Rock Candy Magazine Issue 55 Out Now Featuring AC/DC

March 30, 2026

Issue 55 of Rock Candy Magazine has an in-depth look at AC/DC's breakthrough album, 1979's 'Highway To Hell', including an exclusive interview with Tony Platt, the mix engineer on this album and the goliath 'Back In Black' released in 1980. A witness to rock and roll history, Tony was there when a great band started the climb to legend status... including vocalist Bon Scott who was creating his legacy work with 'Highway To Hell' because he was to die in tragic circumstances in early 1980, the band going on with vocalist Brian Johnson to scale the dizzying heights of mega stardom. Talking about the loss of Bon, Tony told Rock Candy Magazine editor Howard Johnson:

"It's always difficult to know how something like that is going to hit you, but there's one phrase that for me summed up what Bon's death meant. I had a conversation with Malcolm [Young] not long after Bon has passed, reminiscing about all the silly things he used to get up to. There were loads of stories of how Bon would often disappear at the end of a gig and go off on his own to get into a bit of trouble. He'd just disappear and then reappear at the next gig 200 miles away or whatever. Nobody ever knew how he'd got there, or what he'd been up to. And Malcolm told me that everybody had got used to the fact that Bon would always turn up. And he said to me, 'Now I've got to get used to the fact that he isn't going to turn up.'"

Tony Platt worked with producer Mutt Lange on 'Highway To Hell' and 'Back In Black' and explained that he had guidance from Mutt as to how the mix should sound.

"The overdubs that the guys had to do right at the start of the mixing process helped me quite a lot because we were all sitting around and chatting and listening to stuff as it was being done. I got a feel for what they were after. Mutt insisted that he wanted it to sound like everybody was in the same room. For me Mutt's major talent is having a clear vision for a project. The work that he'd put in on the songs in terms of arrangement was all about cohesion - and getting a big, fat low end. The bass is pretty much one note all the way through on 'Highway To Hell', so you really needed to have that round bass [sound] that just stuck there... I'd worked on a lot of rock stuff at Basing Street [studio], but I worked on a lot of reggae stuff as well, so I already knew the best way of evening out bass guitars so that they sounded really present the whole time."

Platt also said that the two AC/DC albums he worked on have divided many fans.

"There are definitely two factions amongst the world's AC/DC fans," laughed Platt. "there's the 'Highway To Hell' cohort and the 'Back In Black' faction. I've been in the middle of the debate about which is the better of those two records, and let me tell you it can get pretty heated."

Also in the detail-rich issue 55 of Rock Candy is a moving but uplifting interview with the laser-focused Zakk Wylde about life after the loss of his friend and mentor Ozzy Osbourne, Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin on what the rocket ride success of their 1991 'Lean Into It' album was like, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell talks about his much loved Riverdogs side project, and long-serving April Wine guitarist Brian Greenway talks about how this fine wine is developing with age and still going strong. All this and much more, including Steve Perry and Ross Valory looking like 70s rock gods in the Frozen In Time feature, a revisit to Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1975 'Nuthin' Fancy' album, and interviews with Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, Faith No More keyboard player Roddy Bottum, and Vicious Rumors guitarist Geoff Thorpe.

ABOUT ROCK CANDY MAGAZINE

Rock Candy Magazine is a 100 page, full-colour bi-monthly rock mag, created in the UK. It covers the sights, sounds and smells from the greatest era in hard rock, the '70s, '80s and early '90s. The brainchild of respected UK rock journalists Derek Oliver, Howard Johnson and Malcolm Dome - all frontline writers for the legendary Kerrang! magazine in the golden era.

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"BEING THE DEMON, THE STARCHILD, THE SPACE CADET, AND THE CAT SORT OF TURNED US INTO SUPERHEROES IN FRONT OF THE AUDIENCE."

