The Dead Daises are back on our shores next month, after a successful year touring their 2024 album Light Em Up. We caught up with frontman John Corabi to hear about their surprise new record Lookin For Trouble – a Muscle Shoals inspired blues covers album with a twist, how much he likes visiting the UK, why you should beware of the US/UK “language barrier”, and even Earl Grey Tea…

So where did the idea to record a blues record come from?

Well, you know, it’s funny – we were actually writing for the the Light Em Up record, which came out late last year. We’re still kind of promoting that record as well. But we went down to Muscle Shoals, Alabama – the legendary studio, home of the legendary house band, the Swampers, and we want to do something different. It was kind of a bucket list thing for all of us, including Marti Fredricksen, our producer and we went down to this studio for, just like nine days, 10 days, and it was crazy when we were down there. It’s a functioning studio, but it’s also a museum, and they do tours every day, around dinner time, and they talk about some of the artists that have recorded there. We would go get some dinner, and obviously, cocktails would be involved – then we’d come back to the studio. We just kind of started jamming, and we just started goofing off with some of these just random old blues songs, just jamming. And Marty “kept the tape rolling” though obviously its all Pro Tools now, but he just kind of clicked the session on and just started recording some of the shit, and we listened back to it, and we were like, This sounds really cool! So we said, alright, you know what? let’s do a blues record. We were kind of pulling double duties, because we were kind of technically working on two records at the same time. But it was just really about that room, being in that studio and and just looking at some of the old photos of Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, the Allman Brothers – Dwayne Allman was. discovered at that studio. We were just really inspired by the room and the history, and we’re like, Well, fuck we’re here – let’s do something. Whether it gets released or not, let’s just record some shit for prosperity. We came up with a quick arrangements mapped it out, and we just kind of played them live off the floor.

A lot of these songs that you’ve chosen could be considered the sacred texts of blues – did you feel a duty to preserve them, or did you kind of want to put your own spin on it? Because you guys are all accomplished players in your own right.

To be honest with you, one of the things that we realise – this is our disclaimer – none of us are blues aficionados, not one of us. And I think, like most rock fans in America, we all kind of overlooked this art form that was really kind of created in America. And I’m not blowing smoke up your arse, but thank God for the fucking British. Because all of this shit, all of this stuff that white America was overlooking and kind of ignoring, made its way over to England right after World War Two. The guys like Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, The Beatles, Fog Hat, Humble Pi, Led Zeppelin, all those cats took a liking to this music, and interpreted it their way and basically re-gift wrapped it and sent it back in the 60s and 70s. And then we went “Oh, this is brilliant!”

So one of the things that we tried to do, we used Led Zeppelin for our example in how they approached it. They covered When the Levy Breaks, and the other was In My Time of Dying. They just took these songs, kept the melody, they kept the lyrics, but they just reworked all of the music to make it sound like Led Zeppelin, and that’s what Marty was basically suggesting. He goes, “You know, it doesn’t take anything to just learn a song from a record and then just replay it again. Let’s make it sound like the Dead Daisies.” So it was almost a running joke. Every song that we looked at, we would kind of laugh and one of us would yell into a microphone “what would Led Zeppelin do?” I thought what they did with those songs was brilliant, so we just kind of took that inspiration. Some blues purists are probably going to fucking hate what we did, but you know what – fuck it. It’s The Dead Daisies doing a blues record. So it should sound like The Dead Daisies!

What was your what was your favourite song to work on?

Well, I think the one that was the most challenging was probably Black Betty. Like we would say, “Okay, let’s do Crossroads” And we could go back and we could listen to the Cream version, or the Lynyrd Skynyrd version, and then go back and listen to the Robert Johnson version and the 100 million versions in between. The thing that was difficult about Black Betty was, everybody knows the version of Black Betty by Ram Jam. But if you go back and you research that song, none of the other versions have music. It’s just this old kind of chant or field song that these prisoners would sing while they were pounding on rocks, or people would sing in unison while they were picking cotton. But there was no music. It was just like this rhyme. So that one we were kind of clueless. At one point, I even said to Marty, “Dude, I don’t know what to do with this song.” And Marty kind of thought about it for couple of days, and then he came back and he goes, “Hey, Crab, do me a favour. Do you have Physical Graffiti on your phone? See if you can sing Black Betty over the stomp from Trampled Under Foot”. It’s kind of like this four on the floor stomp thing. So I went, made a cup of tea, and then I took my phone, and I just, I kind of got in that groove, and, “oh, Black Betty bam-a-lam,” you know. And it worked! So Doug just sat down, he wrote a riff, and we all jumped on it. And if you really listen to it, it’s kind of got this Trampled Underfoot vibe to it, and it just worked. So we just rewrote the whole fucking song and, you know, and mapped it out and tracked it.

