{"id":24365,"date":"2022-12-23T05:30:28","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T10:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=24365"},"modified":"2022-12-06T16:23:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T21:23:10","slug":"jack-starrs-burning-starr-the-ongoing-wave-of-american-heavy-metal-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/23\/jack-starrs-burning-starr-the-ongoing-wave-of-american-heavy-metal-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Starr\u2019s Burning Starr: The Ongoing Wave of American Heavy Metal (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"But by 1984, a restless Starr had formed a new group, Burning Starr. \u201cI was very lucky,\u201d he says. \u201cI was able to get a very good record deal right away with Passport Records, an offshoot of Arista Records. Here I was: totally unknown two years earlier, and now I\u2019m on a label with Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones!\u201d<\/p>\n

Burning Starr\u2019s Rock the American Way<\/i> was released in 1985 to positive notices. And that record began a metal legacy that continues to present day. The band has seen musicians come and go, with Starr the musical center of gravity but \u201cNed Meloni has been my bass player for 100 years,\u201d Starr says with a laugh. In 2017 the band released Stand Your Ground<\/i>, the band\u2019s third album to the powerful lead vocals of Todd Michael Hall.<\/p>\n

But Hall eventually left the band for what Starr describes as \u201cgreener pastures.\u201d Hall competed on television as a contestant on The Voice<\/i>, and eventually joined Riot, another metal band with a cult following. \u201cSo to make a long story short,\u201d Starr says, \u201cwe didn\u2019t have a singer any more.\u201d For some bands, that kind of loss could have easily spelled the end.<\/p>\n

Starr recalls asking himself, \u201chow are we going to find a singer equal to Todd Michael Hall, who’s like a vocal god?\u201d The answer came from Bart Gabriel, a friend of the band who Starr calls \u201cMr. Metal.\u201d Gabriel contacted the guitarist via Skype, telling him, \u201cJack, I think I\u2019ve found the singer for you.\u201d He recommended Alexx Panza, a young singer from Turin, Italy.<\/p>\n

Panza was already a huge fan of Burning Starr, especially the band\u2019s first singer Rhett Forrester (who passed away in 1996). Starr recalls Gabriel telling him, \u201cAlexx is a fan of all of your previous singers, but let’s add one more thing. He saw you guys, and he met you when you were performing at a festival in Germany in 2014.\u201d Panza even waited on line after the show to get the band\u2019s autographs.<\/p>\n

Starr was intrigued. And he laughs as he recalls seeing a photo of the singer. \u201cHe works out like a maniac: washboard abs and all that.\u201d And Panza had the chops, too. \u201cHe\u2019s got a great stage presence, and a four-octave vocal range,\u201d Starr enthuses.<\/p>\n

When bassist Meloni heard some recordings featuring Panza, he was nearly as excited. But he did have one reservation. Starr recalls him saying, \u201cJack, you know, I love this singer. Great voice, but I don’t know. When he sings in English, he’s got this accent<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Starr suggested that they send a Burning Starr instrumental track, \u201cSouls of the Innocent,\u201d to Panza and ask him to record his vocals on top of it. \u201cHe sent it back [with vocals], and it was amazing,\u201d Starr says. \u201cI didn’t hear the accent, and if I did, I didn’t care. It was incredible!\u201d Meloni was equally impressed. Panza was in, and the band continued work on Souls of the Innocent<\/i>, released in July 2022.<\/p>\n

Souls of the Innocent<\/i> serves up the thunderous metal that Burning Starr fans treasure, but it takes things a step beyond: it\u2019s a concept album. \u201cThe album is very clearly about good versus evil,\u201d Starr says. The title track is about the 2017 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people that were killed were doing something very benign, very innocent,\u201d Starr says. \u201cThey were enjoying a beautiful night of music. They were victims in the purest sense of the word.\u201d The song is Burning Starr\u2019s way of honoring those who lost their lives in that tragic event.<\/p>\n

The other tracks on Souls of the Innocent<\/i> explore similar themes. Echoing \u201cLiving in Sin,\u201d a standout cut on that Virgin Steele debut album from 40 years ago, \u201cI am the Sinner\u201d even quotes Jesus. \u201cWe’ve been mistaken for a born-again Christian metal band,\u201d Starr says with a laugh. \u201cWe’re not, but I don’t know if there’s an official form you have to fill out.\u201d He says that in any event, he\u2019d sooner that Burning Starr be tagged as born-again rather than be lumped in \u201cwith all the other devil-worshiping idiots that are out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMetal does not have to be silly,\u201d Jack Starr emphasizes. \u201cIf you want to sing about goblins and demons, I’m here to tell you, \u2018You know what? There’s real evil in the world.\u2019 If you want to have fun with it, go right ahead. If you want to wear vampire makeup and go on stage and have a cape or whatever, go ahead, have fun. But just know that that<\/i> ain’t the real evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even with its serious themes, at its core Burning Starr\u2019s Souls of the Innocent<\/i> is an exemplar of the ongoing wave of American heavy metal, 21st<\/sup> century style. And it\u2019s built on the guitar prowess of Jack Starr. With due modesty, he notes that he has a worldwide cult following of fans. \u201cThat’s how they relate to me: \u2018Jack Starr? Yeah, he’s an old-school guitar player, but he does it well.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… But by 1984, a restless Starr had formed a new group, Burning Starr. \u201cI was very lucky,\u201d he says. \u201cI was able to get a very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,46,49],"tags":[5007,5006],"class_list":["post-24365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-metal","category-new-release","tag-burning-starr","tag-jack-starr","cat-41-id","cat-46-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24365"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24374,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24365\/revisions\/24374"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}