John Cooper, the frontman for the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band SKILLET, spoke to Brutal Planet Magazine about the lyrical inspiration for the group's upcoming album, "Dominion". He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "So much of what the album is about is facing the challenges that are inside. In other words, there are challenges from outward. Me and you and everybody listening, we do not have the power to end COVID. Me and you don't have the power to end the economic stuff that's happening or inflation or the fact that some people — I don't know — may be losing their jobs, for whatever reason that may be; we don't have the power to do anything about that. But we do have the power to control what happens in our hearts and in our minds. And I think that that's one of the things that really fueled the fire for me.

"I, of course, recognize that the [COVID-19] pandemic is real, I recognize people are dying, people are suffering, but in my view, what I consider to be a pandemic of fear, a propaganda of absolute fear, I find that to be much more alarming and deadlier than the actual pandemic itself," he continued. "That's not downplaying the pandemic — I just see that in people that I know; I see that in my friends; I see that in some of my family.

"A few months back, I read on the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention web site], for instance… A lot of people don't know this… I was reading the risk factors to die from COVID. So not to get COVID, but what are the highest risk factors to die from it if you were to get it. The number one risk factor most people know is obesity. That sucks; it's just the way that it is. Most people know that. But the second highest risk factor for dying from COVID is fear — fear and anxiety-related illness. That's remarkable to me, yet we are being told every single day fear, fear, fear, and I see it in people.

"I just wanna encourage people… I'm not encouraging you to break protocols for anything, I'm not saying the pandemic isn't real, but don't give in on the inside," Cooper added. "You can't do anything about the outside, but you can do something about the inside. So this is a record that I hope encourages people to defy that impulse to be afraid."

"Dominion" is due on January 14 via Atlantic. Produced by Kevin Churko (PAPA ROACH, DISTURBED, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH) with songs written by John Cooper, Korey Cooper, Kevin Churko and Kane Churko, the effort was created 100% remotely between the band's tour dates, home studio in Wisconsin, and the Churkos' studio in Las Vegas.

Last November, the Memphis, Tennessee-born Cooper, who lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin, said that COVID-19 vaccine mandates are "much more about tyranny than they are actually keeping people safe."

During the summer, Cooper, who is unvaccinated against COVID-19, opened up about his reluctance to wear masks, saying: "The issue of the mask wearing, to me, is nothing more than theater. It is making me jump into an unreality, something that I do not believe, just to acquiesce to either the overlords — overlords meaning government, Big Tech [Editor's note: A name given to the five largest and most dominant companies in the information technology industry of the United States — namely Google (Alphabet), Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft], big business, big media, whatever — to acquiesce to what they want me to do. Even though I know that it's not true, but I'm gonna play the game. And every time I put my mask on, I know that I'm doing something that I do not believe in. In other words, I'm being forced to lie… I'm being forced to jump into something I don't believe, and I'm living by a lie — I'm living by a lie that this mask is actually gonna keep me safe from all harm. To acquiesce to the government, which says that I'm believing something that I know that I don't believe. So now I'm basically living in a fantasy world. That frightens me. And every time I put that mask on, that's basically what I think. I know I'm doing this, I know it's show, I know it's theater, I know my overlords don't even believe in it, because if they did, they wouldn't be breaking all of their own rules."

Wearing face masks and coverings is recommended, or in some places mandatory, in public spaces to help stop the spread of COVID-19. But anti-maskers think government orders requiring face coverings in public spaces or those put in place by private businesses violate their constitutional rights.

Studies have shown that masks limit the spread of the coronavirus by blocking respiratory droplets that can travel through the air when someone coughs, sneezes or even just speaks. There is also strong evidence to suggest that masks help protect others from catching the virus from the person wearing the mask.

In various interviews over the years, John has said that he "always had faith in God" and that his mother was a "Jesus fanatic." He also claimed that he was willing to put his career on the line to take a stand for Christ.

Last April, Cooper told the "Undaunted.Life: A Man's Podcast" that it was perfectly fine for Christians to play rock music. "I would say that music is created not by the Devil; [it is] created by the Lord," he said. "All things were created by God. So instead of thinking that the Devil owns a genre of music, I would say capture that music and bring it back into subjection under the Lordship of Christ."

DEATH ANGEL played a homecoming show last night (Saturday, January 22) at The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, California. Fan-filmed video footage of the concert can be seen below.

DEATH ANGEL released a new live album titled "The Bastard Tracks" last November via Nuclear Blast. Recorded live at The Great American Music Hall on May 22, 2021, and streamed live soon after, "The Bastard Tracks" is a deep-cuts collection of rarely and never performed songs from the band's catalog that was released digitally and on CD, vinyl and Blu-ray.

