Dvdrecension
Rush
"Time machine 2011: Live in Cleveland" 2011
Som titeln anger filmades hela klaset i Cleveland, vilket har sin förklaring i att staden anses vara den första utanför Kanada som tog bandet till sitt hjärta. Det mycket tack vare radiostationen WMMS och en viss Donna Halper, vilket det för övrigt berättas om en del i den eminenta "Beyond the lighted stage".
I denna DVD sparas det inte på kameravinklar eller krut. Det är överlag väldigt många klipp, men det funkar, även om det emellanåt kan bli något tröttsamt då kameran sällan vilar mer än några sekunder på varje vinkel.
Rush bjuder på en riktigt snygg show och ren och skär spelglädje. De ser verkligen ut att trivas live efter alla dessa år.
Första delen bjuder på en egen spelfilm i samma stil som bandets tidigare smått kufiska filmer och sedan brakar det loss med "The spirit of radio" som följs upp med en tight "Time stand still" och en för mig bortglömd "Presto".
Andra delen innefattar hela "Moving pictures" och det är otroligt bra, men det bjuds även på "Closer to the heart" och magnifika "Far cry" från "Snakes and arrows". En låt som kommit att bli en stor personlig favorit.
Rush leverear och jag förbannar mig själv ännu en gång över att jag inte såg denna turné. Dock såg jag bandet de två föregående gångerna och får leva på det ett tag till.
"Live in Cleveland" visar ett band i högform och bjuder även på en stor visuell upplevelse. De har helt enkelt en jäkligt snygg show numera! En liten kul notis är de många svepningarna över den milt sagt upphetsade publiken. Det liras luftgitarr och lufttrummor som om det gällde livet och framförallt är det väldigt många kvinnor som ger sig hän och på sina ställen även headbangar.
Är du ett Rush-fan är det ett givet köp!
Betyg 4/5
/Niclas
Idag firar vi Nigel Tufnel Day!
Idag spelar vi allt "one louder"!
/Niclas
Oh Henry my Henry!
Henry fortsätter att facineras av musikens kraft.
"When The Man has tried to put a lid on things throughout centuries of American history, music has always kept his ass in check. Administrations, thankfully, come and go, but the music is just getting warmed up.
How's this for an understatement: It has been a rough week, and it's always rough around here. However, if we keep the jams cranked, the bastards don't stand a chance. They never did."
Henry här
/Niclas
Håll utkik!
Kee Marcellos bok är rykande färsk och den 27/11 landar Mattias Klings bok om Europe i en bokhandel nära dig.
Från förlaget Kalla kulor:
"Få svenska rockband kan mäta sig med Europes framgångar. Mattias Kling skildrar resan från den stökiga starten (under namnet Force) i stockholmsförorten Upplands Väsby i slutet av 70-talet, via succén med The Final Countdown 1986 och vidare in i rockhistorien.
Bandet sålde över 10 miljoner exemplar av sin största hit som klättrade upp som listetta i inte mindre än 25 länder och slog igenom stort.
Totalt har Europe sålt över 20 miljoner album över hela världen. I slutet av 80-talet turnerade de med Def Leppard, spelade med Bon Jovi och Skid Row och sålde miljontals skivor även i USA.
Sedan började svårigheterna. Grungen trängde undan bandet från de stora scenerna, dålig rådgivning fick medlemmarnas ekonomi att gå i botten och många trodde nog att Europe var uträknade. Men så blev det inte alls. 2004 inleddes en lång comeback och idag står liveturnéerna åter som spön i scengolven runt om i världen.
Mattias Kling är hårdrockskribent på Aftonbladet och har följt Europe under flera decennier. Med boken följer även ett unikt bildmaterial signerat Michael Johansson som följt bandet ur kameravinkeln ända sedan de vilda väsbydagarna."
/Niclas
Konsertrecension
Machine Head
BMTH
DevilDriver
Darkest Hour
Arenan, Stockholm 3 november 2011
Tidigare under kvällen intervjuar jag Matt och Lee i BMTH och även Dez Fafara i DevilDriver.
Egentligen hade jag inga större förväntningar på några av banden förutom Machine Head. Sist jag såg Robb Flynn öppnade bandet för Metallica och lämnade en del att önska.
Först ut är Darkest Hour och jag får nog erkänna att jag gillar en hel del av deras låtar och sångaren jobbar hårt för att få igång circle pits och mosh pits, vilket även de andra sångarna i efterföljande banden gör.
DevilDriver är ganska kul live med en entusiastisk Dez som vill att alla circle pits bara ska bli större och större, vilket faller en hel del fans i smaken som sedan springer benen av sig under bandets tunga artilleri. Helt ok och "Clouds over California" övertygar.
Vad kan man säga om BMTH då? Tja, de måste hekt klart vara yngst i gänget och aldrig tidigare har jag hört så många tjejer skrika haksen av sig som när Oliver Sykes äntrar scenen.
När jag möter honom några timmar innan konserten ger han nästan ett zombieliknande intryck, men vaknar tydligen till liv under konsertens gång. Han klättrar på högtalarna, skuttar runt som en duracellkanin och mot slutet tar han och gitarristen Jona sig upp i en av basketkorgarna och fortsätter sitt manglande. Tjejerna blir än mer tokiga och publiken springer rundor i en ändlös circle pit.
Slutligen kliver då Machine Head på scen och efter en något seg inledning tar Robb Flynn ett stadigt grepp om publiken och släpper aldrig taget. Bandet övertygar och publiken höjer dem till skyarna, vilket märks på bandet och framförallt Flynn, som när sista låten klingat ut, inte riktig verkar vilja lämna scenen.
"Old" sitter som en smäck och avslutande "Halo" och "Davidian" slår det verkligen gnistor om.
Machine Head är utan tvekan på väg upp i toppskiktet.
Darkest Hour 3/5
DevilDriver 3/5
BMTH 3/5
Machine Head 4/5
/Niclas
Oh dear Henry!
Henry fortsätter fascineras av Occupy Wall Street eventen och funderar på musikens möjlighet att förändra.
Henry här
/Niclas
Feist + Mastodon = Briljant
I min intervju med Troy för någon månad sedan föreslog jag ett samarbete med Elton John. Istället blir det kanske något med fantastiska Feist istället.
Nedanstående via Metalsucks via Hitfix:
“Brent [Hinds] and I were nodding at each other, and he’s like, ‘Nice riff,’ and I’m like ‘Nice tone.’ So backstage I’m thinking about letting these two worlds collide, how they should collide, so I’m like ‘How about Metals [Feist's latest album] meeting metal?’” Feist explained, saying she sort of pitched a split record to Mastodon. “Brent was like, ‘Well, I do like that “Bad in Each Other” song, I could see that.’ Maybe now I will look into learning to cover ‘Oblivion’… or anything off [The Hunter]. That album’s amazing.”
/Niclas
Chris Cornell!
Fyra låtar att lyssna på HÄR
/Niclas
Utlottningen av Kee Marcellos bok klar!
Intresset för boken verkar vara stort. Det har bara rasat in namn på folk som vill få utlottningsexet.
Tillvägagångssättet vid lottningen blev att alla namn skrevs ner på lappar, vilket tog sin lilla tid, och sedan fick min sexåriga dotter dra det vinnande namnet.
Eric Axelsson i Ulrichehamn blev den lycklige och hade dessutom rätt svar. Kee Marcellos riktiga namn är naturligtvis Kjell Hilding Löfbom.
Grattis Eric!
/Niclas
Alla vill ha vin!
Ja jisses...
"Sommarens succévin Sweden Rock Festival Edition släpptes på Systembolaget i en begränsad upplaga inför årets festival och blev snabbt en uppskattad produkt som sålde slut på några veckor. Nu lanserar Sweden Rock ett premiumvin, passande nog döpt till Sweden Rock Premium Edition.
Sweden Rock Premium Edition är ett rött, fylligt Merlotvin från södra Frankrike. Vinet tappas i en begränsad upplaga och ingår i Systembolagets beställningssortiment.
- Band som Motörhead, Kiss och AC/DC har lanserat egna viner och vi på Sweden Rock Festival tycker att det är extra roligt att vi, tillsammans med Åkesson Vin, var först ut på den svenska marknaden med lanseringen av ett svenskt rockvin i somras.
