Butchering The Beatles

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Restless Records
Produced by Bob Kulick & Brett Chassen

This is an all-star heavy rock tribute to a collection of classic Beatles songs chosen by the artists involved. It’s therefore not the same old songs like Helter Skelter and Come Together all over again, but more obscure tracks like Hey Bulldog and Taxman that get a work-over.

In many cases here the amassed collection of hard rockers on this album have really left the original artist in the shadows. Hard rock fans should be drooling just at the line-up on this disc. The guys behind this album are ex-Meat Loaf/KISS guitarist Bob Kulick and session drummer/producer Brett Chassen, and they have put together their usual all-star lineups on each and every track. Just the list of names on opening track Hey Bulldog should pique the interest of anyone interested in hard rock. Motörhead drummer Mikkey Dee and Velvet Revolver/ex-Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagen provide the backing for Alice Cooper and guitar hero Steve Vai. It goes without saying the track sounds better than ever and Vai shreds like only he can.

This album benefits from being packed with rare and exclusive appearances from people who don’t normally do this kind of thing. There are certain rock musicians that seem to appear on all of Bob Kulick’s tribute albums. Ex-Whitesnake drummer Aynsley Dunbar, for instance. Or Night Ranger singer Jack Blades. But several of the people here, mostly guitarists and singers, don’t normally do them. That’s probably the pulling power The Beatles have. Every rock musician of a certain age cites Lennon, McCartney, Starr and Harrison as influences so getting volunteers for this likely wasn’t too hard.

Next up is Back In The USSR, uniting Rob Zombie/ex-Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5 with Motörhead’s Lemmy Kilmister and KISS drummer Eric Singer. Anyone who’s ever wondered how good a guitarist John 5 really is (seeing as Manson never let him really do any serious playing), will find all the evidence they need here. Queensrÿche duo Geoff Tate (vocals) and Michael Wilton (guitar) deliver a pedestrian Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds without much of a hard edge at all. The entire Dio band, minus legendary namesake singer Ronnie James Dio, provide the backing.

Another rare appearance comes with a storming version of Tomorrow Never Knows when Billy Idol, with resident axe-slinger Steve Stevens in tow, does what Tate and Wilton didn’t do enough of, which is rock. They stayed too faithful to the original song, and didn’t make it heavy enough, and that’s something the next set of musicians almost fail to do as well, but when Yngwie Malmsteen shreds, you know about it. Backed by powerhouse drummer Frankie Banali (ex-W.A.S.P./Quiet Riot), bassist Jeff Pilson (Dokken/Dio) and Kulick on rhythm guitar, and led by vocalist Jeff Scott Soto, Magical Mystery Tour becomes a fast paced heavy rock song, showcasing Malmsteen’s guitar playing, as one would have expected, and really making it hard to believe this is a Beatles track.

There’s yet another rare contribution as ZZ Top front-man Billy F Gibbons turns Revolution into a fuzzy, heavy southern groover with help from Def Leppard‘s Vivian Campbell, and joined-at-the-hip vocal duo Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw (ex-Damn Yankees) come together again for a driving version of Day Tripper led by Whitesnake guitarist Doug Aldrich. Shaw and Blades still turn in the slightly sickly harmonies they’re known for, but the thunderous backing provided by Marco Mendoza (bass) and drum virtuoso Virgil Donati, with Aldrich’s always-impressive lead guitar, make up for that.

Probably the heaviest lineup (in terms of the band they’ve come from) of the album take on I Feel Fine, which sees Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter make an unexpected appearance alongside ex-Anthrax singer John Bush, Alice In Chains bassist Mike Inez and The Cult/ex-Testament drummer John Tempesta. King’s X front-man Doug Pinnick and Toto guitarist Steve Lukather rip up Taxman and Union singer John Corabi, Poison guitarist CC Deville and Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell turn I Saw Her Standing There into a punk-infused, fast-paced hard rocker, culminating in a twin-guitar finale between Campbell and Deville.

Iced Earth/Beyond Fear front-man Tim “Ripper” Owens demonstrates how to really sing Hey Jude, but George Lynch doesn’t really make it rock hard enough. His solo towards the end, with Ripper screaming in the background, is magnificent though. Guitar-hero and all-round nice guy (and Bob’s brother) Bruce Kulick (Union/Grand Funk Railroad/ex-KISS) joins Kip Winger (vocals, Winger) for closer Drive My Car, which makes for quite a quirky finish but isn’t about to steal the show at the last minute from the likes of Hey Bulldog, Tomorrow Never Knows and Magical Mystery Tour, even if Kulick’s lead guitar is the most tasteful of the whole album.

Overall this is how to make Beatles songs sound anything other than the happy-clappy pop they are known for. Beatles fans should probably avoid this. The album title is a bit unfair on the excellent renditions here, but fans of the “fab four” are the mostly likely to find it uncomfortably accurate. For hard rock fans this is essential.

“ packed with rare and exclusive appearances ”

Tracklist: Hey Bulldog (Alice Cooper) / Back In The USSR (Lemmy Kilmister) / Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (Geoff Tate) / Tomorrow Never Knows (Billy Idol) / Magical Mystery Tour (Jeff Scott Soto) / Revolution (Billy F Gibbons) / Day Tripper (Jack Blades/Tommy Shaw) / I Feel Fine (John Bush) / Taxman (Doug Pinnick) / I Saw Her Standing There (John Corabi) / Hey Jude (Tim “Ripper” Owens) / Drive My Car (Kip Winger)

Written by Andy Lye
More: Hard Rock, Tribute Albums, Various