Ever timeless, seemingly ageless, and artistically fearless, Lee Aaron has sustained a three-decade strong career based on the powerful songwriting and vocal delivery that are at the heart of Fire and Gasoline (Big Sister Records/ILS/Caroline). Featuring songs like the title track Fire and Gasoline, Wanna Be, Heart Fix and Bitter Sweet which evoke the influences of Led Zeppelin, Heart, Bowie, The Runaways and Fleetwood Mac while weaving in and out of Aaron’s unique artistic vision. It is a vision that has led her to sales of close to a million copies in Canada alone, multiple awards and nominations, and a fervent following around the world. Iconic videos for songs like Metal Queen, Whatcha Do To My Body, Hands On and Some Girls Do were staples of MuchMusic in Canada, and continue to rack up massive views on YouTube, bringing Lee Aaron classics to a new generation.
Fire and Gasoline was recorded at Vancouver’s The Farm studio (better known to rock aficionados by its former name, Little Mountain Sound) with acclaimed west coast engineers Ben Kaplan (Mother Mother, Hedley) and vocal engineer/keyboard guru John Webster (Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, The Cult). Their Gold- and Platinum-certified ears give Fire and Gasoline a contemporary sonic sheen while also honouring the energy of the “off the floor” approach of real musicians interacting in real time.
Tom Boy, the first video and single, was penned for Aaron’s daughter and was inspired by the fearless, unself-conscious energy of pre-teen girls. The video features Aaron’s daughter (on guitar) along with her school friends as Aaron’s backing band. “It was incredibly cool watching the girls pick up the song as well as the instruments in an afternoon and give the performance they did. Off camera, we were all eating pizza and clowning around and that joy translated onto the screen. It really captures the essence of the tune.” Lee, a fan of vintage film and video, wanted the girls to have that ‘Jailhouse Rock’ look.
You can view the video below.
Fire and Gasoline is truly a classic rock n’ roll album, with an emphasis on “class.”
This summer Lee Aaron will be performing to crowds of thousands at major music festivals across Canada, and is looking towards select live dates in Europe as well.
Fire And Gasoline track listing:
Tom Boy
Fire And Gasoline
Wanna Be
Bitter Sweet
Popular
50 Miles
Bad Boyfriend
Heart Fix
Nothing Says Everything
If You Don’t Love Me Anymore
Find The Love
For further information, please visit LeeAaron.com.
Metal Blade Records is proud to announce the worldwide signing of Jim Breuer and the Regulators, Jim Breuer’s new hard rock/metal group. As a lifelong hard rock/metal fan, Breuer has often incorporated loud music into his comedy stand-up, so it seemed only natural for him to take the next step and start his own band. Over the past few years, the Jim Breuer band has performed at premier festivals such as Rock on The Range (with Guns N Roses and Avenged Sevenfold), the Motorboat cruise (with Motorhead and Megadeth), Metallica’s Orion Music Festival, Sonisphere in the UK (with Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax), and the headlining stage at Wacken in Germany.
Now, under a new moniker (Jim Breuer and the Regulators), the group plans to release their debut in Spring 2016, with various special guests appearing on the record. Complete details about the album will be revealed soon, but in the meantime, fans can tune into Breuer’s The Metal in Me podcast for additional news and information. The first three episodes are already online with more to be added each week, about finding the comedy, reality, and metal in us all – the perfect mix in life.
Metal Blade Records Chairman/CEO Brian Slagel comments, “We are super excited to be working with Jim Breuer. His is a comedy legend and this album is something truly special. You will be surprised in a good way when you hear it!”
See below for all upcoming comedy tour dates, and stay tuned for more news about Jim Breuer and the Regulators coming soon.
