CBS and Dick Clark Productions (DCP),the world's largest owner and producer of televised live event entertainment programming, announced that rock legend and 2026 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Billy Idol will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 52nd American Music Awards (AMAs) in recognition of his incomparable career, body of work, and unparalleled contributions to music, honoring his lasting legacy and continued influence on generations of artists and fans. Idol's distinctive career has impacted musicians and fans alike in the decades since he first emerged onto the scene. The punk icon will deliver a medley of some of his biggest hits, marking his first time on the AMAs stage since presenting in 2004 and his first AMAs performance ever. Previous recipients of the AMAs Lifetime Achievement Award include Diana Ross and Rod Stewart.

The star-studded special will kick off summer with host Queen Latifah live from MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, the largest venue in the show's history, on Memorial Day, Monday, May 25. The show will air live coast to coast on CBS Television Network and Paramount+* at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT, and feature performances from International Artist Award of Excellence recipient Karol G, HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH, KATSEYE, Keith Urban, Maluma, Riley Green, SOMBR, Teddy Swims, Teyana Taylor and TWENTY ONE PILOTS, with more to be announced soon. Tickets for the star-studded must-see show are now available on AXS.

"Billy Idol is a true rock legend whose influence has transcended generations and genres. From his groundbreaking music to his electrifying stage presence, Billy has left an indelible mark on popular culture and the music industry," said executive producers Barry Adelman, EVP, Television, and Alexi Mazareas, SVP, Programming & Development, Dick Clark Productions. "We are thrilled to honor him with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 52nd American Music Awards and celebrate his legacy with what promises to be an unforgettable performance."

For almost 50 years, Billy Idol has been one of the definitive faces and voices of rock'n'roll. Between 1977 and 1981, Idol released three albums with GENERATION X as their camera-ready frontman. In 1982, with guitarist Steve Stevens at his side, he embarked on a transatlantic/trans-genre solo career that integrated the bold and simple lines of punk and rock 'n' roll decadence on songs like "Dancing With Myself", "White Wedding", "Rebel Yell", "Eyes Without A Face", "Cradle Of Love" and more. Touring consistently around the world and showing no signs of slowing down, Idol released "Dream Into It" on Dark Horse Records in 2025, earning praise from fans and critics alike. In 2026, Idol released "Billy Idol Should Be Dead", the definitive documentary about his life and career.

As one of music's most anticipated nights of the year, the 52nd American Music Awards returns to CBS and Paramount+ to honor the most influential artists and songs of today alongside unforgettable performances and special moments in a multi-genre, cross-generational celebration of music.

Nominations for the 52nd American Music Awards were announced last month. Taylor Swift leads with eight nominations, followed by Morgan Wallen, Olivia Dean, Sabrina Carpenter and SOMBR with seven each. Fan voting has concluded for all awards other than "Social Song Of The Year" and "Tour Of The Year", which will remain open through the first 30 minutes of the AMAs broadcast. Fans can vote for these two awards via VoteAMAs.com and the @AMAs Instagram profile.

Additional details, including more performers and presenters for the 52nd AMAs will be announced in the coming weeks.

Celebrating the year's most iconic music, the American Music Awards is the world's largest fan-voted award show, honoring today's most influential artists and their passionate fanbases.

Created by legendary producer and visionary Dick Clark and first awarded in 1974, the American Music Awards is known for delivering half a century worth of iconic performances and enduring moments that have defined and shaped pop culture, as well as a history of introducing audiences to breakthrough artists.

One of 2025's most-watched television specials according to Nielsen, last year's top-rated 51st American Music Awards reached over 10 million unique viewers across its CBS and Paramount+ premiere on Memorial Day, Monday, May 26, and encores on MTV, CMT and BET. The CBS broadcast marked the show's largest audience since 2019 with a +38% increase over its last live airing in 2022 on ABC.

Airing for the first time on Memorial Day, the 2025 AMAs kicked off summer with host Jennifer Lopez, who returned to host a decade after her AMAs hosting debut in 2015. She opened the 51st American Music Awards in spectacular fashion, delivering a non-stop, breathtaking medley of 23 of the year's biggest hits. Performances included ICON Award recipient Janet Jackson; Alex Warren, Becky G and Manuel Turizo, Benson Boone, Blake Shelton, Gloria Estefan, Gwen Stefani, Lainey Wilson, Reneé Rapp and Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Rod Stewart.

The American Music Awards is produced by Dick Clark Productions.

Photo credit: David Raccuglia

Cinematic rock visionaries EARTHSIDE have released a new single, "A Dying Star". The official visualizer for the track can be seen below.

Many of EARTHSIDE's most powerful songs come from an overwhelming feeling brought to life in music — with only the words of a thought-provoking title setting the scene.

Such is the case once more with the instrumental calamity called "A Dying Star". The first taste of music in EARTHSIDE's new era, the track is a bludgeoning journey through the inner cosmos — in all its destruction, disorder, and uncertain promises.

The band states: "'A Dying Star' is yours. With chaotic intensity cranked to the max, 'A Dying Star' bludgeons the senses with the fury of a meteor shower and the heart-wrench of a broken dream."

EARTHSIDE, a group that burned brightly — and burned themselves out under the weight of their ambitions, convictions, and disillusionment — forged "A Dying Star" in a phase of strife and inner turmoil within the group. For the first time, geographically, separate and growing apart, the members were tasked with creating an explosive high-energy live song — with only a drummer and piano player available at the initial writing. The result being an unconventional and chaotic song; different from anything released thus far by the band, but unmistakably EARTHSIDE in every identifying sense.

As time passes, the identities, the dreams, the senses of self that defined us from our earliest memories lose their spark and grow dim. Some burn out brightly — others leave a devouring hole in their wake. For some, there is hope that the bright debris of the previous star can nurture creation once again in its aftermath — but for others, the void is all that remains. Such is the chaotic uncertainty and driving angst of "A Dying Star".

A song of many firsts for the band, its process sent the group out of their typical surroundings and up to beautiful Val-David, in Québec, Canada to write and self-record "A Dying Star" on-location at Luckchild Studio. EARTHSIDE used the stunning natural vista of the Canadian countryside as a mood-setter for their new output alongside a wealth of vintage pedals and percussion at Luckchild to add new stylistic flavors to the mix.

"A Dying Star" marks a return to the core of EARTHSIDE's sound — the unmistakable soul of the music its four members create together as an instrumentally-driven unit—Showcasing the group's spellbinding sense of sonic storytelling with soothing nocturnal atmospheres and crushing, climactic extremes.

Spearheaded by keyboardist Frank Sacramone and his furious piano runs, which collide with Ben Shanbrom's force-of-nature drumming — the outcome is fresh and unexpected.

EARTHSIDE recently announced their debut foray into headlining some key European shows in May/June 2026 to round off the chapter for "Let The Truth Speak".

EARTHSIDE's blend of cinematic post-rock tendencies with worldly collaborators bring a type of live energy that is unique and compelling amidst their peers. EARTHSIDE weaves between an instrumental band and one who is enhanced by visual elements and collaborators, presenting a unique show for all to see.

The band will be supported by cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne across all dates plus local supports.

EARTHSIDE live shows:

May 22 - 229 The Venue - London, UK
May 23 - Glazart - Paris, France
May 24 - Boerderij - Zoetermeer, Netherlands
May 27 - MTC - Cologne, Germany
May 29 - Betty - Hamburg, Germany
May 30 - Stengade - Copenhagen, Denmark
June 01 - Kollektivet Livet - Stockholm, Sweden
June 04 - On The Rocks - Helsinki, Finland
June 05 - Ankea Festival - Tampere, Finland

Ben Shanbrom (drums) says this about the tour: "It's been far too long since EARTHSIDE has toured one of our favorite places in the world and our true home away from home — Europe.

"What was initially our plan for ushering in the new 'Let The Truth Speak' era, unfortunately hit repeated roadblocks due to several difficult circumstances well beyond our control. But by hell or high water, we would not close the second chapter of EARTHSIDE's career without a proper European run, and now we are thrilled to finally meet many of you and reunite with our countless friends on the continent. Expect a show-stopping set, brand new music, and some very exciting surprises. Don't miss it! We'll see you out there."

EARTHSIDE is:

Drums - Benjamin Shanbrom
Keyboards - Frank Sacramone
Guitars - Jamie Van Dyck
Bass - Ryan Griffin

Photo credit: Justin Borucki

In a new interview with Brazil's TV Braba, MEGADETH drummer Dirk Verbeuren was asked what his reaction was when he was first asked to play with the Dave Mustaine-fronted band a decade ago. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "[Laughs]  I didn't believe it. [Laughs] My first reaction, of course, was disbelief. But initially I was just filling in, so the initial plan was that I was gonna do about a month of shows, and then… I've told this story a few times, but in typical Dave Mustaine fashion, after a week or so of shows, Dave comes to me on the tour bus and he goes, 'So when are you telling the guys in SOILWORK that you're my drummer now?' That was his way of saying to me, like, 'I want you to play in the band.' So, of course, it was a very exciting time, and kind of bittersweet at the same time, because I'd been with SOILWORK for 12 years and they were good friends of mine, but everybody was, of course, like, 'Of course you have to do this.' And yeah, so it was a very special experience. And to this day, it's been now — actually, this month it's gonna be 10 years since I played my first show in MEGADETH, and it's still surreal to this day to be part of such an iconic band. You have to know that I went to see MEGADETH live in 1990, so I was, like, 15 years old at the time. It was one of the first shows I ever saw. I only saw two other shows before that. And then it was 'Clash Of The Titans' with MEGADETH, SLAYER — I think we had TESTAMENT and SUICIDAL TENDENCIES [on that tour] in Europe, where I lived in France at the time still. And now to be in the band for 10 years and to kind of continue the legacy with great music — obviously everything Dave has done is iconic, but also the amazing drum work of [former MEGADETH drummers] Nick Menza, Gar Samuelson, Chuck Behler, all the guys that have been in the band since then, it's truly an honor. In metal music, you can't really go much higher than that legacy. And to me, Dave is the guy who invented thrash metal. He wrote a lot of the iconic early stuff that kind of defined what that genre sounded like, and you can recognize his riffs among a million riffs. He has such a unique style of playing to this day on the guitar that, to me, Dave is the ultimate rock god. Absolutely."

Asked to name the most difficult MEGADETH song to play, Dirk said: "I would say that all the songs on the first album, 'Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!', are quite difficult because not only are they played at breakneck speed, but Gar Samuelson, who was the band's drummer at that time, had a very improvisational style, and so if you wanna replicate that, it's quite difficult…. So I think from a technical standpoint, definitely the old stuff is difficult. But this being said, I also wanna say this because people sometimes have the impression, like, 'Oh, it must be so easy to play 'Symphony Of Destruction'' or whatever song, 'Hangar 18' or 'Trust' or whatever, it's, like, no, they all have their own difficulties. And when you play an hour-and-a-half set like we usually do when we do headlining shows with MEGADETH, it's truly a test of endurance and stamina. And I also try to put on a show and make it entertaining for people to watch, not just sit and play. So all those things combined make it very intense. And on a night where you're maybe a little bit tired because maybe you didn't sleep that well or you had a crazy travel or something like that, it can really kick your ass. So, yeah, they're all pretty tough in their own way."

