All posts in Featured

A phenomenal digital birthday card to legendary JOURNEY founder Neal Schon featuring heartfelt greetings from his stunning wife Michaele along with Jonathan Cain, Brad Paisley, Randy Jackson, Narada Michael Walden, Sammy Hagar, Steve Lukather, Steve Vai, Arnel Pineda, Scott Hamilton, Zakk Wylde, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Derlatka, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson and Jack Blades can be seen below.

Schon, who was born in Midwest City, Oklahoma on February 27, 1954 to Matthew and Barbara Schon, turns 67 on Saturday.

Neal founded JOURNEY in 1972 and has been the only consistent member, having participated in every album and tour to date. He is a Grammy-nominated guitarist, songwriter and vocalist who was also a member of SANTANA and has performed with a variety of other acts, including BAD ENGLISH, JAN HAMMER and HSAS. He has released 10 solo albums, including his latest, “Vortex”. His guitar style has been described as soulful and melodic, admired by such fellow legends as Eric Clapton and Prince, who reportedly asked for Schon’s blessing to release “Purple Rain”, which echoed a similar sound to JOURNEY’s “Faithfully”.

This past December, Schon released his long-awaited new solo album, “Universe”. The effort, which was produced by current JOURNEY drummer Narada Michael Walden, had been in the works for several years.

JOURNEY’s worldwide sales have reached over 100 million records, making them one of the world’s best-selling bands of all time, with a wide selection of chart-topping hits like “Don’t Stop Believin'”, “Open Arms”, “Lights”, “Faithfully” and “When You Love A Woman”, among others.

Last week, “Don’t Stop Believin'” surpassed one billion listens on Spotify. The song, which originally appeared on JOURNEY’s 1981 album “Escape”, joins the QUEEN classic “Bohemian Rhapsody” as the only songs to have reached the milestone. “Don’t Stop Believin'” is also the top-selling digital download of a track not originally released in this century, with over seven million copies of “Escape” sold in the United States alone.

Long-running California rockers BUCKCHERRY have set “Breaking Down The Barricade” as the title of their new album, tentatively due this summer. The follow-up to 2019’s “Warpaint” was recorded last fall in Nashville, Tennessee with producer and songwriter-for-hire Marti Frederiksen, who has previously collaborated with AEROSMITH, DEF LEPPARD, Jonny Lang and Sheryl Crow, among many others.

Speaking to Shawn Ratches of Laughingmonkeymusic, BUCKCHERRY guitarist Stevie Dacanay (a.k.a. Stevie D.) stated about “Breaking Down The Barricade” (see video below): “We worked on this one with Marti Frederiksen, who’s like the sixth member of AEROSMITH. So the feel is gonna be a little bit different as well [compared to previous BUCKHERRY albums].

“We banged one out in no time,” he continued. “Josh [Todd, BUCKCHERRY singer] and I had been, since quarantine, we started writing. And by the time September came around, we were ready to start tracking another album. But what we did is we went to Nashville and we wrote another batch of songs with Marti Frederiksen, and we were all ready to go by October, to record. We were so ready that it literally took us less than 10 days to record the whole thing.”

According to Steve, BUCKCHERRY wrote over 25 songs this time around but ended up recording only 10. “We thought about [releasing a double album], but right now, a lot of people aren’t releasing full-length albums — a lot of people just release singles and videos,” he explained. “So, we decided to cull the whole thing down to 10. The Japan release, we’re gonna release two extras.

“I was talking with Josh, ‘Which [songs] do you wanna give up? Which ones do you wanna keep for the next album to work on?’

“I just keep going,” he said. “At some point in the writing process, you hit a brick wall, and that’s when it’s good to have these.

“We have a new process now with Marti that really works for us and that we really like.”

