Highwire Daze magazine Issue #136

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L AWRE NCEGOWANOFSTYX, VAL E NT I NOART E AGAF ROMOFMI CE& ME NANDL OWE RDE F I NI T I ON, PE T EF RYOFF ARCRYANDJ ADE DPAST , BE RNARD F OWL E R:OVE R 25YE ARSWI T HT HEROL L I NG ST ONE S, ANSON,DI ANE & T HE DE DUCT I BL E S,T HE HARD WA Y ,HOL DI NG ABSE NCE , MADSYMPHONY , NE VE RL OVE DANDMORE . . .

NEW NAME – NEW LOGO – NEW ATTITUDE – NEW EDGE

June/July Releases

AVAILABLE: 17TH JUNE

AVAILABLE: 24TH JUNE

AVAILABLE: 8TH JULY

AVAILABLE: 15TH JULY

”All these Amazing titles Available ON www.melodicrockrecords.com

AVAILABLE: 22ND JULY

AVAILABLE: 1ST JULY

AVAILABLE: 15TH JULY

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Publisher Highwire Daze Magazine A General Partnership Editor Ken Morton Managing Editor Danny S. Pasley Senior Photographer Jack Lue East Coast Editor Jupiter Lee Contributors Ken Morton Jack Lue Jupiter Lee James Grover Kim Crain Joe Schaeffer Erica Vincent

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTERVIEWS with...

Gary Numan..........................................................14 Lawrence Gowan of Styx......................................18 Atreyu....................................................................22 Valentino Arteaga from Of Mice & Men & Lower Definition...............................................26 Diamante................................................................30 American Teeth......................................................34 Pete Fry of FarCry & Jaded Past...........................38 Mad Symphony......................................................42 Bernard Fowler: Over 25 Years with The Rolling Stones Part 1.....................................46 Holding Absence....................................................50 Never Loved..........................................................54 Anson.....................................................................58

DIAMANTE POSTER by JACK LUE.................................32/33

Cover Art by Yannick d’Assignes of Smart Works Intl Cover Photos by Jack Lue HIGHWIRE DAZE 827 N. Hollywood Way PMB419 Burbank, CA 91505-2814 www.highwiredaze.com email: ken@highwiredaze.com Copyright 2021 Highwire Daze Magazine Opinions expressed within this publication do not neccessarily reflect those of the publisher.

All rights reserved. Nothing may be produced in whole or in part without the express and written permission of the publisher.

Supporting Noise Pollution Since 1990!

ALBUMS REVIEWS Audio Reign, Deathcryptopia, Greg Leon Invasion, Jaded Past, Madysin Hatter, Metalmessage Global.................60 SKETCHES BY THE EDITOR................................................... 8 And The Live Shows Begin with Sara Baldwin and Nikki Stringfield PRODUCT REVIEW BY JAMES GROVER TC Electronic “Hall of Fame” Product review with Derrick “Dock” Murdock..............................10 IN MUSICAL ORBIT BY JUPITER Black Diamonds, Tygers Of Pan Tang...............................................12

Listen To Highwire Daze Radio at Live 365!

24 Hours A Day - 7 Days A Week!

Classic Rock, Hair Metal, Black Metal, Metalcore, Heavy Metal, Pop Punk, Punk Rock

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June/July 2021

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Sketches By The Editor

And The Live Shows Begin with Sara Baldwin and Nikki Stringfield

The last show I covered for Highwire Daze with photographer Jack Lue before the great pandemic hit us all was Dragonforce, Unleash The Archers and Visions Of Atlantis at The Regent in Downtown LA on March 6th, 2020. Who knew that my next show would take place over a year later? It has been quite a wait - so long that I was beginning to think I only ever imagined being at a live concert. This imposed hiatus ended on May 14th, 2021 as Highwire Daze went to Dipiazza’s in Long Beach to celebrate the sold out record release show of Sara Baldwin! And it was a night to remember - a return to the live shows for the music community at long last!

Sara Baldwin and her band were on fire, performing selections from her just released No Turning Back full length album. Combining modern metal and fiery grunge with a strong sense of conviction and perseverance, the entire night was inspirational. In addition to Sara Baldwin’s vibrantly scorching vocals and stage presence, top notch performances were delivered from her amazing band - Mic Dangerously De

La Torre (lead guitarist and producer), Scott Wittenberg (drums), and Dylan Wilson (bass). Also making a very special guest appearance was Nikki Stringfield from The Iron Maidens and Heaven Below, lending her gloriously high energy guitar work to a few of the songs. From the opening refrains of She’s Gone to a brilliant cover of Sober

by Tool and beyond, Sara Baldwin and her band blew the roof off DiPiazza’s! What an unforgettable, epic night!

And so live shows are slowly making their way back into our lives at last! We are the survivors of Covid-19 and we are ready to rock! We’ve been waiting a very long time for this, so bring it on! Hope to see you all supporting the live music we all love very soon!

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Down In Wühan

The”Hit Single” Released World-Wide 12/14/20!

Available Now. Everywhere.

“Short, Sweet, and about the Chinese.”

Available: World-Wide on all major platforms. i Tunes, Spotify, Amazon etc. youtube.com/toneraventunes June/July 2021

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Product Review by

James Grover

TC Electronic “Hall of Fame” Product review On a Sunday afternoon in beautiful Southern California I met up with a very close friend Derrick “Dock” Murdock who was the bass player of the Tonight Show band with Kevin Eubanks. Derrick has played alongside BB King, Frank Gambale, Micheal Bolton, Sheena Easton and Chuck Berry to name a few of his credits.

Derrick has been a close friend for many years, as we sat down at a restaurant to enjoy dinner, talk about old times of when we use to tour together somehow we got on the topic of guitar and bass gear.

We started discussing TC Electronic Hall of Fame Reverb pedal that has different presets and 100% full control knobs with (Tone Print), that is special software that is built into the unit for customization of sound written by Artist such as Derrick in which can be beamed to the unit by a Smartphone or Tablet using the (Tone Print) App by TC Electronic. The way it’s beamed to the unit is through the (pick up) of the Guitar or Bass which sounds like an old school dial up modem in which Derrick and I laughed about …lol. Once it has been beamed to the unit the sounds are limitless with many sounds to download from various artists.

As a guitarist and studio musician I have used the TC Electronic Hall of Fame Pedal on endless recordings it has 24bit digital sound which is very clean and quiet. As I discuss the product with Derrick he told me that he has written several downloads for other TC Electronic pedals with (Tone Print). Derrick Continues to Perform and Tour with The Following TC Electronic Pedals: RS210, RS212, RS410 and the RH450.

Likes and Dislikes Likes:

Derrick, what do you like about the TC Electronic Pedals?

“They are fast and efficient I can download new tones using the (Tone Print) in between songs and sets, they are built well very solid pedals” and they are one of a kind!”

What I really like about these pedals are that they are durable easy to use and road worthy for touring with a “true bypass” switch and very quiet to operate with minimal noise.

Dislikes:

I really can’t find anything negative to say about these pedals as they are built like mini tanks.

Special Thanks to Derrick “Dock” Murdock for being part of this Product review. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_Murdock

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Reach James Grover at: https://www.facebook.com/james.grover.311

June/July 2021

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July 8, 2021 The Viper Room

1 t 7, 202 Augus o Go G isky A The Wh

Vis it our We bsi te!

watch & e b i r c Subs Swansons The ncert o c M A E L I V E S TrRy T h u r s d a y eve 5pm PST

In Musical Orbit by Jupiter Jupiter at Highwire Daze Online Crew East Coast Editor

Hey everyone, it’s Jupiter Lee - East Coast Editor. Check out my record reviews here and be sure to add me on Facebook!

Link is at the end of my column...

No Tell Hotel Black Diamonds Metalapolis Records Swiss rock and rollers BLACK DIAMONDS new album NO -TELL HOTEL is already getting a lot of attention. It’s their fourth studio album. The band was formed in 2004 by singer / guitarist MICHAEL KEHL. The new lineup for the band also features on lead guitar and newest member CHRIS JOHNSON, MANUEL PENG on the drums and bassist ANDI FASSLER. Aggressive , kick - ass rock with a pinch of POISON and a dash of AC/DC comes to mind. Many songs like the title track No-Tell Hotel ,Evil Twin , The Island, Anytime and especially Reaching For The Stars, all have opportunities for AirPlay. Glad to hear that the drums are prominent in the mix.

A real test for your speakers! The album has twelve tracks all in the 3:00 - 5:00 minute range. Though a 4 -piece group , it sounds much bigger. Newly released in 2021 on METALAPOLIS RECORDS and coming in at one hour , you will want to check-in and spend more than a few nights with BLACK DIAMONDS at the NO-TELL HOTEL!

about relationships that have perhaps gone sour. MEILLE’s melody driven vocal really has the edge while the band keep the rhythms rockin’! Track 04 Never give in: This uncontrollable fast pace, manic double bass drum pattern is awesome.

Track 05 Worlds Apart has a wall of guitars .You won’t find any ballads or slow songs on here. Ok, track 06, Glad Rags, a slightly bluesy and contains a trace of a BILLY SQUIRE vibe shows even more versatility from them. Track 08, White Lines is probably a contender for another commercial hit!

At 4:18 it’s just the perfect single with a tasteful guitar solo.

Singer crushing it. These guys make up a great, exciting band and will be tough to reckon with. At 70 minutes in length there is a lot of fantastic music on MAJORS & MINORS. You can follow them by clicking on the link below.

www.tygersofpantang.com

JUPITER on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Jupiter-Lee-173082899386911

www.blackdiamondsrock.com

Majors & Minors Tygers Of Pan Tang Mighty Music Recently released worldwide on May 28 2021, MAJORS & MINORS features a hard rock collection of 15 tunes recorded over the last 13 years. Members consist of lead vocalist JACOPA MEILLE, guitarist ROBB WEIR, guitarist FRANCESCO MARRAS, bassist GAV GRAY and on drums CRAIG ELLIS. Busting out with Only The Brave, a fast crisp rockin’ radio friendly tune featuring MEILLE’s very distinctive vocal style. Crunching track 02, Destiny has a killer riff allowing for pin point accuracy lead guitar work .Track 03, She a song 12

June/July 2021

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GARY NUMAN Photo by Jack Lue

The Legendary Gary Numan presents Intruder

Gary Numan has returned with Intruder - his 18th solo studio album exploring the idea of the modern world warning and fighting back against humanity’s catastrophic behaviour.

Highwire Daze recently interviewed the legendary performer to discuss the unveiling of the epic Intruder in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, his looking forward to playing out live again, thoughts on the one and only David Bowie, and other topics of intrigue.

Read on as we visit the ominous world of Gary Numan’s Intruder...

Interview by Ken Morton - Live Photo by Jack Lue Is there any overall story of concept behind the album title Intruder?

The theme of it is if the Earth could speak – if it could voice what it’s feeling at the moment, what would it say? How does it feel about what’s going on through climate change? Does it feel disappointed? Does it feel disillusioned? Does it feel betrayed? Is it angry? The biggest question is does it want to fight back? Is it already fighting back? Is the virus the first stage of many in its desire to fight back? That’s pretty much it. In a way, it follows on from the last album that I did called Savage, which took climate change as its core theme and then I did sort of a science fiction story in the future based on what that world might be like. And with this one, it still uses climate change as it’s core reason for being. I just wanted to find a different way of keeping that conversation going.

In fact, my youngest, who was 11 at the time – a couple of years ago wrote a poem called Earth – and it’s essentially the Intruder idea. In its pain, the Earth is speaking and it’s HIGHWIRE DAZE

June/July 2021

talking about how sad it is and how disillusioned it is by people and what we’ve become and what it needs to do. And for an 11-year-old, to show that amount of understanding and empathy I thought was amazing – and it stuck with me. And then when it came time to do Intruder, she had already sort of planted that seed in my mind, so I just expanded it a little bit. In fact, on the album sleeve, when that comes out, as you open up the gatefold, her poem is the first thing that you see.

It’s very front and center, because it really did start with her.

And her poem is really a beautiful way of saying what I’m trying to drag out in the album.

What has it been like to write, record and release new music in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and so much social unrest in the world today?

In a strange way to begin with, it didn’t change anything at all – because I was already working on the album – and the album already had its theme and direction. And part of the idea was about the Earth fighting back. There was already elements in the lyrics about the Earth doing things to us – so 15

when the virus came along, it kind of just fed straight into the idea. There’s a song on the album called The Gift, which is about the virus, but it was already kind of there – the idea.

It was weird actually the way that happened. But I was just locked away – I’m going out to the studio every day – I’m coming out in the evening when it’s dark – I’m totally obsessing about it now and I’m not really going out as much.

And when the pandemic came along and we were told to stay home, I barely noticed to begin with – because my life didn’t change at all. When you’re making an album and you’re really deep into it, the world just rolls by and you’re barely aware of the day to day of what’s going on. But as time went by, I think I finished recording it in July – maybe August – when I kind of came out of that and started to reattach myself to the world again, that was pretty shocking! But the actual making of it was barely touched by it, and yet you would think to listen to it that it’s been heavily touched by it, because it seems to be an album that partly includes the virus and what’s going on now. But it was already there – that was a story that I was already trying to tell. It just kind of unfolded more deeply as I was making the record.

What were your first impressions when you found out that David Bowie had passed away. What was going through your mind?

Shocking really, because there was no warning – there was no talk about him being unwell. This is a terrible comparison, but there was a Star Trek film where Captain Kirk died – and I remember getting really upset when Captain Kirk died even though it wasn’t real – because somehow it symbolized my childhood – my life – something that I had grown up with.

Even though it was only a character, that character got so old now that it was acceptable to kill him off – and he was gone.

