German thrash legends Sodom released their fifth album, Tapping The Vein, on August 1st, 1992. Former guitarist Andy Brings celebrated the record's 30th Anniversary with the following message:


"Happy birthday Tapping The Vein! Thirty years ago today, my very first album ever came out, and for many fans around the world it is one of the absolute highlights in the Sodom discography. This makes me very proud.


This anniversary marks 30 professional years for me, as well as a path traveled, which has been quite unique in shape and diversity. This makes me a little bit more proud because I took it on my terms, no matter what price I had to pay for it.




To the next 30 years!"





On June 5th, Sodom made an unhrehearsed surprise appearance at Rock Hard Festival 2022 in Gelsenkirchen. Celebrating the 30th anniverasary of their Tapping The Vein album, the band performed three songs with Andy Brings (Double Crush Syndrome), who was a band member at that time.


Setlist:


"Body Parts"
"One Step Over The Line"
"Wachturm"





Tapping the Vein is the last Sodom album to feature original drummer, Christian "Witchhunter" Dudek.





Tracklist:


"Body Parts"
"Skinned Alive"
"One Step Over the Line"
"Deadline"
"Bullet in the Head"
"The Crippler"
"Wachturm"
"Tapping the Vein"
"Back to War"
"Hunting Season"
"Reincarnation"

Chicago's FOX 32 has shared helicopter video of METALLICA's performance this past Thursday (July 28) on the city's T-Mobile mainstage at this year's Lollapalooza festival.

METALLICA closed its two hour-plus show 20 minutes past the normal 10 p.m. curfew with a rendition of "Master Of Puppets", the title track of its third album, which recently saw new life 36 years after its release following its inclusion in season four of Netflix's hit series "Stranger Things". The popularity of the 1986 song brought it to the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time ever in the band's lengthy career.

During METALLICA's performance of "Master Of Puppets" at Lollapalooza, they projected the now-famous scene from the "Stranger Things" season four finale in which Eddie (Joseph Quinn) shreds their classic 1986 track in the Upside Down in order to attract Vecna's legion of minions.

METALLICA has since weighed in on the inclusion of its music in the Netflix show, praising "Stranger Things" creators the Duffer brothers' "next-level" use of their tune. They added that they "were beyond psyched for them to not only include 'Master Of Puppets' in the show but to have such a pivotal scene built around it."

The band previously headlined Lollapalooza in 1996 back when it was still an annual tour. Nearly two decades later, the group returned as a 2015 headliner.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, before Thursday, the last time a rock or metal band graced the T-Mobile Stage at Lollapalooza was the 2021 closing set by the FOO FIGHTERS, their last appearance in Chicago before the untimely passing of drummer Taylor Hawkins earlier this year.

THREE DAYS GRACE drummer Neil Sanderson has weighed in on the news that PANTERA's surviving members Philip Anselmo (vocals) and Rex Brown (bass) will unite with guitarist Zakk Wylde (OZZY OSBOURNE, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY) and drummer Charlie Benante (ANTHRAX) for a world tour under the PANTERA banner.

Anselmo and Brown, along with Wylde and Benante, will headline a number of major festivals across North America and Europe and stage some of their own headline concerts.

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

Sanderson discussed his views on the PANTERA comeback in a new interview with RadioactiveMike Z, host of the 96.7 KCAL-FM radio program "Wired In The Empire". Asked what he thinks about Anselmo and Brown touring again under the PANTERA name, Neil said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Even within my camp, there are some massive PANTERA fans. I think Zakk Wylde was the obvious choice for the job. And it will be what it is.

"I saw PANTERA back when they opened for BLACK… It was actually one of the coolest shows I've ever been to — it was BLACK SABBATH, PANTERA and the DEFTONES in Toronto," he recalled. "That's the last time I saw PANTERA. It was pretty awesome.

"So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see, man," Neil added. "It'll be very interesting to see how it all plays out."

Asked if he would get behind the drums and play for PANTERA if he was approached to jam with Anselmo and Brown, Neil said: "[Laughs] I would have to really sit down… Vinnie Paul, he was such the king of groove, so, yeah, they're pretty big shoes to fill [laughs], let me say that.

"THREE DAYS GRACE, I do play double kick, but I'll never be in SLAYER, let's put it that way. [Laughs]"

Talk about a possible PANTERA "reunion" intensified when Anselmo regularly joined Wylde's BLACK LABEL SOCIETY to perform PANTERA's song "I'm Broken" during DOWN's 2014 stint on the "Revolver Golden Gods Tour". That buzz only got stronger after Brown joined the jam on May 23, 2014 when the tour swung through Texas.

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

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

Ahead of W.A.S.P.'s 40th-anniversary fall 2022 U.S. tour, frontman Blackie Lawless told Ultimate Classic Rock that he has no intention to retire anytime soon.

"I don't think of age as a number," he said. "I think it's how you feel, and I still feel like I'm in my 20s. I feel really good. I can do most everything I've ever done, so I feel pretty good about where I'm at.

"The thoughts of retirement just don't appeal to me," he continued. "I see some people use it as a marketing tool, and I've always thought that was kind of a cheap stunt. I mean, if they're sincere about it, then you probably do — I shouldn't say probably — you do owe it to a fan base to tell them if you're indeed gonna stop.

"I mean, my natural reaction, I'm the kind of person that I would want to just do it till I can't do it anymore," he added. "And then I'd just stop. You know, one day you just don't go into the office anymore. I don't want a gold watch from anybody for my years of servitude. That's not my thing. But I do think that you would have an obligation to let people know if you were indeed gonna stop. But that's just not my thing. That's not the way I would go about it. Because what do you do when you retire?

"You know, we were fortunate enough — and I say we [as in] anybody who does this for a living — you did it because you would've done it for free anyway, so what's there to stop? If you physically cannot do it anymore, I get that. But you've been blessed to make a living at your hobby, this thing that's been your passion. So why do you want to stop? I mean, I don't."

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

W.A.S.P. recently postponed its European 40th-anniversary tour, originally scheduled for spring of 2022, until the spring of 2023. The new dates will take place in March, April and May of 2023. All tickets previously purchased for the 2022 tour will be valid at the rescheduled 2023 shows.

W.A.S.P. will embark on its first U.S. tour in a decade this fall. The trek will coincide the band's 40th anniversary and will include support from ARMORED SAINT and MICHAEL SCHENKER on select shows.

Lawless has led W.A.S.P. as its lead vocalist and primary songwriter since its beginning. His unique brand of visual, social and political comment took the group to worldwide heights and sold millions of records alongside a legacy of sold-out shows across the globe for four decades. He is joined in W.A.S.P.'s current lineup by bassist Mike Duda and guitarist Doug Blair, whose tenures in the band span 26 and 18 years respectively, along with drummer extraordinaire Aquiles Priester.

In a May 2022 interview Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station, Lawless spoke about the status of his long-in-the-works autobiography. He said: "It's taken a whole lot longer than I thought it would, but it's been one of the most fun things I've ever done in my life. It's a tremendous amount of work because there's so many things, over the course of a lifetime, that you forget about, especially when you do what we do for a living. Anybody that does what we do, it's not like the average person out there where you go to work and you do your thing and you get into a routine. And there's nothing wrong with that; it's different.

"I've often said that I've already… because of the schedule and the way that any band has to do things — you're here today; you're somewhere else tomorrow — it's like you've already lived four or five of somebody else's lifetimes," he explained. "And because of the amount of intensity that goes into the same amount of space that everybody has. Twenty-four hours for somebody that does this is not the same as twenty-four hours for somebody that's in a routine. And it can get a little on the insane side.

"The first thing I did was interview everybody that I could think of and said, 'What are your memories of this?'" Blackie revealed. "So I got those. But then where I got the majority of it from was really going back in my own head. And the deeper I got into it, the more things I had totally forgotten about. Because, like I said, there's so many things that will happen in a given day that the only thing you remember is the most intense thing. But maybe the two or three other things that were just under it were just as intense, but you don't remember it. You remember being on the flight the time the guys got angry with a stewardess and stuffed her in the overhead bin, but you don't remember the two or three things that happened under that. That's a true story, by the way."

Asked what he has learned about himself from digging into his life while writing his book, Blackie said: "In the preface of the book, I write that this has been a process of discovery — both good and bad. I would say, after it's all said and done, that it's been far, far more good than bad, because what it's done for me, it's been like writing a script to a movie. And again, like I said, there's a lot of stuff you forget about. But also at the same time, what it does is it helps you connect the dots of your own life, of maybe things that you didn't really think about were connected, and you go back and you look at it and you go, 'This is as plain as the nose on my face. Why couldn't I have seen this before?' And there's been a number of incidences like that — just things that are personal that might not be something that you could share with anybody else, because it wouldn't make sense to them. But then again there may be things that are. So I'm hoping that when people read this, they'll see a lot of themselves in it."

As for whether fans can expect to see Blackie's book and a new W.A.S.P. album released simultaneously, Lawless said: "That was the plan to begin with, but the book is taking way much longer than I thought. We were talking about doing records and trying to get 'em right. Well, it's the same with this — I'm gonna do it once, and I want it to be right."

Original KISS drummer Peter Criss surprised John 5 by leading the audience in a spirited "Happy Birthday" sing-along to celebrate the guitarist's 51st birthday during ROB ZOMBIE's concert in Holmdel, New Jersey Sunday night (July 31).

Prior to launching into the song "Shake Your Ass-Smoke Your Grass" at the PNC Bank Arts Center, Rob addressed the crowd: "Maybe you know, maybe you don't know, today is J5's birthday. As you know, J5 is a really big KISS fan, so I thought to myself, 'What can I get John 5 for his birthday that he doesn't already have?' I went out and got him an original Peter Criss… You don't have this at home, J5, I don't think."

Criss then came out on stage and told the audience: "Hey, listen, it's Johnny's birthday, so I wanna say I'd like you all to sing with me happy birthday to Johnny 5." Everyone happily obliged and a visibly touched John 5 gave Criss a hug before the legendary rocker walked off.

Criss and John 5 are longtime friends, with Peter having made a guest appearance on the guitarist's latest solo album, last year's "Sinner".

John 5, whose real name is John William Lowery, spoke about the collaboration a year ago during an appearance on Sirius XM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk". He said at the time: "Peter Criss is playing drums on the song 'Georgia On My Mind', which is the last song on the record. And I'm telling you… This guy… Barry Pointer, my producer, flew out to Peter's house, set up a couple of mics. Now, this is a jazz type of song, and Peter is known for that jazz feel he has. I shit you not, he sat behind those drums, played two takes. Barry's mouth was dropped open. Wait till you hear this. I mean, it was perfect."

John 5 continued: "It's something you can't teach, is this feel and this vibe. And he nailed it in two takes. And Barry was, like, 'Well, what do we do now?' It took him, like, literally probably eight minutes. And it was just perfect. He was, like, 'There's nothing else we can do. That was perfect.'"

In a 2014 interview, Criss said that he had been working with John 5 on material for a new rock solo album, which he promised would be "heavier" than the stuff he had done in the past.

Criss first left KISS in 1980. Since then he's worked with other bands and released solo albums. He teamed up with KISS again for a reunion tour in the 1990s and most recently in 2004. He was replaced by Eric Singer.