As for a possible release date for “Breaking Down The Barricade”, Steve said: “If the numbers go down — the cases of COVID, let’s say — then we’ll be able to kind of work backwards from a release date or summer touring or spring touring. We’ve got some shows booked in February. But if the numbers start going down now, then they’re gonna say, ‘Well, we’re gonna start booking shows for spring moving forward.’ And if we can tour, then we’ll put out the album. So we’ll set a release date and then a book a tour from there.”

Last November, Todd told Audio Ink Radio about about the musical direction of the new BUCKCHERRY material: “Well, it’s not gonna change from a BUCKCHERRY rock record. Alls I can say is that we’ve just come leaps and bounds from the first record, as far as songwriting and how we put everything together. And just as far as the quality of songs, song to song, it’s just so powerful. I can’t wait for everybody to hear it. Marti Frederiksen is producing it. He produced a few records of ours back in the day. And it’s been really great to be reunited with him, and he’s a super talented guy. It’s like having a sixth band member. So, it’s been a lot of fun.”

Last summer, BUCKCHERRY recruited JETBOY’s Billy Rowe as its new guitarist. He joined the group as the replacement for Kevin Roentgen, who left BUCKCHERRY in July 2020.

Roentgen, who joined the California-based band in 2017, made his exit official in a social media post. He wrote: “Bottom line, I made this decision to come off the road and spend more time with my family. The guys understood this, and for that I’m thankful. Though my wife and daughter always one hundred percent supported me in this gig, they are quite happy now to have me home.”

Roentgen joined BUCKCHERRY as the replacement for original guitarist Keith Nelson. Roentgen can be heard on “Warpaint”, which was released in March 2019 via Century Media/RED Music. The 12-song record was produced by Mike Plotnikoff, whose previous collaboration with the band was BUCKCHERRY’s multi-platinum third album, 2005’s “15”.

In 2019, BUCKCHERRY recruited Francis Ruiz as its new drummer. He joined the group as the replacement for Sean Winchester, who exited BUCKCHERRY after laying down the drum tracks on “Warpaint”.

Vocalist Robert “Bob” James, best known for his work with the band MONTROSE, has died from stomach ulcer complications. He was reportedly 68 years old.

In 1975, James got his big break when he was drafted by Ronnie Montrose to replace Sammy Hagar in a reconfigured MONTROSE lineup that released two albums, “Warner Bros. Presents…Montrose” (1975) and “Jump On It” (1976).

After leaving MONTROSE in early 1977, James reconvened with his pre-MONTROSE band SHATTERMINX, a.k.a. SWAN, which recorded and gigged in the Los Angeles area.

In early 1978, James was drafted to front the Peter Frampton-mentored New York City-based group MAGNET, which featured ex-HUMBLE PIE drummer Jerry Shirley and released the album “Worldwide Attraction” on A&M.

Throughout most of the 1980s, James was active with his Los Angeles-based band ELEMENTS.

In 2017, the “Ronnie Montrose Remembered” tribute concert, held in conjunction with the annual NAMM show and organized by MONTROSE vocalist Keith St. John, featured James performing some of his MONTROSE classics.

In early 2021, previously unreleased 1970s recordings of James with his pre- and post-MONTROSE bands SHATTERMINX and SWAN were uploaded to YouTube in album format presentations.

James is survived by a son, songwriter and musician Brendan Willing James.

Bob James photo: Norman Seeff (from “Jump On It” Warner Bros., 1976)

Shocked and very sad my life long friend Bob James has died.. Bob replaced Sammy Hagar in the band MONTROSE. Incredible Rock singer… RIP my friend

Posted by Dino Maddalone on Friday, February 26, 2021

When it comes to balancing the scales of justice between “sweet” and “heat,” Jackie O’s nailed it with Oro Negro.
The post No Corporate Beer Reviews: Oro Negro appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo was a guest on the latest episode of the “Hangin’ & Bangin’: Artists On Lockdown” online show, where he was joined by Vinny Appice (BLACK SABBATH, DIO), Carmine Appice (OZZY OSBOURNE) and Dave Amato (REO SPEEDWAGON). You can now watch the discussion below.

