Tagged: Sebastian Bach
AMAZING PERFORMERS – the best of the best
The times they are certainly a changin’.
The record industry is struggling with poor record sales and illegal downloads, but there is one thing that they can still cash in on, something that will never go out of style: The magic of LIVE SHOWS.
There are people in less famous bands and in local bands that “have IT” : that spark, that natural ability to work a stage and a crowd, that makes you come back for more time and time again. It’s not a competition and you can’t really compare musicians because they are all so different – it’s not the Olympics of Rock – but these are some of my personal favorites. Note that this is 100% a list of people who I think are outstanding LIVE PERFORMERS (which is not necessarily the same as favorite musicians or bands)
When this man walks out on a stage – he OWNS every single person in the crowd.
He has a unique quality of making every individual feel noticed and a part of the show. Although he is a larger-than-life rock star who works best on the biggest stages of the world, he always makes it feel like he’s playing just for YOU.
He mixes a sense of humor and self-distance with sex, confidence, authority and pure professionalism. Not to mention the way he moves on a stage like a rock’n’roll-emperor, using the micstand as his #1 tool. There is only one David – Coverdale be thy name. :)
When he’s about to hit the stage, he’s like a missile! The man oozes of pure, raw energy and rock’n’roll, nothing and nobody comes even close…! I’m not the biggest Twisted Sister-fan in the world, I don’t even have all their records, but watching this man on stage is a kick beyond belief! He is genuine and a real punch in your face.
If you could take everything that rock’n’roll is all about, and transform it into human shape – Dee Snider would be IT!
The ULTIMATE frontman. The one and only King of the Stage. The energy and the raw frenzy is beyond what I’ve seen ANY other artist produce on a stage – ever! He is the only frontman I can think of that was truly BORN to do this. If you took it away from him, he would languish, stop breathing, cease to exist. In 23 years I’ve only seen him suck ONCE. Don’t even ask how many shows I’ve seen with either Skid Row or Baz solo, but it’s more than enough to state that this guy is very unlikely to let you down if you’re looking for an action-packed show.
Entertainment personified. It’s enough to just mention the name David Lee Roth and people will immediately start thinking of a rock’n’roll strutter with his body as his main tool. He was THE sex-symbol back in the day, moving in a way that would make the ladies blush.
He would impress us all with the martial-arts high kicks while at the same time looking like a kid in a candy store who LOVES what he does. His sense of humor is contageous, and even to this day he hasn’t lost much of all that. He’s never been the world’s greatest singer, but it’s safe to say that he’s most definitely one of the world’s greatest entertainers!
Yngwie Malmsteen
The one and only ULTIMATE guitar hero – and probably the only one who turns a prolonged guitargasm into a show unlike anyone else! He was (and still is) WILD on stage!
Like a super-model, he will strike 30 different poses in one minute, yet continue playing that guitar like nobody’s business. How can you do all that running and posing and headbanging and still play making it look like a piece of cake??? The man is a guitar god and a top notch live performer in every sense of the word!
Those are my Top 5 live performers, but the list goes on – and on…
Joe Elliot of Def Leppard had an amazing charisma on stage, he just caught your attention from the word go and kept it there for as long as it took. I was mesmerized the first time I saw Def Leppard. Fantastic frontman. I don’t know what happened though, because the last few times I’ve seen Def Leppard, the magic wasn’t there. I guess there’s a peak in every band’s career and a fall – sooner or later. After 30 years of kicking ass on stage, I guess they are entitled to lose the spark.Same goes for my #1 hero Rob Halford (Judas Priest). He was never a “run-around-the-stage-like-a-marathoner” type of singer, but he had “IT”. All he had to do was stop and LOOK at his crowd and they would go freaking CRAZY! He just had what most entertainers don’t, it’s within your personality and he would make me forget that there was even a world outside whichever arena Judas Priest would be playing….
However, just like Joe Elliot, Rob Halford has lost some of his magic. I can still see it when he’s with his own band Halford, but it’s like he’s a parody of himself when he’s with Priest nowadays.There is a reason why this man has been on the top for more than 4 decades! It’s not because he’s Pavarotti, but because he has this wonderful way of truly loving what he does, just being OZZY.
Watch this and try NOT to smile! :-))
Speaking of Ozzy automatically leads me to another, fairly new, aquaintance and favorite performer: Gus G (guitarist w. Ozzy & Firewind, in case you’ve managed to miss it)
I was stuck after the first time I saw him with Ozzy. He walks onstage and becomes a true old-school Rock Star!
He owns the stage in a very natural sort of way, with a charisma that few “new” musicians possess. This guitar wiz handles Madison Square Garden just as well as the smallest, tiniest little dark club in the middle of nowhere.
The posing, the hair-fan, the guitar-hero moves all that stuff makes Gus a true arena-entertainer.
