While bassist Jeff Pilson admits that money is the motivator for Dokken’s classic lineup reunion, he insists that the band also wants to redeem themselves after years of bad press.
Though the bassist agrees with drummer Mick Brown and vocalist Don Dokken that money is the main incentive for their run of comeback shows, he still wants to do a “great job” for the fans’ sake.
He tells My Global Mind, “Because bands look like they are having a fun time up on stage, it seems like it’s the easiest job in the world or not really a job at all.
Most fans would say, ‘Why can those guys just get it together and play. It looks like fun.’ Obviously it’s more than that – it’s the time you spend together practicing and in negations making it all happen.
I will say that the notion that we are doing it just for the money – of course we doing it for the money. We are getting well paid and that’s great.”
Pilson adds, “Honestly, I don’t really look at it like that – I look at it as getting paid is a nice thing and this is a chance to put a positive spin on a band that got a lot of negative press. Now it’s just about going out there and kicking some butt and doing a great job, not to get all caught up in the controversy that we usually get.
Japan has always been great for us and I’m really just looking forward just going out and doing the music and playing with these guys.”
Pilson also recalled the last time the original Dokken lineup played together in 1997, when they were supporting Alice Cooper. He says the night ended on a “horrible note” after old tensions had resurfaced between frontman Dokken and guitarist George Lynch – resulting in the pair almost “getting into a fight” on the bus.
Pilson explains, “George’s son had to come between them. It got nasty and ugly – it was very unfortunate.
I think extreme tension is destructive and that’s what ultimately brought about the end of the band. I don’t think extreme tension was creative in any way whatsoever. I think it cut off a lot of the potential that we had.
I’m hoping we can do this with a better attitude – and I think we will.”
Dokken’s only planned US show is Sioux Falls Badlands in South Dakota on September 30th, followed by six Japanese dates in October. They’ll then revert to the current formation featuring Dokken, Brown, Jon Levin and Chris McCarvill.
Classic Dokken lineup tour dates
Sep 30: Sioux Falls Badlands, SD
Oct 5: Osaka Namba Hatch
Oct 6: Fukuoka Civic Hall
Oct 8: Tokyo Loud Park Festival
Oct 10: Hiroshima Blue Live Hiroshima
Oct 11: Aichi Zepp Nagoya
Oct 12: Tokyo Zepp Diversity
Anthrax has released the video for song Monster At The End from their new album, For All Kings. Watch video at Fangoria.
The original concept was to have four still photographers placed strategically on a Florida set while the five members of Anthrax performed their new song live. Each photographer would hold down his camera’s shutter button continuously for the near-four minute-long song, capturing a steady stream of hundreds of still images.
“Hey, it might have been a great idea,” laughed video director Jack Bennett, “but holding down the shutter button on a still camera for that long a time? All we would have ended up with were four jammed cameras!”
Shooting the entire video with Super Sharp HD video still cameras, Bennett wanted an animated, staccato-feel to the flow of the individual images. “Video shutter speeds are faster and more reliable than anything we could have done manually, and we wanted as big a pool of still images to choose from as we could get.”
In post-production, Bennett went through the footage frame by frame and hand-picked the still images he wanted to animate – hundreds of them. Rather than print the video at 24 frames per second, he animated movement of the band members using the still images, creating a jagged, crude motion. “We didn’t want fluidity, we wanted the video to have more of a comic book feel to it, like flipbook animation.”
This also allowed Bennett to hang on the band members’ individual movements to accentuate the power of their playing, such as the strength in Charlie Benante’s drum hits, or Scott Ian’s strumming or Frank Bello’s rhythm.
And then the real fun began.
Bennett and his crew went one step further, taking a cue from the legendary Walt Disney animators of the 1920s and 1930s, who used the technique of rotoscoping, the art of painstakingly hand-painting individual cels to embellish a primary image.
Employing the fundamentals of rotoscope, Bennett has peppered the video with monsters, tattoos that come alive, explosions, popping eyeballs, speech bubbles, morphed images, and nods to the influence of ‘Creepshow.’ There’s even a frame or two of The Skull King, the evil character from Anthrax’s Blood Eagle Wings music video that Bennett also directed. Actor Justin Michael Terry, who played The Skull King, is The Runner in Monster At The End.
“We used a lot of stop-motion effects as well as other special and visual effects in the same way as was done in the original Exorcist film,” Bennett added. “We even added a little bit of grain, some dust and some scratches just to give it that analog feel.”
As the music video unfolds, the frame rate increases, giving the band members more and more fluid movements until the final chorus when the video is full-on 24-frames per second. “You could watch this video one frame at a time,” Bennett added, “and probably not find everything we did.”
