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Spinal Tap – Bitch School (Smalls/St Hubbins/Tufnel) b/w Springtime (Smalls/St Hubbins/Tufnel) & Talk With Tap Pt1 1992

For any fan of seminal spoof meisters Spinal Tap, the lure of a shaped ‘mini Stonehenge’ picture disc was too much to resist.

Bitch School preceded the band’s early 90s comeback album Break Like The Wind and lyrically it was right up there with the Tap’s most socially sensitive work.

Using the Stonehenge imagery was a masterstroke and including the first part of an exclusive interview with the band made this seven incher an instant collector’s item. Read the rest of this entry »

Strap yourself in and get ready for one hell of a rock ride this week as we maintain the momentum in a massive month for the music we love.

Get ready for exclusive interviews with Def Leppard’s Phil Collen and The Answer’s Micky Waters with both men playing live this week.

We review Collen’s Man Raze supporting the original shock rocker Alice Cooper and deliver the verdict on The Answer playing alongside rushonrock faves Black Spiders.  But that’s not all! Read the rest of this entry »

Judas Priest – A Touch Of Evil(Tipton/Halford/Downing/Tsangarides) b/w Between The Hammer And The Anvil (Tipton/Halford/Downing) 1991

The highest charting of the three singles culled from US gold certified album Painkiller – even outdoing the title track – this cracking slice of British metal is what Priest do best. And what Rob Halford and his pals still do better than so many young pretenders in 2009.

Fusing menacing lyrics with screaming hooks, A Touch Of Evil is classic post NWOBHM Priest with an ace production job by Chris Tsangarides (try saying that after a couple of ales) complementing a massive Halford vocal. Painkiller was, some would say, the pinnacle of Priest’s career and this tune was the pick of the bunch on a belting record. Read the rest of this entry »

Fresh from blitzing Europe on Give It A Name 2009, those crazy electro-rockers from across The Pond – Innerpartysystem – have decided to document exactly what goes in to a tour with one of the world’s most exciting new bands.

Yep, with six-track EP Heart Of Fire just three weeks away and a slew of summer festival appearances lined up, there’s just no stopping the oh-so-cool quartet right now as they forge ahead in the race to become the globe’s biggest dance rock crossover act.

Far from an obvious choice on GIAN 09, the triumphant IPS blew away the majority of the rock and metal thoroughbreds on show to prove their credentials as a band every bit as loud as they are proud. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re (reluctantly) counting down the days to Thunder’s retirement but before they head for the hills we grabbed forntman Danny Bowes for a typically candid chat.

And in this second part of a cracking interview he recalls blowing away Van Halen, playing fast and furious to avoid stagefright and why fans will always come first for Thunder – for the next few months at least!

Read the rest of this entry »

Band names. Don’t you just love ‘em? Or hate ‘em. Or even find them frankly ridiculous?

It’s an issue which has come to the fore in the week rushonrock rather dubiously  highlighted the latest sleaze and cheese opus by Italian hair metal (don’t ask) heroes S.E.X. Department. Read the rest of this entry »

Even back in the day it required a giant leap of faith for me to fully believe in Justin Hawkins.

And after everything he’s done down the years – good and bad – I still find myself questioning whether the high-pitched one deserves my support.

But however far Hawkins falls he has an incredible knack of picking himself right back up again. And it’s impossible not to like one of the most amiable frontmen in rock.

I remember coming across The Darkness sometime in 2002 and still own the promo copy of Get Your Hands Off My Woman. But I’m not sure why.

You see I just wasn’t convinced that this gang of retro rockers was anything more than a 21st Century Spinal Tap.

They’d begged, borrowed and stolen just about everything that was good about the 70s glam scene and the 80s hair metal movement and moulded it into one ridiculous recipe for what I imagined would be impending disaster.

I loved the style but I just couldn’t buy into the concept. I wanted to embrace some fantastic tunes but the four piece initially came across as feckless frauds.

Even when I watched The Darkness support Def Leppard at Newcastle City Hall some months later they still weren’t doing it for me. Justin looked like he could be a consummate rock performer and yet his stage presence verged on the pantomime.

Right there, right then I was ready to write them off.

But a sweaty gig played out in front of a capacity crowd at Newcastle University changed everything. Here, in their natural environment, Hawkins and co. controlled the crowd, set the tone and created a sublime mood. It was one of the most sensational gigs I’ve ever seen.

From that point onwards I, like thousands of others up and down the country, began to believe in a thing called The Darkness. For a year or so they were simply unstoppable and Justin was the charismatic catalyst.

Then came the fall – even more rapid than the rise. As Justin admitted to rushonrock earlier this year the band just weren’t ready for Arena shows and global domination. The various band members were pulling in different directions and their second album was a shocker. It all fell apart and I wished I’d trusted my instincts. I wondered why I’d ever liked The Darkness at all.