Prior to Dirk joining the group, then-LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adler had performed all the drums on MEGADETH's 2016 album "Dystopia", and had toured with MEGADETH when not otherwise busy with his full-time band.

In a separate interview with Drummer's Review presenter Ollie Winiberg, Dirk stated about his addition to MEGADETH: "Well, I'm not gonna lie — it was intense, as you can imagine, mentally. But at the same time, I would also say that the years leading up to that, all the work I put in, obviously as a member of SOILWORK and other bands I was a part of, but also as a studio musician, as sometimes a live session musician, those years prepared me to be in that position at that point. And so I think that's the biggest thing that I took away from it, is that, at the end of the day, the path leads you where it's gonna lead you. And I kind of embraced it at that point, and I was, like, I have to trust myself. And I did. So I think that helped. What also helped a lot was Dave and the guys in the band and the crew were very welcoming to me. They made everything as easy as possible for me and were very forgiving knowing that I had little time to learn the set before the first show. And so then progressively, of course, I had time to get all the details right. So that helped tremendously as well.'

Asked what it has been like playing with an "icon" like Dave Mustaine, Dirk said: "Yeah, it's pretty surreal. I obviously grew up listening to the 'Big Four' [bands of 1980s thrash metal] and to many bands from that sphere of music. And that was everything to me as a teenager. And so to be backing Dave, it's surreal. There's really no words for it. I mean, he is a legend and he is somebody who pretty much invented this style of music. The early things he did, he has such a recognizable style in his riffing and the way he approaches the guitar playing that is just undeniable, how much he was part of making this style of music, giving it birth and then making it what it became over the years. So it's a tremendous honor, and it's also super cool because he is also a total badass, as everybody knows. He likes to think of himself as a skate punk, and he has that spirit. Like the new single on our [latest, self-titled] album, one of the singles, 'I Don't Care', which that's Dave — that's Dave in a nutshell. He's got that attitude, and he doesn't give a damn. And it's great. I love that because I grew up with that. I was also a skater growing up. So, to me, that whole spirit, I understand it and I love it. And I think he's a true rock star — a true rock star."

Last fall, Dirk reflected on his first exposure to MEGADETH's music via the band's 1986 album "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?", telling the Vinyl Bang podcast hosted by Nick Martin and Jeff Grindstopher: "I remember going to a little flea market in the town outside of Paris where we lived in a small town, and I just looked at the cover and I looked at these pictures… But these pictures of the four bandmembers [on the album cover], they looked so badass to me on there. And I was, like, 'I don't know this band, but I gotta get this. This looks killer.' And so this was probably, I'm gonna say either '87 or '88. So a few years after the record came out, so I was a few years behind, but at the time it wasn't so like now where, oh, everything is super specific about when it's coming out because it's all online. At the time, it was more, like, whatever you could stumble across, whatever you were lucky to find or get on a tape became a big deal. So it was a bit more spread out in time, I believe, before the Internet."

Dirk continued: "So, anyway, MEGADETH immediately stood out to me from other things I was listening to at the time. The vocals, the lyrics, just the approach was its very own kind of thrash metal, I guess, which I don't even know if at the time I really knew what that style was called. I just knew I loved it. And so that became one of my important albums growing up, which, obviously, given what happened many years later in my life, it's kind of crazy.'

Verbeuren went on to say that it's surreal for him to be in a band that he looked up to when he was still in his early teens.

"A cool story about that is that I saw MEGADETH on the 'Clash Of The Titans' tour [in October 1990 when I was 15 years old]," he recalled. "It was one of the first shows I went to as a young teenager. So this was in Paris at Le Zénith. And I have since now three times played with the band at that very venue. So every time I go there, it blows my mind because I'm, like, 'I can't believe I was here as a teenager seeing the band I'm now a part of.' And all these years later, to be on that stage is just, like [laughs], 'What happened?'"

According to Dirk, joining a band like MEGADETH is "beyond a dream" for him "because I would've never even dared to dream that," he said. "People will say, like, 'Oh, was that your craziest dream?' And I'm, like, 'No,' 'cause I would've never even dared to imagine that that would happen. I was just happy to be making music. I was in SOILWORK for 12 years before I went to MEGADETH, and I was stoked to be in a touring band and in an active, professional band that was making music I liked. So it's beyond — you can't even put words on to that, really. [Laughs] So when I look back at this record, and I remember I having a vision of going to this flea market and flipping through albums and being, like, 'This looks cool.' … There's a few other things I bought that day — I think like a HELLOWEEN album, and I forget what else — but it blows my mind to think that, wow. If you had told me at that time, 'Yeah, one day you'll be in that band,' I think my head would've exploded. So, yeah. Pretty cool. Pretty crazy where life can take you."

Back in September 2022, Dirk told Sick Drummer Magazine that he was "just humbled" to have been involved with the writing and recording of the band's previous album, "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!" He said: "I'm just thankful to be here. That's the best way I can put it. I can't even say that this is a dream come true, 'cause I don't think I ever dreamed anything crazy like [this]. I was just happy to be playing drums and trying to make a living off of doing it, and [that] in itself was a gratifying thing for me. It wasn't always easy, and I don't think any good job is always easy; it was a struggle sometimes. But I never thought, like, 'Oh, I should be in this major band', so when it kind of just happened, I'm still kind of pinching myself to this day. At the same time, I have to say that I worked really hard my whole life. I've always been somebody who I think when I do something I do it one hundred percent. To persevere through the hard times and always try to keep my head up and try to keep learning new things, it's paid off in the long run."

He continued: "There have been times when I wanted to give up, like anybody, when things seem a bit hopeless. There was a few times I told my wife where I thought maybe I should just get a normal job and life would be a bit more simple and I can just stay home and not struggle to try and pay the bills and work my ass off 24/7 — no weekends [off], no time [off] — and just have a normal family life. But in the end, I know where my passion is and so I wouldn't give up. And I have to give a lot of credit to my parents and my wife and my teachers and my friends — everybody who supported me and my family over the years doing this — I owe it to them 'cause they've helped me so tremendously so many times and talked me back into doing what I wanted to do when it seemed a bit hopeless.

"But to answer your question, it's an incredible feeling," Dirk added. "I'm so stoked that people are enjoying the album overall, and I'm just happy to be a part of that. I'm happy to have contributed to it, because I didn't know, going into this, how that part would be. Being on tour with the band was one thing — you play the songs, here's the songs, it's cool. You get to know the guys, you get to know the way the band operates on the road. Now, going into the recording studio, or first rather into the band room and start writing stuff, I had no idea. And Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH leader] said early on to us, 'Bring stuff. Bring ideas. I want your ideas.' And I'm, like, 'Cool.' I wrote some stuff. I play a little bit of guitar, so I made some demos at home, recorded some riffs, recorded some song ideas, brought them on. I didn't anticipate that any of my stuff would go anywhere, because, I mean, c'mon, this is Dave Mustaine we're talking about. Who am I on guitar compared to Dave Mustaine? .. I'm nothing compared to that. Nevertheless, I ended up with some stuff on the album. Like the song 'Life In Hell', which is the second song on the record, is based on a demo I wrote. And then I also have a riff in the third song, 'Night Stalkers', which everybody just enjoyed that riff and was, like, 'We need to use this.' So my mind is just blown 'cause I didn't anticipate that. But again, I'm happy I just went for it. I listened to Dave and tried and went along with his idea and proposed some things. That's the proof that you have to believe in yourself. You have to believe that you can do what you wanna do. And I did wanna contribute. I mean, I was, like, 'It would be cool if I could. Because this is a band I love, and if some of my ideas can inspire the other guys and we can make a song together, hey, that's freakin' cool. If I can do something else than just write the drum parts on the album, that's freakin' cool.' So here we are — it actually happened, and people are loving the thrashy direction of this record in general. And I'm not ashamed to say that I'm definitely a part of kind of pushing that envelope, because that's the MEGADETH I grew up with — 'Peace Sells', 'Killing Is My Business'; the next couple of albums after that, that's the MEGADETH I enjoyed that I saw live back in 1990 on the 'Clash Of The Titans' tour for the 'Rust In Peace' album. So, yeah, it's a wonderful feeling. I'm thankful every day, and I enjoy every single day we're out here [on the road]."

MEGADETH's self-titled album — Dirk's second full-length effort with the group — was released in January. The follow-up to 2022's "The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!" was made available via Mustaine's Tradecraft imprint on Frontiers Label Group's new BLKIIBLK label.

Photo credit: Ross Halfin

Australian metalcore band OCEAN SLEEPER has signed a new global recording deal with Rise Records/BMG, marking an exciting new chapter in the band's already impressive trajectory. With their new single "Break The Cycle" out now, OCEAN SLEEPER is poised to take its sound to new heights, building on its momentum and delivering its most ambitious material to date.

OCEAN SLEEPER has steadily built a reputation as one of Australia's most compelling heavy acts, known for their dynamic songwriting, emotional depth and explosive live performances. Since emerging, the band has amassed a dedicated global fanbase, strong streaming numbers, and consistent support across alternative radio, as well as AIR charts and award nominations. The band has sold out numerous Australian and U.S. headline tours, played Good Things festival, and performed alongside NORTHLANE, PARKWAY DRIVE, POLARIS, POINT NORTH, MAKE THEM SUFFER and THORNHILL, cementing their place within the modern heavy scene.

The signing represents a natural evolution of the band's longstanding relationship with BMG, who have previously partnered with OCEAN SLEEPER across their earlier releases, including debut album "Don't Leave Me This Way" and EPs "Maybe Death Is All I Need" and "Is It Better Feeling Nothing", while continuing to expand their international reach with the addition of Rise Records.

OCEAN SLEEPER said: "We could not be prouder to announce we have signed a new global record deal with Rise Records and BMG. The essence of this band has always been independent and driven by a DIY attitude, but we are ready to level up with a team who we trust with our vision. Partnering with both a powerhouse in the industry and a label behind all our core favorite bands is an absolute honour. We are so excited for what the future holds together."

Heath Johns, president, Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, BMG, said: "OCEAN SLEEPER have done it their own way and have become one of Australian heavy music's best kept secrets. It's now time for us to share this secret with the world and with the combined powers of Rise Records and BMG, we will be taking OCEAN SLEEPER to every corner of the planet. The new music is massive and it's rare to find a band with the passion and work ethic of these lads. They deserve this global push, and I have zero doubt in their potential to be a marquee band in this genre."

Sean Heydorn, SVP, Rise Records, said: "OCEAN SLEEPER have built something incredibly authentic and special through relentless work ethic, creative ambition, and a deep connection with their audience. They've emerged as one of Australia's standout metalcore bands, and we're excited to partner with them as they take the next step globally with Rise Records and BMG."

OCEAN SLEEPER's new single, "Break The Cycle", was born from a creative partnership sparked when the band brought POINT NORTH to Australia to support their sold-out 2025 tour. Following this connection, and after landing in the U.S. for their headline tour and attending the Warped Tour to watch their friends LIL LOTUS, SACE6 and POINT NORTH play, they headed into the studio the following day with Jon Lundin of POINT NORTH to co-write the track. The result is one of their most anthemic and emotionally charged releases to date.