You’re coming back to the UK after touring here late last year – do you enjoy performing to UK fans?

You know, dude for me, because of me being a 60s and 70s kid, all the music that I grew up listening to, 85% of it was from the UK. So even my first trip over there in 1991 with the Scream has always just been eyes open like just eyes wide open and embracing everything and anything. The only thing I don’t like about England is your black pudding! Yeah, fuck that shit. And I keep forgetting when I tried to cross the street, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been fucking almost flattened by a double decker because I always just automatically look to the left trying to cross the street. But other than that, dude, it’s been fucking brilliant. Like the English audiences for me personally, have literally embraced every fucking piece of music that I think I’ve ever put out – The Scream, The Motley Crue stuff that I did, even the Union stuff, all the Dead Daisies stuff.  My first record with the band, it was England that really took to the songs on the revolution record to heart – man, they couldn’t get enough of that shit. And I know Americans that sit there and go, “Man, English food sucks” but I fucking love coming over there, man, I love the fish and chips. I love the Bangers and Mash the shepherd’s pie. I love a good pint of Irish Guinness. I just love coming over there and sitting in the pub and and just listening to people chat and just socialise.

It’s hilarious to me that even though we both speak English, my first trip to England, I’ll say I could not believe how much fucking trouble I got into with the language barrier. Walt Woodward (from the Scream) God rest his soul, we’d just done this amazing show at The Astoria Theatre. It was sold out. Walt said “I cannot go back to America without sitting in a pub and having a Newcastle Brown and some whiskey.” So we went to the Marquee. This band, Tigertails was playing, and Walt and I ordered a Newcastle Brown and a Jameson… and then we ordered another one, and then we ordered another one. And about four or five in, this guy came over to me with palm tree hair. I mean, this was still 91 and he’s got, you know, makeup on and crazy hair and and he came over and he gave me that “Hi, mate gotta fag?” And I’m like “excuse me?” and I’m kind of trying to process what “gotta fag?” means. And then finally, after like two or three attempts at this, Walt and I think he’s calling us faggots. And literally Walt just got into a fight with this guy, just the biggest bar fight. We were thrown out on the whatever street the Marquee used to be on – shirts ripped, black eyes bloody knuckles, and just walk back to the hotel. Our record company just thought it was the fucking funniest thing, because we explained what happened, and they’re like, “no! they were asking for a cigarette!” and I’m like, “you could have given us a heads up!” There was a bunch of shit like that throughout the whole week, where we were just constantly putting our foot in our mouth. But I fucking love England, dude and and to be honest with you, my my wife is half English. Her mother’s from Essex, you know, I mean, yeah, so it’s a good time when I come over there.

So after this tour, what have The Dead Daisies got coming up? 

At this point, we just did two records that we’re still kind of promoting, and it just came to our attention a few days ago, the blues record is actually charting on the Billboard blues charts. I’m not sure, I think after this run we’re taking a little bit of time off, and there’s talk of us maybe doing some Blues Festivals, and maybe next year doing some more touring. So we’ll see. I don’t know. I’m sure once we get over to the UK, we’ll probably sit down and do a little pow wow around a bar stool and figure out what the plan is for next year.

So you’re also still promoting Light Em Up, how has the reaction been to that? 

Yeah, it was great. like, the songs that we do from the record live, I’m in the front, so I can see everybody’s reactions. The reactions have been great. A lot of people have been singing the words to Light Em Up, or the song that we did in reference to riding motorcycles, I’m Going to Ride. That one goes over really well. But we’ve done a couple of the blues songs as well, and it doesn’t even matter, like, even in say Slovakia and the Czech Republic, I just say, “Hey, do you guys want to hear some blues stuff?” and they just go fucking crazy. So it’s been good, both records are awesome.

Lastly, just for fun, what’s on your rider that people wouldn’t necessarily expect, because I think the public have like this conception of rockstar rider.

To be quite honest with you, I mean, we’ve been around the block for forever, and I don’t think there’s nothing unusual on our list at all. You know usual things – Earl Grey, tea, honey, I’m really the only whiskey drinker in the band. The other guys drink vodka. Other than that, there’s really nothing – It’s not like we need, some wellies, a live sheep and some lube, you know, nothing like that. You know what? It’s funny, though, but it I’m just sitting here now like answering the question, and I don’t think even in Motley Crue… I would get a bottle of whiskey, Tommy would get vodka. We both got some beer. But there was nothing… as insane as the guys in Motley are, there was never anything like “Okay, our furniture has to be facing east”. I’ve been kind of blessed to always be with relatively normal people!

The Dead Daisies UK tour begins on 13th August at Belfast Limelight, stopping at Edinburgh, Newcastle, Wolverhampton, Cardiff, London, Holmfirth before finishing up with a Saturday headline slot at Stonedead Festival. Get your tickets at https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/the-dead-daisies

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