Author: LRussell

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush paid tribute to producer Peter Collins, who died at 73 after a career-spanning five decades.

The British studio mastermind’s credits include Rush’s Power Windows, Bon Jovi’s These Days, Queensryche’s Operation: Mindcrime, Alice Cooper’s Hey Stoopid, Gary Moore’s After the War and more than 50 other records.

Collins briefly became a pop musician and then a jingle writer before his production career started in the U.K. with ‘80s pop artists including Nik Kershaw and Tracey Ullman. He moved to the U.S. where he helmed albums for artists from various genres, from Jewel to Suicidal Tendencies.

READ MORE: Underrated Rush: The Most Overlooked Song From Each Album

“So sad to hear of the passing of Peter Collins,” Lee wrote on social media. “A dear, dear friend and producer of 4 different Rush albums. During periods in the ‘80s and ‘90s, we had some incredible musical adventures together, in various studios across the globe.

“He truly was our Mr. Big with his ever-present cigar and constant good humor. After hitting the record button, I can still hear him say, ‘OK, boys, from the topping … no stopping!’”

Lifeson said, “Peter Collins will forever live in my memory as Mr. Big, sitting at his control center beside a recording console with his ubiquitous tools: a legal pad, an ashtray and a Monte Cristo No. 2.”

Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy wrote that he “had the honor of working with Peter making the first Flying Colors album back in 2011. … He was an absolute pleasure to work with and gave us so many great memories, and hilarious expressions and quotes that we still reference to this day.”

“I have a pretty good British pop sensibility,” Collins said in a 2011 interview with Performing Songwriter. “When I became a rock producer that was quite an asset because I was able to bring some pop elements to the music subversively, without the listener realizing it.”

Asked about the pursuit of perfection in the studio, he said, “Unless there’s a blemish on a track which the listener would find distracting … it should be left on there. What’s wrong with a track speeding up or slowing down? I love that because it’s natural.”

He added in the 2011 interview that “it’s really only in rock music where precision equals power, anyway. With bands like Rush and Queensryche, the tighter the music was, the more powerful it sounded, so I can see the merit in that for those genres. But, in general, no, I don’t aim for perfection. I just get good players, let them play and let it be human.”

He may be synonymous with country, but you’d have to be high to say Willie Nelson doesn’t know a thing or two about rock ‘n’ roll.

The Texas icon, older than the genre itself, built a career off the back of his own legendary country songbook as well as a knack for turning songs of all genres into something fitting his unique vocal phrasing and guitar picking. With a body of work as long and prolific as his, it’s no surprise he’s taken on his share of classic rock favorites and even rubbed elbows with some of the most enduring artists in the genre. Here are 10 of our favorites.

The Beatles

Between his take on the Beatles‘ “Something” in 1986 and his version of “With a Little Help from My Friends” in 2022, Nelson’s been a little Fab for years. He’s also covered the solo work of George Harrison (“All Things Must Pass”) and John Lennon (“Imagine”).

Bob Dylan

Both legendary songwriters, Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan each dropped their debut albums in 1962 and teamed up three decades later on “Heartland,” a song they wrote for Nelson’s 1993 album Across the Borderline. Nelson’s since covered “Gotta Serve Somebody” in 2002 and “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” with Merle Haggard in 2015, and invited Dylan onstage for a 2004 concert special.

The Beach Boys

While the Beach Boys’ country crossover Stars and Stripes Vol. 1 was not considered a career high when it was released in 1996, it’s hard to deny the novelty of Nelson backed by the group’s signature harmonies on their joint version of “The Warmth of the Sun.”

Paul Simon

A stirring version of Simon & Garfunkel‘s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” appeared on Nelson’s 1982 classic Always on My Mind. Nelson and Paul Simon shared the stage at Farm Aid V in 1992, and Paul appeared on Nelson’s Across the Borderline a year later, covering his own “American Tune” and co-producing Nelson’s version of “Graceland.”

Neil Young

Nelson and Neil Young have been in each others’ orbit for decades: with John Mellencamp, they helped organize Farm Aid. Nelson covered “Heart of Gold” in 1986 and later performed it with Young at their benefit concert series.

Creedence Clearwater Revival

Decades into his career, Nelson was reaching back to the classic rock canon to bring joy to his fans. In 2013, on an album of all-female duets, he recruited his daughter Paula for a spirited rendition of the Creedence Clearwater Revival favorite “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”

ZZ Top

These Texas legends got on like spare ribs and barbeque sauce! Nelson covered ZZ Top‘s “She Loves My Automobile” for a 2002 tribute album and later joined them onstage for a ripping live rendition.

Peter Gabriel

Nelson’s Across the Borderline was a star-studded affair, but no track might be better than his interpretation of Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s “Don’t Give Up.” The late Sinead O’Connor stepped in to duet when Dolly Parton couldn’t, adding her haunting vocal the day after her controversial appearance at a Bob Dylan tribute concert.

U2

U2 never do anything halfway, boldly writing a song for Nelson’s voice during the sessions to Zooropa. He recorded it with the band years later, releasing it as a B-side to the band’s 1997 single “If God Will Send His Angels.”

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam’s transition from ‘90s grunge-adjacent act to mellow, modern classic rockers put them on Nelson’s radar in the 21st century. He covered their 2009 favorite “Just Breathe” three years later, a showcase for his singular, timeless voice.

For nearly the entirety of his career as a performing and touring musician, Bruce Springsteen had had an issue with taking his show to bigger venues. His reluctance was well known, and he had historically been slow to make such moves, even as the number of people who wanted to see him grew.

“When we were in clubs,” he told biographer Dave Marsh for Marsh’s 1987 book Glory Days. “… we’d play five or six nights in a club before we’d go into a theater. … [W]e played five or six nights in a theater before we’d go into an arena. In the arena, we’d play five or six nights in the arena.”

When plotting the tour in support of his 1984 album Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen and his management took the same route they’d taken since 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town: with a long trek through North American arenas. Beginning June 29, 1984 in St. Paul, Minn., the Boss and the E Street Band played 94 indoor shows, ending in Syracuse, NY January 27, 1985.

New Faces on E Street

It was a time of change for all involved. Prior to the release of Born in the U.S.A., longtime musical partner Steven Van Zant left the group; he was replaced by former Neil Young sideman, Grin front man and solo artist Nils Lofgren on guitar and background vocals. Singer (and future Mrs. Springsteen) Patti Scialfa was also brought on board to bolster the vocal presence onstage. Springsteen’s personal life, too, was heading in a new direction – in the fall of 1984, he would meet and begin dating actress Julianne Phillips; they married the following spring.

Professionally, Springsteen had never been bigger – Born in the U.S.A. would sell 30 million albums worldwide and yield seven U.S. Top 10 singles. As the tour moved through North America, it became apparent that demand for tickets far outstripped the supply, and that subsequent legs would need to be staged in much bigger venues.

The tour breezed through Australia and Japan, before hitting its European leg, which consisted of 18 shows in massive soccer stadiums. It all nearly unraveled immediately.

The Irish Debacle

An estimate 93,000 people attended the first concert, at Ireland’s Slane Castle, including a number of inebriated fans who shoved, fought, drank, passed out and came to, right in front of a shocked and anxious Springsteen.

“Fans were pouring, red faced, soaked in booze and heat exhaustion, over the front barriers to be taken to the medical tent or to flank the crowd, throw themselves back in and take another crack at it,” Springsteen recalled in his 2016 memoir Born to Run. Audience members would fall to the muddy ground, vanishing until their friends picked them back up. “Then, once standing,” Springsteen wrote, “they’d slosh back the other way and the whole interminable, nerve-grinding exercise would be repeated again, ad infinitum.”

It was Springsteen’s worst nightmare as a performer – an out-of-control audience over which he held little (if any) sway. He was afraid someone would get really hurt, or worse – “I thought somebody was going to get killed,” he wrote, “and it’d be my fault.”

During intermission, Springsteen had a “highly charged debate” with his manager, Jon Landau, over canceling the entire European tour, rather than having to deal with crowds of such numbers, in such an unruly, dangerous state. Landau convinced Springsteen to continue playing and see how the rest of the show and the next several dates transpired. The situation settled, and the tour moved on.

The crowds at the remainder of the European shows were still lively, but not as disorderly as the Irish audience. Springsteen and band responded with energetic, high-spirited performances, gaining confidence with each date, including a raucous show in front of 80,000 in Milan and three nights at London’s Wembley Stadium.

Back to the U.S.A.

Once the European stadium leg of the tour was complete, it was time to swing back to the U.S., where nearly 1.9 million eager fans had scooped up tickets for 28 stadium concerts in 14 cities. Springsteen was ready.

“Our anthems were built to fill and communicate in places of this size,” Springsteen wrote in his memoir, “so from Timbuktu to New Jersey, crowds dropped one by one to the powerhouse show we’d started developing overseas.”

The Born in the U.S.A. tour ended with four shows at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Sept. 27, 29, and 30, and October 2, 1985, to some 83,000 attendees per night. It was a rousing and fitting end to a truly historic rock ‘n’ roll tour.

“We were now one of the biggest, if not the biggest, rock attractions in the world and to get there we hadn’t lost sight of what we were about,” Springsteen noted in Born to Run. “There were some close shaves, and in the future I’d have to be doubly vigilant about the way my music was used and interpreted, but all in all, we’d come through intact, united and ready to press on.”

W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless has been honest about using backing tracks in the band’s concerts. Still, questions have persisted — with some even suggesting that the group isn’t performing live at all.

“Well, if they’re crazy enough to believe it, that’s their business,” he tells UCR. “But if they genuinely feel like that, then don’t go.”

For Lawless, there’s a definite line in the sand, as he explained in 2022, telling fans at a VIP experience Q & A that it’s “not fair” to rely completely on backing tracks. But, as he detailed then, they are beneficial when it comes to helping to properly recreate the listening experience fans first experienced when they heard the original albums.

The ’80s hard rock group is getting set to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their self-titled debut album with a tour this fall that will feature a full performance of the entire record. Controversy struck before the album was even in stores, when one of its songs, “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” was removed to avoid a potential ban by record stores. It was still issued independently as a single by Music for Nations and earned a slot on the “Filthy Fifteen“, a list of “morally objectionable” songs compiled by the Parents Music Resource Center.

Eventually, it was added back into the track listing in its intended place on W.A.S.P. when the album was reissued in the ’90s — and the singer has no apologies, for the song or their overall image. “You’re talking about guys who were pissed off at the world,” Lawless says now. “That’s what made our live show so convincing.” During the below conversation, he spoke with Ultimate Classic Rock Nights host Matt Wardlaw to look back at the “Animal” controversy, while also addressing the continuing backing tracks questions. He offers an update as well on the band’s next album.

“Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” was supposed to be on the debut W.A.S.P. album. When did you find out it was going to be a problem?
When the label called and said that the three heads of EMI over in London got a letter from what’s called the Queen’s Council, which would be the equivalent of our Congress here. [The letter said] if they released that record, they were going to jail for 28 days each. [Laughs] You gotta remember, this is the label that has the Beatles. These guys are not going to jail for a rock band. An odd thing happened, they stepped aside and let Music for Nations [release the song as a single] I don’t know if there’s ever been a case where once a group or an artist was signed to a major label, that label stepped aside and let someone else come in and release a record they had the rights to. I don’t know if that’s ever happened. I don’t think it has.

Listen to W.A.S.P.’s ‘Animal (Fuck LIke a Beast)’

It seems like that would have been pretty devastating, having to rethink the sequence of the album.
Well, we were also at that time still playing around with running orders and things, so we didn’t have anything written in stone, so to speak, about how the set would be put together. Quite honestly, “Animal” was not part of our original set when we were still playing clubs and things like that. We debuted “Animal” when we played the Santa Monica Civic. I remember thinking to myself, when we played it, the audience had no reaction to it. They just stood there. I thought the song was pretty good and I got no reaction — and I thought, “This is a dud.” What I didn’t realize was, they’d already heard “L.O.V.E. Machine” and “I Wanna Be Somebody” and all of those things for a year.

The fans we had knew those songs already. Even though they didn’t have them on record. They knew them enough from coming to the shows. So we’re playing a song that they don’t know and we got no reaction. A funny thing happened: When we did The Headless Children [in 1989], we were playing a charity benefit and it was at the Santa Monica Civic [again]. We did three songs that night and one of ‘em was “The Real Me.” Headless had not been released and the same exact thing happened. When we played it, stone cold nothing. I remember thinking, “Alright, don’t get bent out of shape. You remember what happened when you played ‘Animal’ here the first time.” It was the same thing because “The Real Me” ends up being a big hit for us. But that’s a strange reaction when you’re used to getting a reaction from an audience and then you get nothing. You think, “Oh man, have we seriously missed the boat here?”

READ MORE: Watch W.A.S.P. Play “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” For the First Time Since 2006

It’s conflicting too, because you could sometimes play an unfamiliar song that did get a good reaction.
Well, we were also in a period where bands didn’t do that. I really started going to shows about ‘73 and that was at the tail end of when bands would come out and do extended versions of whatever song they had. They’d do a 20 minute version of it. But also, they’d do material that a lot of times, hadn’t even been released yet. That was common. Bands could play things that hadn’t yet been released, because there was no bootleg. Not to speak of. I mean, cassette tapes weren’t really even in vogue yet. So bands had a lot of freedom to basically test songs out to see what kind of reaction they got.

I remember specifically, it was 1972 and I went to see Alice Cooper on the Killer tour. They did the main part of the show and came back for the encore and started out with this song. I thought, “Wow, this song is pretty cool.” I’d never heard it before. I mean, I knew the first two records well. They’re playing this new song and when it got to the middle of the song, it goes, “No more teachers / No more books / No more teachers / Dirty looks.” You know, that’s an old kid’s rhyme, when you’re in school. I thought, okay, this is a joke song. Then they release it a week later and it’s “School’s Out.” That’s the thing that bands could do in those days. By the time the ‘80s came along, audiences just weren’t used to that anymore. So if they didn’t know it, it was hard to get a reaction.

Listen to W.A.S.P.’s ‘L.O.V.E. Machine’

You’ve addressed how you use backing tracks in the live setting with W.A.S.P., but there’s still some people who think that none of it is live at all.
Well, if they’re crazy enough to believe it, that’s their business. But if they genuinely feel like that, then don’t go. Listen, God blessed me with this foghorn in my throat. LIke anybody who’s got one, we like showing ‘em off — and I’m no different. I’m sorry if this sounds arrogant, but there will be times where I’m up there and I hear what’s coming out of me, when I’m sustaining a note or something. I’m thinking to myself, “Wow, that’s pretty cool. I’m not sure most people would have the opportunity to experience something like that in their lives. So from my perspective, I’m pretty appreciative of it. As I said, when you’ve got this thing that really not a lot of people can do, you like to show it. [Laughs] Let me add one more thing. I grew up listening to Live at Leeds [by the Who]. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, there are overdubs on it.

But it’s pretty raw. It sounds like it was done by a three-piece band. For the most part, it’s pretty realistic. But they don’t do it like that anymore. What they were doing was giving you a reflection of 1970. They were giving you a snapshot of that timeframe. And that’s what bands did. But when technology changed and we had the ability to make it sound bigger and better, who’s not going to do that? I mean, you can do the Live at Leeds version. We used to. Was it good? It was okay for what it was. But you know, if I’m going to see a show — and this is my personal opinion — I want that thing to sound like the record. I don’t care what Queen says, or any of these other bands, “Oh, we’re doing that live.” No, you don’t have 20 guys behind that stage singing. [Laughs] You just don’t. They’re all getting help out there. The bottom line is to give the audience a good show. Who cares how it gets there?

There’s the argument that some of these girl singers out here now, they don’t sing a note and they probably don’t. Hey, listen, if I’m going to go see Yngwie [Malmsteen], I want to see Yngwie play. But there are some guys in some rock bands that if they didn’t play and it was recorded, it wouldn’t bother me one iota. Because I’m not going there to see that. I would be going to see the songs. But if somebody’s got a dangerous instrument that they’re really good at and can do something that few people can do? Yeah, I wanna hear ‘em do it. So in my opinion, I’m giving them that, but I’m also giving them the best of both worlds.

READ MORE: Blackie Lawless Admits to Using Backing Tracks Live

Watch W.A.S.P.’s Video For ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’

What are you looking forward to the most about this upcoming tour?
[Lawless takes a long pause] My head is so deep into the show right now, I don’t know if I can honestly answer that. I just got off the phone with somebody that’s building something for us right now. That’s where my head is right now, putting this show together. If this thing ends up being what we hope it’s going to be, it’s going to be pretty cool. You know, once everything is set up and ready to go, ask me that question and I might give you a different answer.

There’s also a new album from W.A.S.P. that’s been in the works. What’s the latest update there?
[Lawless sighs] We worked on it a lot. We went and did the tour last year. As you know, I was having problems with my back and stuff. So I had a lot of time in between the surgeries just to sit and twiddle my thumbs. I did a lot of listening to what we’d done already and I’m just not that thrilled with it. I think there’s moments where it’s really good, but it’s not consistent. I think I was trying to steer it in a direction it didn’t want to go. It turns around and bites you because of it. So I’m going to have to back to the drawing board on that. But I’m not going to pour it down the drain. There’s stuff there that’s definitely good, but it’s not a cohesive package yet.

Tickets for the Album One Alive World Tour are available at WASPnation.com.

Don Henley wants his stuff back. He’s filed suit asking for the return of handwritten ’70s-era Eagles lyrics that were the subject of a recent criminal trial.

“These 100 pages of personal lyric sheets belong to Mr. Henley and his family, and he has never authorized defendants or anyone else to peddle them for profit,” attorney Daniel Petrocelli said in an official statement.

Charges against memorabilia dealer Edward Kosinski and former Rock & Roll Hall of Fame curator Craig Inciardi were dropped back in March. Rare book dealer Glenn Horowitz also faced a criminal complaint but is not named in Henley’s new legal action.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Don Henley Eagles Song From the ’70s

“Don Henley filed suit today in a New York federal court for return of property that was stolen from him — his private handwritten notes and lyrics to the iconic songs from the Hotel California album,” Petrocelli said.

Inciardi, Kosinki and Horowitz were charged with conspiring to possess stolen property in conjunction with an attempted auction of the lyric sheets. They were valued at more than $700,000 during the court case. The material was originally acquired from writer Ed Sanders, who’d been given the lyrics decades ago while researching a book he never completed.

What Happened to the Eagles Lyrics After Trial?

The New York District Attorney’s Office kept the Eagles lyrics in its custody following the criminal proceeding as officials tried to sort out their rightful ownership.

“Because Kosinski and Inciardi have wrongly claimed ownership of Henley’s lyric sheets,” the lawsuit argues, “a declaration from this court that Henley is the lawful owner is needed to supply ‘satisfactory proof of his title’ and facilitate the [district attorney’s] return of Henley’s lyric sheets to Henley.”

Henley “demands a jury trial for all issues so triable,” his lawyers added. Eagles are set to begin a residency at Sphere in Las Vegas three months from now, after extending the dates earlier this week.

How a Drug Dealer Inspired Eagles’ ‘Life in the Fast Lane’

There are plenty of artists out there who have made a very good living after releasing just one hit single. But as Norman Greenbaum or Dexys Midnight Runners can tell you, it’s pretty hard to string together two, three or especially four.

Many of the artists below have track records that pose an opposite and extremely enviable dilemma: How to pick the best four-single run from their long and storied careers? We took 20 of classic rock’s biggest and most influential artists, in no particular order, and selected their best four-single run. To keep things on an even playing ground we stuck with United States commercial releases only, not promotional singles.

Here are Rock’s 20 Best Four-Single Runs:

The Rolling Stones
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (June 1, 1968)
“Street Fighting Man” (Aug. 30, 1968)
“Honky Tonk Woman” (July 5, 1969)
“Brown Sugar” (April 17, 1971)

You could probably close your eyes and throw a dart at the Rolling Stones‘ discography and start a great four-single run wherever it landed. But in the spring of 1968 Rolling Stones went on a particularly staggering run. First they put an emphatic end to their psychedelic Their Satanic Majesties Request era with the hard hitting stand-alone single “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” The song hit the top 5 all over the world, including No. 3 on the American charts. They rounded out the year with “Street Fighting Man” from 1968’s Beggars Banquet and another stand-alone single, “Honky Tonk Woman.” Although 1969’s Let It Bleed was filled with classics such as “Gimme Shelter” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” the band didn’t release another stateside single until 1971, when “Brown Sugar” was released just ahead of Sticky Fingers.

The Beatles
“Ticket to Ride” (April 1965)
“Help!” (July 1965)
“Yesterday” (September 1965)
“We Can Work It Out”  (December 1965)

Much like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles released many great four-single runs. But the nod here goes to the Fab Four’s particularly amazing and diverse 1965 output, which began with April’s “Ticket to Ride,” concluded with December’s “We Can Work It Out” and also included Paul McCartney‘s ballad “Yesterday,” which went on to become the world’s most covered song. Amazingly, the Beatles also released a fifth single in 1965 – February’s “Eight Days a Week.”

