“It is hard to believe that 25 years has passed since John’s mighty debut album Blue Murder hit the stores. We remember the days when the songs we’re being demo recorded back in the UK before John head off to L.A to record with mighty rock producer Bob Rock. The Blue Murder debut album featured the powerhouse of Carmine Appice on drums and the fretless monster himself Tony Franklin on bass and was released on Geffen Records in 1989.
With this trio in place Blue Murder had a strong presence and left its mark as one of the best hard rock albums of the eighties. We constantly have fans online praising this album every day having a rollover effect on the younger generation of hard rock fans.
Fans may or may not know that this mighty album has been remastered with 24-bit remastering from the source tapes, a 3,500 word essay about the making of the album, a new interview with John Sykes, enhanced artwork and photos spread out over a 12 page full color booklet,and is available from rockcandyrecords.com.
Listen to the entire remastered album, plus a few official videos, below.
Greg Prato of Bravewords spoke with iconic guitarist George Lynch and Kings X vocalist dUg Pinnick about their new band KXM, that also features Korn drummer Ray Luzier. Highlights from the interview appear below.
BraveWords: How did KXM form?
dUg Pinnick: “We were at a party at Ray’s house, and George made the comment, ‘Hey, let’s do some music together.’ And Ray and I both said, ‘Sure.’ It’s something that we’ve always wanted to do, but when you get together with a bunch of people, we’re always talking about doing something together, and most of the time, nothing ever happens. So we just let it be. But then the next thing we knew, George had already set up some times in a studio, got everything together, called us up, and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a studio. Let’s record.’ And we went, ‘OK!’ From that point on, we started making music, and it got so exciting that we kept doing it.”
BraveWords: George, how does dUg compare to some of the other singers you’ve worked with over the years?
George Lynch: “Well, he’s very self-contained, and knows what he wants to do. Which is wonderful. He’s not very open to outside suggestions, and that’s a good thing actually, because he knows what he wants to do and he delivers. And it’s all good. So I’m happy. I have another situation I’m working in, a band called Shadow Train, which is affiliated with a film, Shadow Nation, which is a documentary film I have been working on for about four-and-a-half years, which is nearing completion. And the singer in that band, Gregg Analla, is a wonderful singer. Just unbelievable singer. But he’s a completely different kind of singer than dUg – not only in his voice, but as a lyricist, his melodies. Just on almost every count, he’s a completely different animal, on the opposite end of the spectrum. We get the best results with Gregg when we all are working together. So we’re putting in a lot of input. We’ll all write lyrics, we’ll all come up with melodies, and Gregg delivers them. With dUg, it doesn’t work that way. It’s similar to ONI LOGAN (Lynch Mob singer), where he is a poet, he’s talking about his own personal experiences, the way he views the world, things that people can relate to and identify with. And of course, he’s got a very unique style that’s him. Whereas the other singer I was talking about, who is unbelievable and we have great results with him, we work a completely different way. Where I’ll almost suggest, ‘Can we go in this direction?’ And I’ll play a song from a certain artist or singer, and he will do that. That would never work with dUg. (Laughs) dUg would go tell me to fuck myself. He’s wonderful to work with and he’s a pro through and through. As he says, ‘He’s a lifer,’ and I love that line – I saw that in another interview that I read that he did. It’s really an honor to work with him, a guy at his level. Despite commercial success or no commercial success, the guy – in my eyes – is right at the top, and should be at the top at all levels. As Gene Simmons said, in a world where Poison succeeds and King’s X fails, there is no justice. I guess you could say that about KISS too, right? (Laughs) Well then Gene, you should give dUg some of your money – make things more equitable…hello?”
BraveWords: Would you like to see KXM continue on beyond this release?
dUg Pinnick: “Oh yeah, I hope we do more records. We’re even talking about going back in the studio and making more music, so we’re really excited. We’ve learned a lot of things with this record and we want to try some new things on the next record.”
BraveWords: What is King’s X currently up to, and is there talk of working on a new album?
dUg Pinnick: “We’re doing tours – we’re in and out all the time. We’ve been talking about doing a new record for three years now, and it’s been taking us a long time to finally nail down a date. We haven’t done it yet. But the future is bright, and there will be another King’s X record. I just don’t know when.”
BraveWords: George – let’s discuss your documentary project a bit more.