Feb. 5 – Boston, MA – Wilbur Theatre
Feb. 6 – Red Bank, NJ – Count Basie Theatre
Feb. 12 – Baltimore, MD – Baltimore Soundstage
Feb. 13 – Huntington, NY – The Paramount (7:30PM)
Feb. 13 – Huntington, NY – The Paramount (10:00 PM)
Feb. 26 – East Greenwich, RI – Greenwich Odeum
Feb. 27 – Peekskill, NY – Paramount Hudson Valley
Mar. 3 – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Improv Fort Lauderdale
Mar. 4 – West Palm Beach, FL – Palm Beach Improv
Mar. 5 – West Palm Beach, FL – Palm Beach Improv
Mar. 6 – Naples, FL – Off The Hook Comedy Club
Mar. 11 – Sarasota, FL – McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre
Mar. 12 – Clearwater, FL – Capitol Theatre
Apr. 4 – Kansas City, MO – Voodoo Lounge at Harrah’s Kansas City
Apr. 14 – Arlington, VA – Arlington Drafthouse
Apr. 15 – Arlington, VA – Arlington Drafthouse
Apr. 16 – Westhampton Beach, NY – Westhampton Beach PAC
May 6 – San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park
May 27 – Las Vegas, NV – South Point Hotel Casino & SPA
May 28 – Las Vegas, NV – South Point Hotel Casino & SPA
May 29 – Las Vegas, NV – South Point Hotel Casino & SPA
Jul. 16 – Atlantic City, NJ – Borgata Hotel & Casino
Aug. 6 – Royal Oak, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre
Sept. 2 – Las Vegas, NV – South Point Hotel Casino & SPA
Sept. 3 – Las Vegas, NV – South Point Hotel Casino & SPA
Sept. 4 – Las Vegas, NV – South Point Hotel Casino & SPA
Oct. 1 – Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore Philadelphia
The Scorpions have issued a previously unreleased video for Arizona, taken from their recently reissued 1982 record Blackout. Listen to it below.
The outtake clip is one of the extras featured on the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Series, which features dozens of unheard studio tracks and live recordings.
It includes eight expanded CD releases from 1977 to 1988 – Tokyo Tapes, Taken By Force, Lovedrive, Animal Magnetism, Blackout, Love At First Sting, World Wide Live and Savage Amusement.
Each release is equipped with extended booklets featuring rare photos, single covers, backstage passes and additional liner notes.
Five of the eight albums also come with a DVD with live concert footage, TV performances and interviews from the period.
Scorpions released their album Return To Forever in February after deciding their farewell tour was too much fun to quit the band last year.
The Scorpions previously streamed the demo for Midnight Blues Jam included as a bonus track on the reissue of 1977 album Taken By Force. Listen to it, here.
Motorhead have a released a video for the song When The Sky Comes Looking For You from their album Bad Magic, which was released on August 28th. Watch it below.
Watch The Winery Dogs’ Fire video below. The song is off the band’s second album, Hot Streak, which was released on was released on October 2nd.
Finally, The Cult have a released a lyric video for a new song titled, Deeply Ordered Chaos. The song will appear on the band’s new album, Hidden City, which will be released on February 5th, 2016.
Hidden City track listing:
1. Dark Energy
2. No Love Lost
3. Dance The Night
4. In Blood
5. Birds Of Paradise
6. Hinterland
7. G O A T
8. Deeply Ordered Chaos
9. Avalanche Of Light
10. Lilies
11. Heathens
12. Sound and Fury
Black Label Society, fronted by guitar icon Zakk Wylde, have announced the Unblackened tour. Originally performed as a one night only concert at Club Nokia in Los Angeles for a live CD/DVD release two years ago, the show will now make its way across the U.S. The show will feature intimate versions of some of the band’s most popular songs, as well as songs from Wylde’s best-selling solo album Book of Shadows and his Southern rock band Pride & Glory.
“I always wanted to take Unblackened on the road, we just didn’t have the time until now,” said Wylde. “You can take a song that you’ve played thousands of times and rearrange it, and all of a sudden it’s something totally fresh. The attitude of the songs doesn’t change when we play them acoustically–the tunes are gritty regardless.”
Black Label Society has been on the road constantly in support of their latest release Catacombs of the Black Vatican. The band recently wrapped up a block of successful tour dates with Hatebreed and Butcher Babies which took them across the States and Canada, followed by an electric performance at the 2015 annual Shiprocked Cruise. Rocking on the high seas is nothing new for BLS as they have also participated in the inaugural Motorboat Cruise just last year.
Catacombs of the Black Vatican was released on April 8th, 2014 and debuted at #5 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart and #1 on the Rock and Independent Charts. The chart topping LP was also hailed as one of the “Best Albums of 2014” by Revolver Magazine. To purchase Catacombs of the Black Vaticanclick here.
Unblackened tour dates:
March:
3 Huntington, NY The Paramount
4 Hamptonbeach, NH Hamptonbeach Casino Ballroom
6 Sayreville, NJ Starland Ballroom
8 Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live
10 Fort Wayne, ID Piere’s Entertainment Center
11 Grand Rapids. MI Orbit Room
12 Milwaukee, WI The Rave
14 Wichita, KS The Cotillion
16 Grand Junction, CO Mesa Theater & Club
17 Salt Lake City, UT The Depot
18 Sacramento, CA Ace Of Spades
19 Anaheim, CA City National Grove Of Anaheim
Greg Prato of Songfacts spoke with Pantera/Kill Devil Hill bassist Rex Brown. Highlights from interview.
