Spiritbox vocalist Courtney LaPlante has guested on a new song by pop-rockers Pvris.
LaPlante appears on a newly released re-recording of the American outfit’s 2014 track My House, taken from the band’s debut album White Noise. It precedes a White Noise 10th-anniversary tour of North America and Europe that starts in March.
Pvris singer Lyndsey Gunnulfsen comments: “It was such an honour to have Courtney featured on this re-release. I didn’t know until meeting her that White Noise was one of the inspirations to Spiritbox. After learning that and seeing the incredible world she’s created from that inspiration, it feels full circle now, and it was only right to have her be a part of this re-release.
(Image credit: Future (cover photo: Jonathan Weiner))
“The album first came out at a time when women were still extremely commoditised in the rock/alternative space, and the fight to be embraced and taken seriously, simply as artists, was even more prevalent than it still is today. 10 years later, there’s been a lot of progress, but there’s still much work to be done. It feels really healing and powerful to get to share this song with someone who I know has had much of that same experience and has been fighting that same battle just as long, if not longer.
“Not only is she an incredible person and performer, she has such a distinct and dialled vision with Spiritbox. The high standard of precision, artistic integrity, and vision, both sonically and visually, that she’s brought into the rock/alternative scene with Spiritbox, I feel has set the bar so high, and to have done that as a woman in a scene still so heavily occupied by men, it feels like the most badass power move. Take notes everyone!”
The collaboration is far from the first pop team-up LaPlante has done. Spiritbox guested on an official rock remix of Megan Thee Stallion’s Cobra in 2023. The band and the rapper then made an original song together, TYG, last year.
Feature Photo: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Lorde’s artistry has been defined by her ability to channel profound introspection and a unique sonic vision into globally resonant music, setting her apart as one of New Zealand’s most accomplished musicians. Born Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O’Connor on November 7, 1996, in Takapuna, Auckland, she grew up in the nearby suburb of Devonport. Her early interest in literature and music, nurtured by her poet mother, Sonja Yelich, shaped the foundation of her songwriting. By the age of 13, she had signed with Universal Music Group, an early milestone that would lead to an illustrious career.
OutKast, the Atlanta-based hip-hop duo comprising André “André 3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton, has left an indelible mark on the music industry with their innovative sound and eclectic style. Formed in 1992, the pair met during their teenage years at Tri-Cities High School in East Point, Georgia. Their shared passion for music led them to sign with LaFace Records, marking the beginning of a groundbreaking career that would challenge and redefine the boundaries of hip-hop.
Their debut album, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994), introduced audiences to a unique blend of Southern-fried funk and socially conscious lyrics. The lead single, “Player’s Ball,” not only topped the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart but also signaled the rise of Southern hip-hop on a national scale. Building on this momentum, OutKast released ATLiens (1996) and Aquemini (1998), albums that showcased their growth as artists unafraid to experiment with genres, incorporating elements of funk, soul, and psychedelia. These projects received critical acclaim for their originality and depth, solidifying OutKast’s reputation as pioneers in the hip-hop community.
In 2000, Stankonia propelled OutKast to new heights, featuring the explosive singles “B.O.B” and “Ms. Jackson.” The latter became their first song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, earning them a Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group. This success was amplified with the release of the double album Speakerboxxx/The Love Below in 2003. The project, which included chart-topping hits like “Hey Ya!” and “The Way You Move,” achieved Diamond certification and won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, a rare accomplishment for hip-hop artists.
Throughout their career, OutKast has been recognized with numerous awards, including six Grammy Awards out of sixteen nominations. Their innovative music videos have garnered multiple MTV Video Music Awards, with “Hey Ya!” winning Video of the Year in 2004. Their influence and success have been further acknowledged with nominations for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, highlighting their significant impact on the music industry.
Beyond their musical achievements, both André 3000 and Big Boi have pursued various projects. They starred in and produced the 2006 musical film Idlewild, which featured original music and showcased their versatility as entertainers. Individually, Big Boi has released multiple solo albums, while André 3000 has explored acting, appearing in films such as Four Brothers (2005) and Semi-Pro (2008). André 3000 also ventured into the fashion industry, launching his clothing line, Benjamin Bixby, in 2008.
OutKast’s enduring appeal lies in their ability to blend diverse musical styles with insightful lyrics, creating a sound that resonates across different audiences. Their willingness to push creative boundaries has not only garnered them critical acclaim but also a dedicated fan base that spans generations. As of 2025, their legacy continues to influence and inspire new artists, reaffirming their status as trailblazers in the evolution of hip-hop.
You tend to hear Tom Morello before you see him. One of the best compliments you could pay the inimitable guitarist is that you can’t always say whether you’re listening to someone playing a guitar, or some computerised trickery creating otherworldly sounds. His towering, iconic riffs are perfectly weighted with whammy-bar wizardry, dazzling divebombs and unmistakable lead breaks – all of it inherently Morello.
