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QUEENSRYCHE Chemical Rebellion

Back to the Shaboo

NEW YORK DOLLS Back in the Jungle

NICKELBACK Other Side Up

DASHBOARD CONFESSIONAL The Dashing Blade

WHITESNAKE Here We Go Again

EXCLUSIVE

AC/DC - THE LIFE, THE TIME, THE METAL & MORE...

Cover shot: Arnaud Durleux

AEROSMITH

THE RETURN OF

THE MAG WITHOUT FEAR a r t c o u r r t e s y : w w w. l o r e n z o s p e r l o n g a . c o m

W W W. B U R N O N L I N E . C O . U K

THE MAG WITHOUT FEAR

✮ FREE WITH PLANET ROCK MAGAZINE F O R A L I M I T E D T I M E O N LY

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN DIRTY DEEDS...

This would appear to be as good a place as any for an introduction on the subject of a Planet Rock Magazine.

What you see before you right now is a small slice of the pie we’re about to put on the table. As is the case with the radio station itself, we shall be doing rather a lot of veering. Veering from the sixties right through to today and tomorrow - all you need to do is sit back and lick it up. Ultimately, you might find some new music, maybe you’ll rediscover something or have an epiphany.

To come back to the point for a moment, this digital magazine is but a morsel of what is to come.

The idea is not to prove it can be done, but rather to introduce you to the concept of an exclusively digital magazine. Will it be as hard to walk away from paper as it was from vinyl? That question is still open for debate but it will be a lot easier to read it at work than a regular magazine, that’s for sure. Loving things from the past is one thing, but are you so intent on keeping the past alive that you drive an Austin Maxi? No... we didn’t think so.

The basic ideal behind Planet Rock as a magazine is to entertain and inform as a magazine should. However, it’s about time somebody took the magazine concept and breathed some life back into it. At it’s best, it can be a beautiful art form and the advancing digital technology now allows us to do more within that field.

What’s more, we must never be so concerned with hustling out issue after issue for the sake of it. It’s a medium that speaks volumes to people - not just with its content, but its style of delivery, its pictures and its subjects. The damn thing should have a soul, not a bottom line.

So if you like what you see and are up for the long haul, you can subscribe right now for a paltry £12 for the whole year by filling in some boxes and clicking a few buttons.

Alternatively, if you’re the more cautious type (maybe a - gasp - pop music fan) you can go issue by issue for £1.50. Both of these options are available by clicking right here.

We think those deeds are quite cheap.

DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP | 1976 The title comes from a character called Dishonest John - from the cartoon Beany and Cecil - who carried about his person a business card that read: “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. Holidays, Sundays and Special Rates.”

Contents 06 ACDC The life, the time, the metal

14 ACDC Tribute One man’s dream

18 Feeder Alive

20 Aerosmith Back to the shaboo

26 Live Love shines on

29 Heavy F**king Metal A head bangers journey

32 Nickelback Other side up

36 Monsters of Rock Big and loud

40 Dashboard Confessional Dashing blade

46 New York Dolls Back in the jungle

50 Download 2006

feature: ACDC - The Life, The Time, The Metal

Old but new

56 Def Leppard Rock, rock till you drop

Produced by Dark Hollow www.darkhollow.co.uk Tel: 0845 6434984 Email: info@darkhollow.co.uk Editor Sion Smith sion@darkhollow.co.uk Deputy Editor JJ Haggar jj@darkhollow.co.uk Artwork & Design John Paul Richards jp@darkhollow.co.uk Research Tony Porter tony@darkhollow.co.uk Š Dark Hollow 2008

AC/DC is an Australian hard rock band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1973 by brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, they developed the idea for the band's name after seeing the acronym "AC/DC" on the back of a sewing machine owned by their older sister, Margaret Young. "AC/DC" is an abbreviation for "alternating current/direct current", which indicates that the electricity is being converted from alternating current (wall outlet) to direct current (sewing machine).

Early years: 1973–1974 In November 1973, Malcolm and Angus Young formed AC/DC and recruited bassist Larry Van Kriedt, vocalist Dave Evans, and drummer Colin Burgess. The band played their first gig at a club named Chequers in Sydney on New Year's Eve, 1973. They were later signed to the EMI-distributed Albert Productions label for Australia and New Zealand. The early line-up of the band changed often. By this time, Angus Young had adopted his characteristic school uniform stage outfit.

The brothers felt that this name symbolised the band's raw energy, power-driven performances, and a love for their music. "AC/DC" is pronounced one letter at a time, though the band is popularly known as "Acca Dacca" in Australia.

Brothers Angus, Malcolm, and George Young were born in Glasgow, Scotland, and moved to Sydney, Australia with most of their family in 1963. George was the first to learn to play the guitar. He became a member of The Easybeats, Australia's most successful band of the 1960s. In 1966, they became the first local rock act to have an international hit, with the song "Friday on My Mind".

High Voltage had been recorded. It took only ten days and was based on instrumental songs written by the Young brothers, with lyrics added by Scott.

Within a few months, the band's line-up had stabilised, featuring Scott, the Young brothers, bassist Mark Evans and drummer Phil Rudd.

Later that year they released the single "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)", which became their perennial rock anthem. It was included on their second album, T.N.T., which was also released only in Australia and New Zealand. The album featured another classic song, "High Voltage".

Between 1974 and 1977, aided by regular appearances on Molly Meldrum's Countdown, a nationally broadcast pop music television show, AC/DC became one of the most popular and successful acts in Australia.

The original uniform was reputedly from his secondary school, Ashfield Boys High School in Sydney; the idea was his sister Margaret's. Angus had tried other costumes, such as Spider-Man, Zorro, a gorilla, and a parody of Superman, named Super-Ang.

The Bon Scott era: 1974-1980 In September 1974, Bon Scott replaced Dave Evans. The band had recorded only one single with Evans, the song in question "Can I Sit Next to You" was eventually re-recorded with Bon Scott under the title "Can I Sit Next to You Girl".

By January 1975, the Australia-only album

International success: 1977–1980 In 1976, the band signed an international deal with Atlantic Records, and toured extensively throughout Europe. They gained invaluable experience of the stadium circuit, supporting leading hard rock acts such as Aerosmith, Kiss, Styx and Blue Öyster Cult, and co-headlined with Cheap Trick.

The first AC/DC album to gain worldwide distribution was a 1976 compilation of tracks taken from the High Voltage and T.N.T. LPs. Also titled High Voltage, and released on the Atlantic Records label, the album sold three million copies worldwide, partly due to its popularity with a British punk audience. The track

selection was heavily weighted toward the more recent T.N.T., and included only two songs from their first LP. The band's next album, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, was released in the same year in both Australian-only and international versions, like its predecessor. Track listings varied worldwide, and the international version of the album also featured "Rocker" from T.N.T. The original Australian version included "Jailbreak" (now more readily available on the 1984 compilation EP '74 Jailbreak or as a live version on the 1992 Live album). Dirty Deeds was not released in the US until 1981.

the debut of bassist Cliff Williams, and with its harder riffs, followed the blueprint set by Let There Be Rock. Only one single was released for Powerage, "Rock 'n' Roll Damnation" and gave AC/DC the highest mark at the time, reaching #24 on the UK charts & Their appearance on the BBC show ‘Top Of The pops’ was to be a landmark moment and brought the band a whole new audience.

An appearance at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow during the Powerage tour was recorded and released as If You Want Blood You've Got It, featuring such songs as "Whole Lotta Rosie", "Problem Child", and "Let There Be Rock", as well as lesserknown album tracks like "Riff Raff". The album was the last produced by Harry Vanda and George Young.

The band's sixth album, Highway to Hell, was produced by Robert Lange and released in 1979. It became the first AC/DC LP to break into the US top 100, eventually reaching #17, and it propelled AC/DC into the top ranks of hard rock acts. Highway to Hell put increased emphasis on backing vocals but still featured AC/DC's signature sound: loud, simple, pounding riffs and grooving backbeats.

Scott's death: 1980

Following the 1977 recording Let There Be Rock, bassist Mark Evans was replaced

by Cliff Williams, who also provided backing vocals alongside Malcolm Young.

Neither of the Young brothers has elaborated on the departure of Evans.

AC/DC's first American exposure was through the Michigan radio station AM 600 WTAC in 1977. The station's manager, Peter C. Cavanaugh, booked the band to play at Flint's Capitol Theater.

The supporting act was MC5, who had just briefly reunited and agreed to play at the event. The band opened with their popular song "Live Wire" and closed with "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)" AC/DC came to be identified with the punk rock movement by the British press.

Their reputation, however, managed to survive the punk upheavals of the late 1970s, and they maintained a cult following in the UK throughout this time.

Angus Young gained notoriety for mooning the audience during live performances.

The 1978 release of Powerage marked

On 19 February 1980, Bon Scott passed out after a night of heavy drinking in London, and was in a car owned by an acquaintance named Alistair Kinnear. The following morning, Kinnear rushed him to King's College Hospital in Camberwell, where Scott was pronounced dead on arrival. The official cause was listed as

"acute alcohol poisoning" and "death by misadventure". Scott's family buried him in Fremantle, Western Australia, the area to which they had emigrated when he was a child.

The Brian Johnson era: 1980present Following Scott's death, the band eventually concluded, that Scott would have wanted AC/DC to continue, and various candidates were considered for his replacement. The remaining AC/DC members finally decided on ex-Geordie

singer Brian Johnson.

Angus Young later recalled, "I remember Bon playing me Little Richard, and then telling me the story of when he saw Brian singing." He says about that night, "There's this guy up there screaming at the top of his lungs and then the next thing you know he hits the deck. He's on the floor, rolling around and screaming. I thought it was great, and then to top it off—you couldn't get a better encore— they came in and wheeled the guy off!'"

Later that night, Johnson would be diagnosed with appendicitis, which was the cause of his writhing around on stage.

For the audition, according to sources Johnson sang "Whole Lotta Rosie" and Ike & Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits". He was hired a few days after the audition.

With Brian Johnson the band completed the album Back in Black. Recording took place at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas a few months after Scott's death. Back in Black, produced by Mutt Lange and recorded by Tony Platt, became their biggest-selling album and a hard-rock landmark; hits include "Hells Bells", "You Shook Me All Night Long", and the title track "Back in Black". The album was certified platinum a year after its release, and by 2006 it had sold more than 22 million copies in the United States. The album reached #1 in the UK and #4 in the US, where it spent 131 weeks in the top ten, making it the fifth highest-selling album ever in the US. The follow-up album, 1981's For Those About to Rock We Salute You, also sold well and was positively received by critics.

The album featured two of the band's most popular singles: "Let's Get It Up" and the title track, "For Those About to Rock", which reached #13 and #15 in the UK, respectively. The band split with Lange for their self-produced 1983 album, Flick of the Switch, to recover the rawness and simplicity of their early albums.

Drummer Phil Rudd left the band.

Although Rudd had finished most of the drum tracks for their next album, he was replaced by Simon Wright after the band

held an anonymous audition. With the new line-up, the band released their next album, the self-produced Flick of the Switch, The album eventually reached #4 on the UK charts, and AC/DC had success with the singles "Nervous Shakedown" and "Flick of the Switch".

Fly on the Wall, produced by the Young brothers in 1985, was quickly followed. A music concept video of the same name featured the band at a bar, playing five of the album's ten songs.

In 1986, the group returned with the made-for-radio "Who Made Who". The album Who Made Who was the soundtrack to Stephen King's film Maximum Overdrive, and is the closest the band has come to releasing a "greatest hits" collection, which AC/DC have always refused to do. It brought together older hits, such as "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Ride On", with

Following the tour, Simon Wright left the group and was replaced by session veteran Chris Slade. Johnson was unavailable for several, so the Young brothers wrote all the songs for the next album, a practice they have continued for all subsequent releases. The new album, The Razors Edge, was produced by Bruce Fairbairn, who had previously worked with Aerosmith and Bon Jovi.

Released in 1990, it was a major album for the band, and included the hits "Thunderstruck" and "Are You Ready", which reached #5 and #16 respectively on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart, and "Moneytalks", which peaked at #23 on the Billboard Hot 100.The album, went multi-platinum and reached the US top ten. Several shows on the Razors Edge tour were recorded as footage for the 1992 live album, entitled Live which was produced by Fairbairn, and is considered one of the best live albums of the 1990s.

A year later, AC/DC recorded "Big Gun" for the soundtrack of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Last Action Hero, and was released as a single, reaching #1 on the US Mainstream Rock chart, the band's first #1 single on that chart.

newer songs such as title track and two new instrumentals, "D.T." and "Chase the Ace".

In February 1988, AC/DC were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association's Hall of Fame.

AC/DC's 1988 album, Blow Up Your Video, was recorded at Miraval Studio in Le Val, France, and reunited the band with their original producers, Harry Vanda and George Young. The group recorded nineteen songs, choosing ten for the final release; it was a commercial success. Blow Up Your Video reached #2 on the UK charts—AC/DC's highest position since Back in Black in 1980.

The album featured the UK top-twenty single "Heatseeker", and popular songs such as "That's the Way I Wanna Rock and Roll". The Blow Up Your Video World Tour began in February 1988, in Perth, Australia. That April, following live appearances across Europe, Malcolm Young announced that he was taking time off from touring. Another member of the Young family, Stevie Young, temporarily took Malcolm's place.

Madrid in 1996. Stiff Upper Lip reached #1 in five countries, including Argentina and Germany; #2 in three countries, Spain, France and Switzerland; #3 in Australia; #5 in Canada and Portugal; and #7 in Norway, the US and Hungary.

The first single, "Stiff Upper Lip", remained at #1 on the US Mainstream Rock charts for four weeks. The other

In 1994, Angus and Malcolm invited Phil Rudd to several jam sessions. He was eventually rehired to replace Slade, whose amicable departure arose in part due to the band's strong desire to again work with Rudd. In 1995, with the 1980—83 line-up back together, the group released Ballbreaker, recorded at the Ocean Way Studios in Los Angeles, California, and produced by Rick Rubin.

The first single from the album was "Hard as a Rock". Two more singles were released from the album: "Hail Caesar" and "Cover You in Oil".

In 1997, a box set named Bonfire was released. It contained four albums; a remastered version of Back in Black; Volts (a disc with alternate takes, outtakes, and stray live cuts) and two live albums, Live from the Atlantic Studios was recorded in 1978 at the Atlantic Studios in New York.

Let There Be Rock: The Movie was a double album recorded in 1979 at The Pavillon in Paris, and was the soundtrack of a motion picture, AC/DC: Let There Be Rock. The US version of the box set included a colour booklet, a two-sided poster, a sticker, a temporary tattoo, a keychain bottle opener, and a guitar pick.

The New Century: 2000–2008 In 2000, the band released their fourteenth studio album, Stiff Upper Lip, produced by George Young. The Australian release included a bonus disc with three promotional videos and several live performances recorded in

singles released also did very well; "Safe in New York City" and "Satellite Blues" reached #31 and #7 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks, respectively.

