RED DRAGON CARTEL Confirm New Singer

Guitarist Jake E. Lee’s Red Dragon Cartel have announced a replacement for singer Darren Smith, who left the band yesterday. He will be joining his former bandmates Harem Scarem on their upcoming tour. A statement reads as follows:

“Red Dragon Cartel and singer Darren James Smith have officially parted ways. All scheduled shows will still take place as planned with Michael Beck on vocals. We would like to welcome Michael to RDC and we look forward to getting back on stage!”

Michael Beck (pictured below) is owner/producer/engineer at SoundVision Recording Studios in Mesa, Arizona. He currently lives in Mesa, Arizona, but is originally from Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Jake E. Lee is best known for his work in Badlands and as guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne on Bark At The Moon and The Ultimate Sin albums. Released in early 2014, the Red Dragon Cartel debut also features various guest appearances from some of music’s most notable faces including Cheap Trick vocalist Robin Zander, original Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno, Kill Devil Hill/Pantera bassist Rex Brown, Slash’s Conspirators Todd Kerns and Brent Fitz and In This Moment front woman Maria Brink. The album was produced by Ronnie Mancuso and Jake E. Lee and was executive produced, mixed and mastered by Kevin Churko (In This Moment, Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch).

“Well, yes, the sound of the CD is an accumulation of things that I’d written for 15, 20 years, and so I can’t say there is any one particular sound,” Lee told BraveWords. “It entails a big span of time, especially if you consider that the last song, the piano thing that I did, I wrote when I was 15. From there it spans a lot of years. So, I’ve heard people say that the album might not be cohesive or, it might be a little too spread-out musically. Most of it, I’d say the bulk of everything, actually everything other than that piano piece that I mentioned, was written after Badlands, on my own, and anywhere from 15 years ago to the present.”