Rock And Blues International - July 2024

Rock And Blues International

July 2024

Hello Rock And Blues International readers. I hope everybody had a great June.

Rock And Blues is happy to announce that we have now entered the era of Podcasts. We would really like you to check out our new Podcast Channel - Rock And Blues International - The Podcast. If you like the interviews we feature in our publication, then you will love our Podcast Channel as we feature those interviews in their entirety there. On our Podcast Channel you can actually hear those interviews as they were originally done. Our special guests so far are JJ Gray, Sue Foley,Tinsley Ellis, Biff Byford, Chris O’Leary, Paul Reed Smith, Honey Island Swamp Band, Paul Reed Smith, Bob Margolin, Don Dokken, Foghat (Scott Holt), Puddle Of Mudd (Wes Scantlin), The Blackburn Brothers, Coco Montoya, Barry Kerch from Shinedown, Jerry Shirley from Humble Pie, Jim Stapley from Humble Pie Legacy, Kissing Judas, Nick Moss, Devon Allman, Stevie D. from Buckcherry, Chris Henderson from 3 Doors Down, Garnet Grimm from Savoy Brown, Phil Lewis from L.A. Guns, Graham Russell from Air Supply, Robert Jon from Robert Jon and The Wreck, Selwyn Burchwood, J.W. Jones, Chris Henderson from 3 Doors Down, and Warren Haynes from Gov’t Mule and more!. You can check it out on all the major podcast channels as well as at our website at http//www.rockandbluesinternational.com. We hope you enjoy them.

And now on to the July issue of Rock And Blues International. On the cover of this issue we have Kim Wilson from The Fabulous Thunderbirds. The Thunderbirds have a new album out titled “Struck Down” and Kim tells us everything we need to know about this long-awaited release. Also in this issue we have a story on Alastair Greene. Alastair has a new album out on Ruf Records out of Germany and it’s called “Standing Out Loud”. Alastair reveals everything about this new album from the writing of the songs to the finished product. You’re going to want to check this one out. Also in this issue we have a great interview withWe’ve also got a great story by Edoardo Fassio about the Petra Börnerová Trio Be sure to check that one out too, it’s very interesting. There are also stories on Yelawolf, Cowboy Mouth, Urban Heat, Mark Daly, Smile Empty Soul, God Is An Astronaut, Miles Kennedy, Foghat, Pete Townshend and more! As you can see, there are a lot of varied genres of music here for you to check out, or as we like to say, there’s a little of something for everyone here. We have even included the current installment of the novella, “The Biker”. Read it and than email us back with your thoughts on this. So far our readers seem to really like this Blues loving Biker.

I sincerely hope that everybody reading this publication finds something here that they like and I would like to encourage you to let your friends and colleagues know about us. Just look for us every month at http://www.rockandbluesinternational.com. I would also like to encourage you to email us for a free subscription to Rock And Blues International as well. Just email us at rockandbluesinternational@gmail.com and in the subject line simply put “Sign Me Up” and we’ll email you a link to the magazine each month when it is published.

Kevin Wildman

Kevin Wildman Editor and Publisher

Rock And Blues International

Kevin Wildman Editor and Publisher

Web Address

Http://www.rockandbluesinternational.com

Mailing Address

Box 1162, League City, TX 77573

Phone 281-650-1953 For Advertising email us at rockandbluesinternational@gmail.com or call 281-650-1953

A Free

Page 6

Alastair Greene

Alastair Greene Releases His Debut Record For Ruf Records “Standing Out Loud”

Page 18

Petra Börnerová Trio

Edoardo Fassio talks about the Petra Börnerová Trio, a family business with an international spirit

Page 22

The Fabulous Thunderbirds

The Fabulous Thunderbirds Release Their Long Awaited Album Struck Down on Stoney Plain Records

Page 46

Cowboy Mouth

The Second Line Kicks Into High Gear as Cowboy Mouth Unleashes “Alternate Reality” and Gears Up for Sizzling Summer Tour and LongAwaited Album Release

Page 96 - The Biker

Alastair Greene

By Kevin Wildman

In the world of blues music, few artists have made as significant an impact in recent years as Alastair Greene. With his exceptional guitar skills, soulful vocals, and captivating songwriting, Greene has established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the genre. Today, we have the privilege of sitting down with Alastair to discuss his highly anticipated new album, “Standing Out Loud,” released on the prestigious German label Ruf Records.

“Standing Out Loud” is a testament to Greene’s artistic growth and his deep connection to the roots of blues and rock music. The album features eleven tracks, ten of which are original compositions, showcasing Greene’s prowess as a songwriter. The eleventh track is a classic nod to Canned Heat and Rory Gallagher, highlighting Greene’s appreciation for the greats who have come before him.

Recorded in Nashville with coproducer JD Simo and in Greene’s current hometown of Austin, TX, with engineer Hunter St. Marie, “Standing Out Loud” is a sonic journey through the nostalgic sounds of the 1960s and 70s. Greene masterfully weaves together driving slide guitar, energetic blues arrangements, occasional Southern Rock undertones, intricate funky riffs, and emotive slow blues interludes, creating a tapestry of sound that is both familiar and fresh.

But “Standing Out Loud” is more than just a showcase of Greene’s musical prowess; it’s also a window into his soul. Through his lyrical content, Greene delves into philosophical reflections, personal narratives, and subtle humor, demonstrating a multifaceted approach to songwriting that sets him apart from his contemporaries.

Greene’s reputation as a formidable talent in the blues world has been well-established through his acclaimed solo releases and his extensive touring as a key player in the Alan Parsons Project and Sugaray Rayford’s band. As a multicharting Billboard artist, Greene’s star continues to rise, and “Standing Out Loud” is poised to take him to even greater heights.

Alastair Greene Releases His Debut Record For Ruf Records “Standing Out Loud”

In this interview, we’ll explore the inspiration behind “Standing Out Loud,” the creative process that brought the album to life, and the musical influences that have shaped Greene’s unique sound. We’ll also delve into Greene’s thoughts on the current state of the blues genre and his vision for its future.

So sit back, relax, and join us as we embark on a journey through the heart and soul of Alastair Greene’s music. Without further ado, let’s dive into our conversation with the man behind “Standing Out Loud.”

Alastair Greene: Hello.

Rock And Blues International:

Hello Alastair.

Alastair Greene: Yes, sir.

Rock And Blues International: Hi, is Kevin with Rock And Blues International? How are you doing?

Alastair Greene: I’m good, man. Thanks for the call. Appreciate you.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, great. Great talking to you again. It’s been a while.

Alastair Greene: Has it now? Yeah, I guess....

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Rock And Blues International: Since the last album.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, absolutely.

Rock And Blues International: Although I have seen you since then. I saw your last show at the Big Easy.

Alastair Greene: Oh, nice. Right, right. Right, right. That’s right. Totally.

Rock And Blues International: I was going to come up and say something, but you’re ordering barbecue outside.

Alastair Greene: Yeah.

Rock And Blues International: I don’t want to interfere with anybody when they’re getting ready to eat.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, exactly. Don’t mess with a man and his barbecue.

Rock And Blues International: That’s right. Well, how was it?

Alastair Greene: Oh, fantastic. Man. That place is great.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, the barbecue.

Alastair Greene: Oh yeah, the barbecue... Whoever that guy is, he’s awesome, the guy that makes the barbecue out front there.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah. Yeah. Well, the show was fantastic. I really enjoyed it.

Alastair Greene: Well, thank you.

Rock And Blues International: So now you’ve got a new album out, “Standing Out Loud”.

Alastair Greene: Yes, sir.

Rock And Blues International: And you went for that 70s vibe on this one.

Alastair Greene: I did. I did. I wanted to capture something a little bit different for myself. And that was kind of where we ended up with songwriting wise and production wise and everything. We wanted to kind of sonically put the record in the early 70s and even song selection and everything. We wanted to kind of give that sort of vibe.

Rock And Blues International: You did the eight songs there in Nashville and three back in Austin. Why didn’t you do all eleven in Nashville?

Alastair Greene: We just kind of ran out of time. We were in real quick, we knocked out as much as we could. And, you know, a lot of records are made kind of on a wing and a prayer. So we, we got what we could, what we could get done in Nashville. And then I finished up the record here in Austin. And I think it

gives it a a unique story. I got to play with a lot of great musicians and work with a lot of great people on this record. And I can’t think of that many cooler music towns to say you made your record in than Nashville and Austin.

Rock And Blues International: What made you pick producer JD Simo.

Alastair Greene: JD is pretty well known for his kind of retro aesthetic as far as the records that he makes and does and whatnot and I’m a big fan of his guitar playing and his music and it just seemed like a good fit. He’s great man. He definitely had a lot of great ideas as far as the recording of the record, and even the arrangement of some of the songs and whatnot and I’m really happy that I got to work with him on this.

Rock And Blues International: Well, I’m sure when you went into the studio there, you had a preconceived notion on how you want the songs to go. So what did he contribute to any of these songs that may have changed the direction slightly?

Alastair Greene: Well, I wrote probably between 20 and 25 songs for consideration for the record and he had a handful that he really liked that he thought he could really continue to do justice to and one of the songs is “In Trouble”. The song “In Trouble” that’s on the record originally started as more of a sort of a up tempo ZZ Top “Sharp Dressed Man” kind of feel, not with the computer electronic stuff, but kind of more of a mid tempo ZZ Top kind of song.

Rock And Blues International: Early ZZ Top.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, yeah, I guess. I mean, if I guess if the early 80s, early ZZ Top, then yes. And he had this great idea to have it sound more like a Free song, the band Free from England in the early 70s and it came out great. That was really the main song that he had a completely different vision for that I absolutely agreed with and loved so that would that would probably be the song that he had the most impact on. And he was really good at kind of trimming the fat on some songs, simplifying some

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things and and recording I mean, we got some really great guitar sounds and drum sounds and bass sounds so I’m really happy with it. He’s he’s an incredibly talented guy.

Rock And Blues International: Did you take your band with you or did you use his musicians?

Alastair Greene: I used his guys in Nashville and I used a couple guys here in Austin that I’ve done some playing. Everything just kind of fell in place, I think sort of the way it was supposed to. So yeah, I used his guys in Nashville and I used a couple friends of mine here in Austin.

Rock And Blues International: All right. Well, starting off with the first song, “You Can’t Fool Me,” that opening riff just reminded me of Ted Nugent.

Alastair Greene: Oh, okay.

Rock And Blues International: I mean, something like “Stranglehold” or something. Yeah. It’s just really out there and in your face. So tell me a little bit about that song.

Alastair Greene: Well, yeah, I’m a big fan of simple and effective when it comes to riffs as much as I like complicated things and complicated music here and there. I feel that simplicity can carry a bigger wallop especially when it comes to a guitar riff. That one to me, it’s interesting you said Ted Nugent. I mean, I’m obviously familiar with early Ted Nugent’s music and I’m a fan of some of those songs. Of course, I had, again, kind of an early ZZ Top vibe in mind for that song, just with keeping the song simple, you know, keeping the chord structure simple. It’s a very short song. That was another thing I wanted to do with this record was really sort of trim the fat, make the songs carry the most impact in the shortest amount of time. Not for any other reason, I just wanted to try that out. I wanted to see how that all kind of played itself out. And that song is a prime example. It gets in and it gets out

real quick.

Rock And Blues International: Well, let’s go to the lyrics on it. “You Can’t Fool Me”, what are we talking about here?

Alastair Greene: In that song, a lot of times I will come up with a song title or I’ll come up with a line. And it may not be related to anything that I’ve experienced directly, so that sounds kind of a little bit more of a story. And I’m all about people sort of reading their own meaning into stories without me having to kind of hold their hand and tell them what I think the song is about. I had one reviewer say that he thought it was about a guy catching his girl messing around on him. I really had more in mind when I wrote that just to give away my idea of what that song is about. Really more of like kind of sketchy characters that you meet along the way that you know are up to no good, you know, nefarious people.

Rock And Blues International: Do you meet a lot of those?

Alastair Greene: You meet them along the way. I think everyone does, or you see them, or you can at least after

the years of experience living life, you’re able to identify them. Sugar Ray Rayford had a great saying, I played in his band for about a year. He had a really great saying that he told me that his grandmother said, she used to say “I may not know you, but I know your kind”. And that’s kind of one of those things where I feel like that kind of rings true., like you can start identifying personality and types as you move through life. I think that song is kind of one of those like, yeah, I can kind of tell this is a sketchy character.

Rock And Blues International: All right, but the reviewer that you were telling me about got it entirely wrong?

Alastair Greene: Well, not necessarily. I mean, those lyrics could ring true in that scenario. That’s why I don’t like to say what I think a song is about because if someone else thinks it’s about that, then that’s their interpretation, and that’s totally fine.

Rock And Blues International: Well, it’s nice to know a little bit about what the author of this song was thinking

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when he did it, as opposed to just thinking, oh, yeah, obviously, he was talking about his dog.

Alastair Greene: Right, exactly.

Rock And Blues International: “Slow Burn”, “she was a friend of mine, take it slow, let it go where it wants to go”. To me that sounded like maybe you’re talking about a woman there.

Alastair Greene: You know, you’ve got a pretty good idea, don’t you. Yeah, The last record that I did, in the studio was “The New World Blues” that I did with Tab Benois and that was prepandemic, pre-election, the world was still in kind of a weird, a weird place. And that record to me was a little bit more serious as far as the things that I was addressing... state of the world, a lot of the stuff that was on the news. For this record, for “Standing Out Loud”, I wanted to not necessarily have so many serious songs. I think that I wanted to be a little bit more playful with some of the tunes. Some of the songs have a little of a humorous aspect to them. And this is definitely more of a playful, guy wants the hot chicks song. What can I tell you, I hadn’t written anything like that in a while.

Rock And Blues International: “Don’t rush it, let it happen”.

Alastair Greene: Exactly.

Rock And Blues International: “Don’t scare her away.

Alastair Greene: Right!

Rock And Blues International: All right, “Only Do”. “When the flame is going out, it’s only do, there is no try. So, that sounds like a more positive song there.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, that’s definitely a song where... I wrote that with a friend of mine named Lonnie Trevino, who’s a really talented songwriter, singer, bass player, originally from Austin and he really helped out with the lyrics on that one. I had that chorus line, “It’s only do there is no try” and honestly, you call me a nerd or what you will, that’s sort of paraphrasing Yoda from the second Star Wars movie, ‘Empire Strikes Back’, and so I just kind of had that as sort of like a nod to my childhood. We kind of wrote this song about sticking with it, getting your life on track, and not letting things get you down in the meantime.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, tell me a little bit about the recording of that.

Alastair Greene: Well, when we recorded all the songs for this record, whether they are in Nashville or an Austin, there’s, there’s different ways to

go about recording things. One is sometimes you can rehearse with a band or make, you know, demos and plan for everybody and whatnot and that’s cool and I’ve done that before. This record was more, here’s the song, here’s how it goes, let’s record it and get your kind of first impression. That was also Tab Benois’ recording aesthetic when I worked with him. So with this song, with all the songs, really, I showed it to the musicians, we talked a little bit about it, talked about the parts, and then we just laid them down. So most everything on this record is first or second take as far as the music goes. There was a couple of songs we did in Nashville, where if we didn’t have the tempo right when we started off, we’d stop and start again. But all these were knocked out really quickly and I think that gives an urgency and an excitement to the songs when they’re recorded that way. And so that’s really kind of a general statement about the entire record and the entire recording, but in regards to this song, that’s what we did. I played pretty much one guitar on all the songs on this record. I did a few overdubs on a few things, but for the most part, it’s really stripped down and raw sounding and we got great guitar tones, and yeah, I’m really happy with how all that stuff came out.

Rock And Blues International: Well, that was a bit of slide on “Slowburn”, wasn’t it?

Alastair Greene: Yes, sir, I’m a big fan of slide guitar.

Rock And Blues International: Alright, so working with the different producers. What three songs did you do in Austin? I think you did “Bullfrog Blues”.

Alastair Greene: It’s not completely chronological, but the last three songs on the record I recorded in Austin, so that would be “Temptation”, “Rusty Dagger”, and Bullfrog Blues.

Rock And Blues International: Oka, next song on here, “In Trouble”. That sounds like a jealousy song here. “What you want is what I got.

Alastair Greene: Yeah. Well, that’s actually more of a of a cautionary ‘going

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out late and drinking song’ and that’s the one I was telling you that JD had the idea to change the tempo and slow it down and make it more like a Free song from the early 70s. Yeah, that was one actually I wrote after I went out with a friend of mine here in Austin and just kind of got inspired by the going out late night, going to the bar, grabbing a drink world that exists here and in most major cities and cities across the United States. But that was definitely kind of a cautionary tale of, you go out late drinking, you might get yourself in trouble.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, well, you’re in Austin. That’s party town central for Texas.

Alastair Greene: It certainly is.

Rock And Blues International: If there’s any place to get in trouble, it’s Austin.

Alastair Greene: Yes sir.

Rock And Blues International: Too many college students, too many young ladies. I am sure you encounter that a lot because it sounded like it reflected on a couple of the songs in here.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, you know Austin has been a really cool place to to relocate to. There’s a lot of great music here and a lot of great venues and so I’ve gotten to get out and and check it out and learn a little bit.

Rock And Blues International: All right, next one,”The Last To Cry”. “Everything seems so right”. It sounds like the woman’s putting some pressure on you here.

Alastair Greene: Well, that’s another or co-write. That’s a really interesting story behind that song. That song has its roots from a band I was in, in the early to mid 90s, in Southern California and my hometown called Scarecrow. And those lyrics... about 90% of those lyrics were written by the singer in that band, Chris Chalk and I really

always loved the song. It was a song he and I pretty much written together and I’d always really liked the lyrics and the melody. I pretty much changed the music for the most part, and JD and I changed some of the lyrics in the chorus. But yeah, that’s a song that goes way back in my history and I’ve done that a few times over the years where I’ve gone back in mind, my pre-solo career catalogue of songs that I was involved with writing or that I’d written back in the 90s and I really like how that one came out. It’s definitely got a cool Southern Rock vibe and I really like the lyrics and the melody that Chris had written originally and I tried to stay pretty true to his original melody and whatnot. So yeah, it’s a great song, I really dig it.

Rock And Blues International: How much did it evolve from the original version?

Alastair Greene: Well, again I trimmed a lot of fat off of that one. There was a whole intro and a different guitar part and a different groove for the most part. It’s in the same key, it’s another kind of open tuning slide song. I like to write in open tunings occasionally, and play slide. So if you were to listen to both versions back to back you would see a few similarities, but for the most part the music’s almost completely different as far as the guitar parts and the groove of the drums and the bass, but the melody and lyrics are pretty true to the original.

Rock And Blues International: All right. “Trouble Blues”, now that sounds like a little departure from the first few songs on here. You “turned to the darkness to chase the blues away”.

Alastair Greene: Right.

Rock And Blues International: You “turn to the darkness to find another way”. That gives a little bit for interpretation there.

Alastair Greene: Yeah. Absolutely. Well that’s another one where I just started writing lyrics and seeing where they lead. That’s how it all starts for me, I’ll come up with a sentence, I’ll come up with a song title. And I’ll just start writing and see where it all kind of ends up. And then I’ll go back and piece things together and try and make a little bit more sense. Because initially when you start writing lyrics, and you’re doing more train of thought type of writing, you have to go back and edit yourself more often than not just so you can make something make a little bit more sense. And that’s was the case with that song. Musically I go and I rip off the best that I can think of, so there’s a little bit a Gary Moore in that one. He did a record with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. I don’t want to give away too much of where I get my stuff.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, the BBM record.

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Alastair Greene: Yeah, that’s one of my favorite blues rock records of that era, for sure and probably all time, just because it’s those guys is a little bit more mature musicians but still have a lot of passion and fire, and I really think that Gary Moore... I mean, he was always a fantastic guitar player going back to the 70s in Thin Lizzy and in his solo career when he was more of a hard rock heavy metal guy. But I really think once he got into the blues rock thing and started making records like that in the early 90s, there came a point where his style really kind of coalesced into this really fiery, tasty but also he had incredible chops. This was a great era of his playing that I think the BBM record really captures.

Rock And Blues International: Well, I’m a big fan of Gary Moore, so I really enjoyed his blues period there. I mean, I liked Thin Lizzy too, but his blues period is what really, really interested me in his career.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, that’s fantastic, man. I think he was really excited about playing that music and you can tell. A lot of people may accuse a guy like that of playing a lot of notes, but man, he played them beautifully.

Rock And Blues International: He got such great tone. But then again, he was using Peter Green’s guitar at one point.

Alastair Greene: Right, exactly, yeah, he had Peter Greens guitar for a while so you can’t you can’t go wrong with that.

Rock And Blues International: No, not at all. So did you turn to the darkness?

Alastair Greene: You know, we all we all have our dark moments, I think.

Rock And Blues International: Are you listening to a lot of Ozzy Osbourne albums.

Alastair Greene: Not anymore, I used to. I grew up on that. I grew up in the 80s and I was a big Ozzy fan and Black Sabbath fan and all that. And that’s not really influenced me in my blues rock years, but definitely when I was a kid growing up, I learned a handful of Randy Rhoads riffs and Jake E. Lee riffs and stuff and Tony Iommi for sure. Tony Iommi is a huge influence for me, even in my blues rock years. You can’t argue with that guy’s ability to write a great riff, so yeah.

Rock And Blues International: oh, yeah. Well, when you say ‘you turned to the blues’, well, I mean, ‘turned to the darkness”, what did you mean by that?

Alastair Greene: Oh, man, I’d have

to... can we stop recording for a second, so we’re editing this out because I need to bring up the lyrics because I don’t really have them in front of me.

Rock And Blues International: Well, if you don’t want to answer that one. That’s okay.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, let’s pass on that one and move on.

Rock And Blues International: Okay, next question. “Am I To Blame”. You’re not gonna play this game yet?

Alastair Greene Yeah.

Rock And Blues International: It’s it sounds like an encounter in a bar somewhere with some woman. You’re hoping she walks by but you she didn’t. She stopped.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, this is another co-right I did with Lonnie Trevino. And this one. We really built the lyrics from the ground up. I had the music I had the riff. And I brought it over. We had this we had a couple songwriting sessions that yielded a lot of great stuff. I’m and I’m glad that two of the songs made it on this record.

Rock And Blues International: Okay, “Standing Out Loud”, the title track on here. I’m sure there’s a lot to say about that one.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, yeah, that I wrote. Again, I did a lot of co-writes on this record. That I wrote with my friend Mark Epstein, who ended up playing bass on the Austin sessions and he’s a fantastic bass player. He played with Johnny Winter in the late 90s. He played with Bonamassa, in the early 2000s and moved out to Austin and has been here and been involved in the music scene here. He’s a fantastic bass player and songwriter. And so we’ve kind of messed around with like, a couple of riffs and we’re trying to kind of write, kind of a straightforward blues rock song, but give it a little bit of a funky twist with the riff. And I was telling them how I wanted to call the song something that could be kind of taken two different ways and I gave the example of there’s a Steve Morse solo record called “Outstanding In

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Their Field”. So I mentioned that to him, because you can interpret that as well, they’re outstanding in their individual fields of focus, or they’re literally out standing in their fields, like a cornfield or something like that and he immediately was like, ‘Well, what about standing out loud’, and I was like, well, that’s great and so that was the title and we started kind of writing lyrics around that. And I kind of made it a little bit about my move to Austin and you know, it could be anybody moving anywhere, but this was my experience, you know, moving to Austin, staying committed to playing music and moving forward with your passion. So that’s generally what that song is about and I think it came out really good. JD’s guys played great and have a great groove on it and it was a really fun song to write and to record. Now, we’ve been performing it at all of our shows recently, too.

Rock And Blues International: So on this one, you left someone behind, it’s so far away from you.

Alastair Greene: No, just whenever you move to a new city, you’re moving out of your hometown or moving out away from where you maybe you grew up, and Southern California is quite a ways away from Austin.

Rock And Blues International: It sure is. Okay, so this isn’t about anybody in particular?

Alastair Greene: No, this is just a song about pursuing your dreams.

Rock And Blues International: Well, what about the line in here? “Your luck’s run out”?

Alastair Greene: Yeah, and I think I just was able to bring the lyrics up on my computer. So that might help me answer some of your questions because I don’t have it all committed to memory here. Let’s see. What line is it? Maybe this is an older draft. What was the line you’re just asking about?

Rock And Blues International: It’s something about your luck’s run out.

Alastair Greene: Oh, right. Okay. These are not... I’m not looking at the current lyrics, I’m looking at the original version of the lyrics. “Nothing to Lose Your luck’s run out. And back and down. I’m standing out loud”. That’s the lyric.

Rock And Blues International: Right.

Alastair Greene: I conjured that from my memory. “Nothing to lose. Your luck’s run out. You’re not backing down. You’re standing out loud”. So that’s the hook of the song.

Rock And Blues International: Okay. Well, brings us to “Temptation”. “The devil is on your shoulder”.

Alastair Greene: Yes indeed.

Rock And Blues International: What kind of temptation.were you going through this day?

Alastair Greene: Oh, I wasn’t necessarily. It’s just another great, great excuse to write a song that people might relate to?

Rock And Blues International: Well, “you can’t hear the sound of temptation”.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, you know, that’s just one of those things I think we all experience in life, whether it’s running a traffic light or something else.

And yeah, it’s definitely a song about just having the push-pull of your conscience and what your moral compass may or may not be telling you to do at any given time.

Rock And Blues International: Right. Right. Well, next up is “Rusty Dagger Blues”, the slowest song on the album, possibly a ballad here. It sounds like you’re hurting. You’re following a new star. Exactly, what are we doing here?

Alastair Greene: Well, the line is “following your Northstar.” You’re just kind of staying true to yourself. That song is really about staying true to yourself, staying true to your vision and not letting anybody kind of get in your ear about how you should live your life is really what that’s about. And sometimes there’s people that tell you things that maybe they think are important, or they think how you should live your life. And when you don’t necessarily agree with them, sometimes they they say some pretty nasty things and you got to follow your Northstar and keep moving forward with your vision.

Rock And Blues International: All right, well, I liked that one, too. It was a little surprising to suddenly be going through all these really, really rockin’ songs to wind up with something that slow.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, you know, I really wanted to, and this is kind of

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going back to the Gary Moore conversation a little bit, I really wanted to... because to me, he was really a master of playing a lot of slow melodies really well. And granted, I mean, the guy had amazing chops, but I really wanted to have a slow song with not necessarily traditional chord changes, you know, I mean, it is a blues form. I throw a couple different chords in there, and try to kind of make a little difference. So to me, it’s sort of like reaching for a bit of a Gary Moore, maybe Robin Trower-ish, kind of vibe on that one. And I don’t necessarily need to put a slow blues on every record, but I believe that those are good sort of palate cleanser, if you’re doing a lot of hard rocking up tempo songs or medium tempo songs. I think a nice slow blues or a slower song really kind of helps sort of people’s ears, you know, give them something else to listen to.

Rock And Blues International: Right. And that kind of brings us to the elephant in the room here, “Bull Frog Blues”.

Alastair Greene: Why why is that an elephant?

Rock And Blues International: Well, it’s the only cover song on the album.

Alastair Greene: Yeah.

