Welcome everyone to episode 380 of Signals from Mars. I'm your host Victor. And for this episode I'm joined by two of my patrons. Mr. Ed Ferguson. Mr. Brad Doll. We're gonna be talking all things hard rock and metal. We're gonna be throwing around a bunch of topics. Yeah, those types of music discussions that you had as a kid, as a teenager, as an adult. Yeah, you're still having them today. Thanks for joining us. I'm ready. Let's do it.
One of the most interesting things about living overseas is explaining different phrases that are used in English that maybe don't have direct translations. The one thing that came up recently, and I bring this up because this is a music related thing, is the term beating a dead horse. Of course the Guns N' Roses track comes up. It's something that I think of when discussing stuff like that. And yeah, there wasn't a direct translation.
For those that don't follow my other podcast, it was something that was basketball related, just shit that I'd been dealing with all year and that perhaps it's time to let go. I don't know. Still frustrating. So many music related terms that I could think of are music related song titles, lack of communication, communication breakdown, so on and so forth. But yeah, just powering on through my first year as a head coach. Interesting, interesting. Want to hear more about that?
Go to Patreon and check out my Victor M. Ruiz podcast where I talk plenty of basketball, plenty of life, plenty of different things. I talk about, or I record stuff while out on walks, walk and talks, as we've come to affectionately call them, always fun to, not always fun, but recant some of my stories, some of the past week stuff.
Sometimes like this past week, I didn't put an episode out because there was just too much shit that I was dealing with and just didn't want to rain on anyone's parade. How about that? I, you know, I try to, I want to keep it light and towards the music and whatnot, but sometimes it's not possible. So if you are interested in hearing me ramble further, Patreon show is available for anyone that signs up for Patreon.
Others other great stuff on there, videos that I post, just different questions and posts that I routinely do, at least I tried to. And we have a fun time on there discussing all types of things.
I do want to send a quick shout out to my patrons, Sean Richmond, Chris Szynsak of Despo Geek, Tony Espin, Anthony Mackie, the creator of the great Signals for Mars logo, Ed Ferguson, who's on this episode, Johan in Sweden, Metal Dan, Jose, Jose my cousin, I could say, Chris Vaglio from the song swap showdown podcast, Gabriel, the metal dentist, another relative, another cousin, Brad doll, who's also on this episode, go to yourgmetal.com got all types of great music playing 24 hours a day.
We have Mike Jones, who I hope to hook up with this summer when I'm in New Jersey, with Jeremy Weltman, who I hope to hook up with in October when I'm in London. We have Steve Hoker and Stephen Saylor, hopefully hooking up with Steve Hoker this summer as well as he's going to be the one that's closest to me. Yeah, join us on Patreon. In any event, go to signals from Mars dot com. Join us there. Check out other episodes.
Check out all of the great social media platforms where you could like the show, share with your friends, where you can subscribe to the podcast, where you can watch replays of the live show, the video version. And that's pretty much it. Let's jump on into this hour one episode. Welcome one and all to the April 26th, 2024 edition of Signals from Mars. I'm your host, Victor. And joining me today for this pre-recorded extravaganza is Mr. Brad Dahl out in Idaho and Ed Ferguson in Kentucky.
How are you guys tonight? Doing great. Thanks for having us, Victor. Awesome. Thanks for joining me. So we have a few different news topics here that we're going to talk about. These hour one episodes are always great because it's just chatting music like we've all done growing up and we've continued throughout the years. So hopefully you guys enjoy this and help spread the love, spread the word with with your friends. And there you go. We've got some merch going.
We've actually got two new pieces of merch, which Brad is showing off merch, not that it's specifically the two new pieces that we've added. I do have to add them to the live stream. But yeah, right off the bat here. Brad is styling the Brad bucket hat. He's got the t-shirt going. It's very soft. Nice job, guys. Are you talking about the t-shirt or yourself? I'm a bit what you would call doughy. Doughy.
OK. Yeah, I'm like the Pillsbury Doughboy, you know, the sweatshirt or the hoodie, which I have upstairs. Yeah, I might need to get one of those. We also have the windbreaker. Of the bomber jacket. Jeremy Welton cap. Brilliant. And we have a beanie and also added to the shop, which I need to add the QR codes here or to distressed as I call them distressed logo t-shirt and hoodie. Actually women's t-shirt for now and unisex hoodie. The great Anthony Mackie out of the blue sent me over.
He said he was toying around with the design and came up with something that in the car world would be called a murdered out logo. So it is all gray. It is the usual logo, but everything is gray. So I was looking to put together a, you know, a distressed shirt with that that had, you know, rips or whatever, but the closest I got to it was like a gray t-shirt. So there you go. I'd go with that. Yeah, I want to see that. Brown gray.
So if you want to see that, you can go to signals from ours.com and right at the top, right, you can find the link to the merch and you can check it out there. All right. So let's let's talk some music here. First, a few weeks ago, it was discovered that Lizzie Hale would be joining Skid Row on some upcoming dates. Sebastian Bach subsequently stopped following her on social media. And now Sebastian Bach has said the only thing holding Skid Row reunion back is the business side of things.
Now let me ask you guys, if it was a business decision, do you think that they would have gone to Lizzie or would they have tried to get back with Sebastian? Or do you guys feel that there's something besides business that's keeping them from getting together? And Brad, what do you think? I think it's absolutely not business. I think they just don't want to work with Sebastian ever again.
