Classic Rock News

Playing concerts isn’t the only thing Flea does naked.

During an episode of the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, hosted by Cheers costars Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist recalls the time he and Harrelson went snowboarding together without wearing any clothes.

“I have footage of Woody Harrelson and I snowboarding stark naked down a big, snowy mountain,” Flea shares.

“It’s actually great footage!” Harrelson adds.

Apparently, Flea and Harrelson take snowboarding trips together quite frequently. Flea also tells a story of a time he and Harrelson were racing when the bassist almost hit a woman on the mountain. He says he offered her a sincere apology, though she didn’t accept.

“She takes her ski pole and sticks it in my face,” Flea recalls. “At this point I’m like, ‘Well, look, I’m f****** sorry, but get your f****** pole out of my face.'”

“Woody comes up and he just sees her pole in my face, and he comes to my defense like a good friend,” he continues. “Then she goes, ‘My husband’s gonna come down here and he’s gonna show you what for.’ And that’s when [Harrelson’s] like, ‘Bring the f****** husband!'”

We can only assume that all of this inspired the RHCP song “Snow (Hey Oh).”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Sammy Hagar has talked at length about his failed attempts to get in contact with his former bandmate Alex Van Halen. Now he thinks he may know why the drummer is ghosting him.

Speaking to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Hagar, who’s currently out on his Best of Both Worlds Tour, says, “I reached out to Alex a dozen times, before this tour was announced, and got no response. I mean, I’ve asked him to meet me under any conditions, any circumstances, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It’s not like, ‘Well, let me think about it.’ It’s like, no answer. Zero.”

According to Hagar, he wants to offer Alex a spotlight during the tour to “just play a couple of songs” or, if he wants to, “be the drummer the whole night” — or, he laughs, “be the executive producer. What do you want to do?”

But Sammy is now floating the idea that Alex is ignoring him because he’s going to put out his autobiography, called Brothers, this fall.

“I’m sure when he made his book deal, they said, ‘You cannot talk to Dave [Lee Roth], and you cannot talk to Hagar,” says the Red Rocker. “I guarantee you, that that was part of the deal.”

Still, Sammy is soldiering on with his current lineup: Joe Satriani on guitar, Jason Bonham on drums, Van Halen‘s Michael Anthony on bass and keyboardist Rai Thistlethwayte.

“The idea of putting together guys who maybe have not played together before — Joe and Mike and I have not played together with Jason before — is a revelation,” says Hagar.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

 Fifty-five years ago — Aug. 15, 1969, to Aug. 17, 1969 — the original Woodstock festival took place in Bethel, New York. And while many revere it as the ultimate “peace and love” musical experience, some of those who were there don’t remember it that fondly.

Joan Baez, who headlined the first night of the festival, told the San Diego Union-Tribune, “It was a rare, historic moment, but it’s been over-glorified. People say to me, ‘Oh, man, you played at Woodstock and you had everything — the music, the political scene, the community.’ And I tell them: ‘Yeah, we had the rain and the mud!’”

Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart told the Union-Tribune, “I recall the people who played really well at Woodstock — Carlos Santana, Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix — were over-the-top great. But we just didn’t play well. It was a missed opportunity.”

The Who‘s guitarist Pete Townshend didn’t buy into the scene. He told the Union-Tribune, “The dream and ideology of rock ‘n roll was rooted in the idea that … the ‘Woodstock generation,’ were super-luminaries, but I’ve never agreed with that. I always thought that was the biggest crock of s*** America has ever come up with.”

Billy Joel attended Woodstock as a fan, but left after a day and a half. “I hated it,” he said. “I think a lot of that ‘community spirit’ was based on the fact that everybody was so wasted … it was all muddy, and you couldn’t go to the bathroom unless you stood up and went right where you were.”

The Jefferson Airplane‘s Grace Slick confirms that, recalling, “I’m amazed I was able to be on the side of the stage for 12 hours before we played — without having to take a pee. There were no bathrooms.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

After announcing that he was going to end his 13-year Las Vegas residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace  with his 200th show on Aug. 7, Rod Stewart has changed his mind.

