Roses Are Black and adds a crackling emotional pull to new songs such as the beautiful blues lament Tears For Another and the boogie-fuelled anthem that is Half My Fault. Joe Munroe’s piano also adds Muscle Shoals-y vibes, alongside righteous stabs of gospel backing vocals. The band’s profile has been boosted by endorsement by some of Tull’s long-time heroes – the Rolling Stones and ZZ Top both invited the band to tour with them in 2019. If that suggests some serious networking skills on Tull’s part, you don’t impress blues aficionados like that with your NASDAQ portfolio. “I’m a believer in meritocracy,” he says. “I grew up dirt poor, and, sure, I have been very fortunate in my life. But when we tour, the crowd don’t care – they either like the music or they don’t. And the responses we’ve had have blown me away; it shows that when people hear good music, everything else is secondary.” JS A Little Calamity is out now via Maple House Records. “The responses we’ve had on tour have blown me away.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 13

MY FIRST LOVE The Clash LONDON CALLING By Tom Morello The American musician, singer, songwriter, actor and political activist on a British punk classic. “The Clash are my favourite rock’n’roll band of all time. London Calling was the launching point for my love of the band. Until I discovered punk I was a heavy metal fan. It was the cover of London Calling that first piqued my interest and made me think: ‘Who is this great new heavy metal band?’ “I devoured that record. The conviction with which the band played and with which Joe Strummer sang were indescribable. It was at a time that I was becoming politically aware, and here was a band who made me feel that I wasn’t alone. It was a band that told the truth, unlike my president, unlike the people on the national news, unlike my teacher, and I thought: ‘I’m in’. The Clash were more than a punk band. They were much more musically adventurous. And London Calling was really the record where they incorporated music from around the world and every song sounded like the Clash. I’ve played the song London Calling in countless cover bands throughout the years. I wasn’t exactly sure what Joe Strummer was going on about, but it felt apocalyptic and I knew that he was right. The subtlety and the humour in Joe’s lyrics is sometimes overlooked. “I couldn’t believe that there was a band for me. Up until that point I was settling, and when I discovered London Calling I didn’t have to settle any more.” SL 14 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Faith No More and Mr Bungle have cancelled their remaining live commitments for 2021 due to singer Mike Patton’s ongoing mental health issues, which, according to a statement, have been “exacerbated by the pandemic”. “The bands support me in this decision,” explains Patton, who fronts both acts. “I am not going to give anything less than 100 per cent.” Responding to speculation that he had been part of a secret rehearsal to replace Vince Neil for Mötley Crüe’s US stadium tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett next year, their former singer John Corabi has fumed: “I can categorically state that the chances of my ‘return’ to Mötley are zero per cent.” The singer was part of the group during the 90s. There’s a new book about Queen on the way. Magnifico: An A-Z Of Queen by Mark Blake is a unique collection of anecdotes, trivia, humour and tragedy behind the band and will be published by Nine Eight Books. Emerson, Lake & Palmer (pictured) are the subject of a new 10-LP/seven-disc live box set. Released in October via BMG, Out Of This World: Live (1970-1997) pulls together five of the group’s biggest and most important live recordings. The trio’s 50th-anniversary celebrations also include a new book, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, by Keith Emerson, Greg Lake & Carl Palmer, published by Rocket 88 towards the end of the year. Carcass Back with a new album, friends in Friends, and plans for new music from guitarist Bill Steer’s two other bands. When Carcass crawled out of the UK extreme metal underground with 1988’s graphic debut album Reek Of Putrefaction, few would have expected them to still be here more than 30 years later, let alone be held up as a major influence by so many bands who followed. The Merseyside band’s seventh album, Torn Arteries, smuggles in plenty of classic metal riffs under the harsh vocals and percussive blitzkrieg. “I still think of us as an underground band,” says guitarist Bill Steer. “So it’s strange when people name-check us as an influence.” It’s been eight years since the last Carcass album. Why so long? I was still living in the nineties, where a band would release an album every couple of years. But Jeff [Walker, singer/bassist] thought if we fired off another record too quickly it would maybe not be taken as seriously purely because of the timing. But it’s good – some of these songs have been through a lot of changes for the better. Torn Arteries is a title that’s been kicking around for decades. What’s the story? It’s the title of a bedroom recording that Ken [Owen, original Carcass drummer] made back when he was about fifteen. He recorded all this stuff on a primitive tape recorder, using a Spanish guitar, and books as drums, with him screaming over the top. The tape recorder was completely overloaded, so it sounded really heavy. I remember being really impressed with it. There’s a brilliant old-school guitar solo at the end of the track In God We Trust. Who were your guitar heroes growing up? There’s so many, from Fast Eddie Clarke to the Maiden guys and Michael Schenker. “We heard that somebody in Friends was a Carcass fan.” By the time I hit my mid-twenties I was getting into stuff like Eric Clapton and Johnny Winter, bluesier stuff. When Johnny Winter is playing in the pocket, it’s just amazing. How weird was it hearing Carcass name-checked by Phoebe in an episode of Friends in 2001? Very weird. It just seemed incredibly random. This was after we’d split up [Carcass were inactive from 1995 to 2008], so when my neighbours mentioned that episode, I was completely shocked. We heard on the grapevine that somebody involved in that show was a Carcass fan and they shoehorned it into the script. Will you ever resurrect your bluesrock band Firebird? I’ve been working on a bunch of tunes on and off for a long time. They’ll probably come out as Firebird, cos that’s a band with a past and a kind of pedigree. I just need to figure out the hows, whens, wheres and whys. You’re also a member of Gentlemans Pistols. What’s happening with them? James [Atkinson, Gents’ frontman] worked with me on Torn Arteries. And yeah, there are plans afoot for a new album. He’s got a big backlog of songs and some are outstanding. And will we have to wait another eight years for a new Carcass album? I don’t know. The sense of relief from getting this album out will be enormous for all of us. Beyond that we’ll just play it by ear. DE Torn Arteries is out on September 17 via Nuclear Blast. EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER: ALAMY

The Velveteers “The crowd were expecting Wolf Van Halen – there were some confused faces!” The Colorado trio get their glam-punk-garage stomp on for a Dan Auerbach-produced debut. The day The Velveteers met Black Keys man Dan Auerbach is haunting them. “It was our first time in Nashville, at his request,” explains guitaristvocalist Demi Demitro, “and we walk into his studio [Easy Eye], and have to keep walking, past all the equipment, right up to the back…” “And he’s sitting at a table in the dark, smoking a cigar, with a lamp shining over his head,” adds drummer Baby Pottersmith. “We were like, ‘What are we doing here?’” Demitro says. “It was too scary.” “But then we saw his jumper had clouds and things on it and he was really friendly and nice,” says Pottersmith, and the two laugh. It might not be the most visceral rock’n’roll anecdote you’ll read today, but there’s a real sweetness about Boulder, Colorado’s sparkle-cheeked, vintage-thrift attired group The Velveteers. This is in sharp contrast to the roaring, platform-booted glampunk-garage songs that the trio create, and the psychedelic, selfproduced videos that caught Auerbach’s eye and led to him producing their debut album titled, aptly, Nightmare Dream. Now in their early 20s, the band have been together for nearly a decade after Demitro and Pottersmith met at a reggae show as teenage musicians. “We talked all night, we didn’t watch the band,” says Pottersmith. They were soon joined by Demitro’s FOR FANS OF... Demi: “Rose Hill Drive’s Americana is one of the coolest current-day rock’n’roll records from the greatest band in Boulder. The songwriting is amazing and Daniel Sproul is one of the best guitarists I’ve heard.” Baby: “It’s a perfect blend of catchy songs and extremely in-yourface rock’n’roll. We’ve been obsessed with them since forever!” brother Johnny Fig, making the outfit a two-drum-one-guitar affair (Demitro: “That’s what I wanted. That made it so heavy and hard-hitting”), and planned to only make their first album after they’d been together for five years. “And, er, that took a bit longer,” laughs Demitro. It’s been worth the wait, though, as Nightmare Dream distils the essence of the catalogue they’ve built alongside new compositions worked out with Auerbach over two days. “Dan’s into the classic ‘Nashville songwriting session’ thing,” explains Demitro. “So on one day it was us, Dan and Angelo Petraglia [Kings Of Leon, Taylor Swift], the next day it was with Desmond Child [Kiss, Alice Cooper]. He was never trying to mould us into anything, or change us. The suggestions he made were things we’d never have thought of.” One of those suggestions was for Demitro, who plays a Baritone Epiphone and is influenced by PJ Harvey, Josh Homme, The Runaways, Deap Vally and Marc Bolan. “He had all this retro equipment and a 70s amp, a Vamp.” Her eyes light up. “It was the kind that Bolan played – it’s so cool.” The Velveteers recently played with Guns N’ Roses in Boulder when original support Mammoth WVH pulled out. “The crowd were expecting Wolf Van Halen’s shreds and there were definitely some who didn’t understand us,” laughs Pottersmith. “But Demi can shred too – hers are unique, melodic, strange riffs. There were some hypnotised and confused faces out there!” JK Nightmare Dream is out October 8 via Easy Eye Sound. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 17

THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS Start Me Up The Rolling Stones As Keith Richards and producer Chris Kimsey recall, the band’s final Top 10 UK single was originally an entirely different beast – and Keef may still hold a grudge about that. Words: Ian Fortnam KIMSEY IN HEAVEN Along with Neighbours, Heaven was one of only two songs specifically recorded for inclusion on Tattoo You, and Chris Kimsey got to play keys. “It was one of those magic moments when only half of the band were there: Charlie, Mick, maybe Bill, but not Keith or Ronnie; and I just sat down at the Wurlitzer and started playing along out of boredom, just waiting. Mick’s vocal totally mesmerised me, it was so beautiful, and the whole song had this wafting Moroccan vibe, and it just set off all this imagery in my mind. So it was fantastic just to be part of that, and then when they said they were going to use it on the album, that was really cool.” With its short, sharp, instantly recognisable opening riff, insistent chorus, characteristically lascivious lyric, upfront handclaps and irresistibly pounding backbeat, Start Me Up is about as iconic a composition as the Rolling Stones have ever produced. Its undeniable assault on the nation’s collective consciousness gave them their highest-ranking UK single since the global phenomenon that was Miss You (though, perhaps incredibly, it also marked the final occasion upon which the Greatest Rock’N’Roll Band In The World found themselves going Top 10 in the UK singles chart). The gift that kept on giving, the song also netted the Stones a reported $14 million when it was personally selected by Bill Gates to soundtrack Microsoft’s first-ever TV commercial. Not bad for an initially abandoned, reggaeflavoured studio jam that almost never saw the light of day. Back in ’81, the Stones were looking to tour and, as was their custom, needed a new studio album to tour behind, but unfortunately, according to Start Me Up’s associate producer and recording engineer Chris Kimsey: “Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] had had a big falling out and weren’t really talking. Prince Rupert Loewenstein – who was the band’s manager at the time – asked me, ‘What are we going to do to get another album?’ So I said I knew of at least six tracks I’d recorded with the band during sessions for Some Girls and Emotional Rescue we could use, and I’d go into the vaults to see what else was hanging around. So I spent the next four months going through everything and found this wonderful collection of songs.” A wonderful collection of songs that, once augmented with fresh vocals and the odd overdub, would go quadruple platinum while topping the Billboard charts under the title Tattoo You. While Tattoo You was a relatively low maintenance album for the Stones to make, going back into the studio to touch up out-takes wasn’t exactly a task that filled any hearts with gladness. “Once I found everything,” Kimsey continues, “I had to try to drag Mick in to put the vocals on, which he didn’t really want to do. And then when he did the vocals he was so budget-conscious that we ended up in the Stones’ mobile [studio] in a railway warehouse on the periphery of Paris in winter. I remember it was so cold when we did the handclaps on Start Me Up that you could see the breath coming out of everyone’s mouth.” Despite the fact that Start Me Up is so intrinsically rock as to be a virtual caricature, with its slack-jawed, twochord, staccato riffing allied to Mick Jagger’s irretrievably priapic, oiled-up sex machine of a lyric (which culminates in the venerable vocalist’s priceless deployment of the assertion that ‘you make a dead man come’), its original incarnation was a different kettle of fish. As Keith Richards, in his own inimitable style, explains: “Start Me Up had been in the can for five or six years. We had 45 takes of it that we’d done in Rotterdam in ’75, ’76, something like that. And every take, except for one, was reggae… [Sings] ‘Start Me Up… puh-chick-oo-papa…’ [Keith gets irie, it’s quite a sight.] And then it went into this bizarre, like… [Keith thinks about getting even irie-er, but decides against it.] It’s definitely a reggae song, that’s what it is, but some time around about take 36, I hit one version, and Charlie’s with me, which was the rock’n’roll version. “Then we totally forgot about it, because then came another 10 reggae versions, but it never took off for us that way. I’ve heard Jamaican bands make a damn fine version of it, but no wonder it didn’t work – we’re not Jamaicans. That’s the thing, my God, it could have slipped right by us. Sometimes you should just pick up what’s there: you never know, there could be a gem in there that passed right over you while you were doing things another way because your mind was set the other way. But that was a fluke, quite honestly… I love flukes.” Originally entitled Never Stop, the embryonic reggae version of Start Me Up was possibly closer to Richards’ heart than he’s willing to admit, Kimsey remembers. “Start Me Up had been around since Black And Blue days as a reggae idea of Keith’s, and Keith was vehement; he really wanted to keep it reggae. It’d always pop up as a reggae groove, but then it got less reggae and eventually, when it was recorded as we know it, we only recorded two takes.” The Stones’ time-honoured modus operandi was, and remains, to jam their compositions into being rather than strictly working to set pre-written arrangements, and Start Me Up / Never Stop was no exception, as Kimsey recalls. “A lot of the Stones’ songs would take about four or five days to nail. They would play each song for three or four hours, then move onto a new one. That was the pattern of recording. Then one day it would be, ‘Oh wow, that’s a really good version of “Start Me Up had been in the can for five or six years. And every take, except for one, was reggae…” that one,’ and we’d keep that take and move on. I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t long after we finished Miss You before they launched into the version of Start Me Up that we know now. So, if my memory serves me correctly, Start Me Up was pretty much recorded at the same time as Miss You.” Even with the rock version of Start Me Up in the can, Richards was apparently far from happy. “When it was recorded,” concludes Kimsey, “Keith had a listen, and Keith was not enamoured by it. He said, ‘That sounds like something I’ve heard on the radio. Get rid of it.’ And I didn’t [laughs]. I’ve seen them do it a number of times live and whenever I’m there – I don’t know if he does it on purpose – but he’ll always play the wrong chords at the beginning…” Tattoo You (40th Anniversary Deluxe) is out now via Polydor/UME HELMUT NEWTON/PRESS 18 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

The Rolling Stones in their early-80s, Tattoo You prime. THE FACTS RELEASE DATE 14 August 1981 HIGHEST CHART POSITION 7 PERSONNEL Mick Jagger Vocals, handclaps Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood Guitars Bill Wyman Bass Charlie Watts Drums Michael Carabello Cowbell, Guiro Barry Sage, Chris Kimsey Handclaps WRITTEN BY Mick Jagger and Keith Richards PRODUCER The Glimmer Twins LABEL Rolling Stones

Matt Heafy Trivium’s frontman on festival bottlings, autographing babies and the reason dragons are the most metal of mythical beasts… W Words: Henry Yates Isn’t that stuff too dark for kids? Oh, very much so. Like, there’s the story about the kappa, which is this turtle-human thing. It’s kinda evil, and it’s disgusting, too. 20 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM hen it comes to Trivium frontman Matt Heafy, the operative word is ‘fast’. We could refer you to the Florida metallers’ rampant work-rate since 2003, and the 10-album streak that makes their peers look positively sluggish. We could clock the breakneck guitar solos that light up songs such as A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation, which put shred standards like Eruption in the shade. Then, of course, there’s the frontman’s warp-speed interview manner, which trolley-dashes from this year’s pummelling new album, In The Court Of The Dragon, on to Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Japanese mythology and more. Over to him. Right now you’re on the road with Megadeth, Lamb Of God and Hatebreed. How’s it going? It’s been incredible. I would have been excited to see 4,000 people a night. Lo and behold, 9,000 people showed up to see us in Austin, Texas, which is insane for four bands who play metal and are essentially from the underground world. Have your shows always gone so well? No. I mean, I was doused from head to toe with a hot bottle of piss before our second Download show in 2006. No one had an extra towel, so I had to play covered in someone else’s piss. That sucked. Falling through the stage sucked. Losing my voice sucked. Doing shows with tonsillitis and food poisoning. I’ve had it all. Who’s the band to beat on this tour? I feel like all four are firing on all cylinders but, man, Megadeth is just unbelievable. Every single detail of their show is meticulous, and Dave Mustaine is still flawless. There is no one else on the planet like him. Am I competitive on a tour like this? Of course, there’s the ‘humility’ answer: I do believe that everyone rises up together. But I also want this, more than anyone else I know. Do you think the events of the last two years have brought a more aggressive edge to In The Court Of The Dragon? I feel like it has to. I think metal should be very reactionary to the world around it. Bands have a responsibility to do that. Music has always been about tackling the deepest, darkest, most intense things about society, looking into the mirror and the soul, and confronting that. And the bands that don’t do that just write the typical drivel of either ‘Life’s a party’ or some song-generator BS. What themes did you find yourself writing about? The title song, I started writing about Norse mythology, and Thor battling Jormungandr at Ragnarök. But Paolo [Gregoletto, bass] said, “We should create our own mythology instead.” When he said that, it really set off this spark in my mind. Something I’ve been tapping into recently is my Japanese side. Y’know, like the Japanese storm god Susanoo battling Yamata No Orochi, the eight-headed serpent of the sea. My favourite characters are Raijin and Fujin, the gods of thunder and wind: that’s probably going to be my next tattoo. I’m also making a children’s book about Japanese folklore. Are dragons as rock’n’roll as snakes and bats? Absolutely. I remember seeing this old Dio interview where they’re asking him, “Why are you always singing about dragons?” And he said, “The dragon can be anything. It can be an obstacle or foe in your own life, or something evil you see in the world.” I loved that. The history of dragons is all over the place. You see them in the ancient Asian cultures, across old English stories, Russian stories. Dragons are a metaphorical punching bag, essentially. Famously, Trivium are perfectionists. Which of the new songs has the biggest potential for screw-ups? Man, they’re all tough. Dragon’s got a lot of right hand. The Shadow Of The Abattoir, vocally, that’s low in the verses and Bruce Dickinsonhigh in the final chorus. What’s interesting is, my favourite shows recently have been where I’ve missed a couple of notes. People like the human element. When we did the A Light Or A Distant Mirror livestream last year, my friend’s favourite moment was when Alex [Bent]’s snare drum broke, and he realised it wasn’t prerecorded. I think we’re one of the only bands whose livestream was actually live. How much can you drink and still pull this stuff off? Back at the start, we were a bunch of snot-nosed party kids that for some reason were still pretty good live. But our stuff is too technical now. I can’t be high or drunk before playing any of our shows, ever. How badly have you been injured while doing jiu-jitsu? I went into it eight years ago, thinking, “Alright, I’m good at the whole band thing, I should be good at this too.” And I got my ass kicked for five years straight. One of my middle fingers is still pointing sideways at the top, from grappling with this absolute monster of a human. That’s probably the most career-scary injury. Have you ever had to use your fighting skills outside the ring? No, thankfully not. We were jumped once in a random town – 15 people on three – but luckily we got out alive. If you could play any famous guitar, what would you choose? I’d like to play some old lute that belonged to a renaissance master from the baroque era. I can’t think of a sick lute player off the top of my head, but that’d be pretty cool. If we had to say a rock musician, maybe one of Brian May’s original guitars. What’s the weirdest encounter you’ve ever had with a fan? Someone made me sign their newborn baby once. This guy gave me a look, like, “You’d better sign my kid or there’s gonna be a problem.” So I very delicately and gently did it. In The Court Of The Dragon is released on October 8 via Roadrunner and Trivium play the UK from November 11.

Enter the dragon: Trivium’s Matt Heafy gets mystical. “I was doused from head to toe with a hot bottle of piss before our second Download show.” MIKE DUNN/PRESS

Wayward Sons The Britrock lifers are back with a political chip on their shoulder, and a headstart on the Zoom era. Interview: Will Simpson “I genuinely believe this is the finest album I’ve ever made,” Toby Jepson says of Wayward Sons’ third album Even Up The Score. No small boast, as the singer has spent over three decades at Britrock’s coalface – first in Little Angels, then as the frontman in Gun and Eddie Clarke’s Fastway, and as a producer for Saxon, Chrome Molly and many others. In 2011 he became involved in the Dio’s Disciples project at the behest of Ronnie’s widow Wendy – “A fantastic experience, but it left me wanting to create my own thing again.” Which is why he found himself, pushing 50, starting a new band with bassist Nic Wastell (ex-Chrome Molly), Phil Martini on drums and latterly guitarist Sam Wood. “I just enjoy the camaraderie of being in a group,” he insists. Yes, you’re right, they do take their name from the Kansas song. And there’s an origin story behind it. “It’s the first song I ever heard going to a rock club at fourteen years old,” explains Jepson. “I snuck into Victoria’s in Scarborough. I had my dad’s donkey jacket on and oxblood Doc Martens hoping that I would be accepted. As I walked in, Carry On Wayward Son was playing and it just struck me as ‘I’ve arrived. This is my place. This is where I belong.’ When I was putting a band together there was no question it would be called Wayward Sons.” They’re a benevolent dictatorship. “Bands don’t work as democracies,” he claims. “I think it’s pretty clear I’m the leader. I put the band together. I’m the principal songwriter and they all recognise and understand that. But I also have massive respect for them. If those guys turned round to me and said, ‘We don’t like that’ or ‘We don’t want to do that’ then absolutely, I discuss it with them and we figure it out.” Late-70s power pop is in their DNA. On tracks like Bloody Typical and Big Day, the new album careers into foot-on-the-monitor newwave territory. But then, as a songwriter, Jepson has always been an open-minded soul. “Ours was a real music family. My sister was really into the Clash and the Pistols. I’d be putting on Rainbow and Sabbath and I’d go downstairs and my dad would be listening to the latest Ian Dury record. 22 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

To me it all felt the same. I’ve never had this barrier thing of ‘that’s that type of music and I can’t like that’. I definitely had a love of more poppy stuff – bands like Blondie, Elvis Costello, British and American new-wave pop. They all sounded like great songs to me.” You can take them or leave them. “There’s definitely more of a ‘don’t give a fuck‘ attitude to this band than others I’ve been in,” says Jepson. “I feel that Wayward Sons is the opportunity to say the things perhaps I’ve felt a little reticent about saying in Little Angels, or wasn’t smart enough to say at the time. Now I’m more worldlywise and the whole thing with this band is, ‘Look, this is our thing, like it or hate it, it is what it is.’” They have strong opinions (and they aren’t afraid to share them). “We’ve gone through a tumultuous period, not just with Covid, but with the last five years,” he explains. “The Trump era for me was a huge influence in terms of my need to talk about what is happening to the human race. It seems we’re actually taking steps backwards instead of forwards. Brexit is an absolute disaster as far as I’m concerned. If only because, as a musician, I was enjoying the fact that I could tour in Europe, meet my friends and continue the relationships with people I’ve had for many years, and now that has been removed. As I’m getting older I’m definitely getting gnarlier and more angry about things, because I ain’t got a lot of time left!” Scores to settle: (l-r) Nic Wastell, Sam Wood, Toby Jepson and Phil Martini. They’re a Zoom-era band. Even before Covid, Wayward Sons were working remotely. With Toby based in Bath, Phil in Portugal, Nic in Leicester and Sam in Leeds, they had to. “We just organise our time. Lockdown for us was kind of odd because making the record online didn’t feel different, because we’ve always worked like that. We’ve always had to speak to each other on Zoom, to find dates to rehearse to do a show. It’s not like in the Little Angels days where we used to rehearse eight hours a day, seven days a week. And I’m glad, because it gives space for life in other ways.” Even Up The Score is out on October 8 via Frontiers Music. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 23

On April 30, 1978, AC/DC took to the stage of Glasgow Apollo and played one of the best shows of their career, resulting in If You Want Blood You Got It, one of rock’s greatest live albums. It was further proof that AC/DC had built their reputation as an unstoppable force on the road. Words: Paul Elliott CAMERA PRESS / STEVE EMBERTON It was, as Angus Young recalled it, “the magic show”, and what came out of it was one of the greatest live albums of all time. When AC/DC played at Glasgow Apollo on April 30, 1978, they were flying. The album they had just recorded, Powerage, was their best yet, hard rock’n’roll so gritty and ballsy that it would make Keith Richards a fan. As a live act, AC/DC were electrifying. And in Glasgow there was a deep connection between this band and their audience. Back in 1973, AC/DC had formed on the other side of the world, in Sydney, Australia. But three of the band had been born in Scotland: lead guitarist Angus Young and his elder brother Malcolm, rhythm guitarist, in Glasgow, singer Bon Scott in the small town of Forfar. The Apollo was a venue famous for its cauldron-like atmosphere: the heat and noise generated by 3,500 rowdy Glaswegians. And on that night in 1978, the air was charged, the room shaking as AC/DC blasted through songs that would become rock classics and staples of the band’s live show for decades to come: Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be, The Jack, Bad Boy Boogie, Whole Lotta Rosie, Let There Be Rock. Angus, wearing a schoolboy uniform, was a blur of perpetual motion. Bon carried himself with the swagger of a gunslinger. And behind them, flanked by two great walls of amps, the rhythm section of Malcolm Young, bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd hammered away relentlessly. For those present that night, it was an experience never to be forgotten. “I was blown away,” recalls Doogie White, who was 18 when he saw that show, still dreaming of the life he would lead many years later as the singer for legendary guitarists Ritchie Blackmore and Michael Schenker. “The power of AC/DC had the force of a storm coming off the hills and knocking the bejesus out of you.” That power, and that heated atmosphere, was captured on the album released later that year, on October 13. It was an album that documented the AC/DC live experience in all its ragged glory. As Angus Young said: “One night, guitars out of tune, feedback, singer farting, whatever.” And the title of the album spoke volumes of a band who, night after night, left everything on the stage: If You Want Blood You’ve Got It. ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 25

Here one night in 1978, rock history was made. It was on the road that AC/DC’s reputation was made, and where the legend of Bon Scott was born. From the start, Malcolm bossed the band, and Angus was the star of the show, the guitar hero duck-walking like the bastard son of Chuck Berry. But as Angus said, it was Bon who “gave the band its flavour”, with his whisky-soaked voice, devilmay-care attitude and dirty, witty lyrics. On stage Bon was the perfect foil for Angus, playing it cool as the schoolboy ran amok. But where Angus went into character whenever he pulled on his shorts – “It’s like I’m two people,” he once said – there was no such separation for the singer. “Bon was a bloke who lived what he sang about,” said Pete Way, the bassist who became a close friend of Bon’s when his band UFO toured with AC/DC. And it was in Rocker, one of the key early AC/DC songs, that Bon defined himself most succinctly: ‘I’m a rocker, roller, right-out-of-controller.’ Bon had first met the Young brothers in 1974 when AC/DC played a gig at the Pooraka club in Adelaide with their original singer Dave Evans, whose penchant for glam-rock stage clothes, satins and stack heels, was considered, in the parlance of the time, ‘poofy’. Bon, at 27, was already a veteran, having recorded two albums with the group Fraternity and toured with them in Australia and Europe. By contrast, Malcolm was just 21, Angus 19, and AC/DC had made just one single, Can I Sit Next To You, Girl. In Adelaide, after the show the Youngs told Bon they were looking for a new singer, and only half-jokingly suggested that he was too old to cut it. “I took the opportunity,” Bon later recalled, “to explain to them how much better I was than the drongo they had singing for them!” He wasn’t bluffing. In a rehearsal conducted behind Evans’s back, Bon proved he had the vocal power to fit the band. A few weeks later, AC/DC were back on stage at the Pooraka with their new singer. In the dressing room before they went on, Angus had watched, amazed, as Bon sank two bottles of bourbon, snorted lines of cocaine and speed and smoked a joint before declaring: “Right, I’m ready!” “Bon joined us pretty late in his life,” Angus said. “But that guy had more youth in him than people half his age.” Bon was protective of the teenage, teetotal guitarist, telling him: “Whatever I do, you don’t.” He also had a physical presence that was reassuring for Angus when the band played in spit-and-sawdust joints where the booze flowed and violence inevitably followed. “One night, guitars out of tune, feedback, singer farting, whatever…” Angus Young on the If You Want Blood show It was Malcolm who persuaded Angus to adopt the stage gear for which he would become famous – the uniform he had worn at Ashfield Boys High School. The first time he tried it was in April 1974, at an open-air concert in Sydney’s Victoria Park, just before Bon joined the band. “That was the most frightened I’ve ever been on stage,” Angus said. But he’d received some sound advice from his brother before the show. “Do you think they’ll kill me out there?” he’d asked. Malcolm replied: “You’d better jump around a bit!” This survival Rhythm machine: Malcolm Young leads the charge. tactic became a part of the act. “In some of the pubs we played there was that much scrapping going on, you were behind the amps!” Angus said. “I remember one night I looked out and it was just like murderers’ row, and the look on their faces was like: ‘Send us the little guy in the shorts!’ I thought if I stand still I’m a target for blokes throwing bottles. So I never stopped moving.” There was one early gig that Angus remembered for what it said about Bon’s character. “Our bus broke down,” he recalls, “so Bon walked to the pub where we were playing and said: ‘Listen, if you wanna see a show tonight, we need you to come and help us push our bus!’ Then Bon wanted to iron his jeans, so he got an iron, went over to the bar, pushed everyone’s drinks out of the way, took his jeans off right there in this packed pub and done his jeans.” Bon was a hell-raiser womaniser whom Angus once described, with no little affection, as “the dirtiest fucker I ever knew”. But the man was such a charmer that people were drawn to him wherever he went. “We used to call him Bon The Likeable,” Angus recalled. “We could be somewhere where you’d never expect anyone to know him, and someone would walk up and say: ‘Bon Scott!’ and always have a bottle of beer for him.” Once Bon joined the band, AC/DC’s rise was rapid. Their first two albums, High Voltage and T.N.T., were released in 1975 on the Australian label Albert, CAMERA PRESS / STEVE EMBERTON x2 26 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

and co-produced by Malcolm and Angus’s elder brother George Young with Harry Vanda, both of whom had previously starred in Australian rock group The Easybeats, and would produce every AC/DC album up to Powerage. On T.N.T., drummer Phil Rudd and bassist Mark Evans (no relation to Dave) completed a line-up that would remain solid for a couple of years. And in December ’75, as T.N.T. hit No.2 in the Australian chart, the band signed a worldwide deal with Atlantic Records. To launch AC/DC on the global stage, the man who signed the band to Atlantic, Phil Carson, compiled a first international album, also named High Voltage, from the best tracks on the two Australian LPs. In addition, there was a trip to the UK for the band’s first shows outside of Australia – for Bon and the Young brothers, a return home. CAMERA PRESS / STEVE EMBERTON “The power of AC/DC had the force of a storm coming off the hills and knocking the bejesus out of you.” Doogie White On April 23, 1976, AC/DC made their UK debut, playing at the Red Cow pub in Hammersmith, West London, where they played two sets in one night. The first one was witnessed by just 30 or so people, one of whom was Malcolm Dome, at the time a degree student, now a contributor to Classic Rock. “It was an amazing performance,” he remembered. “So much energy. Angus was jumping all over the place and Bon was just so charismatic. And as soon as they finished the first set, Bon walked off the stage and straight to the bar. He’d taken his shirt off during the show and didn’t bother to put it back on. He just strolled up to the bar and said to a few people standing there: ‘Right, who wants a drink?’ It was a case of: ‘I’m buying you all a drink and I expect you to buy me one back.’” For the second set that night, the size of the audience had doubled. Word of mouth had spread fast. Soon the buzz about AC/DC had increased with a residency at London’s Marquee club. Then came a full UK tour, sponsored by Sounds magazine, named the Lock Up Your Daughters tour after a line from the song T.N.T. The first date was on June 11 at Glasgow’s City Hall. “That was the first time I saw them,” says Doogie White, who was then a boy of 16, living in nearby Motherwell. “That show was just mindblowing. There was this schoolboy playing guitar, and I was a schoolboy! I was just a kid, but I thought: ‘This is what rock’n’roll is all about.’” After the tour ended at London’s Lyceum on July 7, a feature in Sounds had writer Phil Sutcliffe predicting big things for the band. “What I think AC/DC are going to do to heavy metal is crack it and tilt it sideways,” he wrote. Describing AC/DC as “a completely physical rock’n’roll experience”, he stated: “The two Youngs’ music is like a forge in a black night beating heat and energy together into something almost beautiful it’s so strong.” In that feature there was also a comment from Bon that would become famous. “They say to ➤ Apollo, you are clear for lift-off… Bon and Angus in Scotland football strip during that “magic” gig in Glasgow on April 30, 1978. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 27

