Johnny and Music Factory

On May 28, Hollywood Vampires: Super Group, consisting of Johnny Depp, Grandfather Rock Rock Alis Cooper and Aerosmith's guitarist Joe Perry, will perform at the Olympic SK. They took their name from the legendary drinking club, which was formed around Alice Cooper in the 1970s-it once included Mark Bolan, Ringo Starr and Kit Moon from The Who. The largest intrigue of the May concert for most spectators will be the appearance of Johnny Depp with a guitar on stage. But fans of the Hollywood superstars know that he has been engaged in music for a long time and enthusiastically. We followed his successes in this field.

Depp and children

Depp's passion for music has manifested itself in early childhood. His first tool was a cheap drum installation. Apparently, the future actor did not spare either the installation or others, because soon his mother bought him a guitar. She cost $ 25 and before Johnny belonged to one of the musicians of the state group, where his uncle played. From the age of 13, Depp outplayed in many amateur compositions, whose creative life was often limited to one or two concerts. The repertoire consisted of Cavers of the Hard and Glam Legend of the 1970s: Alice Cooper (who would tell Depp that in the distant future they will play in the same group), Van Halen , kiss . The Internet retained only a few names of these groups: “Flame” (Flame) , “ Bad Boys”, “Fugitives” (The Runaways) . “You are 13 years old and you play rock and roll. Loud. Badly. But you are still calling to play from someone in the yard. It was pure bliss. It was freedom. Since then, I had no more questions for life: I saw the future, ”Johnny Depp recalled this stage.

Johnny Depp & The Kids - "Come Back to Me"

A qualitative leap occurred after the fall of 1980, Depp joined the The Kids group. It was a serial hoping team, well known in South Florida, from where the future movie star was a native - to become a guitarist, the depp had to be audition. They played a guitar pop in the spirit of the “New Wave”, in the most battle tracks, resorting to the Pankovsky guitar riffs-and people from a large show business were already looking at them at that time. At the first concert, Depp and his group had to warm up the audience before Chaka Berry's exit in Atlanta. They opened the concerts of Talking Heads , Iggy Pop, The B-52's and other rock stars. They released a demo with four tracks, renamed Six Gun Method and went to Los Angeles, hoping to sign a major contract there and become famous throughout the country. But these plans were not destined to come true, and Depp soon left the group. Before that, having managed to tighten an affair with the sister of the drummer Laurie Anne Ellison, who became his first wife. She was friends with actor Nicholas Cage, who in 1984 recommended Depp for a role in the horror of all time "Nightmare on Vyazov Street." “I seemed to move from one bus to another,” Depp recalled this turn in his life. Due to the filming, the guitar had to be put in a corner for a long time.

Star MTV

Aerosmith vocalist Stephen Tyler once called Johnny Depp "Rock star in the world of cinema." Of course, with an increase in the popularity of the actor, he increasingly appears in music videos. A very young depp can be observed in the video for the software thing of Tom Petty “Into the Great Wide Open” , where he plays the protagonist of the song, a rebel for no reason, turning from a simple guy into a frivolous flannel shirt into a rock star.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakes - "Into the Great Wide Open"

In 1994, Depp acted as a director and an invited star in the video of the leader of the Irish folk-punk group The Pogues of Shane McGowan “That Woman ' S Got Me Drinking. " In this frankly Camp video, the musician got the role of a bartender, and Depp himself played a visitor broken by a love misfortune who fell asleep on the rack. Apparently, alcohol and music connected them in real life: at least last year, Depp, along with Bono, ended up on stage during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of McGowan and performed one of his best songs “Rain Night in Soho” .

Shane Macgowan - "That Woman's Got Me Drinking"

Depp also shot four clips for his passion Vanessa Paradis, but appeared in their frames briefly - it remains to guess if he played a stranger in a hat who watches the singer’s movements on the stage of an empty theater in the video “L'Necendie” . “How could you leave such a woman, an idiot? This was the beginning of your gloomy days! " - I reacted to this YouTube clip.

