The Star Online: Entertainment: Music
The Star Online: Entertainment: Music |
| Black Sabbath to release new album, planning for world tour Posted: 10 Jun 2013 11:33 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Forty-three years ago Black Sabbath released its debut self-titled album, a collection of songs inspired by occult themes and powered by heavy-metal guitar riffs. Now, three of the original band members - singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler - and drummer Brad Wilk, of Rage Against the Machine, are releasing a new album, 13, and planning to tour the world to promote it. "I never thought we'd still be going strong in 2013," said Osbourne, whose well-publicized battles with drug and alcohol addiction and solo career led to friction with other members of Black Sabbath. "But it's great to be back together again." 13, the original band's first studio album since 1978, is being released this week. A tour is scheduled to begin this summer in the United States followed by concerts in South America and Europe later in the year. Osbourne said the band had tried to get back together in 2001 but nothing jelled. This time the music flowed. Osbourne said Iommi, who is being treated for lymphoma that was diagnosed a year ago, had great riffs and the band narrowed them down to 10 tracks. "I think working on this album helped Tony take his mind off his illness, but he never talks about it," Osbourne explained in an interview. "And no matter what we have to complain about, it's nothing compared to that." After the band members agreed on the songs, they brought in record producer Rick Rubin to help shape the material. Songs like Damaged Soul, End Of The Beginning and the first single God Is Dead? fit into the band's canon, but others, like the jazzy Zeitgeist, might confound some fans. "It was just a warm-up jam originally," said Butler, "but Rick thought it was great, so it ended up on the album." Butler and Osbourne fight against the notion that Black Sabbath typifies the heavy-metal sound. "I've never been able to get my head around the word 'heavy-metal,'" said Osbourne, adding that the 1970s were better for him than the 1980s. "And I kind of missed the '90s you know - I must have been in a cocaine haze, because I can't remember the '90s at all." Osbourne said the best thing now is that the band members are alive and together and "it is a lot more fun being sober and enjoying your fellow workers." Over the past decade Osbourne carved out a niche on television, appearing with his family in a reality TV show that ran from 2002 until 2005. They also starred in the 2011 documentary God Bless Ozzy Osbourne. Despite being together so long, Butler said the band is attracting younger fans. "We've gotten older but the audience has stayed the same," he explained, "and then you get like a few people at the back that are our age and you see all the gray hair glinting." For Osbourne touring now is better than it has ever been. "It's all right until I have voice troubles and it takes me a couple of gigs to get over the fact that I've been the leader of my own band for 35 years or so and that I have to step back and be a band member. It's just getting used to it and it has worked out great in the end." |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2013 03:16 AM PDT It has taken a while, but Sherry, a former busker, has finally put together a debut album that sounds almost too good to be true. MORE than 18 years ago, he could be seen howling a version of Brown Eyed Girl, at the five-foot way around Central Market in Kuala Lumpur that wouldn't get past the PG 13 rating and cut quite an intriguing figure, singing through the hair draped on his face, which went down to his knees, almost. And partnering him in those pre-Internet days was Sidek (Mat Yatim), the eccentric who wrote songs of the every man's struggles. But Sherry (real name Syed Sharidir Yasni) has come a long way from those days. For starters, he now has Keramat 16, his folk excursion with percussionist Nizam Azis, an exercise the singer-songwriter describes as "putting together all the songs I had written in Malay on one album." But during a recent interview, Sherry, a KL-ite, spilled the beans that a lot more was going on than just the serendipity of opportunity meeting desire. "As a musician, it's important to get yourself recorded. And I wanted to put together a collection of songs with different flavours and themes. These are song I've written over the years," he divulged over coffee and rollies. His vision of keeping the music minimalist was realised, getting a bonus in how much flexibility a smaller setup provides, in the process. "What we really wanted was to make it intimate, so that it can translate in a live setting. We play half the album live." Sherry plays all the guitars and Nizam all the percussion, and there's plenty of both going on throughout the album. Picked, plucked, strummed