The Dead Daisies Locked and Loaded – The Covers Album

All for the love of Rock. That’s the message behind the release of Locked and Loaded – The Covers Album.

The Dead Daisies have never been shy about saluting the artists and bands who inspired and shaped their careers by including ass-kicking cover versions of their favourite songs in every album they release and in every show they perform. The Daisies see themselves not solely as a rock band band for the here and now, but one which also celebrates rock’s rich, crazy, larger than life history.

Now for the first time, all of those cover versions have been brought together under one roof, just so you can blow it to smithereens by playing the album VERY VERY LOUD!!!

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock that there are few surprises in this album, because all the tracks, save Rockin’ In The Free World (Live) and Highway Star (Live) are remastered versions of previously released covers.

Not only is this album a celebration of the rock music which influenced the band, it is also an acknowledgement of the contributions made by the many stellar musicians who have been part of the Dead Daisies music collective over the years. No fewer than 10 of them feature on this album: Doug Aldrich, Jackie Barnes, Deen Castronovo, John Corabi, Richard Fortus, David Lowy, Marco Mendoza, Dizzy Reed, Jon Stevens and Brian Tichy.

If you check out the track listing below, you’ll see the first eight tracks of the album are Dead Daisies staples and will be instantly familiar to anyone who has either seen the band live or listened to their albums. So I’ll fast forward to the new stuff.

First of the two new recordings is a special performance of Neil Young’s awesome Rockin’ In The Free World. Recorded during their set at the Przystanek Woodstock festival in 2017, the Daisies wheeled out some seriously heavy artillery to accompany them. This came in the form of the 60-piece Gorzow Philharmonic Orchestra. The combined firepower of both sets of musicians takes this already great song to a whole new level. Oh to have been in the audience that night!

Rounding out the album is the Daisies’ take on the Deep Purple classic Highway Star. Recorded at the bands’ gig in Zagreb during the Live & Louder World Tour, this is The Dead Daisies at the top of their game. They’ve added just the right amount of aggression, power and bite to make the song their own, but remain faithful and respectful to the original. Jon Corabi effortlessly channelled his inner Ian Gillan and sounded as good as I’ve ever heard him. Obviously the Daisies don’t have someone on keys to do Jon Lord’s legendary organ solos, but they do have Doug Aldrich on lead guitar – and he was absolutely immense here. All in all, probably the best track of the album, and one hell of a way to sign off.

Obviously, many Daisies fans will already have the majority of the tracks from this album somewhere in their collection. They’ll just have to decide whether it’s worth the extra cash to get their hands on the new recordings. My thoughts? BUY IT

Track Listing
Midnight Moses
Evil
Fortunate Son
Join Together
Helter Skelter
Bitch
American Band (Live)
Revolution
Rockin’ In The Free World (Live)
Highway Star (Live)

Formats
Locked and Loaded – The Covers Album will be available in a suite of formats including DigiPak CD, Coloured Vinyl with CD in paper sleeve, digital download and streaming.