Classic Rock 93.9

Dee Snider released his latest solo album this past week, Leave a Scar, which the Twisted Sister frontman says is a true follow-up to his 2018 studio effort, For the Love of Metal.

Like For the Love of Metal, Leave a Scar finds Snider collaborating with Hatebreed‘s Jamey Jasta and exploring heavier, contemporary metal sounds.

Snider notes that while he left songwriting duties to Jasta and other collaborators for his previous album, with Leave a Scar, he felt motivated to co-write the new tunes, inspired by the state of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was very much driven by ‘I need to say something,'” Snider tells ABC Audio. “This record is of the time. Every song is inspired by what’s going on in the world, and what [we’re]…all going through.”

He adds, “It was the pandemic. It was the social unrest, the political unrest in the world. I mean, our country was a mess, but it was going on in England and Brazil and all around the globe.”

While the songs on Leave a Scar tackle some heavy subjects, Snider says he also wanted the tunes to offer messages of hope for people dealing with the frustration of life during the pandemic.

The album kicks off with “I Gotta Rock (Again),” a song in the tradition of Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock,” only much heavier, that also serves as an anthem for rock fans itching to go to live concerts again.

“By the middle of COVID, ‘I Gotta Rock (Again)’ popped in my head and I said, ‘Boy, if there was ever a Dee Snider title, that’s [one] right there,” he explains. “[I]t was supposed to be an anthem. It was supposed to be a sledgehammer. And I’m hoping it achieves its goal.”

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McCartney III Imagined, the new album featuring various interpretations of the songs from Paul McCartney‘s 2020 solo effort, McCartney III, has reached #1 on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart after being released on physical formats on July 23.

As previously reported, the collection was personally curated by McCartney and includes covers or remixes of McCartney III tracks by Beck, Blur‘s Damon Albarn, Queens of the Stone Age‘s Josh Homme, Radiohead‘s Ed O’Brien, Anderson .Paak, St. Vincent, Phoebe Bridgers and others.

The album sold 21,000 copies in the U.S. during the week ending July 29, according to MRC Data, driven by its release on CD, vinyl LP and cassette. Of that 21,000 sales figure, 16,100 were vinyl LPs, 4,300 were CDs and about 300 were cassettes.

McCartney III Imagined is the former Beatles legend’s third album to peak at #1 on the Top Album Sales tally in the chart’s 30-year history, following Egypt Station in 2018 and McCartney III in early 2021.

McCartney III Imagined also is #1 on Billboard‘s Vinyl Albums chart, and #19 on the Billboard 200.

The album got its initial release in digital formats back in April. During its first week, it debuted at #60 on Top Album Sales, after selling 2,200 downloads.

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This past Saturday, the same day Journey rocked Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival, the band’s co-founder, Neal Schon, auctioned off a collection of his guitars, in the process bringing in a whopping $4.2 million.

More than 90 instruments were sold in total, among them the 1977 Gibson Les Paul Deluxe Black Solid Body model that Schon used to record many songs on Journey’s chart-topping 1981 album, Escape, including “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

That guitar was purchased for $268,000, including fees, by Indianapolis Colts owner and renowned memorabilia collector Jim Irsay.

Irsay, who says he plans to include Schon’s guitar in a museum hopes to open in the future, previously has purchased historic instruments that have belonged to Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Elton John, Jerry Garcia, and David Gilmour.

“I look forward to sharing this and other pieces of the collection in the hopes that they may educate and inspire others to do great, meaningful things,” Irsay said.

The two guitars that brought the most money at Schon’s auction were a pair of 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard Sunburst models that sold for $350,000 and $300,000, respectively.

Other high-priced instruments sold during the auction included a 1959 Gibson ES-335 Natural Semi-Hollow Body guitar that fetched $137,500, a 1957 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop Solid Body that brought in $131,250, and a 1958 Gibson Les Paul Standard Goldtop Solid Body that was purchased for $125,000.

Check out the full results of the auction at HA.com.

Journey’s next concert is scheduled for August 20 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Visit JourneyMusic.com for a complete list of the band’s shows.

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The upcoming official Led Zeppelin documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin has been added to the lineup of the 2021 edition of Italy’s Venice International Film Festival, which runs from September 1 through September 11.

The movie will be screened as part of the out-of-competition section of the festival.

As previously reported, Becoming Led Zeppelin features new interviews with band members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, as well as archival interviews with late drummer John Bonham.

The film, which was directed by Bernard McMahon, follows the individual paths of Led Zeppelin’s four members through their various groups and musical endeavors en route to becoming part of one of the biggest and most influential rock bands in the world. The documentary ends in 1970, at the height of Led Zeppelin’s meteoric rise.