"This song captures our struggle in breaking out of Australia and into the global touring market as an independent band," OCEAN SLEEPER said. "It's fast-paced, heavier than before, while still keeping the emotional depth with one of our biggest choruses to date. We instantly knew this song was going to be something special."

Hailing from Gippsland in regional Victoria, and all working trades by day, OCEAN SLEEPER's background is core to their identity and the deep connection they share with fans. Despite hailing from a small country town, OCEAN SLEEPER have never let geographical limits stand in their way — tearing down barriers and defying expectations at every turn. Through fierce self-sufficiency and brutal persistence, the metalcore four-piece have built a vehemently loyal fan base and following throughout Australia, the U.S., and Europe.

Since their formation in 2015, OCEAN SLEEPER have been cultivating a reputation for blending crushing metalcore intensity with deeply personal lyricism and anthemic melody. From their 2019 debut album "Don't Leave Me This Way" — featuring exceptional cut "Light In My Dark" — through to their 2025 EP "Maybe Death Is All I Need" — with standouts like title track "Maybe Death Is All We Need", "Heaven" and "Never The One" — the band has consistently pushed the boundaries of modern heavy music, connecting with fans through honesty, vulnerability, and explosive live performances.

They've sold out tours in both Australia and the U.S. and recently played the POLARIS-curated metal festival Life's A Beach in Melbourne in February this year, alongside WE CAME AS ROMANS, THY ART IS MURDER and CASKETS. With local dates likely in 2026, they'll first play their debut headline European shows in Eindhoven, Prague and Vienna and support NEVERTEL across Europe throughout June/July as well as appearing at Impericon festival (Germany). Plus this October will play Hellbound cruise — a three-day cruise dedicated to heavy music featuring alongside heavyweights PARKWAY DRIVE, POLARIS, NORTHLANE and THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT — departing from Sydney Harbour.

Photo credit: Jonti Wild

Craig Ericson, the founder of Rise Records, is back.

After selling Rise Records to BMG in 2015 and stepping away from the music industry, Ericson has launched Vaux Records, a new independent label named after Portland's famous Vaux's swifts.

Ericson founded Rise Records in 1991 at age 18 and built it into one of the most successful independent labels of its generation. During his tenure, Rise released more than 400 albums and helped break artists, including John Gourley of PORTUGAL. THE MAN, Johnny Franck of BILMURI, Caleb Shomo of BEARTOOTH, SLEEPING WITH SIRENS, OF MICE & MEN, DANCE GAVIN DANCE, PVRIS, KUBLAI KHAN TX, CROWN THE EMPIRE and many more. Other notable artists signed were AT THE DRIVE-IN, AMERICAN NIGHTMARE, HOT WATER MUSIC and 7 SECONDS.

Rise became something rare: a record label with a fanbase and identity of its own. With a staff of just six, the label landed multiple Top 10 Billboard debuts, including SLEEPING WITH SIRENS' "Feel" at No. 3 and OF MICE & MEN's "Restoring Force" at No. 4.

Ericson was also one of the first label owners to fully embrace YouTube as a music platform, uploading the Rise catalog so fans could discover music legally and for free. His "free test drive" approach helped drive billions of plays, millions of subscribers, and a loyal community around the label.

With his noncompete over and a renewed hunger to build, Ericson formed Vaux Records in 2025. The label has already signed Los Angeles's CUNTROL and Nashville's J NOIRE, with two additional artists to be announced soon.

The mission is simple: stay independent, trust instinct, and sign bands that give you goosebumps.

Vaux Records is partnering with Many Hats for distribution and MerchNow for merchandise and the official online store.

May 15 marks the official beginning of Vaux Records.

BEARTOOTH will release a new album, "Pure Ecstasy", on August 28 via Fearless Records. Marking the band's sixth album and first release with the label, "Pure Ecstasy" finds BEARTOOTH frontman Caleb Shomo pushing the group further than ever before across 11 massive tracks that channel both the chaos and clarity of hard-won personal growth.

Today BEARTOOTH has also dropped the album's opening title track where Shomo lays everything bare from the first note. It's a raw, disorienting entry point — where extremes of emotion blur together — setting the tone for an album built on confronting every high and low without flinching.

"Song one is always a crucial part of an album to me. It's gotta lock you into the vibe out of the gate," says Shomo. "'Pure Ecstasy' was birthed in a studio with Misha Mansoor, ridiculous loudspeakers, and the dumbest heaviest chugs we could chug. Once it was brought home and expanded on with Jordan Fish, there was no question it was the album opener. Play loud and kick ass."

The official music video for the "Pure Ecstasy" title track, directed by Zebulon Griffin, can be seen below.

Following the chart-dominating success of 2023's "The Surface" — which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard's Alternative and Hard Music charts and produced the No. 1 rock radio hits "Might Love Myself" and "I Was Alive" — BEARTOOTH entered a new creative and commercial stratosphere. "Pure Ecstasy" builds on that momentum while expanding the band into even more ambitious territory, capturing Shomo reckoning with both the darkest and brightest parts of himself in real time.

The album's first single "Free", released earlier this year, introduced this next chapter of BEARTOOTH with towering hooks and radical self-examination. Shomo cites the song as "the most honest depiction of my soul I will most likely ever make."

That honesty has always been the foundation of BEARTOOTH. Since emerging from Shomo's Ohio basement in 2013, the band has transformed anxiety, depression, anger and self-destruction into cathartic modern rock anthems that resonate with millions worldwide. From the gold-certified "Hated" and platinum "In Between" to over 1.3 billion streams globally, sold-out tours, and a recent run supporting BAD OMENS on their arena tour, BEARTOOTH's rise has mirrored the growing mainstream dominance of modern heavy music itself.

But "Pure Ecstasy" represents something different. Bigger and more collaborative than any previous BEARTOOTH album, the record finds Shomo stretching himself toward a new level of vulnerability — and for the first time he didn't do it alone. Early songwriting contributions from Skyler Accord (ISSUES, TWENTY ONE PILOTS, BILMURI) helped shape early tracks. Meanwhile, working alongside Fish (BRING ME THE HORIZON, POPPY, ARCHITECTS) cracked Caleb fully open, pushing a rawer examination than ever before. The collaborative spirit continued throughout the recording process as well: bassist Oshie Bichar, guitarists Zach Huston and Will Deely, and drummer Connor Denis — who have evolved into a formidable live unit around Shomo — all played larger roles than ever before. "Pure Ecstasy" also marks the first BEARTOOTH album where Shomo did not perform every instrument himself, with Denis performing drums across the record during sessions at NRG Recording Studios.

For years, BEARTOOTH turned pain into anthems shouted back at the world. "Pure Ecstasy" captures what happens on the other side of that fight: not perfection or peace, but the possibility of freedom.

"Pure Ecstasy" track listing

01. Pure Ecstasy
02. Eyes Closed
03. Bullshit
04. Beautiful Again
05. Stadiums
06. Free
07. Sorry
08. Lose You To Find Me
09. You
10. For Me By Me
11. Made It

Photo credit: Ashley Osborn

Cleopatra Entertainment has announced the theatrical release of the documentary film "Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer" into U.K. cinemas from May 1, 2026 at Birmingham's Mockingbird Cinema, followed by screenings through June 2 in the U.K.'s Light Cinema chain. Full listings and ticket purchase links can be found at musicfilmnetwork.com. And while still in U.S. film festivals such as Sound Unseen in Minneapolis (May 13) and the San Francisco Documentary Festival on (June 3),the film will also see its North American theatrical premiere for public audiences at the Lumiere Music Hall Theater, 9036 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, California 90211 on June 9, 2026 at 7:00 p.m., which is also the official North American release date for both the digital VOD and home entertainment DVD/Blu-ray formats. A special question-and-answer session with director Wes Orshoski will immediately follow the Beverly Hills screening.

In this strikingly raw and intimate film, Orshoski captures the late singer riding an emotional rollercoaster toward the end of his life. Featuring appearances by James Hetfield (METALLICA),Gene Simmons (KISS),IRON MAIDEN's Steve Harris and members of EXODUS, SLAYER, MEGADETH, OVERKILL and SEPULTURA, the film chronicles how two IRON MAIDEN fans encounter Di'Anno at the lowest point of his life and then set out to restore his health and relaunch his career.

Metal Hammer describes Orshoski's latest film as a "harrowing insight into Di'Anno's frustration and frailty at a desperately low ebb with an abrasively real, warts-and-all approach to its subject that serves Paul's legacy far more compellingly than some sanitized panegyric", while Metal Talk called it "a raw, dark and intimate documentary detailing the tragic final years of IRON MAIDEN's original singer, Paul Di'Anno."

Wheelchair-bound since the mid-2010s, Di'Anno's health nosedived during the COVID-19 pandemic, when those two fans launched a crowdfunding campaign which ultimately led to him relocating to Croatia, where — through the help of those fans and doctors — he made a dramatic turnaround while running out of money, reuniting with his former MAIDEN bandmates and falling in love. Eventually he makes a heroic and drama-filled return to the stage. All of this is captured in "Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer", which Orshoski began shooting in 2017.

"For years there wasn't much to capture," says Orshoski, whose credits include "Lemmy", a study of MOTÖRHEAD frontman Lemmy Kilmister and "The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead". "Paul was waiting for surgeries that doctors in the U.K. would not greenlight. He was in an incredibly dark place. But once he got to Croatia, fans and doctors gave him the hope he was desperately searching for. It was beautiful to witness. I wanted to make a film that was unlike any rock doc you've ever seen. And in the end, I think we got there."

One of icons of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s, London-born Di'Anno helped launch IRON MAIDEN around the world, appearing on two of the most foundational metal albums ever released: IRON MAIDEN's 1980 self-titled debut and the celebrated follow-up, "Killers", released in 1981. In one of the most epic sagas in metal history, Di'Anno left MAIDEN in 1981 and was replaced by Bruce Dickinson, leaving metal fans around the world to debate which line-up and which singer was/is better. It's a debate that continues to this day, almost 50 years later.

The official trailer for "Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer" can be viewed below.

Last October, Orshoski stated about "Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer": "I started shooting this film in 2017 and for years there wasn't much to capture. Paul was in a wheelchair, desperately waiting for surgeries that doctors in the U.K. refused to greenlight. By the time the pandemic hit, Paul's health had nosedived. And that's when everything changed for him and my film. Kastro Pergjoni, who runs the Cart & Horses pub in London (known as 'The Birthplace of IRON MAIDEN') launched a crowd-funding campaign to help Paul take control of his own destiny. MAIDEN fans around the world gave. And Croatian MAIDEN superfan/writer Stjepan Juras lobbied for Paul to seek treatment in Zagreb, where he could be treated affordably. Paul acquiesced. Without question, Kastro and Stjepan not only changed Paul's life, they extended it. My film largely documents their efforts, which were without question responsible for nearly all of the good moments at the end of Paul's life."

In August 2024, Di'Anno discussed the status of the documentary in an interview with George Dionne of KNAC.COM. Paul said: "Wes is a good mate of ours. He'd done the MOTÖRHEAD rockumentary. He'd done THE DAMNED [one] as well. And he's a great guy. We've had this in the pipeline for a couple of years now. The unfortunate part about it is we had to take our time in between when he can come over and do this. But the unfortunate thing is I'm sitting in a fucking wheelchair, which is a pain in the ass, but what are you gonna do?"

