Author: Logan Rocker

Here’s where he thinks he fucked up, maybe.

“10) Once whistled “My Hero” for a week solid on tour.

9) Could only name one Fugazi song.

8) Two words: polyrhythms.

7) Metronome-like precision behind the kit deemed
“soulless.”

6) Demanded starting every rehearsal with a 20 minute cowbell sound bath.

5) Never even once tried growing a beard.

4) Didn’t show up to studio because Mercury was in retrograde.

3) Promised Noodles he could be 4th guitarist.

2) Refused to perform unless he was guaranteed a Ouija board and nunchucks after every show.

1) The whole poodle thing was getting to be a bit much”

Foo Fighters are due to play their first show of 2025 at the Singapore Formula 1 Grand Prix on October 4. There has been no news as yet as to who will replace Freese in the band, following his two year stint as a Foo.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan has expressed his admiration and respect for his old friends Green Day, and stated his belief that Billie Joe Armstrong’s band have eclipsed the Ramones in terms of their impact.

“What I mean by that is that in the world I grew up in, the Ramones were number one. In a way, they always will be number one because they were first. But then I realized, Oh my God, Green Day has actually done it. They are bigger than the Ramones. Their influence is greater, their reach is greater, and certainly their success is greater.

Green Day, meanwhile, will be headlining a number of European festivals this summer, including Download.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

In 2005 Billy Idol released his first studio album in 12 years, Devil’s Playground. It followed a period during which Idol had fought many demons and retreated from performance. At the time, he spoke with Classic Rock and told us the full story.

---

Billy Idol is back, almost 12 years after he released his last studio album, Cyberpunk, and then abruptly disappeared. He only intended to take a rest, but it went on so long that it seemed he’d retired from recording forever.

Privately, Idol was grappling with problems. He suffered a drug overdose, and he lost his way after seeing the rock world turned upside down by grunge while he, in LA, was slowly suffocating in a record industry more interested in his earning potential than in his creativity.

Billy got on his bike. Roaring along the open roads of the American countryside, he felt the healing begin. But it would not be complete until he had accidentally rediscovered the exhilaration of performance, gone back to basics with a belting new band and a club tour, and negotiated a three-album contract with Sanctuary, a label he says has offered only encouragement.

Now Billy Idol is back with Devil’s Playground, a riveting collection that finds him doing what he does best, inimitably.

Today he’s dressed in black – even his tinted glasses have thick black rims; the spiky, bleach-blond hair is as bright as ever. Chains dangle from the waistband of his pants, he’s festooned with clumpy silver rings and bangles. And he carries it all off with the charisma of someone who has every right to look like this: a punk pioneer turned MTV hero turned easy rider turned homecoming king.

Sitting down to a bottle of water in a private corner of London’s plush Landmark Hotel, he’s lean, healthy and confident enough to wear his lifelines on a less than Californian-smooth complexion.

He’s alternately thoughtful and excitable, raising his voice while his words rattle out at a furious pace. Sometimes he jumps up from the sofa, gesticulating wildly, and, best of all, he frequently, loudly, bursts into song with the odd curl of his top lip: the sneer.

He’s immensely proud of his band, in which he is reunited with guitar wizard Steve Stevens and producer Keith Forsey. And as usual he talks in the third person about Billy Idol – his own creation, the leather-clad love god who can get away with anything and everything in the name of rock’n’roll.

He is, of course, everything you would have hoped. William Broad was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, in 1955, and even as a youngster he was quite a hit with the misses. According to his press biog, he lost his virginity at 11 to the strains of Tommy James & The Shondells’ Mony Mony (Naughty porkie; Mony Mony was released in 68 – eagle-eyed Ed.), and in 1967 he was kicked out of the Scouts for smooching with a girl.

His earliest experience of music came from TV westerns. “There was always some guy singing a song,” he remembers. “There were all these cowboy ballads.”

He starts crooning Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling, from the movie High Noon, before leaping into Billy The Kid: ‘Way out in Mexico, long long ago, when a man’s only chance was his own .44…’

Then there were the dramatic solo singers. “Matt Monro was huge,” Idol says. “Born Free…, I thought if he could do it, I could do it.”

In 1975 William Broad quit Sussex University, moved to London and soon became one of the Bromley Contingent, a group of Sex Pistols followers that also included Siouxsie Sioux and Steve Severin.

He changed his name to Billy Idol, and formed Generation X with former Chelsea bassist Tony James (later founder of Sigue Sigue Sputnik).

He and James, with various drummers and guitarists, played an urgent, poppy brand of punk across three albums – Generation X, Valley Of The Dolls and Kiss Me Deadly – and had a string of hit singles. At the same time, Idol and his girlfriend Perri Lister became a fêted couple.

