Mötley Crüe’s Vince Neil Talks Social Networking and the Music Biz

Longtime Motley Crue crooner Vince Neil says the music business has changed exponentially since his band first started dishing out hair metal in the ’80s.

What’s his advice for upcoming musicians? “Don’t get in the business,” he laughed, speaking with NewsTimes.com. “It’s tough. There [are] so many different outlets for music now. Thirty years ago you had MTV; everybody watched MTV and everybody saw your video. There was one place to go; now there [are] thousands of places to go. It’s a lot tougher. There [are] more eyes out there; it's just harder to get everybody to look at you at the same time.”

Neil added that very little is secret in today’s music industry, and fans have a much more intimate relationship with their favorite rock personalities thanks to social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook: “I think with all the social media everybody pretty much knows everything. What you’re doing and where you’ve been and where you’re going. It’s kind of hard to be secretive anymore.”

For Crue fans wondering if the guys are planning to splinter soon, Neil added to that speculation. “Eventually it’s time to call it quits,” he said. “I’ve been sitting on my boat in the Bahamas for the last month and just thinking about the future. There [are] a lot of really cool things coming up in my mind, and it might be the time to just kind of bow out. But I haven’t made a decision a hundred percent yet. It’s just a thought that's been going through my head.”

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Gibson Exclusive: Ace Frehley Talks ‘Budokan’ Les Paul Custom

Gibson Custom has recreated one of the most famous guitars in music history – the Ace Frehley “Budokan” Les Paul Custom. The master craftsmen at the Custom Shop have forged this tribute to the KISS guitarist’s most famous axe. Frehley nicknamed his Les Paul “Budokan” because it was the very guitar he played when KISS broke The Beatles' sell-out record at Japan’s legendary Budokan arena in 1977. It also was Ace’s main touring guitar throughout ’77 and ’78, was his go-to studio guitar after that and was used in the 1996 KISS reunion.

With the Ace Frehley “Budokan” Les Paul Custom, Gibson Custom has painstakingly recreated every single one of the idiosyncrasies of Ace’s customized guitar, drawing on digital scanning technology and working closely with Frehley and the guitar’s current owner, Matt Swanson. When Frehley recently took one of the guitars for a spin, he was amazed at how much the guitar felt, played and sounded like the real deal.

Check out Gibson’s exclusive interview with Ace below, in which he shows off the new “Budokan” Les Paul Custom, talks about KISS’s early days and shares some stories from his new book, No Regrets.

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Steven Tyler Talks New Aerosmith Album

Rock legend and reality TV star Steven Tyler has been talking to the press to promote the upcoming season of American Idol. The talent competition’s new season (the second to feature the singer) begins next Wednesday, January 18.

But Tyler’s also been discussing his other project – that little band known as Aerosmith. Speaking at a Television Critics Association press conference, Tyler talked about the progress being made on the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers’ new album.

“All of it’s been written, but I gotta lay lyrics on it and I haven’t had a lot of time,” he said, according to Blabbermouth. “But what I’ve listened to so far just knocked me out. I know a good song, I know what’s gonna get played on the radio, I’m not that pretentious to say I think we’ve got hits, but I think we’ve got something, and that’s all that matters.”

Previously, the album was rumored to be coming out this spring.

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Velvet Revolver’s Dave Kushner Talks About Reunion Show

Velvet Revolver guitarist Dave Kushner has revealed that the idea for the band’s one-off reunion show, set for next Thursday (January 12) at L.A.’s House of Blues, was triggered by the death of his best friend, musician John O’Brien. In a just-published interview with Rolling Stone, Kushner said all the members of Velvet Revolver readily agreed to do the show – a testament to the great affection his bandmates had for O’Brien.

“We did a benefit show for this thing called ‘Road Recovery’ – me, Duff [McKagan], Slash and Matt [Sorum] – in New York, and that’s when I asked those guys individually if they would agree to do it,” Kushner said. "Once they said [yes], I got in touch with Scott [Weiland], and he agreed.”

