Makes Cents

After publicly feuding with their former lead singer, the Taz Taylor Band has replaced vocalist Graham Bonnet (Rainbow, Michael Schenker Group) with another MSG vet, Keith Slack.

U.K. guitarist Neil Taz Taylor moved to San Diego in 1997 and teamed up with Graham Bonnet when he found the fellow Brit rocker living nearby. After working together on the Taz Taylor Band’s 2008 album Welcome to America, a Russian tour was booked, but the singer quit before departure.

“The reason for the cancellation,” according to Bonnet on his website, was “we’d recently performed in Europe and the fees I’d negotiated and expected were not honored. I lost money on the tour, as my modest outgoings were far greater than my final paycheck…. I don’t know of anyone who would work for free or, even more bizarrely, pay to work.”

Taylor responded that “There were no fees ever negotiated by Graham for the recent European tour that he refers to. Graham knew and agreed to participate in the tour for whatever the revenues were, based on ticket sales.… At the end of the tour, Graham and a hired keyboardist received every cent of the revenue, including all the money from our own merchandise sales.”

“Only hours after flights were paid, Graham changed his mind about performing the [Russian] shows, stating his intention to begin work on other projects.” Besides MSG and Rainbow, Graham Bonnet’s other collaborators included Yngwie Malmsteen, Bob Kulick, Steve Vai, Chris Impellitteri, and Danny Johnson.

The Taz Taylor Band DVD Live in Prague — Ultimate Bootleg features Bonnet in a “complete unedited performance,” including songs from Bonnet’s tenure with Rainbow and MSG and instrumentals from Taylor’s solo CD Caffeine Racer.