Intervju med Copenhells grundare Jeppe Nissen.

Jag blev nyligen kontaktad av den danska festivalen Copenhell och de undrade om jag skulle kunna hjälpa till att "spread the word", så att säga. Självfallet förstår jag att jag troligtvis bara var del av ett massutskick, men de var väldigt på och ville samarbeta.
Sagt och gjort. Jag tänkte att en intervju med någon i toppen av festivalkedjan kunde vara kul och när de omgående satte mig i kontakt med grundaren Jeppe, kändes det extra kul. Vi kom överens om att jag skulle maila över ett gäng frågor, vilket jag gjorde omedelbums. Problemet med Q&A´s via mail är att det kan bli vad som helst. Ena gången kan du få tillbaka 5 ord och nästa gång en mindre uppsats. Tack och lov bestämde sig Jeppe för att göra det senare.
Här har ni nu lite svar från Jeppe angående Danmarks största metalfestival.

Vem är Jeppe Nissen? 

Jeppe. Jag är 39 år gammal, bokare, grundare av och festivalboss för Copenhell, samt promotor för Live Nation Danmark de senaste 10 åren. Jag har tidigare arbetat på ett mindre spelställe i Roskilde samt bokat artister till Roskildefestivalen. Älskar metal, kött, öl, tecknade serier och metal.

Hur började Copenhell? 

Jeppe: Vi startade Copenhell 2010 efter att ha haft idén i ett par år. Vi tyckte att det fattades en festival i Danmark med fokus på den hårda musiken. Dae har alltid funnits många bra festivaler i Danmark, men aldrig en stor festival bara för hårdrock och metal. Alla länder omkring oss har ju stora och bra festivaler, så därför tyckte vi att Danmark också skulle ha en. Där var helt klart ett stort svart hål vad gäller det.

Vad är din roll på festivalen? 

Jeppe: Jag är festivalledare för Copenhell, men bokar även alla band och tar hand om all kommunikation, samt håller på med all artwork och grafiska uttryck. Det är något jag tycker är väldigt viktigt, så det lägger jag mycket tid på.

Hur ser arbetsåret ut från det att festivalen slutar fram till kommande festival året efter? 

Jeppe: Det är mycket av en ständigt pågående process, men den stora arbetsbiten sker från jul fram till själva festivalen. Jag tänker redan nu på 2015, men oftast så är det ganska lugnt direkt efter festivalens slut och vi ”sover”. En tung, gotisk sömn. Sedan startar vi upp så smått när det nya året tar vid och då ägnar vi en hel del tid åt att utvärdera vad som fungerat och vad som var dåligt. Därefter kör vi igång och arbetar framåt. Jag skickar ut bud på de stora namnen redan i augusti/september, ”so there is no rest for the wicked.”. Sedan handlar det mycket om att få alla detaljer på plats inför nästa år – antal band, antal scener, vilken mat vi ska ha, vilka sponsorer, hur mycket eld, vilket biljettpris och hur mycket öl? – well, det ger sig självt. Helt galet mycket öl!

Ni siktar på att bli en av Nordeuropas ledande festivaler. Har ni nått ert mål? 

Jeppe: Nej, det har vi inte ännu och jag tror också att det kommer ta lite längre tid. Vi firar 5-årsjubileum i år och vi tycker själva att vi efterhand har blivit mycket bättre på att anordna Copenhell, men det finns fortfarande saker vi kan bli bättre på. Men publiken gillar att komma till Copenhell och det är det som betyder mest. Jag tror att vi har kommit en lång bit på vägen. Vi har skapat en festival som tar genren och vår publik seriöst till 100%, men som även har glimten i ögat och vi gör riktigt mycket för vår publik. Vi är helt klart på rätt väg.

Hur kom festivalen att placeras där den nu ligger? 

Jeppe: Vi hade flera olika idéer över lokaliseringen, men efter att vi varit ute och sett Refshaleöen var vi övertygade. Det är det perfekta området för en metalfestival. Området ligger bara 15 min från Centralstationen (och bara 8 min från Christiania) och är ett gammalt nedlagt skeppsvarv. Historien i sig är ganska otrolig då det byggts jättestora skepp i stål och metall och människor har arbetat med tunga verktyg och gnistor och eld har sprutat omkring dem. Dessutom har de druckit mängder med öl samtidigt. Sammanhanget är perfekt. Områdets historia är ganska speciell, samtidigt som det är ett bra område att vistas på. Det är rått, hårt, extremt och hela platsen vilar på betong, så det blir ingen lervälling om det regnar och vi kan spela hur sinnessjukt högt vi vill!

Hur stor publik drog förra årets festival och vad var din personliga höjdpunkt? 

Jeppe: Det var lite över 10.000 männsikor förra året och det var väldigt bra. Det var en superbra festival med mycket hög stämning. Musikaliskt var det väldigt stort då King Diamond gick på scen – på hemmaplan i Danmark efter att ha varit borta i 9 år och efter en svår sjukdom. Return of the king. Och Danzig, Alice in Chains och Parkway Drive levererade också. Annars är en av höjdpunkterna alltid stämningen därute. Folk är så glada och festliga och det är en fullkomligt unik stämning. Alla som har varit på Copenhell, även de som inte är inne på metal, är vilt överraskade över den glädje och kärlek som finns mellan människorna. Det är ett sällskap och en skitkul fest.

På vilka punkter skiljer sig årets festival från 2013? 

Jeppe: Som sagt, vi lägger mycket tid på att utvärdera och förbättra oss. Vi gör en stor publikundersökning under varje festival, som vi sedan använder i vårt kommande arbete. Vi lyssnar på vad vår publik har att säga och ser om vi kan göra saker och ting bättre. Generellt sett är det en ännu bättre festival, men det är också en större festival i och med att vi lyckats boka ett toppnamn till 2014 i form av Iron Maiden. Dessutom utvidgar vi festivalen till tre hela dagar och kommer ha flest antal band till dags dato. Det blir fullt blås i år!

Hur stor grupp jobbar med festivalen på heltid och vilka är arbetsuppgifterna? 

Jeppe: Vi är tre i Copenhells styrelse, där jag själv ingår, och så finns det en produktionsansvarig och en sponsoransvarig. Det är de tre benen på festivalen. Sponsordelen, som ser efter de ekonomiska avtalen, den produktionsanvarige, som styr hela platsen, alla crew och scenerna och sedan är det jag, som står för allt innehåll på festivalen, band, marknadsföring och kommunikation. Vi arbetar alla på Live Nation och har parallellet med det arbetet en massa andra uppgifter att ta hand om. Vi har även fyra till fem praktikanter varje år, som är till jättestor hjälp och så har vi en sekretariatsledare som styr upp hela skiten. Vi har ungefär 800 genialiska frivilliga på Copenhell varje år och även en massa avlönad personal i form av crew och säkerhet, så det är en stor operation.

Inspireras ni mycket av andra festivaler i arbetet med förbättringar? 

Jeppe: Ja, det gör vi. Varje år åker vi runt på en massa andra festivaler och ser hur de gör saker och ting. Wacken, Hellfest, Inferno, men också en massa andra festivaler som inte har metal. Idéerna kan komma från många olika håll, men mest av allt försöker vi komma på saker själva. Det är bra att inspireras, men inte så coolt att kopiera. Vi lägger mycket tid på att komma på nya idéer för underhållning, installationer och inrättningar. Vi har fixat ett ”Smadreland”, ett område dit publiken kan gå in och slå sönder bilar, tvättmaskiner och annat kul. Och ett annat ställe där man kan kasta yxa. Det är kul.

Hur är tanken bakom festivalens årliga maskot? 

