Rabbiting Away To the Cadillac Three & The Von Hertzen Brothers
Download Festival - Alive With Talent
Miss Rabbit Attack was privileged to be asked along to interview The Cadillac Three and the Von Hertzen Brothers this year at Download Festival by those super friendly cats at Spinefarm Records.
Nervously, for this was only third and fourth attempt at interviewing rock bands, she waited backstage to speak first to Kelby Ray the steel guitarist for The Cadillac Three, those good ole southern boys with a penchant for a genre of rock which relishes in radio-ready country anthems, hard-and-heavy rock and traditional Southern folk, she needn't have worried - what a swell guy! The interview can be listened to here, and explains all the musical influences, how Kelby feels about playing in the UK and also Beer or Bullshit ... yep you heard that right!!! INTERVIEW WITH KELBY RAY
Von Hertzen Brothers lead singer Mikko von Hertzen, that lover of all things huggable (he told me his guru is the famous Mata Amritanandamayi) , was a proper gent and super cool to boot! The Finnish bands brand of music couldn't be further from the death metal loved by that land, but boy do they rock. With their brand new single 'Hold Me Up' literally just being released, playing Download couldn't have been better timed. Check out our video interview here: VON HERTZEN BROTHERS INTERVIEW
Review of Motorhead – Bad Magic
For myglobalmind.com
In these days of streamed music and quick to rise, quick to fall bands, it is hard to root out those that live and breathe rock right down to their bones. Motorhead is one of these truly exceptional oddities who say screw the rest of you we are going to do it our way ….. And yes that is exactly what they have been doing for the last 40 years.
It is easy to forget the rich writing heritage of icon Lemmy, we see him almost as a heavy metal caricature with his hand made cowboy boots and cowboy hat, never out of the colour black and forever connected to The Ace of Spades. But his song writing has and is exceptional, think of those he has written for other people such as The Ramones ‘R.A.M.O.N.E.S’ and Ozzy Osbourne ‘Hellraiser’. And his writing skills do not disappoint with the new Motorhead album ‘Bad Magic’.
Rampant, old skool, Motorhead screams out at you from the start with the first track ‘Victory Or Die’, with the ever ready rock n roll drummer from hell, Mikky Dee keeping the freight train pace right to the end. Motor-traditionalists … enjoy! Whilst ‘Thunder & Lightening’ is mosh pit and neat Jack friendly…..this races on into a frenzy metal Motor GP sandwiched nicely around an LA Sunset Strip guitar solo … you can almost hear the Lemmy playing the fruit machine at The Rainbow!
Now can I stay at the ‘Firestorm Hotel’? Sounds like a whole lot of rockin trouble to me! A speeded up honky tonk of a tune with Judas Priest-esque breaks throughout and a sleazy voiced Lemmy, sounding naughtily sly….perfection!
WOW hear Mikky hit those double bass peddles like a maniac!! ‘Shoot Out All The Lights’ … another exceptionally well crafted ditty, made to sound garage punk … clever, clever, clever.
A hint of Ministry N.W.O and a soupcon of Rammstein provides you with a metal meal to bring you to your knees with ‘Choking On Your Screams’. Superb connection between the trio ensures heavy satisfaction with a rampage of bass, drums and wailing guitar.
My one disappointment was the cover of ‘Sympathy for The Devil’ … not because the heads do this badly, they don’t, but, even though it is was one favourite Stones tracks, I feel it has been covered to death.
What I love about this album is that you can hear Lemmy’s life, you can hear he is older and he is singing a little slower, but it is as if all the touring, bad behaviour and basically damn good fun is embroiled into Bad Magic. Mikky and Phil continue as the old prefect pros they are, with Phil’s lead on songs like ‘Electricity’ simply ear blasting.
Bad Magic sounds like Motorhead, tastes like Motorhead, IS Motorhead….if it ain’t broke why fix it ?
Interview With Jackie Chambers of Girlschool For myglobalmind.com
Thank you Jackie for agreeing to talk to us today! Girlschool have been a band that many a rock chick have looked up to since their beginnings in 1975 …. I believe you joined the band in 1999. Can you tell us how you recruitment came about and your music history before this?
You're very welcome!
