CD Review: Yes - In The Present – Live From Lyon

CD Review: Yes - In The Present – Live From Lyon
Frontier
All Access Review: B-

The last few years or so have been some of the most dysfunctional in the long, storied history of progressive-rock institution and psychedelic chameleons Yes, and that’s saying something. Seemingly forever beset by internal strife, whether over creative differences, legal battles over the band’s name, personality conflicts, or even debilitating health problems, Yes’s instability has, at various times, threatened to tear the very hull of the band apart and cause it to sink down into the deep of a Technicolor, Roger Dean-imagined lake of lava on some distant, undiscovered planet. Through it all, bass wizard Chris Squire, the only remaining original member, has managed to guide Yes through the choppiest of waters and still keep the good ship seaworthy with an ever-evolving crew. He’s still at the helm and shows no signs of giving up the wheel.

Though he’s been in and out of the band more often than a hopeless addict shuffles through rehab, Jon Anderson, a founding member no less, is, without question, the one true voice of Yes. But, respiratory issues have, on occasion, caused him to excuse himself from a number of possible Yes tours as the loud cheering died down after the 35^th anniversary excursion in 2004. And while Squire and the rest of Yes entertained the notion of recording new music, Anderson, perhaps still stinging from the disappointing commercial results of 2001’s orchestral Magnification, was intractable in his opposition to the idea, certainly skeptical that Yes still had it in them to chart new musical territory. Here’s where things get sticky. In 2008, Yes again was set to tour the world, this time for its 40^th anniversary. However, the “Close to the Edge and Back” jaunt crashed before it left the launching pad, as Anderson was diagnosed with acute respiratory failure. On doctor’s orders, he opted to rest the pipes. Not willing to wait around for Anderson to recover, Squire, Steve Howe, and Alan White – along with Oliver Wakeman, son of the veteran Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman – shanghaied a new singer, Benoit David. And wouldn’t you know it? David was Anderson’s vocal doppelganger.

Leaving Anderson behind to fume over this breach of loyalty – even though he’d left the band plenty of times before, including that well-publicized first split in 1980 – the rest of Yes embarked on what would become known as the “In the Present” North American tour, while Anderson twisted in the wind, not knowing if he was still a part of Yes or not. Interrupted by Squire’s leg surgery, “In the Present” was delayed, but in 2009, Yes went back out and on December 1 of that year, the reconstituted Yes played Lyon, France. In late 2011, Frontiers Records released a double-CD set that documented the beaming, if somewhat spotty, performance and paired it with a 55-minute DVD in a package titled In the Present – Live from Lyon. And it feels like the dawning of a new era for the band, with its mix of elder statesmen and hungry young lions.

Still, from sound of things on In the Present – Live at Lyon, this version of Yes has yet to reach its full potential. Despite some imaginative and diverse guitar soloing from Howe, “Owner of a Lonely Heart” drags its feet, the playing sluggish and sapped of Yes’s usual vitality, as is the hum-drum version of “I’ve Seen All Good People” that follows it on Disc 1. When it’s supposed to pick up steam and drive ahead, at that precise moment when the song shifts from a psychedelic-folk meditation on living unselfishly into a muscular, triumphant jam of spiritual uplift, it lazily, almost reluctantly, comes to its feet and tiredly walks to its destination.

Not everything on In the Present – Live in Lyon comes off seeming so distracted and disinterested. “Machine Messiah,” boasting Oliver’s beguiling keyboard runs and the twirling spirals of notes rising from Howe’s guitar that answer them, offers exuberance and haunting beauty, while “Heart of the Sunrise” dazzles with its complex musicianship and shape-shifting movements, as do the jazzy interludes of “Astral Traveler,” showcasing the head-spinning interplay of Howe and Wakeman and the controlled chaos of White’s drum solo.

Maddeningly inconsistent, the sometimes uninspired and masturbatory Disc 1 gives way to a more confident and wide-ranging Yes in the second CD. Lush and extravagant, “Siberian Kathru” is an epic flight over some of the more mountainous terrain Yes traverses, and the fan favorite “Southside of the Sky” explores the many moods of Yes, from dark, sloping sonic valleys to lofty peaks of emotion. “Tempus Fugit” is more expansive and radiant, a blast of light and balled-up energy that explodes all over the quietly reflective and romantic “Onward,” which features David’s most stirring vocals of these recordings.

Though it contains fewer hits from Yes’s catalog, Disc 2 surpasses Disc 1 in vim and vigor, with a rugged, captivatingly bright “Roundabout” leading the charge. Overall, the sound is clean and vibrant, and while David’s vocals aren’t quite as warm or as nuanced as Anderson’s, he handles the material with grace and power. Historically, a bone of contention between Anderson and others in Yes was how he always pushed for an increased dosage of pop sensibilities into the band’s otherwise classically influenced arrangements, where others argued for a heavier, more daring direction. Those tensions apparently have been resolved, and though Anderson’s up-in-the-air status with Yes remains controversial – Squire of late hasn’t ruled out future collaborations with Anderson, who’s been playing out as a solo artist in recent years – it appears they are capable of carrying on without him.

-        Peter Lindblad

Official Trailer from Frontier Records

Metal Evolution - "Nu Metal"

Metal Evolution: Nu Metal - Episode 108
Sam Dunn
VH1 Classic


All Access Review: B+

Woodstock ’99 was burning and blame for the mayhem was placed squarely on Fred Durst and the rap-metal hooligans of Limp Bizkit. Destruction of property, flat-out arson, even the reports of rape that allegedly occurred in the mosh pit – at least in part, Limp Bizkit was responsible for all of it. Witnesses for the prosecution, some of whom give their testimony in “Nu Metal,” the most recent episode in Sam Dunn’s “Metal Evolution” series, which appears on VH-1 Classic, say Durst, in particular, fanned the flames of the riots that forced organizers to prematurely bring Woodstock ’99 to an ugly end. Even Korn’s Jonathan Davis, a one-time Bizkit ally, turns on Durst, telling Dunn that instead of attempting to calm a crowd that was growing increasingly mad, Durst egged them on. He exhorted the crowd to “break stuff,” and the mindless thugs followed his lead.

Durst, unapologetically, remembers things differently. Expressing little, if any remorse, Durst recalls the Bizkit Woodstock ’99 show as the “greatest concert ever.” And then, showing a little of that adolescent petulance that Durst is infamous for, he sulks about how nobody ever wanted Limp Bizkit playing in the same sand box as the nu metal children. The rap guys didn’t want to be lumped in with metal and the metal guys didn’t want anything to do with hip-hop, continues Durst. That’s too simple of an explanation of why Limp Bizkit has been ostracized from the music community since the violence at Woodstock’99. Battles with other bands, the departure of guitarist Wes Borland and lukewarm albums in the aftermath of Three Dollar Bill Y’All and Significant Other all combined to doom Bizkit, and to his credit, Durst admits to Dunn that this monster that he created called Fred Durst could have handled things better. Clearly, some anger management counseling would have done him a world of good. Or, maybe he just needed to grow up a little.

The story of Limp Bizkit dominates much of the second half of Dunn’s look at “Nu Metal,” and with good reason. Bizkit blew up in the late ‘90s on the strength of Significant Other’s massive single “Nookie.” As crazy as it sounds, considering his explosive temper, Durst even became a label executive at Interscope Records – that fact escaping Dunn, along with the failure to mention that Bizkit’s Woodstock ’99 performance came a day before the disastrous riots. Still, there’s something unsatisfying about placing so much emphasis on Limp Bizkit, especially considering there are far more influential nu metal bands Dunn could have spent more time on. Ah, but perhaps that’s just a personal preference, even though you get the feeling from “Nu Metal” that Dunn – who plainly admits to not being a big fan of nu metal, while also reluctantly admitting that it does, indeed, have its place in the history and developmental of heavy metal – also wish he could give more attention to the Sepulturas, the Korns, and the Rage Against The Machines of the world.

