My Roots

It must feel good being Mark Tremonti right about now. Among the 20th century’s most respected guitar players, he is sitting on top of the world with not one but three bands: Creed, Alter Bridge and his new power trio Tremonti. Not bad for a heavy metal loving math nerd who once worked at Chili’s.

Whether you were a kid in the 60’s or the 80’s, you probably at some point caught a TV show about four fun-loving hippyish musicians who were always getting into some kind of hilarious mischief. Known as the Monkee,  ith a new solo recording titled Remember, which debuted September 25, Dolenz found some time last month to talk with Glide about his new album, his days in the Monkees and how the upcoming reunion tour will not be a melancholy requiem.

You may have thought that Joe Walsh has led a very exciting life. Rock stars have all the fun, right? But living the rock star life finally takes it’s toll and one day you wake up and realize that life hasn’t been so good after all.

Steve Vai’s brain must be such an interesting place to explore. The music he creates from looking inside swirl around in a universe full of light and spirituality. From discovering keys on a piano at a very young age to falling under the spell of an electric guitar a few years later, Vai has taken transcendental meditation to an all-new arena.

The angelic voice that launched “Manic Monday” and “Eternal Flame” hasn’t faltered much in the years since the eye-popping heyday of The Bangles. The genuineness of Susanna Hoffs’ vocals on her latest album, Someday, is as sparkling as ever on such tunes as “Picture Me,” “Always Enough” and “Regret.”

Don Dokken is ready for some changes. With the release of his namesake’s latest, and possibly last, album under the Dokken monikor, he is contemplating some new and exciting pursuits; one being a project with guitar phenom Michael Schenker

For a while in the 1990’s, the Smashing Pumpkins had a whirlwind ride, spitting out singles such as “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” and “Zero” that enraptured listeners with a searing dose of alternative corrosiveness from the psyche of frontman Billy Corgan. It touched a nerve and brought the band to the height of fame. Now in 2012, Iha has put together a reflective solo album titled Look To The Sky and last month took a little time while home in New York to call in to talk about his “cool” youth and what inspired him to go back into the studio.

Rob Zombie is a no-bullshit visionary. While leading White Zombie on a gory-fun trail through the rock & roll hemisphere, he carved up electrifying stage productions and music videos filled with fluorescently vivid images of the macabre while playing grungily catchy tunes; something that he continues to do with his solo band.

After 15 years with Sevendust, guitar player John Connolly has finally stepped out of his comfort zone to take his vocal chords for a test drive on their own. Along with his longtime friends – bandmate Vince Hornsby, Alter Bridge/Creed drummer Scott Phillips and Creed touring guitarist/vocalist Eric “Erock” Friedman – Connolly took what was supposed to be something more solo yet found the energy and chemistry too strong to keep under wraps in his Florida recording studio.

It’s been a year since the release of George Thorogood’s last record, the highly acclaimed back-to-Chess-roots salute 2120 South Michigan Avenue, featuring snazzy rocking interpretations of songs by Sonny Boy Williamson, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, yet the guitar player remains on the road, playing songs that have been a part of his repertoire for many years. And this is the very reason that Thorogood has been able to lay these tracks down and do them justice. They are in his blood and a part of his inner chemical balance. His gravelly bad ass vocals with a 50’s kick come alive on such humdingers as “Help Me,” “Mama Talk To Your Daughter” and “Willie Dixon’s Gone.”

Coming into Bush following the departure of founding member Nigel Pulsford during the Golden State tour in 2002, Chris Traynor stuck with Gavin Rossdale after Bush’s abrupt hiatus, playing with him in a project called Insight and then on Rossdale’s solo venture. But 2011 brought forth Rossdale and Traynor with drummer Robin Goodridge and bass player Corey Britz for the recording of The Sea Of Memories. And fans were just as happy to have them back as they were to see their fans, as the first single “The Sound Of Winter” scored at number one.