In addition to playing drums in KISS, Peter also provided lead vocals for a number the band's most popular and memorable songs, including "Beth", "Black Diamond" and "Hard Luck Woman".

Criss, who was known as "Catman," released his last solo CD, titled "One For All", in 2007. Peter produced the album himself for the first time, and was joined by guest musicians that included keyboardist Paul Shaffer and bassist Will Lee of "Late Night With David Letterman". The album featured a range of styles, from rock and jazz to blues and Broadway, and included covers of "What A Difference A Day Makes" and "Send In The Clowns".

Criss, who turned 76 last December, played what was being billed as his final U.S. concert in June 2017 at the Cutting Room in New York City.

This past May, Peter joined Australian rockers SISTERS DOLL on stage during their concert at the Cutting Room to perform three songs.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by john5official (@john5official)

Doom metal legends TROUBLE have finally begun recording the follow-up to the band's 2013 album "The Distortion Field".

When TROUBLE announced its co-operation with Hammerheart Records in January 2020, it was already planned to record a new LP in the summer of 2020. However, that did not happen due to several reasons, including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But recording finally started in July 2022, according to founding guitarist Rick Wartell.

Asked what fans can expect from the upcoming TROUBLE effort, which is expected in 2023, Wartell said that "will be a real TROUBLE album, with all the trademarks."

Back in February 2019, singer Kyle Thomas, who joined TROUBLE in 2012, told "The Metal Magdalene With Jet" about the band's plans for a new album: "This time they've actually written songs with me in mind as the singer instead of, 'These songs were written when Kory Clarke was in the band, but that didn't work out, so let's give it to Kyle and have him back-cleanup, I guess.'"

TROUBLE's first studio album in six years, "The Distortion Field", landed at position No. 25 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200. Released in Europe in August 2013 via FRW Records, the 12-song follow-up to 2007's "Simple Mind Condition" was helmed by veteran producer Bill Metoyer (SLAYER, W.A.S.P., ARMORED SAINT, DARK ANGEL, SACRED REICH, CRYPTIC SLAUGHTER, D.R.I.) and marked the recording debut with Thomas following the departure of the group's frontman of four years, Kory Clarke (of WARRIOR SOUL fame).

TROUBLE played its first show with the band's new lineup in October 2013 at the Day Of Doom festival in Barcelona, Spain.

TROUBLE 2022 is:

Kyle Thomas (vocals)
Rob Hultz (bass)
Mark Lira (drums)
Bruce Franklin (guitar)
Rick Wartell (guitar)

TROUBLE formed in 1979 and released several classic albums like "Trouble", "Manic Frustration" and "Plastic Green Head".

Singer Eric Wagner left TROUBLE in April 2008, citing his disdain for the touring life as the main reason for his departure.

Eric, who was TROUBLE's original singer, died in August 2021 after a battle with COVID pneumonia. He was 62 years old.

According to Wagner's TROUBLE and THE SKULL bandmate Ron Holzner, Eric was generally opposed to institutionalized medicine but he wouldn't make an exception for the COVID vaccine.

"We argued about it, and he stood his ground on the matter," Holzner told the Chicago Reader. "I always joked, 'The World According To Eric Wagner — you should write a book.' He lived his life his way."

Wagner, who smoked cigarettes and occasionally drank and vaped, had health issues, but had begun taking better care of himself and switching to a plant-based diet, Holzner said.

Ginger Wildheart & The Sinners announce the release of their debut album on October 7th via Wicked Cool Records.


Their self-titled album is an energetic album that celebrates rock’n’roll and as Ginger explains it is in “the spirit of the music that we all collectively love, from childhood to the present day. Little Feat, The Allman Brothers, Wilco, The Band, Creedence, The Jayhawks, Lone Justice, Jason & the Scorchers, Georgia Satellites, Status Quo, The Stones… from roots country to rock n roll and Americana.”


The uplifting new single “is about a dream Not necessarily one that will come true but enough to have something to look forward to, especially when times seem a little hopeless.”







Ginger adds, "'Lately Always' is a song about hope. About having a dream or a goal just big enough to cling onto and stay afloat on the choppy waters of life. Too much reality can bring some ugly side effects, like disappointment, resentment, or the crushing weight of anticlimax.


Sometimes you need a dream just to keep going, whether daydreaming about a holiday, fantasizing about a new love or imagining a new life for yourself. Some dreams come true, some don't, but every dream helps escape the boredom of real life.


We live at a time when hope is in bigger demand than ever. This song offers hope, escapism and positivity, all wrapped up in a good tune and some tasty harmonies."


And that, right there, is exactly what Ginger Wildheart & The Sinners are all about.. Sanctuary for a tired mind and a weary heart. The comfort of emotionally connecting with a song. The medicine that nothing but music can ever be.





Tracklisting:


"Wasted Times"
"That Smile"
"Footprints In The Sand"
"Lately, Always"
"Dirty Water"
"Work In Progress"
"Breakout"
"Six Years Gone"
"Not The Staying Kind"
"Code Of The Road"


"Wasted Times" video:





For further details, visit Ginger Wildheart & The Sinners on Facebook.


 

In the clip below, Hypocrisy / Pain frontman Peter Tägtgren chats with Finland's  Chaoszine about his journey as a metal frontman. 


On becoming a vocalist


Peter: "At the beginning of the '90s I wanted to try and combine Glen Benton with David Vincent and L-G Petrov. Those were the three highlight bands, so to say: Deicide, Morbid Angel and Entombed. That was the perfect mix for me."







Hypocrisy's latest album, Worship, is 11 tracks of precise, ferocious musicianship. Commonly inspired by the fusion of the modern and the ancient, Hypocrisy has once more found a way to combine innovative ideas with classic sound in order to deliver something metalheads can enjoyably consume with awe and brutal vigor. As usual, all recording and mixing took place at Tägtgren’s Abyss Studio AB in Sweden while mastering was completed by Svante Forsbäck at Chartmakers Audio Mastering. Designed by artist Blake Armstrong (Kataklysm, In Flames, Carnifex), Worship’s artwork speaks to the history of the relationship between humanity and extraterrestrials.


Worship was released on November 26, 2021 via Nuclear Blast Records. 





Worship tracklisting:


"Worship"
"Chemical Whore"
"Greedy Bastards"
"Dead World"
"We're The Walking Dead"
"Brotherhood Of The Serpent"
"Children Of The Gray"
"Another Day"
"They Will Arrive"
"Bug In The Net"
"Gods Of The Underground"


"Dead World" video:





"Chemical Whore" video:





Hypocrisy is:


Peter Tägtgren - Vocals, Guitars
Mikael Hedlund - Bass
Reidar Horghagen - Drums
Thomas Elofsson - Session Guitarist

Los Angeles-based post-industrial metal band Zeistencroix has created something quite unique when compared to anything they've ever done before. Specifically, their new single “Ice Queen”.


Released on July 29th, “Ice Queen” can be saved / added at this location, and enjoyed below. The song is personal to the band. It's emotionally driven and very different from what they are used to writing, but at the same time, it feels right to them.







“The song is about a relationship, how one can feel left out of the picture because the other partner never fought enough, or how one can regret not being aware of what was going on in the relationship,” says Zeistencroix vocalist Orlando Draven. “How someone be so cold to leave everything without a care in the world, it is a love song.”


“Ice Queen” was produced and mixed by Tim Palmer, who commented, “Great to mix again for Zeistencroix. Once more the band have delivered powerful songs that manage to remain melodic, but are still as heavy as hell. The challenge of the mixing was to bring out all the beauty of the music, but present it as powerfully as possible. I think we achieved this!”


Inspired by a variety of musical genres, including metal, jazz, rock, and grunge, Zeistencroix consists of leaf singer Orlando Draven, or OD; drummer Santi Rivillas, or Santi; and guitarist Akopan, or AKO. The trio harmonize to create boiling tracks and waves of vibrations indicative of a new era.


Zeistencroix will release their new EP, Cruix-Fixion, on August 26th via Pavement Entertainment. It's being recorded and mixed at Stygian Sound with Alex Crescioni and Tim Palmer. For further details, visit Zeistencroix on Facebook.


 

In a new interview with John Beaudin of RockHistoryMusic.com, original FOREIGNER singer Lou Gramm was asked what he thinks of the band's current frontman, Kelly Hansen, who has been in the group for nearly two decades.

"Kelly is all right," Lou said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "He's a good singer. But I think Mick [Jones, FOREIGNER's founding guitarist and leader] really told Kelly, when he first got in the band, that he had to study me, because he sings those songs with the same musical innuendos and vocal licks and ad-libs as I have. He's mimicking me. His voice doesn't sound like me, but he's singing the songs the way I would sing them.

"Some people say, 'Well, take it as a compliment, Lou.' I don't take it as a compliment," Gramm continued. "You're a singer with a big band like that — use your voice and your style. Don't hang your coat on my hook.

"I don't think he should sing the songs verbatim like me," Lou added. "Maybe sing a couple of parts. But let his own influences show — show the fans that he's the new singer now, not me."

Asked what it was like to share the stage with Hansen and other members of the current and original FOREIGNER lineup in 2017 and 2018 to celebrate the band's 40th anniversary, Lou said: "It was okay. [Kelly] was bouncing off the walls. He couldn't stand still or sit still. After a song ended, I couldn't even get a word to thank the audience or tell 'em that I was happy to be part of the reunion. At the end of the song, the last song hit, and there wasn't a quarter of a second of space before he was yapping away to the audience… It was, like, 'Jeez, will you quiet down for a minute?'"

Pressed about whether it is "over now" for him and FOREIGNER, Lou said: "I think so, yeah. I don't wanna be a part of it. Well, Ian [McDonald, guitar] has passed away and Ed Gagliardi [bass] passed away, even though he wasn't part of the reunions. Two original members of the six are now gone. And Mick is in very poor health. I think when the new FOREIGNER plays, I've heard that he comes on for one song and then waves and goes offstage. [In the recent past] he would play the whole last half of the set. But then he was in the hospital again for weeks. He had some heart problems and his recovery time was very long and tedious. And I heard that he comes out for one song now — when he comes on. Most of the time FOREIGNER has no original FOREIGNER members in it."

Gramm was the voice on FOREIGNER's biggest hits, including "Feels Like The First Time" and "Cold As Ice" from the band's eponymous debut in 1977, and later songs like "Hot Blooded" and "I Want to Know What Love Is".

The 72-year-old Gramm left FOREIGNER for good in 2002 and has battled health issues in recent years, including the removal of a non-cancerous tumor. He told the Democrat & Chronicle in 2018 that he was planning to retire, but still reunited with FOREIGNER for several shows that year.

FOREIGNER replaced Gramm with Hansen in 2005. Jones, the only remaining original member of FOREIGNER, suffered from some health issues beginning in 2011, eventually resulting in heart surgery in 2012.

Gramm and Jones's June 2013 performance of "I Want To Know What Love Is" and "Juke Box Hero" at the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in New York City marked the first time the pair performed together in a decade after Gramm left FOREIGNER for a second time. Hansen has fronted the group for the past 17 years.

Photo credit: Karsten Staiger

The Dead Daisies have shared a new video recapping week 8 of their European tour. The band states: “From France to Germany we've torn up stages and hung out with the most amazing rock crowds! We're feeling the heat and lovin' it! Check out some of the on-tour shenanigans!”





