Kevin Chalfant: Flying To AOR Freedom. Kevin Chalfant is another artist who should be listened to - as he has been there and done that and he isn't afraid to do it by himself if need be. This interview was done late last year - just prior to the MRF show in October, so forgive me for getting online late. But it is still very relevant and Kevin's new album is still very much a current release - so listen up! Hey Kevin. I can't even recall the last time we did a formal interview. It's been too long. It's been probably since Running With The Wind. Yeah, it could have been. I don't know if we did anything with any of the Two Fires stuff. Maybe…yeah. But here we are now again! Here we are. I was just looking through photos of when we were in Manchester and if it's all right with you I think I'm gonna post some on my website. Oh yes please do. I don't think there's anything too incriminating there is there? (laughter) Not at all. That was a pretty fun weekend wasn't it? [Gods Festival, UK 2002] Oh my gosh, we ...

    Steve Lukather: Here Lies Mr. Toto. The self described road dog of melodic rock. Steve Lukather is one of my favorite people in this business and as has been the case with my previous interviews with the legendary guitarist - he once again lays it all bare, his heart on his sleeve. Mr. Lukather! How are you? I'm doin' OK, just one second here, I've just gotta fix one little thing. OK. I'm feeding my dog right now. Fair enough. Now, here we go. Never a dull moment in family life. I know it mate, I know it. I've just gotta to put this up, hold on a second Drew, give me two minutes. My whole house is being torn apart because we're remodeling. That and with the new baby it's kind of hectic around here. How's she doing? I wanted to save you for last so we could actually have a chat. Thanks man, I appreciate that. Usually it's just newspaper stuff promoting the shows. Did you get through some good interviews? Yeah, they got a shitload of them. More press than we've ever done in Australia. Ironically, as we're heading to the demise. Hold on one ...

Cage: Destroying Hell Once Again. San Diego based metal band Cage don't short change fans when it comes to quality material and an all-round quality package. The new album is Hell Destroyer and frontman Sean Peck talks things over... How are things with you mate? I'm in beautiful San Diego, CA which you can relate to being where you're at. It's another wonderful day to be alive man, you know how it is. I want to do the interview as a sort of introduction to the band - just for those who are on my site and might be more melodically minded and haven't been exposed to the band. You been around for several years now and you're making a good name for yourselves but where did it start? Well basically, two bands in San Diego broke up. The bands were Nomad and Crusher. They were both kind of like heavy metal or power metal bands back in the early nineties. Members of both of those bands came together to form cage. It's funny because we just released online the old material from both of those bands on iTunes so people can go back and hear like where everything came ...

Tommy Shaw: A Lifetime Of Performing. Tommy talks in depth about the recent Shaw/Blades record, life on the road with Styx, the ever popular Damn Yankees question...and more. Tommy? Yes sir. Andrew from Melodicrock. Hello Andrew. How are you? Hey, thanks for calling. That's all right. This is a pleasant surprise. I didn't expect an unscheduled interview to fall into my lap. Well yeah, it just came to me today and I said the same thing, let's do it. You'll pardon me winging an interview rather than having any prepared questions. Well, I don't have any prepared answers either. (laughter) I'm glad to hear it. So where do I catch you today? You've got a day off and you thought you'd like nothing better to do than sit down and do more interviews? Well, we're getting ready to do a big construction project here at our house. We started out with a big Bobcat…digging up the yard and digging up trees and making a complete muddy mess out of the front yard and the back yard. So I'm just getting ready to hose off and take a bath and get that all off of me. So you're ...

