Indholdsfortegnelse for February 2018 i Classic Rock

WELCOME We’d just gone to press – and I’m talking no more than 36 hours here – with our End Of Year issue, when the news broke that we’d lost yet another one of rock’s greatest architects, AC/DC’s Malcolm Young. Despite him being absent from his band since April 2014, Malcolm’s spirit was present at every show the band played since the cruel illness that forced his departure took hold. He was there in the riffs, the band’s outlook, the precision, the simplicity… As much as brother Angus and Bon or Jonno were in the media spotlight, AC/DC was Malcolm’s band. He was the man who called the shots, ruled the camp with a rod of iron. If Malcolm didn’t green-light it, it didn’t happen, simple as that. As you…

Ones To Watch In 2018 From bands who made themselves known in 2017, to those brand new to 2018, there’s a healthy number of fresh faces to get excited about this year. Here are some we’ll be watching out for. Professor And The Madman This was a pleasant surprise when it cropped up in our inbox. Professor And The Madman are a new band but the members are industry veterans: Alfie Agnew (Adolescents, D.I.), Sean Elliott (D.I., Mind Over Four), Rat Scabies (The Damned) and Paul Gray (The Damned, Eddie & The Hot Rods, UFO). So they’re a total punk band, peddling an aged, possibly low-rent brand of the music they made their names with, right? Wrong. New album Disintegrate Me, due for release on February 23 via Fullertone Records,…

NEWS King King have parted company with their long-time keyboard player Bob Fridzema. His replacement is Jonny Dyke, who previously played with Elkie Brooks and James Morrison. Laurence Jones releases a new studio album, The Truth, on Friday 9th March 9. The 25-year old blues-rock guitarist and singer/songwriter plays London’s Borderline on January 23, with a seven-date tour in May. It includes the tracks What Would You Do, Can’t Go On Without You and Keep me Up At Night. Bon Jovi have won a fan vote to help select this year’s inductions to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. The New Jersey band received 1,162,098 votes to beat the Moody Blues (947,726), Dire Straits (613,726), The Cars (552,707) and Judas Priest (538,467). However, the result does not guarantee inclusion,…

BURIED TREASURE Riches from the rock underground BANCHEE Banchee, Atlantic, USA, 1969, £80 Originating from Long Island, with connections to Boston, Banchee formed at the tail end of 1968. Full of melody and eclectic ideas ranging from psychedelia to blues, folk, orchestral and early hard rock, they released this excellent yet overlooked album for Atlantic the following year. Every band member contributed a few complete original tracks to the pot, which makes the album come across slightly unevenly as a whole. However, each track is well crafted, from the wonderfully gentle and ethereal beginnings of opener The Night Explodes, which explodes into a massive melodic chorus, to the glorious fuzz-fest of Evolmia. That’s followed by the instantly catchy, guitar-driven heavy power-pop of I Just Don’t Know. Vocals throughout the album…

Sharp Dressed Man Rock ’n’ Roll accessories This month, @jamiehibbard is elegantly wasted in these three sartorial stand-outs. Hiut Selvedge Denim SkinR Skinny Fit We’ve been following Hiut denim’s progress since they started out five years ago with the heady notion to get the small town of Cardigan in Wales to start making jeans again. They’ve gone from strength to strength off the back of that idea in the intervening years, and now make some of the finest jeans you could hope to buy. This skinny-fit cut is still our favourite. £230 @HiutDenim HiutDenim.co.uk Momocreatura Hole In Heart rabbit ring This finely hand-carved ring from London jewellers Momocreatura is definitely one for the macabre among us, featuring a rabbit with a hole in its heart and a hint of blood…

⋆ HIGH HOPES Neon Animal The glammed-up punk’n’roll Londoners are here to light up the rock scene. “Rock’n’roll has lost some of its magic. A Jack Daniel’s T-shirt has nothing to do with it.” YOU CAN’T MISS Mark Thorn. He’s the one in the cowboy hat and glittery crop top. The one thrusting his pelvis and winking at your girlfriend. After five minutes on the front row, you’ll either declare Neon Animal’s prancing mouthpiece the greatest frontman since Jagger – or step up to throttle him. “Maybe some girls’ boyfriends are a bit jealous,” shrugs Thorn. “It’s quite a sexualised performance – that’s just the way my body reacts to music. My goal is basically to keep people’s attention, so nobody goes to the toilet during our set.” With Thorn…

