Gary Barden – Metal Express Radio

MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP – Universal

May 24, 2022 Bryce Van Patten

Michael Schenker Strikes Gold Few Musicians in the industry have had such a long and starry career as guitarist Michael Schenker. Whether it’s his work in The Scorpions, UFO, MSG, McAuley-Schenker Group or his other varied line-ups, Michael Schenker always delivers top notch songs with great performances. With the release of his new album titled Universal, Michael adds another notch in his belt of accomplishments. He’s expanded on the guest star approach from his last album, and surpassed it with a little help from a few people like Michael Kiske (Helloween) and Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear) to name a few. It’s All About The Songs Universal was produced by Michael Schenker and Michael Voss (Lessmann/Voss, Mad Max) at Voss’s Kidroom Studio, like several of Michael Schenker’s previous albums. Voss and Schenker have been a solid songwriting team for several albums, and Universal may well be their best co-effort to date. Ronnie Romero is the main vocalist, and the touring vocalist for the band, having the perfect voice for MSG’s style. One very special song on the album is “A King Has Gone” featuring Michael Kiske on vocals, Bob Daisley on bass, Bobby Rondinelli on drums, and Tony Carey on keyboards. If you ‘ll notice, that’s 3 former members of Rainbow, and the song is Michael Schenker’s tribute to the late , great Ronnie James Dio. Final Notes Michael Schenker Group – Universal is a really great record, showing that Michael still has all of the energy and talent that brought him to where he is today. Ronnie Romero is the perfect fit on vocals, and with the addition of the guest performers this album is very special indeed. For fans of Classic Heavy Metal, UFO, Michael Schenker, Rainbow, Primal Fear and Helloween (did I miss anyone?), this album is solid …READ MORE

MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST (Live)

November 10, 2018 Mick Burgess

It’s never quite the same when a lead singer in a band leaves and the replacement sings those songs done by their predecessor. It never quite hits the mark. For legendary guitarist Michael Schenker, a fair few singers have passed through the ranks of his band over the years so this presented him with a unique problem. A unique problem requires a unique solution, so rather than have vocalists singing past members songs Schenker has invited four of his previous singers back for one huge tour meaning original singer Gary Barden and former Rainbow vocalists Graham Bonnet and Doogie White along with Robin McAuley were back behind the microphone and joined by the Assault Attack-era rhythm section former Sensational Alex Harvey Band men Ted McKenna and Chris Glenn with Steve Mann on keyboards and guitar. What better name for the band than the Michael Schenker Fest to celebrate a festival of Schenker’s music past and present. Obviously Schenker would open with one of his big production numbers and set things off with a bang, right? Wrong. For someone that was renowned as a shy and retiring type Schenker strode confidently onto the stage alone and proudly announced what lay ahead before starting with a beautifully worked version of the Scorpions ballad, Holiday and with Schenker handling lead vocals himself until the crowd took over in what turned into a rather moving moment. Schenker then threw the next curve ball and launched into traditional set closer, UFO’s Doctor Doctor which was a smart move providing the spring board for the night and featured all four lead vocalists on stage together. Over the course of the epic two-and-a-half-hour set, the show was divided into four main parts with each lead singer taking centre stage for their own set, often joined by the …READ MORE

MICHAEL SCHENKER: “Phil Mogg and Klaus Meine should join the Michael Schenker Fest“

November 4, 2018 Mick Burgess

Guitar legend Michael Schenker is back with the Michael Schenker Fest featuring no fewer than FOUR lead singers from his past. Mick Burgess called him up to talk about working again with these singers and reuniting with the Assault Attack lineup from the early ’80s as well as addressing the rumours of taking part in UFO’s Farewell Tour in 2019. Your latest UK tour starts in early November. Are you looking forward to coming over to play again? Absolutely, we’re getting into gear right now and we’ll be all ready for the tour. We are all really looking forward to it. This is something rather different from a regular tour as this is the Michael Schenker Fest featuring Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet and Robin McAuley from your past and your current Temple of Rock singer Doogie White. This will be quite some tour? We have four lead singers and a two-and-a-half-hour show that will be full of classics and some new stuff. I’ll be covering very different eras of my career so it will keep everything interesting across the whole show. Each singer will sing songs from their own period. You toured last year with Gary, Graham and Robin on vocals, why did you decide to add Doogie as a fourth lead singer? Doogie White was always calling me up asking when we were going to do the next Temple of Rock album. I said to him that we’ve been recording and touring for four years and we needed a break but suggested he joined the Michael Schenker Fest. He has recorded two albums with Temple Of Rock and now he can sing his own songs each night as part of the show. Most guitarists will tell you that it’s hard work coping with one lead singer in a band. …READ MORE

MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST (Live)

