BOBBY RUSH & KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD
Young Fashioned Ways
Growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana, Kenny Wayne Shepherd’s life was galvanized and his musical sensibilities awakened by “Hard Again,” an iconic 1977 album by Muddy Waters in collaboration with guitarist/producer Johnny Winter.
Now a five-time Grammy nominated blues legend himself, Shepherd, the multi-talented singer, songwriter and guitarist reflects, “When I heard those guys together, it sounded like a bunch of friends just playing their instruments, unaware they were creating one of the greatest blues albums of all time. Every time I listened, I imagined, what if I were Johnny and that were me playing with Muddy Waters? Writing and recording ‘Young Fashioned Ways’ with Bobby Rush is my own personal ‘Hard Again’ moment. You don’t find albums this 100 percent, real deal authentic every day.”
Mark Twain once famously said “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” This witticism proved true when Shepherd and Rush – born about 44 years apart - joined forces at Royal Studios in Memphis for the heart and soul-transforming sessions that led to “Young Fashioned Ways”’ 10 stunning tracks featuring Shepherd’s electrifying trademark guitarisma and Rush’s soulful vocals, rhythm guitar and down-home harmonica playing. The animating spirit driving this raw, gritty, truly mesmerizing album by the two Louisiana bluesmen is captured in the first line the 91-year-old Rush sings on the title track retitled “Young Ways”: “Well I may be getting old, but I’ve got young fashioned ways.”
The lead single from “Young Fashioned Ways,” the fast and funky, high-octane someone done me wrong romp “Who Was That,” will appear in “Flight Risk,” a film starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Mel Gibson that releases in January 2025. Subsequent single releases will include the fiery and gritty electric guitar and harmonica driven “Hey Baby (What Are We Gonna Do)”.
While Shepherd got as close as he could ever imagine to his Muddy Waters-Johnny Winter fantasy jam, Rush surely felt like he was back in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where as a teenager he had to don a fake mustache to play in local juke joints with his first band, Bobby Rush and the Four Jivers. Having signed his first record deal with Giant Records at 16 and releasing his Platinum-selling debut album “Ledbetter Heights” at 18, Shepherd has addressed issues of age many times before.
“With me and Bobby collaborating on a project, our age difference is of course going to be part of the initial conversation and makes for good headlines and clickbait,” Shepherd says. “But at the end of the day, he’s an incredibly talented musician and amazing human being who loves the same kind of music I do. We start playing together and all of a sudden, age has nothing to do with us. We were speaking the same language and there was a level of acceptance about truly joining together on the same page with the blues, coming from the same place, spiritually, musically and of course, geographically.”
To that last point, Shepherd was born in Bossier City and raised in Shreveport and Rush hails from an hour up the road (via I-20 and US-79 N) in Carquit alongside Homer and Haynesville. They also have lots in common when it comes to their impact on a genre that’s always been in their DNA. They’ve each won Blues Music Awards - Rush a whopping 16 out of 56 career nominations. At 83, Rush received his first “Best Traditional Blues Album” Grammy award for “Porcupine Meat,” and he’s been on fire ever since, winning the same category in 2021 (“Rawer than Raw”) and 2024 (“All My Love For You”). He’s also been inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame, Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame and Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.
In addition to his multiple Grammy nods, Shepherd has received two Billboard Music Awards, two Orville H. Gibson Awards which honors the world’s greatest guitarists, a Blues Music Award and a Keeping The Blues Alive Award,. He’s also scored eight Top Ten singles on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart shares the record with B.B. King and Eric Clapton for the longest running albums on the Billboard Blues charts with his second album “Trouble Is…” In addition to his15 solo albums (recently including two volumes of “Dirt on My Diamonds”), Shepherd also recorded two albums as one third of The Rides in the mid-2010s with Stephen Stills and Barry Goldberg from Electric Flag. Meanwhile, Rush has released over 30 solo albums since the late 70s.
Considering the passionate tight-knit community of blues musicians, it’s not uncommon for artists of different generations to be booked on and interact at the same gigs and festivals. Shepherd remembers seeing Rush perform on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise a few years before he reached out to book him at his annual Backroads Blues Festival on a couple dates in the Pacific Northwest. After his set, Rush returned to the stage to join Shepherd’s band on a few songs. “We were talking backstage and getting along so well,” Shepherd says. “Sometimes you just have a feeling about people, and you make important decisions in your life based on those. At one point, we looked at each other and I told him I think we should do a record together. Bobby said, ‘Man, I was thinking the same thing.’ It was just a matter of clearing a space in our busy schedules to make it happen.”