After leaving Generation X and relocating to New York, he experimented with dub mixing, teamed up with guitarist and co-writer Steve Stevens and producer Keith Forsey, signed to Chrysalis, and released his debut solo album, Billy Idol, in 1982.

Idol’s defection to America wasn’t popular in Britain, particularly when he started appearing on the recently launched music channel MTV.

“I can understand why people would feel resentful,” he nods. “But they didn’t know what it was like. I couldn’t get my records played on American radio; they didn’t like people with spiky hair. The record company took my picture off Hot In The City and it got on the radio, and it got to number 18. Then I put out White Wedding, and they wouldn’t play it.

“I saw MTV as a platform, that’s all. It was another way to get my music across. But I was ‘poor little Billy Idol’. Some people had two million dollars to put into videos. I’d come up with my daft ideas, trying to work with decent people on a shoestring budget.”

Idol admits to a certain nostalgia for his earliest adventures in music at home and abroad: “It was a magical time,” he smiles. “I fell in love, we were being successful, or we were struggling to get our music on, or doing dub remixes, or trying to refocus Generation X energy into Billy Idol fuck music. Cherie [on the new album] is a love song to Perri Lister and going to Venice and Paris, and the humid New York summers. If ever I want [to recapture] that spirit, I can see it in our child.”

White Wedding eventually made the US Top 40 – and Billy Idol went platinum – and was followed by Rebel Yell in 1983. (The UK caught up properly in 1985, after the Vital Idol compilation.) Whiplash Smile in ’86 was an international smash, as was its lead single, To Be A Lover.

Now Idol was the golden boy of the 80s. He received Grammy nominations for his singing. And he scored his first US No.1 single with a live cover of his supposed cherry-popping soundtrack, Mony Mony, in 1987.

“In lots of ways it was fantastic. Just to see people getting so much out of the music,” he says. “In the midst of all the craziness, you’d see some really moving stories about someone who loved something about the music that’s stopped them doing something – ‘Man, I don’t know why, but your album…’

“Music is about saving souls, in a way. It gives you a lifeline. This album [Devil’s Playground] is a little bit, ‘How do you fix a broken soul? How do you fix a broken world?’ I turned to rock’n’roll for release.”

Appearing in The Who’s rock opera Tommy in LA and London (playing Cousin Kevin), Idol chanced his luck by moving full-time to California – without Steve Stevens.

“The pressure of being on the road, five years non-stop, just got to us a little bit,” he recalls. “We never had a massive blow-out. He went off to do his solo albums and I went to LA and carried on with my career.”

Idol also bought his first Harley-Davidson.

On the last day of mixing his next album, Charmed Life, he smashed himself up so badly in a bike accident that it took five operations to save his right leg.

Charmed Life, in 1990, did brisk business on both sides of the Atlantic, as did 1993’s Cyberpunk, but the effortless swagger of Idol’s previous albums seemed reduced, increasingly remote. And his major role in Oliver Stone’s biopic The Doors was downgraded to a smaller part – performed on crutches.

“I think it was crack,” Idol says of his overdose in 94. “I was doing a ton of crack. And I took pills to try and calm down.

“My son Will and my daughter Bonnie were going to be of an age where they could read the news. My daughter lived with her mother. My son was living with me week on, week off. I was taking him to school, dealing with teachers and parents, and I wanted him to have friends round to my house to play. The last thing I want them to see is: ‘Oddball Idol has gone crazy again’. I had a responsibility that was bigger than all the world.

“What do I want – to be a drunk with my kids, or a fuck-up? Maybe I wanna be cool. I want to be a dad.

“What saved me was this street heroin came out. It was so bad that even I thought: ‘This is terrible, this just sucks’. And my body was starting to get sick from drugs. I never got into shooting up, thank God. That probably saved my life as well.

“I was always a bit of a binge artist. I’m not fucked up all the time. I’m all right for a while and then, ‘Hey! Don’t fuck with me, I’m on a binge’. And that may have saved me too.”

While Idol has reassessed and adjusted his lifestyle, it’s a great relief that he has done so with balance, and not as the typical post-rehab evangelist. “I smoke pot and stuff like that still,” he confesses. “I have a drink every now and again. If I wanna go on a bender, I will.”

In the mid-90s, with grunge having swept the world, Idol was disillusioned and crushed by the corporate machine. “The music needed to regenerate,” he concedes. “But it didn’t need to be regenerated with a bunch of idiots who weren’t in love with what I wanted to do, telling me what album to make. That’s what I was coming up against. I thought: ‘There’s no point. What’s going to happen is that I’ll start chasing fashion, when I led fashion.’

