Since TEAZE, got back together in 2019, this was my 3rd time to see the band. Since the previous show I saw (Windsor, 2022), the band have released 2 albums – Live At Liege (2025) and their first new studio album since 1980 – Rev Your Engines, came out earlier this summer. In their the band also went through a change in drummers, with Mike Kozak retiring, and new drummer Jim Bonventre joining the band and playing on the new album.
Prior to the show we learned that Jim was unable to play due to a health emergency the day before, but last minute arrangements were made with Mike Kozak stepping in. Prior to Teaze, Christian Vegh performed, as did Rick LaBonte And The Band Of Brothers. Rick’s set featured classic rock covers as well as originals. I preferred the originals, and look forward to Rick’s new album coming out in the near future.
Teaze came out, and with the last minute change in drummers, meant a couple of changes in the set-list, leaving out a couple of the new songs. But the set was full of the band’s high energy guitar rockers, which resembled the Live At Liege set, but with the band adding a few, notably a cover of Rainbow’s “Man On The Silver Mountain” (which is on Rev Your Engines) and fan favorite “Boys Night Out”. A Teaze live show is a genuinely good time; these guys play like they are having a great time, with Mark Bradac all over the place, and singer Brian Danter, sounding like he hasn’t aged (check out recent clips of “Heartless World“), and Kozak, who hadn’t played in 2 years, stepped in like he hadn’t left, and seemed to have a good time. The band is completed with guitarist Charlie Lambrick (who joined the band in 2019), who also produced and engineered the new album. I did take a few pics of Rick LaBonte And The Band Of Brothers, and an excessive amount of Teaze. So, for I’m just going to put them all here. Here’s looking forward to more shows from these guys!
American Hard-rock band DARK MILE released their 2nd album earlier this year titled Freight Train. The band consists of guitarists Tracy G (ex Dio) and Paul Alfery, along with bass player Randy Oviedo, and singer Mark Huff (ex Quiet Riot). Freight Train is a solid follow up to the band’s excellent debut, with plenty of heavy riffs and guitar rockers & anthems, and a ballad, for a change of pace.
When the first Dark Mile album came out in 2024 I’d interviewed Tracy G and Mark Huff (both elsewhere at this site), and with this album I recently spoke with guitarist,songwriter, engineer, Paul Alfery. I’d not recognized Paul before Dark Mile, but in digging up a bit of his past, Paul was a part of the LA scene in the ’80s, and has been recorded a number of albums with various bands over the years, a few of which are discussed here. He also discusses Freight Train, picks a few favorite albums, and shares a few stories from the old days.
*Check out Freight Train either on Youtube or Bandcamp. And check out the links at the end!.
The CD is just the cover art and the card, so I’m assuming you guys have done this all independently.
Yeah, we did it independently this time, Kevin, only because the last one …because obviously the label does what the label does. But these days it seems like labels give you kind of a 30-day window where they do a little bit of social media promotion, and then it’s kind of on to the next thing.
So, it’s hard to commit to a two, three year kind of tying up that record when you’re going to get 30 days or so of promotion. And, beyond that, it doesn’t seem like a whole lot’s happening. And truthfully, as much as I hate to say it, we didn’t sell as many CDs this time, but we made more money this time doing it on our own. And we’re not really doing this for the money. One of the interesting things, lately is a few people have called me about, Eddie Trunk talking about how, if you’re a band doing 80s hard rock and you didn’t have a hit in the 80s, you are wasting your time and spinning your wheels. Here’s my thing with that, so if guys like us just stop doing it completely and a bunch of other people join in, well, then this type of music just dies. And we still love this kind of music. We still like making this kind of music. I think you have to do it out of passion, rather than because – let’s face it, at this point in our lives, do we think there’s a chance that a major label deal and a giant tour and all that kind of stuff? Yeah. Pretty unlikely, obviously. But, still, there’s a core audience that loves this kind of music. We go on the Monsters of Rock Cruise every year, and that’s a great example of a really dedicated fan base that still loves this kind of music, and they turn out for that.
As a rock fan, I like it because I like the older bands that are still doing something new as opposed to those that haven’t done an album in 20 years and they’re still just kind of milking it. So, for me, I’m going to be honest, I initially picked up on this because I stumbled across you guys and the mentions of Tracy, because I know my Dio stuff and that.
Sure.
…And Mark from Quiet Riot. So, I thought the name association alone would have been a little more, I would have seen a little more out there.
Yeah, we thought the label would kind of run with that. To be honest with you. And for whatever reason, they didn’t.
I don’t think that we’ve ruled out the possibility of doing another label thing, I mean maybe for us it’s just not a good fit and that’s not necessarily the labels fault. The other thing is the label’s in Germany, we’re obviously over here. The other thing I guess would be, we’re not a touring band at the moment, and that’s obviously that’s a part of it – bands that are out there and slugging it out and trying to tour. What’s interesting to me is, I see people talking about how, well, the music business has changed, Spotify doesn’t pay, and people stream music these days, but then I also find people talking about how tours are extremely difficult because it’s so expensive to tour. So, what do you do to try to find the sweet-spot where you can still do this.
But we’re working on another record right now, because we all still love doing this and it’s a great bunch of guys. That’s the other side of this thing is, Tracy and I have been friends for many many years, Randy the bass player, I’ve known him for a long long time as well. Mark obviously for just the length of the time we’ve done the Dark Mile thing, but he’s also a great guy. So, it really makes this an easy project to work on because it’s doing what you like to do with a bunch of friends.
Have you guys done any shows? I know Mark kind of lives far from you guys correct!?
