Gary James' Interview With John Corabi Of
The Dead Daisies



They've toured with KISS, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Bad Company, Judas Priest, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Hollywood Vampires and ZZ Top. They've performed at festivals including Download Festival, Sweden Rock Festival, Rock Hard Festival, Hellfest, Graspop Metal Meeting, and the Woodstock Festival in Poland. They've headlined tours throughout Europe, Japan, North and South America. They've performed in Cuba after the embargo was lifted in 2015. And now, after a decade of being together, they've released their "Best Of" CD with tours of Canada, the U.S., Japan and Europe to begin.

The group we are talking about is The Dead Daisies. We spoke with The Dead Daisies' lead singer John Corabi, whose had quite a career himself. He's been associated with Motley Crue, The Scream and Ratt.

Q - John, are there still Rock 'n' Roll fans out there? If there are, how come we don't hear much about them? All we ever seem to hear about is Rap and Country fans.

A - I don't know, Dude, That's one of the perplexing things. I've actually even been on tour this last month or so with Tom Kiefer and Winger. The fans are showing up. The thing that's weird now obviously with a lot of your bands from that era is we're not getting a lot of support from radio. MTV is no longer in existence. And now with the explosion of cell phones and basically walking around with a computer in your hand, the thing now is the streaming services, which I totally don't understand at all how it works. But, the fans are still showing up. They're still having a good time. They're singing along with all the songs. But, it seems really prevalent in America, for lack of a better term, there's a very short memory span with American fans. Honestly, I think it really boils down to zero radio support and that thing that we all kind of cut our teeth on which was MTV. They don't play music. They should just drop the "M". I remember really freaking out over a new Judas Priest video or a new Motley video, and that's all gone now. I think the fans are still there. They're just not in tune. Nowadays you have to advertise shows through social media. And even that, as fast as the news feeds are, if you don't mark it down immediately when you see it, five minutes later that post is buried in the new feed and sometimes hard to find again. It's just a weird time that I believe everybody is trying to figure out how to market themselves, to get their music out the masses like we used to do. Everybody is trying to make the best of it. All good.

Q - Where is the marketplace for The Dead Daisies' music? Where had the band enjoyed greater success, in the U.S. or overseas?

A - I'm going to have to be truthful and say it's more overseas than it is here (the U.S.) We do well here, but we do really well everywhere else. South America. We go to England. We're going to go to England and Europe probably in November and December (2023). I was just speaking with management this morning, early this morning, and we've got two shows in Japan that are almost sold out. A majority of the shows all through Europe are selling really well and will probably be sold out when we get there. But, it's a different mindset. I think the fans over there, once they become attached to a band, even if a band has bad album or they take a little bit of a slump, they still stick with them over there. I'm not slagging America at all. America is a great country. I'm just saying for the most part they used to say your fifteen minutes of fame is up. Now it's down to like five and half (minutes of fame). (laughs)

Q - When Frank Sinatra started his career he was given ten years. The Beatles, five years. David Cassidy, two years. And everybody that followed, six months.

A - You know what's funny about that? I really kind of blame, to a degree, American radio and American record companies. Historically, record companies, for example when Nirvana hit they blew up. Everybody was excited about this new band. But then what happened is the American record labels start looking for the next Nirvana and they flood the market with all these other bands. If you think about it, that whole Grunge movement everybody was talking about. I thought a lot of the music in that era was great. It's just that all the record labels flood markets. Ho, this band from Seattle blew up. Then it's like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains. All these bands, Pearl Jam, they all get signed, flood the market, and all of a sudden all the radio stations go, "That's the relevant thing now, so we're just going to play that." So, the attention span is like really short. You think about it, after that we had Green Day and then it was all these Pop/Punk bands flooded the market. Where are they now? Most of 'em are done. Look at how much hype and press Greta Van Fleet got when they came out. Nobody's talking about 'em anymore. So, it's really like American radio kind of locks on to something and they shove it down everybody's throat and then people get tired of it. There's nothing wrong with Nickleback. How many go, "Oh my God. If I hear another Nickleback song I'm gonna puke!"? We have nobody but the record labels and radio to blame for it. There's still a ton of great bands out there. The thing that amazes me is I don't know how the new bands are surviving because they're not getting paid at the shows and they're just doing the streaming thing and you know as well as I do that you've got to have, what is it, a million streams and you make a thousand bucks or something like that. It's crazy. So, the new bands don't have a chance to sell records. They can't get people to the shows 'cause there's no real radio supporting them. When I was growing up in Philadelphia they would have local acts, even if it was a Sunday night, ten or eleven o'clock at night, they'd play nothing but local Rock bands that did a demo and submitted 'em for air play. Who's doing that anymore? Nobody! It's weird, Dude. It's a weird time. Everybody's scratching their heads, trying to figure it out. Even Snoop Dogg was at a convention and he was talking to all the streaming sites and he used a few choice words. He was like, "You guys need to figure your accounting out. Back when I was doing records, you'd sell a record for $9.95. You'd sell a million records, you made nine million dollars. The record label got half. You got the other half and walked away. There's artists out their doing a million things and they ain't making the money. So, somebody needs to figure out the accounting system."

