Loverboy out to start a 'Rock 'N' Roll Revival'


Canadian rockers took the world by storm in the '80s
By Peter Lindblad
Loverboy in 2012
To this day, amassing a boatload of Juno Awards, as Loverboy did in the ‘80s, certainly gives Mike Reno a great sense of achievement. And seeing all those gold and platinum record awards that line the walls of his home studio has to be incredibly gratifying.
But there is another trophy sitting in his office from the good old days that Reno treasures above the rest, and the singer swells with pride every time it catches his eye.
“It’s a crystal piece made by Tiffany’s, and it comes in a leather case that opens. It’s a handmade leather case, and it’s about the size of a bottle of Crown Royal … you know, in the box,” explains Reno. “And inside is a Crystal Globe Award [from Columbia Records]. It was given to us on the top floor of the penthouse apartment at the Chrysler Building in Manhattan years ago, when Loverboy sold multi-millions of records outside of its own country.”
Not many people can claim they have one, but Reno does, and Loverboy was the first Canadian act to ever receive one. “There was only three or four of them ever given for people that sold international stuff,” continued Reno. “So we were a Canadian band that sold so many records outside of Canada that we were given the Crystal Globe Award for selling over five million [copies] of one record outside of our own country. That was a huge honor, the highest on the totem pole.”
While it’s highly unlikely Loverboy will ever move such an enormous number of units again, given the state of the music industry and radio’s aversion to playing new music from classic rock bands, Reno and company aren’t throwing in the towel just yet.
On Aug. 14, Loverboy’s new album, Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival, will drop via Frontiers Records. An invigorating blast of recently recorded live versions of Loverboy classics – minus the crowd noise but still bristling youthful energy – and three infectious new recordings boasting the kind of big, juicy hooks and irresistible melodies that made them arena-rock heroes, Rock ‘N’ Revival finds Loverboy feeling a bit nostalgic.
Anxious to revisit past triumphs with an old friend, producer Bob Rock, Loverboy turns “No Tomorrow” and “Heartbreaker” loose on curmudgeonly critics who’ve already written them off as dinosaurs lost in a world that’s passed them by. Reno isn’t conceding anything, and it’s Loverboy’s adherence to its tried-and-true recording process that’s going to win the day for them.
“When we record, we don’t do a whole lot of overdubs. When you hear the keyboards, it’s a part,” says Reno. “The keyboards played a counterpart to the guitar, so the ‘na na na na na nu nah,’ keyboard, keyboard, keyboard, beat … ‘na na na na na nu nah,’ keyboard, keyboard … it’s kind of what we started doing years ago, and it’s kind of what we do. So when Doug (Johnson) gets done on keyboards, he’s going to play that, and then Paul’s going to write a part to fit where the hole is, and the bass is going to chug along really, really cool with the drums, and our drummer [Matt Frenette] is insane. He can play the most insane, high-energy stuff, and then I kind of do this piercing tenor, and I just stay right in this pocket.”
Rock, it seems, is as happy as can be to be working with Loverboy again. Though he’s known for his production work with the likes of Metallica, Aerosmith, The Cult and … (gulp!) Michael Buble, among others, Rock made his bones as an engineer working alongside the band and Bruce Fairbairn on blockbuster Loverboy albums like Get Lucky, Keep it Up and Lovin’ Every Minute of It.
Of Loverboy’s latest studio efforts, Reno says of Rock, “He was so into it, he left the control room, and came out where we were doing the track and he put on the headphones and he was like one of the band,” said Reno. “He was rockin’. He put a guitar on, and he’s just standing there rockin’ and he’s looking around. And then after we ran through it a few times, he went, ‘We’ve got it. That’s it. That’s the energy I was looking for.’ And he said, ‘I don’t get that anymore. Everybody records one track at a time nowadays.’ He said, ‘It’s such a pleasure to work with Loverboy again ‘cause I remember how you guys record originally.’”   
Recapturing the studio magic of the past is one thing. It remains to be seen whether or not that translates into the kind of mind-blowing album sales Loverboy once experienced.

Ground Zero
Recently, Loverboy went back to where it all began, the Refinery Night Club in Calgary, Alberta, to perform for a gas and oil company. Being so close to ground zero, the memories came flooding back to Reno.
“They put us in a hotel that was a half a block from where the Refinery used to be, and I went down there and I stood there, and I went, ‘Holy sh*t. This is where it all started,’” said Reno.
One frigid night in 1979, Reno found himself at the Refinery, a venue that played host to numerous international rock acts back then. Owned by Paul Blair, future manager of Loverboy, the Refinery was a place where starving rock hopefuls like Reno used to go to “get in on a free dinner.” Sated by the meal and the show he’d seen, Reno left through the back door. Outside, he heard sounds coming from an abandoned bus repair shop nearby and with some trepidation, Reno decided to investigate. It was Paul Dean playing guitar into a tape recorder.
After introducing themselves, Reno and Dean talked. As it turned out, Dean had just been let go from his band Streetheart. “They’d canned him for asking too many questions about where all the money was going and why can’t we get paid every once in a while, so the band canned him over the phone,” recalls Reno.
As the conversation continued, Reno could see that Dean “was at a low point in his life.” As for Reno, he’d just quit a band in Ontario. “I was coming across Canada to drop my girlfriend off in Calgary to finish her master’s degree at the university there,” he added, “and I was going to go visit my brother in California. So, it was one of those kinds of times in our lives where our paths just crossed. I was looking for something to do. He was obviously looking for something to do, and we were both in that mood where, ‘I don’t want to get involved with another band, but I’ll sit here and write some songs if you want.’ That’s how we did it for a while. We didn’t make any commitments to each other. We just said, ‘Let’s write some songs, and let’s see what happens.’ And that’s how it started right there. And it was on the way home from the Refinery that night, and Lou Blair was one of Paul Dean’s best friends, and he was kind of a business guy, and Paul was a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player and songwriter. And so was I, so the three of us got things started as a little team. Lou was going to manage us, and we were going to write songs, and then we kind of met guys. We met Doug Johnson. He was in Calgary. And then everything kind of started from there. So that’s really how it started.”
Almost immediately, Dean and Reno – who chose the name Loverboy while looking at the fashion magazines their girlfriends were reading when they were all gathered together to watch movies, with Reno thinking it would get “kind of a rise” out of people – discovered they had a songwriting chemistry that would take them far. In fact, one of their early jam sessions bore fruit in the form of “Turn Me Loose,” one of those fist-pumping, powerhouse anthems Loverboy seemed to produce at will in the’80s.
“I started off writing that song on a bass actually,” admits Reno. “I’m actually a drummer, and drummers and bass guitarists kind of go hand-in-hand. They work the bottom end of the groove. So, we had some people drop by. It was kind of a good time for music in Canada – everybody was playing music. There were concerts and clubs everywhere, and bar bands. So music was everywhere, and there were bands playing everywhere. We used to snag a guy if he was on his way home … ‘cause we’d stay up late. If a band would finish playing let’s say at the Refinery, a couple guys would walk over and we’d say, ‘Can you sit on the drums for a couple minutes? Mike wants to play this lick.’ So I went and started playing a drum pattern for the guy, just a basic drum pattern and it kind of goes like this. He goes, ‘Okay.’ And then I would hop on the bass, and Paul was doing something, and I’d be going, ‘Doo da, doo da.’ And finally, he looks over at me and goes, ‘If you keep playing that goddamn riff, I’d better start thinking about writing some guitar for it to wrap around it,’ because I just kept playing it all the time. I was driving him crazy. I’d play “doo da, doo da” on bass, and it kept driving him crazy until he said, ‘Let’s do something with that riff and then maybe you’ll stop playing the f**king thing.’ It was really quite simple. I was just bugging him, just playing that riff over and over, ‘cause I’m not a great bass player. That riff was just in my head, and we just decided to finish it off.”
That hooky little ear wig would worm its way into the heads of millions of record buyers, and yet, initially, none of the U.S. record labels wanted anything to do with Loverboy. So, they eventually went with Columbia/CBS Records Canada.
“We got a record contract finally after everybody had turned us down,” said Reno. “Jeff Burns [the man who signed Loverboy] saw some potential and got us a record deal – barely. So we had to work within the confines of the small amount of money we were given.”
Though Loverboy wasn’t blessed with unlimited financial resources for their self-titled debut album, which they began work on in March of 1980, they were fortunate to have, in studio, a dream team that nurtured their “all for one and one for all” recording process.
“So, we had a producer, Bruce [Fairbairn],” relates Reno. “It was one of his first projects [to break through in the U.S.], and we just started kicking ass. We just went into the studio, and there was a young guy [Bob Rock] there from another band, playing in a [Vancouver new wave] group called The Payolas. And he was a guitar player, and he was mixing, and the sixth guy was running around, changing tapes, getting coffee and making sure everything was good, moving carts around. His name was Mike Frazier, and you look up Mike Frazier and you realize he’s worked with everyone from AC/DC to … I don’t know, Metallica or something. Bob Rock worked with Metallica. You look up Mike Frazier, and you’ll see what I mean. He’s a big producer. So, we started with Bruce Fairbairn at the helm, and the whole thing about Bruce is, he let us record right off the floor. He didn’t boss us around like some producers do, and some producers try to change the way you play and make everything different and sterile. Bruce got off on the fact that when we played together – we sounded better than when we played separately. So he insisted on us playing everything together at the same time – we’d set up and just play. And so basically, that’s what we did. And he let us do it.”
That first Loverboy album turned out to be a valuable learning experience for two men who would go on to do great things in the music industry.
“Bob Rock was basically cutting his teeth,” said Reno. “He was the engineer, and Bruce Fairbairn gave Bob a chance and Bob Rock gave Mike Frazier a chance, and Jeff Burns gave Loverboy a chance. And Bruce Allen said, ‘This is kind of cool.’ So, Bruce Allen, who’s managed Michel Buble and Bryan Adams and Anne Murray, and all these great people … he managed BTO for all these years. BTO had just finished, so Bruce Allen was looking for something to do and he took us on. And the whole thing just gelled from there.”
Released in November, 1980, Loverboy’s first album yielded not only “Turn Me Loose,” but also “The Kid is Hot Tonite,” both of which actually came out in 1981. Behind the scenes, the promotional machinery established by Allen and Blair was working overtime. And on the strength of those hit singles, two million copies of the LP were sold in the U.S., where evidently nobody cared one whit whether Loverboy was from Canada or Bora Bora.
“I don’t think anybody even knew we were Canadian back then,” said Reno. “It was the weirdest thing. Some people still don’t know we’re Canadian. When we started doing really well and the record started selling, America took over. New York … the record company was in New York, and they just started pumping us everywhere. We were on tour with Kansas, and then right after that, we were on tour with ZZ Top. And after that, we went on tour with Journey. And then after that, we went on tour by ourselves, taking with us Joan Jett and Huey Lewis, and different groups like that. And we were always in the States, so people thought we were American. It’s not that we said we were American. They just assumed. And we told everybody we were Canadian, but they still didn’t get it. They thought we were American, and they still do to this day.”
It wasn’t just the music that set Loverboy apart, but the clothes as well. A woman who worked in Bruce Allen’s office had a husband who owned a leather shop just down the street. She said he’d give the upstart band a big discount on anything they wanted. Reno said he tried on “… a million pairs [of leather pants]. I took a black pair and a red pair, and the red pair just fit really great. And I started wearing them around, and people kind of started saying, ‘Look at the red leather pants.’ So when they started shooting videos, I wore the red leather pants and then one thing led to another.” The thing is Dean wore them just as much as Reno did … at least according to Reno he did. As for the headbands that completed the look, Reno says they were there to simply soak up sweat “… so my hair wouldn’t look so sh*tty.”

