BRRR! There's a chill in the air and it's courtesy of ice cold death metal crew Frozen Soul!


The band — vocalist Chad Green; guitarists Michael Munday and Chris Bonner; bassist Samantha Mobley; and drummer Matt Dennard — is back with frigid force and have unleashed its new album Glacial Domination today, May 19, via Century Media. The album was produced by Trivium vocalist/guitarist Matthew K. Heafy and co-produced by Daniel Schmuck. Order it here.







Today, the band has shared the double video for "Frozen Soul" and "Assimilator."





"As a band, we have always pushed to have fun doing what we love. Glacial Domination, as a record, is a statement to our growth together and how we will not stop having fun doing what we love! With the help of Daniel Schmuck and Matthew k Heafy, we did our best to try new things in preproduction and the studio, expanding on what Frozen Soul is, and keeping fun! We truly couldn't be happier with the outcome," the band shares.


Regarding the double video drop, Frozen Soul says, "'Frozen Soul' and 'Assimilator' are the perfect set of tracks to debut the whole record with. These songs showcase where frozen soul has been, where we are and where we plan to go! The songs and video are a tribute to John Carpenter's The Thing, one of our all-time favorite movies and a huge influence on the band! It was amazing having my brother Josh Green involved in the concept and lyrical writing as well as our friend GOST with the synth for the beginning and the end of the two songs! The video shot and edited by Brendan McGowen is set in both The Thing film and comic world and we had a lot of fun creating it in the mountains of Denver! We hope you all enjoy it as much as we did making it all!"





Tracklisting:


"Invisible Tormentor"    
"Arsenal Of War"    
"Death And Glory"    
"Morbid Effigy"    
"Annihilation"    
"Glacial Domination"    
"Frozen Soul"    
"Assimilator"    
"Best Served Cold"    
"Abominable"    
"Atomic Winter"


"Glacial Domination" video:





"Arsenal Of War" video:





"Morbid Effigy" video:





Frozen Soul live:


May
19 - Portland, OR - Roseland Theater
20 - Vancouver, BC - Rickshaw Theatre
22 - Edmonton, AB - Union Hall
23 - Calgary, AB - Palace Theatre
25 - Winnipeg, MB - Park Theatre
26 - Minneapolis, MN - Skyway Theater

German power metal band HELLOWEEN was inducted into the Metal Hall Of Fame by founder Pat Gesualdo and special guest Alissa White-Gluz from ARCH ENEMY. The induction took place on May 20 in front of thousands of fans at Terminal 5 in New York City.

"HELLOWEEN have helped establish the origins of the power metal genre," says Gesualdo. "We are proud to have HELLOWEEN represent the genre and it's fans throughout the world, and to have Alissa White–Gluz join us in the induction as well."

HELLOWEEN guitarist Michael Weikath adds: "It's truly an honor to be inducted into the Metal Hall Of Fame! Being listed next to some of the biggest bands in rock and metal makes us very proud and is rewarding our work as 'The Ambassadors of Power & Melodic Metal' for the last four decades."

HELLOWEEN has released 16 studio albums, three live albums, three EPs and 30 singles. The German band has 14 gold and six platinum records, and has sold over 10 million records worldwide.

The Metal Hall Of Fame is dedicated to forever enshrining the iconic musicians and music industry executives responsible for making hard rock and heavy metal music what it is today.

The annual Metal Hall Of Fame gala is held every January in California with additional special event inductions held at major concerts and festivals throughout the world.

As a 501(C)(3) non-profit organization, all proceeds from the Metal Hall Of Fame and D.A.D. (Drums And Disabilities) events bring free music programs to health facilities to help special needs children and wounded veterans.

The Metal Hall Of Fame voting process is derived by fans of all genres of hard rock and heavy metal, along with the Metal Hall Of Fame voting committee. Fans cast their vote all year round for their favorite artists, bands, producers, and music industry executives via the Metal Hall Of Fame web site at www.metalhalloffame.org.

HELLOWEEN kicked off its "United Forces" tour of North America on May 13 at The Factory in Deep Ellum, Dallas, Texas. Support on the 13-date trek is coming from Swedish metallers HAMMERFALL.

HELLOWEEN's North American tour will close on June 3 in San Francisco, California.

Singer Michael Kiske's first album back with HELLOWEEN, 2021's self-titled effort, landed in the Top 10 in more than 10 countries, including Germany, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Austria. The cover artwork for the LP was painted by artist Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with HATEBREED, SOULFLY, TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH and SODOM, among others.

Produced by Charlie Bauerfeind and Dennis Ward, the latest HELLOWEEN LP was recorded in part at the H.O.M.E. Studios in Hamburg (where everything started in 1984). The same recording console used for such HELLOWEEN albums as "Master Of The Rings", "Time Of The Oath" and "Better Than Raw" was utilized to record the band's new material. The effort was mixed at the Valhalla Studios of Ronald Prent (IRON MAIDEN, DEF LEPPARD, RAMMSTEIN).

"Helloween" saw the legendary German power metallers going "back to the roots," with the band recording fully analogue and Daniel Löble playing the drum kit previously used by HELLOWEEN's original drummer, the late Ingo Schwichtenberg, on the legendary "Keeper Of The Seven Keys" recordings.

The "Pumpkins United" tour marked the first time Kiske had played live with HELLOWEEN since 1993. Guitarist/vocalist Kai Hansen, who departed HELLOWEEN in 1988, had been joining the band onstage on various tours and festival appearances throughout the years. The set featured several duets with Kiske and his replacement, Andi Deris, along with many rarely played songs, including "Kids Of The Century", "Rise And Fall" and "Livin' Ain't No Crime". Hansen — who fronted HELLOWEEN until late 1986 — sang a medley of several early HELLOWEEN classics, including "Ride The Sky", "Judas", "Starlight" and "Heavy Metal (Is The Law)".

Alasdair Mackie "Algy" Ward, founder and frontman of British metal legends TANK, has died at the age of 63. He reportedly passed away on May 17 at a hospital in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, United Kingdom after suffering from serious health issues for quite some time.

The news of Algy's death was confirmed by TANK guitarist Mick Tucker, who took to his social media to write: "R.I.P Algy... Just heard the sad news my old band mate passed away in hospital last Wednesday May 17th.

"We formed a formidable songwriting team when I joined TANK in 1983 and recorded some great albums along the way and many shows with TANK and the Nicky Moore band who I joined in 1990 with Algy.

"Over the last couple of years we had to carry on without him but hoped one day we could get him back onstage with us.

"A glass will be raised tonight in your honour ...."

Ward first rose to fame by joining the Australian punk rock band THE SAINTS, replacing their former bassist Kym Bradshaw. Ward played with the group on their third single, 1977's "This Perfect Day", as well as two albums, "Eternally Yours" and "Prehistoric Sounds", both released in 1978. A short time later, Ward joined the influential English punk band THE DAMNED and played on the 1979 album "Machine Gun Etiquette" before being fired from the group, reportedly due to a personality clash between him and drummer Rat Scabies.

Ward officially formed TANK in 1980, influenced and inspired by Lemmy and his band MOTÖRHEAD. The trio, rounded out by Peter and Mark Brabbs, released its debut album, 1982's "Filth Hounds Of Hades", produced by MOTÖRHEAD guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke. Shortly before the release of TANK's third record, "This Means War", Mick Tucker became the band's second guitarist, and shortly after the release, the Brabbs brothers left. They were replaced by Cliff Evans on guitar, Graeme Crallan on drums, and later Michael Bettel on drums. After their fifth album (which was self-titled) was released in 1987, growing disputes over musical direction and lack of commercial success grew more frequent, which led the band to split in 1989. In 1997, TANK reformed with Ward on vocals and bass, Bruce Bisland on drums, and Tucker and Evans on guitars. They recorded and released one more album under the TANK banner, 2002's "Still At War". before legal disputes and recording issues for what was supposed to be their seventh studio album, "Sturmpanzer", caused the band to split up once again in 2006.

In 2008, a new version of TANK was announced, featuring Tucker and Evans. This version of TANK recorded and released three new albums, 2010's "War Machine", 2012's "War Nation" and 2015's "Valley Of Tears", and played a number of live shows. In response, Ward created his own version of TANK and began to work on a new album, which became 2013's "Breath Of The Pit". Shortly after this, he teamed up with friend Evo from WARFARE to record a six-track EP titled "Damned Unto Death" under the name EVO/ALGY. Ward later announced that he was in the studio working on the eighth TANK album, "Sturmpanzer", which was released in November 2018.

R.I.P Algy...
Just heard the sad news my old band mate passed away in hospital last Wednesday may 17th.
We formed a...

Posted by Mick van Tuckerberg on Monday, May 22, 2023

Devastating news. Our hero Algy Ward has passed away. Rest easy Algy. Thank you so much for your music, you will never be forgotten!

Never forget: Tank = Algy = Tank!

Posted by Tank - Filthhoundposting on Monday, May 22, 2023

The IFM RAW and K Train 2787 Productions YouTube channels have uploaded video of PANTERA's May 20 performance at Welcome To Rockville at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. Check out the clips below.

The band's setlist was as follows:

01. A New Level
02. Mouth For War
03. Strength Beyond Strength
04. Becoming
05. I'm Broken
06. Suicide Note Pt. II
07. 5 Minutes Alone
08. This Love
09. Yesterday Don't Mean Shit
10. Fucking Hostile
11. Planet Caravan (BLACK SABBATH cover)
12. Walk
13. Domination / Hollow
14. Cowboys From Hell

The reformed PANTERA played its first U.S. concert on May 6 at the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally in Panama City, Florida. The performance marked PANTERA's first live appearance in its home country in 22 years — since July 25, 2001, when the band played at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington as part of the "Extreme Steel" tour.

PANTERA's setlist for Welcome To Rockville and the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally included one song which hadn't been performed live since the band's comeback last year: "Suicide Note Pt. II", from PANTERA's 1996 album "The Great Southern Trendkill".

PANTERA's current lineup includes two surviving members from the band's classic formation, Philip Anselmo (vocals) and Rex Brown (bass),along with guitarist Zakk Wylde (OZZY OSBOURNE, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY) and Benante (ANTHRAX).

Anselmo and Brown, along with Wylde and Benante, are headlining a number of major festivals across South America, Asia, North America and Europe and staging some of their own headline concerts. They will also support METALLICA on a massive North American stadium tour in 2023 and 2024.

According to Billboard, the lineup has been given a green light by the estates of the band's founders, drummer Vincent "Vinnie Paul" Abbott and guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, as well as Brown, who in 2021 said Wylde wouldn't tour with PANTERA if a reunion were to happen. It's unclear what changed his mind.

This past March, PANTERA headlined the 2023 "comeback" edition of Japan's Loud Park festival. The two-day "limited" event took place on March 25 at Intex Osaka in Osaka and March 26 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba City near Tokyo.

In December, PANTERA played seven shows in Mexico and South America.

Benante opened up about his participation in PANTERA's return during a recent interview with "THAT Rocks!", the new weekly YouTube series hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson. Speaking about some of the criticism he has received for his involvement with PANTERA, Charlie said: "People had their preconceived notions of what they were gonna think: 'Oh, I don't dig this without Vinnie and Dime.' And of course… What do you think? We don't know that Vinnie and Dime are not with us anymore? But when we start playing the songs and you just see the faces in the crowd, all that shit goes out the window, the negative stuff that has been said.

"Man, that's all I ever wanted to do, is just come and do this and make people hear these songs again," he explained. "And that's what it's all about, really. It's about the music."

Asked who was in charge of making the decision to use the name PANTERA for the new lineup instead of calling it a tribute or naming it something else, Charlie said: "It wasn't me. [Laughs] For us it was about the celebration of the music and Dime and Vinnie; that's what it was about since day one. No one called it a tribute; no one called it a reunion. It can't be a reunion. This is a celebration of the music of PANTERA. Come and enjoy it. And that's it. That's all could do."

Benante also talked about his personal connection to Dimebag and Vinnie, saying: "Yeah. I loved those two guys, man. You never think that certain things would ever, ever happen, and then when it does, you sit back and think, like, 'How did this happen so fast? How did this time just slip by?' And Darrell's been gone for a while now. But it doesn't change how we all miss him and feel him.

"Every show that we play… [Longtime PANTERA engineer, bass tech and friend] Sterling [Winfield], who used to work for PANTERA — still does, in a sense. The first show, he came to Mexico City and he brought me one of Darrell's wristbands and a pair of Vinnie's gloves that they used. And every show that I've played so far, I wear the wristband and Vinnie's glove is in my pocket because I feel like they're with me. And I do that for every show, and I'll continue to do that for every other show we play. It just has significance."

Benante previously discussed his involvement in PANTERA's comeback during a recent interview with Consequence. Addressing the negative comments he has received for his participation, Charlie said: "I don't go [online] looking for [people's negative comments about it]. There's people that send me, 'Hey, did you see this?' And I'm, like, 'Why did you send me this? Why ruin my day?'

"I think the people who do these things, these comments, I don't even think they realize how much of an effect that they could have on people," he continued. "And whether or not you hate the situation, or whatever it is, why can't you find some sort of restraint? Why do you need to say this thought that you have? Can't you just hold it in and maybe be, like, 'I'll keep my thoughts to myself.' No, they've gotta tell you. I've never seen more of it in my life than I [did] in these past couple of months about just people judging."

Regarding his personal approach to playing the parts originally written and recorded by Vinnie Paul, Charlie said: "I just spent a lot of time on Vinnie's parts and more importantly the tone that Vinnie had because I wanted it to sound like PANTERA. That was my thing. And my drum configuration is different from the ANTHRAX one because I wanted to challenge myself to play those parts like he played them in that configuration, which, to me, was more important than anything. But yet people still have to find some problem in that."

According to Benante, the initial rehearsals for the PANTERA comeback tour were "an emotional thing" for Philip and Rex "too, because they hadn't played as a group, those two hadn't played together in a long time, playing PANTERA songs. Yeah, they played [together] in DOWN, but this was an emotional thing for them," Charlie said. "And I remember after the week of rehearsals that we did, saying goodbye was weird, because it was an emotional thing; we really kind of bonded, the three of us. Zakk wasn't there at the time. But for me, I knew I had done something right."

Brown was forced to leave PANTERA's Latin American tour after testing positive for COVID-19. Filling in for him at some of the shows was CATTLE DECAPITATION bassist Derek Engemann, who also plays with Anselmo in both PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS and SCOUR.

Up until his passing, Vinnie remained on non-speaking terms with Anselmo, whom the drummer indirectly blamed for Dimebag's death.

