As previously reported, Deep Purple will release two live albums on September 18th, ..From The Setting Sun in Waken and …To The Rising Sun in Tokyo. The band has released a clip from the Tokyo CD. Watch their performance of Perfect Strangers below.
From the Setting Sun… (In Wacken) has been filmed by 9 HD cameras at Wacken Open Air Festival 2013. For the first time in Deep Purple’s history, the band will release a 3D version of their performance on Blu-ray, filmed at Wacken.
…To the Rising Sun (In Tokyo) has been filmed by 12 HD cameras at Nippon Budokan, Tokyo in April 2014.
To read more about these releases, please click here. Also, to view Deep Purple performing Smoke on the Water on NBC’s Today Show, click here.
In related news, original Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, recently stated that he might make a brief return to playing rock music.
The hot streak will continue this fall for The Winery Dogs (Richie Kotzen-lead vocals/guitar, Mike Portnoy-drums, Billy Sheehan-bass). Their second appropriately titled, self-produced studio album, Hot Streak, is set for release October 2nd on Loud & Proud Records via RED (a division of Sony Music Entertainment) and in the rest of the world via earMUSIC. It will be preceded by the first single, Oblivion, set for release August 25th at radio. A double vinyl edition of the new album is also in the works and is due out in early November.
After playing over 100 shows in support of their self-titled debut album, The Winery Dogs are eager to head back out on the road to get behind Hot Streak. Their first round of U.S. headlining tour dates will kick off October 3rd in Ridgefield, CT at the Ridgefield Playhouse. Shows around the globe are already being planned for 2016.
Hot Streak shows the powerfully pedigreed trio’s initial burst of collective chemistry was no accident, from the strum and headbang of Captain Love to the propulsive uplifting vibe of The Bridge to the introspective acoustic harmonic convergence of Fire. If these three Dogs thought they captured lightning in a supper dish the first time around, Hot Streak barks ups the aural ante into exciting new territory.
“I feel we’ve taken the band to another level,” explains Richie Kotzen. “The compositions are stronger on this album. I feel more connected lyrically and musically to what I did on this record than on the last one. We’ve widened the musical scope of the band on this record and moved it forward.”
Mike Portnoy continues, “Everything on this album was more of a collaboration than on the first album. There’s just a natural chemistry. The three of us really mesh very, very well, both musically and personally. The mission of this band is to write catchy songs, and not have the musicianship overpower that.”
“I’m glad we’re not playing it safe and just doing songs that automatically fit in the category of what we did on the first record,” Billy Sheehan concludes. “Some of them are a little different, and we definitely took chances. And you have to do that — otherwise, you don’t grow.”
Hot Streak track listing:
1. Oblivion
2. Captain Love
3. Hot Streak
4. How Long
5. Empire
6. Fire
7. Ghost Town
8. The Bridge
9. War Machine
10. Spiral
11. Devil You Know
12. Think It Over
13. The Lamb
The Winery Dogs tour dates:
10/3 Ridgefield, CT Ridgefield Playhouse
10/4 Jim Thorpe, PA Penn’s Peak
10/5 Boston, MA Wilbur Theater
10/8 Glenside, PA Keswick Theater
10/9 Sayreville, NJ Starland Ballroom
10/10 New York, NY Best Buy Theater
10/12 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse
10/14 Jacksonville, FL Ponte Verde Concert Hall
10/15 Tampa, FL State Theater
10/16 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Culture Room
10/17 Orlando, FL The Plaza Live
10/22 Nashville, TN Wildhorse Saloon
10/22 Houston, TX Pub Fountains
10/23 Ardmore, OK Heritage Hall
10/24 Dallas, TX The Gas Monkey
10/27 Milwaukee, WI Potowatami Casino
10/28 Milwaukee, WI Potowatami Casino
10/29 St. Charles, IL Arcada Theater
10/31 Denver, CO Marquis Theater
11/2 San Jose, CA Rock Bar
11/3 Anaheim, CA House of Blues
11/5 Agoura Hills, CA Canyon Club
11/6 Beverly Hills, CA Saban Theater
11/7 Las Vegas, NV Vamp’d
11/8 San Diego, CA House of Blues
The trio first exploded onto the Rock scene with their self-titled, self-produced and critically acclaimed debut album that was released July 23rd, 2013 on Loud & Proud Records and a sold-out worldwide tour. The Winery Dogs debuted on Billboard’s “Top Alternative Albums” chart at #3, “Top Independent Albums” chart at #4, “Top Rock Albums” chart at #5, “Top Internet Albums” at #8 and “Top 200 Albums” chart at #27.