Another kick-ass live-performer is Kevin Rothney (Circle II Circle, JOP) who played bass with Jon Oliva’s Pain on the 2006-2010 tours, when I saw the band countless times.
Jon Oliva might be the songwriting genious, but Kevin was the one who brought rock’n’roll to the live performances of JOP.
I’ve always been impressed with Kevin. When you see musicians like that, you realize that the music business is all about being in the right place at the right time, there are amazing showmen (and -women) out there that don’t get the recognition they deserve.
Moving on to a more local level, where singer Andy Pierce (Nasty Idols) without question, makes it to my list of favorite performers. It was his natural talent as a frontman that made me notice the band in the first place – 25 freaking years ago! He was a real rock star before people even knew it and he will be till they have to roll him out on stage in a wheel chair!
PART TWO – THE BEST LIVE BANDS!
GRASPOP METAL MEETING 2012 – Last Day memories and reviews (Part 5)
Sunday – last day of the festival – started out as a total nightmare. The last thing you want when you’re in a field in the middle of nowhere – is rain! And it was pissing down. Vera didn’t even have a rain poncho or umbrella or anything, so we had to wait until the worst rain passed to we could go and get her a poncho asap. She would have been soaked without it.
And this last day we didn’t get any VIP-treatment, no backstage passes like the day before. Well – I had my press pass, I had that all 3 days, but Vera didn’t so we were out in the rain. I wanted to see Sebastian Bach but as the rain kept getting worse, even I wondered if I really wanted to see that show that bad…
The minute he got on stage, I knew what to do. I didn’t want to watch it. Actually, I was pissed off. No disrespect to Sebastian as an entertainer but the “problem” in this case was that I’ve seen SO many shows with Sebastian since 1989, I lost count already in 1992… He has ALWAYS been this bundle of energy, TNT dynamite on stage – I’ve come to expect that. When it was pissing down like this at Donington 1992 he ran out on stage, slid and fell on his ass – but continued singing! That’s what a true artist does.
But at Graspop he looked like a primadonna who didn’t want to get his hair wet! I’ve NEVER seen Sebastian act like that before. In 23 years this was the first time he had that attitude and I was disappointed.
When he just stood there, doing nothing, looking like he just wanted to go back to the backstage area it felt like it was anything BUT rock’n’roll. And when he stated “Belgium! This SUCKS!” I was even more pissed off because I was thinking to myself, as the water kept running into my eyes and my clothes were about to get soaked even through the rain poncho – “It’s not YOU standing out here getting soaked mothertrucker! I’m not gonna stand here if you’re not going to make it worth the trouble!”
[Seriously – what the hell was THIS all about…?]
THESE VIDEOS (each was less than a minute long) WERE REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE BY “GET OFF MY BACH PRODUCTIONS INC” (=Sebastian Bach).
Further comments not necessary…..
So I left. The first time ever that I walked out on a Sebastian Bach or Skid Row show. Later on I heard from somebody who had stayed through the whole thing, that it got better towards the end of the show… Well, too bad my patience or the lack thereof, got the best of me in the rain and the cold. The last thing I need is an artist with a bad attitude.
The Marquee tent was a lot better. I had no idea who was playing in there, I didn’t care. I just wanted to stand somewhere where it wasn’t raining. The only problem was all the SMOKING in there. I felt like I was gonna puke. I get sick from cigarette-smoke, I really can’t handle it, it makes me panic. And people were smoking EVERYWHERE.
I couldn’t hide from it, it was the same outside actually. Every time I wanted to take a deep breath of fresh air, I got a cloud of someone’s SMOKE in my lungs instead, which almost made me faint a few times. Smokers just don’t understand what it’s like to be subjected to their smoke. Some chick at Sweden Rock told me that “this is a festival, we SMOKE here!”. Okay – people pass out in their puke on festivals too, so what’s that got to do with anything?!
So I had my nose stuck in my jacket the whole time, the only way to avoid taking a deep breath of nicotine when I least expect it… Shouldn’t have to be that way. Maybe someday smoking will be a thing of the past.
Jan from JOP showed up, they had just arrived. Had a short chat with him, then he took off to check out the sound board the would be working with. I texted JOP’s former tour manager Anett to ask if she was there cause I knew she was going to the festival. She texted back saying she was up on the stage (Ugly Kid Joe’s stage).
Everybody’s impressed with UKJ – it’s like time stood still with those guys. They are still as cool and as valid as they ever were. There is still the naughty boyishness in them, the middle-finger teenage punkish attitude. They sound great and most of all I’m super impressed by drummer Yael Biz. She is freaking amazing!