And I felt much the same when Bowie died – when I got the news about Bowie – this was somebody that you’ve grown up with which has been a big part of your life at different times – and then he’s gone. It’s not only shocking for the fact of the person and all that he’s achieved, but what it means to your own life. I think there’s a selfish streak in some of us that makes you think about your own mortality at that point.

You think fuck – when all your parents die and then your heroes die and then you die – you know what I mean? It kind of brings your own thoughts to “Oh that’s terrible and awful!

What a terrible thing to happen!” to “Fuck! I’m next!” You go through a horribly selfish full circle and I feel awful about thinking that! It wasn’t just Bowie – Prince died and George Michael – god, there were so many that year! That was a particularly bad year. And everyone of them is like a little needle in the arm of “Oh my god, we’re all marching towards it!” I can remember – my wife was telling me about when Steve McQueen died many years ago, how upset her mum was – and it was for very similar reasons – as if a part of you dies with them on the one hand since they’ve been such a part of your life and he’s gone – and it reminds you of your own mortality and how that’s racing towards you – just like a double-edged sadness.

Let’s go back to 40 years ago when you released Dance – one of the most interesting and controversial albums that you’ve done. Looking back on that album, what do you 16

think of it now in retrospect – and the fact that it was 40 years ago…

I really like it. I really liked Dance when I did it. The record company was not so keen, because it was such a diversion from where I’ve been before – and from a career point of view where I should have been maybe churning out more Cars type songs. I go and do something like Dance which is a complete change of direction. I could understand where the record company thought I was being a bit suicidal with that one. For me it was always about trying something different – it’s always been about trying not to repeat yourself. I can’t always claim to being successful and I can’t always claim that the albums I’ve made have been good – because they haven’t.

But the attempt has been to always improve on the one before and trying something different – bring in different instrumentation – try to do different things on the production side and whatever – just try to keep moving forward. And sometimes that meant going sideways first and then you can go forward again. But I really liked it – I do really like it. I do think it’s a really quirky record. If you’ve had some success with more poppy type songs like Cars and so on – and then you do something like Dance – that’s actually a real gamble. That was a big risk to take – and it was one that I was completely happy to do and one that the record company were very reluctant to – and they went for it anyway. And to be fair, they were right in that it probably wasn’t the best album I should have done or the most suitable. But it’s not just about being successful – it’s about trying to do things musically which are interesting and a little bit more challenging.

And as for the 40 years thing, that’s amazing. These kinds of anniversaries now for my albums – I’ve done so many! I did a chart about a year ago where I wrote down all of my albums – and I did like 5, 10, 15, 20, 21, 25 years and I started ticking the boxes – and pretty much every year for the rest of my life will be an anniversary of one album or another. (Laughs) For April /May 2021

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the rest of my life I could do an anniversary tour and not even write fucking new songs. It’s just I’ve been around for such a long time. It’s a long time – and I’m just kicking – dust.

You don’t seem like someone you likes to look back – you like to look forward. So, we probably won’t see a 30-year anniversary of Outland anytime soon…

(Much laughter) Noooooo. I’ll tell you what though. I can’t wait to get back to touring – at the moment, I don’t care what it is! I’ll do a medley of Cars if it will help me get back onstage again! You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s sort of taken away from you. Usually I’m touring constantly – when one tour’s finishing then I’m usually a few weeks away from another one. There might be a slight lull where I make a new album, but even then, I normally pop some excuse of a tour in the middle of it to break up the monotony of the studio stuff. But this has been awful! This has been a year and a half now. It’s the longest period ever since I became a musician where I’ve not toured – and the lifestyle – the excitement of that being with your friends – the travelling – the crowds – all of that – I never realized how much I would miss it. I wouldn’t be lying if I said a few years ago I was sort of talking to my wife and friends and I was thinking about how long I’m going to keep going with it.

Maybe I’ll do another tour and that will be it. And then it’s taken away, and you think “Oh my god, I can’t imagine never doing it again!” And now that I’ve not done it for a while, I

can’t imagine! Stop touring? Why would I ever do that? It’s just the best thing!

Do you have any messages for your fans who are reading this right now?

The one that’s really prominent is how grateful I am. I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and I’ve always tried hard with the music to make it as good as it can be. There’s been some weaker moments when I look back for sure. But the fact that people stay with you – the fact that people spend the time to check out what you’re doing and to buy tickets to come see you. I think with most artists who’ve been doing it for a long time – the appreciation of that really starts to sink in and how important it is and how grateful we should be for that. It really starts to become more than lip service after a while. I think when you first become successful, you kind of expect it. It’s all exciting and everyone’s got fans – but over time, when they stay with you and support you and when you’re down, they pick you up. There have been many occasions where I’ve been pretty close to being broken and beaten – especially in the middle years when things had been going pretty badly – and you go onstage and everybody starts screaming. It just picks you up. Sometimes it’s just a simple message – a simple message will come through and makes up for all the shit you were in that day. You know, it really does make a world of difference. And I’m just very, very grateful...

Exciting & Incredible Debut By

Available ON MR RECORDS 28TH May 2021 www.melodicrockrecords.com

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ST YX presents CRASH OF THE CROWN

Interview by Ken Morton - Live Photo by Joe Schaeffer Band Photo Courtesy of Todd Gallopo and Styx A new era of hope, survival, and prosperity comes calling with the release of Crash Of The Crown, Styx’s new studio album, which was written pre-pandemic and recorded during the trying times of the pandemic. The legendary rockers-James “JY” Young (lead vocals, guitars), Tommy Shaw (lead vocals, guitars), Chuck Panozzo (bass, vocals), Todd Sucherman (drums, percussion), Lawrence Gowan (lead vocals, keyboards) and Ricky Phillips (bass, guitar, vocals)-has just unveiled their 17th studio magnum opus via Alpha Dog 2T/UMe, and it’s destined to thrill their fans all over 18

the world. Highwire Daze recently interviewed Lawrence Gowan to find out a whole lot more about the grand and sweeping Crash Of The Crown..

Is there any overall story or concept behind the new album Crash Of The Crown?

We tried to put out something that was really open to interpretation, but to my mind it means the mountaintop suddenly being cut off – sliced off. And what happens then? Well, a big hole in the ground opens up and things go forth that wouldn’t otherwise. That’s my little lyrical interpretation of it. I don’t see it connecting to monarchy or anything of that nature at all – but really, whatever’s been held in the highest June/July 2021

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scheme or relied upon to always be there is suddenly removed – and everyone has to react and find a way to build something new after it. Sound familiar?

Yup, these pandemic days for sure. Now the title track is the one with the three lead vocals on it. What was that experience like having all three of the vocalists singing lead – and was it easy or difficult to decide who sings what?

It was actually quite easy – funny enough. I knew when writing the song that I was thinking of JY for that opening section entirely – on the demo of it I’m actually trying to do a JY impression of singing those lyrics as I thought they related well to him. I couldn’t wait for him to sing that part – so that was pre-decided. The middle section, where mostly Tommy and I sing together, and then he takes over – that was something in the writing stage where we just felt like this works with two vocals in unison, and then kind of letting him take the lead towards the end of that section and breaking into harmony. So that kind of unfolded – however the last section I anticipated that Tommy would sing that because he wrote that last section of the song. So, it kind of surprised me when he said, “Oh, no, I don’t want to sing this. I want you to sing this!” And as we got into it, that’s how it evolved. I love the fact that we squeezed this progressive rock kind of epic down into a four-minute song. It’s just really three songs smashed together with all three lead vocalists.

Another song that I think is a real highlight on Crash Of The Crown is Save Us From Ourselves. Tell me a little about the song.

What a great one that one is to be part of. My interpretation on the lyric on that one – it’s really the overindulgence of how we’ve extended ourselves way too far in whatever direction you want to interpret that. And really, we need help from wherever we can get it. For me, I seek help from people that I know are smarter than me – I kind of look to their directive on things in a lot of ways – and that’s the way I hear that song.

You know, there’s no hiding all the clashes that we’ve seen in the streets – it’s been going on for decades, but particularly now, they seem so polarized and divided that sometimes what we’re fighting over gets lost in the fight. So, I hear that woven into the song, and how to navigate our way through tough situations.

Let’s talk about Hold Back The Darkness and the inspiration behind that one.

Hold Back The Darkness is great. I hear it as a song about mental illness – someone going through a terrible anguish – and those around them that love the individual are trying to bring them back from that dark hole that they’ve fallen down mentally. And I think that there’s a lot of people who can relate to that – to somehow find a way to not surrender to those forces that we’re all subject to at some point. We need each other and we need others to help us out of a situation like that.

It’s a brave topic to go into and come out with a song that is catchy and relatable.

And tell me a song that you are really excited about on the album and what it means to you.

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One that I’m quite excited about is called Common Ground.

Common Ground is adventurous – I’ve always enjoyed the progressive side of Styx, so I’m always pushing that agenda as much as I can – because I think it makes the songs that follow a more traditional pattern of songwriting – it makes them more meaningful – so when the prog stuff kicks in, I could hear the band being very adventurous. And Common Ground does that. It’s a song that speaks to the positive ideal of what humanity – what we’re able to accomplish when we set aside our differences. And I love how the song – much like Crash Of The Crown – it evolves through several sections that are quick left turns that happen – and I find that really conducive to a live performance in particular. It starts very ominous, and it ends very uplifting and goes through some pretty intense musical shifts, rhythms, time signature changes and things like that, that Todd our drummer is so adept to navigating through. It’s just a fun ride.

I believe you’ve played your previous album The Mission in its entirety live. Is Crash Of The Crown something you would also like to play in its entirety?

Well, you know, of course, because one of the really great things that happened with The Mission was the first year it came out in 2017, we played a couple of the new songs and then on our social media, we started seeing request after request from people to do more of the new album – which is what we were hoping for. So, one by one we started doing these songs, and finally The Palms in Las Vegas asked if we could do a show there where would we do The Mission in its entirely alongside some of hits. So, we did – we put together a show where we played The Mission from beginning to end – then there was an intermission – and then we came back and did all the legacy songs of the band – and what a great night it was! So, I’m hopeful that a similar thing could happen with Crash Of The Crown. (Please turn the page for more...)

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What are you looking forward to the most about your upcoming tour with Collective Soul?

They’re a great band and it’s a great pairing. The thing that I’m most looking forward to is that reawakening, quite honestly, that this album is alluding to. Just seeing that and seeing people again and being able to celebrate the fact that we’ve gotten through probably the toughest challenge of our time on Earth. Probably the closest thing we would ever have happen would be again going through a world war, or something of that nature where the entire world is involved. So, I’m very much looking forward to the whole experience and getting back from the pandemic groove.

And do you have any messages for Styx fans who are reading this right now?

First of all, thank you for this past year and staying with the band and following all of our Styx posts that we put out. We’ve really become a tight knit virtual community through technology that has kept us together. I have to say the number of messages from people saying how much they missed seeing Styx and missed the experience of the band coming to various towns and concerts and all of that and how it’s been reaching their lives – it’s really been such a great inspiration to keep on going – to keep on striving – to keep the band alive – for our upcoming rendezvous which is going to be glorious.

StyxWorld.com

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June /July 2021

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ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE!!!

The New Reign Of Rock Has Started

Simply Brilliant Debut Album Hit Play Tv...

“Audio Reign” IS Available ON MR RECORDS www.melodicrockrecords.com

Porter McKnight of

ATREYU Photo by Jack Lue

New Sonic Baptizms with Atreyu

Interview by Ken Morton Live Photo by Jack Lue

Atreyu has returned with Baptize, their eighth epic studio album and the first to feature Brandon Saller front and center as the lead vocalist. Compelling and imaginative, Baptize present Atreyu in their finest hour, ready to rock a post pandemic world.

Highwire Daze recently interviewed bassist Porter McKnight to discuss the making of Baptize, their return to live shows including the upcoming Aftershock Festival, a look at the upcoming 20th Anniversary of their debut endeavor Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses and more..

Is there any overall story or concept behind the title Baptize?

Our mission statement behind the album is kind of how your existing as a human being affects the world around you. You have a choice everyday to be a good human being and uplift those around you and inspire – or you could be a shitty human – and how that kind of echoes through your community, your culture, your family, your friends, your nation, the world. You never know when you’re a good person how that can resonate throughout existence. In this record Baptize, it’s kind of a more look inward for us. And it’s actually interesting that we wrote about half of the album before the pandemic even hit. So, we were kind of warming ourselves up for the great look inward that everyone in the world had to go through more less. It’s about getting right with yourself and coming out stronger for it.

Tell me about Catastrophe and what those lyrics mean to you…

The chorus of that song popped into my brain during meditation. I was at my sister’s house, and Catastrophe came into my brain in a hammock in her backyard when I was meditating. I just had that melody and lyrics pop in – and the second verse of that song is my first actual Atreyu verse – and so it means a lot to me and I really think the song is fantastic. It’s about like “You can throw all this shit at me and I’ll be fine.” But also, in another sense that “We’ll be fine. If I have you and if we’re together, we’ll be fine.” Speaking about the second verse a little bit more, we were writing the HIGHWIRE DAZE

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song, and I think I brought the chorus to Brandon in the studio – and was like “This is awesome!” And he grabbed the guitar and we worked on it. We laid down the basic idea of the chorus and we fleshed out the rest of the song – he did some quick drum tracks and we laid down some quick guitars – and then he laid down the first verse based on some of the ideas and lyrics we had. But there was nothing for the second verse. And so, it was a moment where I had this chunk of information appear in my brain. We’re sitting there listening to the second verse and what do we want to do here. And I said, “I have something.” And they’re like “Go in there.” So, I go in, and I in one take do exactly what you hear – and it was like I look up in the room and everyone was like “That was fucking awesome! Next part…”

(Please turn the page for more...)

