Förlaget Rufus Stone Limited Editions är ett nytt förlag som börjat ge ut riktigt dyra och limiterade utgåvor av musikböcker.
Två av deras verk är dessa om Whitesnake och Ronnie James Dio.
Läs mer här
/Niclas
torsdag 30 september 2010
onsdag 29 september 2010
NME visar bilder från Jimmy Pages självbiografi.
Engelska NME bjuder på 13 intressanta bilder med kommentarer från Zeppelingitarristens apdyra (ca 500 pund) och mycket exklusiva självbiografi.
Titta och läs i NME
Beställ boken här
/Niclas
Engelska NME bjuder på 13 intressanta bilder med kommentarer från Zeppelingitarristens apdyra (ca 500 pund) och mycket exklusiva självbiografi.
Titta och läs i NME
Beställ boken här
/Niclas
Seattlekungarna intar MSG i NYC.
Väldigt positiv recension av AIC´s gig på Madison Square Garden. Jag fortsätter hoppas att bandet snart kommer hit till våra breddgrader.
AIC i Rolling Stone
/Niclas
Väldigt positiv recension av AIC´s gig på Madison Square Garden. Jag fortsätter hoppas att bandet snart kommer hit till våra breddgrader.
AIC i Rolling Stone
/Niclas
Soundgarden säljer platina första dagen.
"There´s no business like showbusiness", heter det ju. Numera hittar artister alla möjliga sätt att sälja skivor på.
Soundgardens sproilans nya samlingsplatta "Telephantasm" nådde platinastatus redan första dagen och detta tack vare Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.
Läs mer i LA Times
/Niclas
"There´s no business like showbusiness", heter det ju. Numera hittar artister alla möjliga sätt att sälja skivor på.
Soundgardens sproilans nya samlingsplatta "Telephantasm" nådde platinastatus redan första dagen och detta tack vare Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock.
Läs mer i LA Times
/Niclas
Trent tonsätter Facebook.
Demonregissören David Finchers senaste film är "The social network", som handlar om skapandet av världsfenomenet Facebook. Det låter ju egentligen inte alltför upphetsande, men filmen har fått väldigt fina recensioner och blir alldeles säkert en ny fjäder i hatten för herr Fincher.
Soundtracket är signerat Trent Reznor och Atticus Ross och släpps snart som fysisk skiva. I en kortare intervju i LA Times berättar Reznor om arbetet, samt att HBO-serien som baseras på hans "Year zero", är på gång.
Trent i LA Times
/Niclas
Demonregissören David Finchers senaste film är "The social network", som handlar om skapandet av världsfenomenet Facebook. Det låter ju egentligen inte alltför upphetsande, men filmen har fått väldigt fina recensioner och blir alldeles säkert en ny fjäder i hatten för herr Fincher.
Soundtracket är signerat Trent Reznor och Atticus Ross och släpps snart som fysisk skiva. I en kortare intervju i LA Times berättar Reznor om arbetet, samt att HBO-serien som baseras på hans "Year zero", är på gång.
Trent i LA Times
/Niclas
tisdag 28 september 2010
Starstruck memories!
(Athena Kottak backstage SRF 2007)
Vad gör man när man träffar Tommy Lees syrra? Jo, man snackar skvaller om kändisbrorsan och hans band. Men vi tar det från början.
Sweden Rock Festival 2007. Scorpions spelar på stora scenen och dagen till ära har jag lyckats fixa till mig en intervju med självaste gitarrguden Rudolf "Väderkvarnen" Schenker. Kan du ha ett mer tyskt namn än så?
Via mail och en generös tysk promokille på BMG, lyckas jag mot alla odds få denna relativt stora intervjumöjlighet. Stor pga att lilla Metal Shrine inte riktigt simmade med de stora websitefiskarna.
Sen eftermiddag denna händelserika dag blir jag och polaren inslussade till backstageområdet på SRF. Väl där börjar en lång, lång väntan, som sig bör, när det handlar om intervjuer. Vi slår oss ner och känner oss något obekväma. Mest med tanke på att större delen av Scorpions sitter vid ett bord bredvid och äter kvällsmat. Uli Jon Roth dyker upp i trätofflor och ett litet kramkalas utbryter medlemmarna emellan.
Av promokillen blir vi tillsagda att vänta ytterligare, då Rudolf måste få sin obligatoriska massage. Vi hör hur Motörhead drar igång i bakgrunden, men svarar självfallet att det inte är några problem med att vänta.
I ögonvrån ser jag en kvinna stå och snacka med en svensk skivbolagsrepresentant. "Är det inte...?", tänker jag för mig själv. Lite senare kommer hon gående förbi oss och jag samlar mod. "Are you Athena?" och självfallet är hon det. Hon har hängt med sin man, James Kottak och börjar snabbt berätta historier om än det ena, än det andra.
Helt plötsligt är Rudolf redo för intervju. Athena frågar om vi ska hänga kvar efteråt och visst ska vi det. Intervjun går bra. Rudolf är pratglad och trevlig. Bredvid honom under hela intervjun sitter en ung dam och läser en tidning. Vi får aldrig riktigt klart för oss om hon är dotter, ung fru eller bara en groupie.
När intervjun är klar kliver vi ut ur den linimentosande stugan och möter upp Athena. Den tyska promokillen frågar manande om vi fått vad vi vill ha? Jo visst har vi det, men vi ska ju hänga med Athena.
Athena visar sig vara sprallig som en tonåring på dextrosol och börjar berätta historier om sin käre bror. Det visar sig att han vid ett tillfälle hyrt en form av spåkvinna för att "rensa" sitt hus. Samma hus som den berömda videofilmen delvis spelades in i. Kvinnan gick från rum till rum, mumlade konstigt och utövade sin magiska rening. Vi skrattar så att vi gråter!
Tidigare under veckan har Athena besökt Gods of Metal med Scorpions och där sett Mötley Crüe uppträda. Hon skrattar gott åt Vince när hon berättar om hur de använder sig av förinspelad sång och hur Vince missade att mima.
Plötsligt frågar Athena oss om vi vill hänga med upp på scen och se Scorpions live därifrån. Vi försöker förklara att vi inte har några stagepass, men hon bara skämtar bort det, bjuder på chips och tar täten mot scenen. En minut senare står vi till höger, sidan om scenen och ser bandet gå på till publikens jubel. Vi diggar och Athena hämtar förtäringar.
Efter ett tag vill hon att vi ska smyga fram bakom James trumset för att se hans solo därifrån. Hon tar oss i händerna som två små barn och vi hukar oss bakom förstärkarna. Väl framme vid trumsetet står det snabbt klart att herr Kottak inte vill ha oss där. Tydligen är Mathias Jabs förbannad på Uli Jon Roth som får för mycket tid i spotlighten och detta går ut över James och de andra. Vi smyger tillbaka, fast till andra sidan, där jag nästan krockar med Klaus Meine, som ska vila ut i ett litet svart tält.
När giget är över frågar Athena om vi vill hänga med till Köpenhamn? Visst hade det varit kul svarar vi, men vi har ju jobb, familj och annat ansvar och tackar artigt nej till inbjudan.
Några månader senare intervjuar jag henne på telefon. Vi snackar löst om att ses när jag kommer till LA. Dock blev det inget av det. Jo, jag kom till LA och jo, jag blev inbjuden till ett Kottak-gig i Beverly Hills, men det var sista kvällen innan flyget hem till Svedala och det funkade helt enkelt inte.
Men men, tänk vad ett litet backstagebesök kan generera historier.
/Niclas
(Athena Kottak backstage SRF 2007)
Vad gör man när man träffar Tommy Lees syrra? Jo, man snackar skvaller om kändisbrorsan och hans band. Men vi tar det från början.
Sweden Rock Festival 2007. Scorpions spelar på stora scenen och dagen till ära har jag lyckats fixa till mig en intervju med självaste gitarrguden Rudolf "Väderkvarnen" Schenker. Kan du ha ett mer tyskt namn än så?
Via mail och en generös tysk promokille på BMG, lyckas jag mot alla odds få denna relativt stora intervjumöjlighet. Stor pga att lilla Metal Shrine inte riktigt simmade med de stora websitefiskarna.
Sen eftermiddag denna händelserika dag blir jag och polaren inslussade till backstageområdet på SRF. Väl där börjar en lång, lång väntan, som sig bör, när det handlar om intervjuer. Vi slår oss ner och känner oss något obekväma. Mest med tanke på att större delen av Scorpions sitter vid ett bord bredvid och äter kvällsmat. Uli Jon Roth dyker upp i trätofflor och ett litet kramkalas utbryter medlemmarna emellan.
Av promokillen blir vi tillsagda att vänta ytterligare, då Rudolf måste få sin obligatoriska massage. Vi hör hur Motörhead drar igång i bakgrunden, men svarar självfallet att det inte är några problem med att vänta.
I ögonvrån ser jag en kvinna stå och snacka med en svensk skivbolagsrepresentant. "Är det inte...?", tänker jag för mig själv. Lite senare kommer hon gående förbi oss och jag samlar mod. "Are you Athena?" och självfallet är hon det. Hon har hängt med sin man, James Kottak och börjar snabbt berätta historier om än det ena, än det andra.
Helt plötsligt är Rudolf redo för intervju. Athena frågar om vi ska hänga kvar efteråt och visst ska vi det. Intervjun går bra. Rudolf är pratglad och trevlig. Bredvid honom under hela intervjun sitter en ung dam och läser en tidning. Vi får aldrig riktigt klart för oss om hon är dotter, ung fru eller bara en groupie.
När intervjun är klar kliver vi ut ur den linimentosande stugan och möter upp Athena. Den tyska promokillen frågar manande om vi fått vad vi vill ha? Jo visst har vi det, men vi ska ju hänga med Athena.
Athena visar sig vara sprallig som en tonåring på dextrosol och börjar berätta historier om sin käre bror. Det visar sig att han vid ett tillfälle hyrt en form av spåkvinna för att "rensa" sitt hus. Samma hus som den berömda videofilmen delvis spelades in i. Kvinnan gick från rum till rum, mumlade konstigt och utövade sin magiska rening. Vi skrattar så att vi gråter!
Tidigare under veckan har Athena besökt Gods of Metal med Scorpions och där sett Mötley Crüe uppträda. Hon skrattar gott åt Vince när hon berättar om hur de använder sig av förinspelad sång och hur Vince missade att mima.
Plötsligt frågar Athena oss om vi vill hänga med upp på scen och se Scorpions live därifrån. Vi försöker förklara att vi inte har några stagepass, men hon bara skämtar bort det, bjuder på chips och tar täten mot scenen. En minut senare står vi till höger, sidan om scenen och ser bandet gå på till publikens jubel. Vi diggar och Athena hämtar förtäringar.
Efter ett tag vill hon att vi ska smyga fram bakom James trumset för att se hans solo därifrån. Hon tar oss i händerna som två små barn och vi hukar oss bakom förstärkarna. Väl framme vid trumsetet står det snabbt klart att herr Kottak inte vill ha oss där. Tydligen är Mathias Jabs förbannad på Uli Jon Roth som får för mycket tid i spotlighten och detta går ut över James och de andra. Vi smyger tillbaka, fast till andra sidan, där jag nästan krockar med Klaus Meine, som ska vila ut i ett litet svart tält.