Steven Rosen of Ultimateguitar.com interviewed former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman, who had some interesting comments about legendary guitar player, Jimi Hendrix. Read Friedman’s thoughts on Hendrix, and other topics, below.
UG: In the last 10 years since you previously played in the US, the metal scene has definitely changed. Are you aware of any of those changes?
MF: Everything I’ve become aware of has been kind of force fed through Prosthetic Records. Not through their artists but through the people at the record company there and only for practical reasons. For example, choosing opening bands [Exmortus] and people that I should know and people I should hear. Some things I found on my own.
UG: What did you find?
MF: This band called Deafheaven. I totally recommend them. It’s fresh and it’s mindblowing. I love these guys. And of course I’m good friends with Sky Harbor and I’m a big fan of theirs. Just the sheer amount of guitar music that has come out in the last couple of years is very encouraging. I have to be thankful that a lot of these people are so kind to cite me as an influence.
UG: It seems like everywhere you turn, there’s some new guitarist playing incredibly well.
MF: It’s not enough. You have to do something that makes people happy and that takes a lot more time than just developing abilities on the instrument. For all the guitar players and guys like Jeff Loomis and all these guys who are really, really good, they’ve been for around for a while and it’s taken a while to get their stuff to the people. I applaud all these guys who have taken their abilities and shaped them in such a way that many more people can enjoy them rather than just beginning guitar players.
UG: What are your feelings now looking back on Megadeth?
MF: I wouldn’t have wanted to bypass any of the Megadeth stuff. It was wonderful. The music was important but it was also much more important to be able to, like they say in kindergarten, play well with others. A lot of people qualities: a lot of learning about how to deal with people; deal with situations; deal with people from different cultures; and every possible situation completely unrelated to music happened in Megadeth. So it was such a great life rewarding experience that it can only help to grow as a musician from that. I strongly believe that people who practice their instrument a lot and study music may become good at it but they’ll have a narrow palette of phrases and things to emote to other people. They’ll be able to play a symphony or whatever but when it comes to taking music from their soul and bringing it from themselves to people listening, it really is quite narrow.
UG: Dave Mustaine is a very talented guitar player but he’s probably not the easiest person to play alongside.
MF: Yeah, well, you know, in some ways, I’m the same way when it comes to my music. That’s what I kind of liked about him; there was no bs when it comes to making music; there was no compromises and I’m the same way. So we got along just great. As far as music is concerned, nobody is more of a perfectionist than I am so I like being around people like that.
UG: When you talk about the actual theater element of a live show, nobody did that better than KISS. You’ve been a huge KISS fan forever, right?
MF: There are so many guitar players that started from KISS. The great thing about music is everybody has the right to their own opinion and that’s what makes it interesting. I used to play with Jason Becker and he was the biggest Bob Dylan fan in the world. And to me, I’d rather chew glass than listen to Bob Dylan. But that was fine. You’ve got to have those differences in opinions. There are certainly no good and no bad in music. It’s all what it means to you. It has nothing to do with tonality or pitch or talent or tone or any of those things. It everything to do with the experiences in your life around this music.
UG: What kind of music don’t you like?
MF: I’m not a huge fan of hardcore rap and stuff, but then at the same time, you have to respect any artist or anybody who can make hundreds and thousands and millions of people happy with what they do. Here’s one that will get ya. There are so many guitar players that started from Hendrix? I’d rather chew glass than listen to Hendrix.
UG: That is so weird to hear you say that. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to a guitarist who didn’t love Jimi.
MF: I never got Hendrix. When I think of Hendrix, an image comes in my mind about a lot of hippies rolling around in mud tripping on acid and it just doesn’t turn me on at all. And all that noise and feedback and I’m like, “Play in tune.” I’m a big tuning guy and that’s probably why I don’t like Dylan because things go out of tune and it kills me. But then again, all of my favorite guitarists hail Hendrix. I’m a big Uli Jon Roth fan and he’s the most beautiful guitarist. He probably loves Hendrix as much as Hendrix’s own mother does. All the guys I respect love Hendrix so I know there’s something there. It’s just that I never got it because it never fit into my experiences.
