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.
