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DARK MILE – An interview with Tracy G.

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A vertical shot of a wooden road leading to the train covered with snow

American guitar player Tracy Grijalva, who goes simply by the initial ‘TRACY G’ will be best known to rock & heavy metal fans as the guitarist in DIO in the 90s. He played and co-wrote on the albums Strange Highways and Angry Machines, as well as the double live set Inferno. Tracy’s latest project is the band DARK MILE, which also includes former QUIET RIOT singer Mark Huff. The band has put together an excellent debut album (on CD), please check it out! in our conversation Tracy talks about the new DARK MILE release, as well as some of his past, and recordings, such as DIO and BLUE DAHLIA (w/ Paul Shortino). Tracy’s also done numerous solo album (+ TRACY G GROUP), which can be found at his website.

Are you guys in the Dark Mile band, are you guys all relatively close?

Most of us are, but not the singer. The singer’s in Washington and we’re in California.

How did this project come together, because obviously you’re associated with DIO and some other stuff, and Mark had that run with Quiet Riot, which is what most people would recognize him from.

Yeah, me and Paul, Paul Alfrey’s a good friend of mine, he’s a guitar player, Randy Oviedo is the bass player, and then Mark Huff is the singer, as you know already. So, it’s really Paul’s project; Paul and me went to dinner one night and he just hit me up and said if I would want to do a project with him, and the first thing he said, because I’m not known for really being in a band with a project with two guitar players, I’ve always just played as the one guitar player guy, but I’ve known Paul since about ’83, so I’ve known him for a long time and he’s just a super guy and real humble, a real good musician, just a real straightforward kind of dude. So, he said, ‘would you want to play guitar in this project of mine? You can do all the solos, I’ll do the rhythms, and you can do the rhythms, but when it comes to the solos, you can do all the solos,’ because he knew that meant a lot to me because that’s kind of how I express myself, so to speak. And I go, ‘Yeah, no problem’, because it was him – it wasn’t just any guitar player, it was Paul. So that’s how that came about, and we started, it was a few years ago. It’s been a few years since we had that dinner and we found a singer and we did an album, but it was called something different, and it was with a different singer.

Was that the one with Paul Shortino?

No, that was a completely different project, that was mine and Paul’s project and we did with Randy, Randy played bass on it, the same guy that’s playing bass now, he played bass on a ‘Blue Dahlia’. Yeah, that one had Billy on the keyboards and Chuck on the drums and we had a line of different musicians on that one. And I was writing songs for Paul, and we did it and he got a friend of his to sign it and it came out and, you know, I think this sold a few copies or whatever. I really liked that CD too, but no, that had nothing to do with this. But we did do an album, going back to Dark Mile, but we didn’t have that yet, we had a band called ‘Gale Force’. Gale Force is me, Paul, Randy Oviedo and Michael Lee was the singer. Michael Lee comes from a band in the 80s called ‘Baron Cross’. And we did an album, and we didn’t wait around to get signed with a label, we let Michael take care of all the CDs and all the merchandising and he kind of had all that down, so Michael went ahead and ran all that and we sold a few CDs and stuff. Things didn’t work out the way we wanted it, so we went ahead and replaced Michael, and we found Mark. And we changed the name of the band, and we kept writing, but now we’re writing for Mark. We’ve been writing together for three or four years, but Mark’s only been with us the last year – year and a half. And we did the Dark Mile album, and then with Paul’s connections and stuff, that label in Germany signed us, Pride and Joy. They put it out (I think), in July, and it’s been floating around, I think, Europe a lot.

And Paul told me right away, up front, even back before Dark Mile (but for Dark Mile), that it was going to be kind of 80s, 80s-ish, but with a modern slash to it, because the labels he knew in Europe were kind of looking for that kind of stuff. And, if you give them stuff that they’re not interested in, you have less of a chance of getting signed. We tried to give them stuff that Paul knew they were kind of interested in, which is not full-blown 80s, but kind of. So that’s what Dark Mile is.

I’m going to look for this Blue Dahlia CD. So, you worked with Paul Shortino and now Mark Huff – 2 ex Quiet Riot singers!

(Haha) Yeah, both really great! Paul Shortino’s a great singer. I was always a big fan of his voice. There’s some good stuff on that CD.

Yeah, I’m familiar with your past with Dio, and those albums kind of have that slower, heavy sound, and these kind of incorporate more of like a bright 80s kind of sound, especially with the choruses and that. So I think it’s a very accessible album for people that like heavy stuff and 80s stuff as well.

I grew up on all of it, really. I grew up in the 80s, kind of. 70s – I was a little bit young, but all the 80s groups. and even in the 90s. In the 90s, I started with a band called ‘World War III’, and then I ended up with Dio.

World War III became before Dio with those guys? World War III was the one with Vinny Appice and Jimmy Bain and those guys?

Yeah, that was before Dio; that was like 1990, 91.

I want to go back a bit. How did you find Mark Huff?

Paul went seeking on the internet. We ran into a couple guys; we tried a couple people out, but once we heard Mark… We tried him out on a song that we already had written called “He Said, She Said”. We threw that song at him, the lyrics and everything. Him and Paul made a couple adjustments to my lyrics, I’m not really a lyric writer, but I do the best I can. They liked the song, so they fixed up the lyrics a little bit, and as soon as he sang that one and I heard it, and everybody heard it over here in the band they said, Yeah, that’s our guy!’ Mark’s a super, super guy; super nice guy, Super easy to work with. But he’s in Washington, so we’ve only met him once… a year ago. I don’t know if he still does, but he played in a Van Halen tribute band. It was a tribute to the Sammy Hagar era. So they were playing over here in the desert, so – me, Randy, and Paul went to meet him and went to see him. And that’s the only time we’ve met him. And all the songs he sings all the songs over there in Washington on his little laptop. And him and Paul talk on the phone and work on the stuff on the phone all the time, and then he emails it to Paul. Paul does all the production and the producing in his studio. And he flies in his vocals. I have a studio just like Paul and we bounce ideas back and forth. But Paul does the final mixing of everything. He does about an hour for me, Paul. And that’s kind of how we ran into Mark. …He’s a good, he’s a good fit for our music, I think.

One thing I don’t see on the album is who’s playing drums.

We don’t have a guy playing drums. We have a computer playing drums. We program the program that’s in the computer. Paul turned me on to it, it’s actually a real guy playing, but it’s more like just pieces, just loops and we grab them, and do our best to make it sound real.

I assume that when you guys get around to playing live, you’re going have to find a drummer then, right?

Yeah, if and when that happens, we would have to, we would have to haul in a real drummer. I have a couple in mind that I would call first, but you never know on that one. But there’s a guy named Adrian Aguilar, he played in my Tracy G group. He’s a local here, phenomenal drummer. And then of course there’s Patrick Johanson. I think he’s in Florida and he’s another I’ve done stuff with him. He’s played on a couple of my things already. These kinds of guys can play anything. So, I don’t know who we would get, but I do know who I would call.

Can we talk a bit about some of the songs? You said, you wrote the lyrics and so some of the songs that obviously stand out, for me, are “Is Anybody Listening”, “Games” and “Where’s The Love?”