Here she is with Alex Skolnick in a different project, she kicks major ass:
Whitfield Crane sounds great still, so all in all it was great seeing them live again. It was raining when they were playing Sweden Rock Festival as well, but at least this time they were in a tent. :)
When they finished their set I RAN out of the tent cause I could hear that EUROPE had started playing. It was still raining but I absolutely wanted to see them. Here is my shaky video of the powerwalk from the tent to the main stage – prepare to get sea sick! ;))
To be honest, I haven’t seeen Europe in many years because I chose NOT to. I remember them from their hayday, from the “hair-days” when they were on top and I didn’t want to ruin my good memories by seeing a bunch of old(er) family-guys with short hair. Just didn’t feel right. However, seeing them at Graspop was different somehow, it was a festival so I decided to go check it out.
Now I regret that I wasted so many opportunities the past few years to go and see them. They REALLY made me proud to be Swedish! There was nothing about them that felt “old” in any way, they are still great on a big stage.
Joey Tempest was strutting – owning that stage. Unlike Sebastian he didn’t give a fuck about the rain. He put on a show like there WAS no rain! And he looked like he loved every second of it!
It sounded great – Europe is a perfect old-school arena-band. They know how to handle a large crowd and a big stage. I’m glad that I went to see them and it was WORTH standing in the rain for! Joey Tempest still knows how to entertain, I’ll be back for more.
[Still kicking butt!]
After their show, I met up with Anett for just a few minutes and took a walk around the area. It was cold and damp so I decided to go back to the tent. Jon Oliva’s Pain was coming up.
Jan was busy working, Hanneke (light-tech) as well but she was so glad to see me, she jumped down to give me a hug. “You are welcome to join me up there if you want“, she said, so when she show was about to begin, I went up there. Hanneke rocks, always happy always up to something, it’s impossible not to like that girl. :)
Saw guitar-tech Fabio on the stage, haven’t seen him in ages, hoped to be able to get together with “the family” later and catch up a little! That didn’t happen though. I don’t know why, but at least I got to hang with the funniest bunch in the backstage bar afterwards – Fabio, Hanneke and Anett. We were laughing and having a great time, always a pleasure to hang out with them! :-D
The Jon Oliva’s Pain show…. Jon lost a lot of weight since I last saw him, he looked good. The new band sounded good but… I’m not sure why the band (or Jon) has chosen to just play songs from one album (Hall of The Mountain King).
Personally, I think it’s a step back, because this band has created some great music under the name Jon Oliva’s Pain since 2005 and I missed hearing those songs. Going back to the Savatage years feels unnecessary and wasn’t my cup of tea at all. Maybe it pleases the hardcore Savatage-fans but evenso they must have followed Jon’s work the past few years and learned to appreciate what he does now, so I don’t know who this was for, really.
But that’s only my personal opinion, it has nothing to do with the execution of the songs or the quality of the musicians. That is, as always, top-notch.
A bit sad and disappointed that I didn’t get to meet Jon this time. Maybe some other time.
Instead, I went to check out the merch, it had stopped raining. Met up with Vera, grabbed a bite and got ready to see Motorhead. But by the time they went onstage, it was raining again. I went to the VIP-bar and for the first time noticed that they had direct streaming of the show on the TV:s back there. Couldn’t be more perfect! I was under a roof and I could still watch the show! :)
What can I say about Lemmy…? Not too many surprises there. He is cool. He is very cool. He sounds like Lemmy and he gives the crowd what they want. Motorhead is a sure thing. You always know that they’re gonna deliver and WHAT they’re gonna deliver.
After Motorhead, I met up with Anett, Hanneke and Fabio in the backstage bar and nobody was particularly eager to see Guns n’Roses. First of all, we all expected them to be late as fuck, as usual. Then – we expected them to suck, like they have the past few years. Everyone I talked to that day hadn’t planned on seeing GnR. “Maybe the first two songs or something…” – that was the general attitude. Nobody had high hopes for Axl & co.
No wonder, he’s screwed up so badly so many times that people just got tired of it. You can’t act any way you want nowadays because there’s always gonna be some other band that will steal your fans. Not even if you’re Axl Rose, will you get away with just anything.
We were just taking it easy back there when suddenly we heard this BANG and music from the stage. We all stood there with puzzled faces. “They started – already???” It was 20 minutes too early..???
I went out there to check if it was indeed GnR or something else. It WAS Guns…! They had opened with Chinese Democracy. I still didn’t think that they would deliver anything that would be worth staying for, so I stood there, far away from the stage with no intention of moving closer. I was sceptical.
The set continued with Welcome To The Jungle. At this point I was beginning to realize that Axl sounded freaking GREAT. He looked a lot better than the last time too – he lost weight and was actually MOVING on stage. Whooah!
A few songs later I was hooked. This was a different Axl than I remembered, and definitely a different Axl than I expected! It was as if he was pissed off at the criticism and had something to prove.
So you think I’m fat?
You think I can’t sing anymore?
You think I can’t deliver the goods?
WELL – TAKE THIS MOTHERFUCKERS!!!
He was on a mission and I was blown away! I’ve never even been a GnR-fan ever. Never in a million years did I think that Axl Rose, of all people, would get my attention and even have me contemplating to miss the early flight home…!