He does, and this may be my hang up more than anybody else’s because we’ve talked about it, but you know obviously with Tracy having done the DIO years and toured on that level, and Mark too to a certain extent, it’s hard to start from scratch again, and, go out and do little clubs and try to draw people. And I guess I look at it like “man those guys paid their dues and they played big shows”, and so I’ve tried to look for opportunities. I mentioned that Monsters of Rock for example, that’s a cool situation because it’s a built-in crowd. People go on that cruise because there are a bunch of bands on there. And the truth is, there’s a band called ‘Midnight City’, that is also a Pride and Joy band. So, actually, they were on the cruise last year; they’re on the cruise again this year. So, there is that side of it, and that would be a great opportunity to play a show like that because there’s a built-in crowd for it.
I talked to those guys previously, after the first album came out they had said you guys were already writing for the second album. So how fast do the albums come about for you guys?
We usually finish something within a year, and sometimes a little sooner. It was funny, the first record we finished Tracy said, “Well do we have to stop?” And I said “No, we can keep going Tracy”. So, we started working on stuff right away, and in that instance Tracy still had a fair amount of material from a project that he had worked on a few years back, and I heard some of that material thought it was really cool, so we started working on that.
This third one, at least so far – I probably have written a few more tunes, and so I guess the one thing about that is the way Tracy writes and the way I write are kind of two different things, so we’re not making the same record over and over again. Bands sometimes, I think have a difficult time, obviously you don’t want to strike too far away because you don’t want to alienate fans of your music; at the same time, nobody wants to hear the same record, two or three times in a row.
Yeah, I get a bit of a bit of differences in this one. The first one to me seemed to more 80s, almost a little more radio friendly in places. This (2nd) one, I get a little more heavier, but you have the ballad on here, which was something you didn’t have on the first album.
Which is interesting because one of the things we got a knock on the first record was “Well there’s no ballad”. So, we did it on this one, and then of course somebody came out and said, “I don’t really like the ballad”. You know what you can’t make all the people happy all the time.
It’s funny because in the ‘80s bands did ballads because that was their way to get on the radio.
There’s the other side of it is getting on the radio. What a tough deal that is! I’m trying to think…so, on the cruise last year, one of the XM Hair Nation DJs was on there, and my brother got stuck with him at the airport, and they got delayed. So, Dangerous Darren, I think is the guy who he goes by. Anyways, so my brother spent a couple of hours talking to this guy, so when they saw each other on the cruise my brother said, “Hey, let me introduce you to Dangerous Darren”. And I said, “I don’t have XM radio anymore because Hair Nation plays the same songs that are 35 years old, over and over and over again”. And he said, “Yeah, I know what you’re saying .”..I said “Is there any opportunity for new music?” I mean bands like Whitesnake have made good new records since ”Here I Go Again, which they play, on repeat forever. And he said, “We’re pretty much tied to a pretty strict playlist, and it’s the hits.” And of course that’s the truth with classic rock across the country here – pretty much it’s, Zeppelin, Skynyrd, 38 Special. Great bands, obviously, but all bands that have been around for 40 years. You’ll never hear, Eclipse, if you’re familiar, is a band from Sweden.
Yeah, I’ve got a few of their CDs.
Great band. Eric is a strong songwriter and I’ve talked to him a bunch on the cruise because they’re on there every other year. They’re doing great as a band, but obviously don’t get played over here. So, the reason they do the cruise is it gives them some sort of exposure in the United States that they really don’t get through radio, because radio just doesn’t play their stuff.
There’s a lot of good bands over there. All the post-reunion Europe albums have been heavier and rockier. I saw them when they played over here in Niagara Falls, New York at the casino and in 2016 when War of Kings came out. It was a 450-seat theater and it was like just over half full.
Yeah, it’s just tougher these days. Music competes with a lot of stuff these days too. I mean, that’s the other side of it, is that there’s so much stuff to do these days and music competes with all of it.
Can you tell me a bit about some of the songs, kind of how you guys develop them. and was Mark in on the writing on the first album or was it was all kind of done before he joined?
Most of it was done and for the most part, lyrics and all that stuff are usually either Tracy or I. Mark’s a great singer; he’s got super great character to his voice. But he’s still exploring the whole lyric writing and vocal melody thing on his end, so we’ve tried our best to try to kind of give him some guidance there, and we just absolutely love the tone of his voice. I mean that’s just one thing, it doesn’t matter how well you sing – if you don’t have that cool character to your voice, and he’s got that.
On this one, on the title track “Freight Train”, I kind of had more (I guess) to do with that particular one. I just was reading a book at that point, and it’s basically about a loner guy who shows up in these cities and runs into trouble and, takes care of things. So, it seemed like a good subject to write about. We’re always trying to write songs that are, a little deeper than kegger parties and Camaros, which, as you know, the 80s is so full of…or hot women or… It’s tough and it’s not like we want to get too deep and philosophical but we’re certainly trying to write a little more mature in that sense.
Some of the other songs on Tracy had, prior to the DIO gig, Don Arden was his manager. So, they had worked for a while and basically Don wanted to try to put Tracy with somebody and put something together that they could then basically shop a deal. So, Tracy worked with a few different singers at that point and so there are some songs left over from that period of time. And we kind of freshened some of those up and used those for the second one as well. So, some of those songs, they go back a ways, but we did try to freshen up a little bit.
There’s a lot of good riffs and a lot of heavy guitar, obviously throughout it with two you guys.
That’s another interesting side about Tracy is, obviously, he is kind of a heavier player. And, when we talked about doing the Dark Mile project, but he was doing much heavier sounding stuff. I was really the one that approached him and said, “Hey, what if we did something that was maybe a little more like the Dio days!?” I probably go back earlier Dio days than Angry Machines and that kind of stuff.
Tracy’s guitar playing brings a uniqueness to this because he’s just got a very unique style and a certain sound. And I think it works well because I probably represent a more, (I don’t know what’s the right word for it) I guess the more pop-metal – melodic side of things. I’ve certainly written things that probably aren’t that far away from Bon Jovi. Tracy tends to write heavier than that.