Speaking about how he has been staying busy during the coronavirus pandemic, Lombardo said: “I moved to Ventura approximately two years ago. And I wanted to get into a house where I can set up a studio, set up some drums, and, fortunately, pandemic hit and made me just focus on everything — all drums and recording here at home. And I’ve been able to knock out some projects. I did a song for Ice-T. That was the first song I did here, which was a remake of ‘Colors’. And let’s see what else… I worked on this really bizarre project, SATANIC PLANET. So there’s been a lot of productivity, which I’m really fortunate and happy that things have been — still, even with this pandemic, I’ve been able to stay busy and productive.”

The 56-year-old musician, who splits most of his time between crossover pioneers SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, horror-punk icons MISFITS and hardcore supergroup DEAD CROSS, was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the group’s Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other bandmembers. He has since been replaced by Paul Bostaph, who was previously SLAYER’s drummer from 1992 until 2001.

Lombardo, who was born in Havana, Cuba but emigrated to Southern California with his parents when he was a toddler, finally got a chance to visit his former homeland in May 2018 when SUICIDAL TENDENCIES played two shows in Cuba. The concerts at Centro Cultural Club Bariay in Holguin and at Salon Rosado De La Tropical in Havana marked the first time Dave had ever performed in the Caribbean nation.

New York City’s Broadway theatres have been out of commission for almost a year now. This prolonged pause has not stopped world-renowned opera singer Alyson Cambridge and guitar virtuoso Tony Bruno from creating a new show: “Rock Me Amadeus”. After first announcing the upcoming show last fall, they are releasing their newest music video, “Love Hurts Uninvited”, as part of a series of videos to build anticipation for the show. Arranged by Tony Bruno, the song is an original mashup that combines ’80s rock of NAZARETH’s “Love Hurts”, ’90s angst of Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited” and the classical strings of Tchaikovsky’s iconic theme to “Romeo And Juliet”. Rock vocalists Dee Snider, Kia Warren and Chloe Lowery co-star in the video, showing off their vocal and acting chops.

The three co-stars portray individuals who are dealing with the complexities of love: loss of it, memories of it, and the hurt and joy that come from it. Each character clings to a token of that love lost — a scarf, a locket or a letter — each a reminder of happier times.

Directed by Matthew Stiller, the video was shot by Tyler Ribble and Pierre Tsigaridis, and edited by Simon K. Wheeldon in a neo-noir film style, in black and white with evocative pops of color, representing the show’s classic-meets-modern ambiance. Filmed from both sides of the U.S., the video shows Snider from a downtown L.A. hotel room, while Warren and Lowery are seen on the abandoned streets of New York City and inside Flux Studios.

“Rock Me Amadeus” co-producer Tony Bruno says about their new video: “As in ‘Romeo And Juliet’, there’s always more to love than the attraction. It’s complicated, frustrating and painful at times. Some endure and some don’t. This mashup was born out of that feeling which we have all experienced at one time or another.”

More video teasers and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage will be released via the show’s web site, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube every month through the summer to give fans a preview of the exciting experience to come. With the videos, Cambridge and Bruno aim to evoke the excitement of their live show as they move closer to announcing the show’s opening dates.

“Rock Me Amadeus” is a new show that combines classics from different centuries. It brings the grandeur of classical music, the opulence of opera and the powerful emotions of classic rock and pop songs into one electrifying concert experience. Internationally acclaimed opera soprano Alyson Cambridge and rock guitar virtuoso/composer Tony Bruno join forces to create and co-produce “Rock Me Amadeus”, blending an all-star cast of rock, pop and classical vocalists and instrumentalists with a full rock band, symphony orchestra and choir. The show is currently slated to open in fall 2021 in New York City.

