Best known for his time with percussively perverse Industrial pioneers Test Dept and the revolving-door nuthouse that is Pigface, London-based drummer Martin King made a jaw-dropping return to the American stage (or, more accurately, to the floor - as seen in the photo below) last November when he was one of the 30-plus musicians to participate in the two Pigface 25th anniversary shows that took place in Chicago over the Thanksgiving holiday. King’s appearance marked the end of a stateside dry spell that began shortly after his involvement in Pigface’s 1998 tour (immortalized on the brilliant live album Eat Shit You Fucking Redneck), the end of Test Dept and the release of his excellent 1999 solo album Orange (released on Martin Atkins’ Invisible Records under the name Subgenius.)
Martin King takes it to the crowd during Pigface's 25th anniversary show at the House of Blues - Chicago, 11/25/16. (Photo credit: Nathan Vestal)
For his first album in 18 years, King has teamed up with musical partner Robeto Soave (whose career has included stints with The Associates, Presence with Cure co-founder Lol Tolhurst and Shelleyan Orphan with the late Caroline Crawley) for Outlaws & Strays, the stellar debut full-length release from their project, DogTablet.
Considering that DogTablet describe their purpose as “creating and producing soundtrack and production music and the occasional commercial release,” it comes as very little surprise that the album’s overall mellow, Morcheeba-meets-The Orb vibe works extremely well as cinematic background music (or as an at-home chill-out playlist, for that mater.) Musically, Outlaws & Strays floats on the calmer musical waters of Orange and Totality-era Test Dept and offers little hint of the sonic sledgehammer of some of King’s other work (although those who like things a bit grittier will surely enjoy the Pigface-esque tom-tom workout on “Drill Bit.”)
The album’s many highlights include “It Becomes Us” (especially the incendiary drum madness that kicks in at 1:04), the exquisite “MiddleEast Ender” and the slow-burning “Two Senses” (which is accentuated by some truly sinister bass playing). Naturally, the beats and percussion on the album are fantastic – and solid proof that the best Trance/Techno rhythms can only come from the mind of a bona fide drummer. It’s great to hear King back in album-making mode again (as 18 years is far too long to wait for new sounds from someone with his level of skills), while fans of Soave’s past work (including Presence’s highly recommended Inside) will be delighted to hear how relevant and impressive his creativity is in the present tense.
The King/Soave partnership has created one of the year’s finest albums and reminder of the many talents that have made these two musicians true industry survivors and continual innovators. Here’s to hoping that Outlaws & Strays is the beginning of an era of long and fruitful output from the duo.
Outlaws & Strays is out July 10. Go to DogTablet’s Facebook page for purchase info.
Warrant, 2017. Left to right: Joey Allen, Jerry Dixon, Robert Mason, Erik Turner and Steven Sweet. (Photo source: www.facebook.com/warrantrocks)
There was a time when the guys in Warrant had the music industry in the palms of their hands.
In the three years before Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” signaled the commercial end of what is commonly (if often ignorantly) referred to as “Hair Metal,” the classic lineup of Warrant – singer Jani Lane, bassist Jerry Dixon, drummer Steven Sweet and guitarists Erik Turner and Joey Allen – sold millions of albums on the strength of a slew of powerhouse singles including “Down Boys,” “Heaven,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Cherry Pie” and “I Saw Red.” The band’s first two albums, 1989’s Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich and 1990’s Cherry Pie, both reached the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, while the band scored five #1 videos on MTV at a time when such an achievement truly mattered.
So…how did Warrant follow up these massive career accomplishments? By releasing quite possibly the most underrated, misunderstood and career-derailing album of the ’90s.
