Classic Rock News

When Billy Idol is not performing for audiences onstage, he spends some of his downtime with his grandchildren, and it’s something he loves doing.

“It is really lovely. It’s nice, I’ve got the best of both worlds,” Idol tells People regarding his work and career. “But it’s been lovely and it’s all worked out in an incredible way that I could never imagine.”

The 68-year-old Idol has three grandkids: 3-year-old McKenzie, his son Brant‘s daughter, and 3-year-old Poppy and 2-year-old Mary Jane, his daughter Bonnie’s kids.

He says that Poppy and McKenzie have seen him play live and McKenzie loved it so much she wanted to come back for more, with Idol sharing, “She came one night, she went, ‘Can we see granddad again tonight?’”

Idol, who has shared pictures of him hanging out with his grandkids on social media, says he enjoys being a grandparent — noting it’s much easier than being a parent.

“[What’s] lovely about being granddad, you’re not disciplining them. You’re more giving them advice if they ask you stuff like that,” Idol says. “So the pressure isn’t the same as being a parent where you’re having to discipline … it’s quite different.”

Of course when he’s not being a granddad, Idol is spending his time as a rock star and he’ll be doing just that on the road in May. His next show is happening May 10 in Atlanta. A complete list of dates can be found at billyidol.com.

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Former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora has released the new solo single “Livin’ Alone,” one of four tracks he plans to release in May.

Sambora previously released the tune “I Pray,” with “Songs That Wrote My Life” due out May 10 and “Believe (In Miracles)” coming May 17. 

Sambora also just shared a clip from the interview he did for the Bon Jovi Hulu docuseries Thank You, Good Night: The Bon Jovi Story, which he says got left on the cutting room floor. In the clip posted to Instagram, Richie talks about what went into his decision to leave the band.  

“It’s really hard to be married to four guys and be in close quarters the way we were. That coupled with my daughter coming of age, my wife’s mental health stuff was really acting up and she needed me — and I needed her,” he says.

“I don’t regret leaving the situation, but I regret how I did it,” he adds. “So, I would like to apologize fully right now to the fans, especially also to the guys, because my feet and my spirit were just not letting me walk out the door.”

He also talks about how he was being treated at the time of his departure, noting, “I was in this organization for 31 1/2 years, and everybody has their personal tragedies and things like that, but I didn’t receive a lot of compassion coming back for what I was going through.”

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Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has paid tribute to guitar great Duane Eddy, who passed away Tuesday, April 30, at the age of 86.

In a post on Instagram, Page writes about the first time he saw Eddy perform at the Granada in Kingston in November 1963 and the first time they chatted on the radio in 2011, during a tribute to guitar pioneer Les Paul.

“More recently, in 2018, I had the chance to meet Duane and his wife as he performed at the London Palladium alongside Richard Hawley,” Page shared. “He was introduced to the stage that night by Whispering Bob Harris and it was a pleasure to get the chance to meet him: he was such a lovely man.”

Page noted, “Duane Eddy twanged the thang in the late 50s and 60s and you can hear his character sound appearing throughout the decades of popular music. He will be missed and my thoughts are with his family. RIP, Duane.” 

Other artists who’ve paid tribute to Eddy include John Fogerty, who called him “a hero and HUGE inspiration to me,” and Randy Bachman, who called Eddy “an incredible inspiration to me as a young guitarist.”

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U2 is back with the third installment in their recently launched digital series, U2 To Love and Only Love – Deep Dives and B-Sides. 

The band plans to release 12 newly remastered collections throughout the year, made up of songs that until now were only available on vinyl, CD or cassette.

The latest collection is centered around the song “Last Night On Earth,” the sixth track from their ninth studio album, Pop.

The collection includes a remastered version of the original “Last Night on Earth” single, along with a “First Night in Hell” remix. There’s also a remix of the Zooropa track “Numb” and U2’s cover of the M hit “Pop Muzik,” plus two mixes of U2’s cover of The Beatles’ “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”

They’ve also released a video of a performance of “Last Night On Earth” recorded in 1997, live from the Foro Sol Autodromo in Mexico City.

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Actress Valerie Bertinelli is getting real about her relationship with ex-husband Eddie Van Halen, whom she was married to from 1981 to 2001.

Bertinelli posted a video on Instagram reacting to the recent Behind the Music episode about her son, Wolfgang Van Halen, and admitted that following Eddie’s death in 2020, she may have embellished the truth about their relationship.

“I was finally able to watch Wolfie’s Behind the Music. It was not easy. I’d stopped it many times because it was just too brutal to watch for many reasons,” she shared. “One, seeing Wolfie’s pain. Two, seeing what a better job I could have done as a parent even though he turned out magnificently. I made a lot of mistakes.”

“And three, seeing what I had turned of Ed’s and my relationship into, some sort of fantasy, soulmate recreation of history,” she added. 

“I fell in love with him when I was 20, and it rapidly declined into drugs, and alcohol, and infidelity,” she explained. “Nothing that makes you feel loved and wanted and cared for. Nothing that would scream soulmate, that’s for sure.”

She said that following’s Eddie’s death, “I was more than willing to put myself in the grieving widow category for a man that I hadn’t lived with for 20 years.”