När giget är över frågar Athena om vi vill hänga med till Köpenhamn? Visst hade det varit kul svarar vi, men vi har ju jobb, familj och annat ansvar och tackar artigt nej till inbjudan.
Några månader senare intervjuar jag henne på telefon. Vi snackar löst om att ses när jag kommer till LA. Dock blev det inget av det. Jo, jag kom till LA och jo, jag blev inbjuden till ett Kottak-gig i Beverly Hills, men det var sista kvällen innan flyget hem till Svedala och det funkade helt enkelt inte.
Men men, tänk vad ett litet backstagebesök kan generera historier.
/Niclas
söndag 26 september 2010
På önskelistan.
Den eminente rockfotografen Ross Halfin, som fotat allt och alla, kommer nu med en saftig bok om Metallica.
Text från förlaget: "He just gets right the fuck in there. . . . Every drop of sweat, every molecule of saliva, every out-of-place nose hair, it all gets captured cuz he's just fucking there."—Lars Ulrich
Legendary music photographer Ross Halfin has documented Metallica for nearly 25 years, from their beginnings as a scrappy, furious garage band to their current status as the heaviest and most popular metal band in the world. "The Ultimate Metallica" collects the best of Halfin's amazing images, taken over the years with access granted exclusively to him as the band's main lensman. His candid photographs—taken on stage, backstage, on and off tour—are supplemented by text from many people close to the band, including managers and music writers, plus some colorful personal observations from Halfin himself.
Legendary music photographer Ross Halfin has documented Metallica for nearly 25 years, from their beginnings as a scrappy, furious garage band to their current status as the heaviest and most popular metal band in the world. "The Ultimate Metallica" collects the best of Halfin's amazing images, taken over the years with access granted exclusively to him as the band's main lensman. His candid photographs—taken on stage, backstage, on and off tour—are supplemented by text from many people close to the band, including managers and music writers, plus some colorful personal observations from Halfin himself.
/Niclas
Duff McKagan delar med sig av sin erfarenhet.
Gamle Duff är ju numera nykter och drogfri och ser på livet med andra ögon. I sin senaste krönika i Seattle Weekly ger han 10 tips om hur du överlever i rockvärlden.
Favorittipset: "Don´t smoke crack on a leased private jet. The smell gets into EVERYTHING.
Duffs tips
/Niclas
Gamle Duff är ju numera nykter och drogfri och ser på livet med andra ögon. I sin senaste krönika i Seattle Weekly ger han 10 tips om hur du överlever i rockvärlden.
Favorittipset: "Don´t smoke crack on a leased private jet. The smell gets into EVERYTHING.
Duffs tips
/Niclas
Bokrecension
Brian Johnson
"Rockers and rollers - An automotive autobiography from AC/DC´s legendary frontman" 2009
Mitt intresse för allt motordrivet är minimalt. Mitt intresse för AC/DC är gigantiskt. Bandet var min allra första hårdrockskärlek och den började spira under det sista halvåret av 1980 och är än idag i full blom, trots en del svackor under 90-talet.
Brian Johnson har ett intresse för bilar som är raka motsatsen till mitt. Han bokstavligen älskar dem, oavsett modell, utseende eller ålder. Med andra ord är det kanske inte så konstigt att hans självbiografi kom att få bilar som tema, vilket tyvärr fick mitt intresse för boken att svalna avsevärt.
I kortare historier förtäljer Brian Johnson om sitt liv genom att koppla ihop bilar han haft under olika perioder i sitt liv. Tyvärr är det ungefär lika roligt som det låter. Visst skriver han många gånger väldigt roligt och de små fräcka kommentarerna får en emellanåt att dra på smilbanden, men mer än så blir det inte. Det blir sammantaget väldans lite rock och lika lite roll, om ni förstår vad jag menar.
Med tanke på det makalösa liv herr Johnson levt så här långt, tycker man att han skulle kunna bjuda på ett något roligare material. Det berättas om bandkollegorna, men även här kopplas alltihop med bilar. Dock är det lite kul hur han beklagar sig över Malcolm Youngs Nissan. En av världens största riffmeisters kör alltså en väldigt oexklusiv och orockandrollig bil. Och storyn om hur han lyckas urinera på Sputnik i Moskva 1991 är riktigt dråplig, men som läsare skulle jag vilja gott mig i mer rock and roll än bensin och olja.
Nej, Brian Johnson borde kunna skriva något vettigare. Vi snackar ju ändå om mannen som skrev texten till “Hells bells”.
/Niclas
Brian Johnson
"Rockers and rollers - An automotive autobiography from AC/DC´s legendary frontman" 2009
Mitt intresse för allt motordrivet är minimalt. Mitt intresse för AC/DC är gigantiskt. Bandet var min allra första hårdrockskärlek och den började spira under det sista halvåret av 1980 och är än idag i full blom, trots en del svackor under 90-talet.
Brian Johnson har ett intresse för bilar som är raka motsatsen till mitt. Han bokstavligen älskar dem, oavsett modell, utseende eller ålder. Med andra ord är det kanske inte så konstigt att hans självbiografi kom att få bilar som tema, vilket tyvärr fick mitt intresse för boken att svalna avsevärt.
I kortare historier förtäljer Brian Johnson om sitt liv genom att koppla ihop bilar han haft under olika perioder i sitt liv. Tyvärr är det ungefär lika roligt som det låter. Visst skriver han många gånger väldigt roligt och de små fräcka kommentarerna får en emellanåt att dra på smilbanden, men mer än så blir det inte. Det blir sammantaget väldans lite rock och lika lite roll, om ni förstår vad jag menar.
Med tanke på det makalösa liv herr Johnson levt så här långt, tycker man att han skulle kunna bjuda på ett något roligare material. Det berättas om bandkollegorna, men även här kopplas alltihop med bilar. Dock är det lite kul hur han beklagar sig över Malcolm Youngs Nissan. En av världens största riffmeisters kör alltså en väldigt oexklusiv och orockandrollig bil. Och storyn om hur han lyckas urinera på Sputnik i Moskva 1991 är riktigt dråplig, men som läsare skulle jag vilja gott mig i mer rock and roll än bensin och olja.
Nej, Brian Johnson borde kunna skriva något vettigare. Vi snackar ju ändå om mannen som skrev texten till “Hells bells”.
/Niclas
lördag 25 september 2010
Ett av fynden från dagens skivmässa i Solna.
För ynka 50 pix kom jag över denna lilla godbit. The Crüe live på Perkin´s Palace i Pasadena, Ca - 821119 (KMET original broadcast)
Tydligen spelade bandet två gig denna dag och detta är det första. 5 låtar finns med på officiella släppet "Entertainment or death" (1999), men vet ej om de är från detta gig eller det senare.
Trevlig låtlista och ett mycket tvivelaktigt foto på skivans baksida. Tommy Lee och Vince Neil tillsammans med en ung dam i en något "private session", om man säger så.
Låtlista:
Take me to the top
Looks that kill
Public enemy #1
Red hot
Starry eyes
Piece of your action
Shout at the devil
Merry go round
Running wild in the night
Hotter than hell
Live wire
Knock ém dead kid
/Niclas
För ynka 50 pix kom jag över denna lilla godbit. The Crüe live på Perkin´s Palace i Pasadena, Ca - 821119 (KMET original broadcast)
Tydligen spelade bandet två gig denna dag och detta är det första. 5 låtar finns med på officiella släppet "Entertainment or death" (1999), men vet ej om de är från detta gig eller det senare.
Trevlig låtlista och ett mycket tvivelaktigt foto på skivans baksida. Tommy Lee och Vince Neil tillsammans med en ung dam i en något "private session", om man säger så.
Låtlista:
Take me to the top
Looks that kill
Public enemy #1
Red hot
Starry eyes
Piece of your action
Shout at the devil
Merry go round
Running wild in the night
Hotter than hell
Live wire
Knock ém dead kid
/Niclas
fredag 24 september 2010
Kul och läsvärd artikel om de forna glamkungarna!
Mike Cavanagh på The Guardian skriver mycket läsvärt och roligt om The Sweet och deras uppgång och fall. Andy Scott medverkade nyligen i en reklamfilm för en bilförsäkring, vilket fick Cavanagh att kontakta de två överlevande medlemmarna Scott och Priest. Bl a en intressant story om misshandeln av Connolly 1974, vilken kom att bli ödesdiger för topplistebandet.
The Sweet i The Guardian
/Niclas
Mike Cavanagh på The Guardian skriver mycket läsvärt och roligt om The Sweet och deras uppgång och fall. Andy Scott medverkade nyligen i en reklamfilm för en bilförsäkring, vilket fick Cavanagh att kontakta de två överlevande medlemmarna Scott och Priest. Bl a en intressant story om misshandeln av Connolly 1974, vilken kom att bli ödesdiger för topplistebandet.
The Sweet i The Guardian
/Niclas
Färsk intervju med Kerry King i Revolver Mag.
Kerry snackar bl a om anledningen till att han inte deltog i "Am I evil"- jammet, kommande vinylboxen och ormen Super Zebra.
Kerrys intervju
/Niclas
Kerry snackar bl a om anledningen till att han inte deltog i "Am I evil"- jammet, kommande vinylboxen och ormen Super Zebra.
Kerrys intervju
/Niclas
Rollins spankulerar i Tibet.
Varje gång jag läser gamle Henrys reseäventyr blir jag svårt avundsjuk på hans upplevelser. Senaste blogginlägget förtäljer om besök i bl a Tibet och Bhutan.
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
Varje gång jag läser gamle Henrys reseäventyr blir jag svårt avundsjuk på hans upplevelser. Senaste blogginlägget förtäljer om besök i bl a Tibet och Bhutan.
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
Skivrecension
Kingdom of Sorrow
"Behind the blackest tears" 2010
Debuten var en käftsmäll och Jasta/Windstein följer upp med en rejäl spark i ändalykten. Det är blytungt, men svänger utav helsike! På något vis har duon hittat den perfekta blandningen mellan Hatebreed och Down och levererar ett vax som kommer att inta en topplacering på undertecknads årsbästalista.
Ta bara andra spåret" God´s law in the devil´s land". Mer Lucifer än så kan det inte bli utan att kladda in sig i corpse paint och kväka oljud. Och Jastas röst blir ett utmärkt komplement till äldre Windsteins skrovliga stämband.
Köp, köp, köp!
Betyg. 4/5
/Niclas
Kingdom of Sorrow
"Behind the blackest tears" 2010
Debuten var en käftsmäll och Jasta/Windstein följer upp med en rejäl spark i ändalykten. Det är blytungt, men svänger utav helsike! På något vis har duon hittat den perfekta blandningen mellan Hatebreed och Down och levererar ett vax som kommer att inta en topplacering på undertecknads årsbästalista.
Ta bara andra spåret" God´s law in the devil´s land". Mer Lucifer än så kan det inte bli utan att kladda in sig i corpse paint och kväka oljud. Och Jastas röst blir ett utmärkt komplement till äldre Windsteins skrovliga stämband.