All of them get their moment in the sun in “Nu Metal,” and this is where Dunn gets it right. Where the Limp Bizkit segments seem to focus too much on the controversy surrounding the band, when the subject turns to Pantera, Rage, Korn and Sepultura, Dunn digs his fingers into the groundbreaking nature of nu metal. With Pantera, Dunn’s interest lies with the band’s adherence to deep grooves and an unyielding devotion to what Phil Anselmo refers to as the “money riff.” As for Rage, it’s the combination of music and message that gets top billing, with guitarist Tom Morello also talking about the band’s meshing of ‘70s hard rock riffs, thick grooves and his own role as a sort of DJ bringing his six-string “eccentricities.” And Korn’s Fieldy and Davis discuss at length about the band’s Sacramento origins and its innovative use of detuned strings.

But, it all goes back to Anthrax and the band’s monumental summit rap-metal summit with Public Enemy on their collaborative 1991 reworking of “Bring the Noise,” and Dunn starts his exploration of “Nu Metal” there before moving on – at Scott Ian’s request – to Faith No More. Even if nu metal has its detractors and those who aren’t so sure that the integration of metal and rap was done as artfully as it could have been, there were, and still are, bands that do it well. Dunn’s interviews nicely hone in on what was crucial to the rise of nu metal, and his dexterous use of concert images and video footage, as always, is on display here, as is Dunn’s singular ability to make you feel as if you are accompanying him on this journey and that his interest in the subject matter is genuine and sincere. Time, again, is his enemy. There’s only so much a filmmaker can pack into an hour’s program, and Dunn’s fills to the brim with insightful commentary and well-paced storytelling. Woodstock ’99 may have been nu metal’s Altamont, but as Dunn shows, it didn’t end there. And neither does the story of heavy metal.

-        Peter Lindblad

Metal Evolution Nu Metal

View the Full Episode -  Right Here, Right Now

Metal Evolution - "Grunge"

Metal Evolution: "Grunge" - Episode 107
Sam Dunn
VH1 Classic


All Access Review:  B+

Seeing it as the province of dumb jocks and sex-crazed hair-band charlatans, one-time Hole bassist Melissa Auf der Maur steadfastly resists the notion that Grunge, in its original form at least, had much, if anything, in common with heavy metal. Fastbacks bassist/lead vocalist Kim Warnick, while admitting to some nebulous connection between the two genres, insists that Grunge artists never thought of themselves as having a single cloven hoof in the metal world. And when the conversation turns to what musical black arts influenced Soundgarden, Kim Thayil still bristles at the suggestion that he and the rest of the band based their recipe of sonic sludge around equal parts Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. This even though Chris Cornell, bare-chested and sweating machismo from every pore in old live footage, bellows like Robert Plant and Thayil’s own guitar riffs seem stained with the same industrial soot and smoke that smudged those conjured by Tony Iommi at the dawn of Black Sabbath.

The relationship between Metal and Grunge is, indeed, a thorny one, as the amiable and insatiably curious Sam Dunn discovers in the latest installment of his acclaimed “Metal Evolution” series, “Grunge,” which aired on Saturday on VH-1 Classic. At the mere suggestion that they were, in fact, cozy with one another, Grunge’s OGs are likely to squirm in their seats and turn defensive. Then again, in talking to Dunn, Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover of The Melvins freely admit a love of metal, and Tad’s Kurt Danielson owns up to fawning over Iron Maiden and the first Van Halen record, while, at the same time, being blown away by the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks – anything to tweak the parents. As for Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, he’s not at all ashamed to confess to borrowing a few tricks from proto-metal monsters Blue Cheer and Motorhead, as well as Sabbath.

So, what to make of all this falderal? That there happen to be strong opposing opinions as to Grunge’s place in the growth and development of metal is hardly surprising – especially to Dunn. After all, getting everyone involved in the Grunge movement to agree on anything regarding heavy metal and the role it played in its formation is next to impossible. That’s par for the course, though. Grunge was never the most homogenous of genres, even if a lot of acts did share an affinity for angst-fueled emotions.

The great thing about Dunn is he doesn’t set out to prove an already established hypothesis. There is genuine sincerity in this probe, because he himself is not entirely sure that Grunge belongs in heavy metal’s family tree. What emerges from Dunn’s quest is a sense that Grunge artists don’t really see themselves as having much of an impact on metal because they don’t feel a part of that scene. That view isn’t shaped by Dunn through creative editing or his own prejudices; instead, it extends naturally and organically from the extensive interviews he does with journalists, writers, producers, and artists who observed and participated in the early ‘90s explosion that blasted Grunge out of Seattle’s underground and into the public consciousness of a nation.

It’s not just that Dunn is comprehensive in the range of interview subjects he corrals or the issues related to the episode’s topic he attempts to cover. Time being the harsh mistress it is, there’s always something that’s going to be brushed under the rug or left out entirely. For example, in “Thrash,” as a reader so passionately pointed out to me, no mention was made of Overkill or Metal Church, and Hanoi Rocks should have received way more attention for their groundbreaking sound and look in “Glam.” As for “Grunge,” it’s the women who get short shrift. L7, Hole (aside from the Auf der Maur comments) and The Gits – none of them get any play, and that’s a glaring omission. But, remember, Dunn’s aim is not to present a history of Grunge, although he does, in fact, do a fine job of weaving its tale with subtlety as almost a sort of sub-plot. Establishing the “who, what, where, when and how” is not so easy when, first and foremost, there are important questions to be settled.

And there are moments of dazzling insight, including writer Michael Azzerad (“Our Band Could Be Your Life” and “Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana”) citing Black Flag’s 1984 Seattle tour stop in support of the LP My War as a turning point for Grunge, the line of demarcation where local bands weaned on metal found that punk could slow things down, become unremittingly heavy and take on an apocalyptic feel. There’s DJ and journalist Jeff Gilbert and Sub Pop co-owner Jonathan Poneman confirming that Grunge messiah Kurt Cobain did, indeed, incorporate not only the pop sensibilities of The Beatles and the punk nuclear fallout of bands like Flipper into his tortured oeuvre, but also welcomed in the massive riffage and controlled chaos of metal. Or, how about Steve Albini, the famed indie producer who guided Nirvana during the In Utero sessions, proclaiming that while heavy metal was often all about flamboyance and camp, it did breed virtuosos, while Grunge artists practiced a more “functional musicianship.” And at the same time, another of Grunge’s more ubiquitous producers, Jack Endino, provides a lot of the background information about Seattle’s music history – specifically, the energy and spark of rebellion found in the music of garage bands The Sonics and The Wailers – and links it to the wide scope of Grunge’s sonic achievements.

All of this and more is here, and once again, Dunn skillfully meshes the interview footage with rare live and video clips of bands like Tad, Mudhoney, Soundgarden (check the dark, brooding, and heavy performance of “Loud Love”) and Black Flag, among others, while comparing Pearl Jam’s more classic-rock leanings with the rest of the genre’s more punk-ish or metallic progenitors. And with the briefly told story of Alice In Chains, he is able to establish that connection between metal and Grunge, once and for all.

