Tenacious D Interview
Tenacious D Interview: By Jenn Nimmo-Smith of Chuffmedia: May 2012
Columbia Records announced the release of Tenacious D’s widely-anticipated Rize of the Fenix, the band’s first studio album in over six years. Rize of the Fenix is the third album from the group and is the follow-up to 2006’s gold The Pick of Destiny and 2001’s platinum debut album Tenacious D.
You haven’t released any songs since 2006, what brought the group out of it’s hiatus?
K. Well, I guess…Love of the game? Yeah I’m gonna go with love of the game
J. Yeah, I’m gonna go with love of the game. Though it should be a multiple choice, you should give us all of the possible reasons as to why we came out of hiatus and then we choose one!
J. OK, let’s go with love of the game.
What has Tenacious D been up to in this time?
J. What have we been up to since the last time? Well we’ve been working on our meditation, a lot of meditation. There’s been a lot of time spent in the Himalayas. There’s been a lot of exercise and diet. There’s been a lot of nose to the grindstone. That’s right, I’ve been nose to the ground stoned! We put out a DVD, about three years ago.
K. That’s true. The Complete Master Works 2.
J. This time even more completer! We’ve been working very hard to complete a masterpiece, you know. But what else have you been up to?
K. I’ve made babies since last time.
J. I’ve been making babies too, but I just can’t find them.
K. Did you lose them?
J. I don’t know where they are. Maybe we’ll find them somewhere on the road!
So can you tell use a little bit about the inspiration behind the songs on this album, and a bit about your songwriting process?
J. Well my inspiration was really just my children. It’s kind of like when Creed found out about his baby and he wrote all those songs about it – like ‘With Arms Wide Open’. This is kinda my Arms Wide Open album. Would you agree?
K. I don’t know, that’s the first I’ve heard!
J I guess the inspiration was the haters, the non-believers, they inspired us to fight much harder. I mean, it’s definitely our comeback album. We’ve been gone for years. What was the inspiration K, besides fighting off the haters and the critics?
K. Well every song has it’s own story really. I mean, ‘Low Hangin’ Fruit’ was inspired by sexy, you know, sex. ‘Senorita’ was inspired by sex. Okay so I guess there’s a lot of sex in there.
J. The cover of the album is really a big raging boner. I guess the inspiration was orgasms. We should put orgasms on the special thanks list, I don’t know why we didn’t really.
K. Not until we get more, more and better ones.
J. I don’t need more, I have all the orgasms I need.
K Really?
J. Well, if you have more orgasms then they’re not as good, you know that. You’ve gotta spread them out. If you’re gonna want an orgasm every night, it lessens their explosivity. You’ve got to hold off sometimes, just to have a bigger blow-out.
How are you hoping the critics will receive the new album?
K. I hope they rave about it. I’m gonna read every single review.
J. I hope that they speak the truth, my only fear is that they’ll speak what they think they’re supposed to think. They’re gonna say what they’re supposed to say oh these guys are just clowns right? We don’t take these guys seriously, right?’. That kind of bullshit. It’s lazy. I’m open up to critics who will really listen to it and say what they really think, as I honestly think it’s the greatest album in the last seven years. And you say ‘why seven Jack, why not just one year?’ Well seven’s just the number that came into my brain.
Have you received any feedback, have you read any reviews yet?
J. Everyone who’s heard it so far has creamed, they’ve creamed upon it. The songs are better than orgasms, it’s been proven scientifically. They’ve wired people brains and when they listen to the album their pleasure cylinders fire on all cylinders. K, can I get your back up on this?
K. I’ve read every review so far and they’ve varied about 90% positive. There was a bad one.
J. Who fucking dared?!
K I can’t remember who it was! It said the big comeback falls short.
J. What a dick! Well my mum likes it a lot.
K. That guys either a lier or has the worst taste.
J. You know what I wanna to, I want to go back into the archives and see who he likes. Maybe, ‘Well Linkin Park’s new album, that’s an album I can really get behind! That’s an album I can really sing and dance to!’. That fucking asshole can just chew on it all day long. And when I say ‘it’ I mean my shit.
What’s it like making music together again and being back together as a group? Is it the same dynamic or has it changed?
J. You know, it’s bettter than ever, really. The older I get the more I appreciate the comradiory and the creative buzz that we get – it’s been a pleasure. I love to rock. How do you spell that?
K. ROQUE?
J. I do love to roque. Roque and roll!
Alanis Morissette New Tour & LP
Alanis Morissette is releasing a new album on 28 August 2012 called HAVOC AND BRIGHT LIGHTS. Alanis has also announced an European tour in 2012 (details below).