Led Zeppelin
“Good Times, Bad Times” (March 1969)
“Whole Lotta Love”  (November 1969)
“Immigrant Song” (November 1970)
“Black Dog” (December 1971)

Preferring that their fans focus on their albums as complete statements, Led Zeppelin only released 10 singles in the United States during their entire career. Which makes picking the best four-single run pretty easy! Starting with March 1969’s “Good Times, Bad Times” and concluding with 1971’s “Black Dog” gives us one great song from each of their first four studio albums.

Van Halen
“Jump” (December 1983)
“I’ll Wait” (April 1984)
“Panama” (June 1984)
“Hot for Teacher” (October 1984)

If you ask fans to name their favorite Van Halen album, you’ll get a lot of votes for their 1978 debut and for 1984, the last album from their original lineup. Van Halen spawned an incredible four-single run, consisting of “You Really Got Me,” “Runnin’ With the Devil,” “Jamie’s Cryin'” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love.” But 1984‘s string of singles definitely has that beat in terms of commercial performance – “Jump” remains the band’s only chart-topping single, with “I’ll Wait” and “Panama” also cracking the Top 20. 1984‘s singles also showcase more range, and were all original songs as well. Case closed!

Eagles
“Take it to the Limit” (November 1975)
“New Kid in Town” (December 1976)
“Hotel California” (February 1977)
“Life in the Fast Lane” (May 1977)

The best four-single Eagles run comes from two different albums and two different lineups. “Take it to the Limit” was the third and final single from 1975’s One of These Nights. Guitarist Bernie Leadon left after the album’s tour, unhappy with the band’s shift away from country to more straight-ahead rock. He was replaced by James Gang and solo star Joe Walsh for 1976’s Hotel California, which quickly racked up two straight No. 1 singles with “New Kid in Town” and the title track. Walsh’s impact on the group was crystal clear on the final single from this run, the hard-rocking “Life in the Fast Lane.”

Bob Dylan
“Blowin’ in the Wind” (August 1963)
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” (March 1965)
“Like a Rolling Stone” (July 1965)
“Positively 4th Street” (September 1965)

As impressive as the above Bob Dylan singles run is – and these are four of the most celebrated songs in the history of rock music – it could have been even greater if “The Times They Are a-Changin'” and “Maggie’s Farm” were also released as singles in the United States, as they were in March and June of 1965 in the United Kingdom.

Journey
“Who’s Crying Now?” (July 1981)
“Don’t Stop Believin'” (October 1981)
“Open Arms” (January 1982)
“Still They Ride” (May 1982)

Let’s set up an Olympics medal podium for Journey four-single runs. The bronze medal goes to “Wheel in the Sky,” “Anytime” and “Lights” from Infinity, topped off by Evolution‘s “Just the Same Way.” The four singles from 1983’s Frontiers – “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” “Faithfully,” “After the Fall” and Send Her My Love” take the silver. But the top step on the podium goes to Escape‘s monumental 1981-82 run: “Who’s Crying Now,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Open Arms” and “Still They Ride.”

The Who
“I Can’t Explain” (December 1964)
“Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” (June 1965)
“My Generation” (November 1965)
“Substitute” (March 1966)

There’s three-quarters of an amazing Who ’67 and ’68 singles run that almost won here – featuring “I Can See for Miles,” “Magic Bus” and “Pinball Wizard.” But the much less essential “Call Me Lightning” pops up between the first two, sending us back to the very beginning of the band’s history for an amazing career-starting four-song run.

Metallica
“Jump in the Fire” (January 1984)
“Whiplash” (January 1984)
“Creeping Death” (November 1984)
“Master of Puppets” (July 1986)

If we wanted to include “One” and “Enter Sandman” in our four-song Metallica run we’d also have to include “Eye of the Beholder” and “The Unforgiven.” So the nod goes to the band’s first four singles, which includes tracks from Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets.

Pink Floyd
“Money” (April 1973)
“Us and Them” (February 1974)
“Have a Cigar” (November 1975)
“Another Brick in the Wall Part II” (January 1980

Much like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd preferred to focus on albums, not singles, so much so that they didn’t even release one from their 1977 album Animals. So we’re able to focus on singles from three other classic albums: “Money” and “Us and Them” from The Dark Side of the Moon, “Have a Cigar” from Wish You Were Here and “Another Brick in the Wall Part II” from The Wall.

Heart
“Crazy on You” (March 1976)
“Magic Man” (June 1976)
“Dreamboat Annie” (November 1976)
“Barracuda” (May 1977)

Right off the bat, Heart launched their career with an amazing four-single run featuring three of their best-known songs and an underrated gem. Their 1975 debut Dreamboat Annie provides us with the title track, “Crazy on You” and “Magic Man.” A messy legal battle between the band and their label meant that their next single, the scathing “Barracuda,” actually came from their third album, 1977’s Little Queen.

Queen
“Bohemian Rhapsody” (December 1975)
“You’re My Best Friend” (May 1976)
“Somebody to Love” (November 1976)
“Tie Your Mother Down” (March 1977)

Queen‘s astonishing ranges is on full display in this impeccable four-single run, led by the groundbreaking “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the sunny “You’re My Best Friend” from 1975’s A Night at the Opera and continuing with the gorgeous “Somebody to Love” and the hard-rocking “Tie Your Mother Down” from A Day at the Races.

Guns N’ Roses
“Sweet Child O’ Mine” (June 1988)
“Welcome to the Jungle” (October 1988)
“Paradise City” (January 1989)
“Patience” (March 1989)

No need for rocket surgery here. The three songs released as singles from Guns N’ Roses‘ 1987 debut Appetite for Destruction are all probably playing on about 100 radio stations across the country at this exact moment, and the acoustic ballad “Patience” from 1988’s G N’ R Lies rounds out their foursome quite nicely. Just for fun, here’s the next four singles the band released: “Nightrain,” “You Could Be Mine,” “Don’t Cry” and “Live and Let Die.”

AC/DC
“Problem Child” (September 1977)
“Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation” (September 1978)
“Whole Lotta Rosie” (January 1979)
“Highway to Hell” (July 1979)

No “Back in Black” or “You Shook Me All Night Long?” you say? Sorry but to include those admittedly awesome AC/DC songs we’d also have to include “Get it Up” and / or “Touch Too Much,” which are fully cool but don’t quite reach the consistent quality of the four Bon Scott-era classics above.

Aerosmith
“Sweet Emotion” (May 1975)
“Walk This Way” (August 1975)
“You See Me Crying” (November 1975)
“Last Child” (May 1976)

The twin peaks of Aerosmith’s catalog, 1975’s Toys in the Attic and 1976’s Rocks, is where you’ll find an all-time four-single run. “Sweet Emotion,” “Walk This Way” and the sublime ballad “You See Me Crying” all come from the former, while “Last Child” is the first of three great 45s released from Rocks, followed by “Home Tonight” and “Back in the Saddle.” (If you want to pick their best ’80s run, how about “Shela,” “Dude (Looks Like a Lady),” “Angel” and “Rag Doll?”)

Def Leppard
“Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” (November 1981)
“Photograph” (March 1983)
“Rock of Ages” (May 1983)
“Foolin'” (August 1983)

If “Woman” wasn’t the first single Def Leppard released from Hysteria, we’d have a much tougher choice on our hands here. A strong case could also be made for the second through fifth singles from that album – “Animal,” “Hysteria,” “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and “Love Bites.” But first prize still goes to the last single from 1981’s High ‘n’ Dry and the first three from the band’s breakthrough 1983 classic Pyromania.

Kiss
“Hard Luck Woman” (November 1976)
“Dr. Love” (February 1977)
“Christine Sixteen” (July 1977)
“Love Gun” (September 1977)

With two songs each from 1976’s Rock and Roll Over and 1977’s Love Gun, this Kiss four-single run finds the band ending their original lineup’s golden era in strong form. Paul Stanley originally intended to offer “Hard Luck Woman” to Rod Stewart, but wisely kept it for his own band. Gene Simmons locks down his reputation as rock’s creepiest uncle with “Dr. Love” and “Christine Sixteen,” and finally Stanley sets a new standard for phallic metaphors with “Love Gun.”

Joni Mitchell
“You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” (October 1972)
“Raised on Robbery” (November 1973)
“Help Me” (February 1974)
“Free Man in Paris” (July 1974)

As much as it huts to leave out “Chelsea Morning” and “Big Yellow Taxi,” this four-single run captures Joni Mitchell‘s shift from folk into jazz-influenced music, and also her undeniable commercial peak. “Help Me” was her first and only No. 1 hit in America, with “Free Man in Paris” landing just one spot short of that peak.

Motley Crue
“Looks that Kill” (January 1984)
“Too Young to Fall in Love” (May 1984)
“Smokin’ in the Boys Room” (June 1985)
“Home Sweet Home” (September 1985)

This isn’t just a four-single run, with two great songs each from Shout at the Devil and Theatre of Pain it’s basically half of a Motley Crue greatest hits album. (Not that we need any more of those!) If you prefer a slightly later era you could swap out the two Shout songs for “Girls, Girls, Girls” and the outstanding “Wild Side.”

Creedence Clearwater Revival
“Proud Mary” (December 1968)
“Bad Moon Rising” (April 1969)
“Green River” (July 1969)
“Fortunate Son” / “Down on the Corner” (October 1969)

Creedence Clearwater Revival had one of the most prolific years in rock history in 1969, releasing three classic albums – Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys – in the span of just over 10 months. Each of those records places at least one single on our chosen run – including the double-A side “Fortunate Son” / “Down on the Corner.”

Bon Jovi guitarist Phil X discussed his struggle with impostor syndrome after replacing Richie Sambora in the band.

The Canadian guitarist, once a member of Triumph, stood in for Sambora for a few shows in 2011. Jon Bon Jovi called him back when Sambora suddenly quit the band two years later. X has been in place ever since, becoming an official member in 2016.

However, in a recent interview with Masters of Shred (video below) he said it had taken him a while to shake the feeling that he shouldn’t be there.

READ MORE: Phil X Got ‘Hotel California’ Vibes Working on Bon Jovi’s New LP

“When… you’re filling in for somebody, and somebody comes up and says or writes a comment, ‘That was my first Bon Jovi show, and it was Phil X,’ I feel bad, sort of,” X said. “I feel like, ‘Yeah, that should have been Richie.’”

He recounted an emotional moment for the band to illustrate his sensation of being an outsider: “[W]e were in Milan and we did the Stadium Bowl – that was my 30th or 40th show in 2013. [Fans] do this thing called choreography… you’re in a stadium and they hold up signs.

“So I saw, ‘Okay, over here is the Bon Jovi symbol.’ You go to another stadium, ‘This is a Bon Jovi symbol,’ and it’s usually just a section [of the crowd]. In Milan, it was the entire bowl.

When Emotional Jon Bon Jovi Had to Stop a Song

“All the front seats were holding up the Italian flag, and across the entire Bowl it said, ‘Bon Jovi Forever.’ It was the most amazing thing I ever saw. [I] never saw Jon stop a song because he was emotional – and he stopped.”

X’s own feelings were slightly less warm. “Now, you know what I was thinking? I was thinking, ‘This isn’t my moment, as amazing as this is. Richie should be here for this.’ … [T]o me, it was weird being the guy having a cool gig because of somebody else’s situation.”

Watch Phil X’s Interview

Pete Townshend says he’d never been happy with the 1979 movie version of Quadrophenia.

The Who guitarist explained that was one of the reasons why he’d developed a ballet version of the storyline, which was first exposed via the 1973 album.

“I was never happy with the film,” Townshend told NME in a recent interview. “I felt the film was lazy. It was not based on my story and it didn’t include much of my music. So I thought here was an opportunity to do something that honours the music, but also possibly takes it into a new era, a new place.”

READ MORE: When the Who’s ‘Quadrophenia’ Movie Premiered

He added that Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet had excited him from the time it made its way to the creative workshop stage. “There was a poetic sensibility to what I was seeing,” he said. “I was just shocked and surprised. I thought, ‘Hey, there’s new shadow here, there are new shades; there’s new optimism.’”

Townshend recalled attending ballet performances with the Who’s then manager, Kit Lambert. “I won’t say I was a disciple of it, but I loved good ballet certainly,” the guitarist said. “It was part of my education process. Kit Lambert was really keen that I tackled the issue of snobbery and inverse snobbery in rock – that I just battled it head on.”

To that end, he added: “I’m working on an opera at the moment. I’ve been working on one for a long time – The Age Of Anxiety – and I’m very fearless now about calling it an opera. It’s a fucking opera. Sorry. My friend Rufus Wainwright writes operas; I can write operas.”

Townshend, who previously described Quadrophenia as the Who’s last great album, went on to discuss the idea he’d had in mind when he wrote it.

The Main Reason Pete Townshend Wrote ‘Quadrophenia’

“[O]ne of my remits… was to wake the band up to the fact that we’d really lost connection with our core audience,” he said. “We’d become bloated rock stars. Laser shows and frilly jackets and flying fingers and Keith Moon dressed as Adolf Hitler – it was all very, very strange.

“Whether, in the middle of all that, my arty-farty ideas were an equal embarrassing self-indulgence had to be weighed out. There was something wrong with The Who and it had to be fixed. I felt that Quadrophenia would help fix it.”

He recalled the “real lesson” when “bands like U2, The Clash and Bruce Springsteen came along and their connection with the audience was much more actual, much more human, much more physical. That was a wake-up call as well for me. I don’t know that the Who ever managed to get back on track, but that was the function of Quadrophenia.”

Tracking Aerosmith‘s career trajectory from the beginning to the end of the ’80s reveals one of the most remarkable comebacks in rock history.

The band was washed-up and left for dead at the turn of the decade, with Joe Perry having quit in 1979 and Brad Whitford following suit in 1981. Drugs and dysfunction had hobbled the one-mighty rockers, and they watched their album sales plummet as a new crop of bands rose up to usurp them.

After reaching their nadir on 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place, Aerosmith reunited with Perry and Whitford and began the long, difficult process of mounting a comeback. They missed the mark on 1985’s Done With Mirrors, but by 1987’s Permanent Vacation they had rediscovered their groove and reached all-new heights thanks to their newfound sobriety and some help from outside writers. Their hot streak continued with 1989’s Pump and lasted well into the next decade.

The Aerosmith of the late ’80s was a different beast than the drugged-out ’70s behemoth; they embraced power ballads and injected their songs with sky-high hooks. Dig into their ’80s catalog, though, and you’ll find their patented sleazy blues-rock is still very much intact — it’s just supplemented by love songs, pop hits and even some surprising social commentary.

Read on to see the Top 15 ’80s Aerosmith Songs.

15. “The Hop”

From: Done With Mirrors (1985)

The Bad Boys From Boston proved they still had it on the bluesy boogie-rocker “The Hop.” The aptly titled track evokes Toys in the Attic’s “Big Ten Inch Record,” replete with a zesty harmonica solo and sizzling guitar leads. Notably, it’s the only Done With MIrrors song to credit all five band members as co-writers, proof that for Aerosmith, the whole was greater than the sum of the parts.

14. “Joanie’s Butterfly”

From: Rock in a Hard Place (1982)

Even at the height of their dysfunction, Aerosmith still churned out a few gems, including the single weirdest song in their discography: the psychedelic folk odyssey “Joanie’s Butterfly.” Steven Tyler delivers a head-spinning poem about a dancing, winged pony that may or may not be a euphemism for his penis, while the guitars alternate between jangly arpeggios and stampeding power chords. It’s a moment of bizarre, epic grandeur that Aerosmith has never replicated — probably for the best.

13. “Heart’s Done Time”

From: Permanent Vacation (1987)

The opening track off the blockbuster Permanent Vacation proved Aerosmith was back with a vengeance and hell-bent on cementing their comeback. The drums enter like a wrecking ball, and the guitar riffs crunch and snap with decadent glory. But the biggest indicator of Aerosmith’s newfound sobriety and determination is Tyler, whose screams sounds rawer and more robust than ever.

12. “Lightning Strikes”

From: Rock in a Hard Place

Of all the songs on Rock in a Hard Place, “Lightning Strikes” most closely resembles Aerosmith’s hell-raising ‘70s heyday. Maybe that’s because it’s the only song on the album that Brad Whitford played on before quitting. Whatever the reason, “Lightning Strikes” bottles some of the old magic with a tight groove and muscular riffs, while Tyler marshals his haggard voice to impressive effect. The textural keyboards during the intro sound like a minor mainstream concession, but by 1982, it was too little, too late.

11. “Rag Doll”

From: Permanent Vacation

“Rag Doll” was originally titled “Rag Time” due to its old-school New Orleans feel and Tyler’s ample scarf collection. At the behest of A&R man John Kalodner, and with help from ace songwriter Holly Knight, the band eventually changed the title and reaped the benefits, claiming their third consecutive Top 20 hit. With a walloping groove from drummer Joey Kramer, greasy slide guitar work from Perry and spirited scatting from Tyler, “Rag Doll” deftly blended Aerosmith’s old-school blues and R&B affinities with the high-gloss pop-metal dominating airwaves at the time.

10. “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)”

From: Permanent Vacation

The doctor is in — the song doctor, that is. With help from Desmond Child, Tyler and Perry turned a lighthearted jab at Vince Neil into a frothy pop-metal smash about a man who gets more than he bargained for when he goes backstage with a stripper. “The second verse says, ‘Never judge a book by its cover or who you’re going to love by your lover,’ and I think that’s a beautiful thought,” Child told People. But the song’s lofty message is secondary to the massive hooks and crackling performances.

9. “The Other Side”

From: Pump (1989)

One of the poppiest songs on Pump, “The Other Side” features massive, blustery horns and some of Perry’s most memorable backing vocals. But its catchiness doesn’t diminish its urgency. Kramer stays lodged in the pocket as he smashes his drums, and Perry delivers an absolute scorcher of a solo. The album version of the song kicks off with the instrumental “Dulcimer Stomp,” tethering Aerosmith to their swampy blues-rock roots before blasting them into the pop stratosphere.

8. “Walk This Way” (feat. Run-DMC)

From: Raising Hell (1986)

It seems like a no-brainer in hindsight, but Aerosmith and Run-DMC’s unlikely collaboration was nothing short of a sonic revolution upon its release in 1986. Although some members of the hip-hop trio initially wrote the song off as “hillbilly gibberish,” their irreverent take on the classic gives it the necessary facelift for a new generation of listeners. Tyler and Perry gamely recorded fresh parts for the collaboration, and coupled with an iconic music video, “Walk This Way” allowed both groups to literally and figuratively break down walls between rock and rap, pioneering a new genre and revitalizing Aerosmith’s floundering career.

7. “Hangman Jury”

From: Permanent Vacation

Aerosmith was nervous they had lost their songwriting mojo after getting sober for Permanent Vacation. Thankfully, the bluesy “Hangman Jury” assuaged their fears and helped bridge the gap between their past and present. With its bluesy harmonica, swampy guitar licks and ominous storytelling, “Hangman Jury” consciously evoked the old blues greats Tyler and Perry had been raised on (and resulted in a lawsuit from Lead Belly’s estate). “When the riff to ‘Hangman Jury’ came flying off an old funky Silvertone guitar I had found, I was relieved,” Perry wrote in his 2014 memoir Rocks. “The music was there. The music was always there.”

6. “Let the Music Do the Talking”

From: Done With Mirrors

All eyes were on Aerosmith following their reunion with Joe Perry and Brad Whitford. Although 1985’s Done With Mirrors failed to put the rockers back on top, the opening track “Let the Music Do the Talking” proved they were headed in the right direction. A remake of a Joe Perry Project song featuring updated lyrics from Tyler, “Let the Music Do the Talking” rocks with clarity and a healthy dose of braggadocio, setting the stage for their proper comeback on Permanent Vacation.

5. “What It Takes”

From: Pump

Most fans associate Aerosmith’s comeback era with their seemingly endless string of hit ballads, but their second (and best) post-rehab album, Pump, contains only one — and it’s one of the best of their career. “What It Takes” shirks the manicured melodrama of Permanent Vacation’s “Angel” in favor of poignant, country-flecked instrumentation and anguished vocals. “It’s a ballad, but it’s not a schmaltzy ballad,” bassist Tom Hamilton told Rolling Stone in 2019. “The emotion in it is very real and it has a beautiful set of chord changes.”

4. “Young Lust”

From: Pump

The opening track on Pump felt specially designed for critics of Aerosmith’s pop-rock turn on Permanent Vacation. “Young Lust” gets off to a blistering start with rapid-fire drums, titanic riffs and Tyler’s cat-in-heat squeals and keeps listeners in its thrall for its duration. The larger-than-life production gives the song a modern sheen, and the ribald lyrics prove that even as Aerosmith grew older, they had no interest in growing up.