Jeppe: Hela grundtanken med att ha en maskot som byts varje år, är något som jag arbetat mycket med. Jag älskar artwork och har suttit i timmar med LP-omslag och CD-omslag och lyssnat på musiken och jag tycker det de passar ihop så mycket. Idag är det ju mycket downloads och streaming och omslaget är 1x1 cm på din datorskärm, men det är ju inte kul för någon. Det är bara skit. Jag vill därför hylla det grafiska och de människor som gör så fantastiska saker, genom att låta en ny konstnär som arbetat med metal eller liknande, göra vår maskot varje år. Och vi trycker upp det på billboards och posters så hårdrockskonsten visas i större storlek och kommer folket till godo.Det är bra med riktigt artwork i gatubilden. Årets maskot har gjorts av tyske Florian Bertmer, som tidigare har jobbat med band som Converge, Napalm Death, Pig Destroyer och The Dillinger Escape Plan. Han är lite mer modern i sitt uttryck än de tidigare (Derek Riggs, Ed Repka, Joe Patagno) och det tycker jag vi behövde i år. Han har utgått från våra scener Hades, Helvetet och Pandemonium och skapat ”King Belial – Ruler of 80 legions in Pandemonium”. Jag tycker verkligen att den blev bra. Den ser tillförlitlig och vänlig ut, men är... Satan.

Beskriv känslan när det blev klart att Iron Maiden spelar på årets festival? 

Jeppe: För helvete, det var ju superkul! Och det firades med en Trooper-öl. Det var en lång förhandling och en lång process innan allt kom på plats, så det gjorde också att det var extra fantastiskt när det väl var i hamn. Iron Maiden för fan! Det kommer bli så stort och det är ju också extra härligt att vi kan presentera ett så stort och legendarsikt namn efter endast fem år. En relativt liten festival tillsammans med 40 andra metalband – det blir en mycket stor junikväll på dansk mark...

Har du några personliga drömbokningar för framtida festivaler? 

Jeppe: Ja, självklart. Det finns många band i många olika genrer som jag gärna ser på Copenhell. Det första budet jag alltid lägger är på Bolt Thrower. De är så jäkla bra! Det har inte hänt ännu, men förhoppningsvis någon gång. Annars är ju stora akter som Black Sabbath, System Of A Down, Slipknot och Tool alltid på önskelistan, men vi har förhoppningsvis många år framför oss och en möjlighet att få igenom det. Jag hoppas också att det under de kommande åren kommer fram några nya spännande band, som kan headlina och verkligen krossa stället. Jag hoppas verkligen det finns några drömbokningar därute som jag ännu inte vet om.

Vilka är dina fem höjdpunkter från första festivalen 2010? 

Jeppe: 1. Att publiken tog emot festivalen så bra som de gjorde. 2. Behemoth – de gav en otrolig konsert där allt nådde ett högre tillstånd. Publik, band,vädret och stämningen. 3. Joe Petagno (Motörhead) trodde på konceptet och gjorde den första maskoten. 4. Deftones levererade också över förväntan – efter att ha varit ”nere” en del år, var det tillbaka på Copenhell med full styrka. Och dessutom gick Chino upp på scen med en Copenhell-hoodie. 5. Vi gjorde fanimej det!

Vad har varit jobbigast i arbetet med festivalen så här långt? 

Jeppe: Det är ett enormt uppdrag att anordna en festival, så det blir många sena kvällar och svåra val. Hade man haft mer tid hade det säkert varit lättare, men det är ju som det är. Copenhell vann ett pris 2011 för det bästa arrangemanget och det delades ut av den största danska tidningen. Vi kom före Cykel-VM, någon teater och andra arrangemang. Det var verkligen stort, för det är många som menar att det vi gör inte är kultur. Men det är det ju. Det är lika mycket kultur som teater, film, opera, konst eller vad som nu finns därute. Om inte mer. En sådan händelse eller bra feedback från publiken kan få en att glömma allt det svåra. Det eller att boka Iron Maiden.

/Niclas

Corrosion of Conformity till Debaser Strand.

Den 29 mars äntrar de scenen. Gratis inträde innan 21.00. Därefter 120 kr. 

/Niclas

Alice in Chains repar inför Soundwave...

Bara hits. Kan bli hur bra som helst.

/Niclas

Ghost vann en Grammis.

Kanske inte helt oväntat, men jag hade personligen sett att In Solitude blivit nominerade och vunnit. Deras makalösa "Horses in the ground" från albumet "Sister", har en avslutande riffminut som slog allt förra året. 
För övrigt var de nominerade i kategorin Hårdrock/Metall inte mycket att hurra över: Crashdiet, Nicke Borg, Watain och The Kristet Utseende. 
Hur i hela helvetet kan Nicke Borg vara nominerad i den här kategorin? Och vad fan gör The Kristet Utseende där? There´s something rotten in the state of Denmark...

/Niclas

AC/DC är på gång...

Paul "Pab" Boothroyd, AC/DC:s "front-of-house" ljudtekniker sedan Ballbreakerturnén, la idag ut den här bilden med meddelandet: "Time to Dust the Old girl down..." 

Jag måste nog erkänna att jag är lite förväntansfull inför ett nytt släpp från gubbarna. "Black ice" är inte alls så pjåkig.

Bild och citat lånat via AC/DCMachine.com

/Niclas

Omslaget till Stanleys självbiografi.

Tydligen kommer omslaget att ha den här lilla effekten, om det nu är sant? Det gör väl en annars ganska tråkig bild något roligare.Boken släpps den 22 april. 

/Niclas

New Jersey och Seattle möttes i Melbourne över en kopp AC/DC. 



Bossen fortsätter frälsa folket down under och under helgen slog han ihop sina påsar med Eddie Vedder och gav ännu en rungande version av "Highway to hell".

/Niclas

Farbror Niclas har gjort en videointervju!



Jag gjorde en intervju med Nergal för en tid sedan. Nu ligger den uppe på sidan Access: Rock och får jag säga det själv är den inte helt usel, förutom att undertecknad ser ut som en säck potatis.
Vill du kolla in andra videointervjuer med rockstjärnor susar du snabbt över till sidan och tittar tills ögonen blöder.

Access: Rock HÄR 

/Niclas

Nu kan du köpa Iommis lilla hus.

Har du 32 miljoner kronor som bara ligger och skräpar, kan det vara läge att slå till på ett finfint litet hus i Lapworth. 

MER INFO HÄR

/Niclas

Det går inte bra för rockblaskorna...

Siffrorna dalar på samma sätt som för all annan pappersmedia. 

Saxat från louderthanwar.com

Classic Rock sold 54,109 print editions, down 4.6% on 2012. It was some way ahead of its rock rival, Kerrang! on 35,127 (down 8.9% year on year) and another Team Rock title, Metal Hammer, on 26,273, which was down 12.5%.

/Niclas

Cliff.

Idag har vi givetvis skänkt the late great Cliff Burton en extra tanke. Han skulle ha blivit 52 år gammal.

/Niclas

Manowarutlottningen klar!

Rätt svar är givetvis att "All men play on 10".

Vinnare blev David Austin i Varberg och Daniel Sigsfors i Mölndal. Västkusten rules, verkar det som.

Fler utlottningar de närmsta veckorna. 

/Niclas

Intervju med Adrian Vandenberg.

Adrian Vandenberg har precis som nyligen återuppväckte Jake E Lee, stått sidan om scenen under många år. Under alla åre han var borta från musiken hade han bl a nöjet att se sin dotter växa upp, vilket han ansåg vara viktigare än allt annat i livet.
Med sitt nya band Moonkings är han nu tillbaka och omger sig med yngre holländska förmågor, där sångaren Jan Hoving bär en del vokala likheter med hans forne arbetsgivare David Coverdale. Adrian gav ett mycket sympatiskt intryck och berättade om sin handskada, turnén med Steve Vai och att det inte är helt omöjligt att han kommer slå Jake E Lee en signal och snacka minnen.

