The ex-Guns N’ Roses sticksman’s latest collaboration is with Free and Sabbath alumni, as Emmie MacNevin found out
You played at the Sound & Vision Live awards to honour Paul Rodgers and Geezer Butler and ended up making a record.
I’ve been doing Adopt The Arts Foundation charity work for 14 years. I started supporting six schools, with about 4,000 kids, and I raise money through these events honouring artists. I’ve honoured Sammy Hagar, Billy Gibbons, Moby and many more, and this year it was Paul Rodgers (Bad Company/Free) and Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath). It was epic, because they both said ‘yes’ to it! Paul Rodgers lives in the US in the winter and I had a short-lived band with Geezer, Deadland Ritual, so Geezer was totally down with it. Then I started calling all the other musicians: Nuno Bettencourt, Steve Stevens from Billy Idol, a good pal. Epic guitar players like Phil X from Bon Jovi, Stevie Salas from Rod Stewart’s band, then bassist Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots. Perfect for Bad Company. Geezer played on the Sabbath stuff, and for the singer, we got Corey Taylor from Slipknot. The video of him doing War Pigs had two million views, so I posted that and Lzzy Hale doing Shooting Star. Lzzy, Corey, Glenn Hughes – the voice of rock – and Charlie Starr from Blackberry Smoke were the singers. I recorded it all on a laptop and it was amazing, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to make an album out of this!’ When I got the tracks back, I was even more excited. I spent three months working on it with my engineer, Kemble Walters, of Chevelle, here at Goodnoise Studios, [Palm Springs, California]. He mixed it, and Harry Reese shot it with two cameras and four Go Pros. It’s all about the vibe. It feels organic and it’s been really fun. We’re going to sell the vinyl for $99 via my vinyl club site, Experience Vinyl, and all the money made goes straight to Adopt The Arts. We’re going to clear about $150,000 for the kids. We’re only releasing 2,000 right now, so you gotta hurry up and grab one, because they’re selling fast!
