Frontiers:
Jack Russell & Tracii Guns teamed up to create the new musical project, Russell-Guns! Who’s ready for their upcoming studio album, ‘Medusa’, set to release January 12th, 2024? As a first taste here’s the first single, “Next In Line”!
Watch the video below:
Terry Ilous:
TOMORROW ! What you’ve been waiting for … Together for the first time!
Tomorrow, we will be releasing a classic cover of an iconic rock song, featuring JACK RUSSELL & TERRY ILOUS on YouTube, and available for download on KO-Fi. And hear it LIVE on October 29th at ROCKEFELLAS in Corona, Ca. This is a private charity event that we are selling a limited amount of tickets to the public for. So get your tickets now, and get the song tomorrow @…
Great White have parted ways with singer Andrew Freeman. Currently singing with the band is Brett Carlisle. No word on his “official” status with the band or whether they are looking for another full-time replacement.
Great White @ del Lago Resort & Casino on October 14, 2022 w/ Brett
Footage of Brett singing “Rock Me” w/ Great White on September 24, 2022,
when he ‘filled-in’ for Andrew Freeman
Recently, VWMusic caught up with Alan Niven to discuss his retrospective musings on managing Great White and Guns N’ Roses during their heyday. You can read the entire interview @ this location.
An excerpt from the interview can be found below.
My understanding is that it was Jack [Russell] who persuaded you to manage Great White, but he was both the band’s and his worst enemy on many levels. How was your experience working with him?
Alan Niven:
At times sublime. At times just wretched. If rock ‘n’ roll should appear to be spontaneous and haphazard, Jack personified that. Authentic is a much-overused word, but Jack was genuinely rock ‘n’ roll. In all ways. K’pan Fuckin’ Jack – truly pirate blood runs in his veins. Steal yer rum, rape yer women, and piss all over your rug where you’d find him passed out.
Great White’s inherent musicianship and blues roots set them apart from their contemporaries, effectively putting them in a league of their own. Yet, the band never quite garnered the reverence it deserved. What do you feel prevented Great White from becoming more widely recognized?
Alan:
Jack’s disastrous drug-taking derailed the band’s first headline tour with [Michael Schenker Group] and Havana Black. Moving up to headliner from support is perhaps the most critical development in a career. Had I left him on the road; however, I’d probably have gotten him back in a box, and no one was gonna die on my watch. I had to take him off the road and detox him. He could smell and distinguish chemicals at a quarter mile.
Anyways, the idea of having all three bands from one label on the tour, and getting really focused promotion, obviously backfired on me. Capitol [Records] were not happy when the tour had to be canceled. The tragedy was that it was working; the Northeast was sold out weeks in advance.
The promoters never forgave the band, and they never got that shot again. We also suffered from the revolving presidential door at Capitol. Hale Milgram, our third in four years, made it clear he thought little of the band. His A&R man only had disdain – selective amnesia prevents me from recalling his name, but he rents property in Hawaii now. Oh, yeah. Simon Potts. They were into English club music, and R.E.M. Satin balloon pants were cool to them. We were a road band most akin to early ’70s English blues rockers. Wonder why! Anyways, they did not connect. Milgram never came to a gig until just before we left the label. At least he released us, and we escaped getting Gershed again.
How responsive was Axl Rose to your feedback and suggestions, and how did you navigate the relationship?
Alan:
His first insult was to thank me in the liner notes after his fuckin’ dogs. He didn’t bother to show for the dinner with [Peter] Paterno and the rest of the band where they offered to extend my original contract for another whole three years. That was when I knew I’d be fucked over by them. They did offer to raise my commission rate to 20%, but I turned down the increase. I did not want my company being paid more than a band member, although I had to pay for offices and staff. I never charged back a dime in expenses, as I had the conventional right to do so.
