Classic Rock News

Ahead of this Friday’s release of a 25th anniversary reissue of Stone Temple Pilots‘ 1996 album Tiny Music…Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, STP’s Robert and Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz are reminiscing about their late bandmate, Scott Weiland.

Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment, Dean recalls that when they first met Scott in the early ’90s, “He was superhuman — whatever he did, whether it was skiing or tennis or basketball, he excelled. He was really, really talented in every sense of the word, his physicality and his strength. Things came very easy to him.”

But by the time Tiny Music... came around, Kretz says, “things were getting bad” with Weiland and his substance abuse.

The band recorded the album while living together in a huge rented mansion in California’s Santa Ynez Valley, and Robert recalls, “There were times when we did go upstairs, and you had to walk past Scott’s bedroom first when you went up, and we just were checking in on him to see if he was alive. Literally.“

Dean adds, “To be affiliated with somebody of that musical magnitude and to be so fulfilled by it, and to watch this person just go into this deep hole of demise was just f***ing awful. It was just awful, man.”

But still, Dean says, “Not a day doesn’t go by that we all think about Scott. Every day.” Robert admits that even seeing his car’s dashboard compass pointing to “SW” feels “poignant.”

Dean adds, “It’s heartbreaking that he’s not here to celebrate this.”

Despite the struggles of making Tiny Music..., it finally led to some long-awaited acclaim from music critics, who’d been brutal to STP since the start of their career.  As Robert notes, “Talking to some of those critics these days, they’re like, ‘Um, sorry! Sorry!'”

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A new compilation from the NOW That’s What I Call Music! folks focusing specifically on classic songs from the 1980s will be released on August 6.

NOW That’s What I Call a Decade 1980s is an 18-track collection that will be available everywhere on CD and digital formats, and as a vinyl LP sold exclusively via Walmart.com and at Walmart stores.

The album features classic rock hits including Foreigner‘s “I Want to Know What Love Is,” Journey‘s “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” John Mellencamp‘s “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (A Salute to 60’s Rock),” The Clash‘s “Rock the Casbah,” and Billy Idol‘s “Rebel Yell.”

The compilation also features hits from George Michael, Eurythmics, Simple Minds, Duran Duran, Survivor, Rick Springfield, Wang Chung, A-ha, INXS, The Bangles, Hall & Oates and Toto.

NOW That’s What I Call a Decade 1980s can be pre-ordered now.

Here’s the complete track list:

George Michael — “Monkey” (7″ Edit Remastered)
Eurythmics — “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” (Remastered)
Simple Minds — “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” (12″ Version)
John Mellencamp — “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A. (A Salute to 60’s Rock)”
The Clash — “Rock the Casbah” (Bob Clearmountain Mix)
Duran Duran — “Rio”
Tears for Fears — “Shout”
Survivor — “Eye of the Tiger”
Rick Springfield — “Jessie’s Girl”
Wang Chung — “Everybody Have Fun Tonight”
A-ha — “Take On Me”
Billy Idol — “Rebel Yell”
INXS — “Need You Tonight”
The Bangles — “Walk Like an Egyptian”
Daryl Hall & John Oates — “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”
Toto — “Africa”
Foreigner — “I Want to Know What Love Is”
Journey — “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)”

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An archival film focusing on the performances that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band gave at the historic 1979 “No Nukes” concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York City will be released later this year, the popular Springsteen fan site Backstreets.com reports.

According to the website, Sony Music announced Tuesday that restored footage of Springsteen and his group’s performances at the shows, which took place on September 21 and 22, 1979, are being edited together by frequent Bruce collaborator Thom Zimny to create a full-length concert flick called The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts.

The audio of the shows also has been remixed and remastered.

The “No Nukes” shows, also known as the MUSE Concerts, were a star-studded series of performances that ran from September 19 through September 23 at Madison Square Garden. They were organized to advocate against the use of nuclear energy by Musicians United for Safe Energy, or MUSE, an activist organization co-founded by Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, ex-Orleans member John Hall and others.