I wrote both those songs. But I mean, in this group, it’s not really like one guy writes everything. I’ll have like an idea, or Paul will have an idea, or Randy, and then we’ll throw our ideas on the table. You know, we all kind of put our fingers in and play around with it. And, make it a song, kind of.

“Listening”, the words were written by me and a fellow friend of mine named Mark Bramlett, who’s not even in the band. I used to be in a band with him, but he writes good lyrics. So, Mark (Bramlett) helped write. And then I wrote the other part of the lyrics. And then, um, Randy and Paul helped piece all the rest of the song together and threw in their ideas. The song was basically there, but they touched it up. And Mark Huff is mainly the voice, I call him. He doesn’t write, he’s not writing anything for us right now – we’ve got that covered. But he just takes direction, like ‘tell me what you want me to sing. Just tell me what the words are and where’s the melody, and I’ll just go’.

But that was the story with “Listening”. I think it’s a very strong song, it’s got a strong chorus, and I like the meaning of it and everything, it’s clear.

And “Games”?

And “Games” is a strong chorus, a strong song too, but it’s kind of like a ballad.

Yeah, it’s got that intro to it…

Yeah, and it comes in heavy and stuff, but the same story on that one, I kind of had that idea already. I wrote the lyrics to it, Paul touched them up and Randy puts in his two cents and then Mark sings it, and there you have it!

And then you have the ballad “Where Is The Love”…

Same thing with that song. I had that song, but Paul changed some of the lyrics to it. Basically, I already had the music and the melody for that song. And that’s one of our favorites too. And then “United We Stand” was something we just wrote last year. Me and Randy wrote that song, no singing at all. And then we gave it to Paul and Paul played rhythm guitar on it, and he wrote the words. That’s one of my favorites.

“The Boy” – who chose that as the first single?

We all kind of did. That’s another one of my old songs, but we thought it was just appropriate because it was, it pretty much says it all – “I’m just a boy who wants to rock”. It’s pretty simple and straightforward and in your face and there’s really no fancy nothing to it. We think it’s fun and it would be really fun to play that live; it’s like a live song; you could hear it.

We think it’s a good rocker, we all feel the same way. And the same thing, I wrote the words, but then Paul and Mark kind of made them make more sense, update them a little bit. Some of these songs I wrote a few years back, and I just had as demos because they didn’t make the projects I had at the time. So, if I don’t redo them, I figured no one’s ever going to hear them.

When you write stuff, do you keep your riffs and kind of your solo ideas and then eventually they turn up or…?

Sometimes… mostly no solo ideas – I do them on the spot. Solos are kind of spontaneous for each song I get, I just go for it. Once in a while I have a solo idea for a song, but that kind of comes last for the song. Most of the time I’m improvising on the song that I’m given.

How much were you guys involved as far as the packaging goes, the album cover and all that stuff?

We did the album cover; I think Paul mostly did the album cover. At first, we were trying for crazy stuff, but then we just figured ‘let’s just make it fucking simple’. And my friend Susie took the photos of us. It’s pretty simple, no big deal.

You guys have already started on a second album!?

We have. While the first album is going out there, we’ve been writing the second album. I think we’re up to maybe six or seven songs now on what could be a second Dark Mile album. Just in case…if this label asks us to do another one (or whatever), we’ll be ready.

So, I think it’s great. I would love to see it issued on vinyl. Do you keep a lot of records yourself?

I’ve got a lot of CDs, quite a bit. I haven’t bought any really, in the last few years. I don’t really buy any CDs anymore. I hear them online, on the internet and stuff. But, I’ve got a lot of my own stuff that I do myself in my little studio, you know, my solo stuff. But I try to keep up on any new groups and stuff. Paul turns me on to all kinds of stuff too.

Can we talk a bit about some of your previous work? You go all the way back to the early eighties with some of these bands – Swift Kick and Driven and some of these other things.

In the 80s I had the band ‘Swift Kick’ with some friends and then I kind of always had a Tracy G Group. So, most of the time it was instrumental. And I sometimes I had different singers, and I put out a couple of CDs as the Tracy G Group. And that was way back though. And then I didn’t get the gig for World War III until like ’90.

And that, we did that one album and then, we did a small tour in the United States and then that split up. Then I had like a year off, so I started another band called ‘Mankind’. That’s where a lot of these demos came from because I thought a lot of the songs were really good, but the band ended up breaking up because I joined DIO.

And some of the, some of the Dio riffs came from my demos because I practiced with Vinnie and Jimmy Bain. I would start playing my riffs. And if Ronnie liked them, he’d start to write some words on them. And a lot of them turned out to be songs on Strange Highways, the first album I did.

How did that whole Dio gig all come about?

They called me. You know, I had already been in World War III with Jimmy Bain and Vinnie. And one day, I think I read in a local paper, that Dio was starting his band back together with his original guys, but they’re looking for a new guitar player. I read that and I thought ‘well, Vinnie and Jimmy, they know me, and if they think anything of me, then they’ll let Ronnie know’. I wasn’t going to call them and say ‘hey, remember me?’ And then Vinnie called and said, ‘hey, do you want to come down and audition for Dio?’ I said ‘I think so!’ I go down and I audition with them, play a few, just jams. We didn’t play any songs. Ronnie didn’t sing; Ronnie just sat there and listened. We played and then ‘okay, we’ll call you’. And a month went by. I didn’t think they were going to call me, and then they called me and said ‘he wants you to come back. And so I did. And then after I played again, when I played the second time, Ronnie came up and sang, but we were just making stuff up, we weren’t playing any of his catalog, any of my catalog, no World War III, no Dio, none of that, just jamming. But the thing is, when I jammed with Jimmy Bain and Vinnie, it kind of already sounded like a band because we were a band. It sounded heavier than anything Dio had done, which was my goal anyways.

I always loved Dio’s voice, obviously, but I always thought his music could have been heavier. And in all the 80s and everything, my thoughts were – Vivian Campbell, Craig Goldy, Rowan Robertson, all great guitar players, but they needed to get heavier. With that voice you can’t really get too heavy with the music, and I thought I had the music and the guitar sound for that. I told Ronnie that, after the second audition I said, ‘I know you can get whoever you want,’ he pretty much could get any guitar player in the world, really… and I said ‘but I think if I get the gig we can make one of the heaviest DIO records there is.’ And then a couple days later they called me and said, ‘you’re the guy!’ I was pretty blown away, I didn’t expect it, but I am proud of the music that we made. I think it is the heaviest Dio stuff.

I was wondering how much of an influence you had on the sound, whereas if you listen to that Sabbath Dehumanizer album, and it has that heavier, slower sound to it.

Yeah, that big fat Sabbath sound, which I loved. I love Dehumanizer, but Strange Highways has nothing to do with it. A lot of people still email me and say “hey, is Strange Highways a lot of Dehumanizer leftovers?” And no, I love Dehumanizer, and I love Tony Iommi, but No – it’s all original riffs that I brought in, or we wrote right there on the spot. It just happens to be as heavy or heavier than Dehumanizer. I am heavily influenced by Tony Iommi; how can you not be!? He’s like the King of heavy guitar. In my day he was, at least.

What are the highlights from that era? You did the 2 albums, and the live album. Any favorite songs, or any shows you played that stood out for you?