  Kevin Cronin: Finding His Own Way. REO Speedwagon frontman Kevin Cronin talks everything behind and about the band's long awaited new studio album. Kevin is an extremely passionate guy - especially in regards to the new album - and I hope that shines through in this interview. G'Day Kevin. First I must apologize for taking ten years to get you on the phone for an interview! Well I apologize for our band being together since 1971 and having yet to play a gig in your entire country. That makes absolutely no sense to me. Well you're in good company. There are some fine, fine bands that have never made it down here, unfortunately. Yeah, well that doesn't make any sense. Our guitar player, Dave Amato spends a lot of time in Australia. He played guitar with Jimmy Barnes in it must have been the late '80s he spent a good deal of time in Australia. He's sort of hipped up to what to expect when we make it down there and it sounds like a lot of fun to me. Well, one day I hope. You're actually doing a media storm over there in the States aren't you? Yeah, ...

  Night Ranger Part 1: Jack Blades. Jack Blades talks about Hole In The Sun - the new Night Ranger record, plus the new Shaw Blades record, Damn Yankees as always....anything else that comes to mind! So Jack, why is there a buzz for the new Shaw Blades record, besides the fact that it's bloody good? Well, I think that it's just one of those records that everybody likes. Everybody enjoys that music. Everyone's just excited about good songs and good music and hearing them from Tommy and I, and having Tommy and I work together again. Is it nice to feel missed? You know, it's very wonderful and very reassuring. We put the shows on tour, on sale and I think one or two of them are already sold out. And VH1 Classic hasn't even started the full court press on the promotion of the album. Yes, I just got the press release today actually. Yeah that's right and there's already such a great buzz out there. I think it's just the fact that the songs are the stars and that's what makes this such a fun record to have. Covers albums are very hit and miss and I'd ...

  Steelheart: Miljenko Matijevic speaks with Ron & Don Higgins.     Miljenko Matijevic of Steelheart Interview Conducted by Don & Ron Higgins After the Steelheart Show at Top Cat's in Cincinnati, Ohio on 11/16/06   Don: You know what was cool? I was talking to T-bone, and I said, “The bad part is, you were out there sweating and jamming and we could tell that you were really nailing it, but we couldn't hear a note. Mili: That was so fuckin' irritating Don: But the rest of the band sounded great, so we said, “Well, he's got a good band behind him.” Obviously we knew you'd get it worked out once you found the right mic, 3rd song in, it was, “Damn, the guy can still sing”. Mili: Yeah, that sucks though. I'm screaming my ass off the first 2 songs… Don: You even had 2 mics. Mili: Yeah, I had 3 mics, actually, it was 4 mics. Ron: That's right, you had the two, then you went to the other one and then you finally got Chris' mic and it worked. Could you tell, because you weren't getting any… Mili: It was just nonsense. It is what it is. Ron: What's cool though ...

  Tim Pierce: The wise words of a studio legend.... The legendary guitarist Tim Pierce talks in detail about life as a session musician for hire and his time with the Rick Springfield band in the 80s and some of the quirks and issues surrounding the music industry then and now. Definitely an interesting guy to chat to, I think that will come through in the intevriew and some of what he has to say about the industry is definitely enlightening. G'Day Tim, great to finally have this opportunity to talk to you after following your career for many years. How are you? Good! I work a lot as a recording musician and I have a beautiful home studio that I work in and a lot of nice people… so life's pretty good. I can imagine so. You're set up in your own studio, obviously a smart thing to do these days. Well yeah, it has become… I didn't mean for it to happen but it just turned out to be a great thing for me. A good adaptation to the new music business. The bands I talk to that are doing the best these days are the ones that ...

xx   Richie Zito: The man behind some true melodic rock classics. Starting out as a session guitarist, to being part of Elton's John band, to a partnership with Giorgio Moroder, to award winning production work for the likes of Cheap Trick, Bad English, Tyketto, Eddie Money, Heart and now his own solo record and record label. Richie Zito has seen it all. Read about some of that right here.     How's yourself Richie? I'm very well, thank you. Look, great pleasure to talk with you. I've been a fan of your work since Cheap Trick's Lap of Luxury. You're going to make me feel old, be careful. Haha. That's probably the oldest record I've got of you producing. I was just thinking about that the other day. It was December of '86. We had everything recorded and mixed. The only thing that wasn't recorded and mixed was “The Flame” and a couple of others. Okay. And then we came back from holiday and mixed the last 2 or 3 songs very early in 1987. That brings back a lot of memories and that was quite some time ago. It was indeed. You've got an amazing catalog. I've even bought CDs on ...