The only time Axl ever said thank you was from the stage of the Hammersmith Odeon – so even that was more about him than me. See me being gracious. He wasn’t a nice person back then. He may have changed. To me, he’s kind of like the Tonya Harding of rock ‘n’ roll – capable of being sublime but best known for other reasons.
I was there for him, taking him from Hollywood streets to Wembley Arena. He repaid me by believing Goldstein’s (Doug Goldstein replaced Niven as GNR manager) lies because he wanted to.
And what were Goldstein’s lies?
Alan:
Whatever he told him to put distance between us.
I had a telephone conversation with Axl in which he asked why he had trouble getting people to do what he wanted. I told him he was prickly, difficult to get near, and that his tantrums scared people. A couple of days later, when I was at the Meadowlands, he called the production phone and told me he could not work with me anymore. I suggested we have dinner on my return to L.A. and talk about it. He agreed, but I never spoke to him ever again.
A few weeks previous, I had held a dinner at Le Dome for his birthday. Earlier in the day, I had delivered him a white Ovation guitar. He failed to show. Tom Zutaut arrived with Goldstein; they had been with Axl. Before seating himself, [Zutaut] leaned over me and whispered in my ear, “Goldstein is not your friend.” A few days later, Axl said he wouldn’t do Rock In Rio if I went. No big deal. I thought. He’d had me banned from the Aerosmith tour for its first three weeks because I refused to cancel it. My job was to get them all there. Their job was to produce excitement on the stage.
I had signed a contract with five individuals collectively known as Guns N’ Roses. I did not sign a contract to exclusively represent his whim. My responsibility was to the whole.
Goldstein is a liar, and a fake – a schmoozer, a glad-hander – Barry Fey once described him as an overpaid security guy. He was without loyalty and appreciation – he was a security guy when I gave him a shot at tour managing. He decided he was there to indulge Axl. Ingratiate himself. Screw the others – as happened. He presided over the dissolution and implosion of what I helped create. He helped engineer Axl’s grab of the name. To this day, Axl takes 50% of the gate, thus cutting Izzy out. Ego and greed. The corrosion of affluence on a soul that comes from impoverished childhood.
You can read the entire interview @ this location.
Mark Kendall:
My son Jon had breakfast with Pauly Shore today in Las Vegas. He’s been honing his skills at stand up at a club in Huntington Beach & knows a lot of standup comedian dudes. #GoJon!
PImping is easy! My Son Jon just did some Stand Up Comedy for the first time since 2018 and his show went off killer! The Club Owner invited him back to do another show this coming Thursday 👈😎🤙@joerogan @LaughFactoryHW pic.twitter.com/DFdZwKmeHK
— Mark Kendall (@MarkKendall_GW) July 18, 2022
Jack Russell:
Check out the premiere of our new video “She Moves Me!” #JRGW 🦈 Jack Russell’s Great White
“She moves me like the wind moves the rain.”
Filmed @ Good Fellas in Anaheim
Mark Kendall: TBT – 1984 Belfast Ireland on tour with Whitesnake. I remember this night. We had a day off before the show. The Hotel had been bombed 13 times but not in a year. Joe Elliott & Rick Allen came to the show.. They lived in Ireland for tax purposes😎🎸
Eddie Trunk: Attending a screening here in LA tonight for a documentary on the tragic Great White fire. It’s called America’s Deadliest Concert, The Guest List. It will air on REELZ 2/20/22.
On The Night Of February 20th, 2003…
America’s Deadliest Rock Concert Began In West Warwick, Rhode Island, When The Band Great White Ignited Pyrotechnics Inside A Run-Down Roadhouse Called The Station. The Resulting Conflagration Killed 100 Persons And Grievously Injured Many Others. It Could Fairly Be Said That Music And Rock Culture Drew One Hundred Innocent People To Their Deaths In The Station Fire. The Guest List Explores How That Same Music And Culture Became Sources Of Healing And Comfort, At Least For Some, In The Years Thereafter.Many Victims Of The Station Fire Had Been Seduced By The Siren Song Of Rock Celebrity. They Met Jack Russell In The Local Denny’s, A Nearby Motel Or At A Tattoo Parlor, Where He Generously Added Their Names To The Show’s Guest List. For Many Of Those Passionate Fans, What Appeared To Be Their Very Luckiest Day Turned Out To Be THEIR Last. Weeks After The Fire, The Actual Charred, Handwritten Guest List Was Recovered From The Club’s Ashes.
