Legendary Dutch guitarist/songwriter/all-round rock star Adrian Vandenberg has exploded back into the rock and metal mainstream with an audacious, inspired, and exceptionally compelling collection of new original songs, that highlight not only his seemingly limitless hard rockin’ energy, but also his unique ability to craft songs that will enliven the spirits of 1980s rock fans, but which will also stir the souls of the latest generation of rockers.
Entitled 2020, this creative compendium is being released through Mascot Records worldwide on May 29 under the name which brought Vandenberg to international attention – his own last name.
The first run for Vandenberg, the band, began with a critically acclaimed self-titled debut album released in 1982, followed quickly by Heading for a Storm the following year, and Alibi in 1985. The hit single Burning Heart caught the attention of David Coverdale, who was looking to revamp the Whitesnake lineup, eventually luring Vandenberg into the fold as a guitarist and a co-writer in time for the massively successful self-titled (sometimes called Whitesnake ’87) album, staying with the band until it went on hiatus in 1990. When Coverdale brought another version back for a greatest hits tour in 1994 and a new album, Restless Heart in 1997, Vandenberg was again enlisted.
For much of the late 1990s and into the 2000s he was involved in a number of other projects and also spent much of his creative time honing his skills as a painter and airbrush artist, before forming a new band, Vandenberg’s Moonkings, a more stripped-down, blues-based entity, in 2013, releasing two studio albums and touring extensively.
By early 2019, the hard rock blood in Vandenberg’s veins was beginning to rise again, and understanding that an edgier, more brash and badass musical posture wouldn’t fit the Moonkings milieu he chose instead to come full circle, by releasing the new material he was working on under his original Vandenberg banner. The result, 2020, is a perfect amalgam of all the things that made Vandenberg a household name in Europe, but brought seamlessly forward into the 21st century, with it’s more modern sensibilities and production stylings.
“When I was thinking about broadening my musical horizons over the last year or so with my band Vandenberg’s Moonkings, I wanted to go harder, and faster and heavier, with more testosterone so to speak. And, for me, it didn’t really make sense to do that within the framework that I kind of came up with the Moonkings, which was more heavy blues rock based. I really wanted to go this route again after several years of a little more relaxed vibe,” he said from his home in The Netherlands, just a few minutes from the German border, adding that his more than four decades of experience as a songwriter and recording artist was brought to bear on how the album came together.
“It’s really great to have experiences all those different phases of recording and all the different technologies from over the years. It means you can go back and use parts of all of them, and at the same time, over the years, you learn that you shouldn’t polish it too much trying to make the perfect record, because then it loses the essential element of rock and roll, which is the energy and the adrenaline and excitement, the emotional dynamics and things like that. And I wanted to make sure I balanced what people consider the classic Vandenberg sound with a tone and a feel that was fresh and updated. When I started this album both my management and record company suggested I used the name Vandenberg again. And I said that I didn’t want to turn into a nostalgia act like so many others do where they scramble all the old band members out of the retirement home and stuff – it’s a little bit of a tired thing.
“I told them that if I was going to do this, first of all I am going to have to find an amazing singer that blows everybody away. And I have that with Ronnie [Romero], fortunately, and at the same time an amazing lineup when I eventually go out on the road. Basically, it sounds like a fresh new Vandenberg band, but with the name that has a heritage and a legacy. And it worked very nicely because, it’s a long the tradition of what I used to write for the old Vandenberg, with the harder stuff from those days even more in-your-face sounding like you can so much better these days. Right now, you can actually make it sound more organic than you could back in those early days. And I was very happy working with producer Bob Marlette [Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Rob Zombie] because he knew exactly what I had in mind because he had exactly the same thing in his mind from the time that we first had spoken.”
Romero, a native of Chile who now lives in Spain, burst on the European hard rock and metal scene a few years ago, when he was brought in to be the lead vocalist for a new incarnation of guitar legend Ritchie Blackmore’s equally legendary band Rainbow. He has also guested on many other albums, as well as fronting his own band Lords of Black.
“When I first heard of Ronnie it was when I found out that Ritchie Blackmore was going to do a bunch of Rainbow shows. And since my favourite singer [and founding Rainbow vocalist] Ronnie James Dio had passed away, I wondered who the hell is going to sing this stuff. So, I went to YouTube to find out who this guy was, and Ronnie blew me away. It was like, ‘where the hell did this guy come from?’ When I started thinking about looking for an incredible singer, suddenly Ronnie’s name popped into my head. I wondered how much he was able to do because I knew Ritchie only did a few shows a year,” Vandenberg said of his band’s new singer.
“And when I approached him, he was pretty excited because he told me right away that the reason why he started singing was because of the acoustic album that Coverdale and I recorded in 1994 {released in 1997] the Starkers in Tokyo album. So, Ronnie and I coming together happened in a very natural way, and I am really happy about that, because I think it’s huge in rock and roll that things shouldn’t get too contrived. When folks get together in a very natural way, it feels good, it’s not like something put together by a bunch of business guys in a boardroom.
“Besides being a great singer, he is a cool guy too. It’s very important that he is a good person, plus you have to have a good sense of humour otherwise you’re not going to survive. He knows that a good sense of humour within a band is really important because you spend so much time being together, you have to learn not to take everything to seriously and to be able to laugh at it.”
