May I be so presumptuous to assume that it’s been years, maybe decades even, since you sat down and actually listened to The James Gang 1970 second album, Rides Again ? Sure, you know “Funk #49” backwards and forwards, and you know Joe Walsh graduated to great things after only one more studio album with the Cleveland/Akron/Canton trio. But the other rockers “Woman” and the guitar spectacular,”The Bomber”, are perfectly balanced by melodic, intricately-arranged songs “Tend My Garden”,”There I Go Again”, and the stunning orchestral “Ashes, the Rain, and I”, all written by my guest Joe Walsh here In the Studio for the story of The James Gang Rides Again on its fifty-fifth anniversary.
Rides Again was the reason I hitched a ride with friends in 1971 to Denison, a small Central Ohio college, to sit in the dirt infield of the indoor track fieldhouse: to see & hear Cleveland/Akron band The James Gang on a low riser stage, the spotlight reflecting blindingly off the guitar of singer Joe Walsh. Up until then we had heard radio ads on Akron station WHLO most weekends inviting the public to see the band at an Akron-area high school dance for 50 cents. Precious few outside the Northeast Ohio Cleveland-Youngstown-Akron triangle had purchased the first James Gang album, but their follow-up Rides Again was both a critical and popular success. Sure, radio stations then and now play “Funk #49” (yep , there’s a “Funk #48” on their debut,Yer Album), but songs like ” Woman” and “The Bomber” influenced American hard rock well into the 1980s, and “Tend My Garden”, “There I Go Again”, and the melancholy “Ashes, the Rain, and I ” are all timeless and the arrangements surprisingly sophisticated more than half a century later. Joe Walsh is my guest for this classic rock interview. –Redbeard
My rare Malcolm Young interview from the In the Studio archive will be certain to give you even more insight into the gut-wrenching circumstances which precipitated the making of “Hell’s Bells”, “Shoot to Thrill”, “You Shook Me All Night Long”, “…Money Honey”, “Have a Drink on Me”, and “Back in Black” as Angus Young and Brian Johnson host AC/DC’s forty-fifth anniversary of the world-wide phenomenon Back in Black with me here In the Studio. Just how phenomenal is it? 27,000,000 copies in America. And that’s not a typo.
The Back in Black AC/DC secret has now been revealed, but until the In the Studio series of exclusive classic rock interviews, you didn’t find it in the myriad of magazine articles, online biographies, books, and fan sites dedicated to the band. Sure, you’d see tons of photos and references to lead guitarist Angus Young’s frenetic stage energy while performing in his schoolboy short pants. But understand this: AC/DC was always his big brother Malcolm Young ‘s band. My initial hunch that this was true came during my first classic rock interview with the band, as Angus, singer Brian Johnson, and I were discussing the breakthrough albumHighway to Hell (the last with colorful ruffian singer Bon Scott, who died of alcohol poisoning shortly after) and the follow-up with Brian singing,Back in Black. Numerous times during the conversation, both Angus and Brian alluded to what Angus’s older brother, rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young, thought, said, or did. It became increasingly apparent as the stories unfolded that, musically and inspirationally, Malcolm Young was to whom the others in AC/DC looked. Angus Young may have been chosen early on to be the focal point of AC/DC, but big brother Malcolm was always the heart and soul of this band, becoming even more so after the death of Bon Scott in 1980. (That’s a young Young: Malcolm left, then Atlantic Records promo veteran Michael Prince center, and even younger brother Angus Young, right)
So a few years later when another AC/DC interview opportunity arose, I insisted that Malcolm be included, and my hunch was quickly confirmed. Malcolm was plain-spoken, unpretentious, wise, and doggedly determined. And while the excellent biographers at AllMusic.com correctly note that AC/DC’s popularity and sales waned from the mid-1980s through the end of the decade, they fail to grasp why: Malcolm’s drinking had increased to a debilitating point whereby it was affecting not only his health but his creative leadership of the band, and Mal wisely took a leave of absence for over two years. So it was then no coincidence, when a clean and sober Malcolm Young rejoined AC/DC for 1990’s The Razor’s Edge, that it became the quintet’s biggest seller and best-reviewed album since Back in Black a decade earlier.
Notably, like AC/DC Back in Black released in late July 1980, several of the best-selling hard rock albums in history also have been made under the most dire of circumstances amidst tremendous tragedy and loss:
Deep Purple Machine Head – lost their reserved recording studio to a massive fire the night before they were to begin. Result: one of the quintessential hard rock albums of all time.