The Film Contrasts Jack Russell’s Post-Fire Journey, In A Search For Redemption, With Survivor Joe Kinan’s Rebirth, Courage And Inspiration. Along The Way, We Meet Other Survivors And Victims’ Families Who Have Memorialized Their Loss Through Pursuits Ranging From An Exhibit Of Commemorative Body Art To Re-Immersion In The Rock Culture That Initially Brought Them And Their Loved Ones To The Station Nightclub. Throughout This Journey We Discover What Many Feel Was Legal Injustice Within Local And State Government.
The Documentary Addresses Timeless Themes Of Personal Responsibility, Acceptance Forgiveness And Redemption. Its Central Characters Struggle To Cope In The Aftermath Of Tragedy – Some Gracefully, And Some Less So. It Is An Object Lesson In The Tragic Potential Of Poor Decisions. The Guest List Remains Timely, Years After The Station Fire Tragedy, As Young People Will Always Be Attracted To Concert Events While Some Bands, Promoters, And Concert Venues Remain Tempted To Cut Corners For Cheap Spectacle. The Guest List Is Based In Part On John Barylick’s Narrative Non-Fiction Work, Killer Show, The Station Nightclub Fire, America’s Deadliest Rock Concert. The Result Is Poignant Footage Contrasting Very Different Life Stories. The Guest List Is A Strikingly Visual Film. No One Who Watches The Guest List Will Enter A Concert Venue Again Without First Checking For The Exits.
Saw the film The Guest List last night on the Station Night Club fire. Needless to say extraordinarily tough subject in many ways, but director David Bellino did a fine job. Jack Russell & band, @deesnider were also in attendance. On @ReelzChannel 2/20
— Eddie Trunk (@EddieTrunk) February 5, 2022
The "Stand" video honoring the memory of the Station Nightclub Fire is being edited as we speak. It really looks amazing & is very powerful. It's not feel good – it's grim reminder of something we should never forget & be damn sure never happens again! The vid comes out next week https://t.co/q6t1XC4JyJ
— Dee Snider🇺🇸 (@deesnider) February 12, 2022
Powerhouse vocalist Jack Russell leads a superb new Great White through this killer salute to the mighty Zep.
This long-awaited sequel to the 1998 album that became one of the group’s best-selling, most loved albums, rocks even harder than its predecessor and includes all-new covers of “Whole Lotta Love,” “Kashmir,” “Houses Of The Holy,” “Misty Mountain Hop” and more.
Russell is ably backed by guitarists Robby Lachner & Michael Olivieri along with bassist Dan McNay & drummer Dicki Fliszar!
Available on CD in a deluxe digipak and on colored vinyl in a gatefold jacket.
TRACKLISTING:
1. Whole Lotta Love
2. Good Times, Bad Times
3. Misty Mountain Hop
4. Dancin’ Days
5. No Quarter [CD ONLY]
6. Kashmir
7. Houses Of The Holy
8. Trampled Underfoot
9. Moby Dick [CD ONLY]
10. The Rover [CD ONLY]
11. Stairway To Heaven [CD ONLY]
12. Heartbreaker
13. Livin’ Lovin’ Maid [CD ONLY]
14. Communication Breakdown
This is a BONUS EXCERPT from the full in bloom interview with Jack Russell. This old school interview was originally published as a print interview & is not part of the podcast. The audio was transferred from a handheld digital recorder, so please keep that in mind. You can read the entire interview: PART I & PART II
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW VIA THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP / SOUNDCLOUD WIDGET BELOW.
