The Dead Daisies: Hughes in, Corabi/Mendoza out

The worst-kept secret in rock was finally confirmed this week when The Dead Daisies unveiled a brand new track, ‘Righteous Days’ featuring Glenn Hughes on vocals and bass alongside present members Deen Castronovo (drums), Doug Aldrich (lead guitar) and founder member/rhythm guitarist David Lowy. The story was first broken by Sleaze Roxx but it was almost two weeks before we were given official confirmation.  According to their statement, previous vocalist John Corabi and bassist Marco Mendoza were concentrating on their own solo careers, while the statement also reminded followers that the outfit was founded as a ‘collective’ whereby personnel would come and go.

Their statement as taken from their own website is reproduced here:

The Dead Daisies are a musical collective, whose members come together through a common love for great rock music. It’s a living, breathing, musical organism with the credo, “Rock is indeed alive & well!”

From the band’s inception, the idea was for members to bring their own ideas to the table but also have the flexibility to come and go when working on their other projects.

Both John and Marco are, and always will be, a part of The Dead Daisies musical family, but at this point in time they have decided to do some work on their own solo projects.

The recruitment of Hughes is a coup for the Daisies; up to now they’ve been made up of excellent, accomplished players who were associated with legendary bands or artists. Hughes was actually a part of a legendary band himself as a member of Deep Purple. Since he returned to the scene in 1993 following his ‘lost years’, he has been exceptionally productive, releasing solo albums at a frantic rate as well as collaborating with many other notable musicians in ‘supergroups’ such as Black Country Communion. However, the departure of both the charismatic Corabi and the dynamic Mendoza is bound to disappoint many fans, especially since Corabi has recorded three albums with them and it is no coincidence that their popularity (in the UK at least) has ballooned since they started to settle into a period of relative stability. Hughes’ vocal style is vastly different to that of Corabi, and that may take some getting used to for fans who are familiar with him being at the helm.

The track released this week (‘Righteous Days’) is a good song in itself; showcasing Hughes’s trademark soaring vocals, the heavy chugging guitar sound is still there (Hughes himself has a thunderous bass sound). How they will sound singing older material live that is associated with Corabi remains to be seen, although Corabi himself had to perform songs recorded by original singer Jon Stevens when he first came into the band.  The track was exclusively unveiled on Planet Rock radio in the UK and also is available to listen to on their website.

Hughes is currently still touring with his set performing Deep Purple material from his time with the band, once that’s concluded he will link up with the Daisies for a new album.  The band’s site once again:

David, Doug, Deen & Glenn head back into the studio later in the year to finish the album and look forward to seeing you on the road in 2020!

For those who haven’t yet checked out the new song ‘Righteous Days’ click the link below:

The Dead Daisies statement and new track ‘Righteous Days’

Those who caught Hughes live when he was touring with Doug Aldrich a few years ago should be excited as to what is in store next year.

Album: The Dead Daisies ‘Locked And Loaded’

At the time of writing this post Daisyland appears to be very much in flux; in August 2019 a report on Sleaze Roxx claimed that vocalist John Corabi and bassist Marco Mendoza had parted company with the Dead Daisies, to be replaced by none other than Glenn Hughes. This has yet to be confirmed by either the Daisies or the Hughes camp it must be emphasised, and the site as of the date of this entry still lists Corabi as vocalist and Mendoza as bass player.  Meanwhile the band have issued this album of covers, most of which have been released previously on each of their studio albums issued to date, but also incorporating three live tracks.

The group have made a point of including a cover or two on their albums and have done plenty of other bands’ songs live as well as their own, but this is the first time these have been collated into a single album.  ‘Midnight Moses’ and ‘Evil’ (which both featured on the album ‘Revolucion’) kick things off, followed by covers of CCR (‘Fortunate Son’), The Who (‘Join Together’) then both the Beatles (‘Helter Skelter’) and the Stones (‘Bitch’) are given the Daisies tip of the hat before we get the first of three live offerings: ‘We’re An American Band’ originally by Grand Funk Railroad. Another Beatles cover (‘Revolution’, which appeared on the last studio album ‘Burn It Down’) follows before two more live tracks close the set (Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’ and Deep Purple’s’ Highway Star’, notable since guitarist Doug Aldrich handles both lead solos, making a decent fist of Jon Lord’s original solo transcribed for guitar).

The album is pretty hard-rockin’ stuff; all these covers have had a bit of fuel injected into them to give a tad more ‘oomph’. Despite the fact it features numerous line-ups of the band it does feel quite coherent still. My only quibble would have been that they could have included an acoustic track or two, from the last tour when they did an interlude. They did a great version of Rod Stewart’s ‘Maggie May’ for example (featuring drummer Deen Castronovo on lead vocal) and that would have changed the pace of this a little bit more.  Still, as a ‘stop-gap’ between studio albums it works pretty well. For those who have many of these covers already on the previous records, these have been remastered for this release.

Fingers crossed that the band will reveal their hand sooner, rather than later and let us know who is, or is out of, the collective we know as The Dead Daisies for 2020!

Locked and Loaded album cover

4 – Deserving

New rock trio Silverthorne tear the sky wide open

Many years ago now, when Thunder had reconvened following a split I’d gone to see them play on their comeback UK tour. Along for the ride were a young trio, who went through several names before settling on ‘Winterville’, led by a blonde singer/guitarist from the North East named Peter Shoulder. He’d garnered praise from Thunder’s own frontman Danny Bowes, and it was easy to see why after seeing this band perform. I distinctly remember them coming on to indifference, and after gradually grabbing the ears of punters there only to see Harry’s boys do their stuff, went off to huge cheers. It was largely down to Shoulder’s vocal, the sort of soulful bluesy delivery that evoked memories of a young Coverdale, but with his own slant.

Winterville only got to make one album before splitting themselves, however Shoulder wasn’t idle for long. He teamed up with Thunder’s Luke Morley to form The Union, who released three albums in the first half of this decade to critical acclaim. However, this came after Thunder had once again called it a day, and it was noticeable at The Union gigs how many Thunder t-shirts were in evidence, suggesting their fans still weren’t quite ready to let that band go. Morley took the hint, reuniting once more with his Thunder mates and they have continued to more success. Meanwhile, save for a low-key acoustic tour a few years ago, Peter Shoulder had apparently disappeared off the radar. Until now – when he reappeared with a new rock trio, featuring bassist Daniel Spree and a certain Brian Tichy on drums. The Tichy link quite possibly came about when The Union opened for Whitesnake a few years ago (while Tichy was a member of Coverdale’s outfit), nonetheless this was quite a surprise when announced, with a teaser for a new song ‘Tear The Sky Wide Open’. That song and video were released fully on 12 August 2019, and they promise more to come soon.

On the evidence of this one song, it sounds like the North East man has got his mojo back in a big way. The track is very reminiscent of Winterville, with that heavy electric guitar sound once more to the fore, alongside that distinctive voice adding the touch of class. With the mighty Tichy driving it all along this looks to be a must-see band for 2020 if they make it over to the UK (Shoulder is now based in LA alongside Tichy and the unknown – to me, at least – Spree).  I’ve no idea whether they have a full album’s worth of material yet, so it may be that they play as support to another band. Either way, I look forward to getting reacquainted with the guys soon – or newly acquainted, in the case of their bassist!

Silverthorne Facebook Page

4 – Deserving