Rock history has seen no shortage of epic collaborations and supergroups, but The Dead Daisies are evidence the music world may just be in the golden age of the phenomenon.
The band have gone from strength to strength since their 2013 debut, and numerous line-up changes have only solidified their sound. Their second album, 'Revolución', borne out of an historic trip to Cuba shortly after it's re-opening, came out last year.
Now the prolific legends (whose resumes include Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake) are back with newest album 'Make Some Noise'. “You gotta understand, we got together to write,” vocalist John Corabi says.
“We all sat in a room together and at one point Doug had a guitar, David had a guitar, Marco was playing guitar and bass, and you have Brian Tichy on drums who as good as he is on drums, is that good again on guitar so he was playing guitar, I was playing guitar, and then Marti Frederiksen played guitar. I don't think there will ever be a shortage of new ideas for The Daisies.”The first single from the album, 'Long Way To Go', shows that despite decades of playing, these guys still have the chops to get people on their feet. “Musically, the guys laid down a really powerful, straight ahead, take-no-prisoners riff and it just kind of came from that, with the help of Mr Lowy: he came up to me at the studio and I asked him how he was doing and he basically said, 'We got a long way to go and no time to get there, buddy'.”
While the music is thumping and anthematic, the lyrics have a darker, more meaningful message to convey. “The thing that's sad is that in every country you have a left side and right side [of politics] and nobody really seems to be able to sit down over a cup of tea or a pint and be able to come up with something in the middle that suits everybody and that's kind of what the song is about. I just don't understand why people can't sit down civilly and talk.”
The direction of 'Make Some Noise' won't see any deviations from band's classic sound. “We're very pleased with the way it came out; it's very high energy, kick-ass, straight ahead, no ballads, and we're all very pleased and excited that the responses we've been getting have been great. We recorded it with an awesome producer named Marti Frederiksen here in Nashville, Tennessee.
“We make no bones about anything that we do. We're not reinventing the wheel, we're just five friends that are out there playing rock & roll – the kind of rock & roll that we all grew up listening to – and hopefully the rest of the world will feel the same way we do.”
The album contains two covers, The Who's 'Join Together' and Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Fortunate Son'. “'Fortunate Son'... we were doing a fair bit as an encore song last year. A lot of people wonder why we do covers but at the end of the day The Daisies are an unapologetic classic-rock band. I truly mean it. A lot of the great bands that I grew up listening to had a different mentality.
“Humble Pie, Grand Funk Railroad, The Stones, Zeppelin, even as late as Van Halen they played songs regardless of whether they wrote them or not, because they thought they were great songs. At the end of the day we're just music fans and a good song is a good song, and getting the audience to have a good time, that's what we care about.”
'Make Some Noise' will be released 5 August.