Rock And Blues International:

Everything else is original. Everything is really rocking and all of a sudden, we’re into Canned Heat.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, exactly. Well, I, you know, I say this too onstage. I heard that song first off of a Rory Gallagher record, “Live in Europe 1972”, I believe that is the name of the record. And so that’s the one... that’s where I first heard that song and then I went back and found out he gotten that from Canned Heat and Canned Heat actually got it from somebody else. Originally, it was an acoustic song and I don’t have the guy’s name written down in front of me, that originally kind of performed a song called “Bullfrog Blues” back in the 20s or 30s, but that’s a great rock song. I wanted to close the record with a nod to Rory Gallagher, another big hero of mine, I wanted to have just another kind of straight rock song on there, and also sort of pay tribute to the roots of the song with the acoustic intro there. I’ve been playing that song at my shows for many years and I just felt that it would be a good, another kind of, hey, here’s a real just simple, somewhat familiar to some people song to pay tribute to one of my heroes and it’s a great tune. And coincidentally, I didn’t know this for a while, but Walter Trout also performs that song. I did a tour with him, a couple of different tours with him. I did a short one in Germany, about a year and a half, two years ago. And then last year, I went over to England and did

a couple of weeks opening shows for him and I’d get up every night and get to play that song with him. So it’s kind of like, well, hey man, if it’s good enough for Walter Trout, it’s certainly good enough for me.

Rock And Blues International: Okay. So tell me how you think this album differs from, say, your last album?

Alastair Greene: I would like to think that as a songwriter, I’m continuing to grow and progress. Same with with singing and delivering songs. Guitar playing wise, I don’t necessarily want to say that I’ve plateaued, but I’ve pretty much kind of gotten my lifestyle together that the way that I like to play and present myself as a guitar player. So I would just like to think of it as a natural progression, songwriting wise. I got into some different avenues that I haven’t gotten into before, while still maintaining what it is that I think people might expect from me, but first and foremost I wanted to make a record that I enjoyed and I think I accomplished that and this record definitely has some different feels and different grooves than any of my previous records. A lot of that also is because of the musicians that played on it. I also did a lot of different co-writes on this record, as well. And I think that kind of adds to some of the songs being a little different than what I’ve done in the past. So yeah, I’m really happy with it, man. I think it fits it fits in great in my catalog. I’m really proud of this one.

Rock And Blues International: Were you more of a solo writer in the past?

Alastair Greene: Yeah, for the most part I write by myself..... just that would be kind of how things just ended up going, I would know that I had a record coming up and I just start writing and demoing songs. I did some co writes on the last record with Tab. Once we’re in the studio, he helped me with a few songs. And prior to that I wrote a good portion of all the tunes that I recorded over the years.

Rock And Blues International: Okay, well, how do you think this will affect future writings?

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Alastair Greene: I really enjoy the co-writing. What’s the word I’m searching for here, the process of getting together with somebody and not having preconceived notions about what’s about to transpire as far as how the songs gonna go. And that’s exciting. And it’s new. And you know, I can write riffs and stuff all day long. But when you get together with somebody and start working out some lyrics or some different chord ideas and things like that, it’s exciting, because there’s always going to be stuff that I don’t think of that could be what I consider better than what I came up with originally, and I really feel that way with this record. I love what everybody contributed, Lonnie, and Mark, and JD and my buddies in my old band, and I really value that input, because it sort of just adds to what I already feel comfortable doing and I think we came up with some really good stuff on this one.

Rock And Blues International: Wonderful, wonderful. So when when someone listens to your music for the very first time, is there an album in particular that you would kind of like them to start out on? Or would it be the current album?

Alastair Greene That’s a great question because when you’re at the merch table selling your records, you get you get a similar question, you get a few different kinds of questions, but people will go, there’s a couple ones people ask, ‘well, what’s the record that you played most of the songs off of tonight’, and nine times out of 10, that’s going to be the new record, like, hey, well, this is the new record this and that. And then a lot of times people will say something like, ‘well, what is your bluesy record’?

Rock And Blues International: What’s your favorite record they go. It’s like, what is your favorite child?

Alastair Greene: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you just nailed it on the head. That’s really, that’s really the thing. It’s like each record that I’ve done, going

back to my first one in 2001, I mean, I love them for what they are in that moment in time. Would I go back and change some things, maybe, yeah, sure. But they’re snapshots of your life and your musicality and your abilities and your influences at any given time. Obviously I’m the biggest fan of my newest record “Standing Out Loud” because it is fresh, I’m really proud of it. I really love what we just talked about, the process and all the songs and all that. If someone came up to me going, ‘where do I start’, I would probably point them to a record I did a decade ago called “Trouble At Your Door” that I recorded for Delta Groove. And that really, to me, was the first record that kind of everything sort of came together as far as my influence is in my playing and my singing. It was my first real record deal with a label that was in the blues and blues rock world. And if you were to listen from there, up to “Standing Out Loud”, that’s basically I guess, for studio records and two live records, that’s really who I am, I feel as a musician. Prior to that I’d experimented with a little bit more of a hard rock sound on one record, and kind of a little bit more of a blues leaning on another record. So you know, prior to that, I’m still proud of all those records, but I would definitely if someone said, Hey, I’m gonna, I’m gonna buy all your stuff. Where do you want me to start? I would say”Trouble At Your Door” most likely.

Rock And Blues International: Okay. Okay. What else would you like people to know about this album here? I mean, What haven’t we touched on that we should have touched on?

Alastair Greene: Well, I mean, that’s a great question, too. I mean, we could talk about geeky gear stuff, but most of the audience isn’t going to care a bout that.

Rock And Blues International: Let’s talk about gear. What do you do, slide on your Firebird?

Alastair Greene: Yeah, I used two Firebirds, a 335, an SG and my Les Paul on this record so I guess there’s five guitars, but yeah, I did slide on the Firebird on a couple of songs and on my SG for a couple of songs. Those are kind of the ones I lean towards, for open tuning slide stuff, and my Les Paul tends to be the guitar that wins as far as just me feeling comfortable and feeling like as comfortable on an instrument as I could. When I went into the studio with JD, he’s got a really, really nice old Gibson 335. And he’s like, ‘Hey, man, check this guitar out’. And I actually tried recording, like, I think a song with it and it was just one of the things were both he and I were like, ‘yeah, man, I’m more comfortable on my Les Paul’. That’s just the guitar I’m the most

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comfortable on. I’ve played it the most in the last15 years and it’s just become my go to for recording and for playing shows. So those were the guitars and then JD had these really funky old amps. He had an old Rickenbacker amp and an old, I can’t remember... I have a picture of it somewhere. He had a couple of really funky old amps, I got a great sound in Nashville. And then for the Austin sessions, I used a Category Five combo amplifier and a Marshall Bluesbreaker. I like recording with two amps at the same time, it gives you some options that kind of creates a little bit wider of a sound if that’s the description.

Rock And Blues International: Well, their great to blend together too.

Alastair Greene: Yeah, you can

blend them and whatnot, and they do different things. And so that’s always been something I’ve tried to do is record, you know, at least two amps at the same time and so that was pretty much it. There weren’t really much in the way of any pedals on this record. On “Am I To Blame”, JD had a really cool, some fuzz pedal. Actually, I don’t know, it was old, and maybe a newer one, a fuzz pedal, and I used a little bit of a boost on a couple of things, but I try and keep things simple and then just kind of keep the gear thing classic, I guess you could say. And that was another part of just kind of kept wanting to capture that early 70s aesthetic is that a lot of those records were really made with a guitar and an amp and and maybe a little bit of a pedal here and there for OverDrive or something like that. But we wanted to kind of

keep it with that. The old school aesthetic.

Rock And Blues International: Well, the tone is all in your fingers.

Alastair Greene Well, there’s that too.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, well, I mean, basically, that’s it. If you’re talking 70,s they didn’t have the pedals like they have now.

Alastair Greene: Right. Yeah. I mean, just just the amps and the guitars and trying to make it all happen with that for sure.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, all right. Well, what else do we need to talk about?

Alastair Greene: Well, when’s this gonna come out? I mean, we can talk tour dates, we can talk record company.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, you’re with a new record company.

Alastair Greene: Correct.

Rock And Blues International: Ruf Records out of Germany.

Alastair Greene: That’s correct. Yeah, I met I saw Thomas Ruf in Germany, actually, when I was on tour with Walter and I ran into him over there and we got to talk and that’s sort of how this new deal sort of started, was just by running into him in Germany. I’ve known Thomas for for quite a while and pitched him records in the past or pitched him projects and this time it worked out. The timing was right and I did some touring over in Europe earlier this year in April, and I’ve been touring in the states the last month or so and we’re going to do a little bit more, and I’m going to go back over to Europe a couple more times before the end of the year and, and just really try and get out there and play these songs.

Rock And Blues International: So where do you get the most respect, at home or in Europe?

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Alastair Greene: You know, both. It’s just I’ve been going over to Europe for for a while with with different bands, and it’s just a little bit of a different culture over there as far as their appreciation for things and what they have been exposed to. Now with the internet being so widely used in everything, everyone all around the world, or mostly around the world, you know, has access to to music. I think that there’s a general appreciation there, especially when you had to import records and had to find ways to find this music, I think there’s a little bit more of an appreciation for some of that stuff over in Europe. But we have appreciative audiences here in the United States too. I’ll go to shows and people told me, they drove three hours or something like that to a show or whatever and so there’s definitely a lot of fans here in the states too, that are that are very, very supportive and very enthusiastic.

Rock And Blues International: Well, my my friends that go over to Europe tell me that playing at home is great, but when they go to Europe, suddenly they’re stars.

Alastair Greene: Well, I guess it sort of depends on the venue, maybe it depends on the country. I mean, I’ve been making records and those records have been released over in Europe for a while, so occasionally like this last tour, we’d played some shows, and some people would come up with one of my older records that wasn’t necessarily released over there, they’d have to buy on Amazon, so there definitely are hard core fans in Europe as well.

Rock And Blues International: All right, well, I think I’ve got all I need right here. But if there’s more stuff we need to add, please go into it.

Alastair Greene Well, man, I think we’ve kind of covered most of it. I would say I’ve had a great time talking to you. We’re looking forward to getting back out on tour. I’ve got a great band based out of Austin right now. I’ve got a

drummer named Chris Trafton, and a bass player named Justin Sedillo and we’ve been driving around playing these songs for the last month or so and we’re gonna keep doing it. I’m looking forward to getting out and playing these songs for anyone that will come and listen.

Rock And Blues International: All right. Well, I really appreciate you talking with me. about the new album, I really enjoyed it. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, it definitely has that 70s vibe to it. And really, when I first heard the first 10 seconds of the first song, it just reminded me of Ted Nugent, just bursting out into a song.

Alastair Greene: That’s great. I love it. I love it.

Rock And Blues International: All right, well, I’ll let you go. You can get back to.... it’s probably lunchtime for you now.

Alastair Greene Well, being in Austin. Now. It’s almost it’s almost three. I’m booking hotels and working on some shows and doing that kind of stuff. So yeah, I’m just in the office today, catching up with some stuff. We’re getting ready to go to Florida next week for a few shows. And so yeah, man, I’m really happy that we got a chance to catch up and talk again. I appreciate your time, and I appreciate the interview. And if there’s anything else you need clarification on, just give me a call or shoot me an email or something.

Rock And Blues International: Okay, I’ll do that. Thanks again, and we’ll talk to you later.

Alastair Greene: All right, thanks so much. Appreciate you.

Rock And Blues International: Bye bye.

As we wrap up our fascinating conversation with Alastair Greene, it’s clear that “Standing Out Loud” is not just another album; it’s a testament to the enduring power of blues music and its ability to evolve and captivate new generations of listeners. Throughout our interview, Alastair provided us with a deep insight into his creative process, his musical influences, and the personal

experiences that have shaped his songwriting.

What stands out most about “Standing Out Loud” is its ability to bridge the gap between the classic sounds of the 1960s and 70s and the contemporary blues scene. By drawing upon the nostalgic elements of his musical heroes while infusing his own unique style and perspective, Alastair has crafted an album that feels both timeless and fresh. From the driving slide guitar of “You Can’t Fool Me” to the introspective lyrics of “Am I To Blame?”, each track on the album tells a story and showcases a different facet of Alastair’s immense talent.

Throughout our conversation, Alastair’s passion for his craft was palpable. He spoke eloquently about the role of blues music in his life, the importance of staying true to oneself as an artist, and the responsibility he feels to carry the torch for the genre and introduce it to new audiences. It’s clear that for Alastair, music is not just a career; it’s a calling.

As we listened to Alastair discuss his journey as a musician, it became evident that “Standing Out Loud” represents a significant milestone in his career. The album not only showcases his growth as a songwriter and guitarist but also reflects his deep connection to the blues community and his desire to push the genre forward. With its masterful blend of classic and contemporary elements, “Standing Out Loud” is an album that is sure to resonate with blues aficionados and newcomers alike.As our interview comes to a close, we can’t help but feel excited about what the future holds for Alastair Greene. With “Standing Out Loud,” he has once again proven himself to be one of the most compelling and dynamic artists in the blues world, and we have no doubt that his star will continue to rise in the years to come.

We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Alastair for taking the time to speak with us and for sharing his music with the world. If you haven’t already, we highly recommend giving “Standing Out Loud” a listen. Trust us; you won’t be disappointed. And to Alastair, we say keep standing out loud and proud; the blues world is lucky to have you.

Petra Börnerová Trio, family business and international spirit

by Edoardo Fassio

One of the most intriguing blues projects in Central Europe comes from Bílina, a spa town in the Czech Republic, in northern Bohemia, not far from the German border (Dresden is an hour’s drive away). Welcome to the Petra Börnerová Trio, made up of frontwoman Petra, who accompanies her singing by playing the accordion, her husband Tomás “Bobek” Bobrovniczky, a drummer by training but an acoustic guitarist by role, and their son Tomas Bobrovniczky Jr., born in 2009, on drums.

The fact that Czech Petra married Slovak Tom (in 2003, ten years after the split of the former Czechoslovakia into two separate state entities) is a sign of ties and connections, even international ones, that extend far beyond their area of residence. Bobrovniczk_, in turn, has roots close to the border: he was born in 1978 in Komárno, a place located at the confluence of the Váh River with the Danube, the dividing line between Slovakia and Hungary.

The small one-family band, very active in their homeland and on the stages of the Old Continent, sometimes alongside Bob Margolin, Kenny Neal, EB Davis, Guitar Shorty, Louisiana Red or Billy Branch, in 2023 represented Czechia at the European Blues Challenge in Chorzow, Poland. It often broadens its base by inviting esteemed international colleagues such as Czech violinist Jitka Vejsadová, Slovak jazz-rock bassist Fedor Freso and Hungarians Besenyei Csaba, harmonica player, and Bornemissza Ádám, bassist. The latest Give Me a Sign, which brings the discography to seven, features Taras Voloscuk on double bass, a Ukrainian musician with a significant background in both classical music and folk rock.

The album, which opens with the hypnotic “Chase A Face,” where Börnerová’s sensual singing chases the double ostinato of guitar and accordion, proceeds balanced between the metrics of the blues, the immediacy of Anglo-American rock and the secrets of Central European folk. Its strengths lie in the original compositions, both in English (“Take My Hand,” with Bobek’s effective slide work, is a hands-down show stopper) and in Czech, fluent singer-songwriter-like rock songs: “Nevim” (I Don’t Know) and “Moje mesto” (My Town), with Australian guitarist Gwyn Ashton as a guest.

The well-stocked setlist is rounded out with a few standards from yesteryear - including the Stones’ “No Expectations,” not uncommon in blues quarters - and a nice surprise: the version of “Don’t Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down.” Calm in its exposition and firm in its principles, it fully retains the ecumenical message of Eric Bibb’s model.

Petra Börnerová Trio, impresa familiare e spirito internazionale

by Edoardo Fassio

Arriva da Bílina, una cittadina termale della Repubblica Ceca, nella Boemia settentrionale, non distante dalla frontiera tedesca (Dresda è a un’ora di macchina), uno dei progetti in blues più interessanti dell’Europa centrale. Si tratta del Petra Börnerová Trio, costituito dalla frontwoman Petra, che accompagna il canto con la fisarmonica, dal marito

Tomás “Bobek” Bobrovniczky, batterista di formazione ma chitarrista acustico di ruolo, e dal figlio Tomas Bobrovniczky Jr., classe 2009, alla batteria.

Che la ceca Petra abbia sposato lo slovacco Tom (nel 2003, dieci anni dopo la scissione della vecchia Cecoslovacchia in due entità statali separate) è un segnale di collegamenti, anche internazionali, che si estendono ben oltre la zona di residenza. Bobrovniczky, a sua volta, ha radici vicino al confine: è nato nel 1978 a Komárno, incastonata alla confluenza del fiume Váh con il Danubio, linea di demarcazione tra la Slovacchia e l’Ungheria.

La piccola band unifamiliare, attivissima in patria e sui palchi del Vecchio Continente, magari a fianco di Bob Margolin, Kenny Neal, EB Davis, Guitar Shorty, Louisiana Red o Billy Branch, nel 2023 ha rappresentato la Cechia all’European Blues Challenge di Chorzow, in Polonia. Sovente allarga lo schieramento base invitando colleghi internazionali di pregio, come la violinista ceca Jitka Vejsadová, il bassista jazz-rock slovacco Fedor Freco e gli ungheresi Besenyei Csaba, armonicista, e Bornemissza Ádám, bassista. All’ultimo Give Me a Sign, che conduce la discografia a quota sette, partecipa al contrabbasso Taras Voloscuk, un musicista ucraino con trascorsi importanti sia in ambito classico che folk rock.

L’album, che si apre con l’ipnotica “Chase A Face”, dove il canto sensuale di Börnerová gioca a rincorrere il doppio ostinato di chitarra e accordion, conferma l’equilibrio ritrovato tra la metrica del blues, l’immediatezza del rock angloamericano e i segreti del folk mitteleuropeo. Ha i suoi punti di forza in composizioni originali, sia in inglese (“Take My Hand”, dall’efficace lavoro di slide di Bobek, è uno show stopper in automatico) che in lingua ceca, preferita nei brani di fluente rock cantautorale: “Nevim” (Non so) e “Moje mesto” (La mia città), con il chitarrista australiano Gwyn Ashton in qualità di ospite.

Completano una scaletta ben assortita qualche standard dall’altro ieri - compresa “No Expectations” degli Stones, che non è difficile incontrare nei concerti di blues - e una bella sorpresa: la versione di “Don’t Ever Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down”. Pacata nell’esposizione e salda nei principi, conserva il messaggio ecumenico del modello di Eric Bibb.

Kim Wilson of The Fabulous Thunderbirds

By Kevin Wildman

As they commemorate their incredible 50th anniversary, the legendary American blues rock outfit The Fabulous Thunderbirds is primed to make a thunderous return with “Struck Down” - their first studio album in eight long years. Announced by their longtime label home Stony Plain Records, this highly-anticipated release promises to be a monumental sonic achievement when it drops on June 28th. The album is led by the sizzling first single “Payback Time”, a scorching cut featuring a bristling guitar performance from none other than Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame.fttt

In this exclusive in-depth interview, founding member and acclaimed harmonica master Kim Wilson pulls back the curtain on the making of “Struck Down”, divulging fascinating insights into its creation. He reveals how an almost accidental songwriting collaboration with respected Canadian blues guitarist Steve Strongman sparked an incredibly fruitful and organic creative process that incredibly yielded 17 new original compositions for consideration.

Wilson and Strongman co-wrote a staggering nine of the ten tracks that made the final album, carefully complemented by a scorching interpretation of Memphis Minnie’s classic “Nothing in Rambling”. This revamped version is overflowing with talent, as worldrenowned artists Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Keb’ Mo’, and Mick Fleetwood each lend their iconic voices and musicianship.

Beyond Gibbons’ electrifying guest turn, the album boasts an incredible array of other special guests like the iconic Elvin Bishop and the Cajun accordion stylings of Terrance Simien, each lending their distinctive flair. Buckle up as the charismatic Wilson goes deep into the making of this starstudded record, detailing how he assembled this A-list lineup of collaborators and what it was like to work with his road-tested Thunderbirds band capturing inspired performances. He also shares his experience working with the acclaimed mixing engineer Shelly Yakus to meticulously craft the Thunderbirds’ signature sound for a new era.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds Release Their Long Awaited Album Struck Down on Stoney Plain Records

Kim Wilson: Hello,

Rock And Blues International: Hello, Kim. This is Kevin.

Kim Wilson: How you doing Wildman?

Rock And Blues International: Doing good. How about you?

Kim Wilson: I’m doing good brother.

Rock And Blues International: All right. Well, we finally got hooked up. I’ve had nothing but problems down here. We had storms and the power kept going out. I’d get the power back and it would go out again. It was just totally

ridiculous. But you’ve been to Texas, you know how weird the weather is down here.

Kim Wilson: Oh, yeah. You guys had some weather there recently. I know.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, I thought about packing up everything and driving down the road 15 minutes because I knew the weather would be different down there, but I didn’t have time to do that.

Kim Wilson: Well, well, I feel for you.

Rock And Blues International: So

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where are you at right now?

Kim Wilson: I’m out in San Juan Capistrano, California.

Rock And Blues International: Okay, so you live out in California.

Kim Wilson: Well, I’ve been living here for 35 years.

Rock And Blues International: All right.

Kim Wilson: I believe I left Texas in ’95.

Rock And Blues International: Okay. Well, the weather out in California I hear is a lot better than the weather in Texas. Although I’m just used to the weather in Texas. I’ve been here ever since. Well, almost all my life.

Kim Wilson: Well, you know, it is what it is.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Wilson: You know, I lived in Austin for 22 years and they have some good weather there every now and then. You know, the nice oak trees and stuff like that. When I first moved to Austin, there was only 69,000 people there.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, yeah. Well, you lived in Austin when it was affordable to live in Austin.

Kim Wilson: Well, I had a one bedroom house for $85 a month.

Rock And Blues International: When I was a kid, we all wanted to go to Austin to live because it was one of the cheapest places in Texas you could go to and that’s where all the hippies were. We’d go out to “hippie hollow”, and places like that.

Kim Wilson: Oh yeah.

Rock And Blues International: And it was just a lot of fun. No matter where you lived in Texas, you wanted to move to Austin as soon as you graduated high school.

Kim Wilson: That sounds like Isla Vista. I grew up in Santa Barbara, California. And soon as you graduated high school, you wanted to move out get your own apartment on Isla Vista. Isla Vista is where they had all the riots and everything. That was hippie. There was a lot of hippies. They were blocking the highways and, you know, protesting the Vietnam War and all that stuff. It was a long time ago.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, we’re probably close to the same age.

Kim Wilson: Yeah.

Rock And Blues International: Anyway, you’re back with a new album, the first album in eight years, and it’s also the 50th anniversary of the release of your first album. So why an eight year wait, and.... Well, why an eight year wait?

Kim Wilson: Well, you know, you just got to find the right people to release something. And that’s been difficult. So, people up there Stony Plain, up there in Canada, they said, well, we’d like to sign you guys, you know, we see you haven’t had a release in a while. And now I’ve done a lot of sessions for Stoney Plain as a sideman. Finally, they turned into a real record label, not that they weren’t before. But I mean, as far as being able to provide budgets. And you know, like you see, real release dates. I’ve got a publicist, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a real label. But Jeff up there, he said, I’m gonna sign you but there’s one stipulation. You have to write with my guy. And I told Glen Parrish, my manager, I said, No, I can’t do that. And he said, we’ll just try it. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll fly him in the same day, I’ll fly him back to Canada the same day. I said okay. So the guy comes down, Steve Strongman. He’s also coproducer of this record along with my manager. And we wrote five songs in the first three days and then he came back for another three days and we wrote 12 So I guess my paranoia was unjustified.

Rock And Blues International: Well, I’m sure you’ve worked with a lot of people over the years, you’ve seen the ups and downs of recording. And, and

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there’s, you know, it’s natural to be a little skeptical at first, especially of someone that you’re not familiar with.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly what it was. But he was a great guy, great musician, and great songwriter. And, I mean, really, when you’re talking about the album, CD, whatever you want to call it these days, or anytime, it’s all about the material. And I really think we hit a home run with this one. You know, I think that we both came in prepared, myself and Steve Strongman. And we had stuff, stuff there that I’d had for quite a while, and he had some some of this stuff for quite a while. So we just laid out each other’s material. And it was kind of a match made in heaven. So I was very, very pleased that it went that way.

Rock And Blues International: What was the writing session like with him? How did you present your stuff? How did he present his stuff to you?

Kim Wilson: Well, he had a guitar. I’ve got a bunch of guitars in here. And we just sat up here in this little loft, I have and started just banging away at it. And I said, Well, here’s the kind of melody I’m feeling here. And, you know, blah, blah, blah, I kind of want to pattern it to this beat. And that’s just the way it went. We both had a lot of lyrics and so it just kind of was a very organic way of doing it. You know, we didn’t come in here and have a full band or anything, we just had a guitar and vocals and a little bit of harmonica and that was it. And it was, it was a cool way to do it.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, I didn’t imagine you had a band there because by the looks at all of our guest stars in there, it would have to be a pretty, pretty damn big room to have everyone in there.

Kim Wilson: You know, that’s the beauty now with modern recording,

recording digitally. I had not recorded digitally for many years, I’ve been doing everything, direct to analog model. And I’ve had success doing that. And so I didn’t really believe in digital recording. And then I didn’t realize the leaps and bounds that they’ve made in the last five to eight years. They can really make it sound great. So we got the material done. We went to New Jersey, where a lot of the band lives up in the East Coast and we rehearsed it a bit. And I came back out and said, you know, we’re missing a couple of things here, I wrote a couple more things and ran it by Strongman, and we kind of did that long distance. And then we went into the studio in New Jersey, really great studio, you can stay at the place and just wake up, get your coffee and head down and start recording. And that was a very healthy way of doing things as well. It just we came in, you know, I think we had two weeks or something like that to record. We did it in like a week or so. Now as far as the people, the guest stars. Well, we do what you call send the stems, they call them stems now, just the tracks, and you send them to the people and they put their part on and send it back to you. And it’s easy as that. Then we had a guy named Shelly Yakus. I don’t know if you know who that is.

Rock And Blues International: Yes, I’m familiar with him.

Kim Wilson: There he is. He’s like the greatest mixer of all time. And Glenn said, you know, we got to take this to Shelly and ask him if he wants to do it. And he agreed. And Shelly was a real

sweetheart, great guy, and maybe the greatest mixer of all time. I mean, if you look at his resume, it’s insane. What he’s done. And so I think he’s responsible for 70 million in record sales or something with his mixes. So we took it to him. It was kind of cool because we mixed long distance. He would take it into the studio. He would get in there every two, three or four days to mix, send us a track. And we say now well Oh, I can hear a little more of this, little less of that. And the second time, boom, it was done. So it wasn’t like being in a mixing studio or a studio period, and beating the crap out of your ears, trying to do two, three mixes in a day. So that really worked out well for me, because I can take it right to the car, which is where I really judge all my tracks. And I can see what it was like, and, you know, the guy’s a genius, man, that guy’s incredible. I mean, when we first started talking to him, one of the first things he said was, you know, you have to mix with emotion. And I went, Wow I don’t think anybody has ever said that to me. So he, he did his thing. And then we took it to Sterling Sound, which is the best mastering company, one of the best in the world, maybe the best in the States. And I always forget the guy’s name, but the beautiful thing about this whole project was that everybody got into it. You know, everybody loved it. Everybody loved the performances. So they put their best foot forward every single person and boy do I appreciate that. And it’s, it’s paying off. It’s, you know, so far it’s blowing up a little bit. That’s always great to see people

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responding to the hard work that you put in.

Rock And Blues International: Well, it’s a very strong album. It’s very, you know, it’s punchy, there’s some great variety to the tunes in there. I love the Cajun influence on “Don’t Make No Sense”. I love that. I love the way it starts off with “Struck Down By The Blues”. Just from start to finish, it’s just there’s a lot to this one.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, you know, I think... that’s Terrence Simien by the way, on the squeezebox and on the rub board on “Don’t Make No Sense”. He’s one of the guest stars. I’ve always loved what he does. And Glenn had a history with him as well. So we just called him and that’s what we did. We just say hey, are you in? And everybody said yes. So you know, I’ve got a lot of good friends out there.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah.

