UAE-based rocker Jay Wud, who has just released his new album False Utopia to critical acclaim, has been chosen to open for legendary rock act Guns N Roses, in Abu Dhabi at the Du Arena on March 28th. We nabbed a quick interview with Jay.
Which Guns N Roses song would you do a duet with Axl on, if you were given the chance? I wouldn’t, it’s the mighty Axl after all! To play guitar next to him though? That would be incredible, it would have to be Sweet Child of Mine.
What is the first Guns N Roses song you remember hearing and how old and where were you? It was Welcome to the Jungle, I was 13 years old when a friend at school passed me Guns’n'roses Apetite For Destruction tape.
I saw your music video for Incomplete Heart on MTV Arabia – did they really blur out your tattoos? ha! Seriously? I didn’t know that.
You have just released your album False Utopia, how has it been received here and across the Middle East? False Utopia’s release has been quite a buzz, with the different sound and band launch. We are hoping the tour will get the record to reach more people.
Will your album be available on the merch stand at the Guns N Roses show? We are still working on those details, hopefully yes.
What is up next for you? Will you be touring or are you back in the studio? Actually the opening for Guns is the start of our tour in the region. Dates will be announced very soon on our site.
This year we will focus our energy on performing as much as possible, we owe it to our fans and we can’t wait to get on the road.
If you could sit down with Axl Rose and ask him two questions about anything, what would they be and why? I’d actually ask one question. Why did it take you so long to release the latest Guns record? After guns fell apart a lot of rumours about the new album not coming together went around, but then ” Chinese Democracy” came out and BAMMM, it was a masterpiece !
You are having a dinner party and you can invite any four famous people in the world whether living or dead, who would they be and why?
Jimmy Page
Bumblefoot
Jimi Hendrix
Tom Waits
I don’t think I need to tell you the reason, what a group to have around the same table!
Friday night at The Music Room saw alternative rockers Kicksound take the stage, and from what we here, they played their best set yet. Crowd feedback included that these guys are poised to take the spotlight from Dubai’s favourite pop-rock act – Juliana Down. Let’s hope someone spots Kicksound and gives them that chance!
We nabbed a quick interview from the band, check it out:
If you guys were stranded on a desert island with no food, who would get eaten first and why?
Definitely not Branislav, our Serbian drummer. He’s a pretty scary guy and you don’t want to mess with him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d already been in that situation.
Tell us more about your music, who are your influences? I guess you could lump our music under the horrendously vague category of ‘alternative’. You could also call it melodic hard rock. I grew up listening to the likes of Metallica, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine and Foo Fighters. I think Kicksound’s music is a mixture of those four bands, but obviously not quite as good, otherwise we’d be famous.
Which is your favourite Kicksound song and what is it about? I don’t really have a favourite, but the song that I’m most precious about is Holy Prize as it was the first song I’d ever written. That was finished in late 2010. You could say it’s about ‘cultural’ differences; something that we’re used to in Dubai.
Do you talk about emotions and your lives in your lyrics/songs, do you try and make any kind of political statements, or do you just write fun songs? I have no real interest or knowledge of politics, so I’ll leave that to Zack de la Rocha. I’d say emotions are more of an inspiration. A lot of the songs were written in a very short space of time and inspired by the experience of being in a relationship that was falling apart. Other than that, we have a brand new song called Brain Dead. It describes what happens when you drink one too many hops-based beverages.
If you could define yourself by one line out of any song in the world, what would that line be?
‘I’m a scatman!’
What are you guys up to now musically? Any album/EP/single in the works? We’ve got all the material ready to record an album, and we’ve been speaking to various producers around town to assess our options. If anyone wants to throw their hat into the ring, feel free to get in touch! We have 10 tracks in total, and we be played most of them, plus a surprise classic, at Metal Asylum last Friday. And that classic was…..
One audience member commented “You guys blew me away at the Metal Asylum event! Much impressed! And your interpretation of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” is sick beyond reprieve! Respect! Hope to see you guys perform again soon! Cheers!”
