.

B Sides for 10/22/2014



Jimmy Page Talks Led Zeppelin Success, Beastie Boys, Fav Album, More
(Radio.com) When we last spoke to Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in May of this year, the mercurial guitarist was preparing for the release of the reissues of Zep's first three albums: 1969's Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II and 1970's Led Zeppelin III. Those were the albums that put the band on the map (I), established them as one of the loudest and best rock bands in the world (II), and then showed that they wouldn't be pigeon-holed, and turned down the volume and create beautiful acoustic music (III).

This time when we spoke to Page, the subjects were 1971's untitled fourth album (known as Led Zeppelin IV) and 1973's Houses of the Holy. Zeppelin IV was where they combined their acoustic and electric sides to great effect. It's the third-best selling album in U.S. history and houses, not coincidentally, "Stairway to Heaven," the song which has probably been played on classic rock radio more than any other. But beyond that, rock fans have memorized most of the LP, which also includes "Rock and Roll," "Black Dog" and "Going to California."

On the follow-up, Houses of the Holy, all bets were off, with the band incorporating funk and reggae and also expanding on the epic feel of "Stairway" on songs like "No Quarter" and "The Rain Song."

As always, Page speaks of Zeppelin's output with absolute confidence, saying of their songs "They're all pretty special," referring to "Stairway to Heaven" as "groundbreaking," but is happy to heap praise on his onetime bandmate Robert Plant's vocals on "The Crunge," and give props to James Brown for inspiring the song.

While remaining as mysterious as you'd expect him to, he also addressed what his next move may be. And soon after that, our all-too-short phone conversation came to and end.

Radio.com: You've spent a lot of time working on Led Zeppelin projects in the past few years. Do you have a favorite Zeppelin album? Jimmy Page: I guess I've got to say the first album is the favorite, isn't it? Because without the first album, all the others wouldn't have come. It's a tricky question for me, all of the songs have all got their own particular character. Which was all very intentional, that they would be different, sound different, be performed differently. Consequently, when you had an album, a collection of songs at any given point in time, they're all pretty special.

Led Zeppelin's fourth album is the third best-selling record in U.S. history, having sold over 23 million copies. Does it surprise you that that's the one that became the biggest hit? I don't really know anything about sales figures, to be honest with you. I can tell you what the work ethic was for Led Zeppelin IV. There was a remote country house, that actually had a few bands that rehearsed there, but not recorded. It was called Headley Grange. I wanted to ask the band to make a commitment to stay at this house, and not only to rehearse the album there, but also record it. We had a mobile truck to do that. I wanted everyone to commit to go to Headley Grange, eat there, sleep there, make music there and record there. It was a really concentrated effort. It was 1971, the band had been going for a few years at that point. The work ethic really shows. The fourth album encapsulated some remarkable music that was really groundbreaking. We were able to have something like "When the Levee Breaks," which, sonically, was very menacing. But then you had the flip side: something like "Going to California," which is really intimate. And all of this was able to be achieved at this remote house.

Did it surprise you that "Stairway to Heaven" became the song that got the most radio play? Well at the time, I knew that that was really groundbreaking. It was groundbreaking as far as starting off with this really fragile guitar, then there's this area where it really starts to unravel, and then as it continues, there's more that gets exposed, and more layers, more textures and more colors. The intensity of the song kept building, into this momentum. By the time the song finishes, it's at a totally different tempo than how it opened. It was tricky to do. I knew it was really good, but I wasn't sure� I didn't expect it to be the real standout track from the first four albums. I wouldn't have thought that was going to happen.

The fourth album and Houses of the Holy have had a lot of riffs that have been sampled often. When the Beastie Boys put out Licensed to Ill, it referenced those two albums a lot. What did you think of it when you first heard artists sampling your music? Well, I guess I felt it was a compliment. Without being specific. I know the Beastie Boys used quite a bit of our stuff, really, didn't they? I can tell you one thing, to go back to "Whole Lotta Love." I've seen the riff of that song show up in mashups on YouTube, that riff got people to the point where they were inspired to do their own thing, that's really cool. I'm not going to complain about that. But the Beastie Boys, that was almost as long ago as Led Zeppelin!