Vinnie Paul and Dimebag co-founded PANTERA. When PANTERA broke up in 2003, they formed DAMAGEPLAN. On December 8, 2004, while performing with DAMAGEPLAN at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Dimebag was shot and killed onstage by a troubled schizophrenic who believed that the members of PANTERA were stealing his thoughts.

Vinnie passed away on June 22, 2018 at his other home in Las Vegas at the age of 54. He died of dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart, as well as severe coronary artery disease. His death was the result of chronic weakening of the heart muscle — basically meaning his heart couldn't pump blood as well as a healthy heart.

The Fortheloveofrock YouTube channel has uploaded video of LACUNA COIL's May 19 performance at The Belasco in Los Angeles, California. Check it out below.

LACUNA COIL's setlist for the Los Angeles concert included a new song called "Never Dawn", which the band recently contributed to "Zombicide" publisher CMON's latest board game Kickstarter project. Designed by Nicolas Raoult, one of the designers of the original "Zombicide", "Zombicide: White Death" is a sequel to the fantasy spinoff version of "Zombicide" with a new wintery theme. The third installment in this series, it follows "Zombicide: Black Plague", which introduced the concept in 2016, and "Zombicide Green Horde", which came out in 2018. The game introduces new characters, mechanics, and challenges for players to overcome.

LACUNA COIL has spent the last few months promoting "Comalies XX", the recently released "deconstructed" and "transported" version of the band's third album, "Comalies".

"Comalies XX" was made available on October 14, 2022 via Century Media Records.

LACUNA COIL celebrated the 20th anniversary of "Comalies", by performing it in its entirety at a one-night-only concert on October 15, 2022 at Fabrique in Milano.

"Comalies" was originally released on October 29, 2002 through Century Media Records. The LP, which featured the band's breakthrough single "Heaven's A Lie", has reportedly gone on to sell over 300,000 copies in the United States alone.

LACUNA COIL played its first show in front of an audience in more than two years on April 7, 2022 as the support act for APOCALYPTICA at the Masquerade in Atlanta, Georgia.

Prior to the Atlanta concert, the last time LACUNA COIL played together was at the group's special September 2020 livestream event where the bandmembers performed their latest album, "Black Anima", in its entirety with no audience in attendance at the Alcatraz Club in Milan, Italy. That show was released as a live album, "Live From The Apocalypse", via Century Media.

LACUNA COIL hadn't played in front of a crowd since the completion of the band's South American tour in February 2020.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD made its first festival appearance in five years last night (Friday, May 19) at Welcome To Rockville at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The band's setlist included three songs from AVENGED SEVENFOLD's upcoming album, "Life Is But A Dream…", which will be released on June 2 via Warner: "Game Over", "We Love You" and "Nobody".

The full setlist was as follows:

01. Game Over
02. Afterlife
03. Hail To The King
04. We Love You
05. Buried Alive
06. So Far Away
07. Nobody
08. Nightmare
09. Bat Country
10. Unholy Confessions
11. A Little Piece Of Heaven

Fan-filmed video can be seen below.

During an appearance on the "Tuna On Toast With Stryker" podcast, AVENGED SEVENFOLD singer M. Shadows reflected on the band's first concert since June 2018, which took place on May 12 at AREA15 in Las Vegas, Nevada. AVENGED SEVENFOLD's setlist included the live debut of "Game Over", "We Love You" and "Nobody".

"[It was the] first show in five years, so we had to get that one out of the way and just kind of feel it out again," M. Shadows said. "It was very nerve-racking and weird, but it felt at home after the first 10 minutes or so. In the beginning, it's just like frenetic anxiety; you wanna pop out of your skin 'cause you're just trying to figure out, 'What is this thing I used to do?' … It came back pretty quickly where it was, like, 'Okay, just gotta settle in. It's all good. The fans are here. Everyone's having a good time. This is not that serious.' Just kind of putting some sort of perspective on it onstage and quickly trying to calm down."

Regarding what the fan response was like to the three new songs AVENGED SEVENFOLD played at AREA15, M. Shadows said: "Better than expected. I felt there was so much energy on them. And I think part of it is, it was a good feeling because, part of being a musician, one thing that you get… Some people are hyper aware of it and some aren't. We're hyper aware of nostalgia and getting stuck. And then also audience capture, where people want something of you — the way you look, the way you sound, the way you live your life, the way you speak, the ideas that you have. And I believe you have to be completely free or you'll be captured by expectations of people. And for us, the new music, the vibe on stage was different. And when you go out there and play it, you wanna have this fresh feeling. And it felt fresh. The fans were responding. Like 'We Love You', that trancey, 808… It felt like a dance party and the song had just come out that morning. So, to me, that's a good sign."

He continued: "New music, you want it to go over well, so it was very exciting for us to see their response, because I think they want it too. But you have to give them something compelling that they wanna listen to; you have to challenge them in a way. And if you're having fun, they're gonna have more fun.

"I don't even know how I'd feel if we had to go up there and play all of our old songs after five years being off," M. Shadows added. "I would feel like I'm stuck in the mud. I would be, like, 'What am I doing?' And it's not anything against those songs. Those were written by 20-year-olds or 25-year-olds or whatever it was. We're not those people anymore. But I can appreciate it as long as you let me have my cake too; I wanna do new stuff. And I think the fans that are highly engaged do too, but I think as an artist you need to give them something compelling and challenging so that they feel like you're growing with them and you're not just growing away from them."

Despite being happy with the overall performance, M. Shadows admitted there are still things he wants to work on.

"Last night, I would give myself a six out of what I know I can do," he said. "And I think the band played great. I'd give it an eight. But I wanna get that to a ten. When you're playing live, you want people to see what you can do. And that's just gonna take repetition. It's gonna take getting out there and feeling it and knowing where things were breaking down — like what parts were breaking down, where notes were coming from that shouldn't be where they're coming from. And so that's just my analytical brain. I wanna know what's going on. I don't wanna just go, 'Oh, well, hopefully next time it's better.' That's not how I roll."

In a recent interview with I-Rock 93.5, AVENGED SEVENFOLD bassist Johnny Christ spoke about how he and his bandmates evolve musically on every album while still maintaining the core AVENGED SEVENFOLD sound. He said: "It's not a conscious thing. Pretty much every record that we've always done, we challenge ourselves to sound different and do something different. Like I said, we've done it every time in our career. Each time you do that, we put so much of us into creating that art that it becomes part of our DNA. And whether we know it or not, it's still there in the next writing process and the next writing process and the next writing process. So much so that at this point — we all talk about it internally — no matter what we say… We can say we wanna sound like the craziest hip-hop thing or a classical thing or whatever, but once you put it through us, it goes through the quote-unquote AVENGED SEVENFOLD filter. And that's just us. That's where you get that character of AVENGED SEVENFOLD, really.

"So, to answer the question, it's not like a direct thought of, like, 'Oh, no. We went too crazy. Let's bring it back and make it more AVENGED-y.' It's, like, no. We're going for it," he continued. "This is what it sounds like when we go for it.

"We have distinct players in this band. You've got a lead vocalist like M. Shadows — a very distinct, awesome voice. You've got the guitar work of Synyster [Gates] and Zacky [Vengeance] — just so distinct. And who's gonna mix up Brooks Wackerman's style with anybody else? It's just we have a bunch of unique players together that I think no matter how far out we go, it's gonna fall into that uniqueness anyway, and it just sounds like AVENGED SEVENFOLD by the end of the day."

Written and recorded over the span of four years, "Life Is But a Dream..." was inspired by the writing and philosophy of Albert Camus. Accordingly, the lyrics are rooted in existentialism and absurdism.

Last month, AVENGED SEVENFOLD announced the second leg of its extensive "Life is But A Dream…" North American tour featuring support from FALLING IN REVERSE. Produced by Live Nation, leg two includes stops in Nashville, Denver, Austin, and more before concluding at Fort Worth's Dickies Arena on October 15. Fans will have the opportunity to hear the group's first single in seven years, "Nobody", and their new album "Life Is But A Dream…" for the first time live during the 30-show outing.

The first leg with support from ALEXISONFIRE includes thirteen cities across the U.S. and Canada, such as Mansfield, Québec City, Tinley Park, Calgary, and more. The group kicks off their 2023 solo touring run with two unique one-night-only arena shows in New York and Los Angeles this June.

To date, AVENGED SEVENFOLD has sold over 10 million albums worldwide and earned two consecutive No. 1 albums on Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart (2010's "Nightmare" and 2013's "Hail To The King") to go along with over a billion video views and a billion-plus Spotify streams, as well as multiple No. 1 singles on rock radio. The band is equally known for their spectacular live shows, selling out arenas and headlining the world's most prestigious rock festivals.

On the eve of the band's biggest-ever European tour and the launch of new album, "Drastic Symphonies", DEF LEPPARD played a one-off club show last night (Friday, May 19) at the iconic Sheffield venue The Leadmill. The 850-capacity venue was treated to a must-see performance from one of Britain's greatest-ever rock bands. It was a huge night for fans of the band who got the chance to hear the band's extraordinary stadium-style catalog in a club setting. It was the most intimate show the band has played in the U.K. or the rest of Europe in 35 years. The setlist was for one night only — unique to this show and different to the setlist the band will play three days later, when they start the European tour at a sold-out Sheffield United's Bramall Lane on Monday, May 22.

The setlist was as follows:

01. Action (SWEET cover)
02. Fire It Up
03. Let It Go
04. Too Late For Love
05. Excitable
06. Mirror, Mirror (Look Into My Eyes)
07. Slang
08. Kick
09. Bringin' On The Heartbreak
10. Switch 625
11. Hysteria
12. Pour Some Sugar On Me

Encore:

13. Wasted (first live performance since 2018)

Fan-filmed video can be seen below.

DEF LEPPARD wanted to shine a light on The Leadmill, a vital part of the Sheffield and national U.K. music scene which is among many of the small U.K. music venues threatened with closure. Net proceeds from ticket sales from The Leadmill show are being donated to Music Venue Trust who diligently work to help struggling U.K. music venues.

When the show was first announced, DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott says: "Sheffield is in the very DNA of this band!

"We are ecstatic to be starting the European leg of our world tour at home at Bramall Lane!

"When thinking of a warm-up, it made sense to do a special set at The Leadmill, in the city where it all started.

"We know there are a lot of small music venues struggling across the U.K., so we wanted to give back to what gave to us.

"The net proceeds from the evening will go directly to Music Venue Trust in an effort to keep U.K. clubs alive…and to coincide with the release of our symphonic record, 'Drastic Symphonies', on the 19th of May. It's all very special!"

2022 saw DEF LEPPARD release their critically and commercially acclaimed 12th studio album, "Diamond Star Halos", which charted all over the world including a top 5 and top 10 in both North America and the U.K.. Early 2023, saw the band score a U.K. No 1 Netflix film with their cameo in acclaimed movie "Bank Of Dave". DEF LEPPARD singer Joe Elliott is also currently riding high in charts across the world with his guest vocal on the GHOST track "Spillways".

DEF LEPPARD also embarked on a sold-out stadium tour across North America with MÖTLEY CRÜE in 2022 — selling over 1.3 million tickets. February and March 2023 saw the tour wow audiences throughout Central and South America. In May, June and July the must-see tour of 2023 comes to Europe, including a stop at the iconic Wembley Stadium on July 1.

With more than 110 million albums sold worldwide and two prestigious Diamond Awards in the U.S., 2019 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductees DEF LEPPARD — Elliott, Phil Collen (guitar),Rick Savage (bass),Vivian Campbell (guitar) and Rick Allen (drums) — continue to be one of the most important forces in rock music. Over the course of their career, the band has produced a series of classic ground-breaking albums that set the bar for generations of music fans and artists alike. The group's spectacular live shows and arsenal of hits have become synonymous with their name, leading DEF LEPPARD to be heralded as the world's greatest live rock band.

DEF LEPPARD's influential career includes numerous hit singles and ground-breaking multi-platinum albums — including two of the best-selling albums of all time, "Pyromania" and "Hysteria", capturing the group's legendary tracks, bringing together classic LEPPARD hits such as "Rock Of Ages", "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and "Foolin'".

For the first time, in January 2018 DEF LEPPARD debuted their full recording catalog worldwide via streaming and download platforms. As they did with the original release of their records, DEF LEPPARD dominated the worldwide charts again, which found their albums charting in the iTunes Top 10 in more than 30 countries, including "Hysteria" at No. 3 in the U.S., and No. 5 in the U.K. (36 years after the album had charted at No 1 in the Billboard charts). DEF LEPPARD also had the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 records on the U.S. catalog albums chart. The band have gone on to amass a staggering 5.5 billion streams since 2018, reaching a younger 18-44 demographic that now represents 58% of their fanbase. Additionally, the band have garnered an impressive 15 million followers across their social media platforms.

In May 2022, DEF LEPPARD released their twelfth studio album "Diamond Star Halos". The album debuted at No. 1 on the Apple and Amazon Music charts. The album also scored a Top 10 debut on North America's Billboard's Top 200 Albums chart, marking the band's eighth Top 10 album of their career, and garnered a No. 1 debut on Billboard's Hard Rock chart. "Diamond Star Halos" had numerous Top 10 chart entries globally including a Top 5 debut in the U.K.

DEF LEPPARD has just released "Drastic Symphonies", a brand-new album featuring the band's greatest tracks dramatically reimagined via a collaboration with London's iconic Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Former IRON MAIDEN singer Paul Di'Anno has ripped GHOST's cover version of MAIDEN's "Phantom Of The Opera", saying it "fucking sucks".

GHOST's rendition of "Phantom Of The Opera" was made available earlier this week as a preview of the band's "Phantomime" EP, which sees the Swedish occult rockers offering takes on GENESIS's "Jesus He Knows Me", TELEVISION's "See No Evil", THE STRANGLERS' "Hanging Around" and Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)", alongside the aforementioned MAIDEN cover.

On Tuesday (May 16),the same day that GHOST's version of "Phantom" was made available, Di'Anno — who sang on MAIDEN's original recording of the song — took to his personal Facebook page to write in a since-deleted post: "Everyone asking my opinion on the ghost cover of phantom well not that it matters but it fkn sucks". The singer, whose real name is Paul Andrews, went on to add a series of vomit emojis, as can be seen in the screenshot below, courtesy of The Metal Voice.

Di'Anno recorded two classic albums with IRON MAIDEN — a self-titled effort in 1980 and "Killers" in 1981 — before being fired and replaced by Bruce Dickinson. He went on to front a number of other bands, including KILLERS and BATTLEZONE, and released several solo records.

