 Jimmy Kay here, Metal Voice. Look at this. The Metal Voice shirts are now on sale. Just go to the video description to find out on how you can purchase one. Metal! Welcome to the Metal Voice. Alan, not one, but two. Oh, the dynamic duo themselves from the Dead Daisies. We've got Doug Aldridge and Glenn Hughes. Good morning. Hi guys. There we are. Great to have you guys. Holy Ground, the Dead Daisies on SPV. January 22nd, 2021, the new album. Very excited. I have not been able to stop listening to it since the copy came out here. It seems to me like it's a completely different beast now that Glenn's in the band. I don't know if you agree, Doug? It's absolutely. It's a brand new day, man. We're very, very happy to have Glenn leading this ship. It's like a revolution for the band. It's still the Dead Daisies, but it's a brand new start. We're very excited. Yeah, it's another chapter in my life. It was a good experience for me to come into this. Doug's an old friend and a loved dog. It's a great, great ship. We're flying here. I remember years ago, driving through New England. Glenn Hughes was performing in New England. Who's his guitar player? Doug. How far back did your relationship go? We'll go back a lot further, right, G? 25 years. Doug played in my band about five years ago. It was fantastic. Back then, we talked about doing more work. We didn't know it was going to be in the Dead Daisies, but here we are doing just that. Just the opening track alone, the holy ground. You can tell it's a new band, a new statement. Like Glenn said, it's a new chapter for him. It's a new chapter for the Dead Daisies. It started as a roundabout. There's been several lineup changes. It's funny because it's not so far away from Deep Purple in some ways that there were different eras of Deep Purple. When Glenn and David joined, that was a very important big change for the band. To me, it was a great new start for that band. This is a new start. This is a chapter. This is what you call it, version four of the Dead Daisies. Mark four, Mark four. Mark four, yeah. I want to know, okay, I love Karabi and I love the Dead Daisies with Karabi. What's the difference if there was a difference between Glenn, the sound that you're having with Glenn versus the sound you had with John Karabi? It's definitely, I mean, listen, we love John Glenn and our dear friends with John and we were very happy for him, what he's doing. Basically, it's a great change because we're not trying to replace John. We're going in a fresh direction. Glenn basically brings a grooviness to the band and a heaviness to the band that maybe we didn't have like that before with John. We had a little different thing. They're like apples and oranges in terms of what musicality styles. Maybe Glenn could express how he feels, but I feel like it's groovy. Yeah, I mean, it would have been silly to repeat the same formula. You know, John and Mark are very close friends of mine and I was brought into this band to change the game, if you will, and to make it just a different vibe with the same kind of classic rock movement, the same generational values where classic rock is. I don't like the word classic rock or any terminology for rock music. It's just music that we feel is appropriate for this time. And those songs were written before a pandemic and they speak to a lot of people. And so for me to join this band was a beautiful moment for me because I wanted to express myself musically in this band and I was allowed to do that. So we're pressing forward. We're not looking so far back anymore. We're in the moment. We're pressing all the right groovy moments. I think we're just getting on with life. Oh, and you've been quite busy yourself, Glenn. I mean, looking back, you had the Black Country Communion in California Breed and Voodoo Hill, which was made our top 10 list years ago. And now with the Dead Daisy. So are you a restless soul or you're like the energiser, buddy? You can't keep still. You've got to keep... Well, no. I'm both of them, actually. I am a workaholic. I do like to work. I'm a songwriter. That's the source of everything for me is the songs. I mean, I'm all about songs. I just love songwriting. And to express myself as a songwriter in this band is great because we spend a lot of time together, not lately, but last November and December we made the album in France, as you know, and we lived together and we ate together and we laughed together and we rocked together. And it was a great moment. So you can hear on the album that it's a great blend of musicians, all bringing the love to the table. And I'm glad we captured Holy Ground in that moment of time before we were hit with this awful virus. And again, you bring your own style of bass playing, which is really evident on songs like No Weather, right? Yeah. We've got a bass solo in there. But how do you find a synergy with Dean as a rhythm section, playing with Dean? Oh, it's great. As you know, Dean's, because I've played with both Bonham, you know, and coming into with Dean, Dean is a percussive player, real percussive, rock drummer, but real percussive and different flavor for me. So I was hoping we could be very, very simple in our approach and keep it simple. So that's what we did. You know, I gotta say, Alan, to me, like Doug, the heaviness, this drop down heaviness, it's like a wall of guitar sound, Doug. I mean, just talk about that. Well, it's a different sound than what we have. We have a new producer, Ben Gross. He was really exciting to work with. The sound comes from your fingers, but it helps when you got good gear too. And he had a couple of amps that he