John Corabi Discusses New Song ‘Cosi Bella’, Musical Collaborations During Pandemic, Different Cultures and More!

We welcome back John Corabi to LRI. It has been a few years since we have caught up with John. He has since moved on from The Dead Daisies and is getting ready to release a new song titled “Cosi Bella (So Beautiful)” on Monday, August 30th. This was more of a chat than an interview. A very long chat that is! John discusses recent musical collaborations during the pandemic, differences with various cultures around the world, recording process and plan for his new music releases and more! Enjoy!

Legendary Rock Interviews: Hey Crab! It’s Crash. How’s it going?

John Corabi: Going good, buddy!

LRI: The first thing I wanted know was on June 1^st, a cover of the Aerosmith classic “Chip Away At The Stone” appeared on YouTube that you did with Jimmy Burkhard, Christian Brady, Brian Tichy, and Robbie Crane under the name of Voodoo Wiseguys. What’s the back story on that? When was it done? Is there more to come from that?

John Corabi: No, that’s actually what they call kind of a ‘work for hire’.

LRI: Okay.

John Corabi: There’s people that own the website. The website, the thing is called Voodoowiseguys.com and what they’re doing is they’re getting multiple musicians, different musicians to work with each other that may or may not have had the opportunity to do so. They’re just putting it out under the guise of Voodoo Wiseguys. So like you’ll see a song with me and Jimmy and Brian and Robbie and Christian. You know, he’s got other songs with like George Lynch and different artists. Do you know what I mean? So it’s just really the website is called Voodoo Wiseguys and it’s all-encompassing everybody that does music for that guy. Do you know what I mean?

LRI: Okay, yeah.

John Corabi: So it was fun. I’ve always loved that song. I mean, oddly enough, I do that song in my solo sets when I go out and play full band, always have. So Brian called me and said, “Hey, Crab. Do you want to do an Aerosmith song? This guy wants to know if we would.” So I said, “Yeah, sure. What one do you want to do?” And we were kind of tossing it around. I go, “Well, what about Chip Away The Stone?” Me and Brian used to listen to that record when we were in the Daisies, the Live Bootleg record.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: I’ve always loved that song. So he goes, “Yeah, let’s do that one.” So Brian did the drums and then Robbie did the bass, then Christian came in, Jimmy did the guitars. Then they sent me the tracks, I did the vocal and I sent it back to them. Then Robbie Crane just went in and did the backing vocals. We mixed it, mastered it and put it to bed.

LRI:  Cool. Yeah, I was excited to see it. I can’t remember how I came across that, but I was like, “What?”, because I’ve seen you do that song live in your solo set. That and “SOS (Too Bad)” off “Get Your Wings” are my favorite Aerosmith songs.

John Corabi: And to be honest with you, if you listen to the first ESP record, the Eric Singer Project, I also did that-

LRI: Yeah, I’ve got that.

John Corabi: So Aerosmith has always been…back then for me. I mean, my first cover band we used to do “Same Old Song and Dance.” We did “Draw the Line,” “Nobody’s Fault.” We did…Fuck, what was the other one? “Adam’s Apple,” “Toys in the Attic.” We did like eight or 10 Aerosmith songs. Then I was in a cover band and we did an Aerosmith tribute. So we did “No Surprise,” “Milk Cow Blues,” like all the shit. So anytime I get an opportunity to do that, I’ll throw an Aerosmith song out there. Unfortunately, my voice isn’t what it used to be, so singing songs like “Nobody’s Fault” is a little difficult so I’ll just try and find the ones that I can sing. I also did with Greg Smith and a few other cats…I forget who was on it, but if you look at my Facebook page videos or whatever, we did “No More No More” and few months back.

LRI: Yeah. Actually, that’s going to lead right into my next question. Nice segue.

John Corabi: I knew it.

LRI: I’m predictable. Yeah, I was going to ask how, I guess you’d call them pandemic jams, with those guys, like Greg Smith and all them. You did Aerosmith’s “No More No More,” “Saturday Night Special” by Skynyrd, and hell, even “Electric Eye” by Judas Priest. I was wondering how all those came about? Just friends bullshitting, hey let’s get together and do this type of thing.

John Corabi: I just had an issue with my home studio, but Matt Starr sent me a track. You know, it’s just boom, like somebody will call and go, “Hey, Crab. I thought you would sing this really cool. Do you want to take a shot at it?” Like, yeah, okay. I’ve known Greg Smith, fuck, since I forget if it was 2001-2002. I did a tour of Europe with RATT, Alice Cooper and Dio & I met Greg Smith then.

Then Greg and I went over & we did this thing called the Classic Rock All-Stars in Russia with Chris Slade & fuck, who was in there? It was me, Greg, Chris Slade, Bobby Rondinelli, Craig Goldy and Geoff Nicholls from Sabbath & we just over to Russia and same thing. We did some Rainbow shit that Bobby played. We did some Ted Nugent. We did some of my shit. We did some Sabbath. We did some Dio. Just whatever, we did some shit from each guy’s past and it was fun.  So I’ve known Greg forever. He just called me. He goes, “Hey, brother. We’re doing “No More No More,” do you want to sing this song with us?” And I go, “Uh, yeah. I’ll take a shot at it. It’s kind of up there, but I’ll try it.” I just got my studio and kind of figuring shit out. I was just like, yeah fuck, let’s do this, whatever. So I did it, and then they asked if I wanted to do another one, why don’t I pick one? So I picked “Saturday Night Special” by Lynyrd Skynyrd because I mean when’s the last time you heard that fucking song?

LRI: Right. Yeah, that’s not one of their more covered songs.

John Corabi: I did that. It came out great. We got Brian [Forsythe] from Kix to play on it. I played some guitar and vocals. The cool thing as it is nowadays with these Pro Tools studios, you don’t need to be in the room.

LRI: Right.

“Saturday Night Special” [Lynyrd Skynyrd cover]
featuring: John Corabi – lead vocals and guitar, Greg Smith – bass and vocal, Brian Forsythe – lead guitar, Brian Buzard – guitar and vocal, Mike Sorrentino – drums, Tyson Leslie – piano, synth, organ

“Hellion/Electric Eye” [Judas Priest cover]
featuring:
John Corabi – vocals, Robby Lochner – guitars and solo, Brian Buzard – guitars, Lance Eric – bass, Mike Sorrentino – drums

“No More No More” [Aerosmith cover]
featuring: John Corabi – lead vocal, Greg Smith – bass and vocals, Jason Hartless – drums, Brian Buzard – guitar, Steven Mazza – guitar, Tommy Decarlo – backing vocals

John Corabi: Like that’s kind of how I’ve been doing my music. I’m recording, and I’m just learning how to do this Pro Tools thing, so it takes me a little while. But I record it at my house and then I take it as far as I can & I just forward everything to Marti Frederiksen. Then he’ll listen to it, he’ll sprinkle his fairy dust on it and then he’ll call me & go, “Hey, I think we need a backing vocal here, here and here”, or, “We need this” or “We need that.” & if it’s something I can’t do, then he’ll do it. I literally recorded a majority of my shit with Marti and I wasn’t even in the same room with him. So that’s the beauty of…You know, I got friends. They ask me to sing a song. They send me the tracks. I do a vocal on it and then I send it back.

LRI: It’s pretty amazing what you can do with technology these days. Instead of everybody having to be in a studio and-

John Corabi: Yeah, and it’s- to get a little bit of music. We’re doing it regardless of whatever you believe in. We’re being socially responsible by not being on top of each other and singing in the same mic & all that shit as far as the COVID thing goes. So we’re still putting music out, but just doing our thing, trying to make buck like the next guy.

LRI: You brought it up about going to Russia with the Classic Rock All-Stars. I’ve always wondered, you hear everybody talk about like the Moscow Music Peace Festival and how things were then. What was the experience like playing in Russia as far as, say, the crowds, the political situation, amenities etc compared to other places around the world that you’ve played? Are they more modernized now than what the Moscow Music Peace Festival that happened in ’89 was? Or-

John Corabi: In spots.

LRI: In spots?

John Corabi: You know what I mean? It was weird. Like I used to bust their balls about their toilets, like some of their toilets. Not all of them, because if you go to a bigger city like Moscow. If you start veering off course a little bit, and I used to kid with the promoter, he’s since passed away but this guy name Al. Everybody called him Big Al. I just said, “Man.” I said, “You guys are…” Like I’d fuck with him and just go, “Whoa, man. You guys walk around telling everybody you’re a fucking super power.” I go, “Your fucking toilets blow.” I said, “If we ever got to war, all we need to do is just fucking stand in Alaska and launch toilets at you guys and you guys are just going to cave.” So it was just certain things. But I mean, they have great restaurants. The people were awesome. All the shows were completely sold out. I’ve been over there with The Dead Daisies, I’ve been there with the Classic Rock All-Stars. I like Russia. I like the food. The food was good. So the people were nice, really hospitable.