With the Grunge explosion in full effect, the band rolled the dice on presenting a considerably harder sound of 1992’s superb Dog Eat Dog. An absolute stunner of an album, Dog Eat Dog showcased Warrant’s willingness to take experimental chances (“The Bitter Pill,” the cerebral and utterly intriguing “Andy Warhol Was Right”) and bring their brand of Sunset Strip-fueled Rock to a much heavier level (“All My Bridges Are Burning”). Of course, the masses weren’t about to give bands like Warrant any real attention in the age of Pearl Jam, and Dog Eat Dog’s sales suffered the fate of being a great album at the absolute wrong time. This misfire kickstarted not only years of lineup and label changes, but also ongoing internal issues between the band and singer Jani Lane – whose issues with alcohol often gained more media attention than the band’s post-Dog Eat Dog material. With the exception of a four-year stint with Black 'N Blue vocalist Jaime St. James (resulting in 2006’s Born Again), Warrant and Lane held together until 2008, when the singer was permanently replaced by former Lynch Mob/Cry of Love frontman Robert Mason. (Lane continued to battle his demons with varying success until his death in 2011 at the age of 47.) Since 2008, Mason has fronted a lineup completed by surviving classic-era members Dixon, Turner, Sweet and Allen (who reformed in 2004).
Produced by current Foreigner/former Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson and released in May on the prolific Italian label Frontiers Music, Louder Harder Faster is Warrant’s ninth studio album and their second with Mason at the helm. Mixing Dog Eat Dog’s heaviness with the streamlined, straightforward songwriting approach of the first two Warrant albums, Louder Harder Faster offers an excellent balance between both extremes while showcasing some new - and downright surprising - musical directions. The twin guitar swagger of “Only Broken Heart” and the bulletproof “Devil Dancer” are reminiscent of Renegade-era Thin Lizzy, while the bluesy “Music Man” and the smoking “New Rebellion” update Warrant’s sound enough to make them a band to take seriously in 2017.
If you’ve followed Warrant since the beginning, you know that the band’s current incarnation delivers the goods. If you walked away from Warrant and other ’80s-era bands long ago and look at a new album from them with an eye roll and a smirk, it’s time to give Louder Harder Faster a listen and be pleasantly surprised by how strong this band really is in the here and now. This record smokes.
I recently touched base with Jerry Dixon to discuss the new album, the 25th anniversary of Dog Eat Dog and what the future might look like for one of Rock’s most resilient acts.
It’s been about six years since you guys last put out an album [2011’s Rockaholic]. What led to that kind of gap between records?
Well, the main thing is that we don’t live by each other anymore. I moved to Vegas, Robert and Steve live in Arizona and Joey and Erik are still in California. We tour so much that it’s like, ‘Ah, shit. Okay, who wants to leave their house for a month and get together and write?’ A lot of bands do records now over the internet, but we like to do it in a room and do it together. That’s the main reason why it took so long.
This is your second album with Robert fronting the band. What makes him the right frontman for Warrant in 2017?
I think from day one, he just fit right in. When we got Robert, we weren’t going to try a bunch of singers out; we weren’t really sure what we were going to do. We tried to get together with Lane, and his drinking flared up again and he just kind of said, ‘You know what? I can’t do this, you guys. I’ve got to get help.’ We did about 10 or 11 shows. We were just kind of like, ‘Okay. What are we gonna do?’ We had actually bumped into Robert; we’ve actually known Robert for maybe 25 years. We used to tour with Lynch Mob, and he was a good friend of Jani’s and a good friend of ours. He was always a fan of the music; he always liked our songs and liked the band. We bumped into him at Rocklahoma and said, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, man!’ We flew him out to LA and we jammed for an hour or so, and he just fit right in. Sometimes the higher power brings shit together. It was just one of those things. He just always felt right. What I like about him is that he’s still himself and he really does well on the older stuff.
I really like the double guitar work on this new album. A couple of instances, especially “Only Broken Heart,” remind me a lot of Thin Lizzy. Was there a clear Lizzy influence that you put in there?