Read the rest of the interview here.

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Michael Anthony Says He Could Sing for Van Halen
(TeamRock Radio) Michael Anthony says that he could sing any Van Halen track well enough to lead the band - but admits he doesn't fancy the pressure of being a frontman.

The former Van Halen and current Chickenfoot bassist sang lead vocals with Snake 40 years ago and provided backing vocals to VH frontmen Dave Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar. But handling the main role would be too much for him, even though he believes he has the voice for the job.

Anthony tells 107.7 The Bone: "I don't need that kind of pressure on me. Lead singers, they're their own breed. It wasn't until the fourth or fifth Van Halen record that people would go, 'Wow! You're singing backgrounds on those records. That's not David Lee Roth.' And I go, 'Hell, no! That's not David Lee Roth.'

"I sang Somebody Get Me A Doctor. That actually goes over quite well. But I'd sing any of them. I could sing any of that crap. I can sing it all." Read more here.

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Alice Cooper Appears In New Theory Of A Deadman Track
(TeamRock Radio) Theory Of A Deadman have released a video for their song Savages, which features a guest appearance by Alice Cooper. It's the title track of their fifth album, launched in July via Roadrunner.

Frontman Tyler Connelly was present when Cooper recorded his spoken-word passage. Connelly tells Loudwire: "I flew out to where he lives. He's got a studio at his house, he has a radio show there, and it was really straightforward."

"They had the stuff at his house, but Howard Benson, the producer, was back in LA - he couldn't go. So we just had a Skype call. Howard could hear everything that was going on and tell Alice what to do.

"Alice was great; he's a pro. He'd never even seen the lyrics before. He's like, 'I got this.' It's like a one-take wonder with this guy; he's great." Watch the video here.

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Bring Me the Horizon Release Horror Themed Drown Video
(Radio.com) "What doesn't kill you / Makes you wish you were dead," Bring Me the Horizon frontman Oliver Sykes opines in the band's new single for "Drown." The "Drown" music video, released Tuesday (Oct. 21), seems to echo that sentiment.

The clip finds the five-piece band - and some of the actors featured - struggling against their perceived difficulties, in this case some fairly ghoulish figures just in time for Halloween.

By the midway point of the video, after some fairly ominous imagery, drummer Matt Nicholls suddenly becomes some sort of werewolf and requires an exorcism mid-video.

Afterward, all hell breaks loose on set, with the band really getting into the moment performing the song - but before then, there's more of a classic, perhaps '50s or '60s vibe going on, with the band performing the track rather rigidly, a far cry from their energetic live shows.

Watch it here.

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U2 Perform New Songs On Jools Holland
(TeamRock Radio) U2 performed a pair of songs from their latest album, "Songs Of Innocence", during their appearance on BBC Two's Later With Jools Holland program Tuesday.

The band played "Volcano" before Bono and The Edge teamed up with a string section for "Every Breaking Wave." "Songs Of Innocence" was recorded in Dublin, London, New York and Los Angeles and produced by Danger Mouse, Paul Epworth, Ryan Tedder, Declan Gaffney and Flood.

Following last month's free release of the album via iTunes, U2 recently issued a CD version of the project - complete with a 24-page booklet. A deluxe, gatefold double album, contains an acoustic session of songs from the album and four additional tracks.

Watch video of their performance here.

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How Sick Of It All Avoided Music Biz Downturn
(TeamRock Radio) Sick Of It All bassist Craig Setari says that the band have avoided the negative impact of the internet because they have always been primarily a live act.

While many bands bemoan the effect digital downloading and filesharing has had on business, the hardcore icons just keep on doing what they've always done best - entertaining audiences from the sage.

Setari tells SROMaginc: "Once the whole digital download thing happened, it kind of killed record sales quite a bit. But we've been fortunate, because we were always a band that was primarily a live band.

"Our real proving ground and our main thing was touring and performing, so it hasn't had a terrible effect on us, although it has affected us somewhat. It's about going on the road and playing and playing and playing. The records, all they do is give you an outlet to get new music out so you can go back on the road.

