AC/DC With Axl Rose Lacks Integrity Says Guitarist 2018 In Review

In the country for a tour with The Sensational Space Shifters in support of his latest album, "Carry Fire", Plant sat down with presenter Ryan Fitzgerald to discuss a variety of topics, including early performances of the iconic song following its 1971 release on "Led Zeppelin IV."

"I know it's a long song, and I also know that I had a little bit of trouble remembering lyrics, back in '72, '73," explains Plant. "Our manager [Peter Grant], who was quite a formidable personality ... he'd come to the front of the stage in the middle of it all and he'd have the lyrics, like that Bob Dylan thing [in his video for 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'] Anyway, it was very funny. "I can't remember what verse goes where. I know there's something about 'bustle in the hedgerow' and then all that stuff.

Simmons has been posting the events for the release of his massive "Gene Simmons - The Vault Experience: 1966-2016" box set and has been joined at previous events by current former KISS stars but Stanley has yet to attend.

Gene told fans at the New York event, "Along the way, some of our friends and family members who started the band with us came by to say hello to wonderful folks like you. Ace has been to three of the 'Vault' events - Los Angeles and a few others. Ace, by the way, is gonna be opening up for the Gene Simmons Band when we do five shows in Australia. He's gonna be using my back-up band and we're just gonna have a great time. He'll play 'Ozone' and lots of other crazy stuff. And Peter Criss came by yesterday, in case you didn't hear. Vinnie Vincent is gonna be in Nashville. Paul Stanley, I can't get him to come out yet, but we'll see. Maybe I'll get him some paint brushes.

Simmons continued, "The thing we do is tease each other. Tommy [Thayer,] and Eric [Singer] came to Los Angeles. Bruce Kulick's been out. Of course, he likes to go out anywhere."

Adler spoke to Hysteria Mag about his upcoming solo tour where he will playing the band's iconic debut album "Appetite For Destruction" and he touched on being left out of the reunion featuring Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan.

He said, "The thing about Guns N' Roses that made us so great and so magical is because we were a magic band, like Led Zeppelin, or Aerosmith, or Queen. Once we were together we couldn't do anything wrong. If one person left the band and did Appetite, Appetite would not be Appetite. And it's a shame because Use Your Illusion when we did the demo tape, I kept saying, or we kept saying, it was gonna be bigger and better than Appetite but once they kicked me out of the band, part of the magic was gone. It's a different band. A completely different band."

He then added, "You know, if they want me, they know my number-I'm ready to rock. My goal was to finish what I started, and Izzy's too [speaking of Stradlin]. Iz is just as heartbroken as I am that the three of them decided to leave us out and bring three strangers in-who are those people? It's just not cool.

"We were supposed to go into rehearsal in June and he wanted to put it off until November [2019]," Stevie Nicks tells Rolling Stone. "That's a long time. I just did 70 shows [on a solo tour]. As soon as I finish one thing, I dive back into another. Why would we stop? We don't want to stop playing music. We don't have anything else to do. This is what we do."

While fans are left to decide if Buckingham left on his own or was fired, founder Mick Fleetwood explains the situation was a full band decision.

"Words like 'fired' are ugly references as far as I'm concerned," says the drummer. "Not to hedge around, but we arrived at the impasse of hitting a brick wall. This was not a happy situation for us in terms of the logistics of a functioning band. To that purpose, we made a decision that we could not go on with him. Majority rules in term of what we need to do as a band and go forward."

In Buckingham's place, Fleetwood Mac have brought in Mike Campbell of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Neil Finn of Crowded House to handle guitar duties for an extensive North American tour that will begin in Tulsa, OK on October 3.

Ahead of rehearsals, Nicks says the group have already decided to expand the setlist to feature songs from the entire history of Fleetwood Mac, not just the original Buckingham/Nicks run from 1975 to 1987.

The special set features a 58-minute hologram created by Sundance award-winning filmmaker Steven Sebring ("Horses: Patti Smith and Her Band", "Dream of Life").

According to the announcement, it "unfolds through the eyes of a young girl over the 12-song album arc, reveals itself when fans place the prism on their smartphones and enter a special code."

Sebring had this to say, "Having Maynard and Billy's trust to create this for A Perfect Circle was a true artist's dream. Their 14-year break allowed technology to catch up with their groundbreaking music and gave me the chance to apply new ideas of dimensional capture to this stunning album."

CRR's Jeb Wright made this comment to DeYoung, "It has occurred to me at times that, if I wasn't doing this website, I wouldn't know about new stuff. I know about it because the record companies send me stuff."

Dennis replied "It's awful! If the industry hasn't figured this out, they will, because fewer and fewer people are interested in becoming musicians, especially rock bands and that's a shame. I've been saying for ten years that rock is dead. It is dead if there is no format for it. It's dead. People will write in and say, 'You don't know...screw you, you stupid old...' I'm sorry. People don't know what it was like when rock was alive. You need a forum to reach the audience. You can't go door-to-door. Who are you? Avon? The Fuller Brush Music Man? No!

