Today on eonmusic, I am joined by Bruce John Dickinson from Little Angels; I bet you never heard thought you'd hear that phrase used again.
Well, thanks for having me. Yeah, it's funny actually, it's like living in parallel universes; I've got one for running the music colleges, and then the other foot involved in the whole Little Angels stuff. But, you know, it all comes back. We seem to have reverted to the same dynamic we had when we were kids at school, the way we're working and the level of enthusiasm. When a band works well, there's that chemistry and it becomes a little unit, and we've definitely got that feeling again, so it's just great. The response has been amazing. It's very unexpected and very appreciated as well. I thought we'd maybe sell 400 tickets in each show, so for people to be so interested is an amazing thing. I think all of us are just taken aback by it really, and a bit humbled by it.

You do all seem genuinely excited; what is it about this time around that has got you all so fired up?
It's probably the age we're all at, and the audience. You realise that life's fairly finite, and you also realise how precious these things are. You also get a little bit better at working out what's important in life and what isn't, so I think it's that, and it's just the fact that you can do it. Imagine looking at sixty, being on the runway to sixty, and being able to get your old band out of retirement and go and do gigs like we do; it's an amazing privilege.

Have you played together yet?
Not yet. The last time we played together would have been the Isle of Wight festival [2013]. That would be the last show we did. I've played with Mark [Richardson, drums] a bit. It's just getting us all in one place, because I live in the Shetland Islands, Mark Plunkett [bass] is all over the world, and people are dotted about. Grant [Kirkhope]'s in L.A., the trumpet player. We've got all the rehearsals scheduled though, and we do a lot of stuff, just figuring things out. We've got a set list planned out, and we buy in gear for the tour, so it's an excuse to be buying amps. I've got a big weakness for amps, and not so much for guitars really, because, you can only play one guitar at a time, and you can't really beat the guitars I've got, so I'd only be buying another version of a guitar that I've got. But amps is endless variation, and they're always just the old '60s and '70s style ones I like.

What's it been like for you to sit down and go through the songs; does it come easy, or do you have to relearn it all?
I like to really get under the skin of a song and the part so I can forget about it. So I like to get it to a point where, if I want to go off-piste, I can. For me personally, I like to have a very solid foundation so I'll learn the records as they are, and then I'll see if I can put a bit of how I'm feeling at the moment into it. I've reverted back to a more aggressive playing style, like the album one ['Don't Prey For Me', 1989]. People forget how by album three ['Jam', 1993], the whole grunge thing meant it was very difficult to do any guitar solos, as such. You were trying to exist in a post grunge world, and we couldn't really make the album like we did with the first album. That's a bit more post-Van Halen, post-New Wave of British Heavy Metal. That's where we were born, and then we had to try and survive through all the changes. So I've reverted back to that; a bit more aggressive, a few more notes.

Guitar players styles do change over the years, and you've come a long, long way; you had b.l.o.w, and obviously you've been teaching for many years. 
Yeah, I had 12 years I didn't have a guitar in the house and didn't touch it. I was still teaching because I  was operating like a tennis coach. I'm a bit all or nothing, so I don't like to pick a guitar up every three days and play for an hour, so I either commit to doing it properly, or I just don't do it at all, which is a failing, really. It's just not a healthy way of doing it really, but certainly, there's been a few pivotal things. We worked with an engineer called Ian Taylor, an amazing producer, and he's best known for 'Still Got the Blues' by Gary Moore, but before that record he was engineering some Little Angels stuff, and Gary Moore is a big influence on me. I come from that line of that British Blues as a style. I get told off for calling Gary Moore a "British Blues player" because of his Irish roots, but what I'm talking about is British Blues as a style. It starts with Clapton's and Peter Green's interpretation of people like Freddie King. Now the Americans, the closer you get to Texas, the more they seem to swing, and I think when an English player does that, it's always a Steve Ray Vaughan quote, so I tried to not do that, because I come from York, Scarborough, and the English playing style, which I would like to be in the line of, which is Clapton, Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Gary Moore, then souping it up.

So those influences, but more contemporary?
Yeah, then John Sykes souping it up further, but for me, the minute you lose the blues, I'm gone. I'm out. I'm not interested. So that's why I can really see the appeal of Iron Maiden; I really like it, I love the concept, the guy's are fantastic, and it's an amazing thing, but for me I'd always air to Sabbath because of the blues, because of 'War Pigs', and I just need to feel that rooted connection into the earth a little bit, rather than what mode someone's learned on YouTube that day.

So it's all about the feel?
Peter Green spent one year playing single notes and listening to the sound as the pick. It's the string, so the angle of my pick, I hold the pick weird. It's very bad for technique. I hold it with two fingers and I get the string very flat, like ninety degrees, because that's where you get the mid frequencies, which I need to cut through from the horns and the hi-hats and the keyboards; my space is there. My pick tilts, and I'll get into the hi-hat area and the horn section. So that playing one note for a year, just for hours at a time, was trying to get the balance, like George Harrison. And I'd stopped shredding, so my hand position went from that to that, the Hendrix one, and you could only get a big Gary Moore sound with that leverage.

That's a fascinating amount of attention to detail.
Predominantly it's about that hand position, and then I lost the use of a hand like eighteen months ago, with nerve damage from my neck. If you look at some of the Little Angels clips I'm always flinging my head about, and it caused nerve compression, and I got into real trouble with it in the late '80s. Quite a lot of it affects down my arms, and managing it's been fine, and then it flared up and I lost the use of my hand eighteen months ago. I did a lot of work to relearn guitar. My mate, Martin Goulden, who's very much an absolute shred monster, he gave me this routine to put my playing back together, which was much more disciplined and more Paul Gilbert style, so I got a bit of that, and that was fun. So that's the component part. So essentially, I just want to be Mick Ronson, and I want that woody cello through a jet engine sound. I just want to do what Gary Moore did with Peter Green; I want to do that with Mick Ronson.

I've always been fascinated with your signature 'Eat My Dust' Gibson Les Paul. Tell me the story about that. 
I had a belt sander to that one because I don't like finish on guitars. They sound better without it, and I would never have modern Les Pauls. I've used Gibsons all my life. Never buy a modern one; the woods different. It's farmed wood most of the time, and they can't cut down rainforests anymore. It's fair enough, but the use of PVA based glue, it doesn't work, it doesn't resonate properly, and thick, gloopy finishes, you've just got to get them removed. So these are all nitro finishes on the old ones.

What year is that guitar? When did you make those modifications? Why the skull? I want to hear all about that guitar.
It's a '78 Les Paul Custom, and I found it in Unit Four, which is an amazing little second hand shop in Scarborough, and it's still there. It's called something else now, and I should know it, but Chris at Unit Four had it in the back. Les Pauls were really out of fashion as it was before Guns and Roses really, and everyone was playing stuff like super Strats, which I was playing this at the time. Anyway, I found it, and it was just because of Thin Lizzy, really. I really, really love Brian Robertson, and his sound and his taste and his use of wah is quite similar to how I like it. It just reminded me also a bit of Peter Frampton. I just wanted to pretend to be in Thin Lizzy, so I bought it, and it had an awful metal nut that someone had put so it couldn't stay in tune, so I sorted that out

When did you get it? 
I must have got it in '89 or something like that, but the paint had already started to chip off a little bit within a few gigs, and the back was going, and the neck paint was coming off because I was playing eight hours a day then, so it was all just wearing off. And then Charlie Cutforth did the designs; he's the artist who did all the devil logos on the band's artwork. So we were around his house, we were doing all this stuff, and it was just an afterthought. He just used a pointy screwdriver and he just did it; no sketches or anything. I think I'd seen some patch in a hippie shop with a skeleton riding a Harley Davidson, and it said 'Eat My Dust', and I just thought it was funny, so we put that on. My other thing is fishing for wild fish, so the fish bones just sort of came out of that. But there was no thinking behind it. We just did it, and it became a thing.

It's so iconic, and this is an odd one, but fast forward maybe five years after Little Angels split, and on this Saturday morning kids TV show I'm sure I spied sone guy plying that guitar; what's the story there?! 
So that's Chris Leonard. He was a guitar student back in the '90s, and he got that TV gig, and I think he was on some kids TV morning show in the house band, and he didn't really have a great guitar so I sold him that for £300 quid. And then his mum rang me up and told me off for selling him an old guitar, even though it would be worth a couple of grand even then, probably! Anyway, Chris went on to be in a band called Son of Dork, which is an offshoot of Busted or McFly or something, and then eventually it came back to me. I had to pay a bit more than £300 quid to get it back.

It's funny you should mention that because I was flicking through an old copy of Classic Rock from 2002 and in it you say that there was a point where you were selling guitars every week.
It's the life of a musician. We had an award-winning album and then we owed a big tax bill, and that's that roller coaster thing. It's one of the things that you have to confront head on if you want this life; everyone wants to play music for a living, but you've got to take the other side of it, which is you might not know where your mortgage is coming from in two days. You've got to hustle a bit. So I was doing that, but I've got no reverence for material things, really. I love that guitar, and there's a lot of sentimentality about that one in particular, but if the house burned down, I'd just get another old one. They are tools, and I think that's why '70s instruments work for me, but '60s don't, because the minute you refresh them you lose so much money, so you can't chop them about, and I like to have that relationship with the gear. That guitar is not easy to play; you've got to fight it, and I don't like guitars that are easy to play, like a PRS. A PRS is always lovely, in tune, the intonation is better, it's more solid, it's more consistent, but it doesn't have that character and the mojo.

As a guitar scholar, it must have been amazing to get to tour with Van Halen in 1993; did you get to hang with Eddie? 
Well, I mean, that tour, you don't forget stuff like that. I stopped tapping for that tour because I thought it was disrespectful. I'd still do quite a lot of my version of it, but I changed my playing style as I felt it'd be disrespectful with me doing that. The first gig, we were late, got lost. There was no sat navs in them days, so we all puffing and panting getting there. Then from the moment we started we had a very close relationship with Eddie, and looking back, it was partially because he was still partying quite a lot. The rest of the band were all going the gym and being sober, and Eddie wasn't. We were young and daft, and if Eddie Van Halen wants to party with you, what are you going to do? So it was really wild, and it was just fantastic.

It sounds like a lot of fun.
It culminated with Wembley, and underneath the stage on both sides, there's a big walkway that Sammy Hagar would run around on, and there's lots of guitar solo moments with Eddie, and Michael Anthony had a bar built into the stage, so every night we would go to Michael Anthony's bar, and he would be the barman, so he would do you Jack and Coke, and it would be half pint of Jack Daniels and half pint of coke. That was the times we were living in, and it had become fairly normal by then. So I'd had one of these Jack and Cokes and then suddenly got pushed out on the stage to play 'Alright Now 'with Eddie Van Halen, which was great. Now, the weird thing is, I'd never learned that tune particularly, but looking back, to my horror, the version is not quite right, so I would have liked to really nailed it, but we sailed through, and it was great.

I wanted to clear up the whole 'Spitfire' thing; was the album title really changed to 'Young Gods' so as not to cause offence due to the Gulf war?
It was. No, I'll tell you exactly what happened. There's two things happened. One, the nervousness around the title actually came from the record label. Corporate entities tend to be very risk averse, and I think it was nonsense, really. I don't think there was enough of a connection to the Gulf war to be a problem, but they were really sensitive about the way it would be displayed in HMV or whatever, so they kind of vetoed it. And you've got to be careful pushing that stuff through, because we didn't feel strongly enough about the title 'Spitfire' to really fight for it, because what if you'd have got it wrong and record hadn't been displayed, kind of thing? So that why the title had to change, and 'Young Gods' was probably one of the pivotal songs on the record, so 'Young Gods' it became.

And then 'Boneyard', there was a story at the time that it was banned by Radio One because of the "we're all going down to the boneyard" thing and the war happening, but in reality, I think it probably just didn't get on the playlist. They didn't like it, so they didn't play it. It's not really a Radio One record. It's probably a bit heavy for them. I think the record company and probably us just thought it was easier to say it's been banned, than it didn't get on the playlist. 

Listening back to 'Boneyard', and it's a real shred fest for you; you're soloing all over it!
Yeah, sorry about that! I think that it's really good not to think in terms of rhythm and lead. I did a lot of listening to Jimi Hendrix, and the minute you start going; "this is rhythm; this is lead", it's less excited. I think a lot of those leads are incidental little bits around the rhythm. It certainly is live, but that record was made in a period when you would run 48 tracks, so you had two tape machines, two, two-inch tapes synced up, running together, in the days before computers, and put a lot of attention to detail. it's kind of lost art now of, if you did an edit, it was a razor blade and tape. So generally, you had to play, and you didn't want to be chopping up the tape too often, With Mike Lee, he was such a virtuoso drummer that he never really made mistakes, and everything he did was a keeper, which is very, very rare, so you had such a solid foundation, and it's very easy to play guitar if you've got an amazing drummer. You sound better than you are.

What are your favourite songs to play, and what  is the key Little Angels album for you?
'Young Gods' is great. I mean, just looking at the set, and everything in that set I enjoy playing. There isn't anything that I wince about. I do play some things slightly differently. The one that I regret is, I don't like the solo on 'Kicking Up Dust', which of course, has become the one that Planet Rock play all the time. It was a bit disjointed. I did it, and it sounded good on the day, and then we moved on, and it's always a bit clunky to me, that one. So I've tried to redeem it with something more coherent live. But yeah, I think I like them all. If I just pick one, it'd be 'Young Gods'.

I didn't realise how the change in the musical landscape had been a factor in your splitting, given that you'd had a No.1 album with 'Jam' and sold out the Royal Albert Hall at that time.
There was a few things going on. So Toby [Jepson}'s got a slightly different view, but I think people forget how utterly fundamental [Nirvana's] 'Nevermind' was in changing the face of the music industry completely, and it made it very difficult to exist in a rock band. Bands like Bon Jovi were struggling, Mötley Crüe was struggling, Motörhead could barely do a pub gig. People forget that the whole New Wave of British Heavy Metal, it wasn't cool. Suddenly people were cutting their hair off. If you had long hair, little kids would point at you and shout; "eighties' metaler!" and laugh and run away stuff like this. Everything was so changed that you the only way to survive it would be to ride it out for ten years and then reinvent yourself, as Thunder did, for example.

So did that, in part lead to your decision to split up?
Yes, but also we were apart; personally and creatively. I wasn't really having any influence on the writing. I think Toby needed to make some solo records, and it was great that he did. It wasn't in me to contribute, and I think a big factor was lyrically, Little Angels was all about being young and getting out of a small town, and once we'd done that, we all had separate lives with families and stuff emerging, and when you get us back together, there wasn't a single thing to say, whereas I think there is now we've all got back. So it's funny, at the beginning of your adult life, and towards this stage, which is the more mature end, all our lives are in a similar place. Our kids have grown up, and we're celebrating this, really, but in that intervening bit after 'Jam', I mean, we made that record, which I don't like, 'Ten Miles High', everyone's trying to put suits on and trying to work out way of being, after the grunge event, and it was a struggle, whereas before, we didn't need to discuss anything like that because we just did our thing. Suddenly our thing didn't exist or work anymore. So that's it really, and it was to finish at the Albert Hall.

