Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice spoke to former if Rainbow, MSG, Alcatrazz singer Graham Bonnet in Montreal Quebec Canada on the Michael Schenker Fest Tour on March 12 2018.
Graham Bonnet spoke about his Audition with Black Sabbath in the 1980’s, his upcoming US tour with the Graham Bonnet band playing ‘No Parole From Rock and Roll’ in it’s entirety and news, timeline and details on upcoming Album by the band
Watch the interview here:
When asked about the details and timeline of the follow-up Album to the Graham Bonnet Band’s The Book
“I finished my part on the new album everything is finished vocally. Now when I go back, we go in the mixing stage but at the moment Beth-Ami Heavenstone is putting down the bass parts. We got the bass to put down a little bit of keyboards. It sounds pretty good I am very pleased. If anybody liked the previous album the Book , they are going to like this too, it has got the same kind of material, same kind of sound and it’s got a little of that Alcatrazz, MSG, Rainbow sound. It will be released in a few of months I think, it will be out this year.”
When asked about the Graham Bonnet Band playing the complete Alcatrazz ‘No Parole from Rock and Roll Album’ in it’s entirety for the 35 year anniversary on their upcoming US tour
“It will be all the material that I made up 35 years ago, we will play all the Alcatrazz tracks off that album along with the Graham Bonnet Band songs. There is a new audience for Alcatrazz it seems like a younger audience, I wish they had been turned on to it back then when we needed a bit more publicity back then. It’s amazing to see kids of 18 years old coming up to me and singing the lyrics.”
When asked about how he turned down an audition to sing for Black Sabbath in the 1980’s
” I can’t actually remember the actual year it was 1980 something. I had a call from one of the guys from Black Sabbath I can’t remember who asked me if i was interested in auditioning cause I just left Rainbow and it was something I wasn’t really sure of. I wasn’t sure of the music, I wasn’t sure if I really fit with my short hair. I wanted to do something different on my own not to be in another band as another singer in a revolving door, so I turned it down.”
USA – GRAHAM BONNET BAND PERFORMS ‘ALCATRAZZ – NO PAROLE FROM ROCK N ROLL’ TOUR
SEPTEMBER
28TH VIPER ROOM – WEST HOLLYWOOD , CA
29TH MALONES – SANTA ANA , CA
OCTOBER
3RD EL CORAZON – SEATTLE, WA
5TH DIVE BAR – LAS VEGAS, NV
6TH BRICK BY BRICK – SAN DIEGO , CA
7TH THE HUB – COLTON , CA
OCT 11 THE CABOOZE – MINNEAPOLIS , MN
OCT 12 BIGS BAR – SIOUX FALLS , SD
OCT 13 THE RED HERRING LOUNGE – DULUTH , MN
OCT 14 RED CARPET – ST CLOUD , MN
Jimmy Kay from The Metal Voice recently interviewed Michael Schenker singer Doogie White (Yngwie Malmsteen, Tank, Rainbow). Doogie spoke about the new album by Michael Schenker Fest, Resurrection, his audition with Iron Maiden in 1993 and his time in Rainbow and Yngwie Malmsteen.
Watch the interview here:
When asked about his time in Yngwie Malmsteen and the songs he enjoyed recording
“With Yngwie it was different cause I had no heart and soul really in it, it was more about the performances live because Yngwie wrote everything. He gave me all the lines and everything to do. I liked ‘Razor Eater’, I like ‘Rise up’ very much cause it had the energy live.”
When asked about the concept of the Michael Schenker Fest on record and on tour
“It was an exciting album to do it’s an exciting concept I think it was very brave of Michael Schenker to put something like this together and to be invited to enter the party . There is lots of friendly competition between the singers although they won’t admit it. Everybody has raised the game, everybody is at the top of their game and it’s a great live rock and roll show and that makes it exciting for the audience. Some people have the new album cause it only came out the day we started so it’s gradually picking up momentum.”
When asked about his 1993 Audition with Iron Maiden to replace Bruce Dickinson
“I had sent a tape in to Iron Maiden. Dickie Dell who was the production manager was at my door and he said what are you doing, I said I am going to Scotland, he said no you are not you have an audition with Iron Maiden Monday. So Dickie Bell gave me a cassette and a letter with the lyrics I think it had about 18 songs on it, mostly from the albums ‘A Real Live One’ and ‘A Real Dead One’. Dickie picked me up and dropped me off at Steve Harris’ place. ”
“The band was set up in a circle with Nicko Mcbrain in back of me and we ran through the songs and had a cup of tea and I had a chat with Steve and I went away and that was it. We played tracks like , Be quick or Be dead, From here to Eternity, The Evil that men do and then the classics like Run to the Hills. Steve had a definite idea on where he wanted to take the band, Steve called me up a couple of weeks later and said we are giving the job to Blaze. Blaze is great he is the hardest working man in Rock and Roll and he always delivers. Steve wanted something different for the band. the easy route for Steve would have been to go get a clone from a tribute band but Steve didn’t he took a brave step and they did two great albums. but really normal services have been resumed. Even if i got the gig it would have ended up the same.”