Toward the end of “Grunge,” Dunn tackles a sore subject with Grunge’s main innovators, like Arm, Endino and Osbourne, and that is the rise of “Grunge lite” acts like Creed and Nickelback. Fearlessly, Dunn asks point blank how people like Arm feel about Grunge creating this more “pedestrian,” as Osborne calls it, Grunge monster, and Arm expresses his misgivings, saying that if he had anything to do with it, “Just kill me.” Likewise, the men of Creed try to distance themselves from the real thing, boasting in fact that they are not Grunge at all and that they feel they’ve created something new. It’s a little hard to swallow when the singers of Creed and Days Of The New try so, so hard to sound like Eddie Vedder – doing their “yarling” form of singing, as Endino calls it. It’s an uncomfortably humorous segment, and an issue that needs to be addressed, though the popularity of Nickelback gets perhaps more time than it deserves, even if Alice In Chain’s Jerry Cantrell does give them his stamp of approval. It’s a minor drawback in what is another in-depth and compelling installment of a documentary series that is fast becoming must-see TV for anybody interested in aggressive, rebellious music – as heavy metal is. 

- Peter Lindblad

Metal Evolution - Grunge

View the Full Episode -  Right Here, Right Now

Metal Evolution

Episode Summary - Sam explores grunge, a.k.a. the Seattle Sound, from a decidedly fresher approach, inspiring two fundamental questions: "Why did grunge polarize the Metal community?" and "What are the true roots of grunge?" While grunge was enjoying its meteoric rise, replacing the MTV face of Metal that was glam with its own brand of telegenic, easy to digest "rebellion," diehards within the Metal community struggled to adjust. We'll explore how fans and musicians felt a profound sense of disillusionment with the ascent of grunge, alienated by its lyrical obsession with depression and endless self-examination, and suspicious of the flannel-wearing façade that was deemed antithetical to the ethos of Metal. At the same time, there were other metallers who felt a connection with grunge-legends like Geddy Lee and Sabbath's Bill Ward discuss their admiration for the Seattle Sound, and how they incorporated elements of grunge into their own music and in doing so, shed light on a profound irony that was at play. We'll also reveal why the leaders of grunge were publicly shunning their Metal roots, preferring to advance the dubious notion that their music was an offspring of the American punk movement. But, through plain-spoken dialogue with Sam Dunn, surviving purveyors of grunge like Kim Thayil, Jerry Cantrell and Thurston Moore, will, for the first time ever, "come out of the closet," and own up to the enormous debt-technically, viscerally and aesthetically-they owe to Metal giants like Led Zeppelin, Blue Öyster Cult and Black Sabbath. In Episode 6, the history of grunge will be rewritten.

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Thirteen appears to be a lucky number for Dave Mustaine

Written By:  Patrick Prince / Powerline

There’s quite a lot going on (or about to go on) in Megadethland. Of course, there’s the latest studio release of “Thirteen,” one of the finest metal albums in years, and then the December 10th jam of Dave Mustaine and Metallica, back on stage together again, playing old songs, for one of the 30th Anniversary Metallica shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco, California — a remarkable event that brought everyone from Jason Newsted, to Lloyd Grant and Ron McGovney out to celebrate.  And soon will be the launch of Gigantour on January 26 in Camden, NJ — the mega-Megadeth tour with Motorhead, Volbeat and Lacuna Coil (all bands hand-picked by Dave Mustaine, of course).
The following is an interview with Dave Mustaine on December 13, 2011.

This new album sounds fresh and exciting. Do you think the reappearance of David Ellefson had something to do with that?

Dave Mustaine: Oh, he had everything to do with it. I sucked without him.

Well, I didn’t mean it that way, man (laughs).

Mustaine: (laughs) I know, I’m just playing with you. Yeah, Dave added an element of excitement and fun to the band. Every player who plays an instrument is gonna have their own way that they handle the neck and the strings and stuff like that. We could have had the last guy [James LoMenzo] who was playing before Dave do this record and play exactly what Dave played but it still wouldn’t have sounded the same.

Dave was in the studio while we were getting ready for the Rust In Peace tour and I said ‘Hey, you want to try and record on (the song) “Sudden Death”?’ And he did and we just knew it was gonna work out. So, yeah, I think he added a really great element but I think there are a couple other guys in the band [Chris Broderick on guitar and Shawn Drover on drums] that aren’t so bad either.

In all sincerity, I think Thirteen is one of the best metal albums in years. I’m a traditional metal guy and the thing about it is that it sounded a lot more like traditional metal … songs like “We the People” and “Deadly Nightshade” … Was it intentional to bring back some of that classic sound?

Mustaine: There was no intention of anything on this record. Honestly, we just went into it with the desire to make our last record for Roadrunner and to make a really great offering and who knows where this record goes because I hadn’t had my surgery yet [neck surgery] and I pretty much thought as soon as this record was turned in I was gonna crawl off into a retirement home somewhere because my neck and back were becoming such a problem. But the record turned out pretty well and the label’s done really good with it and I got the surgery and, man, everything is just going great right now.

And some of the songs were written years ago, right? “Black Swan,” “New World Order” …

Mustaine: “New World Order” was really, really old. We had never really officially recorded that and some people had said stuff about Nick [Menza, drummer 1989-1198, 2004] and, you know, yeah, he wasn’t a really busy writer but he did write a couple good things and “New World Order,” he had a hand in writing some of it, so it’s kind of cool. I don’t know what he’s doing right now but I do know that when he wrote that, it was very modern sounding. So when I came to do that song on this record, because we hadn’t done it officially, it was a no-brainer.

And it still seems to fit seamlessly on this new record, it’s hard to tell it was written way beforehand.

Mustaine: It was. (laughs)

Looking at the lyrics on Thirteen, you lay out your political and spiritual views and it doesn’t come off as preachy, at least not to me. Do you agree?

Mustaine: I’ve become more active in politics and more concerned in my fellow man because of my own discoveries and decision-making. I know if someone would have told me ‘You couldn’t do that,’ I would have said ‘Watch me.’ Because it’s just part of my nature. Not that I’m defiant just for the sake of being defiant because that would become kind of predictable, and there’s nothing cool about being predictable. It all just kind of goes back to what you want to do with your life.

And you still feel strongly that we’re headed towards a global government?

Mustaine: Yeah, I do. You hear China say that they are preparing to go to war with the U.S. — they said that on Fox yesterday — that’s not small potatoes, bro.

Don’t you think that the government sometimes seems like a puppet for banks and corporations?

Mustaine: Yeah, it is. It is the elite that are doing this. But I gotta tell you, the elite have been running the government and all this stuff for a long time. People with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and with the Fed and it’s all the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, they’re the ones that call the shots. I just think right now that the American people are getting screwed so bad and they just don’t know it. They cannot see the forest for the trees. Actually I think there’s lot of stuff that’s going on right now — I read a lot, I study a lot, I watch the news a lot because I’m a political writer. Not by choice. I started off writing about cars — “Mechanix” — and jumping into the fire. That had nothing to do with peace selling. …

You do say it best in the song “We The People”: “The devil’s henchmen in suit and tie.” That sums it up a bit.

Mustaine: Yeah, yeah, I think so. This whole nonsense … if you watch what’s going down with the super committee [on deficit reduction]. I called that before it even started — that it’s a joke and it’s not gonna work. And it didn’t work.

Do you agree with the Occupy Wall Street movement?

Mustaine: I think that the intent was very misguided. I believe that people going out into the streets to demand change — they went to the wrong address. They needed to go to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. You don’t go out and tell a bunch of guys who are working on Wall Street that you want change. You go to the President.

