interviews
Former Motley Crue vocalist John Corabi was never far from the stage throughout the ’90s and into the 2000s. During that time, he witnessed hard rock fall on hard times as new genres, including grunge, gained popularity. Corabi recalls one particularly dark moment while he was taking part in a package tour that was selling poorly. Previously, each of the bands could have drawn thousands on their own, but they were now collectively struggling to draw hundreds. “It was bleak,” he tells UCR. “I just remember getting offstage and having a panic attack.” With the passage of time, a lot of those sam...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Stone Temple Pilots met the music industry head-on as their debut album, 1992’s Core, sold millions and millions of copies. As bassist and songwriter Robert DeLeo tells UCR, “I don’t think we were really prepared for that.” His ’90s contemporary, Live vocalist Ed Kowalczyk, felt similarly as you’ll read in the below interview. They’d made great strides with Mental Jewelry, which arrived at the end of 1991. But the prospects of having to follow that up were overwhelming. As we know now, they figured it out. STP’s Purple debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Album Charts, selling a quarter-million c...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Steely Dan hated touring. That’s been the accepted narrative for a long time. But it’s one former guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter questions. *“I’m not sure that’s actually 100% true,” he tells UCR\. “I know [\[Walter\] Becker](https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/walter-becker/) and [\[Donald\] Fagen](https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tags/donald-fagen/) enjoyed the concept of saying \[that\], but we toured a lot in the beginning\.”* Baxter has logged countless studio hours with artists like John Mellencamp, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr and Joni Mitchell. Still, his lengthy stints with both Steely Dan...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Deep Purple has flirted with the idea of calling it quits before. But according to vocalist Ian Gillan, they’re still running strong. Don’t pay attention to the rumors you may have heard. “So far, so good,” he quips early in the below conversation with UCR. You can apply that thought to many things beyond their ongoing prowess on the road. Earlier this year, Deep Purple released =1, their newest studio album, which once again features legendary producer Bob Ezrin at the helm. There’s mutual respect between the two parties and it makes sense: Both Ezrin and the members of Deep Purple are not kn...
Ultimate Classic Rock
At its peak, 10cc was seemingly untouchable. But all good things must often come to an end and eventually, the ’70s hitmakers would have their own version of that moment in a very uncomfortable way. As bassist and vocalist Graham Gouldman recalls, it was sobering when a record exec played music from another band on the label’s roster. “It was so great and our record was so bad,” he tells UCR. Still, they’d had an enviable run, landing five straight Top 10 albums in the U.K. between 1974 and 1978. Some 12 Top 40 hits helped to power 10cc’s success in that period. Three of them went to No. 1, in...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Dave Mustaine has played his share of challenging gigs with Megadeth. But it was the closing night of the historic Big 4 tour — Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax at Yankee Stadium in September 2011 — that found the metal frontman in a serious bind. “My neck was getting ready to stop working,” he tells UCR, remembering the gravity of what he was facing that day. “The show must go on,” he adds. In the conversation below, Mustaine details how he was able to soldier onward and step onstage in front of 41,000 people to finish the tour. Megadeth is back on the road on Aug. 2 for the Destroy Al...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Kiss has always taken its share of knocks from the critics and sometimes, even fellow musicians. Former guitarist Bruce Kulick will be the first to tell you that’s unfair. “Nobody could play it better than those guys the way they performed it,” he explains, using the solo in “Detroit Rock City” as one particular example. “Anyone that considers Kiss simple or easy music to play, they’re idiots. This stuff is hard. It’s just that the band never got credit that way and it always should.” Kulick has had some extra time since his departure from Grand Funk Railroad became official in January, but it...
Ultimate Classic Rock
The Police had the biggest album of their career with Synchronicity and then it was all over. Guitarist Andy Summers says it’s a familiar tale which led to the group’s demise. “It’s the typical process where you become incredibly famous and they throw all of this money at you and then the rot sets in,” he laughs during a conversation with UCR. “It’s very hard to stay away from that.” Though he would have preferred a different ending, he’s remained in a constant creative state over the decades that have followed. Sometimes, one project will lead to another. That was the case last year when he p...
Ultimate Classic Rock
Roxy Music has played their last concerts, according to Phil Manzanera. “It was a good time” to say goodbye, he tells UCR. “We might bring out a recording of that tour. I don’t think we’ll do any more live gigs, ever. I think that was it.” When they first revealed plans to return to the road for a run of dates in September and October 2022, Roxy Music positioned it as a chance to celebrate their 50th anniversary. But even then, the guitarist felt the gravity of the moment. “You never know when you get to this stage in one’s trajectory whether it’s going to be the last time, so you treat it as ...
Ultimate Classic Rock
When Yes released Drama in 1980, it took some fans by surprise. Vocalist Jon Anderson and keyboard legend Rick Wakeman were gone. In their place, Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes of the Buggles stepped in on vocals and keyboards respectively. As jarring as it might have been at the time, the Drama album turned out to be a fascinating listen and over time became both a fan favorite and a cult classic. It was also Horn and Downes’ only album with that configuration of the group. In classic Yes fashion, the lineup shifted again though Horn would remain in a different capacity as producer to help craf...
Ultimate Classic Rock
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