Def Leppard Hysteria – lost their key man producer; lost their way in the studio; drummer lost his arm in a car crash. Result: 25 million copies sold worldwide.
Whitesnake (’87) – bandleader David Coverdale lost his voice; lost his band; lost $3 million making it. Result: estimated 9.5 million copies sold.
Metallica Metallica (Black Album) – band lost their bass player in a Swedish tour bus rollover crash. Result: 16.5 million copies sold in the US.
We are saddened that AC/DC co-founder Malcolm Young has passed after a long bout with dementia. Nevertheless, it always was Malcolm’s band. The most popular selling rock album ever, AC/DC Back in Black marked its forty-fifth anniversary with a massive North American tour and a stop here In the Studio for Angus Young and Brian Johnson. –Redbeard
After Bob Welch left Fleetwood Mac, his first solo album in the Fall 1975 came and went in about 15 minutes, not unlike the 1973 Buckingham Nicks album, which was the sole recorded output of Welch’s replacements, singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer/songwriter Stephanie “Stevie” Nicks. So on balance I didn’t see how this major change could do anything except diminish Fleetwood Mac.
Boy, was I wrong! That 1975 Fleetwood Mac album sold over twenty times as many copies as any previous Fleetwood Mac album. But the unsung hero is actually producer/recording engineer Keith Olsen, who had produced and recorded the Buckingham Nicks album, imparting a fat, warm, upfront sound to their music. It was in that context that bandleader Mick Fleetwood first noticed Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar playing and singing abilities, but at the time it was Keith Olsen’s studio and recording techniques that Mick was auditioning, not the musicians. When Fleetwood fell in love with the sound that he heard, he wisely decided to embrace all of it – the musicians Buckingham and Nicks, the producer Keith Olsen, the Sound City studio – and incorporate it all into the next Fleetwood Mac album, which featured “Monday Morning”,”Over My Head”,”Say You Love Me”,”Rhiannon”,”Crystal”, and “Landslide”. Not only did that decision change the fortunes of all involved, it would also change the sound of contemporary music for years to follow. Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, and former member Lindsey Buckingham all share their recollections with me in great detail in this classic rock interview In the Studio on the golden anniversary of Fleetwood Mac’s “White Album”. –Redbeard
Funny how “Bohemian Rhapsody” and its accompanying album, A Night at the Opera, stand so firmly in our collective memory, but in fact it was The Game five years later that crowned Queen #1 worldwide. It was precisely because of the balance of hits “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, and “Play the Game” with the blistering album tracks “Dragon Attack”, “Rock It”, and the sleeper “Sail Away Sweet Sister”. Brian May and Roger Taylor are suited up to play The Game here In the Studio, and play it well.
By the Summer 1980 release of The Game, “There was a time there, about three seconds, when we were the biggest band in the world,” modestly chuckles Queen guitarist/songwriter Brian May in my classic rock interview about the worldwide #1 album. Yet there he stood, smiling in Memphis radio station ROCK 103, delightfully soft-spoken, gracious, and thoughtful before playing to a sold-out 10,000-seat arena crowd a few hours later. Queen had succeeded as four real “mates” on an international scale, which would continue only to increase for the next decade. With four writers, the band had a surplus of strong songs once again ( “Play the Game”, the live-in-the-studio throwdown”Dragon Attack”, the Glam rock-reminiscent “Coming Soon”, “Need Your Loving Tonight”, the touching “Sail Away Sweet Sister”, the prescient “Save Me”, and two #1s,”Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Another One Bites the Dust”) while Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury possessed such an operatic voice that it’s easy to forget that both Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor also sang lead on select songs. What really impressed me then, as now, is how appreciative Brian May was, of the fans, the countless deejays, and journalists for supporting Queen’s efforts over the years. Brian would later suffer a broken marriage, separation of his kids, and the passing of both parents, but nothing short of the untimely death of Freddie Mercury in 1991 could silence the original band. And now we know even that wasn’t permanent. –Redbeard
We have done over five hundred rockumentaries in three decades here In the Studio with the first-person stories of the greatest albums in rock history, and two of my all-time faves remain the cinderella story beginnings of Heart in 1976 with Dreamboat Annie , and the “comeback” album almost a decade later, Heart. This hit machine in 1985 reinvented Heart for the MTV Eighties with “If Looks Could Kill”, “What About Love”, “Never”, “These Dreams”, and “Nothing at All”. Wow. Guitarist/singer Nancy Wilson and singing sistuh Ann Wilson join me here In the Studio for Heart.