THE CHAMPION By Cormac Neeson, The Answer INTERVIEWS BY PAUL ELLIOTT, DAVE LING AND HENRY YATES I think we did a hundred and eighteen shows with AC/DC on the Black Ice tour. The first time we ever met the Young brothers, we were invited into the dressing room to get acquainted. We knew it was coming all day, and I was trying to figure out what the hell I would say to these legends. So we walk in… and we spend twenty minutes talking to Malcolm about Father Ted. That was the first thing he said: “I bet you guys are sitting on your tour bus watching the Father Ted box set.” It kinda threw us a little bit. But I mean, what else are you going to talk to…

MALCOLM YOUNG THE TIMEKEEPER “He was the glue that held AC/DC together” By Joe Elliott, Def Leppard ROSS HALFIN/PRESS “It is a sad day in rock’n’roll. Malcolm Young was my friend and the heart and soul of AC/DC. I had some of the best times of my life with him on our 1984 European tour.”Edward Van Halen For a rhythm player, I can’t think of anybody better than Malcolm Young. He was the glue that held AC/DC together. The way that Malcolm held it down, it allowed Angus to go off as – excuse the pun– the live wire that he is. In that early lineup you had Angus and Bon Scott going off like two people on elastic bands, flying away and then shooting back. And then you had…

FANS REMEMBER MALCOLM via classicrockmagazine.com THE FAN #1 Matt Precey I was thirteen when I heard AC/DC and for the first time the universe made sense. Being a teenager can be pretty crap, and this music was an escape from the awkwardness and the boredom, at once an awakening and a doorway into a new world. Their pull continues well into my middle age, providing relief from a different set of pressures. Rock’n’roll defined the lives of millions. Malcolm Young defined rock’n’roll. The most important musician most people have never heard of. So what made Malcolm the five-foot-two colossus became? The riffs. And the single-minded determination to succeed, allied to some very shrewd decision making. But what is often overlooked in the band’s alchemy is the acute sense of timing.…

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO NIKKI SIXX “I didn’t feel I had anything to live for,” says the ex-Mötley Crüe bassist on his dark days of drug addiction, decadence and excess. Now clean, sober and happy, he’s planning a Heroin Diaries musical. Interview: Dave Everley “As sick as it sounds, the diaries were the only person I could talk to that really understood how I felt.” Nikki Sixx might not have written the Guide To Rock’N’Roll Debauchery, but he’s lived several of its chapters. As the bassist, songwriter and leader of Mötley Crüe, he spent a large chunk of the 1980s in a haze of heroin and booze. That the band managed to sell millions of albums despite the abuse they inflicted on themselves is remarkable, though not as remarkable as…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS Corrosion Of Conformity Pepper brings the boys back to the start. No Cross No Crown NUCLEAR BLAST If we’re looking at classic rock as a living, breathing organism, one that adapts and evolves over the everrolling waves of time, one that holds its original axe-slinging deities in highest esteem but allows for the ordaining of new priests and idols along the way, then it’s really time to let Corrosion Of Conformity luxuriate in the lap of the golden gods. That’s because these motherfuckers have been at it forever, and they’ve just made their best album in 20 years. There will be those among us who only ever accept the early-80s punk-metal crossover version as the ‘real’ Corrosion Of Conformity, but for the vast majority of rockers,…

ROUND-UP: PROG By Jo Kendall Tiger Moth Tales Depths Of Winter WHITE KNIGHT Good old prog, never afeared of a Christmas album. That’s what Depths Of Winter essentially is, Pete Jones savvily giving his third LP a broader titling for a longer shelf life. But Jones is a clever cookie musically, too. The Nottingham-based performer lost his sight to retinoblastoma at 15 months old, but by the age of four was playing the piano. In 1988, aged eight, he won the junior final of the BBC’s A Song For Christmas competition. Perhaps Depths has been fermenting in his mind ever since then, being 10 tracks of exquisitely crafted pastoral neo-prog with a nifty Game Of Thrones reference right at the get-go (Winter Is Coming). On this album, Jones excels not only…