John Corabi: At the end of the day, just like anywhere else, you go there. Like this promoter would check us into these restaurants for dinner at 10 or 11 o’clock and it was like when we walked in it was like the fucking Beatles were coming in & then I started putting two-and-two together & I’m like, okay, we’re eating here. We’re being treated like royalty. Every person in the restaurant was kind of prepared for us to walk in. They’ve all got cameras ready. At the end of the night, Al would walk up and shake the owner’s hand & you’d see like a little envelope would change hands. Al basically worked out a deal with the restaurant owner like, “Hey, I’ll bring the guys by your restaurant. You tell everybody that they’re going to be here. You’ll be packed, just feed the guys for free and then give me 500 Rubles,” or whatever the fuck it was. You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s like anything. Like even here, it’s like if I go to Gibson, they’ll give me a free guitar because I’m playing on Jimmy Fallon. You know what I mean? It’s like one hand washes the other. So it’s just a little more prevalent there, but it’s no different. Even though it’s Communism, they’re very Capitalist in their thinking.

LRI: That’s interesting. I mean, I’ve never traveled abroad, but I always found other cultures interesting.

John Corabi: You know and I just had a conversation with this girl that I met in Jackson, Mississippi, and the club owner took me out again, “Hey dude. Want to go see a band?” “Yeah, sure.” “Okay, let’s go see this band.” It was the night before my show. He took me to dinner. Then we went to go see a band and they offered me free drinks & all this stuff. It was really just basically going to this one club. Then he got me up on stage to sing a Mötley… Like “Home Sweet Home” or some shit, which nobody really knew. It was horrendous. You know what I mean? So it was like just to wander me around through this club in Jackson, Mississippi and drum up business for the following night.

LRI: Mm-hmm…

John Corabi: You know what I mean? So it’s like one hand washes the other.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: But while I was there, I met this girl, she came over to me and was like, “Oh, you must have had a really interesting life.” You know, she was like 23 and I just said, “Listen, man…” We were just talking about how she’s getting married and all this other stuff. I said, “Well, whatever you do, if you can afford to do it, I highly recommend before you start popping kids out, go see some other countries. Go see how the other half lives. It’s really weird. Like this is not really political but you will go to other countries and you’ll go, ‘Oh, wow, like it’s really not that different here. Oh, shit it’s really cool.'” You see how other cultures deal with like shit like work, social, being social with each other. Like for example, if we’re in Italy or Switzerland or Germany or France and they really don’t understand the concept of like America’s fascination with everything ‘drive-thru’.

LRI: Okay.

John Corabi: Drive thru food, drive thru coffee. I mean, I’ve seen drive thru dry cleaners back East. You hand them a ticket. They get your shit. It comes out. Boom, put it in your car. You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: In Italy especially, they get up to go to work. They work hard but then they sit down and they have lunch & it’s very social. They’ll have a glass of wine or an espresso, like they talk with each other, “Oh, hey, how’s your family? Good, da da da da. Oh, my ex-wife and her boyfriend give me grief about my kid.” It’s very social.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: I swear to God, like everybody is so worried. I used to laugh like when Obama was going to push something like the Obamacare, and they’re like, “Oh, Socialism, Socialism, Socialism.” You saw these propaganda posters which he had the Hitler mustache and all this other shit. And see how every other… We are the only country on earth, the only one that has the medicine program and pharmaceutical program & everything, like we’re the only one with a Capitalist medicine program and pharmacy, the only one. In every country around the world they have a different system of medical. And then there’s people will argue about it. Like we’ll debate and they’ll say, “Well, you know, they got those waiting lists and all this other shit.”

John Corabi: So I asked a doctor that came to see me in England. I said, “Do you guys have a waiting list?” He said, “Yes, we do.” It’s prioritized. So if you need a heart transplant but I just need shoulder surgery, they’re going to make me as comfortable as possible but I’m going to go behind the guy that needs cancer treatments or needs a tumor removed from his brain or somebody that needs like the valves in their heart replaced. You know what I mean?

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: So you wait three or four months, but when you get the surgery, it doesn’t cost you anything. And then other argument is, “Well, we got to pay more for cigarettes, and we got to pay more for fuel, and we got to pay more for whiskey. So I know this sounds fucked up.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: But I always looked at their medicine systems like we’re…Here’s another example. You know the band, The Killer Dwarfs?

LRI: Yes, I’m friends with Darrell [Millar, drummer of The Killer Dwarfs]

John Corabi: Okay. So you know a few years ago they were in a horrible car accident where Russ was like rushed to the hospital, huge gash in his head, there was swelling, drain it… It was like touch and go there for a minute because he had swelling like in his head, like in his brain, like all this shit.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: They took him to the hospital and airlifted him back to Canada to have all this surgery, all this shit done. He’s got a nice little scar on his forehead to prove it. I went up and I did some shows with him afterwards & I said, “Oh, shit, dude. Fuck. That’s crazy. What did that set you back?” He goes, “Nothing, nothing.”

LRI: Nice.

John Corabi: So there’s arguments on both sides. The problem with…without getting too crazy political, the problem with America right now is you’ve got people that are so far right and so far left that they don’t even want to talk about the options or the possibilities of a compromise in the middle.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: That’s where America differs from once you go to these other countries and you see, you know what I mean, like how all these other countries, they’re very social. They sit down and they have a meal with each other. You got to France, you go to Germany, and it’s a different thing, man. Even in South America, they sit down. It’s not unusual to go out at night with your friends and sit down, have a meal, have a couple of glasses of wine & converse, you know what I mean? So you start weighing all these things out. Like one of the things too I was saying, like I’ve always looked at the medical systems. Good or bad, you may sit there and go, “Well, that’s not what America is built on. We’re a capitalist country, and blah blah blah blah blah.” Yeah, you’re right and you may not want to pay more for taxes now.

John Corabi: I’ve sat here and thought about it. You go, all right, so in Canada they’ll spend $45 for a bottle of Jack Daniels that costs us $22 or $29 or whatever it is for a fifth then we spend $7 for a pack of cigarettes but in Canada it’s $13. You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: But if you really think about it, what you’re doing is it’s almost like having a fucking 401k plan. Yeah, I’m going to buy these cigarettes for $13 for my whole life but then when I get lung cancer and I got to be on a breathing machine, I got to have hospice care, I got to fucking have Morphine drip & all this other kind of shit later in life, my family is not going to lose my house & everything I worked for my whole fucking life. So, there’s kind of a tradeoff.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: People don’t see that. They just hear the part like, “Oh, you’re on a waiting list and you got to pay more in taxes.”

LRI: Yeah, they don’t do the homework behind it.

John Corabi: Another thing and then we should probably get off of this because you’re going to get a ton of hate mail with people telling you that I’m a fucking idiot (Laughs)…but you know, when I did The Dead Daisies show in Cuba?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: That was 2015 that I went there. Now Cuba’s medical system is set up where they have hospitals for residents and they hospitals for visitors. Okay? So I get sick. I wasn’t feeling well. And another guy named Bernard Fowler, he’s a back-up singer for The [Rolling] Stones-

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: He came with us and he was kind of feeling the same thing. Well, Bernard and I both wound up getting severe sinus infections, sore throats, all this shit. So, we go through this separately, but I went to a visitor’s hospital. They brought me right into a room. A doctor came and saw me. He looked up my nose, looked in my ears, checked my eyes, took my temperature. Then he took this thing and he literally stuck it up my nose into my sinuses, then they used a different camera, went down my throat & scoped my throat. Okay? Now, I just had that procedure done last year in the [United] States, a throat scope.

LRI: Those suck!

John Corabi: It was like $600 bucks to get it done. Okay, so now back to Cuba. I got my sinuses checked. I got my eyes checked, my ears checked. I got my throat scoped. I got two Z-Pak’s and I got a bag of these steroid-ish, these kind of lozenges to help with the swelling in my throat so I could do the shows that we had coming up. Do you know how much my bill was?

LRI: $20??

John Corabi: It was $53 for everything.

LRI: Wow!

John Corabi: So while I’m there, all these people from like Germany, even the States, were in Cuba at the hospital and I said to the guy. I go, “What’s the deal with all of the foreigners in the hospital?” He was like, “Cuba has got one of the highest success rates for cancer treatments in the world.”

LRI: Interesting. I’ve never heard that.