We had to leave but first Vera wanted to see “just one more song“. And then I ended up thinking the same “just ONE more song…”. And Anett, who was supposed to go with us so we could drive her to her hotel, didn’t want to leave at all..! She said she would grab a shuttle or something – at the time nobody cared HOW they would get back to their hotels or airports, it was just a show that you didn’t want to walk out from…!
It dawned on me, for the first time ever, why Guns n’Roses once became the biggest rock band in the world. THIS was the reason. Axl had a fantastic evening – he created magic!
I read a review in Metal Hammer UK that said he “had the passion of a dead sheep” at some other gig, and I had to wonder if this show at Graspop was just ONE great show that we would see in years…? Cause if the band would continue to sound like THAT and Axl continue to sing flawless – and communicate with the crowd – I would GLADLY travel to see GnR again.
But I guess you never know with that man. I’m glad and feel privileged that we got to witness a great GnR show that actually made people STAY and enjoy the show! I dragged Vera away from there somewhere after “Civil War” cause we HAD to beat the crowds and get out of there before all those thousands of people started heading for the exit.
We could hear Knockin’ on Heavens Door, Whole Lotta Rosie and Patience as we were walking to the parking lot.
The PERFECT ending to a PERFECT festival.
THE GRASPOP BLOGS:
GRASPOP METAL MEETING 2012 – memories and reviews (Part 1)
GRASPOP METAL MEETING 2012 – memories and reviews (Part 2)
GRASPOP METAL MEETING 2012 – MEGADETH memories and reviews (Part 3)
GRASPOP METAL MEETING 2012 – TWISTED SISTER memories and reviews (Part 4)
GRASPOP METAL MEETING 2012 – Last Day memories and reviews (Part 5)
Next up – Bang Your Head festival in Germany……….!
Where in the world are you going to be THIS weekend?
One of my colleagues at work was asking people, quite randomly, what their plans were for the weekend. He got replies along the lines of “I’m just going to take it easy...”, “I’m going out with a few friends...” – then he turned to me and went: “So, Daniela, where in the world are you going THIS weekend?” with a big grin.
Guess it’s been like that back and forth since I ran out of vacation days. I’ve had to do everything on weekends!
Athens, Greece the first weekend in January (for Firewind), New York City two weekends later (for Steve Stevens and Sebastian Bach on Iridium, Broadway), Tampa, Florida for just one day to see Van Halen… And probably some European dates inbetween that I already forgot about.
I didn’t do this a few years ago. I guess that the general opinion is that you “can’t” do crazy shit like going overseas for a weekend, unless you’re a millionaire with nothing better to spend your money on.
But then I realized that you CAN.
Maybe it’s crazy, but really, the only “crazy” part is the short time-frame. Nothing else. And if you think about it, it’s not that crazy at all, because usually HOTELS cost a lot more than the actual trip, so going for a weekend is SAVING money, not the opposite. Two hotel-nights equal a flight ticket, most of the time. For that, you get to visit more countries instead of just one. :)
And going several times a year means that you don’t have to squeeze in everything you want to do in a few days and then think that you’ll never come back. You do what you need to do – well knowing that you WILL be back, and probably pretty soon too. :-)
There are different ways of making it possible – apart from living on crispbread and noodles.
I just applied for an American Express card with flyer miles. If you get approved, you get 20,000 miles as a welcome-bonus, which is enough for a roundtrip somewhere within Europe. With my 10,000 current miles on the bonus card, that makes 30,000 miles which is enough for an upgrade to business class. Never flown business class but always wanted to – and so for my next overseas-trip I’ll use the miles for that! :-)
The best thing about a credit card that offers miles for everything you buy, is that it’s effortless! I need food anyway, I will buy concert tickets abroad and trains, flights, buses, whatever, every 100 SEK gives 20 flyer miles (100 SEK equals 1 loaf of bread, butter, milk, a piece of cheese and a pack of chewing gum – now you do the math how fast you get to collect miles to get free flights!).
But for now… A “regular” vacation in Split, Croatia. Three weeks of getting pissed off at crappy internet-connections, no car, no cable TV (just regular, standard TV which is like 4 channels I think….) expensive phone, so I can’t call friends anywhere else in the world like I’m used to. And most of all – no rock’n’roll. GAAH! It’s going to drive me NUTS!
The highlight last year was hanging with this dude – the only person I got to talk music with during my stay in Split last year. I hope there’ll be an opportunity to hang out this year as well. Was nice of him to travel all the way down to Split eventhough he lives in the north part of the country, I think maybe about 4 hours travel or something like that.
[A Justin TImberlake-song never sounded this cool, lol!]
I’m just not cut out for “regular vacations”. If it doesn’t include music in one way or another, I’ll most likely not going to enjoy it. Maybe a week, tops.