Di'Anno, who finally underwent his knee surgery in September 2022, played the first show since the operation on October 1 at the Keep It True Rising II festival in Würzburg, Germany. He has since completed a Latin American tour and has a number of live dates scheduled for the rest of this year.

In December, Paul was joined by Greek guitar virtuoso Gus G., well known in rock and metal circles for his work as Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist and as leader of his own band FIREWIND, for three concerts in Greece, where they played songs from "Iron Maiden" and "Killers".

In May 2022, Di'Anno came face to face with MAIDEN bassist Steve Harris for the first time in three decades before the band's concert in Croatia.

Harris, whose group kicked off the 2022 leg of its "Legacy Of The Beast" world tour at the 22,000-capacity Arena Zagreb, came out before the show to greet a wheelchair-bound Di'Anno and chat with him for a few minutes.

After his friendly meeting with Harris, Di'Anno stuck around long enough to watch some of MAIDEN's performance before leaving near the end of the set to avoid a huge traffic jam after the show.

A year ago, Paul played his first full solo concert in seven years at the Bikers Beer Factory in Zagreb. The show was filmed and parts of it will be included in a documentary about Di'Anno, to be directed by Wes Orshoski, co-director and producer of the acclaimed 2010 film "Lemmy" about the MOTÖRHEAD icon.

The Zagreb concert was free to attend and was held as a way of thanking Paul's fans for their help during the most difficult time of his recovery. The show took place just a day before the IRON MAIDEN's gig at the Zagreb Arena.

Last year, Di'Anno teamed up with several Croatian musicians to form a new project called WARHORSE. WARHORSE entered the studio to record three songs, two of which — "Stop The War" and "The Doubt Within" — were released as a special limited-edition DVD single. A full-length WARHORSE album will arrive later this year.

Last year, GHOST mastermind Tobias Forge told the "My Planet Rocks" show on the U.K. rock radio station Planet Rock that MAIDEN has been a "massive influence" on GHOST. "Both musically and also stage production-wise," he said. "But also when it comes to work ethics and just the sheer volume of work you have to put into your job [and] in your craft has always been inspiring to me.

"When I was a kid, I was sitting with [IRON MAIDEN's 1985 live album] 'Live After Death' record and I was dead set on wanting to become a professional musician and I wanted to tour. I knew about the concept of touring, but a lot of my knowledge or my preconceived notions of what I thought touring was about was looking through 'Live After Death' and seeing all those dates that they were playing everywhere. I sat there with like a big map book and just drew out how they toured, where they played and how often you play. That record in the inner sleeve, you have a lot of information about touring life."

Forge continued: "The '90s was a little bit medieval for a lot of the '80s [metal] bands and I must say that after Bruce [Dickinson] left [in 1993], I wasn't a giant fan of the Blaze Bayley years. In the '90s, this is before Internet, this is before accessibility that way you had to invest in your records, and you had to invest time into anything that you liked.

"In 1995 when they made the first record with Blaze ['The X Factor'], I was so buried in death/black metal stuff, and I was so busy exploring what happened in 1985 that I didn't have time for following that. So, of course, I was amazed when Bruce came back into the band and they made this triumphant return. I must say that 'Brave New World', the comeback record with Bruce, was and still is an unbelievably well-constructed record… That record is actually really good from start to finish. Unbelievable.

"It's incredible that a band 20 years into their professional career were able to still add songs to their already existing and mind-blowingly great repertoire. I think that 'Blood Brothers' is a song that they are still playing at most of their shows, but they could easily play 10 songs from that record."

Paul Dianno Gives his opinion on the new 'Phantom of the Opera' Iron Maiden cover by Ghost

Quote
"Everyone asking my opinion on the ghost cover of phantom well not that it matters but it fkn sucks 🤮🤮🤮"

Posted by The Metal Voice on Tuesday, May 16, 2023

MARDUK's founding guitarist Morgan Håkansson has distanced his band from the actions of former bassist Joel Lindholm, who appeared to make a Nazi salute onstage during a performance last week.

Lindholm's gesture was captured in a fan-filmed video during MARDUK's May 14 performance in London as part of this year's Incineration Fest. In the clip, Lindholm can be seen standing slightly behind lead singer Daniel Rostén on the left side of the stage. The bassist can be seen deliberately crossing his arm over his chest, before extending it with his palm downwards.

On Thursday (May 18),MARDUK posted a statement to Facebook announcing Lindholm's departure. "Following a variety of intolerable stage antics by a very drunk Joel at Incineration Fest last week, he has vacated his position in the band," the group wrote. "Our old friend and bass player Devo [Magnus Andersson] has agreed to step in on a temporary basis, so this is unlikely to affect any of [our] upcoming shows."

A short time later, Håkansson offered a brief comment to writer Hannes Lännerholm of the Swedish newspaper Expressen, saying about Lindholm's actions: "It's obviously not something we accept."

Asked why MARDUK continued playing even after Lindholm's onstage gesture, Morgan told Expressen: "I don't see what others do on stage." He added that the decision to fire Joel from the group was made "when we saw the video, of course."

Håkansson went on to call Lindholm's actions "deplorable behavior" and added that "it's not gratifying when you are working and someone doesn't behave and embarrasses themselves."

Morgan is the sole remaining member of MARDUK who played on the band's debut LP, 1992's "Dark Endless".

In recent years, MARDUK has been plagued criticism for glorifying Nazi imagery and anti-Semitism, in part because of a fascism-friendly album titles like "Panzer Division Marduk", which refers to WWII-era German tanks. The band's February 2017 concert in Oakland was shut down by the Anti-Fascist Action Bay Area group, which accused MARDUK of having "white supremacist ties" and pointed out that MARDUK's 2015 album "Frontschwein" was written "entirely about the Third Reich."

Håkansson gave an interview in early 2014 in which he was asked to comment on the fact that Norwegian black metal musician Varg Vikernes was convicted of hate speech against Jews and Muslims in France in 2014. "It's strange that it's illegal to dislike a religion. I find it really strange that you can't have certain views," he reportedly said.

In a 2013 interview with Metal Blast, Håkansson spoke about the accusations of associations with national socialism which have been leveled at MARDUK. "I was not shocked because I'm not shocked by anything, but I was more surprised by the stupidity," he said. "It's strange that you can sing about certain historical topics but not about others. Some big magazines tried to boycott us and were sending faxes, back in those days, to promoters telling them avoid us, but that only made us stronger."

He added: "I'm fascinated by certain historical aspects and we will continue to write about them as long as it is inspiring to write lyrics about it, and if it's World War II, it's fine with me, and if somebody has a problem with it, they can fuck off. SLAYER, MOTÖRHEAD, they have done it before and I don't see a reason why not to do it."

Expressen has reached out to Lindholm to get his comments on the Incineration Fest incident and his exit from MARDUK but has not yet received a response.

Image credit: Mick 666 on YouTube

Following a variety of intolerable stage antics by a very drunk Joel at Incineration Fest last week, he has vacated his...

Posted by Marduk on Thursday, May 18, 2023

Chicago, Illinois-based metal outfit REPENTANCE will release its sophomore full-length album, "The Process Of Human Demise", on August 4 via Noble Demon. The LP's first single, "Withered & Decayed", featuring a guest appearance by than FEAR FACTORY singer Milo Silvestro, can be streamed below.

REPENTANCE guitarist Shaun Glass comments: "When we started working on the album, we knew we wanted to have another guest. We were looking for someone that we thought would complement our style. Around that time, FEAR FACTORY was close to announcing Milo Silvestro as their new singer. I mentioned the idea to Dino [Cazares, FEAR FACTORY guitarist], who's a close personal friend and he brought up the idea of seeing if Milo would be interested. We sent over the track. When he laid down his tracks in his studio, we knew we had what we were looking for. His style fit really well with Adam [Gilley] our singer and him trading verses and singing together on the choruses. We hope our friends and fans enjoy the rollercoaster ride it delivers."

Silvestro states about the collaboration: "I had a blast recording vocals on this banger. It's heavy, it's fresh, it's got the hook and it's always a real pleasure to work with these gentlemen. Horns up!"

"The Process Of Human Demise" track listing:

01. Buried By Fear
02. Withered And Decayed
03. Reborn
04. The Process Of Human Demise
05. Empire
06. Down In The Water
07. A Future Untold
08. All The Misery
09. Light It Up
10. No Innocence
11. A Grave For The False Ones
12. Venom Inside

Formed in 2018 by former SOIL and DIRGE WITHIN guitarist Shaun Glass, REPENTANCE released its critically acclaimed debut album, "God For A Day", in 2020, followed by the EP "Volume I – Reborn" (2021). "The Process Of Human Demise" was produced by Alex Lackner at Accelerated Sound and was mixed and mastered by Chris Collier at CMC21 Productions. Album artwork was created by Colin Marks (Rain Song Design).

REPENTANCE will play the main stage at the return of Milwaukee Metal Fest, with LAMB OF GOD, MACHINE HEAD and many more, presented by Jamey Jasta at the Rave in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Sunday, May 28.

REPENTANCE is:

Adam Gilley - Vocals
Shaun Glass - Guitar
Eric Burns - Guitar
Eric Karol - Bass
Brandon White - Drums

Photo by Alex Zarek

Thrash metal veterans KREATOR have released a music video for the song "Conquer And Destroy" from their acclaimed latest album, "Hate Über Alles". The performance footage was filmed on March 4, 2023 in front of 6,000 of KREATOR's mighty hordes in their spiritual home of Essen. This very special show at Grugahalle not only featured a career-spanning KREATOR setlist full of neckbreakers and beloved anthems, but also visually stunning high-end production solidifying the event as an unforgettable night for everyone in attendence. From opener "Hate Über Alles" all the way through to the final encore of "Pleasure To Kill", the performance was a maelstrom of mosh pits and raised fists.

KREATOR has joined forces with Brazilian metal giants SEPULTURA for a North American co-headline tour, "Klash Of The Titans", in May and June of 2023. Support on the trek is coming from DEATH ANGEL and SPIRITWORLD.

In a recent interview with El Cuartel Del Metal, KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza was asked if he pays attention to what fans have to say about his band's music on social media, especially after releasing a new album. He responded: "I know I shouldn't do this, but the band KREATOR is so important for me, and also it's important to know what our fans think of the music. First and foremost, of course, we have to love the music. And I totally get why… You cannot be loved by everyone. KREATOR wouldn't be KREATOR if all of a sudden the whole world would love what we do. That's not how things work. If you have a unique sound, there will be people that [say] it's not what they expected [laughs] — which is fair enough.

"But to answer your question — do I listen to comments? I shouldn't but I sometimes do," Mille admitted. "But then, on the other hand, I know that… It would be bad if people wouldn't care at all. If people are disappointed about some of the songs or the direction we're taking just means that they care. If people still care and they still feel offended that we have… For example, on the new album ['Hate Über Alles'], we have a female singer and some people were, like, 'Yeah, it's not thrash.' Whatever. [Laughs]"

Pressed about whether that influences his songwriting, Mille said: "No. No, no, no, no, no. That fuels the fire, really. We do wanna be KREATOR and we do wanna enjoy what we do. When I go into the studio, we have all this great technology and these tools and we have these great people that we're working with. And in the studio we're so creative and we don't follow any rules. Why would we? I didn't get into metal to follow the rules of some elitists that tell me what metal is about. The moment that happens I'm gonna just quit because that would be so wrong.

"I like the fact that people have opinions — don't get me wrong," he clarified. "But I also have my own opinion and I have my own view and I know how KREATOR should sound. And we do it with passion and we do it with honesty and we're straight up. We love thrash metal, we love all kinds of metal, and we love all kinds of music. It's what we do. And you can't be everyone's darling."

KREATOR's fifteenth studio album, "Hate Über Alles", was released in June 2022. The follow-up to 2017's "Gods Of Violence" was recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin, Germany. Helming the sessions was Arthur Rizk, who has previously worked with CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, CODE ORANGE, POWER TRIP and SOULFLY, among others.

The "Hate Über Alles" cover artwork was created by Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with HATEBREED, SOULFLY, TESTAMENT, ICED EARTH and SODOM, among others.

"Hate Über Alles" marks KREATOR's first album with bassist Frédéric Leclercq, who joined the group in 2019.

In March 2020, KREATOR surprise-released a new single, "666 - World Divided". The song was produced by Andy Sneap and Markus Ganter and was recorded at Hansa Tonstudios.

KREATOR played its first show with Leclercq in October 2019 in Santiago, Chile.

Before joining KREATOR, Leclercq rose to fame with U.K.-based extreme power metallers DRAGONFORCE for whom he handled bass duties from 2005 until August 2019.

During an appearance on comedian Bill Maher's "Club Random" podcast, Lars Ulrich opened up about how a child custody arrangement with one of his ex-wives led to METALLICA embracing a touring schedule that involved playing shows for no more than two weeks at a time. The METALLICA drummer said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Maybe in the last 10, 15 years, we came around — and this is no disrespect to our managers — but we came around the other side and basically said, 'Listen, we need to start putting some boundaries and some parameters around what we're willing to do,' because back in the day we would do three [or] four in a row and then have one day off and then three in a row and then one day off, and then have a week off between going to Europe and America. And finally, like I said, maybe around 15 [years ago], maybe around the [release of the] 'Some Kind Of Monster' [documentary], we took charge and said, 'We're willing to go out for this long, for this long,' and blah blah blah. And at one point, when I was fighting a child custody case between maybe '08 to '10, maybe, give or take, we did a whole world tour for two years around not being on the road for more than two weeks at a time. We would play in Europe for two weeks, then come home, play two weeks and then come home. We did an American tour a week at a time."

Ulrich went on to explain that because he "had 50-50 custody" of his kids, "there was no budging" on the amount of uninterrupted time each parent had with the children. "So literally I would take 'em to school Monday morning and we would fly and we would play five shows in America — Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday," he explained. "Sunday night we'd fly home. I would be with my kids from that Monday morning for a week. And the rest of the guys in the band — God bless them — were gracious enough and kind enough to work with that. And it was a whole world tour for two years. So we were never gone for more than two weeks at a time."

Lars previously touched upon METALLICA's lighter touring schedule during a 2017 interview with The Ringer. At the time, he said: "If you look at [our tour] dates, you'll see that we don't do more than two weeks at a time. We'll do two weeks, then we'll go home for a couple weeks. Then we'll do two weeks, and we'll go home for a couple weeks. That way, it never feels like it's so long that you're going to fall off the deep end or that you're afraid of losing what's left of your sanity or whatever. We basically just do two-week increments. It's a way to keep it feeling fresh, so we don't burn ourselves out."

