By: Justin Beckner

The Dead Daisies are back with their fourth full length studio album. There is perhaps no band around today better suited for flying the flag of classic rock that The Dead Daisies. The legendary lineup currently enlists David Lowy, Doug Aldrich, Deen Castronovo, Marco Mendoza, and John Corabi. In the following exclusive interview, John Corabi talks about the new album, Burn It Down, touring plans, and songwriting. 

John formerly was a member of Motley Crue during Vince Neil’s exile from the band. He was also in The Scream, RATT, and ESP.

Justin: You’ve got a lot going on –you’ve got a new record coming out soon and then you’re going to be on the road through like November.

JC: Actually I think it’s more like December. We’re busy beavers for the rest of the year.

Justin: Busy is good – I got a chance to listen to the record, solid stuff, by the way – it’s heavier than some of your previous stuff. Did you have any idea of where you wanted to go with this album going into the studio?

JC: Thank you. We didn’t have a clue to be honest with you. It’s really weird how this band works – we don’t really walk in with any finished songs –it’s just riffs and we just start bashing them out. I call them maps, it’s just sort of a foundation for a song where we have a beginning, an end, a verse, ect. But we just keep writing.

Pretty much every record we’ve done since I’ve been in the band, we’ve written like 20 or 22 songs and then at some point during the writing process or the recording process, there will be one song that dictates what the record is going to sound like – it’s just something that sort of happens for us. The first two songs that really started dictating for us, the way the new Burn It Down record was going to go was “Rise Up” and “What Goes Around” – those two songs were a bit heavier than what we thought they would be but it was like “hey, that sounds great. If that’s where we’re going, check out this other heavy riff idea I had!” – It just sort of happens and it’s really organic and spontaneous and quick. We just literally, as on the other two studio albums, we go in with no songs, we write for about a week and then we immediately start tracking and we have literally written, tracked mixed and mastered the records, on average, in about 5 weeks.

Justin: As far as tracking, do you play it live or do you do the tracks one at a time in the studio?

JC: We record live. The amps are all in different rooms but were all sitting in a room with the drummer – always have, always will. Because the guys feed off the drummer and if the drummer is accenting something, the guitars will start doing it. But yeah, the bed tracks are all recorded live.

Justin: It feels like a live record in some ways – it doesn’t sound like it was recorded to a click – the songs even change tempo sometimes. I like that. That’s rock and roll.

JC: Honestly, all the bands I grew up listening to like Humble Pie, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, that’s what they did, they set up in a room and laid it down. With The Beatles, it was a whole other thing- they were singing and everything at the same time, which is insane to me. But yeah, it’s just back to the old days, its old school, Led Zeppelin would do a record in a week or two. A lot of my favorite records are that way. Even The Black Crowes, there were a couple of them – I think it was their second one, Southern Harmony, they were on tour for like a year or two and then they went in and did their next record in like 10 days. Our opinion is that a good spontaneous, honest record you should be able to knock it out within the span of five weeks. Done.

Justin: My favorite parts of those old classics are the mistakes or the things that weren’t planned.

JC: I’m sure if I really honed in and microscope everything, I’m sure there are some flubs in there but we just do what we do and let Marti [Frederiksen] do what he does and then we just knock it out. The other thing is, we’re so scattered all over the United States. David [Lowy], our guitar player is bouncing back and for the between Sydney Australia and New York, Deen [Castronovo] lives in Portland Oregon, I live in Nashville and Doug [Aldrich] and Marco [Mendoza] live in LA. So when we have a record to do, we all just start stock piling riffs and when we go in, its work, but we enjoy it. We try to get three or four ideas down a day. Then when we go into the studio and we’re in studio mode, were in the studio every day at 11 and we work every day until 9 or 10 at night. No days off until were done. Everyday you’re there, its hotel rooms, food, studio time, it all costs money. We’ve all been doing this long enough to know that. When we were kids it was like, “let’s have a party in the studio and invite our friends” – it all comes back later. The money we save doing that is money we can put into touring. So we go to work, we do our job, and that’s it.

Justin: You mentioned Marti, I’ve heard you refer to him as another member of the band. What keeps you coming back to him?