Was checking tour dates for Ozzy, Steel Panther, Billy Idol, Firewind, Lita Ford, and wrote them all down in my calendar. And all the festivals of course. That’s the only way to keep track of the bands I want to see. Otherwise I have no clue what day it is, yet alone who plays where!
But I’m getting pretty good at this, I get away with the travelling fairly cheap, simply because I’ve learned how. I wrote a few tips last year, but I might write a little book about it someday. :-)
Here are the travel-tips blogs from 2011:
http://lita77777.posterous.com/the-rocknroll-travellers-best-tips-part-1
http://lita77777.posterous.com/the-rocknroll-travellers-best-tips-part-2
http://lita77777.posterous.com/the-rocknroll-travellers-best-tips-part-3
An internet friend e-mailed me the other day asking if I was going to see Ozzy in Dortmund, Germany in June, cause she wants to go and figured we could split hotel costs and go to the show. It’s never difficult to persuade me to something like that. :-)
I wanted to go to that gig anyway because it’s at Westfalenhalle, a venue that I remember from my very early days, beeing a teenage rocker in 19something….. [mumble….].
Ozzy, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard…. Those are only a few of the bands that were playing there back then, and it was aired LIVE on TV at the time. It was a big deal when something was aired live back in those days, so I remember it as a big event.
[Def Leppard back in the day when they were really cool:]
As it’s only two days from the Ozzy-gig in my home-town Malmo, I need to know when my friend Bianca who’s visiting me for THAT, is going back home, so I’ll have to wait before I book any trains or flights. I’ll probably take that whole week off and go to Germany and then to Sweden Rock Festival two days after THAT.
Yeah, the madness is about to begin. Soon. Very soon. :-D
I love my life. :)
“The guitar sleeps with me in the bed” (Steve Stevens)
Picture a cold and dusty backstage-area, no furniture – looks like an abandoned restaurant kitchen. A few steps behind us though, is the real dressing room, that in this particular moment has Sebastian Bach entertaining his guests from the band Nightranger, and some other people.
Steve Stevens has just finished his second set at the jazz club Iridium on Broadway, New York, and is ready to talk to me. I pull out an old, scruffy office-chair that looks a bit dusty, and Steve finds another one for himself. At least there’s nobody bugging us. I decide to make this short so he can go relax and hang with his band.
The whole idea of you and Sebastian was really interesting. Can you paint a picture of when and where this came about?
– Sure, yeah. I play with an All Star band in Los Angeles, called Camp Freddy.
Camp Freddy is Matt Sorum on drums, Dave Navarro is usually on guitar, but Dave’s been busy last year with Jane’s Addiction, and their new record, so I ended up playing the whole show, Billy Morrison on second guitar, who’s also in Billy Idol’s band now, and Chris Chaney, the bassplayer who’s also from Jane’s Addiction.
So the whole Camp Freddy thing is that we have guest singers. On any given night, we’ll have Corey Taylor from Slipknot, Billy Idol, and the last year Sebastian has been guesting us. So every time we were doing Camp Freddy I was going “We should do something together“, because we have SO many mutual friends and a lot of our fans are the same – we came through the same era, you know.
I came over to the Iridium last year to do the Les Paul night, which is on a Monday night, it’s a totally different thing. It’s the Les Paul Trio – we do traditional stuff. So they asked me to come back and do three nights of my own, and I said that’s great but I don’t sing and I’d like to bring a singer. They said: “Got anybody in mind?” And I said: “Yeeaaah, well it just so HAPPENS that I know this Sebastian Bach guy – he’ll sing ANYTHING!”
Which is true, the guy can sing absolutely anything.
So I called him up, asked if he wanted to go to New York to this Iridium club and now we’re talking about continuing on doing something else and taking it a bit further…
Oh, you’re gonna do more together? Live or recording?
– Yeah, a little bit of both actually. I met him when his most recent record was just coming out. So I said; “Look, in the future, I’ve got this little studio, if you wanna write, or if you’re out in LA and you just wanna hang, let’s get together”.
So you guys met just recently?
– Yeah, within the last year.
Did you ever listen to Skid Row back in the day?
– Absolutely! The funny thing is… and this is a pretty funny story: When I left Billy Idol back in 1988, I did my own record for Warner Brothers, Atomic Playboys, and we were looking for a singer. He was in a band called Madam X, and I got this photo, he looked amazing, and then I heard the tracks, he’s really, really good. Really good singer. I had known the guitarplayer in that band, Maxine, and I said: “Heey, I’m doing a record, what’s your singer doing?”
She never gave him the message.
So potentially, we could have worked back in 1988. But it all worked out for the best cause right after that, I think it was literally 6 months later, he left and joined Skid Row.
Very interesting, because of all singers you could have worked with, this seems like an unusual choice…
– Yeah but at the same time, I like a lot of classic rock, and we’re talking about doing Zeppelin-stuff and some other stuff where the singer’s vocal range has got to be really good. So, I’m like a kid in a candy-store, cause he can sing anything. Most singers, if you say “do you wanna do “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin, most singers are gonna say “no fucking way, I can’t sing that!“. And he’s up to the challenge, it’s great.