Asked how he and his bandmates get around for those stretches, Ulrich told The Ringer: "Generally, you're sort of encased in a small metal tube with a pair of jet engines on it, and you just fly from one place to the other. What we do a lot is called 'basing' — not that kind of basing, but basing in cities. We'll play the West Coast usually from home. Or if we're out on the East Coast, we'll stay in New York for a couple weeks. That way you can kind of keep a hotel room, keep your family out there. Then you fly to the show and fly back. It's a way to stay as calm and as sane as possible in the middle of all the madness. A lot of times in Europe, we'll stay in London or Paris or Copenhagen. We pick cities that we enjoy being in. That makes it all somewhat tolerable."

In a 2017 interview with Nosey, Ulrich said that it was METALLICA's enormous commercial success that enabled the band to control how much it tours any given year.

"Over the years, when you're fortunate enough to become successful, when you become successful you can become more financially independent," he explained. "And so we've been able to put parameters on how we tour so we can spend more time at home. We have a two-week rule: we don't leave home for more than two weeks at a time, 16 days at the most. We did 180 dates on the last album in two-week increments. It's not the most cost-effective way of touring the world, but we believe you can't put a price on sanity. If you remain somewhat sane, thrn there's a better chance of finishing all the shows and not jumping off the deep end in despair and misery."

Lars had two sons, Myles (born in 1998) and Layne (born in 2001),with former wife Skylar Satenstein. He also has another son, Bryce (born in 2007),with "Gladiator" actress Connie Nielsen.

Lars and model Jessica Miller got engaged in July 2013 and married two years later. It is the third marriage for Lars, who was previously married to Debbie Jones and Satenstein.

Myles and Layne play in a band called TAIPEI HOUSTON, which released its debut album, "Once Bit Never Bored", last November 4 via C3 Records.

In a recent interview with AXS TV's "The Power Hour", SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor reflected on one particularly scary incident that happened during the band's early days of touring.

"When we got the great idea to bring out pyro with us because we were just gonna start going crazy with it, we hired a dude who, come to find out, was not legally licensed to be able to [operate pyrotechnics]," Corey said. "So he's setting all this stuff up. He's packing it himself in the back of a truck that's like 120 degrees in there. He's also got the concussion set up right spitting distance from the audience, which is illegal; it's supposed to be 25 feet back. And he also has the dragons that we were using — the fire — right in front of the P.A. speakers. So one night we look over and the dragons are going off. They set fire to the P.A. system. Now the fire is sitting right next to the tank that has all of the fuel in it. So we're looking at it. It was me and [former SLIPKNOT percussionist Chris] Fehn, [we] ran over and were hitting it with towels, trying to put it out before it explodes and kills us all. And to this day, it scares the hell out of me every time they go off."

Tattoo The Earth creator Scott Alderman reflected on an early SLIPKNOT pyro mishap in his book "Caravan Of Pain: The True Story Of The Tattoo The Earth Tour", which came out last year. He wrote in part about the trek's initial incarnation, which took place more than two decades ago (as published by Revolver): "SLIPKNOT had hired pyro technicians to design and run pyrotechnics for their show, though they couldn't do it in Portland because they didn't get permits in time. The team doing it had experience in the movie industry, but this was their first concert tour. I was standing by the back of the field when they did the first round of fire cannons, and it looked out of proportion for the size of the stage. There was only supposed to be one flash, and the band started to move forward after the first one, then a second one boomed, spitting out fire from the side of the stage for an even longer duration. When the pyro finally stopped, I could see that the stage side fills were smoldering, but fortunately the huge branch hadn't gone up in flames. The crew had broken out the fire extinguishers."

This past February, SLIPKNOT shared "Bone Church", a surprise standalone single, along with a Shawn "Clown" Crahan-directed video piece titled "Yen – Director's Cut (Bone Church)", which found the SLIPKNOT founding member refreshing footage from the band's "Yen" music video.

SLIPKNOT is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, "The End, So Far", which was released last September via Roadrunner Records. The follow-up to "We Are Not Your Kind", it is the band's final record with Roadrunner after first signing with the rock and metal label in 1998.

In a new interview with Robin Nash of Tucson, Arizona's KFMA-FM radio station, NICKELBACK frontman Chad Kroeger was asked why he thinks so many people love to hate his band. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "That kind of used to be a thing. I shouldn't say 'that kind of used to be' — that was definitely a thing for a long time. And I think there's been a softening — there really has, thankfully. I'm not sure if it's because we receive a ton of love on TikTok or whatever the hell it is, but for whatever reason the teeth have kind of been removed. It's really nice, it's really nice to not be Public Enemy Number One.

"I think that with the range of songs that we write — from rock to all the softer, melodic stuff, all the way down to… Well, I know that 'Far Away' got played on country stations even and I know that 'Rockstar' — the heavily redacted version — got played on CMT," he continued. "So when you're going that far and the scope is that wide, it makes it tough to get away from the band if you're not into the band. And if you're trying to switch the radio station three times, and it's just, like, 'Ah, there they are. There's their rock song on the rock station. There's their pop song on the pop station. And oh my God, I can't even go to the country station and get away from these guys.' That type of oversaturation could piss people off. But at the end of the day, we're just a band that makes music.

"I can't stand a couple of bands, but I don't go online and turn into a keyboard warrior and just start hating on them," Chad reasoned. "I just change the channel or I put on something that I wanna listen to."

Three months ago, Chad told "Whiplash", the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie, that all the negative attention surrounding NICKELBACK has actually contributed to the band's longevity. "Well, I've been saying that for years," he said. "All the detractors, all the haters, all the keyboard heroes, they have no idea how much they keep us in the press loop. It's hilarious. Those people that would love to see us go away, if they really wanted to see us go away, they would just shut up. Because all those bands that came out with us at the same time are all gone, because nobody said anything about them. They all just sort of disappeared. But we've really kind of spun this whole negative thing into a positive thing. And here we are. [Laughs]"

Kroeger also talked about all the memes poking fun at NICKELBACK that regularly pop up on the Internet, explaining that "if it's music oriented and we think it's funny, we just leave it there, 'cause the band, collectively, has a great sense of humor. I mean, funny's funny. Just rude and ignorant, that's different. And yeah, obviously, there's tons of that too. But funny is funny. And as the Brits would say, we have no problem taking the piss out of ourselves."

Arguably the most disliked band in America, NICKELBACK has earned a type of hatred so potent it's hard to fathom what they did that was so terrible to the public consciousness. It's gotten to the point that people who enjoy NICKELBACK are denying their fandom and hiding their CDs like criminal contraband.

Asked by Jorge Botas of Portugal's "Metal Global" if he understands how NICKELBACK came to be so disliked by so many people, Chad said: "I think I've got a pretty good grasp of where things kind of went off the rails for us.

"I think that because we write so many different kinds of music, I think that if you were listening to a radio station any time between 2000 and 2010, '11, '12 even, we were kind of tough to get away from," he explained. "'Cause if you didn't wanna hear it and you changed to a different radio station, you'd probably hear it on there, and then changed to a different radio station, you probably were gonna hear it in so many different places. And we were really tough to get away from. And that's not my fault. [Laughs] We just write the songs. And so with that comes backlash. And then what happens is then comedians start making jokes, and then it starts making it on to TV, and then it makes it into movies and stuff like that. And then it just turns into this wave of, it's fun to pick on and it's an easy joke. And I get it. I understand. There are bands that when I hear them on the radio, I… And they're very popular bands… I mean, we all have those. No one is exempt from that. There are certain bands where you just hear them and you just don't like 'em. And other people may — half the world may love them, and I'll just be, like, 'No. I just cannot hear this band one more [time].' And just like everyone else does, I just change the channel. But we became the whipping boy of the music industry for a while there. But whatever. It's just part of the history of the band."

According to Chad, NICKELBACK is not the first group to experience the kind of severe backlash that has earned him and his bandmates the title of "the most hated act in the world."

"It's funny because we were at the American Music Awards, and we were presenting, and we presented to DEF LEPPARD," Chad recalled to "Metal Global". "And when we walked backstage afterwards, Joe Elliott and Phil Collen turned to me, and they were just, like, 'Dude, thank you so much.' I'm, like, 'For what?' They were, like, 'For taking the trophy. We get to pass the baton to you for being the most hated band in the world now.' And I was just, like, 'Oh, yeah. 'Cause I want that.'

"And it's funny — we went for dinner with AC/DC in Chicago years and years and years ago," Chad added. "And this whole thing came up. And Brian Johnson said when they released 'Back In Black', they were the most hated band on the planet. So I feel like we're in good company. [Laughs]"

This past December, Chad's brother, NICKELBACK bassist Mike Kroeger was asked by Germany's Rock Antenne if he pays attention to all the online comments about his band. He responded: "I don't really do social media anymore. I have my own Instagram, but I got off Twitter. I never did Facebook, thank God, but I got off Twitter a couple of years ago — three years ago, I guess, now. I'm thinking about getting back on, just because since Elon Musk bought it, it looks like a hilarious, fun time. All these people are so scared, I love it. I might even rejoin, just to see what happens with that guy at the helm, so to speak.

"I'm not scared of comments 'cause I think sometimes even the ones that are assholes can be really funny," he continued. "To me, if something is truly funny, it's funny. Obviously, just to throw hate at something, like us, that's not kind of funny; that's just negative. But sometimes the haters can say some pretty funny things.

"There's a lot of times when you see people… And that's one thing that the Internet kind of has fostered with sites like Reddit, et cetera, is giving people a platform to try to be funny," Mike added. "And a lot of people try to be funny, and that's kind of the problem, because a lot of people aren't funny. So I have to kind of weed through the amateurs to get to the good ones, 'cause there are some good ones in there. There are people who make fun of our band and are funny about it — I'll have a great laugh when I see that — but there is also a contingent of people online who, they want to be funny, but they're just not. And that's just very sad to me."

Back in 2016, a student named Salli Anttonen at the University of Eastern Finland conducted a study to find out why there is so much hate directed towards NICKELBACK. Anttonen analyzed Finnish reviews of the band from 2000 through 2014 for her paper, which was titled "Hypocritical Bullshit Performed Through Gritted Teeth: Authenticity Discourses In Nickelback's Album Reviews In Finnish Media".

Anttonen found that critiques of the band became harsher as they became more popular, noting: "It became a phenomenon where the journalists were using the same (reasons) to bash them, and almost making an art out of ridiculing them."

Even though the study was based solely upon Finnish reviews of the band, the critics' animosity toward the group has been a global phenomenon.

Anttonen concluded: "NICKELBACK is too much of everything to be enough of something. They follow genre expectations too well, which is seen as empty imitation, but also not well enough, which is read as commercial tactics and as a lack of a stable and sincere identity."

NICKELBACK's new album, "Get Rollin'", was released in November via BMG.

Carmine Appice says that it pissed him off when Nikki Sixx called him "a washed-up drummer" in response to comments he made about Mick Mars's exit from MÖTLEY CRÜE.

When Mars, a co-founding member of MÖTLEY CRÜE, announced his retirement from touring with the group last October as a result of worsening health issues, he maintained that he would remain a member of the band, with John 5 taking his place on the road. However, in his lawsuit, which was filed on April 6 in Los Angeles County's Superior Court, the 71-year-old musician said that, after his announcement, the rest of CRÜE tried to remove him as a significant stakeholder in the group's corporation and business holdings via a shareholders' meeting. In his lawsuit, Mars also alleged that he was the only bandmember to play 100 percent live on their most recent tour, claiming MÖTLEY CRÜE bassist Nikki Sixx "did not play a single note on bass during the entire U.S. tour."

Mick's lawsuit came less than a month after Carmine told Ultimate Guitar that he had been talking to the guitarist about his exit from MÖTLEY CRÜE: "Mick told me, 'When I was on 'The Stadium Tour', I was not happy,'" Carmine said. "Basically, everything was on tape; it was all planned out and ultimately a lot of crap. And Mick is a pretty good player, and so to now let him loose and play the way he wants, that was never going to work for him. The truth is that everything has been weird for a while with MÖTLEY CRÜE, and Mick didn't like that everything was on tape. Mick told me that people that came to see it could tell that it was all pre-recorded and that everything was on tape.

"When you play in a stadium like that, you can hear a lot of things come to the monitors or what doesn't. And with Vince's [Neil] vocals, bass, drums, guitars, and all the other stuff, it was obvious that it was all on tape. And Mick was pissed off and said, 'I can play these things. I want to play them. I don't want to make believe I'm playing them.' So, I think that's one of the reasons why he said, 'I'm done.' Sure, the disease that he has doesn't help, and it doesn't make life easy on tour, but Mick can play all the licks, and he was allowed to."

When Ultimate Guitar asked Appice to clarify that "Mick wasn't getting along with the rest of" MÖTLEY CRÜE, Carmine said: No, he wasn't. He had his own means of travel and would travel alone on a bus while the other guys flew everywhere. He said, 'Man, these guys are pissing their money away, flying to every gig.' They were all busy still trying to be rock stars, and Mick just wanted to play the music. Mick wasn't interested in wasting time and money flying everywhere, so he traveled by bus. Their lifestyles are different than his, and so there were a lot of disagreements. I think he was just done. They were supposed to have done their last tour, and then they came back. Then they did 'The Stadium Tour', and that was apparently supposed to be the last. So, when they came back again, he said, 'You can do it. I'm not going out with you for this.'"

On March 15, Sixx, who has not given any interviews about Mars's departure from CRÜE, apparently responded directly to Appice's comments, writing in a tweet: "Love how people talk FOR us without talking TO us. This is why the media has lost credibility. Obviously by printing BS they make money off of advertising and we're not into that clickbait game. When the truth comes out it will be FROM üs."

He added later that same day: "A washed up drummer trying to speak for us? And bottom feeder media running with it to make money off of lies? Welcome to the sad new world of LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME."

On March 17, Sixx took part in a Twitter question-and-answer session and was asked by one fan: "Is what Carmine Appice said true?" the CRÜE bassist replied: "A washed up drummer speaking for our band without any of the facts is as ridiculous as bottom feeder media running with stories without fact checking. When you hear the truth it will be from us."

Now, during a May 15 appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", Carmine was asked if he had anything to add to everything that had been said between all the parties. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Everything that I said, Mick pretty much backed it up with his lawsuit. I was just doing an interview, like we're talking. And when I do interviews, I'm pretty candid. Mick told me that stuff, and I didn't mean it to go out of proportion like that.