"If we were a Top-40, hit-single type band, it probably would have affected us worse." Read more here.

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In This Moment Release Sick Like Me Video
(TeamRock Radio) In This Moment have released a new music video for their track "Sick Like Me," which is a song that is taken from the band's upcoming fifth album Black Widow.

The 13-song follow-up to 2012's Blood will be released on November 17 via Atlantic. Frontwoman Maria Brink had the following to say about of the track:

"It's about embracing these things in me that I used to keep inside - they're a little bit twisted and a little bit wrong." But it also celebrates meeting "another person who finds these things beautiful."

Watch the video here.

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Crowbar Release Symmetry In White Video
(TeamRock Radio) Crowbar have released a video for their track Symmetry In White. It's taken from their 10th album Symmetry In Black, launched in May via Century Media.

Mainman Kirk Windstein - who left Down to focus on Crowbar for this year's 25th anniversary - said of the follow-up to 2011's Sever The Wicked Hand: "The focus, determination and attitude in the band is at an all-time high. We are 100% ready to get this juggernaut rolling and never touch the brakes again. Crowbar is my heart and soul. This music is a part of me that I am extremely proud of."

The band recently featured in NOLA, a TV series covering the history of heavy blues. Guitarist Matt Brunson is a member of supergroup Devil's Highway, who are currently working on their debut album.

Watch the video here.

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Aerosmith's Joe Perry Discusses Influences and Bandmates
(Radio.com) Aerosmith's Joe Perry is a soft-spoken guy who possesses an undeniably cool and somewhat mysterious vibe. The other side of that coin is that it might be hard to get a word in edgewise when you're in a band, and songwriting partnership, with Steven Tyler.

In Perry's newly released memoirs, Rocks: My Life in and Out of Aerosmith, co-written with David Ritz, Perry talks about all of the ups and downs of the band, and unsurprisingly, there's a good amount of focus on his relationship with Tyler. While Perry is quick to compliment Tyler's abilities as a singer, songwriter, musician and frontman, he pulls no punches when describing how difficult life can be with him. He was quicker to talk about his partnership with fellow Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford, his respect for Cheap Trick and his love of his wife, Billie. That mysterious session he recently did with Paul McCartney? He didn't have much to say about that, but we tried.

Radio.com: So, what made you decide to write the book now? Joe Perry: Aerosmith is carving out this new adventure that there's really no paradigm for. In the last few years, we hit our 40th anniversary, we were working on our last album for Sony [2012's Music From Another Dimension], which was kind of symbolic of the change in the music business. There were some personal things as well: my kids were growing up and going through college. It felt like the end of an era, but the beginning of another. It felt like the right time to write the book.

I know you're a huge fan of classic R&B. I'm guessing it was cool to have David Ritz - who co-wrote autobiographies of Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin and B.B. King - as your co-author. Without a doubt. I read a lot anyway� it's probably one of the only things I got from school. I really love to read. I read quite a few autobiographies, to see how people did it, but also to find a co-writer. I didn't want to do it on my own, I needed to work with somebody, so that it would be more like a piece of literature. David was the right guy.

As a guy who has worked with lots of iconic artists with great stories, did he push you to tell stories that you may not have wanted to talk about? A lot of that comes from the author. I read some books that David did that weren't so great, frankly. I mean, obviously the Ray Charles book was amazing. So I read a few more that were really good. And then I read a few that weren't so good. So I asked him about it. And he said, "It's really what you put into it. You are the author of the book, I'm just here to help you translate it and capture your voice." Certain people only gave him a certain amount of time. It's not unlike making a record: you get what you give. I was determined to get this right. It was a bigger job than I had expected, but it was worth it.