In December 2020, DEATH ANGEL streamed its seventh annual "Another Death Angel XMas Show" from The Great Northern in San Francisco.

In October 2020, DEATH ANGEL released a four-song EP, "Under Pressure". The effort included a cover of QUEEN + David Bowie's "Under Pressure", followed by a new track titled "Faded Remains", plus acoustic versions of "Act III"'s classic "A Room With A View" and "Humanicide"'s "Revelation Song". The EP was mixed by Max Norman (OZZY OSBOURNE, MEGADETH, BAD COMPANY) and mastered by Ted Jensen (LAMB OF GOD, MACHINE HEAD, HALESTORM).

Released in May 2019 via Nuclear Blast, "Humanicide" saw DEATH ANGEL returning to producer and friend Jason Suecof (DEICIDE, TRIVIUM) of Audiohammer studios for the recording and mixing, along with the mastering of the legendary Ted Jensen (SLIPKNOT, PANTERA) of Sterling Sound, who added the final touches and brought it all to life, with artist Brent Elliott White (LAMB OF GOD, MEGADETH) providing the ominous cover artwork.

In March 2020, DEATH ANGEL drummer Will Carroll spent almost two weeks on a ventilator in an intensive care unit at a Northern California hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. He first got sick when he and the rest of DEATH ANGEL spent more than a month on the road in Europe with TESTAMENT and EXODUS as part of "The Bay Strikes Back 2020" tour.

DEATH ANGEL was nominated for a Grammy Award for "Best Metal Performance" for the "Humanicide" title track. It was the group's first Grammy nomination.

Carroll joined DEATH ANGEL in 2009 as the replacement for the band's original drummer, Andy Galeon.

Will can be heard on the last four DEATH ANGEL studio albums: "Relentless Retribution" (2010), "The Dream Calls for Blood" (2013), "The Evil Divide" (2016) and the aforementioned "Humanicide".

In a new interview with "The Chuck Shute Podcast", KING'S X frontman Doug "Dug" Pinnick talked about his years in the metal Christian closet and the relief he felt after making a clean break with religion.

"Being told that if you're gay, it's an abomination, and God hates that more than anything else other than blasphemy of the Holy Spirit," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "According to the Bible, a man shall not lay down with another man; it is an abomination. So I'm told that all my life and I'm gay. So I wouldn't tell anybody. One time I decided, 'Well, I'm gonna do like Jesus did: I'm gonna go fast for three days and ask God to change me.' And I went and sat in a trailer out in the country and fasted and didn't eat and just drank water for two days. And I prayed and prayed and cried and begged God to change me, and I didn't feel a thing. And I stopped and I went, 'I give up.' And all I could think of in the back of my mind is the scriptures that people say, 'Don't give up on God' and 'God's not done with you' and 'You have to wait on God' and 'You can't get things in God's timing.' So anything that I would do that didn't work was my fault.

"See, religion for me was nothing but oppressive," he continued. "They wouldn't let me do anything. I remember sitting in church with my great grandmother at four or five years old, in the front row, hearing the pastor screaming and yelling about if you dance, you drink, you smoke cigarettes, you're going to hell, the demons are gonna get you. I went to bed every night scared to death, as a child, thinking that the devil was gonna come and bother me. I used to have nightmares all the time, wake up screaming.

"For me, religion was abusive," Pinnick added. "And other people, it's not like that, and I'm fine with that. But for me, it is. And when someone comes to tell me that, 'Oh, God loves you and He died for your sins,' in my mind I just wanna say, 'Go fuck yourself.' But instead I just have to be like I want everybody else to be — accept the person for who they are and what they believe and love 'em, because it doesn't matter. Love covers a multitude of sins — even the Bible says that. Well, somebody said that it came from the Bible. I'm not sure, so don't quote me."

The biracial 71-year-old went on to blast hypocrisy-, money- and popularity-minded Christians who crave adulation, alienating unbelievers with their pride and greed.

"I believe there are many, many, many, many true believers who I admire and applaud," Pinnick said, "but I do believe that there's many, many, many, many who are just evil people who are only out for their own personal gain — evil narcissist people who are using religion for… I mean, when a guy says, 'Give me your money, 'cause God wants me to have an airplane.' You've got [Jimmy Swaggart] and all those people asking for your money, they're just bullshit; they're just liars. They are a bunch of narcissists who have found a way to bleed people dry. I have such a disgust for them. And I have a sadness for people who believed it, and still believe it. I have a sadness for 'em — not a distaste; I have a sadness. And I have to stay away because I'm that type of person they will not accept. And it's sad to me. But that's life."

Pinnick, who kept his homosexuality quiet with all but his closest friends, eventually came out in a 1998 interview in Contemporary Christian Music magazine.

