Straight.com (www.straight.com) has issued the following report from Steve Newton:

When KISS was ready to record its fourth studio album in 1976, the musicians put their faith in producer Bob Ezrin, who, a few years earlier, had helmed a string of hits for their main influence, ALICE COOPER. As rock history has proven, Ezrin came through for the Gods of Thunder, with Destroyer becoming a colossal smash. Considering those past accomplishments, it’s no wonder Toronto glam-rocker ROBIN BLACK feels privileged to have had Ezrin co-produce — along with Gggarth Richardson — his latest CD, the nervily titled Instant Classic. As the enthusiastic rocker explains during a break from playing poker in a motor home en route to Thunder Bay, it was a veritable dream come true. “It’s really, really hard to explain what workin’ with a man of that calibre does to a young band like ours,” he gushes. “It moves you to have a man who’s made half a dozen of the greatest records of all time believe in you.”

Some would argue that three of those rock masterworks were the ones Ezrin produced for Cooper between 1971 and ’73: Killer, School’s Out, and Billion Dollar Babies. He also put the Midas touch on the Coop’s Welcome To My Nightmare disc of ’75, which featured the guitar duo of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, whose incendiary licks lit up LOU REED’s Rock ’n’ Roll Animal the year before. Black sees it as another major coup that Hunter played pedal steel on Instant Classic’s elegant ballad, ‘Lullaby’. “We actually didn’t get to meet Steve, unfortunately,” he admits, “but it’s just cool to have him on our record. You know, between people like Bob Ezrin, Gggarth Richardson, and Steve Hunter, this connects us to a pedigree of great rock ’n’ roll.”

While covering a tune like SWEET’s ‘Hellraiser’ keeps the ’70s vibe alive on the new disc, there’s one song, ‘This One’s Gonna Hurt You Bad’, that sounds identical to what MOTLEY CRUE was doing in ’81 on its first (and best) CD, the punk-tinged Too Fast For Love. With their fondness for makeup and leather, Black and his tattooed cohorts have that era’s glam-rock image down pat, too. He figures that the visual approach is back in vogue these days.

“Green Day looks just like us now,” he points out. “It’s a bit odd, you know. For the last seven or eight years that we’ve been doing our thing, everybody said that a flashy rock ’n’ roll band playing big anthemic rock ’n’ roll, wearing tight pants and no shirt and eye makeup was irrelevant. Well, right now, big, shirtless, stadium rock ’n’ roll is incredibly fuckin’ relevant, and we’re the best in the world at it.”

Those requiring proof of Black’s heady claim can check him out at the Penthouse Cabaret on Saturday (March 19). “People are still talkin’ about the last time we played the Penthouse,” he boasts. “It was insane. A girl got thrown from the stage, some guy tried to light me on fire. It was complete and utter mayhem—and a really, really good time. And a sleazy rock ’n’ roll band like us playing in a strip bar is a beautiful thing.”