Speaking about ending the residency earlier this year, Rod told ABC Audio that he “can’t imagine not going back [to Vegas] again” — and that’s exactly what he’s doing, in 2025. He’s announced Rod Stewart: The Encore Shows, which will begin in March. There are 12 shows scheduled, taking place in March, May and June.

These new performances will evidently be different from his residency, which was called The Hits. It will include the hits, but also, according to a press release, “surprises from the songbook, swing … deep cuts, and stunning new production elements.” 

This would seem to indicate that Rod plans to incorporate some material from his most recent album, Swing Fever, a collaboration with former Squeeze keyboardist and band leader Jools Holland.

Fan club presale tickets go on sale Aug. 8 at 10 a.m. PT, and so will Citi cardmember tickets via citientertainment.com. Other presales start on Aug. 9, and tickets go on sale to the general public Aug. 12 at 10 a.m. PT via ticketmaster.com/rodstewartvegas.

Here are the show dates:

March: 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22

May: 29, 31

June: 1, 5, 7, 8

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

On This Day, Aug. 7, 1987 …

Lindsey Buckingham quit Fleetwood Mac, one day after a contentious group meeting at Christine McVie’s house led to a physical altercation between him and Stevie Nicks.

With a tour starting in a month, the band replaced Lindsey with Billy Burnette and Rick Vito and hit the road for the Shake the Cage Tour.

Buckingham would eventually return to Fleetwood Mac when they reunited in 1993 to perform “Don’t Stop” at President Bill Clinton’s inauguration. They then reunited in 1997 for a live concert, which was recorded for the live album The Dance and followed by an arena tour.

Buckingham remained with Fleetwood Mac until 2018, when he was fired over a disagreement about touring. He was again replaced by two guitarists, Crowded House’s Neil Finn and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell.

The current future of Fleetwood Mac is uncertain. In fact, Nicks recently shared in an interview that she didn’t think the band could go on following the 2023 death of McVie.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Rod Stewart‘s 13-year residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace is coming to an end Aug. 7 with his 200th show in the venue. He tells ABC Audio one of the reasons why he’s choosing to end his successful run at the venue now.

“Possibly ’cause it’s a nice rounded number, 200 shows,” he says.

But this last show might not be the end of his time in Sin City forever. As he tells ABC Audio, “I mean, I can’t imagine not going back there again.”

One of the reasons that Rod spent 13 years at the Colosseum is because he just really loves the venue. “Caesars are the best,” he says. “I mean, they really looked after me. Best place to play.”

While the Vegas run is over, Rod still has a number of other North American shows booked for August and into September, including a Sept. 13 stadium show co-headlining with Billy Joel in Cleveland, Ohio. The two have never shared a bill before, so how did that come about?

“I don’t know,” Rod says. “I know he lives in Palm Beach now, where I live sometimes. I don’t know, I’ve got no idea. But I’m actually looking forward to it — I’m honored, in fact.” 

In a recent interview, Rod, who turns 80 in January, said he has no plans to retire and feels that he could “do probably another 15 [years] easy.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

U2 frontman Bono may be a huge rock star, but that doesn’t mean he’s always living the rock star life, as revealed by his daughter actress Eve Hewson. 

In a new interview with Net-a-Porter magazine, Hewson talks about how she and her siblings all moved home to Dublin during the COVID-19 pandemic. While they would stay up till early hours of the morning, her now 64-year-old dad didn’t join in on the fun.

“We have a studio at the end of [my parents’] garden, where [we’d] usually end up, in the middle of the night, writing stupid songs,” she shares. “I actually got kicked out of the family band for being too enthusiastic.” 

But when asked whether her dad took part in these studio sessions, Eve noted, “No! He was asleep by 10 p.m. every night.” 

While Eve went into acting instead of music, she did share that when she was young she considered going into music like her dad, noting, “I thought I was going to be Charli XCX.” 