In 2002, AC/DC signed a long-term, multi-album deal with Sony Music, who went on to release a series of remastered albums as part of their AC/DC remasters series. Each release contained an expanded booklet, featuring rare photographs, memorabilia, and notes. In 2003, the entire back-catalogue (except Ballbreaker and Stiff Upper Lip) was remastered and re-released. Ballbreaker was eventually re-released in October 2005; Stiff Upper Lip was later rereleased in April 2007.

On 30 July 2003 the band performed with The Rolling Stones and Rush at Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto. The concert, held before an audience of half a million. The concert holds the record for the largest paid music event in North American history. The band came second in a list of Australia's highest-earning entertainers for 2005, and sixth for 2006, despite having neither toured since 2003 nor released an album since 2000.

In 2005, the Recording Industry Association of America upgraded the group's US sales figures from 63 million to 69 million, making AC/DC the fifthbest-selling band in US history and the tenth best selling artist, selling more albums than Madonna, Mariah Carey and Michael Jackson, just to name a few. The RIAA also certified Back in Black as double Diamond (twenty million) in US sales, and by 2007 the album had sold 22 million copies, which moved it into fifth place.

On 16 October 2007, Columbia Records released a double and triple DVD titled Plug Me In. The set consists of 5 and 7 hours of rare footage, and even a recording of AC/DC at a high school performing "School Days", "T.N.T.", "She's Got Balls", and "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll)". As with Family Jewels, disc one contains rare shows of the band with Bon Scott, and disc two is about the Brian Johnson era.

The collector's edition contains an extra DVD with 21 more rare performances of both Scott and Johnson and more interviews.

AC/DC will make their music rhythm video game debut with Rock Band 2 as "Let There Be Rock" was announced to be playable on the game's setlist.

Verizon Wireless has gained the rights to release AC/DC's full albums and the entire Live at Donington concert to download in 2008.

No Bull: The Directors Cut, a newly edited, comprehensive Blu-Ray of the band's July 1996 Plaza De Toros de las Ventas concert in Madrid, Spain, was released on 9 September 2008.

Black Ice: 2008 "Black Ice," the first full-length studio album of all-new material from AC/DC since the release of "Stiff Upper Lip" in 2000, is the band's debut recording for Columbia Records

Track Listing: 1. Rock ’n Roll Train 2. Skies On Fire 3. Big Jack 4. Anything Goes 5. War Machine 6. Smash N Grab 7. Spoilin’ For A Fight 8. Wheels 9. Decibel 10. Stormy May Day 11. She Likes Rock N Roll 12. Money Made 13. Rock N Roll Dream 14. Rocking All The Way 15. Black Ice

BLACK

ICE

"Black Ice," the first full-length studio album of all-new material from AC/DC since the release of "Stiff Upper Lip" in 2000, is the band's debut recording for Columbia Records TRACK LISTING: 1. Rock ’n Roll Train 2. Skies On Fire 3. Big Jack 4. Anything Goes 5. War Machine 6. Smash N Grab 7. Spoilin’ For A Fight 8. Wheels

9. Decibel 10. Stormy May Day 11. She Likes Rock N Roll 12. Money Made 13. Rock N Roll Dream 14. Rocking All The Way 15. Black Ice

AC/DC DISCOGRAPHY 1974 - High Voltage (Australia) Baby, Please Don't Go / She's Got Balls / Little Lover / Stick Around / Soul Stripper / You Ain't Got A Hold On Me / Love Song / Show Business

1983 - Flick of the Switch Rising Power / This House Is on Fire / Flick of the Switch / Nervous Shakedown / Landslide / Guns for Hire / Deep in the Hole / Bedlam in Belgium / Badlands / Brain Shake

1975 - TNT It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll) / Rock 'N' Roll Singer / The Jack / Live Wire / T.N.T. / Rocker / Can I Sit Next to You Girl / High Voltage / School Days

1985 - Fly on the Wall Fly on the Wall / Shake Your Foundations / First Blood / Danger / Sink the Pink / Playing with Girls / Stand Up / Hell or High Water / Back in Business / Send for the Man

1976 - High Voltage It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n' Roll) / Rock 'n' Roll Singer / The Jack / Live Wire / T.N.T. / Can I Sit Next to You Girl / Little Lover / She's Got Balls / High Voltage

1986 - Who Made Who Who Made Who / You Shook Me All Night Long / D.T. / Sink the Pink / Ride On / Hells Bells / Shake Your Foundations / Chase the Ace / For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)

1976 - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap / Love at First Feel / Big Balls / Rocker / Problem Child / There's Gonna Be Some Rockin' / Ain't No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire) / Ride On / Squealer

1988 - Blow Up Your Video Heatseeker / That's the Way I Wanna Rock & Roll / Mean Streak / Go Zone / Kissin' Dynamite / Nick of Time / Some Sin for Nuthin' / Ruff Stuff / Two's Up / This Means War

1977 - Let There Be Rock Go Down / Dog Eat Dog / Let There Be Rock / Bad Boy Boogie / Problem Child / Overdose / Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be / Whole Lotta Rosie

1990 - The Razor's Edge Thunderstruck / Fire Your Guns / Moneytalks / The Razors Edge / Mistress for Christmas / Rock Your Heart Out / Are You Ready / Got You by the Balls / Shot of Love / Let's Make It / Goodbye and Good Riddance to Bad Luck / If You Dare

1978 - Powerage Rock 'n' Roll Damnation / Down Payment Blues / Gimme a Bullet / Riff Raff / Sin City / What's Next to the Moon / Gone Shootin' / Up to My Neck in You / Kicked in the Teeth 1978 - If You Want Blood You've Got It Riff Raff / Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be / Bad Boy Boogie / The Jack / Problem Child / Whole Lotta Rosie / Rock 'N' Roll Damnation / High Voltage / Let There Be Rock / Rocker 1979 - Highway to Hell Highway to Hell / Girls Got Rhythm / Walk All Over You / Touch Too Much / Beating Around the Bush / Shot Down in Flames / Get It Hot / If You Want Blood (You've Got It) / Love Hungry Man / Night Prowler 1980 - Back in Black Hells Bells / Shoot to Thrill / What Do You Do for Money Honey / Givin the Dog a Bone / Let Me Put My Love into You / Back in Black / You Shook Me All Night Long / Have a Drink on Me / Shake a Leg / Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution 1981 - For Those About to Rock We Salute You For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) / I Put the Finger on You / Let's Get It Up / Inject the Venom / Snowballed / Evil Walks / C.O.D. / Breaking the Rules / Night of the Long Knives / Spellbound

1992 - AC/DC Live Thunderstruck / Shoot to Thrill / Back in Black / Who Made Who / Heatseeker / The Jack / Moneytalks / Hells Bells / Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap / Whole Lotta Rosie / You Shook Me All Night Long / Highway to Hell / T.N.T. / For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) 1995 - Ballbreaker Hard as a Rock / Cover You in Oil / The Furor / Boogie Man / The Honey Roll / Burnin' Alive / Hail Caesar / Love Bomb / Caught with Your Pants Down / Whiskey on the Rocks / Ballbreaker 2000 - Stiff Upper Lip Stiff Upper Lip / Meltdown / House of Jazz / Hold Me Back / Safe in New York City / Can't Stand Still / Can't Stop Rock 'N' Roll / Satellite Blues / Damned / Come and Get It / All Screwed Up / Give It Up 2008 - Black Ice Rock 'N Roll Train / Skies on Fire / Big Jack / Anything Goes / War Machine / Smash 'N' Grab / Spoilin' for a Fight / Wheels / Decibel / Stormy May Day / She Likes Rock 'N' Roll / Money Made / Rock 'N' Roll Dream / Rocking All the Way / Black Ice

No Bull (Director's Cut) Writer: El Bicho

For those about to rock, AC/DC’s No Bull is a great place to start. Recorded live at the Plaza De Toros De Las Ventas bullfighting arena in Madrid, Spain, the DVD captures the band in the midst of their 1996 world tour in support of Ballbreaker, the album that featured the return of Phil Rudd to the drums. Director David Mallet was disappointed with the previous video release, which was rushed out that same year.

Although why is not made clear, this new director’s cut won’t leave any fan disappointed.

AC/DC is an authentic rock ‘n’ roll band. They don’t receive the same recognition as their contemporaries because they weren’t trendsetters, but they epitomize the idiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” You can trace what they do back to the 1950s.

The music is louder and faster, but they are using the same template, singing about girls and rebellion. Even Angus’ duck walk is a nod back to his idol Chuck Berry who had a similar strut around the stage.

The concert opens with a wrecking ball knocking down a building on stage. Then Angus, clad in his traditional schoolboy uniform, runs out, and he and the band start playing the opening of “Back in Black.” I was surprised to see them start which such a classic song, but it makes clear immediately that the band is ready to have a rockin’ good time.

Brian Johnson’s vocals are stunning because it’s baffling that he can sing — no, make that scream — with such ferocity throughout the night. Most people would surely damage their vocal chords. What is most appreciated

by AC/DC fans is that unlike some lead singers who are afraid of comparisons to earlier incarnations of their band, Johnson isn’t put off or intimidated

by AC/DC’s history, so even though his tenure with the band is twice as long as previous singer Bon Scott, the setlist is filled with almost equal amounts of their material.

The star of AC/DC is Angus, who is always a spectacle to watch perform. It’s amazing that he can run all over and flail around yet continue to play the guitar so well. “Let There Be Rock” closes out the main set and during it he takes off backstage and zooms

away on a golf cart to appear at the other end of the arena where a disc awaits to raise him up in front of those in the cheap seats.

He returns to the main stage playing whilst riding on top of Johnson’s shoulders. Then later he runs up stairwells as his guitar sets off fireworks.

During the bluesy rocker “Boogie Man,” Angus goes on extended solo while the rhythm section plays along. It is here that he performs his traditional striptease to the crowd’s encouragement and delight. They have enthusiastically been into the concert from the get-go, more than happy to sing-along when required on songs like “Thunderstruck,” “The Jack,” “Whole Lotta Rosie,” and “T.N.T.” It is impressive to see so many on their feet and bouncing along to the music.

As the encore begins, the wrecking ball crashes to the stage. A cage rises from the crash containing a horned Angus and the band goes into their classic “Highway to Hell.” The evening is capped off with a rendition of “For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)” complete with cannons firing.

The 5.1 mix will shake your foundation as the music sounds very crisp and clear. Out the front center speaker is mainly Johnson’s vocal but Angus’ guitar appears during solos. The band pumps out the right and left front speakers and the low end sounds great pumping out the subwoofer.

Crowd ambiance comes out of the surround speakers and puts the listener right in the middle of the show. It’s perfect to disturb your parents and neighbors.

Bonus features include “Anguscam” versions of four songs that focus on Angus playing, so you get to see him in action throughout a song. There are rare tour performances of “Cover You In Oil” from Sweden intercut with video of scantily clad female mechanics getting covered in oil and “Down Payment Blues” from Florida. They weren’t recorded in high def or presented in 5.1, but are worth seeing.

If you don’t have a good time watching No Bull, you might be incapable of having a good time. http://elbichoshive.blogspot.com/

November 2008 2nd: 6pm: The Set List: Queen In Concert 9th: 6pm: My Planet Rocks: Queen Interviewed 16th: 6pm: The Cosmos Rocks: Track By Track 30th: 6pm: Classic Album Special: A Night At The Opera Photo: www.rockarchive.com

Well, if this was Hollywood and Jack Black was hosting maybe - but this was in Wrexham in North Wales. Everything in the above story happened, except for the money and Brian turning up...

Yet, the weekend worked to an effect and twelve months later, they did it again This time it was Big Ball II - “The Second Coming”. The now legendary event was bigger, making it a show to remember with ThundHerStruck, SeedyDC, Action In DC, Hole Full Of Love, Hells Balls and Bon’s Balls reform especially for the event, Hayseed Dixie, Back in Black and more.

As with any great rock event the whole weekend was hosted by none other than the legend that is Steve Krusher Joule. Once again the fans that came from UK, Europe, America and Australia had an amazing time. Friendships were forged in steel, memories were etched in minds forever.

As all things tend to come in three’s, one year on - yes you guessed it - Big Ball III “Highway to Wrecks `Em 2006”. Once again, we saw the return of the now infamous Big Ball stage, a replica of AC/DC’s touring stage from the Back In Black era, plus 17 bands along with DJ’s, aftershow parties, films, record fairs, guitar workshops, seminars, book signings and of course.. plenty of madness onstage with Krusher!

SATURDAY One day gone, two days left. I’ve overdosed on guitar workshops and air guitar competitions during the day. On the main stage, we had the cream of AC/DC tribute bands including Volts (from Scotland), closely followed by Germany’s Hole Full of Love, who, to be fair, weren’t half bad. Just nothing special.

Unlike fellow country-women, the lovely Hells Belles whose passion for the music of AC/DC was evident as they worked the crowd into a frenzy. These girls know how to Rock n Roll and then some!

Headliners for Saturday night were Dirty DC and they certainly know their shit. They were the most technically proficient of all the bands on the bill today. The stage show was awesome and choice of songs perfect - everything from “The Jack” to “Stiff Upper Lip”.

This is the closest thing to seeing the current AC/DC line-up on stage that we’re likely to get. They really are that good!

The show climaxed with the ‘Brian Johnson’ look- and sound-alike singer joining the crowd with ‘Angus Young’ on his shoulders - still playing. People make super-human efforts with the strangest of things.

The set was perfect including such early classics as Jailbreak ’74 and Overdose with stand out track of the day - and the closest DC ever came to a ballad - the stunning Ride On. A perfect way to end an excellent weekend of AC/DC inspired music.

Far too tired to even make the effort to attend tonight’s aftershow - must try harder next year!

Friday saw four bands, Saturday, six and Sunday seven! Running full tilt from the word go, this was a weekend to remember, but in the aftermath and for all the wrong reasons. Bands that played included The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Bonfire, Sunday was the Classic Rock day. Use Your Illusion, Hi-On Maiden, Motorheadache, Rainbow Rising!

Was it a bad weekend? Check out this review from Burn Magazine in 2006: PLANET ROCK MAGAZINE • ISSUE ONE

SUNDAY The final band to grace the main stage this year were the second band to have the moniker Bonfire As you can guess from the title, they are an AC/DC tribute band who play only Bon Scott songs - and boy are they good. Totally nailing the early DC sound with the Bon look-alike singer looking so damn like the original that it was uncanny!

OCTOBER 2008: So the bands played on and all the AC/DC tribute bands made this an amazing event, but the ‘Classic Rock’ day was the sore thumb.

This is perhaps where the whole event went sideways. It’s easy in retrospect to look at things and it became obvious that this was no longer just an ‘AC/DC’ convention, it had become a ‘Classic Rock’ convention. It was a bridge too far • W W W. P L A N E T R O C K . C O M

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for many, including main promoter Andy Whitfield. I caught up with Andy to find out two years on what went wrong and how he now feels: “The Big Ball was an insane, but great idea. The kind you think up in a pub. A weekend of AC/DC tribute bands, on a replica tour stage, with an enormous PA and a bar that never closed. What more could we have needed...