Born in Harlem, New York City in 1964, Thomas Baptist Morello is best known for his time with game-changing, politically motivated rap-rockers Rage Against The Machine, but his storied career and contributions to rock at large are huge. Together with vocalist Zack de la Rocha, drummer Brad Wilk and bass player Tim Commerford, Morello manifested his political beliefs and rock’n’roll activism in the form of the now legendary RATM. Their formidable form during the 90s made them one of the decade’s defining bands. But they weren’t built for longevity, and split for the first time in 2000.
In 2009, their 1992 single Killing In The Name, so potent in its message of defiance, inexplicably became the UK’s Christmas No.1, after a guerilla social-media campaign protesting against The X Factor’s festive dominance with crap ballads. It sold a record-breaking half a million downloads, and made a ton of money for charity.
Minus de la Rocha, Morello’s second stab at the upper echelons of rock came soon after with Audioslave, featuring ex-Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell. Morello also featured as a boss alongside Slash in the videogame Guitar Hero III: Legends Of Rock. (Bravo if you managed to get past A.I Tom on expert mode.)
In recent years – without a long-term band – Morello has advanced his own brand, releasing several diverse solo albums and stamping his trademark sound on a growing number of high-profile collaborations. He was even a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for a time. In 2023 he featured on tracks by both Måneskin and Babymetal. Last summer he released a song with Def Leppard, and this year he’ll be directing the music at Black Sabbath’s Back To The Beginning show.
Despite reunions, the most recent in 2019, RATM rumours have continued to percolate, although Brad Wilk suggested earlier in 2024 that the band is over for good. Now 60, whatever Tom Morello does (or doesn’t do), his legacy as a trailblazing guitar phenomenon is assured.
…and one to avoid
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Copywriter, music journalist and drummer. Once fist bumped James Hetfield. Words for The Guardian, Gear4Music, Metro, Exposed Mag.
Having co-founded Styx in 1972, keyboard player and singer Dennis DeYoung wrote many of their finest songs, including Come Sail Away and The Grand Illusion, as well as the US chart-topping ballad Babe. Styx broke up following 1983’s poorly received concept record Kilroy Was Here, and although he was part of a reunion in 1990, DeYoung was controversially replaced by the band nine years later when a medical condition prevented him from touring. In 2019 he released 26 East, Vol. 1, the first of two farewell albums, and told Prog about his life and times.
How did you fall in love with music of an adventurous nature?
The vast majority of prog influences in Styx, when we had that going on, came from me. It had begun with Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes, but earlier than that there was The Moody Blues and some of the things The Beatles did. I was playing my Hammond organ, trying to be Jon Lord or whoever. That style of music gave a keyboard player a chance to show off like they were a guitar player – and of course I wanted some of that.
Do you consider your music to be progressive?
We brought some of that into Styx, but we were an American rock’n’roll band. I want you to write this: ‘The next prog rock lyric I understand will be the first.’ And also write: ‘He laughed’ afterwards! But we were never a fully-fledged prog band. I’d say we were a hybrid.
In the 1970s when Styx were labelled as pomp rock, did that bridle with you?
It all depends on the context. Rock critics have an impossible job: how do you describe music? It’s organic and touches our souls, so summing that up in words is pretty much impossible.
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Save for Vol. 2, which will follow, why is 26 East your final album?
Have you noticed that rock music is dead? Or that there’s no radio anymore? Not to say that people aren’t still trying to play it, but it’s gone. The internet has ruined it, or maybe rock’n’roll played its part – I don’t have those answers. Anyhow, I had to be talked into making a new record by Jim Peterik [formerly of Survivor] and Frontiers Records. They wore me down.
When somebody needed to yell at the children I hired a large Ukrainian woman. A voice is finite
Peterik played a massive part in that decision.
Yeah. Jim sent me a song called Run For The Roses that made me think, ‘Okay, you got my attention.’ And slowly it came together.
Even at 73 years old your voice still stands up magnificently.
Because I knew early on that I had got lucky I did everything possible to avoid screwing up my gift. I wasn’t a drug taker, an alcoholic or a smoker, and when somebody was needed to yell at the children I hired a large Ukrainian woman. A voice is finite – singers must respect that.
“To The Good Old Days” Official Music Video Ft. Dennis DeYoung (Formerly of Styx) & Julian Lennon – YouTube
The album offers some definite reminders of Styx, notably its Paradise Theater-style finale of AD 2020.
I’m most noted for being in Styx – shouldn’t I give people what they want? If you listen to East Of Midnight [a throwback to the band’s classic era] and don’t know what this is, then I can’t help you. I had that ending [AD 2020] in mind right from the beginning. I wanted to say goodbye in those last notes that you hear.
I really don’t care whether or not people remember me. The music is so much bigger
To The Good Old Days is a song you wrote as a duet with John Lennon’s son, Julian.
It’s important for me to say that The Beatles changed my life. I had never met Jules, and I never expected a response to my email, but he wrote back and said he’d love to do the song. He sang the shit out of it and I harmonised. And cooler still, Jules told me that he wasn’t doing music when I contacted him, and now he’s back in the studio.
