February 2015 issue 206
Features 35 2015 – The Ultimate Preview
Whether it’s re-formation, resurrection or retirement, an album release or a tour or more, we take a look at what the next 12 months have in store for…
36 Queen + Adam Lambert
On the eve of a sold-out tour, the royal family’s Brian May and Roger Taylor and crown prince Adam Lambert explain why they’re keeping Queen’s legacy alive.
42 Def Leppard
Yorkshire heroes to return with ‘surprise’ new LP.
44 Von Hertzen Brothers
Finnish prog’s first family promise a new album that shuns epic 12-minute songs in favour of ‘straightforward rock’.
46 The Darkness
Massacres, pillaging and brutal ‘medi-urban’ rock, from Suffolk’s finest.
48 Mötley Crüe
Nikki Sixx looks ahead to the band’s final days.
50 Steven Wilson
Enigmatic ‘auteur’ completes fourth solo LP – contemporary concept and ‘lonely Swedes’ included. Plus what’s coming up in 2015 from Halestorm, Clutch, Europe, Santana, Blackberry Smoke, Scorpions, Metallica, Alice Cooper, Turbowolf, Deaf Havana and more….
56 Ian McLagan
Ian Fortnam writes a personal tribute to the late, great Small Faces and Faces keyboard player.
60 Marilyn Manson
With TV stardom and a new album, the ‘Mephistopheles of Los Angeles’ is back from the dead.
64 Canned Heat
They came, they saw, they boogied… and then they died. This is the tragic story of Alan ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson and Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite .
cover story
Neal Preston (c) Queen Productions Ltd
36
Queen + Adam Lambert
“After Freddie we said: ‘That’s the end.’ But Queen just didn’t seem to die.”
70 King Crimson
With an eye on 2015 the unpeggable leader looks back to collaborations with Bowie and Eno, and where it all started to go right again for the ‘prog rock pond scum’.
74 Jarekus Singleton
For the former basketball prodigy, an injury wrecked his dreams. Now he has his sights on slam-dunking the blues.
76 David Bowie
With Mick Ronson at his side and Marc Bolan in the front row, we go inside the gig that invented glam rock – two years before Ziggy Stardust.
80 Chris Whitley
Fame eluded him, but he twisted the blues into strange new shapes in the 90s – only to be tragically cut down in his prime.
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Regulars
February 2015 issue 206
16 The Dirt
New bands/artists to watch out for in 2015, more additions to the Ramblin’ Man festival, Kid Rock rocks back with new album… say hello to Rival State and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, welcome back Howlin’ Rain, The Waterboys and The Saints; goodnight Ian McLagan, Bobby Keys, Clive Palmer…
25 Raw Power
Gibson update one of their classic six-string designs with the Lzzy Hale signature Explorer.
30 The Stories Behind The Songs Dave Davies
The one-time Dave The Rave explains how his disenchantment with Swinging Sixties culture spawned his unlikely solo hit, Death Of A Clown, outside the confines of The Kinks.
32 Q&A Bob Seger
The veteran singer-songwriter talks new albums, retirement plans and why he listens to hip-hop but never jazz.
88 Letters
Got something to say? Let us hear it – shout it out loud!
93 Reviews
New albums from Howlin Rain’, Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid, Neil Young, Iron Maiden, Sepultura, Tony Wright, Peter Hammill, Moody Blues … Reissues from Supertramp, Kiss, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ruts DC, It Bites, The Temperance Movement, Yes… DVDs, films and books on Joe Perry, Metallica, The Doors, John Otway, Neil Young… Live reviews of Slash, The Pineapple Thief, Bryan Adams, Blues Pills, Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus And Mary Chain…
106 Buyer’s Guide Survivor
Mainstream success was followed by years on the ropes until a recent resurgence, cut short by the death of Jimi Jamison.
111 Lives previews
Gig previews from Nils Lofgren, the Moody Blues and From The Jam, plus full listings – who’s playing where and when.
138 Heavy Load Joe Perry
The Aerosmith man tackles some tricky questions and talks about drugs, Ebola and coming back as a porpoise.
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“It was really just the most depressing night of our lives. Nobody even looked at the stage.”
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ur, of a sold-out to ve e e th n o t u B . Freddie Mercury and crown prince You can’t replace Brian May and Roger Taylor nd’s legacy alive. a ’s the royal family lain why they’re keeping the b xp e n aits: Ross Halfi Adam Lambert ck Hasted Portr Words: Ni
“M
y songs are like Bic razors,” Freddie Mercury declared in Queen’s early days. “For fun, for modern consumption. You listen to it, like it, discard it. Disposable pop.” But 23 years after his death, his band’s latest album is called Queen Forever. And that band’s two remaining members, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, concede that for them the title is true. “I understand people who say: ‘There is no Queen without Freddie. Just leave it be,’” Taylor admits, “because that’s what we felt, following his death. All three of us said: ‘Right, that’s the end of the band.’ But the band just didn’t seem to die.” May now believes that trying to lay Queen to rest with its singer was doomed from the start. “Even though both Roger and I were adamant it was over, it never went away.” The Queen machine has been cranked into its highest gear for almost a decade during the past 12 months. Queen Forever reworks three forgotten Mercury vocal tracks, alongside a collection of mostly neglected ballads, intended to reactivate interest in their catalogue’s deep backwaters. Queen were added to Classic Rock’s Roll Of Honour as Band Of The Year, after triumphant tours of the USA, Far East and Australia with new singer Adam Lambert. In the US especially, a relative wasteland for Queen since the 80s, Lambert’s flamboyant performances and solo stardom since contesting American Idol in 2009 (when he first performed with Queen) has helped raise them to new heights. May and Taylor still have regular Queen band meetings. When they and Lambert speak to CR they are in the peculiar position of preparing to go back out on the road for Queen + Adam Lambert’s first full European tour, while curating their late singer’s legacy in Queen Forever. It’s an odd afterlife which began with 1995’s posthumously finished album with Mercury, Made In Heaven, continued with four tours and 2008’s now virtually disowned album with vocalist Paul Rodgers, The Cosmos Rocks, and shows no signs of ever stopping. Queen’s classic songs keep gaining
new leases of life. But, as May and Taylor admit, they don’t expect anything they do now to equal their music with Mercury.