John Corabi: Yeah, well, because we don’t associate with Cuba.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: I got to go and I saw it. Now mind you, there’s poor sections but when they say poor, like, if I understood this correctly, like the people there that work probably make $50 a week, $30 a week but they have free housing, free medical and they get assistance with groceries. So they don’t really…The money is like kind of for extras.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: You know what I mean? So, now could they make things better there? Absolutely! All I’m saying is you got to kind of look at certain things and go, “You know what. I don’t like this, this, and this, but this thing that this country is doing, this one thing works.” Okay, then maybe you incorporate that or that country over there, that’s a shitty idea and that’s a shitty idea but this, this & this is working here. I don’t get it, man. Like people are like so adamant about work. America is truly one of the great countries on earth, you know what I mean? But we’re a little adolescent about it.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: We’re just a little bit like and you’ll understand this if you have kids. What do they say the worst years of a kid’s life are? It’s when they become a teenager, they know it all! (laughs) I’ve raised two of them. I can say that there’s some truth to that fucking theory. If you really look at America in the grand scheme of the history of the world, we are definitely the adolescent walking around telling everybody else how they should do shit and we’re not necessarily always right.

We can’t even get out of our own way with our own politics but we’re going to tell other people how to do it and it’s like, I just… I always tell everybody. I go, “You know what? This is my viewpoint. If you really want to see things and take things in. If you really want to see history or architecture or art or music, for fuck’s sake, I mean Vienna, I live in Nashville, it’s called Music City but the real Music City back in the day was Vienna. Do you know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: That’s where Beethoven and Mozart, that’s where they all lived. That’s where they all went. That’s where they all wrote. You want to know like Shakespeare, he went to a little town in Italy because Dante [Alighieri] wrote there. They don’t come to America. Like I think the greatest American writer they say is Mark Twain, you know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: There’s so many good ones in Europe but it’s just a different thing, man. You got to go and experience other cultures, other ways of life, other viewpoints, let people ask you questions & give you their opinions. I’ve gotten into debates with friends in Switzerland, Germany and Japan & like they don’t understand a lot of things about America but that’s 20 minutes of your life you’re never getting back, by the way. You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s easy to sit here and say, “England is wrong”, or, “England’s medical system is wrong”, or Canada’s or Japan’s or Cuba but if you can’t sit down and look at everything as a whole when you’re there…Italy, look at Italy. There’s some great things about Italy. There’s some shitty things about Italy, too. There’s some great things about America and there’s some shitty things about America. At the end of the day, winding this up, we’re all paying up a lot of money in taxes and we’re not getting anything out of it in the future. This is the only country I know where you can pay money in taxes, pay money towards the system and later on if you get sick or if you have something catastrophic happen to you, you can still lose your home & everything you own because of it.

LRI: Yeah, I’ve experienced that in the last five years.

John Corabi: Just did, my Mom. My Mom and we’ll talk about this later but my Mom was a fine example. She worked every day of her life. She had a heart attack. She was out of work. While she was out of work, her fucking company went bankrupt that she worked at for 26 years. She was 55 and she lost her pension. She has no pay. She was diagnosed with a heart issue and cancer, and at 57 or 55, they told her to go back to work because she wasn’t technically able to retire until 65.

LRI: Wow.

John Corabi: And when she passed away, the State of Pennsylvania took my mother’s home. There were tons of bills, all the shit. It literally cost my family.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s weird. That’s the thing. You lose everything and you leave the debt to your family.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: And that doesn’t seem right to me.

LRI: No, it’s not.

John Corabi: So that’s one of the things that I think…Just go travel. If you’re a wine drinker, there’s great American wines, but like really you need to go to the place like Italy and France where they invented it. You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: And just go see other things. You know, we kid around. That building is really old, man. It was built in fucking 1885 and then you go to Europe, you go to Italy & there’s a building that was built in like 4 BC.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: You’re like, “What the fuck?” Like so it’s all in the eyes of the beholder, man. You know what I mean? But I highly recommend that anybody that’s reading this now, like don’t go to Vegas. Yeah, go to Vegas next year. Spend a little money. Take your family over, take your kids, show your kids like Italy, France, Germany. Teach them about World War II, World War I. Teach them about…Show them the Alps, you know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: Go on a ski trip to the Alps. Like you’ll be completely blown away at the majesty of the Alps. You know what I mean? So experience life. You only get one go around. Make it happen.

LRI: That’s very true. I guess that’s where I got lucky as far as who my Dad is. I mean, he was in the Air Force. Well, okay, back up a little. His Dad was in the Navy and then was an independent contractor with the government. So, my Dad went to High School on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. And so he was raised all over the world. And then he spent his high school years on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. Hearing his stories about that and getting drafted into Vietnam in ’67 & was in the Air Force until ’92. So, he’s been all over the world 10 times and back. Just sitting and listening to a lot of the stories about growing up around where they did, living on Kwajalein…I mean, his high school job wasn’t working at a McDonald’s. They went around and dug up the bunkers that the Japanese had because the Japanese were occupying in the island during World War II. They went around and dug up the bunkers that the Japanese barricaded themselves in.

LRI: And he was telling me this time they were digging a trench to get to this bunker and as they were digging it, skeletons of Japanese fighters were falling out everywhere in this trench. Then they get to the bunker and there’s more, he goes, “We loaded them up in a dump truck along with what they call the pineapples, which were these grenades that the Japanese had, stuck them into this dump truck, drove them out on the reef, and then blew them up. That was his job in High School. I’m like, “wow, I worked at a movie theater for mine.”

John Corabi: It’s weird, dude. Like I want to India. That was a trip. And it’s just like I can’t explain it any other way. It would be the same as like spending your whole life on your street and never leaving. Listen? There’s insanely beautiful places in America.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: You’ve got places like Idaho with the Sawtooth Mountains, Montana, Florida and New Orleans. We’ve got all these beautiful places; you know what I mean? And I would recommend seeing those as well but I’d also go see the rest of the world. You know what I mean? Go see other cultures and other…see how the rest of the world lives.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: You know what I mean? It’s crazy and there’s some things I don’t like. You know what I mean? Like, see, in certain countries there’s a hierarchy and like…I’m not going to name them, but you go to a certain country and it’s like, you get up, you got to work. The man is the kind of the house. Then there’s the kids, maybe the dog and then the wife is somewhere way down the line. I wouldn’t live that way, but you sit there and you watch how certain things are & you take it all in & you’re just like, “Fuck, you know.” So there’s a lot of things that…I have friends that argue and bicker & they have different political viewpoints than me. I can’t even really say, to be honest with you, wholeheartedly whether I’m a Democrat or a Republican. I tend to like look at things and I go, “Okay, what’s the downside to this side and what’s the downside to that side? Which one outweighs the other?”

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: “What’s the positives on this side and what’s the positives on that side? What one outweighs the other?” And you just kind of judge them on that, you know what I mean? I don’t know. You know the world is an odd place right now.

LRI: Very.

John Corabi: It’s very odd, but I really think even more in America, like I don’t know what’s going on with America. Like I think we’re really that adolescent teen that you cannot tell them anything.

LRI: Yeah, we are really in a scary time…I mean, I have a four-year-old son and it scares the shit out of me. It’s like-

John Corabi: How old are you?

LRI: I’m 43.

John Corabi: All right, I’m 62, so I’ve got like almost 20 years over you.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: You know, it’s just weird man. Like I literally go now and I’ll sit at dinner & I’ll go with my wife. We’ll sit at dinner and my wife is on her phone, I’m on my phone then I’m looking around the world and I go, “Man, nobody is talking to each other. Everybody is on their phone, everybody.”

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: We’re just disconnected. Everybody is a know-it-all, both sides. This isn’t anti-Republican or anti-Democrat. Nobody knows how to sit down and I don’t want to say disagree, but there’s a disagreement. Okay, how do we resolve this? How do we resolve that? They don’t know how to do it.

LRI: No, they don’t.

John Corabi: It’s sad, like I sit here and see what happened on January 6th where you’ve got one saying we need to protect voter rights, the other side is like, “Well, they were fair.” I just sit here I go, we’re never going to sort this out because the object isn’t to sort it out. It’s just to block the other from doing what they want to do. It’s a chess game.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s become a game strategy and it’s not about resolving anything for the guy that’s paying your salary. It’s basically about resolving or strategizing on how do we get the power back? That’s it. That’s it. It’s kind of sad.

LRI: Yeah, very sad. The mother of my son, she gives me crap like I’m really old fashioned with stuff as far as the family dynamic, and that comes from my Dad. Like when my Dad got out of the Air Force, he was working… When he got out of the Air Force he was going to become a cop because that’s what he was going to do before he got drafted.

John Corabi: Right.