Heart, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers now in their fifth decade of making music together, this remarkable extended momentum for Heart ‘s career cardio health is possible in part because of the huge popularity of their biggest seller, Heart, which was released in June 1985. Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson allow me to take their collective pulse on this effort in this revealing classic rock interview.
This collection yielded hit after hit including Heart’s first #1 (sung by guitarist Nancy Wilson) “These Dreams”. Spoiler alert: you’ll need a whole box of tissues when you hear Nancy’s and Ann’s story about that song’s dedication. Also in this in-depth conversation The Sistuhs opine thoughtfully about the vital importance of America’s women in the US elections; how the flood of women in pop music does not necessarily signal more career control for those same females; and Nancy and Ann Wilson’s gratitude toward their incredibly loyal fans and music industry supporters. This edition of In the Studio is dedicated to the memory of Carol Peters, the wonderful personal manager of Heart for many years who dedicated herself to doing business with grace and humor. She is greatly missed. – Redbeard
Okay, it’s ‘fess up time for me regarding Motley Crue and their June 1985 third album, Theatre of Pain. I absolutely loved “Looks That Kill” (and still do, can’t get enough ), but after hearing their record company’s choices for singles, first Motley Crue’s cover of a Brownsville Station mid-chart early Seventies pop song”Smokin’ in the Boys Room”, followed by a slow piano arrangement crooning”Home Sweet Home”, I decided that my Dallas-based regional powerhouse rock radio station would go easy on the airplay. We knew that Motley Crue’s third album Theatre of Pain was released in June 1985 following lead singer Vince Neil’s deadly car crash and subsequent manslaughter charge, but as both Neil and Motley Crue bassist/songwriter Nikki Sixx told me In the Studio, that wasn’t the half of it. Meanwhile, relatively new national influencer MTV went all in with saturation exposure for Theatre of Pain, particularly Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” video. Turns out I was wrong, about four million times over!
Life can’t always be big issues and brain surgery, which is precisely why the world needed Motley Crue and Girls, Girls, Girls in mid-1987, to report in from the “Wild Side” while marauding through North America “All in The Name of Rock”. Peaking at #2 on Billboard Album Sales chart, Girls, Girls, Girls would eventually equal their preceding mega-seller, Theatre of Pain, with another four million copies sold. The always eyebrow-raising Nikki Sixx and hilarious Vince Neil are my guests In the Studio.
In an alternate universe where being boring and predictable is the Original Sin, Vince Neil, Mick Mars, Nikki Sixx, and Tommy Lee of Motley Crue would be sanctified saints, because they have been waging jihad against the tyranny of the mainstream for more than four decades. After appearing earlier that afternoon on my Dallas radio show, Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil was running from side to side at the front lip of their huge stage during a 1989 stop on their Dr.Feelgood tour in front of 18,000 fans, everyone on their feet. Motley Crue ripped through a pile-driving version of “Looks That Kill” (which still makes me reach for the volume knob exactly the same way it first did in September 1983), and from my vantage point on the floor sidestage, Vince ran straight at me out onto a wing which extended almost to the first loge of seats just above my head, occupied by row after row of dancing, innocent-looking young women. Suddenly, as Neil reaches the edge of the stage closest to these wide-eyed young female fans, the girls simultaneously all lift their tops to expose matched pairs of bare breasts. In that instant, Vince Neil dropped the wireless microphone from his face to his side and, looking down at me in breathless bewilderment and amazement, rolled his eyes as if to say,”Can you believe this is my life?” It wasn’t Spinal Tap, it was pure Groucho Marx.