I think just on that song. It’s funny, because that song was originally very unThin Lizzy. It was actually called ‘’80s Ladies,’ and Robert hated that title! He said, ‘God, I can’t sing that title. I hate it! I hate it!’ In the bottom of the ninth, he came in and re-wrote all of the lyrics. Out came the Thin Lizzy influence. It was like, ‘Ah, that’s very Thin Lizzy, dude!’ But it’s cool; we all grew up on Thin Lizzy. We were totally aware of that, but we were like, ‘Yeah, it is what it is.’ It’s a cool song, and it’s a band we all love and grew up on, so we just let it fly.
I get a lot of records from Frontiers, and it’s a lot of music that I grew up on and still have a real love for. When talking to other artists who are on that label and still do a lot of touring, there seems to be a really strong audience in Europe for this style of music. What has your experience been with that phenomenon? Why do you think the European audience seems to still really celebrate and support this genre?
I don’t think they change bands as quick as we do here. In America, there’s a new flavor every month. Maybe the Midwest is kind of like Europe; they like what they like and they don’t care when it came out. They’re real picky about their music, but if they like you, they love you. I just think that they’re not so into what’s ‘hip;’ they just enjoy their favorite bands and stay loyal to them.
The first album is 28 years old at this point –
Damn!
Any band is lucky to have a career for that long. You have this new album out, and it seems like the lineup is really working well for you guys. What are the long-range plans for Warrant at this point in time?
I would imagine we’ll probably do one more record in another four or five years. What we really want to do – and what we’re trying to do – is to be able to do more headlining shows and capture a bigger audience in bigger rooms and stuff like that and stay relevant along the way. We’re kind of in a good spot now because a lot of the Classic Rock [acts] like Foreigner, Molly Hatchet and Lynyrd Skynyrd are ahead of us, and they do really well. It's weird; as soon as they hit that golden age, it just puts them up to another level. We’re hoping that we get there.
This year is the 25th anniversary of the Dog Eat Dog record. That record’s always been of particular interest to me, because it was obviously a departure for Warrant during some really interesting times in the music industry. When you look back at that album now, what are thoughts on it in terms of its place in Warrant’s history and its success as a Warrant album?
I think we really found who we wanted to be on that record. You do your first record, and those are the songs that you played in the clubs. Then, we did the second record, and that was a lot heavier; it had ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ That was the vibe we were going for, and at the last second, [the label] wanted a big anthem, ‘We Will Rock You’- type song. Out popped ‘Cherry Pie,’ and it changed the face of the Earth. (laughs) It was the title of the record, and we were like, ‘Oh, wow!’ I mean, we’re thankful, but that wasn’t the master plan. When Dog Eat Dog came up, we had a little time off and time to reflect on kind of what happened to us – all the good stuff and all the touring. We just said, ‘You know what? Let’s really just make a serious kind of record. Seriously play and make the songs have more substance.’ We just kind of grew up a little bit, and I think that was kind of the sound in the band that we were always striving to end up being. I think it just came out a little bit too late. The Grunge wave hit, and it just got clobbered.
The band had a few lineup changes over the years, but we’re at a point now where the four surviving members of the classic lineup have been working together again for a few years now. What makes the combination of the four of you work as well as it does to where it’s still the same four guys nearly 30 years later?
I think it’s super cool that we’re able to do that. I think other variables made the lineup change along the way. There were a lot of hurt feelings; there was a lot of shit that happened. We had a horrible run for about 10 years. We lost all of our homes, we went bankrupt, our manager died and to cap it all off, Jani ends up passing away. It was just fucking horrible. At the end of the day, there’s something that four people – or any band – do when they play [their] songs that can’t be duplicated. We’ve had other drummers and other guitar players and things like that, and it just doesn’t sound the same. I think now, with all the deaths and all the horrible things happening to us, the four of us are so happy that we’re actually a functioning band. This is kind of what we wanted all along. It took forever to get to this spot where things are cool and there’s no more drama. We can just go play music and have fun.
*Portions of the above interview were edited for space and clarity.