George Lynch: “It’s called Shadow Nation. We’ve been working on it for four-and-a-half years now, we’re in the finishing stages of editing. It is basically a film about human nature, and can we be better? And we use Native American culture as sort of an exploration of the human condition through the Native American experience. But there’s a band, called Shadow Train, that goes on this continuous road trip. We’re camping out, we’re making our own food, we’re playing gigs, we’re filming, we’re talking to people – everybody from Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine and Serj Tankian from System Of a Down, we go back to Boston and talk to Noam Chomsky, we go to Texas and talk to Ted Nugent on his ranch and go hunting with him and play guitar with him and talk about politics and things like that. It’s all very Native American-centric, because I think we can learn a lot from the injustices that have been done to our indigenous people. The genocide that occurred – 15 million people estimated killed, that eclipses the holocaust. It should be in the history books somewhere, I would think. And a real suppression that continues to this day, and it says a lot of who we are as animals. The premise or the underlying question with the film is, ‘Are we able to evolve?’ Are 50% of us wired to be greedy and self-serving from birth to grave, and the other half are altruistic? That’s a question I ask, and it’s a personal question that I’ve come to deal with, and it’s the underlying vital question of who we are. When you look at all this political polarization of how people treat each other, and how we exist and the kind of economic system we choose to adopt or are forced to adopt, and all these things that stem from that – all these other issues that stem from those underlying issues. The most underlying issue is how we’re built as creatures – how we’re wired and what we respond to, and can we evolve to a better place?”
Bon Jovi have once again topped Billboard’s rock rich list of annual earnings, raking in an estimated total of $29,436,801 in 2013.
The band have topped the cash chart for three of the previous six years, and have never been far from the top. Their return to the head of the list comes despite the absence of guitarist Richie Sambora following a dispute with frontman Jon Bon Jovi.
Billboard, who compile their chart based on available figures from US music and ticket sales, say: “It’s no surprise Bon Jovi’s immensely popular stable of songs continues to drive strong digital track sales, with more than 1.5m downloads producing nearly $300,000 in royalties. Streaming royalties are also catching up, approaching $150,000. But this is a touring band – road-warrior revenue streams include robust merch sales, likely in the eight-figure range. Fans have spent an estimated $2m per year in online merch purchases.”
Kill Devil Hill have announced the departure of drummer Vinny Appice, who co-founded the band in 2011 with ex Pantera bassist Rex Brown and appeared on their first two albums.
The sticksman has decided it’s time to focus on other things – including a new record by his Dio offshoot band Last In Line.
Appice says in a statement, “It’s been a great musical adventure from the beginning, but the time has now come to go our separate ways and continue to make music that we love.”
Brown comments, “We all have a lot of love and respect for Vinny. We wish him well – it’s been a blast.”
The band’s new drummer is Johnny Kelly, known for stints with Type O Negative, Danzig and A Pale Horse Named Death, admits: “I have some really big shoes to full, but I’m ready for that challenge. I’ve been a fan since their debut and I’ve known the guys for a long time.”
Last In Line, featuring original Dio men Vivian Campbell, Jimmy Bain, Claude Schnell and Appice alongside vocalist Andrew Freeman, will start studio work next month.
Def Leppard guitarist Campbell last week admitted he’d resisted the idea of making new music at first. He told Tickets There, “It became apparent that for Last In Line to move forward, that’s what we needed to do. We got into the studio in January and started writing, just Jimmy, Vinny and myself. It was so effortless – it just fell out of us like it did on the first record, Holy Diver.”
Gary Graff of Billboard spoke with KISS frontman Paul Stanley about his forthcoming autobiography and the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame induction. Excerpts of the interview appear below.
Billboard: You’re the last of the original Kiss members with a book of your own. Just a slacker?
Paul Stanley: It really had nothing to do with the band as far as being first, last, middle. It wasn’t with any of that in mind. The truth of the matter is I had sworn for, literally, decades not to write an autobiography. I always go back to George Orwell, who said the autobiography is the most outrageous form of fiction. And I would say 90-plus, 95 percent of the autobiographies by any of my contemporaries would be better suited on a roll of soft paper, so at least you could use it for something, ’cause they’re nothing more than self-serving fantasies or delusions or love letters to themselves. They serve no purpose. What I finally came to grips with was the idea that my life could be inspiring to other people… and almost more importantly I wanted something that my children could read when they got older to understand what it took for me to succeed and a better understanding of who I am and perhaps what they need in their lives to move forward. So there was a real purpose to this as opposed to just some sort of bragging rights.
Billboard: There is a lot more struggle in your book, especially in your youth, than many would expect — family dysfunction and especially the misshapen right ear and being deaf on that side. That’s something you kept quite for decades. Why?