I enjoyed reading about your early impressions of Brad Whitford. You guys are one of the best guitar teams in rock and roll, but he doesn't get the amount of press that you do. But what is it about your relationship that makes it work? Well, when we met, we were both at a point in our journey of learning the instrument. We were both capable, we were at the level where we could play and make it sound reasonably professional, but we still had a long way to go. We got along really well, as friends and bandmates. There was just something about the way we played guitar together. He studied music at Berkley School of Music, he knew more technical things, musically, than I did. As opposed to my way: I was learning stuff from listening to records. We were coming from two different places, musically, but we didn't really have to talk about who was going to play what. People don't realize that he's as good of a guitar player as he is. It's a very non-verbal communication that we have.

Of course, there's a lot more talk about your relationship with Steven Tyler. Over the years, have you had to work to figure out how to make your relationship work, given your different personalities? That was one of the big things that allowed us to get back together again. After I left the band - for a lot of reasons that I get into in the book - after the dust settled� [I realized] It's the five guys in the band that are responsible for keeping it together. In the '70s, we never really sat down as a band at that point and dealt with that stuff, so I left. Brad left six months later. I was gone for close to five years. After that, we got together, and we learned that certain things you can't change about people and you gotta learn how to adjust your way of working together.

Read the rest here.

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Metal All-Star Christmas Raskasta Joulua Is Not A Joke
(Classic Rock) An all-star Christmas project featuring members of Nightwish and Sonata Arctica is celebrating its 10th year. Raskasta Joulua - which translates as Heavy Christmas - includes contributions from bassist Marco Hietala of Nightwish, singer Tony Kakko from Sonata Arctica and Amaranthe vocalist Elise Ryd.

The project's new album Ragnarok Juletide will be released on November 11 via Spinefarm and, for the first time ever, will include English versions of the songs.

Organisers say there is nothing "jokey" about the project, insisting "the record truly and effectively captures the majesty, the wonder and the glory of the holiday season. The songs are carefully arranged and executed, with flawless musicianship and world-class vocal contributions.

"Ragnarok Juletide will put headbangers in the most festive of moods, regardless of which metal subgenre he or she prefers, from speedy power metal to symphonic epics to dirgey doom. It's all here." Read more and listen to a track here.

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Bush Rock Jimmy Kimmel
(hennemusic) Bush launched their new album, "Man On The Run", with a performance on ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday. The band played the project's lead single, "The Only Way Out", as well as the 1999 hit, "The Chemicals Between Us."

The band's sixth release was produced by Nick Raskulinecz (Rush, Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters, Mastadon) at Studio 606, the Northridge, California-based studio owned by Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl.

The project is follow-up to 2011's "The Sea Of Memories", the group's first record in a decade. Watch video of both song performances from the Kimmel appearance here.

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Singled Out: Digital Daggers' Nothings Broken
Today Andrea Wasse from the alternative pop duo Digital Daggers tells us about their single "Nothings Broken," which comes from their forthcoming new album "Mixed Emotions". Here is the story:

This song is definitely my personal favorite on this record, though it's definitely a little melancholic and came from a pretty dark place. It was inspired by endings. That period where you know something that you poured your heart and soul into just isn't going to go on forever like you'd foolishly hoped. The point where you see that an end is in sight. The point where you finally start to see the cracks... the ones that you refused to notice until it became impossible not to. The point where you realize everyone already knew they were there. The moment of denial before acceptance.

Space and I weren't really getting along that well at the time (which isn't the best for any band, but especially not a duo), a romantic relationship I was in wasn't working out very well either, so I was in a pretty vulnerable state. The two places I went to for any sort of stability were shaky, and I was floundering and reaching for any little thing I could. That's what birthed this song. It was a cry to those around, asking if we could just pretend that nothing was wrong.

The lyrics for this one just poured out of me, like my subconscious was trying to get me to see what was really going on.

Anyway, I'm a sucker for a sad song to sing and cry along to when I'm feeling it. I admit to throwing on some of those epic ballads and caterwauling 'I can't make you love me if you won't', with tears streaming down my face... it's cathartic. This is one contribution to that collection of songs for those moments.

As for the sonic element of it, though Space and I don't always see eye to eye on a lot of things, we do find common ground when it comes to dreamy synths, dark tones, and unexpected optimism through a major lift or two.

We hope you like the record.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the album right here!

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