and slid(e) guitars, Sherry stretches the edges of his sonic canvas to the peak of his ability. Nizam underpins every melodic nuance with a deceptively languid feel that's groovy and tight. The duo clearly shares a musical synergy, and the guitarist is quick to acknowledge the chemistry with the AkashA percussionist: "Nizam's input made it unique, especially with all the different percussion instruments. Initially, I had a drummer in mind." In the years he's invested in his life-long passion, Sherry knows to call the shots. "I'm no control freak, but I conceptualised the whole thing ... which took some years. There was no template, but I knew how the whole thing needed to sound. I wasn't going to change any guitar parts. It was all written in stone, so to speak," the 42-year-old said, smiling bashfully at his own single-mindedness. While there are no obvious references, his influences are proudly all over the place. Whether it comes from his time cutting his teeth feasting on a diet of blues rock courtesy of Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and the like, or hitting the rock gigs in town in the 1980s with various bands, hanging around his mates in Cinema, a recording act that released a handful of albums in its time, he has honed his ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. It was the 1990s which saw Sherry more in the public domain, when he placed himself bare with a 12-string acoustic guitar and a trusted partner, the legendary Sidek, together peddling their own inimitable humour and high jinx. "Musically, the journey for me has been beautiful, and I feel privileged to have worked with someone like Sidek. That experience was very educational and satisfying ... it was just wonderful," he enthused, glad that his learning process continues. And educating himself he certainly did during his formative years of playing the guitar, absorbing his favourite band Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and Black Sabbath. "But of all the guitar players, (Fleetwood Mac founder) Peter Green is my favourite," he punctuated, as he continued to rattle off names of his heroes. Sherry is only too aware that he doesn't fit the demographic of marketable artistes, but is certain he has a musical connection with listeners out there. "I've learned to expect the unexpected. If I like this album, and Nizam likes this album, there surely must be people out there who can identify with it as well," he reassured himself, first and foremost. "I tried to make the songs catchy, so we wouldn't need more things. I hope all this is unique. This is all of what I can do," he shared, admitting to exploring the boundaries of his ability. Keramat 16 being folk was never the plan, though. "I've never looked at the album as being genre-specific. I just wanted to record something to show that I did something." Top on the list was to leave a legacy behind for future generations, and particularly, his 11-year-old daughter. The process of putting the songs down was somewhat cathartic for him, and consequently, he feels spent. "I'm at a stage where I don't know what to write anymore. This is what I had and I've put it all out ... a collection of memories of when I was an angry young man, many of which don't even apply to me today." He has little to worry though, because Keramat 16 looks like it'll become one of those albums that people will speak of with misty-eyed nostalgia for many years to come, like what fellow folk rocker Meor achieved with his Itu Padang, Aku Di Situ a decade ago. Keramat is every bit the brooding cultural showpiece that typifies the album's artwork while the bluesy funkiness of Song Sung pushes the genre envelope and is peppered with his Marc Bolan-type vocal vibrato. Tunes like the cleverly-titled Sigh Young and Trantok are just gobsmackingly pretty, their turn of melody simply sumptuous. Di Bawah Jamabatan is the kind of folk vehicle out of the Seeger/Guthrie songbook, visualised through the eyes of Neil Young or Led Zeppelin, instead. There's just so much love and grace in the way Sherry arranges his tunes and how their structures illuminate his musical journey from rock kid to grungy folkster to the consummate artiste. And because the album is 16 songs long, it's scary to think that you could be on the edge of your seat through every one of the 65 minutes. When opportunity meets unbridled artistry, this is probably the end product. Even if this all took a while, at no point did he contemplate throwing in the towel because failure is never an option. Give him another lifetime, and he'll still do it all the same way. "We all find our space in this world. Ultimately, we give value to our life's experiences. For me, above all, it's always been about the journey, never the destination." ■ Keramat 16 is available from facebook.com/sharidirnizamazis. E-mail enquiries to: sharidir@gmail.com. |
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