John Corabi has done it all. From The Scream to Union, Motley Crue, and The Dead Daisies, Corabi has written and released consistently great music for decades. Now, he is about to release his first proper solo record called New Day and he recently took some time to talk about it.
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On New Day being his first proper solo record – I will say that this is my first solo record with a full assault of guitar, electric guitars, drums, keyboards, whatever. I have done two other solo records in the past, but I guess for some reason they don’t really count. I don’t know why. But I did an unplugged record a few years back, again, that was probably 60% new material. Then I took a few old songs like “Father, Mother, Son”, “Man In the Moon”, “Hooligans”, and I reworked them acoustically. So, I did that one in 2013, I wanna say. Then if you remember, I guess it was now it’s 10 years ago, but in 2014 I was doing the Motley Crue record live. To be quite honest with you, I was like, “I’m done with this”. I had a great time with Motley. I love that record, but it was like trying to sing that shit like, 20 plus years later I go, “I’m tapping out”. So, I recorded it for prosperity and put that out as a solo record as well. But this is my first all new material full band have at a solo, whatever you wanna call it.
On if it’s different working with Marti Fredrikson on a solo record as opposed to a Dead Daisies record – I think with any band it’s more like a marriage. Do you know what I mean? You can come in with song ideas and the band may like the song, but then, inevitably the guitar player may come and go, “Hey, I don’t really like soloing in the key of f or the key of whatever. Can we change this?” So, you wind up making compromises. For example, one of the songs on the solo record is a song called “Love That’ll Never Be” which actually appeared on the last Dead Daisies record Light ‘Em Up. The guys loved the song. manager, everybody loved the song but felt it was a little too produced for the Daisies. So, what we did is we just got into the room and just really stripped it down. There were parts of the song that we actually removed and tried to approach it a little more direct and like Allman Brother-y where Doug (Aldrich) was doing some awesome slide work. But I just felt I really loved the original version with these extra parts that were in the song that kind of maybe told the story a little better. So, I just said, “I’m gonna put it on the record”, the original version of it, and just call it a reprise or reprise, whatever you call it, whatever.
But again, in a band situation, you’re always, there’s a bit of give and take with the other members of the band, regardless of how developed the song idea is, usually there’s a bit of compromise. So, this one, working with Marti, I love working with Marti. Him and I work really well together, really fast. But at the end of the day, even he would have suggestions and go, “Hey man, I was thinking let’s put a little mandolin on “When I Was Young””. I’m like, “Okay, yeah, let’s try it and see”, but ultimately, he would go, “It’s your record. What do you want?” I was there, to some degree driving the boat, if you will. It was like he just allowed me to make the final call on a lot of things. So, it was cool.
On if he approached the record with a 70s rock mindset – Yeah, even further back. The thing that irritates the hell outta me about the music industry nowadays is when people do a record or a song, whatever, I call them, “the suits”, immediately everybody tries to figure out the category or the box that it belongs in. I think some of the things that I miss about when I was a kid you didn’t really have that. For example, you’ve heard the whole record, now, there’s a song on the record that some people may even go, “Oh, that’s a bit country-ish”. It’s funny, I go back and I think about bands like The Beatles actually covered a country song “Act Naturally” by Buck Owens. The Rolling Stones, it wasn’t unusual for them to do songs like, “Waiting on a Friend” or “Dead Flowers” or “Honky Tonk Woman”. All those songs could be interpreted nowadays as almost country-ish. Led Zeppelin had “Hotdog”, Queen had the, Brian May [sings it, it’s called “39”. So, I feel like the bands when I was growing up, they were given the opportunity or the creativity to just do whatever and it didn’t get put into a box. It was just under their umbrella. This is the Rolling Stones. This is Led Zeppelin. This is Queen.
So, when I was getting together with Marti and I told him that I got offered a solo deal, he goes, “What do you want to do?” I just, I said, “I just want write. I want to be musical creative, go old school, sixties, seventies, classic rock, but not be afraid to dip my toes into other genres of music, that I love”. So, I’m like, “you know what? Fuck it.” There’s the old pun, if it knocks your dick in the dirt, then just put it out. Let other people figure out what box it needs to go into.
On growing up as a fan of multiple genres – Even as fans though, and I’ve beaten this little comment up, but, it’s like a dead horse now. It wasn’t unusual for a kid like me, I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Spectrum was our go-to venue, and it wasn’t unusual for a kid like me to go see Black Sabbath on Monday, then go see somebody like Cat Stevens on Tuesday, or James Taylor. Go see the Eagles and then go see Grand Funk or Led Zeppelin, Foghat, Bad Company and even go deeper and go see Yes or Jethro Tull, or what is it? The Mahavishnu Orchestra. When you were like, “Oh man, I dig music”, you just dug music there, there wasn’t, “oh, you’re a grunge guy, or you’re a classic rock guy, or you’re a whatever”.
It was you just dug music and even to some degree, I, as a kid, I went and saw guys like, Glen Campbell, I saw Roy Clark. Roy Clark was an amazing guitar player. Glen Campbell as well was an amazing guitar player, but the guy could sing the phone book. He just had the purest voice. So, it wasn’t unusual to appreciate the Johnny Cash’s or Glen Campbell’s, as well as Led Zeppelin. So, I just really miss that time. We’ve gotten so corporate and so everything needs its nice little tidy little box to go into and fit into, and that’s how you market your band. If you have a song that sounds like Pearl Jam, you need to hashtag Pearl Jam. You know what I mean? It is just whatever, dude. Just let the music do the talking. Enjoy it for what it is, and if there’s a song on the record you don’t like, you know what, that’s what the skip button is for. Enjoy it.
On including a couple older singles on the record – I had started writing, it’s insane, but I could probably get together with Marti and do three more records. Between the two of us, we have so many freaking ideas. It’s ridiculous. I left The Daisies and I had started working on a solo record and Marti was the one saying, “That’s alright, here’s the deal, dude. Put one song out, let it sit for a bit, while you’re working on the rest of the record. That’s how a lot of these bands are doing in nowadays.” So, I’m like, all right, and my problem is, and if I can just be blunt and I think you can tell just from looking at me, I am the most non-computer literate human being on fucking earth. I’m sitting there, I hired a PR firm for the first single, and I’m trying to figure out, “Oh wait what? I can’t even spell algorithm. What the fuck do you, what are you talking?” I just I put those two songs out and I was like, alright, I do not understand this new. Fangled Voodoo called the internet at all. So, I just pulled back for a minute, and it was odd. Right around that time the Daisies called and said, “Hey, you want to come back?”
So I just put everything on hold and I went back. We did the Best Of tour. Then when we went into the studio and we did “Light ‘Em Up” and then the blues record, we recorded those at the same time. And then we just got into that grind again of touring and all that shit. But it was like last year I got offered the solo deal and then the Daisies were like, “Hey man, we’re gonna take a year off”. And I go, “Okay, perfect. Yeah, this works out perfectly.” So, I just said, “You know what?” I talked to Marti and I said “It’s with a record label”, for a minute, I was a little anti record labels. But at this point, I go, “Acknowledge your faults. You don’t know how to use a computer you don’t know how to manipulate all this bullshit, algorithms, hashtags, all that stuff. Let them worry about it. Just write the songs, let them worry about it.” Here I am.
On his lyrical inspiration for the record – I think, everybody that writes lyrics writes where they’re at in that moment of their life. It’s funny, I just saw an interview with Robert Plant where Dan Rather is asking him why he doesn’t like doing “Stairway To Heaven”. He goes, “As great as the song was, those lyrics are from the mind of a 23-year-old boy at the time.” Which made me wanna punch Robert Plant in the throat because I’m like, “You fucking wrote Stairway To Heaven when you were 23, 4 albums in. How old were you when you started?” It’s a combination, when Marti and I were talking we wrote “When I Was Young”, for example, Marti’s son was a huge contributor on this record as far as helping produce and even playing. My son has done a lot of touring with me. He was part of my solo band for a while. We were just sitting there laughing about like how our kids are like, we’re always giving them advice and then we just hoped that they run with it and apply it the right way. So that song came about because we were just talking about, what our sons were doing and how they were following in our footsteps. It’s like a guy just reflecting on all the right things that he’s done and all the wrong things that he’s done as he’s in conversation with his son or his child. It could be a woman as well. It’s so it that just came out of a conversation.
“Faith, Hope and Love”, if you’ve listened to that, like you mentioned it earlier. You cannot sit and watch the news anymore without just sitting there going, “The fuck are we doing? I’m just saying this is all I need, man. Just let me write my music. Let me go play my music, and I’m just going to really just try and find. The positive qualities in humanity. It is not easy sometimes, it’s that thing again it really frustrates me. I don’t wanna get political, but it’s like that old argument, I’ve heard people argue about when they start talking about for example, gun violence. You go, “They’re trying to take your guns”. I’m like, “I don’t know if they’re trying to take your guns. I think they’re just trying to regulate it a little more.” Then you get that argument though if they take our guns, the criminals are always gonna get them, which is a valid argument, but at what point do you sit there and go, all right, if I hit you in the face and then you hit me in the face, I’m gonna hit you back in the face. That’s all we’re doing is we’re just, at some point, somebody’s gotta go, “Wait a minute, can we just tap out for a minute and just talk about this?” Do you know what I mean? So, it’s that thing where it’s just man, this, it’s hard. But I just really just try to look at the positives in humanity, whatever. It’s just me looking around and going, “That’s pretty fucked up. Let me write something about that.” It is what it is.
On if he will put a solo touring band together – I literally just got home two days ago. I did three and a half weeks in Europe. It was an awesome trip. We had a lot of fun. Some of these guys weren’t used to touring this way. The band that I put together is just insane. Again, it was like this effortless process. Paul Taylor played some keyboards on the record and while he was sitting there, he goes, “Hey man, let me hear some more of the record?” So, we played it for him and Paul was just sitting there. I love Paul to death. He’s so chill. Funny guy. He goes, “Hey dude. I’m retired now from Winger, so if you ever need a guitar player, keyboard player, vocalist guy, count me in.” I go, “Actually I do”.
I talked to Michael Devin, who plays with me in the Daisies. He had been with Whitesnake. I’ve known Michael for 25 years or longer. I just say, “Hey dude, we’re off. We’re not working this year. So if you wanna play, I can’t pay you Daisy’s money”, He goes, “Yeah, count me in”. I was gonna have my son play drums, but my son went left. He’s got like this he’s playing with a metal band from California called Stepa. So, Michael suggested Troy Luccketta from Tesla. So, I called Troy. He had already heard the record. He goes, “Yeah, dude, count me in”. Then I got Jeremy Asbrock who played with me in the past. He’s obviously for the last eight or 10 years he’s been playing with Gene (Simmons) and Ace (Frehley). It’s unfortunate. God rest his soul, Ace passed. So, Jeremy was like, “You couldn’t have called it a better time, dude, count me in.” So I’m like, “Okay, cool. I got this awesome band together. Let’s let’s book some shit”. Then Marti called and he goes, “Bro, I fucking love this record. I wanna play with you”. I was like, “okay, awesome.” So now it’s Troy Luccketta, Paul Taylor. Michael Devin, Jeremy Asbrock, Mart Frederikson, and myself.
It was so good though. We were doing, we do some Scream, we do some Union, the new stuff. Then we did a few Dead Daises songs. It’s like I got five super strong singers. So, the backing vocals are insane. Everybody plays their ass off. It’s been, I’m pinching myself, trust me.
On if there will be US dates – Yeah, actually. They’re still working on dates for us. Obviously it’s pretty new, the record’s, not even out yet. But I’m going over to do a few shows for maybe a week in Europe again, and I’m ending, Frontier’s Records does a huge festival every year, so I’m gonna do the festival. That’s May 3rd. May 4th. I’m on a plane back to America, May 5th, I start New Jersey with Tom Keefer and Buckcherry.
