Neal Schon explores new frontiers on 'The Calling'


Journey guitarist readies solo album
By Peter Lindblad
Neal Schon 2012
Neal Schon is a little fuzzy on the concept of “down time.” Three weeks of vacation mean nothing but rest and relaxation for most people, but when Journey takes a break from the rigors of touring, that’s when the guitarist really goes to work.
The guitarist’s latest solo album, The Calling, due out Oct. 23 on Frontiers Records, came together very quickly while on leave from the multi-platinum road warriors, with Schon playing all of the guitars and bass on the record, as well as producing it. Journey followers might find it interesting to see Schon collaborating again with master drummer Steve Smith, who manned the kit for the band between 1978 and 1985 – playing on such classic LPs as Evolution, Departure, Captured and Escape, among others – before returning to the fold for Journey’s 1996 LP Trial by Fire. Smith’s jazz credentials are impeccable, and his talents helped move the project along at a breakneck pace, as Schon pushed for a funky, edgy, experimental direction to The Calling that constantly keeps listeners guessing and should completely baffle those who only know the Neal Schon they’ve heard on Journey records.
For The Calling, an album comprised entirely of instrumentals, Schon took up residence at Fantasy Studios, the historic Berkeley facility where Journey’s Escape and Green Day’s Dookie were recorded. Working feverishly, Schon recorded the album in only four days. What makes that fact all the more amazing is Schon had nothing prepared before going into the studio. He did have help, however. In addition to Smith, there was Igor Len, the noted classical, jazz and film composer who played acoustic piano on The Calling. Also making an appearance is occasional Schon collaborator Jan Hammer, the Grammy-Award winning keyboardist and composer who has also worked with Jeff Beck and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, but is obviously best known for scoring the “Miami Vice Theme” and “Crockett’s Theme.” Hammer contributed Moog synthesizer solos to two tracks on The Calling, “Fifty Six (56)” and “Tumbleweeds.”
In a recent interview, Schon discussed the new solo album and his long, distinguished career as one of the most underrated guitarists in rock.
The new album certainly has a lot of stylistic diversity on it. It’s very heavy, funky and progressive in spots, with the title track, “Back Smash” and certainly “Carnival Jazz,” but it’s also very soulful and jazzy. In what ways did doing this record stretch you musically?
Neal Schon: You know, I went in with a completely blank canvas, all right? And a lot of colors, and the colors were all the guitars and amps I brought in, and obviously, the musicians that I played with. And Steve Smith, it’s been a while since him and I got together and played, and the creative juices were just flowing. Really, I came in there unprepared. I hadn’t written any material. I had a few riffs here and there, and we sort of went at it day by day, and went about it in a similar way to when I’m working by myself at home, and I’m sort of playing up the instruments on a demo, where I took a drum loop and instead of using a drum machine, which I would use at home, I had Steve Smith there, which was much better. I had him do a tempo for a certain riff that I would come up with, and I’d have him loop it for like eight bars, on the Pro Tools, and I’d say, “Give me a half an hour or 25 minutes to map this thing out.”
And so then I’d just take a rhythm guitar and have these definite drum loops going the whole time, and I’d arrange what I’d need till the end of the song and all the different sections – the solo section, the intro, the heavy section … you know, all the sections and so forth, just like you’d arrange any song. And then, at that point, Steve Smith would come back in, and he would write down on paper musically what I played on guitar, the arrangement. Then we’d talk about which was the heavier section, which was the solo section, and there’s the groove section, where the melody happens, you know, and then he’d play with a different velocity. So he’s essentially a musician like that where he can see the landscape far in advance as well as I can. It was a joy to work with him; he’s actually the perfect guy for me to work with on a project like this. And so he would then go in, replay the drum loop, we’d play the whole song together as if we were playing as a band, with all finished parts. And then, immediately after that, before we went on to another song, I’d slam down the lead guitar, like we’d always do and do a couple of things, all the way through what was in my head. We didn’t have anything written. We just kind of winged it, you know. And it came out. It just came out. To me, the beauty of this record is that it just kind of fell out of the sky, and there wasn’t a lot of thought put into it. So whatever did come out, it was completely from the heart and soul. It was very organic, and I love the organic way of recording where it’s not so thought out – the old blues thinking, from all the old cats … like if you’re thinking, you’re beaten, you know (laughs).    
The album was recorded in only four days. It doesn’t seem … well, improvised, and yet in some ways, it does seem that improvisation played a huge role.  
NS: It was very improvised, and you know, I happen to be really quick in the studio, and I think that’s a tribute to my having made so many records. So I know how to think when I’m in the studio. I’m pretty organized, even if I’m unorganized as in I’m walking in with nothing prepared (laughs). I’m organized the second we get started, as far as what order I want to do things. And then, Steve did the drum sound, I left the rhythm guitars for what we needed and then played lead guitar, and then we moved on to another track. And then, while these guys took off, I would work later and I put on bass, I started playing bass. And instead of having me following the bass – that would be the usual thing in the studio – I played the bass to the guitar with every solo I played, and I kind of moved around in a Hendrix-type way, like how he did for “All Along the Watchtower.” I wasn’t in the studio when he did it, but it was said he already had the guitar down and he just replaced the bass to move with the guitar.
How do you feel this record compares to your other solo work?
NS: Well, I’m proud of all the work I’ve done, but I think this is one of the best I’ve done to date, for it being an instrumental and the fact that it’s very diverse and has a lot of different elements that I’ve taken with me over the years from people I’ve listened to, people I enjoy. You know, I’m kind of like a sponge, like many other musicians, in that when you really love something, you really focus in and stay there. I really enjoyed listening to Igor Len stretch out on acoustic piano, and he played a bit of Moog on “Back Smash,” a blistering Moog solo, as well as Jan Hammer – and it’s cool to move it around and let other people stretch out and bring in all these different colors. He brought in this really cool jazz influence. And I’ve always loved jazz. I’m not really a jazz guitarist, but I definitely fused a bit. I’m more of an R&B, rock, blues guy that can fuse, you know. I’m not a jazz guy, but I do like jazz, and I have to say I can fake my way through it, you know, if I hear the chords at least.
You know, I understand the voices, and so everything I did like … Steve Smith co-wrote a couple songs with me that started out with marimbas and one was like an Indian drum that gave me the whole idea for the riff that I came up with, but the rest of it I wrote. So, it was a fun record to make, and when it’s moving that fast, it’s even more of a joy. You don’t have time to think about anything. I did spend a lot of time mixing, so it wasn’t mixed in four days. Like I said, all the tracks were cut with drums and with all of Igor’s keyboard parts in four days, and then I worked a little longer cleaning up things and mixing. I mixed, actually, for quite a while, and went back and forth between Nashville and mixed with my buddy there.
You mentioned all the styles on the new album. Santana was such a wonderful mélange of musical cultures. Was that what you enjoyed most about playing in Santana?
NS: Absolutely, it’s like really, Santana was like a big pot of Cajun stew … you know, in New Orleans. You stick that in and you stick that in, and you stick anything in it and it becomes very spicy and tasty. And I really did enjoy that about playing with the band and Carlos and Gregg and everybody. It was just a very mind-opening musical experience for me to go through that, because before playing in Santana, I was really just more of a blues and R&B guy. I really loved like R&B funk and blues, and that’s what I listened to. I did listen to some jazz, but really what I was playing at that time was kind of fiery rock and blues. And so, when I did get into the Santana band in 1970, that opened me to so much music. They turned me on to so many different kinds of music that was out there that I was really unaware of. So, it was a great experience for me, and a knowledgeable one.  
How did Carlos welcome you into the band?
NS: You know what, everybody was really great. And I hung out with Carlos a lot when I first got in the band, and you know, we were buddies. We hung out a lot during the day, we played a lot. We’re still good friends and we’re talking every other day, you know, texting each other: “What’s up? How are you doing?” And we keep talking about getting together, and when I get home, he has to take off. But when he gets home, I’m gone. So we’re trying to hook up just to play some new music and talk to each other.
What do you remember most about recording Santana III?
NS: Um, Santana III … wow, it was great. I was pretty much like … we were really quick in the studio, everybody played live, and there were a few solos that were overdubbed. And I usually got ‘em in one take, you know. And that’s all I remember about it. I remember we were in and out, and it was a great experience. Great record – I love it to this day. And actually, a bit of information I’ve been putting out there, “Everybody’s Everything” – the song that ended up being the No. 1 hit single off that record and had a Tower of Power horn section on it – I actually played lead guitar on it. And Carlos played rhythm guitar and bass on that.
I didn’t know that.
NS: A lot of people don’t, but it is what it is. 
Next year will be the 40th anniversary of the founding of Journey. When you and Greg Rolie formed the band, did you envision it being an extension of your work with Santana or something completely different?
NS: Well, Gregg and I did like the rock aspect of what we did on the first Santana record. We liked the rock place where that record went, and so we wanted to continue doing something that was rock, but obviously, we weren’t going to have all the percussion. It would be a different sound, and you know, I was always a fan of everything that came out of England in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, and so I wanted to do something that was a bit progressive like that. It was a bit more English sounding. 
Why was Infinity the big turning point for Journey?
NS: You know, it was funny. I didn’t know what it was going to be like because it was so different when Steve Perry came into the band, you know, from what we were doing and what we had built. We had built this cult audience in quite a few places, because we had toured extensively for three years, and very hard. I would say nine months out of every year we toured. And we had built quite a following being one of the original jam bands in San Francisco. You know, people really enjoyed seeing us live. We weren’t selling any records, but we were selling lots of tickets. And so, I remember the first night that Steve Perry came onstage with us, and we played a couple of the songs that we had written, the audience was like, “I don’t know about that.” It was so different that it really kind of threw them off course, you know. But, immediately when Steve and I got together, I knew that we had chemistry. We sat down, and I sat down with an acoustic guitar, and we were in one room in a hotel and I had these chords for “Patiently,” and he just started singing and writing lyrics, and you know, within, I’d say, 45 minutes we had that song. And then the next one we did together, it like in about 40 minutes again; it was “Lights.” And it was just pretty much listening to him sing and me humming a few things, and organizing the chords, the arrangement, and adding a few sections, that was that.
When Jonathan Cain joined the band, bringing in his synthesizers, it must have signaled a big change in the band. Was there a point during the recording of Escape when you felt that it was going to be something big?
