Don’t miss out on possibly the best melodic rock tour of 2012. Starting one week today (Friday 25th May), Serpentine Music and First Hearing Productions ‘Living And Dying For Rock ‘N’ Roll Tour’ featuring the much anticipated return of melodic rock legends Ten, supported by two of the brightest new names on the melodic rock radar; Serpentine (UK) and White Widdow (Australia) starts. BE WARNED – shows are selling out very quickly. If the rest of the tour repeats the story at The Railway Music Venue, this tour is THE hottest ticket of May (sorry Axl!).  Tickets are still available but BE QUICK or you will miss out…you have been warned.

Serpentine return to the UK after debuting in the Japanese National Charts in 2010 with “A Touch Of Heaven”, and flying the flag for UK AOR with their lush Journey meets Survivor sound. At the forefront of a genre’s resurgence and with Classic Rock magazine declaring the band as “close to melodic rock paradise”, the band will be performing tracks from their new “Living & Dying In High Definition” album, such a big part of their Firefest and London support to Amaranthe successes, in the autumn of last year.

White Widdow emerged again this year with the album “Serenade” which made Classic Rock’s Top 10 AOR albums of the year and were all conquering at Firefest. It’ll be their first major tour of the UK. White Widdow play Melodic Rock and AOR anthems filled with swirling keyboards, blistering guitar playing and big choruses full of hooks, the way they believe rock music should sound; so see you at the following venues.

FRI MAY 25TH SHEFFIELD CORPORATION

SAT MAY 26TH NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY – SERPENTINE / WHITE WIDDOW ONLY –  NEW DATE – WITH DANTE FOX

SUN MAY 27TH GRIMSBY YARDBIRDS

MON MAY 28TH BOLTON RAILWAY

WED MAY 30TH BIRMINGHAM ROADHOUSE

FRI JUNE 1ST PONTYPRIDD MUNI ARTS CENTRE

TICKETS FROM THE USUAL OUTLETS PRICED £12:50 IN ADVANCE

Fla­menco Rock ‘n Rollers GYPSY PISTOLEROS are delighted to unveil details of their new singer and front­man — so it gives us great pleas­ure to wel­come the one and only… <drum­roll>  DANI PISTOLERO to the HMR fam­ily! (Dani is second from the right in the accom­pa­ny­ing photo.)

The band have released the fol­low­ing state­ment regard­ing their new frontman:

The band are 100% on this guy. He’s young, bright, looks great, he’s got a fant­astic voice, plays gui­tar and keys, he’s really hard work­ing and com­mit­ted, and he’s full of great ideas. A really valu­able addi­tion to the Gypsy Pis­tol­eros. We’re so excited and look­ing for­ward to start­ing the live shows and have already star­ted work on new mater­ial for the next album.

A singer since he was a “messy baby“, Stoke nat­ive Dani Pis­tolero star­ted learn­ing gui­tar aged 15 and was heav­ily influ­enced by a vast array of artists from all parts of the rock spec­trum includ­ing The Ramones, Metal­lica and Iron Maiden. In addi­tion to vox and gui­tars, Dani also added  Key­boards and Piano to his list of instru­ments whilst a  mem­ber of the Pro­gress­ive Metal band Scorched Earth – cit­ing Dream Theater as a key influence.

Dani brings a wealth of  musical exper­i­ence to the band, hav­ing formerly been in numer­ous Rock and Metal bands includ­ing Stolen Cre­ation, Scorched Earth, L.U.S.T. and Whis­key Whores. He even came into close con­tact with Kenny K. Doll who actu­ally audi­tioned for the roll of Bass Player in L.U.S.T. prior to join­ing the Gypsy Pis­tol­eros (it’s a small world!).