January 30, 2026

The Catman Peter Criss spoke exclusively and at length to Rock Candy Magazine about life before, with and after KISS. During a wide-ranging and revealing interview the impressive musician unwrapped a large amount of subjects. Including how he joined the band that would become 'The Hottest Band In The World'.

"I put an ad in a local paper [after his previous bands Chelsea and Lips were over] and that's when Gene Simmons called. He asked me... 'Are you tall?, 'Are you good-looking?', 'Do you have long hair?', 'Are you willing to wear a dress and high heels?', 'Are you willing to wear lipstick?' I couldn't believe what he was asking me, but those questions fascinated me. I said to my wife at the time, 'I've got to meet this guy'. We had been to London for our honeymoon not that long before and I'd found some really cool clothes there. So when I went down to Electric Lady Studios in New York to meet Gene and Paul for the first time I was really dolled up... Gene told me later that day he thought I was a rock star going into the studio to make an album."

When Criss joined Simmons and Stanley the band played together for a little while as a three-piece, but the man who would become a close friend soon entered the picture.

"We put an ad in a local paper looking for a lead guitarist. We auditioned quite a few players before Ace, but he really made an entrance wearing a motorcycle jacket and different coloured sneakers. There was some other guy already playing, but Ace didn't care. He walked right by the guy, plugged in, and started playing himself. And we all turned around, looked at one another, and went 'Holy sh*t!'. He was in straight away."

KISS deciding to wear make-up was influenced by glam rock and shock rocker Alice Cooper but The Beatles were also part of the thought process they had.

"John, Paul, George and Ringo all had their own fans, as well as people who loved the whole band. We wanted the same thing... so we took the concept they developed and made it more theatrical. We said, 'Let's start trying to apply make-up and see what's going on.' So we bought this really cheap clown-white make-up - even shoe polish at first, I think - and started putting it on for rehearsals in this real sh*tty loft with no heating. It was so cold we had to wear coats all the time, but that's were we experimented with our different looks."

But once the band became famous the make-up had a frustrating by-product when the general public didn't know what they actually looked like.

"Once we started to make it big, we started wanting to be recognised, sign autographs and have kids outside hotels screaming for us. I'd go to clubs in New York and would tell the guy on the door that I was Peter Criss from KISS. They'd go, 'Yeah, right'. In the end I started taking my driving license and other ID out with me to prove that I really was Peter Criss. It was pretty funny how the make-up thing kind of backfired."

The recent Kennedy Center honors ceremony for KISS, last December, was a chance for the original band to be together again but sadly Ace Frehley passed away just a few weeks earlier, on October 16th, something Peter found very hard to cope with.

"It was tough for me because Ace wasn't there. He'd been very excited about going there. He said, 'Pete, I'm really looking forward to this.' So not having him next to me was really hard... I cried a lot of times that day, broke down actually. I missed Ace and it wasn't the same... It was great to get the award, But I was grieving so much that my heart hurt a lot."

Peter released a new solo album a few weeks ago and he feels motivated and keen to show the world he's a fit, healthy and productive musician.

"I haven't done drugs for 42 years, and I gave up drinking 30 years ago, I'm too old for that sh*t! So what you see now is the real Peter Criss. And you know what? I'm definitely not a drug addict. I'm a drum addict!"

Read the rest of the exclusive mega interview with Peter Criss, as well as features on Megadeth, Paul Gilbert, Alex Skolnick of Testament, Francis Rossi of Status Quo, Phil Collen of Def Leppard talking about his previous band Girl, a reappraisal of Aerosmith's 'Pump' album and Ian Anderson talking about the classic Jethro Tull 'Aqualung' album, Jason McMaster of Dangerous Toys... and much more fascinating content in Issue 54 of Rock Candy Magazine.

Black Sabbath members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward talk exclusively to Rock Candy Mag for a 50th anniversary celebration of the ‘Sabotage’ album.

March 29, 2025

Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward have opened up to Rock Candy for the magazine’s latest expansive cover story marking 50 years since the release of the band’s seminal sixth studio album,‘Sabotage’, in 1975.