In the album’s biography you say that To The Good Old Days is about “the sweetest days of my past with my fans, friends, family and forgiveness” – does that last part extend to the current Styx line-up?
I don’t believe that I have to forgive them; I’ve never said that. They replaced me when I was sick and then had to convince the fanbase that they hadn’t fired a sick colleague. They even said I had ruined the band, though why is still beyond me.
Nevertheless, I still believe that we should do one last tour for the fans. They’ve said a thousand times that they’re not interested, so what can I do? That reference to forgiveness was a more general one. All human beings are flawed.
Should these two albums turn out to be your grand finale, how would you like to be remembered as an artist?
Look, it’s very simple: I really don’t care whether or not people remember me. The music is so much bigger. If in 50 years’ time people are still getting what they need from what I have created then I’ll be very happy with that.
The 1960s was one long party for Dave Davies. While his older brother, Ray, observed and wrote about Swinging London from a distance, The Kinks’ guitarist was aptly dubbed Dave The Rave. He took an axe to a hotel reception desk; clubbed all night with wild friends like Keith Moon; and had sex with countless women (and some men).
“I was at endless parties,” he confirms today. “You can imagine what it was like in those days. It was wonderful and I loved it. But it was starting to wear me down, being with people I didn’t really know or trust. They were all pulling on my coat-tails and I’d end up with the bill at the end of the night.”
In 1967, his fourth year of Kinks hits and hedonism, Davies was still only 20 years old. To general astonishment, not least his own, he would turn his disillusion into his debut solo single, Death Of A Clown, and watch it follow The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset into the upper reaches of the UK singles chart.
This landmark year began with Davies’ Danish girlfriend, Lisbet Thorkil-Peterson, becoming pregnant with his second child (the pair would marry secretly in April.) Looking around at the scattered bodies after yet another debauch, Dave The Rave finally faced up to the morning after.
“I thought: ‘I don’t even know or like most of the people here. What am I doing?’ I felt quite alone. It’s like when you come out of your first acid trip. You look around and people suddenly seem like they’re not real – like robots. And I heard See My Friends [The Kinks’ 1965 hit], they were playing it in the background, and I was thinking Ray and me should get together and talk. And I called him up, and it was late, so I didn’t go over to his house. I went back to my Mum’s house instead, the following day.”
Davies vividly recalls the next morning, when he wrote Death Of A Clown. “It’s a sunny day. Dry, not oppressive. But my head’s bowed, with a young man’s problems. I’d realised that life wasn’t all just laughter. It was sad as well – and hard. I started writing this little thing on the old family piano, about it all seeming like a circus roadshow. And I saw myself as a character in a circus, being exploited like the animals.”
The lyrics came quickly, in a Dylan-esque flow of surreal circus images of runaway fleas, a tiger that had lost its roar and a boozing, unhappy clown wearing caked-on make-up.
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“It was all a metaphor for the way I felt,” Davies explains. “Everything in the sixties had been spontaneous and easy and fun. Now I started to see the cracks. I was buckling under the strain of all this bullshit. As a boy I used to hate going to the circus, so the song’s also related to that. The main thing was that clowns were frightening – this guy pretending to be happy with a funny face but with something weird going on behind the scenes. The music business is very like a clown’s mask.”
Davies didn’t think he’d written anything special. “I thought maybe we could do it on a Kinks album. But Ray liked it and Robert [Wace, The Kinks’ co-manager] really liked it. He thought it would be good as a single.”
Ray added the striking, harp-like intro, played with a guitar pick on the treated strings of the Pye studio piano, and a short, wordless bridge. For this he was credited as co-writer.
“If I was a lot younger and I had the resources,” Dave sighs, “I could think back from You Really Got Me, to Lola, for which I wrote the whole of the basic instrumental phrases. Only a few bloody chords, I mean… Jesus Christ. That’s how I looked at it. But when he [Ray] does something he’s got to have all of it.”
Dave Davies – Death Of A Clown ( Original Footage 27 July 1967 Stereo Remastered From Vinyl ) – YouTube
Ray was feeling the strain of maintaining The Kinks’ success and thought Dave could ease that burden by pursuing a solo career. “I feel I should exploit him more,” he mused. Though Death Of A Clown was effectively a Kinks record in all but name, with the whole band playing on it, Dave’s Top Of The Pops appearance in a Charles II-style dandy’s jacket seemed to herald the arrival of a solo star. The single quickly became a Europe-wide smash. “I was surprised and very excited,” Dave remembers. “It came on the heels of Waterloo Sunset. It was phenomenal.”
As the song’s success became clear, Ray pondered going solo himself. Dave, by contrast, wasn’t ready to quit the comfort of The Kinks. He left a solo album unfinished. “I found it quite daunting,” he admits. “I thought Death Of A Clown was just a one-off. And Robert kept on saying: ‘You should do more.’ Susannah’s Still Alive [November ’67 follow-up] was a reasonable hit [reaching No.20]. But I was very into waiting for inspiration. I hadn’t learned how to make myself work.”
