Innehållsförteckning för October 2019 från Classic Rock

The DIRT HIGH HOPES The Black Hands Meet the Chesterfield blues rockers on the lookout for a smoky pub playing Free and Zep. LILY HAMMOND/PRESS “The rest of the band could be trying to sing a Kylie song, and with my voice it’d still sound like bluesy rock!” WHEN THE BLACK Hands were considering where to shoot a photo for the cover of their debut album, you’d like to think they saw this place and said, “Bingo!” The cover of said debut, Electric Premier Theatre, finds the Chesterfield four-piece standing beneath a giant faded sign on the side of a building of the same name. “It’s an old bingo hall [see what we did there?] near where our guitarist lives,” explains singer Andy Gannon. “We always said to each other,…

MY FIRST LOVE etta james BLUES IN THE NIGHT, VOL. 1: THE EARLY SHOW By Beth Hart The rock’n’soul songstress on the power of Etta. “When I was a teenager, every summer I’d go to Lake Tahoe with my best friend Ron. It was a long drive. I had a Big Joe Turner tape I kept playing, until Ron finally got sick of it and said: ‘You need to listen to this.’ He put on Blues In The Night, and it sent shivers down my spine like music never had before. “I’d listened to all sorts of genres growing up, but there was something here about the songs, the musicians [Red Holloway, Eddie Vinson, Shuggie Otis, Jack McDuff], and Etta’s unbelievable voice. She’s in front of, like, fifty people at…

THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS Lynyrd Skynyrd Free Bird A song that Ronnie Van Zant said had too many chord changes to write lyrics for, and that both band and their label thought was too long to be a single, it became a rock classic. Words: Dave Everley Few songs have defined a band or a genre quite as much as Free Bird. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ode to the freedom of the road and the people it leaves behind wasn’t their biggest hit chart-wise – Sweet Home Alabama and That Smell both outdid it in the Billboard chart – but it became their passport to immortality and the unofficial anthem of the southern rock nation. “It’s about what it means to be free, in that a bird can fly wherever he…

6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT… Whiskey Myers The small-town Texans have taken their brand of southern rock storytelling across the globe, and even to the world of prestige TV. Interview: David Sinclair KHRIS POAGE/PRESS AUTHENTICITY: YOU CAN’T buy it, you can’t bluff it. And you can’t beat it when it comes to delivering dirty, down-home, electric guitar music from the American south. Whiskey Myers have been keeping it real since the band got together in 2007. Channelling a musical heritage that stretches from Lynyrd Skynyrd to Waylon Jennings, they painstakingly built a following, song by song, gig by gig. Their enduring passion and commitment to their regional roots continues to shine through on their fifth album, a magnificent compendium of southern rock storytelling simply titled Whiskey Myers. They…

50 YEARS OF HEAVY METAL RUNNING FREE As the 1980s dawned, Iron Maiden were about to record their debut album. It was the start of a journey that would launch them into the stratosphere. But there were some massive hurdles to overcome first. Words: Paul Elliott In the first days of 1980, when Iron Maiden entered Kingsway Studios in West London to begin recording their debut album, bassist Steve Harris had mixed emotions. He had a quiet confidence in the strength of the material he had written for the band and he also knew that the band’s new line-up was the best it had ever been, with the addition of a hard-hitting drummer in Clive Burr, and an accomplished guitarist in Dennis Stratton to play alongside Dave Murray. Even so,…

50 YEARS OF HEAVY METAL VORSPRUNG DURCH TECHNIK That phrase, which translates as ‘advancement through technology’ could have been coined for Rammstein, who over the past 25 years have defied conventional wisdom and become superstars. Words: Stephen Dalton OLAF HEINE/PRESS The irresistible rise of Rammstein over the past 25 years has been one of heavy metal’s most unlikely, hilarious and misunderstood success stories. These enigmatic East Berliners rarely give interviews, steadfastly sing in their native German, and often face condemnation for their purposely provocative use of transgressive taboo imagery. Even so, with more than 10 million album sales, Rammstein have slowly blossomed into the most successful German-language band ever, with a reputation for explosively exciting live shows which fall somewhere between Wagnerian operas and cyberpunk torture-porn carnivals. Their current international…