Brian Johnson in Geordie (with bassist Tom Hill). Bon had played some shows with them when he toured the UK with Fraternity. me: ‘Are you AC, or DC?” Bon said. “And I say: ‘Neither, I’m the lightnin’ flash in the middle!’” Phil Sutcliffe later recalled of Bon: “He was so eccentric and yet so down to earth. On stage he was like a pirate, sort of leathery and macho, but in a comic way. Wherever he was, he made people feel good.” On August 29, when AC/DC performed at the Reading Festival, Angus added a new party piece to his act. As the band played The Jack, a blues song about STDs, in which Bon employed poker as an extended sexual metaphor, the audience was momentarily distracted. As Angus recalled: “Some blonde girl walked real slow across the photo pit right in front of the stage and thirty thousand eyes went with her. Malcolm says to me: ‘You gotta do something to get the crowd’s attention back!’ So I dropped my shorts.” In the years that followed, Angus would develop a comedy striptease routine for this number. AC/DC’s growing popularity in the UK was confirmed with another major tour in late ’76, which included a prestigious show at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. But with the new album they delivered at that time, they ran into trouble. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap had a badass title track, and others that kicked like mules, such as Rocker and Problem Child, the latter dedicated by Bon to Angus. “I never owned a knife like it says in the song,” Angus explained. “But yeah, Bon summed me up in two words!” There was also a blues song of a different kind to The Jack. In the melancholy Ride On, Bon reflected on the loneliness of a life on the road. It was the one song above all others in which he really bared his soul. On what was described as AC/DC’s most “deviant” album, there was also Squealer, the sordid tale of Bon’s struggle A change is gonna come. AC/DC in July 1974: (l-r) Dave Evans, Rob Bailey, Peter Clack, Malcolm Young, Angus Young. to seduce a nervous virgin, and a puerile joke number, Big Balls, ending with a chorus of ‘Bollocks! Knackers! Bollocks! Knackers!’ Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap was so sleazy, so rough around the edges, that senior figures at Atlantic Records considered it commercially unviable. As a result, the company refused to release the album in the US. There was even “I thought if I stand still I’m a target for blokes throwing bottles. So I never stopped moving.” Angus Young a suggestion that in this period Atlantic were pressing the band to change their singer. It was said that Bon was too idiosyncratic in his approach, his slurry voice difficult for Americans to understand. But the band were in no mood to compromise, and after two more UK tours in late ’76 and early ’77, they doubled down and made an album as raw as any of the great punk records of that year. Let There Be Rock was conceived as what Angus called simply “a fucking good guitar album”. It was recorded as-live, and if the best takes had imperfections, then no matter. The title track was a riotous rock’n’roll sermon inspired by Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven – essentially the creation myth of rock, for which Bon cribbed lyrics from a Bible. In the recording of that track, the momentum in the band’s performance was such that George Young refused to stop Angus mid-solo when his amp overheated and caught fire. The album had other mighty anthems: Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be and Bad Boy Boogie. And, most famous of all, Whole Lotta Rosie, with its explosive intro and runawaytrain riff, and in Bon’s lyric the funniest story he ever told, its subject a generously proportioned groupie with whom he’d grappled in 1975. It was a song that spoke volumes about him. Most rock stars would have been too vain to tell such a story, but Bon revelled in it. With more than 100 dates, the Let There Be Rock tour included some notable firsts – debut shows in the US and at Glasgow Apollo – and four dates opening for Kiss, of which Angus revealed: “We were having a lot of trouble getting on tours MAIN: PHILIP MORRIS/DALLE/ICONICPIX; INSET: GETTY 28 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

because our band was real good. The headliners would be like: ‘Get rid of them!’ But Kiss asked for us, they weren’t afraid. Gene Simmons saw us play at the Whisky in LA and got us on some of their bigger dates, so that was real good for us.” During that tour, Bon was up to mischief as usual. There had been panic within the AC/DC entourage in the hours leading up to a show in Austin, Texas – nobody had seen Bon since he disappeared the previous night with a bunch of Mexican guys. But with just 30 minutes to go before showtime, he was delivered to the venue in the Mexicans’ pickup truck, a little worse for wear after partying with them for the best part of 24 hours. Once he got up on stage, he just rolled through it as he always did. And in Jacksonville, Florida, AC/DC found kindred spirits in the city’s most famous rock band. “We all loved AC/DC,” said Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington. “We were really the same kind of band. They were cocky Australians and we were cocky Southern rebels.” As Rossington recalled, there was “a great mutual respect” between Bon and Skynyrd’s singer Ronnie Van Zant. Rossington also saw in them a rare quality: “They were great storytellers,” he said. “Everybody could relate to their lyrics.” CAMERA PRESS / STEVE EMBERTON The pace was relentless as AC/DC jumped off the Let There Be Rock tour straight into the recording of Powerage, done in eight weeks in early 1978, with new bassist Cliff Williams in place of Mark Evans. For many connoisseurs, this was AC/DC’s greatest record. As Keith Richards said: “The whole band means it, and you can hear it.” A few tracks, most notably Riff Raff, were played at full throttle, but the meat of the album was all heavy grooves – in the gambler’s song Sin City, the funky Gone Shootin’ and the hard-grinding Down Payment Blues. In those last two songs, Bon – the “working-class poet”, as Brian Johnson would call him – was at his peak. In Down Payment Blues he laid out the harsh realities of all the years he had spent living hand-to-mouth, in Gone Shootin’ he sang of his doomed relationship with a junkie girlfriend. The devil was in the detail: how the girl never made it past the bedroom door, and how he stirred his coffee with the same spoon that she used for cooking up heroin. The pressure from Atlantic Records was building. During the recording of Powerage, Phil Carson had pushed hard for a song he felt had hit potential: Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation. A new best-of compilation had also been mooted. But the band preferred the idea of a live album, which had become a defining statement for major rock acts of the 70s, such as Deep Purple with Made In Japan, and Peter Frampton with the multimillion-selling phenomenon Frampton Comes Alive! And for AC/DC there was no better place to record a live album than Glasgow Apollo, where Status Quo, fellow masters of heavy boogie, had recorded their 1977 album Quo Live! “It was a rocking venue,” Doogie White says. “The Apollo was a theatre, so it had a great sound. And there was no bar there, so everyone was in their seat for the whole show. That’s why it was so great for every band that played there. The stage was very high, maybe fifteen feet. The balconies used to bounce – you could see them moving. And Bon Scott: one of rock’s greatest frontmen. it had that element of sticky-carpet-ness, which must have been from vomit and spit, because it certainly wasn’t from booze. If you got caught drinking in there the bouncers would beat the living crap out of you.” On April 30, three dates into the UK leg of the Powerage tour, AC/DC rolled into the Apollo for the show that would go down in history. Among “Bon joined us pretty late in his life, but that guy had more youth in him than people half his age.” Angus Young the local crew working at the show was a young Glaswegian named Brian Carr. As an AC/DC fan he had met the band before, in 1977, but as a crew member he talked at length with Angus and Malcolm, and witnessed the events leading up to the show. “The band arrived around noon,” he recalls. “As they were sound-checking, a film crew was setting up. They played a new song I’d never heard before – Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation wasn’t on the original version of Powerage – and that was filmed for a promo video.” Carr remembers Angus in particular as being friendly and approachable. “He showed me where his guitar had been broken seven times from rolling around on stage.” He also recalls seeing Bon drinking throughout the afternoon. “I think you could say he was a functioning alcoholic.” Before show time, another crew member was dispatched to a nearby sports shop to procure Scotland football kits for each member of the band. “They wanted to wear them for the encore,” Carr explains. “It was a Sunday, nothing was open in Glasgow in those days, but the owner opened up as a favour.” At about 9pm, after a support set from Mott The Hoople spin-off band British Lions, the house lights dimmed and a deafening buzz emanated from the stage. “You could hear the amps humming over the noise of the crowd,” Carr says. “It’s hard to describe how loud it was. You could feel it all through you.” Angus appeared first, standing on top of that ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 29

AC/DC at Day On The Green at Oakland Coliseum, California, September 2, 1978. wall of Marshalls, cranking out the intro to Riff Raff, Phil Rudd drumming up a sound like rolling thunder before the band kicked in with the first power chord. Bon emerged in blue jeans and a white AC/DC tour hoodie, holding centre stage as Angus whizzed around him, head banging to the beat. And the electricity in that opening number flowed through the entire set. “They just banged it out,” Doogie White says. “It was just: let’s batter these guys.” After a couple of numbers Angus had discarded his school cap, satchel, jacket, tie and shirt, and was down to just his shorts, socks and sneakers. Bon, his shirt off, was slick with sweat. Doogie White remembers the duality in Bon: the powerful charisma, and the air of a man not to be messed with. “He was a great frontman, and had that twinkle in his eye that said: ‘I’m taking this seriously, but I’m going to have fun doing it.’ But he also had that look about him where you thought: ‘You could be my best friend, or I would cross the street just not be to stared at like that.’” He also remembers the moment when Angus was carried into the stalls on the shoulders of a bouncer. “That was the first time I saw a guitarist with a radio unit instead of a lead. He was going through the crowd and he was sweating on us. It was great – I don’t think I washed for a week!” After a tumultuous end to the main set – Whole Lotta Rosie, with the audience chanting “Angus! Angus!” in the intro, Let There Be Rock building to a frenzied climax – the band returned for the encore in their Scotland strips, shirts, shorts, even the socks. At a time when the nation was gripped by over-optimistic football fever ahead of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, the audience response was ecstatic as Angus booted a few balls to them. They played Bon’s signature song, Rocker, and Fling Thing, an instrumental based on the traditional ballad The Bonnie Banks O’ Loch Lomond, originally released in 1976 as the B-side to the single Jailbreak. As Doogie White puts it: “Even though they had Aussie accents, we knew they were from Scotland. We felt they were our own.” When the tour ended in May, AC/DC had their first UK hit single when Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation reached No.24. Powerage also made the top 30. In America it was a different story. The album peaked at No.133 on the Billboard chart. But on a 63-date US tour, the band continued to make waves, opening for Alice Cooper and then Aerosmith, whose guitarist Joe Perry was knocked out by AC/DC’s live-wire energy. “They reduced the elements of rock’n’roll to the basics,” Perry said. “And they didn’t pull any punches.” “We could be somewhere you’d never expect, and someone would walk up and say ‘Bon Scott!’ and have a bottle of beer for him.” Angus Young Another convert was the young James Hetfield, whose first concert, at the age of 15, was Aerosmith with AC/DC at the Los Angeles Forum on July 13, 1978. Three years before Hetfield became a founding member of Metallica, this show had a profound effect on him. “I was a big Aerosmith fan,” he recalled. “But I had no idea that AC/DC was that cool. I went with my older brother, and I remember him pointing at Angus and saying: ‘That little guy running around was annoying!’ But I wanted to be the guy up there on the stage.” It was on July 23 that year, just 10 days after Hetfield had seen his future in Angus Young, that AC/DC got the title for their live album. Day On The Green was one of the biggest events on the American rock circuit, an annual series of shows held at the 80,000-capacity Oakland Coliseum in California. The bill for Day On The Green #3 had Aerosmith headlining, plus Foreigner, guitar hot-shot Pat Travers, a new band out of LA called Van Halen, and, opening, AC/DC. Their stage time was a shock to the system. “We were on at ten-thirty in the morning and most of us hadn’t even been to bed!” Angus said. But the show’s promoter, Bill Graham, loved the band, and had done all he could to hype them up on local radio before the day. As a result, the stadium was close to full as AC/DC readied themselves backstage. It was in these moments that Bon and Angus, sharp-witted even at that early hour, made the joke that would become part of rock’n’roll legend. As Angus recalled: “This guy from a film crew got hold of me and Bon and asked what kind of show it was gonna be. Bon said: ‘You remember when the Christians went to the lions? Well, we’re the Christians!’ Then the guy asked me, and I said: ‘If they want blood they’re gonna get it!’” The sheer force of AC/DC’s performance that day was not lost on a guitarist who was watching from the wings. Eddie Van Halen later recalled: “I was standing on the side of the stage, thinking: ‘We have to follow these motherfuckers?’” It was a similar story for Thin Lizzy, who toured with AC/DC in September ’78. “In Cleveland they blew us off the stage,” Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore said. “They fucking killed us that night.” He added, in tribute from one guitar hero to another: “Angus was unbelievable.” If You Want Blood You’ve Got It was released on October 13, 1978. What Angus called “the magic show” sounded incendiary on record. Its cover photo, like its title, was powerfully symbolic: Angus speared through the chest by his guitar, his mouth, chin and white school shirt stained blood GETTY 30 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

For those about to rock: the Apollo audience goes AC/DC nuts. “It’s one of the great live albums. What you hear, the music and the audience, is what happened that night.” Doogie White on If You Want Blood CAMERA PRESS / STEVE EMBERTON x3 red, Bon leering over him, eyes glazed. On the back cover, Angus lay prone on stage, the headstock and half the neck of the guitar sticking out from his blood-soaked back. Angus described the image as “tongue-in-cheek”, but the album’s title had a deeper significance for Bon. Interviewed in 1978, he confessed: “I’ve been on the road for thirteen years. Planes, hotels, groupies, booze, people, towns, they all scrape something from you.” The album reached No.13 in the UK. In a review of If You Want Blood, in May 1978, in Melody Maker Harry Doherty hailed AC/DC as “one of the best heavy metal bands around at the moment” and applauded their “crude, braindamaging, direct rock”. He added, presciently: “It’s an album that reflects precisely why AC/DC are finding a major audience.” On the tour that followed, AC/DC made a triumphant return to Glasgow Apollo. “They didn’t wear the Scotland shirts that time,” Brian Carr says. “But when they played Fling Thing they had Scottish flags, and Scottish people always go a bit mental when they see the flag.” Those feelings also ran deep for the Young brothers, and for the singer who was born Ronald Belford Scott, but had been known as Bon ever since he had been nicknamed ‘Bonny Scotland’ as an immigrant kid in Australia. As Doogie White says: “If You Want Blood is one of the great live albums. And the beauty of it is that what you hear on that album, the music and the audience, is what happened that night.” What he also says, with hindsight, is that this album was, for AC/DC, “the closing of one chapter”. The band – effectively, Malcolm and Angus Young – would eventually give in to the pressure from Atlantic. The following album, Highway To Hell, would be produced not by Harry Vanda and George Young but by a guy with a more commercial approach, ‘Mutt’ Lange. The result was AC/DC’s first million seller, but it was also the last record that Bon Scott ever made. What happened in the wake of Bon’s death was the greatest comeback in the history of rock’n’roll. With former Geordie frontman Brian Johnson as the new AC/DC singer, Back In Black would resurrect the band’s career and go on to be the biggest selling rock album of all time. “I loved Back In Black,” Doogie White says, “because I didn’t want the band to die with Bon.” What was left behind in If You Want Blood was a monument to a great live band at its peak. On that album were the definitive versions of those classic songs: Whole Lotta Rosie, The Jack, Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be, Let There Be Rock; the raw, undiluted AC/DC. Here was the band performing at their very best with Bon Scott. As Malcolm Young put it, with such clarity: “We were young, fresh, vital and kicking ass.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 31

ROSS HALFIN Relentless touring had paid off and AC/DC were finally at the top of their game, but their singer was heading down a dangerous path. His last show was on January 27, 1980. Three weeks later he was dead. This is the story of Bon Scott’s final tour. From the outside looking in, Bon Scott’s final tour with AC/DC looked like a victory lap. After years of slogging around the globe, propping up a band that had once been big in Australia but weren’t any more, had got biggish in the UK – two Top 20 albums, but nowhere chart-wise in America, where their label had been urging them to ditch their raucous singer – AC/DC were finally breaking through, against all odds, with their sixth album, Highway To Hell. From the inside looking out, however, Bon Scott’s final tour with AC/DC was one long suicide note. In an article for RAM, Australia’s premier music magazine, at the end of 1978, Bon had been unusually downbeat about his prospects of continuing much longer. Following a gig opening for Cheap Trick in Atlanta, Bon had changed out of the battered old denims he wore on stage and into an expensive leopard-skin coat, grabbed the bottle of Scotch that was always now waiting for him in the dressing room, and set off for his hotel dressed, as he put it, in his “wolf in wolf’s clothing” outfit; playing the part of rock star in the way everyone now expected of him: by “going for it”, by “getting out if it”, by saying “fuck it”. Sharing a taxi back to his ‘ritzy’ hotel, the Plum Tree Inn, the writer and Bon’s former bandmate Vince Lovegrove extracted an unexpected confession, as Bon told of how “tired of it all” he was. “I love it,” said Bon. “It’s just the constant pressures of touring that’s fucking it. I’ve been on the road for thirteen years. Planes, hotels, groupies, booze, people, towns. They all scrape something from you. We’re doing it and we’ll get there, but I wish we didn’t Words: Mick Wall “Planes, hotels, groupies, booze, people, towns. They all scrape something from you.” Bon Scott have these crushing day-after-day grinds to keep up with.” Vince recalled Bon talking about moving out to the countryside somewhere. “He said: ‘I’d like to settle down, live an ordinary life like anyone else and just play guitar’.” The drunken, small-hours ramblings of a road-worn showman, perhaps. But there was a degree of yearning there too, Vince thought, which also fuelled the heavy drinking and drugging. Bon had given his all to these kids – AC/DC – but he was no longer a kid himself, and had grown more painfully aware of that fact with every mile they drove down the never-ending “highway to hell,” as Angus Young had taken to calling their 1978 US tour. Something, surely, would have to give. “I think maybe for Bon the timing was simply off,” recalled future Mötley Crüe manager Doug Thaler, then working as AC/DC’s American booking agent. “That final year of his life, the band was finally breaking through big. But by then Bon had almost given up, it seemed to me. On stage he was still the same amazing frontman he’d always been. But off stage something wasn’t right.” On paper, things had never been better. As well as their first multi-platinum international hit album with Highway To Hell, the band were also under new American management – a move that almost overnight took them out of the theatres and small halls they had been opening for UFO in, and up on to real gamechanging shows, such as their third-on-the-bill appearance with headliners Boston at the 55,000-capacty Tangerine Bowl in Florida, and their fourth-on-the bill slot at the Mississippi River Jam II festival, headlined by Heart, in June. They followed that ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 33

with a prestigious support slot with Journey. Of course, there were still the usual Bon-sized bumps in the road. Opening for Canadian stars Triumph, at the 6,000-cap Kiel Auditorium in St Louis, on July 1, Bon confronted Triumph singer Rik Emmet over a “misunderstanding” to do with a “lady friend” of Bon’s who, it turned out, had previously been a good friend of Emmet’s. When ungentlemanly comments were attributed to Emmett, Bon stepped in. Literally, in this case, resulting in Bon taking the stage that night with a large bandage wrapped around a big toe, having taken mercy on the rapidly retreating Emmet by aiming his boot at a backstage lamp instead. The Young brothers, boosted by their revived fortunes, hardly noticed. They were more focussed on the special July 4 show at the Winnebago County Fairgrounds in Illinois, where they were second on the bill to Cheap Trick. The first of several arena shows together, they were also the first AC/DC shows where they added the song Highway To Hell to the set. By the time the tour ended on August 4, with their first ever appearance at Madison Square Garden in New York, opening for Ted Nugent, Highway To Hell was starting to sell, and another 47 of their own arena-headlining dates had been lined up for September and October. The Young brothers felt they were well on their way at last. Bon, though, was in trouble. In August, playing third on the bill at London’s Wembley Stadium, behind The Stranglers and The Who, things got off to an inauspicious start when Angus had to hold Bon back from “sorting out” The Stranglers. Although they were all older than AC/DC but posing as a notional ‘punk’ band, The Stranglers found it amusing to taunt Bon and the others for being ‘dope-smoking hippies’. With Bon set to “put those c**ts straight”, Angus had managed to hold him back, urging him to channel his anger into giving such a fiery performance that the haughty Stranglers would struggle to follow it. “So that’s what happened,” said Angus. “We got up, gave it everything and turned the place upside down. We walked back in the dressing room afterwards, the room’s full of dope, and Bon goes: ‘Who’s the fucking hippies now, then, c**t?’” In the following weeks AC/DC played their first shows in Ireland: two nights in Dublin headlining at the Olympic Ballroom, an old-fashioned seatless dancehall famous for its raucous crowds, followed by two nights north of the border at Belfast’s Ulster Hall, where its 1,000-seats had been taken out to allow almost 2,000 standing fans to enjoy the show. In an era when the Northern Ireland ‘troubles’ were at their height, the band’s hotel was surrounded by barbed wire and they were warned not to even think about going out exploring on their own. So Bon went out on his own. He later described the Irish shows as “the best we’ve done outside Scotland. Partly because they don’t get many bands playing there, I suppose, but mainly because they’re Irish – and fucking mental!” By the start of September, as AC/DC began their first major headline tour of America, Highway To Hell had reached No.8 in the UK and was perched at No.17 in the US. “They’d done it, they’d cracked it,” recalled their then tour Big balls? Not any more! Angus and Bon at Wembley Stadium on the Highway To Hell Tour, August 18 1979. manager Ian Jeffrey. “Not that they’d seen any real money yet, but they knew it was coming and it’d already started to make a difference.” Their tour bus was upgraded to a luxury 18-seater with beds and bunks for 12, colour TV and stateof-the-art video and stereo equipment. Phil Rudd began demanding – and getting – a full-size Scalextric track in his hotel room at every tour stop. Still including only three or four numbers from the new hit album in their live set, headlining the Long Beach Arena in Los Angeles, which they did “On stage Bon was still the same amazing frontman he’d always been. But off stage something wasn’t right.” Former AC/DC booking agent Doug Thaler for the first time on September 10, they only halffilled the place. In New York, in October, they couldn’t even sell-out the 3,000-capacity Shea’s Buffalo Theatre. Across America’s heartland, though, they were monsters, selling out the 12,000-capacity James White Civic Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee; packing more than 13,000 into the 12,000-capacity Charlotte Coliseum in North Carolina; running roughshod across Texas with Molly Hatchet hee-hawing in support. The only one of AC/DC for whom nothing much appeared to change was Bon Scott. He was now drinking more heavily than ever, and his ‘antics’ were becoming less funny and more desperate by the day – missing a flight from Phoenix because he stayed in a bar trying to score with a chick; travelling on Molly Hatchet’s brokendown bus, getting wasted on whisky and rye rather than “be bored’ on the largely teetotal AC/DC bus. He was also smoking dope non-stop and snorting cocaine. Others report seeing him “gobbling down pills by the handful”. Angus, who had always looked up to Bon even when he was at his most unreliable, began to openly fret. Doug Thaler recalled: “At the time we were out there on the Highway To Hell tour, Bon was in rough shape. He was drunk most of the time, or sleeping it off so he could sober up and get drunk again. He was starting to have a real problem. “The last time I saw him [was] towards the end of the tour in Chicago, at the hotel in the afternoon. He was so drunk he could barely stand up. He didn’t acknowledge me. He had a couple of chicks with him and he was going over to the elevator, but he was in very rough shape for broad daylight. I know the guys were starting to have problems with him by that time because of that reason.” ALAN PERRY/ICONICPIX 34 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

GETTY Years later, when Thaler was managing Mötley Crüe, one of the most notorious hell-raisers of their era, he would check the entire band into rehab. Back in 1979, though, he says “the idea of rock stars going into rehab hadn’t occurred to anybody yet. If you were hurting, you took a drink or a shot of something and you felt better. I don’t think anybody realised the lasting dangers of drink or cocaine.” It was the same story when, just four days after the end of the ’79 American tour, AC/DC arrived back in Britain for the start of their next UK tour, 13 dates that included multiple nights at the country’s biggest concert venues: two at the Apollo in Glasgow, two at the Apollo in Manchester, four at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, two at the Empire in Liverpool, one at the 10,000-capacity Bingley Hall in Stafford. By then, says Bernie Marsden, whose band Whitesnake were about to have their first hit album with Love Hunter, Bon’s drinking and drugging had made him “the talk of the town… legendary. I think you always knew that Bon was on that… self-destructive path. That if he didn’t “You always knew that Bon was on that… self-destructive path. Those quadruple Scotches – they’ve got to catch up with you.” Bernie Marsden pull it in at some point he would hurt himself. Those chasers – those quadruple Scotches – they’ve got to catch up with you.” After the UK, they had played 29 dates across Europe, including 16 shows supported by Judas Priest, and 10 in France where Highway To Hell had gone to No.2. By the time AC/DC played their final show of the year, at Birmingham Odeon on December 21, they had been on the road for almost nine months without more than a couple of days off. You get a flavour of just how worn-out Bon Scott was in the film shot in Paris by French film makers Eric Dionysius and Eric Mistler, released a year later as the in-concert movie AC/DC: Let There Be Rock. Originally hired to make a promotional video, the two Erics eventually gathered enough footage for a full-length documentary, including backstage shots and brief snapshot interviews, over three days in Metz, Reims and Lille, before filming the whole show at the Pavillon de Paris on December 9. In it, Bon looks every one of his 31 years, his gaunt face framed by more hair than he’d allowed himself since he’d first cut it short when he joined the band. The vibe is: he no longer gives a fuck what anyone else thinks. Although he smiles for the camera and appears to put on a fair show for the French audience, the poses are not even ironic, merely rote, the inevitable plastic white cup full of whisky glued to his hand. His movements are stiff, as though moving in pain. Hooking up with his friend from Trust, vocalist Bernie Bonvoison, the two travelled together by train to each date. “We talked ➤ “WE WATCHED THEM LIKE HAWKS EVERY NIGHT” Joe Elliott on Def Leppard supporting AC/DC. “ I’d been an AC/DC fan since I’d first heard them in 1976. AC/DC had this raw edge. They weren’t heavy metal, they were a blues band playing extremely hard rock. I saw them in 1977 at Sheffield University on the Let There Be Rock tour, and in ’78 at the Top Rank on the Powerage tour. So when Leppard opened for them on the Highway To Hell tour in ’79, it was just unbelievably exciting. “They looked after us. We had good lights and sound, and we went down really well with their audience. There wasn’t much socialising, but the overall vibe of the two bands together was pretty damn good. It wasn’t that AC/DC weren’t friendly, we just never saw much of them. But the one guy who was really personable was Bon Scott. I remember we happened to be in the same hotel as them one night, we had four straws in one pint, and Bon threw a tenner down and said: ‘Here you are, lads! Go buy yourselves a round.’ Sadly I never had the chance to pay him back. “We did four nights at Hammersmith Odeon. Less than a year later, after Bon died and Brian Johnson joined the band, we opened for them at the Palladium in New York. That was Brian’s first gig in America, ever, and I remember him and me standing outside the hotel and he was asking me for advice! ‘What am I gonna do, like?’ That was our only gig opening for AC/DC with that line-up. “On the Highway To Hell tour, we watched them like hawks every night. We wanted to learn, and one of the big lessons was the value of repetition, which is a key ingredient to longterm success. Most artists don’t want to repeat themselves, but if you want to stay in the game you don’t change your set every night. AC/DC never changed their sound, their look or their work ethic. They were the only band I can think of where the eye candy was not the lead singer. It was this schoolboy. A few other guitar players were more front-and-centre – Ritchie Blackmore and Michael Schenker. AC/DC had this great singer who was very charismatic, but most of the time all the eyes were on Angus. “When you think about what Malcolm Young and Cliff Williams did on stage from a visual point of view, it’s almost comical how little they did. They just stayed rooted to the spot and held down an insane rhythm with Phil Rudd. The tightest rhythm section you’re ever going to hear. They left the other two to it – Bon looking cool, and Angus charging around like he was on coke but wasn’t. “The Glasgow Apollo shows were the most memorable for me. The first night, I went up to the balcony when AC/DC went on. They started off with Live Wire, and that balcony… My god, I thought it was going to come down with all these people jumping around going bonkers. It was like a fucking trampoline! For a few minutes I was terrified. So I just fucking legged it. I watched the rest of the show from the side of the stage. “Bon was an amazing frontman. Every night, he wore a sleeveless denim jacket, no shirt, and he was in good shape for a guy who drank so much. But it was the expression in his face that I remember most. He looked like he didn’t give a shit. I don’t mean he didn’t give a shit about being in tune or in time, he just had this facial expression that said he was living in the moment. And he really oozed confidence. He didn’t say much on stage, but he said it all in his lyrics, which were a bit nudge-nudge, winkwink in places, but so cool. “In those two weeks we were on that tour, I didn’t have any great conversations with Bon. But he was always jovial, confident, probably tanked up, and just funny to be around. “It was massive shock when he died. I didn’t realise how bad Bon was. I didn’t know the extent of his drinking. I didn’t see him drink any more than we did. To me it was as shocking as if he’d died in a car crash. I just feel lucky to have had that experience of touring with AC/DC, watching the band, and watching Bon, night after night. It was a privilege.” CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 35

about doing something together,” Bonvoison later recalled. “I was thrilled.” Nevertheless, he admitted he was shocked to sit with Bon one morning while he knocked back three double whiskies in quick succession. By the time they had arrived in Paris, where the show was to be filmed, Bon had lost his voice. “They had to call a doctor to him, Bonvoison said. “When the doctor left, Bon poured himself a large whisky and Coke and made a toast to ‘Doctor Whisky!’” When the tour broke for two weeks, Bon was so floored that he slept for most of the 26-hour flight home to Australia, where he would be spending the Christmas holidays, waking only to guzzle as many free miniature bottles of Scotch and bourbon as he could stay awake for. Back in Sydney, Bon looked forward to three weeks off before returning to Europe for nine final shows in January. He intended to make the most of them. With money coming in, the Young brothers had bought houses in England. Bon splashed out on a new motorbike, a red Kawasaki Z900, with a top speed of 135mph. He would ride it without a helmet, fuelled by another night’s heavy partying, thundering around Bondi beach as though he didn’t have a care in the world; or maybe somebody who just didn’t care any more. He also rented a flat, in O’Brien Street, the first time he’d been able to afford the luxury of living alone. Because of Highway To Hell, AC/DC were news back home again and Bon revelled in the attention, doing newspaper interviews and lapping up every drop of adulation at every pub and club he got blotto in. One of the big nights out he had was with another old musician mate named Peter Head. “We went out, bought some booze, got some dope and went to a party,” Head later recalled. Bon told Peter how sick he was of leading the rock star lifestyle. “He said what he really wanted now was to settle down and have kids.” The next morning, the two of them awoke “with women whose names we couldn’t remember”. Bon didn’t stick around long enough to discuss it. “He suddenly got up, walked out, and I never saw him again.” Bon’s most significant visit, though, was the one he paid over the three-day Christmas weekend to his parents’ home in Perth, the first time in three years he had been back to see the family. Like everyone else, Isa and Chick couldn’t help noticing how much their son’s drinking had escalated. But as Isa put it: “You didn’t tell [Bon] what to do. I never went too far. I just said I didn’t like him drinking. But you get to that stage they don’t listen to you.” “We got up, gave it everything and turned the place upside down.” Angus Young Flying back to London in January 1980, Bon Scott didn’t feel rested so much as spaced out, Sydney already seeming more like a dream. The bike and the new flat, though, had at least given him a glimpse of what might be. The first thing he did when he returned to a snowbound England was get his own place in London: a portered mansion block, Ashley Court, in Morpeth Terrace, a short walk from Buckingham Palace. He ‘borrowed’ bits of furniture from an old girlfriend. Forty-eight hours later he flew to Cannes, in the south of France, where AC/DC were being presented with French gold records for both and Highway To Hell and their earlier live album If You Want Blood, plus British gold and silver for Highway To Hell. AC/DC then played seven more dates in France and two in England. The last show of Bon Scott’s last tour took place on a freezing cold Sunday, January 27, 1980, at the Gaumont theatre in Southampton. This, though, was a significant occasion for Bon in another way: the night he began a new and intense romance with a Japanese girl named Anna, who Bon had been introduced to earlier that day while having lunch at tour manager Ian Jeffrey’s flat. Anna was an old friend of Ian’s wife, Suzie. When Bon and Ian left for the drive down to Southampton that afternoon, Suzie and Anna went with them. Returning to London in the early hours, Anna spent her first night with Bon at Ashley Court. The very next morning, he took her in a taxi to her flat in Finsbury Park where he told her to grab her things and bring them back with her to his place. Years later, Anna would remember Bon was ‘like the sweetest gentleman’. She certainly received a great deal of his attention over the next three weeks. When, on Wednesday February 6, AC/DC were filmed at Elstree Studios, miming to their new single Touch Too Much, for broadcast the following night on Top Of The Pops, Anna went with Bon. The rest of the band were bemused but not out of sympathy with him, grateful for the steadying effect Anna seemed to have on their singer, who claimed to have given up whisky in place of sake, small hot flasks of which Anna would serve him at home while he rolled joints and lolled about on cushions. It wasn’t true – in fact, Bon was drinking and drugging more than ever, the sake merely added to his list of must-have consumables – but it’s telling that Bon felt the need to project that idea to others. “Bon just wanted to go home,” Ian Jeffrey said ruefully. “It’s just a shame it took him so long to find one.” GETTY We salute you: (l-r) Malcolm Young, Bon Scott, Angus Young, Cliff Williams, Phil Rudd. 36 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

38 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM TRAVIS SHINN/PRESS

They made their name as a blues-rock trio, scooping up chart positions and playing to thousands along the way. Now The Record Company are throwing out the rule book and showing all their colours. It was the gamble that paid dividends. Back in 2011, three despondent musicians in their thirties – an angry metalhead from the sticks in Wisconsin, a shy, Clapton-loving guitarist from Pennsylvania and a gig-hungry keyboard player from upstate New York – met in Los Angeles and decided to start a blues-rock band. The angry metalhead (Chris Vos) became the frontman, the guitarist (Alex Stiff) became the bassist, and the keyboard player (Marc Cazorla) became the drummer. Together they were The Record Company, and they played rock’n’roll, spliced with the primal hoodoo of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and the Rolling Stones. Tracks were recorded in Stiff’s living room. They all wore black. They didn’t care one bit about being ‘cool’. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. Two acclaimed albums, support gigs at uber-venues like Madison Square Garden and a Grammy nomination ensued. Blues rock seemed to have defined them. Except, in truth, it doesn’t. It never has. The Record Company are no homogenous, blues-purist unit. Between the three of them they’ve tried to break out in Nashville, written for hip-hop artists in California and played “fucked up” experimental sets in Milwaukee. Jam bands. Sludge metal. Electronica. No covers. Always living – or, more often, dying – by their own music. Ten years on, it was time to step out of the blues-rock trio format, reminding us that The Record Company was built by three individuals open to new ideas. Words: Polly Glass “Some kid came to school with a ‘Metal Up Your Ass’ T-shirt. It scared the shit out of everyone.” Chris Vos “Our influences are so vast,” Vos tells us. “We listen to bands like Tame Impala. We listen to electronic music. I love Boards Of Canada. I listen to Muddy Waters, and the Stones, and Alan Lomax’s recordings from the 1920s…” “I think any artist that you love from any era, they all evolved,” Stiff (producer of their first two records) says. “We needed to come up with something that felt different. And it was different. It was like ‘Let’s think bigger on every single level’ across the board. I actually volunteered to have a producer on the album; I didn’t want to continually get the same thing.” The end result was Play Loud, a tight, sun-kissed cocktail of rock’n’roll, blues, soulful pop, ambient touches and blissed-out psychedelic strains. There are high-energy songs. Pensive songs. Expansive songs. For the first time ever they worked with a producer, Dave Sardy, and collaborated with songwriters on some tracks. Extra musicians were brought in and instruments swapped at times, as the barriers of the trio format were broken down. Sardy pushed them to their limits. “I wanted a producer that drove me crazy,” Vos says. “With the first record it was one or two takes. Then you read about Tom Petty making records and doing fortytwo takes. What’s that like? Well, I found out. It’s hellish, but you get good shit out of it.” Chris Vos was born angry. Furious, even. Growing up on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin, he didn’t know what to do with it. He learned his first ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 39

THE RECORD COMPANY guitar chops watching his grandfather play country tunes at churches and retirement homes. At school there were three other children in his class. Outwardly he got on well with people, his family included. Inwardly, that deep-set anger desperately looked for a way out. “No reason either,” he says. “It wasn’t put there by my parents. I was never angry at anyone, I just didn’t feel like I fit in anywhere. I was known outwardly as very cheerful. I was never one to get into fights, or yell, or misbehave. But I’d go outside and run and run and run and run and climb and run and ride my bike and take it off ramps and go crazy.” A solution of sorts came in seventh grade, when he heard Metallica’s Seek And Destroy. It opened him up to worlds that were wholly removed from his remote dairy-farm existence. “Some kid came to my school with a ‘Metal Up Your Ass’ T-shirt,” he remembers. “It was a little catholic school. Scared the shit out of the teachers – scared the shit out of everyone. And I loved it. But I didn’t have the guts to be that yet. But it made sense to me.” As a newly converted metal fan, he recognised the same qualities in the blues artists he also gravitated towards: “I saw the sadness and the frustration in Muddy Waters or Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Lee Hooker etcetera, and I loved the aggression of everything from Megadeth to Sepultura.” Duly set on making a life out of music, he moved to Milwaukee and channelled that anger into a series of bands, including Erotic Adventures Of The Static Chicken (“fucked up” experimentalists who improvised sprawling, zero-fucks-given sets over an eight-year residency) and Invade Rome – purveyors of “big, heavy, sludgy, angry screaming music”. The more Vos’s dream ceased to work out, the angrier his output became. “Loud amplification was how I processed all that energy. That’s the only way I knew how to process emotions. Fear, joy, anger, all of it.” A few years later in Los Angeles (he moved there for his wife’s media job; the two of them met in their early 20s and married within a couple of years), it was Invade Rome’s music that piqued the curiosity of his now-bandmates, who’d responded to an advert Vos posted via Craigslist. The seeds of The Record Company were formed as the three of them started afresh. And the anger? “You’ll never see that side of me,” he says. “I’m the friendliest guy you’ll ever meet. But when you see me kneeling on stage, screaming into a microphone, there’s something behind that. I do it because I have to. I’m addicted to it. It’s my fix and it’s the thing that fixes me.” This Much I Know MARC CAZORLA The best advice I received. Don’t worry what other people think about your creations. Do it from a place you believe in. The advice I’d give aspiring musos. Get used to hearing the word ‘no’ a lot and don’t take it personally. Three desert island records. Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Taj Mahal’s Happy Just To Be Like I Am, Metallica’s Master Of Puppets. This Much I Know CHRIS VOS The best advice I received. Never forget your imperfection, act with love and be accountable. The advice I’d give. Live now. Do it now. You can only do anything about your life right now. Three desert island records. Jimi Hendrix, Band Of Gypsies, Ray Charles, Atlantic Recordings 1947-1954, Patsy Cline, Patsy Cline. Vos didn’t expect his musical kindred spirit to be an introverted, Jerry Garcia-loving guitarist from suburban Philadelphia. When they first met, Alex Stiff – who answered Vos’s “Every band we love, they were all song bands: the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Metallica...” ad and produced the first two Record Company records – was going through a time of change. For the first time ever he’d advertised himself as a bassist. “I always had trouble finding bass players, my entire life,” he says over Zoom while his dog, Seger (yes, as in Bob) barks outside. “But I thought: ‘I know I can Chris Vos play bass pretty well, what if I try to put an ad up that I’m a bass player?’ It really was a laststraw attempt.” At that point he was ready to jack in music. Multiple bands including a solo project had collapsed, running up debts in the process. The compositional work he’d been paying the bills with was beginning to dry up. “I was trying to think of other things to get into, like… starting a bagel shop. I’m not joking!” he laughs. It was a major low point for a guy who’d naturally taken to music all his life. As a teenager in Wayne, Pennsylvania, he was playing his sister’s piano pieces by ear, but it was the guitar that really called to him. “I wanted to learn every Led Zeppelin song, because I started to hear those songs on classic-rock radio stations. Clapton, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin… I had to learn all of it.” Arriving in LA as a graduate, he worked odd jobs in between gigs, initially falling in with a hiphop crowd and working on a Tupac Shakur record (2002’s posthumous Better Dayz). From there, TV and film composing formed the backbone of his income for a time. He fronted an electronic-driven band, The Frequency, with old college friend Cazorla on drums, inspired by groups such as Air, Spiritualized and Pink Floyd. The fruits of all this (coupled with myriad tricks learned from Dave Sardy) fed into this year’s Side Project, a surprising collection of covers: Big Mama Thornton’s Ball & Chain, INXS’s Devil Inside, ➤ TOP: GETTY; BOTTOM: ALAMY 40 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

