Classic Rock News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a surprise appearance at the 64th Grammy Awards and sent a powerful message about the cost of freedom and the healing power of music.

In a pre-taped video, the president spoke from an unknown location in his country, which is being bombarded by Russian bombs in an unprecedented attack to seize control of the country.  Zelenskyy remained poised and spoke with a stern, gravel-like tone about the cost of Russia’s ongoing war.

“The war.  What’s more opposite to music?  The silence of ruined cities and killed people.  Our children draw swooping rockets, not shooting stars.  Over 400 children have been injured and 153 children died and we’ll never see them drawing,” he said. “Our parents are happy to wake up in the morning.  In bomb shelters. Alive.”

Zelenskyy urged, “The war doesn’t let us choose who survived and who stays in eternal silence.”

“Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos.  They sing to the wounded in hospitals.  Even to those who can’t hear them, but the music will break through anyway,” he continued, noting Russia is bringing “horrible silence with its bombs.  The dead silence.”

He urged those at the Grammy Awards to “fill the silence with your music” and to “tell our story” by sharing the “truth” of the Russian invasion “on your social networks, on TV — support us in any way you can.”

While naming the besieged cities of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Volnovakha and Mariupol, Zelenskyy declared, “I have a dream of them living and free.  Free like you on the Grammy stage.”

The Ukrainian president’s speech was followed by John Legend‘s performance of “Free.” He was joined by Ukrainian instrumentalist Siuzanna Iglidan and singer Mika Newton for the inspiring number.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Foo Fighters swept all the categories for which they were nominated at the 2022 Grammys, which were handed out Sunday during the pre-show Premiere Ceremony.

Dave Grohl and company won Best Rock Album for Medicine at Midnight, Best Rock Song for “Waiting on a War,” and Best Rock Performance for “Making a Fire.” The Foos were also scheduled to perform during this year’s awards, but Rolling Stone reports that they canceled the appearance due to the tragic unexpected death of drummer Taylor Hawkins on March 25.

In winning Best Rock Song and Best Rock Album, the Foos beat their friend Paul McCartney, who’d inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as Eddie Van Halen‘s son Wolfgang, who was up for Best Rock Song for Mammoth WVH‘s “The Distance.”

Other announced winners include former Police drummer Stewart Copeland and Ricky Kej‘s Divine Tides for Best New Age Album, marking Copeland’s first Grammy outside of The Police, with whom he’d won five. Dream Theater‘s “The Alien” won Best Metal Performance.

George Harrison‘s All Things Must Pass: 50th Anniversary Edition won for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package, while Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967) for Best Historical Album.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

It’s been almost 10 years since Patti Smith released her most recent studio album — 2012’s Banga — but the legendary singer/songwriter known as the “Godmother of Punk” has now revealed that she’s planning to make another one…and it may be her last.

In a new article published in U.K. newspaper The Guardian, Smith answered a variety of questions submitted by fans, including if she was planning a follow-up to Banga.

“I do have plans and I’ve written a lot of songs,” Patti said. “I’d like to do one more album and my record company, Columbia, has very generously left the door open.”

Another fan asked Smith to name her favorite album, and she chose Banga.

Patti explained, “‘Constantine’s Dream,’ the long improvised piece at the end, touched a lot of things that concern me — art, the future of mankind, climate change, the horrors done to our indigenous people, and love.”

She added, “I love the cover, which was shot on the fly by my friend Stephen Sebring. That record feels like me, like [my 1975 debut album] Horses feels like me.”

Besides her music, Smith’s an acclaimed poet and author.  Asked about her unrealized dreams, she said, “There’s nothing I love more than books. I’ve written some and I’m really happy with them but I just want to write at least one that I feel deserves to be in the canon of books to endure. I basically want to write something as good as Pinocchio and, yes, I’ve started it.”

Smith has a variety of concerts lined up for 2022, with her next shows scheduled for May 6 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and May 7 in Austin, Texas. Check out her full itinerary at PattiSmith.net.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Fresh from their stint on the 2022 Flower Power Cruise, The Zombies kick off their first North American tour since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic tonight in Orlando, Florida.

The famed British Invasion band’s trek, dubbed the Life Is a Merry-Go-Round Tour, features a total of 49 dates and is broken into spring and summer legs.