Sammy Hagar: The Evergreen Rocker Lives Life Up.     Sammy Hagar talks passionately about his new album Livin' It Up, touring, his lifestyle and bar, everything Van Halen, plus more on Journey, Planet US, Montrose, Michael Anthony and then some more Van Halen. Enjoy! Sammy Hagar is one of a handful of artists that heavily influenced my desire to start this website. My desire was to speak to like minded people about music that inspired me and through Sammy's work with Van Halen and as a solo artist; some of these tunes are among my most treasured. For whatever reason, it has taken me nearly 10 years to connect with Sammy for an interview. But I got my interview! With personal thanks to Tom Consolo at Azoff Management and Sammy's publicist and indeed Sammy himself, my long awaited interview is below. Sammy was in top form, passionate as always and was happy enough to shoot overtime to continue chatting with me. This is definitely one of my favourite interviews while running this site and I hope it is the first of more to come. While I didn't quite have time to run through 10 years worth of questions, I think we ...

  Part 1 - Frankie Sullivan   G'Day Frankie. So I finally get to talk to you….we've never spoken have we? I don't recall speaking on the phone to you Frankie. I know we've swapped e-mails back and forth and were doing so regularly there several years back. I'm not sure that we were on the best of terms though when we stopped communicating. Well you and I never talked did we. That's the problem then. I don't know if it's a problem, but it's always nice to talk to friends…sure. Much better than e-mailing. Absolutely, so it's cool. Good stuff. You must be pleased to have a record to release. Yeah…..I am….I think all of us are. But you know. I don't know if it's just about having a record, you gotta be happy. It's gotta be something…it's gotta be authentic. I think that's more important than just releasing the music. What goes on nowadays – and it's great – we have such access to just unbelievable music these days. Think about it….it's just phenomenal. I think that in our case….I know this is not just me talking. I tried to do the best we ...

The New Cars Let The Good Times Roll By Mitch Lafon It's been nearly two decades since The Cars cruised the music scene, but the band is back albeit with a few notable changes. Lead singer, Ric Ocasek has decided to remain in park and his shoes are filled by famed producer/ musician, Todd Rundgren. The same can be said for original drummer, David Robinson with his seat being filled by The Tubes skinman, Prairie Prince. In the intervening years bassist Benjamin Orr passed away and his duties are being filled by Utopia bassist, Kasim Sulton. Fear not though, The New Cars (as they are now known) are a pleasant surprise combining both the drive of the original with the power of the new members. To prove the doubters wrong, The New Cars will release It's Alive in the US on May 9th (UK release is May 8th). This new live album features a mix of The Cars classics with a few new songs. The band will also embark on its first proper tour in 17 years with Blondie opening up. To make sense of it all, I sat down with both original members, Elliott Easton (guitar) and Greg Hawkes (keyboards). ...

Danny Malone It took a while to get this transcribed, but here is my chat late last year with Diving For Pearls frontman Danny Malone discussing the controversial Texas album. Thanks to Don Higgins for transcribing the interview for me!     Ok Danny. Great to finally hook up with you. You have a partnership of sorts with producer David Prater. How did you guys get hooked up for the debut album? Michael Kaplan was our A & R guy; Don Grisham was the guy that signed this band. And Don Grisham was also the guy that … I wouldn't use the word insisted but he is really, really the guy that suggested very, very strongly that we use David Prater to produce the record. Right, OK. Because originally we had somebody else lined up. Or I shouldn't say that we had them lined up, we had met with a guy named Terry Thompson I believe. Oh, Terry Thomas? Thomas rather who had done Bad Company, right? And went on to do Giant. Terry Thomas was the guy, the first guy that we were interested in. Terry Thomas came to New York, took a meeting with us and came to a ...