Besides time and logistics, one of the key decisions in the making of “Young Fashioned Ways” was tracking the sessions at the iconic Royal Studios in Memphis with prolific co-owner and engineer Boo Mitchell. Interestingly, Shepherd’s choice was less about the facility’s storied and roll call of classic artists (Al Green, Chuck Berry, Ike & Tina Turner, Buddy Guy, Bruno Mars & Mark Ronson) than the fact that both he and Rush had recorded there earlier in their careers and were familiar with the environment. “The more comfortable artists are,” Shepherd says, “the more freely the music will flow. Royal also made sense as a halfway point between where I live in Nashville and Bobby lives in Jackson, Mississippi.”
Considering the stellar results, one of the most fascinating aspects of the “Young Fashioned Ways” experience was the fact that neither Rush nor Shepherd knew what songs would be on the album when they first walked into Royal Studios in December 2023. They wanted everything to emerge as a spontaneous surprise. Shepherd says, “We believed that between each of our unique talents, we could walk in there not knowing what was going to happen but totally confident it would be great.” Rush came in with a huge satchel of lyrics – so many that the guitarist jokes that if they had recorded everything he wrote, they would have 10 albums!
As a leaping off point, “Young Fashioned Ways” includes colorful re-inventions of four classic Rush songs – the hypnotic historical family drama “40 Acres (How Long),” the plucky, humorous acoustic gem “G String,” the vibey and atmospheric, celebratory declaration “Make Love to You” and the New Orleans Second-line stomping character narrative “Uncle Esau.” The original collaborations either found Shepherd specifically writing licks and melodies to Rush’s compelling, witty and insightful lyrics, or the guitarist coming up with a riff or melody and Rush reaching into his satchel and pulling out lyrics that fit perfectly. They recorded all the pieces acoustically to start. If they felt certain songs would sound better with a full band, they had the best veteran blues and R&B cats on tap to flesh them out live in the studio – Steve Potts (drums), Charles Hodges (keyboards and B-3), Darryl “DJ” Pruitt” (bass), Doug Wolverton (trumpet) and Charlie Di Puma (saxophone).
“I think we both had something to prove to each other with ‘Young Fashioned Ways,’” Rush says. “I’m glad I could help bring Kenny back to that Muddy Waters moment in his childhood. There was a moment where I was walking in the hallways at Royal and broke down in tears because as an older man who has spent many years trying to keep up with trends, I so appreciated him letting me in this door to do what I knew I could do. Just as music keeps me young, so does learning something new every day. It’s like he said, this kind of album is a rare thing, and when it comes to the blues these days, you can’t get much better than we have done it. Nobody who is my age is still doing it like this, and no one Kenny’s age can do old-style blues better. We’re both looking forward to doing a lot of shows together to support this.”
JOHN NÉMETH
Biography
Having sung and played the blues since fronting the popular Boise, ID blues/soul band Fat John & The Three Slims in the early 90s, veteran singer, songwriter and five-time Blues Music Awards winner John Németh need only look at the cool sticker on his harmonica case when he seeks creative guidance and inspiration. It’s right there for him to meditate on every time he takes the stage or steps in the studio: “What Would Muddy Do?” “What I love about Muddy Waters,” he says, “is that he pretty much focused on relationships with people and understands what it means to be free and satisfied.”
On Németh’s upcoming album on NOLA Blue Records (his eighth overall), he pays homage to the Father of Modern Chicago Blues via “Illinois Central,” a raucous, hard driving romp chronicling Water’s famous journey on that railroad from Mississippi to Chicago in 1943, a pivotal journey that brought him to the city where he would become a blues legend. Like the other nine tracks on the album – including soulful re-imaginings of Randy Newman’s “Mr. President” and Steve Earle’s “My Old Friend The Blues” – “Illinois Central” was produced by Gary Nicholson, a two time Grammy winner whose songwriting and production credits include a multi-genre array of superstars, including Vince Gill, Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, B.B. King, Ringo Starr, Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Diamond and many others.