It is one great big giant grey thing to me. The very first time I stepped on stage; it was in Greece. I was pretty much in Awe the whole time I was in the band. The whole thing was a giant rush. It really wasn’t ever bad to me. Most of the time I was playing I had Ronnie James Dio as the singer, Vinny Appice as the drummer, and Jeff Pilson as the bass player. How are you going to go wrong with that!? I just had to make sure I could cover my own shoes. And I got to say with that line-up there wasn’t much of a weak link. Ronnie said the same thing; we could feed off each other musically each night and make it special and make it heavy. And i knew what Jeff was going to play before he played it; I knew what Vinny was going to do, and vice versa. It was just a real musician’s band; we were all on the same page. We did have different line-ups, and everyone was great! Larry Dennison was a great bass player, and a great guy; Bob Daisley played bass for a little bit. Simon Wright filled in for a bit, a great drummer. And Ronnie, of course – The greatest! I think with Jeff. Vinny, myself, and Ronnie – there was really no stopping that, as far as live.

Was it a tough era for Dio (?), because in the ’90s and into the 2000s a lot of that stuff got shoved off to the side.

It probably was for him – with all the grunge and music changing, the times, but for me personally, again – playing with top notch musicians like that, there was really no low point. Yeah, it changed a little bit, but it was all rocking to me. I live about an hour from where we practiced, every day. And when we practiced, I didn’t mind the drive. I mean – I was going to work doing that!? I have no complaints!

Did you keep in touch with Ronnie after you’d left the band?

Not too much. Most of our relationship was business. We didn’t go out all the time, sometimes. I never smoked pot, I never got high, and they kinda do, so we didn’t have that in common. I was just mainly his guitar player.

Other than Tony Iommi, what were some of your favorite guitar players, and bands from your youth?

I’m all over the place. I liked all the typical guys – Angus Young, Tony Iommi, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore. Eddie Van Halen came along, and you know!? And then going to Allan Holdsworth, Al Di Meola, and all these fusion guys, and different types of music. I like all kinds of stuff, and all kinds of guitar players. Jeff Beck was one of my favorite players, and he wasn’t a ‘metal’ guy, but I like what he got out of the guitar. A couple of local guys, one guy named Shawn Lane- amazing guitar player, I took some lessons from him.

What else do you got on the go?

I’ve got a couple of projects; I’m always working on my instrumental CDs. I’ve got a couple in the works, I’m recording. I record a lot of local guys too, and different guys fly in from different states, and I help them record with their demos and stuff. And I work around the studio, keeping busy. And I’m working on new Dark Mile songs.

LINKS:

https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558042420831&name=xhp_nt__fb__action__open_user

https://www.instagram.com/darkmileband?igsh=MW9kbnY1eWJ3cjJ2ZQ==

http://www.tracyg.com

http://www.prideandjoy.de

New Tracks: Magnum, The Damn Truth, BOC, Grave Digger, Sven Gali…

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A new listing of some cool new (and newer) song releases. Please check out the details in the video descriptions!

MAGNUM – Kingdom Of Madness (live)

For MAGNUM’s new Live At K.K’s Steel Mill release, the first single us a lyric video for the classic “Kingdom Of Madness”.

“The title track ‘Kingdom Of Madness’ from our 1978 debut album is one of the most frequently played songs of our career, an absolute fan fave and typical of the music we wrote back then. A true classic and the perfect encore at every show for almost fifty years. A MAGNUM gig wouldn’t have been complete without this number!” (Bob Catley)

GRAVE DIGGER – Killing Is My Pleasure

“Here it is at last, our new studio album, true to the motto: #gravediggeroldschool. With Tobi Kersting in the band, we have focused on the essentials of our sound again after many years with numerous concept albums: Concise straightforward metal songs that burn themselves into your brain stems after the first listen. “Bone Collector” doesn’t sound like off-the-shelf stuff, but highly energetic, fresh and you’ll notice that we had a lot of fun with the songs. We’re looking forward to your reaction, the release of the album in January and 45 years of Grave Digger live with you,” (vocalist- Chris Boltendahl)

ORIANTHI – Some Kind Of Feeling

Blues guitarist ORIANTHI (ex Alice Cooper) has a new album coming in spring 2025. This is the 3rd single (and title track) from it. Produced by Kevin Shirley.

UTILITY POWER – Challenger

Vancouver metal band UTILITY POWER release their 3rd album this week. This is the title track from Challenger.

WHISKY OF BLOOD – Baby Revolution

Hard rockers WHISKY OF BLOOD’s new single from their latest album Diablesse Of Revolution (released in September). The album features a couple of guests, notably Chris Holmes (Wasp).

THE DAMN TRUTH – The Willow

Canadian band THE DAMN TRUTH have released a new single from their next album (2025). Great psych influenced hard & classic rock!the band start a UK tour Nov 24, and have album launch shows in Montreal and Quebec City in March.

BLUE OYSTER CULT – The Alchemist (live)

From the band’s upcoming live release 50th Anniversary – Third Night, from the 3rd New York show in 2022, celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary, and performing the album Secret Treaties. “The Alchemist” comes from the band’s last studio album The Symbol Remains in 2020.

ROD RODRIGUEZ – Mom’s Lullaby

From the new album Tales Of A Changing Life, Part 2, by this Canadian -Brazilian guitarist. Influenced by, and recommended for fans of Dream Theatre, Rush, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani.

SVEN GALI – Lunatic Fringe

SVEN GALI has released a cover of the classic “Lunatic Fringe”, originally by another Canadian band- RED RIDER.

TRAPEZE – Lost Tapes, vol. 2 (review)

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Vol. 2 of the Lost Tapes from legendary British 70s hard / funk rock act TRAPEZE, curated, compiled by Tom.Galley, brother of guitarist Mel Galley (RIP), and packaged brilliantly by Mel’s son Marcus, with photos from Carl Dunn. Although TRAPEZE split in the early 80s (following Live In Texas), there was a reunion or 2, and judging by the amount of and quality of the songs on both releases, an abundance of leftover finished tracks from every period. There have been 2 singles released – the rocker “Fighting”, which actually came from the first PHENOMENA sessions (feat Don Airey on keys, Ted McKenna on drums), and “Homeland”, an absolute classic, which sounds like it was done in later years. The lyrics and video pay homage to where the band came from.

There is also alternate takes of a few well known Trapeze favorites, such as the title track to 1979’s Hold On album (sung by Peter Goalby), and one of the band’s best lived tracks – “Coast To Coast”. I kinda prefer this version of “Coast To Coast”, a little rougher, and less smooth compared to the original album version. Also alternate takes of “Loser”, and Trapeze funk- rock favorites”Way Back To The Bone”, and “Midnight Flyer”. Other highlights include “Must Be In Love” , from the Goalby era. This one’s a bit more late 70s Apr, with,a bit of a country feel. “Welcome To The Real World”, from the early 90s reunion, including Geoff Downes on keys, another excellent post-70s track. Also included is the last track guitarist Mel Galley ever did – “Live Fast Die Laughing”, another rocker, well fitting here. 14 tracks total, all worth checking out.

Lost Tapes – (both volumes), are highly recommended, not merely just for Trapeze completists, but for fans if classic British rock. Trapeze may not have released a ton of albums, but both these albums (on vinyl & CD via Metalville) add greatly to the band’s catalogue and legacy! Out now!