- Vi är glada att nu kunna lansera ett premiumvin som vi tror att våra besökare kommer att uppskatta i väntan på nästa års festival, säger Mark Frostenäs, marknadsansvarig på Sweden Rock Festival.
Lanseringsdag: 1 november
Alkoholhalt: 14 %
Systembolagets beställningssortiment
art.nr: 75362-01
www.systembolaget.se, e-beställning
Ursprung: Frankrike
Pris: 99 kr
I anslutning till vinlanseringen låter vi även våra besökare berätta vilka låtar som är bäst att avnjuta ett glas rött till. I Spotifylistan Sweden Rock Premium Edition kan alla användare lägga till och dela sina favoriter och börja ladda inför Sweden Rock Festival 2012, som äger rumt 6-7-8-9 juni i Sölvesborg."
/Niclas
Nu jävlar ska det spelas!
Kan det här bli årets julklapp?
"Rock Science är ett nytt, svenskt brädspel som släpps 9 december 2011. En grupp svenska rockare, däribland legenden Nicke Andersson (känd från bl.a. Imperial State Electric och The Hellacopters) har skapat ett frågespel om hårdrock. Målet har varit att skapa unik underhållning ur det alla rockers snackar om över en bärs på förfesten. Med 2 500 frågor om hundratals tongivande rockband från 60-talet fram till idag har man lyckats med precis det. Spelet täcker klassisk hårdrock, heavy metal, NWOBHM, thrash metal, glam, grunge och extrem metal med frågor om band som Kiss, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Motörhead, Guns N’ Roses, Venom, Pearl Jam, Sex Pistols och Rolling Stones för att nämna några.
Hur många gånger har inte rockers världen över suttit och käftat om vem som gjorde vad på vilken platta, hur en viss låt kom till, vilken stjärna som dog på det mest spektakulära viset – ja allt det där som gör hårdrock till något mer än bara musik? Svaret är: väldigt ofta. Få älskar sin musik lika mycket som hårdrockare och nu får de chansen att omsätta sin kärlek och kunskap på spelplanen. För alla äkta rockers lär Rock Science bli lika oumbärligt som skivsamlingen, elgitarren, skinnpajen och basguran.
THE ROCK SCIENCE ANTHEM
Inte särskilt många av världens brädspel har en egen signaturmelodi. Det kan till och med vara så att Rock Science är det enda brädspelet i världen som har fått ett alldeles eget, specialskriven anthem. Helt klart är att Nicke Andersson (även känd som Nick Royale) i alla fall aldrig specialkomponerat en låt till ett spel förr. Nick Royale har dessutom rollen som Art Director i det sex man starka teamet i Rock Science-labbet. Ett team där Jorge Bravo, mannen bakom banden Skintrade och Roachpowder, håller i taktpinnen som Creative Director.
Nick Royale har bland annat spelat i Nihilist, Entombed, The Hellacopters och The Solution. Nu är det Imperial State Electric som i huvudsak är Nickes hem. Där ingår även bl.a. basisten Dolf de Borst från New Zeelands fränaste rockband, The Datsuns.
SÅ FUNGERAR SPELET
Rock Science är ett brädspel för 2-6 spelare. Målet är att genom rockkunskap, smart vadslagning och lite tur vara den som först går ett varv runt spelplanen. Man besvarar frågor om anekdoter, myter, rockers, album, låtar och Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll. Spelarna kan också få nynna riff från kända rocklåtar.
• Alla frågor har tre svårighetsnivåer – Poser, Fan och Scientist. Poser-frågorna är lättare så att vem som helst kan vara med och spela.
• Alla spelare är hela tiden involverade eftersom man dessutom “bettar” på varandras kunskap.
• Spelet innehåller regler på svenska, engelska, spanska och tyska.
• Spelet kan lätt omvandlas till ett smidigt road trip-spel eller ett vansinnigt dryckesspel med hjälp av instruktionerna i boxen. Kom ihåg, rockare smuttar inte!
Rock Science är den mycket förlåtande familj varje sann rockälskare alltid önskat sig. I den här familjen får man bara bannor om man inte drar volymknappen i botten.
Nuff said…"
Spelets hemsida här
/Niclas
Recension av Bangaloregiget!
Indisk journalistik lämnar en del att önska. Frågan är om journalisten i fråga var på konserten överhuvudtaget?
The Times of India här
/Niclas
Intervju med Tony Speakman i Hell!
Hell är ju det brittiska bandet som i början av 80-talet var på gång och delvis räknades in i NWOBHM, men allt gick åt skogen. Skivbolagsstrul, sångaren begick självmord och bandet upplöstes.
Nu är de tillbaka med hjälp av framförallt Andy Sneap och plattan "Human remains" är faktiskt inte pjåkig alls.
Jag ringde upp Tony i England och fick ett mycket trevligt samtal med en pratglad britt som nu äntligen lever sin dröm efter att plattan hyllats världen över och arbetet med uppföljaren är redan på gång. Vi snackade bl a om influenser från KISS, hur de hamnade på Nuclear Blast, arbetet med Andy Sneap och likheten med Anvil.
Hey Tony, it´s Niclas!
Tony Speakman: How you doing Niclas? How´s it going?
I´m good! How are you?
TS: Oh, not so bad mate, not so bad!
It took me forever to figure out how to call you.
TS: Well, that´s why I´ve got my e-mail up in case you couldn´t get through and you´d have to e-mail me in a panic.
I wanna start with the beginning of all things and the beginnings of your musical career. What were you up to before Hell?
TS: Before Hell? Basically, I met a guy through an ex girlfriend who was playing guitar in his front room. At the time, obviously I was into rock music and metal music, bands like Deep Purple, UFO and Wishbone Ash, the early rock bands. I basically used to stand there pretending to be a guitarist and wishing I would one day be a guitarist or a musician. Through this ex girlfriend I met this guy who was playing guitar. His parents were away, so he had dragged his amplifier into the front room and I was just spellbound by him. I just walked into the room and asked “Would you give me a lesson?” and he said “Yeah!”. We got together and we formed a small band called Fluff, who incidentally contained Tim, the drummer from Hell. Tim and I have been together right from the very start of our playing careers. That then formed into a band called Tokyo Road. We were young and full of testosterone and full of ego and we sort of split for a bit. I left and joined another local band and they were doing fairly well on the local circuit, called Sovereign and from there, that´s when I met Kev. We used to rehearse at this lovely local pub and I went into the pub one night to rehearse and this guy came up to me and said “You´re gonna be asked to join Paralex!” and sure enough there was Kev and he asked me to join Paralex, who at the time had a record deal with the “White lightning” EP out and everything. I then went off to join Paralex and spent a few years with them doing the rounds and we made quite a name for ourselves. When we were in Paralex we used to work with Race Against Time, David Halliday´s original band. It was basically like today´s tour packages where three local bands go out and play bigger venues rather than all struggling in tiny little pubs. Proper gigs with bigger stages, better lighting, better everything! Then we became friends with Dave and then Dave split from Race Against Time. I don´t know the full story of what happened there, but when that happened, Kev was adamant that he wanted to work with Dave, so he approached me and said “We´re gonna put this new band together!” and he approached me and I said “Yeah, I´m up for it!”. Back again to Tim, my old friend because Tim and I were social friends even though for a couple of bands we didn´t play together and I said “How about Tim on drums?” and that´s how Hell formed.
Who came up with the name?
TS: I believe that was myself! Not the logo. The reason being, in 1976, I think, I went to see KISS in Manchester, one of their first ever gigs in the UK and I only went to see the support band Stray. I´d never heard of KISS. I was working in my cousin´s record shop at the time and I saw that Stray was playing in Manchester, I was living up there, so I borrowed some money from my auntie and bought myself a ticket and off I went. I didn´t know who KISS were, but I wanted to go and see the support band Stray. Well, I came out of the place, as you can imagine, a completely different person! The next day I went to my cousin´s shop and there were loads of KISS albums there, so I just bought the lot and became a big KISS fan. The idea behind Hell was… I believe I´m right, but the others may say I´m wrong here, but I seem to remember I sat in these girls conservatory conceiving this idea for this band where basically there was no backline or anything on stage. It was like a big theatrical set as you would imagine hell. A lot of red lighting and the idea that the monitors were gonna be like rocks and lots of dry ice and creating the stereo typical vision of hell. The devil´s domain! I think that´s where it came from and then the logo, I believe was another one of Kev´s brothers who came up with the logo and then the image just evolved. We wanted to do a show that was just totally different to any of the other local bands. There was a lot of local bands around and we wanted to take it one step further. What you see now of Hell is not that dissimilar to what you saw before.
