Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Doro Pesch live on Youtube. She spoke about her upcoming album Conqueress-Forever Strong and Proud (via Nuclear Blast) as well as recalled stories on her touring days with Judas Priest, WASP, Megadeth and Metallica.
Doro was asked by The Metal Voice about tour with W.A.S.P. in the early years she said,” We hopped on tour with W.A.S.P. in England. It was my first big tour in the UK and I was sick as a dog. I was so sick. The tour was not the big stadiums it was like the smaller Club. So there was usually only one dressing room for the headliner and we didn’t have a dressing room. So I was sitting on a Stairway, it was cold, it was freezing and I had a big fever. I probably had pneumonia I didn’t know. I think that was what it was. So Blacky Lawless he came up the stairs and he said hey are you Dora? Are you from Warlock? Are you the support band? I said yes and he said you look really really sick and I said man, I feel I’m dying and he said you know come with me and then he carried me into his dressing room. He told his band members let me have the dressing room. And he said lay on the couch and he gave me all kinds of medicine and some vitamins and fruit juice and fresh fruit which in the 80s there was unheard of in England. So he said I will take care of you and he gave me some me medicine like it was his secret portion and I drank it and I ate some vitamins and then I laid down he said you know what, you sleep and I will wake you up when it’s time for you to go on stage or to get dressed. And I slept like a baby and then he woke me up and I got all dressed up and I felt so good, I was healed almost instantly. It was still a heavy tour but you know I felt so good and he really took care of me and he was the sweetest person and it was unbelievable and he probably will not remember that but I will remember that for a lifetime.”
German metal queen Doro Pesch will release her new studio album, “Conqueress – Forever Strong And Proud”, on October 27 via Nuclear Blast. “Conqueress – Forever Strong And Proud” will arrive one day before Doro’s 40th-anniversary concert at the Mitsubishi Electric Halle in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Anvil’s singer guitarist Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow about the bands upcoming tour, Anvil documentary and upcoming new album.
When asked about the upcoming Canadian regional tour from October 12th to November 18th 2023 “We’re in the in between. We just got back from Germany, I just finished recording our 20th album and that that went really well. I can tell you this. I can honestly say that it’s (new album) is a bookend to our career in a certain sense. The way we started out is the way we’re ending up. It’s actually quite interesting, a complete circle. What do I mean by that? What we recorded is probably going to be as accessible, if not more accessible than Metal on Metal.”
When asked if this will be the last Anvil album “I don’t know maybe there’s another album or two. I’m 67 dude, I got heart problems. I don’t know how much longer I got you know what I mean. Life has a beginning, middle and end that’s the way it works for everybody no one gets out alive, no exception.”
When asked if they will play any of the new album live (recently recorded) “No you can’t do that. In the old days you could but that’s before social media and people filming every night. I really don’t want to release new songs by somebody videotaping me with their with their phone at a gig. I’d rather put the real recording out there.”
When asked about the recording of the new album ” I was so well prepared this time, I finished everything within probably two weeks. I finished way earlier. We booked five weeks and I was done in three. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that that’s just the way it went. I went in really prepared. It only took about two or three days to to put all the bed tracks down of 14 songs and then for seven days straight. “
When asked if after the tour will Anvil be working on anything else “No we’re not doing anything until then the new album comes out and that could be not till next summer. So next summer and between between November and I guess May or June I’m going to be getting a procedure done to my heart. I’ve got this atrial fibrillation which is not a good thing. They got to put a wire into a vein and then up into my heart and burn some nerve endings that are making my heart beat irregularly and that’s how they fix it. It’s not open surgery or anything it’s just done in two hours I’m going to be doing that probably in November and December and then after that’s done I’m gonna probably begin writing for the next album 21. By the time that we go out on tour for the newest album that I just finished I will have the new album like the last time. I’ll have the another new album already written it’s a cycle.”
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to former Triumph guitarist and singer Rik Emmett about his new autobiography ‘Lay it on the line’ plus the bands documentary and the bands legacy, plus a whole lot more.
Excerpts
When asked about his new autobiography “I hesitate to say it’s an autobiography because there’s so much stuff going on in this book. I did a lot of research reading other guys’ Memoirs and autobiographies and things. The truth of it is that my life has been a lot more than just being a rock star guy in a rock band. I’m going to tell the story of my life. It’s going to end up being the story of family and teaching and music that goes much further than just being you know kind of in a rock band. So because my musical experience has been much wider, I made a lot more records after I left Triumph than I made when I was in it, so it’s wide ranging.”