On Thursday night Deep Purple hit the stage at the Emirates Airlines Dubai Jazz Festival 2013 and proved to the 9000+ strong crowd exactly why these guys are one of the most famous classic rock bands of all time.
From the opening bars of the intro to the closing drumbeats of Black Night, Deep Purple rocked every inch of Dubai Festival City to the core.
The crowd ranged in age from those from a similar decade to the Deep Purple members to small children – and everyone sang along to the songs they knew – with voices swelling and rising up over the crowd to the refrains of Deep Purple’s best known song, and the world’s most played classic rock song ‘Smoke on the Water’.
My personal favourite was ‘Perfect Strangers’ – love that song.
“When you look at Seventies rock its hard to pick out a king from Black Sabbath Led Zeppelin and the rest, but on Thursday night Purple reminded us they are definitely a member of the royal family. And the line up was perfect: Don Airey is every bit the legend Jon Lord was, if not more so and I’ve always preferred Steve Morse to Ritchie Blackmore. He was on fire, as were Roger Glover and Ian Paice. As for Ian Gillan, it’s hard to believe you’re not listening to a twenty-something. He is still head and shoulders above David Coverdale, and that’s coming from a huge Whitesnake fan. The set was over far too quickly. Metal fans in their forties never expect to see their true favourites play again and this was a rare treat. It was disappointing not to hear Knockin’ On Your Back Door, Highway Star, Mean Streak and Woman From Tokyo; and Child In Time was particularly conspicuous by its absence. But as the night went on you remembered why you bought the albums: not just for the classics, but for the hidden gems. They still brought a smile to my lips. But the encore was inspired: Hush followed by Glover’s rampant bass solo, leading into the blissful Black Night. I felt as young as Gillan’s ageless voice. Until, that is, I woke up in the morning with a bad back,” said concert-goer Stephen.
The energy from these guys on stage and their obvious love for the music they play is something very special and the solos were incredible, the best solo (in my non-professional musician opinion) was the keyboard solo by Don Airey.
“It was great concert, the sound, light, stage, production was awesome. My favourite song was Hush,” said Raed, a member of the audience.
I also LOVED the fact they came back on stage for the encore. So many bands nowadays just walk off stage and that is it. Encore’s to me show that the band does care about the audience. I guess after 40-plus years in the business they should know how to work an audience!
One of the concert goers said they had seen Deep Purple 10 years ago and that were actually better now then they were then. We think they were definitely better this time then when they played at Gulf Bike Week in 2009.
I have to say the production of the entire Jazz Fest was exceptional, great sound, great venue and fantastic lighting. We notice that in the first couple of songs the drums overpowered Ian Gillan’s vocals, but it was quickly fixed by the sound engineer and the rest of the set was perfect in terms of sound.
Often sound issues happen in the first few songs as during sound check the venue is empty, so the sound reacts differently when there are people there.
I was in the ‘cheap seats’ at the back and could hear everything perfectly. This area is usually where the most complaints about sound come from and I had none. Even the VIPs in the VIP areas right at the very back had no complaints and we all know how hard VIPs are to please!
Did anyone else notice Ian Gillan’s waistcoats? I think I should definitely add a few to my wardrobe!
So, all in all a fantastic night and a BIG congrats to Chillout productions for the best gig organisation we have been to yet. It is fantastic to see event organisers making an effort to create an all round package for concert goers and over the last three years we have seen a great improvement in the standard of concerts organised by big event organisers like Chillout, Done Events, Traffik and Flash.
Even the parking issues, which were the hot topic on everyone’s lips at the Gulf Bike Week, had been fixed and everything was well organised with free buses and transport and signs telling you how long it would take you to get to the venue as you walked along.
My only complaint, which is definitely not music related! The goat shwarmas… I am sure I ordered beef, but that was in no way a beef shwarma. It was so goaty in flavour the animal must have died of old age.
