"For My Friends" (group's first album since 1995, the year frontman Shannon Hoon died; first single: "Wishing Well"; Hear here; Read here)
(Melonex Audiological Laboratories/Adrenaline, April 22, 2008)
BTW: If you had asked guitarist Rogers Stevens five years ago if Blind Melon was ever going to get back together, he would say "No way."
All that changed when his former band mates met Warren, formerly of Rain Fur Rent.
"We had no interest in doing this" beforehand, Stevens tells P&P, "and that's a testiment to Travis, of how good he is and how much it worked. We had all gone off and done different things (after Hoon died) and were doing well in our own respects. We really threw our lives into chaos and took a big risk. We paid for everything ourselves; we paid for the record even before we even thought about getting a label. We've put all the cards on the table at this point."
Stevens says Blind Melon took its reunion literally one step at a time.
"The first thing we wanted to do was to see if we could write together with Travis," he says, "and once we realized we could do that, the ball really went down the hill from there.
"The prerequisite for me was that we're not going out there and just play our old songs. I wanted us to make a new album that could hold up with the old ones."
To that end, he says they achieved that goal.
"I think it's going to fit on your iPod under the Blind Melon category," he says. "It's inevitable that when we play together we're going to sound like that. Obviously, there's a new lead singer, and it's difficult thing for some people to get over. The general vibe of the sound is very close; the songs are little more focused and less schizophrenic - we used to go all over the map.
"There's something about (Warren's) vibe that's very similar, in a lot of ways, to Shannon. I think, because we had gone so far down that road with Shannon, as far as writing songs and personality-wise, it's so strange how other people would come in and you'd hear different kinds of voices, different types of people, but Travis' voice is naturally in the same register as Shannon's, so he could sing the old songs right off well. And there's something about his style. He grew up listening to Shannon; Shannon was his favorite singer, so he already had Shannon's influence and picked up a lot of things that we liked about Shannon as well. He's not mimic; he's brought a lot of his own stuff to the table in a big way."
Natasha Borzilova (former lead singer of the Russian band Bering Strait)
"Bittersweet World" (producers: Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, will.i.am, Chad Hugo; guest: Tom Higgenson of Plain White T's; new single: "Little Miss Obsessive"; Hear here; Read here)
"The Doors Vinyl Box" (seven 12-inch 180-gram HQ vinyl LPs, featuring the original stereo mixes of "The Doors," "Strange Days," "Waiting for the Sun," "The Soft Parade," "Morrison Hotel" and "LA Woman," plus "The Doors" in mono)
Go next to April 29, 2008