XTC Prog-pop, post-punk, art-rock hybrid receives a well-deserved expanded reappraisal. Black Sea APE HOUSE In the interests of full disclosure, and at the risk of undermining the CR reviews section’s avowed intent of critical infallibility, there was a brief time when I did not particularly care for Black Sea. On its initial release I shared a house with an XTC fan who, quite literally, never stopped playing it. Arriving into the post-punk landscape of proudly ham-fisted non-craftsman, it flaunted finely tooled baroque’n’roll aspirations more readily associated with latter-day Beatles than the worthy Emperor’s-new-rain-mac ineptitude of their dour indie contemporaries. Black Sea’s meticulous arrangements, lyrical invention, wit and succession of earworms seemed almost counter-revolutionary in their pop perfection. To ears attuned to the fervid brutality of the Pistols and the instinctive savant…

Atomic Rooster The heavy proggers revive some explosive favourites. Almost three decades after the suicide of keyboardist Vincent Crane and seven years on from guitarist John Du Cann’s fatal heart attack, Peter French, lead singer on the band’s 1971 album In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster, talks about the latest reunion of the heavyproggers, conducted in tandem with Steve Bolton, guitarist of the same era. Whose idea was it to revive Atomic Rooster back in 2016? It happened in a bizarre way. Steve Bolton heard a rumour that somebody was planning a new line-up, and he suggested we do it ourselves. The first thing we did was to ask Vincent Crane’s widow for permission, which she granted. Rehearsals sounded pretty damned good. Our pianist for the first few gigs, Christian Madden,…

Roger Chapman The former Family man hails a 50-year career with some Friends. ROGER CHAPMAN: KEVIN NIXON “I’ve got a lot of my own songs that I wanted to play but Family didn’t. I thought: ‘I’m going to please myself.’” With the band Family now behind him, Chapman forges onwards, backed by long-time associates Geoff Whitehorn on guitar, Paul Hirsh (keyboards), Poli Palmer (vibes), Nick Payn (saxophone), Gary Twigg (bass) and John Lingwood (drums). What else to call it but Family & Friends? How did you enjoy the farewell shows from Family? I was glad to get them out of the way, actually [chuckles]. Family was a great band and the people involved a great bunch of musos, but there were never enough gigs to really settle in properly. I…

Low Cut Connie Rabble-rousing Philadelphians abuse instruments and plant life, lose at bar games but win big-time at rock’n’roll. Brighton Prince Albert ‘Weiner performs assshaking dance moves and contortions.’ Laurel and Hardy and many others since have turned it into comedy gold. It has caused damage to property and injuries or even death to humans and small animals alike. Removal operatives across the globe fear this task above all others. But tonight, just like many other nights, Adam Weiner’s piano must be carried up the stairs to a small venue. And then carried back down a few hours later. At least by the time the latter task has to be completed, this hefty but handsome 30-stone beast will have shed a few pounds after it has featured prominently in a…

Robert Plant & The Sensational Shapeshifters Mr P doesn’t forget his past as he takes his brilliant new album on the road, Glasgow SEC Armadillo Lenny Warren Time in England seems to have rejuvenated his senses, with the Golden God admitting that he had grown weary of being “Rockaday Johnny in America”. With incense smoke drifting through the front rows, Robert Plant arrives on stage to the cheers of people unperturbed by being asked by security to sit down. Opener New World sets the tone for a set which blends Led Zep’s more mystical folk elements, such as That’s The Way, with Plant’s Sensational Space Shifters material. Justin Adams, Plant’s “captain of the ship”, stabs around the stage and stands legs akimbo while delivering some full-throttle blues and North African…

Blues Pills Raw potential morphs into major talent. London Jazz Café There’s a pivotal moment in the career of any big band when they cease to be young caterpillars and emerge from their chrysalis recognisable as magnificent butterflies. For Blues Pills that moment is here. From the opening chords of Lady In Gold there’s something special about tonight’s show. Perhaps it’s the devoted hysteria inside the packed venue. Maybe it’s Ellin Larsson’s sensual tumbling vocals. Or it could be the fluid guitar playing of Dorian Sorriaux. Whatever, the performance bears the pulsing beat of a world-class band. When you listen to the way in which Larsson and Sorriaux interact it makes you feel that you’ve gone back on an alternative timeline, where Grace Slick and Paul Kossoff hooked up. This…