When asked if back in the Triumph years it irked him to share lead vocal duties “First of all let’s make sure that everybody understands this Triumph was always Gil’s (Moore) band he was always kind of the band leader. He was the guy that formulated the concept of the band and the way that the band looked in terms of production and on stage. It was very much a reflection of what Gil Wanted the band to be. Then he and Mike (Levine) found me. The Three Musketeers here we go. I think that the rub that you’re talking about was that the ‘Just A Game’ album in particular, the third Triumph album. Let’s put it in this context the second album was called ‘Rock and roll machine’ and it was very much a Gil Moore kind of record. Rock and roll machine was a song that he (Gil) wrote and said that was how he saw the band. Uh and I think he always kind of held to that sense of what the band was but then the ‘Just A Game’ album had the success with ‘Lay it on the line’ and ‘Hold on’ which are kind of Evergreen songs. And I think the record company then went hey the Evergreen nature of this thing that we’ve signed. Maybe it’s the blonde guy there out front that’s what we want to push. We want to focus on that. So when you talk about rub I think that’s where the rubbing began, that record companies were now talking to Gil and Mike and saying hey you know we want more of Rick and they were going well that’s not what the band is all about we are the Musketeers. Mike had been the producer of the early records and Mike was the guy that sort of be in the studio and in the control room and sort of saying okay I a Gil song, a Rik song, a Gill song, a Rik song and that’s how we keep the rock and roll machine stays balanced. You start out a band, with that whole Musketeers thing and it’s easy to do that because you don’t have a pot to piss in so you know everybody’s willing to make compromises and the collaboration works. Then time goes on and people get married and they start to have kids and they got their own lives and hey we’re having success we’re buying houses guys are making Investments they’re having their own lives. Then they go well hang on I want the band to be this reflection of my life and then the other guy goes no I want it to be this reflection of my life and those things.”
When asked about the time he was asked to join the band The Damn Yankees ” I got a couple of phone calls I think from the manager of Ted (Nugent) and he called me and then I got a call from Jack Blades .Jack and I know each other cause Night Ranger and Triumph had done some outdoor shows where we were on the same bill. The Damn Yankees thing I don’t think they’d even picked the name yet you know but I knew that Ted Nugent and Tommy Shaw were in the band with Jack (Blades). So when I got that call I went guys you got enough guitars in the Damn Yankees how would that work?”
When asked about the Triumph reunions and documentary “When I went back in for reunions and filmed the documentary and stuff I was not re-entering the partnership, I was not getting a piece of Triumph back the other guys own it. I was just coming in as if I was like a sideman, a friend participating purely out of friendship and stuff there were no deals being cut that I cared about. They were saying oh if there’s any merch we’ll give you I go yeah whatever I don’t care let’s just do this. I’ll do this for friendship and I’ll do this more for the sake of the legacy of the name of the brand which I don’t even own anymore. I don’t have a piece of that but I don’t care you know it was like uh I think everything that I do in a good spirit towards the whole Triumph thing it only benefits me in the life like the books that I write. Triumph is the word on the front cover of my book because it helps me in the marketing of my own stuff. “
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Wendy Dio for the upcoming Deluxe DVD, Blu-Ray release of ‘Dreamers never Die’ the Dio documentary.
She also spoke about upcoming Dio’s, box set, his legacy and about Ronnie thinking of doing an animation movie in the 80’s using David lee Roth as main character.
In the interview The Metal Voice asked Wendy Dio to confirm whether it was true or not that Ronnie James Dio in the 80’s was thinking about doing an animated musical using David Lee Roth’s voice as the main character she said, “yeah, (laughs), it was true. It was very true. We wanted a cartoon, (laughs) the story of Murray (bands mascot). Then the Metal Voice asked if it was middle-earth themed and how far did Ronnie get she said, “yep it was middle earth, it was a musical. I don’t think it got to paper (to be written down). Ronnie was very much doing one thing at a time. If he was home writing songs he was only doing that. So he did not multi-task very well. It was going to be (animated movie) the story of Murray. Murray is the name Ronnie gave to that monster (album of Holy Diver).
The acclaimed film, which world premiered at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, enjoyed a special event theatrical release in more than 600 cinemas worldwide last fall and is streaming on SHOWTIME, will be released worldwide by Mercury Studios on September 29, 2023 on DVD and Blu-Ray+4K and as a special Deluxe Edition featuring the DVD and Blu-Ray packaged with exclusive merchandise.