I've heard Dave, Snake, Sabo say many, many times that, you know, we're having way too much fun to bring him into the mix. I mean, they're they're apparently making as much money as they they want to make. They're happy. And that's the most important thing. They're happy. And that would kind of be a buzzkill for them to bring him on board. Mark Striegel used to always say to me, come on, they need to get it. They need to get back together and do it once for the fans.
Ed, do you think they need to get back together for the fans? If you were in a band and you were dealing with a Sebastian type character, would you forego your sanity just for money, even if there is more money there? Because I mean, I think we addressed this a few weeks ago. I think there's probably more money in them playing with Lizzy Hale than there is with Sebastian Bach.
I think if if we're if we're going to talk about brass taxes, I think in twenty twenty four, her name probably makes more money and brings more people in than the Skid Row name does. Yeah, she might bring in a whole new audience. Yeah. From her band. I think it's cool because I've never been a fan or follower of Skid Row, but I have kind of learned over the years how strange and jerky Sebastian seems to be.
And when you hear the way that the other guys in the band talk about him, I have to agree with Brad. It sounds like he's just one of those people. It's not worth the money. And I feel that way about a lot of things in life so I can understand them feeling that way. And I think it makes me like I'm not even a big Lizzy Hale fan, but I think it's great and cool for her. And it's kind of neat to see him get so butthurt over it. Well, she's not really like part of the band now.
She's just filling in, right? I was just hanging out with him for a bit. Yeah. She said that she's willing to be in there for the long haul. Initially, four dates were announced and she said that she's going to be doing more than four dates with the band. I'd rather hear her than Sebastian myself. I don't think he's got an irreplaceable voice myself. I mean, I recognize people think he was a great singer, but yeah. I think Eric was so much better singer. They were so good with him.
I mean, I saw him only once, but he and it was when he was still sick, man, where he was just getting over his cancer treatments and he could barely make it through a whole show, but he did. And he sang his ass off. I mean, he had everything and worked the crowd like a pro. Yeah, he was the real deal. I that's too bad. It's too bad he left the band because I think that kind of really gave them some legs. So the album that they did with him was really good.
And yeah, it was probably just too much touring for him. But I mean, those shows they're doing now with Lizzie, at least a video I saw the other day, it was in a very tiny club. So I don't know if it's really boost in the audiences, but I don't know. You know, Victor, let's face it, most most people don't even know who's in bands anymore. They just like, oh, Skid Row, we'll go see Skid Row.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, that was that was a discussion that I would always have with Mark when I would do this show with him. Where he would see Kiss and people would come up to him and say, wow, Ace looks great up there today. You know, he was 20 years removed, you know, was one of those things. So yeah, I think that you're that you're completely right that, again, the people just know the brand name and they they want to check it out.
I think that it's it's the diehards that are the ones that are sitting with their with their arms folded in the corner saying, I'm not going to see them. And then when you know, when they come around to town, they break down and see them and they're happy that these songs are being played. You know, Ed, you're a big Slayer fan. They've obviously toured for a long time without Jeff and without Dave. If you know, they're going to be playing shows again.
If they're coming remotely close to your area and the tickets are a decent price, are you hung up that Jeff and Dave aren't there and won't see them? Or, you know, if it's the perfect storm, would you still go see them without those two? Well, that's I would. I'm disappointed. Anytime. Dave's not included. If it was a decent price, I'd go and, you know, easy to get there for an old guy now. But now if they were trying to replace the vocalist, though, in that situation, Tom, there's no way.
Yeah. But every almost every band and every fan is going to feel differently. You know, like when ACDC was having Axl sing, I was one of the guys standing in the corner with my arms crossed, refusing to listen to it. Right. But it still worked out well for them. I know. Yeah. And I know that a lot of people didn't want to give it a shot and then ended up seeing videos and were like, oh, you know, it's not that bad.
He actually sounds like kind of like Bond Scott and some of these, you know, on some of these tracks, because that's what he grew up listening to. That's why he wanted to be part of that whole experience. So Slayer comes to Lexington. What is what is the most you would pay to see Slayer in Lexington? Wow. There's probably not if they came here, if all I had to do is drive downtown five minutes away, there's probably not a price limit for that one.
I just yeah, drink some bourbon and get a little tipsy and hit the buy button. All right. Five hundred bucks. Well, that's getting too much. Now, Lombardo, maybe if Dave's there, maybe so. OK. Oh, both 150 bucks. Yeah, it'd be hard not to as much as I love that band. It'd be hard not to. Yeah. Three hundred. It's like I normally would not. But there's, you know, just that every once in a while there'd be that thing. I would have to come back from the dead. I think.
The same way I felt with, you know, Pantera, you know, if Dimebag and then you were back, then yeah, I'd pay three five hundred bucks to see that. All right. Current band, what's the most you would pay to see the current Pantera? Me? Forty, fifty bucks. All right. There we go. We've not really worth it more than that to me. I'd rather buy some records of bourbon. We may have to do a new segment in the show. What would Ed pay? See, that's how we can gauge him. Skid Row, Skid Row in Lexington.
Zero dollars. What's that? Zero dollars. Zero dollars. They actually did come here last year. I should have taken my wife. She's a fan. That's why I have their album. It's for her. And they were really good. Eric. Yeah, I would have paid 50 bucks to see him with Eric. All right. So Ed, you wanted to talk a little bit about Megadeth. Yeah. I, you know, they streamed a couple of concerts from Buenos Aires. Did I say that right? With my Kentucky tongue.