Back then, who would you say were Hell´s influences when it came to listening to other bands?
TS: That´s an interesting question actually. Really in those days there was two sides to Hell and as Kev is a genius now with his song writing, he wasn´t really a social guy then. He didn´t go out much and he didn´t go to all the local rock discos and he wasn´t influenced particularly by anybody. There were bands he liked and in the early days of Paralex he was into Pat Travers and very into Rush, but he wasn´t really influenced by the trends of the time. Likewise with Dave. They wanted to do something different, whereas Tim and I were the social party animals! We went out and lived the rock and roll lifestyle and we were out every night drinking. We were the ones, just like every other local musicians out there doing it. I suppose we were influenced more by of what was in the trends at the time. Certainly the NWOBHM, Priest, Maiden, were all favorite bands of ours. In those days and I´ll drop this now, Mercyful Fate! I´d certainly never heard of them, but I did later on hear of them and obviously became aware of King Diamond, but I never really got into them. I never really listened to them and I don´t know why. It´s not until Hell got back together again that I thought “Who is this Mercyful Fate? I better have a look at this!” and “Wow, what have I been missing?”. I didn´t realize how close we were then although they were on the other side of the world. It´s amazing this genre was starting up.
Were there other bands that you came across while you were out touring and so on, that became bigger bands later on?
TS: Not really, no. We did a couple of gigs with some of the guys from Thin Lizzy and we did some gigs with Uriah Heep, which was great for us because they were one of my favorite bands of the time and we got to know Mick Box quite well actually. A great bunch of lads! They were brilliant to us on the gigs because they just looked after us. We weren´t getting any money and we always found there was a bit of food for us and a big case of beer in the dressing room. Really nice lads! All the bands that we were with? No, not really! There were a lot of underground bands who were around at that time. We were around at the end of the NWOBHM and before the thrash thing. I mean, Andy with Sabbat basically took what Hell was doing, because of his connection with Dave and everything, and took it to Sabbat and they were doing thrash music. The image and the ideas and everything, they took with them and carried it on. We were in a bit of a no man’s land really. Live we went down a storm, but the press just didn´t get the music because it didn´t sound like Saxon and mainstream NWOBHM. And it certainly didn´t sound like thrash, because that wasn´t what we were about. We were totally in no man´s land. It was the wrong time, if you like.
I´m looking at the demo versions and the rehearsal versions of the songs and in the booklet there´s all these refusal letters from record labels…
TS: Yeah, it´s on the cover of the vinyl of “Human remains” of course. I mean, we got the deal with Mausoleum… it was the best deal offered to us for one thing, but I think we were sort of grabbing because we recorded the original “Save us…” single up at a… it was part of Avenue Records and we recorded it at the studio, but Avenue weren´t really interested. It´s because the press didn´t really… we weren´t a cool thing to be around, you know. Word of mouth in this industry is everything. If there´s a good band knocking about, people hear about it. We just weren´t vogue and nobody was really getting it. The press, and I remember a particular character in Kerrang, slated the single and it was “Hilariously inept amateur hour demonic ramblings!”. He later, in an edition of Record Collector, hailed us “One of the bands that should´ve been a super group!”. Thanks a lot mate, you owe me a career! He was part of the scene then and I don´t hold anything against him and he was just doing his job at the time. I wouldn´t buy him a pint if I ever saw him! (laughs) I think he also was involved with an album of that era that came out and we were on that. Hindsight´s wonderful, but you can´t change history!
Where did the idea for blowing up bibles come from?
TS: It didn´t come from anywhere! I used to do the fire breathing back in the day and when we can use it, it´s still part of the set now. Obviously with a name like Hell, you´ve got a certain vision. People are gonna have this preconceived image of what the band´s gonna look like, so we said we wanted to go all out. We used a lot of pyrotechnics, a lot of big flashes, smoke and we had this thing where we used to blow this powder, Kev used to blow this powder out. Things like that and it was basically the whole thinking of things we could do that were different and would create a visual thing or shock people, if you like. Not just an audio thing. What would somebody in Hell do? `They would blow a bible up! It wasn´t actually a bible. It was a wooden box with pyro in it, dressed up as a bible and it´s still there now.
The album´s been out now for a couple of months now. How do you feel about it now? There´s been some raving reviews all over the world.
TS: It went straight into the German chart at number 12. Somebody told me it charted in Sweden, Finland and France. How do I feel? I´m living the dream! When I left school, this is what I wanted to do, to play in a band! I love rock music and I love being part of it and this is what I wanted to do. At the moment it´s strange, because I can´t think of another band who´s been in our position. We´re just leaving school again and we are literally living our dream. The response to the album… I always used to ask Andy “How many do you think we´ll sell?” and it´s exceeded everybody´s expectations! The press from it has been amazing! Can you imagine when this album first came out and we´re looking at the reviews on the computer and in the magazines and we´re being hailed in the same sentence like people like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. “The best album to come out of the UK since this!” and “Album of the year!”. It was kind of shocking and an amazing feeling! I can´t describe what it was like, because it really is like a fairytale.
It´s not the same, but if you look at a band like Anvil, the released albums but they went nowhere and then they did this movie and everybody loves them and hails them. You come along, release this album and everybody are into you as well.
TS: I think really, it´s a case of… when we were out before it was the right band at the wrong time. A lot of people have said it and we were ahead of our time. I didn´t realize that we would become as, if you like, through the tape trading industry and the underground, as big as we have. That was a shock to me, because those tapes were never ever meant to be released! They were literally done on a cassette player in a rehearsal room. Some of them were proper demos, but it was on a cassette player in the rehearsal room for us to hear how we sounded and that was it. Somehow they got out and it´s been like an advertising campaign going on worldwide that we knew nothing about! What was the question again, I´ve digressed a bit?
Just that it´s a bit similar to Anvil.
TS: Yeah, I suppose it´s similar to them. When the movie came out… I mean, in the old days… I saw them a couple of times, but they were one of those bands that came and went. I don´t know where they went, I have absolutely no idea! I enjoyed the gigs and they were great! The movie came out and it´s one of those things where it probably came out at exactly the right time. People were probably looking for something a little bit nostalgic, something that´s got a name and something that´s sort of instantly accessible. There ´s a bit of something there that they can look back on as well, there´s been a history to it and I suppose it´s the same with us. There is this history that´s surrounding it. A lot of people think this whole 1980´s thing was a big marketing ploy. It´s not! It´s all absolutely true! It really was and it is.
After Dave was gone and the whole thing with Mausoleum Records and the band ended and all that, what have you been up to during all this time?
TS: I was the only member of the original band who carried on playing. After Hell split up, we lost the deal and it basically destroyed our morale. Kev disappeared from the band because he just couldn´t carry on doing it and we got this young lad in, Sean, but like with a lot of bands, when you get new members in the chemistry of the band completely altered. Dave was down in the dumps and we were just destroyed. Basically all of a sudden you´ve got your childhood dream, you´ve got a record deal and you´re out doing it and then you fall off the ladder, if you like. That´s basically what happened to us and we just didn´t recover from it. Instead of dusting ourselves down and think “Alright, we need to go out and start getting another deal!”, it all just went completely crazy. The band split, Dave, very, very sadly… what a loss, committed suicide which was a tragedy and I still to this day remember when Tim told me and it was horrible! Hell was dead and buried as far as we were concerned. I got into a local band with some friends which was basically just a “drink a lot, play a lot, have a lot of fun band” to cheer me up. It wasn´t gonna go anywhere. We did one little single, but it was a good time, good fun. We all look back at it and enjoy it. Then I got into the tribute scene which was a big thing over here in the UK at the time. That´s where the money was! I spent years in a Status Quo tribute band of all things. I was earning really good money and we were out doing all the holiday camps and gigging very regularly. It was a good living! After that I got fed up with the Quo. I mean, I love Quo music and I grew up with it as a kid and it was the heaviest we could do to get on holiday camps, but then I got involved with a Deep Purple band who then transformed into a Rainbow tribute band and spent several years playing the circuits and festivals and doing Rainbow music, which I really enjoyed because it´s the kind of music I like. It was great fun!