“What we had together was this beautiful son that we both unconditionally loved,” she concluded. “That’s what I got out of that marriage was Wolfie, the best thing that ever happened to me. Not a soulmate.”

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David Gilmour is ready to get back on the stage. The Pink Floyd rocker just announced his first concert dates for 2024, which will have him headlining London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Gilmour has confirmed six shows at the historic venue: October 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15, with tickets set to go on sale Friday, May 10.

The shows will launch a little over a month after Gilmour releases his new solo album, Luck and Strange, which drops September 6. It is his first album of new material in nine years. 

Luck and Strange is available for preorder now.

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David Bowie fans are getting another preview of the upcoming box set Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, due out June 14.

The second release from the set is an alternative version of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars track “Lady Stardust,” which was recorded at Trident Studios in London on November 12, 1971. It features Bowie on vocals, Mick Ronson on piano, Trevor Bolder on bass and Woody Woodmansey on drums. 

“This was a shock when I first heard it,” shares Ken Scott, the song’s original producer. “I pulled up the faders, and suddenly, what the hell? I had no recollection of it being like that originally, but I guess it was just a guide vocal. But it sounds great, is really interesting and brings a totally different feeling to the song.”

You can listen to “Lady Stardust (Alternative Version – Take 1)” now via digital outlets.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Star, a five-CD/Blu-ray audio box set, features 29 unreleased tracks that show Bowie’s journey from February 1971 to the release of 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Those tracks include early songwriting demos, rehearsals from Bowie’s home, BBC sessions, live performances, outtakes and alternative versions.

The Blu-ray will include the 2012 remaster of the original Ziggy Stardust album plus additional mixes from 2003. There will also be an alternate version of the album, Waiting in the Sky (Before the Starman Came to Earth), featuring recordings made at Trident Studios in December 1971. 

Rock ‘n’ Roll Star! is available for preorder now.

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The Rolling Stones had some surprises in store for fans during their set at Jazz Fest in New Orleans on Thursday, May 2. 

The rockers brought out two guests during the set, one of which helped them perform a song that, according to setlist.fm, they hadn’t performed live in over 25 years. 

The first guest was Zydeco musician Dwayne Dopsie, who the Stones called “King of the Accordion” on Instagram. He joined them for “Let It Bleed,” marking the song’s tour debut.

They were then joined by Irma Thomas for “Time is On My Side,” which The Stones pointed out is “a song she knows very well as she’d recorded it before the Rolling Stones in 1964!” The performance of “Time is On My Side” marked the first time the band has played it in concert since 1998.

As for the rest of the set, it included such Stones classics as “Start Me Up,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Honky Tonk Woman,” “Gimme Shelter” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” along with Hackney Diamonds tracks “Angry” and “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.”

It seems the one song with Irma wasn’t enough for Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood. He shared on social media that he caught her midnight show at Preservation Hall in New Orleans and “then jumped up to play ‘Time Is On My Side’ with her and her amazing band!”

Jazz Fest was the second night of The Rolling Stones ’24 Hackney Diamonds tour. The trek hits Glendale, Arizona, on Tuesday, May 7. A complete list of dates can be found at rollingstones.com.

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On This Day, May 3, 1976…

Paul McCartney launched his first tour of the U.S. in ten years, this time with his band Wings. His previous U.S. tour was in 1966 with The Beatles.

The North American leg of the Wings Over America World tour kicked off in Forth Worth, Texas, and wrapped with a three-night stand at the Forum in Inglewood, California, from June 21-23.

The tour had McCartney & Wings performing such songs as “Jet,” “Band on the Run,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Live and Let Die,” and “Silly Love Songs,” along with Beatles classics like “Yesterday,” “Lady Madonna,” “The Long and Winding Road” and “Blackbird.”

Wings Over America, a triple live album recorded during the tour, was released in December 1976.

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Model/actress/artist Anita Pallenberg is mostly known for her association with The Rolling Stones, but a new documentary, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg, seeks to remind the world she was more than just the former girlfriend of Brian Jones and Keith Richards.

Pallenberg’s influence on the band was huge. The film’s co-director Alexis Bloom tells ABC Audio Pallenberg was a “great connector” for the group, introducing them to art, artists, books and more. 

“I mean, they literally wore her clothes,” co-director Svetlana Zill adds. “She brought this sort of cultural influence into the mix that they had not really previously been aware of before.”

The two directors got involved in the project after Marlon Richards, Pallenberg’s son with Keith, brought them his mother’s unpublished memoir, as well as hours of old film footage. He and his sister Angela appear in the film, which the directors acknowledge wasn’t easy for either of them.

“I think it would be hard for anyone to go back and talk about their childhood,” Zill says. “But they were very open and willing to, which was incredible, the kind of trust that they had to let us go there.” 

Keith, who Pallenberg was with from 1967 to 1979, is also interviewed for the film, and Bloom says she initially wondered if the rocker would be comfortable enough to open up his relationship with Anita. She noting she was “surprised how tenderly he spoke” about her.

“It was very moving because it was palpable the way that he spoke about her,” Zill adds. “I don’t think it was easy for him to go back and talk about her.” 

Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg opens in theaters and is available on demand on May 3.

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