The new album features a couple of supremely impressive guest artists to accompany Romero’s powerhouse vocals and Vandenberg’s dynamic guitar wizardry: on a handful of tracks, on bass, is his former Whitesnake and Manic Eden bandmate Rudy Sarzo {Quiet Riot, Ozzy, Blue Oyster Cult, The Guess Who) and another former Whitesnake member, drummer Brian Tichy [Foreigner, Sass Jordan, Silverthorne). It was initially hoped that the pair, who are extremely busy with loads of other musical projects, might be able to squeeze in time to be full-on Vandenberg band members, but when the guitarist found drummer Koen Herfst and bassist Randy Van Der Elsen, who were closer at hand, Vandenberg knew he had his band..
“I was told that if I wanted to get the album out in May, which is happening now, a record company these days needs a minimum of three months in hand to get everything together for the release. So, I was kind of pressured timewise to make sure I finished it by the beginning of February, and we did. But I didn’t have my band in place, other than Ronnie. To make sure I met the deadline I asked Rudy and Brian if they would play on the record,” he explained.
“About two weeks before we finally went into the studio, I found a kick ass bass player and drummer and called up Rudy and Brian and said that we had a lineup together, but would they mind being guests on the album, which I thought would be great because they’re good friends and they’re great players.”
Vandenberg pens the lyrics as well as the music, and said he tries to avoid the tried and true sorts of subjects one finds in hard rock music.
“First of all, you will notice right away that there is a thread all through the album, which is an organic dynamic, right in your face kind of rock, which is something I really missed over the last 20 or 30 years. I would run out and buy an album like this right away. It’s always been a very important thing for me to put out an album of music that I really want to hear myself,” he said.
“Lyrically, I want to stay away from the ‘I love you baby,’ type of stuff. I will leave that to other people. So, there are only a couple of songs where there’s like a boy/girl type of reference, and even then, it’s not really clear. And one is about lost love in Let It Rain. Love is something that is relatively easy for me to write about and its something that everybody has experienced, but at the same time, song after song about it can get a little old for the listener.
“When I started Vandenberg and started writing for that band, I was in my early 20s. Looking back at it, a number of the lyrics, like for Burning Heart for instance, appear quite timeless. But there are some other ones where I hear them, and I can tell it was written by a young guy who was eager to rock out and party in hotels and stuff. Today, I think the lyrics need to be a little more grown up, so to speak. I don’t want to insult the intelligence of the more experienced, more adult listener.”
Shadows of the Night is a song about trying to leave everything behind and starting fresh, with no plan in mind.
“I realized after when I was going through the lyrics for the songs on the album that there were a few songs that were very escapist. Sometimes I think everybody can have those periods in your life where you get fed up with things that you’ve been into and that you want to pack up and leave everything behind’ to just say ‘f*** this, I am getting out of here. I am going to drive to the horizon and see where I end up.’ I wrote a few of them like that, including Ride Like the Wind, so apparently, I must have been feeling like that at least a few times over the last year. And it’s funny how it relates to what’s going on in the world right now. You really want to get away from all this stuff, the politics, the Covid-19 things, and go to a place where you can be relaxed and outside with friends and family,” he said.
The genesis and meaning of the song Shitstorm may seem self-evident, and it is to a degree, as it is a commentary on the current world situation. But it was a word that Vandenberg was initially unfamiliar with, and later became fascinated by.
“Sometimes as a foreigner, or at least a non-English speaking person, although it has become my second language, and has been for over 40 years, the first time when I heard the word shitstorm I was like, ‘man, that’s a great word. In one word it says so much. It says a whole bunch of sentences in just one word; that is so powerful,” he said.
“I read a Keith Richards interview once where they asked him how the Stones’ songs come together, and he said it was an interesting process because you kind of stick up an antenna and hope it catches something. And that happens to me when I am writing lyrics and songs, including for this song. It usually goes hand in hand when I am working on music; I usually get some key words or a phrase of whatever and I write them down, because I believe when that happens it’s because it fits the vibe of the song. When I started writing this song, for some reason this great word ‘shitstorm’ just popped into my head as I was writing the music and I said, ‘f*** it, I am going to use it.’’
For long-time fans of Vandenberg, there is an updated version of the international hit Burning Heart, from his debut album – a version that wasn’t originally intended to go on 2020.
“What happened was the record company wanted to put out a press release announcing the band had returned and that Ronnie is the singer. My manager said the press release alone was not a very strong signal, that we should put out some music with it so people can actually hear that Ronnie in Vandenberg is kicking ass. I thought it was a great idea because we hadn’t recorded the album yet. I realized I had a version of the song with drums and bass that I recorded with the rhythm section of the Moonkings as a possible bonus track for Japan, because in Japan they love their bonus tracks on albums,” he said.
“It was better to do that than to give away a brand new song. I flew to Madrid and Ronnie sang it in about 10 minutes, doing two passes and they were amazing. I decided I could finish it here in my home studio and use it as an addition to the press release. But when the album was all done, both management and the record company said this new version of Burning Heart sounded so cool and I should put it on the album. I first said no because I have re-recorded it a bunch of times and it seems a little lazy, but then they said something that made sense and changed my mind.
“My manager said that he thought it built a nice bridge between Vandenberg now and the very, very first Vandenberg album in 1982. And I realized that’s a great argument, actually. So, we ended up putting it on 2020 and it does make a lot of sense and it fits in well. It’s also a little heavier than the original version. The main difference, guitar wise, is in the solo I kind of use the idea that we used on the second Vandenberg album where the first half of the solo was acoustic, and they I go into an electric part and create this cool dynamic. I also though that would be a nice nod to the second album and that Ronnie singing it would make it viable for now.”
For more information on any possible post-pandemic tour dates, or on the new album 2020, visit https://www.facebook.com/vandenbergband, or http://vandenbergband.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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