If all you know about Don Felder is that he was the guitar player in the Eagles who came up with the music to “Hotel California”, then you’ve obviously been hiding under a 1970’s-era rock. Publishing his autobiography, Heaven & Hell: My Life In The Eagles, in 2008, it not only opened the doors into one of the most influential and timeless bands of the peaceful easy feeling era but showed his own personal highs and lows in brutal honesty. Since leaving the band in 2000, he has continually played sold out solo shows and shared his memories of growing up poor in the musically fertile Gainesville, Florida. He is a scrapper with an eloquent tongue.

She is not yet 30, but her skills on the guitar has already garnered her some impressive high fives from fret masters such as Carlos Santana and Steve Vai. Hailing from Australia, Orianthi knew early on that her future followed the yellow brick road not through academic poppy fields but along the gleaming stretched out strings of an electric guitar; it’s incredible hum and vivre capturing her soul in such a way that she dropped out of school early and ended up in the promised land of masqueraded broken dreams, where the young lady has actually beaten the jesters and is succeeding where many young musicians have cemented in dead-end non-musical gigs.

Bass player Matt DiRito is jumping on the couch like an over-excited ten year old boy. It’s an hour before showtime and Pop Evil is chilling out before taking the stage at the Hard Rock in Biloxi, Mississippi. Vocalist Leigh Kakaty is stretched out on the other couch, his black hair hidden underneath a hat as he talks in a soft voice about growing up in Michigan. The band, formed in the Wolverine state in 2001, has had a very hot hit single (“Monster You Made”) from their latest CD, War Of Angels, and another popular single and video featuring Motley Crue’s Mick Mars (“Boss’s Daughter”) that recently hit the airwaves.

few weeks after interviewing Ian Astbury, the cosmic soul of The Cult, GLIDE was able to talk with the band’s so called “nuts and bolts”: guitar player Billy Duffy. Possessing a fun sense of humor, Duffy was excited about the band’s new record Choice Of Weapon and the tour that was just getting underway when we spoke. But first on his agenda was soccer.

For Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, the time is ripe for them to move up another notch on the rock and blues hierarchy. With a superb, extra bluesy/captivatingly mystical new album called The Lion The Beast The Beat, the Vermont based band are storming across the country, opening for Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney, and taking a hooky day to sit in with the Flaming Lips as they broke the record for most concerts played in different cities within a 24-hour period. And it feels good. Just ask Potter, who has an infectiously natural joie de vivre about life at this moment in time

Best known as the drummer for Def Leppard, Rick Allen recently took an artistic swing in another creative direction. Instead of banging away with a pair of wooden drumsticks, he picked up some lightsticks and in place of sound he gave birth to colorful images, a process that invigorated his passion. With eleven of his pieces now on display at his website, Allen recently took MY ROOTS on a journey through his art-inspired beginnings just prior to the start of Def Leppard’s current tour with Poison and Lita Ford.

Lita Ford is back. After a ten year sabbatical living on an island and raising two sons, who are now fifteen and eleven, Ford has just unleashed Living Like A Runaway, a soul-diving expose’ with enough sharp edges and guitar shreds to leave no doubt that the woman in the black leather pants is back on the metal scene.

Earlier this month, Glide had a chance to talk with one of the founders of the legendary 60’s band, Big Brother & The Holding Company. Sam Andrew, who still tours in a version of the band to this day, shared memories of his time playing with Janis Joplin during the heyday of the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love and the release of Live At The Carousel Ballroom 1968, a remarkably sharp and pristine recording that sat in perfect hibernation at soundman Owsley Stanley’s home for years. For music fans who have always focused their attention on the breathtakingly otherworld vocals of Joplin, this recording will be a surprise as it brings to the forefront the talent of Big Brother as a whole band.

When you hear the name Appice, you know good, solid, mammoth drumming will follow. With older brother Carmine leading the way into rock & roll by playing with Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart and Ted Nugent, it was inevitable that his younger brother would pick up the sticks and follow right along behind him. Carving out his own niche keeping the groove with such metal legends as Black Sabbath and Dio, Vinny Appice is back on the beat with his new band Kill Devil Hill.