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to The Dead Daises Singer (Ex-Motley Crue) John Corabi. He spoke about The Dead Daises upcoming album BURN IT DOWN, his Motley Crue era, his days in Ratt, Mick Mars Solo Album and the up coming Motley Crue film
Watch the interview here:
When asked about the upcoming The Dead Daisies album Burn it down
“This record is a bit heavier than anything we have done in the past but not heavy in the sense of the melody is gone. There is still melody there but it’s kind of like an old school Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC kind of heavy. It was one of those things where you kind of get in a groove everybody’s got a ton of riffs a ton of ideas and you just don’t know what direction the records going to go until the light bulb goes off. I’m pretty pleased with the album”
When asked what was it like to join Motley Crue
Motley Crue had done the Dr Feelgood tour and they were relatively, relatively is a big word, sober when I joined the band. They weren’t really partying. When I first joined everybody was trying to keep their act together and eventually as we got rolling everyone started falling into old habits. I didn’t know what to expect. No disrespect to the band I was familiar with their videos on MTV. I got to be honest with you but a lot of the stuff in the 80’s kind of went over my head. I was into classic 70’s bands. I had to ask them for the records when it came to putting together a set list. It was funny I had been in the band two and a half years and they were laughing their ass off, wait a minute you don’t have any of our records and I’m like no, not really. Tommy Lee said have you ever seen us live before? No, and they were laughing their ass off, like OMG we picked a guy to sing in our band that wasn’t even a fan of the band.”
When asked what were his audition songs for Motley Crue
“The first two songs I ever sang for Motley Crue, which were covers, the first one was Helter Skelter and the second one was Jailhouse Rock. I knew those. I knew the original versions. The first Motley originals I sang were Dr Feelgood, Live Wire and Shout at the Devil.”
When asked how it went down when they let him go from Motley Crue
“When we were writing the next album Generation Swine. their was rumblings on the street. the thing that kind of bugged me about the exit wasn’t about them bringing Vince Neil back. I knew at any moment the band could Kiss and make up. the thing that bugged me is nobody from the management company came to me and leveled with me. They eventually told me the day Vince was coming back but their was months prior to that where people were talking about Vince coming back and I would ask management about it and they would say no it’s never going to happen. I just wished that everybody could have been a little more on the table about everything.”
When asked if he thinks he will be portrayed in the upcoming Motley Crue Movie THE DIRT
” If the movie is true to the book then their will be a small segment where it talks about me but I am not expecting it.”
The Dead Daises will be releasing their new album, “Burn It Down” on Friday, April 6 via Spitfire Music/SPV.
The Dead Daises “Burn It Down” track listing:
01. Resurrected
02. Rise Up
03. Burn It Down
04. Judgement Day
05. What Goes Around
06. Bitch
07. Set Me Free
08. Dead And Gone
09. Can’t Take It With You
10. Leave Me Alone
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to ARMORED SAINT (Ex-Anthrax) singer John Bush about the bands current “Symbol of Salvation tour” and the filming of a live DVD. Bush also spoke about the bands plans for writing a follow-up to their last album “Win Hands Down” and the possibility or playing his ANTHRAX era songs live someday.
Watch the interview here:
When asked about why the band decided on performing the complete album Symbol of Salvation on their upcoming tour
“We are going to play the Symbol of Salvation record in it’s entirety, it’s a classic Armored Saint record, we never ever done anything like this before. The Symbol of Salvation record seems to be a kind of record that fans connect with at an emotional level. It’s the one record that almost didn’t happen and we made it happen after re-grouping the band after Dave Prichard passed away. There were a lot of stars aligning on that album. Win Hands Down came out 2015, it’s been almost three years, we did a live record and now the next step is to do a Live DVD that is something Armored Saint has never really done properly. We don’t know which dates yet where we will be filming the DVD we are still working that out. We will be playing a few songs from our Catalog we are still trying to figure out that out which ones we want to do.”
When asked about the status on writing a follow-up to Armored Saints last album Win Hands Down
“We have a couple of songs that me and Joey Vera kind of worked on, a couple more that we though of working on. Gonza and Phil Sandoval also have a couple of ideas that they wanted to send us. I think that realistically we can get a record out in the middle of next year if we are optimistic. It would be great to have all the writing done by the end of this year. Armored Saint can try to be a little quicker in the way that we write songs as long as we feel like there is quality control on it. We love ‘Win hands Down’ our last album, we think it’s a great record, we just want to pick up where we left off in terms of musical direction on this upcoming album, to continue with that style of the last album. The new songs kind of write themselves ”
When asked if he would ever consider playing on all Anthrax set live
“I have talked about possibly doing that and it is something that I am a little more open minded to doing more so than I was 5-10 years ago. It just has to be the right scenario. There has to be enough of an interest. It has to be the right band. It would have to be sporadic shows maybe some festivals. It has to feel right. It would have to be the right situation, we will see.”