  Toto - The 2006 Interviews       Bobby Kimball (Lead Vocals) "Sorry, but I had to get a baseball bat and kill Joseph Williams. YIKES!!!!! Not really, OK? I loved having all the guys share the vocals, as it's been a Toto trademark from the beginning to have vocal trade-offs. Our signature songs are done with multiple vocalists, case in point: Africa, Rosanna etc. I really like to mix it up and show the different sides of the band vocally. If ya got it, flaunt it." Online Now - Read Interview. David Paich (Keyboards / Lead Vocals) "Not many requests for runway modeling lately. Actually, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the support from various organizations that were associated with this type of thing. Unfortunately Mr. Lukather's attempt at humor was taken to heart by many who actually have to deal with these kind of personal burden..." Online Now - Read Interview. Greg Phillinganes "I've known most of the guys for at least 25 years and I've worked on several different projects over those years with Dave, Luke, Simon and Jeff. When I started touring with them, our relationship intensified as we were able to spend more time ...

Bruce Turgon: Outside Looking Into A Largely Unhearalded Career.     Bruce Turgon is yet another exceptional musician that has spent a lengthy career making other people look good. Finally he gets the chance to shine under his own name, with his debut solo album for Frontiers Records.     Great to talk to you Bruce, time to talk the fabulous Outside Looking In album. Nice to hear from you. First of all - congrats on a great album that seems to have captured the imagination of a lot of fans. Thank you - I'm very gratified to see all the positive response it's gotten so far. To take things back to the start – for those that don't know – where did you career begin? The first time I remember hearing of you was on Lou Gramm's Ready Or Not solo debut, but the partnership went back further than that, didn't it? In the early 70's, I developed a musical association and friendship with Lou Gramm, who lived very close to me in upstate NY. With our band Black Sheep, we worked our way up through the club circuit to eventually become the first American band signed to Chrysalis Records, and ...

Stratovarius: Moving on from controversy. I talk with Stratovarius' Timo Koltipelto, who discusses the band's reformation and their chance to put past troubles behind them. Hello? Hi, Timo here, how are you doing? I'm very well, mate, how's yourself? I'm doing good. Tonight I'm flying back to Helsinki so no problem. Oh, is this the last day of PR for a while? Yeah. Fantastic. Then back home? Yes, basically, then there's some promotions to be done in Finland on Monday and then the next week is traditional mid-summer celebration in Finland so there's nothing happening then so I can relax as well. Fantastic. You deserve it. Maybe <laughs> How long did the album take to record? Well, it's a long story and probably a little bit different from other bands. The drums were recorded sometime in April last year. First of all, all of the problems we had in the past, I don't know if you're familiar with those? Yes, I am. The producer and guitar player Timo Tolkki has a mental illness called manic depression. He was diagnosed at the same time that he was supposed to be recording the tracks so what they did, at first, ...

Balance II: Progressive Pomp AOR Fusion!       Balance II founder Brian Moritz talks about the complexities behind the new Balance release and the recording industry in general. Hi Brian, Well, it is about time that the world got to know a little more about you, so here goes. So Brian, you are a native of the Chicago land area correct? I was born in Ohio, shortly after my family moved to the Chicago burbs, and I've been here trapped on the West coast of Lake Michigan ever since. What is your first musical memory? My brother's band was practicing in the living room, and they were recording practice on a Wollensak ¼ reel to reel tape machine that my brother had just bought with a couple of cheesy mics, and I got the bright idea of playing bongos on the stairwell, out of sight (I was about 7 years old at the time). When they played back the song it was featuring me and my ballistic bongos louder than the entire band. They stopped the tape recorder and the guys were all trying to figure out what the heck that that racket was - when I saw my brother running ...