“With Becoming Led Zeppelin my goal was to make a documentary that looks and feels like a musical,” McMahon says in a statement. “I wanted to weave together the four diverse stories of the band members before and after they formed their group with large sections of their story advanced using only music and imagery and to contextualize the music with the locations where it was created and the world events that inspired it.”

McMahon adds, “I used only original prints and negatives, with over 70,000 frames of footage manually restored, and devised fantasia sequences, inspired by Singin’ in the Rain, layering unseen performance footage with montages of posters, tickets and travel to create a visual sense of the freneticism of their early career.”

McMahon also directed American Epic, an award-winning documentary series focusing on American roots music and its impact on the world.

Becoming Led Zeppelin was co-written and produced by Allison McGourty, who also co-wrote American Epic.

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Sir Paul McCartney is hoping to encourage more of his fans to get the COVID-19 vaccine if they haven’t already done so.

Taking to Instagram on Monday, the 79-year-old music legend shared a photo of him getting the jab and captioned his post in all capital letters, “BE COOL. GET VAX’D.”

Sir Paul opted to wear navy blue beanie, navy sweater and a matching face mask for his appointment.

The former Beatles member shared his latest PSA as COVID-19 infections caused by the highly transmissible Delta variant continue to rise worldwide.  

The music legend previously expressed to British publication The Sun that he was eager to be vaccinated, as it will allow him to perform before a live audience in the near future.

“The vaccine will get us out of this,” Paul said at the time. “I think we’ll come through it, I know we’ll come through, and it’s great news about the vaccine. I’ll have it as soon as I’m allowed.”

The British government reports that, as of Monday, nearly 90 percent of its adult population has obtained at least one shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, while 72 percent of eligible adults are fully vaccinated.

COVID-19 has killed over 153,000 people in the U.K., according to government figures, and has infected nearly six million British citizens.

BE COOL. GET VAX’D – Paul pic.twitter.com/33PtIyub5X

— Paul McCartney (@PaulMcCartney) August 2, 2021

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In recent new episode of Marc Maron‘s WTF Podcast, Lindsey Buckingham says despite his firing from Fleetwood Mac in 2019, “pretty much everyone [in the band] would love to see me come back.”

Having said that, Buckingham admits that he’s not sure if returning to the group is “doable.”

Buckingham reveals that his conflicts with Fleetwood Mac began after he finished a tour with Christine McVie supporting their 2017 duo album when he asked if the band would delay its own planned trek so he could promote a solo album he was preparing.

“[I asked the band,] ‘I have this other album that I’m really proud of…and I’d love if you could give me an extra three months to just put it out and do some American dates before Fleetwood Mac goes out,'” Lindsey explains. “And there was certainly one person who did not want to bestow that on me.”

The “one person,” of course, was Stevie Nicks.

Buckingham adds, “To be fair, everyone was anxious to get on the road. But…we’ve all made time for each others things. You know, I’d been in the band for 43 years for God’s sake.”

Lindsey then notes that the touring issue “led to other things that kind of built up around that. And then it just got to the point where someone just didn’t want to work with me anymore, and other people were perhaps not feeling empowered enough to stand up for me when possibly they should have or could have.”

Buckingham said he feels his firing harmed the band’s legacy.”

Meanwhile, Lindsey reports that he’s still in touch with drummer Mick Fleetwood, noting, “we love each other and we reinforced each other’s sensibilities in the band.”

Buckingham’s new self-titled solo album will be released on September 17.

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The Beach Boys have debuted two more advance tracks from the band’s forthcoming box set, Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971, the release of which was recently pushed back from July 30 to August 27.

The tracks, an a cappella version of “Surf’s Up” and a newly created reimagined mix of “This Whole World,” are available now for download and via streaming services.

As previously reported, the Feel Flows collection, which you can pre-order now, features newly remastered versions of two of the band’s underappreciated albums — 1970’s Sunflower and 1971’s Surf’s Up — as well as 108 previously unreleased recordings from the sessions for those albums.

The harmony-laden “Surf’s Up” was the final song on The Beach Boys’ 1971 album of the same name, although the tune dates back to the band’s famously aborted late-1960s album, Shine.

“This Whole World” originally appeared on Sunflower, while the new mix features an alternate lead vocal by Carl Wilson, a lead vocal part from Brian Wilson on the bridge that wasn’t used on the original track, and an alternate ending previously only heard in an Eastern Airlines commercial that aired in 1971.