Köp, köp, köp!
Betyg. 4/5
/Niclas
lördag 18 september 2010
Henry besöker Nordkorea och fascineras.
(Foto: Ben Swinnerton)
Senaste blogginlägget från världens argaste man ligger uppe på LA Weekly. Det är alltid intressant när kung Henry skriver.
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
(Foto: Ben Swinnerton)
Senaste blogginlägget från världens argaste man ligger uppe på LA Weekly. Det är alltid intressant när kung Henry skriver.
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
tisdag 14 september 2010
Den gode Henry reser och reser och reser och...
Senaste blogginlägget från en av mina favoriter ligger nu uppe på LA Weekly. Den här gången är han i Kina i väntan på att få åka in i Nordkorea, vilket säkerligen kommer att ge en hel del roliga stories i nästa uppdatering av hans blogg. Dessutom en fantastiskt skön låtlista från senaste radioshowen.
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
Senaste blogginlägget från en av mina favoriter ligger nu uppe på LA Weekly. Den här gången är han i Kina i väntan på att få åka in i Nordkorea, vilket säkerligen kommer att ge en hel del roliga stories i nästa uppdatering av hans blogg. Dessutom en fantastiskt skön låtlista från senaste radioshowen.
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
måndag 13 september 2010
Läs Vince Neils kommande bok redan nu!
Den 23:e september släpps Vince Neils självbiografi "Tattoos & tequila: To hell and back with one of rock´s most notorious frontmen" och om du verkligen inte orkar vänta finns det möjlighet att börja läsa redan nu.
Klicka på länken nedan, vänta på att omslaget laddas upp och bläddra sedan framåt med hjälp av pilarna.
Länk till boken
/Niclas
Den 23:e september släpps Vince Neils självbiografi "Tattoos & tequila: To hell and back with one of rock´s most notorious frontmen" och om du verkligen inte orkar vänta finns det möjlighet att börja läsa redan nu.
Klicka på länken nedan, vänta på att omslaget laddas upp och bläddra sedan framåt med hjälp av pilarna.
Länk till boken
/Niclas
torsdag 9 september 2010
Intervju med Brian "Damage" Forsythe i Kix!
Den tredje och sista intervjun med band som gästar Stockholm Rock Out 10-11 september.
Kix var ett favoritband under det glada 80-talet och plattan "Midnite dynamite" har jag alltid sett som en av de bästa från den eran.
För ett tag sedan hade jag nöjet att ringa upp gitarristen Brian "Damage" Forsythe i numera åteförenade Kix och snacka om en hel del. Det blev en promenad nedför memory lane och minnen av bl a tidiga turnéer, gitarrer, Robbin Crosby, Capital Center i Largo och skulder.
Are you in LA now?
Brian Forsythe: No, actually I´m on the east coast near DC.
Ok. I thought we´d start with going way back and work our way up till today, if that works for you?
BF: Yeah!
Going back to when you first joined Kix, or the band that would become Kix, what were you up to before that? Were you playing in local bands? Had you done anything music wise before that?
BF: Yeah, I was playing in local bands and the funny thing was that… I knew Ronnie and he played in another band at the time and they were all cover bands and we did like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, and Ronnie was leaving his band and his band was kind of a well known cover band at the time and I was gonna take his place in the band. I even went and auditioned and then I ran into Ronnie late one night at a convenient store after a gig and he approached me about starting this band with Donnie Purnell and I told him that I auditioned for his band and he said “Ah, you don´t want to join them!” and he actually talked me out of joining that band. It was funny… when he talked to me about it he said “Yeah, Donnie and I are gonna put together this original band and we´re gonna get a record deal!” and it was funny because this band he was coming from was this established band that had gigs and I was thinking “Do I wanna join this band that´s already playing and making money or do I wanna start over?, so I really had to think about it, but luckily I made the right decision.
Was this in ´77 or later on?
BF: Yeah, this was in ´77.
Cool! Where did the nickname “Damage” come from?
BF: Oh, I just picked that up along the way. Actually Beau Hill came up with that when we were doing “Midnite dynamite”. I used to show up in the morning in the studio with a hangover and I´d just be laying on the couch in front of the soundboard. (laughs) And actually before he called me “Damage” he used to call me “Brain”, so he just attached that to the end of it.
Good one! When you started out… is Hagerstown in Maryland?
BF: Yeah! We eventually located in Hagerstown, but when we first started we were in my parents basement which is in Frederick, Maryland. It´s about 20 miles from Hagerstown.
What was the scene like back then? Were there a lot of bands around that time, locally?
BF: There were a lot of cover bands. There weren´t a whole lot of original bands. It was very tough to break into this scene doing originals, so we were a cover band for the first few years. But we would sneak our songs in there. (laughs)
Of course. The town Largo, is that in Maryland?
BF: It´s not really a town, it´s an area. That´s where the Capital Center used to be.
Exactly! I was kind of wondering, did you ever go to a KISS show there?
BF: No, I never saw KISS there, but a lot of other shows.
Alright. There´s a lot of bootleg videos out there because they had this in house tv system, so a lot of the bands playing there were filmed. KISS played there on the “Dynasty” tour and there´s stuff with Aerosmith.
BF: Yeah, I have a bootleg with the New Barbarians.
When you finally, as a band, decided to name the band Kix, who came up with the name? And who came up with the spelling of it?
BF: It´s funny. We were called the Shooze to begin with and the we couldn´t use that name so we changed it to The Generators and the we recorded our record. Our contract was under the name The Generators to begin with and we got the whole thing recorded and we were about to do the artwork for the album cover, when we found out we couldn´t use The Generators either. It was just a spur of the moment thing. It was like “Well, you guys gotta come up with something right now!” and Donnie just said “How about Kix and we´ll spell it K I X?”. He used to be in a band called Jax, so that´s how that came about. It was just really a spur of the moment.
Ok. I just read in an interview with you where they ask you about the name Kix and you mentioned that the name Kix wasn´t actually registered until 2004 or something. It just seem strange that nobody registered it and that nobody owned it until then.
BF: Yeah! Well, we lucked out. We sort of paranoid when we got back together without Donnie and thought it might be a problem.
Did it never occur to you back in the 80´s when you started out, or did you think the label, Atlantic, were handling it?
BF: Yeah, I think that´s kind of what happened. We just figured it got handled at sometime by somebody and didn´t check.
What was it like working with Beau Hill on “Midnite dynamite”? That album was my first with Kix. I heard it on a Swedish radio show in the mid 80´s called “Rockbox” and I remember he played “Bang bang balls of fire” and I just got hooked and went out and bought the album and still love it to this day. What was it like working with that guy? He worked with Ratt and other bands from that era.
BF: Before that record we were kind of fishing around for a sound. I think he´s a really good producer. The only thing with Beau is that he puts his sound on to the band, so a lot of those records you can tell that they´re his records. The only problem that I had with Beau was the fact that he brought in another guitar player to play some stuff. Especially at that time it really bothered me. Not a whole lot of stuff, but enough to bother me. (laughs)
Well, he produced a lot of the Ratt records as well and I remember watching “Ratt – Behind the music” and someone in Ratt was pissed off because he brought in some other guitar player to do stuff.
BF: Yeah, I think that was his thing. Most bands he´s worked with, he´s done that. It was kind of strange, because here is Kix and we have two guitar players. The song that he did it on was “Scarlet fever” and it was a song that wasn´t quite finished when we went in to do the record, so Ronnie and I hadn´t really worked out who was gonna do the solo on the song. So at the end of one of those days when we were working on that song, we decided between Ronnie and I, that Ronnie was gonna do the solo. He went in and he didn´t really have anything prepared and he goes in there and spent like several hours in there trying to come up with some solo and he just wasn´t having any luck that night. At the end of the night Beau goes “So, do you wanna try it?” and I said “Sure, I´ll go in!”. So I go in there and spent like 10 minutes fishing around, trying to come up with something and the way I work is that I like to take the rhythm tracks back to where I´m staying and sort of work on it and come up with something. After 10 minutes I didn´t want to waste any more time and just said “Could you run me off a copy and I´ll take it back to the room and I´ll have something by tomorrow?”. So he gave me a copy of it and I went back and I actually came up with something. Then I showed up at the studio like ten o´clock the next morning to do this and the door is locked to the control room and I can hear somebody else in there playing and that´s really what got to me. I wasn´t told this was gonna happen and I spent all this time working on this and came up with what I was gonna do and never had a chance to do it. So that was my main problem with Beau, that he did it that way.
Did he bring in a total unknown guy or a well known guy?
BF: His name is Mike Slamer and he played with the singer from Kansas (Steve Walsh). I mean, he´s a great guitar player but he´s more along the lines of Eddie Van Halen, which is not Kix. A real nice guy on top of it, so I couldn´t get mad at him because he´s such a nice guy and he just came in because Beau called him.
I understand that Anton Fig (KISS, Frehley´s Comet, David Letterman) played on the album as well. How come?
BF: Jimmy had this pinch nerve thing happening in his neck and it was affecting his hands. He was dropping sticks and stuff and the only time that he could take care of it, so that we could continue touring, was right at the end of the recording. The last two songs we did on the record, “Sex” and “Lie like a rug”. Donnie had known Anton and they´d gotten together a few times to try to write songs together, so we called him in to do those last two tracks. He was really cool too. Anton is a great drummer. He came in there, he listened through the song in the control room and sat there and took notes and then he went out into the studio and pretty much in one or two takes got the song. It was incredible!
He´s been around for a long time. He did a lot of stuff for KISS when Peter Criss was out of the band. When “Midnite dynamite” came out, were you still in or around Hagerstown or had you already moved to LA by that time?
BF: I lived in Hagerstown until I left the band in 1993.
Ok. I read somewhere that the whole band relocated to LA to try out the whole Sunset Strip thing.
BF: Actually, we didn´t even play out there until after that. That´s when we went out to play there for the first time. That was in 1985, I think. Our first gig in LA was at The Troubadour opening for Guns N´Roses. I don´t know if they had officially signed their deal yet. They were just a local band around Hollywood.
Cool! What do you remember from that night? Anything special? Could you see that they would become something or were they just like any other band around that time?
BF: No, I knew it, I knew it! There was a huge buzz around that band. They may have put out an EP (Live like a suicide) or something. They put that out before they did the record. I heard that and I just knew and then when we opened for them, the line was around the block. It was a huge thing and that was about the time Poison was taking off and people were talking about Poison and I said “No, no, not Poison, it´s gonna be Guns N´Roses!”, but of course Poison did too.
After that, did you play a lot in the LA area and all the classic places like The Whisky A Go Go, Roxy and Rainbow?
BF: Yeah! I think the first initial show was the one with Guns N´Roses and the we came back in, I think ´86. We tried to make a deal with Poison, because we knew those guys too When teir record came out, they came back east and did a whole east coast tour opening for us. That´s when they were still on an indie label, I think, and the deal was they would come back here and open for us and we would go out there and open for them, because they were bigger out there. But by the time we got out there, they had already blown up and taken off, so we never got to do that in exchange, so we ended up doing our own tour and took Jetboy out with us on the west coast. We did “Blow my fuse” out there and “Hot wire”, so each time we´d go out to do a recording, we just stayed for a little while.