Last week, The Dead Daisies announced that "the dreaded virus has hit the camp again with Glenn Hughes testing positive and unfortunately unable to continue.




The band added: "In the spirit of The Dead Daisies, 'The Show Must Go On'. As Yogi filled in for David when he was crook, we're forging forward with Yogi playing bass and Dino Jelusick (Whitesnake) joining us on vocals for the rest of these shows."


Jelusick has shared video of the band's July 26th performance at Théâtre Antique de Vienne in Vienne, France.


Jelusick: "First time singing 'Mistreated', no rehearsal. Got a call to do this gig a day before. Opening for Judas Priest."


Line-up:
David Lowy - Guitar
Doug Aldrich - Guitar
Dino Jelusick - Vocals
Yogi Lonich - Bass
Brian Tichy - Drums


Remaining tour dates are as follows:


August
2 - Bamberg, Germany - Brose Arena (special guest for Judas Priest)
5 - Knislinge, Sweden - Time To Rock Festival


The Dead Daisies are set to release their sixth studio album, Radiance, on September 30. Radiance is ten tracks of pure unadulterated brilliant rock. The power of Doug Aldrich and David Lowy’s dual guitars provide a wall of sonic nectar. Front man Glenn Hughes rock solid bass grooves and unmatched vocal intensity, still among the greatest rock singers of all time and the matrix of Brian Tichy’s drums set the engine room on fire!


Radiating heat, Radiance takes you on an exhilarating ride. The first singles off the album, "Radiance" and "Shine On" went straight to air on radio across the globe, were added to digital playlists and received with open arms by tens of thousands of fans and audiences on their EU Summer Tour when played live.


“The new album Radiance is our 2nd album with Ben Grosse producing from top to bottom. We had a great time composing and recording the record and I’m very excited for you all to hear what we put together. Definitely a heavy album but with some cool twists and turns! Hope you all like it.” - Doug Aldrich


Radiance is the second instalment The Daisies have recorded with esteemed producer Ben Grosse at the helm, recorded at The Mix Room in North Hollywood California. All the songs on Radiance are written by David Lowy, Doug Aldrich and Glenn Hughes. Hard-hitting drummer Brian Tichy returned to The Daisies in early 2022 to lay down the drums on Radiance.


“I am very much looking forward to the release of Radiance, the newest LP from The Dead Daisies! It was great to start off being back in the band by getting together with Doug, Glenn, David, and producer Ben Grosse at his studio dialling in the songs that make up Radiance. It was a very smooth, organized process of jamming with the guys getting all drum grooves and parts just right! The final result is another slab of butt-kicking rock! The guys all brought their A-Game and a tight, powerful record was created! I’m looking forward to everyone hearing it and playing more of these songs live in the near future!” - Brian Tichy


Radiance will be available as a Digipak CD with sticker, Gatefold black vinyl with printed inner sleeves and digitally from September 30. Pre-order here.





Tracklisting:


"Face Your Fear"
"Hypnotize Yourself"
"Shine On"
"Radiance"
"Born To Fly"
"Kiss The Sun"
"Courageous"
"Cascade"
"Not Human"
"Roll On"


"Shine On" video:





"Radiance" video:





US fall tour dates:


September
7 - Vineland, NJ - The Landis Theater
10 - Danville, VA - Blue Ridge Rock Festival
11 - Fall Church, VA - State Theatre
14 - Nashville, TN - Eastside Bowl
15 - St. Charles, IL - Arcada Theatre
18 - Los Angeles, CA - The Vermont Hollywood
21 - Roseville, CA - Goldfield Trading Post
23 - Portland, OR - Bossanova Ballroom
24 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile

Punk rock veterans BAD RELIGION have canceled the remainder of their 2022 European tour due to "a family emergency within the band."

Earlier today, BAD RELIGION released the following statement via social media: "There has been a family emergency within the band, and as a result, we must cancel the remainder of our UK and European tour dates for this year.

"We apologize for any inconvenience, and thank you for your patience and understanding."

Having celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2020, BAD RELIGION formed in 1980 in the suburbs of Los Angeles. The band has become synonymous with intelligent and provocative West Coast punk rock and are considered one of the most influential and important bands in the genre. BAD RELIGION has continually pushed social boundaries and questioned authority and beliefs armed only with propulsive guitars, charging drumbeats, thoughtful lyrics and an undying will to inspire and provoke anyone who will listen.

The band released its 17th studio album, "Age Of Unreason", in 2019. The critically acclaimed record offers a fiery and intensely relevant musical response to the times, with songs that address a myriad of socio-political maladies, including conspiracy theories, racist rallies, Trump's election, the erosion of the middle class, alternative facts and more. There is a stylistic consistency to the band's iconic and influential sound — hard fast beats, big hooks and rousing choruses, yet each new song remains distinctive, utilizing composition, melody and lyrics to deliver a unique narrative consistent with the band's longstanding humanist worldview.

In December 2020, BAD RELIGION celebrated its 40 years of making music with "Decades", a four-episode online streaming event captured live at The Roxy Theatre in Hollywood, California. The band felt it important to commemorate the conclusion of 2020 as a strange moment in history when they reached that 40-year milestone. The celebratory episodes included live performance footage, exclusive interviews, and a peek at their rehearsals leading up to the taping of "Decades".

In August 2020, BAD RELIGION released its autobiography, "Do What You Want: The Story Of Bad Religion", written with the group's full cooperation and support. It reveals the ups and downs of the band's 40-year career, from their beginnings as teenagers experimenting in a San Fernando Valley garage dubbed "The Hell Hole" to headlining major music festivals around the world. The book predominantly features the four principal voices of BAD RELIGION in a hybrid oral history/narrative format: Greg Graffin, Brett Gurewitz, Jay Bentley and Brian Baker. It also includes rare photos and never-before-seen material from their archives.

Earlier this year, Graffin told Spokesman.com that he and Gurewitz were working on new material, but that BAD RELIGION fans going to the band's concert shouldn't expect anything more recent than tracks from "Age Of Unreason".

"We have plenty of songs to play," Graffin said. "We're working on new stuff, but we're fine with playing songs fans are familiar with — we've covered a lot of ground over the years."

BAD RELIGION's current lineup also includes guitarists Brian Baker and Mike Dimkich and drummer Jamie Miller.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bad Religion (@badreligionband)

In a new interview with We Go To 11, bassist Billy Sheehan was asked if there is any existing professionally filmed video of a concert performance by VAN HALEN singer David Lee Roth and the band for his debut solo album, "Eat 'Em And Smile". "I've got it," Billy responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "I have it. I think I'm the only guy with it. They shot it pro. It's Dave's tour and Dave's business, so I can't do anything with it, unfortunately. At some point, maybe I'll try and get in touch with Dave, 'Do you wanna put this out?' But I had a pro-shot [video]… I forgot how I got it. As far as I know, nobody else has it. I just reviewed it the other day and backed it up again to another three drives to make sure I didn't lose it."

Sheehan continued: "I'm not sure if it could be out someday, if Dave would be interested in doing it, but I've got it; it's here for him. If he wants it, I'll be happy to put it on my Dropbox and send it over to him. But most of [the videos that are out there] are hand-held [clips], shaky with [muffled] audio. This one is — the audio is good; it's not great. But it's better than most of the hand-held camera things.

"Back then, a video camera, to sneak it into a venue [was very difficult], but somehow people did. It's pretty amazing. I mean, they were sneaking bottles of Jack Daniel's in, and a camera wasn't too far of a stretch during concerts in 1986 there.

"So, yeah, I do have a pro-shot [concert]," Billy repeated. "And for a while I couldn't find it, so I thought, 'Did I imagine that? Am I fooling myself here?' But sure enough, the other day, 'Uh-uh. There it is. I've got it.'"

This past February, guitar legend Steve Vai said that the train had "left the station" when it comes to a proposed reunion of Roth's solo band following the cancelation of their November 2015 performance in Hollywood.

Roth's "Eat 'Em And Smile" reunion at the Lucky Strike Live nearly seven years ago was called off at the last minute by the fire marshal. The show would have marked the first time in three decades that Roth joined Vai, Sheehan, drummer Greg Bissonette (RINGO STARR & HIS ALL-STARR BAND) and keyboardist Brett Tuggle to perform some of the hits from the classic LP.

Asked in an interview with Barbara Caserta of Italy's Linea Rock about the possibility of a "Eat 'Em And Smile"-era band reunion, Vai said: "You never know about these things. And we touched on it in the past. It's a logistical thing too, because Dave had VAN HALEN, I had my solo career, Billy has… everybody is kind of busy. And I would only have done it with the 'Eat 'Em And Smile' [lineup], I think. And the idea was very intriguing, and I never rule out anything. But as time went on, the train kind of left the station. I understand now that Dave is retiring so I don't know when something like that could happen. It's a long shot."

Vai, Sheehan and Bissonette reunited on in January 2019 for a two-song performance at "Ultimate NAMM Night" in Anaheim, California. They were joined by singer Jeff Scott Soto (SONS OF APOLLO, TALISMAN, YNGWIE MALMSTEEN) to play a cover of the QUEEN classic "Tie Your Mother Down" and the Sheehan-penned TALAS headbanger "Shy Boy" which appeared on the "Eat 'Em And Smile" album.

"Eat 'Em And Smile" was the first of two Roth albums to feature the duo of Vai and Sheehan on guitar and bass.

Billy said in a 2017 interview with Songfacts that he was "ready to go" if Roth ever decided to do some shows with the "Eat 'Em And Smile" band. "We have a great respect and love for Dave and what he did for us," he continued. "There's no secret undercurrent thing going on that I'm not talking about. The fact of the matter is it's Dave's call. If he chooses to do so, I couldn't be happier."

In January, Roth issued a brief statement after the cancelation of the remaining farewell shows he was set to play at the House Of Blues at Mandalay Bay. The 67-year-old VAN HALEN frontman had previously scrapped concerts scheduled for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and was to play a total of nine shows as he vowed to retire from performing live.

When asked if Roth's farewell performances will take place at a later date, he told Fox News Digital in a statement: "It's not about me anymore. When the benefits for Kentucky, Colorado, and Farm Aid kick in; Call me."

In a similarly worded statement to EW, Roth said about the cancelation of his Vegas residency: "Sometimes you win, Sometimes you lose, We got rained out.. "Covid cancelled.

"Future shows? When the benefit concerts for Colorado, Farm Aid, and hospital workers 'everywhere' come up; Call me..," he added.

In October, the legendary VAN HALEN singer announced that he was ending his career with his Vegas shows during the first weeks of January. "I am throwing in the shoes. I'm retiring," Roth told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "These are my last shows." He added: "I'm not going to explain the statement. The explanation is in a safe."

Mark Hoppus has shot down rumors that Tom DeLonge was rejoining BLINK-182.

Hoppus addressed the online chatter after DeLonge shared a photograph of his former band on Instagram earlier this week. DeLonge also updated his Instagram bio to include BLINK-182 in the mention of his musical endeavors.

Hoppus took to his Discord page to write: "There is no news to share. There is no announcement. Today is thirty years of BLINK-182!"

He added: "If and when blink has any announcement about anything, you will hear it from the official BLINK-182 outlets. Not teased on a radio station like 'tune in for a major announcement…Tom tagged Mark in a photo from two decades ago.'"