March 20, 2018 Scott Jeslis

It was a chilly St. Patrick’s Day on this March 17th in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Fortunately, things were about to get much hotter inside the Concord Music Hall! You see this was the night that famed guitar virtuoso, Michael Schenker brought his merry band of gentlemen to the “Windy City”. Instead of bringing one singer, he brought four! In case you hadn’t heard, Michael just this month released a new album under the moniker of “Michael Schenker Fest”. The premise is the new studio album was recorded, in part, by the three original MSG vocalists (Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet and Robin McAuley) as well as current front man Doogie White. It was preparing to be a long night as around 8 pm the audience was treated to two opening bands, Hessler and Ladrone, both hailing from the local area of Chicago. The performance and music of both bands seemed to play well to the audience in preparing them for what was sure to be a “eargasm” by Michael and boys. Hessler was more of a classic 80s Metal band with bits of anthem-like Metal while Ladrone’s music had touches of Alice In Chains and Kiss even. Both were well received. After both opening bands played Schenker’s road crew of course went to work. During their setup something came off as being odd and curious as the road crew posted, as they all do, setlists in front of the musicians, in this case where Michael was to play. Oddly, this setlist was a total of five pages versus the “typical” two for the “typical” ninety-minute set. Perhaps they used a larger font size for aged eyes? Well as the Metal Gods would have is this was not a “typical” setlist, the five pages held songs for what turned out to be …READ MORE

MICHAEL SCHENKER Interview about the Schenker Fest tour and the new album featuring not fewer than FOUR lead singers

October 24, 2017 Mick Burgess

Guitar legend, Michael Schenker, has worked with an impressive array of singers over the years. He’s brought three of his best back for a tour as he heads out on the road with Gary Barden, Graham Bonnet and Robin McAuley alongside Assault Attack rhythm section Chris Glenn and Ted McKenna. Mick Burgess caught up with a very enthusiastic Schenker to talk about the Schenker Fest tour and the new album featuring not fewer than FOUR lead singers due out next March. Your latest UK tour starts in early November. Are you looking forward to coming over to play again? Absolutely. We recently did a few festivals like Sweden Rock which was great but it started in 2016 when we got an offer to headline Loud Park in Japan and I asked who was headlining the other night and they said the Scorpions, so I said I’d pass. No seriously, we started off at Loud Park and that is the third biggest indoor arena in the world. We had Gene Simmons open up for us. We then did a few shows in Japan and we recorded the Tokyo show for a DVD. When I saw that I thought, that’s it. I had to do some more shows. I financed it myself and went ahead and arranged some shows as Schenker Fest and it’s working out fantastic. This will be the first time the Schenker Fest show will have been in the UK. It’s been quite a while since I played in England so I’m really happy to be doing this. What sort of format will the show take? Does each singer have a few songs then the next one comes on? Yes, at the moment each singer will do a few songs then there’ll be an instrumental and the next singer …READ MORE

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Voices Of Rock

July 20, 2007 Scott Jeslis

In theory it sounds like a simple concept … take two producers who are also accomplished musicians, let them write some songs for an album, and then record those tracks with ten different vocalists to convey each song’s message. In actuality, the concept can be difficult to implement when trying to ensure that the end product doesn’t sound like ten different songs, but as a whole sounds like a “release.” As daunting of a task as that might sound, that is exactly what Chris Lausmann (Bonfire, Jaded Heart) and Michael Voss (Mad Max, Casanova) have done with Voices Of Rock, and they’ve done it incredibly well! Lausmann and Voss not only handled writing the songs and production, they also managed to cover most of the guitar work. The end result is a nice slab of AOR that often crosses into the Melodic Hard Rock arena. One of this album’s most endearing qualities is how large of a part guitars play in the mix; they’re always present and quite often set the tempo. Of course, enlisting one of the premier Melodic Hard Rock guitarists in Tommy Denander doesn’t hurt this endeavor at all. The other strong quality behind this release is the breadth of vocal talent the two have managed to enlist. Each and every vocalist and their associated track are quite listenable and should be enjoyable for any Hard Rock fan. As with any release, there are some tracks that standout more than others, and that’s no exception here. One of the easy favorites will be James Christian’s (House Of Lords) performance and track; it’s quite heavy in it’s own right and perhaps one of the “rockiest” tracks James has been involved with for awhile. Dan Reed and Harry Hess both contribute on slightly mellower tracks than Christian, but the …READ MORE

RADIOACTIVE – Taken

November 11, 2005 Gary McLean

Tommy Denander’s website describes him as “the busiest man in the biz,” and with his name appearing on about 80(!) projects in 2005 alone, there are few people who could disagree with this statement: one wonders when this guitarist/keyboardist/writer/producer finds time to sleep or eat. In the time it took you to finish reading this paragraph, Denander probably recorded another song! Radioactive is one of Denander’s many side projects, and Taken is the third album from this “supergroup” that specializes in slick, Melodic Hard Rock. In addition to Denander, over 30 musicians are credited with playing or singing on Taken. The talent list is impressive: Bobby Kimball, Gary Barden, Robin Beck, Yngwie Malmsteen, Kelly Keagy, Bruce Kulick, Neal Schon, and Steve Lukather are just a few of the artists who make at least one appearance on this disc. Denander also plays on and wrote or co-wrote all of Taken‘s 13 (14 on the Japanese version) tracks. Busiest man in the biz indeed … Fans of Melodic Rock will find a lot to like with Taken: the songs are all well-written, well-arranged, and polished to such a high sheen you shouldn’t look at the album without wearing protective eye wear. The playing and singing is professional; given the talent level on display, one would expect no less. Although Taken has a lot of prime talent, no one noodles about or tries to shatter glass with their voice; the songs come first. Even Malmsteen’s solo on “Shattered” is restrained and tasteful, especially by his standards. With the exception of album opener “C.O.W.” (a short, impressive guitar piece by Denander) and closer “Never Gonna Let Her Go” (a mellow instrumental), nearly all of the songs on Taken are upbeat, hook-filled, melodic rockers that would go down great while you were sitting on the …READ MORE