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I’ve never really done that in the career of this band.

Since I joined in 2004, I always kind of knew I was stepping into this strong dichotomy – we have this singer who’s amazing and this (other) singer who’s amazing. We had these two guitarists who are amazing songwriters. I’m just going to step in and try to fill in the gap where people are needed and try to uplift and help everyone find the best version of themselves – and when I’m needed, I’m needed.

In the bands I was in before Atreyu, I was the front man – and a good chunk of the songwriter and lyricist as well. With this new album, it’s kind of a chance for me to like to remember what it was like back then as a lyricist and a vocalist – but also who I am now in that same vein. So, it’s tapping into this river of inspiration and creativity that I hadn’t really tapped into in a while fully. So, it was really exciting to have that moment to just kind of pop in – and me to just have the guts and the room being open – and just to go in there and do it. I would have never done that in the past out of the respect for the dynamics. And to do it and be like “Fuck yeah!” and I was like “fuck yeah too!” It was really fun. So that song means a lot to me and I’m happy we released that one early.

Here is the one and only question about your former singer Alex and then I want to move on and talk about your new drummer Kyle. How devastating was it when Alex left the band, and do you still keep in touch with him?

I wish him the best for everything in his life – creative, music, family – everything. I have nothing but respect for him.

Give me a little background on Kyle and how he became involved with the band.

We’ve known Kyle for a really long time. He played in this band called Thieves & Liars back in the day with Joey Bradford who’s now in The Used as well and one of our good friends. Honestly, I don’t know how we found out about them. I know that I got them onto a show at The Glass House that we played in 2007. We’ve known them for a very long time. And Kyle plays drums in Hell Or High Water (Brandon of Atreyu’s other band) – he was our drum tech for a while, so he’s toured with us around the world – and he’s really just a genuinely good human being.

Kyle is a really good drummer and I look forward to playing shows again with this lineup for first time technically – where we knew that this is a permanent thing.

What are you looking forward to the most about Aftershock Festival this year?

Just fucking playing a show man – just in general. (Much laughter). Aftershock is near and dear to me personally.

When we first played Aftershock as Atreyu, it was our second show back when we resumed after the pause button.

We hit play from the pause button as I like to say it from when we had a little break. We first played Chain Reaction in Anaheim which if someone reading this doesn’t know, is a smaller legendary venue in Orange County, California. And 24

then a couple of days later we played Aftershock – and that was a festival in front of 18,000 people or whatever it was.

I didn’t remember how much I loved playing live music – the whole time we stopped I didn’t really have the itch – I didn’t care – I kind of missed touring but not really. I do so much in the artistic side of my life that if we start playing again, then whatever. But when we hit the stage, it changed.

I was like “Oh! This has been missing from me – from my life – for a very long time.” And then we hit the stage at Aftershock, and I was like, “Oh fuck, this too!” There was like this small venue energy (with Chain Reaction) and then there was this big stage experience and feeling. And I was like “Oh, my God, I love this. I am never going to take this for granted again.”

So literally on the day and from that moment, I’ve never taken a show for granted. Every single show, I am doing everything in my power to be present and as connected as I can be to the hearts and mouths that are in the crowd who reach into their pockets to buy a ticket to support our band. I’ve never taken it for granted. I think a lot of people are going to have that same feeling coming back when we can go to shows on both sides of the coin. So, Aftershock is very dear to me for that, and we had such a great time. And we’re just exited to be there and play there again.

Next year marks the 20th Anniversary of Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses – an album I don’t believe you were on.

You were almost in the band but not quite. What do you think of that album 20 years in?

That’s a good question. I haven’t listened to it in a while. I should listen to it again. But as far as what hearing the name June/July 2021

HIGHWIRE DAZE

makes me think of – it’s very fond. I joined the band when they were recording The Curse. They had parted ways with their bassist in 2004 and they were literally recording bass when they asked me play – but there was no way I could learn the entire album and fly to Canada and record it. So, I toured on a lot of Suicide songs before I got to write a song – and a lot of The Curse songs obviously. So, it’s near and dear to my heart. I love a lot of those songs. I was a fan of the band before I was in it – and it is definitely an important album for the band and our career. It’s a good album.

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you, for Atreyu, and just for music in general?

A return to being able to play live music would be fantastic – for me and for everyone who likes playing and going to live shows for sure. I hope it brings us great success. I think this album is our best album we’ve ever done – and we’re at a point in our career where this is the best I’ve felt about music in my entire life. This is the most exciting chapter in my musical career by far – and I guarantee the rest of the band echoes that sentiment as well.

We have an album coming out in a few weeks and I would love for it to be a great success. I want to play every country in the world – I want to travel everywhere – I want to meet everyone. I’ve always felt that way – and I think now we’re

HIGHWIRE DAZE

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in a place where we will – we’re going to play everywhere we possibly can where it’s safe to. We’re going to tour more than we’ve ever have – we’re going to go more places for longer. We’re just really excited to do this man! And I think it’s made even more exciting because of the pandemic and I think a lot of people feel that way. But even without the pandemic, that’s how we feel. We’re just really, really excited for this next chapter of our band. And we can’t wait to show it to the world.

Do you have any messages for Atreyu fans who are reading this now?

Absolutely! First and foremost, thank you for giving a shit about our band for so many years. If you’re just hearing about us – welcome! If you’ve been here for a long time – thank you so much for caring for so long. I can guarantee you that we care more about this band than we ever have – and that we’ll be doing this for a very long time. We love this album – we love this band – we love our fans – and we genuinely and truly cannot wait to spend more time with you guys on and off the road.

www.atreyuofficial.com

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A Chat with Valentino Arteaga from

Of Mice & Men

and

Lower Definiton

Interview by Ken Morton Live Photo by Jack Lue Of Mice & Men (pictured right) has spent their time within the wilds of a great pandemic creating their sonic artistry, with the stunning results being a duo of EP’s entitled Timeless and Bloom both now available via SharpTone Records. OM&M’s drummer Valentino Arteaga is also very active with the reawakening of his previous band Lower Definition, best known for their The Greatest of All Lost Arts album from 2008 on Ferret Records. With a brand new single entitled Grief Eater and even more music on the way, Lower Definition is primed and ready to present their dynamic auditory visions to the world once more.

Highwire Daze recently caught up with Valentino Arteaga via Skype to find out more about the current happenings from Of Mice & Men and the return of the post hardcore collective known as Lower Definition. Read on...

Part One - Lower Definition How did the return of Lower Definition come about, especially when you’re already super busy with a major band called Of Mice & Men? A couple of years ago back in 2018 we celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the release of Lower Definition’s first and only album The Greatest Of All Lost Arts. And I kind of had some foresight in seeing that that time was coming up – and I thought since I had some time, that we could schedule a show in our hometown at Soma – which is basically our home venue in San Diego. And that whole 2018 kind of sparked us into talking about it. Obviously, we’ve taken it slow, but that’s also because we’re holding it close to our hearts. That’s kind of how we always did it, and we don’t want to rush it for the sake of putting out music just to put it out. We want to make sure that the music is absolute top tier quality of what we expect from ourselves and what we hope our band would sound like in the year of 2021 and onward. It’s a whole new 26

landscape and I think our mindset as a band back in the early 2000’s post hardcore and underground metal scene / underground punk scene. It’s a different realm out here now. And we want to stay true to what our sound is – whatever that means to us today.

I think I saw Lower Definition either at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood and/or at the Cobalt Café in Canoga Park.

I was going to say I remember Highwire Daze from Cobalt – you guys were always out there covering those shows. And there was such a killer scene out there man – we were always so stoked when we got to go out there to play. Back then it was just moshing, and it was crazy. It’s these small venues that really gave way to these iconic memories for us. It was either the Knitting Factory R.I.P. or the Cobalt. I don’t know if the Cobalt is still around.

Cobalt Café R.I.P….

Aw man! Yeah, it’s pretty crazy but being in those circles and playing at those venues – being from San Diego we always felt like we wanted to get out of our town and go up and play in the Los Angeles area. We’d always go out to the Los Angeles area and play The Showcase out there. The music scene back then was like the fabric of what built who we all are today. And for myself especially with having taken a career in music, and everywhere that that’s taken me – so I feel very strongly rooted in the hometown scenes in the So Cal June /July 2021

HIGHWIRE DAZE

Scene – and it really cool to kind of have Lower D back in the mix of that. Because I know that we’re really feeling that – because we’re all kind of spread out right now. Stefan lives out in LA, I’m out here in Palm Springs, Eddy and Matt live in North County, and I think Mark’s out there in that area.

Let’s talk about the new song Grief Eater and what that title and song means to you.

The underlying theme behind it I feel like is we all need a Grief Eater, because you can’t just live with grief. You can’t just settle for the things that you can’t control, and grief is a big proponent. As we get older, we never really come to terms with how to deal with it or what’s right or what’s wrong. But it’s important to have something that is a Grief Eater – and for us, bringing the band back – that was our Grief Eater.

Being able to create music together again and rekindle friendships that we had a decade ago – and there was so much involved with that before, because we had been a band for almost 10 years before things ended – or got put on hold technically. But writing this music, we felt that this was the perfect song to share first off, because this was our method to the grief we had felt for the band or the grief that we had experienced in our lives in the past 10 years. We wanted to put it into a song – to put it into something that vibed with a statement of “Hey we’re back. We’re making music. There’s no plan – but there’s a plan cuz we’re just making music!”

So that’s that. We know that everybody’s going through pain right now and we wrote it in the middle of the pandemic too – so it was kind of like “are we going to play shows?” We just got the band back together it feels like. What does the future hold? Alright, let’s just focus on our Grief Eater – let’s focus on our music and let’s not worry about the things that we can’t control. So, it’s been really cool feeling the depth in the music as well as in the lyrics.

And obviously there will be a new Lower Definition EP or album somewhere down the road.

Oh yeah, we’re getting all that stuff figured out. There’s some studio time booked right now this month, and we’re working through a bunch of stuff because we wanted to test the waters and see what happened if we just dropped a track on April Fool’s Day, which was on purpose for sure because we knew that everybody would be like, “Oh, great April Fool’s joke!” And I was like, “No, we did that.” (Laughs) So there’s definitely more stuff in the works but we’re just really having fun with it and reconnecting with our sound – and I think that our audience is really going to enjoy what we have. There’s definitely a lot of great music happening, and we can’t wait to share it with everybody coming soon.

PART TWO - OF MICE & MEN And now on the Of Mice & Men. You left Lower Definition and started Of Mice & Men back in 2009. How frustrating has it been to see so many members come and go throughout the years?

The thing is with Of Mice & Men – “The best laid plans Of HIGHWIRE DAZE

June/July 2021

Mice & Men often for awry.” We live our band name and I think with everything, we never realized the impact that the music had until it was right in our faces being sang by thousands of people back at us one summer at Warped Tour. We were like oh my god, this is so much bigger than we expected it to be. This is something important. We’re in the middle of something. We’re on a wave with all these bands right now – and there’s a phenomenon happening right now – and we gotta kick it into high gear and take things real seriously and turn it into a freight train. No sick days – you’re not allowed to miss VIP – it had to really tighten up and I feel like in a lot of ways that’s not necessarily for everybody.

And I guess in a lot of ways, through the years being able to feel like we have a core unit now for quite a few albums – some of us have been in it longer than others. You have Alan who joined after Phil and I – Aaron came a couple years after that. So, we’ve all kind of evolved with each other and I think we now have a pretty good songwriting structure, and how we do things as Of Mice & Men. And I don’t know that could be said without having to go through all the ups and downs of member changes and album pushbacks and album shelvings – there’s so much you know. And I think that the power of music has kept us going. And it’s really our fans because as of right now, we’ve never had more listening on our streaming platforms. Our new songs are resonating with our old fans and our new fans and brand-new fans who are just finding out about them. It’s pretty incredible to have been able to be so prolific through the years and be able to get out the albums and make sure that our sound remains true to the band and what Of Mice & Men means.

This year you’re in the midst of releasing a series of EP’s on SharpTone Records. Is there any overall story or concept behind the titles Timeless and Bloom?

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With these EP’s, it’s kind of like feeling Timeless. Are we really timeless? What does Timeless mean? Is timeless a film that exists on celluloid or is timeless the idea of a film that exists on celluloid and the story of that film? It’s about what makes something timeless and it’s about keeping memories alive. And Bloom does segue way into that in a way, because Bloom is about our impermanence on this Earth – and things and the people that we love the most are those that can no longer be here with us.

In a lot of ways, all of the songs that we’ve been releasing are dealing in a similar vein of that – because there’s been a lot of experience of that in our lives recently. Being off the road and what does timeless mean? Are you really a timeless act?

What about being Obsolete? These kinds of things we’re feeling, we’re kind of expressing in these songs. Kind of like facing reality and being like, “This is what it is. Love is watching the pedals fall.” That’s the final lyric off of Bloom.

I think the main lyric in there is “We were born to bloom, destined to deteriorate, no beauty in plastic flowers, no honey made from fake bouquets.” And it’s like nothing that’s important is made from something that’s fake. It’s gotta be real, and if it’s real, then as good as it feels there’s also going to be the bad that comes with it. And us being able to come to terms with that is what makes us human. .

Do you think Of Mice & Men and Lower Definition would ever want to tour or do some shows together? Or has that already somehow happened?