Kim Wilson: Really helped me out.

Rock And Blues International:Well, the guests on here are

just unbelievable, Billy, Bonnie, Keb’ Mo’, Taj Mahal, Mick Fleetwood, Elvin Bishop.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s strong. But to me, sonically, material wise, performance wise, is the best one we’ve done, including “Tuff Enuff”. I think that when you start taking it to these incredible people, like Shelly Yakus, that really just puts it over the top. And then, you know, we were prepared. I mean, we had been rehearsed. And we went right in there and pretty much knocked it out. So, you know, it’s always good not to dwell on things. It’s always good to keep it fresh in that way. You know, usually, you don’t do anything over three takes. You don’t you don’t do any vocal over three takes. You know, and that’s the way it worked out here. I mean, it was kind of easy. Kind of easy to do.

Rock And Blues International: But you usually go back to the first take anyway.

Kim Wilson: Well, yeah, that’s what you base it on, at least, you know, you might do a couple of vocal comps

here and there, but But you always base it on the fresh one. You always base it on that first uninhibited one. And you know, I mean, these musicians that I have in this band now are just, it’s insane how great they are. I mean, you know, I’ve got Johnny, I’ve got the guy named Bob Welsh, who plays keyboards and guitar also. He’s all over this record. And Rudy Albin, who he played six years with brother, Jack Macduff, you know, then, Steve Kirsty, he’s the youngster of the group. I think he’s 31 and he’s an incredible musician. He plays upright and electric bass and the guy’s... I mean, I’ve really got a great band. And it made it so much easier not struggling with persons. You know, when you get the studio, that’s when you find out where your weaknesses are, every time. Somebody is bound to get canned, it never fails. And this time, these guys just came in with flying colors. Of course, I knew they would. And that was, it was the whole thing has been a very pleasant experience. So when when you start getting the kind of airplay that we’re getting right now with this first single was Billy on it. You know, I mean, when we were writing that song, I had had that song for awhile.

Rock And Blues International: “Payback Time.”

Kim Wilson: Yeah, first thing I said was, oh, this has got to be Gibbons on this one, because I knew we were going to be going for some guest artists. This has got to be Gibbons. And boy, he just came through. He’s a really great guy. I’ve known him for many, many, many years. And he knows how to make records, obviously. So he just came through beautifully. I’m very, very proud. And very proud of all the people that are involved. And I’m very proud of the band. Very proud of my manager, Glenn Parrish for doing so many great things for this record. And, and, you know, finding people like Shelly Yakus, you know, Glenn, he used to manage the mix. So he’s connected. And he had known Shelly from the old days. And I can’t tell you how important Shelley was to this process. I mean, you can, you can come in with great performances, and they can just totally screw it up in the mix.

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Rock And Blues International: Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt, they push something down in the mix, you can’t hear it’s important or they pull pull something out. It’s too bass heavy.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, oh, yeah. So the beautiful thing about Shelly was, it was kind of old school, but he was modern at the same time. And kind of like us, kind of like me. I mean, I’m pretty old school. I came into this project saying to Strongman because we were going to be co producing it, and I said, you know, this has got to be organic. I’m not going to do it any other way. It’s got to be organic, I’m not going to come out here and do some kind of fluff. This has got to be something you can sink your teeth into. And, of course, he was all for it. And then Glenn, he came through with so many ideas, especially in the kind of post production. And there was a little bit of editing that went on in a couple of songs. And, I mean, he was instrumental, and I said, Hey, you know, I gotta make you co-producer because you’ve done so much for this project. That’s got to happen. So, there you go. It’s all, it’s all been so pleasant. You know, it doesn’t always happen that way.

Rock And Blues International: Right, right. Well, let’s talk about some of the songs on here, the inspiration behind them, if it was your song to begin with, or Steve’s song and what you all did to make these things happen. I guess the first one is “Struck Down By The Blues”. That’s the one the album kicks off with, and very good song there. Tell me about that song.

Kim Wilson: Oh, well, that’s one that I had for a while. And it was kind of a COVID song.

Rock And Blues International: There are a lot of great songs that were done during COVID.

Kim Wilson: Yeah. So I mean, you know, Steve came in, we buffed out some things. We put a bridge in it, got that good intro on there. I said, Hey, Steve, give me a smart cord He gives me a smart cord. Yeah, well, not that smart. Dumb it down a bit. But you know, so. Yeah. And then Steve actually is playing the lead on that song. Also, so that was great. I said, Well, I want something kind of Albert King-esque, as far as the guitar. And, you know, I just thought about all the people like Albert King, Otis Rush, Little Milton, Albert Collins, people that I had played with that, to me, Albert King on STAX and a couple of things that little Milton did on Chess. That was kind of the extent of the evolution of blues music to me, I mean, I really couldn’t get past that. Everything else has been kind of naw, you know, so, I just went for that. I went for that kind of funky beats. And it’s a good, the lyrics are really good. You know, the lyrics are very, very self explanatory and obviously, and there’s a couple things. My wife, she inspired me on a lot of these tracks, actually. The next one don’t make no sense.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, all of a sudden, we’re off to Louisiana.

Kim Wilson: Yeah. And that might be another COVID one. But, you know, she would always say, you know, don’t make no sense. And I go, Okay, well, I

guess it kind of translated into this whole thing, came a little late, I said, Oh, look at this, I had this song. And so I realized that I could put it to that kind of Rockin’ Sydney kind of thing. And then Strongman helped me buff that out. He plays that little guitar solo on there. Terrance Simien was the guy that we want it for that immediately, of course, and that’s it, you know, it’s a rockin’ little thing isn’t it. I mean, it just really kind of just jumps off the grooves at you.

Rock And Blues International: Right!

Kim Wilson: Shelley has a lot to do with that too. But the performance, you got to have a good performance to get a good mix, and the performances are really great on all of these tracks. They’re great, they’re very spontaneous. I think the next one is “Payback Time” and that one I’ve had for quite a while too, I’ve had that for a long time, actually. But, you know, I hadn’t really.... writing a song is one thing, getting a great idea to finishing a song, especially when you’re doing so many at once. It’s really great to have somebody to bounce that stuff off another person, so I was really happy to have Steve on that and of course, Gibbons is outstanding on this.

Rock And Blues International: Did you call him or did he call you when he

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found out you were doing the album?

Kim Wilson: I called him, I called him and I said, I got something for you here. So we lined it up and, hearing all this stuff after the fact. It’s kind of like opening up a Christmas present. You unwrap it you don’t know exactly what you have and it’s like, wow, how cool is this! Yeah, so I called everybody. No one called me I called them and then they all said yes, that’s a beautiful thing. It’s a rockin’ track, “Payback Time” is a very rockin’ track. We buffed it out lyrically. We buffed it out lyrically and then made it whole. And then the next one, “Nothing In Rambling”, That’s the only non original.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, Memphis Minnie. With so many great originals on here, what made you select Memphis Minnie’s “Nothing In Rambling”?

Kim Wilson: Well, we have done that on Letterman with myself and Bonnie and Keb’ Mo’ and it got great response. We had actually written something similar to that, but it just didn’t have the kind of sad sense of humor that “Nothing In Rambling” has and we had to give it up. Okay, well, let’s just do that. You know, it’s been tested, we know it works.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, yeah, that song has been done by quite a lot of people.

Kim Wilson: Has it?

Rock And Blues International: Yeah. It’s been done by a few people over the years.

Kim Wilson: I didn’t know that. But, you know, we had had success on Letterman, we got millions of hits on that video.

Rock And Blues International: Right.

Kim Wilson: So okay, let’s just do that. And hence, you know, that’s an easy one too. How we did that was we had a track that we sent to Kevin. He was already in the studio with Taj. So he put some guitar and the two vocals on there. Then they sent it to Bonnie. Bonnie did her vocal. Then they sent it to Mick Fleetwood in Hawaii. And he did his drums on it, plays his ass off. And then I picked up the end of it. But it sounds like the way the kind of chemistry I have with all these people. Really sounds like we did it live, doesn’t it? I mean.

Rock And Blues International: It does.

Kim Wilson: You know, it is crazy because Bonnie does that little thing at the end when I’m singing and she sings over it. Somehow, I just felt that lower part. Yeah, she sings over it so beautifully, she’d already done her part. So, you know, it was like, very, very strange symbiosis there. The harmonica is really good. You know, the whole thing. The performances are fantastic of course.

Rock And Blues International: Right.

Kim Wilson: Taj was on my very first influences when I was a kid. I still love what Taj does. Taj is an incredible musician. incredible talent. Incredible and he does fantastic on there as well. So and then what’s the next one?

Rock And Blues International: “Won’t Give Up”.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, that kind of speaks for itself. And we kind of pattern that to the live Albert King track. Actually, it didn’t. We said, Okay, we want to kind of quick like that. It’s not kind of, it’s not quite as quick as, as the Albert King track. Albert King Live at the Fillmore is one of my favorite Albert King records. Al Jackson, from Booker T and the MGS, the drummer actually produced that track, produced that whole record. But so it started out that way and then it just kind of morphed into this thing, and it’s got some really good harmonica on it. The vocals were very good on that. What you do is you just say, Okay, here’s how it was.

Rock And Blues International: Right. Right.

Kim Wilson: “Looking at things that I can’t afford. working two jobs really getting back, keep me on the bus when I walk.” That’s a pretty good lyric. “Now I’m singing a different tune. No more drinking in the afternoon.”

Rock And Blues International: Oh, my goodness.

Kim Wilson: God, so yeah, so you know, that’s, that’s another one. It just

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happened fast. While we were writing it just happened fast. The next one is one that Steve brought in called “The Hard Way”. Now, that’s got some very good chromatic harmonica on it. And I think the vocal performance on that is really good. It’s really a kind of a mood piece. Some people say that’s their favorite track on the record. But it’s a very, very cool truck.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, I really enjoyed doing it. You know, the band is great of course. The band’s great on all these tracks.

Rock And Blues International: Right! Well, the next one is “What YOu Do To Me” with Elvin Bishop. How did you get Elvin Bishop?

Kim Wilson: Well, he’s a friend of mine. I’ve known him forever. And Bob Welsh actually plays with Elvin. A couple of these guys, they do double time. Rudy will play with James Hunter sometimes, and Bob will play with Alvin sometimes. So I’ve known Elvin for a long, long time, great guy. And I told Bob, I said, Hey, let’s get Elvin on this thing. So not an issue. And that’s kind of a very, I wouldn’t call it typical, but one thing I can say about all this material is it’s very much a fabulous Thunderbirds record, which the combination of the stuff that beats, you know, that’s just one of the beats, the shuffle that we do every night. You know, the lyrics are great on that. That was another. Steve brought that one in, and then I helped him buff that that lyric out. The harmonic is really good. It’s called third position that I’m playing on there, which is kind of a minor kind of chromatic sounding thing on a harmonica. And, you know, it’s one of my Forte’s is the third position, actually, but another great track.

Rock And Blues International:

Right. Next one is, “I’ve Got Eyes”. Tell me about “I’ve Got Eyes”. What are you saying there?

Kim Wilson: Well, it’s really about my wife, isn’t it?

Rock And Blues International: The inspiration behind most of the songs.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, definitely. And, you know, she, she’s looking at me funny right now. But, but, you know, my wife is a Clinical Hypnotherapist.

Rock And Blues International: What is a Clinical Hypnotherapist?

Kim Wilson: She hypnotizes people, that helps them. Actually, she’s retired from that business now. But she, she was the best in the world. And, anyway, so “what you do to me got me hypnotized”. It kind of just talks about my wife, the whole song does actually. But there’s some certain lyrics in all the songs that have to do with her. That was one of the came a little later. Because after the rehearsals, I say, you know, we’re missing a beat. And then it was another Albert King song called “The Hunter” and it was kind of a slower two

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beat than this one is. And we just kind of built it off of that, you know, I mean, it’s almost like a Jimmy Reed, kind of, two beat thing. Well, it’s, you know, good Organ on it. You know, Bob plays a great solo on that. And there’s some good harmonica on that as wel. That ended up being more harmonica on this, and I thought it was. I ended up having a quite a bit of harmonica on this record. So then the next one

Rock And Blues International: “That’s Cold”.

Kim Wilson “That’s Cold”. That’s a strong one. And we came in and just started flailing away at it when we were writing, and we ended up getting a cool riff to start the thing out. There all an effort of love. Now, you start digging these songs, you want to put your best foot forward, you really want it to be a great song. There was harmonica on that and I said, I don’t think there should be harmonic on this record on this particular song and so there isn’t. It’s got Johnny and Bob both playing solos on it. By the way, Johnny also plays on the solo on anearlier one. Anyway, I’ll remember it in a second. And the next one is “Sideline”. That’s a Strongman one. Those kinds of songs are a little bit out of my wheelhouse, but what I’m doing is, I’m basically just singing with the melody.

I’m not really doing a lot of fancy stuff on there. And we got that female singer on there, she does a great job. Bob plays his ass off. Well, by the way, all the horns on this record are done by the bass player. He’s also a horn player.

Rock And Blues International: Really? Well, that’s great.

Kim Wilson: Yeah. And he’s also a piano tuner.

Rock And Blues International: a piano tuner. All the pianos are in tuned then.

Kim Wilson: Yeah.

Rock And Blues International: Well are you using an electric piano or acoustic piano?

Kim Wilson: Well, it’s acoustic on all this, I think so. Actually, you know what, there might be a Fender piano on one track, but I can’t remember which one it is. But he plays the horn solo on that. And he also does the horns on “Struck Down By The Blues and “Don’t Make No Sense”. So I’ve got a bunch of very versatile guys, that’s all I can tell you.

Rock And Blues International: Can

you name any of the songs that just completely changed from your original vision on the song by the use of other people?

Kim Wilson: No, I can’t.

Rock And Blues International: Okay.

Kim Wilson: They’re all pretty much how we envisioned them and what happens is, you bring other people in, and they just enhance your vision, make the whole vision come to fruition. But you have to come in with an idea of how you want things to sound. And if you don’t have that, you’re gonna be flailing around in the studio, not knowing what the hell what direction you’re going in. And so you have to have an idea, yet things can change. I mean, like on “Sideline”, for instance. I didn’t really know how I was going to attack that vocally and so I lightened up my voice a little bit. And all of a sudden, boom, there it was, so that was kind of a revelation. But other than that, it’s just the matter of getting the performances. When Steve came to California and we started writing this stuff we could hear in our head of how we wanted it. What we needed was the people to help us live out our vision of what all this stuff was going to be and we had just the guys to do it .

Rock And Blues International: Well then I guess since everything went as planned that there were no tough spots you ran into during the recording.

Kim Wilson: No, there weren’t. There were no tough spots. It went very smoothly. So like I say, sometimes you’ll go in and do take after take after take and not get it. On this one we were ready. We did everything... first, second take, boom, it was done. Actually we cut 17 or 18 tracks, but we kept 10 and you have to come in with more than you need to get the best ten, the best of the best.

Rock And Blues International: So in 10 years from now when you do the reissue you will hear a couple of more songs.

Kim Wilson: I don’t know.

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Rock And Blues International:

That’s the way the record companies do it now.

Kim Wilson: Well, you know, hey, I don’t know if the record company has the other tracks. And they might not have them. But you know, it’s just kind of history now. I had a couple of pretty good songs that didn’t make it. And when they don’t make it, it’s for good reason. It’s either a beat or it’s too slow or it doesn’t have the composition that you’re looking for. It might fall a hair short and you realize that when you’re in the studio. Okay, we’re gonna dwell on this one now. Okay, that one. Okay, that one, okay, let’s move that over to the side. Now, you know, you kind of develop a pecking order. That’s what happens. A lot of people go in and just do exactly what they’re going to do and they don’t have that many songs. They don’t have 17 to 20 songs and keep 10 and they just dwell on it . Of course, back in the day, those huge, huge productions that they spent hundreds of 1000s on, you know, I mean, it’s kind of absurd, isn’t it? I mean, but they had the money to do it and they did it. I mean, there’s some great stuff came out of it, of course, but, how about Michael Jackson, those had to have been like, huge million dollar productions. And we just don’t need to do that.

Rock And Blues International: Right. Well, you take people like the Stones, they wait to the get to the studio, and then they start writing.

Kim Wilson: Well, listen, if you got that kind of money, you can afford to do that. But you know, that’s a very spontaneous way of doing it. But you know, if you’re somewhat prepared, and you go in there, it’s still pretty spontaneous, believe me. And it’s just the nature of our beast to do it the way we did it. Everybody has their own way of doing it. The Stones? Yeah. You know, that’s a

pretty cool way to do it really.

Rock And Blues International: Well, you all opened for the Stones once, didn’t you?

Kim Wilson: Oh yeah, back in 81. That was interesting. It was pouring down rain. We only did it twice and Bill Graham was the promoter of that show. Bill Graham was an awesome guy and he would actually give me little hints on how to do my set. Pretty interesting. Yeah. He was a great guy. We did a lot of work for him. Actually. We used to play over the old Waldorf in San Francisco. That was his club and then he always treated us fantastic. He was he was an icon, he is an icon. I could write a lot of stories.

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, I bet you could. You’ve been through a lot and you’ve seen a lot.

Kim Wilson: I have.

Rock And Blues International: You’ve had some interesting people in the band starting on the first album there.

Kim Wilson: I’ve been around.

Rock And Blues International: I know, I know. When you look back at

your repertoire of albums, how do you think this one fits in on the schedule there?

Kim Wilson: It’s number one, it’s the best one ever. It’s better than “Tuff Enuff” for sure. As far as a contemporary recording. To me, hands down it’s better than “Tuff Enuff”. I mean, Edmunds really did us a service by bringing us over to England and producing that first record. But you know, I was still pretty young. My voice wasn’t as mature as it is now. I didn’t know my way around the studio like I do now. And then you have Shelley Yakus mixing the thing. So, to me this would have been a hit record in the 80s. Maybe back when you could have hit records. Who knows it may end up being a hit anyway.

Rock And Blues International: Well, let’s keep our fingers crossed on that.

Kim Wilson: Yes, sir. Because I think that this record hands down to me, is the best record we’ve ever done. Now you can look back at the Chrysalis stuff. There were some pretty good records there, Nick Lowe producing the last one on Chrysalis. But you know that was when we were making our transition it

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into rock and roll and adding that on to our repertoire. Basically all we’ve ever done is what we liked. If you like rock and roll, great. It’s not rock. You can’t consider this rock. It’s very organic. The term blues-rock is disgusting. But it’s an organic mix of rock and roll and blues. We used to call ourselves a blues band that plays rock and roll. And that’s basically what we still are. We got a couple of beats on there like “Struck Down By The Blues”, though those were relatively new beats in the past when we were making records. I think that where this album stands, it’s number one. Just when you play in all the factors, the material especially, and this sonically, and the performances, they’re just better than anything else we’ve ever done.

Rock And Blues International: Did you do the track lineup on here? Did you decide which song goes where?

Kim Wilson: I did. Yeah.

Rock And Blues International: The flow of the songs is just fantastic from song to song. it’s just really good. You don’t hit a spot where your going, Oh, what happened there?

Kim Wilson: Yeah, and that’s how you pick the material too. You pick it by the beat. You try and pick it by the keys and make it more friendly to the ear. There’s a lot of things that go into sequencing an album. What you do is you take a bunch of little pieces of paper and write the titles on and then you just shuffle them around till you get it okay. So I brought my manager down here, he lives in LA. He came out here, and he said, Okay, we’re gonna sequence it, and I already had it. So he said, Oh, yeah, okay, I like it. Well, we might have changed something when he got here. Maybe we might have changed one I’m not sure. But I pretty much had it. And so I’ve gotten pretty good at that over the years. One thing I’m terrible at is titling a record. So, usually it’s the title track, hence “Struck Down”, and that’s a good title. Now the packaging is beautiful, then it’s, it’s really good record all the

way across the board. I’m very excited for people to hear the whole thing.

Rock And Blues International: Well, I really like the cover. Is it a Phoenix or an eagle or something on the cover.

Kim Wilson: It’s a Thunderbird.

Rock And Blues International: Thunderbird. Okay.

Kim Wilson: It’s an old... the band was named, not for a car, not for the wine, but for the mythical Native American Thunderbird.

(I hear Kim’s wife talking to him in the background)

Kim Wilson: No, that’s not what it is (replying to his wife)

Rock And Blues International: What was that, I heard something there.

Kim Wilson: She says, the Phoenix has risen out of the ashes. Well, there are no ashes to rise out, but, the Thunderbird... I think the Thunderbird would go across the sky. And go from morning to night. I believe.

Rock And Blues International: Okay.

Kim Wilson: But then that’s how we came up with a name.

Rock And Blues International: So if someone heard your music for the first time, would this be the album you’d want them to hear first? Or would you want them to hear “Tuff Enuff” first?

Kim Wilson: This one, no question. I think this one really kind of says it all about this band. I think that “Tuff Enuff” has its moments, no question. But no, I think the “Tuff Enuff” production is kind of a period piece. Even though, Edmunds did a fantastic job on it and I think that, like I said the material is everything on an album, then you go to performance. Then you go to sonically

and all those things just top everything we’ve done, period. You know, I think that I would love to hear people hear this first.

Rock And Blues International: All right, well, hopefully on “Tuff Enuff” you’ll be getting a slightly larger royalty check soon, because Mitch Ryder just did the song “Tuff Enuff” on his new album.

Kim Wilson: Oh, is that right? Wow!

Rock And Blues International: Yeah, pretty much. He just put out a live album and “Tuff Enuff” is on there. Wow. He said he was a big Fabulous Thunderbirds fan.

Kim Wilson: That’s wonderful. I had no idea. That’s great, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I talked to him the other day. It was an interesting conversation. Evidently, he’s more popular in Europe than he is in the United States. But those things happen.

Kim Wilson: Oh yeah.

Rock And Blues International: Where would you say your strongest following is?

Kim Wilson: The state’s. I mean, they’d like us in Europe as well. And you know, I think that when we pretty much played strictly blues and it was kind of everybody’s private little party. I think that the Europeans got into that. But now it’s, it’s kind of worldwide. But, yeah, so I think, you know, it’s really kind of worldwide. I mean, you know, we, we dwell on the states, we like the states. It’s always great to be popular in your in your own territory.

Rock And Blues International: Well, when will we be seeing you out performing these?

Kim Wilson: Well, we’re doing them right now. We’re doing four of them, at least right now. And we get back on the road here in a couple of weeks.

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The Fabulous Thunderbirds

And we’re heading to actually, you know, we’re going to Tomball,Texas and playing there for two days.

Rock And Blues International: Main street crossing?

Kim Wilson: Yeah. I think so. Tomball, Texas. And then that kind of starts off a whole deal. I think from there we, at the end of the month, we head to Europe for like six shows. Starting in Bilbao, Spain, and we go to Germany. Then we go to Estonia. And then we go to this place called Notodden. Norway, which is a place where the whole town shuts down, but doesn’t shut down. They make the whole town a festival.

Rock And Blues International: Right. They have a big blues festival there.

Kim Wilson: Yeah. That’s a cool thing. You know, the Norwegians know how to party.

Rock And Blues International: So let me take a stab at a couple of these songs.You do “Struck Down By The Blues”, “Payback “Time” and “Don’t Make No Sense” when you perform.

Kim Wilson: Yeah, we do all three of those. And then we do also “I Got Eyes”. Yeah, We’re gonna end up doing all of them.

Rock And Blues International: SoI can’t wait to see you. Maybe I’ll come up to Tomball and see you.

Kim Wilson:Yeah, I don’t even know where that is in relation to Houston.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, god, it’s about 30 minutes north of Houston. It’s not far. It’s about an hour and 15 minutes from where I’m at.

Kim Wilson: Okay. Well, you should come.

Rock And Blues International: I’m

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going to try. It should be interesting.

Kim Wilson: Oh, yeah, come say hi.

Rock And Blues International: Okay. Well, what else do we need to talk about on the new album? Or have we covered at all?

Kim Wilson: We’ve pretty much covered it I think. I mean, It’s getting good airplay ,I’ll tell you that. It was number four and downloads on iTunes, the single... number two or three at AAA in college radio. It’s a good start.

Rock And Blues International: A good start. Well, it’s a good album. I wish you much success with the album. I appreciate you doing the interview with me. And we will take care of that and make sure you get a good story out of this.

Kim Wilson: Killer. Thank you so much.

Rock And Blues International: All right, and I’ll let you get back to your day. You probably got a lot planned for today.

Kim Wilson: Well, I”ve got a few things. Yeah. I’ve got a few things.

Rock And Blues International: Oh, all right. Well, thanks again. I appreciate your time. Okay, well, thanks again. I wish you much success and hopefully I’ll be able to make it out to see the show.

Kim Wilson: Okay, man, I’ll talk to you.

Rock And Blues International: Okay, bye bye.

Kim Wilson: Bye bye.

From our in-depth conversation, it’s quite evident that the making of “Struck Down” was an absolute labor of love and celebration of roots for The

Fabulous Thunderbirds and their iconic frontman Kim Wilson. His passion for the new material and immense pride in the album’s constellation of all-star collaborators shone through at every turn of our candid discussion.

Wilson vividly recreated the organic songwriting sessions with Steve Strongman that birthed the core of the record, regaling with entertaining anecdotes about stumbling into inspired musical moments. His insights into working with legendary guests like Billy Gibbons, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal and more put me right in the studio with them, giving a deeply personal glimpse into these musical titans’ creative processes.

The frontman clearly relished the opportunity to blend old-school grit with modern flair on “Struck Down”, leveraging the Thunderbirds’ decades of expertise while embracing technology’s envelope-pushing production potential. His colorful tales about collaborating with the mythic mixing engineer Shelly Yakus revealed a meticulous pursuit of sonic excellence at every stage.

More than just promoting the new album, this interview provided a veritable masterclass in musical longevity from one of blues rock’s most influential and enduring icons. Wilson’s recollections spanned epochal career moments like the Thunderbirds opening for The Rolling Stones, absorbing pearls of wisdom from late industry titans like Bill Graham, and seeing through different eras of the music business.

Our wide-ranging discussion reaffirmed that although “Struck Down” marks an incredible new milestone, The Fabulous Thunderbirds’ alchemical blend of hard-won maturity and raw, youthful vitality will undoubtedly keep them going strong for many more years and albums to come. It was an absolute pleasure and privilege to gain such firsthand insights into this latest evolution of a truly legendary American band.

Conversations With The Professionals John in Houston Constructing A Meaningful Discography

The business side of the music industry intersects with the creative side of the independent songwriter head on at some point in time. The neophyte knows that they have crafted something that others might enjoy but how do they package it? Should they release it as a single or wait until they have enough songs for an EP or maybe even wait until nine or ten new songs come to life and then release an album?

