Cinderella is one of the most successful hard rock bands from the later 80's. The band, fronted by multi-talented vocalist/guitarist Tom Keifer, formed in Philadelphia back in the early 80's and their albums NIGHT SONGS, LONG COLD WINTER and HEARTBREAK STATION have sold millions of copies in U.S alone. Things started to change in the 90’s when drummer Fred Coury decided to leave the group. He was replaced by Kevin Valentine but it wasn’t long after before Keifer faced some serious problems with his voice and was forced to be out of commission for a few years. Things changed dramatically in the music world at that time and when the band finally released its fourth, and for now their latest album, STILL CLIMBING in 1994 it didn’t sell as expected and soon the band was dropped by its record company. Cinderella slowly disbanded in 1995. The re-union of the classic line up: Keifer, Coury, guitarist Jeff LaBar and bassist Eric Brittingham did happen in 1998 and since then band has been doing tours, mostly in the USA. The current tour, which celebrates bands 25th anniversary, brought the band to Finland for first time ever. For many fans this concert was a longtime dream come true and the band didn’t disappoint. The sold out Club Nosturi and its over 700 hard rock fans got what they wanted and it seemed that the players themselves were more than pleasantly surprised with the noisy feedback that the crowd gave them.
Vesperian Sorrow have recently finished recording their latest full length album, “Stormwinds of Ages”, but you may not be able to get your hands on it quite yet. The band is currently shopping the album. Until they find a label you can check out the title track which has been streaming on the bands’ various websites to get an idea of what the new tunes sound like. The symphonic black metal band has a few guest vocalist and musicians on the new album from their home town of Austin Texas, including one of their local legends, Jason McMaster. Metal-Rules.com caught up with guitarist William to discuss the new album and how the DIY recording process went for the band.
American hard rock band Steelheart was originally formed in 1990 and are best known for their high octave-spanning vocalist Milijenko (Mili) Matijevic and platinum seller debut album STEELHEART which included such hit singles as “I’ll Never Let You Go” and “Can’t Stop Me Lovin’ You”. The sophomore album TANGLED IN VEINS followed in 1992 and it included another major hit “Mama Don’t You Cry”. Unfortunately things stopped dramatically when, during the concert, Mili was struck in the head by a lighting truss which knocked him to the ground face first and injuring his head, jaw, nose, and spine. The band broke up and it took several years for Mili to recover from the accident. The third album WAIT was released in 2000 and the following year Mili was invited to join in a project called ROCKSTAR - THE MOVIE. ROCKSTAR became a big success. The film told the story about a music fan who gets to become the singer for his favorite band loosely based on the Ripp/Priest story). Mike wasn’t acting on the film but he did most of the lead vocal parts for that "fictitious band" called Steel Dragon while the rest of the band included such names as Zakk Wylde on guitar, Jeff Pilson on bass and Jason Bonham on drums. In 2008 Steelheart did another re-union and released a new album called GOOD 2B ALIVE. Since then the band has been more or less active doing touring and preparing to hit back for a big time. Original guitarist Chris Risola returned to the bands ranks in late 2008 and the rest of the band includes bassist Rev Jones (ex-MSG) and drummer Mike Humbert who already played in GOOD 2B ALIVE. Steelheart. In early June of 2001, Mili and the boys arrived to perform in Swedenrock Festival and in there we had the pleasure to sit down with Mr. Milijevic and hear all the latest news from the Steelheart camp. It seems that Steelheart is back to stay!!
Sauna Open Air Festival 2011, 9th-11th June Tampere, Finland
Review by Luxi Lahtinen, live pictures by Luxi Lahtinen & Terhi Pihlaja
The 8th Sauna Open Air festival was celebrated in a very sunny and warm weather, unlike in some other years – and this year the festival also broke their own record, welcoming as many as 26,000 people within the three days.
The SOA festival has truly found an important place among the other Finnish summer festivals, concentrating mostly on old-school Heavy/Thrash Metal and Hard Rock bands – and turning the festival around for the past 3-4 years or so, by booking many internationally big names for the three-day Metal feasts; from Kiss to Megadeth to Dio to Whitesnake to Scorpions to Type O Negatíve – and the list goes on.
This year, the festival organizers had very special grins – wider than ever before, spread all over their faces – and for some very good reasons. Two of the biggest headliners, Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest, arrived at SOA for the first time, with bands like Saxon, Accept, Doro, Cavalera Conspiracy, Joey Belladonna and many others proving to be good company to them.
Read on – the following article is based on the seven most interesting and musically satisfying bands of this year’s festival from your truly point of view.
Formed in New Jersey way back in 1998, the five-piece heavy melodic thrash metal unit collectively known as Core Device have been steadily making a name for themselves in underground metal circles as demonstrated on the band's sophmore effort "What I've Become" recently released through Heaven And Hell Records. Over the course of their thirteen-year career, Core Device has shared the stage with such notable metal powerhouses as King Diamond, Manowar, Overkill, Symphony X, Nevermore and Morbid Angel to name a few. Vocalist Dan Dunphy recently took the time to chat with Metal-Rules.com about the exciting new release, some back history of the band, touring plans for 2011 and what we can expect next from Core Device.