Combat Rock He gave up cage fighting to become a rock star, slinging out riffs instead of throwing punches. Now, armed with a new album and a ton of life experience, Kris Barras is making good on that promise. Words: Polly Glass Photos: James Sharrock It’s a summer evening at a biker festival in Germany. The beer is flowing, the atmosphere is upbeat, and the crowd are gagging for the artist soon to arrive on stage. Little do they know that said artist, Kris Barras, will end up almost killing the front row. Well, sort of. Reeling from all the good vibes and a few too many strong local brews, Barras and his band play a killer show. Confident on stage at the best of times, tonight the singer/guitarist is…

THE HARD STUFF ALBUMS The Darkness Easter Is Cancelled COOKING VINYL Merry men tread winning tightrope between sublime and ridiculous. With 2003’s Permission To Land debut album, The Darkness put star-jumping, crotch-thrusting rock’n’roll back in the British charts. Sixteen years later, on new album Easter Is Cancelled the Lowestoft band seem lukewarm on their legacy. “Rock’n’roll is so uniform now,” reckons bassist Frankie Poullain. “Everybody dresses the same, looks the same, sounds the same. It’s pathetic. It deserves to die. Let’s kill the cliché. Let’s break the crucifix. That’s partly what the album is about.” Sixth album Easter Is Cancelled puts its money where its mouth is, right from the thrilling flashpoint when a dirty Les Paul riff punctures the red-herring folksy opener Rock And Roll Deserves To Die. Granted,…

THE HARD STUFF BUYER’S GUIDE New Model Army Mocked by most of the UK press, the Bradford band have remained as steadfastly uncompromising as they have unfashionable. SHUTTERSTOCK New Model Army were once introduced on 80s TV show The Tube as “the ugliest band in the world”. It wasn’t meant as a compliment, although host Jools Holland had a point – with his broken teeth, scowl and general air of aggro, singer Justin Sullivan wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants. Still, the description suited the trio. Based in unfashionable Bradford, New Model Army were the polar opposite of everything the yuppie-fied 80s had to offer – they were clog-wearing, dole-queue refugees, more likely to be found on CND marches or playing free festivals than sipping champagne and knocking back…

Psychedelic Furs The British post-punk band limber up for nine shows. Best known for the tracks Love My Way and the title track from the 1986 film Pretty In Pink, the Furs went on hiatus in the early 90s and regrouped in 2000. Ahead of a UK tour, we caught up with bassist Tim Butler. Last year the Furs appeared in London at the Meltdown Festival, curated by The Cure’s Robert Smith. How was that? Fantastic. Usually our tours are two years apart in England, but to play a venue like the Royal Festival Hall we were surprised and even elated by the reaction that we got. Did you hang out with Robert Smith? No. He was sick that night. We had hoped he might introduce us but he didn’t…

Anti-Nowhere League “Still out of control,” they play dates from Sept to Feb. Notorious for the profanity-riddled So What?, later covered by Metallica, the Anti-Nowhere League still live in Tunbridge Wells and are still “out of control”. We caught up with singer Animal. Back in the 1980s, copies of So What? were seized under the Obscene Publications Act. Was it always important for the ANL to cause shock? At the start it was because we were completely talentless. Walking around shouting and swearing, we loved pissing people off. All the other bands wanted to make money and have careers; our viewpoint was: We’ve got the drugs and the women – fuck everybody else. But down the years the music overtook all of that. In the new DVD We Are The…

