Category: ROCK MEMORIES
Who the f*** is PANTERA??
That was my first thought when I “had to” schedule an interview with Pantera in February 1991.
Judas Priest were coming to Sweden, kicked off their Europan tour in Scandinavia, and they were bringing two opening acts: Annihilator and Pantera. At the time, I was preoccupied with getting an interview with Rob Halford. I just wanted to get the interview with Pantera over with.
It’s funny when I listen to the interview with Rex now, and some of the things he says. “Cowboys From Hell“, which is pretty much considered a classic metal album now – especially after the re-release in 2012, had only been out ONE WEEK in Sweden when this interview was made. And as there was no internet in 1991, people didn’t know who the hell Pantera were.
It’s hard to imagine that now – 14 million albums sold…
It was one of the few tours at the time that didn’t get cancelled – many bands did because it was risky to fly overseas when the Gulf War was still being fought. It actually ended officially 26 days after this conversation.
But several bands from the States chose to cancel their scheduled tours and promotion-visits to Europe.
This interview was conducted in a small, boring, dirty little room backstage at the Ice hall in Stockholm, shortly before the show.
I’m yet to find the interview with Dimebag, it’s here somewhere….
I just thought it might be appropriate to dig this one out now that Rex is about to write his autobiography. Should be interesting reading:
My Year in Rock – retrospect 2011 (part 1)
I sat down last night to write a summary of my year 2011. I was amazed to find how just one year, can feel like ten. 2011 has been a fantastic and memorable year for me.
I have travelled all over Europe, squeezing in a short visit to the States as well. I took the interviewing to a new level, by introducing video-interviews for this blog.
Speaking of the blog – it’s hard to believe that I launched it in February 2011, less than a year ago. Since then, it has established itself faster than I thought was possible.
Maybe because some readers who have followed me online since 1996 continued to follow my scribblings here, and it kind of went from there.
The past few months, I’ve ended up on Blabbermouth several times, which automatically drew a few thousand readers more than usual.
But, here’s how I remember my rockin’ year of 2011:
New Years Day 2011. I was browsing the web for info on gigs w. Gus G, who I had seen with Ozzy at Madison Square Garden in NYC a few weeks earlier. He totally blew me away. I found his MySpace-page and saw that Firewind had a gig in London only 7 days later.
FIREWIND in London – first gig of 2011
I found myself taking off to a rainy London a few days later, for the first gig of 2011. It was great, and also what started the Gus G/Ozzy/Firewind-galore of 2011, where I deliberately, and undeliberately, ended up seeing mentioned super-guitarist no less than 19 times… All of which could be followed in the separate blog Setting The World On Fire.
[Front row, Relentless Garage, London, UK – some blonde girl (=me), and a bunch of dark-haired guys…!]
TSO (Trans Siberian Orchestra) & JON OLIVA – no go
March included a few concerts, but also a planned but missed one. I was supposed to go to Zurich to see the TSO (Trans Siberian Orchestra)-gig because Jon Oliva was going to be a part of that tour, and as JOP (Jon Oliva’s Pain) hadn’t toured since the fall 2010, I wanted to see him. Was curious to see the US-phenomenon TSO at the same time, on their first tour to Europe. Due to personal issues, Jon couldn’t make it and I decided not to go either – money spent on the flight ticket went down the drain, but shit happens.BAD HABIT – the first video interview for In The Rearview Mirror
One of the best classic AOR-bands in Sweden, Bad Habit, announced a release-party and gig at Club Stairway To Heaven in Malmö. I’ve been a big fan of these guys since 1987, so I called the “band boss” Hal Marabel to set up a time for a video interview.
I’ve done TV-hosting, but video-interviews for the web was completely new to me.
My friend Henrik Hansson, former bassplayer of the band Hollywood, is good at filming and editing, so I asked him if he was in. He took it as a new challenge that he was happy to take on. Since this first “test-round” with Bad Habit, we have continued doing more and better video interviews throughout 2011.
Bad Habit kicked it all off, and they played a great gig that night, on the 11th of March 2011.
INTERVIEW HERE.