Left to right: Doug Aldrich, Marco Mendoza, John Corabi, Brian Tichy and David Lowy of The Dead Daisies (photo courtesy of Chipster PR)
If you think Night in the Ruts was the last great Aerosmith album, you’re probably already a Dead Daisies fan. If you appreciate a real ’70’s-infused Hard Rock band doing the real thing, you’ve probably already seen The Dead Daisies live. But if you’re completely new to what this band has to offer, the recently released Live & Louder is the best place to start.
Easily one of the best-sounding live albums you’ll likely ever hear (thanks in large part to famed Aerosmith/Bad Company/Metallica/Santana mixer/engineer Anthony Focx), Live & Louder features onstage versions of the best moments from the band’s three studio albums (2013’s The Dead Daisies, 2015’s Revolución and 2016’s Make Some Noise) plus a couple of killer covers (Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter,” Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band,” The Who’s “Join Together”) added for good measure.
The album’s release is just one of the many highlights driving what is easily the most active time in The Dead Daisies’ career. Next month, they’ll perform for audiences in Japan before heading to South America. On August 3, they’ll hit the stage with the 60-piece Gorzow Philharmonic Orchestra as part of a special “Concert for Freedom” during Woodstock Poland, an annual event that has averaged 625,000 attendees in the last four years. From there, the band will embark on their first-ever North American headline tour.
After several line-up changes (including stints with Guns N’ Roses members Dizzy Reed and Richard Fortus), the current incarnation of The Dead Daisies includes guitarist/founding member David Lowy (Red Phoenix/Mink), singer John Corabi (Motley Crue/Ratt/The Scream), guitarist Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake/Dio/Lion), bassist Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy/Whitesnake/Bill Ward Band) and drummer Brian Tichy (Ozzy Osbourne/Foreigner).
For John Corabi, The Dead Daisies is the latest chapter in a long career that that has included stints with some of the biggest names in Hard Rock and Metal. He first gained national attention as the frontman of The Scream, a superb Los Angeles-based group whose 1991 debut, Let It Scream, remains one of the most underrated releases of the era. From there, he replaced Vince Neil in Motley Crue for the band’s self-titled 1994 album – considered by many fans to be among the band’s strongest material. Since his days with the Crue, Corabi’s musical travels have included time with the criminally ignored Union (with former KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick) and a near-decade-long run as a guitarist in Ratt. He was brutally honest about those last two band, The Dead Daisies’ revolving door lineup, his finances and a whole lot more in the following interview.
You’re three studio albums into your life as a band. Why do a live album now? It kind of reminds me of the old Kiss formula – three studio albums and then a live record.
I joined the band in January 2015. Since I’ve joined the band, we went to Australia, wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered a record, immediately went on tour with Kiss, toured right up until December and came home. Richard and Dizzy went back to Guns N’ Roses, we got Doug Aldrich in the band, went right back into the studio, wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered another record and immediately went on tour again. There’s still some interest obviously in Make Some Noise, but while we were on tour last year, we recorded about five shows, and it was for a combination of a few things. A lot of our fans who were writing to us were basically saying, ‘The record was great, but God, after I saw you guys live, it was so much better.’ We’re doing another record at the end of this year; we’re going in and writing and recording another one. Instead of having us record now, I think our management just wanted to give us a little more time to kind of [cultivate] our thoughts because the first two records came within a year.
The Dead Daisies have had a few lineup changes since the beginning. What do you think it is about this current lineup that works so well? Why does this particular combination of musicians succeed?
David started this band in 2012 with another singer named Jon Stevens. He’s a very well-known, popular singer in his own right; he sang with INXS. I’ve got to be honest with you; they kind of did the whole process a little bit ass-backwards. Most bands get together with a bunch of dudes, hang out for a while, write songs together and then they try to get a record deal. They did it backwards; they just got together, wrote a bunch of songs, went in and recorded them with session guys, did the record and then said, ‘Let’s go out and do some shows.’ For a combination of a lot of things, you put a band together and then you go out and do some shows and you’re like, ‘Wow, this guy's really cool; he’s a great guy and a great player – and it’s just not working.’ You just don’t get along with him or he’s not really easy to work with on tour. So I think there were some growing pains, but it was done in public because they did it the way they did. Part of it too was that we had Richard and Dizzy, and nobody really saw the Guns N’ Roses thing coming until the last minute. Dizzy and Richard finally came to us and said, ‘Here’s the deal, guys. GN’R called us; they’re doing a reunion thing and they want [us] involved in it.’ They gave us plenty of notice, and it was Richard who actually suggested that we get Doug. He was like, ‘With the type of music that you guys all dig and what you’re trying to do, I think Doug’s the guy.’
