GROOVIN’ KICK-ASS NEW PARTY TUNE/VIDEO FROM KING KOBRA. NEW TESLA ALBUM COMIN’ SOON! RONNIE JAMES DIO FIRED FROM RAINBOW BECAUSE? BLACK VEIL BRIDES CRACK TOP 20. NEW BLACK TIDE SONG HERE.
This song is so good I had to hear it twice!
“Turn Up The Good (Times)”, the new video from KING KOBRA, can be seen below. The song comes off the band’s new self-titled comeback album, which came out in April via Frontiers Records.
Formed in 1984 by legendary drummer Carmine Appice (VANILLA FUDGE, ROD STEWART, OZZY OSBOURNE), Los Angeles heavy metal outfit KING KOBRA recorded two critically acclaimed albums for Capitol Records — the 1985 release “Ready To Strike” and 1986’s “Thrill Of A Lifetime”.
Along with Carmine, the band featured four relatively unknown musicians at the time — David Michael-Philips and Mick Sweda on guitar, Johnny Rod on bass and Mark Free on lead vocals. KING KOBRA toured the U.S., Canada, Europe and Mexico playing shows with KISS, IRON MAIDEN, QUIET RIOT, TED NUGENT, QUEENSRŸCHE and AUTOGRAPH.
The band was featured regularly on MTV and performed the theme song for the #1 1986 motion picture “Iron Eagle”. After disbanding in 1988, each member continued his career in other successful major-label groups — Carmine to BLUE MURDER (Geffen), Mark Free to UNRULY CHILD (Interscope), Mick Sweda to the BULLETBOYS (Warner Bros.), Johnny Rod to W.A.S.P. (Capitol/EMI) and David Michael-Philips to LIZZY BORDEN (Metal Blade).
The year 2010 saw the band reunite the original classic ’85 lineup, replacing original singer Mark Free (now Marcie Free) with veteran lead vocalist Paul Shortino (ROUGH CUTT, QUIET RIOT).
“This album captures all the great points we had in the 80’s, but better,” says Carmine Appice. “The music is more traditional KING KOBRA music. Great lyrics, kick-ass songs with cool hooks and really good playing. A really great hard rock/metal record with lots of energy.” David Michael-Phillips adds, “It truly is an all-star album. Paul Shortino is amazing! I can honestly say he is one of the best vocalists in the business along with being one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever met.”
“King Kobra” track listing:
01. Rock This House
02. Turn Up The Good (Times)
03. Live Forever
04. Tear Down The Walls
05. This Is How We Roll
06. Midnight Woman
07. We Got A Fever
08. Tope Of The World
09. You Make It Easy
10. Cryin’ Turns To Rain
11. Screamin’ For More
12. Fade Away
KING KOBRA 2011 is:
* Paul Shortino – vocals
* David Michael-Philips – Guitar
* Mick Sweda – Guitar
* Johnny Rod – Bass
* Carmine Appice – Drums
California rockers TESLA will release “Twisted Wires And The Acoustic Sessions” on July 12. The album will feature six songs that were recorded back in 2005 at bassist Brian Wheat‘s J Street Recorders studio — which also serve as the last recordings with original member Tommy Skeoch — and six newly recorded tracks, including acoustic remakes of songs from TESLA‘s entire catalog and two brand new songs, “Second Street” and “Better Off Without You”.
TESLA released a live album, “Alive In Europe!”, in Europe on April 23, 2010 via Frontiers Records.
TESLA‘s latest studio album, “Forever More”, sold more than 16,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 33 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD was released on October 7, 2008 on Tesla Electric Company Recordings. The European version of the album, which was made available on November 7 via Frontiers Records, contains two bonus tracks not found on the American version.
For “Forever More”, TESLA reunited with producer Terry Thomas, who was behind the boards for the band’s 1994 gold-certified “Bust A Nut” album, and engineered by Michael Rosen who worked with TESLA on “Into The Now”.
“Set The World On Fire”, the sophomore album from Los Angeles theatrical rockers BLACK VEIL BRIDES, sold 23,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 17 on The Billboard 200 chart. The record arrived in stores on June 14 via Lava Music/Universal Republic Records.
BLACK VEIL BRIDES‘ first album, “We Stitch These Wounds”, opened with nearly 11,000 units to enter the chart at No. 36. The CD was released on July 20, 2010 via Standby Records.
“Everything is bigger — more songs, more vocals, more melodies,” proclaims vocalist Andy Biersack. “And it all came naturally; it’s not an attempt to try to outdo our first record, but we wanted to show how we had naturally grown as a band and as songwriters. This is my favorite record I’ve ever made — and most importantly, the best album anybody’s ever made.”
BLACK VEIL BRIDES was interviewed live on Download FM at this year’s edition of the Download festival, which was held June 10-12, 2011 at Donington Park in Leicestershire, United Kingdom. You can now watch the chat below.
Andy Biersack broke three ribs this past Saturday, June 18 after trying to jump onto a stage from a 15-foot balcony during the band’s concert at Hot Topic in Hollywood, California. Despite the injury, the singer returned to the stage and finished the gig.