So I bought a ticket and had a friend come over who's also a big metal fan going all the way back to high school. And so that was my first chance to watch Tmoo playing guitar. And I got to say I 110% approved of this new guitar player. He was good. You know, Kiko I loved. You know, outside of Chris and Marty, Kiko was definitely my favorite as much as I liked all those other guitar players. But you know, Kiko was like even writing like that guitar solo and we'll be back.
It was just he's writing new iconic guitar solos to me. Great, great player. It was sad to see him go, but Tmoo was a great, great recommendation because, you know, watching him play when you listen to the riffs and the solos, you can tell that he's a Megadeth fan because he's getting all those little inflections just right that you remember yourself as a fan listening to those songs over and over again.
Now I have read articles where he says he gets a big kick out of, you know, learning guitar solos like that, you know, someone else's solo and getting all those different personality traits in there. And but you can also tell that he's obviously a fan because he's throwing in all the little things that you would expect that, you know, semi fans wouldn't. And then also his picking style is works really well with Dave's.
I've always thought that, you know, even though Marty Friedman is like the better player, Chris's style fit Dave's style better because they're, you know, that alternate striking of the pick kind of sound. And Tmoo is like that too. So I'm thinking as far as, you know, who gels with Dave's playing the most, Tmoo is probably the best I've heard since Chris. So I'm really happy about this new Megadeth band. Their set list is pretty good too. They even threw in Devil's Island. Oh wow.
Probably heard. Now I could have done with a few less of the 90s material and had, you know, I would have rather heard some more tunes off of P.Sells or something. But they did a good show. Have you seen him playing at all though? Yeah. Tmoo some like seriously watching him play. Yeah, I haven't yet. I know that Kiko hand picked him as a replacement. I thought the situation was kind of weird because it seemed initially like Kiko was just going away for a few months.
And then all of a sudden they just announced that Tmoo was going to be the new guitarist and he was officially a member of the band. And I thought, well, that's kind of weird because it seemed like Kiko was coming back after this tour. And now Kiko is selling off all of his old Megadeth gear. So yeah, there's a combination. I don't know. It's just weird and similar to the whole Eric Gronwall situation where apparently Kiko just couldn't deal with all the touring.
You know, he came from Angra who toured a lot less. You know, Megadeth is a touring machine like a lot of these thrash bands are. That's the art on his family. Yeah. And it's interesting because I thought of this the other day because they've announced some dates, well, Anthrax is playing South America now with Death Angel.
And I was thinking how Charlie being in Pantera and Scott being in Mr. Bungle, I think is actually helping Anthrax because for a point in time there, they were just touring nonstop, like 10 months out of the year. And it just seemed like you're playing the same set list all the time, you know, and you're playing more or less the same areas throughout these tours. You know, what are you offering up outside of a different opening band that's going to get me to go back to see you?
You know, so I think it's cool to hear you say that about Megadeth that they're switching up the set list, which I think is just so important. I mean, you've got 40 years worth of catalog. Why stick to playing the same 10 songs? And why are you only playing 10 fucking songs? You know, that's the other thing. That's the one complaint I have is that I could easily handle another hour of that show, whatever that was.
Probably, you know, they probably did 20 songs in an hour, do an hour and a half, and I could have handled an intermission and done a whole other half of the show, especially with their catalog. And Megadeth fans would love it, too. Yeah. And for as much as, again, people shit on Metallica, they're doing two and a half hours, you know, of a rotating set list. That's what I want out of it, especially my thrash metal bands. I want that, a two hour show to cover more ground.
Yeah. But do you think that that has to do more with the bands just being slothish and not wanting to play more? Or is it that they just physically can't play a lot? They can't play for more than an hour and change because of how demanding the songs are. Yeah, it's probably both once you get to this age. Especially the drummer. I mean, how many Megadeth songs could you play, Victor? I mean, I don't know.
Victor might be a Superman, but that's the one thing watching them when we saw the Mormon for the Scorpions. Nathan commented because I don't know how that drummer played all that time because I mean, there's no very little let up at all in those songs. When did you see them open up for Scorpions? Oh, guys, probably like four years ago. Four or five years ago. No, it's probably more than that. It's before COVID. Yeah. So COVID was roughly four years ago. So I'm thinking Dirk was in the band.
Dirk is a fucking monster. And whoever was was a monster. How long did you play like that? He's always played like that. And some of the stuff in Megadeth is easy compared to some of the stuff he used to play in Soilwork and in other bands that he's been in. And outside of that, he's a producer. He can play piano. You can play guitar. I mean, the guys, if you've ever seen him, Drumeo did some videos with him. And it's always interesting.
They do stuff or they have drummers play stuff that doesn't mesh with them. And he played, I think, a song by The Killers. And they haven't played songs they've never heard before. Yeah. Yeah. And they play it for him without the drums. They somehow are able to strip the drums off and then they have these guys play along with it. I think that's a really cool thing to watch. Yeah. It's always fun. And he plays again. I think it's a song by The Killers.
And he's really enjoying himself just like discovering the song. And then when he hears it back, he's like a little kid just listening to a complete song for the first time. It's really cool. So that's awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing them do something with Timo in the studio. Again, obviously, Dave is going to be the one that's at the rudder of the ship. But it's always fun to see what musicians he brings in and what flavors they add to the band.
Yeah. You know what else is cool when you have a band like that with that big of a catalog? This happened to me since I watched that concert. I never was a huge fan of Countdown. It was kind of like listening to the Black Album for me. And so I didn't spend much time with it. But after watching that show the other day, driving in the car, I told Siri to play Countdown to Extinction for me. Turned it up loud. And I just loved every minute of that record.
