Classic Rock News

John Regan, a bass player who worked with Ace Frehley, Peter Frampton and others, passed away at the age of 71. Consequence reports that news of his death was confirmed by his wife, Cathy, in a post on a friend’s Facebook page. 

Regan played in Frehley’s group Frehley’s Comet from 1984 to 1990. He also toured with Frampton and appeared on several of his albums, including 1980’s Rise Up and 1981’s Breaking All The Rules. Frampton took to social media to pay tribute to the musician, calling him “one of my closest buddies.”  

“There might only be a handful, if that, of people who come into your world and truly enrich your life,” he shared on Instagram. “He certainly enriched my life because of the person and great player he was.”

Frampton added, “John Regan was the best of us. He went out of his way to help people when things weren’t right. It didn’t matter who you were, prince or pauper. … He was a friend to all. Always musically inspiring and one of the funniest people on the planet…I love you my brother. You will be missed by many. Rest in Peace.” 

Regan’s bass playing can also be heard on such songs as The Rolling Stones’ “Dirty Work” and the Mick Jagger/David Bowie collab “Dancing in the Streets,” as well as songs by David Lee Roth, Billy Idol and more.

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On This Day, April 10, 1970 …

Paul McCartney publicly “quit” The Beatles via a press release for his first solo album, in which he says he has no plans for new Beatles music or any future songwriting with John Lennon. Lennon, who’d left the group months ago but agreed to keep quiet about it, was reportedly furious. 

In December of that year McCartney filed a lawsuit to formally dissolve the band’s partnership, which was officially dissolved by an English court in January 1975.

As for that first solo release, McCartney, it went to number one in the U.S. McCartney later formed the band Wings, releasing seven albums. He went on to have huge solo success, releasing 18 solo records.

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Fans of The Who may not want to hold their breath waiting for the band to tour the U.S. again.

In an interview promoting their recent live album, The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley, Roger Daltrey shared his doubts that The Who would ever hit the road in North American again. 

Daltrey tells USA Today they don’t currently have any U.S. tour dates planned, noting, “I don’t know if we’ll ever come back to tour America.”

He added, “There is only one tour we could do, an orchestrated Quadrophenia to round out the catalog. But that’s one tall order to sing that piece of music, as I’ll be 80 next year. I never say never, but at the moment it’s very doubtful.”

Roger also points out that “touring has become very difficult since COVID,” with a lot of bands not being able to get insured for shows, making things very expensive.

“Most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole,” he says. “To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show. That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.” 

The Who do plan to tour Europe this summer. The latest leg of their The Who Hits Back tour kicks off June 14 in Barcelona, Spain. A complete list of dates can be found at thewho.com.

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Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band are currently on their North American tour, and it certainly sounds like E Streeter Steven Van Zandt is loving it.

“This tour is really interesting, and different from what we’ve done for the past 40 years,” he tells USA Today, noting that unlike previous concerts where the set changes every night, this one has a theme and “is more like a Broadway show.”

He says, “It combines a theme of mortality with a proof of vitality. This show is a hurricane from beginning to end.”

Little Steven has toured with Springsteen for a long time and has performed a lot of his songs. So, what are some of his favorite ones to play live? “A lot of my favorites we don’t play,” he says, listing off cuts like “Restless Nights” and “Loose Ends” from the 1998 compilation Tracks, and “The Little Things (My Baby Does)” and “Gotta Get That Feeling” from 2010’s The Promise.

“But I love the show we’re doing,” Van Zandt says. “The guy has not written a song that I don’t enjoy.”

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band still have a couple of shows left for this leg of the tour. They play Long Island, New York, on Tuesday, April 11, before wrapping things up on Friday, April 14, at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. They then go to Europe and the U.K. before returning to the States in August. A complete list of dates can be found at BruceSpringsteen.net.

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Bob Dylan fans have been waiting a long time for the planned Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet in the lead role, and it sounds like it’s finally closer to happening. 

The film’s director, James Mangold, broke the news to Collider that the movie is expected to begin shooting in August, with Timothée doing his own singing in the film.

Mangold says he was interested in the project because “it’s such an amazing time in American culture,” sharing that it will explore “a young 19-year-old Bob Dylan, coming to New York with $2 in his pocket and becoming a worldwide sensation within three years.”

He adds, “It’s so beyond belief, it’s such an interesting true story and about such an interesting moment in America, the American scene, different characters from Woody Guthrie to Bob Dylan, to Pete Seeger, to Joan Baez. All have a role to play in this movie.”

