Nita Strauss, the guitar shredder for the ALICE COOPER band, has shared a nine-minute video recap of the fall 2021 leg of her “Winter Wasteland” tour, which kicked off on November 10 in New Orleans, Lousiana and concluded on December 18 in Angola, Indiana.

Nita wrote in a message accompanying the YouTube release of the clip: “Some memories from our return to the stage after a year and a half off! It was so great getting back out there and seeing so many of you out on the road!”

Upcoming Nita Strauss solo shows:

Jan. 07 – Baton Rouge, LA @ Chelsea’s Live
Jan. 08 – Memphis, TN @ Growlers
Jan. 10 – Des Moines, IA @ Woolys
Jan. 12 – Iowa City, IA @ Wildwood Saloon
Jan. 13 – St Peters, MO @ Diamond Music Club
Jan. 14 – Westland, MI @ Token Lounge
Jan. 15 – Harrisburg, PA @ HMAC
Jan. 17 – Asheville, NC @ The Grey Eagle
Jan. 18 – Louisville, KY @ Diamond Concert Hall
Jan. 19 – Nashville, TN @ The Basement East
Jan. 21 – Shreveport, LA @ Bear’s
Jan. 22-27 – ShipRocked cruise

Earlier this month, Nita spoke to Terrie Carr of the Morristown, New Jersey radio station 105.5 WDHA about the progress of the writing and recording sessions for her follow-up to 2018’s “Controlled Chaos” solo debut. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “The album is almost finished being recorded. We are just waiting on a couple of singers. Guitars are done, drums, bass — everything is finished.

“This is my first time collaborating with vocalists on anything, so it’s a bit of a waiting game — it’s testing my patience a little bit — but it’s all worth it in the end,” she continued.

“We’re gonna do half and half — so six instrumental tracks and six tracks with guest vocalists.”

In a separate interview with “The Mistress Carrie Podcast”, Nita stated about her decision to make the upcoming LP “half vocal songs and half instrumental: “I did feel, and the label and everybody agreed, it’s still important for me to keep my identity as a guitar player and not just branch off too much and go, ‘Okay, well, now it’s just guests.’ Let me still have a little of what makes me me, which is the instrumental shred stuff. And the instrumental pieces that I’ve written on this record are, I think, better than anything I did on the first one — definitely more… I don’t know if it could be more emotional but they’re very emotional pieces of music and I think a little better crafted this time around. So I think all the songs in general are more well thought out, better put together this time around. And I do have some of my absolute favorite [singers guesting on it]. I have three amazing powerhouse female vocalists on this album so far. And there are still a couple of things T.B.D. [to be determined]. And then we should be ready to release next spring.”

In October, Nita shared “Dead Inside”, her first new music since the release of her critically acclaimed debut solo album “Controlled Chaos” in 2018. The track is her first-ever solo collaboration with a vocalist, David Draiman, frontman of Grammy-nominated rock icons DISTURBED.

Strauss has been playing with Cooper since 2014 when she replaced Australian musician and former Michael Jackson player Orianthi. She joined Alice in time for a mammoth MÖTLEY CRÜE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker’s former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.

Nita released “Controlled Chaos” to mass acclaim from fans and media alike, with Metal Injection calling it “a great debut that — as its creator intended — leaves no doubt”, and Guitar World stating “‘Controlled Chaos’ is a panoramic view of Nita Strauss’s many strengths”. To date the album has clocked up 6.7 million streams worldwide, with music videos for singles “Our Most Desperate Hour”, “Pandemonium”, “Alegria” and “Mariana Trench” generating over 3 million YouTube views.

As well as performing with Cooper, Nita has also played with R&B star Jermaine Jackson, early MTV darlings FEMME FATALE, video game supergroup CRITICAL HIT and popular tribute band THE IRON MAIDENS.

In April 2020, Nita launched “Rock Guitar Fundamentals” — a three-module online guitar teaching program suitable for learners of all levels. The course is available at www.iwanttoplayguitar.com.

Nita’s live show is mostly instrumental in nature, combining originals with covers.

Former DIO guitarist Craig Goldy recently spoke to Metal Express Radio about how musicians have been affected by the restrictive environments imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the corresponding technological implications. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Everything is about self-preservation right now, but at the same time, there’s all sorts of groups and people getting together trying to help one another. So it’s a combination of everything. It’s like no other time.

