My Roots

If the name Jeff Scott Soto sounds familiar but you can’t quite place what band he played in, all one has to say is Yngwie and it should immediately click. Singing on the Swedish guitar shredder’s first two albums in the mid-80’s prepared him for life on the road and in the heavy metal spotlight. Probably his most lucrative project was Talisman with former Yngwie bandmate, the late Marcel Jacob, who passed away in 2009.

Vivian Campbell who had a good career going even before he joined the British hit-making band, having played with Dio and Whitesnake, is revving up for several new projects on his musical horizon. First, he will be joining his bandmates for a rock & roll residency in Las Vegas, called Viva Hysteria, from March 22 to April 10. Playing the entire Hysteria album in it’s entirety is only part of the show.

They are young and wild and free and conquering the world. Stirring up the rock & roll waters with their previous hits “Rebel Love Song,” “Fallen Angels” and “Set The World On Fire,” Black Veil Brides have become the youth gone wild’s inner voice. Although chided for their smudged-up early Motley Crue look, their lyrics have enabled the band to step out of idolization and into a spotlight all their own.

For Jordan, this is another fountain of youth moment that she hopes to keep drinking from. Having been in the business over thirty years, her bluesy voice and kinetic energy has brought her many highlights: singing with Joe Cocker on The Bodyguard soundtrack, being a judge on Canadian Idol, doing some acting and most notably belting out songs from her heart and her gut.With the S.U.N. album just hitting on February 12, Jordan was hanging out in California creating yet more music.

“It’s going to be a crazy year,” Devon Allman says with a smile as he works on his guitar before his show in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve. Starting the year off with a bang with his bandmates in Royal Southern Brotherhood, Allman has been touring almost non-stop since. But we were able to catch the young blues man on a rare day at home in St Louis, fresh from the Rock Legends Cruise, to talk about his new solo album, which officially premiers tomorrow, February 12.

For over a decade, the Canadian trio Triumph was the darling of its home country, eventually crossing over to break into the American music charts with “Lay It On The Line,” “Never Surrender” and “Somebody’s Out There.” But by 1988, vocalist/guitar player Rik Emmett was feeling the need to leave the band and do something fresh. Venturing out on his own, his first album, Absolutely, was a nice success, spawning the emotional ballad “When A Heart Breaks.”

Craig Chaquico should write a book. The former lead guitar player for Jefferson Starship, who now has a thriving solo career, has lots of great stories; some of which he shared with Glide when he called in to talk with me about his new album Fire Red Moon

If you want to know what it’s like to be young and following your dream in the music business, look no further than Texas-native Tyler Bryant. He is the epitome of youth with a grounded sense of who he is and how he can not only be the best guitar player he can be but be the best person he can be. With a solid foundation of family, friends and mentors, twenty-one year old Bryant has been able to go from wanting to be Elvis while in first grade to actually playing guitar like his idols Stevie Ray Vaughan and Lightnin’ Hopkins. He may be young at heart but his heart has been fermenting in the old blues.

Steve Lukather is feeling good. He answers the phone for our interview with a jovial “Hellllooooo, Darling” and is ready and raring to talk: “Ask me anything. Nothing is taboo.” Actually, what he is really anxious to talk about is his new upcoming solo album Transition, which debuts next week on January 22.

After a nice break for the holidays, MY ROOTS returns this week with something a little different to welcome in the new year. A few months ago, I sat down with the three musicians who make up the core of Slash’s solo band: bass player Todd Kerns, drummer Brent Fitz and newest member Frank Sidoris. But instead of doing an interview the old-fashioned way, we did a sort of round robin that was both serious and fun.

Rival Sons is a band on the borderline of a breakthrough here in the States. Yet across the pond they have already been embraced, kissed and welcomed aboard the rock & roll freight train. With the recent issue of Classic Rock magazine pondering on their cover whether they just may be the hottest band in rock, this California quartet are reveling in some big time British love. Their most recent album, Head Down, is afire with psychedelic soul based rock & roll tunes that have become all too uncommon in an industry that swears they love rock & roll yet continues to prop other unworthy genres high on their charts.

The thing about DJ Bonebrake that you immediately notice is his sense of humor. He laughs a lot and could have a second career as a stand-up comedian if he ever grew tired of playing drums. So while he flips through hundreds of CDs he really doesn’t want to part with, many of them jazz and big band era treasures, Bonebrake talks about his years in X, his love for jazz, his tragicomic youth and his new adventures with a band called The Stripminers.

The holidays are upon us and everyone is out there searching for perfect stocking stuffers for friends and family. And what would be more perfect than a new album by a kick ass band from Boston. Music From Another Dimension is Aerosmith’s 15th studio album and features rockers like “Luv XXX,” “Legendary Child,” “Beautiful,” “Street Jesus” and the Joe Perry foot stomper “Freedom Fighter.” Hell, there is even a duet with country’s Carrie Underwood on “Can’t Stop Loving You.” Leave it to Aerosmith to always throw in a little head jerk surprise on an album that has to be their best since the hit-laden late-80’s and early-90’s.

Born and raised near Philadelphia, Keifer has always been drawn towards the bluesy side of rock. Forming Cinderella in the very early 80’s and breaking wide open with 1986’s Night Songs, the band is still alive and kicking almost thirty years later, still touring actively on the circuit to sold out audiences; all without a new band album in sight. Their reputation of good songs in an electrifying live set is what keeps fans coming back time and time again.

Mick Jones is the only remaining original member but guitar/sax player Tom Gimbel is right behind him at almost twenty years. Having traveled with Aerosmith and Jon Butcher, Gimbel still carries the smile of a newbie looking out at a sea of screaming fans for the first time. It is his enthusiasm that helps catapult Foreigner to the heights they go to each time they jump onto a concert stage, making this ensemble perhaps the best line-up in Foreigner’s career.

He is standing on the edge of a stage, long dark hair swirling around him as he rips his guitar strings into a pathological scream for mercy. Being the latest in a respected line of guitar players that Ozzy Osbourne has discovered and bred in his fertile solo band, Gus G is playing his heart out. But what some fans don’t realize is that Gus is not a virgin ingénue. He has been playing guitar since a little kid and in more bands – at one time – than most musicians play with in their entire careers. And now one of those bands is starting to cause a ripple outside of their native Greece with the release of Few Against Many.

Down-to-earth better describes Jeff Ament than hero, a term he would shrug off with a hearty laugh. He was a music fan who became a music maker. That his music became one of the voices of a generation was a nice surprise that has enabled him to make even more music … and continue to skateboard and play basketball instead of punching a time clock every day of the week.

Patterson Hood had something he wanted to say. He just wasn’t planning on contouring those words into melodies. Instead, the leader of the Drive-By Truckers was making alliterations the old-fashioned way by putting pen to paper and allowing his imagery to tell a story that was painstakingly close to when his life wasn’t so easy

“There’s really not much to say,” Geoff Tate politely says when asked about the Queensryche drama of a few months ago. It’s understandable that the voice of the thinking-man’s metal band would now rather talk about things of a more up-beat nature. The separation from the band he helped mold has been a painful trek and he is more than ready to turn his attention to the more positives in his life.

Brad Gillis is one of the reasons Night Ranger has chugged along with the kind of energy you mostly see in bands twice their age. However, on the day that he called in to talk with me about his career, he was enjoying a lazy, beautiful day in the East Bay, “home for eight days so it’s kind of nice,” Gillis laughed.