The Dead Daisies Drop "Lift Me Up" — and the Kelly Hansen Era Is Officially Here

LOS ANGELES — New voice, new riff, new chapter. The Dead Daisies kicked off the next era of the band on Thursday with "Lift Me Up," a brand-new single and video that marks the first track with Kelly Hansen — late of Foreigner and Hurricane — fronting the group. And they didn't stop at the single: the band announced a full 2027 tour across three continents, with a Las Vegas date right in the middle of it.

The lineup change is the real headline here. Hansen joins guitarist Doug Aldrich, bassist David Lowy and the rest of the Daisies lineup, and the band is clearly stoked about it — the announcement reads like a group of lifers who just got their second wind. For a band built on the classic-rock brotherhood model — the guys who played with Whitesnake, Dio, Ozzy, Guns N' Roses and the like — plugging in a singer of Hansen's caliber is a power move, not a patch job. This is a guy who spent two decades carrying one of the great arena catalogs in rock history. He doesn't need the Daisies. He chose them.

As for the song itself: it's made to be played loud, and you know exactly what that means before the first chorus. Guitarist Doug Aldrich calls it a straight-up classic-70s-rock riff with a thick groove and a big melodic chorus hook, and says the melodies and lyrics carry a positive vibe — which, fair, we could all use some of that right now. Classic Daisies mission statement, honestly — no reinvention, no genre hop, just the thing they've always been good at: a big riff, a bigger chorus, and a singer who can sell both.

The rest of 2026 is studio time. The band will be locked away finishing the new album — "Lift Me Up" is the first taste of it, and per the announcement there's more new music where that came from — before the road takes over in 2027. That's a veteran-band schedule: no rushing the record, no half-written tour announcement. Album first, then the machine.

The tour routing tells you this band knows its audience. It opens in Europe and the UK in March 2027 — Bochum (March 4), Eindhoven (March 5), Hamburg (March 6), London's O2 Forum (March 9), Nottingham's Rock City (March 10), then Paris, Pratteln, Milan, Munich, Prague, Berlin and Frankfurt — with The Quireboys and The Gems opening every date. That's a proper rock-and-roll caravan: four bands, eleven cities, classic venues. Then the US leg runs April 30 through May 15 with BulletBoys and The Fell — Lititz, Leesburg, Columbus, Edwardsville, St. Charles, Mount Clemens, Lorain, Denver, Tempe, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. And the year closes in September with a Scandinavian run: Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu, Luleå, Trondheim, Oslo, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Copenhagen.

Let's talk about that Vegas date for a second, because the room matters. May 14, 2027 at the Fremont Country Club — downtown's favorite midsize rock room, the place where touring bands who actually care about sound go to play. Not a casino residency theater, not a festival slot. A real rock show, in the room under the Fremont Street lights, with a crowd that knows every word. If the Daisies are going to prove the Hansen era works, that's exactly the room to do it in.

"'Lift Me Up' is a simple rock and roll riff that hits in the classic 70s rock vein. It has a thick groove and lifts into a very melodic hook in the chorus. The melodies and lyrics have a positive vibe which is good during these crazy times."— Doug Aldrich, The Dead Daisies

One more thing worth saying: classic-rock bands with rotating lineups have a reputation problem, and the Daisies have lived with it since day one. The revolving door is the whole concept — the band was founded on the idea that great players cycle in and out, and the music stays bigger than any single name on the marquee. Hansen is the most proven frontman they've ever brought in, though. If there's a version of this band that breaks out of the supergroup-curiosity box and becomes a genuine draw on its own terms, it's this one. The single's out now — go turn it up loud and judge for yourself.