Hoppus went on to say that while BLINK-182 "will tour again and when it's booked and confirmed we'll announce it."

A founding member of BLINK-182, DeLonge, exited the group in 2015 saying he wanted to "change the world for my kids and everybody else's." He was replaced in the band by ALKALINE TRIO's Matt Skiba. DeLonge has since recorded and toured with ANGELS AND AIRWAVES.

Three years ago, DeLonge told Rolling Stone that there is still "a lot of love and respect" between him and former bandmates, adding "I think there will be a time, absolutely, that we play together."

"We all love each other and care about each other," he said. "We don't always see eye to eye. I think people see the differences in our art. I love seeing how they've evolved and what they're doing. I think when people look at ANGELS AND AIRWAVES and what I'm doing, they can tell the differences. And sometimes it's hard when you're all trying to paint the same painting. And every once in a while, I like to see what the painting will be if I do it a different way. Off to the side. I think there's a healthy respect for everyone to be able to paint their own paintings."

The most recent BLINK-182 lineup of Hoppus, Skiba and drummer Travis Barker (pictured above) recorded two albums together — 2016's "California" and 2019's "Nine" — and has toured extensively.

Montreal, Canada's The Occult are presenting their third single “Watch You Die”, off their upcoming self-titled debut album slated for a release next month. The single is the opening track on the album and a great introduction to a record full of catchy punk riffs, bouncy rock ‘n’ roll energy, gritty yet melodic vocals, and lyrical themes ranging from dark and macabre, to critical and political all incorporating influences from ‘80s and ‘90s thrash to Seattle grunge. 


Vocalist/songwriter Eric Savanis shares his thoughts on the single, the upcoming video and the album:


“Lyrically, the single is pretty self-explanatory if you ask me. Musically, it’s very dynamic and certainly a favourite to play live. As for the rest of the album, while the songs might seem tongue and cheek at times, there’s magick permeating everywhere on the record. As a student of Western Hermeticism, it’s no coincidence that the band is called The Occult. Raf, our guitarist, worked his ass off on the upcoming video which is gonna blow people’s minds.”




The music and the lyrics on the album are all composed by Savanis. On the album, he is joined by guitarist Alex Klimantiris (Purple Meadow), bassist Gianni Berretta (House of Dusk/Beware) and drummer Justin Piedimonte (Immortal Guardian/The Chronicles of Israfel). The live lineup is different as is features bassist Carlos Carvalho & guitarist Rafael Corzo.


With a wide range of influences, there are elements in the music to satiate a colourful array of music lovers - some of their tunes relate to horror fiction, but they are certainly not a horror punk band. They don’t want to be lumped into a decisive genre as they find it limiting, they do lean heavily into lyrics of a darker nature including real-life events.


The Occult brings clean and accessible punk rock to listeners who are sure to fall into the vibe quite easily. They are recommended for fans of Misfits, Guns N’ Roses, and The Ramones.


The self-titled album will be available on August 19, 2022. Digital album pre-save available here.





Tracklisting:


“Watch You Die”
“In This Night”
“Deth Doll”
“Strangling Republicans”
“It’s Amateur Hour”
“20 Years”
“Dots”
“Gotta Love Those Humans”
“Dine With Me”
“Team Satan”
“Planet Pisces” 
“Nicole”
“Occupy Unite” 


"Watch You Die" video:





"Planet Pisces":





“In This Night”:

Ted Nugent has once again shot down the claim that he dodged the Vietnam draft by vomiting and defecating on himself and failing the physical exam.

The outspoken conservative rocker said in a 1977 High Times magazine article that he faked symptoms (being unhygienic to appear mentally unfit) and used meth before his military physical to get out of serving. But in a 2006 interview with the U.K. Independent newspaper, he said he made up that story to the High Times reporter.

The 73-year-old musician brought up the accusation of draft dodging during a YouTube livestream earlier today (Sunday, July 31). Addressing one of the points most frequently raised by his critics, Ted said: "They claim I dodged the draft. I didn't dodge the draft. I was Bruce Lee. [They say] 'Well, he got a 4-F' [one of the classifications used by the Selective Service to designate someone who is unfit for military service]. I got a 1-Y [referring to registrants qualified for service only in time of war or national emergency]. I was eligible for the draft. I was in the Oakland Community College as a student for those two years, and I got a 1-Y, which means, I guess, they wouldn't take me as quick as they would take a 1[-A], but in '69 they stopped taking guys.'

He repeated: "I didn't dodge the draft. Get over it. That was a High Times magazine interview where I conveyed the story of my buddy, this great drummer KJ Knight [who played with Nugent in THE AMBOY DUKES]. It was hysterical. He completely ruined his entire life just to get out of the draft, which was cool because the Vietnam war was illegal. If I would have known what I know now then, I would have dodged the draft. Like Muhammad Ali. The Vietnam war was immoral; it was illegal. It was the military industrial congressional complex robbing taxpayers and getting Americans killed for no fucking reason at all. But I didn't dodge the draft. I wasn't smart enough. If I would have gone over there, I might have won the fucking war, okay?"

When High Times writer Glenn O'Brien interviewed Nugent in 1977, Ted said about how he supposedly got out of the draft: "I got my physical notice 30 days prior to [being drafted]. Well, on that day I ceased cleansing my body. No more brushing my teeth, no more washing my hair, no baths, no soap, no water. Thirty days of debris build. I stopped shavin', and I was 18, had a little scraggly beard, really looked like a hippie. I had long hair, and it started getting' kinky, matted up. Then two weeks before, I stopped eating any food with nutritional value. I just had chips, Pepsi, beer — stuff I never touched — buttered poop, little jars of Polish sausages, and I'd drink the syrup, I was this side of death. Then a week before, I stopped going to the bathroom. I did it in my pants. Poop, piss the whole shot. My pants got crusted up."

Nugent also explained that he was typically "extremely anti-drug" but "I snorted some crystal methedrine" in order to avoid the draft.

Perhaps giving some credence to Ted's version is the fact that Kenny Mills, the drummer who goes by the stage name of KJ Knight, claimed in his autobiography that he "used wild antics" at the Selective Service physical and was quickly dismissed from serving.

Fact Checker and the Reno Gazette Journal both obtained military records showing that Nugent got a student deferment, which is not "draft dodging" given that he showed up for the medical exam, according to a recent update from High Times. It was therefore determined that there's not enough evidence to definitively conclude that Nugent actually dodged the draft.

This past May, fellow rocker Joan Jett brought up Nugent's alleged draft dodging while responding to Ted's claim that she did not deserve to be on Rolling Stone magazine's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists. At the time, she said: "Ted Nugent has to live with being Ted Nugent. He has to be in that body, so that's punishment enough.

"He's not a tough guy. He plays tough guy, but this is the guy who shit his pants — literally — so he didn’t have to go in the Army. So this is the tough guy who's running around America, stirring things up against each other."

Fan-filmed video of ANTHRAX's July 30 performance at Heart Health Park in Sacramento, California can be seen below.

ANTHRAX kicked off its North American tour with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY on Tuesday, July 26 at Van Buren in Phoenix, Arizona. As was the case with the Sacramento show, ANTHRAX's setlist included the addition of the John Bush-era track "Only", which hadn't been performed live since 2011.

"Only" originally appeared on 1993's "Sound Of White Noise", one of four albums Bush recorded with ANTHRAX during his 13-year tenure with the band.

Current ANTHRAX singer Joey Belladonna, whose most recent return to the band was officially announced in May 2010, was originally the lead singer of ANTHRAX from 1984 to 1992, and was considered part of the group's classic lineup (alongside Dan Spitz, Scott Ian, Frank Bello and Charlie Benante),which reunited and toured during 2005 and 2006. His voice was featured on over 10 albums, which reportedly sold eight million copies worldwide.

In a 2016 interview with Kazagastão, Belladonna said about his exit from ANTHRAX in 1992 before officially rejoining the band in 2010: "It's sucky that I was gone for that long, you know what I mean? I never understand that. It does bother me [that I was fired], even today, 'cause… We didn't miss a beat and I think we would have done… I can't imagine what we could have done along the way. No offense to anything else, but I just didn't see any reason for it."

Asked if he had heard any material ANTHRAX recorded with Bush during the time Belladonna was away from the band, Joey said: "I don't listen to it. I have no interest in it. I don't know… Something about it. It doesn't really appeal to me, for some reason. I mean, I enjoy that they play the way they do and everything, I just never… I never was interested in it. It wasn't anything against [Bush] at all."

Although Joey did perform "Only" live with ANTHRAX on a couple of occasions in the past, the track had been absent from the band's set for more than a decade before being played last night in Phoenix. "We've got enough songs [that were originally recorded with me on vocals]," Joey explained in the Kazagastão interview. "We don't even do [all the songs] we should… We've got all these other songs we could play. But now we've got new stuff, so now we've gotta try to fit in four or five brand new songs."

He continued: "I always like to look at it like… I remember when [Sammy] Hagar came in [after joining VAN HALEN], he had to do the old stuff. But when [David Lee] Roth came back, he wasn't gonna touch anything, even though he probably would have a hard time doing it. So we've got enough material; I don't need to go back. I'd just as soon leave that alone. I mean, once in a while I get people complaining, and then after a while, it got really old too. I hate that whole thing, 'cause we're not even the same… We happened to be in the same band, but it's a completely different thing. And who's judging? What's the deal with that? To think that what he was doing, that he could have done what I did in the beginning, I don't believe that."

Joey went on to say that he dislikes being compared to any other other ANTHRAX singers. "That's what I hate about the whole thing," he said. "I hate that there was even anybody else in there that I have to… But now I just don't care about it — I really don't — 'cause I can't. To me, it's just a bunch of hype. It sucked in the beginning; it really did."

In a 2017 interview with Metal On Loud, Joey was asked how he feels about the music ANTHRAX recorded while he was out of the band. He said: "It seemed good. I don't know. If I was to compare it, I didn't hear anything that we were doing that wasn't as good [as what they ended up doing with Bush]. I didn't hear anything that blew me away. I thought the music end of it was good, John's decent, but just the overall thing… I think we had something cool there, and I didn't hear that [in the music they made with John]. But that wasn't meaning it wasn't good; it just wasn't my idea of better, being better about it. It was just different, you know? I enjoyed the style that they were trying to dig into. I think they kind of straightened it all out a little bit, but it wasn't as thrashy in some ways sometimes too. I don't know. It gets crazy after a while when you're trying to explain it all. It's, like, it was what it was, you know?"

In one of the video testimonials to coincide with ANTHRAX's 40th anniversary in 2021, current and former members of the band reflected on Belladonna's original departure and Bush's addition as his replacement.

Regarding the decision to part ways with Belladonna, Ian said: "By the time we finished the year-and-a-half touring cycle — 20, 21 months of touring cycle, and then '[Attack Of The] Killer B's' comes out. I think the last thing we did together as a band with Joey was [our appearance] on [the] 'Married With Children' [TV show]. And then it wasn't long after that when we made the change. But it wasn't a quick decision. We were very much a united front, the four of us. Because otherwise it wouldn't have happened.

"There's never an easy way to talk about this stuff," he continued. "Certainly when you're in the thick of it, when it's happening, it's horrible when you're having to make a decision like this. But it just really came down to, creatively, we all just felt like there was just no way for the band to move forward. We had just hit a wall. It was the heaviest decision in the history of the band, certainly. And even that I feel like doesn't give it the weight that it needs. And there was never anything personal with Joey — it was never personal with him. It just really came down to the creative ability for the band, honestly, to move forward. And I hate that it's something that happened.

