Page 26 - Classic Rock (January 2020)

DUFF
Kris Barras
KRIS BARRAS BAND
37 Light It Up MASCOT
Former cage-fighter,
blues guitar-slinger…
Legit rockstar? After
Light It Up it was easy to 34 Free LOMA VISTA/CAROLINE
reply in the affirmative.
Barr
as’s chops, tasty
solos and Bon Jovi-rivalling vocals were
turbocharged by infectious choruses,
southern crunch, fusion-y flourishes and
more. No bullshit, no fannying around, just
an album full of belting rock songs. PG
Killer track: Counterfeit People
TYLER BRYANT
36 & THE SHAKEDOWN
Truth And Lies SNAKEFARM
He’s the prodigious
blues kid from Texas
who, in the company
of the excellent
Shakedown, grew into
of rock’s biggest
one
contenders. Together they put themselves
on the map by opening for pretty much
every touring A-lister alive (AC/DC, GN’R
etc etc), and on second album Truth And Lies
they proved their songwriting weight:
brooding, grungy flavours of Soundgarden 33 Tenderness UNIVERSAL
mixed with rootsy rawness and seductive
blues-rock grooves – plus enough swagger
to make Keith Richards blush, and their
tenderest moments yet. PG
Killer track: Out There
STARCRAWLER
35 Devour You ROUGH TRADE
Founded and fronted
by confrontational
provocateur Arrow de
Wilde, LA’s latest cult
retro-rock revisionists
dig deep into their home
city’s sleazy, scuzzy, hard-partying history
on this deliciously decadent second album.
With nods to Joan Jett, Ozzy Osbourne,
Courtney Love, Iggy Pop and other
legends, agreeably sloppy guitar-chuggers
like Bet My Brains and No More Pennies find
26 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM
Iit, and a return to being the bassist in Guns N’ Roses for the
that sweet spot between stoned boho cool
and snarly glam-punk attitude. SD
Killer track: Hollywood Ending
IGGY POP
Now that pretty much
everyone finally
recognises ‘the world’s
forgotten boy’,
following his ever-
even
tful half-century
seduction of the mainstream (from
Stooges infamy through Berlin-born
Bowie collaborations to universally
respected alt.rock elder statesman status),
he’s changed tack. Free is the album that
one suspects Iggy’s been quietly
percolating across his last few decades of
crowd-pleasingly predictable self-
immolation. Trumpet-led, Miles-informed
atmospherics; stripped, confessional
poetics; echoes of Post Pop Depression. Free’s
brink-dwelling lounge-jazz is Iggy’s
Blackstar: not epitaph, but fearless
expression of ultimate liberation. IF
Killer track: James Bond
DUFF MCKAGAN
Shot through with
a deep humanity and
tattooed-sleeve-wearing
social conscience,
McKagan’s foray into
real Americana
ethe
and country-tinged ambience blindsided
many critics in both its genre positioning
of plaintive melancholy is bolstered by
and sheer accomplishment. A rich seam
McKagan’s rusty falsetto which is as
rootsy as much of the instrumentation,
and any polish on it is channelled directly
into the songcraft: pinpoint-perfect in its
execution and restraint. Elevated further
by a crack team of backing musicians
(assembled by collaborator Shooter
Jennings), it’s a whole heap of maturity
and class. TB
Killer track: Tenderness
MCKAGAN
With an album of his own and climbing back
on board the Guns N’ Roses crazy train,
2019 has been a fulfilling and enjoyable year.
Interview: Paul Elliott
t has been a busy year for Duff McKagan, with the release
of his solo album Tenderness, a few low-key gigs to promote
completion of the Not In This Lifetime tour, a marathon global
trek, begun in 2016, in which McKagan and lead guitarist Slash
were reunited with singer Axl Rose after two decades apart.
McKagan enjoys having his hands full. As he tells Classic Rock:
“You know the saying: ‘fortune shines on those who put in the
work’.” And as he reflects on this year, his thoughts also turn
to the good old, bad old days of the 80s, when Guns N’ Roses
conquered the world with the biggest-selling debut album of all
time, Appetite For Destruction.
What in 2019 has given you the most satisfaction?
The Guns N’ Roses shows have been great – really long shows,
and it’s been a lot of fun. And with my solo record the GN’R
guys have really backed me in this thing.
Your album is mostly acoustic, with what you call a “socio-
political” theme. It’s nothing like Guns N’ Roses. What kind of
reaction were you expecting?
Of course I thought about what the reaction would be, but it
wasn’t the main concern. I’ve done these massive rock records in
the past, but I think it was an okay time for me to do something
different. And this all happened during the Guns N’ Roses tour,
a couple of years back. The original idea was to write a book, but
I had my acoustic guitar on the road, and after I wrote the first
song, It’s Not Too Late, I thought I’d make it a record.
Is there a key message in the album?
I guess I was trying to bring a little peace, maybe. It’s
observation without comment – observation on what is a very
important time in our history.
You mean Trump’s America?
I don’t even know if I’m reacting to the current situation so
much. Sometimes, if I dare turn on cable news or look on
Twitter, it’s like you open that door and there’s all this noise
going on, and you just shut that door [laughs]. But going
around the world with GN’R, you see so much changing. We
played a city in Poland where a couple of months earlier they
had a rally with a couple of hundred thousand Nazis, basically.
end I noticed that the quality of my life got a lot better when
I read history, and we have seen things like this before. In the
I didn’t look at Twitter or the TV news. Just talking with people,
one on one, the quality of my mind-set got better.
outlaw country guy, and son of Waylon.
You made the album with your friend Shooter Jennings, an
I’ve known Shooter since he moved to LA, around 2001. When
I played him my songs he was super into it, he loved the whole ROB BLACKHAM/PRESS
concept. We worked out the whole album in five or six sessions
at Shooter’s house, in his living room, me playing acoustic and