Or Congress.

Mustaine: Well, Congress is pretty much completely gridlocked right now. And the President is insulting them every chance he gets. So, I think the Occupy Wall Street people, if they really really want to see this happen, they need to go (to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue), instead of going to the ports and shutting down commerce ,which is hurting people like the truck drivers and longshoremen and all the people on the boats. It’s just ultimately hurting us because that’s just gonna raise the price of food and stuff. And there’s that old saying: He who controls the water and controls the food, controls the people. Well, these guys are handing our control over to the elite by taking the food off of the shelves. If you’re gonna have anything to do with these guys, somebody smart has to tell them what to do.

Recently in an interview you called yourself a survivalist — and the song “13″ expresses that — but if this were a reality show like Survivor you’d probably be the finalist.

Mustaine: (laughs) Maybe.

And it looks like you’ve had a guardian angel over the years.

Mustaine: That I have. I still have it.

And good luck comes into play, too. And maybe 13 isn’t such an unlucky number after all.

Mustaine: Well, it wasn’t on the day I was born. The number 13 was bad for the Templar Knights — the knights who helped Solomon’s temple — those dudes were all rounded up on Friday the 13th and burned at the stake or something like that. I think people don’t know about that and they kind of just connotate the number 13 with marijuana and that it’s bad, you know. I was born on the 13th, I started playing guitar when I was 13 and this record’s my 13th record.

As far as spirituality in the lyrics, as a born again Christian, the less challenging creative road would have been to write songs like Stryper. But you do a pretty good job at being provocative.

Mustaine: Music is something that we listen to give us a change in our mood, to help us get out of a bad mood or continue to perpetuate a good mood. And I think if you put on music and someone’s condemning you and making you sad or making you cry … that ain’t my gig. Somebody else can give that. You know, I like listening to stuff that’s sentimental and emotional and stuff, too, but I don’t want to be the guy who does that. I’m good at beating my guitar until it throws up and I think people got a good look at that this weekend when I went up and played with Metallica again. That was really fun. I know a lot of people were really surprised because they never saw me play with the band.

It must have been a great feeling going up there onstage again with them.

Mustaine: I had some mood swings. There was some ups and downs and stuff. And, you know, got excited, and kind of got impatient, ‘Let’s go. I’m okay. Well, lets go!’ and this kind of thing and that’s just the artist in me. I’m just squirrely like that.

Playing some of those old Metallica songs — did you have favorites or are there still favorites now?

Mustaine: You know, it felt fun to play them. I wish I would have had a little bit more opportunity to get prepared with the band. You know, because I’m a perfectionist. I would have liked to have had my sound just so and make sure when I did the solos they would jump up the volume and stuff like that that I’m used to, but we were at a club and playing at a club and playing like a club band. It was fun to take off all the rules and regulations and stuff and kind of shoot from the hip.

I was surprised you didn’t play “The Four Horsemen.”

Mustaine: I think there’s a reason for that. I think I know why we didn’t play that song but I’m not going to go out on a limb on it. I think one of the things was because we recorded “Mechanix” and they recorded the other way, there’s not really a need to do that. There were several other songs that were really important — like “Jump in the Fire” was the first song I brought those guys. And “Phantom Lord” and “Metal Militia” were songs that I brought to them, too, and the only other song was “Mechanix” which later changed to “Four Horsemen.” And the rest of those songs were written by James (Hetfield) or by Hugh Tanner or Lloyd Grant and that’s why those guys were there .. and a little weird for me, too, you know, standing onstage. I thought it was cool to be just with Metallica but Ron McGovney’s up there and Lloyd Grant’s up there. I was kind of like ‘Alright, well, I’ll bite the bullet. I’ll be cool. This is not so terrible.’ I got up there and, you know what, I didn’t even notice them. I was having so much fun they weren’t even there.

Well, you mentioned mood swings. You should have had flashbacks with McGovney ….

Mustaine: Actually, you know what. I didn’t even see him the whole time I was up there. It was cool that he was there. He was pretty nervous, too. Ron’s a good guy. I was locked into Lars’ playing and James’ playing. Me and James, we were like the the Toxic Twins back when we played together and we were a very very dangerous duo. And for a moment I think I stirred some of those old feelings up. I saw one of the videos and it looked like he was having fun. I know I was having fun. I had a smile that I went to bed with.

Do you remember the very first Metallica gig? I think it was in Anaheim, 1982.

Mustaine: You know, I remember a lot of those shows but not which one was the first one. One of them, when we played there .. this is funny, I was just saying this to somebody the other day, and I don’t even know if James will remember this. He used to go partying with me and we used to go out drinking all the time and we found out that when we were up there, there was a contest, a battle of the bands and the winner got to open up for this new band from Ireland — a band that had just come on MTV and had this song “I Will Follow.” I told James: ‘These guys are gonna be huge, dude. You watch.’ It was U2, when they came over and if we had entered the battle of the bands we probably would have gotten to open up for them which would have been pretty interesting. You know, there’s been a lot of firsts for Metallica but I don’t think that they’ve opened up for U2 yet.

Lastly, Gigantour. Are you glad you picked bands like Lacuna Coil for Gigantour?

Mustaine: Yeah, I ‘m glad I picked Motorhead and Volbeat, too. I think that all the bands that are on Gigantour this year are gonna be great. They all have a certain type of cool factor. Motorhead has that straight-forward, ‘I’m gonna kill you’ kind of music, and Volbeat is that kind of dangerous kind of music — kind of like Elvis metal — and listening to Lacuna Coil with the two singers, it’s very dynamic and they’ve got good guitar players in there. It’s also cool that at one point we had Christina (Scabbia) sing a song with us. We haven’t discussed having her come up and sing “À Tout le Monde” with us each night. We probably should but we haven’t talked about that yet.

Megadeth Official Site

Vintage Megadeth Posters

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About Powerline: Founded in 1985, Powerline began as an underground hard rock/heavy metal mag, distributed mostly in record stores worldwide. As it evolved a few years later, it embraced more commercial hard rock (the popular genre at the time was classified as “hair bands”) and the mag was distributed as a high-gloss publication on American newsstands with a circulation of over 100K.
By 1992 the party was over. The magazine became defunct (for various reasons). The staff went onto other jobs. And the name gathered dust. Until now.

Resurrected online, Powerline covers hard rock/heavy metal music in general (truly From Glam to Slam!), as well as reminisce about the old days in the form of time-capsuled articles and experiences.
Spread the word and enjoy.

CD Review: Paul Rodgers & Friends - Live at Montreux 1994

CD Review: Paul Rodgers & Friends - Live at Montreux 1994
Eagle Records
All Access Review:  A-

In 1993, Paul Rodgers was a free man. The Firm had dissolved, the legendary front man was above and beyond The Law, Bad Company had become a distant, but still treasured, memory and the revered Free was long gone. Left with nothing to do, the singer with the brawny, torn-and-frayed pipes and expressive, denim-clad delivery looked again to the blues, his one true love, for inspiration. He found it in the music of Muddy Waters.