"Obviously, things are meant to be," Scott added. "I am somewhat of a spiritual person. I've seen and done enough in my life to know that sometimes shit doesn't just happen randomly. The way everything worked out in the end, with Joey coming back in 2010, and the band, for the last 11 years, being creatively better than we've ever been and in a better place than we've ever been, I have to say that I really believe that it all worked out for some reason. That doesn't make it any easier on Joey certainly; there's nothing I can say that ever would."

Bello said about Belladonna's exit from the group: "It's so strange for me to even talk about this now, because Joey's back in the band now, and it's like he's never been gone.

"It was a hard thing when Joey was out," he admitted. "It was a change, but I think it was best for the band 'cause of where we were going. It was a hard decision. I think we were going in a different way musically, and you could hear it."

Added Benante: "The 1991 me was more arrogant than I am now. Because the problem is I love Joey so much, and at the time we were different people doing it, and we felt this was the only thing for us to take us into the next level or the next chapter of the band. Yeah, it was tough."

Ian previously opened up about the decision to fire Belladonna three decades ago during a 2016 appearance on the "WTF With Marc Maron" podcast. He stated at the time: "I just truly didn't have the patience anymore. I think my biggest problem was I was writing the words, and I couldn't deal with the fact anymore that someone else was singing my lyrics, but I couldn't sing; there was no way I could be the singer of ANTHRAX. I think it really, really did come down to that — that I couldn't stand it anymore. These are my words, these are my feelings, it's my emotions, and you're not me. And even learning the songs and hearing them back, that's not how I hear it in my head. 'No, no. Like this. Like this. Like this. Like this.'"

He continued: "My solution at the time was turning around to the rest of the band and saying, 'It's either [Joey] or me.' I pulled the same shit Neil Turbin [former ANTHRAX singer] pulled years before that. I said, 'I can't do this again. We need to make a change.' And it wasn't just me holding the gun. Everyone was on the same page. Everyone felt like what we had done as ANTHRAX in the '80s into the early '90s, we had already moved past that. The sound was changing.

"If you listen to 'Persistence Of Time' [1990], musically, that record has more to do with 'Sound Of White Noise', the first John Bush record, than it has to do with 'State Of Euphoria' [1988], the previous ANTHRAX album. Musically, we were already going somewhere else, but Joey, for us, I guess at the time, felt like, 'He's not representing us anymore.'"

Ian went on to say that he has since come to see Joey's unique vocal contributions in a different light than he did more than twenty years ago. "Of course, I spent a year of my life writing a book ['I'm The Man: The Story Of That Guy From Anthrax'] and looking back on that time and really kind of getting back into those shoes, and… we should have given the guy a shot," he said. "Why we didn't give him the shot, I really don't know why we weren't able to… Because I even remember, I remember Jonny Z, our manager, he was, 'Are you sure? Are you sure this is the decision you wanna make?' 'Yes, yes, yes.'"

The guitarist added that at least part of the reason ANTHRAX made a singer change was to take the sound in a heavier direction, something that they didn't think was possible with Belladonna at the helm.

"I wanted it to be harder," Ian said. "I couldn't do it, but I wanted someone who could almost… I wanted it to be harder. I didn't want Lemmy — I didn't want it to sound like that — I just wanted it to be harder. And John [Bush] brought it, for sure."

Bush told Metal Talk about the task of replacing Joey Belladonna in ANTHRAX back in 1992: "I respect Joey Belladonna; he did great for ANTHRAX in his heyday and in the years that he made records and they were popular. You know, I think I just went out and did it from my heart and just said, 'Hey, I'm gonna go out and kick ass and sing to the best of my ability.' And I think we made some great records. I just think they were different records than what ANTHRAX did in the '80s."

He continued: "The funny thing is, sometimes there was this, 'Oh, we're the same band. Oh, we're the same band,' and looking back, well, we kind of were a little different band. I think we were. But at that time, we kept trying to convince people, 'Oh, it's the same band. It's the same band.' But when you make a singer change, the sound will change a little bit, which, that was what the intention was at the time."

ANTHRAX's latest album, "For All Kings", which features Belladonna, came out in February 2016 via Nuclear Blast.

ANTHRAX's tour with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY will wrap up in Philadelphia at the Fillmore on Sunday, August 28. Both bands are playing headline sets. HATEBREED, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the "Perseverance" album, is the special guest.

Burden Of The Sky released the official music video for their single "The Flood." The band will be touring on Sevendust’s Animosity Tour in September.





"When we began writing 'The Flood' we were in a dark headspace. We were angry and mournful after the passing of our guitarist and founding member Bradford Shaw. Our only goal was to write a song that we could pour our soul and emotions into in honor of our fallen brother. Once we had a demo put together, we reached out to Blake (SAUL) and Morgan (Sevendust) and told them our story. We asked them to contribute their own experiences and emotions to the song and the result was better than we could have ever asked for," says Scottie James.




He adds, “'The Flood' is symbolic of all of the struggles in life, our demons that try to bring us down and swallow us whole; the ever-looming darkness and misery that is held back by our own will that inevitably will come crashing through the second we let our guard down. This song is our way of saying we will stand our ground — strong, fierce, and determined — in solidarity against anything life throws our way; even though we know we cannot win, we will fight for what we believe in until our last breath."


Burden Of The Sky is an alternative metal band hailing from Bloomington, IL. Formed in 2012 by Josh Appel and the late Brad Shaw, the band has built itself as one of the most well-known bands in the Midwest. Led by lead singer Scottie James and guitarist Josh Appel, the band has performed across the Midwest and beyond with many of today’s hottest active rock bands. With a lineup rounded out by drummer Rick Streeter, bassist Dustin Tritsch, guitarist and backing vocalist TJ Duckwiler, and keyboardist Mike Mahoney, “BOTS” regularly leaves fans begging for more once they leave the stage.


Having hit the stage with acts such as Sevendust, Ice Nine Kills, A Day To Remember, I Prevail, Nothing More, Asking Alexandria and more, the band continues to show they belong on the big stage. Their debut album, Cinis Ad Cinis, featured the single “Same Old Page”, which has amassed millions of streams since its 2017 release. Sophomore album Sine Timore was led by “Sirens”, which was featured on many top Spotify playlists, gaining over a million streams. Most recently, the band released a cover of Ellie Goulding’s “Lights”, as well as original single “Whiteout”, which was featured on Apple Music’s “Breaking Hard Rock” playlist.


2022 will bring multiple single releases that were produced and co-written with the likes of Morgan Rose (Sevendust) and Ricky Armellino (Ice Nine Kills, Hawk), including the newest single “The Flood” featuring Rose and Blake Bedsaul (Saul).





Dates:


September
9 - Danville, VA - Blue Ridge Rock-Fest
10 - Cherokee, NC - The Event Center at Harrah’s
12 - Elmira, NY - The L
13 - Portland, ME - Aura
15 - New York, NY - The Palladium
16 - Sayreville, NJ - The Starland Ballroom
17 - Hampton Beach, NH - Hampton Beach Casino
18 - Reading, PA - Reverb
20 - Des Moines, IA - Val Air Ballroom
22 - McHenry, IL - The Vixen
23 - Bloomington, IL - The Castle Theater
24 - Louisville, KY - Louder Than Life
26 - Charleston, SC - The Music Farm
28 - Ft. Lauderdale, FL - The Culture Room
29 - Tampa, FL - Janus Landing
30 - Destin, FL - Club LA


October
1 - New Orleans, LA - The Fillmore


Burden Of The Sky is:
Scottie James - Lead Vocals
Josh Appel - Guitar
TJ Duckwiler - Guitar/Vocals
Rick Streeter - Drums
Dustin Tritsch - Bass
Mike Mahoney - Keys

Prior to METALLICA's headlining performance Thursday (July 28) at this year's Lollapalooza festival in Chicago's Grant Park, drummer Lars Ulrich spoke to local radio station Rock 95.5 about TAIPEI HOUSTON, the new band featuring his sons Myles and Layne Ulrich. Earlier in the week, TAIPEI HOUSTON released its debut single, "As The Sun Sets", along with a music video directed by Victor Grossling.

"Well, obviously, I'm proud," Lars said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "I'm happy that they're doing well. What they're creating is cool. At the same time, we have a very, I think, open and transparent relationship, and certainly a couple of times along the way I've expressed that maybe things could be better; I don't know if that's the right word. So it's not just, 'Oh my God! You guys are great.' And so [I've given them constructive criticism] maybe even to a fault — maybe too much constructive criticism. So I don't know exactly where you land on that.

"I can tell you everything that that project is came together, I'd say, the second half of the pandemic," he explained. "And when they came home from New York in March of '20, I guess, it was not quite as focused. And it took a while — I think it took about a year — for it to kind of take shape. There was lots of time spent and they really worked hard, but eventually they sort of zeroed in on the sound and their whole thing. And I think they've got something that's very unique.

"Their record is coming, I guess, in a couple of months, the full album, and it's a barnburner," Ulrich added. "There are songs on there that make [the first single] sound like SIMON & GARFUNKEL. So there's some crazy shit on there. And it's a very, very, very intense record. When you listen to it from beginning to end, it'll definitely give you a bit of a pummeling, which is good."

Formed in the Bay Area in Northern California, TAIPEI HOUSTON was born out of both brothers coming back to their childhood home during the pandemic. They then moved down to Los Angeles, and once able to perform live again, started playing shows throughout Southern California.

TAIPEI HOUSTON viscerally taps into all of the best parts of the last 30 years of rock 'n' roll, layering garage rock's frenetic sparsity with grunge's fuzzy overdrive, and psych rock's effortless instrumental sprawl. The band's megawatt, slinky songs instantly conjure other iconic duos, such as THE KILLS, DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979 and, of course, THE WHITE STRIPES.

TAIPEI HOUSTON is set to play Reading and Leeds festivals this summer, in addition to their own headlining shows throughout the U.S. before the year is out.

Upcoming tour dates:

Aug 24 - London, UK @ Camden Assembly
Aug. 27-28 - Reading & Leeds Festival
Sep. 05 - San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall*
Sep. 06 - San Jose, CA @ The Ritz*
Sep. 07 - Bakersfield, CA @ Temblor Brewing Company*
Sep. 08 - Petaluma, CA @ Mystic Theatre*
Sep. 09 - Felton, CA @ Felton Music Hall*
Sep. 10 - Fresno, CA @ Strummers*
Sep. 22 - Louisville, KY @ Louder Than Life
Oct. 08 - Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock 2022
Oct. 09 - Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits
Oct. 16 - Austin, TX @ Austin City Limits

* Supporting THE MELVINS

23-year-old Myles, who plays drums, has spent time at Berklee College Of Music, while 21-year-old Layne, who plays bass and sings, studied at NYU.

Asked what got him into singing, Layne told Concert Pipeline: "I was always really interested in singing. I mean, my main thing [was] literally just singing along to the radio as a kid and just listening to stuff. And I always felt very into that but I'd never been a singer or anything like that. And then when we were first starting out with our project, we were always anticipating getting a singer, and then when we realized it was just gonna be the two of us, it was, like, 'All right. Now we've gotta get this going, get some singing going.' So through kind of a long process, finding that, it was really cool."