Waters’ near mythical story resonates deeply with Németh, who after years of local success in various bands left his own hometown for the greener pastures of the Bay Area, where he rocked a two-year stint with contemporary blues icon Anson Funderburgh and signed his first deal with Blind Pig Records for the release of Magic Touch. Since moving to his current home of Memphis in 2013, he’s become a vital part of the city’s music scene, capturing its blues/soul energy and his life-changing experiences on Memphis Grease, which won a Blues Music Award for Best Soul Blues Album in 2015.
Waters once famously stated, “I been in the blues all my life,” indicting it was his primary way of processing loss and loneliness. Just as he embodied and lived the meaning of the blues through a life of raw emotion, pain and joy that mirrored the genre’s journey from rural hardship to urban resilience, Németh has over the past few years been through a testing fire of great pain, uncertainty, fear and uncertainty about his future. His thorny road through his dark night of the soul leads now to his emphatic re-emergence, stronger and bolder than ever before as an artist and person.
The singer’s travails began on a hunting trip with his father-in-law. Trying to pull a bullet fragment out of a deer with his teeth, he popped out a filling. The dentist he went to had a high-tech panoramic X-ray machine, which revealed ameloblastoma, a usually benign but locally aggressive tumor that develops from tooth forming cells in the jaw and can become fatal if it grows into the brain untreated. The doctor who did his biopsy in Houston recommended a surgeon who had a cutting-edge way of tackling the growth – but the turn of events hit hard.
“It was really scary because recording and playing music has been my only line of work since I was 16,” Németh says. “I made my living touring and was the sole breadwinner for my wife and two children. I was just coming out of the pandemic, working steadily again with lots of gigs coming up, and found myself on a blues cruise waiting for the results. When I found out, I thought ‘There goes everything.’ Overall, I’m a grateful person to have been able to do anything as a musician and was pretty well satisfied with the way things had gone for me. It had been a good ride, and it could have been worse. I was mostly worried about my family.”
Complicating matters was the fact that the radical resection surgery wasn’t covered by conventional health insurance – but his legions of fans came through to the tune of GoFundMe campaign that totaled $175,000. Németh’s friends also helped negotiate the fee down from the original $400,000 as well. Another stroke of good fortune amidst the trauma was the fact that the tumor hadn’t reached the hinges of the jaw, so the doctors were able to cut the jaw just before the hinges. And the tumor had not turned cancerous.
Németh’s dedication to his craft stayed steady during this whole time, and when his surgery was postponed a few weeks at one point, his friend Kid Anderson, a producer and owner of Greaseland Studios in San Jose, suggested they cut a new album – which there was every chance of being his last. He released the appropriately-titled May Be the Last Time in September 2022, four months after the surgery. At the Blues Music Awards, he won the Instrumentalist – Harmonica category and the album was named Traditional Blues Album of the Year.
The surgery, a manibulectomy, involved surgically removing part of the jawbone, with the goal of reconstruction using plates, titanium screws and tissue grafts to restore function and appearance. Németh’s surgical team used a bone from a cadaver leg and were able to mold and soften it. Interestingly when the doctors pealed his face back, they saw jaw muscles unlike any other they had seen before due to his years of harmonica playing. It was a long road to recovery, but he eventually began doing U.S. and European tours again – only without teeth for a long time because the first experimental surgery to replace them failed due to density issues. Németh finally got his new teeth in May 2024.
Just as he was finally able to decompress from those years of medical trauma, relaxing after being “fight or flight mode” for so long, he suffered another unrelated blow – a recurrence of the crippling infectious arthritis (first experienced in 2019) that necessitated the use of a walker and wheelchair, all while trying to maintain his schedule as a performer. “That’s when it wasn’t a pity party,” he says, “but I started wondering, will anyone remember me? Should I find a new line of work? I hadn’t recorded anything with my new jaw and that’s when I got together with Gary Nicholson in Nashville to collaborate on the new album.”
Since it feels like Németh was immersed in a harsh vise of the kind of misfortune blues artists often sing about, it would stand to reason that the eight original songs would be inspired by his various ordeals. Yet they’re not. “Gary and I were writing to have a fun, good time and talking about things we thought would ease people’s burdens, not enhance them. If there’s anything there about my medical issues, it’s purely subconscious. The last thing I wanted to do was relive it. I like to say that the blues discusses all the pain and suffering we go through from Sunday through Friday, but in the end it’s Saturday night music and people want it to help them escape from life’s darker realities.”