You´ve been away from the music biz for quite some time now? 

Adrian: When I stopped playing with Whitesnake back in ´99 after 13 years, I really missed my painting so I just thought I´d pick it up again for 2 or 3 years and then get back to the rock business again. Then I had a daughter with my then girlfriend, we split up 3 years later, and I realized that if I would go back out on the road I would be one of those dad´s who wouldn´t see his daughter grow up and she wouldn´t know who I am. I thought that was more important than anything else and decided to lay low a little longer and spend time with my daughter. It then lasted longer than I thought it would, since she´s 14 now. I was also waiting for the voice in the back of my head, since I always want to stay close to my heart and my instincts and the voice wasn´t screaming loud enough, but it started screaming really loud about 2 years ago and it was about fucking time! What sped it up was that my local soccer team became national champions 3 years ago and I was asked to write an anthem for them. I did that and started looking for a singer and I didn´t wanna fly back and forth to the US and England and I hadn´t kept up with was what going on in Holland since ´86, but all of a sudden I remembered a review of a Whitesnake show when I joined them on stage 3 or 4 years ago in Holland. It mentioned that the support act had an amazing singer and that he would fit for Whitesnake. I found him and he´s a farmer and has a huge farm close to my hometown. When I found him he thought it was a joke, so it took quite a while for him to react. We hooked up for just one song but it went so well and I got really inspired. A similar thing happened with the bass player. I was in the jury of some local talent contests about 10 years ago and in two different contests he won. He had a great rock attitude. I ran into him 2 years ago and said “If you´re only half as good as you were 10 years ago…” and that was it. It´s a pretty unusual story because everybody expected me to work with well known guys, but I find that a bit boring and usually they break up after 1 or 2 albums, so it has more a of a project feel to it. Moonkings I really want to keep together as a band and I look at it as a band and not just a one off thing. I thought it would be much cooler to surprise people with a couple of unknown guys.

How long have the songs on the album been around? 

Adrian: It´s all new stuff. I wrote it all in the last year. I do have a lot of ideas, but I always get the most excited when it´s fresh and it pops up in my head.

What made you choose “Sailing ships” for David Coverdale to sing and where there other songs you thought of? 

Adrian: Yes, there were, but “Sailing ships” was always very important to me and as you know I wasn´t able to play on the “Slip of the tongue” album because of my hand injury and it was very frustrating. The song was always very close to my heart and I thought it would be really great to do aversion that was more what I had in mind when I wrote the music for it. A bit more melancholic and reflective and I also thought it would be really cool to put real violins on it and keep it a bit understated. Normally I would´ve done the big end as on the “Slip of the tongue” album, but I just felt it didn´t make sense to do a similar thing. I think it worked out really nice and it´s the last song on the album, like an encore. It feels like I´m looking back over my shoulder to the Whitesnake days with all the great memories. David was on the road when we did it and we would have considered getting together and write a new song, but at the same time when I told him about this idea, he was really excited too. He´s been pushing me over the last 10 years. We are in touch regularly and he´s always going “Come on Adrian, you lazy Dutchman!”. When I told him about a year and a half ago, that I was working on a new album, he said “Great and it would be an honor for me if I could sing a song on it!”. When I told him about “Sailing ships” he thought it was a great idea and he had the same feelings about it and that it deserved another version. When he came back from South America he only had 2 days at home because he had to get knee surgery don’t to his knees, so I recorded everything in the studio in Holland and then I sent the file to David and he put his emotional, soulful vocals on it and I´m extremely happy with it. It´s one of the great things with modern technology.

Were there songs that ended up as leftovers that could be used for another album further on? 

Adrian: Not real songs. There are 13 songs on the album and almost 65 minutes of music. It´s almost 10 minutes longer than most albums, but I just couldn´t decide which song to leave off. In Japan they always want a bonus track and when the record company asked what song I wanted to leave off the album I couldn´t decide and just said “Fuck it! Put them all on there!”. I´m already working on lots of ideas and in my head I´m writing all the time and I´ve done it since I was 6 or 7. I get ideas all day long. Sometimes it´s tiring and I wake up in the middle of the night. Over the years I´ve developed confidence that it will either stay in my head if it was a good idea or if I don´t get up, I´ll have other ideas. It´s a blessing and a curse at the same time, but I really love writing. I love writing and painting and cooking too. Cooking is like painting with flavors. To me it´s all the same. You´re basically trying to inspire your senses.

How about a Vandenberg cook book then? 

Adrian: Yeah, I should think about it. Then again, I would have to give away all my secret recipes. (laughs) Then I couldn´t surprise or impress girls anymore.

Are you gonna be touring with the band? 

Adrian: Yeah, we´re starting a tour in about 3 weeks and we haven´t even started rehearsals yet. It´s a European tour and we´re starting it with 3 shows in Holland and then we do Spain and Germany, France, England, Belgium and more countries are being added. I´d really like to play Scandinavia.

Any plans on opening up for a bigger band and do more of a world tour? 

Adrian: If we get a chance we really will. Right now we´re doing a lot of medium sized to bigger clubs, which I really like because I haven´t done that since the Vandenberg days. There´s a lot of requests coming in and we have to figure out how to put it together.

You´ve got your birthday coming up (January 31). How do you feel about getting old? 

Adrian: Well, it may sound stupid but I don´t really realize it and I don´t feel it either. I´m in really good shape and it´s just when I see the number that I go “Oh shit!”. I don´t realize it at all. I´m so far away from the connection between the number and how I feel. I do exactly the same things like I did when I was 17 and I´m just as excited about it. I just hope I can do this for another 20 years at least.

Are you gonna play Whitesnake and Vandenberg stuff live as well? 

Adrian: Yeah, we have to since we only have one album. I wanna doa couple of Whitesnake and Vandenberg songs and I wanna do unexpected covers of artists, so it´s gonna be a lot of fun.

You were born in and grew up in the Hague. What was it like back then? Was there a lot of music around? 

Adrian: When I was 5 we moved from the Hague to Rotterdam and when I was 12 I started playing in local bands with guys that were a lot older. Then when I was 14, we move to where I live now. When I grew up in Rotterdam there was definitely a rock scene around. The town where I live now, there was a band playing at the first school party I was at and they played “Fire and water” by Free. I asked a guy in one of the older classes who I know was into music and asked him “What´s that song?”. He told me it was Free and then everything just changed. Up till that point I was mainly listening to Hendrix and Eric Clapton and Free was doable. Hendrix was so far out from the regular world.

You played in a band called Teaser. That´s a pretty common band name. Jake E Lee also played in a band with that name and then you had Tommy Bolin´s Teaser. 

Adrian: Yeah, I put a band together when I was 21 and I thought it was a great name and I was also a Tommy Bolin fan and because of that name I went with Teaser. The funny thing is that Jake E Lee and myself we have a lot in common. Vandenberg supported Ozzy in the States and we got on really well. I did and interview with a Japanese magazine a couple of days ago and the interviewer mentioned that I had a lot of similarities with Jake. I looked up an interview with him and it´s so ridiculously similar, the long time we both have been away and our attitude towards rock and the business. It was almost like reading an interview with myself, apart from that I got my band together in a completely different way. I was thinking about getting in touch with him and talk to him, since it´s been such a long time. It would be fun to catch up.

When you toured with Whitesnake for the “1987” album, you must´ve been on top of the world? There must´ve been girls lining up everywhere? 