“We tried to make an album, and it didn’t work. I was having trouble writing songs. You get down on yourself. I thought: ‘Fuck this, I’m taking a break. That’s 21 years I’ve been rocking non-fucking-stop.’

“This mate of mine, Stephen McGrath [now his bassist], he’s a long-distance motorcycle rider, and we started to do runs out of LA. You’re on this hog, this beast, going on forever. It’s a great way of seeing America. You go through all this beautiful country that I saw in cowboy movies. You feel like you’re in a Wild West Mad Max movie.

“You get very meditative on the bike rides. You start fixing things in your brain. ‘What do you do to go forward?’

“One of the great things I’ve always wanted to do is go on a run which happened to end up on a stage somewhere. There’s a redwood run which goes to the top of Washington state. You can do it in a weekend. And they had a stage at the end of it with all these blues bands.

“Los Lobos turned up. I went: ‘I know half of those songs. Fucking hell, I’d love to sing’. I was at the side of the stage…”

He re-enacts his frantic mime to Los Lobos: “Can I come on?” They responded: “‘Train Kept A-Rollin’?”

“I was spinning, gone with the music,” he whoops, leaping up and whirling round in circles. “I looked out and suddenly I saw a whole lotta women and bikers going crazy. It made me think: ‘Man, you can still do it’.”

Between 1994 and 2001, Idol wrote for, and acted in, a number of films, but musically he ventured out on the road only once, in 1996, with the production of The Who’s Quadrophenia.

With more than a million sales of Greatest Hits in 2001, the scene was set for Billy Idol’s return. Performing at MTV’s 20th-anniversary show, he was showered with compliments by the likes of Snoop Dogg and Run-DMC. Then he went on a tour of clubs and small theatres with his old collaborator Steve Stevens, his biking buddy McGrath, drummer Brian Tichy (ex- of Slash’s Snakepit) and keyboardist Derek Sherinian. And the tour never really ended.

“I had a drummer, this young guy, kicking my ass,” Idol laughs. “I had people who were helping to push the limits of what I do.”

As the band became tighter and more dynamic, Idol began writing new songs with Stevens and Tichy. They sounded fantastic. So when Merck Mercuriadis from Sanctuary showed up at a gig in New York and asked the right question – “Will you make a great Billy Idol record?” – they already had material written and were quick to “blast it down”.

“Now I can say I made an album for the right reasons,” Idol insists. “I hope it’s the best since Rebel Yell. It’s like a massive throw of the dice. I’ve put my future on this. I won’t starve, ’cos I can always play live, but me, Steve, Brian – everybody who is making Billy Idol music – I want to extend what we’ve done and go on.

“With this album, I wanted the energy of Generation X and the attitude of Rebel Yell, and I wanted variety.

His new album, Devil’s Playground, tells the personal and musical story of Billy Idol, incorporating all his influences. He describes it like this: “The full rockaBilly Idol to punkaBilly Idol to heavy metal-a-Billy Idol to Elvis-a-Billy, countryBilly…”

It’s an album of light and shade in both sound and subject matter, swerving from the dark days of heroin to the rocking hilarity of Yelling At The Christmas Tree.

“I did spend one whole Christmas screaming at the Christmas tree,” he says with a smile. “I was having an argument with my manager. Every time I put down the phone I wanted to continue the argument. The Christmas tree was glittering over there, and it was just the right height. [Acting out the confrontation] ‘I can break your balls! Come on, big boy. Come on!’.”

Equally light-hearted is Romeo’s Waiting: “We used to go to this place called the Star & Garter in the Valley in LA. One night I ended up going off with one of the birds who was on stage. It was like: ‘I saved her life from this den of iniquity.’ It made me think of a guy falling in love with one of the strippers. He’s like Lancelot the knight – the most romantic people in the world and the biggest losers. Then I thought: ‘That’s what Romeo was.’ And we love those losers. It’s a daft song. I didn’t want everything on this album to be like Cyberpunk, level-10 serious.

“The album moves from a World Coming Down to where you resurrect your belief in love and a future. It’s difficult, but you can work through the problems of life and keep smiling. The album itself is a sign that I’ve worked through all my problems. There wouldn’t be a record if I hadn’t. Super Overdrive is a call to arms – Billy is back and rocking!”

Does the Devil always have the best playgrounds?

“Yeah. We had the best music as well. Although it was always more playground than Devil for me. Now, the world’s got heavier, crazier. And although people don’t want to forget that, there’s a moment when they want to have a bit of fun and say: ‘Hey, make me scream, darlin’. I’m sick of the news.’”

This feature originally appeared in Classic Rock magazine in 2005. Billy Idol’s new album Dream Into It is out now.