Ray Davies dismisses Death Of A Clown and the inspiration behind it in his autobiography, X-Ray, calling it “a nominal attempt by Dave to become a respected married man… Dave was destined to remain a clown”. Ray enjoyed introducing his brother on stage as “Dave ‘Death Of A Clown’ Davies” – like a sad one-hit wonder. “That used to be really upsetting,” Dave complains. “Something that was a big event for me, and a shedding of a lot of things in my life, had become an instrument of ridicule. It got to the point where I didn’t want to play it.”
The Kinks split in 1996. Dave Davies’s solo career was again interrupted when he suffered a massive stroke in 2004, but four albums followed in rapid succession, from Fractured Mindz (2007) to Open Road (2017). That solo flowering he flinched from in 1967 had recommenced at last.
“Life doesn’t get any less weird, the older you get,” he considers. “I enjoy writing more now. I was too busy having a good time in the sixties to bother.”
The original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock 206 (December 2014).
“20/20” – Underneath single (B-side) (2008) “21 Things I Want in a Lover” – Under Rug Swept (2002) “8 Easy Steps” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “A Man” – Under Rug Swept (2002) “Ablaze” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “All I Really Want” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Are You Still Mad” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “Awakening Americans” – Hands Clean single (B-side) (2002) “Baba” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “Bent for You” – Feast On Scraps (B-side) (2002) “Big Sur” – Havoc and Bright Lights (bonus track) (2012) “Break” – In Praise of the Vulnerable Man digital single (2008)
(C-D)
“Can’t Not” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “Celebrity” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) “Citizen of the Planet” – Flavors Of Entanglement (2008) “Closer Than You Might Believe” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “Comfort” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “Crazy” (Seal cover) – The Collection (2005) “Death of Cinderella” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “Diagnosis” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “Doth I Protest Too Much” – So-Called Chaos (2004)
(E-F)
“Edge of Evolution” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) “Eight Easy Steps” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “Empathy” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) “Everything” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “Excuses” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “Feel Your Love” – Alanis (1991) “Fear of Bliss” – Feast On Scraps (2002) “Flinch” – Under Rug Swept (2002) “Forgiven” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Front Row” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998)
(G-H)
“Guardian” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) “Giggling Again for No Reason” – Flavors of Entanglement (2008) “Give What You Got” – Now Is the Time (1992) “Gorgeous” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “Guru” – Havoc and Bright Lights (Target Edition bonus track) (2012) “Hand in My Pocket” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Hands Clean” – Under Rug Swept (2002) “Havoc” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) “Head Over Feet” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Heart of the House” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “Her” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “Human Touch” – Alanis (1991)
(I-K)
“I Was Hoping” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “In Praise of the Vulnerable Man” – Flavors of Entanglement (2008) “Incomplete” – Flavors of Entanglement (2008) “Into A King” – Big Sur 7″ (2011) “Ironic” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “It’s a Bitch to Grow Up” – Flavors of Entanglement (2008) “Jealous” – Alanis (1991) “Jekyll and Hyde” – Havoc and Bright Lights (iTunes deluxe edition bonus track) (2012) “Joining You” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “King of Intimidation” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “King of Pain” – MTV Unplugged (1999)
(L-M)
“Knees of My Bees” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “Lens” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012) “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” – The Collection (2005) “Limbo No More” – Flavors of Entanglement (Deluxe Edition) (2008) “London” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “Losing The Plot” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “Madness” – Flavors of Entanglement (Deluxe Edition) (2008) “Magical Child” – Havoc and Bright Lights (Deluxe Edition) (2012) “Mary Jane” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Missing The Miracle” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “Moratorium” – Flavors of Entanglement (2008)
(N)
“Narcissus” – Under Rug Swept (2002) “Nemesis” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “No” – Havoc and Bright Lights (Japanese edition bonus track) (2012) “No Apologies” – Now Is The Time (1992) “No Avalon” – Jagged Little Pill 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition (Demos) (1995) “No Pressure Over Cappuccino” – MTV Unplugged (1999) “Not All Me” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “Not as We” – Flavors of Entanglement (2008) “Not the Doctor” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Numb” – Havoc and Bright Lights (2012)
(O-Q)
“Offer” – Feast on Scraps (2002) “Oh Yeah!” – Alanis (1991) “On My Own” – Alanis (1991) “On the Tequila” – Flavors of Entanglement (Deluxe Edition) (2008) “One” – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998) “Orchid” – Flavors of Entanglement (Deluxe Edition) (2008) “Out Is Through” – So-Called Chaos (2004) “Party Boy” – Alanis (1991) “Pedestal” – Such Pretty Forks in the Road (2019) “Perfect” – Jagged Little Pill (1995) “Permission” – Havoc and Bright Lights (Target Edition bonus track) (2012) “Plastic” – Alanis (1991) “Pollyanna Flower” – Thank U single (bonus track) (1998) “Precious Illusions” – Under Rug Swept (2002) “Princes Familiar” – MTV Unplugged (1999) “Purgatorying” – Feast on Scraps (2002)
Check out our fantastic and entertaining Alanis Morissette articles, detailing in-depth the band’s albums, songs, band members, and more…all on ClassicRockHistory.com
Brian Kachejian was born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx. He is the founder and Editor in Chief of ClassicRockHistory.com. He has spent thirty years in the music business often working with many of the people who have appeared on this site. Brian Kachejian also holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from Stony Brook University along with New York State Public School Education Certifications in Music and Social Studies. Brian Kachejian is also an active member of the New York Press.
