It just seems like a few months ago that The Dead Daisies were wrapping up their latest headline-grabbing world tour. And in fact, it was, but here they are, one of the most in-demand live rock acts on the planet, already set to release a brand-new studio album, and one that should truly delight the group’s existing fan base, and win over even more legions of music lovers who appreciate solid, hard-rocking music composed and performed by some of the best musicians on the circuit.
Burn It Down is set to be released worldwide by Spitfire Music/SPV in April 6, with the video for the song Rise Up already generating a huge buzz. And with the release of the new record, it’s proof that for The Dead Daisies, ‘resting on their laurels’ is not a phrase that is in their musical mandate.
There is a certain logic to releasing a new album only a year after releasing the band’s incendiary live record Live and Louder, and barely two years since releasing the Make Some Noise studio album – a record that has catapulted The Dead Daisies to new levels of critical, commercial and popular acclaim.
“Are we picking up momentum? Absolutely. I think at the end of the day, a lot of the credit for that must go to the fans themselves. We have built quite the following in Europe and it’s building in America, but America is a little late to the party. In Europe it just keeps getting bigger, and I think its because so many fans are talking and going online and they are very excited about the band and the music,” said lead vocalist John Corabi (ex-Motley Crue, Scream and Union) of the band, which also features bassist Marco Mendoza (Whitesnake), guitarist Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake, Dio, Revolution Saints), band founder, Australian rocker David Lowy, and new drummer Deen Castronovo (Journey, Revolution Saints).
“Honestly, I think the fact of the matter is that we don’t really know why the last album created so much buzz. If I could answer the question of how to be successful, and I could bottle it, I would have done that years ago. So, I don’t really know. Even with us, as talented a bunch of guys as we have and as great as the songs are, when you put a record out you basically do the best that you can. And when I mean you put out the best record I mean the best record you can being true to yourself. And with this band, that’s the way we operate, there is a ton of honesty there. And the we hit the road and try to kick as much ass as we can. Other than that, it’s kind of out of our hands, man.”
Once again, the Daisies collaborated with legendary producer/songwriter Marti Frederiksen for Burn It Down, who Corabi said has become an invaluable contributor to the band’s success.
“Marti is just Marti, man. He’s a very low-key dude, but he is so f***ing talented it’s ridiculous. Obviously, he is a great producer and engineer so he is great at getting tones and things like that. But at the same time, he is an amazing songwriter. When you go back and look at his catalogue, it’s goddam impressive. And as far as I am concerned when you sit down in a room and you write Jaded with Steven Tyler, you don’t really need any more credentials than that,” he said.
“I think we’re kind of looking upon Marti like how Queen approached Roy Thomas Baker [who produced the bands five of the band’s early albums] or Aerosmith working with Jack Douglas, and then you think of the Beatles with George Martin – guys who were part of the team and part of the family. So, having Marti in the loop is not just about tones and sound. It’s about having someone else say, ‘okay Crab [Corabi’s nickname] I think that verse is a little long, you don’t need to sing that long in that verse. Tighten it up.’ And the same for all of us, ‘Doug, I don’t think you need that long of a guitar solo.’ He is very cool as a songwriter goes to have in your back pocket. I love the relationship we have with him and I am hoping that as long as schedules permit, I would love to have Marti involved in our situation a la Roy Thomas Baker, Jack Douglas, or Bruce Fairbairn. It’s so awesome working with that dude.
“And I don’t know what it is, but Marti just gets what we do. And when we’re doing stuff he was just excited about shit as we were. We are sitting there listening to some riffs and we’re going, ‘oh man this is great.’ We’re like a bunch of teenagers laughing our asses off about how cool or how heavy sounding a riff was and Marti was just as excited. I remember him saying, ‘dude, this record is badass.’ Marti is one of the team; he is part of The Dead Daisies. I am just really grateful that he started working with us and that he is continuing to work with us.”
And Corabi, who is an enthusiastic and ebullient chatterbox both onstage and off, seems truly thrilled and energized by Burn It Down and the way The Dead Daisies have come together as a band, in the studio and especially on stage where the band is a guaranteed good night of high-impact, sweaty, gritty, badass rock and roll.
“At the end of the day, people come to see us and they see five guys on stage who are having fun and very cable and capable of playing the songs as they were recorded. We’re having so much fun and I know that translates to the audience. Even at this point, we take our music and the band seriously. We work hard to get the songs as tight as we can, but we don’t take ourselves that seriously. I know for me I love f***ing with people in between songs, and we also have fun with the band introductions and things like that,” he said.
“We want people to walk away from our show saying they had a great time, that it was a fun night. We’re not reinventing the wheel or coming up with a cure for cancer. We’re just out having a good time. We’re five dumbasses that play guitar and sing and we’re little troubadours who travel the world and sing melodies and talk about our dicks, we’re just f***king jackasses that are having fun.”
An additional dose of energy was also injected into the mix with the addition of veteran drummer/vocalist Deen Castronovo into the band, replacing Brian Tichey, who had been with the band since 2013). Castronovo had some legal entanglements a few years ago that saw him removed from his long-time position as drummer with arena-rock legends Journey. He is also a founding member of rock super-trio Revolution Saints, alongside Night Ranger’s Jack Blades and Aldrich. That band released it’s second album Light in the Dark last year.
