Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke with respected Heavy metal author Martin Popoff who just released his new book entitled “Kickstart My Heart, A Motley Crue, day by day”.
Popoff also talks about his recent controversy with Nikki Sixx, where Sixx said, “This (Book) is not endorsed, supported or approved by Motley Crue. Another Scumbag cashing in on our years of hard Work and Music. ”
Popoff also goes on to ranking all the Motley Cure Albums from Worst to First
Watch the Interview here:
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Legendary Rock Author Martin Popoff to discuss his new RIOT book called, “Swords and Tequila”.
When asked about the content in his book
What I did was to write in my usual detail track by track, descriptions of songs, album covers, and production only the first five Riot albums. The Guy Speranza era which is three records worth and then the Rhett Forrester era which is two records. That takes us from Rock City to Narita, Fire Down Under, Restless Breed, Born in America. And there is a long epilogue where I do look at a fair amount of detail on the rest of the catalogue bringing it right up to Riot V and what those guys are doing today in 2015.
This is a band that was ahead of their time if they would have arrived on the scene with Guy Speranza, with all that firepower of Fire Down Under right there in 1983. It might have been Fire down under that went to number 1 instead of Quiet Riot Metal health.
On his thoughts on why Riot never became a bigger band
There were problems with management, they got dropped by Capital famously, where Capital thought they were too heavy for them and ended up on Electra. They had a lot of turmoil along the way and the Guy Speranza just quits the band right in the optimum time when the world is phrasing this amazing classic heavy metal album. Guy decides he wants out of the business and everyone in the band was ticked off at the grind of not really getting anywhere and not making a lot of money
What is one thing he learned about Riot that he did not know about before?
I would have to say it is that Crohns disease situation that Mark Reale died from. Also hearing all the management manoeuvres that had to go on to keep the band going.
Watch the interview here:
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Jimmy Kay and Alan Dixon of Canada’s ‘The Metal Voice’ recently spoke to legendary Rock Author Martin Popoff about his two books, (fan voted) The top 500 Heavy Metal Albums and songs of all time which he wrote a few years back but stand the test of time. Paragraphs dedicated to each album and songs. Both books were mathematically compiled with his father.
“These books are a little old but I would like to update them to see how they have changed over the years. I would ask rock stars, I would go in person to clubs and I would ask the whole road crew and a lot of asking over the internet. I had a mathematical system.”
“The satifying thing was to find out what the acutal anwser was, those answers are pretty steadfast , people would complain about them but I would just write people back and say he man, it’s democracy the people have spoken. “
Both books are a result of a huge, worldwide poll.Included are artist quotes and a review by Popoff, as well many album cover shots.
Watch the whole interview here:
You can pick up Popoff’s books here. http://www.martinpopoff.com/
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Jimmy Kay from Canada’s ‘The Metal Voice’ recently spoke to Heavy Metal author Martin Popoff on his new book Who invented Heavy Metal? A book charting metal from the very beginning of time to the 1970’s. Martin Popoff recently spoke at an international academic research conference in Finland on the discussion of Modern Heavy Metal along with Scott Ian of Anthrax and Alex Skolnick guitarist of Testament
When asked about the roots of Metal from the Ancient times
“We start the book at 1250BC with the horns of Jericho, the fables of knocking down the walls with music. The first crazy rock concerts being with Romans and the Greeks and how things got wildly out of control. There is Vikings in there, there is a little about war and Scottish bagpipes. The idea that music was used a s a scary tool. Then we get into classical music and we get our first rock stars like Paganini who apparently sold his soul to the devil.”
When asked about how the Heavy Metal vocal style has evolved over the years
“We start hearing guys going crazy singing, Jerry Lee Louis, this is piano based music, Elvis a lot of it is acoustic guitar based music, but you hear guys starting putting a little more inflection and sexuality in their vocals and then it goes into the Beatles. There are so many Beatles records throughout this book because you know the Beatles in some of their earlier songs twist and shout for example there is a lot screaming going on and it’s almost like a new powerful kind of scream. Robert Plant is probably you first quintessential Heavy Metal singer. Ian Gillan has a new thing that goes on top of Robert Plant which is kind of a new savagery to his singing, like drunkenness to his singing. There is very little talk about Ozzy in this book because I don’t really put Ozzy or Bill Ward for that matter with his drumming style as two of the guys in Black Sabbath that had a whole heck of a lot to do with Heavy metal.”
