THE DEAD DAISIES release their new Album “BURN IT DOWN” via Spitfire Music / SPV on Friday, April 6th, 2018 as well as a 2018 WORLD TOUR which will Bring the Heat to a Town near you!! We caught up with Doug Aldrich to find out all about the new record and tour as well as checking in on an update on the new Burning Rain album…
Doug: Hey Mark great to be talking to The Rockpit buddy, how are you?
Mark: Very well thanks! It’s been a while since we spoke.
Doug: Yeah. I’m here in New York and just wanted to check in with you and The Rockpit, and see what’s going on!
Mark: We’re listening to the new album, and the last time we spoke you were in a little band called Whitesnake! And the last time we saw you, you were on stage with The Rock Vault in Las Vegas. The new Dead Daisies album, I think, is the best yet; it’s a lot heavier than the previous album you were involved with, where did that change of direction come from?
Doug: Well, the management actually influenced us, and said, guys we need to go heavier, we need to go simple and direct, and straight to the heart, and go for some big riffs, because we realised after “Make Some Noise” that some of the songs on that record, like “Make Some Noise” there were some very simple riffs, but people love it! They catch on to it, and they can really relate, and at venues like Download Festival, or something like that, it helps to have simple, great riffs. So, that’s what we were going for on this record.
Mark: It’s worked very well, you have a lovely guitar sound on there as well, and you must be pleased with how that came out?
Doug: I’m always experimenting, that sound was really the brainchild of Marti Frederickson the producer, we used a little bit more fuzz tones and stuff which is very “seventies”. But, I love all kinds of stuff; I love Stevie ray Vaughan and Tony Iommi and everything in between!
Mark: You’ve got a pretty quiet year, tour wise, this year. You start off in April in Glasgow, play the UK, Europe then Japan, and 2 months in the US in August and September, before November in the UK again, which is pretty quiet really, could you do more in there?
Doug: Well, it feels very hectic to me because we’ve got 5 weeks in Europe, and then we come home for another 5 weeks, which is great, and then we go to Japan and South America, the US and then we have a bit of time off before we go back to Europe for 7 weeks. It’s a long time, I mean most bands, like Whitesnake, are only touring this year for 2 and a half months, that’s a whole tour, and we have a total of about 7 months.
Mark: It’s a massive commitment as well! Looking at the album and the songs, I noticed that all the songs are credited to all the members of the band, how does that work? How do you put together the album, do all the band members come in with different ideas?
Doug: Yeah, everyone comes in with ideas and we test them out together. We definitely leave our ego’s at the door and we try out everybody’s ideas, and see what works and what sounds good, and then we develop them as best we can, and we record them very crudely, in an I phone or whatever, and then we’ll review them and see which ones are our favourites. It’s very organic and natural how it works out.
Mark: So, how long did you have to put everything together this time round?
Doug: I think with writing and recording, it was probably 5 or 6 weeks. We were supposed to write for 10 days, but we had so many ideas we decided let’s just put a goal post on it and call it a day with these songs, and then we narrowed it down, and spent about a month in Nashville recording it. Our producer, Marti Fredericksen, lives in Nashville and he wanted to record it at his place. We liked it there, we can focus, it’s a really creative environment, its good people and very quiet. Sometimes places like New York and LA are very expensive and also distracting, and Nashville is a big town with a small feeling to it, so it’s good for getting things done.
Mark: It’s certainly working for you as well, a band that gets better with each release. Now, I’ve always been a big fan of a couple of your previous bands, Lion and Burning Rain, I wondered if you’d got any projects on the back burner?
Doug: Well, Burning Rain is a pet project for me, we made a couple of records for Japan and parts of Europe, and the last record we made was with Frontiers called “Epic Obsession”, and I kind of did it in my free time, I was going through some personal stuff, going through a divorce, and also working with David Coverdale on a live record. I’d come home on a Friday night, I’d record after putting my boy to bed, and then Monday morning go back to Whitesnake. Somehow, I got the record done, but I could never really focus on it because I was busy with Whitesnake, with the Dead Daisies I do have some free time, so Keith St John and I have a brand new record ready and all the drums are recorded, we’ve got a new line-up which will be announced later, and so there’s going to be a new Burning Rain record. It will work in tandem with Dead Daisies when time permits, I really love what it sounds like and Keith St John is an amazing singer, I’ve been blessed working with guys like David Coverdale, John Corabi, Keith and Kal Swan from Lion who was rated highly in some circles, but not many people knew about Lion because we never really got out there. But Burning Rain will have an album out either later this year or early next year, depending on the Dead Daisies schedule.
Mark: When you finish an album like “Burn it Down” and you put it to bed, there’s obviously a time between wrapping it up and getting it out to the public, what’s that time like for you? Is there a sense of expectation, do you get nervous about the release?
Doug: I used to; the cool thing about the Dead Daisies is we don’t take things too seriously! It’s a snapshot of time, and we do listen to the fans and what they want, and try to achieve that, but at the end of the day we are giving you our feeling from November 2017, which will come out now in April 2018, and that’s that photograph of that time. Next year or the year after, God willing we’ll do something else and it’ll be slightly different, and I think that’s something also cool about the Dead Daisies is that we don’t take it too seriously and we also change it up, and make improvements. “Make some Noise”, the last record, did really well for us, and sold a lot of records, and we were very thankful to the fans, and sometimes you think, hey, let’s try and make another record like that, and try and make it better, but the thing to do is make something different, songs like “Set me Free” and “Judgement Day” on this record and even “Burn it Down”, the title track they have different shades from the songs on “Make some Noise” , so I’m really excited about these songs already adding to the catalogue of Dead Daisies songs.