LRI: He wanted to be a cop. So when he got out of the Air Force, unfortunately, to get into Law Enforcement is kind of a catch 22. A lot of places won’t hire you unless you’re certified. Well, you can’t get certified unless you get hired. Nowadays, it’s a lot easier but back in ’92, it was like, “Oh, you have no experience in this and you’re not certified? Well, goodbye.” They wouldn’t touch him. So he was working in convenience stores and an adult book store. And he was working like three, four jobs. And same with my Mom, she was doing the same thing. He would work 20-hour days, but no matter how much he worked, he got up because my Mom was at work after I got home from school. She was at work. He would get up and make sure every night I had a home cooked meal and we sat down at the dinner table and had dinner.

LRI: I was in eighth grade at this time, he would sit down and help me with whatever homework I had. We would discuss current events or whatever was going on in the world but every night, not matter how many hours a day he worked, which was usually 20, he would get out of bed, make sure I had a home cooked meal and we would sit at the table, just him & I, no TV on, no radio on & we would eat, we would discuss the day & what was going on in the world. I’m the same way with my kid and his Mom. Anytime we’re around each other, let’s make dinner, usually as a family together and then sit & eat dinner together without him being on his little Leapfrog tablet or her being on her phone or me being on my phone & she’s like, “That’s really weird.” I’m like-

John Corabi: My Dad was the same way. We sat down at like five-six o’clock we had dinner. And it was like we talked. Okay, there was no goofing off at the table.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: Okay, if you took three scoops of Mashed Potatoes that’s fine but you better fucking eat them.

LRI: Yep.

John Corabi: It was like that whole thing where you can have six eggs for breakfast but if you crack them and you make them & you put them on your plate, you better fucking eat them & shit like don’t put your elbows on the table.

LRI: My Dad was the same way except he wasn’t a stickler about the elbows thing.

John Corabi: Oh, my God. My Dad was like brutal about that and we’ve kind of lost that.

LRI: Yes we have.

John Corabi: It’s like now there’s the phone and nowadays people just eat when they want. It’s just there’s a little bit of fucking disconnect, you know what I mean? It’s like you can’t say… Like I don’t know. It’s just weird. It’s just like this volleying thing, back and forth, back and forth, back and… And it’s just like, come on guys, seriously? The one thing I tell my friends and like all these people that are voting on your fucking healthcare system, whether it’s free or it’s not free, whether it’s government run or all that other kind of shit, you got to remember one thing, we’re paying for yours. They’re getting theirs for free.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: So they don’t really give a shit, dude.

LRI: No, they don’t!

John Corabi: You could sit here, whatever you want about…You can say whatever you want about your favorite politicians, you whatever, all the shit that you and I are struggling to get, they’re fucking making bank. Dude, they make a lot of money…They make A LOT of money! A lot of them put money in their pocked. I mean, for fuck’s sake, even Bernie Sanders who wants… Everybody is like, “Oh, he’s a Socialist, Socialist, Socialist.” Have you seen Bernie Sanders’ house?

LRI: Yeah, it’s ridiculous.

John Corabi: Yeah, the one on the lake?

LRI: Yeah. It’s ridiculous.

John Corabi: You and I would kill for that.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: Okay, so that should give you an indication, right? I was like well, that’s fine. He worked for it. He’s going to the Senate. He’s voting on things and he’s an ardent support of this and for that, for this, for that, but he’s not wanting for anything.

LRI: No, he is not.

John Corabi: So all these guys, your Mitch McConnell’s, your Bernie Sanders, your fucking Mitt Romney’s, your Obama’s, like they get…all their shit is free dude. It’s all free.

LRI: Yep.

John Corabi: All I want them to do is just sit down as adults and resolve the issues.

LRI: Yeah, it’s like-

John Corabi: It’s a grey area for everything, for everything, health care, gun control, everything. Everybody has got to give a little. For fuck’s sake, we got to do it every day with our wives.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: Why wouldn’t you do that at work? Learn how to do it. All those motherfuckers that are adamant and staunch about this and that & that and this, go home to their wife, when they go, “Hey honey, can you suck my dick?” The wife’s going to go, “Fuck you. Take out the trash first. Okay. If you want me, I’ll suck the balls through your dick sack, but you got to take the trash out and pick up the dog shit in the yard.” It’s a give and take thing, man. Figure it out.

LRI: Yeah, the whole political system here needs a giant douching.

John Corabi: Yeah. This got into a very long political-

LRI: Let’s get on to a happier topic.

John Corabi: Okay.

LRI: All right, one thing-

John Corabi: So you want to talk about cancer, huh?

LRI: Yeah, yeah, eh, yikes. Oh, let’s see. Where was I? I saw a… I think, well, you posted it and I know Bruce has posted, but sometime… What the hell was that? Sorry about that. That was weird. I got sidetracked. I was thinking a plane was going to crash into the house. I live right in the flight line on McConnell Air Force Base, so it’s like we get planes flying overhead all the time. I have-

John Corabi: Around Nashville’s airport as well.

LRI: Yeah. I have a window like partially open for just natural sunlight, and all of a sudden it was like black. And I’m like, oh, it was just the way the plane flew right over it kind of blocked it out. I’m like, what the hell? It got my attention. But anyways, there was a post. You and Bruce had posted it about the self-titled and the Blue Room, the Union albums being reissued on color vinyl deluxe packaging and all that through Lindsley Records. I think the end of this year is what I read, I think.

John Corabi: It’s not on Lindsley Records. It’s on a different label. It is coming.

LRI: Okay. All right.

John Corabi: The name of the label, I forgot… but they are taking care of it.

LRI: Is Jason Herndon’s company, Kiss My Wax Records doing it?

John Corabi: Couldn’t tell you. I have no idea.

Union “Walking In Your Sleep” [released as bonus audio track on Union’s “Do Your Own Thing Live” DVD in 2005.

LRI: Because he’s done a couple of different Ace Frehley reissues, and I know they’re doing the Slaughter Fear No Evil reissue box set. I mean, his company does really cool stuff, but I didn’t know if maybe they were possibly the one. But what I was wanting to ask is, do you know if you’re going to put “Walking In Your Sleep” on the self-titled record? The unreleased song? They stuck in on that DVD that you guys did, that live DVD that you did with a couple of shows on it. They stuck it on there as like an audio bonus track on the DVD, but it’s never come out on CD or vinyl. I was wondering. And it was done for the self-titled record. I was wondering if that was maybe going to be on there as like a bonus track?

John Corabi: I don’t know. Honestly, I just sent them the files with all the lyrics on it. I went through it to make sure everything was correct and I just sent them both records. I only sent them the songs that were on the original records.

LRI: Okay.

John Corabi: So I don’t know if they’re going to have it as a bonus track. I haven’t heard that song in forever.

LRI: I love it. It’s one of my favorite songs you’ve ever done. I had a friend, he’s a technology guru but he was able to rip it off the DVD to put it on CD and MP3 for me. It’s one of my favorite songs you’ve ever done. I wish it would get a proper release. Maybe if they don’t put it on there, somehow you could do it on your solo record.

John Corabi: I don’t know. That was like a track that we did when we were doing the first album and it was just so different than the rest of the record, we just kind of put it aside & then when we did that DVD, Bruce added it as a bonus track. It was a really cool thing, huh? I have to go back and listen to that. I haven’t heard it in forever. So I’ll have to check it out again.

LRI: Do you even have a copy of it? If not, I can send you it.

John Corabi: Let me see. I’ll tell you about it now. You now, when I want to hear something, I just got to fucking YouTube.

LRI: It’s on there. I know it’s on there. It’s actually, I think, listed under your name instead of Union.

John Corabi: Let me see. Yeah, I love those commercials, another thing I’m not getting money for! (Laughs)

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: I forgot about this song. I haven’t heard this in 20 years.

LRI: Really?

John Corabi: Yeah.

LRI: I love it. It’s one of my favorites of yours. I’d put it in my top five of your originals easily.

John Corabi: Yeah, that’s cool, man. Thank you. I forgot about that. It’s funny, when I was just doing that I actually just saw another Aerosmith I song I covered, Living On the Edge-

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: With John Aldrete, Brian Tichy and Steve Salas.

John Corabi, John Aldrete, Brian Tichy and Steve Salas “Livin’ On The Edge” from “One Way Street – A Tribute To Aerosmith / Let The Tribute Do The Talkin’” released in 2001 on Shrapnel Records.

LRI: Yeah. I’ve always told my friend that if I ever like win the lottery, I was going to pay you to do Aerosmith cover record, just entire Aerosmith because I think you sing the shit out of their stuff.

John Corabi: I love Aerosmith, but yeah, he was definitely an influence. It’s weird. Like the older I get like my voice is just… You know, I’m 62. Like it’s funny. I get a kick out of some of these fans. They’re like, “Dude, fucking…” You know, I see the comments on certain things sometimes and they’re like, “Oh, it sounds like he’s having a little trouble singing fucking ‘Smoke the Sky’.” Well, yeah.

LRI: I think anybody would.