WELCOME BACK Samantha Fish The US roots-rocker on broken bones, shaking off the fish jokes and giving the finger to the doubters. SAMANTHA FISH: EDYTA KRZESAK/PRESS SAMANTHA FISH IS not in Kansas anymore. The 30-year-old gunslinger might have come up on the Midwest circuit, but since then she’s taken her studio catalogue all over the map, from the Mississippi and Chicago blues flavours of early albums like 2011’s Runaway to the Nashville tones of 2017’s Belle Of The West. It’s a US road trip that continues with this year’s Kill Or Be Kind, tracked in Memphis, taking in everything from spring-heeled soul to brass-bolstered country rock. Kill Or Be Kind salutes all the great American genres. What’s been the early reaction? So far it’s nice to hear that people are…

volbeat AN AMERICAN IN DENMARK Ex-Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano talks about life in Volbeat. Rob Caggiano first met Michael Poulsen at a Big Four show in 2010. Caggiano was a member of Anthrax at the time, and Poulsen was someone who had grown up listening to thrash metal. “It was the first time I heard the name Volbeat,” Caggiano (above, left) says today. “There was definitely a buzz about them. But I didn’t know what they sounded like until they toured with [Anthrax spin-off project] the Damned Things the following year.” On that tour the guitarist regularly jammed with Volbeat on a cover of The Misfits’ Angelfuck, but Caggiano couldn’t have guessed that he would end up a full-time member of Volbeat. But that’s what happened in 2013, after Caggiano…

CHEAP THRILLS THE £50 RECORD STORE CHALLENGE Black Star Riders Words: Mick Wall Portraits: Will Ireland Flashback Records Islington, London Scott Gorham takes his glasses off so that Classic Rock’s photographer can get some shots of him browsing through the racks in the basement of the record store. But there’s a snag: “I can’t see what records I’m looking at now…” “Don’t worry,” says Ricky Warwick, standing next to him. “Just make sure you’re not browsing through the Gay Techno section.” “You mean the Boys Town section?” I say. “Yeah,” says Gorham. “Like, I thought it said the Boys Are Back In Town section…” The Black Star Riders frontmen crack up laughing. Photos duly taken, Scott retrieves his specs and they go back to browsing. We’re in Flashback Records, in…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: MELODIC ROCK By Dave Ling Eclipse Paradigm FRONTIERS Paradigm’ is defined as a ‘clear and typical example of something’. Eclipse’s Erik Mårtensson couldn’t have come up with a better title for this, their seventh album. Also a member of the melodic hard rock ‘supergroup’ W.E.T., Mårtensson is a tunesmith whose CV spans pop, heavy metal, power-pop and country rock, though the Swede once told Classic Rock that Eclipse’s vision is to channel the energy of 1987-era Whitesnake, “presenting it on our own way”. Lineage to Coverdale isn’t immediately obvious, although Eclipse’s hard rocking roots are as apparent as a worship of ABBA-inspired hooks. Delivered with fist-in-the-air gusto and empowered with choruses of pure gold, Mary Leigh, United and Never Gonna Be Like You are irresistible, ingots of pop-metal magnificence,…

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THE HARD STUFF BOOKS & DVDS Burning Down The Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution And The Fall Of The Berlin Wall Tim Mohr DIALOGUE Excellent study of the role of East German punk in the country’s downfall. In the 1970s, krautrock sought to shun all Anglo-American influences and create a musical identity of its own, West German in origin. In East Germany, things were different. There, the imperative was to shun the blandness of state-approved bands and take inspiration from the radical West. In the late 70s, this meant punk. Author Tim Mohr traced the very first East German punk – Britta Bergmann, aka Major, who first started wearing safety pins in 1977. In a manner that’s almost novelistic, Mohr traces the others that follow her over the coming months and…

INTERVIEWS Walter Trout The New Jersey-born blues-rock guitarist plays nine more UK gigs. WT: AUSTIN HARGAVE/PRESS; PF: MIKE PFEIFFER/PRESS Having cheated the Grim Reaper a few years ago, the musician who many never expected to see on a stage again is back where he belongs. You appeared at the Rockin’ The Blues event with Jonny Lang and Kris Barras at London’s Forum back in June. Was that fun? Jonny and Kris are stunning performers and great guys, so it was an amazing night of an equally enjoyable tour. I had played the Forum rip-roaring drunk with John Mayall when it was called the Town & Country Club, so it was good to return older, wiser and sober. A liver transplant saved your life, but there were post-op complications. How are…

