Founding Grim Reaper guitarist Nick Bowcott joins The Metal Voice and reviews and ranks guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen first 4 albums. Watch below.
Nick Bowcott is a British guitarist best known for founding Grim Reaper. Bowcott founded the band in 1979.
He’s also had several books published, including ones co-written with Kirk Hammett and the late, great Dimebag Darrell. He now works for Sweetwater as a writer & video-maker/ content creator.
Yngwie Malmsteen – Canadian Masterclass and solo performance 2023
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023 AT 8 PM-Quebec, City , Canada-La Bar la Source de la Martiniere
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2023 AT 7 PM- Montreal, Canada -Foufounes Electriques
FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2023 AT 8 PM -Ottawa, Canada- The Brass Monkey Tickets
SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 2023 AT 7 PM-Toronto, Canada- The Rockpile
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice spoke to Mastodon’s guitarist Bill Kelliher about the bands upcoming tour with Gojira, past tours with Metallica and Ghost and gave an update on new Mastodon music.
Watch the full interview below.
When asked if they are writing any new music “Yeah, there’s no like shut off valve for writing and riff writing and stuff like that. It’s always happening. I’m always writing, 75% of my day I’m usually playing guitar and I’m always writing stuff. I got lots of ideas. We’re trying to be ambitious enough to write a song before we leave for this next Gojira tour and have it come out at some point during the tour, before the tour, in between the two legs. I’m always assembling riffs. I’ve got a few skeleton ideas. I’m definitely eager and really ready to get started writing the next record, there’s no shortage of ideas. We still have a lot of creativity left in our band. We’re all 100 % committed to our band so as soon as we get home from this touring cycle, I’m ready to show the guys some of the stuff I got. I own a recording studio and that’s where we did our last record, so it was really easy just to book some time there and just go down, when we feel like being creative. It’s just different now that we have our own Studio you know instead of having to book time and then you’re on a schedule and it’s like you’re always looking at the clock. I feel like now we’re just we can be more creative and take our time.”
When asked about thoughts in covering new musical direction “I don’t know, I mean we’ve talked about doing like a punk rock album where it’s much quicker faster, straight to the punch kind of really fast music. I don’t know, we’ve talked about doing that. We’ve talked about rock operas, we’ve talked about soundscapes. There’s still a lot of stuff that we have to explore and there’s a lot of places in the planet we haven’t been to yet. We’re not throwing in the towel by any means we got a lot of uh stuff on the horizon and things that we need to check off the list.
MASTODON will join forces with Grammy Award-nominated French heavy metal luminaries GOJIRA for “The Mega-Monsters Tour”, a massive co-headline tour across North America in 2023 along with special guests LORNA SHORE on all dates. It finds these two juggernauts taking over arenas and amphitheaters throughout the spring and summer, alternating closing sets each night..
Leg 1:
Apr. 18 – Portland, OR – Veterans Memorial Coliseum (buy tickets) Apr. 20 – Concord, CA – Concord Pavilion (buy tickets) Apr. 21 – Los Angeles, CA – The Forum (buy tickets) Apr. 22 – Phoenix, AZ – AZ Federal Theatre (buy tickets) Apr. 23 – Las Vegas, NV – Virgin (buy tickets) Apr. 26 – Dallas, TX – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory (buy tickets) Apr. 28 – Houston, TX – 713 Music Hall (buy tickets) Apr. 29 – Austin, TX – Moody Center (buy tickets) Apr. 30 – Oklahoma City, OK – Zoo Amphitheatre (buy tickets) May 02 – Nashville, TN – Municipal Auditorium (buy tickets) May 04 – Boca Raton, FL – Sunset Cove Amphitheater (buy tickets) May 05 – St. Augustine, FL – St. Augustine Amphitheatre (buy tickets) May 06 – Atlanta, GA – Ameris Bank Amphitheatre (buy tickets) May 07 – Asheville, NC – Harrah’s Cherokee Center (buy tickets) May 09 – Richmond, VA – Virginia Credit Union Live (buy tickets) May 10 – Baltimore, MD – Pier Six Pavilion (buy tickets) May 11 – Reading, PA – Santander Arena (buy tickets)
Leg 2:
Aug. 09 – Cincinnati, OH – MegaCorp Pavilion (buy tickets) Aug. 10 – Cleveland, OH – Jacob’s Pavilion (buy tickets) Aug. 11 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE Outdoors (buy tickets) Aug. 12 – New York, NY – Coney Island Amphitheater (buy tickets) Aug. 13 – Syracuse, NY – OneCenter (buy tickets) Aug. 15 – Detroit, MI – Masonic Temple (buy tickets) Aug. 17 – Toronto, ON – RBC Echo Beach (buy tickets) Aug. 18 – Montreal, QC – Place Bell (buy tickets) Aug. 19 – Portland, ME – Cross Insurance Arena (buy tickets) Aug. 20 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall (buy tickets) Aug. 23 – Milwaukee, WI – BMO Pavilion (buy tickets) Aug. 25 – Hammond, IN – Horseshoe (buy tickets) Aug. 26 – Omaha, NE – Westfair Amphitheater (buy tickets) Aug. 27 – Minneapolis, MN – Waite Park Amphitheater (buy tickets) Aug. 29 – St. Louis, MO – The Factory (buy tickets) Aug. 30 – Kansas City, MO – Azura Amphitheater (buy tickets) Sep. 01 – Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheater (buy tickets) Sep. 02 – Denver, CO – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater (buy tickets)
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to former lead singer of Thundermother Guernica Mancini. In the interview Guernica talks about her time in Thundermother, being fired, opening for the Scorpions and her new band and new music.