That has not happened, but I don’t think it’s out of the question. That would be sick! And then we get Aaron’s other band Jamie’s Elsewhere and we’ll make it The Hometown Homey Shows. I don’t know -shows in my mind – I know that they’re gonna happen soon. I think in due time I would not put it off the table. I think that would be sick and I’d have a blast. I know the other guys in the band are fans too and that’s a cool thing to have – to know that there’s mutual appreciation with the music and at the same time all the dudes are supportive of both music projects. It’s a cool time to be creative. I think it was scary first when everyone was told to get grounded and stay inside, but it’s been an incredibly creative time. Arguably the most creative time in my life – and at the same time I feel like I haven’t done a damn thing in a year and a half. But that is what it is.

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you, for your bands, and for the worldwide music community in general?

I know it’s going to bring so much more new music – and that’s an exciting thing too – to be releasing music alongside 28

so many amazing artists right now. Spending time creatively and then being able to put it out into the world is such a fulfilling feeling – and I think that so many bands have taken the time to write amazing music because we’re all going to interpret what happened in our lives differently – but we all kind of have this commonality of “we gotta dig into music and release music.” What I hope for the music scene and for us and for the bands and the musicians and the audience alike is to just appreciate all this art. Get out there and buy the vinyl – buy the shirt if you can. I know at the same time it’s not all about the “buy, buy, buy,” but just listening and streaming and supporting the bands. Leaving comments on their profile and telling friends about them – and just kind of being part of the community – I think we know as a music community that we need that more than ever – and we thrive on that.

And we haven’t had shows, so we need to all kind of band together as things are opening back up – take care of each other – hope for good health and hope for happiness. And really – PEDAL TO THE METAL – the heavier the music comes out, the better. The more music that comes out, the better. I’m here for it – I love listening to new bands. I love seeing bands succeed. Metal is in the top charts these days.

Like what year is this? It’s crazy! It really is unprecedented.

We can all agree that something culturally hugely has happened around the world – and as creative individuals, we’re all going to have our own take on it. So just be on the lookout for more new music from Of Mice & Men and Lower Definition and probably all of your favorite bands – and go spread love and be a part of the community – support one another and take care of one another.

www.ofmiceandmenofficial.com/ June /July 2021

HIGHWIRE DAZE

The Epic & Mind-Blowing Debut Album From

Available Now ON www.melodicrockrecords.com

NEW NAME – NEW LOGO – NEW ATTITUDE – NEW EDGE

Diamante and the American Dream

Interview by Ken Morton - Photo by Jack Lue Diamante is an artist you’ll be hearing a whole lot more from in these post pandemic days. With expressive vocals and movie star charisma, Diamamte is ready to explode above and beyond the legendary Los Angeles music scene she calls home. American Dream is the name of her brand new album - an independently released project brimming with an epic amount of passion and conviction.

Diamante recently participated in a photo shoot with legendary photographer Jack Lue, and is featured as the center poster in this very issue! After the photo shoot, Highwire Daze sat down to chat with Diamante about the making of American Dream, the deeply personal songs found within the album, touring with Breaking Benjamin, her upcoming Larger Than Life Festival appearance, and more!

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Is there any overall story or concept behind the album title American Dream?

Yes, there’s actually a double concept behind the title. So, American Dream was the last song I wrote for the album – and up until that point I had no album title and no idea what it was going to be called. And when I wrote that song American Dream, it clicked for two reasons. The first one is this album is my first independent release – so independence, freedom, American Dream. And the second reason is my mom is Mexican, my dad’s Italian – they came here to America 20 years ago – and if they had never done that, I wouldn’t be here making music, touring, being an artist. So that in itself is the American Dream. So that’s two reasons why.

Ghost Myself – tell me a little about that song and the inspiration behind it.

Ghost Myself is definitely a personal song for me because it’s about how I don’t always feel 100 percent – I don’t always June/July 2021

HIGHWIRE DAZE

love the person that I am – some days I wake up and I wish I could be anybody but me. I always held on to this feeling like it was something that I alone was experiencing – that I was ashamed to tell people this was how I felt sometimes – and putting it into a song was so cathartic and freeing for me to do. And then when I realized so many people resonate with this song, because so many people feel this way in some point in time. It’s really an emotional, powerful song for me.

Why don’t you select any other song you’d like to talk about from American Dream and what inspired the lyrics? I selected Obvious, but you pick one…

Obvious is a brutal one because it’s about me realizing that someone I’m in love with is not in love with me – maybe never was, but definitely no longer is – and they’re slipping out of my grasp for somebody else. And no matter how hard you try – how good you try to look – how charming you try to be – there’s nothing you can do to stop it. It’s a really painful, slow process and you’re seeing it happen before your eyes.

So Obvious is a very sad song.

Another one I want to highlight is Unlovable, because it’s also one of the very personal songs on the album. I wrote it during the quarantine, and I think I could only write a song like this during the quarantine, because I was forced to sit alone with my thoughts and all my past experiences and all these memories that I had sort of blocked out of my mind. Because when I’m out on tour, I’m out on this high – this adrenaline – and I’m playing shows and I’m living the best life and I’m not thinking about past demons or past things – I’m suppressing those things. So, in quarantine, all those feelings and emotions started bubbling to the surface. And the last couple of years, I’ve had this insecurity in the back of my head – like what if I’m too difficult to love? What if I’m too hard for someone to accept. What if I’m just not lovable? I had to face that fear and I put that into the song Unlovable – and I think it’s probably the most personal song on the album.

What’s it like working with famed producer Howard Benson? His credits are astounding!

Oh, I know! It’s insane! He’s produced some of my favorite artists – he’s done Kelly Clarkson, he’s done My Chemical Romance, he’s done Halestorm. The first time I met him, I was just 18-19 years old – and I walked into his studio by myself for the first time and I was so intimidated because he’s such a legend. But we’ve worked now together for almost five years, so we’ve definitely gotten closer. And with this last album – because there was no label – there was no A&R – it was just me, Howard and Neil Sanderson deciding what this album was going to sound like – so it was very collaborative. And I always praise Howard for teaching me how to write those really vulnerable, painful, uncomfortable songs, because he was always the one who pushed me to go there.

And then vocally, he was always the one to push me to sing with conviction. And if I sang a line he didn’t believe, he’d call me out on it right away and would have me do it again.

I love that kind of push from someone because I like being challenged.

One of the big bands you toured with right before the pandemic was Breaking Benjamin. What was that experience HIGHWIRE DAZE

June/July 2021

like touring with a big band like Breaking Benjamin?

Life changing. So life changing, because I remember being 11-12 years old and I knew who Breaking Benjamin was – I’d hear Diary Of Jane. Three Days Grace was on the tour too, and I remember I listened to Riot when I was 12 years. It was so insane to be able to say that I was on the same tour as these artists. And it was my first time getting to play arenas and amphitheater stages as my own artist. The year before I did do all that, but it was just to go sing the one song with Bad Wolves, so I didn’t get to do my whole set. So that time around, it was life changing.

What are you looking forward to the most about your upcoming appearance at the Louder Than Life Festival?

Getting to play a show! Getting to play, getting to be onstage and interact with the crowd. That is the number one for me.

Because I did do two live stream concerts in 2020 – and they were fun and at least I got to put on a show and do a show with my band guys and sing. But it’s no comparison when the crowd isn’t there with you. So, I can’t wait to feel that energy, and I can’t wait – this is my favorite thing to do – to go into the concession stands or somewhere rando and make myself completely accessible – and hang out with everyone and take photos – that was my favorite part.

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you and for the music scene in general?

I really hope that live touring comes back, especially because there are so many people who are on the live touring industry for work – all my crew guys and all the crew people in the industry. I hope that I’m able to play this album live, because it’s so much fun when you work so hard on a body of work and then you’re able to see it come to life in a live show setting. And you’re seeing the people in the crowd singing the words back to you. So that’s what I hope for 2021.

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HI GHWI REDAZ EMAGAZ I NE

PRE SE NT E DBY

J ACKL UEPHOT OGRAPHY

DI AMANTE

AMERICAN TEETH Photo by Jack Lue

THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF

AMERICAN TEETH

Interview by Ken Morton - Photos by Jack Lue American Teeth is the sonic alter ego of Elijah Noll, who collaborates alongside producer Colin Brittain (All Time Low, A Day To Remember, ONE OK ROCK, Papa Roach) and this meeting of the minds has resulted in quite a journey into the realm of pop punk and beyond. Hailing from Portland, Maine but currently based in Los Angeles, American Teeth recently signed to Fearless Records and plan to release his debut album later this year. With singles such as Fix You and One Of These Days already making a lasting impression on all types of music fans, American Teeth is slated to open the Aftershock Music Festival in Sacramento and has other live shows in the works as well. Highwire Daze recently interviewed Elijah Noll to find out a whole lot more about the up and coming American Teeth and their absolutely exhilarating, imaginative songs! Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in American Teeth and how long you’ve been doing this project.

I am the singer, writer, co-producer of American Teeth. I HIGHWIRE DAZE

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started the project – we’re coming up on two years in June actually. So, it’s a fairly new project that came out of a session that I had with my now frequent collaborator Colin Brittain – who’s a great producer. We had a session with Munky from KORN actually – that was kind of put together and we really ended up hitting it off, the two of us, and started writing songs for fun – and that’s kind of how it all started.

How did you wind up signing with Fearless Records?

That was after a couple of different meetings – Colin and I together ended up going around meeting a couple of different record labels – Fearless was one of them. Colin actually knew Andy Serrao the President of the label – so we ended up popping in there after one of our meetings in the area out here in LA. What has it been like to write and release new music for American Teeth in the middle of a pandemic and all this social unrest in the world?

It’s definitely helped fuel my creativity and the creation 35

process around that. As far as releasing, it’s been interesting because it’s really kind of this thing where you’re putting it out and you don’t get to go play it live like you usually would. Like you’re just putting it out there.

I’m focusing more on getting the songs out and really making sure that I’m creating visuals that match the story I’m trying to tell or the vibe that I want people to feel. And I’ve been getting into TikTok too which has been an interesting journey.

Metal Babe Mondays!

Let’s talk about your new song One Of These Days and what inspired the lyrics for you.

That song is essentially about acceptance honestly. It’s about waking up and just feeling terrible right off the bat. A lot of times when I’m feeling down or I’m going through a bad day, I’ll try to deny that that’s happening, or try to convince myself “It’s fine.

I’ll be fine…” and just push through. But I found recently with some trial and error that sometimes often when you just accept that you’re having a shitty day, and allow yourself to feel that, you can move past it quicker. It’s really kind of the meaning behind the whole thing – let go and accept that you’re having a shitty day – and by doing that, most of the time you’ll be able to move forward that way.

Tell me about the new single Fix You and what was the inspiration behind that song.

Fix You came out of an end of a relationship last August that had a lot of ups and downs and was a bit of a roller coaster. It kind of depicts that back and forth, on and off, and good and bad. Colin had actually been working on a track with Alex Gaskarth and they had had it for a while – and Colin sent it to me. And one night I was really having a tough time and I just sat down and wrote a bunch of lyrics over it and ended up bringing it to him – we ended up finishing it up and that’s kind of how it all came together. It felt really in the moment.

You also released a new song with it called E-Girl. Tell me a little about that one.

E-Girl was actually written about a year before that – and that came out of a co-write of myself, Colin Britain and my other friend Colin Dieden – whose Little Hurt is his other project.

We were doing a co-write and we set out to write something that had an in-your-face punk attitude and we had a super fun time fucking around and keeping it simple. Electric guitar, real drums – we wanted to make it feel like garage band style – short, fast. At the time, I guess it was coming off of my tour in 2019 with Dreamers, so I was very much in the headspace of writing music for live shows – so that I could imagine the energy of what this would bring to a live show. And that soon enough will be there.

Your producer Colin Brittain – he’s worked with bands such as All Time Low, Papa Roach, 5 Seconds Of Summer – the 36

raghousemedia.com

Metal Babe Mayhem

list is crazy! What is it like working with him?

It’s really fun – we have a good thing. He’s so incredible. His track record shows how talented he is. I think that when you bring both of our talents together, we have something that I feel is really unique – and we just have so much fun creating together.

What are you looking forward to the most about Aftershock?

Hopefully meeting some of the other acts backstage, but mostly just getting on a stage for the first time in a while – and on a festival stage for the first time. Over the last year or so during quarantine, the pandemic and everything, I have gained a bit of a fan base and starting communicating with a lot of the fans online, so I get the sense by talking to them that I’m going to see a lot of new faces. So that’s going to be cool to be able to play for people who have now been following me for the past year of these releases where we haven’t been able to go out and play the shows. It’s going to be the first big show back.

And do you have any messages for people who are reading this right now?

Yeah. Trust your intuition. I know it feels out of the blue, but I’ve had a lot of times where I was afraid I was making the wrong decisions – and lately I’ve been paying attention to how I feel about the decisions before I make them, and things have been getting a lot better since I started doing that. So trust your intuition. It feels out of the blue, but it’s the thing at the top of my mind right now.

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Getting The Balance Right with Pete Fry of FARCRY and JADED PAST

Interview by Ken Morton - (FarCry Pictured above) Guitarist Pete Fry has certainly been busy during these pandemic days and beyond. A brand new FarCry album entitled Balance has been released via AOR Heaven as well as a Jaded Past Live And On Edge magnus opus which has been presented via MR Records. If participating in two bands isn’t enough, Pete Fry also has a weekly radio show entitled FRYday Night with Fry!, playing classic rock, AOR, metal, up-and-coming bands, and whatever else he and his listeners want to hear. Highwire Daze recently caught up with Pete Fry to discuss the current happenings of FarCry, Jaded Past, his radio show and a whole lot more!

How did the connection with AOR Heaven come about?