Subscription radio prefers one single at a time while terrestrial radio in genres such as Americana and Blues

prefer at minimum an EP. Keep in mind that this is new territory for any creative that is centered on creating and not distribution. Once a distribution decision is made then new creativity begins to take shape for the next song or songs. So the curiosity that comes to mind for many new artists is how do established successful artists move from single original releases to between six to ten originals at a time in album format? Good question. Last month Rock And Blues International Magazine featured Evelyn Rubio on its cover and I wrote about her inside my Conversations With The Professionals article. I met with her again after the article was published and we had a conversation about how her growing discography is coming to life. The following are excerpts from the meeting that day. It reveals how her journey evolved and how today she is still keeping an eye on expanding her discography. Evelyn Rubio is a much sought after vocalist and sax player. She performs both nationally and internationally, she’s almost always on the go but it wasn’t always like this of course. Relationships count in this business and Evelyn was introduced to the late, great band leader Calvin Owens. Calvin had been harboring the idea of recording and releasing a blues album but in Spanish, possibly a first within the industry. They met and the decision was made to record and release on Calvin’s Sawdust Alley record label. A fourteen track collection of blues music written by some very notable blues songwriters such as Trudy Lynn. Trudy’s song, the first track on the album, gained the most attention by radio show hosts and then of course by their listeners. The tracks were laid down at the world famous Sugarhill Recording Studio in Houston. This would be Evelyn’s first of many studio collaborations with the noted recording engineer Andy Bradley. Once the album hit the streets Evelyn received the opportunity to perform some of the songs at the iconic Midland Odessa blues festival, Tall City Blues Fest. The bottom line is that it was Calvin Owens who gave Evelyn the opportunity and with it came the lead in to more albums and gigs. So Evelyn’s discography was moving forward due to this unique collaboration. In this situation the songs were not hers but the opportunity was unique because the complete blues album would only be released in Spanish. Next up was another blues album with the Calvin Owens Blues Orchestra. This time

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Conversations With The Professionals John in Houston Constructing A Meaningful Discography Page 2

around however they would add a music video that was recorded in both English and Spanish. The song “Meant To Be” stood out. The album would be released in two separate languages. One CD would be entirely in English and the other CD entirely in Spanish. Evelyn shared, “I wrote the songs in Spanish and then they were translated into English. These songs came to me rather easily as I was in love. My husband remains my main inspiration. I was now living in America, as a citizen, and so much was opening up for me rapidly. The songs flowed from me.” Sadly, although the album was produced in 2008 Calvin Owens passed away and it would be another three years before it could be released. However, to Calvin’s credit the album moved up the Billboard charts to #1 Latin Pop Album #3 Latin Album and #6 Blues in 2013. This would be Evelyn’s second album and her discography was taking shape. Next a gentleman named Clarence Parker, a bass man, introduced Evelyn to James Bolden. James Bolden the former B.B. King band leader and trumpet player extraordinaire heard Evelyn’s sax work and vocal ability at a night spot named Dan Electros in Houston. Evelyn and James talked afterward about maybe doing something together and that is how “No News Jus The Blues” originated. An eleven song compilation that upon completion led to performances at Houston’s The Big Easy along with major blues music festivals. An interesting foot note is that James and the band opened up the door for Evelyn to work on the horn section arrangements. Next up was “Crossing Borders”. It was recorded in 2019 in three different cities; Los Angeles, Austin and Houston. A fifteen song release which would introduce three break out tunes for video. “Port Isabel”, “Besame Mucho” and “Cruel”.

The renowned bass man Larry Fulcher (Taj Mahal) would be the producer. This time in Houston some of the songs would be recorded at the world famous Wire Road Studios. This album would contain three songs which would also be in Spanish. “He Did Me Wrong, But He Did It Right” “Cruel” and “Border Town”. “Port Isabel” would be released in video format and almost immediately zoomed to number one on Smooth Jazz Global’s radio network. This brought Evelyn’s album collection up to four and then she moved her attention toward introducing new singles In 2023 Evelyn

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Conversations With The Professionals John in Houston Constructing A Meaningful Discography

made a bold move and recorded her single “Because I Want To” not only delivering it in MP3 and WAV formats but also in the new Dolby Atmos format. Immediately playlists on Tidal, Amazon Music, Apple Music and Spotify began spinning the new release. Additionally, Smooth Jazz Global which has the largest listening audience in the world for Smooth Jazz made it available to their radio network and the song rapidly advanced to #37. Top Forty Charts Magazine (New York City) picked up on the fast rising single and ran an international announcement. Next up was Evelyn’s rendition of the famous sax instrumental “Touch”. “Touch” is just being released as I write this article. It’s an instrumental communication that’s going out on most every streaming platform out there. The example I am sharing on how discographies can come together reveals that a lot of heart and logic go into the decision making. In her case Evelyn was open to collaboration, she was willing to experiment within a genre, (Blues) by releasing albums in dual languages and finally she wanted to be part of the new pioneering technology Dolby Atmos for music. In the end, as you reflect how it all came together, passion is what you will see grew your collection. Most likely over time there will be more than one muse involved including a loved one that is right in there with you. This bond reinforces the passion. Evelyn’s example shares that she is driven by passionate creativity but at the same time keeps a close eye on the changes occurring within the music industry. Technologies, delivery platforms, rules and more. While some independent artists yearn for signing with a major label after a while the vast majority of independents realize that they have a freedom that signed artists may not enjoy. On the other hand how do doors of opportunity open for the independent? The major labels have tons of contacts and experienced personnel to help groom and move careers forward. If you are an independent don’t fret over not having that situation. Celebrate the many freedoms of choice that are about to unfold in front of you. Building a meaningful discography really and truly starts and continues with your passion. If you are writing songs you are already in the zone. Now the question is will you manage your future or will the future manage you? Let your messaging and your ability with your instrument move you along but keep an eye on the constant morphing of the music industry. Peace and prosperity to you - John

Photo Credit: Spidey Smith

The Ground Shakes as Yelawolf Unleashes Explosive Double Album ‘War Story’ and Fiery New Video for “Legend”

him to this pivotal moment in his career.

“The story is still being written, I’m a living juxtaposition. Yelawolf is what happen when you left the devil to do all the babysitting,” he muses, his words carrying the weight of hard-earned wisdom and a lifetime of experiences distilled into potent bars. As an electric guitar solo wails in the background, Yelawolf lights a cigarette, flicks a match, and the past goes up in flames, a symbolic gesture of shedding his former skin and embracing the next chapter of his evolution.

“That’s how you make a legend,” he declares, reborn in a burst of fire, encapsulating the essence of his resilience, his unwavering determination, and his refusal to be defined by anything other than his own boundless creativity.

War Story – (Part 1) Michael Wayne & (Part 2) Trunk Muzik 4ever is a tour de force, a masterwork that serves as a testament to Yelawolf’s artistic evolution and his ability to transcend genres with ease. The double album is a sonic odyssey, with GRAMMY® Award winner Malay (Frank Ocean, Alicia Keys) helming the production for the Michael Wayne portion, imbuing it with a rich, soulful texture that perfectly complements Yelawolf’s introspective lyricism.

Meanwhile, the Trunk Muzik 4ever half of the project is a lightning bolt of energy, with WLPWR (Wiz Khalifa, Eminem, Travis Barker) delivering hard-hitting beats and raw, uncompromising production that serves as the perfect canvas for Yelawolf’s trademark blend of rap, rock, and country influences.

But War Story is far more than just a showcase of Yelawolf’s own considerable talents; it’s also a celebration of collaboration and a testament to his ability to bring together a diverse array of voices and perspectives. The album features an impressive roster of guest collaborators, each adding their own unique flavor to the sonic tapestry.

From the blistering intensity of Killer Mike’s verses to the raw honesty of Jelly Roll’s contributions, from the genre-bending experimentation of Caskey to the gritty authenticity of Struggle Jennings, War Story is a true melting pot of styles and influences, a sonic melding of minds that defies easy categorization.

With over 1 billion streams on Pandora, nearly 2 billion YouTube views, and over 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Yelawolf has long since proven that his movement cannot be stopped. His ability to transcend genres and captivate audiences with his raw honesty, lyrical prowess, and boundless creativity has solidified his place as one of the most unique and compelling voices in modern music.

In the lead-up to the album’s release, Yelawolf has been steadily building anticipation with a series of singles and music videos, each offering a tantalizing glimpse into the sonic world of War Story. The opening track of Michael Wayne, “Trailer In The Sky” featuring Jelly Roll, has already exploded with over 1 million Spotify streams and 2 million YouTube views on the visualizer, earning praise from publications like Salad Days Magazine and The Hype Magazine.

By Albert Schwartz

In a seismic event that has sent shockwaves rippling through the music industry, Alabama-born and Nashville-based multiplatinum chart-topping artist and entrepreneur Yelawolf has unleashed his longawaited and highly anticipated new double album, War Story – (Part 1) Michael Wayne & (Part 2) Trunk Muzik 4ever. This colossal body of work, released via his own Slumerican label, arrives as Yelawolf’s magnum opus, a culmination of his remarkable journey from humble beginnings to the forefront of popular culture, and a testament to his unwavering refusal to be confined by genre boundaries.

To celebrate the arrival of this monumental release, a project that has been years in the making, Yelawolf has unveiled a powerful new music video for the track “Legend.” In the visually striking clip, the rapper delivers his incisive wordplay against the backdrop of a setting sun, his lyrics reflecting on the winding path that has brought

Meanwhile, the WLPWR-produced “New Me” has amassed over 1 million Spotify streams and 3 million YouTube views on the music video, showcasing Yelawolf’s ability to effortlessly blend hiphop, rock, and country influences into a potent sonic brew.

The album’s main single, “Make You Love Me,” has garnered widespread attention from tastemakers and critics alike, with HipHopDX hailing it as “a hard-hitting, genre-blurring banger that blends Yelawolf’s signature southern swagger with elements of rock, rap, and even a touch of country twang.” With over 1 million Spotify streams and 5 million YouTube views on the music video, it’s a clear standout in an album overflowing with highlights.

Back in February, Yelawolf kickstarted his War Story album campaign with the hard-hitting “Everything,” a track that serves as a

Yelawolf

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rallying cry for his legion of dedicated fans. With its relentless energy and undeniable hooks, “Everything” has already gathered north of 2 million YouTube views on the music video and nearly 1 million Spotify streams, setting the stage for the explosive arrival of the full album.

Last fall, Yelawolf offered fans an intimate glimpse into this new chapter during a secret listening session, with SPIN professing, “One thing is immediately clear—Yelawolf never abandoned his hiphop roots. The culture is part of his DNA, pumping through his veins and busting at the seams to get out.”

Indeed, Yelawolf’s journey from humble beginnings in Gadsden, Alabama, to his current status as a multiplatinum charttopping artist and entrepreneur has been fueled by an unwavering commitment to his roots and a steadfast refusal to compromise his artistic vision.

His breakthrough came with the release of Radioactive, an album that earned a coveted “4.5-out-of-5 stars” rating from the notoriously tough critics at The Source, and solidified Yelawolf’s place as a force to be reckoned with in the hip-hop world. The goldcertified Love Story bowed at an impressive #3 on the Billboard 200 and spawned platinum singles like “Till It’s Gone” and the Eminemassisted “Best Friend,” cementing Yelawolf’s status as a chart-topping success.

He maintained his momentum with the critically acclaimed Trial By Fire and the genre-bending Ghetto Cowboy, the latter spawning the platinum-certified “You and Me,” a track that showcased Yelawolf’s ability to seamlessly blend disparate styles and influences into a cohesive whole.

Yelawolf’s versatility and boundary-pushing spirit have been on full display throughout his career, from his collaborations with Ed Sheeran on The Slumdon Bridge EP to his genre-melding work with Travis Barker on the Psycho White EP. His willingness to push beyond the confines of any single genre has made him a sought-after collaborator, with artists as diverse as A$AP Rocky, Big Boi, blink182, Eminem, Juicy J, Korn, and Tech N9ne all eager to tap into his unique creative energy.

His albums have welcomed an eclectic array of guests, from Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers to Wynonna Judd, Kid Rock to Killer Mike, Raekwon to Diplo, each adding their own distinct flavor to Yelawolf’s sonic stew. And frequent collaborator Jelly Roll has pledged his allegiance to Yelawolf’s Slumerican label, a testament to the rapper’s ability to surround himself with like-minded artists who share his uncompromising vision.

Under the Slumerican banner, Yelawolf has overseen the release of projects by DJ Paul and Struggle Jennings, further solidifying the label’s reputation as a home for boundary-pushing, genredefying music. But Yelawolf’s ambitions extend far beyond the realm of music, as he has built Slumerican into a worldwide merchandise empire and launched his own Creek Water Whiskey, which is now nationally distributed.

Beyond his artistic and entrepreneurial endeavors, Yelawolf has proven himself to be a true Renaissance man, performing on Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!, guesting on MTV’s Ridiculousness, appearing in the critically acclaimed film Peanut Butter Falcon, and touring with the likes of Deftones, among other accomplishments.

With the release of War Story – (Part 1) Michael Wayne & (Part 2) Trunk Muzik 4ever, Yelawolf has not only delivered his magnum opus, a tour de force that defies easy categorization and showcases the full breadth of his talents, but he has also solidified his status as a true iconoclast, an artist who refuses to be confined by genre limitations or industry expectations.

As he continues to blaze a trail through the music industry, his latest double album and the fiery visuals for “Legend” serve as a powerful reminder of his enduring legacy and his unwavering commitment to pushing the boundaries of his art. With each successive release, Yelawolf reaffirms his position as one of the most unique and captivating voices in modern music, a force of nature whose creative energy knows no bounds.

So buckle up, music fans, because Yelawolf’s War Story is just beginning, and there’s no telling where this extraordinary journey will take us next. Whether you’re a longtime devotee or a newcomer to the Yelawolf phenomenon, this double album is sure to leave you in awe of the rapper’s talent, vision, and sheer artistic audacity.

As the earth continues to shake beneath the seismic impact of War Story’s arrival, one thing is certain: the world of music will never be the same. Yelawolf has well and truly arrived, and he’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Brace yourselves for the ride of a lifetime.

War Story Tracklist: (Part 1) Michael Wayne

1. Yelawolf, Jelly Roll - Trailer In The Sky

2. Yelawolf - Glasses Up

3. Yelawolf - Make You Love Me

4. Yelawolf - Juliana

5. Yelawolf - Marijuana

6. Yelawolf - Goodbye Mornin

7. Yelawolf - Cars

8. Yelawolf, DJ Paul - Lookin Over

9. Yelawolf, Struggle Jennings - Farewell

10. Yelawolf - Talkin

11. Yelawolf - Cookin Cocaine

12. Yelawolf - Legend (Part 2) Trunk Muzik 4ever

1. Yelawolf - New Me

2. Yelawolf, Caskey - Bad News

3. Yelawolf, Killer Mike - Box Chevy 8 [feat. Bub Styles]

4. Yelawolf - Another Drink

5. Yelawolf - Barn Fire

6. Yelawolf - Flashlight

7. Yelawolf - Bang Bang Bobby

8. Yelawolf - Tonight

9. Yelawolf - Everything

10. Yelawolf - Bad Motherfucker [feat. Presley Vaughn]

11. Yelawolf - Work

12. Yelawolf - Ticket

13.Yelawolf - Put Em Up

CANDY Detonates a Sonic Shockwave with Explosive New Album

By Pinky Black

Brace yourselves, music fans, for a seismic sonic event that is sure to reshape the landscape of heavy music as we know it. CANDY, the genre-defying juggernaut, has just unleashed their latest masterwork upon an unsuspecting world, and the shockwaves are already reverberating across the globe. The album in question? ‘It’s Inside You’, a blistering tour de force that has arrived via the esteemed Relapse Records.

With this latest offering, CANDY has not merely expanded upon their lauded brand of metal-warping, digitally-coated

hardcore – they have detonated it, scattering the fragments across a vast musical expanse and reassembling them into something entirely new, entirely fearless, and entirely their own.

Leading the charge is the explosive focus track “Terror Management”, a sonic manifesto that encapsulates the very essence of CANDY’s uncompromising vision. From its pummeling rhythms to its caustic riffs, “Terror Management” is a rallying cry for the disenfranchised, a anthemic declaration of strength in the face of adversity.

But “Terror Management” is merely

the tip of the iceberg, as ‘It’s Inside You’ also includes the previously shared and celebrated singles “Dreams Less Sweet”, “You Will Never Get Me” featuring Justice Tripp, “Love Like Snow” featuring MIRSY and mmph, and “eXistenZ” – each track a potent distillation of CANDY’s unique sonic alchemy.

Across the album’s 12 tracks, produced by the band’s own Quick alongside Uniform’s Ben Greenberg and mixed by Kurt Ballou at the legendary God City Studios (NAILS, High on Fire, The Armed), CANDY has created nothing less than a manifesto of kinship and inner

CANDY

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strength. ‘It’s Inside You’ serpentines its way through the dark and bright corners of the human psyche, confronting nihilism and the pains of the modern world head-on while simultaneously turning towards tenderness and vulnerability more than ever before.

The result is an energizing and empowering atmosphere, a sonic safe haven in which seeking connections with oneself and with others is not merely encouraged – it is celebrated, embraced, and elevated to cathartic heights.

While constructing this auditory opus, CANDY opened their doors and invited a host of collaborators to contribute their own unique voices to the proceedings. From Aaron Melnick of Integrity to Justice Tripp of Angel Du$t and Trapped Under Ice, from David Gagliardi of Trash Talk to MIRSY (Fleshwater’s Marisa Shriar) and mmph (Sae Heum Han), each guest artist helped to enrich and further define the band’s already distinctive energy, creating a tapestry of sound that defies easy categorization.

CANDY, comprised of principal songwriter and guitarist Michael Quick, vocalist and lyricist Zak Quiram, drummer Steve DiGenio, and bassist Drew Stark, will celebrate the release of ‘It’s Inside You’ with a show at Salty’s Beach Bar in Lake Como, New Jersey on July 6th. Joined by Everybody Gets Hurt, Division of Mind, Final Resting Place, Sector, and Last Man Out, this promises to be a night of unbridled sonic fury and unbounded celebration.

But that’s not all – last month, CANDY performed two nights with the legendary Dillinger Escape Plan at New York City’s Brooklyn Paramount on June 21st and June 23rd. Both shows were sold out, a testament to the fervent anticipation surrounding CANDY’s new album and their electrifying live presence.

For those unfamiliar with CANDY’s sonic onslaught, ‘It’s Inside You’ follows their sophomore album ‘Heaven Is Here’, which arrived in 2022 and was described by The FADER as “hardcore that sounds like a nuclear meltdown”. That searing release included such standout tracks as “Human Condition Above Human Opinion”, “Transcend To Wet”, and “World of Shit” – each a potent distillation of CANDY’s uncompromising vision.

But the story of CANDY stretches back even further, to their 2018 debut album ‘Good To Feel’, which featured standouts like the eponymous “Good To

Feel” and the incendiary “Lust For Destruction”. In 2019, the band released the standalone singles “Super-Stare” and “Win Free Love”, acting as a bridge between their debut and sophomore efforts, and hinting at the sonic explorations that were yet to come.

With ‘It’s Inside You’, however, CANDY has firmly cemented their place as one of the most exciting, boundarypushing, and downright essential acts in the worlds of hardcore, metal, and beyond. Their ability to seamlessly blend genres, incorporate diverse collaborators, and confront the darkest corners of the human experience while simultaneously offering a message of empowerment and connection is truly unparalleled.

This is not mere music – it is a cathartic exorcism, a sonic vortex that threatens to consume all who dare to approach it. Yet, within that maelstrom lies a profound sense of unity, a shared experience that transcends the boundaries of genre, scene, or creed.

So, if you consider yourself a true connoisseur of heavy music, if you crave sonic experiences that challenge your preconceptions and expand your horizons, do yourself a favor and immerse yourself in the sonic onslaught that is ‘It’s Inside You’. CANDY has once again raised the bar, redefining what it means to create

uncompromising, confrontational, and utterly essential heavy music in the process.

The shockwaves are already rippling outward, reverberating through the underground and threatening to breach the mainstream consciousness. Will you be among those who embrace the chaos, who revel in the fury, who allow themselves to be consumed by the all-encompassing force that is CANDY? The choice is yours, but be warned – once you cross the event horizon, there is no turning back. Prepare to have your senses obliterated and your soul invigorated, for ‘It’s Inside You’ is more than just an album – it is a seismic shift in the very fabric of heavy music itself.

CANDY

It’s Inside You Relapse Records

1. eXistenZ

2. Short-Circuit (feat. Aaron Melnick)

3. You Will Never Get Me (feat. Justice Tripp)

4. It’s Inside You (feat. David Gagliardi)

5. Love Like Snow (feat. MIRSY & mmph)

6. Dehumanize Me

7. Faith 91

8. Terror Management

9. Dreams Less Sweet

10. Silent Collapse

11. Dancing to the Infinite Beat

12. Hypercore

The Internet’s Favorite Punk-Rap Pranksters Strike Again: Joey Valence & Brae Double Down with Blistering New Album

‘NO HANDS’

For more information, please visit www.jvbsucks.com. FOLLOW JOEY VALENCE & BRAE: TikTok @ https://www.tiktok.com/@joeyvalence

JVB on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/jvbsucks/ Joey on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/joeyvalence/ Brae on Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/heyybrae/ YouTube @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCby-lf41M60E1YjSFhZlYlQ Spotify @ https://open.spotify.com/artist/1q4618qKswelCGLoanFKQh Apple Music @ https://music.apple.com/us/artist/joey-valence-brae/1643989506

By Sheena Johnson

In the ever-evolving landscape of modern music, where genres collide and boundaries are constantly pushed, two names have emerged as beacons of unbridled creativity, infectious energy, and unwavering authenticity: Joey Valence & Brae. This dynamic duo, born from the unlikely union of two college kids at a Red Lobster, has taken the world by storm, captivating audiences

with their unique blend of punk, rap, and an unapologetic disregard for the rules.

Now, after setting the internet ablaze with their critically acclaimed debut album ‘PUNK TACTICS’ and a string of viral hits that have amassed over 200 million streams and millions of devoted followers across social media, Joey Valence & Brae have returned with a blistering new opus that cements their

status as one of the most exciting and genre-defying acts in music today.

Titled ‘NO HANDS,’ the highly anticipated sophomore effort sees the duo taking the propulsive energy that first propelled them into the spotlight and pushing it to new heights, delivering their most impressive and eclectic work to date. In true Joey Valence & Brae fashion, the album is a self-written, selfproduced, self-mixed, and self-mastered tour de force that takes listeners on a wild ride through a smash-and-grab collision of 90s hip-hop, drum ‘n’ bass, and decades-spanning pop culture references.

From the moment the opening track “BUSSIT” erupts with its distorted, brain-rattling beats and unexpected jungle breaks, it’s clear that ‘NO HANDS’ is a riotous celebration of everything that makes Joey Valence & Brae so unique and beloved. The propulsive lead single “THE BADDEST,” a body-quaking Miami bass banger that pays homage to the likes of Fatman Scoop and LMFAO, is destined to become a riot-inducing live favorite, while early singles like “JOHN CENA” and “WHERE U FROM” are full of swaggering braggadocio, simultaneously poking fun at those who think they’re all that.

But ‘NO HANDS’ isn’t just a showcase of Joey Valence & Brae’s signature sound; it’s also a testament to their ability to collaborate and elevate their art to new heights. The album features an impressive roster of guest collaborators, including the inimitable Danny Brown, the multi-talented Terror Reid, and pioneering DJ Z-Trip.

The Danny Brown collaboration, “PACKAPUNCH,” is a standout track that sees the Detroit rapper lending his unmistakable flow to the duo’s jazzy hook and Z-Trip’s expert scratching. It’s a bold and unexpected pairing that only serves to further cement Joey Valence & Brae’s status as true innovators, unafraid to push boundaries and defy expectations.

The album’s title track, “NO

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HANDS,” is a key moment that encapsulates the duo’s confidence and selfreliance. As Joey explains, “It’s driving home the point that we do this on our own, and that we’re confident about it. Like, ‘Look Ma, no hands.’ It also doubles for having no hands working on this project other than us in terms of the creative. This album is us doubling down: we bet on ourselves and it worked.”

But perhaps the most striking aspect of ‘NO HANDS’ is its sheer range and diversity. From the mosh-pit-ready punk anthems to the smooth, soulful grooves of tracks like “OMNITRIX,” the closing cut that Joey calls a “victory lap for the whole album,” the record showcases a new dimension to the duo’s brash, punk-rap stylings, proving that their creativity knows no bounds.

Throughout ‘NO HANDS,’ Joey Valence & Brae seamlessly weave together a tapestry of influences and reference points, from Star Wars and Super Mario to Putt Putt Golf and Olivia Rodrigo, creating a sonic landscape that is both nostalgic and utterly fresh. It’s a testament to their ability to connect with audiences on a deeply personal level, tapping into the shared cultural touchstones that have shaped their generation while simultaneously carving out a unique artistic identity.

But music is only half the story for Joey Valence & Brae. What has truly cemented their success is their infectious humor, boundless energy, and unwavering commitment to entertaining both themselves and their ever-growing fanbase. From their early days as college kids to their meteoric rise as DIY sensations, the duo has cultivated a dedicated following of punk kids, metalheads, and rap fans alike, all drawn to their unique blend of authenticity, nostalgia, and sheer infectious fun.

It’s this spirit that has propelled

Joey Valence & Brae to dizzying heights, achieving a level of success that few independent artists could ever dream of. With over 200 million streams and millions of followers across social media, they’ve proven that it’s possible to achieve mainstream success while remaining fiercely independent and true to one’s artistic vision.

And they’ve done it all on their own terms, creating every piece of music and content from the confines of Joey’s Pokemon-plastered bedroom, a testament to their unwavering DIY ethos and commitment to their craft. From the very beginning, they’ve been a true embodiment of the punk spirit, eschewing the traditional music industry machinery in favor of a more direct and authentic connection with their fans.

But the party is just getting started. To celebrate the release of ‘NO HANDS,’ Joey Valence & Brae have announced a massive US/EU fall tour, kicking off on September 9 in Dallas. From there, they’ll bring their insane live show – a high-octane blur of pinwheeling arms, legs, and adrenalinefueled chaos – to major cities around the world, including Austin, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, New York City,

Toronto, Los Angeles, Stockholm, Milan, Paris, Berlin, and London.

For those who have witnessed Joey Valence & Brae’s live performances, the announcement of this tour is sure to elicit a visceral reaction. These are not mere concerts; they are full-body experiences, a whirlwind of energy and chaos that demands maximum crowd participation. From the moment they take the stage, the duo unleashes a torrent of raw, unbridled energy that is impossible to ignore, commanding the audience’s attention with every twist and turn.

It’s this live show, more than anything else, that has cemented Joey Valence & Brae’s reputation as one of the most exciting and engaging acts in the world today. Their performances are a true embodiment of the punk spirit, a middle finger to convention and a celebration of the power of music to unite, inspire, and ignite.

Pre-sales for the tour begin with the JVB artist pre-sale on Tuesday, June 11, ahead of the general on-sale beginning Friday, June 14 at 10 a.m. local time. Fans can visit www.jvbsucks.com for more information and to secure their

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tickets for what promises to be one of the most unforgettable live experiences of the year.

As the hype and anticipation for ‘NO HANDS’ and the upcoming tour reach fever pitch, it’s impossible not to marvel at the meteoric rise of Joey Valence & Brae. In just a few short years, they’ve gone from college kids with big dreams to bona fide cultural icons, their influence transcending the boundaries of music and permeating pop culture at large.

But for all their success, Joey Valence & Brae remain remarkably grounded, their ambitions driven not by a thirst for fame or fortune, but by a genuine love for their craft and a desire to entertain. As they continue to acquire the largest Pokemon card collection of all time and fulfill their dream of opening a Cheesecake Factory in their hometown, one thing is certain: the world is their oyster.

With ‘NO HANDS,’ they’ve once again proven their ability to defy genres, break boundaries, and leave an indelible mark on the music industry. From the opening notes to the final triumphant refrain, the album is a testament to the power of creativity, authenticity, and the indomitable spirit that has propelled Joey Valence & Brae to the forefront of the cultural zeitgeist.

So buckle up, dear readers, because this is just the beginning. As the dynamic duo embarks on their massive tour, bringing their infectious energy and unbridled creativity to stages around the globe, one can’t help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation for what comes next. For in the world of Joey Valence & Brae, the only rule is that there are no rules, and the only limit is the boundless expanse of their imagination.