“Brian Tichey, for the record, is one of the scariest drummers I have ever played with, hands down. The guy can play anything, and then to make matters worse, the guy can play guitar as well as he plays the drums and he sings, and I want to punch him right in the balls, because nobody should be that f***ing talented. But anyway, in all honestly, Brian was trying to sort some stuff out. And he is in demand, you know what I mean? He is a great drummer and a lot of people call him and ask him to play on this record, or go on this run or that run. I think at the end of the day, Brian is really trying to focus on writing his own solo records when he goes in and he plays everything, but he keeps getting sidetracked,” he said of Tichey’s departure, which did come a little late in the game, as Corabi said he heard the news when he first arrived in New York to begin pre-production on what would become Burn It Down.
“Doug obviously had worked with Deen before and Marco had also worked with Deen, so they gave him a call and he flew out a couple of days later and, I got to be honest with you, I had never met him before. When he arrived, he was really upbeat about things and just so excited and positive, happy to be there, happy to get the call. At that point I hadn’t played with him or anything and we went into the studio just to see how it would work out. And he came and, dude, he just crushed these songs. When that record button went on he was on it. And I was like, man we’re not going to miss a beat here. And then he goes in and sings backing vocals and I am thinking ‘Jesus Christ he is a better singer than I am.’ Deen came in at the last minute and just kicked ass. I can’t say enough good things about Mr. Castronovo.”
The last-minute vibe seems to be the modus operandi for The Dead Daisies, at least over their past three releases including Burn It Down. Like musical Mother Hubbard’s, for each of Revolucion, Make Some Noise and Burn It Down, the creative cupboard was bare, yet the entire process for each album rarely went longer than a month. So why mess with a method when it’s working.
“We don’t waste a lot of time in the studio. If you go back and look at the Revolucion album [2015] it was my first record with the band and we went into the studio with nothing – no ideas. They had a couple of tiny things they had started but other than that we had nothing. We literally went in and we wrote, recorded, mixed, mastered that record in 30 days. Then we did Make Some Noise and Doug had come into the picture and once again we had nothing and we had a new member. We hadn’t even played with Doug yet, hadn’t jammed with him or anything, we all just walked into a room and started throwing riffs and ideas on the table and we did the same thing and we did that record in about five weeks,” Corabi said.
“Now it’s the same with Burn It Down. We got together with nothing. But we pulled it together and I think the songs, in my humble opinion, a pretty f***ing good. I think everybody plays their asses off. Everybody is so talented and so capable that they go in and just nail it every time, every track. So, it’s a quick process which basically makes it honest. We don’t sit there and write and song and record it and find ourselves four or five months later re-writing and re-recording it and trying to keep tweaking it. We just go with our guy reaction – this is what knocks our dicks in the dirt, and we lay it down.”
The lead-off track, Resurrected, is a kick-ass rock and roll tour de force song, that also hold great meaning for Corabi. He said the song was penned as much about his own life’s journey as it was for the troubled recent past of Castronovo.
“I love Resurrected; I love the energy of it but I love, lyrically what it means. It can be about almost anybody, but I kind of used Deen and myself as an example. In my case, when I was doing the Motley thing, and then I lost the Motley gig when Vince came back [in 1996 after almost five years] pretty much everybody on the planet wrote me off. ‘Oh this’ guy’s done, he’s done.’ Even a lot of the fans, they wrote me off. And this song is just my way of saying, you know, ‘f*** you, I am still here dude. And I am having a f***ing blast and I am still going forward, I am still pushing,” he said.
“And it’s the same with Deen, and not to get too deep into Deen’s personal life, but a few years back he was in a bit of a dark place and he lost the Journey gig and everybody was talking shit about him. And you know what, Deen has turned his entire life around. He is one of the sweetest human beings you’d even want to meet, and the guy is so f***ing talented it’s ridiculous. So, the song is basically saying, ‘I’m resurrected, I have never been happier.’ And it’s true, I am very happy. We’re working a lot, and here I am 25 years later and I am still travelling the world playing my guitar and singing songs, and people are still showing up. So, f*** all your opinions.
“And I also really love Dead and Gone. I have played the record for a few friends and when they hear Dead and Gone they go, ‘dude, that’s just an awesome party song.’ And I say, ‘yep, that’s the summer, put the top down, crank the shit out of it and just f***ing drive song.’ There’s also a song called, What Goes Around. I just love the riff in it. But, to be honest, I am pretty stoked about the whole f***ing record. I still sit here and scratch my head sometimes and think, how the hell are we able to go into a studio with nothing and come out, in most cases averaging about a month or so to write, record, mix, and master these records. I don’t know how we’re doing it, but it’s working.”
Corabi is also stoked to get back on the road, which The Dead Daisies will be doing starting in early April with an extensive jaunt through the U.K. and Europe with some dates in Japan set for the end of June.
‘Our management is still working on some shows in North America as we speak. I know the guys in the band want to be as busy and successful on our home turf as we are in other places, so we’re working on it,” he said, adding that he personally is looking forward to coming back to Canada. “I have a very fond relationship with Canada, even as far back as Scream. I love coming up there with my acoustic shows and I have done quite a few there at the Rockpile in Toronto, and I know with The Dead Daisies we had a blast playing Lee’s Palace in Toronto last summer, so I do hope we can come back up and play for you guys soon.”
For more information on The Dead Daisies, Burn It Down and upcoming tour dates, visit www.thedeaddaisies.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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