Bryan Adams recently issued a special double A-side single featuring two songs - "War Machine" and "Rock And Roll Hell" - through his new independent label, Bad Records. These songs were originally written by Adams, Jim Vallance, and Gene Simmons for KISS’ 1982 album, Creatures Of The Night.
The release is available to order as a limited edition double A-side 7” single, available exclusively via Bryan’s webstore.
Adams recently spoke with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. During their conversation, he talks about writing songs for KISS and how “War Machine” and “Rock and Roll Hell” came about. He also shares details on his new record label, Bad Records, and reveals he has a new album coming soon.
SiriusXM's Trunk Nation, hosted by Eddie Trunk, airs daily at 3 PM, ET on SiriusXM’s Faction Talk. Audio clips and transcription below, courtesy of SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation.
On writing songs for KISS:
Bryan Adams: "I was 21 and I had released my album called You Want it, You Got It. And I got a call from a guy called Michael James Jackson, who was a producer at the time. And he called me to say, 'Hey, I really like your record and I'm actually working with this band KISS. Would you like to, you know, write a couple songs with them or for them?' And I said, 'Yeah, you know. What, is this for real?' And, he said, 'Yeah.' And so they flew me to Los Angeles and I met Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley and Eric Carr, who was the drummer at the time. Sort of sat down with each one of 'em individually and wrote songs with each one. I wrote a song with Paul and I wrote a song with Eric, and with Gene I didn't write anything, but Gene had a really good bassline that I sort of recorded on my cassette recorder. And I took it back to Vancouver and I was telling my usual songwriting collaborator, Jim Vallance, that, you know, I'd done this thing and, you know, check out this baseline of Gene's. And we listened to it and within an hour or so, we'd written this song called 'War Machine' around it. So that's how 'War Machine' came about. And then just to drag Jim into it further, I said, you know, we should, that song that he had, a song that he had wrote by himself called 'Rock and Roll Hell'. I said, 'We should retool that song 'cause it didn't do anything. We should retool it for KISS.' And he said, 'Okay, let's give it a go.' So I came up with a verse idea, and then the two of us sort of came up with a lyric idea and we finished the song and sent it down there. And that became the second KISS song. Gene wanted a third verse, so he wrote a third verse for it."
On launching Bad Records:
Adams: "When I was a kid, my nickname was Badams 'cause it's B Adams. And so everything since then has been sort of based on that. So my publishing company is Badams Music and to make an extension on it, I decided to call this record, my label Bad Records."
Eddie Trunk: "So tell me when you had the idea to start a label, because you've launched it with these two tracks, we're about to talk about 'Rock And Roll Hell' and 'War Machine'. But tell me about the idea to do your own label and when you had that idea. What drove you to want to do that?"
Adams: "I did it back in, I started in 2013, more or less as just a lark. I had put out a record of covers called Tracks Of My Years, and we made up this a record company. We did a bunch of singles, like, you know, the old paper record sleeves with the colors and the sort of psychedelic paper sleeves. We made a bunch of those up, just pretended to be a real record company that had this imaginary sort of roster of music. And it's been live since 2013. But this year I decided to make it more official. And since I'm now an independent artist, I don't have a record company, I don't have a manager, I decided I would just do something really avant-garde and start my own label. And it's really because a lot of my music has come back to me and it needed a home. And so I decided to just to put it there for the time being. And then the idea came to maybe launch something new with it. And so that brings us to these two songs."
On his next record:
Adams: "It's already in the can."
Trunk: "Really? I'm surprised to hear that the record's done?"
Adams: "Yeah, the record's done. It's mixed and I just gotta put the album cover together and so I'll do that before Christmas, and then I think we'll probably release it in the first quarter of next year."
Trunk: "Wow. What can you tell us about it in terms of, anything you can tell us about at this point?"
Adams: "Well, I would love to sit with you and play the whole thing for you, Eddie. It's a super exciting record and it's a rocker as well, so when the time comes and we get closer to it, maybe I can sit you down and play you the whole thing."