With the long-running US comedy show Saturday Night Live celebrating its 50th anniversary with a weekend of shows that included a Nirvana reunion of sorts, fans might be forgiven for wondering why Aerosmith weren’t at the celebrations.
After all, Aerosmith appeared on SNL four times, most recently in 2001, during the show’s 500th episode, when they played Jaded and Big Ten Inch Record before Jimmy Fallon – pretending to be Van Morrison – sang a St. Patrick’s Day message while drinking a pint of Guinness.
Prior to that, it was Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees) and Nine Lives in 1997, a mere four years after Cryin’ and Sweet Emotion enlivened the running order during episode 349.
Aerosmith’s greatest SNL appearance was probably their first, hosted by Tom Hanks. It opens with a sketch about the pre-nuptial agreement between Donald Trump (whatever happened to him?) and his soon-to-be-former wife Ivana. Then it’s Hanks’ monologue and a skit about the recently opened branch of McDonald’s in Moscow’s Red Square.
The recurring Waynes World segment follows, with Wayne and Garth (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) interviewing Aerosmith’s roadie (Garth’s cousin Barry, played by an enthusiastic Hanks), before the band descend into the pair’s infamous basement.
After answering fan questions about their consumption of drugs and alcohol and the size of Steven Tyler’s lips, things turn to more weighty matters.
“With the recent developments in Eastern Europe, do you think that communism is on the decline?” asks Wayne. “Or is this just a temporary setback?”
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“Well, man, that’s a hard question,” responds Tyler. “But I would have to respond with a qualified ‘yes’. Although it seems that socialism is in repose until you remove the Stalinist-era apparatchiks, there will be no real change in the Soviet Union.”
“Nah, I disagree, man,” says bassist Tom Hamilton. “There’s never been a blueprint for the dictatorship of the proletariat, so there’s bound to be mistakes. However, if you study history you’ll see that since the rise of the nation-state socialism has been a historical inevitability, dude.”
Politics lesson over, Aerosmith join Wayne and Garth for a lively romp through the Wayne’s World theme, with drummer Joey Kramer reduced to tambourine as Garth sits behind the kit. Later, Kramer returns to his regular seat as Aerosmith take to the SNL stage to play Janie’s Got A Gun and Monkey On My Back.
“In light of your incredible responses and the demand for the Becoming Led Zeppelin film from those of you that have either viewed it at the IMAX or during its general cinema release, I must say that feedback from fans is just humbling and inspiring,” says the Zeppelin man. “Thanks to everyone for your enthusiasm – and here’s the trailer for those of you who haven’t seen it yet.” [Trailer Below]
Becoming Led Zeppelin premiered earlier this month and has since taken over $6M at the box office worldwide after grossing $3M during the opening weekend. The film’s $2.6M opening in the US represented the biggest-ever opening weekend ever for an IMAX-exclusive music release.
While Jimmy Page has now reacted to the reception afforded to Becoming Led Zeppelin, the other members of the band have not publicly commented, and Page was the only member of the band who attended the film’s original premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2021,
Elsewhere, the official Led Zeppelin social media accounts have not mentioned the film at all. The band’s Facebook/Instagram and Twitter/X pages have been dormant for nearly two years – the last post on each platform shared news of a clear vinyl reissue of Led Zeppelin IV in April 2023 – while the band’s most recent post on TikTok was the previous month, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band’s 1973 album Houses Of The Holy.
“I’d get up in the morning, practise scales at my piano, go off dancing, and then in the evening I’d come back and play the piano all night.” The story of Kate Bush’s debut album The Kick Inside
(Image credit: EMI Records)
In March 1978, a young singer-songwriter called Kate Bush shot to the top of the UK singles charts with Wuthering Heights. Based on Emily Brontë’s gothic novel of the same name, it was the centrepiece of Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, and introduced her elegant songwriting and explosive baroque pop to the unsuspecting masses. With a little help from some early collaborators and a few famous fans, Prog charts her journey from teenage wonder to one of the most unique and influential artists of the modern age
She was the baby of the family, born in Bexleyheath in 1958, but in her elder brother John’s black and white snapshots of her aged between eight and 12, dressed up and posing in various places around the extensive family plot of East Wickham Farm and their seaside retreat near Margate, Kate Bush’s sweet little visage often shows a deep, pensive look that’s beyond her years.
