Hollywood Monsters

This sounds kind of neat:

Hollywood Monsters, a new project, featuring Tim Bogert (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus – on bass), Don Airey (Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Michael Schenker on keyboards), and Vinnie Appice (Dio, Black Sabbath – on drums) has released a new album called Big Trouble.
Hollywood Monsters are the brainchild of vocalist, guitarist, composer, Stephane Honde, a French expatriate, who after living in Los Angeles since 2012, recently moved to Sacramento, California) Honde first became noticed when fronting Mamooth, subsequently garnering a well-deserved reputation as a guitar virtuoso when playing in Cafe Bertrand, a French rock group he joined in 2004. The band toured, playing stadiums such as the Stade de France, with an audience capacity in excess of 80.000 – performing with classic rock giants such as AC/DC and Deep Purple, the latter for whom they opened on thirty-six dates across Europe in November 2006, and another 12 in March of 2007.
Honde recorded two albums with Cafe Bertrand – both critically acclaimed and commercially successful – Les Airs Empruntes (2005) and L’Art Delicat du Rock’N’Roll (2008), before leaving the band in 2011. Honde then embarked on a length tour with Paul Di’Anno, original vocalist with Iron Maiden before absconding to California. Once in Los Angeles Stephane Honde befriended Tim Bogert, coaxed him out of retirement and convinced Bogert to play on his debut album…and voila, the Hollywood Monsters were born.
Stephane Honde recently signed an agreement with Mausoleum Records for the release of the debut album entitled Big Trouble by his new band: Hollywood Monsters. The talented Hollywood Monsters line-up on besides Tim Bogert (Vanilla Fudge, Cactus – on bass, additionally welcomes the performances of some more of Stephane’s talented pals, including: Don Airey (Deep Purple, Whitesnake, Michael Schenker and dozens more – on keyboards), and Vinnie Appice (Dio, Black Sabbath – on drums), the latter for whom Stephane had written the song Village Of The Damned as an hommage…before ever meeting Vinnie!

Nice! Sounds interesting. Dude if you did Cactus, BBA and Vanilla Fudge you might wanna check out Boomerang. When Vanilla Fudge split up in 1970 some formed Cactus and Boomerang. I think the Boomerang album is uneven but there are a couple of good scorchers on it. They tried the same template as did Cactus but with less emphasis on the blues. Actually just check out the songs "Juke It" and "The Peddler", the rest isn't really worth jammin' IMO. I think they might have recorded another album but it's never surfaced.

Cool album cover.



Music's not to bad either. I could maybe possibly listen to more of this.

Bumping this just because. Not sure why I thought of this project this morning on the way into work, but here we are.

Anyone get this album? Any opinions on it? Seems like with the players involved, it should've had some promise, but seemed to disappear faster than a fart on a windy day. And does Paul Di'Anno make an appearance on here too?

I don't think this one would interest me too much. That is one sweet cover though.

Hmmmm, if this review on Amazon is true, this just became a little less interesting...

Quote :

My review is not based on the music but the deception of the band. They proclaim this to be a new "Supergroup" that guitarist / singer Steph Honde put together with Vinnie Appice, Don Airey and Tim Bogert. They then promote a video for the song "Move On" with all three of these classic members on board playing a great hard rock / bluesy song. Unfortunately, when I receive the CD, I find out it's all just a sham!!

Of course the back of the CD claims "Your favorite classic hard rock artists together! Every track a boneshaking experience when old and new friends get together for a blast of hard rockin' musical mayhem!" Then you open the CD and find out that Don Airey only plays on the one song - Move On, Tim Bogurt plays on three songs - one of which is all of 30 seconds long and even Vinnie Appice only plays on eight of the 11 tracks.

For the most part the music is all right nothing fantastic. The exceptions being the songs "Move On" and "Village of the Damned" which are both very good songs. My main gripe is with the fact that this is basically a solo album for Steph Honde with a few guest musicians thrown in to help promote sales. Beware if your looking for a new "Supergroup" this is NOT it!!

I don't like those kind of record label shenanigans.