Motley Crue as model citizens? Hardly. Harmless except to themselves ? Certainly not to the friends and family of Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle”Dingby, who paid with his life for riding with Vince Neil in 1984 just before Theatre of Pain was recorded; or to Tommy Lee ex-wife Pamela Anderson, who was kicked by Lee while she held their infant son (Lee did four months in jail for assault ); nor harmless to the family of 4 year-old Daniel Karven-Veres, who drowned in Lee’s pool during a June 2001 birthday party. Essential to the evolution of rock music? Probably. It’s arguable that without Motley Crue and Guns’n’Roses, grunge bands including Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden would not have had a reason to exist, or at least not in the same rock binge-and-purge role. Likable funny guys? You bet, in that same lovable way that while you scratch a puppy’s ear it pees on your shoe. You’ll see when you listen to Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil In the Studio in this classic rock interview with me marking the fortieth anniversary of Theatre of Pain. –Redbeard
Here to play with Talking Heads’ Little Creatures, even longtime fans might be hard-pressed to name the June 1985 release as their best selling studio effort ever, easily passing over two million copies initially. By the time of Little Creatures, the Talking Heads were going through both major career growth and personal maturity. Their preceding 1983 studio album Speaking in Tongues was their most popular to date; their foray into the major film world with Stop Making Sense was a critical and box office revelation; and band members and friends starting families all gave main songwriter David Byrne fresh new topics to explore. “And She Was” and “Stay Up Late” are just two examples.
In 2002, their first year of eligibility, the Talking Heads were elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. No wonder: the following year many of those same music industry people responsible for the Rock Hall recognition would place no less than four Talking Heads albums onto Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 Albums of All Time list, and additionally 1983’s Speaking in Tongues was deemed the #54 album of the entire Eighties decade by the same magazine.September 1977 was the moment of a significant debut by the Talking Heads. “I think that Talking Heads were one of the first groups who tried not to be about a fantasy that was bigger than life, but tried to be about being strong within a life that was ultimately real,” guitarist/ keyboard player Jerry Harrison points out here In the Studio.
A casual perusal of the Talking Heads’ discography on AllMusic.com reveals more stars than a Texas sky on a clear night. Jeff Gold’s sumptuous coffee table tome 101 Essential Rock Records devotes two whole pages to their debut Talking Heads ’77, which contained the riveting tension of “Psycho Killer”. “One of the things that I think Talking Heads stood for,” muses keyboard player/ guitarist Jerry Harrison, “was sticking to your guns, doing what you did best, and where it took you and whatever success it brought you, then that’s what happened. And I think that was inspiring to people. There’s often been a fantasy aspect to rock and roll where the artists try to be bigger than life. They try to look like pirates; they try to look like juvenile delinquents. All of these images where they try and look like ‘I’m the sexiest person alive’. And one of the problems with this is a lot of the musicians believe their own press, and believe this about themselves. I think it’s a reason why some get involved in drug excess, & get involved in trying to live this fantasy that a lot of people have about rock and roll.”
“And I think it’s quite demeaning for the audience,” continues Harrison. “The audience goes to a show, and maybe your girlfriend seems like she’s more attracted to the lead singer than to you anymore because he seems sexier. It’s a facade, & now you want to vicariously live that fantasy for yourself.”Singer/songwriter David Byrne and keyboard/guitarist Jerry Harrison joined me In the Studio for Talking Heads’ terrific cover of Al Green/Teenie Hodges’ “Take Me to the River” from More Songs About Buildings and Food; the pulsing pre-9/11 domestic terrorism in “Life During Wartime”; the MTV video classic “Once in a Life Time”;”Burning Down the House” and “Girlfriend is Better” from the brilliant 1983 Speaking in Tongues; the essential multi-media film by Jonathan Demme and soundtrack album Stop Making Sense in September 1984; “And She Was” from June 1985’s two million seller Little Creatures; and “Wild Wild Life” from True Stories. – Redbeard<
Driving halfway across America not long after the June 1975 release of One of These Nights by The Eagles is when I truly realized just how massively popular this band had become. This was long before 21st century satellite radio, so driving 1400 miles from Lincoln NE to Hartford CT meant re-tuning the car radio about every seventy-five miles or so to a new local station. And every one, whether AM or FM, big city signal or small, were playing “One of These Nights”,”Lyin’ Eyes”, and “Take It to the Limit” as if their FCC licenses depended on it.
All three of those hits from the album One of These Nights went Top 10, with the album topping the Billboard sales chart and “Lyin’ Eyes” winning a Grammy. Original Eagles singer/bass player Randy Meisner, now gone, and the late Eagles co-founder singer/guitarist Glenn Frey joined me here In the Studio in a classic rock interview which is precious now. This album single-handedly took country and western music from the bunkhouse to Broadway, permanently jettisoning the qualifier “and western” in the process, and taking the longhorns off of Hank Williams’ Cadillac. –Redbeard
The Kinks finally were able to mount a sold-out headlining American tour following the late Seventies triple crown of studio albums Sleepwalker, Misfits, and Low Budget, and the recordings from that tour were released as the double album One for the Road. “When we’re on stage is the only time when it’s not serious,” muses Kinks kingpin Ray Davies, the seminal band’s lead singer and masterful songwriter. “There’s so much recording nowadays that’s gotten to be so high tech and so intense. (Recording live) took some of the pressure off of it, because the guys in our band, they’re pretty good. I’m probably the worst musician in the band…”
“The Kinks have always been a very good live band,” continues Sir Ray, now officially a “Well Respected Man” after being knighted by (then Prince) King Charles. “We’re not fond of studio recording, we never have been, because we started off as a dance band, really, getting gigs at colleges and things. We find it boring recording tracks.”