You can also listen to this episode on APPLE PODCASTS and SPOTIFY.
Jack talks about writing the Great White hit “Rock Me,” his songwriting process, and how it has matured over the years.
Jack Russell Interview Excerpt via YouTube
Jack Russell Interview Excerpt via Soundcloud
This is a BONUS EXCERPT from the full in bloom interview with Jack Russell. This old school interview was originally published as a print interview & is not part of the podcast. The audio was transferred from a handheld digital recorder, so please keep that in mind. You can read the entire interview: PART I & PART II
LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW VIA THE EMBEDDED YOUTUBE CLIP / SOUNDCLOUD WIDGET BELOW.
You can also listen to this episode on APPLE PODCASTS and SPOTIFY.
Jack talks about Great White’s 1984 major label debut, ‘Shot in the Dark,’ ‘Once Bitten,’ ‘Hooked,’ ‘Can’t Get There From Here,’ & more.
Jack Russell Interview Excerpt via YouTube
Jack Russell Interview Excerpt via Soundcloud
In the last 24 hours, singer Jack Russell, former front man and founding member for the band Great White, has been under scrutiny for a live performance North Dakota. The headline read: “GREAT WHITE Plays Concert In North Dakota With No Restrictions In Place, No Social Distancing, No Masks.”
The former front-man clarifies, in a video statement (located below) for the public, that this is not his band performing. Russell has not toured in over 5 months due to the Covid, with no plan to perform until everyone is safe.
Russell has not performed under the moniker of GREAT WHITE or with this former band members, who owns the name GREAT WHITE, in 11 years. The band GREAT WHITE consists of Mark Kendall · Audie Desbrow · Michael Lardie with Scott Snyder and Mitch Malloy.
Russell also states: “The way it works out, if I just wear [my mask], I’m not that safe. If you put yours on too, I’m 70 percent safe as opposed to being zero-point-something [safe]. It’s amazing the amount that it changes. It’s, like, if you don’t want to help yourself, help everybody else. ‘Well, it’s my right. It’s my human right.’ Well, look, dude, you’ve got to pay for your car to get smogged, you’ve got to have a seat belt, you have a driver’s license, you have to have a license to be born, and you have to have a marriage license. So you have to wear a mask for a while so you don’t die. What’s the problem?”
Russell’s band, “JACK RUSSELL’S GREAT WHITE” has spent these months creating new music and videos while each artist recorded, worked and taped from their homes. Here are a few of the amazing original music and fun cover video’s featuring Robin McCauley @ this location.
Jack Russell: Happy Saturday Shark Family.
I love you all!! Crank up our acoustic cover of Toto’s “Hold The Line.”
JACK RUSSELL,ROBIN McAULEY vocals/ JOSE ANTONIO RODRIGUEZ (flamenco guitars)
FELIX d-kat POLLARD drums MORGAN MYLES backing vocals
JAVY BOJORQUEZ bass ROBBY LOCHNER steel string guitars
Dokken: “DID YOU GET YOUR TICKETS YET? ? … Don Dokken, Kip Winger, Jack Russell and Eric Martin in a special acoustic performance at the Beaver Dam Acoustic Center September 7, 2019.”
The excerpt below was taken from the full in bloom interviews with Great White’s founding members, Jack Russell and Mark Kendall.
Jack and Mark talk about former Great White bassist Lorne Black. The interviews were conducted at different times and edited together.
Great White on Amazon – Spotify – Apple Music/iTunes
You can listen to the entire interview with Mark Kendall, where he talks about Great White’s future plans, new singer Mitch Malloy, the 1984 self-titled album, Judas Priest, Shot in the Dark, Once Bitten, Jake E. Lee, Don Costa, Tony Richards, Gary Holland, Jack Russell, Ozzy, Dimebag, Buddy Blaze, Tesla and more at this location.