NS: Well, you know what? Before Escape, we had just come out with Captured, and that was exploding. You know, and the band had already exploded on tour, and I think everybody … the Captured record was exploding and the energy on that record was something you couldn’t deny. And so, I felt that at any point that whatever we came with, as long as there were good songs, it was going to be big. We had done all the work, you know. And we paid [our dues] with all the live playing and continued to keep writing good material, I felt, and when Jon came in, he brought in a whole different thing. It was like, he’s an accomplished songwriter, and he brings in a “Faithfully,” you know, and then a lot of great elements. And Jon was an accomplished keyboardist, a classical keyboardist like on piano, and Gregg was more of a bluesy guy, someone from a B3/Jimmy Smith school of organ playing, which was a completely different thing. So we went more with Jon, obviously, because Gregg wasn’t there, and we came up with stuff like “Mother, Father” … you know, I wrote a lot of the music for that with my dad and then Jon and Perry would work on melody and lyrics, and there was always more of a classical vein to what we were doing, as opposed to what we were doing with Gregg. And yeah, it was kind of … I listen to it now and it’s a great record, but really, it’s all over the map. You’ve got a song like “Dead or Alive” on it, which is like really musical punk (laughs) – I don’t know what you’d call it. It had tight time changes and drum lines that Steve Smith had to sort out. And then you have “Open Arms” on the other side of the spectrum, and so it was like, you know, everything between A and Z and everything in the middle.
So, at that point, we felt that there was nothing really that we couldn’t play. I think it was a thing that really stumped a lot of journalists that wanted to niche us to something and say, “Aw, they’re just copying this,” or there was always a journalist that would say, “They sound just like Foreigner or Styx,” or anything else that was out there. Everything was coming out of the ‘80s, you know. I actually thought that we didn’t sound like any of the other bands and not that the other bands didn’t make great music either. I just thought that we sounded very different because of … you know, Steve Perry brought in an R&B flavor. He definitely had R&B roots in his singing, and anybody who has heard Sam Cooke would know that. And so I think it was a combination of the R&B with the rock, soaring guitar, the melody soaring guitar, and the songwriting that made us sound like we did. And I felt we sounded different from everyone.
A lot has been said of the thorny relationships between guitarists and singers, and you and Steve seemed to have a similar background, but I guess it’s always tough between singers and guitarists. Was there always creative tension between you two?
NS: You know what? There wasn’t always. We had many, many great times, and those are the ones that I prefer to remember. And usually, I think that everybody gets full of themselves, and I mean everybody, and so that’s what rips apart people. And in the end, when you look back, and you get away from it and you look back it and you remember everything, you know, really it’s silly. If you change one individual, everything changes radically. I don’t care if it’s the drummer, bass, and definitely the guitar player, it’s going to change radically. But, when we started regrouping at the point that Steve had gone out on a solo tour, I figured he had two solo records and he was going to play most of his solo material, but I heard that he was doing eight out of nine Journey songs in his tour, where on a VH1 special, “Behind the Music,” he said [to us], “Don’t play those songs, don’t go out and do this material.” He had already done it. And so at that point, Jon and I were the other two-thirds of the songwriting, and I said, “F**k this.” I go, “You know what? We deserve to be able to go out as much as anybody does.”
And it was a long, hard ride to get back to where we are now, 12 years of work again, from the beginning. And so, when I found Arnel (Pineda) a little over four years ago, things really started clicking for us again. And Arnel is an amazing vocalist. There’s nothing this boy can’t sing, I’m telling you right now. And I loved the aspect of that when I found him on YouTube and listen to … and, of course, he was just doing only covers, but it wasn’t just of Journey. Journey was just a tiny little niche of everything he was doing there. He was doing Zeppelin, he was doing Aerosmith, he was doing Sting, he was doing Heart … he was doing everyone under the sun. I’ve never heard a vocalist be able to do this in all my life. I mean, he is the chameleon of all chameleons, and if you ever come and I meet you backstage, when you come and check out a show, I’ll bring Arnel, and I’ll say, “Arnel, sing Nat King Cole,” and you will die. You will go, “No way!” He’s really amazing, and then ultimately, okay, these are songs that other people have done, but Steven Tyler is not easy to do, Robert Plant is not easy to do, Steve Perry is not easy to do, Sting is not easy to do … These are all top-notch singers. Nat King Cole is not easy to do. There’s nobody that he actually cannot do. He can do it, you know. And he has very good intuition about what to do, and I feel we’ve made two great records with him, and things are only going to get better there.
Let’s talk about side projects, starting with Hagar, Schon, Aaronson and Shrieve. Was it a rewarding experience for you, musically? How did the project come about?
NS: We’d been great friends in San Francisco, and I’d always wanted to jam with Sammy when he was doing solo gigs in San Francisco, whether it was Winterland or wherever it was, and we always seemed to jam on “Rock Candy,” the Montrose song, God bless Ronnie [Montrose, the famed guitarist who died in March]. And so, I always chose to work when I had my time periods where I had three weeks off or a month off – like before HSAS, I had three weeks off and I got together with Jan Hammer and I said, “Jan, would you like to do a record?” So I went to upstate New York and moved into his house for a second where he had the recording studio, and we knocked out a record in two weeks, and then did it with Jan again when I had another three-week break. And so I always chose to work when I had time off.
Well, it was the same thing with Sammy. I had a month off, and he had a month off from his tour schedule, so I said, “Why don’t we do something? We’re always playing; we dig working with each other. I think we could do something really cool and interesting, and a bit progressive and not so generic – just free up the reins a little bit and get creative.” And so I was always into experimenting a lot and not being so stuck in a niche or a box, and so, I suggested Kenny Aaronson. We had played some dates with Billy Squier – Kenny was playing with Billy Squier at the time – and I thought he was a really great rock bass player and really dictated time when I watched him onstage. He was really funky, and a cool guy from New York, had a really cool attitude. And then, I loved Michael Shrieve, which Sammy didn’t get. You know, I don’t know if he gets it to this day (laughs), but you go back and listen to the record, and I like Michael Shrieve, because he was more from the jazz side. And Sammy was used to really heavy rock drummers, and I wanted, from a jazz guy, kind of like what Jimi Hendrix had with Mitch Mitchell. You know, Mitch Mitchell was a jazz guy. And so, it gives it a different spin on the guitar and overall feel of the music, where it’s not so regimented. I love what Michael did on the record, and we only recorded four shows. We played three or four shows – I can’t remember. That was it. We did the best nights, everything was live, and then we went in and did minimal overdubs on the live recording – sometimes putting a rhythm guitar where there was no rhythm guitar, where I was playing lead. But, pretty much everything was live. Yeah, that was it. Sammy and I wrote the stuff, I believe, in two weeks, and then we rehearsed with everybody. We learned it, and the next week … there were like 20 songs, I believe, like in a week. And some of them were complex arrangements, so it was a lot to remember for everybody, because they weren’t there for the whole writing process. And then we just went and recorded – the fourth week, we went and played, and that was that. And then I went back on tour with Journey, and then he went back on tour.
Just that simple – moving in and out. What was different about Bad English? I know you had a really great singer to work with in John Waite. For Jonathan, that must have been interesting working with his former band mate
NS: Well, it’s funny. I had met Deen Castronovo in a rehearsal space, and I was rehearsing next store, doing something I think with Abraxas Pool at that time. And I heard this drummer … I went in to grab some gear one day, and I heard this drummer just going off in this room, and he sounded really heavy, but really, you know, like he had a lot of chops, but very powerful. And I dug the energy, so I poked my head in the room, and I introduced myself, and he was all excited to meet me.  And I said, “Give me your number, because I’m about to start a solo band.” And at that point, I was going to go solo. I was going to start putting things together for myself, because Journey had been on a long hiatus. We never really broke up, but at that point, Steven just said, “I need time off and I really don’t know when I’ll be back,” and it just seemed like it was never going to happen. And so, I just started saying, “I can’t sit around forever.” It’d been like three years or something, and I wanted to get busy and do something.
So I was going to do something with Deen and then, interestingly enough, Jonathan Cain calls me the next day and he says, “Hey, I’m down in L.A., with Ricky Phillips and John Waite [Cain’s former band mates in The Babys], and we’re putting a band together. We want to know if you want to come down and check it out.” And I said, “Well, that’s sounds really interesting.” And I said, “I just found a drummer that I really want to work with.” I said, “If you guys don’t have a drummer already, I’ll come down with Deen and we’ll both check it out and see what happens.” And so, we plugged in and we went into rehearsal and sparks kind of flew. And you know, before we knew it, we were in the studio recording the first record and did a lot of writing and went into the studio right away, with Richie Zito producing. It was a fun record to get through, and relatively painless, and it was a good time. By the time the second record came around, you know, John Waite and I were becoming really good friends and we were hanging out a lot. We were talking about direction, we were all talking about directions for the second record. And I preferred the stuff that was on the record that was a little heavier, bluesy, had a little R&B funkiness to it and “Rockin’ Horse” – stuff like that. To me, it was a little heavier than The Faces, but that kind of vein, a party kind of vibe, with a little more edge than The Faces, but that kind of vibe. And I said, “That’s where we belong,” because we had done the Diane Warren song [“When I See You Smile”], which I knew would be a hit, but I wasn’t crazy about it for the musical direction of the band. And of course, it had to be a No. 1 hit.
And so, when the second record came about and we were compiling the material, that’s where we had a fallout because we had talked about one thing and then, all of a sudden, John wanted to do nothing but Diane Warren songs. It was exactly the opposite of where we had talked about going, and you know, I’ve never been one to want to do other peoples’ songs, no matter how good they are. I just feel that if you don’t put your own stamp on it, it’s never going to sound like you. And at the time, she was writing hit songs for everyone. And is she a hit songwriter? Yes, she is. I mean, it was popular what I played on to as well, a song of hers, and I mean she wrote a lot of hit songs, but I really felt that that was not what the band was about. And so, actually, while we were in Vancouver, mixing the second Bad English record Backlash, we had a falling out, John and I. And I just quit, just moved on. I went to the back of the studio … it was funny, Mike Reno from Loverboy was back there doing a solo record, while they were mixing our record, after we had just broken up, in the front, and Mike goes, “Why don’t you play on my record?” And so I walked back there and started playing on his record.
Frontiers has an anniversary next year. Are you planning on doing anything special for it or the Journey anniversary? And just what are your memories of recording Frontiers?
NS: You know, Frontiers was very much like Escape. It was a bit more of an experimental record, which I really enjoyed. We were fighting a bit more at that time period I think. Like, I’d come in the studio and I’d turn up the faders on the guitar, I’d want the guitar to be louder. Perry would turn them down.  And so it was going both ways (laughs), and then we got into it a lot, and he’d get pissed and leave the studio, or I’d get pissed and leave the studio, but it was a great record. Otherwise, it was pretty much like Escape. Jonathan brought in “Faithfully,” I believe, at the last minute, you know, when Mike Stone and Kevin Ellefson said, “We need one ballad here. We’re missing a ballad,” and Jonathan … what I remember is, Jonathan brought that song in and he goes, “Well, I have one.” And none of us had heard it and so he brought it in, he played it for me on piano and I charted it out in my own chart language (laughs), in staff notes for musical notes, a road map that I could read. And I remember we kind of just played it through one time, just getting the chord changes and everything down, and then we recorded. And what you hear on the record is what came out, you know, after we recorded one time.
* Photo by Travis Shinn

