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.”
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice spoke to Quiet Riot’s director Regina Banali (wife of the late Frankie Banali) and guitarist Alex Grossi about the bands new unleased Quiet Riot track featuring Kevin DuBrow on Vocals. Plus the two give updates on the band.
When asked about the lost re-imaged song with Kevin DuBrow on vocals “Twenty years ago we wrote it. The song came off of a CDR. We worked for a weekend out in Vegas where Kevin lived and then he came to the airport and give me a CDR of what we did. So I dumped the CDR into my iTunes which got transferred to an iPod and then disappeared. So the CDR is long gone, that was the only copy there was. The song was guitar and vocals on an iPod we found last year. We also had a bunch of drum tracks from Frankie (Banali) to use. We got together in the studio and figured out that it could actually work extracting it off the iPod. I added some guitar solos, Regina played tambourine and basically Rudy (Sarzo) finished it up. And it came out it came out really good. Out of necessity we had to go with the with the tracks we had to work with. Kevin recorded (that Song) in his home studio in 2003 and he had a nice microphone and he had the right pipes and thankfully it all translated to 2022. To give you an idea how long we worked on it, the last mix that we sent in to get mastered is mix number 39. There was 39 revisions on that song. ” Alex Grossi
“That guy AJ (Alistair James) that we worked with is a genius editor. He really took it apart and and nuanced every little note and we really took it in and listened and we played around with it and we tried things and we lived with it for a while. Then we tried out different things and we lived with that for a while and we really took our time with it and just babyed this until it was perfect. It was over the course of months. ” Regina Banali
When asked if there were more unreleased Quiet Riot songs “There is so much stuff in my garage and in storage units that I have to take apart with formats that I don’t even know how to play things on. So it’s entirely possible that there’s more but I don’t know.” Regina Banali
“I know that I wrote about seven or eight songs with Kevin during that time a couple of which ended up on Rehab ( Quiet Riot Album). Based on once we get into all the cdrs and all the files, there’s definitely more out there. It’s just a matter of if we can dig it up and if we can make it work the way this one did. Thankfully we have AJ who’s crazy how talented and this is right up his alley. It’s not only a production thing, it’s a digital editing thing because it’s all after the fact. So yeah I’d say it’s a very good possibility. “Alex Grossi
Legendary rock band Quiet Riot has just re-released “REHAB: RELAPSED AND REMASTERED” via Red Samurai Music. The album includes a previously unreleased track entitled “I Can’t Hold On,” originally written and demoed by Kevin Dubrow and Alex Grossi in 2003. The finished track features a hauntingly powerful vocal from DuBrow and is a semi-posthumous reunion of DuBrow, Frankie Banali, and Rudy Sarzo. The song was edited and produced by Alistair James, who most recently engineered for Joe Perry and Johnny Depp on the latest “Hollywood Vampires” release “Rise.”
Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Twisted Sister Guitarist Jay Jay French. In the interview Jay Jay French was asked about why Mike Portnoy and Steve Vai were chosen to induct Twisted Sister at the Metal Hall of fame gala 2023. Plus how Mike Portnoy ended up filling in on drums after A.J. Pero died.
French said, “Mike Portnoy and Steve Vai are going to induct us (Metal Hall of Fame) and the reason why they are going to induct us is, they used to sneak in and see Twisted Sister when they were 15 years old in the bars in Long Island. This is Steve Vai and Mike Portnoy, two of the greatest rock musicians on the planet.”