Trapeze – Lost Tapes Vol.2 CD Digipack

New Tracks: Kings Of Mercia, Louisiana Child, Trapeze, Envy Of None, Goddo, Storace….

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Well, another list of new (or fairly new) tracks from recent weeks. Some cool Canadian rock, newer and old bands with some great new releases coming out.

Check out the songs, as well as links in video descriptions . If there’s anything you’d recommend (not here), drop it in the comments!

TRAPEZE – Homeland

The 2nd single from TRAPEZE’ Lost Tapes vol. 2 . Classic tune featuring Mel Galley and Glenn Hughes. Not sure when this one is from, but sounds very fresh and lively.

GODDO – Pretty Bad Boy

originally a hit for Canadian band GODDO in 1981. The band (along with guitarist Sean Kelly) have recorded a new version of the song for their new 50th anniversary compilation album Decades: The Best Of GODDO. http://www.rockpapermerch.com

KINGS OF MERCIA – Battle Scars

The title from KOM’s 2nd album . “That’s about post-war distress syndrome. It’s about a guy who comes back from fighting and can’t really deal with real life. He realizes that he can never be what he was before he went away and did this. But he really, really wants to, but he’s trying to get that across to everybody that loves him. But the problem isn’t him–it’s what he’s been through. I came up with the title ‘Battle Scars,’ and I think that suggested the subject matter.” (Steve Overland)

LABYRINTH – ‘Welcome Twilight’ is the first single from this Italian metal band’s upcoming album – In The Vanishing Echoes Of Goodbye. Labyrinth features singer Roberto Tiranti of WONDERWORLD (and ex of Ken Hensley’s band Live Fire). Their new album is due out January 25, on Frontiers. Describing the single, the band declare:
“After the absurd circus brought on by COVID-19, not only have we not emerged better, but we now find ourselves in a truly complicated historical period. Now more than ever, si vis pacem, para bellum — if we want peace, we must prepare for war. Our freedom, entirely illusory, is subordinate to those who decide the balance of this weary planet.”


BURNING WITCHES – The Spell Of The Skull
Swiss female metal band BURNING WITCHES has a new 2 track single coming out (yes, on limited 12 inch vinyl, in red or gold colored, or CD), due out on December 10.

LOUISIANA CHILD – Cocaine Cowboys

Toronto’s LOUISIANA CHILD have just released their debut single. The band mixes up Southern rock, blues rock, country… Fairly Lynyrd Skynyrd influenced on this first track, Check it out.

STORACE – Screaming Demon

The first single from the upcoming album from STORACE (Marc STORACE of Krokus). A great heavy rocker, kinda like if Bon Scott era AC/ DC were a more metal sounding band.

ENVY OF NONE – Not Dead Yet

Brand new from ENVY OF NONE, the band featuring Alex Lifeson (RUSH) and Andy Curran (CONEY HATCH), plus singer Maiah Wynne. Very unlike what Lifeson or Curran have done in their known bands. Very cool, haunting track.

TEAZE – Reach Out (live)

Video from the TEAZE’s performance in Belgium. If you aren’t familiar with this Canadian band, you have missed out. Teaze has a brand-new live album – ‘Live In Liege‘ out now. This track, from that show was originally from the band’s 1979 album One Night Stands. Order Live In Liege at- http://www.rockpapermerch.com

SEVENTH CRYSTAL – Siren Song

Sweden’s SEVENTH CRYSTAL have released their 3rd album Entity. Full of heavy guitar driven rockers like “Siren Song” .

IMPELLITTERRI – Hell On Earth

The new single from IMPELLITTERRI’s new album War Machine, out now.

“I had this really fun addictive riff that just allowed everyone in the band to shine. It was amazing how powerful the song sounded when we first played it together…. The music really inspired an interesting lyric and amazing vocal performance from Rob Rock! – Chris Impellitterri.

GLORIA PERPETUA – Mothers Of Juruselem

This Brazilian band plays heavy power metal, influenced by the likes of Hellloween and Accept. A great single from off their new album The Darkside We Wanna Hide, which can be ordered at: https://shop.rockshots.eu/en/home/6898-gloria-perpetua-the-darkside-we-wanna-hide.html

WILDNESS – Crucified

New single from Swedish band’s upcoming album Avenger. Singer reminds me Jimi Jamison. Great 80s type hard-rocker.

THE WRING – An interview with Don Dewulf

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Canadian band THE WRING, is lead by guitarist & songwriter Don Dewolf. The Wring’s 4th album is titled Nemesis, and now available on CD, and in digital form. A progressive -metal type of sound, The Wring will appeal to fans of Rush, Queensryche, and Dream Theater. A few weeks back I spoke with Don about The Wring, the newest album , as well as his his other gig – RUST (a Rush tribute). Check out our conversation below, as well as the clips, and the links below!

So, to start off, is The WRING a band or is it more your own project?

It started, it’s always been my project, but it did start as a band. I’m from Sudbury. The music scene there is like cover bands and tribute bands. Original music, especially, in the prog rock kind of thing, it just doesn’t exist. But I did manage to round up some guys and we did the first record as a band, and we did some shows and all. It was super fun, but it’s hard to get paid and, guys kind of lose interest. So, they went their own way, but the process was fascinating to me. I wrote everything all the way along, so I thought, I’ll just keep going.

And then COVID came, and the world shut down. So, the bass player from the original band said – ‘listen, there’s guys out there at home and you never know unless you ask’. So, he connected me with Thomas Lang – a world-famous drummer… Like cover of Modern Drummer Magazine kind of guy! And I sent him my stuff and he goes, ‘Yeah, I’m in! I’ll do it for free….Well for an incredibly reasonable price. (lol) So that sort of set the ball rolling. And I’ve done three more albums kind of that way because I can’t get players, so I just, I find them.

So, there’s been three previous albums. What did you do before this? Did you have anything else going on before the WRING, any other original stuff?

No.

Or is it just the Rush thing?

Yeah, I do the Rush tribute just to stand on the stage. I’ve always loved Rush. So, it almost feels legit to me, even though it’s still a tribute thing.

But yeah, I can’t get anybody to do The Wring. So, I just do the Rush tribute. Before that it was cover bands and whatever I could find.You know, it’s a tough scene, not only in (as you said) down your way too, but in Canada in general, it’s just tough.

(Brief discussion on local cover band scene here, there and Nashville!

Are all these songs on the latest album written specifically for this project? I know you’ve written over the years, so is there stuff that’s been hanging around, or is it kind of, when you decide to do a new album, you’re writing as of then?

I would say for this album…this would be number four …if there was anything hanging around, it probably got used in some way. I would say, when I’m starting, and (I suppose) I’m kind of in that cycle right now, I’m starting from zero and building out maybe record number five. So, everything was unique and fresh for this record. There were a couple of riffs that I had, but they’ve been turned around so many times, and twisted up that you wouldn’t recognize the original one anyway.

Now the album’s coming out, or is out on CD, correct?