Besides Springsteen and the E Street Band, performers included The Doobie Brothers, Browne, Raitt, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

A 1980 documentary about the shows only featured a few of the songs that The Boss and his group played, as did the triple-LP soundtrack released in 1980.

An official press release about The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts film is expected to arrive in September.

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As Metallica gears up to celebrate its 40th anniversary, a new book will examine the impact the band and its music have had on our culture.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book, written by Ben Apatoff after years of exhaustive research, features chapters dedicated to each band member and each album. It’ll also cover touring, fashion, books, film, influences, fandom, history and more.

“I wanted it to be more than a fact book, and not just something people could look up on the Internet,” says Apatoff.

The book covers Metallica through 2021, and is the first one written with access to the band’s box set materials. Unpublished photos, new transcriptions of video interviews and magazine quotes that were previously unavailable online round out the tome.

The book’s foreword was written by Laina Dawes, the author of the 2013 memoir What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book will be released in August, but you can pre-order it now.  We’re sure you can figure out how much it costs.

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The 2020 edition of the Farm Aid was a virtual event because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this year’s installment of the festival, which supports family-run and independent farms in the U.S., will return to being a live, in-person extravaganza.

Farm Aid 2021 is scheduled for September 25 in Hartford, Connecticut, at Xfinity Theatre, the same venue where the 2018 festival was held. As usual, the event will be headlined by Farm Aid board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Willie Nelson, with Matthews playing as a duo with his longtime collaborator, Tim Reynolds.

This year’s lineup also features Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Bettye LaVette, Jamey Johnson, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and more. Tickets for the festival go on sale to the public this Friday, July 23, at 10 a.m. ET. A limited number of pre-sale tickets can be purchased now at FarmAid.org/Festival.

“The experience of the past 18 months has reminded us how much we need each other,” says Willie Nelson, Farm Aid’s president and co-founder. “I’m so glad that music is bringing us all back together at Farm Aid 2021 to celebrate family farmers. When we combine music, family farmers and good food, we have the power to grow the kind of agriculture that strengthens all of us.”

The festival will feature local and organic foods produced at family farms, and will offer various agricultural-themed activities and forums presented by farmers and artists.

In addition, a silent auction featuring rare and signed memorabilia, including guitars and prints, will be held to raise money for Farm Aid. The sale will run from September 25 to October 8 at FarmAid.org/auction.

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For a guy who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer earlier this year, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood is extremely busy. He received a clean bill of health in March, and he’s got his hands in several different projects.

Wood tells The Times of London, “Me and Mick [Jagger] have done nine new tracks for the re-release of Tattoo You.”  Wood adds that Jagger, who underwent heart surgery in 2019, is “fighting fit,” and says, “We both can’t wait to get working again.”

Tattoo You will mark its 40th anniversary on August 24; the reissue has yet to be officially announced.

On top of that, Wood says, “Me, Rod [Stewart] and Kenney [Jones] have been recording some new Faces music.”  He’s also putting the finishing touches on Mr. Luck — A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, a live album originally recorded in 2013 that will be released September 3.

As Ronnie puts it, “I’ve had a front-row seat on some amazing rock ‘n’ roll projects these past couple of weeks. I’m making every day count. Not wasting a moment.”

In August, two life-size fiberglass lions that Wood, a respected painter, has been decorating over the past couple of months will go on display in London. They’ll be auctioned in November for the charity Tusk, which supports animal conservation in Africa.

Wood adds, “I go through art phases when music is secondary, but right now I really want to get out there and play.”

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Journey‘s classic seventh studio album, Escape, was released 40 years ago this past week.

The chart-topping record was Journey’s first album to feature keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who left The Babys to join the band, replacing founding member Gregg Rolie.

Cain immediately began collaborating with Journey’s main songwriters, frontman Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon, and wound up co-writing all of Escape‘s 10 tracks.

“They wanted me to help change their sound,” Cain tells ABC Audio. “They wanted me to help take Journey to the next place.”

Cain says he developed a synergy with Perry and Schon in the studio that reminded him of the chemistry The Beatles had.

“We knew our roles,” Jonathan notes. “We knew when to step in, when to kick back.”