The concept of doing two sets a night…?
– That’s the club’s thing. They always do that here, yeah.
How does that feel for you, as you’re used playing the world stages…?
– It’s a whole different headspace. It’s great, because your audience is…I think this place only holds like 200 people, so people are right there, you know they can hear every note that you play. But the two sets a night is a little strange, yeah. Cause you’ve gotta pace yourself. During the first set you’re thinking “Do I give it everything or will I be wasted for the next set?”
You’ve worked with many charismatic singers with strong personalities. And it’s often said that in order to be a good frontman, you need to have a big ego. What kind of personality do you need to have in order to be a guitarist playing with these big egos?
– Um, it’s funny cause from the time I was a little kid and I picked up the guitar, I naturally gravitated towards the guy behind the singer. Even seeing old footage of Elvis or something you know – I was like… who’s that guy?! And then obviously with Led Zeppelin, I identified with Jimmy Page because he was more quiet.He had the mystery thing.
You once said that you’ve got great respect for singers because they’re standing there, “naked” without an instrument to hide behind. Are there any singers in particular that you feel are like that…?
– I think ANY singer. It’s tough, it’s a lot of pressure. And obviously, the longer that you do it, if you’re really a ROCK-singer, it can take its toll on your voice. But Billy Idol takes care of his voice – we might have abused everything else but the voice is sacred.
You’ve been around for a long time and you seem to be curious to explore different areas all the time. Is that something that you do actively or you just happen to stumble upon stuff?
– I do actively look for new music. Yeah. And I’m fortunate enough to have friends that are…. There’s a band I work with that are called The Juno Reactor and it’s techno-music, right? They have six African percussionists and I’ve gone and toured with them in Japan and done shows with them in Los Angeles, and it’s cool for me because…
It’s a challenge, I mean, I’ve had a 30 year career now, and if I can’t challenge myself as a musician and just sit back and play the stuff that I already know, I’m gonna get stale as a musician.
So by working with Juno Reactor, it enabled me to learn how to do progamming and work on programs, get into the whole computer world and listen to things that I ordinarily wouldn’t be exposed to.
You’ve been in the business for such a long time… Do you still get your kicks or is it more “another day at the office”…?
– It’s never… I mean, if I felt like that, I’d really start to worry. I still love playing guitar, one of the first things I do in the morning is pick up a guitar. I have my coffee, answer my e-mail, put the guitar on and I’m still fascinated by the instrument. I don’t know why that is, but it’s still…
I’ve gotten things like… a new car or something, and I have no excitement about it. But getting a new guitar for me is like – I can’t wait to open the box, and the case and you know – the guitar sleeps with me in the bed.
It’s something about that instrument that I just think I was born to be with. It’s a part of me now. It’s never betrayed me. Playing guitar has never done anything but helped me out and enriched my life.
If you look back on Steve Stevens in 1984 and Steve Stevens 2012 – what differences would you say there were?
– Hopefully I’m a better musician now, I’ve been doing what I do this long…
But have you changed your attitude…?
– I’m more humble. Back in 84 I think that Billy and I really felt like there was a lot of stale music around. When I first joined Billy Idol he had released “Dancing With Myself” and they wouldn’t put them on the cover because because radio stations wouldn’t play artists with spiky hair.
It’s crazy to think now, but anybody affiliated with punk rock or anything like that, couldn’t get on mainstream rock radio. And now, you hear Billy Idol next to Journey or Styx or any of those bands on Classic Rock or something. But when we started it certainly wasn’t like that.
I think we had this attitude like we were gonna do something different, we were utilizing … we were doing things like dance-remixes and used drum machines and technology and all this… So I think when we did “Rebel Yell” we were pretty militant about “we are the new rock heroes” or whatever.
But you’re not into the whole limousine glitter LA sort of lifestyle…?
– I don’t really care about that stuff. I was always uncomfortable about that kind of stuff. I was never that kind of guy… I’m from New York so it’s a bit different, I live in LA now but we were never really part of the scene, whereas the LA bands – the hairmetal bands that came out of LA all got kind of crazy with eachother, tried to top eachother.
“You wanna see how much coke I can snort?!” and all that. We were from New York so the musicians that we hung out with were the guys from Suicide, Alan Vega, you know…
I remember Duran Duran – Andy and John Taylor came to town to do that Power Station record, so we hung with a lot of those guys. I think because Billy and our producer Keith Forsey are English, I got to hang a lot more with the English musicians.
I noticed that you played Van Halen tonight. Are you gonna see them on this tour?
– Yeah, actually we just got invited to a friends and family rehearsal. I’ve known Eddie for years, and Pete Thorn, our other guitarplayer tonight, he’s friends with Eddie. So of course we’ll go and see Van Halen.