You opened up for Ratt in ´89. Did you get that gig from the connection with Beau Hill or was it just because you were both on Atlantic?
BF: I´m not sure how that came about. I can´t remember. It may have been a little of both.
What do you remember from that tour? Was that all across the US?
BF: Yeah, it was mostly the east coast, Midwest and down south a little bit. That was our first major tour where we got a tour bus and did pretty much the whole tour. Before that we had opened a few times for some bands. Club tours, but never a big arena tour. So that was our first real arena tour and I just remember that it was cool. We went from our club shows which were like and hour and a half to two hours each night, and we would do that non stop. We were a major touring band and we always toured and the when we got on this arena tour, we got a half hour opening slot, so we were done by eight o´clock every night. It was like, weird. Usually you´d be done by 2 or 3 in the morning. Then you get on the tour bus and you don´t have to drive, you just sit around and it was so easy after all those years playing clubs.
Was it a constant party?
BF: Well, Ratt was! (laughs). Right at the beginning of that tour, we had Jimi K filling in for Ronnie because Ronnie went into rehab. When Ronnie came out of rehab, of course he couldn´t party and at that point I was sort of trying not to, so Ronnie and I would room together. We were totally sober at the time. So our first chance to riding in the tour bus and not having to drive, it would´ve been the perfect opportunity party. Luckily we weren´t doing anything because we probably would have killed ourselves.
With Robbin Crosby, did you see anything of his problems back then? I guess he was heavy into partying and stuff like that? He always seemed like a really cool guy.
BF: Oh, Robbin was a super nice guy! Out of all those guys, I think I bonded with him the most. I mean, they´re all nice. I like warren, but I kept in touch with Robbin afterwards. They always invited us back to their place and they´d always have a big blow out party every night and I always declined. Jimi K was there. He´d always take him up on it and he´d go over there and Jimi and I were rooming together. I´d be back in the room relaxing and watching tv and I´d fall asleep and then Jimi comes stumbling in and he´d tell me all the stories, but I never actually witnessed what went on. I know there was a lot of cocaine and a lot of stuff going on. Next day you´d see those guys show up at soundcheck and they´d be looking rough.
But wasn´t that a tough time with all the alcohol and drugs? You must´ve been really strong within yourself to be able to say no and just go back to your room and leave the partying to the other guys?
BF: Yeah, it was rough! It was really hard to do that, especially before Ronnie got back. I mean, after Ronnie came back from rehab it was a little easier because it was him and I. Before that I was just hanging on, just trying not to and a few nights Jimi would come back and he´d have the bottle of Jack Daniels from backstage and he set it between the beds on that little table by the phone and I´d be looking at it and I´d think “Ok, when the lights go out, I could just take the bottle and take a big swig and nobody will no!”, but somehow I didn´t do that and I´m so glad I never did.
When did you pick up the guitar? I read that you were around seven or eight years old and you started playing along to Bob Dylan songs.
BF: I´d been interested in guitars since I was about six. I remember seeing The Beatles of course and it was just something I wanted to do. I pretended to play the guitar as early as six years old, but I started to really learn how to play around eight years old. My older brother played guitar and he was a big Bob Dylan fan and he had all these Bob Dylan songbooks laying around and that´s how I started. I played acoustic guitar for a few years and around 13 or 14 I got my first electric guitar.
Was there a guitar player that you feel influenced you more than others?
BF: Wow, there´s so many! The first one was Eric Clapton when he was in Cream and I loved Cream back then. My older brother always had the records so I´d just listen to his records, but the first record that I really owned was “Disraeli gears”. I guess Eric Clapton influenced me, but later on there were so many others. I was really into southern rock like Dickey Betts from The Allman Brothers and the Lynyrd Skynyrd guys. I think one of my biggest influences is Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.
Cool! What´s it like playing in Kix these days? Did it all come back when you started playing together again? Is it just like back in the 80´s when it all started out?
BF: You know, the funny part was when we decided to do this, I hadn´t like listened to a Kix record in ten years and I got all that stuff out and I started trying to remember it and I was like “Oh man, I can´t remember!” and I was struggling with it up until the first gig and there were parts I wasn´t sure if I was playing them right. As soon as we went out, that first chord in the spotlight hit me and it all came back. It was the weirdest thing! My fingers remembered and it was like I´d never left. But you know what is funny? There are little subtle things that keep coming back to me along the way, like just this last December we were playing some shows and there was a part in “Blow my fuse” that I used to do and I totally forgot about it and one night I´m playing it and I just played it and it was like “Oh, that´s how I did it!”. It´s weird. Like after all these years, that little thing came back to me and it´s funny because we did a few re-records of some of these songs for people to use and “Blow my fuse” was re recorded and I totally forgot to play that one little thing. But that makes the rerecord a little bit different than the original.
And I understand that you teach guitar as well?
BF: Yeah occasionally. It´s not a steady thing, because I don´t really enjoy teaching guitar, so occasionally someone will ask me and I wind up giving them a few lessons. I was down to like one guy coming a couple of weeks and then I got really busy and I haven´t even talked to that guy in a while. I give lessons occasionally and I charge a lot because I don´t really want to do it and it weeds them ou a little bit so I don´t get stuck with a lot of people coming just to learn Kix songs. (laughs)
After playing for such a long time, do you still feel like you´re learning new stuff?
BF: Oh yeah, constantly! Especially when I started to try teaching, I realized a lot of the stuff I´ve learned, I don´t really know how to explain it. It´s just stuff that I know and I know where it goes, but I don´t know why it goes there. I know what it sounds like, I know where it goes and I know when to use it, but when I have to teach it to somebody else, it really makes me have to think about it.
Do you have a favorite guitar of yours? Do you collect guitars?
BF: I´ve collected them over the years. I´ve bought them and hung on to them and there´s a few I´ve gotten rid off that I didn´t really care about, so I´ve got around 25. Right now my favorite guitar is my ´71 Telecaster. I use that pretty much all the time as far as live goes, but I still love my Melody maker that I used back in the Kix days all the time. I´ve had that guitar since I was 14, but that guitar is so fragile I don´t want to travel with it because it´ll get broken. It´s been broken three times already, but it still sounds great and I don´t want to push my luck.
I also read that a new Kix album would only happen with Donnie. Do you still feel that way or have you recorded stuff?
BF: It comes up a lot actually because people always ask us that and we have discussed it and I think we´ve all decided to keep an open mind, but we haven´t made any plans do really do it yet. I know that when it first came up I was like “How would we do that without Donnie?” and I still wonder that because Donnie was the main guy and he was such a good song writer. I´m a little worried. (laughs)I´m sure it would be ok, but I don´t want to put out just an ok record. That´s the only reason I would hold back on it a little bit.
How do you feel about that? Putting out records today is a lot different than in the mid 80´s. I guess it´s just a different market these days.
BF: Yeah, it is totally different. It´s almost like you wonder if it´s even worth getting a record deal anymore. It seems like the record deals are just shriveling up and soon there´s not even gonna be any record companies, just for the huge artists like The Stones. Then again, I´m sure that if Kix ever decided to do another record we can always just do our own and sell it at the shows and probably be fine.
Right! I guess that´s what a lot of bands do these days. They form their own record company and release their own stuff and they make it work.
BF: Yeah! I´ve got a girlfriend that I´ve been with forever and we might as well be married. We don´t have any kids or anything. I´m really the only guy in the band who doesn´t have a family. Me and the bass player, but the other guys all have families and kids and are kind of settled down and I don´t think they´re really interested in the whole going out touring thing. We do the occasional festival or weekend gigs here in the States, so that´s another reason why we wouldn´t put an official record out like in the old days and go on tour. I mean, I still do that with Rhino Buckett because that´s all I know how to do. (laughs)
That´s the way to do it! When it comes to the band The Shooz and early Kix stuff and so on, is there old demos and stuff laying around or is it long gone?
BF: I still have a bunch of them myself. Yeah, there´s stuff from before the first record that never was recorded. At some point there was a bootleg showing up on Ebay called “Thunderground” and that´s a collection of demos. A lot of people think that´s a real record but it´s not. It´s all demos.
I should check out Ebay!
BF: (laughs) Yeah, I had to get one of those!
Is it any good?
BF: Yeah, there´s a few songs on there that I´d totally forgotten about and then there´s a few like “Ouuuhhhh, I hope nobody heard that one!”. (laughs)
When it comes to the record deal you signed with Atlantic, which had you end up in debt, are you guys still paying off that or is it all cleared?
BF: Well, the good thing about the whole record deal thing is, once you´re dropped from the record company, you don´t owe them the debt. They just release you and you´re not obligated to pay that back. A good thing! (laughs) We were way into debt and that´s why we never made any money off record sales. Donnie made his publishing money. The sad thing was… we renegotiated our deal right before “Blow my fuse” and the manager we got was this guy named Mark Puma, who managed Twisted Sister, and he was an expert with dealing with record companies and he was really good at getting money out of the record company. We got tour support, that we never had before and he was also good at getting advances for varies things, but I don´t think Donnie understood. When our manager would come to us with this proposal about getting advance for something, Donnie would always shoot it down, “No no, no advances!”. In Donnie´s mind it was just making our debt worse, but the reality was that that´s the way it works in the record business. If you have an opportunity to get any money upfront, you should take it because you don´t have to pay that back. Even though it goes on your debt and your debt gets worse, you still get the money and then at the end of the day you just walk away from it and you don´t owe any money. He didn´t understand that and we never got to take advantage of any nice bonuses or advances because he always turned it down, which is a bummer for the rest of the band. I don´t know if it was Donnie´s way of keeping us in line or hungry or what. After a while I just couldn´t take it anymore and that´s pretty much why I left. I knew that we were never gonna get to payday.
Strange. And I understand that none of you have talked to Donnie for several years, is that true?
BF: Yeah! I talked to him in 2003 the last time and it was before we did any of this reunion stuff. He´s really cool and it was really good to talk to him and we talked about old times. I mean, Donnie is a really nice guy when, you´re not working with him. (laughs) He´s just hard to work with, but after we got together… like Steve refused to work with him when we decided to do the reunion shows. Now after we´ve done them, of course Donnie isn´t talking to any of us.
If you got the opportunity, would you work with him again?
BF: I don´t know. I´m not sure. I don´t know if he´d work with us anymore.
One final thing. I read that Alan Niven had a lot to do with getting “don´t close your eyes” released as a single. That he kind of pushed Atlantic to release it as a single, because it wasn´t released at first. Is that true?
BF: Yeah, that´s absolutely true. We were on the Tesla/Great White tour and he was managing Great White and Guns N´Roses. He was a huge manager at the time and had a lot of pull in the industry. I remember that every night he would say something like “I can´t believe that´s not a single!” and at that time they had already released a few singles off that record and as far as Atlantic was concerned, that was it. That record was done! And they weren´t gonna do anything else with it. I remember Alan going to Mark Puma and saying “Did you talk to them about that?” and Mark said “Yeah, they don´t want to hear it!” and Alan said “Do you mind if I try?” and Mark goes “Sure, go ahead!”. Alan went to them and said “You´d be crazy if you don´t release that song!”. They actually listened to him and they did it and it just turned out to be the biggest song we ever had.