In addition to Velvet Revolver, the concert will feature Maroon 5, Sheryl Crow, Tom Morello and other guests. All proceeds will go to O’Brien’s widow and children. Each performer, including Velvet Revolver, will perform a three-song set. Kushner said he realizes that all eyes will be on Velvet Revolver, who will be performing with Weiland for the first time in four years. “I knew from the beginning it would be newsworthy, and that was kind of the plan,” Kushner said. “If you’re gonna do this, and you want to raise some serious money, then you [have to] put all caution aside.”

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What Could Have Been: Zakk Wylde Talks Guns N’ Roses

It could have been one of the most interesting heavy music collaborations in rock history: Zakk Wylde as a member of Guns N’ Roses.

And beyond that, it would have been a Les Paul-toting guitar dream team. And it very nearly happened in the mid-1990s. The rhythm guitar slot in Guns N’ Roses was in a state of flux after the departure of Izzy Stradlin, the tenure of Gilby Clark and the is-he-or-isn’t-he-a-band-member status of Axl Rose’s friend and former Hollywood Rose bandmate Paul Huge. Meanwhile, Zakk Wylde’s role as Ozzy Osbourne’s right hand man had officially come to an end when Ozzy’s No More Tours tour wrapped up in 1992 and the Ozzman entered a short-lived retirement.

Zakk released one album with his Southern rock-influenced band Pride & Glory before returning to Osbourne’s employ for the recording of the album Ozzmosis. But by the time Ozzy’s Retirement Sucks tour for Ozzmosis rolled around, Joe Holmes was in the lead guitar chair and Zakk was on the path that would eventually lead to the formation of Black Label Society.

So what would a Zakk/Slash guitar duo sound like in the context of Guns N’ Roses?

“It sounded like the riffs I write and the way I write, mixed in with the way the guys write, you know what I mean,” Wylde says. “It would have been like, when I was jamming with Slash and all the guys, even if I’m in the band there’s only one guy that’s playing the solos to ‘November Rain,’ ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ and all those classic songs. I’m not going to do anything there. But the future stuff that we would have been writing, it would have been cool! Because I love Slash’s playing and I’m buddies with him. It would have been cool, but with those guys there was nothing happening, so we were jamming but it wasn’t going anywhere.”

Slash ultimately left the band in 1996 to pursue his own path with Slash’s Snakepit (using songs he was working on for the next GN’R release), while Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum’s respective tenures in the band ended a few months apart from each other in 1997. The 2001 rebirth of Guns with players such as Buckethead and Robin Finck was still a few years off, but Wylde didn’t sit around waiting for another call from GN’R. And Ozzy moved on, too.

“That’s when Oz got Joe Holmes in the band, and I didn’t have anything going on,” Wylde says. “I just had all these songs lying around and I said ‘Y’know what? I’m just gonna start doing it. And that’s when Black Label was born. I decided to just do it myself.”

This story came full-circle in December 2011 when Black Label Society joined Guns N’ Roses on tour, and Zakk joined the band on stage at several shows to blast out an AC/DC cover.

“It was awesome, man,” Wylde says. “The first time we were there, Axl was like, ‘Dude, you wanna get up and jam? Look at the setlist, pick out the songs, whatever.’ I said ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ is pretty easy. Pretty much everyone all learns that one. So this way there didn’t have to be any band rehearsals, me sitting in with the band, you know. The GN’R songs are all already worked out, so I said why don’t I just get up there and jam out on ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’? And it was great, man. All the guys in the band are super-cool dudes, and I’ve known a bunch of them for a bunch of years. It was great seeing Axl again because I haven’t seen him since like 1995 when I was jamming with them. And he’s doing great. We had a couple of laughs talking about the same old ridiculous stuff about the music business, y’know. Music in general and just life in general. It was good catching up, and it was a blast playing on stage. And the crew guys were all super-cool dudes, so it was a good time, man.”

Wylde’s brief time with Guns N’ Roses in the mid-’90s didn’t lead to any material on the long-awaited Chinese Democracy album, but the guitarist appreciates what Rose achieved with the recording. “With Axl, I think that as far as the album taking so long, 17 years in between records, well if you don’t feel like putting it out, you don’t feel like putting it out. You can’t force anyone to do something they don’t want to do!”