Since David Lowy put the band together, he’s always had the idea of having a set, steady band the whole time, but there were little mishaps and different things. The list [of members] is a bit deceiving as well, because some of the people who are on the list are people who just filled in for a brief period of time. Like last year, Brian couldn't do part of the Kiss tour because he had prior commitments, so we got Tommy Clufetos [Black Sabbath] to come in, so Tommy’s on the list. Then we had a guy named Dave Leslie fill in for Richard before we went to go to Australia because Richard was in a motorcycle accident. So, there are a few of those names that are just friends, pals, mates of ours. They’re kind of part of the family; they just move in. If we ever need to use them again, they’d be more than happy to do it. We’ve had a great time with them, but they were just fill-in guys.
John Corabi on “With You And I:” “I think the lyrics to ‘With You And I’ are especially relevant at the moment; you can't turn the TV on and NOT see some sort of human decay anymore. We're battling each other in so many ways, it's disturbing. Be it political party differences, the struggle of black vs. white, religious differences, terrorism, famine, disease, pollution, climate change, etc. – nobody is working TOGETHER in any way to find answers to these issues and communicate as adults!”
You raise an interesting point, because you also have your own music that you do in a solo sense in addition to The Dead Daisies. How does that work within your schedule with the band? How do you balance both things at the same time?
When I’m with the Daisies, I focus on the Daisies; when I’m out doing my thing, I focus on that. Oddly enough, I may wind up getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for just one purpose only. (laughs) I’ve got Live & Louder and then at the end of the year, I’m actually releasing a John Corabi solo record, which is also live, that I recorded like a year and a half ago called ’94 Live: One Night in Nashville. I was out doing some shows doing Motley ’94 stuff. I recorded it and I turned it in like a year ago. We were always struggling to figure out when I could release the record where it didn’t interfere with the Daisies... I’m going to drop it late September, August, something like that. I’ll go down in history as being the only dumbass who put two live records out in the same year!
I know a lot people are very excited to hear that ’94 live stuff.
It really sounds great, dude. I kind of went into it saying, ‘I’m doing one show.’ I didn’t have the luxury of recording a week’s worth of shows or a whole tour; I literally went into a club, I set it up, I rehearsed my band and we went in and did one show. One of my favorite live records of all time is Aerosmith’s Live Bootleg. There are little glitches in it; there are things feeding back and whatever. It’s boom! So we did the record, and it came out great. Everybody played their ass off. We gave it to Michael Wagener and asked him to mix it. I’m very blessed, man. I’ve got this Dead Daisies record; everybody played their ass off, and we gave it to Anthony Focx, who’s an incredible engineer and producer. He did an amazing job; he did unbelievable work with it. I gave my record to Michael Wagener, and he did a great job as well. It’s all good.
Union is one of my favorite things that you’ve done over the years. When I lived in California, I actually saw you guys play at Paladino’s out in Tarzana –
That’s going way back!
I’ve always loved that band, and I interviewed Bruce once. It’s been a few years since that project’s been active. Do you see a future for that in any way, shape or form at this point in time?