MEGADETH & SLAYER – Aarhus, Denmark
I took the day off to go to Aarhus, Denmark, a three hour long train-ride, to see Megadeth on March 21. Oh, headliners were Slayer, but I must be the only person on the planet who isn’t a huge fan of Slayer. I LOVED Megadeth’s performance, they kicked ass, had so much energy, it was just top notch. When Slayer went onstage I stayed for one song, then I had more than enough and went down to the train station to catch the night train back to work…
REVIEW HERE.
MIKE TRAMP – I remember you (interview and release party at The Rock, Copenhagen)
Only a few days after the Megadeth-gig, it was time to head back to Denmark to meet Mike Tramp, former singer of White Lion. Before the interview, I had e-mailed a photo taken at the last interview I had done with him in The tivoli in Helsingborg, Sweden, a few years before.
Funny enough, he remembered me. So, he took time to do the video interview during sound check the day of his release party for his new album “Stand Your Ground” on the 24th of March.
He is a very easy guy to interview, talks a lot, is very open and easygoing, every journalist’s dream. He is also a skilled artist and frontman, definitely enjoyed the gig later that evening.
Funny enough, I enjoyed the slightly “different” in-store gig that he did in a record store in central Copenhagen two days later, even more. More about that in the blog from that day: http://lita77777.posterous.com/in-store-gig-the-way-music-is-supposed-to-be
DORO – The Metal Queen visited Malmö
April was a pretty slow month by my standards. One of the highlights was Doro visiting Malmö on April 9, for an acclaimed concert at KB (Kulturbolaget).
Was also glad to see Chris, the merch guy, there. I first met him on tour with Jon Oliva, then with W.A.S.P and now with Doro. He was going out on the road with Arch Enemy as well but I never met him on that tour. Always nice to meet people you know, he’s a really cool guy.
There wasn’t enough time to set up an interview with Doro, but her record company and management were nice to deal with, so hopefully it can be arranged next time she comes to this part of the world. :-)
REVIEW & VIDEO HERE.
K.K Downing left Judas Priest
April was the month when one of the legends in the world of metal, announced that he was calling it quits. K.K Downing left Judas Priest under the most strange excuses and curcumstances. I got the news on Facebook April 20th… It was just two months before their Farewell tour was supposed to start, and I for one was shocked and pissed off all at the same time. The frustration didn’t go away until I actually saw Richie Faulkner on stage with Priest, and got a chance to ask him a thing or two at the press conference at Sweden Rock. But more about that later….
Matt LaPorte – guitarist of JOP, R.I.P……
Terrible news reached me on April 21st. A friend from the band (JOP) sent me a message so that I wouldn’t have to hear about it online. Matt LaPorte, guitarist with Jon Oliva’s Pain, and an important part of the “JOP-family” that I have so often described, had passed away in his sleep.
Nobody knew at that point what had happened, his room-mate found him when he came home, nothing more was ever mentioned. It suppose that the details didn’t really matter, it was sad news. He was my age, a life ahead of him and a very talented musician.But, something positive comes out of even the most tragic situations. A tribute-concert was held for him in July, which gave his friends and bandmates a chance to get together and remember…. R.I.P Matt.
Blogs about Matt: Matt 1 — Matt 2 — Matt 3
AMARANTHE – best debut of 2011
I was sent to interview this band in Gothenburg for Sweden Rock Magazine, but the article ended up being so short and isignificant in the mag, that I decided to give them the exposure they deserved elsewhere – on YouTube.
The first time I saw them was when I went to meet up with my friend Hanneke, light tech for JOP who was out with Kamelot (or possibly with the other act on the tour, Leave’s eyes) in Gothenburg. (Mentioned HERE)
They played Trädgår’n and it’s one of the few times that an unknown opening act gets my attention. Amaranthe were amazing. I’ve never seen such perfectionism on a stage by a “debut band”. I didn’t know at the time that the members were anything but new in the business.Henrik and I drove to Copenhagen and Amager Bio on May 15th, to talk to this kick-ass band (whose debut album had pretty much just been released. I wrote a very positive review in SRM, which guitarist Olof later on mentioned had helped a lot in the initial stage of promoting the band).
I predicted a very bright future for this band, and it turns out that I was right. In a very short time, they have definitely gotten a LOT of exposure for their deathmetal pop. 2011 was Amaranthe’s year and I’m really happy to see that they have done so well. Not only are they talented, they are also damn nice people, so – thumbs up and the best of luck in 2012 too guys!