Incidentally, Paul Huge (also known as Paul Tobias) eventually did go on to become a member of Guns N’ Roses for several years, playing on the band’s cover of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” on the Interview with the Vampire film soundtrack, co-writing “Oh My God” for the soundtrack to the film End of Days and playing live with the band in 2001. And Joe Holmes, a former student of Randy Rhoads, went on to serve as one of Ozzy’s longer-running guitarists, playing with the Ozzman for two stints: from 1995 to 1998, and again from 1999 to 2001.

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Les Claypool Talks Primus ‘Breakup’

Primus sure did take their sweet time between recording their latest album (2011’s Green Naugahyde) and its predecessor (1999’s Antipop). Now, frontman Les Claypool has revealed that the band actually broke up for a while during that interlude, although they didn’t tell anyone.

Claypool told Spinner that Primus broke up “for about three years. Then we came back and did the nostalgia thing, in ’03, with a pretty big tour. And then in 2006 we did another round. But those tours, they were just – they were what they were.

“We’re kind of under-the-radar guys. We've got to go out and work. So for us to stop like we did – we weren’t even talking. We definitely broke up. We broke up but we didn’t want to tell everybody, so we said ‘Well, we’re on hiatus.’”

Later in the interview, Claypool spoke about his influences – including some of his favorite film directors.

“I always talk about [Frank] Capra films and Coen brothers films and Elia Kazan, just these colorful characters throughout my music, but they’re all very tragic, you know?” he said. “Not all of them, but most of them are very tragic because I’m sort of exorcising my demons and my experiences through the eyes of these colorful characters, similar to what Capra used to do and what the Coen brothers do. You know, they’re these compelling characters but they’re so f---ed up. But you’re with them.”

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Slash Talks New Album: It’s ‘Raw and Spontaneous’

Slash has been talking about his new in-progress album. It will feature singer Myles Kennedy for all tracks. After the festive break, Slash and Co. return to the studio to continue recording and mixing the as-yet-unnamed album, and the Les Paul-toting star predicts an April release.

Slash tells Total Guitar magazine, “We’re just going for the one take that sounds good, so my solos are more raw, probably sloppier in a way, because they’re very spontaneous to the point where it’s in the heat of the moment.”

Slash and his band – Kennedy on lead vocals and second guitar, Todd Kerns on bass, and drummer Brent Fitz – have completed mixing three songs with another 14 to go. The album is being recorded live, Slash saying the main challenge is “rehearsing the s--t out of them.”

Of the completed individual songs, Slash says, “There’s one song at this point called ‘Bad Rain’ which is a mid-tempo, very heavy and dark song. It’s in a drop-D tuning – and we’re already playing a half-step down – and the solo has a kinda chromatic feel.

“There’s one very uptempo song with a cool riff called ‘Halo.’ The third song is called ‘Standing in the Sun’ and it’s very melodic, mid-to-uptempo… just a rock ’n’ roll song! All three of these songs are relatively short, they’re all in a rock mold, and I guess I always come from that pentatonic point of view. For me, any time you go too far out of that, it ceases to be rock. It has to have a basis around that, otherwise it no longer has any essence of that Chuck Berry kinda deal.”

Slash says he is “pretty excited” about making such a raw album with “natural tone” everywhere. “Everything is being played live with the music tracks: the solos, everything. We’re trying not to overdub extra bits. So if there’s a solo, I’m playing on one side, Myles’s rhythm track is on the other.”

Myles Kennedy adds that the album is “real stripped-down and simple,” saying his own favorites so far are “Standing in the Sun” and another song called “Far and Away.”

Despite “sharing” singer Kennedy with Alter Bridge, Slash insists, “I’ve been happiest in my career these last couple of years.”

More Slash:

The World According to Slash

Slash Appetite Gibson Les Paul

Gun for Hire: Slash’s Career as an All-Star Sideman

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Axl Rose Talks Hall of Fame Induction, Guns N’ Roses Reunion

Guns N’ Roses will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year, and Axl Rose has been speaking about it.

In a rare interview with The Los Angeles Times, Rose says: “I’ve got mixed emotions about what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame actually really is. But at the same time, there’s a lot of people – the fans – that it just means something to them, and they’re happy. It’s like you won the Heisman or something.”