THE RECORD COMPANY TOP: ALAMY; BOTTOM: TRAVIS SHINN Cypress Hill’s I Wanna Get High and Willie Dixon’s Spoonful, all of them “messed up” by Stiff in his home studio, where his confidence peaks. That collection paved the way for the open-minded spirit of Play Loud. “I get really nervous before shows,” he admits, “but when I get on stage I love it. I think there are a lot of introverts that play music. They’re shy people, and they’re able to do this thing where the stage separates them from [the audience]. Sometimes I go: ‘I can’t believe this is what I do with my life.’” So why do you do it? “I just know that if I see a guitar I have to play it. It might be terrible, but I have to make something. That doesn’t go away.” If you want to pique Marc Cazorla’s interest, the drums are one way in. You might mention heroes of his like Charlie Watts and Ringo Starr. Drumline routines like the ones he played in his school marching band, when he wasn’t pounding out Sepultura and Slayer songs in church basements. Beating the crap out of his kit on stage with The Record Company, as headliners and at mega-shows with the likes of John Mayer, BB King and Bob Seger. His other love, though, is keyboards. Most of the piano parts on all their albums are his. When he got his own place in Los Feliz, LA, he began to fill it with keyboards he collected, having moved out of the apartment block he’d initially moved into with Alex (“the median age was probably 90 to a hundred,” he recalls. “Just very old Russian people”). Fast-forward to 2020, and for Cazorla working in Dave Sardy’s amply equipped studio was like being a kid in a toy shop. “Sardy had just finished working on The Who record and he was just getting ready to work on Modest Mouse, so he has all these old, incredible analogue synths and keyboards laying around,” he enthuses. “We had never used any of that stuff. It was just open season. He’s like: ‘Let’s try everything, don’t worry about how you’re gonna do this live. We’re This Much I Know ALEX STIFF The best advice I received. You don’t want to be 30 years old thinking: “I wish I’d tried this when I was 20.” The advice I’d give aspiring musos. If you’re doing something that’s totally you, what you’ve always wanted to do but might have been afraid to do, you might find that’s what people respond to. Three desert island records. The Grateful Dead, Cornell, 5/8/77, The Beatles’ Abbey Road, The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed. “If I see a guitar I have to play it. It might be terrible, but I have to make something.” Alex Stiff making a record; you have to separate the two.’” Upon graduating from college in Pennsylvania, Cazorla had watched his peers get finance jobs in New York City. The band he and Alex started had just played an out-of-town gig in Pittsburgh. Around the same time, he and some friends drove his sister cross-country to Los Angeles, along the way seeing much of America for the first time. “When I drove back home I was like: ‘There’s too much life experience to be had to just go to New York, live in a shoebox apartment and make money in something I don’t even know if I’ll like.’ I’d been in bands the entirety of my high-school and college life, and I didn’t want it to end. I remember doing that show and thinking: ‘Is that it? Are we grown-ups now and we can’t do this any more?’” Accordingly, he moved to Nashville and tried to get gigs there, and realised that his bluesy, play-by-ear keyboards approach wouldn’t cut it on the session circuit. He wound up working for BMI’s writer relations department, until his old college bandmate Alex mentioned that he had a spare room in LA… Twenty years later, the City of Angels continues to inspire the three of them with its hidden layers, A-type personalities and contradictions. It’s a refreshingly open take on a place that’s often reduced (in the media, at least) to Hollywood, the healthobsessed and Sunset Boulevard. “If you have any crazy idea, no one’s gonna look down on you for it, because everybody has crazy ideas,” Cazorla says. “Once I navigated my way through all the bullshit, the Hollywood stuff, there’s pockets of really cool places. The perception is that it exists in this 10-block Hollywood radius, when actually it’s 15 million people, with incredible culture. I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.” Blues rock set The Record Company up for two records. For Play Loud it was the city, a game-raising producer and, ultimately, themselves. All of it boiled down to the same maxim: making great songs. “Dave Sardy saw something in us and he pushed us to make the songs better,” Vos says of the Play Loud process. “Every band we love, they were all song bands. The Grateful Dead. Led Zeppelin. Van Halen. Metallica. They jam up, but at the core they curate and create great songs.” The Record Company: relishing the chance to Play Loud. Play Loud is out now via Concord. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 43

He was the problem child who became the ringmaster of LA’s Sunset Strip, wrote the anthems that built hair metal and set the gold standard for excess. Now, as Mötley Crüe’s leader releases a new memoir, he reflects on absent fathers, kicking against authority and the albatross of that hellraiser image. Interview: Henry Yates Apop psychologist would have a field day with Nikki Sixx. He arrived on the California birth register on December 11, 1958 as Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr. A smart, sensitive kid, he was soon to be deserted by his Italian father and dragged across the States on the whims of his untamed mother. Next, he was a troubled teenager with a burgeoning rap sheet, which featured theft, slashed tyres and schoolyard drug deals (50 cents for two joints). But it was Feranna’s touchdown on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1975 – and his rebirth as Nikki Sixx – that proved the defining moment of his life, as documented in his new memoir, The First 21. Patently a star-in-waiting, Sixx got his golden ticket as chief songwriter and bassist of Mötley Crüe – an aptly named rabble who ran through the 80s like wild dogs, occasionally looking up from the strippers and cocaine to toss us the era’s most glorious stadium anthems. From Shout At The Devil to Dr. Feelgood – not to mention underrated side-project Sixx:A.M., whose new Hits package accompanies the book – Sixx’s 100-million-selling catalogue should not be brushed aside. But no interview is complete without an excavation of the man’s considerable infamy, and though we’ve been warned by his management not to ask about his wild years, Sixx himself is happy to bend that proviso. “Life happens,” he shrugs, “and suddenly you’re eating Cap’n Crunch with Jack Daniel’s in the morning, and snorting and drinking and car-crashing…” You write powerfully about your childhood in The First 21, and especially the absence of your father. How do you feel about him now? In my earlier book, The Heroin Diaries, there was a lot of disclosure about how I felt about my family. I had preconceived notions of what had happened to me – mixed with drugs – so I was pretty angry and confused and couldn’t get a lot of answers. ➤ 44 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

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NIKKI SIXX Wild boys: (l-r) Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil and Tommy Lee in 1984. With this book, I went back and reached as many people as I could from my life and it ironed out some of the wrinkles. For years, it was like my dad had bolted for no reason. Because that’s the story that I was told, mostly from my mom. It was like, “Yeah, your dad was an SOB, he just left us here.” But following the footsteps backwards, talking to a lot of family members and the people who were there, all the way back to my birth – we don’t know if that’s necessarily true. My mom… she was difficult, let’s say, and extremely charismatic and hard-headed. Maybe I got some of those characteristics from her. But there are question marks. Maybe my dad didn’t leave, maybe he was forced out. How am I different from my dad? I’m different in that I have been in my children’s life since they were born, and he wasn’t. And for what reason, we don’t know. What was it about rock’n’roll that spoke to you? I remember hearing someone say, “That heavy metal is going to turn you into a degenerate!” And I thought, “That sounds like a pretty good path, I think I’ll take that one.” Like, “You can have Donny and Marie, or you can have Aerosmith and the Sex Pistols.” Hmmm, let me think about this… 46 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM You started kicking out at authority as you grew up. Why was that? I think I learnt to survive. And you’ll read in the book about a lot of the things I did that I’m not proud of. But I was a young kid. Selling pot was a way to buy musical equipment. I was dead-ass broke, and if I wanted a guitar cable, between pawning stuff, giving blood, sometimes stealing, whatever I had to do, it was all for the better purpose of “I want to be in a rock’n’roll band.” Is it rebellious? Is it anti-authority? Or is it just, I gotta do what I gotta do? I didn’t have anybody I could ask for money. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I didn’t really have a place to live. But something about the way my brain is wired is, if I have a goal, nothing will stop me. It doesn’t mean that it’s always the best path to success. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve changed how I handle things. But it’s always been very important to me to be successful. What are your memories of being bullied at school? We were living out in the middle of nowhere, in Anthony, New Mexico. And kids are kids. They can be cruel. I’m a father of five. I’ve seen it. It’s how humans are wired. When I finally fought back, I think two things happened. One is that I took control of the situation. No longer were people going to do that to me. The other was that I was willing to face the consequences. So when my grandfather picked me up and took me into the car, I thought I was dead meat, right? You can’t strike out, beat the shit out of other kids at school, because they’re just gonna go, “You’re the bad guy.” Not them. They’re the ones with the bloody nose, not you. But my grandfather, I remember he told me: “I’m proud of you for standing up for yourself.” That had a big effect for me. Standing up for myself. Standing up for what I believed in. You can go deeper. It was an important moment. The book is subtitled How I Became Nikki Sixx. Do you see Nikki as a character, an alter ego? What is he? No, Nikki Sixx is a breathing, living man. And Frank Feranna was a young boy. T the two had a collision course in the late seventies. I really didn’t use my birth name, because of the information that was handed down to me from my mom. As a pissed-off-at-the-situation kid, I wasn’t going to take the name of my dad, who abandoned me. I think, at the moment that I legally changed my “I came to LA at seventeen, on a Greyhound bus. And I went for it, with complete, utter, insane focus.” NEIL ZLOZOWER/ATLASICONS.COM x2

Booze brothers: Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee at a show at the Resada Country Club in California, 1984. MAIN: EDDIE MALLUK/ICONICPIX; TOP INSET: GETTY; BOTTOM INSET: ROSS HALFIN name to Nikki Sixx, I left Frank Feranna behind. But through a lot of years and having children and learning more about my own dad, it’s been a bit of a full circle. My twenty-year-old daughter, her name is Frankie. I have another daughter called Ruby, but her middle name is Feranna. For the book, I went back and talked to all my childhood friends, ex-bandmates, I even found my first girlfriend, which was mind-blowing. We got to reminisce. And it really did remind me that Frank was a dreamer – and Nikki Sixx was his assassin. Tell us about your arrival in Los Angeles in the mid-seventies. I came to LA at seventeen, on a Greyhound bus, and I went for it with complete, utter, insane focus. Here I am, all the way out in California. I’m young and I’m on my own. But those early bands – with Lizzie [Grey] in London and even when we were playing with Blackie Lawless in Sister – that was like magic. Because it was everything that I had heard in my head when I was falling in love with rock’n’roll on the AM/FM radio. And those bands really were family to me. That’s why it’s very painful for me when I’m in a band and all the pieces don’t fall together. Because it’s my brothers. When you ventured onto the Sunset Strip, you were always getting in fights, particularly at the Starwood club. Why did people find you so provocative? I mean, I don’t think it helped how I dressed. Y’know, all the punks would go to the punk night there, right? And then you’ve got some crazy, glam, Johnny Thunders, Stiv Bators-looking “girl” – y’know, they’re gonna say shit. And that’s why I went there. I went there for that very reason. I don’t want to fit in. I just don’t want to. I’ve never understood the concept of fitting in. I think that’s why Mötley Crüe always changed our logo, changed our image, changed our sound, on every single album. And it’s why, when Mötley Crüe Monster of rock: Nikki Sixx lets rip at Castle Donington on August 18, 1984. “I remember hearing someone say: ‘That heavy metal is going to turn you into a degenerate!’” would play in the early days and people would flip us off and they didn’t get it – we loved it. We felt like we must have been doing the right thing. I still feel like an underdog – and I like it. Who was the best musician in Mötley Crüe? They’re all really fucking good. Tommy [Lee] is a monster on drums. Mick [Mars] is one of my favourite guitar players. And Vince [Neil] has something that nobody else has. Isn’t that what you’re looking for – guys that don’t sound like anybody else? I’m not a great player. Like, if I really woodshed for six months, I’m okay. But if I was a different kind of bass player, it would offset the sound of the band. Mötley Crüe is an interesting band, because if you remove any one member, it completely changes the sound. We all played against each other. A lot of times, Vince would tell me he struggled with the fact I put so many lyrics in a song. Shout At The Devil is a good example. But it was because I grew up with beat generation writers as a teenager, and I would get into this kind of rhythmic frenzy. And because of the way that Vince sang, that was what made his voice excel. His voice was kind of like a Gatling gun. Like, bap-bap-bap. I remember the first time the four of us ever played together, we ran Live Wire. I turned around to adjust my bass amp, and Tommy and I just gave each other a look: “Something’s happening here.” What did you want Mötley Crüe to be when you first started out? We didn’t want to be like anybody else. And we didn’t care if you liked us. We all ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 47

NIKKI SIXX emulate, of course. That’s human nature. You take a little of this, a little of that. But you’re also doing your own thing and going by your gut. We loved the angst of punk. Whether it’s the Buzzcocks or Sex Pistols or Ramones – the list goes on – it’s just fucking great songwriting. Raw. Simple. You line that up against Black Sabbath and those big, simple riffs. And then all of a sudden you throw in some Cheap Trick on top of that – it gets really fun, y’know? What was the most outrageous stunt you ever pulled to get attention at those early club shows? The answer is – we weren’t doing it to get attention. We were doing it because we were just fucking nutters. We just wanted to keep topping ourselves. It wasn’t like Vince said, “Hey Nikki, I’m gonna light you on fire and then we’ll get attention.” It was more like, “Hey, let’s light Nikki on fire and then chainsaw the head off a fucking mannequin.” “Alright!” It was just, like, what more could we do to entertain ourselves? In a lot of ways, I think that Live Wire video is a great example of that. We were like, “We’re gonna make a video. We don’t know if we’ll ever make another one in our lives. So let’s throw everything and the kitchen sink at it.” In the end, though, Mötley Crüe found an audience. What do you remember about the Theatre of pain: Mötley Crüe shows never fail to go off with a bang. moment when you started to break through? We kinda got everybody enjoying the band. I remember that Dead Kennedys and Fear fans would be at our shows. I think it was this combination we had of punk-rock glam with power-pop, played like heavy metal. People were dying for rock music. But the gatekeepers didn’t get it. Nobody wanted to sign Mötley Crüe. Nobody had wanted to sign my band London, either – and we were the biggest band in Los Angeles at the time. The record companies didn’t get it, because they wanted what was coming: A Flock Of Seagulls, The Knack, The Plimsouls, The Go-Go’s. Which was fine – but we were not that. So there was no chance for us to get on a major label. But you don’t need to worry about any of that stuff. You don’t need to worry about the press. You don’t need to think about some twenty-two-year-old A&R guy who is just worried about the record company president and whether he’s gonna get fired if he makes a mistake. You just have to say, “I’ve got nothing to lose Lifelong brothers in arms Mötley Crüe (above); Nikki with Sixx:A.M. singer James Michael. and I’m gonna go for it.” And history is written mostly by those people. So Mötley Crüe started our own record company. After that initial record sold [1981’s Too Fast For Love], and everywhere we were playing was selling out, somebody at a record company went, “Y’know, we might be able to make some money off these boys.” And they did. What do you think was the song that pushed you into contention? Y’know, I remember somebody telling me that a radio station in Phoenix had played Live Wire, and their phones had lit up like they hadn’t seen in years. There was another station in Arizona, and they played the song: same thing happened. We started watching this thing happen with that song, which is so raw, and the lyrics are so in your face. We started seeing the same reaction in other cities, that we were already seeing in LA. It was an exciting time. Every band can remember their first time like that. When you reflect on Mötley Crüe’s most imperious years in the eighties, do you think you were a sexist band? In today’s environment, most probably. As was everybody. In the seventies, when I grew up, it was just the messaging that came through, and you “We weren’t [pulling outrageous stunts] to get attention. We were doing it because we were just f**king nutters.” MAIN: © DUSTIN JACK PHOTOGRAPHY 2015/PRESS; INSETS: GETTY; BOTTOM: KEVIN ESTRADA / ICONICPIX 48 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Rock’n’romance: Nikki and wife Courtney celebrate at their wedding in 2014. were emulating your heroes. I remember the line from the first Aerosmith album. He goes: “Heading out to New York Slitty.” [Sixx presumably means the ‘slitty licker’ reference in Pandora’s Box.] And I was like, “Wow. That’s fucking rad.” It was dangerous, y’know? When someone’s talking about guns and sex and drugs, you’re like, “This is fucking dangerous, man. This is not mom and dad’s music.” So it was a different time. You can’t rewrite history, man. You can’t rewrite the sixties. You can’t rewrite the fifties. We can try… but why? MAIN: IGOR VIDYASHEV/ATLASICONS; INSET: GETTY Does it bother you when people still think of Mötley Crüe as hellraisers first and musicians second? Well, I guess that depends on who you talk to. It was obviously great for the media to have something to write about. I remember that Elektra Records’ publicist, Bryn Bridenthal, was so bored of the bands we talked about earlier. Y’know, here comes another band with the hand-claps in the background. She walked into her office – this was the first time we’d been to New York – and I was in all-black leather, peeing in a plant. The other guys had their boots up on her desk and were drinking a beer, and it was, like, ten in the morning. So Bryn walks in, she looks at everybody and she knew we were the new band on the label and she goes: “I think I just fell back in love with rock’n’roll.” She knew, this band are just on their own planet. They’re on their own mission. They’re writing smashing songs. They look fucking cool. They keep adjusting. Whatever’s going on, they move out of that lane. Do you think you encouraged that infamy? They had a thing at Elektra Records at the time, a kind of newsletter. And it would always be: “Mötley Crüe throws television out of window,” or “Tommy drove a golf cart into the swimming pool at the hotel.” And it would go to radio, and it would go to media. And because it was the eighties, it was fun. Because it was the eighties, it was like, “Wow, this is exciting, I can’t wait to go see them.” Because it was the eighties, when you finished dinner, someone would pull out some cocaine and pass it around, and no one cared. Because it was the eighties, everybody was just fucking having a great time. So, in retrospect, what “Mötley Crüe is an interesting band, because if you remove any one member, it completely changes the sound.” Bryn was magnifying was just us being us. And being young and not really thinking about repercussions, and not thinking about long-term careers. And then it becomes The Dirt. It becomes Hammer Of The Gods. And people think of you in conjunction with your music and the antics. I don’t believe they’re separate. I think that fans listen to our music and think, “That was a fucking great time. That was a wild rock’n’roll band. That was a lot of fun.” I don’t think of the Rolling Stones’ antics and their music as separate. I think they go together. 1989’s Dr. Feelgood was the band’s biggest seller – but do you think it’s your best album? I think there’s some shining moments. I think all of our albums have really shining moments. Every album has the songs like Kickstart My Heart, Shout At The Devil, Live Wire or Wild Side. They all have The next chapter: still going strong against all odds. ’em. But they’re albums. Even with my favourite bands, it’s more about the whole package. I listen to whole records. I don’t listen to singles. Kickstart My Heart is a really interesting song, though. I remember, it was hammered out on acoustic guitar. It was a bit more of a punk-rock idea. The lyric, I was being a bit snarky, because radio and MTV was starting to get more nervous and corporate. So the opening line was: ‘When I get high, I get high on speed’. But then, the next line was: ‘Top fuel funny car’s a drug for me’. So it was like, I got out of it, y’know? Like, just close enough but not too close to the flame. In December 1984, Vince was behind the wheel for the car crash that killed Hanoi Rocks’ drummer, Razzle. How did that incident change the atmosphere in the band? I think it was the worst-case scenario for everybody involved. We’ve talked about it a lot. ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 49

NIKKI SIXX Let me buy you a shot of Jack Daniel’s!” I’m like, “It’s been three decades!” What have been the high points of recent years? Two things have really changed my life over the last few years. Firstly, there was The Dirt movie in 2019. Y’know, 73 million people or whatever it is now have seen that movie, and it’s made an impact on not only our fans but people who had heard of us, had maybe heard a song or two. Younger people, they don’t really see rock bands like that. The new rock bands… [laughs] well, it’s a different time. Probably rightfully so. So the birth of the movie and also The Stadium Tour. We didn’t think we would ever tour again, via our own decision. But when the offer came for stadiums and Def Leppard, it was like, “Well, you know what? I guess rules are meant to be broken, because this is going to be one hell of a celebration.” It’s just something that Vince… we can’t take it back, y’know? And we can’t really say anything more now, because there’s families involved. Are you better friends with Vince, Mick and Tommy now than when you first started the band? Well, we know each other so well. Do you know anybody you’ve been through as many highs and lows with as Mötley Crüe has for forty years? I don’t. I know all their strengths and weaknesses, and we try to be there for each other. But at the same time… somebody asked me the other day, “Do you guys all ride together on the same bus? Do you have the same dressing room?” And I thought, “Well, how sweet.” I don’t live with the band. Does it feel unreal now when you think about the highs you reached with Mötley Crüe? You totally forget. Y’know, we live near a town of 9,000 people now and I’ll just be walking down the street and someone will come up and they’re like, “Oh man, I love your band.” And it snaps me back into thinking: “Oh, right.” Because I’m living in the moment. I’ve never been one to have gold or platinum records in my house. I did it a couple of times, but I didn’t want people to come to my house and go, “Whoa, look what you’ve done.”I want people to like me for me. So I kinda forget about it sometimes. And then, when I get reminded, I’m so grateful that I got to do this with Tommy, Vince and Mick. It’s like, Mötley Crüe, we sold a lot of fucking records. We sold out the world multiple times. It was amazing. What we wanted, we got. It was a hard-working, bluecollar, put your head down to the grindstone and work your ass off band, since the beginning. But we are not stupid enough to believe that we are the almighty. We also – like almost everybody else – got lucky. Hellraiser reformed: happy, healthy and sober, Nikki Sixx is in it for the long haul. “I’m looking at 25 to 30 years of not sticking needles in, drinking alcohol and taking pills. I actually live a pretty f**king clean lifestyle.” Do you ever think it’s unfair that so many clean-living people die young, while you’re still fit and healthy at sixty-two? Y’know, I think this falls a little bit under the question you had earlier about lifestyle. A lot of people don’t realise this, but I’m 20 years sober. But before that, I had six years of sobriety. And before that, I had four years where I was clean, right? For those first [periods of sobriety], I went up and down. But I’m really looking at somewhere between twenty-five to thirty years of not sticking needles in and drinking alcohol and taking pills and stuff. I actually live a pretty clean lifestyle. But people don’t think that when I walk into the restaurant. People are always like, “Hey man! What’s happening? High five! In the new book, you write about pounding the treadmill and hiring a nutritionist in preparation for The Stadium Tour. Some Crüe fans might find that strange to hear… Yeah, I think it might surprise some people. The reason I put it in the book was I wanted people to understand what the process is like if you want to compete. I’m looking at going onstage with Def Leppard, and those guys are fucking great, every single time. Poison, they bring it. Bret [Michaels] really focuses on his performance. And Joan Jett has always been an ace. I also look at Metallica, and I’m looking over at Aerosmith, and I’m thinking, “What’s Slipknot doing?” I keep my eye on what’s going on out there, and I do not want to be the guy who’s onstage and they go, “Well, old Nikki Sixx, it doesn’t seem like he’s got the steam anymore, y’know?” Fuck that! So I’m gonna work harder than anybody else, because that isn’t gonna be my story. So that’s why I wanted to show that. Whether it’s rock’n’roll or not, I don’t know. I don’t even know what rock’n’roll is anymore. I think it’s just doing whatever the fuck you want to do. You’ve had to reschedule the tour, of course. How frustrating was that? Not all the fans a hundred per cent understand. They’re like, “Why are you guys not touring?” Well, it’s because we care about you. We don’t want to be the story where it’s like, “People got sick during The Stadium Tour and some of them passed away.” I don’t want that for rock’n’roll. It feels like Mötley Crüe have said goodbye to us a few times now. Will this thing ever actually be over? Well, eventually, one of us is going to die. I don’t know, man. I tell you what – since the pandemic, I am just living day by day. And shit happens. The First 21 is out on October 19 via Hachette Books. Sixx:A.M. release their new Hits collection on October 22. © 2017 COURTNEY SIXX/PRESS 50 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

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Thirty years ago, The Screaming Jets looked poised to become one of Australia’s great musical exports. But then industry manoeuvrings effectively stopped them in their tracks. Words: Jerry Ewing “ We’ve been around so long that people’s kids are coming to see us now. Unfortunately, if a young pretty girl comes up to ask for an autograph, I know it’s for her mum or her dad.” Screaming Jets frontman Dave Gleeson grins his irrepressible grin, which doesn’t leave his face for all of the hour or so that Classic Rock is chatting with him and guitarist Paul Woseen, and seems about as chipper as one can be, given that Australia has only recently been plunged back into a national lockdown as new Covid strains wreak havoc. “We live on a property near Adelaide, so there’s plenty of places to roam around and stuff like that,” the singer continues. “We’re not stuck in an apartment or an inner-city place. But it’s shitty. It’s killing everything. You get ready to do a gig and it happens again. It’s like a kick in the nuts.” Yet despite the shadow of the pandemic that continues to hang over the world, there are cheerier things to discuss, all of which makes Gleeson’s grin grow bigger, while the more laconic Woseen plays with his dog and nurses a vodka at his home in Melbourne. The Australian quintet are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their debut album All For One, for which they’ve re-recorded the entire thing. At the time, the album breezed into the rock scene chock-full of the Jets’ natural bonhomie and with a healthy dose of front and cheek. On an album originally released in 1991, the good-time groove of Better, the big single from the album, C’mon and Stop The World, not to mention the tongue-in-cheek riposte of F.R.C. (an acronym for Fat Rich C**ts), served as a perfect antidote to the more dour and austere approach taken by many of the grunge bands who were beginning to command the front covers of rock magazines at the time. Unsurprisingly, to British ears, like most bands from down under, The Screaming Jets sounded a bit like AC/DC and Rose Tattoo; to the more naturalised Australian ear they sounded more like national Aussie heroes The Angels, who were less well known outside their native Oz. Throw in some Van Halen-esque flash, and had the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana not turned the rock world on its head at the same time, we would probably be looking at one of the biggest bands in the world right now. Of course, revisiting and re-recording such a loved album does not come without one or two drawbacks. Most re-recordings tend to lose something in the new translation. It’s very doubtful that anyone reading this feature would reach for some new re-recordings by their favourite band when the originals that served so well for so long are sitting right next to them. Added to that, of the line-up that wrote and played on All For One, only Gleeson and bassist Woseen are in the current band. Original guitarist Grant Walmsley finally bade the band farewell in 2007, while fellow guitarist Richard Lara and drummer Brad Heaney both left back in 1993. Guitarist Jimi Hocking first joined The Screaming Jets in 1993, and along with second guitarist Scott Kingman and drummer Cam McGlinchey, plus the two founding members, they’ve managed the admirable feat of making the new All For One sound as fresh, exhilarating and exciting as the All For One these ears first heard 30 years ago. “We are blessed, I think, with a very youthful approach to what we do,” states Gleeson. “That state of arrested development that I think me and Paul were doing in 1990 or whenever it was. We were playing, and the fun we had on the road and all the stuff we do together. We were all trying to impress each other and make sure we hold our own and make sure we’re bringing our essential beat to the table. It’s so much fun to do.” “When I was doing the tracks here, if you came to my place and saw my little studio you’d think: ‘There’s a mental patient,’” Woseen says, laughing. “I’m not sitting there, I’m standing up and smashing my head because I’m getting into it just like I’m playing a concert. That’s how I record. You want to approach it the same way.” “Yeah, and the music that you make with the people that you love is evident,” Gleeson continues. “There’s all kinds of recordings where you can kind of think back and go back to the situation you’re in. We had a great time recording that first album, obviously myself and Paul and Richie and Grant and Brad. We just ran amok. We were in King’s Cross, the decadent heart of Australia. We were playing shows and turning up and hanging out with the chicks upstairs at the “We just ran amok. We were in King’s Cross, the decadent heart of Australia.” Dave Gleeson record company. It was all mad. When we did this re-recording, the fact we all love each other and enjoy each other’s company and enjoy playing with each other so much I think shines through. Unfortunately, we didn’t have half as much fun recording it this time as we did the first time, because we’re all in different states.” Although The Screaming Jets officially formed in 1989, Gleeson and original guitarist Walsmey had met at school in Newcastle in New South Wales (roughly 100 miles up the coast from Sydney) in the very early 80s, and had formed a band together, Sudden Impact, in 1985. They became Aspect, by which time Woseen had joined in 1988, followed by Lara and Heaney. “Myself and Paul were in kind of diametrically opposed bands,” Gleeson says with a laugh. “We were playing The Angels and Radiators and Acca Dacca and stuff, and they were playing this mad 60s stuff. Paul was in this three-piece band The Embers. They were legendary. The first time I ever saw them was at a party, and at the end of a song their singing guitar player, who had drunk a bottle of bourbon during the show, just fell over on to his guitar and started throwing up on the stage. And I thought this was the greatest rock thing I’ve ever seen. I was 17 at the time. But yeah, we came from different sides but we all played heaps and heaps before the Jets got together.” The Screaming Jets got off to a raucous flying start. Early gigs were populated by a boisterous, sometimes overzealous audience. Within six months of their first gig, the band had won a prestigious Battle Of The Bands competition with Sydney rock radio station Triple J. It wasn’t long before they upped sticks and moved to the NSW capital, landed a deal with Australian label rooART, founded by INXS’s manager, and headed out on the road with their heroes The Angels – the kind of patronage most young bands could only dream of. “It didn’t hurt,” says a smiling Woseen. “It put us in front of a very similar demographic that we were about. And I guess they were such a big band, The Angels. Always have been. To get a couple of tours with them, playing in front of them, just meant we were in people’s faces constantly, again ➤ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 53

THE SCREAMING JETS “Hurry up with that bloody solo, mate. I’m getting dizzy…” Early Jets taking off. and again and again. And those sort of music fans and punters, it’s sort of like a pat on the back from the big band saying: “These guys are alright.” “We’re also lucky because the 80s was a massive period for Australian music in Australia,” adds Gleeson. “Radio stations couldn’t wait for the new record from Cold Chisel or Ice House or Split Enz or Australian Crawl or INXS. We got to kick off a tour with the Divinyls. We toured subsequently with The Radiators, The Choir Boys, The Angels. And as Paul was saying, we’re lucky that all those bands took us under their wing. They weren’t there to put some pussy band up so they’d sound mega after it, they wanted a band that would blow the crowd away.” The Screaming Jets released their first EP, The Scorching Adventures Of The Screaming Jets, in December 1990. The opening track, C’mon, earned them a nomination for Best New Talent at the ARIA Music Awards, while the single Better found itself nestling at No.4 in the Australian 54 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM chart. In April 1991 All For One was released, and reached No.2 in the album chart. With those successes the Jets had taken off with some serious propulsion. Next stop: London. There are Classic Rock writers who well recall the Screaming Jets hitting London in 1991 like a proverbial tornado… “With no shirts on,” Woseen says, laughing. “Take off your shirts, we’re in London!” For a while the band, especially the “The biggest setback for us came on our second time around where we’d gone around the world.” Dave Gleeson affable Gleeson, seemed to be everywhere. With his perma-grin and (at the time) mohawk haircut he would appear at all kinds of record company functions, immediately making friends with all and sundry, and disappearing off to whichever late-night haunt would serve them booze until the early hours. For a while, at least, it all helped the Jets to maintain their upwards trajectory. “We played Hammersmith Odeon, we played Nottingham Rock City, we played some amazing shows all around,” recalls a beaming Gleeson. “We did the Rock Am Ring in Nuremburg. We played with Def Leppard and INXS and all sorts of stuff. So we did okay on some shows, that’s for sure.” “I remember once after a show, at the hotel in New York looking out the window and pinching myself, going: ‘Fuck. I’m this useless prick from Newcastle, and look at that – that’s New York fucking City,’” Woseen muses. “How the hell is this going on? That’s great! But you’re right, not many acts from here do get out offshore.” Needless to say, it couldn’t last. And unfortunately it didn’t. The band maintained their momentum with 1992’s Living In England EP and second album Tear Of Thought. But in the middle of a 1993 tour with Ugly Kid Joe, drummer Brad Heaney was fired, replaced for a short time by former Judas Priest drummer Dave Holland. After a US support slot with Def Leppard, Jimi Hocking replaced Richard Lara. The band’s self-titled third album was released in 1995. But although the Jets were still a big draw back home, record label issues and media attention shifting to nu metal elsewhere stymied their progress. “The biggest setback for us came on our second time around where we’d gone around the world,” Gleeson says. “We’d gone through Polydor, and they’d been fantastic throughout Europe. Everyone was so on board and loved it. We came back, and Chris Murphy, who owned rooARt, had moved INXS over to Warners, and he did some deal that didn’t sit well with the Polydor people, and he did a deal that moved all our records over to Warners worldwide. I remember ringing up some people from the first trip from all the record companies. They didn’t want to talk to me. I’m like: ‘We’re in town.’ And they’re like: ‘Who cares?’ So that cost us pretty heavily. “I think as far as the follow-up, we did some great work and got in a little bit of trouble, which is a good thing going around. But all the work we’d done on that first trip was suddenly all wiped away. Not so much the fans, but the record company people. By the time we got to the second record company we were tainted goods.” But that’s not the end of the story. Gleeson and Woseen continued to lead the Screaming Jets, now with eight studio albums under the belt prior to the new recording of All For One, the last of which, Gotcha Covered, appearing in 2018. And in a quirk of fate, the irrepressible Gleeson has also fronted the band’s beloved band The Angels since 2011. “We continue,” the singer surmises. “The only reason we’re still in the game is to stay in the game. And keep writing music. I think our next mission is to write a song that gets there. And that’s the only reason I do it. If I thought we’d got as far as we’re going to go and we’re just going round and round, I’d probably knock it on the head. But the fact we’ve still got the fire in us and when we play together is magic… For the first time during our conversation, Gleeson’s smile fades momentarily, as if he’s deep in thought. But then it’s back. “You know what?” he says, beaming again. “We’d love to get back all around the world and reclaim our crown.” The re-recorded All For One is released on October 22 via Cherry Red. GETTY

With the passing of time on his mind, the blues figurehead tackles the pros and cons of social media, his troubled love life, the future of the genre, and the reason he knows way too much about cruise ships. Five years ago Joe Bonamassa’s biggest fear was failure. Now, at 44, he’s more concerned with time. The rapid passing of years. The inevitability of ageing, and the world’s response to it. The shelf life of the empire he’s built. “I know there’s a second act in my life,” he says from his tour bus, still buzzing a little from two sold-out nights at Red Rocks amphitheatre in Colorado. “That’s my biggest fear, knowing that people who have worked for me for twenty years will have to find another career.” Arguably this explains his work-rate of late. Somewhere between his nonprofit Keeping The Blues Alive foundation, producing albums for Eric Gales, Joanne Shaw Taylor and others, and interviewing stars for his Live From Nerdville podcast series, he completed his sixteenth solo studio album. With roots that predate last year’s Royal Tea record, Time Clocks conveys a sense of urgency through soul-searching tunes and expansive sounds that take in blues, rock, classic prog, funky touches and more. NINE MONTHS AGO I THOUGHT MY CAREER WAS OVER I was cool with it. I looked at places in Montana to start a little antique shop. I had this whole thing planned out. And this notion of time; one day you wake up and people like what you do, the next day you get a birthday cake and a double four and you’re some sort of fucking antique. I don’t get that mentality. I turned forty four years ago, I can remember that like it was nothing. I’m forty-five next May; that’s half the decade. So, if the second half goes as fast as the first… I am not a lifer. I have until fifty-two or sixty-two to get this thing done. So Time Clocks is more urgent than some of the stuff before, because I feel it moving fast. NOBODY IS UNIVERSALLY LOVED AND RESPECTED There are misconceptions that I come from a very rich family: false. That all I do is dress up in a suit and sunglasses and parade around the town, going into a pharmacy, buying aspirin: false. I’ve also raised a million dollars or more for not only music in schools, but bands that didn’t have a gig last year: true. I know there’s nobody that’s going to be universally loved and universally respected, especially online. PLAYING MUSIC SHOULD ALWAYS BE A SIMPLE, ENJOYABLE EXCHANGE The new technique with trolling is they come in under the auspices of, “Well, I know I’m not as good as that person, but here’s my opinion” – so basically, you’re saying you are not qualified to be commenting, but you’re just going to join in the pile-on for fun. It raises the toxicity level of society. I mean, for as 56 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Interview: Polly Glass “I’m a child who’s been in this business since [I was] a child, and have never had to mature.” simple as guitar playing is and the exchange of music is, nobody can just sit back and enjoy it because they have to run it through a filter – to even just reconcile what other people will think of them for liking it, online. It’s that way of thinking that’s so backwards [as to] why we play music to begin with. It’s a simple exchange; I came up with a song, do you like it? Yes, no, great, we’ll move on. SOMEONE THREATENED TO BURN MY HOUSE DOWN I deleted my Instagram account when they threatened to burn my house down. Instagram goes, “You’ve got to get it back because you have a blue checkmark,” and I go, “Listen, I don’t care if I have a fucking red checkmark, the checkmark’s not the boss of me, these people threatened to burn my house down and they had the address kinda right.” SOCIAL MEDIA IS A GREAT FREE MARKETING TOOL… I’ve discovered great players by going, “Who the hell is that guy shredding on Instagram or Twitter?” They come out of nowhere because they don’t have the marketing to put it out on the major media. They start accruing fans of the kind of music they’re playing, and they can start a grassroots marketing campaign, for free, in their bedroom, in their pyjamas. Does that translate to the grandeur of a large stage? No, you have to then become an entertainer. But the rollout, the “Who the hell is that?” – it’s a real advantage having social media. ...BUT ITS ADDICTIVENESS IS A PROBLEM It’s when there’s an addiction to it, and you start skewing your art and playing towards the daily dopamine shot. Like, “If I do a fifty-five-second video, it’s going to get more views than a minute and two,” or, “If I do a cool cover, it’s gonna get more views than my original.” When that becomes more [important] in the psyche than, “Hey, I can play guitar and nobody knows who I am and let’s get it out there…” That’s when, I think, the focus needs to shift to becoming more of an entertainer, or an artist, or a three-dimensional product. PEOPLE PAY FOR MY SOLOS, BUT THEY RESPOND TO THE SONGS For the first ten years of my career as a solo artist, I was a guitar player with two chips on his shoulder, daring people to knock ’em off. [Producer] Kevin Shirley comes in the second ten years, he starts preaching songs and we have a few good ones scattered around the catalogue. Then I had this epiphany around a record we did, Blues of Desperation, and a song called No Good Place For The Lonely. It was named in Classic Rock as one of the best guitar solos ➤