You went on to form b.l.o.w. which was completely different. 
It was, musically. No overdubs. I like the sound of it. In fact, I didn't keep all the records, and I've been buying them all off eBay again to learn them, and someone sent me a copy of 'Man and Goat Alike' [1995], and it's a great sounding record. It's very done in a '60s style, and we used a producer, Ken Thomas, and he'd done a lot of the Peter Green stuff, so I was in my element. It was very free, creatively, but it got a bit too free by the end. We made a record called 'Pigs' [1996], and probably 30% of it's really good, I'd say, but at the end of that second album, it was such a crazy lifestyle I just needed a bit more structure in my life, really.

Little Angels did reform once before, in 2012; how come that one didn't last? 
Because we all had other stuff to do, I think we just sort of parked it. We had a great, great time, and it was amazing. The Download performance was weird because we nearly didn't do it, because Europe were on before us, and they missed their slot. We got there with about an hour to spare, and then I got a call from the lads and they were stuck in the traffic, so I was pacing about, and I think they got there with no more than five minutes to go, so they had to just walk straight on the stage. I think that probably helped the nerves because no one had time to get nervous for that show.  It's a funny thing to walk out in front of 80,000 or 90,000 people if you've not been doing gigs for twenty years, but the muscle memory kicks in and the dynamics. We did a lot of gigs in the old days, so it just all came back. 

You're doing a lot of gigs this time around, and the tour has been extended; what are your feelings now that it's all in place?
I'm just really looking forward to it. The thing I love more than anything else is that sound thing, so, I've got a little like micro rig at home, and I want to get the big heads out and go into a rehearsal room and get going before we get there with a band. I know it sounds daft, but there's not many guitar players or musicians who get a chance to really do it properly these days, so we're planning the tour, and it's proper old school; there's no in-ear monitoring, and we're going to have a spotlight. I've missed that, gig spotlights, and it's backdrops; the rock and roll stuff! There's zero concession to it being 2026, so we've got an old school sound man who can mix exactly the same as we used to, and wedges at the front of stage and all that.

Are you in for the long haul? 
I think very possibly, because we're enjoying it so much and there's none of the kind of pressures that you get with being on a major label, and the expectation to get on Radio One. I always say god bless Planet Rock, who keep the dream alive for all of us. And as long as people want us and we're having a good time, I think we were very keen to keep looking at what's possible.

So is there going to be new material?
I think the big question mark is on new music. We've got some songs that were lurking around from the old days, and some of them are really good, so we might revisit them. I've always got a bundle of riffs and song titles, and Toby's always got song titles, and Jimmy [Dickinson]'s very prolific, but the thing that we've got to do is maintain the standard of what we did back in the day. I mean, for me, I have to record on tape. I'm not interested in Pro Tools [digital recording software]. I don't mind dumping it onto Pro Tools after being on tape - that's fine - but I'm not interested in recording using a Mac. I want a proper desk, and proper outboard gear and all that. And a lot of those great engineers are still around and have still got those skills, so there may well be some new music, but it depends on the chemistry in the room when we get together.

Little Angels hit the road in November on their 'Big Bad & Back' tour. For dates and tickets, visit www.littleangelsofficial.com

Hi Eric, how are you?
I am good. Thanks for having me. 

I see you're sitting in the studio; are you cooking up something?
Oh, I have been off and on. The last few days I haven't been but, yeah, we've been kind of off and on working on some new songs and stuff.  I've recorded, I guess about fifteen things or something, and I'm just trying to see if any of it's any good.

You're based in Texas, aren't you?
Yeah, Central Texas. There's a lot of music here, a lot of different variable type of music. It's great.

That brings us to the tour, the 'Texaphonic' tour 2026. I mean, first off, killer name for the tour, right?
Well, thank you. 

Your last UK tour was about 2013.
it's been a while. I haven't been in a while, but I'm sure looking forward to being there this summer. It's going to be great. I'm glad that we also have a gigs for a couple weeks in England, which I'm really excited about. Instead of just coming in for London for two or three days, we're going to get to go around and do gigs in different places, which I'm really looking forward to.

It's your most extensive UK tour ever; what was the impetus to do that?
Well, the promoter that we're working with is doing that. The other times they were just saying; "oh yeah, we'll play London, then we'll go off to another city", and so this promoter made a point to try to book other towns and stuff, which I was really excited about because, you read the stories about bands that go all around England and playing, I'd I'm like; "I want to do that!" I mean, I want to play London, it's great, but I want to play the other places too.

There sadly isn't an Irish date.
I've got to ask why that isn't the thing. We kind of turn it over the promoter and he just tries to do his best to get gigs where we are offered, at least a way to make enough money to make it worthwhile to where we don't lose money. So I think he just kind of picked and chose the gigs that seemed to be working at the time, and that's usually how that happens. But I wish we were coming to Ireland. That'd be great. I was there a couple of times. I was there working a long time ago with Carol King. I played with her for a while, and we played there. But yes, beautiful. I wish we were going there. That would be nice.

You've just touched on your session work there with Carol King, You also worked with Christopher Cross; what were those session days like for you?
You know, I learned a lot just being around great song writers like that, and just kind of watching them work and what was important to them and how they put things together. I was lucky to get to do that, and it was pretty inspiring to see and to be around people that write great songs like that.

I wanted to talk to you about the Fender Strat. What attracted you to the Stratocaster? It's got to be the tone, right?
Well, it is the tone, and it's the fact that they're so versatile. It kind of covers a lot of ground. There's other guitars that maybe, if you take one particular sound, they might be a little bit more interesting or more usable, but they don't have the variability that Strat has.

You've had a number of signature models over the years, haven't you?
I have, yeah. I like the latest one, the Virginia model. It's like the fourth model. I've done like four different models, trying different pickups, different woods and different things like a rosewood neck or maple neck and that kind of thing.

Were you at the NAMM Show this year?
Not this year. We're going to be in Anaheim where the NAMM show is in April. Yeah, we didn't make the NAMM Show this year.

I'm quite fascinated by your tone; you're very keen on the bass, and you don't like a lot of treble cutting through which I think gives you some uniqueness.
Well, It does, and I think sometimes I run it a little too bassey. I've been trying to kind of inch the treble up a little bit because it got a little out of hand. Everybody's like; "it sounds like it's in the bottom of a swimming pool!", so I'm trying to get that together. But typically I like a more kind of smooth, or kind of woody kind of lead tone. I like that. It's because some of my favourite records from the old days - you know, early Eric Clapton and BB King and Jeff Beck's 'Truth' record - some of them were kind of that real reedy, kind of smooth tone. I like that sound.
​
I was watching an interview with you recently, and I was almost relieved to hear that even someone of your calibre still worries about your sound almost on a nightly basis.
Yeah, it's a crazy. I'm always chasing. It always seems to kind of change a little bit, or you always figure out some way to make it a little better. There's kind of no end to it, in a way.

You won a Grammy in 1992 for 'Cliffs of Dover', but you had been a solo artist for a long time before that. 
Well, since the early '80s, we just played every single club we could get to and just tried to make a living and stuff. And it was just a slow build. A lot of the songs on the 'Ah Via Musicom' [1990] record I'd had around for a few years, so I had the opportunity to play them in in clubs and kind of tweak them as I went along, which was good for trying to get the focus of the tune just right. 

You recorded 'Seven Worlds' in the late '70s, but it wasn't released at the time; did you see the ceiling and think I'm never going to punch through it?
Yeah, there was lot of frustrating times, a lot of doors slammed, but there's always a second door if you look close enough, and it kind of comes for you where you least expect it sometimes. But I think the thing that is really sustaining for any musician is just to find the type of music, the instrument, that you love, and then you if you love it, then the rest that stuff is real secondary. That's why we were always trying to get things going, or you know; play a better place, or get a record deal, all this stuff, but we also were like; "you know what? We just enjoy playing. It's great", so that you feel nurtured in that way, regardless.

'Cliffs of Dover' featured on your second release; why did you wait and not put it on 'Tones' [1986]?
Well, we actually tried it on 'Tones'. That record, 'Tones' was produced by a different person [David Tickle], and he just selected the songs to put on the record. It was his decision to not put that on there at that time, which is probably a good idea, because then I had a few more years to tweak the song.

Does it amaze you the impact that it's had; 85 million plays on Spotify, 19 million on one version alone on YouTube, at the time of this interview?
I never really thought about it when we put that song together. I never really thought that song would be one that everybody would gravitate towards, but for whatever reason, that was the one that everybody liked. I think it's, you know, the melody is kind of simple and memorable.

It's taken on like a really deep and sincere meaning for people, hasn't it?
Oh, yeah, somewhat, yeah, I guess it has. And there's a lot of guys out there, seven, eight years old that play it better than I do, too. They're the kids, you know, they're the man; "you just played that perfect!"

It's a song that always comes up in the list of top guitar solos; what is that like for you to feature in a list like that alongside your heroes like Jimi Hendrix?
Well, it's an honour to be part of it and be included in the bunch with all your heroes. That's really nice because those are the guys that really forged ahead before me, and kind of wrote the book. I'm kind of just rereading the book, but those guys wrote it, and I have a lot of respect for all those heroes of mine. 

Back in 1995 you were part of the original G3 tour with Steve Vai and Joe Satriani; what was that like for you?
it was great. You know, I learned a lot listening to those guys. They are great players. We just did a reunion about eight months ago, and that was a lot of fun too because we hadn't done it in years. But, yeah, it was cool. It was a nice opportunity.

There was a couple of tracks on the 1997 'G3: Live in Concert' album where you all three of you were playing together.
Yeah, I was nice. I think people resonate with it, the energy, when you put more than one person together. You're going to get a band that has several people that you want to go see that are kind of sharing the spotlight. It makes it more interesting, in a way.

Is that what brought you back for the G3 reunion?
Joe wanted to get together to do a few weeks of touring, so he calls up; "hey, y'all want to do a reunion?" I said; "sure, yes, let's do that!", and his son, ZZ, did a documentary on it. 

Were you a fan of their work, of 'Surfing with the Alien' and 'Passion and Warfare'?
Yeah, great, great playing, and those albums, both great. 

Similarly, you've been working on the Experience Hendrix tour, on and off for the last 15 years or so.
Yeah, because I love playing Hendrix songs anyhow, and I play them in my own set, or when I'm just kind of hanging out at the studio, just practicing, I play. So somebody said; "hey, you want to go out and play all Hendrix songs?" I'm like; "oh sure, I do that anyhow.!Yeah, let's go do that."

There's some cool characters involved that, including Zakk Wylde, for example.
Yeah, he's great, and that was what was kind of cool about the tour, is everybody had a different interpretation and it's really interesting, all the different kind of concepts and takes on his music. It's nice as you don't have to carry all the weight, and then also the camaraderie musically, and just fraternally hanging out.

You've had a history of working with some great artists; has anyone approached you in recent years to work with you?
Ah, you know what, not recently. No, I haven't had any offers to go out, but that would be fun to do.

Is there anyone you'd like to work with? I'm guessing you wouldn't mind working with likes of Paul McCartney, for example.
I'll do that. I'll take his call. And I would have always been a fan of Stevie Wonder. I love him a lot.

Back to the tour, and I'm guessing the set list is going to be all encompassing?
Yeah, there'll be a little bit of blues rock stuff, straight ahead, new stuff I'm writing. and I'll do some old songs. I might do a couple of jazz tunes, kind of reworked, and then maybe a country tune. It'll be kind of like a smattering of everything, I think.

What's happening next for you?
Well, I'll be busy through July and then I'm doing a master class in Scotland [Guitar Dreams 2026, 12 - 14 August]. I'll be playing with Guthrie Trapp and Mike Stern. We'll do like a little masterclass thing, and then I come back home and do another masterclass with Tommy Emanuel. After that, I'll probably try to get back to working on some more songs and try to get some recordings going.

Have you any idea of a release date for a new album?
I might be putting an EP out really soon, and then finish, because I have about six tunes that are finished. They just need to be mixed. They're kind of a different; more of a straight ahead blues rock kind of thing, but I think I might put those out as the EP, and then I have a whole 'nother set of songs to do a record when I get back off the Europe tour.

Are you looking at a digital release only, or will there be physical copies as well?
Probably mostly digital, but hopefully some physical copies too that we can sell at shows and stuff. If anybody buys those anymore, I don't know. 

Do you still have your Grammy and your gold discs?
Yeah, I still have them. Some of the records are on the wall here in the control room, but the Grammy, I think it's upstairs in my tech room or something. It's here somewhere. I should get a necklace. I'll wear it as a necklace or something!

Eric Johnson’s Texaphonic 2026 UK tour runs from July 22 – August 4. Tickets available from The Gig Cartel.com and www.ericjohnson.com

​Hi John, it looks like you're in your KISS Museum today!
Yeah, I'm in one of them.

Didn't you open your house a few years ago to show off some of your stuff?
It was not my house but it was my collection and it's wonderful because the KISS fans started loving KISS when they were little kids just like myself, so to open the museum up to people to come and touch the outfits or the boots or to look at things like certain posters they had or certain mirrors when they were kids, it was so emotional for them. We got to play the KISS pinball machine, and we got to do all this fun KISS trivia, so it was an experience that people had so much fun with. I was there answering questions and telling stories, so everybody had a really, really great time, but it was emotional for a lot of people.

We're here to talk about the UK tour you've got coming up, which is your biggest ever; first off, what took you so long?
I know, right?! I've been so busy, but actually I'm so busy this year, but I was adamant that I was. I told my agent; "I've got to get over there. This is what I want to do!", and we made it happen. I was talking about this before, but I want to come back every other year and just keep doing this because I love it there so much, and I have such a good time. I'm just so excited to come, I really am. I'm so, so excited to get there and play.

I was looking at the dates, and you're in the Underworld in London, for example, which is not the same as the big stages you share with Mötley Crüe.
Actually, I love it. I love it, and I'm being completely honest, I love these small venues because I am so close to the people, and that is so fun for me. I love playing small places because it's so much more pressure than playing a big place because you're right here with the person; you know when they're pounding on your foot, or they're like, jumping on the stage, and it's just it's so much fun. I've always loved playing venues like that. And it's funny you bring up Mötley Crüe because we played the Underworld [in 2023], and then we played the next day at Wembley Stadium. It was so weird, but fun.

Mötley Crüe in there must have been mind blowing for you, with like, 200 people in there.
Oh, it was the best. Yeah, I think it fits like 500 people, but it was so much fun, and there were so many people in there. I remember Tommy [Lee], because I've never seen someone so red in my life because he got so hot. I almost wanted to take a picture of him because he was so red. I've never seen anyone so red in my life! I was like; "are you okay, dude?" He was like; "whoa, it's just really hot!", and so, yeah, it was a wonderful gig, man. Someone actually made a bootleg vinyl of it and I have it, and it sounds so cool.

That's kind of cool, as bootlegging is a dodgy word, isn't it? But you wanted one for your collection!
Yeah, it's the best. I love when people do that.

You're touring in support of latest album 'Ghost' which came out in 2025, and you've doing a big chunk of that album live.
Yeah, it's so fun because we're going to do a live record too. So I love it, man. I just love playing these songs that we're playing every day. We're adding shows, and I think we're going to tell what shows are being added, but yeah, if you look at the dates after these other shows are going to be added, we're playing like every day, which is super fun. I love it. I don't want any days off.