Paul Stanley: It was too painful. You can only reveal things and you can only deal with things when you’re ready to. My experiences as a child were so debilitating and destructive that the best way for me to deal with my ear was to cover it and to, at least on the surface, ignore what was going on — although that really wasn’t an answer. Luckily, as an adult I found different ways to resolve some of those issues and also to find some surgical relief and modifications.
Billboard: So what actually went down with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and your decision not to play at the ceremony?
Paul Stanley: Oh, it starts decades go. That it’s 14 years on (of eligibility) and we’re getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a clear indication that the people who hide behind that moniker don’t like us, but it reached a point where it was so absurd and ludicrous (to exclude KISS) that they caved. But they’re only going to induct the original four (members), and bringing up the idea of inducting members other than the original four…was shut down as a non-starter. It’s a very valid argument considering that there are people who played on multi-platinum albums and played for millions of people and were very important for the continuation of the band. And clearly when you’ve got a busload of Grateful Dead (members) who have been inducted and guys in the Chili Peppers who nobody knows who they are because they played on the very earliest albums are inducted, and when the original drummer of Rush, John Rutsey, who played on a classic album, isn’t inducted. The list goes on and on of the inconsistencies. Now, I’m not pointing fingers at any of those people, but I’m certainly pointing a finger at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The only consistencies are inconsistencies and the rules clearly are there are no rules because the criteria for how and who gets in is purely based upon a personal like or dislike. And when I feel we’re being treated unfairly, I have issues with that.
Billboard: You could just play with the original four of you, of course.
Paul Stanley: They wanted the original four guys to play, in makeup. But, honestly, I don’t want to roll the dice and possibly negatively impact on what I personally have been involved in building for 40 years. I have too much invested at this point. It really is a can of worms that I feel is better off left closed. So there’s been a lot of issues, and perhaps the best way to deal with them is to celebrate the four original guys and go there and get our award and to look past the differences that will always be there. It doesn’t change the big picture; we have differences and we will continue to have differences. It doesn’t change who I want to play with and who represents KISS. There are a lot of people who are great inspirations to me, and still are, who are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and for that reason and the fact that fans want us in there, I graciously and vigorously will be there to accept the award. We should salute and enjoy an evening that celebrates what the four of us started. But there’s always a lot of cloak and dagger stuff and a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes.
The heirs of the late KISS drummer Eric Carr — who replaced founding band member Peter Criss — have slapped the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-bound band with a lawsuit over unpaid royalties.
Carr’s heirs say the group, including founding frontmen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, has stiffed them on untold payments stretching back to the Brooklyn-born musician’s death from cancer in 1991.
The suit says the estate is entitled to between a 5 and 50 percent cut on four lesser-known songs that Carr wrote — Breakout, Carr Jam 1981Car Jam 1991 and Little Caesar.
Carr joined the band — known for its Kabuki makeup and pyrotechnic stagecraft — in 1980 and recorded eight albums.
For years the heirs believed they were only due royalties from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
“They thought they were getting it all from one source,” the estate’s attorney, Robert Garson, told The Post.
The heirs — a friend and a relative of Carr’s whom Garson declined to name — realized that they should have been receiving payments from KISS entities including the current group, two publishing firms and Gene Simmons Worldwide Inc.
Reps for KISS stonewalled his attempts for information—blaming the delays on the band’s touring schedule and overworked accountants, records show.
Included in the Manhattan Supreme Court suit is a 1989 receipt Garson unearthed from KISS Co. to Carr for over $4,000 in payments from foreign use.
Garson wants to know where those funds went following Carr’s early death.
Carr, who took the stage wearing the facial makeup of “The Fox,” joined the band in 1980 and recorded eight albums with the group.
The Rock and Roll All Night band has recently enjoyed a resurgence with Stanley releasing a biography Face the Music: A Life Exposed this month and menswear designer John Varvatos hiring the band for his spring ad campaign.
But it’s also dealing with a rift among the original quartet over a reunion performance at the sold-out ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction at Barclay’s arena on April 10th.
Hall of Fame organizers wanted the founding members to play—but Simmons and Stanley balked, claiming the performance would amount to an awkward KISS-and-make-up session with an ex-wife.
Fans are still hoping the foursome will get together for a jam session at the end of the night– ticket prices on the secondary market are up to over $2,000 each.
The band did not immediately return requests seeking comment.
**UPDATE** According to Paul Stanley’s Twitter, “Eric Carr’s family is shocked by a lawsuit filed without their knowledge or support. We will deal with this attempted scam appropriately.”