Keen to pay homage to the great man, Rodgers didn’t break character. Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters may have contained the spark of the Chicago-style electric blues that Waters once perfected, but it was powered by the blues-rock combustion of Rodgers’ work with Bad Company and Free. Not all of the tracks on Muddy Water Blues, the second of Rodgers’ solo albums, were Waters covers, but his spirit haunts the record, inhabiting its grooves and inspiring Rodgers and his collaborators. In 1994, a year after Muddy Water Blues’ arrival, Rodgers brought much of that record to life in a blustery, sweaty concert at Montreux, where he was joined onstage by the likes of Journey guitarist Neal Schon, drummer Jason Bonham, guitarist Ian Hatton and bassist John Smithson, as well as several guests, including Queen’s Brian May, Toto’s Steve Lukather and blues veterans Luther Allison, Eddie Kirkland, Sherman Robertson, Robert Lucas and Kenny Neal.

Though a star-studded affair, Live at Montreux 1994 has more of a blue-collar feel. This is a workingman’s record, with dirt under its fingernails and calluses on its hands. Sprinkled with plenty of songs that Rodgers made famous with Free and Bad Company, Live at Montreux 1994 also finds Rodgers digging his hands into the earthy soil of blues classics like Waters’ “Louisiana Blues,” which simmers with menace and pure nastiness on the stove here, letting all the rich flavors – including a particularly tasty guitar solo – sink into its meaty textures. In a surprising turn, May gets down and dirty on the Sonny Boy Williamson number “Good Morning Little School Girl,” his distorted guitar becoming a careening crop duster that dives and climbs with all the daring of pilot with a death wish. The highlight of a sensational set, “Good Morning Little School Girl” is simply mean, burning with intensity and passionate playing. To finish off the night, Rodger and crew slam into Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and the closer, “Hoochie Coochie Man” by Willie Dixon, with all the force of a hurricane. The guitars sound like switchblades on and cut deeply with every note on “Crossroads,” as the rhythm section works up a mean, mean thirst crawling through the gutter on “Hoochie Coochie Man.”

Three of the songs Dixon wrote for Waters, including 1954’s “Hoochie Coochie Man” and “I’m Ready” and 1961’s “Let Me Love You Baby,” are included here and performed with all the righteous fervor of a tent revival ministry, as is Booker T. & the MGs’ “The Hunter.” Just as propulsive and muscular are the Rodgers’ classics “All Right Now,” the old Free hit, and rust-covered Bad Company diamonds “Can’t Get Enough (of Your Love)” and “Feel Like Making Love.” Ever the professional, Rodgers’ nuanced vocals add richness and depth to each track, while his handpicked group of hired guns plays the daylights out of this material almost all the way through, with the exception of the rare uninspired moment. The recording quality is pretty sound and world-class music writer Malcolm Dome does the show justice with well-written, informative liner notes. All of this makes you wonder if, or when, Rodgers will delve even deeper into the blues down the road.

- Peter Lindblad

Purchase CD: Artist Link 

Collectible Vintage Posters:

Bad Company
Queen

CD Review: Riot - Immortal Soul

CD Review: Riot - Immortal Soul
SPV
All Access Review: B+

More an indictment of apathy towards war in foreign lands than a desperate plea for attention, “Riot,” the incendiary opener off Riot’s latest album, Immortal Soul, asks a pertinent question: “What’s it going to take to make you riot?” What, indeed, is it going to take for people to wake up and take notice of a grossly under appreciated cult band that’s been around since 1975 and tossed a few exquisitely explosive heavy metal Molotov cocktails into the fray between 1977 and 1981 with the albums Rock City, Narita and the quintessential Riot classic Fire Down Under?

When the New Wave of British Heavy Metal threatened to drown us all in spiraling twin guitar leads, screaming vocals and stampeding rhythms, Riot, the pet project of guitarist and lone remaining founding member MarkReale, a man who understands the capricious nature of rock and roll all too well, seemed poised to become America’s answer to English cousins Iron Maiden, Def Leppard, the Tygers of Pan Tang and Saxon, among others. Riot was cut from the same cloth, from the blazing guitar duels ignited by Reale’s ambitious fretwork to pulse-pounding rhythms and wailing vocals that could fill up the most spacious of arenas. The pace of their songs was blistering, and they didn’t opt for the clichéd fretwork and grooves so many lesser bands take when confronted with a fork in the road, musically speaking. At the very least, while opening for the likes of Sammy Hagar, Black Sabbath and KISS, Riot’s ballistic live performances should have spurred a groundswell of support that would eventually lead to massive record sales and sold-out stadiums. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

The usual suspects are to blame, of course. Too many lineup changes, record label treachery, seismic shifts in musical trends and the occasional lukewarm effort all conspired to keep a good man like Reale down. Word has it he was even living out of his car in Los Angeles at one point. And yet, through it all, Reale kept Riot alive, tenaciously holding on to the belief that his time was coming. Occasionally, he’s been able to recapture that old magic that made them one of metal’s top title contenders in the late ‘70s, as Riot did near the end of the ‘80s. The faithful always held a special reverence for the lineup that recorded 1988’s Thundersteel and 1990’s The Privilege of Power, and Reale has reassembled the crew of Tony Moore (vocals), Don Van Stavern (bass), and Bobby Jarzombek (drums), along with live collaborator and guitarist Mike Flyntz for another tour of duty.

The band’s rebirth is nothing short of remarkable. After a recent scorched-earth tour of Japan and a triumphant Sweden Rock Festival outing, Riot unleashed Immortal Soul in late 2011, and it is a beast. Out of the gate, the blinding speed and white-hot fury of “Riot” – a ballsy title considering it’s also the name of the band – outraces many of Riot’s thrash-metal brethren, with Moore’s squealing vocals adding urgency and excitement. “Sins of the Father” is just as scintillating, traveling as fast as a bullet from point A to point B and not forgetting to plant a series of hooks that claw flesh. “Crawling” is something altogether different. With an undeniably exotic Middle Eastern feel, courtesy of serpentine, hookah-smoking guitars, the undulating “Crawling” is a seductive and hypnotic siren’s call that listeners must repeatedly heed. Even more melodic is the soaring epic “Fall Before Me,” which artfully contrasts meaty, grinding riffs with angelic harmonies, while the title track is stylish and dark, a not-so-subtle nod to Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime.

Blessed with an impressive vocal range that easily reaches high notes other singers would have to stand on a chair to tough, Moore is impossible to ignore. He can sound tough and tender, as he redeems an otherwise lackluster “Whiskey Man,” or he can fill a room the size of a football field with his volume and high-pitched screams, as he does on “Insanity.” While Reale and Flyntz pound away at dynamic, thundering riffs and construct intricate helixes of notes that amaze and awe, as they do in the high-flying “Believe,” Moore’s presence is just as powerful. And don’t sleep on Jarzombek’s drumming, with its crispness and propulsive momentum, augmented by Van Stavern’s flexible bass work.

Not the edgiest album to ever see the light of day, Immortal Soul is, nevertheless, a classic-sounding heavy metal record, with strong songwriting and interesting diversity that mostly goes for the throat and takes daring risks. At times, it sounds almost reeks of desperation – not a bad thing for a band that’s been around this long – as if Reale and company are willing to try and do anything to catch your attention. More often than not, Immortal Soul does just that.

-        Peter Lindblad

Addendum: Just one day after posting this review Mark Reale was hospitalized due to complications of Crohn's disease, which he had battled most of his life. Sadly, Reale died on January 26th, 2012. He was an amazing musician and the world of hard rock / heavy metal lost another great one. RIP Mark Reale. 