CD Review: Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made


CD Review: Marillion - Sounds That Can’t Be Made
Eagle Rock Entertainment/earMusic (Edel)
All Access Review: A-
Marillion - Sounds That Can't Be Made 2012
Trapped in a war-torn land with little reason to expect a lasting peace anytime soon, the people of Gaza have endured unimaginable tragedy and hardship, and a song – no matter how idealistic – isn’t likely to change their horrible circumstances. Having seen up close what they’ve been through in visits to refugee camps in the region and talking to those hardest hit by the violence on both sides, Steve Hogarth has responded by writing a provocative and moving testimonial of their plight in “Gaza,” the widescreen, richly textured opener to Marillion’s lushly melodic and deeply soulful 17th album, Sounds That Can’t Be Made. He figures to get an earful from Israeli sympathizers, no matter how noble his intentions.
Attempting to head off a vitriolic sand storm of criticism that’s sure to come his way, Hogarth writes a disclaimer in the liner notes to the LP, stating, “It was not my/our intention to smear the Jewish faith or people,” and adding “ … nothing here is intended to show sympathy for acts of violence, whatever the motivation.” Motivated purely by a desire for a resolution that will halt the senseless cycles of destruction and devastation in the region, Hogarth doesn’t assign blame in “Gaza,” even if militaristic elements may find the “Gaza” lyric “ … peace won’t come from standing on our necks” a direct attack on their policies of aggression. Ultimately, though, “Gaza” is really a distress call, ending with the jarring plea, “someday someone must surely help us …” Nobody is sending the cavalry just yet.
Overshadowing all that comes after it, the 17:30 “Gaza” perfectly captures – in exquisitely descriptive language – the mystery, the desperate mood and the bruised spirit of a place Westerners know so little about. In an attempt to demystify this part of the world and its conflicts, “Gaza” speaks in relatable and personal terms of lost innocence and quiet resignation, while also talking of death and destruction on both a massive and intimate level. Reminiscent of Genesis, though more global in its thinking, “Gaza” is art rock spread across a massive canvas and painted in sumptuous colors. This labyrinthine citadel of angry dissonance and menacing danger, of exotic Middle Eastern sounds and luxurious production, and undying optimism is not only ambitious in scope, but it’s also purposeful and full of humanity, its myriad perspectives and tense scenes expressed in movements as different from one another as the fighting factions themselves.
Where outbursts of noisy, scratching guitar shatter any sense of calm, passages of breathtaking beauty are sure to follow, as marching, indignant declarations of crimes against humanity are transformed by sweeping strings and piano as lonely as a lost Bedouin tribe, as beautiful supplications are carried on hopeful synthesizers and flights of Steve Rothary’s finessed guitar soar into the cool desert night amid somber reflections. And it’s all interconnected in a puzzle-like arrangement that defies logic. Maybe it won’t affect policy, but “Gaza” does give voice – and an eloquent one at that – to the fearful and the scarred, who often suffer in silence as bombs drown out their pleas for an end to war. At the very least, Hogarth is sincerely affected by the situation and doing his part to rectify it.
If the stylish Sounds That Can’t Be Made, one of the warmest and most inviting records of their career, ended then and there, Marillion could walk away satisfied, but the band that spearheaded the neo-progressive movement in the U.K. in the early 1980s is only just beginning its journey. Next stop, the realm of British dream pop, inhabited by the likes of Elbow and Doves, who have clearly influenced the direction of the incandescent, life-affirming title track, the touching closer “The Sky Above the Rain” and the majestic “Power.” Intoxicatingly soulful and jazzy, “Pour My Love” is a sophisticated snifter of sonic brandy that should be savored, while the travelogue “Montreal,” a meditation on distance, and all its clever little melodic twists is 13:58 of nostalgic longing, exhaustion and ennui. All of it, however, pales in comparison to the truly affecting and uplifting “Invisible Ink,” with its radiant flash pot of a chorus and its twinkling melody – it’s as lovely a song as Marillion have ever constructed, even if it does fly a bit too closely to the sun of Doves' "Pounding."
So, as Fish does his thing, his former band slips ever so gently into a phase of life diagnosed as “adult contemporary,” and Sounds That Can’t Be Made is a remarkably quiet, subdued affair, with the exception of “Gaza” and its brief eruptions of King Crimson heaviness and harsh thrashing. Don’t make the mistake, though, of thinking that Marillion has lost the ability to keep things interesting. With their hearts in the right place and their collective intellect as curious and impassioned as ever, Marillion will keep hunting for those sounds that allegedly cannot be made, and someday they may just find them.

-            Peter Lindblad

* For more on how to help Palestinian children, visit www.hopingfoundation.org.
 

Book Review: "Peppermint Lounge: The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the '60s


Book Review: “Peppermint Lounge: The Mob, the Music, and the Most Famous Dance Club of the ‘60s”
Authors: John Johnson, Jr. and Joel Selvin
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
All Access Review: A-
Peppermint Lounge - 2012
The mob had its hooks into the Peppermint Lounge and Johnny Biello. A high-ranking Mafioso, Biello was a silent – deathly silent – part-owner of the hottest nightclub in New York City in the early 1960s, thanks to a dance craze called “The Twist.”  
At the height of the Peppermint Lounge’s popularity, there were nights when the police would cordon off the entire block in an attempt to manage the overflowing crowds that descended upon what was once a small unassuming little joint where shady, backroom dealings and criminal enterprises were conducted with the utmost secrecy. It was Biello’s son-in-law, Dick Cami, who suggested the place start playing rock and roll, and business took off. Biello and his cronies wanted none of the attention.
The parallel universes of the thuggish, brutal world of the mob and star-studded, “Twist”-mad club-goers collide in the engrossing “Peppermint Lounge,” a book written by John Johnson, Jr. and Joel Selvin in collaboration with Cami for Thomas Dunne Books. Laced with danger and full of mob intrigue, “Peppermint Lounge” provides an insider’s look at mafia life, with a cast of colorful, if violent, characters running devious racketeering operations and committing daring robberies, bloody hits and failed executions, bruising beatings and treacherous acts – all of which Biello unsuccessfully sought to leave behind in attempting to become a respected businessman.
Blissfully ignorant of the criminal underworld operating behind the scenes, the glamorous denizens of New York City’s Peppermint Lounge – another was established in Miami Beach – danced and partied into wee hours, as “The Twist” swept across the nation. The place was hopping, and Cami recounts how celebrities such as Greta Garbo and Shirley MacLaine mingled with sweaty youth and nubile, rail-dancing wait staff in writhing nightly orgies of twisting to house band Joey Dee and the Starlighters and Chubby Checker. Along with detailing historic Peppermint Lounge visits by the likes of Muhammed Ali, John Wayne, Tennessee Williams, and The Beatles – a whole chapter is devoted to the Fab Four and how Ringo Starr, unbeknownst to him, almost found himself in scalding hot water – Selvin and Johnson deftly chronicle the rise and fall of The Twist with heady writing, compellingly arguing for its importance as a force for cultural, sexual and societal change while gleefully delving into all the silly marketing schemes it birthed.
Well-paced, often funny and occasionally heartbreaking, “Peppermint Lounge” seamlessly shuffles between the disparate worlds of the mafia – with Frank Sinatra caught in its orbit – and the glitzy Peppermint Lounge in a confident, conversational manner, using a wealth of anecdotes and insight from the likeable Cami, and others, as a means of pulling back the curtain. Not just a dance club, the Peppermint Lounge holds a special place in rock and roll history, as it helped propel The Twist into the national consciousness, while also helping to launch the careers of such greats as Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes, whose story gets special attention in the book. Selvin, Johnson and Cami have admirably preserved legacy of the place.
- Peter Lindblad

