ROCK SCENE

JASON MCMASTER of DANGEROUS TOYS

Jason McMaster of Dangerous Toys talks about his ROCK SCENE

JACK RUSSELL of GREAT WHITE

Jack Russell of Great White talks about his ROCK SCENE

SEBASTIAN BACH

Originally recorded in October, 2018, Sebastian tells us about his Rock Scene!  
Happy Birthday Baz!

JASON HOOK of FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH

Jason Hook was born and grew up in Canada. His mother enrolled him in piano lessons at 6 years old. It didn’t take long until he knew the piano wasn’t for him. So he asked his mother if he could take guitar lessons instead. His father bought him an imitation Les Paul from Sears and Jason started playing guitar. A neighbor was forced to part with a few Kiss records and gifted them to Jason. He would listen to them while looking at the covers and decided that he wanted to be Kiss. He asked his father to buy him a bass and a drum kit so he could start forming bands which he did throughout his school years. After graduating high school, he started sneaking into bars which led to the desire to start a bar band. It didn’t take long before that band was formed and signed to Electra records. To his dismay, shortly after they were dropped by the label, leaving him to make a big decision. He would either have to get a “real” job or move to L.A. to give music another shot. With a couple hundred bucks, he dead-headed from Canada to L.A. where he had one friend. He crashed on his friend’s couch and began playing guitar with everyone and anyone he could. It was with one of those bands where he met Jeremy Spencer. The two of them knew they wanted to be in a band together. But after several projects, decided to do their own things. Jason began playing with Alice Cooper and Vince Neil while Jeremy answered an ad and began writing songs with Zoltan Bathroy and formed Five Finger Death Punch. While 5 F.D.P. were about to record their second album, Jason joined them and the recorded the Platinum selling “War is the Answer”

NITA STRAUSS of ALICE COOPER

Nita Strauss takes her name from composer Johann Strauss. She grew up listening to classic rock with her father and picked up the guitar at age 13. After going to the movies to see “Crossroads” she knew she wanted to be a musician. The scene with Steve Vai just blew her away. Only two years later, she started playing in clubs. Since the age limit was 18, she would wait outside until it was time for the band to play. She played in and with as many bands as she could. Eventually, she wound up playing guitar in Fem Fetale. They played a show on the Monsters of Rock cruise. Kip Winger was in the audience and impressed with her performance. He met with Nita after the show and they discussed possible projects they could work on in the future. Shortly after the cruise, Nita got a call from Kip. He told her Alice Cooper was looking for a guitarist. She nailed the audition and is proud to be a member of the Alice Cooper band today.

RICK NIELSEN of CHEAP TRICK

Rick Nielsen talks about his Rock Scene originally recorded Sept 10th, 2016 

JOE PERRY

Joe remembers going to the family dinners as a child where his uncle would play Portuguese folk songs on his home made guitar. His parents got him a clarinet and piano lessons but after listening to Ike and Tina Turner and Roy Orbison and Elvis on the radio in the late 1950s  he wanted to emulate the sounds he was hearing so he talked his parents into getting a guitar and started playing around with it for a while. When he heard the Beatles when they came out in 1964 playing guitars he grabbed his from the closet and started to get interested again and First time Joe saw a live Rock & Roll band was at his high school dance. He soon got together with some friends and started playing some Beatles and Byrd songs. But it was the hard rock that really got to him. Joe talks about the new bands coming over after the first British Invasion died down that he gravitated to that were coming over. “This band like the Yardbirds had guitars like I never heard before. The Stones were pushing the edge with distorted guitars. That was a big influence on me”

STEVEN ADLER of GUNS N ROSES

Check out Steven Adler talking about his ROCK SCENE growing up, getting his first drum set, and the first record he bought, KISS ALIVE 1. He reminisces about how he met Slash in history class when he was 12 and seeing Axl & Izzy’s band 'Hollywood Rose' at Gazzarri's on the Sunset Strip.

ACE FREHLEY

Ace Frehley talks about his ROCK SCENE

STEVE VAI

Upon discovering his aunt’s piano at the age of four, Steve Vai had what he describes as two epiphanies. The first one being that when he played notes to the right, he noticed they got higher. When he went to the left, they got lower. “Right at that moment, music just became very clear to me. That’s how music is created.” The second epiphany was realizing the infinite nature of the creation of music. “I was immediately flooded with the understanding of musical creativity. It was almost as if I was picking up from where I left off in another life or something like that.” He knew right then and there that music was all he wanted to do, and that he would never stray from the path of music. When he was a teenager he started taking guitar lessons from Joe Satriani, and started playing in local bands throughout high school. He attended Berklee College of Music and started working as a transcriptionist for Frank Zappa. Vai left Berklee to tour with the Frank Zappa band in 1980. Throughout the Eighties, Vai toured and recorded with David Lee Roth, Whitesnake, and many more bands. In 1990 he released his studio album, Passion and Warfare.