Carol Clerk wrote extensively for Melody Maker in the 80s and 90s, and then for Uncut and Classic Rock. In 1985 she won a journalist of the year award from the Professional Publishers Association for her coverage of the Live Aid concert at Wembley. She ghostwrote gangster Reggie Kray’s autobiography and was the author of books about Madonna, the Pogues, Hawkind and others, as well as Vintage Tattoos: The Book of Old-School Skin Art. She died in March 2010.

In an unexpected development, Guns N’ Roses have released an official video which features almost an entire minute’s footage of frontman Axl Rose falling over onstage.

The 59-second clip compiles 14 different instances of Axl taking a tumble – although one, to be fair, seems to be a deliberate fall – alongside a single moment where the unsteady frontman trips but cleverly retains his balance.

Quite why the publicity-shy Rose has elected to approve this compilation of clumsiness is unclear, although we imagine it’s got something to do with publicising the band’s ongoing Because What You Want & What You Get Are Two Completely Different Things Tour, which kicked off at the Songdo Moonlight Park in Incheon, South Korea, at the beginning of the month.

What’s more, we’ve done the math. Guns N’ Roses have played somewhere in the region of 1092 shows over the course of their career, meaning that Axl falls over at 1.28% of the band’s performances. This is, we suspect, much higher than any other frontman, with the possible exception of Dave Grohl.

So buy a ticket. You might get lucky and witness Axl going arse-over-tit for a 15th time.

The next date on Guns N’ Roses’ tour is at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 23. Full dates below.

Guns N’ Roses Because What You Want & What You Get Are Two Completely Different Things Tour 2025

May 01: Incheon Songdo Moonlight Park, South Korea
May 05: Yokohama K Arena, Japan
May 10: Taoyuan Sunlight Arena, Taiwan
May 13: Bangkok Thunderdome Stadium, Thailand
May 17: Mumbai Mahalaxmi Racecourse, India
May 23: Riyadh Kingdom Arena, Saudi Arabia
May 27: Abu Dhabi Etihad Arena, UAE
May 30: Shekvetili Parka, Georgia^
Jun 02: Istanbul Tüpraş Stadyumu, Turkey^
Jun 06: Coimbra Estádio Cidade de Coimbra, Portugal^
Jun 09: Barcelona Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, Spain
Jun 12: Florence Firenze Rocks, Italy*^
Jun 15: Hradec Kralove Rock For People, Czech Republic*^
Jun 18: Dusseldorf Merkur Spiel-Arena, Germany^
Jun 20: Munich Allianz Arena, Germany^
Jun 23: Birmingham Villa Park, UK
Jun 26: London Wembley Stadium, UK
Jun 29: Aarhus Eskelunden, Denmark+
Jul 02: Trondheim Granåsen Ski Centre, Norway+
Jul 04: Stockholm Strawberry Aren, Sweden+
Jul 07: Tampere Ratina Stadium, Finland+
Jul 10: Kaunas Darius and Girėnas Stadium, Lithuania+
Jul 12: Warsaw PGE Nardowy, Poland+
Jul 15: Budapest Puskás Aréna, Hungary+
Jul 18: Belgrade Ušće Park, Serbia+
Jul 21: Sofia Vasil Levski Stadium, Bulgaria+
Jul 24: Vienna Ernst Happel Stadion, Austria#
Jul 28: Luxembourg Open Air, Luxembourg#
Jul 31: Wacken Festival, Germany*

* = Festival appearance
+ = with Public Enemy
^ = with Rival Sons
# = with Sex Pistols featuring Frank Carter

Tickets are on sale now.

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 39 years in music industry, online for 26. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.

Blink-182 fans purchasing a copy of vocalist/bassist Mark Hoppus’ recent autobiography Fahrenheit-182: A Memoir might reasonably anticipate entertaining tales of on-the-road high-jinks, reflections upon the life-changing consequences of selling tens of millions of albums, and, more soberly, recollections of the Californian musician’s successful battle against blood cancer. What one almost certainly would not expect, would be learning that Hoppus maybe, just possibly, played a pivotal role in the downfall of a much-feared global dictator.

While the US military have yet to formally recognise Hoppus’ part in the capture of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003 as part of Operation Red Dawn, the pop-punk star believes that it was his ingenious thinking which paved the way for the successful mission.

“I did, I saved the world from Saddam Hussein,” Hoppus tells NME.com in a new interview. “e were performing for the troops in the Middle East, and we were on an aircraft carrier. We performed in the hanger in the Persian Gulf while we were at war, then I was sitting down with the admiral of the fleet after dinner before we went on stage, and I told him, Hey, I have an idea of how we can capture Saddam Hussein.