The last two records, plus this one, are being released by Wormhole Death Records out of Italy. It’s a distribution deal, so it’s not that fancy, but they put it out there. They have a unit in Japan, a unit in the U.S., and then, of course, they’re a European business unit. So they insist on CDs; they still think it’s a thing, so they make CDs. They should be out probably within the next couple of weeks. So, yeah, I like a physical copy. I don’t think I have enough uptake to do vinyl, but I’d love to do that. But it’s expensive, very expensive.

So, let’s talk about some of the songs. “The Nail”, that intro had a bit of a Maiden feel going in it for a bit there.

A little bit, yeah, for sure. They were an influence. Everybody’s an influence. I’m sure if you sat down and listened to, or you picked apart, you’d hear somebody, everything’s been done. (haha) I try to make things a little bit original as much as I can, but it’s hard.

It’s funny, when I first got to listen to the first song off the album that came out a few months ago, I immediately thought of the Rush sound, just in the guitar and the bass, like that kind of feel.

Definitely, yeah.

And then I looked you up on Facebook, and ‘this guy plays in a Rush cover band’!

(haha) Yeah, it’s an influence that won’t go away. They were huge to me, So it’s always there somewhere.

Yeah, and there’s a lot of, you’ve got a few instrumentals on here. Are you familiar with a lot of the modern prog stuff, like Dream Theater, that sort of stuff?

Most definitely! And actually, I’m in Toronto right now, I’m going to see Opeth tonight, ne of my favorite bands. So, not all, because some of it is too much. Dream Theater I’ve kept up with over the years. I think they’ve got a formula now, and it’s hard to distinguish one record from the next, but I still like to go see them.

I saw them on their last tour here, and he (James LaBrie) did a great job, I gotta say. He’s over 60 years old, and he’s trying to bang this stuff out. Images And Words was 1992, that’s a long time to be doing this.

The one I am most familiar with is Scenes From A Memory. After that, I don’t know… I like to hear songs; I like to the songs to have an ending…

And that’s kind of what I go for with The Wring. There’s stuff in there, there’s some weird times, there’s some weird shit, there’s some interesting parts (I like to think they’re interesting). They go by, and the songs are five minutes or less, and it’s not agony to get through them.

Yeah, can you tell me a bit about a few of the songs, lyrically and musically, like ‘The Nail’; obviously, ‘The Sword’ stands out, and the last one, ‘Nemesis’ (?)

Well, lyrically, like, I do all the music first, all the songs start with a riff. I write everything on guitar; I’ll come up with something that I like, and then I’ll set it aside, I’ll come back to it, make sure that it’s not too much of a rip off of something else, and if it is, it goes in the garbage, and if it’s something else, I might spin it around a little bit, try and make it interesting that I’ve not done before, And then, you know, once I have all the songs written, then I do the lyrics. And all of my lyrics come, kind of, I seem to, my muse is anger, so, you watch the news, and it’s easy to get angry, like, there’s so many, just horrible, horrible things going on in the world at any given moment, you just almost can’t even believe it. And that’s the theme; it wasn’t intended as a concept. But the theme of Nemesis, which is kind of an unstoppable enemy, it takes many forms, and we’re all fighting that in some way every day, whether it’s a bad breakup with your girlfriend, or Donald Trump, or the war in Ukraine, … it’s easy to find material to write about, and you can trace pretty much every song back to that theme. So I thought ‘what a kind of a cool kind of thing to tie it together’, lyrically. And then the writing is just riffs, and I try and structure things that are interesting. I demo everything myself, and then I send it to the guys, and let them do their thing, and both players in this record are just off the charts, they’re so good.

The guys you have on this album, Reggie and Kyle, have they been on the other albums as well?

Kyle was new for this one, I seem to change drummers every record. Reggie played bass on the last record on Spectra, and he’s such a good bass player, so I wanted him back for that. And then I sort of discovered that he’s also a singer, so he’s a great guy to work with. He’s malleable, if you hire a guy like Marco Minivan, who played drums on the last record, and of course, you’re not going to tell Marco what to do – you’re going to say ‘here are the songs, Marco, please play drums.’ And he’s going to say ‘sure’, and he’s going to hit it out of the park, but he’s not going to take suggestions, whereas Kyle did, and Reggie does. So this one… because these guys are excellent, but they’re not famous; when you’re dealing with famous guys, they’re just going to do a great job, but you’re not gonna have a lot of input in it, whereas with these guys, it felt more collaborative, So it was much more satisfying to me in that regard, that if I heard a lyric, or a melodic phrasing in the vocals that I didn’t like or whatever, I could say ‘Reggie, could you please – don’t do that, and he would’, And it was all good. So, I like that part of it, and they’re great, great players, and the performances were killer.

Have you played any of this stuff live at all, or do you foresee yourself doing any live shows?

You know, I keep hoping. The original Wring band did play live, and it was, it was so much fun. And, I layer so many guitars into it, and it’s like… (and I don’t want to compare myself), but Jimmy Page – all the Led Zeppelin records have, layers and layers and layers of guitar, but then live, you see him sort of aggregating those into one, because he’s not overdubbing anything on stage. And it was always fascinating to me how he would interpret his own songs to make them into one guitar part. And The Wring is kind of the same, there’s lots of stuff going over the guitar, it’s just me, so on stage it was it was great fun to do that very thing, so I keep hoping, and Reggie, Reggie was living in Vancouver when he did these records, but now he’s moved back to Montreal, which is, you know, six hours from me, not a plane ride, so, you know, and drummers are drummers, so, you know, I’m hoping, you know, now that he’s a little closer, we actually might be able to put something together and stand on a stage together and play some of these things.

Do you get much of a response from Europe and elsewhere?

Yeah It’s amazing because, with Spotify and Apple Music and all these services, like, they drill down, like, so far, right, like I could tell you a city where people are listening to this stuff, and it’s amazing, it’s like Helsinki, Finland, Stockholm, Sweden, London, England, you know, around London, a couple of different cities in Germany, and then throughout the United States, it’s pretty good, there’s pockets in the U.S. that are very supportive of this. There’s very little in Canada, it’s all Canada is, name a metal band called ‘Canada’. Ancients, I guess, I don’t really know anybody who’s doing too much, in the genre here.

Would you ever be, if the opportunity arose, be open to going to Europe and doing festival shows, that sort of thing?

I’d love to play live, for sure, it’s special to do that, especially with your own material, So, absolutely, yes!

Can you tell me a little bit on the cover design for the album, the artwork, do you get involved in that?

Well, it’s always funny, because obviously, I write all the words and the music, and I’ve got a vision in my head of what that looks like. So, I always sit down, and I go through graphics sites and find images, and this is what Nemesis looks like. And I’ve got a friend here in Toronto, actually, who’s a graphic designer, so what I do is I put a whole bunch of ideas together, and I send it over and say, ‘this is the concept, this is what I want to do, can you make it proper?’ And so, he did Spectra as well, and it was funny, the process for that, he went, ‘yeah, okay’. He takes my ideas, and he maps them all out, and does some mock-ups, and then at the very bottom of the page, I did a couple of my own too, so you can have a look at what my vision would be, and of course, he’s always right. So, the end version of both Spectra and now Nemesis was all him, and he came up with the jellyfish, and the red color, and I thought, ‘wow, it’s so simple, and so cool’. And thematically, it kind of speaks to Nemesis as well, so it’s cool.