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JOE BONAMASSA Keep on truckin’: Joe Bonamassa loves cars almost as much as he loves guitars. [2016’s ‘100 Greatest Guitar Solos’ feature]. I did it in one take; a mindless, pre-lunch guitar solo. I thought the song was good, but the solo was better. I realised: I’ve established myself as a guitar player, so let me take the audience on a journey and surprise them. As I concentrated on the songs I noticed at the live shows, the response to the material got way better. I can sing the songs with melody and then give ’em the solo that they pay for. DATING IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY HAS DOWNSIDES I try to keep a circle of friends that are not in the industry because I find their lives really intriguing, people who are not judged by everything that they do. [Classic Rock: You’ve talked about, romantically, wanting to meet ‘Stacey from Accounting’. Is that still something you hope for?] Yeah, that’s the thing. I’ve dated women in the music industry thinking, “This will work out really well,” because, intrinsically, you have a lot in common. Maybe it’s too much of one thing. Plus, if you look at my dating history, the common denominator is that the problem is me. I’m a child who’s been in this business since [I was] a child and really have never had to mature. I DON’T HAVE OR WANT KIDS I’m not the parenting kind, I don’t have that in me. There’s no right or wrong, it’s just that I choose not to bring another human into the world. That’s another thing about the Time Clocks concept. It’s like, “Well, if you’re going to have kids, you wanna be an eighty-year-old high-school dad?” I don’t want to do that [laughs]. You start looking in the mirror a lot, and you think, “Are you going to be happy if this is it?” Absolutely. If it is all over tomorrow, I had a tremendous run. THE FUTURE OF THE BLUES IS IN GOOD HANDS To me, the most fascinating personality in the blues right now, by far, is Fantastic Negrito. What he’s doing is so original. It’s just such a cool take on the blues. I really like Chris Buck. He’s a good player. Joanne Shaw Taylor, I just think she’s a superstar of the blues and a much better singer than she’s given credit for. Warren Haynes, Robert Randolph, Robert Cray… The great thing about the blues is that everybody has their own lane. I KNOW WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT CRUISES The camaraderie among the bands and the friendships that come from those collaborations, by the nature of being stuck on a boat in the Caribbean… Over the course of two or three years you see a community develop, not only among the artists but the fans. We asked the fans, “Do you want more bands “I have a car thing. It started with one and now I have 10. I have so much stuff at this point.” or do you want more stops? Do you want to go to Malta, or do you want Blues Traveler?” Because it’s the same amount of money to park the boat. The slip fee for the day is like some people’s houses. THERE’S A TIME AND PLACE TO CHARGE MONEY FOR HANDSHAKES The other thing about the cruises for Keeping The Blues Alive is the charitable aspect. It’s the only time I’ll ever charge for a handshake and a photo, because all the money goes to the charity. We do a hundred-person VIP event and there’s a wine tasting. Yes it’s expensive, but guitar programmes in middle schools have been started with those handshakes and photos. And the money we raised last year literally went to help bands that couldn’t pay their mortgage. CHILDHOOD DREAMS DO COME TRUE As a kid I had a picture of Stevie Ray Vaughan in my room, I had a picture of Eric Clapton from Just One Night, and I had a picture of Howard Reed’s 1955 black Stratocaster – the first Fender Stratocaster ever made – and I cut it out of a Guitar World Collector’s Choice, 1988, with George Lynch on the cover. I now own that guitar. It was all geek stuff, Fender paraphernalia, Gibson paraphernalia. Nothing’s changed other than the level of OCD and the budget. YOU CAN HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF I have a car thing. It started with one and now I have ten. I have really curtailed the guitar thing. I have so much stuff at this point. My niece and nephew will inherit all this if I get hit by a bus, [and] I do not want a nine-year-old and a sixyear-old to have to wade through all this with their parents. The house [in Los Angeles] is a living, breathing museum. When my friends come over and see it, they’re like, “This is unbelievable. Do you even understand what’s in here?” And I’m like, “You realise I wake up every morning, make coffee and see this stuff every day?” I’m desensitised. I built it. I DON’T PLAY GUITAR AT HOME I live in a house of guitars, and I don’t play. I’m truly happiest when I’m in New York City, walking by myself. Or riding my bike. I got into bike-riding last year. I will get on my bike, ride up to Central Park and ride around the trail, that’s it. Then, I’m not a musician, I’m not in the public eye, I’m just a fellow cyclist. That’s when I’m truly happy. Time Clocks is out on October 29 via Provogue. ELEANOR JANE/PRESS 58 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

With decades of drugs, drink and chaos now largely behind him, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen has lost none of his fury at the world – and his new album is a demand for us all to do better. Al Jourgensen clearly enjoys his outlier status. “Ministry is this floating kind of quirky metal band,” he says of the industrialrock avatars he founded 40 years ago. “We’re not accepted by the church burners, we’re not accepted by the pop-metallers, we’re not accepted by the dance club crowd any more. We’ve betrayed all of our fucking fans and I still love it!” Such devotion to the cause is admirable. Jourgensen has negotiated more than his share of crests and valleys over the decades. At their early 90s peak, Ministry were shifting enough product to rival American labelmates Prince, Madonna and Depeche Mode. But commercial success was tainted by drug and alcohol abuse on an appalling scale. Jourgensen was a heroin addict for nearly 20 years, unable to function without it. It nearly killed him too, as he tore through life with the same kind of apocalyptic abandon as a grade-A Ministry song, man and music united in their refusal to compromise. Reluctantly adopting the role of Ministry frontman was just about the only concession he was willing to make. “It’s the worst fucking job on Earth,” he maintains. “I always wanted to be Jimmy Page, not Robert Plant. I just wanted to be in the studio, writing stuff, like the man behind the curtain in The Wizard Of Oz. It’s just a ridiculous paradigm to be considered a lead singer. I’m in complete inner turmoil every time you put a microphone next to me. “But I do think that’s partly where the rage comes from. I was so angry at having to be the fucking singer that I just started yelling. People like [Cheap Trick’s] Robin Zander can actually sing, 60 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Words: Rob Hughes but I just get up there and rant and rave over a guitar part I wrote. And hopefully, somebody somewhere picks it up and thinks it’s cool.” Indeed, however tortuous the process, countless bands have been stirred by his music. Slipknot, Korn, Sevendust, Linkin Park and Red Hot Chili Peppers are just a few of those indebted to Ministry’s formidable racket. Trent Reznor calls Ministry “the single most important influence in the sound and concept of Nine Inch Nails.” It’s a sound forged by samples, sequencers, monstrous dance beats and punishing riffs. At their best, sharpened by Jourgensen’s fiercely socio-political lyrics, Ministry are immense. “We’re not accepted by the church burners, we’re not accepted by the pop-metallers, we’re not accepted by the dance club crowd any more.” Covered in tattoos and studded with face piercings, dreadlocks frothing out from a black bandana, Jourgensen cuts an imposing figure. Down the line from his Los Angeles home, his voice is no-nonsense gnarly, a low growl warmed by self-deprecating humour and a ready laugh. He’s a changed man these days. Well, kind of. He kicked his heroin habit in 2002, during sessions for Ministry’s eighth album, Animositisomina, but remains partial to the odd stimulant. He smokes pot and does psilocybin almost daily; a productive aid. And while he’s healthier, it’s reassuring to note that he’s lost none of his creative lust or fury. The latest expression of this is Moral Hygiene. Ablaze with righteous fire, it’s a scathing indictment of the political age we live in, with Jourgensen attempting to steer a light through the chaos of a post-Trump world in desperate need of empathy and compassion. The message is pretty clear: let’s start giving a shit about each other and the planet we share. Jourgensen describes Moral Hygiene as “less rage, more reflection” this time around. “It’s been going that way for the last few records,” he says. “My real rage ones were against the Bush regime [2004’s Houses Of The Molé, 2006’s Rio Grande Blood and 2007’s The Last Sucker]. Then when Trump got in, it was more shock than anger on the last album [2018’s AmeriKKKant]. He’s still there on the new one, because he’s been such a large part of American and global life with his policies and corruption and everything else. As a songwriter, it’s low-hanging fruit to write about something loathsome. You have to be careful and pick your spots. So Moral Hygiene is more like a ‘what the fuck’ moment – how did we get here, how do we fix it, how do we go forward?” Recorded at his own Scheisse Dog Studio in LA, Moral Hygiene was created with the aid of several non-Ministry members. NWA co-founder Arabian Prince appears, as does Dead Kennedys legend Jello Biafra, who steams headlong into Sabotage Is Sex. Jourgensen and Biafra go back years, first hooking up in 1988 when they began recording in industrial hardcore outfit Lard. “Jello is basically a social misfit,” chuckles Jourgensen. “I’m the same way too, which is why I anaesthetise, so I can deal with social interactions. But he doesn’t anaesthetise, he’s just naturally ➤

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MINISTRY A baby-faced Jourgensen performing at Chicago’s Comiskey Park in 1983. His now-familiar fireand-brimstone persona at Madrid’s Download Festival in 2017. weird. He’s literally my closest friend on this planet, so when I say things like that, trust me, it’s from the heart.” Also aboard is guitarist Billy Morrison, best known for working with Billy Idol and Royal Machines. Morrison lends his considerable weight to various tracks, including a striking cover of The Stooges’ Search And Destroy. “A couple of years ago I got asked to play Above Ground, a benefit for suicide prevention [at the Fonda Theatre in LA], with Dave Navarro from Jane’s Addiction and various guests,” Jourgensen explains. “They asked me to do two Iggy songs, which I nailed perfectly at sound-check. Then when I came back for the show that evening, everyone was cramped in one large room, with a bunch of hangers-on. And the one mistake I’ll never make again is to hit on a joint from a source I don’t know. I’m thinking it’s some kind of PCP derivative, because when I got up to sing Search And Destroy, all of a sudden everything was in slow motion. Fortunately the band picked up on it and were able to compensate. But I just got off that stage and thought I’d let everybody down, fucked up out of my mind. “The next day I called up everyone to apologise,” he continues. “Billy said, ‘No, man. That’s how we’re going to do that song in the future. It sounded awesome!’ So we recorded it that way. The first person I sent it to was Iggy. He was like, ‘That’s fuckin’ badass! How’d you come up with that?’ I didn’t have the heart to tell him the whole story, but here it is in print.” This friendship predates his association with Biafra. In 1983, Jourgensen played guitar on Pop’s Fire Engine, which he also co-wrote. Four years earlier, his first band, Special Affect, opened for Iggy in Chicago. Jourgensen was new wave back then. When it came to forming Ministry in 1981, he continued in a similar synth-pop direction. A deal with Arista led to their 1983 debut, With Sympathy, though Jourgensen was unconvinced by the label’s assertion that Ministry were the next Joy Division. Being a lead singer felt even less comfortable. It was a role he took on through sheer necessity, having auditioned a dozen vocalists who failed to impress. “I always wanted to be Jimmy Page, not Robert Plant. I just wanted to be in the studio, writing stuff.” “They made me sing on With Sympathy and I hated it,” he recalls. “They appointed the producer and musicians and the songs, so I had very little to do with that record. It took me years to get over that stigma and anger of not being more of a participant in it. I was just told what to do. So it was very Milli Vanilli to me.” Ministry began in earnest with 1986’s Twitch, as Jourgensen scrapped the pop elements for a far Destroyed mind: with Dave Navarro and Billy Morrison at the Above Ground concert in 2019. more corrosive noise, incorporating samples, loops and savage distortion. Some of these sounds were the result of what Jourgensen calls “beautiful accidents”. One of the microphone preamps blew during vocal sessions at London’s Southern Studios, with co-producer Adrian Sherwood. “It came out pretty distorted and we just went with it,” he explains. “After that, I would buy pre-mics, immediately overload them and blow them up. It sounded like shit, which was another added layer of protection against the insecurity of having to be the lead singer. So it was a crush of ambition and good fortune.” Jourgensen had fully perfected the technique by the time of Ministry’s first masterpiece, 1988’s The Land Of Rape And Honey (named after the slogan of an agricultural firm in Saskatchewan). A cacophonous set that alchemised Led Zeppelin, The 13th Floor Elevators, Cabaret Voltaire and Einstürzende Neubauten into a vast industrial slam dance, it was driven by Jourgensen’s painstaking method of splicing tape to create something otherworldly. “It seemed like we’d come up with something new,” he says, “because my main influence at that point in time was William Burroughs’ cut-up style and things like Buñuel. Rather than emulating other bands, I was trying to emulate artists from different mediums. Then from there we had a template. But The Land Of Rape And Honey was really like no-man’s land. We didn’t know what we were doing. We were throwing bits of quarterinch tape on the floor and putting them back together, very much like The Naked Lunch or something. That seemed to work and set us apart.” In his eye-popping 2013 memoir, Ministry: The Lost Gospels According To Al Jourgensen, he describes the album as “the perfect storm of hallucinogens, heroin, cocaine and GETTY x3 62 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

a month of me wasted out of my mind, editing all these reassembled bits of tape on a two-track.” Deep in the grip of addiction, he poured his creative energy into Ministry and various other related projects, among them Lard, Revolting Cocks, Acid Horse and the questionably-named 1000 Homo DJs. The nihilism of follow-up albums The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste (1989) and Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed And The Way To Suck Eggs (1992) appeared to mirror the chaos of Jourgensen’s private life, the eternal delinquent hell-bent on self-destruction. He admits that they were difficult records to make, forged in an atmosphere of substance abuse and interpersonal conflict between band members. Psalm 69 eventually went platinum, fired by the unexpected success of thrashy lead-off single, Jesus Built My Hotrod. Featuring drunken jabber from Butthole Surfers singer Gibby Haynes, the song was a massive hit in clubland, pushing Ministry into the same Warner Bros sales bracket as Madonna and Depeche Mode. It led to the band’s appearance at 1992’s Lollapalooza and, later that year, their first major tour of the UK. Keen to shake off people’s expectations, Jourgensen slowed the pace and ditched most of the electronica for 1996’s Filth Pig. The black humour was gone too, leaving instead a heavy-duty throb of anguished metal. Never mind that it was the first Ministry album to crack the US Top 20; it felt like the diary of a soul in torment. “The late 80s was invigorating, but by the late 90s it stopped being fun,” Jourgensen reflects. “I wanted to fuckin’ die so badly. I was going through my first divorce and I was alone in this 8,000-square-foot mansion with a recording studio in it. I was doped up out of my mind and had no friends or engineers or anything. Being a heroin addict, any opioid makes it very difficult to process bowel movements. So every day, living alone in this giant house, I would think to myself, ‘I hope I’m not Elvis today, where I die on the toilet, straining to get a shit out.’ It was horrible. And by the time that Dark Side Of The Spoon [1999] came out, it was even worse.” Jourgensen’s health deteriorated. Constant drug use ruined his liver and left him with hepatitis C. His big toe was amputated after he stood on a discarded hypodermic needle. Having overdosed on three separate occasions – each one leaving him clinically dead for a time – he finally entered rehab at the turn of the millennium. He revived Ministry for 2003’s Animositisomina, but says that the real watershed was follow-up album, Houses Of The Molé: “That was where I was like, ‘OK, maybe I do have something to offer. Maybe this stuff is good and I do have friends and I don’t need the drugs.’ And it was an uphill climb from there, which I think is culminating in things like Moral Hygiene. I think it’s all a natural progression of somebody who’s finally finding themselves.” At 62, Jourgensen struggles to account for his unlikely survival, but suspects that he has a guardian angel in the form of his late grandma, who effectively raised him. “I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason I’m still here,” he reckons. “For whatever reason she’s still hovering about, making sure I don’t go too over the edge.” Posthumous protection aside, it could well be that Jourgensen’s real saviour has been an unstinting work ethic. The luxury of having Six moments of Ministry might. STIGMATA The Land Of Rape And Honey (1988) Drum loops, sampled guitars, distorted vocals and spumes of venom make for a Ministry classic from arguably their finest album. Later featured in Hardware, a sci-fi horror starring Lemmy, Iggy Pop and Fields Of The Nephilim’s Carl McCoy. SO WHAT The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste (1989) A sustained eight-minute thump, scarifying in its sheer intensity. Amid snippets from Scarface and 50s curio The Violent Years, Jourgensen leaves a trail of end-of-days destruction: ‘Die! Die! Die! Die!/Scum-sucking depravity debauched!’ JESUS BUILT MY HOTROD Psalm 69 (1992) The song that shunted Ministry into the mainstream, at least for a short while, powered by a speeding “I wasn’t interested unless I was drunk. Now I’m not interested unless I’m just half-drunk.” barrage of riffy noise and a brilliantly deranged vocal turn from Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes. JUST ONE FIX Psalm 69 (1992) Industrial metal at his most relentless and, subjectwise, a pretty good indicator of where Jourgensen’s passions lay. Terrific use of samples, too, particularly with Frank Sinatra’s junkie from The Man With The Golden Arm. NO W Houses Of The Molé (2004) Guitarist Mike Scaccia returns after an eight-year absence on this ferocious takedown of incumbent President George W Bush and the system that put him there, lent ominous drama by snatches of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and manipulated samples of Dubya himself. LIESLIESLIES Rio Grande Blood (2006) Co-written by Jourgensen and guitarist Tommy Victor, this uncompromising clamour (from the second album in the anti-Bush trilogy) makes damning use of samples from conspiracy doc Loose Change. Pipped by Slayer at the Grammys. a home studio meant that he was able to write and record every day during quarantine. “By the time I got done, I not only had Moral Hygiene, but an entire new Ministry album as well,” he reveals. “That’s completely mixed and done, except for my vocals. I also have a new Lard album ready to go. We were going back and forth remotely, with Jello in San Francisco and me here in LA, sending songs to one another. So I basically made three albums in one year.” Evident from the get-go, this willingness to toil for his art has somehow endured throughout everything. “It’s a blessing and a curse,” he offers. “I just had to find new ways of working. I couldn’t work before without a fucking needle in my arm. I just wasn’t interested unless I was high. Then it got to the point where I wasn’t interested unless I was drunk. And now it’s to the point where I’m not interested unless I’m just half-drunk. We’ll leave it at that. Let’s say I’m making progress!” Moral Hygiene is out on October 1 via Nuclear Blast. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 63

Festivals have taken place. Indoor gigs are happening. There’s a sense of in-the-flesh rock making a comeback. And while some tours continue to be postponed until 2022, a lot of us are tasting music as we haven’t been able to do in more than 18 months. Even if you’re not ready to dive back into live shows just yet, it’s good to know that you can count on the burgeoning new waves of rock’n’roll – happening locally and far afield – to enjoy from the comfort of your home, in the car, on the train, at your 64 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM desk… wherever you like to get your highvoltage kicks. So whether you’re in the middle of self-isolation or nursing ringing ears (loud amplification hits hard after so long without it, right?), we’ve got you covered with this selection of cherries from the top of rock’s proverbial iced cake. And if you like what you hear, why not check out more of these bands and artists’ music, or get out there and see them live? Check out more new tunes like these every Monday with Classic Rock’s Tracks Of The Week, and vote for your favourite, at classicrockmagazine.com Goodbye June Step Aside You’re in for a rootin’, tootin’ and, yes, shootin’ good time with this infectious new single (and, over on YouTube, a guns-blazing new video) from these rising Nashville stars. An advance taste of their new album See Where The Night Goes (due out February 2022), it’s rootsy stuff with a deliciously wicked side. Plus it rocks – like, really rocks. And with a singer that makes us think of Brian Johnson, Chris Cornell and The Dust Coda’s John Drake, you’ll find fresh bite and familiar tropes here. Best of both worlds? We’ll drink to that. goodbyejune.com

Fantastic Negrito feat. Miko Marks Rolling Through California If Tina Turner’s Proud Mary had a syncopated, countrified makeover, it might have come out like Fantastic Negrito’s latest gem, featuring fellow Oaklander/country singer Miko Marks. “It all came together on that fateful day September 9, 2020,” he says, of the California wildfires that inspired the song. “Everyone in Northern California woke up to a blood-red sun on an orange sky… It felt and looked apocalyptic. Everything came to mind: climate change, drought, water management. It inspired me to write a song that would bring attention to how treacherous our yearly fire season is.” fantasticnegrito.com BROS Two For Tea No no no, not that Bros. This one’s a spin-off project from Saskatoon’s finest classic rock revivalists The Sheepdogs, harking back to a time when new rock bands were influenced by more than just other rock bands; a time when musicians were happy to take detours from their day-to-day sound and pay tribute to good old-fashioned vaudeville music (think Queen’s Seaside Rendezvous or The Beatles’ Honey Pie). Two For Tea finds the Currie Brothers in full music-hall mode, singing in plummy English accents and cavorting in coats, top hats and tails. And yes, of course there’s a kazoo solo. facebook.com/brosmakingmusic Joyous Wolf Fearless These young Californian rockers have been steadily upping their ante over the past year or two, having turned a particularly impressive number of heads (among other times) while opening for Deep Purple in 2019. Now they’re sustaining that momentum with this blinding new single that places them firmly at the front of rock’n’roll’s hot new wave. Freewheeling, acrobatic singer Nick Reese makes like a young Myles Kennedy, guitars sound warm and exciting, and the whole thing makes Joyous Wolf sound way more famous than they currently are. joyouswolf.com CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 65

Carol Hodge The Moan Of A Thousand Years She’s worked with the likes of Ginger Wildheart, Crass/Steve Ignorant and Ryan Hamilton, and now the Yorkshire-based “seven-fingered pianist” (she was born with cleft-type symbrachydactyly, meaning she has just two fingers on her left hand) is striking out alone with this taste of her new album The Crippling Space Between. Hodge’s roots are in punk, but this single shows her to be a real talent in the realm of smart, on-themoney melodies and bittersweet storytelling through song – lines such as ‘It’s easier to hear what I want to believe’ pack a quiet but powerful punch. Sweet, sad and life-affirming all at once. carolhodge.co.uk The Dust Coda Call Me One of the most consistently strong groups in the New Wave Of Classic Rock community, The Dust Coda have followed up their excellent new album Mojo Skyline with this hard-rocking, no-bullshit cover of the Blondie classic. In the hands of powerhouse singer/guitarist John Drake, the titular lyric feels a bit more like an order than a coy suggestion (less ‘call me, yeah?’, more ‘call me right now!’), but they wear it with charismatic confidence that makes it their own. thedustcoda.com 66 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Crazy Lixx Anthem For America If rampant, hard-rocking AOR revivalists like H.e.a.t light your proverbial fire, do yourself a favour and look up Crazy Lixx. Also Swedish, also slick as an 80s Mutt Lange production job, on Anthem For America they make Def Leppard sound positively shy and retiring. Naturally that means it’s totally ridiculous and overblown, and some will probably hate it. But for those who like a bit (or even a lot) of pomp in their lives, you’re in for a swell ride. Their album Street Lethal is out on November 9. crazylixx.com THE DUST CODA: DEAN CHALKLEY/PRESS; CRAZY LIXX: NILS SJÎHOLM/PRESS

Who Are... Cruel Hearts Club Edie (vocals/guitar), Gita (guitar/ vocals/bass/synths) and Gabi (drums), fill us in. Describe Cruel Hearts Club’s sound in one sentence? Edie: Trashy grunge pop. What was the first music you really fell in love with? Edie: I was obsessed with ABBA when I was about five, and I remember holding ABBA parties at my house. Gita: We had a pretty cool vinyl collection when I was growing up. I fell in love with the harmonies of the Mamas & The Papas, and played Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd on repeat. Gabi: It was Queen for me. My dad was obsessed. I remember car journeys singing my heart out to Bicycle Race and Flash, and of course the headbanging in Bohemian Rhapsody. I would have that song on repeat until I learnt all the words. Gita and Edie, pre-Cruel Hearts Club you collaborated with some big names. What was that like? Edie: We did backing vocals for Lou Reed and Shane McGowan years ago and it was pretty amazing. They are my favourite name-drops, of course! Gita: I played violin with Muse in Paris. They took us out for cocktails after the show, which was pretty neat of them. Cruel Hearts Club Sink This Low Sisters Gita and Edie were raised in a family of 10 by an ocarina craftsman in Norfolk. Their musical beginnings were classical, but they went on to attract support from the likes of Sting, Iggy Pop and The Libertines. Forming CHC with drummer Gabi in 2019, they set about cultivating a punchy sound that’s reached something of a high point with this stompy, ballsy new number that makes us think of Brody Dalle fronting T. Rex at a grunge night. cruelheartsclub.com Let’s talk influences: who are your go-to guitar heroes? Gita: Kim Gordon is a goddess. And the best voices in rock’n’roll? Edie: Brody Dalle and Debbie Harry are insane. What for each of you is the defining moment in your musical life so far? Edie: Supporting Iggy Pop in Budapest. Gabi: When we supported Sting in this amazing amphitheatre in Lyon. It was an unbelievable show, and Sting was an utter gentleman. I was heavily pregnant, and one of my fave pics in the world is of him touching my giant bump. When Rivers Meet Testify WHEN RIVERS MEET: ROB BLACKHAM/PRESS From the opening chords of this new one from this bluesy Essex duo (not to mention they’re husband and wife), you know you’re in good hands. These two love the likes of Bad Company and Free, and it shows in this hooky gut-punch of late 60s/early 70s British rock sensibilities. Aaron lays down a banger of a riff, while Grace lets rip on the vocal front to commanding, soulful effect. If you like this and want more, then check out their second album, Saving Grace, due out on November 19. whenriversmeet.co.uk CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 67

Classic Rock Ratings ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■ Edited By Ian Fortnam A Classic Excellent Very Good Good Above Average Average Below Par A Disappointment Pants Pish 14 pages 100% rock Ingredients: p70 Albums p80 Reissues p84 DVDs & Books ian.fortnam@futurenet.com DIMO SAFARI / PINK FLOYD LTD p80 Pink Floyd First post-Waters album A Momentary Lapse Of Reason gets remixed and updated. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 69

ALBUMS Biffy Clyro The Myth Of The Happily Ever After WARNER Lockdown experimentation from the everinventive Scottish trio takes on a life of its own. When Biffy Clyro released their eighth album, A Celebration Of Endings, in August 2020 it was a bittersweet experience. On the one hand, it revealed itself to be a creative high point of their career, an adrenalised and moving collision of their punk roots and pop nous, seasoned with the glorious, instantly recognisable weirdness they’ve somehow smuggled onto mainstream radio playlists. On the other hand, it arrived during the stillest of summers, when playing the songs live – this band’s entire reason for existing – was out of the question. Rather than falling into the comforting arms of Netflix marathons, the band retreated to their Ayrshire farmyard rehearsal space and started work on what was intended to be a reaction piece to ACOE, but became its own unique beast. Darker in tone than its predecessor, nihilism goes into battle with hope, dark and light fight for supremacy, while frontman Simon Neil bares his soul with the confidence of a man who has taken time to explore and accept his own strengths and flaws. Musically, there’s a lot to digest, a sense of euphoric panic rising in the brassy, joyous Witch’s Cup and the soaring A Hunger In Your Haunt, which is anchored by a trademark stuttering breakdown guaranteed to make it a live highlight. 70 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Separate Missions is shadowy synth pop that Depeche Mode in their prime wouldn’t turn their noses up at, while mournful opener DumDum’s echoing percussion and out-of-body vocals that seem to float up from the void make it a cinematic but disconcerting listen. Lyrically, meanwhile, there are returning Biffy motifs loaded with meaning: witches, religion, horses. The latter is hidden in the title of Haru Urara, a reference to a Japanese racehorse known as “the shining star of losers everywhere” for continuing to give her all in the face of consistent defeat. And this, as the song builds from a downbeat moment of contemplation to metamorphose into a gleaming, thunderous stadium rock anthem, is the crux of the record. We are, as Errors In The History Of God suggests, a giant mistake as a species, and yet we keep going, keep striving to be better. We end on a meandering, unpredictable, entirely wonderful moment of madness with Slurpy Slurpy Sleep Sleep, working itself into a frenzy alongside a heartfelt plea to not waste a precious second on hate and division: ‘We’re only here once. Please give it all you’ve got before the rhythm stops… Give love to everyone.’ Beautiful in style and intent, The Myth Of The Happily Ever After has magic written into every note. ■■■■■■■■■■ Emma Johnston They Might Be Giants BOOK IDLEWILD RECORDINGS Deluxe lyric and photography tome with a marvellous pop twist. A driver in a gold mask. Doors painted on a wall. Cellophane people shells. A couple with huge eyeballs where their heads should be. Simply describing the Brian Karlsson photographs accompanying the They Might Be Giants lyrics in the deluxe book housing their latest album BOOK seems to write even more TMBG lyrics, which may be the boffin pop duo’s post-modern intent. The album itself is as fine a collection of infectious, genrehopping melodic vignettes about random stuff as they’ve produced in recent years: punk pop songs biographing a dinosaur (Brontosaurus), go-go power rock about waking up (I Can’t Remember The Dream), new-wave ragtime about various forms of physical and emotional poison (Darling, The Dose). Synopsis For Latecomers comes on like a drama-rap lecture entitled “Who ate the babies?”, Moonbeam Rays is a masterclass in surf-rock loneliness and there are even bouts of Middle- Eastern lounge samba (Super Cool) and experimental noise montage (If Day For Winnipeg). I couldn’t put it down. ■■■■■■■■■■ Mark Beaumont Crazy Lixx Street Lethal FRONTIERS MUSIC Old-school hard rock like they’re not supposed to make any more. Hair metal never died, it just went underground. Swedish bombshells Crazy Lixx have spent the best part of 20 years making Steel Panther look as frivolous as Radiohead, building a small but dedicating following of people who haven’t stopped partying since 1989. Their eighth album is as immaculate as modern hard rock gets. Street Lethal knows exactly what it is – any album featuring a song called Caught Between The Rock’N’Roll is leaning into the clichés, and doing it with a massive wink. But there’s nothing jokey about the massive choruses that prop up Anthem For America and The Power, while blockbusting ballad One Fire – One Goal is the sound of a million bubble perms being tossed in slow motion. It’s preposterous, naturally, but it’s also a massive amount of pure, unembarrassed fun. And if the world needs anything right now, it’s that. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dave Everley Starlite Campbell Band The Language Of Curiosity SUPERTONE Retro rockers who are offering a fresh twist. A husband- and wife-led group who divide their time between the UK and Europe, the Starlite Campbell Band have a fresh take on 60s and 70s British R&B, a clean sound and an enthusiastic approach that gives their second album, The Language Of Curiosity, an immediate appeal. The songs are all original – although there are hints of Brown Sugar on Gaslight, and a more direct nod to You Really Got Me on Said So, but the atmospheric guitar solo later on owes absolutely nothing to the Kinks. There are also shades of Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac on slow-burning ballad It Ain’t Right. Their songs are well constructed, following the format of their favourite era, and they know the importance of a good hook. In contrast to their retro musical style their lyrics have an engaging, contemporary flavour with subjects ranging from lying politicians to refugees via casual sex. ■■■■■■■■■■ Hugh Fielder The Joy Formidable Into The Blue HASSLE Melodic noise-gazers charge ever further into relevance. As one of very few bands to recognise the pop potential of revisiting shoegaze back in 2007, The Joy Formidable have spent a decade watching themselves grow into fashion from a distance. First dream pop and nu shoe echoed the oceanic hooks of Whirring and Austere, now Wolf Alice top the charts with a brew drawn from the same suave-gothic chalice. Singer Ritzy Bryan acknowledges the link by delivering Gotta Feed My Dog

