JOE BONAMASSA Talks About BLACK COUNTRY Project

Guitarist Joe Bonamassa recently spoke to Dinosaur Rock Guitar about BLACK COUNTRY, the new group featuring Joe alongside legendary vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes (DEEP PURPLE, BLACK SABBATH),Jason Bonham (LED ZEPPELIN, FOREIGNER) on drums, and Derek Sherinian (DREAM THEATER, BILLY IDOL, ALICE COOPER) on keyboards.

"My friend Glenn Hughes and I and Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian are all friends," he said.

"Glenn and I have been talking about doing something together. What I didn't want it to be was some half-hearted Bona-Hughes weekend blues record, you know. If we're gonna do this let's do it right and start a band.

"[Producer] Kevin Shirley got involved. He was like, 'Call Jason and see if he's interested.'

"We didn't wanna do a power-trio because it's been done before and we didn't want people to think we were some CREAM sort of thing. So let's get a keyboard player. So we got Sherinian and he's fantastic.

"The whole thing really worked from start to finish.

"We have five tracks in the can right now and we're gonna do another five in March. We're gonna see how it goes.

"People ask when we're gonna tour. I don't know, we don't have a record yet! What do you sound like? I don't know, we don't have a record yet.

"Everybody's got a day job. BLACK COUNTRY is not something I'm doing 24/7. I mean, I have commitments to the album I just made, commitments to 22 people that work with me on a regular basis. I have to maintain these commitments, and I have to write songs for the BLACK COUNTRY and we have a session booked in March. So we'll know in the next few months really where we stand.

"We're gonna finish this thing in a few months, come hell or high water, and everybody's committed to that, and we'll see how it goes. What it's NOT gonna be, is 'Zeppelin II', 'Burn' and whatever DREAM THEATER you wanna pin it to, or whatever Joe Bonamassa record that might be worthy of pinning it to. It's not gonna be that, it's gonna be its own entity and it's very heavy rock. It's a heavy rock record, but it's not gonna be done with cleaner guitars, it's not done with tons of synths. It's really organic and represents everybody's inputs. It's some really exciting songs and the cool thing it's gonna be an all-original record with the exception of maybe a couple of things we may do for fun. It'll be its own entity and something we can be proud of.

"It's no sense in rushing something out that we're not proud of and all happy with."