"The thing for me is I knew Nikki since they opened up for Ozzy [Osbourne]," he continued. "And when they opened up for Ozzy, I'm like the kind of guy, when I'm on a headlining tour, I befriend the opening act. Like LED ZEPPELIN with VANILLA FUDGE, I befriended John Bonham and all the guys. Same thing here. I was friends with these guys. Nikki used to live around the corner from me in L.A. We used to go out for breakfast at this '50s café, and we were friends. Even their title 'Raise Your Hands To Rock' on that [third] album ['Theatre Of Pain'], that was my title. I told him we were working on a song, 'Raise Your Hands To Rock', with KING KOBRA. And he said, 'Oh, man. I love that title. Do you mind if I steal it?' I go, 'Oh, come on, dude.' So he gave me credit: 'Thank you' for the initials, 'Raise Your Hands To Rock'. And we were friends. So to hear him talk about me like that, it kind of pissed me off. But it is what it is. And I read all these things about other musicians talking about him. I said, 'Wow, I didn't realize everyone had hatred for this guy.' I haven't seen him or talked to him in years. Same with Tommy [Lee, MÖTLEY CRÜE]. Tommy and I used to hang out when he married to Heather [Locklear] and Pam [Anderson]… And I haven't seen him for ages."

Carmine went on to say that he "got a cease-and-desist letter" from the MÖTLEY CRÜE camp after he initially publicly revealed some of the things Mick had told him. "That's why I stopped talking about it," he said. "But then when Mick said all that stuff, it kind of vindicated me, because he said everything that I said. Because that's what he told me."

In response to Mars's lawsuit, CRÜE's manager of 29 years, Allen Kovac, told Variety that Mars is coming out with a list of allegations "to gain leverage in a smear campaign on MÖTLEY. He's attacked the band, and he's done it in a slanderous way, with false accusations and misrepresenting the facts to the fans. Mick is not the victim. The victims are MÖTLEY CRÜE and the brand, which Mick is so prideful of." But, he added, "What's upsetting to me is not Mick, but his representatives, who have guided Mick to say and do harmful things to the brand he cares about so much, MÖTLEY CRÜE. He has a degenerative disease and people are taking advantage of him. It's called elder abuse."

Kovac continued: "Mick's representatives have no idea what they've created, but I've stopped the band from speaking about this, so they're not gonna turn the fans against Mick. But I am going to make sure that people understand that Mick hasn't been treated badly. In fact, he was treated better than anyone else in the band, and they carried him and they saved his life."

Mars suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS),a chronic and inflammatory form of arthritis that mainly affects the spine and pelvis. After years of performing through the pain, he informed the other members of MÖTLEY CRÜE last summer that he could no longer tour with them but would still be open to recording new music or performing at residencies that did not require much travel.

Regarding Mick's claim that he was the only CRÜE member to play 100 percent live on their most recent tour, Kovac told Variety: "Everything is live with Nikki's bass playing and Tommy's drum playing. When they've used loops, they're still playing. There are augmented vocals, which were (recorded) in the studio and are backgrounds behind the two ladies who are singing and (other background vocals by) John 5 and Nikki Sixx, and before that Mick and Nikki." He described the pre-recorded vocal layering as where "you multi-track and you do gang vocals with, like, 20 people, just like all the other bands do with background vocals. They've got background vocals in the mix. That's the truth.

"But Nikki played his bass and always has," Kovac continued. "Vince was singing better than he was before (on the latest tour). That was in reviews. Now, John 5 is playing like who John 5 is. I've heard John 5 perform and I heard Mick perform. Both are great guitar players. Unfortunately, Mick is not the same. He hasn't been the same for a long time. Which was in reviews! You see that the professionals knew. DEF LEPPARD (which alternated headlining spots on tour) knew. And (Mars) caused a train wreck up there, because he would play the wrong songs and the wrong parts, even with the guide tracks. When he played the wrong song, it wasn't Nikki Sixx that had a tape; it was the soundman bringing it into the mix so the audience could hear a song, even though the guitar player was playing a different song." He says audiences "would hear it at first, but (sound engineers) would fix it so that we could keep the song going. I heard it. I'd go to the sound board."

Bobby Blotzer says that his recent comment that RATT's "always crushed MÖTLEY CRÜE musically" was blown out of proportion.

Earlier in the month, while talking to the "This That & The Other With Troy Patrick Farrell" podcast, the RATT drummer addressed the fact that bands like MÖTLEY CRÜE and JOURNEY have seemingly been able to put aside personal differences between their various bandmembers and continue touring, performing at arenas and stadiums around the world.

"RATT's always crushed MÖTLEY musically," Bobby said. "I think they got more press — [they were associated with] movie stars, explicit sex, murders and shit… so they were always in the magazines. And you know what? They deserve what they got. I don't think they'd wanna go toe-to-toe with us, that's for sure."

Now in a new interview with Artists On Record Starring ADIKA Live!, Blotzer elaborated on his comments while addressing the possibility of the classic RATT lineup reuniting to celebrate the BMG/Rhino Entertainment release of "The Atlantic Years: 1984-1991", a limited-edition box set celebrating RATT's massively successful period where all five of their studio albums were certified gold, platinum or multi-platinum. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I did an interview three weeks ago, and I said to this question with my friend Troy Patrick Farrell — he's got some podcast as well — and he goes right in, man, and starts asking me this stuff: 'Hey, what about MÖTLEY? What about…?' I mean, it wasn't even, like, 'Hey, dude? How're you doing, man? What's happening?' I guess we do that on a regular phone call.

"But in any case, the answer to [the] question [about a possible RATT reunion] is this… Me and Stephen [Pearcy, RATT singer] are on the phone all the time. [We've been] trying [to put together a RATT] reunion [for] two years now… And I just saw an interview with him. I sent him a text, I go, 'Dude, you're throwing me under the bus? What is wrong with you?' 'Cause they were asking him, 'What do you think about Bobby saying that RATT crushes MÖTLEY?' I mean, what I said on that, as the question went from Troy, he said, 'I was talking [SiriusXM radio personality] Eddie Trunk and he was telling me he thought that RATT's catalog blows MÖTLEY CRÜE's away.' And I said, 'It does, in my opinion.' And I'm sure MÖTLEY said the same shit about us. But I respect them, to a certain degree. I mean, I definitely respect their career. I mean, how can you not? So that was blown out of proportion. And then Stephen did an interview and he was, like, 'Yeah, Bob's out there trying to talk about a reunion. Good luck.' And I'm, like, 'Dude, I was just on the phone with you two days ago trying to figure out how much movement we made in the last two months.'"

Regarding the likelihood of RATT's classic lineup doing any shows in the near future, Bobby said: "I want a reunion. We want a reunion. Warren, I understand, wants to take a meeting. That's all I can say about it. If it happens, it happens. If not… I don't need a job. I'm fine. I'd like to rock some more.

"With the help of next year being the 40th anniversary of [RATT's debut album] 'Out Of The Cellar', perhaps we can do something. I was talking to people over at Warner Music/BMG on how we could do a special reissue of 'Out Of The Cellar'. And we were kicking around some ideas, and I said, 'Hey, you guys, maybe you can help reboot the band, going out and doing a reunion.'

"So, I don't know, folks," he added. "Contact Warren DeMartini, [RATT bassist] Juan Croucier. Warren and Stephen aren't best of friends right now, even though they have control of the name. Still, as always, it's a fight, it's in shambles. But when we do it, if we get in a room, it's gonna be funny, fun — let's go. People have gotta understand how much fun we have and not how much grief we have in the band."

When Blotzer initially discussed the prospect of a classic RATT reunion with "This That & The Other With Troy Patrick Farrell", he said: "I'm always hoping that this is gonna go down for my own peace of mind and my sleep at night. The 'RATTmares' that I was having for eight years during the litigation were pretty disturbing. It's better now, 'cause it's all over, that bit of it. So now that it is over, that is where it should… Everybody should just brush it off. If we can have a war with Japan and then sell their fucking TVs 10, 15 years later, I think RATT can get up there and shake their butts, make some money, make the people happy, the kids come out, et cetera.

"We're talking," Bobby continued. "Me and Stephen talk about it all the time. We're trying to get hold of Warren. We have somebody in our ring, in our corner, who's hopefully gonna work with us, for us and with us, on a managerial level, and he has reached Warren via the telephone, which we haven't been able to do. It's okay — if he doesn't wanna talk, he doesn't wanna talk. But I think he knows that me and Stephen wanna do it.

"There's some complications, and I don't wanna speak for Stephen and stuff, but him and his partner, Mr.Croucier, have some sloppy ends to tie up before this happens with or without… It's just too vague right now to speak of," Blotzer added. "It has to happen, though. If it doesn't happen with this new release… We've had other greatest-hits [releases] — probably, like, five or six of 'em; I don't even know. I don't keep count; I just look at what's on the check when they come in. But this was the big one. So it would be great if we were doing this. I would we would do it next year. Obviously, it's late in the year now — getting to be late in the year. It's too late to mount a tour, which is generally booked the year before, around September the previous year. Next year [will be] 40 years since '[Out Of The] Cellar' came out, so that's when I hope we do it then. I feel like it's inevitable, but… I don't know. I think everybody's gotta realize the fans wanna see us one more time up there in all the glory."

During the "This That & The Other With Troy Patrick Farrell" chat, Bobby also touched upon JOURNEY, whose inner-band squabbles have been in the headlines in recent months. He said: "Listen, you would never think that someone as huge and widespread as JOURNEY would succumb to this kind of Internet babble. I know that I was on the Internet quite a few times, and I was airing dirty laundry, man, 'cause I was not letting certain people like Stephen and that sort, 'I'm quttin' the band. I'm going out and playin' the tunes', it's not gonna go without somebody understanding that this isn't reasonable to us, the other guys in the group. Either way, I wish I would have, in hindsight, not spoken up."

Pearcy is the only member of RATT's classic lineup who has been actively touring, performing many of the RATT's hits with his solo band.

In April 2021, Pearcy was joined by Blotzer during the RATT singer's livestream concert from the world-famous Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip.

RATT — featuring Pearcy, Croucier and DeMartini — played a number of shows in 2017 after reforming a year earlier in the midst of a highly publicized legal battle with Blotzer over the rights to the RATT name. They were joined at the gigs by guitarist Carlos Cavazo, who played on 2010's "Infestation" album, and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso, who previously played with Y&T, WHITE LION and MEGADETH, among others.

Addressing his legal disputes with the other members of RATT's classic lineup, Bobby told "This That & The Other With Troy Patrick Farrell": "It's taken the life out of me as far as the love of the game here. I'll come back with the mothership, RATT, but I'm not really set up to go, 'Hey, let's put something together, Keri Kelli and Robbie Crane,' or whomever. I went through so much in that litigation. And that wasn't the first one, because we were at it with Stephen in 2002 for two and a half years in federal court. It was intense and it was costly. And just what it cost you in your spirit and your heart and your soul, that's where it broke down for me. So right now I'm kind of retired. I know I can go out and rock and tour, but it would have to be starting with RATT, I think. That's the level I wanna do it at."

According to Bobby, RATT has already turned down massive money to reunite for one or more shows. "We've had some pretty huge offers," he told "This That & The Other With Troy Patrick Farrell". "This is no joke — we had a million-and-two-fifty-[thousand] offer to open a new arena, and everybody turned it down. I was shocked. I was, like, 'Man…' These are the kind of decisions that chipped away at the infrastructure of doing business in the band. But I don't have any, really, grudges that I can carry around anymore with these guys; I just don't. It's not healthy. And I do love RATT, and I love the guys. I know if we all got into a room and we were looking eye-to-eye, everybody would start laughing and cutting up jokes. It would be a little awkward at first, but I've been there and done it with this. A band that's been around this long, we've done this — been there and done it. So I don't know why we can't do it when others, probably more salacious and dysfunctional, like a MÖTLEY CRÜE [can]. I don't know."

Blotzer went on to offer a "theory" as to why RATT hasn't been able to come back together for a tour when MÖTLEY CRÜE and JOURNEY have overcome their personal differences to play for their fans. He said: "My theory is you can't be a democracy in a band. It doesn't work. You've got too many people voting. You need a leader. And I think that's what MÖTLEY has with [bassist] Nikki Sixx and Allen Kovac, their manager, our old manager. Those two lead the charge. Nikki has always led the charge. And you know what? They listen. And they know where the big stuff is. And they still want it. Some of us, maybe, in this band don't want it. I don't know."

Pressed about why he thinks some members of RATT are not motivated by the idea of getting a hefty paycheck and performing for thousands of adoring fans again, Bobby told "This That & The Other With Troy Patrick Farrell": "Like I said a few minutes ago, Warren has stated to somebody that, if we do this, is likely gonna be holding down the managerial position, and [Warren] said he was willing to get in and listen, which is way more than he has said… He's said nothing, really. I only hear tidbits from mutual friends that he speaks to. So I can't speak to… He just kind of sounds like he's done. I don't know if that's really where his heart is.

"See, we make good money sittin' on our asses at home," Blotzer added. "And it's been really a blessing that our royalties have grown in such a way that it's lucrative not going out. And then for the mind baggage that certain people think it's gonna entail, which history has proven that that happens, that might be the fear factor. I hope that that, if we can all get into a room and play, it would dissipate very quickly, in my opinion."

Last June, Pearcy told Atlantic City Weekly that RATT was supposed to do "a big summer tour" in 2022. "I initiated doing something if the [surviving] guys [from the classic lineup] would get together," he revealed. "But there is no reason for them to do it or a need for them to do it, so I decided to just go out solo. And I am better off. Some of these guys [in my solo band] have been with me 18, 20 years. So if you want to Ratt & Roll, come see my shows."

The reformed PANTERA played its first U.S. concert on May 6 at the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally in Panama City, Florida. The performance marked PANTERA's first live appearance in its home country in 22 years — since July 25, 2001, when the band played at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington as part of the "Extreme Steel" tour.

Official behind-the-scenes video recap of the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally concert — courtesy of the PANTERA YouTube channel — can be seen below.

PANTERA's setlist for the Thunder Beach Motorcycle Rally included one song which hadn't been performed live since the band's comeback last year: "Suicide Note Pt. II", from PANTERA's 1996 album "The Great Southern Trendkill".

PANTERA's current lineup includes two surviving members from the band's classic formation, Philip Anselmo (vocals) and Rex Brown (bass),along with guitarist Zakk Wylde (OZZY OSBOURNE, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY) and Benante (ANTHRAX).