Some of the tracks are so incredibly complicated and a world away from even the DLR Band stuff, which is where I first became aware of you.
Yeah, I just am obsessed with practicing and learning and things like that. Let me ask you something about your CD. 
There are a bunch of CDs that, Dave Roth made those CDs. If there's a sticker, if it feels like like paper on the CD, then Dave did that, because I was with him when he was doing all those CDs. He did that before independent was a thing. He was in his back house making those CDs. It was incredible to see. I was like; "whoa", and that's how far along his thoughts were. He was like; "people are going to, if they want the CD, they can get it this way", and that's what happened. I thought it was so smart. It was brilliant, and he was so ahead of his time. But yeah, to answer your question, I just love to practice, and I love to learn, and I love to play. It's so much fun.

Listening to the album today with fresh ears, on 'Black Light', is that a nod to Tom Morello in there?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I love Morello, and I am the first to say I am influenced by all guitar players. I think being influenced is one of the most important things in the world because you can watch something on TV that will change your life forever until the day you die, or see a movie, or do something, or taste food that will take your life forever, and that's what happened with me with guitar. I saw there was a TV show and there was a kid playing guitar, and I was like; "oh my God", and I'm still, it's all I do all day; from just that TV show that inspired me that long ago. So yeah, like, you'll hear Morello, you'll hear  Yngwie [Malmsteen] , you'll hear anything, and like, I love being inspired. It's my favourite.

Something I love about you as a player is, when you came into Mötley Crüe, you played those solos and parts exactly as they were recorded. 
Yeah, it's our childhood, you know? Those solos are embedded in our brains, and I wanted to play them just like how they were written, just how Mick [Mars] wrote those solos. I wanted to play them because they're perfect. You can't change them. It just is not right if you change them, because they're burned in my brain and your brain like that, so I just wanted to play them just like how they were written. It's just like if you see a piece of sheet music, and you're doing a session and you're reading, you're playing, and you're like; "that doesn't really work", and change this like that; no, you don't do that, you you play how it was written. And yeah, those solos are perfect. So I love it, and it puts a smile on my face every time I walk on that stage.

The fans want to hear certain songs, but I'm a big fan of the '94 album [with John Corabi], and I think 'Generation Swine' has got some great tracks on it like 'Glitter'.
'Glitter' is great, yeah!

Have you ever tried to get the Mötley guys to play some of those songs, or have you jammed them in rehearsal?
Every time at rehearsal, I'll play 'Red Hot', I'll play 'Ten Seconds of Love', 'Bastard', 'Take Me to the Top', 'Louder in Hell', 'Glitter', 'Generation Swine', anything. I'll play all these songs all the time, and it's so fun. I love it. I love it. Love it, love it, love it. So, we're going to hit the road this summer, and I don't want to reveal what the setlist is, but it's exciting, so I'm super excited.

Even 'New Tattoo' is a beautiful song.
Oh, it's great! Yeah, it's awesome.

I want to talk to you a little bit about your guitars, specifically that Perspex Telecaster that you have with the liquid in it; it's visually stunning. 
So, it's really interesting. I was at the NAMM Show, which is like a music convention that all these celebrities go to, and it's been going on since the '50s, and I was doing an autograph session, and this guy came up to me, his name is Ken Meyer, and he goes; "I build guitars". Just imagine if someone came up to you and was like; "I build guitars. What guitar would you want, out of any guitar?" And I said; "I don't know, maybe a light-up guitar and a lava guitar", and he goes; "done. I'm going to do it for you", and I was like; "oh, that was weird!" And then he left and I just continued my autograph session, and then I get a email at the management, and he's got a prototype. And this guy, Ken Meyer, is such a brilliant, brilliant maker. He was a fireman in Michigan, just a fireman, and he worked with his dad, and they would just build these guitars, and he figured out how to do this. It took a couple tries, but the liquid inside there is antifreeze, because when you travel with it, and it's freezing, that liquid would freeze, but now antifreeze, which doesn't freeze, it's green and it looks really cool, and it doesn't freeze. So how smart was that!

​Hi Paul, it's been a while since we last spoke, which was around the release of the Dio album.
That's a maybe two or three years, so yeah, it's been a little while.

You've been busy since then though, haven't you?
Well there was the whole Mr. Big farewell tour, which was about two years, and we did an album and a single, and yeah, I enjoyed the music and the people. There were a fair amount of days off on that tour, and I've started to go to a lot of zoos. I visited so many. I never did that before. I'd always just stay in my hotel room, and I thought; "I'm going to start going to the zoo in every country I can find it". So I saw rhinoceroses and emus and ant eaters all over the world.

Speaking about the end of Mr. Big, I was flicking through an old issue of The Guitar Magazine, and 'Lean Into It' [1991] and just been released, so that was before the success of 'To Be With You'; did you know it was going to be as big?
Well, as we're making it, I was really excited about it. We had done the first album [Mr. Big, 1989], and we had had some really good opportunities for touring, because we were a support band for Rush on their 'Presto' tour, and so that was amazing. We were playing in arenas and there were great audiences, but my instinct - I don't know if the rest of the band felt this way - but for me it felt like we were playing great, we were singing great, but the songs weren't quite connecting as much as they could. So to me, the focus of 'Lean into it' was we've got to get some songs that have stronger melodies or just better songs, somehow. So I think we accomplished the mission. I mean, I thought the songs on 'Lean into it' were really a step up from the first album.

We're here to talk about your new album 'WROC', which stands for 'Washington's Rules of Civility'; what a crazy concept, putting Washington's words to your music!
Well, I had to sing about something, and when you're a teenager or when you're in your early 20s, you can sing about, you know, "I'm trying to find that girl". and it sort of makes sense that the standard rock and roll subjects fit right in when you're that age. I'm in my late fifties, so I'm not going to be singing about this. I still love that music, but I thought; "what am I going to sing about?", and on previous albums, I had songs like 'Everybody use your Goddamn Turn Signal' [2016], which is kind of 'old guy' rock, criticising small annoyances. And I thought, well, I could do more of that, but I found that although I really enjoyed doing that in the studio - because it was a good riff, and it was kind of a funny lick - I felt when I got that on stage that it didn't really unite the audience in a feeling of like; "yeah, we're all pissed off at people that don't use their turn signals" together. It just didn't quite land the way that it could have.

So you wanted something more unifying, lyrically?
I thought; "well, what are the lyrics going to be about?", and I had read the Washington Rules of Civility decades ago, and somehow it just popped into my head. I was actually on the airplane flying back from the last Mr. Big Show in Japan, and so I didn't have the book with me, but I was having a conversation with AI, and first of all, I couldn't remember what it was called. I was like; "this is some George Washington thing", you know; "these be rules of etiquette", and it pulled it up. Then it was; "what are some of the rules? Can you make that into a lyric?", and I'm sort of bossing AI around to do it, and as I was having this conversation with AI, I started to really like the result.

That was a great jump-off point; it obviously inspired your creativity!
I like the  general theme of being polite and civil, and so I got at home and started putting some of the music together, and I've never had such a good time writing songs in my life! I really enjoyed the process. I was just a little concerned because obviously, it's an unusual thing to sing about, so I brought a couple of musicians over, the guys that ended up playing my album; Timmer [Blakely, bass] and Doug [Rappoport, guitar], and I just watched their faces as we're playing the stuff and I'm singing it, just to see if they're looking at me like this is crazy or if they're smiling and happy, and they were smiling and happy, so, okay, that's a good sign. 

You're talking about uniting audience, and the message in a song like 'Conscience is the Most Certain Judge' is universal.
Yeah, but I haven't played them live yet, but I think the stuff will go over really good. It's also it's going to be fun to put the harmonies together because that song, and many like it, are deceptively simple, where you know you can hear it, you can hum the melody, but when you try to put those harmonies to it, they're crazy. I really sat down and really worked those out, and when you get them right, they're beautiful. So that's one of my favourite parts of the record, just the work that I put into those harmonies to navigate the chord changes, because the chord changes, I hope they feel natural as they go by, but there's actually a lot of modulations and surprise chord changes in there that are unexpected, especially when you have to sing the harmony part.

The album was recorded in just four days, was it? Was it done live?
Yeah, we did it live and then I went back and I re-sang my lead vocals because I knew I could do better. Then on the very last day of the recording sessions, I had all the guys in the band - Nick, Doug and Timmer - sing the harmonies, and then I also sang the harmonies to thicken them up with my own voice. So basically the music is live, and I was singing in the studio just in case I got a good one, but when I'd listen to it, it's like; "I can do it better if I have another chance". 

Is it nice to go back and do something really sparse like that, and just going and do this in four days; is that refreshing for you?
Well, I don't know if sparse is the right word, because I did have a second guitar player so that thickens it up a good deal, but I think with that instrumentation; two guitars, bass and drums, you get an immediate sense of how expansive your part or your playing needs to be to fill up the space. Doug's a great soloist if he needs to be and a great rhythm player too, and so I love that; having a live band where we kind of feel that out, rather than having a bunch of carefully overdubbed things, and you just keep overdubbing, because as you do that, you sort of lose the character of the of the players themselves, and I think with more live instrumentation, you can really hear the fingerprint of the of the musicians and you hear their style more.

It's the opposite of say, Def Leppard's 'Hysteria', where they spent two and a half years producing it.
I mean, those records are amazing. but I think the thing I like about this is it's as a unique, and in a way, you never quite know what you're going to get, but you know when you've got it. You know you when you go in and you play live after maybe three takes and you get to listen to it, you go; "oh, it's almost there", and then immediately you know what you need to work on, whereas with overdubbing, sometimes you don't really know what's wrong with it until you finish it, and then it's too late. Live, it's really obvious what's not right and you can fix it immediately because you have another chance, and then often, not only is it right, but often it's magic! I mean, one of the moments to me on the record that's magic is at the very beginning, where I do this little Phrygian dominant solo and I end on a chord, and the whole band is with me, and the way that chord tunes up and resonates is so beautiful. We probably did that intro five times, and that was just like; "oh, listen to that chord there! I'll never get that again in my life!". and that stuff is just wonderful when you get when you get those.

What was the longest you've ever spent working on an album? Was it one of the Mr. Big ones?
Well, it depends. The early Mr. Big ones, we'd play live in the studio, but then often we'd go back and recut. The goal with it playing live was to get a good feeling drum track, and usually we wouldn't use a click. With Pat [Torpey], you had great time, and then we might go back and recut the guitar and the bass later on. We got more live as it went.

I would say the things that actually really took me the longest might be something like the Dio album, where I played all the instruments, and if you do that, nothing's live. I was also copying a previous recording, so I'm being really meticulous about listening and not just playing what I feel, but I'm trying to get that Vivian Campbell  part right, then trying to get the Dio part right, so that was much more a built-in-the-studio kind of thing.

I can see the double-neck guitar sitting behind you that you use in the video for 'Conscious is the Most Certain Judge'. 
I bought that when I was living in Las Vegas, so it was probably late '90s. There's a picture of me playing that guitar in the back of the 'Burning Organ' [2002] album, so it's probably around then, like, 1999, 2000, somewhere around there. It's such a good instrument. The twelve-string on it sounds amazing, and I actually used it on a few of the songs. I used it on of course, 'Conscious is the Most Certain Judge', and I used it on 'Let Thy Carriage', and then there was one more, 'If You Soak Bread in the Sauce'. The titles are so funny! I love it!

One of the tracks I love is  'Go Not Tither'; it's such a driving rocker.
Well, that one I wasn't going to put that on the record at first, because I didn't have the whole song finished. I just had the main part, and I thought; "oh, that's just kind of normal, it's like a Deep Purple riff", and of course, I love Deep Purple riffs, but I wanted something that was a little more me. I thought that anybody could write this riff, but then when I combined it with the with the arpeggiated chord part that goes to the six, eight groove, that change kind of made it into a song for me. And as I wrote the verse, it came with some other changes and it just became more melodic. Initially, when it was just straight ahead, sort of blues rock, I couldn't find something that really felt like something unique from myself, so that took a little bit of punching around. But I love singing that one because I had a couple of really high screams and notes that actually work for my voice, and then the rest of it kind of goes down low so I don't kill myself.

You're using some great guitar tones, from the dry sound on 'Conscience is the Most Certain Judge', to whatever it is you have going on on 'Go Not Tither'.
Oh, that's probably an MXR Stereo Chorus, which actually, in Mr. Big, I was using that all the time because I found on the Mr. Big tour that the majority of my rhythm playing was playing like soft arpeggiated chords with a lot of distortion, which reminds me of Randy Rhoads. When Randy Rhoads would play 'Goodbye to Romance', where the arpeggiated chords are, he's got this fire breathing tone, and I think Randy used an MXR Stereo Chorus, and it's such a good sounding pedal for that.

Didn't you attend a Randy Rhoads seminar in the early 1980s?
Yeah, I mean, it was amazing that he did. I think it was the only seminar he did in his life, and it was in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, which is the little town I grew up in. So I was like; "of course, I'm going to that!" He mostly answered questions. He wasn't really prepared as a clinician because it was just a one off, but he was nice enough to come and answer questions. He worked hard, and he did, I don't know, four or five seminars that day, because they couldn't fit everybody that wanted to come and see him. So they'd bring in one group of people, and then get them out, get another in, so I heard that as the day went on, he played more and more, but I didn't see those.

I was about to ask if you got to watch Randy up close.
Well, I watched him up close at the show because I got down in front that night at the arena, but the other cool thing was he spent some time with the guys at the music store, and then afterwards, because I knew the music store guys, they were like; "yeah, Randy showed me how he played..." you know, 'Steal Away (The Night)' or whatever, and I got the right fingering from them because Randy showed them.

That must have been really cool, as a guitar student.
Yeah, I used to go to concerts with binoculars, and I'd have really specific things in mind, like when Eddie Van Halen played the song 'Loss of Control'; it's an open string riff for the A and the D, but then he goes to C, and he gets this ferocious tone, and I got to see how he does that. You know; "is it third position or eighth position?!" I'm there, but I was just waiting for him to do that part; "oh, it's eighth position!". I'd get all kinds of questions answered.

You sent a tape to Ozzy Osbourne about joining his band when you were 15, didn't you?
Well, I didn't have Ozzy's address, so I sent the tape to Mike Varney [Shrapnel Records founder], because he was the only person I could find that had a public address that you could send something to. I had a cassette of a bunch of copy songs that I played with my band. We were playing 'Rock Candy' by Montrose, and I had a long, unaccompanied solo, and Mike called me back right away, which was, to me, really exciting. Like; "wow!" You know, a guy in California has a record company, and he's calling me on the phone?! So I was thrilled, but when he found out I was 15, he was like; "Ozzy doesn't want a 15 year old in the band".

The Shrapnel label was a hotbed for guitarists joining big bands; Marty Friedman's went to Megadeth and Jason Becker to David Lee Roth, and you must have had so many offers; who approached you during that period?
Well, the thing is, I was in a band [Racer X], and actually, the person who approached me was Billy Sheehan, and that was Mr. Big, so that's the one I did. But before then, I can't really remember any because I was so into Racer X, and we were a really a strong unit. Billy was really a hero of mine. I used to go watch him play in Talas, and of course the playing he did with David Lee Roth was great, but I was mostly a Talas fan. I used to see them all the time.

What was it like when you first got together with Billy Sheehan?
I think when we got together, we were both pleasantly surprised that we knew so many of the same cover songs; everything from heavy metal - we're both big fans of Accept - but we also were fans of Motown, and of Hendrix and almost any song. We'd learned from the same stuff.