“In retrospect, after going bust and the dust settling on the last one, it was a fantastic and life changing experience for us all. Something I think, never before attempted on a scale such as this and created by fans rather than a record company.

“I never once thought it would become as big as it did when I started running with the idea, but I don’t regret it one bit. It cost me a lot of money but I’d do it all again.

People often stop me or drop emails to ask if there’ll ever be another one - we’ll see, never say never!

It would have been great to have

seen it break even financially and become a regular event.

“I discovered AC/DC when I was about 12 back in the late seventies.

A friend played me ‘Big Balls’ and that was it. The music took me prisoner! I’ve loved them ever since.

Ironic then, that 25 years later I’d be running an event with the same name as that first track! (I think you’ll find that’s called fate not irony, but I’ll let you off. Ed) “You can never deny the wave of energy that emanates from the speakers when you put AC/ DC on the turntable. The solid no nonsense pounding drive of Malc, Phil and Cliff/Mark is unmistakeable. Listen to the live version of ‘Let There Be Rock’ from the Madrid show. Angus disappears under the stage only to re-appear halfway down the venue to take the solo, while the rhythm section just lay it down. It always thrills me that stripped down sound. No frills, nuts and bolts rock n roll. Very primal and extremely brutal! When I was

bassist with SeedyDC, the Welsh tribute (no, we didn’t sing in Welsh) and event hosts, that sound was the inspiration.

Each Big Ball took about a year to put together and during the run up to the first one I met Viv Griffiths and Ann Marie Kerin, who became partners with me and were invaluable in making it the success it was. Viv gained some highly original artwork and several sponsors, which helped immensely.

Ann Marie had the connections to advertise and promote the event worldwide. She single-handedly created a huge community on the website forum, which generated over 400,000 hits on the run up to the last one.

We’ve made some amazing friends through doing it. Hayseed Dixie, who have taken the UK and Europe by storm over the last few years, always call when they pass by to say hello and help drink the fridge dry. In fact, my current band `The Loving Cup` opened for them

earlier this year, on a couple of their UK dates on the last tour.

Don Wayne even got up and jammed with us on our version of Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’.

“Having Krusher on board as event MC, made it for me before it had even begun.

I’d been aware of him since my teens, when his name kept cropping up in Kerrang! magazine and on album covers.

Top geezer, we still keep in touch. Then we found out that Dave Lights (Iron Maiden’s lighting designer) had not only designed the stage lighting, but was actually working the desk!

He came in with Prism, the staging company. Eddie Marsh, a mate of Krusher`s, also worked with Iron Maiden and he became the stage manager.

“It all began to feel like a mini Monsters Of Rock festival!

“All of the bands were good, but some were absolutely incredible and had the whole look and sound off to a ‘T’.

Everyone keeps asking me who was the best Angus and I’d have to say hands down.

Simon, from DirtyDC - he has all the chops and is the image of Angus too, you can’t beat that. Brian? That would have to be Daz, from Back In Black, the Geordie AC/DC, he has the voice (the accent is a given) and the stance.

“The best Bon, without a doubt, was Sean from an American band, Bonfire (LA).

When he appeared backstage prior to his performance I went cold. He was the image of him, even had the blacked out tooth!

When they took the stage, some of the diehard German fans were stunned.

“Seeing Paddel (Patrick Fahlenbach - the guy in the bandana on the opening titles of `Stiff Upper Lip`) almost in tears, meant it was a job well done. We’d had approval from the hardest critics in the world!

“Even after all this, I still can’t wait for the new album. It’s been seven years now and the fans are beyond desperate for some new material. I just hope it’s not the last album - I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The cost to Andy can’t really be calculated. Sure it almost cost him financial ruin, but apart from his wealth, it also affected his heath and mindset but that’s the way I want my rock n’ roll. Passion, commitment, loud and proud with Big Balls.

If Jack Black is reading this, you know it would make a great film dude. Why not make the ultimate Christmas Rock n’ Roll film - Snow Ball!

The fact that both Andy and Viv will be first in line come Monday 20th October to buy Black Ice and certainly will move the earth to get tickets to the live shows in 2009, is living proof that the greatest rock n roll band in the world has the greatest rock n’ roll fans in the world.

This was a Tribute.

We Salute You.

ALIVE! FEEDER

19 OCTOBER 2008 WILLIAM ASTON HALL WREXHAM, NORTH WALES Let’s get one thing straight, WAH is a venue (William Aston Hall) not a support act and I have to say I was not looking forward to re-visiting as previous gigs there have not been exactly great, but I need not have worried because this was also a rebirth of a venue.

To the matter in hand. I have to say that Feeder are the perfect choice to be here tonight. They are a rock band who straddle the scene. You’ll find them in Kerrang!, NME, and Q appealing to a wide variety of listeners and this is evident in the audience tonight. It’s a demographic nightmare and that’s such a good thing because it proves that age, creed, colour, standing, lifestyle matter not when it comes to music.

Feeder released their latest single Tracing Lines/Silent Cry this August on Echo, making it their 31st single release for the label! It’s one of the best songs they have ever recorded and could slip onto the previously released best of with ease. When asked about the track, frontman Grant had this to say: “That’s still a rock song, but it was important to me to have a couple of poppier tracks on the album. There were already quite a lot of anthemic tracks on there and an album needs to reflect the fact that every day is different in your life. Every day isn’t a great big grand event. That would be too much to digest and it wouldn’t feel right. Those songs are like little escapes to break it up.

That’s also quite a big part of what we are as a band, with that slight turn towards pop here and there.”

Unlike the majority of bands, Feeder have stayed with the same record company since they started and have even seen out their contract. They’ve sold 4.5 million records since they signed, and as this huge tour in support of their latest album ‘Silent Cry’ testifies, are still one of the biggest names in British rock music.

saying this is my view of how I feel and what’s happened to us and the people around me. It’s observational I suppose. Maybe that’s from being a parent. I’m not trying to be boring but that does make me feel differently about things and there’s definitely been a lot happening in the world since I started writing this record. I think that’s affected me a little bit.”

This album also takes the band to a new level. While Feeder’s lyrics have always been intensely personal and inspired by real-life happening to real people, Grant takes that a step further on this album, using the personal as a way to mirror the turbulent world around him without ever confronting issues aggressively or forcing the record to turn into a political statement. “I didn’t want to feel like I was trying to preach to anybody but I have touched on issues a bit more on this,” he explains. “I’m just

From the arresting call to arms that is opener We Are The People to the stirring, brooding Heads Held High, Silent Cry is all the more powerful for its subtlety, for its refusal to make sweeping statements or obvious assertions. Its focus remains on the personal and private, on how the wider world impacts Grant’s - or indeed our own – life.

Miss You is one such song that interweaves an individual life with the wider world, written after Grant simply read the newspaper one day.

ALIVE!

“I suppose it’s like an urban love song about a relationship that’s gone really stale,” he says. “There was a lot of stuff around in the news at the time about the youth of today, knife crime etc, so it was inspired about someone who lived in that environment who’s going through that trauma, but is also aware of what’s happening outside.

But everyone’s dealt with loss in some ways and so I’ve put my own experience in there too, even though I don’t live in that situation. It’s quite an angry song, but it is a love song too and I wanted to it to have a real youthfulness and energy to it.”

So meanwhile back at the gig tonight in Wrexham, Feeder are Welsh, so to have them re-open the new chapter in a venue in the town that’s considered as the ‘Capital Of The North’ seems apt, we arrive early to see a couple of forgettable support acts, but at 9:45 the venue is plunged into darkness and we are blinded by white light and get the opener Feeling A Moment and we certainly felt it and from this moment on for an hour, Feeder rock Wrexham to bed and deliver one of

the best concerts ever seen in the town.

They take everything to such a level that I felt like I was in a city venue, not a town. The production was fantastic, the sound sublime and you only have to look at the photo’s to see the quality of the lighting, it was a combination that worked, Grant did not say much, but when you have songs as good as Buck Rogers and my personal fave High then the music does all the talking.

Praise has to go to the new promoter at this venue for getting everything right, but without the right band, the right crowd it can be a shallow effort, tonight it all worked on every level and I look forward to returning to WAH for future instalments.

As for Feeder, the first thing I did Monday morning was get tickets for three more gigs on their upcoming UK tour.

Proper Rock For Proper People!

JJ

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live www.friendsoflive.com

Love Shin 040

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How Live have managed to slip under the radar of the mainstream media for what is the best part of ten years remains one of life’s great mysteries to those who have been inaugurated into the fold. With a body of work that would shame most bands into submission, Live return to the UK with their latest opus and, well… here we go…

es ON Words: Sion Smith

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If you’ve any history at all with the band Live, you might imagine Ed Kowalczyk to be some kind of tripped out fuck if you’ve been judging the man and the band on their lyrical stance for the past 12 years. Nothing could be further from the truth though and though I never expected somebody quite SO down to earth, that’s exactly what I got. Quietly spoken and yet, firm in every single answer he makes, we gel very early on (which isn’t always the case believe me), so much so that the interview slot we were given wasn’t even half as long as we could have gone for, but for now… on with the show: “I’m really proud of the new album. I think it shows another dimension to the band that we’ve not brought out before”, Ed states.

I’m in agreement. Although as pointed out in the review last issue, some albums you’re going to love before they’re even released, but Songs from Black Mountain is a little bit different in many ways. The band seem a lot more relaxed and able to settle into a groove with this one – almost like there’s nothing to prove, for a short time at least, they’re able to kick back and stomp about the earth their hearts on their sleeves.

“I think that’s a fair assumption. With the release of Awake, (the greatest hits compilation, or whatever you want to call it), it was the first time since we started the band that I was actually able to put a landmark point on something but also look back at what we’ve achieved over those years because when you’re in a band the years seem to merge on you and it’s not until you stop at a point like that, that you’re able to see clearly”.

Thank the Gods then that the band ended their previous record contract with a compilation rather than a break, which as we all know, has been the death of many a rock machine.

“Not even on the cards man, but yeah, we’re a lot more relaxed at the moment – we’re really looking forward to playing in the UK…” Yeah – about that. For a band that has never really been taken on board as a flagship rock band in the purest sense of the term, they have a unbelievably intense following. I see it worked out like this. First there was Mental Jewelry which pretty much skipped across everybody’s radar. Then came the diamond studded Throwing Copper (eight times platinum!) which drew in what we’ll call the ‘loyal’ who proceeded to tell everyone they knew about their discovery (and man, do us rockheads like discovering things for the first time!). Thus, the bands fate was sealed with a great album.

Following on from that, Secret Samhedi was the album that separated the men from the boys... is it reasonable to say that Samhedi was the album that you really found yourself as a lyricist – or even as a band member who was comfortable to put his soul on the line as opposed to just his thoughts?

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live www.friendsoflive.com “There were things going on in my life and in the band that made me into a slightly different person than I was when we started out. It scared a lot of people off that album! I’m not sure why because to us it was just a logical extension of where we had been before”.

Among the peer group I was with, the response was the same. It seemed to be mostly those who liked to get plastered at a Live show and shout for the song Shit Town all the way through the set that left the band behind, but the subsequent album just got better and better – until, for me at least, they released the best album of their career in the shape of Birds of Pray.

“I felt like I’d hit a persona high with that album - it was a culmination of many things coming together for us as well”.

Throughout the interview, Ed nearly always refers to anything to do with the band as being so - and by that I mean he is always aware that this isn’t just about him, and that’s quite unusual. As a unit in the public eye, they have always been a band too rather than Ed and some other guys, although it’s Ed most are familiar with by the very nature of the business.

“We never really had to be put through that crappy machine where one of the band gets singled out as being the one in charge. It started to happen when Throwing Copper came out, but we backed right off from it and we’ve

been framed as a band ever since - and to be honest with you, I’m so thankful for that.

“It’s a dumb game that’s pointless playing. It’s not what we ever wanted to be and the fans are very accepting - and sometimes I think, very thankful for that. We’re here to make music and not much else!”

Can we touch on the spirituality aspect of the lyrics for a moment?

“Sure”.

You appear to be coming from an angle of a universal GodMind, sorry - I don’t think I just have made that phrase up!

“Y’know it’s hard for anybody to integrate themselves with the world as a kid, as a teenager and also as an adult. I take what I need from what I find. There are good things about the teachings of many religions, there are also great things about knowledge that isn’t affiliated to any religion and it’s all equally valid.

It’s there to be used and as the world gets smaller and access to information and teachers is better than it’s ever been, the pool of knowledge to draw on is huge.

I don’t see why, as men, we should box ourselves away from good things. Like I was saying before, we’re not a band to write lyrics about our antics on the road and we’ve completely managed to appear as a band rather than Ed and some other guys for many years now - in fact I think everyone has given up on trying to single me out as a frontman.

“Although there’s a lot of personal spirituality in our lyrics, particulalry from myself, it’s more about pushing consciousness, allowing people to investigate more of themselves and putting forward a very positive world view.

“We came away from maybe delivering that in such a full on way a little bit with Birds [of Pray]. I realised that whatever the world goes through, be it war or whatever, it keeps moving on and so does everybody in it.”

Safe to say that having two daughters helps to colour that view? I’ve got two as well and I never realised just how selfish I was until they turned up!

“Man you got that right! One day there I was happily going about the business of Ed and the next day, somebody else had taken over all my emotions! It’s certainly life changing to the point where you forget who that other person you used to be was after a time. You come to realise that all the things you thought were important aren’t - you get completely restructured by it”.

“You know, some of the critics out there thought we would lose our fan base by shifting the lyrical tone, but it wasn’t like that at all. The great thing about the fans of this band is that they move with us. They let us say what we have to say and they’re able to say their own thing too. It’s a two way street. We’re not on a pedastal where you can’t touch us, it’s really more like an extended family.

“With Songs from Black Mountain, we’re really cementing that relationship - we’re still in the same frame of mind that we’ve always been in which essentially to deliver great songs and be the best band that we can. We don’t so much change as evolve - with our ‘on the road’ album [Samadhi I presume], where a lot of bands lay out their ‘coming home stories’ we dealt with by bringing a different frame of mind in and so it’s always continued with us. I tend to tell stories as to where my head is at rather than where my body happens to be.”

With this new album about to be released globally over the coming weeks, the future is looking as positive as it ever did. Black Mountain will be picked up by the loyal and over the following months will filter out as always by word of mouth to more and more followers. As discussed earlier, their trip to the UK will be met with some serious anticipation.

Bring it on!

sed of performing LIVE's finalist Chris Daughtry was accu On season 5 of American Idol, This angered some LIVE own. his it g the Line” and callin rendition of Johnny Cash's “I Walk ition, even saying LIVE rend acknowledged it was not his own fans, but one week later Daughtry ard Stern Show and How The on ared appe LIVE May 2006, was one of his favorite bands. In e call. “He's since phon onal pers gave Daughtry a addressed this issue. Ed Kowalczyk a great guy.” and r singe t grea a ally actu s “He' Ed. apologized profusely to me,” said a lot of things in the said: “It wasn't my doing. You say In a later inter view, Chris Daughtry time constraints. I for out ng gets involved, things get cut [pretaped] inter view, and when editi I totally respect. band a from on versi rent diffe a I'm doing did mention in my inter view that a lot since. It's ng talki been e We'v ’ , don't listen to that.