3. “F.I.N.E.”

From: Pump

Aerosmith keeps the thrills coming on Pump as “Young Lust” segues into “F.I.N.E.” (an acronym for “Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional”), serving up a double dose of grimy riffs and pop hooks. It’s one of their hardest-hitting tracks since Rocks with an even greater sense of melody, boasting stellar vocal harmonies and a bridge that elevates the song. The final verse — look it up yourself — might just contain the filthiest lyrics Tyler ever wrote.

2. “Janie’s Got a Gun”

From: Pump

Aerosmith made a career out of zigging when they should have zagged, but “Janie’s Got a Gun” might be their most shocking musical detour. An evocative, piano-based track about a young victim of sexual assault taking revenge on her father, it features some of the band’s most inventive instrumentation and captivating storytelling. “Janie” proved that Aerosmith could switch from debauched revelry to hot-button social commentary — and it’s Tyler’s second masterpiece behind “Dream On.”

1. “Love in an Elevator”

From: Pump

Of all the hits Aerosmith scored in their comeback era, “Love in an Elevator” gets closest to the debauched hard rock of their ’70s heyday. The riffs are monolithic, the rhythm section stomps like a tyrannosaurus rex and Tyler’s motor-mouthed lyrics are the perfect blend of sleazy and tongue-in-cheek. The glossy production and outro trumpet solo put the song squarely in pop-metal territory, but they can’t dull Perry and Whitford’s razor-sharp guitar solos.

Pete Townshend said the Who didn’t make money from most of their albums as a result of theft by their managers, especially during their first eight years of making records.

The guitarist also recalled one of his final meetings with Jimi Hendrix, when they talked about being the victims of illegal activities.

In a recent interview with NME, Townshend was asked if it made financial sense for established bands to record new albums. “It’s never been about the money,” he replied with a laugh.

READ MORE: All 245 Who Songs Ranked Worst to Best

He continued: “The Who never made any money from fucking records anyway. Our managers were criminals. I’d never seen a Who royalty statement prior to our first audit, which we did while we were making [sixth album] Quadrophenia. It emerged that [manager] Kit Lambert had stolen all of my Italian publishing royalties to buy himself a palace in Venice.”

He observed: “There are black swans in our business, and they’re the ones that always mop up all the money.” That led him to share an anecdote about catching up with Hendrix in L.A. a few weeks before his death in 1970.

“He was happy – he was really nice to me, and he hadn’t always been in the past,” Townshend recalled. “I said, ‘How you doing?’ and he said, ‘Pete, I’m broke.’ He was huge, and he was broke. [But] we didn’t give a fuck about the money.

“I lived in a little house in Twickenham by the Thames, I was happy to be by the water. I had one car. I had a tiny little studio. I was really happy. I had a beautiful wife, lovely kids, great friends and never wanted for anything, really, except some time to myself and some time to have with my family. So today I’ve got a sense that I’m lucky to be here and be fit enough to walk around the block and to work with younger musicians, to do some producing and mentoring.”

Pete Townshend’s Stealthy Idea for A New Who Album

Naturally, Townshend was asked about the prospect of another Who album – and while he doubted it would happen, he revealed a stealthy idea he’d had to push the issue with bandmate Roger Daltrey, who’s previously said he regards his studio career as effectively over.

“If there was a need or a place for a Who album, could I write the songs for it within six weeks? Of course I fucking could – it’s a piece of cake,” he said. “For me it would be a joy because I love writing songs, I love writing to a brief, I love having a commission, I love having a deadline and I love the feedback.”

Expressing pleasure at the way their last record was received, he continued: “[A]t the moment … I’m thinking I might write the songs and then say to Roger, ‘Either you sing on them or I’m gonna put them out as a solo album and Who fans will love me for it.’”

Bill Wyman has announced the release of a new album. Drive My Car marks his first album in nine years and the ninth solo album by the Rolling Stones‘ former bassist.

The album, which is due on Aug. 9, features 10 songs, with two additional tracks on the CD and digital versions. In addition to covers of Bob Dylan‘s “Thunder on the Mountain,” Taj Mahal’s “Light Rain” and John Prine‘s “Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody,” Drive My Car includes five songs written or cowritten by Wyman.

“It’s not something I do every day, but sometimes I just see a guitar in the corner of the room, pick it up to play around and then something clicks into place,” Wyman noted in a press release announcing the album.

READ MORE: How the Rolling Stones Said Goodbye to the ’60s on ‘Let It Bleed’

You can hear the first song from Wyman’s upcoming album, the title track, below. You can also see the album’s track listing below.

Drive My Car was recorded in Wyman’s home studio with guitarist Terry Taylor and drummer Paul Beavis. “I think the biggest influence on the album as a whole is J.J. Cale, his laidback groove has always appealed to me,” Wyman noted.

“Friends I’ve played it to have said things like, ‘It really sounds like you,’ and that makes me happy. I’ve never tried to be anyone else – I’m Bill, basically.”

What Has Bill Wyman Been Up To?

Since leaving the Rolling Stones, a band he helped form in 1962, in 1993, the 87-year-old Wyman has played with his group Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings and released the solo album Back to Basics in 2015.

He’s occasionally played with his old band since the ’90s, joining the Stones onstage, along with another former bandmate Mick Taylor, in 2012, and played on one song, “Live by the Sword,” on their 2023 album Hackney Diamonds, the first time Wyman has performed on a Rolling Stones album since 1991.

Bill Wyman, ‘Drive My Car’ Track Listing
1. Thunder On The Mountain
2. Drive My Car
3. Bad News
4. Storm Warning
5. Light Rain
6. Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody
7. Rough Cut Diamond
8. Wings
9. Two Tone Car
10. Fools Gold

CD/DIGITAL BONUS TRACKS
11. Sweet Baby
12. Tell You A Secret

When Aerosmith released “Head First” as a free digital download on June 27, 1994, the fledgling technology team at the band’s label, Geffen, just wanted to prove that it could be done.

But it was an important moment in the developing landscape of the World Wide Web which ultimately helped carve a solid path for a new distribution method in the music industry. “It was proof of life for digital music,” Jim Griffin tells UCR now. Growing up as a hard rock fan outside of Chicago in Park Forest, Illinois, he was thrilled to join the label in 1992 as their first Chief Technology Officer, because they had been putting out recordings by some of his favorite bands, including Aerosmith. 

“Head First” was a leftover track from the band’s recording sessions for 1993’s Get a Grip that had only been issued as a B-side that year on the European single release of “Eat the Rich.” Though the group themselves were not directly involved with the plans to release “Head First,” their management — and band associate John Kalodner — helped to oversee the project. “He liked the idea and wanted to make sure it was done right,” Griffin explains.

It’s important to realize that websites weren’t the ruling force in this era — instead, it was internet providers like CompuServe and AOL which held the controlling majority. Certain band members were fans of the developing technology. Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton was an early CompuServe user, who enjoyed going into the chat rooms to interact with the band’s fans. He’d even offer corrections when it came to inaccuracies in the stories that the fans were telling about the group’s history.   

CompuServe had more than two million customers at the time and reportedly, around 10 thousand of them downloaded “Head First.” Entertainment Weekly covered the event, noting that the song “rocks harder than most of Get a Grip,” adding that, “Someday, maybe we’ll pay to download Aerosmith.”

Three years later, Duran Duran became the first group to sell a digital single online with 1997’s “Electric Barbarella.” David Bowie subsequently founded his own internet provider in 1998, BowieNet, sold his first album digitally in 1999 with the release of  Hours — and even did a webcast of the recording process for one of the songs. In just a few more blinks of an eye, the digital revolution fully took over and the way fans listened to music changed forever.

Griffin became a leading authority on digital music and was one of seven witnesses who testified at the Senate’s Napster hearings in 2000. He shares some memories of how he and his Geffen co-workers brought “Head First” to the world as the first music download from a major record label.

Even though there was an interest in technology inside the Geffen offices, it seems like things were still pretty primitive when you first arrived there.
Websites were not really on our radar at the time. Although we knew what was coming. In fact, we implemented the world’s first intranet. There were no intranets at the time. Nobody would have thought of such a thing. In fact, everything we were doing at Geffen was heretical, within the world of I.T. The parent company across town, Universal Music, was horrified by what we were doing — and the way we were doing it. They were really angry.

They would call on the phone and say, “Now, you know who you work for, right? Can you get a paycheck and see who signs it? Look at the bottom of it, I’m the guy you work for — now listen to me. You will not install an ethernet network, you will not use website technology, you will not install internet protocol,” that sort of thing. I said, “I’m sorry, I don’t work for you. I work for David Geffen.” They said, “Well, we own your company.” I said, “I work for David Geffen — and that little guy can scream louder than all of the big guys you can send over the hill.” In fact, he told me to say that. When I told him that Universal disagreed with everything that we were planning to do, he said, “That’s great. Good work by you. Because I don’t trust them at all. If they don’t like what you’re doing, then it’s fine by me.”

If I understand correctly, things were also really analog at Geffen at that time. There wasn’t any major computer usage happening.
No. All analog. They had recently been purchased by Universal. So they knew they had to connect to the company across town. They knew that was coming and they weren’t sure how to do it. They wanted to do it in a way that their companies would appreciate. I came in to talk to their employees. When I was done, I gave them my recommendation. Which by the way, was, “Who cares what they want? If they want a Mac, give ‘em a Mac. If they want a PC, give ‘em a PC.” These are important employees that you have, they should get their choice of computer and hire people who don’t care whether it’s a Mac or PC when they’re networking them. They can talk to each other. “Oh, they can talk to each other, are you sure of that?” I said, “Well, I promise you they can.” They said, “Well then, you come here and do that.” [Laughs] We were doing things differently. Just to be clear, we weren’t following a formula or a prescription, the prescription they had written for us would have taken us on an entirely different course. And they were very angry when we released a song online.

What were the challenges when it came to releasing “Head First” online as a digital download?
Oh, [it was all] legal [questions]. How are people going to get paid? What is the definition of a sound recording? What is the definition of a song? How will you pay for the songs that are on these sound recordings? Do they meet the definition of a sound recording? Does that entitle it to a mechanical payment? All around the world, there are a hundred different ways to pay for music. They all require a different standard. It became an enormous issue and it changed my life. I went from being a CTO to a guy who traveled around the world talking in different countries about the revolution in the digital delivery of art.

READ MORE: How Aerosmith Scored Their First No. 1 LP With ‘Get a Grip’

Why did you choose to use a WAV file as the audio format?
That was easy. It was the file type that a Windows computer would recognize and play as audio. It had software installed that knew what a WAV file was, so you wouldn’t need to download yet another file. I learned something [later working for] Nokia — at least, their assumption became mine, which was, if you have to press a button, you lose half of the audience. Every time there’s a button to be pushed, half the audience doesn’t push the button. So at any rate, it made it easy.

Listen to Aerosmith’s ‘Head First’

What was Aerosmith’s involvement?
Well, basically, I had a number of choices before me. I was given a number of discs with sound recordings on them. I was looking for the shortest one. Because the download time would be so great. Most people were on a 14.4 modem at the time.

That’s painful.
Right, so the idea was, let’s make it as brief as we can. In fact, it was maybe a 22 minute download, even with what we did do. I had to cut it very carefully. I noticed that someone online noticed that it cut off a slight bit too early at the end of the song. That’s because we were so savagely trimming. The idea was to make it as easy for the end user as possible.

So really, it didn’t even have to be Aerosmith. You had other groups and artists to choose from.
Yes, and “Head First” was the briefest of the ones that I was given. Also, I like Aerosmith. I thought it was a very popular band, so people will appreciate it and it will draw attention.

READ MORE: Top 20 Aerosmith Songs

Ultimately, what do you think the benefits were of releasing “Head First” digitally?
Oh, it was just proof of concept. It was proof of life for digital music. You know, it was the newspaper headlines that followed that indicated how popular it was and how many people were cognizant of it. It worked — and others would follow suit.

You told me that Aerosmith didn’t really come by the offices. What are some of your favorite memories from the bands and artists who did?
By far, it was Kurt Cobain. I was preaching this idea that in a digital world, art need never die and that art can be unusual as well. There’s a lot of music that is made that is unusual and it cannot be delivered through analog means. I was looking for examples and so forth. Kurt came to the office with a suitcase in hand. In it, was every DAT tape he had made. He said, “I had someone run a DAT tape every time we did an in-store, every time we did a show. I’ve got them all here in this suitcase.” He said, “I picture a future where every one of these, you can access and give to your girlfriend, a copy of ‘All Apologies‘ every time you want to.” He said, “Because that’s not something we could sell today. We couldn’t print up a bunch of those and put them in a package and transfer them to stores and have them sold.” I think the point was that the future would enable you to deliver art that you could never deliver before — along with the idea that art need never die. You could bring new art to life that you would not otherwise have. That was an example that he had. I very much appreciated that. I remember saying something along the crazy lines of, “Kurt, you could kill two birds with one stone.” He stopped me and he said, “Jim, you feed two birds with one seed. You don’t kill two birds with one stone.” That stuck out to me as being a bit of Kurt Cobain’s genius.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse announced a “big unplanned break” and indefinitely postponed the remaining dates of their Love Earth tour.

The move came after the band had to call off a show in Chicago on May 23, a few hours before it was to begin. Two more concerts were called off later that week, with illness given as the reason.

They were scheduled to return to the road in July with dates running through September – but the schedule was dropped via a statement on Young’s website.

READ MORE: Neil Young and Crazy Horse Announce ‘Early Daze’ LP of Unreleased 1969 Tracks

“When a couple of us got sick after Detroit’s Pine Knob [the night before the first show was called off] we all had to stop,” the statement read. “We are still not fully recovered, so sadly our tour will have a big unplanned break. We will try to play some of the dates we miss as time passes when we are ready to rock again!”

Apologizing to those who’d made travel plans for postponed events, the band added: “Thanks for your understanding and patience. Health is #1. We want to stay and do more shows and more albums for you … and for us.”

The announcement affects seven shows in Canada and three in the U.S., including an appearance at the Ohana Festival in Dana Point, California, and one at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Why Neil Young Only Plays Outdoor Shows

Before the Love Earth tour began in April, Young explained that health considerations had led to his decision to play outdoor events only.

“We gotta be careful,” he said. “I imagine if you look at a regular group of 15,000 or 20,000 people, just randomly… then look at 15,000 or 20,000 people that all went to a show, and how many of them got Covid, I think you’d find people that went to a show inside have a lot more of a chance of getting sick.

“I don’t really need to do that. Willie Nelson told me he’s only playing outside now. I felt that was a good idea, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Former Motley Crue vocalist John Corabi could easily coast on his past glories. Instead, he’s been very intentional in recent years about the things that he does career-wise. “I’m trying to be my own person, not the guy that sang with Motley 30 years ago,” he tells UCR.

The same philosophy carries over to the Dead Daisies, the all-star collective that Corabi been part of off and on for close to a decade. As he details in the below conversation, while they could easily lean on music from the work they’ve all done collectively with bands and artists like Whitesnake, Ozzy Osbourne, Ratt, Dio and others, instead, they let the group’s music speak on its own terms.

When you see the Daisies play live, you can understand why they’ve chosen that path. They’ll throw in the occasional cover song instead. “We’re just showing people some of the songs we grew up listening to,” Corabi explains. Their own catalog, now seven albums deep, has also spawned a number of songs that are set list staples. Tracks like “Mexico” and “Long Way to Go” have road rock hooks that make them instantly memorable.

Recently during a brief U.S. tour building anticipation for their forthcoming album Light ‘Em Up, due this fall, Corabi shared some further insight with Ultimate Classic Rock Nights host Matt Wardlaw regarding their journey. He also had a choice memory about an early encounter with Gene Simmons of Kiss.

While the Dead Daisies is an all-star band on paper, I like that you guys treat it as its own thing.
I mean, it kind of is. You know what I mean? I’ve had fans come up to me and ask, “Why are you not playing ‘Man in the Moon’ or ‘Hooligan’s Holiday’?” I tell them, “If you want to see that, come and see me when I do solo shows. This is the Dead Daisies. One has nothing to do with the other. It is what it is. But I mean, it’s funny, it wasn’t that long ago that Doug [Aldrich] and I were talking. We’re like, “Man, it’s so weird. We’ve got enough original material that we could literally go out and do a three hour set.” It’s crazy to think that we’ve done like seven records now. But yeah, we leave that stuff [material from other bands] off of the table. It’s not about the Scream, Motley or Whitesnake. Yeah, it’s great that we played with those bands, but right now, we’re just trying to get this thing off the ground, so it’s all about the Daisies.

But the band also nods to its influences. I was listening to the live album today. I love how you’ll throw in something like “Join Together” by the Who.
Do you know what the best part of it is? In all actuality, we’re still fans. That’s our wheelhouse and that’s what we grew up with. We sometimes sit around a bar over a whiskey or a Guinness or whatever and talk about [the concerts we saw]. “Oh man, it was great in ‘84, I went and saw Van Halen at the Spectrum.” We talk about all of that. We’re very blessed to do what we do for a living, but it’s kind of geeky. We’re all like Rain Man with music. I grew up on Foghat, Humble Pie, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie. That’s my stuff. We’re just showing people some of the songs that we grew up listening to and some of the things that we loved when we were younger. We did “Join Together,” “Fortunate Son” [by Creedence Clearwater Revival], “Midnight Moses” [by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band] and “Evil,” which is an old blues song, but Cactus did it in the ‘70s. This is all shit we grew up listening to.

Listen to the Dead Daisies Perform ‘Join Together’

What brought you back around to the band?
I left for a couple of years, obviously. They got Glenn Hughes and did a couple of great records with Glenn and had a lot of fun. Glenn went back to do [his] Deep Purple [tribute] shows and Black Country Communion. His other commitments stepped in. [Band founder and guitarist] David [Lowy] called me back and said, “Hey dude, the door is open, do you want to come back?” So I know a lot of people don’t understand it, but it’s light. It’s great, The band has an identity, the Dead Daisies — and we have a sound. But I think he’s got it kind of set up like Coca-Cola. It doesn’t matter who the CEO is, the recipe’s going to stay the same. It’s kind of an odd thing, but it works. And it gives us freedom too. If I just said to David, “Hey dude, I don’t know if I can do August,” he’d say, “Okay, thanks for the heads up. Are you going to come back in September?” “Yeah.” “Okay, well we’ll just get somebody to take your place.” It’s kind of easy that way.

I saw one of the more unique Dead Daisies concerts. You guys were playing an arena in Toledo in 2016, opening for Kiss. The Daisies got pulled off stage because of a tornado that was coming through.
That was odd. You know, it was funny, David was really bummed out. He goes, “Man, I don’t get it, why did we have to stop playing?” They didn’t want us to leave the building, they just wanted us to stop playing. They were making announcements and I couldn’t hear them. But apparently, people were walking in the concourses and they were afraid that the tornado [might cause injuries] because of the glass in the concourse. So they were asking people to go back to their seats. So they pulled us [off stage] so they could make the announcement to get everybody to go back to their seats and get out of the concourse. I said, “Well, I get it. Welcome to the Midwest of America. Tornadoes…I live in Nashville, so we get this all of the time.” But he was kind of bummed out that we had to clip that show. It’s funny, I just met somebody else a couple of days ago that they were at that same show. I remember that well. [Laughs]

When you and I spoke that year, you told me Gene Simmons wanted to sign one of your early bands.
The band that I was in when I moved from Philadelphia to L.A. was called Angora. Gene still comes up to me and he’ll go, “Mr. Corabi, Angora? Worst band name in history.” [Laughs] He loved the band, but hated the name. He goes, “I’m going to change your name. We’re going to have to call you guys Eight Ball.” I’m thinking [he’s talking about] the drug. “Wait, Gene, Eight Ball? Like a pool thing?” He goes, “No, four guys, two balls each. Eight Ball.” So I go, “Okay, whatever!” But he just saw the band and he loved what we did. Gene Simmons could walk in this room right now — I wrote a song called “Hey Operator” — and still to this day, he will tell me, “‘Hey Operator,’ great song. Just an amazing song.” He loved the band and he started Simmons Records and wanted to sign us. Unfortunately, something happened that soured him with our manager.

Watch the Dead Daisies’ Video For ‘Light ‘Em Up’

Ozzy Osbourne is seen in a lighthearted new commercial for a drink powder, inspired by its customers.

Death Dust – a new product from Liquid Death – offers flavored drinks aimed at healthier living, so the Black Sabbath icon’s history with drugs, and powders in particular, seemed a perfect match.

Liquid Death made the connection after online chats about the Death Dust range. As Classic Rock reported, the manufacturers were asked; “Can I snort it?” and responded: “Death Dust is best when mixed with 16-19oz of water or tea. Please do not attempt to snort Death Dust.”

“Best if with water, just okay if snorted,” a user replied. Another said: “I am not hearing a ‘no’.”

