Don’t miss Special Interview with legend:
Manson The Pale Emperor
By Brian Ives “I don’t think interviews [are] anyone’s favorite part of being a musician,” Slash said, as he entered the Radio. com studio in New York for, well, an interview. Slash wasm here to promote World On Fire, his recently released third solo album and second with backing band Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. It may be true that many artists aren’t fans of interviews, but the iconic guitarist can be particularly shy, as evidenced by the fact that he’s frequently hidden behind an explosion of curly hair, often paired with a top hat and usually shades as well. But when reminded that he’d had a good experience with Radio.com when he was promoting his last album, and after promising not to bring up the names Paul Stanley (who aired a decades-old beef with Slash in his recent memoir Face the Music) or Axl Rose (what else is left to say, anyway?), he relaxed. And once we got going, he was even downright happy to talk, opening up about his current band, his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Guns N’ Roses in 2012, the future of Velvet Revolver and the state of rock ‘n’ roll in 2014. Radio.com: You introduced your new album with edgy, NSFW lyric video for “World on Fire,” which has an element of danger that most music videos don’t have. Slash: The director sent me a treatment, and I was like, “That’s more involved than just putting the lyrics on the screen.” It was a one day shoot in his house. I’m really sick of the standard issue video these days. I was really happy with it. Someone asked, ‘Why is it so tacky?” Well, that’s the beauty of it. We definitely pushed the envelope on that one. I’m glad we’re not trying to get it on MTV. She’s having sex with a hood ornament!” The video struck me as something Guns N’ Roses would have done. You don’t really see that element of danger in rock music today. One of the things about rock ‘n’ roll at this particular point is that it has become very safe and predictable. I miss that element of pushing the envelope. But at the same time, in other genres, I have seen that. There’s a Lil’ Jon video [“Turn Down For What,” with DJ Snake], it’s the most hardcore, suggestive video… it’s beyond suggestive. Do you think rock ‘n’ roll will get less safe at some point? I think maybe we’re in a time right now where something like that will happen, there will be some new
2
young band that’s gonna stick it’s middle finger up the a– of the music business and be the voice of the people and bring rock back in that way. It’s hard to know how it will happen. But it will. The thing is, we’ve seen everything. And you think nothing’s going to shock anybody anymore. You don’t want to be the band sitting around trying to figure out how to get noticed. That’s wrong. You have to get noticed because what you do naturally is just against the grain enough that people will go, “Oh my God, what is that?” But so much stuff is acceptable now that wasn’t ten years ago. A lot of artists are just concerned with being in the public eye. Surely you’ve been asked to be on a reality show. A bunch of times. I think, “Why would you think I would do that? You’ve got to be f—in’ kidding me!” I did do a mentorship on American Idol, which at the time, I didn’t want to do. But they told me I could do it my way, so I said OK, and it was an interesting experience. But I don’t really subscribe to the whole talent contest thing. You’ve been with your current band (Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators) since you started touring for your self-titled album in 2010. When did it start to feel like a band? It really started to feel like a band in that first week of rehearsal in 2010, when I first started working with these guys. There was a great enthusiasm, these guys have great rock ‘n’ roll chops. It’s just been getting better and better ever since, and I think it shows in the difference in the two records we’ve done since [2012’s Apocalyptic Love and the new World on Fire]. Now we have a comfort level and familiarity with each other, but the spark has been there since the beginning. Once we started touring, it became clear to me that if I made a new record, it would make sense to do it with these guys. And it took on a life of its own from that point. Obviously, you had quite a history at that point, between Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver. Did you get the sense that any of the guys in your band were fans? Were they geeking out? Nobody talked about it. What was really funny was that later on, it became clear to me that [bassist] Todd [Kern] is a phenomenal singer. Initially, I didn’t know that. At some point, I got wind of the fact that he had been in a cover band that was able to play all of Guns N’ Roses’ songs, and that was sort of funny. So I started picking him to play certain Guns N’ Roses songs that Myles didn’t necessarily want to sing.