John Corabi: I recorded it 28 fucking years ago when I was fucking 32.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: I’m fucking 62 now. Give me a fucking break. But whatever, it is what it is!

LRI: Yeah, I think anybody would have problems singing that. That’s just a work out.

John Corabi: Yeah, it’s just everything in general, man. It’s like, I told my wife. So I went to the hair dresser and not to go off again on another tangent, but I get a kick out of some of these fans. And I get it. I do it too. Like, I’ll go back and I’ll look at old photos of…You know, I’ll go on Google and I’ll type in “Steven Tyler 1974” and I’ll just look at photos of Steven and how cool he was or Mark Farner from 1971, Grand Funk Railroad & I go, “Fuck. Look how badass he was.” So I get the thing that fans want to see the guys like Vince Neil. It’s brutal, some of these fans. They’re like, “Look at him. Look how fucking sad he his. Look how this and that. He’s not singing the same. He’s not this.” He’s fucking…. Vince is 60 years old, guys. You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: And I had a couple of years ago, I forget where I was. I was in Europe and Bruce Kulick posted a photo of me and him somewhere in Alps, dead of winter. I was wearing…I don’t know. I think I had a beanie, a full beard, and you know. Now between me, you, and the fence post, I’ve had gray hair since I was like, I don’t know, 23 years old. It’s a hereditary thing in my family.

LRI: Right. I have the same problem. I started getting them when I was 16.

John Corabi: Yeah, but I still have all my hair.

LRI: Right, sort of like thankfully.

John Corabi: So I was sitting there and I just recently told my wife. I go, “You know what?” So anyway, getting off track, a fan saw this photo of me and Bruce. Then, just recently a fan…I wish I had saved it. I deleted it. But a fan sent me a picture of me when I was in The Scream with a recent photo of me with a beard, and I’ve got some gray going on and some roots coming in. And the fan wrote to me and he goes, “Hey, Crabby, fuck dude, what happened?”

LRI: It’s called age, maturing.

John Corabi: Got to be kind, motherfucker.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s like, so I just told my wife. I said, “You know what? I have literally for the last 20 years been dyeing my fucking hair.” My hair grows like a weed anyway. So she’ll dye my hair and literally by the end of the week, I’ve already got grays coming in the front. So I just said, “You know what? Fuck it.” I’m not dyeing my hair anymore. It is what it is. I’m in reasonably good shape. I try to work out, diet. When I start getting on the plump side I start dieting. I do my thing. I don’t drink before shows. I wait ‘til after. I tell everybody like, “Hey, I’m not going to drink before the show, because if I do I’m going to sound like somebody skinning a cat.” So I’ve learned over the years that I need to not drink before the show. I used to be able to do it, but I can’t do it anymore. It’s called getting older.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: So I laugh at these fans, man, that are just… don’t want to see their guys get older. They bust Keith Richards’ balls or they bust Robert Plant’s balls. They bust Steven Tyler’s balls. They always seem to get a photo of Steven Tyler when he’s wearing a fucking Kimono with hair in a man-bun and like zero makeup on. You know what I mean? It’s the worst you could get of a photo! Then they put it on social media and go, “Fuck, what happened?” Well, how about this? He’s fucking 70-plus years old. He was on a beach minding his own fucking business until you took the fucking photo and put it on there, & you’re side-by-siding it to a photo from 1970 fucking six. Like seriously?

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: You are fucking this smart to put that collage together and make a comment. Why don’t you use your fucking brain and realize that there’s a 40 fucking year different between when you took that photo & that photo that you just posted side-by-side to it? You know what I mean?

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: Again, I don’t understand it. It’s like as long as I’m performing and giving you a good show, or as long as you like the music, that’s kind of what I thought it was all about.

LRI: Exactly. Ah, I-

John Corabi: Not about what color my fucking hair is or whether it’s going gray or I’m losing it or whatever. What’s the difference? It’s about the fucking song.

LRI: Right. I have a friend that’s like that, and he’s a guy, which I find is really weird. Like, that time that you showed up at the Richie Kotzen show in Nashville in 2010 and it was like my birthday weekend. I was there to see Richie perform. I was like, “Holy shit, my two favorite musicians in the world at the same place at the same time on my birthday.” If you would have told me when I was 16 that would happen, I would have told you that you’re fucking lying. So I texted him the picture like right after we took it. You left for the night and I went back to the hotel or whatever. I sent it to him, and first off, he thought I was Photoshopping it, which I thought was hilarious. And then secondly, he’s like, “Crabby is clean shaven and like it doesn’t look like his hair is long anymore.” And I said, “Well, he had a ball cap on so he probably had it up in the ball cap, but who cares. What does that matter?”

LRI: And he’s like, “Man, he just doesn’t look like he did when he was in the Crüe.” And I’m like, “What does it matter?” It dawned on me as soon as he said that, I’m like, “Dude, you wouldn’t even listen to that Crüe record when I first presented it to you because it wasn’t Vince Neil.” So that argument is invalid. He doesn’t look like he did when he was in the Crüe but he wouldn’t listen to it. One day, I had to sneak it in. We were on a road trip and I snuck it in without telling him what is was. I put it in and he’s like, “Oh, dude. This is fucking badass. What is this?” And I was like, “It’s John Corabi.” Oh, yeah, yeah, because he liked the Scream record that I turned him onto, but he would not listen to your Corabi… As I call it, the Corabi Crüe record. So I snuck it in and he’s like, “That was fucking awesome.” And then I pulled it back out and put it in the CD case and handed him the CD case. He’s like, “What the fuck, dude?”

LRI: I’m like, “You wouldn’t listen to that for a couple of years because of some loyalty to Vince Neil, but then I just played it for you without you knowing it and you loved it & now you’re all butt hurt about it.” So I thought that was kind of funny and I’m like what does it matter what he looks like?

John Corabi: It’s funny and I get it. They want their Steven Tyler’s, Bret Michaels, Vince Neil’s and their fucking Mick Jagger’s. They want everybody to look the way they looked when they discovered them.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: It’s like, dude, it’s not going to happen, man. It’s like this is the one thing you cannot change.

LRI: You can’t outrun Father Time!

John Corabi: Yep. That’s the one thing that eventually catches up to you and that’s time.

LRI: Right, I mean, if I was in your shoes and had some jackass doing that, I guess I would ask him. I mean, if they’re old enough to be able to do this for one, is take a picture when you were, say, 20 to a picture of your… in your 40s or whatever or maybe if they are close to your age, take one from 1976 and then compare it to now. You don’t look like what you did then either, you dumbass.

John Corabi: I just did this the other day with my wife. I was sitting here watching… I was watching a…It was on Amazon and it was the making of Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.

LRI: Okay.

John Corabi: It’s hilarious. My wife is like, “You know what’s weird?” She goes, “I’ve always kind of liked Pink Floyd’s stuff. It’s really cool. Nobody sounds like them.” But she goes, “I never really got…” Because she sat and she watched the thing with me. And she goes, “Okay, now who is that guy?” And I’m like, “Oh, that’s David Gilmore. That’s the guitar player.” She goes, “Oh, weird.” She goes, “It’s so weird to see them.” And again, she has no idea what they looked like back in the day. I mean, they did Dark Side of the Moon in ’72-’73. She was born in ’72, you know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: I go on to Google and I typed in, “David Gilmore, 1972 and images.” Boom, popped up. I said, “Oh, here it is when he was in Pink Floyd doing that record.” And she goes, “Oh, my God. That guy is gorgeous.” And I’m like, “Okay, well, yeah.” I said, “You know, I remember when I was growing up all the girls that I knew that liked Pink Floyd, David Gilmore was the guy.”

John Corabi: You know what I mean? So it’s like there’s like weird…oh, shit. I mean, she was looking at him Then she was looking at him and she was like, “Okay, I see it.” You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s just weird, those fans that remember David Gilmore in Pink Floyd in ’73. You know what I mean? Not that I’ve ever heard anybody say, “Oh, David Gilmore…”, whatever. But it’s like you just sit there and you go, “Fuck, man, people grow old.”

LRI: Yes we do! [laughs]

John Corabi: That’s life, man. That’s life. I’ve kind of struggled with that through my whole career lately, even when I was in Union with Bruce. We didn’t really fit into like a category. You know, there was older bands that came ahead of us, the bands like Def Leppard, Poison and whatever. They kind of looked at us, those crowds, those promoters…Even though I had been in Mötley and Bruce had been in Kiss, they looked at us as a new band but then the newer bands like the guys that were booking Drowning Pool and Sevendust, even though those guys liked our music, the promoters wouldn’t book us because they’re like, “No, no, no, no. No old guys. They’re older guys.” They’re from the 80’s.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: So we didn’t really fit into any shape, you know what I mean? And it’s just weird, man. It’s like I could see my age being an issue if I was trying to be a linebacker for a professional football team or wide receiver or a whatever…if I was trying to play sports. But I’m not. I’m a musician. I write music. So where does age come into play?