You guys only did one video. Did you guys do that all yourselves?
No, I think that one we had a company do it for us. We’ve since found somebody who, because AI these days is all the rage and Tracy has a buddy that contacted him and did a video for Tracy. For The Tracy G group. It’s an instrumental tune, and it’s on YouTube… But anyways, really cool AI video. We’re looking into doing something in the near future on that. So, I think there’ll be something else that comes along here pretty quick.
Can you talk a bit about a couple of the songs that kind of stand out for you? I like things like “Eye On You”, “Lost”, and “World’s Gone Mad”, which is a single, and “Reason” – the Ballad. So, kind of stands out for you as far as ‘if you guys were to do a set list’. What do you think you would have to pull from this?
It would be a combination. We would certainly pull a few songs from the second one. The first one, obviously, we probably got more traction because it was attached to a label. And some of those songs… I obviously look at Spotify and look at streaming numbers and all that kind of stuff, and certainly songs like “The Boy” has a ton of streams, comparatively speaking. But, I think you just have to go through and pull out what you think are your strongest songs and put together a set list based on that.
We would like to get it together and play live. It would be really a cool thing. We’ve certainly talked about it, and I’m certainly not ruling that out.
I want to ask a bit about your before Dark Mile. You were in Gale Force with Tracy. I’ve looked that up a few times on Discogs and I don’t see a copy of it for like under 60 bucks or something.
Which is ridiculous. So…That was a project with Michael Drive, who was the singer for Barron Cross. If you remember Barron Cross, they were like a Christian metal band, kind of at the same time Stryper was doing what Stryper was doing. And then they broke up for whatever reason. But I think they have recently gotten back together and they’re doing some shows; that kind of thing. So, it was a cool project. At the same time Michael had very definitive ideas of what he wanted to do, and I guess I had fairly definitive ideas of what I wanted to do, and they just didn’t quite line up. We’ve talked about that too. I will say one thing; Michael is incredible about the accounting aspect of it – we all get a little bit of money every quarter and, the spreadsheet he sends us, I think, man, this guy is on it. He’s really good at it. So, it’s a wonderful thing that that is a project that continues to generate a little bit of money. It’s not, (again) not the real reason we’re doing this, but he has a pretty good fan base, and that really helped with promoting that project. And of course, Tracy’s also got a pretty good fan base and Mark has some too. So, we certainly count on that.
I did a project, I guess 2021 is when it came out, called ‘Walk the Walk’. So that was on AOR Heaven. And that record actually, as far as sheer numbers sold more than anything else. So that’s five years ago. And AOR Heaven was a really cool label. They did a really good job. I thought the promotion that they did for that record was incredible. I mean, I was really busy. It was right in the middle of COVID, so it was a very strange time, obviously. But I did a ton of interviews and there were a ton of reviews online, and it really kind of propelled that record to do some numbers because the word got out. That’s really the key these days, when you put a record out, it’s finding the way to promote it so that it really gets noticed, and obviously, it just gets harder and harder these days. There’s obviously Facebook, there’s TikTok, there’s Instagram; there’s lots of different things. And, we’ve all talked about it would be wonderful to find somebody who had like the magic path to really getting the word out.
What else you did you play in prior to this; what other bands were you in, and what did you grow upon?
Tracy and I were playing around in the Southern California area, at about the same time. Ironically, and this is just a goofy story but we’ve talked about this, and I think it was when we were initially starting to talk about doing the Dark Mile thing and talking about what influenced us and all that and I told him Well, I saw Van Halen when I was 15 years old.
And he said, Yeah, I would have been some of those shows. And we started talking about the specific show because I mean the first time I saw Van Halen, it just changed my life. I was like ‘Wow!’ Such an inspirational thing, and I just thought well I got to learn how to play guitar. So, we ended up talking about it. It was in a bowling alley; cost a dollar to get in. They were doing covers for the most part. This was really early, this would have been 1975, maybe 1976, right around that time. So they’re still not signed yet, they’re just a local band. But Tracy and I are at that very first same Van Halen show – we don’t know each other yet, we haven’t met each other, but we’re at that same show, which is a kind of an interesting thing. So we’ve talked about the fact that while neither one of us plays anything like Ed, he was absolutely an influence.
And just watching those guys, do what they did and follow the path that they did. I mean it was really a cool thing to witness. Great band.
So, Tracy was playing around in a band called ‘Riff Raff’, I think, at the time, and I was in a band called Inside Out, and we were both doing the Sunset strip. And there was lots of other areas, the clubs that were off the strip but still part of that whole kind of scene. We did all that for a number of years, and of course, there was that period of time where a lot of bands are getting picked up. In some cases bands that I don’t think really deserved to get picked up but they had the look and they kind of sounded like what the whole ’80s hair metal thing was at the time. And of course you just hope that you got caught up in all that, but that didn’t happen. But Tracy, on the other hand, I did watch him. I heard through the grapevine that he had got the DIO gig. And that came about, I think, because of a band called World War Three.
That was what the guys from Dio’s band.
Yeah, Jeff Pillson was in that at one point. And I think that what happened is, Dio was looking for a guitar player and Vinnie (Appice) said, I know somebody. So Tracy got the call for that, obviously. I think at that point, I’m still in California, but I got a call from Tracy at one point, and we didn’t know each other well yet, and he said, I don’t know if you remember me, my name is Tracy Grijalva, and I said, You’re the guitar player for Dio. I know who you are. And he said, I’ve got this Roland product that I can use some help with. So we connected on that he was starting to record demos. I knew how to use the digital recorder that he had. So, he came over to the house and that is kind of the start of the friendship, all through that.
Other than Van Halen, what sort of stuff did you kind of do? Were you a regular show goer?
Oh, yeah! I mean, pretty much on the Sunset Strip as many weekends as possible. And obviously, there was just a lot of great bands out here doing that whole thing. There were bands that I thought Why didn’t these guys make it? It’s always such a right place, right time, stars aligned a certain way. You never know why.
