NOW What?!, the 19th studio album from Deep Purple, reached Gold Status in Germany, Russia, Czech Republic and Poland, not to mention the fact the band has made a very much deserved return to the British Top-20 for the first time in 20 years. To celebrate the success of the album and the support of one of the greatest fan bases known in rock history, NOW What?! will be released on January 21st, 2014 as a Golden Deluxe Edition. [MSRP $20.98 2CD, $59.98 Boxed set] The boxed set will be available exclusively via Amazon.
NOW What?! Gold Edition 2CD, packaged in a luxurious gold cover, will also include two bonus songs on disc 1 (a stunning cover of Jerry Lee Lewis’ It’ll Be Me, and the rare B-side First Sign Of Madness, previously only available digitally and on the CD single Vincent Price), and an extra live disc. The bonus disc consists of over 70 minutes of unreleased live music recorded during the summer shows (The NOW What?! Live Tapes).
The live recordings show a band that still love to improvise like only few others can, changing the classic songs all the time and challenging themselves. Still, that magic sound is there, as if time could do nothing against it. In an era when live albums are too often not much more than a studio exercise, one cannot help admiring the musicianship and the groove coming out of the speakers, especially considering that the record shows exactly what came out of the amplifiers on those nights. Great care has been paid to present this extra disc in a stunning hi-fi quality, still preserving its authenticity.
The studio album and this exceptional live album are sold together with the inclusion of a brand new booklet to support the second disc, with notes by Ian Gillan.
The NOW What?! Boxed Set includes The NOW What?! Live Tapes, a DVD with a 20-minute interview, NOW What?! The Singles (All The Time In The World, Vincent Price, Above And Beyond,), exclusive t-shirt (large), exclusive poster, and collectible sticker.
The NOW What?! track listing:
CD1
1. A Simple Song
2 . Weirdistan
3. Out Of Hand
4 . Hell To Pay
5 . BodyLine
6 . Above and Beyond
7. Blood From A Stone
8 . Uncommon Man
9. Après Vous
10. All The Time in The World
11. Vincent Price
Bonus Tracks
12. It’ll Be Me
13. First Sign Of Madness
CD2
The NOW WHAT?! Live Tapes
1. Strange Kind Of Woman (Live in Rome)
2. Hard Loving Man (Live in Aalborg)
3. Vincent Price (Live in Aalborg)
4. Contact Lost (Live in Aalborg)
5. All The Time in The World (Live in Milan)
6. No One Came (Live in Gaevle)
7. BodyLine (Live in Rome)
8. Perfect Strangers (Live in Gaevle)
9. Above And Beyond (Live in Milan)
10. Lazy (Live in Gaevle)
11. Black Night (Live in Rome)
12. Smoke On The Water (Live in Rome)
“We’ve some good things lined up for the coming year, firstly the Grammys, then some dates in the U.S. and Canada, and in the summer a quick trip round Europe,” Iommi wrote. “I should also be finishing my regular treatment and I’m hoping to not get so tired, all positive.”
As has been widely reported, Iommi has being undergoing treatment for lymphoma. He was diagnosed in January 2012.
“When we were writing this album and he was going through his treatment, I thought to myself, ‘He ain’t gonna fucking make it. How can he?,’ Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne told NME last year. “He’d come down some days and look so tired. He’s a good guy, Tony. And he’s a fucking great guitar player. I just keep my fingers crossed it don’t return.”
Guitar icon and Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde has announced a brand new LP freshly titled Catacombs of the Black Vatican, due out Tuesday, April 8th, 2014.
Catacombs of the Black Vatican is the first all new LP from the band since The Order of the Black was released in 2010, which debuted at #4 on the Billboard Top 200 chart.
Watch a video teaser below.
Most recently, the band released the two-CD set Unblackened, which found Black Label Society in a mellower mood in a performance taped at Club Nokia in Los Angeles last year.
The band recently announced An Evening With Zakk Wylde, a 13-city Canadian tour across Canada featuring 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.
Since their late nineties inception, Black Label Society, formed by guitar legend Zakk Wylde, has been at the forefront of their genre. Their taste for hard riffs and blazing solos has resulted in a slew of hugely successful albums and a reputation as one of the most powerful live bands of their generation.
Zakk Wylde, who has been called one of the true guitar heroes in modern history, served as Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist for over 20 years in addition to his work with BLS. This collaboration led to a string of multi-platinum albums, including Osbourne’s biggest selling No More Tears, for which Wylde wrote all the music.
In addition to holding Guitar World Magazine’s MVP four years straight Wylde has been bestowed with such accolades as “Best Rock Guitarist” from Guitar Player, “Metal Guru” from the recently held Classic Rock awards in the UK, “Golden God” by Metal Hammer, the “Best Guitarist” Award from Revolver Magazine. Wylde has proven time and time again that his songwriting, guitar prowess, and on-stage persona, along with his larger-than-life personality, have made him a force to be reckoned with.
Black Label Society continues to enthrall fans around the globe, and Catacombs of the Black Vatican is another incredible piece in the band’s catalog.