Jimmy Kay and Giles Lavery from The Metal Voice recently interviewed Don Dokken about Dokken’s upcoming new album ‘Heaven Comes Down’ set for release on October 27, 2023 (Silver Lining Music).
When asked about the new album ‘Heaven comes down’‘Every song is killer on this record. They’re all (songs) are different, ‘I Remember’ or ‘Gypsy’ or ‘Like a rose’. Dokken always used to end our records with a big fast double bass burner. But I ended this record with one guitar and me singing about my journey from L.A. to New Mexico you know (the song) Santa Fe. A great song, very simple, this guitar is just a vocal. I wrote this record in my comfortable range and it still has the Dokken harmonies and you’ll notice on the record there’s no real songs about love and love loss and love found, which used to be me kind of go to. These (new) songs are like stories, like ‘Gypsy’, ‘Fugitive’. ‘I remember’ is probably the only one that’s kind of uh, reminiscent of I was thinking about my past and my life and I wrote the song I remember but they’re all (songs) Still rocking.”
When asked about making music videos for his new album “We did the video for ‘Heaven comes down’ and my record company, no offense to them but they gave me like a tiny little budget and I said I want to make a great video. It’s my last record. My hands paralyzed. I can’t play guitar anymore. I shipped my piano to my daughter, it’s over and I said but it’s gonna be a great video that people are interested in. And the money they gave me (not much), I said so you want me to film this video on iPhones okay? (Laughs). I’m not doing that. Back in the 80s we were using film and get it developed and we had to edit it and you know no special effects. Now you have AI you can look at the new Queensrÿche video. It’s all AI, it’s crazy animation, it’s amazing but I said nope uh-uh I’m gonna do something different. It’d be very simple for us to just rent a stage. Go on stage lip sync make a video with three cameras done nope not gonna do it. So we filmed ‘Fugitive’ (song) and it’s a very cool and interesting video, it’s got over a half a million hits and it’s only been out for six weeks. And now our new video came out ‘Gypsy’ and I said okay we did that and we only got we only got away with that video because I had people that are famous directors editors directors of Photography there were fans of Dokken and they said Don we’ll fly to Santa Fe and we’ll do it for free we just want to we just want to make a great video.Tom Strickfaden (director) dragged all his 5K cameras he does football now these are movie cameras that’s why it looks so amazing. I was talking to John Levin (guitarist) . He was very good friends with Tommy who manages Extreme (band) and he says you know Extreme plans on doing a video for every song on their record so they can keep the album alive for a year. And I said we should do that. Let’s make 10 videos, be It Animation, AI, film, GoPros whatever so we plan on doing that. I’m already working on the next song, ‘Is it me or is it you’ we’re working on that video right now.”
When asked Don to further elaborate if this was Dokken’s last album
“Yes (it is), I feel guilty because I said that after Broken Bones (album) but yeah it’s that’s it, we’re done. We’ve made our statement in Rock and Roll history uh you know we’ll continue to tour. I mean my problem now is when we tour we’d had so many hits and they only want you to play 90 minutes. What songs do we kick out of the set and add . I came to a very Revelation two years ago when I got paralyzed that I spent my whole life, my whole career to keep the fans happy, to be on the road for a year and a half no life. I had a son and a daughter and I didn’t watch him grow up. I’d come home and they’d sprouted a foot and I said you know I don’t have any obligation to the fans to keep going on. I do it because we love to play but I would like to play songs that are near and dear to my heart so that’s what we’re gonna do right now. Maybe I’m speaking too soon, I was at the airport with John (levein) we landed in Dallas. I said John , you want to do another record? And he says I don’t know if I have it in me and I said well let’s just work on ‘Heaven comes down’, we’ll talk in a year about it and John goes I have eight songs I’ve written and I still have four or five songs that are finished. Never Say Never.”
Track Listing: 1 – Fugitive 2 – Gypsy 3 – Is It Me Or You? 4 – Just Like A Rose 5 – I’ll Never Give Up 6 – Saving Grace 7 – Over The Mountain 8 – I Remember 9 – Lost In You 10 – Santa Fe
DON DOKKEN – Vocals JON LEVIN – Guitar CHRIS McCARVILL – Bass BJ ZAMPA – Drums
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to former Samson and Legacy Iron Maiden Drummer Barry Graham Purkis also known as Thunderstick.
In the chat Thunderstick spoke about his upcoming new album ‘Lockdown’ as well as his time in Samson (with Bruce Dickinson) Plus joining and being asked to rejoin Iron Maiden in the early years.