There was a band out here called ‘Smile’. They did shows with Van Halen all the time. And they were certainly a different band than Van Halen; they were not like them. I would call them more of a straight-ahead rock band and not kind of the party-rock thing that Van Halen was known for at the time. But incredible band! Great front man, great guitar player, really good songs. They signed to Curve Records, put out a record, apparently went out and did a little bit of a tour, and it just didn’t go anywhere. I just thought, These guys, I felt like they had everything going for them that, in many ways Van Halen did, and it just didn’t happen.
But yeah, a lot of really, really good bands I saw. Obviously early things. I remember going to a club and seeing a band called ‘Sister’ and thinking, Well, this is certainly interesting. And of course, that ended up being Wasp eventually. So, it was kind of interesting to see certain things develop. There was kind of the musical chairs thing – you watch guys go from this band to that band and all that kind of stuff. Nikki Sixx was knocking around back then doing that band London. We were playing at a place in Pasadena, California. It was a sandwich shop in the daytime, but a club at night, and it was certainly a long ways from the Sunset Strip, but many of the bands that played the Strip would also play this place. So, I went by to pick up a check from playing the weekend before, and the booker tells me, You should stick around tonight. And I said, Why? And he said, Because there’s this band playing, I think you might find that they’re interesting. And I said, OK, who is it? And he said, well, They look a little bit like the New York Dolls. They’re called Motley Crue. And those guys walked out and… it was among their earliest, earliest shows, because I still have the single that Vince was handing out that night, which I think is “Toast Of The Town”, and some other goofy song on there. So, it’s pretty rare single these days.
So, obviously I saw that and thought, Well, these guys look like they’ve got some money behind them. And they certainly had the image, and the songs were pretty catchy then too.
Did you see Y&T out there a lot?
Lots. Yeah!
Another band that didn’t become so big…
Yeah, there’s a great example, right!? Why didn’t they get bigger? They play the Monsters Rock Cruise, that I keep talking about. They’re on it a lot. And people love them and know the songs and all that. But, again, that’s a very dedicated crowd to that kind of music. Other than “Summertime Girls”, Y & T didn’t get a lot of radio play.
Yeah, that’s too bad. I have a friend up here in Canada who put out a review book on them last year.
And Dave Meniketti is the nicest guy. And sounds great. He’s a great example a guy who’s been in this business for a long, long time…And obviously, lots of us are not young guys anymore, but when Dave sings; he can belt it out and he plays guitar great.
What else do you guys got on the go, musically
So Tracy, he has another project that he’s doing, I think it’s just going out as the Tracy G Group. And there’s a new singer and they’re working on that. Mark, I think, he does some painting and so he’s busy doing that kind of stuff. I tried to kind of get out of the musical manufacturing industry, but it’s like once you’re in it, it is hard to get out of it. So, I work for an independent rep firm now, really just part-time, which is really cool. My boss is incredibly nice about it; he knows that I don’t want to do this eight hours a day, so I do it for a part of the day and then it frees up my afternoons to do the recording thing. And of course, I’ve got multiple projects going too.
Actually, there will be a new Walk The Walk record, which is about to come out. Really, really good singer, originally from Iran of all places. His name is Hadi Kiani, great vocalist, really, really good. I did all the instruments and he did the vocals. And, we kicked that one around for a while. We approached Frontiers. Frontiers, it seems like they’re looking for little supergroups now.
Yeah, they’ve got a lot of bands that they seem to put together and they put on an album and you never hear from them again, until they do a volume two or something.
Yeah, ever since Alessandro Del Vecchio left that label, it’s not quite the same. I mean, obviously, he was a very important part of things And, that first Dark Mile, Alessandro was still the guy at Frontiers at the time, and he got back to us and said, I like this. We might take a chance on this. It didn’t happen because somebody on the team apparently just didn’t have complete faith in it. But Alessandro was always very kind and said, I like this record. I think it should be out there.
Can you give me five albums (roughly), from your youth?
The first Van Halen record, Absolutely! I’ll go with the first Montrose record. That’s even further back. Rainbow Rising. I’m going to say Deep Purple Stormbringer And, this is an odd one but Accept Balls to the Wall – I Love that record! I’ve always thought the guitar tone on that song. I mean it’s just a loud Marshall, but they just somehow captured a guitar tone that I think a lot of people go, How do I get that sound?, because it’s just great.
There’s a lot of good European bands are still going; Helloween I listen to them once in a while.
Sure. And Wigwam is a band, they’ve been around a while. Absolutely love that band! And they’re still out there. They’re still slugging it out. And then, of course, the new guys, I would put, Eclipse and Heat. There’s quite a few, you know the guys are probably in their 30s, 40s, and they discovered this music and decided to give it a go.
There’s that band called Nestor…
Great band. Love that band It’s funny you say that, the year before on the Monsters of Rock Cruise, they did not announce Nestor as being part of it. And because we’ve been on some of these cruises, we go to this meeting where they ask questions and all that, and we said, What are the chances Nestor is on the boat next year? And Larry, who runs the cruise, said, You might just want to keep an eye on things. So we knew that they were booked. They were on the cruise last year. Just great guys.
It’s really funny, too, my wife wanted to get a picture with those guys, so we were walking, down a hallway in the ship and those guys were all standing outside the bathroom. They yanked the lead singer out of the bathroom to take a picture with my wife. And I just thought, Just let the guy use the restroom, please (lol)
Canadian band TRIUMPH have just announced a 2nd leg to their Rock & Roll Machine Reloaded tour, which includes APRIL WINE as openers. There is 16 US dates. See links below.