CD/DVD Review: Staind - Live From Mohegan Sun


CD/DVD Review: Staind - Live From Mohegan Sun
Armoury Records/Eagle Vision
All Access Review: B-
Staind - Live from Mohegan Sun 2012
Not to denigrate what is surely a fine facility, blessed with great acoustics and first-class accommodations, but the Mohegan Sun Arena doesn’t exactly have the cachet of a Fillmore East – or West for that matter – or a Marquee Club. That’s neither here nor there as it relates to the quality of Staind’s new concert CD and DVD releases. It’s just a sad commentary on the times that live albums are now coming out of tourist-trap casinos with very little character to speak of and named after faceless corporations. “Come for the loosest slots in the Nutmeg State, stay for the family-friendly rock” – that has a real ring to it, doesn’t it?
On Nov. 25, 2011, alt-metal kingpins Staind, closing in on 20 years of existence, brought their never-ending supply of glum, emotionally draining dirges to Connecticut, where the Mohegan Sun welcomes visitors with open arms and probably a free continental breakfast. Documented on both CD and a vividly filmed DVD, out now on Armoury Records and Eagle Vision, Staind’s Live From Mohegan Sun perfectly encapsulates what makes them so compelling and, at the same time, so maddening. Capable of unleashing impossibly heavy, crushing grooves that methodically twist and turn like monstrous, pre-historic snakes, Staind wreaks havoc with rhythmic earthquakes and blustery storm surges of power chords in writhing, punishing sonic apocalypses like “Spleen,” “Eyes Wide Open” and “Falling,” before bulldozing the ruins with earth-movers “Paper Wings” and “Mudshovel,” two immense sonic juggernauts. Then, right on cue, Staind – baring its dark, scarred soul in Aaron Lewis’s uncomfortably personal and anguished lyrics – will fall into old, familiar patterns like a married couple that doesn’t know its relationship died years ago.
And a collection like this, where so much of Staind’s catalog is laid out end to end for public consumption, brings their faults into the harsh light of day, when for the most, they’ve been hidden in atmospheres as dank and devoid of sun as the windowless basements of serial killers. Occasionally off-key on this particular night, Lewis, modulating ever so slightly up and down over the top of poorly mixed sound, can’t help but fall in love with trawling the same melodic passages over and over again, especially on the trudging, labored versions of “So Far Away” and “Right Here” performed here. And with Tool as their muse, Staind moves cautiously; their riffs almost seem like they’re stalking prey, before rising up and bringing the hammer down to complete the cycle of fairly predictable loud-soft dynamics.
Unfortunately, Staind isn’t nearly as adventurous as Tool, preferring to remain on those well-worn pathways those famously publicity-shy prog-metallers have tread and never daring to venture as far into the unknown as their spirit guides. Yet, Staind’s formula has certainly served them well considering their rather unassuming, but enviable, chart success, that tension and synergy between quiet meditation and staggering volume, along with seductive melodic undercurrents and Lewis’s wounded, self-flagellating poetry, making “It’s Been Awhile” such an affecting and moving song … and a massive hit. That piece is practically a religious experience for the Mohegan Sun congregation.
What Staind can’t overcome, however, is how heavy-lidded and narcoleptic they can be in concert, “Fade” and “For You” slumbering more deeply than the rest of Staind's live work. Certainly the DVD illustrates, in stark terms, how stationary and static – despite the constant head-banging – they are onstage, even if the high-definition images are lush and colorful, and the sweeping wide shots are absolutely epic. It’s almost as if somebody told Staind that if they moved from where they were standing, a sniper would pick them off one by one from the balcony. And their obstinately ponderous riffs and rhythms, often as black as molasses and just as thick and syrupy, can slow to the point where the temptation to nudge Staind a little to see if they can pick up the pace is almost irresistible.
Comparing the two deep set lists, both of them mixing generous portions of old and new Staind stuff, the DVD has an extra track in “Country Boy” the CD lacks, and among its bonus features are an engaging and honest interview with the band and a special look at guitarist Mike Mushok’s live rig that should please gearheads. But this is one occasion when the visual aspect of seeing the band play live doesn’t really set it all that far apart from only hearing the performance. Like Creed, Staind knows how to build big drama, and skeptics may say they do so only to cynically pander to their audiences. That criticism may not be fair, but anybody who sits down to a buffet of Staind as long as this one should wish for more consistency and attention to detail.
-            Peter Lindblad

CD Review: Various Artists - Re-Machined - A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head


CD Review: Various Artists – Re-Machined – A Tribute to Deep Purple’s Machine Head
Eagle Records
All Access Review: B+
Re-Machined - A Tribute to Deep Purple's Machine Head 2012
“Why in the world would anybody bring a flare gun to a Frank Zappa concert, let alone shoot it off inside the venue?” Even after all these years, isn’t that the question that springs to mind every time “Smoke on the Water” and that swinging sledgehammer of a riff, seemingly plucked out of thin air by that six-string magician Ritchie Blackmore, comes crashing through the speakers?
Whatever the reasons for such a brain-dead decision, it certainly had far-reaching consequences for Deep Purple. As related through the oral history of “Smoke on the Water,” Blackmore and company went to Montreux, Switzerland to make a record. They’d rented the Rolling Stones’ mobile studio and were all set to head into the Montreux Casino to record their archetypal heavy-metal manifesto, Machine Head, an album with all the driving horsepower of the finest Mustangs Ford ever manufactured. Then, that infamous “stupid with a flare gun” got trigger-happy and set off a blaze that burned the entire complex to ash, forcing a rather desperate Deep Purple to find other another place to make history. Through the ice and snow, the Mark II lineup hauled that mobile to an almost completely vacant hotel, where the band, working under severe time constraints and less-than-ideal conditions, somehow managed to forge a masterpiece.
The stakes, of course, were not nearly as high, but in some ways, this was rock music’s Apollo 13 moment – a small crew a long ways from home, their master plans derailed by a fire and other acts of God, forced to scramble and improvise on the fly to accomplish what they’d set out to do. On some level, what Deep Purple did was heroic, all the more so considering the incredible results produced by their perseverance and ingenuity. And so, with 2012 being the 40th anniversary of their groundbreaking accomplishment, it’s hard to imagine an album more deserving of a mostly sincere, star-studded homage as Re-Machined – A Tribute to Deep Purple’s Machine Head, which has taken on greater significance with the fairly recent passing of legendary Purple keyboardist Jon Lord and news of the band's nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Getting behind the wheel of “Highway Star,” Chickenfoot and the thrown-together combination of Glenn Hughes, Steve Vai and Chad Smith open up the throttle on differing, frenzied versions of one of the greatest car songs of all-time, with Chickenfoot’s thundering, hot-wired live test-drive of the original wildly pushing into the red and Smith-Hughes-Vai’s take smoking its tires and leaving terra firma to soar into the stratosphere on Hughes’ prayerful wail. On their earthy funk workout of “Maybe I’m a Leo,” Smith and Hughes, a one-time member of Deep Purple’s Mark III crew, lock into the kind of chunky, soulful rock grooves that thicken and add organic, savory flavor to what was somewhat of a thin, starry-eyed stew cooked up by Purple so long ago, while “Lazy” gets a smoldering, bluesy makeover by guitarist Joe Bonamassa and screaming singer Jimmy Barnes.
Less inspired, Metallica’s surprisingly atrophied reworking of “When A Blind Man Cries” – not included on Machine Head initially, as it was a B-side of the “Never Before” single – doesn’t gnash its teeth or exhibit the kind of dynamic energy one would expect of them. Worse yet, the Flaming Lips disappointingly choose to take the piss out of “Smoke on the Water” and robotically dance with this sacred cow, much as Devo did in deconstructing the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” Arty and interesting in its own way, it also seems a waste of the Lips’ prodigious talent and even more proof that they’ve lost their way, whereas Iron Maiden simply plow through an explosive and gripping, if perhaps a bit too faithful, cover of “Space Truckin’” – recorded in 2006 as a B-side while making A Matter of Life and Death, and it’s sat on the shelf ever since.
What better time for it to find new life, and what better time for Joe Elliot, Steve Stevens, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum to come together as Kings of Chaos and vigorously shake some glam action out of “Never Before,” or for Carlos Santana and Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix to smoothly maneuver through “Smoke on the Water,” with Santana playing off Blackmore’s riffage and making the track a multi-cultural experience. And then there’s Black Label Society, these hairy metal barbarians storming the gates of “Never Before,” with Zakk Wylde’s wah-wah guitar supernovas barely shining through nests of grungy folk. Diverse, with examples of incredible musicianship, Re-Machined takes some liberties with Machine Head, and more often than not, they’re worth the gamble. Maybe now everyone will forget about that damned flare gun.
-            Peter Lindblad