Lucky Strike
Wanting to strike while the iron was hot, Loverboy couldn't just rest on their laurels. On the road, in support of their breakout debut LP, Loverboy was searching somewhat to find their identity. They soon figured it out, and when they got off the road, they quickly raced back into the studio to knock out another set of tunes for the wildly successful Get Lucky, which dropped in October of 1981.
“On the first album, you’ve got songs you’ve been cultivating your whole life,” said Reno. “And there were four different styles in addition to our rock thing – we had new wave, we had a little reggae, we had some heavy stuff, we had the pop stuff. That was kind of an experimental record, the first record. Then, when we played live, we realized that we were more like a high-energy rock band. And, we’d just come off a tour. We had a chance to play songs off the second album in front of people and see their reactions, and maybe we’d change a few things and rewrite some things. So we came home and we had the five weeks off and we went in the studio, between tours, and during the five-week break, I mean we cut the stuff right off the floor – just recorded it and finished it. Then we managed to squeeze another week of holiday in, and then it was back on the road. So the first record was all the things we’d come up with through our whole lives and the second album was all the things we ran off through the recording in five weeks in that break. So they were very different, but it was a really cool way to do a record. We didn’t have a lot of time to over-think it. We just cut the stuff and went back out on the road.”
Get Lucky [for more on how the cover was created, see our previous Loverboy post from July] came out while Loverboy was on tour with Journey, and it caught fire almost immediately, with the deliriously catchy smash-hit “Working for the Weekend” and the painful ballad “When it’s Over” propelling the LP to incredible heights. “’When it’s Over’ was a very personal song for me,” said Reno. “It was about break-up I had, where I just realized it was over. And it was kind of a tough song to sing. I almost cried singing it. Those things you never forget, right?”
Love hurts, but having a hit record is a soothing salve for any kind of wound. At its apex, Get Lucky, with that iconic cover of somebody’s backside – not Reno’s, but actually, that of a teenage girl – clad in red leather pants and fingers crossed in a very naughty manner, indeed – surged to #7 on the U.S. Billboard charts. In all, the album garnered Loverboy a record six Juno Awards. Nobody’s ever topped that.
“It was a fun record to do, and every time we play songs off that record, [fans] jump up and down,” said Reno. “I think it was our best-seller. So, yeah, [Get Lucky is] probably my favorite.”
Another factor in Loverboy’s meteoric rise was the explosion of MTV. Blissfully unaware of the potential power of this emerging medium, Loverboy was directed by management to shoot a few videos while of concerts staged in Albany, New York, while the band was on one of its earliest tours. “Loverboy sent them two or three videos for the first week they opened, because they didn’t have enough to play 24 hours a day,” said Reno. “Remember, it was rock videos 24 hours a day on MTV. Well, they didn’t have enough to play, so they played us like 10 times a day and it made us hugely famous.”
Those indelible onscreen images of Loverboy giving everything it could possibly give while sweating through a vigorous, turbo-charged workout of “Working for the Weekend” are burned into the collective memories of those children of the ‘80s, whose workaday lives still leave them pining for happy hours and rowdy Saturday nights. That song has already lived an incredible life, having appeared in movies, television shows, at sporting events and in video games. Permanently woven into the colorful fabric of pop culture, “Working for the Weekend” – a working-class anthem if there ever was one – shows few signs of aging. Reno is amazed at the song’s longevity, as well as that of the band.
“They say you can foresee things. I didn’t foresee me being 60 years old, or being 57. I didn’t foresee myself being 57, never mind being 57 and still playing a hundred shows a year,” said Reno. “I never even thought about it. We just wrote songs and had fun, and went on the road and tried to earn a living. That’s what we did. We didn’t expect it to go long or short. We had no idea what was going to happen. I don’t think the Rolling Stones had an idea they’d be going all these years. It’s kind of the same for us or at least me anyway. I’m kind of digging it. I didn’t know I’d be playing a hundred shows a year, and just loving what I do. I just love being in a rock band.”
That wasn’t always the case, however, for Reno.