I saw the first date on your summer tour with Aerosmith. Myles does not have an easy job: Besides singing songs that Axl and Weiland made famous, you threw in “Ghost” from 2010, sung by Ian Astbury of the Cult, another pretty distinct and well-loved singer. When we first went on tour, I wanted to do songs from my back catalog and also songs from my then-new album, which had a diverse group of singers. But I had this gut feeling that Myles would be able to pull it off. It was a good hunch. A lot of people may have learned that when they saw HBO’s broadcast of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony from 2012, when Myles filled in for Axl during Guns N’ Roses’ performance. I think a lot of fans were sold on Myles after that. I never even thought of it that way. I never saw the performance on TV, I never watched it. There was a point where none of us were planning on being at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the eleventh hour, Duff [McKagan] and I decided, we should really go. I said, “Duff, why don’t you sing, we’ll do ‘It’s So Easy.’” And he said, “What about Myles?” I asked Myles and he was like, “No, I don’t wanna do that.” I was like, “I get it, I just had to ask.” But then, early the next morning, he said, “You know what? I will do it.” And it worked out. If Guns N’ Roses was your “act one,” and Velvet Revolver your “act two,” you’re now a few years into “act three.” Not many people get and act two or three. But you’re starting to accumulate a pretty big solo catalog. It’s nice to have songs that you’re doing currently that people are excited to hear so you don’t have to just lean
on your past. There’s some feeling of accomplishment that the new material is doing what it’s supposed to do. It was pretty gracious of you start calling the group “Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators.” When I did the solo record with all the different singers, it was literally a Slash record, because there was no “band.” But when I started working with Myles, the first thing I did was introduce his name, because you want to know who the singer is, regardless of how famous the guitarist is. Not too long after that, I thought I had to give a name to the rhythm section, and so when we did Apocolyptic Love, that’s when we put the name “and the Conspirators” in. Finally, people want to know about Velvet Revolver. Is it still an ongoing concern, is there any future for the band? The Velvet thing, a lot of people are asking. It’s been very active, under the radar. Nothing has happened, as far as getting a new singer, so there’s nothing really to talk about. But there is activity going on. At some point, the right guy’s gonna walk in the door, and at that point, we’re going to make another Velvet record. We made some cool music with Scott [Weiland], but it was really, really hard to keep it together with that lineup. I imagine you have some empathy for the various problems he’s experienced, but I guess that empathy has to end somewhere. When you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face, there’s a point where you either have to get it together or, we’re not going to suffer through that.
http://radio.com/2014/10/14/interview-slash-new-solo-album-velvetrevolver-the-state-of-rock-n-roll/
3
The Pale Emperor Marilyn Manson hones his dark magic for his best, most twisted alt-rock party in years In 2008, Journey introduced a new singer to the world, Arnel Pineda, with the release of their 14th studio album (“Revelation”) and an extraordinarily successful world tour. It was the latest chapter in a rock ‘n’ roll saga that started more than 35 years ago and has produced some of the best-known rock songs of the 1970s and ‘80s. More than a million fans have seen Journey on tour since 2008 with Pineda as lead singer. After seven months on the road with Journey, Pineda told the media in Asia, “This is the best job in the world and as long as my band mates will let me rock with them, I will keep singing with Journey.” http://www.coliseodepuertorico.com/en/events/ detail/journey-1
4
Back in the Nineties, Marilyn Manson sold a lot of records and scared a lot of parents by playing Alice Cooper shockrocker at the goth pity party. With his Methy the Clown fashion sense, lyrics like “I am totalitarian/I’ve got abortions in my eyes” and industrial-metal sound, Manson terrorized Christian politicians and tasteful music fans alike. He hit his high point with the android glam of 1998’s Mechanical Animals, moaning, “We’re all stars now in the dope show,” over music that sounded like David Bowie being sucked down a trash compactor. But in the 2000s, the dope show got a little too dope even for him. It’s tough to be an Antichrist Superstar in an era when the Internet and cable TV routinely find new ways to freak us out. SIDEBAR Marilyn Manson Marilyn Manson: The Vampire of the Hollywood Hills » No one knows this better than Manson
MSRP$1,299.00 Your Savings-$400.00 Your Price$899.00 Shipping (48 Contiguous U.S. States)FREE