liked, and I had a couple. But the heaviness of this album, I think more from Glenn, because Glenn's bass should have a, it should be its own country. I love it, man. It's not a distorted heaviness. You know what I'm saying? It's not a distorted, it's a more of a vibe of a heaviness. It's a wall of sound, I guess. Massive. It's a wiry bass sound. It's a sound I've always had, but more so now, since Black Country Community, I've amped it up more gritty. It's really, I come from the early 70s, you know, Chris Guire, Enquistle, myself, that kind of very wiry sound, and that's evident on the Dead Days, his album. So I'm really happy to be part of that. Glenn, I gotta tell you guys, the thing that Glenn said, when Ben was mixing the record, and we didn't know exactly, you know, Ben's a very old school producer. He wouldn't play us the mixes, how it was shaping up or anything. We would just do our work. But he said, so what do you guys think for the mixes? And you know, usually guys would go like, well, on this song, I want you to do this, and this song, I want you to do that. And Glenn just goes, just make sure you can hear everything I played. That's it. You know, for me, it's like, you know, it's the notes I don't play are as important as the notes I play. I like that space in the groove, you know? I don't come from the style of bass playing or hammer-ons and all that stuff. It's not bass playing for me, but bass playing for me is less is more. In fact, I do like to rage, as you know. Oh, I can't like nor that so well, which is quite spontaneous. But for me, it's all about the big holes in the music. It's very important to have those holes. It goes back to, for me, the word that Doug used previously is you have a groove. There's a groove to your playing. That's what I take away. And again, you know, listening back to the Karabi versions, you know, you got that Aussie pub feel more straight ahead rock and roll. And this one seems a little darker, a little bit more introspective. I mean, the song My Faith, to go back to Jimmy's point about darker, that could have been off of the depth sessions with Iomi as far as I'm concerned. It was definitely, you know, as you know, Tony's one of my best friends, and I've got part of him inside of me. We're so close. I just thought, I plagued that song to Doug early on, before we made the album. I said, Do you think this is going to, it's very heavy? That's probably the heaviest riff of the days you've ever done. So I'm glad the band, you know, again, you know, I wrote, hopefully they would like some other stuff I written. And this is the song I thought, you know, they thought it was dark and interesting. And I'm glad it made it on the album. To me, Alan, and everybody far away is the epic track. Doug, far away is, I'm happy you saved it for last, because that is the track off the album for me. Yeah, it's a very special track that Glenn brought. Glenn wrote that in London, and it was, he played me, I'll let him tell you, but he played me the basic aspects he had, and he had everything there. It was all, all the parts were there. It was just a matter of capturing it, which is challenging, but we got it, you know, and then when we got it, when we got Dino's track, I went in and put the guitar on it to make sure that it was, you know, that we were happy with the ups and downs, because that's that track, Breathe, it totally lives, you know, but Glenn, you tell him. I did my last Glenn Hughes solo performance in the UK, November 29th of 019. And I had to fly back to Paris the next day to meet the guys to start on session number two. And I couldn't sleep in Birmingham after the show. And I had a guitar with me, and I just thought, I'm going to come up with something different, a slower song. And by the time I made the plane, I got the music done, and I didn't really have a title. And when I got to La Fabrique, I asked Doug if he'd come to my room, and I played it to him alone. And I, if I can say this to you, I think Doug really, really heard what I was doing. And then, you know, we got, we played around with it, that I called David and Dean to come up to my room. And then we sort of, we fell in love with it. So I went and finished the song, I did the lyrics, and there you have it. And it's a song about coming home. It's a song about, again, being at sea and coming back years later. And here I am. I'm so glad we, I'm so glad you love that song. We love it too. Yeah. Again, what I like about the Dead Daisy's, you got those three minute 45 rock songs. Like nobody does that anymore. Keep it simple. Move on to the next. And then you get, you're going to end with this epic seven minute track, which, you know, you're singing about waterfalls, and you had a Voodoo Hill album called Waterfalls. So is this, is this the Glenn Hughes thing, is Waterfalls like Rainbows was Ronnie James deal thing? You know, I, I, great. No one's touched on this before. Good job, Alan. Good job. I'm glad, I'm glad you touched on it. If you listen to my work, even 50 years ago, I was singing about the sea of the ocean on the shore, you know, like Medusa, you know, on the shore, I was always on the shore. And I live, I live on the ocean here in LA. So it's like I'm always singing about the sea. It's enchanting to me. So I thought this, you know, the waterfall, I can't go back to the shore. It's like it's typical Glenn stuff. So I'm tongue in cheek, but it's what I write about. Well, speaking of that, here's Walking on Water, my first introduction to Glenn Hughes back on the ever famous from now on. What is that? That's a cassette or is that an E-track? That's a cassette. Can