On Top of the World
Between 1980 and 1984, it seemed Loverboy could do no wrong. Everything they touched seemed to turn to gold, or even platinum. With Get Lucky flying off the shelves, selling an obscene four million copies in the U.S., Loverboy was on top of the world. And with Keep it Up, the band’s 1983 LP, the band kept on rolling.
Almost dizzy with sexual desire and red-blooded riffs, the lusty “Hot Girls in Love” rose all the way to #11 on the U.S. singles charts, becoming their biggest-selling song to date. “Queen of the Broken Hearts” followed, and it took off, too, with MTV’s omniscient support. Out on the road again, Loverboy got its name on top of the marquee, as the band barnstormed its way through its first headlining tour. A year after Keep it Up did exactly what the title said it would for Loverboy, the band recorded the stirring U.S. theme for the 1984 Summer Olympics, “Nothing’s Gonna Stop You Now.”
It seemed nothing could slow Loverboy’s momentum. But, for 1985’s Lovin’ Every Minute of It, Loverboy wanted to try something different. Opting for a heavier, edgier sound, Loverboy ultimately settled on veteran metal producer Tom Allom, of Judas Priest and Black Sabbath fame – although he wasn’t their first choice.
“We wanted to record that album wet. We wanted to get a cool, big sound, like Def Leppard and Foreigner, and so we looked at who was doing those records, and it was Mutt Lange,” said Reno. “But he was too busy. So we used Mutt Lange’s engineer … I can’t remember his name. Mutt Lange’s engineer, Mike [Shipley] … and then we stayed in this house. It kind of drove us crazy all of us staying in this house. We weren’t that kind of band. And we had a chef, and then we just cut it after three weeks, it just wasn’t working for us, so we said, ‘Let’s just drop it and forget about it.’”
Then, along came Allom.
“We tried to get an English kind of a guy again, so we got Tom Allom, who had done Judas Priest, and we thought, ‘That’s cool. Judas Priest sounds like good sh*t,’” said Reno. “So we thought we’d give it a try. We kind of liked the English sensibilities, because one of his favorite quotes was [affects an English dialect], ‘Change nothing, immediately!’ And after you think about that for a second, it really makes perfect sense. So, he also liked the way we recorded in the room, and not a lot of bands do that. They try to do it, but it doesn’t happen with them. We just kept with people we could get along with, and we had a lot of fun with that record.”
In particular, Loverboy enjoyed their first U.S. Billboard Top 10 hits, the stomping, ballsy title track – written, actually, by Lange – and the romantic charmer “This Could be the Night,” written with Journey’s Jonathan Cain. In 1986, Loverboy again caught the record-buying public’s ear with “Heaven in Your Eyes,” one of the many shiny trinkets the Top Gun soundtrack offered. Doug Johnson balked at participating, however, due to the film’s glorification of war.
By now, however, Loverboy was growing weary of that familiar cycle of nonstop touring and recording that had broken so many of the greats over the years. And when the band went to work on making 1987’s Wildside, Reno admits his enthusiasm was waning.
“I kind of lost a bit of interest, and I just said, ‘Let’s just pick some songs, and I don’t care who writes them. Let’s just do this and get it over with,’” said Reno, with perfect candor. “And it kind of shows, and then I started to write songs with other people, and the guys said, ‘We don’t like those,’ and I said, ‘Well, I don’t like those.’ And everybody went … we all kind of went, ‘Swallow it.’ And kind of around the same time music was … with the record companies getting pissy and radio was changing, I didn’t know what to do. So, we were experimenting, trying to get a new sound. And it was … after a while, I just went, ‘Who gives a sh*t? I just don’t care. Let’s just record it and move on.’ And that’s kind of basically how it went to be honest with you.”
Not surprisingly, Wildside stiffed, despite the minor flare-up caused by the single “Notorious.” Disagreements over the direction of the band intensified, and a sea change was occurring within the music and radio industry that would finally derail the hit-making juggernaut that was Loverboy. Around 1990, Reno said, the band needed a break.
“It was a mixture of things. It was an equal mixture of … we’d recorded some things and had sent them to the record company, and they would say, ‘That sounds too much like your other stuff. Can you record some different stuff with a different flavor?’” remembered Reno. “So we recorded some stuff and we sent it to them, and they said, ‘That doesn’t sound anything like you guys.’ And we said, ‘Well, Christ. Make up your minds.’ And then they started saying, ‘Well, we don’t think we want another record right now. So just hang out and do whatever you want.’ At the same time, radio changed. They just started to play stuff like the Culture Club and Pet Shop Boys, and there was no room for rock ‘n’ roll like Journey, Cheap Trick, Foreigner, REO Speedwagon … you know, that stuff they just stopped playing on the radio. So the record company didn’t want anything because of that, radio wasn’t playing anything, they dropped us off. And so we just basically sat around and said, ‘Let’s just stick this out for a while.’ The record company is not interested. Radio’s changed, they’re not playing anything … what are we going to do? So we just decided to raise our kids for a few years.”

‘We’ve been sitting around for too long’
Out of the public eye, Loverboy tended to matters on the home front. On indefinite hiatus, Reno and company were in no hurry to get back to business. Then, tragedy struck, as good friend Brian MacLeod of the Canadian band Chilliwack took ill. A concert was organized in 1991 to raise funds for MacLeod’s medical care.
“A friend of ours was suffering from a really rare form of cancer, and he needed special drugs that weren’t available unless you bought them yourself,” said Reno. “Because in Canada, we have socialized medicine thing where if you get sick, they’ll take care of you, but they only take care of you with medicines that are approved at the time. And the medicines he wanted to try were going to cost like 60 grand. So we all got together to try to raise money for them. And his name was Brian McCloud, he was playing in a band called Chiliwack that did very well, and then he formed another band the Head Pins. And him and I were great friends.”
It was a shared interest in boating brought Reno, Frenette and MacLeod together.
“We both had boats. He lived on a boat. We recorded songs on his boat. We went on trips on his boat and my boat, and our drummer Matty had a boat,” said Reno. “We became the Royal Vancouver Rock ‘N’ Roll Yacht Club, and we went away, did things and had fun, and we were always cutting up. He was just one of those guys who lived in the studio every day, and I ended up writing a lot of songs with him and hanging out. When he got sick, we were all pretty much devastated. We would do anything to help him, ‘cause we were taking a bit of a break at the time.”
Some of the biggest stars in rock at the time gathered together to do what they could for MacLeod.
“I think it was Bryan Adams who said, ‘Let’s raise some money for the guy,’” said Reno. “And in town that month were The Cult, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Bryan was home … Bryan Adams, all the guys from Chiliwack. We just said, ‘Let’s get our groups together, do one set each. Offer the tickets for whatever … $40,’ and even the bar went to the guy. So we raised all this money for him, but what we’d done is we kicked open his guitar case – it was a sellout – put it up on the monitor, and we played the set list, and the audience response to our show was so enlightening that both our managers and us … as we walked past the audience, we said to our managers, ‘Book us some shows. We’ve been sitting around for too long.’ And that’s how it started. That’s how we got back at it. We’d had our break, and we’d been forced out of it by doing this benefit, and then we were back at it.”
Various greatest-hits packages and live albums – including 2001’s Live, Loud and Loose – have satisfied fans’ desire for new recordings, but where Loverboy – who have carried on with Ken Sinnaeve (Guess Who, Red Rider, Steelheart] after bassist Scott Smith was declared dead in 2000 after being lost at sea – really shines is in a concert setting, where their exuberance and unbridled excitement always carries the day, just as did one particular time in a football stadium where they shared the bill with a host of rock ‘n’ roll heavyweights.
“We were in Denver or something and we were playing JFK Stadium in Philadelphia,” Reno recalls. “We got kind of invited at the last moment, and it was a three-day drive. And you had to drive constantly to get there, and we finally got in this tour bus … we’re driving as fast as can, basically hanging out there and kind of getting directions. And we get into the JFK Stadium, pull the bus up, we’re on in less than an hour … basically, all we had time to do was run a hose over our hair, slick it back, throw on some rock and roll clothes and jump on stage, having the crew set up equipment and stuff. We went up onstage and started playing and got in front of the audience and there were 90,000 people at JFK Stadium rocking to Loverboy. And we did this thing where we split the audience in half, and one half said ‘bullshit’ and the other half said, ‘F- you.’ Paul and I were doing this thing and we were getting into it so much, and we had 45,000 people saying ‘F- you’ and the other 45,000 people saying ‘bullshit.’ And everybody was psyched and getting louder, and we’d just had this whole routine worked out. We’d just gotten off the bus after a three-day drive and had wet our hair down with a hose backstage, threw on some leather pants, and we looked from the side of the stage and there were all these people from the Kinks to the Pretenders and Foreigner, and they’re all watching us because they couldn’t believe how we’d gotten the audience going. They came out of the dressing room going, ‘What the f**k is going on with these guys, right?’ That was very memorable.”
Loverboy hopes to create more unforgettable moments on tour in 2012 with their old friends Pat Benatar and Journey. “You know what it’s going to be like? It’s like going to a high school reunion,” said Reno. “We know all the guys in their bands, and they know us. We’ve got big hits and they’ve got big hits, it’s just going to be a hit fest, really. We’ll play like seven songs that were all in the top Hit Parade, then Pat Benatar’s going to play seven or eight songs that were all on the Hit Parade, and then Journey’s going to come out and play 14 or 15 songs – ‘cause they’re the headliners – and they’re all going to be from the Hit Parade. You know, it’s going to be like a family reunion. It’s going to be a total riot to go to that concert. It’s going to be nothing but hits.”
And for the most part, so is their upcoming LP release. Whether any of their newest creations cause the kind of sensation that “Working for the Weekend” did years ago remains to be seen. About the first single, the stirring title track that kicks things into high-gear on the record, Reno explains, “It wasn’t [written in] anger. It was angst. I had a little angst because I didn’t hear anything I liked on the radio. You know, chances are, they won’t play it, because we’re a classic rock band and nobody plays any new classic rock songs anymore, which is another frustrating problem. But, at least I gave it a shot.”
That’s all anybody can ask of them at this point.