READ MORE: Ozzy Osbourne’s Two Most Troubled Months: The Bat, the Alamo and Randy Rhoads

In the resulting ad, available below, Osbourne is seen in the back of a UV which pulls up just as two kids are preparing a drink of Death Dust. Harking back to his drug-taking years, Osbourne assumes they’re going to use it differently and warns them off, to their confusion.

“Take it from me – don’t snort that stuff!” he says. “Whatever you do, don’t try freebasing it… and never ever inject it.” The ad ends just as Osbourne is about to complete his explanation of what “boofing” a drug involves.

“Hey kids, Ozzy knows best,” Liquid Death commented in the style of real health advisories trying to connect with a younger demographic. “Take it from a guy who knows a thing or two about bad decisions: Liquid Death’s more intensely flavored Death Dust hydration powder is much safer when you mix it with water and drink it.”

Ozzy Osbourne’s Death Dust Commercial

Why Black Sabbath Hated One of Their Own Albums

The history of music can be divided into two parts: before the Beatles and after. Such was the potency of their influence, not only as songwriters and music makers, but as a business entity and industry role model.

Arguably the clearest example of how the Beatles changed the world within a matter of months is the period leading up to the release of their fourth U.S. album, 1964’s A Hard Day’s Night.

In February of that year, the Beatles made their first pilgrimage to America, performing on The Ed Sullivan Show which was televised to some 73 million viewers. (Among the list of musicians who would later cite this moment as the one in which they knew they wanted to be performing artists themselves: Billy Joel, Tom Petty, Gene Simmons, Joe Perry, Nancy Wilson and Bruce Springsteen.) Thanks in no small part to that television show, American audiences became nearly insatiable for all things Beatles.

READ MORE: Underrated Beatles: The Most Overlooked Song From Each Album

There was also the fact that the New York City radio station WMCA was granted the exclusive rights to play the A Hard Day’s Night film soundtrack album in full 10 days before it was scheduled to be released, which only fueled the fire and emphasized the unprecedented times. “There is little question that stations in a hotly competitive market who fail to get on important new records run serious risk of losing listeners to the competition,” Billboard reported in July of 1964.

“This culminated in advance orders of over two million for the soundtrack album, making A Hard Day’s Night potentially the biggest-selling album to date in the U.S.A.,” author Stephen Glynn wrote in his book A Hard Day’s Night: Turner Classic Movies British Film Guide. “Before the final print of the film had been released by the laboratory, the tie-in soundtrack album, itself still at the presses, had not only guaranteed itself No. 1 position in the charts, but had ensured that the budget of £200,000 had already been exceeded twice over in profits.”

An Unexpected Change of Plans

Though no one was quite sure what to make of the phenomenon known as Beatlemania, it seemed to make sense to United Artists Records, who had the rights to the A Hard Day’s Night soundtrack, to take advantage of this popularity and stage a rush-release of the album in America. Thus, the American edition of the album came out on June 26, 1964. It included all seven songs from the film soundtrack, plus “I’ll Cry Instead” and four instrumental, orchestral versions arranged by George Martin: “I Should Have Known Better,” “And I Love Her,” “Ringo‘s Theme (This Boy),” and “A Hard Day’s Night.”

This was followed, finally, by a U.K. edition, whose track listing is the one most people are familiar with, released on July 10, four days after the film premiered in London. The LP spent 21 consecutive weeks at the No. 1 spot there, and things worked out well in the States, too — by the time the movie came out in the U.S. on Aug. 11, A Hard Day’s Night was the No. 1 album in the country.

Listen to the Title Track to ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

Even with the enormous triumph of both the album and the film, the Beatles themselves were still trying to keep up with their fame, which had been thrust upon them so swiftly they hardly knew what to do next.

“With all of the success that you people have had, what do you plan to do with all of the money that you’ve now made?” they were asked at a press conference on August 18, 1964.

“Uh, dunno really,” Paul McCartney answered. “We don’t make plans.”

Eagles have extended their recently confirmed residency at the immersive Sphere in Las Vegas. They’ll now appear for a total of 16 concerts over eight weekends in September through December. An updated list of dates at the state-of-the-art facility is below.

General on-sale for the four new weekend concerts begins at 10 AM PT on July 12 at their official website. Presale with limited VIP ticket packages begins on July 9, with a Live Nation presale on July 11. Both are also at 10 AM PT. VIP packages include parking, premium seats and exclusive merchandise.

Eagles announced an initial series of eight Sphere shows just two weeks ago. They’ve since completed two more Long Goodbye tour concerts, held June 14 and 15 in Arnhem, Netherlands.

READ MORE: 10 Great Songs From Eagles’ Extended Musical Family

This run of shows places Eagles among a select few to perform so far at Sphere. U2‘s Achtung Baby Live residency was the first, followed by Phish‘s four-night stand in April. Dead & Company began their 30-show residency at Sphere in May and will continue through August.

Which Dates Have Been Added to Eagles’ Sphere Residency?

Eagles’ new concerts at the Sphere are Friday, Dec. 6 and Saturday, Dec. 7, then Friday, Dec. 13 and Saturday, Dec. 14. Tickets start at $175 and reflect all-in pricing, so the listed cost includes all taxes and fees.

Their Long Goodbye tour launched last September, seven years after the 2016 death of co-founder Glenn Frey. His son has been part of their expanded subsequent lineup, along with country star Vince Gill.

They’ve said all along that they would keep adding dates as long as there was an audience demand. That led Don Henley to quip at one so-called farewell show in Los Angeles: “Welcome to whatever this is.”

Eagles – Live in Concert at Sphere
Friday, Sept. 20
Saturday, Sept. 21
Friday, Sept. 27
Saturday, Sept. 28
Friday, Oct. 11
Saturday, Oct. 12
Friday, Oct. 18
Saturday, Oct. 19
Friday, Nov. 1
Saturday, Nov. 2
Friday, Nov. 8
Saturday, Nov. 9
Friday, Dec. 6
Saturday, Dec. 7
Friday, Dec. 13
Saturday, Dec. 14

Six Little-Known Eagles ‘Hotel California’ Facts

Jeremy Allen White has already agreed to take on the role of Bruce Springsteen in an upcoming biopic about the making of 1982’s stripped-down Nebraska. But will he sing?

“We’re gonna try,” White confirmed to Variety at the Tuesday premiere of his TV show The Bear. “We’re gonna try our best.”

The cast of Deliver Me to Nowhere is also rumored to include Paul Walter Hauser (Black Bird, Richard Jewell) as Springsteen’s longtime guitar tech Mike Batlan and Odessa Young (High Life, The Stand) as a love interest. Scott Cooper is directing the 20th Century Studios movie, which is based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book of the same name.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Bruce Springsteen Album

White revealed that he hasn’t met Springsteen yet, and that’s been a purposeful choice.

“We’ve communicated a little bit through some other people, but I hope this still all comes together,” he said. “We’ve still got a few things, we’ve got some timing stuff to work out – and I’m trying to have a bit of my own process with it before meeting the man, too. I wanna try to have an understanding, so when I meet him, I’ll have a bit of confidence somewhere in me to stand there.”

The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’

Springsteen originally completed a series of four-track song sketches in late 1981 and early 1982 in the hopes of presenting them for proper recording with the E Street Band. They ran through the songs, and drummer Max Weinberg has hailed the results. “It was killing; it was all very hard-edged,” he told Rolling Stone in 2010.

Ultimately, however, Springsteen decided to release the stripped-down demos as they were – and Nebraska became a platinum-selling Top 5 hit. “As great as it was, it wasn’t what Bruce wanted to release,” Weinberg added. “There is a full band Nebraska album, all of those songs are in the can somewhere.”

Springsteen liked some of what he heard at the so-called Electric Nebraska sessions. Several songs ended up on his subsequent Born in the U.S.A. album. Still, Springsteen manager Jon Landau has said that the E Street Band’s take on Nebraska will likely never see the light of day. “In my judgment,” he has said, “the right version of Nebraska came out.”

Why Bruce Springsteen Called Killers Collaboration ‘Cathartic’

Alice Cooper ruffled a few feathers in 1969 when his fans killed a live chicken at Toronto’s Rock and Roll Revival Festival.

“The audience tears it to pieces,” Cooper recalled this week on A&E’s Biography: Alice Cooper. “It was the peace and love festival. They tear it to pieces and throw it back up on the stage, so there’s blood everywhere – feathers and blood.”

Rumors began to spread that he’d purposely pulled the stunt at the University of Toronto’s 20,000-capacity Varsity Stadium, and even that he’d drunk the bird’s blood. It didn’t take long for word to reach Cooper’s label boss Frank Zappa, who called the next day.

READ MORE: Most Underrated Alice Cooper Songs

“Did you kill a chicken onstage last night?” Cooper remembers Zappa asking. “I said, ‘There was a chicken. I didn’t kill it, though.’ He goes, ‘Don’t tell anybody. They love it.’ He says, ‘It’s everywhere in the press!’ I immediately went, ‘Perfect.’ The chicken story then became huge: ‘Who is this monster who would do this at a rock show?'”

Turns out, this whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. “You have to remember I’m from Detroit,” Cooper says. “I had never been on a farm in my life. It had wings, it had feathers – it should fly. I picked up the chicken and I flung it into the audience, figuring it would fly away and somebody would take it and take it home and call it ‘Alice Cooper.'”

The Gruesome Legend of Alice Cooper Grows

Of course, that’s not what happened. Chickens are flightless birds. “I threw it out there,” Cooper acknowledges, “and it fell straight down into the audience.”

The crowd in Toronto that day included John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and Cooper said the decidedly avant-garde couple approved. “They thought it was art – because it’s chaos,” he added. Still, the rumors continued and in some cases were expanded upon, even as animal rights activists gathered before Cooper’s concerts.

“My reputation was just insane. I didn’t have to do anything,” Cooper admits. “They were inventing their own Alice Cooper myth. People were just discovering Alice Cooper, and I was just discovering him – so we were all doing it at the same time.”

Was Alice Cooper’s ‘Muscle of Love’ Doomed to Fail?

Journey boasts an embarrassment of set list riches as they prepare to jump to stadiums in July. Earlier 2024 shows featured hit after hit after hit. Yet, as shown on our list of Top 10 Songs Journey Hasn’t Played Yet in 2024, there is still room for more key cuts.

Before this next round of dates with Def Leppard and a rotating group of support acts that includes Cheap Trick, Heart and Steve Miller, Journey played a series of well-received concerts with Toto. “Any Way You Want It,” “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” made appearances every night, according to Setlist.fm.

The concerts also almost always featured stalwart Journey favorites “Be Good to Yourself,” “Faithfully,” “Lights,” “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’,” “Only the Young” (typically as the opener), “Open Arms,” “Send Her My Love,” “Stone in Love,” “Wheel in the Sky,” “Who’s Crying Now” and “Girl Can’t Help It.”

READ MORE: Ranking Every Journey Album

Many shows included “Let It Rain” from Journey’s latest studio effort, 2022’s Freedom. Beyond that, the group occasionally mixed in tracks that included “Mother, Father,” the title track from Escape, “Ask the Lonely,” “Dead or Alive,” “Just the Same Way,” “Keep On Runnin’,” “Feeling That Way/Anytime” and “Chain Reaction.”

So what’s left? Here’s our look at the Top 10 Songs Journey Hasn’t Played Yet in 2024.

 
No. 10. “Where Did I Lose Your Love”
From: Revelation (2008)

Playing this Top 20 Billboard adult-contemporary hit would remind fans that Arnel Pineda doesn’t need an old song to approximate Journey’s familiar arena-ballad sound. On one level, “Where Did I Lose Your Love” is very much in the style of their Escape / Frontiers era. Drummer Deen Castronovo and Jonathan Cain, who co-wrote this track with Neal Schon, even close things out with a fierce entanglement that must have brought older fans right back to “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart).” But Pineda adds a few new wrinkles along the way to ultimately move past the Steve Perry comparisons.

 
No. 9. “Where Were You”
From: Departure (1980)

This wasn’t a hit, but it holds a unique place in their breakout era: Journey regularly opened their concerts with “Where Were You,” as heard on 1981’s Captured. The song also served as the first song on Side Two of Departure. There’s a reason for that: “Where Were You” just leaps out of the speakers. They were just coming off an opening gig with AC/DC, and clearly the headliner’s knack for outsized, riffy rockers rubbed off.

 
No. 8. “Only Solutions”
From: Tron (1982)

Journey is already playing a pair of soundtrack songs, including “Only the Young” from Vision Quest and “Ask the Lonely” from Two of a Kind. Why not one more? The hooky “Only Solutions” would have greatly enlivened what turned out to be a letdown on Side Two of Frontiers. Instead, it became unjustly overlooked after being barely used in the film at all. Time to right this wrong.

 
No. 7. “When You Love a Woman”
From: Trial By Fire (1996)

This probably isn’t going to happen, if only because Journey would have to trade “When You Love a Woman” for one of their other radio-favorite power ballads. They also don’t have the original session’s too-sweet string section to complete the sentimentality. Still, “When You Love a Woman” was a gold-selling No. 12 smash. Fans would love it.

 
No. 6. “All the Way”
From: Arrival (2001)

Performing this song wouldn’t be about recalling a forgotten hit so much as resurrecting an unjustly overlooked era. As their first album without Steve Perry, Arrival had its work cut out. Journey responded by zeroing in on the successful formula they developed when Jonathan Cain joined the band in the ’80s. Cain was game, co-writing this instantly familiar love song with Schon, Michael Rhodes and the newly installed Steve Augeri. “All the Way” may not have been a big hit, but it showed Journey could still be Journey even without their famous former frontman.

 
No. 5. “Still They Ride”
From: Escape (1981)

The song’s deep association with Perry may not be doing it any favors. Cain and Schon earned co-songwriting credits on “Still They Ride,” and Steve Smith showed off an accomplished dexterity. But the final charting single from Escape will always belong to Perry. Jesse, this dreamer who refuses to give up on his youthful reverie, was Steve Perry’s ultimate metaphoric character. Nevertheless, live performances of “Still They Ride” always gave Schon an opportunity to expand on one of his most emotive performances on guitar.

 
No. 4. “I’ll Be Alright Without You”
From: Raised on Radio (1986)

Same here. Schon earned a co-writing credit with Cain and Perry after trying out a then-new guitar while in search of a distinct sound for this song. Best known for using a 1963 Fender Stratocaster, Schon experimented with a graphite Roland 707 to see if he could get a different, more even tone. It worked: “I’ll Be Alright Without You” remains Journey’s penultimate Top 20 hit, followed by 1996’s “When You Love a Woman.” Cain, like Perry, was going through a breakup and called this track the other half of the emotions expressed in “Once You Love Somebody.”

 
No. 3. “After the Fall”
From: Frontiers (1983)

This song makes the first studio connection to the bassist who played on two Journey albums, including their most recent, 2022’s Freedom. Randy Jackson, later of American Idol fame, took over on “After the Fall” in order to capture the sound Perry first sketched out in the demo phase. He’d play on the Frontiers followup, 1986’s Raised on Radio and the subsequent tour – Journey’s last with Perry. Current drummer Deen Castronovo’s hero Steve Smith departed too, not before proving himself utterly invaluable on “After the Fall.”

 
No. 2. “Suzanne”
From: Raised on Radio (1986)

This soaring No. 17 ode to unrequited love would help balance an always ballad-heavy set list. (“Suzanne” was written in tribute to an actual crush, though Steve Perry never revealed her actual identity.) Perry and Cain continued delving into R&B, with Schon sidelined from the songwriting process. The liner notes actually listed Cain as a “programmer,” in a nod to work done on his Oberheim DMX drum machine before Larrie Londin was brought in to mimic the part. Still, both vibes are very much in keeping with Journey’s most recent album, Freedom.

 
No. 1. “The Party’s Over (Hopelessly in Love)”
From: Captured (1981)

What better way to end the main set before returning for a rousing encore? “The Party’s Over (Hopelessly in Love)” heralded Journey’s transformation into sleek hitmakers just before Cain entered the lineup. This Top 40 hit studio song was tacked onto a live record after Perry began ruminating on bass backstage in Detroit. He already had Schon’s guitar line in his head, so he sang it to him. They rounded out a temporary studio lineup with keyboardist Stevie “Keys” Roseman, a Bay Area friend who was recording nearby. Heartbreak has never sounded so offhandedly joyous.

See Neal Schon Among Rock’s Forgotten Supergroups

Tom Petty’s songwriting output could make any artist or band quite jealous. But for all of the things that did make it to the radio, many compositions just sat on the shelf.

Then there were the tracks Petty and his band, the Heartbreakers, recorded numerous times, searching to capture the right feel. “Lazarus songs,” was the term that guitarist Mike Campbell applied to that segment of the results of their working relationship — the ones which always seemed to resurface.

But Petty, who died in 2017, also had an unfailing creative vision, as producer George Drakoulias explained to UCR during a recent conversation. He had a fierce dedication to — in his mind — getting it right. Listening to Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty, the new tribute album which arrived June 21, it’s not hard to see how much that focus paid off.

People like Chris Stapleton, Margo Price, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Rhiannon Giddens, Dierks Bentley and numerous others offer their interpretations of a wide variety of material from Petty’s catalog, from hits to album tracks and beyond. These all-star affairs can sometimes be a treacherous listening experience by the time they make it to the headphones, but as a collection, Petty Country connects.

Drakoulias thinks that Petty himself is a big reason that it all hangs together. No matter the song, he was often writing from the same place: his heart. “He was this guy who was so low-key and could talk about anything,” he says now. “You could tell him anything and he wasn’t judgmental. It was a fantastic conduit to where these great songs came from. He was able to channel that stuff.

The producer joined Ultimate Classic Rock Nights host Matt Wardlaw to discuss Petty Country as well as other moments in Petty’s career.

How did this project first begin?
You know, Tom did love country music. He kind of loved cowboys. That’s part of what got him into music was the singing cowboy. He was obsessed with seeing Ricky Nelson and things like that on TV. And then of course, it goes to Elvis [Presley]. Once he meets Elvis, it’s all hillbillies and that kind of thing. Then, the Beatles blow everything up at that point. The world goes from black and white to Technicolor, after the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan. I think we just wanted a way to honor his songwriting. They put out An American Treasure a few years ago, but I don’t think he gets his due as this great songwriter. The fact that we have 20 different people interpreting his stuff and it all holds up, just shows you the power of his songs. We wanted to honor him in that way. He liked the Nashville community. He’d certainly rock a Nudie suit and he was obsessed with beautiful acoustic guitars and those kinds of sounds. He was influenced by the Byrds and [things like] the Sweetheart of the Rodeo record. It’s always been this thing hanging on the back wall. It wasn’t like we did a disco Petty record. [Laughs] Or a reggae record. Although, I’d like to hear a reggae version of some of these things.

READ MORE: ‘Petty Country’ Earns Acclaim From Mike Campbell

I appreciate how each of the artists really brought their own thing to it, while also honoring elements like the certain inflection Tom would put on some of his vocal phrases that are pretty sacred.
There’s some things I really wish he was here to hear. I think if he heard Chris Stapleton’s version of “I Should Have Known It,” he would have just gone crazy. It kind of reminds me of when they first rehearsed with [Dave] Grohl for Saturday Night Live. He said, “This sound just came from the drums.” Tom’s vocal, it’s not the same thing….Stapleton’s like a foghorn. [Laughs] He’s got this belty kind of thing, which Tom wasn’t a belter — and that’s not a negative, he just wasn’t that kind of guy. The way that Stapleton [approaches it] is so fun. I think he would have been blown away and would have probably looked at me like, “What the hell is going on here?” I met Chris maybe 10 years ago, when he was just a songwriter. He had that band, the SteelDrivers. I met him at a barbecue and they pulled out the acoustic guitars, he started singing and I had to move three stools down, just because it was so powerful! That’s a great one. You know, Dolly [Parton], I think she really nails it. Tom’s approach to “Southern Accents,” he has this edge [on his vocal] where Dolly’s thing is more Magnolia bushes and this sweetness — but it’s just as powerful and effective. It’s just a different way of wrapping around it. Everybody really brought their A game with the vocals and kind of put their own thing on it.

Listen to Chris Stapleton Perform ‘I Should Have Known It’

When we spoke to Mike Campbell recently, he called “Ways to Be Wicked” an example of the “Lazarus songs” in the Tom Petty catalog. How did you all come back around to doing a version of that song with Margo Price?
They cut it about three or four times, Mike told me. It was another one of these songs that Jimmy [Iovine] kind of took. Tom told me the story about Maria McKee when she cut it [with Lone Justice]. He goes, “I’m backstage and Jimmy shows up with this girl singer and she’s going, ‘Thank you so much for the song, it’s so great and we love it.’ I’m looking at her going, ‘Oh yeah, you’re welcome,’ I have no idea what she’s talking about.” Jimmy had gone and cut the song with her. It’s funny, because that version is great. I’ve worked with Maria McKee too — she’s fantastic and I love her — but that was kind of a pop record. [Later] I remember I worked on this version that was more of a jam. I sent that to Margo [Price] – she had tried to cut something else [prior to that]. She called me and said, “I don’t think I nailed it. I don’t really believe it.” I said, “Well, why don’t you try this one?” She didn’t know it before and she certainly didn’t know it from Maria and she wouldn’t have known it from Tom, because it came out on [Playback], this greatest hits box set kind of thing. We landed on that and her band was just the right amount of on the edge. We cut it and it was a lot of fun.