JC: He kind of is. If you look at bands like Hendrix, Aerosmith, Zeppelin was a little different because their constant was Jimmy Page but if you look at Queen or The Beatles, they had a guy that understood the band, understood the vision, understood their personalities, knew how to get the best out of everybody, and was capable of giving the band another vision of something that they didn’t see before. I’ll use “Eleanor Rigby” as an example. It’s been stated more than once that Paul McCartney had written the song and he had it mapped out one way and then they went into the studio with George Martin and he suggested they just do it with cellos and violins – so there’s nothing on that song but an orchestra and McCartney’s voice. It’s just having those fresh ears and eyes but also having someone who understands the band. Marti is like out Jack Douglas with Aerosmith or Bob Ezrin for Alice Cooper. He’s “that guy” got us – He knows Doug and knows how to push his buttons to get the best out of him, he’s the same way with me and Deen and Marco and David. He’s got us figured out so I love working with Marti.

Justin: You guys make good music together. So Marti is the constant but you had one new member of the band, Deen.  How did he come to be in the band, were there auditions?

JC: Well Brian [Tichy] has a ton of stuff on his plate and he came to us and just said he wouldn’t be able to do the tour. So we were like “Alright its cool, no worries” – I guess now he’s going to do a solo record. Marco had worked with Deen before and Doug had worked with him in Revolution Saints. So they brought him up and so we called him – we were in New York, writing, at the time. So Deen came out and was there for the writing process – he had some great ideas. He came in and did an amazing job. We felt like we didn’t miss a beat. I think he did awesome.

Justin: Is there a moment on the new record you’re most proud of or excited for fans to hear – either in the songwriting or the performance?

JC: I think honestly all the songs to some degree have a lyrical thread through them but I just love the record. There’s a bit of a story to every song. I could sit here and go through every one and tell you what I was thinking about when I wrote the lyrics but I don’t like putting out what I wrote the song about. I like when people listen to it and they find something in the song that relates to them. For years I would sit and go like, “what is sitting on a corn flake? Lucy in the sky with diamonds, what does that mean? What is misty mountain hop – what does that mean?” I think there’s a little beauty in mystery. Even with an old song that I did called “Father Mother Son” – I know what that song is about and I’ve stated it but it’s weird because other people have their own interpretations. That song is about a son who has passed on and he’s an angel looking down at his parents and he’s made some mistakes and I don’t tell you what the mistakes are, whether he was drunk driving or overdosed on drugs or whatever, but he’s looking down and wants to say all these things to his parents that he could never say or that he wished he could have said. But it’s funny, people listen to that song and it reminds them of their mother who passed away or something. So everybody gets their own thing out of the songs. That’s one thing where I know MTv was responsible for blowing up a lot of bands in the 80s but one of the things that I hated about MTv was that it gave you one person’s vision of the song.

The video was a guy who got hired to make a vision and they bring it to the band and as long as there were girls in it, it was great and they would do a video and its one person’s take on a song. That’s what I used to love about music growing up – there was no video and you and I could sit down and listen to “Kashmir” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” and we could be sitting right next to each other and we both walk away with completely different visions of it because you find references that make sense to you. I think the Burn it Down record is pretty straight forward lyrically. Now you’ll have certain songs where you can apply your own twist on it like I know what I wrote “Rise Up” about but you might listen to it and go like, “my boss has been giving me shit, fuck that guy” you know what I mean? You can apply in whatever way you want.

Justin: You did a Rolling Stones cover [“Bitch”] on the new album too. What made you pick that one?

JC: Well we’ve historically done a cover or two on every record. Honestly, as long as we’ve been doing this, were all still music fans – huge music fans. We do it as a tip of the hat to all the guys we grew up listening to. There were a million Stones songs we could have done but I think that riff, even in the original version, the way the stones play it, it’s pretty aggressive. We were listening to it and we though if we Dasie-fied that riff with Doug playing it on guitar, we could make it even more aggressive, so we went with “Bitch” – plus the title is fucking awesome.

Justin: Historically, you do a lot of covers in your live shows – can fans expect some surprises on the tour?

JC: Were pretty notorious for changing things up depending on if were playing a festival or a club – set length changes stuff up for us. We tend to change our sets quite a bit. So at this point I can’t really tell you what songs you’re going to hear. All I can say is that it’s going to be loud, it’s going to be aggressive, and it’s going to be pedal to the metal. I’m so blown away at rehearsals – everybody did their homework. The first day we were shaking the rust off but we could literally go out and play a show tonight.

Justin: This was Day 2 of rehearsals?

JC: Today was Day 3 – we’ll probably do one more day of rehearsals and then we’ll take a couple days and work up some acoustic stuff because we do a lot of one-off shows. So were going to work up some cool acoustic stuff. We do a lot of radio sets and every time were in Hamburg, Germany we’ll set up at the Hard Rock and play an hour or hour and a half acoustic set.

Justin: Will you guys ever do a completely acoustic album?