Now I'm interested to go and buy a copy of it on vinyl. So it's always fun, though. It's like getting into a new Megadeth record, even though it's, gosh, what, 30 years old now? Yeah. And that's actually one of my favorite albums by them. Whether that's a popular opinion or not, I think that album is a lot heavier than the Black Album because you have things like... Yeah, it's better, definitely. High speed dirt on that. You have...
What the hell is the first track off of that, which is a fast intro song as well? Yeah. Ashes in Your Mouth is a great closer on that. Nick Menz is just tremendous on that track. Yeah. Yeah, he was a good drummer. Yeah. Cool. So speaking of guitarists, Def Leppard, I actually have a Def Leppard t-shirt on under my jacket here. But Phil Collins appeared at a record store to sign copies of the new 40th anniversary of Pyromaniac, which they have released.
Wow. And he ends up playing songs off of hysteria. What? Is that a joke? Are you kidding? No. It's April, but not April 1st. Yeah, that's pretty lame. Yeah, that is. And I'm thinking, come on, you're seriously... I mean, I understand you didn't write anything off of the album. He plays solos on a few songs. But it's apples and oranges. Fucking guy annoys me with the whole, oh, it's obviously our best album because it sold the most. Yeah. No. It's not.
It's nowhere near as good as your previous two albums or the debut album. Not even close. You can argue all you want from hysteria onward if that's the best album. Maybe. But out of the first four? No. It's my opinion. Your opinion is right. I don't think you're going to find too many people that are going to fight you on that, Victor. Oh, yeah, you will.
You'll find plenty of people that listen to your Sunday night or Saturday night 80s on whatever station where, hey, let's play, remember this song and it's pour some sugar on me every single time. For the 800 millionth time or you started it out by playing the song hysteria. You know, it's come on.
Any rock fan for as much as the singles off of Pyromania, I can't listen to them all the time, but the deep cuts off of that album always work for me and high and dry top to bottom always works for me. Hysteria, I mentioned this during the 87 special. Love Woman. I mean, that feels like it was a leftover of something that they had written from one of the previous albums. But then you get into all the just uber poppiness on that album. So the dial MTV crowd loved it. Oh, yeah. All right.
So moving on here, Deep Purple has announced a new album called Equal One. First album with guitar, Simon McBride. I was reading an excerpt from an interview with Steve Morris, who says that he feels that Simon fits the band better. Really? Yeah. Well, he says that he didn't want to do all the touring that Deep Purple does, that he felt that they toured too much and that it kind of cut back on the specialness of the band and that also physically it was too physically demanding.
And fellow to only 45 who Simon McBride. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's obviously the youngest guy in the band. So for him, the stuff that I posted on Patreon, his solo material before he joined the band or right around the time he joined the band, seemed to go over well. And obviously, I haven't really seen like a huge outcry of people saying that, you know, that he sucks or anything. And the other thing, too, with Deep Purple fans, Deep Purple has always been a revolving door. Yeah. Day one.
So I don't recall seeing any bring back Richie Blackmore, man. So speaking of which, I mentioned Drumeo a moment a moment ago. Have you seen Brad the Ian Pace video where he does a reaction to the drummer of another band playing? I think it's Speed King by Deep Purple. Yes, I have seen that one, which is which is actually pretty cool because Ian puts out videos all the time where he talks about people playing different songs and different things. And he's you know, he seems really down to earth.
And he was you know, for that video, he was saying, well, you know, it's not exactly how I played it, but he puts an interesting feel to it. And you know, in different parts, he says, wow, he's really got it there. You know, he's playing same exact thing that I played on it. And so it was it was cool to see that. Yeah. He's very gracious, and that's what you like to see.
I mean, sure, it's not going to you know, you don't want somebody played exactly like you played it, although, you know, there'd probably be somebody that would. Mike Portnoy or somebody. But yeah, I can see a lot of guys in his position that would like rip somebody. Can you imagine Richie Blackmore doing that? It's like, listen, this guy play your song, Richie. He would he would probably trash him. He would.
Yeah. And Ian's whole take on the whole thing is that he thinks it's great to see a guy in his 20s playing his material and playing deep and, you know, a 70s Deep Purple era song. And he was he was saying, you know, he was like you said, he was gracious about them using their material, seeing a guy just going crazy on a drum kit and playing his stuff. Yeah. And it's funny because he's also talking about double bass, for example, where he uses double bass on that song.
And he says, you know, I really don't know how to do anything beyond this. And it's awesome to see younger drummers that can really do a lot of cool stuff on double bass. I wish I could do that stuff. You know, so he's he's a fan of seeing other people play. So, you know, like you're saying, a richie Blackmore would probably sit there and say, no, that should be a diminished note and he's playing it sharp and, you know, whatever. I got to tell you something about Speed King.
I saw a video of a concert from way back in the day and they played Speed King. And so this is in the middle of the show. I mean, were they not planning for this? So they bring out another bass drum and set it up in between songs and Mike and stuff. Like the hell? I mean, that was the 70s, I guess. But I thought, why didn't you just have all that set up to start with other than he just didn't want to, you know, be one of those guys that have a double bass and not use it?
So I've seen way too much of that. It's like this is one of my my big beef sector is drummers who have like all this kind of crap on their drum set and don't use it during the show. I mean, every time, you know, like Nathan, I go to a concert, if the drummer's got a gong, we're like, OK, if he doesn't hit that gong, we're going to move him. It's like, yeah, it just looks cool. No, you got it. You got to work it in there, dude.