British keyboard player & songwriter Phil Lanzon is best known to us Uriah Heep fans, as he’s been a big part of the band for 40 years now. He’s also previously released 2 albums, and his third album has just been issued on CD and digitally, and it is nothing like the band he is apart of or his other 2 solo albums. The Golden Door is a concept album, featuring songs written by Phil. The story is that of Ellis Island, where European immigrants came to America first, escaping the war in 1917. *There are a couple of links at the bottom of the page where you can read more details on the story, as well as the whole plan and concept behind The Golden Door.
I spoke to Phil about The Golden Door, how it all came about, was recorded, and plans to one day get it in theatres. You can order the CD via Phil’s website (store): https://www.phillanzonwordsandmusic.com/shop , as well as check it out online, Youtube, Spotify...
You’ve talked about working with an orchestra before and doing something long term. So where did this all come from? What kind of got it rolling as far as the whole story and getting it to where it’s finished?
Well, I was given the script by my late partner who passed away just at the beginning of COVID. Many years ago, 15, 16 years ago, he gave me the script and said, I’ve got an idea. There’s a story here, read it and see if you want to make it into a musical. And I said, I don’t like musicals, not my thing. So, so he said, Well, just take it out and read it and pick out one of the characters, maybe, do something like that. Have a go, see what happens. I reluctantly took the script home and read it, and I liked it straight away. The story substance was interesting to me. And I thought, well, I’ll give it a go. So, I started messing about on the piano. I came up with two or three ideas, which he liked very much and said, keep going, keep going. This is like 15 years ago. And over time, rather than go into the details, to put it simply, we spend a lot of time on the script, perfecting the script and the songs for the characters. As years went by, we got more and more songs happening, or a lot more then. And we had a going concern after about five years of slogging away at it. We sent it out to theatres in America but everyone was busy with their own projects and we couldn’t get a bite. And we thought, well, maybe it’s not an American debut idea. It should debut in England, in the UK, and then it could spread from there. So that’s been the idea ever since.
I’ve read most of what’s on the website.
That’s great. So, what happened during that time, I’ve been obviously touring with Heep and going all over the world. And I put I did shelf the project about five, six years ago, thinking, Well, I’m too busy with the band, and we’re writing stuff; the next album was coming, etc, etc. So I left it for about a year on the shelf.
And then it just occurred to me that that was a mistake, the wrong thing to do. I said, I’ve got to pull those songs out and get them re-recorded with session people properly. And because of that, my producer, Joan Lane – when I sent her the finished demos – she was blown away so much. She said, Oh, we’ve got to go all the way with this…boots and braces! So, that’s what I want to hear.
So, we just pushed on from there. What we needed was an album, of course, so I finished off a whole lot more songs as time went by, and selected them and put them together. And the album is out there now being listened to on YouTube/Spotify, everyone can now hear the entire album with the spoken word sections put in….So you can get a kind of flow for the whole story.
It’s obviously not a rock album. Did you do the demos differently, or the same as you would approach to do a solo album or a Heep album?
Yeah, probably more because the songs are character based, and my other albums are not character based, they’re just rock songs. And because they’re character based, they pull in a different flavour. Obviously it’s a different genre. It’s got some rock elements in it, but it’s not a rock album. I call it a rock and ballads album. But because you’re in musical theatre world, and because of that, you write accordingly. I’m not trying not to be derivative or typical, how do I say typical…? musical songs that you hear in musicals that can be a little bit twee, a little bit, not really my cup of tea. But I found the genre interesting and more rewarding than anything I’ve ever done.
And because they’re character based, it brings on it’s own life because you know, the story, the script, I’ve helped change the script a little bit over time and worked on that an awful lot. So,it’s really been a work in progress. And I think we’ve reached a stage where now we need a top producer and an investor. And that’s the aim.
I imagine this was probably a little more costly than doing a rock album. Were you there for everything – all the orchestration sessions, all the choir sessions…?
Yeah, absolutely. I’m present on everything; anything going down I’m there. Singers, players, orchestra, conductor, arranging… I’m there all the time. You have to be, you have to be right on it.
How new were you to the whole, working with the orchestra and finding the choirs and the right players?
Yeah, well I have got contacts through my producer – Simon Hanhart, and the orchestrator – John Cameron. These are contacts I’ve been able to acquire. And singers wise, Annie Skates is an agent for an awful lot, if not all of the West End singers. She brought in a lot of people. And my producer, Joan, she knows a lot of people as well. So, between all those contacts, that’s where everyone came from. I don’t personally know them myself, apart from three of the singers on the album, which I have used on my previous albums. But that’s how it’s all come about, is knowing those people, and the combination of people I’ve used, some of which I’ve done before, has proved to work out so well.
I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out. I’ve worked with the string orchestra on my other albums as well. I’ve had great help from Richard Cottle from my previous solo albums.
Is there a firm plan to do like a live performance of this and get it into the theatres?
Oh, no. Well, we need a producer to create a stage production. That’s what we’re aiming for, right!? We need a stage production. But when that comes along, I shall press up vinyl, obviously. We’re now beginning to look at theatres in America as well as the UK.
As far as the story goes, do you have like a, are you a bit of a history buff as far as reading? Because I know like with the last album, 48 Seconds, you had the story about the fire and that.
I’ve always been a reader and, I pick up on certain historic things. I think that’s why I like the story, The Golden Door. The thing for me really is it’s, it’s important. It’s a very optimistic piece. It’s an optimistic piece, which kind of points, if you like, to what the immigrants at the time thought they would get in America. So, it’s optimism all the way through, you know, Wecan’t wait to get there.I’ll get a job… The dream was there. And I think it presents that side of it. And there’s so many American people, Canadian and American people who will have a relative or at least know somebody who was connected with that period in time. And it touches an emotional point, really.
The album is out there on YouTube and that, but is there a plan to kind of release any video or single, kind of something that will market it to your own fans?