Rose says he doesn’t want to turn the original band’s Hall of Fame induction into a forum for his gripes against his former bandmates. Axl says, “People don’t want that associated with their awards shows, even if you have a big audience. In one way it might be right, but it usually backfires on whoever does it. So I really don’t want to spoil it for everybody else – or take the beating.”

And Axl has yet to commit to an Appetite for Destruction-era GN’R reunion for the awards show. “There is no plan yet. There really is no plan. We’re still busy with this [current GN’R] lineup. We’re gonna be busy – we’re gonna be busy all next year. We’ll be putting out new stuff as soon as we can figure out what our deal is with labels, blah blah blah.

“All these managers, they all believe in one thing: sell a reunion tour and get their commission,” he added. “It’s just a phone call. It’s a half a day’s work, or however long they want to keep the bidding war going. They get their commission and they don’t care if it falls on its face.”

Separately, Slash has said he has not yet committed to attending the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. It will be held on April 14 in Cleveland.

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Ray Manzarek Talks Doors, Jim Morrison, Shamen and <em>L.A. Woman</em>

Hard to believe, but 40 years have passed since The Doors recorded L.A. Woman, the band’s final rock album with legendary singer Jim Morrison. Next month, Rhino Records will mark the anniversary of that classic album’s release with a greatly expanded, two-CD version. Fact is, during the past four decades, interest in The Doors and their music has rarely waned. Sparked by a fateful encounter between Morrison and keyboardist Ray Manzarek, on a Venice, California, beach in 1965, The Doors went on to embody all that was adventurous about late ’60s rock and roll. In the following interview, Manzarek shares his thoughts about Morrison, The Doors’ legacy and the making of L.A. Woman.

What was that fateful meeting with Morrison on the beach like?

We had graduated from film school, and there we were, with no prospects, whatsoever. Remember, this was the mid-’60s. Hollywood couldn’t care less about guys from film school. All they wanted to do was make movies like [the Rock Hudson/Doris Day film] Pillow Talk. So anyway, Jim was originally going to New York, but for some reason he didn’t. And we ended up running into one another on the beach. Talk about being guided by the better angels of your selves – or, even more so, being guided by the spirit of the dead Indian that was in Jim’s body. It was as if he was saying, “The two of you – psychedelic warriors – have to get together.” What the shaman wanted to do was get the word out to white America about Indian tribalism. What did it mean to be a Native American, the first people on the continent? What did they see? What did they worship? It was about knowing God through the eyes of an Indian. That was one of the purposes of The Doors: to open up Native Americanism to the new tribe, as we were called – the new long-haired tribe.

Had you already been composing music when that encounter took place?

I had been writing, but at the time I didn’t even have a piano. I was doing rock and roll, occasionally, with my brother’s surf band, Rick and the Ravens. We were doing some original material, surf songs. I would go up on stage and sing some blues with them, or perform some of our original compositions. As I say, though, it was surf songs, throwaway stuff.

The very first song The Doors rehearsed was “Moonlight Drive.” Was there great chemistry, right away?

I knew instantly we had found “it,” that indefinable, transcendent something that Kerouac refers to. I remember showing Robby the chord changes for a simple “G” progression. He pulled out his bottleneck and said, “I’ve got an idea for this, something sort of liquid-like.” A lot of The Doors music came to be like that – water-y. That came from living on the beach. We were actually there, whereas even The Beach Boys, for instance, didn’t really live on the beach.

How did your playing the bass parts on a keyboard bass affect The Doors’ overall sound?

My right hand played the organ, with all the filigrees, while the left hand played the same thing over and over again, on the bass keyboard. The effect was to go from boring to hypnotic. I remember we had to ask Robby’s father for the money to buy the keyboard bass. We told him we would pay him back, and he said, “Tell you what. You pay me back if you go nowhere. All I ask is that you write a hit single.”

Did Morrison have confidence in himself as a singer, from the start?

No! I had confidence in him, but he didn’t have confidence himself. When we first started performing at [L.A.’s] The London Fog, he would face inward. When you rehearse, you rehearse in a circle, and face one another. The singer doesn’t turn and look at a blank wall; he faces the other musicians. The energy tends to congeal partly as a result of that. Little by little, Jim reached the point where he turned around and faced the audience. That happened at the Whisky A Go Go. Oliver Stone’s portrayal of that in the movie was way over the top, by the way.