NO HANDS TRACKLISTING BUSSIT

PACKAPUNCH ft. Danny Brown NO HANDS ft. Z-Trip LIKE A PUNK WHERE U FROM INTERMISSION 2 THE BADDEST OK

DOUGHBOY ft. Terror Reid WHAT U NEED

JOHN CENA OMNITRIX

NO HANDS FALL TOUR

September 9 – Dallas, TX – Cambridge Room at House of Blues Dallas

September 10 – Austin, TX – Antone’s

September 11 – Houston, TX – Bronze Peacock at House of Blues

September 13 – Chicago, IL – Outset

September 14 – Cleveland, OH – Grog Shop

September 15 – Pittsburg, PA – Spirit Hall

September 17 – Washington, DC – The Atlantis

September 19 – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall

September 20 – New York, NY – Racket

September 21 – Asbury Park, NJ – Asbury Lanes

September 23 – Ottawa, ON – Club SAW

September 24 – Toronto, ON – The Axis Club

September 25 – London, ON – Rum Runners

September 27 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Blind Pig

September 30 – Nashville, TN – The Basement East

October 1 – Columbia, MO – Rose Music Hall

October 4 – Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre

October 5 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf

October 7 – Mesa, AZ – The Nile Theater

October 8 – San Diego, Ca – Music Box

October 9 – Los Angeles, CA – The Fonda Theatre

November 7 – Stockholm Sweden – Hus 7

November 9 – Copenhagen, Denmark – VEGA

November 10 – Hamburg, Germany – Turmzimmer

November 11 – Berlin, Germany – Lark

November 13 – Milan, Italy – Biko

November 14 – Zurich, Switzerland – Komplex Klub

November 15 – Paris, France – Badaboum

November 17 – Cologne, Germany – Yuca

November 18 – Nijmegen, Netherlands – Doornroosje

November 19 – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paradiso

Tolhuistuin

November 21 – Brussels, Belgium – Botanique

November 23 – Birmingham, UK – Institute 2

November 24 – Bristol, UK – Fleece

November 25 – London, UK – Village Underground

November 27 – Leeds, UK – Project House

November 28 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3 Warehouse

November 29 – Manchester, UK – Club Academy

December 1 – Dublin, IRE – Academy 2

JVB FESTIVAL DATES

July 20 – Seattle, WA – Capitol Hill Block Party

August 8 – Winterthur, Switzerland – Winterthurer

Musikfestwochen

August 10 – Biel, Switzerland – Lakelive 2024

August 11 – Heerlen, Netherlands – Booch! Festival

August 13 – Warsaw, Poland – Klub Proxima (headline show)

August 15 – St. Polten, Austria – Frequency Festival

August 16 – Bodo, Norway – Parkenfestivalen

August 18 – Charleville Mezieres, France – Cabaret Vert

Festival

September 28 – Louisville, KY – Louder Than Life

October 11 – Sacramento, CA – Aftershock

Photo credit: Jenise Jensen

The Second Line Kicks Into High Gear as Cowboy Mouth Unleashes

perfectly captures the topsy-turvy times we’re living in, a summer tour that promises to bring their signature brand of bodacious, kickass rock ‘n’ roll to stages across the nation, and the long-awaited announcement of their first full-length album in over a decade, Cowboy Mouth is once again proving why they are one of the most electrifying and essential bands on the modern musical landscape.

Leading the charge is the release of their latest single, “Alternate Reality,” a playful yet poignant commentary on the chaos that has become our collective norm. “It’s a rock ‘n’ roll song about the crazy times we all seem to be living in these days,” explains frontman, drummer, and co-founder Fred LeBlanc. “It’s a song about losing your mind in order to find your heart and soul, something that is etched as a vital part of the Cowboy Mouth ethos.”

For a band that has built its reputation on seamlessly blending a potent mix of musical ingredients – rock, blues, punk, funk, country, pop, soul, and whatever else feels good –“Alternate Reality” is a perfect distillation of Cowboy Mouth’s singular sound and their ability to confront the madness of the world with a wink, a smile, and a whole lot of groove.

As LeBlanc once famously proclaimed, “If The Neville Brothers and The Clash had a baby, it would be Cowboy Mouth!” His description not only reflects the group’s amazingly diverse sonic palette but also conveys the fire and commitment they bring to their music, a commitment that has kept them going strong for three decades and counting.

With “Alternate Reality” serving as the perfect appetizer, fans can look forward to a full-course meal of new music in early 2025, when Cowboy Mouth is set to release their as-yetuntitled full-length album. The highly anticipated collection promises to embody the band’s signature energy and passion, delivering a dynamic and electrifying experience that will cement their status as perennial road warriors and keepers of the Big Easy’s rich musical legacy.

But before that, Cowboy Mouth is hitting the road for a summer tour that will take them to some of the nation’s most iconic music cities, including New York City, Boston, Nashville, and Memphis. Relentless touring has been the lifeblood of Cowboy Mouth, cementing their reputation and developing a devoted fanbase through powerhouse live performances that frequently average 250 gigs a year.

For more information on Cowboy Mouth: http://www.cowboymouth.com http://www.instagram.com/cowboymouthofficial http://www.facebook.com/cowboymouth1 http://www.twitter.com/CowboyMouth

By Troy Wilson

The streets of New Orleans are alive with the infectious rhythms and rambunctious energy that can only mean one thing: Cowboy Mouth, the city’s beloved musical ambassadors, are back with a vengeance. Armed with a new single that

continued on next page Listen to ‘Alternate Reality’ here: Soundcloud @ http://www.tinyurl.com/4nn5vzm2 Spotify @ http://www.tinyurl.com/5n99nxxr

“With every show, no matter where it is, we try to turn it into New Orleans during the middle of Mardi Gras,” LeBlanc proclaims with a mischievous grin. “It’s like a southern gospel revival without the religion – unless your religion is rock ‘n’ roll!”

And for those who have witnessed the unbridled energy and infectious joy of a Cowboy Mouth live show, that statement rings truer than ever. From the moment they take the stage, the band is a whirlwind of sweat, swagger, and sheer musical bliss, their performances an intoxicating celebration of everything that makes rock ‘n’ roll such a vital and lifeaffirming force.

It’s a spirit that has been at the core of Cowboy Mouth’s journey since their inception in 1990, when their festive, freewheeling style stood in sharp contrast to the then-popular grunge sound. In 1996, the band signed with MCA, and their

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major-label debut, Are You With Me?, spawned their biggest hit, “Jenny Says,” which cracked the top 40 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock and Alternative Rock charts.

Over the years, Cowboy Mouth’s tunes have appeared in films ranging from the crime drama The Underneath (which featured them performing on screen) to the family comedy Meet The Robinsons, their music transcending genres and appealing to audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

After doing several more albums on MCA Records and then Atlantic Records, the band has continued to get their music to the people with a series of well-received independent and self-released albums, their unwavering DIY spirit and commitment to their craft never wavering, even in the face of industry fluctuations and shifting musical trends.

Composed of ’80s rock & roll survivors with slight new wave and alternative connections, Cowboy Mouth has aspired to AOR stardom since its inception. Formed in the early ’90s after alternative rock had broken into the mainstream, the group fused AOR with alternative and roots rock influences on a handful of indie releases before their major-label breakthrough, carving out a sound that was both fresh and familiar, a sonic gumbo that reflected the rich musical tapestry of their beloved hometown.

While Cowboy Mouth has had its fair share of ups and downs in the music industry, their unwavering commitment to their craft has never faltered. Originally consisting of Paul Sanchez (vocals, guitar) and Fred LeBlanc (vocals, drums), the band solidified its lineup with the additions of Griffith (lead guitar, vocals) and Rob Savoy (bass, vocals), a quartet of kindred spirits united by their love of music and their desire to shake things up.

Through personnel changes and label shifts, Cowboy Mouth has remained a force to be reckoned with, selling over half a million albums domestically and performing before more than ten million people in over 3,000 concerts. Their ability to seamlessly blend genres and infuse their music with the inimitable spirit of New Orleans has earned them a place in the hearts of music lovers worldwide, their shows akin to a raucous second line parade, a celebration of life, love, and the transformative power of rock ‘n’ roll.

As they gear up for the release of “Alternate Reality,” their summer tour, and their highly anticipated new album, Cowboy Mouth stands poised to once again captivate audiences with their infectious energy and undeniable musical prowess. For longtime fans, it’s a chance to reconnect with the band that has soundtracked countless nights of revelry and selfdiscovery, a musical companion that has been there through thick and thin, always ready to lift spirits and get bodies moving.

For newcomers, it’s an opportunity to experience the sheer magic of a band that has mastered the art of combining raw, unbridled energy with impeccable musicianship and songwriting chops. Whether you’re a diehard devotee or a curious onlooker, Cowboy Mouth demands to be experienced live, their performances promising to transport you to the heart of Mardi Gras, where the only religion is the universal lan-

guage of rock ‘n’ roll, and the only commandment is to let the good times roll.

So, grab your beads, raise a glass of your favorite libation, and get ready to lose yourself in the “Alternate Reality” that is Cowboy Mouth, because when these masters of musical gumbo take the stage, it’s guaranteed to be a party you’ll never forget. From the opening riffs to the final, sweatdrenched encore, you’ll be reminded of why music has the power to transcend boundaries, unite disparate souls, and fill even the darkest of nights with light, laughter, and lifeaffirming revelry.

In a world that often seems to be spiraling into chaos and despair, Cowboy Mouth is a beacon of hope, a reminder that no matter how bleak things may seem, there is always a reason to dance, to sing, to celebrate the sheer joy of being alive. So, whether you’re a seasoned veteran of the Crescent City’s vibrant music scene or a wide-eyed newcomer just discovering the magic of New Orleans’ musical legacy, do yourself a favor and let Cowboy Mouth be your guide on a journey through the “Alternate Reality” they’ve so expertly crafted.

Buckle up, hold on tight, and prepare to be swept away by a force of nature that refuses to be tamed, a whirlwind of sound and fury that will leave you breathless, exhilarated, and forever changed. The second line is kicking into high gear, and Cowboy Mouth is leading the way – all you have to do is follow the beat.

Cowboy Mouth 2024 Tour Dates:

Jul 12- Cannabash- Baldwin, MI

Sep 7- Bayou Music Center- Houston, TX

Sep 14- Foothills Festival- Jasper, AL

Sep 21-Coach’s Corner- Savannah, GA

Sep 27-Okra Strut Festival- Irmo, SC

Sep 28-From The Earth Brewing Company- Roswell, GA

Oct 18-Tchefuncta Country Club-Covington, LA

Oct 19-Acadia Music Festival- Thibodaux, LA

Nov 8-Chelsea’s Live- Baton Rouge, LA

That seemingly out-of-nowhere explosion can be largely credited to Horstmann’s utterly captivating stage presence and songwriting prowess, which SPIN praised as boasting “more star power than any Austin musician in recent history.” With a sound that seamlessly melds the gritty intensity of post-punk with addictive alt-pop hooks, Urban Heat has swiftly assembled a rabid cult following enthralled by their fiery live shows and infectious, darkly romantic anthems.

As they now prepare to take their electrifying repertoire to more cities than ever before on this upcoming tour run, the palpable excitement is evident in Horstmann’s zen-like focus: “We’re excited about reconnecting with fans across North America, and making new fans abroad. We’re honored and humbled and immensely grateful for the opportunities that have come our way and the steadfast support of our community. But at the end of the day, there’s a thing that needs doing, and we’re gonna go do the thing.”

That “thing,” as Horstmann puts it, is to lay waste to venues across the continent with Urban Heat’s uniquely captivating brand of intensity, vulnerability and vitriol. Powered by the pummeling rhythms of Kevin Naquin and Paxel Foley, and fueled by Horstmann’s endlessly evocative lyricism, they’ll be bringing ‘The Tower’ to life in its full, cathartic glory.

By Nathan Pugh

The underground fires have been stoked, and now Austin’s rising post-punk provocateurs Urban Heat are about to erupt in a blaze of glory with an extensive US tour supporting their hotly anticipated sophomore album ‘The Tower.’ With the new record due out August 16th, 2024 via Artoffact Records, the band is hitting the road hard this summer and fall, kicking things off on June 15th for a marathon run of dates that won’t conclude until October 13th.

For the tenacious quartet led by magnetic frontman Jonathan Horstmann, the upcoming trek represents their biggest step yet towards claiming their throne in the modern rock realm. Over just the past few years, Urban Heat has rapidly ascended from sweaty club shows in their Austin hometown to setting stages ablaze at major festivals like Cruel World and Darker Waves. Their 2023 breakthrough was so stratospheric that SPIN Magazine marveled at how they “hit America’s goth underground in such a blitz that it feels like it suddenly arose from the ether.”

Produced by Ben Greenspan (Fences, Transviolet) and featuring the heavy-hitting live drums of Aaron Steele (Harry Styles, Leon Bridges, Hayley Williams), ‘The Tower’ is shaping up to be Urban Heat’s most urgent and impactful artistic statement yet. The handful of singles released thus far have provided tantalizing previews: Lead track “Sanitizer” was hailed by Austin tastemaker radio station KUTX as “oozing infectious electro elements like drastically-saturated bass tones, scalpel-sharp drums, and pitch wheel synth sirens that’ll elevate your heartbeat with what’s easily Urban Heat’s most aggressive original to date.”

The follow-up “Seven Safe Places” showcased a more nuanced side, with Wildfire Music reveling in its “playfully melancholic” vibes. But it was third single “Say The Words” that provided the most potent display of Horstmann’s soultearing songcraft. Described by the singer as “one of the most personal songs I’ve written,” Post-Punk.com praised it as “poignant pain, whispering of past sweetness and present bitterness.”

For a band whose corealchemy lies in channeling the

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sacred and profane, the uplifting and the utterly harrowing, tracks like “Say The Words” exemplify why Urban Heat’s staunch cult following has only continued growing rapidly. While their punkish fury makes for an electrifying live experience, there’s also an undeniable emotional resonance to Horstmann’s lyricism that has struck chords deep within the disenfranchised, disillusioned spirits of a generation.

That connection was really catalyzed in 2022 when Urban Heat’s single “Have You Ever” went viral on TikTok, a crossover success that earned them an Austin Music Award for Song of the Year and saw them grace the cover of local Bible The Austin Chronicle. From backroom clubs to headlining tours in just a couple years - it’s the kind of true underdog story that has defined Urban Heat’s journey thus far.

Having broken through firmly into the mainstream rock consciousness, the band now stands at the precipice of their biggest challenge yet: To take ‘The Tower’ and its explorations of uncertainty and turbulence out for a full-scale indoctrination of new acolytes across the continent. With a stacked tour schedule running from June through October, and support provided on various dates by acclaimed up-and-comers including GVLLOW, Delores Galore, Grizz CLL and Wingtips, Urban Heat is mounting an all-out assault designed to leave their indelible mark on every city they rampage through.

From their sweat-stained roots to their impending imperial conquest, Urban Heat’s inexorable rise has been a scorching spectacle to behold. As their US invasion prepares to detonate in just a couple months, the solitary question that remains is whether mainstream rock is truly prepared for the level of intensity this band is about to unleash. Brace yourselves for ‘The Tower.’ Ascension awaits.

URBAN HEAT IS:

Jonathan Horstmann - vocals, guitar, synthesizer

Kevin Naquin - vocals, guitar, synthesizer

Paxel Foley - bass, synthesizer

Urban Heat - Headlining Summer and Fall Tour

Dates (already announced)

* w/ Gvllow, Grizz CLL

^ w/ Gvllow, Delores Galore# w/ Wingtips, Gvllow

Sat, July 6 - Dallas TX @ Obituary Fest - Granada Theater

Thu, July 25 - Calgary AB @ Terminus Festival

Sat, July 27 - Los Angeles CA @ El Rey Theater* PLEASE NOTE LARGER VENUE CHANGE

Sun, July 28 - San Diego CA @ The Casbah ^

Tue, July 30 - San Francisco CA @ The Chapel ^l

Wed, July 31 - Santa Cruz CA @ Moe’s Alley ^ Thu, Aug 1 - Sacramento CA @ Harlow’s ^

Fri, Aug 2 - Portland OR @ Coffin Club ^

Sat, Aug 3 - Seattle WA @ Madame Lou’s ^

Sun, Aug 4 - Richland WA @ Ray’s Golden Lion ^

Tue, Aug 6 - Boise ID @ Shrine Basement ^

Wed, Aug 7 - Salt Lake City UT @ Metro Music Hall ^

Thu, Aug 8 - Denver CO @ HQ ^

Fri, Aug 9 - Kansas City MO @ recordBar ^

Sat, Aug 10 - Springfield MO @ The Regency ^ Sun, Aug 11 - Tulsa OK @ The Vanguard ^ Tue, Aug 13 - Little Rock AR @ Stickyz ^

Wed, Aug 14 - Shreveport LA @ Bear’s on Fairfield ^

Sat, Aug 17 - Austin TX @ 3TEN Austin City Limits Live ^ (record release show)

Sat, Sept 7 - Edmonton QB @ Purple City Music Festival ^ Thu, Sept 26 - Indianapolis IN @ Black Circle #

Fri, Sept 27 - Chicago IL @ Cold Waves Festival - The Metro Sun, Sept 29 - Detroit MI @ Smalls #

Tue, Oct 1 - London ON @ SociaBowl #

Wed, Oct 2 - Toronto ON @ The Baby G #

Thu, Oct 3 - Montreal QC @ Cabaret Foufs # Fri, Oct 4 - Newark NJ @ QXT’s Night Club #

Sat, Oct 5 - Brooklyn NY @ Trans Pecos #

Mon, Oct 7 - Philadelphia PA @ Milkboy #

Tue, Oct 8 - Baltimore MD @ Metro Gallery #

Fri, Oct 11 - New Orleans LA @ Siberia #

Sun, Oct 13 - San Antonio TX @ Paper Tiger #

Irish Rocker Mark Daly Announces Major Fall Tour with Guitar Icon

Richie Kotzen

“Pieces” is available now on all streaming platforms and has also been released as an official music video.

Listen and watch here: https://hypeddit.com/markdaly/pieces

By Troy Wilson

In a highly anticipated move, acclaimed Irish singersongwriter Mark Daly has unveiled plans for an extensive fall tour across the United States, where he will be the direct support for renowned guitarist Richie Kotzen. This seven-week run is set to kick off on September 13th at The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, California, providing a monumental opportunity for rock fans nationwide to witness Daly’s powerful vocals and Kotzen’s virtuosic musicianship.

“We are absolutely delighted to be embarking on yet another major U.S. tour this September, joining the legendary Ritchie Kotzen and his band,” Daly stated enthusiastically. “Myself and my entire group could not be more excited to hit the road with one of our musical idols, and we are immensely grateful for the chance to perform at these incredible venues as part of such a high-profile tour.”

The announcement comes on the heels of the release of Daly’s latest single, “Pieces,” a captivating duet with Emily Armstrong of the critically lauded rock band Dead Sara. This soul-stirring track, blending poignant lyrics with mesmerizing melodies, serves as the second offering from Daly’s forthcoming album ‘Devil’s Arms,’ scheduled for release on August 9th via One Opportunity Records.

“If you haven’t heard our latest release – ‘Pieces’ featuring Emily Armstrong – and you’re a fan of grunge and alternative rock, then you’re missing out on what could become one of your favorite songs of the year,” Daly exclaimed. “Collaborating with Emily was a dream come true, and hearing her spine-tingling vocals on this track for the first time was a mind-blowing experience. It’s one of my proudest songwriting achievements, and I’m overwhelmed by the incredible reaction the song has received since its release.”

But the excitement doesn’t end there. On June 21st, Daly is set to unveil his next single and accompanying video, “Better Off Alone,” across all streaming and video platforms. With its relatable themes of insecurity, self-doubt, and the struggle to overcome personal demons, the track is poised to resonate profoundly with listeners. “Of all the songs on this album, I feel ‘Better Off Alone’ has the broadest appeal,” Daly explained. “It touches on insecurities, imposter syndrome, and the feeling of being lost, but with the knowledge that you can find your way out of the darkness. So many of us have experienced those emotions. I want people to know they’re not alone in those feelings and that there’s a path forward.”

This fall tour alongside Richie Kotzen marks Daly’s second major U.S. run in 2024, following a successful January stint supporting the acclaimed melodic rock supergroup Mr. Big, which also included several high-profile headlining shows, notably a marquee performance at the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY.

Hailing from Cork, Ireland, Daly has cultivated a

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devoted American fanbase through extensive touring with notable acts such as Candlebox, Queensrÿche, and Geoff Tate. His affinity for the road and the opportunity to connect with audiences night after night remains a driving force. “I absolutely love every aspect of touring – meeting incredible fans each evening and immersing myself in the music onstage is pure magic,” Daly enthused.

Daly’s journey to success is a testament to his relentless dedication and undeniable talent. He was first discovered while performing with his band The Voodoos in Spain, where esteemed music manager Brian Message (known for his work with Radiohead and Nick Cave) witnessed their show. Impressed, Message brought the band to London to record their first EP, setting them on a path towards international recognition.

An early career highlight for Daly came when The Voodoos beat out over 10,000 other bands to earn a coveted performance slot at the prestigious MTV EMA Awards, propelling their international touring career.

Daly’s solo debut as a solo artist, the track “Your World,” hit No. 1 on the Scottish New Music Chart. The poignant composition, written for an autism awareness charity, was inspired by his son Noah and showcased his ability to connect through deeply personal songwriting.

With his powerful, emotive vocals, poetic lyricism, and electrifying stage presence, Mark Daly is poised to captivate audiences across the nation as he joins forces with the legendary Richie Kotzen for what promises to be an unforgettable rock experience. This high-profile tour offers a rare opportunity to witness two consummate talents sharing the stage, solidifying its place as a must-see event for rock enthusiasts everywhere.

Mark Daly with Richie Kotzen Fall 2024

9/13 @ The Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, CA

9/14 @Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, CA

9/19 @ Goldfield Trading Post in Roseville, CA

9/20 @ Tower Theatre in Fresno, CA

9/21 @ Count’s Vamp’d in Las Vegas, NV

9/23 @ Metro Music Hall in Salt Lake City, UT

9/25 @ Black Sheep in Colorado Springs, CO

9/26 @ HQ Live in Denver, CO

9/27 @ Barnato in Omaha, NE

9/28 @ Knuckleheads Saloon in Kansas City, MO

9/30 @ City Winery in St. Louis, MO

10/2 @ The Blue Note in Harrison, OH

10/4 @ The Magic Bag in Ferndale, MI

For More Information Please Visit: Official Website @ https://markdalyofficial.com/ Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/markdalymusic Instagram @\ https://www.instagram.com/markdalymusic/ One Opportunity Records @ https://oneopportunityrecords.com/

10/8 @ Lorain Palace Theater in Lorain, OH

Mark Daly Rock And Blues

10/5 @ Arcada Theatre in St. Charles, IL

10/7 @ Jergels in Warrendale, PA

10/9 @ Ridgefield Playhouse in Ridgefield, CT

10/10 @ Iridium in New York, NY

10/11 @ Iridium in New York, NY

10/12 @ Iridium in New York, NY

10/15 @ City Winery in Boston, MA

10/17 @ Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, NH

10/18 @ The Vault Music Hall in New Bedford, MA

10/19 @ Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE

10/20 @ Suffolk Theatre in Riverhead, NY

10/22 @ Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis, MD

10/23 @ Sellersville Theatre in Sellersville, PA

10/24 @ Beacon Theatre in Hopewell, VA

10/25 @ Backseat Bar & Grill in Winchester, VA

10/29 @ City Winery in Atlanta, GA

10/30 @ City Winery in Nashville, TN

11/1 @ Haute Spot in Cedar Park, TX

11/2 @ Granada Theater in Dallas, TX

Prog-Metal Titans Empire Springs Unleash Blistering

New Single “Golden” From Forthcoming Masterwork ‘Attrition’

WATCH HERE @

https://youtu.be/7jCw9tLL054

STREAM HERE @ https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/empiresprings/golden-2

CONNECT WITH EMPIRE SPRINGS ONLINE: INSTAGRAM @ https://www.instagram.com/empiresprings/ WEBSITE @ https://www.empirespringsband.com/ YOUTUBE @ https://www.youtube.com/@empiresprings7055 FACEBOOK @ https://www.facebook.com/empirespringsband/ BANDCAMP @ https://empiresprings.bandcamp.com/

By Greg Fontaine

In the ever-evolving landscape of progressive metal, a new force has emerged, one that is pushing the boundaries of the genre and captivating audiences with their unique blend of soaring synths, thundering drums, and intricate guitar work. Empire Springs, the four-piece powerhouse hailing from Birmingham, Alabama, has announced the release of their highly anticipated new album, ‘Attrition’, due out in April 2025, and they’ve unveiled the hardhitting lead single “Golden” as a tantalizing preview of what’s to come.

Accompanied by an official music video that has already garnered widespread critical acclaim, “Golden” is a tour-de-force that encapsulates the very essence of Empire Springs’ sound. In an exclusive premiere with MXDWN, the publication praised the track’s “complex, braiding together intricate instrumentation, heartfelt melodies, driving choruses and elaborate lyricism with a dynamic metalcore-style edge that propels listeners forward through the heavy sonic palette.”

The music video itself was lauded for its artful simplicity, with MXDWN noting, “The music video, on the other

hand, is simple yet artful. Lighting variations take center stage, choosing to highlight the complexities of the composition rather than the visual.” This minimalist approach allows the music to take center stage, showcasing the band’s profound musicianship and the emotional depth of the lyrics.

For Empire Springs, “Golden” represents a significant milestone in their creative evolution, as lead vocalist and bassist Brett Bellomy explains: “The goal was to write a song that we felt raised the bar from the album that we were recording at the time, while also exploring a different direction.” It’s a testament to the band’s relentless pursuit of artistic growth and their willingness to push beyond their comfort zone.

The track’s inception can be traced back to the band’s collaboration with producers John Douglass and Eric Guenther from the renowned progressive metal outfit The Contortionist, an experience that left an indelible mark on their songwriting approach. “Working with John and Eric was a game-changer for us,” Bellomy reflects. “They really pushed us to explore new sonic territories and to infuse our music with even more emotional depth.”

Emerging from a transformative era, Empire Springs has harnessed the intense emotions of weariness, grief, and loss that profoundly influenced the writing process for ‘Attrition’. Guitarist Michael Naro elaborates, “I felt it was necessary to center the overarching concept around fighting a war of attrition — being adaptable enough to experience and overcome challenges under ever changing conditions.”

This thematic depth resonates throughout the album, lending a raw emotional weight to the intricate musicianship and complex arrangements that have become Empire Springs’ calling card. As Naro explains, “We wanted to create something that would resonate with listeners on a deeply personal level, something that would speak to the struggles and triumphs that we all face in our lives.”

Complementing this emotional resonance is a noticeable shift towards a heavier sound, with the band’s recent listening habits gravitating towards the thunderous drums, distorted guitars, and high-energy vocals of heavy metal. The result is a dynamic fusion of their progressive metal roots with a metalcore

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edge, creating a fresh and fantastical sonic palette that showcases their intricate musicianship in an accessible package.

“We’ve always been drawn to the raw power and intensity of heavy metal,” says drummer Ethan Standard. “But we also wanted to maintain the technical precision and intricate songwriting that has become our trademark. With ‘Attrition’, we’ve managed to strike that balance, creating something that is both brutal and beautiful.”

Empire Springs’ musical journey began as a studio project between college friends, with Bellomy and Naro honing their collaborative songwriting process until the quartet found their creative harmony. Their debut LP, ‘The Luminescence’, released in 2022, garnered acclaim from publications like Prog Magazine, Goldmine, and Metal Storm, thanks to its skillful musicianship and bold arrangements.

