King Kobra Not Allowed to Record Acoustic Song for New Album

Remember King Kobra? The glam metal band is back with a new album called simply 'King Kobra.' Drummer Carmine Appice formed the band in the mid '80s with Mark Free (now Marcie Free) on vocals. Now, singer Paul Shortino is fronting the band, and the members are working hard to promote their comeback record.

So why now, all these years later, would the guys in King Kobra be interested in resurrecting the band? Well, like most things in life, everything fell into place thanks to friends. Singer Ron Keel was working on the vocals for the Keel album 'Streets of Rock & Roll' at Shortino's home studio with Pat Regan, who mixed the record. One day, Appice, Regan, and King Kobra guitarist David Henzerling were all hanging out when Regan floated the idea of getting King Kobra on the Frontiers label. Since original King Kobra singer Marcie Free was no longer interested in performing hard rock tunes, Shortino's name was suggested. The rest, as they say, is history.

There was no doubt in Shortino's mind that King Kobra would be a great fit for him.

"With my voice, I like a lot of meat and potatoes behind me. I like the heavier stuff, I always have," Shortino tells Noisecreep.

Shortino has previously fronted other '80s hard rock bands including Rough Cutt and Quiet Riot. Now, of course, the focus is 100% on King Kobra and taking the band to the next level. The making of 'King Kobra' was easy enough. It all started with a casual jam session.

"Carmine came up here [to Las Vegas] to talk, and so we talked and jammed and David came up and we put together three songs that weekend when we all were together and actually those three vocals I did on those three songs were the original three vocals we used on the record when it was finished," says Shortino. "Something like that is only a moment in time anyway, if you do it again, it won't be the same. If you get something and like it, leave it alone. You can do something over and over and think you're going to get it better. It could get worse or lose the magic it had."

The musicians parted ways and continued to work on the album in their respective homes and personal studios, sending files via the Internet and getting back together when necessary.

'King Kobra' turned out to be a rocker of an album -- because it had to be. Turns out, Frontiers had stipulated in the band's contract that acoustic songs were verboten.

So once the band was together again, why was Frontiers the go-to label?

"I think they are the only ones doing any '80s music," admits Shortino. "They just signed a deal with EMI here in the States for distribution. They've signed Whitesnake, Mr. Big... they've got a lot of the '80s [bands] in their stable. And there seems to be resurgence of the '80s music. I love that time period. Great music there."