you believe it? Hey, so look at it. 1993. How funny that walking on water goes back to what you were saying. The lyrics. Okay. I mean, we can get a lot of description on this album, but who took care of most of the lyrics? Is it just everybody contributing? Is that how it worked, Doug? No, Glenn does all the lyrics. Yeah, I'm a lyricist. I, you know, especially on this particular album, it's a song, all these songs are about the human condition. I don't write about fiction. And again, I sing about overcoming fear, letting go into transformation. And waterfalls. And waterfalls. There's always going to be some water in my songs. But again, I'm not afraid to write what I'm feeling, because I think in general, people will go through what I'm singing about and writing about, because it's all about the human condition. And again, written before the pandemic. And if you listen to some of those songs, it's like, it's, wow, really? You didn't know anything about it? I mean, you know, a lot of people are probably writing the same thing about they're writing songs before the pandemic. And now listen to their songs, I'm going, wow, what a coincidence, you know? Do you guys have another album ready to go since we're stuck in this pandemic? They're writing music continuously? I mean, okay, one album's out, another album's getting ready. I mean... Yeah, finish this renovations first. We made a good start. Yeah, we got stuff cooking. That's what I'm saying. I mean, it's pretty much what everybody's doing now, cooking. Yeah, we're cooking it. And Doug, for yourself, I mean, you got two thirds of Revolution Saints, another album Rise that made our top 10 list in 2020, by the way. So how do you get your mind into writing music? Like, if you're going from one band to another? Well, actually, I didn't really write that much for Revolution Saints on the last record. I put in a little bit of work on it, but it was kind of a, that's been a project. That's not been a band situation, to be honest with you. And I think it's pretty much complete at this point, because I really, just for the past two years, been focused on this change that we were going to make. And once I found out that Glenn was coming in, that management said, you know, talking to Glenn Hughes, I was like, what? That would be amazing. And so I immediately was like, I started, well, they said, Glenn wants to talk to you. So I called Glenn and Glenn goes, it's time. It's time for us to do stuff together. So I was like, killer. So he started working on stuff. And I started working on some things that I thought he would like, because I mean, I wanted to present some music that would inspire Glenn, that we were going to do this together. So it just gave me an opportunity to, I focused directly on what Glenn was going to do with Dead Daisy's and, and presented as much as I could to be helpful. And then I also knew that Glenn had ideas, had a bunch of ideas. He had a bunch of songs, a bunch of music that he wanted to present to the band. I wanted to be helpful to him. So I made myself available to help him present his ideas. It was, it was, Doug came over to my house. Oh my God, it must have been seven or eight times. And I demoed stuff with Doug here. And, and you know, that's really how it got going. He was very, very helpful to me, very kind, considerate, loving as he's a lovely, lovely man. And he came over and really brought me into this thing. And I was able to just be me, again, writing for the dead days. I'm not writing for Glenn. I'm writing for what I consider to be the next level of songs for the dead days. And I think we've done a great job on Holy God. We're really excited about it. We want, you know, we hope people enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. We had a blast. I mean, we were so focused. And I think that really shows on the album that it's like, it's not like a bunch of songs chucked together. It's really a whole vibe and movement. And it covers a lot. You know what I noticed? Getting ready for this interview, I go, man, these guys have connections. I mean, the Carverdale connection, the deal connection, there's just so many. It's like, you guys are a family before you were a family, right? There's just so much history, right? I mean, Doug, you play with deal. You opened up for, I mean, deal opened up for, for Deep Purple back in the day at Carverdale. You, Glenn's got Carverdale. Yeah, Carverdale. There's just so many, you guys are a family. So it's all under the umbrella of Mr. Richie Blackmore. We're a family underneath Richie. People ask me, well, yeah, I mean, I didn't mean to say anything wrong, but basically, I'm, I'm a fan of Richie, but I wanted to say this. People ask me like, Hey, how did you get so lucky to work with the greatest heavy metal singer of all time, the greatest blues rock singer of all time, and the voice of rock, the greatest all around, Glenn Hughes. It's like, how, how lucky have I been? What did I do to deserve this? You know, in a good way. How long, I guess, you know, you've got the chops. Maybe that's why. No, it's, it's, no, it's luck. I mean, I, it's luck, but also being friends with, like meeting Glenn and being friends with him, he knew we had jammed a couple of times in little situations. One was in Italy. It was really fun. And we were together at Ronnie's funeral and and we just, you know, have a mutual respect for each other. And when he called and said, I'm doing this tour, my guitar player, Soren's busy and I need somebody I can trust and would you want to go? And I, at that time had been home off the road for a while and was like, I'm ready. Let's go. And