Which is why it was so cool to see Rush on their last few tours where they had like rotisserie chickens and stuff like that behind them. Because it was to me, I always thought it was like them poking fun at bands having just like copious amounts of equipment behind them that they were never going to use. Yeah. Well, OK, I'm going to say that's OK, though, because it looks pretty bad ass when you got a full line of Marshall amps back there, even though you know they're not using them.
It's a great stage look. And you know, once Rush went to the no amps on stage or, you know, I guess Alex always did have one, but they're all in ears. You didn't need amps on stage. I don't know, but it looks it looks cool, man. I see these guys now that they just have pictures of amps back there instead of actual amps, which is pretty funny. That's weird. Or LCD lights with, you know, Marshall LCD Marshalls.
With all of the what do they call the Kemper amps and stuff like that, where, you know, a lot of people are aren't aren't taking amps with them anymore. They're just connecting that head to whatever sound system they're taking around with them or even just a venue. And interviewing Monty Pittman, where he mentioned that when he was playing with Madonna, he had a Kemper and he had an Orange and he had the Orange set up through an Orange speaker. And he used that for certain songs.
And then when he wasn't playing anything that was remotely rock related with her, he was using the Kemper to just sort of add textures to stuff or out of the blue, she would say, you know, David Bowie had passed away, so she wanted to play Rebel Rebel with him. So he used the Kemper to try to sample a Marshall sound. And that's what he would do. He said, you know, that she would come up and say, I'd really like to cover this song tonight and he'd try to get as authentic as possible. So cool.
Yeah. Now that I've done a whole show with in ears. Yeah, I didn't really need the app. You can't really hear it. I mean, you've got. Yeah. So there you go. I can't believe I said that. Cool. So moving on here, Ed, you also want to talk about Priest. Would you want to mention about them? What's going on there? So I've been listening to that record and like the other night when I invited my friend over to watch the Meg this show, he came over early.
We had pizza and bourbon and put that record on just to listen to it all the way through. And just amazing how heavy this record is. So I was going to say that you remember we were talking about Martin Popoff, right? That was him calling it the best record Priest has ever done. And I criticize that. But now he's not I'm not apologizing. He's he's still wrong. It's not better than sad wings or British steel or screaming. It's not going to be better than those records.
But at the same time, it's like you said about hysteria with Def Leppard, you know, post Turbo all those records since then, it's probably the best one they've ever made. But you know, it's also hard to compare this album to like 70s, early 80s Priest. Even though it's all Halford, it's two different bands. Yeah, man, it's heavy. I mean, they're they're giving bands like Metallica. Some good competition here. And also the guitar solos are awesome.
When you listen to that record, pay some attention to those solos. I mean, you can tell they put in a lot of thought. They're fun. They they they come up with all these licks that add a lot of tension, you know, to the melody that they're jamming on and did a great job. I'm curious, though, to know how much Glenn Tipton played those solos. You know, because they still listen, they listen as a guitar player. Right.
But with with the illness he has, if he's playing those solos as complicated as they are with the speed that he's playing with, that's pretty amazing that he's still keeping up with it like that. I want to see some of that with Richie. Yeah, I would imagine that Richie's probably doing the majority of the solos because Richie, I mean, that elegant weapons album that he released last year. Yeah. Really put that out there to show people say, hey, you know, I've got. If Priest is done tomorrow.
Yeah. This is what I have. You know, he really put he really made a statement with that album. I think, again, the biggest issue was was the singer kind of turned me off to that because it was the millionth album released last year with Ronnie Romero on it. But the album is heavy and his soloing and his. Composing is really what made that album work for me. That makes sense, because, man, these solos are composed excellently.
Yeah. And, you know, a lot of the lyrics, I don't I haven't read all the lyrics, but some of the songs, you know, have good messages that are connecting with me. I mean, yeah, that's the guitar sound, the tone they're coming out with. It's great. They're doing it's awesome. Yeah. Awesome record. Yeah. So far this year, I think I mentioned this to you guys on a previous show. To me, it's amazing what great two albums they've released with Firepower and with Invincible Shield.
I can't think of another band this late in their career. That is really done something this good. And again, I think it comes back to I've said it for years. I wanted them to work with Andy Sneep because they put out Angel of Retribution, which I think was subpar outside of the song Judas Is Rising. Nostradamus is dreadful. Redeemer of Souls sounds like shit. The guitar is terrible on that. They're not reinventing the wheel with this album. If you look at.
If you look at Angel of Retribution, the formula is very similar with this album because they tried to do songs based on different eras that were popular with priests. Like if I hear if you listen to Giants in the Sky off of this album reminds me of something that could have been on stained glass. Why? Because just the way that the songs are composed, the tempos, Scott Travis playing 64th notes on the hi-hat, something that Les Binks would do a lot during that time period.
So it pulls me back to some of those periods of time where Angel of Retribution was similar. But I think the songs weren't as authentic. It was kind of, okay, we need a painkiller song. So let's do a fast song and let's kind of make it sound like that. Let's do another song that sounds like it could have been off of British steel. And the big single off of that Revolution, they fucking ripped off Jane's Addiction.
I mean, the bass part and the intro to that is the same as the Mountain song by Jane's Addiction. It's identical. To me, that was disheartening. You said Metallica. I would take this over 72 seasons and hardwired easily. Yes, it's that good. Yeah, I'm going to be listening to it a lot this year. Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. It's going to be in a lot of people's year end polls, I would think. It'll be in ours.
