Zak Starkey has urged Axl Rose to return a master recording of a song that he claims could raise $2million for charity.
The track he refers to is a star-studded cover of the classic T-Rex song ‘Children Of The Revolution’, which sees Rose team up with his Guns N’ Roses bandmates Slash and Duff McKagan, along with Elton John and Starkey’s father, Beatles legend Ringo Starr.
According to Loudwire, the cover stems back to 2017 when Guns N’ Roses and The Who played it at Rock In Rio, and it was recorded for a long-mooted (and still unreleased) charity album.
Now, Starkey – who was a longtime drummer for The Who – has launched a public appeal, pushing for Rose to stop procrastinating and let the song be shared to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
Taking to Instagram, Starkey wrote: “Dear Axl Rose, please give me my master of this track back. Me and Sshh [Liguz, Starkey’s wife] spent three years making this Bolan tribute for teen cancer.”
He added that himself, Sshh and Ringo Starr “arranged to include a modulating section for Slash’s guitar, another for Duff’s bass solo and plenty of room for Elton before you asked Sshh if you could sing it”.
“It’s a drag that the record is on the shelf, as Christie’s [auction house] have advised it could generate $2M for teen cancer,” he concluded. “C’mon bro.”
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Starkey shared details about the star-studded T-Rex cover last year, and leaked the song on social media earlier this year. “Ringo/Elton/Axl/Duff/Slash. C’mon amazing people — let’s get this record out and [help] these teenagers who, as musicians, we rely on so much,” he shared in April.
“If we wait much longer some of these brave young people may not have enough time to hear it,” he added. “This is the first half, then it gets wild!!! Everything generated by this record … goes to teenage cancer – if it gets released, which depends totally on the amazing participants giving us the green light.”
As for the whole charity album, Starkey hinted at other guest contributors, saying: “It’s a full album with more than one Beatle, a Smith a Pretender, an Ashcroft, an Iggy and many more …. Soon come.”
His ties to the Teenage Cancer Trust comes as The Who’s Roger Daltrey is an Honorary Patron.
The Teenage Cancer Trust concert series was launched by Daltrey in 2000 and has gone on to raise over £34million for the charity. The musician confirmed that he would be ending his time as the curator last year, although he will remain as the charity’s patron.
It was then announced that next year’s TCT gig series will be curated by The Cure’s Robert Smith.
As for Starkey, the post comes as he was recently fired from The Who ahead of their farewell tour.
Speaking about the firing, Starkey told NME that upon the news of being fired, “Pete [Townshend, guitarist] said, ‘Are you strong enough to fight for your job back?’ I said, ‘Not if you’ve got to do it for me’. If it wasn’t for The Who, I wouldn’t be playing the drums. I was a guitarist first. And then he went, ‘Alright, let’s get you your job back’.
“Roger demanded a public apology and me admitting that I dropped two beats. So I did it, but with a duck playing drums – which is my character in the new Mantra Of The Cosmos video. Pete phoned me and he went, ‘Try that again without the duck’. I did it without the duck, got the gig back – 10 days later, sacked again. Roger said he couldn’t work with me no more after I’d done that.”
In that NME interview, he also spoke about his new material with Mantra Of The Cosmos, and about how he felt with Oasis reuniting without him, opting for Joey Waronker behind the kit instead. Check it out here.
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