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AOR Issue 4 out!

Possibly the mightiest and chock-filled issue of AOR yet, this month's issue is packed to gills with the fruitiest and most epic melodic rock bands of all stripe. The cover story this month centres around Bon Jovi and their landmark 1986 Slippery When Wet opus. Featuring previously unpublished pictures from the album sleeve session by official band photographer Mark Weiss including token buxom bikini ladies, we investigate the making of Slippery When Wet, Bon Jovi's make-or-break third album which subsequently catapulted them into superstardom.

The action continues apace via a moustachioed exclusive interview with Franke Previte of Franke & The Knockouts on the enduring legacy of his band not to mention his Oscar-winning movie theme songwriting.

We of course pay our respect to recently and sadly deceased songwriter and frontman Jani Lane with an in-depth look at his life in and around Warrant.

A retrospective on folk-rock croonsters America and their dominance of the early 70s singles charts is followed up by a look at Canadian rock heroes, Coney Hatch. We also speak with Diane Warren, Bai Bang, House Of Lords, Lionville, Steve Newman and Toby Hitchcock and investigate how the enduring AOR power ballad is finding a whole new audience in the UK. An AOR field trip UK's leading AOR gathering, Firefest ramps up the excitement and it's all polished off with all the latest new album reviews plus reports of Toto, Mötley Crüe and Chicago on the road.

This month's accompanying disc of 15 carefully-chosen AOR tracks, titled Get Your Wings featuring FM, Issa, White Widdow, Seb Bach, Riverdogs and more. All this and much more, AOR issue 4 is on sale from September 28. Purchase Internationally via: bit.ly/AOR4magazine_BonJovi.

"Don't Stop Belevin'" The Untold Story Of Journey by Neil Daniels

Journey is undoubtedly one of America’s most successful melodic rock bands, with record sales in excess of 75 million. And with the recent phenomenal success of "Don’t Stop Believin'" – now the most downloaded song of all time – they’ve been given an amazing new lease on life.  The band is now receiving more acclaim and exposure than at any time since their early eighties heyday, when they released the multi-million selling Escape and Frontiers albums. Here, for the first time ever, Journey's extensive history is explored in this definitive biography, charting the many highs and lows of one of America’s most beloved rock bands.

Featuring original interviews and a wealth of research, Don’t Stop Believin’: The Untold Story Of Journey follows the band's entire career. It’s a story filled not only with heartache, bitterness and behind-the-scenes squabbles, but also creativity, dedication, passion and drive. Fans both old and new will be fascinated by this previously untold story.

About the Author: Neil Daniels is a freelance writer and author. He has written extensively about music, cinema, books and graphic novels for several years. He is a contributor to several music websites and magazines, including Drowned In Sound, Big Cheese and Record Collector. His work as an author includes The Story Of Judas Priest: Defenders Of The Faith (also available from Omnibus Press) and Robert Plant: Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page & The Solo Years.

"Street Player, My Chicago Story" by Danny Seraphine

In Street Player, legendary drummer Danny Seraphine, a founding member of the iconic band Chicago, tells the dramatic story of his rise from the very mean streets of Chicago to the pinnacle of rock fame and fortune in the 1960s, a watershed period in music history. In this riveting book, Seraphine offers vivid portraits of his fellow band members and reveals how Chicago differs from all other bands and why they have captured the hearts of millions of fans worldwide.

This lively inside story is filled with fascinating and colorful tales from Seraphine's time on the road. He recalls how his first meeting with Janis Joplin nearly turned into a fist fight (and how she sweetly apologized afterward), why Jimi Hendrix invited Chicago to tour with him, and how Hendrix, a former paratrooper, calmly reassured him during a very turbulent flight. He talks about touring with the Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Led Zeppelin, and other music legends. Seraphine's tales of learning and perfecting his craft, and of how he pushed his and the band's art to their limits and beyond, are told with an unforgettable passion and urgency.

Seraphine shares moving and heartfelt stories of his life. For example, in the winter of 1965, as a high school dropout, he stood alone in his mother's kitchen wondering what had happened to his dream. He had thought he would be a professional drummer by then, basking in the roar of applause and well on his way to a brilliant career. Instead, he could hear only echoes of the shotgun blast that nearly took his life the night before. He imagined a pointless future of street fights and felonies in which the best he could hope for was a low-level position in the Chicago Mafia. Knowing there was no way out, he was close to despair. Then the phone rang; the rest is music history.

And in this book, for the first time, Seraphine tells the painful story, from the heart, of close friend and cofounder Terry Kath's death and of Seraphine's traumatic 1990 firing from the band and the pain that he has only recently overcome.

Complete with dozens of photos from Chicago's early years, Street Player is an uncommonly powerful rock memoir that is easy to pick up and very hard to put down.