Deep Purple has been called a heavy metal band, a hard rock band, a progressive rock band and much more by media and music industry professionals over the last 40 plus years; but Ian Gillan, Deep Purple vocalist feels that these labels are all wrong.
“Media loves to put a label on you; we have never thought of that, if you need a definition it is a rock band. Calling us heavy metal is just ludicrous, classic rock is like a tombstone around your neck. We went through the phase of dinosaurs and wrinkly rockers. I don’t really know how many more insults they can throw at you. A rock band, that’s what we are,” Gillan states.
The wide range of band influences brought in by the band’s members over the years has ensured that really, Deep Purple remains unclassifiable in terms of genre. When Gillan joined the band in 1969, Jon Lord’s input with jazz, organ and orchestral composition were huge, Richie Blackmore the guitarist at the time, was the Jo Meeks’ music productions guitar player for the first independent rock studio in England, and was also a touring musician with a lot of American rock n’ roll stars. Roger Glover the Deep Purple bass player loves all things folk and the drummer was inspired by big band swing.
“It was a completely mixed bag of influences brought into the band, so it is no wonder it is hard to define,” explains Gillan.
Ian Gillan had his own set of blues and rock n’ roll influences including the young Elvis, Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. The band that influenced Gillan in terms of singing and vocal tone as opposed to writing was Cliff Bennett and the Rabble Rousers.
“It took years and years and years to get my voice into a way that I was happy with it. The bands of the time that I loved, but had no influence whatsoever on me were The Small Faces, and Amen Corner,” says Gillan.
The band has always been slightly eccentric in their approach to fans and publicity, Deep Purple still does not have its own publicist.
“We never really thought about the audience or commerciality because we were just too stupid to figure that out. We still don’t have a publicist, I think sometimes someone from the record label puts one up when we have new products out. Generally speaking we don’t have a publicist so we are not really aware of our worth,” says Gillan.
When he joined the band in 1969, Deep Purple had already had three hit albums and two number one hit singles in America, but they wanted to change their style and they wanted to write their own material, so he and Roger Glover joined, not just as a bass player and singer, but also as a songwriting team.
“I always remember at our first show in the Speakeasy in London with just a few people there mostly consisting of roadies, but when the band cranked up I just looked across and thought, ‘This is it mate, this is what we have been waiting for,’ so that to me was a moment when I realised that we had stumbled into something, maybe stumbled is the wrong word, we had fallen into something that was what we had been dreaming of and that was in 1969,” remembers Gillan. “It has been downhill ever since.”
In 1971, Deep Purple composed their most famous song to date, a song that has been played more times than any other track in the world; Smoke on the Water. The song and its lyrics were born out of an almost tragic event when the band was recording in Montreau, Switzerland.
“`We were in Montreux in Switzerland in 1971 recording the Machine Head album, and the place we were recording was in fact a theatre in a casino, which was made of wood and was a few hundred years old. I was watching the last show of the season and we were moving in the next day. We were watching Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention when someone came in with a flare gun and set fire to the place and it went up blazing and many exciting things happened, lots of dangerous things happened and we went down the coast of Lake Geneva and watched it burn,” Gillan says.
The band then had to find alternative accommodation to record in and at the end of the session the engineer told Deep Purple that he needed one more song. The band was short of time and was leaving Switzerland the next Day.
“We decided to pull out the sound check track from the first day and write a biographical lyric about the making of Machine Head, which started out ‘We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline to make records for the mobile we didn’t have much time’ etc etc , so the lyrics go through and explain the biographical making of this record. Watching that casino burn to the ground was one of the most vivid things I have seen in my life. We were very close to it, so on the last day Roger [Glover] came up with the title ‘Smoke on the Water’, which he had written on a napkin. I don’t know why, but as writers we do this sort of thing, and that was how it ended up,” explains Gillan.
The track then languished unheard on the record as a filler track for a year or more until someone at Warner Bros saw how well the song was going down during the concerts and did an edit from the seven minute version to something that people would play on the radio.
“We never really thought about those things when we made records, we still don’t. Anyway, it got played a lot on the radio and ended up being the most played track in the world ever,” says Gillan.