It´s strange the way things happen. That´s cool!
BF: I always talk about how Kix career seem like nothing but bad timing and we were never in the right place at the right time, but that was one time that it worked out.
I´ve always placed “Midnite dynamite” as one of my favorite records from the 80´s. It was just a different sound compared to all the other 80´s bands that came out around that time and it really sounded like a record that the band had worked really hard with. I still play it now and then.
BF: Yeah! Kix was a really hard working band. When we were on the road, we got together at least four or five times every day and did our own little pre production and worked on songs and we tore songs apart and put them back together. We really worked on that stuff and it showed. I think another reason why that record may be slightly different than everybody else´s, is because Ronnie and I, as guitar players… we weren´t like all those others… I think it was an asset being on the east coast. We weren´t in that whole LA, Van Halen scene. We were more like the blues, Aerosmith guys, so it made us a little different sounding. It was the same kind of music, but it had a different spin on it.
Absolutely! And now you´re coming to Stockholm. Is that your first time here?
BF: Well, actually in Stockholm yeah. I was in Sweden this past February, no January.
Was that with Rhino Buckett?
BF: Yeah and we played a little bit south of Stockholm.
Växjö, wasn´t it?
BF: Yeah, that´s it!
In the middle of the woods, kind of.
BF: Yeah! (laughs) That was my first time in Sweden.
So what did you think? A lot of trees? Cold?
BF: It was a lot of snow! (laughs) Yeah, it was cold.
It was the worst winter ever!
BF: That´s what everybody said when we came over there at that time. That whole first month that we were there, we were in Germany and Denmark and Norway, it snowed every single day.
What can we expect at Stockholm Rock Out? A lot of classic Kix stuff, I guess?
BF: Oh yeah! We´ve got so much to choose from and we´ve put together a set that we just keep tweaking over these first few years, but you´ll get the best of the best.
Excellent! It´s been great talking to you Brian and I wish you all the best with everything!
BF: Thanks!
/Niclas
Den tredje och sista intervjun med band som gästar Stockholm Rock Out 10-11 september.
Kix var ett favoritband under det glada 80-talet och plattan "Midnite dynamite" har jag alltid sett som en av de bästa från den eran.
För ett tag sedan hade jag nöjet att ringa upp gitarristen Brian "Damage" Forsythe i numera åteförenade Kix och snacka om en hel del. Det blev en promenad nedför memory lane och minnen av bl a tidiga turnéer, gitarrer, Robbin Crosby, Capital Center i Largo och skulder.
Are you in LA now?
Brian Forsythe: No, actually I´m on the east coast near DC.
Ok. I thought we´d start with going way back and work our way up till today, if that works for you?
BF: Yeah!
Going back to when you first joined Kix, or the band that would become Kix, what were you up to before that? Were you playing in local bands? Had you done anything music wise before that?
BF: Yeah, I was playing in local bands and the funny thing was that… I knew Ronnie and he played in another band at the time and they were all cover bands and we did like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin, and Ronnie was leaving his band and his band was kind of a well known cover band at the time and I was gonna take his place in the band. I even went and auditioned and then I ran into Ronnie late one night at a convenient store after a gig and he approached me about starting this band with Donnie Purnell and I told him that I auditioned for his band and he said “Ah, you don´t want to join them!” and he actually talked me out of joining that band. It was funny… when he talked to me about it he said “Yeah, Donnie and I are gonna put together this original band and we´re gonna get a record deal!” and it was funny because this band he was coming from was this established band that had gigs and I was thinking “Do I wanna join this band that´s already playing and making money or do I wanna start over?, so I really had to think about it, but luckily I made the right decision.
Was this in ´77 or later on?
BF: Yeah, this was in ´77.
Cool! Where did the nickname “Damage” come from?
BF: Oh, I just picked that up along the way. Actually Beau Hill came up with that when we were doing “Midnite dynamite”. I used to show up in the morning in the studio with a hangover and I´d just be laying on the couch in front of the soundboard. (laughs) And actually before he called me “Damage” he used to call me “Brain”, so he just attached that to the end of it.
Good one! When you started out… is Hagerstown in Maryland?
BF: Yeah! We eventually located in Hagerstown, but when we first started we were in my parents basement which is in Frederick, Maryland. It´s about 20 miles from Hagerstown.
What was the scene like back then? Were there a lot of bands around that time, locally?
BF: There were a lot of cover bands. There weren´t a whole lot of original bands. It was very tough to break into this scene doing originals, so we were a cover band for the first few years. But we would sneak our songs in there. (laughs)
Of course. The town Largo, is that in Maryland?
BF: It´s not really a town, it´s an area. That´s where the Capital Center used to be.
Exactly! I was kind of wondering, did you ever go to a KISS show there?
BF: No, I never saw KISS there, but a lot of other shows.
Alright. There´s a lot of bootleg videos out there because they had this in house tv system, so a lot of the bands playing there were filmed. KISS played there on the “Dynasty” tour and there´s stuff with Aerosmith.
BF: Yeah, I have a bootleg with the New Barbarians.
When you finally, as a band, decided to name the band Kix, who came up with the name? And who came up with the spelling of it?
BF: It´s funny. We were called the Shooze to begin with and the we couldn´t use that name so we changed it to The Generators and the we recorded our record. Our contract was under the name The Generators to begin with and we got the whole thing recorded and we were about to do the artwork for the album cover, when we found out we couldn´t use The Generators either. It was just a spur of the moment thing. It was like “Well, you guys gotta come up with something right now!” and Donnie just said “How about Kix and we´ll spell it K I X?”. He used to be in a band called Jax, so that´s how that came about. It was just really a spur of the moment.
Ok. I just read in an interview with you where they ask you about the name Kix and you mentioned that the name Kix wasn´t actually registered until 2004 or something. It just seem strange that nobody registered it and that nobody owned it until then.
BF: Yeah! Well, we lucked out. We sort of paranoid when we got back together without Donnie and thought it might be a problem.
Did it never occur to you back in the 80´s when you started out, or did you think the label, Atlantic, were handling it?
BF: Yeah, I think that´s kind of what happened. We just figured it got handled at sometime by somebody and didn´t check.
What was it like working with Beau Hill on “Midnite dynamite”? That album was my first with Kix. I heard it on a Swedish radio show in the mid 80´s called “Rockbox” and I remember he played “Bang bang balls of fire” and I just got hooked and went out and bought the album and still love it to this day. What was it like working with that guy? He worked with Ratt and other bands from that era.
BF: Before that record we were kind of fishing around for a sound. I think he´s a really good producer. The only thing with Beau is that he puts his sound on to the band, so a lot of those records you can tell that they´re his records. The only problem that I had with Beau was the fact that he brought in another guitar player to play some stuff. Especially at that time it really bothered me. Not a whole lot of stuff, but enough to bother me. (laughs)
Well, he produced a lot of the Ratt records as well and I remember watching “Ratt – Behind the music” and someone in Ratt was pissed off because he brought in some other guitar player to do stuff.
BF: Yeah, I think that was his thing. Most bands he´s worked with, he´s done that. It was kind of strange, because here is Kix and we have two guitar players. The song that he did it on was “Scarlet fever” and it was a song that wasn´t quite finished when we went in to do the record, so Ronnie and I hadn´t really worked out who was gonna do the solo on the song. So at the end of one of those days when we were working on that song, we decided between Ronnie and I, that Ronnie was gonna do the solo. He went in and he didn´t really have anything prepared and he goes in there and spent like several hours in there trying to come up with some solo and he just wasn´t having any luck that night. At the end of the night Beau goes “So, do you wanna try it?” and I said “Sure, I´ll go in!”. So I go in there and spent like 10 minutes fishing around, trying to come up with something and the way I work is that I like to take the rhythm tracks back to where I´m staying and sort of work on it and come up with something. After 10 minutes I didn´t want to waste any more time and just said “Could you run me off a copy and I´ll take it back to the room and I´ll have something by tomorrow?”. So he gave me a copy of it and I went back and I actually came up with something. Then I showed up at the studio like ten o´clock the next morning to do this and the door is locked to the control room and I can hear somebody else in there playing and that´s really what got to me. I wasn´t told this was gonna happen and I spent all this time working on this and came up with what I was gonna do and never had a chance to do it. So that was my main problem with Beau, that he did it that way.
Did he bring in a total unknown guy or a well known guy?
BF: His name is Mike Slamer and he played with the singer from Kansas (Steve Walsh). I mean, he´s a great guitar player but he´s more along the lines of Eddie Van Halen, which is not Kix. A real nice guy on top of it, so I couldn´t get mad at him because he´s such a nice guy and he just came in because Beau called him.
I understand that Anton Fig (KISS, Frehley´s Comet, David Letterman) played on the album as well. How come?
BF: Jimmy had this pinch nerve thing happening in his neck and it was affecting his hands. He was dropping sticks and stuff and the only time that he could take care of it, so that we could continue touring, was right at the end of the recording. The last two songs we did on the record, “Sex” and “Lie like a rug”. Donnie had known Anton and they´d gotten together a few times to try to write songs together, so we called him in to do those last two tracks. He was really cool too. Anton is a great drummer. He came in there, he listened through the song in the control room and sat there and took notes and then he went out into the studio and pretty much in one or two takes got the song. It was incredible!
He´s been around for a long time. He did a lot of stuff for KISS when Peter Criss was out of the band. When “Midnite dynamite” came out, were you still in or around Hagerstown or had you already moved to LA by that time?
BF: I lived in Hagerstown until I left the band in 1993.
Ok. I read somewhere that the whole band relocated to LA to try out the whole Sunset Strip thing.
BF: Actually, we didn´t even play out there until after that. That´s when we went out to play there for the first time. That was in 1985, I think. Our first gig in LA was at The Troubadour opening for Guns N´Roses. I don´t know if they had officially signed their deal yet. They were just a local band around Hollywood.
Cool! What do you remember from that night? Anything special? Could you see that they would become something or were they just like any other band around that time?
BF: No, I knew it, I knew it! There was a huge buzz around that band. They may have put out an EP (Live like a suicide) or something. They put that out before they did the record. I heard that and I just knew and then when we opened for them, the line was around the block. It was a huge thing and that was about the time Poison was taking off and people were talking about Poison and I said “No, no, not Poison, it´s gonna be Guns N´Roses!”, but of course Poison did too.
After that, did you play a lot in the LA area and all the classic places like The Whisky A Go Go, Roxy and Rainbow?
BF: Yeah! I think the first initial show was the one with Guns N´Roses and the we came back in, I think ´86. We tried to make a deal with Poison, because we knew those guys too When teir record came out, they came back east and did a whole east coast tour opening for us. That´s when they were still on an indie label, I think, and the deal was they would come back here and open for us and we would go out there and open for them, because they were bigger out there. But by the time we got out there, they had already blown up and taken off, so we never got to do that in exchange, so we ended up doing our own tour and took Jetboy out with us on the west coast. We did “Blow my fuse” out there and “Hot wire”, so each time we´d go out to do a recording, we just stayed for a little while.
