By Steve Newton Some time ago I posted my 1986 interview with Allan Holdsworth on the Facebook group The unReal Allan Holdsworth. With over 17,000 members, the page offers “everything pertaining to his music, his history, his friends and the influence he’s had on the music scene and on guitarists.” One of the comments on … Continue reading In praise of the unreal Allan Holdsworth
By Steve Newton Some concert experiences are just seared into memory–if you’re lucky–and one of the most unforgettable for me was seeing Kiss at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom in January of 1975. They were on the Hotter than Hell tour, and they were still hungry. They hadn’t earned untold riches yet, hadn’t become masters of marketing, … Continue reading That time I told Gene Simmons that I saw Kiss in a Vancouver club on the Hotter Than Hell tour
By Steve Newton Ten days before David Lee Roth called me up from L.A. on June 22, 1994–to promote his latest album Your Dirty Little Mouth–football legend and sometime actor O.J. Simpson had taken a knife and carved himself up a big chunk of infamy. The media circus was in full P.T. Barnum-style swing by … Continue reading That time David Lee Roth blasted the media, ten days after O.J. Simpson’s dirty deed in Brentwood
By Steve Newton I did my second interview with Stevie Ray Vaughan six weeks before he died in that goddamned helicopter crash, which was itself less than a month before the release of Family Style, the album he’d always wanted to make with his big brother Jimmie. At one point in the conversation I asked … Continue reading That time Stevie Ray Vaughan told me about the labour of love he’d never live to see released
By Steve Newton Everybody knows that David Lee Roth was the singer on Van Halen‘s first album. But not everybody knows that Sammy Hagar could have been the singer on Van Halen’s first album. At least that’s the “little dirt” that Alex Van Halen dug up for me when I interviewed him back in 1995. … Continue reading That time Alex Van Halen told me that Sammy Hagar could have been the singer on Van Halen’s first album
By Steve Newton Buddy Guy is one of my favourite old-school blues guitarists, right up there with Albert King, B.B. King, and Albert Collins. I’ve been fortunate enough to have interviewed him five times, and seen him perform live many more times than that. I did my first interview with Buddy in August of ’91, … Continue reading That time Buddy Guy told me how badly he wanted Stevie Ray Vaughan’s photo on his album cover
By Steve Newton If you were reading the top guitar magazines back in the early ’80s you may have heard the buzz about this phenomenal British player named Allan Holdsworth. A lot of the buzz was being generated by one Eddie Van Halen, who was touting Holdsworth’s abilities whenever he got a chance. Right around … Continue reading That time I asked Allan Holdsworth what he thought of Eddie Van Halen
By Steve Newton I did my first interview with Steve Vai in May of 1990, when he was just 29. He had just released his solo album Passion and Warfare, and was touring with Whitesnake, which was then basking in the glory of its multiplatinum Slip of the Tongue album. Before Whitesnake Vai had played … Continue reading That time I asked Steve Vai if he was daunted by stepping into Eddie Van Halen’s shoes with David Lee Roth
By Steve Newton Way the hell back in 1989 I did an interview with Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach. That was less than a month after the release of the band’s self-titled debut album, which would go on to sell five-million copies and spawn the hits “Youth Gone Wild”, “18 and Life”, and “I Remember You”. … Continue reading That time 20-year-old Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach sang me a line from his Schooner beer commercial
By Steve Newton When you play guitar as stunningly well as Stevie Ray Vaughan did, a lot of people see you. Countless numbers of music fans have watched the Texas blues-rock legend tear up the frets since he blasted onto the scene with the Texas Flood album in 1983. When I interviewed Stevie for the … Continue reading That time Stevie Ray Vaughan told me that he gets most nervous playing in front of just one person
By Steve Newton I haven’t interviewed that many drummers over the years–mainly because I like talking to guitarists more–but when Van Hagar was heading to Vancouver for a show in 1995 and the opportunity came to chat with Alex Van Halen I didn’t turn it down. And boy was I glad I didn’t, because he … Continue reading That time I asked Alex Van Halen about his earliest memories of jamming with Eddie
By Steve Newton I freakin’ love guitar solos, where some talented artist carefully chooses the perfect notes and uses vibrato and tremolo and all that other technical shit to come up with something that’ll stick with me for decades and be there whenever I want to retrieve it, replay it in my head, and holler: … Continue reading God bless Scott Gorham’s 60-second guitar solo on Thin Lizzy’s “Romeo and the Lonely Girl”
By Steve Newton Way the hell back in November of 1985 I interviewed Mick Mars at his Vancouver hotel before a show on Mötley Crüe‘s Theatre of Pain tour. I was quite the little metalhead back then, and I liked my tunes with a bit of bite, so at one point in the conversation I … Continue reading That time I asked Mick Mars if Mötley Crüe were softening on Theatre of Pain, then told him that I liked their debut album best