I’m pretty sure that that that will come. It’s just very early days as we speak. But certainly, there’ll be movements in that area. I think we’ve farmed the album out to a lot of important people. And we’re sitting on that for a while to see what way we’re going to go.
But yes, is the answer to all those. They will all come.
Do you think when you get to the stage production, anything would change as far as adding more to it or the arrangements?
Yeah, for sure. Stage production in a musical changes every minute, almost. It’s just constant change. And even up until first night, things will change. And even after first night, there’ll be the comments – Well, we need to cut this out, we need to add this bit in. We need to put that in. There’s no end.
Is there something you’ve been looking forward to a long time as far as even like way back to, I guess, in the 70s, you didn’t, you weren’t in really rock bands for a while there, but?
No, I would never, ever think I would be involved in musical theatre at all. That was never in my mind, ever. But then as they go, you can never say never. And it grew out of something small and became this.
I think it’s kind of similar, as a rock fan, as you get older, you discover more things you thought you would never like or things you thought you would never listen to.
Do you foresee yourself doing more of this sort of thing? Or would you rather go back to doing another regular type of solo album?
I have no idea. I’m actually treating it like my third solo album, because that’s what it is.
Yeah, it’s got your name on it.
But it’s slightly different, maybe slightly different to the other two. But hey, you know, change is as good as the rest! And it’s exciting work, working on a script with characters and making the music that suits that character. And that’s very rewarding.
It’s really an important point to make. Very rewarding work, because it’s so different to a rock band, which in it’s own way is also rewarding, but in a different way. Whereas this is new, and very enjoyable. I’d like to do it again. It would be hard to find the right subject matter.
Did you did you find yourself doing a lot of research and then going back and correcting things factually as far as it goes?
Yeah, many, many, many times. I’ve done a lot of reading on it. Now, no doubt, when we make it to the stage production, and it starts getting noticed, and people are turning up to see that, there’s bound to be the odd comment, it’s going to happen – Oh, that bit was wrong. What you said there, that didn’t happen. Or, You missed the bit where so and so happened. That’s exactly what will happen. It’s got to be; It’s inevitable.
What else do you got on the go other than just touring?
Well, this has taken up all my time. I’m at home…I still do my artwork. I put stuff out on my Instagram. That’s really all my time. I haven’t got a lot of time for much else.
Dare I ask if there’s anything on the Heep front? Any kind of recording ?
Oh, recording. No, not yet, we’re talking about that. I don’t think there’s anything planned at the moment. That’s all I can say.
Well, another April Wine list! This is 7 April Wine opening tracks that really stand out from the band’s 16 studio albums. These are the ones to me, that had the most impact for the album, the band, the era… A few of these still feature in the band’s live show. Drop a comment if there’s a few different choice you might have.
Anything You Want, You Got It
From 1982’s Powerplay album. This is one of those perfect openers, it’s a big rocker, and lyrically and musically geared for the stage, with plenty of room and opportunity to get the audience involved. Made for a great show opener, as it would also lead off the band’s live One For The Road album.
Oohwatanite
From 1975’s Stand Back album. A huge album at the time. This opener was written and sang by Jim Clench, who left the band after the record. The song, with it’s unmistable fire-bell intro is one of the band’s trademark songs, always in the set list, always a highlight of the show. Sung by a few different members over the years.
I Like To Rock
The intro 1979’s Harder…Faster. One of the band’s most loved songs by long time fans, usually finishing at the top of fan polls.. Cool build up in the intro. with 3 guitars, and Steve Lang’s bass. Also a memorable solo and outro, with the blend of the riffs to “Satisfaction” and “Day Tripper”.
Weeping Widow
Sang by Jim Clench, written by British songwriter Robert Wright. A classic intro to 1973’s Electric Jewels. A unique acoustic intro, with vocals next, before the band kicks in, making this quite a heavier track.
Look Into The Sun
The Frigate album, from 1994 wasn’t overly heavy, but this lead off track was one of (if not, The) heaviest songs the band ever did, one of the closest things to ‘heavy metal’. A bit of an oddity on that album, but it’s a killer start.
This Could Be The Right One
1984’s Animal Grace was the band’s last studio album with the classic 3 guitar line-up before they split, following a Canadian tour. I thought this was a great song, and highly energetic, rockin’ start to the album. It would be the only song from it that the band played live.
Hot On The Wheels Of Love
This track kicks off 1978’s First Glance, and really kicks off a whole new chapter in the band’s history. Lots going on in this one, between that rain sounds before the riff kicks in, and the Myles Goodwyn goes on to tell his tale (true) of stealing a car to go see a girl. Cool slide guitar in there, and that police talk over the CB (Brian Greenway) reminds me of a scene from Live And Let Die.
When KINGDOM COME came out in 1988, with their self-styled debut, and the single “Get It On”, the band drew an instant comparison to Led Zeppelin, and to some, not in a good way. The single was heard as a rip-off of “Kashmir”, and the band’s sound, particularly singer Lenny Wolf, were criticised for being blatantly using Zeppelin and Robert Plant’s (vocal) style. At that point I barely knew much of Zeppelin, and to me Kingdom Come was just another good new band to come out in the 80s. And to be fair, KC weren’t the first band to try and sound like Zeppelin. Instead of embracing the Zeppelin influence though, in interviews the band members played it down, which upset critics, and still does. Again, I didn’t care, I liked the album, the sound, Wolf’s vocals…
Kingdom Come was an album I picked up on cassette early on, and played regularly. I’d later get the LP and a 12 inch single. The lead off track “Living Out Of Touch” is probably my favorite here, great riff to start off. “Pushin’ Hard” keeps up the rock pave, a bit heavier, followed by the ballad “What Love Can Be”, a good song (and single), with Wolf delivering a fairly Robert Plant influenced vocal. The first side also features two more heavier tracks, the bluesier “17” (not comment on the lyrics), and rockier “The Shuffle”. Love the overall sound of this album; the guitars sound clean and heavy, and James Kottak’s drums really drive this whole thing.