Canadian born Alanis Morissette began playing the piano and writing songs at an early age. When she was ten, she joined the cast of the Canadian public television show You Can’t Do That On Television after winning a TV station contest. After leaving the show, she concentrated on her music and recorded and released her first album, Alanis, in 1991.
“I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it.” Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette’s first album, Alanis, was a success at home in Canada selling over 100,000 copies and earning her a Juno Award for Most Promising Female Artist. Her second album, Now Is The Time, released in 1992, was also a success in Canada, but failed to gain success in any other countries. Seeking success in the U.S., Alanis decided to move to Los Angeles.
Jagged Little Pill
In 1994, Alanis met Glen Ballard, the writer of Michael Jackson’s Man In the Mirror and producer of Wilson Phillips’ hit debut album. They decided to collaborate on an Alanis Morissette album and chose to create an edgy rock sound for a new collection of songs they wrote together. The result was 1995’s Jagged Little Pill, one of the biggest albums of the ’90s and the winner of Grammy Awards for Album Of the Year and Song Of the Year.
Jagged Little Pill, with its hit singles “Ironic,” “You Oughta Know,” “Hand In My Pocket,” “Head Over Feet,” and “You Learn,” was a hit beyond anyone’s expectations. The album ultimately sold over 14 million copies. Fans and the music industry alike eagerly awaited the follow-up, which was in the works for three years. A hit release of the track “Uninvited” from the City Of Angels soundtrack in March 1998 only whetted her audience’s appetite for new material.
Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie
The follow-up album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, was finally released in November 1998 to strong critical praise, but, inevitably, sales were disappointing. The album entered the pop albums chart at #1 and included the hit single “Thank U,” but it ultimately sold less than 3 million copies. An MTV Unplugged album was also released that provided an alternative sound for many of her songs. Shortly after the release of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, Alanis Morissette retreated from recording music in pursuit of acting. Her roles included a memorable appearance as God in the movie Dogma.
Under Rug Swept and So Called Chaos
Another Alanis Morissette album appeared in 2002. Under Rug Swept, recorded without Glen Ballard, returned to much of the sound and feel of Jagged Little Pill. It again debuted at #1 on the album chart and included the hit single “Hands Clean,” but sales continued to decline. The next Alanis Morissette album, So Called Chaos, appeared in 2004 with positive critical reviews. The album’s first single, “Everything,” received strong radio airplay and “Eight Easy Steps” became a surprise top 10 dance single.
Alanis gained additional respect in the music community by using parody to mock the FEC’s reaction to the Janet Jackson Super Bowl controversy. In February 2005, she became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. while maintaining her Canadian citizenship. A 10-year anniversary acoustic version of Jagged Little Pill was released in June with the first six months of sales to occur exclusively through Starbucks coffee shops.
Alanis Morissette’s trademark sense of humour surfaced again with a 2007 cover of the Black Eyed Peas’ hit single “My Humps.” In 2008, Morissette was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the young age of 33. A video for the song “Underneath” appeared in advance of a seventh studio album, Flavors Of Entanglement, released in June 2008.
Newton Faulkner Tour & LP
NEWTON FAULKNER ANNOUNCES OCTOBER 2012 UK TOUR
**RELEASES NEW SINGLE ‘CLOUDS’ ON JULY 1ST TAKEN FROM HIS BRAND NEW ALBUM ‘WRITE IT ON YOUR SKIN’ RELEASED JULY 9TH**
Acoustic guitar virtuoso Newton Faulkner has announced a UK tour this October. He will also release his single ‘Clouds’ on July 1st taken from his third album ‘Write It On Your Skin’ on July 9th.
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Newton wrote ‘Clouds’ in a garage in the LA sunshine with his brother Toby and Sam Farrar (Phantom Planet). The track sums up one of the over-riding themes of the album, which is ‘I know things appear to be bad now but they will get better’.
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It’s been over three years since 2009’s ‘Rebuilt By Humans’ and in that time he’s toured the world, started a family (he has a one year old son, Beau Henry Faulkner-Richards) and some might say helped usher in a new generation of singer-songwriters. Ed Sheeran, Ben Howard and Michael Kiwanuka might be stylistically diverse, but their ‘have-guitar-will-travel’ approach surely flows from the trailblazing example of Newton.
Now, after invention, innovation, reinvention and creation, comes his third album, Write It On Your Skin. This one man band (in every sense) has opened himself up to the talents of other writers and players working with his brother Toby (aka Billy Battenberg songwriter), hip hop fan Sam Farrar (Phantom Planet) and production writing pair Nexus.