Feel Flows, which will be available as a five-CD set and digitally, features the aforementoned remastered versions of Sunflower and Surf’s Up, as well as rare live tracks, outtakes, alternate versions and mixes, radio promos, isolated backing tracks and a cappella renditions of songs, and more.

Abridged editions of the collection also will be released, including a two-CD package and a four-LP vinyl set available in standard black vinyl and limited-edition colored vinyl versions.

Check out the Feel Flows: The Sunflower and Surf’s Up Sessions 1969-1971 box set’s full track list, and more details, at uDiscoverMusic.com.

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After the sudden and unexpected death of ZZ Top‘s Dusty Hill last week, the group’s frontman, Billy Gibbons, revealed that the late bassist had recorded several tracks, including some vocals, that likely will appear on the band’s next album.

In a recent interview with Variety, Gibbons noted that the recordings were “gonna require some completion work,” while adding that Hill luckily laid down vocal tracks for two tunes.

“I handed Dusty a couple of lyric sheets and I said, ‘Hey, see if you can make heads or tails out of this,'” Billy recalled. “He said, ‘Can I sing it?’ I said, ‘Dusty, you could sing the calendar if you wanted to — people would love it.’ He goes, ‘Hey, that’s not a bad idea. If we ever get back to go to work, can we add the calendar into the show? I know all the words.'”

Gibbons also told Variety that he wasn’t sure about Hill’s cause of death, while noting that in recent years Dusty had broken a shoulder and a hip, and also had suffered from ulcers.  Dusty’s health issues prompted him to leave ZZ Top’s current tour after only a couple of shows, and the band tapped its longtime guitar tech, Elwood Francis, to step in for him. Sadly, just a few days later, Hill passed away in his sleep at his home in Houston.

Gibbons said it was a coincidence that Francis had decided to stop shaving during the pandemic, so that when ZZ Top enlisted him to fill in for Hill, he’d already grown a long beard.

“I was looking over the front row and everybody was kind of giving each other the elbow, and they were pointing up and said, ‘Look, the ZZ Top circus still rolls on,'” Billy noted. “‘There’s another freak up there.'”

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Sammy Hagar has spoke previously about how he and Eddie Van Halen made peace with each other prior to Eddie’s death in October 2020.  But now, in a new interview, Hagar says his former Van Halen band mate told him that he wanted the two to “make some noise” together.

Speaking to The Washington Post a few days ago, Hagar said that when he reconnected with Eddie “four or five months before he died,” the late guitar legend “had elevated his whole thing.” 

Hagar explains, “He had come to peace with everything. He knew he was sick. And it was so great to contact the guy when he was in that state of mind…And man, I’m so glad that that happened at that time, because if it wouldn’t have, if we had never made peace and he would have passed the way he did, I would feel terrible.”

Hagar goes on to say that in that conversation, Eddie told him that he’d been fighting cancer for 15 years and that he had to get “this big thing on my neck and my throat…all straightened out.” Then, Hagar says Eddie told him, “Next year, you and I have gotta make some noise. We made some great music together, and I wanna do it again.’ I was just, like, ‘Yes.'”

Hagar adds, “Hearing those things really made me able to handle his death. ‘Cause it’s still tough as hell. I miss the guy.”

Hagar joined Van Halen in 1985, replacing original frontman David Lee Roth, and recorded four number-one albums with the group.  The band’s “Van Hagar” lineup — Hagar, Eddie, bassist Michael Anthony and drummer Alex Van Halen — last toured together in 2004.

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Bob Dylan will issue a special seven-inch vinyl single on August 20, featuring two previously unreleased versions of his 1983 song “Blind Willie McTell.”

Both versions of the song, which Dylan recorded during the sessions for his 1983 album, Infidels, feature Dire Straits‘ Mark Knopfler and ex-Rolling Stones member Mick Taylor on guitars, and legendary reggae session musicians Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare on drums and bass, respectively.

The single’s A-side will feature the first take of the track, which will be available exclusively on the single and can be pre-ordered at ThirdManStore.com. The B-side will feature the fifth take of the tune, which also will be included on the recently announced Dylan archival collection Springtime in New York: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 16 (1980-1985) that’s due out September 17.

As previously reported, Springtime in New York is a five-CD, 57-track set that focuses on the sessions for three of the lauded singer/songwriter’s early-1980s albums — 1981’s Shot of Love, Infidels and 1985’s Empire Burlesque.

“Blind Willie McTell” was an outtake from Infidels. The only studio version of the song that’s been released so far is a take featuring just Dylan on piano and Knopfler on guitar that appeared on 1991’s The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 compilation.

Springtime in New York can be pre-ordered now. For full details about the release, visit BobDylan.com.

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