Adrian: Yeah, it was ok. (laughs) About 60 % girls every night which is not bad. (laughs) It was really amazing and it lasted for a couple of years until 90 or 91. It was great, but at the same time I was a very down to earth Dutch guy. Scandinavians have a similar attitude and we don´t get caught up too easily in the Hollywood lifestyle. I didn´t get caught up at all because as soon as I had 5 or 6 days off, I always flew home because I wanted to keep my feet on the ground. I´ve always been realistic with the whole thing, even back with Vandenberg because it could all be over by tomorrow and I´ll just go back to my painting. Back in those days with Whitesnake, I´d get up in the morning and pinch my arm and go “Wow, not bad for a Dutch guy!” so I enjoyed every bit of it and I still do because I know I experienced something very few Europeans do. It gives you a sense of responsibility too because there are so many incredible musicians and guitar players that don´t get a chance and I think you should handle something like that with responsibility and not fuck it up. Just enjoy the ride.

Were there times when you felt it was just all moving too fast? 

Adrian: Nah, not really. With Vandenberg we were already on our way and supporting guys like Ozzy and stuff, so I got a taste of what it could be like and when I joined David we didn´t really have a band together, it was just him and me. Nobody could predict that the “1987” album would become that big. When I played on “Here I go again” and rearranged it, I just thought “This is gonna be cool!”. David was at his peak and his singing was unbelievable. Every night he sounded just like on the album. It was really exciting and then when Rudy (Sarzo) and Tommy GAldridge) got involved, it was really cool. When Vandenberg supported Ozzy, Tommy was in the band and when Vandenberg started headlining in the States, Quiet Riot was supporting us. I knew those guys and it was really exciting and there was a great camaraderie in the band and we just had a blast, as you can imagine.

What was it like playing with Steve Vai later on? 

Adrian: We got along really well and it was really interesting. Probably because our styles are so different. I´m not a competitive guy and Steve probably is, but he didn´t feel that with me. I don´t care. When Steve demanded a lot of attention, I just stepped back because I do what I do and I have a tendency to under play instead of over play in a case like that. I like to play the right note on the right spot. At the same time it´s a great learning experience because with a guy like Steve, it´s great to do a tour with a player like him. We got on great. It was just really strange when I wasn´t able to perform on the album (Slip of the tongue) and then hear his view on it and his playing. He had a such a different approach it was almost like an out of body experience when I heard the tracks for the first time. In my mind I had them a certain way and a much rawer approach and at the same time it was the 80´s and production was more smooth and ironed out and full of reverb.

As I understand it, you injured your wrist while playing the piano? 

Adrian: I´ve always played piano, but what happened during the recording was that I practiced a lot in the mornings to stay in shape and then I worked on the arrangements in the afternoon as much as I could. I picked up this book that had these exercises that showed you how to keep your hands subtle if you´re a piano player. I did a few of those and one of them was to shake your wrists pretty violently and I just felt like “man, it´s probably the way to go, since it´s in the book.”, but it taught me to not believe anything I read. (laughs) I really over stressed my tendons and I didn´t realize it then. After a while my hand felt a little strange and from one day to another it felt like someone was holding my wrist when I was playing. It took about 6 months to get rid of it and was right on time for the tour.

As a musician it has to be really scary? Are you constantly “looking out” for your hands? 

Adrian: I was at the time and then I realized later that it´s not the right thing to do. It was almost like I was keeping them in a box. You have to keep your muscles in shape too and at that time we had assistants for everything. They picked up your luggage and took it to your room, so I wasn´t really carrying anything around. After a certain period of time I felt like “Fuck that!” and I wanted to do everything. You need to use your muscles, but you always need to be a bit careful. Just like a singer´s taking care of the throat. I´m more easy with it now. These days I just work in the garden and lug around tree trunks.

Your art then? Did you have any formal training? Art school? 

Adrian: I went to art university before Vandenberg. I did about 6 years at an art university and then I taught artistry for about a year right after my studies, but I realized it was not for me. It was a too regular life, but there were a lot of pretty girls in the class room and I was only 2 years older so it was pretty nice. (laughs)

Did you paint or draw while you were on those big tours with Whitesnake? 

Adrian: I tried it a bit and brought some paper with me and stuck it to the walls in the hotel room and started sketching, which is actually what happened when I took up painting again in ´94. My art evolved and I wasn´t realizing it. I painted very realistically. I compare it to when in the Vandenberg days, it was like writing a song, a composition, and later on it was more like a spontaneous guitar solo you do live.

One thing I´ve always wondered about Holland is that just like Scandinavians you´re pretty good at English, but there aren´t that many Dutch metal bands around. I guess Within Temptation is the biggest one now. Why do you think that is? You´re smack in the middle of Europe and have all the influences from the US and Britain. 

Adrian: One of the problems is that Holland isn´t really a rock country. When a big band plays here it´s usually only one show. It also has to do with the country being very small of course. The other thing is that radio over here is really terrible. A couple of days ago I was in London doing interviews and I talked to all these rock stations and they´re hugely popular and we don´t have that kinda scene in Holland. The fans are there, but it doesn´t get promoted. It´s not fair because there are so many people that love it. By the way, I really hope I can come to Scandinavia soon. I haven´t played there as much as I would´ve liked. Hopefully we can make up for that.

/Niclas

Springsteen öppnar med "Highway to hell" i Perth!



Bruce Springsteen spelar just nu i Australien och idag öppnade han giget i Perth med en cover på AC/DCs "Highway to hell" och han gjorde det riktigt bra. Att publiken gick helt loco går inte att ta miste på. 

/NIclas

Konsertrecension

Dead Lord
Imperial State Electric

Kägelbanan, Stockholm 140207

Det höll på att gå åt skogen. Efter att ha intagit en trevlig måltid på hipstermatsalen Harvest på Söders höjder, erbjuder jag mig att betala för polarens mat då han köpt biljetterna till kvällens evenemang. Döm om min förvåning då det visade sig att han inte alls köpt biljett till undertecknad. Kommunikationen över Facebook hade tydligen inte varit så tydlig, som jag trott. I rask takt begav vi oss mot Mosebacke i hopp om att få tag på en biljett. Väl framme var kön kort och tur nog fanns det biljetter kvar, trots att konserten tydligen annonserats som utsåld. 
Sist jag besökte Kägelbanan var troligtvis för The Sounds första gig i huvudstaden för många år sedan, vilket jag minns som en trevlig tillställning. Ikväll var det dock mer fart på scen och runt halv tio tågade Dead Lord ut på scengolvet. 
Bandet har hypats både här och där och trots mitt stora musikintresse hade jag inte hört en ton från dessa herrar förrän de drog av den första låten. Att påstå att bandet bär drag av Thin Lizzy, faller nog inom kategorin årets understatement. Det lät bra, men den där riktiga nerven saknades. Singeln "Hammer to the heart" är härligt liten sak och en vit Flying V som samsas med en vit Gibson SG är en ren fröjd för ögat.
När sedan ISE slår an sina högoktaniga riff, blir klasskillnaden extremt tydlig. ISE har mer nerv i en låt än vad många band lyckas krama ur sig under en hel karriär. Nicke Andersson är utan tvekan den person i Sverige som förvaltar rock and roll allra bäst. Han lånar kors och tvärs, men gör det snyggt. När de bjuder på introt till KISS "Black diamond" innan de smäller igång "I´ll let you down" från debuten, känns det bara självklart. Det är snyggt, så förbannat snyggt. 
Kvällen igenom öses det på med så många överjävliga rifforgier att det nästan blir svårt att ta in allt. Både gitarristen Egge och basisten de Borst får ge utlopp för sina vokala ambitioner och gör det bra. Framförallt den senare som bjuder kokande Kägelbanan på en riktigt sprudlande "Reptile brain".
Det bjuds på nytt material i form av "Turn it up", som verkade vara alldeles färsk. Även den suveräna "Get off the boo hoo train" tror jag är ny. 
Kägelbanan var alltså fullsatt denna regniga och kyliga kväll, men inomhus fullkomligt badade publiken i svett och tung tryckande värme. Publiken tjöt av glädje och det syntes att bandet verkligen trivdes på scen, vilket fick dem att bara fortsätta köra över alla glada som infunnit sig. 
Var det här årets konsert? Tja, kanske. Jag har svårt att se att något annat band ska få mig att hytta med näven så mycket som jag gjorde den här kvällen. 
Allt kan summeras av följande ord. Nicke is king. All hail the king!