“The Monster at the End video takes us back to our love of comics and horror,” said Anthrax’s Charlie Benante. “We’ve always loved the ‘Creepshow’ movies and wanted something like that for this video. Jack is easy to work with, all we did was perform the song, he did the real work with the editing and achieving the look that we wanted.”
Bennett wraps the video with one more surprise, an unexpected ending that goes to show that in the end, there’s a little bit of the monster in all of us.
To watch videos/lyric videos for other songs off of For All Kings, please click the highlighted song titles:
Joseph Hudak of the Nashville Scene spoke with our very own Eddie Trunk about the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame. The brief interview appear below in its entirety.
Nashville Scene: Are you surprised they asked you to become a voter?
ET: Yeah, pretty much. There has been some dialogue with those guys over the last few years about doing something and possibly getting involved in their boards and committees, because they are aware of how vocally against it I was. I’ll give them credit: They could have easily swept me away, but at least they did listen, and they did want to try to do something to get my voice involved.
Nashville Scene: How’d it happen?
ET: It was really Tom Morello who got me in there. Tom has been a voter for a little while and is a friend. There are a few times over the last few years that Tom has called me up and asked me some questions about bands that I think should have gone in, or should this person be inducted if this band goes in. Things like that. Tom finally said, “Hey, why don’t we just try to get him in?” One day I got a call from the Hall of Fame, and they said, “Tom Morello gave us your information, and said he thought you’d be good to be on the voting panel. Are you interested?” My initial reaction was to tell them to go to hell. But then I was like, “Well, that’d be kind of stupid. Because if I’m sitting here railing against this thing, and now I have an opportunity to make a difference, that would be counterproductive.”
Nashville Scene: So who deserves consideration next year?
ET: When it comes to heavy metal, I think Judas Priest is the second-most important band to Black Sabbath. You can make a case for Def Leppard, for Foreigner, for Motörhead and Lemmy, when you’re talking about influence. Talking about ’70s music, Foreigner, Journey, Boston, The Cars — so many of these bands have still been ignored. And Thin Lizzy. When you start dabbling in the ’80s, you look at Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe. If Guns N’ Roses went in first time, first ballot, really off the strength of [Appetite for Destruction], you gotta say to yourself, “How is Def Leppard or Bon Jovi not in that conversation?” I have my passions, but I know well enough to separate my personal tastes versus what makes sense. People were surprised that on this year’s ballot I voted for Chicago. I don’t crank up Chicago records, but when I look at that ballot, they absolutely deserved to be in. I take the responsibility very seriously.
Stryper vocalist Michael Sweet is back with a new solo album and he appears to be having the time of his life. Sweet has teamed up with Loudwire to exclusively bring you the new video for Radio, a track that is taking a fun jab at some of his peers and is featured on his One Sided War album. Watch it below.
Sweet tells us, “I wrote the song Radio based on my history in country music and on what seems to be a surge of rock stars trying to become country stars. I’m a metal head at heart and always will be, but I’ve had the opportunity to write with some of the best writers in Nashville (Blair Daly, Bruce Wallace, Luke Laird) and I’ve learned how talented these guys are and how serious they take their job. Just as metal is a life style, country is as well and you have to live it, not just wake up one morning and decide you’re gonna be a country star and have the respect of the country world.”
He continues, “I grew up with country music, played on my dads country songs (he cowrote a No. 11 country song in 1976 called I Don’t Want To Have To Marry You) and I know and respect the country music world. This song and video is having a little fun with all the guys that think they can just throw on a cowboy hat, some cowboy boots, move to Nashville and become country stars. It’s just not that simple and that’s just not reality. The same would apply to country stars trying to become metal heads. Kind of funny when you think about it. Country music, just like rock, is a lifestyle rich with history and authenticity and each genre should be treated with great respect. You can’t fake it. You can try, but the fans will see right through it.”
Sweet released One Sided War on August 26th through Rat Pak records.
In related news, Stryper has announced their 30th Anniversary To Hell with the Devil Tour, to read more details, and to view their tour itinerary, please click here.
Dokken frontman Don Dokken and guitarist George Lynch have begun snapping at each other ahead of the band’s reunion shows in Japan, says drummer Mick Brown – and he adds that he’s tired of it.
The classic lineup, also featuring Jeff Pilson, are set to pay six gigs in October, before Dokken revert to the current formation featuring Dokken, Brown, Jon Levin and Chris McCarvill.
The vocalist said earlier this month that the brief tour was “about money” and argued that the same was true of the Guns N’ Roses reunion.
Brown tells Focus On Metal, “Nothing’s changed. George and Don, during the conversations to get this going, they’re already starting up.
Jeff seems excited about it. I would like to see it happen. There’s not much time – Jeff has only got a 10 or 12 day window to do this.
We don’t have time for much bickering. I’m a little standoffish about it. Maybe I’ll get a good feeling from it when it happens. I hope so.”
The drummer says he’d be delighted if the reunion was for artistic reasons, but continues, “I don’t feel that way. It’s a money thing, and the money’s too good.
I’m tired of the bad-attitude stuff. You put Don and George together and it just starts happening again, and then it gets really confusing.
I think it’s very sad when grown men act that way, and I’m tired of being around it. But here we go.”
Brown adds, “Listen, for that kind of money, I’ll shut up and do what we used to do. Jeff and I will stand there and go just the same way we did before.”
With no further reunion shows planned, he reflects: “If we blink this will be over. What’s probably going to happen is we’ll end up doing it, it’ll come off really well, then they’re going to talk about doing it again. And I’ll be like, ‘Oh man, here we go, all over again!’”
Unleashed In The East tour dates:
Oct 5: Osaka Namba Hatch
Oct 6: Fukuoka Civic Hall
Oct 8: Tokyo Loud Park Festival
Oct 10: Hiroshima Blue Live Hiroshima
Oct 11: Aichi Zepp Nagoya
Oct 12: Tokyo Zepp Diverci
Ratt drummer Bobby Blozter was a recent guest on Eddie’s Sirius/XM’s shows, Eddie Trunk Live where he discussed touring without any of the original members of the band and the legal battles over ownership the band name. Excerpts from interview appear below as transcribed by blabbermouth.net.
On continuing to tour as Ratt without any other members of the band’s classic lineup:
Blozter: “I’m very proud of the band and the success of the band and the whole thing, ’cause, trust me, in doing this out of absolute frustration and anger, because I was the only person, and have been so many times in Ratt, trying to rally the band. You can’t take five years off, especially when you’re Stephen Pearcy’s [formersinger] age, and my age. He’s the older one… He’s only a year and a half older than me, but I’m just saying. Next month I’ll be 58, and I’m conveying this to these guys: ‘What do we got here?’ Seriously. Fifteen years? You see a lot of guys touring into their later years this day and age, but not with the aggressive style of music that Ratt plays.
“I’m ready to keep going. I’m playing really good. I think I’m playing the best I’ve ever played, frankly. We work hard at this, and everybody’s real dedicated. So, I’m just so happy to be out there playing the catalog, and bringing Ratt N’ Roll out there; [the fans] still want it. And they don’t really… I hate to say this… They wanna hear it done with great integrity, conviction, performance, show… everything. They just wanna hear the music and have it sound like the records. And I’ve seen other bands that have one, two, three [original members]… whatever, they go out and I look around and I’m, like, ‘Wow, [the fans are] f–king loving it,’ and they don’t really care if Joe Smith is on bass, or whatever.”
Talking about the criticism he has received for touring without any other original band members:
Blozter: “I don’t go on the Internet and I don’t read all these freaky… I’m not gonna read that junk, because you know what? Every night, when I walk on a stage, and there’s five thousand, six thousand… We’re playing big gigs, man. There’s some smaller ones in there, but they’re fifteen-hundred seaters, or whatever, but you’ve gotta keep working and keep spreading the good word. I walk out and see those faces and feel that love and give that love. It’s, like, it all fades… all the negativity. I don’t listen to it. I don’t care. F–k you, guys. You don’t like it? F–k off.
Not everybody is on MetalShit.com and BlabberFace.net. Who cares? There’s such a small amount of people, really, that do that. Because [we’re playing to] people [who] have no idea about [the drama that is reported on] those sites…”
Discussing the legal battle between him and [guitarist] Warren DeMartini over the rights to the Ratt name, with the guitarist filing a lawsuit last fall claiming that the drummer was falsely advertising his “tribute band” as the real thing:
Blozter: “He’s not moving forward, he’s moving backwards, and it’s gonna be a year and a half soon [since he filed his lawsuit], and this thing [the court case] ain’t gonna see the light of day — if it makes it to the light of day — ’till, I don’t know… ’18 or something stupid. I’m not a litigious kind of guy. I’m not looking for f–king lawsuits; I hate it. I hate it. Rate has been embroiled and tangled… Since Out Of The Cellar came out, we always were being sued, and we were always paying fortunes to fight things and settle things instead of paying the lawyers…
I was willing to give up my ownership of the name. I wanted to give them [Pearcy and Croucier] their portion of the name that they wanted, that Warren didn’t wanna give. He didn’t wanna give it, but he didn’t wanna play unless it was the original band. Basically, he was just putting us in f–king no man’s land. We’re not moving; him and I own a hundred percent of nothing; these guys are on strike, so the band will sit, sit, sit. And in that time, we age, age, age. And I just had to make a move, man. And it was a big one. And it’s doing great.
Warren has been breaching fiduciary duty for years. Him and I, as members of the band and just officers of the [corporation], we have to perpetuate business for that corporation; that is our duty. I have been doing that all along. I’ve always been pushing Ratt: ‘Let’s go. Let’s work. Let’s work.’ I mean, that’s what I wanna do. I’m a businessman and an artist/musician. I wanna play and earn for my family. It’s real simple.
[Warren] is suing me. But the funny thing is that, while he’s doing that, he’s calling our business manager, going, ‘Am I getting a check?’ It’s, like, ‘No. Drop the frivolous lawsuit and then yes.’ But maybe not then, because I haven’t had my chance at him yet. I won’t get into that portion of it. But this thing has gone on and on. It’s not gonna see the court now until next spring, and then from there on, probably ’till ’18, if it doesn’t get thrown out [before then]. It has no merit. It’s a frivolous bulls–t lawsuit and I don’t know why he’s perpetuating it, other than maybe the head of the household, his wife, is pulling the strings. I don’t know. I wish he’d cool it. ‘Come out and play some shows, Warren. [Laughs]”
On his legal battle with former bassist Juan Croucier:
Bobby: “The problem with the others that got involved, like with Juan using the Ratt logo [for his new band Ratt’s Juan Croucier]. Well, it turns out that Warren gave him the right to do that. He can’t do that. I mean, that’s a big thing for this case for him. I’m surprised that he actually did that, ’cause that’s just unbelievable. ‘Cause Juan Croucier, I said, ‘Please take that down. Take the logo down. Don’t get into this mess.
He’s escalated now on his third attorney. He’s trying to suggest now, as a last-ditch effort, that he didn’t know WBS, since 1987, was the corporation in which Ratt did their business, because he didn’t wanna go out on tour, so he was expelled from the [corporation]. We closed the old [corporation], and opened WBS. We did it to the letter of the law, with a legal team advising us. So at this point now, he’s trying to allege — and it’s just absolute lies — to the court, and they see this, that he never knew that WBS was an actuality of the company, even though he accepted certified letters years and years ago — back to ’97, ’98. He said he never knew about it ’till about a year ago. Well, he admitted under oath that he did know about it in 2001. I mean, this kind of craziness is going on, and I’m just sitting there watching it, going, ‘Oh my God! This is unbelievable.’
I went after [Juan] to stop [him from] using the RATT logo. He doesn’t own it; Warren and I own it. He [has since] augmented it. He had the Ratt logo. It said Ratt with the logo and then a little ‘S’ at the end: Ratt’s Juan Croucier. For him to be doing this, I can’t understand the recklessness in it, because he stands to really… The judgment that could come down could be very, very serious to him and for us at WBS, Inc. So the fact that Warren gave him — and Juan, he said this under oath, under the penalty of perjury, and he’s got the e-mail — that Warren gave him the right to use the Ratt logo.”
What about his current relationship with [former Ratt singer] Stephen Pearcy?:
Bobby: “Well, Pearcy, I’ve been talking to him over the last year or so. I called him and we had minor texting or e-mailing or whatever going on, and I said, ‘Smart move, man, to keep your nose out of this mess.’ He knows all along who the culprit of this has been — it’s been Warren, who’s stopped everybody from working ’till he gets his way. Then all of a sudden, the dynamic changed and Juan’s not gonna play and he got Stephen to not play unless they get the name. I’m open to giving the name. Who gives a s–t about the name? As long as everybody gets what we get… I want everybody to get for life… Even if you can’t play, you broke your back… whatever. But you’ve gotta put your time in and not do two tours and then quit and think you’re gonna walk out owning the name. That’s the position I came from. Give seven years of solid touring with no f==kups and you get what you want, and we all get what we want, which is to play together.”
Speaking about the recent photo that surfaced of Pearcy, Croucier and DeMartini at a Los Angeles birthday party, fueling speculation that they could form their own version of Ratt to rival his version of the band:
Blozter: “Well, it’s absurd. It ain’t gonna happen. Warren can’t do that. If Warren was to join up in that thing, he would be in competition with his own band and corporation — Ratt, WBS… Ratt. He would be kicked out on his rear end so quick… They’d have to call it something else; they couldn’t call it anything but something else….”