Deep Purple have a brand new album coming out in April, but Gillan was not able to talk about it.
“I have only just heard the mixes, I have not even heard the masters yet, we can’t do any of the material on stage because of YouTube and the next day it will be out and spoil the surprise. I don’t know how the information got out. I think it was the constant pressure well, when are you going to make a record, so we did one and it will be out in April and it is really too soon at the moment to start talking about it,” he states.
For more information on the Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival check out the website www.dubaijazzfest.com
Dubai based rock band Vin Sinners that released its debut album in December 2011 has clinched the top spot in the hard rock category on www.reverbnation.com, the world’s largest music social platform which was most recently used by legendary rock band Motley Crue to launch their new single. The charts that are devised on the basis of fan growth, interactions, music shares have served as an ideal benchmark to the popularity of a band.
Vin Sinners was founded in 2010 by Chennai born vocalist and songwriter Vin Nair who returned to the stage after a 14 year hiatus from music. The band started doing small shows later that year but only started to gain popularity after the launch of their album ‘An Element of Surprise’ in December 2011 on an independent label in the UAE. The album was then released via popular digital music store www.artistaloud.com in July 2012 for the Indian market following which several songs of the band made it to the top of online charts. Songs such as ‘Something to believe in’, ‘Return to Solace’ and even the heavy metal biopic ‘BHO Part 1′ – dedicated to Barack Hussein Obama made waves on the online space within the niche genre.
Earlier this month, Vin Sinners had announced that it was embarking on a tour of India called ‘The Element of Surprise Tour’ in February 2013 which would see the band do shows in Mumbai and Vin’s hometown Chennai.
‘I remember uploading ‘Something to believe in’ on reverbnation.com in 2010 and soon found it had gotten to No.2 on the charts but it wasn’t until a few days ago that I got this notification and I shared it with the rest. Fans are a testament of good work – period. If they are loving the music we dish out, that’s most of our job done…the rest being showing up and delivering it real good’ said Vin about the band’s most recent accolade. ‘This not something that will stay for ever but it is indeed a special moment for us and we will all savour it well’ he added.
Vin Sinners have a busy February that have them playing at Big Boys Toys in the UAE, Metal Asylum’s Metal Ballroom and one more concert before they take off for India.
Vin Sinners are Cmythonika (keyboards), Skinner (Drums), Joe Demon (Bass), Aldo Rock (Guitars), J.B (Guitars) and Vin (Vocals).
I guess the old adage ’If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, rings true for Abu Dhabi’s ThinkFlash!
According to a post on the official Metallica Facebook page – the band is heading back to Abu Dhabi this April for another show with Flash.
The post reads: ‘Metallica will return to Abu Dhabi on Friday, April 19! Tickets go on-sale on January 21 at 12 PM local time at www.thinkflash.ae.’
A post on the news section of the Metallica website reads:
“We had such an amazing time a little over a year ago visiting Abu Dhabi (a Metallica first!) that we couldn’t wait to head back, so we’re very excited to add a date there to the April calendar. We’ll be stopping at the du Arena at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Friday, April 19 on our way to South Africa.
Tickets go on sale today at www.thinkflash.ae or 800FLASH (35274) at noon. Met Club members should log in for details on how to obtain Fan Pit tickets.”
Their sold out debut performance in the UAE attracted some of the best reviews from concert-goers and music critics across the Middle East, and now the world’s most famous hard rock band is back by popular demand.
FLASH Entertainment is bringing Metallica back to the Capital for another breath-taking show, on Friday, 19 April, at the du Arena, Yas Island. Tickets for the concert go on sale today at www.thinkflash.ae and 800FLASH (35274).
In 2011, when die hard Metallica fans first heard the news they were coming to town, thousands snapped up tickets in record time. Almost 20,000 fans packed the du Arena that Tuesday night, and they weren’t disappointed, as the rock quartet of James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo blasted out hits, including Enter Sandman, Creeping Death, Nothing Else Matters, Sanitarium and Seek and Destroy. There were tears of joy in the front row as fans from across the region screamed for their heroes. This year’s show on Friday 19 April is set to be even bigger.