Vincent who was a member of KISS for two studio albums, "Creatures Of The Night" and their unmasked debut "Lick It Up" and cowrote material for the acclaimed "Revenge", recently spoke with the popular podcast about a number of topics.

Strigl says they discussed "Topics include: Vinnie's upcoming touring plans, Robert Fleischman, Vicki Peterson, Felix Cavaliere, his current guitar playing ability, his upcoming book, his appearance at the Chiller Theatre Expo in NJ (April 27th - 29th), the 2018 Atlanta Kiss Expo, a summer tour of Australia, the rumors about him, his guitar gear, his dislike of drummers, KISS songs with drum machines and much more."

Vinnie also recently took to Facebook to share this exciting news with fans, "I have been talking to promoters about a Vinnie Tour. So these are the plans and let's hope they materialize. If they don't I will be sad... but this is it so far as I know to share with you. The promoters want to do a Vinnie Acoustic Tour in key cities and when that is done, then...

The new effort will be the follow-up to the acclaimed band's 2006 album "10,000 Days" and Keenan recently jokingly compared it to Guns N' Roses' infamously delayed "Chinese Democracy" album.

He addressed the delay during his interview with Lars (via Classic Rock). He explained, "There's a lot of timing issues with Tool getting to the studio, I always kind of gauge where they're at, and try to figure out where things are going. If I see a window where, 'OK, it doesn't look like things are going to get done any time soon' - because I need certain pieces to do my job - if I see there's a window, that might expand based on me going, 'I'm gonna go do something then.' That's why you had a lot of Puscifer for many years.

Iommi was a guest at a charity fundraiser at the Opus Restaurant in Birmingham and during the event the host Gary Newborn asked him if the band would play together again.

He responded (via here), "It's highly unlikely, but we may. You can never say never, because we've done it [before] ... So many times, you say, 'Oh, that's it now,' with different singers and this and that, and all of a sudden we're playing together again. I would hope we could do some one-offs, but we'll never tour the world again as we did, because it is really exhausting."

He added, "People think, 'What a great life,' and it is a great life, but it has its toll on your body. All the traveling at different hours of the day and night. You finish a show at 11 o'clock. What we'd normally do is we'd base ourselves in one place, like New York or wherever we were, and then we'd stay in New York for 10 days, fly out and do a show and fly back in the night.

"So by the time you get to the hotel, it's four o'clock or five o'clock [in the morning]. And you don't pass the time, you can't sleep. And that's the difficult part. Even though you travel the best way you can. You could never fault the service. We had a great plane, we had great hotels - everything was marvelous - but it's still tiring."

The following was shared on his Facebook account on Friday (signed by Turner and his wife), "Dear Friends and fans, I would like to start with two great thoughts that would describe our state of mind: 'My relationship with my body has changed. I used to consider it as a servant who should obey, function, give pleasure. In sickness you realise you are not the boss. It is the other way around.' - Federico Fellini

"'He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that can not forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our own will comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.' - Aeschylus

"Thank you for being patient and so supportive through these hard days for us... We are truly humbled by the amount of love and concern that has poured from every part of the planet! It truly warms our hearts and inspires us to win!

"As many of you are aware by now, Joe Lynn Turner experienced a myocardial infarction last week. It happened without any prior warning signs... He is in the hospital, stable and in very good spirits. He will continue to receive medical care and full physical rehabilitation for several weeks and afterwards will take some time off to recover.

"We cannot always control what happens to us in this life, but can control how we respond. As a very strong personality, Joe has every intention of returning to the stage in the near future and is taking this unfortunate experience as a learning lesson in life... As a true Artist, He tries to find motivation and inspiration in everything that he is going through to make his Spirit even stronger... The pain he experienced has nourished his courage!

"Equally (K.K. Downing) had made the decision to retire, I don't know how many years ago that it was," Halford told the Los Angeles Daily News. "At the time he was emphatic about retiring and never coming back, and that's what we were left with.

"There has been no communication since that time. There has been no inquiries about how the band is doing since that time, or how the guys are doing, or anything of that nature."

The guitarist spoke with Atlantic City Weekly about his show this Friday at the Music Box at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa and was asked about Aerosmith's plans beyond playing at Jazzfest.

He responded, "I think the way things are going we are going to try and and take it easy. We may do a couple more one offs - maybe some festivals over the next six or eight months.

Frontman Joe Elliott recently looked back at the band's big break in America in an interview with Radio.com and revealed that it took time for the group to catch on in the U.S. (their next two albums would be blockbuster releases).

He said, "When we first came to America for High 'n' Dry, there was no traction on the record. The traction came after we finished touring. It was really frustrating for us, because it was the first album we'd made with 'Mutt' Lange. To this day, we still really love it. You could argue that my singing on it, albeit better than on the first record, was a little shouty.