What was it like when Mr. Big went on to become achieve huge success, particularly in Japan where it was apparently like Beatlemania?
Yeah, we couldn't leave the hotel. Pat and I, we were sneaking out of the parking garage because the hotel was surrounded, and we'd run through the train stations, and we'd go through the kitchen a lo, and they would let us in through the employee entrances. We got so many cool gifts, and after the show our hotel room be filled with all the letters and gifts and stuff, so it was really cool. But I remember getting back, and at the time I was living in Las Vegas, and I just walked into the grocery store to get some chicken breasts or something, and I remember thinking; "this is actually really good for my personal sanity to not have that Beatlemania happening everywhere".

That sounds intense.
It was really fun. I'm really happy about it. That was wonderful, but if that was happening everywhere you went that could mess with your head, so it was nice to go back to Las Vegas, where nobody cares who I am; I'm just some tall guy with scraggly hair. So it worked out well; enough fame and rock star experiences to satisfy that that itch, but enough sanity and humbling experiences so you don't become crazy.

Now that the farewell tour is done, do you miss playing with Mr. Big?
Well, that's a good question. I mean, because we were together for a long time, that's an experience that I've had. I know what that is. There's some great things about it. Sometimes I get bowled over a little bit because Billy is such a commanding musician. In fact, I think a lot of the stuff that I've learned on how to be a showman were from where I'd be on my side of the stage, I look over and Billy's arms go wildly and he's playing one note he's so animated, physically, and it was like; "well, I've got to keep up, hold up my end of the deal here", so I'd get something going on as a performer. But I think now, I look for different things just because I don't want to do the same thing in my whole life. I really enjoy playing and jamming with different musicians. I jammed with Steve Morse at the NAMM Show recently, and that was that was so much fun. I had such a good time playing with him. We didn't even have bass, and I just stomped on the ground so we'd have a drum beat. Two guitars, and that was it.

We've got to talk about the costume, because it goes in nicely with what you're saying about the showmanship. 
It was kind of a last minute decision because at first I thought; "the lyrics, that's enough", but then I hired a guy to shoot the videos, and I thought; "well, if it's on video...", and plus, it solves hair problems! If I've got a hat, I don't worry about the hair. The trick was, I'm really tall, and the place that made the clothes, you can measure yourself and they'll custom make it, but the boots - because I'm about a size 14 or size 15 shoe - I ordered them on Etsy, and they came just in time. They made them in Turkey or some Eastern European country, and they're great, but it's not easy to find size 15, eighteenth century riding boots.

You're going out on a US tour shortly; are you going to wear the gear, and how much of the album are you going to play?
Well, it could change as we see how it goes over, but my initial plan is I'll have the hat reserved for the new songs. Maybe it'll be sitting on my amp or something, so people will see it there, and then at some point, I'll dramatically place it on my head, and then we'll do the new material. So that'll signify that these are the WROC songs.

That's a great visual cue!
Yeah. but I must admit, the shirt is kind of a piratey shirt, so that reminds me of Yngwie [Malmsteen] a little bit, you know? He looks kind of like a swashbuckler.

Have you any plans to bring the tour over to Europe?
The people that book gigs are working on that, so hopefully they'll have some good news for that soon.

What else have you got coming up? Are you still teaching?
There's an online school at Artist Works that I've done for13 years, and I've done more than 16,000 lessons there and they're all in the archives, but it got to the point where at the same time I'm making albums and preparing for tours, and I just couldn't juggle all these things at once. So I've actually stepped back from doing the teaching. At some point I may rethink that or return to teaching, and actually, when I go on the road, I often do a VIP thing where there'll be some one-on-one lessons available for an unreasonable price. But I love teaching. It's just there's only so many hours in a day.

Is your focus then completely on the album and I'm being a solo artist these days?
Yeah, and it's a lot of preparing for the tour. I really want it to be a great show so I've got the new stuff, which I'm really happy with, but also I know people expect to hear their favourite stuff from my past, so I've been working up these medleys that have all the highlights. So, you want to hear 'Fuzz Universe, you want to hear 'Silence Followed by a Deafening Roar, 'Technical Difficulties', 'Scarified'; I want to make sure all that stuff's in there. I might shorten the songs so there's enough time to do all of them because if I do all the favourites, we're going to run out of time. So that's the thing. just putting all the highlights together. That's takes a lot of practice for both the band and myself, because the highlights are usually the things that are hard to play.

Does it take a lot of work for you, personally to stay in shape to play those?
Yeah, I've been coming down every morning and just really working, and it's an amazing exercise, because when I first do it, I don't normally work on technique that much, and for this, if you practice, you actually do get better [laughing]. I'll sit there, watching my hand, going; "wow, I forgot I could do that!" That's kind of a fun thing to do, is to dust off the old crazy technique songs.

'WROC' is released on 27 February via Music Theories Recordings. Pre-Order/Stream here. 

Hi guys, how are you doing? 
Chris; We're great. Thanks for having us.

Jarle; Yeah, thanks for having us. It's a good day in Norway.

Chris, I gather you were a fan of Jarle and Vreid; how did you come to be involved in the project? 
Chris; I was in Sweden, actually, and my family and I were traveling around Scandinavia on our road trip, and my wife found this really big supermarket outside of Karlstad, and she's like; "oh, there's a really good record section here". They had this giant black metal section, and so me and my son were like, showing records and talking about them, and we put it online, and we called it 'Black Metal Supermarket', and one of the records I held up - and I said it was one of my favourites - was Windir [precursor to Vreid], and one of Jarle's friends ended seeing the video, and he said; "oh, the guy from Jackass likes your band", and so Jarle wrote to me on Instagram.

So Jarle reached out to you, Chris?
Chris; Yeah, and he said; "I have a festival that we do [Tons of Rock, in Norway], and Metallica is playing, and you're welcome to come", and so we were actually meant to go home, and we decided to stay. We went back to Oslo and we went to the festival. We had the best time ever, and hit it off with all these guys, and became very good friends with Jarle, and here we are, really. So we've been in Norway for the past few summers, and last summer we were here for like three months, and the summer before that. So we kind of live here part time, almost.

How did the song 'Loving the Dead' come about?
Jarle; Last summer, when we were here, we were also working on another project, a documentary that me and Chris and a few others were doing where we started to look into underground, and rock and roll history and stuff like that. And while we're working on that we went to the studio, and I went to show Chris; "I got these new songs ready for new album. I have one song is a bit different, and I think it is going to be some different vocals". The whole song was lyrically inspired by like an American, California serial killer vibe and it had a David Lynch kind of feeling to it, and I said; "you know, I see some movie here; maybe you can participate?", and Chris liked the idea. Then we had a couple of beers, and he was playing the songs, you know, Chris played guitar and jamming on it, and as it developed during the autumn and we recorded the song, we brought in Agneta [Kjølsrud] from the band Djerv that did the vocals, really tremendous work, and that kind of opened a new dimension to the song.

With the song really taking shape, the video for the video must have come back.
Jarle; Yes, and then I called on Chris again and said; "we've kind of finished off the song. We're ready. Remember this summer where we talked about this crazy idea about music video?" and he was like; "cool, when can I come over?" So then he came over in January, and we went into a Norwegian church and tried to make something that we've never done before.

Chris; Yeah, the song sounds like a soundtrack song, so the video is like a short film, really. Like, it just looks like a scene out of one of these movies; like a David Lynch movie kind of mixed with a lot of these movies that are just like, fucked up. It's like Eyes Wide Shut or Silence of the Lambs; any of these movies that are kind of freaky that afterwards you're like; "what the fuck did I see?!" In the last Jackass movie, we did a Silence of the Lamb's bit just to be weird, but yeah, the video it's like a little film. It's almost like a musical interlude of a movie. I think.

The song is an epic, coming in at eight minutes long, and the video is a real film noir;  I'm guessing seeing the video puts a slightly different perspective on the song, Jarle?
Jarle; Yeah. and the cool thing was, I haven't made a lot of music videos on the last albums, and I like to. For me, making something new is not just about making the guitar riff or whatever; it starts often with a riff, but then to think; video, visual design, lyrics; it's a package. When we went into this and we found this great church in Oslo, and I was like; "oh, can we use this? Like, a Norwegian, metal, black, call it whatever you want, we can use a Norwegian church, and we can bring Chris into this". Then all these ideas started to play, and to see how it's kind of developed, we had a script, set, but still, to see everyone from Agnes to Chris to myself and the director; everybody just kind of followed the intuition of the idea, it was amazing.

And that freedom created something special?
Jarle; When I kind of look back at how a lot of the movies in the '80s or '90s were made, that kind of aesthetics, I think they followed some of the same ideas. You know, when I looked into David Lynch, I'm pretty sure that everything wasn't planned.

Chris; For sure.

Jarle; And when I talk with Chris, this is how I make music. I hate; "oh, we're gonna make the album sound like this"' Fuck that! It's like, I have an idea, and I know where my music has come from, but I go in with approach of trying to create something and see how it leads me, and when we were talking about Jackass, that seems to be pretty much the same approach.

Chris; Yeah, it's good to have like, a rough idea, and then you just start, and then it just things take a life of their own.

I'm guessing that keeps you on a bit of a creative edge, in that it could fall apart at any moment, or it might go either way.
Chris; Yeah. and also, music videos are kind of, like, I don't want to say a lost art, but at one time, really, every song had a cool video to it, and now, I guess because of MTV going away and all these things, it's just not a thing that people put a lot into now. So it's cool to do these things, because it's such a good medium for making things. Quentin Tarantino movies or things like this, they have these interludes where all these things happen just to music, and those things are so cool. So, yeah, it's really cool to do these, because you can really do whatever you want. It was really fun to make though.

Jarle; I think looking at metal and extreme metal and all that kind of old school rock and metal, it's always been a genre that's likes to explore, and also very much about the visuals.

Chris; It's so much about a visuals.

Jarle; It's like, you know, vinyl never went out of fashion in these genres, and there's cassettes coming back and everything. It's always been about something else, more than many other genres. I think it does come from growing up in the '70s, and especially the '80s and early '90s, with this kind of music video approach to it. It's how so many of us discovered music, and you might not like the song, but you love the video and that kind of combination. It's always fascinating.

It was filmed in a Norwegian church, and I mean, that's very black metal, taking me right back to all that stuff in the '90s with Varg Vikernes; it's so evocative, isn't it?
Jarle; Yeah, it's very special environment to play in and to be in, with the Norwegian history and everything, of course, but for me, to be in a church like that, it's about a bit of respect, but also that kind of childish rebellion coming back over and over again. I cherish so much, individuality and freedom and do whatever you want, and for me, I'm not a very religious person, I'm never going to become a very religious person, I think, but still, I respect when you are in a church. To see that's that room, the aesthetics of it, I love that. 

Chris; It's definitely connected to black metal. I mean, just interviewing all the bands when we were shooting for the documentary, like, so much of black metal is a reaction to growing up in Norway at that time, just kids, kind of not fitting in and rebelling and against that part of society and just trying to really just be the opposite of it - like, not being into Satan - just being the opposite of everything else that was around them. They're definitely connected, but I think Norway, as an outsider that has somewhat kind of embraced that, Black Metal has attracted a lot of people to Norway. When you ride the train from the airport, there's a little video it shows these people on their way from the airport with corpse paint on, and that's pretty cool. Like, they recognise that.

Oh yeah, they're all going straight to the Helvet basement, aren't they?
Chris; Yeah, it's people from all over the world, and people actually do come here to visit and follow the roots of the music that they like.

The album is called 'The Skies Turn Black', and that song is a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne; what are your memories of Ozzy, and what did you make of the Back to the Beginning concert?
Jarle; I didn't meet Ozzy, but I was the promoter for the his last shows in Norway at the Tons of Rock Festival on both the last Black Sabbath, and last Ozzy show, actually, which was in 2016 and 2018. Ozzy was royalty, so you didn't intervene with him, but of course I was observing him and what he was doing there. He's been one of my strongest influences, and being at Back to the Beginning, is, speaking about religion, one of the most [shakes head]. For me, I've dedicated most of my life to rock and roll and that's my real passion in life, heavy metal or call it what you want, but to see all those bands, to see the audience and to see also himself that night, that was like, wow. I sat down on the train the next day, and I was going actually to London to see Slayer.

I was at that one as well.
What a weekend, you know?! And this was the weekend after Tons of Rock, so that worked for me! But for me, this was like I was the biggest fan boy in the world at that time, and they were, like such a good experience and I started writing some some lyric lines about this because it made such impression on me. And just a few weeks later, I was on vacation. I was in Italy, and I got a message that Ozzy died, and was just completely shocked. Even though you could see the state of him, I couldn't understand it. He was gone, so I sat down the next day and just listened to Ozzy and I wrote this song in obligation. It's a thank you to Ozzy, but it's also about whole world of Heavy Metal since the late '60s. For me, it's like, Back to the Beginning, Ozzy was the ritual master, but we kind of visualised what it's all about, and yeah, it was goosebumps. So it was just a thank you, and feeling delighted to be a part of this world.

Chris; I think it's crazy that Ozzy hung on. You can tell he hung on for that concert.

Jarle; And to see the documentary about him that just came out; all that pain and everything he was fighting through, he just so intensely wanted to say farewell, and then it was like a perfect love story, which, you know, it's a sad ending, and he's gone, but still, it's like it's the most beautiful thing ever.

Back to the video, and what are your final thoughts on it before it's unleashed?
Jarle; Well, I hope it's something special. It's not just the standard thing, so if you want a few minutes of enjoyment, it's amazing,

Chris; Yeah, just have fun. To me. it's just like, you can do anything you want; don't worry about having to do the same thing every time you do something creatively or whatever. And who cares? That's what Jackass is kind of about, and also, just having fun with your friends, really. That's what all these things are about, you know? That's what making these things is. If you have fun making it, you know it's going to be good. We had so much fun making this, so that's what it's about.

Chris, you've been busy with Jackass five, which is coming out now in June, haven't you? Tell me a little bit about that. 
Chris; Well, I can't tell you much about it really because I have to start in like, two weeks. Jackass moves very fast once we start and yeah, we're starting filming right when I get back. We're going to really make this one count, though, so do really cool things. It's not covid anymore, so we can do stuff with the public also, and that's going to be awesome, and it won't be so rigid. I mean, the last movie. I think it worked, but it was really hard to film during that time, and we were one of the only films that was being made. But, yeah, if this is the last one, then I personally want to make it really funny.

Watch the video for 'Loving the Dead'  above. 

Hi Alex, 2025 was a monster year for you, with your trio's album coming out, as well as a Testament album.
Yeah, and I also had a film score come out. The film is finished. It's doing film festivals right now, but, yeah, it was a very productive year for sure. I'm still catching my breath.

Is this early part of the year a good time for you to let your hair down?  I mean, we're obviously going to get to Metal Allegiance and NAMM, but is it good to get a breather?
There really wasn't much of a breather. By the first week of January I was off to tour with my trio and did about nine shows, and then straight to NAMM, and I played with several different groups around NAMM, and then had rehearsals, and I just got back last week. So this this month, February, is a little more open, but I'm just now kind of starting to feel normal again.

You seem to be someone who actually enjoys the NAMM show. I've spoken to some new people, and they're like; "no, it's too much!"
I do. I've learned to enjoy it. I used to get overwhelmed by it because it does take a lot of energy, and it can be overwhelming. You know, it's very noisy, it's very crowded, and most people who are there are affected by the noise and the crowds, and many of them feel like the people you were describing, so you pick up on that too. But having done it for a number of years, I've learned how to go into it, I know what my limits are. I know to take breaks, and I know to have snacks and get a certain amount of rest.