“I lost my stepfather and my mother during this time, so it was kind of weird,” he continued. “The last six years, I was taking of them, really. So when they were gone, it was just a completely different world. Everything that I ever knew and depended on and relied upon suddenly disappeared. It’s all coming back little by little. But at the same time… I just got off the phone with a guy who just… It’s, like, some people are so stubborn about vaccines. When this thing first hit, we were crying out for a vaccine, and now there’s certain people… I understand that if they don’t get a vaccine, they may lose their job. And that’s a difficult situation to face, but at the same time they don’t see the bigger picture.

“How that affects music is that this is a social and economic change,” Goldy added. “The last time something like this happened was [the 43 day-conflict in 1991 called] Desert Storm. It was a nationwide recession. There was all sorts of things that happened as a result of that. And it changed music — changed the musical appetite. So that’s gonna happen soon. The musical appetite is gonna change soon. And why it changes and where it’s gonna go is gonna be very interesting. But it seems to be all predicated on this sort of self-preservation. I know I keep saying that. Over here, maybe it’s just because I live in San Diego — maybe that’s just the way it is here in San Diego. But from what I see on the news, it doesn’t seem to be any different [in other parts of the world].”

Back in 2018, Goldy made headlines when he said that he hoped then-U.S. president Donald Trump would “get a chance to really show people what he’s all about” because he believed that the billionaire real estate mogul “loves his country” and “wants to get rid of the bullshit.” Speaking to “The Metal Gods Meltdown”, Goldy said: “Donald Trump, he is a jackass, but at least he’s not owned by anybody. So that way when he walks into office, he’s not automatically having to operate under somebody else’s agenda other than his own. I think he gave us a bad sell job, but deep down inside, I think he really does wanna try to do something good. And same thing with poor [former president] Barack Obama — he walked into a good-old-boy situation, and they were not gonna let a black president solve all the problems that all the white idiots made, so they fought him tooth and nail.”

Adding that he voted for Trump, Goldy went on to say: “I’m there — I’m hoping that someday he’ll get a chance to really show people what he’s all about. ‘Cause I really think, deep down inside, he really loves his country and he wants to make a change and he wants to get rid of the bullshit. And he has got over two hundred years of bullshit to clean up in four years. So God bless him.”

Several hours after Craig’s interview remarks were first published by BLABBERMOUTH.NET, Goldy used his personal Facebook account to add the following comment below the original story: “In this hour-long interview, Trump has little to do with anything that I said. Yes, I voted for him, thinking maybe just this once he was the guy that could change the ‘same-as-usual’ politics, but he’s only gone on to prove just how much of a jackass he really is! I voted for change, not for racism or any other foul action this man has shown himself to be capable of.”

Goldy joined DIO during the “Sacred Heart” tour in 1986 after original guitarist Vivian Campbell was fired from the band.

For the past decade, Goldy has played sporadic shows with DIO DISCIPLES, which is made up of former members of DIO, along with a rotating lineup of singers, including former JUDAS PRIEST frontman Tim “Ripper” Owens.

Hear Dust Prophet marry classic metal with literary classics on “Hourglass.”
The post Track Premiere: Dust Prophet – “Hourglass” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

TRIXTER guitarist Steve Brown recently spoke to The Rock Shop With Ralph about his nearly 30-year friendship with Eddie Van Halen. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “When I bought my house and was moving in and building my studio, I went out to see VAN HALEN and my wife and I were in Ed’s dressing room and I had that great picture [taken] with me and him. It was the week after I bought my house and I [was] building the studio. And I told him, I said, ‘Yeah, man, I’m building my studio.’ And he goes, ‘What are you, building something to make demos?’ And I go, ‘No, man. I’m building a studio, like you.’ I said, ‘You’ve got 5150. My studio’s gonna be 6160.’ And started cracking up. And he was so happy. We [had] many conversations about our studios and making records.