The nine-time Grammy Award winning band’s meteoric rise to superstardom saw Metallica emerge from the grungy underground music scene, to eventually becoming the most influential hard rock band in the world. With over 20 million Facebook fans worldwide, and 48,000 in the UAE alone, Metallica are one of the most popular bands in the region, attracting fans of all ages and backgrounds.
The band has received rave reviews throughout the world for their contribution to rock music. Stephen Thomas Erlewine and Greg Prato of Allmusic said: “Metallica expanded the limits of thrash, using speed and volume not for their own sake, but to enhance their intricately structured compositions.”
The world-renowned music critics called the band “easily the best, most influential hard rock band of the ’80s, responsible for bringing the music back to Earth.”
Tickets for Metallica live at the du Arena on Friday 19 April go on sale today at www.thinkflash.ae or 800FLASH (35274). Tickets start at AED295 for General Admission, AED695 for Fan Pit and AED995 for Fan Pit Early Entry.
Dutch classical guitarist Thomas Zwijsen released his album Nylon Maiden on January 8th. The album contains 11 unique arrangements of Iron Maiden tracks on classical guitar. Additional musicians on the album are Anne Bakker (violin), Nathanael Taekema (drums), Tony Newton (Voodoo Six, bass) and Blaze Bayley (Iron Maiden, Wolfsbane, vocals).
Thomas has worked closely with Blaze Bayley; as composer, co-producer and lead guitarist on Blaze’s most recent “The King Of Metal” album and tour, playing to thousands of fans across all of Europe. Thomas’ ‘Nylon Maiden’ videos have had over 2 million views on YouTube, with his technical and tuneful abilities never failing to impress.
Nylon Maiden will be released on CD and as digital download. Zwijsen released a single with 2 non-album tracks (The Evil That Men Do / Run To The Hills) on red vinyl and as digital download on November 26th.
Supporting this album Thomas already toured with Maiden uniteD, the all-acoustic Maiden tribute project featuring Damian Wilson (Threshold, Headspace) and Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation), on most of their European dates in November and December.
Thomas is currently on tour with Blaze Bayley. This tour will take him to South America, Australia and Europe, playing a double set: first opening the show with a solo Nylon Maiden set, before a full acoustic set with Blaze.
Catch them LIVE at The Music Room – May 31st https://www.facebook.com/events/317324801702378/?fref=ts
Order your copy of Nylon Maiden here: http://www.thomaszwijsen.com/store.html
‘Inside Looking Out’ – a benefit compilation album of punk & hardcore bands from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Syria, Bahrain, Algeria and Morocco. All profits from this album go towards the benefit of expatriate labourers in Dubai who are often given unfair wages and unreasonable living & working conditions.
01. Sound Of Ruby – Jane Doe
02. Lipslide – Look At The Bright Side
03. Passive Standouts – Not Today
04. IED – Homogenizer
05. Sandwash – Temper
06. Beirut Scum Society – The More You Know (The Less You Feel)
07. Mazhott – Mazhott
08. W.O.R.M – Nothing
09. Midway – Lights
10 .The Camel – Fadia Hamdi
11. Grand Hotel Paradox – Big Battles / Small Men
12. Detox – Camel
13. Riff Raff – Close Shave
14. Tsinelaz – Incoming
15. Through Sunken Eyes – Porn Addict
16. Fighting Superheroes – Shining Light
17. Demokhratia – El Fahem
18. Dead Shakes – Lucky *
19. Tsinelaz – Teriblé (BONUS TRACK)
20. Grand Hotel Paradox – Dub Battles / Small Men (BONUS TRACK)
21. Detox – Great White Human (BONUS TRACK)
Released January 15 from http://abbreviatedrecords.com worldwide in both digital download format and limited pressing of CDs containing three extra bonus
You may remember when ‘Rock Academy’ rolled into town during Summer 2012, well budding Rock Stars, your wishes have come true – Rock Academy is back this Easter!!….If you want to rock out during your Easter Holidays then the Easter Rock programme is for you….