Metal Evolution - "Thrash"

Metal Evolution: "Thrash" - Episode 106 
Sam Dunn
VH1 Classic

All Access Review:  A-

Squaring off against everything that ‘80s glam metal represented, the soldiers of thrash – glam’s uglier, angrier cousin – wanted to eradicate every trace of makeup, lipstick and hairspray from heavy metal’s dark underworld. Or, as Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine puts it in the “Thrash” installment of Sam Dunn’s “Metal Evolution” documentary series, the androgynous purveyors of glam metal, many of whom looked almost as pretty as the girls they were bedding, were “fleas on the balls of a camel” and thrash “was a flea bomb.”

The strongest of pesticides, thrash almost killed glam metal dead. Grunge would finish the job in the ‘90s. Obviously a fan of one of metal’s most extreme sub-genres, Dunn, author of the acclaimed “Metal A Headbanger’s Journey” documentary, explores the fiery origins and virus-like developments of thrash metal in the latest chapter of “Metal Evolution,” which appeared over New Year’s Eve weekend on VH-1 Classic. Up to this point, Dunn has done a fine job detailing with great care the genealogy of heavy metal. Every piece is rife with riveting interview material, classic live footage and historical fact. With the exuberant enthusiasm of a fan and the intellectual curiosity of an anthropologist, which is what he is, Dunn has dissected the body of and probed into every nook and cranny of that most reviled of all musical forms.

So far, “Metal Evolution” has taken viewers on a loud, crazed journey through all the mayhem and madness metal has produced over the years. Yes, it’s a history lesson, but the scope of Dunn’s work is wide-ranging, studying the influence of classical and jazz on metal, while also investigating the connection between the gritty, early ‘70s Detroit proto-punk sound of The Stooges and the MC5 and confronting the strained relations between English punk and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. And that’s just a small sampling of Dunn’s exhaustive, but never tedious, testimony.

“Thrash” is another winner. Starting off at its birthplace, Soundwave Studios in California’s Bay Area, where Testament is running through a fiery rehearsal, Dunn, through content-rich talks with Mustaine, Slayer’s Dave Lombardo, Testament’s Alex Skolnick and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, finds the merging streams of hardcore punk and NWOBHM flowing electricity into thrash’s roiling sea. Taking the energy and spirit of punk and the melodic aggression of bands like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, thrash’s innovators, like Slayer and Exodus, upped the ante.

As Skolnick relates in “Thrash,” musicians like him loved punk’s songs and its undeniable vitality; however, what was missing was musicianship, and they wanted desperately to create something that would challenge their chops. Thrash was it. Heavy and punishing, the riffs raged, flying at unheard-of speeds. And the guttural vocals screamed and growled, spitting out graphically violent lyrical imagery that occasionally touched on war and social issues but more often told stories of serial killers and gruesome deaths. Using this symbiotic relationship as a jumping-off point, Dunn segues into how thundering, high-velocity double-kick drums became the driving force behind Trash. Ulrich and Testament’s Paul Bostaph give all the credit to Motorhead’s Phil Taylor for bringing the double-kick drums into fashion, and Thrash’s young vanguard of drummers took Taylor’s style and gave it a shot of adrenaline. Taylor is one of the surprising stars of Dunn’s “Thrash,” a metal veteran telling his war stories and explaining his absolutely vital contribution to metal, with Dunn hanging on every word.

When the conversation turns to Metallica, Jon Zazula, founder of Megaforce Records, and his wife reveal how their mom-and-pop metal label served as the launching pad for the band that would become Thrash’s version of The Beatles. Metallica’s tale serves as the lynchpin for “Thrash,” as Dunn follows the band from its lowly beginnings on through the explosion of San Francisco’s underground metal scene and into the controversial, MTV-courting “Black” album, which some in the Thrash community saw a betrayal of its values. Dunn and Lombardo make no bones about how they felt. It was treason, but to Dunn’s credit, he shares his feelings with Ulrich, who offers Metallica’s side of things. Ulrich feels that “betrayal” is such an ugly word and that if Metallica had done a rehashing of … And Justice for All, that would have been Metallica selling out. They needed to do the “Black” album to expand their horizons and grow artistically, as Ulrich explains. His reasoning makes perfect sense.

So does Nunn’s storytelling. In less capable hands, “Thrash” could have been a jumbled mess, but he sticks to the philosophy of “Metal Evolution,” and that is to follow each stage of metal’s growth and development to the wherever the story leads. Slayer’s Reign in Blood is treated with awe and respect, and the story behind landmark show at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City that led to major-label deals for Raven, Metallica and, eventually, Anthrax is told with an insider’s perspective.  By the end of “Thrash,” Nunn has traversed Sweden to investigate Thrash’s unlikely revival in the land of ice, snow and Lutherans – the Gothenburg sound, which, after Thrash’s mid-‘90s swoon, which married melody and harmonies with blinding speed and crushing heaviness in bands like In Flames – and Richmond, Va.’s burgeoning scene, which roared to life because of Lamb of God. Though previous segments of “Metal Evolution” – including a surprisingly sincere look at “Glam,” strategically shown the week before “Thrash,” the juxtaposition probably being no accident – were strong statements of purpose, “Thrash” is the best of the lot. Next week, it’s “Grunge,” as Dunn goes to Seattle to take on the movement that many say destroyed the careers of bands like Warrant and Ratt, among others. Let’s hope Dunn treats the subject matter with just as much care as he does with Thrash.

- Peter Lindblad

Metal Evolution Thrash

View the Full Episode - Right Here, Right Now!

Episode Summary - Arguably metal's most popular and passionate genre, Sam journeys to Northern California to trace the roots of Thrash by interviewing the architects of this hugely popular genre. Sam interviews Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Testament, Exodus, and many more Thrash Metal legends.

Click here for more information on VH1's Metal Evolution

Collectible Heavy Metal Posters:
  
Anthrax
Megadeth
Metallica
Slayer

Joe Satriani: Class is in Session

An interview with one of the greatest guitar players ever

By Peter Lindblad

Some of the greatest rock guitarists of this generation have been taught by Joe Satriani, and with 1987’s Surfing with the Alien, he defied the conventional wisdom that said an instrumental album could never be a commercial and critical hit. Satriani, who has won multiple Grammys for his work, has certainly taken the road less travelled to fame and fortune as a musician. 

Lesser known projects, like his revolving-door touring trio G3, have satisfied his thirst for musical adventure and exploration, while his 1988 stint as lead guitarist on Mick Jagger’s first solo tour provided a showcase for his technically flawless and emotionally transcendent guitar playing. Many feel that Satriani is the greatest guitar player ever, and even though some may argue that Eddie Van Halen has established himself as the pre-eminent shredder of his generation, a strong case can be made that Satriani has passed him by.

Nowadays, Satriani is plying his trade with the supergroup Chickenfoot, which includes veteran singer Sammy Hagar, ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith. Not only is Satriani sparking the group’s dynamic musicianship with his mind-blowing fretwork, but also, Satriani is lending a hand with the writing. Chickenfoot III, the band’s second LP, has been out for a while now, and the band has been on the road with Kenny Aronoff serving as a replacement for Smith. In this interview, Satriani shares his experiences with Chickenfoot and his memories of playing with Jagger and how he was completely dumbfounded by the success of Surfing with the Alien.

Just from initial impressions, Chickenfoot III seems like a heavier album, maybe ‘70s inspired. Was that something you were going for?

Joe Satriani: I think we recognized that that’s what was happening as we were doing it. We never really plan things out. We record ourselves sort of bouncing off each other. That’s kind of like the way we operate, and every time somebody picks up on something like that, you just laugh and smile and say, “Oh, ’72 … you know.” (laughs) That’s just the way we are. That’s part of why stuck together, because we thought it was exciting but curious that we didn’t do like “Satch Boogie,” “Give It Away Now,” and a whole series of Van Halen songs put together. We just sort of … we make this other thing, and so we’ve respected it by not sort of analyzing it. We just let it happen.