Q - The guy who put The Dead Daisies together, David Lowy, went from a financial career to an aviation career to a musical career. Why? Was he bored with the other two careers he had? Do you know?

A - No. One of the things that irritates me about comments with David, and I've seen it, they say, "Oh, it's just some rich guy having a mid-life crisis." That would be all well and good if David was paying all of us to do the heavy lifting. "You guys go write the songs and I'm just going to stand on stage and bask in the glory of whatever." But he's not that guy. He's always been a closet musician. He's still entrenched in his family's business, but David is a hands on guy, man. When we sit down and write a record, David is right there with us, every minute of the day. He's contributing to ideas. He's contributing to lyrics and he's involved. So, this is something he's always had a passion for, but he's just one of rare breeds that's figured out how to compartmentalize everything. So, when he's on stage he's a hundred per cent on stage, playing his guitar, and when he gets off stage, the brain, I don't know how he does it, he flips a switch and he's back on business mode and he's wheeling and dealing and making these deals in Japan and Australia and all these different places most of the day. God bless him. I wish I had that kind of brain function where I could be that business savvy and turn around and be as creative as I am.

Q - There have been quite a few musicians that have passed through The Dead Daisies. Is it David's thinking that that's how the sound remains fresh?

A - No. To be honest, he's always wanted a core band. He wanted good players though. Sometimes with good players, when he first started this, he had for example Richard Tortus and Dizzy Reed. He brought them into the fold and they did a couple of records with David. But, he also knew that they came from, obviously Guns N' Roses, and there may be a point where Guns N' Roses say, "Hey, we're going on tour. Let's go." And that's what happened. Enter Doug Aldrich. There was always a core band, but he's always felt like, "If you kind of want to go do something else, it's okay. We'll figure it out." It's really kind of a relaxed, easy going situation for all of us, but he had that in mind when he put it together. And it's working. I was involved with the band before. We had done four records in three years and I was feeling a little burnt as was quite a few other people in the band. So, I came to them and said, "Hey guys, I need a little break. I'm going to do my own solo thing for a minute." They got Glenn Hughes and Glenn was in there. He stayed for a couple of years and did a few records and said, "I'm going to go back doing the Deep Purple thing and I want to do another Black Country Communion record." So, they called me up and said, "Hey, are you rested and ready to go again?" I said, "Yeah. Sure. Let's do it." It's not about keeping the band fresh. He wanted to get great players in there, everybody who had, for lack of a better term, the same mindset as far as where our influences came from and just keep the thing rolling.

Q - Whose idea was it to release the "Best Of The Dead Daisies" CD/Album? was that David's?

A - I don't know. I don't know if this was something they were going to do with Glenn and then Glenn decided to leave. I don't know what the deal was. All I know is that when they called me they said, "Hey, we're going to put this 'Best Of' record together. It's out ten year anniversary." The band had been around ten years. It was just kind of a marker, like here's where we've been and there's more to come. But, this is like a ten year marker. Here's a bunch of songs we recorded we've put out so far. I was like, "Okay. Awesome."

Q - By putting out a CD, it would help with ticket sales?

A - Not necessarily. It's weird. It's been ten years, which I couldn't believe when they told me. I was like, "Oh my God! I didn't realize the band had been around that long." But they basically said "It's ten years. Here's what we've done so far," and the cool thing about it is, there's probably some fans that got involved because maybe they were Glenn Hughes fans originally. Now they can go back and hear the music they did with me. They can hear the music they did with their original singer, Jon Stevens, and vice-versa. Like there's fans of mine that maybe weren't aware of the Glenn Hughes stuff or Jon Stevens stuff. It's like, "Here's what we've done so far. It's our ten year anniversary. Here it is." They put a great package together. Great bundles. We're going to go out and tour and promote the record and the hopefully carve out some time next year (2024) for some new music.

Q - I couldn't let you go without asking who thought up the name The Dead Daisies?

A - It was obviously prior to me, but from what I've been led to believe Jon Stevens, the original singer, was having some health issues and the doctor made a comment about chillin' out and slowing down a little bit or you'll be pushing up daisies. So, him and David had been writing music for the first record. So, they kind of went with The Dead Daisies in reference to what the doctor had told Jon. But it's cool, man. I'm just happy to be back. I'm excited about the record. I'm excited about the upcoming tour.

Official Website: www.TheDeadDaisies.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.



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