On join­ing the Gypsy Pis­tol­eros, and on his future with the band, Dani says:

After 3 full weeks of sweat endur­ing audi­tion­ing at Pis­tolero HQ, I was offered the chance to front what I con­sider to be one of the best Sleaze Rock Bands around. Just being in a room with Iggie, Jeff and Kenny proves to me that all this effort – all the blood sweat and beers – was all worth it. This out­fit fuck­ing ROCKS! I have truly enjoyed every last second of work­ing with the guys so far and I can’t wait for the months to come. It’s all guns blaz­ing from hereon in!

The Pis­tol­eros recently released their debut Heavy Metal Records album back in April, titled ‘FOREVER, WILD, BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED! THE GREATEST HITS VOLUME, 1′ which includes numer­ous Pis­tolero fan-favourites and one awe­some “glammed out” cover of Ricky Martin’s ‘Livin La Vida Loca’. Fans can down­load the album from the Heavy Metal Records Digital Store or pur­chase a phys­ical copy online (Play.com, Amazon, HMV etc…) or from the online store of our sis­ter com­pany Revolver World.

Photography by ML Imagery

More information at www.gypsypistoleros.co.uk

Paul Di’Anno knows how he’ll spend his retirement – but he’s given himself at least two years to decide when to do it.

And he’s still upset over the “official” reason given for his departure from Iron Maiden in 1981.

He’s back on the road after serving a prison sentence for benefit fraud. Last year he pled guilty to claiming over £45,000 through being unable to work because of back problems – even though he was playing gigs all over the world at the time.

But his thoughts are beginning to move beyond the live arena. He tells Let There Be Rock: “It’s what I do, and it’s what I love, but it’s not everything. The everything is my family. When I leave this, there’s no return for me – I’m done.

“I am tired. I work very hard.”

Considering his future he says: “It’s going to be fishing, sitting around scratching my balls and watching TV, and trying to have another baby. But we’ve got two years for all that, so it’s all good.”

Di’Anno describes himself as “the hardest critic of myself” and says he’ll know when it’s time to bow out: “I get nervous every night. I’m almost puking before I go on the stage, and it’s happened all my life. The day that doesn’t happen is the day I’m done.”

In the meantime, though, he reveals his current band is working on new material, and suggests he might release two or three albums in the coming 24 months.

But he wants to set the record straight about Maiden’s claim that he had to leave because he didn’t want to tour. He explains: “Look at what I do: 300 concerts a year. It wasn’t about touring.

“I lost my voice in Germany the same time Klaus Meine lost his. I went to see the same specialist. Klaus gave me the number of the guy in Switzerland. I stayed with Klaus in Cologne and got it sorted, and I ‘ve never had any problems since.

“Sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn’t – but all that crap, I don’t want to tour? I love touring. It’s my life. It’s politics. I’m not going to say any more because we’re still friends, but whose band is it? Exactly.”

And to those who believe he’s amounted to nothing after Maiden, Di’Anno points out: “That first solo album went straight to number one in Japan, the first western artist ever. We’ve done 25million records. It’s been good.”

Lita Ford has a song on her new album written to her kids – but her former bandmate husband won’t let them hear it.

Living Like a Runaway is her first record since splitting with Jim Gillette, a prominent force in her comeback release Wicked Wonderland.

She later said that album was too much about Gillette and not enough about her – and now they’ve split up, her latest work is closer to the music she wants to create.

But one track, called Mother, is a personal message to her two sons with Gillette – and Ford is worried they’ll never be allowed to hear it.

She tells Decibel: “My kids are with their dad. He brainwashed them and took them from me, telling them, ‘Oh, you don’t want to go with Mommy. Mommy’s bad.’ He put the entire weight of the divorce on my kids, which is the worst thing any parent could do to their child.

“It’s like losing your child to some sort of freak, like in the mall, or somebody hanging out in bushes or at a bus stop. You hear all these horror stories. Only, I know where they are – that’s the only difference.”

Talking about the track she wrote for her children, Ford says: “He won’t let them hear it. He won’t let them have anything to do with me. He won’t let them look at any photographs. It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life.