He continued, “Now when A.J. died, for those of you who don’t know, A.J. was in a band called The Adrenaline Mob and that was his side gig when Twisted wasn’t on the road. He was on the road with Adrenaline Mob and he died in the tour bus of Adrenaline Mob in a parking lot in Poughkeepsie, New York, he had a heart attack. A.J. also replaced Mike Portnoy who was in Adrenaline Mob. So A.J. dies and the day after there was a memorial show in New Jersey. Adrenaline put on the show and I went because they asked me to appear on behalf of Twisted Sister and play a song with Adrenaline Mob. And I’m sitting there and Mike Portnoy was there and Mike Portnoy and I were in the dressing we’d never met officially and we’re both crying because A.J. just died 24 hours before. We’re both like crying you know but anyway um Mike looked at me and says man uh what are you guys gonna do because we had a tour lined up and I went I don’t know ? I don’t know if we haven’t even discussed it. He said well look I’m not touring this summer and if you need a drummer call me I’m available. So we attended A.J.’s wake a couple of days later and we’re all sitting around his father-in-law’s house in Staten Island discussing the future of the band and I went you to know Mike Portnoy offered his services should we decide to continue. Now at that point the whole European Festival tour was set up that summer so we all these promoters are now calling to find out because we’re headlining 15 festivals and we’re telling them give us some time because we can’t process this is too traumatic. We were so Blown Away by Mike’s offer and we thought about it and said you know what oh we’ll take you up on it. “
The Metal Hall Of Fame is a non-profit organization that enshrines forever those iconic musicians, artists, music industry executives who are responsible for making hard rock and heavy metal music what it is today. Their contribution to the genre is invaluable, and they keep inspiring fans throughout the world, from generation to generation.
A special Rocavaka meet-and-greet with Snider, Rocavaka’s brand ambassador, will take place after the induction ceremony where limited-edition Snider numbered Rocavaka bottles will be made available for purchase and signing.
Canada ‘s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Anthrax’s singer Joey Belladonna as well as his wife and partner Krista Belladonna. Joey Belladonna spoke about his Journey tribute band ‘Beyond Frontiers’ as well as some key historic moments in Anthrax over the years. Plus we did into the couples relationship.
When asked about his Journey tribute band “Great tight band, those guys love doing it too so it helps when you get people that are really into it. It’s just part of what I like to do. It looks like I’m trying to do something while everybody’s doing stuff (In Anthrax) but no I just want to keep doing it. I don’t plan to just do it for the heck of it, we have shows coming up in fact in March. The book is open basically and whatever comes up we’re just we’re ready to take on. I want it to grow, I want it to be a normal thing for everyone. “
When asked if he would consider doing other tributes, like Dio? “We’ll put it together too, we’re not ready to get into that just yet. “
When asked about the early days with Anthrax, when he auditioned “I knew nothing about them (Anthrax), nothing about that music and it worked out great. Obviously I was a little intimidated to join because I didn’t even know if the music was really my style but I saw through it enough. It (Audition) was like let’s get the mic set up, if you want to warm up, let’s get some levels on your mic. I said the hell with it I’m gonna just bust out some shit. I just did some Journey stuff. I don’t even remember, I think Lights maybe or oh Sherry little bits of pieces of stuff I don’t think I did whole Tunes but then at that point they’re like okay now this isn’t what we expected.”
When touching upon the times he was let go from Anthrax and then brought back to the band “I continue to be as humble as possible and move forward, which that’s we all want to do. Some people are like what are you nuts? You’ve been in relationships, it’s kind of the same idea, I mean you can either be on the same page or you can be a little deviant and send it off course and expect a lot more from someone that you’re not doing your part. And what are the reasons? There’s a lot to it too. Sometimes there’s just no reason for and what do you get from it? And then you got to backtrack and then you gotta pick it up, again twice. I mean I’m happy for the fans, I just think people need to see it the way it was. There was nothing wrong with it, in my eyes. I think everything we were doing even to the last minute before I was gone, Persistence (In Time Album) was great stuff. “
When asked his opinion on when Anthrax first started integrating rap into their songs, ‘I’m the Man’ and ‘Bring the noise’ “I had no clue what was going on. I remember walking in the room and there was kind of a heated moment about certain things about that and when I heard them working on it I thought I walked into the wrong room. I honestly did, I had no idea what was going on. I mean obviously these things move and they go and they they do whatever they need to do and I’m I’m happy to be a part of all of it. I had the experience and it has been great. I love playing drums on some of the stuff and as I love jamming with Public Enemy. I love listening to their stories about how they come together and play. It’s super cool and you can’t you can’t deny the fans having so much fun with that stuff. ”
When asked if he felt out of place on the Bring the noise video with Anthrax/Public Enemy “Just don’t give me something I can do, I’m not going to stand around and get some drinks while everybody’s shooting a video, give me some turntables.”
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
