Canadian guitarist, vocalist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer Aldo Nova has released a new single, “Hey Ladi Dadi”, on all the digital outlets. He describes the song as “almost heavy metal, but with a hook that’ll have you shaking your head and stomping your feet at the same time.”
“Hey Ladi Dadi” is taken from Aldo‘s 23-song, one-hour-and-53-minute-long rock opera titled “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage”, which is due out in May 2021.
Nova decided in 2008 not to write, produce, or do anything for anyone else but himself and chose to pursue his vision of writing and creating a rock opera which, from its inception, was called “The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage”. He wrote his first song for it on February 8, 2008 called “Go On”, and continued to write and produce the initial eight songs that started the project rolling. All eight of these songs appear in its final form which was finished 12 years later — on May 12, 2020 — that also consist of songs written in 2011, 2013, 2015, and the bulk of the album being written in 2019.
In the rock opera, Aldo plays all the different characters, morphing his voice with each different song.
A Montreal native, Nova was approached by a 15-year-old Celine Dion to producer her first album, and released “Blood On The Bricks” on Jon Bon Jovi‘s Jambco label in 1991. It stood as the culmination of a long-running friendship and, as any knowledgeable rock fan might argue, a thank-you note of sorts: the rock superstar lifting up the personal hero whose sound provided the blueprint for his own hits.
Nova provided guitar, keys and background vocals for the demo of BON JOVI‘s first hit, “Runaway”, and ended up playing with an assemblage of session musicians throughout BON JOVI‘s 1984 self-titled debut. Nova‘s imprint is also all over Jon Bon Jovi‘s debut solo album, “Blaze Of Glory” — especially the chart-topping title track, on which Nova‘s writing and producing went uncredited but were absolutely essential.
Over the next three decades, Nova‘s journey would take him through great professional highs and painful personal lows, and eventually into self-discovery and spiritual contentment. He decided again to focus on his roles as a writer, producer and session musician, capitalizing on the goodwill he’d generated in the industry to put food on the table for his family.
During the ’90s and 2000s, in addition to tracks for popular foreign-language artists, Nova collaborated with Carole King, Jon Bon Jovi, Faith Hill and Clay Aiken (he co-wrote his hit “This Is the Night”), and did hugely successful work with Celine Dion. In 1997, Nova won a Grammy for Dion‘s blockbuster album “Falling Into You” and co-produced/co-wrote later Dion singles like the global smash “A New Day Has Come” and “You And I”, the latter chosen as Hillary Clinton‘s campaign song in 2008.
In 2018, Aldo decided to come out of the darkness to record his album “2.0” which featured turbocharged versions six tracks from his debut album, along with a new song called “I’m A Survivor”. It got a mixed response, but, as he says, “I realized a long time ago that whatever you put out, not everybody will like it, so I don’t stress about it.”
“The Life And Times Of Eddie Gage” track listing:
01. Hey Ladi Dadi
02. Free Your Mind
03. Follow The Road
04. Just A Man
05. You’re My Woman
06. Dyin’ From A Broken Heart
07. King Of Deceit
08. Crawl
09. The Bitch In Black
10. Hollywood Swingin’
11. On The Way To The Psycho Ward
12. Your Ass Is Mine
13. Spaceman
14. The Blvd To Nowhere
15. Let Me In (interlude)
16. Only One Love
17. Burn
18. When All Is Said And Done
19. Hell And Back
20. For Me
21. Go On
22. God Knows Your Name
23. Say A Little Prayer
