Gigwise caught up with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi at the Q Awards.
When asked what it was like seeing original drummer Bill Ward at the Ivor Novello awards? Iommi responded, “It was good, it was really nice to see Bill. We do stay in contact..It was a nice warm feeling.”
When asked if thought Ward would be joining the band on their The End tour? Iommi replied, “No, to be honest – I don’t know if that’s going to happen. But who knows? You never know.”
The new fully authorized Scorpions documentary Forever and a Day is wrapping up its theatrical run and will come to DVD, Blu-ray, and digital platforms on November 27th (in German with English subtitles). The movie takes a look at the German hard-rock legends’ long career, while focusing on the band’s Final Sting trek, which initially was intended to be a farewell tour.
As the film shows, during the 2011-2012 tour, the band members were so energized by the response from fans that they decided to scrap their retirement plans. Founding Scorpions guitarist Rudolf Schenker says that if you watch Forever and a Day, you can see the veteran rockers come to the realization that they weren’t ready to call it quits.
Schenker explains, “Seeing all these old fans, the new fans coming, everything was sold out, and getting told by the fans what the music means for them, then we more and more” understood that the time wasn’t right for the band to retire.
Among the interesting career highlights covered in the movie is The Scorpions’ historic 1991 visit to the Kremlin in Moscow to meet Mikhail Gorbachev. The band presented the then-Soviet president with a gold record for its hit ballad “Wind of Change,” which celebrated the end of the Cold War.
Describing Wind of Change as “the soundtrack of the most peaceful revolution on Earth,” Schenker says The Scorpions’ visit with Gorbachev was “something very special” since they were the first, and possibly the only, Western band ever invited to the Kremlin. He adds that The Scorpions are still friendly with Gorbachev, who makes an appearance in Forever and a Day commenting about the group and the impact of Wind of Change.
The Scorpions recently wrapped up the 2015 U.S. leg of its 50th anniversary tour, which also is in support of their latest studio album, Return to Forever. With regard to the band’s future, longtime Scorpions guitarist Matthias Jabs says, “It doesn’t look like the end is near. You know, we keep ourselves open now. We tried the farewell tour, and we [called] it afterwards the ‘went well’ tour.”
The Scorpions will finish the year with a series of European dates in November and December, with more to come in February and March of 2016, including a run of shows in their homeland. Jabs says the band also plans to play more U.S. shows in May, and may visit South America and China as well. Check The-Scorpions.com for the group’s confirmed itinerary.
On November 20th, three decades after its October 30th, 1985 debut, Universal will release a special 30th anniversary edition of Anthrax’s classic Spreading The Disease, the band’s second studio album and the one that served as the then-budding thrash band’s breakthrough, and still considered one of the best thrash-metal records ever recorded.
“We wanted to do something special for our fans to celebrate the anniversary of Spreading the Disease,” said Anthrax’s Charlie Benante. “We took the idea to Universal a couple of years ago and have been very hands-on with them, creating this special, deluxe edition that we think our fans will really like.”
From the beginning, Benante has kept one of everything the band did – artwork, t-shirts, posters, and when the band was recording, he had the engineer run off a few tapes of the project’s basic tracks, alternate takes and alternate mixes, just to stockpile until the time came that they would be needed. Consequently, in addition to the original album’s nine tracks, the two-disc anniversary edition features previously unreleased bonus material including Joey Belladonna’s 1984 demo recording of the song Medusa, nine “rhythm tracks” from Anthrax recordings also done in 1984 – no vocals, no overdubs or “sweetening,” just drums, some guitar, a bit of bass, showing the songs in their naked, most basic form – and eight live songs from Anthrax’s 1987, first-ever concert in Japan, held at Tokyo’s Sun Plaza. “‘STD’ was our first real record on a major label,” said Benante. “We were on a roll with that album, and we wanted to perform those songs as close to the album versions as possible. I think the performances show the excitement of a young band that was on its way, so we wanted to have them on this reissue.”
Produced by Anthrax with Carl Canedy, the 44-minute Spreading the Disease marked the first Anthrax album to feature singer Belladonna and bassist Frank Bello (joining drummer Benante and guitarists Dan Spitz & Scott Ian), and set into motion the core elements that would become the essence of Anthrax. In addition, the album also introduced the Anthrax writing partnership of Benante and Ian (that eventually evolved into Benante, Ian and Bello).
For Bello, Spreading the Disease was his full-on album recording baptism. Only 18 at the time, he hadn’t yet fully realized his own style of playing, but over the course of the sessions, he developed it. “You can hear all of my influences on every song, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, all of them.” Bello remembers that STD didn’t quite come of age until later on, but it was definitely “simmering.” “What we were doing was so fresh, so different – we had heavy songs with these great, melodic vocals – and eventually, people caught on and loved what we were doing. I think every song on ‘STD’ still stands up today.”