Vibing with a cast of top Music City session cats including Grammy winning pianist Kevin McKendree (Delbert McClinton, Brian Setzer Orchestra), bassist Dominic John Davis (Jack White), drummer George Rocelli (Bob Dylan), vocalist/guitarist Joanne Shaw Taylor, brass/accordion/keyboardist Jim Hoke (Paul Rodgers, Bonnie Raitt) and guitarist/co-producer Colin Linden (Bob Dylan, Keb’ Mo’, Lucinda Williams), Németh fires up his vocal and harmonica excitement on a mix of slow burning classic style ballads (“Anything Goes,” “More About Blues”), strutting mid-tempo swaggers (“Nail on the Head,” “Flip the Switch,” “Easy to Do, Hard to Do Good,” “All Mine For All Time”) and raw, raucous, high-octane jams (“Happy or Right,” “Illinois Central”).
“The set has a lot of major key blues while mining the sounds of traditional blues from the 1920s through the 60s and adding a bit of Latin mambo/Afro American and the gospel-soul of my adopted hometown of Memphis,” the singer says. “The coolest thing about the album is that it’s spiritually uplifting and has an overriding sense of hopefulness. That’s the same spirit I carried through all my trials and tribulations these past years. It’s the realization that things could definitely be much worse and everything will work out all right in the end.”
HELLINGS
Biography
Six years and tons of epic all-star rock n rollin’ since Alice Cooper showcased his party anthem “Here to Have a Good Time” on the Deja Nu segment of his syndicated radio show “Nights with Alice Cooper,” veteran indie rocker Brett Hellings launches the next phase of his multi-faceted career – and takes his dynamic artistry to the next level – with the release of “Chance on Love,” the lead single from Mission Sound Sessions, the debut album by the legendary new lineup of his band Hellings featuring longtime Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus (who also produced), bassist Darryl Jones, drummer Charlie Drayton and keyboardist Carey Frank.
Penned by Hellings and in part inspired by his experiences as a first-time dad, the passionate, intimately soulful power ballad features both his gentle low vocals and trademark raspy higher tones. As the emotional intensity builds, the song speaks to the heart of the many facets of love – romantic, expressing the connectivity of humanity and the life changing possibilities of taking a chance on yourself by taking a chance on another.
The stunning black and white video of the track by NYC based photographer and director Oliver Halfin features vibrant scenes of people living daily lives in New York and Brooklyn, intercut with stirring night and day shots of Manhattan from the Hudson River, images of each band member playing and the focal point of Hellings playing piano in a majestic cathedral. Halfin, who has shot for Spoon, Jimmy Eat World, James Bay, Foo Fighters, Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath and many others, is the son of legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin.
Hellings will drop a second single, the emotional, slow building, ever-intensifying Bryan Adams-esque ballad “Am I Dreaming,” in the fall of 2026, with the EP to follow in 2027. Recorded at Mission Sound in Brooklyn, Mission Sound Sessions balances Helling’ sensitive side on the ballads with harder-edged, vocally cathartic rockers featuring Fortus’ blazing guitarisma, including “Power Trip,” the power anthem “Can’t Stop the Clock,” the jamming, piano pounding (courtesy of Carey Frank) “Silver Moon” and the raucous, mid-tempo funk-rocker “Too Blind.”
Mission Sound Sessions is the second Hellings band project, following the 2024 album Borderline, recorded at Sonic Ranch Studios in El Paso and featuring Fortus and a whole different crew of legends, including guitarist Tommy Hendrickson, keyboardist Buck Johnson, bassist Billy Sheehan and drummer Kenny Aronoff.
“That one’s a good album to check out to get in the spirit of listening to the new EP, but it featured a lot of different songwriters,” Hellings says. “The songs recorded with the new band at Mission Sound are the epitome of and the peak of my career, working with artists I have always dreamed of playing with. I also wrote all seven songs, so this was my soul coming through with the opportunity to bring to life more personal lyrics reflective of who I am as a writer. As a producer, Rich is perfect. He honors the spirit of the demos I gave him, keeping the authenticity of what I wrote and adding his amazing twist to it. “I gave him a piano and guitar version of ‘Chance on Love’ and he created this beautiful new intro and powerful guitar solo, backing vocals and strings to bring magic I could never have imagined.”
The Mission Sound Sessions project has its roots in a high-octane gig in May 2023 that Hellings did at The Viper Room on Sunset Strip with a group of top L.A. musicians to showcase the tunes he had recently recorded for Borderline. In town to rehearse for the latest GNR tour, Fortus attended the show and was excited about seeing Hellings work his vocal magic onstage. The two spoke backstage, and sparked by the great memories of recording together, Hellings asked Fortus if he would consider joining forces again like they had done back in El Paso, but with a new supergroup of available musicians.
