The Metal Voice interviewed legendary songwriter and bassist Bob Daisley (Rainbow, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath) about his Book ‘For Facts Sake’ in 2021.
In the interview Bob was asked about the time in 1984 when on tour with Ozzy he convinced Motley Crue not to fire Mick Mars he said, “That night after the show Mick Mars went on our Bus (with Ozzy on the Bark at the Moon tour 84 ) and I went on their bus so I was the only one from Ozzy that went on their bus. And they were having a meeting. What they were planning on doing was getting rid of Mick and getting another guitarist in and they asked me for my opinion. So I said if you want my opinion for what it’s worth I would say do not try to fix something that is not broken. I said I have seen it before with Lee Kerslake in the Blizzard of Ozz. I said you got a chemistry there, you got a functioning unit, Mick Mars is part of that don’t Fuc*k it up. Don’t do it. I think I saved Mick that night cause they were serious about getting someone else. Mick was good for the band, he was part of the sound of the delivery of what they did.”
This interview was originally posted on The Metal Voice on Nov 25 , 2021
Jimmy Kay of Canada’s The Metal Voice recently interviewed accomplished musician and Sex Pistols Bassist Glen Matlock.
In the chat Matlock talks about his new solo album ‘Consequences Coming’; his thoughts on the mini series Pistols; his relationship with Johnny Rotten and if the Sex Pistols would ever entertain the idea of releasing another studio album .or tour.
Glen Matlock ‘Consequences Coming’ will be released April 27, 2023 via Cooking Vinyl.
When asked about the new album’s political themes “I’m pretty pleased with the new album. It’s kind of politically pertinent, I’m referring mainly to UK politics but not only. We’re talking about Brexit, we’re talking about how in Europe more particularly in Britain there has been a real lurch to the right and people are losing their rights, rights to do this and that and the other. Before Brexit we can just get on a fairy, get on a plane, get on the EuroStar, which is fantastic with your guitar under your arm and go down, do a gig, do a session, bump into someone and stay there as long as you like. But you can’t do that anymore. It has been wrenched away from us, for no real reason that anyone can see apart from protecting a whole bunch of politicians and fund managers and offshore banking businesses in the Cayman islands. They lied to us and hoodwinked a whole bunch of working class people into thinking it’s the right thing to do, it’s crazy. All kinds of obstacles they put up. Not only that, they’ve used that as a way to enable the right wing in Britain to kind of tread over everybody but we’ve got one of the most corrupt governments we’ve ever had and they think they’re better than everybody else and they’re not there to serve the nation. I haven’t been that politically involved but all we can really do is vote but now if there’s a March I’ll go on it and in fact I went on one which would be just prior to Brexit. So some of the songs I’ve written kind of had that in the back of my mind.”
When talking about Johnny Rotten’s politics “Johnny Rotten he’s on the other side (more right wing views) but I don’t know if he is. I think he just says what he says just to get in the paper. I doubt his sincerity about all that but by whether he voted for Trump or the Tories in England and if you don’t mean it I think that’s pretty poor.”
When asked about the musical direction of his new solo album “I was born in the 50s, first records I’ve ever put on in my room, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis and stuff like that. Then in the early 60s we had Pirate Radio in England where bands like The Kinks and The Who and the Yardbirds and the early Stones and the Small Faces came through and that was very impressionable for me. We also had a great TV show called ‘Ready Steady Go’ where all of those bands would play Live. Plus the early Motown stuff . That’s my kind of yardstick for writing three and a half minute pop rock songs. All those people and the songs I’ve mentioned that were hits they won’t bring down the government songs but there was some kind of small consequence about all of them. There were worthwhile things to be singing about. And that’s what I allude to when I write a song, it’s a good blueprint . There’s a track on the album called speaking in tongues which again is like all these politicians talk so much nonsense they might as well be speaking in tongues. But musically it could be something from Goat Head Soup or Exile on Main Street you know it’s got that kind of Groove to it. But my version of it. I don’t want to sound exactly like somebody else. I’m going to try and put something newer forward in my own car you know within the Realms and the parameters of what I do.”
When asked why the Sex Pistols never made a second studio album “Because we were young, impetuous and full of beer and argued with each other too much. The problem with the Pistols was not everybody said what they thought to somebody else or not to the band guys themselves and we never spoke enough really. I think a few more kinds of real hum banging conversations could have cleared the decks a bit more and we would have made a second album. We all had it in us to write a second album.”