CD Review: ZZ Top - La Futura


CD Review: ZZ Top - La Futura
Universal Republic
All Access Review: A-
ZZ Top - La Futura 2012
Almost as iconic as the long, scraggly beards they’ve steadfastly refused to shave off for anyone, ZZ Top’s “Eliminator Car” – a custom-built ’33 Ford Coupe with a powerful engine and beautiful contours – was not just a sweet ride. For three craggy, old guys from Texas, it represented the mother of all turning points. Though they seemed hopelessly out of step with the times in the synthetic, neon-lit early ‘80s, Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard had no intention of retiring to Texas to sip Jeremiah Weed, play grab-ass with waitresses and reminisce about the good old days. Come hell or high water, they were going to reinvent themselves, using synthesizers and sequencers to update their crusty, greasy-spoon blues-rock for a new generation with the sleek, stylish and mean-as-all-get-out Eliminator.
And what better symbol of this transformation than an old-timey, Depression-era car pimped-out to attract loose women barely clothed in micro mini-skirts and stiletto heels. Unlike most mid-life crises, this one worked out splendidly for ZZ Top, as Eliminator – on the strength of skintight, nitro-burning singles “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs” and “Got Me under Pressure” – roared up the charts and did doughnuts in Billboard’s parking lot. They'd done more than simply assimilate with pop music’s paradigm shift; they’d conquered it, all while not losing sight of what made them great in the first place. Soon after, however, ZZ Top would go too far, as the emphasis on electronic flash made Eliminator’s futuristic successor, Afterburner, seem as bloodless as PVC piping, and that car with the great lines and striking paint job suddenly seemed emblematic of the excesses that had eroded their true character.
Despite the title, ZZ Top’s latest, La Futura, does not march boldly into some brave new sonic world, where computers have taken over and humanity has to serve its robot overlords. This is the ZZ Top of 1973 and Tres Hombres, when Gibbons and company were pit masters of a smoky, sweaty form of slow-cooked blues that dripped fat and practically fell of the bone, even if La Futura was inspired by collaborations with Texas DJs and hip-hop artists. And La Futura is a delicious, artery-clogging feast, with most of the entrées being reworked versions of others’ recipes. That includes the gnarly, sleazy bump-and-grinds “I Gotsta Get Paid,” “Chartreuse” and “I Don’t Want to Lose, Lose, You” – three seedy songs you don’t want to inspect with a black light. Even nastier is “Consumption,” a lusty Gibbons-penned joint that has the hip-swaying, cowgirl swagger of a sassy Dallas stripper, who goes home at night and cries into her pillow while listening to the bittersweet and soulfully rendered, Stax-influenced ballad “Over You," La Futura's most disarming moment.
Aside from “Flyin’ High” taxing Gibbons' strained vocals to the breaking point and the track taking too much of a liking to John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good” – by way of AC/DC, oddly enough – La Futura is classic ZZ Top from top to lovely bottom, where “Big Shiny Nine” and “Have a Little Mercy” evoke memories of “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide” and “I Thank You,” respectively. His curmudgeonly, whisky-gargling vocals as mean and lascivious as ever, Gibbons’ guitar riffs growl with real junkyard dog menace, while his solos bite hard and have quite a bit of hair on them. As for Hill and Beard, they continue to massage the rhythmic, rumbling low-end to a very happy ending, indeed. Satisfying in almost every way, even if they could vary the pace a little or manage to make the proceedings not sound quite so labored, the organic and gritty La Futura could easily sit and have a drink with all the old ZZ Top master works … as long it doesn’t order a Zima.
-            Peter Lindblad