Ed Kowalczyk, called me to say, ‘Man into music. Ed Kowalczyk get to me ired insp that band the really cool for me, because that's cool to get that kind of respect.” is my favorite singer. It was really the season finale of Daughtry performed “Mystery” on Chris On May 24, 2006, the band and American Idol.

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metal: a headbangers journey

HEAVY FUCKIN METAL Mike Shaw talks to Sam Dunn, presenter and director of awesome documentary, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.

Forget Morgan Spurlock, the hottest new documentary maker is an unassuming Canadian named Sam Dunn. Along with Scot McFadyen, he has produced the year’s most exhilarating doc – and it’s all about metal.

Following the genre from its very beginnings, and with interviews from all of the movement’s major players, Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey is an absolute necessity for anyone with even a passing interest in heavy guitars and the vigorous banging of heads, and if not – what the hell are you doing reading this mag?!

Beginning with an argument over who can truly claim to be the first metal band, and taking in pretty much everything, from metal’s

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relationship to opera, the use of the devil’s tritone, the infamous court cases of the 80s, and more than a little hero worship, it’s an epic production. But did it feel that way while making it?

“It was a long, long road,” says Sam Dunn. “It was about five and a half years, from the point of conception of the idea. It took us about three years to raise the funding because we were firsttime filmmakers taking on a pretty ambitious subject matter, so it took a while to wrangle the funds together. Once we had the funds, it was about two years for the research, writing, shooting and the editing of the film.”

And you drew the short straw and ended up presenting it?

“Yeah – I ended up being ‘the dude in the film’,” he laughs. “The interesting thing in this collaboration between Scot McFadyen (codirector) and I, is that I grew up listening to this

sort of music, but Scot is not a metalhead. I mean, he’s a fan of music, and has worked as a music supervisor for a long time, so I think that between us we were able to have the insider and the outsider perspective. Which is something we tried to balance in the film.”

Was it hard not going too far down the fanboy route?

“Yes and no. That was the balance we were trying to strike,” he explains. “The film was a personal journey that was obviously fuelled with passion and all of those good things, and on the other hand I had to bring in the anthropological angle. I think that it really speaks of the collaborative process that Scot was always there to keep me in check if we were heading down the nerd path too hard, and steer us back on, and remind me that we don’t need to obsess about the British grindcore movement for 20 minutes. It was by virtue of that kind of collaboration that enabled us to maintain some kind of objectivity. Scott acted as the other side of my psyche.”

When watching Metal, it doesn’t feel like your standard documentary. It’s bigger in scope and bigger in feel than many other films of its type – certainly rock docs. Was there a moment when the production suddenly felt bigger than planned?

“It happened fairly early on in the writing process,” Dunn says, “but it took us a while to figure out that it had the potential. Originally it was going to be a much more conventional, historical documentary about heavy metal, and we were thinking of getting Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden to narrate, and it would be more of a look back.

“As we threw the idea around and talked about it, we realised we needed something that would bring people in from the outside, because we didn’t just want to make a film for metal fans.”

He continues: “If we’d done that, it would have turned into a TV project. The combination of a personal journey and the anthropological angle was something we felt would bring in more people, and we felt we had more of a story on our hands, rather than just a history. w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k | B U R N M A G A Z I N E

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metal: a headbangers journey “Our intention with the film is to convert as many as possible,” he says, tongue-in-cheek… I think.

It’s clear from the outset of the film that Dunn is a massive Iron Maiden fan, and that getting to meet Bruce Dickinson in the process of shooting was a major thing for him - which is cool, I think we can all relate to that - but was there anyone else who made an impression?

“Well meeting Bruce Dickinson was obviously massive for me because Maiden are my all-time favourite band,” he reiterates, “but Tony Iommi was amazing. That was for a few reasons – the obvious reason is, he pretty much singlehandedly created this guitar sound that became defined as the ‘heavy metal sound’ and played such a huge role. Secondly, he was just great with us – gave us plenty of his time and he was really gracious and friendly with us, which made it easy. Thirdly, that interview with Tony came quite late in our production, right at the end, and there were a few key interviews we felt we still needed. One was Lemmy, and one was Tony Iommi, and they both came together towards the end, and once we had Tony and were driving away from that country manor where we interviewed him, we felt like: ‘Yes. We’ve got it now. We can make a film about metal, that covers all our bases.’

It speaks volumes for the film, that the makers chose to go after the likes of true metal heroes like Iommi, rather than taking the easy option of just grabbing Ozzy and letting him ramble on.

“Yeah. Tony has a bit more to say,” Dunn agrees. “Our intention and motivation was to create a film that was smart and that gave the music the respect we felt it has always deserved. It was really just a matter of asking the right people the right questions.

“Growing up it felt like most of my metal friends were pretty articulate people, it wasn’t like they were always walking round smashing beer cans on their foreheads, which is the standard portrayal. Interviewing Tony instead of Ozzy is a sign of how we wanted to approach the film.”

This articulacy is something that is evident throughout the piece. Interviewees like Rob

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Zombie, Ronnie James Dio and Dee Snider bring up very valid and pertinent points, which is not something the average fan necessarily expects.

“Yeah, I agree. I honestly feel it was about framing it all in the right way. Most musicians,

particularly in the metal world, are just used to answering pretty superficial and mundane questions like, ‘how’s the new album coming along’, ‘how’s the tour’, ‘tell me about your craziest moment on stage dude.’ Those are the kinds of questions they’re used to fielding, and we were coming at them from an angle of the history of the music and the themes of the music, and what it means to people and why it is obsessed with all these bizarre things. Once we got going with the interviews, most of the artists began to open up and it was an opportunity to talk about things that they don’t usually get to talk about.”

In a world with such rabid fans, there was bound to be some complaining along the lines of ‘Boo hoo, Manowar weren’t featured enough,’ and the internet is certainly testament to that, with a variety of forums praising and decrying the film in equal measures for its choice of

subjects. Has Dunn personally encountered any of these complaints?

“Oooooohhhh yes,” he says with a chuckle.

“The great thing about making the film is that we’ve had the chance to travel to dozens of film festivals around the world, and wherever you go, the fans that love this music and are passionate about it always have their opinions about which bands were omitted, and who we didn’t spend enough time on – but that’s what makes metal music so important special, people care so much. It’s part of how they grow up and become their own person, so it has a lot of personal resonance.”

How have you answered those more critical fans?

“Our intention with creating the heavy metal family tree (check the film out, or go to www.metalhistory.com) was hopefully a way for us to at least touch on all of the different movements and the different bands. We knew we weren’t going to have interviews with everyone, but the tree was kind of a way to go ‘okay, we can tick Megadeth off the list’.”

As the film progresses, proceedings take a darker turn as Dunn investigates the world of black metal and the more questionable exercises that some exponents practice – church burning for example. One section sees the director travel to Norway to chat face to face with some of the guys involved. It’s slightly uneasy viewing in places, was Dunn intimidated at all?

“Well, to start with, I’m a huge fan of a lot of the black metal bands,” he explains, “and because I owned a lot of the music, and the bands and I communicated by email, there was a sense of camaraderie, and of trust, and that we could talk about these issues. So, it wasn’t so much a matter of being intimidated by them at all, because they’re really nice guys. It was more about being surprised, because when we wrote the treatment we expected the bands to distance themselves from those events – that’s what we were expecting to get, but we were surprised in one or two situations to find that some of the artists actually support the church

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metal: a headbangers journey

burning, or, if they don’t necessarily support it there is an underlying sense of resentment towards Christianity that stretches back a long, long time. That is something that is very real in their culture, and that was often the case with some of the bands we interviewed there.

“When we came back and started editing, we were like ‘Wow. Religion is really important to these people, and has had a huge influence on their society,’ so we wanted to reflect that in the movie” Another of the more notorious scenes in the movie takes place at the Wacken festival, when the filmmakers catch up with Norwegian metallers Mayhem. It’s not an overexaggeration to say that they were dicks. Were they really that obnoxious, or did they just turn it on when the cameras started rolling?

“They were actually pretty obnoxious,” says Dunn. “But I will say, I’ve met them in Norway and I’ve talked with other band members on

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different occasions, and they’re actually pretty nice guys – it’s not like they’re out to control the world. In the context of that interview, they’d just got off stage after playing to 40,000 people and they’d obviously been drinking most of the day, so I don’t think they were particularly interested in doing an interview. All of those factors combined with the fact that there were 30-40 people standing behind me watching the interview, so it was like they were still performing. As an interviewer your goal is to establish some kind of intimacy, but clearly… we failed.

What about current, more populist bands – are there any that grab Dunn’s attention?

“I’m not a huge fan of metal-core, emo-core, eyeliner-core, whatever,” he explains. “Metal is not supposed to be cute, and when it becomes cute, it becomes wrong. These bands begin to tread that fine line between being too commercial and staying underground.”

Dunn continues: “If people are discovering Coheed and Cambria or Slipknot or Avenged Sevenfold, and are then discovering the Black Sabbaths and Iron Maidens and Slayers, then I think that’s good. Who am I to judge that?

That’s how I got into the music. It’s like we say in the movie, with Van Halen and Motley Crue, before it was Morbid Angel and Creator, I mean, c’mon, you don’t start at step five. As long as that more populist music is providing a gateway into the core of metal, then that’s a good thing.”

So the more traditional idea of metal is still alive and thriving?

“Yeah, I think now’s a really exciting time for metal,” he says. “A lot of people think metal is just about nostalgia and that it died in the 80s, and that was another myth we were trying to debunk in the film. Metal is underground, that’s where it comes from, and it’s always gonna survive. Right now what’s great is that loads of bands that have been toiling away in the underground for a long time are now starting to get some recognition. Bands like Arch Enemy, Mastadon, Lamb of God, Children of Bodom, so many of these bands are really starting to make their way, and it’s really positive for metal because it’s not like Linkin Park where you can handpick your heavy metal boyband. These bands are the real thing, and that’s what metal fans really appreciate and they deserve it. It feels like 20 years ago, and I see parallels between what was happening then and what’s happening now.”

The exuberance with which Sam Dunn talks about his film, his band at home and his next movie idea is a reflection of his love of the music. Metal: A Headbanger’ Journey isn’t a plea to the wider world for understanding, it’s just an attempt to shine a light on a greatly misunderstood medium, and if the haters still don’t get it, then that’s fine. As Dunn himself says at the film’s close: “We’re doing just fine without you.”

If you’re interested, you can check out Dunn’s own band, Burn to Black at www.burntoblack.com and www.myspace.com/burntoblack.

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live nickelback www.friendsoflive.com

OTHER

SIDE

UP

Words: Andy Lye

NICKELBACK’S LATEST ALBUM ALL THE RIGHT REASONS SHOULD BE SOUNDLY INGRAINED IN YOUR BRAIN

BY NOW, HAVING BEEN

OUT FOR A GOOD NINE MONTHS...

At the time, lead guitarist Ryan Peake and new drummer Daniel Adair sat down to discuss a few things with us at their rather flash hotel in central London. Why should you care nine months after the album came out? Because we didn’t talk about the album itself. We talked about the band. Its members. What goes in. What goes out.

What happens around a new album. And what happens in between.

Most interviews follow a pretty rigid question-answer-question-answer structure for about 20 minutes. This time we found that we just had three-way-conversations about various Nickelback-related topics.

We’d move on to another topic, and just talk about it. Cups of tea and coffee even arrived half way through. This was not a business operation. So that’s how it’s going to be delivered.

Just three of the topics of conversation, script fashion. It’s absolutely the best way for this to go. Pulling statements out and writing around them would lose a lot of the humour and information discussed, just to apply a bit more narrative. While that’s normally preferable, it’s not here, and you’ll understand why in about 15 minutes time.

And it never hurts to read something a little different from time to time. Read on!

DANIEL AND SHIT DA: I’ve known these guys since ’98 or ’99, something like that. I worked in a music 050

store and sold a bass to Mike (Kroeger). I knew the tour manager and I lent them the guitar they used in the video for “Too Bad”.

RP: Oh, so that’s where we got it from!

DA: And they smashed the shit out of it. So I got in shit because it was like “didn’t you even charge these guys!? That’s like a $3500 guitar!”. So I said “well, you know, they’re a huge band and some favours might trickle downhill” RP: It sounded like shit too.

DA: Yeah, they didn’t even plug it in!

FAMILY TOURING I’ve been told, and I don’t know if it’s right, that you take your families on tour with you.

RP: Yeah, that’s right.

How does that work? I mean, what do your families get up to? How about the kids’ schooling?

RP: My kids aren’t old enough. I’ve got like a two-year-old and four-month-old at the moment, and Mike has a four-year-old and a two-year-old.

DA: And dogs!

RP: Yeah, and dogs. A big retriever that poops a lot. But year, we’re fortunate enough when touring that we can each get a bus. That makes life easier for everybody in all aspects. We don’t step on each others’ toes.

DA: I don’t have my own bus!

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nickelback It’d be very lonely on your bus.

DA: It’d suck. Half the time it’s about the time you spend together on the tour, you know, the fun times in between. Maybe I could just have your dog on my bus.

RP: You can have my dog’s ass for sure. But we can stay on the road longer, right?

Presumably that’s something that’s going to have to change when the kids get older.

RP: Well, touring’s going to have to change. If we bring everybody on tour we can stay as long as we want. It doesn’t matter.

My wife’s job she can do on the internet and computers and whatnot. Shit, I think I move every two years too. I gotta stop doing that!

When the kids get old enough they’ll be at school no longer than a year. I don’t wanna be like that.

DA: He keeps making money on his houses because of the values of real estate. He knows what he’s doing!

Shorter tours on the cards then?

RP: Maybe break it up a little. Do two weeks here, go back for a bit. It’s really hard to manage that properly because that’s not really effective touring.

You know, if you go out for two weeks, then take a week off, you’re not going to let your whole crew go for that week, or not pay them.

The same with the buses. You don’t send them back to Toronto then bring then come back to Vancouver, or wherever the heck we’re at.

Rental of gear. You could do it. It’s just silly!

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WHEN NICKELBACK AREN’T NICKELBACK DA: I have a band back home called Martone.

But I barely ever get to play with them anymore! It’s an instrumental, progressive, fusion kind of shred-fest band, lots of odd times.

The star in the band is a guy called Dave Martone, who’s a Berkley graduate, a Parker guitar endorsee.

RP: He’s pretty OK. DA: Wooooo, yeah! He’s smokin’. We just released a DVD, and got a couple of albums out. The DVD is of the one show we’ve played in five years, because I’m never home anymore.

Dave tours and teaches masterclasses, stuff like that.

But when I go home and actually have a couple of months off we’ll go right into the studio and try and write a bunch of stuff. That’s my super-creative outlet. The type of people that are gonna buy it are actually gonna understand it. We’re not looking for radio play or anything. It’s just a real creative kind of thing. And I have a puppy now, and that’s a pain in the ass!

RP: Uummm. What do I do? That’s my other life.