“The most important thing that Ed taught me was always keep writing, keep making music,” he continued. “And he would always be, ‘I don’t fucking give a shit about the old days. I’m making new music.’ And that was one of the things. And one of the greatest things Ed — and Alex [Van Halen] — always taught me was… Ed would always say, ‘Steve, we’re musicians. We make music, motherfucker. That’s what we do. No matter what.’ He didn’t give a shit. He never gave a shit if it sold ten million records or it sold two million. We make music for ourselves first. And if the people like it… And that was one of the biggest lessons I learned from him. And, of course, the biggest inspiration in building my studio was that he built his own studio. And to be able to have a place where you have control and you can make music whenever you want, 24-7. And that’s what I do here. And that’s one of the greatest inspirations and gifts that my friendship with Ed Van Halen, that he taught me that. And he wanted me to build my own studio and encouraged me. And that’s always the joke — that he had 5150 and I have 6160.”

Brown previously discussed his friendship with Eddie Van Halen in an interview with “Sound Matters” conducted a few days after the iconic guitarist’s passing. At the time, he said: “[Eddie] was the best. And just to clarify, I was friends with him. It was much different than a lot these guys that you see who maybe met him once or twice. I see a lot of these guys online. I had almost a 30-year relationship with him. And the coolest thing I can only say is that he always said, ‘Steve, you’re family. You’re family.’ He would call my house while he was on tour, whether it was on the ‘Balance’ tour or the ’98 tour or 2004, when he was even really in a bad place. But all I can tell you is this: he loved my wife, he loved my friends. P.J. [Farley] from TRIXTER, we hung out with him. Some of the other guys in my band got to meet him and spend time with him. He treated everybody like a normal person, because that’s all Ed was, and that’s all he ever wanted to be.

“The first time I ever met him, he didn’t introduce himself as ‘Eddie’ or ‘Edward.’ He goes, ‘Hey, man. I’m Ed.’ And that’s really the most important thing.

“Listen, we can talk all about the music, the gear, his innovations, how he inspired the world to play guitar. But what I can say is I know the guy, and I loved the guy, and he loved me, and he loved his friends, and people that were part of the family, like I told you,” he continued. “And that’s the greatest thing, because he was that guy. That smile was as real as it gets. He wasn’t an act. He was never an act. He got the most joy when he was up on stage playing, and that smile was two hundred percent real. And that is the truth.

“All I can say, above and beyond that, is he was sweet. He was gracious. I had these incredible times when he would call me on the road and he would leave messages on my answering machine. He didn’t call my house once or twice — he called my house probably ten or fifteen times. Luckily, now, I did miss the call a bunch of times, and I was able to save those answering machine messages, which someday I might play for some people, but they are cherished memories now. But some of the times when I would be sleeping, or just getting in from a gig, and hear my phone ring at two o’clock in the morning, because Ed didn’t work on the same schedule, and when Ed wanted to talk to somebody, he’d call you, whether it was five o’clock in the morning. And I’d see the phone, and I’d see the phone number, and it would say ‘Ed Van Halen’. And I’d be, like, ‘Well, I’ve gotta talk to Ed now.’ And I’d talk to him. My wife and I would sit there or we’d be laying in bed, ‘Oh, Ed’s calling. Let’s talk to him.’

“The proudest moment of his life was when he became a dad,” Steve added. “I was there with him before Wolfgang was born — it was right when I met him. And then afterwards, a year and a half later, I’m at his Malibu beachhouse playing volleyball with [his then-wife] Valerie and a couple of other guys. Wolfgang’s walking around in his diapers. And those are the times that I cherish the most — just being a regular with Eddie, and not having to see any bullshit from other bandmembers or deal with managers or tour managers, everybody trying to keep you away.

“One of the other cool things was anytime I would go to a show, Ed would be, like, ‘You never have to knock on the dressing room door. You come in.’ I would walk in the dressing room, and Ed would be half naked, getting changed to go on stage. I’m, like, ‘You want me to leave?’ And he’d be, like, ‘No, man. Sit down. C’mon. You’re family.’ And Alex [Van Halen], the same way, man. He treated me like a brother.

“The only regrets I have were that I never took more pictures. But back, especially in the early ’90s, that wasn’t the thing that we did. But I’ve got enough memories to last me a lifetime.”

Eddie died in October 2020 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California.

