Kenny Dubman has a few tricks up his sleeve with his new single and video Old Dog — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The crunchy, punchy track is first preview of the hard rocker’s upcoming album Conflicted, a disc that spotlights a lifetime of rock, metal and Americana influences, coupled with real world trauma and hard-won self-healing. Having cut his musical teeth in the ’80s as a founding member of progressive rock band Prophet, Kenny is now releasing solo albums with a renewed sense of purpose.
In 2013, after finding himself at an all-time low, he discovered an album that changed everything: The Whippoorwill by Blackberry Smoke. A year later, Kenny was still listening to the full album on a daily basis. This inspired Kenny’s first solo album Reckless Abandon (2016). Fast forward to 2022, and Dubman has cooked up a batch of smoking new tunes with the help of some highly respected fellow musicians. Kenny’s third independent solo album Conflicted features guest guitar appearances by Zakk Wilde (Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society), Charlie Starr (Blackberry Smoke), and Scotti Hill (Skid Row), adding big-name muscle to this no-frills rock release.
Says Dubman: “Conflicted is really an album of observations of human nature and behavior … every single track is about things that people do, and the impact these things have on both themselves and others in their sphere. Human emotion drives human behavior, which ultimately shapes our worlds, for better or worse. Every single person is conflicted, in one way or another, at some point in their lives.”
Kenny was raised in a house where music played all the time, and it was his mom’s Hendrix and Santana records that etched their way into his psyche. He had to know how to make those sounds. By age nine he had started guitar lessons, and by 12, had begun to unravel the mysteries of real rock guitar playing on his own, courtesy of Ace Frehely on the first Kiss Alive album. Ace was playing the Jimmy Page licks … but he played them slowly and methodically enough for a kid to digest and be able to repeat them, albeit clumsily at first. Over time, the pentatonic scale layout of the neck revealed itself, and he was off to the races, never looking back.
By Kenny’s senior year in high school, he had joined a newly minted band called Prophet with a bunch of Jersey guys several years his senior. They busted their asses learning progressive rock covers by Kansas, Yes, Rush, Genesis and Pink Floyd, as well as hard rock like Scorpions, Van Halen, Black Sabbath and AC/DC. By 1982, Prophet were one of the kings of the N.J. club band circuit, playing five nights per week to packed houses all over the tri-state area. In 1985, Prophet released the first of their three albums; the self-titled Prophet (1985), followed by Cycle Of The Moon (1988), and Recycled (1991). All records met with critical acclaim, yet Prophet would never rise above cult following status, a following which still remains today.
A few music projects followed in the early ’90s, but Dubman was growing weary of the business and of its fickle whims. He lost his passion for creating and trying to forge ahead, and channeled those passions elsewhere. In 2013, Kenny found himself at an all-time low, having gone through years of real trauma in his personal life. He had finally shed all his baggage, and was slowly regaining himself and learning to stand again, gradually finding his footing. It was during this period that he stumbled on to Blackberry’s Smoke’s Whippoorwill. Just happened to click on it by chance one day while looking for an album to play while at work. Eventually, song ideas that he thought were worth capturing started to appear for the first time in years. And on July 4, 2016, Kenny released Reckless Abandon, his very first 100% solo record. That is where his journey started for the second time. He’ll never look back again.
Conflicted is due for release on April 29. Watch Old Dog above, and keep up with Kenny Dubman at his website, Facebook and Instagram.