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After making headlines by claiming that the amount of royalties Sting gets from Diddy‘s song “I’ll Be Missing You” is $5,000 a day, Diddy now claims it was a big joke.

Earlier this week, Diddy replied to a clip of Sting confirming that he makes $2,000 per day in royalties from “I’ll Be Missing You” because it samples “Every Breath You Take,” his 1983 number one hit with The Police, Diddy wrote, “Nope. 5K a day. Love to my brother @OfficialSting!”

But on Friday, Diddy took to Twitter to walk back his comment.

“I want y’all to understand I was joking! It’s called being Facetious! Me and @OfficialSting have been friends for a long time! He never charged me $3K or $5K a day for Missing You,” Diddy wrote. “He probably makes more than $5K a day from one of the biggest songs in history.”

The whole thing is really semantics, though. Diddy used the sample without permission, which caused Sting to take legal action: He sued for a chunk of royalties and won. So while Sting may not have personally “charged” Diddy for the sample, the fact remains that he gets a percentage of whatever royalties the song earns, whether it adds up to $2,000 per day — that’s $730,000 per year — or more.

In 2003, Sting told Rolling Stone, “Those guys just take your s***, put it on a record and deal with the legality later … I put a couple of my kids through college with the proceeds, and me and [Diddy] are good pals still.”

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Rock & Roll Hall of Famer David Crosby passed away January 18, and now his Crosby, Stills & Nash bandmate Graham Nash has revealed that he passed away after contracting COVID-19.

“He was rehearsing for a show to do in Los Angeles with a full band,” Nash shared on the Kyle Meredith With… podcast. “After three days of rehearsals, he felt a little sick. And he’d already had COVID, and he had COVID again.” He adds, “And so he went home and decided that he would take a nap, and he never woke up. But he died in his bed, and that is fantastic.”

Nash says many people didn’t expect Crosby to live as long as he did, noting he expected him to go “20 years ago.”

“I mean, the fact that he made it to 81 was astonishing,” Nash offers, although he says it was still a shock.

Nash has previously said that he and Crosby had been mending fences before Crosby’s death, and Nash says he was pleased they had been “getting closer towards the end.”

“He had a good life. I mean, what incredible music he made. He was a fantastic storyteller,” he says. “I loved him dearly. In looking back at what separated us, it was just foolish stuff, really. The music is the most important part of our relationship.”

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Metallica is coming to late night TV next week.

The metal legends have announced a weeklong residency on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! from Monday, April 10, to Thursday, April 13.

Each show will feature a Metallica performance. The “Enter Sandman” outfit will also sit down with host Jimmy Kimmel for an interview on the Monday episode.

“Keep your eyes peeled for other sightings during the broadcast, as we really don’t know what else Jimmy will get us involved in!” the group teases.

The Kimmel residency leads up to the release of Metallica’s new album, 72 Seasons, on Friday, April 14.

Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Rush’s Geddy Lee is finally ready to share his story. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s much anticipated memoir, My Effin’ Life, finally has a release date. A post on Rush’s Twitter account shared a picture of the book’s cover, along with the news that the book will be dropping November 14.

Geddy initially announced he was working on a memoir back in September 2021, and it was originally reported to be coming out in the fall of 2022. He shared the news of the book in an Instagram post, writing it was one of the things he did to pass the time during COVID-19 lockdowns. He also said writing it helped him deal with the January 2020 death of his Rush bandmate Neal Peart.

At the time he described the book as a “presentable, epic-length account of my life on and off the stage…my childhood, my family, the story of my parents’ survival, my travels and all sorts of nonsense I’ve spent too much time obsessing over.”

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Pink Floyd is back on the Billboard chart. The Dark Side of the Moon: Live at Wembley, London, 1974, which was released last month, has landed in the top 10 on several Billboard charts.

The album debuts at eight on the Top Album Sales chart, at nine on the Top Rock Albums chart, at five on the Vinyl Albums chart and at eight on the Top Current Album Sales chart. And on the weekly Billboard 200 Album chart, the record debuts at 49. 

The Dark Side of the Moon: Live at Wembley, London, 1974 was released in conjunction with the band’s 50th anniversary celebration of the classic album. It was part of the 50th anniversary box set that just came out and was also available as a standalone album, the first time the live concert was officially released as a standalone album.

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