Asked by Dionne if the documentary will focus on a particular portion of Di'Anno's life or if it will cover everything from beginning to end, Paul said: "Everything. But you'll see the determination sometimes and the despair. And it goes through the whole lot of emotions and stuff. It's a bit strange."

Di'Anno added: "I trust Wes. He's got me in all sorts of weird situations. He even wanted to come in and fucking film the operation. And they said, 'No.'"

Di'Anno was laid to rest on November 21, 2024 at the City Of London Cemetery And Crematorium in Manor Park, East London, United Kingdom.

Di'Anno, whose real name was Paul Andrews, passed away on October 21, 2024 at his home in Salisbury at the age of 66.

An official statement shared to Di'Anno's Facebook page on November 11, 2024 with permission from the late musician's family revealed that his cause of death was caused by a "tear in the sac around the heart."

"Dear fans and friends," the statement began. "We have received permission from Paul's family to bring you the news of Paul's cause of death, after the results of the autopsy have been received."

It continued, "His sisters Cheryl and Michelle confirmed the following: 'Basically he had a tear in the sac around the heart and blood has filled inside it from the main aorta artery and that has caused the heart to stop.' Paul's death was instantaneous and hopefully painless. May he rest in peace."

Born in Chingford, East London on May 17, 1958, Paul first came to prominence as lead singer of English heavy metal band IRON MAIDEN between 1978 and 1981. He sang on their groundbreaking debut album "Iron Maiden" and the influential follow-up release, "Killers".

Since leaving IRON MAIDEN, Paul Di'Anno had a long and eventful recording career with BATTLEZONE and KILLERS as well as numerous solo releases and guest appearances.

Despite being troubled by severe health issues in recent years that restricted him to performing in a wheelchair, Paul continued to entertain his fans around the world, racking up well over 100 shows since 2023.

His first career retrospective album, "The Book Of The Beast", was released in September 2024 and featured highlights of his recordings since leaving IRON MAIDEN.

In December 2022, Di'Anno spent time in Split, Croatia recording an album with his new project called WARHORSE. The band was formed earlier that year by Di'Anno and two guitarists/authors, Hrvoje Madiraca and Ante "Pupi" Pupačić. The resulting LP was made available in July 2024 under the PAUL DI'ANNO'S WARHORSE banner.

WARHORSE previously recorded three songs, two of which — "Stop The War" and "The Doubt Within" — were released in May 2022 as a special DVD single along with Paul's video message to all fans who bought the single and thus helped raise funds for his knee operation.

The WARHORSE single marked Di'Anno's first music release after a seven-year hiatus due to severe health issues.

Di'Anno, who finally underwent his knee surgery in September 2022, played the first show since the operation on October 1, 2022 at the Keep It True Rising II festival in Würzburg, Germany.

In May 2022, Di'Anno came face to face with MAIDEN bassist and founder Steve Harris for the first time in three decades before the band's concert in Croatia. Also in May 2022, 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 the "Di'Anno: Iron Maiden's Lost Singer" documentary.

Photo credit: Marco Benjamin Alvarado (courtesy of Central Press for Conquest Music)

PRIMUS has announced "A Handful Of Nuggs", a new special EP available now digitally, with a special-edition 12-inch vinyl release arriving July 22 and pre-orders live now. Leading the release is the EP's focus track "The Ol' Grizz", among the first new studio recordings to feature drummer John Hoffman. "The Ol' Grizz" finds Les Claypool, Larry LaLonde and Hoffman locking into the kind of twisted rhythmic chemistry that has long defined PRIMUS — shifting between high-speed bass runs, warped psychedelic textures, and explosive percussion with the band's unmistakable mix of technical precision and off-center groove.

"A Handful Of Nuggs" also features PRIMUS's cover of DIO's "Holy Diver", sung by Puddles Pity Party, alongside two recent fan favorites from the band's current era: "Little Lord Fentanyl" featuring Maynard James Keenan (TOOL) and "Duchess (And The Proverbial Mind Spread)", recorded live at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Puddles Pity Party is the singing clown persona of Michael Geier.

Written by late metal icon Ronnie James Dio, "Holy Diver" served as the lead single and title track to his namesake band DIO's 1983 debut album.

The announcement arrives amid a particularly active stretch for Claypool. Today also marks the CD release of THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM's "The Great Parrot-Ox And The Golden Egg Of Empathy", which arrived on vinyl on May 8 and digitally on May 1 via ATO Records. The sprawling 14-song concept album from Les Claypool and Sean Ono Lennon explores A.I., empathy, mortality, free will, and the dangers of optimization without human feeling. The CD edition arrives in an enlarged gatefold seven-inch jacket that highlights the album's artwork and 24-page companion comic created with longtime collaborator Rich Ragsdale.

The DELIRIUM also released a new animated video piece today in collaboration with Paste magazine, featuring actor, comedian, writer, and musician Matt Berry ("What We Do In The Shadows", "Toast Of London") alongside animation by Ragsdale, offering another glimpse into the project's surreal visual world. At the same time, Claypool's FEARLESS FLYING FROG BRIGADE are gearing up for the May 22 release of "Return Of The Live Frogs: Volume 1", a new live collection capturing the band's expansive, improvisational return and the loose, exploratory spirit that has made the FROG BRIGADE one of Claypool's most beloved and unpredictable projects for more than two decades.

Next week, all three projects converge with the launch of the "Claypool Gold Tour", a full-evening summer run bringing together PRIMUS, THE CLAYPOOL LENNON DELIRIUM and LES CLAYPOOL'S FEARLESS FLYING FROG BRIGADE for one genre-bending night. The coast-to-coast tour begins May 20 in Reno, Nevada and runs through July 4 in Napa, California, giving audiences a rare chance to see Claypool move through three distinct corners of his musical universe in a single evening.

"A Handful Of Nuggs" track listing:

01. The Ol' Grizz
02. Holy Diver (feat. Puddles Pity Party)
03. Little Lord Fentanyl (feat. Puscifer)
04. Duchess (And The Proverbial Mind Spread) (Live from the Mann Music Center, Philadelphia, PA)

Hoffman is a Shreveport native who joined the band in 2025 after beating out more than 6,100 applicants in a global audition process dubbed the "Interstellar Drum Derby". Hoffman's deep pocket, wild musical mind, and immediate chemistry with Claypool and LaLonde made him the clear choice.

Photo credit: David Miller

In a new interview with Jesea Lee, BREAKING BENJAMIN frontman Benjamin Burnley spoke about the band's upcoming tour of Europe, which is scheduled to kick off on June 6 at the Rock Im Park festival in Germany. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "I'm heading to Europe towards the end of the month. And I don't fly, so I have to take a boat out there, so I have to leave a week earlier than everybody else."

Asked if he is afraid of flying, Burnley said: "Yeah, definitely… And as long and drawn out as the ship is, and as boring as it is, every time I'm, like, 'Oh, man,' I just think about flying and I'm, like, 'Okay, I'm good, actually.'"

He continued: "Honestly, I don't like traveling in a... I'm really in the wrong profession. And I don't like traveling or speed in any way. I don't like going fast. I certainly don't like being high… So I'm not that comfortable with [being on a ship] either. It's just you pick the lesser of the evils, kind of thing."

Asked if that means he will get to Europe a week after the rest of BREAKING BENJAMIN because he will go there by ship instead of flying, Burnley said: "Well, they leave a week later, and so we get there at the same time, pretty much. But I think at the very end they're all gonna fly home, and it just so happened, the schedule of the ship, that I have to stay a few days later until my ship leaves to come back. I'll be in London near some cool shit… So I'll be in a cool spot of London with stuff to do, and I think my son will be with me."

Earlier this month, BREAKING BENJAMIN released a new single, "Something Wicked", signaling the latest chapter for the band and the tease of a forthcoming full-length album.

In October 2024, BREAKING BENJAMIN released a single called "Awaken". BREAKING BENJAMIN's first new music since 2018 was made available via the band's new global recordings agreement with BMG. The partnership with BMG also marked the group's first new label home since releasing BREAKING BENJAMIN debut album nearly 25 years ago. "Awaken" quickly shot to No. 1 on the Rock Digital Songs charts and landed in the Top 20 on multiple additional Billboard charts, including Hot Hard Rock Songs, Digital Song Sales, Hot Alternative Songs and Hard Rock Songs. The single has also since surpassed 131 million streams globally.

In June and July, BREAKING BENJAMIN will be heading to Europe to tour the continent for their first overseas shows since 2017, with support from CHEVELLE and RETURN TO DUST.

BREAKING BENJAMIN's May 9 performance at the Welcome To Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Florida marked the band's first live appearance with new drummer Brian Medeiros (RED, OTHERWISE). Medeiros took over from ASKING ALEXANDRIA drummer James Cassells, who has been sitting behind the kit for BREAKING BENJAMIN for the past eight months after BREAKING BENJAMIN drummer Shaun Foist announced that he would "step away" from touring with the band to "focus on healing" in his ongoing battle with Hashimoto's disease.

Photo credit: Dominique D'Costa

ADEMA, consisting of Tim Fluckey (lead vocals, guitar),Mike Ransom (lead guitar, backing vocals) and Dave DeRoo (bass guitar, backing vocals),has explained the apparent departure of the band's longtime drummer Kris Kohls following the completion of the drum-tracking sessions for ADEMA's upcoming fifth album, "Cruel Machine".

After one fan asked on social media why Kris wasn't listed as a member of ADEMA in the band's press release on Thursday (May 14) announcing the group's partnership with Worldwide Entertainment Group, ADEMA responded: "Kris recorded drums for the album. He didn't want to tour this year. We do. So we're doing that. That's all that's happening right now. When we have more to say, we will."

Due later in the year via Cleopatra Records, "Cruel Machine" is being mixed by David Gnozzi, mix engineer, producer and host of the YouTube channel MixbusTV.

Fluckey is now handling vocals for ADEMA after the 2024 departure of Ryan Shuck, who joined the group in 2019.

In February 2024, ADEMA "abruptly" parted ways with Shuck. A short time later, the remaining members of ADEMA — Fluckey, DeRoo, Kohls and Ransom — posted a message on social media in which they said: "ADEMA has made the decision to move forward without Ryan Shuck. Our plan is to continue on indefinitely as a four-piece, and we sincerely wish Ryan all the best in the future."

In June 2022, ADEMA released a new song, "Violent Principles". It was the follow-up to ADEMA's first single in nearly a decade, "Ready To Die", which came out in August 2021. Both tracks were planned for inclusion on ADEMA's upcoming album, which was tentatively titled "360 Degrees Of Separation".

Original ADEMA frontman Marky Chavez first left ADEMA in 2004 due to "creative differences" after two successful albums, "Adema" and "Unstable". The singer — who is the half brother of KORN frontman Jonathan Davis — quit ADEMA again in January 2011 in order to pursue his "solo project." He rejoined the group again six years later and played his first comeback show with ADEMA in May 2017 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California.

After Chavez's original exit from ADEMA, the other members of the band found their way with new lead singers Luke Caraccioli and later Bobby Reeves, while Mark founded MIDNIGHT PANIC with his cousin Peter Shubert. He also produced fellow artists.