“He laughed at me,” Hoppus admits, “but then I said, I’ve had this idea: you kind of know where’s he’s at, he’s releasing these video tapes to his followers with a flag up behind him where he’d say, ‘Rise up to these American dogs!’ or whatever’. I said, If you have an idea of where he might be, why don’t you fly drones or aircraft in grid patterns, blasting as time code as loud as you can above the range of human hearing but within the dynamic range that would get captured on a video cassette. Then when he releases his video cassette, you can take the audio portion and extract the time code and triangulate where he might be’.

“The admiral looks at me like, ‘What the hell?’ Then he says, ‘I’m actually meeting at the Pentagon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff next week and I might bring up your idea’. Then, four months later, they had captured Saddam Hussein, so it must have been me.”

What a guy.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

Memorial Day 2025 will officially take place on Monday, May 26, but some of the biggest online retailers in the US are already in on the action and have begun slashing prices across a wide range of vinyl box sets and CD collections.

My first pick goes to the recently released Rush 50 compilation, with Amazon reducing the price of both the 7LP edition and the 4CD box set, released to celebrate Rush’s half century. The vinyl edition is down from $249.98 to $212.48, while the CD version is down 27% from $99.98, now $73.36. It’s crammed full of classics, fan favourites and there’s even a few live rarities thrown in for good measure.

Another discount to catch my eye was 25% off the remastered 2LP pressing of Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, with Amazon knocking the price down from $99.98 to $75.35.

There are loads more Memorial Day CD and vinyl deals to discover, and I’ve included some of my favourites below.

Memorial Day deals: Quick links

• Amazon: Up to 35% off music, tech & more
• Walmart: Massive early summer deals across the board
• Best Buy: Big savings on headphones, speakers & more
• Guitar Center: Up to 35% off instruments for Memorial Day
• Musician’s Friend: Save up to 50% on gear for Memorial Day
• Positive Grid: Save big on the Spark smart amp and more

Memorial Day CD & vinyl deals

When is Memorial Day 2025?

Memorial Day takes place on the last Monday in May every year and this year it’ll take place on Monday, May 26. The day is a federal holiday in the United States and honours military personal who have died while serving their country.

When do the 2025 Memorial Day deals start?

While it’s a federal holiday, Memorial Day is also a day where retailers are known to cut prices right across the board, with sales always getting under way in the lead up to the day itself. While there are plenty of deals to be found right now on vinyl, CDs, headphones, turntables, pop culture collectables and more, the day itself will bring even more price reductions.

How can I spot the best Memorial Day deals?

The Memorial Day 2025 deals will be spread across multiple websites and I’ve provided some useful links to some of them at the top of this guide. If you’re after a bargain on headphones, turntables, speakers, vinyl or anything else, I have a few recommendations.

First, find out the RRP of the product you’re after. That way you’ll be able to see at a glance how much money you’re actually saving.

Keep a list of the products you have your eye on and check back regularly throughout Memorial Day itself to see if that must-have product has been slashed in price. Deals are likely to change as the day progresses so keep tabs on those products.

As for what makes a good deal, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a cut in price – although that will be the main focus. There could be two for one offers on or added extras included with an item. Keep your eyes on the small print – and I’ll also be highlighting some awesome CD and vinyl bargains right here.

Read more

• Best Bluetooth turntables: Wireless record-playing wonders
• The best record players: Top turntables for every budget
• Best CD players: Rediscover the OG of digital music
• Best portable CD players: Powerful portable players

The latest news, features and interviews direct to your inbox, from the global home of alternative music.

Scott has spent 35 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving into e-commerce in 2020. Scott keeps Louder’s buyer’s guides up to date, writes about the best deals for music fans, keeps on top of the latest tech releases and reviews headphones, speakers, earplugs and more for Louder. Over the last 10 years, Scott has written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog. He’s previously written for publications including IGN, Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to tech reviews, video games, travel and whisky. Scott’s favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, The Tragically Hip, Marillion and Rush.

System Of A Down may have not released a new studio album in almost 20 years, but judging by some incredible recent footage from their now-wrapped up South American tour, the passion from their fanbase is burning as brightly as ever – literally.

Over the past few weeks, videos from shows in Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil have gone viral across social media thanks to scenes that look like something out of a war movie, with colossal crowds shown moshing, crowd-surfing, lighting flares and, of course, singing their guts out to metal classics like Toxicity, Chop Suey and B.Y.O.B.