I got this interview through your wife Josie. When I spoke to Ozzy many years ago he said that he felt it was confusing because he never knew if Sharon was talking to him as his wife or manager. Do you feel the same way?
– It’s just naturally gravitated that she’s… You know, she’s really diligent with her internet stuff. She’s on Twitter all the time and Facebook and all that. She’s always on my case. “You gotta update your thing…” I’m okay if I just check my e-mails and move on, you know.
So, more and more people have been contacting her for business stuff, and she’s really good at it. I said, “look, if you’re comfortable doing it, by all means, go for it“. It’s been great, it’s been really cool. We enjoy working together.
She comes on tour with me, and I think from the time we did that TV-show, Married To Rock, it became stronger, the work thing. We’ve been together for 10 years, so we liked working together on that show. We have a good, natural chemistry. You know, it works.
People always say that you gotta give eachother space, be away from eachother and do other things. You never felt that way then?
– No, she’s a rocker. You know. She packed up her bags and moved to Los Angeles when she was 16 years old, she’s been on more tours than a lot of musicians that I know. She’s always been a rock chick. She loves it and she knows a lot about rock’n’roll. And I value her opinion. She’s got really good instincts.
You once said that you’re never 100% satisfied with any record that you’ve done. Does that go for live performances as well? Have you ever gotten to a point where you’ve said to yourself that “this was so fucking cool“?
– Yeah, I mean… You know when something is good. When we did “Rebel yell” it was no mystery to us. As the songs were taking shape, and as we started to record it, and got closer to completing them, we were like… “Wait a minute, this is really cool, this is not just another record. This is a really big step for all of us“.
So you know when something is good. I know when I’ve played a good show. But I’m really hard to please. I’m a picky fucker.
You’re involved in so many different projects – could you give a quick summary of what you’ve been doing in 2011 and what your plans are for 2012?
– On the Billy Idol front it was a little bit quiet in 2011, because Billy is writing his autobiography. So we only did a brief tour in November. I kept busy with my Camp Freddy stuff – with those guys it’s a CRAZY schedule. Because you don’t exactly know who the guest singer is, so two days before you find out “oh it’s gonna be Ozzy” or whoever. So that kept me on my toes.
And then Josie launched a clothing line this year so that gave me an opportunity to plan a clothing line launch party. Billy Idol played, all the Camp Freddy guys…
And in 2012 – Billy and I have tourdates planned, we’ll be in Europe in July, and then November and December we’ll be in South America.
And we’re writing material for a new a new record. We’ll be out this year cause they want to hold the record until the autobiography comes out. We’re not just writing songs, we’re writing songs that are gonna coexist with the autobiography. So it’s a whole different thing.
At this point it’s time to wrap up the interview, as Sebastian is getting louder in the background :-). The Iridium-cat has been strutting around during the whole interview, trying to get some attention, so photographer Beatrice asks Steve if he would mind being photographed with the cat.
I just loved his response, delivered with a smile:
– I’m not taking a picture with the cat…! I can just just imagine the comments: “Oh, look at the pussy! And the cat!”
Bizarre backstage night at the Iridium
A few minutes before the show ended, the waitor brought us the check. We didn’t have time to wait to pay with our credit cards, so we just dug deep into our wallets for the last cash. Then, after the last song, we grabbed all our stuff and went straight to the door on the left side of the stage where Josie (Stevens, Steve’s wife) had said she would pick us up to escort us backstage.
Funny enough, before she showed up, another guy came over and asked “You’re here for the interview – right?”
“THE Interview”? It wasn’t “You’re here for an interview, right?” So, apparently, people knew we were coming. That’s nice, makes things a lot more easier than when you have to deal with people who are trying to throw you out because they think you’re some fan sniffing around the backstage door.
Anyway. Josie came out to pick us up, just like she had said. She had already warned me that it would be a small dressing room, but when I saw it, I still couldn’t believe how super-mini-small it actually was…! You walked through a short hallway, then right in front was this tiny little area with a table and two chairs, most guests had to stand up. The hall/corridor continued to the left and around the “dressing room” then out to something that looked like a restaurant kitchen.
– It’s a little crowded, friends and family is here. He’ll be with you guys in a few minutes, ok? said Josie and walked off.
Man, it was really packed back there, to say the least. The family and friends-meet-and-greet didn’t take long, probably because there were fans waiting outside for the “official” meet and greet where Steve was to sign stuff and have his picture taken with people.
One of the guests backstage was an older gentleman with grey hair that might have been Steve’s father or some other close relative, they had very similar features. Who knows. I didn’t ask. :-)
When there’s friends and family, I’d rather stay out of the way until the timing is better. I just feel that when musicians get to meet their closest friends and family members, the last thing they want to have around in that particular moment, is some reporter wanting to do an interview. :-)
Sebastian’s cousin was there, she was talking with Beatrice, I just overheard the conversation being something about museums, but don’t ask me what, I didn’t pry. :)
Sebastian was talking somewhere in there, you can never miss Baz, he’s not exactly the quiet type. :) He looked happy to see me. “Daniela! You’re fucking WILD! I knew that if anybody was gonna sing Youth Gone Wild with me, it’d be you!”