Kate – then answering to Cathy – was taking everything in. Her semi-rural upbringing on the border of Kent and south-east London was a social bubble filled with family love, happily disrupted by two much older siblings who brought art, philosophy and music into an already culturally vibrant and liberal home. Their parents balanced practical jobs – their Irish mother a nurse and Essex-born father a doctor – with an enjoyment of fun and entertaining friends. While Kate’s brothers John (more frequently called Jay) and Paddy honed skills in martial arts, photography and performing folk music, Kate was surrounded by classic English poetry and literature, Celtic folklore and fairy tales, and she started to write poems. Some were published in her school magazine – a rare highlight in a time of unhappiness while at St Joseph’s Convent Grammar School, where Kate had few allies. Back home, comedy, TV drama and old films provided comfort when she wasn’t plonking away on a decrepit old church organ in one of the outbuildings, or spinning discs by Donovan, Bowie, Elton, Roxy, Billie Holiday and John Fahey.
Kate was signed up for violin lessons. However, Dr Bush – an amateur musician himself – acquired a piano and Kate’s world changed forever.
“[It was] a release,” she later told DJ Tony Myatt, “I could create something out of nothing. It was a very special discovery.”
The song compositions flowed, with lyrics inspired – as her poetry had been – by love, death and religion, among other things. By the time Kate was 13, in 1972, Jay and Paddy had recorded demos, which Jay passed to his Cambridge Uni friend Ricky Hopper, a record plugger, who shopped them around record labels, unsuccessfully. But when Ricky played the songs to his other Cambridge pal David Gilmour, who had set up a studio and was looking to foster new talent, the Pink Floyd man was impressed enough to offer his services as a mentor to the young artist: the Bush family agreed. One of Kate’s early studio encounters included sitting in at Abbey Road while Pink Floyd recorded Wish You Were Here in 1975.
“I was absolutely staggered,” she remarked in Brian Southall’s 1982 book on the studio. “I really thought I’d never be able to record [there].”
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(Image credit: EMI)
At age 15, Kate’s repertoire blossomed from 30 to 50 compositions.
Gilmour recalled to Q magazine in 1999: “I had her up to my studio and recorded some things [Passing Through Air and Maybe, with Peter Perrier and Pat Martin of Unicorn, a band he was A&Ring, on drums and bass]. I decided that the way she sang and played piano, on its own, was not going to be very effective for convincing A&R men at record companies of her value.”
He was right: these new demos were also declined at the time, and Kate continued her education – achieving 10 O-Levels and passing English, Music and Latin with particularly good grades – but pondered dropping music and entering psychiatry.
Gilmour decided to bankroll demos that would present a more 360˚ view of her music and assigned his friend, Andrew Powell, as producer-arranger.
Powell was an astute choice; a piano-playing prodigy at the age of four, he was a multi-instrumentalist and orchestral percussionist by the time he was 11 and at King’s College School in Wimbledon. Later he studied under Ligeti and Stockhausen in the 60s before joining Cambridge Uni group Henry Cow in 1968, and also the live electronic group Intermodulation, which featured composers Tim Souster and Roger Smalley. While at King’s College, Powell had put together a May Ball in that year and booked Pink Floyd – then touring A Saucerful Of Secrets – for £200; he became firm friends with the band thereafter.
After graduation Powell aimed to be a concert pianist and began performing in orchestras, but fell into session work for artists such as Nick Drake – he was mates with arranger Robert Kirby – and the jazz-rock group Come To The Edge, led by percussionist Morris Pert. Thanks to Robert Kirby he then moved into arrangements for pop music, taking on a session that Kirby hadn’t time for, Cockney Rebel’s debut, The Human Menagerie, in ’73. His treatment of the choral-enhanced seven-minute centrepiece Sebastian certainly got Powell noticed and he stayed for the next two records as he bonded with producer Alan Parsons. Powell’s blend of traditional classical rudiments and modern progressive approach – with wiggle room for theatrical quirkiness – could be just the right fit for elevating Kate’s ideas.
Speaking to Prog from his home in Wales, Powell remembers meeting Kate for the first time: “David had said to me, ‘I’ve got this girl, and at least one of her songs needs an orchestral arrangement. I can’t do that, but you can!’ I went to Floyd’s offices in Bond Street and David, Kate and I talked for a bit and then played me some of the music. I was hooked straight away. When I heard The Man With The Child In His Eyes I said, ‘I’m in!’”
And who wouldn’t be? A poignant and haunting love song in the vein of the baroque pop of the time, The Man With The Child In His Eyes was a remarkably sophisticated work in lyrics and melody by the schoolgirl. Powell noted that Kate “knew what she wanted” from production and that her compositions were “remarkably consistent”.
“We spoke about a few of her influences, and she was enthusiastic about creating a lovely orchestral part on that track in particular,” he recalls.
Alongside The Man…, Maybe and Berlin were chosen to be recorded, later renamed Humming and The Saxophone Song, respectively. Kate found herself in AIR studios in June 1975, right above the crossroads of Oxford Street and Regent Street, central London.
“It was owned by George Martin and was a studio that both David and I liked,” says Powell.
“Dave was doing his guardian angel bit… he was great, such a human, kind person – and genuine,” Kate told Q magazine in 1999. “[He] put up the money for everything. It must have cost a fortune, but he didn’t want anything out of it.”
