TONE WORLD "NEWZ"
07/12/06
The Van Halen Tribute Trilogy.
Last year The Slashtones did our version of David Lee Roth's cover of Louie Prima's "Just a Gigolo" for a tribute CD for Van Halen's first vocalist, David Lee Roth. A few weeks back I finished producing a version of the Sammy Hagar sung 'Montrose' classic "Rock Candy" for a tribute to Van Halen's second vocalist, Sammy Hagar, and before "Rock Candy" hits the stores this August I'll be bringing my merry band of musical misfits back into the studio to do a couple of tracks for a 'Van Halen' Tribute CD thus completing the Van Halen family tribute trilogy.
The mastermind behind all these and many other tributes is Jake Brown, the head of Versailles Records. A trusting soul that has allowed me to release the reins of my musical madness since our first collaboration on Versailles' 'Cult' tribute CD back in 2000. Jake has let me basically march as far off the musical cliff as I want. after I took a guitar driven song by the 'Cult' and made a saxophone the lead instrument. Since then I thrown a middle eastern sound into a 'G-N-R' tune, went back to the Las Vegas days of Louis Prima for "Just A Gigolo" and took "Rock Candy", a simple guitar, bass, drums & vocals song and added keyboards, saxophones, vocal harmonies, cowbell and Gregorian Chants. (Yes, Gregorian Chants!)
The Van Halen tribute will feature two or three songs produced by the Slashland family. Scheduled to be recorded are "D. O. A." from 1979's "Van Halen II" as interpreted by RECKLESS FORTUNE and Van Halen's version of the 'Kinks' classic "You Really Got Me" from their 1978 self titled debut CD as recovered by the Slashtones. (The third song is "Eruption", but I'm not sure if I'll be covering that or not.) Like previous sessions, I have a preconceived idea of the direction I plan to take with the songs, but like always, nothing is carved in stone. One thing is for certain, you can expect a lot of cowbell.
The as yet untitled Van Halen tribute will be in stores later this year.
Peace out,
Harry Slash.
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