You opened up for Ratt in ´89. Did you get that gig from the connection with Beau Hill or was it just because you were both on Atlantic?
BF: I´m not sure how that came about. I can´t remember. It may have been a little of both.
What do you remember from that tour? Was that all across the US?
BF: Yeah, it was mostly the east coast, Midwest and down south a little bit. That was our first major tour where we got a tour bus and did pretty much the whole tour. Before that we had opened a few times for some bands. Club tours, but never a big arena tour. So that was our first real arena tour and I just remember that it was cool. We went from our club shows which were like and hour and a half to two hours each night, and we would do that non stop. We were a major touring band and we always toured and the when we got on this arena tour, we got a half hour opening slot, so we were done by eight o´clock every night. It was like, weird. Usually you´d be done by 2 or 3 in the morning. Then you get on the tour bus and you don´t have to drive, you just sit around and it was so easy after all those years playing clubs.
Was it a constant party?
BF: Well, Ratt was! (laughs). Right at the beginning of that tour, we had Jimi K filling in for Ronnie because Ronnie went into rehab. When Ronnie came out of rehab, of course he couldn´t party and at that point I was sort of trying not to, so Ronnie and I would room together. We were totally sober at the time. So our first chance to riding in the tour bus and not having to drive, it would´ve been the perfect opportunity party. Luckily we weren´t doing anything because we probably would have killed ourselves.
With Robbin Crosby, did you see anything of his problems back then? I guess he was heavy into partying and stuff like that? He always seemed like a really cool guy.
BF: Oh, Robbin was a super nice guy! Out of all those guys, I think I bonded with him the most. I mean, they´re all nice. I like warren, but I kept in touch with Robbin afterwards. They always invited us back to their place and they´d always have a big blow out party every night and I always declined. Jimi K was there. He´d always take him up on it and he´d go over there and Jimi and I were rooming together. I´d be back in the room relaxing and watching tv and I´d fall asleep and then Jimi comes stumbling in and he´d tell me all the stories, but I never actually witnessed what went on. I know there was a lot of cocaine and a lot of stuff going on. Next day you´d see those guys show up at soundcheck and they´d be looking rough.
But wasn´t that a tough time with all the alcohol and drugs? You must´ve been really strong within yourself to be able to say no and just go back to your room and leave the partying to the other guys?
BF: Yeah, it was rough! It was really hard to do that, especially before Ronnie got back. I mean, after Ronnie came back from rehab it was a little easier because it was him and I. Before that I was just hanging on, just trying not to and a few nights Jimi would come back and he´d have the bottle of Jack Daniels from backstage and he set it between the beds on that little table by the phone and I´d be looking at it and I´d think “Ok, when the lights go out, I could just take the bottle and take a big swig and nobody will no!”, but somehow I didn´t do that and I´m so glad I never did.
When did you pick up the guitar? I read that you were around seven or eight years old and you started playing along to Bob Dylan songs.
BF: I´d been interested in guitars since I was about six. I remember seeing The Beatles of course and it was just something I wanted to do. I pretended to play the guitar as early as six years old, but I started to really learn how to play around eight years old. My older brother played guitar and he was a big Bob Dylan fan and he had all these Bob Dylan songbooks laying around and that´s how I started. I played acoustic guitar for a few years and around 13 or 14 I got my first electric guitar.
Was there a guitar player that you feel influenced you more than others?
BF: Wow, there´s so many! The first one was Eric Clapton when he was in Cream and I loved Cream back then. My older brother always had the records so I´d just listen to his records, but the first record that I really owned was “Disraeli gears”. I guess Eric Clapton influenced me, but later on there were so many others. I was really into southern rock like Dickey Betts from The Allman Brothers and the Lynyrd Skynyrd guys. I think one of my biggest influences is Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.
Cool! What´s it like playing in Kix these days? Did it all come back when you started playing together again? Is it just like back in the 80´s when it all started out?
BF: You know, the funny part was when we decided to do this, I hadn´t like listened to a Kix record in ten years and I got all that stuff out and I started trying to remember it and I was like “Oh man, I can´t remember!” and I was struggling with it up until the first gig and there were parts I wasn´t sure if I was playing them right. As soon as we went out, that first chord in the spotlight hit me and it all came back. It was the weirdest thing! My fingers remembered and it was like I´d never left. But you know what is funny? There are little subtle things that keep coming back to me along the way, like just this last December we were playing some shows and there was a part in “Blow my fuse” that I used to do and I totally forgot about it and one night I´m playing it and I just played it and it was like “Oh, that´s how I did it!”. It´s weird. Like after all these years, that little thing came back to me and it´s funny because we did a few re-records of some of these songs for people to use and “Blow my fuse” was re recorded and I totally forgot to play that one little thing. But that makes the rerecord a little bit different than the original.
And I understand that you teach guitar as well?
BF: Yeah occasionally. It´s not a steady thing, because I don´t really enjoy teaching guitar, so occasionally someone will ask me and I wind up giving them a few lessons. I was down to like one guy coming a couple of weeks and then I got really busy and I haven´t even talked to that guy in a while. I give lessons occasionally and I charge a lot because I don´t really want to do it and it weeds them ou a little bit so I don´t get stuck with a lot of people coming just to learn Kix songs. (laughs)
After playing for such a long time, do you still feel like you´re learning new stuff?
BF: Oh yeah, constantly! Especially when I started to try teaching, I realized a lot of the stuff I´ve learned, I don´t really know how to explain it. It´s just stuff that I know and I know where it goes, but I don´t know why it goes there. I know what it sounds like, I know where it goes and I know when to use it, but when I have to teach it to somebody else, it really makes me have to think about it.
Do you have a favorite guitar of yours? Do you collect guitars?
BF: I´ve collected them over the years. I´ve bought them and hung on to them and there´s a few I´ve gotten rid off that I didn´t really care about, so I´ve got around 25. Right now my favorite guitar is my ´71 Telecaster. I use that pretty much all the time as far as live goes, but I still love my Melody maker that I used back in the Kix days all the time. I´ve had that guitar since I was 14, but that guitar is so fragile I don´t want to travel with it because it´ll get broken. It´s been broken three times already, but it still sounds great and I don´t want to push my luck.
I also read that a new Kix album would only happen with Donnie. Do you still feel that way or have you recorded stuff?
BF: It comes up a lot actually because people always ask us that and we have discussed it and I think we´ve all decided to keep an open mind, but we haven´t made any plans do really do it yet. I know that when it first came up I was like “How would we do that without Donnie?” and I still wonder that because Donnie was the main guy and he was such a good song writer. I´m a little worried. (laughs)I´m sure it would be ok, but I don´t want to put out just an ok record. That´s the only reason I would hold back on it a little bit.
How do you feel about that? Putting out records today is a lot different than in the mid 80´s. I guess it´s just a different market these days.
BF: Yeah, it is totally different. It´s almost like you wonder if it´s even worth getting a record deal anymore. It seems like the record deals are just shriveling up and soon there´s not even gonna be any record companies, just for the huge artists like The Stones. Then again, I´m sure that if Kix ever decided to do another record we can always just do our own and sell it at the shows and probably be fine.
Right! I guess that´s what a lot of bands do these days. They form their own record company and release their own stuff and they make it work.
BF: Yeah! I´ve got a girlfriend that I´ve been with forever and we might as well be married. We don´t have any kids or anything. I´m really the only guy in the band who doesn´t have a family. Me and the bass player, but the other guys all have families and kids and are kind of settled down and I don´t think they´re really interested in the whole going out touring thing. We do the occasional festival or weekend gigs here in the States, so that´s another reason why we wouldn´t put an official record out like in the old days and go on tour. I mean, I still do that with Rhino Buckett because that´s all I know how to do. (laughs)
That´s the way to do it! When it comes to the band The Shooz and early Kix stuff and so on, is there old demos and stuff laying around or is it long gone?
BF: I still have a bunch of them myself. Yeah, there´s stuff from before the first record that never was recorded. At some point there was a bootleg showing up on Ebay called “Thunderground” and that´s a collection of demos. A lot of people think that´s a real record but it´s not. It´s all demos.
I should check out Ebay!
BF: (laughs) Yeah, I had to get one of those!
Is it any good?
BF: Yeah, there´s a few songs on there that I´d totally forgotten about and then there´s a few like “Ouuuhhhh, I hope nobody heard that one!”. (laughs)
When it comes to the record deal you signed with Atlantic, which had you end up in debt, are you guys still paying off that or is it all cleared?
BF: Well, the good thing about the whole record deal thing is, once you´re dropped from the record company, you don´t owe them the debt. They just release you and you´re not obligated to pay that back. A good thing! (laughs) We were way into debt and that´s why we never made any money off record sales. Donnie made his publishing money. The sad thing was… we renegotiated our deal right before “Blow my fuse” and the manager we got was this guy named Mark Puma, who managed Twisted Sister, and he was an expert with dealing with record companies and he was really good at getting money out of the record company. We got tour support, that we never had before and he was also good at getting advances for varies things, but I don´t think Donnie understood. When our manager would come to us with this proposal about getting advance for something, Donnie would always shoot it down, “No no, no advances!”. In Donnie´s mind it was just making our debt worse, but the reality was that that´s the way it works in the record business. If you have an opportunity to get any money upfront, you should take it because you don´t have to pay that back. Even though it goes on your debt and your debt gets worse, you still get the money and then at the end of the day you just walk away from it and you don´t owe any money. He didn´t understand that and we never got to take advantage of any nice bonuses or advances because he always turned it down, which is a bummer for the rest of the band. I don´t know if it was Donnie´s way of keeping us in line or hungry or what. After a while I just couldn´t take it anymore and that´s pretty much why I left. I knew that we were never gonna get to payday.
Strange. And I understand that none of you have talked to Donnie for several years, is that true?
BF: Yeah! I talked to him in 2003 the last time and it was before we did any of this reunion stuff. He´s really cool and it was really good to talk to him and we talked about old times. I mean, Donnie is a really nice guy when, you´re not working with him. (laughs) He´s just hard to work with, but after we got together… like Steve refused to work with him when we decided to do the reunion shows. Now after we´ve done them, of course Donnie isn´t talking to any of us.
If you got the opportunity, would you work with him again?
BF: I don´t know. I´m not sure. I don´t know if he´d work with us anymore.
One final thing. I read that Alan Niven had a lot to do with getting “don´t close your eyes” released as a single. That he kind of pushed Atlantic to release it as a single, because it wasn´t released at first. Is that true?
BF: Yeah, that´s absolutely true. We were on the Tesla/Great White tour and he was managing Great White and Guns N´Roses. He was a huge manager at the time and had a lot of pull in the industry. I remember that every night he would say something like “I can´t believe that´s not a single!” and at that time they had already released a few singles off that record and as far as Atlantic was concerned, that was it. That record was done! And they weren´t gonna do anything else with it. I remember Alan going to Mark Puma and saying “Did you talk to them about that?” and Mark said “Yeah, they don´t want to hear it!” and Alan said “Do you mind if I try?” and Mark goes “Sure, go ahead!”. Alan went to them and said “You´d be crazy if you don´t release that song!”. They actually listened to him and they did it and it just turned out to be the biggest song we ever had.
