BLACK SWAN Feat. JEFF PILSON, ROBIN MCAULEY, REB BEACH And MATT STARR: 'Shake The World' Album Due In February

December 9, 2019

BLACK SWAN, the new band featuring bassist Jeff Pilson (DOKKEN, FOREIGNER),vocalist Robin McAuley (MCAULEY SCHENKER GROUP, SURVIVOR),guitarist Reb Beach (WINGER, WHITESNAKE) and drummer Matt Starr (MR. BIG, ACE FREHLEY),will release its debut album, "Shake The World", on February 14, 2020 via Frontiers Music Srl. The disc's lead single and music video for the title track will be released tomorrow (Tuesday, December 10).

Speaking to Rock Titan, Starr stated about how his involvement in the project came about: "[In early 2019], Jeff reached out and said, 'hey, I've got this new thing with Robin McAuley and Reb Beach, and I wanted to see if you'd be interested in talking about playing drums.' And I said, 'Yeah. Of course.' I know all those guys — [they're] super talented. They have a record, and the record was done and they needed to put some drums on it. So they had asked me, and I checked out the music and it was very cool. I said yes, and then, three days later, I was up at Jeff's place and we were cutting drum tracks. We spent four days, three and a half days recording 12 songs. And it's awesome… And it's really, really, really good. Everybody says that about whatever they're working on, but we were all, like, 'Holy shit! This is awesome.'"

The drummer, who has played with a number of high-profile acts in the past, said that he is an official member of the new project, "which is great. And I think that's kind of the first time for me, because I'm always coming into situations where I'm the hired guy," he said. "And look, there's advantages to that too — you negotiate your rate and then the tour can do whatever it does and you don't have to worry about it. So there's pluses and minuses to all that. But, yeah, I'm a member of this band. And I think everybody's pretty excited to get out there and play. Just how and when we can do that, we'll have to wait and see."

Back in February, Pilson officially confirmed the project's existence, saying that the album was "turning out amazing. Wait until you hear everybody's playing and singing. It's beyond — way beyond," he promised.

Pilson — one-fourth of the classic DOKKEN lineup — joined FOREIGNER in 2004. In recent years, he has also produced albums by LAST IN LINE, KILL DEVIL HILL, STARSHIP and WARRANT.

Beach — who was among the artists recently interviewed for Guitar World's February 2019 cover story on the "last days of hair metal" — is an original member of WINGER. He joined WHITESNAKE in 2002. Notably, he also performed on one DOKKEN album alongside Pilson, 1999's "Erase The Slate".

Irish vocalist McAuley is best-known for fronting MCAULEY SCHENKER GROUP from 1986 to 1993. Alongside Graham Bonnet and Gary Barden, he has toured with MICHAEL SCHENKER FEST in recent years and also appears on "Resurrection", the group's 2018 album.

Starr — who joined Ace Frehley's band in 2012 and continues to perform with him periodically — began touring with MR. BIG in 2014 and appears on the group's latest album, 2017's "Defying Gravity". He has also toured and/or recorded with HOOKERS & BLOW, BEAUTIFUL CREATURES and BURNING RAIN, among others.

Find more on Dokken
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).