When Dave committed suicide, did you ever get a real answer why he did it? Did he leave a note or anything?
TS: It´s a very personal thing, but I know one thing. Dave always said that if he hadn´t made it in a rock band by the time he was 30, he would commit suicide, but nobody took him seriously! We didn´t! I honestly think that Dave planned for Andy to find him because Dave was very, very close to Andy and he taught him how to play. They were more like brothers and Andy´s quoted in the past that he could´ve gotten off the rails but Dave was the one that sorted him out. Andy´s got so much respect for Dave and a lot of what he´s doing now is in honor of Dave, if you like. Andy as a kid was star struck watching us guys up on the stage and he sort of gone on and overtaking us and become the guy he is in the production world. He sort of wanted to honor Dave for giving him that opportunity and for being such an influence. Andy´s living the dream as well. He would´ve never have thought that one day he´d be in the band that he started out admiring and he´s now the main man behind the band, production wise and the guitarist. He´s enjoying it as much as we are. He´s loving it and he wants to get back into being a guitarist again. He´s done the production thing for years and he loves to get out there and play!
What else did he bring production wise to the band?
TS: Andy knew the band from the very early days because he basically spent half his life with Dave so he had that, like root into the way the band was. The feelings and the atmosphere. He obviously knew us all, but also, Andy has been involved in the industry ever since and he´s seen the changes, the growths, the goods, the bads and everything through it. When he came to do the album, he got this picture in his mind of how he wanted the music to sound. He didn´t want to make it ultra modern and he didn´t want to bring in blast beats drums and everything. He wanted to keep it as much as it was, but give it that modern edge. Everybody´s labeling us as NWOBHM and it´s bound to be that ilk to it because the music was written in the early 80´s, but I think he wanted to transcend then and now and try and be that bridge between. He just wanted to make it sound how it should´ve sounded, but of course he´s got all the modern toys to do it with.
How come you ended up on Nuclear Blast? Did they approach you?
TS: Nuclear Blast actually, was the first label who… when “Human remains” was being recorded, Andy sent some rushes out because obviously Andy works with Nuclear Blast and for what I remember, they said back “When it´s done, give us first refusal!” and they wanted to straight away and then it went quiet, so Andy said “Well, we´re gonna take it somewhere else!” and various labels came onboard like Century Media, Metal Blade and by the end of it we got five labels literally arguing and fighting and tailoring the deal to suit us, which again “Hang on a minute! What´s happening? This wasn´t in the script!” and we were just about to sign up with… we were talking with Metal Blade or Century Media and all of a sudden Nuclear Blast came back to us “No, we want it! This is the deal, tell us what you want! There you go! Sign, sign, sign!”. I think because Nuclear Blast had originally said “This is great!”. People there love the music and they knew of the band of old and if you´ve got somebody like that, you´re not just a product. There´s a little bit more intimacy there and a bit more feeling and I think Andy felt that Nuclear Blast was the right people to go with and they´ve been great! Absolutely fantastic! Great to work with and have done the business for us.
There´s obviously gonna be more albums?
TS: Oh yes! We´ve got a couple of songs that we´re starting to work on at the moment. One is just about in a playable state. I´m not gonna tell you which one it is, but at New Years Eve we´re doing a local gig and we´re hopefully gonna be demoing three or four songs at that gig, which should be nice for the local fans to hear. The next album is gonna be… we believe about 50 percent old and 50 percent new and the new stuff is being written and it sounds killer! We don´t wanna try, as a lot of modern bands do, and jump on the band wagon. We´re trying to keep it as near… can you imagine if the band had carried on and we´d had “Human remains” out in 1983, then we want to try and write music that would´ve been what we´d have done in 1984. We certainly don´t wanna jump on anybody else’s band wagon, because we´ve got a unique sound and we wanna keep it that way! I think we´ll be working on the older material before we start on the new ones. We´re in that groove. The idea is to try and keep it as Hell as possible.
Good to hear! Touring wise then?
TS: At the beginning of December we´re doing a London show with Sabaton and we´re really looking forward to that! Then we´re doing “Darkness over Christmas” and then we´ve got a bit time off. We´ve got Hammerfest in March and then we´ve got Rock Hard and there are other things which are on the verge of confirmation which I cannot disclose for obvious reasons. We expect to be quite busy next year, both writing and recording and touring.
I guess we can see you next summer at Sweden Rock?
TS: Well, we´d love to come and do it! We really enjoyed the cruise! The Swedish people are fantastic! It was a really good gig. Every now and then you get gigs that are kind of special and this was one. It was really great! Same as the one we had in Greece as well. On all the gigs, the response has been phenomenal! We´ve gone down so well. I think every time we do a show there´s a spike in album sales and we do well on the merch.
Finally, about the artwork for “Human remains”. Is that anyway close to the original idea+ had you discussed the artwork the first time around?
TS: It´s one of the original ideas we had. We never got to the point with Mausoleum, but I know at one point in time, we had an idea and the album was originally gonna be called “The devil´s deadly weapon”. That was one of the working titles and one of the ideas that we were talking about… and it´s later what became a very historic album, and that was just a plain straight forward black cover with an embossed Hell logo on it! Something that was different. So many bands do these cliché fantasy monster type things and I suppose to a point the cover to “Human remains” fits slightly in that ilk, but it´s not totally that way, because of London burning in the background you´ve got a connection with “Plague and fyre”. We just wanted something that would visually stand out in adverts for one. How close is it to the original? That´s difficult to say. A friend of mine did a painting that he would´ve liked to go on the album cover, which I suppose is very similar, certainly color wise it is very similar. The vinyl package… I´m so proud of it because it´s one of the best triple vinyl packages I´ve ever seen! The artwork is something…. We´ve all had a lot of input, “Color it like this! Do it like that!” and the guy who´s done the artwork has done a killer job! 99 percent of the people love it and as far as I´m aware, he will be doing the next cover as well. What that will be, I have no idea! No working titles or anything yet! Some people say the album cover is cheesy, but we never had our bit of cheese! This is our slice of cheese! We´ve just done what we think is right and that´s what we wanna continue doing.
Well Tony, I thank you so much!
TS: Thank you!
/Niclas
Kan man kalla det kulturhistoria?
Annonsen som Peter Criss satte in i Rolling Stone 1972, vilket ledde till att han blev medlem i vad som kom att bli KISS.
/Niclas
Veckans Henry!
Henry delar med sig av sitt nuvarande liv "on the road" och hur viktigt det är med sömn.
Henry här
/Niclas
Peruvian marching powder!
Efter jobbet bär det idag av till radion och en intervju med bandet Rock N´ Roll Allstars, som lirar på finalen i tävlingen "Released and Unsigned" den 17:e december på Göta Källare i Stockholm.
Ikväll ringer jag sedan upp Kee Marcello för att få hela storyn kring boken, hur det känns att snorta upp halva Peru samt allt annat som kretsar kring "rockstjärnan som gud glömde".
Nästa vecka blir det som tidigare nämnts förhoppningsvis en telefonare med spanska ´77 och på torsdag, om allt går vägen, intervju med Machine Head och Bring Me The Horizon.
/Niclas
Bokrecension
"Rockstjärnan som gud glömde" 2011
Kee Marcello med Stafan Johansson
Jag hade inga förväntningar alls och tyckte väl som så många andra verkar ha tyckt, vad i hela världen kan Kee Marcello ha att berätta?
Men, det visade sig ganska tidigt i boken att det här blev något av en överraskning. Kee skriver roligt och rakt och på sina ställen även rörande.
Efter att i tidig ålder ha knockats av Deep Purple plockar han upp gitarren och sedan är vägen mot stjärnglansen given, även om han kör ner i diket vid olika tillfällen. Via en sen upplaga av Noice bildar han Easy Action med Peo Thyrén och det är då det riktiga rocklivet tar sin början. Det partajas och liras rock and roll, som om det inte fanns en morgondag.
1986 hör Thomas Erdtman av sig och värvar Kee till Europe som då är på väg ut i världen med stormsteg. Detta blir början på både framgång och motgång. Europe säljer skivor som smör, turnerar världen över och Kee anammar rockstjärnelivet med allt vad det innebär.
