Rare classic rock interviews by Redbeard from the vast In the Studio archive

Joe Satriani- Surfing With the Alien 35th anniversary

Joe Satriani interview In the Studio on the 35th anniversary of "Surfing with the Alien".

Melissa Etheridge- The Awakening

Melissa Etheridge:"And I got to lie still, and I stopped being a rock star. I stopped working, I stopped striving, I stopped everything. And I was completely still . And being still is the best thing you can do for yourself. I mean it. We just don't do enough of it in our lives , and it is so important. And I just laid still, and I finally got to the point where my brain stopped chattering. It stopped waking up and wandering, and I started dreaming again. I started dreaming of what I wanted the rest of my life to look like ." RB: "With the diagnosis of breast cancer, you still could make plans for the future even before you completed chemotherapy and radiation ?" ME:" Oh my gosh , I want the rest of my life ! No no no, I'm not done at all, I'm just beginning . And with that new excitement, I started looking at what I had created , what I'm creating now, and what I wanted to create. I started reading like crazy , I started reading everything from cosmology to quantum physics , string theory, agnostic gospels, Buddhism, everything ! And everybody is saying the same thing , this simple thing : that we're all here to create, to be happy, and to love. You know, give me the peace signs and all the gooey stuff, but that's really what I started feeling.And when I started thinking ,'Oh my gosh , I want to write a new album ' , I had this joy behind it . I had this great desire to put my experience down and to ignite people and light 'em up and say , 'Look , you can do this too . We don't have to do it this way '. " RB: What attitudes and behaviors should we all look at ? ME: Today , right now, we have a choice .We have marketed ourselves into a little bitty corner of sound bites and fast food , and we think we can sustain ourselves on this . We think we can go to McDonald's every day , eat in our car , and be fine . We can just download that one little song that sounds just like that other song . They're little pieces . If you want to live your life on just little pieces of life , okay , that's your choice . But I think that there's a large bunch of us who really want more , who really do believe that the best food comes from the earth ; that it grows up out of the dirt ; and then you eat it and it nourishes you . And that music is made channeled through an artist . They craft it , they put it down in a certain place , and you can enjoy it for three minutes , or an hour , or you can even go to a live concert and enjoy it for three hours . Imagine giving yourself that time ! But I think our society needs to take a breath and step back , and get off this wheel that we're on of faster , faster , faster . I do ."

Sting-…Nothing Like the Sun

The Sting and I...We had already done multiple interviews when he was in The Police and now Sting had released three solo albums, including Fall 1987's "Nothing Like the Sun", by the time we reconvened in 1991. Sting had lost both parents by then, the most recent  his father, and was clearly wrestling with his star ascending amidst pain and personal loss.

Black Sabbath- Vol 4- Ozzy Osbourne

By September 1972 and "Vol. 4",the world into which the Birmingham England band Black Sabbath quickly rose to popularity felt increasingly like a dangerous place...Original lead singer/ lyricist Ozzy Osborne is my guest In the Studio for the fiftieth anniversary.

Night Ranger- Dawn Patrol 40th anniversary- Jack Blades

Night Ranger's Jack Blades goes out on "Dawn Patrol" forty years later to report back on the first American band to break big simultaneously on radio & MTV with "Don't Tell Me You Love Me","You Can Still Rock in America", & the mid-'80s phenomenon "Sister Christian" here In the Studio.

Edgar Winter Group- They Only Come Out at Night

It's the 50th anniversary of the Edgar Winter Group's "They Only Come Out at Night". Edgar shares songs including "Tobacco Road","Keep Playing That Rock'n'Roll",; "Dying to Live"; "Easy Street" from 1974's "Shock Treatment";  and three hits from "They Only Come Out at Night",  "Free Ride","Hangin' Around", and the #1 song in 1973, "Frankenstein". The late Ronnie Montrose also is interviewed.
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Meat Loaf- Bat Out of Hell

Meeting Meat Loaf head on in the narrow hallway at midnight "on a hot summer night" in 1978 left an unforgettable memory. His debut album "Bat Out of Hell"  had been building slowly over the ten months since release, and now the bombastic, passionate, outrageously funny music of composer Jim Steinman as performed by Meat Loaf was one of the hottest new things in American music then. The late Meat Loaf is here In the Studio for the story of "Bat Out of Hell".

Pete Townshend- Who Came First 50th Anniversary

Was "Who Came First" a question or a declarative statement in October 1972? Pete Townshend joins me In the Studio for the answer on the golden anniversary of his first of many great solo albums, which we feature here.

Peter Gabriel- Us

The various subjects on Peter Gabriel's "Us", like the deep funky grooves, are all killer and no filler, from the pleading divorced parent to his regressing child on "Come Talk to Me". the matter-of-fact demystification of personal therapy in "Digging in the Dirt", to the Biblical allusions in "Blood of Eden", inspired by Gabriel's study of capital punishment. My exclusive classic rock interview with Peter Gabriel in front of a small intimate audience was his first reveal of those songs in September 1992, plus "Love to Be Loved", "Steam", "Kiss That Frog", and "Secret World". Part one of two. 

J Geils Band- Full House- Peter Wolf

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of their breakout live album "Full House",  it is only fitting that we throw down a J Geils Band house party  hosted by lead singer Peter Wolf In the Studio.

The Doors- Strange Days- the late Ray Manzarek

"Strange Days", The Doors' second album in only nine months,  was uncanny in capturing seismic changes already underway in America which would signal the end to the all-too-brief "Summer of Love" in 1967. The Doors’ late co-founder Ray Manzarek In the Studio for "Strange Days" to mark its 55th anniversary.

Mark Knopfler- Kill to Get Crimson

Mark Knopfler's fifth solo album, "Kill to Get Crimson", released in September 2007, has a distinctive late Fifties Post War perspective,"...but it's not nostalgia. It's something else," Mark insists.

Creed- My Own Prison 25th anniversary

On "My Own Prison" 's twenty-fifth anniversary of "Torn","What's This Life For?", "One", and the title song, here is my charming conversation with Creed lead singer/ lyricist Scott Stapp, guitarist/songwriter Mark Tremonti, drummer Scott Phillips, and original bass guitarist Brian Marshall from December 1998.

INXS- Early Best- Andrew & Tim Farriss, Kirk Pengilly, the late Michael Hutchence

It was their third album,"Shabooh Shoobah", where INXS finally made the leap to America and the UK late in 1982 with "The One Thing"and "Don't Change". For the story of INXS' formative years, the band's keyboard player/ songwriter Andrew Farriss, guitar-playing brother Tim Farriss, and guitar/sax man Kirk Pengilly, tell of the tough and tender early days forming in the most remote city in the world, Perth Australia; surviving the one-nighters there,  in Sydney and in Melbourne; allying with a talented singer from Hong Kong-via-Hollywood,  the mercurial snake-hipped Michael Hutchence;

Van Morrison- St. Dominic’s Preview

With Belfast-born Van Morrison's July 1972 sixth album "Saint Dominic's Preview", the mainstream rock audience finally caught up to the quality jazzy, folksy rhythm'n'blues Morrison had been belting out consistently since critics began lauding his debut,"Astral Weeks". This rare 21st century classic rock interview was conducted in Belfast by the BBC's intrepid John Bennett.