DVD Review: Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil


DVD Review: Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil
Eagle Vision
All Access Review: A-
Ozzy Osbourne - Speak of the Devil 2012
Rudy Sarzo writes in the photo-filled booklet that accompanies “Speak of the Devil” of Ozzy’s “fragile mental state” as the “Diary of a Madman” tour soldiered on in the aftermath of Randy Rhoads’ unthinkable death. That old saw about how “the show must go on” meant as much to a distraught Ozzy in his time of mourning as it ever did for any entertainer down through history, and Sarzo, Ozzy’s bassist at the time, shudders to think how the singer would have reacted had his traveling circus been shut down.
Desperate for the warm, sympathetic embrace of thousands of rabid fans, Ozzy and his carnival of the damned rolled into Irvine Meadows, California, on June 12, 1982, after an understandable delay and held a head-banging Irish wake for the virtuoso guitarist, slamming Sabbath’s “Iron Man,” “Children of the Grave” and the encore “Paranoid” to the wall after ripping the throat out of a slew of Ozzy’s solo hits. Now out on DVD, with audio restored and remastered with crystal – perhaps even unnatural – digital clarity, this is more than just a historical document of an electrifying performance from one of metal’s legendary front men. As he pounds his chest during a blazing rendition of “Crazy Train” – with Rhoads’ replacement, the underrated Brad Gillis, hungrily tearing through the song’s familiar riffs and manhandling its scorching leads – or somewhat clumsily executes one of his exuberant frog jumps, Ozzy, clapping away with arms raised, makes a grim reaper-defying gesture here as he drinks in the healing elixir of rock ‘n’ roll, as trite as that sounds. Ozzy is born again, his rebirth a devilishly delightful rock ‘n’ roll spectacle.
And it takes place while he’s surrounded by a really cool medieval castle for a stage and all the smoke, fire and pulsating multi-colored lights that rock ‘n’ roll fantasies are made of – plus a laser-lit bat that flies overhead during Ozzy’s dramatic entrance. Visually, though awfully dark on occasion, “Speak of the Devil” is filmed with professional sensibilities, combining expansive faraway shots and close-ups that often focus on the careening, razor-sharp musicianship and clenched-teeth intensity of Sarzo and Gillis during marauding, energetic romps through “Over the Mountains,” “Steal Away (The Night),” “I Don’t Know,” and “Flying High Again.” When, in a moment of unscripted playfulness, Ozzy bites into Gillis’ head and threatens to bash his skull as he grinds away during a blistering “Suicide Solution” solo, the camera frames the moment artfully, just as it does when Ozzy welcomes Gillis to the band with a big bear hug while the new guy shreds “Mr. Crowley.”
All of Ozzy’s demented, crowd-baiting antics are on display, as the comically ghoulish dwarf mascot “Ronnie” is hung during an otherwise lovely and wistful reading of “Goodbye to Romance.” Later, before launching into “Paranoid,” Ozzy slips on a glove that shoots fireworks out of its fingers. And the staging is absurdly massive and gloriously tone-deaf to fading calls for rock to be less ostentatious. Up high in one of the fortress’s balconies is hooded keyboardist Don Airey, whose regret-tinged piano colors the eco-friendly, peace-loving “Revelation (Mother Earth)” with all-too-human expressions of sadness, while his sinister intro to “Mr. Crowley” is pure horror-movie magic. On the staircase that serves as a drum riser, Tommy Aldridge pounds the night away, throwing the sticks aside and using only his hands in the midst of a frenzied drum solo midway through the show.
Everybody gets their turn in the spotlight on “Speak of the Devil,” and if there were any extras – maybe a featurette on the tour’s outlandish theatricality, perhaps some interviews with Ozzy or any of his band mates to give context to the event (Sarzo’s emotional insider’s perspective in the accompanying booklet shining some light on the inner workings of Ozzy’s crew), or just a smattering of behind-the-scenes footage – this DVD would be absolutely essential. As it is, “Speak of the Devil” is a captivating snapshot of a time when Ozzy was on the verge of going off the rails but somehow managed to keep the train rolling.
-            Peter Lindblad

Best of 2012 ... so far (Part 2)


Unveiling the top five hard rock and heavy metal albums of this half year
By Peter Lindblad
And then there were five. Fine specimens of skilled musicianship, thrilling energy and conceptual artistry, these sparkling diamonds bear hardly any rust, even if Judas Priest is nowhere to be found among them. From the devastating brutality and white-hot intensity of Whitechapel and Kreator to the steam-punk splendor and adventurous progressive spirit of Rush and black melodic magic of Kill Devil Hill, 2012 has been a banner year for hard rock and heavy metal up to this point.
And though any of the four mentioned above could easily have garnered the top spot, none of them did. There is another whose mystical vision and raging metal tumult simply boggles the mind. It is a perfect storm, one that would make meteorologists quiver with excitement. And it will leave you disheveled and dumbstruck, scrambling your brains so thoroughly that you might not remember where you are or how you got there. Feel free to agree or disagree with the list or its order, as long as we can do it over drinks at an establishment of my choosing.
Whitechapel - Whitechapel 2012
5. Whitechapel: Whitechapel – Nobody’s taken a bigger leap forward in 2012 than Whitechapel. It’s not enough anymore for deathcore’s biggest breakout act to take audiences by brute force. It’s not enough for them to terrify the easily offended with gore-splattered lyrics. These tortured Tennesseans with the swarming, intricately woven triple-axe attack have gone all in on their self-titled not-so-pretty hate machine, with back-breaking tempo shifts, maximum riffage and crazed dynamics threatening to consume Phil Bozeman’s guttural growl. Pretty little piano passages – a tribute to a fallen friend – set listeners up for the kill, as the imaginative sonic architects of Whitechapel makes good on their promise to conquer expectations.
Kill Devil Hill - 2012
4. Kill Devil Hill: Kill Devil Hill – A thick slab of surging, darkly melodic doom metal, Kill Devil Hill’s powerhouse debut bulldozes gothic ruins of riff-heavy rock and builds towering, monolithic new song structures atop the sacred burial grounds of Pantera and Ozzy-led Black Sabbath. More than the sum of its talented parts, Kill Devil Hill – created by former Sabbath and Dio drummer Vinny Appice, with ex-Pantera bassist Rex Brown onboard – introduces to the world Dewey Bragg, a man with the voice of a lion, and guitarist Mark Zavon, whose Panzer-like guitar forays seem directed by Rommel himself. The Alice In Chains comparisons are unavoidable, but with Brown lending heft and potency to the low end and Appice beating the living daylights out of his kit, Kill Devil Hill – immersed in all the haunting blackness and gloom of a graveyard after hours – boasts way more sonic mass than its grunge-era counterparts.
Rush - Clockwork Angels 2012
3. Rush: Clockwork Angels – 2112 was a great album … for its time. Clockwork Angels is better. Blasphemy, you say? Clockwork Angels is heavier – “BU2B” and “Carnies” – and more complex musically, although perhaps less raw and angry. The elaborate story, welded to some of the most grandiose sonic architecture the Canadians have ever constructed, of Clockwork Angels is wonderfully crafted, a mature, thought-provoking concept with none of the holes or the confused hokum of the 2112 saga. Where revisionists might see 2112 as the epochal moment where Rush’s power and progressive-rock inclinations clashed to create a compelling piece of art – which 2112 surely is – Clockwork Angels finds Rush still suspicious of totalitarian authority but more articulate and elegant about how they construct a response to it. And “The Wreckers” is one of Rush’s finest creations.
Kreator - Phantom Antichrist 2012
2. Kreator: Phantom Antichrist – Across a hellish, smoldering wasteland of apocalyptic imagery fly these four horsemen of thrash, soaring to dizzying heights on spiraling arpeggios, pounding whole cities into piles of ash with bombing drums and frenzied riffs that attack with an unquenchable blood lust, and speeding at high velocity into the unknown with an unrestrained fury bordering on madness. Screaming for vengeance, tracks like “United in Hate,” “Death to the World,” and “Civilisation Collapse” rain torrents of fiery thrash down on the unsuspecting, while “Until Our Paths Cross Again” and “Your Heaven, My Hell” offer brief moments of bruised beauty amid an outpouring of transcendent power-metal drama. Once again, Mille Petrozza whips this reconnaissance mission of the damned through its paces, and the result is a magnificent manifesto forged of startlingly brilliant technical musicianship and cataclysmic, compelling song craft. Phantom Antichrist will make you a believer.
High On Fire - De Vermis Mysteriis 2012
1. High On Fire: De Vermis Mysteriis – In the eye of a wintery hurricane of blustery, tempest-tossed guitars and roiling rhythmic seas stands High On Fire’s Captain Ahab Matt Pike, daring an angry God bent on destruction to silence his roaring, ragged voice as he relates the woeful plight of Jesus’ cursed twin brother. Mystery, madness, time travel and gale-force riffs threaten to tear the good ship De Vermis Mysteriis to pieces, but Pike’s able seamanship steers this scarred vessel through treacherous, rumbling melodic currents and violent, battering storms of sludgy metal. Epic is too small a word for such a monstrous beast. It’s only four letters after all. 