During an appearance on a recent episode of “Another FN Podcast”, MEGADETH’s David Ellefson discussed the sound of METALLICA’s “…And Justice For All” album. While “…And Justice For All” is considered one of METALLICA’s classics, it has been criticized almost since the day it was released in 1988 for the lack of any bass guitar on the record. Jason Newsted’s playing is virtually buried in the mix — and many fans feel that drummer Lars Ulrich, who had very specific ideas for how he wanted his drums to sound, is to blame.

Ellefson said (see video below): “There is something on YouTube that [Jason] did — an interview that’s very candid — and he talked very openly about… ‘Garage Days’ was his first [recording with METALLICA], and he said, he goes, ‘Look, [on ‘Justice’] I played everything… I matched a lot of the guitar parts, but it was very aggressive. The tone was exactly dialed the same as it was on ‘Garage Days’,’ and then, for whatever reason, it wasn’t prominent on [the ‘Justice’ album]. And that could probably be discussed for another 10 podcasts.

“Look, we all know Jason’s a great player,” Ellefson continued. “I knew him from FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. He was a great player. He was a band leader, so when he joined METALLICA, he then had to come back to being an Indian and not a chief, which, I’m sure, knowing him, was probably difficult. I mean, look, you’re in the biggest heavy metal band in the world, but you still have a different role being in that group, as big as it is. So there’s definitely a mental adjustment I’m sure that he had to go through with that.”

Ellefson also talked about the more progressive nature of much of the “…And Justice For All” material, with the album’s nine songs clocking in at about 65 minutes. He said: “Lars was openly giving nods to DEEP PURPLE and RUSH at that point, and you could tell they were going off on these sort of heavy metal ‘Cygnus X-1’ explorations on a lot of these tracks, which was clever, because with metal, to do that and still keep it interesting and not run out of ideas was… That, to me, was probably the thing I like about the record the most, is it was a very progressive record. And then it’s kind of like they got that out of their system, and then they made the ‘Black’ album. The same maybe could be said for MEGADETH, that we did that with ‘Rust In Peace’, and then we went and made ‘Countdown To Extinction’, which we explored slower tempos, bigger grooves — just kind of writing verse-chorus-verse-chorus rather than [going through] five tempos and going down all those other roads. So, on some level, we probably were kind of walking side by side, METALLICA and MEGADETH, on that sort of level — maybe that same kind of compositional mindset from these two records.”

Two years ago, METALLICA frontman James Hetfield defended the sound of “…And Justice For All”, saying that he and his bandmates simply “wanted the best-sounding record” they could make. “It was not all about, ‘Fuck [Jason]. Let’s turn him down.’ That’s for sure,” he said. “We wanted the best-sounding record we could make. That was our goal. We were burnt. We were frigging fried. Going back and forth [between touring and mixing the album]. Playing a gig. No earplugs, no nothing. You go back into the studio, your hearing is shot. If your ears can’t hear any high end anymore, you’re gonna turn it up. So we’re turning the high end up more and more and more and all of a sudden, low end’s gone. So I know that played a bigger part than any hazing or any ill feelings towards Jason, for sure. We were fried. We were burnt.”

Hetfield also addressed some of the criticism leveled at METALLICA by one of the “…And Justice For All” album mixers, Steve Thompson. In a 2015 interview with Ultimate Guitar, Thompson suggested that Ulrich was the culprit for the lack of any bass guitar on the record, claiming that Lars wanted his drums to sound a certain way — even if it meant cutting out the bass.

“We wanted it tight,” James explained. “We wanted it fucking tight. That’s what we wanted. We wanted the snare, we wanted the guitar, we wanted everything up front and in your face and really tight. And we thought we got it. And, you know, we kinda know what we want to sound like. Can we sit behind a desk and make it happen? No. We ask people to do it, and they do it. So [Thompson] did his job. He’s got nothing to apologize for or point fingers at. No one’s to blame for ‘something.’ It is a piece of art. It happened and it ended up the way it is for a reason. And for reasons we were just talking about. We were burnt. We’re traveling, we’re playing a gig, our ears were fried. We were not sleeping. He doesn’t need to defend himself. He was a part of an awesome album in history, so I think he should be maybe be a little easier on himself.”