ADEMA's last official release was 2013's "Topple The Giants" EP. The group's first CD since 2007's "Kill The Headlights" contained brand new tracks plus re-worked versions of ADEMA's chart-topping hits "Giving In" and "Unstable". A three-song EP, "The Cerberus", was sold exclusively on ADEMA's 2023 "Nu Metal Madness 2" tour.

Photo courtesy of ADEMA

In a new interview with Charlie Kendall's Metalshop, TESLA bassist and founding member Brian Wheat spoke about how the band's live performances have evolved over the course of TESLA's four-decade career. He said in part (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We used to [play longer sets]. I guess the height of our career, when everything was firing, multi-platinum albums, MTV, radio play, and everything, was probably '91, '92, when we had the album out called 'Psychotic Supper'. And we used to play two-and-a-half-hour shows. And now we do 100 minutes. And I think part of that is what attributes to [TESLA singer] Jeff's [Keith] voice still being in such great shape. Because he spent a lot of years singing at the top of his range, and shortening the set, not playing five nights in a row, all those little conscious things that we've done, have allowed us to keep going and still playing 41 years later.

"We have lost a lot of great singers, and the voice is a muscle," Brian explained. "And then you got age and abuse and singing out of the range... There's so many things, and I feel so lucky that Jeff, his voice is still in such great shape."

Wheat also discussed TESLA's reluctance to release a full-length album of new original material, preferring instead to stay on the road or focus on special projects, such as standalone singles or the upcoming "Homage" LP, which finds TESLA returning to its roots with a collection of covers honoring some of rock's most timeless hits.

"It takes a lot of time to do a record, and that means that's time that we have to spend off the road," Brian said. "And what people don't — I don't think they realize is that TESLA's not wealthy guys. But when we play, that's how we earn our living. We have to go to work. We're not so wealthy we could just stop. We were never that big of a band. We weren't as big as [DEF] LEPPARD or MÖTLEY [CRÜE] or METALLICA or GUNS N' ROSES. We were the next level down. I called them the 'A bands', and we were the 'B band'. So we still have to go out there and earn our living. And, to be quite honest with you, people don't buy records like they used to, when we used to put our records. They just don't. You get paid a really shitty rates by this thing Spotify. Terrestrial radio, you make four cents a play. So when I look at the thing strategically, and I manage TESLA — I have for the last 20 years or so — you go, 'Okay, what are the priorities?' It just goes back to the people still wanna see us play live. Jeff's voice is still in great shape. Do I wanna put two years on his voice in the studio, and then that's two years he could've been singing, because he's getting older. And when the voice goes, it doesn't give you a warning — it just goes. That's the plan. It's, like, we'll play, and we put out a couple of new songs every year, and this ['Homage'] thing that we just did originally was gonna be an EP, but it wound up being a full-length album. Because what takes the time for TESLA when we make a brand-new record isn't the recording; it's the writing of the songs."

Due on July 17, 2026, via Frontiers Music Srl, "Homage" arrives more than 20 years after the "Real To Reel" series, a release that helped inspire the creation of a new original TESLA song, "Never Alone".

The selected songs on "Homage" were chosen for a variety of reasons, primarily representing some of the greatest vocalists of all time, including Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, Sam Cooke, David Ruffin, Etta James and James Brown. Additional selections reflect songs the band grew up hearing on the radio and on their turntables.

TESLA will hit the road this summer on "The Return Of The Carnival Of Sins" tour with MÖTLEY CRÜE and EXTREME. The trek begins on July 17 in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, and winds its way through the United States before concluding on September 26 in Ridgefield, Washington.

Last October, TESLA completed a five-song Las Vegas residency at the House Of Blues Las Vegas inside Mandalay Bay Resort And Casino. During this exclusive run of shows, TESLA touched all sides of its unique discography, including the heavier edge of electric songs like "Modern Day Cowboy", "Hang Tough" and "Edison's Medicine", as well as the band's acoustic-driven songs such as "Signs" and "Love Song" (two Top 10 Billboard-charting hits).

TESLA previously held a residency at the House Of Blues in April 2024.TESLA's latest six-song EP, "All About Love", was released in November 2024. The EP included four versions of "All About Love" (acoustic, electric, hybrid, live); a live version of "Walk Away", a concert favorite from "Reel To Real, Vol. 1"; and another new song, "From The Heart", an instrumental track by Hannon.

Some fans criticized TESLA for adopting a 1980s-style polished production for its latest album, 2019's "Shock". The follow-up to June 2014's "Simplicity" was helmed by DEF LEPPARD guitarist Phil Collen, whose own group is no stranger to slicked-up, glossy-sounding recordings.

In September 2023, TESLA released the official music video for its cover of AEROSMITH's "S.O.S. (Too Bad)". The song was a bonus track on TESLA's live album, "Full Throttle Live!", which arrived in May 2023. The LP included the band's "Time To Rock!" single, plus other songs, all recorded in August 2022 at Full Throttle Saloon in Sturgis, South Dakota.

In September 2021, original TESLA drummer Troy Luccketta announced that he would "take a little time from the road" to spend with family and friends. He has since been replaced at TESLA's gigs and in the recording studio by Steve Brown, the younger brother of former DOKKEN drummer Mick Brown.

TESLA's debut album, 1986's "Mechanical Resonance", went platinum on the strength of the hits "Modern Day Cowboy" and "Little Suzi". The 1989 follow-up album, "The Great Radio Controversy", produced five hits, including "Heaven's Trail (No Way Out)" and "Love Song", which hit the pop Top Ten.

Press photo credit: Brandon Gullion

In a new interview with Jesea Lee, MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH frontman Chad Gray spoke about his recently launched "30 Years Of Madness" series of live appearances. The first gig, which took place on April 24 at the Fremont Country Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, saw Gray backed by HELLYEAH guitarist Christian Brady, MUDVAYNE touring guitarist Marcus Raffety, drummer Devin Attard, guitarist Joe Bonasorte and bassist Nick Villarreal, among other musicians. Asked if he is open to the idea of releasing new music under the Chad Gray banner, the singer responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I'm certainly not opposed to it. But just promoting music and everything is just done differently now. It's about having those tools. It's about having the right people plugged in to be able to let people know that you have new music.

"We released the new MUDVAYNE songs ['Hurt People Hurt People' and 'Sticks And Stones' in 2025], and everybody was super stoked about those. But I thought for sure 'Sticks And Stones' would be a Top 10 single, and it topped out at [Top] 20. It was weird, because everybody at radio fucking loved that track. It's just it's done a little bit differently now than it used to be. It's not saying that it's not able to be done now, because people do it. But I'm not sure we were plugged into completely that world."

Asked if the disappointing performance of "Hurt People Hurt People" and "Sticks And Stones" contributed to MUDVAYNE's decision to take a break from touring and recording in 2026, Chad responded: "No. Not at all. It was just merely, like, boom, boom, boom, boom. Four years in a row of just hitting it. Like, let's chill. Let's put it on ice for a minute and see what kind of opportunities come, having put it on ice for a year. Just see what happens. 'Cause we just headlined [a tour]. So who knows? [We weren't interested in] headlining again within such a short amount of time. We want things that we do to be successful, and we want people to be excited to see us, and sometimes when you kind of know you're gonna be able to see them next year, you kind of pass. 'Ah, maybe I'll pass this year, and I'll just go see them next year.' So it's just one of those things, where you're just, like, 'Eh.'"

Referencing his solo project, Chad said: "I'm excited. I'm excited about what we did. I'm excited I decided to do this. I think the fans really enjoyed [the first show]. I think the fans are gonna continue to enjoy it. I know I enjoyed it, and I'm gonna continue to enjoy it. And I think I'm doing it for the right reasons."

After Lee noted that some fans will likely be excited about the prospect of seeing songs from both MUDVAYNE and HELLYEAH performed on the same night, Chad concurred. "That's exciting for me, too," he said. "You can't always guarantee that MUDVAYNE fans are gonna be HELLYEAH fans and that HELLYEAH fans are MUDVAYNE fans. They were two separate things. They were two completely kind of different things. And with HELLYEAH, it was funny, 'cause [late HELLYEAH and PANTERA drummer] Vinnie [Paul Abbott] used to say, like, 'Man, it's frustrating to me because people look at our band like a wall between me and PANTERA and you and MUDVAYNE.' And that's not what it is at all. It was just some dudes getting together in a room and going for it and just having some fun. But people did kind of look at it like, 'I'm not gonna like HELLYEAH because HELLYEAH is keeping Chad away from MUDVAYNE, or keeping Vinnie away from doing the PANTERA reunion,' or something like that. And we always wanted HELLYEAH to kind of stand on its own. That's why we never played MUDVAYNE songs and we never played PANTERA songs in our sets. We just wanted HELLYEAH to be what HELLYEAH was. It was a very true band that was real. There was a lot of passion in that project. It was a passion project, is what it really was. And there was a lot of passion in that project. We worked really hard in that band for fucking 12 years."

Back in March 2021, Gray released a solo single, a cover of "Always On My Mind" — a song made famous by Willie Nelson. The track was originally recorded for his fall 2020 wedding to SiriusXM on-air personality Shannon Gunz.

The "30 Years Of Madness" concerts mark Chad's first-ever solo performances and are taking place during a year when MUDVAYNE is not scheduled to do any touring. It is also an opportunity for Gray to play songs from HELLYEAH, which has been inactive since early 2020 when its U.S. tour was canceled in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meantime, Gray had reunited with his previous band MUDVAYNE, which played its first two shows in 12 years in 2021 and has since completed several tours, in addition to releasing the aforementioned two new songs, "Hurt People Hurt People" and "Sticks And Stones".

In a recent interview with "The David Ellefson Show", Gray was asked how the idea for his solo gigs came about, Chad said:  "Since we brought [MUDVAYNE] back in '21, we've done it once a year for the last four years. And it's just, like, management, everybody's just, like, 'We should probably give it a break. We should probably just take 2026 off.' And I'm just, like, I'm 54 fucking years old. I'm not taking a year off. That's like me putting my happiness in a cage for a year. That's where I shine. I love to service my fans. I love to fucking help however I can and give back. And just sitting around my fucking house with my thumb in my ass, doing fucking projects and shit, it's not the way I'm wired, man. I wanna work. I'm a worker bee."

Gray continued: "I was writing, recording or touring nonstop in one band or another for 20 fucking years. And Vinnie passed. It took a little bit [of time to get back into it]. I came back to the MUDVAYNE table, put that back together. And then we did it. And then we were off 46 weeks. And then we did it, and then we were off 46 weeks. And the old days of like writing, recording, touring, writing, recording, touring, which is what I loved, that was out the fucking window. So even though I'm going out once a year for six weeks or seven weeks or whatever, I'm just sitting around the fucking house all the time. So the whole idea of this, honestly, was when we said we were gonna take the year off, and it's just, like, I don't wanna do that."

Vinnie Paul recorded a total of six albums with HELLYEAH over a decade, including its latest, "Welcome Home", for which he laid down his drum tracks before his passing.