DA: Mr Mom. RP: Yes, I used to come home and do a lot of carpentry and woodwork type stuff. I’ve got kids now, and it’s nuts! But it’s better!

The cool thing is I come home and I take the kids camping. My wife has started a clothing line, which kind of parallels to this industry a bit, but it’s kind of a better scenario.

She takes independent designers and to each of them she basically says “listen, I’m gonna be the company, I wanna feature you”. She initially did it because we were going to the Canadian Music Awards and the Grammys and whatnot and she wanted something to wear.

So she found designers that made stuff that she liked, that were making like two or three pieces a month to sell to pay the rent. But they’re really interesting.

And she said “can you custom make stuff like this” and they did it, and she was like “why aren’t you out there, bringing your art to the World?”

DA: It’s like artists trying to get a record deal.

RP: Yeah, just trying to get to the next level and hoping someday somebody notices me and says “I like it!” It’s one of the scenarios in any job where everybody says “I can do this and I can

“WE’RE NOT TRYING TO BE A LABEL AND KEEP THEM FOR 40, 50, 90 YEARS...

DO I SOUND JADED?”

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make this happen and I can put this together”, and then you just sit back and whatever.

So we said “well, why don’t you do that? Let’s just do it”. So she did it. She’s started this company that features these artists where basically we don’t sign them on to contracts.

Where some people do, like record labels, where it’s almost like an assignment.

We’re just building these people up and if their name gets built up, the company’s called Obakki, so it’s just “Dave Wallace by Obakki”, “Genevieve Graham by Obakki”. So our name’s being built up and so is theirs’. But if they wanna take off and go to design for somebody else we just say “Good luck”. And we’ll get B U R N M A G A Z I N E | w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k

somebody else.

DA: Like giving them the springboard.

RP: Everybody wins. We’re not trying to be a label and keep them for 40, 50, 90 years. Do I sound jaded? But it’s fair for everybody. We don’t go out to India or China and get stuff that’s super, super cheap for them to work with.

That’s also something I do outside the band.

My wife’s big into charity, like, that helps build orphanages and health care centres and computer schools teaching skills to people that don’t have the opportunity and educate kids.

That’s my short answer.

DA: Thanks for condensing that.

RP: You’re welcome.

See what I mean? There’s no way a three-way conversation would have flowed in a regular ‘article’ style. And by approaching it this way, the guys have been able to share a different side of the band. What goes on around them.

Because it’s not often we get that from a band.

Back stage and on tour, yes, but the rest?

They’ll have done a hundred other interviews this year talking about the songs, the recording, the shows. But if you can do something different once in a while, for them and for us, won’t everything just get a bit repetitive and over-done? Speaking of repetitive, not one mention of “How You Remind Me” either. Not bad huh?

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Monsters of Rock The long defunct Monsters of Rock festival has returned from the dead, after spending a couple of years as a touring arena-based affair, and looks set to get better and better. From amongst the loser-kids who think kicking the rubbish around is entertainment, the idiots who left all their belongings in piles on the floor 10 feet from the stage and got annoyed when it was trodden on, the horrendously inflated prices of various things (£1.50 per donut? £10 for a horribly dated-looking programme?) and the sun-burnt, balding, middle-aged, fat men languishing without shirts on, here’s the lowdown on his year’s event. The bad bits were bad, but Dear God the good were awesome!

Words: Andy Lye ✪ Live Pics: Chiaki Nozu

ROADSTAR Having the unenviable task of opening a bill packed with legends as a largely unheard of act, the rising UK support act turned in another solid, if unremarkable performance.

Fortunate to be selected recently for support slots with The Darkness, Queensrÿche and Thunder, and with new album The Grand Hotel recently released, the time was right to give a couple of new songs an airing amongst established live favourites from their Get This EP made under their former moniker of Hurricane Party.

New cuts ‘Let’s Get It Started’ and ‘Ready To Go’ had similar themes but featured typically grooving rock riffs and solos, slotting in nicely between classics ‘Last Survivor ’ (criminally left off of the new album), ‘Roadstar’ and raucous opener ‘Killer’. Still far more powerful live than on said album, they’re destined to be one of those English bands that makes their name working the live circuit. I noticed several people wander off and return with copies of the new CD, so it must be working.

Monster: hair-dos TED NUGENT Very easy to sum up: awesome guitar player, rubbish singer and doesn’t shut the hell up. Half the words he says aren’t even real damn words. He spends half the time making noises between guitar licks. That’s not a rock show. The title “Monsters of Rock” obviously held great amusement and novelty for Uncle Ted as well, because he kept repeating it, or some variation of it, more than anything else. Set wise it was a pretty standard affair, with the aggressive ‘KLSTRPHKME’ from Craveman being the pick of the bunch. ‘Cat Scratch Fever’ is sounding increasingly tired and dated these days, but ‘Stranglehold’ is still an awesome grooving rock song.

Possibly not the “coolest guitar lick ever”, as Ted likes to profess, but it is cool. If he shut up every once in a while and played a few more of them he might come across even better. Bring on Damnocracy, when it’s only Sebastian Bach’s chatter we’ll have to deal with as Ted will be on lead guitar duties with Scott Ian. After seeing his playing here, I can’t wait!

Monster: mouth QUEENSRŸCHE The perfect example of a great band letting themselves down in a big way. As Lacuna Coil told us last month, festivals are all about an exchange of energy with the audience in a short time. You need to be quick-fire in your approach.

Consequently Queensrÿche’s decision to play four songs apiece from the two concept records, Operation: Mindcrime I and II was a very bad idea. It’s all well and good playing the concept records when you’ve got a twohour show in an arena full of your own fans, but when

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Monsters of Rock you’re playing for 45 minutes to a crowd that’s probably only 10% your fans, the theatrics and storyline elements are going to just fly over their heads.

Playing a set of classics from the other albums (maybe with a key cut from Mindcrime I and the latest single from Mindcrime II) would have been a far better idea and endeared them to far more people. Unfortunately, their set never got moving, and Thunder were about to show the Seattle heroes how it’s done.

Monster: Let down.

THUNDER By severe contrast UK rockers Thunder had the masses eating out of their collective hands from the get-go. Later on Alice and Deep Purple didn’t need to try; they’re the ones we all came to see, but Thunder nearly equalled the pair of headlining legends for energy, crowdparticipation and impact.

Thoroughly putting Nugent and ‘rÿche to shame, they stormed through a set of high-energy, good time songs, pausing only to deliver the result from the international football friendly between England and Jamaica.

Sticking mostly to established hits like ‘Love Walked In’, ‘Dirty Love’ and ‘River of Pain’ was possibly a little on the boring side for the devoted fans who travelled to see them, but mixed with three new songs from latest album ‘The Magnificent Seventh’ probably suited the occasion best, potentially winning them many new listeners.

Monster: impact JOURNEY Pretentiously being flown in by helicopter during Ted Nugent’s set (and flown out again during Alice Cooper’s), Journey did nothing to get the hard-rock faithful on their side before they even hit the stage.

When they did, several things were obvious. Guitarist Neal Schon is excellent, and it’s no wonder he wanted to make heavier music with the short-lived Soul SirkUS. Drummer Deen Castronovo is likewise a superb player and has lost none of the power heard on such records as Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzmosis. Lastly, singer Steve Augeri is a very high-energy performer, similar in many respects to Thunder ’s Danny Bowes, and could not be accused of not giving the show his all.

The problem was down to none of these, or either of the other two members. The problem was the songs.

They make Bon Jovi sound like Norwegian death metal. Even Journey fans were later commenting “too many girly songs”. Too wimpy even for Journey fans? I think that practically makes them Busted.

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Monsters of Rock ALICE COOPER If anyone could recover the day from the abject wimpiness of Journey it was Uncle Alice. The set was jam-packed with classics, but the beauty of Alice’s catalogue is that he has too many classics for one show, so he can change it every year and never grow stagnant.

So, this time no ‘Halo of Flies’, ‘Hello Hooray’, ‘Dead Babies’ or ‘Elected’ but we get ‘Steven’, ‘Drive Me Nervous’, ‘Department of Youth’ and ‘Killer’ instead. Throw in a couple of new songs from Dirty Diamonds and all the near-legendary Cooper theatrics we know and love and everything’s in place. Even the snake made an appearance, something which doesn’t always happen at UK dates.

With the only bad point being Eric Singer’s mundane drum solo (clearly the band hadn’t heard the ancient Chinese proverb “Drum solo at festival big no-no” recently) Alice’s set was non-stop.

His current band (including guitarists Keri Kelli and Damon Johnson and bassist Chuck Garric) is remarkably tight, providing a consistent musical backdrop to Alice’s performance, tied in beautifully with each of the “scenes” featuring daughter Calico Cooper and other extras, particularly during the mental home/killer medley section culminating in Alice’s beheading at the guillotine and resurrection The great man didn’t utter a single word that wasn’t a lyric until the very end when he introduced the band. There was no banter at all, just song after song. Following the band intros he closed with his usual “What’s my name?”, and he was done, after giving comfortably the best show of the day.

One of the PlanetRock DJs made his way out afterwards, trying to endear himself to the crowd with “What’s his name?”, which was transparent and lame enough, but to follow it up with “Wasn’t he special?” produced stunned silence.

“Special”?! Get off, you tart. He was outstanding.

Monster: of rock

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Monsters of Rock

DEEP PURPLE Now, although headlining festivals is obviously a prestigious thing, I’m of the opinion that the number two slot is preferable. Alice got to play for the same amount of time as Deep Purple, and was able to do it to a crowd that weren’t yet completely worn out.

That’s not the say Purple didn’t enjoy the biggest crowd of the day (with the National Bowl being exactly that, a bowl, a band’s popularity can be measured by the size of the crowd in the bottom of the bowl, with everyone else relaxing on the sloping sides), but there was noticeably less movement and much more refined applause.

Deep Purple are a more relaxing classic rock band than, say, the full-on theatrics of Cooper, and with their current penchant for spinning their classic songs out into long jam sessions, they were definitely the band to kick back and relax to.

Interestingly, the two large video screens on either side of the stage that had been used exclusively for displaying a notice about the local bus service for most of the day finally kicked into action, screening the whole of Deep Purple’s set using five cameras and some rather slick live editing. The footage was excellent, so perhaps we’ll see a DVD at some point in the future.

Opening with ‘Pictures of Home’ is something they’ve been doing recently on the European tour, and following it up with new song ‘Things I Never Said’ is too. The problem I see with the latter is that it is in actual fact the bonus track on the Japanese edition of their latest album, and has only just become available in Europe on the new double-CD tour edition, meaning barely anyone in the crowd knew it.

Surely something like ‘Wrong Man’, also from the new album, would have been a much better idea for this kind of event. Other great songs included a typically excellent version of ‘Perfect Strangers’ and a rocked-up rendition of ‘Hush’, but otherwise the setlist was a pretty tired affair, with only a rather disjointed ‘Fireball’ being an unexpected inclusion. With too many jams and solos going on during, and between songs, Purple only got through half the number of tracks Alice did, which did nothing to revitalize the waning energy levels of the tired masses.

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Live pics: Wayne Herrschaft

dashboard confessional

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dashboard confessional

With a smash hit album and a profile almost as big as the Simpsons over in the US and a series of live shows about to burst open here in the UK, the boss brushed off his passport and uncovered a rather

DashingBlade Christopher Carrabba is wandering around the Myrtle Beach arena that Dashboard Confessional are playing tonight, looking for somewhere quiet to lay the smack down. For a few moments it seems as though the front of the stage might be our safest bet, but I’m grossly mistaken as the soundcheck soon kicks in and we buffer from closet to stairwell before happening across a small room far enough away from the hustle of the day to day workings of a traditional American pit-stop.

With the new album Dusk and Summer startling the rock world with its positioning of number 2 on the Billboard chart - although modern rock seems to positioning the higher echelons more and more these days - Carrabba immediately cock-blocked any nonsensical and lame pigeonholing of nightmarish emo association and became resolutely respected for songwriting alone.

Seems to me that any band these days that is prepared to go out with acoustic based songs and wear their heart on their sleeve is immediately branded ‘emo’ - if that were truly the case, then we’d be in a bad, bad way.

From where I’m standing, all I see is a genuinely talented songwriter doing the thing that all talented songwriters should be doing hitting the road and getting it on with the crowd and when it comes to that department, Carrabba is old school all the way. He has more in common with Johnny Cash and Springsteen than most think. He has this need to be understood - probably most of all by himself by means of his lyrical output, but again, to me it seems a chasm has been traversed in the making of this new record.

Previous recordings left me interested for sure if not a little disappointed that they didn’t punch my lights out, but they were certainly nowhere near as dangling on the hook as I am with Dusk and Summer. What’s changed?

“Nothing has changed... I don’t think. Time moves on and takes us with it. Any writer will tell you this - whether you work for a magazine, write novels or are a songwriter: the material you wrote a while back, you probably thought it was the best thing you’d ever done at the time, but when you look back, you wonder what you were thinking because it all seems as though a B U R N M A G A Z I N E | w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k

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dashboard confessional UNPLUGGED: The Dashboard Confessional release of MTV Unplugged 2.0 was released in 2002. Available in a CD/DVD package it essentially becomes Dashboard Confessional's first live album - it’s also the first non-platinum selling artist to be on MTV Unplugged.

After a few months, RIAA certified the album platinum, (meaning it sold over one million copies), making it their best-selling album to date. The album is the first one to have peaked at #1 in the Top Heatseekers and the Top Independent Albums chart.

The songs featured on this album are slightly changed and a little more upbeat versions of the songs from the albums Swiss Army Romance, The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most and their EP, So Impossible.

Curiously, this is the first time Dashboard Confessional perform the tracks Remember to Breathe, So Impossible, Turpentine Chaser, Living In Your Letters, For You to Notice and Hands Down as a full band unlike the ones on their original albums which featured only Carrabba.

The track list goes something like this (actually, it goes exactly like this!): 1. "Swiss Army Romance" 2. "The Best Deceptions" 3. "Remember to Breathe" 4. "The Good Fight" 5. "The Sharp Hint of New Tears" 6. "So Impossible" 7. "The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most" 8. "Turpentine Chaser" 9. "Living In Your Letters" 10. "For You to Notice" 11. "The Brilliant Dance" 12. "Screaming Infidelities" 13. "Saints and Sailors" 14. "Again I Go Unnoticed" 15. "Hands Down" This 52-minute selection is a well-chosen parade of hits and relative obscurities from the band. Those who have been to a DC gig know that one of the audience tics that has grown up around Carrabba is that the audience often sings along to the songs, often louder than Carrabba himself; that tendency is kept somewhat in check here, but it's still present, which might make MTV Unplugged a rather annoying listen for some!

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High School student could have done it! Then again, sometimes, when you look back you can still think it’s the best thing you’ve ever done. Those are all things in your life that rely solely on perspective.

“I don’t think I’ve personally changed that much really apart from getting more mature and road weary as bands tend to do on the road”, he laughs. “I hope I’ve grown as an artist but the aspect that has changed for me is how I work.”