Mark: Which was the most fun for you? I love the cover of “Bitch”, there’s always been traditionally a cover on each album, but for me the best ones are as you say “Judgement Day”, the title track and I also like the Southern groove to songs like “Dead and Gone”. For me it’s almost like that 70’s Aerosmith sound, “Leave me Alone” the closing song, that I keep repeating!! Are you far away from deciding what’s going to make it on to the set list?
Doug: Basically what we are going to do, we started today it was our first day of rehearsal in New York, and we are playing the entire album in rehearsal to see which songs, aside from the obvious ones like “Rise Up”, and the first single, “Resurrected”, those are definitely songs we will play live, so we’ll try and fill it out and see which other songs, another 3 or 4, that we can feature. I think, “Set me Free” will work really well, “Judgement Day” sounded great, it’s a little more complicated, it’s got a lot of different guitar sounds, John was playing acoustic, I was playing twelve string, electric, and David was playing six string electric, and then we got down to songs like “Bitch” which is straight out rock and roll, and we got down to the last two songs the last two, “Leave Me Alone” and the bonus track “Revolution”, so there’s actually eleven songs we are working out. “Leave me Alone”, you are not the first person to really love that song, that was a song that David Lowy, he played that riff for probably 20 or 30 minutes one day, and we thought that’s catchy, let’s see where it goes, so we experimented and changed a few things around here and there and it turned in to a pretty cool track. It’s at the end of the record and it’s one of those crazy songs that people just really like, it doesn’t really get much attention, but people like it, and it would be great to do live, but we’ll see what happens.
Mark: I’ve always been a big Aerosmith fan, and it’s almost like the “Draw the Line” vintage about that song! One of the questions we ask everyone to get a bit of an idea of where they’re coming from is, if you could have been a fly on the wall for the creation of any great album, at any point in time, what would be the album for you?
Doug: There’s so many, that’s hard to narrow one down! I guess, around the time when Led Zeppelin were doing their thing, and after their fourth or fifth record they did “The Song Remains the Same”, that was an awesome live record, “Houses of the Holy”, that was killer, and I would say “Physical Graffiti” would be the one I would have loved to be around for, and been a part of, it’s got so many different colours and flavours, great riffs, great guitars, great everything!
Mark: Yeah, I think that’s my favourite Zeppelin era as well, they were experimental, it was a wonderful time. The US tour in August/ September, you’re playing a lot of dates in there, is there any chance of it being extended? I know you’re in the UK in November, and there is talk of a few South American dates after the US tour, is that right?
Doug: Yeah, we’re doing South America, and America, and I know there’s some stuff in Central America, Mexico and Brazil, and I reckon we’ll be doing Chile and other places as well. There are so many places to play in South America, and we didn’t get to do it last time, so we’ll see what happens this year, I mean Peru, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, all these different places, Guatemala, there’s all these really cool places to play!
Mark: There are a lot of Rock music fans there as well! There are also a lot of fans here in Australia, and if you get chance, just remind David that he might have to return home at some point, preferably with the band!!
Doug: Yes, we need to get to Australia for sure, and we’re working on it. There was a possibility we were going to do some stuff with Guns n Roses last year, and maybe that’ll happen in the future, but we’re doing some Guns n Roses dates in Europe, it’s a long way a way to travel, so we’ll do our best. Of course, it’s very important for David Lowy, he’s our leader and founder, and we need to get there, so hang tight and we’ll get there as soon as we possibly can!
Mark: It is great that you do get here every so often; I think The Dead Daisies are one of the few bands that seem to get around pretty much everywhere, which is wonderful for fans in many countries.
Doug: Yeah, we really love it, we love meeting the fans, we’re very lucky with the support that we get.
Mark: Take it all the way back for us, where did it all begin for you? Can you remember that defining moment when you knew you were going to be a musician?
Doug: I guess I never knew, I still don’t know if I’m a musician, because I take it day by day!! I’m not a schooled musician like Brian Tichy; some friends of mine went to Berklee College of Music, and these guys are just unbelievably talented, I just play from my heart, and I started doing that when I was eleven, I started to play guitar one summer because all my friends were on vacation, and there was nothing else to do except play guitar or go skate boarding by yourself, and so I decided to play guitar, I started learning it, I loved it, it was a lot of fun, and I’m still doing that in my fifties, and I’m grateful, it’s awesome!!
Mark: Well that’s great, I’ve always loved Lion and Burning rain so you’ve made me very happy today! We traditionally close with a very easy question, what is the meaning of life??
Doug: For me it’s family, I have kids that are young, and it’s the best, I love it. Everything I do every move I make, I do have a love of music and that’s my job, but I’m a dad, and I have a responsibility to take care of my kids, they count on me. I have a daughter that’s two and a son that’s eight, and they rely on me, so I have to make them proud, I have to teach them and do whatever I can do to make them in to the best people they can be in this world, that’s what it means to me.
Mark: That’s great and thank you for taking the time to talk to us today, it’s been a pleasure, and I hope we do get to see you sometime in the near future.
Doug: Yeah, thank you, Mark, I really do appreciate it, all the things you guys do for us over there. Thanks for your support and enjoy the rest of your day.
Mark: Thanks mate, have a good day. Bye.