As for any suggestion she’s a nepo baby and got her success only because of her famous father, Hewson doesn’t let it bother her. She says, “The only thing you can do is crack a joke and move on.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Def Leppard’s Summer Stadium tour was recently in Cleveland, and while in the city the band decided to pay a visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

The rockers, who were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2019, shared video of their visit, where they got to check out items in the Rock Hall’s vault. 

“It’s amazing so far. We just went into a place where you’re not allowed to film, and it was unbelievable,” frontman Joe Elliott says, noting he got to see Levon Helm’s 102-year-old mandolin from when he was in The Band, sharing, “I was shaking looking at it.”

He also saw late Def Leppard guitarist Steve Clark’s guitars and the lyrics for their 1993 track “Two Steps Behind,” joking, “I always wondered where they ended up.”

“I’m just blown away by everything, to be honest,” Rick Savage says of the visit. “You forget, even though it’s part of your life and part of your history, it’s easy to just like kinda dismiss it. But then when you see all this stuff that paved the way for so many of us, and in a small way to be associated with it, is pretty humbling actually.” 

Def Leppard also checked out their own exhibit, which features a suit Elliott says he wore just one time for the cover of Rolling Stone to promote 1992’s Adrenalize. 

Drummer Rick Allen notes of their exhibit, “I think we need to add to it, but it was great to just see a little bit of what was there and remember what we were doing at the time.” 

Def Leppard’s Summer Stadium with Journey hits Citi Field in New York on Wednesday. A complete list of dates can be found at defleppard.com.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx is the latest rocker to pay tribute to Aerosmith following the announcement that they’ve retired from touring due to Steven Tyler’s vocal problems.

In a post on Facebook, Sixx writes that he bought his first Aerosmith record in 1973 when he was 15, noting, “I would carry that album with me everywhere, including to friends’ houses, confessing to them that this was the future of rock ‘n’ roll.”

He adds, “As the years rolled on, my opinion never changed. Lyrically, musically, rhythmically, and especially with those monster songs, Aerosmith was unparalleled.” 

“Their entire catalog is outstanding, but those first five albums were the holy grail for a young, future Nikki Sixx,” he writes, before going on to praise Aerosmith members Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Joey Kramer and Brad Whitford.

Sixx, who’s been sober for 23 years, then revealed how important Tyler has been to him. 

“Steven Tyler to me, has always been the ultimate singer, lyricist, and showman, but personally, he’s a man who helped me at the beginning of my sobriety,” he writes. “I’ve been lucky to become a peer, a friend, and always a fan of this great American rock ‘n’ roll band.” 

Sixx concludes his post, “Thank you, Aerosmith, for everything.”

Aerosmith announced on Aug. 2 they were canceling their Peace Out tour, which was due to relaunch in September. The tour initially kicked off in September 2023, but was postponed after a handful of shows when Tyler fractured his larynx.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Earlier this year, Forbes reported that Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” was “officially the biggest song of all time.” But the band’s guitarist and songwriter Neal Schon is still pretty shocked it has gotten as big as it has.

“When I first heard the finished song I knew it was special, but it took years to get to the place where it’s a worldwide anthem,” Schon tells The Guardian. “Everybody has their own theory about why ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ exploded in the new millennium.”

One of those theories has to do with its use in several movies and TV shows.

“First, there was the movie Monster, with Charlize Theron. Then came The Sopranos – I remember my phone blowing up and all my friends saying: ‘Man, did you see the final scene?’” he says.

But it was the song’s use in the pilot episode of Glee that brought the tune to a whole new audience, although Schon says he was initially a bit concerned about the song being on the program.

“I was terrified by that because I thought it was a teenybopper show, not so cool for us,” he says. “Little did I know that it would open up a younger generation to our music.” 

He adds, “I’m a rocker and a blues guy, and we always joke that if I think something is too schmaltzy, it’s usually gonna be big!”

Fans can hear “Don’t Stop Believin'” and other hit songs this summer on Journey’s Summer Stadium tour with Def Leppard. The tour hits Citi Field in New York on Wednesday. A complete list of tour dates can be found at journeymusic.com. 

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.