Recent Life and Career
Wagner moved to Phoenix, Arizona in 2005 where he was writing with Alice Cooper for a new album. In 2007 he suffered a major heart attack. Since then he has partially recovered and worked with Wensday on the album Torch Rock, released on his independent record label Desert Dreams Records. Her debut album produced by Wagner was included in the 2007 50th Anniversary Grammy Awards ballot.
Dick Wagner's former band The Frost was voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame in 2008. The group's recording of "Mystery Man", a Wagner composition, was voted a Legendary Michigan Song in 2009. He is continuing to recover from his near-fatal heart attack and recording with long-time collaborator Steve Hunter on an unnamed single for Wensday.
Wagner r eleased a new CD in October 2009, called 'Full Meltdown' on his independent record label Desert Dreams Records. Full Meltdown features 15 lost and newly discovered songs recorded by Wagner between 1979 and 1995. He is also currently producing the band Warsaw Pact and the independent artist Brandon Bullard with releases from both to come in early 2010. Wagner scored with Alice Cooper and the British Funk rock band The Velvet Hearts the soundtrack to the Indie horror film Silas Gore, A Film Trilogy. Similar to his original work on the first Alice Cooper solo album Welcome To My Nightmare, Dick also contributed lead guitar to the final track on the album called The Underture from Welcome 2 My Nightmare. It represents instrumental versions of several songs from each album.
In 2012, Wagner’s memoirs, Not Only Women Bleed, Vignettes from the Heart of a Rock Musician were released to tremendous acclaim, spending more than two weeks at #1 on Amazon.com’s Hot New Releases in Biographies & Memoirs of Entertainers. In the words of renowned producer Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper): Wagner’s book is: “witty, artful, literate, sometimes cheeky...wistful and exuberant but, above all, musical.” Ryan Sparks, Classic Rock Revisited: “Wagner takes the reader on a highly entertaining and compelling emotional roller-coaster ride that seemingly leaves no stone unturned. ’Not Only Women Bleed’ is almost impossible to put down.”
Nearly fifty years after launching his storied and dynamic career, hit songwriter, guitar virtuoso, producer of bands like Wensday, arranger and author, Dick Wagner, remains a brilliant and vibrant force on the pop/rock landscape he helped create. Wagner is currently looking into working with Detroit band Shock Wave, who he feels is much more talented than the group's members young age would suggest.
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