The iconic VAN HALEN axeman passed away from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked Eddie Van Halen No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

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God Bless You Ed …My idol , my pal ???!!!
A post shared by STEVE BROWN (@stevebrownrocks) on Oct 6, 2020 at 1:06pm PDT

Stephen Pearcy says that he doubts RATT will ever be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

Despite the fact that artists are eligible for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 25 years after the release of their first album or single, iconic hard rock and metal bands like IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST have yet to be recognized by the institution, which inducted GUNS N’ ROSES in that group’s first year of eligibility.

Asked by The Rock Shop With Ralph if he thinks RATT should be inducted into the Rock Hall, Pearcy said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I doubt that’ll ever happen. Unfortunately, everything is politics.

“I watched the last Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. It’s such a piece of shit,” he continued.

“Some people deserve to be there and some people really don’t. I mean, there’s some people from the ’50s, ’60, ’70s… Let’s go, people. I hope you give a shit. Some ’80s people need to be in there — definitely. But not what’s politically… you know, ‘This is the token hair band’ kind of a thing.”

MÖTLEY CRÜE — which has been eligible since 2006 — won the 2019 “Voice Your Choice” in-museum Rock Hall fan vote but failed to make the list of nominees for the Class Of 2020. The band saw its votes surge when its biopic “The Dirt”, premiered on Netfix in March 2019.

The Rock Hall didn’t induct BLACK SABBATH until 2006, and METALLICA followed three years later.

Rock Hall rules state that artists become eligible a quarter century after their first records were released, but the Hall also claims that other “criteria include the influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock ‘n’ roll,” which is, of course, open to interpretation.

Eligible for induction since 1999, KISS didn’t get its first nomination until 2009, and was finally inducted in 2014.

DEEP PURPLE was eligible for the Rock Hall since 1993 but didn’t get inducted until five years ago.

PRIEST was on the ballot for Rock Hall induction last year, but failed to receive enough votes to make the class of 2020.

Having been eligible for induction since 1999, PRIEST was previously on the ballot for the 2018 class of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but was ultimately left out of the inductee list.

IRON MAIDEN was on the ballot for Rock Hall induction this year, but didn’t make the class of 2021.

A short video of WARRANT guitarist Joey Allen trying sweet cherry pie at the Sweetwater headquarters in Fort Wayne, Indiana can be seen below.

Back in 2018, WARRANT guitarist Erik Turner told Green Bay, Wisconsin radio station 94.3 Jack FM that he never gets tired of performing some of the band’s biggest hits, like “Cherry Pie” and “Heaven”. “We always play it in a different place, [in front of] different people,” he said. “If there’s a lot of people there having a good time and you’re having a couple of beers, it never, ever gets old watching people sing your songs and lyrics and scream and shout when you’re done playing that song [‘Cherry Pie’]. Now, that said, if we rehearsed a lot, it would not be fun to play those songs in the room by ourselves — no, absolutely not. But you put yourself in that atmosphere and you get a response to, say, ‘Down Boys’ or ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, ‘Sometimes She Cries’… we’ve got a bunch of songs… ‘I Saw Red’ and ‘Cherry Pie’ and stuff like that. So it never gets old, no.”

During an interview that aired in May 2006 as part of VH1’s “Heavy: The Story of Metal” four-part documentary tracing the evolution of heavy metal music and culture, original WARRANT singer Jani Lane stated about “Cherry Pie”, “I hate that song. I had no intention of writing that song. The record was done. The record was called ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’. And Donny Inner [president of Columbia Records] called up and said, ‘I don’t hear the single. You gotta give me a fucking single like ‘Love in an Elevator’. I need something like that.’ So that night I wrote ‘Cherry Pie’. Sent it to him. He lived with it over the weekend. Then all of a sudden the album’s called ‘Cherry Pie’. The record’s called ‘Cherry Pie’. I’m doing cherry-pie-eating contests. The single’s ‘Cherry Pie’. Right? If I’m lying, I’m dying. And my legacy’s ‘Cherry Pie’. Everything about me is ‘Cherry Pie’. I’m the ‘Cherry Pie’ guy. I could shoot myself in the fucking head for writing that song.”

Speaking to the “Taz at Night” show on Kalamazoo’s 92.5 WZUU radio station in November 2007, Lani dismissed his “Heavy: The Story of Metal” comments, claiming, “They [VH1 producers] just caught me on a bad day. It was a bad moment — I was going through a divorce, my mom had just passed away, all this stuff was going on — and they sit me down in a chair and wanna start grilling me with questions, and I didn’t wanna be there, so… You know, push that interview to the side, I’m happy as a clam to have written a song that is still being played and still dug by so many people. It’s hard enough to write a song, let alone one that sticks around.”