When asked about Thunderstick’s upcoming new album ‘Lockdown’ “It’s been a while, I actually put the drum tracks down for that album just before uh Christmas 2019 and the deal was that I was going to start track laying in 2020, so that the album could be out in 2020. But as we all know along came Covid and kind of put it all back. I also ended up with two guitarists leaving because they just didn’t feel part of it anymore. Everybody was self-isolating and it was a shame and it left just the hardcore three of us, which was Rex my Bass player, myself and the wonderful singer Raven Blackwing. So I started calling friends and saying do you know anybody that would fit Thunderstick band, the theatrical side of things and just the general style. We’re a power rock band. I don’t ever really regard myself as a heavy metal musician. I don’t think we’re metal enough to actually be called that but that is a kind of you know the dichotomy of what, I’m known for in the NWOBHM era and was once the figurehead for that movement. So I called a lot of friends and a lot of them came back and said well we don’t know anybody that we could recommend for live shows but we’d be more than happy to put some stuff down on the album if you’re doing an album. I thought about it for a while and then I thought you know I’ll do that. Why not, what’s better than having a load of friends that are really musically competent to play on your album and I ended up doing that so I have guest artists all over the place. And what happened with the album is because of the input of everybody’s playing style, I have got such a varied album. And funny enough the main job I had with it was trying to make everything sound like an album rather than random tracks that have been played. I got there in the end and I’m really happy with it. I think the material is really strong. There’s a lot of material that I wrote back in the day that had never got to demo stage but never actually seen the light of day. So I dipped into some of those and then I started co-writing with other people. So up until now as you probably know with 2017 everything to that point was me, Thunderstick was my baby. I produced it, I arranged it, I wrote all the lyrics etc.. or had up until this album. So this time my vocalist Raven had written two song lyrics and absolutely astounding lyrics and I think to myself this is great because I can use these people to input into Thunderstick and it just makes it fresher. This album is a little bit more technical. I’ve been able to play as a producer on it, which I thoroughly enjoy. I actually love the arrangements and production of the album. The album shows that the band are heavier on this album than they were on the last one.”
When asked about the Thunderstick live setlist “I’m playing Riding with the angels (Samson) we’re doing Earth Mother (Samson) Too close to rock (Samson). And what they could expect is a lot of theatricality. We have a kind of storyline. It’s not a concept album or anything like that but live we have a storyline and we record a lot of narrative. This narrative takes over a storyline and so therefore Raven (singer) goes through many character changes during the course of the gig. Which is great and I get to watch this from behind my kit, I can watch this lunacy that’s happening up front. People go away from a Thunderstick gig thinking how wonderful she was (Raven) but she was probably slightly unhinged [Laughter]. We have loads of props, we should have a tour bus for the amount of props that we carry around with us, I always worship at the altar of Alice Cooper. “
When asked why he left Samson in the 80’s “I’ll tell you what I found funny was that the main reason that I left Samson was because of theatricality. We went through a period where the music press would only write about Thunderstick and Thunderstick did this and Thunderstick did that and blah blah blah Etc. And there came a point where both Paul Samson and Bruce (Dickinson) were really getting cheesed off with all that they were really getting fed up with it. And that led to a lot of altercation between myself and the others because I wanted to take the theatricality even further and they didn’t want it. I can remember we were showcasing the Shot Tactics (Albums) at the Marquee and I was really sort of alienated because they went on wearing jeans and Bruce wore a rugby shirt or something like that and he was really against any kind of theatricals. I find it somewhat ironic because if you see the Iron Maiden shows of today (they are theatric).”