Also working this session was Abbey Road’s eminent engineer Geoff Emerick, whose work with The Beatles, Zombies, Wings, Robin Trower and more must have been a tad daunting for Kate, but the 16-year-old took it in her stride.
“Geoff did a wonderful job on the rhythm section, and on the orchestra,” Powell says. “We did one session, I think, maybe two. I had a day between to write the orchestral parts and then we did overdubs. When we did The Man With The Child In His Eyes Kate did it in one take, and the whole recording was live.”
(Image credit: Koh Hasebe/Shinko Music)
In July, David Gilmour took Kate’s tape to a listening session at Abbey Road with EMI’s General Manager, Bob Mercer. Mercer was impressed, but also wary of having a young, possibly vulnerable act on the books. A deal was reached – £3,000 and a four-year contract – but with the caveat that activity be held off for two years while Kate finished all her studies and gained more real-world experience. Mercer recommended Floyd manager Steve O’Rourke to the family, paid for piano lessons to refine her technique, and, importantly, took her along to a performance by Lindsay Kemp, the flamboyant choreographer and actor who had inspired and taught David Bowie.
“I just thought she might enjoy it,” Mercer said in 1999, “but she was completely blown away.”
Kemp’s world of burlesque, drag, avant-garde and erotica was another creative spur for Kate.
Kate moved out of one family home and into a flat that was one of three in a converted house in Brockley, Lewisham, owned by her parents, where her brothers also lived. With no pressure to write or record, she enjoyed this period of freedom and for a few months became part of a group, The KT Bush Band, that played local pubs and clubs. She had now fully adopted the name Kate after 18 years of being Cathy, and her bandmates were Brian Bath on guitar, Vic King on drums and Del Palmer on bass, old(ish) hands on a gigging circuit who were closer to Paddy Bush’s age – in their early-20s – and all nuts about the band Free. Already jamming pals with Brian, Paddy told him that his little sister needed a band to gain some live performance experience, so after practices at a swimming-bath boiler house in Greenwich and in a barn at the bottom of the East Wickham garden, they debuted at Lewisham’s Rose Of Lee in March 1977 with a well-drilled setlist of original Kate tunes such as James And The Cold Gun and Them Heavy People as well as covers of Motown songs, Steely Dan, The Beatles and Free’s The Stealer. By day, the 18-year-old was in jeans, T-shirts and hacking jackets; onstage at night she wore long, floaty dresses and some decoration in her hair. Nerve-wracked at first, by the time of their 20th, and final, live show, her new-found self-assurance and stage presence helped to draw audiences.
Outside of the band, Kate had enrolled in dance classes in Covent Garden led by Lindsay Kemp, mime artist Adam Darius and jazz dancer Robin Kovac. Back in her flat, in the company of kittens Zoodle and Pye, she applied herself to improving her vocals and playing her piano.
“I’d get up in the morning, practise scales at my piano, go off dancing, and then in the evening I’d come back and play the piano all night,” she told VH1, recalling the remarkably hot summer of 1976. “I had all the windows open and I used to write until four in the morning. I got a letter of complaint from a neighbour who was basically saying, ‘Shut up!’ They got up at five to do shift work and my voice carried the length of the street.”
The end of two years of development was approaching. Kate was getting impatient and visited Bob Mercer in his office with some newer songs; at some point Kate began dancing and Mercer saw her transformation.
“She now had the courage to perform in front of me like that,” he said. “I knew she was ready. Within a couple of weeks, we had her in the studios. I didn’t want to miss anything.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Demos for the upcoming debut album occurred in locations such as De Lane Lea and De Wolfe studios in Soho, but the label had some feedback for their star David Gilmour about his charge: in their humble opinion, what was emerging was disappointing and that Gilmour had sold them “a dud”. In a 1987 radio interview he recalled that, “[Bob Mercer said,] ‘You conned us by making one song sound really good.’ I said, ‘Give me a fucking break, this girl’s really talented!’ They said, ‘We just can’t get anything right, we’ve tried God-knows-who…’ I said, ‘Why don’t you put her with the guy that I put her with originally?’… and that’s when it became plain sailing.”
Kate was finally reunited with Andrew Powell at AIR studios in July and August 1977. House engineer Jon Kelly rode shotgun on the desk and would become part of her future crew. Powell tells us that there was “no mention of budget at all” from EMI – a vote of confidence, surely. Kate asked for the KT Bush Band to be in the studio but this was overruled in favour of Powell’s dream squad of Cockney Rebel keyboardist Duncan Mackay and drummer Stuart Elliott, with Ian Bairnson on guitars and David Paton on bass, both members of Scottish pop band Pilot. Powell’s old jazz-fusion comrade Morris Pert guested on percussion, popular session pro Alan Parker on guitar and Powell dived in himself on various synths, Fender jazz bass and celeste. Lastly, Kate’s brother Paddy was present, playing mandolin and adding BVs.
Powell says that crunching a track listing down to 13 songs was “incredibly difficult” given the quality of compositions available. And then, just days before the session, Kate arrived at Powell’s flat with a new work.
