Some time in early August Ian Gillan spoke to the Tales from the Road podcast hailing from India. (Low key does not even begin to describe it — they have grand total of 23 subscribers on Youtube.) It is another one of those lengthy video chats courtesy of the pandemic. When pressed about studio plans during the touring downtime, Big Ian quipped that “There were lots of things going on”, but he “can’t talk about it quite yet”.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Rolling Stone magazine is on a family tree streak with an in-depth profile of Neil Murray for their Unknown Legends series.

Was the cover of Lovehunter created to cause controversy? It’s pretty out there.
I guess to an extent. But it was really more of a management idea than anything to do with the band. I think out of anybody, I was the least in favor of it. It was kind of a bit too heavy metal and not representative of the music of the band, in my opinion. It’s a popular image for merchandise and stuff, but it’s rather adolescent, let’s put it like that.

In a way, it’s better than the next album, Ready an’ Willing, where they just took a bunch of photos from the back of the Trouble album, made them into silhouettes, and stuck a picture of Bernie in there from somewhere. I thought that was real cheap. No spirit at all.

There was another idea that came before that. I’m not sure if I saw it, but it was chucked out by David, I think. It was a kind of stopgap thing, anyway.

More to the point, the band and David’s lyrics and how he was onstage were getting criticized a lot. The rock press was very much post-punk, “let’s not be demeaning to women” kind of thing. David almost took that as a red rag to a bull. “OK, I’m going to do it even more because this is not to be taken seriously. This is how we are. Deal with it.”

Read more in the Rolling Stone. Seriously, go and read the whole thing. Yes, it is long. But that’s what makes it good — lots of great insight into the bands and people he’s been working with over the years.

Various members of the band said in the interviews that all thing permitting they would like to go to the studio some time this summer. Check.

There have been a conspicuous silence from the band’s camp in the recent weeks/months. Check.

Someone has leaked today the collage you see above. Check.

The turningtocrime.com domain has been anonymously registered on July 30, 2021, with a German provider. It is now being redirected to a not (yet?) existing page on the record company website. The same company that has a track record of whimsical promotion campaigns. Check.

Those are the facts that we know.

[Update Sep 1]: Said page on the record company website has gone live and now contains a countdown to something happening at 16:01 CET on October 6, 2021.

Thanks to Darker Than Blue for the image, that they in turn attribute to Mathieu Pinard / Rock Hard magazine.

Take a heavy rock song and turn into a lullaby? We could totally see how this could be done to Temple of the King, but Stargazer, Heaven and Hell, or The Last in Line? Surely not. Until someone did… Continue Reading »

The online successor to the Classic Rock magazine has a track-by-track guide feature on Burn with contributions from Coverdale, Hughes, and Paice.

Burn

David Coverdale: I wrote about half a dozen sets of lyrics for this song – I was that keen! The final words to Burn – and also the words to the Stormbringer song for the next album, for idle curiosity – came about because I was just trying to please Ritchie [Blackmore], I guess. These lyrics aren’t the stuff I would normally write; I looked upon them as science-fiction poems.

Glenn Hughes: Blackmore came up with that classic rock riff, but there’s a lot of talk about it being ripped from something that was written in the forties. [George Gershwin’s] Fascinating Rhythm, wasn’t it? I think it could be from that. Every artist borrows from other artists – but this is a classic example of where Ritchie may have taken something from the forties or fifties.

Ian Paice: It’s a pretty well-played track. It’s got a rapid pace about it. I’ve always said that playing fast is a lot easier than playing slow, because if you play something fast and you screw up, nobody really hears it. But if you play slow and you screw something up, then everybody hears it. I think that as an opening statement from the Mark III line-up, it’s pretty cool.

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

A 50th anniversary edition of Jesus Christ Superstar is due to be released on September 17, 2021. Yep, that’s the original London cast with Big Ian. (Hmm, that’d be 51st anniversary then, right?) It will come as a 3CD box set with 100-page hardcover book, the fairly standard 2LP and 2CD editions, and a 2LP deluxe edition with replica of the original 1970 vinyl.

All 4 variants will feature remasters done by Miles Showell and Nick Davis at Abbey Road. The book contains new interviews with parties involved — including IG, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Tim Rice, Murray Head, and Yvonne Elliman — and has been edited together by music writer Lois Wilson.