First and foremost, when it comes to melodic rock, I’m a fan. I play this music cuz I love it. I listen to it myself. I was very familiar with AOR Heaven as a listener for the last handful of years – in fact for a bunch of years. They’re one of the premier melodic rock labels out there. So, when we decided to look for labels, we wanted one that would specifically be a legitimate European release, because honestly that’s where the heartbeat of melodic rock really is – in Europe and 38

Scandinavia. So, we kind of wanted to be where it’s all happening. That was important to us, so we talked to a number of different labels. And Georg (of AOR Heaven) was great – he’s very nuts and bolts about everything. He’s straight up, and I’ve heard that from a number of people who’ve dealt with him before – and I can honestly say since we’ve started dealing with him, everything that he says he’s going to do he does. It’s not as hassle – it’s not a drama – it’s just done. So, we’re very happy with that.

Let’s talk about the new album Balance. Is there any overall story or concept behind that title?

There is! And if you look at the cover, it won’t tell you that story. It doesn’t really have anything to do with it. But if you listen to the song – the title track itself – that was one of the first songs Bob Malone the new singer and I collaborated on – and it was something that we came up with at his house.

And it’s basically about reality – balancing life and work and family and all of that stuff – and just trying to keep everything together. It speaks to a lot of people who listen to melodic rock because hey, we’re all kind of grown up now, you know?

What was it like to work with Steve Newman (Newman, June/July 2021

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Compass) on the song I Am Your Man? Well, that’s actually Steve’s song. On our second album Optimism, I had written some music and sent it to Steve – and he wrote lyrics and vocal melodies and they appeared on that album. But this one in particular – we were kind of looking for something a little bit different to put on the album because everything else on the album is basically from within the band. So, I talked to Steve and he said “Hey, I’ve got a couple songs – if you’re interested, I’ll send them to you – and if you want to use one of them, go for it!” So, he sent us I Am Your Man and he sent us another track which we ended up not using. But we all liked I Am Your Man – it’s got a great hook – it’s a really well written song – it’s super melodic – it’s got that kind of AOR feel which we like to do sometimes. So basically, we put the song together the way we wanted to do it – no keyboard and all guitars – because we’re a guitar band when it comes down to it. And I wrote Steve a note cuz when we finally got around to getting this stuff done – I said “Hey, we’re going to use I Am Your Man – we already recorded the basic track for it. I just wanted to let you know. Thanks again.” And he said “Oh, I didn’t know you were going to use it. I’m actually putting it on my new album.” So, it’s out there in both places – his is obviously fantastic. Steve is one of the most talented people I know in every aspect of musicality when it comes to singing, guitar playing, production, songwriting, everything! The guy’s a great talent and a great guy – I really like Steve a lot.

Your bass player Leo Sabatino I believe is in your other band Jaded Past. What made you decide to work with Leo in FarCry and what’s going on with Jaded Past?

I decide to work him in FarCry because we worked with another drummer before we got the current drummer Rich – and he was in another band with Leo – and we used to have Ronnie Parkes in the band who’s now in Bonfire – so obviously he’s a little busy. He’s like “Dude, I would really love to be a part of it, but I don’t have time.” We’re still good friends. Ronnie’s a great guy and obviously a seriously good bass player. So, the previous drummer in FarCry before we got the new guy brought Leo into the fold and said, “Hey I worked with this guy in another band I was in and he’s a really good guy and he’s a really good bass player.” And it just kind of went from there – it was a pretty easy fit. And when I got into Jaded Past, we had another bass player in there at the time, but he ended up moving out to Arizona or something like that – so we needed a bass player and George asked me if I thought Leo would be interested. And at the time, FarCry wasn’t playing out at all and Leo wanted to get out there onstage – and so do I – that’s one of the reasons I joined Jaded Past because he was playing out a lot and I need to keep my chops up. So, Leo was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So, there you go.

Jaded Past is actually doing really well right now. We’ve released a live album on Melodic Rock (MR) Records in February. We’re working on I think it’s his third studio album and George and I are working on some stuff with that right now. And we’re playing our first gig since the pandemic in August with Eric Martin being backed up by Steve Brown and P.J. Farley and Ted Poley. So that’s a really good gig and that’s going to be August 21st at Artie’s Bar and Grill HIGHWIRE DAZE

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in Frenchtown, New Jersey – so mark your calendars! We’re really looking forward to that. We didn’t want to do the little corner bar with eight bands -and you’re watching a goth band followed by a melodic band followed by like a one-man band.

We wanted to do something real, so we’re just trying to do the right kind of gigs that make sense for us that has an audience that’s going to appreciate what we do. I think that the people who see those bands are really going to like us – and we like those guys – they’re super talented!

Are there any plans for FarCry to do some live shows when it’s safe to do so?

Definitely! As a matter of fact, we just started rehearsing a couple of weeks ago for the first time since before the pandemic. We didn’t feel there was a need to rehearse during the pandemic because we were really working on making the album come out. And we delayed it a little bit too, and now I think is the perfect time. Things are starting to open up.

People are getting vaccinated and starting to feel a little safer.

Numbers are going down. So, we’re hoping we hit it at the right time and that we can get some traction out of having an album release – and getting out there and hopefully playing some good festivals and some solid shows. And we’re definitely getting ready for that right now.

I didn’t want to conclude the interview without talking about your radio show FRYday Night With Fry. How did your radio show come about?

You know, it’s kind of interesting – I was at FireFest in 2012 with FarCry and things were starting to go South for the band at that point. Not personally – we all love each other very much and we had a good show – but we were without a label. We hadn’t gotten really much of a new album going yet. I was making some changes in my life regarding starting a new business and leaving a business partnership I was in to start something else. I had a lot of stuff going on, so I kind of knew that I was going to have to make some tough decisions 39

and that’s when I broke up FarCry. But I didn’t want to leave the forum of melodic rock, so I was talking to Steve Price, who at the time was the program manager for ARFM and I asked him how things were going. He said, “Oh things are going pretty good, but we could use a few more presenters.” And I said “Oh, really? I’ll do a show!” And he was “Oh really?” And we talked about it and I went home and thought “Holy Crap! I have no idea how to do this!” So, I figured it out – I picked up some software. If you listened to those first shows I did in November / December of 2012 maybe, I definitely found that I was not sure exactly what I was doing. And I’m not sure I’ve gotten a whole lot better since then, but I have been doing it for a while, so I feel more comfortable. It’s great man! I kept it going even when I brought the band back and I joined another band – and it’s a lot of work putting the show together, but I really love doing it. I love spreading the word about new music. I love bringing back deep cut classics now and again. I really love talking to other musicians as I’m sure you do. Just last week I spoke to Robin McAuley – I’ve interviewed Michael Schenker, Jeff Scott Soto – and everything from like smaller local bands to genuine rock stars. And I love it. I can’t get enough of it. For me, it’s definitely a labor of love…

farcryband.net www.jadedpast.com

Available On 8th July 2021 www.melodicrockrecords.com

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AUDITORY ARTISTRY FROM A

MAD SYMPHONY

Interview by Ken Morton Mad Symphony is the collaboration of accomplished and professional Vancouver-based musicians who collectively have many years of experience writing, recording, and touring internationally with various acts. Formed from the ashes of Seattle grunge-metal band Soulbender (which also featured Michael Wilton of Queensryche fame on guitar), Mad Symphony present their own exhilarating brand of progressive hard rock with classic rock influences that captivates the senses. Their Self-Titled EP has just been released via MR Records of Australia, and it’s jammed packed with sheer auditory artistry. Highwire Daze interviewed two of the members of Mad Symphony to find out more about this amazing Canadian based collective ready to take their composotions worldwide!

PART ONE - TED TOSOFF (Rhythm Guitar) Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Mad Symphony, and how long the band has been together.

Hi Ted Tosoff Rhythm Guitar /Vocals /Songwriter/recording and Production. The Band formed in 2017 -2018.

Where is the band based out of and what was your local music scene like pre-pandemic?

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We’re based out of Vancouver B.C. CANADA. The live scene for Rock and really all music has been pretty sad, but let’s hope when this is over people will come back and support it.

Select two songs from your Self-Titled EP and what inspired the lyrics.

The Next Door: that lyric is based on “when one door closes a better door opens” and life after death. Nothin: We all got nothing in the end only love...

What has it been like to write and release new music in the middle of a pandemic and all the social unrest in the world?

Well lucky for us most of the songs we had finished when all this started. But we’ve got another select number of songs finished and on the go.

What could one expect from a live Mad Symphony show?

Well if you go on to our YouTube .the Video for Sell Me Out spells it out. Add in loud Guitars and Drums , some screaming vocals wailing Keys . Good Fucking Rock!

Are you involved with any other bands or projects outside of Mad Symphony?

We all have other Bands and Projects, but this is our #1 eyes on the prize, lots of work went into this so hopefully people will dig it, and we can get out and tour this.

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What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you, for Mad Symphony, and for the worldwide music scene?

Well so far so good, the EP just dropped and the reviews have been fantastic,and Radio has been really supportive of us ,So let hope thats a good sign of things to come.

Any final words of wisdom?

Yeah hope everyone stays safe, and please to those reading this, check out Mad Symphony @ www.madsymphony.ca From Wes, Amrit, Kev, Dave, Mike and Myself: Thank you Cheers!

PART TWO - DAVE GROVES (Lead Guitarist) Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Mad Symphony, and how long the band has been together.

My name is Dave Groves and I am the lead-guitarist for Mad Symphony. Our band has been together in its current form for about 2 years but, for most of us, the association goes back much further. We found our vocalist Kevin Wright 3 years ago when Ted Tosoff (rhythm guitar), Wes Hallam (drums) and I were writing songs in Ted’s home studio. Ted had heard of Kevin through the grapevine. We heard some demos he had done with another band and invited him over one night.

Kevin walked in and nailed the song ‘Nothin’ (which Ted had written) without ever having heard it before. The track on the CD is the one he recorded that very first night we met. The chemistry was there right off the bat.

I had been touring with our keyboardist: Mike Russell, in Sweeney Todd for years and really wanted to add his symphonic magic to make our sound even bigger. We had about 10 songs recorded with Kevin before Mike came in one night and laid down a blistering solo for ‘Do It All Over Again’. We immediately put Mike to work on the rest of the songs while we looked for a bass player. Mike and I had played with Amrit Prasad years ago in an Ozzy Osbourne tribute band called ‘Wizard of Oz’ and Wes had also played with Amrit in a Vancouver metal band called Assault. We are fortunate in that the nucleus of Mad Symphony already has the benefit of familiarity and chemistry. We started jamming and immediately gelled as a band.

Where is the band based out of and what was your local music scene like pre-pandemic?

Here in Vancouver B.C. the rock scene is pretty small. Some great bands have come out of here over the years though.

There were some decent clubs and casinos to play back in ‘the before times’, but those are all gone for now. Who knows if they’re ever coming back?

How did you wind up signing with MR Records?

The president of MR Records owed us a gambling debt over an Australian cricket match. We had a few offers from some other labels in England and Europe but MR Records were very passionate about the band and our music. A few Zoom meetings later and…. the deal was done. The debt was paid.

What could one expect from a live Mad Symphony show?

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The band has come a long way since recording our EP. The new songs we’ve written cover a wider variety of moods and sounds. We like to jam and improvise. There are lots of transition pieces between songs when we play live, and also extra jams and solos that we like to do. There are a lot of vocal harmonies and we all sing. Expect turbo-charged versions of our songs delivered with passion.

Your previous band Soulbender had Michael Wilton from Queensrÿche involved with it. What was that experience like working with Michael Wilton and do you still keep in touch with him?

My association with Mike Wilton goes all the way back to the Queensryche EP days. I first met him at a party in Seattle at a mutual friends’ house shortly after ‘the Ryche’ got back from recording ‘The Warning’ in England. I was a huge fan of their EP already and was just blown away when I heard their new songs at a listening party. I always knew Queensryche would be huge someday, it just took longer than we all expected. Michael and I kept in touch over the years. We both grew up loving the same music and guitar players: Michael Schenker, mostly. I would drop by Michael’s house when in Seattle and we would jam on old UFO riffs and trade licks.

Michael’s Mom ran the QR fan club out of the family home back then and would always have tons of cool Queensryche merch on hand to give us. I still have a Mindcrime tank top from there in my drawer somewhere. Michael would play me his new 4-track demos in his bedroom and then listen to mine. I remember hearing the guitar demo for ‘Speak’ from ‘Operation Mindcrime’. It was just a couple of guitars and a click-track but the riffs still sounded amazing.

Mike and Chris DeGarmo were both very helpful to my band ‘Fallen Angel’ at the time. Wes Hallam was the drummer for ‘Fallen Angel’ and had also met Michael back then.

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Fast forward to the late 90’s and Geoff Tate was planning a solo album. By this point in their career all Queensryche records seemed to be turning into Geoff Tate solo albums and Michael was getting frustrated that none of his great songs were being used. Michael decided to collaborate with another guitar player on some heavier, more metal material, and contacted me about doing a side-project with him.

Michael didn’t have a band at the time so we recruited Wes to drum and I played bass on the demos we wrote in his home studio. We recorded with a few different singers before we found Nick Pollock from ‘My Sister’s Machine’ through an engineer friend who was recording Nicks’ band ‘Tanks of Zen’ at the time. We sent Nick some demos and he started sending finished versions back, complete with lyrics and melodies, within days. Nick is a great singer and very easy to work with. We are still friends and have written more songs together since.

I call Michael Wilton the ‘James Brown of heavy metal’.

The guy literally never stops working. He is constantly writing, playing, recording, scheming and looking forward to the next thing. I learned a lot from working with Michael Wilton about what it takes to be successful in the music business. Michael and I are still in touch and hopefully we can play some shows with Queensryche someday soon.

Are you involved with any other bands or projects outside of Mad Symphony?