The Lorne Black Episode:
Great White “Rock Me” Official Video
Great White “Stick It” Official Video
The full in bloom interview with Great White founder / guitarist Mark Kendall is now available. Several excerpts from the interview have been transcribed below. You can listen to the entire interview via the embedded YouTube clip above or the Soundcloud widget below. Check back for more video / transcribed excerpts from this interview.
full in bloom: How’s it going with Mitch (Malloy)?
Mark Kendall: It’s going great. We’re starting to write songs now. The great thing about it was, since he lives in Florida now, he moved from Nashville to Florida, so it’s not just like I can go ‘hey, come on over, let’s work on songs,’ I went in the studio, just a friend of mine’s little studio down the street, I wrote a couple of songs; I sent him (Mitch) a song. Normally when I work with singers, I’m in the room with them and I might give them some melody ideas, or just let them know what I’m hearing. But I just sent him music and he came back with a full song, and me and Michael (Lardie) were blown away. We couldn’t believe it. I’m going ‘man, this is great to break the ice like this because it will be less work for me’ and unless I hear something that I don’t agree with, I’ll pretty much go with it. Normally I have ideas about melodies in my head, but I wanted to give him a chance and give him music and see what he comes with. So, that’s working out real good. We’re just kind of putting riffs together. We’re going to rehearse tonight and go over a few things. We’re kind of taking our time just trying to come up with the best stuff we can. But we definitely want to get something this year with Mitch on it.
full in bloom: Why did he move to Florida from Nashville?
Mark: I guess he had been in Nashville for awhile and him and his wife just decided to move to Florida for whatever reason. She might have family there.
full in bloom: And you’re still based out of Los Angeles?
Mark: Yeah. I’m actually near a city called….Have you ever heard of Riverside or Redlands?
full in bloom: Sure.
Mark: Yeah, I live near Redlands, CA, but it’s kind of up in the hills. Like not way in the mountains, but like 3500 feet up. It’s a lot cooler, that’s why I got out of Palm Desert; it was just so brutal in the summer.
full in bloom: Were any of the recent fires near you?
Mark: No, that’s more in the Valley on the other side of Los Angeles. That’s about 100 miles from me. Obviously, I saw it on the news and all the devastation.
full in bloom: We had that about seven years ago in Colorado Springs.
Mark: A really good friend of mine lived in Colorado Springs. I’m not sure if he’s still there but he used to be a referee on the Pro Billiards Tour, Scott Smith. He had a place called Rack N’ Roll. On one side they had bands playing and on the other side they had pool tables.
full in bloom: I saw that you’re quite the pool shark.
Mark: Yeah, it’s kind of a hobby of mine. I’ve been playing forever. So I probably play better than your average guitar player.
full in bloom: Is it too early to think about putting together an album with Mitch?
Mark: No, not at all. That’s what we’re kind of doing now; we’re just writing songs. Michael and I have been coming up with a lot of things. Just kind of sending ideas back and forth, and today, we’re going to get in a room together because that’s when the best stuff happens….when we’re all playing together. In an actual recording, we’ve never sent each other our parts before. That’s really kind of a first, that I’ve sent Mitch music. Normally, we get together. When we do it for real, we always get together, but we come up with ideas on our own. Like the last record (Full Circle, 2017), we only got together for ten days before we went to Michael Wagener’s (studio) in Nashville. We all had a lot of ideas. For the first four days, we were in this kitchen area just like showing each other ideas. We didn’t really get a lot done….just kind of picked the stuff we wanted to work on and then went at it hardcore for six days. But we went up there with no lyrics finished; we just had ideas for choruses and stuff. It was pretty funny, Michael Wagener was definitely not used to that (laughs).
full in bloom: Did (former Great White singer) Terry (Ilous) write the lyrics for that, or does everyone just kind of pitch in?