himself, who’s spent most of the past 15 years moving toward earthier music that tries to hold a mirror up to his decadent persona. Meanwhile, he’s become an L.A. fixture and small-part TV actor on shows like Californication and Sons of Anarchy. On The Pale Emperor, Manson puts himself forward as a sort of trash-culture elder statesman, a freak of wealth and taste – “the Mephistopheles of Los Angeles,” as he dubs himself on one pounding track. It’s not always an easy sell, but this is the grabbiest music he’s made since 2000’s proggy Holy Wood. Manson wrote these songs with producer Tyler Bates, a movie and video-game composer whose résumé includes plenty of action and horror flicks. The music has a kind of sweeping creepiness that reflects that background. But it’s usually pretty grungy, like Nirvana at their blankest or the Doors pulling an all-nighter in Trent Reznor’s dungeon. The album opens with “Killing Strangers,” a zombified blues crawl with a rustyhinge riff: “We got guns, you better run,” he sings, dredging up memories of the days when right-wing scolds laughably blamed him for the Columbine massacre. Next up is the walloping “Deep Six,” a black-clad dance-club banger with Manson working out his Vincent Price baritone as he blathers about Zeus and Narcissus. Lyrically, Manson plays with all the old themes – power, torture, drugs, sex and violence, dependency and emptiness. But the artist who once called himself
a “hand grenade that never stopped exploding” is more focused. The torrid “Slave Only Dreams to Be King” seems to be a genuinely felt song about physical and emotional abuse. Glowering atop the heathen stomp of “The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles,” Manson seems to be talking to either an imagined talkshow interviewer or perhaps his shrink: “I don’t know if I can open up/I’m not a birthday present.” What emerges is a classier record than you might expect from Manson – and one that still manages to be the kind of old-fashioned alt-rock tantrum no one bothers throwing these days. “I got the devil beneath my feet,” he sings, belting out the chorus of one of the album’s best songs, which sounds like a beach party on the River Styx. For once, you can believe the Dark Lord is happy to have him along for the ride.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/marilyn-manson-the-pale-emperor-20150120#ixzz3Q4xdu1T6
5
Alice Cooper Joins Foo Fighters On Stage Dave Grohl was joined by a host of stars for his birthday celebrations at the weekend. Alice Cooper was amongst the special guests that appeared with Foo Fighters at the Forum in Los Angeles on Saturday night, January 10th. The Foos performed ‘I’m Eighteen’ and ‘School’s Out’ with Alice, while Slash and Tenacious D joined the band for a rendition of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Immigrant Song’.
Led Zeppelin Announce Physical Graffiti Deluxe Edition
As well as being a celebration of Dave Grohl’s upcoming 46th birthday, the event was also organised to benefit the Rock School Scholarship Physical Graffiti is being re-isFund, MusiCares and Sweet Relief sued for its 40th anniversary. charities. As with the previous re-issues last Other onstage guests included Da- year, the record has been newly vid Lee Roth, Trombone Shorty, Joe remastered by Jimmy Page and Walsh, Perry Farrell, Zakk Wylde, features a companion disc of 7 Nick Oliveri and Paul Stanley. unreleased tracks tracing the development of this landmark alhttp://www.planetrock.com/news/rock- bum. news/alice-cooper-and-more-join-foofighters-on-stage/
6
The companion disc includes ‘Ev-
erybody Makes It Through’, an early version of ‘In The Light’ with alternate lyrics and a ‘Rough Orchestra Mix’ of ‘Kashmir’ under the song’s original title ‘Driving Through Kashmir’. Physical Graffiti will be available February 23rd from Atlantic/Swan Song in the following formats: - Double CD – Remastered album packaged in a replica of the original LP jacket. - Deluxe Edition (3CD) – Remastered album on two discs, plus a third disc of unreleased companion audio. - Double LP – Remastered album on 180-gram vinyl, packaged in a sleeve that replicates the LP’s first pressing in exacting detail. - Deluxe Edition Vinyl (3LP) – Remastered album and unreleased companion audio on 180-gram vinyl. - Digital Download – Remastered album and companion audio will both be available in standard and high-definition formats. - Super Deluxe Boxed Set – This collection includes: Remastered double album on CD in vinyl replica sleeve. Companion audio on CD in card wallet featuring new alternate cover
art. Remastered double album on 180gram vinyl in a sleeve replicating first pressing. Companion audio on 180-gram vinyl in a sleeve with new alternate cover art. High-definition audio download card of all content at 96kHz/24 bit. Hard bound, 96 page book filled with rare and previously unseen photos and memorabilia. High-quality print of the original album cover, the first 30,000 of which will be individually numbered. After its original release, Physical Graffiti was certified 16x platinum in the U.S., and is regarded by many as one of the greatest double-albums of all time.
YOUR ADD HERE!! 7