Brian Aberback from New Jersey’s Steppin’ Out magazine recently interviewed Scorpions’ vocalist Klaus Meine. Portions of the interview appear below.
Brian Aberback: When the Scorpions released their last studio album, Sting in the Tail, in 2010, the band said it would be its last album and tour. What made the group change its mind?
Klaus Meine: At the end of the tour in 2012 we were proud that we reached the finish line going strong after 200 shows, but we hadn’t played all the countries we wanted to, like Spain, the U.K. and a lot of Asia. There’s a huge demand from the fans and a whole new audience. We have 4.3 million followers on Facebook and the average age is 17 to 26. There’s not a lot planned next year, though. Just a very few select unplugged concerts in Germany and France, plus a few shows in Russia next spring.
Brian Aberback: How did MTV Unplugged come about?
Klaus Meine: We received an offer from MTV. How can you say no when an offer like this comes in, to join this very illustrious family of musicians who have done this since the format started in the late Eighties. Even though we did the Acoustica album in 2001 this was a new challenge, to make it an attractive concept. We have a few new songs and many songs we don’t normally perform live. It’s not all mainstream hits. There are also new arrangements of songs. It was a lot of fun to do. We recorded the album at a beautiful theater in Athens on the highest mountain in the city. Our Greek audience has a big heart for our early material. A lot of people joined us from all over Europe, Canada, the U.S., Russia and other countries. It was a very emotional show.
Brian Aberback: Are you surprised that MTV still plays music in Europe, let alone that Unplugged still exists?
Klaus Meine: It’s fascinating how it changed over the years with the game shows and personality shows. Over here MTV Unplugged is still a very powerful brand. Our show was broadcast to 30 countries. It will be shown in the U.S. on VH1.
Brian Aberback: Does the band plan on releasing additional new music?
Klaus Meine: In the Eighties we wrote so many songs for each album that there were always leftovers. Two of those songs are on the Unplugged album. Those are Dancing With the Moonlight and Rock ‘n’ Roll Band. Two years ago we started looking at these songs to release, but that project was never finished. Some of the songs are complete, some of them had only working lyrics and I started new lyrics. So we may pick up on that when we have time. Maybe it would be good to put it out in 2015 for the Scorpions’ 50th anniversary.
Greg Prato of Songfacts spoke with Black Label Society frontman and former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde. Highlights from the interview are featured below.
Songfacts: Let’s talk about the new release, Unblackened. From what I understand, it’s being issued as a DVD and as a live CD with some extra tracks, right?
Zakk Wylde: Yeah. We got approached to do another DVD [Unblackened] because it’s been a bit since we did the Doom Troopin‘ one. We’ve got new material now, so we can do another DVD with the heavy stuff and the production, but everybody always asks us – you know, the Black Label Berzerker Nation over there – they’re just like, “Are you guys ever going to do like an unplugged or do some of the mellower tunes?”
A lot of the mellow songs never see the light of day. We’ll wheel the piano out and do Dime Song or Spoke in the Wheel or Darkest Days, but we don’t do a half-hour set of the mellow stuff [a CD version of Unblackened includes several acoustic selections not found on the DVD]. We’ll just break out about two songs and then go back to the walls of doom – Marshalls and everything like that. So yeah, it was just a perfect opportunity for us to do the mellower stuff. It’s like, “Oh, yeah, let’s knock this out.”
Songfacts: I recently interviewed Jason Newsted and we were talking about all the great old songs from the soul bands of the ’60s and ’70s, and how we were surprised there aren’t more hard rock bands today that go back and listen to a lot of that great music from the ’60s.
Zakk: We were talking about that the other day with some of the younger bands coming up. Some of them can shred, but as far as any blues licks and the playing, it’s not in the music. But then at the same time, you have to dig that kind of music to want to play it. If you tell someone, “You ought to learn how to play jazz,” they may say, “I can’t stand jazz. I’d rather play metal.”
And as far as history goes, I’ve noticed with a lot of younger kids, they’ll know who Derek Jeter is, but they don’t know who Babe Ruth is. But they’re a huge Yankees fan. It’s like, “Wow, you’re a huge Yankees fan and you don’t know who Babe Ruth is.” It’s like, “I don’t know, should I know who he is? What year did he play? Did he play before Derek Jeter got there?” It’s mind-blowing. Just forget about even asking, “Do you know who Thurman Munson is?” or “Can you name me another Yankee captain?” “No, but Derek Jeter’s the best, man.” It’s like, “Wow, okay. Never mind.”
One kid actually said to me at one of the Ozzfests years ago – he looked 12 or 13 years old – he said, “Zakk, you’re my favorite Ozzy guitar player.” I go, “No, that would be Randy Rhoads.” I said, “This is the house that Rhoads built.” And he just goes, “Who’s Randy Rhoads?” I was just like, “Wow. You know who I am, but you don’t know who Randy Rhoads is?” That’s pretty amazing.
If you’re into Led Zeppelin, you should know that Led Zeppelin listened to Robert Johnson and Willie Dixon. Your favorite blues band should not be Led Zeppelin.