JC: I wouldn’t doubt it at some point. I would love to do it. I’m not going to say no. – I don’t know what the future will bring. I don’t know what I’ll have for breakfast tomorrow. I wouldn’t put it past us, were very capable of it.

Justin: Do you find that some songs take on a new life when done acoustically?

JC: Yeah, we haven’t dove into the new record yet but from the last record we were doing one “A Song And A Prayer” – we were working on it and it just didn’t sound right, and it was the one that we thought would lend itself to an acoustic reworking. We were trying to mimic what we did on the record and it just wasn’t working. So we had to strip it down and do the bare minimum. Sometimes we tend to overthink shit and try to force stuff in there that doesn’t need to be in there. You really have to bring it back to just the main chords and sometimes you’ll change the melody up a little bit.

Justin: The old cowboy chords…

JC: Exactly. I do a lot of acoustic sets and if you heard the acoustic version of “Hooligan’s Holiday” as opposed to the original – the melody is the same but the song is completely different.

Justin: You’re a multi- instrumentalist – what do you get from playing guitar that you don’t get out of singing?

JC: Playing guitar gets me thinking more about the melody in my head. But it’s funny for me playing guitar and singing at the same time, if I’m singing I’m giving 100% to the vocals, if I’m playing guitar I’m giving 100% to the guitar. But if I’m singing and playing guitar, I’m only give 50% to both. So with the Daisies, I like playing guitar when I have to. Recently with my solo band I used to play guitar as the only guitar player and recently I added another guitar and now I can front a little more. So I kind of like the freedom of that whole Aerosmith setup with a singer and two guitarists. Then I can just play piano or guitar when I have to. It’s pretty cool. 

Justin: I heard, once upon a time, you were working on a book.

JC: Yes.

Justin: How’s that going?

JC: Well, I kind of stopped. It’s just weird, dude. I was just sitting there and I was looking at all these books, like [Eric] Clapton came out with a book, Keith Richards did one, Aerosmith did one, then [Steven] Tyler did one, then [Joe] Perry did one, then Slash, and it was just weird – I think in the last 10 years, so many musical biographies have come out. So I started and I was going to do it and then this flux of books came out and now I just don’t want to look like I’m jumping on a fucking bandwagon, you know what I mean? So I kind of put it aside. Then it was funny, we just did this KISS cruise and there were a couple roadies from back in KISS’s heyday in the 70s and these two guys got together and wrote a book on KISS and I was like, oh my god, we’ve gone through all the artists and now were doing the caterers and the fucking roadie guys. Why would I do a book? People must be so over musical biographies. I’ve got a lot of requests for it but I just didn’t want it to seem like I was jumping on any kind of bandwagon. So I don’t know, I may do one but I just want it to be good. I want a publisher and I want it to be available. I don’t want to do something where I write a book and sell it on my webpage, I want it to be a book, you know? So I may do one, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll wait a bit though.

Justin: There are some good ones out there. There are also some shitty ones. We need more good ones and I would imagine yours would be good.

JC: The thing with my book, my old manager told me once, that I needed to write a book – he knew my background and everything. He said “any other person of lesser character would have offed themselves years ago and the fact that you’re still here is a testament to perseverance and not taking no for an answer.” So he put the bug in my ear. But a lot of people who approached me wanted my book to be like an answer to The Dirt. There are things I’d like to say, like I’d love to sit down and tell people how the song “Uncle Jack” came about. It’s a true story about my uncle who was a child molester, a serial child molester, and the story of how he molested all of my brothers and sisters and I caught him, so there’s that. Then there was this big family turmoil thing and all the court costs and all this other crazy shit and my mom and dad divorced and mom basically lost the house – we were homeless. All this stuff, just getting through life.

Music was always the constant for me. I could always go play my guitar and forget about everything for a while. I was in a band in Philadelphia and I married my guitar player’s sister at 19 or 20 years old – she already had a kid. So there was all that and the struggle of a dude going to California with a dream to be in a band except it was a kid moving to California to be in a band with his wife and his kid and his dog. It was just all these things and trying to make ends-meat and sometimes falling short – there were days where the kid would have a good meal and my wife and I would share a potato and some scrambled eggs. I want to apply that in a way where, it doesn’t have to be just about music, it’s about not taking no for an answer for anything. Never take no for an answer and nobody can deny you of whatever the fuck you want to do.  That’s what my book would be about – it’s not a self-help book, it’s just my story. But I want it to be something that someone could get something out of it and apply it to their life.

Justin: Well I’m looking forward to reading it someday – the story isn’t over yet. You may have to add a few chapters because you’ve got a busy year coming up.

JC: I’m very happy to be here and I’m very grateful. We’re all having fun.

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