Black Sabbath

Black Sabbath, the original four horsemen of the metal apocalypse, charged their reunited forces across foreign soil earlier this year, saving their triumphant return to America for a winter tour kicking off in Phoenix on New Year’s Eve. Working up to the live run, bassist Geezer Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi, fabled frontman Ozzy Osbourne, and drummer Bill Ward issued Reunion, a double live CD that smokes with the haunting Sabbath dirges and staunch, dark music of heavy metal’s most influential outfit. As Butler and Iommi indicated in a late October interview while doing press in New York City, the CD is just the tip of the iceberg.

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Bullet For My Valentine

There just may be something in Britain’s water supply that causes the country to produce some of the finest heavy metal bands the world has ever known. Black Sabbath, Cradle of Filth, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest…the list goes on and on. Now, 2008 is shaping up to be the year of the Valentine, as Welsh rockers Bullet For My Valentine unleash “Scream Aim Fire” on an unsuspecting public.

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Def Leppard - Interview with Rick Allen

Of all the places you imagine rock stars go, the dog groomer is probably not one of them. Not so for Def Leppard’s thunder man Rick Allen, who woke up at seven o’clock to take his little cairn terrier, Ricky, to get his hair coiffed and paws manicured.

Then again, Rick Allen is no ordinary rock star. Joining the Leppards as a nineteen-year-old pup himself, Allen rode the effervescent wave of Britain’s heavy-metal renaissance on the brink of the eighties. With their trademark trickling vocals and opulent guitar riffs, the multiplatinum, Union-jack clad lads from Sheffield are one of the biggest-selling bands in the world. But their success did not come at a low price. On New Year’s Eve, 1984, Rick Allen walked away from a lethal auto accident with only one arm—a death knell for the career of a drummer. Two years later, Allen miraculously took the stage again, this time playing on a specially customized electronic drum kit which compensates for his handicap.

The resilient Rick Allen spoke to Maximum Ink, in his ever-cheery English accent, before Def Leppard churns the wheels of their unusually long three-year tour towards Summerfest 2007.

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Don Airey

Don Airey isn’t a name that many people know well, but his keyboards have been heard by most anyone listening to American radio in the last twenty-some years. The pipe organ intro to Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mr. Crowley?” That’s him. The slick strings in Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night” or the glassy electric piano on “Here I Go Again?” That’s him, too. How about the freaky synthesizers on Black Sabbaths’ Never Say Die album? Yeah, that’s Don Airey again.

The list if bands that Airey has either recorded with or been a member of is long, but includes (besides those already mentioned) Jethro Tull, Judas Priest, Gary Moore, The Michael Schenker Group, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, and UFO.  He has come to be the most prolific keyboardist in hard rock. He is also the current organist in Deep Purple, perhaps one of the most keyboard-intensive bands in the history of rock.

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Heaven And Hell - Black Sabbath with Dio

Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio is back with a new “Best Of” album with a few new songs. This interview caught Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler while out on tour…

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Iron Maiden

Simply put, Iron Maiden had to co-headline OZZfest 2005. From the band’s perspective, spending the summer on OZZfest would expose the legendary Maiden machine to a vast new, younger audience. And from OZZfest’s perspective, Iron Maiden were the only remaining band left to headline the summer caravan. It was the best of both worlds for both parties, and creates an even better world for fans of heavy metal, as the double-billing of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden creates one of the most potent top-heavy package tours in music history. Ironically, while neither band are boasting new material, there are three solo albums being released this summer from their cumulative forces, two from Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler, and one from Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson. We won’t be hearing any of the new material this summer, and there’s only a possibility that any of them will tour solo this fall, which makes their presence on the road this summer even more monumental. Especially in the case of Iron Maiden. While Black Sabbath tours have become an annual occurrence as of late, there’s no telling what the future holds for Maiden, especially in America. Their last album, Dance Of Death, was a chart success for the band, but it resulted in only two domestic tour stops in New York and Los Angeles. And with frontman Bruce Dickinson being a full-time airline pilot outside of Iron Maiden, we have to approach any opportunity he takes to tour as privileged circumstances… 

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Jethro Tull

Jethro Tull has tiptoed behind the scenes of mainstream rock music for almost 50 years. They brought an element of class and sophistication to popular music and won over their audiences with witty lyrics and an original sound that blended elements of nearly every style of music. Throughout the years they dared to be different and became something great. The following is an interview with charismatic frontman, Ian Anderson.

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