When asked if a second album was even discussed after the first Sex Pistols reunion “When we reformed in 1996 we spoke about it. Steve and Paul were up for it but John wasn’t, so there you go. I think he was kind of frightened that all our stuff is up on a pedestal and if we did something that didn’t come up to scratch then it would kind of chip away at the pedestal. But I say that was sort of a challenge and we could have written some stuff and if it didn’t make it (wasn’t good enough) we don’t put it out.”
When asked about how he felt about the mini series Pistols and if it was true to the real story “I’m very disappointed. I’m not disappointed it came out and I thought it was important that it went ahead because it was based on Steve’s (Jones) story who started the band. and his take on things.”
When asked about his portrayal in the mini series Pistols “I did not like my portrayal in the movie, in particular about leaving the band. I left the band, I was not sacked. That whole episode where Steve sacked me it’s just bollocks. The bathroom scene never happened (where he got fired). I left the band. I had a whole big meeting with Malcom about it and Steve and Paul. And Paul said can’t you just pretend to like John, not really, no. I write all these tunes and why can’t he (Johnny Rotten) back me up a bit. I just think it should have been more truthful.”
When asked about the authenticity of the relationship between Steve Jones and Chrissy Hynde and how it was portrayed in the movie ‘Pistols’ “Chrissy, she’s my neighbor in London, she said I only slept with him once.”
When asked if he had any input into the making of the series “At the beginning I had some meetings with the production team and I thought it all been ironed out but then I was ignored. So I’m not happy I feel shafted.”
When asked if he would reunite with the band again “I do not want to stand on stage next to somebody with a MAGA hat on, it’s not good, it’s not a good look. There is something about the fella (Johnny Rotten ) that I didn’t trust and I think it’s taking a long time for me to realize what that was all about and in the past few years I’ve realized what that was all about.. I always say Never Say, Never Again but I would say no Maga hats.”
Consequences Coming is a plethora of material inspired from when Glen started to listen to music to today, written to stand the test of time. It’s well-known Glen likes the Faces and a bit of Bob Dylan, and it’s all incorporated in there somewhere. What changes is the lyric. In the words of Lennon, Glen’s writing for the kids that have grown up with him. He’s come a long way from The Sex Pistols and records with an easy and melodic maturity born from being happily sober during decades of rock n roll.
The youngest Sex Pistol at only 16 he joined the band and co- wrote most of the iconic album ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’, including the hits ‘Pretty Vacant’, ‘Anarchy In The Uk’ & ‘God Save The Queen’. In true punk fashion he left amidst controversy and spitting feuds, but we’d expect nothing less from the band who spawned the punk movement.
Glen has played, performed and written with many greats including Blondie, Iggy Pop, Ronnie Wood, The Dammed, Primal Scream, Mick Jones, Midge Ure, Gary Kemp, Wendy James and contemporaries from the punk scene Rusty Egan, Mike Peters, Tom Robinson & Kirk Brandon. He often records and performs with long- time friends and recording comrades Earl Slick & Slim Jim Phantom (Stray Cats) and will be touring with Blondie throughout 2023, for whom he has also recorded bass on their new album.
Glen is a well- travelled, worldly wise musician. There’s a whole range of human experience and emotion that many artists strive for, that Glen always manges to attain.
Consequences Coming Album Track Listing: 1.Head On A Stick 2.Consequences Coming 3.Magic Carpet Ride 4.Speaking In Tongues 5.Shine Off Your Shoes 6.Constant Craving 7.Step In The Right Direction 8.Something ‘Bout The Weekend 9.This Empty Heart 10.Face In A Crowd 11.Tried To Tell You 12.Can’t Be Myself With You 13.This Shi
The Metal Voice recently spoke to guitarist Tracii Guns from L.A. Guns.
In the chat Tracii Guns talks about the bands upcoming new studio album ‘Black Diamonds the early days of Guns n’ Roses and narrating the recent Randy Rhoads documentary (Randy Rhoads: Reflection of a Guitar Icon)
Black Diamonds will be released April 14, 2023 via Frontiers Music SRL.
When asked what they did differently on the new album ‘Black Diamonds’ compared to their last album ‘Checkered Past’ “It’s always such a mysterious question to me too, you just kind of gotta go with whatever comes out. L.A. Guns aren’t specific, like some things that I do which are very specific. I can focus on a sound or a Vibe or something like that. But L.A. Guns is kind of all over the place and it always has been. So it’s like the playground, the giant sandbox where all the other kids left all their toys in it and you get to play with these trucks, these balls, these Jacks, these shovels, that kind of thing. So I really don’t put much as far as musical limitations with L.A. Guns. So there could be some extreme metal and Reggae on the same album. As long as Phil (Lewis) sings, it sounds like L.A. Guns, that’s kind of my rule of thumb.”