Every band has songs like that in their catalog in a certain state of flux. Tom had a number of them.
Yeah, another one was “Surrender,” which is another one they tried to cut a bunch of different times. They put it out eventually, but it always felt like they never finished the song. I worked on the Playback box set and it was just so great to look into the vaults and play stuff for them. I’d look at Mike and Tom and I’d be like, “What was wrong with this one?” They’re like, “I don’t know what we were thinking!” It was like, “Jimmy thought it was too country” or “We had too many slow ones at that point.” I’m like, “You guys are crazy. I can’t believe you left this stuff off.” With Iovine, we used to have this conversation, he’d tell me — and I agree with him — Tom’s B material is better than a lot of people’s A material. You would kill to have a song like that on your record.

Listen to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Perform ‘Surrender’

What did you come to appreciate about Tom’s approach to his craft?
Two things. One, how seriously he took it, even with throwaway songs. He respected songwriting so much. Also, I learned so much just being around him. I learned how to make records and how to keep records in front of you. I remember we were doing The Last DJ and mixing the song “Joe.” He’d come down in the morning and we’d play him what we’d done. We were kind of live mixing, doing it on the faders and stuff. We’d play it for him, make any adjustments and then print it. With “Joe,” we talked about Pink Floyd and “Echoes” and that kind of stuff. He came down and we played it. The tape stopped and he said, “Wow, that’s something else. You guys, that’s fantastic. It’s everything we talked about. Look how you did that with that section.” But he goes, “I’ve got to be honest, I’m not in the record.” I’m like, “What do you mean?” He goes, “I don’t know where I am. I’m lost.” I kind of looked at him for a second and said, “Okay.” I said, “Give me 10 minutes.” He went out, had a coffee and a cigarette or whatever in the lounge. When he came back, we’d tightened some stuff up, moved him up front, and he’s like, “There I am, let’s print. Come on, let’s go!” I’ve found working with great people like that — people like David Fincher and other directors, Todd Phillips is another one — when you’re working with great people who are confident and respect you and what you’re doing, they get the best out of you and you get the best out of them. So even Tom, when he’s telling you “No” and “This is not really what I was thinking,” there’s a way where he tells you and he guides you, that he gets you to where you need to be. Everybody gets there and it’s a big win at the end.

This Petty Country album brought me back to certain songs in the catalog. I’m not sure how much that happened for you, but for instance, Jamey Johnson’s version of “I Forgive it All,” is one of them.
Tom’s singing that in his 60s and a guy singing it in his 40s, it’s a different perspective. It’s strange, it takes on a different [tone]. I don’t know why and it shouldn’t, necessarily, but it certainly has a different feel and connotation. As opposed to a guy looking back later in life, it’s a guy looking at his life mid-life and saying, “Okay, I’m going to let this go.” The Mudcrutch version is a very traditional folk arrangement, with no drums or percussion. Jamey’s kind of put this finger-picking pattern [into his version] that’s kind of changed the lean of it. His vocals have this country cadence and a harmonica break that’s really nice.

Listen to Jamey Johnson Perform ‘I Forgive It All’

We’re now three decades down the road from the Wildflowers album. How much were you able to appreciate in the moment what was happening with that record?
It’s strange. When we were doing it, it wasn’t like, “Oh, this is the greatest thing ever. This is going to live on.” Instead, it was kind of like, “This is what we did.” What are we doing at one o’clock? We’re going to go to Mike’s and work on this thing for a while. If it’s Thursday, we’re going to stop at nine o’clock and watch Seinfeld. If it’s Wednesday, we’re going to look at The Recycler and see if there’s any guitars or keyboards we want to go out to Ventura or send Bugs out to Pacoima to go look at a 12-string Vox — weird one-off instruments like that. I affectionately call it a lifestyle record. That’s what we did. We just got together and told jokes. The material was great. We knew that. Everyone was firing on all cylinders. It really felt good. We were having a great time, “Listen to that song he just played.” I remember “Don’t Fade On Me,” we cut that a bunch. We cut it in the control room with two guitars in Mike’s house. Every time we listened to it, you’re going, “This is fucking great.” What a spooky, scary track, the way they play it together. I guess you take it for granted, in a weird way. But it was just like, “This is what we do.” You’re in this moment and you’re not thinking about that. At least I wasn’t. Tom probably was. He really wanted to make a statement [with Wildflowers]. And of course, we all wanted to make a statement, but it was like, “Let’s hope they like this one” kind of moments.

Face it: Most Rolling Stones live albums can seem like quick cash grabs or stop-gaps between their studio records, as you’ll see in the below list of Rolling Stones Live Albums Ranked.

For every classic Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! there are two or three records such as the mostly forgettable 1991 concert set Flashpoint. Few bands have damaged their stage legacy as much as the Stones; then again, few acts have remained as active as the Stones for so many years. So it comes with the territory.

Still, how often do live albums get to the heart of a band? In the Rolling Stones’ case, they felt the need to chronicle almost every one of their tours on record once they proclaimed themselves the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band on the planet. So that means every single bump along the way – the drugs, the bloat, the greed – often seeps into the records.

READ MORE: The Rolling Stones, ‘Hackney Diamonds’ Album Review

That also means there are some truly inspired performances – like 1970’s historic Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! (when the Stones truly were the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band on the planet) and even an album as late as 2008’s Shine a Light, in which they ripped away all the celebrity, bloat and greed for a brief moment.

From their first, vibrant (but barely discernible) live recording to latter-day “official bootlegs,” we take a look at the band’s many concert LPs over the years in the below list of the Rolling Stones Live Albums Ranked.

Filmmaker Martyn Atkins has filed a lawsuit against Warner Music’s production branch over their use of some allegedly stolen footage in a 2021 documentary about Tom Petty.

Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers was directed by Mary Wharton and featured new interviews with people like Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers as it detailed the making of Petty’s 1994 solo album. It also included never-before-seen-footage, culled from hours of 16mm archival film that Wharton was given access to via Petty’s daughter, Adria.

“A lot of it was dictated by what was good and what we could find sound for,” Wharton told UCR in 2021, speaking to how they sorted through the footage, because, she explained.  “either the reels were not properly organized afterwards or properly labeled.”

In Atkins lawsuit, he claims that he did not give Warner Music, whom Petty signed with back in 1989 and stayed with until his death in 2017, permission to use “a shocking 45 minutes” (via Billboard) of footage that he shot in the ’90s and that he was “not compensated in any manner for the film’s unauthorized, brazen exploitation of the works Atkins created and owns.” (The film itself is 90 minutes long.)

Atkins Met With the Tom Petty Team

Atkins, who frequently photographed Petty in the ’90s and served as his art director during the making of Wildflowers, also claims that he had discussed making a documentary film about Petty at the time. After Petty’s death, he met with Adria and the estate representatives and was allegedly promised that he could direct a film and therefore shared the file location of much of his material.

“Atkins had been conned into believing he would produce and direct the film so that Atkins would reveal the location of his footage to defendants,” the lawsuit claims. It also asserts that the producers of Somewhere You Feel Free “repeatedly misrepresented” the film’s footage as having been “magically and unexpectedly discovered” before being used in the movie. “The film’s producers have systematically implemented this false narrative to manipulate the viewing public and bolster the marketing of the film,” the suit reads. (Press releases from 2021 regarding the film describe the footage as “newly discovered.”)

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Tom Petty Album

Atkins claims that following his meeting with the Petty team, he was left out of the loop entirely.

“He was then cut out completely — in every imaginable respect,” the suit says. “He was not even told as a courtesy that his works would be misappropriated and featured, let alone asked his consent.”

A lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America is demanding compensation of $150,000 for each song allegedly copied by artificial intelligence startups Suno and Udio.

The corporations are accused of breaching copyright laws to create clones of hit singles by the RIAA, which says it represents around 85 per cent of all legal music sales in the U.S. including the major labels.

“”The use here [of AI] is far from transformative,” the complainers argued in the suit, filed in New York and Massachusetts federal courts. “There is no functional purpose for… the AI model to ingest the Copyrighted Recordings other than to spit out new, competing music files.”

READ MORE: Singers Offered AI Voice Cloning by World’s Biggest Record Label

The BBC reported that an AI-produced song called “Prancing Queen” was cited as an example, with the RIAA arguing that it was difficult to distinguish it from a genuine ABBA song.

“[The] motive is brazenly commercial and threatens to displace the genuine human artistry that is at the heart of copyright protection,” the complained continued, adding that if AI corporations were exempted from “playing by the rules,” it could lead to the collapse of “the entire music ecosystem.”

Suno – which recently attracted $125 million investment as it launched its one-click songwriting service – and Udio had not commented at time of writing. AI firms have previously argued that using artists’ work to train models is legal “fair use” of the work in line with creating parody pieces and delivering news reports.

John 5 took to social media to refute allegations that he mimed his guitar parts onstage with Motley Crue.

These claims have been peddled on YouTube over the past few days and shared by certain rock and metal sites. One such video asserted that 5 was not playing during “Wild Side” — and at first glance, it does indeed look like the song continues while the guitarist is not moving his hands.

However, in a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday morning (which you can watch below), 5 addressed these accusations and offered a technical explanation for what he was doing. “I do this thing where I flip the pick around on my neck,” he said, tossing his guitar pick in the air and catching it to complete the riff in question. He also responded to claims that his “hand isn’t even on the guitar” while playing “Too Fast for Love,” demonstrating his use of hammer-ons and pull-offs during the single-string riff.

“Very simple. It’s not a big thing,” he concluded. “A lot of things are played with one hand. A lot of musicians know this. So, nothing to worry about, no backing tracks.”

READ MORE: Top 50 Motley Crue Songs

Backing Track Allegations Have Dogged Motley Crue for Years

The alleged use of backing tracks was a point of contention in former Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars‘ 2023 lawsuit against his bandmates. Mars claimed that after he announced his retirement from touring, his bandmates tried to rip him off financially and fully remove him from the band. The guitarist alleged that during the band’s 2022 Stadium Tour, bassist Nikki Sixx “continually ‘gaslighted’ Mars by telling him that he [Mars] had some sort of cognitive dysfunction and that his guitar playing was subpar, claiming that Mars forgot chords, and sometimes started playing the wrong songs.”

“Astonishingly, Sixx made these claims about Mars’ playing while he [Sixx] did not play a single note on bass during the entire U.S. tour,” the suit continued. “Ironically, 100% of Sixx’s bass parts were nothing but recordings. Sixx was seen fist pumping in the air with his strumming hand, while the bass part was playing. In fact, a significant portion of [Vince] Neil‘s vocals were also pre-recorded. Even some of [Tommy] Lee‘s drum parts were recordings. Some fans actually noticed that Lee was walking toward his drum set as they heard his drum part begin.”

Although Motley Crue has been candid about their use of backing tracks and additional technology since the ’80s, the band claimed in a May 2023 response to a disgruntled fan on Facebook that “THERE WERE NO BACKING TRACKS FOR BAND MEMBERS.”

 

Motley Crue Lineup Changes: A Complete Guide

The complete story of Motley Crue’s lineup changes.

Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening

Peter Frampton has announced a new run of tour dates leading up to his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in October.

The Positively Thankful Tour will launch on Sept. 8 in North Charleston, South Carolina, and run through September 23 in Northfield, Ohio.

“It’s been an incredible year for me and my band so far,” Frampton noted in a press release announcing the dates. “First the nomination, then you guys voted like crazy and got me into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Come September, we’ll be back out for nine more shows on the Positively Thankful Tour.”

READ MORE: 25 Songs That Almost Ruined Classic Albums

Frampton wrapped up his Never Ever Say Never Tour in April. The veteran singer and guitarist was diagnosed with inclusion body myositis (IBM), a degenerative disease of the muscles, in 2019. He then went on a farewell tour to mark the end of his decades on the road.

But he then decided to tour again. “I’m allowed to change my mind — that I wanted to quit while I was ahead and could still play at the top of my game,” he told UCR in 2023. “And things have slipped a little, but my band said, ‘What are you talking about? We can’t notice any difference.’ So I said, ‘Well, I know,’ because of the choices that I would make in an ad-lib solo, which is what I do all night. My choices are different, but they’re not worse. It’s just a different way of playing.”

Where Is Peter Frampton Playing in 2024?

After the upcoming Positively Thankful Tour starts in South Carolina on Sept. 8, the shows will continue in Washington, D.C., New York and Richmond, Virginia, for nine dates.

Tickets will be available at 10 a.m. local time on June 28 at Frampton’s website. You can see the full list of new tour dates below.

On Oct. 19, Frampton – along with Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Kool & the Gang, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest – will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

After his induction into the new class was announced in April, Frampton said he was left speechless by the honor. “I think I’m a little bit in shock,” he said. “I never expected this. People always said, ‘You should be in.’ I said, ‘Eh, what is to be,’ you know? So mixed emotions, because it’s something that I just never expected, whereas other people did for me. It’s wonderful.”

Peter Frampton, the Positively Thankful Tour 2024
September 8 — North Charleston, SC — North Charleston Performing Arts Center
September 10 — Washington, D.C. — The Warner Theatre
September 12 — New York, NY — The Beacon Theatre
September 13 — Albany, NY — Palace Theatre
September 15 — Westport, CT — Levitt Pavilion for the Performing Arts
September 17 — Richmond, VA — Virginia Credit Union LIVE!
September 19 — Philadelphia, PA — The Metropolitan Opera House
September 21 — Niagara Falls, NY — Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel
September 23 — Northfield, OH — MGM Northfield Park

Adrian Belew, Tony Levin, Steve Vai and Danny Carey have expanded their upcoming BEAT tour, adding 21 new dates to the ’80s King Crimson-focused trek.

The new string of dates begins on Nov. 18 in Thousand Oaks, California, and concludes on Dec. 18 in Highland, California. The expansion brings the trek up to 65 dates in total, with several shows already sold out.

Tickets for the new shows go on sale to the general public on Friday. You can see the full list of dates below.

READ MORE: How Adrian Belew Put Together His ’80s King Crimson Celebration

Details on the Upcoming BEAT Tour

The highly anticipated BEAT tour will focus on three King Crimson albums: 1981’s Discipline, 1982’s Beat and 1984’s Three of a Perfect Pair. The first of those albums marked Belew’s debut with the band, and the guitarist expressed his enthusiasm for that era in a statement.

“The 1981 through 1984 King Crimson created a music all its own,” Belew said. “Timeless. Beautiful. Complex. Fierce. For the fans who lived through it then, and the ones who never got to witness it, our aim is to bring it to life again. A monumental task but we’re going for it! There are not enough exclamation points to express my excitement!”

BEAT 2024 Tour – New Dates
11/18 – Thousand Oaks, CA @ B of A PAC
11/20 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Civic
11/21 – Reno, NV @ Grand Theatre at The Grand Sierra Resort
11/22 – Portland, OR @ Keller Auditorium
11/23 – Eugene, OR @ McDonald Theatre
11/25 – Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum Theatre
11/26 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
11/30 – Hammond, IN @ The Venue at Horseshoe
12/02 – Buffalo, NY @ UB Center for the Arts
12/03 – Hartford, CT @ Mortensen Hall at the Bushnell Center
12/04 – Wilkes-Barre, PA @ F.M. Kirby Center
12/06 – Lynn, MA @ Lynn Auditorium
12/07 – Atlantic City, NJ @ Tropicana Showroom
12/08 – Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
12/10 – Louisville, KY @ Brown Theatre
12/11 – St. Louis, MO @  The Factory
12/13 – Oklahoma City, OK @ The Criterion
12/14 – San Antonio, TX @ Majestic Theatre
12/16 – Albuquerque, NM @ Revel
12/17 – Tucson, AZ @ Fox Tucson Theatre
12/18 – Highland, CA @ Yaamava’ Theater

Previously Announced Shows
9/12 – San Jose, CA @ San Jose Civic
9/13 – Napa, CA @ Blue Note Napa Summer Sessions at Meritage Resort
9/14 – Los Angeles, CA @ The United Theater on Broadway
9/15 – Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove of Anaheim
9/17 – San Diego, CA @ Humphrey’s Concerts
9/18 – Phoenix, AZ @ Celebrity Theatre
9/20 – Austin, TX @ The Paramount Theatre
9/21 – Houston, TX @ Bayou Music Centre
9/22 – Dallas, TX @ Majestic Theatre
9/24 – Atlanta, GA @ The Eastern
9/26 – Fort Lauderdale, FL @ The Parker
9/27 – Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
9/28 – Clearwater, FL @ Ruth Eckerd Hall
9/29 – Charleston, SC @ Charleston Music Hall
10/01 – Charlotte, NC @ Knight Theater
10/02 – Durham, NC @ Carolina Theatre of Durham
10/04 -Washington, DC @ Warner Theatre
10/05 – New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
10/06 – Glenside, PA @ Keswick Theatre
10/08 – Richmond, VA @ Carpenter Theater in Dominion Energy Center
10/09 – Red Bank, NJ @ Count Basie Center
10/11 – Boston, MA @ Shubert Theatre
10/12 – Hampton Beach, NH @ Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
10/14 – Halifax, NS @ Rebecca Cohen Auditorium
10/15 – Moncton, NB @ Casino New Brunswick
10/17 – Montreal, QC @ Theatre Maisonneuve
10/18 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
10/19 – Rochester, NY @ Kodak Center
10/21 – Albany, NY @ The Egg
10/22 – Greensburg, PA @ Palace Theatre
10/23 – Reading, PA @ Santander Performing Arts Center
10/25 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre
10/26 – Cincinnati, OH @ Taft Theatre
10/27 – Royal Oak, MI @ Royal Oak Music Theatre
10/28 – Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
10/30 – Indianapolis, IN @ Murat Theatre
11/01 – Chicago, IL @ Copernicus Center
11/02 – Milwaukee, WI @ Pabst Theatre
11/03 – Madison, WI @ Orpheum Theater
11/04 – Minneapolis, MN @ State Theatre
11/06 – Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre
11/08 – Las Vegas, NV @ The Theater at Virgin Hotels

Ted Nugent says his record label tried to keep him from recording “Stranglehold” for his debut album.

He didn’t listen, of course. Instead the eight minute-long epic quickly became Nugent’s signature song, partly because of its length and unusual structure, which is exactly what made the record executives nervous about including it on the album.

In a new interview on the Dr. Music show, which you can watch in full below, Nugent explains how his record label, producers, crew and bandmates tried to stage an anti-“Stranglehold” intervention prior to the album’s recording sessions.

“All of a sudden, the tone of the meeting, I sense some confusion, I sense some [discomfort] in the room. I think it was [co-producer] Lew Futterman, it’s almost like he got a nod from the bosses of the record label, and went, ‘Well, we’re excited about the songs, Ted. We’ve all talked about it. Everybody voted to not record “Stranglehold” because it doesn’t have a chorus, and nobody is gonna play an eight-minute song with all that ‘guitar part’ in it.’”

You can guess how well that went over with the Nugent. “I said, ‘I love you guys, but that’s insane! Since when is there a rule: ‘A song has to have a chorus’? It doesn’t have to have a chorus. It’s a movement, it’s a song. And by the way, you all signed me and gave me a lot of money because you came to ten of my concerts and you saw how the people love the song ‘Stranglehold.’ And now you want to take it off the record? I was wondering if you guys got the alert, and it sounds like this: ‘Fuck you! Double fuck you!’ By the way, we have a recording session that starts in one hour. Let’s go to the studio because I have a song to record. The first one’s gonna be fucking ‘Stranglehold.'”

Read More: Why Ted Nugent is Calling it Quits on Touring

Released in September 1975, with “Stranglehold” as its opening track, Ted Nugent’s self-titled debut album made him a star, cracking the Top 30 and eventually selling over two million copies. “What it teaches me, and it taught me a long time ago [is] if you are doing something onstage every night that just causes the people to just go nuts, that’s what you need to do,” Nugent concludes. “I do it because I go nuts, and I’m a music fan before I’m a musician. And if I see the corroboration of the entire audience going berserk with me, I go, ‘well, we might want to keep that move!'”

If you want to make a career in the music business, you have to cut your teeth somehow.

For Elton John, known in his early days as simply “Reggie,” that meant doing quite a lot of work as a staff songwriter and sometimes a session pianist. One of those gigs was with the Hollies, who got together with John in June 1969 in what was then EMI Studios in London (it would later become Abbey Road Studios) to record a song written by Bob Russell and Bobby Scott called “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” originally recorded by the American singer-songwriter Kelly Gordon.

