LAST IN LINE To Begin Recording Sophomore Album In September

LAST IN LINE will enter the studio in September to begin recording its sophomore album for an early 2018 release via Frontiers Music Srl. Helming the disc once again will be Jeff Pilson, the veteran bassist and producer who has played with DIO, FOREIGNER, DOKKEN and T&N, among others.

LAST IN LINE is the band featuring DEF LEPPARD guitarist Vivian Campbell alongside fellow founding DIO member Vinny Appice, plus singer Andrew Freeman, who has previously fronted HURRICANE and LYNCH MOB. Playing bass for LAST IN LINE is Phil Soussan (OZZY OSBOURNE, BEGGARS & THIEVES, Steve Lukather), who joined the group after original LAST IN LINE bassist Jimmy Bain passed away in January 2016 at the age of 68. He was reportedly suffering from lung cancer at the time of his death.

In a brand new interview with Shut Up & Rock On, Campbell confirmed that LAST IN LINE has been working on material for the follow-up to last year’s “Heavy Crown”. He said: “I’m on my way today to another writing session with them. We’ve had several already; I’d say we have about two thirds of the album. It’s sounding great.

“I didn’t know how it was going to work with Phil Soussan from a creative point of view, but I’m very happy to say that he fits in there. He absolutely gets how we write songs and it’s been a really good fit having Phil.

“The songs are sounding great. Andy‘s got some terrific lyrics and melodies.

“We wanna keep the same team in place. We worked on the ‘Heavy Crown’ record with Jeff Pilson and Jeff was absolutely fantastic for us, so it’s a great fit and we want to keep that. That’s the good news. The bad news is that because of Jeff‘s schedule with FOREIGNER and my schedule with DEF LEPPARD this year, it’ll be September before we can actually start recording, which, unfortunately, means it’ll probably be early 2018 before the record’s released. But it will be coming, at least.”

Campbell also praised his LAST IN LINE bandmates, saying: “Vinny Appice is the most inspirational drummer I’ve ever played with. When Vinny plays behind me, I really have to raise my game.

“It’s so great to connect with Vinny again, it was great to connect with Jimmy before he passed away and just to reconnect with my youth and with my original love and my original passion — to play guitar like that. And then out of that grew the chance to write and record some new material with LAST IN LINE and it’s just so much fun.”

The DEF LEPPARD guitarist once again dismissed persistent Internet speculation that his decision to launch LAST IN LINE was somehow financially motivated. “I read things online and people say, ‘This is a cashgrab’ and all this. People have no fucking idea.

“I am not doing this for money; there is no fucking money in this. This is completely for the love of it.

“We just did a European tour in November, you know. I bought my own plane ticket to get there and back. I’m my own roadie — I tune strings of my guitar for every show.

“I’m doing this because I want to do this. I do this because this is my passion — to play guitar, because I do it really really fucking well. It just exercises a very different muscle than I exercise in DEF LEPPARD. I mean, LEPPARD is a great great live show but the real challenge for me in DEF LEPPARD is vocals. It is a very very vocally challenging band because we all sing in every song; the challenge in LAST IN LINE is all about guitar. I don’t even sing in LAST IN LINE. I don’t wanna sing in LAST IN LINE. I never sang with DIO, I was just the guitar player, so that’s all I do with LAST IN LINE. I put my head down and I play the shit out of that Les Paul.”