– the glowering fulcrum of this fifth album – in breathy Ellie Rowsell-like whispers, but otherwise TJF stick to their guns on an album of romantic turmoil and outsider self-assurance that’s equal parts waft and heft. Chimes is a power-pop gig in the crypt of the sonic cathedral; Sevier the sound of thrash metal chasing ambient music around the pews. The band’s heartgrabbing riff hooks found on Into The Blue and the sultry Siouxsie Farrago are in short supply, but as closer Left Too Soon grows from astral acoustic ballad to customary cataclysm, there’s no let-up in their seductive assault. Blue Weekend fans: here’s the Wolf mother. ■■■■■■■■■■ Mark Beaumont Lucifer Lucifer IV CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS Hell ain’t a bad place to be. Like sinking back into the silk-lined interior of a luxury burial casket, there’s something ever so comfortable about Lucifer IV – 11 immaculately upholstered raves from the grave in that familiar 70s Lucifer style, Nicke Platow Andersson in charge of writing and Johanna Platow Andersson providing those seductively sweet vocals. Gothic proto metal anthems rarely come better formed than Archangel of Death, Crucifix (I Burn For You), the playfully punning Wild Hearses and the chirpy crypt-trip that is Mausoleum. It might all be schlock horror rock’n’roll but it’s executed with power, precision and expert pacing; the brisk canter of Bring Me His Head and Phobos are about as fast as things get, but there’s plenty of ghoulish groove in Cold As A Tombstone, Orion and Louise. Four albums and the formula seems to be holding out just fine, thank you very much. ■■■■■■■■■■ Essi Berelian Candlebox Wolves PAVEMENT ENTERTAINMENT Seattle veterans still brilliantly mixing pop rock and grunge. As soon as All Down Hill From Here Now slides into gear, it’s clear Candlebox have another winner. Seventh album Wolves is laced with the instant melodic sensibility and spikey grunge style rhythms which have always been the Seattle band’s trademark. The glowering Sunshine and the anthemic My Weakness are as good as anything they’ve done before, with Kevin Martin’s vocals wringing every drop of emotion from the slow-burning We. And Nothing Left To Lose shows they can still light up the trail with blazing riffs, while Trip has an unmistakable Tom Petty timbre. Never a band to follow trends, Candlebox are still a force. ■■■■■■■■■■ Malcolm Dome Mastodon Hushed & Grim WARNER MUSIC GROUP Twenty years in, Georgia’s prog-metal heroes continue to amaze with album eight. At this stage in Mastodon’s career, you simultaneously know what you’re going to get, and also have no idea what to expect. It’s Shrödinger’s Prog. All of the touchstones fans treasure remain: tooth-rattling riffs; three equally powerful but individually unique vocalists combining to create a beautiful, intensely masculine melodic tapestry; tricksy time signatures and wild flights of musical fancy ensuring we never quite know where the journey will take us. And yet, despite all the thunder, Hushed & Grim is the most delicate record to date, filled with emotion, doubt, grief, regret and sorrow. In The Crux alone, twitchy, claustrophobic metal makes way for a dreamy, mournful middle section that punches the heart without mercy. The Beast, meanwhile, is built on a solid foundation of blues, manipulated and twisted into something bigger, darker and purely Mastodon, while Middle- Eastern flourishes on Dagger bring in a new dimension. That’s just the tip of a colossal iceberg – this is a work of beauty and beastliness in equal measure. ■■■■■■■■■■ Emma Johnston Quill Riding Rainbows. QUILLUK.COM Up, up and away in their beautiful balloon. Drummer Bev Bevan is, of course, one of the founders of ELO. He also saved Black Sabbath’s bacon in ‘83 on their woozy Born Again tour. Lately he’s been spending his time with Quill, a British folkprog institution lead by Joy Strachan–Brain that has boasted members of Diamond Head, Cuddly Toys, Ark and more over the years. Riding Rainbows, their latest album, also has its share of celebrity sightings, including ex-Sab singer Tony Martin, who lends his bluesy rasp to the spacey neo-ballad We’re Only Human, and Amen Corner’s Andy Fairweather-Low, who drips his buttery vocals all over the mellow early 70s radio-rock pastiche Black Dog Day. And as the album’s title – and the presence of a violin player – may suggest, this is largely a pastoral pop affair, breezy and warm, not unlike the Fifth Dimension, if they were from that Wicker Man island. ■■■■■■■■■■ Sleazegrinder Toledo Steel Heading For The Fire DISSONANCE Traditional heavy metal with a serrated edge. The New Wave Of Traditional Heavy Metal may not match its NWOBHM antecedent in terms of prominence, but for those paying attention, it’s reassuring to see young contenders taking up the mantle as Saxon and Judas Priest edge ever closer to retirement. Since 2011, Southampton’s Toledo Steel have stirred up quite the buzz, and Heading For The Fire cuts a distinctive swathe through the trad metal pack. Armed with a contemporary guitar tone sharp enough to shave a bison, they load each song with a fistful of vicious riffs (Into The Unknown, On The Loose), recalling the melodic bludgeon of Accept and Diamond Head. Smoke And Mirrors is a shade more generic, redeemed by a punchy chorus, but in the main they interpret traditional metal tropes with verve and imagination, landing knockout blows with Wicked Woman and Last Rites. ■■■■■■■■■■ Rich Davenport ROUND-UP: SLEAZE The Prehistorics Racket Du Jour SELF-RELEASED THEPREHISTORICS1.BANDCAMP.COM Fifth album from Australian rock’n’roll legends so underground this is the first time you’re hearing about them. If you have certain expectations about Aussie rock bands (ie they should sound like Radio Birdman with a sprinkle of The Scientists), this will exceed those. They also do powerpop so good I forgot I hated powerpop. ■■■■■■■■■■ By Sleazegrinder Siouxsie & The Skunks Songs About Girls SELF-RELEASED SIOUXIEANDTHESKUNKS.BANDCAMP.COM Spooky Italian garage rockers who sound like skeletons banging away in the graveyard. Best is the creepycrawl of Jesus (All Your Friends Are Fake) and the hilariously nihilistic I Wanna Die (Something Good) – like a cartoon giraffe tossing herself into a dumpster. ■■■■■■■■■■ Chuck Norris Experiment This Will Leave A Mark TRANSUBSTANS TRANSUBSTANSRECORDS.BANDCAMP.COM It’s been nearly 20 years since Swedish speedrockers Rickshaw took a dirtnap and resurrected as the Chuck Norris Experiment. Taking their cues from the strutting sleaze of Powerage-era AC/DC and everything good that came out of Detroit in 1973, the band have become standard-bearers for down‘n’dirty, street-level rock’n’roll. This Will Leave A Mark is their tenth album and it’s a doozy. There’s a satisfying undercurrent of 80s Sunset Strip sleaze to a lot of tracks here, especially on slinky rockers like opener DirtShot and the Chuck off: fists are firmly out for this Experiment. shamelessly cock-rocking Benefit Of The Doubt. It’s like Jizzy Pearl and Stephen Pearcy are in the room with ’em, winking lasciviously and tapping their fairy boots to the beat. Elsewhere underground punk’n’roll hero Jeff Dahl pops in for the fiery Hand Grenade, the band goes total doom for the Satanic panic of Devil’s Lake, and they otherwise pulverise everything in sight. Horns up. ■■■■■■■■■■ Gasolines Cannonball Run SELF-RELEASED THEGASOLINESROCK.BANDCAMP.COM Speedball rockabillyinspired action rock psychosis from Norway that leans heavily towards the Glucifer end of the balls-out rawk’n’roll spectrum. Like sure, that pompadour and Elvis medallion will get you in the door, but once you get there, it’s a goddamn free-for-all. Furious. Will probably give a few of you heart attacks. ■■■■■■■■■■ The Trash Crawlers Buzz Off MOMMY’S MISTAKES MOMMYSMISTAKES.BANDCAMP.COM Berlin’s Trash Crawlers sound like Betsy Bitch fronting a 70s punk band, only Betsy can’t hear the monitors, so she’s just bellowing the whole thing. It’s raucous, punchy and threatens to careen outta control at any moment. I dunno what the fuck Red Leather is about, but it sounds like a crucial teenage anthem. ■■■■■■■■■■ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 71

ALBUMS Santana Blessings & Miracles BMG He’s back and he’s brought some new friends with him. And Rob Thomas. It’s curious how much of Carlos Santana’s near 60-year career has been quietly devoted to accommodating his inability to sing. Permanent Santana vocalists came and went, but by 1992’s disastrous Milagro, the game seemed to be up for a guitarist without any clear plan to move forwards. Enter mogul Clive Davis, who hit upon the notion that Santana’s majestic, distinctive guitar – there really is nobody quite like him – could underpin albums featuring a smorgasbord of singers, some well-known, some not, and rebuild his career. The result was 1999’s Supernatural. It went platinum in the US… 15 times. The new approach was not conducive to touring and Santana tried to wriggle out of it on albums such as the Rick Rubin-produced Africa Speaks, but sales speak for themselves, hence Blessings & Miracles – his first collaborations set since 2014’s Corazon. It features a stellar cast, including Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas on the delicious Move, which resembles Supernatural’s breakthrough, Thomas-sung Smooth in more than name. The blessing and curse of the master guitarist and carefully selected guest singer formula is that it works. The heaviest tracks of a surprisingly rocking outing find Santana sounding more energised than he has in years. America For Sale features Death Angel singer Marc Osegueda growling over a ferocious guitar dual between Santana and Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, while Living Colour’s Corey Glover whips up a tsunami of fury on Peace Power (or ‘black power’ as he sings), but Santana matches him note for thrilling note. Elsewhere, there’s new life breathed into, of all things, A Whiter Shade Of Pale. Steve Winwood offers a gloriously understated white-soul vocal reminiscent of Higher Love, while Santana’s guitar pyrotechnics sizzle. Supernatural’s Maria Maria showed Santana’s guitar enhances hip-hop, and here She’s Fire repeats the trick with the golden-throated G-Eazy. Of the instrumentals, Santana Celebration is a blistering romp; Song For Cindy (as in Cindy Blackman Santana, Carlos’s drummer wife) is Albatross in excelsis, while Chick Corea (who died in February) and Corea’s wife Gayle bring jazz fusion intricacy to Angel Choir/All Together. The shock of the new helped Supernatural elevate Santana to a new level. Much as though the Carlos Santana who made Abraxas all those years ago might chafe at the very suggestion, collaboration with outside singers has turned out to be what he does best. If only he could sing, though… ■■■■■■■■■■ John Aizlewood Steve Conte Bronx Cheer WICKED COOL Six-string sideman goes front and centre. With a CV that includes stints with such luminaries as Eric Burdon, Peter Wolf, Billy Squier and even funk and jazz saxophonist Maceo Parker, Steve Conte is probably best known for his guitar work with the resurrected New York Dolls as well as his tenure with Hanoi Rocks’ former frontman Michael Monroe. But here, Conte – aided and abetted by his bassist brother, John, and Charley Drayton on drums – steps out of the shadows for some limelight of his own. The result is a compact collection of rock’n’roll that refuses to outstay its welcome. The thrills are to the point and it’s almost as if Conte has the jukebox in mind as the final destination for most of the tracks housed here. The guitarist is at his best when deploying his innate melodic flair with an undeniable New York attitude. Wildwood Moon is what Bruce Springsteen would sound like if he came from the other side of the Hudson river, while Dog Days Of Summer is rollicking good fun that aims for the hips. ■■■■■■■■■■ Julian Marszalek Cradle Of Filth Existence Is Futile NUCLEAR BLAST More filth than fury from impressively resilient extreme-metal veterans. Thirty years and 13 albums into their über-goth cosplay party, Suffolk’s leading merchants of menace make few concessions to mainstream good taste on this heroically preposterous opus. Partly recorded during pandemic lockdown, Existence Is Futile is vintage latterday Filth, from its speed-shredding twinguitar attack and mountainously melodic chorus hooks to singer Dani Filth’s strangulated horrormovie gargle. The band’s wobbly line-up has solidified recently into an impressively tight team, although new keyboard player and co-vocalist Anabelle Iratni replaces Lindsay Schoolcraft here, her soaring operatic trills adding crystalline counterpoint to Dani’s grunts and growls. Behind the theatrical excess there is much to savour, from the demented symphonicthrash epic Crawling King Chaos to Sabbath-sized doom-chord monster Us, Dark, Invincible. Among the softer numbers, the splendidly titled Discourse Between A Man And His Soul is a surprisingly polished waltztime power ballad: imagine Hotel California sung by a bile-belching demon from the sulphurous arse-pits of Hell. Bravo. ■■■■■■■■■■ Stephen Dalton Eclipse Wired FRONTIERS Welcome back, my friends, to the party that never ends… At some point every band finds itself pondering whether to bind limpet-like to a successful blueprint, á la Motörhead, Status Quo, AC/DC or The Darkness, or simply use their style as a rough template. Truth be told, Eclipse reached this impasse a while ago, electing to stick to their guns with 2019’s Paradigm, which after seven attempts became their most successful record yet, though inevitably the Swedes were accused of simply repeating themselves. The problem continues with Wired. It’s a magnificent, joyous fusion of melodic hard rock, metal and hooligan pop melodies – the perfect powder keg with which to ignite any Saturday night. Only time will tell whether Eclipse’s growing army of fans, or those miserly detractors, enjoy the last laugh. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dave Ling Dream Theater A View From The Top Of The World INSIDEOUT MUSIC Fifteenth studio album by veteran prog metallurgists. Dream Theater had just completed their own studio complex when the pandemic struck; vocalist James LaBrie was forced to brave quarantine in New York to complete his vocals. A View… hardly sounds shoddy, mind. Despite the datedness of its content, it’s produced to a high 21st-century shine. The band and their many gold discs might beg to differ but songs like The Alien and Sleeping Giant would benefit from a less MARYANNE BILHAM/PRESS 72 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

ornate approach and more rigid adherence to their admirable riffery. The visions conjured by the likes of Answering The Call are dully figurative – a more minimalist, abstract approach would be more cerebral. The epic title track sounds like excerpts from a straight-tovideo sci-fi movie. They’ve lots of options in their musical armoury: maybe they should consider using fewer of them. ■■■■■■■■■■ David Stubbs The Pineapple Thief Nothing But The Truth KSCOPE Post-proggers’ livestreamed lockdown shows captured on a range of formats. Bruce Soord has kept himself busy during the past 18 months. Since last September’s studio set Versions Of The Truth, the Pineapple Thief frontman made up for the tour ban by promoting it with a string of acoustic shows livestreamed to fans, the last of which saw the light as December’s The Soord Sessions Volume 4 LP. Then they finally reconvened on stage in April this year, filming an on-demand live set. You may wish to experience this more fully on the DVD and Blu-ray versions (attention, beatspotters: there’s a ‘Gavin Harrison drumcam’ option), but as it stands, this audio version is captivating enough. The moody Versions Of The Truth and In Exile are lent an extra sense of unease here that really draws you in. A strangely plodding Demons is less successful, but a slow-burning Threatening War explodes into life, and later, emotive stabs at 2004’s Wretched Soul and 2014’s Someone Pull Me Out will be welcomed by longtime Pineapple-heads. ■■■■■■■■■■ Johnny Sharp Alcatrazz V SILVER LINING MUSIC They’ve still got it after all these years. V for album number five; V for victory (as the press release claims) – take your pick, or why not have them both? With Graham Bonnet having given way to Doogie White on vocals, this follow up to 2020’s Born Innocent features only Jimmy Waldo (keyboards) and Gary Shea (bass) remaining from the original 80s line up – not that this matters, as V overcomes any possible doubts through sheer creative force and lashings of shred. It might lack Bonnet’s more off-the-wall lyrical spirit but White is a fine replacement, and Joe Stump’s guitar work is suitably extravagant – it wouldn’t be authentically Alcatrazz without copious widdling. And right from opener Guardian Angel via Turn Of The Wheel (shades of Bark At The Moon?) to the unhinged riff fest that is House Of Lies, this is a spot-on rock solid showcase of classic metallic fire and fury. ■■■■■■■■■■ Essi Berelian Bullet For My Valentine Bullet For My Valentine SPINEFARM Back to basics with the Welsh metal crew. Going down the self-titled route for your seventh album is quite the statement of intent: it speaks of a new sense of purpose and an unshakeable confidence that this is your definitive work. BFMV frontman Matt Tuck has described Bullet For My Valentine as “the beginning of Bullet 2.0”, and the talk is backed up by the massive musical “fuck you” lurking within. With a slow-burning intro buzzing with between-the-dial noise, opener Parasite explodes into a full-on thrash tantrum, seething with fury, bullish energy and finger-twisting riffs. What follows is a barrage of filthy, aggressive, old-school noise punctuated by polished, 21st-century hard rock melodies. The boys from Bridgend are on the attack and willing to see their mission through to the bitter end. ■■■■■■■■■■ Emma Johnston My Morning Jacket My Morning Jacket ATO Existentially fraught album from Louisville-bred combo. For a while, MMJ vocalist Jim James felt burnt out and wondered if he even wanted to continue with the band, but this feels like the album of a group recharged; lent a new perspective by the pandemic, perhaps. Regular Scheduled Programming, with its relentless pulse and broadsides of analogue synth, is an attempt to jolt us from the thrall of excessive screentime. Love, Love Love feels like a relic from The Beatles’ psychedelic era. There are sunset shades of country & western, Led Zeppelin and Lambchop throughout this, the latter particularly on The Devil’s In The Details, musing on kids sent to war ‘drafted by poverty’. The mock-jaunty Lucky To Be Alive, meanwhile, reflects frankly on the lot of a band eking out a living in an era when ‘no one’s buying records’. Buy this one. ■■■■■■■■■■ David Stubbs Every Time I Die Radical EPITAPH Fury and beauty from the Buffalo, New York, posthardcore lifers. Every Time I Die finished recording Radical, their ninth album, just before the pandemic hit. Legends on the post-hardcore gig circuit, they’ve gone with their guts and held the record back to coincide with the reawakening of live music, and, on the very first listen, the pentup energy captured over 16 tracks explodes like a wellshaken can of Coke. It’s an incredibly busy, dense record, with few moments to come up for air from the maelstrom. Planet Shit is particularly apoplectic, a frantic call for revolution built around frontman Keith Buckley’s incantation: ‘Fuck you, die!’ His anguished, shredded howl collides head-first with sludgy riffs, sleazy melodicism and brutal breakdowns, which makes the quieter, more reflective moments all the more powerful – Thing With Feathers, with its echoes of The Bends-era Radiohead, is a particular moment of beauty right at the heart of the tornado. As the world opens back up, ETID are coming out swinging. ■■■■■■■■■■ Emma Johnston ROUND-UP: MELODIC ROCK By Dave Ling British hopefuls: a Prophecy fulfilled. Heartland Into The Future ESCAPE MUSIC Still possessed of an alarming bluesy rasp as a sixth decade looms, Chris Ousey ranks among Britain’s most reliable singers. Returning with a new Heartland line-up that features celebrated City Boy, Streets and Seventh Key man Mike Slamer (who also claims the co-producer’s chair) and Tyketto keyboardist Ged Rylands, …Future is a belter of a commercial hard rock record. ■■■■■■■■■■ Leverage Above The Beyond FRONTIERS Five albums into a career that began in 2005, Finnish sixpiece Leverage continue a quest to make smart, uplifting and even – whisper it – contemporary-sounding melodic hard rock. The likes of Starlight, Emperor and the rousing Do You Love Me Now are despatched with clarity and full force, rallied by an impressive new member, ex-Urban Tale frontman Kimmo Blom. ■■■■■■■■■■ TAO Prophecy TAROT LABEL MEDIA/CARGO In AOR’s golden era, North America offered a rich seam of femalefronted acts. Britain’s track record was, with rare exceptions, laughable. However, small shards of hope are appearing. Despite being flawed by one or two filler songs, the debut from Welsh singer Chez Kane, released earlier this year, found an enthusiastic audience. Now comes TAO (Together As One), voiced by Scottish vocalist Karen Fell, backed by members of Serpentine and Ten among others. With songs from Ten leader Gary Hughes, who also manned the faders, it’s an estimable piece of work. Fell has a welcoming, strong and crystalline voice that’s perfect for the record’s blueprint of Heart meets Pat Benatar. Hughes’ writing style may be recognisable on Rock Brigade, Angels And Clandestine Fools and the mystical title track, but from a talkbox-infused opener Nobody But You to the delightfully emotive Gone Forever, Prophecy represents a bubbly celebration of a much-loved genre and not a feeble attempt to foster singular comparisons. ■■■■■■■■■■ Six Silver Suns As Archons Fall AOR HEAVEN Comprising members of several acts little known outside of their Finland home, Six Silver Suns add AOR and gothic sheens to the classic hard rock of the 70s and 80s, a fact announced by Lord Of The Tower, a Blue Öyster Cult-flavoured opening number. As Archons Fall is a brave and fascinating opening declaration, despite occasional descents into Eurovision territory. ■■■■■■■■■■ Osukaru Starbound AOR HEAVEN Starbound is the sixth album from a Swedish band that mixes glam, AOR and melodic metal. It’s hardly a revolutionary formula, but their dedication and application deserves kudos, along with the fortitude of guitarist Oz Hawe Petersson who has perpetually fought fires to keep them going for a decade. Fredrik Werner’s stellar voice is another big ticked box. ■■■■■■■■■■ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 73

ALBUMS Joe Bonamassa Time Clocks PROVOGUE/MASCOT Joe ponders the passing of time but doesn’t let getting older slow him down for a second. Joe Bonamassa has spent the last few studio albums “being Joe Bonamassa” – consolidating and redefining his own style. And doing it very well, it must be said. But now something seems to have snapped: he has gone rogue. It’s hard to say what could have caused this – the pandemic that curtailed his relentless gigging schedule; the speedy, claustrophobic atmosphere of New York, where the album was recorded; having to hook up with long-time producer Kevin Shirley, who was trapped in Australia. Or maybe a feeling that his previous studio album, Royal Tea, was bringing him full circle and that he needed to jump before he started repeating himself. There was a hint of this on Bonamassa’s last CD/DVD, Royal Tea Live At The Ryman, when he showcased the very Englishmade album (to an audience of cardboard cut-outs), rounding off with a version of Jethro Tull’s A New Day Yesterday that he first recorded two decades earlier. Whatever, he has made the leap and there’s a sense that not too much preplanning went into this album. Once he’d mapped out the basic structure of a song he was happy to press ‘Record’ and see where it took him. This requires a certain confidence of course, but Bonamassa is not short of that these days. There is, however, an underlying theme to the album to give it guidance and direction – time. Time passed, time passing and time left. On the raw, muscular opening Notches it’s the ‘notches on my walking cane’ as Bonamassa’s guitar sends out a series of flares from the powerful blues boogie that propels the song. On the slow, surging The Heart That Never Waits that follows, it’s ‘Time is the healer that rescued me’. On the album’s title track with its cataclysmic opening and gentle build-up to the big chorus, the song just keeps expanding like an exploding galaxy and Bonamassa thrashes around as if he’s overwhelmed by the whole concept of time. It’s not until the album’s mid point on Mind’s Eye that Bonamassa takes a moment to reflect, backed by a haunting guitar riff. But he can’t hold back for long and he’s soon rattling the walls again. From then on, it’s a headlong rush to the final slow, melodic Known Unknowns, where his angst drains into an acceptance that he will never beat the ticking of the clock. It was a journey he had to make and now he’ll have to follow it. ■■■■■■■■■■ Hugh Fielder Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes Sticky INTERNATIONAL DEATH CULT Ink-partial punk urchin shares fourth album with friends. If Dua Lipa has “(feat…)” tacked onto the title of every other single, why can’t rockers rope in guest vocalists? That said, it takes a frontman of admirably unshakeable ego to invite five other singers to take the mic on an album with his name on the sleeve. It’s an inspired move, though, adding colour to make this surely one of the best punk albums of 2021. The Cockernee wit and oi-like roar of Lynks on Bang Bang seem to add an extra force to its already fearsome stomp, and he’s back on the similarly humour-laced and ebullient Go Get A Tattoo. Idles’ Joe Talbot lends a reliable suburbia-baiting roar to My Town and a whispery cameo from Bobby Gillespie on Original Sin is equally welcome. Carter fares perfectly well on his own, mind, on the thunderous, anthemic Take It To The Brink and the high-octane QOTSA-style rush of Cupid’s Arrow. All told, a crowd-fuelled triumph. ■■■■■■■■■■ Johnny Sharp Melvins Five Legged Dog IPECAC The idea is simple, but effective. Proto-grunge monsters Melvins – formative influence on Nirvana, Bikini Kill and Earth, among many – are well known for their heavy sludge rock: thunderous and ear-blasting. They are a world unto itself, a world where only the most Monstrous of Monster Rock riffs are admitted. Also, they are prolific – very prolific. So what better way to celebrate their 30-plus album, 38-year career by putting out their first ever acoustic album? Not just an acoustic album, of course; that would be too simple. A four-album 36-track Melvins acoustic retrospective, reimagining and reinventing songs ranging from 1987’s Gluey Porch Treatments to 2017’s A Walk With Love & Death – the tumultuous Honey Bucket, Houdini’s Night Goat, rarities, solo Buzz Osborne tracks, covers of Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper and Braniac songs… It’s all as disorientating and scary and unwholesome and – near unbelievably – heavy as fuck as you’d expect. ■■■■■■■■■■ Everett True Tom Morello The Atlas Underground Fire MOM + POP RATM man and all-star collaborators push the ‘pop’ button. He may be a member of rock’s most dogmatic band, but Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello isn’t one for rules in his solo career. His all-star The Atlas Underground project finds him hooking up with a fullspectrum array of collaborators, from hardcore to modern pop. The marquee track on their second album is a leadfooted cover of Highway To Hell featuring Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Vedder, which turns out to be a massive missed open goal. Better is the distorted semiindustrial blast of The Achilles List, featuring Damian ‘Son Of Bob’ Marley, with the Chris Stapleton-fronted ballad The War Inside a close second. The rest of the album is all over the map, from electrorocker Let’s Get The Party Started (featuring Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon) to Charmed I’m Sure’s dub-step metal. It’s fun hearing Morello stretch out, though all but the most broadminded RATM fans are unlikely to feel the same way. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dave Everley The Courettes Back In Mono DAMAGED GOODS Like Merseybeat never happened... The Courettes are a Danish/ Brazilian 60schannelling op-art duo comprised of a leathered-up human sideburn on echo chamber drums and his wife, a fuzz-toned, sci-fi surf guitartoting chanteuse who delights in the name of Flavia Couri, and gives every indication of being a psychedelicised surrogate Ronette. It sounds contrived, a trifle style over substance, but when you bung the actual record on and Want You! Like A Cigarette works its peculiarly gothic post-punk Spector magic, it only seems like the best record you’ve ever heard. ELEANOR JANE/PRESS 74 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

It’s the JAMC, Shangri-Las, Link Wray, Cramps, Ramones, Duane Eddy, Velvettes, Bikini Kill, Milkshakes and Headcoatees all mashed up in a cathedral of reverb; a slack, delinquent jaw, lip-lined and lolling under the weight of provocative snapping bubblegum; haunted by the ghost of Back To Black, it’s a rock’n’roll sacrament from your new favourite band. ■■■■■■■■■■ Ian Fortnam Nine Pound Hammer When The Sh*t Goes Down ACETATE Riotous rock’n’roll from Kentucky grease monkeys. In their lengthy history, one thing you can say about Nine Pound Hammer is they don’t deal in subtlety. And thankfully their latest album follows in this tradition. As usual, the style’s Supersuckers dosed up on Jason & The Scorchers plus a hefty helping of the Georgia Satellites. Scott Luallen’s vocals are those of a redneck sleazebag, with Blaine Cartwright and Earl Crim loosing off nasty scattergun riffs and melodies. The combination makes Mama Lied, Get The Hell Off The Farm and 2 Legged Dope part of the soundtrack for a night on the strongest bourbon in the dustiest bar. Best of all is the dual snarl of Possum Kickin’ FSEOB and Daviss Co Tractor Massacre – they metaphorically shoot up your kneecaps, leaving you at the mercy of the slithering Lizard Brain. Nine Pound Hammer still know how brew a feisty cowpunk stink. ■■■■■■■■■■ Malcolm Dome High Desert Queen Secrets Of The Black Moon RIPPLE MUSIC Doomsters shoot for the moon. Sounding as vast and expansive as the wilderness skies of their home state of Texas, High Desert Queen create towering, hypnotically addictive riffscapes with scary ease, and this eight-track debut of epic doom and sun-scorched heavy psych is an extremely impressive calling card. Far from relying solely on primal bludgeon – The Mountain Vs The Quake is nevertheless a very fine and pummelling anthem – there’s plenty of light and shade woven into As We Roam, Did She? and space cadet celebration The Rise, which serves as a perfect introduction to the immense Skyscraper. The opener Heads Will Roll manages to be both crushingly heavy and ethereally beautiful, a smart melodic trick repeated on The Wheel, while closer Bury The Queen conjures up shades of occult gloom and cadaverous darkness – beyond the realms of death, indeed. Intricate, atmospheric and cataclysmically heavy, SOTBM promises great things. ■■■■■■■■■■ Essi Berelian Ferocious Dog The Hope GRAPHITE Potent punk-folk fusion. Punk’s status as modern-day rebel music has often made it a compatible bedfellow for cross-pollination with English and Celtic folk. Ferocious Dog have honed their own hybrid brew of the two genres since 1988, and achieve a potent peak with The Hope. They’ve supported kindred spirits the Levellers, but their sound has a more pronounced punk edge. Stompers Haul Away Joe and Exiled Life (The Chase) fuse growling guitars and pummelling drums with dizzying violin reels and the songcraft of folk, the strings reinforcing Ken Bonsalls’ passionate vocals. Broken Soldier, released as a single for veterans’ charity Combat Stress, frames a heartfelt lyric in an uplifting arrangement. Fans of Clashstyle punky reggae will thrill to Khatyn’s deft offbeat rhythms, and Hazel O’Connor’s cameo on well-suited cover of Will You ends things on a high. ■■■■■■■■■■ Rich Davenport Georgia Thunderbolts Can We Get A Witness MASCOT Welcome freshness on the southern rock theme. If you’re a fan of Black Stone Cherry and the Kentucky Headhunters, then Can We Get A Witness will definitely appeal. The band from Rome (Georgia, not Italy) have in singer TJ Lyle someone who greedily draws from the heritage of Ronnie Van Zant and Gregg Allman, delivering in a worldweary style that makes him sound like a 50-year-old in the body of a twentysomething. He’s complemented by the guitar mastery of Riley Couzzourt and Logan Tolbert, the trio giving songs like Half Glass Woman and Midnight Rider zest, purpose, insight. These aren’t rehashes of wornout clichés. The Thunderbolts even dare to cover Frankie Miller’s evergreen Be Good To Yourself and more than get away with it. For a debut album this is assured, commanding with the authentic sound of the genre. Southern rock has new heroes. ■■■■■■■■■■ Malcolm Dome The Hawkins Aftermath THE SIGN Breaking up never sounded like such fun. A six-track concept album about the corrosive aftermath of unhealthy relationships might not be the most obvious move for a bunch of Swedish garage rockers, but for The Hawkins it’s just another day at the office – delivering their own brand of high-octane rock’n’roll with copious amounts of dark wit. The speedy Turncoat Killer, Fifth Try and Jim & Kate all possess bags of energy and pace, while the rattling SVÄÄNG is loose and Stonesy, but it’s the final brace of tunes where things get really interesting. Cut Me Off, Right? sounds like it might just be a quietly smouldering acoustic guitar and strings number before it suddenly erupts with righteous anger, and the lengthy closing title track can only be described as garage prog, a multipart lo-fi instrumental that ends on a haunting plaintive piano refrain. Smart, hard rocking and just that little bit pleasantly weird. ■■■■■■■■■■ Essi Berelian ROUND-UP: BLUES By Henry Yates Not playing possum: Nichols is a true find. Samantha Fish Faster ROUNDER Not just faster, but harder, too: the Kansas City gunslinger sets out with the title track’s roadhouseplacating stomp, shoots down her suitors on the brittle clip of All Ice No Whiskey and retools Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life on Forever Together. Best of the lot is Loud, a whimsical art-school piano-plink whose unexpected midpoint shift rolls the amps and sees Fish transformed into a lioness. ■■■■■■■■■■ Davy Knowles What Happens Next MASCOT/PROVOGUE Knowles’s guitar chops have put him on stages with Beck, Bonamassa and Frampton, but this fourth solo album places more emphasis on songcraft. On Light Of The Moon, Knowles has a mammoth groove that he wisely keeps elemental, while the white soul of Roll Me isn’t ruined by anything as vulgar as a mega-solo. Lap him up. ■■■■■■■■■■ DUSTIN COHEN/PRESS Buffalo Nichols Buffalo Nichols FAT POSSUM Once the none-morehip label that brought Junior Kimbrough, RL Burnside and T-Model Ford down from the hills to cough up red-raw gobbets of rattle’n’roll, Mississippi’s Fat Possum has gone two decades without signing a solo blues artist. The acquisition of Buffalo Nichols, however, should put it back in the game, like a dormant football team discovering Pelé in the youth side. Unlike the boneshaker approach of his long-dead labelmates, the Houston-born, Milwaukee-raised singer-songwriter is, on a scan of this debut, a more polished and less primal prospect. Don’t be fooled. Nichols’ dusty acoustic fingerstyle and burnished voice shares a little of Eric Bibb’s barbed eloquence, and the album grows angrier as it unfolds: witness the old timer’s memories of lynching years in Another Man (‘They’d hang you from a bridge downtown’), the thunderclap percussion of Back On Top, and the waspish electric solo that carves up Sorry It Was You, as Nichols finds his eyes have ‘turned Devil red’. The Possum can still pick ’em. ■■■■■■■■■■ Phillip-Michael Scales Sinner-Songwriter DIXIEFROG In defiance of his bloodline – B.B. King was his uncle – Scales leaned towards indierock for his early career, only stirring the blues into his palette upon King’s passing. Even then, he couldn’t be more different: no weeping one-note solos here, but chain-gang stompers he calls ‘dive bar soul’. Send Me There and O, Hallelujah are the picks. ■■■■■■■■■■ RB Morris Going Back To The Sky SINGULAR RECORDINGS Lauded by Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle, covered by John Prine and Marianne Faithfull, Going Back To The Sky deserves to take roots master Morris overground. ‘I’m walking down a freeway/there ain’t nothing going my way today,’ he sings on Red Sky: the scene-setter for a record that captures the melancholy of a life in motion. ■■■■■■■■■■ CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 75

ALBUMS Jerry Cantrell Brighten JERRY CANTRELL Alice In Chains guitarist lights up our lives with a dazzling third album. The third solo album by Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell is his best yet: the work of a songwriter who is happy in his life. The music within Brighten is full of AIC archetypes, not least Cantrell’s distinctive vocals, but spans a broad arc of styles… making it all the more remarkable that he appears comfortable in all of them. Like his two previous solo ventures – Boggy Depot in 1998, and 2002’s Degradation Trip Volumes 1 & 2 – this has been made with AIC on hiatus. But whereas on the predecessors Cantrell seemed content, or even determined, to plough the same heavy/doomy furrow as the band that made him famous, on Brighten (as the title may hint) he appears confident of spreading his wings and lightening up. Credit, then, to Cantrell and his producer, former Marilyn Manson guitarist Tyler Bates. First track Atone – released as a single back in July – is an up-and-at-’em countryfied rocker with a rolling drumbeat by Gil Sharone and additional guitar by Greg Puciato (both formerly of Dillinger Escape Plan) plus a bassline by Duff McKagan. (Although Cantrell plays bass, too, on some of the nine tracks here.) Atone would work on an Alice In Chains album, but it would stand out as something different. That description could apply to half of the eight new songs herein, but each one brings something fresh. Unexpected, even. For example, the title track is just a little more “up”, thanks to the neat addition of piano, while Had To Know has a soaring guitar solo, but employs what sounds like a Hammond organ to at least as great an effect. And Dismembered, meanwhile, despite that title, swaggers by in upbeat mood. Some apples, though, roll strikingly further from the AIC tree. Prism Of Doubt features (subtle) pedal steel and a melody that Tom Petty might have conjured. Black Hearts And Evil Done isn’t a million miles away from a George Harrison solo track. Likewise, Siren Song is a mournful ballad – but with castanets! – while the busy Nobody Breaks You is an uplifting ensemble piece. Brighten then draws to a memorable close with an extremely faithful cover of Elton John’s Goodbye – Madman Across The Water’s final song – underlining the mutual admiration which was begun by Elton playing on Black Gives Way To Blue back in 2009. Alice In Chains fans should prepare to love this, but expect more echoes of Jar Of Flies than of Dirt... ■■■■■■■■■■ Neil Jeffries Caravan It’s None Of Your Business MADFISH Lie back and think of England, hop-pickers. Canterbury’s most resilient prog rock pioneers return with their first album since Paradise Filter (2013) with a set that’s partially informed by original founding member Pye Hastings’ take on Covid and disagreeable social restrictions. The opening Down From London seems to be about the invasion of Kent, not by asylum seekers but cash-rich incomers. For all his whimsy Pye’s got the whiff of cordite in his nostrils on the title track and a dark take on the hide-andseek mantra Ready Or Not that could function in a horror movie. Musically Caravan excel on the thick space-jam soup of Wishing You Were Here, an open-ended question driven at fair lick by Jan Schelhaas’ fiery organ and Geoffrey Richardson’s viola – conjuring memories of ELO, ELP, Focus and the like. Elsewhere Spare A Thought digs out deniers while giving props to the NHS, and If I Was To Fly is a very simple tune with a feel-good, sing-along chorus that will appeal to the casketeers who throng the Fleeces and Firkins of Merry Olde England. Mine’s a light, tall glass. ■■■■■■■■■■ Max Bell Velveteers Nightmare Daydream EASY EYE SOUND Colorado trio combine punky clamour with diva glamour. Featuring firecracker singer-guitarist Demi Demitro flanked by two clobbering drummers, Colorado garage-rock trio Velveteers hammer fresh new shapes from grunge, glam and psychedelic blues ingredients. This punchy, confident debut was produced by Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys and released on his Nashville-based label, but ignore any preconceptions that may suggest. The Velveteers share some of the same lo-fi analogue aesthetic as the Keys, but they are less confined by self-consciously retro valve-amp primitivism. Demitro describes their sound as “Rock’n’roll, but of the future.” They certainly make a pleasingly feral racket on rowdy swashbucklers like Motel #27 and the QOTSAtinged Devil’s Radio, but they truly catch fire when Demitro combines raw punky clamour with sassy diva glamour. While Bless Your Little Heart sounds like the most sarcastic James Bond theme song ever recorded, Charmer And The Snake is an amped-up, sexy-dangerous, flamethower takedown of a sleazy wannabe seducer. Scorchio. ■■■■■■■■■■ Stephen Dalton Crystal Spiders Morieris RIPPLE MUSIC Southern duo struggle to make their apocalyptic pronouncements heard. Who knows if this North Carolina trio consciously aimed to recreate the lo-fi sounds of a suburban garage in 1970, but the production of this follow-up to last year’s debut Molt sounds so muddy it might as well have been. On the one hand, at times it serves to make the sludge of guest guitarist Mike Dean’s riffs and the central duo’s reliably rumbling rhythm section that bit more gluey and evil-sounding. On the other, it also threatens to drown the already reverbsoaked tones of Brenna Leath’s impressively bluesy, bewitching vocals. Nonetheless, Offering bangs along through the sludge in exhilarating style, and blended with more familiar stoner stylings, there’s an agreeably funereal gothic portentousness to Maelstrom and the title track. There’s also a sense of claustrophobia created by their dense, foggy sound that was perhaps precisely what they intended. ■■■■■■■■■■ Johnny Sharp Ghost Hounds A Little Calamity MAPLE HOUSE Organic blues-rock gumbo. Taking a leaf from Mick and Keith’s book, Ghost Hounds’ guitar partners Johnny Baab and Thomas Tull initially bonded over a shared love of the blues. Their sound remains steeped in it, with a streak of soul from Tré Nation’s charismatic vocals, a winning combination that landed them a support slot with the Stones themselves. They may come from Pittsburgh, but A Little Calamity has a Southern-fried JONATHAN WEINER/PRESS 76 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