According to Hollies guitarist Tony Hicks, the cover came about pretty haphazardly.

“In the 1960s when we were short of songs I used to root around publishers in Denmark Street [in London],” Hicks recalled to The Guardian in 2006. “One afternoon, I’d been there ages and wanted to get going but this bloke said: ‘Well there’s one more song. It’s probably not for you.’ He played me the demo by the writers [Bobby Scott and Bob Russell]. It sounded like a 45rpm record played at 33rpm, the singer was slurring, like he was drunk. But it had something about it.”

His bandmates weren’t all that impressed when Hicks brought it to them, but nevertheless, they went along with it.

“There were frowns when I took it to the band but we speeded it up and added an orchestra. The only things left recognizable were the lyrics,” Hicks explained. “There’d been this old film called Boys Town [1938, multi-Academy award winner] about a children’s home in America, and the statue outside showed a child being carried aloft and the motto He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother. Bob Russell had been dying of cancer while writing. We never got, or asked for, royalties.”

READ MORE: Elton John’s Strangest Collaborations

At that point, the Hollies didn’t have a piano player. (Many years later in 1991, they would get one in the form of Ian Parker.) This meant calling in an outside contributor.

“The group generally didn’t have keyboards on their basic rhythm tracks,” Alan Parsons, a staff engineer at EMI told Sound on Sound magazine in 2005, “unless Elton John happened to be around.”

And on June 25, 1969, he was. John played piano for the song and got paid £12 for it. He also played piano on the Hollies’ next single, 1970’s “I Can’t Tell the Bottom From the Top.”

Listen to the Hollies’ ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’

But that actually wasn’t the first time the Hollies and John had crossed paths. Three years prior, they’d both appeared on an Everly Brothers albums called Two Yanks in England.

“That’s when we met,” Graham Nash of the Hollies recalled to Stereogum in 2002. “I’ve been friends with Elton ever since. He was a session player on somebody else’s album, so he was just a piano player. He was a really good piano player, but he wasn’t Elton John then. He was Reggie Dwight.” (Nash would later return the favor and sing backing vocals on a track called “Cage the Songbird” on John’s 1976 album Blue Moves.)

“He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” was released two months later on Sept. 26, 1969, landing at No. 3 in the U.K. and No. 7 in the U.S. Nearly two decades after that, it was re-released in 1988 where it promptly made it to the No. 1 spot in the U.K.

How Elton John’s Session Musician Career Came Full Circle

Many years later, John found himself making a new album that involved collaboration with over a dozen guest artists, eventually titled The Lockdown Sessions for having been recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic. In making it, John recognized the parallel to his former life as a session player.

“I’m playing on other people’s records, you have to fit in with what they want and what they tell you to do, which was great because in the early days I was a session musician, before I became Elton,” he told Hot Press in 2021. “When I did the Lil Nas X track [“One of Me”] and Glen Campbell [“I’m Not Gonna Miss You”], I was in Studio 2 in Abbey Road. Fifty-four years prior to that I was in the same studio playing on the Hollies’ ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.’ I thought, ‘I’ve come full circle and I’m really loving what I’m doing.'”

Pete Townshend has announced the premiere of Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet, based on the Who’s classic 1973 album.

The production will open in the U.K. in May 2025, following years of development after the guitarist’s wife, Rachel Fuller, created an orchestral version of the music, which was recorded in 2016.

The Sadler’s Wells theater company said in a statement: “Quadrophenia defined a generation and in 1979 inspired the cult classic feature film of the same name. Now it’s back – this time as an explosive dance production… with a cast of exceptional dancers, introducing new audiences to troubled mod Jimmy’s story while remaining true in spirit to the much-loved original.

READ MORE: Revisiting the Soundtrack to the Who’s ‘Quadrophenia’ Movie

“Quadrophenia is steeped in the mythology of the 1960s – sharp suits, soul music, Vespas and parkas – but its themes of lost youth, rebellion, the search for belonging and hunger for social change are just as urgent today.”

Townshend said: “Quadrophenia is the only Who album that I solely composed and produced, and the movie that followed in 1979 launched the careers of some of the finest young actors of the time.

“In 2016 Rachel Fuller agreed to create an orchestral score of the album. When I first heard a demo… my first thought was that it would make a powerfully rhythmic and emotionally engaging ballet. Workshopped in 2023, that thought became a reality.

“I knew we had something that would resonate with new audiences, and also bring joy – as it had in its other iterations for decades… It’s going to be poignant, tender and poetic and epic.”

Producers described the creative team as “some of the UK’s finest… talent from the worlds of music, theatre, film and dance,” including Paris Fitzpatrick – winner of the Outstanding Male Modern Performance gong at this year’s National Dance Awards – in the lead role of Jimmy.

More information will be revealed at modballet.com.

Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet 2025 Tour

5/28 – 6/1: Plymouth Theatre Royal
6/10 – 6/14: Edinburgh Festival Theatre
6/18 – 6/21: Mayflower, Southampton
6/24 – 7/13: Sadler’s Wells, London
7/15 – 7/19: The Lowry, Salford

The Doobie Brothers began their summer tour on Sunday evening in Los Angeles.

Though they’ve been off the road in the United States since late January, the Doobie Brothers were well-primed for this current trek after a series of shows played overseas this month opening for Eagles.

Their 19-song set, as expected, leaned heavily on hits from the group’s initial ’70s heyday, including classics like “Black Water,” “China Grove” and the set-closing “Listen to the Music.” The Doobie Brothers also left plenty of room to chronicle later successes with vocalist and keyboardist Michael McDonald like “Takin’ It to the Streets” and “Minute by Minute” from later in the decade.

You can view fan videos from the concert, as well as the set list, below.

They’re Excited to Be Back With Michael McDonald

The Doobie Brothers initially revealed plans to reunite with the five-time Grammy Award-winning McDonald in 2019 to celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary. The combination proved to be such a success that they’ve continued to work and tour together. “I love playing with Mike. It’s great,” vocalist and guitarist Tom Johnston tells UCR. “He’s a great talent, a hell of a singer … good keyboard player too – and fun to hang out with. So there’s not really a lot of downside to that.”

Blues legend Robert Cray is opening the first half of the tour, a pairing that Johnston has really been looking forward to. “Robert is badass – a great blues player and singer,” he says. “We played with him and his band a while ago. So I’m really looking forward to reconnecting.” Steve Winwood, who Johnston calls “mind-blowing,” will share the stage with the Doobie Brothers on the second part of the outing, beginning July 30 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Fans can also look forward to a new album from the Doobie Brothers sometime soon. It will be their first full-length studio project with McDonald since 1980.

Watch the Doobie Brothers Perform ‘Listen to the Music’ in LA

Watch the Doobie Brothers Perform ‘Takin’ It to the Streets’ in LA

Watch the Doobie Brothers Perform ‘Black Water’ in LA

Watch the Doobie Brothers Perform ‘Minute by Minute’ in LA

The Doobie Brothers, 6/23/24, Kia Forum, Los Angeles Set List

1. “Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)”
2. “Here to Love You”
3. “Dependin’ On You”
4. “Rockin’ Down the Highway”
5. “You Belong to Me”
6. “Cannonball”
7. “It Keeps You Runnin'”
8. “Eyes of Silver”
9. “One Step Closer”
10. “World Gone Crazy”
11. “Minute by Minute”
12. “Without You”
13. “Jesus is Just Alright”
14. “What a Fool Believes”
15. “Long Train Runnin'”
16. “China Grove”
17. “Black Water”
18. “Takin’ It to the Streets’
19. “Listen to the Music”

The late Keith Moon has been at rest for 46 years now. But his Who mate Roger Daltrey won’t rest until he’s made the biopic about the charismatic drummer that he’s been working on for years.

In fact, as Daltrey  – who’s in the midst of a solo tour of North America – tells UCR, the Moon project is still top of mind and in motion. “We have a script,” the singer confirms. “We’re checking out directors, trying to get the best available director, ’cause all the good ones are always working. I’ve got to find good people with the time to make this film. I want to get that made when I’m still alive to promote it, so that’s taking up quite a lot of my time.”

Read More: Why Pete Townshend Feels Like a Substitute in the Who

Though Austin Powers and Wayne’s World star Mike Myers was attached to the movie some years ago, Daltrey says he does not have a star yet, adding that, “You can’t do that without a director, and I can’t do the final draft of the script, ’cause that’s something that gets worked out with the director so it fits together with his vision of how he’ll shoot it.

“So (the director) is what we’re waiting for, and we’ll move forward from there.” Daltrey has been watching other music biopics over the years, which he says have been instructive “about what I don’t want to do. I’ve seen some of the others. I’m not trying to make that kind of biopic; I’m making a film.”

Roger Daltrey is Performing Surprising Covers at His Solo Shows

Daltrey’s short solo tour wraps up June 29 in suburban Chicago. The shows have been loaded with Who favorites and some deep tracks, as well as surprising covers of Pete Townshend solo hits and Creedence Clearwater Revival songs. Daltrey is also conducting Q&As for fans who submit questions before the show.

He and Townshend have both equivocated about the Who’s future, however. “As far as I’m concerned, do we need another Who tour?” he told Billboard, but added that “I’ll do it if Pete wants to do it, really wants to do it properly….I love him dearly. There’s something special there, but it needs us both to be on fire and both wanting to be there. “

Ian Anderson‘s solo career will be celebrated with a new 10-disc vinyl box set 8314 Boxed, due on Aug. 23. Pre-ordering is already underway. An official trailer for the box set is below.

Among the highlights are two sequels to Jethro Tull‘s prog cornerstone Thick as a Brick. 8314 Boxed will include a 2LP reissue of 2012’s Thick as a Brick 2 with a special etching on Side D and a half-speed vinyl remaster of 2014’s Homo Erraticus, which again followed the fictional character Gerald Bostock.

Three of Anderson’s solo albums have never before appeared on vinyl: 1995’s Divinities: Twelve Dances with God, 2000’s The Secret Language of Birds and 2003’s Rupi’s Dance. The track listing for a disc titled Roaming in the Gloaming featuring unreleased live recordings from 1995-2007 is also below. 8314 Boxed is rounded out by a 96-page book with a foreword from Anderson and exclusive new liner notes and photographs.

READ MORE: Ranking Every Jethro Tull Album

“Since 1983, I have made a few solo albums, not as dissatisfaction with fellow musicians or the group identity but usually just to try something a bit different – whether sonically, stylistically or in terms of instrumental line-up,” Anderson said in an official statement.

“These records all stand out for me as being quite different from each other and in some ways demonstrate a broader depth of my songwriting,” he added. “The flute instrumental Divinities record is one of my favorites to this day.”

The Secret Language of Birds became a Top 30 U.S. hit in 2000, while fans who remained interested in Bostock’s fate pushed Thick as a Brick 2 to the Top 40 in the U.K. Homo Erraticus fared even better, hitting No. 14 on the U.K. chart in 2014. Anderson released Thick as a Brick: Live in Iceland later in the same year.

Ian Anderson, ‘Roaming in the Gloaming’ Track Listing
1. “In a Stone Circle” (Shepherd’s Bush, London, May 24, 1995)
2. “Circular Breathing” (Keene, New Hampshire, Oct. 18, 2002)
3. “The Donkey and the Drum” (Reggio Emilia, Italy, Dec. 22, 2007)
4. “The Secret Language of Birds” (Katowice, Poland, May 6, 2000)
5. “Boris Dancing” (Istanbul, Turkey, May 13, 2000)
6. “In a Black Box” (Shepherd’s Bush, London, May 24, 1995)
7. “In the Moneylender’s Temple” (Production Rehearsal, UK, May 1995)
8. “Not Ralitsa Vassileva” (Saarbrucken, Germany, Oct. 12, 2004)
9. “Eurology” (Saarbrucken, Germany, Oct. 12, 2004)
10. “The Habanero Reel” (Istanbul, Turkey, May 13, 2000)
11. “In the Grip of Stronger Stuff” (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, Nov. 12, 1998)
12. “In the Olive Garden” (Shepherd’s Bush, London, May 24, 1995)

Dennis DeYoung has been out of Styx for 25 years. The band chose to replace him as they prepared to tour in support of 1999’s Brave New World. The singer, as he shares, found himself unexpectedly ill and unable to go on the road immediately, felt helpless.

“I was begging for my life and for my job when this happened,” he tells UCR now. “As sick as I was, I didn’t really feel I could fight back.”

Both sides eventually carried on with their separate careers. But when Styx began performing “The Best of Times” earlier this year for the first time since 2007, DeYoung felt a fresh twinge of pain and wrote about it on his Facebook page. In the first part of a long conversation, the songwriter expanded on his initial thoughts. He tells Ultimate Classic Rock Nights host Matt Wardlaw why he’s upset — and his feelings that all of this could have been avoided. 

Dennis, seeing your recent Facebook post was a bit of a surprise. You’ve been pretty quiet lately.
I had been kind out of the loop and I hadn’t posted much on my Facebook page. Because I’m not touring, I don’t have any albums. What am I going to do, annoy the public? I don’t need to do that. But I have friends in the music business who send me stuff. I happened to see via your website that Styx had begun to play “The Best of Times.” I didn’t know it, because it’s not my life’s work to follow that. I looked and I watched and I thought, “Oh, okay.” I had to [process] that and try to figure out what reaction do I have to that? I wrote something on Facebook and you guys covered that and I thought it was okay.

But regarding “The Best of Times,” I try to do my very best to take the attitude of “live and let live.” There’s a couple of occurrences in the last, I guess, six or seven years, have forced me out of just being complacent about it all. For the last 25 years, J.Y. [Styx guitarist and vocalist James Young], mostly, but Tommy [Shaw] too, have been clear about their feelings about some of the songs I’d written. Most especially, the ballads. And of course, the lightning rod for all Styx fans is “Mr. Roboto.” I know it’s all untrue, everything that was said and has been said, It was a story they decided to tell back in 1999 when they replaced me when I was sick. Because the story they should have told was, “Well, we replaced the sick colleague, because we really wanted to go on the road and make some money and didn’t want to wait for him to get better.” That’s what really happened. But that’s not a good story to tell. So they began to tell this story that it was really about my ballads and the Kilroy Was Here project, which is a good story to tell, except that was 17 years earlier.

READ MORE: Why Dennis DeYoung Never Wanted ‘Mr. Roboto’ to Be a Styx Single

Watch Styx’s Video For ‘Mr. Roboto’

It had no bearing on the fact that we had huge comeback tours in 1996 and 1997, initiated by me. I got sick in the beginning of 1998, in January, and we started recording Brave New World later that year. It was during the recording of that album that the tour was contemplated. I said, “Yeah, I’m in. Just give me six more months to recover from this thing.” Matt, I can now say this, it’s like long COVID. I had something like that in 1998. The upper respiratory virus that I caught had weakened my immune system and made my eyes sensitive to light. The light sensitivity always made me feel fatigued and tired and I couldn’t really perform like I wanted to. I asked for those six months to recover. That’s what happened. They replaced me and then for a year and a half, they traveled the country and toured using the Styx name and they didn’t pay me any money at all for the use of the name. We had no deal worked out. Then, they went on VH1’s Behind the Music and said some rather pointed, what I felt, were uncalled for things about me and the music that we had created together. I’ve said this a million times to you: Those Styx albums, if you like them, had to do with the five guys who created the music.

READ MORE: Underrated Styx:The Most Overlooked Song From Each Album

Right.

The songwriters wrote songs, but the records that were made from those songs, that was really a collective group effort. I mean, we all contributed mightily to each other’s songs and to the success of the band. That’s what happened. Nobody was standing in there and saying, “This is how this goes.” All you need to do is look at how the songs were divided up on every album. It was almost the same. X amount to me, X amount to Tommy and X amount to J.Y. As I say on my Facebook page, “Mr. Roboto” was a creation by the band. I wrote the song, and you know, as Tommy pointed out – he brought in the Vocoder to the band, not me. It was a positive. We were doing things and having fun doing it.

So I wrote that Facebook post, to say, “Why did you do this?” Why did you say these things, all of these years, about music that you know full well that we created together? None of it could have been created in the same way. It could have never been as good without all of us sitting in those rooms. I just don’t understand why that needed to be done. It’s been hurtful to the whole idea of whatever Styx was and what they stood for, for all of their fans. So my Facebook page was my way of saying, okay, now 25 years later, you say nice things about “The Best of Times,” which I appreciate. And you play “Mr. Roboto” every night in the first encore spot to adoring fans. I just think that it was so unnecessary to do all of that.

Watch Styx’s Video For ‘The Best of Times’

Styx is such a big part of your legacy of work. So I can understand why it remains a sensitive topic for you.
The most hurtful part about all of this to me is what it did to easily one of the most loyal fanbases in classic rock history. To this day, people will be at odds with each other on social media arguing about this point, 25 years later. That’s just the worst part for me. Because the fact that a Styx fan would disparage any of us — and they do, depending on their point of view, is hurtful to me. That’s the last thing I wanted. I wanted them to all come together and enjoy what we created.

The band’s manager, Charlie Brusco, said recently that he and Tommy and J.Y. haven’t spoken to you in 25 years. Have you tried to reach out?
I did it through back channels. I’ve been doing this for, I think, the last seven or eight years. I was trying to get one last tour. I don’t want to go back into the band. I wanted one last tour for the fans. Charlie Brusco, I did read some of the things and I did listen to that, but [it’s not true]. He said that I said the band would never be able to be successful without me. I never said anything like that. When they decided to give me an ultimatum about showing up for the first day of rehearsal for a tour, when they knew I was sick, I called up J.Y. and Tommy and begged them not to do that. The caricature of me as some sort of bullying tyrant is absolutely crazy. As I said, all you need to do is look at how the albums [were credited]. Everyone is represented as songwriters. It’s beyond silly. But they made that story up. I never said anything like that.

I was begging for my life and for my job when this happened. As sick as I was, I didn’t really feel I could fight back. A sticking point with the guys is that I ended up suing them. But like I said, it was [after] almost a year and a half of touring. We hadn’t ever come to an agreement about what I should receive for my ownership of the name. But when I saw the Behind the Music thing, that was the thing. That was just like, “Oh my God.” It was devastating to me, to think that these guys that I had worked with so closely and made so many people happy — and their selves, the joy of what we created. For that to be turned into a display [like that], I defy anyone to see anywhere where I’ve ever given an interview where I said anything bad about anybody else’s music in this band. I’ve said things about my own songs that I didn’t like. But I’ve never said one bad word about Tommy’s music or J.Y.’s music. It’s simple for me — because I don’t feel that way. I love what we created together. I love some things more than others.

But I could never look and say, “Oh, that song, why is that on there?” Because I know the schedule we were on, we made albums [nearly every year] and toured. What we were creating from a songwriting perspective, was the best that we could in the time allotted. It wasn’t like somebody was flaking. We were giving the best we could to what we did. The songs that were brought in were the songs that were recorded. There was only one song in all of that time that was brought in that was turned down. One song. It was turned down by the band, which caused J.Y. to go back and reevaluate a song he’d written called “Shame Me Down,” for The Grand Illusion. He went back and wrote “Miss America.” Now, that was a good outcome. My love for this band and still, for those guys, I just find it difficult to reconcile why any of us would be villains in the minds of fans.

Listen to Styx Perform ‘Miss America’

READ MORE: How ‘Lady’ Belatedly Saved Styx

You’ve gone through back channels, but you picked up the phone to call me. Do you still have a way, similarly, to reach Tommy and J.Y.?
I probably could, yes. I’ve never done that. And neither have they. Because they’ve made it quite clear that they’re happy without me. When people publicly say the same things over and over again for 25 years, you might be well-advised to pay attention to it. I just thought, the promoters, it’s a small business. We all know each other’s business. The money that was available — which is something that’s very important to them — for a reunion tour, we are probably the last band who has not done that. There’s been a lot of bands where they don’t like each other and they do get together. It’s not for the money. I don’t need money, Matt.

[It’s about] the [chance to say] farewell to those fans that gave me a life that fulfilled the dream. We can say thank you. This is what we did, here’s the three guys — you know, for the most part, it’s Moe, Larry and Curly, here we are. We appreciate what you did. I could just disappear. That was my intention. No, unequivocally, I’ve never reached out personally to call any of them. But we have business managers and publishers where we have communicated through third parties. As far as any farewell tour — for me, not the band — they can go on as long as they want to. I’m not interested in harming them or stopping them. In fact, I’m thrilled that they’re playing “The Best of Times” and “Mr. Roboto,” because it makes total sense for the fans. Because they want to hear it. But my point, I guess was, for 25 years, they’ve always wanted to hear those songs. That’s it. They want to hear those songs.

Okay, so if a Styx farewell tour with you is off the table, what do you still want from the guys?
I don’t want anything from the guys. I really don’t.