The springtime outing, which visits mainly East Coast venues, is scheduled through a May 1 show in Fall River, Massachusetts. The summer leg, which is dominated by concerts in Canada and the Western U.S., begins on June 21 in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, and wraps up with a three-date stand, July 28-30, in Park City, Utah.

The Zombies will be playing plenty of hits and fan favorites on the tour, along with some brand-new tunes. The band also will be selling a new CD/DVD package, Live from Studio Two, exclusively at the concerts. The release documents the group’s special 2021 performance at London’s Abbey Road Studios that premiered as a livestream event.

You can check videos of The Zombies playing “This Will Be Our Year” and “Edge of the Rainbow” at the Abbey Road show on the group’s official YouTube channel.

To check out the band’s full tour schedule and buy tickets, visit TheZombiesMusic.com.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The 2022 Grammy Awards ceremony finally takes place this Sunday. Here’s a rundown of veteran rock artists who are competing for honors:

AC/DC and Foo Fighters both received three Grammy nominations, while Paul McCartney and the late Chris Cornell each scored two nods.

All four will compete for the Best Rock Album prize; nominees include AC/DC’s Power Up, Foo Fighters’ Medicine at Midnight, McCartney’s McCartney III, and Cornell’s posthumous No One Sings Like You Anymore Vol. 1.

Among the Best Rock Song nominees are Foo Fighters’ “Waiting on a War,” McCartney’s “Find My Way,” and the Wolfgang Van Halen-led Mammoth WVH‘s “Distance.”

Best Rock Performance nominees include AC/DC’s “Shot in the Dark,” Foo Fighters’ “Making a Fire,” Cornell’s cover of Prince‘s “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Meanwhile, AC/DC’s video for “Shot in the Dark” scored a nod in the Best Music Video category.

Other nominated veteran rock artists include Jackson Browne, Police drummer Stewart Copeland, ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and the late Jimi Hendrix.

Browne will vie for Best Americana Album for Downhill from Everywhere, while Copeland’s collaboration with Ricky Kej, Divine Tides, is nominated for Best New Age Album.

In the Best Music Film category, you’ll find the Spike Lee-directed film version of Byrne’s Broadway show David Byrne’s American Utopia, and the documentary Music, Money, Madness…Jimi Hendrix in Maui.

Check out the full list of nominees at Grammy.com.

Meanwhile, Rolling Stone reports that Foo Fighters canceled their scheduled performance on the show, following the recent death of drummer Taylor Hawkins.

The 2022 Grammys airs live from Las Vegas at 8 p.m. ET on CBS, although many winners will be announced during the Premiere Ceremony event, which begins at 3:30 p.m. ET and will be streamed on the Recording Academy’s YouTube channel and Live.Grammy.com.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Judas Priest was been nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for a third time this year. And while frontman Rob Halford believes that the band will be inducted “eventually,” he’d like it to happen sooner rather than later.

The Metal God tells The Boston Globe, “We’re keeping our fingers crossed that we do get in. Personally, I’d love it. I think there’s nothing wrong in celebrating each other’s achievements. Because we all do the same thing. It doesn’t matter whether we’re in a country and western band or a soul band or a rapper, we all do the same thing. There’s a connectivity in the craft that we make.”

Adds the 70-year-old rocker. “We’ll wait and see. I think it’s gonna happen eventually. When I’m alive, please, would be nice.”

Judas Priest is currently out on its delayed 50th anniversary tour: The actual anniversary was 2020, but of course, nobody was touring then.

“Everybody’s been very cool about stretching out the timeline of the 50th anniversary,” Halford notes. “We’re focusing on a band that has been in the heavy metal world for 50 years, which is an extraordinary event anyway. So why shouldn’t we keep celebrating it?”

The band’s next show takes places this Saturday, April 2, in Mashantucket, Connecticut.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Julian Lennon has revealed the title of his forthcoming seventh studio album, Jude, which will be his first collection of new songs since 2011’s Everything Changes.

Julian, the older son of the late John Lennon, will release two advance tracks from Jude on April 8 — “Every Little Moment” and “Freedom.” The songs, which you can pre-save now, will be available on all streaming platforms.