vibe, complete with gutbucket riffs, barrelhouse piano and gospel harmonies. Their energy and chemistry shine through the album’s convincing mix of blues rock barnburners (Half My Fault, Sleight Of Hand), and reflective, rootsy groovers (Good Old Days). They’re also bold enough to branch out with a well-suited cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road, a little upbeat country rock (Someone Just For Me), and the bare-boned blues of Tears For Another. A diverting album that marks these Hounds out as contenders. ■■■■■■■■■■ Rich Davenport Billy Idol The Roadside EP DARK HORSE King Rocker’s first new tunes in seven years. Judging by his Instagram feed, Billy Idol is the coolest grandad on the planet. Perhaps surprisingly, The Roadside EP is every bit as cool and continues to the unexpected good form that the Rebel Yell legend displayed on his last two studio records, Devil’s Playground and Kings And Queens Of The Underground. Kicking off with the balls-out, snot-rock rumble of Rita Hayworth, it is immediately apparent that the great man’s formula requires no tinkering. Steve Stevens is riffing majestically away, the lyrics are preposterous and Billy is still dancing with himself, top lip sneering dutifully away. In contrast, Bitter Taste is gorgeous, downbeat and bluesy, with echoes of Chris Isaak and a simple but oddly affecting melody: it’s the best thing the Vegas regular has put his name to in more than a decade. Two more great songs complete the set. Another one to play loudly at the grandkids, then. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dom Lawson Spiritbox Eternal Blue RISE Genre-mashing debut from rising alt.metal stars. Today‘s metal scene is slowly dismantling the old boundaries. In a previous life, Spiritbox singer Courtney LaPlante and guitarist Mike Stringer were both members of metalcore band iwrestledabearonce. Their new band’s debut album still roars like a jet engine when it needs to, but Eternal Blue is more concerned with casting its musical net wide, drawing in everything from glitchy electronica to graceful pop. It’s an effective combination. Holy Roller and Silk In The Strings dial up the heaviness, with LaPlante spitting out throatmangling barks. But both songs’ fearsome musical barrages are sweetened by swirling electronic effects and unexpected breaks. Secret Garden and the title track go even further, cleaning away the grime and going straight for the pop jugular, LaPlante’s voice suddenly as smooth as Ariana Grande’s. What metal’s fundamentalists will think of it is anyone’s guess, but this is the sound of the genre’s future. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dave Everley The War On Drugs I Don’t Live Here Anymore BELLA UNION Some heart glimpsed through the haze on the 80s reinventor’s fifth. Adam Granduciel’s Philly hazerockers always sounded like a Stateside drivetime AOR station from 1984 as heard through tunnel static. On their fifth album the fog on their freeway rock finally starts to lift, without their essential USP evaporating along with it. Fans unwilling to wade out of the hypnagogic nostalgia of 2014’s breakthrough Lost In The Dream or 2017’s global hit A Deeper Understanding are well catered for: Fleetwood Mac’s Everywhere is evoked once more on Change; Victim and I Don’t Wanna Wait could still be the work of a poltergeist Bruce Hornsby; and Harmonia’s Dream is just that, disjointed snippets of visions and memories set to a backing that sounds like déjà-vu of Don Henley’s Boys Of Summer. But TWOD find fresh spark on the Springsteen-esque Wasted and the title track, a firecracker boasting both gospel coda and Tame Impala psych pop textures. And it’s at its most immersive when they strip the moodscapes back to piano, glacial atmospherics and cracked emotion on Living Proof, Rings Around My Father’s Eyes and the rousing Old Skin, allowing a little fragility to tint their mist blue. ■■■■■■■■■■ Mark Beaumont U.D.O. Game Over AFM It’s over for you, not him. Former Accept truncheonwielder Udo Dirkschneider is known mostly as a heavy rock hero with a screech like an eagle flying into the sun who has delivered the denim-bound goods for decades. That streak is not broken with the trudging chug-metal of Game Over, but while it contains its fair share of rabble-rousing headbanger anthems (the delightfully OTT power-metal ecstasy of Metal Never Dies, the sex-horror/selfempowerment riff orgy Like A Beast), there’s a surprising amount of political/social commentary on display as well. Udo is involved, man, and a good chunk of this is dedicated to sobering topics like war (Holy Invaders), school shootings (Kids And Guns), and mental health issues (Fear Detector). Heavy stuff, but honestly, this album sounds like the best bits of Restless And Wild mashed up with the almost-best bits of Balls To The Wall, so whatever. ■■■■■■■■■■ Sleazegrinder Tony Kaye End Of Innocence SPIRIT OF UNICORN/CHERRY RED Former Yes man makes solo debut with a 9/11 requiem. Having retired in 1996, former Yes keyboard player Tony Kaye was moved to compose again by 9/11. It’s fitting, therefore, that his reflections on those events and their aftermath inform his first ever solo release. In the 20-year interim, Kaye made albums with Circa. This is a different, mostly instrumental, beast. On synthesisers mainly but utilising other musicians, Kaye offers “a requiem for those who lost their lives and all those touched by the horrific events”. The first 30 of its 73 minutes set the scene until Flight 11 makes chilling use of recordings featuring flight attendants on the first doomed plane. Nothing else is as dramatic, and the concept plays like a soundtrack crying out for visuals, but End Of Innocence remains heartfelt and ends with hope at Ground Zero. Ten per cent of sales will go to garysinisefoundation.org. ■■■■■■■■■■ Neil Jeffries BEST OF THE REST Other new releases out this month. Vapours Of Morphine Fear And Fantasy SCHNITZEL Despite Dana Colley’s sax being the only remaining link to Morphine’s classic line-up, the spirit and vision of the original trio’s guitar-free rock endures, if forever haunted by former frontman Mark Sandman’s tragic loss. 7/10 Fur When You Walk Away 777 The Brighton quartet’s first album allies classic songwriting with shimmering power-indie guitar washes. Dramatic compositions recall baroque, gothic 60s psychpop, yet retain a catchy contemporary edge. 7/10 Holy Death Trio Introducing RIPPLE MUSIC Textbook hard-driving action rock that allies doom-laden Iommi muscle with pedal-to-the-metal, white-linin’ Motörhead ferocity. Introducing is laced with Texan blues and powered by raw emphatic fury. 8/10 Witch Fever Reincarnate EP MUSIC FOR NATIONS Insistent, insurgent and irresistible, Manchester’s Witch Fever blaze, harangue, assault synapses, bust out deftly-applied tritones and generally do exactly what contemporary punk ought to be doing to the fat-sucking patriachy. 9/10 Station Perspective STATION MUSIC/AWAL Retrogressive production, keening over-stretching vocals, reconstituted hooks – Station offer smooth, inoffensive angles on NWOCR traditionalism that, while comfortable as all hell, lack essential bite. 5/10 Bagful Of Beez Do Androids Dream Of Electric Beatles CHEERSQUAD Invariably teetering on the brink of the intentionally wacky, this latest project from former Meanies frontman and Australian indie-rock stalwart Link McLennan aims for genre fluid classic pop and, occasionally (Syco), hits its target. 7/10 New Age Doom Lee Scratch Perry’s Guide To The Universe WE ARE BUSY BODIES An engaging blend of slowcore, drone, post-rock and dub that finds the Canadian instro-experimenters (and Donny McCaslin) accompanying late Black Ark visionary Perry as he freeforms spliffedup pearls of loved-up wisdom. 8/10 Old Man Wizard Kill Your Servants Quietly THE OBELISK Not as brutal as it looks, here’s the third (and final) set from a progmetal trio you might have missed. Vocally understated, yet boasting guitar parts as soaring and emotive as anything in their genre. Destined to be a cult classic. 9/10 Sun Atoms Let There Be Light ACID TEST RECORDINGS Produced by and featuring Dandy Warhols guitarist Peter Holmström, this Jsun Atoms-fronted combination of psych-soundscapes and lush edifices of evocative guitar evokes Leonard Cohen and JAMC alike. Dazzling. 8/10 Fabrizio Grossi & Soul Garage Experience Counterfeited Soulstice Vol. 1 SELF-RELEASED While an accomplished player/producer and sideman (Supersonic Blues Machine/Slash, Billy Gibbons) whether Grossi’s relatively pedestrian vocal personailty can carry this high-pedigree combo (Stephen Perkins/Kenny Aronoff) remains to be seen. 6/10 Bogwife A Passage Divine MAJESTIC MOUNTAIN Danish quartet Bogwife are big news in doom circles. Last year’s debut went top two in the Doom charts and netted them a Doomie Award from Doomed And Stoned. They sound an awful lot like Sabbath. Only more doomed. 6/10 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 77

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REISSUES The Rolling Stones Tattoo You (40th Anniversary Deluxe) POLYDOR/INTERSCOPE/UME Their first release since Charlie’s departure spectacularly reboots 1981 out-takes classic. “ Iknow there’s an album in there,” understated Keith Richards to this writer in October 1980. Ostensibly (and less-than-enthusiastically) promoting Emotional Rescue, he preferred to talk about the six C90 cassettes sent to him and Mick Jagger brimming with demos, instrumentals, unfinished tracks and even complete songs that would manifest as Tattoo You the following August. After the record company required the next album to coincide with 1981-1982’s world tour, the Stones had taken up Chris Kimsey’s time-saving suggestion of trawling through hundreds of tape reels stretching back to 1973’s Goats Head Soup. The producer spent three months turning up forgotten gems including Start Me Up (its sole rock version among dozens of reggae takes), Waiting On A Friend, incantatory Slave (garnished with Billy Preston’s organ) and Tops (featuring Mick Taylor). Outtakes from Some Girls and Emotional Rescue included Hang Fire and Keith’s joyful Little T&A. New track Neighbours saw Mick addressing Keith’s uncompromising domestic situation. After Jagger painstakingly grafted new vocals, the tracks went to New York, jazz legend Sonny Rollins overdubbing sax and Bob Clearmountain’s mixes unifying the sound. Heralded by Start Me Up (their last UK Top 10 hit), Tattoo You topped charts on both sides of Atlantic while, 80 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM playing to four million punters, the record-breaking world tour set templates for modern stadium spectacle. Losing none of its lustre, the album is bolstered by Lost And Found’s disc featuring nine tracks from that seemingly bottomless well of out-takes given a modern respray and overdubs. Bookended by contagious single Living In The Heart Of Love (from Munich ’74) and reggaefied version of Start Me Up, tracks long familiar from bootlegs are amped up with new vocals, guitars and mixes, including Dobie Gray’s Drift Away, Jimmy Reed’s Shame Shame Shame and rip-snorting Fiji Jim. Early 70s majestic swagger charges thunderous Chi-Lites cover Troubles A-Comin’, and Exile-era ballad Fast Talking Slow Walking is a delightful surprise. Instead of 1981 tour album Still Life, the set includes June 1982’s entire 25-track set from Wembley Stadium, the Stones on form blazing through classics, current tracks and curios like Eddie Cochran’s Twenty Flight Rock. Watts’ astonishingly intuitive genius gives every song its heartbeat, Mick’s immortal observation “Charlie’s good tonight, in ’ee?” ringing loud and clear throughout this sumptuous addition to the Stones’ ongoing refurbished legacy. ■■■■■■■■■■ Kris Needs Pearl Jam Reissues EPIC/LEGACY 30th anniversary of the first album; 25th anniversary of the fourth. Unashamedly ambitious, unashamedly in thrall to classic 70s rock (most obviously Led Zeppelin), rather than the inconsequential punk acts who inspired Kurt Cobain, Pearl Jam were never at one with the other grungers. And they had Eddie Vedder, who would have been a great singer, whatever musical wave he rode in on. Both remixed for digital re-release without extra tracks, Ten (8/10) and No Code (8/10) showcase just why Pearl Jam have outlasted and outsold their peers. Ten in 1991 was a massive statement of intent: huge riffs, the muscular but twinkly pop of Even Flow and Alive and a heart of darkness on Black (‘my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds’) and Release. Five years later, the more nuanced No Code, which is also re-pressed on vinyl with nine Polaroid lyric cards, found them stretching out. Vedder had taken control of the band, but he’d swapped rage and despair for something approaching spiritual uplift, especially on the hymnal Who You Are and the almost hushed I’m Open. The more traditional fare such as Red Mosquito and the harmonica-laden Smile were a reminder that the old Pearl Jam hadn’t been completely kicked into touch. Indeed, it would return two years later, with the less adventurous Yield. John Aizlewood Primal Scream Screamadelica double vinyl, Singles Box and Demodelica SONY The complete musical story of the inaugural Mercury Prize winner. Given the hosannas that have become orthodoxy over the last 30 years, it’s become all too easy to forget that the gap between the release of the epochdefining single Loaded and the eventual Screamadelica (8/10) album was some 18 months, a period of time that also saw chancers including The Farm and The Soup Dragons attempt to steal the march on what came to be known as “indie dance”. Ever the pop and rock theorists, what separated Primal Scream from the rest of the pack was their ability to make the link from the aciddrenched 60s they’d been aping with their previous albums to the ecstasy culture that had gone overground at the turn of the 90s. Consequently, and in tandem with producers including the then-novice Andrew Weatherall, Primal Scream eventually transcended contemporary mores to create what was a new psychedelic vocabulary. The real filling across these three releases is not so much the album that defined Primal Scream but the four singles (now conveniently boxed, 9/10) that preceded its release. Loaded may have dimmed through over-familiarity, but its effect on turning on heads to dance is undeniable. Terry Farley’s blending of house, gospel and rock’n’roll on the extended version of Come Together remains a celebratory joy, while its Hypnotone Brain Machine Mix will forever evoke late nights of wild abandon. Demodelica (5/10) is exactly what you’d expect. And finally, Come Together (Jam Studio Monitor Mix) and the various Don’t Fight It, Feel It mixes show how much Primal Scream were cribbing from Elvis’ Suspicious Minds and The Beatles’ Hey Bulldog respectively. Julian Marszalek Pink Floyd A Momentary Lapse Of Reason – Remixed And Updated WARNER MUSIC Remixed tracks from 2019 The Later Years box set released in 360 reality audio. A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (1987) was the first album released by Pink Floyd following the departure of Roger Waters who, as the group’s principal creative architect, assumed they could no more continue without him than The Experience could minus Jimi Hendrix. David Gilmour, however, begged to differ. He re-recruited keyboardist Rick Wright on a wage, brought back in Nick Mason and also co-composed with outsiders including Phil Manzanera and Anthony Moore. The 2019 reworkings were designed to honour the late Wright by restoring some of his

original keyboard contributions, while Nick Mason re-recorded new drum tracks. Gilmour had at the time described his collaborators as “catatonic” but these updated versions are designed to restore a Floyd-like balance and redress that insult. The album received mixed reviews, understandably. Signs Of Life flickers and stirs at a very leisurely pace, a firefly weave of early morning guitar phrases and keyboards, while Learning To Fly, inspired by the aviation lessons Gilmour was taking at the time, is strangely non-aerial, barely ascending above the turgid. Gilmour musters some passion on The Dogs Of War but Yet Another Movie and Terminal Frost are Floyd ordinaire. The too-brief A New Machine, parts one and two are the best moments, Gilmour’s voice triggering and shadowed by electronic effects in a unique, suspenseful meld. And the album would prove a commercial triumph, proof of the power of the Pink Floyd brand, which elevated what was essentially a Gilmour solo album into an international success. ■■■■■■■■■■ David Stubbs Steppenwolf Magic Carpet Ride (1967-71) ESOTERIC The birth of heavy metal. One of rock’s most potent anthems, Born To Be Wild was a ubiquitous rallying cry throughout the summer of 1968 and again a year later when it featured in the Easy Rider soundtrack alongside Steppenwolf’s other claim to fame, The Pusher. Born To Be Wild also features the phrase ‘Heavy metal thunder’, which then became a description of their music. Both songs were on Steppenwolf’s debut album and gave them a nearimpossible act to follow, although they came close several times on the eight albums that were released between 1967 and 1971, most notably with Magic Carpet Ride, Rock Me, Jupiter’s Child and Don’t Cry. And then there are the nudge-nudge songs like Don’t Step On The Grass, Sam. Considering they were putting out two albums a year and had frequent line-up changes behind tall, gangly singer and leader John Kay, the overall standard of their hard rock remains remarkably high. But by 1971’s For Ladies Only their creativity had been squeezed dry, and Kay doesn’t even bother to sing on some tracks. And you might also want to skip the Early Steppenwolf disc, which is actually a bunch of largely indecipherable live tracks by the band’s earlier incarnation, Sparrow. ■■■■■■■■■■ Hugh Fielder SIXX: A.M. Hits BETTER NOISE MUSIC Misleading title for decent compilation. Five albums and 14 years on from their formation, Nikki Sixx’s other band have put together a retrospective record with a difference – the difference being that six of these 20 tracks are previously unheard. Of those 14 songs from the back catalogue, Life Is Beautiful, This Is Gonna Hurt and Maybe It’s Time represent the guys at their finest, possessed of a style similar to Stone Sour. Two of the unreleased tracks – Skin and Talk To Me – are competent remixes, while there’s also an emotionally staggering piano vocal rendition of Life Is Beautiful. Finally, Sixx: A.M. introduce three new songs, the pick being The First 21, which is bristling with hope and intent. But unfortunately Waiting All My Life sounds like a Foreigner castoff and Penetrate comes over as an 80s reject. Annoyingly, Hits ends up showcasing both the band’s musical insight and lack of consistency. ■■■■■■■■■■ Malcolm Dome Sepultura Sepulnation: The Studio Albums 1998-2009 BMG Belo Horizonte metal titans polish the canon. Currently enjoying a long overdue resurgence in both popularity and prominence, Sepultura have good reason to believe that these collected albums are ripe for reassessment. The first five studio records of the Derrick Green era have been remastered and put on vinyl for the first time in a decade here, and they have all aged extremely well. Against (1998) remains a fiery but patchy affair, with the brutal Choke a very obvious high point, while 2001’s Nation saw the band’s sound coalesce around a more coherent vision, with Green’s scabrous roar now a compelling focal point, and songs like the 56-second Revolt and the snotty Politricks (featuring Jello Biafra) oozing subversive intent. Paired with the brilliant Revolusongs cover EP (U2! Devo! Hellhammer!), 2003’s Roorback was widely hailed as a return to form and still sounds indecently amped-up and gnarly today. In particular, listening to Apes Of God at high volume will definitely not improve your driving. Meanwhile, concept blow-outs Dante XXI (2006) and A-Lex (2009) revealed new levels of creativity and unstoppable riff generation from Brazil’s finest, with orchestras and unfettered experimentation now firmly part of the deal. Alright, so nothing here quite rivals Sepultura’s latest album, Quadra, but most bands would still kill for a catalogue this sturdy. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dom Lawson Judas Priest 50 Heavy Metal Years Of Music SONY Priest celebrate their half-century with a career-spanning metal blow-out. Black Sabbath invented heavy metal, but Judas Priest drove it forward, rapidly accelerating the genre’s development. The limited-edition 50 Heavy Metal Years Of Music isn’t their first rodeo at the box-set ranch, but in comparison with 2004’s 4-disc Metalogy and The Complete Albums’ (2012) vanilla round-up and omission of the Ripper Owens period, this 42-CD behemoth hits the motherlode. All 18 studio albums and six live long-players are here, including their previously deleted Ripperfronted output. For die-hards, there are eight newly mastered live shows (five previously unreleased) recorded between 1979 and 1991, offering full-throttle classics, a theme continued on Beyond Live And Rare’s collection of buried gems (including unreleased epic Mother Sun). Rocka Rolla (1974) lacks the edge of later albums, though doomy showstopper Run Of The Mill telegraphs what’s to come. Sad Wings Of Destiny (1976) finds their classic sound crystallising (pre-figuring the NWOBHM) as Rob Halford’s uncanny lungpower blends with KK Downing and Glenn Tipton’s bonecrushing guitars, displaying an aggression rare for the time on Victim Of Changes. Session drummer Simon Phillips adds double-bass drumming to Sin After Sin (1977), the band sowing the seeds of thrash on Call For The Priest, refined on Stained Class’ (1978) Exciter. The same year’s Killing Machine distils melody and ferocity into concise necksnappers, a format refined with hitmaking flair (Living After Midnight) on British Steel (1980). Point Of Entry (1981) alternates experimental tracks with brooding metal, before Screaming For Vengeance (1982) and Defenders Of The Faith (1984) hit a platinum-selling balance between sharp songwriting and blunt force trauma. Turbo’s (1986) lighter sound and guitar synths polarised fans, Ram It Down (1988) is uneven, but Painkiller (1990) is essential, facemelting Priest. During Halford’s absence, Owens acquitted himself admirably on the brutal Jugulator (1997) and Demolition (2001), before the metal god’s return for the sterling Angel Of Retribution (2005) and rewarding concept album Nostradamus (2008). Redeemer Of Souls (2014) was a solid start for guitarist Richie Faulkner, this incarnation hitting its stride on the masterful Firepower (2018). An exhaustive summation of Priest’s intense studio creativity and onstage vibrancy. ■■■■■■■■■■ Rich Davenport CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 81

REISSUES The Beatles Let It Be – Special Edition PARLOPHONE The final Beatles album, peered at from yet another angle, reveals a new perspective. Most records find their reputation improving with the passage of time, but Let It Be – the last album released by The Beatles but recorded before Abbey Road – has had a longer wait than most. The NME’s original review called it “a cardboard tombstone, a sad and tatty end to a musical fusion which wiped clean and drew again the face of pop music” and while its best songs – the title track, Get Back, The Long And Winding Road – have become staples of late-era Beatle playlists, as an album it’s long been considered something of a mess, ranging from Phil Spector-produced grandiosity to annoying jams. Paul McCartney even had it remixed as Let It Be… Naked in 2003 (let it go, more like) while the movie of the sessions remains unavailable, instead being replaced by a Peter Jackson documentary apparently showing how happy the Beatles were at the time as they played at dawn in cold film studios on songs they loved so much that they wouldn’t release them until after they’d split up. But time and reissue campaigns are great healers, and even Let It Be has its fans. As a document it’s essential, and with such 82 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM items as the band’s rooftop (final) concert and the Glyn Johns-mixed Get Back album to consider (as well as hours and hours of rehearsal material), there’s a lot worth revisiting: which is what this Special Edition does. Five discs (one of which is an EP) of live songs, rehearsals, significant between-songs chatter, and – at last – the Johns LP make it an essential purchase for fans (and a chance to own another remixed Beatles album for people who thought the originals weren’t good enough at the time). We are, perhaps sadly and perhaps not, spared the audio from the film reels, which means we don’t get Suzy Parker or the Lennon-sung Get Back (and related easily-misjudged out-takes), but we do get the birth of Something (“like a cauliflower”), an early Gimme Some Truth and many, often superior takes of Let It Be songs. At no points does the listener throw up their arms and shout, “My God! Let It Be is the greatest Beatles album ever made!” but this larger, panoramic overview does wonders for the record, giving us a bird’seye view of the sessions. Buy it and you’ll play it a lot. ■■■■■■■■■■ David Quantick Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds B-Sides & Rarities – Parts 1 and 2 BMG Outstanding out-takes set is updated and upgraded. On the 2006 song Vortex, Cave beseeches his inamorata to ‘come on, step into the vortex where you belong’. He and the Bad Seeds couldn’t decide whether its tussle between romanticism and nihilism was a Grinderman track or not, and thus hid its whirling majesty until now. The original 56-track B-Sides & Rarities, from ’05, is here joined by 27 unreleased cuts from ’07-’20. It’s a tumultuous treat. Cave’s always said the first chapter was his favourite of his own works, and the eel-slippery, panto-sinister sequel is every bit its equal. A cover of Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s Free To Walk, with Debbie Harry, is flawless but not bloodless. The tentative, fragile beginnings of pieces which morphed into Bad Seeds lodestars can be heard, and that crack in the voice conveys both swagger and sensitivity. The first collection’s tendency to veer into silly jokes when stuck is dropped, and these new additions to the archives possess more guile, grief and glamour. The mournful Life Per Se was left off Skeleton Tree because it was “too sad” (never stopped him before), while haunted hymn Earthlings didn’t make the cut for Ghosteen (it’s deeply beautiful). No mere shavings grab-bag, this is rarefied rapture. ■■■■■■■■■■ Chris Roberts The Replacements Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash RHINO This is, if not ‘the’, certainly ‘a’ motherlode. A deluxe 4-CD/1-LP of the first Replacements album, featuring 100 tracks – 67 of them previously unreleased (alternate takes, rough mixes, the band’s first demos from 1980 and so forth). There is a 12x12 hardcover book, an alternate version of the original album and a live set from January 1981. Whoa. Emerging from the Minneapolis hardcore scene of the late 1970s – Hüsker Dü were notable peers, both bands influencing one another – The Replacements always were a little too loose, a little too reckless to fit alongside their more straightlaced compatriots. Plus, Paul Westerberg right from the off had a killer whiskeysoaked drawl of a voice – as evidenced by early songs such as the minimal Johnny’s Gonna Die and full-throttle Don’t Ask Why. Replacements’ songs were in search of the next cheap thrill, the next drunken party. Closer to Dave Edmunds or Johnny Thunders than Ramones, this album bristles with a youthful energy and rash brevity that serves it well, 40 years down the line. Songs slam-drive into other songs, few barely reaching the two-minute mark, ill-disciplined and wonderfully raucous, the brash young sound of a band still with the world at their feet. ■■■■■■■■■■ Everett True Neil Young Carnegie Hall 1970 SHAKEY PICTURES RECORDS/ REPRISE RECORDS Only just after the Goldrush. The opening arrival in Neil Young’s Official Bootleg series (five more to follow next year) revisits his first solo show at Midtown Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall whose acoustical integrity showcases a performance of divine inspiration. The only wonder is why it wasn’t released before, since the 23 songs range from Buffalo Springfield and early solo favourites – Down By The River, Cinnamon Girl, Expecting To Fly – to the unreleased at that time Old Man, and See The Sky About To Rain – though The Byrds version in 1973 is arguably better when tackled by Gene Clark. With six recently minted Goldrush numbers, the title track and Birds are both played on piano – and “all the introductions are exactly the same, just so you know”. The rapturous reception indicates Young’s querulous musing was right up New York’s street. Hearing Southern Man played on a single acoustic guitar as opposed to the thrash of the album is one epiphany, while the windswept Don’t Let It Bring You Down is cataclysmic. Other treats: Bad Fog Of Loneliness before he aired it on the Johnny Cash Show and the

semi-rare pre-Crazy Horse Dance, Dance, Dance. Magnificent. ■■■■■■■■■■ Max Bell Whitesnake Restless Heart RHINO Nowhere near as bad as some claim. OK, in Whitesnake terms this is a long way from being a classic. But listening to the new mix of the original album, this is better than history has painted it. David Coverdale wanted Restless Heart to be a solo album, however for commercial reasons it came out in 1997 under the Whitesnake name. Now he’s had it remixed to fit his initial purpose, and this has improved songs like All In The Name Of Love, Don’t Fade Away and Too Many Tears, accentuating the soul, blues influences. And both Restless Heart plus You’re So Fine capture something of the spirit the band had prior to their early presuperstar days. Naturally, there’s a raft of extras on a super-deluxe 4-CD/ DVD edition. These include studio out-takes and demos, which sound closer to Coverdale’s ambitions than the way the album eventually sounded. The DVD has a feature on the making of Restless Heart, plus the videos shot at the time. Fans can also opt for the double CD, double LP or single CD versions. Restless Heart is still relatively minor in the Whitesnake world – but it does still come as a pleasant surprise. ■■■■■■■■■■ Malcolm Dome David Crosby If I Could Only Remember My Name RHINO 2-CD reissue of 1971 debut solo album featuring bonus out-takes, extra tracks, alternative versions. That If I Could Only Remember My Name was panned by critics in 1971 says more about 1971 critics than Crosby. Recorded while he was still coming to terms with the death of his girlfriend Christine Hinton in a car crash in 1969, it’s an album which speaks to future mutations of rock and folk, its emotional drive buckling and melting conventional forms. Although a solo album it features numerous guests, supportive contemporaries including Joni Mitchell, Jack Casady, Grace Slick, Paul Kantner as well as Graham Nash and Neil Young, who co-compose opener Music Is Love, a thing of ragged, therapeutic glory. Jerry Garcia in particular had Crosby’s back, soloing piercingly on Cowboy Movie and trading irregular licks on the protest song What Are Their Names. Ultimately, mourning must be suffered alone and that’s the feel of his haunting arrangement of the traditional song Orleans and the opening section of I’d Swear There Was Somebody Here, stretching country harmony into the ethereal, ghostly realms of the avant garde. But the rising harmonic crest of Laughing (‘I was mistaken’) is equally devastating. The bonus disc truly is a bonus, featuring early demos such as Riff 1, unreleased material such as Bach Mode, a further demonstration of Crosby’s sonic aspirations and an alternative version of Cowboy Movie featuring a heated Neil Young solo. These aren’t dispensable cuts but are of a piece with the tentative, triumphant experimentalism of the album as a whole. ■■■■■■■■■■ David Stubbs The Black Keys El Camino NONESUCH Massively expanded version of their seventh album. If Brothers took The Black Keys into the mainstream, its successor El Camino completed the Ohio duo’s unlikely ascension to the arena circuit. Co-produced and co-written by Brian “Danger Mouse” Burton, it’s still an earthy joy 10 years on. Nuanced beneath its deceptively simple exterior, it’s a less art-project White Stripes, with grizzled, hook-laden songs to treasure and, stiff as the competition is, Lonely Boy might be their finest moment. To celebrate, not only have they remastered the original album, but there’s also a 100-page photobook, a lithograph, a poster and a whopping 40 extra tracks. There’s an entire 2011 Portland concert which turns out to be a giddy celebration of their new elevated status. The singalong opening to Little Black Submarines is goosebumps time and the whistling on Tighten Up may be rickety, but it helps keep things real. Also, there’s a thumping 10-track BBC session, where to the delight of the crowd, they trawl their catalogue as far back as the debut album’s I’ll Be Your Man. If that wasn’t enough, there are audience-free Electro-Vox studio versions of assorted El Camino and Brothers songs. The extras don’t usurp the originals, but that’s simply a reflection of the quality of those originals. Terrific. ■■■■■■■■■■ John Aizlewood Joni Mitchell Archives Vol 2 – The Reprise Years (1968-1971) RHINO Unreleased takes and live performances: sparks caught. The latest revelation from Joni’s vaults is a 5-disc box set from the time between the releases of Song To A Seagull (her debut) and Blue (fourth album). Chronologically ordered, it tells a story. Actually, over a hundred stories. From home demos to studio sessions, through live shows climbing from coffee houses to TV broadcasts, it traces the ascent of an increasingly confident, creatively ambitious woman. The folk-singer anecdotes and shy giggles of the earlier days evolve into consummate deliveries of Chelsea Morning on John Peel’s Top Gear and Both Sides Now at Carnegie Hall. By Disc 5, she’s hitting the heights of the songs which became Blue – River, A Case Of You – with James Taylor guesting, for the Beeb. To say a star is born doesn’t feel right. A major, important talent is confirmed. There’s a disarming innocence to the first two discs, as it’s mostly just Joni and her guitar, relaxed, unstudied. In an Ottawa café, Ladies Of The Canyon is introduced with a chuckle at how rock stars are being driven out of LA’s canyons by hordes of celeb-spotters. Tellingly, she chats elsewhere of the influence jazz made on her writing, while at Carnegie Hall she’s interrupted one song in by a Valentine card. As we move on, the versions of, say, Urge For Going and For Free are inhabited with greater focus and depth. Whenever such “deleted scenes” emerge, something’s lost (mystique) and something’s gained. Joni’s gift, audibly growing here, wins out. ■■■■■■■■■■ Chris Roberts BEST OF THE REST Other new releases out this month. R.E.M. New Adventures In Hi-Fi CRAFT Recorded on and around 1995’s Monster tour, the epic NAIH-F captures the band at their creative peak: relaxed, inspired, uncontrived, casually cresting. Newly deluxe with extras across two CDs and Blu-ray, an absolute must. 9/10 Echo & The Bunnymen 2 vinyl reissues DEMON A relatively lacklustre Ian McCulloch sighs along with Will Sergeant’s multi-faceted chiming guitar on 2001 ninth Flowers (7/10) while four years later time-marking tenth Siberia (6/10) takes the reformed pair a trifle further off the boil. The Syn Flowerman: Rare Blooms From The Syn GRAPEFRUIT With titles like Flowerman and 14 Hour Technicolour Dream these onetime Action-alike Wembley mods sound a lot like cynically psyching bandwagon jumpers, but bassist Chris Squire’s subsequent Yes success validates their slim ’65-’67 legacy. 6/10 The Charlatans A Head Full Of Ideas THEN/REPUBLIC OF MUSIC A beautifully curated 6-disc (hits, lives, demos, remixes) blue vinyl box that will delight fans and captivate the curious. (90s) era-defining tunes, blazing hooks, hammered Hammonds, stunt hair. Stone Roses with a work ethic. 8/10 The Cult Born Into This: Savage Edition HNE 2007’s Youth-produced eighth (now modestly expanded) from the Astbury/Duffy Cult core serially oversells songs that are intrinsically mediocre at best. Characteristically brash, ultimately saved by pure bragadaccio, but far from their best. 6/10 Paul Weller 2 vinyl reissues CRAFT Weller’s return-to-form 2002 sixth (Illumination, 8/10), featuring Noel Gallagher (drums, bass) and a Kelly Jones duet, sparkles with a reborn joyous intent, while Days Of Speed (6/10) is a workmanlike acoustic 2001 live set. Roger Glover Snapshot+ EDEL Its intrinsic funkiness authenticised by Randall Bramblett’s keys, sax and smoky Georgian vocal, the Purple bassist’s fourth solo outing from ‘02 touches elsewhere on warm reggae and sultry blues. Glover stars, but Bramblett shines brightest. 7/10 Vinegar Joe Finer Thing: The Island Recordings 1972-1973 CHERRY RED All three Robert Palmer/Elkie Brooks-fronted albums boxed and remastered with non-LP singles. VJ fuse gin-house bluesing (Brooks’ Joplin-channeling vocal potency sometimes grates) with blue-eyed soul to raucous effect. 7/10 The Pop Group & Dennis Bovell Y In Dub MUTE A stunning stripped-to-the-bone reinvention of the peculiarly evergreen post-punk/agit-funk ’79 debut from Mark Stewart’s everchallenging Bristol iconoclasts, by the album’s original producer, Slits/ lovers rock visionary Dennis ‘Blackbeard’ Bovell. 7/10 Various Breakthrough: Underground Sounds Of 1971 ESOTERIC Another loosely themed catalogue ramraid resets obscure gems from obvious candidates (Broughton, Fairies, Hawks) alongside sore thumb hits (ELO’s 10538 Overture) and actual lost classics (Audience’s House On The Hill). 7/10 Various Think I’m Going Weird: British Psych 66-68 GRAPEFRUIT A huge 122 tracks from UK psych’s l’age d’or across five CDs in an annotated book. Usual scene suspects (Procols, Creation) are offset by 11 previously unreleased rare groovers. And these (Friday’s Chyld, Medium Rare) are the weirdos you want. 8/10 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 83