James also once again dismissed calls for METALLICA to remix “…And Justice For All” so that Newsted’s contributions are more audible.

“All this [bass discussion] is after the fact, and it’s, like, who gives a shit, man, really?” Hetfield said. “And why would you change that? Why would you change history? Why would you all of a sudden put bass on it? There is bass on it, but why would you remix an album? You can remaster it, yes, but why would you remix something and make it different? It’d be like… I don’t know. Not that I’m comparing us to the Mona Lisa, but it’s, like, ‘Uh, can we make her smile a little better?!’ You know?! Why?”

In a 2008 interview with Decibel magazine, METALLICA guitarist Kirk Hammett attempted to explain the lack of bass on “…And Justice For All”, saying that “the reason you can’t hear the bass so well is because the bass frequencies in Jason’s tone kinda interfered with the tone that James was trying to shoot for with his rhythm guitar sound, and every time the two blended together, it just wasn’t happening. So the only thing left to do was turn the bass down in the mix. It was unfortunate, but for some reason or another, that album is known for the low end being there without the bass being very high up in the mix. It was an experiment, too — we were totally going for a dry, in-your-face sound, and some people really like that sound. A lot of the newer-generation bands, especially, think that album sounds great. But at the end of the day, it was an experiment. I’m not really sure it was 100 percent successful, but it is a unique sound that that album has.”

In the Ultimate Guitar interview, Thompson said that he spoke out because he was tired of being blamed for the lack of bass. He remarked: “They flew us out [to METALLICA’s Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in 2009] and I’m sitting with Lars. He goes, ‘Hey, what happened to the bass in ‘Justice’?’ He actually asked me that. I wanted to cold cock him right there. It was a shame because I’m the one getting the shit for the lack of bass.”

Ulrich told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that fans were extremely vocal about the sound of the album at the time of its release. “I mean, it was unbelievable, you know, ‘…And Justice For All’, ” he said. “People were saying, ‘That’s the worst-sounding record, where’s the bass, and it sounds like it was recorded in a garage, and…’ But, you know, listen, you do the best you can in the moment and then you move on.”

We’ve got your latest supply of raging riffs to get you through the next week, featuring Moonspell, Forhist, Summoning the Lich and more!
The post Five For Friday: February 26, 2021 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor is featured in “Live The Madness”, the new music video from MOONSHINE BANDITS, the American country rap group composed of Dusty “Tex” Dahlgren and Brett “Bird” Brooks. The clip, which will make its online debut on Monday, March 1, also features Corey’s wife Alicia Taylor, a professional dancer and a member of the all-girl dance group CHERRY BOMBS.

“Live The Madness”, featuring Corey on guest vocals, is taken from MOONSHINE BANDITS’ latest album, “Fire”, which came out in 2020.

Since their formation in Los Banos California in 2003, the MOONSHINE BANDITS have continued a campaign of crossover genre-bending musical mayhem that appeals to the eclectic, color-outside-the-lines tastes of listeners, a.k.a. The Shiners, and they fiercely refuse to have their tastes confined and filed into categories.

The MOONSHINE BANDITS have crisscrossed the country performing hundreds of shows a year, ventured into branding their own beef jerky and moonshine, collaborated with some of the music business’s most prolific artists, outshined in the face of record industry roadblocks, earned a fiercely loyal fan following, and embrace the unconventional. It’s all part of a journey filled with good, bad and even some ugly, but ultimately the MOONSHINE BANDITS philosophy is summed up by Tex and Bird’s joint statement: “We always felt there aren’’ stops or boundaries if you pave your own lane.”

CT and I were asked to team up with Moonshine Bandits for a fun track/video. “Live The Madness” premieres March 1st! ? pic.twitter.com/g7mKodvRhf
— uh-lee-see-yuh Taylor (@AliciaETaylor) February 26, 2021