Babylon A.D. presents Live Lightning

ALBUM REVIEWS

Babylon A.D. is in the midst of an explosive career.renaissance with Live Lightning, their latest release now available from Perris Records. Jam packed with live renditions of their songs from a vast and epic career in music, Live Lightning present Babylon A.D. launching their hard rock anthems into the stratosphere. Highwire Daze recently caught up with Babylon A.D.’s front man Derek Davis to find out more about the amazing Live Lightning magnum opus, his thoughts on their past albums in retrospect, news of a brand new record, and whole lot more!

How did the idea of Live Lightning come about and where was the live concert recorded? We wanted to put something out to let people know that we are still here and have more to say as we are preparing the next studio album, so we thought this was a good way to let people know we are back. We actually had three concerts to chose from that our engineer recorded and we settled on the best sounding tracks that came from just two shows, one at Swiss Park Concert https://babylonad.com/ https://perrisrecords.com/

Hall and one at The Empress Theater which are both in CA.

How did the collaboration with Perris Records come about for the release of Live Lightning?

Perris Records is a great organic no bullshit record company and it was a blessing to sign with them because they understand rock bands from our era. Tom Mathers the owner, is a real true believer in keeping our style of music alive and that means a lot!

The hits from your debut album sound amazing on Live Lightning. What do those songs and that album mean to you after all this time and do you still enjoy playing them?

You know, there sorta of like our legacy to us. We play Hammer Swings Down, Bang Go The Bells, or Kid Goes Wild and fans still eat it up like it was yesterday and what’s weird is the music still sounds fresh on stage to me. This record has the angst and power that we are kinda known for when we perform live.

What was the state of the band and music scene when Nothing Sacred was released?

It was a tremendous experience working with the legendary producer Tom Werman and it was a long wait between albums to get him because of his busy schedule. It did suck though seeing grunge sorta take over and kill the record in the first six months of release. The music business just changed over night and it put a nail in the coffin for every band that was playing hard rock at the time as you well know!

American Blitzkrieg is such an epically underrated album. What are your thoughts on that album that was released at the dawning of the new millennium? This I actually my favorite album, maybe because we were not tied to a major label telling us what to do. It has a lot of great songs on it like Skys Falling, Sinking In The Sand and Superstar which is one of my favorite songs because it’s so creative production wise to me. I wish it could have came out sooner in our career and had a better push, but that’s the nature of the beast.

Revelation Highway was such a powerful comeback for Babylon A.D. What was it like to record new music with Babylon A.D. after 17 years and what did that title Revelation Highway mean to you? That too was a great album to make, some of the songs were from our demos that almost made our debut album like She Likes To Give It, I’m No good For You and a batch of new songs that we were writing at that moment in time. One Million Miles, I’m sure would have been a massive song for us if it were back in the day when the music business was pushing bands like ours to radio. Revelation Highway means it was time to get Babylon A.D. back in the game.

Any new Babylon AD music on the horizon? Absolutely, We are in the rehearsal stage now and writing and demoing a new batch of songs and hope to release the new album at the beginning of next year.

Your solo output has been pretty compelling. Any new solo music on the way? And for fans who have not heard your solo material, what could they expect? I’m always writing material and different types of music. Revolutionary Soul is my favorite out of my three solo records. Lately I have been coming up with a lot of power rock pop sounding stuff, kinda like Cheap Trick meets the Beatles at The Baby’s house. And of course writing for the new Babylon A.D. record we are working on.

Any chance of new live shows for Babylon A.D. especially here in the Los Angeles area?

We’re working on booking shows now and have a handful already booked. We play the Whisky a Go-Go in Hollywood Sept 2nd of this year, So yes there is going to be some support behind this album.

You basically have the original Babylon A.D. lineup on Live Lightning. Most bands with such longevity are lucky to have even one original member in the band. What is the secret of maintaining most if not all of your lineup after all these years?

Well we all grew up in the same area, same streets, hung out together since high school, so were more like a gang of brothers, don’t get me wrong we fight all the time but when you have known someone as long as we have, were tied together by the rope, good and bad.

Do you have any messages for Babylon A.D. fans reading this now?

I would like to personally thank all the fans that have remained loyal to our music over all these years, It really means a lot and keeps me and the band fired up knowing we still matter in the rat race of music and bands.