STUFF Mellencamp: The Biography Paul Rees CONSTABLE The man they call Little Bastard, up close and personal. Midway through a tour in support of his 1994 album Dance Naked, John Mellencamp began to suffer a pain in his arm. It turned out that the 43-year-old, 80-cigs-a-day singer was having a heart attack. “When I found out, man, was I pissed off,” he recalls in this impressive biography. “Oh, I cussed that doctor one side down the other.” Mellencamp always was the ornery face of US heartland rock, even in the face of serious medical emergencies. But in this book author Paul Rees digs deep to uncover the man behind the scowl, charting not only his journey from hayseed rock’n’roller from the backwaters of Indiana to one of the defining voices of American music in the 80s and beyond. Mellencamp came to stardom late, after years of struggle – he was in his early thirties when Jack And Diane broke big. He was still called John Cougar at that point, the name bestowed on him in the 70s by original manager Tony Defries, and one the singer hated. That would be the last time he listened to anyone. Mellencamp’s life reads like one long fight: with his father, his management his record labels, his bandmates, his previous and current families. At one point he’s described as someone “who has to win at all costs”. It makes for a hugely entertaining tale, even if the impression is of a man 84 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM BOOKS & DVDs who could frequently be an asshole for being an asshole’s sake. There are moments of droll comedy. When Billy Joel is asked to induct Mellencamp into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, the piano man calls his current and former bandmates to get a measure of the man, and the feedback isn’t wholly positive. Elsewhere, Mellencamp corners then-president Barack Obama and informs him that he’s just too damn conservative (Mellencamp is a bleeding-knuckle liberal who supports the Black Lives Matter movement, to the disgust of a chunk of his constituent audience). The book digs deep too, into the genetically handed-down strengths and flaws that have moulded him, and the lifelong struggles with anxiety and panic attacks that have shaped his behaviour (tellingly, details of the latter come from other people rather than from Mellencamp himself). It’s authorised in so much as Mellencamp, his family and his friends are all involved (at least people he hasn’t pissed off beyond redemption). And while Rees writes with the admiration of a long-time fan, nothing is held back: Mellencamp’s triumphs are celebrated, but his failures and failings remain unvarnished, much like the man himself. ■■■■■■■■■■ Dave Everley The Storyteller Dave Grohl SIMON & SCHUSTER Warm words of a life in rock from the Foo Fighter in chief. As you’d expect from someone who has spent the last three decades at the forefront of rock’n’roll, Dave Grohl has plenty of tales of musical obsession, dizzying highs and dreadful lows. But more than the music, this memoir is an ode to family, both biological and chosen. Each anecdote is encircled by love for the people around him, from his sainted mother, adored children, and his cousin Tracey who introduced him to punk rock, to the guys in his bands and the “extended family of freaks and geeks” that turn up to his shows. A warm, funny and natural storyteller, Grohl spins a fine yarn, self-deprecating and pinging from subject to subject before circling back to his original point, from his early days with Scream through the chaos of Nirvana’s rise and the tragedy of their fall, to his eventual coronation as the Nicest Guy In Rock with Foo Fighters. Tellingly, he never badmouths anyone, and those he may have a strained relationship with (paging Ms Love) are noticeable by their absence in the narrative. For a good old dose of the warm and fuzzies, The Storyteller is tough to beat. ■■■■■■■■■■ Emma Johnston A Furious Devotion: The Authorised Story Of Shane MacGowan Richard Balls OMNIBUS The Pogues legend’s life sketched warts and all. His creative output might have been sporadic since The Pogues’ 1980s prime, but Shane MacGowan still exerts a powerful fascination for rock fans of a certain generation. And while his story has been told before, Richard Balls, with endorsement from the man himself and some diligent research, offers some new glimpses into a complex personality, along with some illuminating snapshots of the ever-more-ravaged figure he has cut in recent years. Despite the ‘authorised’ status, there are numerous stories that don’t shine the kindest light on the subject, from his proud stories of being “Minister For Torture” at Westminster School (for which read ‘bully’) to testimonies of his manipulative disregard towards those around him. Balls also pinpoints the key to MacGowan’s and The Pogues’ appeal: the fact that their songs captured a “London Irish” experience rather than a straightforward punkifying of Irish folk. And how. ■■■■■■■■■■ Johnny Sharp Metallica: The Black Album In Black & White Ross Halfin REEL ART PRESS Fascinating photographic insight into the Black Album era. So much has been written about the album that propelled Metallica into the mainstream that there’s surely nothing left to say. But this book works so well because it is a photographic documentary of the era that for many defines the band’s career. Photographer Halfin had unique access to the band, not only as they recorded the album, but also on the subsequent marathon tour. Looking at this vast array of black-and-white photos, the whole vibe and thrill of being close to Metallica at the time comes to life. There are brief comments from the author and members of Metallica as the 115 pages unfurl, but for the most part the visuals are allowed to tell the story. A worthy part of the ongoing 30th anniversary celebrations of the Black Album. ■■■■■■■■■■ Malcolm Dome The First 21: How I Became Nikki Sixx Frank Feranna & Nikki Sixx HACHETTE Mötley Crüe leader’s surprisingly touching memoir, written with himself. Rather than dwell on the pageturning horror of Mötley Crüe’s peak, The First 21 (as in the first 21 years) stops when Franklin Feranna, bassist with unsigned local heroes London, leaves a Los Angeles courtroom legally re-christened Nikki Sixx. Feranna was no angel: he stole from most people he met, and even his new name was appropriated from Squeeze (not that one)

leader Niki Syxx. Yet he’s so obsessed and so cheerily undaunted by knock-backs that you can’t help but root for him. For all that his mother dated a pre-fame Richard Pryor and his uncle Don Zimmerman was the president of Capital Records (like everyone else, he passed on London), the young Feranna was passed between assorted extended family members. But when he reaches Los Angeles he cleans tight-fisted James Caan’s pool, phones Sweet singer Brian Connolly to (unsuccessfully) entice him to join London, and develops a burning hatred for Rush that exists to this day. Bless. ■■■■■■■■■■ John Aizlewood From Manchester With Love: The Life And Opinions Of Tony Wilson Paul Morley FABER AND FABER Biography of the Factory Records founder. In a world where Factory Records gets its own exhibitions 40 years after it was founded, where New Order members write their autobiographies and members of Happy Mondays are regular guests on reality TV shows, it seems odd that a biography of Factory founder and contrarian genius Tony Wilson hasn’t previously appeared. The reason is that Wilson’s own choice of writer, Paul Morley, has taken his time somewhat over this book. And it’s not difficult to see why. It is as much a (brilliant) biography of Manchester as it is of Tony Wilson, a history book, a collection of essays: from Manchester with love, but also with love to its subject. Nerds and FAC(t) fans will be satisfied, as will fans of Morley’s wideranging writing. It’s a fantastic, sprawling, superbly researched book that’s both heartfelt tribute and essential reference work. ■■■■■■■■■■ David Quantick The Velvet Underground Dir: Todd Haynes APPLE TV+ Fittingly arthouse take on the original New York influencers. Music from dreams, the sound of the subconscious. It’s a hallucinatory lexicon employed by the talking heads (friends, peers, celebrity acolytes, surviving members) of Todd Haynes’s documentary on the Velvet Underground. Haynes’s visuals seem plucked from a monochrome dreamspace too, evoking – in boxedout imitation of Warhol’s movie portraits – the production-line art of The Factory, the hypnotic happenings of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, and the dream syndicate who gathered at 56 Ludlow St, NYC to tune their instruments to the refrigerator: “the drone of civilisation,” says the Velvets’ John Cale. The story is similarly arthouse: a depressed, rebellious suburban escapee, aiming for rock’n’roll stardom via Ginsberg and heroin (Lou Reed), runs into an isolated avant-garde Welshman smashing pianos with axes (Cale). Together they make what Nico calls “the kind of noise you’d hear when it’s a storm outside”, before splitting up in a flash of ego, thwarted ambition and amphetamine white noise. Both soundtrack and narrative, the stuff of the sweetest nightmares. ■■■■■■■■■■ Mark Beaumont Grebo: The Loud & Lousy Story Of Gaye Bykers On Acid And Crazyhead Rich Deakin HEADPRESS West Midlands’ proto-grunge gospel. There’s a none-too-tenuous similarity between Deviants and Pink Fairies (co-subjects of Keep It Together!, Deakin’s previous dual band biog) and Leicester’s Gaye Bykers and Crazyhead. Both were darlings of their contemporary counter-culture, appealed to bikers, predominantly male leatherstudded louts and the generally unsavoury-by-choice, and sold far fewer records than their legends suggest. The Grebos were basically the late-60s UK underground through a post-punk filter: different T-shirts, equally unwashed. Grebo’s amphetamine-paced pages sizzle with infectious energy. Central protagonists spew their unsavoury tales, and copious monochrome shots leer from almost every spread. It’s a tale of lows, highs, Pork Beasts, Mary Marys, inky covers, dirty thunders, build ‘em ups ‘n’ knock ‘em downs. If your 80s were more defined by cider than Silvikrin, this could be your bible. ■■■■■■■■■■ Ian Fortnam

p100 Manic Street Preachers The Welsh dragons breathe their customary fire in Yorkshire. The High-Voltage What’s On Guide Edited By Ian Fortnam (Reviews) and Dave Ling (Tours) MARK LATHAM p88 Interviews p93 Tour Dates p97 Live Reviews CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 87

Praying Mantis: (l-r) Hans in’t Zandt, Tino Troy, Andy Burgess, John ‘Jaycee’ Cuijpers and Chris Troy. Praying Mantis Tino Troy ponders the band’s new tour and the time that has passed since Time Tells No Lies. Formed in 1974 by London-based siblings Tino (guitar, vocals) and Chris Troy (bass), Praying Mantis broke through during the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal and continue to perform powerful, melodic hard rock. Tino previews a 40th anniversary outing for their debut, Time Tell No Lies. How was your pandemic experience? I quite liked it for the first few weeks, but it went on for way too long. I did build a studio at the bottom of the garden and also refurbished some of my old guitars, including an Explorer bought from Dave Murray when we toured with Maiden in 1980. In November 2020, between lockdowns, Mantis played a festival in the Czech Republic… Yeah, that was a bit strange. There were 80 people in a place that would usually hold 200, but it worked well and people came from miles around. Then, of course, we were plunged back into staying home again. Were musicians sold down the river by the powers-that-be over those trying 18 months? I love football, but when we had 60,000 fans kissing each other during the European Championships it rankled that we weren’t allowed 20 people at a gig that could hold 500 people. The arts suffered a lot. 88 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM Does it seem possible that Time Tells No Lies is now four decades old? [Laughs] It does! The band is almost five decades old. My bones are creaking, I’ve had surgeries, I’ve got arthritis in my fingers and I also suffer from tinnitus. Chris [Troy] and I have spoken many times about hanging up our guitars, but it seems there’s always another album left in us. We will rock till we drop. With hindsight, did Praying Mantis sign to the wrong label in Arista? Yes, and we also ended up with bad management. Both of those mistakes inflicted long-term damage. Are you playing Time Tells No Lies in its entirety on these dates? I’d like to but we’ve got a bit of a situation with our drummer Hans [in’t Zandt, a Dutchman] who won’t get vaccinated. He believes he’s immune to the virus because he’s had it. So we’re using Steve Price, the drummer of our excellent support band, Vambo, as a stand-in on the upcoming tour. We imagine that having an anti-vaxxer in your band must cause problems… Hans is entitled to his views, but hopefully he will see the error of his ways next year when the band starts touring internationally. We’ve got lots of festivals including Sweden Rock and Bang Your Head lined up, also a Spanish tour, and Hans must realise he can’t work outside of Europe without getting his jab. We keep reminding him we [as a band] are all in this together, and unless he gets vaccinated it won’t work. In these post-Brexit days, how problematic is having two overseas members – in’t Zandt and his countryman, frontman John ‘Jaycee’ Cuijpers – in the group? When they joined us [in 2013] nobody knew of the logistical nightmare that lay ahead. Brexit is definitely putting a spanner in the works for the band right now, but it’s up to us to keep on going and ride it out. Though the decision has been vindicated, the ousting of the band’s previous singer and drummer to accommodate the two Dutchmen seemed a pretty ruthless thing to do. Mike [Freeland] was a great singer but as a frontman he was just too apologetic onstage, and we reached a point where something had to be done. We’d tried to encourage him, but towards the end Mike just lost it. And because Gary MacKenzie [drummer] had introduced Mike to us, he felt he should express solidarity. In the long run it has worked out very well.

“The band is almost five decades old… It seems there’s always another album left in us. We will rock till we drop.” The 2021 headliners, Black Star Riders, didn’t ride. Inset: Sumby being inspired at Monsters Of Rock, 1992. Stonedead Chris Sumby on how his festival is surviving, despite the odds. BLACK STAR RIDERS: KEVIN NIXON What’s in the pipeline for the coming months? We were writing an album just before the virus hit, so it had to be made remotely and there were times when being apart was a bit fraught for all of us, especially when I wanted to put my arm around John and say: “C’mon, you can do better.” I missed that physical contact, but we got there in the end. Oh, and next year it’s almost certain I’ll do my first solo album. What can you tell us about Mantis’ 11th album, Katharsis, which arrives in January 2022? It’s like a box of Milk Tray – or maybe that’s Milk Troy [he laughs loudly] – not Ferrero Rocher, where everything inside is the same. We’re really pleased with it. What advice would today’s version of Tino Troy offer to the Tino that was about to release his first album? I would tell him to listen to [über-manager] Peter Mensch who approached me after a gig at the Rainbow Theatre and offered to take us on if we brought in a lead singer. We were just too cocky. By the time we realised we did need a vocalist it was all a little bit too late. DL The tour wraps in Newcastle on October 18. Stonedead began as Stonedeaf three years ago in a bid to “recapture the spirit of the original Monsters Of Rock festival”. Director Chris Sumby explains how the show carried on in 2021 when its headline act, Black Star Riders, was struck down by Covid. What’s it like to start a festival as an independent promoter with – no disrespect intended – little or no expertise? Our team all had transferable skills that helped massively at the start. Neil Meynell is a former sergeant major who now works for his local authority; he handles the logistics and operations side. Louise Bayley deals with the admin and event hospitality, and I had experience of booking, promoting and running smaller gigs, so it all kind of weaved together quite well. As much as it was stressful and a bit of a gamble, it’s been an adventure full of highs and the occasional low. How many fans turned up to see Skid Row in 2018? We were over the moon to sell around 2,000 tickets, and it really put us in the spotlight when planning the second year. By the following year, which was headlined by Glenn Hughes’ Deep Purple Revisited show, did you feel like an old hand? Not really, we knew there were areas to improve on, which we ironed out. Once the photos and reviews came out, things were a lot easier for myself in regards to booking the bands. Lots more people wanted to play. Covid wiped out all festivals in 2020. As an event that ploughs its profits into the following year, did that almost kill Stonedead, er… stone dead? Like all events, we were cautious once the pandemic took hold and the world seemed be on pause. We were very open with the ticket holders and when we announced our postponement, we were amazed at the support we received. At the 23rd hour, just as they’d done at Steelhouse, Uriah Heep stepped in to replace an overseas headliner, Black Star Riders. In the week leading up to the show did you conjure the spirit of the famous firefighter Red Adair? Those seven days created unimaginable stress. The stage was delivered and installed three days late with a large portion missing, which knocked our plans completely out of sync. The Treatment had to pull out at the last minute, too, which added to the fun and games. If Netflix did a series on what happened, it would be entertainment gold. Did you feel tied up in red tape? And with the benefit of hindsight, was that caution justified? Neil put a task force in place for Covid to ensure we were covered to the hilt. He’s a meticulous planner and the Safety Advisory Group who gave us the licence to proceed knew exactly what they would get from him. We also added huge video screens in the arena for the first time, so that if people didn’t want be up close to the stage they could enjoy it all from a distance. Middle-aged rock fans are proving to be very cautious. Did ticketholders fail to show up? For a few it was still too soon. I think we had around 30-40 no-shows. And what of the future for Stonedead? We’ll be here as long as the support continues. One Day, One Stage works well for us and we like our size. We sold out of Earlybird tickets for 2022 in less than 48 hours without even announcing the line-up, so I guess we will have to keep going with it all. Stonedead 2022 takes place at Newark Showground on August 27. CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 89

“Our show is tight, it has a good set-list and I am super-happy to be coming back to my homeland!” The Dead Daisies Touring during a pandemic is tough, but someone’s gotta do it. Ahead of a first UK tour in three years, guitarist Doug Aldrich and bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes are in Chicago when Classic Rock places a Zoom call. Your fifth album, Holy Ground, was two months old in March 2020. How were you affected? Aldrich: We thought that maybe we’ll be off work until June, but it kept going. We went online to retain that connection with our fans, but it was tough. Hughes: We did use that time productively; Doug and I got together to write new material that will be recorded at the year’s end. In America, just like here in the UK, were rock bands overlooked when it came to financial aid? [Both, in firm tones]: Yes. Aldrich: People could get onto the dole, and some actually made more than they had done working. But the clubs in particular got hit really, really hard. What protocols do you have in place to combat the so-called ‘pingdemic’? Hughes: Even double-vaccinated people are getting sick, so there’s no more mingling with the audience. The whole thing is just difficult. We are spending a lot of time on the bus instead of inside the venue. We don’t have [backstage] catering anymore. Aldrich: We do like everyone else; we mask up and keep our hands clean. Hughes: We’ve already had a couple of [Covidrelated] cancellations this week. As gentlemen of a certain age, is there a part of you that’s nervous? Hughes: I am, yeah. It spooks me out a little that on our run of [US] shows in June and July [2021], we must have shaken hands with people that had it. With Glenn having joined since the band’s last UK tour in 2018, will the set now include any Deep Purple, BCC or Trapeze songs? Aldrich: The current show is focused mostly on the new album, Holy Ground, but let’s just say there are some surprises. The Daisies have never been shy of playing covers until now. Hughes: That’s something I would like us to leave in the past. We will be concentrating on original songs. How well do you know the tour’s special guests, the Quireboys? Hughes: I know them well, especially Spike. I really didn’t want a heavy metal band opening for us. Aldrich: The Quireboys came out at the same time as The Black Crowes, and both are going strong, which is great. After so much negativity, is it time for bands like the Daisies to bring a little fun back into our lives? Aldrich: I really, really hope so! Hughes: Our show is tight, it has a good set-list and of course I am super-happy to be coming back to my homeland [Glenn was born in Cannock]. Do you believe that the industry will ever return to normal? Hughes: That’s a very, very tough question. Aldrich: Here in the States, it’s not happening as fast as everybody hoped. People are refusing the vaccine and there’s no excuse for that. It’s only a vaccine like all the others that we took as kids. Hughes: Europe is in a much better position which means we can get into the place. We were supposed to go to Moscow, but that’s impossible. Aldrich: To get live music back we really need to get this thing under control. DL The Dead Daisies’ eight-date tour begins in Birmingham on October 30. 90 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

RECOMMENDS Tour Dates … CHEAP TRICK KEVIN NIXON BAD TOUCH, PISTON Norwich Waterfront Studio Nov 17 Newcastle The Cluny Nov 19 Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Nov 20 Dundee Beat Generator Nov 21 Manchester Bread Shed Nov 22 Nottingham Bodega Nov 23 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Nov 24 Leeds Key Club Nov 26 Buckley Tivoli Nov 27 Newport The Patriot Nov 28 Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach Nov 19 Exeter The Cavern Nov 30 Southampton Joiners Arms Dec 1 London Islington Academy 2 Dec 2 Gravesend Red Lion Dec 3 BLAZE BAYLEY, ABSOLVA Winchester Railway Oct 15 London Camden Underworld Oct 16 Glasgow Ivory Blacks Nov 24 Newcastle Trillians Nov 25 Grimsby Yardbirds Club Nov 26 Manchester Club Academy Nov 27 Peterborough Met Lounge Dec 10 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Dec 11 THE BLACK CROWES Dublin 3 Arena Sep 21 Manchester Apollo Sep 24 London Brixton Academy Sep 26, 27 BLACK SPIDERS Chester Live Rooms Nov 3 Great Yarmouth Hard Rock Hell Festival Nov 4 Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Nov 5 BLACKWATER CONSPIRACY, THESE WICKED RIVERS Belfast Empire Oct 22 Dublin Whelans Oct 24 BLONDIE, GARBAGE Liverpool M&S Bank Arena Nov 6 Birmingham Utilita Arena Nov 8 Manchester AO Arena Nov 9 Hull Bonus Arena Nov 11 Nottingham Motorpoint Arena Nov 12 Brighton Centre Nov 14 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Nov 16 London O2 Arena Nov 18 Glasgow The Hydro Nov 20 Leeds First Direct Arena Nov 21 DANNY BOWES & LUKE MORLEY: AN EVENING OF CONVERSATION & MUSIC Whitley Bay Playhouse Nov 1 Scarborough Spa Theatre Nov 2 Airdrie Town Hall Nov 3 Greenock Beacon Arts Centre Nov 4 Shrewsbury Theatre Severn Nov 6 Birmingham Town Hall Nov 7 Loughborough Town Hall Nov 8 Stourbridge Town Hall Nov 9 Ipswich Corn Exchange Nov 14 Bury St Edmunds The Apex Nov 15 Exeter Corn Exchange Nov 17 Porthcawl Grand Pavilion Nov 18 Llanelli Ffwrnes Nov 19 Lytham St Annes Lowther Pavilion Nov 20 Ilkley King’s Hall Nov 22 Crawley The Hawthorn Nov 23 Bedford Corn Exchange Nov 25 Grinstead Chequer Mead East Nov 29 BROKEN WITT REBELS Leicester Academy 2 Nov 25 Liverpool Jimmy’s Nov 26 Leeds Lending Room Nov 27 Cambridge Portland Arms Dec 10 Nottingham Bodega Dec 11 London Oxford Street 100 Club Dec 16 Guildford Boileroom Dec 17 Southampton Joiners Arms Dec 18 Brighton Green Door Store Jan 6 Tunbridge Wells Forum Jan 7 Norwich Waterfront Jan 8 Exeter Cavern Jan 12 Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach Jan 13 Buckley Tivoli Jan 14 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Jan 15 Edinburgh Mash House Jan 20 Aberdeen Tunnels Jan 21 Glasgow Garage Jan 22 BUCKCHERRY, DAMON JOHNSON & THE GET READY, SCARLET REBELS Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Nov 29 Leeds Warehouse Nov 30 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Dec 1 London Islington Academy Dec 3 Nuneaton Queen’s Hall Dec 4 Newcastle Riverside Dec 5 Manchester Academy 2 Dec 7 Chester Live Rooms Dec 8 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Dec 10 Southampton Engine Rooms Dec 11 Cardiff Tramshed Dec 12 THE CADILLAC THREE, BRENT COBB Manchester Academy Dec 1 Leeds Academy Dec 2 Birmingham Institute Dec 3 Nottingham Rock City Dec 5 Newcastle Academy Dec 6 Glasgow Academy Dec 7 London Chalk Farm Roundhouse Dec 9 Cardiff Great Hall Dec 11 Dublin Whelans Dec 12 Belfast Limelight Dec 13 Recommended PHIL CAMPBELL & THE BASTARD SONS Buckley Tivoli Nov 4 Manchester Academy 3 Nov 6 Aberdeen Unit 51 Nov 8 Glasgow Garage Nov 9 Carlisle Brickyard Nov 10 Bradford Nightrain Nov 13 Belfast Limelight 2 Nov 14 Dublin Grand Social Nov 15 Nottingham Rescue Rooms Nov 17 Bristol Thekla Nov 18 Bournemouth Old Fire Station Nov 19 Swansea Patti Pavilion Nov 20 CARAVAN Chester Live Rooms Oct 14 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Oct 15 Bury The Met Oct 16 Bilston Robin 2 Oct 17 Bury St Edmunds Apex Oct 21 Newcastle The Cluny Oct 22 Glasgow Oran Mor Oct 23 Bristol The Fleece Oct 27 Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre Oct 28 Dover Booking Hall Oct 29 ELIANA CARGNELUTTI Southampton 1865 Nov 11 Stamford Mama Liz’s Nov 14 Newcastle Cluny 2 Nov 15 Bilston Robin 2 Nov 16 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Nov 17 Liverpool Phase 1 Nov 18 Sedgefield Rock & Blues Club Nov 19 Lincoln Blues, Rhythm & Rock Festival Nov 20 FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES Dublin Academy Nov 10 Nottingham Rock City Nov 11 Norwich UEA Nov 13 Southampton Guildhall Nov 15 Bristol Academy Nov 16 Lincoln Engine Shed Nov 17 Birmingham Academy Nov 19 Newcastle Academy Nov 20 Glasgow Barrowland Nov 22 Edinburgh Corn Exchange Nov 23 Liverpool Academy Nov 24 Manchester Academy Nov 25 London Brixton Academy Jan 21, 22 CATS IN SPACE, VAMBO Nottingham Rescue Rooms Dec 15 Dover Booking Hall Dec 16 CHEAP TRICK, RAVENEYE Newcastle Boiler Shop Feb 1 Manchester Academy Feb 2 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Feb 4 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Feb 5 Bristol Academy Feb 6 ROSALIE CUNNINGHAM, TUPPENNY BUNTERS Bilston Robin 2 Oct 27 Winchester The Railway Oct 28 London Islington The Lexington Oct 29 Chelmsford Hot Box Oct 30 When it comes to classy and classic pop-rock, few bands have as many tricks up their sleeve as these veterans. See below for dates. Currently February 1 to February 6. ROGER DALTREY Birmingham Symphony Hall Nov 7 Manchester Apollo Nov 9 Nottingham Royal Concert Hall Nov 11 London Palladium Nov 15 Brighton Centre Nov 17 Southend-on-Sea Cliffs Pavilion Nov 19 Oxford New Theatre Nov 21 Glasgow Armadillo Nov 24 Newcastle City Hall Nov 26 Liverpool Empire Nov 29 Portsmouth Guildhall Dec 1 Bournemouth International Centre Dec 2 DANKO JONES Bristol Thekla Dec 6 Newcastle Cluny Dec 7 Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Dec 8 Nottingham Bodega Social Club Dec 9 Manchester Rebellion Dec 10 London Camden Underworld Dec 11 DARE Holmfirth Picturedrome Dec 4 THE DARKNESS, BRITISH LION Brighton Dome Nov 17 Margate Winter Gardens Nov 19 Bournemouth Academy Nov 20 Southend-on-Sea Cliffs Pavilion Nov 21 Norwich UEA Nov 23 Cambridge Corn Exchange Nov 24 Reading Hexagon Nov 26 Cardiff Great Hall Nov 27 Exeter Great Hall Nov 29 Guilford G Live Nov 30 Liverpool Academy Dec 2 Manchester Academy Dec 3 Hull Bonus Arena Dec 4 Stoke-on-Trent Victoria Hall Dec 6 Bristol Academy Dec 7 Glasgow Barrowland Dec 9 Newcastle Academy Dec 10 Leeds Academy Dec 11 Nottingham Rock City Dec 13 Birmingham Academy Dec 14 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Dec 16, 17 THE DEAD DAISES, THE QUIREBOYS Birmingham Institute Oct 30 Liverpool Academy Oct 31 Bristol Academy Nov 3 Oxford Academy Nov 4 Norwich Waterfront Nov 6 Nottingham Rock City Nov 7 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Nov 10 Cardiff Tramshed Nov 11 REBECCA DOWNES London Oxford Street 100 Club Oct 19 THE DUST CODA London Tufnell Park Boston Music Room Dec 4 Manchester Deaf Institute Dec 5 Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Dec 6 Nottingham Billy Bootleggers Dec 7 Newcastle Head Of Steam Dec 8 Bristol The Exchange Dec 10 Birmingham Dead Wax Dec 11 Southampton Heartbreakers Dec 12 EAGLES OF DEATH METAL Brighton Chalk Nov 22 Cardiff Tramshed Nov 23 Newcastle University Nov 24 Birmingham Institute Nov 26 Dublin Academy Nov 27 Belfast Limelight Nov 28 Glasgow SWG3 Nov 29 Leeds Beckett University Dec 1 London Chalk Farm Roundhouse Dec 2 Nottingham Rock City Dec 3 Manchester The Ritz Dec 5 Bristol Academy Dec 6 BRIAN FALLON AND THE HOWLING WEATHER Norwich Waterfront Dec 3 Leeds Academy Dec 4 Glasgow SWG3 Dec 5 Nottingham Rock City Dec 6 Bristol Academy Dec 8 Manchester Academy Dec 9 Birmingham Institute Dec 10 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Dec 11 FISH, DORIS BRENDEL Glasgow Academy Nov 14 Frome Cheese & Grain Nov 15 Southampton 1865 Nov 16 Cambridge Junction Nov 18 Sheffield Academy Nov 19 Liverpool Academy Nov 20 Leamington Spa The Assembly Nov 24 SAMANTHA FISH, WILLE & THE BANDITS Bath Komedia Jan 30 Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Jan 31 Newcastle Wylam Brewery Feb 1 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Feb 3 Manchester Academy Feb 4 Nottingham Rock City Feb 5 Cardiff Tramshed Feb 6 Brighton Chalk Feb 7 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Feb 8 FM Chester Live Rooms Nov 11 Inverness Monsterfest Nov 13 Dover Booking Hall Nov 21 Holmfirth Picturedrome Nov 26 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Nov 27 Stourbridge River Rooms Nov 28 Barnsley Birdwell Venue Mar 31 Cottingham Civic Hall Apr 1 Manchester Club Academy Apr 2 London Islington Assembly Hall Apr 7 Nuneaton Queens Hall Apr 8 Norwich Waterfront Apr 9 Bournemouth Madding Crowd Apr 15 Swansea Patti Pavilion Apr 16 Nantwich Civic Hall Apr 17 Newcastle University Apr 22 Glasgow Garage Apr 23 Reading Sub 89 Apr 29 Nottingham Rescue Rooms Apr 30 FOCUS Norwich Epic Studios Nov 3 Nottingham Rescue Rooms Nov 4 New Brighton Floral Pavilion Nov 5 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 93

Kinross Green Hotel Nov 6 York Crescent Community Centre Nov 11 Carlisle Old Fire Station Nov 12 Exeter Corn Exchange Nov 15 Whitby Pavilion Apr 1 FOZZY, THE TREATMENT Manchester Club Academy Nov 30 Newcastle Riverside Dec 1 Glasgow Garage Dec 2 Dublin Opium Dec 4 Belfast Limelight Dec 5 Chester Live Rooms Dec 6 Birmingham The Mill Dec 7 Bournemouth Old Fire Station Dec 8 Swansea Sin City Dec 10 Nottingham Rescue Rooms Dec 11 London Islington Academy Dec 12 GIRLSCHOOL, ALKATRAZZ FEATURING DOOGIE WHITE Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Nov 18 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Nov 19 Swansea Hangar 18 Nov 20 Grimsby Yardbirds Club Nov 21 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Nov 25 Bradford Night Train Nov 26 Newcastle Trillians Nov 28 London Camden Underworld Dec 1 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Dec 2 Dublin Voodoo Lounge Dec 3 Belfast Limelight Dec 4 GRAND SLAM, STARSEED Grimsby Yardbirds Club Oct 14 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Oct 15 Glasgow Cathouse Oct 16 Newcastle Trillians Oct 17 Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Oct 20 Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Oct 21 Swansea Hangar 18 Oct 22 London Tufnell Park Dome Oct 23 Recommended GUN Bath Komedia Dec 1 Buckley Tivoli Dec 2 Swansea Hanger 18 Dec 3 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Dec 4 Bury St Edmonds The Apex Dec 7 Manchester Night People Dec 8 London Islington Assembly Rooms Dec 9 Glasgow Barrowland Ballroom Dec 11 Aberdeen Lemon Tree Dec 12 Southampton Engine Rooms Dec 14 Newcastle The Cluny Dec 15 Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Dec 16 Bradford Night Train Dec 17 Wavendon The Stables Dec 18 STEVE HACKETT Plymouth Pavilions Oct 12 Carlisle Sands Centre Oct 14 Stockton The Globe Oct 15 Newcastle City Hall Oct 16 Aylesbury Waterside Oct 18 Oxford New Theatre Oct 19 Peterborough Cresset Theatre Oct 21 Harrogate Royal Hall Oct 22 Dundee Caird Hall Oct 23 SBETH HART Bournemouth International Centre Oct 25 Warrington Parr Hall Oct 27 Cambridge Corn Exchange Oct 29 York Barbican Oct 31 Bath Forum Nov 3 London Palladium Nov 5, 6 Newcastle City Hall Nov 10 Birmingham Symphony Hall Nov 11 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion Nov 14 HAWKLORDS Bedford Esquires Oct 14 Hastings The Carlisle Oct 15 Bournemouth Madding Crowd Oct 16 Looe Cornwall Rocks Festival Oct 17 Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Mar 31 Nottingham Square Centre Apr 1 Leeds HRH Prog Festival Apr 2 Hull Adelphi Apr 3 Newcastle Trillians Apr 6 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Apr 7 Buckley Tivoli Apr 8 Glasgow Hard Rock Café Apr 9 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Apr 10 Cambridge Junction Apr 12 Norwich Brickmakers Apr 13 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Apr 14 Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Apr 15 Swansea Hanger 18 Apr 16 Gloucester Dick Whittington Apr 17 Southampton 1865 Apr 19 London Oxford Street 100 Club Apr 20 Brighton Komedia Studio Apr 21 Bridgwater The Cobblestones Apr 23 Hitchin Club 85 Apr 23 Leicester The Musician Apr 24 HAWKWIND London Palladium Oct 28 THE WARNER E HODGES BAND Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Dec 12 Leicester The Musician Dec 13 Sheffield The Greystones Dec 14 London Camden Dublin Castle Dec 15 London Islington Hope & Anchor Dec 16 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Dec 17 IQ London Gt Portland Street 229 Club Dec 10 London Islington Assembly Hall Jun 11 ARYON JONES London Hoxton Colours Dec 7 MYLES KENNEDY Bristol Academy Dec 3 Leeds Academy Dec 4 Glasgow Academy Dec 6 Newcastle Academy Dec 8 Manchester Academy Dec 9 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Dec 11 Birmingham Academy Dec 13 Bournemouth Academy Dec 14 CORKY LAING PLAYS MOUNTAIN Great Yarmouth HRH Blues Festival Nov 11 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Nov 13 Kinross Green Hotel Nov 14 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Nov 15 London Oxford Street 100 Club Nov 16 THE LAST INTERNATIONALE Manchester Night People Oct 23 Bristol The Exchange Oct 24 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Oct 25 Glasgow Stereo Oct 26 Birmingham Hare & Hounds Oct 27 London Oxford Street 100 Club Oct 28 JOHN LEES’ BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST Manchester RNCM Nov 20 London Islington Assembly Hall May 10 Leeds City Varieties May 12 LEVELLERS Newcastle City Hall Oct 30 Sheffield Leadmill Nov 22 Frome Cheese & Grain Nov 23 Plymouth Pavilions Nov 24 Lancaster Town Hall Nov 25 Manchester Academy Nov 26 London Brixton Academy Nov 27 Margate Dreamland Dec 8 Guildford G Live Dec 9 Birmingham Academy Dec 10 York Barbican Dec 11 Glasgow Barrowland Dec 12 Norwich UEA Dec 14 Southampton Guildhall Dec 15 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Dec 16 Nottingham Rock City Dec 17, 18 LINDISFARNE Porthcawl Grand Pavilion Oct 16 Skegness Butlins Folk Festival Nov 28 Kinross Green Hotel Dec 3, 4 Carlisle Old Fire Station Dec 5 Morecambe The Platform Dec 10 Newcastle City Hall Dec 18 MANIC STREET PREACHERS Brighton Dome Oct 14 London Wembley Arena Dec 3 MARILLION Hull City Hall Nov 14 Edinburgh Usher Hall Nov 15 Cardiff St David’s Hall Nov 17 Manchester Bridgewater Hall Nov 18 Cambridge Corn Exchange Nov 20 Birmingham Symphony Hall Nov 21 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall Nov 23 Bath Forum Nov 24 London Hammersmith Apollo Nov 26, 27 CHANTEL MCGREGOR Sheffield Greystones Oct 15 Morcambe The Platform Oct 22 Hull Adelphi Nov 13 Edinburgh Bannerman’s Bar Nov 24 Kinross Green Hotel Nov 25 Aberdeen Café Drummond Nov 26 Glasgow Hard Rock Café Nov 27 … THE CADILLAC THREE RECOMMENDS Southern rock is in good hands with these guys, who respect its glorious past while giving it their own 21st-century twist. See previous page for dates. Currently December 1 to December 13. Bristol Thunderbolt Dec 3 Looe Blues Festival Dec 4 Tavistock The Wharf Dec 5 Derby Flowerpot Dec 9 Grimsby Yardbirds Club Dec 16 THE MISSION Frome Cheese & Grain Oct 26 Cardiff Tramshed Oct 27 Norwich Waterfront Oct 28 Brighton Chalk Oct 29 MOGWAI Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Nov 7 London Alexandra Palace Feb 25 MOLLY HATCHET Leeds Warehouse Nov 28 Cardiff The Globe Nov 29 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Nov 30 Southampton Engine Rooms Dec 1 London Oxford Street 100 Club Dec 2 ALANIS MORISSETTE, GARBAGE Birmingham Utilita Arena Nov 15 Leeds First Direct Arena Nov 16 Glasgow The Hydro Nov 18 Manchester AO Arena Nov 21 London O2 Arena Nov 23, 24 Dublin 3 Arena Nov 25 NIGHTWISH, AMORPHIS, TURMION KÄTILÖT Dublin 3 Arena Nov 17 Birmingham Resorts World Arena Nov 18 London Wembley Arena Dec 13 THE OFFSPRING, THE HIVES Cardiff Motorpoint Arena Nov 23 Birmingham Resorts World Arena Nov 24 London Wembley Arena Nov 26 Glasgow The Hydro Nov 27 Manchester AO Arena Nov 29 Leeds First Direct Arena Nov 30 OPETH (2022) London Hammersmith Apollo Nov 18 ORANGE GOBLIN, SPIRIT ADRIFT, KING CREATURE Buckley Tivoli Dec 9 Belfast Limelight 2 Dec 10 Dublin Grand Social Dec 11 Glasgow King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut Dec 13 Manchester Gorilla Dec 14 Birmingham Asylum Dec 15 Cardiff Globe Dec 16 London Camden Underworld Dec 17, 18 PAVEMENT (2022) Leeds Academy Oct 17 Glasgow Barrowland Oct 18 Edinburgh Usher Hall Oct 19 Manchester Apollo Oct 20 London Chalk Farm Roundhouse Oct 22-25 Dublin Vicar Street Nov 10 PITCHSHIFTER Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Nov 29 Manchester Academy 3 Nov 30 Bristol SWX Dec 1 London Highbury Garage Dec 2, 3 Nottingham Rock City Dec 4 PRAYING MANTIS, VAMBO Norwich Brickmakers Oct 12 Milton Keynes Craufurd Arms Oct 13 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Oct 14 Looe Cornwall Rocks Festival Oct 15 Cannock The Station Oct 16 Bradford Nightrain Oct 17 Newcastle The Cluny Oct 18 Pure Reason Revolution, Gazpacho London Islington Assembly Hall Oct 17 QUIREBOYS, TROY REDFERN Glasgow Garage Oct 14 Aberdeen Lemon Tree Oct 15 Leeds Brudenell Social Club Nov 18 Gateshead The Sage Nov 19 Stoke-on-Trent Sugarmill Nov 20 Manchester Academy Nov 26 Gloucester Guildhall Nov 27 Brighton Concorde 2 Jan 21 Birmingham Institute Jan 22 Oxford Bullingdon Jun 11 Southend-on-Sea Chinnerys Jun 12 Bristol Thekla Jun 17 Nottingham Rescue Rooms Jun 18 RAGING SPEEDHORN, EARTHTONE9, HERIOT London Tufnell Park Dome Dec 10 THE RAVEN AGE Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Dec 9 Manchester Rebellion Dec 10 Leeds Key Club Dec 11 Glasgow Attic Dec 12 Newcastle The Cluny Dec 13 Bristol The Exchange Dec 15 Brighton Green Door Store Dec 16 London Camden Lock Powerhaus Dec 17 SAXON, DIAMOND HEAD Glasgow Barrowland Jan 27 Manchester Apollo Jan 28 London Hammersmith Apollo Jan 29 MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP, DORO Glasgow QMU Oct 27 Leeds Academy Oct 28 Newcastle City Hall Oct 29 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Oct 30 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Oct 31 SEPULTURA, SACRED REICH, CROWBAR Wolverhampton KK’s Steelmill Nov 23 Dublin Academy Nov 24 Manchester The Ritz Nov 25 Glasgow Garage Nov 26 London Brixton Electric Nov 27 JOANNE SHAW TAYLOR Glasgow St Luke’s Nov 2 Edinburgh Liquid Rooms Nov 3 Newcastle Riverside Nov 5 Kendal Brewery Arts Centre Nov 6 Manchester Academy 3 Nov 7 Liverpool Arts Club Nov 9 KEVIN NIXON 94 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