Drawing inspiration from luminary artists across the progressive and heavy metal spectrum, including Circa Survive, Dream Theater, Coheed and Cambria, Spiritbox, Erra, and Dayseeker, Empire Springs has cultivated a distinctive sound that resonates with fans across the rock spectrum.

As Bellomy notes, “We would love for people to discover the same kinds of inspiration in our music that we got from so many of our favorite artists. We want to create something that speaks to the human experience, something that resonates with people on a deep, emotional level.”

With ‘Attrition’, the band aims to push their sonic boundaries even further, weaving intricate guitar riffs into dynamic drum fills and complementing them with polished lyrics that resonate on a deeply emotional level. It’s an ambitious undertaking, but one that Empire Springs is more than equipped to tackle.

“We’ve put everything we have into this album,” says keyboardist Chadwick McDowell. “It’s a testament to our growth as musicians and as human beings. We’ve poured our hearts and

souls into every note, every lyric, every moment of ‘Attrition’.”

Reflecting on the forthcoming album, Naro expresses his hopes for listeners: “We hope that our listeners can connect and see themselves in what we feel is our best release to date. We want them to feel the same sense of catharsis and release that we felt while creating these songs.”

As Empire Springs continues to evolve, their dedication to their craft and willingness to embrace new musical horizons has positioned them as one of the most exciting and innovative acts in the progressive metal scene. With the release of “Golden” and the impending arrival of ‘Attrition’, the band is poised to cement their status as pioneers of a new era in rock, captivating audiences with their high-octane sound and profound artistic vision.

“This is just the beginning,” promises Bellomy. “We have so much more to explore, so many more boundaries to push. ‘Attrition’ is a milestone for us, but it’s also a stepping stone to even greater things to come.”

With a live show that is as intense and immersive as their studio recordings,

Empire Springs is sure to be a must-see act on the touring circuit in the coming months. As they bring their music to stages around the world, they’ll be offering fans a chance to experience the raw power and emotional depth of ‘Attrition’ in all its glory.

For those who have yet to discover the magic of Empire Springs, “Golden” serves as the perfect introduction to a band that is poised to redefine the very essence of progressive metal. With their unique blend of technical prowess, emotional resonance, and sheer sonic fury, they are a force to be reckoned with, a band that is destined to leave an indelible mark on the music world.

So brace yourselves, fellow music lovers, for the arrival of ‘Attrition’. This is not just an album; it’s a statement, a declaration of intent from a band that is hell-bent on pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the realm of heavy music. Prepare to be swept away by the sheer power and majesty of Empire Springs’ sonic assault, and prepare to be forever changed by the emotional depth and raw honesty that lies at the heart of their music.

The future of progressive metal has arrived, and its name is Empire Springs.

Alt-Rock Trailblazers

Smile Empty Soul Confront Societal Ills with Powerful New Single “SAVIOR” and Impending EP “Swan Song”

By Nathan Pugh

From the gritty streets of Los Angeles, a voice of raw authenticity and uncompromising honesty has emerged, one that has resonated with legions of rock fans for over two decades. That voice belongs to Smile Empty Soul, a band that has weathered the storms of the music industry and emerged as one of the most respected and enduring acts in the alternative rock landscape.

Now, after years of relentless touring, numerous critically acclaimed releases, and a steadfast refusal to bow to commercial pressures, Smile Empty Soul has returned with a powerful new

single and music video that confronts the harsh realities of modern society head-on. Titled “SAVIOR,” the track serves as a blistering preview for the band’s highly anticipated new EP, Swan Song, scheduled for release later this year through their newly minted partnership with TLG|ZOID / Virgin Music Group.

The impactful single, accompanied by a gripping visual narrative, sees Smile Empty Soul’s frontman Sean Danielsen taking a hard look at the state of the contemporary world and delivering a searing indictment of its ills. “I feel like people have grown cold to each other and selfishness has stepped up as the

primary mentality,” Danielsen reflects on the thought-provoking lyrics of “SAVIOR.” With their signature brand of hard-hitting, no-nonsense rock, the band tackles these relevant themes head-on, delivering a poignant musical statement that resonates deeply with their ever-growing fanbase.

Smile Empty Soul’s journey has been a testament to resilience, perseverance, and an unwavering commitment to artistic integrity. Emerging from the vibrant Los Angeles music scene in the late 1990s, the band quickly made waves with their raw, authentic sound and unflinching lyricism. Their self-titled debut album, released in 2003 after signing with a major label, propelled them to massive success at alternative radio, rock radio, and music video channels, earning them a gold certification and spawning three successful singles and videos.

However, despite this early success, Smile Empty Soul’s path has been anything but smooth sailing. Facing turmoil within their record company, the band found themselves navigating the industry as independent artists, signing with various indie labels or releasing music through their own company, “smile empty music inc.” This adversity, however, only fueled their determination and unwavering commitment to their craft, as they embarked on a relentless touring schedule and continued to deliver a steady stream of critically acclaimed releases.

To date, Smile Empty Soul has released nine full-length albums, including their most recent effort, Black Pilled, which dropped in October 2021 as a

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completely independent release. Known for their uncompromising artistic vision, the band has steadfastly refused to “sell out” or compromise their principles, turning down numerous opportunities to conform to industry expectations. This steadfast adherence to their roots has garnered them a reputation as one of the hardest-working and most authentic acts in rock and roll, with a dedicated fanbase that has remained loyal through the years.

Now, with their new partnership with TLG|ZOID / Virgin Music Group, Smile Empty Soul is poised to embark on a new chapter in their storied career. This collaboration marks a reunion between frontman Sean Danielsen and Denny Sanders of The Label Group, who previously joined forces for the successful release of the band’s 2009 album, Consciousness. That record has since become their second most popular release after their debut, a testament to the enduring appeal of their music and the strength of their songwriting.

As Smile Empty Soul gears up for the release of their new EP, Swan Song, the band continues to showcase their unwavering commitment to their craft and their fearless willingness to tackle societal issues through their music. With “SAVIOR,” they have delivered a powerful statement that resonates deeply, reminding fans and newcomers alike why they are considered one of the most authentic and uncompromising voices in the alt-rock landscape.

The track’s hard-hitting lyrics and gripping melody are a testament to Smile Empty Soul’s ability to confront difficult subjects with unflinching honesty and raw emotion. As Danielsen laments the coldness and selfishness that have permeated modern society, the band’s gritty instrumentation and soaring choruses provide a cathartic release, a rallying cry for those seeking solace in the face of adversity.

With the impending release of Swan Song, Smile Empty Soul is poised to cement their legacy as one of the most important and influential bands in the alternative rock genre. Their unwavering commitment to their artistic vision, coupled with their ability to connect with fans on a deeply personal level, has earned them a place among the greats, and this new chapter promises to be their

most powerful and poignant yet.

As the band continues to blaze their own trail, leaving an indelible mark on the genre they have helped shape for over two decades, fans and critics alike eagerly await the arrival of Swan Song, a record that promises to be a powerful testament to the enduring spirit of Smile Empty Soul and their unwavering commitment to using their music as a vehicle for social commentary and personal expression.

Stay tuned for more updates on Smile Empty Soul’s upcoming EP, Swan Song, and their continued partnership with TLG|ZOID / Virgin Music Group, as these altrock trailblazers continue to defy expectations and push the boundaries of what is possible in the world of alternative rock.

God Is An Astronaut Prepares Meteoric Descent with Expansive New Album ‘Embers’

Pre-Order Embers here at https://www.napalmrecordsamerica.com/godisanastronaut

Watch the Video for “Falling Leaves” here at https://youtu.be/7OVAsQwk_Vg

GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT online: WEBSITE @ https://god-is-an-astronaut.bandcamp.com/album/embers FACEBOOK @ https://www.facebook.com/godiaa INSTAGRAM @ https://www.instagram.com/giaa_band/ TWITTER @ https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fgiaa_band NAPALM RECORDS @ https://label.napalmrecords.com/god-is-an-astronaut

By Albert Schwartz

The cosmically-attuned post-rock luminaries of God Is An Astronaut are orchestrating their most grandiose deep space expedition yet with the announcement of their eagerly awaited ninth studio album ‘Embers.’ Slated for release on September 6th, 2024 through their longtime label home Napalm Records, the Irish trio’s latest full-length promises to be their most immersive and boundary-pushing artistic voyage to date.

The first breathtaking harbinger of what’s to come has already arrived in the form of the album’s lead single “Falling Leaves.” As the band explains, the track serves as “a reflective voyage through the brevity of our existence, spanning from inception to demise” - an apt mission statement for the entire album’s meditative sonic exploration of the ephemeral human experience. With an immersive official music video also now unveiled, “Falling Leaves” provides a

captivating sneak preview into the transcendent realms God Is An Astronaut has constructed within the record’s runtime.

Since first achieving liftoff from their humble origins in the quaint village of Glen of the Downs in County Wicklow over 20 years ago, the core backbone of God Is An Astronaut has remained the spiritually bonded creative alliance between founding brothers Torsten and Niels Kinsella. It’s their combined talents - Torsten’s masterful command of guitar, piano, synthesizers and backing vocals interwoven with Niels’ transcendent bass and guitar work - that form the winding cosmos which the band’s singular vision orbits around.

Completing this trinity is the powerful propulsion provided by drummer Lloyd Hanney, whose thunderous rhythmic engine has effectively powered God Is An Astronaut’s journeys to their deepest and most immersive realms yet. A disciple of renowned jazz luminary Johnny Wadham, Hanney’s krautrock-inspired beats provide the perfect motorik thrust to elevate the Kinsellas’ celestial melodies and harmonic tapestries into the outer atmospheres.

While this core trio remain the architects of the band’s signature sound, they’ve expanded their creative horizons even further on ‘Embers’ by welcoming a host of special guest musicians to enrich the album’s boundless sonic dimensions. Adding lush new textures are the talents of Dara O’Brien, Jo Quail and Sean Coleman, who contribute everything from sitar, cello and zither to shamanic drums, bowed psaltery, chimes and tanpura across the album’s mesmerizing sonic vistas.

The cumulative effect is an ecstatic experience that affirms God Is An Astronaut’s position as masters of their transcendent craft. From its very first transcendent note to the final lingering echoes of its resonance, ‘Embers’ sees the band’s celestial vision crystallized in their most majestic, grandiose form yet. Spanning widescreen vistas of psychrock bliss, hypnotic krautrock-influenced

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movements and expansive, prog-tinged cosmic epics, each composition invites the listener to become completely immersed in the vast inner journey unfolding across the album’s expansive cosmology.

For over two decades now, God Is An Astronaut’s recorded output has amassed a fervent cult following worldwide, with fans entranced by both the vivid headspace of their studio voyages and the visceral potency of their live performances. On the atmospheric 2005 classic ‘All Is Violent, All Is Bright’ and the ecstatic peaks of 2018’s ‘Epitaph,’ the band has continually raised the psychedelic bar, while their most recent transmission - 2021’s dynamic ‘Ghost Tapes #10’ - showed their powers for generating movement and intensity remain utterly undimmed.

With ‘Embers,’ God Is An Astronaut have distilled all the transcendent elements that have made them standardbearers of the modern instrumental rock realm into their most potent concoction yet. The announcement of the record also arrives with an unveiling of the band’s extensive touring itinerary for 2024, with a busy international schedule currently being solidified to support their ninth full-length artistic statement (and many more shows still to be announced in the coming months).

The opportunity to experience the full cosmic intensity of God Is An Astronaut’s meteoric live performance has been a pivotal component of their enduring appeal to countless listeners over the past 20+ years. As anyone who’s witnessed them channeling the universe’s energies in-person can attest, their captivating presence is ultimately what elevates their transcendent compositions from the realm of recorded material into a rapturous and utterly hypnotic force of nature.

With all the pieces now aligning -

from the virtuosic talents of the Kinsella brothers and Hanney, to the contributions from their special guests, to the album’s magnificent production/mastering courtesy of renowned Irish artist David Rooney and Europe’s foremost studio guru Streaky - God Is An Astronaut have set the stage for ‘Embers’ to burn as bright as any album in their vaunted canon. For over two decades, this visionary trio has consistently guided listeners on the journey of a lifetime to the farthest reaches of the instrumental rock universe. When their newest globe-

shaking artistic statement crashes down on September 6th, they’ll reignite that pioneering celestial voyage like never before.

Embers Tracklist:

1. Apparition

2. Falling Leaves

3. Odyssey

4. Heart of Roots

5. Embers

6. Realms

7. Oscillation

8. Prism

9. Hourglass

See GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT Live:

Aug 1, 2024 - Backstage - Munich, Germany

Aug 2, 2024 - Flex - Vienna, Austria

Aug 4, 2024 - Rockstadt - Brasov, Romania

Aug 6, 2024 - Lublin Radio - Lublin, Poland

Aug 7, 2024 - A2 - Wroclaw, Poland

Aug 8, 2024- Brutal Assault - Jaromer, Czech Republic

Aug 9, 2024 - Kwadrat - Krakow, Poland

Aug 10, 2024 - Sziget Festival - Budapest, Hungary

Aug 11, 2024 - Randal Club - Bratislava, Slovakia

Aug 15, 2024 - Frantic Fest - Francavilla, Italy

Aug 16, 2024 - Festa di Radio Onda d’Urto - Brescia, Italy with many more shows to be announced soon!

Legendary Rockers FOGHAT Pay Poignant Tribute to Original Guitarist

Watch Foghat’s “Black Days & Blue Nights” Video at https://youtu.be/IC1VMK4Hd4I Follow Foghat Online At: http://www.foghat.com

http://www.facebook.com/Foghat http://www.twitter.com/FOGHAT http://www.instagram.com/foghat_official http://www.youtube.com/user/FOGHATMUSIC

By Troy Wilson

In the annals of rock history, few bands have left an indelible mark quite like FOGHAT. Forged in the flames of the 1970s rock scene, this iconic group has weathered the storms of time, tragedy, and triumph, emerging as a timeless force in the world of music.

Now, in a heartfelt tribute to one of their own, FOGHAT has released a powerful new live video for the song “Black Days & Blue Nights” from their critically acclaimed album SONIC MOJO.

The moving visual piece, now available on the band’s official YouTube channel, honors the memory of Rod

Price, the original lead slide guitarist whose searing playing helped forge FOGHAT’s signature sound. Price’s contributions to the band’s early years were instrumental in shaping the very essence of what would become known as the FOGHAT sound – a potent blend of

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Photo credit: Rob Bondurant

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blues-infused rock and electrifying slide guitar work that would leave an indelible mark on the genre.

As the video unfolds, poignant footage of Price from the 1970s is interwoven with the band’s present-day performance, creating a haunting and emotional tapestry that serves as a testament to his lasting influence. For the current FOGHAT lineup – founding drummer Roger Earl, lead singer/ guitarist Scott Holt, slide lead guitarist/ engineer/co-producer Bryan Bassett, bassist/vocalist Rodney O’Quinn, and manager Linda Arcello-Earl – the creation of “Black Days & Blue Nights” was a labor of love, born from a deep sense of respect and admiration for their fallen comrade.

“This song is our Ode to Rod Price,” explains Earl, the band’s beating heart and the driving force behind their enduring legacy. “Our manager Linda and I began writing the song because she had also managed Rod for a few years after he left FOGHAT in 1980. We felt compelled to write something about him. Rod was a complicated man. He was a beautiful soul, and we were good friends when he joined the band. However, after four or five years on the road, it started to wear on him. He was seeking a more peaceful existence. We were touring relentlessly and although Dave and I loved it, it was tough on Rod.”

For Bassett, the memories of his time touring with Price in 1991 remain etched in his mind, a cherished glimpse into the life of a man whose talent was matched only by his depth of character. “I had a blast traveling around the continent with Rod, studying his playing style up close and personal, as well as becoming friends,” Bassett recalls. “We often roomed together and talked about many things outside of music. I had just met my soon-to-be wife Julie, and my discussions with Rod about maybe getting married were very important to me. We also spoke about many different styles of music. He was a particular fan of Philip Glass and many other classical composers. I saw a side of Rod many may not have seen.”

It is this multifaceted nature of Price’s persona that adds an extra layer of poignancy to the tribute. Holt, the band’s current lead singer and guitarist, echoes the sentiment, emphasizing Price’s pivotal role in shaping FOGHAT’s iconic sound. “Rod Price was the lynchpin of the guitars in FOGHAT. He was the lead guitar player, and he created the sound that became FOGHAT. ‘Slow Ride’ doesn’t exist without that iconic drum intro and Rod Price’s slide playing.”

For bassist O’Quinn, Price’s impact was nothing short of electrifying. “One of the most electrifying slide players I’ve ever heard,” he marvels. “His vibrato was amazing and off the charts. All I can say is he was electrifying!”

Arcello-Earl, who managed Price after his departure from FOGHAT in 1980, remembers a man of contradictions – immensely talented yet insecure, fun-loving yet troubled by the rigors of the road. “When I started working for FOGHAT in 1976, I was put ‘in charge’ of Rod. He had the best giggle, fun to be around, incredibly talented, and very insecure,” she recalls. “Making decisions on things like buying furniture for his new home was a real challenge. We had some laughs decorating! Rod and I were good friends, and I totally respected his extraordinary talent. ‘The Stone Blue’ tour in 1978 totally did him in. On the road eight days a week, they had very little time off.”

The release of “Black Days & Blue Nights” and its accompanying video serves as a poignant reminder of Price’s lasting legacy and the indelible mark he left on FOGHAT’s music. As the band continues to celebrate the success of SONIC MOJO – their first album in seven years, which soared to the top of the Billboard Blues Albums chart upon its release and has remained in the Top 10 for an astonishing 26 weeks – they honor the memory of a fallen brother whose spirit remains woven into the fabric of their sound.

FOGHAT’s journey has been one of perseverance, resilience, and an unwavering dedication to their craft. Formed in 1971, the band’s origins can be traced back to the decision of Earl, Dave Peverett, and Tony Stevens to leave Savoy Brown and embark on a new

musical adventure. As they sought to complete their lineup, they placed an ad in the UK’s Melody Maker magazine, a move that would ultimately lead them to Price.

“We auditioned several guitarists, many of them very good, but to the best of my recollection, Rod was the only one who played slide,” Earl recalls. “His slide playing was very intense with this incredible vibrato. Dave and I looked at each other…he was the one.”

With Price’s addition, the foundation was laid for what would become one of the most iconic and influential bands in rock history. Over the course of their storied career, FOGHAT has amassed an impressive collection of accolades, including eight Gold records, one Platinum record, and one doublePlatinum record. Through the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies, one thing has remained constant: FOGHAT’s unwavering dedication to their music.

It is this dedication that has sustained them through the decades, allowing them to weather the storms and emerge stronger than ever. As they continue to tour and captivate audiences worldwide, the band’s tribute to Rod Price serves as a powerful reminder of the enduring bonds forged through music and the lasting impact of those who helped shape their iconic sound.

The release of SONIC MOJO, with its blistering blend of blues, rock, and country influences, has ushered in a new era for FOGHAT. Hailed by Vintage Guitar as a record that “boogies on!” with the band’s “trademark sound” firmly intact, it has resonated with fans old and new, reinforcing FOGHAT’s status as a timeless force in the world of music.

As Riffmagazine.com declares, “Filtered through the lens of FOGHAT, the album has a cohesiveness to it. A sense of immediacy adds a personality that gives it its ‘mojo.’ Holt brings an authenticity to both his vocals and his bluesy guitar playing; though that’s no surprise for this one-time member of blues legend Buddy Guy’s band. He and Bassett clearly have the chops, trading lead guitar parts and solos. The tones are crisp and the band sounds tight on each

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track.”

With the release of the “Black Days & Blue Nights” video, FOGHAT has not only paid tribute to a fallen comrade but also solidified their place as a band that refuses to be defined by the constraints of time or genre. Their music is a living, breathing entity, constantly evolving and adapting while remaining true to the core principles that have guided them from the very beginning.

As the band looks ahead to the future, with plans for Arcello-Earl to release the previously unheard recordings of Price’s post-FOGHAT band Nightwatch, one thing is certain: the spirit of Rod Price will continue to live on, his influence woven into the very fabric of FOGHAT’s music and the hearts of those who knew him best.

“When he left FOGHAT in 1980, I managed him and a new band he put together called Nightwatch,” Arcello-

Earl reveals. “We recorded six tracks up at Bearsville Studios in 1982 and did a brief Northeast club tour and had a good couple of years before things started to fall apart. I am working on releasing the Nightwatch recordings in the very near future.”

In the end, the “Black Days & Blue Nights” video stands as a testament to the enduring power of music to transcend time and mortality. It is a celebration of a life lived in service to the art, a reminder that the legacies we leave behind are not measured in material wealth or fleeting fame, but in the indelible impressions we make on those around us and the music that will continue to inspire generations to come.

As FOGHAT continues to blaze a trail through the annals of rock history, their tribute to Rod Price serves as a beacon of hope, a reminder that even in our darkest moments, the light of music can guide us through. And as they embark on their next chapter, one thing is certain: the spirit of Rod Price will forever be a part of their journey, his searing slide guitar work echoing through the ages as a testament to the enduring power of rock and roll.

Check out the band’s

itinerary below:

DATE CITY VENUE

Thu 7/18/2024 Walker MN Moondance Jam

Sat 7/20/2024 Kimberly WI Sunset Point Park

Fri 7/26/2024 West Bend WI Washington County Fair

Sun 7/28/2024 Great Falls MT Montana State Fair 2024

Sat 8/10/2024 Beaver Dam KY Beaver Dam Amphitheater

Sun 8/11/2024 Bethlehem PA Musikfest

Sat 8/17/2024 Saskatoon SK Saskatoon Festival

Thu 8/22/2024 Shipshewana IN Blue Gate Perf Arts Center

Sat 8/24/2024 Gatlinburg TN Gatlinburg Convention Center

Sat 8/31/2024 Sparks NV Nugget Casino Resort

Fri 9/13/2024 Yakima WA Sozo Sports Event Center

Fri 9/20/2024 Manhattan KS Mccain Auditorium

Mon 9/23/2024 Bloomsburg PA Bloomsburg Fair

Fri 10/4/2024 Petoskey MI Odawa Casino

Sat 10/26/2024 Meadville MS Homochillo River Festival

Sat 11/2/2024 Cathedral City CA Agave Caliente Terraza

Sat 11/23/2024 St. Charles MO The Family Arena

Sat 11/30/2024 Baraboo WI Ho-Chunk Gaming Wisconsin Dells

Sun 1/26/2025 Solana Beach CA Belly Up

Thu 2/13/2025 Miami FL Rock Legends Cruise XII

Watch the official music video for “Say What You Will” here at https://youtu.be/7_LXR96kh9s

By Nathan Pugh

In a move that has sent shockwaves of excitement through the rock music world, acclaimed vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter Myles Kennedy has announced the impending release of his highly anticipated third solo album,

continued on next page MYLES KENNEDY online: WEBSITE @ https://myleskennedy.com/ FACEBOOK @ https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMylesKennedy INSTAGRAM @ https://www.instagram.com/officialmyleskennedy/ X @ https://twitter.com/MylesKennedy TIKTOK @ https://www.tiktok.com/@officialmyleskennedy NAPALM RECORDS @ https://label.napalmrecords.com/myles-kennedy

‘The Art Of Letting Go.’ Slated to drop on October 11th, 2024 via his longtime label home Napalm Records, this monumental new offering marks Kennedy’s triumphant return to his solo roots, backed by his trusted band featuring the formidable talents of

drummer Zia Uddin and bassist Tim Tournier.

For over two decades, Kennedy has solidified his reputation as a true force to be reckoned with in the rock

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genre. Known for his exceptional work with juggernauts like Alter Bridge and Slash and the Conspirators, he has consistently showcased his unparalleled versatility and undeniable talent across a multitude of acclaimed projects. With ‘The Art Of Letting Go,’ Kennedy aims to captivate both his legion of longtime fans and newcomers alike, delivering a masterfully crafted collection of songs that seamlessly blend his signature storytelling prowess with infectious melodies and electrifying performances.

From the very first notes of the album’s powerhouse title track to the haunting, introspective closing melodies of “How The Story Ends,” Kennedy takes listeners on an aural journey that encapsulates the very essence of his artistry. Tracks like the gritty rocker “Mr. Downside,” the emotionally charged “Miss You When You’re Gone,” and the poignant “Saving Face” exemplify the memorable narratives and deeply personal lyrics that have become a hallmark of Kennedy’s songwriting across all his endeavors.

Fans have already been treated to a tantalizing taste of the album’s raw power and energy with the release of the debut single, “Say What You Will.” A high-octane rocker that has been impacting radio stations around the globe, the track’s official music video, directed by the acclaimed Gordy De St Jeor (Mammoth WVH), tells a heartwarming and uplifting story of a timid student finding her confidence and breaking out of her shell with the support of her teachers, portrayed by Kennedy, Uddin, and Tournier themselves.

To celebrate the highly anticipated release of ‘The Art Of Letting Go,’ Myles Kennedy and his formidable trio are gearing up for an extensive, globetrotting tour that promises to be an unforgettable experience for rock fans worldwide. The journey will kick off with a six-date UK run in November and December, featuring support from the renowned and critically acclaimed Devin

Townsend, himself a titan of the progressive metal and rock scenes.

This initial run will be followed by an additional 20 newly announced European dates starting in October, with Kennedy and his bandmates set to share the stage with the rising stars of Black River Delta and Cardinal Black, who will serve as support acts for these hotly anticipated shows.

After conquering stages across Europe, the tour will then make its way to North America in January and February 2025, with special guest Tim Montana joining the lineup as direct support. Fans across the continent can expect an electrifying and unforgettable live experience as Kennedy and his bandmates bring their explosive performances and catalog of hits to stages from coast to coast.

As a prolific songwriter, powerhouse vocalist, and proficient guitar player, Myles Kennedy has carved a unique and indelible path in the rock world, consistently delivering standout performances and leaving an indelible mark on every project he touches. With

over one billion cumulative streams, gold and platinum certifications worldwide, and a devoted global fanbase, Kennedy’s impact on the genre is simply undeniable.

His previous solo effort, 2021’s critically acclaimed ‘The Ides of March,’ was a resounding success, earning an impressive four #1 debuts across three countries and garnering widespread acclaim from prestigious publications like American Songwriter, Guitar.com, LoudWire, and Guitar World. RIFF hailed it as “a fantastic and must-listen record,” while Classic Rock Magazine awarded it a stellar “4.5-out-of-5 stars,” going on to attest, “The Ides of March confirms Myles Kennedy as a musical powerhouse.”

With ‘The Art Of Letting Go,’ Kennedy once again demonstrates his exceptional musical prowess and songwriting talents, promising to captivate audiences with his raw emotion, soaring vocals, and airtight riffs. As he embarks on this new chapter, rock enthusiasts worldwide eagerly await the

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chance to experience the magic of Myles Kennedy in his purest form, solidifying his status as one of the genre’s finest, most versatile, and most celebrated artists.

For longtime fans and newcomers alike, the release of ‘The Art Of Letting Go’ represents a monumental moment in Kennedy’s illustrious career, a culmination of his tireless dedication, unwavering passion, and sheer artistry. With this album, he cements his place as a true luminary in the world of rock music, pushing boundaries and elevating the genre to new heights with each bold sonic offering.

As anticipation builds towards the album’s October 11th release date, the excitement within the rock community is palpable. Myles Kennedy’s return to his solo roots is sure to be met with thunderous applause, as audiences brace themselves for what promises to be one of the most powerful and impactful rock records of the year.

