4/8: RIP ANDY JOHNS
Was sad to hear of the passing of record producer Andy Johns. I first heard the news late last night via a text from former LA Guns guitarist Stacy Blades. Andy had produced the last few LA Guns albums and was working with Stacy on his next band at the time of his death. I did not know Andy personally but was a huge fan of his work. His early days of engineering were on all time classic albums by Led Zeppelin, Hendrix, and The Rolling Stones. Perhaps some of his best known 80’s work was with Cinderella (That’s him in the “Somebody Save Me” video behind the board). Andy also produced Van Halen’s F U C K album and more recently the debut from Chickenfoot. He was known for great drum sounds and really rich punchy sounding albums and I loved his work. I did not know Andy personally. Years ago in the 80’s he was working on something with House Of Lords and I somehow ended up at the studio and did a gang vocal on the album. Outside of a that very brief meeting I never knew him, but his track record speaks for itself. By many accounts Andy worked with rock stars and also partied like one! A true legend of the business gone at just 62. RIP Andy and thanks for the great sounding rock. More on this tonight on SiriusXM Eddie Trunk LIVE show starting 6P ET on channel 39.
Eddie, that something that Andy was working on was House of Lords DEBUT album, “House of Lords.” The album was released in 1988 and the song “I Wanna Be Loved” was the hot single from that album and received regular rotation on MTV during 1988-1989. It appears occasionally on Metal Mania.