The second side opens with the band’s best known song (and single) “Get It On”, but I prefer the next few tracks “Now, Forever After”, the slow but heavy, sort of ballad “Hideway”. The band also offered up an acoustic ballad in “Loving You” (this is more reminiscent of Zeppelin than most anything else here, to me). The album ends with a pretty cool anthem in “Shout It Out”. Not a dodgy track here.
This album got a worldwide release on Polydor, and went Gold upon release in the US, and would go Platinum there, as well as Canada and Germany. So for all the critisism they may have gotten, they did pretty damn good with this debut. Kingdom Come followed this up a year later with their 2nd album In Your Face, which I thought was just as good, but it did not have the impact the first one had. They split up following In Your Face, with Lenny Wolf carrying on the band name for years to come releasing a dozen more albums with different players, before he retired in 2016.
Finland´s own “Queen of the Slide Guitar” Erja Lyytinen is celebrating her 50th Birthday with a lavish live album package consisting of a double CD, double vinyl and a full-length DVD, which was recorded at the prestigious House of Culture, known as “Kultsa” in Helsinki Finland on 21st March 2026. The venue House of Culture has a long tradition as a live music locale, where renowned artists from Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Queen, and Slayer have performed.
Entitled Erja Lyytinen – 50th Birthday Live 2026, the spectacular live album is released by Tuohi Records on Friday October 9 and is available to pre-order on CD and vinyl HERE, and digitally HERE.
The first single take from Erja Lyytinen – 50th Birthday Live 2026 album is Lyytinen´s song “One Thing I Won’t Change” that features glam rock and punk-legend Sami Yaffa (Hanoi Rocks, New York Dolls, Joan Jett) on bass guitar and on backing vocals. The live single is available on all streaming platforms HERE.
The chemistry between the two musicians’ sparkles on this song, which combines blues and classic rock and has an infectious chorus, which makes you move!
Erja’s amazing band back her through this 90-minute-long concert full of old gems from her career. The release features songs from albums such as Voracious Love, Another World, and the latest studio album Smell the Roses.
This is a heavy blues rock show with international stars. Erja brought her favourite artists to perform alongside her on the show. Swedish banjo punk/blues group Baskery featured on the song “Torn” with Erja accompanying their vocals with her guitar. Legendary bassist Sami Yaffa (Joan Jett, Hanoi Rocks, New York Dolls) joined Erja and her band on the track “One Thing I Won´t Change” and you can certainly feel their energy, while they rock out to this tune that was rearranged for the event from the album Forbidden Fruit (2012) to celebrate life and Erja´s musical skills today.
Photo by-elsa-wellamo
The evening starts with an introduction from Erja´s twin boys inviting the group on stage and after that the first band song “Ball and Chain” kicks in hard. We also hear “Smell the Roses” and “Going to Hell” from the latest studio album, before the set list continues with songs from older gems such as the rocking “Bird,” Erja’s beautiful slide solo take on “Lullaby,” the lushy “Cherry Overdrive” and “Nasty Weather” from Erja´s “Dreamland Blues” album. The latter was recorded in Mississippi in 2006 with Kinney and David Kimbrough and has now been played and renewed exactly twenty years after.
On the song “Another World,” Erja makes a vocal break down, where a thousand people in the audience join her to sing along and savor this great moment together. The live recording also includes “Stoney Creek” and “The Ring” as an encore song, that wrap up the joyous evening at House of Culture on Erja´s Birthday.
Additionally, the live album contains a concert from the “Smell the Roses” studio album release tour in October 2025. Recorded in Tempo, Mikkeli Finland, this recording has all the album songs, like “Dragonfly,” the heavy “Abyss,” the heart wrenching ballad “Empty Hours,” huge southern-rock vibey “Wings to Fly” and in addition Erja´s favorite live tracks “You Talk Dirty” and a 13-minute-long rendition of “Wedding Day”. The latter was originally recorded on the album Another World together with slide maestro Sonny Landreth.
photo-by-elsa-wellamo
Erja Lyytinen – 50th Birthday Live 2026 album is a great package showing that this firecracker lady continues to enjoy playing live and isn´t anywhere near ready to stop making music and developing herself as a musician, songwriter, and entertainer. This live album is a must for all Erja fans, who enjoy unique hard rock and blues music played with an attitude. And it will leave you with a smile on your face!
50TH BIRTHDAY LIVE 2026
CD/DVD 1. Introduction by Massimo & Dante (0:50) 2. The Road Leading Home (1:21) 3. Ball and Chain (4:55) 4. Smell the Roses (5:29) 5. Going to Hell (5:28) 6. Hard as Stone (4:48) 7. Bird (6:46) 8. One Thing I Won’t Change featuring Sami Yaffa (4:19) 9. Another World (7:23) 10. Torn featuring Baskery (3:54) 11. Lullaby (2:03) 12. Nasty Weather (4:01) (Only DVD) 13. Cherry Overdrive (5:59) 14. Don’t Let a Good Woman Down (4:01) 15. You Talk Dirty (6:51) 16. Stoney Creek (7:45) 17. The Ring (7:12)
SMELL THE ROSES LIVE 2025
CD 1. Ball and Chain (4:48) 2. Smell the Roses (4:55) 3. Dragonfly (7:54) 4. Going to Hell (5:00) 5. Abyss (7:24) 6. Stoney Creek (6:09) 7. The Ring (7:10) 8. Empty Hours (5:08) 9. Wings to Fly (7:00) 10. You Talk Dirty (8:52) 11. Wedding Day (13:19)
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Erja Lyytinen – Vocals, guitars Harri Taittonen – Hammond, backing vocals Heikki Saarenkunnas – Bass, backing vocals Jesse Lehto – Drums Olli Huttunen – FOH Sound engineer Santtu Lehtiniemi – Guitar tech Elsa Wellamo – Photography Marko von Konow – Graphic design
Recorded by Olli Huttunen at Mikkeli, Tempo, Finland on 03.10.2025 and House of Culture, Helsinki Finland on 21.03.2026 Mixed by Matias Kiiveri at Hollywood House, Helsinki Finland 2026 Mastered by Svante Forsbäck at Chartmakers, Espoo Finland 2026 Executive producer Erja Lyytinen for Bluesland Productions/Tuohi Records
When 1985s Power Windows came out, I loved the lead off single “Big Money”. Again, it was different than their previous album, a step further into their change to a more keyboard sound, modern, lighter…but beyond “Big Money”, I didn’t get too much into Power Windows. I saw that tour, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, but that was the last Rush album I picked up early on in release, and last tour until the 2000s.