I also play with Canadian rock icon Nick Gilder in Sweeney Todd. We play a lot of summer festivals and casinos here in Canada. I sometimes like to rip it up in a local Van Halen tribute band called ‘Fair Warning’.

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you, for Mad Symphony, and for the worldwide music scene?

We hope to start getting back to playing shows and touring as soon as possible. Our first official video for ‘The Next Door’ is coming out and it was a lot of fun to make. I’d like to shoot some more video since that’s all we have right now for promotion. I can’t wait to play our new songs for all the beautiful people out there.

Any final words of wisdom?

Free Britney!

www.madsymphony.ca/ www.melodicrockrecords.com/

Rock’s Biggest Bad Ass!!!

Releases All His Hits On 20 MASSIVE HITS

“BadAss Greatest Hits”

Available On 8th July 2021 www.mrrecords.com.au

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Where passion meets profession!

Professional PR agency that works reliable with countless partners of the world´s music media business. Est. 2001

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No Stone Left Unturned Bernard Fowler over 25 years with The Rolling Stones

Interview by Kim Crain

PART ONE

A Quadranscentennial Silver Jubilee of excellence, Bernard Fowler has risen to the top of the music chain, back up singing, vocal arranging and performing percussion with a little band called the Rolling Stones: Fowler has worked alongside many Iconic bands such as: Herbie Hancock, Robert Plant, AC/DC, Rod Stewart, Duran Duran, Farm Fur (with Steve Ferrone, Deleo Brothers, Alex Ligertwood),Tack Head, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ozzy Osbourne, The Peech Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers just to name a few. Recording fantastic solo albums with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts.

Bernard Fowler has recorded with the Rolling Stones on a couple of albums you might have heard of: Steel Wheels, Flashpoint, Jump Back, Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon, No Security, Forty Licks, A bigger Bang, Rarities, Shine a light, Stripped, Light the Fuse, Grrr!, Hyde Park Live, From the Vault, and my favorite Sticky Fingers Live.

Singer, songwriter, producer, Bernard Fowler is breaking barriers by gathering world renowned musicians in his own recordings. Fowler well known around the Globe for his inner beauty, electric stage presence, powerful vocals and wide vocal range.

Kim: Bernard, I wanted to thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to interview you today here in Los Angeles, California, for Highwire Daze Magazine.

Photo courtesy of Bernard Fowler because she was doing it. I was still thinking about basketball, not a music career, until I saw what they were doing.

That was a big influence.

Kim: That is super cool! Do you play any musical instruments?

Bernard: I have some guitars here. I don’t play very well, but I play enough to hum & strum. I was in the studio a couple of days ago. And I started a new track. I actually found myself behind the keyboard. So again I don’t play very well, but I play good enough to get what I want out of it!

Kim: That’s what all its about!

Bernard: Thank you for having me Kim.

Bernard: I get the idea. Then I call in the big guns.

Kim: So lets go back to the early days of your career... Who influenced you the most as a singer?

Kim: Your album “The Bura” with Slash, Waddy Wachtel, Darryl Jones, and many others, is powerful! Your songs, “See you again” and “Shake It Baby Shake It”, really stand out! How did that song “Shake It Baby Shake It” come about?

Bernard: That’s kind of a difficult question because I was influenced by so many! Probably all the records I ever heard as a kid were my influences. If I had to pick one living influence that was close to me, I would have to say it would be my cousin, Mic Murphy. He’s from a group called The System.

I used to go see him perform with his bands. When I decided to do it, it was Mic and a keyboardist in his band, La Forrest ‘ La La’ Cope. She wrote (You Give Good Love), by Whitney Houston. She was probably the biggest influence 46

Bernard: Thank you for mentioning that. I am very proud of that record. It’s a shame it didn’t get as circulated as it should have. I wrote, “Shake It Baby Shake It”, with the co-producer of the record, Robert Davis. He is a guitar player I met seven or eight years ago here in L.A. I got a call from my engineer friend Robi Banerjee who called me and said, “hey man, there’s this band here and their singer could use some June/July 2021

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vocal help. Would you mind coming down?”

I saw the band and I heard Robert playing and I thought this cat is really special, so we struck up a friendship. When I was ready to record “The Bura” I was looking for someone I could work with. I don’t like doing things all by myself. Some people can do it and it works for them, but I think that’s too far and few in between. It’s always good to have someone sitting there in the chair next to you, and Robert was that guy.

But anyway, “Shake It Baby Shake It”. I was looking for material I asked Robert if he had any ideas. He sent me a two track of that basic groove, I sat and listened to it and I thought, wow! I really like that!

There were just some elements missing for me. Once we actually started recording the track the rock tone to it was great, but it was missing a funkiness to it. We recorded the basic track, then I called my old band mate from Tack Head, Skip McDonald, and I told Skip what I was looking for. And I sent the track to Skip, and he sent it back, and when I listened to it, I was just smiling from ear to ear. I remember saying to Robert, “Shake It Baby Shake It” is the kind of Rock “n” Roll I have been looking to make, where funk and rock meet right in the middle.” I think I’ve succeeded in that with this track.

Kim: You released your last album title “Inside Out”. A brilliant re-interpretation of songs from The Rolling Stones catalog, Tell us how this came about.

Bernard: “Inside Out”, came about when I was finishing up, “The Bura”. I was close to getting finished, and usually when I’m close to getting finished I’m trying to formulate an idea of what’s going to follow. What I am going to do next. I made a record about four years before “The Bura” called, “Friends With Privileges”.That record turned into something that I didn’t necessarily want to do. I was just looking to make a record of covers I could sell when I did live shows. But when I started recording “Friends With Privileges” some original songs came to me, and so it turned into that. But “The Bura”, that was a concentrated effort. That’s what I wanted to do.

So when I was finishing up “The Bura”, I remember just sitting in the studio just throwing ideas around in my head.

And I remember thinking I want to do something different.

Something totally different. I thought about an Opera record.

I thought about a classical record. I was just thinking. Well maybe a spoken word record.

I heard a Rolling Stones song, and I was hearing the lyric in my head. The lyric was incredibly strong. The song was, “Undercover Of The Night”. So when I actually finished “The Bura”, I held on to that idea of the spoken word. I had made my mind up I was going to do that. I had decided I would do a spoken word of Rolling Stones songs!

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Photo credit: Kevin Mazur the recording process somehow. Somebody nicked them! But I remember opening the book and going through, and looking at some of the lyrics, and when I read the lyrics they had a flow to it. I was looking for really strong content. I started picking songs. I picked maybe two or three songs that I needed to get the record started.

My original idea for “Inside Out”, was that it would be only voice and percussion. That was the original idea!

Kim: Real Beat poetry Bernard : Yeah! Stripped down and raw. So I called in master percussionist Walfredo Reyes Jr. He was the first person that I called. He is a sweetheart of a cat. Someone who I can get on with really well. We sat in the studio one day and we talked rhythms from around the world. Walfredo was laying down the groove.

I started to recite some of the stuff, so I got it started. Then I called in percussionist Lenny Castro to come and play with Walfredo. I wanted that Polly rhythm kind of thing. Walfredo could have done it by himself. It’s just about seeing two people and have them play off of each other.

Kim: It’s all about the energy.

Bernard: So I got that started. The idea started to grow.

This is a funny story. I went on the road with The Stones, and I had this idea in my head. One day during a Rolling Stones soundcheck, I think, Chuck Leavell the keyboard player walks on stage. I am onstage practicing my conga for “Sympathy for the Devil”. I hadn’t played it for a while, so I’m practicing. He said, “Hey man, we are going to do this song for the soundcheck.” So I was playing my Congas, and I started reciting whatever song that was, as I was playing everyone’s walking onstage. They are looking and listening 47

to me, and they are all smiling. They were getting a kick out of this! It was a thing that I would do everyday. Go practice. He would sing a song and I would recite the song and play.

One day Mick was onstage and he says, “Bernard, I have heard the Rolling Stones songs done many different ways, but I have never heard anything done like this before.” Well I said said, I’m thinking of cutting it. And Mick said, “you should!” (Thumbs up, Mick Jagger!) I needed that!

So the next stage, I decided to make it bigger than just two percussionists. I contacted Vince Wilburn, Darryl Jones. I went to Vince’s house and Darryl’s like “B, what do you want to do man.

What’s the thing?” And I basically gave them a kind of error, the kind of error I was looking for in the groove. They would play and they would play and I would just listen to them play until something came around that they were playing that I liked. Then I would say, “stop.” That’s the groove! That’s the groove that I want.

And then that turned into a whole other thing. Then I go back to the thing I was doing with Walfredo Reyes, as I get a call from Steve Jordan. He say’s, “Hey what’s happening?” And I’m like, “You know, I’m in the studio messing around, I’ll send you a taste of what I’m doing.” I think I sent him one song, and he calls back and he says, “Yo, Yo Man, I Need to play on this!”

And I said. “Well, when you’re in town call me?” You know, and sure enough he came into town to produce something for John Mayor, or something, and I happened to be in the studio that day. And he said.. “Hey man, I’m in town.” And I said, “oh cool.” He said, “I’m coming by.” Had his drums set up. Waiting for him when he came in. He walked in with Clayton Cameron, who is a jazz master brush player. I expected him to just come and play the one song that I sent them. He did not leave until he played on everything that was there. It was also a validation to me that I was in the right place. Musically I was in the right place. Cause everyone was grooving to it.

Kim: Did you play those songs. “Tie you up”, “Dancing with Mr.D”, And it “Must Be Hell”?

Bernard: Oh Yeah! Oh yeah!

Kim: “Must Be Hell” blew my mind, by the way! I thought it was an original song of yours. Because I could not believe it when I looked it up, that it was a Rolling Stones song! It blew my mind that these were two different songs.

Bernard: I think a lot of people, especially Rolling Stones fans, they were so taken by the groove that they didn’t hear what was going on! You know you mentioned that song, “Must Be Hell”? The comment that I’ve gotten from a lot of people is, “I didn’t really hear these songs Bernard, until I 48

Photo Credit : Jane Rose heard them from “Inside Out’!”

Kim: And you were so natural on these songs. Can you tell us a little about the other musicians who played on “Inside Out?” There was a keyboard player who was with David Bowie for many years, and you had a lot of special people on there.

Bernard: Again, I am really proud of that record. And it was an honor and a pleasure to have all those guys come and play on it.

The List of players on that record: Steve Jordan, Clayton Cameron, Vince Wilburn, Jr., (nephew & former drummer of jazz legend Miles Davis), Walfredo Reyes Jr., Lenny Castro, George Evans, Guitar. Darryl Jones, (bass).

(Pop/r&b session heavyweight) Michael Bearden on piano.

Ray Parker Jr. on guitar. Mike Garson from David Bowie.

You asked about him, he is actually playing on “Sympathy for the Devil” and another percussion player Josh Eagan.

Kim: What an phenomenal group of players. For all of you who have not had a chance to buy this album “Inside Out” I would go and search for it online. (It will turn you inside out and light your fire)

Check out: Bernardfowler.com Watch for Part 2 of our interview with Bernard Fowler in the August issue of Highwire Daze.

Reach Kim Crain at kimcrain.com www.facebook.com/kim. crain.9231 www.instagram.com/kimcrainmusic June/July 2021

HIGHWIRE DAZE

The Towering Refrains of

Holding Absence

Interview by Ken Morton - Photo by Bethan Miller Holding Absence unveil the perfect amalgamation of post hardcore, shoegaze and emo - and with their second magnun opus entitled The Greatest Mistake Of My Life on SharpTone Records, the UK rockers have delivered one of the most powerful albums of the year. Filled with supremely emotional vocals and epic instrumentaions, songs such as Afterlife, Curse Me With Your Kiss, Mourning Song, and nomoreroses will devastate the senses and set the heart and imagination in flight. Highwire Daze recently interviewed charismatic lead vocalist Lucas Woodland to find out more about the towering refrains of Holding Absence. Read on...

something my great uncle had recorded back in the 1950’s I think as a cover. So, it was this weird moment where I realized that I wasn’t the first musician or recorded artist in my family. I very much love my family and I always take lots of inspiration from everything they say and everything they introduce me to. So having my Nan introduce to me something like this song kind of blew me away a little bit. As we were gearing up to start work on Album 2, we knew we needed something timeless. That’s always been the goal for us – to release an album that’s as relevant today as it is in ten years’ time. And lo and behold, this 90-year-old song finds its way into my lap and I felt like it was too much of special unique thing to not kind of acknowledge in some way.

Let’s talk about The Greatest Mistake Of My Life. Is there any overall story or concept behind that title?

So, the title is named after a song that was released in 1937 and was originally released by an artist called Gracie Fields.

And it’s kind of an odd concept to name an album after an old song – but basically my grandmother introduced me to it as

The song Afterlife has over a million plays on Spotify. First of all, what does that number even mean to you and the fact that so many people have listened to the song.

Yeah, dude, it’s honestly, it’s the same with anything – regardless of what you do in life, whether you start work at a job at McDonalds and you can’t ever go back to eating Mc-

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Donalds again because you’ve seen a little bit behind the veil, I guess. For me as a musician, I’m kind of at the point where I’m like “Ah, yeah, 1 and a half million streams is great, but I want 2, I want 5 or I want 10!” And every now and then I really need to remind myself how magical a number that is.

I’ll never meet a million people in my life, so the thought of having 1 million and a half streams on a song is just bonkers.

It’s very humbling and it’s kind of surreal at the very least.

Let’s talk about the song Afterlife and the lyrics and what it means to you.

