Lyric Video Premiere: ‘American Idol’s’ James Durbin Teams With Quiet Riot’s Alex Grossi in Maps to the Hollywood Scars

Yahoo Music

He’s the American Idol finalist who jammed onstage with Judas Priest and begged the nation to “give metal a chance.” And now James Durbin is putting his metal where his mouth is, teaming up with veteran Quiet Riot guitarist Alex Grossi for a new collaboration called Maps to the Hollywood Scars. Their debut five-song EP, Maps to the Hollywood Scars – Volume 1, which also features playing by Guns N’ Roses keyboardist Dizzy Reed, comes out today (Friday, Feb. 17) — and to celebrate, Yahoo Music’s Reality Rocks is premiering the project’s first lyric video, for “Till Death.”

James Durbin & Alex Grossi
James Durbin & Alex Grossi

“Alex and I have been patiently anticipating this release since we first began emailing each other songs in October 2016,” Durbin tells Yahoo Music. “The songs were flowing so organically and got such a great response internally that what started as a side-project, not intended for release, quickly changed to something we no longer wanted to keep a secret. We decided to release our ballad ‘Till Death’ as the lead single because, number one, no one is telling us we can’t, and number two, we feel like this song has such a strong message to anyone that’s ever lost something they love more than anything.”

“I have been a fan of James’s for a while, and after we got an impromptu chance to jam together in Las Vegas last fall, we kept in touch and the ideas just started flowing back and forth. I feel that Maps to the Hollywood Scars is a true labor of love and reflects a lot of where we have both been, as well as where we are both going musically, outside of what we are both known for,” says Grossi.

“It’s not very often that a project like this goes from nothing to something in such a short amount of time, without a slough of industry BS,” says Durbin. “Alex started sending me instrumental demos and gave me free range to just write! We started churning out songs one after the other — and they weren’t losing their quality, they were getting better. I think that we stumbled upon a winning team and it’s only fair that we let our collective fans hear what we’ve been having so much fun making… We’re truly blessed and grateful to have been able to do this and can’t wait to continue writing and recording more volumes as we go.”

Durbin and Grossi are putting the finishing touches on Maps to the Hollywood Scars – Volume 2, which will come out in the spring. In the meantime, the purchase links for Volume 1 are below.

AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Roads/dp/B01MZI9AEJ

APPLE MUSIC: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1204404201

ITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1204404201?ls=1&app=itunes

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