BLACK VEIL BRIDES is:
Andy Biersack (vocals)
Jake Pitts (guitar)
Jinxx (guitar)
Ashley Purdy (bass)
Christian “CC” Coma (drums)
“That Fire”, a brand new song from the Miami hard rock quartet BLACK TIDE, can be streamed at this location. The track will appear on BLACK TIDE‘s sophomore album, “Post Mortem”, which is scheduled for release on August 23 via DGC/Interscope Records.
Commented the band: “This is just a fun song for everyone out there. Total party song, and one of our faves.”
The “That Fire” video will make its online debut on Thursday, June 23 exclusively on IGN.com. It will be available via the band’s YouTube VEVO channel the following day.
Behind-the-scenes footage from the video shoot can be seen below.
“Post Mortem” was written and recorded in the summer of 2010, and is the follow-up to 2008’s “Light From Above”, which garnered instant critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, Spin, Revolver and more.
The band followed the release of “Light From Above” with an appearance on the inaugural Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival, performed on the main stage of Download 2008 and capped it off by playing the entire 2009 Vans Warped Tour.
In April 2011 BLACK TIDE was added as support for the only two announced U.S. dates of IRON MAIDEN‘s “The Final Frontier” world tour, which took place in BLACK TIDE‘s home state of Florida.
BLACK TIDE will hit the road later this year as part of the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival. The trek will run from August 26 through October 15, conquering North America with a massive active rock lineup which features veteran acts AVENGED SEVENFOLD, BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE, SEVENDUST and more.
Commented Garcia: “August 23rd 2011 will be huge step in our lives. Not only as a band, but as people. This record means everything to us. We poured our heart and soul into this and have been waiting for it to come out like the rest of you.
“‘Post Mortem’ is the name of the record. It means ‘after death.’ The reason we love this title is because we feel that we are so lucky to be able to be doing this, and having an opportunity to put our music out there is honestly the closest thing to heaven we have on this earth. It’s a like a dream.
“We love all our fans and hope to see you all at the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival this summer! This is the beginning of a long, crazy and yet beautiful ride.”
On Ronnie‘s split with RAINBOW and subsequent decision to join BLACK SABBATH:
“He was fired by Ritchie [Blackmore], because he didn’t write more commercial songs. We’d been living in Connecticut and we decided to come back to Los Angeles where we knew more people. I knew Sharon Arden at the time, before she was Osbourne, and we were talking on the phone, and she invited Ronnie up to meet the SABBATH guys. Her father, Don Arden, was managing at the time.”
On Ronnie‘s first stint with BLACK SABBATH:
“They were great friends. And they were always incredible musicians — legends. I was very good friends with Gloria Butler, Geezer Butler‘s wife, and those early days were a lot of fun. It was all new for us. For the first time in our lives, Ronnie and I had some money. We had no money in RAINBOW. But we had suddenly got money, and it was nice, and we bought our first house and we enjoyed the life.”
“Musically, Ronnie really enjoyed working with SABBATH, because now he could go darker, he could explore more. Him and Tony [Iommi] had a fantastic relationship writing-wise; and the rest of the band playing-wise. They were musical geniuses, all of them. ‘Heaven And Hell’ was written and recorded down in Miami at the BEE GEES‘ place, and that was a whole new experience for us. The songs, I thought were absolutely phenomenal. The band wasn’t sure about them until they came out, because they’re never really sure. When the band writes something, they’re never really sure (laughs) whereas people who are more on the outside can listen to them and go wow, that’s incredible. ‘Mob Rules’, the song, was originally written for the movie ‘Heavy Metal’; we’d gone to England, where the version for the ‘Heavy Metal’ movie was recorded in THE BEATLES‘ house. That was an incredible adventure and those were happy times. I think the third album, the live album, was not happy; by that time, there were a lot of problems going on.”
On Ronnie‘s solo career:
“The DIO band years was new for us, because Ronnie could do whatever he wanted now. Although it was quite frightening too, because that was a big responsibility for him. And in the beginning, although we had some money, we didn’t have a lot of money. We actually took a big huge mortgage out, a second mortgage out on our home, to start the tour off with (laughs), and to make sure that we could have the same things that we had enjoyed in SABBATH. It was a new and exciting time — the band was on fire. We didn’t expect ‘Holy Diver’ to jump out of the box the way it did, but it did, and it was incredible. It was an incredible ride.”
“As it went on into the ’90s, all the record companies, all the big labels dropped everybody. I was now managing the band of course, and I had to go out and find independents, which I was terrified of, but I went over to Europe and talked to a lot of different people, and found out that actually independents were better than the majors (laughs). You have much more control and you don’t sell your soul to them. So those are some of my experiences. But we had a lot of fun; my whole time, my whole journey with Ronnie was a beautiful experience.”
On Ronnie‘s long-rumored autobiography that the singer had been working on for years:
“Ronnie had written — was writing — a book, right up until a couple of days before he passed, an autobiography, and he finished about three-quarters of it. What he would do is handwrite everything and then he would send it over to me and my assistant would type it up. That’s how we worked. So we read chapter by chapter, until the last months, of course. And I had already gotten an agent for him. So they want me to finish it, and I will finish it, and it will come out in 2012. I haven’t actually gone back and read the last part, because it’s too soon for me to do that — the memories are too precious. But I will do it.”
Read the entire interview from Goldmine magazine.
Share this:
Top Posts & Pages
Heavy Metal Messenger & Deano 