My Roots

If you live outside the New York City circumference, there is a good chance that The Compulsions is not in your rock & roll vocabulary. Not that they suck, it’s just a simple case of a band that has not had the luxury of venturing out of their backyard. But that may be coming to an end as there is positive label interest in their debut full-length, Beat The Devil.

Fronting the Roxy Gunn Project for only a little over a year now, the band is percolating just under the rock & roll radar. But things are really beginning to kick in. Late last year Roxy was picked to play the part of Michael Pare’ and Diane Lane’s musician daughter in the movie sequel to Street Of Fire, which should premier sometime later this year. The band also contributed both original songs and material written by Jim Steinman, who is most recognized for penning songs for Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler. It was an exciting time for Roxy and her band, which consists of guitar player Jon Mills, bass player Chris Reject and drummer Ryan J.

Do you ever wonder if professional musicians are really happy? They claim to love their time on the stage but most of the other hours tend to be a series of bus rides, generic dressing rooms, interviews with journalists and lots of sitting around doing nothing. After a while this can become insanely monotonous. But if you listen to Megadeth’s bass player Dave Ellefson talk, you get the impression that life on the road and in the studio is nothing short of total bliss.

Slowly the Syracuse, New York band Brand New Sin has been building a following up and down the East Coast with their unique brand of punk-flavored rock & roll. With original guitar player taking over the lead vocal spot a few years ago and with the addition of new guitar player Tommy Matkowski, BNS is finally seeing all their hard work and hard-headed determination pay off with more touring dates, even more fans and a new CD called United State

You wouldn’t think that a man who plays atomic guitar riffs for Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie would be so "normal"," but that is exactly what John 5 is.

Jack Blades is driving. After talking for a few minutes about his new solo record Rock N Roll Ride, he has to switch to his cell phone and finish our interview as he heads out on an errand.  The Night Ranger front-man is exactly as you would imagine him to be: friendly, energetic, happy. If you thought maybe his stage persona of the hyperactive lead singer running all over the stage, singing and talking fast was just part of the performance – rest assured, Jack Blades has no plans on slowing down anytime soon.

Most know guitarist Steve Morse as the lead guitarist for Deep Purple since 1994, replacing the legendary Ritchie Blackmore. However most recently, Morse has joined forces with ex-Dream Theater drum hero Mike Portnoy, vocalist Casey McPherson, multi-instrumentalist Neal Morse and bass player Dave LaRue to record an eclectic new CD with a band they have dubbed Flying Colors.

For a man who has been out on the concert trail for a number of months, Richard Fortus is feeling surprisingly invigorated. The guitar player for Guns N Roses and The Compulsions, has been rocking across the country but he is finally home in St Louis, happily surrounded by his family and far away from the lights, the fans and the long bus rides.

Jack Russell had the world in the palm of his hand. Then poof – it disappeared before his very eyes and he found himself on the outside looking in. And outside was not a safe place to be. Waking up to the hum of machines and a voice whispering that a friend had died is a cruel reality check. Jack Russell needed to wake up before it was too late.

Probably one of the most popular young bands out there today, Art Of Dying has become the darlings of rock & roll. Last year they traveled the country as part of the Uproar Festival and rode a big kahuna wave right up the charts with their first two singles “Die Trying” and “Get Thru This”. And with their fan base growing larger every day, they are certainly feeling pretty good.

This past November, Megadeth released their latest musical endeavor, aptly named TH1RT3EN. Chock full of the snarls and shreds that fans are used to, it also hums with a new energy that has been building since the addition of guitar player Chris Broderick in 2008.

Having spent quality time with both David Bowie and John Lennon providing inventive guitar sounds to such albums as Young Americans and Double Fantasy, he has never stayed satisfied. Instead, he keeps chasing the rock & roll dragon, developing new projects that fill him with that tingly excitement that a new band chemistry naturally provides. He is currently reviving Phantom, Rocker & Slick and they are hitting the concert trail with their brand of rockabilly rock, while over these past few weeks he has been spending studio time with a local punk band. And on top of all that, he has recorded a few songs with his Dolls bandmate David Johansen and Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars.

is not easy being the musician who takes over for a popular member of a superstar band; to come in and try to fill those shoes all while attempting to put your own personal spin on the music that millions know word for word and note for note. But this was the situation that Lawrence Gowan found himself in when he replaced Dennis DeYoung in the vastly popular Styx in 1999. Since then, he has put his stamp on the Styx catalog, adding a bit of Scottish-Canadian wizardry to their American classics such as “Renegade”, “Crystal Ball” and “Blue Collar Man”. But what some fans may still not know is that Gowan was pretty popular on his own in Canada, nabbing awards and hit records and successful tours. He just never had the chance to see what he could do in the United States until he joined forces with Styx.

“They had me looking at things differently than I usually would. Ideas started to untangle and we got into areas of writing that seemed fresh and exciting,” Nikki Sixx wrote in his photography book This Is Gonna Hurt, referring to his collaboration with Sixx:AM bandmates Dj Ashba and James Michael. “Their talent inspired me like nothing else had in years."

Jaimoe is quite proud of his band and has been traveling the country playing in small jazz clubs and opening for the Gregg Allman Band during their spring tour. But more new music is in the offering. “We’ve got five more songs in the can that didn’t make the album so we’ve got a good place to start from”.

Mike Portnoy is laid back,  cool, and relatively calm despite all the hysteria going on around him. When he called to talk with Glide last month, he was holed up in a recording studio in Nashville doing a new album with Neal Morse.   That's in addition to his new album called Omerta with his band Adrenaline Mob and another new album with his other band Flying Colors.

Lonn Friend did not set out to be a journalist. It was not embalmed in his membrane when he first heard The Beatles or Genesis or Madman Across The Water. Music was just something that infiltrated his pores and ran screaming & shouting in gleeful playfulness through his veins and imploded in his soul like that first taste of a minty ice cream. He did not take courses in college or pray to the altar of Lester Bangs’ Creem rantings in hopes of one day becoming the superior voice of rock & roll adjectives and verbs. He did not plan on talking to rock stars about their creative process. He did not foresee hanging out with Axl Rose. It just one day happened.

Nils Lofgren has his hands full. Not only has he recently released a new solo CD called Old School but he is preparing to hit the highway with his E Street band-mates on a highly anticipated tour. “We’re starting rehearsals,” Lofgren said before our interview last month while he was in New Jersey.

Don’t let the name fool you: Hank3 is not your average country music singer. The grandson of the country legend has many facets to his musical rhythm, from twangy country laced with metal to his speed-bullet punk-influenced Attention Deficit Domination. He is not who you think he would be

“I’m sitting on the beach and it’s fantastic,” says Phil Collen  feeling like a kid again via a new album he has out with his trio Manraze, featuring Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook and Collen’s former Girl bandmate Simon Laffy. Called FunkPunkRootsRock, the CD features such rocking songs as the first single “Over My Dead Body”, “All I Want To Do”, “Bittersweet” and “Closer To Me”.