The most impressive footage of all has been shared by System guitarist Daron Malakian on Twitter via Audiomassacre and Pridia. Posting to System’s official Twitter account, Daron shared two incredible drone videos of System’s show from Wednesday May 14 at the Autódromo de Interlagos in São Paulo, Brazil, which boasts a capacity of over 75,000 people. In the videos, dozens of flares can be seen dotted around the stadium as huge circle pits open up all over the place.

“If you notice, we don’t have pyro on the stage… but our fans bring the fucking fire,” Malakian comments on one video, adding to another: “This is not a war zone, this is not a riot, this is a System Of A Down style Rock & Roll concert in Brazil!”

Watch the amazing footage below. System Of A Down will play six late summer shows in North America – two in New Jersey, two in Chicago and two in Toronto – before seemingly finishing up their live schedule for the year.

Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N’ Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site. 

It’s very difficult to explain now just how jaw‑dropping and head-spinning Mahavishnu Orchestra‘s The Inner Mounting Flame sounded when it landed in 1971, seemingly from a galaxy far, far away. At times loud, heavyweight and in-your-face with its controlled cacophony of virtuosic guitar, bass, drums, synthesiser and electric violin, occasionally achingly melodic and pacific, it was truly groundbreaking.

An easy first listen it certainly was not. But with Mahavishnu’s outrageous debut album, jazz-rock had truly arrived, the term ‘far out’ was redefined, and a new mountain peak had appeared on the musical landscape. The Inner Mounting Flame was the first jazz-rock album that rock fans in numbers found themselves being jolted and grabbed by – enough of them to make it an unlikely but important Top 20 hit.

“It was a very powerful time of upheaval,” guitarist John McLaughlin told Classic Rock. “The psychedelic revolution; the whole black and white thing in America; the assassinations; the Vietnam War on top of that. The music just reflected society as it was then. There was a great feeling that we could actually make the world a better place.”

• Stream on Spotify
• Stream on Apple Music

Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.

Join the group now.

Other albums released in November 1971

• Hooteroll? – Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia
• Barclay James Harvest and Other Short Stories – Barclay James Harvest
• Madman Across the Water – Elton John
• The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys – Traffic
• Nursery Cryme – Genesis
• Farther Along – The Byrds
• Gonna Take a Miracle – Laura Nyro
• A Nod Is As Good As a Wink… to a Blind Horse – Faces
• There’s a Riot Goin’ On – Sly & the Family Stone
• Muswell Hillbillies – The Kinks
• Fragile – Yes
• Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be – Sweet
• Killer – Alice Cooper
• Deuce – Rory Gallagher
• Anticipation – Carly Simon
• “Babbacombe” Lee – Fairport Convention
• Bless the Weather – John Martyn
• Bonnie Raitt – Bonnie Raitt
• Brain Capers – Mott the Hoople
• Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime – It’s a Beautiful Day
• Do You Like It Here Now, Are You Settling In? – Man
• Dog Of Two Head – Status Quo
• E Pluribus Funk – Grand Funk Railroad
• Flowers of Evil – Mountain
• For Ladies Only – Steppenwolf
• Good and Dusty – The Youngbloods
• Lost in the Ozone – Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
• Nazareth – Nazareth
• Nilsson Schmilsson – Harry Nilsson
• Performance Rockin’ the Fillmore – Humble Pie
• Pictures at an Exhibition – Emerson, Lake & Palmer
• Quicksilver – Quicksilver Messenger Service
• Sanctuary – Dion
• Sunfighter – Paul Kantner and Grace Slick
• There’s Gotta Be a Change – Albert Collins
• Whatevershebringswesing – Kevin Ayers
• Year of Sunday – Seals and Crofts

What they said…

“A furious, high-energy, yet rigorously conceived meeting of virtuosos that, for all intents and purposes, defined the fusion of jazz and rock a year after Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew breakthrough. It also inadvertently led to the derogatory connotation of the word fusion, for it paved the way for an army of imitators, many of whose excesses and commercial panderings devalued the entire movement.” (AllMusic)

“The Inner Mounting Flame is a classic, and a defining album in Jazz Fusion. One of the interesting aspects of the album is that it features no wind instruments, a rather unusual quality for a Jazz album, but because of its more rock-oriented sound it has also proven to be influential in several other genres outside of Jazz music.” (Sputnik Music)

“Listening to this 1971 release, one is struck by the grandiose reach of the quintet that dared to call itself an orchestra. Pieces like Meeting of the Spirits and the fragile, acoustic A Lotus on Irish Streams are like classically-inspired suites in miniature. But it was numbers like Noonward Race, Vital Information and especially Awakening, fuelled by Cobham’s smouldering intensity on the kit and McLaughlin’s raging, distortion-soaked guitar lines, that really grabbed rock crowds.” (Jazz Times)

What you said…

Mike Canoe: An intriguing and immersive album that takes my brain to places it doesn’t normally go. Guitarist John McLaughlin may be the name above the title – and his playing is phenomenal – but he also gives the rest of the band plenty of opportunity to flex their muscles.