Erdtman roffar åt sig pengar, bandet flyttar till Västindien av skatteskäl och historien som följer sedan är till viss del känd sedan tidigare efter spaltmeter i kvällspressen genom åren. Men att Kee utvecklade allvarliga drogproblem är nog mindre känt för de flesta. Han krökar och suger i sig koks dygnet runt och tappar givetvis senare fotfästet rejält.
Det bjuds på mängder av riktigt roliga historier, där snedtändningen i Stockholm på tidigt 80-tal är hysteriskt kul, även om Kee själv tror att den ledde till mindre hjärnskador. Han krökar och snortar med Steve Lukather, skrattar i kapp med Gene Simmons och hamnar i säng med silikonstinna amerikanskor. Som Kee beskriver sitt rockstjärneliv, ligger han inte alltför långt efter exempelvis Nikki Sixx eller Anthony Kiedis.
Dock bjuder Kee också på en del smärta, där hans pappa Hildings och bäste vännnen Svens bortgångar, är djupt rörande. Faktum är att man verkligen känner för Kee i dessa svåra stunder.
De andra medlemmarna i Europe ges inte allt för smickrande porträtt, minst av allt Joey Tempest, och hur Kees stämning av bandet kommer att gå återstår att se.
"Rockstjärnan som gud glömde" är en riktigt bra och intressant bok om en av Sveriges få rockstjärnor som turnerat på stora arenor världen över. Den är en mycket positiv överraskning och bör tilltala de flesta som är någorlunda intresserade av musikerlivet, oavsett vad man tycker om pudelrockarna Europe.
/Niclas
Q&A med Mario och Anders i Nightrage!
För några veckor sedan gjorde jag en radiointervju med Mario i Nightrage. En trevlig grek som brinner för sitt band.
Jag skickade även iväg lite frågor och fick svar från både Mario och Anders.
What are you up to at the moment?
Marios :Right now we are on a North American tour with Firewind, Arsis and White Wizzard. The tour goes really well and we are getting a cool response for our new album and the live shows that we are doing. Right now we are traveling in Canada to play in Kelowna and we can’t wait to make another cool show. There is a couple of shows to get done and so far we are really happy with the tour and we can´t wait to come back to North America for more shows.
Why is Olof sitting out the tour and how is he doing?
Marios: He couldn’t do the tour because of financial reasons and also he has to do shows with his other band. Other than that he is doing fine and he can’t wait to come back to the Nightrage shows.
Tell us a bit about the upcoming tour?
Marios: The upcoming tour will take place in Europe at February 2012, and we are going to be co –headliners along with Deadlock. Threat Signal will also be on the package and some other support acts. We are working on this idea right now with our booker Wietze from Armada Agency and we can´t wait to play those shows and meet all our European fans.
How did you pick Bill Hudson to fill in?
Marios: Antony knew him and we just asked him and he was really interested and willing to play with us, I have showed him all of the songs through Skype and then we took 4 days in our hotel in Tampa Florida just before the tour, and we jammed all songs and fine tune all parts together. He is doing a really great work and he is a very cool guy and amazing guitarist. We have the most of fun here on the North America tour.
Where did the title "Insidious" come from?
Marios: It’s a title that Antony had from a long time and when he showed me, I instantly liked it and then after some time we felt that this is also the title for the new album. It fits really well with the lyrical concept of the new album. We are speaking about the darker side of human beings and the way that they treat other people. This title inspired me to write the most of the lyrics for this album and it was the right idea at the right time to make this album.
Tell us a bit about the artwork?
Marios: Well I sent the title track “Insidious” to Gustavo Sazes, (he also did the last cover of our previous album “Wearing A Martyr´s Crown”) along with the lyrics and then he sent us this cover, I think he really understands our music and lyrics and he has the ability to transfer and capture this on a cover idea. We are happy with his work and also the fact that he is fast, precise and very focused.
Any fun stories from the recording sessions?
Anders: We recorded the album in Athens, so we often went out to eat and met friends who live in the city. One night we bought a lot of beer and walked all the way up to Akropolis and sat there drinking and looking at all the illuminated Greek temples. That´s a memory that will last a long time.
Were there any leftovers from the recording sessions that didn’t make it unto the album?
Anders: No, everything we recorded made the album
What was it like working on this album?
Anders: We recorded in Zero Gravity Studios in Athens and then we mixed the album at home in Studio Fredman, in Gothenburg. We worked with a guy called Terry, in Greece. He did a great job with recording everything. Then of course, Studio Fredman are masters when it comes to getting a great metal production.
How do you go about writing songs for an album? Do you ever use stuff that didn’t en up on the previous one?
Anders: Det är mest Marios och Olof som skriver musiken. Absolut, ibland kommer det med gamla riff som har skrivits för flera år sen.
It´s mostly Mario and Olof who write the music. And yes, sometimes old riffs that we´re written years ago, are used.
Where did you get the idea for the Def Leppard cover?
Anders: We wanted to make a cover of something that wasn´t metal to begin with. On our previous album we did a Metallica cover, which was loads of fun, but it´s more of a challenge to pick a song like “Photograph”. We probably chose it because of the chorus, which I think fits our overall sound.
Was it a difficult song to record?
Anders: We worked a lot on the vocals, but fortunate enough, Apollo from Firewind helped us a lot with the choruses.
When can we expect Nightrage to hit Sweden?
Anders: We have plans to tour Europe in 2012 and if they want to book us somewhere in Sweden, it would be awesome to play on my home turf.
/Niclas
Just nu!
Jobbar sent idag, men beger mig sedan direkt från jobbet in till Warner HQ för intervju med Skinny och Andreas i Deathstars. Ska bli kul att höra vad de har för sig och hur de ser på den stundande turnén med übertyskarna Rammstein.
På måndag bli det troligtvis en telefonintervju med Armand i spanska ´77. Ett oerhört kul band som lånar friskt från AC/DC, men ändå får ihop egna och dessutom enormt svängiga låtar. Jag säger det igen; Kolla upp nya plattan "High decibels"!
I helgen siktar jag på att skriva ut mitt snack med Tony Speakman i Hell och kanske blir det ny intervju med Machine Head när de gästar huvudstaden nästa vecka.
Glöm inte utlottningen av Kee Marcellos självbiografi! Intresset för boken visade sig vara stort. Lottningen kommer jag låta dottern utföra på måndag och då utses den lycklige mottagaren.
Hail Satan/Niclas
Vill ha!
Ny och väldigt påkostad bootlegbox med KISS. 95 dollar är priset för dessa uphottade klassiska liveinspelningar.
"A BOXSET FEATURING 6 CD’s WITH NEW MASTERS OF VINTAGE KISS VINYL RELEASES FROM THE 70’s
HOUSED IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL LAVISH TRIPLE-GATEFOLD ARTWORK PLUS: • ADDITIONAL RARE BONUSTRACKS
• COMPREHENSIVE LINER NOTES
• NEVER BEFORE SEEN PHOTOS
• A SIXTEEN PAGE BOOKLET
• 8 CARDS WITH"
CD 1
Long Beach Auditorium, Long Beach, Ca, USA May 31 1974 - KNAC Broadcast
1. Intro & Deuce
2. Nothing To Lose
3. She & Solo Ace Frehley
4. Firehouse
5. Strutter
6. 100.000 Years
7. Black Diamond
8. Baby, Let Me Go
The Parthenon Theatre, Hammond, In, USA October 18 1974
9. Firehouse
10. She & Solo Ace Frehley
11. 100.000 Years
12. Black Diamond
13. Let Me Go, Rock & Roll
14. Cold Gin
CD 2
Calderone Concert Hall, Hempstead, Ny, USA August 23 1975
1. Intro
2. Deuce
3. Strutter
4. Got To Choose
5. Hotter Than Hell
6. Firehouse
7. She
8. Solo Ace Frehley
9. Nothing To Lose
10. C’Mon & Love Me
11. Solo Gene Simmons
12. 100.000 Years
13. Solo Peter Criss/100.000 Years -cont-
14. Black Diamond
15. Cold Gin
16. Rock & Roll All Nite
17. Let Me Go, Rock & Roll
Fremd High School Gymnasium, Palatine, Ill, USA April 19 1975
18. Room Service
The Bayou, Georgetown, Washington D.C., USA March 25 1974 (evening show)