Mark: We all did, and lucky for us, he (Michael Wagener) records one song at a time. Not the basic tracks; the basic tracks we finish, and then we redo the guitars and everything, and we’ll just have a scatting-thing going on. But we knew in advance, once we were going to start doing the overdubs, we knew in advance, the night before, what songs we were going to do the next day. So we all just kind of crammed together, we were living in this house in Nashville. We all just got together and came up with the lyrics and we’d go in with a lyric sheet each day to give to Wagener.
full in bloom: The house is at Michael Wagener’s (studio)?
Mark: No, we rented a house.
full in bloom: Like an Airbnb kind of thing?
Mark: Yeah, that kind of thing. Really nice, on a lake. It was really killer. Really great vibe…really quiet…no distractions whatsoever. It was just awesome.
full in bloom: I think when I interviewed Wolf Hoffmann long ago he had a farm with a studio on the property and Michael either lived at the studio, but it was Michael’s studio. Didn’t Wolf move?
Mark: Yeah. Wolf moved, but Michael loved Nashville so much that he bought a house there on about five acres and built a studio on his property. A state-of-the-art, most killer studio you can imagine.
full in bloom: I’m kind of obsessed with the self-titled (album) and Out of the Night (both engineered/produced by Michael Wagener), those early days. My very first concert was Great White opening up for Judas Priest. I was like twelve years old. To me, as a kid, I thought you guys were better than Judas Priest, and I don’t know if that was because you guys related more to me. But I just love the whole white BC Rich, your whole thing with the headband….that whole vibe and the self-titled record I thought really captured the essence of Los Angeles. I have always loved that record…and I still love that record.
Mark: I still like it, actually and my kids all love it. I can still listen back to that and it still holds up. It was pretty amazing. When we first met Alan Niven (former Great White manager) and we were going to make the EP (Out of the Night), we flew Michael Wagener out from Germany and he didn’t know very much English. It was a real early part of his career and it was real exciting. We did that EP and we didn’t really have a record deal at that time, just a distribution (deal). Somehow, through some kind of magic, to this day I’m not really exactly sure, we got a song in heavy rotation on the biggest station in Los Angeles, with no record deal, and that’s how the excitement was created. I’ve never heard of that before and I’ve live in L.A. my whole life. I’ve never heard of a band that’s not signed to be in heavy rotation with the Tom Pettys and whatever. So, that was pretty amazing, total magic. The first tour was with Whitesnake, in Europe. So the thing you saw with Priest, that was our second run. I’m really glad because it gave us a little bit of seasoning, playing arenas and stuff. We were coming out of like clubs and backyards, basically. It was a pretty amazing experience.
full in bloom: Is there a memory that stands out from that Judas Priest tour?
Mark: One memory I have is playing Glenn Tipton (Judas Priest guitarist) in pool for like ten hours, and it was on a show date. We had a show the next day and we played until like seven in the morning. And (laughs) we go, ‘we got to go to sleep, man’ but we were so into it. It’s funny, we just lost track of time. We went and took naps. I remember after I got off stage and I wanted to see what condition he was in and the whole band was walking by and Glenn looked at me and goes, “I don’t feel well” (laughs). It was awesome….and they did a great show. Also, just in general, they kind of took us under their wing a little bit. They had more experience; they had been on more tours and stuff, and we didn’t know what the hell was going on, we were kind of green. They were just really good people.
full in bloom: The crowd loved you guys in Dallas. I’m assuming other crowds loved you, too?
Mark: It was like that every night. It was completely, insanely amazing. It was a different band then; we were just a trio. Just bass, guitar and drums. The music was a little different. It was a very early part of our writing. Judas Priest and the Scorpions were both bands that were kind of flying under the radar when we were first writing songs, a couple of years before we broke out and went on tour with them. We were going to work in the morning and listening to Priest but they weren’t really a commercial band at the time. So, not a lot of people knew about them, just the ‘hip rockers’ (English accent).
There’s a lot more to go. You can listen to the entire interview via the embedded YouTube clip above or the Soundcloud widget below. Check back for more video / transcribed excerpts from this interview.