I especially like how Jerry Goodwin’s clean and elegant violin contrasts with McLaughlin’s distorted guitar. Similarly, softer pieces like You Know You Know and A Lotus On Irish Streams balance out the headlong frenzy of the other pieces like Vital Transformation or The Noonward Race. A good album to just let the music wash over you.

Chris Elliott: There’s an iconic Morecombe and Wise comedy sketch in the UK, the punchline being, “I can assure you I’m playing the right notes… just not necessarily in the right order.”

This isn’t jazz-rock. It’s far worse. A collection of random notes with no discernible reason. Its not even freeform jazz. It’s just a cacophony. Nothing mundane like a song, a tune, or – god forbid – a melody.

Then I remembered Massive Attack sampled it on Unfinished Symphony so I listened to that instead. Proof you can make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear.

Mark Herrington:I can appreciate the musicianship and complexity clearly on display here. Ultimately, it doesn’t resonate with me and leaves me hankering for something a little catchier and simpler to listen to. One best admired from afar and left to those it does click with.

Dale Munday: Stellar performances all round, no question about that. Reminiscent of Zappa at times and also pre-empting Larks Tongues-period King Crimson. Ultimately I find it gets just a little tedious.

John Davidson: Even as a long-time prog fan I found this a difficult listen. Yes have their jazzier moments but there is at least a song with a tune in there somewhere Not so with the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Doubtlessly very talented musicians but that’s as far as it goes. Jazz-rock, less than the sum of the parts.

Philip Qvist: The Mahavishnu Orchestra are another one of those bands who I have heard of but whose music I rarely listened to – if at all. Jazz-Rock, or whatever you want to call it, has never really appealed to me, so this band has never featured on my radar – until now that is.

If I’m being truthful, The Inner Mountain Flame didn’t exactly float my boat. For sure, band leader John McLaughlin’s guitar playing is sublime, well backed up by a very tight band on top of their game; especially Jan Hammer on keyboards and drummer Billy Cobham, who was my Man of the Match here.

So there is nothing wrong with the musicianship and the songs are well crafted, but it isn’t an album that I will be rushing out to listen to again, far less buy it.

Highlights for me were opening track Meeting Of The Spirits and A Lotus On Irish Streams.

So not my cup of tea, but I can’t fault the quality of the musicians on show here. This is going to be a difficult one for me to score this week.

Gary Claydon: So many notes and chords! This is music with too many moving parts. I’ve long been an admirer of John McLaughlin’s guitar work (and the rest of the band are none too shabby either) but there’s the rub. On the ( very occasional) occasions that I give The Inner Mounting Flame a listen, I find myself admiring the musicianship, admiring the virtuosity, admiring the technique.

After 40-odd minutes of admiring, though, it feels oddly unfulfilling, like the takeaway meal that leaves you feeling stuffed but an hour later you’re hungry again. You know you’ve just had a feast but can’t help hankering for something else.

Keith Jenkin: Building on his involvement with Miles Davis on his best fusion albums (In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew and Jack Johnson) here John Mclaughlin put his own band together and delivers the sort of music I have always imagined Hendrix might have ended up delivering had he lived longer. All the musicians here are on fire and although this is slightly removed from the more typical classic rock settings most reading this will be used to, this album and its follow-up Birds Of Fire have to be among the best guitar-led all-instrumental albums to have ever graced our eardrums.

Greg Schwepe: Mahavishnu Orchestra’s The Inner Mounting Flame is yet another album (and band, for that matter) I had to check out after reading other articles where musicians (Zakk Wylde, Neal Schon, to name a few), just raved about this one. Jeff Beck was a fan of John McLaughlin and did a cover of You Know You Know on one of his live albums that I have.

I went all in; ordered a box set with this album and a few others, and slammed it into the CD player when I got it. Then realized; “Uh oh, not clicking right away, not so sure about this…”

And that began my little journey with this album. So revisiting again for this review gives me another shot at figuring all this Mahavishnu Orchestra stuff out. First thoughts were that the musicianship was off the charts. You can hear the talent oozing out of these tracks. But that doesn’t always translate to listenable music to me.

A lot of times it seems like they were being dissonant for dissonance’s sake. Kept waiting for a melody I could hum, then realized that wasn’t coming anytime soon…or ever. As I went through the album I’d find bits and pieces I really liked, then sections that were just too frenetic. The violinist at times sounded like a combination of Robbie Steinhardt from Kansas and Charlie Daniels all jacked up on Red Bull. And yes, that’s a compliment. But again, I need to little melody to guide me along.