Morrison’s problems with alcohol really took hold around the time of Morrison Hotel. Were effective treatments available, back then?

In those days, Alcoholics Anonymous was more for winos. Upper-class, sophisticated alcoholics really had no place to go. But I don’t know that Jim would have gone along with a 12-step program, anyway. He would have had to turn over his life to a higher power, when in fact we are at one with the higher power. Alcoholism ran in the Morrison family line. I think he had a genetic predisposition. That’s what eventually did him in. That’s the great tragedy. He was so brilliant, and such a wonderful guy, and so much fun to be with, but there was that demon alcohol.

Did Morrison feel The Doors – and the music The Doors were making – were a perfect vehicle for what he wanted to accomplish an artist?

He was happy with that. He was satisfied in the sense that we had done what we set out to do. The real fun of the whole experience was imagining the success of The Doors. It was like, “Alright, we’re going to get a rock and roll band together, make fabulous albums, and have the whole world know who were are, like The Beatles and The Stones and Bob Dylan and The Beach boys.” And we accomplished that. That was our conception. We created the art, and the results of that art achieved exactly what we were hoping for. Morrison was satisfied with that, but he also wanted more. We all had more things we wanted to do.

Purely from a sonic standpoint, The Doors’ studio recordings rank among the best-sounding albums of the ’60s. How important were the roles of producer Paul Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick?

There were six of us making those albums. We couldn’t have done it without those other two guys. They were great to work with. They had cut their teeth making lots of great albums with other people, and were well-versed in the studio. They knew what they were doing, just as we knew what we were doing, on our instruments. Everyone had his area of expertise, everyone had done his homework and everyone knew what he wanted to do. Those things came together to create The Doors’ sound.

An expanded version of L.A. Woman hits record stores next month. What’s your recollection of the making of that album?

The board we used was the same recording board at the first recording session, at Sunset Sound, for the first album. Elektra had bought that board and put it away in storage. Bruce knew about it, and we took it out of storage and brought it to our rehearsal room – The Doors’ workshop. Botnick set up his equipment upstairs, and ran cables out the back window and down through the back door, and baffled off each instrument and set up the mics downstairs. The isolation vocal booth was the downstairs bathroom. So, we had bathroom echo on L.A. Woman. The title track is one of our greatest songs. There are hardly any chord changes at all. It’s basically A to G, with a bit of C and D in there at the end of that slow part that builds up. And then there’s “Riders on the Storm,” the last song that Jim Morrison recorded on this earth. L.A. Woman is a fantastic album.

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Gene Simmons Talks Battle of the Sexes

KISS bassist and rock legend Gene Simmons recently shared his thoughts on the differences between men and women. He talked to Parade magazine about how “most men are really just 12-year-old kids.”

“Men are not reflective. What happened yesterday happened yesterday. We’re in the here and the now,” he said. “Women are wiser. Women have a 30,000-foot viewpoint. They see the bigger picture, which is why they want to have kids and men don’t. Women want to get married and no man I ever met actually wants to.

“We want to be left alone to do whatever we want to do whenever we want to do it without asking anybody. So the hair on our backs rise when the female species says, ‘Where have you been?’ That’s all part of being a kid and immature.”

Simmons also spoke about his currently rocky relationship with Shannon Tweed, his partner for 28 years.

“Well, when you have a cut on your hand, it doesn’t heal overnight,” he said. “It takes time, and if you don’t take care of it, it gets inflamed. We’re working on it. It’s not easy on the kids, Shannon, or myself.”

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Rod Stewart Talks Faces Reunion

Rod Stewart has explained the reason for his refusal to participate in the recent Faces reunion. According to the Daily Express, Rod wants Ronnie Wood to quit The Rolling Stones.

Stewart told Billboard: “The trouble with Ronnie, we get together and we mess about, but the thing is, he is still committed to the Stones. Talking for myself and the rest of the band, we need a commitment, not just, ‘Well, I’ve got next month off.’ It doesn’t work like that. It’s not very professional.