I love guessing the dates on movies, so when the guys are all sitting around and a movie comes on, I’ll put $20 down and whoever gets it gets the 20 bucks. Like The Black Label Price is Right, whoever’s closest to it. Moonraker was on the other day, and that came out in 1979. That was the first Bond movie I ever saw, and I remember telling my buddy’s older brothers that it was great. They’re like, “Oh, Roger Moore, he sucks, man. That ain’t a Bond movie.” Because I had no idea who Sean Connery was. They were like, “Sean Connery’s Bond, dude.”
My first introduction to the Bond series was Roger Moore, but I needed to go back to check out Sean Connery as the original Bond.
Songfacts: Who would you say are some of your favorite songwriters?
Zakk: Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Obviously, I love Led Zeppelin and I love Sabbath. Neil Young, I love.
As far as guys my genre, Chris Cornell is beyond amazing. Father Cantrell – Jerry’s amazing. I love the guys in Stone Temple Pilots. The Guns N’ Roses guys.
Dime. It’s amazing with the Pantera stuff, even with Doug, because I always tell everybody what Dime’s legacy is. Tony Iommi created that whole genre of music, then Dime and the guys took the Sabbath thing and added gasoline. He added nitrous to it and created his own new thing.
We’d go to these festivals and hear these bands that definitely love Pantera, and that’s where they’re coming from – they’re all branches of the Pantera tree. The brute strength and the force and the volume – the actual riffs in the songs, for as heavy as it gets, it was just memorable stuff. It wasn’t all about just screaming and yelling and how fast they could play.
It was the same thing with Black Sabbath. Why are they so much better than all these other bands? It’s because they have great songs. We saw them the other night. I’ve seen Tom Petty, and he’s another amazing songwriter, he and Mike Campbell and all the guys.
Me and Barbara Ann [Zakk’s wife] went down and saw Tom Petty, and by the time he got done playing, I was like, “Wow, he hasn’t played this one, that one, this one, and that one.” I mean, he’s got like a greatest hits jukebox on him.
Sonically, Tom Petty and Black Sabbath are two completely different things, but the thread that ties them both together is great song after great song. Sabbath is just one great insane classic riff after another. Same thing with Tom Petty on these songs we’ve heard a million times.
Songfacts: Something I’m curious to get your feedback on: with those first two Ozzy solo albums [Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman], how much do you think that Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake played a part in the songwriting? They seemed to be a pretty big part of the songwriting with those albums.
Zakk: Yeah. Bob’s always been great with Oz. Just a great pairing like the Elton/Bernie Taupin thing. Bob’s a great lyricist. He worked with us on No Rest For the Wicked, he worked on No More Tears. So yeah, I think Bob’s great.
Songfacts:I’ve always wondered what that original Blizzard of Ozz line-up would have gone on to do if they had stayed together.
Zakk: I think that original line-up was phenomenal. You can’t even argue that. Just listen to the records. They’re timeless, classic albums. Hands down, that line-up was fuckin’ sick. When they were making the record, they didn’t know. Randy didn’t know any of the guys. Randy never met Bob Daisley or Lee Kerslake before. I’d mean, if me and you took four complete strangers, stuck ’em in a room, and then they ended up coming out with two amazing records – what are the chances of that happening?
Songfacts: And I’ve always wondered what the second line-up with Ozzy, Randy and also Rudy Sarzo and Tommy Aldridge would have come up with in the recording studio.
Zakk: I think it would have been a completely different thing. How could it not have been? Look at it like the Patriots – Ozzy and Randy, would be [Bill] Belichick and [Tom] Brady, but now we’re going to have different wide receivers, different running backs, different defenses. Obviously, we don’t have to worry about Captain America and Father Belichick, since we know what they’re going to deliver. But the rest of the team around it, without [Wes] Welker there, let’s see what happens now.
Without a doubt, even when I play with Black Label, when we have different guys I play with, everyone always brings their own magic, their own flavor to the soup, hands down.
You listen to Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio in it, and it’s not Black Sabbath. They should have just called it Heaven and Hell right from the beginning. Because you listen to that Heaven and Hell album, that doesn’t sound anything close to Black Sabbath. I mean, that sounds about as much like Black Sabbath as Blizzard of Ozz sounds like Black Sabbath. If you were to play Black Sabbath for me – and I’m a huge Sabbath freako – and then with Father Dio over there, I’d be going, “Oh, cool, what band is this? This is good stuff.” I mean, the songs don’t even sound Black Sabbath-y. I mean, Neon Knights, could you picture Ozzy singing over that song?
Musician and producer Dick Wagner (Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, KISS, Lou Reed) has written a song for the children of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. All proceeds from the purchase (download) of the song benefits St. Jude.
Wagner produced the song with more than 50 famed Classic Rockers, including Mark Farner (Grand Funk Railroad), Trini Lopez, Leland Sklar (James Taylor, Jimmy Buffet), Danny Seraphine (Chicago), Elliot Easton (The Cars), Merrilee Rush (Angel of the Morning), The Angels (My Boyfriend’s Back), Fred Mandel (Elton John, Queen), and more.
Watch the video below to learn more details about this special project.
To download the song, please visit iTunes or cdBaby.
 has written a song for the children of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. All proceeds from the purchase (download) of ... )