I don’t know. I don’t want to say no, because we’re all on good terms. We never really split up. If I can be completely frank, Union was just one of those bands where we were doing well with attendance at the shows, but it wasn’t translating into record sales. Back then, it was right at the beginning of Napster and file-sharing. That’s where the bands made their money – in record sales. Now, it’s kind of flipped – bands don’t really sell any records; now, they make their money on the touring and shows. The problem with Union is that we just couldn’t get anybody to pay attention to us at the time. The funny thing of it is, my manager laughs; she goes, ‘Dude, every record you’ve ever done – whether it’s The Scream, the Motley record or Union – for some reason, when the records come out, it’s kind of like nobody really notices. But then, for some apparent reason 10 or 15 years later, they’re like hailed as these great albums.’ Now, everybody’s writing to me bitching that they can’t find the records and can’t get them! I don’t know if I had the worst PR on Earth or if I was way ahead of the curve, but I’m still trying to figure that one out! When we all had some time off, I think it would be a lot of fun to get together with Bruce and [drummer] Brent [Fitz] and [bassist] Jaime [Hunting] and just go out and do a little run – like a month – and just go do some shows. I think that would be a lot of fun.
Photo courtesy of Chipster PR
I interviewed Stephen Pearcy a few months back, and obviously there’s a lot going on with Ratt. You have a history with that band; what are your thoughts on what’s going on with these guys at this point?
Listen, I love [guitarist] Warren [DeMartini] and Stephen. I’ve never really worked with [bassist] Juan [Croucier] and [guitarist] Carlos [Cavazo] before, but I worked with Warren, Stephen and Bobby. Each one of those guys is his own animal. I love them to death, but you’ve got to kind of figure out how to play each one of them or know how to communicate with each one. Honestly, as much as I love those guys, they’ve always been dysfunctional – always. If Warren would say to Bobby, ‘Hey, the song is too fast,’ Bobby would say, ‘Go fuck yourself! I’ve been playing it this way for 25 years; I know what I’m talking about.’ If I can be frank, the minute they got their record deal with Roadrunner [for 2010’s Infestation]– and you can ask [former bassist] Robbie Crane or anybody who was involved with the band – and said, ‘Hey, we’re doing a record! We signed the deal; it’s on,’ I told them I quit! (laughs) [I said], ‘I can’t get through a fucking rehearsal with you guys, let alone eight months writing and recording. No!’ I can’t picture doing it. It would be like performing brain surgery on yourself through your asshole. I just said I wasn’t interested.
I don’t know; I don’t see any settling [of] that whole debate. I don’t think that Bobby deserves the name; if anything, it does belong more to Warren, Stephen and Juan; at least they’ve got more original members than Blotzer’s take… Until they figure out how to talk to each other reasonably, I don’t see any bright future for that thing at all.
You’ve been in this business for decades now, and it’s not the easiest career path in the world. What do you see as the key to survival? Most specifically, what keeps you excited to keep doing this?
Honestly, man, I love doing it. I love the fact that people are still showing up – actually, even now more than ever. I just kind of accepted the business the way it is. The days of bands getting out there and playing The Forum are few and far between, man. I don’t want to say I’ve lowered my standards, because I haven’t. I feel like there are certain things that I can control and I can worry about, and I just go out and try to do the best that I can do as far as writing. I try to take care of myself when I’m on tour for my singing and keep myself in reasonably good shape so that I give the people their money’s worth. Other than that, I’m just grateful over the fact that I still do have a career. I still enjoy taking a riff and getting into a room with guys like Doug, Marco, Brian and David and putting that riff on the table and seeing everybody get excited about it – then we all build this thing. I love watching the process of it going from a riff – which is like a seed – and then hearing the song back finished, like ‘We did this!’
Honestly, dude, I think about what you just said – I’ve been doing this a lot longer than a lot of other people. I’m not a multi-millionaire; I’m not a millionaire. I’m just working hard and I’m saving a little bit of money here and there. I’ve got a great wife; we have a great house. My career’s going great, and I have great kids. I’m just kind of glad and grateful for everything, and I’ve just learned to stop looking at the glass as half-empty. I look at it as half-full, and I think that just comes with age, man. Not to sound like ‘Old Decrepit Aging Dude,’ but there is some truth to ‘with age comes wisdom.’ *Portions of the above interview were edited for space and clarity.