From the beginning of Chickenfoot, it being a supergroup, everybody was wondering how the different styles would mesh. Was that a concern when you began?

JS: I’m sure that those guys … you know, Sammy, Mike and Chad were probably thinking about that for a while, because as the last guy to join the unit, I hadn’t spent any time with them, when they, for six months, were jamming down at the Cabo club, and they had a number of guitar players join them onstage. I don’t know at what point it got into their minds that they wanted to make a record, but at some point, they called me and they must have thought, “Boy, that guy’s weird, but maybe it’ll work.” (laughs) So, I’m just happy that they did call me because it turns out I just had a lot of music in my background that was perfect for this band. It’s so natural for me because it was like I was 14 years old again in my high school band. This is exactly the kind of music I dreamt about playing. It didn’t take any extra effort, it was just … I was just so excited I just wanted to make sure we had enough time to devote to the project with our crazy schedules.

I was going to ask you if Chickenfoot allowed you to come full circle in your career, because you started out really loving that music of the ’70s?

JS: It’s funny how that is. I mean, a lot of the music that I’m allowed to write, let’s say, or I’m inspired to write when I’m thinking about Sammy, me, Mike and Chad, I wouldn’t normally be able to pull it off in a solo situation. It would just be so difficult because that style of music is built around a singer being really expressive and charismatic. I mean, Sammy Hagar is just … he’s got an amazing voice. The sound quality of it is huge. He can literally dominate any mix that you bring his voice up in. Wow, it’s just a force of nature. And of course, that style of music really wants the singer to be slightly unusual, slightly dangerous, somewhere on the edge between making a point and just blurting out rock and roll-isms. I don’t know what that is about rock music, but sometimes you like it when they’re being vague, you know, and just sort of being who they are. It adds a certain quality to the music, and so, those are the kinds of things you can’t really do instrumentally. It sounds kind of corny. So I’ve always approached instrumental music that it’s got to be fully, 100 percent, totally inspired by something that means something to me, something that I’ve lived through, somebody that I know, and that’s my guide to making it totally truthful and from the heart. But it’s different when I’m writing, at least for Chickenfoot, I’m really thinking about trying to bring out those things that I’ve picked up on while touring with the band, which I think is why this record sounds just better than the first one we did, because it’s obvious we know each other a lot more. We’ve been able to bring more of our personalities out on this record.

And a heavier record, too.

JS: I think so. I think everybody had a couple of things they were trying to get out of each other. As you said, it’s sort of … it culminated in just a stronger sound. I know Sam kept wanting me to just let loose, and I wanted him to sing in a lower register. I thought it would be more powerful and more intimate at the same time. I definitely wanted to write grooves where Mike, Chad and myself would sound like one big Mack truck coming right at you at a hundred miles per hour because you can write songs where you tell the drummer and bass player to play something repetitive, and you can do crazy stuff on top of it. That would be almost like a solo record type of thing, when you’re trying to give that feeling that the guitars are free and doing all sorts of stuff. You need somebody in the band to be more disciplined. But I wasn’t interested in that with these guys. I wanted to be part of the band, and I wanted Sam to be the thing floating on top. So that means I had to write, specifically, things where we naturally would sync into a backbeat together and sound like one unit. I think that contributes greatly to the heaviness, so we can do those songs like “Big Foot” – that’s a perfect example.

Yeah, that’s one of my favorites. You alluded to approaching Sammy about trying something new. What was that conversation like? Was it a tough conversation to have? Or was it easy to say, “Maybe we should try something different with your voice?”

JS: Oh, I think he was totally into it because I related to him this experience I had a few months before we started really … or I started really writing for this record, and we were hanging out and I’d just come from another local studio, and I said, “Sam, they were working on a song that you sang on. It was Sammy and Neil Schon and Michael Walden, and other local musicians doing a Sly Stone song for a local film. And I was totally blown away listening to Sam’s vocal performance. He just sounded like a stone-cold R&B singer. And the register was lower and his vibrato was beautiful, his voice was the usual, a thousand feet wide. And so I was saying, “Sam, that was like the greatest vocal I’ve ever heard. Why aren’t we doing that?” So, he was definitely excited about it, because he remembered that session. And he had a good time doing it, and he started telling me about all the soul music that he loves and how he’d love to do it. So I kind of took that back with me, and during my writing period for the band last August, 12 months ago, I just focused on that a couple of times to make sure that I could sort of count on that. You know, that I could sort of inspire him in that direction, so that we could get some of those beautiful vocal stylings out of him. Still, I’d love to hear all of it. I mean, he added kind of spoken word, but he’s on the other side of it as well, where he’s screaming like the best of them on this record, too. So I just think he gives, on this record, more of himself than on the first record, which is really cool.

Like you mentioned he was asking something different of you, too. Are there points on the album where you can hear you taking his advice to heart about just trying to lose it in the moment?

JS: Yeah, yeah, absolutely – I took everybody’s suggestions. I’ve got to say, it’s a good thing when we get together. Everybody listens to everybody. Everybody tries everybody’s ideas out. Because we figure, you know, I guess basically, the other guy might be right, so let’s just do it. Why not, you know? So sometimes that means any one of us changing our part just to see if it makes the other guy feel more comfortable with his part or a suggestion of a song. You just never know. A perfect example … well, you mentioned before about letting loose. When we finally got in the studio to do “Three and a Half Letters,” by then a lot of things had happened. I mean, the record was pretty much done and we had just this one last piece of music that Sam and I had written. And our good friend, co-manager and Sam’s personal manager, John Carter, had gotten ill and passed away during the making of the record. And we were back in the studio after he had just passed doing sessions, and so all of that, together with Sam’s earlier request of letting go, was definitely something that I was feeling at that moment. And that I think allowed everybody to let go, and everybody did on that particular one. It was just a very emotionally charged afternoon in the studio. There was another moment where we were working on a song that I brought in that turned into “Different Devil.” And I’d written this acoustic piece thinking it would be a funny, little, odd acoustic song, but everybody else wanted to turn it into a more commercially viable piece of music and I was totally bumming out about that idea. But eventually Chad came back the next day, he had borrowed my acoustic guitar and while he was back at the hotel room, he came up with another chord sequence to inject into the song that Sammy felt he could sing a chorus over. And so we re-did the song that afternoon, with this new piece of music in it, and I started to … slowly I had to pull myself out of, you know, my negative view of something that I had written and realize what they were hearing and I’m glad I did because it turned into one of my favorite pieces. But it was a bit of a cathartic experience – sort of leaving the spot that you were certain about and jumping over into another spot where everyone else was certain about. But I think that’s about trust. I mean, that’s what it’s all about when you get a good band together, there’s an element of trust there. So we will follow one another if the other one suggests it.

I suppose that stems from everybody’s previous successes. Maybe you’re more willing to listen to the other guys because you know they’ve experienced a lot of success on their own?

JS: You’re absolutely right. Yeah, I mean those guys have sold some records based on really good, commercially minded songs, and so, yeah, I’m going to listen (laughs) if Chad, or Mike, or Sammy says, “Hey, we can trim this, and the song would really pop.” I go, “Yeah, you probably know a lot more about that than I do.” (laughs) Get this, this is funny. I just got a text from Chad. That is funny. He’s in Rio, and he’s just saying that he is loving the podcasts. We’ve been putting out these podcasts on every song every day leading up to the release of the album.

