Whitford/St. Holmes have reunited and are set to release their new album, Reunion, on June 3rd. Today, the super duo are excited to unleash their first single, Shapes, a rock song with a nod to one of their favorite bands, The Yardbirds.
Whitford/St.Holmes features the two veteran rockers along with bassist Chopper Anderson, keyboardist Buck Johnson and on drums, Tesla’s Troy Luccketta. On the stellar collaboration, Whitford explains, “(we’re) all old-school rockers, super-passionate about rock ‘n’ roll, the music that moved us as teenagers.”
When fans pre-order Reunion, they will receive the group’s digitally remastered,self-titled debut as a bonus! Album pre-sale and first single, Shapes, can be purchased here.
Featuring Aerosmith guitarist, Brad Whitford and Ted Nugent vocalist/guitarist, Derek St. Holmes are ready to get on the road and perform these new songs that flowed so easily during the writing and recording session.
“Derek really encouraged me, made the process really easy,” says Whitford of his lyric and songwriting. “A lot of feelings and emotions just kind of poured out of me.”
It was 1981 when Whitford, who had left Aerosmith, first teamed up with Derek St. Holmes to release their self-titled debut. Tracks like Sharpshooter and Whisky Woman carried on the stadium rock ‘n roll style that made them famous. The album received critical acclaim and they did a successful round of tour dates before returning to their respective bands and shelving the duo.
Recently, the two friends found themselves living in the same town on the outskirts of Nashville. While working on some catch up time, they decided to revamp their collaboration. After writing a number of songs, the duo recruited bassist Chopper Anderson, keyboardist Buck Johnson and on drums, Tesla’s Troy Luccketta to record the album. Self-produced by Whitford and St. Holmes, the album was recorded at The Castle Studios in Franklin, TN.
My newest podcast for the week is now up. Free worldwide as always via Itunes or www.PodcastOne.com . This week I have an interview with Zakk Wylde talking about his new album Book Of Shadows II as well as Van Halen, 80’s guitar players, and more. Always fun chatting with Zakk so have a listen.
Appreciate all the kind words about the announcement this week on the new series I am hosting for AXS TV “Real To Reel”. I just want to be clear however that this is not a replacement for That Metal Show at all. “Real To Reel” is just me introing and closing out some music documentaries. It was a great experience to shoot in LA (I actually already did all the work a few weeks ago) and work with the AXS crew, but I still very much have the desire to do my own show and of course TMS again. Many has asked why not do TMS for AXS? Of course I have asked that question too! But at the moment that network is not interested in producing a show like TMS. But I can assure you we are all looking and hopeful to find a new home still. As soon as I have info to share on that front I’ll let you all know. In the meantime I will continue to work on new projects, but it in no way means I have any less of a desire to keep TMS alive. Thanks for all the support!
Also getting close to the final edit of my interview show pilot “Inside Out” I shot with Ace Frehley. It looks great and hope to have news on this soon.
Be sure to check out my syndicated FM show Eddie Trunk Rocks tonight 11P-2A ET on Q104.3 NYC and WAAF Boston. All stations airing on the site under Live & On The Air. Most stations also stream free!
Live on SiriusXM this Monday 6-10P ET channel 39 TRUNKNation.
Most importantly a very Happy Mothers Day to all Moms out there!
NME spoke with AC/DC guitarist Angus Young, bassist Cliff Williams and Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose. Portions of the interview appear below.
NME:How many times had you seen AC/DC play live?
Axl: “We met very early, in early Guns N’ Roses, in the first couple of years at the Forum in LA. I met him [Angus] and Brian backstage.”
Angus: “It wasn’t in that police station?”
Axl: “No… well, that was the second time!”
NME: How long have you been a fan?
Axl: “Like about five minutes before that?! No, since I was a kid.”
NME: And how much of an influence did AC/DC have on Guns N’ Roses?