“If he can give us the time, then I’ll commit to that as well. Until he’s finished with the Stones, whenever that will be, I can’t commit to it. I’d love to. I really would love to.”

Meanwhile, the Faces (who currently include Wood, Ian McLagan, Kenney Jones, Mick Hucknall and Glen Matlock) have gigs planned in July.

Faces tour dates:

July 2 – Cornbury Festival, Oxfordshire, U.K.
July 8 – Bospop, Weert, Netherlands
July 9 – TWC, Werchter, Belgium
July 23 – Hurtwood Park, U.K.
July 30 – Fuji Rock Festival, Japan

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Dave Lombardo Talks Big Four Rivalry and Plans for New Slayer Album

In a new interview with GeeksofDoom.com, Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo addressed the rumors of rivalry between the Big Four, which also includes Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax. He also spoke of progress on a new Slayer album.

Asked about playing as part of the Big Four, Lombardo called it “exciting,” saying: “Every time there’s more in the pipe for us to play on. I, at least, am looking forward to hanging out with the other guys and doing these festivals that are amazing.”

Lombardo also said that he leaves the much talked-about decades of dissension between Big Four band members to the groups’ guitarists.

“I can’t really speak for anybody else, but there was never any rivalry from myself with the bands,” said Lombardo. “I never had issues with any of them. I’m sure maybe with other guitar, er, musicians within the bands, maybe, of course there would have been … Twenty years… God, you can imagine the egos and the arrogance and attitude most musicians carry around with them when they haven’t grown up.”

When pressed about his reference to rivalry between Big Four guitarists, Lombardo said, “I don’t know, I feel like drummers… we get along a lot better than guitar players do with each other… There’s one thing that we all have in common, which all us drummers have, is we like to share what we do. There’s no secret. I think guitar players tend to be a little more secretive and a little more passionate. Well, maybe passionate isn’t the right word, but they’re a little more secretive about their tricks and whatever they do. And 20 years ago, man, I tell ya, it was the same thing.”

Having resumed his spot in Slayer in 2002 following a 10-year-absence, Lombardo said that he’s not going anywhere.

“Although there’s nothing written but there [are] definitely plans [for another Slayer album]. Of course. We have to! Why not? I’m not retiring, and I don’t think Kerry [King]’s retiring either.”

Lombardo said that he draws inspiration from an unlikely musical source:

“Charlie Watts [Rolling Stones drummer] is somebody I look up to and, for someone to be on those drums for as long as he’s been up there, then I’m on my way. I’m right behind him, man. I’m one of those guys. I like longevity, and a true musician never abandons his art.”

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Eddie Van Halen Talks Smithsonian, Michael Jackson

Earlier this year, a replica of Eddie Van Halen’s “Frankenstein” guitar was donated to The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The guitar god recently talked to Smithsonian Magazine about how the guitar initially came about.

“The original Frankenstein was a result of me tinkering and experimenting with different elements of electric guitars that I liked,” he said. “I created an instrument that wasn’t offered as an ‘off the rack’ guitar by any manufacturer at the time.”

Although Van Halen still has the first Frankenstein guitar, he doesn’t tour with it anymore.

“I retired it from regular use. It took so much abuse from endless touring and recording; I wanted to pay some respect to it and let it survive and not let it get destroyed completely,” he said. “At the same time it became something so well known beyond my wildest dreams that it’s value made it a target for theft and I wanted to protect it. I still play it every now and then. It’s priceless to me.”

While the guitarist didn’t talk about Van Halen’s upcoming tour or album plans, he did discuss his favorite artistic collaboration.

“Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ is a stand out for me,” he said. “Quincy Jones called me up and asked me to play on it. When I got there it took me 15 minutes to rearrange the song and I played two solos and told them they could pick the one they liked best. Then Michael walked in and said, ‘Wow! I really like that high fast stuff you do.’ It was a lot of fun to do. It’s crazy that something could take such a short amount of time and can grow into something beyond anything you could ever imagine.”

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Tony Iommi Talks Dio, Autobiography, Movie Pursuits

Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi is the latest rock star to get in on the autobiography fad.

Iommi was recently interviewed by Barbara Caserta of Italian web radio Linearock.it about his future endeavors, which include an autobiography called, Iron Man: My Life with Black Sabbath and Beyond, as well as supergroup WhoCares, which is a collaboration between Iommi and Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan.