This month’s contributors JOHNNY SHARP Johnny made his name as a music writer in the 1990s, using the childhood nickname Johnny Cigarettes, for NME. He has since written books including Crap Lyrics, which contains no lines by Low Cut Connie, the piano-hammering rock’n’roll whirlwind he went to Brighton to see this month (p116). His work can be found at www.johnnysharp.net WILL IRELAND This month we sent Will to both ends of the country; first to Liverpool to shoot Queen + Adam Lambert (in all their pyrotechnic glory), then down to Brighton to party with Philadelphia’s most exuberant Low Cut Connie (beer-mat-flipping and ketchup included… Probably best if you read the piece). See more of Will’s work at willirelandphotography.co.uk MICHAEL HALSBAND New York photographer Michael Halsband took our brilliant cover shot…

RIP Thank you and good night. Chuck Mosley December 26, 1959 – November 9, 2017 Faith No More have led the tributes to their former singer who has died, reportedly of a heroin overdose, at the age of 57. Mosley joined the San Franciscan alt.rock group in 1985. They called him a “reckless and caterwauling force of energy who delivered with conviction and helped set us on a track of uniqueness and originality”. Paul Buckmaster June 13, 1946 – November 7, 2017 Paul Buckmaster was quite probably the greatest arranger in rock music, the Londoner’s orchestral contributions having graced iconic recordings by a range of artists including David Bowie, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Carly Simon, Harry Nilsson and Guns N’ Roses over the course of almost 50 years. No…

Another One Bites The Dust Director of Queen’s Freddie Mercury biopic is axed. AS THIS ISSUE went to press, Bryan Singer, the director of the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, had been fired for what the BBC termed an alleged “pattern of unreliable behaviour on the set” two weeks before the film’s completion in London. Singer, probably best known for his work on the X-Men series, has been replaced by Dexter Fletcher, who previously had been lined up for the job but was let go in 2014. Singer’s sacking is the latest of many problems that Queen’s Brian May and Roger Taylor, two of the film’s co-producers, have had to deal with since the idea was first mooted. Singer issued a statement which confirmed an on-set bust-up with lead actor…

NEWS The Eagles seem set to continue, with Deacon Frey replacing his father Glenn who died in 2016. The current line-up has Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmit joined by Vince Gill and Frey Jr. The band recently added 13 extra dates to their current North American tour. Yes are to hold a weekend of celebrations in London to mark the group’s 50th anniversary over the weekend of March 24 and 25, coinciding with their shows at the London Palladium. Sponsored by Classic Rock’s sister title Prog, these include a fan convention. It will be attended by both current members of the band and Yes alumni from the past. Fish, Al Stewart and the Levellers are among the first wave of acts to be confirmed for Fairport Convention’s…

THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS Ten Years After I’m Going Home How a jobbing blues rock band were inspired by the live anthem of touring mates Fleetwood Mac… and came up with a defining moment of Woodstock. Words: Rob Hughes GETTY History tends to reduce 1969’s Woodstock festival to a core set of signifiers. Take your pick from a kaftan-wearing Richie Havens barking out Freedom, The Who laying waste Summertime Blues, a “scared shitless” CSNY, Sly & The Family Stone grooving through the early hours, Country Joe McDonald leading The Fish Cheer, or Jimi Hendrix reclaiming The Star-Spangled Banner for hippies everywhere. Then there’s Ten Years After, the Midlands four-piece who arrived at Max Yasgur’s farm as a hard-grafting blues-rock combo and left as international superstars. Their lift-off point came…

THE BAND LEADER ByDave Meniketti, Y&T DAVE MENIKETTI & CORMAC NEESON: WILL IRELAND “Malcolm was the reason I wanted to play rhythm guitar. I toured with him and he was genuinely lovely. The world has lost a true champion.”Ginger Wildheart Y&T opened for AC/DC on the UK leg of the For Those About To Rock tour in September 1982. They allowed us to hang out in their dressing room maybe half a dozen times, mainly as they ate dinner after the show. Their dressing room was like an inner sanctuary. Cliff [Williams] was the guy we spent the most time with, and Brian Johnson was always around, though Malcolm kept himself to himself. Watching and observing him, he was the guy with the final say on everything. He was quite…