Fortus immediately embraced the idea and enlisted bassist Darryl Jones and drummer Charley Drayton, whom he had played with in Australian American hard rock band The Dead Daisies in the mid-2010s. Best known for recording and touring with the Rolling Stones since 1993 (the Voodoo Lounge era), Jones has also played in bands with Miles Davis and Sting and recorded with Joe Cocker, Rod Stewart and Neil Young, among others.
A multi-instrumentalist who also plays bass, keyboards and guitar, Drayton’s miles long resume includes the Stones, Keith Richards’ X-Pensive Winos, The Cult, Miles Davis, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Herbie Hancock, Seal and Bob Dylan. Brought in later and rounding out the new lineup for Hellings is L.A. based keyboardist, pianist and Hammond B-3 organ monster Carey Frank, whose multi-genre associations include Tedeschi Trucks Band, Michael Buble, Orianthi, Bruce Springsteen, Kate Hudson, Gavin DeGraw and Jason Bonham.
“Forming this new Hellings band with Rich was such an amazing experience on the heels of the Sonic Ranch project,” says Hellings. “It was such a blast from the start, learning to get creatively between the built-in chemistry between Rich, Darryl and Charley. And Carey is such a consummate pro, he fit right in and made it so easy to get my material down. These guys believed in me and made everything come to incredible life. While I am still working with rock superstars, the Mission Sound Sessions felt much more like a real band, a close-knit family vibing together, singing my songs with them!”
Once Fortus returns from another summer tour with GNR, Hellings and company will be recording another six tracks for a future full-length album. The group has plans in the works to tour in the future, both on their own and as openers for a superstar artist.
SPERIS
It’s testament to the timeless melodic excitement, seductive, funky and fiery grooves and crackling electric guitarisma of multi-instrumentalists and sound designers Dieter Spears and Brian Paris that the revamp of their extraordinary dual new age/rock instrumental project Speris is having such an impact nearly 30 years after they originally conceived and recorded it.
Speris is in the esteemed company of many contemporary new age greats, having reached #15 on the One World Radio Charts for October 2025. It’s likely that had Dieter (bass, Midi drums and Synths, MIDI programming, sound design) and Brian (electric and acoustic guitars, synth and MIDI programming, sound design) managed to hook up with a label and released their initial Speris tracks as an album in 1997, it would simply be a nice relic of another era now – and maybe one that got lost in the shuffle amidst excellent new age rock projects of that decade by genre greats like Paul Speer, Buckethead and the Journey’s Neal Schon. Retooling/re-imagining the album with live bass (by Dieter) and live drums by Gray LeGere brings Speris roaring into the mid-2020s with fresh insight, energy and dimension that stands out as something of an instant classic in the genre today.
From the auspiciously titled “New Beginning,” the perfect seduction and intoxicating intro to the duo’s infectious, guitar centric but sonic surprise filled vibe, through the hypnotic ambients turned propulsive rock funk snazz of “Lost Blessings,” Speris is a dynamic reflection of an organic partnership rooted in a musical and personal friendship that blossomed in the 90s when Paris answered an ad and joined Subject to Change, a Nashville indie rock band Dieter was already a part of. While their very detailed website includes “he said, he said” testimonies of their creative evolution together, suffice for this space to say that it was pretty clear from the moment they met that they were destined to vibe together outside the confines of the band.
Never fully satisfied with the level Subject to Change reached, and craving more “polish, more perfection,” Dieter built a small MIDI studio to lock himself away and create meaningful musical art. When he shared his work with Brian, and vice versa, there was instant excitement – as if Brian’s joining the band was just a stepping-stone to the magic they would create as Speris (a portmanteau of “Spears” and “Paris”).
As Brian says, “Dieter and I hit it off on a personal level, and he took me seriously as an instrumental music composer. That was a real moment for me. Once I heard his demos, I knew I’d found someone to truly collaborate with. We always had a knack for ‘finishing each other’s sentences in a musical sense.” The two began working on new music while Subject to Change was still rehearsing and gigging – and continued for a few years after the band broke up. Dieter adds, “I had a bunch of tunes in progress and wanted to get another creative perspective on them, so Brian came over—and the rest is history. He’s always been great at balancing out my Type A energy and steering the creative process so we both get what we want out of it.”