"We toured Europe first, with Richie Blackmore's Rainbow. We finally made it to [tour] the States in the summer, playing clubs opening for Blackfoot. Great guys--Rickey Medlocke is a wonderful man. But they're like southern rock, and we were out there trying to be like UFO or whatever (laughs). To the Blackfoot fans, we looked like the New York Dolls. It was a little weird. Luckily, we got to spend a few weeks playing arenas opening for Ozzy Osbourne."

Elliott then reflected on the original results of the album in the U.S. being less than they and the record company expected. "The album did OK. It sold maybe 250,000 copies. We were expecting it to do much better. We get home to prepare to record what would become Pyromania, and we starting getting telegrams from America saying there was this new cable channel called MTV, and they were playing our 'Bringin' on the Heartbreak' video. Since they only had like 17 videos at the time, and three of them were ours, because we'd shot promos for 'Heartbreak,' 'Let it Go' and the title track. They were playing all three of them in medium rotation, and then 'Heartbreak' ended up going into heavy rotation."

He then remembered how they learned MTV had helped them find an American audience, "We get wind of this happening back in America, and by the time we were wrapping up the recording of Pyromania, we get a telex saying that High 'n' Dry had gone gold," Elliott laughed.

"So while we busted our n*** touring it and getting nowhere, MTV took a three-minute clip of us miming to the song in front of a fake audience and turned it into a gold album," the singer adds.

"The album went gold around December of '82, and the next album, Pyromania, came out in January of '83. The first single was 'Photograph,' and the rest is history. Everything just went ballistic from that moment on.

In a video segment posted on YouTube reported to come from a documentary included in the new Rainbow "Memories In Rock II" CD/DVD package, he is asked about the idea of a reunion.

He said, "I would like to do one, maybe one show with the rest of Purple just to prove that we're not all hating each other and just do that and go, 'Hey, everybody. It's just one show for all the Deep Purple fans that liked the Mark II lineup.' That was my idea in the beginning. But when you're talking to managements of Purple, it gets complicated. They want their money for this and that. So it's not like you call up your old friends and just say, 'Hey, let's just have a good time and play. There's lots of fans that want to hear it.' Once you have managements and agents and promoters getting involved, it gets so complicated that everybody just calls back and says, 'It's too complicated.'

"So, I wouldn't mind doing one show with all the old guys, and that's it - call it a day. Just for the fans. It's not something I need to do. But I don't mind playing just to show the people that we're still friends. We're older, and with the passing of Jon [Lord], you never know who's gonna pass next. And it would just be a friendly get-together. But as you might know, in this business, nothing works around friendship - it's all about money and business. And unfortunately, we'd have to deal with people that were going to make money out of the deal. That's always a problem."

Robinson teamed up with the DeLeo brothers following the Crowes breakup but he says that nothing came of the collaboration. He explained to AL.com, "You know, we sat down and tried to write some songs and stuff and had a nice time, but nothing really came of it.

"I was already pretty much on my way to, I kind of wanted to get away from the riff-rock oriented, uh, scarves and necklaces and whatever rock 'n' roll - they're great at it. And they have written some great songs.

The guitarists, who left the group in 2013, spoke with Billboard (via UCR) about the upcoming induction and what is like to play with his former bandmates again.

He told them, "It feels great to see everybody. We already rehearsed and it was wonderful, it wasn't awkward. The chemistry came back very quickly; it's matrixed into our muscle memory at this point. If you're on the road performing and touring for 30 years, [the Rock Hall] is just another cycle - and it's a good one, so here we go."

Sambora was also asked about the record breaking fans vote to have them inducted. He responded, "You don't go out and make music for the awards. You make music for the fans -- that's the truth. And this award is all about them, because without them, there would be no Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There would be no music business. Think about it: you put a concert on, and if the fans didn't show up, there ain't no concert."

He spoke with Vulture about the tribute show to the singer and addressed the uncertainty about the future of the band and how no one can ever replace Chester. He said, "The idea of doing a tribute show was scary to everybody, and we all kind of knew we had to do it. Doing it was partially for us to feel like it was possible - see if we could pull it off ourselves getting up there, much less anyone else. It was an insane show: reaching out to all of those artists, getting people onboard, making sure they're taken care of, making sure they know who's singing what, and that they got everything they needed to perform. It was three hours long, the longest show we did in our career. I was knocked out for two days. It also, in a sense, solidified how unique and special Chester was as a vocalist and a performer. You have all these people who are incredible artists singing his parts. On one hand, they did an awesome job, and on the other hand, nobody could be Chester. Ever.

I'm unable to say what will happen with the band. There's really just no answer, and it's funny because if I even say anything about the band's future, that becomes the headline, which is stupid because the answer is there is no answer. Fans think they want to know what the future is: Believe me, I want to know what the answer is. But there just isn't one.