Afterlife is kind of one of those songs that wrote itself. So, I had the chorus with nothing else, and I kind of had to work backwards from there really. It felt like to me that it’s a song for somebody who’s not with you anymore – but not in a sad way. On this album, I do talk a lot about grief, and I talk a lot about sadness as well – but I feel that this song is looking at someone passing and being positive about it – and knowing and believing that they’re still with you in some way.

Let’s talk about the final single nomoreroses and the inspiration behind that song.

So nomoreroses is a very different song to most of the songs on the album to be honest. It’s quite an angry song. It’s a religious kind of commentary, and it kind of says “If there is a god, why is he putting me through the hardships that I go through and why isn’t he giving me reasons to believe in him” essentially. A lot of the things I write aren’t particularly first person – they’re not 100 percent my narrative – it’s more a kind of commentary than it is a personal expression I suppose.

But yeah, it is one of those songs that kind of looks to religion through a different lens. I want to make sure that no one thinks I’m doing an “I hate God” song. It’s more an objective kind of song. It’s like “If there is a god, I want him to exist.

But he’s no showing me that he does.”

So, Holding Absence is not going to go black metal or anything like that?

No, no, no – and we’re not going to go Christian anytime soon either. (Laughter) The previous album had Holding Absence living in a sort of black and white monochrome kind of world. There’s a bit of color in your world now. What happened that brought the color into the world of Holding Absence?

Honestly, it was several years of stoic restriction, I guess. We felt it was a brilliant way of introducing people into the world of Holding Absence. Everything is black and white – we don’t need to wow you with any fancy colors palette or any cool camera tricks. We’re off to the same kind of start that Joy Division were off to and The Cure were off to – and those were the bands that we really looked up to. And back to the timelessness thing as well – that was something that we really wanted to try and achieve. But it got to the point where it was like we love our fans and we like being open to them and transparent and expressing ourselves to them. And this kind of black and white “too cool for you” kind of vibe was just like something that was actually restricting us in the end. But I’m very proud of everything we did in that era of HIGHWIRE DAZE

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our band – but like everything in life, we have to move on and evolve.

James Joseph left the band right after the making of the album. Do you still keep in touch with him and what do you think of his new band James And The Cold Gun? We still keep in touch. Myself and James, we’ve known each over for over a decade. We introduced each other to the music industry basically. We met at a small little rock show when we were 16 and we’ve been friends ever since. And basically, it was a weird one with James’ departure, because if it wasn’t for Covid denying him his favorite aspect of Holding Absence – which was live music – I feel like things might have gone down differently – but ultimately, he wanted to pursue himself – it became more about him needing to do what was right for him. And I really, really respect that. And I gotta be honest – as a friend of his, I’m very proud of him for doing something so brave. His band is wicked as well and I’m excited to see what they come up with next. So yeah, all good vibes on our end from that situation.

When I interviewed James last year, I asked him about the Kate Bush connection to his band name James And The Cold Gun. He said you both were big fans of Kate Bush.

Dude yeah, I love Kate Bush! Nobody has done it since like Kate Bush. I don’t know, maybe you’ll disagree with me, but I really love Billie Eilish at the moment – I think she’s probably one of the most exciting artists on Earth. And I think nobody has done it like Billie Eilish since Kate Bush in my opinion -just like such an eccentric, larger than life artistic genius basically. So yeah, I really love Kate Bush.

So, you had a tour of the United States that actually never happened. Do you plan to try and make it back here to tour the States or for some shows?

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Dude, we’re dying to! Honestly man, when I think of America, my mind just blows up at the concept of a land so open and varied, but also so similar. You look at Europe and you think about how much culture and how many languages and how many stereotypes exist within Europe – and how many different countries there are as a whole. And then you compare to size of Europe to the size of America – it’s crazy to think that there’s a country on Earth that has such a big land mass and doesn’t need border changes as you go past a certain whatever. And that may be weird to Americans, but to me, you call it like the land of opportunity. Yeah, it is, because it’s just such a big place with such a varied depth I suppose.

On a personal level, I’ve spent my whole lot life wanting to come to America – and as a musician I’ve spent my whole career wanting to go to new places and introduce my music to new people as well. The concept of doing an American tour is something that is very much exciting to us and something that’s very much high on the list in terms of aspirations over the next few years.

Let’s hope it happens. It was kind of disappointing when your tour did suddenly cancel.

I know. Yeah, it was a real shame, and it was something that we’ve learned to live with. But at the time, it was very, very hard to come to grips with. It was just like the biggest holiday ever – canceled!

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What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you, for Holding Absence, and for the music world in general?

I speak for everyone when I say we want live music – I think that’s the most important part of what we do. Music is an art form – music is a performance as an expression – but ultimately to me, music is a connection. I have played some of the best shows of my life to 10 people, because I knew that those 10 people connected so much to it. But at the same time, without people, music is just noise really. So that’s definitely what I want to see myself and my peers – our fans and my friends and everyone on Earth deserves live music, so hopefully by the end of the year I hope that happens. And I’d like to think that before the end of the year, that we’ve announced some cool things looking forward into the future and hopefully leaving these two years of frustration behind us.

Do you have any messages for your fans here in the United States who have been waiting to see Holding Absence live?

Ah man just thank you so much for supporting us. People don’t see this side of the band, but like on our Spotify artist, we could see where the key cities are – and by far America is nearly double than Britain in terms of listenership. We’re very aware that you guys exist, and we’re dying to show you the true side of this band, which is the live experience. Thank you for your patience, and just keep spreading the word until then.

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It Goes On with

Never Loved

Interview by Ken Morton - Photo by Kayla Surico

name. It seemed like it kind of rolled off our tongue.

Alternative rock band Never Loved - featuring Cameron Knopp (vocals, guitar), Jay Gayoso (bass) and Shane O’Brien (guitar) - has just released their debut full-length album, Over It, via Equal Vision Records. Produced by multi-platinum producer Matt Squire and featuring co-writes

by All-American Rejects’ Nick Wheeler, Over It is sure to garner Never Loved a good amount of fans all across the globe. A tour with Armor For Sleep was placed on hold due to the pandemic, but new dates have now been announced, including several in Southern California. Highwire Daze recently caught up with front man Cameron Knopp to find out more about this amazing band on the rise...

Let talk about On And On It Goes and what was the inspiration behind that song.

We wrote that one with Nick Wheeler of All American Rejects. That was one of the later songs we did for the album before going into the studio. But that one was just about the ups and downs that you face in a relationship sometimes and talking about not seeing eye to eye with someone. It’s from life experience and past relationships.

Is there any overall story or concept behind the album title Over It? When you listen to the record, there’s not one main theme – but a common theme on the record is being Over It – facing adversity in different scenarios and pushing through. So, we felt that that was a nice way to sum it up. And the first track on the record was Over It and I remember thinking about an album name. We listened to the record – I was just listening through and trying to figure out what would be a good name.

I looked down and Over It repeated back on and I thought “That rings nice.” I thought about it and brought it up to everyone else – and everyone was super onboard with that 54

What is it like doing a co-wrote with Nick Wheeler of All American Rejects? He’s like a legend to a lot of people.

I know! It’s crazy! It’s one of those things where we had a lot of material written for the album before going into the studio – we actually had a problem with what songs do we narrow down – and then from there narrow those down. But before we went into the studio, our management brought up the idea of working with co-writing people and I thought “Hell yeah!” It would be a great way to mix up the record a bit and write with someone else with a different perspective.

And also, when you write with people like Nick, you learn a lot too as a writer – producing and all that stuff. Writing with Nick was amazing. It was like a situation where we did one session together – it went really well and we said “cool, let’s write some more songs for the record together.” I really like how we work. Which is kind of crazy, but he has a really June/July 2021

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good chemistry when it comes to writing and we just kept writing with him. We wrote about three tracks for the album with Nick. He did come into the studio too to help us with some pre-production. We wrote On And On It Goes with him, Downpour – and he did help write some of Over It and Sorry with us too. Just getting that outside perspective and getting a couple of different flavors on the record is important – because you don’t want to write the same thing over and over.

But Nick is great – he’s a phenomenal writer – it is great to be working with someone of his caliber.

One of the casualties of the pandemic was your tour with Armor For Sleep. Rescheduled dates have been announced.

What are you looking forward to the most about finally touring with Armor For Sleep?

I mean, for starters, it’s Armor For Sleep. They’re like one of my favorite bands of all time. This has almost been like a long time coming. When we first showcased for Equal Vision like three years ago – like the first thing that came up – I was like “Holy shit, Armor For Sleep was on Equal Vision – they’re one of my favorite bands.” It was like every time I showed up to the (Equal Vision) office on tour, we’d walk through and our A&R person would always have a different Armor For Sleep memorabilia for me. And I’d always joke around – “yeah, when they’re getting back together for a tour” – and they didn’t even know they were going to do that.

We kind of always joked around about it – and sure enoughour A&R was like “Yeah, they’re actually going to be doing a reunion tour and I mentioned you guys and everyone’s down.”

And I was like “Holy shit!” So, I’m excited to see Armor For Sleep live.

I discovered them when they were already broken up – I feel like that always happens – I come across a new band that’s like broken up. So, I’m like “Fuck I’m never going to get to see them.” I remember when the announced that they were going to do the 10 year – that was in 2015 I think – but that was nowhere near Florida and I was not going to be able to make it and they all sold out. And I thought “Maybe I’ll see them on the 15th.” And sure enough, I’ll be seeing them like 30 fucking times which is cool! I’m excited to see them – but another thing too is just to be playing those kinds of rooms.

We haven’t been a part of a tour like this size. There’s some amazing legendary venues on there. And also, too – fucking playing shows again! We all miss it. October of 2019 was our last tour, so it feels like an eternity. I’m excited to get back into that touring groove and playing music for new people too. It’s a lot of people going to those shows and I’m sure a good portion haven’t heard us before – so it’s going to be awesome getting that kind of exposure and opportunity.

One of your songs Goddamn has over 800,000 plays on Spotify. What does that number mean to you as you start to approach that one million point?

I mean it’s insane because we’re still really such a brand-new band. We only had an EP and then did one year of touring and then Covid kind if paused everything. But it’s really cool. I remember when we released that song and that EP, like no one had any idea who the fuck we are. I mean, we’re HIGHWIRE DAZE

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still in the boat. But I remember when that song came out, we had 11,000 streams on Dead Inside. But that was the second song we ever released, but it is kind of crazy seeing it approaching that milestone. I check the Spotify artist app and see how some many people listen to that song a day – and it’s crazy to think that “Man, I created this” and people just put it on and enjoy it the way that I like to listen to music too. It’s really cool to see it like build up. It’s kind of insane because every time we release a new song – an album or a single, we see Goddamn jumping way up in listens. It’s like a snowball effect right now – it’s cool!

What do you hope the rest of 2021 brings for you, for Never Loved, and just for the music world in general?

First and foremost, seeing all shows come back – people being able to get vaccines and not having to worry about catching a virus if they want to go out and enjoy live music at night. Hopefully in general I would just like to see shows resume back to normal and bands being able to play music again – venues thriving and not having to worry about being shut down – and people who are in touring production getting their jobs back and making a living again. For us, we’re kind of set up for the rest of the year luckily. We just came back home from writing with Nick. We just released our record and we’ll be busy with that. Our first tour date with Armor is in August and that tour basically extends off until the end of year. For us, I just hope to get on the road and play this new record for people – meet some new faces, make some new fans, and keep growing as a band. We are recording some new stuff ironically in October too. I think it’s just to set ourselves up to have a great 2022. So, to do great on this tour and set ourselves up next year for success.

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A Note from ANSON

Interview by Ken Morton - Photos by Erica Vincent Meet Anson, solo artist on the rise who has presented one of the most compelling pop punk/emo albums of the year. A Note For You To Find is availanble via We Are Triumphant, jam-packed with catchy songs and introspective lyrics. Highwire Daze recently interviewed Anson to find out more about the songs from A Note For You To Find and releasing his debut full length in the middle of a pandemic. Read on...

First of all, is there any overall story or concept behind the album title A Note For You To Find?

When I was writing this album, it took so many years to write, it was kind of like my last will and testament. For me, I was in a dark place when I wrote a lot of these songs, so the whole A Note For You To Find is like the finding of a suicide note. So, the whole concept is this is what I’m leaving to this world and it’s a note that you’re going to find. It’s a lot of imaginary conceptualization of what I would do if I got to that point, which at the time I was in a very bad space – so I kind of honed in on that and just let the record be what it was supposed to be.

Let’s start at the beginning of the album – tell me about the HIGHWIRE DAZE

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song Inside My Head.

It’s actually kind of interesting, because I have this tendency to write songs that predict the future sometimes. I actually wrote this song in my senior year in college. Is started off as being this fictional story about your dating this girl and this girl tells you that she cheated on you – and you’re like this is a terrible thing and I wish that this was all inside my head – that this whole thing didn’t happen – but it did. And as the years passed on, it actually happened to me – the whole entire story – which freaked me out. I don’t like being a fortune teller of my own life, especially that way! I had it as an opener because I thought it would be a good way to intro the album – as this is the vibe of what you’re getting yourself into. It’s an interesting love story – I guess it’s a lust story – of someone who you thought that they loved you, but didn’t.

And you wish it wasn’t that.

Tell me a little but about Runaway, which is also a video.

Runaway I wrote after being extremely pissed at my day job.

I understand in the world you need a day job and art is one of those things that comes and goes – it’s a fleeting moment in the spotlight and then you’ve got to go back in the trenches and keep creating to fulfill and continue. At the time when I wrote that song, I was just fed up with the corporate job and 57

the corporate world – and I always wanted to, in the back of head, just Runaway and fuck this and I don’t really want to deal with all this crap that has nothing to do with what I want to do in this world – and the song is all about that – this whole concept that we’re just working our lives away wishing we could be this person or wishing that we could do these things – but we don’t actually do them. So, it was kind of entertaining the idea of actually doing it. That’s why at the end it’s “Runaway, break the system…” And I hope that people can connect with it to hopefully follow their dreams and do their own thing too. Because life’s short!