It´s strange the way things happen. That´s cool!
BF: I always talk about how Kix career seem like nothing but bad timing and we were never in the right place at the right time, but that was one time that it worked out.
I´ve always placed “Midnite dynamite” as one of my favorite records from the 80´s. It was just a different sound compared to all the other 80´s bands that came out around that time and it really sounded like a record that the band had worked really hard with. I still play it now and then.
BF: Yeah! Kix was a really hard working band. When we were on the road, we got together at least four or five times every day and did our own little pre production and worked on songs and we tore songs apart and put them back together. We really worked on that stuff and it showed. I think another reason why that record may be slightly different than everybody else´s, is because Ronnie and I, as guitar players… we weren´t like all those others… I think it was an asset being on the east coast. We weren´t in that whole LA, Van Halen scene. We were more like the blues, Aerosmith guys, so it made us a little different sounding. It was the same kind of music, but it had a different spin on it.
Absolutely! And now you´re coming to Stockholm. Is that your first time here?
BF: Well, actually in Stockholm yeah. I was in Sweden this past February, no January.
Was that with Rhino Buckett?
BF: Yeah and we played a little bit south of Stockholm.
Växjö, wasn´t it?
BF: Yeah, that´s it!
In the middle of the woods, kind of.
BF: Yeah! (laughs) That was my first time in Sweden.
So what did you think? A lot of trees? Cold?
BF: It was a lot of snow! (laughs) Yeah, it was cold.
It was the worst winter ever!
BF: That´s what everybody said when we came over there at that time. That whole first month that we were there, we were in Germany and Denmark and Norway, it snowed every single day.
What can we expect at Stockholm Rock Out? A lot of classic Kix stuff, I guess?
BF: Oh yeah! We´ve got so much to choose from and we´ve put together a set that we just keep tweaking over these first few years, but you´ll get the best of the best.
Excellent! It´s been great talking to you Brian and I wish you all the best with everything!
BF: Thanks!
/Niclas
lördag 4 september 2010
Senaste blogginlägget från käre Henry.
(Bild av Maura Lanahan)
Jag har under många, många år varit ett gigantiskt fan av herr Rollins, dock är det hans spoken word och böcker som fascinerar mest. Muisken har inte alltid varit top notch.
Senaste inlägget handlar bl a om konervative galningen Glenn Beck, Miles Davis "Bitches brew" och tullen.
Alltid lika läsvärt!
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
(Bild av Maura Lanahan)
Jag har under många, många år varit ett gigantiskt fan av herr Rollins, dock är det hans spoken word och böcker som fascinerar mest. Muisken har inte alltid varit top notch.
Senaste inlägget handlar bl a om konervative galningen Glenn Beck, Miles Davis "Bitches brew" och tullen.
Alltid lika läsvärt!
Henrys blogg
/Niclas
Robert Plant i senaste Mojo.
Tevlig intervju med Robert Plant om bla Band of Joy i Nashville, Zepreunion och Alison Krauss. Dessutom ett hyfsat intressant reportage om norsk black metal. Nya intervjuer med bl a Varg Vikernes och Bård Eithun. "Klassisk" dödsbild på Dead ingår.
Den som är snabb hittar blaskan för ynka 39 kr hos Pressbyrån.
/Niclas
Tevlig intervju med Robert Plant om bla Band of Joy i Nashville, Zepreunion och Alison Krauss. Dessutom ett hyfsat intressant reportage om norsk black metal. Nya intervjuer med bl a Varg Vikernes och Bård Eithun. "Klassisk" dödsbild på Dead ingår.
Den som är snabb hittar blaskan för ynka 39 kr hos Pressbyrån.
/Niclas
torsdag 2 september 2010
Bokrecension
Den här lilla boken ska enligt förlaget få Pamela Des Barres "I’m with the band" att framstå som en nunnas dagbok, och jag kan inte annat göra än att hålla med. Att sedan författarna Neil Strauss och Anthony Bozza är med på ett hörn som förläggare, gör ju onekligen att man blir intresserad.
Roxana Shirazi växer upp i Iran och anser sig själv ha varit väldigt sexuell redan i tidig ålder. Det berättas om hur hon ser fram emot att jagas av grannpojkarna, att åma sig och även upptäcka onani. Som pappa till två döttrar blir jag lite lätt mörkrädd och ser mig själv vakta över dem på hemtrappen med hagelbössan i knät.
Shirazi berättar om tydliga sexuella övergrepp i barndomen, utförda av relativt närstående personer, men det hela tas lite med en klackspark i själva berättandet. Hon har en frånvarande far som sedan ersätts med en våldsam man. Hon kommer till England som tioåring och får senare stå ut med grov misshandel från just denne “styvfar”.
När jag läste förhandssnacket om boken lät den intressant, ungefär som en kvinnlig version av Mötley Crües "The dirt", men jag kunde ganska snabbt konstatera att den i många avseenden är grövre än L.A.-killarnas självbiografi.
Shirazi bestämmer sig i tidig 20-års ålder att knulla sig genom allt vad rock and roll heter. Band för band, medlem för medlem förnedras hon av på allehanda sätt. Ett liv så destruktivt att det ibland nästan blir svårt att vända sida och läsa om nästa “erövring”. Och det är inga lokala garageband vi snackar om, utan här finns musiker från Guns ‘N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Buckcherry och Towers of London för att nämna några.
Hon framställer sig själv som en sexhungrande maskin som aldrig blir mätt och de diverse rockstjärnor som passerar revy är som ouppfostrade, infantila tonåringar som lever i något sorts parallelluniversum där “anything goes”, oavsett konsekvenser.
"The last living slut" är en tragisk läsning på alla möjliga sätt. Det lämnas ingen egentlig förklaring till författarens beteende, men sexuella övergrepp, misshandel och en frånvarande far låter som en perfekt kompott för framtida bekymmer. Shirazi framstår som en tjej som varit med om alldeles för mycket skit och som hela tiden söker bekräftelse genom att bli förnedrad och sönderknullad av dekadenta rockkillar som inte bryr sig ett skvatt om henne. Hon är en groupie i mängden, inte mer, även om hon själv någonstans i mörkret söker riktig kärlek.
"The last living slut" är intressant och ger ännu en dyster och sjuk bild av livet på vägarna, rockstjärnors leverne och allmän förnedring – dock kanske på ett många gånger naknare och råare sätt än tidigare.
/Niclas
Den här lilla boken ska enligt förlaget få Pamela Des Barres "I’m with the band" att framstå som en nunnas dagbok, och jag kan inte annat göra än att hålla med. Att sedan författarna Neil Strauss och Anthony Bozza är med på ett hörn som förläggare, gör ju onekligen att man blir intresserad.
Roxana Shirazi växer upp i Iran och anser sig själv ha varit väldigt sexuell redan i tidig ålder. Det berättas om hur hon ser fram emot att jagas av grannpojkarna, att åma sig och även upptäcka onani. Som pappa till två döttrar blir jag lite lätt mörkrädd och ser mig själv vakta över dem på hemtrappen med hagelbössan i knät.
Shirazi berättar om tydliga sexuella övergrepp i barndomen, utförda av relativt närstående personer, men det hela tas lite med en klackspark i själva berättandet. Hon har en frånvarande far som sedan ersätts med en våldsam man. Hon kommer till England som tioåring och får senare stå ut med grov misshandel från just denne “styvfar”.
När jag läste förhandssnacket om boken lät den intressant, ungefär som en kvinnlig version av Mötley Crües "The dirt", men jag kunde ganska snabbt konstatera att den i många avseenden är grövre än L.A.-killarnas självbiografi.
Shirazi bestämmer sig i tidig 20-års ålder att knulla sig genom allt vad rock and roll heter. Band för band, medlem för medlem förnedras hon av på allehanda sätt. Ett liv så destruktivt att det ibland nästan blir svårt att vända sida och läsa om nästa “erövring”. Och det är inga lokala garageband vi snackar om, utan här finns musiker från Guns ‘N’ Roses, Mötley Crüe, Buckcherry och Towers of London för att nämna några.
Hon framställer sig själv som en sexhungrande maskin som aldrig blir mätt och de diverse rockstjärnor som passerar revy är som ouppfostrade, infantila tonåringar som lever i något sorts parallelluniversum där “anything goes”, oavsett konsekvenser.
"The last living slut" är en tragisk läsning på alla möjliga sätt. Det lämnas ingen egentlig förklaring till författarens beteende, men sexuella övergrepp, misshandel och en frånvarande far låter som en perfekt kompott för framtida bekymmer. Shirazi framstår som en tjej som varit med om alldeles för mycket skit och som hela tiden söker bekräftelse genom att bli förnedrad och sönderknullad av dekadenta rockkillar som inte bryr sig ett skvatt om henne. Hon är en groupie i mängden, inte mer, även om hon själv någonstans i mörkret söker riktig kärlek.
"The last living slut" är intressant och ger ännu en dyster och sjuk bild av livet på vägarna, rockstjärnors leverne och allmän förnedring – dock kanske på ett många gånger naknare och råare sätt än tidigare.
/Niclas
onsdag 1 september 2010
TV-spelsrock!
Bullet och Bonafide har lyckats få med varsin låt till Atari-spelet
Test Drive Unlimited 2.
Test Drive Unlimited 2 är ett racingspel i samma anda som den omåttligt populära Need For Speed-serien.
Första Test Drive Unlimited var en stor försäljningssuccé runt om i
världen och kritiker spår tvåan en lika ljus framtid.
Spelet släpps till PC, XBox 360 och Playstation 3 första kvartalet 2011.
Bullet håller just nu på att spela in ett nytt album och har precis
avslutat en lång parkturné tillsammans med Crashdiet.
http://www.testdriveunlimited2.com/
/Niclas
Bullet och Bonafide har lyckats få med varsin låt till Atari-spelet
Test Drive Unlimited 2.
Test Drive Unlimited 2 är ett racingspel i samma anda som den omåttligt populära Need For Speed-serien.
Första Test Drive Unlimited var en stor försäljningssuccé runt om i
världen och kritiker spår tvåan en lika ljus framtid.
Spelet släpps till PC, XBox 360 och Playstation 3 första kvartalet 2011.
Bullet håller just nu på att spela in ett nytt album och har precis
avslutat en lång parkturné tillsammans med Crashdiet.
http://www.testdriveunlimited2.com/
/Niclas
All female, all metal, all hysterical!
Jag har faktiskt inte den blekaste aning om hur Hysterica låter, men när en medlem kallar sig för Bitchie Blackwhore är man värd all uppmärksamhet i världen.
Sångerskan Anni De Vil premiärbloggar hos Classic Rock.
Bloggen här
/Niclas
Jag har faktiskt inte den blekaste aning om hur Hysterica låter, men när en medlem kallar sig för Bitchie Blackwhore är man värd all uppmärksamhet i världen.
Sångerskan Anni De Vil premiärbloggar hos Classic Rock.
Bloggen här
/Niclas
Senaste nytt från krigslägret Sabaton!
Do you wonder what Sabaton did in the studio about 1 month ago?
Do you wonder why Primo Victoria, Attero Dominatus, Metalizer and Art of War is so hard to get these days?