B
rian May, sleepy after a trip to Paris, calls Classic Rock on the phone, as does Lambert. Taylor meets us in his home studio, a stone’s throw from the pub and golf club of a sleepy Surrey village. His mansion and the South Downs can both be glimpsed through the trees. Tracksuit-casual, his hair and beard white, Queen’s drummer is the most bluntly forthright about their future in 2015. And he can’t raise much enthusiasm for Queen Forever, for a start. “I was very pleased we had three new tracks to put on it, which we laboured long and hard over,” he says. “As well as the Michael Jackson track There Must Be More To Life Than This, there is another song Freddie did with him called State of Shock [later recorded with the Jacksons and Mick Jagger], with a massive rock sound. But we could only have one track with Michael, which is a great shame. Let Me In Your Heart Again is absolutely typical mid-period Queen. And it was Brian’s idea to revisit Love Kills, which I feel works. But apart from that it is a rather odd mixture of our slower stuff. I didn’t want the double-album version they’ve put out. It’s an awful lot for people to take in, and it’s bloody miserable! I wouldn’t call it an album, either. It’s a compilation with three new tracks. It’s more of a record company confection. It’s not a full-blooded Queen album.” “I can understand Roger’s reticence,” May laughs. “He’s not really a ballad writer, so this album’s not really representative of Roger Taylor. It actually wasn’t our idea. If it had been down to me it would have been an EP of these new songs, but we’d already promised the record company some kind of compilation.” May still had strong feelings, hearing Mercury’s voice again on the rediscovered tapes. “There’s always a moment,” he says. “Particularly with Let Me In Your Heart Again. When I put the original tape on, it was so astonishingly real, like it had been recorded that morning. I got quite emotional about the way ➻
“After Freddie we said: ‘That’s the end.’ But Queen just didn’t seem to die.”
Queen + Adam Lambert, shot exclusively for Classic Rock, London, November 30, 2014.
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2 x getty
Hot stuff: Canned Heat, circa 1968 (l-r) Alan Wilson, Bob Hite, Henry Vestine, Adolfo de la Parra, Larry Taylor.
It’s an insane, tragic story of booze, barbiturates and banditos. Meet Canned Heat, the badass blues band that refused to die. idnight is approaching in LA, and outside the Palomino Club in North Hollywood, the members of Canned Heat and their entourage are kicking back in the yard. It’s April 4, 1981. The band have just finished their first set of the night, and are passing joints around before they return to the stage for round two. The Heat’s glory days are long behind them. Back in the day, they were one of the biggest and best American bands around; an electrifying, boogiefied update of the blues dressed in filthy dungarees and biker boots. As the 60s neared its close and the Age Of Aquarius was in full swing, Canned Heat were singing about Going Up The Country or being On The Road Again. Weird times. Good times. It’s not like that any more. In truth, the Canned Heat of 1981 aren’t the band they used to be. They haven’t been since September 1970, when Alan ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson – guitarist, co-founder and the band’s beating musical heart – died in mysterious circumstances near their lead singer’s house. Despite it all, the Heat still know how to have a good time if nothing else. There’s a maniacal crew gathered around them: outlaws, banditos, Hells Angels, hangers-on…. At the centre of it is their vocalist and harmonica player, Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite. With his scraped-back black ponytail and gutlength beard, the 38-year-old is 300lbs of Californian gregariousness and pharmaceutical fearlessness. The Bear is already sky-high. Before the show, he and his wife Susan, another hopeless drug
Words: Max Bell
Steady on, girls: Alan ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson (left) and Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite.
addict and alcoholic, had injected a gram of cocaine apiece before scouring their ramshackle apartment for anything else they could ingest to numb the pain. In the Palomino’s yard, a man who will later be identified as a former Israeli tank commander sidles up to Hite. The Israeli is carrying smack – pink Persian gear that is not to be trifled with. He pulls out a vial and offers the singer a little taste. The Bear is famous for accepting anything that’s thrust under his nose or stuffed into his mouth, so this is nothing unusual. But Canned Heat’s drummer Adolfo ‘Fito’ de la Parra (aka Ojos de Gatos, or Cat’s Eyes – all the band have their own nicknames) recognises the Israeli and is concerned. “Careful bro,” Fito warns his bandmate. “His trash is strong.” The Bear brushes off his bandmate’s advice. “This shit ain’t even gonna get me high,” he boasts. Hite doesn’t take a little taste of the smack. Instead, he grabs the vial and snorts up its entire contents. Within seconds, all 300lbs of Bob Hite is crashing to the floor. He begins turning blue, the first sign of an OD. Someone tries to revive him with two huge lines of coke. Like a junkie on autopilot, The Bear manages to snort them both, but remains unconscious. Canned Heat leave their comatose singer in the dressing room before resuming their show. They’ve seen him in this state before. Years of outrageous chemical abuse, junk food and morbid obesity have taken their toll on The Bear. This isn’t the first time he’s collapsed, and his bandmates assume it won’t be the last. But this time it’s different. What no one knows is that The Bear’s heart has stopped. Before the band takes the stage, someone suggests they move the singer. The last Fito sees of his friend is him being dragged through the dirt by his ankles. ➻
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