Axl: “Very much, it was a big influence of Izzy [Stradlin]’s and mine. And then it was something we had in common in meeting Slash. Slash’s girlfriend made him listen to AC/DC pretty much 24/7 – he didn’t really get to hang out with her unless he did!”
NME: Did you ever consider getting a number of different guest vocalists?
Angus: “To be honest with you, it was a case of ‘what do we do?’”
Axl: “They were in the process of trying to decide what they were doing as a band in general, is my understanding, because it just went down.”
Angus: “It was a crisis that came then, and we had to act. We were in Miami at the time, when all of this came up, and unfortunately, when you’re in that situation you got to make decisions pretty quick, because there are a lot of people waiting. We were supposed to actually play in Atlanta, so you’re kind of going ‘what do we do now’. Because of the nature of Brian’s deafness, we knew that there was no easy fix. So you’ve got to then say, ‘what do we do here?’ The options were very limited and you think, if we just stop with all of this machinery it’s going to be a hell of a lot of legal entanglement…”
Axl: “That, and the fans, and not wanting the band to have to go through that, as I have gone through a little bit of that at times!”
Angus: “It was good that he offered, y’know. He said, if I can do it…”
Axl: “Which I had no idea, I mean, they play really loud, they have their way of working and you never know if you’re going to blend. But it started out pretty good and its gradually got better. I’m hoping to make it through the first show before I get fired!”
NME: Did you ever consider pulling the shows?
Cliff: “We wanted to finish what we’d started.”
Angus: “And that was our main goal, especially Cliff and myself, being there the longest. We wanted to complete what we had started. And I mean, you can’t call a tour Rock or Bust and then go bust!”
Axl: “Ha! That’s amazing.”
NME: So what happens after these shows – does the band continue in this format? Do you get another singer? Does Brian come back?
Axl: “Whatever they’re doing with Brian, that’s not my place to talk, that’s their business. Anybody else, I will slowly poison them!”
NME: What’s his prognosis – is he able to rejoin in the future?
Angus: “He has to be very careful of what hearing he’s got left. This is what he told us – he was gutted about not finishing [the tour] because he says he would have loved to have gotten through. It was his call, what he wanted. He made that decision himself. He didn’t want to be deaf. And I perfectly understand that – when you stop doing this, you want to walk away with all your pieces! I don’t even want to leave without my fingernail!”
NME: Tell me about learning the songs – did you know all the words already? How did you teach yourself?
Axl: “Little by little. There’s a lot of them that you didn’t realize that you somewhat instinctively know and then just every rehearsal – there’s been about 20 rehearsals, something like that. So that way, if I really screw up, they can really blame me for that, because I did have good rehearsals.”
NME: Of all the songs, do you have a favourite to perform?
Axl: “Right now it’s Hells Bells because it’s the hardest song I’ve ever had to sing and it was the big challenge. So right now I have a lot of fun when I get it.”
NME: Is it true you auditioned a singer from an AC/DC tribute band to front the group for these dates?
Angus: “A lot of people were putting people forward. You know, you’ve got to be fair, you’ve got to listen to anyone who said something, you listen to them. You’ve got to do the right thing.”
NME: You gave everyone a fair chance.
Angus: “Yeah.”
Axl: “And then when they didn’t show up for some reason again…”
Angus: “He was in the alleyway!”
Axl: “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer…”
NME: What’s the latest with Phil [Rudd, former drummer who was arrested for threatening to kill a former employee last year]?
Angus: “Phil I haven’t heard from. He’s been very quiet of late.”
Axl: “I’ve talked to him about these other singers, though!”
NME: Have you seen the Bon Scott [former frontman who died in 1980] statue that’s just been unveiled in Scotland?
Angus: “I’ve not, no. I always check first with his family. We always keep in contact with his family, because sometimes things are done and they’ve not been informed and some people use their name and they’ve just not been told. They’ve been unhappy with a lot of things that have gone down, people have done stuff and ignored their wishes.”
