Classic Rock News

Joe Satriani and Steve Vai are following the reunion of the G3 lineup with a joint tour in 2024.

The guitar gods will kick off The Satch-Vai Tour March 22 in Orlando, Florida, and are currently scheduled to wrap up May in Salt Lake City. It’s the first time that the musicians — who’ve known each other since teenage years, when Satriani was Vai’s guitar teacher — will tour together as a duo.

Vai and Satriani also plan to collaborate on new music for the first time and release just before the tour starts.

An artist presale for the tour will start November 13 at 10 a.m. local time: The password is SVx24. Tickets go on sale to the general public on November 17 at 10 a.m. local time.

“I’m so looking forward to sharing the stage with Steve again,” Satriani says in a statement. “Every time we play together it takes me back to when we were teenagers, eating and breathing music every second of the day, pushing, challenging and helping each other to be the best we could be. I guess we’ve never stopped!”

Vai says that Satriani is “my favorite guitarist to jam with,” adding, “Now we have another opportunity to take it to the stage. I feel as though we are both at the top of our game and that the show will be a powerful celebration of the coolest instrument in the world, the electric guitar!”

Satriani’s most recent album is 2022’s The Elephants of Mars. Vai’s is Inviolate, also released last year.

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Iron Maiden‘s 1983 album, Piece of Mind, their first to enter the U.S. Top 20, is being reimagined for its 40th anniversary.

Rather than release a box set or a vinyl reissue, the band has partnered with Z2 Comics to create a graphic novel inspired by the album. In addition to artwork, the book features testimonials from writers, artists, actors and musicians, all talking about their love of Maiden.

Singer Bruce Dickinson says in a statement, “When the idea of a Piece of Mind 40th Anniversary graphic novel first came up, I felt it was the perfect medium to expand outside the confines of the songs and to create new storylines and new dimensions through short form narrative and imagery.”

“Equally as exciting was bringing together some of the top writers and illustrators in the industry who are all actual fans of the band, to add their own creative ideas inspired by the songs, [band mascot] Eddie, and the album itself,” he adds.

Iron Maiden: Piece of Mind includes original stories and art inspired by each of the album’s tracks. Among the celebrities offering testimonials: Public Enemy‘s Chuck D, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian, The Cure‘s Simon Gallup, AEW star Chris Jericho and famed director Jonas Akerlund.

The book is offered in five different versions, including a regular graphic novel that costs $40 and the $300 ASYLUM Edition, which features the book, a pop-up insert, a clamshell box, art prints, collectors cards in a display case and an Eddie Asylum Model Kit. You can preorder the various editions now.

Piece of Mind was the first Maiden album to feature drummer Nicko McBrain. It includes classics like “The Trooper” and “Flight of Icarus.”

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Foo Fighters, Slipknot, Mötley Crüe and Limp Bizkit are headlining the 2024 Welcome to Rockville festival, taking place May 9-12 in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The bill also includes Judas Priest, Falling in Reverse, Greta Van Fleet, Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed, Queens of the Stone Age, Jelly Roll, Evanescence, Mudvayne, The Offspring, Bad Omens, A Day to Remember, Anthrax, In This Moment, Primus and Architects.

For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit WelcometoRockville.com.

In other Foo news, Dave Grohl and company are also headlining Belgium’s 2024 Rock Werchter, taking place July 4-7. For ticket info, visit RockWerchter.be.

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The Eagles‘ ongoing The Long Goodbye tour just got even longer.

The band has just added seven more shows to what they say is their “swan song.” Presales start November 15 at 10 a.m., while the general onsale date is November 17 at 10 a.m. local time. 

Steely Dan is still billed as the band’s opening act, though they were replaced on a number of shows due to Donald Fagen‘s ongoing health issues.

The newly announced shows are as follows:

January 16 — Palm Springs, CA

February 6 —  St. Louis, MO

February 10 — Omaha, NE

February 13 — Tulsa, OK

February 17 — New Orleans, LA

March 4 — Orlando, FL

March 16 — Charlotte, NC

For full tour information, visit Eagles.com.

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On This Day, November 8, 1971 …

Led Zeppelin released their fourth studio album, which became known as Led Zeppelin IV.

The album featured what became their signature tune, “Stairway to Heaven,” along with such future classics as “Going to California,” “The Battle of Evermore,” “When the Levee Breaks” and “Rock and Roll.”

The album went to #1 in Britain and Canada, and peaked at #2 in the U.S.  

Led Zeppelin IV is often included on lists of the greatest albums of all time. In 1999 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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In a career-spanning interview with Guitar World, Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford is asked whether his band or KISS is the “America’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band.” But he says the answer isn’t as simple as you might think.

“That’s a really tough one. I think you’d have to come up with things to sort that out categorically,” he tells the publication. “But what I love about KISS is they can go on forever because of their makeup. So that’s one aspect of what they do that’s very different from what we do.”

“The last KISS show I saw was absolutely brilliant, and there are days when I’ve come off the stage with Aerosmith and just went, ‘Wow. What the hell was that? How do I recreate that?’” he continues, adding, “You never know when you’re going to have one of those supernatural shows. It’s not something you can rehearse; a lot of it comes down to the band and the audience.”