I think it's one of the most perfect representations of what classic heavy metal is with a modern sound. Yeah, I mean, if you were going to give someone who didn't know a copy of something that would teach them what heavy metal is, that would be an album to give them. And that's what Andy Sneap has done with every band, every big band that he's worked with. He's done it with Accept. He's done it with Testament. He did it on United Abominations by Megadeth.
To me, this is why I want Iron Maiden to work with him. This is why I want Metallica to work with him, because he's able to capture bands and get them to kind of get them back on track. Nick Rascalinix is another guy that's like that. I think with those last two Rush albums, he did the same thing where I think not that Rush was putting out shit albums, but they were putting out albums that had one great song and the rest was just kind of there. One with Snakes and Ladders and with the...
Don't remember what the name of the last one is. I'm drawing a blank. I'm seeing the cover in my head. But he did that with those last two Rush albums, where it seems like he's a fan first and foremost. So he's able to get things out of the band where he knows, OK, all right, that sounds cool, but know that you can give me more. You can do this.
And I know with Megadeth, I remember that I was reading interviews and I think he told Dave to sit down and listen to the albums that inspired him to write those early Metallica songs, that what inspired him to write Killing Is My Business and Peace Sells and stuff like that to try to remind him of what originally got him hooked on doing stuff. And I think that just makes so much sense. Man, how awesome that would be if Metallica did work with him.
I mean, if he could pull off what he's doing with Judas Priest with Metallica, they could release an album that's on par with what they were doing in the 80s. Absolutely. Yeah, that would be awesome. 100 percent. Because Metallica still got it in them. You can tell it's just they just don't always. It just doesn't always come out, though. I think their biggest problem. Is knowing when enough is enough. Yeah, is knowing when.
And I think with Death Magnetic to an extent, for example, I think Death Magnetic is better than these last two albums. I know a lot of people hate what was mixed, but I think it was them trying to find their way back. And there's too much excess on these last two albums. There's too much riffage. There's too much meandering. There's too much and I get it because Injustice had that. Master Puppets had that. Ride the Lightning had that to an extent.
I think Metallica have too many yes men around them. Yeah. And back in the early days, all their ideas were fresh. It's different writing an eight minute song when not only just your ideas, but that whole those ideas for that genre were new. So it was, you know, they had an empty slate to color. Right now, trying to write an eight minute song after all those bands have been around for 40, 50 years. It's hard to come up with something that interesting.
Seventy two seasons reminds me of a Motorhead album. And I say that in the sense that the album isn't bad. The album has a few tracks off of it that are good. You're right. Yeah. But that don't come close to. I mean, obviously not their bigger songs are the ones that were most emotionally connected to. I mean, I think that I can.
And I thought this when I started listening to that album again for my year end list, it's good, but it gets to a point where it's like, OK, this is kind of more of what I've already heard. And I think that the last two albums, that's the biggest problem that they have. I think that the best song Lux Eterna, I think is a great song, but it's short, gets straight to the point. It's a lot of kill them all because it has that diamond head type feel to it. The song 72 seasons, really cool song.
It's a little longer, but it's kind of that it harkens back to something else. There's just too much. That's like a Motorhead album, like a lot of the later Motorhead albums. They're good, but they don't kind of stick out to you. Where you say, OK, well, beyond this one song that's going to go into my Metallica playlist, I'm probably not going to revisit this album. And I feel that way about the last two albums. I think Hardwired has four good songs off of it.
They went into my playlist and the rest to me is very forgettable. I would love for them to work again with an Andy Sneep that says to them, OK, that's great. Sounds cool. But I think we can take this to another level. Let's try this. And I think with Testament, they didn't work with him on the last album with creation. What the hell is the full name of the album? Let's see here. Titans of creation. Titan creation. There you go. OK. He only mixed that album.
And I don't think it's as strong as as the other albums that he did with them because he wasn't involved from a producing standpoint. A lot of times, bands need that outside voice to put the brakes on to get them to revisit. So he did Formation of Damnation, Dark Roots of Earth and Brotherhood of the Snake. I think all three of those albums are a lot better than Titans of Creation, in my opinion.
Titans isn't a bad album, but it doesn't reach the level that these other albums reach, in my opinion. And I think it has a lot to do with Andy Sneep being involved. Yeah. A good producer can really make an album. Yeah. Yeah. Agreed 100 percent. Yeah, that dude is good. Yeah. OK, so these next two topics are going to tie into one another. Sully Erna. You guys know who Sully Erna is? Yeah. OK. Sully Erna wants Aerosmith to induct Godsmack into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Well, don't they have to get voted in first? Yes. So my question to you guys is, should Godsmack be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Is question number two, will Aerosmith still be alive when they get put in? Oh, look at that. Look at that. Look at what you did there, Brad. Will anybody from Aerosmith still be alive when they get elected into the Hall of Fame? Will anyone in Godsmack be alive when they get inducted? Yeah, those guys seem pretty healthy. That's a fair question.
I mean, I respect what they do. They're not somebody I choose to listen to. I don't know that they check the boxes for me to go in Hall of Fame, maybe a Boston Hall of Fame. OK. But not, of course, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is such a piece of crap. I mean, yeah, I don't even want to get started on that. Oh, you don't? Yeah, yeah, no, I'm going to say if in my Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they don't make a cut. OK. I'm not even playing them on yard metal.
