Divine Heresy - Travis Neal Interviewed by Alan Gilkeson
After the unheralded departure of their former lead singer, Divine Heresy sought a vocalist who was not only better with the pipes, but who had it all together in the head. They auditioned many guys and settled on Bereaved front man Travis Neal, a young but motivated talent with the bravado to take on the world. With the recent release of the band's sophomore effort BRINGER OF PLAGUES, Neal's first with the band, Divine Heresy has stepped thing up a notch, going full throttle with brutal and extreme music. Combine Neal's talent with the legend of Dino Cazares, mix in one of the best rhythm sections in Metal with Tim Yeung and Joe Payne, and you've got quality of epic proportions. Here's our interview with Travis...
ROSKILDE FESTIVAL 2009, Denmark
Written by Theis Rytoft Nielsen
Roskilde Festival is the biggest festival in the Nordic countries and is well-known for its ecological and environmental profile. The programme consists of eight days of beer, booze, sweat, fun, crazy experiences, you name it! It is during the last four days that the actual music starts. Before that, up-coming bands get the chance to prove their worth at the Pavilion-scene which is the second smallest of all seven scenes. That is the so called “warm-up programme.” I grabbed my gear and hit the festival in the afternoon on the first day of the music programme!
Current OVER THE RAINBOW/TED NUGENT bassist Greg Smith started his successful career in the early eighties when he first joined WENDY O’WILLIAMS’s recording and touring band. Later on he worked with such names as VINNIE MOORE, ALICE COOPER and JOE LYNN TURNER before he was asked to join to the very last incarnation of Ritchie Blackmore’s RAINBOW in 1994. Greg recorded RAINBOW’s last studio album STRANGER IN US ALL in 1995 with Ritchie, vocalist Doogie White, drummer John O’Reilly and keyboardist Paul Morris but after a couple of years the band disbanded. Later on Greg worked with BLUE OYSTER CULT, re-joined ALICE COOPER’s band before he decided to do something different, a Broadway musical called “Movin’ Out”. Next it was TED NUGENT who asked Greg to join his band and in addition to that Greg has lately been doing shows with DOKKEN, JOE LYNN TURNER and now with OVER THE RAINBOW. OVER THE RAINBOW is a brand new band, formed by a group of former RAINBOW members: Joe Lynn Turner, Tony Carey, Bobby Rondinelli, Greg and Richie Blackmore’s son Jurgen Blackmore on guitar. OVER THE RAINBOW was playing at Swedenrock last June and then Greg was kind enough to give us the latest news as well as some other interesting stories about his past and future. Read on !!
by Luxi "Chick Magnet" Lahtinen and Niko "Jerk Magnet" Karppinen
Unlike a couple of other metal festivals that are annually arranged in Finland, Tuska and Jalometalli festivals in particular, Sauna Open Air Metal festival´s main focus has been on more traditional sounding hard rock and heavy metal bands for the last couple of years. Last year the organizers of S.O.A. managed to book such acts as Sebastian Bach, Airbourne, the Scorpions, Graham Bonnet & Joe Lynn Turner and Whitesnake to the festival, to name a few.
This year, some of the most talked and hottest bands of today on people´s lips, shared the 2 stages at the S.O.A. festival (Amorphis, Apocalyptica, Bullet, Stratovarius, Nightwish, etc.), but on the top of them all, were the bad boys all the way from Los Angeles, USA - the one and only Mötley Crüe, whose "Crüe Fest" had also arrived to the beautiful city called Tampere, for the very first time.
2 more or less distinguished journalists from the Canadian Metal-Rules.com webmagazine were also there, trying to document some of the most worth mentioned acts from that event - and here´s a little write-up that we managed to squeeze out from S.O.A. 2009. Now keep on reading, dear folks...
Sometimes, mostly on rare occasions, things just tend to happen spontaneously. Like for example yesterday evening, I saw Enrique Chavez on line when I was doing mail via Myspace site - knowing he´s friends with the guys of Sadistic Intent. I just dropped him a note, asking politely whether he could send out my greetings to my friends in Sadistic Intent, but also remembering that both me and Enrique used to be in touch many years ago - and also knowing the fact he also sang in Sadistic Intent in the past (IMPENDING DOOM... is a fuckin´ brilliant release from this band - check it out!).
Then we started discussing about things, and especially the past times including the tape trading scene, how the scene was back in those ´golden times of 80´s´, Enrique´s involvement with Sadistic Intent, some worth mentioning new bands of today´s metal scene, etc. etc. What basically happened, we were simply chatting and one topic led to another, and our whole conversation turned out to be so interesting and exciting that I suggested Enrique eventually that would he mind if I published our conversation in Metal-Rules.com. In fact, he felt honored about my idea, so here is the whole conversation we went through on line on Monday evening, 20th of July 2009. Something worth reading for the old school metal heads, and especially the Sadistic Intent fans, so enjoy... ;o)