Betyg: 5/5

/Niclas 

Entombed invalda i Swedish Music HoF.

Entombed som givit undertecknad en av de bästa och mäktigaste musikupplevelserna någonsin med uppförandet av "Unreal estate" på Operan, blev idag invalda i Swedish Music Hall of Fame. 
Tillsammans med bl a Eva Dahlgren, Latin Kings och Roxette känns Entombed som en katt bland hermelinerna och är utan tvekan det tyngsta och brutalaste inslaget i gänget. 
Bilden ovan lånade jag från Per Sinding Larsen och visar LG och Alex i samma rum. De forna kamraterna som nyligen slogs om rätten till namnet Entombed. 

/Niclas

Volvo goes death metal.

Vad gör man inte för att få lite mer cred av hipsterkidsen...
Hur som haver är det här betydligt roligare än reklamen som för tillfället rullar med Zlatan. Något mer livlöst står knappast att finna.
På bilden nedan har man låtit konstnären Mark Riddick (Dying Fetus, The Black Dhalia Murder) teckna sin bild av Volvos senaste kärra. 

Via Metal Injection via Metal Sucks.

/Niclas

Jag. Vill. Se. Nu.

Om den här konstellationen drar genom Europa och får för sig att besöka Sverige, kommer jag kanske överväga att det kanske kan finnas en gud. 
Chansen att få uppleva det här känns dock som ganska liten. Mastodon spelar på Sthlm Fields i slutet av maj, vilket är trevligt, men det hade varit kanon om de masat sig hit senare under året med åtminstone fransoserna i släptåg. Den som ber får se...

/Niclas

Denander/Carlsson gör en KISS. 



Ett hyfsat stabil version av "I stole your love"framförd av två stora KISS-fans. 

/Niclas

Manowarutlottning.

Kan det bli mer metal än Manowar? Killarna som gav höftskynket ett ansikte och signade sitt skivkontrakt i blod har alltid haft en hårt dedikerad fanskara.
Vi deras senaste Stockholmsbesök fick jag nöjet att plocka på mig några tröjor och skivor från deras merchandisestånd. Jag lyckades även få en familj (mamma, pappa och dotter) backstage och träffa bandet. De hade flugit från Ukraina enkom för att se Manowar i vår huvudstad, vilket imponerade på Joey DeMaio och han krävde att få träffa dem. 
Två vinnare får varsin tröja (storlek L) plus skivorna "The lord of steel (Hammer edition)" och "Warriors of the world (10th anniversary remastered edition)" och allt ni behöver göra är att svara på följande: 

All men play on ? Ja, just det, vilket tal är det som gäller?

Skicka svar till metalshrine@hotmail.com senast fredag 7/2.  Som vanligt är det dottern som väljer ut vinnarna.

/Niclas

Intervju med Andi Deris.

Andi Deris, som i vanliga fall sköter sången i Helloween, har snickrat ihop ett soloalbum där majoriteten av låtarna kan kopplas till världens alla finanskriser och girigheten som sprids som en sjukdom världen över.
Han bor numera på Teneriffa och även om han inte själv direkt påverkades av krisen 2008, har han sett människor runt honom göra det.
Jag ringde upp Andi för att snacka om plattan, men även om lite gamla historier och kort om planerna för Helloween.

If the financial meltdown hadn´t happened in 2008, had there been a different album? 

Andi Deris: Yeah and probably not as specified and not as aimed to all these asshole managers and so on. I thought it was good timing to write about corruption and greed and stuff like that. If you look at the world it´s just stocks, win optimization and money, money, money. Actually the world we´re living in now, is not that far from the stone age. The strongest one is the one who dictates everything, but there´s one big difference and that´s that we don´t even realize it. It´s more or less normal.

It´s fascinating that there´s always people saying that bad things will happen and then when it happens, we´re all surprised. 

Andi Deris: I think the small people, the majority, live by the decisions from a handful of others and the people have to follow those decisions if they want to survive. There´s really no place on the planet left where you can go and just say “Well, I´m off! I´m living my own life.”. It´s hard to survive on your own.

Were you yourself affected in anyway by the crisis in 2008? 

Andi Deris: No, not really. We felt it ticket sales wise in Spain, Italy and Greece where they were down by 50%, which was to be expected because they don´t have the money. But that´s about it and it didn´t affect us that much. I have a lot of friends here in Tenerife and they work in the tourist business and I think more than 80% here work in that business and in a crisis people don´t spend money on travelling and so on. The only good thing that happened after that was that a lot of people who might have gone to Egypt and so on, spent their holidays in the Canary Islands instead. But there´s a lot of unemployment over here and it´s something that shouldn´t have happened had the people who are responsible even realized that they have a responsibility. They are too greedy and too blindfolded to even realize they have a responsibility.

Both Germany and Sweden managed fairly well after the crisis compared to other countries. 

Andi Deris: That´s true. But even though Germany is doing well, the money doesn´t reach the people. Germany´s certainly leading a good life, but then again, why don´t they lead a much better life? The majority of the people are still satisfied and leads a good life, but compared to the success Germany´s had, why don´t the people lead an even better life? The money´s somewhere up there, but doesn´t reach the people down there and I´m a bit worried about that. If people don´t have the money to reinvest, because you always need to spend some money to keep up the structure, then that´s worrying. So it´s not quite true that the Germans are doing better, it´s only a few doing better.

Where did the title “Million dollar haircuts on ten cent heads” come from? 

Andi Deris: That´s an old saying from the 1920´s and Black Tuesday (Wall Street crash in 1929). They said “20 dollar haircuts on 10 cent heads” and nowadays you have to multiply it a bit. These days we have a lot of stupid people who are actually willing to pay a million dollars for a haircut. It´s strange but there are people like that. A status symbol haircut.

What´s the main reason for it taking so long between your solo releases? Is it mainly you being busy with Helloween? 

Andi Deris: Yeah, busier and busier. From 2000 and onwards I kinda became one of the main songwriters and for each and every album I have to bring at least 5 out of 11 songs and at the end of the day there aren´t that many leftovers. Ideas pop up all the time and this time I tried to collect the songs that kept popping up again and again and I knew that I couldn´t use them in Helloween because they´re so far away from that sound. There are actually 3 or 4 songs on this album that we tried in Helloween and we really tried to force them into that style, but it destroyed the songs. What was left was mediocre songs, so we decided to keep our hands off these ones. You need 10 years to multiply with 2 or 3 leftover songs from every album and then you have 15 or 16 songs to pick from.

Is there more freedom writing for a solo album compared to a Helloween album? 

Andi Deris: Not at all. I never make my mind up when I write, if it´s a song for Helloween or whomever. It´s just my hobby and I sit down and try to be creative and I don´t make my mind up on whether it´s for Helloween or solo stuff. It wouldn´t be fun. I should feel very happy to be able to work like that. It all depends on the rest of the songs when we write for Helloween. Then again, Marcus is always surprising and Michael sometimes with really crazy ideas. It´s always a very sensitive thing to come up with 12 or 13 songs for an album. Coming from the 80´s, we´re all old school rockers and we want to have a story to tell from the first song to the last. You should get the feeling of a one hour great journey, so it´s important the way you mix the songs. I know a lot of fans out there don´t give a shit for obvious reasons because of mp3´s they probably don´t listen from the first song to the last one. They shuffle or maybe just download two or three songs. We are quite aware that the album format doesn´t have that importance the way it used to have, but we actually want to do it for ourselves.