But I did. And I liked Justin. A lot. So imagine my horror when, after reading some frankly disturbing stories about his private life I saw him popping up on some horrible Eurovision show, prostituting his obvious talent in the most disappointing manner possible.

Ok, I thought. I really was right about the man all those years. He is a performer but he’s no rocker. And I never believed I’d speak or talk to him again.

Of course Hawkins is the master of reinvention. And last weekend he was on an X-Factor panel featuring Philip Schofield and some bird out of Coronation Street discussing the pros and cons of this series’ star performers.

Why? Because he’s always been a big personality, always been a big talent and these days he’s even back to doing what he does best – rocking.

And while all those Eurovision nightmares came flooding back I couldn’t help but chuckle at the fact that this skinny, cheeky, screeching rock star was back on mainstream telly and still wearing a bandana. More importantly he was able to plug one of the best songs you’ll hear all year.

And that’s why I can’t get enough of Justin Hawkins. It’s his songs. Whatever else you might say about the guy he can still write a brilliant tune and I’ve Met Jesus is one of his best yet. Maybe I’m still not fully convinced. But these days I’m halfway there (livin’ on a prayer..).

Simon Rushworth

We’ve kept you waiting all week but here it is – one of the most amusing interviews you’ll read all year with the frontman of one of Europe’s most underrated bands. Edguy’s Tobi Sammet is a funny guy but his music is pretty serious stuff for all fans of melodic metal.

rushonrock: Edguy are still far from household names over here. What are you going to do about it!?!

Tobi Sammet: Raising our profile is not only a problem in the UK – the same goes for everywhere. Even where we sell a few records we’d like to sell a few more! If you play the kind of music we do then we can’t rely on the major media giving us much support so we just do it old skool style – tour, play, tour, play. That spreads the message better than anything could. It gives us the chance to show people that we’re the best band in the universe since Led Zeppelin!

rushonrock: That’s a point we can debate at another time but for now what’s the word on cracking the USA?

TS: Right now we’re trying to get ourselves out there in the USA. But I’ve got to say that touring the UK is more of a pleasure than touring the States. It’s tough over there but all we can do is keep releasing great albums and hope people will start to hear them.

rushonrock: Do you see yourselves as a successful band?

TS: I don’t know how a band like Edguy can measure success. The most important thing in a band as in most walks of life is that you’re happy with what you’re doing. All of us could have done something different. We were all going to school. Some of us even studied…All of us were starting to listen to our teachers and we had potentially great futures outside of music but we didn’t want to go down that road.

rushonrock: But we’re sure you’d like a few more Euros in your pocket?

TS: These days it goes without saying we want to have commercial success and when you reach the stage we’re at it means, at the very least, you can finance the big productions that make your records sound better. But for me success is not having to get up in the morning and work a 9-5 job. That’s the key. We have had a degree of commercial success in our own way but I suppose the thing is we’d never doing something in order to be successful. We don’t focus on any special market or group. We do what we like and hope other people like it too.

rushonrock: Will you ever be really big outside mainland Europe?

TS: It’s getting better for us in the UK. Slowly but surely we’re starting to make an impression on British audiences. If you want to be big in the USA you have to go there and stay there. I wouldn’t want to live in the USA in a million years! It’s a different planet and I don’t want to go there. That means we’re never going to be a big, big act over there but that’s OK. I just don’t want to make the sacrifices we’d have to make to break that market in a big way.

rushonrock: With new album Tinnitus Sanctus up your sleeves you must have a chance?

TS: Every musician says it but TS is the best album we’ve made for sure. It’s a combination of what we’ve done in the past and new elements without sounding too ridiculous. In a heavy metal band you have to be ridiculous to a certain extent but it’s important not to cross the line.

rushonrock: Are you worried about coming over all Spinal Tap in your old age?

TS: There are lot of Spinal Tap moments in every band’s history and we’re no different. But we’ve made a classic melodic metal album which has managed not to sound too ridiculous. That’s an achievement when you play our style of rock. Take Dragonforce. They’re at the extreme end of what we do but they’re ridiculous on purpose. We’re more mid-paced than those guys – they just like to push everything to the limit. They say look at the clothes that I’m wearing and listen to the stupid things that I’m saying and they love it.

rushonrock: So when are you next in our country?

TS: We’re coming over to England in January and playing a couple of shows in Derby and London. I don’t want to kiss ass but we love England and the English people and we’d play a whole lot more shows there given the chance. But the food in England is terrible. Luckily the rock audience is great. We’re staying in a haunted hotel in Derby so that should be fun…