The album’s title is a nod to the famous Beatles song “Hey Jude,” which Paul McCartney wrote to try to comfort five-year-old Julian following his parents’ separation. McCartney originally wrote the tune as “Hey Jules,” but changed the name because he preferred the way it sounded in the song.

“Many of these songs have been in the works for several years, so it almost feels like a coming-of-age album,” Julian explains of the new project. “With great respect for the overwhelming significance of the song written for me, the title Jude conveys the very real journey of my life that these tracks represent.”

Lennon co-produced Jude with his longtime guitarist Justin Clayton. The album will be released as part of Julian’s recently announced label deal with BMG.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

While Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins is expected to get a tribute this Sunday night at the Grammy Awards, his hometown of Laguna Beach, California, remembered him in a more low-key way on Thursday.

The Orange County Register reports that fans gathered at a local beach at the town for a drum circle in honor of Hawkins, who died March 25 in Bogota, Columbia, at age 50. In addition to playing music around a bonfire, attendees also wrote messages on a memorial.

The paper reports that when he wasn’t on tour, Hawkins would spend time around Laguna Beach, where he grew up and later bought a home, and was also seen surfing at the town’s Thalia Street Beach.

James Pribham, a high school pal of Hawkins who reconnected with him in recent years, tells the paper, “He was just the most genuine, positive, respectful person you could imagine.” Just a few months ago, Pribham says, Hawkins was the first to call him with condolences when his father passed away.

Pribham says Hawkins was “beloved by many” and “resonated with everybody,” because he never considered himself a rock star. He’ll be remembered, Pribham adds, as “[a] great man who was loving and kind who just happened to be one of the most talented and popular rock stars in the world.”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

KISS will release a new archival live album capturing the rock legends’ performance at the 1996 Monsters of Rock Festival at the U.K.’s Donington Park as the third installment of thew band’s Off the Soundboard series of official concert bootlegs.

The new album, titled KISS — Off the Soundboard: Live at Donington 1996, is due out on June 10 and features a 17-song headlining set that KISS played at the festival on August 17, 1996.

The concert was part of the band’s Alive/Worldwide reunion tour that showcased the group’s original lineup of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. The set was packed with KISS classics, including “King of the Night Time World,” “Calling Dr. Love,” “Shout It Out Loud,” “Strutter,” “Love Gun,” “Detroit Rock City” and “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

Off the Soundboard: Live at Donington will be available on digital formats, as a two-CD set, and as a three-LP collection pressed on standard black vinyl or limited-edition 180-gram red vinyl. You can pre-order the album now exclusively at KISS’ official online store. Special bundles also are available featuring the colored-vinyl set along with a t-shirt, trading cards, guitar picks and a button.

The first two KISS — Off the Soundboard releases featured a March 2001 concert at the Tokyo Dome in Japan, and a July 2004 show in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Here’s the Off the Soundboard: Live at Donington CD track list:

CD 1
“Deuce”
“King of the Night Time World”
“Do You Love Me?”
“Calling Dr. Love”
“Cold Gin”
“Let Me Go, Rock ‘n’ Roll”
“Shout It Out Loud”
“Watchin’ You”
“Firehouse”
“Shock Me”

CD 2
“Strutter”
“God of Thunder”
“Love Gun”
“100,000 Years”
“Black Diamond”
“Detroit Rock City”
“Rock and Roll All Nite”

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

“Strange Game,” Mick Jagger‘s theme song to the new Apple TV+ series Slow Horses, was released today as a digital single, coinciding with the premiere of the show’s first two episodes.

The track, which features a mysterious, jazzy vibe, was co-written by Jagger and composer Daniel Pemberton, who also composed the score to the show. A lyric video for the tune, which incorporates scenes from Slow Horses, has debuted at Mick’s official YouTube channel.

“I really enjoyed creating the theme track for Slow Horses with Daniel Pemberton,” Jagger says in a statement. “I’ve read a lot of the books [author Mike Heron‘s Slough House series] and was familiar with some of the more dark and unsavoury characters and knew the direction I wanted to take it…hope you enjoy it!”

As previously reported, Slow Horses stars Gary Oldman as the head of a branch of the U.K. counter-intelligence agency MI5, who oversees a group of failed agents hoping to redeem themselves.

Jagger wrote lyrics for “Strange Game,” which include specific references to the show.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.