Lane recorded several albums with WARRANT in late 1980s and early 1990s but left the group several times. The band’s seventh studio LP, “Born Again”, was released in 2006 and featured Jaime St. James as the lead singer. In 2008, Lane returned to WARRANT temporarily and toured with the group. In September that year, WARRANT announced that Jani had left again. The band replaced him with Robert Mason.

Lane died in August 2011 at age 47. Paramedics found his body in a Comfort Inn motel room in Woodland Hills, California, which is near Los Angeles. Lane had battled alcohol abuse for years.

In a recent interview with “I Ask No One With Kevin Re LoVullo”, former GUNS N’ ROSES guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal spoke about how he was influenced by the playing and songwriting style of late NIRVANA icon Kurt Cobain. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “His guitar was the way to dig in and dirty it up and just deliver it. And his voice. But what I loved about Cobain was really the writing — the songwriting. I’m assuming it was intuitive. But he did the same kind of shit that [famed composer Johann Sebastian] Bach would do, as far as mathematically correct and accurate and phrasing things to land on the changing foundation beneath it so that it is always in perfect harmony. Whether it was studied or he just knew, he just heard it, but he did that — absolutely. I could spend the next hour just breaking it down and all the music theory [behind it]… If you were gonna take the math behind the music of why things work, his stuff all added up.”

Cobain died in 1994 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound not long after he took a massive dose of heroin — which could have proven fatal on its own.

Kurt began using heroin to ease chronic stomach pain he had suffered from his entire life.

NIRVANA was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame on April 10, 2014 — just five days after the 20th anniversary of Cobain’s death.

Thal joined GUNS N’ ROSES in 2006 and appeared on 2008’s “Chinese Democracy”, an effort which contained music that had been written before he came into the group. The disc took 13 years to make and was only a modest seller, moving just around half a million copies.

Thal is currently a member of SONS OF APOLLO, which also features drummer Mike Portnoy, keyboardist Derek Sherinian and bassist Billy Sheehan. SONS OF APOLLO released its second studio album, “MMXX” (pronounced: 20/20), in January 2020 via InsideOut Music/Sony.

During a recent interview with Waste Some Time With Jason Green, former HANOI ROCKS bassist Sami Yaffa discussed spending time with HANOI drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley and MÖTLEY CRÜE singer Vince Neil on the day of the tragic car accident caused by Neil in December 1984 that killed Razzle, who was Vince’s passenger.

“Vince came to pick up me and Razzle,” Sami said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “We stayed at the Franklin Plaza Suites, or something like that, at LaBrea and Franklin. ‘Cause Razzle and Vince were buddies, so he was going to pick up Razzle and show him around L.A. and all this stuff. And Razzle was, like, ‘Sami, come along.’ And he came with a tiny little sports car — it wasn’t that car that ended up in an accident; it was another one; but [it was] a two-seater — and there was no room. And Razzle was just, like, ‘Oh, fuck it, mate. Just hop on my fucking lap.’ So it was three of us just cruising around L.A. And he showed us Santa Monica and Hollywood Boulevard and we drove all around L.A. And he was showing us places: ‘There’s The Troubadour’ and ‘There’s the Rainbow’ and ‘There’s Roxy’ and ‘There’s the Whisky.’ So we had a really nice afternoon with Vince. And then he said, ‘Let’s just go back to my house and my wife will cook some lunch, or whatever, and some dinner, and we’ll hang out.’ And that’s what we ended up doing — we ended up hanging out, having some beers and smoke a little spliff and have a good time and talk about things. And little by little, it just turned into more of a party. But it wasn’t really like a crazy party; it was just a bunch of people showed up. Andy [McCoy, HANOI guitarist] and Tommy [Lee, CRÜE drummer] came a little bit later and some of their friends. And we’d been kind of drinking beer all day. And I just said that I’m gonna take a nap. They actually asked me to go with them to go and pick up some more beer. And I said, ‘I’m gonna take a nap.’ And when I woke up, Mick Mars [CRÜE guitarist] was just kind of shaking me awake. And I wondered where everybody else was. And he said that there’s been an accident. And we went to the hospital and I found out that my bro was gone. It was very heavy.”