The Art Of Letting Go track listing:

1. The Art Of Letting Go

2. Say What You Will

3. Mr. Downside

4. Miss You When You’re Gone

5. Behind The Veil

6. Saving Face

7. Eternal Lullaby

8. Nothing More To Gain

9. Dead To Rights

10. How The Story Ends

Myles Kennedy The Art Of Letting Go Tour

Myles Kennedy The Art Of Letting Go Tour 2024 Sunday, October 27, 2024 – Hamburg, DE – Gruenspan ^ Monday, October 28, 2024 – Copenhagen, DK – Pumpehuset ^ Wednesday, October 30, 2024 – Gothenburg, SE – Valand ^ Friday, November 1, 2024 – Stockholm. SE – Debaser ^ Saturday, November 2, 2024 – Oslo, NO – John Dee ^ Tuesday, November 5, 2024 – Berlin, DE – Columbia Theater ^ Thursday, November 7, 2024 – Warsaw, PL – Club Progresja ^ Friday, November 8, 2024 – Prague, CZ – Palac Akropolis ^ Sunday, November 10, 2024 – Budapest, HU – Akvarium Klub ^ Monday, November 11, 2024 – Vienna, AT – Arena ^ Wednesday, November 13, 2024 – Milan, IT – Alcatraz ^ Thursday, November 14, 2024 – Zurich, CH – X-Tra ^ Saturday, November 16, 2024 – Munich, DE – Technikum ^ Sunday, November 17, 2024 – Luxembourg, LU – Rockhal ^ Tuesday, November 19, 2024 – Frankfurt, DE – Zoom + Wednesday, November 20, 2024 – Tilburg, NL – 013 + Friday, November 22, 2024 – Cologne, DE – Kantine + Saturday, November 23, 2024 – Paris, FR – Le Cabaret Sauvage + Monday, November 25, 2024 – Glasgow, UK – SWG3 # Wednesday, November 27, 2024 – Manchester, UK – Academy # Friday, November 29, 2024 – Nottingham, UK – Rock City # Saturday, November 30, 2024 – Birmingham, UK – O2 Academy Birmingham # Monday, December 2, 2024 – Cardiff, UK – The Great Hall, Cardiff Uni Students Union #

Tuesday, December 3, 2024 – London, UK – O2 Forum Kentish Town # Thursday, December 5, 2024 – Dublin, IE – The Academy + Friday, December 6, 2024 – Belfast, IE – Limelight + ^ with special guest Black River Delta + with special guest Cardinal Black # Previously announced date with Devin Townsend Acoustic Performance

Myles Kennedy The Art Of Letting Go North American Tour 2025

Friday, January 17, 2025 - Joliet, IL - The Forge * Saturday, January 18, 2025 - Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater * Tuesday, January 21, 2025 - Flint, MI - The Machine Shop * Wednesday, January 22, 2025 - Toronto, ON - The Concert Hall * Friday, January 24, 2025 - Uncasville, CT - Wolf Den at Mohegan Sun Saturday, January 25, 2025 - Glenside, PA - Keswick Theatre * Monday, January 27, 2025 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall * Tuesday, January 28, 2025 - Asbury Park, NJ - The Stone Pony * Thursday, January 30, 2025 - Baltimore, MD - Baltimore Soundstage * Friday, January 31, 2025 - Charlotte, NC - Neighborhood Theatre * Sunday, February 02, 2025 - Nashville, TN - Brooklyn Bowl *

Monday, February 03, 2025 - Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse *

Wednesday, February 05, 2025 - Destin, FL - Club LA *

Friday, February 07, 2025 - San Antonio, TX - Vibes Event Center * Saturday, February 08, 2025 - Dallas, TX - Echo Lounge & Music Hall * Tuesday, February 11, 2025 - Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall *

Wednesday, February 12, 2025 - Denver, CO - Summit * Friday, February 14, 2025 - Mesa, AZ - The Nile Theater * Sunday, February 16, 2025 - Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre *

Tuesday, February 18, 2025 - Sacramento, CA - Ace of Spades *

Thursday, February 20, 2025 - Seattle, WA - The Neptune * Friday, February 21, 2025 - Spokane, WA - Knitting Factory * * with Special Guest Tim Montana

most sought-after and respected guitarists in the world.

“‘A Hollywood Story’ is a look back on my incredible career and a reflection on how truly lucky I am to have had the experiences that I’ve had,” John 5 explains with palpable gratitude and humility. “When you’re a little kid, in your room, dreaming of your future and what might lie ahead, I never could’ve imagined that my life would unfold in such an amazing way. I’m so appreciative and so incredibly happy with where this journey has taken me. The message is simple - go after your dreams whatever they may be, and never give up.”

The release of this highly personal and evocative new track, accompanied by a visually stunning music video, comes hot on the heels of John 5’s critically acclaimed instrumental masterpiece “The Ghost,” which dropped in October 2022 to widespread acclaim. That release was followed by a series of sold-out tour dates that left audiences across the country in awe of his unparalleled skills, boundless creativity, and electrifying stage presence.

HERE AT https://ffm.to/a_hollywood_story_john_5 SEE THE VIDEO FOR “A

STORY” HERE AT https://youtu.be/71-ujt7llZQ

Follow JOHN 5 online: Official Website: https://john-5.com

Facebook: https://facebook.com/john5official

Instagram: https://instagram.com/john5official

Twitter: https://twitter.com/john5guitarist

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/john5officialYT/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@john5official

Official Webstore: https://john5store.com

By Greg Fontaine

In a captivating blend of music and personal narrative, guitar virtuoso John 5 has released a brand-new song that is sure to resonate deeply with fans and music enthusiasts alike. Titled “A Hollywood Story,” this powerful new offering invites listeners to embark on an intimate and mesmerizing journey, chronicling John 5’s path from picking up his first guitar at the tender age of 7 to becoming one of the

But the excitement doesn’t stop there. John 5 has announced plans to hit the road once again this fall on the aptly named Strung Out Tour, with special guest Turning Jane. This highly anticipated trek will kick off on September 1 in Boston, MA, taking the guitar legend across North America for a series of unforgettable performances, including several eagerly awaited Canadian dates. The tour will then culminate on October

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24 in Novato, CA, capping off a monumental run that promises to be a true celebration of John 5’s artistry and musical legacy.

These new solo appearances will be in addition to John 5’s confirmed dates with the iconic rock band Mötley Crüe, including high-profile performances at major festivals like Summerfest, Louder Than Life, and Aftershock. In a move that sent shockwaves through the music world, the legendary axeman was announced as the new guitarist for Mötley Crüe in October 2022, following the retirement of Mick Mars. This prestigious role further cements John 5’s status as one of the most versatile, in-demand, and influential musicians of our time.

For over 30 years, John 5 has been a driving force in the music industry, etching his name in the annals of rock history with his unparalleled talent, boundless creativity, and unwavering dedication to his craft. As well as being a sought-after songwriter and guitarist for hire, he has shared the stage as the axeman for some of the biggest names in the business, including Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and Rob Halford, captivating audiences around the world with his electrifying performances and unmatched musicianship.

John 5’s impressive discography is a testament to his versatility, spanning collaborations with an array of artists from diverse genres, including KD Lang, Rod Stewart, David Lee Roth, Alice Cooper, Tina Guo, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Meat Loaf, Dolly Parton, and Ricky Martin, to name just a few. His ability to seamlessly transition between styles and genres, injecting his signature flair and virtuosic playing into each project, has earned him a reputation as one of the most adaptable and inventive guitarists of his generation.

A respected and inventive guitar player with an eclectic visual style rooted in horror-pop culture, John 5 (born John William Lowery) started his career as an in-demand session player before making a name for himself as the axe man for hard rock heavyweights. In 2004, he launched his critically acclaimed solo career with the release of

“Vertigo,” the first of several innovative instrumental albums that showcased his virtuosic guitar slinging and cemented his reputation as a true master of his craft.

With each new release and electrifying live performance, John 5 continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible on the guitar, captivating audiences with his unparalleled skill, boundless creativity, and unwavering passion for his art. His ability to weave intricate melodies, blistering solos, and emotionally charged narratives into his music has solidified his place as a true pioneer and visionary in the world of rock and beyond.

As he embarks on his highly anticipated Strung Out Tour and continued work with Mötley Crüe, fans around the world eagerly await the opportunity to witness this guitar legend in action, creating unforgettable musical experiences that will forever etch his name in the annals of rock history. With “A Hollywood Story,” John 5 has once again proven his unwavering commitment to his craft, inviting listeners to join him on a deeply personal and inspiring journey that celebrates the power of perseverance, passion, and the pursuit of one’s dreams.

Rock And Blues International

By Albert Schwartz

In a move that is sure to shake up the music world, Chaz Bear, the creative force behind the ever-evolving project Toro y Moi, has announced the impending release of his highly anticipated eighth studio album, ‘Hole Erth.’ Slated to drop on September 6th, 2024, via Dead Oceans, this latest offering promises to be Bear’s boldest and most unexpected sonic pivot to date, as he fearlessly dives headfirst into the uncharted territories of rap-rock, Soundcloud rap, and Y2K emo.

Serving as an electrifying prelude to the album, Toro y Moi has unveiled the lead single “Tuesday,” accompanied by a gripping music video directed by India Sleem and shot across the iconic Bay Area landscapes of Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco. The track itself is a bold statement of intent, delivering serrated guitar tones and a soaring chorus that seamlessly blends the anthemic energy of pop-punk with the melancholic introspection of autotuned rap.

In Bear’s own words, “I hope you enjoy this suburban anthem, growing up, the often-controversial-line between mainstream and underground artists was so defined but now that line has become so blurred I can’t even tell what I like anymore...sometimes.” This sentiment perfectly encapsulates the genre-defying spirit that permeates ‘Hole Erth.’

The album promises to be a true sonic kaleidoscope, blitzing through anthemic pop-punk explosions one moment and delving into the introspective depths of autotuned, melancholic rap the next. Adding to the excitement, ‘Hole Erth’ features an impressive lineup of guest appearances, marking the most features ever on a Toro y Moi record. Fans can expect to be swept away by the moody crooning of Don Toliver on the anti-love song “Madonna,” the breathy reflections of Kevin Abstract and Lev on “Heaven,” and even the iconic vocals of indie rock legend Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service fame.

Connect with Toro y Moi Website @ https://toroymoi.com/ Instagram @ https://www.instagram.com/toroymoi/ X (Twitter) @ https://x.com/ToroyMoi Youtube @ https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCMQmOGQDbzCwT6xXRZm3FSw

Recorded in a remarkably short span of just a few months across late 2023 and early 2024, the features on ‘Hole Erth’ came together organically, with Bear reaching out to long-time friends and collaborators. The result is a massive sonic tapestry that not only showcases Bear’s deft abilities as a producer but also solidifies his role in the hip-hop culture after previous collaborations with some of rap’s biggest trailblazers.

While the sounds of ‘Hole Erth’ may seem like uncharted

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Photographer credit: Daniel Liljas

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territory for Toro y Moi, Bear assures fans that it’s a return to form for the project, which has always orbited electronic music. “Toro is not a rock band,” he states. “To me, my folk records and psych rock records are the side quests. What I fell in love with with the Toro project were the electronic productions – the samples. There’s always more to be done in the electronic world.”

The album’s title, ‘Hole Erth,’ is a clever homage to Stewart Brand’s iconic DIY periodical ‘Whole Earth’ from the late 1960s and early 1970s, which aimed to empower people to be holistically self-sufficient. Bear cites the gorpcore fashion trend, which blends functional outdoor wear with streetwear, as an influence on the album’s aesthetic, tying back to Brand’s influential counterculture catalog.

“Things have gone in a more gorp-y direction. Humans are tapping into this more tribal, earthier aesthetic,” Bear notes. “The Whole Earth catalog is this encyclopedic, self-sustaining guide. With the album title alone, that’s something I wanted to spark as a conversation. We can be off the grid, and also be on the internet, and try out all of these different lifestyles at the same time.”

This sense of duality permeates ‘Hole Erth,’ as it’s seeped in the technological world while embracing real-world human connection. Tracks like the album opener “Walking In The Rain” immediately immerse listeners in the brooding pulse of the record, showcasing Bear’s unparalleled experimentation with electronic production.

While a sense of wistful nostalgia has always snuck its way into Toro y Moi releases, angst is an emotion that Bear intentionally explores on ‘Hole Erth’ like never before. Tracks like the infectious lead single “Tuesday” channel a specific, yet forever-relatable sense of adolescent unease, with distorted guitar riffs and repeating choruses that conjure images of misunderstood teenagers singing aloud, perhaps too loud, while riding bikes through the seemingly idyllic suburban streets of America.

This foreboding sense of angst and unease also seeps through on tracks like “HOV,” though not without Bear’s trademark playful wit, as evidenced by lines like “Romance is so cold / My advice? To bring a coat.” It’s this deft balance of introspection and levity that has endeared Toro y Moi to fans for over a decade, and ‘Hole Erth’ promises to deliver these qualities in spades.

With his latest opus, Bear has accomplished the rare feat of keeping up with the ever-evolving tastes of the contemporary alternative listener while simultaneously staying true to his roots as a musical chameleon, constantly changing, evolving, and experimenting – the very heart of Toro y Moi. By boldly challenging and reclaiming himself, embracing the myriad sounds and eras that formed him, and fearlessly crashing new worlds together, Chaz Bear has crafted a playfully ambitious and experimental album that pushes the boundaries of what Toro y Moi can be.

As fans eagerly await the release of ‘Hole Erth’ on September 6th, 2024, one thing is certain: Toro y Moi’s latest offering is poised to be a genrebending sonic journey that will captivate, surprise, and ultimately redefine what it means to be a musical innovator in the modern age.

Synth-Metal Horror Masters Dance With

Dead Unleash Sonic Odyssey on North American Tour

By Troy Wilson

Brace yourselves, music fans, as the pioneering dark electronic metal duo Dance With the Dead prepares to transport audiences into a dystopian, retro-futuristic world with the announcement of their highly anticipated North American headline tour. This monumental trek, set to kick off on November 12th in Salt Lake City, UT, will immerse concertgoers in the band’s mesmerizing sonic odyssey, culminating on December 15th in Portland, OR.

“After taking a year off, we are

super excited to get back on the road and play some new music for the first time,” exclaimedTony Kim, one-half of the dynamic duo, his words brimming with palpable excitement.

On stage, Dance With the Dead is a force to be reckoned with, having provided direct support to juggernauts like Avatar, DragonForce, and Beast in Black, while headlining tours across Europe and North America. With drummer John Terry fortifying their live assault and their immersive audio/visual experience resonating with a diverse fanbase, this upcoming run promises to

be a truly unforgettable experience.

Drawing inspiration from classic cult horror and sci-fi films, Justin Pointer and Tony Kim have spent over a decade crafting cinematic synth anthems that transcend genre boundaries. Since their haunting 2013 debut, ‘Out of Body,’ Dance With the Dead has captivated fans worldwide with its unique fusion of analog synths, pummeling metal riffs, and haunting storytelling.

Influenced by luminaries from Hans Zimmer and Daft Punk to Metallica and John Carpenter, Dance With the Dead’s transcendent style marries the rawness of heavy metal with nostalgic analog textures, boldly forging new frontiers in sound. This innovative approach has earned them a devoted following and critical acclaim, cementing their status as trailblazers in the realm of synth-driven metal.

With support from Korine on this highly anticipated tour, Dance With the Dead is poised to deliver an unforgettable live experience that will leave audiences spellbound. Fans can expect to be transported to a realm where the boundaries between electronic and metal disintegrate, where haunting melodies intertwine with blistering riffs, and where the past and future collide in a sublime sonic tapestry.

Dance With the Dead’s live performances are more than just concerts; they are immersive journeys into the depths of the human psyche, exploring the darkest corners of our collective psyche through a lens of horror and science fiction. With each pulsating beat and soaring melody, the band weaves a tapestry of emotions, invoking fear, wonder, and ultimately, catharsis.

As the anticipation builds for this North American tour, Dance With the Dead is also hard at work on new music, with details expected to be announced soon. This tantalizing prospect only adds to the excitement surrounding this dynamic duo, whose relentless pursuit of artistic expression and boundary-pushing experimentation has captured the hearts and minds of fans worldwide.

For those seeking a transcendent live experience that defies genre conventions and pushes the boundaries of what is possible in music, Dance With the Dead’s North American tour promises to be an unforgettable journey. Prepare to be transported, to be challenged, and to emerge forever changed by the power of this synth-metal horror masterpiece.

Photo Credit: Michael Schmelling

By Albert Schwartz

The trailblazing Latin metal band Ill Niño is back with a vengeance, prepared to once again shake the foundations of the heavy music world. The New Jersey-based sextet has announced the impending arrival of not one, but two blistering new EPsIllMortals Vol 1 and IllMortals Vol 2.

For over two decades, Ill Niño has solidified their position as the epitome of Latin rock, blending crunchy heavy metal riffs with infectious Latin rhythms and lyrics that seamlessly flow between English and Spanish. Their groundbreaking 2001 debut album Revolution Revolución was a watershed moment, moving close to half a million copies and cementing their legacy as a formidable force on the back of singles like “What Comes Around.”

They followed that auspicious start with the 2003 sophomore album Confession, which incredibly surpassed the sales of their debut by moving over 600,000 units worldwide. It also spawned the top 10 single “How Can I Live,” featured on the Freddy vs. Jason soundtrack. Ill Niño’s upward trajectory continued with 2005’s One Nation Underground and a series of successful tours alongside the likes of Linkin Park, Disturbed, Guns N’ Roses, Korn, and Avenged Sevenfold.

After a brief hiatus, the band roared back in 2022 with a revamped lineup and what was hailed as one of the Most Antici-

ILLNIÑO online:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Officialillnino Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/illninoofficial

YouTube: https://youtube.com/ @illnino5628?si=BN9YE5GPy590pakD

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/ 1xJ6l1VXgGuyZ0uhu27caFsi=LRpShhBtRdeLnLEAVuvH0A Apple: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ill-ni%C3%B1o/5570230 US Festival Appearances

07/19 - Mansfield, OH - Inkcarceration Festival 09/29 - Louisville, KY - Louder Than Life 2024

10/13 - Sacramento, CA - Aftershock 2024

pated Rock/Metal Albums of 2023. Now, fueled by an unwavering passion for their craft and the undying loyalty of their devoted fanbase, Ill Niño is poised to once again redefine the boundaries of their unique sonic alchemy with IllMortals Vol 1 on June 29, 2024 and IllMortals Vol 2 on July 26th.

Fans have already been given a tantalizing taste, with the explosive singles “All Or Nothing” featuring Sonny Sandoval of P.O.D. and “Mascara” featuring AJ Channer of Fire From The Gods both spending multiple weeks at #1 on SiriusXM’s Liquid Metal charts. A new video for the radio single “Beast Inside” is also on the horizon, whetting appetites for the full onslaught to come.

In support of these monumental releases, the band - Cristian Machado (vocals), Dave Chavarri (drums), Marc Rizzo (guitars), Jardel Paisante (guitars), Lazaro Pina (bass), and Roger Vasquez (percussion)will embark on a global tour, bringing their incendiary live show to stages across the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and Australia. They are confirmed for major U.S. fests like Inkcarceration, Louder Than Life, and Aftershock.

With a legacy built on genre-defying innovation and intense, high-octane performances, Ill Niño’s return is poised to be an earth-shattering event. The IllMortals have risen, and the heavy music world has been put on notice - prepare to be slain by Latin metal’s reigning champions.

Thrash Metal Legends Testament Unleash

Remastered Classics and Announce “Klash of the Titans” Tour with Kreator

Watch the video visualizer for ‘Over The Wall’ from The Legacy (Remastered 2024) at https://youtu.be/yHu3f_uZqvM

Stream the remastered version of the single ‘Over The Wall’ from The Legacy (Remastered 2024) here: https://testament.bfan.link/over-the-wall-remastered

Watch the video visualizer for ‘Into The Pit’ from The New Order (Remastered 2024) at https://youtu.be/cvAV9AgJ7q0

Stream the remastered version of the single ‘Into The Pit’ from The New Order (Remastered 2024) here: https://testament.bfan.link/into-the-pit-remastered

By Nathan Pugh

In an earth-shattering announcement that has sent shockwaves through the metal community, the iconic Bay Area thrash metal pioneers Testament have revealed plans to unleash remastered versions of two of their most seminal and influential albums, The Legacy and The New Order. This explosive celebration of Testament’s enduring legacy and their undisputed status as titans of the thrash metal scene is sure to send their legions of diehard fans into a frenzy of anticipation.

On July 12th, the world will bear witness to the remastered sonic onslaught of these thrash masterpieces, as they are released digitally and on vinyl through the esteemed Nuclear Blast Records. Chuck Billy, Testament’s charismatic frontman and the unmistakable voice that has infused their signature sound with rich and diverse textures for decades, spoke passionately about the impetus behind this remastering endeavor.

“When The Legacy and The New Order were first recorded, we were a young band with limited resources,” Billy proclaimed. “Now, with the remastering, fans will hear these albums in their signature sonic onslaught, as they were intended to be heard.”

In a tantalizing preview of what’s to come, the band has unleashed upon the world two singles from the remastered albums, accompanied by mesmerizing video visualizers. The iconic “Over The Wall” from The Legacy (Remastered 2024) and the blistering “Into The Pit” from The New Order (Remastered 2024) are now available for streaming on all platforms, giving fans a taste of the aural onslaught that awaits.

The Legacy, Testament’s groundbreaking debut album that shook the foundations of the metal world upon its release in 1987, has been meticulously remastered by the renowned Justin Shturtz at Sterling Sound. This historic

www.testamentlegions.com

www.facebook.com/testamentlegions www.twitter.com/testament www.instagram.com/testamentofficial www.youtube.com/testamentofficial www.tiktok.com/@testamentlegions

reissue will be available digitally and on a stunning 180G vinyl pressing, limited to 1500 copies worldwide. The vinyl edition features a captivating red and white swirl with black splatter design, ensuring that this release is not only a sonic masterpiece but also a visually arresting collector’s item.

But that’s not all – The Legacy reissue will also include alternate cover artwork, a gatefold packaging adorned with new liner notes, and an oversized booklet brimming with never-beforeseen images from the band’s early days. This treasure trove of Testament history is sure to delight longtime fans and provide an invaluable glimpse into the band’s formative years.

Not to be outdone, The New Order, Testament’s blistering sophomore effort from 1988, has also undergone the same meticulous remastering treatment by Justin Shturtz at Sterling Sound. This thrash metal masterpiece will be available digitally and on a limited edition 180G vinyl pressing, restricted to 1500 copies worldwide. The vinyl edition boasts a mesmerizing blue and purple swirl with black splatter design, ensuring that this release is not only a sonic tour de force but also a visual masterpiece.

Like its predecessor, The New Order reissue will feature alternate cover artwork, a gatefold packaging adorned with new liner notes, and an oversized

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booklet overflowing with rare and unseen images from the band’s archives. For Testament devotees, this reissue is an essential addition to their collections, offering a fresh and invigorating perspective on a true thrash metal classic.

Testament’s impact on the thrash metal scene cannot be overstated. Since their emergence from the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983, they have established themselves as undisputed titans of the genre, unleashing a series of classic records each year from 1987 through 1990. Their unwavering creative vision and relentless pursuit of musical excellence have cemented their status as modern icons of heavy metal.

With nearly 3 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, the enduring strength of the Testament legions is undeniable. Their biggest anthems, from early classics like “Over the Wall” and “Into the Pit” to late ’90s bangers like “Down for Life” and modern scorchers like “For the Glory of...” and “Brotherhood of the Snake,” have become ingrained in the hearts and minds of metal fans worldwide.

An internationally recognized heavy metal institution, Testament regularly headlines major festivals and has shared stages with some of the most iconic names in the genre, including Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Korn, Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Lamb Of God, among others.

Testament’s distinctive sound is the result of a perfect storm of talent and passion. Primary songwriter and cofounding guitarist Eric Peterson summons endlessly timeless riffs on command, while the virtuosic Alex Skolnick, named one of the greatest guitarists of all time by Guitar World, was just 18 years old when Testament recorded their debut, The Legacy. The rhythmic foundation is provided by the formidable Steve Di Giorgio, a longtime bassist who has lent his fluid dexterity and heft to the likes of

Sadus, Death, and Obituary.

Completing the current Testament lineup is the band’s newest (and youngest) addition, drummer Chris Dovas, whose passionate bombast pays homage to the astounding legacy of former Testament drummers, a lineage that includes alumni from Slayer, White Zombie, Dethklok, and Machine Head, among others.

Both The Legacy (1987) and The New Order (1988) have been inducted into Decibel Magazine’s prestigious Hall Of Fame, alongside albums from Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Motörhead, solidifying their status as thrash metal classics. Revolver included The New Order on their list of 14 Thrash Albums You Need to Own, while Guitar World recognized Practice What You Preach (1989) as one of the Top 10 Shred Albums of the Eighties.

Testament’s impact has continued unabated throughout their storied career. Souls of Black (1990) entered the Billboard 200 at No. 73, while The

Ritual (1992) debuted at No. 55. Guitar World called Low (1994) one of the Iconic Albums That Defined 1994. Demonic (1997) and The Gathering (1999) saw Testament mining new depths of extremity without sacrificing their bluesy swagger.

The Formation of Damnation (2008) won Best Album at Metal Hammer’s Golden Gods Awards, besting records from Avenged Sevenfold, Children Of Bodom, Atreyu, and Down. Released nearly 30 years after the band’s formation, Dark Roots of Earth (2012) became their highest-charting album yet, moving more than 20,000 copies during its first week in the US and debuting at No. 12.

Brotherhood of the Snake (2016) enjoyed another Top 20 debut and hit No. 1 on the Independent chart, while Titans of Creation (2020) joined yearend lists in Consequence, Loudwire, and Metal Hammer.

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But Testament’s reign of metal supremacy is far from over. As the band gears up for a fall 2024 co-headlining tour with fellow thrash titans Kreator, dubbed the “Klash Of The Titans,” they are also hard at work on their next studio album, which promises to become another modern classic. During this highly anticipated tour, Testament will perform an “old-school set” celebrating the forthcoming remastered reissues of The Legacy and The New Order, giving fans a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness these thrash masterpieces brought to life in all their remastered glory.

The worldwide Testament Legions continue to grow with renewed fervor and passion as one of the definitive acts of modern heavy metal marches forward, never wavering and always crushing. With the remastered reissues of The Legacy and The New Order, and the impending “Klash Of The Titans” tour with Kreator, Testament has once again cemented their status as thrash metal royalty, poised to conquer new horizons and leave an indelible mark on the genre they helped define.

Stay tuned for more earth-shattering news and updates as this monumental chapter in the Testament saga unfolds.

The Legacy

01. Over The Wall (Remastered 2024)

02. The Haunting (Remastered 2024)

03. Burnt Offerings (Remastered 2024)

04. Raging Waters (Remastered 2024)

05. C.O.T.L.O.D. (Remastered 2024)

06. First Strike Is Deadly (Remastered 2024)

07. Do or Die (Remastered 2024)

08. Alone In The Dark (Remastered 2024)

09. Apocalyptic City (Remastered 2024)

The New Order

01. Eerie Inhabitants (Remastered 2024)

02. The New Order (Remastered 2024)

03. Trial By Fire (Remastered 2024)

04. Into The Pit (Remastered 2024)

05. Hypnosis (Remastered 2024)

06. Disciples Of The Watch (Remastered 2024)

07. The Preacher (Remastered 2024)

08. Nobody’s Fault (Remastered 2024)

09. A Day Of Reckoning (Remastered 2024)

10. Musical Death (A Dirge) (Remastered 2024)

This autumn marks the triumphant return of the ‘Klash of the Titans’ tour to North America! Metal fans are in for an unforgettable night as thrash legends TESTAMENT and KREATOR co-headline this epic journey. Spanning 33 dates, the tour will kick off on September 12th in Reno, winding its way through the US and featuring 7 Canadian stops before wrapping up in San Francisco on October 27th. Adding to the excitement, Bay Area death metal pioneers and labelmates POSSESSED will join the lineup for an unforgettable evening of heavy music. Don’t miss your chance to witness this epic line-up! Purchase the tickets at www.testamentlegions.com & www.kreator-terrorzone.de.