You don’t have any new, any special guests on this album, correct? I know you had Marc Bonilla on the previous album.

Yeah, he was on Project Cipher, which was two albums ago. He did all the vocals then, but no, no famous people on this one, it’s just me, Reggie, and Kyle. Wow, that’s an interesting connection with him.

He (Marc) came from Thomas Lang, actually. It’s funny, because I got connected to Thomas, and he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it for sure.’ and I said, ‘Since you’re being so nice, do you know a vocalist?’ And he goes, ‘I do.’ So, he connected me with Marc, and Marc’s a super pro; he’s got Grammy awards, and I think he was out with Asia, maybe…But what a talented guy.

Like, wow! It was, when you’re dealing with a guy who’s that professional, it’s great fun. And to have him be interested in my stuff was pretty gratifying, and humbling, I guess.

I’m just going to ask you for a few short lists. A few albums, favorite albums growing up.

I would say, best album of all time, which would be my favorite album, would be Moving Pictures, Rush. Another very influential record on me was Megadeth’s Peace Sells. Ozzy – Diary of a Madman, Randy Rhoads, lhe changed the world. In my view, he made it possible for a lot of these things to happen And then I think the next step for me was Opeth, Blackwater Park was a huge influence in terms of how I approach, and what’s possible. Just an amazing record! And then, I don’t know… Voivod’s always been there, Nothingface, I still listen to Nothingface and think about what they were doing back then. So, yeah, that’s another huge one for me.

You said Moving Pictures, I’m kind of into that whole era from Hemispheres up to Signals. You play all the Rush stuff, can you give a few favorite Rush songs – playing-wise, or as a fan?

Yeah, I’m the same. Hemispheres is a close second in Rush for me; I absolutely love every inch of that record, right through, I went to Grace Under Pressure, I found Grace to be a very good record, like, guitar-wise, after that, Alex, he really stopped playing, he didn’t really do anything after that. So, playing live – really the whole Moving Pictures thing, because we do everything except “Witch Hunt”. “Limelight” is a fun song, with “Tom Sawyer”, it’s always amazing to play that; “YYZ”, of course. We do a little chunk of “Natural Science”, off Permanent Waves, we do a chunk of ” La Villa Strangiato”. I do “Broons Bane” on a nylon string. We don’t go past Grace Under Pressure, our set is almost two and a half hours, and it’s all Grace or older. So, it’s all fun stuff to play.

Do you guys ever play down this way, or is it all up in Northern Ontario, that way?

Oh, gosh, we’re trying to make some headway down there. I think it would actually serve better, because it’s interesting, there’s so many Rush Tribute bands out there, and the most famous ones are at least four members. They’ll always have…most often have a girl singer, and stuff like that, they have original albums and all that, I think, okay, that’s cool. And they do a good job, but they have a girl singer, like, the whole mystique of Rush is that three guys were able to pull that stuff off. So that’s our approach, and it’s hard – the guitar player has the easiest job, drums are obviously ridiculously difficult, and then trying to play the Geddy thing – sing, and we do everything legit, there’s no backing track, so we’re playing the, you know, the keyboards on the floor, the pedals, and then he’s got a full set of keyboards. It’s pretty authentic, it’s not perfect, but it’s certainly authentic, and it’s fun. So I think it would be something that we could catch on down there, Our first show was actually just in April past, so we’re hoping, in early 2025 to be doing some stuff down there, for sure.

One last thing, if you can give me a favorite underrated Canadian album, or a couple?

I mentioned Ancients earlier, and I don’t know if anybody knows who Ancients are, but they’re fantastic, and they just put a new record out, and, and their previous one Voice of the Void, is incredible! I would say it’s a combination of Opeth, Tool and Mastodon, it’s like – put all those three things together, there’s clean vocals, there’s growls, it’s amazing! I love those guys, so I would say that.

LINKS:

https://the wring.ca

https://rustband.ca/

https://www.facebook.com/thewringband/

https://m.facebook.com/rusttributetorush/

MAGNUM to release final show ‘Live At KK’s Steel Mill’

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Super excited to see this news! A live album from MAGNUM’S final performance, before the passing of guitarist/songwriter TONY CLARKIN. Set list is below the press release, as well album artwork and ordering Link. There is a few clips from this show online (shared below. The DVD was included as a bonus disc to the band’s last album). A great looking set-list, largely earlier classics, with a few newer gems, should be a another great sounding release as with previous MAGNUM live albums!

British rock icons MAGNUM have announced the release of the band’s final live album with founder Tony Clarkin. Recorded December 10, 2022, ‘Live at KK’s Steel Mill‘ was the memorable night when they played the final show of their European tour at KK’s Steel Mill in Wolverhampton and, as they had done on all previous nights, wowed their fans from the first to the last note.
The concert was recorded by state-of-the-art audio equipment, which later turned out to be a real blessing because it was – as we now know – the last official live recording starring Tony Clarkin. The guitarist and main songwriter died unexpectedly on January 7, 2024, just a few days before the release of MAGNUM’s studio album ‘Here Comes The Rain.’

The album presents MAGNUM as an enthusiastically celebrated act whose repertoire of hits, classics, and newer material could hardly be more varied. “It was the perfect evening,” recalls singer Bob Catley. “We finished our The Monster Roars tour in Wolverhampton, KK’s Steel Mill was packed out and the promoter was a passionate MAGNUM fan. I couldn’t imagine a more worthy farewell to Tony than those recordings.”

HiDue to the huge demand and to mark the first anniversary of Clarkin’s passing, ‘Live At KK’s Steel Mill’ will be available via Steamhammer/SPV  starting January 10, 2025, for the first time on double CD, triple LP, and for digital download.

Pre-Order ‘Live at KK’s Steel Mill’ HER
Pic- Rob Barrow

‘Live at KK’s Steel Mill‘ Track List:

CD1

1. Days Of No Trust 

2. Lost On The Road To Eternity 

3. The Monster Roars

4. The Archway Of Tears 

5. Dance Of The Black Tattoo 

6. Where Are You Eden? 

7. The Flood 

8. The Day after The Night Before

CD2

1. Wild Swan

2. Les Morts Dansant

3. Rocking Chair

4. All England’s Eyes

5. Vigilante

6. Kingdom Of Madness

7. On A Storyteller’s Night

8. Sacred Hour

To pay tribute to their late bandleader, MAGNUM are set to play an exclusive series of ‘Tribute to Tony’ shows in the UK in January 2025.
As a special gesture, Clarkin’s daughter Dionne will showcase two of her father’s favorite instruments to the concerts – his red Telecaster and his white custom guitar, hoping that Clarkin will be watching from heaven.
“My father was an extremely modest and humble man who would probably be surprised at how much the large MAGNUM community continues to love him to this day. He always believed that few people would really care if one day he would no longer be with us. As it turns out, the exact opposite is the case: We all miss him, his huge artistic achievement, and his great empathy as a father, friend and musician!” 
This is why ‘Live at KK’s Steel Mill’ is undoubtedly one of the most emotional albums in MAGNUM’s longstanding career!
Pre-Order Exclusive CD/LP Bundles
21.01. UK-London – O2 Kentish Town Forum, 22.01. UK-Manchester – Academy, 1 24.01. UK-Glasgow – The Garage, 25.01. UK-Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill, 26.01. UK-Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill

http://www.magnumonline.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/magnumbandpage/

SVEN GALI – ‘Bombs And Battlescars’ – Interview with David Wanless

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Photos courtesy of Donald Gadziola

Canadian rockers SVEN GALI returned in 2023 in a big way with a new album and more live shows. The band who released 2 albums in the 90s – Under The Influence (1992) and Inwire (1995), returned to recording with the (2020) EP ‘3′, before Bombs And Battlescars. SVEN GALI also recently recorded a show at Toronto’s El Macombo for a live album. I spoke to frontman David Wanless about SVEN GALI’s return, influences, and the new album. *Check out the links at the end for more on SVEN GALI..