ARTICLE AND VIDEO INTERVIEW HERE.
HELIX – Brian Vollmer talks about the ups and downs of stardom
My Canadian friend Sean e-mailed me one day and asked if I would be interested in doing an interview with Canadian band Helix. They had a few things going on, so I figured why not. Just like most rockers out there, I only associate the band with “Rock You” and “Heavy Metal Love”. As it turned out, there was a lot more than that to this band. It was published in this blog May 14th and can be found HERE.
JUNE was a crazy month. That’s when the ball REALLY started rolling. So, I’ll stop right here and continue this New Year’s blog 2011 with a part 2 – stick around! :-)
PART TWO: http://lita77777.posterous.com/my-year-in-rock-retrospect-2011-part-2
Lita Ford – the first lady of metal
Christmas-party at work had one easy to remember dress-code: There had to be something RED in our outfit. Those who know me also know that when you open my closet, there’s gonna be nothing but BLACK in there. So I started digging through piles of clothes, looking for something red.
Suddenly this old, worn out, washed out, greyish t-shirt from the late 80’s fell out from somewhere. My old LITA FORD t-shirt!
I loved that one back when I found it, because it was so difficult to get hold of certain things back then, before the internet made everything so available… Lita Ford-stuff wasn’t easy to find in Sweden, and this one cost me a fortune to import. So I wore it all the time.
I was a huge fan. Lita was extremely inspiring to a young teenage female rocker. Some people thought I was “wired the wrong way” because I was walking around with a t-shirt that had a half-naked woman on it, not to mention all the posters on my wall in my teenage-room. Lita was never known for wearing a lot of clothes….!
THIS is what Lita looked like in 1983-84 when I first heard of her…. As vulgar as it gets, perfect for a rebelling teenage girl who needed a role model! :)
But I think that maybe even that was a part of my fascination for Lita – she was totally fearless. I remember in one interview she said that if she hadn’t made it in the music business, she would have become a professional callgirl.
I couldn’t believe someone would make that statement, it was so “politically incorrect”. And for me, coming from a pretty strict family, that was unheard of, so it was so damn cool that she was so open and natural, very in-your-face with her sexuality.
What I liked about it was that she was such a badass. Many female artists use sex to get more attention (as well as male artists) but most of them end up looking like bimbos and brainless idiots. Lita was never a weak bimbo. She was cool and confident. and did whatever the hell she felt like doing, and that was inspiring.
I collected everything there was with Lita. Had every expensive hard-to-get picture vinyl single and imported LP I could get my hands on. I’ve followed her career most of my life actually. Always thought she kicked ass.
Maybe I didn’t like the “Black” album that much and I didn’t know what to think about the comeback-CD “Wicked Wonderland“. It was pretty obvious that it had more to do with her husband than with Lita, but at the time I was so happy that she was back after her long isolation on a desert Caribbean island, that I probably loved it just because she had made a new album after all those years of silence.
But honestly, I haven’t listened to it after I reviewed it. However, I did read and watched all the interviews on the web.
When she played Sweden Rock Festival, I was sitting there in Jon Oliva’s dressing room, which was just across from Lita’s, and couldn’t BELIEVE she was there! Kevin, my friend from Oliva’s band, walked in and started laughing:
– Do you realize that you look like a 13-year old fan right now?!
When she played, he got me up on stage to see her, cause I didn’t have the right credentials to be on Lita’s stage, but when escorted by someone who did, it was OK.
So I stood there just going “wow“. Her show, honestly, was a major disappointment and disaster. Probably one of the worst I’ve seen on Sweden Rock. It was embarrassing at times. Later on I was told that her guitarist never made it over to Europe, so everything sounded weird when it had been rehearsed with 2 guitars. I don’t remember if she ever mentioned that when she got on stage, but she should have.
This is from the stage – we stood there drinking wine, listening to Lita, couldn’t have been better! :)
That year, I got to do an interview with Lita and I was so nervous I could DIE…! She was the LAST of my heroes that I hadn’t met or talked to. So it was a huge deal to finally get her on the phone after all those years, I was freaking out…! But she was so cool about the whole thing, she was laughing, talking like an old friend and just made me relax.
I loved her attitude and her way of thinking. Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt it was easy to relate to her. She does what she wants, she lives the way she think is right, regardless what anyone else thinks. I’m the same. Maybe I’m not as extreme as she is, but somewhere deep inside I kind of wish that I was.
