Vocalist John Corabi has played with some of the most recognisable names in hard rock. As well as collaborations with members of KISS, Ratt and L.A. Guns, he was, most famously the man who, for a short while replaced Vince Neil in Mötley Crüe. Now with The Dead Daisies, he’s is currently on the road promoting their just-released second album ‘Revolución’. We caught up with John backstage at Download Festival to discuss the new band, touring with KISS and the small matter of his time fronting L.A.’s most notorious act.
So John Corabi, how are you today?
I’m real good man. Is that an Irish accent? I went there in 2008 with Ratt, and we played Belfast. We got off the bus and our tour manager came off and he was wearing this orange Denver Broncos t-shirt, and a guy came running out of the venue and he said “you can’t wear that shirt”! It’s like in L.A. where you have the red and the blue [gang colours]. I also played in Dublin, and then afterwards I went to that bar [Bruxelles on Harry Street] that has the statue of Phil [Lynnot, Thin Lizzy band leader] outside it. I had a blast. The people are lovely in Ireland. They definitely schooled me on the art of drinking.
I’m sure you knew all about drinking that before you visited Ireland.
Actually my mother was Irish, and her maiden name was Hayes. She told me; “you know why God invented whisky? To keep us from ruling the world!”.
You played at Download with The Dead Daisies today. You’re quite new to the line-up, aren’t you?
It’s been like four months, and it’s been crazy. I literally got a call, I went to L.A. to meet them, and like two weeks later I was in Cuba, and then a couple, three weeks after that I was in Australia writing and recording the record, and then a month after that I was in L.A. rehearsing with them, and now we’re over here with KISS.
With a list of familiar names in the band, would you call The Dead Daisies a ‘Supergroup’?
The whole ‘Supergroup’ thing; there’s so many expectations with that. To me, it’s just a bunch of supercool guys. We all love all that seventies s**t; we all grew up listening to Grand Funk, Deep Purple, Aerosmith, [Led] Zeppelin, The Beatles. We want to somehow try and leave everything at the door and go back to being those seventeen or eighteen year old kids that were in a garage just dreaming about our heroes. Super players, yes, I’ll take any day, but I don’t like the title ‘Supergroup’. None of us do - It is what it is.
It isn’t a phrase that I’ve seen the band using.
There’s no egos with this thing at all. We’ve figured out after all the years and all the different things that we’ve done, how to communicate with each other and still have fun and get our point across without being an a*****e about it. I’m too old for f*****g drama. I don’t like drama, and I don’t like doing things that are miserable. I just want to have fun, and this band has been a lot of fun.
As you mentioned, you’re currently on the KISS tour throughout Europe. How’s that been?
Yeah, I’m blessed because we’re doing a lot of festivals, so I’m seeing guys and hanging out with my friends, like the guys from Slash’s band, Five Finger Death Punch, Hellyeah, and today there’s Mötley. It’s been very cool, but the thing with KISS is, I’ve known Eric Singer [drummer] for many years; we do the ESP project together. Gene [Simmons] has been one of my biggest supporters, like even before I was in [early 1990’s outfit] The Scream. He’s always been like “you’re going to be a rock star”. I know all the guys, and they’re being very kind to us.
Are you going to get a chance to catch Mötley Crüe who are playing later today?
Unfortunately, no. I think they go on around seven or eight o’clock tonight, and I will be about two hours into a drive to Paris. We have to leave as our schedule is pretty hectic. Our manager told us that we have around forty interviews scheduled tomorrow. I saw some of the crew guys and I told them to say hi to the boys for me.
How do you think the album that you recorded with Mötley Crüe, 1994’s self-titled release, holds up today?
In a lot of ways when we were doing that Mötley record, we kind of had the same mentality that we did with this Dead Daisies record. And it’s weird to me, and this is just my opinion - some people can tell me to go f**k myself, whatever, and they do, – but I think if you took a different band name and put it on that record and put it out today, it would be huge right now. I think we did a great job, and it was an amazing time. I’m very proud of that album. I have a solo band and I’ve been out touring in America playing that record in its entirety, and it’s been going over great. There’s been people telling me “I’ve waited twenty years to hear this”.
Finally, and you beat me to it, but have you got any plans to bring the Mötley Crüe Anniversary shows to Europe?
My manager’s actually working on something. I can’t tell you when, but hopefully in early 2016 they want to bring me over. I know a promoter in Germany has offered us, like ten shows, so if we do Germany we’ll try to do Italy and France and hopefully the U.K. I think there are a lot of fans that would like to hear that, so we’ll see what happens.