STONE SOUR drummer Roy Mayorga stepped in as Vinnie Paul's replacement for the touring activity in support of "Welcome Home", which came out in September 2019.Mayorga previously played with HELLYEAH bassist Kyle Sanders in MEDICATION, the early 2000s outfit which also featured guitarist Logan Mader (MACHINE HEAD) and singer Whitfield Crane (UGLY KID JOE).

MUDVAYNE guitarist Greg Tribbett sat out the band's summer/fall 2025 "L.D. 50 25th Anniversary" tour after his wife reportedly lost her year-and-a-half-long battle with cancer.The "L.D. 50 25th Anniversary" tour kicked off on September 11, 2025 in Dubuque, Iowa and concluded on October 26, 2025 in Uncasville, Connecticut.

In 2024, Greg sat out the remaining shows on MUDVAYNE's "Destroy All Enemies" tour with MEGADETH due to what at the time was described as a "family issue". Filling in for him was Rafferty, who has served as a guitar tech for several metal bands over the years, including LAMB OF GOD and HATEBREED. He also worked for HELLYEAH, which originally featured both Tribbett and Gray.

"Sticks And Stones" and "Hurt People Hurt People" were released through Alchemy Recordings, a record label created in partnership between Dino Paredes, former American Recordings vice president of A&R, and Danny Wimmer, the founder of Danny Wimmer Presents, the premier production company for rock music festivals in the United States. Other Alchemy artists include STAIND and CHEVELLE.

Prior to the arrival of "Hurt People Hurt People", the reunited metallers hadn't put out any new material since 2009, which means more than a decade and a half had gone by without a single fresh MUDVAYNE song.

MUDVAYNE formed in 1996 and has sold over six million records worldwide, earning gold certification for three albums ("L.D. 50", "The End Of All Things To Come", "Lost And Found"). The band is known for its sonic experimentation, innovative album art, face and body paint, masks and uniforms.

BLIND GUARDIAN frontman Hansi Kürsch has released a new video message in which he offered an update on the progress of the songwriting sessions for the German power metal band's follow-up to 2022's "The God Machine" album. Kürsch said in the video, which can be seen below (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). " Hello, everybody. This is a short message from BLIND GUARDIAN. We just wanna give you a heads up where we are at and what we are thinking about at the moment.

"Right now, we are just back from being completely lazy," he continued. "We dived into songwriting very carefully. We are not too far yet. Allow us another, let's say, four or five months before I can be more precise in terms of the songwriting and into which direction it goes.

"We did some songwriting during the touring period, but we took that aside and, yeah, maybe [we'll] use it later on. But for now, we are having fresh minds — surprise, surprise," Hansi added. "The aim is to have a pre-production ready to go at the end of 2026. I'm pretty sure we can keep that, and then there should be a full production in the beginning of 2027."

Last fall, Kürsch told Brutal Planet Media about BLIND GUARDIAN's plans for 2026, including a possible follow-up to "The God Machine": "For us, yeah, it's about songwriting and doing the business, which is behind touring and everything. And, yeah, we have neglected a few things, which we have to come up with. We're working on additional projects for BLIND GUARDIAN, such as acoustic albums. This all needs to be somehow fixed and finished in, hopefully, 2026 — if not in '26, then in the beginning of '27, for sure. And then it's about time to go back on the road. But for us, I have to say now this is the longest span of touring we've ever done, because usually we do, like, 12 months, 18 months. And because everything was a little upside down when we started touring [in celebration of the 30th anniversary of] 'Somewhere Far Beyond', this was a longer stretch than expected."

Elaborating on BLIND GUARDIAN's upcoming music-related projects, Hansi said: "We took all the time for the touring, and we did some acoustic improvements on some of the stuff. What we have in mind is doing an acoustic version of [BLIND GUARDIAN's 1998 album] 'Nightfall In Middle-Earth', and that's on a pretty good way. We have accomplished a lot of stuff, but we have to investigate and improve that in the next year."

Hansi went on to say that he and his BLIND GUARDIAN bandmates are always working on band-related stuff, even when they spend long stretches of time at home. "There is always interaction between the members, and we come up with concepts and ideas for how things could go on," he explained. "But the main focus is to survive a tour always. Even if you're at home, the thinking is, 'Okay, how can I improve my physical strength, my health, how can I be mentally in the shape of going to tour again?' And then you have a private life, of course and family. That's what you're spending the rest of the time with. But that is, unfortunately, always very limited."

BLIND GUARDIAN's fall 2025 North American tour saw the band bring its celebrated album "Somewhere Far Beyond" to life on stage. The trek kicked off on November 19, 2025 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and made stops in major markets, including New York, Toronto, Chicago, Los Angeles and more, before concluding on December 13, 2025 in Los Angeles, California at The Wiltern. Support for the tour came from special guests ENSIFERUM and SEVEN KINGDOMS.

In October 2025, Hansi spoke about a possible musical direction for BLIND GUARDIAN's next album during an interview with Canada's The Metal Voice. After co-host Jimmy Kay noted that BLIND GUARDIAN's sound and overall production approach couldn't get "much bigger" than it was on some of the group's most recent efforts, Hansi concurred. "Yeah. That was my feeling after '[Twilight Orchestra:] Legacy of The Dark Lands', and I was happy when we went into a direction which we have taken with 'The God Machine', though from the basic songwriting, it was not too far away from 'Beyond The Red Mirror'," he said. "The way we treated it during the production and in the mixing has transformed it into something like a hybrid. This is what I meant when I said, well, 'The God Machine' has a bit of references of what we did in the past. So .. my impression [is that] we shouldn't go further down the road when it comes to orchestration. There will be classical composing, I'm pretty sure, in the future, but we won't take it as far as 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands', at least not in a long time. And, yeah, you know how long it took us to produce and accomplish 'Legacy Of The Dark Lands'. So, I doubt there will be anything like that, but we all feel it is time for the let-your-hair-down stuff. Even though I have to say once we're in the studio, we do not have that much control where the journey is finally leading us. So, that is open to a certain extent, but the passion for, I'd say, easygoing music is there in the band. And we felt encouraged by that also by the touring we did for the last now almost three years. That also fills us up with energy. And once we finish all this touring and we get back to the songwriting, usually there is a bit of this [same kind of] sense in the new songwriting. So I'm quite confident it will be more into such a direction."

In the summer of 2024, Kürsch told MetalMasterKingdom.com about the progress of the songwriting sessions for BLIND GUARDIAN's next studio album: "We started songwriting a while ago, but I think we skipped all the ideas we've had. We do that from time to time, because if the span in between the real songwriting and the ones we did before is so big, then it doesn't make sense to keep on working on these songs because you do not get back into the mode, and so it's better to just put them aside. And some of this stuff really got forgotten over the years, and we never touched it again. So, we will start from scratch zero right now. We are still in the mode of 'live band' [due to all the touring we have done]. So I would expect the next songs to be heavy — heavy and aggressive."

Asked if the next BLIND GUARDIAN album will be musically similar to "The God Machine", Hansi said: "That's difficult to say, because 'The God Machine' is more of a production result than it is in the songwriting itself. The songwriting is not too different from what we did on [2015's] 'Beyond The Red Mirror', but the way we treated the songs in the studio is so different. So the result turns out to be, obviously, differently impressive to people. I would say, yes, we go for individual [songs]. With the lyrics, I am more focused on this than having a conceptual album. When having a conceptual album, you may go musically in one direction also. So we go freestyle."

"The God Machine" was released in September 2022 via Nuclear Blast. The cover artwork for the CD was designed by Peter Mohrbacher.

Prior to "The God Machine"'s arrival, BLIND GUARDIAN's latest release was the all-orchestral album "Twilight Orchestra: Legacy Of The Dark Lands", which came out in November 2019 via Nuclear Blast. To create the concept, lead guitarist André Olbrich and Kürsch worked alongside German bestselling author Markus Heitz, whose novel "Die Dunklen Lande" was released in March 2019. The book is set in 1629 and contains the prequel to "Legacy Of The Dark Lands".

BLIND GUARDIAN's previous "regular" studio album, "Beyond The Red Mirror", was issued in 2015. It was the band's first LP since 2010's "At The Edge Of Time", marking the longest gap between two studio albums in BLIND GUARDIAN's career. It was also the group's first album without bassist Oliver Holzwarth since 1995's "Imaginations From The Other Side".

BLIND GUARDIAN's core trio consists of Kürsch, lead guitarist André Olbrich and rhythm guitarist Marcus Siepen. Drummer Frederik Ehmke has been with the group since 2005, while Dutch bassist Johan Van Stratum joined in 2021.

Drummer Thomen Stauch played on BLIND GUARDIAN's first seven albums before being replaced by Ehmke. Frederik made his recording debut with BLIND GUARDIAN on 2006's "A Twist In The Myth".

Photo credit: Dirk Behlau (courtesy of Nuclear Blast)

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In a new interview with Hollie Nicole of Teaser Talk, DROWNING POOL guitarist C.J. Pierce and singer Ryan McCombs spoke about the cancelation of the band's South American tour, which was scheduled to kick off on May 20 in Bogota, Colombia. C.J. said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, we were gonna be doing South America. That just got put on hold yesterday. We were looking forward to going. Just the timing with it — I'm hoping that that comes back up towards the end of the year, 'cause that's supposed to be a week and a half from now, and all the logistics weren't put together for us to get there in time. There's a lot of red tape and stuff like that. And just we didn't meet the deadline for it. So I'm hoping to go back. I love South America. We really wanna play there. I wanna go so bad. But yeah, that's gonna be pushed off."

Ryan chimed in: "Yeah, we're definitely, definitely pushing towards making it happen. 'Cause when you've been allowed to do this this long, when people have kept you in the game this long, one side of that is it's very rare that you see something come up on your calendar that you haven't done before. And there was several countries there that we had never — I know I'd never been to before, so I was really looking forward to that. So we're definitely pushing towards that coming to fruition."

C.J. added: "We're trying to make it happen. Sorry, South America. We're trying to get there."

According to an official statement released by the DROWNING POOL South American tour organizers, the decision to scrap the trek "was made jointly by all local promoters involved due to low ticket sales recorded in all cities on the tour."

The statement added: "Customers who have already purchased tickets should request a refund directly from the company responsible for ticket sales in their respective city.

"For more information and specific guidance regarding the refund process, please contact the local promoter.

"Thank you for your understanding."

DROWNING POOL's seven-date South American tour was slated to run through a May 31 show in Curitiba, Brazil. Stops on the trek included Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; and São Paulo, Brazil.

When the tour was first announced in early March, DROWNING POOL said in a statement: "We're super stoked to be playing in South America for the first time!"

DROWNING POOL issued three new singles over the course of the last year and a half — "The Wrong One", which was released in February 2026, "Madness", which came out in April 2025, and "Revolution (The Final Amen)", which arrived in September 2024. "Revolution (The Final Amen)" was the first piece of music Pierce, drummer Mike Luce and bassist Stevie Benton completed with McCombs in 13 years.

McCombs played his first shows back with DROWNING POOL in March 2023 at Club L.A. in Destin, Florida and at the inaugural Throwdown At The Campground festival in Fruitland Park, Florida.