“When I started out, I had all these fantastic ideas in my head and the first couple of recordings I did... well, the first one took me three days to produce and the second one took me six days, but I was confined by my knowledge of how the studio process works and also by doing them in the hours when nothing was going on in the studio so that I could do them for next to nothing.

“This is really the first time I’ve been able to translate fully what’s been going on in my head to the end product, so to see it go so high on Billboard is pleasing to say the least!”

Pleasing as it may be, Carrabba is giving me no sense of being anything other than himself. Sometimes, when perceived success comes like lightning, it can be pretty hard to deal with - hell, just take one look at the Walk the Line movie, but I’ll come to that later... while I’m busy thinking of this, Chris continues full of the reasons why: “Dusk and Summer sounds pretty damn close to what I had in the front of my mind. I’m not sure you can ever get the whole thing down that’s in your head when your being creative but this is as close as I was ever going to get right now.”

There’s that work ethic in action for you. There’s no faulting that with Carrabba either. Recently taken down and out by a good dose of flu, it’s been the only thing that has been able to derail the train on it’s long journey to mainstream acceptance, but it sure didn’t stop it for long.

Carrabba has far too much to say and get out of his system to let a tiny virus turn an album release into an event worthy of Chinese Democracy proportions.

While I was waiting on Chris finishing up with the journo before me, I hit the internet to see what other people had to say - (sometimes we do that just to make ourselves feel better!). There’s a couple of sites out there who seem to have got the wrong end of the stick where Dashboard are concerned.

I bring Chris up on his religion, as there’s more than one interviewer out there that seems to be hanging their hat on it, but I’m not seeing it myself.

“I don’t know why that is. Well, I might do... we used to be signed to a

label that whose main purpose was spreading the Christian message, but I think we were the only act on there that wasn’t going down that route!

“I don’t know what the phrase ‘Christian’ means over there in the UK, but over here it just means something like ‘Starbucks’ to me. I’m a Catholic - and a lapsed one at that, but that’s how I was brought up. At the end of the day, I’m just a man looking for himself and for some answers... just like everybody else.

“Maybe it’s the word Confessional in the band name that takes people down that road. Who knows what goes on in peoples heads.”

This ‘man looking for himself’ - that’s the very door I was looking for. For all the dissemination people do over the band, I basically had Carrabba pegged as a hopeless romantic in the finest tradition of Byron and Keats.

Bring that concept a little more up to date and you can see where I culled the Johnny Cash comparison from.

For any writer to say that Dashboard Confessional are an ‘emo’ band or any other for that matter is unbelievably irresponsible and short sighted. Worse still, it shows no respect for the art. Technically speaking it would be like a guitarist picking up a magazine and stating that what they had just read by journalist ‘x’ was pretty much same as a posting they just read on a forum by a ten year old... look, I’ve rattled my own cage now!

But back to Johnny Cash. I’ve never been the biggest fan in the world, but he, like Springsteen and one or two others, found the way to bring whatever is on the inside of themselves to the outside in a form that was very pleasing for other people to stick around long enough to want to know more. This indeed is how legends are begun.

These artists are the ones that reverberate in life as listeners are immediately able to pick up on a vaguely familiar thread that they can take and interpret as they wish.

Carrabba listens to me politely while I rattle away, nodding in all the right places. We’re standing on solid ground here as I seem to understand the artist and I think... the artist respects that fact that I got it. Maybe.

I point out that it’s a good time for bands like Dashboard right now as acoustically written songs are really shining through. You only have to look at how many extra tour dates a band like the Goo Goo Dolls had to add to their UK tour to see that this is true.

Is it the honesty that shines through? Whatever it is, I can always tell when a song has been written on an acoustic.

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“Dusk and Summer sounds pretty damn close to what I had in the front of my mind.

I’m not sure you can ever get the whole thing down that’s in your head but this is as close as I was ever going to get...”

written with that much honesty. I don’t think you can write ‘honest’ songs in any other way.

Once you plug in and you start to build layers, you’re almost working in a different art form. It’s equally valid as a song, of course it is, but it’s not the same underneath.”

You like performing like that don’t you.

“Sure. It’s a great way to get your songs across and a chance to really see how people react to them close up.

When we did UnPlugged, we were a very young band - it was such an honour to be asked to do it as it always appeared to be the bastion of the super successful - and now, I see we’ll be over in London doing an acoustic show too!

That will be so cool.”

He’s referring of course to the show at the opening of the new FOPP store in Tottenham Court Road. There are no tickets - it’s a turn up event and there are going to be serious amounts of people there - does it make you nervous being virtually naked in a stage with just your songs between you and the people?

“Not really, to be honest, that’s where I belong. You know I wrote most of my songs and B U R N M A G A Z I N E | w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k

performed them in some fledgling form in front of my friends and family, so I’m used to it in the harshest of environments! It’ll be a blast”.

Such is the curse of the writer on a schedule and an artist on an even tighter one that we get time called on us.

In an unprecedented moment of respect, we trade numbers and promise to hook up to continue this conversation when the band hits London in a couple of weeks.

There’s more to Dashboard Confessional than meets the eye - of this I’m utterly convinced.

With Dusk and Summer, Carrabba may be on the cusp of something remarkable if I’m not mistaken. It’s an album that will see you coming back for more each time you listen and on some level, it never fails to deliver. Is the cutting room floor full of out-takes?

“Oh yes. There’s material down there that I thought was no way good enough for the album.

I’ve since listened to those scraps again, and there’s some great songs lying around. Some whole, some in bits. What you see in Dusk is a very rounded album almost exactly as I intended as I said before, but there’s a whole stack of 057

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dashboard confessional

I don’t think you can write ‘honest’ songs in any other way. Once you plug in and you start to build layers, you’re almost working in a different art form...

- on songwriting on an acoustic 058

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dashboard confessional

Radio City’s Love Affair with Rock

songs that would make great b-sides - if we still had such a thing. Nothing will be wasted though.

Everything will be reworked or recycled into something.

Might there be another album sooner rather than later then.

“I have no idea and that’s the honest truth. The priority at the moment is day to day on the road and delivering the best show we can.”

With this being far from the end of the story, I can promise you this... our journey with Dashboard Confessional will be continued. Ω Somehow, someway, very soon.

SS

The live pictures featured here come from the Dashboard Confessional show on 12th August. DC are the latest in a long time of artists to sell out this world famous venue.

Located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Known as the Showplace of the Nation, the Music Hall opened to the public on December 27, 1932 with the film version of Philip Barry's play The Animal Kingdom (1932). The theatre is also home to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, a New York Christmas tradition since 1933, and to the women's precision dance team known as The Rockettes.

Designed by Donald Deskey, the interior of the venue incorporates glass, aluminum, chrome, and geometric ornamentation.

Deskey rejected the Rococo embellishment generally used for theatres at that time in favour of a contemporary Art Deco style.

Radio City has 5,933 seats for spectators; it became the largest indoor theater in the

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world at the time of its opening.

The Great Stage, measuring 66.5 feet deep and 144 feet wide, resembles a setting sun. Its system of elevators was so advanced that the U.S. Navy incorporated identical hydraulics in constructing World War II aircraft carriers.

According to Radio City lore, during the war, government agents guarded the basement to assure the Navy's technological advantage.

In what was to become quite a cool event, on April 1, 2006, Dream Theater played their 20th Anniversary concert at Radio City Music Hall, featuring an almost 30 piece orchestra.

Top venue...

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new york dolls Meanwhile...

Back in the Jungle Words: Sion Smith. Colour Pics: Joe Gaffney. B&W Pics: Bob Gruen.

Paris. City of culture, beauty, towers and museums. Behold the stark underbelly of the beast with its heroin chic, underground labyrinth of the dead and the Holiday Inn. That might be a little unfair but it’s how I feel when faced with the desk clerk.

My French extends to ordering beer and croissants and, courtesy of Eddie Izzard, letting everybody know that the monkey is in the school, but eventually we meet in the place known to millions the world over as we are both reduced to line drawings on a scrap of paper, me pointing at my hair and offering up my ear buds. It does the trick.

Minutes later, Sylvain Sylvain and I are hooked in and ready to roll, and then it dawns on me. I must tell him my New York Dolls story!

Back in the day when I used to be able to drink more than four Budweisers without getting obnoxious, I had this idea that anybody could be famous for not doing anything at all, (maybe I should make it into a TV show, millions are at it now), so I made a demo tape up of some tunes from some albums that nobody at the papers would ever have heard of, knocked up a cover, called the band something dumb as hell (in this instance, Mr Face and the Cosmic Spacehoppers), took some snaps and sent it in with a little bio that went along the lines of “influenced by New York Dolls...”.

Lo and behold, the very next week, there I was in a column all by myself with a pretty good review. The week after, the guy who ran the music pages wanted to know if we could play at some mini festival or other so we quickly ‘split up’.

Sylvain thinks it’s hilarious, but it’s not the first or last time that the bands influence will be worn like a badge of honour. With their new album about to hit the shelves, it’s in the lap of the Gods as to who will pick up on it - was it tempting to try and carry on from where you left off?

“We were never asked to reproduce anything we had done before you know, which was brilliant because we didn’t really know what we were going to do either, but to not have the past hanging over you that heavily while we did whatever we were going to do was a gift!”

One small consideration comes into play here as I sit marvelling at the speed and eloquence

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of the man - he sure can talk. Only, none of it is trash. Listening back to the tapes now, every nugget is a gem, but it’s no rehearsed speech I’m getting. Sylvain is a man with passion in his heart for what they’re doing now.

“You know it all started coming together for real in about 2004. We’d been asked so many times to reform in some shape or other before that, but now the time seems immensely right.

“David and I talked about a lot of things and it started coming together real quick - like I pulled Sam (Yaffa) into the band because, when David was looking around for bass players, he met a whole bunch of people who were great bass players and he calls me up in Atlanta where I live now and says ‘shit man, I’ve got seven here to choose from’, but when we started out, our schooling was from bands like the Shangri-Las and Bo Diddly and Sam was as close to that as we could get. So I said to him over and over; ‘I want Sam, I want Sam!’” “The Dolls were a big influence on him but he understands were we came from as well. Once all of the parts were in place it was like we had come together as a real band again and it started taking on a life of it’s own as these things do.

I realise I’m in danger, mostly because I’m interested as hell, of going over the same ground as a host of other writers from today, yesterday and probably tomorrow. On those grounds, you’ll excuse me if we don’t dwell on it too much as I jump tracks to see what else is in Sylvains head.

Bro - you gotta have a Kiss story for me...

LOOKING FOR A KISS “Ha. Course! Everybody has got one of them don’t they? I think we pretty much introduced them and did some shows, with Aerosmith too the promoters used to bill our shows as things like ‘The Glitter Rock Tour’.

“We didn’t really have that much in common with them. I’ve seen and heard so many things about the two of us over the years, but what I can tell you is that I always kinda liked Paul Stanley, he was a little bit cooler than the rest of those guys in the band. This one day we were chatting and I think they were about to go on tour, and he asks me if I have any advice for him.

“So I tell him the truth. If ever you’re out with your make-up on and somebody asks you for your autograph, just sign it Alice Cooper. So he w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k | B U R N M A G A Z I N E

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“I FEEL SORRY FOR THESE KIDS THAT CAN PLAY WITH DIGITAL MANIPULATIONS. WE’RE ALWAYS PERCEIVED AS BEING THIS

BAND THAT COULD

HARDLY PLAY, BUT WE COULD AND WE STILL CAN!” looks at me strange and we move on, but later on, the year after I think it was, this guy comes running up to me in Detroit airport and he’s shouting ‘Sylvain! I just signed my first Alice autograph!’ He had me in stitches that day.

Whenever any band like us went out on the road, the perception was when people met you was that you were Alice Cooper!

“You have to give credit to the king! If you wrote anything else in those autograph books, people would just look at you all disappointed.

Must have signed thousands of autographs for that man! It’s no wonder he was so big!”

FLUSH THE FASHION You know, I introduced Malcolm McClaren to the band as well. I was in the fashion industry before and Billy Murcia and me had this company called Truth and Soul sweaters. This is in like 1971. There was this big trade show in New York and they would put up clothes and everything it was huge, but down in some corner was us. McClaren and Viv Westwood were there with their Let It Rock line, the rest as they say is history.”

MURDER STYLE You know, I can’t think of a rock n roll band and I mean real rock n roll bands, not metal bands, that aren’t made up of something that equates to at least 50 per cent New York Dolls from Hanoi and Guns to more underground bands like Lords of the New Church.

“Ha - Stiv tried to buy my leather pants off me once for 200 bucks. I think he got it into his head that I’d agreed to the sale one night after a show, so he calls me up asking when he can pick up his pants - I tell him they’re not for sale. Man he fucking swore at me for months after.”

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From the affection in his voice, there’s two of us here that kind of miss having him around.

Talking of which - isn’t it a bit strange to have so many members of band taken away from you?

“Not really. Not anymore. It’s rock n roll not rocket science and I made my peace with whatever happened to those guys long ago.

“The album we just made and the shows we’ve just been playing, it’s just been great - it really does feel fantastic to be doing it all again.

Sure it’s a bit different but the spirit and the soul is their.

“I feel sorry for these kids that can play with digital manipulations. We’re always perceived as being this band that could hardly play, but we could and we still can!

basically saw it through - without David this wouldn’t be the Dolls.

THE CRIMSON IDOL MEETS HIS MAKER Being as how we’re OK with flashback scenarios here and there really is nothing to say about getting back together and making a new album than ‘welcome back and it’s a great record!’, maybe you can put something else into perspective for me - this is another one of those personal ghost stories by the way! I heard years back that Blackie Lawless was in the band for about five minutes once. Is that true?

“As true as it gets - and I think 5 minutes is not too far off target either! It’s 1975 and we’re touring the Red Patent Leather show. We were down in Florida trying to perfect stuff and what

“THIS GUY COMES RUNNING UP TO ME IN DETROIT AIRPORT AND HE’S SHOUTING

‘SYLVAIN! I JUST SIGNED MY FIRST ALICE AUTOGRAPH!’” “We cut our teeth the hard way, by playing and playing - and playing live shows at that! We just wanted to be out there and you can’t help but get better when you play that much - but you can hear digital breakup in some records.

There’s no soul, it’s like these big machines coming to get you!”

With David and me, there’s a certain magic that happens when we get together and you just keep going. We’ve both done different things over the years, but you gotta perform and there’s nothing better. David went through lots of different changes but this was his baby. He

basically happened next is that we broke up just like that but we should all have seen it coming really.

“Malcolm McClaren comes up to me and says that Jerry and Johnny have just left the band and we’re broke and we need to do something to get enough money together to go home, so we decide to play a show. Arthur was hanging out with these guys - I forget who the others where, but one of them was Blackie.

“We’re in the middle of Orlando and I teased up their hair and we went on stage and I said. ‘you stand here... and you stand here’. We w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k | B U R N M A G A Z I N E

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new york dolls ALL DOLLED UP In the early 1970’s, Bob Gruen and his wife Nadya bought themselves a portable video recorder. Figuring that it was just a toy that would one day be worthless, because ‘hey, who the hell is going to get any use out of one of those!’ - they fooled around and after shooting some test footage of Ike and Tina Turner, decided to take some footage of the Dolls.