“I wrote this song to tell them how much I love them, that I didn’t mean for this to happen and it’s not my fault. I didn’t do this to them – although they think I did.”

Ford says her older son James has a knack for guitar. She explains: “We did this tour in 2008. They didn’t go to school – I was their teacher. When we came back from these shows I was in the other room and I heard my guitar solos coming out. Firs thing I thought was, ‘They’re listening to a tape or a performance on YouTube.’ But it was James – he was playing my solos. I couldn’t believe it.

“I bought him a gold-top Gibson Les Paul for his tenth birthday. My ex-husband was saying, ‘He doesn’t want that. You’re buying that for yourself.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m buying it because he’s going to play it.’ Sure enough, he picked it up and he was playing the solo to Close My Eyes For Ever. It blew me away.”

Reflecting on her situation, Ford says the biggest lesson she’s learned is: “If you ever get angry at your spouse, don’t take it out on your kids. Keep them out of it. They don’t need to know. Just let them be a kid.”

Respected soul and blues bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn has died at the age of 70.

He’s remembered for being a member of Dan Akroyd and John Belushi’s comedy revue outfit the Blues Brothers and for his long-term membership of session stars Booker T and the MGs.

With that band he laid down bass lines on Otis Redding’s Respect, Sam and Dave’s Hold On I’m Coming and Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign, among many others. He went on to play with Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Levon Helm and Freddy King.

In the Blues Brothers’ 1980 movie he was given the line: “We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.”

Dunn was semi-retired, partly caused by back problems which made walking painful. But he had just completed a five-night tour of Japan, ending with two shows in the Blue Note Night Club in Tokyo. He’d been playing as part of the Stax Show with MGs guitarist Steve Cropper and Stax singer Eddie Floyd.

Cropper said via Facebook: “Today I lost my best friend. The world has lost the best guy and bass player to live, ever.”

The Memphis, Tennessee-born musician started playing bass when he was 16, explaining: “I tried the guitar but it had two strings too many. Plus, I grew up with Steve Cropper. There were so many good guitar players another one wasn’t needed. What was needed was a bass.”

Cropper once said Dunn’s playing was unique because he played what he thought should be there to fill any gaps in the music, adding his riffs weren’t “locked in somebody’s schoolbook somewhere.”

Although connected with MGs hit Green Onions, he didn’t play on the original track since it was recorded before he joined the band in 1964.

Billy Sheehan, bassist with Mr Big, said: “Rest in peace, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn. Superb bass player, wonderful guy. My condolences to your family and friends.” Blockheads guitarist Lee Harris called him “one of the best bass players to ever grace our ears.”

-Classic Rock Magazine

Award-winning Alice in Chains mainman Jerry Cantrell insists he’s not a role model – and his band’s history proves it.

He will be this year’s recipient of the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award at the end of May, presented by the MusiCares charity in recognition of his “commitment to helping other addicts with the addiction and recovery process.”

But looking back on AIC’s history, including the tragic drugs death of frontman Lane Stayley in 2002 and the similar demise of sacked bassist Mike Starr in 2011, Cantrell says no one should follow his example.

He tells Rolling Stone: “I am nobody’s fucking role model. Everybody’s human. Everybody has flaws. Everybody falls down. It’s just a fucking fact of life.

“A lot of people stand and get the fuck back up after falling – some people don’t get that chance. My band’s been a harsh example of that: what happens when you don’t deal with it.”

Meanwhile, AIC are gearing up to start recording the follow-up to 2009 comeback album Black Gives Way to Blue, a tribute to Staley which introduced new singer William DuVall to fans.

Plans were put on hold while Cantrell recovered from shoulder surgery – but now he says the band is raring to go.

“It’s time to get to work – and the material is really interesting,” he reports. “It’ll be as different as any one of our records is to any other, and it’ll also be just as recognisable. It’s an Alice record for sure.”

But they won’t be rushed into completing the work. “We’ve been very lucky to be able to kind of do things at our own pace for our entire career,” he says. “This is no exception.”