Vanessa Paradis - "L'NCendie"

Over the past decade, he could be seen three times in the clips of Sir Paul McCartney. “He is like Alfred Hitchcock of my clips. And he is beautiful, ”Beatle said about him. The most poetic was the black and white video for the song “My Valentine” , in which Natalie Portman also starred. Both actors use the language of gestures to convey the lyrics of the song to deaf spectators. In addition, according to Paul McCartney, it was the guitar solo of Depp that entered the final version of the ballad. And his original option belonged to Eric Clapton.

Paul McCartney - "My Valentine"

Friends asked to play along

Glory helps to fulfill dreams that seemed unrealistic yesterday, and the example of Johnny Depp is the best proof of this thesis. If you want, you play along with the Gallagher brothers from Oasis (the song “Fade in-to” , which fell on the BE HERE Now ) brothers on a slide guitar. If you want, you go on stage with Emir Kusturitsa and Jim Jarmusch (this happened at the Belgrade Film Festival after the show of the Arizona Dream). If you want, you help to write music for the soundtracks of your own paintings, as it was with the “Romovo Diary”, “Once in Mexico” by Robert Rodriguez and “Chocolate”. In 1999, Depp wrote the music for the song “Hollywood Affair” by IGGI of the Pop, which became the bisaid of the single “Corruption” , a black-skinned ballad, which has a stripper with two children and a cache suitcase.

Johnny Depp and Iggy Pop - "Hollywood Affair"

He repeatedly became a hero of songs himself. And by no means all of them were benevolent. Here, for example, is a artisanal little thing of the early Bek, where he literally walked along the actor. “He is pregnant only by himself”, “like a magnet that is not attracted to anything”, “Tell me what to be your girlfriend” - it seems that Bek did not write about his career with greater sarcasm. It's all about the incident that happened at the Bek concert at the Viper Room club, which belonged to Depp, the group played so sluggishly that the administration of the institution took and turned off the electricity right in the middle of the show.

Beck - "Johnny Depp"

Trio Trezvevennikov

Alice Cooper, his current musical partner, has a completely different opinion about Depp - he said, he is completely deprived of the manner of the superstar. Depp met the merchant on the set of the tragicomedy “Gloomy Shadows” of Tim Berton, where Johnny played a vampire, and Cooper himself. Cooper already knew about the musical abilities of his partner in the platform, and in the Depp studio he had the idea to record a record - dedication to the world of another drinking club Hollywood Vampires . During one of the sessions, the Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, who often stayed with Depp, looked into the studio - so the last card lay in this solitaire.

It is curious that all three main participants in Hollywood Vampires are teetotalers, allowing themselves only a glass or two wine on occasion. Perry and Coopers were tied in the 1980s, realizing that the rock and roll lifestyle of the previous decade could bring them to the grave. Behind Depp never had a train of alcoholic exploits. Although, according to his good friend Marilyn Manson, it was Depp who is to blame for his attachment to the absorp.

Hollywood Vampires - "My Dead Drunk Friends"

One way or another, the recording of the debut album Hollywood Vampires was without libations and other excesses-but from the guest on the plate of Rock veterans there was a real drimaty. Among them were Brian Johnson from AC/DC , Robbie Krieger from The Doors , Slash, Dave Grol and even Sir Paul McCartney, who sang and played on the Bass in Cave on his own “Come & Get it” thing. Bob Ezrin, who collaborated with Lou Reed, Pink Floyd , Deep Purple , Kiss and other giants, produced. Among the Cavers on a imperfection like “My Generation” of The Who (hello to the drummer Kita Mun, who was the most indefatigable and cheerful drinking club) or “Whole Lotta Love” Led Zeppelin turned out to be three own songs, one of which is “My Dead Drunk Friends” - fell into The "heavy ten" Billboard .

Having played at several large -scale festivals like Rock In Rio and events like the Grammy Award, Hollywood Vampires went on a world tour. The release of new records remains in question due to the dense work schedule of Depp, which is shot annually in five or six paintings. Star friends will not skimp on compliments to his guitar skills, but he himself remains a little in the shade on the stage, allowing to speak for himself music. The idol of Depp Kit Richards once well said about this Non -Hollywood modesty: “Johnny Depp plays the guitar much better than he thinks. And I play it, perhaps worse than he thinks. "