Nick Mason Named 2019 Prog God Drummer receives top award. NICK MASON HAS been named this year’s Prog God, and will receive the prestigious award at the 2019 Progressive Music Awards at the Underglobe Theatre in London on September 12. Outside of his work with Pink Floyd, the drummer (the only member of Floyd to appear on all their albums), who received a CBE in the 2019 New Year’s Honours list, has produced albums for Robert Wyatt, Gong and Steve Hillage, and enjoyed a number of side-projects. Most recently, his group Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, formed last year, have gone from strength to strength. Previous recipients of the Prog God award include Rick Wakeman (2012), Ian Anderson (’13), Peter Gabriel (’14), Tony Banks (’15) and Jon Anderson (’16). “I’m…

WELCOME BACK Korn Guitarist James ‘Munky’ Shaffer didn’t even expect to be alive now, let alone return with a great new album. NICK MASON: GETTY; STEVE HARRIS: KEVIN NIXON BACK WITH THEIR thirteenth studio album, The Nothing, Korn are sounding bombastic, sharp and very, very heavy. A concept record partly inspired by the emotional fallout after the death of frontman Jonathan Davis’s estranged wife in 2018, it’s one of the darkest things the band have ever recorded but, weirdly, also one of the most immediate and succinct records of their lengthy career. Guitarist James ‘Munky’ Shaffer attributes this fresh creative splurge to the talents of his singer and the strength of their friendship. The Nothing sounds absolutely huge. What’s your secret? You listen to what you did before, and you…

WELCOME BACK The Defiants The 80s/90s melodic hard rockers on latter-day success, songwriting and the perils of steroids with Jack Daniel’s. GIVEN THAT BASSIST Bruno Ravel and guitarist Rob Marcello remain current members of the US hair-metallers Danger Danger, and that singer Paul Laine had two spells fronting the same group, similarities between The Defiants and Danger Danger were inevitable. Ravel and Laine discuss The Defiants’ second album, Zokusho (it’s Japanese for ‘sequel’), which looks set to feature among the year’s ‘best of AOR’ lists. Classic Rock named The Defiants’ selftitled debut the melodic hard rock album of 2016. Did its critical success surprise you? Bruno Ravel: I had kind of expected diehard Danger Danger fans from the Paul Laine era to like it, but overall it exceeded any hopes…

the DIRT HIGH HOPES Bones UK It’s difficult to top making an album with Jeff Beck, but they’re aiming high. “We don’t want to sound like anybody else. We don’t want to just emulate old rock’n’roll.” IN THE BEGINNING, Bones UK put forward words to sum up the world they wanted to create: “Black leather jackets, snakes, motorbikes and sex.” Based on their stylish music videos, not to mention the energy of their self-titled debut, it seems to be going to plan. The brainchild of art-school dropout singer/guitarist Rosie Bones (née Oddie, daughter of Bill) and lead guitarist Carmen Vandenberg (previously a session player), it began in 2015 when Bones saw Vandenberg playing at Camden’s Blues Kitchen. Bones approached her to suggest they do something. A lot of whisky later,…

50 YEARS OF HEAVY METAL BLOOD BROTHERS They’re one of thrash metal’s Big Four, and, more than 30 years on, Slayer’s iconic, monstrous Reign In Blood album stands as a benchmark for what heavy metal can and should be. Words: Dave Everley The end of days is approaching; the precise point when Slayer will make their exit has yet to be determined, but it’s there, hovering inexorably in the not-too-distant future, as inevitable as death. Their fate is set in stone: when their current world tour ends, so will Slayer. When they do eventually bow out, the band that formed in suburban Orange County in 1981 will leave an almighty legacy. Slayer can justifiably lay claim to being one of the founding fathers of thrash metal. A band who helped…

THE CLASSIC ROCK INTERVIEW DANNY BOWES & LUKE MORLEY THUNDER Had it not been for Danny Bowes’s aunt’s record collection, and Luke Morley’s mum getting him a ticket to see T.Rex, who knows what the pair of them would be up to now. Thankfully, in 1989 the two school friends formed Thunder, one of Britain’s great rock bands. Interview: Mick Wall Portrait: Kevin Nixon The story of Thunder is really the story of singer Danny Bowes and guitarist Luke Morley. Not just musically, but also in terms of personality, determination, even destiny. They are blood brothers who have known each other since they were 11 years old. You can’t really understand the story of Thunder unless you know the story of their friendship. We meet on a sunny afternoon at…