19. Love Theme From KISS
CD 3
Hammersmith Odeon, London, England May 16 1976
1. Intro
2. Deuce
3. Strutter
4. Flaming Youth
5. Hotter Than Hell
6. Firehouse’
7. She
8. Solo Ace Frehley
9. Nothing To Lose
10. Shout It Out Loud
11. Black Diamond
12. Detroit Rock City
San Diego Sports Arena, San Diego, Ca, USA February 27 1976
13. Rock & Roll All Nite
L.A. Forum, Los Angeles, Ca, USA August 28 1977
14. I Stole Your Love
15. Firehouse
16. Love Gun
17. Hooligan
18. Christine Sixteen
19. Shock Me
20. Solo Ace Frehley
21. Calling Dr. Love
CD 4
Anaheim Stadium, Anaheim, Ca, USA August 20 1976
1. Pre-show announcements
2. intro/Detroit Rock City
3. King Of The Nigh Time World
4. Let Me Go Rock & Roll
5. Strutter
6. Hotter Than Hell
7. Nothing To Lose
8. Cold Gin/Solo Ace Frehley
9. Shout It Out Loud
10. Do You Love Me?
11. Solo Gene Simmons/God Of Thunder/Solo Peter Criss
12. Rock & Roll All Nite
13. Deuce
14. Firehouse
15. Black Diamond
Lafayette’s Music Room, Memphis, Tn, USA April 18 1974 - WMC-FM-100 Broadcast
16. You’re Much Too Young
Music Hall, Cleveland, Oh, USA June 21 1975
17. Let Me Know
Mid South Coliseum, Memphis, Tn, USA December 2 1976
18. Strutter
19. Hard Luck Woman
CD 5
Nippon Budokan, Tokyo Japan, April 1 1977
1. Intro/Detroit Rock City
2. Take Me
3. Let Me Go Rock & Roll
4. Ladies Room
5. Firehouse
6. Makin’ Love
7. I Want You
8. Cold Gin
9. Solo Ace Frehley
10. Do You Love me?
11. Nothing To Lose
12. Solo Gene Simmons
13. God Of Thunder
14. Solo Peter Criss/God Of Thunder -cont-
15. Rock & Roll All Nite
16. Shout It Out Loud
17. Beth
18. Black Diamond
National Guard Armory Rockford, Rockford, Ill, USA November 15 1975
19. Ladies In Waiting
Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, Nj, USA July 10 1976
20. Watching You/Solo Peter Criss
21. Flaming Youth
CD 6
L.A. Forum, Los Angeles, CA, USA August 26 1977
1. Intro/I Stole Your Love
2. Take Me
3. Ladies Room
4. Firehouse
5. Love Gun
6. Hooligan
7. Makin’ Love
8. Christine Sixteen
9. Shock Me
10. Solo Ace Frehley
11. I Want You
12. Calling Dr. Love
13. Shout It Loud
14. Solo Gene Simmons
15. God Of Thunder
16. Solo Peter Criss/God Of Thunder -cont-
17. Rock & Roll All Nite
18. Detroit Rock City
19. Beth
20. Black Diamond
Roberts Municipal Stadium, Evansville, In, USA January 23 1978
21. Deuce
/Niclas
Utlottning av bok!
Kee Marcello har nyss gett ut sin självbiografi som förtäljer om livet som firad stjärna i Europe, men även om livet före och efter bandet.
Han skriver ärligt och riktigt roligt och det är lite kul att för en gångs skull få läsa om en svensk "rockstjärna" och inte bara de amerikanska. Det bjuds på ett galet missbruk, sex och groupies i klasar och den alltid så självklara baksidan med ångest, förlorade pengar och inte minst, förlorad stjärnglans.
Jag har ett exemplar av boken att lotta ut och kanske blir det just DU som får ett paket i brevlådan. Allt du behöver göra är att svara på nedanstående enkla fråga!
Vad heter Kee Marcello på riktigt?
Jag drar en lycklig vinnare bland alla rätta svar. Maila svaret samt namn och adress
till: metalshrine@hotmail.com Sista datum för svar är måndag den 31:e oktober.
/Niclas
Intervju med Danny Vaughn i Tyketto!
Jag har ett svagt minne av att jag köpte Tykettos debut "Don´t come easy" till min bror, men han menar att han själv köpte den. Hur som haver är det väl det närmsta jag kommit till att lyssna på bandet.
För några veckor sedan fick jag ett mail av en glad norrman vid namn Geir, som skriver för Norway Rock Magazine, och han undrade om jag skulle vara intresserad av en intervju med Danny.
Eftersom jag tycker alla former av intervjuer är roliga tackade jag ja. Någon dag senare mailade Danny mig och sedan blev det dags för ett snack.
Han var självfallet ännu en trevlig bekantskap och samtalet kom att handla om kommande plattan med Tyketto, bandets historia, turnéminnen, låtskrivande och en del annat.
Hola Danny, how are you?
Danny Vaughn: Not too bad! What´s going on?
Not too much, just sitting around drinking coffee in a pretty dark Stockholm.
DV: Yeah, it´s getting to be that time isn´t it?
Exactly! It´s darker in the mornings and it gets darker earlier in the evenings. Winter is just around the corner.
DV: Somebody told me that Denmark is expecting snow in the next week.
Yeah, and the last couple of winters here have been horrible.
DV: Yeah, I´ve got some good friends in Finland and they had a rough one, but they had a great summer as well. It´s been kind of extreme.
True! What´s up with Danny Vaughn? What´s going on at the moment?
DV: Well, it´s turning into a busy time that´s for sure. The biggest thing is all the stuff that´s going on with Tyketto now, which has kind of been happening quietly and now of course all of a sudden when you´ve got your travel plans in your hand and the new schedules are up and it´s like “Oh shit!”. (laughs) This is really going on. I don´t even know how widely it is known that we´re actually doing an album, because we just kind of approached it so quietly initially. We really kind of started talking about it almost two years ago and it was just a thing of “Let´s get a few of us together first and see if it´s even gonna happen!” because people had been asking. You just wanna make sure you can still write songs and whether or not you´re gonna get along and all that stuff, so that was in February of last year and we got together and shelled out some ideas and then everybody went home feeling pretty good about it. That´s leading us up to… I guess we´re in the studio at the end of this month, about the 20th or 25th of October and we´re recording in Millbrook, NY where I did two of my slolo albums, so I´m really happy about that because I know the studio well and more importantly we know the owner and the producer and all that and he knows exactly what where after and how to do it, so it´s gonna be fairly stretch free, I think. It´s gonna be for Frontiers and probably released… I don´t have a date, but we´ve made them promise a spring release, so I would think April, May. We´re gonna be looking to do a full on European tour if we can, sometime in the summer and of course we´re gonna be banging on Sweden Rock´s door again and see what we can find out from them. They´re getting a bit harder to get answers out of them. I used to know more people over there, but they´ve changed personnel around, which was kind of a shame because the people I knew aren´t with them anymore, but none the less, we´re gonna have good reasons to be out there playing. It´s the first new album and it´s all done with the original line up. It´s kind of bizarre. We have this strange relationship, in that Brooke would´ve been involved before but he was in a position where he couldn´t tour because of his job and so we got PJ and Brooke and PJ are great friends and in fact Brooke recommended PJ and PJ had already played in my band, so it was real easy. Now he´s got all this stuff going on and it´s a little bit sad, because PJ is on the backburner at the moment. It´s just a fact that the fans really would like to see Brooke, so basically the new album will be him. We´re gonna do four shows in the UK and the last of which is Hard Rock Hell on December 3rd. We´re gonna play a few new songs and that´s just because we got the offer to do Hard Rock Hell, but that´s really an event we should be part of. If you´re gonna take a band over from America, it´s just crazy to do one show, so we threw in a London show and Sheffield and Southhampton and that will all be with Brooke as well. First time for everybody to see him since 2004 and then the big thing and the original reason that I contacted you and which I´m trying to make as many people aware of, is that we´re trying something new. This live show webcast and that is November the 26th.
From New York, right?