Would you like to restore the friendship that was once there?
Of course. I never wanted it to go the way it did. I was sick. This is the fact that just keeps getting overlooked. I was sick. I wasn’t doing anything else. I didn’t do anything. You can look. I didn’t do anything because I was too ill. And then, in January of 2000, as predicted, I played a solo show in Chicago. It was exactly when I said I’d be able to perform [with Styx]. Did I want to play solo? I never wanted to do that. I never wanted to do a solo album. I only did it because Tommy quit the band in ’83. I only made [Desert Moon] because he quit. For no other reason. Our plans were, J.Y. and I, for [his] support of the Kilroy project — he supported it and he had a ball being Dr. Righteous. He only asked one thing of me. He wanted to do a stadium tour in 1984.

I said, “Absolutely.” We’ll do a live album from Kilroy and we’ll go out and play a stadium tour in ’84 and then Tommy quit. J.Y. and the Panozzos, they still wanted to [carry on with Styx]. They wanted me to replace Tommy and go out in ’84 and do that stadium tour. I couldn’t understand how they thought that would work. Tommy was too valuable to the band to stick someone else in his place. I know there were some very hard feelings that for five years, I would not replace Tommy in the band. J.Y. would call me periodically, wanting me to replace Tommy. I just wouldn’t. Because I believed that Styx was Tommy Shaw, Dennis DeYoung, James Young and the Panozzos. I based it all on my love for the Beatles. When they broke up, I hated it and I didn’t buy their solo albums. The first album I bought was [Paul McCartney and Wings‘] Band on the Run. But you know, when a band that has a fanbase that is that dedicated, when you pull back the curtain and you see the wizard, you can’t unsee it. What was done [with Styx] was unnecessary. What gets me is when I see “The Best of Times” now being lauded by Tommy and the same thing with “Mr. Roboto,” I think, well, why [has there been] all of the negativity? Who does that serve? Who does that help? That’s my opinion.

Sebastian Bach‘s still got it.

If his crushing new solo album, Child Within the Man, didn’t already make it clear, Bach drove the point home at the Rock Box in San Antonio on Sunday, where he blasted through Skid Row classics and highlights off his new LP with the same gutsy aggression of his youth.

You can see UCR’s exclusive photos and the full set list below.

Bach came out swinging with Child Within the Man lead single “What Do I Got to Lose?,” a vintage metal anthem that worked the audience into a fast frenzy. Bach kept it old-school on all fronts, noting early in the set that there were “no fuckin’ laptops” onstage. He waxed nostalgic about his first San Antonio show in 1989, when Skid Row opened for Bon Jovi. And although he once bristled at the “hair band” designation, he introduced “Can’t Stand the Heartache” by whisking the audience back to the good ol’ days of blasting Van Halen cassettes, playing frisbee and getting drunk on the beach.

READ MORE: Top 30 Glam Metal Albums

He also brought the sass that’s kept him in headlines for decades — albeit in toned-down form — rolling his eyes at the cellphones that shot into the air during “18 and Life” and quipping, “Look at all the videos that are being made right now.”

But Bach didn’t shy away from mortality — his or anyone else’s — on Sunday. “Fifty-six years old, mother-trucker!” he declared with defiant pride. “Age ain’t nothin but a fuckin’ number!” Thirty-five years after Skid Row released their self-titled debut, Bach can still hit many of the album’s piercing screams. He needs more time to catch his breath between the power notes now, but nitpickers ought to heed Bach’s own words on Sunday: “Let’s see you fuckin’ do it.”

The performance took on a poignant air when the singer turned “I Remember You” into an elegy for Eddie Van Halen, Neil Peart, Taylor Hawkins, CJ Snare and the myriad other rockers lost in recent years. The dedication came on the heels of a romp through Rush‘s “Tom Sawyer,” which featured furious drum work from Bach’s son, Paris.

It was a blast, just like the rest of his set — because Bach has never forgotten the long-lost art of having fun at a rock show. It’s difficult not to share his enthusiasm when he swings his microphone above his head or pounds the air like a boxer. Bach has been at this for nearly four decades now, and he remains a proverbial defender of the faith with the chops to back it up. The times have changed, but his conviction has not — and if you squint your eyes and listen close during the opening scream of “Youth Gone Wild,” you can still catch a glimpse of the child within the man.

Sebastian Bach, 6/23/24, Rock Box, San Antonio Set List
1. “What Do I Got to Lose?”
2. “Slave to the Grind”
3. “Here I Am”
4. “Big Guns”
5. “Sweet Little Sister”
6. “18 and Life”
7. “Can’t Stand the Heartache”
8. “Freedom”
9. “Piece of Me”
10. “Everybody Bleeds”
11. “American Metalhead”
12. “Monkey Business” (with part of “Tom Sawyer”)
13. “I Remember You”
14. “(Hold on) To the Dream”
15. “Youth Gone Wild”

Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok took a throwaway comment by Dave Grohl and nearly turned it into a cancel culture moment.

The Foo Fighters leader joked about not wanting to fall foul of Taylor Swift during a show in London on Saturday (June 22). Grok – a new feature on X which attempts to generate commentary by analyzing posts on the platform – reported the light-hearted comment as a serious issue.

“I tell you man, you don’t want to suffer the wrath of Taylor Swift,” Grohl told the crowd at London Stadium, referring to the fact that the pop star was playing nearby Wembley Stadium the same night as part of her Eras road trip.

READ MORE: Dave Grohl’s Beer Bong and Hash Smuggling Guide Up for Auction

He continued: “So we like to call our tour ‘the Errors Tour.’ We’ve had more than a few eras – and more than a few fucking errors as well. Just a couple. That’s because we actually play live… what?!”

Pausing to allow the audience to enjoy the joke – which they did – he added: “Just saying! You guys like raw live rock ’n’ roll music, right? You came to the right fucking place.”

Grohl’s words were interpreted by Grok in the context of current ‘culture wars.’ The bot reported: “Dave Grohl, the lead singer of Foo Fighters, made comments during a concert in London suggesting that Taylor Swift doesn’t perform live, which sparked a significant backlash from Swift’s fans, known as Swifties, across social media platforms.

“The comments were perceived as unnecessary and spiteful by many, leading to a heated online debate about the appropriateness of Grohl’s remarks and the reactions they provoked.”

The report was followed by xAI’s standard poorly-written warning of inaccuracy: “Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.”

Dave Grohl Is Just Another Victim of Grok Chatbot

The system has become known for its blunders based on misunderstanding jokes. Gizmodo recently reported some of its worst, including the claim that a solar eclipse had caused “concern and confusion” because the Sun was “behaving unusually.” It reported that 50,000 NYPD cops had been deployed to shoot and kill an earthquake.

It said O.J. Simpson had been “granted permission to continue living” following his death because his body didn’t fit in his coffin. In another attempt to generate argument, Grok announced that “two unnamed parties have taken a firm stance, refusing to seek forgiveness or offer apologies… The lack of resolution continues to fuel discussions and opinions.”

Grok has appeared to be more certain about Musk’s qualities, though – in May it reported that its owner had “received a significant amount of positive feedback on social media, with users expression gratitude and admiration for his contributions to humanity.” That was a response to Musk having posted: “An authentic compliment means a lot.”

Roger Waters offered a touching rendition of Pink Floyd‘s “Wish You Were Here” at a benefit concert in London. Listen to his appearance at the Stand Up For Palestine concert below, beginning at the 1:43 mark.

“People sometimes think ‘Wish You Were Here’ is a lament for a dead childhood friend of mine, Syd Barrett,” Waters said while introducing the song. “Well, guess what? Sometimes it is, but not tonight. Tonight is for Palestine. We are also engaged here tonight in part of a larger existential battle for the very soul of the human race.”

The concert, held Friday at the St. Pancreas Church, also featured Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) and rapper Lowkey. Waters’ two-song performance concluded with “The Bar,” an unreleased solo song he’s been performing on tour since 2022.

READ MORE: Top 10 Roger Waters Solo Songs

“I’m sure many of you, like me, live on the brink of tears,” Waters told the crowd. “We live on the uncomfortable edge, on the brink of tears – because we feel empathy for our brothers and sisters in Gaza and the other occupied territories in Palestine.”

Yusuf Islam’s set at the Stand Up For Palestine concert included “Wild World,” released as Cat Stevens on the 1970 album Tea for the Tillerman. He also played “All Nights, All Days” and “The Boy Who Knew How to Climb Walls,” dedicating his appearance to the children of Palestine.

“Wish You Were Here” served as the title track from Pink Floyd’s ninth album, issued in 1975. Waters has been very vocal in opposition to Israeli government policies for years. That’s occasionally led to charges of anti-Semitism, including from a former bandmate. Waters forcefully denies the allegations.

Why Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters Are Still Fighting

Bob Dylan is at it again, surprising (and sometimes confusing) audiences with his set lists.

On Friday he performed at the first show of Willie Nelson‘s 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour, a trek that runs until September and also includes Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and various other artists.

For the past three years, Dylan has been performing on his Rough and Rowdy Ways Tour in support of his 2020 album of the same name. At those shows, Dylan played in smaller theater venues across the entire globe and stuck primarily to songs from that album, save the occasional (often regionally-specific) cover.

New Tour, New Set Lists

But he’s thrown most of that to the wind for the Outlaw Tour. On Friday in Alpharetta, Georgia, he played five covers he’d never played live before: Willie Dixon’s “My Babe,” Chuck Berry‘s “Little Queenie,” the Fleetwoods’ “Mr. Blue,” Hank Williams With His Drifting Cowboys’ “Cold, Cold Heart” and Sanford Clark’s “The Fool.”

He also played the title track to his 1990 album Under the Red Sky for the first time since 2013, as well as several songs from 2012’s Tempest, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'” from 2009’s Together Through Life, one singular ’70s-era song, “Simple Twist of Fate” and his 2000 single “Things Have Changed” from the film Wonder Boys. Things have changed, indeed.

Listen to Bob Dylan Perform ‘Under the Red Sky’

Dylan kept it up for the second show of the tour in Charlotte, North Carolina, opening with “Highway 61 Revisited,” followed by “Shooting Star” from 1989’s Oh Mercy for the first time in over a decade, and then “Love Sick” from 1997’s Time Out of Mind. Two more covers appeared: the Grateful Dead‘s “Stella Blue,” which Dylan has played before, and Paul Davis’ “Six Days on the Road,” which he has not. “Ballad of a Thin Man” came second to last in the set, followed by “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” from 1967’s John Wesley Harding.

READ MORE: The 10 Weirdest Bob Dylan Songs

He did all of this without explanation from the stage. Then, for the third night of the tour in Raleigh, North Carolina, Dylan played the exact same same set as the second show. Whether these first couple set lists were just a spurt of spontaneity or if there’s more surprises to come remains to be seen. The Outlaw Tour continues on June 26 in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Watch Bob Dylan Perform ‘Shooting Star’

Daryl Hall is not losing sleep over his public rift with longtime partner John Oates, instead taking the opportunity to relish in his new professional freedom.

“John and I did not have a creative relationship for decades; the last song I wrote with John was in 2000 and that was with somebody else,” Hall told Billboard. “We toured and we toured and we toured, and it was very restrictive to me, and to John. The real truth of it all is John just said one day he didn’t want to do it anymore. I said ‘OK,’ but the problem is [Oates] didn’t make the parting and breakup easy, and that’s where the difficulties lay and still lay, and that’s all it is.”

News of the duo’s schism went public last November, when Hall filed a lawsuit (and obtained a temporary restraining order) against Oates in an attempt to block Oates from selling his share in their joint venture to Primary Wave Music, claiming it would violate the terms of the duo’s business agreement. Hall said he was “blindsided” by Oates’ actions and called them the “ultimate business betrayal,” while Oates said he was “deeply hurt” by his partner’s accusations.

Both parties now appear to be on the same page, publicly stating that Hall & Oates are done for good.

READ MORE: Top 10 Hall & Oates Songs From the ’70s

Daryl Hall Finds Renewed Solo-Artist Status Liberating

Hall just released a new solo album titled D, his first since 2011’s Laughing Down Crying. But he told Billboard that he’s long held his career in the same regard: “I always say I’ve been a solo artist my whole life, I was just working with John, mostly.”

He also told the publication that he feels liberated to be on his own, as he now gets to focus on his entire catalog as he sees fit. “I can’t speak for John ’cause I haven’t spoken to him in a long, long time, but I think that’s how he feels, too,” he said. “And good on both of us. I can still play all the songs that I wrote over the years, under my own name as well as under the Hall & Oates name. It frees me, really. It frees me up.”

Rock’s Greatest Duos

Wolfgang Van Halen dove back into his father’s catalog on Saturday, teaming up with Mr. Bungle at Graspop Metal Meeting to rip through Van Halen’s “Loss of Control.”

The Mammoth WVH bandleader handled lead guitar duties on the Women and Children First thrasher, as Mike Patton yelped and barked in the spirit of David Lee Roth. You can watch the performance below.

“Had a special guest join us for “Loss Of Control” today @graspopmetalmeeting. Thanks @wolfvanhalen!” Mr. Bungle wrote on Instagram, to which Van Halen responded in a comment, “Thanks for having me, dudes!!!!”

Mr. Bungle has covered “Loss of Control” sporadically over the years and included it on their 2021 live album and video The Night They Came Home. “Mr. Bungle tried to play this song in the ’90s and we scrapped it because we sucked at it,” guitarist Trey Spruance explained at the time. “I think it worked this time for a lot of reasons. My own is that, thanks to the new Raging Wrath [of the Easter Bunny] era, I’ve had to re-approach the guitar like I did when I was 13 and 14. It was all about Eddie Van Halen for me back then, so circling back at this moment felt really natural. Those riffs and lead parts at least are super fun! I’m just glad Scott [Ian] took the palm-mute breaks. Jesus!”

READ MORE: All 75 David Lee Roth-Era Van Halen Songs Ranked Worst to Best

Wolfgang Van Halen’s Recent Van Halen Covers

Wolfgang Van Halen has performed a handful of Van Halen classics live in recent years, covering “Panama,” “On Fire” and “Hot for Teacher” at the 2022 Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts alongside Dave Grohl, Justin Hawkins and Josh Freese. He joined Foo Fighters again at last month’s Welcome to Rockville to perform “Eruption” and “Hot for Teacher.”

The younger Van Halen told Classic Rock that in lieu of a Van Halen tribute or reunion tour, the Hawkins tributes offered him “a lot of closure because my part of the show was a tribute to my father.” They also inspired him to shred harder on Mammoth II. “I feel like I just had to up it a little bit more, ’cause now people would expect that from me,” he told Rolling Stone in 2023. “I’m still a songwriter first, but I definitely threw some fun songs in there this time.”

The reality TV show following Ozzy Osbourne’s return to live in England has suffered a delay because he refuses to actually make the move, U.K. press reports said.

The Osbournes: Home to Roost was announced by the BBC in 2022 after Ozzy and wife Sharon revealed plans to abandon their permanent resident status in L.A. and instead live in a customized mansion in Buckinghamshire. Filming began on the 10-part series last year.

The change was designed to assist Ozzy with the continuing symptoms of multiple health issues, which have left the 75-year-old struggling with movement.

READ MORE: Ozzy Osbourne Says He’s ‘Deeply Nervous’ About Returning to TV

In a recent episode of Howie Mandel Does Stuff, Sharon told Mandel: “I wanted to reverse it; to spend more time in England and come here and visit, like on birthdays, holidays and stuff like that… I’ve been trying to get Ozzy to get out of the house and come to England. I’m still trying.”

Asked if the Black Sabbath icon didn’t want to leave the house, she replied: “He does, yeah. But not a lot… He’s having a little bit of a tough time. Getting old and not being well sucks.”

Ozzy Osbourne Wants to ‘Get Out on the Stage’ at Rock Hall

A source close to the Osbourne family told the Daily Mirror that Ozzy had a specific aim in mind – attending and perhaps performing at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in October, when he’ll be inducted as a solo artist.

“He’s building up his stamina, strength and balance to get out on the stage,” the source said. That’s his big project currently and involves working in L.A. with his band and physios. Obviously, given how personal and ­challenging it is to Ozzy, there are some aspects of his rehab that the cameras are blocked from.”

An additional reason was also suggested: “Ozzy has been quite clear he loves being in L.A., close to his grandkids and music pals, and that he’s unsure about the whole England return. It’s obviously a massive stumbling block for the TV series.”

Why Black Sabbath Hated One of Their Own Albums

When Aerosmith launched their Back in the Saddle Tour on June 22, 1984, they had to prove a lot of things to a lot of people.

They needed to show fans and critics that after five years apart, their classic lineup — Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer — could still rock with the same dominating fury of their heyday as a new crop of bands vied for their crown. They also had to prove to the industry bigwigs who determined their future that they were a worthwhile investment capable of turning their career around, and not just a washed-up liability.

Most importantly, they had to prove to each other that the magic of performing together could outweigh the petty squabbles that tore them apart several years earlier — and that it would be enough to keep their personal demons at bay.

Aerosmith’s Reconciliation Begins on Valentine’s Day 1984

Aerosmith was in dire straits by 1984. Their latest album, 1982’s Rock in a Hard Place, was an overpriced critical and commercial bomb that prompted the departure of Whitford in 1981. Perry had quit the group two years earlier, and in their absence, Aerosmith soldiered on with guitarists Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay. It was a suitable facsimile of the real thing, but the band was further crippled by Tyler’s all-consuming drug addiction and their skyrocketing debts. Their shows were erratic at best, with Tyler routinely collapsing onstage and leaving his bandmates in the lurch.

Perry fared no better, releasing three post-Aerosmith albums with the Joe Perry Project to diminishing returns. But the guitarist’s new manager, Tim Collins, was hell-bent on getting the band back together — not only restoring Aerosmith to their former glory, but transcending it.

Reuniting Aerosmith depended primarily on Tyler and Perry healing old wounds. The reconciliation process began in earnest on Valentine’s Day 1984, when Perry, his girlfriend (and future wife) Billie and Whitford attended the band’s hometown show at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre. Soon after, the whole band conferred at Hamilton’s house to discuss the logistics of a reunion.

READ MORE: Aerosmith Live Albums Ranked

Perry held firm on one condition: He refused to rejoin Aerosmith unless they ditched their managers, Steve Leber and David Krebs. Easier said than done, as the band had recently renewed its management contract and its deal with Columbia Records and was on the hook for five more albums. Tyler, meanwhile, was suspicious of Collins, while the rest of the band had various doubts and financial stipulations.

Ultimately, Aerosmith voted in favor of Collins, who told them to leave the legal wranglings to him while they set about rebuilding the band and preparing to get back on the road. “We were eager to tour,” Perry said in his 2014 memoir Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith. “I’ve always thought of Aerosmith as primarily a live band who took the music to the people. The studio was often agony. Live was usually a rush. If Aerosmith was to go through a rebirth, it would be a live rebirth. The record could come later. We just had to get back out there and go to work.”

Listen to Aerosmith’s Back in the Saddle Tour Kickoff Show

The band set up shop at the Glen Ellen Country Club in Millis, Massachusetts, and began preparing for the tour. “The first rehearsal? Pretty rough,” Whitford recalled in the band’s 1997 autobiography Walk This Way. “We couldn’t remember some of the songs.” (Around this time, former DJ Mark Parenteau played the band the Toys in the Attic ballad “You See Me Crying,” which Tyler infamously forgot they had written.)

“We’re all in our thirties now,” Perry recalled in Walk This Way. “It’s one thing to say, ‘Alright, men, let’s go,’ and clink our beer bottles. It’s another to show up at rehearsal, another to go onstage and see how the egos come together. Brad had played with the Project, so that was there. But me and Steven being on the same stage felt kind of weird. I wondered, How much am I able to project myself in this? How much are these guys going to take from me? It felt weird.

“But we had to go out and play those songs again, instead of trying to make another album,” he added. “I don’t think we could have done it.”

READ MORE: Aerosmith Ballads: Their 20 Best Tearjerkers

Aerosmith’s Back in the Saddle Tour Gets off to a Rocky — but Rocking — Start

Aerosmith launched the Back in the Saddle Tour on June 22, 1984, at the Capitol Theater in Concord, New Hampshire. The 19-song set included all the requisite classics — “Back in the Saddle,” “Walk This Way, “Dream On,” “Sweet Emotion” — along with deeper cuts like Night in the Ruts‘ “Three Mile Smile” and Rocks‘ “Get the Lead Out.” And in classic Aerosmith fashion, the trek was turbulent from the get-go.

“Steven calls that afternoon [of the first show] and does a number on me,” Collins said in Walk This Way. “‘I’m not going onstage until you, personally, Tim Collins, and nobody else, get me two grams of blow.'” A later show in Springfield, Illinois, was cut short after an intoxicated Tyler fell into the audience, leading to a band scuffle onstage.