Overall, I really wanted to like this from start to finish, but I think my jazz fusion meter goes to Blow By Blow and won’t go any further than that. My favourite song is You Know You Know, and that’s probably because I had heard the Jeff Beck version long before this and had that committed to memory.

As a wannabe guitar player, I truly admire John McLaughlin’s chops, but sometimes he’s shredding just because he can. But boy can he shred. I can see why others admire his technique and style.

I will freely admit that my ears are probably not sophisticated enough for half of this album. But there are similar proggy freeform-type albums that I am a fan of, so there’s hope for me yet. 7 out of 10 on this one for me. And the Mahavishnu Orchestra box set eventually ended up at the used book/record store.

Marcelo Morem: I love this album. More than the otherworldly guitar playing there’s a total drumming showcase by Billy Cobham.

Michael Fildes: Sadly the term ‘jazz-rock’ has probably put many people off giving this band a chance over the years, but there’s all kinds going on here. Jazz, prog, alt-rock, funk. You can hear Crimson, Hendrix, Soundgarden, Jane’s Addiction, Funkadelic, and yes, Miles Davis, and Pharaoh Saunders.

The players are incredible, the interplay is stunning, and the star of the show is John McClaughlin’s trademark ‘machine gun’ guitar, although the rest of the band give him a run for his money, particularly the rhythm section of Billy Cobham and Rick Laird. (If this album floats your boat check out Billy Cobham’s Spectrum album – with Tommy Bolin on guitar.)

It’s never going to be to everyone’s taste but I challenge anyone to find it boring. For me it’s a masterpiece – a trippy, blissed-out bit of heaven. It shimmers, it shakes, it grooves, and most importantly, it rocks 10/10.

Kev Sullivan: Always loved this album. I had no idea who they were when, as a kid, I bought this in a second-hand shop in the late 70’s. A gamble that paid off.

Mike Galway: I had a second-hand copy which was a bit crackly so ordered a new one. It was at the time when Eddie Van Halen was changing the way guitarists played. My friend came around to my house and I said, “Forget EVH, listen to this!” I put the album on but instead of Meeting Of The Spirits some Scottish pipe and drum marching band music started up! Obviously it was a mislabelled copy, we still chuckle about it today.

Barry Johnson: Saw a broadcast of them playing back in the day and got this. A colossal band brimming with talent. I played this as recently as last week. I have almost all their recordings and Inner Mounting Flame sets the pace for those that followed.

Ben L. Connor: As good as this is, I think the follow-up Birds Of Fire is even better!

Steve Pereira: At the start of the Sixties jazz was both respected and popular, but as rock music developed and grew, so it replaced jazz as the most popular and successful “serious” music. By the end of the Sixties, jazz was all but dead. Leading jazz musician Miles Davies could see the way things were going, and embraced rock music, so creating “jazz fusion” or “jazz-rock”. Many of his band members would go on in the early Seventies to form their own jazz fusion bands. John McLaughlin was one such. His guitar playing blends elements of both jazz and rock as well as touches of Indian music.

While jazz fusion was popular for a while in the early Seventies, with some bands such as Weather Report having hit singles, it didn’t gain broad traction. There are bands who continued to explore it, but it was mainly an early Seventies movement. Part of the problem is that rock by the Seventies was already a broad church, and allowed plenty of freedom of musical expression, while jazz remained fairly limited.

Most jazz rock bands felt more jazz than rock, and seemed to miss out on the main essence of rock music, which is having a good time. It is difficult to dance to jazz. It is difficult to feel jazz as a social commentary. Jazz is more ornamentation than music. And this is the main problem with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the debut album, Inner Mounting Flame.

It is ornamentation. It is showy music. We are somewhat impressed by McLaughlin’s technically fast fingers and the sounds he makes. But while intellectually we can appreciate it, emotionally it doesn’t strike us in the way that Johnny B Goode, The Kingsmen’s Louie Louie, or Pretty Vacant hit us.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra is more about musical masturbation than about proper gritty music. It’s not for me.

Final score: 7.16 (37 votes cast, total score 265)

Join the Album Of The Week Club on Facebook to join in. The history of rock, one album at a time.

Classic Rock is the online home of the world’s best rock’n’roll magazine. We bring you breaking news, exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes features, as well as unrivalled access to the biggest names in rock music; from Led Zeppelin to Deep Purple, Guns N’ Roses to the Rolling Stones, AC/DC to the Sex Pistols, and everything in between. Our expert writers bring you the very best on established and emerging bands plus everything you need to know about the mightiest new music releases.