“Sometimes you end up with a magic moment you can’t predict; I think all the good bands have those moments. We have them, and so does KISS,” he concludes. “I don’t know how you choose.”

Whitford also says that he believes Aerosmith’s 2012 Music from Another Dimension! will be their final album, which he thinks is sad because “that was just a p***-poor record.” As far as his favorite Aerosmith album, that’s 1976’s Rocks.

“I think you’re right about the generational way of thinking because, to me, it’s Rocks. If I had to go to a desert island with just one of our albums, Rocks would be it. So put that on my gravestone – it’s Rocks.“

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November 8, 1971 was the day that Led Zeppelin released their iconic untitled fourth album, known as Led Zeppelin IV, ZoSo, Symbols or Runes.  And today — November 8, 2023 — brings us the news that the figure who appears on the cover of the album has been identified.

The image depicts a man in old-fashioned dress, with a huge bundle of sticks on his back. Now, the BBC reports that Brian Edwards of the University of West England found the original photo while he was looking through a photo album for research on a different topic. 

“I instantly recognized the man with the sticks – he’s often called the stick man,” said Edwards, adding that his discovery was “quite a revelation.”

Edwards went on a hunt for information about the photo and determined that the man was likely a 19th century thatcher named Lot Long, from Wiltshire, England, and that the photograph was taken by Ernest Farmer, the BBC reports.  Farmer was the first head of the school of photography at what is now the University of Westminster.

The Wiltshire Museum has acquired the photo and will put it on display next year in an exhibit called The Wiltshire Thatcher: a Photographic Journey through Victorian Wessex.

The image on the Led Zeppelin IV album cover is colorized and appears in a frame. It was reportedly spotted by Robert Plant in an antique shop near Jimmy Page‘s house.

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Paul McCartney fans are getting insight into his songwriting process with podcast McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, which features interviews McCartney did with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon for McCartney’s bestselling book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.

Muldoon tells ABC Audio that when he and McCartney first sat down for the interviews they had no idea anyone would ever hear them, which may have made the interviews even more interesting.

He says that being so relaxed each other made for good listening, though that’s not what they set out to do. He adds, “In fact, I’m sure there were moments where we were so unbuttoned that we probably wouldn’t have thought it would ever be broadcast.” 

Muldoon says one of their main goals during the interviews was to make sure McCartney didn’t tell the same stories he had shared in the past.  

“The fact that he has been interviewed so often over the years makes it more difficult, actually,” he says. “We felt some kind of, I suppose, obligation to mix it up a little bit.”

And Muldoon insists that McCartney was never hesitant to discuss anything, noting, “He’s very open.”

“There’s very little of a schism or a chasm between how he presents himself and who he is,” Muldoon shares. “I think … what you see is pretty much what you get.” 

A new episode of McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, a co-production of Pushkin and iHeartPodcasts, premieres every Wednesday, with each episode focused on a specific song. So far, there have been episodes on “Penny Lane,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Let it Be” and more.

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The idea of Iron Maiden‘s Bruce Dickinson starring in a horror movie: totally understandable. Bruce Dickinson starring in a horror movie about an ABBA tribute band? Totally bizarre.

Deadline reports that Dickinson will star in the horror comedy Bjorn of the Dead, which follows an ABBA tribute band that enters a Battle of the Bands competition, only to find themselves fighting off the undead and attempting to save humanity in the middle of an apocalypse.  

It’s not clear which role Dickinson will play in the film, though he may be playing Bjorn, the lead singer of the tribute band, Abbatoir [ABBA-twahre]. “Abbatoir” is French for “slaughterhouse.” Deadline reports there will also be cameos from various rock and metal performers.

The movie was written by Dickinson’s son Austin Dickinson, who is also co-producing. The movie’s other co-producer, Andrew Prendergast, tells Deadline, “We are thrilled to be making this blood-drenched gore fest from Austin’s super funny, terrifying, cautionary tale about the inner workings of the music industry.”

Austin adds, “Get your spandex on, preen your wigs, and sharpen your axes. Bjorn is coming.”

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David Bowie is no longer with us, but his style will live on forever.

Designer John Varvatos has launched a limited-edition capsule collection inspired by the late rocker’s iconic style. Among the items are a leather trench coat, a geometric patterned shirt inspired by the backdrop of a candid shot of Bowie on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth and a striped shirt inspired by a photo of Bowie taken while he was recording his 1973 album, Pin Ups.

There’s also a suit jacket and pants with a subtle lightning bolt design inspired by the Aladdin Sane album, a crewneck sweater inspired by the 2003 Reality album and a bomber jacket with “David Bowie” embroidered on the back in the same font used on the artist’s 1987 album, Never Let Me Down.

Slightly more affordable — but only slightly — are a series of Bowie T-shirts. Those “only” cost between $168 and $198 each. You can check out the entire David Bowie X JV collection at JohnVarvatos.com, as well as John Varvatos stores and select North American specialty stores.

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