‘Some footage’ later turned out to be over 40 hours of archive material of one the most seminal bands of the rock era.

All Dolled Up finally saw the release of the edited highlights of the work.

“The first time I ever heard

of the band, a friend of mine takes me to this club and tells me that I have to see this great band in action, but there were so many girls there that we never saw the band at all, we just wandered around!

“The second time though, I was just blown away. There was so much raw energy on the stage it was spilling off into the crowd and you could tell! The place was jumping!”

“Later on, I got to show the footage to Johansen and he was really encouraging about me coming back time and again to capture more. I think it was captivating for them because back in the early 70’s, unless a band was filmed for the television -

played the show and then everybody went home, simple as that.

“But you know what, I was never close to that guy at all, but I heard that when Arthur was broke that Blackie sent him some money, That was good... nice that he remembered my pal and was able to help him out a little.

BACK IN THE USA...

And so ends, or maybe even begins again, the story of the New York Dolls. There honestly didn’t seem to be a lot of point of sitting with Sylvain and asking about how the band got back together and about the recording of the new album because there’s nothing to tell.

The Dolls are a rock n roll band. They wrote some new material and then they recorded it (so if that’s what you were looking for, you should be satiated now!)

What this more than pleasant hour spent with Sylvain - who seems as happy as a man can be right now as we look out onto one of the most famous cities in the world - has highlighted to me is how much more influential they were than I originally thought.

The Dolls were long gone by the time they appeared on my radar (yeah, not even I’m that old!), and like many others, I back-tracked towards them from the Lords, Hanoi, Smack et al and stopped. It’s impossible to go further back than that without coming out of your box completely. You can nod your head as Sylvain says to the Shangri Las, but it’s not a road I want to go down.

No. The New York Dolls are as original as they come. A frankensteined monster mash of some guys who could pen a decent tune and some other guys who knew hip fashion when they saw it.

They broke the mould after that happened then as we have just seen, rock legends must come to Paris to see what happens next.

This is the law and is as it should be.

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which was very unlikely unless you were going places, you never got see how you really looked.”

The release features a lot of interviews captured on the fly, which is probably the best way with the Dolls, but the live footage is priceless. With the benefit of hindsight, you can tell from watching this that mainstream success wouldn’t come easy, but there was so many subliminal things going on that it was obvious more than one or two bands would pick up the gauntlet and run like hell with it.

“It was a crazy time. I’m surprised there aren’t more casualties. Those days were crazy days...”

You can check some of Bobs other work at bobgruen.com where there’s some great shots of Led Zep, Kiss, Lennon and the Stones too..

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Tool were late, Korn left the ir singer in hospital, Guns and Roses actually tur ned up and Trivium stole the show. We bring you the all the highs, lows and bottle-lobbing ma nia that was Download 2006.

sunshine, Coheed and Cam bria, who have become quietly massive over the last year are busy demonstrating to new audiences exa ctly why they’ve garnered such a rabid following.

Even though their drummer has been held up by pes ky customs, they thrill the crowd with a musicianship Day One “Jesus Jumping Jeh that is spot-on. “Wow, osaphat!” screeches they were surprisingly good, Strapping Young Lad singer I wasn’t expecting that” Devon, “Look at all the gulps one festival goer, bef people!” Thousands of rock ore returning to picking at fans have descended his sunburn. The sun is showing onto Donington Race Track no signs of abating to lap up three days of as everyone starts to burn the best rock and roll money varying shades of red. can buy this summer.

Another source of shade and The hottest rock acts of tod some proper rock ‘n roll ay are lined up with some for those who can't face the nu-m of metal’s biggest legends in etal offerings of an attempt to outdo last Too l is available on the MySpac year’s sensational bill. The sun e stage, a real opporis shining, beer and tunity for some acts, who ma ice cream are flowing in equ ybe lesser in stature to al measures, and potenthose who command the ma tial skin-cancer looms as peo in stage attention but ple use their sun cream certainly could give many of to burn the name of their favo the bands a run for their urite band onto their money in terms of volume. backs.

Backyard Babies, who have Soil make for a typical mid-bill hung on where many othing band. Lots of ers hav e falle “Download, Make some nois n by the trackside, are one e” clichéd banter is the such act whose sleazy garage punk order of the day for the Yan rock has always given k noise-merchants and the m a hardcore following. Gin will be the case for many ban ger and the Sonic ds to come. It’s all very Circus are another who pro strong but in the rising heat, vide a welcome respite only the most dedicated for those who’ve maybe bro fans brave the front of the cro ught their offspring to the wd to duly bounce up festival and have slunk off in and down to “Halo”. A bizarre search of music with a appearance by Jada bit more heart although the Pinkett Smith (aka Mrs. Will ir frequent jam sessions Smith) raises eyebrows do get a little tedious. Equally but the set is thoroughly enjo , All American Rejects yed and the band look also provide an alternative for glad to have finally made it those who want their here after their 2004 can- guit ars a little more melodic and cellation. On the Snickers sta less chugging. As ge, Clutch perhaps get the sun finally gives in and sink a bigger audience than exp s behind the hills, and ected and win some new the overhead planes finally fans as people stumble into stop trying to drown out the tent for some blissful the main stage, everyone left pre shade. The result is that, wha pares for Tool. t once was a big lush Maynard James Keenan and patch of grass is promptly red his crew, brimming uced to a stony gravel with (perhaps over) confidence pit in the ensuing moshpits , have a habit of only that erupt across the tent heading out for occasional with Clutch’s “what you see live shows making these is what you get” crunchkind of appearances someth rock. They blister through the ing special. They seem ir paltry half-hour and determined to keep the anticip you feel that the audience wou ation going for as long ld happily have lapped as possible as their stage tim up more. e comes and goes with no sign of them. 10 minute Instead, they get presented s, 15…20 minutes late with the first attempt they suddenly appear on sta of the weekend to come ont ge and the crowd is o the most dramatic intro ove rjoyed to see them. They don music made by InMe who ma ’t have to say much rch on to the theme to please the audience, just tune to Batman. It’s all very play 2 hours of classic silly but the crowd laps it material. “Stinkfist” appears all up in good humour. It is too early on in the set perhaps the indication of and indeed some people do how important this weekend drift off when they’ve is to many of the acts heard it. But it is a climactic that they are prepared to ma end to a brilliant start ke such an effort for a for most and as the herds head half-hour slot, many of them back to the tents, aware that they will be bars or the aftershock arena desperately overshadowed for extreme circus, the by the bigger acts but still palp able sense of excitement is keen to make an impression rising already for . InMe do just that, days two and three to deliver pounding through their set as as well as today. though their lives depended on it, although the y have to fight to be heard over the girly scream s. Back in the blazing

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Saturday gets off to a bad start if you are Khoma. The main stage mystery guests have been revealed to be Phil Alsemo’s crew Down and nobody wants to miss the chance of seeing the ex-Pantera man doing his stuff, paying tribute naturally, to the late Dimebag Darrell. Combined with the earlier start to the day (11am instead of 12.30pm), it was never going to be Khoma’s day really. A few interested stragglers are around but everyone else is at the main stage, wondering if a cover of “Walk” is in the offing, or sweltering in the massive queue that has formed of fans desperate to get Trivium’s autographs at the signing tent.

GetAmped also have mixed blessings.

The snickers bowl is packed out with skating enthusiasts watching the “longest grind” competition and there is a queue to get in.

It’s seriously breathing room only. Which would be a great opportunity to perform to a crowd of potential new fans were it not for the fact that the big screen right by the side of the stage is being used to screen England’s first World Cup match, and any attempts to watch GetAmped from the side of the bowl is met by an angry hail of bottles thrown by footie fans trying to watch the match and a cheer erupting right in the middle of the set disturbs things, when Paraguay score an own goal.

Living Things fare better as they get a lot of people coming in trying to find something other than the football or a bunch of BMXers trying to warm up although sadly in this case, singularly fail to win over the audience. This may be the way it works for several bands with a few hardcore fans at the front and the rest of the audience made up of people who’ve stumbled into the wrong tent or are seeking respite from the sun.

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A far more entertaining proposition is the immensely popular Henry Rollins doing a half-hour spoken word set. Some people come just to say they’ve seen the guy from the seminal Black Flag, others were lucky enough to witness his “sermon” at the previous Download. The affable Rollins embarks on something between spoken word and stand up comedy, recounting his thoughts and anecdotes for the day, revealing how he was nearly considered a threat to the country of Australia thanks to his choice of reading material (“The only thing I’m a threat to is a pizza,” he quips”). There is a lot of “right-on” material (“Iraq war bad” types of thing) but Rollins is extremely entertaining and eloquent and many are disappointed when his time is up.

It was always going to be interesting to see how Alice in Chains fared bolstered by guitarist Jerry Cantrell and the other remaining members of the band. The death of Layne Staley was the end for some but the remaining three have pulled together, putting William DuVall on vocals to bang through their best known works. That cover of “Walk” finally appears, although it is in the set of Avenged Sevenfold who really need to concentrate on writing their own decent songs.

The award for “stupidest stage props” goes to Within Temptation who nearly disappear under their stage “forest” with their ridiculously entertaining goth-rock. Opeth are equally on form with a stunning rendition of “Deliverance” welcomed with a roar of approval by the audience. Back on the main stage Trivium can only add strength to their reputation of the new princes of metal with a set that is almost flawless. The stomping “Detonation” drums up ferocious circle pits and surely by now Metallica can feel them snapping at their heels. Who knows, perhaps next time Trivium will be top of the bill.

It’s back to guest vocalists when it is revealed that Korn frontman Johnathan Davis is very ill in a London hospital.

Bizarrely, the last time Korn were due to play a festival, they cancelled completely so their guitarist wouldn’t miss the birth of

their first child. This time, they’ve decided they can get by with some guest singers. It is a fairly shambolic set with the appalling sound quality hampering their efforts. The appearance of Corey Taylor from Stone Sour cheers the audience up immensely and Avenged Sevenfold’s M Shadow does an eerily accurate version of “Falling Away”.

The audience is extremely grateful the band didn’t cancel completely but for all their efforts though you can’t help feeling it’s a good job Johnathan was in hospital.

Because such a poor performance would make anyone red with shame.

Thankfully Metallica have no such issues and play a fantastic show. Absolute veterans of the outdoor show, they know exactly where to stand, what to say and what to play when to have the audiences absolutely eating out of their hands. You can’t go wrong with a set list like Metallica’s, with each greeted with the triumphant roar it so deserves. The likes of “Enter Sandman” echoing round the park and the metal lover’s wet dream “In it’s entirety…Master of Puppets”, makes for a perfect end to day two.

The very fact that Guns and Roses should be here this time tomorrow makes the final day an interesting prospect, otherwise you sense most people would be happy to call it quits there and then. The combination of the fresh blood of Trivium, who reappear during Metallica’s set to help with the Misfits’ cover “Die Die My Darling”, and the cementing of Metallica’s status as legends is going to be very hard to beat.

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The buzz from last night is still ripe in the air as Breed 77 and God Forbid take to their respective stages. Neither band is prepared to give the audience any respite, with anyone in hope of a lazy Sunday start about to be severely disappointed. Instead they get the aural equivalent of a triple espresso as the bands successively sledgehammer the audience out of their hangovers.

There is murderous intent in the eyes of some in the packed out tent awaiting the arrival of Fightstar. If last year’s Carling Weekend was a baptism of fire then this is sticking ones heads into the lion’s mouth whilst poking it up the bottom with a cattle prod. Given vocalist/guitarist Charlie Simpson’s pop background some people seem determined to hate them without a second thought, judging by the amount of bottles flying stagewards. But they march determinedly onstage and soon shut the doubters up by proving that they have every right to be on that stage with a fiery tenacity that many more experienced acts lack. Granted, it is a little strange hearing Simpson swearing like a trooper but soon everyone is enjoying the set and you feel that if Fightstar can win over this rabble, there is nothing to stop them now.

Why can’t somebody sit all bands down and talk to them about their onstage banter (or lack of it in many cases)? There are those who can get away with it because it fits their enigmatic character (step forward Maynard James “Mr Pretentious” Keenan) or those who have it nailed (The hilarious Dani Filth being the only thing watchable about comedy death-metallers Cradle of Filth). Lacuna Coil however, who play an extremely solid set, fall into the soundbite camp of “are you having a good time?” (What if we said no?) and become the 33rd band to shout “Make some noise”. Granted, their fans probably don’t care but it is nice when there is an interaction between band and crowd that really makes a show spectacular.

It’s strange to see Welsh rock pin-ups Funeral for a Friend second only to Guns and Roses on the bill. Sure, it indicates their somewhat meteoric rise to metal royalty over the last couple of years, pocketing awards left, right and centre.

Indeed they play with passion and heart and are rewarded by the grateful cheers of the young fans at the front. But there was only going to be one band that would really attract any major interest today and as the age of those in the

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front rows doubles, the youngsters scooting off to see dance rock loons The Prodigy, anticipation of the coming storm that is Guns and Roses - or Axl Rose and his covers band as the less forgiving refer to them - rockets.

And then it hits like a hurricane. Axl Rose and his gang explode onto stage launching into “Welcome to the Jungle”. And there is no longer a crowd, just a demented frenzy of flesh, jumping, screaming, punching the air for all it’s worth. Everyone has a happy grin on their face that the band are just here as chants of “Guns and Roses!” fill the air. You would be forgiven for thinking that that would be enough. But sadly, as past incidents have proved, for Guns and Roses fans, it’s never enough. Firstly, rumours had abounded that Slash would be rejoining his old band mates but a quick scan of the stage by the optimistic ones in the crowd reveal, of course, he’s not. Then closer inspection of Axl Rose reveals just how much he’s aged and how rough he looks and, sometimes, dare one say it, sounds. The dodgy sound system also decides to rear it’s head, making Guns and Roses sound oddly muffled and for this, the fans show no mercy as Axl disappears offstage, narrowly avoiding a barrage of plastic missiles.

Hilariously, this prompts the threat of walking off stage by one of the guitarists, and though the audience does behave themselves for the rest of the set, it does somewhat tarnish the moment.

Even with a soaring “Sweet Child of Mine”, the strange appearance of Sebastian Bach, and the eternal crowd pleaser “Paradise City” Axl Rose and crew somehow fail to ultimately triumph and the festival’s “trump card” turns out to be a joker.

As the (literal) dust-storm starts to settle and everyone starts to head home, already heatedly debating their individual highlights, there is only one question that remains.

How the fuck are they going to top this next year?

Troopers in the field: Words: Louise Steggals All Pix: Chiaki Nozu

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ROCK, ROCK TIL YOU DROP

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In what has to be record time for the Sheffield legends, Def Leppard have a new album out. Burn magazine chews the fat with Joe Elliott.

I’m on the phone to Joe Elliott to talk about The Leps’ new album and tour, only we’ve hit a snag.

I make the mistake of congratulating him on Sheffield United’s promotion, which results in the pair of us going off track for a little while.