When asked about co-writing Iron Maiden’s Ides of March and Samson’s Thunderburst as they were two of the same songs “I was with Iron Maiden, Steve (Harris) was the first person to introduce to me rehearsals of just the Rhythm Section. Up until then every band I’ve been in used to rehearse as a band all the time and yet when I got with Maiden Steve started rehearsing just the two of us. And Thunderburst was a drum rolling pattern that I came up with and he came to me with ideas for that song and I would do this drum roll pattern as well, as I threw in a couple of ideas. So when I was with Samson we did the ‘Head On’ album and we were still looking for a couple of other tracks to use. I said well there’s a track that’s an instrumental and played it to them and they said yeah let’s do it ,so we did it as an instrumental. So we did this instrumental and Paul was still friends with Clive Burr and Clive went over to Paul’s (Samson) house and Paul said look you know we finished the album do you want to hear it, yeah great. So we put the side one on wonderful everything was great, side two goes on and comes Thunderburst and Clive fell off his chair and he went oh my God we’re using that as an intro (to shows). And Paul said what are you talking about so Clive went in his bag and he pulled out a cassette, put a cassette on and there was Ides of March. So as soon as this got heard by the Iron Maiden camp I was summoned to an a meeting at the EMI and Rod (Smallwood) was there and Steve (Harris) was there a couple of the record company people were there and the legal team from Iron Maiden were there. And I was told with no uncertainty Steve is going to take 50% of the songwriting royalties on Thunderburst with Samson. We were a four-piece songwriting team, so we only got 12 and a half% each from Thunderburst track and Steve Took 50%. And then the legal team said if you insist on trying to claim songwriting credits on Ides of March we’ll see you in court and that was the end of that. It was something that had happened prior to me joining Samson. The management and band (Samson) didn’t want to know anything about it, so I was totally unrepresented by anybody and I went there to that meeting alone and the rest as they say is history.”
When asked how much he and Steve Harris contributed to the Song Thunderburst/ Ides of march “Never totally my thing, if we were to break the whole song Down Steve (Harris) probably 75% me 25% of that song. It’s many many years and a lot of blood has passed under the bridge so you know it’s just another one of those stories.”
When asked about the stories of him falling asleep while playing on stage with Maiden in the early years “I mean how ridiculous I mean I don’t know where that came from. I mean it’s just so stupid, it’s so stupid I have actually got a copy of that gig that I did the one that they were talking about that I supposedly fell asleep and I am right on everything. I really am. I mean I listen to it. In the video (documentary) of the early days (Iron Maiden) Steve (Harris) talking about it and he went oh Barry or Thunderstick must have dropped something and it wasn’t his drumsticks. So it was interpreted as the fact that I was out of it or whatever but as I say I have a copy of the live performance that we did and there is no way that I’m out of it.”
When asked about being asked to rejoin Iron Maiden, after Doug Sampson and before Clive Burr Joined “What happened was we toured together, Samson headlining, Iron Maiden second on the bill and Angel Witch opening and it finished Christmas 1979. At the time the Iron Maiden drummer Doug Sampson and he had some kind of medical condition that he was losing power in his arms. I don’t think that there was any kind of firing or anything like that. It was a mutual agreement between the band and Doug that he wasn’t actually cutting it at the time. So we finished the tour and before Christmas Eve the phone went and I answered it and he said hello it’s Steve Harris, hi what can I do for you. Would you consider coming back and rejoining Maiden and I literally was stunned. He didn’t want anything to do with the Thunderstick image, it was already on the Sounds (Magazine) cover and Thunderstick was really gaining momentum for me as a character and was getting a lot of publicity for the band for Samson. And Steve obviously didn’t want any of that at all, he wanted just me. So I said can I have a couple of days, it’s Christmas can I have a couple of days to think about it and he said well you know we’ve got we’ve got an itinerary that we’re working at and you know we really need to know what’s going on, what’s going to happen we need to put the band together because we’ve got all these these gigs and we’re recording and blah blah blah. And what happened was I said how about you hire a drum kid and after Christmas I come down and play with the band and he said great okay let’s do that. But in the meantime Rod Smallwood phoned me up and said we need an answer because you know we’re really under the cost here as far as our timeline is concerned. And I said I just can’t at the moment, I can’t give you an answer so for Christmas it ruined my Christmas. I’ve got it all written in my diary because at the time I was keeping a journal every day and uh it’s just you can see the angst in my writing because I really didn’t know what to do. So anyway I went the day after Boxing day which is the day after Christmas Day in the UK I went down to the East End. There was a foot and a half of snow. I only just managed to get over there and they’d hire the drum kit and I started playing with them. Rod was there and I can remember Rod at the time said this band (Iron Maiden) is going to be bigger than Led Zeppelin. I thought that was wonderful anyway, so I played. I can’t remember how many tracks there are, three or four tracks. We did Running Free which was the single they were just about to record and by the time I got to the fourth track I thought this is not going to work because our Styles I think are incompatible now. So I finished playing and Steve said and? I still needed a couple of days to think about it and I left it at that. There was never a definitive no or yes, I just needed a couple of days to think about it and the phone call never came and by that time I had well and truly decided that I was sticking with the Thunderstick image and sticking with Samson. I mean they were really pissed off when you know when they (Samson) found out that I’d gone and and auditioned as it were for them they weren’t none too happy.”
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