On the other hand, the metal fans are pretty conservative and are probably the ones that actually still listen to the whole album, compared to fans of contemporary pop music and so on. 

Andi Deris: Fortunately, yes. We´re aware of that and maybe that´s the main reason to why we stick to that old fashioned way that it has to be an album. I love it! I grew up like that and I don´t want to listen to an album in any other way. If I like a band, most of the time I buy the whole album. Otherwise you don´t really understand the band. Sometimes I listen to one or two songs that I more or less like and then when I listen to the whole album, the two songs I more or less liked, I suddenly love them. It happens often. Then again, I don´t know if this whole thing is staying the way it is or getting worse? I´m always paranoid. It´s a tough business. Andy Deris: A lot of people are saying that it´s not getting worse and that we´ve already reached the worse point, then again when you see other tours with bands and you go “Wow, it´s getting worse!”. Great bands all of a sudden just sell 100 or 200 tickets and I get paranoid and think “Will this happen to us?”. Nowadays you have a lot more competition because there are so many bands out there.

On this album, was there one song that was more difficult than the others getting done? 

Andi Deris: Yeah, “Who am I”. There were probably two or three songs that were a lot easier on the demo, but when you make a demo it´s just you and you program the drums, play the bass and the guitar and it sounds like an ok demo, but when you pick a band, different people might have difficulties with different songs, which is ok. Being a musician you have your favorite stuff to play. I remember that “Who am I” took quite a while actually until it sounded the way it does now. There were so many possibilities and it used to be over 8 minutes and now it´s only 7 minutes. Arrangement wise it was a challenge because I wanted to tell a story and there was even one version that we cut down to 4 minutes, but then it felt like the story didn´t get told. It took nearly a week to find the right arrangement for that song. Are you gonna tour for this album? Andy Deris: Yeah, hopefully I have a chance to play some festivals in the summer and then maybe take it from there.

Earlier you mentioned bad managers. Through your career was there one guy worse than others? 

Andi Deris: No, that would be unfair to say. Usually it´s a conglomerate of people and sometimes one idiot doesn´t know that the other idiots did some stupid things. Everybody is probably trying to fight for themselves and then, maybe, think of the band. That´s what we´ve been taught anyway. Even big name managements first of all work for themselves. You should expect it to be the other way around, that they would work for the band and then for themselves, because without a band there´s no management. The problem is that suddenly there were so many artists out there that the bands became exchangeable. The managements realized that if they can´t squeeze everything out of this band, they just take another band. That´s what happens on all these Idol and Talent shows. That´s the world we live in. We should be happy that we´re in the rock and metal genre, because we´re probably still thinking in a different way. Metal is not in the media and we´re against the media. The media actually don´t want to play metal. Maybe because MTV realized in the late 80´s that you can´t make money on metal because metal bands don´t pay to play. That was the main reason. I remember touring the US and watching MTV in ´91 and MTV said that metal was dead. They didn´t say why, but we knew that it was because they couldn´t ask metal bands for money to play their videos.

Speaking of back in the day, I remember seeing Pink Cream 69 opening up for White Lion in a small town called Lund in the southern parts of Sweden. I remember that at the end of your show, you came out with a boom box, right? 

Andi Deris: Lund, yes.Yeah we did “White men do no reggae”. It was a great time for us. We were completely green, young boys on tour for the first time with an album that just became bigger and bigger. It was probably the time of my life and it was a dream come true. Everybody has that dream of being successful and conquering the world, but then when it happens it´s like “Whoa, what´s going on now?”. The reality is completely different and you´re out there and getting homesick. When you dream about something, you only see the positive things, but never the less, we came from a small town in Germany and all of a sudden we had a number one album in Japan during the tour with White Lion. We had like 1000 to 3000 people every night on that tour and it was a dream come true.

Was it just an endless party? 

Andi Deris: No. Sure there were parties, but not and endless party. I think the tour went on for three months and I remember we tried it for the first two and a half weeks, but then we realized that we couldn´t go on like that. We would never survive if we kept going like that. (laughs)

I´ve always wondered where you got the name Pink Cream 69 from? 

Andy Deris: Oh, that´s a very nasty thing (laughs). It´s the 69 and the lady is having her monthly thing. I didn´t know the meaning of it in the beginning when I read it on a cocktail card. A bartender in Baltimore explained it to me and I was like “Oh my God!”. When I read it, I thought it was a cool band name. Not too cliché and people would probably go “What?” and it was exactly the name I was looking for. A name where people wouldn´t even know what kind of music it was. Then when I ordered the cocktail and I asked what it meant, the bartender just said “Look at the colors! Doesn´t it ring a bell?” and then he explained it. (laughs) It was nasty, but I liked it. (laughs)

Looking back on your career, is there one album or a certain song that is a favorite of yours? 

Andi Deris: There´s always one song that had a key role in my story and that´s “Perfect gentleman”. First of all it was a funny thing describing myself in the most stupid way and on the other hand, it was the main reason why I left Pink Cream 69. That song was so much me and I was really pissed off when they told me that they wouldn´t go onstage with me and that song. They said they would never go onstage with me whistling. The funny thing is that a year later, Scorpions had their biggest hit ever with whistling in it. I mean, we went out onstage with a boom box and did “White men don´t do reggae”, which was a funny thing to do, so I couldn´t see why they wouldn´t go onstage doing “Perfect gentleman” whistling, unless the people around you completely changed and they did change. They weren´t the guys I conquered the stage with. All that glamour and color we had. They wanted to go grey, dark and adult and I just thought “Ok, fuck you!”. (laughs) Since ´89 Michael Weikath asked me if I wanted to join Helloween, because they were scared that Michael Kiske wanted to do some Elvis Presley stuff and Michael was terrified saying it was a metal band and the next album kinda proved him right. The fans got more and more pissed off so he was completely right. I never thought I´d leave a band of friends, but when I realized they had completely changed it was different. There were a lot of nasty things going on that I don´t want to talk about. I was probably as stupid, but I didn´t want to betray an image that was very successful, for something grey.

What´s the plan for Helloween? 

Andi Deris: We finished the tour in South America at the end of December, but we´ve already grabbed the guitars and we´re collecting ideas for songs. We´re just being at home on the couch in front of the TV, smoking, drinking and playing guitar. I think we´ll be back in the studio in August and record the new album and then it all starts over in 2015 for another 12 months. I´d reckon the album will be out in February 2015. We won´t rush it. (laughs)

/Niclas

Intervju med Don Airey.

Sedan 12 år tillbaka flyger hans fingrar över hammondorgeln i legendariska Deep Purple, men han har även en solokarriär vid sidan om och är just nu aktuell med "Keyed up", som bjuder på en hel del godsaker. 
Don Airey har spelat med mängder av artister, men gitarristen Gary Moore har uppenbarligen en särksild plats i hans hjärta. Moore figurerar på Aireys senaste alster och inspelningarna var de sista som gitarristen gjorde innan han tragiskt gick bort 2011.
Jag hade nyligen nöjet att snacka med den här gamle rockräven och samtalet kom att handla om allt från låten "Mr Crowley" till hans första betalda inspelning.

I just realized that you´ve spent a great deal of time in Deep Purple by now. How would you describe these years? 

Don Airey: Yes, I´m amazed myself. Well, very fruitful and I couldn´t have wished for anything nicer to happen to me actually. It´s a great band, great music and it´s well run. We have a great crew. It´s not an easy gig, I have to tell you, following Jon Lord, but it´s been a great experience.

You have a new album out, “Keyed up” and I have to say that the opening song, “3 in the morning” is stunning. 

Don Airey: Great! It was one of those songs that came about pretty quickly. It got knocked into shape in a day or two and it was just a couple of takes. It´s one take with a bit of a jam at the end. It´s called a “bread and butter track” really. It´s really stock.