Joe, a life-long Blades fan, is understandably chuffed at their return to the top flight – full of bravado and confidence that they won’t “do a Sunderland”. (for none-footballing types like the Editor, to do “a Sunderland” is to royally stuff things up.)

I point out that, whatever else happens next season, they won’t stand a chance when they reach Anfield.

Joe laughs.

“If I recall, we beat you at our place a couple of years ago. That kid Mellor scored for you lot… he’s from Sheffield isn’t he?

“So how come you support Liverpool anyway?

You don’t sound like a Scouser?”

Bollocks, I was hoping he wouldn’t pick up on that.

To cut a long story short, it involves watching the 1981 European Cup Final and being hooked on the team in dark grey (it was a black and white set – ask your parents).

Joe pauses for a second.

“So, if Sheffield United had been in the European Cup Final in 1981, you could have been a Blade?”

Yeah, Joe – ‘cos that would have happened.

Sadly, we haven’t got time for the finer points of this discussion – I’m also not keen on the direction it’s taking – so we move on.

It’s been quiet on the Leppard front over here recently. The two greatest hits albums (a best of and a definitive, I’m not sure what the distinction is) followed on from X (“It was meant to stand for Ten, but no one got it. Even the UK leg of the tour had ten dates on it, but it still went over people’s heads. We mostly call it X as well now” - JE), and they’ve been busy crossing America on a variety of successful tours (almost always with Ricky Warwick in tow).

(As an aside, I’ve always wondered why it was they released one Greatest Hits followed by another. Turns out that between the tow the entire staff at Mercury, the Leps’ record label, was changed, and the new bods wanted to see how popular the band still were. The idea of sticking them in the studio for a new album was clearly a tad taxing for some berk on the 12th floor, still Rock Of ages still shifted enough units to keep the accountants happy…)

Anyhoo, now they are back, with two live shows and an album of cover versions – Yeah – to keep fans going until the next album of original material finally hits the shelves.

Just one question Joe – why a collection of other people’s songs?

“It seemed the natural thing to do,” the singer admits, his Yorkshire accent betraying no evidence of the years he’s been away.

It was like, ‘wow’, we get a chance to be the people we wanted to be when we were twelve.

T was almost like getting the tennis racket back out and getting in front of the mirror – that was our enthusiasm.

B U R N M A G A Z I N E | w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k

“It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for 20 years. I’ve always been a big fan of (David) Bowie’s Pin Ups, and it seemed like a good way to explain where our roots our.

“I’ve got so tired of telling people that we are nothing to do with the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, you know? That’s more Maiden.

We’ve always been from the Queen end of things!”

The bloke who reviewed Yeah in The Daily Telegraph would do well to make note of that last statement.

For the uninitiated, Pin Ups is an album of songs originally performed by the Pretty Things, Them, the Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, the Mojos, the Who, the Easybeats, the Merseybeats and the Kinks (ask your Grandma), which according to a Bowie aficionado of mine, is not his best album by a long way.

In fact, it was described as his worst pre-Tin Machine album. Thankfully, the Leps’ effort isn’t that bad, even if that same friend is refusing to forgive them for Street Life...

It seems Joe and the band (Rick Allen – Drums; Vivian Campbell – guitars; Rick ‘Sav’ Savage – bass; Phil Collen – guitars;) have spent most of their career trying to prove that while they may well have surfaced around the time of the catchily-titled NWOBHM, that was always more to do with Iron Maiden, Saxon and other bands brought up on a diet of Deep Purple and Black Sabbath.

Not, and this can’t be stressed enough, Def

Leppard!

“I just want people to know what our roots are!

“I’ve spoken to Steve Harris (Iron Maiden’s bassist and founder) about this a number of times and he agrees with me – the New Wave thing was them, not us!

“We feel the need to educate people! Iron Maiden are a great band, but there’s a big difference between hard rock and metal. I think we’re a rock band.

“There are some great heavy metal bands, I just don’t think Def Leppard are one of them.

We’re a rock band, and there’s a big difference.”

The other reason for the album was a change of approach.

“There was no pressure, we just went in the studio and enjoyed ourselves. It only took six weeks to record, which was fun.

“They’re not your songs, so you can’t spend days picking over and over them!”

That’s got to be a record in Lep terms, but it does highlight certain dodgy tastes among the band. Not least, someone liking David Essex’s Rock On enough to commit it to CD… Joe’s not having any of it.

“We’ve never been afraid of liking certain things,” he insists.

“And Rock On is a good song. I’m not saying I’m a David Essex fan, just that I like Rock On. It’s the same with 10538 Overture. Now I’m not an ELO fan by any stretch, but that’s a good song!”

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def leppard www.defleppard.com

“I think we all just looked at each other and realized that we’ve got nothing to prove.

We don’t need to prove anything to anybody.”

“I’m sure of the songs, not necessarily the artists,” he emphasises.

“You’ve got to have an open mind – that’s very important. Not being part of the herd is very important. It’s like that scene in Midnight Express when all the zombies are walking around the pole. I want to be the one walking the other way.”

The press, of course, are going to have a field day – but then that’s nothing new. Since daring to record a song called Hello America and then going over there for some live shows, the Leps and the British rock press have had an uneasy relationship.

Back around the time of the band’s debut, the lads were bottled at Reading after one hack slated them for favouring Britain over America.

As Joe’s been at pains to point out over the years, they were signed for the American market. That didn’t mean – and still doesn’t 068

mean – that they have favoured The States (even if life is easier for them over there, which Joe will explain shortly), it simply meant one bloke had his nose put out of joint and decided to stick the boot in.

And its continued off and on ever since.

Mostly on.

Not that Mr Elliott gives a toss.

“Couldn’t give a fuck,” he laughs.

“We get torn to shreds whatever. Some of our worst reviews were for Hysteria…

“We’re always a guilty pleasure, but we know that doesn’t matter. We’re just fortunate that we’ve always had people working their arses off for us.

“Anyway, if you hang around long enough things come around again.”

The Leps have certainly been around long enough, and they could almost certainly just go out on the road without bothering to put out a

new album – both here and in America – but that’s not their way.

“You should never rest on your laurels, you end up being Freddie And The Dreamers or something. We fight against being a nostalgia band,” insists Joe. “We want to push on. It’s just easier to put on a tour in America and Canada because they have 24-hour rock radio stations over there. We’re on the radio every 11 seconds over there!

“It’s much harder in the UK. It’s frustrating.

You begin to wonder why you hear every other band but us on daytime radio!

“In America, we’ve just added another month of dates, and now we want to get back some of that success in Britain and Europe.

“That’s why we’re doing this kind of mini indoor festival! We wanted to just play a few dates and make it more of an event.”

The event features both Cheap Trick and The w w w. b u r n m a g . c o . u k | B U R N M A G A Z I N E

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Sensational Alex Harvey Band, both of whom have been around the block a time or two themselves – and both can cite Joe as a big fan.

“The thing I like about Cheap Trick is they’re always trying to do something a bit different – a bit like us.”

The man’s not wrong. Look back over their output, and they have consistently tried to push themselves and create something knew.

Pyromania is a step on from High n Dry, Hysteria several steps on from Pyromania, and Slang a giant leap sideways from everything!

“I actually listened to that the other day,” admits Joe – sounding surprised.

“I don’t usually listen to our stuff, but that came on my iPod and I’d forgotten how much I liked it!”

Recorded in a house in Spain, it’s as relevant to today’s Lep sound as it was different at the time of its release back in 1995.

Interviewed at the time, Joe reflected: “What we did was we tried to make a record that didn’t sound like anything that we had made in the past. It was 1994 when we started it. It was 1995 by the time we got going. We were aware that what was going on in the industry at the time was so removed from what had made us successful.

“What we did when we did was tried to make an album that was more like a mid-period Led

Zeppelin record with a bit of unusual stuff added into it.

“We used Indian string arrangements on Turn To Dust, we used dulcimers on Where Does Love Go When It Dies, we used hip hop rhythms on stuff. We did one song with the drums in the swimming pool so we’d get the John Bonham sound.”

While the album was seen as a huge departure for the band (hell, Q had it in their top 10 of the year), when they returned to their more traditional sound with Adrenalize, there was a looser quality to their rock – which was not solely down to the absence of long-time producer Mutt Lange.

“I think we all looked at each other and realised that we have nothing to prove. We don’t need to prove anything to anyone.

“If people don’t come to our shows, they don’t come. If they do they’re gonna get a good show.”

Admittedly it was only during 2003 that the band got past the pressure of trying to live up to unrealistic expectations of their past success.

“It went away, that desperation I suppose you don’t even know you’ve got. We went through it a little bit in the 90s, purely because we were suffering from the ‘kill your idols’ factor.”

For a band accustomed to emulating their heroes, with or without an album of cover

4LMP 'SPPIR SR 1ER 6E^I Sometime last year, a disc fell into my lap from out of the blue and won me over in seconds. The name on the front of the sleeve was Man-Raze. Off name.. some would say a shit name even, but the music soon stopped me laughing.

This was the real deal, but as usual, somebody (ie, me) had put any bits of paper that came with it in a ‘really safe place’. A week or so later and I’m still listening to the songs in the car, so when I finally find the scraps of knowledge and find that it’s Phil Collens new band, it puts a different light on it. It doesn't make me like it anymore than I did, but it did open a box of curiosity for me. Eventually, I tracked Phil down with a nice case of laryngitis in Amsterdam (hey, there’s worse things to catch there). So Phil.. what’s going on with that?

“Being in Def Leppard is great, but as anyone in the band will tell you, the world always expects a certain standard from the band - we exist in this ‘place’ and that’s fantastic, but as an artist, you’re always coming up with things that might not fit that mould and it always seems like such a waste when you don’t use them.

“So I just felt like it would be fun to do something outside of those confines and see what happened - I’m glad you like it, it ‘s fun to do and the pressure is well and truly off!

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“If we want to do things a certain way we can, we can wander off and do some reggae type tunes if we feel like it.”

Hey... hang on a minute.. isn’t that the ethos behind Girl?

“Yeah it was. Looking back, I think we were a great young band but what killed us was inexperience, we didn’t have anywhere near the knowledge that we needed to take us to the places we wanted to go, but there’s enough of us who made a success of it to prove that it was more than worth doing.”

So is there a future for Man-Raze as a band that does things rather than it just being a self appeasing blow job?

“Hell yeah - we’ve got some more songs that I’m really pleased with. There’s the album in mind and I'd really like to play some dates especially in the UK.” That would be different! It must be a long time since you’ve played at a club level which is presumably where it would go.

“It is, I can’t say that I miss it because life is great, but it will be very cool to do some dates and see where it goes.”

For the record, the other members of the band aren’t just blokes in the street either.

Simon Laffy and Paul Cook from Girl and the Sex Pistols respectively also have a say in what goes on.

SS Watch this space...

THE SLIDER Originally Released in 1972

Four classic T. Rex albums recently remastered and released as Rhino expanded deluxe editions included The Slider. After igniting the glam rock scene with Electric Warrior in 1971, the follow-up sparked “Bolanmania” worldwide the following year. Signature songs “Telegram Sam” and “Metal Guru” were released as #1 UK singles, and the album pushed to #17 on the Billboard album chart in the States.

In Britain, it made a lasting impact on the imagination of a generation, including kids from Sheffield who would form Def Leppard just five years later.

“The Slider is a great example of an album that was part of at least three-fifths of this band's DNA when they were growing up,” says Joe Elliot. “Even if you don't emulate it directly and try to steal the riffs, the overall feeling of songs like 'Metal Guru' and 'Telegram Sam' sink into you. T. Rex were part of what we grew up listening to, and a big part of it! Their singles were a huge influence on all of us. We all bought them, we all listened to 'em, we all watched 'em on Top Of The Pops. The fact that [Marc] Bolan sang in kind of a low, sexy, sleazy voice, and just the way he riffed on some of his songs, was a huge influence on a song like 'Armageddon It'-kind of like a rewrite of 'Get It On' meets 'Metal Guru.'”

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def leppard www.defleppard.com versions, understanding the grunge mentality was not easy.

“These guys wanted to kill. That was the first time I’d come across that way of thinking.

Generally speaking, Guns n Roses wanted to be The Rolling Stones, we wanted to be a variety of bands… we weren’t trying to kill them though!”

Which is the right approach is for others to judge, but lets look at the evidence. Which band are promoting their new album – Def Leppard or Soundgarden/Alice In Chains/Nirvana?

Part of the Brits’ enduring appeal is, o course, their live show. It’s how they started out and it’s what they’ve based their reputation on over the years.

Hearing their range of well crafted songs, its not nostalgia that makes them good…

“You never see people saying The Stones are a ‘70s band, or a ‘60s band, they’re just The Stones. It doesn’t give them an era reference that ties them to a certain year in their career

like a ball and chain.”

Their songs take on a different life when played live, of course. Remove the shackles/luxury of studio production and Leppard are a raucous rock and roll band.

Stripped back to ‘just’ a five-piece, their material stands up well.

“Yeah it does,” agrees Joe. “You can’t sing five harmonies if there are only three of you singing live, but we learned certain ones aren’t important live. You take the three most obvious ones and do those, so when you hear us do Promises or Armageddon It, we’re singing the harmonies that are on the record – they just happen to be slightly smaller because there are only three of us singing them, rather than multi-tracking ‘em sixteen thousand times!”

That basic simplicity brings us back to Yeah…

“That’s the great thing, it’s been recorded and presented almost like a live album!”

Pic: Clay Patrick McBride

“When I read some preview of us coming to town, and it says ‘80s big hair metal gods, you want to punch the twat that wrote it.”

4LMP 'SPPIR SR ]IEL I figure I’d best go easy on a man with a sore throat - especially as he has a few thousand people to sing at over the coming weeks, but I couldn’t let him go without asking him about the new album: A lot of people will ask why bother, but I say why the hell not! What’s your version of

events?

“Haha... I’m not sure I have a ‘version’ of events but it was great fun to do. We consciously chose not to shoot for the obvious tracks like Ziggy Stardust or Rock n Roll Suicide because it makes for a more interesting album... ” That was going to be my first point - it’s not an obvious album by any stretch of the imagination, but it works really well and I think it works on many levels - there’s the nostalgia value for anyone over thirty - it’s been years since I’ve heard some of those songs... Phil picks it up..

“Y’know something else, I wouldn’t be at all shocked if some people thought it was all original material - it does happen, especially with the younger members of the audience and that’s great - that’s half the point of doing it - not so that they think we have an all new album but to open them up to all the great bands that we grew up on...”

I should have told Phil the story of my friend Heidi from Oz who has, and I quote ‘never heard of Marc Bolan... ‘you can see his point though, and it’s a good one.

“We did some things that appeased us too though, doing a Queen number would have been great but we chose to go with the David Essex song in a Queen style - you’re not the only one who hadn’t heard some of this stuff in ages. You forget how huge these bands where and the amount of influence they had on our lives.

“ELO were an amazing band who had a great run and then were forgotten a bit. I think if we can open a few people up while also having our older fan base loving it for what it is then job done mate!”

I love your version of Hellraiser.

“Me too, The Sweet - now there was a band and a half!”

No shit.

SS

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