Anselmo and Brown, along with Wylde and Benante, are headlining a number of major festivals across South America, Asia, North America and Europe and staging some of their own headline concerts. They will also support METALLICA on a massive North American stadium tour in 2023 and 2024.

According to Billboard, the lineup has been given a green light by the estates of the band's founders, drummer Vincent "Vinnie Paul" Abbott and guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, as well as Brown, who in 2021 said Wylde wouldn't tour with PANTERA if a reunion were to happen. It's unclear what changed his mind.

This past March, PANTERA headlined the 2023 "comeback" edition of Japan's Loud Park festival. The two-day "limited" event took place on March 25 at Intex Osaka in Osaka and March 26 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba City near Tokyo.

In December, PANTERA played seven shows in Mexico and South America.

Benante opened up about his participation in PANTERA's return during a recent interview with "THAT Rocks!", the new weekly YouTube series hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson. Speaking about some of the criticism he has received for his involvement with PANTERA, Charlie said: "People had their preconceived notions of what they were gonna think: 'Oh, I don't dig this without Vinnie and Dime.' And of course… What do you think? We don't know that Vinnie and Dime are not with us anymore? But when we start playing the songs and you just see the faces in the crowd, all that shit goes out the window, the negative stuff that has been said.

"Man, that's all I ever wanted to do, is just come and do this and make people hear these songs again," he explained. "And that's what it's all about, really. It's about the music."

Asked who was in charge of making the decision to use the name PANTERA for the new lineup instead of calling it a tribute or naming it something else, Charlie said: "It wasn't me. [Laughs] For us it was about the celebration of the music and Dime and Vinnie; that's what it was about since day one. No one called it a tribute; no one called it a reunion. It can't be a reunion. This is a celebration of the music of PANTERA. Come and enjoy it. And that's it. That's all could do."

Benante also talked about his personal connection to Dimebag and Vinnie, saying: "Yeah. I loved those two guys, man. You never think that certain things would ever, ever happen, and then when it does, you sit back and think, like, 'How did this happen so fast? How did this time just slip by?' And Darrell's been gone for a while now. But it doesn't change how we all miss him and feel him.

"Every show that we play… [Longtime PANTERA engineer, bass tech and friend] Sterling [Winfield], who used to work for PANTERA — still does, in a sense. The first show, he came to Mexico City and he brought me one of Darrell's wristbands and a pair of Vinnie's gloves that they used. And every show that I've played so far, I wear the wristband and Vinnie's glove is in my pocket because I feel like they're with me. And I do that for every show, and I'll continue to do that for every other show we play. It just has significance."

Benante previously discussed his involvement in PANTERA's comeback during a recent interview with Consequence. Addressing the negative comments he has received for his participation, Charlie said: "I don't go [online] looking for [people's negative comments about it]. There's people that send me, 'Hey, did you see this?' And I'm, like, 'Why did you send me this? Why ruin my day?'

"I think the people who do these things, these comments, I don't even think they realize how much of an effect that they could have on people," he continued. "And whether or not you hate the situation, or whatever it is, why can't you find some sort of restraint? Why do you need to say this thought that you have? Can't you just hold it in and maybe be, like, 'I'll keep my thoughts to myself.' No, they've gotta tell you. I've never seen more of it in my life than I [did] in these past couple of months about just people judging."

Regarding his personal approach to playing the parts originally written and recorded by Vinnie Paul, Charlie said: "I just spent a lot of time on Vinnie's parts and more importantly the tone that Vinnie had because I wanted it to sound like PANTERA. That was my thing. And my drum configuration is different from the ANTHRAX one because I wanted to challenge myself to play those parts like he played them in that configuration, which, to me, was more important than anything. But yet people still have to find some problem in that."

According to Benante, the initial rehearsals for the PANTERA comeback tour were "an emotional thing" for Philip and Rex "too, because they hadn't played as a group, those two hadn't played together in a long time, playing PANTERA songs. Yeah, they played [together] in DOWN, but this was an emotional thing for them," Charlie said. "And I remember after the week of rehearsals that we did, saying goodbye was weird, because it was an emotional thing; we really kind of bonded, the three of us. Zakk wasn't there at the time. But for me, I knew I had done something right."

Brown was forced to leave PANTERA's Latin American tour after testing positive for COVID-19. Filling in for him at some of the shows was CATTLE DECAPITATION bassist Derek Engemann, who also plays with Anselmo in both PHILIP H. ANSELMO & THE ILLEGALS and SCOUR.

Up until his passing, Vinnie remained on non-speaking terms with Anselmo, whom the drummer indirectly blamed for Dimebag's death.

Vinnie Paul and Dimebag co-founded PANTERA. When PANTERA broke up in 2003, they formed DAMAGEPLAN. On December 8, 2004, while performing with DAMAGEPLAN at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio, Dimebag was shot and killed onstage by a troubled schizophrenic who believed that the members of PANTERA were stealing his thoughts.

Vinnie passed away on June 22, 2018 at his other home in Las Vegas at the age of 54. He died of dilated cardiomyopathy, an enlarged heart, as well as severe coronary artery disease. His death was the result of chronic weakening of the heart muscle — basically meaning his heart couldn't pump blood as well as a healthy heart.

Image by Den's Live Concert Videos

In a new interview with 98.7 The Gater's "The Jason & Franny Show", former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted spoke about his decision to reactivate his NEWSTED project for a May 20 concert at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Newsted, who plays bass and sings in the project, will be joined at the gig by original NEWSTED members Jesus Mendez Jr. (UNDERLORD) on drums and Jessie Farnsworth (UNDERLORD) on guitar, along with new guitarist Humberto Perez.

"We're very excited about [Humberto's addition to the band], because we have a little bit of new, fresh blood in the quartet," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "But Jessie and Jesus and myself have maybe 16 years together overall. Nothing can replace that kind of [chemistry]. So we started playing the heavy [stuff] again. It all came together. I just wanted to do this. I reached out to some people and they said Revolution Live was the place to take the gig. That's where all the cool bands [play]."

As for how NEWSTED is being billed for this weekend's concert, Jason said: "It's still 'NEWSTED Heavy Metal Music'. But it's 10 years later. We haven't really played together for 10 years, since the end of that tour in 2013."

According to Jason, NEWSTED will perform mostly "new songs of this metal project. But it only can be old school like that. Yes, that's what it is — it's honest, authentic, old school and [there's] no cheating."

Earlier in the month, Jason told the "Let There Be Talk" podcast with rock and roll comedian Dean Delray that the setlist for the Revolution Live concert will consist mostly of newer songs that NEWSTED fans have not heard before. Describing the material as "quite punk," he explained: "I put together this kind of MOTÖRHEAD-flavored thing about a year and a half ago and wrote these MOTÖRHEAD-flavored songs on bass as the first instrument. I took the main three Philthy Animal drum beats and just picked that one and make a song and pick that one and make a song, and go around a couple of times and write that many songs. So I wrote some fun songs. And now we mix those in with 'Soldierhead' and 'Heroic Dose' and the ones from the videos that people know, but mostly playing new songs. And they are way less complex — way less complex than FLOTSAM [AND JETSAM], METALLICA or even the [early stuff from] the NEWSTED band or ECHOBRAIN certainly. Just real punk rock, straight ahead like MOTÖRHEAD — a lot of fast stuff, a lot of double bass. Most of them are pretty quick. It's just fun, though — fun as fuck."

Back in February 2014, Newsted canceled an appearance at Australia's Soundwave festival with NEWSTED, citing "private and personal circumstances." The cancelation followed more than a year of intense touring and promotional activity surrounding the release of NEWSTED's "Metal" EP and follow-up album, "Heavy Metal Music", both of which were positively received by the critics and fans alike.

Asked by Delray if the Fort Lauderdale concert will be a one-off or if there are plans to do more shows or recording new music in the future with NEWSTED, Jason said: "This is gonna be the gauge. Is it possible for them to spring me back into it like they did [when I played with METALLICA in 2011 at the 30th-anniversary shows] at the Fillmore [in San Francisco]? This we will find out on May 20th, if they bring me back. If they bring me back, then they do, and if they don't, they don't, and here I am and I'm still happy. It's gonna be a crazy fucking show. We've been working hard on the songs, and I'm ready to give it."

Elaborating on his reasons for bringing NEWSTED back, Jason said: "It is actually only selfish — self-absorbed, self-centered, narcissistic, whatever this is right here [in my head], I have to prove to myself I can do it. I have to show myself that I can do that for these new songs that I have. I can take it to the people. I need that.

"I've played with THE CHOPHOUSE BAND for the last 10 years. I learned to play acoustic guitar, wrote some songs with violins and female singers and all this colorful, wonderful shit… I stepped out of that in February of this year, stepped back into the metal to see if I can still throw the shit down. And that's what it comes down to. So if I'm able to feel good about it, get that response back that this could be worth it again, cool… But the people will decide for me."

Last month, Jason told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about how he arrived at the decision to bring back NEWSTED after a decade-long absence: "Kind of by happenstance and how we keep chasing it for fun. That's always been our thing — playing with whoever, whenever.

"About a year ago at this time, THE CHOPHOUSE BAND played at the Maltz Theatre in Jupiter, Florida, and Jesus Mendez, the drummer NEWSTED, and Jessie Farnsworth, the guitarist, guested at the end of that program. And they came over to HQ, and we jammed a bit on the side. And I think that seed got replanted. And so I had to finish with THE CHOPHOUSE BAND album, so I did that. And then [I] got these guys back together a couple of weeks ago again. And it was an epiphanous kind of trip — everybody smiling at each other and happy that we're still alive and everything. So it's really mostly for feeling alive and marking the tenth anniversary [of the formation of the band] and being brothers again."

As for why he abruptly stopped doing NEWSTED back in 2014, seemingly without an official explanation, Jason said: "I think I should have asked for more help — in 20/20 hindsight. I've worked hard to protect the legacy, as it were, I guess, if that's the term. It's important as an outsider, insider and otherwise, for the opportunity that I've been given. I try to be really careful about what moves I make. I really didn't want to coattail anything from anywhere. And I wanna do my own thing and try to do it with Chophouse Records and my own stuff and wear so many hats so many different times. I jumped into ECHOBRAIN project, which is something that was kind of already assembled. VOIVOD, obviously, was already very assembled. The NEWSTED band was a fresh thing. Since FLOTSAM [AND JETSAM], that's the only thing I've been a founder of since that time. I didn't wanna ask for help from the people I could have, and I think that's probably what it comes down to. It would have been better for my head and my overall [mental health] if I could have worn less hats and been able to concentrate more on my show."

STAIND guitarist Mike Mushok, who joined NEWSTED in March 2013 and played on "Heavy Metal Music", told "The Jasta Show" in a 2019 interview that Jason ultimately pulled the plug on the band because it wasn't financially viable for him to continue playing.

"I think he was happy with it [creatively]," Mike said. "I think the touring thing was hard. I don't think it was exactly what he expected it was going to be. But listen, it was fun. I really enjoyed him. I really enjoyed our time together and playing. We're still friends; we still communicate… We were playing smaller places, but the shows were always good; they were always fun. I just think it cost him a ton. 'Cause he was footing the bill for everything. So I think that at the end of the day, he's, like, 'I'm doing this 'cause of my passion for it and what I love, but I'm bleeding here.' We had this European tour that I think cost him a bunch."

Explaining that he is "really thankful" for the "great experience" of playing with Jason, Mike praised his former bandmate, saying: "Jason is a hard worker, man. We would practice 10 hours, he'd record the whole thing, and when we were done, he wouldn't walk out of the control — he'd sit there and listen to it. I'm, like, 'Dude! Come on, man.' I mean, there's a hard work — I'm a hard worker, but this guy was next level."

"Heavy Metal Music" sold nearly 8,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 40 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD was made available in August 2013 in North America via Chophouse Records/Collective Sounds and in Europe through Spinefarm Records.

Jason left METALLICA back in 2001 but was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, along with guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett, and the man who replaced him, bassist Robert Trujillo, in 2009.

Nita Strauss has recruited a vocalist named Kasey Karlsen to join her onstage during the guitarist's upcoming "Summer Storm" tour.

In a Twitter message introducing Kasey, Nita wrote: "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kasey Karlsen to the squad!!

"Kasey will be holding down the vocal duties on the upcoming Summer Storm tour starting next month!!"

Strauss added: "We needed someone fearless and versatile for this tour who could handle tons of different vocal styles, and if you've seen Kasey's videos you already know she can do it all. She is going to destroy these stages and we are beyond excited to have her with us!!"

Karlsen has a half a million followers on TikTok where she posts vocal covers of such acts as SLIPKNOT, MOTIONLESS IN WHITE, BRING ME THE HORIZON and ICE NINE KILLS.

The "Summer Storm" trek will kick off on June 13 in Nashville and wrap up on July. 14 in New Orleans. Support on the tour will come from LIONS AT THE GATE, the new band featuring former ILL NIÑO members Cristian Machado (vocals),Ahrue "Luster" Ilustre (guitar) and Diego Verduzco (guitar),alongside bassist Stephen Brewer (WESTFIELD MASSACRE) and drummer Fern Lemus.

Nita will release her sophomore solo album, "The Call Of The Void", on July 7 via Sumerian Records. The LP features guest appearances by IN FLAMES vocalist Anders Fridén, former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman, HALESTORM frontwoman Lzzy Hale, Alice Cooper, DISTURBED's David Draiman, Dorothy, Alissa White-Gluz of ARCH ENEMY and Chris Motionless of MOTIONLESS IN WHITE.

Regarding the album's title, Strauss shared: "Have you ever been at the top of a high building and had the fleeting thought, '… I could jump right now?' This feeling is sometimes called 'The Call Of The Void,' also known as 'high place phenomenon.' It's not a suicidal impulse, rather the exact opposite — a subconscious decision to live your life, to step back from the ledge, and take control. As researcher April Smith aptly put it: 'An urge to jump affirms the urge to live.'

"I wanted the follow-up to 'Controlled Chaos' to be exciting, new, and fresh, to take listeners to a new place and take myself somewhere new as an artist too. We have some amazing collaborations on this album with incredible musicians, as well as the instrumental guitar music that first inspired me to play.

"Some pieces of music come into the world gracefully and easily. This album is not one of them! 'The Call Of The Void' was born kicking and screaming, a labor of love for sure, but also of blood, sweat and plenty of tears. I couldn't be more proud of the end result. Making this album helped me learn and grow so much as a musician and songwriter and I'm excited to finally unleash it on the world."