The best of 2012 ... so far (Part 1)

Picking the finest metal, hard rock releases of the half year

By Peter Lindblad

If this were a physical examination, the patients known as hard rock and heavy metal would get a clean bill of health. 2012 has witnessed a flurry of fine rebound albums from the reinvigorated likes of Fear Factory, Slash, Rush, Prong, and Kreator – to mention a few. No one is writing them off anymore. Even Van Halen returned from a long self-imposed exile to prove to everyone that Eddie was still God and that nepotism can work, even if they do have incredibly bad taste in first singles – “Tattoo”? Really?
There’s a new half a super group called Kill Devil Hill that’s fusing Pantera grooves with Black Sabbath’s gothic dirges and churning out wickedly melodic metal. For so long, Whitechapel has been chained to a radiator in the grim, dingy basement known as deathcore, but with their latest hate-filled self-titled missive, they have blasted their way out of their restraints and moved on to more adventurous sonic exploration. Cattle Decapitation has scared everybody out of their wits with some of the most uncompromisingly brutal music in recent memory, and progressive-metal architects Gojira have given the French – the French, of all people – a reason to get excited about their musical export business.
And there’s more to come. Testament is going back to its Dark Roots of the Earth, Dying Fetus hasn’t been aborted and The Deftones are reportedly set to release a record this fall. Strap yourself in folks. 2012 is going to be a white-knuckle ride, and a crash is inevitable. As for the first half of the year, I’ve compiled my Top 10, which is subject to change. The first five (Nos. 10-6), included here, are just a taste.  

Fear Factory - The Industrial 2012

10. Fear Factory: The Industrialist – Jackhammer industrial beats and raging vocals swim in the deep, toxic pool of disturbing dystopian visions, crushingly heavy guitars, and cinematic soundscapes of what may be Fear Factory’s most ambitious concept record yet. Fascinating alien melodies probe and prod a sound that is at once cavernous and claustrophobically condensed, with Dino Cazares constructing a Byzantine labyrinth of densely layered guitars under the imaginative lyrics and righteous bellowing of Burton C. Bell.

Slash - Apocalyptic Love 2012

9. Slash, Featuring Miles Kennedy and the Conspirators: Apocalyptic Love – On the heels of a scintillating live album, Slash lays down some of the slinkiest, most infectious grooves of his career, with knock-down, drag-out brawls like “You’re A Lie,” “Standing in the Sun,” “No More Heroes” and “One Last Thrill” capturing at least some the grit and dangerous energy of Appetite for Destruction. Providing a thrilling foil to Slash’s smoking, snaky leads is singer Myles Kennedy, whose spine-tingling vocals circle high above the fiery rock ‘n’ roll crashes Slash and The Conspirators gleefully orchestrate. Axl can have the Guns ‘N Roses name. Slash doesn’t need it.
Prong - Carved into Stone 2012
8. Prong: Carved into Stone – In full gallop, with smoke blowing out of its nostrils, “Eternal Heat” charges hard out of the gate, setting the blistering pace and aggressive tone for what is surely one of the most punishing records of Prong’s career. Seething with rage, Carved into Stone abandons industrial rigidity for a thicker, fuller sound that takes a baseball bat to society’s sick head and beats it bloody with violent, bare-knuckled poetry. Urgent and restlessly creative, Carved into Stone is a heat-seeking missile that’s locked onto its target and that target is you. Get ready to be blown apart.
Over Kill - The Electric Age 2012
7. Over Kill: The Electric Age – Relentless from beginning to end, The Electric Age spits fire and rages against the dying of their light – with apologies to poet Dylan Thomas – by tossing this exceedingly vicious and extraordinarily tight thrash-metal Molotov cocktail right in the face of a dogma that believes extreme music is entirely a young man’s game. Rarely has Over Kill sounded so dangerous and desperate, as rampaging drums, searing guitars, and the venomous, teeth-gnashing vocals of Bobby “Blitz” Ellsworth propel these grizzled, gasoline-guzzling East Coast veterans on a high-octane journey through an urban wasteland of garbage-strewn dark alleys and lawless streets.
Accept - Stalingrad 2012
6. Accept: Stalingrad – Thankfully, Wolf Hoffman didn’t empty his bag of riffs on 2010’s Blood of the Nations, considered by many as the best metal album of that year. A worthy successor, the storming Stalingrad is one scorching meat grinder of a track after another – thanks to Hoffman’s rugged, gnarly guitars and the sweaty toil of a band that’s regained its hunger – and singer Mark Tornillo’s balls-to-the-wall screams are winning over converts who swore they’d never accept an Accept without Udo Dirkschneider. 

Who wears the red leather pants in Loverboy?


Singer Mike Reno tells where the pants are now

By Peter Lindblad
Loverboy's Get Lucky - 1981
In the morning, when Mike Reno wakes and goes to get dressed, he sometimes takes a moment to brief moment to acknowledge an old friend, namely the red leather pants he used to wear in Loverboy.
“They’re in my closet right now,” laughs Reno. “I say ‘hi’ to them every once in a while. When I’m packing my stretch denim jeans, I say ‘hi’ to my red leather pants. You know, those red leather pants used to leave a red mark down my leg and on my ass. Every time I took them off, I had to scrub my ass with soap for about 20 minutes to get the red leather off my butt. I got ‘em, though. I got ‘em. They’re sitting right on the hanger. I look at ‘em every once in a while. They probably fit one of my younger kids. They don’t fit me, that’s for sure. I can fit one leg and then I give up.”
It’s been more than 30 years since Loverboy’s cheeky Get Lucky album cover – the iconic one showing someone’s backside clad in red leather pants and the crossed fingers indicating that a promise made was about to be broken in some mischievous manner – stuck its gluteus maximus in the faces of record buyers looking for a little fun and some high-energy, New Wave-tinged rock and roll. Now pushing 60 years old, Reno admits he can no longer fit into the red leather pants he and the rest of Loverboy made famous. On occasion, however, they do get some use.
“Well, my son Alex used to come with us a little bit [on the road], when he was 20,” explains Reno. “He’d come on the summer tours and help out with the road crew. He couldn’t believe the response. He’d go, ‘These people love you out there. They’re going crazy. They’re throwing their underwear and bras and stuff.’ I went on his Facebook page recently, and I noticed there’s a picture of him for Halloween. And he had a wig on and a headband around the wig and my red leather pants from the closet. I guess he helped himself to my red leather pants from the closet for a Halloween outfit.”
On Aug. 14, Loverboy, one of the ‘80s biggest-selling acts, will release its new album Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival, a mix of new songs and live versions of Loverboy classics, via Frontiers Records. Even producer Bob Rock has come back to the fold, working with Loverboy on “Heartbreaker” and “No Tomorrow,” two brand-spanking new tracks from the band. And in less than a week, Reno and the boys will hit the concert trail once again, this time as part of a massive package tour with PatBenatar, featuring Neil Giraldo, and headliners Journey.
“You know what it’s like? It’s like going to a high school reunion,” said Reno. “We know all the guys in their bands, and they know us. We’ve got big hits and they’ve got big hits. It’s just going to be a hit fest, really. We’ll play like seven songs that were all in the top hit parade, then Pat Benatar’s going to play seven or eight songs that were all on the hit parade, and then Journey’s going to come out and play 14 or 15 songs – ‘cause they’re the headliners – and they’re all going to be from the hit parade. You know, it’s going to be like a family reunion. It’s going to be a total riot to go to that concert. It’s going to be nothing but hits.”
As for those red leather pants, they’re probably not going with Reno this time around. So, what’s the story behind those pants anyway? Reno relates how that particular article of clothing becoming part of the band’s look.
“One of the girls who worked in Bruce Allen’s office, her name was Alison,” said Reno. “Her husband owns Metal Leather, which is a leather shop that made leather pants and jackets and stuff like that. It was a leather shop just down the street from Bruce Allen’s office. And Alison said, ‘I know you guys are just getting started. You can go down there and pick out anything you want, and you can put it on … and we’ll give it to you for half price and save you some money.’ Bruce went, ‘Oh, thanks Alison.’ So Bruce said, ‘Hey guys, get down there, pick out some stuff so you don’t look sh*tty so we can start shooting videos and stuff.’ We went down there, and I tried on a million pairs. I took a black pair and a red pair, and the red pair just fit really great. And I started wearing them around and people kind of started saying, ‘Look at the red leather pants.’”
Having sparked a reaction, Reno continued wearing them, and eventually, they became Loverboy’s calling card.
“So when they started shooting videos, I wore the red leather pants and then one thing led to another … and I always had a headband on when we played concerts because I was sweating so much that my hair would just get like I was in the shower,” said Reno. “So I put on a headband and it would suck up some of the moisture so my hair wouldn’t look so sh*tty. So, I wore the headband and the red leather pants, and it just somehow turned into … to tell you the truth, Paul wore the red leather pants probably more than I did. Somehow they equated it with me, probably because of the video – one of the first videos to come out, I wore them that day. Paul (Dean) wore the black ones. But if you really look at all the videos, Paul’s wearing red leather pants more than I am. Somehow they equated it with me, and I just went along with it. Why bother rocking the boat and make a big deal out of it.”
Sans red leather pants, Reno and his Loverboy band mates Dean, Matt Frenette, Doug Johnson and Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve, who replaced the late Scott Smith, will be making the tour rounds this year. Below are the tour dates with Journey and Pat Benatar:
Loverboy supporting Journey and Pat Benatar featuring Neil Giraldo:
JULY
21 San Bernardino, CA San Manuel Amphitheater
22 Stateline, CA Harvey's Outdoor Arena
24 Paso Robles, CA Paso Robles Fair
26 Cheyenne, WY Frontier Days
28 Seattle WA The Gorge
29 Spokane, WA Northern Quest Casino
AUGUST
1 Great Falls, MT Montana State Fair
3 Salt Lake City, UT USANA Amphitheatre
4 Boise, ID Idaho Center
6 Sturgis, SD Buffalo Chip Campground