Hollywood Vampires, the supergroup featuring Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper and Joe Perry, have announced their first live dates, set for next month. Rounding out the lineup will be former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum, both of whom also play in the supergroup Velvet Revolver.
The name “Hollywood vampires” references a loose collective of rockers, including Cooper, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson and Keith Moon, who got together in the early Seventies and drink on the Sunset Strip at the Rainbow. Cooper’s crew – which is issuing its debut album, Hollywood Vampires, on September 11th – plans on keeping true to its moniker’s origins.
The first Hollywood Vampires concerts will take place at the fabled Sunset Strip outpost the Roxy on September 16th and 17th. It will be the group’s only U.S. show.
As for the band’s music, they play a mix of cover songs by members of the original Hollywood vampires, including the Who’s My Generation, the Doors’ Five to One and Break on Through, Nilsson’s Jump Into the Fire, Lennon’s Cold Turkey and Jimi Hendrix’s Manic Depression, among others, along with some original tunes. Their debut album will feature a number of notable special guests, including Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl, Slash, Joe Walsh and AC/DC’s Brian Johnson
In the final stages of recording the follow-up to 2011’s Worship Music, Anthrax – Joey Belladonna/vocals, Frank Bello/bass, Charlie Benante/drums, guitarist Jon Donais, and Scott Ian/rhythm guitar – will hit the road beginning August 28th for a 42-city global trek that will see the band playing three major festivals as well as sharing stages with the likes of Motorhead and their fellow Big Four comrades, Slayer.
Anthrax’s Bello, Benante and Ian started the new album writing process back in late 2013 when they began exchanging suggested riffs and other ideas for the new songs. With producer and “sixth member of the band” Jay Ruston, formal writing sessions started last Fall, culminating with about 20 original songs, almost twice as many as the band had ever brought to the recording studio in the past.
According to Benante, “Worship Music started a new chapter in our career, and it has served as an inspiration for this new album. ‘Worship’ was made up of a lot of different types of songs, some thrashy, some very mid-90s Anthrax-sounding, but this new one is really thrashy.”
Said Bello, “The thing about Anthrax…we have this heavy, thrashy music and Joey’s powerful and melodic vocals. I love heavy music, but I also love melody, so the challenge is to blend them together so they sound like Anthrax, and I think we’ve done a really good job of that on this new record.”
The Grammy-nominated Worship Music featured the return of “classic era” vocalist Belladonna, and was named one of the best albums of 2011 in numerous media outlets including SPIN, Metal Hammer, Guitar World, and Loudwire, and provided the band with the rock’n’roll comeback story of the year, all adding up to the excitement and anticipation for this new album.
Confirmed dates for Anthrax’s upcoming tour schedule are as follows:
August:
28 Riot Fest & Rodeo, Mile High Stadium, Denver, CO
September:
11 Riot Fest and Carnival, Humboldt Park, Chicago, IL
12 The Fillmore, Detroit, MI*
13 Madison Theatre, Covington, KY (headline)
15 The Dome, Wallingford, CT*
16 Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre, Wantagh, NY*
18 Theatre Olympia, Montreal, QC*
19 Shindig Festival, Carrol Park, Baltimore, MD
20 Food and Truck Festival, Oak Ridge Park, Clark, NJ
22 Tower Theatre, Philadelphia, PA*
23 The Fillmore, Charlotte, NC*
25 House of Blues, Lake Buena Vista, FL*
26 Pompano Beach Amphitheater, Pompano Beach, FL*
September 28th – October 2nd – Motorboat 2015 Cruise*
October:
10 Loud Park 15, Tokyo, Japan
25 Theaters Tilburg, Tilburg, Netherlands**
26 Zenith Paris, Paris, France**
28 La Cooperative De Mai, Clermont-Ferrand, France
30 Santana 27, Bilbao, Spain**
31 Coliseum, La Coruna, Spain**
November:
1 La Riviera, Madrid, Spain**
3 Razzmatazz, Barcelona, Spain**
5 Alcatraz, Milano, Italy**
7 Planet.tt Bank Austria Halle Gasometer B, Vienna, Austria**
8 Haus Auersee, Leipzig, Germany**
10 Zenith, die Kulturhalle, Munich, Germany**
12 Columbiahalle, Berlin, Germany**
13 RuhrCongress, Bochum, Germany**
14 MHPArena, Ludwigsburg, Germany
16 Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt, Germany**
17 AB Main Hall, Brussels, Belgium**
19 Rockhal, Esch Sur Alzette, Luxembourg
21 Newport Centre, Newport, UK**
22 Plymouth Pavilions, Plymouth, UK**
24 O2 Apollo Manchester, Manchester, UK**
25 O2 Academy Glasgow, Glasgow, UK**
27 O2 Academy Birmingham, Birmingham, UK**
28 O2 Academy Leeds, Leeds, UK**
30 O2 Academy Brixton, Brixton, UK**
For embattled former AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd, this was not how 2015 was supposed to go. In an alternate universe, the 61-year-old musician would have already traipsed through Europe with his band on their Rock or Bust tour, delivering a career-spanning set that may be short on surprises, but long on grand spectacle and bombastic rock tradition. He would have currently been rehearsing and preparing for the group’s upcoming North American leg, performing classic rock chestnuts alongside the band’s latest album, to which he contributed in 2014.
Instead, he is speaking to Rolling Stone from his Tauranga, New Zealand, home, where he will be confined for the next eight months as part of his sentencing on threatening-to-kill and drug-possession charges. Friends, family and other well-wishers are allowed to visit, but he’s legally mandated to not leave his house; it’s a prohibition that has, according to Rudd, allowed him to “get really organized” while working with court-appointed psychiatrist Rupert Bird, a specialist in methamphetamine psychosis “who’s helping me through my imbalances and personal issues.”
…Rudd is defiant when asked why he thinks the case has received worldwide attention, even more than AC/DC founding member Malcolm Young’s tragic dementia diagnosis and subsequent departure from the band. “The local paper had their heads up their asses and I don’t know why,” Rudd says. “They seem to really want to find something bad about me and blow it up to sell papers. They look at me as the ‘bad boy drummer.’ They just really don’t like me. Everyone seems to f–kin’ hate me, but everyone really loves me.”
The thornier matter is Rudd’s place in AC/DC, a band he joined in 1975, left in 1983 reportedly due to conflicts with Malcolm Young and drug and alcohol problems, and re-joined in 1994. Rudd hasn’t spoken to any members of the band since his arrest last year — “Which is a little weird,” he says — with the group issuing the terse statement at the time of Rudd’s arrest, “We’ve only become aware of Phil’s arrest as the news was breaking. We have no further comment. Phil’s absence will not affect the release of our new album Rock or Bust and upcoming tour.”
While [guitarist-founding member] Angus Young told Rolling Stone that Rudd’s arrest had been a “big blow to us,” the band has scrubbed Rudd’s name and likeness from the “Band” section of its website, replacing him with current drummer Chris Slade. That hasn’t, however, diminished Rudd’s optimism to re-join the group and record more music with them.
“All I’m looking for is an opportunity to step back up,” Rudd says. “Once I get back my freedom to travel, I’ll hopefully be heading straight back to whatever they’re doing. I feel great. Better than I’ve ever felt before. I’m very keen to get back in the saddle.”
Asked point-blank if he’s still a member of the group, Rudd remains resolute: “Me and everyone else says that, But that’s not what Angus says,” Rudd says. “I don’t want to upset Angus by saying the wrong thing. Me and Angus kicked serious ass and he knows if I was there, it would be better. I know he knows that, because I’ve proven it before. Just give me five minutes in a room with him and I’ll get my job back. I promise ya. I was doing hard personally and did some things I probably shouldn’t have done. We’ve all got our cross to bear.”
While there’s no indication that Rudd will play with the band when the Rock or Bust tour hits Australia and New Zealand starting in November, he remains hopeful for some sort of reunion, even if it’s temporary.
“I’m ready to go,” he says. “Never been fitter. Never been more passionate. I’m more dangerous than I’ve ever been. They should get me back there, even if it’s just for a weekend to have some jam in some fuckin’ small room somewhere in a basement.”
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