When asked how long he was a member of Guns n’ Roses in the early years A year. Axel (Rose) was singing for L.A. Guns, we did a gig, there was a big throwdown with our manager. Based on a big throwdown with another band we played with that night. Our manager fired Axl but we all lived together. We sat on the couch and decided what we were going to do next and it was Guns n’ Roses. That’s all we did, we just changed the name and we added Izzy.
When asked if they were rehearsing the early Guns n’ Roses material that we know today “We were playing them in L.A. Guns, a lot of those songs. Songs like ‘Don’t cry’ , ‘Anything goes’ , ‘Think about you’ a bunch of them.”
When asked if he helped in the arrangements and compositions of the early Guns n Roses songs “Yeah some of them because me and Izzy lived together so by the time we had Guns n Roses, when basically he joined LA Guns. Izzy had some of those songs that they had played in Hollywood Rose. Because earlier Izzy and Axl were in a band called Hollywood Rose and when Slash was in Hollywood Rose they wrote ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. But for some reason when we got together as Guns N’ Roses we didn’t play ‘Welcome in the jungle’ I don’t know why. I don’t remember but that was always a favorite song of mine that they had. When I was in the band (Guns N Roses) we were heavier than what people know as Guns n’ Roses now. It wasn’t as blues-based, it was a little bit more metal. So more Straight Ahead, more L.A. Guns-ish really.”
When asked about his experience narrating the Randy Rhoads documentary (Randy Rhoads: Reflection of a Guitar Icon) that was released two years ago “All the feedback that I’ve gotten from it is, people are just grateful that it exists. The Quiet Riot years, a lot of people didn’t understand them or they didn’t know about them at all. How I got involved was Andre Relis the director contacted me and I got really nervous because I’m really good friends with Randy’s brother and sister. And we have always said that we would never do anything to do with Randy (Rhoads) unless it made sense and somebody else wasn’t gonna make money off it, like it wasn’t a cash grab kind of thing. So I talked to Andre about, what does Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne say? What does Kathy (Rhoads) say? Are they all against it? I’m like those are my people and I really shouldn’t do this without their approval. And he (Andre Relis) said well I understand your thing but I’m doing it anyway there’s nothing legally binding that says I can’t do it. I had to think about it at that point because I knew that if I didn’t do it they would just get anybody to do the narration and then it would be a big sore spot forever. So I agreed to do it after I saw the documentary and I read the script, it was really put in a positive light and it was very truthful. And it turned out great and Kathy (Rhoads) hit me and up and goes I can’t believe you did this. I didn’t answer her for a couple days because I really had to process the reason that I did it. Why is it a positive thing? Why is it a good thing? Why does it make sense now? And I told her why I did it. I wanted to tell her after I had done it and explain those reasons but she found out before it was actually made public. So ultimately she agreed with me. You know she said well it is good that it’s you and I wish you had run it by me. And I said oh I didn’t run it by you because you would have talked me out of it and then somebody else would have done it, it was gonna get done. So I think that at the end of the day it’s been out for two years now um I think that it was very successful, number one but I think that we all feel good about it you know and it leaves a lot of room for the Ozzy years. Because an Ozzy documentary about Randy would be a full 90 minutes on its own. There’s footage there you know a lot of people say there’s no footage of Randy but there’s a lot of footage of Randy (unseen). I haven’t seen it but I know that type of footage has been collected over the years. A lot of it’s VHS quality, a lot of it’s bootleg.”
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to former Scorpions’ drummer James Kottak about his time in the Scorpions and in Kingdom Come.
Watch the interview below.
In the interview he was asked if he had any idea he is going to be replaced and if he knew his replacement was Motorhead drummer Mikkey Dee, Kottak said, “Honestly, no but if you’re going to replace me, get somebody really good. Mikkey is a great drummer. I met him when he was starting with Don Dokken and great guy. I’ve seen him play with King Diamond. Over the years we have been running into each other. I was in Antigua at the thing (Eric Clapton’s Crossroads rehab in 2016) and I talked to the guys about once a week or so but I never had any indication that anything was going to change. And that there was only a handful of shows booked for the whole year, it was only like maybe 10 shows (left). So they got some kid from Greece to fill in and then they kept going, man you’ve got to stay there ( at rehab) stay there all you want, so I’m like oh okay, so I did and anything seemed cool. Then once I came back to L.A. in July and we didn’t talk about splitting ways until November or something, so I was actually really surprised about that. They’re smart guys man they got her business to run. And as they would say they’re in their Twilight years so to speak and they just didn’t want to take any chances on any trouble and I don’t blame them. I was really surprised and taken off guard. I think we were on the phone that day for like two and a half hours going back and forth back and forth and stuff and uh but they were so good to me. “
James Kottak is best known for his work with the German hard rock band Scorpions, which he joined in 1996. He was their all-time longest-serving drummer, surpassing Herman Rarebell, who spent 18 years in the band.