8 Indianapolis, IN Indiana State Fair

10 Wantagh, NY Nikon Theater At Jones Beach

14 Watertown, NY Watertown Fairgrounds

15 Canandaigua, NY Constellations Brands PAC

17 Louisville, KY Kentucky State Fair

18 Des Moines, IA Iowa State Fair

22 Albuquerque, NM Sandia Outdoor Theater

24 Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

25 Dallas, TX Gexa Energy Pavilion

27 Pelham, AL Oak Mountain Amphitheater

28 Lafayette, LA Cajun Dome

31 Kansas City, KS LiveStrong Sporting Park

SEPTEMBER

1 St. Paul, MN Minnesota State Fair

15 Mt. Pleasant, MI Soaring Eagle Casino

19 Peoria, IL Peoria Civic Center

21 Cincinnati, OH Riverbend Music Center

22 Cleveland, OH Blossom Music Center

25 Hamilton, ON Copps Coliseum

26 Ottawa, ON Scotiabank Place

28 Bangor, ME Waterfront Park

29 Providence, RI Dunkin Donuts Center

OCTOBER

2 Norfolk, VA Constant Convocation Center

3 Greensboro, NC Greensboro Coliseum

5 Mobile, AL Bayfest

6 Atlanta, GA Aaron's Amphitheater At Lakewood

9 Little Rock, AR Verizon Arena

10 Tulsa, OK BOK Center

12 Tampa, FL 1-800-ASK-GARY Amphitheater

13 West Palm Beach, FL Cruzan Amphitheatre

30 New York, NY Barclays Bank Arena

NOVEMBER

2 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Arena

3 Manchester, NH Verizon Center

5 Montreal, QC Bell Centre

7 Columbus, OH Schottenstein/Nationwide

8 Evansville, IN Ford Center

10 Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena

11 Fort Wayne, IN Allen County War Memorial

13 Moline, IL iWireless Center

14 Sioux City, IA Tyson Center

16 Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center

17 Green Bay, WI Resch Center

19 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre

24 Grand Praire, AB Crystal Center

27 Edmonton, AB Rexall Place

28 Saskatoon, SK Credit Union Centre

30 Calgary, AB Scotiabank Saddledome

DECEMBER

1 Kelowna, BC Prospera Place

3 Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena

4 Victoria, BC Save-On Food Centre

7 Las Vegas, NV Planet Hollywood




Sebastian Bach televises live show Aug. 2


Sebastian Bach - Kicking & Screaming 2012
Always and forever a slave to the grind, Sebastian Bach hasn’t stopped Kicking & Screaming – which also happens to be the title of his raucous, hook-heavy new solo LP – since the halcyon days in Skid Row. And now, Bach is toasting the blazing, gutsy release and its high-flying initial chart success – it did surprisingly well in its first week, landing at #73 on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart – with a special live television extravaganza on AXS TV next month.
Out barnstorming the planet on the “Sebastian Bach: Kicking & Screaming & Touring” tour, Bach will bring his electric circus to Club Nokia in Los Angeles on Thursday, Aug. 2 for a performance that will be broadcast live at 10 p.m. Pacific Time – that’s 1 a.m. Eastern Time – exclusively on AXS TV. Tickets for the show are available at: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/2C0048DDD2E65225.
Fans can share the experience of what promises to be a wild rock and roll free-for-all on twitter at www.twitter.com/AXSTVConcerts and Facebook at www.facebook.com/AXSTVConcerts. For more information on AXS TV concerts and events, visit www.axs.tv.

CD Review: Duran Duran - A Diamond in the Mind - Live 2011


CD Review: Duran Duran – A Diamond in the Mind – Live 2011
Eagle Vision and Eagle Records
All Access Review: A-
Duran Duran - A Diamon in the Mind - Live 2011
It was the ideal marriage. Sculpted cheekbones, glamorous fashions, a cinematic sensibility equaled only by their ability to craft stylish, slickly produced disco-fied synth-pop that had all the sophisticated, intoxicating bite of a dry martini – Duran Duran was MTV’s soul mate, and the network fell hard for these international playboys.
The face of the UK’s 1980s New Romantic movement, Duran Duran’s rakish charm and obvious sex appeal steamed up arty – and sometimes erotic – music video fantasies that MTV was addicted to for years, playing them in a rotation schedule that went way beyond heavy. They needed each other – MTV providing Duran Duran the wide-ranging promotional machinery needed to sell scads of CDs, and Duran Duran’s looks and visual wiles sucking in a bigger audience for a network hungry to expand.
In recent years, however, MTV has hitched its wagon to the exploitation of unwed pregnant teenagers and the purely academic study of those primitive tribes of the “Jersey Shore.” And while the swashbuckling days of “Rio,” where a youthful Simon LeBon and all those Taylor boys were seen cavorting with leggy, swimsuit models aboard sail boats that cost more than the average factory worker makes in a lifetime, may be behind them, an older and wiser Duran Duran, always a vital and compelling force onstage, proves they still have the ability to captivate and thrill concert audiences on A Diamond in the Mind – Live 2011.
Out also on DVD and Blu-ray as visual documents of the experience, the 14-song CD version of A Diamond in the Mind is Duran Duran’s first live release since 1983’s Arena, and it is an exhilarating carnival of sound that feeds a crowd unabashedly singing along in unison when the moment calls for their full-throated, joyous participation, as it does on the flashy, delightfully debonair James Bond-theme “A View to a Kill.” Not that LeBon needs the assistance, his voice still so richly expressive and melodically agile after all these years. LeBon’s dramatic reading of the haunting “Before the Rain,” enveloped in all the mystery and wintery atmosphere of Cold War Russia, is a powerful introduction to what is a vibrant, widescreen performance from a band still bristling against the suggestion that they've always been more concerned with image than substance.
Any lingering doubts as to whether age has diminished their capacity to command a big stage are put to rest when Duran Duran launches into a full-fledged gallop on “Planet Earth,” its syncopated electronic rhythms charging ever forward through delicate little whirls of synthesizer. And when the candy-coated, lusty pop funk of “Notorious,” “Girl Panic” and “The Reflex” – all colorfully toned and percolating brilliantly, nodding ever so reverentially to Duran Duran’s heroes in Chic – come dancing in, and their stomping medley of “Wild Boys” and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” struts and preens about like a New Wave peacock, it feels as if Duran Duran hasn't aged a day. But, they have, and they've matured gracefully. In the quieter moments of the effervescent A Diamond in the Mind, the liquid dreaminess of “Come Undone,” with its undercurrent of rolling rhythms, spills its anguished, panoramic beauty all over MEN Arena in Manchester, where this live outing was recorded, while nostalgic longing resonates throughout the beautifully rendered “Ordinary World.”