Into the fire again with Don Dokken


Singer tells all about state of the band, ‘Broken Bones’
By Peter Lindblad
Dokken 2012
George Lynch and Jeff Pilson are out, drummer Mick Brown is still in, and Don Dokken is firmly in charge of one of the biggest bands to ever come out of the ‘80s glam-metal scene. Joined by guitarist Jon Levin and bassist Sean McNabb, the singer – and guitarist, having recently picked the instrument back up – has the good ship Dokken pointed in the right direction, with a new album in Broken Bones that might just be the best record the band’s made since Under Lock and Key, or even Tooth and Nail.
Mysterious and reflective at times, Broken Bones is immersed in luxuriant, yet impactful sound, and the intoxicating melodies – always present in everything Dokken’s ever done – are disarming, even as Levin launches into the kind of heavy, thermonuclear riffing and dynamic, agile solos that Lynch would be proud to call his own. It is still Dokken after all, with Brown’s brawling drums and McNabb’s flexible bass forming a pliable backbone in support. Though far removed from the heady days of platinum records and sold-out arenas, Dokken isn’t dead yet, and Broken Bones seems to have breathed new life into the band, with Don, singing more soulfully than he has in a long time, penning some of the most provocative and mature lyrics of his career – see the apocalyptic imagery and utter futility in the raging, anti-war lead single “Empire” for proof of his convictions.
Never afraid to speak his mind, Don Dokken unloads about a variety of subjects in this recent interview, conducted close to the release date for Broken Bones, which comes out Sept. 25 on Frontiers Records. Downloading, the making of Broken Bones, his own difficult recovery from vocal surgery, his thorny relationship with Lynch and the family tragedy that spurred his interest in charitable causes – all of it is fair game for a singer who is determined not to go down without a fight.
While the new record definitely has elements of the signature Dokken sound, it seems smokier, even exotic at times. Call me crazy, but it sounds Zeppelin-esque, especially on “Victim of the Crime.” Do you agree?
DD: Look at “Waterfall,” that weird drum beat … I’ve never done anything like that, or have a timing change in the middle of a solo – I’ve never done that in my career. But yeah, Jon and I wrote the record, and I just finally said, “I know what everybody wants, and they want the same thing we did last year or a few years ago, which sounded very ‘80s like.” And I just said, “Jon, I can’t keep painting the same picture.” I mean, what’s the point? I hate it when people say, “I wish this record was like Tooth and Nail.” Ok, then go buy Tooth and Nail.
Was it tough for you to do that last record, knowing that Jon wanted you to go back to that old Dokken sound?
Dokken - Broken Bones 2012
DD: Anytime somebody wants me to go back to anything, I say, “I’m not really down with that.” But, we did it. It was fine, but when they told me to do the same thing [this time], I said, “I refuse.” I mean, I was really being a dick about it. I didn’t want anybody near the music. I didn’t want the record company to hear one iota of the music until it was done. I’m not going to have some guy sitting in an office tell me what he likes or doesn’t like. I don’t think [French impressionist painter Claude] Monet, when he sat out in the garden painting in France, had some guy standing over his shoulder saying, “I think that needs some more blue or a little more yellow. Now it’s got too much light in there.” It doesn’t work that way, man. I think a song is a painting, you know. I don’t think that it’s right. I understand where our bread is buttered and Dokken fans and all that, but you know, we’ve done all that. I said what I had to say as far as that. I want to stretch my wings out a little bit, that’s the only way I can put it. I wasn’t trying to make a throwback record. I just wanted to put some ‘60s kind of harmonies on there. I love Cream and those Zeppelin kind of grooves … I just like that. I can’t help it. I’m getting old, man.
We all are …
DD: I’m still the singer, so it’s going to sound like Dokken, so what’s the problem? I didn’t write differently to be different. It’s just what was coming out of my head.
You produced the new record, which is something you also did with XYZ. Is it easier producing your own band, as opposed to another group?
DD: No, it’s much harder. I produced Great White’s first record, and I found them in a garage. So, I discovered that band – Great White and XYZ. And it’s easier when you’re on the outside because you can just say, “Hey, try that,” or “Try this.” And if it doesn’t work, “Try this.” But when you go to actually play it or sing it and listen back, you go, “Uh, I don’t know.” I mean, honestly, this record, we were getting ready to go to Florida to mix it, and the last day the album was completely finished, and I told my engineer, “Um, three of the songs, I’m not happy with the lyrics.” He said, “You’re kidding.” I said, “No, I can do better than that.” And at 4 o’clock in the morning I was changing shit. And it turned out better, you know. If you have a problem with that stuff, after so much time goes by, I have to make changes and no one will say that it’s better. So, I had to get away from it, and I was glad we were touring that weekend, so that I could get out and get away from the record for those two days and come back to it fresh. I had that luxury this time, you know. After a while, I just wanted to be done with it.
It seems like you’re feeling that you’re free of the expectations people have of you and free of the Dokken sound of old. Do you feel that way?
DD: I mean, Jon did some solos that were kind of Michael Schenker-ish at times, and I told Jon, “You can’t live in the shadow of George Lynch, and I can’t live in the shadow of the millions of records that I sold 30 years ago.” I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live in this box. I’ve said what I had to say and I want to move on to some new and interesting music. And I said, “We’re taking a chance.” And if people say, “Oh, it doesn’t sound like Dokken,” so be it. I took my chance, and there are some classic-sounding Dokken songs on there. Obviously, I must have done something right, because I haven’t had many bad reviews yet.
I think it’s a great Dokken album in that there’s a great variety on it. I don’t know if it’s because some of the atmospheres are different. I was also thinking that Levin seems to have such a great feel for grooves, and that’s especially prevalent on “Best of Me” and “Blind.” Did that have an effect on this record?
DD: Well, I’ve been coaching him for a long time to let him find his own way. He’s not just trying to emulate George. And then I kind of tried to educate him, because he was in high school when Dokken came out, and Dokken was one of his favorite bands. But I gave him a CD and I go, “Listen to Led Zeppelin II. Just put this in your car and listen to it. Now, listen to Houses of the Holy. Check that out. Listen to ‘Kashmir’ …” You know, “Listen to this, listen to that, check out some of these songs,” just trying to ingrain a broader spectrum of writing. And I told him, I said, “Jon, there is not one Dokken CD in my car.” “That’s weird,” he said. Well, I don’t need to listen to it. If I listen to it, I’ll start plagiarizing myself. It infects you, you know.
So, we just started listening to a lot of stuff from way back, ‘60s and ‘70s, just thousands [of songs], and as a producer, I slip in different stacks of harmonies and different arrangements, different time signatures. I just wanted an album where I wanted all the songs to kind of stand alone. And I think I accomplished that, but if I didn’t, I at least tried. I gave it my best shot. I like an album to be [good from] top to bottom, and not have it be like, “Well, that’s a good song,” and then the next song you’re starting to fast forward, and then, “Oh, this song is pretty good, but I don’t like the chorus – fast forward.” I hate that. I do it, I’m guilty of it. I hate it when you hear a killer song on the radio, and you buy the CD, and there are like two good songs and the rest is a bunch of filler. That really annoys me. I can think of a lot of bands that are doing that these days.
It doesn’t seem to be an album-oriented world anymore.
DD: No, I understand. The world has changed. There are no more platinum or gold records on your walls, because people can’t sell those amounts of records anymore because as soon as a record comes out, it’s on file-sharing. I understand that. It still doesn’t mean you should write crappy shit. At the end of the day, when I’m dead and gone, at least I can leave a legacy, a body of music that people will love.
With this one, you’ve done that. I really like “Empire,” the lead track and the first single. It’s got those familiar searing guitars Dokken fans are used to, and some not so optimistic lyrics. Explain the inspiration behind that song and how the music for it was conceived.
DD: Well, you know, we wrote like fast, burning kind of riffs, but we were at the house here, the guesthouse on my property in the country, and it has a studio. And I have this flat screen on the wall, and every day, I’d take a break, watch some TV for a while, and it was just the Syrian government is slaughtering their own people, and Pakistan was bailed out, and we got rid of Muammar Gaddafi, but they hate our guts and they’re murdering our own soldiers, and I just got so pissed. That was why I came up with the line, “What do you have in the end? You’re burning empires.” So, you’re going to destroy your own country and your own people, so that way in the end, what do you got? You got nothing. You’ve got nothing left. It doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s mind-boggling. So it inspired me to write it.
I don’t write political songs usually, but “Empire” is just about, “You guys have lost your minds, you know?” They’re killing everybody. In the year 2012, you’d think we’d be a little more spiritually enlightened by now. Sadly, it seems like we’re going backwards, and all we do is keep coming up with new ways of killing each other. And this morning, they killed the U.S. ambassador [Chris Stevens]. They just blew him up. And the point of that was? It frustrates me. I guess when I was younger, we got famous, you get caught up in the limousines and the girls and you’re staying in four-star hotels, you’ve got a private jet … it’s narcissistic. To be famous, there’s some narcissism in there and ego and you don’t really concern yourself with all that crap going on. You’re just wrapped in your own little rock star world. But when I got older and you have children, you start realizing there’s some crazy shit going on out there.
You’ve definitely touched on some different lyrical subject matter on this record that you haven’t addressed in the past – “Blind” being that way as well.
DD: “Blind,” too. Yeah. Like I wrote that first line in “Empire”: “I sit above and watch below as we burn this city down” – it’s actually a metaphor of somebody standing on a hill watching their town annihilated, and for what? And the line that says, “A child only sees the gun as the trigger of disease.” Well, it is. Children are innocent, but it just frustrates me, so I had to write about it and get it out of my system – “Blind” and all that stuff. It just seems that it’s getting worse, and it just frustrates me. I could just ignore it all and go, “I’m just going to sit up here at my estate in Beverly Hills and it’s not my problem.” But I can’t do that. I feel morally responsible to at least voice my opinion and my outrage and frustration to people, and what’s a better vehicle than to do it through music.
Did you want the music to reflect that as well?
DD: No. I mean, it’s weird. Sometimes I write … the way I write, I just write stories. And I have a tape recorder. Everyone has always told me that, “Your stuff is always on that tape recorder,” and they call it the “Book of Don.” And I’ve got literally hours and hours and hours of me just babbling into a tape recorder. Like, I’ll get up in the middle of the night to go pee – and I hate that when you’re half asleep – and I always get inspired about 3 o’clock in the morning. I asked my doctor about that once. I said I usually get inspired when I’m half asleep, and he goes, “That’s what’s called a pure stream of consciousness.” You’re not thinking about your kids or the car loans, and your relationships or your bills. You’re just kind of in a pure stream of consciousness, like in a meditative state, and that’s when the ideas come.” Wherever they come from in the universe, God or whatever you want to call it, your mind is wide open to receive the information.
The problem is you start to think, “Oh, that’s a killer riff.” I hear this guitar riff in my head and I think, “That’ll be awesome. I’ll remember that in the morning.” And you’re like, “How did that go again?” I hate that, and Jon does that, too. So, for this album, I said to Jon, “Okay, now Jon, we’re going to both buy little tape recorders, we’ll put them next to our beds, and if you have an idea, just blurt it out. I don’t care if it’s just a little riff …” So, Jon had his guitar in his bedroom and this little amplifier, and he’d plug it in at 3 o’clock in the morning and wake his chick up, and he’ll turn the tape recorder on and say, “I’ve just got to bang out this quick little riff.” The next day, he’ll call me on the phone and say, “Hey, check this out.” And sometimes I’ll say, “Eh, that’s all right.” But for a couple of songs he wrote like that, I said, “Hey, that’s a really killer riff, except I wrote that 30 years ago – that song ‘Sleepless Nights’ on Tooth and Nail.” I have to say, “Jon, stop listening to those Dokken records. They’re brainwashing you.”