And while Black Gives Way to Blue was a musical farewell to Staley, Cantrell says their fifth studio album will be a record of moving forward. “Albums, to me, are like snapshots of periods of time. It’s always been our style to tell our story.”

An unfinished song by George Harrison could be completed by his former Beatles bandmate Paul McCartney.

The Fab Four guitarist’s widow Olivia Harrison says a number of works-in-progress remain following his death in 2001.

She oversaw the creation of Early Takes, an album of demos and unreleased material, launched to coincide with the DVD publication of Martin Scorcese’s Harrison documentary, Living in the Material World.

She tells Spinner: “There is some more material. There may be a minute of something he was writing and it will never be finished. I had an idea of giving unfinished songs to different people – giving one to Paul, maybe, or giving one to somebody else and saying: ‘Here are the bones of a song, would you like to finished it?’ I think that would be a nice idea.”

Olivia says of her husband’s writing process: “It was an amazing thing to witness. It was just being born right then and there. I’d try not to interrupt – I’d put a pencil and paper by him, just to make sure he had something if he wanted to write something down. I’\d get the tape player and put it there.”

And she believes Harrison didn’t feel stifled in the Beatles, despite being faced with the challenge of writing alongside the Lennon-McCartney hit machine.

“Nobody can stifle you as a writer,” says Olivia. “You can just keep writing. You might not get your song on an album. It seems to be history that he was suppressed or something – but really, he developed later as a songwriter.”

Queen guitarist Brian May has confirmed the band will use a Freddie Mercury hologram on a West End theatre stage – and vows people will wonder if they really saw the star.

A digital projection will appear next week to mark the tenth anniversary of the band’s musical We Will Rock You.

The announcement comes soon after drummer Roger Taylor said he wouldn’t feel comfortable performing with a simulation of the singer, who died in 1991.

Controversy has surrounded the projection effect after rapper Tupac Shakur appeared with Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg at last month’s Coachella festival, even though he was shot dead in 1996.

Asked whether Queen would make use of the technology in a similar way, Taylor said: “I don’t think I want to. It just doesn’t sit too well with me. I don’t want to appear with a hologram of my dear friend. It’s the real one or no hologram for me.”

He added: “Were somebody to use a hologram of Freddie, I would have no objection.”

Now bandmate May confirms Queen are to employ the effect, although they’re not planning to perform alongside the projection.

The guitarist tells the BBC: “It’s a little unfortunate they did that thing with Tupac as we’ve been trying to make Freddie appear on the stage for quite a while.”

May points out the effect does not produce a true hologram – and adds the musical won’t use the technique employed at Coachella.

“It’s something we’ve looked at ourselves,” he explains, “But I think probably for a show that runs eight shows a week, it’s not really quite practical.”

The Mercury projection will be used at London’s Dominion Theatre. The original cast, along with producer Robert De Niro, will be present for the May 14 anniversary.

The guitarist vows: “People will come out saying, ‘Did we actually see Freddie?’”

Meanwhile, Queen have confirmed they’ll play a third concert in London with TV gameshow winner Adam Lambert singing. They perform at the Hammersmith Apollo on July 11, 12 and 14.

The Queen Extravaganza official tribute show, created by May and Taylor, is currently touring the US.

-Classic Rock Magazine

Drummer Vinny Appice believes the Black Sabbath reunion is descending into a soap opera – and insists Bill Ward should be behind the kit for what’s likely to be their last tour.

The band last year announced they were regrouping as the original lineup of Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Ward, and had begun work on their first album together since 1979.

Later Ward announced he didn’t feel able to participate because he wasn’t being offered a contract he regarded as “signable.”

Speculation increased that Appice, who played with Black Sabbath when Ronnie James Dio fronted them, and later appeared in offshoot band Heaven and Hell, would replace Ward. But he’s previously stated he was never asked – and now insists Ward is the only man for the job.