Prior to joining Scorpions, Kottak was a drummer for the Bob Brickley Band, Nut House, Mister Charlie, Buster Brown, Montrose, Kingdom Come, Wild Horses, the McAuley Schenker Group, Warrant, and Ashba.
(Michaela Naydenova, Helena Kotina, Prika Amaral and Hel Pyre)
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to NERVOSA‘s guitarist Helena Kotina about the bands upcoming tour, their new single ENDLESS AMBITION and their upcoming studio album.
Watch the interview below.
When asked about the new Nervosa studio albums release date “The whole album is complete. We just released the first video single ‘Endless Ambition’. The album is going to be released after summer around Sept -Oct 2023. Most of the songs I h have composed/cowritten together with Prika (Amarel). We have a new line-up, a new song 9single) and we are beginning to tour next week. “
When asked about Prika Amarel taking over the vocal duties “Prika didn’t even know that she was going to take on the vocals but after all these (Line-up) changes happened she said, I’m going to do it because I don’t want to bring in another vocalist that may fit or may not.”
When asked how she would describe the new albums music
“The new album has a lot of melodies and has a lot of classic heavy metal riffs, it’s brutal. It’s a combination of I heavy metal but still thrash and death I cannot say more.(laughs).
With their latest record, Perpetual Chaos (2.8M plays on Spotify), femme thrash metal band NERVOSA not only secured their first charting positions at #18 on the German album charts, #6 on the US Hard Music Albums and #9 on the US Top New Artist Albums charts, but also played some of Europe’s biggest festivals such as Summerbreeze and Wacken Open Air. The new standalone single “Endless Ambition” graces their 35k monthly listeners and 77k followers on Spotify alone with an exciting glimpse of what’s about to come in 2023. Stay tuned for more exciting news coming soon!
Catch NERVOSA live in 2023
05.04.23 SE – Linkoping / Platens 06.04.23 NO – Inferno Metal Fest 07.04.23 SE – Borlänge / Broken Dreams 08.04.23 SE – Sundsvall / Club Deströyer 11.04.23 FI – Tampere / Yo-Talo 12.04.23 FI – Helsinki / On The Rocks
20.05.23 BE – Ostend / Huginns Awakening Fest 22.05.23 UK – London / The Underworld 23.05.23 UK – Bradford / Nightrain 24.05.23 UK – Sheffield / Corporation 25.05.23 UK – Wolverhampton / KKs Steel Mill 26.05.23 UK – Manchester / Satans Hollow 27.05.23 UK – Northampton / Manorfest
Canada’s The Metal Voice spoke to former Scorpions guitarist Uli Jon Roth on March 28, 2023. In the chat Roth talks about his new book entitled ‘In Search of the Aplpha Law’. Watch the interview below.
Uli Jon Roth was asked about his upcoming US tour and how he plans on integrating his new book during his 3 hour performance, he said,” The show is different from any tour I’ve done before. The show consists of two very different halves. It’s a three hour show which sounds scary but I been doing three hour shows for a long time we always have an intermission in the middle. I will also integrate like a 15-minute Ted Talk which I’ve never done that before but where I’m just introducing the book because there’s a lot to talk about in the book. The book is 560 Pages plus a thousand photographs. The book is called ‘In search of the alpha law’. It’ not about my life on the road or my life. it is about my philosophy. Ever since the early Scorpion days I was a closet philosopher. I love Deep Thoughts. A lot of that has to do with the inner spirit and architecture of Music the laws of Music which I found are the same laws that govern pretty much everything else that we see and perceive. If not the whole universe. I think these laws are fundamental laws of nature and even beyond that because they also apply to our mind and in our spirit our soul. These laws are very fascinating to look at and try to understand. So the first half of the show has this Ted talk but it has also quite a few new music pieces which don’t really fit into the band format, they’re more orchestral,They are very melodic, where the guitar is leading and I have orchestra backing. Second half of the show after the intermission a full-on band show. because I know most of my core audience wants to hear my earlier musical existence including of course the Scorpions and Electric Sun.”
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
