Feel good songs, a good fun album – it just doesn’t get any better!

When I first heard about Joe Elliott’s project with members of the Quireboys I wasn’t sure it would work, especially given that all the songs were to be by Joe’s favourite musicians of all time – Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter and their various later bands – Mott and British Lions. I also thought I wouldn’t know any of the material – I was so wrong on both counts! This is a collection of some of the best straight ahead rock songs you will ever hear and without realising it, will probably know several of already. Not least of course the classic ‘Good Times’, made famous by the Easybeats and featured in the classic ‘80’s film Lost Boys with a version being done on that occasion by Inxs with Jimmy Barnes. 

The video for ‘England Rocks’ features a lot of Joe’s pals – Gene Simmons, Francis Rossi, Brian May to name but a few, and I believe the band had been hoping it might be something of an anthem for the World Cup squad, but that was sadly short lived! It has, however, captured the enthusiasm of this great nation and is instantly ingrained on the senses. As I write this the song has actually entered the US Classic Rock Top Ten – and well deserved.

Finally more of Ian Hunter’s music will be heard by the masses besides the hits ‘Roll Away The Stone’ and ‘All The Way From Memphis’. There’s no doubt that the man could certainly write a good song, it’s just taken Joe Elliott to be the catalyst to get them back out there. Joe has never made a secret of the fact that Hunter has been a huge influence on him and I challenge anyone not to hear the similarities between ‘Overnight Angels’ and ‘Armageddon It’.

The band features Quireboys stalwarts Paul Guerin (guitar), Guy Griffin (guitar), Keith Weir (keyboards) and Phil Martini (drums) along with former Raw Glory bassist Ronnie Garrity, and they certainly seem to complement Joe’s voice in every way. I’d go so far as to say that I actually prefer Joe singing these songs than Def Leppard classics. His voice seems far better suited to the Hunter penned numbers.
From the balls out rockers like ‘England Rocks’, ‘Who Do You Love’, ‘Good Times’,’ Golden Opportunity’ and ‘Storm’ to the quirky ‘Shouting and Pointing’ (a classic Mott song from after Hunter had left), and the ballad ‘Career (No Such Thing As Rock ‘n’ Roll)’, each one is a masterpiece. On ‘By Tonight’ Joe sounds almost like Rod Stewart in parts and the riff is reminiscent of ‘Start Me Up’ by the Rolling Stones (although that particular track was penned in 1981 as opposed to Mott’s which was a good 6 years earlier), which just goes to show how many bands have actually been influenced by this music.

Joe alludes to there being several volumes of Down ‘n’ Outz material in the future, and I can’t wait to hear the next chapter! Feel good songs, a good fun album – it just doesn’t get any better!

Sue Ashcroft