Well – me and the other big fan from Jersey who had been freezing his ass off outside the Iridium since 4 in the afternoon. :)
He was complaining about his hair being messed up and asked Josie if she had a dryer, but she only had a flattening iron – so he went for that. He plugged it in, and then had to go get something, so he gave the iron to Beatrice, to hold til he got back.
You’d have to smile a little at the absurd situation. Backstage in a jazz club on Broadway, with Steve Stevens and Sebastian Bach – and the photographer ends up holding a flattening iron for no apparent reason. When the guitarplayer, Pete, walked in, he found her standing there with the iron and no Sebastian was in sight.
– You need to fix your hair? he asked her.
– Oh well you know… After all that headbanging and all, I felt I had to straighten it out…! she joked.
Not sure if he believed that though. :) Sebastian came back and started fixing his hair, when I suddenly spotted a black CAT! I guess it wasn’t weird enough already. Let’s throw a cat into the equation as well. The kittie was very friendly, wanted to be petted so I didn’t mind things were taking a while.
[Black cat in the dressing room at the Iridium – checking out the gear..! :-)]
Beatrice pointed out that it was already 10.20 PM,
20 minutes past the start of the second gig actually. It didn’t look like the interview was going to happen right there and then. So when Josie and Steve came back, I suggested we’d give it a try after the second set.
– Yeah, I think that would be a lot better, I’ll be more relaxed, said Steve.
Josie took off to see how she could arrange for us to stay and see the second set too. It took her five minutes tops, and she got back to show us to our seats. She apologised that we “had to” see the second show as well. I for one couldn’t be happier because I LOVED the concept and the show, this was a bonus and a treat. Never mind the table was right next to the ladies room, and people kept running back and forth all the time. Apart from that – perfect seats! In only a few minutes…!
Once again a waitor approached us and went: “You were here for the interview, right?” There we go again – “THE interview”…… We didn’t have to spend another 10 bucks which was the minimum, so that was a relief at least.
Second show was even better than the first. Relaxed, yet energetic, fun and inspiring. Loved it.
After the second set, we went to the stage door again. Sebastian was entertaining in the “dressing room” again and Josie pointed at Steve who was way in the back, in that “kitchen” talking to somebody. I figured we’d wait until he was done.
There were some old, dusty chairs back there, no table, no nothing, very humble to say the least. This is the kind of place that any local band knows only too well. It’s cool to see that Steve doesnt have a problem with this stuff, no snobby attitude whatsoever.
The cat was purring during the interview, buffing and puffing, wanting more attention. Steve was superduper-nice, very down to earth, very easy to talk to. Very likeable person. He seemed to be enjoying the interview, cause when I said I was done – when I heard Baz yelling in the background, probably getting the party started – I didn’t want to keep Steve from joinig them.
But Steve was comfortable with the situation. “Noo, no it’s no problem, keep going!”
I knew there would be very little time so I had picked only the most important questions, I was done. In the meantime, Josie came in to let Steve know there was a LONG line of people outside waiting for him. He asked what my plans were for my New York stay. I said that I was leaving next morning, I was only here to see this gig.
He stopped, put his hand on his chest and with a small little bow he went: “I’m honored….”
Another nice gesture. No bigshot attitude to be found anywhere. Just a humble and nice guy. Same thing with Josie, she looks like this glamour girl you would expect to be stuck up and full of herself. She definitely wasn’t. Some people you just automatically like – and I spontaneously liked Steve and Josie. They left and Sebastian was out there talking to the guys of Nightranger who had dropped by.
– Hey Daniela! I sang for you! Did you hear it!? Fuck I can’t remember which song, but did you hear it? he asked.
I honestly hadn’t. I thought he meant that he sang it “for me”, as in dedicating to by looking or something like that. But Beatrice explained to me later that he had changed the lyrics in one of the songs to contain “Daniela”. I never heard that.
When we had packed our stuff, I just stuck my nose through the crowd to say bye to Sebastian.
– Bye Baz – see you at Sweden Rock!
It wasn’t easy plowing through the crowd outside. Josie wasn’t exaggerating when she said there were a LOT of people waiting for Steve. They were both posing with fans, so they were busy to say the least when we left. I just said thank you and waved to them as we left the building.
I feel that this was one of those evenings I’ll never forget. It was just so unique, had a great vibe on- and offstage, cool people everywhere, great show – unusual venue…. I loved everything about it.
And I got a great interview too. It was a pleasure talking to Steve – planning on having the interview done this weekend. :)
But just as a little “teaser” – here’s Steve telling the story about how Sebastian and him COULD, potentially, have been working together already back in 1988……!
IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR 