By Charlie Steffens
Since forming in 2013, The Dead Daisies have released four full-length studio albums, a live album, and toured extensively with some of the biggest bands in rock, including Aerosmith, Bad Company, Def Leppard, Judas Priest, KISS, Whitesnake, ZZ Top, and the Hollywood Vampires. They have also headlined shows of their own around the world, playing for huge audiences at renowned festivals such as Download UK, Graspop Belgium, and Wacken, to name but a few.
The Dead Daisies toured South Korea with the USO, and performed for a colossal crowd at Woodstock 2017 in Poland with a 60-piece orchestra. Impressive feats, to say the least. They are a band that lives for the stage — whether the gig is at Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go or the Barby in Tel Aviv. The number of miles traveled since the group’s inception is staggering.
The group’s current lineup includes singer John Corabi (Motley Crue, The Scream), bassist Marco Mendoza (Thin Lizzy, Whitesnake), guitarist Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake, Dio), rhythm guitarist David Lowy (Mink, Red Phoenix), and drummer Deen Castronovo (Journey, Bad English), who replaced Brian Tichy in 2017. In addition to his esteemed drumming, Castronovo has an astounding vocal aptitude.
Burn It Down, their 2018 follow-up album to 2016’s Make Some Noise, was released in April 2018. The album’s heavy opener, “Resurrected” is an attestation that The Dead Daisies are out to kick more ass. Like the band’s previous releases, the songs on Burn it Down are an amalgamation of classic rock elements “made loud to be played loud.”
The common thread that runs through the fabric of The Dead Daisies is their love of bands from the 70s, which was, arguably, the golden age of rock and roll. John Corabi unapologetically cops to the fact that he and his fellow Daisies are heavily influenced by bands that reigned in that era. As a teenager, the Daisies frontman recalls seeing countless bands play in his native city of Philadelphia.
“You had a paper route, you saved your money. You waited to hear who was coming to town next. You were constantly looking in the newspaper because there was no Internet. So you would look in the entertainment section of the newspaper. It was Electric Factory Concerts, and they would do a list of all the bands that were coming to town for like the next three months or four months. You went to Ticketmaster, you bought your tickets, and you stuck ‘em in an envelope, and filed them in your drawer.
“When I grew up listening to all this stuff it wasn’t unusual for you to go see Sabbath, and then a couple weeks later a band like Yes would come to town or U.K. or Wishbone Ash. Then you’d go see James Taylor. I have entire catalogs of Aerosmith, the Beatles, Deep Purple, Humble Pie, and Queen. I got some friends who say, ‘Dude, I can’t believe you saw Queen with Freddie Mercury.’ I saw them I think it was when I was 13 or 14 years old. I saw them open for Mott the Hoople. I didn’t see them on Night At The Opera, but I saw them at Day At The Races, News Of The World, Jazz, Live Killers. I saw them as an opening act and then those shows afterwards.”
Whether playing live or recording in the studio, The Dead Daisies cover songs from an array of venerated rock acts from the Corabi’s formative years, including Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” and the Beatles’ “Revolution,” both of which express strong sentiments pointed at the Vietnam War and the civil unrest in America during the late 60s. The band unabashedly and respectfully covers them in hard-hitting Daisies fashion.
Returning to a Nashville studio with the Daisies was producer Marti Frederiksen, who worked the dials on Make Some Noise. Corabi says the making of Burn it Down was a collective effort where each member was present from the initial fleshing out process to the final hour in the studio.
“That’s the thing about the Daisies — Nobody really writes a song on their own and brings it to the band. We just all wait until we’re getting together. The management will say, ‘Hey, you guys are in the studio in October. So start getting your ideas together.’ We’ll just noodle around with riffs and then we play them for each other together with Marti. This last record we went up to New York for about 10 days and we wrote in New York, and then we’re like, ‘Alright, I think we got it. Let’s head down to Nashville.’ We do everything together.”
Corabi says parts of the songs, particularly “Resurrected,” sound like classic Aerosmith. “That’s not what we were going for,” he insists. “It just kind of happened. And then Marti heard it when we were recording it — that whole exit part where the song ends. For some reason, he heard it and goes ‘Man, this is very reminiscent to ‘Live and Let Die.’ The end. So I’m going to put strings in here.’ Everybody hears things differently. Everybody sees things differently.
“’Rise Up’ is a bit political, but I’m really not taking the piss out of anybody in particular. On ‘Resurrected,’ I just used myself and Deen as an example. When I was in Mötley and I got let go, everybody wrote me off, and they’re like, ‘He’s done. He had the brass ring and he blew it.’ Same with Deen. Deen was in Journey for 16 years or 17 years and you know, he’ll be the first person to go, ‘Man, I screwed up.’ He was afraid that he would never have the opportunity to be in a band again.”
As it was then and as it is now, rock is the medium of a generation. According to Corabi, The Dead Daisies credo is to make great music.
“We always have fun. We go out, we’re just doing our thing, and like I said, to be still doing music 30, 35 years into a career, we’re all just going, ‘Okay. Awesome. We’re still going.’ There’s no end in sight, man. They’re already putting stuff together for next year. It’s going to be a good ride.”