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He is the feelgood man of the season, the summertime troubadour who brings singalong vibes. As he says now with a laugh, despite his trademark rust-red dreads, he only seems to get recognized when it’s sunny outdoors:
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“For some reason if it’s raining it can’t be me – but if the sun’s shining, then it’s definitely me! I’m completely affiliated with the sun. I get that now.”
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Newton has previously sold over 1million albums in the UK alone. His debut ‘Hands Built By Robots’ spent over 10 months inside the Top 40 Album Charts and become one of the Top 20 Biggest Selling UK digital albums of all time.
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October 2012 dates are:
1st Edinburgh Liquid Rooms
3rd Glasgow O2 ABC
4th Inverness Ironworks
9th Newcastle O2 Academy
10th Manchester O2 Apollo
11th Liverpool O2 Academy
12th York Barbican
14th Leeds O2 Academy
15th Oxford New Theatre
16th Leicester O2 Academy
18th Birmingham O2 Academy
19th Bournemouth O2 Academy
20th Exeter Great Hall
22nd London O2 Shepherds Bush Empire
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Pre-sale on 23rd May and general sale on 25th May.
0844 811 0051 // www.gigsandtours.com // www.gigsinscotland.co.uk
Robin Gibb: King of Pop
Singer and songwriter Robin Gibb has died at the age of 62. Best known as a member of the Bee Gees, Gibb and his band released 35 albums, selling more than 200 million copies. Several of their singles still resonate today, including “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep Is Your Love,” and “Night Fever.” Gibb will be remembered for years to come.
After a career spanning six decades, Gibb last performed on stage in February 2012 supporting injured British servicemen and women at a charity concert at the London Palladium. On 20 May 2012, Gibb died at the age of 62 from colorectal cancer.
The Bee Gees
The Bee Gees were a British singing group consisting of three brothers: Barry Gibb and twins Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb. Not only were they successful in their own right, with seven Grammys to their name, their body of work has been re-interpreted by a huge variety of other artists, from Elvis and Dolly Parton to Billy Corgan and Feist. Of their 35 albums, 200 million copies have been sold, and most have hit the UK and US charts.
Though they were born on the Isle of Man, they had emigrated to Australia by the time Robin and Maurice were nine years old, in 1958. Even from a young age the brothers were singing together in harmony. By 1960 they were singing on television shows and in 1963 they secured a record deal. Barry Gibb and the Bee Gees Sing and Play 14 Barry Gibb Songs was released in 1965 and proved to be a minor success, with “Spicks and Specks” hitting No.1 in Australia.
In 1966 they returned to Britain, intending to capitalize on the burgeoning music scene of the time. By the following year they were on Top of the Pops having released Bee Gees First and finding success with the singles “New York Mining Disaster 1941″, “Holiday” and “To Love Somebody”. Within a year they had released three albums and had six hit singles, but the release of their two disc Odessa was a stress too far for the brothers and they split for 15 months.
In 1971, the reunited Bee Gees had a US No.1 with “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?”, and then “Run to Me” was a UK Top 10 hit. But soon the band felt themselves stuck in a rut, unsure of which direction to take next. They moved to the United States and tried soul music, and then got interested in the burgeoning disco scene. Main Course (1975) was a minor hit, and “Jive Talkin’” topped the Hot 100, encouraging the Bee Gees that disco was the way to go. “You Should Be Dancing” was another chart-topper as Children of the World (1976) further established the Bee Gees pop-disco credentials.
Their fame went through the roof when they were heavily featured on the Saturday Night Fever (1977) soundtrack. Three of the Bee Gees’ songs from it all went to No.1 in the US, and the film itself was a huge hit. The album sold over 40 million copies worldwide, making it one of the biggest-selling LPs ever, but the decline of the disco era marked a similar decline in the fortunes of the Bee Gees, though they were by no means ‘washed-up’. They continued to release albums into the 80s and 90s and they also wrote and produced songs for other artists.
Their last album was This Is Where I Came In (2001). In 2003 Maurice sadly passed away followed by brother Robin in May 2012, shortly after the release of a symphonic concept album he produced with his son, based on the Titanic tragedy.
Sandy Denny Remembered
Photo: David Bailey
NEW DELUXE EDITIONS OF SANDY DENNY’S CLASSIC ISLAND RECORDINGS
On May 21st 2012, Universal is set to release the last three solo albums which Sandy Denny recorded for Island Records during her lifetime. The release coincides with a special tribute tour – “The Lady: A Homage to Sandy Denny” - which commences on May 19th.