As we listen to the supercharged and often freewheeling and spontaneous, but always perfectly structured 10 track, nearly hour long journey of Speris, we can enjoy imagining these two mega-talented guys, early in their musical careers, getting together weekly to create an eventual repertoire of 20 or so tunes – in writing sessions fueled by strong coffee and reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation! Dieter was a prolific composer by then, and Brian’s role was to come up with melody lines, a bridge section, maybe a chorus. Or sometimes, the guitarist hit the session with a fully formed tune while Dieter added a bridge or chorus to complete the piece. At a certain point it became obvious that they were making an album. They created a round of mixes in the fall of 1995, and the following year were approached about remixing the tracks and enlisted the assistance of a few Nashville based drum programmers. Then they did full remixes at a commercial studio outside the city.
Who knows why great music sometimes takes decades to find its rightful time? But let’s be glad it did, because SPERIS circa 2023 (when the two reconvened) packs a greater, much edgier punch than their original unreleased album. Dieter and Brian lost touch for years but in the 2010s began running into each other at shows. When a videographer friend of Brian’s found an old video of a Subject to Change gig, they got together to watch and relive old times. Yet as Brian explains it, the reboot of Speris was pretty random. Dieter came into band rehearsal one Saturday in 2023 and asked if his counterpart was interested in rebuilding tunes from the ground up – and getting things released properly. The answer was obvious.
Besides a desire to dust off long neglected musical nuggets and see if they could shine anew, one of Dieter’s primary motivations is the success he’s had as co-owner, VP and popular artist on Wayfarer Music Group, an endeavor which reignited his passion for making music again. Excited about new opportunities to explore, he had been diving through old sessions and unfinished ideas on his hard drive, revising and writing new material. For a time, he had the original Speris recordings on streaming but when he decided to reboot and refresh, he took them off.
“Honestly, with the skills and gear we have now, it just made sense to give the music the treatment it always deserved,” Dieter says. “I always believed these tunes were solid and had an indefinite shelf life. Brian and I stuck pretty close to the original versions but embellished things as well, without rules or restrictions. I think we're better players than we were back then. We got many better sounds than before. When we started anew, I just assumed we'd do programmed drums, but I think having Gray Legere's live drum tracks gave us much more of a live band feel for the final product.”
The duo approached the new sessions like any other project they might be doing in 2023, building the frameworks of the songs in their DAW based home studios. Brian usually started with one of the old tunes and wrote a chart as a new roadmap. He built a multi-track timeline based on what he wanted the arrangement to be – scratch drum track, synths, bass, guitars. Then he gave it to Dieter for further development. Most of the time, they struck pretty close to the old versions, though on occasion, Brian says he wanted to repeat certain cool synth licks Dieter had come up with.
The hypnotic pitter patter percussion and ambient soundscaping in the intro of “New Beginning” hints at its progression as a heavy tribal meets rock tune that rolls as the cutting edge, junglesque mid-tempo throb (maybe to get the heart pumping) to start the day. Thematically, it’s perfect, as Speris embraces their creative resurrection and begins burning daylight pretty quickly. With its bright synth motif dancing above a pulsating bass/drum groove, soon topped with some of Brian’s most intricate, blistering energy, “First Time” finds Speris emphatically conveying a sense of joy, a feeling of great discovery, no doubt sharing through musical expression the feeling they had when they first connected. As Dieter says, “It’s the sonics of immediate attraction and excitement.” By now totally hooked on the Speris flow, listeners will feel the power instantly!
Though the duo doesn’t have any specific overall concept (besides their fortuitous reunion) for the album, some individual tracks seem designed to reflect specific emotions, while others tap into unique, colorful imagery that inspired them. After a bold, symphonic flavored intro, “Melawie,” for instance, offers a dual darkness and light sensation in the whimsical call and response pattern of Dieter’s playful synth motif and Brian’s echoing guitar crackle – followed by the guitarist’s truly letting loose before a return to the hook. Truly one of the album’s most danceable jams, it’s inspired by a photo of a massive life-giving lake in Africa. It’s fun to travel there with these guys! They balance that track’s sizzling intensity with the gentler, mystical, easy flowing “Innocence,” inspired by “innocents everywhere, whether young or old.” Dieter was inspired to composer this highly meditative piece by one of the new age giants of the 80’s and 90’s, the great Patrick O’Hearn.