Having slipped comfortably into adult-contemporary middle age, Duran Duran may now be hanging with the less youthful VH1 Classic, but they've lost none of their potency. A Diamond in the Mind – Live 2011 brings the down house with a rousing, energetic romp through “Rio” to close the show, and the bouncy grooves of “Blame The Machines” are undeniably infectious. On the other hand, “Hungry Like The Wolf” – which should be a highlight of the show – seems a bit off and sags exhaustedly, and it’s also hard not to notice the absence of Duran Duran favorites like “Girls on Film” or “Save a Prayer.” Nevertheless, with Nick Rhodes’ elegant keyboards assuming pleasing shapes and John Taylor’s rubbery bass serving as the strong connective sinew that ties everything together, Duran Duran appears to have found the fountain of youth. And they still know how to throw a party.
-            Peter Lindblad

Whitechapel's new era of devastation

Deathcore titans return with powerful new LP
By Peter Lindblad
Whitechapel in 2012
Losing drummer Kevin Lane in late 2010 certainly took the starch out of Knoxville, Tennessee deathcore doomsayers Whitechapel. As hard as that pill was to swallow, Ben Savage would experience worse between the release of A New Era of Corruption in the summer of that year and the difficult birthing of the band’s latest self-titled LP, a fiery blast furnace of hostility and rage that burns so hot it threatens to consume anything that dares creep near it.
“My best friend died during that time, and he was a real amazing piano player,” admits Savage, one of three architects of the savage, thickly layered guitar onslaught wrought by Whitechapel on its immense new sonic undertaking, released June 19 by Metal Blade. “That’s why we put piano parts in the songs. He was an amazing piano player and a songwriter. When he sung, it was beautiful. His name was Andrew Bledsoe (the son of veteran Knoxville music writer Wayne Bledsoe) and … yeah, he was a great piano player and we felt his arm around us.”
The melancholy that resides in those purposefully struck keys is palpable. Unchecked violence and vehement invective almost buries them on Whitechapel, a bloody war of brutally heavy riffs, fire-breathing vocals and punishing, seismic rhythms all caught up in a powerful maelstrom of surging emotions and oppressive darkness. And yet there are sinewy vines of strange and beautiful melody found in the ruins of these massive, shape-shifting structures of sound. From the scathing, anti-conformist rant “(Cult)uralist” to the crushing devastation and bleak outlook of “Possibilities of an Impossible Existence,” Whitechapel is a furious condemnation of a society gone horribly awry, as the crazed, chaotic beatings of “Section 8” and “Hate Creation” so viciously illustrate.
Now boasting a lineup of Savage, the growling, roaring lion of a vocalist Phil Bozeman, guitarists Alex Wade and Zach Householder, bassist Gabe Crisp, and drummer Ben Harclerode, Whitechapel, formed in 2006, is primed to stomp its way through the heavy metal community like Godzilla on bath salts. This fall, Whitechapel is touring with Hatebreed. In a recent interview, Savage relayed the story of how Whitechapel survived drug addicted booking agents and anxiety over a change of drummers to record its fourth album in a house abandoned by a couple that apparently fought like cats and dogs. Here’s what Savage had to say:
What do you remember about hearing the new record in its totality for the first time?
BS: I was just really stoked. I guess I look at it in a different way, because I could see all the elements coming together, like how all the riffs kind of just fit into place and how all the ideas came to be. I mean, it was like that one was put together in a month, but we had ideas and parts for like a couple of years. We had riffs from before the last album and stuff, so I could see it all coming together, and I thought it couldn’t have come together in any better way. I try to think about what else we could have done, but I can’t really think of anything major that we could have done differently. So that’s a good sign, I guess.
In sitting down and thinking about recording the new record, what elements of the Whitechapel aesthetic did you want to retain in making this album and what new features – like perhaps the piano intro to “Make It Bleed” or that really affecting quiet guitar outro in “Dead Silence” – did you want to add?
BS: I wanted to be as different as possible, without coming off too tacky I would say. I wanted the songs to be well – I mean, we all did – in a live setting, to be just really powerful. And that’s basically what we tried to do, make it as cool sounding as we could and still be able to pull it off live, but make it cool sounding so that it intrigues people that listen to it for more than just the music, to give them like another perspective – a musician’s perspective, but still have like a nice live feel to it. So we messed around with tempo changes and stuff, like dropping the tempo down. I still wish we could record an album without a click track, because our first two were like that and they sound real blah. We tried to make it as live as possible, basically.
Listening to the new album, you can hear an increased complexity – both sonically and lyrically – to this new record. But, it also has an expansiveness that is quite remarkable. Do you feel like this is your most ambitious record to date?
BS: Yeah, I’d say so. We’ve all been through a lot the past couple of years since the last record, just in our home lives and everything. You try to find inspiration in like the down times – I mean the hard times and everything. It really came together I think because the record is real dark sounding, too. A lot of the riffs were written under not very ideal conditions. Yeah, it’s definitely way more vicious, because for the most part, we didn’t want to overthink it. That was the main thing. The previous record, we tried to – especially the first two albums – fit like 10 riffs into one song. On this record, it’s more like three or four riffs per song, but those riffs go on different tangents. It’s definitely way more dynamic, and it’s definitely like we didn’t just write a riff with the first idea, you know. If we wrote a riff that was cool, we’d just see what else we could do with it and see what other avenues we could take rather than just stick with the first idea that came to mind. Phil did an amazing job, too. Like, he’s just … it’s like we make the beats. We’re like Dr. Dre and he’s Eminem just laying vocals down over it, and it just makes it awesome.
It does seem like he tried to sing a little more on this record instead of just all growls all the time.
BS: I know, I know. It’s good, it’s good. It’s like you can almost sing over the choruses. Whenever we first started listening to the final version it occurred to me to make joke-like songs over the choruses, just like singing them instead of just growling them. We’d sing them. It’s real melodic like that. And also I just want to … like the big thing recently I’ve wanted to be able to do is be able to play our songs on an acoustic guitar. When we write the songs, we try to mess with the riffs as much as possible so they’d sound good on an acoustic, because that’s how you know a song is good if it rocks on an acoustic.
Is there going to be a Whitechapel unplugged album some time?
BS: I’d be down if people didn’t think it was too tacky. I could totally do it. We’ve already done an acoustic version of a song from the last EP, but that’s the only thing. We could do a lot of acoustic renditions on this one.
“Section 8” comes from the EP you guys released last fall, and I love how it grows and evolves into something that just keeps gaining speed, and then, it has slower, brutally heavy finish. Working on that EP, did it at all point the way toward the results of the new full-length?
BS: It did, it did. The EP was definitely a good idea, although I think some people in our band would disagree. But, I think it was a good idea in the fact that we were on tour for so long, and we hadn’t had much time to write anything together since we’d been on tour. It’s hard to get inspired when you’re doing that. So we just basically … we wrote “Section 8” as a band, because like the last album, A New Era of Corruption, that was more like, we toured a lot … we still tour a lot, but we were touring a lot back then, so it was more of like we all kind of wrote our own songs. Everybody still had an opinion on it, but it was more like, we’d already come in with pretty much full songs, whereas this one … with like “Section 8,” when we starting working on “Section 8” we just kind of went back to what we used to do and start with the first riff and work your way till the end. And then everybody throws in ideas, everybody worked together. I think “Section 8” really helped the process for this record writing-wise, like how to go about the writing part.
In what ways has the band changed the most since The Somatic Defilement?
BS: Well, I don’t know. We have a new drummer, so that’s definitely a change. Everybody’s really been like the same, it’s just like we have a different perspective on like the music industry and how we should go about writing our songs. It just comes with experience, but we all haven’t really changed that much. I mean, we have a new drummer who can actually play our stuff perfectly, and we can actually make tempos faster, we can make riffs groove harder … that was the hardest part. Like, finding – especially in a band like ours – a well-oiled machine of a drummer who can play the fast parts perfect and then be able to groove. Usually, it’s one or the other. It’s hard to find a guy who is well-rounded, in the middle sort of, and so we found the new guy … we also call him “new guy,” so I’ll just call him “new guy” from now on in this interview. We got him like a year ago, and when we got him, he just wanted to go fast. He was real fast and we always pushed him to be like … well, he still had groove, so we were just like, “You know, man, just groove harder man, just don’t be afraid of the groove.” And you’re thinking about putting a double-bass part, a straight double-bass, 16 double basses in one part; instead think of what else you can do, like with the high-hat or something, that makes it groove harder other than that. So that was another cool thing that came about.
Did it change the dynamics of the band having him come in?