Looking forward to her next album that will FINALLY be all LITA again…!
Two clips from my interview w. Lita back in 2009:
1: Lita talking about abandoning her career to go live on a desert island
2: Lita talking about how she feels about her sons seeing and hearing things she’s done in the past.
Talks with Rob “Metal God” Halford
I wonder how long it would take to actually organize every single interview I’ve ever done since 1988.
Not to mention everything else: Photos, tickets, all kinds of memorabilia…. I’ve tried several times and I’m still nowhere close to getting any kind of overview of all this stuff. My home looks like a messy version of Hard Rock Café, people are joking about how I should start charging visitors and call it a rock-museum. Maybe I will, so I can finance all my trips! :)
I’ll be posting stuff like this from time to time – and it hasn’t been posted anywhere else ever before, so I hope other fans will enjoy these as much as I do. :-)
(I did about three 1-hour long interviews with Rob, and also with Glenn and K.K for this Judas Priest cover-story for Sweden Rock Magazine. I think this one was one of them, but I can’t swear on it. Its just very likely. :) )
ROB HALFORD – My memories (the final part 3)
[Continued from previous post]
February 2, 1991 – Sheraton Hotel, Stockholm
It was a very cold day and I felt sorry for the poor rocker guys who were standing outside the hotel freezing their butts off, waiting for a chance to get their Judas Priest-albums signed.
I knew what it was like to stand out in the cold like that. I had done it myself on a few occasions. But this time, I actually had an appointment with The Metal God.
My friend Janet was with me as moral support, cause I was pretty much crapping my pants, if you pardon the expression. I was only 21 and I had never met Judas Priest before – and this band had changed my life 8 years earlier. It’s a big deal. And now, I was about to meet Rob Halford, it was mindblowing. I couldn’t have been happier if anyone had offered me a million bucks.
We walked into the hotel-bar/restaurant and I immediately spotted the people from CBS (now Sony Music) and Jayne Andrews, who I had met in Copenhagen two days before, who had arranged this interview for me.
Just as we were about to walk over to the CBS-table, I noticed two familiar faces in the bar. Anders Tengner, a well known Swedish journalist who wrote for musc magazine OKEJ, and…Rob Halford. I was struggling with myself, cause I had to remind myself of one very important fact:
I was there as a journalist, not a fan, I had to fake that typical “journalist-look”.
The “I’m not-impressed“-professional-expression. But believe me, that was the LAST thing I felt like. I felt like I was 13 years old all over again.
Janet and I took a seat at the table with the CBS people and Jayne, for a casual conversation while we were waiting for Rob to finish his interview. I was dead nervous and probably said my “yes” and “no’s” in the totally wrong places but I wasn’t really listening to the conversation. I couldn’t, my heart was racing.
Then, I saw Anders packing his things. He shook hands with Rob and left. I was next…
I wasn’t doing the interview alone – and thank god for that! I felt a lot more confident with the other dude being there, for a change. Normally I would want an exclusive, but in this case, I probably needed Valium more than anything…! :-D
I’m surprised I even managed to say anything at all. And another short piece of info that I still remember very clearly before moving on to the actual interview:
We originally only had about 15-20 minutes to our disposal, and when we were running out of time, I saw Jayne walking towards our table. But for some reason she stopped half-way and went back to the CBS-table.
Later, I asked my friend Janet, who had been sitting there with them, if she knew what that had been all about. She said that Jayne’s intention had been to tell us to finish off the interview, but when she saw the expression on my face, she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt me. So she gave me another 10 minutes. I must have looked like I was talking to god or something. Heck – I WAS! :-)
So, not only did we talk for almost 40 minutes (5 minutes were edited out though, off the record stuff) then there was photos taken, albums signed – and Rob didn’t care that Janye was stressed to get him to the sound check.
He calmly walked out to the fans who had probably turned to ice outside, signed their stuff and talked to them. Then he came back, totally cool, and said he was ready to leave.Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep for DAYS.
I’ve met Rob many times since, and we are now on a first-name basis, which is totally weird to me. I still look up to this man a lot. This was my first meeting with him but hopefully not the last.
From one of my more recent conversations with Rob – 17 years later, many Priest-interviews later :)
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 