In early December 2022, Nita told "The Mistress Carrie Podcast" about her decision to make the upcoming LP half vocal songs and half instrumental: "I did feel, and the label and everybody agreed, it's still important for me to keep my identity as a guitar player and not just branch off too much and go, 'Okay, well, now it's just guests.' Let me still have a little of what makes me me, which is the instrumental shred stuff. And the instrumental pieces that I've written on this record are, I think, better than anything I did on the first one — definitely more… I don't know if it could be more emotional but they're very emotional pieces of music and I think a little better crafted this time around. So I think all the songs in general are more well thought out, better put together this time around. And I do have some of my absolute favorite [singers guesting on it]."

Nita released 2018's "Controlled Chaos" to mass acclaim from fans and media alike, with Metal Injection calling it "a great debut that — as its creator intended — leaves no doubt", and Guitar World stating "'Controlled Chaos' is a panoramic view of Nita Strauss's many strengths".

In March, it was announced that Nita would return to Alice's band for his 2023 tour.

The Alice Cooper North American tour, with an all-new show dubbed "Too Close For Comfort", kicked off in late April in Michigan and will continue through late September, including a handful of August stadium shows with DEF LEPPARD and MÖTLEY CRÜE, followed by a co-headlining late summer "Freaks On Parade" tour with Rob Zombie.

Nita spent eight years playing with Alice before joining Demi Lovato's band last summer,

Strauss played her first full live show with Demi in August 2022 at the Grandstand at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, Illinois.

Nita made her live debut with Demi in July 2022 with a performance of "Substance" on ABC's Emmy Award-winning late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live!".

Strauss had been playing with Cooper since 2014 when she replaced Australian musician and former Michael Jackson player Orianthi. She joined Alice in time for a mammoth MÖTLEY CRÜE tour. She was recommended to Cooper by the legendary rocker's former bass player and WINGER frontman Kip Winger.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kasey Karlsen to the squad!!

Kasey will be holding down the vocal duties on the upcoming Summer Storm tour starting next month!! pic.twitter.com/sPCko79PKs

— Nita Strauss (@hurricanenita) May 17, 2023


We needed someone fearless and versatile for this tour who could handle tons of different vocal styles, and if you’ve seen Kasey’s videos you already know she can do it all. She is going to destroy these stages and we are beyond excited to have her with us!!

— Nita Strauss (@hurricanenita) May 17, 2023

JETHRO TULL recently released its 23rd studio album, "RökFlöte", via InsideOut Music. Following 2022's "The Zealot Gene", the group's first LP in two decades, Ian Anderson and his bandmates are returning with a 12-track record based on the characters and roles of some of the principal gods of the old Norse paganism, and at the same time exploring the "RökFlöte" — rock flute — which JETHRO TULL has made iconic.

Speaking to the "Rock, Paper, Swords!" about the use of the umlauts in "RökFlöte" and his recent comments making fun of MOTÖRHEAD or MÖTLEY CRÜE for adding umlauts to their names, Ian said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I am mocking. I am a bit of a fan of MOTÖRHEAD. But looking back on it, [late MOTÖRHEAD leader] Lemmy's fascination for World War I and World War II, which he was an amateur historian and I think took it all very seriously. But he was fascinated by the dark side of the Nazi era; there's absolutely no mistaking that. And [there's] nothing wrong with having an interest in history and trying to rationalize it, know about it, understand it — nothing wrong with that at all — as long as you don't start dressing up in a way that makes it look like you are somehow supportive of some dark elements in history. And the spurious use of the umlaut, I can only imagine, is a fascination for something that isn't necessarily a dark thing. I mean, the umlaut is a part of spelling — it's not only the German people; it appears in Icelandic, for example. There may be a connection. But I think making a bit of a joke about it in terms of naming your band and including an umlaut just because it makes it look like you're a tough guy, which I think is the only explanation for that, in the case of those two bands [MOTÖRHEAD or MÖTLEY CRÜE]. At the very least, it's a bit silly. Silly in a way that Monty Python would have said, 'Silly.' And I think that's, in actual fact, what it's about. If you're gonna use it, for god's sake, use it correctly and properly in the language that you're speaking. 'Rök', old Icelandic word meaning 'destiny', and 'Flöte' being the German pronunciation and spelling of the instrument I play. Utterly correct. And I chose to do it knowing that it was going to be potentially — not courting disaster, but courting a bit of comparison, which is why I readily point out that other folk who have done it have been a bit silly."

Anderson previously discussed his use of the umlauts in an interview last month with Finland's Chaoszine. At the time, he said: "If you're going to bring an umlaut into the world in a rock album — not just one but two in the title alone — then you've gotta be sure of your ground. And it's, to me, kind of important that there's a real reason for those umlauts, partly because 'Rök', in old Icelandic is spelled with an umlaut, a word meaning 'destiny', and 'Flöte' in the German language has an umlaut over the 'O'. So they are legitimate; they are correct — unlike MOTÖRHEAD or MÖTLEY CRÜE. There are those sort of use of the umlaut which is suggestive of something that has to do with an era of history that I think we should put behind us. We shouldn't forget it, but we shouldn't be, in some way, showing any infatuation with that world today.

"Lemmy once referred to the umlaut in MOTÖRHEAD, he referred to it as the 'Nazi dots.' I mean he that many years ago — obviously, when he was alive — but if he was to do that today, he'd probably be finding himself vilified for some fascination with that Nazi era."

Anderson added: "Lemmy, in his simple way, was a bit of a historian about aspects of militaria and warfare, but it might have bordered on the unhealthy side of normal. [Laughs]"

Earlier in April, Anderson told Germany's Radio Bob! about the use of the umlauts in "RökFlöte" and how he would like people to pronounce the title of the new JETHRO TULL LP: "Well, I would probably prefer to stick with the typical Germanic-language pronunciation, but it's also the pronunciation in Icelandic from which I derived some of the ideas on the album, coming from the Poetic Edda of old Icelandic literature and the first attempt to write down the mythology and the beliefs of the old Norse world of paganism, adventure and so on and so forth. So it began, before I started work on the album, it had a working title of 'Rock Flute', in English, because I thought, 'I'm gonna make a rock album and it'll have a lot of flute on it.' So that was what was at the top of my page when I started work on January the 1st of 2022. And during the course of the day, I narrowed down my thoughts about the subject matter to deciding that I would write — focusing, really, on some of the Gods from Norse paganism, the polytheistic beliefs in Norse religion. And in a fanciful way I decided that perhaps the title should become not 'Rock' but 'Rök', which in old Icelandic means 'destiny', and 'Flöte', which is the German- and other Germanic-language pronunciation and spelling of flute, the instrument I play. So that's what it became. And I changed the heading at the top of my page of notes to reflect that and did a lot of research about the identity, characters and the roles of Norse Gods with a view to writing about them in, not in humorous way but in a light-hearted way to describe their characters and their personalities. And then, in the final 40 percent of each set of lyrics, the final two stanzas are bringing those characters and those roles into a context, into a parallel context of the world that I know today, or since I was born. And that was really the focus for the album, for all the tracks, partly looking at the historical, analytical side of it and partly creating a parallel set of analogies in the present day."

He added: "The umlauts are there for a legitimate reason because they are correct in the linguistic spelling, whereas the misappropriation of the umlaut at the hands of, for instance, MÖTLEY CRÜE or MOTÖRHEAD ought to make you either laugh or get angry, depending on your point of view."

MOTÖRHEAD leader Lemmy had said that he "pinched" the idea for putting the umlaut on the second O of the band's name from his friends in BLUE ÖYSTER CULT. He later said that he "only put it there to look mean".

As for how the members of MÖTLEY CRÜE decided to add the umlauts to their name, singer Vince Neil recounted: "I can remember it like it was yesterday. We were drinking Löwenbräu, and when we decided to call ourselves MÖTLEY CRÜE, we put some umlauts in there because we thought it made us look European. We had no idea that it was a pronunciation thing. When we finally went to Germany, the crowds were chanting, 'Mutley Cruh! Mutley Cruh!' We couldn't figure out why the fuck they were doing that."

"RökFlöte" is available on several different formats, including two limited deluxe formats that include bonus demo material, extensive liner notes and a Blu-ray featuring Dolby Atmos, 5.1 Surround Sound, alternative stereo mixes by Bruce Soord (THE PINEAPPLE THIEF),as well as a bonus track and in-depth interview with Anderson. The album will also be available digitally in the spatial audio formats Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 RA.

W.A.S.P. leader Blackie Lawless recently vowed to complete the band’s European tour while seated after suffering a herniated disc in his back.

The rocker revealed in a post on the band's official web site on May 10 that he would still honor his final five European dates despite doctors trying to persuade him to return home to begin his rehab.

Fan-filmed video of one of the first shows of Lawless performing while seated, from the May 15 concert at Sono Music Club in Brno, Czech Republic, can be seen below. Lawless's chair was built into his custom mic stand, which he has nicknamed "Elvis."

In the aforementioned message on W.A.S.P.'s web site, Lawless wrote: "As many of you already know I had a serious setback at the hands of a very unqualified Doctor here in Europe about 2 weeks into the tour. I've been receiving treatment at a hospital in Berlin and that team of Doctors has been nothing short of fantastic. But, at the same time they strongly advised me to stop the tour and go back to L.A. and begin my rehab. But it's hard for them to understand, this is the only 40th Anniversary I'm ever going to get, not to mention the fans that have stood by us this entire time have waited over 3 years, and because of the pandemic suffered 3 different sets of tour postponements.

"At the start the Doctors [in Berlin] told me without rest and rehab I would definitely get worse. As hard as I've pushed through these shows, they were right. The show last night in Zurich was cut short by 2 songs, and I do apologize for that but the pain reached a point where I could no longer perform and it lasted throughout the entire show. My legs were giving out on me and it got dangerous. I will not be able to stand to do the remaining 5 shows, so the compromise I reached with the Doctors was if I would stay seated, in a chair to do these last 5 then they will give me clearance to finish the tour and do those remaining 5 shows."

The 66-year-old guitarist/vocalist, whose real name is Steven Duren, continued: "I've never done this before, but please understand, my intention is to finish this tour, come hell or high water, and give this incredibly dedicated fan base, that has been with us from the beginning, the show they have all heard about. Plus we're going to build the chair into 'Elvis'. Hey, he's been with us the whole time and he will finish this tour right beside me because he's basically one of the Band.

"But, as frustrating as this all has been I can't wait to get into rehab, and then destroy America.... Again, on the 2nd, and final leg of the '40th Anniversary World Tour'!! We are Coming Back....and we're Coming to Hurt Somebody!!"

W.A.S.P.'s massive European leg of the 40th-anniversary world tour is scheduled to wrap up on May 18 in Sofia, Bulgaria at Universidada Sports Hall.

Last month, W.A.S.P. announced the North American leg of "The 40th Never Stops World Tour 2023". Produced by Live Nation, the 33-city run kicks off on Friday, August 4 at the Fremont Theatre in San Luis Obispo, California, making stops across North America in Vancouver, British Columbia; Omaha, Nebraska; New York City; Memphis, Tennessee and more before wrapping up on Saturday, September 16 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, California. Special guest ARMORED SAINT will join the band across all dates of the tour.

Blackie Lawless VIP meet-and-greet tickets will be available at WASPnation.com.

W.A.S.P. wrapped up its first U.S. tour in 10 years with a sold-out show on December 11 at The Wiltern in Los Angeles. This marked the 18th sold-out shows for the U.S. tour, which kicked off in late October. W.A.S.P.'s performances included the return of the band's classic song "Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)", which hadn't been played live in over 15 years.

Lawless has led W.A.S.P. as its lead vocalist and primary songwriter since its beginning. His unique brand of visual, social and political comment took the group to worldwide heights and sold millions of records alongside a legacy of sold-out shows across the globe for four decades. He is joined by bassist Mike Duda and guitarist Doug Blair, whose tenures in the band span 28 and 17 years respectively, along with drummer extraordinaire Aquiles Priester.

W.A.S.P.'s latest release was "ReIdolized (The Soundtrack To The Crimson Idol)", which came out in February 2018. It was a new version of the band's classic 1992 album "The Crimson Idol", which was re-recorded to accompany the movie of the same name to mark the 25th anniversary of the original LP's release. The re-recorded version also features four songs missing from the original album.

W.A.S.P.'s most recent studio album of all-new original material was 2015's "Golgotha".

W.A.S.P.'s first live performance since December 2019 took place on July 23, 2022 at Skansen in Stockholm, Sweden.

Come spend some time with The Winged Assassins tomorrow night at the Sono Music Club in...

Posted by W.A.S.P. Nation (Official) on Sunday, May 14, 2023

Former KISS guitarist, Bruce Kulick, has released the video below, along with the following message:


"May 18th, 1993 is the 30th anniversary of KISS Alive III. The third live disc from the band is unique because it's the first of the non make up era. Following in the tradition of Alive! and Alive II, acclaimed engineer and producer Eddie Kramer captured the band in three midwest cities on mobile recording trucks. Footage and recordings are from the KISS Revenge tour during the Thanksgiving weekend of '93. Detroit, Cleveland and Indianapolis shows were recorded and Detroit was also filmed for release on the long form video called KISS Konfidential also covered in my story. I share songs, stories and memories of the events used to promote the release, as well as my guitars and one very special guitar pedal called the Uni-Vibe."


- Directed by Bruce Kulick and Andrew Sgambati
- Edited by Andrew Sgambati
- Thumbnail design by Sharni Quittenton

Everyone has days where they want to give up. Throw in some mental-health struggles and heavy grief, and that urge to just leave just gets stronger. But long-time Vancouver rockers Econoline Crush have the antidote to that urge with their driving, pulsing, fiery new single, "No Quitter", from their forthcoming album When The Devil Drives. 


The two-time JUNO Award nominees have also announced a west coast Canadian tour, kicking off on June 1 at Powell River, BC and ending on June 24 in Vancouver, BC


 Full of heavy fuzz, a pounding beat, and a soaring, billowy chorus, "No Quitter" is an electrifying earworm full of lifeforce. It starts out with a dreary downbeat mood:




"You’re wasted, it’s ok
It’s just that kind of day
Spending all my time thinking how I’m going to pay
The bank, the bills, the rent, the pills, alimony, sad story
The walls are closing in on me


And then the attitude shifts dramatically, where the narrator affirms, "Fuck that noise/ You know it’s going to turn around/ Kick it into gear/ Push it ‘till it plays.”"


The song is an ode to David "Ziggy" Sigmund, who played guitar in Econoline Crush from 1997 to 2002, and then rejoined in 2010. He passed away suddenly in March 2022, just as the band’s new album was being mixed, nothing short of a huge personal blow for frontman Trevor Hurst and the music world. Even the album title is an homage to Ziggy (not just to Econoline Crush’s best-selling album and song, 1997’s The Devil You Know). 


