Classic Rock News

Drummer Zak Starkey has seemingly responded to new comments The Who’s Roger Daltrey has made regarding Starkey’s firing from the band.

In an interview with the U.K. publication The Times, Daltrey noted that comments Starkey made after The Who’s Royal Albert Hall show in March, where they appeared to have a disagreement on stage, were “kind of a character assassination,” adding that it was “incredibly upsetting.”

Well, now in a post on Instagram, Starkey shared text from an article quoting The Times piece, insisting in the caption, “I didn’t make any nasty comments about Roger when I got fired.”

At the Royal Albert Hall show Daltrey and Starkey appeared to have some words during the performance of “The Song Is Over,” but in The Times piece, Daltrey clarified that he was actually calling out the person handling his monitors.

“There was no conflict and no argument before the show or after as I was in my car on my way home before Pete (Townshend) and Roger had finished the last song ‘Tea and Theatre’ which is an acoustic duet and doesn’t feature any of the band,” Starkey writes, adding, “I thought the gig was ok. I had no idea about getting fired or any problems at all until a week after the show.”

He notes, “So either the times misunderstood or…confusion reigns O’er me and everyone else!”

Starkey says he thought the whole controversy over his firing “had blown over,” calling The Times story “old news and completely wrong.” He said he wasn’t going to respond to it but did so because the story “has been picked up by every outlet in the cosmos.”

Finally he writes, “I love Roger and he’s a f****** amazing singer – we go back too long for grudges.”

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Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott is showing off his piano skills in a new video posted to Instagram, and it looks like he’s a little rusty.

“Allow us to introduce you to Sir Elton Joe,” reads the post’s caption, an obvious reference to Rock & Roll Hall of Famer and well-known pianist Elton John. “When you get a piano in your hotel room for the first time in 46 years of touring, you have to put on a show. Even if it is out of tune.”

The video opens with the time filming began, 12:56 a.m., and Elliott showing off the piano in his room. He then sits down and tries to play a few notes, messing up several times to the point where he begins cursing at himself and loses track of how many attempts he’s made at performing.

It ends with the clip noting the time he ended his attempts — 2:30 a.m.

Luckily for Elliott, fans aren’t expecting to see him behind the piano when Def Leppard takes the stage. Their next show is Saturday in Placer County, California. A complete list of dates can be found at DefLeppard.com.

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Scorpions have released a live video of their track “Blackout,” recorded during the German rockers’ historic hometown show at Hanover Stadium Arena on July 5.

“Blackout,” the title track of their eighth studio album, is one of many songs that will appear on the upcoming album Coming Home Live, which captures their Hanover, Germany, concert that had the band celebrating their 60th anniversary in front of an audience of 45,000 fans.

According to setlist.fm, the Hanover show had the band performing many of their biggest hits, including “Rock You Like a Hurricane” and “Wind of Change.”

Coming Home Live will be released Nov. 14 as a two-LP and two-CD set. It is available for preorder now.

The live album news comes as a film about the Scorpions, titled Wind of Change, is in production. The film will be directed by Alex Ranarivelo and stars The Last Kingdom’s Alexander Dreymon as guitarist and founder Rudolf Schenker; Generation War’s Ludwig Trepte as frontman Klaus Meine; You’s Ed Speleers as lead guitarist Matthias Jabs; and Interview with the Vampire’s Luke Brandon Field as drummer Herman Rarebell. It also features The Crown’s Dominic West as the band’s manager, Doc McGhee. 

Wind of Change is expected in theaters in 2025.

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Billy Joel’s daughter Alexa Ray Joel says her famous dad isn’t that impressed by his recently released documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, which is currently streaming on HBO Max.

“You know my father is really funny because [he’s] like the most self-effacing person on the planet right?” she tells the New York Post. “He never buys in his own hype.”

“I’m like, ‘You should be so proud of yourself!’ He’s like, ‘Eh,'” she adds.

“He’s just not a typical, like narcissistic guy in the spotlight — he just does not buy into any of it — he’s a true artist,” she says. “He so deeply introverted, he’s really actually a shy person.”

As for what he said about the two-part doc, Alexa reveals, “He’s like, well you know I’m kind of bored by it because it’s a lot about me and I get sick of me.”

Meanwhile, Joel continues to dip into his archives to share some classic performances with fans. The latest clip is of the An Innocent Man track “This Night,” recorded June 9, 1984, at Wembley Arena in London.

More videos are expected throughout the year. He’s already shared a 1975 performance of “Piano Man,” an a cappella performance of his 1984 hit “The Longest Time,” a performance of “Lullabye (Goodnight My Angel)” from a Columbia Records convention in 1993 and a performance of “Zanzibar” from the Houston Summit in 1979.

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Kelly Osbourne is sharing her gratitude for those who’ve supported her and her family following the death of her father, Ozzy Osbourne.

“I’ve sat down to write this a hundred times and still don’t know if the words will ever feel like enough,” Kelly writes in an Instagram Story posted Monday. “But from the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

“The love, support and beautiful messages I’ve received from so many of you have truly helped carry me through the hardest moment of my life,” she continues. “Every kind word, every shared memory, every bit of compassion has meant more than I can ever explain.”

The post marks Kelly’s first extended statement since the Osbourne family announced Ozzy’s death on July 22. Previously, she’d only posted the opening lyric of the Black Sabbath song “Changes”: “I feel unhappy I am so sad. I lost the best friend I ever had.” 

“Grief is a strange thing—it sneaks up on you in waves—I will not be OK for a while,” Kelly writes. “But knowing my family are not alone in our pain makes a difference. I’m holding on tight to the love, the light, and the legacy left behind. Thank you for being there. I love you all so much.”

Ozzy died just over two weeks after he played his final concert with his original Black Sabbath bandmates on July 5. That same weekend, Kelly got engaged to Slipknot‘s Sid Wilson.

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The music of the Allman Brothers Band‘s Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts will once again be celebrated at the ninth annual Allman Betts Family Revival, a 20-date tour launching in November.

The trek will be hosted by Gregg’s son Devon Allman and Dickey’s son Duane Betts and feature a performance from The Allman Betts Band. The lineup will also include special guests Robert Randolph, Amanda Shires, Eric Johnson, Cody Dickinson and Luther Dickinson, Dweezil Zappa and G. Love in select cities.

The tour is described as a celebration “infused with the spirit of brotherhood and musical camaraderie that defines the Allman Brothers legacy.” It kicks off Nov. 29 in St. Louis, Missouri, and features stops in New York, Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles and more before wrapping Dec. 21 in San Francisco.

Complete lineups and ticket information can be found at AllmanBettsFamilyRevival.com.

Previous Allman Betts Family Revival tours have included such artists as Slash, Jason Isbell, Cheap Trick‘s Robin Zander, Marcus King and more.

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Roger Daltrey is setting the record straight about the events that led to The Who’s firing of drummer Zak Starkey.

Problems arose with Starkey during The Who’s Teenage Cancer Trust shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March, with Daltrey appearing to call out Starkey’s playing during “The Song is Over.” In an interview with The Telegraph, Starkey suggested that Daltrey was actually the one who “got it wrong,” and Daltrey was not happy about that.

In a new interview with the U.K. publication The Times, Roger called Starkey’s comments “kind of a character assassination,” adding that it was “incredibly upsetting.”

Daltrey says he wasn’t “having a go” at Starkey onstage at Royal Albert Hall, but was simply telling the guy controlling his monitors that he was hearing too much sub-bass. He added that the audience had “a complete misunderstanding” of what was happening.

Starkey was fired by The Who in April, but then rehired by the band, only to be let go again in May.

As for why they decided to go with another drummer, Daltrey says, “We wanted to branch out and that’s all I want to say about it. But [Starkey’s reaction] was crippling to me.”

Daltrey and Pete Townshend are getting ready to kick off what they say is their final U.S. tour. While Daltrey says his voice is “still as good as ever,” he does have some concerns, noting, “I can’t tell you if it will still be there in October.”

He adds, “There’s a big part of me that’s going, I just hope I make it through.”

The Who’s The Song Is Over North American Tour begins Aug. 16 in Sunrise, Florida. A complete list of dates can be found at TheWho.com.

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Rod Stewart paid tribute to Ozzy Osbourne during a recent concert, and he got a little help from AI to do so.

NME reports that during his Aug. 1 concert in Alpharetta, Georgia, near Atlanta, Stewart projected images of Ozzy on screen during his performance of “Forever Young,” but the Black Sabbath frontman wasn’t alone in them.

Fan shot footage shows that the tribute included AI-generated images of Ozzy posing for selfies with several other dead celebrities, including Prince, Tina Turner, Freddie Mercury, Kurt Cobain, George Michael, Michael Jackson and more. They are all set against a backdrop of clouds, suggesting they are all up in heaven together.

Ozzy Osbourne died July 22 at the age of 76.

After his death was announced, Rod paid tribute to Ozzy on social media, writing, “Bye, bye Ozzy. Sleep well, my friend. I’ll see you up there — later rather than sooner.”

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On This Day, Aug. 4, 1964 …

The Kinks released their third single, “You Really Got Me,” in the U.K., where it became their first #1 hit and stayed on top for two weeks.

The tune was released in America that September and became a breakthrough hit for the band, peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Guitarist Dave Davies created the distorted guitar sound in the tune by slicing up the speaker on his amp with a razor blade. The highly influential track has been described as proto-punk and early heavy metal.

The track hit the charts once again in 1978 after Van Halen covered it for their self-titled debut album and released it as their debut single. The Van Halen version peaked at #36 on the Hot 100.

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As Bruce Springsteen‘s breakthrough album Born to Run turns 50 in August, author and journalist Peter Ames Carlin takes a deep dive into the record in his new book, Tonight in Jungleland: The Making of Born to Run, out Tuesday.

While Born to Run was a critical and commercial success for Springsteen, prior to the record he was coming off two commercial failures — Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, The Innocent & the E Street Shuffle — and was close to being dropped by his label.

“That was like an existential threat to him because he was so about his work and his career and he was still discovering his voice and his identity,” Carlin tells ABC Audio. He notes that Born to Run turned out to be the album where Springsteen “figured out who he was and what Bruce Springsteen, the performer, was supposed to be.”

Carlin, who also wrote the 2012 biography Bruce, says for Born to Run, Springsteen focused on “simplifying his songs” and “making the lyrics direct and conversational.”

Carlin notes that while making the record Springsteen also had to get to a place “where he could acknowledge and work with his own desire to be successful.”

“I think he was a little leery of that up to that point,” he says.

Carlin got a chance to talk to Springsteen for the book and says The Boss didn’t have a hard time looking back at that period in his career.

“He loves to look back into the past, especially when it’s something that was that transformative of an experience for him,” the author says. “And I think it was also really interesting for him to look back at 50 years later and to remember what it was like to be young and hungry and with so much to prove.” 

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