Regarding the decision to make TAIPEI HOUSTON a two-piece, Myles said: "We wrote the majority of an album which we've now finished. And we're kind of figuring out how to play it all live because we just recorded all of it. And because we both play so much guitar and all the instruments, it was, like, 'Why don't we just scale it back and make it a crazy two-piece thing instead of trying to find more people that you jell with and that the vibe is right? Why don't we just keep it simple and weird?'"

Added Layne: "'Cause also that way we can hit the ground running. You've gotta find people you like, you've gotta get them into the stuff, you've gotta teach them it. That way, literally, just coming straight from us having written all of it together, we can just hit the ground running like that."

TAIPEI HOUSTON played its first show last September at Alex's Bar in Long Beach, California.

Since joining Instagram in August, TAIPEI HOUSTON has already amassed more than 15,000 followers.

Back in April 2020, Lars posted a video of Myles and Layne's blistering take on THE BEATLES classic "Eleanor Rigby". At the time, he described their rendition to Rolling Stone as "this insane, three-minute BLUE CHEER, crazy, garage-rock version of 'Eleanor Rigby'.

"Obviously, there's been some incredible versions of 'Eleanor Rigby' along the way, but I'm pretty sure there’s never been one that had this kind of sound, this kind of feel, this kind of energy and madness to it," he said. "I was, like, 'You know what, boys? You done me proud.'"

Lars had Myles and Layne with former wife Skylar Satenstein. He also has another son, 15-year-old Bryce, with "Gladiator" actress Connie Nielsen.

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

Lars isn't the only member of METALLICA whose offspring have followed in their footsteps. Castor Hetfield, the son of METALLICA frontman James Hetfield, plays drums for BASTARDANE, while Tye Trujillo, the son of METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo, plays bass in OTTTO.

TAIPEI HOUSTON photo credit: Brit O'Brien

IN FLAMES vocalist Anders Fridén spoke to MoreCore.TV about the band's upcoming fourteenth studio album, tentatively due later in the year via Nuclear Blast Records. Asked if the LP's first single, "State Of Slow Decay", is a good representation of what fans can expect from the record, Anders said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "IN FLAMES has always been about melody and aggression. The short answer is yes, but it's not gonna be all fast. We try to explore all corners of metal with our music. Let's put it like this: if you're a fan of IN FLAMES, then you will love this album."

Elaborating on what fans can expect from the upcoming IN FLAMES album, Anders said: "This is the fourteenth album. So if you know IN FLAMES, you know sort of what you're gonna get. But I think this is a good mix of the past, the present and wherever we're going, and [it] has a little thing for everyone; it has the heavy, it has the melodic, it has the uptempo and the slow parts. I think it's amazing, and it really represents who we are at this time."

Asked if the pandemic influenced the songwriting process for the new IN FLAMES effort, Anders said: "Welll, in a certain way. Lyrically, for sure. I thought this two-year break would make us see us who we are as people and maybe come out on the other side being a little bit more nice and gentle and with more understanding, but I think it's the opposite. So it definitely inspired the lyrical side.

"Of course, a break like that, it's a pause, so when you get back into it, maybe unintentionally you have more energy across the board, [and] with the music as well," he explained.

IN FLAMES performed "State Of Slow Decay" — which was produced by Howard Benson, mixed by Joe Rickard and mastered by Ted Jensen — live for the first time on June 10 at the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden.

This past March, guitarist Björn Gelotte confirmed that IN FLAMES' upcoming album was once again recorded with Grammy-nominated producer Benson and Howard's longtime engineer Mike Plotnikoff.

In early July, Fridén told Chaoszine about the songwriting process for the new IN FLAMES album: "Me and Björn, we live on different sides of [Sweden] — he lives in Gothenburg; I live in Stockholm — and we only saw each other once or twice during the whole pandemic. But towards the end, when we kind of felt like it's gonna open up for real, we started talking and then we decided to take a trip to the U.S. and just get the machine rolling again — write some stuff; just get things out of our system. So we spent some time — like, three weeks — in L.A. And then we flew home and had Christmas and so on, and then we flew back again and started recording stuff for real. But as soon as we got together, a few weeks in the writing process, it felt like it always has."

Anders went on to say that he and Björn "had to be in the same room" in order to maximize their songwriting efforts. "We feed off each other's energies and ideas and so on, and I don't think we can write apart," he explained. "I mean, we can, but it won't be the same. So we have to get in the same room and be amongst everyone in the band… Me and Björn, we are the ones that are writing everything. The other guys are obviously partaking and bringing in their energy and their skills to the band, but when it comes to the writing, it's not much different."

Speaking in more detail about the contributions of IN FLAMES' three American members — drummer Tanner Wayne, bassist Bryce Paul and guitarist Chris Broderick — Anders said: "They are great individual musicians, so they bring in their skills and their way of playing, and it's very unique from person to person. And that's what they bring. And also the feeling — it's such a good atmosphere within the band; there's no arguments, really, and we're just having a good time being around each other. And that helps the whole creative process. And what they've done… I mean, you will hear it whenever we… We released one new song, but more to come. You can hear it, what they do. They're amazing guys and amazing musicians and really good friends."

Wayne joined IN FLAMES following the departure of Joe Rickard, who played on "I, The Mask" and 2016's "Battles".

Tanner made his live debut with IN FLAMES in July 2018 in Brno, Czech Republic.

Longtime IN FLAMES drummer Daniel Svensson announced in 2015 that he was leaving the band to focus on his family life.

Paul has been playing most of the shows with IN FLAMES since longtime bassist Peter Iwers's November 2016 exit.

As previously reported, IN FLAMES will embark on a North American tour this September. Support on the trek will come from FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY, ORBIT CULTURE and VENDED.

In August 2020, IN FLAMES released a special 20th-anniversary edition of its seminal, critically acclaimed album "Clayman". "Clayman 20th Anniversary Edition" came entirely remastered by Ted Jensen (PANTERA, DEFTONES, GOJIRA) and featured all-new artwork in a 16-page booklet, a brand-new instrumental medley plus four re-recorded versions of fan favorites such as "Only For The Weak" and "Pinball Map".

Fan-filmed video of STATIC-X's entire July 30 performance at Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts as the support act for ROB ZOMBIE and MUDVAYNE on the "Freaks On Parade" tour can be seen below.

Featured songs:

01. Bled For Days
02. Wisconsin Death Trip
03. Sweat Of The Bud
04. Love Dump
05. Cold
06. I'm With Stupid
07. Push It

This past January, STATIC-X postponed its "Rise Of The Machine" North American tour featuring FEAR FACTORY, DOPE, MUSHROOMHEAD and TWIZTID. The trek, produced by Live Nation, was rescheduled due to the increase in the spread of COVID-19 and its continued effect on travel restrictions, public health, and fan safety. The 42-date trek will now kick off February 25, 2023, in San Francisco, California and wrap up April 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California.

The 20th-anniversary release of "Machine" — made available on February 18, 2022 — features newly remastered audio by Ulrich Wild and includes all 12 tracks from the original release, as well as three new bonus tracks: "Wisconsin Death Trip (Live 2019 Regeneration Featuring Wayne Static)" , "Sweat Of The Bud (Live 2019 Xer0)" and "I'm With Stupid (Live 2019 Regeneration Featuring Wayne Static)". Originally released in 2001, "Machine" would ultimately turn out to be the last album recorded by the four original members of STATIC-X. All of the lead vocals and guitars on "Machine" were performed by Wayne Static, while bass, backing vocals, drums, and programming contributions came from founding members Tony Campos, Ken Jay and Koichi Fukuda. The limited-edition release will have packaging featuring fully reimagined artwork and will be available in multiple configurations, including multiple color vinyl sequenced on two discs, with an etching of the STATIC-X Shock symbol on side D.

STATIC-X's latest album "Project Regeneration Vol. 1", came out in July 2020. The first of two volumes, it features 12 brand new tracks, containing many of the final vocal performances and musical compositions of late STATIC-X frontman Wayne Static, along with the original "Wisconsin Death Trip" lineup of bassist Campos, Jay, and guitarist Fukuda. Both volumes are being worked on by longtime STATIC-X producer Ulrich Wild.

In total, "Project Regeneration" volumes one and two will consist of more than 20 brand new or previously unreleased STATIC-X songs and will feature all of the remaining works left behind by Wayne Static, along with the original "Wisconsin Death Trip" band lineup. The individual albums are expected to contain creative packaging elements that will allow fans to marry the two volumes together.

While the identity of STATIC-X's touring singer — who goes by the name Xer0 — has not been officially revealed, strong rumors suggest that DOPE frontman Edsel Dope is performing alongside Campos, Jay and Fukuda.

Campos discussed STATIC-X's comeback during an appearance on "The SDR Show". Speaking about how the idea of Xer0 wearing a mask in the likeness of Static came about, Tony said: "When we were trying to figure out how we were gonna do this live, the first thing that came up was the hologram thing, and that got shot down pretty quick.

"The thing about the band for us was the energy and the vibe that we all got from the interaction the four of us had on stage, and you just don't get that with a hologram. So that got chucked out the window pretty quickly. So we figured out it had to be somebody. Once we found Xer0 and saw and heard that he could do the job, we were, like, 'Cool. How do we present this in a cool way that doesn't make it about…?' 'Cause we didn't wanna come out and, like, 'Hey, here's STATIC-X with their new singer.' That's not what we were trying to do. It was about remembering Wayne and remembering the good times we had back in the early days and remembering the fun we all had together 20 years ago touring on 'Wisconsin Death Trip'. And so we really wanted to keep the focus on that and not on the new singer. So the idea of a mask came."

Campos continued: "Initially, we came up with a helmet that looked like the robot from the 'Push It' video and even shot some video footage of Xer0 wearing that, and it looked great. Logistically, it wasn't gonna work, though, 'cause you're blind in the thing. And so, what are you gonna do? Have somebody walk him out to the front of the stage, make sure he doesn't fall off the stage? So we were, like, 'Okay, what else can we do?' And so we thought of all these different merchandise items that we had, with skulls, with Wayne's hair and beard, and thought, 'Well, let's try something like that.' So we gave the idea to a friend of ours who designs masks for the SLIPKNOT guys, John 5, various other people, and she came back with that Xer0 mask. And then once we put the hair up, we were, like, 'Oh, yeah. Dude, that's it.' And so we went with that."

Asked if STATIC-X is still keeping Xer0's identity a secret even though "everyone knows" who he is, Tony said: "Yeah, but I still like to keep that distinction, 'cause, again, I'm trying to keep the focus [on remembering Wayne]."

According to Campos, Xer0 wasn't the only singer who was in the mix for the STATIC-X frontman job. "I had a few ideas in my head, but he was the first to come up and actually demonstrate that he could do the job," Tony explained. "So I was, like, 'I don't think I need to look any further.' [Laughs]"

Campos went on to say that he "knew there would be some negativity" on the Internet once STATIC-X had announced its comeback. "It was definitely a talking point, for sure," he said. "But I think once people heard our story and heard that Wayne's family had given us their blessing to do what we were doing, and then once they actually saw it, I think that was the big turning point. Once people came out and experienced the show and saw what we were doing, I think it made most of those people turn around."