I mean, I'll admit to you, I really like their first album, really like their third album and really like their fourth album and everything else, I think, is kind of mediocre. But Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I think that's kind of stretching it. I think the interviewer was having fun with him, baiting him. Then they just wait. Did they just announce who? Well, who made it in this year? OK, so that's the next one. The next topic? Yeah. OK. I'll definitely have opinions.
Ed, do you have any comment on the Sully Erna comment? No, I've never listened to them besides listening to it to see what it sounds like and not caring for it. Of course, I know Sully, everybody knows him. His name is in the news a lot. So yeah, I couldn't I mean, no, not in my Rock and Roll Hall of Fame either. I've listened to it not for a very, very long time.
Yeah. OK, so there's various categories for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I'm just going to mention the overall list of who made it. OK, so Suzanne DePass, Norman Whitfield, Deon Warwick, MC5. She's a big rocker. Yep. MC5, Jimmy Buffett, Big Mama Thornton. Oh, John Mayall. She believes that she belongs in the Cracker Barrel Hall of Fame. Peter Frampton. Cher. She rocks. You know what? I'm OK with Cher going in. OK, a Tribe Called Quest. Again, I couldn't tell you one of their songs.
Mary J. Belage. She did cover. She did cover Kashmir. Who didn't? Mary J. Belage with Steve Vai on guitar. I forget the the actual the members of that who played on that are fairly well rock people. But anyway, Dave Matthews Band. Foreigner and Ozzy is a solo artist. So for all of you European followers that don't give a damn about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yes, Ozzy is in there twice before Iron Maiden or Motorhead before Scorpions, before UFO, before Judas Priest. No, Judas Priest is in.
OK, before Motorhead. For Motley Crue. Yeah, so, Brad, what are your comments on this lineup? Is there anyone that you feel is deserving of being in there out of the people that I mentioned? Let's let's attack it from a positive standpoint. OK, I'm going to say and I'm not a huge foreigner fan, but I mean, their career, as many songs I mean, you'd be hard pressed to find somebody on the street that wouldn't know a foreigner song.
But you'd ask me, I mean, if you stood there in front of a grocery store and people walk in, it's like, hey, what's your favorite foreigner song? I would say easily 80 plus percent people would have an answer. It's like, well, at least I know one or something. Tell me your favorite Mary J. Blige song. I think it depends on the generation we're talking about. Now, everybody coming in, you play it for you, play you.
You could I mean, I could probably pick five foreigner songs that you could play for everybody coming in and they'd be like, yeah, I've heard that song. Oh, yeah. I don't think I could do that with Mary J. Blige. No. I don't. I mean, I'm sure I've heard one of her songs, but I couldn't. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I've heard Casimir, but that's not her song. Right. So yeah, I don't know what the what's the criteria here, people? I mean, really, who pays the most? Peter Frampton.
OK. I mean, as far as I would put Humble Pie in there before I put Peter Frampton in there, and he was a big part of that band for a good part of its existence. But his solo career, other than that live album, what other album has he done or anything else that's big? That's all it takes because figure how many times Baby, I Love Your Way and Do You Feel Like I Do have gotten covered or played on radio and just off of those two songs, he's it. Yep. Yeah, everybody. But I mean, this.
Yeah, I and has nothing to do with his skill as a guitarist or as a singer or as a songwriter. But I just don't think he's had that other than the one album, which wasn't even a studio album. He hasn't had that big impact. I mean, or was it? Was it? You can argue it was. Live is what I'm getting at. Yeah. Or was it live? Yeah, I kind of feel like it might have been. I've listened.
I mean, OK, my freshman year in high school, it was a great time for me because I had people just, you know, lending me albums. There's a bunch of guys. I ran cross country. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true. I ran cross country and a couple of the guys and they're huge music guys. And that's that's how I got my first kiss, the first kiss album. Somebody gave that to me, said, hey, you really need to listen to this.
And I took it home and dropped the needle on us and immediately in love and strutted it like this is incredible. But somebody gave me the Peter Frampton Frampton Comes Alive. I said, yeah, you need to listen to this. I went home and dropped the needle and I'm like, do I have to keep listening to this? Do I have to? And I'm fine. This is long before I met you, Victor. And I thought, well, I got to give it to Victor Ruiz test and listen to it twice. No, I didn't. I made it through once.
I'm pretty sure I listened to the whole thing. I mean, it's a double album. Right. But I immediately gave that one back the next day. Whereas that kiss album, I kept that until they said, hey, I want my album back. So you didn't you didn't feel like they did. I didn't feel like they did. It was just it was like, yeah, if I want to hear that song, all I got to do is turn on the radio. You gave you gave it back and you said you don't feel like I do about this album. No, I do not feel like you do.
Do you? What do you love that album? No. OK, I never, I never understood the popularity. I get it because I was too young to maybe be caught up in that. But the talk box and the whole thing, it's like kind of annoyed me. And to be honest, my favorite Peter Frampton song came out, I think, in the 80s because it was heavier. What the heck is? I'll tell you right now what it is. All right. I need to hear this.
Yeah, I can't say that when I saw him live warming up for Journey years ago and we walked out, we walked out and walked around the arena, even looking for something to eat or drink or whatever, because we got bored after like the third or fourth song. Like, oh, God, I can't sit here for an hour. Breaking all the rules is my favorite Peter Frampton song. All right. Peter Frampton breaking all the rules. I'm going to listen to that when we're done.