Appice tells The Great Southern Brainfart: “It was kinda funny to see this big deal about Black Sabbath coming back, and then suddenly Bill’s not doing it. Then I read all these posts saying: ‘Vinny should be next in line,’ then others saying: ‘Fuck Vinny – it should be Bill.’

“Then I read Tommy Clufetos from Ozzy’s band is thrown in the mix and they’re like, ‘Fuck Tommy. Vinny should be up there.’ It’s like the gossiping housewives of Jersey Shore or something.”

“I think the first choice should honestly be Bill Ward. At this point it’ll probably be the last Black Sabbath tour. The fans honestly want to see the real band. I would like to see it too – they play unbelievably together.

“I guess the whole problem with this thing is money. It’s a shame to see that. If they end up doing it with another drummer it’ll be the second-best thing.”

Appice also reveals some of the frustrations of working with Iommi and co – including the strangest touring experience of his career.

“Black Sabbath toured the States and Bill was actually playing on that tour,” he recalls. “But I was on tour with them in case Bill had a problem. He didn’t have any issues, so I went the whole tour without playing. It was ridiculous. I felt like I was getting out of shape from not playing.”

And he explains the reason behind his understated playing style on Heaven and Hell’s 2009 album The Devil You Know, for which he took a good deal of flak from fans and critics: “It was written with a friggin’ drum machine.

“It was stupid. I wanted to go into a rehearsal plane and jam, and work the shit up loud. That’s the way we did Mob Rules and Dehumanizer. But instead it would up with us working in Ronnie’s studio with a drum machine.

“It wasn’t inspiring. You can’t hang or swing on a drum machine – it’s hard to work that way. If we’d been in a room rehearsing, the music would have been a lot more aggressive and a lot more Sabbathy.

“When the album came out I got feedback like, ‘Vinny didn’t play shit on the drums.’ I was like, ‘Okay, but you guys don’t know the whole story.’”

Appice is now working with new outfit Kill Devil Hill, also featuring Rex Brown of Pantera and Down fame. He’s also preparing to tour with Vivian Campbell in the first Dio lineup, with Andy Freeman fronting the band.

-Classic Rock Magazine

Metallica frontman James Hetfield says speculation about a studio collaboration between his band and Megadeth is crazy talk on the part of Dave Mustaine.

He wishes his ex-bandmate wouldn’t keep making such statements to the press – but believes there’s no malice involved when he does.

His comments appear in a special edition of Metallica fan magazine So What, created by Classic Rock’s sister publication Metal Hammer to mark the thrash giants’ 30th anniversary. In the feature he discusses rekindling his relationship with Mustaine, who was fired in 1983, but in 2009 was invited to Metallica’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Hetfield says: “We learned a lot from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame about maturity and grace, as far as previous members and things like that – especially after watching other bands get up there and bicker about stupid things.

“They didn’t get the big picture: there’s a lot of people out there that enjoyed that lineup, or a lot of people grew up with that lineup – why are you not celebrating that? Why are you not embracing that as part of your history? It’s sad and it’s selfish.”

That’s why Metallica invited ex-members Mustaine and Jason Newsted to take part in their induction, and Hetfield says it was a positive experience.

“I think especially with Dave, with all of his struggles,” says the frontman. “I see him healthier now. I see him as less of a bitter guy.

“But I do see a lot of stuff in the press with him talking about jamming with us and making an album. All this other crazy stuff.

“I read it and say to myself, ‘Hold on. This is the Dave that we kind of wanted to forget about. You know, the big mouth that wants to just go-go-go.’

“But there is an authenticity about him when he speaks. He doesn’t think too much before he does. He just goes off the cuff. Plus, when he sats stuff like that it’s well-intended.”

Last year, following the Big 4 shows starring Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax, Mustaine announced plans for a supergroup featuring himself and his bassist Dave Ellefson alongside Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. He reported: “I’ve talked to Lars and James. James never said ‘no’ – it’s still kind of out there in the air. I’m going to keep hammering on him.”

-Classic Rock Magazine