That sounds like a sensible approach.
I don't usually do the crazy hotel parties that happen at night. That's a big thing too. A lot of people, I think, get sucked up into that whole social scene and get hungover the next day. I have a good time and all, but I'm at the hotel if I'm playing. I actually played with my trio [jazz band the Alex Skolnick Trio] and Chad Wackerman [jazz fusion drummer] at the Marriott, and that was a lot of fun, and that was a semi-late night, and a few cocktails, but I didn't go crazy. The other nights I was pretty much taking it easy unless I was playing. So, yeah, you learn how to pace yourself and learn how to have a good time with it.

Of course NAMM Show brings the annual Metal Allegiance gig, and 2026 was no different; that gig seems to be a lot of fun for you.
Yeah, absolutely. The Metal Allegiance show, it's almost a festival within a single gig, because you have so many people from so many different bands and everybody's having a good time. It doesn't come with the pressure of having to carry a whole concert as one band; every song practically is a different line up, and it's fun. There's a lot of overlap with the line ups, but it's just a different experience. It doesn't happen that often, so you don't get burned out on it. It's not the same show night after night because it's very occasional, so it always feels fresh and exciting.

Speaking of fresh and exciting, Metal Allegiance released a new single, 'Black Horizon' with William DuVall on vocals, which has to be the heaviest song he has ever sang on, and that's saying something when he works with Jerry Cantrell!
Yeah, well, I think Alice in Chains  and Jerry Cantrell have a very specific sound, and William, he's embedded in that now after so many years, but you can take his voice and put it in a slightly different context, and it works really well. I mean, one of the reasons why I think he came to mind for that song is there's a slight Alice in Chains vibe at times - not the whole time, but just enough so that it would work - but at the same time, it goes to these whole other places that you would not expect his voice to go, and it goes there beautifully.

His melodies and his singing style really translate well, and it's one of the strongest songs I've heard from Metal Allegiance.
Yeah, I think so too, and to be honest, these were parts that we weren't sure about at one time, partly because we were overwhelmed. We've had so many singers, especially when you put the two records together, it's a crazy amount of voices and a crazy amount of parts, and I think we maybe got a little bit overshadowed with all that music, and in retrospect, those parts that maybe didn't seem as exciting. Hearing them recently and hearing them fresh, I think we got new appreciation for the music, and then putting his voice there just made such a difference, and it must be said, what he did with it just blew us all away. I mean, he not only came up with melodies that sounded great that we wouldn't have thought of, but the whole lyrical concept and the development of it, and going places over the music where we couldn't have imagined it going. There's parts where it just builds and you would think maybe the vocals should take a rest where other singers might just leave it blank, but he took it to places and it just works so well. So we're all very grateful and very excited by this song.

Were you a fan of what he did with Alice in Chains? I remember when I first heard 'Black Gives Way to Blue', I was blown away, and that doesn't always work; you don't always get a Brian Johnson coming in after an iconic singer. 
Yeah, absolutely. That is one of those rare examples where, yeah, Brian Johnson; that's a perfect example; where somebody comes in and starts a new chapter and it works, and it builds off the other chapter, and they can go back and do the other songs that the original guy did and it works as well. I saw the band on a tour. They were at Madison Square Garden with Mastodon, and it was amazing, and, yeah, I remember there was a huge buzz about it, like; "hey, they're back! You've got to hear what these guys are doing!"

I guess there's a little overlap there with the Clash of the Titans tour the back in the '90s, where Alice in Chains opened that tour, and so did Testament.
Yeah they did it in the US, so never on the same bill as Testament as Testament had played on that tour in Europe. In a way they were like the link between late '80s metal and what you might think of as '90s music, and '90s hard rock. You know, it wasn't considered as different as you might think reading about it in the magazines and the press. They were part of the Seattle scene, the Grunge scene, whatever, but, yeah, all the metalheads I knew were big fans of the band, and you talked to those guys, and those guys loved metal bands as well. They just sort of took it in this other direction.

Obviously, Mike Portnoy is playing drums on the song, and there's a kind of a simile with yourself in that people always wanted to see you back in Testament, and Mike Portnoy...
Yeah, I know where you're going with it.

Yeah, people always wanted to see him back in Dream Theater; have you ever discussed that with Mike?
I haven't, no. I should talk to him about it. I'm happy for him. It does feel like, as an outsider, he's home, he's where he should be. And I understand people having those perceptions. I was lucky that it worked out where, with Testament, there was enough growth and maturity to sort of; "alright, let's give this another shot, let's try a fresh slate", and it worked. All these naysayers said, you know; "oh, he's plays jazz now, he's not even going to last one record"; I've been there over twice as long as I was there the first time around. So it's so funny, but back to the original point, I do understand that, and it's great when that can work out. It doesn't always work out. As a Kiss fan, I was heartbroken that at least Ace, but hopefully Ace and Peter, I thought they they'd find their way back to the band somehow, and it never happened. Michael Schenker and UFO, I wish that could have happened, so very often, it doesn't work out, so it's great when it does.

I'm glad you touched on Kiss because I know you were a massive fan growing up, and at the start of Testament's career, you got to share the stage with Kiss, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest etc; what was that like for you, playing alongside your heroes?
Yeah, it was a combination of things. I had very mixed emotions about it, because yeah, on the one hand, these were heroes of mine growing up, but even before the '90s alternative revolution or whatever you want to call it, I felt like things were changing, and I just felt like there was less interest in these bands from consumers on a big scale like there had been. It was kind of sad to see that because when I was growing up, when I was a little kid, you know, 10 years old, Kiss were, as ​Tom Morello said; they were our Beatles, our Rolling Stones; that's what they were for us. And they were the biggest thing in the world by the time the Beatles had broken up. But the Stones always stayed huge, and I thought that would be the case with a lot of these bands. But by the time we were on a festival stage with Kiss, there's only Gene and Paul were left from the original line-up. They were doing music that's just... I don't know if they'd done like; 'Let's Put the X in Sex' yet, but just a lot of music that's just like; "well guys, no, this isn't the Kiss that I I knew". So seeing them in that setting, yeah, it was strange.

And then Judas Priest, by the time we played with them, they had done 'Turbo', and now they sort of made up for it with 'Painkiller' right? So I guess you could call it a redemption tour.

They had also used a drum machine on 'Ram it Down', which came in-between, so you're right, on the redeeming arc.
Yes, and it was great [the redemption], and the music was great, so it was different than Kiss, but you could also sense that a lot of the momentum was lost. Like, I had discovered them on 'Screaming for Vengeance', and then was checking out the back catalogue; 'Unleashed in the East'; "wow, oh my god!", all this great stuff, and it just seemed like; "wow, they're just going to go forward and keep building", and then a lot of the momentum was lost. And then we're supporting them in these arenas, but  when you're the opening act on a three-band bill in an arena, very often people are still filing in while you're playing and you're lucky if you have a decent crowd by the time you finish, but there were even shows where Judas Priest played and people were still filing in, and then it wasn't that full. So in a way, as exciting as it was to play with them, it was also just a kind of bit of a reality check.

I think by that stage, on one hand, glam and hair metal was the dominant genre, and on the other, thrash was on the rise too; was it exciting to be part of something that was seen as galvanising, and the kind of the rougher edge of metal?
Oh, absolutely! Absolutely it felt exciting to be part of a new thing. We were coming off of, like, power metal, and we loved Iron Maiden, we loved Ozzy and the Scorpions, and as a pre-teen or mid-teen, before I joined the band, I kind of thought that's the direction I was going in. I also loved all those guitar players, especially Randy Rhoads and Vivian Campbell and Van Halen, even though the vocals were very, you know, showbiz and, yeah, pop, glam, whatever, some of the music was heavy. Every metal head will tell you how much they loved Van Halen; Pantera swore by Van Halen, so all of that was a big part of it. But then with thrash, yeah, it just felt like this was sort of a whole new movement. 

We touched on the impact of Grunge earlier, but I wanted to ask about the Metallica effect. Testament's 1992 album 'The Ritual' was a lot more polished than previous releases; was there an influence of the label going; "we want this to be more commercial"?
I think that there were always hints like; "if you guys gave us a more catchy song we could do a lot with that", but in the case of that record, I just think it was time for something different. You know, we'd done so much music that had similar tempos, and they were great, but there was a common thread with so much of it. If I could do it over, I would have added in at least one song that could have sounded like one of the earlier records, because I think that sort of created this reaction that; "this records too slow!" I think if we had one song from one of the other records, like, you know, just a burning tempo, I think it would have been smart. But we wanted to try something different, and everybody was on board. It's not like, you know, there were these rumours, like, I pushed that; I pushed for musicianship. I wanted high quality solos. I felt like there's no reason our solos can't be appreciated the way the L.A. bands solos are appreciated; "just give me some stuff to play over where I can really stretch out". and, you know, 'Electric Crown' and 'Return to Serenity', I hear about kids learning those solos to this day and they seem to have had a big impact on people, and I'm glad we did it. And the songs too, I think pretty much on all the record the song writing is great. Eric's got some great riffs there. But yeah, we should have had one, thrown a bone to the earlier stuff.

Adrian, it's a pleasure to be chatting to you today; how are you?
Yeah, very well thanks, very well. I was just in Mexico, actually. I just got in last night. I was on holiday just for a few days. 

Your mum is from Co. Mayo; when was the last time you were in that part of the world? 
That's right, yeah, Ballinrobe. I was there during the World Cup, and mid '80s. I forget which year that was, but I think Argentina won it [1986], but I just remember the World Cup being on. I was out there for about a month, actually.

We're here to talk about Smith Kotzen, and you're now two and a half albums in; that's the most enduring project you've had outside of Maiden.
Yeah, I mean, it has, The second album, I think there's quite a gap between the first and second album. I think when we did the first one, Richie was doing The Winery Dogs, and he had a solo band, and I had Maiden, and so it was very difficult to find the time to get together and work. But we always wanted to do another album, because the first one had success and we enjoyed doing it. I mean, that's the main thing. So, yeah, I mean, two albums. You know, I did two albums with my band, Psycho Motel back in the '90s.

Yeah, I've got both of the Psycho Motel albums.
I listened to them the other day. I was quite surprised. It stood up pretty well. But anyway, yeah, I like to do stuff outside of Maiden. I always have, and now, of course, Steve [Harris] is doing it, and Bruce [Dickinson] has always done it, so it's good to be busy. 

I spoke to Richie in 2021 and he compared what you do with two lead singers to Deep Purple's 'Stormbringer' with David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes; do you think that's an apt description?
Well, there aren't many bands or projects that have two singers, because having two lead singers, you think you'd have a lot of friction, but we don't, and it worked great in Purple. I love the fact that you can have two singers, swapping lines, harmonising. I've always wanted to do that, plus it takes a bit of weight off. I mean, I've done projects where I've done the whole shebang; fronted the band singing and playing, and it's really hard work; you don't get a chance to think about what you're doing. But with the two of us, we can share the load, and it's really a lot of fun.

I was a big fan of ASaP, and of both Psycho Motel albums, but you only sang on the first one, so you hadn't sang in a band in a long time. I guess you did a little bit of backing singing in Primal Rock Rebellion. but what was it that brought you back to wanting to sing again?
Yeah, it's a pretty good question. I suppose it's always been in me. I mean, I started out as a singer, and that was with Dave Murray, the Iron Maiden guitarist, when we were 15. There was only a few kids in the neighbourhood who had long hair and were into Purple and Sabbath. Everyone it was into soul music - you know, all the girls were into soul music - and Dave and I used to take heavy albums to parties, and they'd be ripped off the turntable after about a minute! Anyway, my point is, I always wanted to get back into it. It's kind of in my blood, so it was nice to pick it up again. I started just doing odd blues jams - I mean, this is quite a few years ago - on a Sunday afternoon when I wasn't working, just for fun, just do a bit Hendrix, Cream, Free; all that stuff, and singing this with a bass player and drummer. I just really enjoy it. I loved doing it, so, I wanted to pick it up again, but with Richie, it's taking it up a few notches, because he's been doing that sort of thing for many years. He's an expert at it, so working with him really brings out the best in me.

Richie is quite a guitar player, isn't he? Do you ever look at what he does and go; "wow!", you know; your jaw hits the floor when he's picking away and he's just sliding up and down on that Telecaster.
Yeah, sometimes I watch him and I'll say; "that's voodoo what you're doing there! That's not possible, what you just did". I don't know how he does it. I think he started playing guitar when he was eight, and I've noticed a lot of guys who are real virtuosos start when they're very young. In other words; their motivation for playing music wasn't girls or being on stage in a band, like me when I was 15. I thought; "what can I do?", you know; "what can I channel my youthful energy into?" But you know, maybe that's part of it. I think part of it is a physical thing. 

Outside of these bands, you're someone who has always operated as a solo guitar player. I mean, obviously, Dave Murray has been your number one partner, and then you had to slot in with a three guitar Maiden thing, so how was it slotting in with Richie?
Well, it's a kind of an unspoken thing, or even we may have spoken about it, but I think when we write a song, Richie and I, and record it, we both want to be represented on the track, so it's not like one track features Richie, one track features me. Maybe you get a little bit of that, but in the main, everything's fifty fifty, so it's no problem at all. It just fits together. With what we do, I'll play a bit more kind of stripped down, and I'm not so technical, probably, but I do have my technique. You know what? If you play it like you mean it, it's going to come across, whether you play a few notes, or many notes. I think the fact that we have different styles is another good thing, because it widens the palette we have to create a songs so, like, Richie will come up with a crazy line, like in 'Taking My Chances', he just came up with this jazz fusion bit in the middle where I wouldn't have done that, but it's great. So that's what it's all about; just working with different people and tapping into different ideas.

Do you find that the approach to song writing differs from what you bring to Maiden? I imagine you have ideas that you have where you go; "that's probably for something else and not Maiden". For example, something like 'Writing on the Wall, the Maiden track has a very Celtic feel, and I'm actually surprised that didn't become a Smith Kotzen song.
It's interesting that one, because it is kind of folky, and like you say, it's a little Celtic, and it's a little bluesy. It just gives a little insight into how this kind of music came about. The Blues came out of America, or, you know, the Deep South, from the slaves, but the slaves must have go hold of guitars at some point, which was like more of a country kind of thing, so it's a blend, really. All this stuff is very, it's quite related, interrelated. But no, I thought 'Writing on the Wall', from day one, was a Maiden song, and I had the idea for the title and the rough melody for the chorus, and Bruce just kind of took it to another level.

Moving on to chat about 'Black Light / White Noise', and the album opens with guitar harmonies ['Muddy Water'] and closes with guitar harmonies [Blindsided].
Nothing in between, right?

Yeah! You tend not to use harmonies with your songs in Maiden; was this a conscious decision to use them? 
It's funny, yeah, I've never, although I'm a massive [Thin] Lizzy fan, Wishbone Ash, all that sort of stuff. Obviously, we do a lot in Maiden. Steve Harris is really, really into guitar harmonies, so he'll come up with endless guitar harmonies, but because I've always focused on writing shorter songs, I kind of don't. It's not a calculated thing, and with SK, with 'Muddy Water', we just needed an intro that sort of hooked you in a little bit, so we just came up with that. We never discussed doing harmonies. Richie harmonises stuff naturally, without me asking him, and it would sound right. Like in a song called 'Scars', at the end there, there's a little bit of a harmony thing, and it's great. We did do a thing on stage in one of the songs on the last tour where we kind of worked up this harmony bit. It was very simple, but it was so effective, just the two of us. It was a slower song - I think it was the song 'I Want to Stay' - and it was just great. And you can see people feeding off it, and it just raised the energy level. So, yeah, maybe we should do more of it, but if you do it all the time, maybe it's not so effective. If you do it sparingly, maybe it's has a more impact. I don't know. 

