UFO frontman Phil Mogg says the band is considering a Strangers In The Night tour.
Mogg tells Planet Rock, We have talked about touring and just doing the whole of Strangers In The Night – for the craic. But we’re still about making new music. We’re recording a covers album, actually. We’ve done The Doors’ Break on Through (To The Other Side), The Yardbirds’ Heart Full Of Soul… but we don’t know what to call it.”
In recent UFO news, the band announced North American tour dates with Saxon in the Fall. Click here for more information and to view the itinerary.
Accept will release their new studio album, The Rise Of Chaos, on August 4th through Nuclear Blast.
Guitarist Wolf Hoffmann says, “The Rise Of Chaos is something I have been thinking about often. Wherever we go, there is some hidden as well as some visible destruction and it kind of changes the world we know. What was there today can be gone tomorrow and it’s somehow irritating, because it happens on so many levels and no one knows what comes next. The cover is our last stage set, but now clearly ‘destroyed’ — like… after a catastrophe.”
Accept will launch the disc on August 3r with special show at the Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany. The group’s set will consist of three parts: Part one will bring fans a classic Accept set, packed with new and old hits. Part two will present another premiere: Guitarist Wolf Hoffmann will play tracks from his solo album, Headbangers Symphony, released in 2016, with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra for the very first time. On this record, Wolf covered famous opuses by composers such as Beethoven, Vivaldi and Mozart in a metal guise. And in Part 3, all elements can be seen and heard together: Accept will make the holy Wacken ground shake by sharing the stage with the orchestra, supported by a complex multimedia show.
This unique concert experience will take place on this year’s Night To Remember, which makes it even more special. The Night To Remember is a celebrated, long-lasting Wacken tradition; for one night of the festival a selection of established bands will do something unique and special with their performance.
Hoffmann states, “It’s always impressive to see how bands take this evening seriously and how much love the artists and the organizing team put into their work to get a varied result. It’s a great tradition which underlines and documents the top-notch level of the international rock community like nothing else. We also want to present something that ACCEPT has never done before, we hope we can give something really special to the fans.”
Thomas Jensen, organizer of Wacken Open Air, adds “Accept have been and are still a very important part of Germany’s heavy metal scene. We’re really looking forward to having them with us once more. With this epic concept, the Thursday evening will be one to remember for sure.”
KISS bassist and vocalist Gene Simmons reports that he and the band are writing new material.
Back in March, Simmons said that he had no inclination to record a new KISS album due to the fact some people would “steal it and download it and file share it.” Although, he maintains that stance, he says things are going on behind the scenes.
He tells the Michael Cavacini blog, “There’s some writing going on. Not too long ago I wrote a song called Your Wish Is My Command. It sounds anthemic, like something that might have come off Love Gun, maybe. But I’m not incentivised.
The idea that you work your ass off and then someone with freckles on their face decides they want to download your music and file share – that’s not what I work for.
How’d you like to be a plumber, come over somebody’s house and work all day to fix their plumbing and then when it’s time to get paid they say, ‘No, I just wanted to say thank you.’ No.
Simmons added “I’ve heard people say, ‘Oh, you have enough money.’ That’s what I need – an 18-year-old kid telling me when enough is enough.
It doesn’t affect me at all. And it doesn’t affect the Stones or U2 – a lot of the bands that do well. There’s only a handful, actually.
The saddest thing of all is that the next great bands, with the talent and the charisma and all that stuff, will never have the chance that we did – because there’s no music industry.
There’s no way for them to pay the rent. They’re going to have to give away their music, practically, for free.”
Former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony says that he “can pretty much confirm” that the band’s singer David Lee Roth personally donated thousands of dollars to a fundraising campaign launched by Anthony’s family after the bassist’s two-week-old grandson died of heart disease.
In a Facebook post announcing his loss, Anthony revealed that he would participate in the hospital’s Walk L.A. in June to support the facility. He invited the public to donate to his family’s team, “Rex And The Heart Beaters.” Anthony was hoping to raise $3,450 for his team, and that goal was easily eclipsed — in large part due to the generosity of the campaign’s top donor, a “Dave Roth,” who chipped in $10,000 for the cause.
During an appearance earlier this week on Eddie’s Trunk Nation show on SiriusXM channel Volume (106), Anthony told Eddie, “I check the donation page every single morning when I wake up, just to see how the team’s doing and raising money and people that are donating. And I saw this one morning, ‘David Roth,’ and I’m, like, ‘Oh my God! I can’t… What? No, this can’t be right.’ And then what happens is an e-mail gets sent to me personally saying, ‘A donation has been made on your behalf by David Roth. Ten thousand dollars.’ And so I can e-mail back to thank the donors. This e-mail went to a business management agency — that’s what the donation came through. And I actually e-mailed back and said, ‘Dave, is this you? I hope it is.’ And I thanked him for the generous donation from the bottom of my heart. I sent the e-mail and I said, ‘Here’s my e-mail address. E-mail me back, let me know it’s you, ’cause I would really like to talk to you. Anyway, just thank you.’ And I got an e-mail back a couple of days later — from the same business management agency. It just said, ‘Hi, Michael. It’s David. Sorry about your loss. I’ll be in touch.’ [So] I can pretty much confirm that it was him.”
Michael was also asked about former VH singer Sammy Hagar’s recent comment that he would be open to a Van Halen reunion tour, including Roth, with the two frontmen taking turns performing their classic numbers.