Excerpts from the chat are below, courtesy of Blabbermouth.net.

Regarding the one-year anniversary of Ronnie James Dio’s death:

“I can’t believe how a year has gone by so quickly. Since Ronnie’s passing, there was a lot of grief and a lot of upset because we shared a lot of life together. Being in the same band together, we got very close, and we were very good friends. And when somebody goes that quick, it’s very much of a shock, and I can’t tell you how sad the whole thing’s been. … He was a true genius, really, and a true believer in what he did. And he would never let the fans down, and that’s a great thing about Ronnie… That’s one of the great things about Ronnie. So, yeah, he’ll be absolutely greatly missed.”

On his future plans:

“I’ve got a lot of things in the can, but I can’t talk about that at the moment. I am doing my autobiography now, which comes out at the end of this year. I’m also doing [music for] three movies. It’s gonna be three altogether, but I’m doing one first and then we’ll take on another one next year or whenever. But I’ve signed up with a producer for three films. So that’s something else that’s gonna keep me very busy. And I’ve also got another project that I’m writing at the moment. I’m doing a lot of writing.”

WhoCares will drop their debut single in North America on June 27 through Eagle Rock Entertainment and in Europe on May 24 via earMUSIC.

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Judas Priest Bassist Talks K.K. Downing Replacement

Judas Priest bass player Ian Hill discussed his band’s farewell tour, founding member K.K. Downing’s departure and new guitarist Richie Faulkner in a new interview with Metal Hammer magazine. Hill said that Faulkner was recommended to the band through a mutual friend.

“For those fans who are concerned that we will no longer sound like Priest [without Downing], you can put your minds at rest,” he said. “Richie Faulkner is a fabulous guitarist and the perfect replacement for K.K. Downing. You will miss nothing from the show and the sound.”

The bassist said that the band tried everything to keep K.K. as part of the group, but “He no longer had the enthusiasm to keep going.”

Hill also was asked if Judas Priest’s Epitaph tour would truly include their last performances as a band.

“I don't think these will be our last-ever performances,” he said. “But there will be no more two-year tours after this. However, we still have a lot of touring ahead of us, and if anyone asks us – why shouldn't we continue playing?”

Judas Priest’s Epitaph tour begins on June 7 in Holland.

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Anthrax Guitarist Talks Touring Without Scott Ian

Anthrax guitarist Rob Caggiano said it’s going to be weird when the band tours this summer without band founder, guitarist and figurehead Scott Ian. Scott’s taking some time off because he and his wife are expecting a child. Sepultura guitarist Andreas Kisser will be filling in.

“Yeah, we've known Andreas for a long time,” Caggiano told GeeksofDoom.com. “He’s a great guitar player. It’s definitely going to be a little strange having an Anthrax show without Scott Ian. But I think Andreas is definitely going to pull it off and it's going to be fun. I mean, it is what it is; Scott’s having a baby, we’ve got to understand and respect that.”

Caggiano also talked about the group’s forthcoming album, Worship Music.

“Worship Music is going to be a crushing Anthrax record. It’s got all the elements,” he said. “There’s moments where it has the spirit of [1987’s] Among the Living, at the same time it’s also a progression from [2003’s] We’ve Come For You All, certain aspects.”

He said a key component to the album was the band’s reunion with vocalist Joey Belladonna.

“Joey sounds phenomenal on the record, so excited about it,” Caggiano said. “All of us have been working on these songs for so long, this record’s taking forever! But it’s great to actually finally hear a lot of these tunes finished and with the right vocalist singing! [Laughs]”

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The Cars’ Elliot Easton Talks New Album

One of the most pleasant surprises in the world of music this past year has been the reunion of ’80s pop rockers The Cars. It was a reunion few could have foreseen, given the divisiveness caused by keyboardist Greg Hawkes and guitarist Elliot Easton founding The New Cars six years ago, notably replacing Ric Ocasek with Todd Rundgren. But all sins have been forgiven and the four surviving members of the band (bassist and co-vocalist Benjamin Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000) have a new album, Move Like This, due in stores next month. Easton talked to MusicRadar.com about how the whole thing came about.

