BURNING RAIN, a hard rock band founded by guitarist extraordinaire Doug Aldrich (REVOLUTION SAINTS, THE DEAD DAISIES, EX-WHITESNAKE, DIO)and vocalist Keith St. John (MONTROSE, KINGDOM COME), are pleased to announce the release of their fourth studio album, Face the Music, on March 22nd via Frontiers Music SRL.
– How was it recording the Burning Rain album Face the Music? From a musician in a studio point of view?
DA-It was really an awesome situation. Cause the writing and recording was done on breaks from The Dead Daisies. And the release was planned to come out while I am on break.Keith and I wrote songs last year…we got a group of songs together that really felt cool… Once we have the basic songs together we went back and did some pre-production on them ourselves….some solo section changes and lyrics and stuff like that. But we need the rest of the band and that’s what I suggested to Keith about Blas and he suggested Brad and it really worked out great with those guys. I think musically this is maybe a more raw and straightahead burning rain record. And it goes in some new directions lyrically which I think Keith did an amazing job on.
– Who’s idea was it for the album artwork? Interesting concept indeed.
DA- That was Keith‘s idea he’s got a great vision on art, I think it came to him based off his lyrics from Lorelei. This song has a seriously cool lyrical content and musical content and I’m glad that it tied in to the album art and face the music title.
– Since the beginning of the group in 1998 has their been alot of changes in the recording studios with technology that you personally have noticed?
DA- Oh man it’s like night and day we record the first couple records on a 2 inch tape machine that I had. During the next later years ProTools started to pop up and so Epic Obsession and the new record have been made on ProTools. I basically got the chance to really really learn pro tools while I was in Whitesnake. I spent a lot of time on David’s ProTools rig.
– How many shows do you play per year on average yourself, and how crazy does the schedule get?
DA- I just came off of the tour last year with The Dead Daisies that was 100+ shows but we were doing three shows a day sometimes with the Daisyland performances and everything else….it was really busy. The planning part is the easy part the hard part is the traveling in the unpacking and packing every day. There’s a saying that goes I do the music part for free what you have to pay me for is for me to travel and get on planes and taxis and cars and everything else the travel is involved!
– When you look at your career and imagine how many projects, bands and shows you have done in total. It must be overwhelming. How do you manage it all?
DA- I’ve been extremely lucky and blessed in this career. I’m just very thankful for the opportunity to play guitar for a living… really it’s down to two bands I work for right now which is the dead daisies and burning rain.
– How important are music videos in the industry today? How do they compare to videos from 20 years ago?
DA- I think they’re important and then they help sell a record or a song let’s say but obviously they’re getting more hits on YouTube then an actual TV. It’s crazy the old videos used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and now you can do it video for $2000. That said you get what you pay for ha ha.
– How important is it for a musician in this generation to spend time on social media?
DA- i’d say it’s important it’s the best way for you to spread your music to other people and get your name out there as a player or as a band ….It’s very important also because the whole music scene changed and some avenues of income of dried up but other avenues such as social media open up opportunities for musicians to spread their music and their name and certain people make a lot of money on social media.
– What would we be surprised to find in your music collection at home?
DA-I would say a CD of Maya the bee in German that I listen to with my daughter on the way to school!!! Actually have a lot of everything I love classic rock from 50s up. With SiriusXM radio there’s a lot of everything you can check out or on Spotify you can go back and put together a playlist of a really cool.
– Where do you see music in general going in 100 years from now?
DA- i’m not sure but I certainly hope the rock music is still around it ain’t dead yet!!!
Thanks to everybody for all your support we really appreciate it!!
Thank you so much for your support of the Burning Rain Face The Music recording!
http://dougaldrich.burningrain.net/
Claude Schnell Interview 2012: Dio keyboard player
Rowan Robertson Interview 2011: Dio Guitarist