Neil’s drunk-driving death car crash happened when he smashed his car into another vehicle in Redondo Beach, California, killing Razzle and seriously injuring two other occupants.

Vince was charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol. His blood alcohol level was 0.17, which was over the legal limit.

Neil served half of a 30-day jail sentence, received five years probation and had to pay $2.6 million in restitution, as well as perform 200 hours of community service.

Two years ago, former HANOI ROCKS singer Michael Monroe told “The Classic Metal Show” that he was “not interested at all” in seeing MÖTLEY CRÜE’s “The Dirt” biopic. Monroe went on to say that the car accident “certainly destroyed a lot of people’s lives. I’ve never blamed anybody — you can’t blame anybody for an accident — but a lot of people’s lives were shattered, “he said. “As well as the two teenagers who got paralyzed in the accident; I’ve heard that there was no mention of them either [in the film].

“It’s a depressing subject and it’s always like opening a can of worms,” Michael continued. “And I just don’t wanna get into all that. It’s just useless.”

Back in 2004, Monroe slammed MÖTLEY CRÜE for the band’s decision to title a box set “Music To Crash Your Car To”, calling the move beyond disrespectful and referring to the group’s bassist Nikki Sixx as “shallow,” “ignorant” and “stupid”. “The ‘Mostly Crude’ gotta be as dumb as they are to have done that,” he told Metal Sludge. “I’m not only talking about Razzle, but also for the other families involved in the accident… As we’ve previously stated: The most tasteless and murderous gimmick to cash in on the past we’ve ever heard of. There’s nothing ‘cool’ or ‘funny’ about death or winding up a paraplegic for life. How low can you go? I’d say this gave bad taste a bad name.”

Three years later, Monroe publicly apologized to Sixx, saying that his “unflattering comments” about the bassist were “really childish and stupid.” He explained: “I just took it a bit personally when they called their album at the time ‘Music to Crash Your Car To’. I thought it was inappropriate since it came across as if they were making fun of the accident, which I’m sure was not their intention.”

In 2011, Monroe gave Sleaze Roxx his take on what happened that night: “There was an accident, and unfortunately our drummer was killed. As far as Vince Neil, I have nothing to say. It was an accident. What happened happened, and it can’t be changed. Everybody suffered from the whole thing.”

In 2005, McCoy slammed MÖTLEY CRÜE over their account of Razzle’s death and CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx’s heroin overdose, as published in CRÜE’s best-selling band autobiography, “The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band”. Asked by Norway’s Metal Express to comment on the book’s description of the events surrounding the accident that killed Razzle, McCoy said, “Bullshit. Pure lies. I was there. What happened was Razzle disappeared, and so did Vince. The rest of us were chilling out, man. And he had a wife who was seven months pregnant. After an hour or so, she started getting worried. So me and T-Bone, Tommy Lee [MÖTLEY CRÜE drummer], took his car and we went looking for him. We drove past this accident. So I was like, ‘What color was the car he was driving around?’ ‘Hey, man, we just passed the fucking scene of an accident with a bright red sports car all smashed up.’ I saw Razzle’s hat on the street, I went up, ‘What the fuck’s happened?’ They said, ‘You have to go to this and this hospital.’ In the hospital, I walk in with Tommy, and I was asking about Razzle, and this doctor walks up, ‘Anybody here know this guy called Razzle?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do, his family.’ ‘Sorry, your friend has passed away.’ I thought he might have a broken leg or something. I had to call the band, and you don’t tell this kind of news over the telephone. I asked them to come to the hospital. And it was a pretty sad scene altogether.”

Even though HANOI ROCKS was formed in Finland, their trashy, hedonistic, decadent hard rock/pop-metal boogie influenced many Los Angeles acts, including MÖTLEY CRÜE and GUNS N’ ROSES.

HANOI ROCKS originally broke on to the hard rock scene in the first half of the 1980s, becoming one of the first Finnish bands to make an international impact. HANOI ROCKS’s career was subsequently derailed after the death of Razzle. Internal tensions and the commercial disappointment that was 1985’s “Rock & Roll Divorce” led to Monroe leaving the band that year, thus putting an early end to HANOI ROCKS.