It’s been some time, I guess, since the second album, so what kind of got the ball going on making a new album?

Well, what happened was, we took a long break for a while, and then one day, I got a call from Dan, the drummer, to come and jam with him at his house. He, and I, wasn’t really doing anything, so I took the invitation up to go to his place, and we had some other players there, and we just hung out, had a great afternoon. And then on the ride home, I was thinking, ‘well that was a good time’. And a couple days later, he called me and said ‘is there something you want to go farther with this?’ And we just talked to Andy and Shawn and stuff, and we thought we’d get together and play. And right off the bat it hit, and we started just jamming right away, and never looked back. So, since then, we’ve done some videos, we put out three, an EP three, and now Bombs and Battle Scars.

It’s the same, pretty much the same guys from when you left off in the 90s?

Same guys, except for, as you know, Dee passed away, and now we have, Dan from Varga who is playing drums, and then Shawn from Varga playing guitar.

Going back and revisiting the first two albums, the first album obviously is in that 80s hard rock- metal feel, and then the second album had more of the 90s alternative stuff, and I find that on this new album, is kind of a good mix of that stuff.

You know, you have your first 20 years of your life to write your first record, as they say. And we were young guys, and that’s what we were listening to, and that’s what we were into. But during the course of that, and being more experienced in travels and our musical tastes started to experiment different ways. And with the change in music, we decided the same thing. We were writing for ourselves. And Inwire came out, and I know some people thought – ‘they just totally bailed from what they were’, but all we were doing was growing as people and musicians, and now, but we still like what we did. So, now, this many years later, we started writing again, and we found influence from both time periods, and, then the birth of Bombs And Battlescars.

Now, the new songs on this album, aside from the cover, are they all newly written, or is there stuff that’s kind of hung around for years?

There’s some new stuff on there, but there’s stuff that we’ve had in the can before everything went south on us. Wehad a bunch of stuff that was ready to be written and recorded for the third record, a full-length record, so there’s some of those ideas, and then there’s a bunch of new stuff on there also. So there is a blend.

Can you tell me about a couple of songs, some of the influences on the new songs – lyrically or musically, how they kind of came about?

Well, the one that we just wrote, I think it’s, probably the last one was ‘Coming Home’. And Andy just presented that riff, and the song kind of laid out. And I was driving around for a long time just listening to that riff and trying to get some inspiration on where and what direction vocally, melodically to go. And one night I was sitting on the couch, and I was watching a movie, and some ideas started coming, and I just started jotting them down, and the next morning, I woke up, and I started putting melody to it, and then it all came together.

You’ve got a lot of heavy stuff on here, like ‘Monster’, obviously, ‘One Gun’… And the Triumph cover, I was a Triumph fan myself, so.

Yeah, that was a lot of fun.

That one you did with Andy Curran producing?

Yeah we did ‘Monster’, I think, with Andy, and I think there was another one. It was a good time; he was a great guy. We’ve always been big fans of Coney Hatch, all of our young lives. We used to see them at Uncle Sam’s in Niagara Falls back in the day. And, and, uh, so, he became a friend. And when Dee was having a struggle with his cancer, we did a benefit for him, and Andy came out. And then when it came time to do some recording, his name popped up, and we thought we’d give him a call, and he was very receptive, and we’ve had a great relationship since then. And played a couple shows with him also.

When you guys started out in the late 80s, what sort of bands were you into?

Oh, in the late 80s, man, we were into Queensryche and going as far back as Boston. I was a big fan of the music of the period at that time. When Ratt came out, I saw them at Massey Hall back in the early 80s. And bands like that; they’re great. The Scorpions, obviously, we were big Scorpions fans. And Black Sabbath, and stuff like that. So that’s kind of where we were back then, and since then, our music has just gone all over the place; you can walk into my house and you can hear anything. Who knows where you’re going to listen to when you walk in.

You guys did a lot of clubs around Ontario. What were some of the highlights during that period?

Yeah, we played every place we could, and anybody that’d take us, we set up. And we went back and forth across the country so many times. And, and then we got to the point where we said ‘okay, you know what? either we gotta do something or we gotta make that decision, or how far are we going to go, or what are we waiting for?’ So we went to the tour bus, a one-way ride to Los Angeles. He dropped us off; we had gigs planned down there. He dropped us off at our first gig, and then we just started playing in, in Hollywood. And then from there we got looked at by BMG, RCA back here, and it just went smooth as that. We played some shows, and then we got interest, and we just packed up and flew home and started recording the first record. Yeah.

The first album came out in 92!? And by that time the scene was starting to change, did that have much of an impact on you guys?

You know, it was a really tough time, because we were kind of almost there when things were. We had so many songs in the can, and we just decided that we gotta stick to our guns and just do what we do. We’ve written this record, let’s just put it out. And fortunately we just caught the tail end of everything. But it was funny how things changed and how things are circling back again now.

And you guys get a lot of gigs now, are you starting to play more now?

Yeah, we had a great couple years actually. We’re pretty selective on where we’ve played. Yeah. We played with The Headstones and Bush in Ottawa, that festival, which was great. We’ve done a couple of our own big shows here. We played the big show, the Burlington Music Festival, We played that, and we opened for Coney Hatch and Lee Aaron there. That was last spring, in June.

Do you, with all these releases coming out, do you keep a lot of them yourself and do you keep your own collection? Have you kept everything over the years?

You know what, I am the absolute worst at keeping anything, because, people come over to my place and through the years they always leave with something. And, so Andy is the collector for the band, he kind of is the vault. So he has, one or two or three of everything. And, my house, it’s a revolving door of stuff leaving and coming back.

Is there a bit of a goal once this album picks up a bit? Is there plans for another album or is there stuff in the vaults that you guys might want to put out?

We still have a ton of songs and a ton of ideas that we’re ready to work on. We just finished a video a couple nights ago for a new song, which you’ll hopefully see before the video for ‘Life Inside’ will be coming out soon also. We’ve done two more in the last two months. And then we’ve got some other plans for actually a new record. It’s going to be a little different, and we’ve put some things together for it now and I can’t say too much about it until it’s really 100% confirmed. But I think people are going to really like what we’ve got in the can right now. So we’re still alive, still kicking, and we’re looking forward to surprising people with something that may be out by Christmas.

Cool. Are there things in the vaults as far as any live recordings, things like that?

Yeah. So, we just played the El Macombo on Friday the 13th (September).

You recorded that, didn’t you?