"'Needs must when the devil drives' is a Shakespeare quote meaning 'Do what’s necessary.' Ziggy used to say that all the time," Trevor recalls. "When you’re in the throes of addiction, you do what you can to get through it."


Trevor has had his own struggles with addiction and mental health throughout his life, and so "No Quitter" acts as both an homage to his late bandmate, and as a reminder to carry on, no matter what.


When The Devil Drives is the latest album from Canadian rock veterans Econoline Crush, formed some 30 years ago by frontman Trevor Hurst, now the sole original member. It’s the band’s first full-length album in more than a decade, and it’s accompanied by a documentary film, Flatlander, about Hurst’s second career as a psychiatric nurse. Produced by one-time Miniatures frontman Ian Alexander Smith (SATE, Cassie DaSilva) and mixed by the legendary Jack Joseph Puig, two of the album’s nine songs feature David "Ziggy" Sigmund. The two songs they wrote together – the empowering industrial-strength rocker “Invincible” and the soaring 90s Brit-pop style “Smashing Optimistic” – are the album’s first two singles, followed by current single “No Quitter.” 


Originally based in Vancouver, Econoline Crush formed in 1992 and signed with EMI Music Canada in 1994, debuting that year with the EP Purge. The ground-breaking band, which fused industrial music with rock at a time when keyboards were typically only used in pop music, followed up with the full-length album Affliction in 1996, and then their ultimate breakthrough, platinum-selling album The Devil You Know. 





Econoline Crush 2023 Tour Dates:


June 
1 - Carlson Community Centre - Powell River, BC
2 - The Queen's - Nanaimo, BC
3 - Upstairs Cabaret - Victoria, BC
8 - Blue Grotto - Kamloops, BC
10 - The Flying Steamshovel - Rossland, BC
11 - Cranbrook Hotel - Cranbrook, BC
13 - Bo's - Red Deer, AB
14 - Dickens Pub - Calgary, AB
15 - The Starlight Room - Edmonton, AB
16 - Party In The Park Festival - Whitecourt, AB
23 - The Waverly Hotel - Cumberland, BC
24 - The Pearl - Vancouver, BC

In a new interview with "THAT Rocks!", the weekly YouTube series hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson, former DEEP PURPLE and current WHITESNAKE frontman David Coverdale opened up about his decision to change his trademark look, with the singer now sporting a cropped hairstyle, trading his blonde color for shades of gray.

"I saw a picture of myself the other day from PURPLE days, and I had these fucking huge burners going," David said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "It was dangerous to light a spliff near them, I think.

"I've been tempted to do it for a while, and last year was such a challenging year; I was on so much medication that it really crisped my hair. I looked like a terrible Norwegian death metal band or something that never heard of conditioner. So it was the perfect time to embrace the gray."

The 71-year-old Coverdale continued: "What was amazing was trying to find somebody with the balls to actually cut the hair, because if it was announced, there would be potential death threats, 'cause it's been such a long time. But it's fun. I'm enjoying it."

David went on to say that he has another hair appointment scheduled for later this week. "Finally, I need a cut [laughs], which I never thought I'd hear myself saying," he said. "But I've got my hair dresser flying in on Sunday, so next time we speak, I'll be freshly coiffed. [The hair dresser is flying in from] Los Angeles. It's a modest flight. It's a short flight. And he's a doll too.

"The girl who did [the original cut] is a charming girl in Reno, and she had the balls to actually cut it off," David added. "And I'm going, 'Jesus Christ.' Sitting in a chair, I was up to here with hair. It was seriously long that time."

Coverdale says that he has no misgivings about his new look. "I'm sorry to piss people off, but I am who I am," he explained.

WHITESNAKE canceled several European shows last summer and pulled out of its previously announced North American tour with the SCORPIONS last fall due to Coverdale's "continued treatment for a persistent upper respiratory infection."

On June 28, 2022, WHITESNAKE scrapped three shows on its spring/summer European tour due to Coverdale's infection of the sinus and trachea. Three days later, the rest of the trek was also called off. At the time, David blamed the decision on "continuing health challenges, doctor's orders, and our concern for everyone's health and safety."

David was not the first member of WHITESNAKE to fall ill during the group's spring/summer 2022 European tour. Guitarist Reb Beach missed several shows on the trek in June 2022 after being "under the weather." On June 25, 2022, WHITESNAKE canceled its show at the Rock Imperium festival in Spain due to the fact that drummer Tommy Aldridge "went down" and "was bad enough at the time to have missed the first show ever in his career," according to Coverdale.

WHITESNAKE launched its farewell tour on May 10, 2022 at Dublin, Ireland's 3Arena. The band's 14-song set, which was part of a European tour with special guests EUROPE and co-headliners FOREIGNER, marked WHITESNAKE's inaugural performance with the group's two latest two additions, keyboardist, guitarist and backing vocalist Dino Jelusick and bassist Tanya O'Callaghan.

Coverdale had both his knees replaced with titanium in 2017 after suffering from degenerative arthritis. He later explained that he was in so much pain with arthritis in his knees that it hampered his ability to perform live.

Prior to the pandemic, WHITESNAKE had been touring in support of its latest album, "Flesh & Blood", which was released in May 2019 via Frontiers Music Srl.

On April 28, WHITESNAKE released a legacy retrospective, "Still Good To Be Bad". The collection was made available in different configurations, a few days after the 15th anniversary of "Good To Be Bad", the band's tenth studio album and its first in over a decade.

In the video below, which has been remastered in high definition, Led Zeppelin perform "Over The Hills And Far Away" at New York's legendary Madison Square Garden in July 1973.





"Over The Hills And Far Away" was originally featured on Led Zeppelin's Houses Of The Holy album, issued in 1973). Listen to the album here.

DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen spoke to QFM96's "Torg & Elliott" radio show about what it has been like touring with another veteran rock act, MÖTLEY CRÜE, on last year's "The Stadium Tour" and the recently launched "The World Tour". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We're really good friends with MÖTLEY. I've known 'em since '83. And they're great. They're great to tour with. It's great that we're all grown up now. Me and Nikki Sixx, our birthdays are, like, four days apart and a year. We've both got five kids, we've both come out the other side, and we're all grown up. And it's amazing. And we're getting to play our music to the world. So it's really great teaming up with them, to be quite honest. We're having a blast."

Last month, Collen weighed in on MÖTLEY CRÜE's decision to hire John 5 to replace Mick Mars, the group's founding guitarist, who announced his retirement from touring with MÖTLEY CRÜE last October as a result of worsening health issues. Phil told Barbara Caserta of Linea Rock: "The thing with MÖTLEY CRÜE, Mick Mars was really in pain. We'd done the American tour with him, and he has physical issues. So it was great that John 5 had come out. John 5 is just a wonderful human being and plays great and everything, so he fits in. And he really helped the band out, because Mick couldn't really do that. Traveling is the problem; he was having trouble [with all the travel]. It just was painful. It worked out great."

This past February, DEF LEPPARD drummer Rick Allen spoke about Mars's retirement from touring during an appearance on the "Appetite For Distortion" podcast. He said: "It was Mick's decision to really move on and just get to the next part of his life. And we all know that Mick has suffered terribly, terribly with pain; you see it on his face all the time. And I think the only time I ever saw him truly in his element [was] when he was up on stage playing with the band. It was more his decision. That must have been a super hard decision. I mean, it would have been different if the guy was being thrown out of the band, but it wasn't like that at all. It was a personal choice that he made. And you can't say that that's wrong. It was right for him at the time.

"Over the months — well, actually years — that I've known him, I really started to talk to him," Rick continued. "So unassuming. Such a soft, gentle soul. And when I first met him years ago, I was actually quite afraid, you know. [Laughs] But he's the exact opposite of that — just a really sweet, generous person. So it must have been a very difficult decision for everybody to have to go through that."

When Mars announced his retirement from touring with MÖTLEY CRÜE, he maintained that he would remain a member of the band, with John 5 taking his place on the road. However, last month the 71-year-old musician filed a lawsuit against CRÜE in Los Angeles County's Superior Court claiming that, after his announcement, the rest of CRÜE tried to remove him as a significant stakeholder in the group's corporation and business holdings via a shareholders' meeting.

Mars suffers from Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS),a chronic and inflammatory form of arthritis that mainly affects the spine and pelvis. After years of performing through the pain, he informed the other members of MÖTLEY CRÜE last summer that he could no longer tour with them but would still be open to recording new music or performing at residencies that did not require much travel.

DEF LEPPARD and MÖTLEY CRÜE will team up with Alice Cooper for a U.S. mini-tour this summer. The trek will kick off on August 5 in Syracuse, New York and include stops in the Midwest before concluding in El Paso, Texas on August 18. Before that, LEPPARD and CRÜE will tour Europe, starting on May 22 in Sheffield, United Kingdom.

Outlanders is the unique project of Finnish soprano legend, Tarja Turunen, and EDM pioneer, Torsten Stenzel.


They worked on the album for over 10 years and had support from some of the most influential guitarists of our time. Each song features a special guitarist as a guest including Al Di Meola, Trevor Rabin, Joe Satriani, Jennifer Batten, Steve Rothery, Mike Oldfield, Walter Giardino, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Vernon Reid, and Marty Friedman. Seven tracks have already been pre-released digitally.


Outlanders have succeeded in creating something exciting and new: the music combines relaxed but exciting electronic beats with Tarja's emotional, classically trained voice and unique guitar performances. The sound is mysterious, gentle and yet powerful, catchy and dreamy, modern and classic at the same time. The music contains opposites that attract each other in a magical way.




The eighth track, "A Peaceful Place (Return To The Oasis)", with guitarist Walter Giardino as special guest is available on all digital platforms and as limited collector's edition on 7" vinyl exclusively in Tarja's online store. Watch an official video for the song below.


The long-awaited Outlanders album will be released on June 23 on CD and blue curacao limited edition vinyl. Pre-order here.





Tracklist:


"Outlanders" (Feat. Walter Giardino)
"Closer To The Sky" (Feat. Trevor Rabin of YES)
"The Cruellest Goodbye" (Feat. Al DiMeola)
"World In My Eyes" (Feat. Vernon Reid of Living Colour)
"Mystique Voyage" (Feat Steve Rothery
"The Sleeping Indian" (Feat. Joe Satriani and Nkoye Zifah)
"Land Of Sea And Sun" (Feat. Marty Friedman)
"1971" (Feat. Walter Giardino)
"We Own This Sky" (Feat. Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal)
"Never Too Far" (Feat. Mike Oldfield)
"Echoes" (Feat. Jennifer Batten)
"A Peaceful Place (Return To Oasis)" (Feat. Walter Giardino)


"A Peaceful Place (Return To Oasis)" video:

Arjen Lucassen’s Supersonic Revolution have released their debut album, Golden Age Of Music, via Music Theories Recording/Mascot Label Group. In celebration, the band release a music video for the new single, "They Took Us By Storm". Watch below:





You think you know Arjen Lucassen? Towering Dutch prog rock polymath? The man behind the super successful prog rock conceptualists Ayreon? Not to mention his prog metal of Star One and Guilt Machine? Enormous overarching concept albums about space and time, packed to the hilt with special guests that read like a who’s who of modern day progressive rock? Arjen Lucassen? Well, think again…




Supersonic Revolution, the band behind Golden Age Of Music, are simply five men: Arjen on bass, long-standing keyboard player Joost van den Broek, guitarist Timo Somers, drummer Koen Herfst and singer Jaycee. Five men rocking out and having one hell of a time doing it.


The whole project grew from a request to provide a track for a cover CD for the German music magazine Eclipsed. “They asked if I had any cover versions lying around,” he recalls. “I said, ‘No but I’ll happily record one for you.’ So, they gave me a list of bands and I saw a ZZ Top song ‘I Heard It On The X’ that I really like. I said I could record it for them, but then they told me it had to be ready in one week...”


“I was like ‘Oh my god!’. I contacted my favorite musicians in Holland via WhatsApp and literally within 30 minutes I had assembled five people. A band basically. From there the seed was sown in Lucassen’s mind. ‘I want to form a band. And I want to simply have fun!’.


“I’m a perfectionist as you know, so I’m always sending musicians their parts back and asking them to change stuff,” he acknowledges. “But this was all brilliant. We were having fun, calling and WhatsApping all the time, and within a week we had a complete product.” He continues, “Also I wanted to have an up-beat, positive project.”


“I was like, let’s form a band and let’s write songs in the style of the 70s, and have the lyrics be a celebration of all the memorable things from that time, because those were my formative years,” he enthuses. “But I didn’t want it to sound like the 70s because that’s already been done, and I can’t do it any better than ‘Stargazer’ or ‘Kashmir’.”


“The guys are all younger than me - around 30 - so they weren’t even alive yet in the 70s. So, it was a great way for me to make 70s music with lots of Hammond and blistering guitars, but to update it to this time.”


The end result is 11 tracks of high energy, progressively inclined heavy rock that swings with the kind of groove Deep Purple rocked with in the early to mid-1970s. “This album is not a typical prog album. It’s not YES or Genesis. But it’s not a metal album either. There’s a track called ‘Burn it Down’,” Lucassen notes, “it’s totally based on ‘Smoke On The Water’ but written from the perspective of the ‘stupid with a flare gun’ mentioned in the original lyrics.


The album also features covers of some legendary songs given the Arjen Lucassen treatment as bonus tracks: T-Rex’s "Children Of The Revolution", ZZ Top’s "Heard It On The X", Earth Wind & Fire’s "Fantasy" and Roger Glover’s "Love Is All".


That, ladies and gentlemen, is the real Arjen Lucassen. Job done. Having fun.


Available formats:


- Artbook
- Transparent Blue 2LP
- Pink Marble 2LP
- Purple Marble 2LP
- Yellow Marble 2LP
- CD
- Digital


Order here.





Golden Age Of Music tracklisting:


"SR Prelude"
"The Glamattack"
"Golden Age Of Music"
"The Rise Of The Starman"
" Burn It Down"
"Odyssey"
"They Took Us By Storm"
"Golden Boy"
"Holy Holy Ground"
"Fight Of The Century"
"Came To Mock, Stayed To Rock"
"Children Of The Revolution" (Bonus Track)
"Heard It On The X" (Bonus Track)
"Fantasy" (Bonus Track)
"Love Is All" (Bonus Track)


"Golden Age Of Music" video:





"The Rise Of The Starman" visualizer:





"The Glamattack" lyric video: