My Roots

If you’ve ever watched a performance by Rival Sons, your first impression of singer Jay Buchanan is that he is serious, mysterious, almost shamanistic in the way he seems to put every drop of emotion into the conveyance of the song he is singing. His body will twist in turmoil, sweat pouring off of him, […]

Back in 2011, Glide called Scott Sharrard, “Gregg Allman’s Secret Weapon.” But that anonymity didn’t last long. Joining the band in 2008, by 2011 the guitar player was feeling right at home within the rhythms and harmony of Allman’s solo band; so much so, that he has done nothing but soar ever since. Currently the […]

What a year it has been for The Suffers. After just a few years of existence, this group has everybody talking. With an arousing appearance on Letterman, which left the host slobbering all over himself with excitement, and house-shaking performances at festivals and clubs, The Suffers are stirring a pot. But don’t call them Retro […]

If you have been listening to Jethro Tull for the past forty-six years, you will know the imprint they have made in the music world. That unique sound created when a group of musicians changed from being a blues-tinged band into one with a cacophony of medieval bings and whistles mated with the new darker […]

Guitar legend Leslie West loves to take a song created and recorded by someone else and give it the ole Leslie West twist. Known for his tone and remarkable soloing, the founder of Mountain has always loved to wrap his fingers around a great tune, be it his own or ones belonging to some of […]

When guitar player Jeremy Brown passed away in March, Scott Weiland was left not only sad about his friend’s untimely death but in a unique quandary: a new album with his band the Wildabouts was being released and a tour was right around the corner. He needed someone to step in almost immediately, someone who […]

On October 2nd Atlanta’s Sevendust released their eleventh studio album, Kill The Flaw. The energy is there, the passion is there, the blazing guitars and machine gun drumming are there. Everything you could possibly want on a Sevendust record is served right up. “We took some time off from the heavy side of Sevendust and […]

It’s a bit on the warm side, this Friday night in New Orleans when Ryan Bingham takes to the Flambeau Stage at the Voodoo Music & Arts Experience a few weeks ago. Opening with a kicking “Dollar A Day” from his first solo record, 2007’s Mescalito, when Richard Bowden’s fiddle kicks in, you can feel […]

In 2008, a trio out of Wales released their first record, an EP titled A Balloon Called Moaning. Several of those tracks they still include in their live set, songs such as “Whirring” and “Cradle.” For their 2011 debut full-length, The Big Roar, they rerecorded those tracks, plus two others off the EP, and the […]

It’s not every day that a band starts, plays a couple of gigs and then gets signed to their first label. But it happened to Alberta Cross. The band formed when Petter Ericson Stakee and Tyler Wolfers decided the songs they were creating on their own while in another band were worthy of more attention. […]

“I’m in dad mode,” Black Stone Cherry’s John Fred Young says with a laugh when I call him for an interview a few weeks ago. “It’s our first one, the first grandbaby and the first great-grandbaby on both sides so she has no hope, she’s going to be spoiled.” With a daughter approaching the one […]

Looks can sometimes be quite deceiving. With his spiky hair and hardcore stare, you might look upon Billy Idol guitar player Billy Morrison as a firm supporter of the days when punk rock was boiling over with attitude and violence. He comes across tough with his low slung Gibson and leather jacket, hanging out near […]

What happens when you have a couple of British chicks who want to play rock & roll and no boys will let them play in their bands? They start their own. That is how Kim McAuliffe and Enid Williams went from wanting to play music to actually doing it, forming Painted Lady in the mid-1970’s, […]

On Friday, the Winery Dogs released their second album, appropriately titled Hot Streak. It vibrates with such a delicious mix of rock and funk, it should be considered for many best of 2015 lists. The super trio of Richie Kotzen, Billy Sheehan and Mike Portnoy has certainly done it again, proving fire can burn in […]

You have to give Alice Cooper credit: he has always had the best bands around him. From the original five guys who were a band first and foremost to the musicians who make up his entourage in 2015, each one knows how to bring the rock to such classic songs as “School’s Out,” “Under My […]

A prolific writer, John Lodge has penned many of the Moody Blues songs since he joined the band in 1966; songs such as “I’m Just A Singer (In A Rock & Roll Band),” “Gemini Dream,” “House Of Four Doors,” “Ride My See-Saw,” “Send Me No Wine” and “Isn’t Life Strange,” among many others. Recently, he […]

Beginning next week, on September 23 to be precise, the legendary singer/songwriter Joan Armatrading will kick off the second half of the United States leg of her Me Myself I world tour, playing approximately thirty dates over a two month period. What makes this tour unique is that it is the first time in her […]

When you compare LA Guns to most of the other bands that fermented on the Sunset Strip in the 1980’s, they didn’t necessarily fit into the whole lipstick and spandex hair metal world. Leather, chains, snarls fresh from studying posters of Sid Vicious, they played hard with a twist of lime. You never got the […]

For a young band such as Like A Storm, it certainly doesn’t hurt to have a rock & roll fairy godfather. In their case, that would be guitar player Mark Tremonti, who has taken the New Zealand native brothers – Chris, Matt & Kent Brooks – on the road with all three of his bands: […]

Do you remember what you were doing fifty years ago? Guitar player Rudolf Schenker was putting together the Scorpions in Germany and half a century later they are still going strong. One listen through their upcoming Return To Forever album, which drops on September 11th, there is not much difference between the young men who […]