On “Giants at Dawn,” Speris’ traveling energies next take us, quite literally, to the bottom of the ocean, where Dieter imagines what it would feel like to be an observer of all the fascinating sea life only the bravest deep-sea explorers usually ever see. Moody, more electro-ambient and restrained gems like this offer a balance to the grandeur filled rock madness they create elsewhere, seducing the listener with a less is more aural mentality. There’s boom, groove and edge, for sure, but it’s also one of the duo’s most infectiously melodic sojourns, an immersion filled with the distant sounds of whales communicating and a steady buzzing reflecting how hard it would be for humans to communicate in this environment. Dieter says in his notes that he got scuba certified and tried sitting on the bottom – and was pleased that the literal wave of emotions matched his time there.
The fact that Speris says that “The Villa” and “Faces and Hands” “just came out without much effort for Dieter” truly reflects his natural intuitive talents and willingness to invite everyone, with wild abandon, to explore with him the expanding boundaries of the genre as he channels surreal sounds from God knows where! “The Villa” is a funky classic-styled new age rocker, with deep grooves, the big bam boom of heavy drums and a swirl of synth sparkle and searing rock guitar. Brian says this one makes him think of an imaginary Salvador Dali painting, one that never got put to canvas. As for that other “effortless” work “Faces and Hands,” it’s pure sensual ambient perfection (with some sweet synth melody in spots) slowly building symphonic mystery around another of Brian’s picture perfect, sonically rich rock god excursions. The image they worked off was the ticking clock cadence of music – time marching on…from 1995 to 2023, for instance. Brilliant synchronicity!
Speris takes the musical journey theme quite literally on the album’s most charming, pop oriented tunes, “The Train,” a lighthearted romp spotlighting Dieter’s catchy, free-spirited high toned melody over a mid-tempo locomotive groove – with some tasty, swirling guitar crackles for harmony before Brian calls “all aboard” with his soaring solo action. This piece is a true enduring time traveler with origins in a four-track demo the guitarist created in Memphis circa 1988. Brian originally called it “Windows of the Soul” but it was renamed for rhythmic reasons that will become obvious upon listening.
“The Train” pairs well with the following, more guitar-centric track “Deserted,” another tune emerging from a 4-track Brian demo whose balance of heavier guitars and whimsical synth dances may inspire thoughts of the mix of determination and humor one needs to survive a night alone after being dumped from the train in the middle of nowhere (just speculating here – these guys make storytelling part of the magic). Listeners will agree with the duo’s assessment that there’s a major Pink Floyd influence here – and it’s the epitome of their ambient fusion sound. The unusual, initially haunting, sometimes reflective, other times feisty and celebratory flow of “Lost Blessings” is clearly musical autobiography at work. It finds them digging deep, feeling grateful that incredible music that was once lost to the ages (or a dusty hard drive!) was rescued from oblivion for electronic new age fans to dig into circa 2025.
“I truly love the sonics of the new album,” Brian says. “Everything in the stereo field has its place. The mixes sound polished without sounding sterile. I also think we played better this time around. I'm thrilled that Dieter played bass on everything because he’s a great player. I think we effectively honored the vibe of the original versions as well. For the listeners, I hope this is uplifting therapeutic music that people can play on a road trip, or unwind with after a challenging work day.”
Whether it’s 1995 or 2025, Speris is electronic new age at its most inspiring and masterful.
ORIANTHI
Biography
Because it was as if one musical icon was anointing another, Michael Jackson will always be a foundational part of Orianthi’s incredible rise as one of the premiere electric guitarists of her generation. Blown away by her inventive, otherworldly skills with chords, funky rhythms and her inimitable solos, MJ hired her for his 2009 This Is It concert series and she participated in all the rehearsals.
That same year, Orianthi’s solo career started heating up as well, driven by the international success of “According to You,” her debut single as a singer/songwriter on Geffen Records which hit the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100, the Top Five in Japan and the Top Ten in her native Australia. In addition to being named one of the 12 Greatest Female Electric Guitarists by Elle Magazine, Orianthi was Guitar International magazine’s 2010 Breakthrough Guitarist of Year. “According to You” remains her signature hit, with over 37M streams on Spotify and 26M views on YouTube.