“It was Wuthering Heights!” he says with a laugh. “Once I heard that I knew that it had to go on the album, so we bumped Wow off the list to make room.”
Fortunately, the players bonded with Kate immediately.
“On the first day of the session, she sat down at the piano to play them the first track,” remembers Powell. “I was watching them and thinking, ‘They’re lapping this up.’ They were mesmerised, and she was entirely in her comfort zone.”
Kate had also worked out “90 per cent of the backing vocals and other touches” while at home.
“During one track,” recalls Powell, “Stuart ceased playing and shouted, ‘Oi, stop! Listen! Can you ’ear what she’s singing? It’s really sensitive lyrics and you’re all banging away!”
It also helped that Kate would be constantly asking if any players would like some tea – they thought she was AIR’s tea girl to begin with – bringing a little of her home life sociability and maternal Irish nurturing into the space as she also picked up tips about recording and producing – as ever, taking her surroundings in.
That first track on the first day was Moving, dedicated to Lindsay Kemp, who received an acknowledgment on the sleeve, and the intro would feature a sample of a bio-acoustician Roger Payne’s 1970 popular new age record The Song Of the Humpback Whale. This might tie in with the cover art, which referenced a scene with Monstro the whale in the Disney’s Pinocchio. Kite was also recorded on day one, its reggae lilt worked up by the players in the studio.
In the final list were two “demo” tracks from the 1975 session, The Saxophone Song and The Man With The Child In His Eyes – why mess with their perfection? Bluesbreaker Alan Skidmore had provided the jazzy sax part to the former, chosen because “I wanted something slightly left-field, and I think Kate did too,” says Powell as they conjured a nightclub type of mood and realised Kate’s idea of the sax as a “feminine voice”.
James And The Cold Gun didn’t stray too far from the rocking KT Bush Band’s version, nor the treatment of Them Heavy People, the theme of which drew on Kate’s thirst for learning, and the philosophy of spiritual leader George Gurdjieff who had particularly affected Kate’s brother Jay (check out his matching moustache style) with his Eastern-influenced Fourth Way enlightenment theory.
Ever-fascinated by ghosts, ley lines and supernatural energies, the Twilight Zone-twinkling Strange Phenomena showed off Kate’s hippie side, complete with the Buddhist chant ‘om mani padme hum’. A slew of earthier songs balanced the set. Feel It, Oh To Be In Love and L’Amour Looks Something Like You were conduits for Kate’s sensual self-expression, lyrics frankly discussed with her family, much to Ian Bairnson’s surprise when he saw her show the ‘feeling of sticky love inside’ lyric to her dad, receiving warm, supportive approval. Kate’s personal life had taken a turn; always drawn to older men, she was now dating KT Bush Band bassist Del, and they’d be together for 16 years, and collaborate creatively for even longer. Del would provide the small illustration of a man on a kite for the back cover of the LP.
The title track drew from a folk song, Lucy Wan, where an incestuous sibling relationship resulted in a pregnancy, so the sister was to take her own life to protect her brother, her final act of love. Heavy themes indeed, worn surprisingly lightly, as Powell notes: “That’s what she writes. It’s her art, it’s not personal to her.”
During the six weeks of recording, the band and technical personnel would see Kate inhabit many characters and personas, and none more so than that late addition, Wuthering Heights. Inspired by a BBC TV adaptation she’d watched in ’67, she later firmed up her lyrics with a scan of Emily Brontë’s 19th-century turbulent gothic romance, and it then developed into the tour-de-force that we know today (later, the dance moves learned from Robin Kovac would inform the weird and spooky expressive choreography for the video clip and live performances). The lyrics came from the point of view of the doomed lover Cathy, called back from the grave to haunt by her distraught and dysfunctional beau Heathcliff after her dreadful death in childbirth. What could be a better lead-off single to launch a very unusual and eccentric new artist into the world?
The label didn’t agree, pushing for the more straightforward, easier-on-the-ear James And The Cold Gun. “But Kate was very, very persistent,” says Powell. “And she was absolutely right.”
Released on January 20, 1978, Wuthering Heights and its spectral video clip made the most incredible and unlikely impression on a stunned – and in some cases bemused – general public, rising to No.1 for four weeks in March, just as The Kick Inside hit the record shops, going on to become the ninth biggest-selling album of the year. The world had never seen or heard a teenage performer like her, and now there was no going back.
Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer with 23 years in music magazines since joining Kerrang! as office manager in 1999. But before that Jo had 10 years as a London-based gig promoter and DJ, also working in various vintage record shops and for the UK arm of the Sub Pop label as a warehouse and press assistant. Jo’s had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson’s favourite flute (!), asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit, and invented several ridiculous editorial ideas such as the regular celebrity cooking column for Prog, Supper’s Ready. After being Deputy Editor for Prog for five years and Managing Editor of Classic Rock for three, Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, where she’s been since its inception in 2009, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London, hoping to inspire the next gen of rock, metal, prog and indie creators and appreciators.