Each of the three albums is now presented as a deluxe two-disc edition: SANDY, was released in September 1972 and celebrates its 40th anniversary this year; LIKE AN OLD FASHIONED WALTZ, from June 1974 and RENDEZVOUS which was released in May 1977, less than a year before her death in April 1978. In the intervening years Sandy Denny’s reputation has escalated and it is largely down to this sequence of solo albums (which are built mostly around her own compositions), that she is now widely regarded by musicians and critics alike as Britain’s finest female singer songwriter.
The expansive bonus material includes home and studio demos, alternate takes and live recordings pertaining to each release. Of special note is an radio broadcast on Disc Two of SANDY, containing eight unadorned songs recorded live on a tour of the US at Ebbets Field, featuring tracks from the SANDY, and THE NORTH STAR GRASSMAN AND THE RAVENS albums, as well as the only live performance of “At the End of The Day” from LIKE AN OLD FASHIONED WALTZ. There is also a previously unreleased band version of “The Lady” and a live version of “Whispering Grass” from Dutch Television and an alternate take of the R ‘n’ B tinged “Take Me Away” from the RENDEZVOUS sessions among many other rare or deleted extra tracks.
All three albums contain a wealth of well-known guest musicians including the likes of Richard Thompson, Jerry Donahue, Allen Toussaint, Steve Winwood, Diz Disley, ‘Sneaky’ Pete Kleinow and John Kirkpatrick to name a few.
SANDY, widely regarded as Sandy’s finest solo album, features such memorable Denny compositions as “The Lady”, “It’ll Take A Long Time” and “Listen, Listen” plus “The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood”, the last traditional tune she recorded, underpinning an astonishing multi-tracked vocal arrangement of a Richard Farina lyric.
LIKE AN OLD FASHIONED WALTZ is Sandy’s most romantic sounding record; built around her own compositions it includes the exceptional “Solo”, and “No End”, “Carnival” and “At The End Of The Day” as well as two sumptuous jazz standards, “Whispering Grass” and “Until The Real Thing Comes Along”.
RENDEZVOUS shows a departure in style for Sandy, with several more up-tempo recordings, like “Take Me Away” and a cover of Richard Thompson’s “For Shame of Doing Wrong”. The album also includes an unusual session cut live with the band and strings which yielded gems like “I’m A Dreamer” and “No More Sad Refrains”, the haunting, orchestral “All Our Days”, and “One Way Donkey Ride”.
These new editions coincide with a UK tour entitled “The lady: A homage to Sandy Denny” which will present an evening of classic songs by Sandy featuring Joan Wasser (aka Joan As Policewoman), Maddy Prior, Jerry Donahue, Dave Swarbrick, Green Gartside, PP Arnold and Thea Gilmore, who last year succeeded in bringing to life a selection of Sandy Denny’s unrecorded songs on the album DON’T STOP SINGING.
Donna Summer The Last Dance
Donna Summer
December 31, 1948 – May 17, 2012
Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948, Donna Summer, was an American singer/songwriter who gained prominence during the disco era of the 1970s. With a mezzo-soprano vocal range, she was a five-time Grammy Award winner and the first artist to have three consecutive double albums reach number one on the US Billboard chart. “Love To Love You Baby”, “I Feel Love”, “Hot Stuff”, and “On The Radio” are only four classics of international electronic pop music Donna Summer is well known for. She had her solo-singing debut in the gospel choir of the Grant A.M.E. Church in Boston, U.S.A., at 10 years old and fronted Boston’s psychedelic rock band Crow at 17 when she began her career at 19 in Munich, Germany. There she performed on October 24, 1968 in the German opening night of the musical ‘Haare’ (‘Hair’). In 1973 she met legendary music producers Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte and three years later “Love To Love You Baby” made her an international star. The 17 minutes long ambient house symphony ‘Love To Love You Baby’ with its jazzy bassline was written in 1975 in the Munich MusicLand studios by Donna Summer, Giorgio Moroder, and Pete Bellotte.
In 1977, Summer released the concept album I Remember Yesterday which included her second top ten single, the minimalist ground-breaking “I Feel Love” which reached number six in the US and number one in the UK. Her greatest hits album released in 1979 was a double album entitled On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1&2 which reached number one in the US, becoming her third consecutive number one album.
Seeking out different music styles, in 1980 Summer released The Wanderer where a new wave and more rock sound replaced the disco sound of Summer’s previous releases.
In 2008, Summer released Crayons, her first studio album of fully original material in 17 years, and in 2009 she performed alongside the Norwegian Radion Orchestra at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo in honour of Barack Obama.
Donna Summer died on May 17, 2012 at her home in Key West, Florida at age 63 following a battle with breast cancer.
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