How did you pick the people you´re playing with? Are they old friends that you finally got a chance to record something with? 

Don Airey: Yes, it´s more or less that. I´ve known Laurence Cottle (bass) for 20 years and he used to do sessionswith Cozy Powell and myself. I think I introduced him to Gary Moore actually and he then went on to work with Gary and Black Sabbath. He´s one of the top jazz bass players in the world, but he likes playing a little bit of rock now and again. Darrin Mooney (drums) I´ve known since he was about 20 when I spotted him in a club. He´s an incredible drummer. I remember when I first saw him and I went “Oh, the new Ian Paice!”. We´ve been friends for a long time, but as you say, you don´t get much chance when people are in different bands. Rob Harris (guitar) lives near me and I´ve known him since he was about 15 and of course he works with Jamiroquai all the time.

I read that the recording of the album was organic and analog, which is going against a lot of things these days with everything being digital? 

Don Airey: What we did is that we recorded everything live, organ, bass and drums in the same room. Of course you get a lot of problems with spill from the organ because I´m using two Leslie guitar amps and there´s spill on the drums and I can hear the drums get on to the organ tracks, but that´s what gives you that indefinable feeling when everything is mixed down together a bit. What you hear is actually what happened. It´s how we played it. There was a jam at the end of “3 in the morning” and everybody were watching each other to see when we´re going to end it. A track like “Beat the retreat”, the fast bit at the end was actually a spontaneous jam that came out of nowhere and we kept it in. That´s where the old rock and roll feeling comes from. It´s musicians playing and they´re not really sure how it goes, because they´ve only done it a couple of times but you gotta be a good musician. That´s part of being a good musician, that everybody´s watching and you´re very receptive to what happens. A player like Laurence Cottle for example, he will get things very quickly and then he starts giving you value for your money and he starts putting all sorts of things in and Darrin Mooney is the same. You´d think it was those two guys trying to keep up with me, but it was actually the other way around. My eyes and ears are out and I´m wondering what they´re gonna come up with?

You have the late, great Gary Moore on the album. Was the plan to have him do more on the album or was it just those songs, “Adagio” and “Mini suite”? 

Don Airey: I´d been to see him at a gig in 2009 and he said “Why didn´t you ever ask me to play on your albums?” and I said “I never thought you´d say yes.”. We set this up in 2010 and it was due to go on the last album, “All out”. The session wasn´t a disaster, it was just that we didn´t get the track finished. He was very ill at ease that day for some reason and I´d never quite seen him like that. We did what we did and I told the record company “Well, I´ve got Gary, but it´s a work in progress.” And of course we never got to finish it. What happened with “Adagio” was that Rob Harris had done a guide track for Gary. We sent it to Gary kinda like “This is how it goes!” and we just married the two up into a duet. It didn´t take long. It took like a quarter of an hour and it was amazing.

You worked a lot with Gary over the years. How would you describe him? Was he an easy guy to work with? 

Don Airey: God no! (laughs) Gary, what can I say? I think he was the best guitarist I´d ever worked with back then. He was an astonishing talent. I´ve never known anybody that had so many musical resources at his disposal. He could hear things, he was creative, he was technically so gifted, he was a great song writer, he was a great singer, a great lyricist and one funny guy too. (laughs) When you worked with him you could feel the devil snapping at your heels. He was so quick. He had this Irish sense of humor that was devastating. He just summed people up and he was like that right to the end. The last day I saw him, the session when we recorded “Adagio”, he was being very funny about people. I can´t tell you about the things he said. I remember something he said about Greg Lake (King Crimson, Emerson, Lake and Palmer) once. He adored Greg Lake and Greg is a massive talent, but something he said about Greg was “Oh Greg, he´d go all around the world to borrow a cup of sugar from the person next door.” And that really kinda summed Greg up, really.

The songs on “Keyed up”, are they all new or are some of them stuff that´s been around for a while? 

Don Airey: Five or six of them were written for the album. The suite is dedicated to Gary´s memory and obviously in “Lament”, the lyrics are about Gary and it´s something we used to play with Coliseum II. That whole thing is about Gary really. My little tribute to a very great musician.

Are you gonna be doing any kind of touring for this album? 

Don Airey: I start a tour in March. We do 10 gigs Switzerland, Slovakia, Germany, Italy and Belgium and that´s the first leg, then depending on how it does, we´re gonna try to do some more dates. I´m using the band that is on the record so I´m looking forward to that. We´ll be in a tourbus with a trailer with the gear in the back and a couple of roadies. The good old days.

When you started playing, did your parents encourage you to pick up an instrument? 

Don Airey: We had a piano in the front room. I lived up in the north of England. My parents both played and I started playing think my dad taught me until I was about seven and he then said “I can´t teach you anymore.” and he got me a teacher. I went through all the grades to study music at college. I wasn´t good enough to be a concert pianist, but I think I was better than I thought I was. I found some old tapes of me playing classical stuff and it was like “Bloody hell, who is this? Oh, it´s me!”. (laughs) And as fate would have it, I went into rock and roll and I had a great life.

Do you remember the first recording session you got paid for? 

Don Airey: My first recording session was actually when I was 13 0r 14. I played at a concert in my local town and I played Dave Brubeck´s “Blue rondo a la Turk” and it caused a sensation. I played it with a show band and ended it with that. Somebody from the BBC was there and they said “We´ll get you on BBC Newcastle!”, so my first session was recording “Blue rondo a la Turk” live for the BBC.

And now it´s on the new album. 

Don Airey: Yeah, now it´s on the album and of course I´ve always been a great admirer of Keith Emerson (who used it as the base for the song “Rondo” when he was in the band The Nice), so it´s a bit of a tribute to him, but it´s a tribute to Dave Brubeck as well. It was great to play and we had fun playing that in the studio. 

Playing on so many albums and working with so many great musicians, is there a certain time period, not counting Deep Purple, where you feel you had the most fun? 

Don Airey: 1980 with Rainbow. We had some huge hit singles and it doesn´t get any better than that. Big crowds everywhere we went and it was a fantastic band. Roger Glover and Cozy Powell was an amazing rhythm section and Ritchie (Blackmore) was playing the best he´d played since “Machine head” and we had Graham Bonnet, who was just such a brilliant front man. He was unique. We played Donnington and Ozzy was there and he said to me after that it was the greatest performance by a singer he ever saw. He said that to me subsequently 20 years later.

Was the 80´s a constant party? 

Don Airey: No, it wasn´t. It was hard work. There was a bit of that going on, but the only band I was in where drugs really became a bit of a problem, was the Ozzy Osbourne band. Ozzy had a dreadful experience where he collapsed and his heart started beating really quickly and it soon cured him. I would say it was a two month period where things rather got the better of dear Ozzy. After that he was never a problem. He was never a problem anyway because gig days he was always completely straight and there were more gig days than off days. When you´re doing five gigs a week and 3000 miles a week, you don´t have time for it. If you´re successful, all you think about is keeping yourself together for the next gig. But we did used to have a bit of fun. (laughs)

Speaking of Ozzy. Do you remember putting together the intro for “Mr Crowley”? 

Don Airey: Yeah and it just came straight out of the air. I was doing the session and they were all kinda sitting there, the band in the control room where all the keyboards were and they were getting on my nerves. I said “Get out of here and come back in half an hour!”. When they came back, that´s what I´d done and Ozzy just said “I thought you plugged into my fucking head!” and I was like “Oh, thanks Ozzy! That´s a real compliment.”

It has to be a special feeling as a musician, when you put something down in half an hour and then a month later, people are singing along to it in a big crowd? 