Track list of CD3 (CD1 and CD2 as in the original):

1. Blood Money (guide vocal)*
2. Herod’s Song (guide vocal)*
3. I Don’t Know How To Love Him (Tim Rice commentary)*
4. This Jesus Must Die (scat vocal 1)*
5. This Jesus Must Die (scat vocal 2)* — unreleased instrumental*
6. I Don’t Know How To Love Him (single edit)
7. 1970 open-end Interview with the creators Of Jesus Christ Superstar Part One (includes Superstar, Heaven On Their Minds, I Don’t Know How To Love Him)
8. 1970 open-end Interview with the creators Of Jesus Christ Superstar Part Two (includes Gethsemane, Herod’s Song and Superstar)

Another source gives diferent contents of CD3 (quite possibly an alltogether different version of the reissiue):

1. Ascending Chords
2. Damned For All Time / Blood Money – Guide Vocal
3. King Herod’s Song (Try It And See) – Guide Vocal
4. I Don’t Know How To Love Him – Tim Rice And Murray Head Vocals
5. I Don’t Know How To Love Him – Murray Head Vocals
6. This Jesus Must Die – Scat Vocals 1
7. What A Party
8. This Jesus Must Die – Scat Vocals 2
9. Heaven On Their Minds – Instrumental
10. I Don’t Know How To Love Him
11. (Too Much) Heaven On Their Minds – German Single
12. Strange Thing (Mystifying)
13. John Nineteen Forty-One – Remastered 2021

Thanks to ALW’s newsletter for the heads up (see there for preorder links), and to Super Deluxe Edition for additional info.

US cable/satellite channel REELZ will premiere a Whitesnake documentary as a part of their Breaking the Band series, on August 22 at 8 pm ET/5 pm PT.

Whitesnake was the brainchild of former Deep Purple frontman David Coverdale. They appeared on the English music scene in 1978 with raunchy lyrics and a big blues rock sound. Over the next 12 years Coverdale’s grit and determination went on to drive the band to become one of the biggest successes of the “Hair Metal Age”. But there were plenty of casualties on the way with a host of lineup changes as Coverdale ruthlessly searched for the winning formula.

The documentary was produced by ITV in the UK and judging by the casting call, features reenactments along with archival footage.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Back in April Glenn and Gabi Hughes were guests on the Honest AF podcast hosted by Daniella Clarke & Barbaranne Wylde (a.k.a. Mrs. Gilby and Mrs. Zakk respectfully). It’s an hour plus long conversation, so a lot of dirt was uncovered. Cue the Tinseltown namedropping. Continue Reading »

Another Rainbow related interview in the Rolling Stone’s Unknown Legends series — this time it’s an in-depth conversation with Bob Daisley, covering his career from a 3 year old listening to his parents’ Frank Sinatra records to the present day and pretty much everything in between. And that’s a lot of everything. Bob has stories to tell.

It doesn’t seem like [Widowmaker] was a band destined to last, but it led to you joining Rainbow.
First off, I loved Widowmaker. I wanted to see it make it. It was my band as much as anyone’s. We weren’t working for someone else. It was our band. It was a democratic situation. But at the end of the last Widowaker tour, we were in Los Angeles to play at the Whisky a Go Go. I got a call about auditioning for Rainbow.

I thought to myself, “I’ll try this. I’ll go to the audition and I’ll see what happens.” I get there and there’s [drummer] Cozy [Powell], there was Ronnie James Dio, and there was Ritchie [Blackmore]. We played for about an hour or so, they went into one of the offices of the rehearsal place, and they came out and said, “You’ve got the gig if you want it.”

They’d already auditioned about 40 bass players. They couldn’t find somebody. That’s because there’s three main credentials you need for a band, usually, when you do an audition. You’ve gotta look the part, you’ve got to be able to get on with them, and you’ve got to be able to play.

I said, “I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” [Laughs] They must have thought, “You little fuck. Who the fuck do you think you are? This is Rainbow. We’re offering you the gig and you’re going to think about it?” But I did have to think about it. I wanted to know, for sure, that I wanted to make the move from Widowmaker into that.

Also, Ritchie had a bit of a reputation of chewing people up and spitting them out quite quickly. People that knew me were saying things like, “You could be gone in three months. You might end up with nothing.”

And so I played the Whisky that night with Widowmaker. At the end of the night, we went up to the dressing room and another squabble broke out. I was like, “Oh, fuck. Oh, God. Here we go again.” I said, “Fuck this.”

Ritchie saw me that night. He came to the show and told me he’d be at the Rainbow afterwards, which was just a few steps away. After the squabble, I said, “I’m going up to the Rainbow.” I packed my bag and walked out. What I meant was, “I’m going up to the Rainbow Bar and Grill.” But I also meant, “I’ve decided to join Rainbow.”

I walked in and Ritchie was at a booth by himself. When he saw me, he stood up and clapped. I thought, “Wow.” That meant a lot to me. Ritchie didn’t give compliments easily. That was a really good sign for me. He never suffered fools gladly. He was an aware person. He had the reputation of being cantankerous, but I got along fine with him. As long as you did your job, kept your head down, and went along with it. I had a drink with Ritchie that night. I think the very next day, I started rehearsals for Rainbow.

Read more in Rolling Stone.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the heads up.

In the aftermath of the summer leg of the Dead Daisies US tour Glenn Hughes spoke to the Brazilian Wikimetal Happy Hour: Continue Reading »