In a recent interview with “Anders Bøtters Tiny TV”, Bruce Dickinson spoke about IRON MAIDEN’s reputation as having the most loyal and dedicated fans of any band working today. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I can’t speak for every individual IRON MAIDEN fan, obviously, and I can’t imagine what each of them is individually thinking and what kind of nuance they get out of what we do. ‘Cause I think people get different things out of different parts of what we do. So some fans will really zone in on some bits. Some of the kind of rhythmic things that we do, some people will be big fans of that; some people will be big fans of Adrian’s [Smith] guitar; some people will be nuts about vocals and therefore they’ll follow some of my solo stuff. You’ve got all kinds of shades of opinion, but they all congregate around a central core, which is, ‘Yeah, it’s IRON MAIDEN, stupid.’ That’s it.”

He continued: “We’ve retained the identity because we are commercially independent. We don’t ever change what we do in response to external pressure. Everything we do is developed internally, and therefore even if we screw up, at least we screwed up for the right reasons. What that means is people trust you. So, some albums are better than others. Fine — I’m gonna let other people comment on that, ’cause I’ve got my opinions; other people have other opinions. And we know that — we’re not stupid. But nevertheless, we don’t go in there trying to make a rubbish album. We make the best album we can do that’s in front of our face on the day, on the week, in the month of that period of our lives. And that’s like a document for us, and it’s where we were at when we did that right then. And I think for a lot of MAIDEN fans, albums work like that for them too. So the album becomes like a document for their life as well at the same time. And in order for that to work, you don’t necessarily have to agree with what the band is doing at the time — and frequently, obviously, some people do and some people don’t — but you’ve got to believe that the band is sincerely doing it for the right reasons, and therefore you still keep that loyalty.”

Dickinson added: “To put it superficially, I would say that IRON MAIDEN fans are a little bit like plywood — we get a new layer every year, and they all just stick together, so eventually we get a table that’s, like, ten feet thick. And people are going, ‘How did you end up with a table ten feet thick?’ I said, ‘We just never lost a layer.’ And, of course, we’ve got people that started in 1983, ’84, and we’ve got people that started in the year 2000, 2005, 2015 — generations and generations. People whose first album was ‘The Book Of Souls’. And then they went, ‘Ah, I like this band. ‘The Book Of Souls’. Cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ ‘Oh my God. They did another bunch of albums. What’s this thing? ‘The Number Of The Beast’. I never heard about that. Oh, this is cool.’ And you go back and you get a chance to rediscover all the discography.”

Referencing MAIDEN’s latest LP, “Senjutsu”, which came out in September, Bruce said: “I think this album will deliver us a very new thick layer of plywood. And of course, where we exist — yeah, sure, we exist on albums and things, but where we really exist is on stage.”

“Senjutsu”, IRON MAIDEN’s first album in six years, was recorded in 2019 in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and co-produced by Harris.

For “Senjutsu” — loosely translated as “tactics and strategy” — the band once again enlisted the services of Mark Wilkinson to create the spectacular Samurai-themed cover artwork, based on an idea by Harris.

“Senjutsu” bowed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, charting higher than even the band’s early classics like “Powerslave” and “The Number Of The Beast”. Nearly 90 percent of the LP’s 64,000 equivalent album units earned came from pure album sales. The critically acclaimed double album debuted one place higher than 2015’s “The Book Of Souls” and 2010’s “The Final Frontier”, which both peaked at No. 4.

“Senjutsu” was MAIDEN’s 13th album to top in the Top 40 in the U.S.

MAIDEN’s first two Paul Di’Anno-era albums, “Iron Maiden” (1980) and “Killers” (1981), as well as with those recorded with singer Blaze Bayley, “The X Factor” (1995) and “Virtual XI” (1998), all failed to dent the Top 40 in the U.S.

According to Billboard, “Senjutsu” logged the second-largest week of 2021 for a hard rock album in both equivalent album units earned and in traditional album sales. It trailed only FOO FIGHTERS’ “Medicine At Midnight”, which debuted on the Feb. 20 chart with 70,000 units (of which 64,000 were in album sales).

“Senjutsu” topped the charts in several European countries upon its release, including in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.