OK, yeah, there's like three guitar solos in that. There's like a cool like drum breakdown and. And I was not knowing it was him and my brother having it taped off the radio and playing it all the time. So it was on the radio. Yeah. Yeah. This came out. Well, that's actually the name of the album, too. Yeah, I believe so. It came out like 83. So it was around the time Billy Squire and stuff like that was popular. So I think he was trying to. Skew what he was doing in that direction.
Yeah, it's the last song on the album is seven minutes long. They played that on the radio. Wow. Yep. Are these nice? See Friday on my mind is on here. That's going to be that's a cover. What year was this? I think this is 81. OK, 81. OK, so. For the the last news story here. OK. Actually for me, in about an hour, I will be able to hear Dogs of War, the new single by Motley Crue. Oh, I saw that was going to be released.
Yeah. The first thing that kind of jumps out at me is that what they're advertising looks like they've got Motley Crue avatars. Would it surprise anyone that they've yet again copied Kiss? I haven't seen that. That's hilarious. Yeah, totally. They're going to be ahead of Kiss if they're really doing a new song with avatars. There you go. That's fine. So and they've they've signed.
Here's another good one that I saw this and I was thinking, wow, it's really did they sign in blood that this will be the last video they ever do? No, they didn't. OK, so they've signed to Big Machine Records. Who are they? OK, I will let you know, because Vince Neil has told Classic Rock it is a great match for us. He's good friends with Big Machine founder and CEO Scott Borchetta, who put together the Nashville Outlaws album back in 2014.
His company just knows radio and how to get it out there, how to get the right people listening. OK, I have a question. Go ahead, Brad. Who's listening to radio? Correct. And when I read that, I was thinking, Vince, 1992 called. You haven't had a fucking song on the radio since. Was over 30 years ago. How? How in the fuck do a lot of these artists? Not understand that there isn't anyone in radio that is playing any of this new material. I see a lot of these lists and see so and so has made it.
It's a heat seekers, the most played song on radio this week. And you obviously know that they paid for this coverage. And the song disappears from any list from any station within two to three weeks. So how does that actually help sell anything that they're doing? And he's talking about the Nashville Outlaws album, which was released in 2014. That album didn't do shit in 2014 and 10 years later. He had to remind me what a hot steaming turd that was having country artists cover Motley Crew.
Oh, golly. Yeah. Yeah. So I need a country artist covering Home Sweet Home, Kickstart My Heart, Dr. Feelgood, same old situation. It wasn't as if Garth Brooks came out and did Livewire or did Bastard or something along those lines. You're like, oh shit. They're actually going to cover one of these songs. And let's see what they do with this. Taylor Swift didn't come out and do Red Hot. It wasn't one of these things where you were like, wow, this is cool. They're covering kind of a risque song.
Oh, no, they're covering a song that we've heard a million times on the radio. I was sick of the original to begin with. I don't want to hear someone covering it. No way. Oh, that's hilarious. All right. So let's all predict is the new song going to be good or bad? That's what I was driving at. That's what I want to ask you guys before we wrap this up. Brad, will the new Motley Crue song with John 5 officially?
We've heard all the rumors that maybe he's played on other albums and written other songs and stuff like that. With him being in the band, will this song interest? Well, I think we'll probably all be interested to check it out. But, oh, yeah, definitely. I want to hear it. Will the song be good? Brad, what do you think? I'm going to say no. OK. Ed, what do you predict? I'm going to say yes, because of John 5. I love John 5, by the way. That's nothing against him.
But I mean, listening to his solo albums, I mean, there's parts that are good, but as far as and I know he's written some really good songs for other people. But. But that depends on like. I don't know, man. That's a crapshoot, because I could see him coming in and saying, I'm going to write a song that sounds like Motley Crue, like good Motley Crue. It would probably be better than a Nicky Sixx song. He could do it, but I could see somebody else in the band screwing it up.
So it depends, though, the song that we hear. Like, I don't know if Nicky Sixx wrote it or not, but he seems to be a kind of writer that either writes something really good and catchy or it's just not interesting at all. So I mean, he's done something that's boring and even John 5 couldn't help it. Or maybe John 5 could help a boring song be somewhat listenable. But hopefully they both, you know, hit it good and wrote a good song and John 5 made it even better. All right.
So, Victor, you're the tiebreaker here. I like what Ed is saying. I would, I mean, being a fan of what John 5 has done with Marilyn Manson and with Rob Zombie, I think that he's an explosive enough guitar player that if he gives us like a riff out of left field or like some really like catchy riff and then gives us over the top solo, it'll make the song worthwhile.
But if they just want him to be an employee within the band and just kind of do the same old same old, I think it'll be a huge letdown. So for those who are watching this, hopefully it's thousands of people. I want you all because if you haven't heard the song, it's out now that you're watching this. I want you to stop this and listen to the song and then come back and put down in the comments below whether you just whether you liked it or not. That's it. There you go.
And then we'll tally them up. We'll see what you think. We'll see who's who's right. Who's right in this group. Well, if you remember to come back to this on our next show. Yes. Yes, we will. Cool. So on that note, we will wrap this episode up. Brad, thank you for joining me. Ed, thank you for joining me and thank you everyone for joining us, either watching the replay or listening to the podcast version of this. Share your comments with us. Let us know what you think in the comments below.
As Brad said, support the show by going to signals from Mars dot com. Spread the word on social media. Join us on Patreon. Pick up some merch. And that is it, folks. Thank you once again for joining us for this episode, and we will see you next time right here on signals from Mars. See you, folks.