Jerry Cantrell’s new solo album, I Want Blood, has an impressive cast of contributing guest musicians - Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo and Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin among them - but from the moment you hear the driving riffs and eerie harmonies of opening track and lead-off single Vilified it could be only be the work of Alice In Chains’ redoubtable leader Cantrell.
Pre-release, we caught up with the 58-year-old during the opening week of his summer tour with Bush, and found the grunge veteran “pumped and ready to go”.
I Want Blood takes its title from the most aggressive song on the record, which seems like a statement of intent. What does the title track mean to you?
The title is very potent, so I get that reaction. To me, the whole record has a lot of weight to it, and I’m still taking it in myself. You can take that title a lot of ways, like ‘I want to fight’ or ‘I want to kill’, but it’s not really about that. I’ll leave it open to interpretation, but to me it’s kind of a celebration, an embrace of life, and the feeling of being alive, wanting to experience all you can.
There’s a punk-rock energy to that track. People know that you grew up on Zeppelin and Sabbath and Pink Floyd, but did punk mean much to you as a kid?
I was always more aligned with hard rock, metal and classic rock, but yeah, I like a lot of punk too, the energy of that, and the rawness, and I think there’s elements of that in my music as well. But you’re right, that’s about as clear a strike on that bell as I’ve made in a while. It never hurts when you’ve got Duff McKagan playing bass to set that tone.
You mentioned Duff McKagan. You two have been playing on one another’s records for more than thirty years now, since you guested on Believe In Me, his first solo record, back in 1993. How did you first meet?
この記事は Classic Rock の October 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Classic Rock の October 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Joan Armatrading
The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.
EVER MEET LEMMY?
He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.
IN THE BEGINNING
With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.
High Rollers
When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.
THE NAME OF THE GAM
When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.