July 10 – Poughkeepsie, NY – The Chance
July 11 – Sellersville, PA – Sellersville Theater
July 13 – New York, NY – The Gramercy Theatre
July 14 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
July 15 – Montreal, QC – Petite Campus
July 17 – Toronto, ON – Mod Club
July 18 – Cleveland, OH – The Cambridge at House of Blues
July 20 – Detroit, MI – Shelter
July 21 – Chicago, IL – Reggie’s
July 22 – Milwaukee, WI – Shank Hall
Aug. 16 – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d
Aug. 17 – Anaheim, CA – Parish at House of Blues
Aug. 18 – Los Angeles, CA – The Regent
* CD (tour edition digipak w/ 4 bonus tracks)
* 180g black vinyl
* dark red maroon marbled vinyl (limited to 300 copies – EU exclusive)
* clear red/purple/black/white splattered vinyl (limited to 200 copies – EU exclusive)
* violet rosy brown marbled vinyl (limited to 300 copies – USA exclusive)
* pastel pink lilac marbled vinyl (limited to 200 copies – USA exclusive)
CD track listing:
01. Reign of Fire
02. Dropping Like Flies
03. Last Train Home
04. Tribal Dance
05. The Truth Always Hurts
06. Half Drawn Bridge
07. Another Day
08. Symbol of Salvation
09. Hanging Judge
10. Warzone
11. Burning Question
12. Tainted Past
13. Spineless
14. Medieval Nightmares (Demo)
15. Get Lost (Demo)
16. Toungue and Cheek (Demo)
17. Pirates (Demo)
Vinyl track listing:
Side A
01. Reign of Fire
02. Dropping Like Flies
03. Last Train Home
04. Tribal Dance
05. The Truth Always Hurts
06. Half Drawn Bridge
07. Another Day
Side B
01. Symbol of Salvation
02. Hanging Judge
03. Warzone
04. Burning Question
05. Tainted Past
06. Spineless
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to legendary OZZY OSBOURNE, BLACK SABBATH, RAINBOW, GARY MOORE and URIAH HEEP bassist and songwriter BOB DAISLEY.
In the interview Bob Daisley spoke about his time in Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio and goes in depth in regards to the writing and recording sessions on the classic Ozzy Osbourne albums, Blizzard of Ozz, Diary of a Madman, Bark at the Moon, The Ultimate Sin and No Rest for the Wicked. As well Daisley talks about the court challenges he and drummer Lee Kerslake pursued over the years against Don Arden of Jet Records over unpaid royalties.
Watch the interview here:
When asked about his dismissal from Rainbow during the Ronnie James Dio years (5:29)
“In 1978 Ritchie Blackmore decided that he wanted to go a little more commercial he wanted to have hit records, chart success, so he got a new line up. Ritchie did have the chart success that he wanted with his new singer Graham Bonnet but I think it was at the expense of a certain amount of respect because Rainbow became sort of poppy and commercial. You can’t knock the success but I don’t think it was the best versions of Rainbow. The classic lineup what other people say is the lineup with Ronnie James Dio, Blackmore, Cozy Powell and David Stone and myself.”
On his first rehearsal with Ozzy (9:47)
“I took the train to Stafford England, I got to Ozzy’s house and he had a couple of other guys there a drummer and a guitarist and I don’t know who they were, nice blokes but I wasn’t sort of knocked out by them, no real spark there, it was just ok no real chemistry. So I went to the kitchen with Ozzy and I said look if you want to be serious about this I would like to form a band with you but I don’t think these two other guys are world class players. Ozzy said ok one minute, Ozzy walked back into the rehearsal room and he told those two, pack up fellas it’s not going to work out and they were gone, on the spot.”
When asked about his original contract stipulations with Jet Records and how he was fired from Ozzy’s band (13:41)
“An average deal in those days was around 12% of retail so we were suppose to have 12% for the whole band and because Ozzy had just come out of Black Sabbath and he was already signed to Jet Records as their artist we decided that we thought it was fair that Ozzy gets 6% for himself. The other 6% was suppose to be split between guitarist Randy Rhoads, drummer Lee Kerslake and myself we were suppose to get 2% each. And that would change as we went further down the line as it became more of a band. Also It was a band it wasn’t a solo project, it was a band called The Blizzard of Ozz. We didn’t actually sign the contract because things were getting changed all the time, we had our law firm and they had their law firm and lots of back and forth.”