Confirmed dates for TESTAMENT and KREATOR’s co-headlining ‘Klash Of The Titans North American 2024’ tour with POSSESSED are:

09/12/2024 Reno, NV - Grand Sierra Resort

09/13/2024 Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues

09/14/2024 Salt Lake City, UT - The Union Event Centre

09/16/2024 Seattle, WA - Showbox SoDo

09/17/2024 Portland, OR - Roseland Theatre

09/18/2024 Vancouver, BC Canada - Vogue

09/20/2024 Calgary, AB Canada - MacEwan Hall

09/21/2024 Enoch, AB Canada - River Cree Casino

09/22/2024 Saskatoon, SK Canada - Coors Event Centre

09/24/2024 Winnipeg, MB Canada - Burton Cummings Theatre

09/26/2024 Maplewood, MN - Myth Live

09/28/2024 Huber Heights, Oh - Rose Music Center

09/29/2024 Detroit, MI - Royal Oak Music Theatre

10/01/2024 Cleveland, OH - The Agora

10/03/2024 Toronto, ON Canada - History

10/04/2024 Montreal, QC Canada - MTelus

10/05/2024 New Haven, CT - College Street

10/06/2024 Boston, MA - House of Blues

10/08/2024 Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore

10/10/2024 Montclair, NJ - The Wellmont Theatre

10/11/2024 Bethlehem, PA - Wind Creek Casino

10/12/2024 Raleigh, NC - The Ritz

10/13/2024 Atlanta, GA - Tabernacle

10/15/2024 Orlando, FL. - Hard Rock Live

10/16/2024 St. Petersburg, FL - Jannus Live

10/18/2024 Houston, TX - White Oak Music Hall (Lawn)

10/19/2024 San Antonio, TX - The Aztec

10/20/2024 Dallas, TX - The Factory

10/22/2024 Denver, CO - Fillmore Auditorium

10/23/2024 Albuquerque, NM - Albuquerque Convention Center

10/24/2024 Phoenix, AZ - The Van Buren

10/26/2024 Los Angeles, CA - Palladium

10/27/2024 San Francisco, CA - The Warfield

By Troy Wilson

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Hot on the heels of the recent release of their first official live DVD/ Blu-ray, “Live in Los Angeles,” Ukraine’s very own modern metal phenomenon is once again setting their sights on conquering North America with an absolutely staggering headline run. And they aren’t coming alone - Jinjer is bringing along two ferocious forces more than capable of leveling venues with their sheer sonic intensity. The fast-rising stars of the Japanese metalcore scene, Hanabie., and the progressive metalcore mainstays Born Of Osiris will join this juggernaut as direct support, making this the ultimate can’t-miss metal tour package of 2024.

But the excitement doesn’t end there. As Jinjer is currently entrenched in the studio putting the finishing touches on their highly anticipated fifth studio album, fans can expect to be among the incredibly fortunate few to witness the live debut of a handful of brand new, never-before-heard tracks on this colossal tour. This is an absolutely unmissable experience, even for the most die-hard Jinjer fans.

The decimation will commence on September 20th in Sayreville, NJ, as Jinjer and their high-octane support acts take the stage for the first show of this transcontinental onslaught. From there, this metallic whirlwind will cut a swath of destruction across major cities throughout the USA and Canada. The tour will reach its thunderous, cathartic finale on October 13th at the infamous Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, CA, undoubtedly leaving a trail of decimated venues and whiplashed necks in its wake.

But even that’s not enough to satiate Jinjer’s relentless appetite for domination. In addition to their headline shows, the Ukrainian wrecking crew will flex their live muscle with performances at several major heavy music festivals, including the Metal Injection Festival, Louder Than Life, and the highly anticipated return of the legendary Mayhem Festival.

Expressing their elation at the prospect of bringing this staggering display of metal fury to North American shores once again, Jinjer stated: “It’s finally time for some huge announcements: We’re stoked to report that this

September, Jinjer will return to North America with not only two absolutely sick supports: Hanabie. and Born Of Osiris! Most importantly, we’ll be performing some brand new unreleased songs from our upcoming fifth studio album - just cannot wait to share what we’ve been working on for the last two years. This will be without a doubt a banger of a tour... we’re looking forward to this so much!”

For the uninitiated, Jinjer’s first official live DVD/Blu-ray, “Live in Los Angeles,” serves as a potent testament to their endurance through recent challenges and an electrifying celebration of their triumphant 15-year journey. Filmed on December 22, 2022, at the iconic Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, this explosive release not only honors the band’s resilience but also showcases the remarkable milestones they’ve attained, including touring globally and captivating millions at prestigious festivals like Hellfest, Rock am Ring, Graspop Metal Meeting, Download Festival, and Rocklahoma USA.

The seismic impact of this unstoppable Ukrainian force can be further witnessed in the success of their latest studio triumph, the critically acclaimed

album “Wallflowers,” which shattered charts worldwide. The juggernaut offering soared to #1 on both the US Billboard Top New Artist Album charts and Canadian Hard Music album charts, #2 on the US Hard Music album charts, an immense #5 on the official UK Rock & Metal album charts, and an impressive #7 on the official German album charts.

Notably, “Live in Los Angeles” was a spontaneous decision by the band, captured with rawunfiltered intensity to emphasize the unrestrained passion that can emanate from their transcendent live performances. This release is an explosive mixture of Jinjer’s powerful discography, featuring fan-favorite anthems like the uncompromising “Sit Stay Roll Over,” the emotionallycharged “Call Me A Symbol,” and the utterly game-changing “Pisces.” The live album contains 16 blistering tracks in various audio formats, with some strictly limited editions - the deluxe Digipack offering includes not only the DVD but also two more searing bonus tracks, “Wallflower” & “Disclosure!,” recorded during the band’s raging live set in Paris in 2023.

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Through their relentless work ethic, tireless touring grind, and a series of critically acclaimed, chart-dominating releases amassing millions of streams and views across all platforms globally, Jinjer have undeniably risen to become one of modern metal’s hottest, most explosive, and most unmissable live acts. This fearsome four-piece progressive groove metal wrecking machine has hammered their way into forging their very own unique path in the metal landscape, obliterating every rule in the heavy metal handbook, as they so unapologetically proved on the hugely successful “Wallflowers.”

A versatile metalcore unit based out of Ukraine, Jinjer was formed in 2009 but considers the official start of the band to have occurred with the addition of their incredible, powerhouse vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk in 2010. Drawing from a kaleidoscope of influences including R&B, soul, hip-hop, and the full stratospheric spectrum of heavy metal’s multitude of subgenres, Jinjer’s lineup is comprised of the inimitable Tatiana Shmailyuk on explosive vocals, Roman Ibramkhalilov on shred-delivering guitars, Eugene Abdiukhanov’s wildly dexterous bass work, and Vladislav Ulasevich’s pulverizing drum assaults.

As the fever-pitched anticipation builds towards this colossal 2024 North American tour, one indisputable truth has become crystal clear - Jinjer’s transcendent, boundary-demolishing live performances are absolute must-witness events. With their utterly unique and uncompromising alchemical fusion of progressive metal, groove, extrasensory emotion, and relentless kinetic energy, this Ukrainian metal vanguard is poised to bring audiences at these shows to a state of mesmerized delirium. An experience that will undoubtedly etch indelible marks into the memories and souls of all in attendance. Miss this tidal wave of metal supremacy at your own peril.

Live in Los Angeles tracklisting:

1. Intro

2. Sit Stay Roll Over

3. Teacher, Teacher!

4. Copycat

5. Home Back

6. I Speak Astronomy

7. As I Boil Ice

8. Judgement (& Punishment)

9. Dead Hands Feel No Pain

10. Vortex

11. Who Is Gonna Be The One

12. Sleep Of The Righteous

13. Call Me A Symbol

14. Perennial

15. Pisces

16. On The Top

More JINJER live dates:

Additional Festivals 2024

08/03/24: Rasnov, RO @ Rockstadt Extreme Fest

08/05/2024: Istanbul, TR @ Freedoom Metal Festival

08/08/24: Villena, ES @ Leyendas del Rock

08/09/24: Jaromer, CZ @ Brutal Assault

08/10/24: Cercoux,FR @ Festival 666

08/11/24: Kortrijk, BE @ Alcatraz

08/15/24: Dinkelsbühl, DE @ Summer Breeze

08/17/24: Carhaix, FR @ Motocultor

08/18/24: Vallamand, CH @ Rock The Lakes

Celebrating Life Through Death – European Farewell Tour 2024

JINJER as special guest for Sepultura, w/ Obituary (Main Support) & Jesus Piece (Opener)

10/03/24: Paris, FR @ Zenith Paris

10/31/24: Offenbach am Main, DE @ Stadthalle

11/01/24: Hamburg, DE @ Inselpark Arena

11/02/24: Cologne, DE @ Palladium

11/03/24: Den Bosch, NL @ Sepulfest

11/05/24: Brussels, BE @ AB Box – SOLD OUT!

11/06/24: Esch-Sur-Alzette, LU @ Rockhal

11/08/24: Manchester, UK @ Manchester Academy – SOLD OUT!

11/09/24: Dublin, IE @ Olympia Theatre – SOLD OUT!

11/10/24: Belfast, IE @ The Telegraph Building

11/11/24: Glasgow, UK @ Barrowland Ballroom – SOLD OUT!

11/12/24: London, UK @ Hammersmith Apollo

11/14/2024: Zurich, CH @ The Hall

11/15/24: Ludwigsburg, DE @ MHP Arena

11/16/24: Munich, DE @ Zenith

11/17/24: Budapest, HU @ Barba Negra Red Stage 11/19/24: Leipzig, DE @ Haus Auensee

11/20/24: Vienna, AT @ Gasometer

11/21/24: Katowice, PL @ Spodek

11/22/24: Berlin, DE @ Columbiahalle

11/23/24: Prague, CZ @ O2 Universum – SOLD OUT!

11/24/24: Prague, CZ @ O2 Universum

Latin America Tour 2024 + special guests: Heaven Shall Burn

11/30/24: Porto Alegre, BR @ Opiniao

12/01/24: Curitiba, BR @ Tork and Roll

12/03/24: Belo Horizonte, BR @ Mister Rock

12/05/24: Brasilia, BR @ Toinha

12/07/24: Rio de Janeiro, BR @ Circo Voador

12/08/24: Sao Paulo, BR @ Terra SP

12/10/24: Buenos Aires, AR @ Teatro Flores

12/12/24: Santiago, CL @ Teatro Caupolican

12/14/24: Bogota, CO @ Calle 13

12/15/24: San Jose, CR @ Pepper’s Club

12/18/24: Guadalajara, MX @ C4 *

12/19/24: San Luis Potosí, MX @ Centro de las Artes *

12/20/24 Mexico City, MX @ Circo Volador * *no HSB

Pete Townshend

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By Greg Fontaine

In a phenomenal archival release for music fans, Universal Music Enterprises is unveiling the seismic “Pete Townshend Live In Concert 1985-2001” - a colossal 14-CD box set collecting seven complete, newly remastered live concert recordings that preserve the legendary guitarist’s transcendent solo tours and daring reinventions of his iconic work outside of his principal band The Who. Due out July 26, 2024, the set exhumes these near-mythic recordings that were previously only available via limited runs through Townshend’s online hub Eelpie over 20 years ago before vanishing into the ether.

The set spotlights the feverishly prolific and creatively insatiable period from 1985 to 2001, when rock’s preeminent visionary and The Who’s auteur was remarkably interpreting and breathing new life into his boundless musical ambitions for audiences on an imperial scale. While still regularly touring and issuing milestone albums like 1982’s “It’s Hard” with his pioneering U.K. rock ensemble, Townshend was simultaneously bringing his daring solo albums and elusive long-gestating opuses like “White City,” “Psychoderelict,” and the lifelong dream work “Lifehouse” to fruition on the road in grand live renditions, often marking their only public performances.

The colossal box set is a revelatory historical document of these extraordinary concert exhibitions, few of which were professionally documented in the pre-internet era. It quintessentially opens with Townshend’s “Deep End” show from 1985 at Brixton Academy, featuring his esteemed peer David Gilmour of Pink Floyd as an audaciously billed guest guitarist. It continues by immortalizing his one and only full “Psychoderelict” solo tour, including a searing set from the Brooklyn Academy of Music in August 1993.

Follow Pete Townshend Online at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialPeteTownshend Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yaggerdang

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheWhoVEVO Website: https://www.thewho.com/

From there, the set showcases several holy grail events for Townshend enthusiasts - his fabled return to his old stomping grounds of Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 1998 after 30 years, his firstever proper live resuscitation of the “Lifehouse” project at two special multimedia-infused concerts at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre (typically home to ballet and modern dance) where portions of the piece were performed for the first time ever, and a reverential twonight stand at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego where he recreated his opus “Tommy” in full - the legendary 1969 rock opera that revolutionized the genre and kicked off his pioneering narrative storytelling and transcendent artistic ambition.

In expansive liner notes, Townshend reflects with his trademark candor and introspection on the monumental challenges and sacrifices required to mount these ambitious live tours parsing his vast catalog amidst the whirlwind commitments of his phenomenal work with The Who:

“I always have too much to do, too much responsibility, and not enough

time,” he writes. “I have to live enough life to provide me with inspiration and context for my songs, I have to then spend enough time in my home studio finessing songs so they feel worthy of my band (The Who), then I have to rerecord them with that band, then speak eloquently about them to the media, justifying my creative divergences, then I must tour endlessly behind the new music, continuing to celebrate the old stuff as well, and then start all over again. The idea that I would do all that for The Who and then do it for myself as well is simply plain insane. And yet for a while I tried. It didn’t go well. One career is enough.”

The son of a professional saxophonist and singer, Townshend was born into a musical family in Chiswick, West London in 1945. His life was irrevocably transformed after the family attended the 1956 film Rock Around the Clock, sparking his lifelong passion for rock ‘n’ roll. By his late teens, he had formed the progenitors of The Who in 1964 with former classmates John Entwistle and Keith Moon, quickly emerging as the

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Pete Townshend

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quartet’s principal songwriter, conceptual leader, and explosive lead guitarist renowned for his frenetic performance of channeling seemingly impossible torrents of sound from his Rickenbacker through sheer determination and bravado.

Over the next decade, Townshend cemented his status as one of the most ambitious, intelligent, and eloquent creative visionaries in rock. His artistic scope transcended the boundaries of the three-minute pop single form, culminating in his watershed 1969 masterpiece “Tommy” - the first album-length rock opera that revolutionized the idea of a album as thematic narrative story. He raised the artistic ambition even further with 1973’s”Quadrophenia,” a complex memoir of mid-1960s UK youth culture.

But Townshend’s pioneering artistic vision was just taking flight. The musically and thematically profound “Lifehouse” project from 1971 posited a grand multi-media rock opera concept involving a global grid and virtual reality technologies that eerily presaged the internet and multiple future innovationsideas lightyears ahead of the actual existing technology at the time. Though it ultimately remained unfinished, the”Lifehouse” songs were refashioned into the sublime 1971 Who album “Who’s Next,” housing immortal anthems like “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” and “Baba O’Riley.”

Through the 1970s and beyond, Townshend elevated the art form into realms yet unexplored, issuing acclaimed solo albums, working as an editor and author, pioneering multimedia experiments, and continuing to evolve his philosophical and spiritual inquiries into his music and art. His colossal 1985 solo piece “White City: A Novel” married a rock album to a written literary work.

According to longtime Townshend associate Matt Kent, who pens extensive new liner notes, “When Pete Townshend plays a solo show it isn’t just a concert, it is an EVENT. These CDs represent just how good these events are.” The premium packaging features new artwork, rare archival photos, a hardbound book, and more overdue celebratory ephemera surrounding these pivotal works.

With so many unique, seminal, and historically crucial full-concert performances from Townshend’s peak years of cosmic exploration finally resurrected and consolidated into an authoritative release, this revelatory box set is an indispensable document for generations to study and appreciate one of music’s most ambitious, uncompromising, and influential sonic pioneers and renaissance creators. An essential, museumquality collectible for diehard enthusiasts, “Pete Townshend Live In Concert 1985-2001” cements its subject’s hardearned place in the pantheon of our culture’s most boundless artistic visionaries. Electric)

PETE TOWNSHEND

LIVE IN CONCERT 1985-2001

14-CD SET / DIGITAL SET

RELEASED ON UMe JULY 26, 2024

AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW

DISC ONE: Brixton Academy 1 & 2

November 1985

Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand Won’t Get Fooled Again

A Little Is Enough

Secondhand Love

That’s Alright Mama Behind Blue Eyes

The Shout

Harlem Shuffle

Barefootin’

After The Fire Love On The Air

Midnight Lover

Blue Light

I Put A Spell On You

I’m One

DISC TWO: Brixton Academy 1 & 2

November 1985

Driftin’

Magic Bus

Save It For Later

Eyesight To The Blind

Walkin’

Stop Hurting People

The Sea Refuses No River

Boogie Stop Shuffle

Face The Face

Pinball Wizard

Give Blood Night Train

DISC THREE: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York 7 August 1993

Intro

English Boy

Meher Baba M3

Let’s Get Pretentious

Meher Baba M4 [Signal Box]

Early Morning Dreams

I Want That Thing

Intro : Outlive The Dinosaur

Outlive The Dinosaur

Gridlife

Flame [Demo]

Now And Then

I Am Afraid

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Pete Townshend

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Gridlife 2

Don’t Try To Make Me Real

Intro : Predictable

Predictable Flame

Meher Baba M5 [Vivaldi] Fake It

Intro : Now And Then [Reprise] Now And Then [Reprise]

Baba O’Riley [Demo]

English Boy [Reprise]

DISC FOUR: Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York 7 August 1993

Pinball Wizard / See Me Feel Me / Listening To You

Let My Love Open The Door

Rough Boys Behind Blue Eyes

The Kids Are Alright Keep Me Turning Eminence Front

A Little Is Enough You Better You Bet

Face The Face

Won’t Get Fooled Again / Let’s See Action

Magic Bus

DISC FIVE: Fillmore 30 April 1996

Let My Love Open The Door

English Boy

Drowned

The Shout

I Put A Spell On You

Cut My Hair

Sheraton Gibson

I’m One

Heart To Hang Onto

Parvardigar

A Legal Matter

DISC SIX: Fillmore 30 April 1996

A Friend Is A Friend

I Am An Animal

All Shall Be Well

Slit Skirts

Eyesight To The Blind

Driftin’ Blues

Now And Then

Rough Boys

I’m A Boy

Magic Bus

DISC SEVEN: The Empire 9 November 1998

On The Road Again

A Little Is Enough

Pinball Wizard

Drowned

Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere You Better You Bet

Behind Blue Eyes

Baby Don’t You Do It

English Boy

Three Steps To Heaven

Mary Anne With The Shaky Hand

Sheraton Gibson

Substitute

I Am An Animal

North Country Girl

DISC EIGHT: The Empire 9 November 1998

(She’s A) Sensation

A Friend Is A Friend

Now And Then

Let My Love Open The Door

Who Are You

The Kids Are Alright

Acid Queen

Won’t Get Fooled Again

Magic Bus

I’m One

DISC NINE: Live Sadler’s Wells 2000

Recorded live 25 & 26 February 2000

One Note

Purcell (Quick Movement)

Teenage Wasteland

TIme Is Passing

Love Ain’t For Keeping

Goin’ Mobile

Greyhound Girl

Tragedy

Mary

I Don’t Even Know Myself

Bargain

Gettin’ In Tune

Pure And Easy

Baba O’Riley - Orchestral

DISC TEN: Live Sadler’s Wells 2000

Recorded live 25 & 26 February 2000

Baba O’Riley

Hinterland Rag

Behind Blue Eyes

Let’s See Action

Sister Disco

Relay

Who Are You

Join Together

Won’t Get Fooled Again

Tragedy Explained

The Song Is Over

Can You Help The One You Really Love?

DISC ELEVEN: La Jolla Playhouse 22

June 2001

Pinball Wizard

Let My Love Open The Door

Heart To Hang Onto

Cut My Hair

Slit Skirts

Drowned

Greyhound Girl

Tattoo

The Sea Refuses No River

DISC TWELVE: La Jolla Playhouse 22

June 2001

Saint James Infirmary

Eminence Front

Won’t Get Fooled Again

Behind Blue Eyes

Won’t Get Fooled Again (Electric)

DISC THIRTEEN: La Jolla Playhouse 23 June 2001

Pinball Wizard

Let My Love Open The Door

Heart To Hang Onto

Cut My Hair

Slit Skirts

Drowned

Greyhound Girl

Tattoo

Collings

Eminence Front

DISC FOURTEEN: La Jolla Playhouse 23 June 2001

Sheraton Gibson

Won’t Get Fooled Again

I’m One

Behind Blue Eyes

Driftin’ Blues

Eyesight To The Blind

Won’t Get Fooled Again (Electric)

The Biker, The Blues & Hippie Fest

I had just pulled out of Buffalo New York on interstate 90 heading for Ann Arbor Michigan. Ann Arbor because it was summer time and Michigan in the summer can be cool. Maybe not cool in the sense of the weather so much but cool none the less. In Buffalo I had seen Chris Gardner and the band perform and was moving along down to Erie Pa where I would see bluesman and now state representative Jake Banta perform. Both events were right in there and now I was tooling along on 90 doing my thing. It was time to stop for some gas, check the oil and stretch my legs so I hit an exit figuring I would hit a truck stop close by. The exit was labeled 6N south of Erie and there was a truck stop there ok but it was closed down. I went a little further up the road thinking there would be another one but no luck. However my kidneys were letting me know that truck stop or not it was time to stop. I saw another road coming up and took it. No one was on it so I wheeled over and did my thing. I turned the bike back around and when you are running ten over tubes with a ten degree rake on the tree plus a 45 degree rake on the neck of the bike well this can be a bit arduous to say the least. Now I was headed back to 6N and when I got there a woman was hitchhiking and wearing a nice smile. Well what’s a man to do? After all Mother always said be nice to strangers. You don’t always know the reactions of people when you pull up on a rig like mine but she was more than cool about it so all was ok in that department. I asked her if she wanted a lift out to interstate 90 and she said ya that would be nice. Then as I stepped off to bungee cord her bag to the front tubes she asked where I was going. I told her Ann Arber Michigan. I keep a small pea pad inside my sleeping bag that actually has suction cups on it that is perfect for situations like this and I put it on the rear fender. I got on the bike and she got on behind me. It wasn’t until then that I thought about her having ID with her. I mean trust me when an officer in blue sees a chopper, a guy with a beard hauling a nice young thing well like I say trust me I am going to get stopped. I asked her about an ID and she not only said yes but pulled it out of her back pocket. The ride out to 90 was short and I stopped at the junction and asked which side of 90 she wanted to hitch on she said west to Cleveland. When we got to other side I entered the entrance ramp and pulled off to the right. Even before we got off she asked if I would mind if she road a bit further with me and of course being the gentleman I am I said well of course. Well what would you have said? So here I was packing this precious cargo headed for Ann Arbor. Cleveland was about ninety miles

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The Biker, The Blues & Hippie FestPage 2

down the road and as we left the Pennsylvania line I spotted a state patrol car coming up. Interesting enough he didn’t stop us, that was cool. Next we entered into Ohio and had just passed the exit for Ashtabula and an Ohio State Trooper was inquisitive and his lights came on. Nice guy though, standard traffic stop, he ran our IDs and my bike registration and was personable about it. His only question was were we carrying any drugs and I thought ok here it comes, a tear down. But we both said nope and surprisingly he said ok and let us go on our way. That’s rare ladies and gentlemen, very rare. As we entered into the northern suburbs of Cleveland (Euclid Ohio) I took the exit as my hunger alarm had went off and this was probably a good place to drop of the cargo I was carrying. I pulled up to a café that was close to a gas station and shut off the bike. Nice big window so we could see the bike and our stuff that was cinched to the front tubes. I asked her if she wanted dropped here or on the other side of Cleveland. She told me with a smile that Michigan sounded nice. I smiled back and said yes but you got to know that the little seat and no springs on the frame can become uncomfortable fast. She said ok but what about just riding until that happens? I said fair enough and that was settled. I asked her if she was running away and she said no just being adventurous over the summer. She went on to say that she was a writer and I found that amusing. I mean if she only knew that I wrote for Rock and Blues International Magazine but why tell her now? She packed with me all the way to Toledo about two and a half hours away from the restaurant. Once there I told her I was going to stay somewhere near the junction that leads north into Ann Arbor and travel it in the morning. I didn’t want to arrive into the city at dusk and try to find a motel. She agreed. Now nothing that you might think could have come together at the motel did not just so you know. However, we both got our rooms and me well as usual I settled in with a motel room chair out in front of the room with my cigar, scotch and headphones. In a little while Susan was her name came walking my way and said she ordered in pizza, enough for two. I went inside without saying a thing other than giving a complimentary nod and brought out another chair. I went back inside and came out with a portable boom speaker. If she wanted a beverage she was on her own so she made way for the Coke machine up front. When she returned I guess it became question and answer time. I asked her what her favorite genre was and she said she didn’t know all the choices but she liked Taylor Swift and Katy Perry. Well folks that is a long way from what this guy has on his iPhone and so I just played what I would have played anyway. I started out with Janis Joplin because I was on my way to the land of some of the original hippies in the U.S. Ann Arbor Michigan. In the morning we

The Biker, The Blues & Hippie Fest -

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met up and hitched our gear to the front tubes and off we went to Ann Arbor about an hour and a half ride. Now what was cool is that about two thirds into it we stopped for gas and there was this VW bus tricked up with colorful graphics with girls going to what they said was known as Hippie Fest. They described it to us and we looked it up on our phones. Absolutely, positively one cool line up of summer festivals in various cities. The next one was going to be in Trufant Michigan. How cool is that? Fate at work. After Susan talked with them for a while she came and let me know that she was going to go with them and so I unhooked her bag and gave it to her. She gave me a hug and a smooch on the cheek like your grandmother does and then she was gone. The woman is definitely a free spirit and if anyone can respect that it would be me with this nomadic instinct alive within. So off to Ann Arbor and maybe some good music and a bar full of peaceful people. Yet this fest stayed on my mind. I was curious, how far was Trufant Michigan from Ann Arbor? About three hours at most and there was plenty of daylight so why not? Can you imagine going back in time to a hippie get together, to a portable commune? One that travels the country over the summer. Well I was curious and I must say I was not disappointed. I am telling you man get out and see America. There are still millions of real people, caring people that are everyday folks with interesting lives. “C’mon now people and smile on your brother, everybody get together and love one another right now” Well I arrived and it was like going back to the sixties complete with the sounds of the time and the peaceful loving people of the era. There were tye dyed shirts everywhere, funnel cakes, booths with spirit rocks for sale even bell bottom pants and hand made moccasins. The people were over the top cool. I had entered into a time machine and hundreds if not a thousand like minds there. The next one is in early August in Ohio then later that month in Omaha and finally in September Indiana. If you are young and never experienced such a festival trust me do it and you will understand why so many older adults still talk about the sixties and early seventies. If you have indeed experienced a festival like this in your past oh man this is like going back but without the mushrooms. Stress is a killer, after all what you are working for to pay the mortgage? No it’s about being at peace and being happy. Do yourself a favor and remain ever young. You are only here for so long and if not now, then when? Peace….