The three musicians recall the stresses and strains of going though litigation with their former manager, while at the same time trying to create new music that was designed to push the boundaries of what the Birmingham group had previously deemed possible.

“We were obviously immensely p*ssed off because we had hardly anything to show for five years of constantly touring, writing, and recording,” Butler explained to Rock Candy Mag editor Howard Johnson. “It was difficult dividing time between creating music and time spent in lawyers’ offices, with QCs, and in law courts. But with our backs against the wall I think some of the songs on ‘Sabotage’ were the angriest that we’d ever written.”

“It wasn’t easy, because as it turned out the court case happened smack bang in the middle of recording ‘Sabotage’,” says Iommi. “One minute you’d be worrying about whether a riff was right for a song, the next you’d be sat in court.”

Yet despite such immense outside stresses, Sabbath were absolutely determined to forge ahead on their musical journey.

“We were in an experimental phase at the time,” says Butler.“We’d introduced different instruments on the [previous] ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ album, and once again were looking for new directions. Synths were relatively new at that time, so we had a go at introducing them on some songs. It was fun playing around.”

With their backs against the wall, Sabbath dug deep to produce some of the most exciting rock music of the ’70s – or any other decade.

“‘Hole In The Sky’ and ‘Symptom Of The Universe’ are two of my all-time favourite Black Sabbath songs,” confirms Geezer. “I still love playing them, and they really come alive when we perform them live.”

“I was really, really happy with the writing,” says Bill Ward. “I think we were expanding, allowing ourselves to expand. We’d come a really long way from the song ‘Black Sabbath’, as great as that song is. I thought the richness of what we were doing on ‘Sabotage’ was brilliant.”

You can read the exclusive Black Sabbath ‘Sabotage’ story in issue 49 of Rock Candy Mag, together with in-depth stories and interviews with Billy Squier, Angel, Machine Head, Don Airey, L.A. Guns, Jethro Tull, and more. For more details visit www.rockcandymag.com.

ABOUT ROCK CANDY MAG
Rock Candy Mag is a 100-page, full-colour bi-monthly rock mag, created in the UK. It covers the sights, sounds and smells from the greatest era in hard rock music, the ’70s and ’80s. The brainchild of: respected UK rock journalists Derek Oliver, Howard Johnson and Malcolm Dome – all frontline writers for the legendary Kerrang! magazine in the golden era.

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MIKE PORTNOY: "IT WAS LIKE SEEING YOUR WIFE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND."

January 30, 2025

The returning drumming legend with prog metal titans Dream Theater tells Rock Candy Magazine about his time away from the band and why it feels right to be back in the fold.

“It was a longing to come home, to be with family. The two Johns [Petrucci and Myung] and I started together when we were teenagers, and now here we are creeping up on 60. It goes way deeper than coming back to a band.”

The release of the band's sixteenth studio album, ‘Parasomnia’, finds the friends out on the road and taking their peerless brand of razor-sharp melodic metal to their expectant fans. The band had much success with previous drummer Mike Mangini behind the kit, but Mike Portnoy's reappearance has scratched an itch for many die-hard followers. Mike is very aware of the fans and feels the weight of trying to live up to expectations.

“We just have to write for ourselves and make ourselves happy. Dream Theater fans are so rabid, and so opinionated, and so passionate that there's no way we can please everybody... I really care about our fans. I've spent my whole career trying to model everything I do for them because I relate to them as much as anybody. The hardest thing for me is to keep an eye on that, but also look away from it and please ourselves first and foremost. There's a balance somewhere, though, and hopefully we're striking it.”

You can read our exclusive Mike Portnoy interview, as well as the interviews with all the members of Dream Theater in issue 48 of Rock Candy Magazine, together with in-depth stories and interviews with Ian Gillan, Steve Vai, Pantera and Anthrax's Charlie Benante,Teaze, TKO and more. For more details visit: www.rockcandymag.com