You were chatting about different styles, and something I love about the album is, first off, 'Muddy Water' has really weird timing in places, and in 'Black Light', you're playing this funky thing up the neck; is it important to you to mix things up?
Well, 'Muddy Water' was the first thing we recorded. Richie had the demo, and he pretty much came up with that timing thing. He had the idea, and I loved it straight away. When he played it to me, I said; "that's got to be the album opener". Then we worked on the vocals and the back and forth and the little harmonies here and there. But it's interesting, it was a different song. It's one of my favourite songs on the album, and 'Black Light' started off as another song. I think it was called 'Dressed up to the Nines' or something, or 'The Nines', and we finished it, and we looked at each other and went; "I don't know, nah", but there was something that we liked about it, so we kept the drum track and just rewrote it, and I was listening to drums and I came up with those chords and the vocals, sort of  Phil Lynott-inspired, unashamedly, and then we took it from there, and then we came up with the title. It's always good to have a strong title, and I thought 'Black Light' was a real strong title, certainly better than 'Dressed up to the Nines'.

Yeah, it's a little bit '80s, isn't it?
Exactly, yeah!

Back to more current matters, you're going on tour with Smith Kotzen again in the new year; are you looking at mixing up the set list now that you've got a lot more material to choose from?
Yeah, we'll definitely be playing some new stuff. I'm really excited to do that. I think some of the songs will really translate well to live. When we record we don't really go overboard on the overdubs and production is pretty straight, so I think those songs will work great live. And also we'll be playing some of the songs from the first album as well that were a cornerstone of the last set.

Obviously your concentration is on the material that you have now, but going back through your past, you've got Urchin's 'She's a Roller', ASaP's 'Silver and Gold, Psycho Motel's 'The Last Chain', and lots of other great songs; would you be tempted to dig up some of those? 
Yeah, I should give it some thought. Yeah, it might be interesting to do that. There's so many songs that you do over your career, and they all have an energy about them. And I think good songs are, hopefully, you know, timeless.

'The Last Chain' for example, has never been performed live, ever.
No, and I do regret not doing that with the second version of Psycho Motel, because there was some cracking tracks on there.

On the last Smith Kotzen tour you played Maiden's 'Wasted Years'; have you thought about playing, say 'Back in the Village' or 'Sea of Madness on this run?
Yeah, I like that song. We did do it a few times in the '80s, 'Sea of Madness'. It worked quite well live, so, yeah, maybe,
'Back in the Village', the funny story about that song is, I bought a white flying V backstage at a show in the '80s. Somebody brought it in for for the Priest guys, and they didn't want it, so I bought it because it was $750, And I sat down, and the first thing I played on it was 'Back in the Village', the riff, and I never really played it much after that, but I've got a song out of it. You know, every guitar has got a song in it. You know, I'd forgotten about all these songs you're bringing up [laughing]!

There was a special moment on the last tour in London, where Nicko McBrain got up and joined you to perform 'Solar Fire'; you and him have a long relationship outside of Maiden that goes right back to The Entire Population of Hackney.
Well Nicko's the sort of bloke who just likes to play music. So, I mean, back with The Entire Population Hackney, he suggested we get together. I had a few friends, and I think we did the Marquee club in London. Yeah, it's great. I mean, Nick's got such great energy. He played on the first SK album, and we got him up to do 'Wasted Years' and 'Solar Fire' with us at Islington, and yeah, it was a special moment. You know, he's a great guy, and people love him, don't they? Everyone loves him.

I wanted to touch on the new Iron Maiden Book 'Infinite Dreams'; firstly, with that title, why is 'Infinite Dreams' not in the 'Run For Your Lives' set list?
Yeah, good question! I think it was pencilled in. It was pencilled in. We were going to do it, but for some reason, I don't know why we didn't end up doing it. I don't know why. That's interesting, yeah, the whole big 50th anniversary book, and then we don't do the song [laughing], but I mean, Maiden has got so many songs, it's just hard to cover everything.

What was it like for you to look at that book; did you go; "my life's in there!"
Iincredible. I love some of the things like Steve Harris's diary, where he's got, you know, the guys just getting together one Christmas and talking about forming a band, the first reversal, the first gigs, you know; "got paid twenty quid", all this stuff, brilliant. Love that.

Are you looking forward to the Knebworth show, and have you enjoyed the 50th anniversary tour? What does it mean to you to be playing a huge show like Knebworth?
Well, it's special. I mean, we did it before, and Knebworth has always been - I hate this word as it's so overused, isn't it? - iconic. But it kind of is, because of the Zeppelin connection and everything. But we've had some incredible occasions, and we call them gigs now. I mean London Stadium [2025], 73,000 people, just a great, great night. And the thing that pleased me about that gig was we were kind of on form. Sometimes, if you play London, there's so much pressure and so much aggravation with people wanting tickets, you just want to get it over with, but that was great, and there was a great audience. Everyone said the sound was really good, which is important. You don't always get that in big arenas. And, yeah, but of course, Knebworth's massive, so yeah, we're looking forward to that.

Yeah. Does it surprise you that Maiden are bigger now than you've ever been?
Yeah, people say that. I mean, it's wonderful, isn't it? I have to say though that the band's philosophy has always been, always to take music out to the people, because it was never music that was going to get mass radio play. And I think when you build a career like that, it lasts a bit longer than just having a few big hit records. You know, we've actually gone to all these places; we used to do fifteen-date tours in France, and go to every little city in England as well, and all over the world. It hasn't always been us playing massive gigs and everyone coming to see us; we've always took it out there. People remember that, and I think that has stood the band in good stead later in our career, because people remember that. It's like an honest way of building a career.

Before I let you go, I have to ask, what's next for you? Are you thinking about a third Smith Kotzen album? What's in the future?
Yeah, I mean, this is my music room, and I'm always sitting messing around, coming up with riffs. I like be creative. I seem to be getting more creative as I get older, so I need an outlet for it. So, yeah, why not do a third album? I'm not thinking directly about it yet, but let's get this tour done and then see where we are, but yeah, I would say so.

Smith Kotzen play across the UK and Europe in February / March. Get tickets at smithkotzen.com

FEBRUARY 2026
3rd            La Riviera, Madrid, SPAIN
4th            Apolo, Barcelona, SPAIN
6th            Le Trianon, Paris, FRANCE
7th            Zik-Zak, Ittre, BELGIUM
9th            Rockhal Club, Esch-Sur-Alzette, LUXEMBOURG
10th         Philharmonie, Haarlem, NETHERLANDS
12th         Rock City, Nottingham, UK
13th         O2 Ritz, Manchester, UK
15th         SWG3 Galvanizers, Glasgow, UK
17th         KK’s Steel Mill, Wolverhampton, UK
18th         1865, Southampton, UK
20th         O2 Academy, Bristol, UK
21st         O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, UK
23rd         Carlswerk Victoria, Köln, GERMANY
24th         Volkhaus, Zurich, SWITZERLAND
26th         Live Club, Milan, ITALY
27th         Backstage Werk, Munich, GERMANY
 
MARCH 2026
1st            Lucerna  Music Bar, Prague, CZECHIA
2nd           Progresja, Warsaw, POLAND
4th            Columbia Theater, Berlin, GERMANY
5th            Gruenspan, Hamburg, GERMANY
7th            Berns, Stockholm, SWEDEN
8th            Pustervik, Gothenburg, SWEDEN

Hi Darren, how are you doing?
I'm good. I've been in the studio today, singing. I've got a new album coming out next year with Dare, so I've just been working on some of the songs today. It's been a horrible day here in Wales, so my philosophy at the moment is; if it's a nice day, we go out and have a walk or a day out, and if it's pretty dreadful like It's been today, I'll go into the studio and record.

You're  gearing up for the Dedication to Phil Lynott with your band Renegade; how does it feel to be playing on that bill?
Absolutely fantastic. I wasn't planning to do Renegade, but I kept getting asked to do appearances with various tribute bands in Sweden and Ireland and all over the place, really, Germany and U.K. I came back from Dublin last year and I'd gone out to do one of the Dedication gigs at the Button Factory, and I really enjoyed it. I got up with one of the bands there, and they were great fun, and I really enjoyed singing the songs. I came back and I realised how much I'd missed playing the Thin Lizzy set, and I just said to the lads who all grew up playing Thin Lizzy songs that it seems silly that I'm not doing it. I was on for the albums, and I was there with Phil and Scott [Gorham]and Brian [Downey], so why not do a version of a Thin Lizzy tribute band, ourselves? And that was it.

The band is clearly named after the Thin Lizzy album 'Renegade'.
'Renegade' [1981] was my first main album. I played on 'Chinatown' [1980], but yeah, 'Renegade' was my first album, and on the album, I co-wrote 'Angel of Death', so that was an obvious choice of name, and we thought it sounded quite good. It's a real tremendous honour to be playing on the 4th January at the Point for Philip and the great memory of Thin Lizzy. 

The show marks the 40th anniversary of Phil's passing;  that must seem insane to you.
Well, it does, and it doesn't. Yeah, the years have gone very fast, but at the same time, it does feel like a long time ago. It's like another lifetime, especially when we've been around doing various incarnations of Thin Lizzy for a long time. We started with John Sykes seven or eight years after Phil died, so we did quite a lot of gigs with John, and that sort of got disbanded and we started another line up with with Ricky [Warwick] and Scott myself and Brian and Damon Johnson and Marko Mendoza from Whitesnake, but the main thing I think the fans need to know is that we all realised that there's no Thin Lizzy without Phil. That was always in my heart, and always in Brian Downey's heart that Thin Lizzy, in any of the versions without Phil, was always a tribute to the legacy and music that Phil and Scott and Brian and Robo and Gary Moore all the great lads created.

It's great to have Thin Lizzy's music live on.
What I've noticed now is there's a whole new generation of kids out there that are discovering Thin Lizzy for the first time, even at the Renegade shows. Young people that never saw Thin Lizzy are really happy to see an original guy playing the songs, still, even though I was there only for a couple of years. Obviously it means a great deal to me to try and keep that wonderful memory of Thin Lizzy alive. That's why I'm doing it. I love it, and I love the songs, and it's a real honour to sing the songs. It's all in the memory of Philip, and it's all in a good way and good taste. Phil and Scott and Brian, it's what they created, and it was amazing.

Dare's second album 'Blood From Stone' was released in 1991, and the band became inactive for a period after that; was the grunge revolution a factor?
It was a little bit of that. Guns n' Roses had broken, and I remember A&M asked us to write a heavy album because the first one was quite melodic, really. We were more into bands like Def Leppard and Mr. Mister and Toto, and there were some great bands around at that time who were a bit more keyboard based, and then when Guns n' Roses broke, the whole industry just wanted heavy, to the point where A&M asked us, they just told us to write a heavy album. Looking back, I think probably I should have stuck by my guns, really, and kept on with the same direction, because we did write a heavy album, and then A&M sold out to PolyGram, and then we got dropped because we hadn't broke anywhere. And we changed directions; basically, we'd done two different albums, two different styles, and we got let go. I was out in the cold for about four or five years, and that was quite a difficult period, but we just kept going, and I was playing the pubs and clubs, and started from scratch.

As you said at the start of the interview, you're back in the studio, so I'm guessing you're looking at a 2026 release for the next Dare album?
Yeah, I got about eight songs now for the new studio album. We've just done the best of ['The Best Of Dare (40 Years Of Music)'] this year, which has done really well. People have been asking me to be a best of because I've got eight albums out and have had over one hundred songs published. It was just difficult to know which songs to put on the best of, really, but I've tried to put songs from every album, and that's done really well for us, so, yeah, we've got a new album coming out in '26 and it's going to be a belter.

Back to the Dedication gig, and you've got some of your old band mates there including Ricky Warwick and Marco Mendoza; is there a chance of some unannounced collaborations?
Yes. I'm not going to give the game away, but yeah, absolutely. There's going to be a hell of a party going on that night, and as I say, it's all to remember Phil, and the music of Thin Lizzy that was created by Philip and Scott Gorham and Brian Downey and Robbo and Gary Moore and John Sykes. It's all about the family of Thin Lizzy, and we're there to celebrate that fantastic legacy that the guys have left us. As I say, I'm just very proud to be part of it. We've got a couple of friends there; we've got Ricky and Richard Fortus from Gun n' Roses, and we've got Renegade, and we've got the RTE Orchestra, and it's going to be a hell of a night. 

The Dedication to Philip Parris Lynott tales place at Dublin's 3Arena on 4th January 2025. For tickets, click here.

Hi guys, how's things?
Alain; Fabulous. We're enjoying having our rehearsals. We're in Bilbao, which is a little rainy but otherwise it's a beautiful town to walk around, have some nice meals, and have some nice hangs at the rehearsal spot today. We start tour off, officially, tomorrow. 

Even guys with a pedigree such as the four of you must get the first night nerves. 
Barrett; Well, it's not exactly the nerves; it's more like an anticipation to get it under the belt and just do it. The rehearsals sound great, everybody's having a great time, and we just want to start playing shows. We're doing this kind of a secret warm up show that's been widely advertised, and it's just so we can just play in front of a small audience, because we have films that are part of the show, and it's a pretty elaborate production. So this is just to work out any of the kinks before we start playing. And then, even when you're on tour, there's stuff that comes up. 

Why is Europe your jumping off spot for this tour?
Barrett; Because Peter told me a long time ago, he said; "if you're an American band and you want to really be a successful band, get out of the country as soon as possible and play in Europe and South America", and we're going to all those.

Peter, I read an interview where you said you had no idea what the chemistry of the four of you would be like, because you hadn't played in the same room making the album; what's it like now that you've that you've done that? 
Peter; Its fucking horrible [everyone laughs]. I've actually, of course, known Barrett for thirty years, and the other two guys I've met in the last couple of years and then played with them individually, so it was just a matter of, really; how does it work in the room? But yeah, we've been doing this for so long that none of us are going to make the rookie mistakes or the ego mistakes that people make. It's been really smooth, and the music is pretty great, so I'm really optimistic this is something we can keep doing.

What about the rest of you guys, what's your feeling on how it's been working?
Alain; Yeah, for me, the same thing. I mean, obviously, Duke and I have known each other for a while, while Barrett and I, and Peter, more recently, but being a fan of all their life's work and music, and having that natural resonance already appearing, and then us coming together, it's just been a dream for me. We have a lot of collective and shared history, and also we were there for a lot of things at the same time, maybe doing our own separate paths, so to come together with all that experience, and a kind of 'older guy' philosophy; which is just live for today and be excited about your tomorrow, which is great. I never thought it'd like to be in a new band, quote, unquote, at my age and but here we are, and it's super exciting.

Barrett; I mean, I knew all these guys. Peter and I have been playing together since 1993. and these two Drink the Sea albums are the the 39th and 40th albums that he and I have have played on together where we're in a in a band or a backing band of some kind. So I know the kind of people that we are going to want to play with, and Duke and I had done a tour of the U.K. last year just as a duo, and Alain and I had played together and did a studio session about four years ago, and there's just this intuitive thing that you get, especially when you're older, and you know all the things to watch out for and the things to to look for, and I know that each of these guys had those qualities, so it was a very intuitive process.