REVIEWS ROUND-UP: SLEAZE By Sleazegrinder Short Fuses Dawn Of The Deaf SELF-RELEASED Minneapolis action rockers the Short Fuses haven’t released an album since 2003, but then again nor have I, so who’s counting? The good news is that they haven’t missed a beat since their salad days as the Midwest Motörhead, and Dawn Of The Deaf serves up a hot platter of primal rock’n’roll anchored by the jungle roar of Miss Georgia Peach. At under two minutes, the furious punker You Ain’t Shit (Without ALeather Jacket) is probably not the centre-piece of the album, but it must be highlighted because, let’s face it, it’s the truth. It’s almost like the Fuses awoke from their 15-year slumber specifically to remind us of that. Elsewhere they blast away at full-throttle MC 5-meets-Zeke eardrum-melters…

THE HARD STUFF REISSUES The Cult Sonic Temple BEGGARS ARKIVE Mammoth reissue of late-80s riff monster. Ian Astbury’s accelerated journey through the 1980s was as strange as it was unexpected. Within the space of four years, he’d gone from being leader of Yorkshire goth-punks Southern Death Cult (supporting Bauhaus around the UK) to transatlantic hard rocker, fronting The Cult as they took on America with 1987’s riff-packed Electric album. But the band’s Stateside fixation had yet to peak. That moment arrived two years later, with the multi-platinum Sonic Temple. Not only did that album mark the beginning of The Cult’s long association with producer Bob Rock, it also found Billy Duffy – Astbury’s songwriting partner – fully indulging his guitar god fantasies. If Electric was the blueprint, then Sonic Temple…

LIVE! Hawklords The Hawkwind spin-off celebrate 50 years of British space-rock with nine shows. “I’m a bit worried that we might have a hit on our hands. It’s got a jangling, Byrds-ian vibe. It’s real ear worm stuff.” Formed during a period of down time from Hawkwind, the Hawklords made one album and played one tour, but then faded away when Dave Brock and Robert Calvert returned to the mothership. Since 2008, when bassist-turned-keyboard player Harvey Bainbridge reactivated the name, the revived Hawklords have made seven further albums and toured like maniacs. Guitarist/singer Jerry Richards reveals why Nik Turner is on board for next month’s UK tour. The positive response to last year’s album Brave New World prompted Classic Rock to ask: “Why on earth don’t these indomitable psychedelic warlords…

LIVE! Anathema The Liverpool band are counting down to lift-off at Space Rocks. Frontman/guitarist Vincent Cavanagh looks forward to boldly going where the band have never gone before. Prog magazine’s review of your Ramblin’ Man Fair set pondered upon whether Anathema sound like Pink Floyd and the Prodigy locked together in the same room, or what Kraftwerk might be in the guise of a rock band? Those are really good questions – and the implications are very flattering. I’m sure that Kraftwerk would be horrified to hear them, though [laughs]. The review summed up: “The less Anathema rock, the more interesting they are.” We played a couple of festivals recently, which meant revisiting our songs from the past. Playing the older stuff isn’t something we dislike in the least, but…

LIVE! Skunk Anansie London Brixton O2 Academy Skin and co. turn up the heat for a packed audience that’s already being cooked to medium-rare. ‘Skin looks like she’s dropped in on a silver parachute.’ WILL IRELAND Skunk Anansie singer Skin looks like she’s dropped in through the Academy ceiling on a silver parachute and got it tangled behind her in a series of looping tresses. “It looks like she’s wearing a shiny bin bag,” says someone to my right, rather unkindly. Whatever your take on her opening outfit tonight, it’s offset by a pair of shoulder pads that might make Grace Jones blanch. For one shimmering moment, Skin’s stage outfit is almost as big as her stage persona and presence. In a show that’s either oversold or has a bigger…