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: Nobody looks at a Van Gogh and says, “Well, I don’t like that painting because when he painted it he only had one ear.” You know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah. [laughs]

John Corabi: Yeah, I’m not really knocking this fucking Beethoven track because he was fucking 70 when he wrote it.

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: It’s just dumb. It’s dumb.

LRI: It’s very dumb.

John Corabi: I just wish people would get off Social Media a little bit and use their ears & their eyes instead of fucking being as know-it-all on social media.

LRI: Right. Yeah, it’s a bizarre thing. I’ve followed you and Richie Kotzen for…you since The Scream and Kotzen since he was like 18 years old. I think I was like 11 when I discovered Richie. Everybody is like, “Oh, look how they changed over the years.” And I’m like, “They’re still putting out music.” I’m like, “I don’t give a shit about what they were wearing in 1994.” I really don’t.

John Corabi: Yeah.

LRI: But they both put out great records that year.

John Corabi: Yeah, it is what it is, buddy.

LRI: Yeah, I don’t know. It’s kind of a head-scratcher to me, but-

John Corabi: Yeah.

LRI: All right, the last question befor

e we get into “Cosi Bella” next year is the 10th anniversary of your “Unplugged” record. Are there any plans for a reissue or anything for that?

John Corabi: I don’t know. I guess I probably should be a little more whatever but I’m not one to look at things like anniversaries and all that shit. Like I don’t pay much mind to it. To be quite honest with you, with the live ’94 thing, that was on a total fluke. I was doing a show, full band but I was playing like all my stuff and I forget which song I did. I did something off the Mötley record and somebody in audience at the end of the song yelled out, “Happy anniversary.” And I’m like, “What? What the fuck? What are you talking about? Da da da, whatever.” So I’m sitting there. I go, “What is this all about?” And so literally, I was like talking to somebody in the audience. I go, “It’s not my anniversary. Why did you say that?” and they’re like, “Yeah it is, dude. Today’s the day that your Mötley record came out, 20 years ago, today.” I was like, “Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Okay, awesome.”

John Corabi: It was my manager, he was there and he was basically like, “Dude, you know what? I don’t think a lot of people saw that show. You should go out and do it.” So there was much prying to get me to do it because I didn’t really want to do it.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: I’ve had people…Like I’ve read some of these things like Blabbermouth or whatever. I’ll do an interview with somebody and it gets posted and Blabbermouth finds it and posts something online. And then all these fans comment. They go, “Doesn’t that guy fucking… Jesus Christ, dude. Doesn’t he have anything else to fucking talk about?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: You know it’s funny because it’s not me. I’m just answering a fucking question. I really personally don’t give a shit about anniversaries or…Like I did The Scream record in 1990 or 1991. It came out in ’91, I think, ’90.

LRI:’91, yeah.

John Corabi: I put that to bed. The only reason why I just put it out again is because I was looking online. People were fucking spending 150 or 200 bucks for the vinyl. So I’m like, “Well, here’s a way for everybody to get it for 30 or 40 bucks or whatever the fuck it costs.” Don’t even know. I didn’t make much money on it. I literally just signed off on it. I let Lindsley Records do it. We’re doing the exact same thing with the Union shit and it’s just a way for fans to get it at a reasonable cost because it’s not out there now.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: As far as anniversaries, I could care less. The Unplugged record, it’s out there. If people want it, they can get it through Rat Pak Records. You know, I’m looking forward. I’m trying to establish myself, and still, I’ve never been able to scratch that thing where I’m a household name. So I’m just trying to write the best lyrics, the best music that I can for the future. So I don’t really pay much mind to that shit. One time, some of my past band members who will remain nameless have made comments in the press that I’m just living off their coattails for the last 25 or 30 years. I’m like really not trying to, I mean, short of me telling every person that does an interview with me, “I’m not willing to talk about anything in the past that I’ve ever done, so don’t bring it up.” Do you know what I mean?

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: But then I look like a dick either way.

LRI: That’s exactly what I was going to say, but then you would look like a dick to them.

John Corabi: Right.

LRI: You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

John Corabi: Yeah. So to the fans that think that I’m riding a dead horse or I’m just riding Mötley’s coattails or to my past band members that think that I’m riding their coattails, that the last thing I want to do.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: I’m trying to move forward. I’m trying to write new music. I’m trying to make myself better with each song that I do.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: But I can’t help it if a fucking journalist or somebody wants to ask me about The Scream or Mötley or Union or the Dead Daisies or whatever. So I don’t really pay much mind to it. I just kind of do what I do. I tell everybody like I told you, “I’m an open book. Ask me whatever question you want.”

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: It doesn’t really bother me that the fans think I’m beating a dead horse. But the funny thing of it is, if you put me in a room with all those fans and they’re accusing me of beating a dead horse, most of them will probably ask me, “Hey, dude. What was it like to be in Mötley Crüe?”

LRI: Yeah.

John Corabi: So I just kind of realized that I’m in a position that where I’m just never going to win and I can’t please everybody. So I’m just like, ah, fuck it, whatever. Just roll with it.

LRI: Well, I doubt it’ll happen, but a glimmer of hope is maybe once you put your memoir out, whenever it’s due next year, that that’ll ease some of it. I doubt it because of how people are, but maybe, like me, I’m sure there’s going to be a lot of stuff in there. As I much as I think I might know about you after following you for 30 years, I’m sure there’s going to be stuff I had no clue about in there and hopefully that’ll kill a lot of that but I doubt it will. But you never know.

John Corabi: Oh, shit. You know, it is what it is.

LRI: Cosi Bella, let’s talk about Cosi Bella. Am I even pronouncing that right?

John Corabi: Cosi Bella.

LRI: Cosi Bella, okay. How did that song come about? Did it start with a riff? Did the title, being that it means so beautiful, was that in your head, and you’re like, “I need to write something around that”? How did that come… How did that song get its start?

John Corabi: I had the riff. I actually did it in a different key but I had the riff, I showed it to Marti and he thought it was really cool & then Marti & I finished it up. Because I didn’t really have a chorus for it. I had something…whatever, and Marti helped me solve the chorus. And then I came home, and we were scatting. Both of us were… On my phone when I was writing it, we were scatting a melody, and I had a different melody to it, and Marti was hearing it a little more wordy, and he kept saying, “Wordy, dude, like “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC. (singing). It was just this constant thing.

John Corabi: I kept coming up with ideas…I went home and I just listened to it over & over & over & over & over again, & I really liked the scatting that was happening on the demo tape, that Marti was doing & I was doing, so I kind of rhythmically wrote the lyrics to the scat. So then, I took the guitar and I was playing along to it, & then I figured out a melody. I changed the key, I moved it up so it was a little higher, little more aggressive. Then I just came up with the chorus lyrics for…Following the scat that we were doing on the original demo tape, I came up with So Beautiful. (singing “She’s so beautiful.”). You know what I mean?

 

LRI: Mm-hmm.

John Corabi: So, I got all the lyrics together, and then I was like, “So beautiful, it’s kind of…” And then I was like, “Fuck.” I wasn’t sure if the title, So Beautiful, it’s just… I don’t want to say lame but it was just ordinary.

LRI: Right.

John Corabi: I went to a translation site and I typed in so beautiful in French & German & then Italian. I’m Italian, I knew Bella was beautiful, I didn’t know what the word was for so. I just liked the sound of Cosi Bella. It means so beautiful so I’m actually singing so beautiful in English, but the title is Cosi Bella and then in parentheses, So Beautiful. It’s just… Cosi Bella means so beautiful.

LRI: With a title like Cosi Bella, it’s going to catch people’s imagination, because they’re… If they don’t realize that it means what’s in parentheses, they’re going to think, “Oh, I wonder what that means,” and it’s going to engage them a little bit more than just having the straight title be so beautiful.

John Corabi: Yes. And so, it was just a fluke.

LRI: A happy accident.

John Corabi: Yes, it was a happy accident, because I was like..,I didn’t really…after… I loved the song, I loved the way it sounded, but I just didn’t like the title So Beautiful. It just laid there. So, I’m like, “All right,” and I just… I went onto a translation site, figured out that Cosi Bella means so beautiful.

LRI: Last Saturday. My brother texted me and he’s like, “Where are you at, dick?” And I’m like, “I’m sitting out on my balcony having a smoke, what’s up?” and he’s like, “I’ve been knocking at your front door for 10 minutes.” And I’m like, “Oh, well, obviously I’m outside on the balcony. I’m not going to hear you.” I said, “The front door is unlocked, just come in, go through the dining room, the kitchen, and there’s the balcony on our apartment. Come out.” He’s like, “Okay.”

