In the early days of THIN LIZZY , Eric Bell played the blues to excited crowds, which packed the bars and clubs in Belfast.  Everything changed when “ Whiskey in the Jar ” broke the mould and started the band on their climb to stardom.  But Eric never gave up his love for blues music.

Now, 30 years later, Eric has returned to his musical roots and is once more exploring and recreating songs from blues heroes such as Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Howlin' Wolf, Albert Collins, Elmore James and Albert King.

Says Eric:  “I've never lost my love for the blues.  It's the music of the people for the people.  Every type of human emotion is etched into these timeless songs.  They are about the things that we all know and understand in this crazy life of ours – love and hate, wealth and poverty, tragedy and success.  You cannot paint a better picture of mankind than through the blues because it affects who and what we are.”

Eric intends spending most of this year touring the UK and Europe with his band – bass player Tony Williams and drummer Andy Golden - taking the blues to new limits.

Some of the songs in the show will be from the band's new CD “A BLUES NIGHT IN DUBLIN ” (VP247 CD) recorded “live” in the Olympia Theatre, Dublin.

Eric has also rummaged through the song archives and found blues material that is well worth dusting off and given an airing.  And he's written several new blues songs, to be featured in the show.

On stage, Eric is joined by bassman Tony Williams, who has performed with (the late) blues star Freddie King, bluesman Dick Heckstall-Smith and Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler.

Drummer Andy Golden makes up the three-piece band.  Andy has recorded two albums with Mick Green and The Pirates, played blues with jazz virtuoso Andy Sheppard and has performed with Mike Wedgwood, of Curved Air and Caravan and Mike Paxman from Judi Tzuke.

Eric and his band have four CDs currently available:  “Live Tonite,” “Live Tonite …Plus,” “Irish Boy” and the new release “A Blues Night in Dublin.”  A second blues album is planned later this year.

Whilst working mainly within a format of rock and blues, the trio leave themselves enough space to improvise and extemporise so that anything can happen on the night - and it usually does!

On some gigs Mark Stephens, who plays keyboards for Chuck Berry, will join the band.

Eric Bell Band current line up:

Eric Bell: ex- THIN LIZZY, EX THEM 2 - guitar / slide guitar and vocals.
Tony Williams: ex- MARK KNOPFLER'S 'CAFE RACERS' - 4 string bass, 5 string bass, fretless bass and vocals.
Andy Golden: ex- PIRATES - Drums and percussion.
Mark Stevens: CHUCK BERRY BAND - Keyboards

Source Spotonentertainment UK

On October, 1, Jim Hackett from Glam-Metal conducted interview with Skid Row guitar, Dave Snake Sabo. Some scripts are as follow:

Do you have any song that stands out, that is your favorite to play live?
Man, in all honestly it kind of changes with every show for me. There's like different highlights during every show for whatever reason, whether I'm making mistakes or fucking up or whatever happens. I mean it's a pretty spontaneous show and so for me there are different standouts every week. Like tonight for example like the acoustic version of   “I Remember You” was really awesome for me tonight ya know and some nights it's “Beat Yourself Blind,” Youth Gone Wild” or “18 and Life.” It always changes for me.

How did Skid Row get started?
Rachel and I met in a music store in 1986 and we just started up a conversation. He's always had the X factor. He walked in the room and you know he's a star. That was one of the things I noticed right off the bat. So he kept going into the music store and I was slowly becoming friends with him and we started talking about being in a band. I was forming my own band. So I asked him if he wanted to hook up and try to write some songs together and what not. We did and it turned out to be an amazing experience for the both of us because we realized whatever weaknesses the one guy had that was the strength of the other guy. So we meshed together really, really well and became fast friends as well. From there we started getting all the other pieces of the puzzle together. It's rare that you find someone who is as passionate and driving as you are, ya know, when you want to succeed. He had all that and I guess he saw the same thing in me. So we became common souls at that moment.

Where did you find Johnny Solinger? He is really incredible!
Rachael found Johnny through a friend of the band, who had a website for us. A very longstanding friend said' If you need a singer, there's this guy in Texas. Who is incredible. So Rachel e-mailed him out of the blue. Johnny didn't take him seriously at first. Then we flew him up to NJ to my house where we were rehearsing at and he ended up staying for good. One and a half songs into it, both Rachel and I looked at each other and said “OK he's the guy”.

You guys opened for KISS on the Farewell Tour. Do you have any crazy stories from the road that come to mind?
Getting Ace Frehley fucked up every night! (laughs). That is something I got scolded for.

thought it was in his contract that he couldn't drink?
It was unfortunately. I made him break that contract, but you know what the greatest thing was? That was the first tour with Johnny. It was a long, long dream to play with KISS, and to have the original members on their Farewell Tour. It was such a blessing man. They were fantastic to us. Ace would come in and we'd drink some beers together and I'd drink some vodka with him. We were a terror on that tour, we were out of control. It was the first time we'd been on tour in about four years. We just went berserk, every night was a party. We'd set up room every night with a huge stereo system and a disco ball, booze and a traveling bar with us. It was one of those amazing experiences. We'd come up with this idea, I heard Paul Stanley say he could say anything to the crowd and get a cheer out of them. So I go to (Paul), I am going to give you one word every night that you have to put into your rap every night. So we would give him words like “Diaper Fight” and “Wookie Foot” and the stupidest shit. He would work it in somehow and be like ”Yeah, I see all you people out there partying tonight, don't want anyone getting into no diaper fight and get injured.” I was like Oh my God, he pulled it off every time! It was so much fun. They were so much fun to hang with. It got us back on our feet on the ground. They gave us an opportunity to get back in the public eye again. I can't thank them enough for that.    

Do you have a favorite place to play?
America. I mean we've been all over the world. We've had every opportunity to go to basically every country there is, but for us it's about coming home. When you have that, you're blessed with that life experience of being able to travel the world and play music for people who want to hear your music. It's such an incredible gift. As great as every place has been, it's always been about coming home and realizing how great we really have it here.

How old were you when you first started to play guitar?
Fourteen and a half years old. I'd gone to see KISS when I was 13 at the Madison Square Garden on Dec 19th, 1977. I saw them and my whole life changed that night. I came home and said, Mom I know what I'm gonna do for a living. She's like what? I go I'm gonna spit blood and breath fire and be in a rock band. She's like its sounds to me like you're gonna be in a fuckin circus .She's like you don't play anything except baseball. I was like, well that's all gonna change.

Can you tell us how you got the nick name “The Snake”?
I had one long chest hair when I was 12 years old and it was really long and squirrelly. It looked like a snake and Jon Bon Jovi looked at me and goes “dude that looks like a fuckin snake man. Get rid of that”! I said fuck you man, I'm becoming a man. So I wouldn't shave it and he kept calling Snake and it stuck.

Y ou have a new album coming out on October 24th called “Revolutions per Minute.” Can you tell me a little about it?
I can tell you a little about it. (laughs) I can you it's different than any thing we've ever done before. The interesting thing about this record is it's just a straight ahead rock record. There are no ballads on it. Again all I can say is it's completely different than anything we've ever done and it just goes along with of the attitude of the band. Ya know what just don't give a shit about trends. Writing is a very self serving act and it sounds like a bad thing, but it's not, it has to be that way. You have to write for yourself, you can't write for anybody else. If you write for self then you are being pure and genuine. If you're writing for other people for whatever reason, then you're not being genuine and honest with yourself, so you have to write for yourself and be honest and pure and that's what we've done. That's what we have always done. This record is pretty much straight ahead and it's full force and it's nonstop. It's pretty much a middle finger to the whole business.

Read the whole interview here