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Johnny Depp to spend night in Danish prison

The A-lister's rock band, Hollywood Vampires will play Fængslet in Horsens this summer.

Published: 31 March 2016 09:00 CEST

Johnny Depp to spend night in Danish prison

Hollywood Vampires. PR Photo

Hollywood Vampires, featuring Alice Cooper, movie star Johnny Depp and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, will perform on June 1st at Fængslet at Horsens, a former state penitentiary that now serves as a cultural centre, the venue announced on Wednesday.

“I’m proud to be able to present Hollywood Vampires in Horsens. They are only playing six concerts in Europe, so for us this is sensational. I’d say it’s quite the scoop to have Johnny Depp and the boys coming to town,” Frank Panduro of Horsens & Friends said in a press release.

The supergroup was formed last year by the A-list 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'Edward Scissorhands' actor and his rocker friends to honour the music of fellow icons who died from excess in the 1970s.

It takes its name from a celebrity drinking club and sometime band formed by Alice Cooper 40 years ago which apparently included The Who drummer Keith Moon and at least one member of The Beatles.

Hollywood Vampires released their debut album last year, which featured appearances from stars Paul McCartney, Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and Dracula star Christopher Lee.

Panduro called the band members “show masters” but also hinted that there would be reason to come to the concert even if their music isn't to one's taste.

“They're on tour to have a good time so I think we will have an enormous experience. And if the wife isn't in to rock music, then maybe Johnny Depp can tempt her by his mere presence,” he said.

The former Horsens State Penitentiary has hosted a number of big-name acts since the last inmate left the facility in 2006. In addition to the concert venue, the former prison now also hosts a Prison Museum and even a prison hotel in the former infirmary ward.

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New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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