Reflecting on Escape‘s musical diversity, Cain notes, “It’s a menagerie of pop and rock…[A]ll the influences…kind of stewed together. And the critics really kind of dismissed it…but it had a way of selling, and kept selling.”

That menagerie included Journey’s first three top-10 hits — “Open Arms”, “Who’s Crying Now” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which peaked at #2, #4 and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.

Cain says he’d written most of “Open Arms” before joining Journey, and then enlisted Perry to help finish the lyrics.

Jonathan recalls that when he presented the pop ballad to the band, “they looked at us like we were Martians,” but “when [Steve] sang it, it was extraordinary.”

Then there was “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which while it wasn’t Escape‘s biggest chart hit, it’s become Journey’s signature song.

Cain says he remembers musing with Perry about Journey one day having a transcendent anthem like The Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” and with “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “40 years later, I think we have one. What a blessing.”

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Mick Jagger has eight children who range in age from 50 to four years old, and his current girlfriend has now given us a glimpse of the Rolling Stones front man with his youngest.

Ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick, Mick’s girlfriend, shared a photo on Instagram of herself along with Mick and little Devereaux.  Hamrick, 34, is kissing Mick, 77 on the cheek while Devereaux peeps out from behind his dad’s leg.  The photo, posted on Sunday, evidently was taken around the time of Hamrick’s birthday.

Mick’s children include Karis, his daughter with Marsha Hunt; Jade, who he shares with Bianca Jagger; Georgia, Lizzie, James and Gabriel, who he shares with Jerry Hall, and Lucas, who he shares with his ex Luciana Morad.

Some of the kids seem pretty close: Georgia, 29, posted some photos of herself with Luca, 22, in L.A. just last month.

 

 

 

 

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Green Day is doing a surprise show Tuesday night in Tulsa, OK.  The sold-out show, which starts at 9:15pm, will take place at Tulsa’s legendary venue, Cain’s Ballroom.

While the show was first announced earlier on Monday, the band noted on its socials, “Due to the recent spike in the Delta variant, and because it’s indoors, we’ve been asked to do this as a fully vaccinated show. ID & proof of vaccination will be required for entry for ALL attendees. No exceptions.” 

In the comments, some fans expressed displeasure at this requirement.  On the event page, the band also noted that the date of attendees’ last injection must be “not later than July 6, no exceptions at all.”

The Hella Mega tour, featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer, officially gets underway July 24 at Globe Life Field in Dallas, TX.  No word if Green Day plans to do any other surprise shows ahead of the tour.

 

 

 

 

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What did a year with no live gigs do to the fortunes of rock’s biggest stars?  Well, they definitely took a hit, but the lucky few who managed to get some live dates in before the pandemic shut things down did well, as did sales and streaming of new releases and catalog reissues.

Among veteran artists, The Eagles were tops. They came in fourth on Billboard‘s ranking of the highest-paid musicians of 2020 in the U.S.,  behind pop superstars Taylor Swift, Post Malone and Celine Dion.  That’s because they were lucky enough to have played 10 shows before the pandemic hit, netting them about $11 million. The rest of their $16.3 million paycheck came from streaming radio and sales and streaming of recordings.

Queen rank number seven with earnings of $13.2 million, thanks to royalties from record sales, publishing and massive streaming numbers.  In fact, their on-demand audio streams outranked every other veteran act on the list.

The Beatles ranked number eight with $12.9 million thanks to physical sales of their albums — most of which were pricey vinyl reissues — plus an impressive 1.8 billion streams, which Billboard says is rare for a rock band.

Just out of the top 10, AC/DC came in at #13 with $10.1 million, thanks to sales of its 2020 album Power Up, its back catalog and nearly 1.5 billion streams

Here’s how some other veteran acts ranked in terms of their U.S. paychecks:

18. Metallica, $9 million
20. Pink Floyd, $8.8 million
29. Fleetwood Mac, $6.6 million (thanks to that viral “Dreams” TikTok video)
33. KISS, $6 million
34. Rolling Stones, $5.96 million
39. Billy Joel, $5.49 million
40. Aerosmith, $5.35 million

Globally, though, Queen soar to number one in the rankings.

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