Before GS I played in various bands, mostly punk bands in Leeds, a couple of signed bands but none that really did that much. In 1995 whilst living in London I was looking for a new band so put an advert in the Melody Maker, a music paper here, Kim answered it as she was looking to do a side project as well as GS. We met up for a drink that night, got on really well and started to write together in my little home studio. Kelly was in the band then but wanted to do something different and asked me if I would join the band. At that time I'd never played a lead guitar solo in my life so just laughed it off, but she kept asking and then in 1999 I said OK you teach me the songs and we'll take it from there until my fingers bleed and the rest is history.
As a female in the rock world, would you say it has been harder to make your mark inthe music industry or is that really just a fallacy these days? And is there a difference between USA and UK reactions to women in rock?
I do think it is harder yes, but GS seemed to be around at a good time and being spotted by Lemmy brought them to the publics notice. Right time and place is always a factor for bands and it worked in GS's favour back then. The fact that we are women shouldn't make any difference at all but it does seem harder for female bands to break through.
I don't think there is a difference no! Real rock fans just want to hear the music they're not thrown by gender. We've just come back from a north American tour and it went really well in the main. GS had a gold album in Canada so we had a great reaction there.
Can you tell us the make of guitar you favour?
The one I use the most is my Chandler which is a custom made one for me, so it's all set up how I want it, good weight, good feel, all very important!
I hear you have just been doing shows in the Nordics can you tell us more about these?
We just did the Metal Festival in Denmark which is relatively new festival and that was great fun, well organised, great crowd as always and the rain stopped after a song or two so no hair went curly during the show...lol We played a couple of shows in Finland last yr too as well as a festival so hopefully we'll get to come back again to maybe Swedenrock, which is one of my personal favourite festivals. I know we are playing Norway,Sweden and Finland on the Motorhead/Saxon/Girlschool tour later this yr.
And you will be touring again with your buddies Motorhead in November, you guys have such a history together … how did that all begin?
Yes a big history there. the girls recorded 'take it all away' as their first single, Lemmy heard it, liked it, came along to see them at a rehearsal and thn took them on tour with them. Since then we've done a couple more tours with them whilst I've been in the band and like you say we are about to go out again for their 40th anniversary shows this yr. Besides that there have been a few recorded songs together too, 'Please Don't Touch' being the most well known on the ST Valentines Day Massacre EP. Since then Lemmy has added, vocals, bass and triangle to 'Don't Talk To Me' on our Legacy LP, as well as Phil Campbell playing on several tracks on the same album and Eddie Clark playing 1 of the solo's on our version of Metropolis, sure there are others too that I forget right now...
What hobbies do you have outside of music I hear you are big martial arts fan! I trained at Vos kickboxing gym a couple of times whilst living in Amsterdam .. it almost killed me !!
Yes I love Martial Arts, don't do it so much now but have Boxed, Kick boxed, done Karate and taught self defence in my time. Nowadays I'm far more laid back, I meditate as much as possible and I still do some sports, I play badminton every Thursday when I'm home.
I think Randy Rhoads was the most amazing guitar player and never tire of listening to him play. Who would you say was your biggest influence?
I love guitar players like Brian May, Billy Duffy and Steve Stevens, mainly because I love a good melodic guitar part, yes those guys and girls who play 100mph are amazing but I love a song and like the guitar to add to the song melodically and I think the 3 mentioned do.
Do you have any Girlschool news you would like to give us?
We have a new album coming out this yr in time for the Motorhead tour which is called 'GUILTY AS SIN' .It was produced by Chris Tsangarides so a whole new sound for us, like nicely raw and back to basic rock n roll again, Love it!
And finally, and one of my favourite questions I give people is, if you were having a dinner party and could invite 5 people dead or alive, who would they be and why ?
Very good question. I would invite Kelly Johnson as I'd love to catch up on all the GS stuff with he nice she passed , see how she likes it
2) Alice Cooper, because he's had such an influence on me throughout my life, Love his music. 3) David Bowie as he seems like a really interesting person 4) Jack Black as he'd be funny and would keep thee dinner party lively...lol and 5) Lemmy as he'd drink all the JD and that would stop me drinking it all.
THANKS