Static died after mixing Xanax and other powerful prescription drugs with alcohol, according to the coroner's report. The 48-year-old, whose real name was Wayne Richard Wells, was found dead in his Landers, California home on November 1, 2014.

Static founded STATIC-X in 1994 and achieved commercial success with "Wisconsin Death Trip", which included the rock radio hit "Push It".

The group issued five more studio albums before disbanding permanently in June 2013. Static had been pursuing a solo career at the time of his death.

Terry Ilous says that he has "no regrets" about his time as the frontman of GREAT WHITE.

Ilous, who previously played with '80s L.A. hard rockers XYZ, joined GREAT WHITE in 2010 after replacing touring vocalist Jani Lane (WARRANT).

The Ilous-led GREAT WHITE released two albums, 2012's "Elation" and 2017's "Full Circle", before Terry was shown the door in July 2018 and replaced with Mitch Malloy.

Ilous discussed his exit from GREAT WHITE during a recent interview with Big Music Geek. He said: "GREAT WHITE was such a great opportunity for me. I'm very grateful for the fact that they called me and asked me to join the band. It was all very positive and I don't have any regrets at all. It was a great thing and I thank the band for the opportunity.

"I was with them for nine years and five hundred and sixty shows, most of which were sold out," he continued. "I did very well with those three albums, but they wanted something else, and I also wanted to do something else. They were looking for a different sound or different look, as they say. Whatever. They are happy, and I'm happy, and that's all that matters. I have no hard feelings whatsoever. Things happen. It happens to a lot of great singers. Lots of great musicians lose their gig, but you just cannot dwell on the past. You have to move forward and just say, 'All right, what's it for me now? What do I have to do to continue working?'. I'd realized that I had a good name, so I decided to go back to what I've been doing before, which was voice-over work. I went back to voice-over, doing jingles and then releasing songs. And I'm a happy guy. I have no regrets.

"I wish the band the very best," Terry added. "No hard feelings. I moved on. I mean, honestly, I moved on. I don't know what they're up to. I have no idea. I don't wish anything bad to the band or any members of the band. For me, it was a really great experience. Thank you so much for the opportunity. I am flattered and honored. That's all I can say."

Last November, GREAT WHITE guitarist Mark Kendall confirmed that Ilous was fired from the band via e-mail. Kendall went on to say that Ilous initially found out online that he no longer had a job with GREAT WHITE. "It got released on the Internet before we could tell him," Mark said. "It wasn't our publicist's fault. She released this information. So we hadn't told him yet, and she didn't know that. So he heard the information, and he's going, 'This is a hell of a way to tell [somebody he is out of the band].' And we were just [made out to look like] the bad guys all the way around. And so what do we do now? Go, 'Meet us somewhere, and we'll talk about it.' It was, like, 'He already knows.' So that was a tough situation. We're not bad people. We don't wanna hurt anyone."

Mark also defended GREAT WHITE's decision to part ways with Terry and hire Mitch, saying: "We had to look out for our music and make sure it's delivered the best it can be. We felt like with Mitch we could do it a little bit better. It's not that Terry is not awesome; nothing against him."

In April 2021, Ilous told Waste Some Time With Jason Green that he always made it a point to tell people that his primary focus was GREAT WHITE and not his solo career. "I was doing a lot of interviews, and I always said one thing, I said, 'I am the lead singer of GREAT WHITE. My priority is GREAT WHITE,'" he said. "I always made sure to say that, 'cause sometimes people can misinterpret what you wanna say. So I said, 'No. I am the lead singer of the band GREAT WHITE. My priority is GREAT WHITE. I'll be touring with GREAT WHITE. And if the band is not touring, then I will be doing that on my own. And that's it.' And that is the truth. But apparently someone got upset. I was touring, and eventually one day, I received an e-mail saying, 'Thank for for a great service. You're a great singer. Have a good life.' And that was it."

Terry said that he "had no idea at all" that he was going to be replaced. "Last time [I played with GREAT WHITE], we did a string of sold-out shows," he recalled. "In fact, one of the last shows we did was actually on a Thursday in Wisconsin. We did a summer fest, and there were 10 thousand people [there]. The crowd went crazy — 10 thousand people going nuts. And that day I sang so well. You know, sometimes you sing better than other days — that's the way it is as a singer — but that day I was really good. Not to be pretentious, but I was happy. I was, like, 'Ah, man. Great performance.' Friday and Saturday, we did two other shows — one in Las Vegas. We did a show with SLAUGHTER, and everybody gave me a big hug. 'Hey, brother, see you next week.' That's the last time I talked to anyone in the band. On Monday morning, I get an e-mail… The leader of the band, Mark, sent me the e-mail, but it [was] on behalf of everybody in the band. 'We think that you should be replaced by somebody else. And we wish you the best.' The e-mail was polite. 'Good luck to you. You will have no problem finding another band. Please don't say bad things about us. We will never say bad things about you.' And that was it."

Regarding his initial reaction to the e-mail, Ilous said: "I was surprised — I was a little surprised — because I said, wait a minute, I did three albums. I helped rebuild the brand. I gave my best for nine years. When I joined the band, I was not getting paid very well, and I said, 'I'm gonna do it anyway, because I wanna prove to myself, and I wanna prove to those guys I can do it.' So I did what I could do. I would have loved to get a phone call, at least, or maybe a meeting with the band, and said, 'Hey, it's not working out. Can you work on this? And maybe we'll give you another chance.' 'Okay.' I think it's fair — when you're a dedicated worker, and you do all that stuff, I think it's fair. You need a second chance. But second chance for what? I didn't do anything wrong. It's not like I had sex with any one of their wives. I'm not that type of person."

Terry went on to say that there were some personal differences within GREAT WHITE, but not enough to create a major issue when he and his then-bandmates were living in close proximity to one another on the road.

"For me, I was always in GREAT WHITE," he said. "I would say to myself, 'GREAT WHITE is GREAT WHITE. I love the band. I love the music, and I'm happy to be in the band.' I didn't expect anything. I knew I had an issue with one guy in the band, like a lot of people have issues with the same guy in that band. But I knew that. And I didn't think the guys would decide to say, 'Screw Terry, and let's get somebody else.' I didn't expect that at all. I was completely taken by surprise, to say the least. I was beside myself. But I didn't post anything negative. I didn't make stupid comments online; I didn't do anything like it. I said, 'Well, it is what it is. They have somebody else. I don't wish him anything bad,' which I would never do anyway."

Ironically, the first time Malloy performed with GREAT WHITE was on the Monsters Of Rock cruise in 2018, just a few short months before Terry was fired from the band. At Terry's invitation, Mitch got up on stage and joined GREAT WHITE for a rendition of their cover of Ian Hunter's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy".

"I'm the one who introduced Mitch to the band," Ilous recalled. "And I will never forget that day. I introduced Mitch to the band, and Mitch tried to upstage me on stage. I'm a stage performer, but I don't need to overdo things. It's like sex. Music is sex — the same thing. You don't need to try all different positions to please your partner. You do what you do, and that's it. But I realized that Mitch was trying to go crazy on stage, one side to the other, to prove that he was a great performer. And I have nothing against Mitch, by the way; I wish him the very best. But I said, 'Okay. Good for him.' I didn't expect that… It's okay. They did what they had to do. And honestly, to this day, I don't wish them anything bad at all. Even Mitch — I'm happy he's got the gig. It's not his fault. He just got hired."

Ilous relocated to Hollywood, California from Lyon, France in 1986, forming the metal band XYZ along with friend and bassist Pat Fontaine. Ilous quickly became a favorite on Sunset Strip scene in the late '80s before getting signed to Enigma/Capitol. After selling over 1.5 million records worldwide and touring with artists such as FOREIGNER and ALICE COOPER, Ilous continued to release albums well into the 2000s, along with film, songwriting and television work.

In 2009, Terry was contacted to play a handful of dates with GREAT WHITE, and within a couple of years, the lineup was made official. GREAT WHITE immediately headed out on an extensive year-long tour, followed by a new album, "Elation", in 2012 that was highly praised by the media and fans alike. "Full Circle" arrived five years later.

This past May, GREAT WHITE announced that it had parted ways with Malloy and had replaced him with Andrew Freeman (LAST IN LINE).

On Friday (July 29), MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn teamed up the band's "The Burning Red"/"Supercharger"-era guitar player Ahrue Luster to celebrate 23 years of "The Burning Red" with a Facebook Live and YouTube playthrough of the entire album.

Reuniting for the first time in nearly 20 years, Robb and Ahrue delivered crushing renditions of the LP's 10 original songs, including contemporary live classics like "From This Day" and "The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears" alongside deep cuts "Devil With The King's Card" and "I Defy", plus the emotionally heavy "Five" and the title track. And if that wasn't enough, Robb and Ahrue treated viewers to some select "Supercharger" tracks like "Bulldozer" and "Crashing Around You", plus covers of SEPULTURA's "Roots Bloody Roots" and IRON MAIDEN's "The Number Of The Beast".

MACHINE HEAD bassist/backing vocalist Jared MacEachern contracted COVID-19 and was unable to attend the session. However, he managed to record his bass parts for the playthrough while convalescing at home, so the audio quality was not affected.

Released in 1999, "The Burning Red" included the singles "From This Day" and "Silver". The band chose the CD title, and particularly the color red, as a metaphor for the music on the album. "Typically, the color red represents a lot of things, like blood, death, and on the other side, it can represent like love and beauty and lust," Luster said in an interview that was published shortly after the LP's release. "We thought that this record had a lot of contrast to it because it has things that are really heavy going into things that are really beautiful and melodic. The color red is like a metaphor for the record. 'The burning red' just means that it is just that intensified."

MACHINE HEAD's work on its third album did not go unnoticed by the press. Don Kaye wrote in Metal Edge: "On 'The Burning Red', the band seems to have found the perfect balance of musicality, aggression, experimentation, and songcraft, melding an abundance of styles into a seamless whole that is MACHINE HEAD's heaviest, yet most accessible, work to date."

"I think that on this one, we went for it a lot harder and didn't hold anything back," Flynn told Blistering.com. "We tried to challenge ourselves and tried to go places that we hadn't been and other places that other bands were not going."

Back in February 2011, "The Burning Red" was certified silver by the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) for sales in excess of 60,000 copies in the United Kingdom.

MACHINE HEAD's tenth studio album, "Of Kingdom And Crown", will be released on August 26 via Nuclear Blast/Imperium Recordings.

The follow-up to 2018's "Catharsis", "Of Kingdom And Crown" includes the three songs that were featured on last year's "Arrows In Words From The Sky" single: "Become The Firestorm", "Rotten" and "Arrows In Words From The Sky". Much of the new MACHINE HEAD album was recorded at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, California with engineer/producer Zack Ohren.

Bassist Michael Bloodgood of Christian hard rockers BLOODGOOD has died.

According to his bandmates, Michael passed on Friday, July 29 at 8:15 a.m. CDT.

More than five months ago, Bloodgood suffered a hemorrhagic stroke and subsequent brain bleed. He was airlifted to hospital but never fully recovered.

"After a gallant fight that began with a severe hemorrhagic stroke in February 2022 he's gone home to be with our Heavenly Father," the band wrote in a social media post.

"We'll cherish Michael's generous spirit, off-beat sense of humor, and musical soul. His devotion to the Lord and sharing of the Gospel through his ministry as a pastor and musician touched countless lives."