BS: Definitely … in the studio and live. Like live, it’s tremendous, because that’s where you’re showing off for the people to see. Live, you’ve got to have somebody that’s on it. But, yeah, it definitely changes the dynamic, and because before we found him, we all were just kind of like, “Oh sh*t, are we going to find a guy?” We have a tour coming up in like a month or something. We need to … it was not a good time in the band trying to find a drummer, because Kev had just left, but when [Ben] came around, our spirits just shot up.
What guitar parts are you most proud of on the new record?
BS: I’m real proud of the guitars in “Hate Creation,” because those two riffs … basically, the riffs in that song are like real old-school sounding. It’s like some parts you listen back and you go, “Oh, that’s really cool, like that Tool part in the middle, I’m so glad we did a part like that,” because I used to love Tool when I was a kid. My first metal show was Tool and Meshuggah, and I was really stoked to have that part in the song. And those riffs are like really old, too, so it was cool that we finally got to use them. And I’m proud of “Make it Bleed,” the riffs in that, because it’s pretty straightforward riffing, but they all flow really well. And “I Dementia” … “I Dementia” is real brooding and heavy – yeah, just happy with most of them or all of them.
I guess it feels this way with every album a band makes, but do you feel that this is the album that’s going to put you over the top?
BS: Yeah, I hope so. I hope so, because … well, I don’t know, because every time I look back, everybody was happy with the songs. It was like all of us were happy with the material. So, yeah … I don’t know what better situation there could be.   
You mentioned the collaborative nature of this album, as evidenced by the naming of it. Did that make the writing and recording of this record a more satisfying experience for you, or did it in some ways make the process easier or more difficult?
BS: Um, it’s all three. In the end, it was satisfying, but during the process … f**k man, it’s like everybody’s stuck on a part, and you’re like, “I don’t know what you did there, but it shouldn’t be that.” And I’m like, “Well, can you give me an idea? Just something you don’t ever want to hear (laughs).” Patience is the key and Alex, our guitarist, he has a new house. So, it was really easy just to go over there, drive 10 minutes down to his house and just work and then drive home. It was a really easy process. Alex’s house definitely has a lot more to do with the writing process, because it was a comfortable setting.
Was the house finished when you were working on it?
BS: Yeah, he got it off like this couple. They had an argument and they broke up. There were like holes in the walls throughout the whole house (laughs).
You’re kidding …
BS: No, they had an argument. I guess the wife or the husband just went through punching holes in the walls, and … I don’t know. And then, after that was fixed, it was all set up and then from January to February, we were there pretty much every day working. But, from halfway through January and February, we went to NAMM because we have signature guitars, so that was a real kink in the writing process. I think up to that point we only had two songs done and that was January 15. And we had to go into the studio like Feb. 3, so that was a real kink in the chain. But it gave us time to reflect on the material, and I went through my hard drive while I was there. And I have like a catalog of just riffs that I went through, just listened to them. So, it was all building up to something good.
Most of the band is from Tennessee. What was the environment like and how did it inform your sound?
BS: Well, I mean … the schools are kind of … I don’t know (laughs) … I went to this magnet school, when I was in middle school, and I met some friends and that’s when we started a band called Psychotic Behavior. There wasn’t really like a music scene, or if there was, I was too young to really go out to shows. I was just out there listening to metal in my car … I mean, not my car but at home, you know. After a while, I started going out to shows and it was cool. That made you want to start your own band and do that whole thing. So it was just ambition to do something other than just living here, ‘cause there’s nothing there that really intrigued me. I just wanted to be in a band.
It seems like culturally barren areas really influence people to start bands. I’ve heard Slipknot talking about how it was growing up in Iowa …
BS: Yeah, I don’t know what else you do in Iowa (laughs).
What were the early days like for Whitechapel? Was it a struggle financially?
BS: Yeah, we all had equipment before … we all had like day jobs. I was going to community college and working at a deli. Phil and Alex were working at this screen-printing shop. Phil also worked at this place answering calls for jewelry television and stuff. He also cleaned the interior of cars for Jaguar. Zach worked at a paint shop. I mean, we all had jobs. We’d save up enoughto buy gear off people that we knew in town. We all bought our own equipment. We never really had a sugar daddy (laughs) doing it for us.
What did it mean to you to sign to Metal Blade a year later?
BS: I think that at that point, we signed to Metal Blade and it was definitely just a confidence boost. It was just like, “Wow! We can actually be optimistic with the band.” So, I think that pushed us right on into our first release on Metal Blade, because a lot of energy went into doing that and also a lot of stress. A lot of the songs are really like riff sandwiches all throughout the songs … I’m still happy with it. Oh, just signing to Metal Blade was just a huge confidence booster. It was like, “Wow, we might actually be able to make a career off this and do something cool.” Before that, we were just doing our own stuff with tours and with like shady booking agents.
You got to know the dark side of the business …
BS: Yeah. Aw man, this guy was like a heroin addict. He booked the tour and then he just didn’t care. Halfway through the tour, he just stopped advancing shows … he just stopped halfway through, and I think it was like our second tour ever in 2007. And he just stopped caring halfway through. He wouldn’t show up. There wouldn’t be any promotion. It was like, “Oh, what the hell …” And then after we signed to Metal Blade, you could actually feel people starting to care about you. The management we have now, it’s like … well, people care about you when you’re on a label.
A New Era of Corruption seemed to up the ante so to speak, sounding more brutal and intense. When you look back on that record, how do you feel about it?
Whitechapel has a new LP out
BS: I’m real happy with it. I mean, a lot of the songs were written individually. The songs I wrote I’m more self-conscious about … you know, I’m like, “Sh*t, maybe it would have been better if we’d worked together.” But when we released the record I was proud of it, and I’m still proud of it. I mean, it is what it is. At the time, we thought that was a necessary step. And I’m still proud of the record. It was definitely what we needed at the time, and it did what it did. And I’m proud as hell of the songs. The only thing is I’m not really like a lead guitar player. I like writing riffs, so I’m really self-conscious about my leads. That was probably the biggest part, like the leads on the record could have been a little better … but, whatever.
I wanted to talk to you about some of the tracks on the new record specifically. One of my favorites is “Faces.” The intensity and speed just blows you away, and yet it might be the most straightforward track on the record. What went into making that one?
BS: Oh, there’s a funny story behind that one. Our bass player, Gabe, whenever we’d come up with like a cool riff, we’d e-mail each other. We’d like record it and e-mail it to each other. And then people would reply back: “Oh, that’s cool,” or “Aw, it’s cool you did this.” But sometimes you don’t get replies back. And then you’re like, “Okay, I guess this riff sucks (laughs).” Gabe actually took a liking to the first riff in that song. And we were like at Alex’s house like writing and stuff, and Gabe and I were going to work on the song. We went out back to the back porch and Gabe had like this Kentucky blueberry weed, and we smoked a bowl of it, went inside and finished the song in an hour. It was like, “Bam.” Gabe and I had never written a song before, so it was cool because Gabe just really directed the song, “Yeah, and then there should be a part like this.” And it went on like that, and we’d do that, and then, “Okay, we should bring it back to this,” and the end of the song was done in about an hour. I think Alex and “new guy” went to go get Chinese food, and then by the time they came back, the song was done. And we were just stoked on it. It was a pretty cool moment. I don’t know if we could have caught it at a better time.
Is “The Night Remains” the most melodic track to you?
BS: I’d say so. I mean, earlier on, everybody thought that song would be kind of a dud or whatever, like it’d kind of be just all right. Then, I knew that song could be real special; it just needed effects added to it. So we really focused on … like in the song, if you don’t listen to the effects, it’s just real like straightforward, like chugging … just real straightforward. But, with the effects added to it and the layers and the atmosphere adds a new vibe. I still think we named the song perfectly, “The Night Remains,” because it kind of has a nighttime, Halloween type of feel about it.
“Hate Creation” is the first single, and the breakdowns and changes in tempo are so unpredictable. I quite like the dual guitar parts as well. Why did that track seem the perfect one to release first?
BS: Probably because it was different, but it wasn’t so different that people would be like, “Oh wow! I’m just not going to care about this band anymore.” It was different enough that it was like Tool, you know. It was like everything wasn’t like awkward at all or … it was just like an anthemic song. I don’t know. It just felt right. I don’t know, it’s heavy and basically, it’s just classic Whitechapel. 
What are you most looking forward to in touring this summer?
BS: Yep. Um, looking forward to seeing High On Fire, Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead … all those cool bands. I don’t know … just looking forward to playing all the new songs.
Have you played the new songs live and if you have, what’s been the reaction?
BS: The only one we’ve played live is “Section 8,” and the reaction has been great for that. I want to start playing some of the slower songs live, like “I Dementia” and the closing track on that record ‘cause it’s going to add a different contrast to the songs we have. It’s going to have like a slower, groovy thing to the live show that’s going to be real cool.