Greg Prato (Songfacts): The Official Truth book has been out for about a year and a half. What do you think of the book now that it’s been out for a while?
Rex Brown: You know, it was written between 2009 till 2012, and then edited. I edited the book 10 different times, told them to take certain stuff out, they kept it anyway. Just to get the dirt. And other than that, it’s just what I was seeing through my eyes and what I remember at the time. There was some begrudgement in there, I wish it wasn’t in the book, but that’s my only regret. Other than that, I think it’s pretty f–king cool.
Songfacts: How would you say that the songwriting worked primarily in Pantera?
Rex: We would go down into the studio, and Dime would usually have something kind of mapped out of where he wanted stuff to go. He just had a massive amount of riffs, and of course, we would change those and maybe put in more parts or whatever.
Then we would work of off that. And the other times I would have something or Vinnie would come in with a drumbeat that we would work around. Primal Concrete Sledge I remember was just him f–king around. Becoming was all Vinnie. Just little drum patterns and you’d build a song off of them. Phil would come in with different ways that he would hear the riff in his head – either double time or half time.
But a lot of the times Dime would come in with primitive riffs and we would write everything in the studio so we had it all captured on tape. There’s so much DAT tape of that stuff out there, and I want to put a full record out of how the song started to the very end of it in the songwriting process. It’s just going through all those DAT tapes and through all those masters. It would take two years or more just to edit that stuff. [Rex also states that there is a missing DAT tape of Dime’s, that had between 20-40 song ideas that he had lost, before Pantera did the Far Beyond Driven album]
We always knew which ones were going to work. Some of the stuff that Dime would bring, we’d go, “No, that’s not going to work at all, that’s not the direction we want to go in.” And sometimes we wouldn’t even f–k with that song, but I’d say 9 out of 10 times, the stuff that we did start tracking ended up on records.
Songfacts: What would you say was your greatest contribution to a Pantera song as far as songwriting?
Rex: We were the three-piece kind of thing. You know, that kind of Van Halen stuff. So pretty much all the stuff that was underneath the solos, and any time there was a key change, that was me. And our arrangements a lot of the time, just depending, Phil and I would work on those. But any time we changed into a key pattern, changes or stuff like that, was me. And me and Dime worked on a lot of those riffs hand-in-hand – mine with his. He’d have this little part and I would come in with a different little section at the end of it, that’s what made the riff.
But any guitar player in the band is going to come up with the majority of the shit a lot of the time. We had four very different individuals in the band, and it took all of us to make what I called the “magic in a box.” You’d put those four individuals together, and that was magic. Once you opened that box up there were so many influences between all of us, and we would just pour them all into it.
Songfacts: Is there a Pantera song that ended up completely different than how the song started?
Rex: There was one song that came out off of Vulgar, Piss, and that was just one of my riffs that had a different beginning to it that Dime had and then we ended up using that riff on the third record – Use My Third Arm is the main riff.
Songfacts: And which Pantera song would you say was the most difficult to finally complete?
Rex: S–t, dude, all of them! We were such perfectionists in what we did. Really a lot of the time the thought process was thrown through the door, and it just came out naturally – it didn’t feel contrived. That was the beauty of it. Once we started really having to think about what we were doing, which was probably towards the end with Reinventing the Steel, we were trying to take something from each record and make it into who we are. When I listen back to that record – and I couldn’t listen to it for a long time, because of Dime – but I listen back to that record now, it’s where do you go past there? How much f—-n’ more intensifying can you get than that, for doing what we wanted to do?
Our whole plan was to take a break and then we all reconvene, and it just didn’t turn out that way. But I’m sure if Dime was still around we would still be doing whatever we’d be doing. But as it turns out, he’s no longer with us, which kind of sucks. We got robbed by some f—-n’ lunatic. It is what it is, and it’s a hell of a ride.
Songfacts: Okay. The last question I have is what is your band Kill Devil Hill currently up to?
Rex: We are in the process of gathering all the riffs and tapes and ideas, and we’re probably going to get to work here in the next month hopefully. Been in discussion this week about heading out to LA and maybe getting in the rehearsal room and kicking this thing off.
Right now I’m just waiting around to see what’s going to happen with the music industry. Right now it’s up in flames and I think timing is the best thing that can happen with Kill Devil Hill. With that said, we have to all be on the same page. Maybe the first jam will tell what we’re going to do.
Read Rex Brown’s entire interview with Songfacts, here.
: The Official Truth book has been out for about a year and a half. What ... )