THE SUPERFAN By Joel O’Keeffe, Airbourne INTERVIEWS BY PAUL ELLIOTT, DAVE LING AND HENRY YATES I was about six years old when I first discovered AC/DC through this TV programme called Rage. I saw Malcolm with his guitar and his blue singlet, and I said to Mum: “Can I get a blue singlet for my birthday?” Y’know, it’s not a standard kids’ request, like a fire truck or a toy gun. But I wanted to be like this guy on the TV. Then, once I discovered the AC/DC records, I found there was this button on my dad’s old stereo that I’d press and all of a sudden I’d have Malcolm’s isolated guitar panned over to the left speaker. It was the greatest way to learn guitar. Y’know, when to…

Blues Travellers A motormouth virtuoso, a great white hope, and a wayward genius taking one last shot at the title. This is Rockin’ The Blues, the tour that will either save the genre or self-destruct… Words: Henry Yates QUINN SULLIVAN: GRIFFIN LOTZ/PRES; GARY HOEY: JOE NETT/PRESS “I think we’re gonna fight,” drawls Gary Hoey, one third of the three-headed revue tour titled Rockin’ The Blues. “I think there’ll be drama backstage, lots of throwing and breaking things. By the end we’ll be lighting each other’s guitars on fire. Quinn Sullivan is gonna come back with full-sleeve tattoos, piercings all over his face; his own parents won’t recognise him. Nah, I’m kidding. It’s gonna be a great tour…” If the line-up of Hoey, Sullivan and Eric Gales hasn’t imploded by the…

THE HARD STUFF BOOKS & DVDs Hit So Hard Former Hole drummer’s “beautiful memoir” is an open book. Patty Schemel DA CAPO Patty Schemel was the second (and main) drummer with Hole – “the best musician in that band”, as Kurt Cobain termed it. She could (can) hit the drums hard. Real hard. As a person she was blunt, no-nonsense and sadly proved prone to addiction. She was a blast to be around. She had a keen sense of humour and an ability to turn a bad situation to good. She knew who she was and why she was doing it. She did not suffer fools, or those who favoured the male gender. She is unflinching in her description of the recording process with Hole, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, the death of…

King King The rising bluesers predict a right royal knees-up. KING KING: ROB BLACKHAM On the back of a hugely successful support slot with Thunder in February 2016, guitarist/frontman Alan Nimmo sets the scene for the band’s biggest headline tour to date. You were forced to delay some recent dates due to throat surgery. How’s the recuperation coming along? We’re touring right now and I’m glad to say that not only has the voice healed it’s become stronger. I’ve been working with a coach and getting the right amount of rest and it’s going from strength to strength. Those arena dates with Thunder were a major shot in the arm, weren’t they? It was the perfect band for us. I was sure their audience would understand us because we’re influenced…

the DIRT 12 Things We’re Looking Forward To In 2018 The past 12 months have flown by, and what a year 2018 promises to be, with huge tours and festivals already confirmed, and our favourite artists preparing new music. Here’s just some of what we’re vibed up for… INSIDE THE WORLD OF ROCK FOR MORE NEWS: WWW.CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM cat no:#245 COPYRIGHT FUTURE 2018 HALESTORM, OZZY: GETTY ROGER WATERS: KATE IZOR/PRESS Ozz y signs off at Download, with GN’R along for the ride Sabbath may have called it a day as far as touring, but Ozzy is set to undertake at least one more lap of the globe. He and his latest solo band, with Zakk Wylde back on guitar for the first time since 2009, close Download Festival in June, where…

Rock in the post-Weinstein world Polly Glass looks at the challenges facing our music. The world of rock’n’roll, as covered by titles such as ours, is essentially a niche one. Ours is a safe, comparatively closed-off haven of specialist knowledge and interest, where it really is all about the music and the people who make it. That said, there are times when it’s right that we reach into the wider world. As we begin a new year, the debate over abuse and harassment has come to a head. And that has filtered increasingly into the rock’n’roll world. The case of disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein (called out for a host of alleged harassments, abuses and rape) started out as a Hollywood issue, but it’s opened up into something much bigger.…