For the most part, though, Aerosmith behaved within reason and kept the train on the tracks for 70 shows. The tour grossed $5 million by Collins’ estimation, and a New Year’s Eve performance at Boston’s Orpheum Theatre made up the bulk of the Classics Live II album. “We started doing press again, answering all the predictable questions,” Tyler said. “We tried to be honest. ‘Yes, I’d hated Joe’s guts, but time heals all wounds. Joe is nothing without me, and I’m nothing without him.'”

Aerosmith still had a long way to go before they cemented their comeback, and 1985’s underperforming Done With Mirrors proved they needed to get sober and shake up their album-making process. But it was a reassuring first step for a band that many had long considered trashed and left for dead.

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re back for another 10 years,” Perry told Rolling Stone in September 1984. “As long as we don’t kill each other, we’ll be fine.”

Watch an Aerosmith Back in the Saddle Tour Compilation Video

Aerosmith, 6/22/1984, Capitol Theater, Concord, NH Set List

1. “Back in the Saddle”
2. “Mama Kin”
3. “Bone to Bone (Coney Island White Fish Boy)
4. “Big Ten Inch Record”
5. “Three Mile Smile”
6. “Reefer Head Woman”
7. “Lord of the Thighs”
8. “No More No More”
9. “Last Child”
10. “Get the Lead Out”
11. “Red House”
12. “Lightning Strikes”
13. “Same Old Song and Dance”
14. “Dream On”
15. “Sweet Emotion”
16. “Walk This Way”
17. “Milk Cow Blues”
18. “Toys in the Attic”
19. “Train Kept a Rollin'”

The 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour launched without its leader Willie Nelson on Friday night in Alpharetta, Georgia, but the show went on featuring sets by Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and Celisse.

In place of Nelson’s own set, his son’s band Lukas Nelson and the Family Band performed instead, with a guest appearance by Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.

Plant and Krauss performed many of their usual selections, including Led Zeppelin‘s “Rock and Roll” and “The Battle of Evermore,” plus “When the Levee Breaks,” which they recently officially released. Dylan, on the other hand, brought out a number of unexpected songs, including a cover of Chuck Berry‘s “Little Queenie,” “Under the Red Sky” for the first time in over a decade and several songs from his 2012 album, Tempest.

You can view fan-filmed footage from the concert, as well as set lists, below.

On Thursday afternoon, it was announced that Nelson would not be appearing at opening night.

“We regret to inform you that Willie Nelson is not feeling well, and per doctor’s orders, has been advised to rest for the next four days,” their post read. “He is expected to make a quick recovery and join the Outlaw Music Festival tour next week. In the meantime, Lukas Nelson and the Family Band, along with a few guests, will perform a special set to include Willie’s classics and others songs. Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and Celisse will continue to perform as scheduled.”

“This year’s Outlaw Music Festival Tour promises to be the biggest and best yet with this lineup of legendary artists,” Nelson said in a previous press statement announcing the shows. “I am thrilled to get back on the road again with my family and friends playing the music we love for the fans we love.”

READ MORE: The Best Song From Every Bob Dylan Album

Other artists who will be performing on this year’s trek include Brittney Spencer, Southern Avenue, Billy Strings and John Mellencamp. The tour will conclude on Sept. 17 in Buffalo, New York.

Watch Robert Plant and Alison Krauss Perform ‘The Battle of Evermore’

Watch Lukas Nelson and the Family Band Perform ‘Find Yourself’ With Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Outlaw Festival, Alpharetta, Georgia, 6/21/24, Set List 
1. “Rich Woman” (Li’l Millet and His Creoles cover)
2. “Fortune Teller” (Benny Spellman cover)
3. “Can’t Let Go” (Randy Weeks cover)
4. “The Price of Love” (The Everly Brothers cover)
5. “Rock and Roll” (Led Zeppelin cover)
6. “Please Read the Letter” (Jimmy Page & Robert Plant cover)
7. “High and Lonesome”
8. “In the Mood” / “Matty Groves” / “Gallows Pole”
9. “The Battle of Evermore” (Led Zeppelin cover)
10. “When the Levee Breaks” (Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe McCoy cover)
11. “Gone Gone Gone” (The Everly Brothers cover)

Bob Dylan, Outlaw Festival, Alpharetta, Georgia, 6/21/24, Set List 
1. “My Babe” (Willie Dixon cover)
2. “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'”
3. “Simple Twist of Fate”
4. “Little Queenie” (Chuck Berry cover)
5. “Mr. Blue” (The Fleetwoods cover)
6. “Pay in Blood”
7. “Cold, Cold Heart” (Hank Williams With His Drifting Cowboys cover)
8. “Early Roman Kings”
9. “Under the Red Sky” (first performance since 2013)
10. “Things Have Changed”
11. “The Fool” (Sanford Clark cover)
12. “Scarlet Town”
13. “Long and Wasted Years”

Willie Nelson will miss the opening run of shows on the 2024 Outlaw Music Festival Tour due to an unspecified illness.

The 91-year-old country icon was slated to kick off the tour on Friday night (June 21) at the Ameris Bank Amphitheatre in Alpharetta, Ga., alongside Bob Dylan, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss and Celisse. However, he won’t be able to make the first weekend of shows on “doctor’s orders,” according to a post on his social media.

Nelson’s team shared the following message on Friday afternoon:

We regret to inform you that Willie Nelson is not feeling well, and per doctor’s orders, has been advised to rest for the next four days. He is expected to make a quick recovery and join the Outlaw Music Festival tour next week. In the meantime, Lukas Nelson and the Family Band, along with a few guests, will perform a special set to include Willie’s classics and others songs. Bob Dylan, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss and Celisse will continue to perform as scheduled.

Nelson has continued recording new music and touring well into his later years, but he has been forced to cancel shows here and there in recent years due to various ailments.

According to Nelson’s official tour schedule, the Outlaw Music Festival is slated to run through Sept. 20, when it wraps up with a show in Gilford, N.H. John Mellencamp, Billy Strings, Brittney Spencer and Southern Avenue are also on the bill for select shows.

Willie Nelson released his most recent album, The Border, on March 31, 2024. The project marked his 152nd album, according to a press release from Legacy Recordings.

Sterling Whitaker is a Senior Writer and Senior Editor for Taste of Country. He focuses on celebrity real estate, as well as coverage of Yellowstone and related shows like 1883 and 1923. He’s interviewed cast members including Cole Hauser, Kelly Reilly, Sam Elliott and Harrison Ford, and Whitaker is also known for his in-depth interviews with country legends including Don Henley, Rodney Crowell, Trace Adkins, Ronnie Milsap, Ricky Skaggs and more.

On this day in rock history, Motley Crue released their third studio album, Guns N’ Roses joined forces with the Terminator and Kiss found a way to kiss their own asses.

Here’s a rundown of rock history’s biggest June 21 anniversaries:

June 21, 1948: Birth of the 12″ Vinyl Album

On June 21, 1948 Columbia Records introduced the 12 inch vinyl album at a press conference in New York City. According to WhatHiFi, the company had spent much of the previous decade developing a storage format that could hold 20 minutes of music per side.

June 21, 1966: Jimmy Page Joins the Yardbirds

After turning down the band on two previous occasions, Jimmy Page played his first show as a member of the Yardbirds on June 21, 1966 at London’s Marquee Club. Oddly enough he initially played bass for the group before switching to guitar alongside Jeff Beck. Beck departed the group shortly thereafter, and after a couple more years the group morphed into Led Zeppelin.

June 21, 1982: Paul McCartney Releases “Take It Away”

The second single from 1982’s Tug of War, “Take It Away” was a Top 10 hit for the former Beatle and featured Ringo Starr on drums.

June 21, 1982: Crosby, Stills and Nash Release ‘Daylight Again’

Five years after their last studio album together, Crosby, Stills and Nash released Daylight Again, which began life as a Stills-Nash album and as such actually does not feature Crosby on several songs. The album spawned the hits “Wasted on the Way” and “Southern Cross.”

Read More: How Crosby, Stills and Nash Sorta Reunited for ‘Daylight Again’

June 21, 1986: Motley Crue Change Up Their Style for ‘Theatre of Pain’

Motley Crue made some big changes for their third studio album, trading the heavy metal riffing of Shout at the Devil for pop-friendly glam rock on Theatre of Pain. Although Vince Neil would later express extreme displeasure with the amount of filler on the album, it gave them two big massive hits with the ballad “Home Sweet Home” and a cover of Brownsville Station’s “Smokin’ in the Boys Room.”

June 21, 1991: Guns N’ Roses Team Up With the Terminator

Guns N’ Roses fans got their first taste of the band’s upcoming Use Your Illusion albums when “You Could Be Mine” was released to help promote Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The action star appeared in character in the song’s video, with his cyborg T-800 humorously declaring the band members to be a “waste of ammo.”

June 21, 1994: Kiss Make Their Own Tribute Album

Rather than wait around for somebody else to assemble a star-studded tribute album for them, Kiss took on the job themselves, recruiting an eclectic group of musicians including Lenny Kravitz, Anthrax and Garth Brooks to cover their most famous songs for the amusingly titled Kiss My Ass.

More June 21 Rock History Anniversaries:

On this day in 1987, Judas Priest released their second live album, creatively titled Priest…Live!, which chronicled the previous year’s Fuel for Life tour. Two years later, the Who launched their overstuffed and widely criticized The Kids are Alright tour. In 1993 the Smashing Pumpkins introduced the world to their triumphant Siamese Dream album with the single “Cherub Rock” and in 1994 John Mellencamp released the stripped-down album Dance Naked. Last and possibly least, on June 21, 2011 Maroon 5 honored Mick Jagger with their hit single “Moves Like Jagger.”

Asia‘s newly rebuilt lineup has Geoff Downes re-considering some uncompleted songs he worked on with the late John Wetton.

“They weren’t really fully developed,” Downes tells Classic Rock. “They were basic ideas. Then John’s health deteriorated quite rapidly and we never got the opportunity to get stuck in and take it further.” Wetton died in 2017 after battling with cancer.

Downes put together Asia’s upcoming tour after hitting it off with singer Harry Whitley, drummer Virgil Donati and guitarist John Mitchell at last year’s Wetton memorial concert. Two of them have direct musical connections to Asia: Donati was in a modern-era edition of the prog-rock group UK with Wetton, while Mitchell was part of Downes and Wetton’s Icon side project.

READ MORE: Top 50 Progressive Rock Albums

“There’s quite a bit of material,” Downes confirmed. “I’m looking to maybe bring in someone like John Mitchell to collaborate. Hopefully, we can put it together in a way that John would have liked us to.”

How Geoff Downes Found Asia’s New Singer

Downes said he reached out to the classically trained Whitley after watching some of his clips on YouTube. “I was really blown away by his attention to detail, particularly his vocal intonation,” Downes said. “He did a version of ‘Heroine’ where he managed to get all these twists and turns that I thought only John was ever capable of.

“To hear Harry do that was really scary and quite chilling,” Downes added, “because John’s voice could bring people to tears. So I got in touch with him when the tribute show was coming together. I thought, ‘If anyone’s going to put their stamp on these songs, here’s the man for the job.'”

Asia will be joined on the Heat of the Moment Tour by Focus, Martin Turner (ex-Wishbone Ash) and Curved Air. Album designer Roger Dean will serve as emcee. Dates begin in July. “We’ll be playing quite a lot from [Asia’s] first album,” Downes said. “That was the defining one really, the one that put it all into gear.”

See John Wetton Among Rock’s Forgotten Supergroups

Elton John, Jimi Hendrix, and the Eagles all received the all-star tribute album treatment in the early ’90s. Why not Kiss?

It’s a question that might have seemed a little ridiculous in the ’80s, when they had to struggle a bit to remain relevant during a stretch of middling albums and lineup changes, but as a new decade dawned, the members of the band realized a funny thing: they were being name-checked as influences by a surprising number of up-and-coming young bands.

“I was stunned that, all of a sudden, after years of being the black sheep of rock and roll, people were coming out,” recalled Kiss co-founder Gene Simmons. “The confessional was happening: ‘Yes, I was a Kissoholic, I don’t want to hide in the closet anymore.'”

READ MORE: Top 10 Gene Simmons Kiss Songs

Inspired by Hard to Believe: Kiss Covers Compilation, a 1990 release from Seattle-based indie C/Z Records that featured contributions from future stars Nirvana and Melvins, Simmons and partner Paul Stanley set about putting together a higher-profile release – one they decided they wanted to assemble completely on their own terms.

“I just wanted to keep the record company at arm’s distance,” Simmons told the Baltimore Sun. “The only way to have a party that you’re going to enjoy is to throw it yourself. Because the record company – if you’re going to let your mom throw your party for you, all of the corny people are going to be there. Nobody that you want to talk to.”

The fresh outpouring of affection left Simmons and Stanley with many acts to choose from. “This is the graduating class of the Kiss Army,” he said. “The fans who went on to form their own bands. That’s what this story is really about.

“I thought only a couple of people would come, but we had close to 100 different artists who wanted to be involved, from Sir Mix-a-Lot to Cypress Hill to Smashing Pumpkins,” Simmons added. “You name it. Even Kurt Cobain and the Melvins did a track together. Ironically, it came in too late, and another group, Dinosaur Jr., had already recorded the same track.”

Stanley said: “What’s so great on that album is that you have very strong perspectives and points of view. Although each song is given a new identity, it holds up really well as a song. Sometimes, you’d have to sit down for a minute and say, ‘That’s the song I wrote?'”

It was a question echoed by a number of fans once they listened to the final results.

Listen to Garth Brooks’ Version of ‘Hard Luck Woman’

Who Was Featured on ‘Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved’?

The finished album, dubbed Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved, arrived in stores on June 21, 1994, and – like many tribute records – included contributions from a number of bands who were popular at the time, regardless of whether or not they seemed to have any musical affinity for the artist being feted.

Among the more eyebrow-raising cuts were Toad the Wet Sprocket’s sleepy cover of “Rock and Roll All Nite,” a new version of “Hard Luck Woman” featuring country superstar Garth Brooks backed by Kiss, and an orchestral arrangement of “Black Diamond” from Asian metal legend Yoshiki of the group X Japan. But much as some songs may have seemed like cynical attempts to glom onto trendy younger acts, each performance came with its own purpose.

“We knew that no matter what we did, there would be some Kiss fans who would think it was hilarious, and some Kiss fans who would be upset a band as non-rock as us was taking that song,” Toad the Wet Sprocket’s Glen Phillips told the Birmingham News. “So, we decided we’d turn it into a waltz and do like a really silly campfire version of it.

“The thing was, Gene Simmons loved it,” Phillips added. “He thought it was the bravest thing we could’ve done with it. There were also a lot of Kiss fans who wanted to take a hit out on us, and were very upset. But we had a great time doing it and it actually makes a great campfire song. Why not?”

Simmons told the band that the most important thing is that the “‘character of your band show through in the song,'” added Toad the Wet Sprocket guitarist Dean Dinning. “So what we really tried to do was look at ourselves and identify some Toad cliches that we typically fall back on, then wrap that around this totally different piece of music – a song that we would never write. We really liked it, but I was like, ‘I hope Gene doesn’t think this is insulting or anything.’ But he flipped. He loved it.”

Yoshiki Hayashi got involved through manager named Doc McGhee. “He was telling me Kiss was making a tribute album, and then somehow I met Gene Simmons and we became good friends as well,” Hayashi later explained. He found out that X Japan was very popular in Japan.”

Hayashi wondered aloud how he could “make a piano concerto version of ‘Black Diamond’? Somehow I made it. In the beginning, I was participating only for the Japanese version. They had the same album in Germany, but a German version. But towards the end he liked it so much, he said ‘I’m going to put your song on the international version for the whole world.'”

Listen to Lenny Kravitz’s Version of ‘Deuce’

Garth Brooks Had an Emotional Introduction to Kiss

Meanwhile, Garth Brooks said Kiss had “read in an article that they were very influential to me as a teenager. So they flew to L.A. to see a show of mine. After the show, I came backstage. Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were there. I reached out to shake Paul’s hand, and he didn’t say, ‘Hi, nice to meet you.’ He just said: ‘I see it. I see it in your show. I see it in your clothes. I’m flattered.’

“Man, I was beaming,” Brooks added. “My whole chest was out. I was like, ‘Wow, thank you.’ And the great thing, too, about Paul Stanley standing there with Gene Simmons is that these guys are not small people. They’re huge. In real life, Paul and Gene are well over six feet. They’re bigger than life.” (Admittedly, a true fan should have said ‘Larger than Life.’)

Brooks “literally got misty-eyed and said, ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be here doing this tonight,’ and he put his arms around me,” Simmons told the Sun. “Well, call me a sap, but I got misty-eyed, too. I find stuff like that very, very flattering and humbling.”

Whatever its failings, Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved certainly had that earnest spirit. The LP was greeted with generally mixed reviews and a lukewarm commercial reaction but also served as an opening salvo in a period of reappraisal for Kiss. A band once widely derided as cheesily theatrical came to be appreciated for its songwriting.

“A good song will sound good even on just a guitar or a piano,” Stanley told the Sun. “There’s no reason for somebody to explain to you the arrangement that you’ll hear when it’s recorded – because if the core of the song is good, it’ll stand. And that’s how we approached those songs.

“Sure, there was a bombastic stage show, and there were four guys running around the stage in whiteface and nine-inch heels,” Stanley added. “But it all started with a song. The other stuff, for some people, may have overpowered or eclipsed the music, but the music was there.”

Ace Frehley Shares His Real-Life Spinal Tap Story

The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies shared his sadness at the prospect of having to pay $12,500 to recover one of his award trophies after someone had a Storage Wars moment at his expense.

The guitarist reported he’d been shocked to see his 1990 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame award for sale on eBay with a steep asking price.

“This is a rare and highly collectible… award honoring David Davies of The Kinks,” the lot listing read, noting that it had been purchased “from a storage unit when Dave Davies was…past 1 year of forgetting to pay the unit owners’ storage fees.

READ MORE: Dave Davies Very Best Riffs

“The trophy is a one-of-a-kind piece of music memorabilia that any fan of rock and pop music would be thrilled to own. This item… is a piece of entertainment memorabilia that is sure to be a conversation starter for any music lover.”

Davies confirmed on X that the sale was being conducted without his consent, adding: “I lost track of my award years ago and didn’t know where it was. If the person bought it at a storage unit it may have been around the time of my 2004 stroke, when I was incapacitated.

Dave Davies Could Get His Hall of Fame Trophy Back

“I’m grateful to have made a full record from my stroke but it’s a shame that I wasn’t contacted. I’m assuming this is what happened… This auction makes me very sad.”

The guitarist later reported that his people had written to the seller, explaining: “I don’t want to have to pay 12 grand to get my own award back. But maybe we can work something out more reasonable.”

That seems to be on the cards: the auction was ended early by the seller and an X user bearing the same name wrote to Davies: “Follow me and shoot me a message… we will work it out.”

Glenn Hughes said his late friend David Bowie would be pissed at him for remaining closely connected to his Deep Purple roots.

The pair met in the mid ‘70s and Bowie wrote most of Station To Station while living incognito in Hughes’ home. In a recent interview with Guitar Interactive (video below), Hughes recalled the experience.

“I got a call from him in Feb. ’75. He asked me privately, ‘I’m gonna come on a train to L.A. – can I stay with you?’” Hughes suggested it was dangerous for Bowie to travel alone, but that’s what he did, arriving three days later.

READ MORE: Glenn Hughes Says He Shouldn’t Have Left Trapeze for Deep Purple

When Hughes, who was completing a Deep Purple tour, arrived home, Bowie was already there. “He was throwing some of my clothes away from my closet – some of the bell-bottoms, some of the boots.

“We had dinner one night and he said, ‘Listen, you’ve gotta keep changing, man…’ I saw him [becoming] the Thin White Duke and I learned so much from him changing; that’s what I’ve taken from him ever since.”

Hughes’ current activities include touring a Deep Purple based show – but he said that would soon end. “You’ll notice a definite change in my look next year. You’ll notice it in my clothes… I love the Purple legacy but I’m saying goodbye to it.

“Thanks to Bowie – because he was still alive right now he’d be calling me, saying, ‘Are you still doing that?’ He would be very pissed off!”

Why Glenn Hughes Won’t Talk to Deep Purple Again

In the same interview, Hughes looked back on Deep Purple’s Rock Hall induction in 2016, saying it marked the last time he’d ever interact with his former band.

“I will never speak to any of them again, simply because they were rude,” he said. “Roger [Glover], Ian [Paice] and [Ian] Gillan were rude to David Coverdale and I – very, very hurtful. I didn’t give a fuck, actually, because I knew they were rude to begin with.”

Noting he was “the only sober man there,” he continued: “Gillan was rude to me on stage, accepting the award. I went to congratulate him; he looked at me in the eyes like I didn’t exist. The guy has a problem with me.” He added: “I’ve tried to make some kind of friendship with him over the last 40 years. He doesn’t want to know. David Coverdale and I don’t exist to him. I wish him only the very best, but I have no time left for that behavior.”

Glenn Hughes‘ Guitar Interactive Interview