Spreading the Disease represented a turning point in rock. It came during a time when the landscape was transitioning from the “hair band scene” to a new composite of metal, punk and hardcore – thrash metal. The album was compelling and utterly fresh to the 1985 music fan with its speedy rhythms, savage riffs, blistering solos, punishing drum work and a killer melodic performance by Belladonna. Unlike the thrash bands sprouting up on the west coast that focused on speed, Anthrax’s focus was on catchiness, hooks, and a hot and sweaty, New York mosh sensibility. And it wasn’t just the music that was morphing, it was a whole new culture that was being birthed. And Anthrax, along with Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth – was right at its nucleus.
Spreading the Disease contains several Anthrax standouts: A.I.R., with its great riffs and abundance of melody, Madhouse, a testament to the band’s top-notch song-writing skills that showcased their grasp of melody, and Armed and Dangerous, a soulful ballad with its singalong chorus and spine-tingling performance by Belladonna. Aftershock is probably the album’s punkiest song with its blistering guitar solo, and the closer, Gung-Ho, with its out-and-out speed-kills blitzkrieg, is a superb piece of thrash metal.
“We didn’t know what we were doing, but we totally knew what we were doing,” said Ian. “I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s where we were at, a bunch of 21 year-old kids making our major label debut on a shoestring budget with nothing but a dream and a bunch of songs that we thought killed. We were right and our dream came true. Thank you to all the fans that put this record and Anthrax on the map way back when and still support us today. Cheers my friends!”
Spreading the Disease 30th Anniversary Edition Track Listing:
Disc One:
A.I.R.
Lone Justice
Madhouse
S.S.D./Stand or Fall
The Enemy
Aftershock
Armed and Dangerous
Medusa
Gung-Ho
Medusa (Joey Belladonna demo)
Disc Two:
A.I.R. *
Metal Thrashing Mad *
The Enemy *
Madhouse *
Howling Furries *
Armed And Dangerous *
Gung-Ho *
Soldiers of Metal *
Lone Justice **
Gung-Ho **
Metal Thrashing Mad **
Raise Hell **
Stand Or Fall **
Aftershock **
Armed And Dangerous **
Madhouse **
The Enemy **
* Live at Sun Plaza (Tokyo) 1987
** Rhythm track tape, 1984
Def Leppard have released another track from their self titled album, due out October 30th through earMUSIC. Listen to Dangerous below.
Def Leppard also released a video for the song Let’s Go, watch it here.
The track listing for Def Leppard is as follows:
1. Let’s Go
2. Dangerous
3. Man Enough
4. We Belong
5. Invincible
6. Sea Of Love
7. Energized
8. All Time High
9. Battle Of My Own
10. Broke ‘N’ Brokenhearted
11. Forever Young
12. Last Dance
13. Wings Of An Angel
14. Blind Faith
Ken Sharp of Rockcellar Magazine spoke with Alice Cooper and Joe Perry about Hollywood Vampires. Excerpts from the interview appear below.
Rock Cellar Magazine: Who were the key members of the Hollywood Vampires?
Alice Cooper: You mean the stalwarts? The stalwarts were myself, Harry Nilsson, Keith Moon, Bernie Taupin, Micky Dolenz. John Lennon when he was in town. There were guys who’d come in whenever they were in town like Ringo (Starr) who’d come in once in a while; he was a Vampire.
Rock Cellar Magazine: Share your most memorable experiences with Hollywood Vampire alumni starting with John Lennon.
Alice Cooper: John and Harry (Nilsson) were best of friends. Harry and I were friends and John and I were friends so I became the referee. I would sit between them and I would see that they were drinking. When John would say “black” and Harry would say “white;” English and the Irish, right? One guy would say “Republican” and the other guy would say “Democrat.” One guy would say “War” and the other guy would say “Not War” and then pretty soon they’d be drinking enough where they would almost come to blows and I was in the middle going, Okay boys, sit down!” And I was extremely unpolitical. I told them, Guys, I’m not politically incorrect, I’m politically incoherent, okay?” (laughs)
Rock Cellar Magazine: Moving on from the ‘70s to current day, what sparked the idea to assemble a super group named The Hollywood Vampires?
Alice Cooper: This is kind of an interesting story. I was doing Dark Shadows with Johnny (Depp) in London at Pinewood Studios and we decided to play the 100 Club in London. The 100 Club is little club where acts like the Stones played and Jeff Beck and the Yardbirds played. I said, it would be great to go in and just do covers.
If anybody yells out Back in the U.S.S.R or somebody yells out Brown Sugar, they’d be almost challenging us to play those songs. I said to Johnny, “Why don’t you get your guitar and come and play with us?” and he did. We started talking and I said for my next album I was thinking of doing a covers album as it’s something I’ve never done before. We were talking about the ‘70s era and it came to me and I said, “Well, if you’re gonna do a covers album, why not do a covers album as an ode to all of our dead drunk friends, all the guys that we drank with that are now dead? So let’s just kind of confine it to that.”
So you’ve got Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan, Harry Nilsson, John Lennon, Keith Moon and then we starred thinking about all the songs we could do. Then Johnny said, “Well, I’ve got a studio in my house.” Joe Perry happened to be staying over at the house so the idea just kind of bloomed. And as soon as it did, I said, “I think Bob Ezrin would be interested in this” and it’s not gonna be an Alice Cooper album; it’s gonna be a Hollywood Vampires album.
Rock Cellar Magazine: Joe, what was the appeal of this project for you?
Joe Perry: Well, I kind of came in near the end of this project in a real sense and also in a kind of esoteric sense. I come from Boston so whenever Aerosmith wasn’t on the road bumping into some of these guys, we’d be back home and there just wasn’t that kind of a scene going. There was certainly a rock scene but we were always kind of outsiders even in Boston.
Rock Cellar Magazine: Johnny Depp is the dark horse of the project with naysayers in the press likely to cast suspicion about the merit of his musical abilities and write him off as an actor who’s a musical wannabe, but Johnny is the real deal, right?
Joe Perry: I think he’s probably equally as good a guitar player as he is an actor, only he’s a better actor (laughs) if that makes any sense. The only reason is he just keeps getting better as an actor but he also keeps getting better as a guitar player too. I’m a huge fan of his acting; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched his movies. But mostly we talk about music and just jam on guitars. We hang out in the studio, play guitar and have a lot of laughs and that’s really what our friendship is based on.
Rock Cellar Magazine: There’s a pair of originals that appear on the album, All My Dead Drunk Friends and Raise The Dead.
Alice Cooper: We were gonna write one original for the record but we ended up writing four or five of them. All My Dead Drunk Friends in particular sounded like a pirate drinking song. (sings “Oh we fight and we puke, and we drink and we fight..”) (laughs) But that was pretty much the story; I’m sitting here in this place in a roomful of ghosts and he starts giving a toast, here’s to all the wives and girlfriends and here’s to all the road crew and here’s to my dead drunk friends. It just sounded to me like an old pirate drinking song and it proved to be perfect for the record.
The other original song is Raise the Dead. It was just a song that myself, Johnny and Bob Ezrin and everybody sat down and wrote. I think we wrote five original but we didn’t know which ones would actually end up on the album. I also did one song with Marilyn Manson that’s probably gonna be on my next album. It just didn’t fit this album as much as it’s gonna fit my next album.
Rock Cellar Magazine: Fill us in the touring plans for the Hollywood Vampires.
Alice Cooper: We are playing a show in Rock in Rio. We’re gonna go down to Rio de Janeiro to play a Hollywood Vampires show. We’ve got Duff McKagan on bass and Matt Sorum on drums and Johnny, Joe and myself. I like the idea of the band being open enough where anybody that’s there can jump up and come in. We know the basis of the songs now so let’s say we were playing on the same bill as Iron Maiden and Bruce Dickinson wanted to do a song, I’d go, “Great! Here’s the arrangement, listen to it once. You take the fit verses and I’ll take the second verse” or it could be Joe Bonamassa and I’d say, “Why don’t you play lead on this?” Anybody that’s around could go into any one of these songs and know them.
Rock Cellar Magazine: What does the future hold for the Hollywood Vampires?
Joe Perry: We don’t know where this thing is gonna go. We haven’t really talked about what’s gonna happen with it. We’re all excited about getting together and playing these tunes and then of course doing these shows and seeing what happens. I have to believe that because we‘re put so much time into the album and then into rehearsing and doing this shows that something else is gonna come up.
The wrist issues that forced Tommy Lee to sit out of Motley Crue‘s concert in Buffalo, N.Y, on October 14th) have not been resolved. He also missed October 16th’s show in Bridgeport, Ct.
Lee typed out a note, took a picture of it and tweeted it out to his followers. “As some of you may have heard,” it began, “I sustained an injury of severe inflammation to my left wrist and was unable to play the other night in Buffalo. I’m so sorry to say that the injury has not improved and it is unlikely I will be able to perform again tonight in Bridgeport. Regardless, the show must go on and Alice Cooper‘s amazing drummer, Glen Sobel will be filling in for me on drums. I will, however, come on stage to see everyone and also to play the piano with my good hand for the finale on ‘Home Sweet Home.’ I am told that this injury is temporary and that I will be back on stage very shortly. I’m doing everything in my power to speed up the healing process, I hate not being able to play for you guys!!”
Sobel filled in for Lee on Wednesday after spending that afternoon learning their material. Lee helped out by coaching him through the in-ear monitors and triggering some of the electronics. However, he did not take a ride of the Cruecifly drum roller coaster.
Hopefully, Lee will recover soon because time is running out for the band.
 have not been resolved. He also missed October 16th's show in Bridgeport, Ct. Lee typed ... )