What was your vision for Drink the Sea? 
Barrett; I always say this;  I didn't really have a big inside plan for this. It really came out of the fact that, for example, Duke and I did the tour in in May of 2024, and he and I did a recording session in Iceland that was really beautiful and special. I knew that I wanted to work with Duke, and I had already recorded some really great ideas with Alain, but we just hadn't finished them yet. And then Peter and I were in Brazil for almost seven months playing all over Brazil with a Brazilian singer, and Duke came and joined us there, and we recorded more songs in Sao Paulo. Then we all went to Joshua Tree and did a session there, and recorded a lot of basic tracks, and then did more overdubs at Alain's studio in Chile, and then came to Spain to mix it. We knew we had an album, but we didn't know we had a double album until we mixed it, and we could hear that every single song was really worth releasing. So I didn't go into this thinking like; "we're going to have a band"; it was just this very natural, organic process of recording songs with some of my favourite people that also just happened to be incredible musicians. The name of the band came from one of Duke's lyrics, so Duke technically named the band.

I've written that the album is seductive, experimental, esoteric; how would you describe it?
Duke; I would say it's very sexy. It's the culmination of our minds. It's expansive. I don't think it's inhibited; it's quite free and open. And I think, I don't know, words like eclectic or whatever, but it's expansive,

Alain; Yeah, and they're musical textures combined, like upright bass and vibraphone, cigar box guitar, clarinet, soprano, twelve string, Portuguese guitar, synth, bass, electric guitar; all that stuff is a really cool palate, and listening to the record, I definitely see that there's that kind of atmosphere around everything, and yet it still leaves it open for us, because we're all very inquisitive in regards of tonalities and tones and sounds. Barrett's got an incredible collection of instruments at his house, and I have a bunch too, and everyone does, so it's really interesting to also see about the future, what other textures we can bring into it. But like Duke said, it's very expansive, meaning; it wasn't like boxing it in, it was reaching outward the entire time. And after it's done, then you can put some corners and soft walls around it, but from the inside out, it was very much like an outward explosion, like a big bang of sorts. 

I love the bass groove on 'Saturn calling', which has also got a killer guitar solo.
Alain; I played it once, and Barred went; "no, no no, you've got to shred this one!" I was all musical, and suddenly he says; "no, no, one more time!"

Barrett; I did. I was like; "no dude; SHRED!"

There's some great guitar sounds on the album, Peter, did you play mandolin?
Peter; No I did not, but I used twelve-string acoustic a lot. 

Alain; I played cigar box, and that sounds like a mandolin. A cigar box and Portuguese guitar have got the double octave strings. I play that, but so does Peter. ​

To have recorded two albums, you must have been incredibly inspired, and you're releasing them almost simultaneously, like Guns n' Roses!
Barrett; Yeah, well, we've all played with Duff McKagan at some point. 

​Alain; I think what happened is that we were so excited and we had so many sessions and everything was so fruitful and productive, and we ended up with twenty-two songs, and when we were mixing them in Spain, we realised that we were not going to be able to choose an album from this. We noticed that there was kind of like, twins, like twin songs, in a sense, not sounding the same, but they were kind of related to each other. So then the architecture of the sequencing, Barrett sequenced it, and he started to see that there was two albums that have an overall flow to the entire work as one record, and then there's an individual flow for each volume, with these songs inhabiting opposite albums that are kind of somehow spiritually related. So we had no choice but to make it a double record, because it was just all too good.

Duke; Yeah, we don't want to leave anything behind. 

Alain; Yeah, nothing behind, because this encapsulates, and is this moment in time that we spent the last two, three years with, creating this thing, and it was best to just do it like this. It also gives a very solid foundation for live with the amount of songs we can play, and also now we were excited about what comes next. So I know it was pretty ballsy, like; "really? You put out two records right next to each other?!" when people are releasing a single every three months.

Duke; We're setting new trends, you see. We're trend-setting boys. 

Barrett, you mentioned the visuals, and on YouTube, there's a whole load of videos for the songs; was it important to you to bring a visual element as well as musical to the live performance?
Barrett; It was, again, a convergence of synchronicities, because there's actually twenty-two videos, one for each song, and they're really short films made by this really brilliant film maker named Tad Fettig who was a film maker for PBS television, which is like the American BBC. He did a lot of projects for National Geographic and Greenpeace, so he had all this film footage from landscapes and icebergs and African safari animals, and people and cities all over the world, and so he made these films to go with each song. It was his idea, because he and I have worked together for about 25 years making documentaries, and he said; "hey, man, I just want to make videos for these songs; do you want them?" I said; "well, yeah!", and they are so beautiful. We built the show around him projecting those films as we play those songs.

Alain, you said that you're all fans of each other's music; what for you all stands out about each others' work?
Alain; For me, the first time I heard R.E.M was, like, 1980 ,and I think it was 'Radio Free Europe', and... was it the first record?

Peter; That was the second record.

Alain; Oh, my god, I was just like; "that is just a whole other vibe for me", and I was so excited about that. Then, obviously, following that career, and all through the years the videos were so powerful; 'Losing My Religion' and all that stuff. They were the most artistic videos that were out when it was all about the videos. Then, obviously, Screaming Trees, I mean, there's Mark [Lanegan]'s voice, and Barrett. And then when Mark played with Duke [in the project Duke Garwood & Mark Lanegan] for the first time, and we ended up mixing some of Duke's stuff together. Then they did a couple of albums and toured together, so I was already so excited about it. These are some of my favourite people, so for me, it was; "yeah, of course."

Barrett; I don't know if Peter likes any of our records, but somehow we got him to play with us [laughing].

Peter; I play it at home and stuff. I keep up. I saw Alain at the Crocodile Café [in Seattle] in 2003, 2002 or whenever.

Alain; Yeah, that was a long time about,

Peter; I didn't talk to you, but that was a great show.

Alain; Thank you. That was right after our tour with Queens of the Stone Age, right before we did 'Songs for the Deaf' [2002]. We met during the 'Rated R' tour, and I ended up starting to record them and stuff for the B-sides of that record.

You've said you'll be playing Queens' songs, as well as others from each others' catalogue during the tour; what will you be doing?
Alain; Actually, it's more of the Desert Sessions stuff, so we're doing a couple tunes from Seven ['Volume 7: Gypsy Marches' - 2001] and eight ['Volume 8: Can You See Under My Thumb? There You Are - 2001], which is 'Hanging Tree' and 'Making a Cross'. 'Hanging Tree' would be the original version with the minor, major kind of twist against the vocal, which Josh [Homme] totally forgot when he tracked it originally, and just kind of straightened it and made it bluesy - which is great, because now we have two different versions.

Barrett; Duke and I, when we toured the U.K. last year we did, we did a Screaming Trees song called 'Winter Song', and we did a Mad Season song called 'Long Gone Day', and probably those will pop up from time to time as surprise songs. We haven't exactly worked out what songs. I mean, we have a set, but we're going to mix it up a little bit. And we're doing an REM song,

Duke; We're going to develop as we roll, because we talk about things. 

Alain; We've plenty of tunes to delve into the past into.

One of my favourite R.E.M songs is 'The Great Beyond'; any chance of adding that one to the set?
Peter; You know what's funny about that? There was a period where Mark Lanegan and I, I was going to work on a solo record of his, and we had about fifteen songs, he'd come to my house, we'd play them, and at one point, as we were going through all the stuff, and he listened to one of the songs and he went; "yeah, you know what? I can't sing that. That's 'Stairway to Heaven'", and I went; "it's not Stairway to Heaven", and he goes; "it's 'Stairway to Heaven'". I went; "okay. Well, we won't do it", and that was 'The Great Beyond'.

Alain; Oh my god!

Peter; So I had the song, and we had to do the soundtrack [for 'Man on the Moon', 1999], and I gave it to Michael [Stipe], and I played it for Lanegan, like, a year later, and he goes; "well, I'm glad Michael found something there, because I sure didn't; it's fuckin' 'Stairway to Heaven"! IT'S NOT 'STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN'! [everyone laughing]!

To be fair, that's not the worst comparison he could have made. 
You know, it has that C walk down to A minor, which every song in folk rock history has used. I haven't even thought about that song in however many years it's been since I've played it.

Drink the Sea are coming to Dublin as part of the tour, and R.E.M. famously did a live rehearsal at the Olympia in 2007; is Dublin a special city for you, Peter?
Peter; Yeah, it was one of the first places over here [in Europe] where we had a real kind of rabid fan base. We always had really great shows, and I have a lot of Irish friends. I was with a girlfriend, and I remember we were walking down Grafton Street [in Dublin], and she goes; "Jesus, you're really famous here". I mean, everyone - I'm not really famous. I wasn't then, and I'm not now - but it was everyone recognising you, which was just like; "I don't know what's going on!" It was weird. But yeah, we did the rehearsals there, which I loved, and we were recorded some of 'Accelerate' [2008] there. That rehearsal thing was one of the coolest things; just getting to play brand new songs in front of people, and then we'd like, stop them and go; "yeah, no, that that goes there". Yeah, it was great.

The Olympia is such a beautiful venue isn't it?
Peter; It was great. We did like, five days there. I had my favourite Italian restaurant in Dublin and favourite pubs, and yeah, we had a great time.

Alain; I can't wait to go again. The first time was when I went recently. Beautiful. 

Barrett; Actually, the last time I played Dublin was with Duff McKagan. When we were in Walking Papers we had a really great show in Dublin, and we played Belfast too on that tour. Duff and I, we both have two sets of grandparents from Ireland, and I think Duff's mom was from Ireland also. Anyway, we both have family from Ireland, so it's kind of a special thing to go back and play for me.

I don't know if you know this, but Duff actually has an Irish passport.
Barrett; I know. I asked him about that, because I think he got that because of his mom and his grandmother, and I probably could, but I've got to do the research on it.

Are you looking into bringing any guests up on stage with you during the tour? I know Peter that you and Bono used to be close, for example.
Peter; I don't think there's any real plans. I haven't even thought about who to mention to inviting people, let alone playing with people. But you never know.

Barrett; You know if it had been 20 years ago, because when Peter and I went to Havana, Cuba in 1999, and we spent several nights out drinking with Paddy Maloney [late founder of The Chieftains], and so if Paddy was still around, I think we'd probably be asking him to come sit in on the uilleann pipes.

We've not talked about album two yet, and there are some unusual instrument choices on there. 
Alain; Duke is playing soprano and clarinet.

One of my favourite tracks is 'Sweet as a Nut' with that tremolo guitar sound; is that you Alain, or is that Peter?
Alain; I didn't play any electric on this except for the solo on 'Saturn Calling', but otherwise it's these guys.

Duke; I brought the groove and the lyrics, and Peter brought the thing you're talking about, the shimmery sexy sound.

Barrett; I have no idea!

Alain; Yeah, that's the one thing about the rehearsals.

Barrett; We're like; "alright, yeah, how does it go?!"

Alain; There's one tune that is my Achilles' heal at the moment which Barrett and I recorded a few years ago, where the guitar rhythm's got that crazy timing, and then we did the vocals just all relaxed and floating on top. Then when I actually tried to sing that over the guitar with this floating vocal, my brain just said; "no, it's not going to happen". I'm almost there though, and everyone's having fun watching me struggle with it. At some point I'll nail it, and then it'll be a thing of the past and I'll feel the bigger man for it.

It sounds like you're having a lot of fun and you're only just getting started; what are you most looking forward to about the tour?
Barret; What's kind of great about this is that there's no opening bands on any of the shows on the entire tour, in any of the tours, because we've got North America and South America after this. We basically have a two-hour night of music, playing all of these new songs, plus the special songs from our old bands. Just being able to settle into a night of music where you don't have to hustle on and off the stage and just take your time with it, that's what I'm looking forward to,

Is it difficult to escape the shadow of REM, Queens of Stone Age, and  Screaming Trees?
Alain; I mean, it's part of us and part of our DNA and part of our experiences. I don't think any of us were ever focused on the after aftermath, which is the popularity or the success it was, whether it was musically successful or personally successful as an artistic path. I don't really even think about that as like we have something to prove because of the past. This is a brand new thing, and it's extremely exciting and new and full of merit, in all the ways that the original stuff was full of merit as well, before it became popular or not. That's something we can't control, as you know, but there's all kinds of incredible music that people haven't heard yet, so I'm just happy that we're out here doing it, and the future looks bright.

What about for you, Peter? At R.E.M's peak, you were one of the biggest bands in the world; is that hard to get away from?
No, it was an amazing way to spend my twenties and thirties and forties. I mean, it was an amazing experience. That said, I would have been really suited to playing clubs my whole life. You know, I feel real comfortable doing this. I like to be able to look people in the eye - or not - but you know, be right next to people when I'm playing. I don't like worrying about people that are half a mile away, and I don't like worrying about security. I mean, all that stuff is just kind of irrelevant. I like playing, and I'm lucky, really lucky, to be at my age, playing the three to five hundred people. I mean, if you told me that when I was 15, I'd be like; "okay, you've won the lottery". You're playing Tuesday night in front of three hundred people? Yeah, it's great.

Alain, you've been saying that you're excited for what's next, so it seems to me that you're already thinking of the future of the band.
Alain; Oh, definitely. We've been recording here and there, and we're going to keep recording. We have a few sessions booked in various places in our touring travels, and I expect that at the end of that cycle, by time we get done with the South America portion, we should be really close to having another album ready to go, because that's just part of being a band. It's like the way it used to be; touring, recording while you're on the road, because you see those Zeppelin albums? I mean, there was touring and recording and writing going on at the same time, and it's always like that because, the speed of having to wait for the label to catch up, and then the release, and they're going to say this, and then pre-production and writing, and then thinking about it, that doesn't interest me. Like, I've done a solo record in twelve days, written and recorded. I'm not saying it's good, but it flows [laughing]. So we've got all this stuff coming up, and we're excited about it.

Barrett; We do have the advantage of both Alan and I are producers that have recording studios, and we can go into almost any studio in the world and within a few hours, be set up and ready to record. We can just do this on our own, with the skills, so we don't really have to have a label behind us to do that sort of thing. I mean, right now, I'm the record label, because I have a deal with with Sony to put out records, but we could do that regardless of whether I had that deal or not; we could make records.
​
Stream the music, order the vinyl and double CD, and explore all things Drink The Sea here, and experience the visuals behind Drink The Sea’s music on YouTube.

Drink the Sea -  European and UK tour dates in full.

December 
Tue 2nd  Cadiz, Spain @ Edificio Constitucion 1812
Wed 3st Sevilla, Spain @ Sala X
Thu 4th Valencia, Spain @ 16 Toneladas
Fri  5th San Sebastian, Spain @ Dabadaba
Sat 6th Madrid, Spain @ Sala Villanos
Tue 9th Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
Thu 11th Portsmouth, England @ The Wedgewood Rooms
Fri 12th Liverpool, England @ Arts Club
Sun 14th Dublin, Ireland @ The Button Factory
Mon 15th Belfast, Northern Ireland @ Empire Music Hall 
Wed 17th London, England @ The Jazz Café
Thu 18th Leeds, England @ Brudenell Social Club
Fri 19th Glasgow, Scotland @ Room 2
Sat 20th Birmingham, England @ O2 Institute 
Sun 21st Bristol, England @ Thekla

Hi Dave, how are you?
I'm doing great! I've been preparing for this tour and doing lots of interviews, which I love doing. I should say that, although it's being billed as the final tour, it's not my final tour! I'm also preparing a new solo album, so I'm very busy.