When asked about the structure of this book
“With this book I really wanted to do the timeline with quotes because the arguments we all have around the kitchen table and around the beers and the bars are like when did things happen . Talking about who invented something its really cool to see month by month day by day and in some cases year by year when things are being invented . I’ve got quotes from 126 different people . What I wanted to do with this book is put in everybody that everybody that ever talks about as part of this argument. Everyone gets their due.”
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What do you do when you want to know more about your favourite artists? Check Wikipedia? But you can’t find detailed stories. Seeking on the net? It will take a long time. Contacting the artists themselves and asking, no it does not work like that. But what exactly is the best way to find the information that we want? I would say Biography Books!
Martin Popoff is one of those who made it easier for you, to know, to learn and to feel what happened to your favourite artists. He spent years and wrote many biographical books on notable metal bands such as DIO, BLACK SABBATH, JUDAS PRIEST and many more. However there are tons of other stories and facts that can be found in other book series by Martin, even if they are not officially biographical ones.
Throughout the third part of my interview with Mr. Popoff, we discussed his biography books and how the process works. Martin told me that he does not start writing any book until he has had enough interviews with the band members, in order to ensure he has all the information that he needs: “I have talked to Threshold twenty or thirty times…” Martin said. Obviously he wanted to be thorough, he then continues: “Also I talked with their producer and artwork designer.” Martin also told me that there a few bands that he would have liked to write books about, but he didn’t, as there are already many books published about them and as he had not had enough interviews with them, he doesn’t have anything new to add. But what is Martin Popoff’s style when writing these kind of books; He likes start with the artists albums, as he believes that those albums are the real subject matter, “Because the albums are the way most of us interact with these bands anyway, I mean that art and music is what gives us pleasure.”
We continued talking about his ideas and opinions about censorship, DEEP PURPLE, his newest book “Who Invented Heavy Metal” and also we had a chat about his books on DIO and Rainbow; “I love those books …They are really good books, because again, tons and tons of my own interview footage are in both of them,” Martin described those books. Finally at the end of our chat, I asked Martin how he rates his biographical books: “5 out of 10 … I want to just get all of this knowledge out there!” I told you already that Martin is a cool and nice person, also down to earth.
You can listen to the whole of this chat between Martin Popoff and I, Mohsen Fayazi, on the audio player below:
Interview By Blackdiamond
Martin Popoff Art
ART is a very personal thing, what one person appreciates, another does not, which makes each piece of art interesting and unique. It has been defined as ‘the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture. Also, the branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature and dance.’
Esteemed author and journalist Martin Popoff is also an artist. So as part of our special tribute week, I spoke to Martin about art, his work and what it means to him. Part of Martin’s artist statement can be read below:
‘Paintings are abstract landscapes, a continual bridging the two concepts, ranging from landscape with a slight abstract feel, anti-gravitational or illogically sized elements, to abstract with only a slight landscaped, nature-based focal point, surrounded or dominated by multiple abstract elements.
Reality as a dream within a dream, living in the head, imagination as valid creation.’
Discussing art in general, Martin expressed:
“I’ve always held artists in the highest esteem – I’ve always thought it was the greatest job in the world. The art I would want to be involved in with however many years I’ve got left is definitely visual arts.”
Martin Popoff Art
Going back to his school days, Martin revealed how his life as an artist started:
“It’s funny, it was always drawing bands and band mascots and Eddie, the Whitesnake ‘Lovehunter’ cover, lots and lots and lots of that and logos. But then I started experimenting and trying oils and watercolours and pastels and a lot of pencil crayon stuff.
It wasn’t until later where I started having loftier ideas of actually having some subject matter, that wasn’t just another Eddie.”
You can listen to the full interesting chat on the audio player below:
Martin Popoff Art
For more information on Martin and his work, check out his official website at this location.
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Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 