That’s a new marketing tool for you. Are you enjoying doing that?

JS: Yeah, I think when I finally see them … of course, I can’t stand looking at myself, and I’m always explaining they’re using the wrong camera angle (laughs). I’m not necessarily ready for primetime, probably will never be, but yeah, after a while, I realized this is a very cool thing, and I wish that all the other artists that I like would do it, because I’d be eating it up, you know.

What kinds of artists do you like these days? You’ve worked with so many and taught so many.

JS: I think the last couple of things I’ve been getting into are not necessarily that new. I mean, I’m thinking about … whew, here’s a weird one. Animals As Leaders. Have you ever heard of them? Tosin Abasi, the guitar player, is just completely … it’s the craziest way of playing guitar that I’ve ever heard in my life. He’s really great. Believe it or not, I have been listening to a lot of Black Keys. I’ve always been into listening to the stuff that Jack White does. I like when guitar players go all the way, whether they’re forging brand new territory or they’re doing revival, throwback stuff, I do really love it. And I find it just stimulating to the heart I guess. I’m always picking up; if somebody finds me a new bootleg of an old James Gang thing, I’ll listen to that (laughs). I’m always looking for more stuff. You know, probably the next thing I’ll get is that new Hendrix compilation of live stuff. That just came out. I still just listen to Hendrix all the time.

Do you still teach?

JS: No, I recently had to put a lot of this into words because I gave a commencement speech at Musicians Institute down in L.A., and I had to remind myself the last time I taught an official lesson was actually Kirk Hammett, and it was back in January of ’88. And he was the last student I gave a lesson to. He was just about to start recording … And Justice for All, and I was just about to go out on my very first tour as a solo artist for the Surfing … record. That’s how long ago it was. Our lives have changed so dramatically since then, but yeah, it’s been a while.

Do you miss it at all?

JS: No. Teaching is very hard. It’s very hard to sit in a small room, and I was teaching privately, so that meant I was teaching over 40 hours a week. I had 60-plus students, all individual lessons, an hour and half hour. That’s intense. That was my day job. What I was really doing was playing in a rock band at night, and so … yeah, that was pretty tough.

In that way, your career and that of Randy Rhoades had parallels. I know he taught as well.

JS: I don’t know too many players out there who teach. I mean, it’s a good gig to have, because the guitar is in your hand all day long. You have the opportunity to continually think about technique, and it is nice to hang out with other guitar players, rather than … I don’t know, if you worked at the post office or something, driving yourself crazy. The danger is you’ve got the guitar in your hand too many hours a day. You have to be careful of over playing and repetitive stress, and probably mentally, you don’t want to get bitter about music by having to teach kids and professionals. Even though I had students like Charlie Hunter, Larry LaLonde and Kirk Hammett and Alex Skolnick, I also had people who were grammar school teachers, lawyers, doctors, race car drivers, cable car operators, and I had kids who used to bring in action figures and put them on the amp and then pick up the guitar (laughs). I had a diverse group of young and old, men and women, and when you’re a teacher, you have a job to do, which is to get them to play the music they want to play. It’s not about turning them into rock stars, unless they specifically asked you to. Unless they were your average 18-year-old kid who comes in and says, “Make me the greatest guitar player in the world. I’ll do whatever you say, you know.” But it’s not for the faint of heart as far as musicians go. For some people, it would rub them the wrong way with their creative mind, you know. They would rather be out painting or something where they could have their solitude.

What do you like best about working with Sammy?

JS: Well, Sammy is Sammy, and that’s the best part about Sammy Hagar, just his basic personality. He’s one of the coolest guys you’ll ever meet. He’s got a golden heart, and you know, the music business is absolutely insane. If there’s something bad inside somebody, the music business brings it out. That’s the bad thing about it. So, there are just a lot of those guys you want to avoid. I’ve been through some crazy stuff with Sam, and he’s been the same golden-hearted guy, and that’s a great thing. And that’s why good things happen around him. It’s a testament to his nature. But beside all that, he’s a great singer, he’s prolific, he only does stuff that he truly believes in, which is really great – which can be really funny sometimes, because you can’t believe some of the stuff he believes in. You go, “What?” But he’s not calculating in any way. He just goes straight from the heart. And he gives it all he’s got. I’ve toured with the guy, and he just wants to make everybody feel great in the audience. It’s a very important thing. You’d think that would be … that every performer would feel that way, but they don’t. And you do sometimes find performers who are selfish or who could care less, and that’s really sad and you don’t want to work with them. But Sammy cares really hard. He reminds me of the year I spent working with Mick Jagger back in ’88. I was blown away with how much Mick cared about the audience and the show, and everybody that he worked with – you know, kind and generous, but still unpredictable and totally rock and roll. He was the first guy who told me those elements can actually be together in one human being. And Sam is very prolific. He’s great. He’s got a million ideas, and so to know him is to receive calls all during the day and night, with him being 100 percent enthusiastic about something. You never know what it’s going to be. He’s never like 50 percent into something. He’s always 100 percent or zero percent, which makes him an exciting friend.

What do you think is the future of Chickenfoot?

JS: Oh, I’m pretty confident that the core group – Sammy, Mike, Chad and myself – will make another couple of records. I truly believe that. I think that every time we finish a record, I think we all got the feeling like, “Wow, this is almost like a step to some new beginning.” And then, of course, reality steps in and then, it’s like, “Oh, that’s right. Chad’s in the Chili Peppers. Sam’s got a million things going on. I’ve got a solo career. And Mike’s on a permanent vacation, which he takes very seriously.” But, we kind of put that out of our minds, and we just move ahead one step at a time – that’s what I think. I really do think there’s so much more music to share between the four of us, we will make more records.

The music industry has changed so much since Surfing With the Alien and your other instrumental albums. Could you ever foresee an instrumental album being as popular as that one was?

JS: No, oh man. When we were finishing that record, me and my co-producer John Cuniberti, we were convinced that it was the last record that people would let us make, that we were going to get run out of town, so to speak, you know. It would be like, “Thank you very much. Now go away.” No, we did whatever we wanted, we remastered … you know, we just pushed and pushed and finally handed it over, and it was like, okay. And I literally handed the record in and went back to teaching guitar, and John went back to his studio work. We had no idea. When somebody told us that it landed on the Billboard charts, I remember, and they called up and said, “It’s 186.” And I said, “186 on what?” I just couldn’t believe it. I said, “Billboard? It’s on Billboard?” And I remember, it was a moment where I was in Australia touring with Mick, and it was sitting at 29 on the Billboard charts. It sat there for six weeks, and I remember it was higher than Mick’s solo record. And we were out to dinner, and I remember Mick coming over to me and saying, “Hey, Joe, that is like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” and congratulating me and … you know, Mick always said, “Anything you need from this organization to promote the record, you got it. You need a room. You need a camera crew … whatever.” And he gave me a solo spot on the tour every night. I’d have 10 to 15 minutes to play whatever I wanted. He was very generous that way and excited about it, but it illustrated to me at that moment, this is like, I could never have imagined this. This is freaky, to have that success and have Mick Jagger say, “Congratulations, Joe. Anything I can do to help, you know.” It was just really cool.

What other things do you have on the horizon?

JS: Wow. Right now I’m juggling interviews. It’s all about Chickenfoot right now. I’m waiting to get some tracks from Jon Lord actually, because I’m going to be adding guitar to a record that Jon Lord is doing. So I’m excited about that. And the 3-D film of my last tour, the Wormhole tour, is coming out [soon].