DV: Yeah! The trick is figuring out what the time frame is, but it´s 3 pm New York time, so that´s gonna be roughly 9 pm in Sweden. We´ve kind of designed it so Europe would get the better time. Hopefully some people in Japan will tune in, but it will be something like 3 in the morning. (laughs) We´re doing that and basically the way for people to find out about it and to get all the proper information, is to go to our website which is www.tyketto.de and there´s a banner right there about the webcast and if you click on it it´s got all the information. We´re doing it through PayPal, so when they sign up through PayPal, within four or five days they´ll get a special code that gets e-mailed to them and then that´s what they use on the day. You´ll need a pass code to get in. What I´m trying to do is to avoid everybody getting it done 20 minutes before the show starts and it´ll be overload. It´ll be a full show with the original band plus our keyboard player, who´s been playing in my solo band and also with Tyketto, so we´ve got really strong sound and it´ll be a full 90 minute show and it´s gonna be interactive so people can write in and ask questions, request songs and stuff like that. It´s scary, but it´s exciting! (laughs)
Well, you´re embracing the latest technology, I guess.
DV: Yeah and kind of out of necessity. I´ve heard of one or two other bands at our level trying this. For instance, and I didn´t even know they were doing it, but Chickenfoot just did it so obviously it´s something pretty damn big if a band that size is doing it! With us, it was more along the lines of… it´s frustrating that there´s so many places that we can´t get to play. In America the situation is… let´s say, we´ve got plenty of fans in the Chicago area and we´ve got fans in the Dallas area and it´s a long, long way in between and unfortunately it´s all logistics. You can´t sustain a band and a crew and travelling and gear, so you´ve got to find places in between and if those don´t exist, that means I can´t get to those places, so for me it´s exciting because people who are scattered all over can see us and the same with… we haven´t played in Germany for a long time and Scandinavia, it´s kind of slim so I´m really hoping we´ll get people… I´ve got a good feeling we´ll get there, but it´s very difficult to find the right promoters and somebody that doesn´t disappear on you and also South America, that´s another big one for us and they´ll be able to watch as well, so we´re really gonna give this a shot and see how it goes!
It´s pretty cool! It´s kind of like going back to what music videos were really about in like the early 70´s and late 60´s when bands made videos for those countries that they wouldn´t visit, so they would get a glimpse of what the band looked like. It´s kind of the same, but updated. You really don´t need a video these days, like you did in the 80´s. A really cool way to reach out to people that you might not get to see for a long time.
DV: Yeah definitely! The thing is, that as it becomes more of an idea that bands are getting into, I think the cost of doing it is gonna come down and hopefully it will mean a lot more opportunities for people to see the bands that they love. I mean, I hope it doesn´t stop people from going out to see live music, but the internet has changed so much and we´re entering a generation now where people are now coming out of being teenagers into their 20´s and they´ve never paid for anything! It´s been around long enough where… my generation, I still buy cd´s and I like having them and the artwork and reading ever damn word, but people who weren´t brought up with that, they don´t feel the same way. It doesn´t mean as much to them. It´s a mystery where it´s all going and the only thing I do know is that nobody knows! Record companies are clueless and they don´t have an idea what to do.
Signing with Frontiers Records, was that the obvious thing to do? They´re getting big!
DV: Overall what it comes down to is that there´s only a couple of labels that we would be talking to, for the music that we´re doing. There´s a couple of others and they´re also very good, but to be perfectly frank with you, they don´t have the budgets and that was kind of important to us. One thing I´m a little frightened of is making a record that sounds like it cost five grand. You don´t wanna do that after you´ve not made a record together for 16 years. This is how much things have changed. The first Tyketto album cost… I think it was $250.000 when it was all done. Something mad like that. It´s the typical story, you´re a new band, they go “We´re gonna put you in A&M studios!” and you go “Great!”, but you don´t think “Yes, but you´re paying for it!”. (laughs) It was a wonderful experience! A&M studios was $3000 a day back then! I remember later on, we got sort of a look in at some of the bills that we had. We paid Richie Zito´s (producer) assistant´s salary for the entire two months that we made that album. Her salary was $700 a week and while she was lovely and occasionally made nice sandwiches, she didn´t do anything for the band! Her job was looking after him! It was that kind of mental bending that was going on and you just sit there now and then everybody assumed that in order to make a great sounding record, you had to go with the best of this, the best of that and now of course, everything has changed. You can make a great sounding record on a laptop, which I think is great because that means that there are so much more possibilities for even guys who don´t have record deals, to be heard! You at least stand that chance. There´s websites that specialize in unsigned bands where you can listen a bit and download it and that´s great! The other side of course that´s worrying, is that nobody´s paying for music and how can anybody afford to make it? It´s a bizaree double edged sword.
You signed with Geffen Records back then and they were a major label. How come you signed with them?
DV: Back then… well, I´m proud to say that we kind of had the choice of the litter. We had done several kind of key shows and the last one was a full on showcase, we basically opened up for Skid Row in New York City at the Cat Club and there were at least three or probably four labels there. I think Capitol was there and Atlantic was there, so we were one of the last of the lucky ones that had that kind of thing going on. Geffen was there and they made a very strong pitch and seemed genuinely excited and we kind of looked at what they were doing and we really liked what we saw of Geffen records over all, as a company.
Gerry Gersh, do you know him? (Gersh is a good friend of some distant relatives of mine. Editor´s note)
DV: By name…
Was he involved in Geffen back then?
DV: I don´t know, you know! I´m not sure! We were under John Kalodner´s wing, eventually. We were signed by Mary Gormley and when we were in LA he took over. We were moving with the big boys.
Back then, were you based in New York and then you wound up in LA or…?
DV: Yeah, we were based primarily in New York and New Jersey. We recorded in LA, but yeah, we always stayed in New York. New York and people from LA don´t get along! (laughs) It´s two entirely different worlds. The way I generally describe it to people who don´t know, is that I say “When a person from LA shakes your hand, his other hand has got a knife behind his back. When a person from New York shakes your hand, his other hand has got a knife right where you can see it!”. (laughs)
That´s a good one! Were you born and raised in Cleveland?
DV: Born yes, raised no. How did you find that out?
I don´t know! I just read it somewhere and I just thought of Gilby Clarke and Eric Singer and Derrick Green are from Cleveland as well. I asked Gilby if he ever came across Singer, but he didn´t and then he said that he later found out 20 years later that they lived on the same block.
DV: I can add another guy to that list which is Pat Torpey. I met him last week and we were just chatting and he goes “Yeah well, I´m originally from Cleveland!” and I go “Get out of town!”. (laughs) A lot of music from Cleveland, historically speaking too. I think I had early on hippie sort of parents because I was born there and my dad worked for General Motors at the time and not long after that, because he´s a painter and still is, he decided that he needed to see all the great museums of Europe, so they just packed up everything that they had and we left for Europe when I was two years old and he dragged me all over Europe for about three years. Living half the time in a Morris Mini. I don´t remember any of it! (laughs) Too early! But it definitely had a contribution to who I am now and probably why I feel very comfortable in Europe.
But prior to Tyketto and all this, at what age did you get into music and singing in bands? The early teens or…?
DV: As far as music in general, I think that started pretty young. My mum said I was singing Beatles songs before I came out. I used to sing Beatles songs all the time. My parents listened to a lot of music and my father played piano for a little while, so there was music in the house. At some point, when I went to a particular school in New York City that had a really good music and choir program, I was obviously a lead singer from the start because they really couldn´t control me. It was like “We gotta do something with this kid! He´s driving us nuts! Stick him in chorus and at least he´ll make noise constructively and it kind of stuck from there. They had a music program and like most kids I started playing recorder and that kind of took too and I ended up doing that for several years and doing proper quartets with it. I just kind of fell in love with that and my first band… I think I was about 15 and probably one of the most powerful record executives in the world, Jason Flom, was the guitar player. It was his band and we knew each other from school. Our first school band had… let´s see, our drummer´s still playing and he works with a lot of jazz artists and the bass player was a classical guitarist and we´d hand him a bass “Go with that!”. They´re all still out there in various forms or another. It started there and I´ve had a few breaks, but it hasn´t really stopped.
Where did the name Tyketto come from?
DV: Oh, the question! It doesn´t mean anything. We saw it spray painted on a wall and it happened in one of those weeks where we had spent the previous months trying to figure what the hell we were gonna call ourselves and it comes to the point where you get so punch drunk that you´re just naming shit in the room, like “Let´s call ourselves Guitar stand!”. I think Brooke had spotted it and it was just spray painted on a wall and he said “I saw this word and I don´t know what it is!”. We looked it up to see if it was something Spanish and we never did find anything. There were things that sounded like it and the more we kicked it around, “Yeah, that´ll do!” and it sounds kind of cool. Every now and then someone comes along and I think “What a great name for a band”, but not too often anymore. I think they´re all done. As great as the band is, but Def Leppard! What kind of name is that? I couldn´t even imagine these days… the band that´s opening up for us on tour, Fighting Wolves, not bad!
Back then when the first album came out, did you do a lot of touring where you were sort of the main act or did you do a lot of support slots?
DV: I think it was about half of each. Probably the best supporting tour we did was when we supported Nelson I the States. They had “After the rain” going and it was number one in America.
They never made a splash in Europe, as far as I can remember.
DV: Yeah, not so much. I think the UK a bit, but not at that level. We were playing 15.000 a night and it was… I´ll tell you what! You ever meet any of those old road dogs who are roadies that have toured with everybody? They usually don´t have all their teeth and they´re rough guys. When Nelson would hit the stage, there were a couple of those guys in the crew that had been there, done that and they´d worked with Motörhead, with Zeppelin and whatever, but when Nelson hit the stage, the sound of 15.000 girls all in the age of 12, these guys would just hold their hands over their ears and scream “I can´t take it!”. It was this unbelievable high pitched sound that was so loud, but the tour was made like that. It was a little strange, because you were playing to them and their mums. They were fantastic guys and we´re still friends. It was a great double bill and each band made the other work harder. The great thing about Nelson, which people didn´t know unless they went to their shows, was that those guys were smart. They put together the most kick ass live bad! Their guitar player was Brett Garsed and he´s the legendary best guitarist out of Australia. Bobby Rock was on drums and Matthew is an exceptional bass player as it happens and all the guys sang, so all the vocals were live. I used to watch them rehearse and go “Man, these guys have got their shit together!”. We just had to go out there and work as hard as we could. It was a great tour! The first band we opened for was Blue Öyster Cult and that was before we had a record deal. We opened for Skid Row and the Bulletboys and we opened for Yngwie. Most of these are just one offs.
How was Yngwie?
DV: Hhmm! (clears his throat)
The talk about Yngwie is that he´s kind of a dick.
DV: (laughs) I gotta remember I´m talking to Sweden! Well, he isn´t kind of a dick, he really is. (laughs) He didn´t like us because his wife liked us, that´s what I was told. I just heard stories, but the show was fine, no problems there. We did a lot of stuff! The White Lion tour, that was the big one, because they were quite big at the time. It was the first time we went overseas and we did seven shows in the UK opening up for White Lion and that really cemented Tyketto´s reputation in Europe and thank god! European fans have a much longer memory and attention span. Americans, I don´t know what´s wrong with us? It just goes out the window quickly, but I´ve always been able to come and play and it doesn´t matter if it´s big or small numbers. It´s people that know that when they come, they´re gonna get their monies worth and they´re going to hear what they wanna hear. That was our strength, that when you came to see us live you went “Wow, ok!”.
Ted Poley recently played here and I talked to him and we talked about the old New Jersey scene and your name came up.
DV: Now, Ted and I go so far back it probably scares us both! He was in a band called Legend and I was in a band called Allied Forces and actually I was in a band before that, that opened up for Legend. We were in an area called Rockland county, upstate New York. We all knew each other from then and I always kid Ted about that. I never forget opening up for him. For one thing, he was a drummer back then and he played this very bizarre drum company called North Drums and instead of the tom tom coming straight down, it scoped, so the tops of the heads were where they normally were and then you had this tube shape and suddenly the bottom of the drum was in your face and he played these bloody things. That´s where he started out, as Legend´s drummer and a good singer as well! We go further back then we really wanna remember. You had Skid Row, you had us and Kip Winger and Reb Beach were working on an album in New York and these were all people that I knew, they were all our peers and we all worshipped Twisted Sister, who got there before us.
Cool! This new album of yours, it is all new stuff or are there fragments of stuff that´s been lying around since way back?
DV: Not since way back, no. I would say it´s almost all new. There´s a few things that might have been floating around in our separate briefcases over the last year or two, but it´s not like “You know this idea we were working on for Don´t come easy?”, those ideas I think have been exhausted. I don´t think there´s anything left over from that. As a matter of fact, the last of them probably went on my solo album “Traveller”, where we had a song called “Restless blood” that Tyketto came really close to putting on an album and then it just didn´t quite make it. There´s a few personal ideas that´s been floating around for a little bit, but overall we´ve been really sort of creating under pressure and it seems to work for us. The closer we get to actually having to be in the studio together, the better the ideas are getting. Some of the stuff that we were enthusiastic about at the very beginning, a couple of those might end up not making it because now everyone´s in a really creative mood. It´s so bizarre, because the thing that I thought was fairly unique about Tyketto in the beginning, is that we all lived together. We´d work on songs, like a rock and roll boot camp. We get up, we scratch together something to eat and then we´d go next door because we rehearsed in the same building. Everybody would just play and play and play until something happened. Occasionally you´d actually need to buy food, so you had to go off and work a job or something for a few days, get some money and then back we´d go. Now we don´t even live in the same country anymore. (laughs) The other day was the strangest experience. Brooke and I were working on some stuff via Skype and he´d play me stuff and say “Then I change it to this!” and I say “What´s that?” and he has to hold up the guitar so I could see what his fingers were doing.
The age of technology!
DV: Yeah, I guess we just gotta use it! If you´ve told me this is how you´re gonna make an album, I would´ve said no! But luckily I´m wrong.
Writing songs, does it get easier getting older or…?
DV: No, it gets harder! I´m very passionate on this subject. I´ve got this huge book of songwriters on songwriting and you read about people like Paul Simon and Burt Bacharach and heroes of mine like Tom Hiatt and Tom Waits, guys that I think are real artists, for me what gets harder is that you´ve got to learn to shut off the person inside you that says “That´s been done!”. For one thing, say I´m widely in love and I´m gonna go write about that, what possible angle can up with for that? It´s only when you write very unusual songs, that you can gain a little uniqueness and that´s when you go to somebody like Tom Waits. Nobody writes songs like that! That´s very hard, because I´ll sit down and write and stop myself cold because everything I´ll play, “Ah, I´ve heard that! I´ve done that!” or so and so did it. You gotta shut that voice up because there are no more notes and there are no more combination of notes. The only thing unique that can happen, is what happens when you kind of put all the personalities together with a band and then maybe you stand a chance. Some people, if they´re truly gifted can write a song, and I´m thinking more from a lyrical standpoint, where they can say something in just such a way that you´ve not heard said before, but there aren´t many! The guys that do that, I hate to say, are normally not rockers. It´s gonna be… well Frank Zappa was pretty damn unique so there´s an exception to that rule, but he had to go so far in that outward direction to be unique, so songwriting gets hard from that aspect. I´ll give you kind of an image that I always keep, because for some guys it seems to come easy. Some guys are very, in a way, smarter than I am about it because I´m one of those people that doesn´t like to write unless I´m starting to feel something. There are other people that I think actually have a better attitude where they do it as business, like Gene Simmons who said, “I don´t understand people who say I couldn´t write today, the spirit wasn´t on me. Fuck that! This is your job and I´m going in from this hour to this hour and I´m gonna write something! Some of it´s gonne be crap, but not all of it will be and that´s the stuff you keep!”. He´s got the right idea, so I´m trying to take that aspect, but life doesn´t work that way. (laughs) Unless you´re independently wealthy. (laughs) What´s funny is… do you know the old steam trains?
Sure!
DV: The ones that have these massive wheels and the first five to ten times, those wheels have to turn and take unbelievable amounts of energy and then the friction starts to kick in and it smoothes out, that´s to me is what it´s like. That´s what´s happening to us now. My wheels are greased basically, so I´ll be walking down the street and without realizing it, the gremlins in my head have been working on an idea and they kick it forward and a couple of lines will come to me and that´s the great part of songwriting. You get an idea and you know where it´s suppose to go. You don´t know how to get there yet, you don´t know what words are involved, you haven´t got a clue what your guitar is gonna sound like, but you´ve already got the idea sort of from beginning to end and that´s the good stuff. Another thing that I´ve read from songwriters of all kinds is that they all feel that their best songs were like taking dictation. Some people feel it´s a religious thing and I don´t really know, but it is as if the song was already there and they just wrote it down. I´ve heard that from just about every songwriter that I admire, so I think there´s something to it.
Cool! Excellent talking to you Danny!
DV: Yeah, thank you so much for doing this!
/Niclas