Sometimes you get something down that late at night and you wake up the next morning wondering, “What the hell is that?”
DD : Yeah, I went to bed thinking, “That’s brilliant.” And then I wake up and listen and I go, “Ugh, what was I thinking.” It’s a long process. We wrote 30 songs for this record, and we just narrowed it down to the 12 best. It’s a real hard call to figure it out, because the record company says we have to take one song off for a bonus track in Japan, and my opinion of bonus tracks is that they’re always the leftover songs that aren’t any good. And they call it a bonus, and I said, “I don’t want a shitty bonus [track]. I’m happy with all the songs. So how do we take a good song and take it off the record? I’m not happy about this.” And we ended up taking a song called “Can’t Touch This Love,” and it’s really a classic … kind of like “Just Got Lucky” meets “The Hunter.” It’s pretty cool, but we had to take it off the record. And it’s a shame. People can buy it if they want the Japanese DVD – we did a “making of” film while making this record. So that’s a bonus track, and you have to put a bonus track in Japan because the records over there cost $8 more than in America.
Did you ever have a song like that on any of the older albums from Dokken that you had to leave off?
DD: Yeah, it was “Dancin’ the Irish Song” and there was something else. I put two bonus tracks on Japanese albums a couple of years ago on one of my records. I can’t remember what it was. It might have been Erase the Slate. There are a couple of killer songs that we had to take off and use them for bonus tracks, and that was a bummer, because they’re never going to hear these tracks here because they’re never going to buy the import. But you have to do it, because records are still too expensive, $15, $17 in America and a record costs $25 over there. So, to encourage the fans not to buy the American version and save $8, you’ve got to give them bonus tracks. It’s just business, you know. 
You had vocal surgery in 2010. Your voice seems to have come through it remarkably well. What kind of rehabilitation did you have to do and how would you compare it now to what it was in the ‘80s?
DD: Well, you know, I’ll never be able to sing as high as I could back then. I mean, I could name a dozen singers who can’t sing like they did back then. It’s like a car. You put 100,000 or 200,000 miles on it, it doesn’t run like it did when it was brand new. I’ve done 7,000 to 8,000 shows in my career, but yeah, I tore my vocal cord in Germany. It was my fault. You know, most bands are two days on, one day off or three days on, two days off. We ended up doing 27 shows in 34 days I think, and I started having this funny taste in my mouth, like iron. And I realized it was blood. And I went, “Oh, shit.”
You know, I was in Germany and I went to the hospital, and the doctor went to an EMT guy, and he looked at my throat and he said, “You tore your vocal cord.” And I still had 10 shows to go, and he said, “Stop.” And I didn’t. I kept going, and that was it. And I thought, “Okay, I’ll just heal. I’ll just stay here.” But it just got worse and worse and worse and worse, and I had the surgery, and I thought, “Okay, three months from now, I’ll be good.” And I started playing again, and I was singing like crap. And people on the Internet were going, “Boy, Don can’t sing anymore,” or “He’s lost it,” and well, I can’t deny it. So, I was really struggling to try to hit any of the notes, and people see it on the Internet, on YouTube, and “Ish … he ain’t what he used to be.” It’s depressing. It’s like saying, “Here’s a guitar. It’s out of tune. Now go play.” So I just told the band, “We have to stop.”
On this record, which we started writing last September, I didn’t sing a note the first six months. I mean, I had to go back to my old vocal teacher, warm-ups … I had to put three humidifiers in all the rooms of my house to keep the house humid all the time – warm up for an hour, do scales, keep my mouth shut, quit smoking … blah, blah, blah. You know, don’t talk a lot. I’ve got more at stake, so I’ve been doing press for four days straight, six hours a day and I’m horse from doing it. And sometimes, we get together and I go to sing a song, and I say, “You know, guys, I can hit the note, but my voice will have a little too much buzz in it.” And some days, Jon will go, “Wow. Your voice sounds like it did on Tooth and Nail. Your voice is nice and clean and clear.” And I go, “That’s the way I like it.” But it is hit and miss – sometimes you have good days, and I’ve had bad days where I couldn’t figure out why [my voice] was doing what it was doing and it wasn’t good. The insanity of the thing is after I spent tens of thousands of dollars on my voice, it turned out to be hit or miss because I was snoring. I was overly tired, because we were working 14-hour days, flying to gigs, getting two to three hours of sleep and going to Europe. We flew 16 hours to Bulgaria, and we did the M3 Fest where we had two hours of sleep. We sucked at that show, but when you’re really tired, you snore. And when you snore, it’s like … haven’t you gone to a club and you’re trying to talk to somebody over a loud band, and you wake up the next day and your voice is all raspy?
Yeah, absolutely.
DD: And you wake up and you’re hoarse, and you try and talk loud for conversation. Well, that’s what snoring is. So I had to go get sleep studies done, with the cameras on me watching me sleep, and as it turned out, I was snoring with sleep apnea and that was trashing the cords, too. So, that bites. But, I don’t snore anymore.
I didn’t realize that was something that could damage your vocal cords. Did you at all think back to when you sang rehearsals with the Scorpions for Blackout while Klaus Meine recovered from his vocal surgery?
DD: Yeah, it’s like I went through the same thing. And you know, when I sang on that, I was young. I mean, I was in my 20s and my voice was fresh and golden, and I hadn’t toured. I was a nobody, you know? And I had a virgin voice, basically. It had low miles. And the surgery Klaus had, he had like two or three surgeries in his career. Tom Keifer, he didn’t sing for three years.
Could you ever imagine taking that long off?
DD: Yeah, when we could play again, I was shocked. We played with Cinderella a year ago, and I said to Tom, “You sound exactly like you did in the ‘80s. What did you do?” He said, “Oh, man. I had to have surgeries, I couldn’t talk, I had to re-train my voice and sing differently” – he went through a whole thing for like seven years. And now he sounds awesome, better than ever. There are always people that are blessed – the Glenn Hughes’s of the world, the Bruce Dickinsons, the Ronnie James Dios. Those guys are blessed. They just open their mouths and it comes out and it sounds awesome. But, I don’t think I was blessed with that. I have my tonsils still. Most people don’t have their tonsils. I have my tonsils, I still have my adenoids, I have some bad sinuses, and the doctor said, “You’ve got everything a singer shouldn’t have. Your tonsils can get infected, you’re flying, you’re dehydrated, your sinuses are dripping, and your vocal cords get inflamed.” He goes, “You’re just getting hit every way – every direction, you’re getting hit and it disturbs your voice, and we just have to knock out the problems one at a time.” It took a long time.
What did you learn from working with Tom Werman and Roy Thomas Baker on Tooth and Nail and Neil Kernon on Under Lock and Key and Back for the Attack that you’ve incorporated into your own production work?
DD: Um, I was like a real “Dennis the Menace.” When I was working with Michael Wagener [producer for Dokken’s Breaking the Chains, Skid Row’s first album and Ozzy Osbourne’s No More Tears, he also mixed Metallica’s Master of Puppets], I’d ask, “Why are you using that mic? Why are you putting the mic there? Why are you doing that? Why are you putting the overheads over there?” And [Geoff] Workman, God rest his soul, he was a great engineer. He just passed away [2010]. With all these great guys, I just picked their brains. I’d go, “Why are you doing that? Why are you doing this? Why are you putting the mics there? Why are you using that mic?” I just learned over 30 years, and I owned my own recording studio for 10 years. I mean, besides other things, I produced the Dysfunctional album and recorded it in my studio and just did everything – recorded everything and put the mics on myself, and like I say, just years of experience to learn why, because I had all these great people telling me why … you know, “How come you can’t put this microphone on the kick drum?” And Michael would say, “Because this microphone has a lower register, and it picks up the kick drum better and it’s a tighter sound.” And I’d say, “Oh, okay. How come you’re using this?” And Michael would tell me, “Most people will put a mic on top of the snare drum.”
Michael always put one on top and the bottom to get the track, but the problem with two microphones that close together is they go out of phase and it sounds weird. And he showed me how to fix that by putting one out of phase, and putting the snare back in phase. It’s just decades and decades of all these tricks I learned. I think this album has a killer guitar sound, killer drum sound, great bass – it’s just a punchy record, you know. I wanted it punchy. I wanted it powerful. I wanted it loud.   
How did having Bob St. John [Extreme, Duran Duran, Collective Soul] and Wyn Davis [Black Sabbath, Dio, Whitesnake] do the mixing and Maor Appelbaum [Halford, Yngwie Malmsteen, Sepultura] as the engineer affect Broken Bones. How did the three of them affect the final product?
DD: Well, Wyn and I have been best friends for like 30 years, through the Dokken stuff and then my solo record, Up from the Ashes, which I love – it just came out at the wrong time. And my recording studio was literally a thousand yards from his recording studio. So we were always going back and forth from my studio to his, and then we started the record and we started working together, but then I was taking such a long time with the record. I kept pushing him back – like, “Okay, next month we’ll finish it,” and then, “No, I’m going out on tour. Okay, next month.” And then Wyn got booked.
He goes, “I’m booked solid, I can’t do this record.” So, I said, “Well, I guess I’ll do it myself.” And I was like, “Oh, shit. Now I’m really going to put pressure on myself.” So I ended up doing the record by myself, recording everything that was left at my house. And then we went to Bob St. John because Jon is good friends with the guys from Extreme, and he’d done Extreme, and Jon knew him. So he said, “Yeah. Meet me in Florida.” So I decided to go down to Florida to meet with him, and I decided to be the producer, and then with St. John, I wanted to get something new. I’m always using the same people over and over and over again, so I listened to Maor Applebaum’s records, and he seemed to know what the hell he was doing as far as making records loud. He does a lot of the heavy bands, or heavier, like Sepultura and bands like that. And I thought, “Well, with these songs, we’re not thrash metal or a speed-metal band. Our music is melodic hard rock, but I want the aggression from the mastering that he gets from these kinds of heavier bands. I thought it would be a good combination to get Applebaum to do the mastering, just as he approaches these bands like Sepultura.       
Why did it not work out with George and Jeff for a return to the classic Dokken lineup?
DD: Well, do you want the lie or do you want the truth? We’ll there’s about 20 versions from George – ‘I’m just an asshole, I want all the money and I’m hard to deal with.’ Well, that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I mean, Mick will tell you that … and Jeff. We got together. We were going to do it last year, and we were excited to do it, and it was going to be great, and we thought it would put the exclamation point on our career. We had an offer to make an extreme amount of money to do it, so that was nice. And the truth is we got back together and Mick flew down, we all met, and Jeff said, “I want to do this, but I’m committed to Foreigner for two years.” And I said, “Two years? That’s the last of that.”
I couldn’t sit around waiting for two years, so that’s the truth. I know George posted all this shit that I held it up and I wanted too much money, and he didn’t want to be a hired gun and all that. I don’t know why George does all that stuff. There’s something wrong with that guy between the ears. He’s always been a little weird. Someone asked me when we started not getting along, and I said, “It wasn’t toward the middle. We didn’t get along from the day he joined the band.” He’s two different people, man. I mean, we played a couple of shows with him this summer, and he’s always nice to me, saying, “How are you doing, Don?” I said, “You know what George? You’re always, ‘Hi, hi. How are you doing?’ And then the very next day you talk shit about me on the Internet. What the f**k is that all about? Why do you keep this up?” And if you say something, he’ll lie. Just tell the truth. Practice what you preach. The truth will set you free. He’s just a different personality. I don’t hate. I don’t worry about it. And I gave up trying to defend myself on the Internet a long time ago. You get a guy, he goes to the show and then he blogs, “I saw Dokken and they sucked.” I just say to people like that, “Well, that’s your opinion, and don’t skimp on the avocado. If you think you can do better, here’s the microphone. Knock yourself out.”