LRI: So he comes out while I was listening to Cosi Bella on my laptop and he’s like…Looks at me, and looks back, and I’m like, “What?” And he goes, “Are you listening to Queen?” And I’m like, “Negative. No.” And he’s like, “Sounds like Queen.” He goes, “Whoever it is, I really like it.” And I just started laughing, because A, Queen is my brother’s favorite band. And then, he doesn’t…There are six years between us, so I like a lot of the music that he likes. He likes some of the music I like but because I’m so entrenched in the whole music thing and always have been, it’s my big passion beside my son Seth, he thinks I’m off my fucking rocker.

LRI: And so, he was like, “Well then, who is that?” And I was like, “It’s Crabby.” And then I realized, okay, I’m not talking to a friend of mine that also likes John Corabi. It’s my brother, he doesn’t know who I’m fucking talking about. I said, “It’s John Corabi.” And he’s like, “Oh. Well, that’s really fucking good.” He’s like… And his wife likes music, and knows about technology. My brother and technology don’t exist. And he is like, “Is that on a CD or a record?” And I’m like, “No.” And he’s like, “What’s that you listen to music on?” And she’s like, “iTunes?” And he’s like, “Yes, that. Is it on there?” And I’m like, “No.”

LRI: And he’s like, “Oh, it’s one of them unreleased songs.” Because I’ll send him demos and shit of Queen on CD for him to listen to that I get. And I said, “Actually, he’s getting ready to put it out the end of this month as a single, and then it’ll be on iTunes, and Spotify, and all that.” And he’s like, “Well, I really fucking like that.” And I’m like, “Well, I’ll have to tell him that here in a couple of days, when I interview him.” And he’s like, “Oh, you’re doing homework.” I was like, “Yes, that’s a way you could look at it.” So, my brother really dug the song.

John Corabi: Cool! I’m just keeping my fingers crossed, dude. It’s just… It’s a weird time, everybody’s trying to re-figure everything out. I hired a publicity firm to help me put the song together and they’re getting a bunch of press & shit for me. They even said to me… They’re like, “Hey, when’s your album coming out?” I’m not going to release a record. Nobody’s buying them anymore. My wife is a prime example. She loves The Scorpions, she loves Iron Maiden, she loves Madonna, she loves Justin Timberlake but she will not download the whole record. She’ll go online, she’ll find that song that she likes, and she’ll download that song. So when I talked to the PR firm, they were like, “Oh, thank you. That’s the way to do it now. Don’t do a record.” So, I’m just uploading one song and one video, I’m going to let it sit for a couple of months, or a month or so, month and a half. Then I’m going to do another song and let it sit for a month and a half with a video. Then do a third song, then a fourth song, then a fifth song. Once I get to five or six, I should have the whole record done and then maybe I’ll do John Corabi, whatever. I’ll do vinyl and CD’s & I’ll sell it via Amazon & I will it at shows & that’s it. If any Mom and pop stores want to order five or 10, okay, here you go. Here’s your order. Send me my money, here’s your records and I’ll send them to them. But I’m not doing…I’m not doing the fucking traditional thing. Everybody’s been like, “When’s your album dropping?” I just say, “Not the album. I’ve got bunch of tunes; I’m just doing one song.” Another thing is, somebody might hear Cosi Bella and go, “Well, that doesn’t sound like anything like a Mötley record.” Okay, then fuck it, you don’t have to listen to it. As long as you don’t type in the words Cosi Bella on Google, you’ll never have to hear that song, so whatever.

John Corabi: So, I think it’s a win-win for everybody and I like the fact, too, that, in the old days, people used to say, “Oh, the record has to have a thread. This song has to begin in this…” I’ve always been a fan of the bands like Queen or Zeppelin, The Beatles or even Aerosmith to a degree, Humble Pie, they would do whatever. So, I can release this song and then the next song could be something completely different than this one. It could be an acoustic… A full-blown acoustic “Battle of Evermore” kind of thing, or it could be something like “Misty Mountain Hop,” blues rock. So, you don’t really…There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so I like the freedom of doing it this way.

John Corabi: So, hopefully I…And the other thing that I like is, I’m not boosting my posts on Facebook, I’m not buying fans on Instagram. I’m just… All I’m doing is word of mouth. So, if you hear the song and you download it & you like it & you play it for your brother &your friend & then they play if for a few more & then a few more & a few more, I just want this to be a word of mouth thing, old school. Hopefully, I can go out and I can sell 30, 40, 50,000 downloads or 100,000 downloads, or 200,000 downloads, whatever. And I can eek out a living doing one song at a time.

LRI: On that, as far as getting the download and the video and the product out for each of the songs that you put out, has either your management or PR firm considered maybe putting out a seven-inch vinyl of each single per as you go along? Granted, you probably wouldn’t be able to get a vinyl done now for Cosi Bella. It could be done in the future. But those seem to be, with the vinyl resurgence, a big hit.

John Corabi: Again, what I plan on doing is, I wanted to do vinyl and I want to do CD. The other problem is, for example, the Union shit. How long ago did we post that? Three months ago?

LRI: Yes, if not longer.

John Corabi: Okay. That vinyl won’t even be ready until next year.

LRI: Oh, okay. Jason Herndon, the guy that I was talking about with the Kiss My Wax records, he works for URP there in Nashville and he said the waiting list, it’s 18 weeks long just to get something to press.

John Corabi: It’s ridiculous the turnaround, because A, they have to blow the dust off those presses. Nobody saw vinyl come back again and B, you can’t get shit now because of COVID. And it’s not even vinyl, it’s…I think it’s… What is it, Ford? I just read a story. Ford’s got, I don’t know, 150,000 Ford F-150s sitting in a lot somewhere in Michigan, and they’re just waiting on the circuit boards for the GPS systems and the electronics. The trucks are built. They just need to pop a circuit board in and put the fucking dashboard together & then start shipping these trucks out. Same way that I have a motor home that I travel in, and right now, you cannot get a brand new motor home, because they’re still waiting for the parts for the air conditioning units, the awnings and the dashboard.

LRI: Crazy!

John Corabi: Can’t get the parts. They’re from China.

LRI: Maybe that’ll teach them to quit relying on China for shit.

John Corabi: Well, don’t make me go back to our previous conversation.

LRI: Right. [laughs]

John Corabi: But it’s… So, I just figured the best thing to do right now is do one song digitally. It doesn’t cost me anything. I don’t have to do CD’s, I don’t have to do vinyl, I’m just picking a song and a video. I’m putting the video on YouTube on my own channel.  I’ll post it on all my social media sites and direct everybody to that YouTube station. Then, I’m releasing a song digitally. I don’t need to print anything. It’s just going…If a radio station wants to play it, they download the MP3 anyway and they pop it into their computer. There are no CD’s being played at the radio stations anymore. It’s all MP3. So, let’s just do the MP3’s now, do the digital download. Once I get three, or four, or five of them, hopefully I’ll have the entire record done in its entirety, I know exactly what 10 songs I want to put on that record. Then, I’ll print vinyl and CD’s all in one long chunk but I’ll take the money that I made from the downloads and I’ll print the vinyl’s as I need them.

John Corabi: So, it is what it is. It’s a different time, man, so-

LRI: Yes, I’m still trying to adjust to that as a music fan, because I’ve always been… I like vinyl, but I got rid of mine a few years ago when I went through a touching base back on the…When you were talking about your Mom losing her house and everything due to health issues. I went through the same thing, so I got rid of my entire music collection. It was 10,000 plus CD’s, 3-4,000 vinyl, because my health was shit, I needed… A, I needed the money, and B, I lost my home & I didn’t want to have to move all that shit. So, I called a guy that has a music store and was like, “Come get this shit.” I’m still old school in the fact that I like physical product, and so, I’m adjusting to this new digital age. Now people are doing the singles… Which is cool, because I don’t have to wait two years for the next Crabby record. I can get the single, and then a month or so later, I get another one and then eventually, I’ll get the physical product.

John Corabi: To be honest with you, I didn’t realize it, but even some of the covers that I’ve done over the last few months, people are freaking out over it. The “Electric Eye” thing that I did, or “Chip Away The Stone” or whatever. So now, I go, “Well, I could release an original and then if I wanted to just… In between originals, if I wanted to do an original every two months, I could do an original and then drop a cover a month & a half later, a month later.”

LRI: That’d be cool.

John Corabi: “And then, do another original, then drop a cover and then… Whatever, just give people music and if they like it, they can download it & put it on their phone because that’s where everybody listens to their music now, their phone.” I just said something in that interview… I think one of the interviews I just did, I said iPod and somebody laughed at me & they’re like, “iPod. He’s so old school.”

LRI: Oh my word.