Leeds Warehouse Nov 10 Oxford Academy Nov 12 London King’s Cross Lafayette Nov 14 Bristol The Fleece Nov 16 Nottingham Glee Club Nov 17 Swansea Sin City Nov 19 Birmingham The Mill Nov 18 Recommended SKINDRED, ROYAL REPUBLIC Southampton Guildhall Oct 15 Sheffield Corporation Oct 22 Newcastle University Oct 23 Bexhill-on-Sea De La Warr Pavilion Oct 29 Manchester Academy Oct 30 Norwich UEA Oct 31 Birmingham Resorts World Arena May 27 London Wembley Arena May 28 TRIVIUM, HEAVEN SHALL BURN, TESSERACT, FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY Glasgow Academy Nov 11 Birmingham Academy Nov 12 Manchester Victoria Warehouse Nov 13 London Brixton Academy Nov 14 WALTER TROUT, DANIEL NICOLE Gateshead The Sage Jan 12 Edinburgh Blues Club Jan 13 Holmfirth Picturedome Jan 14 Skegness Great British Rock & Blues Festival Jan 15 Buxton Opera House Jan 16 Bury St Edmunds Apex Art Centre Jan 18 London Islington Assembly Jan 19 Brighton Concorde 2 Jan 20 Frome Cheese & Grain Jan 21 Minehead Giants Of Rock Festival Jan 22 … BETH HART KEVIN NIXON STONE BROKEN, PHIL X & THE DRILLS, THE FALLEN STATE Manchester Academy 2 Jan 23 Newcastle Riverside Jan 24 Glasgow Garage Jan 25 London Camden Electric Ballroom Jan 27 Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre Jan 28 Bristol SWX Jan 29 Cardiff Y Plas Jan 30 Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms Feb 1 Brighton Chalk Feb 2 Norwich Waterfront Feb 3 Birmingham Institute Feb 4 STRAY Wavendon The Stables Nov 21 SUPERGRASS, ASH London Brixton Academy Dec 20 SWEET Brighton Chalk Nov 25 Southampton 1865 Nov 26 Frome Cheese & Grain Nov 27 London Islington Assembly Hall Nov 28 Birmingham Town Hall Dec 2 Shrewsbury Buttermarket Dec 3 Bexhill-on-Sea De La Warr Pavilion Dec 4 Norwich Waterfront Dec 5 Newcastle Boiler Shop Dec 8 Glasgow Garage Dec 9 Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Dec 10 Holmfirth Picturedrome Dec 11 Cardiff University Dec 17 Manchester Academy Dec 18 Nottingham Rock City Dec 19 Bury St Edmunds Apex Dec 20 ROGER TAYLOR Bournemouth Academy Oct 12 Plymouth Pavilions Oct 14 Nottingham Rock City Oct 15 Bexhill-On-Sea De La Warr Pavilion Oct 17 Guilford G Live Oct 19 Coventry Empire Oct 20 London Shepherd’s Bush Empire Oct 22 TERRORVISION Sheffield The Foundry Nov 5 THERAPY? Cambridge Junction Oct 19 Norwich Waterfront Oct 20 Nottingham Rock City Oct 22 Brighton Concorde 2 Oct 23 London Camden Electric Ballroom Oct 24 Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms Oct 26 Cardiff Tramshed Oct 27 Exeter Phoenix Arts Centre Oct 29 Bristol SWX Oct 30 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Oct 31 Manchester The Ritz Nov 2 Leeds Warehouse Nov 3 Newcastle Riverside Nov 4 Glasgow Garage Nov 5 Dublin Olympia Feb 4 Belfast Limelight Feb 5 RICHARD THOMPSON York Barbican Oct 25 Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Oct 26 Perth Concert Hall Oct 27 Gateshead The Sage Oct 28 Birmingham Symphony Hall Oct 30 Manchester Opera House Oct 31 Cardiff St David’s Hall Nov 1 London Palladium Nov 2 Dublin Vicar Street Nov 3 THUNDER Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Dec 17 Glasgow Clyde Auditorium May 21 Leeds First Direct Arena May 22 Cardiff Motorpoint Arena May 26 MARTIN TURNER EX-WISHBONE ASH Chislehurst Beaverwood Club Nov 4 Sutton Boom Boom Club Nov 5 Lytham St Annes Lowther Pavilion Nov 10 Derby Flowerpot Nov 11 Looe Rhythm & Rock Festival Dec 3 Dartmouth The Flavel Dec 4 Cardiff The Globe Dec 5 Glasgow The Ferry Dec 8 Kinross Green Hotel Dec 9 Newcastle Cluny 2 Dec 10 Selby Town Hall Dec 11 Maidenhead Norden Farm Centre Dec 16 Swindon Level III Dec 17 Tavistock The Wharf Mar 25 Torquay Foundry Mar 26 Nuneaton Queens Hall Apr 1 Hull Wrecking Ball Arts Centre Apr 2 Twickenham Eel Pie Club Apr 7 Havant The Spring Apr 9 Worcester Huntingdon Hall Apr 10 London Chelsea Under The Bridge Apr 22 Sheffield The Greystones Apr 16 Bilston Robin 2 Apr 17 Fletching Trading Boundaries Apr 22 TYTAN, SATAN’S EMPIRE, THE DEEP London Camden Black Heart Nov 12 URIAH HEEP Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Sep 30 Manchester Bridgewater Hall Oct 3 London Palladium Oct 5 Cambridge Corn Exchange Oct 6 Gateshead The Sage Oct 8 Birmingham Symphony Hall Oct 10 Cardiff St David’s Hall Oct 11 VEGA Belfast Voodoo Lounge Oct 16 Stoke-on-Trent Eleven Oct 28 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Oct 29 Aberdare Jac’s Oct 30 Newcastle Riverside Nov 1 Bradford Nightrain Nov 5 Buckley Tivoli Nov 12 Inverness Monsterfest Nov 13 Bilston Robin 2 Dec 17 VIRGINMARYS Chester Live Rooms Oct 13 Hull New Adelphi Oct 14 Birmingham Dead Wax Oct 15 Manchester Academy 3 Oct 16 RICK WAKEMAN’S EVEN GRUMPIER CHRISTMAS SHOW Basingstoke The Anvil Nov 28 Leicester De Montfort Hall Dec 1 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion Dec 3 High Wycombe The Swan Dec 4 Dorking Dorking Halls Dec 5 Cambridge Corn Exchange Dec 6 Birmingham Town Hall Dec 9 Southampton Central Hall Dec 11 Salisbury City Hall Dec 12 Southend-on-Sea Palace Theatre Dec 14 Manchester Bridgewater Hall Dec 15 Gateshead The Sage Dec 16 Middlesbrough Town Hall Dec 17 Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Dec 18 Bradford St George’s Hall Dec 20 Hull City Hall Dec 21 WAYWARD SONS Dublin Opium Nov 6 Belfast Limelight 2 Nov 7 Manchester Academy 3 Nov 9 Glasgow Cathouse Nov 10 Newcastle Riverside Nov 11 Leeds Wardrobe Nov 13 Nottingham Rescue Rooms Nov 14 Bristol Thekla Nov 15 Wearing her heart on her sleeve, she delivers like her life depends on it. Get to one of these gigs and feel the force. See opposite page for dates. Currently October 25 to November 14. London Islington Academy Nov 17 Wolverhampton KK’s Steel Mill Nov 18 STAN WEBB’S CHICKEN SHACK, SUSAN SANTOS London Oxford Street 100 Club Jan 19 THE WILDHEARTS Birmingham MMH Radio Birthday Bash Nov 5 South Shields Hedworth Hall Nov 11 Inverness Monsterfest Nov 12 WISHBONE ASH Chester Live Rooms Oct 17 Blackpool Waterloo Music Bar Oct 19 Kendall Brewery Arts Centre Oct 20 Glasgow The Ferry Oct 21 Edinburgh Queen’s Hall Oct 22 Stockton-on-Tees The ARC Oct 26 Leeds Brudenell Arts Centre Oct 28 Bury The Met Oct 29 Holmfirth Picturedrome Oct 30 Hunstanton Princess Theatre Nov 2 Bury St Edmunds Apex Nov 3 Pontardawe Arts Centre Nov 5 Newbury Arlington Arts Nov 6 Tewkesbury Roses Theatre Nov 7 Wavendon The Stables Nov 9 Shoreham-by-Sea Ropetackle Arts Centre Nov 10 Southampton The Brook Nov 11 Wimborne Tivoli Nov 12 Honiton The Beehive Nov 13 Frome Cheese & Grain Nov 14 Harpenden Eric Morecambe Centre Nov 17 London Islington Academy Nov 18 Bilston Robin 2 Nov 19 Leicester Y Theatre Nov 20 YES Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Jun 15 Manchester Bridgewater Hall Jun 17 Nottingham Royal Concert Hall Jun 18 Liverpool Philharmonic Hall Jun 20 London Royal Albert Hall Jun 21 York Barbican Jun 22 Birmingham Symphony Hall Jun 24 Dublin Vicar Street Jun 28 Cork Opera House Jun 29 Festivals BINGLEY WEEKENDER THE PIXIES, PRIMAL SCREAM, THE LIBERTINES, MORE Bradford & Bingley Rugby Club Aug 5-7 BLOODSTOCK FESTIVAL LAMB OF GOD, MERCYFUL FATE, DIMMU BORGIR, MORE Catton Park, Derbyshire Aug 11-14 BUDE BLUES, RHYTHM & ROCK FESTIVAL KEN PUSTELNIK’S GROUNDHOGS, STEPHEN DALE PETIT, XANDER & THE PEACE PIRATES, MORE Bude Penstowe Manor Nov 5-7 RECOMMENDS CORNWALL ROCKS THE WILDHEARTS, PRAYING MANTIS, TYGERS OF PAN TANG, MORE Looe Tencreek Holiday Park Oct 15-17 CROPREDY FESTIVAL STEVE HACKETT, CLANNAD, TREVOR HORN, MORE Oxfordshire Cropredy Village Aug 11-13 GIANTS OF ROCK FESTIVAL FM, NAZARETH, TEN YEARS AFTER, MORE Minehead Butlins Jan 21-24 GRAVITY FESTIVAL THE TREATMENT, PRAYING MANTIS, HELL’S ADDICTION, MORE Cannock The Station Oct 15-17 HARD ROCK HELL SKID ROW, WILDHEARTS, NAZARETH, WOLFSBANE, MORE Great Yarmouth Vauxhall Holiday Park Nov 4-7 HARD ROCK HELL PROG BIG BIG TRAIN, THE FLOWER KINGS, JOHN LEES’ BJH, MORE Sheffield Academy Sep 3, 4 HARD ROCK HELL SLEAZE MICHAEL MONROE, HARDCORE SUPERSTAR, PRETTY BOY FLOYD, MORE Sheffield Academy Aug 27, 28 KING KING, CATS IN SPACE, RAINBREAKERS Chepstow Castle Aug 20 LINCOLN BLUES FESTIVAL FÉLIX RABIN, THE CINELLI BROTHERS, MORE Lincoln Alive Nov 20 LOOE BLUES FESTIVAL AYNSLEY LISTER, MARTIN TURNER, THE BLOCKHEADS, MORE Looe Tencreek Holiday Park Dec 3-5 MONSTER FEST FM, THE WILDHEARTS, MARCO MENDOZA, MORE Inverness Ironworks Nov 12-15 REBELLION FESTIVAL THE STRANGLERS, BAD RELIGION, STIFF LITTLE FINGERS, MORE Blackpool Winter Gardens Aug 4-7 SOUNDBAY FESTIVAL MASSIVE WAGONS, TOBY JEPSON, BAD TOUCH, MORE Swansea Patti Pavilion Mar 25-27 SOUTHPORT BLUES, RHYTHM & ROCK FESTIVAL SARI SCHORR, DANA GILLISPIE,MORE Southport The Atkinson Oct 10 WINTERSTORM FESTIVAL HARDLINE, VANDENBERG, MORE Troon Concert Hall Nov 26, 27 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 95

The Sisters Of Mercy The Roundhouse, London ‘Andrew Eldritch appears to be actually enjoying himself.’ Ruby anniversary delivers hits and misses. It’s 40 years since The Sisters Of Mercy opened for The Birthday Party in the scuzzy environs of the Hammersmith Clarendon Ballroom and the intervening years have seen the frontmen of both groups plough very individual furrows. For Andrew Eldritch, it’s meant a unique path where recorded music is no longer an option but new material in a live setting is. Certainly, it’s the unreleased output that makes the greatest impact tonight and one can’t help but admire the band’s chutzpah by opening with But Genevieve. Blending classic Sisters chimes with chugging rhythms, the group’s trajectory of industrial goth metal reaps dividends with I Will Call You and Crash And Burn, and with Eldritch in fine voice, the singer appears to be actually enjoying himself. Admirable though this is, the current approach doesn’t lend itself so well to the music from their imperial phase. The lack of a bass guitar – so crucial to their core sound – means that the digitised low end threatens to smother all. No Time To Cry sounds eviscerated while Alice and Lucretia My Reflection lose the necessary heft that drove the original versions. Sonic redemption is delivered with determined readings of Flood II and Dominion/Mother Russia but the feeling remains that without a four-string groover, The Sisters Of Mercy aren’t quite all there. Julian Marszalek Twisted Sister Eldritch: de-bassed, but with chutzpah to spare. Those Damn Crows Cardiff Castle, Cardiff Supergrass Crystal Palace The Jim Jones All Stars Wilderness Festival, Charlbury JAMES SHARROCK Definitely a performance to crow about. With two successful albums, an ever-growing fanbase and hit appearances at Download, Ramblin’ Man and Steelhouse, Bridgend’s Those Damn Crows are one of the hotter properties on the modern UK scene. This balmy Bank Holiday Sunday night, they’ll perform for a home crowd in the fairy tale setting of Cardiff Castle. For any Welsh band, to play within these walls is symbolic, a trophy of arrival. Main support comes from the rising Cardinal Black, and you’d never know it’s their debut gig. Their winning brand of polished, soul-flecked rock is studded with guitarist Chris Buck’s salvos of six-string magic, and perfectly suits the nicely soused festival vibe as the sun sets behind the castle itself. With the 1,800-strong crowd duly warmed, the Crows deliver a rapturously received 90-minute masterclass in powerful, song-centric rock. Bassist Lloyd Wood and guitarists Dave Winchurch and Shiner affably pump out the riffs for catchy, crafted anthems Who Did It, Behind These Walls, Long Time Dead (from Top 20 LP Point Of No Return). Drummer Ronnie Huxford’s the engine, assuredly driving Don’t Give A Damn and Sick Of Me, while Shane Greenhall remains an animated, enthralling frontman with huge lung power. He sells it all – ballad Blink Of An Eye, singalong set closer Rock N Roll Ain’t Dead – to an audience joyfully buying every moment. These Crows are truly taking wing. Grant Moon Nostalgic Britpoppers still in their prime. Masters of the art of making years fall away, there are few bands better suited to welcoming back live music than Oxford’s eternal errant teens. With a brisk blast of I’d Like To Know and Mansize Rooster, both from their 1995 debut I Should Coco, Crystal Palace’s South Facing festival is transported back to carefree pre-plague days when the most we had to worry about was dental maintenance and working off cautions for minor drug offences. Though singer Gaz Coombes now sports the fedora of a Britpop mafiosi don, sonically Supergrass seem aged not a minute from their tearaway peak. They were always, however, a more mature act than they were given credit for. While the hula punk Alright is beach-ready enough to make you feel like surfing across the stage-front lake, songs like Mary, Late In The Day and the knowing (particularly for a reunited band) In It For The Money were always cheeky, chirpy updates of the Stones, Bowie and The Kinks. They’re at their best when their inherent classicism froths to the surface: in the Zep riffs of Richard III, the psychedelic carousel pop of Going Out and the glam blams of Grace and Pumping On Your Stereo. An encore of Caught By The Fuzz and Strange Ones might bristle with 90s teenage thrills, spills and outsider exuberance but the ‘Grass have the heartbeat of ageless greats. Mark Beaumont The scourge of sound technicians returns with rockin’ new project. The weather gods are smiling upon The Jim Jones All Stars: taking the Jumpyard Stage to make their live debut in this sodden corner of the Wilderness Festival, the rain has finally relented for the first time and the partying can begin. With The Righteous Mind on a logistical hiatus, Jim Jones – late of Thee Hypnotics and the eponymous Revue – has fashioned the All Stars as a vehicle to not only return to the stage but also to reinvigorate his mojo as he swan dives into the primordial soup of his influences. Ostensibly a covers band, Jones is joined by erstwhile Revue colleagues Gavin Jay (bass) and keyboardist Elliot Mortimer. Augmented by drums and a second guitarist, the band is bolstered by the addition of three saxophonists and the All Stars hit paydirt with a stomping reading of Don Gardner’s My Baby Likes To Boogaloo. Crucially, they not only attract and grow an audience but get it dancing, too, not least during Freddie King’s Going Down. But it’s with The Jimmy Castor Bunch’s Troglodyte and The Velvet Underground’s Run Run Run where things get genuinely interesting. The former is a trance-inducing joy while the latter uses R’n’B to prise open the doors of modal sax exploration. This is precisely the storm a festival needs, unlike the downpour that follows their departure. Julian Marszalek CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 97

‘A winning combination of sun-soaked riffs and radio-ready choruses.’ REVIEWS BSC strike a balance between joyous and immensely emotional. Black Stone Cherry / Kris Barras Band Birmingham, O2 Academy Kentucky rockers make a triumphant return to the UK. KATJA OGRIN Twenty years after they first emerged from the backwaters of Kentucky, Black Stone Cherry have become entrenched as part of the hard rock firmament – in the UK, at least; their sonic fingerprint can be found everywhere from Walsall (Stone Broken) to South Wales (Those Damn Crows, Florence Black), their sun-soaked riffs and radio-ready choruses proving a winning combination. That same recipe is apparent in tonight’s main tour support the Kris Barras Band, who ease a rapidly filling Academy into the party spirit with some slick rock’n’roll, delivered with enough panache that it isn’t long before the audience is clapping and singing along. Playing to the converted, BSC seem like conquering champions, coming out to a sold-out venue singing Bohemian Rhapsody. “How about you show Black Stone Cherry some of that love?” quips frontman Chris Robertson, to which the audience digs in with equal fervour to a roaring Me And Mary Jane. The sheer physicality of their sound leaves the rockier songs feeling like a freight train at full speed. Album off-cut Yeah Man is a prime slice of BSC magic; the heft of guitar, bass and drums a solid counterweight to Robertson’s soaring vocal melodies, as if providing a distillation of the band’s DNA. Darting around their discography, BSC fire out selections from last year’s The Human Condition (Again, Ringin’ In My Head) alongside fan-favourites In My Blood and Blind Man. Although undoubtedly a celebration of the band’s output, the show also takes on a sense of added poignancy given the precarious uncertainty of international touring even now. As Robertson puts it succinctly: “I wish I had some rock-star shit to share, but being on stage with y’all is just the most amazing feeling.” Striking a balance between joyous and immensely emotional, the show reaches an apex as Robertson stands alone on stage to introduce Things My Father Said, dedicating it to his father who passed away in June. Robertson’s vocal has always had an emotionally soulful edge to it, but with so much contextual weight behind the song it undergoes an emotional metamorphosis. Even as his voice wavers and he has to step away from the mic, the audience provides a serenade that, lit by the glow of thousands of phone torches, is nothing short of magical. “If there’s one crowd I know can carry me, it’s you. I love you from the bottom of my heart,” a tearful, kneeling Robertson says. The closing run of Hell And High Water through to Lonely Train (via Blame It On The Boom-Boom and White Trash Millionaire) is a stellar reminder of BSC’s anthemic prowess, but by that point the lightning has already struck. A final joyous rendition of Peace Is Free gives one last blast of positivity, the chorus line ‘Don’t you bring your sadness down on me’ a perfect summation of the cathartic release felt as Black Stone Cherry become one of the first international bands to return to touring the UK. As far back as 2009 (when the band got an early taste of UK arenas supporting Nickelback), they haven’t shied away from returning to more intimate venues even as they made their own leap to arenas. In turn, this has clearly strengthened their relationship with UK audiences. But while much is said of music fans’ abilities to connect with music, tonight’s BSC’s show goes to prove it can be even more resonant when that relationship becomes a two-way street. Rich Hobson CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 99

Manic Street Preachers Halifax, Piece Hall ‘The Manics’ 17-song set seems to hurtle by in no time.’ Bradfield and company shatter the Piece in Yorkshire. As this West Yorkshire gig coincides with the release of the band’s new album, The Ultra Vivid Lament, James Dean Bradfield suggests that tonight’s show is an unofficial launch party. And a party atmosphere there is; the Manics’ 17-song set seems to hurtle by in no time. Few bands in the world, let alone Britain, can boast a better opener than Motorcycle Emptiness, perfectly setting the tone at Halifax’s magnificent Piece Hall – a Grade I-listed, eighteenth-century marketplace. Ideal surroundings for the more refined, present-day Manics. Speaking of, recent singles Orwellian and The Secret He Had Missed integrate nicely with their lush, piano-driven textures, but it remains to be seen whether they become permanent additions. You Stole The Sun From My Heart inspires roars, shaking the Georgian architecture to its foundations, while If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next is met with more of a subdued sense of reflection than an outpouring of emotion. An apt response for these strange times, although several thousand voices ignite when the band launch into their customary cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine. With the lights of the Calderdale hills puncturing the night, A Design For Life’s euphoric strains conclude the Manics’ first visit to HX1. “Why the fuck haven’t we been here before?” Bradfield asks. Halifax concurs. Chris Lord High Voltage: the appropriately electrifying Nicky Wire. Bob Vylan The 100 Club, London An unexpurgated blast of fury keeps the punk flame burning. Don’t let anybody tell you that rock is dead, or that it has nothing to say and is of no appeal to the young. Tonight, the 100 Club is a seething mass of youthful white punks, black punks, gay punks and inbetweener punks for whom 1977 means absolutely nothing because what matters is the shitstorm of the here and now. And they’re absolutely having it. “What the fuck?” asks an incredulous Bobby Vylan as he and drummer Bob13 take the stage to thunderous cheers and hollers. Within seconds, Bob Vylan’s explosive and volatile mix of punk and grime detonates the subterranean venue. Tackling racism, bigotry and misplaced nationalism head on with I Heard You Want Your Country Back, Bobby spits on the Union Jack that’s been draped around his shoulders while the uncompromising We Live Here hammers the point home: ‘Neighbours called me n****/Told me to go back to my own country/ Said since we arrived this place has got so ugly/But this is my fucking country/And it’s never been fucking lovely!’ A howl of righteous rage translated into a thrilling performance, the audience responds in kind by jumping, singing and invading the stage. Brilliantly supported by the patriarchy-smashing Witch Fever, this is punk rock as it should be for these deeply troubled times. Julian Marszalek Frank Turner And The Sleeping Souls Roundhouse, London A celebration of being all together now. “This is my fucking church,” declares Frank Turner, introducing a song called The Gathering that he wrote in anticipation of this very moment: 3,000 people crammed into the Roundhouse on the final night of his urban festival Lost Evenings IV. His ringmaster voice cracks, “You’re really fucking here…” It’s an emotional evening all round. With Turner having raised almost £300,000 to save small venues with relentless home livestreams during lockdown, there’s a tangible euphoria to the physical communion of his fan family, while Turner himself bounds and bounces through a ‘Greatest Hits’ cavalcade. It’s a night of pure chant-along celebration of friendship, love and music – Turner hands the entirety of The Ballad Of Me & My Friends to the crowd to sing, while a roaring torrent of arena punk firecrackers (1933, If Ever I Stray, Photosynthesis, Long Live The Queen) peaks with a joyous chorus of I Still Believe delivered by the ebullient compère Beans On Toast. Post-pandemic, much of the set feels freshly pertinent: Get Better’s declaration that ‘We’re not dead yet’; Turner’s acoustic rage against Tory-led societal collapse, Thatcher Fucked The Kids. But the most lumpin-throat moment comes in the coda to Polaroid Picture. ‘We won’t all be here this time next year, so while you can, take a picture of us,’ the Roundhouse bawls, goosebumps on its goosebumps. Praise be. Mark Beaumont Mother Vulture, El Moono, Crooked Little Sons, Torus Camden Black Heart, London British rock’n’roll heroes-in-waiting pick up where they left off. There are worse bands to help jump-start live music than Mother Vulture. Before the curtain came down in spring 2020, the Bristolians were blazing their way to the front of the queue of bands proving that the homegrown rock’n’roll scene was more vibrant than it’s been in years. Fast forward 18-odd months, and all that pent-up energy is set to be released at this gig, held under the ‘Back To Live’ banner. It’s an old-school four-band bill, featuring QOTSA-style modern rockers Torus, nattilysuited blues-punk reprobates Crooked Little Sons, and doom-adjacent hairballs El Moono. But it’s Mother Vulture’s room to own, and despite a relatively sparse crowd – hey, gig hesitancy is understandable – that’s what they do. Livewire frontman Georgi Valentine may have submitted to the barber’s clippers since we last saw him, but his reckless energy and paint-stripping voice remain undiminished. Bespectacled bassist Chris Simpson is only marginally less arresting, a perma-gurning figure who clearly skipped the ‘No Showboating’ chapter in the Bumper Bassist’s Book Of Rules. There’s no album yet so it’s short and sweet, but what it lacks on duration it more than makes up for in energy. Just like old times, though? We’re getting there. Dave Everley MARK LATHAM 100 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

‘Tunes that stick; riffs that sing; solos that really count.’ REVIEWS James Bird has a point to make. Scott Taylor: spreading the love. Mason Hill Bristol, The Fleece Rising Scottish hard rock stars take their Top 20 debut across the border, and are met by much rejoicing. JOSEPH BRANSTON There’s a glorious moment when Mason Hill’s composure – their sweetly earnest, humbled delight at the audience’s cheers – is shattered. The band have just torn through a triumphant Against The Wall, topping a slick, razor-sharp set built on the album of the same name (the first rock debut to crack the UK Top 20 since Royal Blood in 2014). Support acts Empyre and Hollowstar set the bar with gusto, but now the headliners are surpassing the response generated earlier by their cover of the Foo Fighters’ Best Of You. Suddenly, vocalist Scott Taylor spins round to face arm-wheeling drummer Craig McFetridge, eyes wide. Is it all about to kick off? “Did you just hit me in the fucking testicle with that drum stick?!” Taylor exclaims in broad Glaswegian tones that filter pleasingly into his singing. It’s a moment of levity that cuts through tonight’s muscular, mature collection of riff assaults, elevating harmonies and singalong choruses. Parallels with the likes of Alter Bridge feel perfectly legit, with Taylor and lead guitarist James Bird filling Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti-esque roles. School friends back home in Glasgow, the two of them came of age watching bands like Five Finger Death Punch, ultimately soaking up that biting heft for their own music. There’s a lot of feeling in The Fleece tonight. The space is generously peppered with T-shirts bearing the names of all three of tonight’s acts. Punters seem pumped but mindful of one another’s space. Taylor must declare “Oh my god!” and “We love you!” about 600 times during the 80-odd minutes Mason Hill are on stage, hand on heart as he does so. Usually this might have our inner sceptic rolling its eyes. Isn’t it all a bit ‘worthy’? A bit too consistent with that black T-shirted look, slick chops and slightly unsexy band name that, at first glance, screams ‘safe hands’ rather than ‘badass muthafuckers’? But these are not normal circumstances. It’s been a bizarre year and a half. Their debut was already a long time coming, beset by delays back in 2017 (threatening to derail the band altogether). Then a pandemic, tours postponed… That emotional response isn’t ‘worthiness’, it’s sheer bloody relief. “I’ll never forget the anti-climax of when it was released,” guitarist James Bird told us backstage pre-show. “It was weird. Without gigs and things I didn’t feel like it was out. But I think there’s hunger now. I’ve been writing more songs. I want to chase whatever it was that was missing.” Tonight drives all this home. Beneath the moody facade, Mason Hill are young, hungry and, crucially, Craig McFetridge: aiming for the nuts. all about the songs: tunes that stick; riffs that sing (even the heaviest ones); solos that really count. From the opening chords and thunderous beats of No Regret, the band’s joy at finally being able to see fans singing these songs back at them is evident, covid restrictions or not (like all bands we’ve spoken to recently, they’re having to forego their usual pre/postgig fan interaction). “This is fucking brilliant!” Taylor exclaims, beaming, as the cheers continue in waves for a groovy, beefy DNA. Find My Way brings in an extra layer of bite, devilish mania flashing through Taylor’s eyes, the Dr Jekyll to his Mr Hyde. That same tight heaviness finds its way into the groovy We Pray, offset by the emotive dynamics of Out Of Reach and stirring ballad Who We Are. By the time Against The Wall has raised football victory-style crowd chants, we’re thinking they could give the likes of Shinedown, Black Stone Cherry et al a serious run for their money. Just another bunch of modern hard-rock boys in black? Not so much. Polly Glass CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM 101

The Soundtrack Of My Life Guitarist, songwriter and producer Steven Van Zandt on the records, artists and gigs that are of lasting significance to him. Interview: Rob Hughes Steven Van Zandt co-founded Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes and leads his own band Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul. He also starred in The Sopranos and Lilyhammer, but is most familiar for his decades-long tenure in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. “Being in a band is an extremely vivid, emotional connection,” says Van Zandt, who has just published an enthralling memoir, Unrequited Infatuations. “It’s friendship, it’s family, the posse, the gang, the team and ultimately community. That’s what’s always appealed to me.” THE FIRST MUSIC I REMEMBER HEARING I must have been seven or eight, and I was at summer camp. There was a jukebox outside that echoed throughout the entire camp, and I heard Yakety Yak by The Coasters. I remember it to this day, hearing that song with the echo, sort of far away, and thinking: “What is that?” The call of the wild! THE FIRST SONG I PERFORMED LIVE As a young teenager I joined a band as a singer, before I could actually play guitar, and the first thing I did on stage was Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone. It was either with The Mates or The Shadows. I guess it must’ve looked like a cool thing to do at the time, but I’ve never been crazy about the spotlight. I was never in need of being a front guy. THE GUITAR HERO In the long run it has to be Jeff Beck. I see him at least once a year and he’s always got something up his sleeve. He’s amazing. I’ve never seen anybody change the tone of a guitar using just his fingers. My favourite era is when pop met rock in the mid-sixties. You’d have The Yardbirds having hit singles, with a fucking fantastic fifteen-second guitar solo in the middle of a twominute-and-fifty song. THE SINGER It alternates between Sam Cooke and David Ruffin. I happened to catch Little Richard do a sound-check once, and he sang like I’ve never heard him do on record. He was one of the most amazing singers that ever lived. THE SONGWRITER It all starts with Leiber and Stoller. They were the godfathers. And Mike [Stoller] is still with us. He actually introduced my band on the Soulfire Live! DVD [2008]. They set the template as songwriter-producers THE LIVE ALBUM I’ve never been a big fan of live albums, unless they’re changing the arrangements or doing something substantial artistically. But there have been some real exceptions, like The Who’s Live At Leeds. It was ground-breaking at the time. And when they introduce new songs, it really does justify its “It’s embarrassing that Procol Harum are not in the Hall Of Fame.” existence. That was the first time we heard them do Summertime Blues, for instance. THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME The Who’s Tommy is the highest pinnacle of the art form, but my favourite of all time is 12 X 5 [The Rolling Stones, 1964]. Which unfortunately doesn’t exist in England. I love their early stuff in particular, when they were just starting to emerge from being a covers band. That was a magical moment for me. THE BEST RECORD I’VE MADE Introducing Darlene Love only came out six years ago, but in a way it was really the debut album of a 73-year-old legend. What a tough life she had. Her first numberone record was The Crystals’ He’s A Rebel in 1962, then by the seventies she was out of the business. I called all my friends to write songs for her, and everybody delivered. And I think I rose to the occasion. When you’re producing the greatest female singer of all time, you want to bring your A-game. THE WORST RECORD I’VE MADE Probably the first Southside Johnny And The Asbury Jukes album [I Don’t Want To Go Home, 1976]. It’s not terrible, but I was certainly learning on the job as a producer. Which has been my whole life story, actually. I think I was a little too conservative. I should’ve turned the guitar up more, and there are a few tricks that I hadn’t learned yet. THE SONG THAT MAKES ME CRY It’s the big productions that get me. I love MacArthur Park by Richard Harris, the whole sound of that thing. And that’s a real dramatic ending. As a producer and arranger, and as a songwriter, I enjoy every aspect of that song. MY ‘IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE’ ALBUM Marvin Gaye’s I Want You [1976] is part of what I think is the greatest run of albums, certainly on the soul side of things. Beginning with What’s Going On, then Trouble Man and on to Let’s Get It On, which is incredible. I Want You is just the sexiest album ever made. THE MOST UNDERRATED BAND EVER It’s embarrassing that Procol Harum are not in the Hall Of Fame. For me they define what prog should be, along with the Left Banke. Moby Grape are so underrated too. The first album [Moby Grape, 1967] is as good as it gets, but Columbia, in their wisdom, released five singles at once. They were trying to make a statement that every song was a great hit single, but, man, it killed the band. THE SONG I WANT PLAYED AT MY FUNERAL [Laughing] How about the number-one record that I haven’t had yet? I’ll take a top ten, actually! Man, I dunno. What a terrible question! How about I Can Only Give You Everything by Them. Unrequited Infatuations is out now via White Rabbit/Orion. PROCOL HARUM: GETTY 106 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM

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