The “Monsters of Rock Tour” in 1988 is such an epochal moment in heavy metal history. What was the most memorable moment for you?
DD: There were a lot of memories. It was the highlight of our careers. It was a tragedy, too, because we didn’t get to do another album, and we were going to go on a world tour, because we’d gotten to that level. We could have taken on the whole world … We couldn’t get to the stage without a helicopter bringing all the musicians in, and I remember the first day I thought I was going to throw up because we’re in this helicopter, and I see helicopters flying over the field and you see a hundred thousand people, and I was just going, “Oh, my God. This is the dream I’ve had my whole life.” I was so scared, you know. Even though we’d toured most the year, we were going up against Metallica, Scorpions, Aerosmith … man, we’d better step up to the plate. That was a lot of pressure on us, but it was a highlight just flying over that and seeing all those people and seeing my name up there on a 50-foot banner, it was pretty exciting.
Did it feel competitive, like everybody was trying to outdo one another?
DD: No, I didn’t feel any competition. It was really interesting, that tour. I thought there were going to be orgies going on backstage, like it had always been. I thought, “Well, a hundred thousand people, how many girls are going to be backstage? 300, you know?” But the truth was, by the time we got to it, I had kids, everybody had kids, everybody was married … Eddie had Valerie Bertinelli. And everybody had their wives. Backstage, it was really pretty chill, just barbequing, you had the catering, and you’d be barbequing steak one day and there were just kids and family around. There was no groupie stuff going on; it was really just chill backstage, just really low-key. It wasn’t what I expected, just a blowout going on every day. I mean, there were still drugs flying around pretty heavy on that tour. The road crews were under a lot of pressure, because they had to set up this massive amount of equipment, and I know we had 10, 15 semi-trucks – a pretty big operation. And I saw a lot of road crews who would be there one day and gone the next because they had just burned out on drugs and drinking and stuff. They’d let the pressure get to them. 
Were there things about that tour that you enjoyed and other aspects of it that you didn’t?
DD: Well, the worst part of it was going on after Metallica. I mean, we had the same manager [Cliff Burnstein] and even though we were making more money than them, and we were supposedly more famous, I kept saying, “Can you put them on after us, because they are kicking our ass.” I mean, they were. It’s pretty hard to go onstage and sing “In My Dreams” after they’d just closed with “Kill Them All.”
That is tough.
DD: It’s a different energy level. I learned a lot from Metallica, man, because I think we were getting complacent. We toured with Aerosmith that year, and all these other bands, like Judas Priest. I mean, we were on the road for 18 months, and we were really tired at the end. But, we were getting kudos, and we were doing really well, and then, all of a sudden … Metallica just had this attitude like, “Every show is our last show.” They just went out there, and they would slay it. People would rush the stage, and I think we were caught up in the rock star thing, where we said, “We’re Dokken, we’re cool, don’t worry about it.” And I kept saying to the boys, “We’ve got to step up our game a little bit, because we’re getting our butts kicked.” That was my opinion. And that was when we were finished.
Do you have any memorabilia from that era that’s special to you?
DD: I gave all my stage clothes and everything away in the last 15 years to charity. The only thing I have left that’s worth something is the sequined, velvet, long trench coat I wore in “Dream Warriors.” I had that custom made jacket with all these sparkly things on it that I wore for “Dream Warriors.” And I still have it. I tried to put it on about a month ago, and it doesn’t fit. I must have been a little skinnier. I tried to get my arms through it and I ripped it. I was about 30 pounds lighter, you know. So, I’ve still got that and I don’t know what to do with it. The Hard Rock [Café] wanted it. They wanted to do a Freddy Krueger/Dokken thing at the Hard Rock, but I thought maybe it’d be better to give it to a Cancer auction or something like that so the money can go to cancer research. I like doing that. The last show of this tour is a cancer fundraiser, and then I’m going to Washington D.C. in November to do concert in Washington that’s being put together called “Fallen Blue” [Nov. 10 at the Recher Theatre in Towson, Maryland] for officers that have been killed in the line of duty. I like doing those things to pay it forward. When anybody asks me to go to Fort Bragg or to go do a concert to play for the troops or to play for Iraq [War] veterans who’ve just gotten back I like to do it. We don’t get paid. It’s not about the money. It’s about paying it forward.
And you’re a big contributor to the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.
DD: Yeah, I mean, you what happened, how I got involved in that was unfortunately through a tragedy in my own family. My brother had a beautiful daughter, Michelle, and I loved her dearly. We used to take care of her a lot. She went to school right across the street from my house, and she’d hang out with her uncle Don. And she contracted cancer at 8 and passed away. And so, when I was going to the hospital to see her, and we were all there hoping she’d make it, I started seeing all these kids, you know. And I just thought they needed some cheering up. So that’s when I started donating my money and time. I spent Christmas Eve there. I spent Thanksgiving. I’d eaten cafeteria food at the hospital, no thanks to them, because I didn’t think the food was very good. So I would go to and buy turkeys and a bunch of dressing, pies – and I just put it in the back of a truck and hauled all this food down to the hospital, this awesome gourmet food for the kids and they got a kick out of it. And I gave them all Dokken stuff.
They must have loved it.
DD: Yeah, we had wheelchair races, and the nurses hated me. They’d say, “You can’t be doing that. These kids have got cystic fibrosis, and it could kill them.” I’d say, “Look, they’re dying already.” I mean, they were terminal, so what do you mean? I mean, Jesus, let’s have some fun. It’s a tough thing. It’s depressing. I would take a couple of my rock-star buddies along, down to the hospital, and they lasted about a half an hour, because it’s very hard. You’ve got to a have a … it’s hard. It’s sad. To be around 40 kids and you know they’re all terminal, it’s hard. And sometimes you’d go next year, and a couple of them would still be there, and I’d be like, “Awesome! You’re still here.”
Back in the early ‘80s, you approached both George and Jeff about being in the band, and you had this record deal in place [with Carrere Records, the German label that first released Breaking the Chains]. Why was it so important to you to get those two onboard?
DD: Well, actually, you know, Juan was the original bass player. Juan and I toured Germany in 1979 together as a three-piece. Juan Croucier [known more for being in Ratt] was the bass player, and if you look back on Breaking the Chains, Juan was on there, because that was before Jeff’s time. But, we had the same problems. Juan is a really mellow, nice guy, and he didn’t get along with George either. My skin was thicker, but Juan was like, “God, man. This guy is always complaining. He’s always just fighting with everything we want to do and get going. He’s just fighting us all the way.” And George quit the band, I think, probably three or four times the first year and a half. He was quitting like every other month, or at least every two months. I mean, Warren DeMartini replaced him for a while, and I wanted to keep Warren, and then Juan was playing with Warren, and Ratt was starting to get popular. And then when the LP came out, Juan just said, “I can’t play with George.”
And unfortunately, when he left, like two days later, we had an offer to do the Blue Oyster Cult tour, our first arena tour. We had no bass player. So I called Mike Barney, and he said, “There’s this guy, Jeff Pilson. He’s a singer and bass player.” And he was playing in some little bar with this chick singer, and he was just playing bass, doing like “Little Red Corvette.” And I went down and auditioned him, and that was it. I was desperate to get a bass player, and that’s how Jeff got in the band. Jeff got lucky. He was literally playing in a bar called the Shot of Gold for like 20 people, playing like Prince and we were going on tour in literally … we were making the video in like five days and touring in two weeks. I mean, we needed a bass player like right now. And we just grabbed him. He was in the right place at the right time. I didn’t know the guy.
What was the biggest difference between Breaking the Chains and Tooth and Nail? Did you sense that Dokken had taken a big leap forward?
DD: Well, we had to. Breaking the Chains came out. “Breaking the Chains” was one of the most requested songs in the country and nobody bought the record. The record stiffed. They call it a “passive hit” – like, “Yeah, I love that song. Buy the record? No.” Loved the song, didn’t buy the record. So the record company wanted to drop us, and I said, “Well, I guess it’s over.” The album only sold a hundred thousand copies, which these days would be a success. Back then, it was a dismal failure. And we basically – my managers and me – begged the label to give us one more chance. And that’s why I came up with the title Tooth and Nail. I said, “Boys, this is it. Tooth and nail. If we don’t bring it on this next album …”
When I met George to join Dokken, he was driving the Gallo Wines truck, driving Gallo Wine to liquor stores. And that’s the truth. He was driving, and he got kicked out of his house, he was living in the back of his car, and he was making a living driving Gallo Wine to liquor stores. So they had nothing going on. I had a record deal and no band. Went to Germany, got my record deal, and I always liked Mick. I thought he was an awesome drummer, I liked seeing him play in The Boyz, and Mick kept saying, “Why don’t you get George in the band?” And I said, “Well, I’m the guitar player, really. I’m the guitar player and the singer.” The manager said, “We think you should put the guitar down and front the band,” because when you’re playing guitar, you’re kind of stuck on the mic. And they wanted me to move off the mic. So, I thought, “Okay, George is a great guitar player. We’ll try it.” Unfortunately, it started out on the wrong foot and never got back on the right foot.
It’s amazing you made it as long as you did.
DD: Well, my manager said to me … he was the most famous manager in the country; he was with Metallica, Tesla, Queensryche – you name it. Cliff Burnstein is the like the guru of all managers. I remember him saying to me – and actually, the first band he ever signed, an American band, was us. Def Leppard and that was it. His partner was handling them in England, and Cliff’s first band to pick up was us before all those bands. I was with him the night he went to The Troubadour to see Metallica [in 1984], to pick them up [for Elektra Records and Q-Prime Management]. But, he said to me, “Don, you guys are famous despite yourselves.”   
With the state of the music industry, what are your hopes for Dokken going forward
DD: Well, you know, we’re in that strange situation – like everybody is – where you don’t make your living off selling records anymore. You make your living off touring, because nobody sells records anymore. Metallica is not selling 10 million records like they used to, or a hundred million, like the Black Album. Those days are gone because the Internet came along and changed everything. Napster changed the world. I was really proud of Lars [Ulrich] that he actually went to Congress and fought to get this thing stopped. People had this attitude like, “Well, what do you care? You’re making millions of dollars. What’s the big deal if a person downloads music for free?” Well, if you make a painting and spend 11 months on it, you pay for your brushes and you pay for it with your sweat and blood, and you go sell it to pay the bills, and the art gallery sells it to somebody sitting outside the art gallery and made 500 copies of it and posters of the painting, you’d be pissed. It’s your art. It’s your art!
This attitude of kids going, “Well, I’m not going to spend 10 bucks, even though it’s a bad copy and it sounds like shit, I’ll just download it for nothing” … Lars fought to stop that, and I respect him for it. And so now, it’s just touring. You have to tour. And somebody said, “Why are you making a new record?” It’s because it’s my love, it’s my passion. I don’t think painters or artists paint to make a living. If they make a living it’s a bonus, but they do it because they love to paint. If you can make money at it, that’s great. I never got into this business to get rich or to live in mansions. That wasn’t the point. I was a musician. My mom was a musician, my father was a musician, my brother’s a musician, my daughter is 25 and a classically trained pianist – it just runs in our blood, you know. It’s our family.

* Photo by Devin DeHaven