And tell me a little about the song Ghost.

That’s funny people think it’s about Covid – like “I left my apartment for the first time in two weeks” – but there was a time before Covid where I didn’t leave my apartment for a long time. I was like super depressed. And I was really stuck in a little bit of a loop. “Days turned to nights – night turned to days.” At the time, I was living in a shack in West Hollywood with no windows – there was just a door – no bathroom, no nothing – just living a shack with another dude who had a wall next to me – and there was a house and the house had seven people in it. It was a rough time in my life. I was still trying to figure out my shit and yeah. Ghost is just a dark song about my life and just feeling like “What’s the point? Is it already hopeless? Am I just a ghost that wants to just keep on living?” Maybe in my head a realization of trying to be a musician and then trying to do all these things – maybe it’s already too late. It’s kind of interesting – a lot of my songs have this tendency – I talk about my career and things that are happening in the music industry – at least within my story of things. And I’ve seen a lot of people quit or move on – go on hiatus – get day jobs – move on with their lives. I see it left and right – it happens all the time – especially when Covid happened. So, for me, when I wrote that song – it was way before Covid – but I saw that already happening and I’m like “Am I next?” It’s a little bit more cryptic – it’s kind of hard to feel in the song, but at least that’s what the song is about to an extent.

The album is very powerful. People will listen and hear all these great and catchy pop punk melodies. But when people start exploring the lyrics – it’s a lot darker and personal. It’s a compelling album.

Yeah, it’s dark. It’s a lot darker than I expected it to be. I just tell it as it is. I’ve had a weird life – a really dark life – and it kind of just bleeds from pen to paper.

So, we’re not going to see Anson – The Happy Album next?

(Laughs) Maybe. I’ve been trying to write some happier stuff. I think the thing is, when I’m happy I don’t have a reason to write. For me, this is like a self-expression – it’s almost like therapy for me. I take all of these emotions that I’m bottling up – all the worst things that have happened to me and throw them into music as a way to deal with them.

When I’m happy, it’s very hard to grab on to that emotion and be like “Yeah, I’m gonna write about it!” I’m very much a person that tells it as it is and focuses on the things that I feel are real and that people can understand because they also need a place to vent. There’s me who writes to vent and then there’s the people who listen to vent. It’s a cohesive ecosystem of all of us sharing the same misery at the same time.

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Which is dark – but at the same time, we’re all not alone in it.

The reason why we listen to it is “Okay, so I’m not the only person who’s feeling this.” And I think there’s a light in that.

We all might be feeling this way, but that’s okay. And it’s better to normalize that than to hide it away in the shadows.

At the very least, we’re all in this together and we’re all trying to make a better world.

What has it been like to write and release new music in the middle of a pandemic and all the social unrest in the world?

It’s been interesting – because how do you cut through all that noise? No one’s really cutting through all the noise. The world is blowing up. You have the apocalypse with Covid happening. You have cyber hackers hacking the Internet and doing crazy shit. You have wars happening. You have unemployment happening. We’re living in a very momentous time in America where whatever happens now is going to determine a lot of what happens in the future. Even how we handled Covid has already impacted our economy and just the way that we think about things. And we have things that are starting to bleed in that are social issues – it’s actually been like for that for a while – Asian Hate, Black Lives Matter – you have all of these things that are happening at the same time. So, to release an album while this is happening – I feel that maybe some of it got lost in the shuffle – but at the same time, I’m really happy that I released it when I did, because everyone’s home. Every has the internet right now and everyone’s looking for new music – they’re looking for some form of entertainment to escape what’s going on outside of their homes. I think it’s very magical also, because I keep getting messages for people saying “I really needed this album. I’m so glad it came out. I really connected with it, and it’s helping me get through these hard times.” Anytime is the right time to release new music, and I’m glad that people are starting to listen to it and latch on to it – and it’s just a matter of time for more people to latch on to it as time goes on. It’s been really exciting. (Info: ansonofficial.com) June/July 2021

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ALBUM REVIEWS Audio Reign Audio Reign MR Records Review by Ken Morton Audio Reign is a classic hard rock band from Australia who has been raging down under since their 2011 inception. They’ve opened for the likes of Skillet and Pop Evil, and have been headlining their own shows throughout a vast and epic career.

And now Audio Reign has released a Self-Titled full-length album through the MR Records compound, and this one is destined to send these guys into the stratosphere of success.

Jam-packed with superbly memorable songs that should be all over the worldwide radio airwaves, the Audio Reign full length is easily one of the best hard rock albums music fans will encounter this year.

From the one-two punch in the head of opening tracks Betrayal and Pill, it’s obvious from the get-go that Audio Reign is here to royally rock your entire world. Senses shows just how effective the band is when unveiling a starkly emotional ballad. One Way, The Portrait, Shining Light and beyond – the fantastic songs keep on arriving throughout. Featuring 11 tracks in all, the Self-Titled Audio Reign endeavor is required listening for all ready to rage and roll in these post pandemic days. Top notch performances are unleashed from all Audio Reign members, including Jake Fleming (vocals/rhythm guitar), Alek Dyrynda (lead guitar), Ashley Lovett on (bass, vocals), and Dieter Schoell (drums/ backing vocals). The band has already been working on new songs, so stay tuned, as these guys are ready to capture the crown of the hard rock genre. www.audioreign.com

Death Deathcryptopia Self-Released single Review by Ken Morton Willow Wisp remains one of the most epically underrated bands in the universe. Although the group has long since ceased to exist, the former members continue to release compelling art throughout their various projects. Vocalist Air-Ik’s latest endeavor is Deathcryptopia and it’s a mind-blowing experience well worth seeking out. Best known for his gothic entreaties, AirIk and Deathcryptopia take a decidedly black metal turn, and the results will blast your senses and leave you craving 60

a whole lot more. Enlisting the participation of his longtime friend and UWS Comics teammate Robert Garr aka Gargoyle, the Deathcryptopia universe was launched.

The first single unveiled is simply titled Death, and what an absolutely ambitious piece of artistry this glorious debut is! With inspiring yet ominous atmospherics combined with super intensive black metal vocals, Deathcryptopia recalls the works of groundbreaking collectives such as Emperor, The Kovenant, and Limbonic Art – all acts that always went above and beyond genre expectations. Expect to hear a lot more from Deathcryptopia in future days, because judging by their staggering first recording, the possibilities ahead are infinite! www.facebook.com/Deathcryptopia

Tell The Children Greg Leon Invasion Self-Released CD Review by Ken Morton Greg Leon is best known for his stints with the likes of Quiet Riot and Dokken in their early days, and since then has amassed an impressive collection of solo material. Under the name of the Greg Leon Invasion, the musician would launch his own visions starting with a Self-Titled endeavor in 1983. And now in the post pandemic year of 2021, the Greg Leon Invasion has presented Tell The Children to the world – featuring 13 songs of classic hard rock and AOR that should absolutely captivate the minds of all types of music fanatics.

With the explosive kick off track of She Wants Me going into the super colorful inflections of Rainbow Girl, Greg Leon and his band instantly captivate the listener with these opening selections. Where Is Love is another standout, presenting the Greg Leon Invasion at their most impassioned with a power ballad for the ages. Stormbringer rocks it hard and heavy while The Party Song makes you want to shake it all over and celebrate all the good things in life. Thrill Of The Chase is another grand slam that soars into the stratosphere.

And be sure to listen all the way through the Tell The Children experience where the glorious title track presents Greg Leon and his band in their finest hour.

Greg Leon delivers vibrant lead guitar interludes and inspirational vocals throughout the entire Tell The Children experience. The Greg Leon Invasion also features dynamic performances from Rick Brandt on pulsating bass and cello as well as Ronnie Ciago from Diane and the Deductibles (among many other massive credits such as Brand X and River Dogs) bringing his own supremely imaginative flair to June/July 2021

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drums and percussions. Superbly and expertly produced by all three members, Tell The Children by the Greg Leon Invasion is an exciting collection of songs that you’ll be spinning for generations to come! http://www.gregleoninvasion.com/

Live And On Edge Jaded Past MR Records

Clothing, Jewelry, Accessories, and More!

Review by Ken Morton Jaded Past is the creation of lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter George Becker, who has been a long-time veteran of the East Coast Music Scene. With two superb studios albums to their credit, Jaded Past has opened for legendary acts such as Ace Frehley, Sebastian Bach, and L.A. Guns. Their own live show is brimming with killer songs and grand slam energy, as presented on their third record entitled Live And On Edge. Recorded at venues all across the USA, George Becker and Jaded Past absolutely rock it with their original tunes as well as a few very inspired covers. Opening with their hard rocking anthem Good Bad Innocent and then raging into a kickass rendition of Bye Bye Love by The Cars, one could feel the passion and enthusiasm presented by each and every member of Jaded Past.

And the hits just keep on arriving, with original selections such as Tattered, Don’t Judge, and Much Too Young leaving quite an impact. The Jaded Past cover of the David Bowie classic Ziggy Stardust absolutely reigns supreme, while their rip-roaring interpretation of Mama Kin by Aerosmith clearly sent the house into a frenzy. Closing with Whisky Dreams, there is truly a “fire in the soul” found within the music of Jaded Past, and their passion they share with the audience is wondrous to behold!

In addition to the dynamic George Becker on lead vocals, the Jaded Past lineup features exhilarating performances from Pete Fry on guitar and vocals, Leo Sabatino on bass and vocals, and Pete Giordano on drums. (And by the way, Pete Fry and Leo Sabatino are also in FarCry, with a fantastic new album out called Balance on AOR Heaven!)

Be sure to check into Live And On Edge available now from MR Records, and be sure to see Jaded Past when they show up to rock your town! The band may have missed their chance to tour with Bonfire during 2020 because of Covid, but expect to see a whole lot more live shows from Jaded Past in these post pandemic days. www.jadedpast.com www.melodicrockrecords.com HIGHWIRE DAZE

June/July 2021

Treasure (feat. Mule Kick) Madysin Hatter Self-Released single Review by Ken Morton Madysitn Hatter is an East Coast based rocker who has been making a name for herself all across the nation with her wickedly inspired hard rock music and dazzling live performances. Madysin has played legendary venues such as The Whisky on the Sunset Strip and Arlene’s Grocery in New York City. And now with the unveiling of her latest single Treasure, the rocking Madysin Hatter demonstrates just how wildly effective she is when it comes to unleashing a power ballad for the ages.

In addition to Madysin Hatter on vibrantly powerful vocals, Treasure features the participation of the one and only Mule Kick — a New York City rock supergroup comprised of seasoned rock heavyweights Frank Ferrer (of Guns N’ Roses, The Psychedelic Furs), Rob Bailey (David Johansen, PSSR), Brett Bass (Gregg Allman), and Rob Clores (The Black Crowes, Jesse Malin). It has always been exciting to discover the many sides of the Madysin Hatter experience, 61

and with the release of the passionate Treasure, the next fascinating chapter has now been written. Stay tuned, because Ms. Hatter has even more electrifying songs slated to be released in future days! http://www.madysinhatter.com/

VIII • Immortal Euphoria!

Various Artists Metalmessage Global Review by Ken Morton Whenever publicist Markus Eck and the almighty Metalmessage Global unleash a new music compilation, one may expect to hear some of the very best bands from within the worldwide heavy metal and hard rock genres.

VIII • Immortal Euphoria! is the name of the latest comp, and it is jammed packed with 15 bands for all over the world!

The comp kicks into supersonic gear with the fiery Let It Burn from Rockin’ Engine. Then it’s time for our first black metal selection, and Antrisch unleash the grand and gripping Gipfelfieber. Under Siege from Italy jolt your senses with the raging thrash melodics of Sotto Assedio. Cult Of Salem present their vividly haunting Anthem To An Outer God that is absolutely mesmerizing. The gothic doomsters of Coldun then unveil the dark and exotic Grand Sun Ritual.

Varus is a folk metal band on the rise, and their song Tränk dein Herz is sure to inspire rabid mosh pits everywhere! Rise And Shine by Hardland shows an alternate rock side to the comp from a band whose imagination knows no bounds.

Lords Of Salem unleash their sonic wrath with Hell Of Salem, and what a thrill to the senses this one is! The Fifth Horsemen gallop into the comp with a black metal manifesto entitled The Void - with it’s chilling “I am your slave, I am your master, I am eternal” reveries. The breakneck pace of the ferocious Reborn In Thrash by Taskforce Toxicator assault the senses and leave the listener craving a whole lot more!

Nemesis Sopor supply 11-plus minutes of captivating black metal intrigue with their Eis zu Stein I - Wind masterwork.

Black Hood by Snakewine is rapturous modern day metal dripping with venom and fervor! On Atlas’ Shoulders contribute The Executioner to the comp, showing they are clearly the glorious future of the traditional heavy metal genre. Self Destruction by Ravenfield is a sample of the compelling dark rock this collective is becoming very well known for. And then closing out the comp is Hand Of Kalliach, the husband/wife duo whose Scottish Atmospheric Celtic Metal artistry is wondrous to behold.

Download VIII • Immortal Euphoria! for FREE and discover your next favorite hard rock / heavy metal band!

Thank you Markus Eck for this tremendous comp! metalmessage.bandcamp.com

The Legend That Is 20 Classic Songs

40 + Years In The Making

One Amazing Album

Hits After Hits

Available Now On www.melodicrockrecords.com

“Australian Music Royalty” 62

June/July 2021

HIGHWIRE DAZE