“The two albums Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman were done about 10 or 11 months of each other including a UK tour in between. We wrote the songs then we recorded the album. The first album was recorded and out before the contract was signed. Then when it came to write the second album Diary of a Madman we said hang on a minute we haven’t got the money from the first album yet. Don Arden the manager at the time said on the phone to us don’t worry carry on the work and it will be all sorted out you will have your contract and money so we believed him and we carried on working. Then we recorded Diary of a Madman and Lee Kerslake and I got fired. Ozzy wanted Tommy Aldridge in the band and Tommy was a friend of Sharon Arden’s as well. During the UK tour they kept pulling me a side saying let’s get rid of Lee let’s get Tommy and I just didn’t think it was the right move, they asked me several times and I said no all the time, so eventually they got rid of me and Lee.”
When asked about Ozzy Osbourne’s musical contributions to Blizzard of Ozz (19:50)
“Randy Rhoads had riffs and ideas. Randy and I would sit on a chair next to each other and work things out together musically most of the main riffs were Randy’s but the music part we did together. We would play a backing track and Ozzy would sing a melody over it and a lot of these melodies were very good. Ozzy had never written lyrics, Randy wasn’t a lyricist and neither was Lee so I did the lyrics. I just wrote lyrics that would fit with Ozzy’s phrasing and his melodies.”
When asked about the court case against Jet Records and Don Arden (45:00)
“We had gone to court against Jet Records and Don Arden, we didn’t get credited on Diary of a Madman they put bassist Rudy Sarzo and drummer Tommy Aldridge and credited them on playing on Diary of a Madman when they hadn’t played a note or beat on it. We got our songwriting credits but we didn’t get our co-production credits and we didn’t get our performance credit royalties. We were going to court against Jet Records. Ozzy and Sharon Arden were helping us because she had a big fallout with her father but we didn’t know at the time was Sharon had bought the rights to Ozzy’s catalogue from her father Don Arden in 1983 and they were getting the royalties. We went to court in 1986 and Don Arden and Jet records paid us an amount but in 1986 those albums weren’t multi platinum they done a million and a bit each, we thought we would continue to get royalties but we didn’t because there wasn’t an actual judgment against Don Arden or Jet Records because he waved a white flag and made an offer and the lawyers advised us to take it.”
When asked if he would keep pursing the court cases against the Osbourne’s camp over unpaid royalties after his latest lose (54:05)
“Oh no.”
When asked how much money he believes he was owed in unpaid royalties today (54:18)
“The Blizzard of Oz and Diary of a Madman have probably sold 4 or 5 million each and the record royalties from performance that’s got to be in the millions that we didn’t get paid.”
When asked if the Osbourne’s called him up today to participate once again on another album would he consider participating? (54:49)
“Well I never say never. I don’t burn bridges, I don’t hate people. If there was a way to do it where we could work something out in a sort of nice way I wouldn’t say its completely out of the question, it’s a possibility I suppose depending on the circumstances on how they sell and offer it.”
When asked about his thoughts about the Ronnie James Dio Hologram Tour (54:43)
“I wouldn’t see something like that I think its a little distasteful but that is just my opinion.”
Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently spoke to Ex Dio DC4 guitarist Rowan Robertson and Jeff DuncanArmored Saint DC4 Guitarist at The NAMM Show on January 26 2018. They spoke about a New Armored saint Album, New DC4 album and their thoughts on the Dio Hologram Tour
Watch the interview here:
When asked what both guitarists were currently up to,
“I’ve got an upcoming release from a group that we both play together in, called DC4.” Rowan Robertson
“This new DC4 Album should be out around April 2018 Springtime, it’s just good hard rock and roll music in your face.” Jeff Duncan
Jeff Duncan was asked if Armored Saint was working on a new album
“We will probably put out a new album next year 2019 from what I am told and we got a bunch of touring happening for Summer, South America the USA and Europe.”
Rowan Robertson was asked if he would release the Unreleased unheard Dio rehearsal tapes he owns
” No (shaking his head with a Yes) there is two songs which were just done on a boom box in rehearsal and I just really would like to get permission from management, cause I don’t want to get in trouble.”
When asked about Rowen Robertson’s thoughts of the Dio Hologram tour
I think it’s great, it keeps his memory alive and I don’t see any problem with it at all”
Rowan Robertson was recruited to join the band Dio when he was only 17 years of age. The experience launched the young guitarist from obscurity to international fame nearly overnight. Robertson’s first and only album with the band, Lock Up the Wolves, was released May 15, 1990
In 1988, Jeff Duncan joined heavy metal band Armored Saint, where he replaced Dave Prichard after his passing
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