JOHN SYKES - Blue Murder Again?

[HARD ROCK UNIVERSE]

Guitarist JOHN SYKES (ex-BLUE MURDER, WHITESNAKE) spoke to Rockers And Chasers weblog about a number of topics including his current release, the Japanese-only release, Bad Boys Live. A few excerpts from the chat follow:



Rockers And Chasers: Why record a live album versus recording a studio album?

Sykes "I had this idea. When I went to Japan I brought along my Pro-tools. I spoke to my manager and told him I should bring them with me and record the shows while I'm there. So my manger talked to a few labels over there. Being that we've recorded there before, it all worked out. Plus it gives a retrospect of my history of some of the stuff I've done."



Rockers And Chasers: The material on Bad Boys Live is material that is more of your hard hitting repertoire.

Sykes "I just wanted to keep it with the more hard and heavy hitting material and not to throw the fans for a loop. You know that the hard core fans wouldn't know or recognize that material. So I just decided to stick to the material that I know fans will like to hear. The performances that we captured on 'Bad Boys Live' are strong and sound great. So I just stuck with it. I'll probably do something with my other material on our next live album."



A Blue Murder re-union, fact or fiction?

Sykes: "That's other project that I'm looking at of possibly doing again. I talk to Carmine (Appice - drums) on a regular basis. He wants to put Blue Murder back together again. It would be fun, but it's really all about timing. I'm doing this tour, Carmine is doing the VANILLA FUDGE thing and Tony (Franklin - bass, ex-THE FIRM, WHITESNAKE) is doing several projects right now. Everybody is doing their own thing right now. So it really comes down to timing."

[Speedy]

Who the heck cares about a Blue Murder "re-union"? 99.99999999% of people didn't even know they existed. I am amazed when some interviewer brings up a possible "re-union" to bands who had little or zero impact. Nothing against Blue Murder but they were hardly a blip on the R&R radar screen. Let alone a band that needs to "re-unite".

[HARD ROCK UNIVERSE]

Personally speaking I'd be interested in hearing the results if they were to reunite, as they're all excellent musicians, and Sykes is a phenomenal guitarist. Their 1st, self titled album was great, the second, with new musicians for the most part, was okay, it had its moments but wasn't up to the level of their 1st. It'd be good to hear John rocking again with some original tunes rather than going out as Thin Lizzy

[Speedy]

nightwatcher said:

Personally speaking I'd be interested in hearing the results if they were to reunite, as they're all excellent musicians, and Sykes is a phenomenal guitarist. Their 1st, self titled album was great, the second, with new musicians for the most part, was okay, it had its moments but wasn't up to the level of their 1st. It'd be good to hear John rocking again with some original tunes rather than going out as Thin Lizzy

Personally....I'd like to hear it too.....but realistically I know it would sell about 3 copies.

SYKES needs to try something new.

[hifi]

mrspeedgene said:

SYKES needs to try something new.

Yep, I think that's the real point of all this discussion.

He's another one of these very kick ass yet very underrated musicians who never seemed to get into quite the right project to make a name for himself.

IMO he should move on and put something entirely new together. I believe there's a lot of people who would love to see this guy live but it would be more interesting to hear him touring with something fresh (a few old tunes thrown in ok), not retreading the past again.

Nothing against the Thin Lizzy stuff ... I've heard those were good shows ... but, yes, something NEW now.