After Jackson’s untimely passing, the multi-talented artist quickly became one of the industry’s most in demand live performers, touring with, among others, Alice Cooper (three years), Dave Stewart (two years), and most significantly – and sometimes under the name RSO – traveling the world on and off for eight years with Richie Sambora. She appeared on “American Idol,” performed “Fine China” with Chris Brown at the Billboard Music Awards and in 2013 paid tribute at the Kennedy Center Honors to Carlos Santana – ten years after the legendary guitarist first invited her onstage with him to jam when she was 18. For Orianthi, who performed her first stage show for Steve Vail at 15, these whirlwind years also included studio work with Jason Derulo, Adam Lambert, Mary J. Blige, One Republic and Michael Bolton.
Amidst all the demand for her galvanizing guitarisma, Orianthi never lost sight of her original goal to be a solo recording and touring artist. In addition to her independently released 2007 debut album Violet Journey and Geffen collection Believe (2009), over the past decade, she has released Heaven in This Hell, O and Rock Candy. She spent most of 2023 touring as a solo artist, including numerous dates throughout the U.S. and several shows in Japan.
Though Orianthi will always be celebrated for her ability to rock studios and packed arenas alike with her blazing style, her signing with Woodward Avenue Records for a series of singles leading up to a full-length album marks an exciting return to her first stylistic love – a more organic, 60s-70s rock blues vibe. Recorded with her longtime band of drummer Elias Malin, bassist Justin Andres and keyboardist Carey Frank, her first 2024 release is “First Time Blues,” which the guitarist describes as “that first time you feel the pain of something different happening to you.” She adds, “You have a childlike love of life and don’t want to lose that innocence, but life can try to take it away from you, so it’s important to hold onto that. It’s a song that can take you back to being excited to wake up and feel grateful and excited about where you are.” Her second lead single is “Bad For Each Other,” an emotional barnburner about being addicted to loving the wrong person.
Reflecting on the full album project, she adds, “The opportunity to perform so many of my own shows this past year has inspired me to reflect more personally on my life and chronicle my feelings in these songs. Some were written a few years ago, some a year ago, and others quite recently – yet they all capture everything what I’ve been through in the past to who I am today, as I’ve gone through different changes. My mindset has shifted significantly based on these experiences, the same way as you’re forever changed from being in a relationship. You’re never the same person you were before.”
Throughout her recording career, Orianthi has benefited from the guidance and expertise of numerous top veteran producers – including Dave Stewart, Ron Fair, Howard Benson. RedOne, Marti Frederickson and Jacob Bunton. On the new songs she’s recording for Woodward Avenue, Orianthi comes full circle, self-producing for the first time since Violet Journey and once again taking the advice of her old friend Prince, who once told her, “You don’t want people putting outfits on you.” That advice could extend more literally to her status as one of rock’s greatest purveyor of alternately classic and loud millennial hippie fashion, topped with hats inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Nicks.
Orianthi says, “I loved working with all these producers, but I’ve also learned there is something authentic about picking up the guitar, getting in the studio with your band and using all my skills as a gear nut that cuts to the core of who I am. There’s something liberating about spending a lot of time alone and fixing my energy on this different wavelength, getting back to myself. I’m grateful for the freedom to do that. It’s the same with clothes. I dress how I want the song to look. My aesthetic is to reflect the energy of the song in what I wear.”
Capping a fascinating journey that began with her taking her dad’s Gibson 125 to school in Adelaide, Australia to play in front of anyone she could, Orianthi has, in addition to four Paul Reed Smith (PRS) guitars that constantly sell out, a signature Gibson S-J200, which is the second biggest selling artist acoustic of all time next to Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley Signature models. She also has her own coffee line and is developing lines of clothes (naturally) and jewelry in addition to a signature vodka.
“I owe a lot to my dad for shaping my musical sensibilities growing up,” says Orianthi, who studied classical piano before switching to guitar, with his encouragement, at age six. She enrolled at Tafe University in Adelaide at age 10 to learn classical guitar theory. “Through his incredible record collection, he introduced me to Eric Clapton, Cream, Elvis, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Freddie King, Santana, Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys album, and The Beatles. Sports and guitar playing was a way to bond with him. My mum was listening to the Rat Pack, Tom Jones, Richard Marx and Michael Bolton – so I had a pretty wide range of music in my life.
“Besides being grateful to my parents for providing these foundations, I’m honored to call musicians like Steve Vai, Carlos Santana and Billy Gibbons friends and mentors, and am grateful that they’re always around to offer a word of encouragement during the challenging times. I hope as my career progresses, I can continue to live up to the inspiration they have given me for so many years.”