PAT TORPEY

Back in the days Mr. Big was one of the few "shredder" hard rock metal bands that prized song craft as highly as virtuosity. The seeds for the group’s formation were sown when bass player extraordinaire Billy Sheehan (ex-David Lee Roth band, Talas) began piecing together a new outfit with former Racer X guitarist Paul Gilbert, drummer Pat Torpey (Ted Nugent, Impellitteri, Robert Plant), and singer Eric Martin, the latter of who had issued a couple of solo releases in the mid 80′s. By 1989 the band inked a recording contract with Atlantic, resulting in the release of a self-titled debut the same year. The album was a success, especially in Japan, and it included the MTV hit singles "Addicted to That Rush” and ”Wind Me Up”. Their sophomore album LEAN INTO IT was released in 1991 and it was a bigger worldwide success with the help of the mega hit ballad "To Be with You". Their third album BUMP A HEAD came out in 1993 and although it included another hit single "Wild World" (a cover of an old Cat Stevens classic), it failed to reach its predecessors sales figures. During next month’s years Mr. Big did a lot of touring including a tour with Aerosmith in Europe, they had three sold out headline shows in Tokyo’s classic Budokan arena, and played a show in Sao Paulo in front of 100 000 people. HEY MAN was released in 1996 but soon after everybody in the band started to concentrate more and more on other stuff than Mr.Big and as a result the band was on hold for nearly two years. In 1999 Mr. Big decided to reform but at that point Paul Gilbert refused to come back so Mr.Big decided to continue with a new guitarist Ritchie Kotzen (ex-Poison) and later on they released two more albums: GET OVER IT (2000) and ACTUAL SIZE (2001) before they called it quits after a farewell tour in 2002. In February of 2009 it was announced that the original line up of Mr. Big would do a reunion tour in the summer in Japan to celebrate its 20th anniversary of their debut album. As expected, that tour proved to be highly successful and they decided to continue the tour outside of Japan. A twenty-date European tour started on the 9th of September in Tallinn, Estonia. On the next day the band arrived in Helsinki and I had a chance to sit down and talk with Mr.Torpey about the past and possible future of Mr.Big amongst other interesting topics. Read and learn on!

INTERVIEW BY MARKO SYRJÄLÄ

TRANSCRIPTION BY ANTAURA ZED

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Ted Nugent

Friday, July 25, 2008

Red Robinson Show Theatre

Coquitlam, BC  Canada

***Live Review By Lord of The Wasteland

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SWEDENROCK

The 8th – 10th of June 2006

Solvesborg Sweden

by Arto Lehtinen and Marko  Syrjala

Wow! This is the sixth time that the Finnish Metal-Rules squad makes an invasion to the mighty Swedenrock festival. Over 60 bands descended on the the southern area of Sweden for a festival that turned out to be nothing but an utter blast! The bill of Swedenrock festival 2006 covers a wide range of metal styles and even classic rock stuff (Journey and Molly Hatchet). Therefore, there was at least something for everyone who attended the festival. As usual, the whole festival was once again sold out when around 20,000 people arrived at the area every day. The Swedenrock festival has always had tremendous luck with the weather as once again the gods of weather blessed this rocking metallic heaven on the earth with an extreme hot and sunny weekend that burned red the skin of several festival goers.

As stated in the first sentence, this is the sixth time that the Swedenrock festival has been featured in the site of Metal-Rules.com, so it is quite logical for us to give a real in-depth article of several bands performing at Swedenrock. Enjoy !!!

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TED NUGENT

11.06 2006 House of Culture

Helsinki, FINLAND

Ted Nugent’s long career as a musician started in the late sixties with Amboy Dukes but the big success did not find him before he started his solo career in the mid 70’s. Since then Ted Nugent has done several world tours and sold millions of records but before today, he’s never been in Finland. Although it’s true that in the past few years Ted Nugent has been in the headlines more for his statements and hunting interest than musical deeds. Despite that and the fact that Ted has never been a real big name in Finland and he has never sold too many records either it was more than delightful to discover that House of Culture was completely sold out tonight.

Live review and photos by Marko Syrjälä

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