One of the best features of the Kinks’ 1996 double live/unplugged album To the Bone was the balance of material, across the distinct eras and multiple record labels, by the veteran British Invasion band that became harbingers of heavy metal with “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night”, progenitors of punk rock with “Lola” and “David Watts”, and purveyors of perfect pop with “Waterloo Sunset” and “Celluloid Heroes”. “I think there’s an energy in The Kinks’ shows that goes kind of a step further,” continues Ray Davis in my In the Studio classic rock interview. “The audience is very much a part of what we do. It’s a subliminal thing that goes on. The audience is a very important factor in what we’re doing. It’s not just us going out, (you) seeing bands, you like their hits and (hearing them ) duplicate their hits, ‘Thank you and good night’, and go home. There’s more to it than that. There’s something else that goes on in a Kinks show. Sometimes it’s nice, and sometimes it’s hell out there! But you never know until we’re on stage. It’s similar I think to going to a football game,” the Poet Laureate of Rock points out. “You know who might win, but you never can tell until the final whistle. It’s a bit like a Kinks concert.”
In 1985, Robert Plant had just raised eyebrows (and skirts) with his retro-rockin’ big band one-off The Honeydrippers, only to follow it up with the adventurous modern rock-influenced Shaken ‘N’ Stirred. His third solo album bearing his name, Shaken ‘N’ Stirred contained the infectious song “Little by Little” which helped to drive the album sales to #19 in Robert Plant’s UK homeland, as well as #20 Billboard charting in the US.
It was 1983’s The Principle of Moments, Robert Plant‘s second solo album, which convinced us that Plant could sustain a viable solo career outside of the legendary Led Zeppelin which he fronted for twelve fabled years. But for me personally it was Shaken ‘n’ Stirred, served up pre-release on a little Walkman cassette player onboard a Boeing 747 at 40,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, that began my professional relationship with the complicated singer.
Angular extended songs “In the Mood” and the cryptic “Big Log” from The Principle of Moments became rock radio staples in the States, followed by the earworm “Little by Little” from Shaken ‘n’ Stirred in 1985. However, not until 1988’s Now and Zen ( his fourth solo sortie if you don’t count the one-off Honeydrippers EP) did Plant shed the self-conscious shadow of Led Zeppelin by exorcising his ghosts with the song ” Tall Cool One”, brilliantly sampling the “thunder of the gods” iconic licks and employing Zeppelin mastermind Jimmy Page on guitar.“Heaven Knows” and “Ship of Fools” made Now and Zen a blockbuster, with “Hurting Kind” in 1990 from Manic Nirvana and the tender heartfelt “29 Palms” on Fate of Nations completing our visit with Robert Plant In the Studio for this classic rock interview.- Redbeard
May I be so presumptuous to assume that it’s been years, maybe decades even, since you sat down and actually listened to The James Gang 1970 second album, Rides Again ? Sure, you know “Funk #49” backwards and forwards, and you know Joe Walsh graduated to great things after only one more studio album with the Cleveland/Akron/Canton trio. But the other rockers “Woman” and the guitar spectacular,”The Bomber”, are perfectly balanced by melodic, intricately-arranged songs “Tend My Garden”,”There I Go Again”, and the stunning orchestral “Ashes, the Rain, and I”, all written by my guest Joe Walsh here In the Studio for the story of The James Gang Rides Again on its fifty-fifth anniversary.
Sure, radio stations then and now play “Funk #49” (yep , there’s a “Funk #48” on their debut, Yer Album), but songs like ” Woman” and “The Bomber” influenced American hard rock well into the 1980s, and “Tend My Garden”, “There I Go Again”, and the melancholy “Ashes, the Rain, and I ” are all timeless and the arrangements surprisingly sophisticated more than half a century later. Joe Walsh is my guest for this classic rock interview. –Redbeard 
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