Desperate Dan Fagen sues Becker’s estate for Steely name ownership. A LEGAL BATTLE has broken out between Donald Fagen and the estate of Walter Becker, his partner in Steely Dan for 50 years, over the ownership of the band’s name. After Becker died last September at the age of 67, Fagen undertook a host of Steely Dan live commitments without his co-founder. He has yet to reveal whether or not Steely Dan are to continue. During a show at London’s O2 Arena he announced: “We are the Steely Dan organisation. A little different than we were a few months ago but I’ve got to live with that.” Upon returning to the US, Fagen used a signed Buy/Sell agreement made with Becker in 1972 to claim the shares of his late…

⋆ HIGH HOPES Austin Gold Classic seventies blues-rock passed through the prism of post-Millennial Peterborough. OLIVIA JOHNSTON/PRESS “Some bands are more concerned with how their mascara looks than whether their guitars are in tune…” “I’VE NOTICED AT a couple of the London gigs we’ve played that some other bands on the bill have been more concerned with how their mascara looks than whether their guitars are in tune,” observes Austin Gold guitarist Jack Cable. So, not much glam rock about Austin Gold then. And they’re not from inside the M25 either – Peterborough, actually. But the quintet have set metropolitan ears waggling with their first album, Before Dark Clouds; ten fresh updates from the Bad Company textbook of rock, delivered with as much analogue power as you can muster on…

NEWS Jim Steinman’s Bat Out Of Hell – The Musical is to have a four-month residency in London next year. The show’s second run in the capital is at the Dominion Theatre from April 2 to July 28. The Isle Of Wight Festival celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Depeche Mode, Liam Gallagher, Van Morrison, The Killers and Kasabian are so far confirmed for the bill for this year’s event which takes place on June 21-24. Tax The Heat’s second album, Change Your Position, is released on March 9 via Nuclear Blast. The follow-up to their debut Fed To The Lions, it will be preceded by the single Money In The Bank. The three instrumentalists in Dokken’s most popular line-up – guitarist George Lynch, bassist Jeff Pilson and drummer ‘Wild’…

NEWS A new survey suggests that only a quarter of young gig-goers would like mobile phones to be banned at gigs. When ticket website Skiddle asked music fans between the ages of 16 and 30 about the subject, 20 per cent said they were unhappy about their view of the artists being blocked, while just eight per cent said that filming and taking photographs was disrespectful to the band/artist. The Dan Reed Network are planning to record their next album in 10 different cities. The band recently laid down a track called Fade To Light in front of a group of fans at Blue Print Studios in Manchester. Their most recent full-length album was the reunion collection Fight Another Day in 2016. A new mental health hotline offering support for…

Q&A Joe Satriani The lord of the strings on robotic cats, premature baldness, and the fruitless pursuit of Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. Words: Henry Yates When Joe Satriani was announced as winner of the Maestro award at the 2015 Classic Rock Roll Of Honour, there wasn’t a sniff of dissent in the room. After all, it’s hard to imagine a musician who better fits the bloody-minded, bloodier-fingered, clinically obsessed profile of the guitar virtuoso – or one who deploys that technique to create such atmospheric music. Since 1987’s breakthrough Surfing With The Alien, Satch has been the instrumental shredder it’s okay to like, a songwriter who uses his axe like a larynx to create mood-driven gold (not masturbatory dross). That tunes-before-chops philosophy continues with latest album What Happens…

MALCOLM YOUNG THE RHYTHM KING “People say Malcolm’s rhythm parts are simple. They’re missing the point” By Dave Mustaine, Megadeth MICK HUTSON “Thank you for being an integral part of the soundtrack to my life. Your music is the definition of timeless and inspiring.”Lars Ulrich, Metallica I was probably eighteen years old, living on my own. My mom had moved out. She was a Jehovah’s Witness and didn’t want anything to do with me because I liked to smoke pot. And the best way to get pot was to sell it to other people and get it for free, so I was trading it with this girl who worked in a music store. That’s how I got AC/DC’s Let There Be Rock. I came home, put the record on my…