“My recollection of things is that I felt that a good amount of time had passed, and I hadn't spoken to Ric in a while,” the lefty guitarist recalled. “So one day I just picked up the phone to call an old friend, you know? Ric and I chatted, and it was nice. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was writing songs. He said they were kind of different from other things he had written before, but he was very excited. I asked him what he was going to do with the songs, and he said, 'I'll probably make another solo record.' So I said, ‘Why don't we make a Cars record?’”

Easton says the off-the-cuff joke turned into the real deal shortly thereafter.

“I guess he thought about it for a few weeks and called around to David [Robinson] and Greg, and everybody was up for the idea. Suddenly, it was like, 'Yeah, let's do that!'"

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Lady Antebellum Singer Talks Third Album

Following the success of the blockbuster 2010 album, Need You Now, is no small task for Nashville hit-makers Lady Antebellum. Powered by the single “I Run to You” and the hit title track, Need You Now topped charts all over the world and garnered a boatload of awards. Nevertheless, the trio of Charles Kelley, Dave Haywood and Hillary Scott are hard at work on a follow-up.

Kelley told Undercover.fm, “We’re a little over halfway done right now and we’re excited to get some new music out there. Again, we’re just trying to keep our heads down and not over-think this thing. With the success of Need You Now, everyone keeps asking us, ‘How are you going to follow that up?’ – and I don’t know how to answer that. You just go in there and do what you do and hopefully it’ll be received well.”

According to Kelley, the important thing is to make music the band can take pride in.

“It’ll be hard to match the same success as that,” he said. “I think we just try and keep that in perspective and just keep making music that we’re proud of and it’ll take whatever course it’s going to take.”

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Rush’s Geddy Lee Shows Love for Cleveland, Talks <em>Clockwork Angels</em>

This weekend saw Canadian power trio Rush return to a significant site in the band’s history: Cleveland, Ohio. It was Cleveland radio that first broke Rush in the States and catapulted them to rock stardom. “It was enormous for us,” bassist Geddy Lee told the Plain Dealer. “The fact that we were able to create a buzz in Cleveland and the fact that people were paying attention to us there opened everything up for us. It was really the start of our entire career.”

And so, the group are celebrating their return by filming the show for a future DVD release.

“It feels like full circle to me,” Lee said. “We realized after all these years that we've shot films in all these different locations. But we've never really shot an entire film in America. We thought, 'Well, that's just wrong.' So where do we want to shoot? And it dawned on me that it was appropriate to shoot in Cleveland, where our entire American adventure began.”

Lee also gave an update on the group’s much-anticipated Clockwork Angels album.

"We've got about seven songs written," Lee said. "When you hear the first two songs, which we're playing live now, they definitely have a heavier sound. It's the heavier side of Rush in the early going. But when I think of all the songs that we've written already, there's quite a lot of diversity there. I think—I hope—Rush fans will like it. We're certainly going to work hard to make it a great record, as we always try."

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Zakk Wylde Talks <em>American Idol</em>, New Black Label Society Album

Zakk Wylde says his recent appearance on American Idol has entitled him to a new nickname. Specifically, as reported by USA Today, he now insists his bandmates in Black Label Society refer to him as “The Idol.”

“I told [bassist] J.D. [John DeServio] and the other guys in the band, 'You know, I'm also known as Icon; they use the word ‘legendary’ around me. I guess now we can just throw ‘Idol’ in there,” Wylde said, with tongue planted firmly in cheek. "J.D.'s like, 'Dude, I'm not going to puke, I'm going to go hang myself.' So I'll definitely get some mileage out of this."

Wylde went on to provide details about the forthcoming Black Label Society album, The Song Remains Not the Same, which features acoustic versions of songs from the band’s 2010 disc, Order of the Black.

"We had a whole bunch of tunes on the album, and we just started reworking them," Wylde said. "Something like ‘Parade of the Dead’… I kept the melody but changed it around a little bit. Now we've got an acoustic version. That's the reason we ended up calling it The Song Remains Not the Same. It's actually the same songs, but the only thing they have in common with the heavy versions are the lyrics. In some of them, we even changed the melodies."

The Song Remains Not the Same will be released May 10.

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