Michael is survived by his wife of 46 years, Marilyn, their three sons and two grandchildren.

In a May post on the GiveSendGo fundraising web site, it was reported that Michael had begun speaking and was communicating with doctors.

BLOODGOOD was touring at the time of Michael's stroke and had been working on new material.

Though Bloodgood didn't intend on forming a Christian heavy metal group in 1984, that's what the music industry labeled them. Unfortunately, its faith-based lyrics caused a stir in mainstream music, especially among hard rock bands who thought BLOODGOOD was too soft for its ear-piercing, rocking genre. In addition, Christians believed BLOODGOOD's music was the evil doings of the devil and banned its music and picketed its concerts in the cities it toured.

BLOODGOOD pushed all that adversity aside and became one of the top four Christian heavy metal bands by 1988. The band's later lineup included guitarist Oz Fox, a member of STRYPER, arguably the most popular Christian metal band in music history.

In 1986, the band released the platinum-selling record "Detonation". They've also issued five other albums, including their latest, 2013's "Dangerously Close". In 2010, BLOODGOOD was inducted into the Christian Music Hall Of Fame.

In his biography on the BLOODGOOD web site, Michael wrote: "My musical direction took quite a different route half-way through my senior year in high school when I gave my life to Christ. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was to share my new life and spread the Gospel using rock 'n roll music, so the following year I started my first Christian band, CROSSROADS. There was very little contemporary Christian rock in those days that we were aware of, so we began rearranging old hymns by putting in rock guitar hooks, doing cover songs like 'Jesus Is Just Alright'. We played anywhere and everywhere we could, including parks, Christian coffee bars around Southern California and making our way down to the Naval Training Center in San Diego to share our faith with the sailors-in-training. The first time we played in a church, some folks walked out before we began when they spotted my electric guitar, considering it a 'tool of the devil'!"

Dear, Friends - It's with a heavy heart we share that we lost our beloved, Michael Bloodgood at 8:15am Central this...

Posted by BLOODGOOD on Friday, July 29, 2022

Last week,  The Dead Daisies announced that "the dreaded virus has hit the camp again with Glenn Hughes testing positive and unfortunately unable to continue.


The band added: "In the spirit of The Dead Daisies, 'The Show Must Go On'. As Yogi filled in for David when he was crook, we're forging forward with Yogi playing bass and Dino Jelusick (Whitesnake) joining us on vocals for the rest of these shows."


Jelusick has shared video of the band's July 26th performance at Théâtre Antique de Vienne in Vienne, France.




Jelusick: "First time singing 'Mistreated', no rehearsal. Got a call to do this gig a day before. Opening for Judas Priest."


Line-up:
David Lowy - Guitar
Doug Aldrich - Guitar
Dino Jelusick - Vocals
Yogi Lonich - Bass
Brian Tichy - Drums


Remaining tour dates are as follows:


August
2 - Bamberg, Germany - Brose Arena (special guest for Judas Priest)
5 - Knislinge, Sweden - Time To Rock Festival


The Dead Daisies are set to release their sixth studio album, Radiance, on September 30. Radiance is ten tracks of pure unadulterated brilliant rock. The power of Doug Aldrich and David Lowy’s dual guitars provide a wall of sonic nectar. Front man Glenn Hughes rock solid bass grooves and unmatched vocal intensity, still among the greatest rock singers of all time and the matrix of Brian Tichy’s drums set the engine room on fire!


Radiating heat, Radiance takes you on an exhilarating ride. The first singles off the album, "Radiance" and "Shine On" went straight to air on radio across the globe, were added to digital playlists and received with open arms by tens of thousands of fans and audiences on their EU Summer Tour when played live.


“The new album Radiance is our 2nd album with Ben Grosse producing from top to bottom. We had a great time composing and recording the record and I’m very excited for you all to hear what we put together. Definitely a heavy album but with some cool twists and turns! Hope you all like it.” - Doug Aldrich


Radiance is the second instalment The Daisies have recorded with esteemed producer Ben Grosse at the helm, recorded at The Mix Room in North Hollywood California. All the songs on Radiance are written by David Lowy, Doug Aldrich and Glenn Hughes. Hard-hitting drummer Brian Tichy returned to The Daisies in early 2022 to lay down the drums on Radiance.


“I am very much looking forward to the release of Radiance, the newest LP from The Dead Daisies! It was great to start off being back in the band by getting together with Doug, Glenn, David, and producer Ben Grosse at his studio dialling in the songs that make up Radiance. It was a very smooth, organized process of jamming with the guys getting all drum grooves and parts just right! The final result is another slab of butt-kicking rock! The guys all brought their A-Game and a tight, powerful record was created! I’m looking forward to everyone hearing it and playing more of these songs live in the near future!” - Brian Tichy


Radiance will be available as a Digipak CD with sticker, Gatefold black vinyl with printed inner sleeves and digitally from September 30. Pre-order here.





Tracklisting:


"Face Your Fear"
"Hypnotize Yourself"
"Shine On"
"Radiance"
"Born To Fly"
"Kiss The Sun"
"Courageous"
"Cascade"
"Not Human"
"Roll On"


"Shine On" video:





"Radiance" video:





US fall tour dates:


September
7 - Vineland, NJ - The Landis Theater
10 - Danville, VA - Blue Ridge Rock Festival
11 - Fall Church, VA - State Theatre
14 - Nashville, TN - Eastside Bowl
15 - St. Charles, IL - Arcada Theatre
18 - Los Angeles, CA - The Vermont Hollywood
21 - Roseville, CA - Goldfield Trading Post
23 - Portland, OR - Bossanova Ballroom
24 - Seattle, WA - The Crocodile

The first music from Kerry King's new band sounds "crushing" and is "on par with SLAYER," according to an American radio DJ who got an early preview of the project.

Nikki Blakk, who pioneered San Francisco Bay Area's rock radio station 107.7 The Bone, heard most of the songs that will appear on the debut album from King's new group while visiting Kerry and his wife Ayesha at their home in New York City earlier this week.

On Friday (July 29), Nikki took to her Facebook page to share a photo of her with the couple, and she included the following message: "I heard the new #KerryKing songs last night & they are CRUSHING. The world hasn't been the same without SLAYER But, now I'm looking forward to 2023. …and yes, I know who's in the band, but NO, I won't tell you. Sorry Blabbermouth.net #AboutLastNight #Slayer #NotSlayer #Metal".

When pressed for more details about the music by some of her Facebook followers, Nikki added in the comments: "It sounds killer! I loved all of it. Not a clunker in the bunch! I think I heard 8 or 9 songs."

After one of her Facebook friends opined that late SLAYER guitarist Jeff Hanneman wrote the group's best songs "that will never be outdone by Kerry's new band" and that original SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo is "the greatest thrash metal drummer ever", implying that Lombardo's replacement, Paul Bostaph, is an inferior musician, Blakk countered with: "Jeff wrote a lot of their greatest songs, but far from all of them. Not to mention, many were written by King/Hanneman together." She added: "I'm not going to have the Lombardo/Bostaph argument, cause they're both killer drummers, but they couldn't be more different in style, for 2 guys who played the same songs. Personally, I'm #TeamBostaph, but it's purely subjective. Lastly, Kerry was a major contributor to the SLAYER sound and towards the end, he orchestrated nearly all of it, so anything he does will be on par with SLAYER."

Earlier this month, Kerry spoke to Metal Hammer magazine about his post-SLAYER project, saying that "won't be dragging [his] feet much longer" when it comes to going back on the road.

Nearly two years after he revealed that he had more than two records' worth of music written for his new band, King stated about the new material's direction: "You know me, so you know what it's going to sound like. I played this new song for a buddy, and I said to him, 'If there's anything I've written in the last few years that sounds like SLAYER, it's this.' And he said, 'That sounds like you could have pulled it off of any SLAYER record.' I actually made that riff up backstage at a SLAYER show. We were walking to the stage and I got my phone out and recorded it so I wouldn't forget it."

While King was reluctant to reveal the rest of the lineup of his new band, he confirmed the involvement of Bostaph.

"We just started rehearsing and the only person I can give away is Paul because I took him from SLAYER and we work very well together," the 58-year-old guitarist said. "We didn't start rehearsing until the end of March, and that was the first time since that last SLAYER show at the end of 2019 that me and Paul finally got into a room together."

King went on to say that he expects his new band to start out by playing "much smaller" venues than SLAYER did at the end of its four-decade run.

"Had it have been up to me then I'd have been out in 2020," he said. "But that thing called the pandemic fucked everything up for everyone. You know, I waited on that, because it had to run its course. I didn't want to be the guinea pig; I didn't want to learn how to tour again. I already did my dues; I don't want to have to prove myself again.

"Have I been dragging my feet? Yeah, because I wanted this [pandemic] shit to get sorted. I won't be dragging my feet much longer."

SLAYER played the final show of its farewell tour in November 2019 at the Forum in Los Angeles. One day later, Ayesha King said that there is "not a chance in hell" that the thrash metal icons will reunite for more live appearances. In August 2020, she once again shot down the possibility of her husband and bassist/vocalist Tom Araya sharing the stage ever again under the SLAYER banner.

After Ayesha shared three photos of Kerry holding their cat in slideshow-type Instagram post, a fan wrote: "No Tom, No SLAYER Kerry. Stop thinking SLAYER without @tomarayaofficial". Ayesha then replied: "don't worry, they'll never be SLAYER again! You can rest easy".

That same month, Bostaph confirmed that he is involved in a brand new project headed up by Kerry. Paul told Australia's Riff Crew that the new band will "sound like SLAYER without it being SLAYER — but not intentionally so. I mean, Kerry's been writing songs in SLAYER his entire career, and he has a style," he explained. "And that style, as a songwriter, you just don't change your style because your band is done… So, all I can say is if you like heavy music and you like SLAYER, you'll like this."

Just a few days earlier, Kerry told Dean Guitars that he had plenty of musical ideas for his upcoming project. "I've been very, very lucky with riffs in 2020," he said. "Maybe because I can't go anywhere — I don't know — but riffs have certainly not been a problem. And looking forward into the future, what that means for me is I'm gonna be able to cherrypick the best stuff. And it's good stuff. I've got more than two records' worth of music, but to be able to go through that and cherrypick the best 11 or 12 [songs]… That first record should be smoking."

When SLAYER first announced that it was embarking on its final tour back in January 2018, Ayesha assured fans that they would "always get music" from her husband.

King has said in previous interviews that his post-SLAYER musical efforts would not be much different from the sound fans have grown accustomed to hearing from him.

"If someone quit, I'm not going to go around with a made-up SLAYER," he told AZCentral.com back in 2010. "But my next band would sound like SLAYER, that's all I know."

SLAYER's final world tour began on May 10, 2018 with the band's intention to play as many places as possible, to make it easy for the fans to see one last SLAYER show and say goodbye. By the time the 18-month trek wrapped at the Forum, the band had completed seven tour legs plus a series of one-off major summer festivals, performing more than 140 shows in 30 countries and 40 U.S. states.

Photo credit: Chad Lee for Dean Guitars

I heard the new #KerryKing songs last night & they are CRUSHING🤘😆🤘 The world hasn’t been the same without Slayer But,...

Posted by Nikki Blakk on Friday, July 29, 2022