When asked if all the members before quitting were equally paid “Always. As far as I know, I mean I haven’t really seen any paperwork, so I never looked into it. But as far as I believe we always shared everything equally, the merchandise, I got royalties from that album that I played on. So all that stuff has been completely normal and fair since day one. But we did do a huge thing, when we joined the band we actually paid off a huge debt. It was about 90,000 Krona ($9000 USD) to the previous management because we were loyal and in solidarity. When we are part of a band we didn’t like to think twice about taking care of the baggage from before.”
When asked if she had a vibe that things were not going right in the band prior to being fired “It’s a tough question to answer, I would say it like this. It’s never been great for me. And it’s been a tough six years but regardless of that I don’t regret anything. I’ve still had amazing experiences with the band and yeah I wouldn’t take anything back because I’ve grown and I’ve become the singer that I am and there’s so many positives to that. So even though it has been a very bumpy ride, I still think that it’s been a beautiful ride.”
When asked after all that Thundermother momentum how come she is no longer in the band “Our statement said it all, really. I don’t think anyone will ever hear the real story ever. I mean unless I release a biography in 10 years or something. ”
When asked if she was called back to rejoin the band would she? “I don’t think I could. No. Not now. Emilee said in a previous interview the Betrayal is just beyond, I wouldn’t have never taken it this far. “
When asked who she felt when the other two Thundermother band mates quit to join her “It does make me feel (great) but I also felt really guilty because I knew the opportunities that they were giving up because of this but they had their own reasons. They did this completely on their own and the problems that we’ve had in the band they they’re not just something that is between her (Felippa Nassil) and I. It’s like something that’s been brewing and been there always. So when when this happened they (other bandmates) also felt that it was very disrespectful towards them being that they believed that we were a democracy and that we had a say in these things. She (Felippa) did more or less tell them I want to do this and I’ve already found a new singer and that’s when Emlee just said I don’t want to play with another singer and if you’re going to go ahead and do this I’m going to leave the band. And that’s what she did and Mona felt the same way. I love them and I’m forever grateful. I also feel like I’m so blessed and honestly I’m so incredibly grateful that they are my new band. They are the two that I enjoy working with and I have so much fun with them and we already had two songwriting days and we had just so much fun and it was drama free. It was a dream and it was just like this is what a band is supposed to be. I’m really grateful that we have something that we get to continue playing together. ”
When asked about her solo career and what’s next in her new band “Inception is my first single as a solo artist, it’s I guess more commercial Rock. I wrote it with Emlee Johansson (ex Thundermother drummer) and our friend Johan Brandian. It’s about the beginning, so it kind of feels like a fitting song. It’s just a single, I have my next single ready to go but I need to just set a date for it. I wrote this song (next single) before I got fired obviously and I didn’t know this shitstorm was gonna happen but I did write a song called MVP. If you listen to the lyrics it’s just about how you can be the best, it’s just like a motivational pump you know a happy song. (New band) We’re gonna be playing the songs that we wrote (In Thundermother) so of course we already have a lot of great material from the album ‘Black and Gold’ for example. So yeah I’m excited to to do that. “
For The Metal Voice, Neil Turbin spoke to Twisted Sister bassist Mark ‘the animal’ Mendoza at The Metal Hall of Fame, which happened on Jan 26, 2023 at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills.
When asked about this reunion of Twisted Sister Mark Mendoza said, “No we got inducted to the Heavy Metal Hall of Fame and we made an appearance here and played three songs.” Mendoza asked about the bands hiatus he said,” When was the hiatus? We got back together again of course we played New York Steel in 2001 for 9 11. In 2003 the offers were so good that we got back together. We didn’t tour so much but we did one offs, the big festivals all around the world and we did it for uh what about 14 years 15 years. And uh everybody decided they want to do other things and so we never broke up we just stopped playing.”
For The Metal Voice ,Neil Turbin sat down with guitarist Steve Vai and spoke to him at The Metal Hall of Fame, which happened onJan 26 2023 at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills.
Vai talks about his new album that was unreleased for 30 years, the time they tried to reunite the David Lee Roth Band but got shut down and his upcoming tour.
For The Metal Voice ,Neil Turbin sat down with former Foreigner singer Lou Gramm and spoke about his recent induction into The Metal Hall of Fame, which happened on Jan 26 2023 at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills.
When asked about his induction “I mean honestly I was a little stunned when I heard about it. I tried to make sense of it but it actually does make sense doesn’t it?”
When asked about being Foreigner ” I was always proud to be in Foreigner you know for the most part,”
When asked about new music “I like playing with bassist Tony Franklin and he have a strong band. We’re working on some new songs right now, so there’s a possibility there might be some new material released before the end of this year.”
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