John Corabi: So, I just re-thought it, man. It’s like…Musicians aren’t making money from vinyl and CD’s anymore. We need to figure out a way to make money. How do you make money? Okay. How…If I can’t tour, which, by the way, I just had whole weeks’ worth of shows in Mexico just drop out last night, okay?

LRI: Oh, shit.

John Corabi: So, it’s probably going to go back to the bullshit again of staying home. All right, so, I’m sitting here going, “Okay, how do I… How do we make money, man?” Okay, well, there’s going to be songs. I can send Marti the files. He can mix them, master them, send them back to me and I can just upload them onto the computer. There’s a new single and post it on all my media accounts, all my social media accounts & then, go from there. So, it’s a different way of doing things, but it’s… Right now, it seems to me and again, this is just my opinion. This seems like the most logical way to do it.

LRI: It is.

John Corabi: I’m still… The fans that still like looking at artwork and reading the credits & all that shit, when I do the video, I’ll do the video. It lists everybody that was there, everybody involved in it, everybody here, recorded at, backing vocals recorded…I’ve got it…I’ve got all that shit for that song.

LRI: Cool. Yes, I love that stuff…liner notes, credits etc

John Corabi: It’ll be listed on the thing. Then, like I said, four or five songs in, when I have the funds and the time, I can actually order a couple of thousand vinyl’s and 10,000 CD’s & then I can do an account with Amazon & I can sell them at my shows because that’s where you sell most of your records nowadays, anyway. Even at Walmart, Best Buy, you’re not, short of one of their old records, you’re not going to see any new Mötley Crüe in a fucking Walmart or your Best Buy, or…It’s non-existent. They don’t have…They literally…Those people and I had somebody from one of the companies told me… He was from Best Buy and he was a buyer of music. He goes, “Dude, we don’t buy music anymore. We literally just look at the top 20 on Billboard. The top 20 albums on Billboard, that’s what we sell. That’s it.”

LRI: Sad.

John Corabi: Everybody after 20 doesn’t even get a shot. So, what’s the point?

LRI: Right. I think, from a fan perspective, the reason why I like the way it is going now is because, finally, the artist is in more control of their music. So, instead of some fat cat sitting in a high rise somewhere making 95 percent of what you’re generating revenue-wise, instead of that guy getting it, now you’re going to be able to get it and that’s the way it always should have been.

John Corabi: Yes. Okay, so I have a music company, whatever you call it, a music… You can call it publishing, you can call it a record label. But I have a company called King Crab Entertainment LLC. I am my record label. So, I hired the PR guy, I recorded the song here, I sent it to Marti, Marti’s the co-writer on it. I didn’t nickel and dime or anything like that. I said, “Marti, I’ll give you half.” “Okay, great.”

John Corabi: So, I listed him as one of the writers. Every time somebody buys that, if they buy it for a dollar, I get 50 cents, he gets 50 cents. Done. What the fact of the matter is, I own the masters. So, if five years from now, somebody decides to do a movie about an energetic, hardworking, somewhat attractive girl who’s a happy-go-lucky blah, blah, blah and they want a theme song for it, well, they can just call me up & I don’t have to go through the record label & negotiate, blah, blah, blah. They can call me directly, and I can work out a deal with them & it can go into a movie & Marti & I are… We’re laughing. So, that’s the thing. I still don’t own the masters for The Scream.

LRI: So, that’s a licensing deal that you’d done, say, with the record-

John Corabi: I won’t… Those masters won’t become The Scream guys’, me, John, and Bruce, they won’t become our property until…Fuck, another 10 years, 15 years.

LRI: Oh, wow.

John Corabi: So, Hollywood Records can…They can do whatever the fuck they want; we won’t see a dime of it.

LRI: Wow.

John Corabi: So, it’s just… It’s another way of me saying, “I own this.” This is one song, I did it with Marti. I’ve got songs that I wrote by myself. I wrote a song…I have a song coming out, it’s called “Laurel.” I wrote that one by myself. So, I own 100 percent of that. Whatever. But it’s just a new way, a new method of doing things. But again, it’s my way of…This is how I see it. So, I’m just going to move along, do it, and if somebody… Some other band want to go into a recording studio and do albums & do it that way, great. More power to you.

John Corabi: I was even…I was kidding around, even when I was in The Dead Daisies, I’m like, we’re going to these crazy places like Australia, France and Nashville & now, Nashville’s my home town. Those guys had to come here. We’re hiring producers, we’re doing all this shit, let’s just write the songs, record them, and just do one song at a time. Then you’re not spending a million a year with whatever, trying to fucking make back a million.

LRI: It’s a good deal. I wanted to touch on something, you said something about the idea of an original, then a cover, an original, then a cover. This could be off the record, this is just, I guess, a request from me. If you do that, I noticed when you call your phone, you have the song playback for “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival?

John Corabi: Mm-hmm.

LRI: Could you do that, that song? I’ve seen you do it on… I’ve seen it on YouTube.

John Corabi: You know, it’s funny. I actually… I fucked up, because the other one that I do in my live set is “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and I thought it’s… Actually, I meant to do the other one and I just got confused, I forgot which one that I uploaded to my phone.

LRI: Did I say the wrong title?

John Corabi: No, it’s probably… You’re probably right.

LRI: Yes. But “Who Will Stop the Rain” is the one I’ve seen… The one I’m asking. Maybe I said the wrong title, I don’t know.

John Corabi: Creedence, as well.

LRI: Yes. Yes, that was always a… I’m a huge… John Fogerty was actually the… When I was a kid, I was four years old, my Mom gave me Elvis’ Jailhouse Rock, Ritchie Valens La Bamba with Donna on the B-side, and then Creedence, Fortunate Son, but Down on the Corner is the B side. When I was 4 years old, she gave me those records along with a Dukes of Hazzard record player. John Fogerty was the first musician I ever got into when I was a little kid and then, obviously, all the Creedence stuff and then he had the “Centerfield” record, and so on and so forth. But that song was always me and my Mom’s favorite song, “Who’ll Stop the Rain.” And so, when I saw that you were doing it on YouTube, I was like, “Oh, I would fuckin’ kill to hear that.” Because you’ve done… You did the “Fortunate Son” and stuff with The Dead Daisies, and I was like, “Man, not only can he sing the shit out of Aerosmith, but he kills Creedence too.” So, that was just a request if you could do that.

John Corabi: It’s just… I actually did a version of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I did a song called “Our House.” Do you remember that one?

LRI: It doesn’t ring a bell. Doesn’t mean I hadn’t heard it, because both my parents were… Are… Well, my Dad’s still alive, my Mom passed away but it doesn’t mean I haven’t heard it, it just doesn’t ring a bell.

John Corabi: Let me see… Yes, I’ll play it for you, and then if you’ve got a couple more questions, that’s cool, but I’m going to have to jump in a minute. We’ve been on the phone for-

LRI: Two hours.

John Corabi: Two hours and 10 minutes, yes. But if I have this… Yes, look it up. You’ll hear it. It’s a short little song-

LRI: Okay. Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Our House,” correct?

John Corabi: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.

LRI: And Young, okay.

John Corabi: “Our House.” I had it in here somewhere, let me see. Let me go back and I’ll find it.

LRI: Well, while you’re looking for that, really the only other question I had is, in a perfect world, if COVID doesn’t shut the entire world down again, if you’re able to go out and do full band live shows, have you put together a band & who’s going to be in it?

John Corabi: Obviously, I want to do something with my kid. So, he’ll be involved, Topher [Nolan] on Bass. I just don’t know who the guitar players are going to be, only for the simple reason… If it’s up to me, I’ll use Phil [Shouse] and Jeremy [Asbrock] but it’s only because I don’t know their schedule.

LRI: Yes, they’re busy.

John Corabi: Yes.

LRI: Which is great for them, not a bad place to be.

John Corabi: Yes. Oh wait, let me see. Oh, never mind. I don’t know where the fuck this thing is. Oh, wait, it’s in here. [Plays his cover of “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.]

LRI: Last question, any updates on your memoir that’s been talked about coming out in the near future.

John Corabi: “Horseshoes And Hand Grenades” is the title of it. Written by myself and Paul Miles. Early 2022 release. It’s a LIFE autobiography, not a “tell all Motley” book…It goes all the way back to early childhood through 2020. Publisher is Rare Bird in L.A. I’ll have more info for you the next time we talk!

LRI: Thanks for your time today and we will chat soon. I’m looking forward your new single & video “Cosi Bella” that comes out at 12am EST on August 30^th.

John Corabi: Thanks brother!
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Visit John Corabi on the net:

Official Website: http://www.JohnCorabi.com
Official Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JohnCorabiMusic
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Tags: AEROSMITH, cosi bella, featured, full-image, john corabi, motley crue, newmusic, Steven Tyler, The Dead Daisies, The Scream, Union

Category: Reviews