This is why...
To be able to continue to do what we all love, meaning to continue to play music and to tour the world, we have now purchased the rights to the Sabaton music.
And to celebrate this we want to make them available again to all of you in a unique cooperation between Sabaton, Nuclear Blast and Black Lodge.
Now what does this mean??
Well, first it means that when you buy a Sabaton album, more of the money spent on the albums will actually go to Sabaton and second it means that we want to celebrate this by making the first four albums available again, but in really cool new versions!
We give you... The Sabaton RE-ARMED Editions and here is a sample of one bonus track!
The 4 first original albums of Sabaton, complete with new artwork, new booklets, posters and of course: New music!
We have digged deep into the treasury of Sabaton to find unique, strange, funny and unexpected songs.
Every album on the RE-ARMED editions will feature new tracks and they will include some old demos, some coversongs, some live versions of songs, some really old and unheard songs and some completely new songs recorded in Studio Abyss.
They will all be re-released on the 24th of September & can from today be pre-ordered right here!
/Sabaton
/Niclas
Do you wonder what Sabaton did in the studio about 1 month ago?
Do you wonder why Primo Victoria, Attero Dominatus, Metalizer and Art of War is so hard to get these days?
This is why...
To be able to continue to do what we all love, meaning to continue to play music and to tour the world, we have now purchased the rights to the Sabaton music.
And to celebrate this we want to make them available again to all of you in a unique cooperation between Sabaton, Nuclear Blast and Black Lodge.
Now what does this mean??
Well, first it means that when you buy a Sabaton album, more of the money spent on the albums will actually go to Sabaton and second it means that we want to celebrate this by making the first four albums available again, but in really cool new versions!
We give you... The Sabaton RE-ARMED Editions and here is a sample of one bonus track!
The 4 first original albums of Sabaton, complete with new artwork, new booklets, posters and of course: New music!
We have digged deep into the treasury of Sabaton to find unique, strange, funny and unexpected songs.
Every album on the RE-ARMED editions will feature new tracks and they will include some old demos, some coversongs, some live versions of songs, some really old and unheard songs and some completely new songs recorded in Studio Abyss.
They will all be re-released on the 24th of September & can from today be pre-ordered right here!
/Sabaton
/Niclas
Senaste nyhetsmailet från Y&T!
Since Phil's post on the forum last month announcing that he has cancer, he's posted an updated message about his health and well-being:
http://www.meniketti.com/vforum/showthread.php?t=32003
He is reading (and re-reading) every single response.
Please brighten Phil's day and post a message to him there.
ON WITH THE SHOW
In July when doctors ordered Phil off the Facemelter tour and into the hospital, he asked the band to continue the tour for him. And so, to honor Phil's wish, the band tapped bassist Brad Lang (Jet Red, War & Peace, Foreigner) to help out. The next morning, Brad flew out to jump onto the tour; he had learned 21 songs in 24 hours--along with Phil's vocal harmonies! Phil and the band are so grateful to Brad for his enthusiasm, support, and graciousness to step in while Phil fights the battle. For Brad, subbing for Phil Kennemore and playing with Y&T is a dream come true.
We'd like to extend our thanks to you--the incredible Y&T fans--for so warmly welcoming Brad on this tour. Reports from every city continue to rave about Y&T's stellar show. Thanks to Brad, the band can carry on--for Phil and for the fans. As Phil so brilliantly penned on the Facemelter CD, On With The Show...
PHIL KENNEMORE FUND
The band recently started "The Phil Kennemore Fund" for people to make donations to help Phil with his enormous medical bills. Donations of any amount, regardless how small, are greatly appreciated.
http://www.meniketti.com/philfund.html
Y&T ON TWITTER!
Now you can follow Y&T on Twitter. Sign up and follow Y&T tweets at www.twitter.com/YandTRocks.
I'M COMING HOME
If you haven't seen the new Y&T video "I'm Coming Home" (from this year's Facemelter album), check it out on our multimedia page: http://www.meniketti.com/multimedia.html
This is classic Y&T.
FACEMELTER
Y&T's Facemelter shirt has been so hot this summer that it keeps selling out! We apologize to those of you who recently tried to order from our web site store only to find we're out of your size. We have another batch of shirts arriving shortly, which will likely be the last. So be sure to order yours!
These T-shirts feature the Facemelter cover art (created by John Taylor Dismukes) on the front and tour dates on the back.
Shirts for the ladies have the gold Y&T logo and the Facemelter title on the front (nothing on the back).
Both available exclusively from our web store:
http://store.meniketti.com/
Y&T SHOWS
Details for each of the shows below are on the TOUR DATES page of the web site.
http://www.meniketti.com/tourdates.html
2010
US
November 19 ~ Petaluma, CA - Mystic Theatre
November 20 ~ Petaluma, CA - Mystic Theatre
December 11 ~ Brooks, CA - Cache Creek Resort
EUROPE
September 27 ~ Belfast, N Ireland - Spring & Airbrake
September 28 ~ Dublin, Ireland - The Village
September 30 ~ Cardiff, Wales, UK - Millennium Music Hall + special guest Tigertailz
October 2 ~ Manchester, UK - Manchester Academy
October 3 ~ Bradford, UK - Bradford Rio's
October 7 ~ Glasgow, Scotland, UK - O2 Academy Glasgow
October 8 ~ Newcastle, UK - O2 Academy Newcastle
October 9 ~ Nottingham, UK - Rock City
October 12 ~ Ipswich, UK - Corn Exchange
October 14 ~ Southampton, UK - The Brook
October 15 ~ Birmingham, UK - O2 Academy Birmingham
October 16 ~ London, UK - O2 Academy Islington
October 20 ~ Paris, France - Le Trabendo
October 22 ~ Haarlem, Netherlands - Patronaat
October 23 ~ Uden, Netherlands - De Pul
October 25 ~ Verviers, Belgium - Spirit of 66
October 26 ~ Bruchsal, Germany - Fabrik
October 28 ~ Prague, Czech Republic - Exit Chmelnice Music Hall
October 29 ~ Aschaffenburg, Germany - Colos-Saal
October 30 ~ Isernhagen, Germany - Blues Garage
October 31 ~ Berlin, Germany - Magnet
November 2 ~ Hamburg, Germany - Ballroom Hamburg
November 3 ~ Koln, Germany - Underground Cologne
November 5 ~ Zaragoza, Spain - Sala Devizio
November 6 ~ Valencia, Spain - Durango Club
November 7 ~ Madrid, Spain - Sala Heineken + special guest Lynch Mob
2011
JAPAN
January 14 ~ Shangri-La - Osaka, Japan
January 15 ~ Club Citta' - Kawasaki, Japan
January 16 ~ Club Citta' - Kawasaki, Japan
/Niclas
Since Phil's post on the forum last month announcing that he has cancer, he's posted an updated message about his health and well-being:
http://www.meniketti.com/vforum/showthread.php?t=32003
He is reading (and re-reading) every single response.
Please brighten Phil's day and post a message to him there.
ON WITH THE SHOW
In July when doctors ordered Phil off the Facemelter tour and into the hospital, he asked the band to continue the tour for him. And so, to honor Phil's wish, the band tapped bassist Brad Lang (Jet Red, War & Peace, Foreigner) to help out. The next morning, Brad flew out to jump onto the tour; he had learned 21 songs in 24 hours--along with Phil's vocal harmonies! Phil and the band are so grateful to Brad for his enthusiasm, support, and graciousness to step in while Phil fights the battle. For Brad, subbing for Phil Kennemore and playing with Y&T is a dream come true.
We'd like to extend our thanks to you--the incredible Y&T fans--for so warmly welcoming Brad on this tour. Reports from every city continue to rave about Y&T's stellar show. Thanks to Brad, the band can carry on--for Phil and for the fans. As Phil so brilliantly penned on the Facemelter CD, On With The Show...
PHIL KENNEMORE FUND
The band recently started "The Phil Kennemore Fund" for people to make donations to help Phil with his enormous medical bills. Donations of any amount, regardless how small, are greatly appreciated.
http://www.meniketti.com/philfund.html
Y&T ON TWITTER!
Now you can follow Y&T on Twitter. Sign up and follow Y&T tweets at www.twitter.com/YandTRocks.
I'M COMING HOME
If you haven't seen the new Y&T video "I'm Coming Home" (from this year's Facemelter album), check it out on our multimedia page: http://www.meniketti.com/multimedia.html
This is classic Y&T.
FACEMELTER
Y&T's Facemelter shirt has been so hot this summer that it keeps selling out! We apologize to those of you who recently tried to order from our web site store only to find we're out of your size. We have another batch of shirts arriving shortly, which will likely be the last. So be sure to order yours!
These T-shirts feature the Facemelter cover art (created by John Taylor Dismukes) on the front and tour dates on the back.
Shirts for the ladies have the gold Y&T logo and the Facemelter title on the front (nothing on the back).
Both available exclusively from our web store:
http://store.meniketti.com/
Y&T SHOWS
Details for each of the shows below are on the TOUR DATES page of the web site.
http://www.meniketti.com/tourdates.html
2010
US
November 19 ~ Petaluma, CA - Mystic Theatre
November 20 ~ Petaluma, CA - Mystic Theatre
December 11 ~ Brooks, CA - Cache Creek Resort
EUROPE
September 27 ~ Belfast, N Ireland - Spring & Airbrake
September 28 ~ Dublin, Ireland - The Village
September 30 ~ Cardiff, Wales, UK - Millennium Music Hall + special guest Tigertailz
October 2 ~ Manchester, UK - Manchester Academy
October 3 ~ Bradford, UK - Bradford Rio's
October 7 ~ Glasgow, Scotland, UK - O2 Academy Glasgow
October 8 ~ Newcastle, UK - O2 Academy Newcastle
October 9 ~ Nottingham, UK - Rock City
October 12 ~ Ipswich, UK - Corn Exchange
October 14 ~ Southampton, UK - The Brook
October 15 ~ Birmingham, UK - O2 Academy Birmingham
October 16 ~ London, UK - O2 Academy Islington
October 20 ~ Paris, France - Le Trabendo
October 22 ~ Haarlem, Netherlands - Patronaat
October 23 ~ Uden, Netherlands - De Pul
October 25 ~ Verviers, Belgium - Spirit of 66
October 26 ~ Bruchsal, Germany - Fabrik
October 28 ~ Prague, Czech Republic - Exit Chmelnice Music Hall
October 29 ~ Aschaffenburg, Germany - Colos-Saal
October 30 ~ Isernhagen, Germany - Blues Garage
October 31 ~ Berlin, Germany - Magnet
November 2 ~ Hamburg, Germany - Ballroom Hamburg
November 3 ~ Koln, Germany - Underground Cologne
November 5 ~ Zaragoza, Spain - Sala Devizio
November 6 ~ Valencia, Spain - Durango Club
November 7 ~ Madrid, Spain - Sala Heineken + special guest Lynch Mob
2011
JAPAN
January 14 ~ Shangri-La - Osaka, Japan
January 15 ~ Club Citta' - Kawasaki, Japan
January 16 ~ Club Citta' - Kawasaki, Japan
/Niclas
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