Roll The Bones was produced by Rupert Hine, a British musican/producer, who was more known for producing more 80s pop & New wave then, such as The Fixx, Howard Jones, and The Thompson Twins. He did do a couple of excellent Saga albums as well. So, with Rush’s lighter and modern direction for the past few albums, Hine, I guess, seemed like a good fit for what the band was going for then.
This album featured the singles – “Dreamline” (promo) “Ghost Of A Chance” (US, UK, Germany) and the title track. “Roll The Bones” (being the only video released), is the best known from this album, with it’s brief ‘rap’ section, which though I could do without, it is something different (again) and made for a great visual video and live. The stand-out track on this album for though is “Bravado”, and hearing this one in recent months (prior to the tour) is what had me revisiting this album. Seeing the live clips of it from the 50 Something Tour, and then hearing it in Toronto, along with the Neal Peart tribute collection of photos that went along with it, made more of an impact. Such a unqiue melody, lyirc and song in the band’s catalogue. One thing about the lighter sound, Alex Lifeson’s solos were always spot on during this period, such as on “Bravado”. Although I really like the 3 songs chosen as singles, I can’t imagine why “Bravado” was not issued as a single (tho there was promos of this in the US & France).
Other good songs on Roll The Bones (for me) include the instrumental “Where’s My Thing” (which was nominated for a Grammy), and “Heresy”. Can’t say I’m crazy about everything here, but there is enough classic Rush to make me want to put this on more, and rethink and revisit previous albums I never really got into so much.
The list of reunions and reformations of great Canadian bands adds another to 2026, with a new line up of progressive band ‘FM’ scheduled to play a 50th Anniversary show in Toronto, in November.
FM, formed in the mid 70s, with Cameron Hawkins (keyboards, lead vocals, bass) and Nash The Slash (electric violins, madolin, vocals…), and first appeared on TVOntario, performing as a duo. They added (drummer) Martin Deller to record their debut album Black Noise, which became a Canadian classic, featuring the band’s best known (and still played on classic rock radio here), “Phasors On Stun“. Slash left, recording numerous solo albums, and was replaced by Ben Mink. This line up recorded Head Room (aka Direct To Disc), Surveillance, and City Of Fear. The latter 2 albums included such favorites as “Horizons”, the band’s cover of “Shapes Of Things“, “City Of Fear“, and “Surface To Air”.
After a hiatus, the band reformed with Nash The Slash, for 1985’s more modern radio friendly (AOR) album Con-Test, followed by 1987’s Tonight (with drummer Greg Chrchley and added guitariast Simon Brierley)). With these 2 albums, FM had a few hit singles in Canada, and could be seen on MuchMusic with songs like “Just Like You” and “Dream Girl“. FM also opened 4 shows for Rush in Ontario, on Rush’s Power Windows tour in 1986.
The band went through a few more line up changes, with Nash The Slash leaving following the Tonight tour. By the end of the 80s, FM was Cameron Hawkins, Simon Brierley, Martin Shaw (mandolin & violin), and Paul Marangoni (drums). This line up played some shows and recorded material that was never released.
In 1994 Hawkins, Deller, and Nash The Slash reunited for the CD release of Black Noise. They played 5 shows in Ontario, (I attended 2 of these.) From this tour, Retroactive: FM Archives, Volume 1. was recorded. An excellent live album, but there wouldn’t be a follow up. FM next appeared in 2006, at NEARfest, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (with another live CD & DVD from this show). Another new line up was put together for the 2015 album Transformation. And that is the last release/activity from FM until the announcement of a 50th Anniversary show.
THE HUNT was a short-lived band that formed out of the break-up of Canadian band DILLINGER, who had 2 albums. The original line-up of The Hunt released 1 album, and it is the band’s best and one that is highly recommended. The line up included Paul Cockburn (guitars) and Jacques Harrison (keyboards, lead vocals), both ex of Dillinger, along with Paul Kersey (drummer; ex Max Webster), Gerry Mosby (bass, keyboards), and Brian Gagnon (bass, lead vocals)
The Hunt’s debut featured progressive rock, hard rock, … Standouts include the more progressive opener “I Was Only Dreaming” (w/ flute by Harrison) , and back-to-back hard rockers “Little Miss Perfection” and “I Want To Be King”, both heavy on the guitars, along with organ. 9 tracks, all good, and make this worth tracking down. “Billy” (the single) is a solid rock track, though it reminds me of “Escape” from Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare. There’s also the ballad “On Revient [Tout Le Temps]”, sang in French, and the closing organ heavy “Sad Song”. This album only got released on GRT and on Daffodil in Canada, as well as in Australia, on ‘7 Records’. It’s available on CD through Unidisc.
Following this, with 3 members leaving, and by the time the follow up was released in 1980, only Kersey and Gagnon were still in the band, along with added guitarist Paul Dickinson (ex JR Flood). Gagnon left before the 3rd and final Hunt album. Gagnon wouldgo on to record with a number of Canadian acts, notably Sheriff and Frozen Ghost.
Outsider Rock 