Yeah, that was recorded for our live album And we’re looking for, again, spring for the live record to come out. It’s being mixed right now and it’s getting printed in China where Andy is. And the artwork is pretty much there. So now it’s just package it all up, get things printed and then get it out.

How much of the new album do you guys put into the show?

The new record we had, on our headlining show we have, generally I think ‘Spellbound’, ‘Monster’, ‘Coming Home’. There was probably, I’d say maybe half to three quarters of the new record is playing, but a lot of people want to hear the old stuff too, so we slam it all in there. Yeah.

I kind of like older bands that are still doing something new. It gives you something other than just getting a ‘hits’ show every time. In the years between after you guys broke up, have you done anything else as far as any side projects or anything?

You know what, I jammed around with some guys in cover bands just for the love of music and just hanging out with those guys. And that was fun. But for the most part, I just focused on family and just stuff like that. But we’re all big music fans at my house. My kids love music, my wife also, we like to go see concerts together and it’s a lot of good times. So, music is still very important.

Can give me a few favorite singers, songwriters from your youth?

From my youth….I’m a big fan of Geoff Tate. His writing and vocal ability. And I met him in Toronto because Kelly, the guitar player of Queensryche, produced InWire for us. I was a big fan of Blind Melon. Christian from Blind Melon played mandolin on our stuff. But, before that, you can’t discount all the bands from Zeppelin to, you know…I get something from everybody. I just pull from all over and enjoy all the different styles and genres of music.

Can I ask you a few of your, kind of almost underrated favorite Canadian albums that, other than the obvious? Some, it’s like Canadian records?

I’m a big fan of Coney Hatch. Their record, in my youth, it was great. I like I Mother Earth. Hmm. Everything from Bryan Adams, he’s such a great songwriter…Loverboy, what they did back in the day, uh, you know, Headpins, I mean, there’s so many great bands with so many great records in Canada. Canada is such an amazing country for music. There’s so many great stars that came out of here – from Justin Bieber to Celine Dion, like, just keep popping them off.

So, what do you guys got coming up other than the live album? Any shows in the near future?

No, we’re done right now for; Andy’s gone back, and we’ve done what we set out to do. We played a couple shows on the East Coast. We got a couple shows, we got the El Macombo done and another show in the area here. And now Bombs and Battle Scars is released in Europe and the United States. So, it’s available everywhere right now. I saw it on Walmart the other night.

Well, you know you’re there then.

Yeah, it’s funny, I’m doing a lot of PR stuff around the world. And then getting ready for what holds in the spring. We’re looking to, for some shows out West, obviously. We haven’t been out there yet, we get a lot of requests to go out there and then we’d like to dive into Europe again and do some festivals.

LINKS:

https://www.facebook.com/SvenGaliCanada/

https://www.dekoentertainment.com/sven-gali

Bombs & Battlescars (2023)

*live photos of Sven Gali courtesy of Donald Gadziola, from El Macombo, 2024.

HIRSH GARDNER of NEW ENGLAND releases solo album

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Drummer/producer/multi-instumentalist HIRSH GARDNER of American AOR legends NEW ENGLAND has a new solo album coming out. He’s also released a single/video for his new version of the New England classic “Don’t Ever Wanna Lose Ya”. For more info check out – https://www.dekoentertainment.com/hirsh-gardner

https://www.hirshgardner.com

New Tracks to check out – Victory, Sandveiss, Dream Theater and more….

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i come across a lot of new singles, new albums, much of which I don’t have the time to review & post here. But I think what I will be doing from time to time is post a number of recommended clips to check out… So check em out below!

SUNSTORM – I’ll Stand For You. From the band’s new album Restless Fight comes out on Frontiers, Nov 22. Features the voice of Ronnie Romero. Pre-Order – https://ffm.to/sunstormrestlessfight

VICTORY – Tonight We Rock and Falling

From the latest album by German hard rockers Victory (on AFM), who’ve been at it for decades. Love the cover art for Circle Of Life. The track “Falling” kinda reminds me of Alien Nation” by the Scorpions. Both great tracks! https://shop.afm-records.de/victory/

WARLORD – Golgotha (the Place Of The Skull)

the new single from US metal band. WARLORD is releasing singles to coincide with a number of Metal Festivals that they’ll be performing at.

LAST TEMPTATION – Fuel For My Soul

From this California band’s 3rd album Heart Starter. Features members of Temple Of Brutality, Annihilator, and Killing Machine, but this is more like classic bands Y&T and Van Halen . The first single “Get On Me” is below this one. Album out November 22, on Metalville.

DREAM THEATER – Night Terror

From the band’s forthcoming album Parasomnia , due out in February. Sounds good, but damn long.

NO FAVORS – Stop Where You Are

British band whos beginnings go back to the 80s, and have been revived. This is from their upcoming album The Eleventh Hour (ain’t that a Magnum title!?), due out November 22 on Pride & Joy. Check out the description in the video for more on the band’s history and links.

SANDVEISS – Standing In The Rain

The title track from the new album by Quebec’s SANDVEISS. Highly recommended. (More on these guys in another post). Album is now out, check out info & links in video description.

HOUSE OF LORDS – Taking The Fall & Bad Kharma

Lead by singer James Christian, HOUSE OF LORDS Full Tilt Overdrive is out now, on Frontiers. It’s their 12th album.

ECLIPSE – All I Want

Megalomanium II is the latest from Swedish rockers ECLIPSE. Out now. Check it out.

HAZZERD – Deathbringer

From the forthcoming album The 3rd Dimension, from Canadian thrash band HAZZERD. Not a huge thrash fan, but dig the riff and guitar sound throughout this…plus they’re Canadian, so… Check out more info & links in the video description.

SAXON – Fire And Steel

not really a new track, but a brand new video from this fast paced rocker from Hell, Fire And Damnation, released earlier this year. The single/video is out in time to announce the band’s upcoming Hell, Fire and Steel European tour.

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STRYPER ‘When We Were Kings’ out now

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STRYPER’s new album When We Were Kings‘ is now out. These guys seem to sound better with age, and the title track and video are classic! *Check out the clips already posted, as well as the press info and 40th anniversary tour dates.

The legendary, long-running metal band STRYPER has released its twelfth studio album ‘When We Were Kings’ alongside a new single, “Rhyme of Time.” STRYPER’s current lineup includes original members Michael Sweet, Robert Sweet, and Oz Fox, along with bassist Perry Richardson.

“The new single ”Rhyme of Time” is definitely a rock ballad with dark overtones musically, but lyrically it’s a love song. It definitely has its own signature sound compared to all the other songs on the album in the best of ways. Very excited about this one.” – Michael Sweet.

With ‘When We Were Kings’ STRYPER feel they are creating their finest and most powerful music yet.

About ‘When We Were Kings,’ Sweet adds:”We couldn’t be more excited about this new album. I feel that it really captures our classic sound, but also captures our most recent sound. We’ve definitely grown as a band and evolved quite a bit so it’s important to have both. We’re 40 years into our career and releasing the best music of our career.”Looking ahead, STRYPER is also working on a Kickstarter-funded documentary film directed by Chris Atkins. With career album sales exceeding 10 million worldwide and a history of Billboard Top 40 hits, STRYPER continues to record, tour, and perform for devoted fans globally.

https://ffm.to/stryperwhenwewerekings