Guitarist Doug Aldrich recently guested on the NI Rocks Show. In addition to talking about the recent Dead Daisies album and the upcoming European tour he chatted about the new Burning Rain line-up and the new album, Face The Music, which is due to be released on March 25th. The complete interview is available here, an excerpt is available below.

NI Rocks: This year The Dead Daisies are promoting what you’re calling ‘Daisyland’. What can you tell us about that?

Doug: "That’s a really fun thing. How it has worked in the past, it may be a little different this time so bear with me, but you can find the details on TheDeadDaisies.com. Daisyland has worked like this – the first 100 or so people that showed up to the venue got in early and we would do a kind of impromptu jam, pre-party. We’d play some songs, answer song questions, sign some autographs and just hang-out and have a sing-along. We’d set up in front of the stage to do that kinda semi-acoustic’ish. Then we’d take a break, do the meet and greet and then do the proper show."

NI Rocks: The press release accompanying the tour promises a two hour show each night. Any rock fan worth their salt would be mad to miss it!! Is there anything else you can tell us about what you’ve planned for the tour?

Doug: "We always try to change it up a bit and we’ve got a couple of surprises for this tour. It’s going to be some time before we’re able to return so we want to make sure that this is a really special tour. So we’ve a couple of surprises but also included in that is the Daisyland factor. Also we’re probably going to be doing some acoustic performances within the set, just to mix it up. People really like that. We started doing it this year. We did it in Japan once and it was really cool and kinda breaks up the show a little bit. It gives people a chance to catch their breath and then the show picks up for the second half."

NI Rocks: When we did the interview in 2013 we talked about a lot of your earlier work so we’ll not go back over that, but at that stage Burning Rain had just released the album, Epic Obsession. On that album you and Keith St John were joined by bass player Sean McNabb and drummer Matt Starr. I noticed recently on Instagram that you had posted a picture of Brad Lang and mentioned Blas Eias. Are they now part of the band?

Doug: "Yes they are. They worked on the new record that is coming out on March 25th on Frontiers."

NI Rocks: That was my next question. March time then? 

Doug: "Yeah, March 25th is the release date. I wanted to work it so that it wasn’t going to interfere with The Dead Daisies at all. Because last time, like you said, when we released the last record it was in the middle of a Whitesnake album process. And as with The Dead Daisies, if I’m working on an album process, it’s kinda hard to promote the record properly. So I wanted to time it so that I could do some things with Burning Rain to promote the album. It’s gonna be great. Those guys played great on it and Keith St John sounds amazing. The last two records we mixed ourselves and did everything ourselves, but this time we’ve got Alessandro Del Vecchio who I’ve worked with on Revolution Saints and he is mixing it and mastering it. And it’s nice to be able to pass off to someone with good ears who can hit it fresh."

NI Rocks: Is there likely to be a single from that album sometime soon?

Doug: "There will be, but I don’t know when. It’ll probably be later in the Fall. The record is called Face The Music.

NI Rocks: I look forward to that. Are we likely to see Burning Rain getting out on tour?

Doug: "I would love to do that. I’m actually looking at doing some guitar clinics and bringing Keith with me. I would do a little bit of a guitar, meet and greet, clinic situation and then Keith would join me for acoustic promotion for that record. That’d be in the spring before The Dead Daisies ramps up. The Dead Daisies has a plan that starts in May, I believe, so we’ll probably just do some promotion first and then The Daisies have a break I can book some Burning Rain shows. But I definitely want to bring the guys over. It’s a great group of guys and the new songs are going to be really fun to play live."

The Dead Daisies are coming back to Europe and The UK this winter; confirmed tour dates are as listed:

November
10 - Pwllheli, UK - Hard Rock Hell
11 - Inverness, UK - Monstersfest
13 – Liverpool, UK - O2 Academy
14 – Sheffield, UK - O2 Academy
15 – Newcastle, UK -  O2 Academy
16 – Leicester, UK - O2 Academy
18 – London, UK - O2 Academy Islington
19 – London, UK - O2 Academy Islington
20 – Oxford, UK - O2 Academy
21 – Birmingham, UK - The O2 Institute
22 – Belfast, Ireland - Limelight
27 – Weert, Netherlands - De Sosuil
28 – Zoetermeer, Netherlands - De Borderij
29 – Kortrijk, Belgium - De Kreun
30 – Lyon, France - CCO

December
2 - Porthcawl, UK - Planet Rockstock
4 – Lisbon, Portugal - LAV
5 – Madrid, Spain - Mon
6 – Barcelona, Spain - Salamandra 1
7 – Marseille, France - Le Moulin
8 – Fontaneto, Italy - D’Agogna Phenomenon
10 – Venice, Italy - Revolver Club
11 – Zagreb, Croatia - Boogaloo
12 – Budapest, Hungary - Barba Negra
13 – Graz, Austria - PPC
15 – Regensburg, Germany - Eventhall
16 – Frankfurt, Germany - Batschkapp