The longtime SOIL frontman, who has lived in Swindon, England since 2018, originally joined DROWNING POOL in 2005 and appeared on two of the band's studio albums, "Full Circle" (2007) and "Drowning Pool" (2010),as well as a live album, 2009's "Loudest Common Denominator". He rejoined SOIL after exiting DROWNING POOL in 2011.

McCombs is continuing to front SOIL and will carry on recording and performing with both bands.

DROWNING POOL's debut album, "Sinner", was certified platinum within six weeks of its release in 2001, while the CD's first single, "Bodies", was one of the most frequently aired videos on MTV by a new band.

After the release of "Sinner", DROWNING POOL reached out to an ever-greater audience with dynamic performances at Wrestlemania XVIII and Ozzfest during the summers of 2001 and 2002. Unfortunately, their streak of success was not to last. Shortly after rousing the crowd at Ozzfest in Indianapolis, Indiana, on August 3, 2002, vocalist Dave "Stage" Williams was found dead of natural causes on the tour bus.

Photo courtesy of O'Donnell Media Group

Former SKID ROW singer Erik Grönwall, who was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in March 2021, now opens the door to his most personal chapter yet. A seven-minute mini-documentary, "To Hell & Back" is following the journey leading up to the release of Erik's new solo album "Bad Bones" — a story about survival and rediscovering the love for music and songwriting, from the highest highs to the darkest moments. Check it out below.

A little over two years ago, Erik opened up about his cancer battle while explaining his reasons for leaving SKID ROW after a two-year run with the band. He said in part at the time: "In 2021, I was undergoing treatment against leukemia, and as a result of the treatments and the bone marrow transplant that I did, my immune system was impaired. You can think of my immune system as a four-year-old kid bringing home all kinds of shit and viruses from preschool. So I pretty much get everything. It takes a while for the immune system to build up that resistance again, but my immune system is getting stronger every day. So that's the good news. However, I'm still doing regular checkups, like blood tests, at the hematology department at my hospital in Sweden. But that part has proved very challenging while keeping up with the SKID ROW schedule and demand. And as I'm sure you all understand, I have way too much respect for my medical history and for my health to push myself to the limit.

"But I also wanna say that this illness came with a lot of good things," he continued. "And one of the best things that I want to mention here is that it gave me a superpower called perspective. I remember sitting at the hospital, and I was in a really fucking dark place. And I was looking out my window and I saw all these people going to work in a hurry, stressing. And I remember asking myself, watching all these people, and I was, like, 'What are we stressing about? What are we chasing?' So right there I felt like I had so much perspective on things and actually a gratitude towards — it's weird to say it, but a gratitude towards my illness. I remember going, 'Thank you for giving me this perspective this early in life.' Anyway, so I was sitting there, and I remembered that the samurai had a code of honor that they called Bushido that they lived by. And so with the perspective I had at the time, I wanted to create my own Bushido. My goal was always, okay, 'I'm gonna get through this and I'm gonna get healthy,' but I wanted to remember the perspective, that feeling of gratitude and perspective I had at the time, because I know that we're human beings and we move on and we forget things, but I didn't wanna forget this; I wanted to remember this for the rest of my life. So what I did was I created my own Bushido at the hospital, and on top of that list, it says 'health first'. And back to SKID ROW, that's exactly why I had to make this decision."

Erik's first fully original solo LP, "Bad Bones" will arrive on May 22.

Known worldwide for his powerhouse vocals and commanding stage presence, Erik has also previously fronted H.E.A.T., and toured across Europe and Japan providing lead vocals for guitar legend Michael Schenker.

In a recent interview with Roppongi Rocks' Stefan Nilsson, Grönwall stated about his upcoming solo album, on which he worked with his producer and former H.E.A.T. bandmate Jona Tee: "It was just one of those things that I've built my career in bands, I've loved being in bands, but I also asked myself, who am I as a songwriter when I release my own music? 'Cause I did a solo album after [appearing on the competition show] '[Swedish] Idol', but I have to say that was more Sony Music's album. And to be fair against the people I worked with then, and I didn't really know what I wanted to do either. So it was kind of, like, 'Okay, you have a guy who can sing stuff, probably. What do we do? Maybe this.' And then we just put it out there. And it was way too fast. We put it out just to get it out for people to shop for Christmas. [Laughs] So, yeah, it wasn't from the heart. But now it is. And I've never been prouder of an album than I am right now. I've really taken the time, and Jona has been next to me. And I've been experimenting. I've been soul searching, like, 'What if we do this? No, that doesn't feel right. This, no. Okay.' And then I realized that who I am as an artist is everything I've done so far, combined — H.E.A.T., SKID ROW, Michael Schenker. It's not that hard. It's rock and roll. If you can count to four, you can do rock and roll. 1, 2, 3, 4 — it's done. That's all you need."

SKID ROW's longtime friend Lzzy Hale (HALESTORM) handled lead vocals for the band's four concerts in late May 2024 and early June 2024, two months after Erik's exit from the group.

At the time of Grönwall's departure, SKID ROW members said in a statement that they were "proud" of what they had "created and accomplished with Erik" over the previous two years" and wished "nothing but the best to him and his health."

In January 2025, Erik told Finland's Chaoszine about his exit from SKID ROW: "Leaving the band was one of the toughest career decisions I ever had to make. I loved being in that band. It didn't hurt waking up being the lead singer of SKID ROW. But I would still be in the band if that was an option.

"I left to respect the person who went through the leukemia — I mean, the person at the hospital," he explained. "I promised myself that I would always put my health first. And when I felt like I couldn't do that being in the band, I just had to make that decision.

"I loved my time in the band. I had so much fun with the guys. We clicked right away, and I will always look back at that time with a smile, for sure. And I would have loved to stay in the band. But given the circumstances, we just couldn't find common ground in terms of how much we should tour."

Grönwall went on to clarify that he was always open to continuing with SKID ROW if an agreement had been reached regarding how much time to spend on the road.

"I'm not sure if it's been said in any interview, but, for me, it was never about not touring at all," he said. "I just wanted to have more time in between to recover. So, my suggestion was three weeks on the road, including traveling, and then one month off, three weeks on the road, including traveling, one month off, just to have that time in between. But they didn't find that feasible, and that's totally fine. I mean, SKID ROW has been doing this since before I was born. [Laughs] They have a recipe. I totally respect that they didn't find out feasible at all. But it was what I needed, and here we are."

The English version of Grönwall's autobiography, "Power – Music, Death, Life", was made available in December 2024 via HarperCollins.

Grönwall, who was a member of the Swedish hard rock band H.E.A.T for nearly a decade before exiting the group in October 2020, announced in September 2021 that he was cancer free after receiving a bone marrow transplant one month earlier.

Grönwall sang on four H.E.A.T studio albums — "Address The Nation" (2012),"Tearing Down The Walls" (2014),"Into The Great Unknown" (2017) and "H.E.A.T II" (2020).

More recently, Erik sang on two of Michael Schenker's albums, 2024's "My Years With UFO" and 2025's "Don't Sell Your Soul". He also toured Europe and Japan with the legendary German guitarist.

In September 2021, just four months before joining SKID ROW, Grönwall released his new cover version of "18 And Life" via all streaming platforms.

In 2018, Grönwall debuted in the U.S. for 10 million viewers in NBC's live broadcast of Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Tim Rice's musical "Jesus Christ Superstar". Along with John Legend, Alice Cooper, Sara Bareilles and others, Erik played the key role of Simon Zealotes.

In late March 2022, SKID ROW released its first single with Grönwall, "The Gang's All Here". The song is the title track of the band's latest album, which arrived in October 2022 via earMUSIC.

SKID ROW played its first show with Grönwall on March 26, 2022 at Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada as the support act on the rescheduled dates for SCORPIONS' "Sin City Nights" residency.

Grönwall lives in Knivsta, a city in Uppsala County in east central Sweden, with his wife and their son.

FIMBUL WINTER, the new Swedish death metal band featuring three former AMON AMARTH members, has released a new standalone single, "Crowned In Ash".

Forging a sound that is heavy, melodic and atmospheric, FIMBUL WINTER honors the legacy of its death metal foundations producing music that feels familiar yet is modern in its approach. "Crowned In Ash" is the latest release from FIMBUL WINTER following the 2025 debut EP "What Once Was".

The project consists of original AMON AMARTH members Niko Kaukinen on drums and Anders Biazzi (formerly Anders Hansson) on guitar, and former AMON AMARTH drummer Fredrik Andersson on lead guitar. Completing the lineup is Clint Williams on vocals.

With "Crowned In Ash", FIMBUL WINTER embarks on greater exploration and development of melodic death metal. Drawing from their knowledge and experience in AMON AMARTH, and expanding further their artistic boundaries, FIMBUL WINTER brings power, energy and intensity into all of their sonic offerings.

"Crowned In Ash" emerges from the flames in an enticing soundscape infused with intriguing melodic leads. Driving rhythms take precedence pushing the track's momentum forward while guitar leads continue to entwine across the instrumental layers and Williams's monstrous vocals are unleashed above.

The band states: "There was never a question of what we should sound like. We've been shaping this sound/genre for decades. This is in our DNA."

An authoritative force prevails across the choruses in "Crowned In Ash". The fast pace lessens its grip to allow the progressions and vocal performance the space to land with thunderous impact. FIMBUL WINTER ensures the track's main riff remains compelling and constant throughout, while deploying enveloping, shifting dynamics throughout the musical arrangement.

Drums and guitars on "Crowned In Ash" were recorded at Studio Fluff Vasteras with engineer Andreas Moren while vocals were recorded at Witching Hour Audio and engineered by Shaun Farrugia. Risa Andersson contributed bass performance on the single and mixing and mastering was completed by Marko Tervonen at Studio-MT. The cover artwork for "Crowned In Ash" was created by Katarzyna Urbanek.

Based out of Stockholm, Sweden and Melbourne, Australia, FIMBUL WINTER formed in 2023 building upon their roots and the members' legacies in Swedish death metal.

FIMBUL WINTER's beginnings grew from a spontaneous reunion performing AMON AMARTH's 1994 demo titled "The Arrival Of The Fimbul Winter". The instant connection between the musicians ignited a desire to create something new that captured the essence of Swedish death metal in an updated style that is clean and modern without being polished to its detriment. 2025 brought this vision to life with the unveiling of the ensemble's first EP, "What Once Was".

Regarding how FIMBUL WINTER came together, the band said: "The idea started with Niko wanting to play the demo 'The Arrival Of The Fimbul Winter', which he recorded over 30 years ago, at his 50th-birthday party. Fredrik thought it sounded like fun and offered to play the guitar. After that Anders was asked to join in and then with the addition of friends Linus Nirbrant on bass and Clint on vocals, a selected amount of friends got to experience this unique lineup and hear the tracks that once laid the foundation to what was to become. Having so much fun playing together and realizing all three former members had a ton of killer old-school material, the decision to keep on playing and to eventually record new songs was made."

Andersson was fired from AMON AMARTH in March 2015, just as the band was preparing to enter the studio to begin work on its 2016 album "Jomsviking". AMON AMARTH opted to enlist a session drummer, Tobias Gustafsson (VOMITORY, CUT UP),during the recording sessions for the disc, but hired Jocke Wallgren to join them on the road. Wallgren was named a permanent member of AMON AMARTH in September 2016.