REMEMBERING MALCOLM THE GUITARIST Phil Collen, Def Leppard The sound that Malcolm and Angus Young created together was incredible. It was a vast sound and completely unique. Of course, it helped that they were brothers – they had such an understanding. And although it’s hard to be really creative when you’re playing basic stuff as they did, Malcolm and Angus absolutely nailed it. We’ve always said that the blueprint for Def Leppard was AC/DC-meets- Queen – the rock power and that almost funky rhythm that drove AC/DC, plus the depth and third dimension and the creativity of Queen. We still try to do that, and I’ve always nicked stuff off Malcolm Young. He was the perfect rhythm guitar player. Pete Townshend was hard to beat as a rhythm player, but…

THE QUIET ONE By ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke, Fastway JOEL O’KEEFFE: JOHN MCMURTRIE/PRESS “Not only did Malcolm co-found one of the greatest bands in the world, he co-wrote the songs that inspired many of us to wanna be in a band.”Nikki Sixx I first met Malcolm in 1976 when we [Motörhead] supported AC/DC in Bath when Bon was still with them. We shared a dressing room. I’d seen in Sounds that they were getting fantastic reviews of their residency at the Marquee every week, so I was keen to check them out. Motörhead’s equipment wasn’t great and the gig was in a fucking tin hut, so we sounded awful – it was maybe our fifth gig. Then they came on and, man, they sounded magnificent. Fastway did some arena dates with…

ZAKK WYLDE The Wizard Of OZ “Everything’s workin’ like it should – bigger, bolder than ever,” says a largerthan- life, 50-year-old Zakk Wylde. But it’s not long ago that the Ozzy sideman and Black Label Society mainman was telling a different story. Words: Joe Bosso JUSTIN REICH Zakk Wylde is happy as hell to be 50, and he’s especially thrilled at how some of his body parts are holding up. “My vagina is awesome!” he crows. “It’s more powerful than it’s ever been. You ought to see my labia lunges – that’s a sight to behold. I’ll tell you, my vagina can harness more power at 50 than it did when I was 27. This getting older thing isn’t so bad at all.” He lets out a throaty, raucous chortle,…

The Carpenters Connection GETTY Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft, co-written by John Woloschuk and Terry Draper, was Klaatu’s 3:47 EST album’s memorable opener, with a hippie-dippy message of embracing the aliens that are watching the Earth. “Those lyrics were based on an article that appeared in a book called The Flying Saucer Reader,” Woloschuk explains. “There really was a ‘World Contact Day’ in 1951. Some of the lyrics in the song were lifted from the message that had been mentally telepathed to space by all these members of this cult. I think we were hoping for the aliens but not expecting them.” The song came to the attention of The Carpenters. “Their guitar player brought a copy of our album to one of their sessions, played it to them and they…

THE HARD STUFF the ultimate ROCK REVIEWS section ‘Kings is better than good. It’s Rush at their peak.’ The 40th-anniversary reissue is even better. CLASSIC ROCK RATINGS A CLASSIC EXCELLENT VERY GOOD GOOD ABOVE AVERAGE AVERAGE BELOW PAR A DISAPPOINTMENT PANTS PISH Yes Topographic Drama – Live Across America RHINO More than a tribute band. With all the absentees, it’s easy these days to view Yes as being no more than a glorified tribute band. But leave that preconception aside, because the current line-up do a sterling job in commemorating two Yes albums here. There are six tracks from 1980’s Drama. Often overlooked, the band highlight the strengths of songs like Machine Messiah and Run Through The Light. It’s intriguing to hear vocalist Jon Davison’s striking delivery – it has much…

King Crimson Sailors’ Tales Pane gyric KING CRIMSON: PRESS Robert Fripp and King Crimson spent a career shrugging off the criticism ‘overblown’. That said, you’d be hard pushed to think of this expansive (and that word is underselling it somewhat) box set as being anything but. King Crimson have a recent history of reappraising their past in the most accomplished manner (in collections like these and as a born again live band). This grouping of their difficult and mostly underperformed trilogy of records from the start of the 70s – In The Wake Of Poseidon, Lizard (both released in 1970) and Islands (1971) – is a lavish reminder of the potency of King Crimson, even in an era where they were beset by intra-band barracking and considered to be at…

LIVE! Black Country Communion With four albums and some Purple material to pick from, Glenn and co are going deep. CHRISTIE GOODWIN/PRESS “When we decided to come back, it needed to be f**king epic. BCCIV is the record the situation demanded.” With their disagreements of the past smoothed over, bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes previews a pair of UK appearances for the album that many – including the group themselves – feared might never be made, Black Country Communion’s BCCIV How are you following the recent show in Christchurch, New Zealand, that was curtailed due to dehydration? Oh, I’m absolutely fine. I was fatigued and didn’t drink enough water. An hour and 45 minutes into the show I went down but my tech caught me and I hobbled off like the Hunchback…

Alice Cooper/ The Mission/ The Tubes It’s more than 40 years since this Alice Cooper band played this venue, but it was worth the wait. Wembley Arena ‘You can’t help but feel that the OGs deserved better.’ Alice Cooper’s visits to Britain have become what one might call frequent of late. A stalwart of the live circuit, Alice turns up, kills a nurse, gets executed and rises from his grave, with similarly regular reliability to department-store Santas and tax returns. But the original Alice Cooper group? Different story. Some of us have been waiting a very long time for this particular reunion to finally grace the stage of Wembley Arena. The last time Alice Cooper the band (guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, drummer Neal Smith, lead guitarist, now the…

Queen + Adam Lambert Turbo-charged and “thrillingly camp”, the latest incarnation of the Queen show comes to town (lasers, prancing and mirror ball included). Liverpool Echo Arena Who wants to live forever? Almost fifty years into their career, Queen seem to be giving it a good go with their latest world tour, a dazzling transatlantic blend of slick Las Vegas production and Last Night Of The Proms exaltation. A decade ago, with Paul Rodgers standing in for the late Freddie Mercury, Queen’s live show was a depressingly stale and blokey affair. But their current reincarnation, with American Idol veteran Adam Lambert on the microphone, feels much more in tune with Mercury’s eternally youthful turbo-glam attitude. Dynamic and flamboyant, the 35-year-old Lambert is literally half the age of Brian May. More…

Queens Of The Stone Age Josh and his hommes bolster their position as arena rock royalty. London O2 Arena Tonight Queens play their second London show of the week, surrounded by springy lights that sprout from the stage and make it look like a futuristic forest. It’s been 20 years since they first came along and sent a jolt through rock with their genuinely unique, playful yet seductive desert rock’n’roll, and now they’re confidently commanding the O2. Promoting new album Villians, their set comprises five songs from that dance-worthy selection of desert disco, but they dig into the archives for heavier favourites such as No One Knows, dropped in halfway through the set, and encore with Regular John from their 1998 debut. Josh Homme is one of modern rock’s greatest…

The Temperance Movement It’s shades indoors for these blues rockers after supporting the Stones. London The Borderline There’s a jollier, boozier atmosphere than you’d expect from a Monday night gig. Since forming in 2011, the Temperance Movement have brought their freshened taken on blues-meets-classic rock to bigger spaces, touring with the Stones and hitting the Top 20 along the way. So even with the relative upheaval of two band replacements (guitarist Matt White and drummer Simon Lea) in the past two years, it’s not surprising that the Borderline is stuffed with fans eager for a first shot of new material, along with treasured favourites such as Only Friend and Take It Back. This is a confident, ‘we’ve-done-the-rock-star-thing’ Temperance Movement – in a good way. Harmonies are spacey and arena-friendly. Songs…

Heavy Load “Embrace everything,” says guitar icon Michael Schenker. But that doesn’t include his brother Rudolf… Interview: Malcolm Dome Heavy questions for heavy rockers In his own way, Michael Schenker is one of rock’s most influential guitarists. Since starting out as a teenager with the Scorpions during the early 70s, he’s been venerated as an original, inspirational musician. During his subsequent tenures with UFO and with his own eponymous band, his trademark performances with the Flying V became one of rock’s most enduring images. At 62 he still commands adulation and respect; when we speak to him he’s touring with the Schenker Fest, featuring many of those with whom he’s played during his extensive solo career. Do you believe in God? I believe in a higher power, creator. And some…