Don Airey: James Taylor (American singer-songwriter) said something. Roger (Glover) and I went to see James Taylor last year and he said “The next song is something I heard Carole King singing in her dressing room and I said – Can I record that? And she said – Of course you can!, and I never thought at the time that I´d be singing it every night for the rest of my life.” And that´s the song “You´ve got a friend” (1971). You don´t think of it at the time, it´s only afterwards.

You´ve also played with some really interesting guitar players, Michael Schenker, Ritchie Blackmore and Gary Moore. All three known for being difficult to work with. Could you rank them? 

Don Airey: It´s really hard for me to say who´s the best, because my experience with them all is that you´ve gotta be so on your toes when you´re around people like that. Their difficulty is part of the creative process. Ritchie used to play a game, but what he did was get everybody “keyed up” so to speak. That´s where it comes from. Get them on edge and that´s how you get the best out of people.That´s how he works. People say to me “Wouldn´t it be better to have six months to make an album and take your time? And the answer is no. The quicker you do it, the better. Time is money and studios are expensive. Get it right the first time.

It feels like music was put together in a more “honest” way back in the day? 

Don Airey: It was and I can´t argue with that. One thing I´ve noticed personally was that when I was younger, when you went to record, it was a terrifying process. The people who worked as professional engineers and producers were frightening people and some of them were so good. You really felt the pressure and when that red light went on, you had to do it good. But the thing was that you played and go through it and then they said “Alright, come and have a listen!” and when you heard it back, it used to sound amazing. Like they´d done something incredible to it and you hardly recognized what you´d done. That was the magic of tape and Neve desks, whereas now when you play something, you go back and listen to it and it sounds exactly like you remember it. It doesn´t acquire the magical halo that it used to. Whether that´s just getting older I don´t know. I heard McCartney say something about that when The Beatles recorded. They´d put down all the tracks and then they´d go to the pub while they mixed it and then they came back and just sit in amazement of what they heard. The immediacy of recording has been lost. People are trying to recreate the old sound digitally and they go to all kinds of lengths to do it and it just doesn´t work, because something doesn´t ring true about it.

Now that you recorded the latest Deep Purple album with Bob Ezrin, did you work like that? 

Don Airey: That´s exactly how we did it. That´s how we worked. Bob came to the rehearsals and made a lot of observations and then we went into the studio and just recorded it alive, all in the same room. All the amps were separated of course, but we were in a big studio in Nashville. Bob Ezrin is an amazing producer! He´s old school and we were all done and dusted in five or six days, 15 backing tracks. My keyboard work was done in a few hours. The organ is all live. Great sound and I was amazed. Same thing when I heard the mixes, I was amazed and I said “Bob, you´re a genius!” and he said “I know.”. (laughs)

What are the plans for 2014 when it comes to Deep Purple? 

Don Airey: My touring is kinda slotted in between Deep Purple tours, I think. We´re up in Sweden soon and then we go to the Far East in April and I´ve got a few more solo gigs in May and some in August.

Could you see Deep Purple working with Bob Ezrin again? 

Don Airey: All I can say is that I hope so. I live for the day and I can´t speak highly enough about Bob. I just listened to “Only women bleed” (Alice Cooper) yesterday and what a piece of work that is!

Through the years you´ve played on a variety of albums. You played with Helix back in ´87. How did you end up playing on their album “Wild in the streets”? 

Don Airey: Through the producer Mike Stone. I had worked with him on various sessions, so he just called me. It was very interesting. The first day, they were very wary about any keyboards going on and everything I did, and they´d have a meeting in the corner about it. (laughs) Then the next day they wanted wall to wall keyboards on everything. When they heard what I was doing they kinda went the opposite way. They were great! I remember there was one track called “Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye” (Ended up being “Kiss it goodbye”). A track to play to your mother. (laughs)

You also played with Zeno. 

Don Airey: You can put this down, they were the hardest people to work with. They were difficult. I think I had a bit of an uproar in the studio after a couple of days with them. They tended to be behind and I went “This is not how rock and roll is made! You haven´t sold a record yet and you´re acting like you´ve sold five million!”. They went white at me blowing up, but then the session went very well after that and we got done very quickly. They made the best demo I´ve ever heard actually, but then they just squeezed all the life out of the album and it didn´t quite match up to the demo. Brilliant band though.


/Niclas

Vinnare i KISS/Maiden-utlottningen.

Självfallet spelade Iron Maiden och KISS tillsammans i Eriksdalshallen 1980. De två vinnare som dottern valde ut bland de rätta svaren, blev Christer Thim i Tullinge och Bård Andersen i Norge. 
I kommande vecka tänker jag lägga upp utlottningar av Hammerfall och Manowar-prylar.
Stay tuned!

/Niclas

Bussresa för att se Truckfighters live i replokalen? Jodå!

Igår hade jag det stora nöjet att bli bjuden på bussresa tur och retur till Örebro, för att hänga med Truckfighters i replokalen. Strax efter halv sex på kvällen, efter att undertecknad tillsammans med Darren från Warner Records anlänt sist, påbörjades själva resan mot det mellansvenska gnällbältet. Bussen var fylld med allehanda folk så som skivbolagsmänniskor, journalister, tävlingsvinnare och radiofolk. Ett angenämt sällskap som blev bjudna på öl och macka under färden och dessutom fick det stora nöjet att tävla i ett musikquiz. Jag kan avslöja att vinsten gick till Aftonbladets Kling och Peter från Close-Up. 
Väl framme, mitt inne i ett bostadsområde, steg vi ut i den kalla örebrokvällen och gick sedan ned en våning till underjorden i ett av hyreshusen. Där välkomnade bandet och replokalen visade sig vara ett ytterst trevligt ställe. En studio, ett spelrum, ett kök och ett rum att hänga. Hade jag varit medlem i bandet hade jag nog aldrig lämnat lokalen. 
Ölen och spriten flödade, tacos var maten för kvällen och folk minglade runt som om det inte fanns en morgondag. Framåt sen kväll intog bandet spelrummet och drog i gåbg ett kort set med låtar från nya plattan "Universe". Det var trångt något djävulskt, men folk kunde inte varit mer nöjda. En otroligt kul upplevelse. Jag tjötade länge med en radiopersonlighet om hur det fungerar på en kommersiell radiostation. Jäkligt intressant. Det var mycket bakbundna händer och möjligheten att själv välja kul låtar att spela, var minimal. Pengar kommer först och långt ner på listan kommer musiken. Inga nyheter som så kanske, men intressant att få höra det från någon som faktiskt är mitt uppe i det. 
Efter avslutat set blev det lite mer mingel och sedan tog bussen hela sällskapet hem mot Stockholm igen. Under återfärden hade jag bland annat en trevlig och lång diskussion med Mattias Kling om allt från kokböcker till politik och artikelskrivande. En sak som livligt diskuterades är den hipsterstämpel som nu Watain fått. Det känns som att den där söderkisen som bakar surdegsbröd på sitt eget mikrobryggeri, numera lyssnar på Watain och offrar kaniner till en kall ale. Journalistkåren tenderar till att rösta vänster. Inte alla givetvis, men många. Dessa journalister omfamnar nu ett band som Watain, vilka står för ett tankesätt där jaget och egoismen kommer i första rummet. Mycket intressant. Och hur brukar det gå för band som blir hippa?
Hur som haver, köp Truckfighters nya platta! Den svänger faktiskt riktigt ordentligt. 

/Niclas

Omslaget till Stanley Eisens självbiografi. 

Nja, jag vet inte... För det första är det en bild på dagens Stanley med peruk och allt. För det andra är den så retuscherad att han ser ut som en sminkad kvinna. För det tredje kan jag tycka att nog fan borde det finnas roligare och intressantare bilder att använda, eller?
Nåväl, som tidigare nämnts är det Carl Linnaeus som översätter boken, vilket bådar gott och han har sagt att den slår de andra medlemmarnas böcker med hästlängder.

/Niclas