The Rock Academy course develops skills in drums, bass, guitar, vocals, keyboards and DJ’ing. Forming real bands on the first day and working intensely with professional tutors for the week, students will perfect cover versions of rock and pop songs as well as writing their own material. Students who subscribe to the course will find themselves playing to a 150 strong crowd at The Fridge music venue in Al Quoz. Family and friends of the students turn out to see tomorrows rock stars turning their dreams into a reality…..
Rock Academy is managed by two UK musicians, drummer Chris Stone and guitarist/singer songwriter Chris Kelly who have both had extensive experience in the music Industry. The Stone/Kelly partnership were quoted as saying;
“The talent we saw during our Summer Break courses in Dubai really was special, the young people here know how to rock, and we offer young people a fantastic platform for them to get out there and express themselves. The future of the Dubai live music scene is in our hands and we are very excited….”
Rock Academy is endorsed by UK rockers such as the Manic Street Preachers and Stereophonics as well as local music retailer Melody House that supplies musical equipment for young people to rock out on during the courses. Head teacher Allan Forbes from The English College, Dubai spoke about Rock Academy saying:
“”After a week of loud rehearsals, lively musicians and high octane instructors, I was delighted with the outcome when I attended the “graduation” concert. The whole process made sense when I saw students from The English College performing alongside students from other local schools to produce an amazing range of musical genres. The team are a professional outfit, as well as being a lovely group of people – pretty impressive jamming session at the concert too, people! Why they didn’t ask me to be lead singer, I will never know! But they did refer to me as a “cool Head teacher” and so they are forgiven!.”
The ‘Easter Rock’ week long courses take place from 31st March to 4th April and 7th April to 11th April 2013. Visit www.rockacademyworldwide.com for more information or email info@rockacademyworlwide.com to secure your place on the course…..
Anthony Younes, CEO of Chillout productions talks to Metality UAE about the upcoming Emirates Airline Jazz Festival 2013 and what she is most looking forward to this year.
How did you decide on the line-up for this year’s Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival? It wasn’t an easy process, but since we had a kind of decision taken right after the 2012 edition that the theme is going to be rock, then we started contacting all agencies for rock headliners, we were aiming to have a mix of classic rock (Deep Purple), and pop/indie rock (3 doors down + One Republic + The Script)
How do you think the introduction of various genres will benefit the festival?
Well this is more of a music festival, we call it Dubai Jazz Festival, featuring a wide variety of quality live entertainers, mostly is jazz, so basically we have something for everyone’s taste.
Which of the bands are you most excited to see?
Considering my age, I would love to see Deep Purple again, and again.
What is different about this year’s Jazz Fest?
Not so many changes in term of set up, as last year’s was perfect, everyone loved the new venue in Dubai Festival City, but in terms of offerings in the venue, we are working on a wider food and beverage outlets, and more entertainment on the jazz garden stage
What has the audience response been so far to the line-up?
So far it is very positive, I would say 98% of our fan base are excited about it, but we still trying the satisfy the remaining 2%, we want everyone to be happy.
In your time doing event production have you ever had any crazy riders from bands?
All the technical riders of the celebrities have odd requests, we always try to fulfill all their demands, but sometimes they as for things that does not exist in this part of the world. But in general, we don’t believe in the impossible.
What has your favourite Jazz Fest moment been so far?
The day I close the venue after the festival, just kidding.
Can you tell me a bit about the history of the Jazz Fest?
Its started as a 3-day mainstream jazz festival selling the 1st year 1200 tickets, and since the 2nd edition the numbers have double and tripled, in 2012 we had 46,000 visitors.
GRAB YOUR TICKETS NOW!:
TERMS & CONDITIONS
EACH TICKET is valid ONLY on the date shown on its front, and cannot be used or re-used on any other night
Radio Metality UAE