In a 2016 interview with Brazil's "Wikimetal" podcast, AMON AMARTH guitarist Olavi Mikkonen stated about the band's split with Andersson: "I don't really wanna go into details regarding Fredrik, but, basically, we just separated. It's kind of like a marriage that doesn't work, and you get divorced. And that's kind of what happened to our band."

FIMBUL WINTER is:

Niko Kaukinen - Drums
Fredrik Andersson - Guitars
Anders Biazzi - Guitars
Clint Williams - Vocals

In a new interview with Tori Kravitz of Knotfest, KREATOR frontman Mille Petrozza was asked to name his "top five favorite heavy tracks". He replied (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I would go for something by JUDAS PRIEST, for example 'Electric Eye'. IRON MAIDEN, I would choose the song 'Killers'. Something by CELTIC FROST, 'Circle Of The Tyrants'. It's all old school so far. Maybe something really heavy, like something by METALLICA. I would have to put 'Blackened' by METALLICA. That's one of my favorite riffs ever."

He continued: "The ultimate heavy metal song must have been something by... It's so cliché, but it probably needs to be something by BLACK SABBATH. I would go for 'Symptom Of The Universe'. It's not the obvious choice — everybody would go, like, 'Paranoid' or whatever — but I think 'Symptom Of The Universe' has this amazing riff."

Mille added: "It's almost impossible to [choose only five songs]. I love all kinds of heavy metal, and I love all kinds... I like the newer stuff. I like the older stuff. But I had to pick five, and obviously those are classic songs."

KREATOR's sixteenth studio album, "Krushers Of The World", came out on January 16, 2026 via Nuclear Blast Records. The LP was recorded at Fascination Street Studios in Örebro, Sweden with producer Jens Bogren. Bogren previously helmed KREATOR's "Phantom Antichrist" (2012) and "Gods Of Violence" (2017) LPs. The "Krushers Of The World" cover artwork was created by Polish genius Zbigniew Bielak (GHOST).

Prior to the album's arrival, KREATOR released several singles from "Krushers Of The World", including "Seven Serpents", "Tränenpalast" and "Satanic Anarchy". "Tränenpalast" features vocal coach Britta Görtz of extreme metal band HIRAES on guest vocals.

KREATOR promoted "Krushers Of The World" with a monumental European tour across 20 countries, joining forces with fellow metal powerhouses CARCASS, EXODUS and NAILS. The trek kicked off on March 20, 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal, at MEO Arena and wrapped up on April 25, 2026 in Copenhagen, Denmark, at Poolen. Highlights included shows in London, Manchester, Glasgow, Paris, Milan, Berlin, Stockholm, and more.

KREATOR, which last conquered American audiences and venues in 2024, embarked on a U.S. headline tour earlier this month, with stops at key festivals, including Welcome To Rockville, Sonic Temple and Maryland Deathfest. The tour kicked off on May 7 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and will run through May 23 in Huntington, New York.

The official KREATOR documentary, "Hate & Hope", was shown in July 2025 at the 42nd Munich International Film Festival and received a theatrical premiere in September 2025. The 110-minute film was directed by Cordula Kablitz-Post.

Petrozza's official German-language autobiography, which he wrote with journalist, author and presenter Torsten Groß, "Your Heaven, My Hell - Mein Leben, Heavy Metal Und Wie Das Alles Passieren Konnte", was published in August 2025 via Ullstein Verlag.

Photo credit: Robert Eikelpoth

In a new interview with Pipeman Radio, Eicca Toppinen of Finnish cello rockers APOCALYPTICA — who are still touring behind "Apocalyptica Plays Metallica, Vol. 2", the sequel to their legendary debut record, "Plays Metallica By Four Cellos" — was asked for his opinion of METALLICA's controversial "St. Anger" LP. "St. Anger" was released in June 2003 at the end of a turbulent two-year period for METALLICA in which bassist Jason Newsted left the group, frontman James Hetfield went for a lengthy stay in rehab, and the entire band threatened to break apart. The album's raw, lo-fi production, lack of guitar solos and unorthodox sound were not well-received by many of the group's fans, who still often cite it as METALLICA's worst record. "St. Anger" has nevertheless sold more than six million copies worldwide, although fans have generally not warmed up to it in the 23 years since its release.

Eicca told Pipeman Radio about "St. Anger":  "I think it's a great album. It's a really great album. I got to know the songs before I heard the album, because when the album was coming out, we did some stuff with METALLICA. They came to Europe first time with [then-new METALLICA bassist] Rob [Robert Trujillo], and we were scheduled [to appear at the U.K.'s] Download [festival] to play on the tent. It was an APOCALYPTICA slot. But the secret plan was that it's actually METALLICA who would play there, but we would start, and then they take over… We rehearsed with the guys there [but] we didn't end up doing it… But at that time, I heard [the METALLICA songs] 'Frantic' and 'St. Anger' live many times. And I was, like, 'Oh, these are awesome songs.' And then, of course, the album was difficult to approach. But now, for example, three years ago, when we were working on the ['Apocalyptica Plays Metallica, Vol. 2'] album, I really listened [to 'St. Anger'] because I knew that there is something, that there's something on the 'St. Anger' album that we should record [for our album], and I really listened to it a lot. And once I got used to the sound, I was, like, 'Fuck, this is awesome stuff.' It's so angry. It's so passionate. It's so honest and true."

Eicca continued: "What I'm saying to the audience when we play [the] 'St. Anger' [title track during APOCALYPTICA shows], because we made a version of that [for 'Apocalyptica Plays Metallica, Vol. 2'], which, I think, the version is really cool, and it's doing really justice on how good song it is. Today I always recommend people to give it a new spin now after the time because in the sound where we live at the moment, everything is over-polished and hygienically nice. 'St. Anger', actually, the production sounds fucking refreshing. So whoever is listening to this, take 'St. Anger' and listen to it. It's a wonderful album."

Toppinen went on to say that he wasn't surprised by the initial response to "St. Anger", considering how different the album sounded from the METALLICA efforts that preceded it.

"I understand that people have had difficulties with 'St. Anger', because the sound was not approachable," he said. "[Like] black metal — it's not meant to sound nice. Original Norwegian black metal, it's all about how shitty you can record things to make them honest, raw and brutal. That's how black metal is done originally. And that's what 'St. Anger' has. It's an honest fucking [slice] of anger. That's what it's about. And people were expecting something nice and smooth. And fuck that. METALLICA is a metal band. But at the same time, I have to say, I like some songs on 'Load' or 'ReLoad'. I think they are great songs. It's a different quality."

According to Eicca, METALLICA's unpredictability is what ultimately makes the band's music so interesting.

"That's what I always appreciated in METALLICA so much, that the guys have been always honest to themselves," he said. "They changed the style, the direction, because they felt that they had to, for their sake, taking the risk that people will not follow them.

"If you think about how many bands of [METALLICA's] age still play [and tour the world], they would not need to [keep touring and making music]. They don't need the money. They don't need to do it for other reason than they fucking love to do it. And the only way to keep that passion alive for over four decades is that you have to follow your heart. You have to go where you have to go. The same with APOCALYPTICA. We have to change all the time. With every album, we have to find an angle to challenge ourselves, to go somewhere where we don't know for sure how we gonna make it, because that's the beauty of being creative. You try to figure out something that you don't know. I think that's a core function of creativity. You try to materialize something that doesn't exist, and if you just become a factory, you just do it as you used to do it — I think I'd rather do something else than make music, because I don't see any point in that. Where is the excitement?"

Three years ago, Rolling Stone magazine included "St. Anger" on its list of "50 Genuinely Horrible Albums By Brilliant Artists".

In explaining "St. Anger"'s placement on the list, Rolling Stone called the album "deeply disappointing" and described Lars Ulrich's snare drum as coming across "like he's banging on a tin can throughout the entire album". Writer Andy Greene went on to say that "the songs are unfocused and seemingly unfinished," and opined that Hetfield's "straight-from-rehab lyrics ('I want my anger to be healthy') could have used more thought." Rolling Stone also noted that the fact that METALLICA has "played fewer 'St. Anger' songs in concert than any of their other albums" is a clear indication that the band is aware of the LP's status as one of its most divisive efforts.

Ulrich admitted to The Pulse Of Radio a while back that METALLICA was surprised by the hostile reaction to "St. Anger" by many fans. "It threw us a little bit, sure, 'cause the whole thing was to just keep it as raw as possible," he said. "And I'd like to think that we accomplished that [laughs], to the point of obviously a little too raw for some people, and that's okay. I mean, it is what it is. I have not one regret about it. I'm proud of it, proud that we had the balls to see it through."

Speaking to Classic Rock magazine, Ulrich defended the drum sound on "St. Anger". He said: "That was on purpose. It wasn't like we put it out and somebody went, "Whoa! Whoops!" I view 'St. Anger' as an isolated experiment. I'm the biggest METALLICA fan, you've got to remember that. Once again, as we've been known to do, once in a while these boundaries have to be fucked with. We'd already done 'Ride The Lightning', which I believe is a fine record. It didn't need to be re-done."

He continued: "When we heard the record from beginning to end, I felt — and it was mostly me — that the experience was so pummeling, it became almost about hurting the listener, about challenging the listener, so we left the songs unedited. I can understand that people felt it was too long."

Back in 2015, "St. Anger" producer Bob Rock defended his work on the LP by saying that both LED ZEPPELIN legend Jimmy Page and former THE WHITE STRIPES frontman Jack White "took the time to say how much they like that album."

During an appearance on the "Talk Is Jericho" podcast, Rock said that Page expressed his appreciation for the CD when the produced ran into the guitarist while they were both eating breakfast at hotel. "I know Jimmy," Bob said. "He got up and walked over to me, gave me a big hug, and said, 'It's great to see you,' blah blah, 'I love the 'St. Anger' album.'"

White's praise came at a screening of the documentary "It Might Get Loud", which co-starred Page. "I was at the premiere, and Jack White came over," Bob recalled. "He says, 'I'm Jack White.' I said, 'I know.' He says, 'That's my favorite METALLICA album.' So," laughed Rock, "I'm okay with those two."

Rock did acknowledge that "St. Anger" wasn't embraced by many METALLICA fans, who criticized it for its lack of guitar solos, extended riffs, its raw production and the thin drum sound.

"It's a very odd record," he conceded. "But it is… It's the truth. It's the raw truth about them at that time."

Rock also addressed the drum-sound controversy, explaining: "People comment about the sound, but when we went in, I said to them, 'I can't set up the drums exactly the same way. I can't do that.' It's like, why does metal music have to have this certain sound before it's metal? So I kicked the can a bit in that way."

He continued: "We could talk about this for a long time, but, really, the sound of the drums on that, I got the first set that [Lars Ulrich] ever used when they rehearsed in the house in Oakland, when they first got together. I set it up and Lars stared at it, right? For, like, months. And then one day he sat down and played, and it was ringing and it was raw, and he said, 'This is it.'"

Rock also discussed the lack of solos on the album. According to the producer, "Lars said, 'No guitar solos.' And [James Hetfield] and I are going, 'But … that's what [Kirk Hammett] does.' So every song, Kirk comes in and plays a solo, and if it doesn't make the song better, we're not using it — and we went through the whole album like that."