“I think now’s the time, especially if you listen to some of the interviews [Sammy has been] doing or whatever now,” Anthony said. “Right now he’s saying the proper way to do a Van Halen tour, he’s saying, ‘Let’s do it with Dave and myself.'”
The bassist continued, “If we did, like, an hour with one singer and then an hour with another singer, you never know — there might be a lot of people that don’t wanna come for the first hour, or don’t wanna come for the second singer, or whatever. This way you mix it up and everybody’s gotta stay for everything. And believe me, if something like that came to fruition, I guarantee there wouldn’t be one person who would leave that show disappointed with anything — with either singer, probably.”
Anthony went on to say that a reunion involving all the original members plus Hagar would only happen if “everybody was equally excited to do it. Because you don’t wanna go out and have it be work, you don’t wanna do it and have people say, ‘Well, they’re doing it just for the money,'” he explained. “I wanna truly go out there and just kick ass and give the people everything, and that’s what it would have to be.”
Asked by “Trunk Nation” if he has had any further contact with Alex, Michael said: “No. With Alex, no, actually, I have not. And then people were going, ‘Why don’t you call him back? Call him back and tell him it was great talking with him or whatever.’ And I said, ‘You know what? No.’ We had a great conversation and I’ll just let it lie and see what happens. ‘Cause I don’t know what his situation is or whatever — I don’t know if there is something keeping him from calling me back or whatever. But I’m not gonna speculate.”
To make a donation to Michael Anthony’s fundraising page, Rex and the Heart Beaters, click here.
One of the most prolific hard rock vocalist of all-time, Josh Todd (Buckcherry), has returned with an amazing and dynamic, new project appropriately titled, Josh Todd & The Conflict. The group have just signed a world-wide deal with Century Media Records and look to release their debut offering, Year of the Tiger, early fall.
In the meantime, they will kick-off this brand new partnership headlining the label’s sponsored stage at KISW’s Pain In The Grass Festival on June 24th, alongside such acts as Fozzy, Like A Storm and many others.
Todd states, “It was time for me to make a record, it has been two years since I put out new music and that’s a long time for me. I am a student of the game and this was an opportunity to not just make a traditional sounding rock record like I have been doing in the past. The Conflict stuff is heavy, melodic and honest, with a lot of risk taking and these are the records that bring out the best in me.
“Stevie D (Buckcherry) and I wrote all the songs and it was a long time coming. He also co-produced the record with Erik Kretz (from STP) and we had a lot of fun doing it. After working with Stevie beating a lot of songs into shape we started understanding our songwriting language. Stevie is a well-rounded musician and we are in the ZONE on this one. Both of us are in the same boat in every aspect of our lives and have been friends since I was 19. This record is a divine intervention with a lot more to come.
The record is called Year of the Tiger and we are coming to every nook and cranny of the world to pulverize and mesmerize, put it on turn it up and go kick some ass! These guys are great people and amazing players and it comes off live in a BIG way. You don’t want to miss it.”
In related news, the current lineup of Todd’s other band, Buckcherry, has been playing shows without drummer Xavier Muriel and co founding member guitarist Keith Nelson.
Due to demand following their hugely successful tour together in March and April, hard rock icons UFO and Saxon have announced more dates in the U.S., plus two in Canada, in September and October.
UFO, featuring the long-standing line up of Phil Mogg (vocals), Paul Raymond (keyboards, guitar), Andy Parker (drums), Vinnie Moore (guitar) and Rob De Luca (bass), is currently working on a covers album after the last studio release, 2015’s A Conspiracy Of Stars.
Saxon is touring in support of its latest release, Battering Ram, and the live DVD Let Me Feel Your Power. The band is currently in the studio working on a new studio album for an early 2018 release. Saxon is: Biff Byford (vocals), Paul Quinn (guitar), Nigel Glockler (drums), Doug Scarrett (guitar) and Tim “Nibbs” Carter (bass)
Mogg comments, “Seldom do you get the chance to have a tour with such great bands and great personalities. We have been offered such a chance and will be grabbing it with both hands.
We are looking forward very much to our autumn tour with the lads from Saxon, Biff, Paul, Doug, Nigel and Nibbs, Jared James, Eric and Dennis, just so you know everyone. I hope you enjoy these gigs as much as we will, rocking/kicking, your proverbial arse/bottom. Love, UFO.”
Buford adds, “It’s great to be coming back with UFO. We had such a great time on the last tour. It’s a great package with three great bands. What’s not to like? BRING IT ON!”
Special guest on all shows is Jared James Nichols.
Tour dates are as follows:
September:
22 – Newton, NJ @ Newton Theater
23 – Huntington, NY @ Paramount Theater
24 – Baltimore, MD @ Baltimore Soundstage
26 – Philadelphia, PA @ Theater Of The Living Arts
28 – Plymouth, NH @ Flying Monkey
29 – Worcester, MA @ Palladium
30 – Hartford, CT @ Webster Theater
October:
1 – Portland, ME @ Aura
3 – Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theater
4 – Montreal, QU @ Corona Theater
6 – Flint, MI @ Machine Shop
7 – Traverse City, MI @ Ground Zero
8 – Chicago, IL @ Concord Music Hall
9 – Akron, OH @ Tangier CabaretRoom
11 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Jergels
12 – Cincinnati, OH @ Bogarts
13 – Merrillville, IN @ Star Plaza
14 – Indianapolis, IN @ The Egyptian
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