we had some epic gigs, man, epic jams. And I'm so excited about doing these songs with Glenn from Holy Ground because I know that we're going to raise the level of these songs even more so by playing them live. We've run out with these, we did a rehearsal in October and we played these songs live and they smoke live. They really, really do really kick in. And it's going to be a great show whenever we can get out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys do a lot of covers. Are you guys going to throw in, I don't know, maybe a few Dio songs, a few. No, no, no. I think we, I don't think so. This is again a fresh start for the band. It means we need to, we need to re look at everything and revamp everything. And we do have a cover on the album that was suggested we, you know, do for fun. We did it and it turned out cool. But I mean, maybe, maybe we'd throw a Dio song of Glenn's. I don't think there's going to be a lot of covers going forward. I think the Dead Daysies were a cover band and that is now going to change because there's so many songs been written and being written as we speak. I just think the Dead Daysies were a little short of material before and now, you know, I just think it's time to press the boat out and, you know, this band is a killer band. Live streams? I can't wait to see you live. So is there, I mean, nobody's got a timetable, but I would assume that a tour when everything gets back to the semi-normal here, there was a tour. I'm going to go on the edge and say this to you. I have seen some penciled-in shows for Canada. Hey, there you go. Yes, I have. But, you know, I can't say when, but I've seen a Canadian run and I can't say if I say any more than that. Tell us of Montreal's on that pencil and just between us, just between us. I can say that there are shows on the calendar later on in the year. So it's hopefully it'll be okay. People understand. People understand it's a pandemic. You might get postponed. People get it. People are very understanding. I am looking forward to, I played a show in Canada a couple of weeks ago and I've been there forever. It was such a great show and I can't wait to get back there. All right. I think that's pretty much it. Any other plans you guys are doing? Is there any other projects you're working on, Glenn, other than this? No. No, this is it for me. Calling up Tony, I owe me Tony. Let's do something. There's always someone going on with Tony. We've done three albums and you never know. And there's a possibility if you'll be another one. But at this time, it's so hard to say anything because I'm just doing everything I can to make sure the dead days get to as many people as humanly possible. Well, Glenn, you've done a phenomenal job at bringing it to the next level. Doug, how about you, Doug? Is there any other projects you're working on you want to promote? No, I'm just sticking to this for the moment. I want to keep it simple. One of my resolutions of this 21 is to be more focused. And I think we've all gone through musical, we've all got a musical past that covers a lot of ground and everything. But I mean, I really, starting when I was in Dio and White Snake and now with the dead days, is it really, I function better when I focus on one thing at a time and not spring myself too thin. I'm really excited about this lineup with Glenn. And I can't wait for you guys to hear it live. That's the whole thing. So all your viewers and everything, please, we want to send you guys Happy New Year. All the very best for 21. All right. So that's, I got a biography. Now we've got the name of Doug's. If Doug ever wants a right one, it's the luckiest guy in the world. Yeah, absolutely. Just to go back to your book, Glenn, I mean, you know, a song like 30 Days in the Hole, which, you know, a new cast of Brown smack you down any, any ambiguity and with your soberness and singing lyrics like that. You know, Steve, Mario was a close friend of mine. And you know, Steve, look, I love Steve Mario. I mean, I genuinely love him and his family and a dear friend. And I miss him. And he's such an incredible songwriter, performer, singer. So for me, the singer song that he sung, I wanted to change it up a little. I don't know if you heard the acoustic version, it's a little different. But, you know, to sing anything that Steve sang, you have to be very reverent because he was incredible. Singing about booze doesn't make me feel great. I haven't had a drink in a long time. I'm not going to drink again, not today at least. But no, the whole those years ago, it wasn't never, it never worked for me drinking. So as you can see, I'm a much better man sober, much more productive, I might add. I imagine so. All right, guys. That is the Dead Daisies, January 22nd, Holy Ground. Go pick it up. Go pick it up. Go pick it up. And thank you guys. Thank you so much. You're welcome again. You know, one of my favorite all-time interviews, the favorite all-time interviews with Doug and Dean years ago when they were here at the Dead Daisies. And we were blessed to have you guys here today. You were stretching apart the shirt, the metal voice shirt. And if you remember that, guys, we're ripping it apart. Yes. Yes. Yes. That was a good time. So it's funny. Fun times. Hey, you guys, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you kindly. We'll see you. We'll see you this year, but guys, look at you. Montreal. Montreal. Okay. And everybody, we love you. We love you. I can't wait to come back to Canada. I love you all. Thank you. All right. Thanks guys. Thanks again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Peace and love. Thanks.