“Gritty, quick-paced and demanding”: Billy Morrison recruits Steve Vai, John 5 and Ozzy Osbourne for his first solo epic in 9 years

Billy Morrison, who has been Billy Idol’s guitarist for a decade and a half, has presented his first studio album since 2015. Entitled The Morrison Mission, he’s assembled a stellar solid for the epic including Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Vai, John 5, Billy Idol and Corey Taylor.

Drowning is the epic’s first single and sees Morrison joined by the backing band consistent right thru nearly all of the album. That comprises Twiggy Ramirez (Marilyn Manson, A Perfect Circle) on bass and Erik Eldenius (Billy Idol, Cher) on drums. 

Guest-free, the steel-tinted song puts the point of interest firmly on Morrison’s songwriting and efficiency. The song hinges on a gargantuan, vitality-chord-driven descend-tuned riff. 

Its vocal melodies and originate chorus elevate an accessible edge that melds Mötley Crüe’s early noughties output with the goth steel of the identical period. As such, the dusky and grungy song makes it easy to look how the likes of Ozzy and John 5 will slot into the epic’s ravishing.

For the one real’s Devin Szell-directed video, Morrison talked about he wanted something “gritty, quick-paced and demanding” in an “are attempting and illustrate what my head felt esteem at the time [of writing the song].

“I had reached a level two or three years within the past the put the guidelines drift used to be so fixed, so indecent and so polarizing to me that I couldn’t take all of it in,” he expands. “The enviornment used to be stuffed with unease, wretchedness, and discontent. Riots, a global pandemic, and a failing financial system.

“My outdated solution,” he explains, “used to be to numb out, earn loaded, surely feel nothing. So, this time I wrote the tune as a cathartic way of going thru what I was feeling at the time.”

The novel epic used to be mixed by Barry Pointer (John 5, Juliette Lewis) and mastered by Dave Donnelly  (Crimson Sizzling Chili Peppers, Poke). All the way thru its 12 tracks, Morrison is also joined by Al Jourgensen, Tommy Clufetos, and Linda Perry, in addition to his Billy Idol co-guitarist, Steve Stevens.

Vai will characteristic on a tune called Incite the Look. It is miles a tune he co-wrote with Morrison and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor. 

John 5, meanwhile, joins Jourgensen on the Morrison-penned The Ayes Get It. He lately printed how he chipped a teeth – and in consequence upset his mother – attempting to recreate Hendrix’s iconic enjoying-guitar-with-his-enamel trick as a child. Nonetheless, it’s unclear whether his appearance on The Morrison Mission racked up any additional dentist payments for Mick Mars’ Mötley successor.

The Morrison Mission releases April 19 by ability of TLG/Virgin Music Neighborhood.