You're going out on the road with your version of Slade, which isn't the original band; how did this version come to be?
I was in touch with Suzi Quatro's husband Len Tuckey about forming a band or something, and he advised me - and I'd already spoke to Nod [Noddy Holder] - and he said; "you've got to go out and use the name, Dave". He said; "everybody knows you. You and Nod are the most recognisable people in the band". Then he said; "out in Europe, in Germany and Sweden all that, there's a big demand for the '70s music. There's a big promoter over there who puts on a collection of bands, and he does massive venues - I'm talking about 20,000". So when we suddenly could go to the east of Germany, they really were starved of western music, so it was an ideal opportunity for me to go on a stage and play several number ones.

That sounds like a great reason to do it.
That's all I'd got to do. I didn't play a full set, but I played about half an hour, and it was really great fun, because he put some '60s bands on, and I'd bought their records; there were The Searchers and The Tremolos and the Hollies, lots of my favourite groups. The combination of the '60s and '70s made for a big audience.

So that's where it began.
Yes, and then I did separate tours in Sweden and Germany. Then I went to Norway, and then eventually, amazingly, I went to Australia and did six weeks! I don't know if you know this story, but 'Sgt. Pepper', The Beatles album, we outsold it with an album called 'Slade Alive', which came out in 1971. It stayed in the charts for two years in Britain and Europe, but in Australia, it sold more than 'Sgt. Pepper', which is quite an incredible thing.

Do you remember Slade's early gigs in Australia?
We had an opportunity to go there back in the '70s, and we took Status Quo with us and Caravan and Lindisfarne. 
We were doing Randwick racecourse which is like, 50,000 people. It was the height of our fame in 1973 actually, and when we arrived in Melbourne, it was six o'clock in the morning, and all the cameras were outside. It was big deal, and there were crates of foster beer [laughing] - terrible! I like the British pint.

You've touched on some of the highs there, but I wanted to talk about Don Powell's car crash in 1973, which was a terrible thing; did you think then that the band might be over?
Well, it's a difficult question to answer, really, Don and was coming with me to go to Hollywood, and I was going to get married, and Don's girlfriend [Angela Morris] was going to come, and she was the girl that was in the crash, by the way. Just before, we did Earl's Court, a massive show. London was full of Slade fans, and it was fantastic. And then we went home because we were about to go away to get married, and I think I must have been at my dad's house, and I had a phone call at three in the morning, and that's not going to be good, is it? And the word was, Don's had a crash, and I thought he'd just bumped the car.

So when you got the call, you thought it was only something minor?
Yes, but then the second call was devastated. My sister was a great friend of Don's girlfriend - the one who got killed. And bear in mind, we were number one in the charts when this happened, It was 'Skweeze Me. Pleeze Me', our second number one - it was 'Cum On Feel the Noize', 'Skweeze Me. Pleeze Me', and then the Christmas song. So anyway, the manager, Chas Chandler comes up to the Midlands, goes into the hospital, and Don was all wired up, and no one knew whether he was going to make it or not. We just didn't know anything, but Chas was quite positive when he saw him. They'd shaved his hair off, and there's a dirty great scar down the top of his head, but the problems were about to unfold as the weeks went on. There was more damage. 

Don famously suffered from memory loss as a result.
He did survive, and he was joking, but he totally forgot the girl who was driving, or he was driving - I don't know who was driving. He didn't even mention her, and what we didn't realise was, the memory had gone. He lost his memory. He was in shock. He couldn't remember from one day to another what he was going to do. If I I would tell him; "tomorrow we're going to so and so", he'd ring here twenty times after that to say; "what are we doing?"  So he was encouraged to write a diary of his notes, of what he would do the next day.

There must have been some doubt as to whether he'd play with the band again.
As far as his playing was concerned, we had no idea whether he'd come back to play, but because we were decent and loyal - and I've known Don longer than all the rest of the band - we stood by him. It was very emotional. I did go to America, and I did get married, because Don's brother, Derek - a wonderful guy - he told me to get on with my life. He said; "Don will go into a rest place, and we'll see how it is when you come back in a few weeks", so when I came back, obviously there was a lot more conversations. It wasn't advisable that he would attempt to play or anything, because we realised he'd forgot all the songs. He'd have to have the slight inkling of how it went, and he then might pick up on it. It's something strange in the brain, but it was definitely damaged from that, but for us as a band, we worked so hard to become successful, and we stuck it out.

I gather Chas, your manager was a great support during this time.
Chas was very supportive, helping us to decide on things. We had to sort of see how it goes, so we weren't going to do any shows because we couldn't risk him. You know, you might go on stage and start one and stop. It wasn't his fault, but there were other thing that happened. He lost his smell and taste as well, and it's never returned. So I personally think, a nice guy affected by an accident, but we have to be supportive and do a bit of promotion, but the the actual coming back and him playing, was slow. So what we did, there was a situation in America, we went to New York, and the upside of this is, what we didn't realise was we were about to make the biggest Christmas song in the world.

The defining Christmas hit 'Merry Xmas Everybody'!
Jim [Lea] and Nod wrote it. Chas said; "John Lennon's got a week in the studio. I'm going to have a word with him. Let's put that Christmas song in because the record company want you to release a Christmas record because you've had all these number ones" So we said; "well, we've got this idea", so we learned it in the studio. We didn't know that Don could play it, and every so often Don would stop because he didn't know the song, and understandably. I didn't either, but bit by bit, over a few days, he started to play, but we had to do extra work on the drums. We had to get a take. Now, if you get a take, you tend to keep the drums, but we had to embellish. We had to be a bit creative with Don, like get him to pop in and do that little section again, and because we had a great engineer, it worked. And John Lennon gave us the studio time, and it's thanks to him that he give us the time to do that song, but what we came out with was extraordinary.

That's an incredible comeback. 
It was almost like the rug was pulled under me, and it might have ended the four of us, or maybe Don would never come back, but that didn't happen. Helping him to get the kick going, and playing all the things he's good at, he did do that, and it made it, and I started to work guitar things out, and it it turned out to be a fantastic rock record. It's the ultimate number one, which has never died to this day. It's still ringing in everybody's ears because the song came out in a bad time in Britain. There were three day weeks, strikes, and there were problems in your country as well, no doubt; workloads, televisions were going off, power cuts, but the song, the word was from everybody including the press that this song lifted the nation in crisis, and that's true. But as I say, from something that happened, we survived and moved on to make more records, and we carried on together until obviously, we had a massive comeback in the end of the '70s, when Ozzy Osbourne pulled out of Reading. 

From Reading, the band got a boost and you went into a more metal direction, even playing at the Monsters of Rock Festival in 1981.
We had every intention of moving into the rock field. Noddy was probably, if not, the greatest rock singer in the world. I think he was the greatest rock singer. Chas Chandler always said that about him, that his voice was like a Little Richard. Nod loved Little Richard records, they had this power, so the mixture of songs that we made in the '70s - and that includes the ballads - led us to suddenly deciding we wanted to move into leather clad rockers. We thought; "We've always done 'Born to be Wild'; I want to capture that audience". You see, when we did Reading, we were moving in that direction. The reason we stormed it is because the audience went to school when they were buying our records, so all these heavy metallers, sort of thought; "oh, Ozzy is not doing it; it's Slade. Well, they're great, aren't they? Lots of great songs", so there was a big clap when we walked on. We'd saved the situation. Ozz is a friend of mine, by the way, and I've known him a long time.

​The '80s brought a rebirth. 
Interestingly enough, in the '80s, when we got success from Reading, we had a hit called 'We'll Bring the House Down', and after that, 'My Oh My', 'Lock up your Daughters', 'Run, Run Away'. We had a load of big ones in Europe, so really, everything came back to us. Don was still suffering, but we learned how to be together and get through it. We did get through it, and I'm glad we did, and really, with one thing or another, you can't work it all out, but when I decided to reform the band in 1992, I spoke to Nod, and I said; "Nod, I've got three kids". Nod already had left the group. He didn't really want to tour anymore or do albums. He was going through something, as we all do, and because I'm so close to him, I can understand his feelings.

So there was no issue with you continuing on with Slade?
When you give each other the life that we gave each other, there is so much to be thankful for. In fact, on my forthcoming solo album, I wrote a song and it's all about the four in the band, Chas Chandler, all the people who helped me on the way to making it. It's called 'Thanks For the Good Times'. It's a great song. I know it's a great song, and I'm quite nostalgic. I remember when I gave the bass player, Jim Lea, his first job. He was 15, rosy cheeks, and me and Nod were 18, but what we did together was incredible. I got with Nod, and I didn't know his voice very well then, but I knew he was good at talking on the stage. Jim played bass like I'd never heard a person play bass; he played bass like Jimi Hendrix had played bass, and I thought; "he's either a great choice, or he's the worst choice!", but I chose as I thought there was something special. We rehearsed together, the four of us, and it was just natural. Something happened. It took several years before we met Chas Chandler, but when he discovered us, it was the right time for us to get it, and he absolutely loved us. He said; "I think you're a great, great band. You do different ways in rock and roll". He said; "I want to manage you, produce you", and that was it.

Just before that new version of the band, Slade had success with 'Radio Wall of Sound'.
It was a good one. It didn't do that great, but it was a very good track that Jim wrote. I know that Nod sang part of it and Jim sang part of it, but I think really, when we reached the point of that, things were changing in the group, but we got back on Top of the Pops, and we did have a bit of a hit. Jim has always been a great writer with Nod; putting those two together is like Lennon and McCartney, aren't they? I could that see when they wrote, and if you look at the work they've done, it's immense. And lyrics, I mean, one of my favourite songs is 'How Does it Feel', which is not a big hit, but it's in the movie that, by the way, got re-released, and it's been a success in our country, 'Slade in Flame'. It's worth a watch. It's been remastered, and it's brighter. We went to a big premiere in London. I felt like Tom Cruise when I walked in there! There's all people there looking autographs, and it was all security around me!

Sticking with the '90s, and what did you make of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's interpretation of the band?
Oh, it was so good [laughing}! When I really formed the [post-Slade} band, one of the guitar players was a '70s guy, and he got all the videos of Vic and Bob and we put them on the tour coach, and it was absolutely hilarious, especially me and Nod, because Vic and Bob got us to a tee, you know; the hairstyle, Noddy's sideboards and all, bloody brilliant! And they're a great, great pair. And it raised the bar, once again. The biggest form of flattery is to be copied, and we're one of those bands. You can copy our faces. It's a bit like Mick Jagger. You can always know what Mick Jagger looks like, and you can do a cartoon. So they were doing basically a fun thing. I mean, they got a bit of Ozzy in there as well. And I was the cook, or something stupid!

It translated brilliantly! 
I think the joy of it is because, Slade, in amongst all the great songs, we had great humour. Chas believed that we followed on from the Beatles and made it our own. He feels that the root of our band, and honestly, I think why we were so big in Russia, is Russians like real groups; they don't like manufactured groups and boy bands. They liked when they found out that we were a bunch of council estate kids, and we had to work for it. They've got a thing about that in Russia. They liked the fact that we weren't whimsical; our kind of music has a punch; it hits you, like, 'Cum on Feel the Noize', which you know, a friend of mine, Noel Gallagher - I've met him several times, and I know how much he loves us - he cites watching me and Nod specifically, or the band on Top of the Pops, and him and his brother are going; "that's what we want to do".

Yeah, the Gallaghers have always cited Slade as an influence on Oasis.
He'll always say that. It was nice what he said in my book ['So Here It Is: How the Boy From Wolverhampton Rocked the World With Slade: The Autobiography', 2018], he said; "it's simple; no Slade = no Oasis". What a what a great thing to say. I went to see him in Wembley, by the way, and we had a laugh together. He's a great guy. Before Oasis, there were a lot of keyboard bands in the 80s, but when Oasis came in, they came in with guts, and they were a bit like us in many ways, you know; a powerful vocalist. I mean, Liam's got a great voice and so has Noel. But they were so good at Wembley when I saw them. Liam sounded really on the case, and so did Noel. It's nice to see that they're going back on the road to entertain the fans that love them.

And great to see that you are still on the road too. 
Yeah, that's the same as us, and I'm still entertaining people. ​I mean, the thing my life is now, people say; "didn't you make my youth great?", and I like that line. It's a smile when people recognise me. Instantly when I walk around, I get a lot of it now, for some reason, I don't know why, but I get more now, and it happens abroad and it's quite nice, when somebody can't speak English, sees you. There's a guy who must have been collecting Slade memorabilia from when he was a kid, and he's got a big museum, and I went in there because he's a nice guy, and he's got a, like, a dummy of Noddy [laughing]!

Speaking of museums, do you still have all your gold discs and all that kind of stuff? You must have hundreds of them!
No, I gave them to my son. I just wanted him to keep them.

Looking forward, you mentioned you have a new solo album coming.
I spent a lot of time in the home studio in covid because I was isolated, two years, no work and all that, so I got stuck in and I wrote the album. Chas Chandler told me to write years ago, and I didn't do it. I should have done it, but I felt now, over the last few years, I've got something to say. As I was saying to Noel Gallagher, I'm good at writing truth, and it's not easy for a lot of artists to write truth, but my stories are like me telling you these stories. There are so many stories that surrounds us as people, and it's a bit like that Lennon song; "some are dead and some are going", you know; "there are places I remember" ['In My Life']. Well, you see, I've got loads of those memories. I was born in 1946, and I grew up in post-war Britain, in rations. I grew up in a council estate full of nice people who cared about each other. We didn't have any big Christmases. It was dead simple.

It certainly isn't Christmas without the Slade song!
Hey, it's Christmas, and I'm glad to be a big part of everybody's Christmas, because they think Christmas is not Christmas without our record! I mean, what a compliment. You see that it brings joy. The phone always goes, and Nod always gets called and somebody wants him on some TV show or something like that. It never, never, ever goes away. I think I've drawn close to Noddy in many ways because we're all getting a bit old now, but I'm still here, I'm energetic, and I'm the same guy. 

And after the tour you'll be concentrating on the solo album release?
My goal now is to bring some new music that I've done myself, and I think that'll be good for the fans, because we have a massive fanbase across the world, and it's something new. I'm not making a Slade album; I'm making a Dave Hill album, so it's personal, it's biographical. I know the record business is on its knees, and it's not like the days when you played it to the the guys in the record company - they ain't even there - but the social media will give me an avenue to get heard. I think my songs, in a way, are very similar to other people's experiences.

Can you give us a hint about the sound of it?
It's upbeat, a bit of rock, a bit of reggae. I've got three albums, by the way, in my head, so first things first, I'm doing this. I'm doing it for my grandkids. My grandson Alfie, he's 10 now, but he's in my room and he's fixing the mics and everything! He's a Hill, definitely, through and through. None of the others in my family, the girls or my son are. My son's a fantastic Ferrari top technician. He's like my dad; a great, great technician, great mechanic. In those days, he followed my dad, and he's to cars like I am to guitars!

Slade 2025 Live Dates:
NOVEMBER
28 – White Rock Theatre, Hastings
29 – Dreamland, Margate
 
DECEMBER
10 – Picturedrome, Holmfirth
12 – O2 Academy, Liverpool
14 – O2 Academy, Bournemouth
16 – O2 Academy, Oxford
17 – O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
19 – O2 City Hall, Newcastle
20 – O2 Academy2, Birmingham
22 – O2 Ritz, Manchester
 
Tickets available here.