In his first interview in five years, the Guns N’ Roses star told BBC 6 Music he was huge fan of Johnson’s singing and “wants to do it justice.”
Rose was drafted in after Johnson was advised to stop playing live or “risk total hearing loss”. He makes his debut with the band in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 7th.
“I’m happy and excited in one sense, but I think it would be inappropriate to be celebrating, in a certain way, at someone else’s expense,” he said. “That’s not what I’m here to do. It’s an unfortunate situation.”
…Rose also confirmed it was his idea to approach AC/DC about helping them complete the last 12 dates of their world tour.
“I called the day I read about it in the news, that there was a situation going on with Brian’s hearing,” he said.
“I called a guy who’s their production manager… because I knew there was going to be a problem with having dates on sale and dates sold and stuff like that. So, if I could help, and if I was able to do it, and they were interested, I’d love to help. And that’s how it started. I wasn’t looking at it like, ‘I’m singing for AC/DC.’ I was looking at it like, ‘y’know, if I can, and if they think I’m able to do it.”
Rose also said he didn’t know whether he would be able to sing some of the songs in the set.
“A lot of the Back In Black stuff is really challenging. I’m not here in any way out of any disrespect to Brian. I can’t take anything away from his singing at all,” he said. “He’s a great singer and it’s really challenging to sing it. I’m just trying to do it justice for the fans.”
Rose will be alternating between shows with the Australian band and Guns N’ Roses, who are on tour with original guitarist Slash for the first time since the 1990s.
AC/DC’S Angus Young has a message for the fans taking sides following singer Brian Johnson‘s health-related exit from the lineup, don’t believe everything you hear.
“You get a lot of rumors out there; a lot of people think Brian was fired. That’s not the case,” says Young in a new band video, which you can watch at ultimateclassicrock.com. “It was mainly his hearing. He already had a very bad ear, and the good ear that he had left was dropping rapidly. I mean, it was ongoing … all the way pretty much through the tour from the beginning.”
“He had an instance where there was a marked drop in that one good ear and it came back, but not completely,” adds bassist Cliff Williams. “The doc told him this can happen again and it may not come back. So, you know, you kind of — what do you do with that?”
As Young sees it, the situation was out of the band’s control — and they knew they were going to face some blowback no matter what they did, whether they continued without Johnson or pulled the plug on the tour. “We wouldn’t win in a lot of situations, because if we just stopped, there would have been a lot of people unhappy.”
For Axl Rose, the opportunity to step in as Johnson’s replacement sounds like something of a bittersweet dream come true. “It’s a horrible thing,” he said of Johnson’s condition. “You hope he gets better. I’m not dancing around about this, because it’s not like, okay, somebody said they’re gonna go do something else. It’s because of an unfortunate circumstance. And that’s something I’m very aware of.”
Axl Rose has appeared with AC/DC for the first time in an official capacity as part of a video promoting his debut show with the band.
The Guns N’ Roses frontman will play his first show with AC/DC in Lisbon, Portugal, on May 7th, after he was confirmed as their guest vocalist for the remainder of their Rock Or Bust tour.
Rose was brought in after Brian Johnson was ordered to stop touring or risk going deaf.
In the video, guitarist Angus Young says, “Lisbon here we come. We’re really excited to be here in Portugal. We’re here to give you a great rock show and we hope to see you all there.”
Rose adds, “Absolutely, we’re very excited to be here.”
Watch the video,
Earlier, Rose told NME, where you can also view the video, “It’s a challenge, and I wanna do right by the band and the fans.”
Rose was given the job after a series of auditions in Atlanta, Georgia, in March. They made the official announcement last month.
Rose was given the job after a series of auditions in Atlanta, Georgia, in March. They made the official announcement last month.
AC/DC recently revealed that they took the decision to offer ticket refunds on the Axl shows to “do right by their fans.”