"It was a big mess," he told LA Weekly in 2002. "Our records got banned from the Christian bookstores; I got hate mall. But they had put me on a pedestal and just expected so much out of me, and I just finally couldn't do it anymore. I hated myself. I had a big panic attack and thought about killing myself. Then I thought, I can't do that. I'm too chicken. It was time, and I decided that if I was going to come out, I was going to come out to my 'family.'"

KING'S X recently completed work on its first studio album in 14 years.

2008's "XV" was KING'S X's highest-charting album since 1996's "Ear Candy".

KING'S X was sidelined by several health scares in recent years, including Pinnick's two hernia operations and two near-fatal heart attacks suffered by drummer Jerry Gaskill.

In October 2019, KING'S X canceled all of its previously announced tour dates for the year so that Gaskill could undergo undisclosed heart "procedures."

In 2005, VH1 included KING'S X in its list of "100 Greatest Artists In Hard Rock."

MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor has revealed that he contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, immediately after the band's recently completed U.S. tour with OPETH. "Right when I got home from tour, I had COVID — like the day I got home," he told Art Of Rock in a new interview (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "I tested positive. I got pretty sick, actually. I was sick for a couple of weeks. I was down and out. But I guess the good news of it was it didn't happen while we were on tour and it happened when I got home. So I was, like, 'Oh, I'm sick.' And I had the opportunity to be sick and I didn't have to get on stage and play and stuff, which I've done with the flu many times; it's one of the worst feelings ever, but you've gotta bring the music to the people. It doesn't matter how you feel — do it."

According to Dailor, he has played a number of shows in the past when he didn't feel a hundred percent healthy. "Many times I'd be laying backstage, on one of the couches backstage, just feeling like death, thinking to myself, 'I don't know how I'm gonna pull this off,' and then getting up there," he said. "I've had some of my best shows when I've been sick as a dog. So I don't know what happens there. But something else takes over. Maybe a couple of NyQuils [cough, cold and flu medicine] and you're feeling like you're out of your mind and you get up there and just play the drums and your body takes over. I don't recommend it."

Dailor went on to say that MASTODON is planning on returning to the road later this year. "We will announce something soon," he said. "We're just waiting for it to completely solidify and come all together. But, yeah, there'll be some dates coming up soon.

"It's a strange world, isn't it?" he continued. "It's been a strange time. Nothing's really stable right now, unfortunately. We kind of thought that, 'Okay, we're back. Everything's back, right?' But it's, like, hold your horses, I guess. But I think that things are moving in the right direction. We should have a nice, big announcement soon for another tour in the States."

This past November, MASTODON was announced as one of the "Best Metal Performance" nominees at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, which will be held on April 3, 2022, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The progressive metallers were nominated for their song "Pushing The Tides", the first single from their latest album, "Hushed And Grim", which came out in October.

The follow-up to 2017's "Emperor Of Sand", "Hushed And Grim"was recorded at West End Sound, which is located inside of Ember City, the rehearsal facility that members of MASTODON manage in Atlanta. Helming the effort was Grammy-winning producer/mixer/engineer David Bottrill, who has previously worked with MUSE, DREAM THEATER and TOOL, among many others.

The "Hushed And Grim" artwork was created by longtime MASTODON collaborator Paul Romano, who also designed the sleeves for "Crack The Skye", "Blood Mountain", "Leviathan" and more.

"Emperor Of Sand" debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. That LP was nominated for the 2018 Grammy Award for "Best Rock Album," and its opening track, "Sultan's Curse", won the Grammy Award for "Best Metal Performance."

Voltagehawk has released their debut full length album Electric Thunder w/ TLG Entertainment/ INgrooves. Electric Thunder takes you on a cosmic journey through Voltagehawk's rock and roll planet. 


The band blends unique guitar tones and hard-hitting drum beats with a mix of lively yet meaningful lyrics to bring to life their other-worldy vision. Electric Thunder is a true rock and roll record- assertive and zealous balanced with an old school groove. With this worthy full length album under their belt and a new video for featured track "The Cosmic Hangman" to support it, Voltagehawk proves that they're here to make their mark.







"On 10/17/17 I was dead. I had drank myself into oblivion. Years of depression, abuse, and confusion as a child had finally caught up with me. As I lay unconscious, I was at perfect peace; no pain, no ringing in my ears, just floating for 9 minutes as the paramedics brought me back. I heard a voice inside my mind ask if I wanted to stay in the cosmic womb or if I would stop drinking. Those were my only options. I chose to give up the bottle, accept help for the first time in my life, and enter a treatment program. It changed everything. My moment of peace in the cosmic womb let me know that there was something after this life, but not what they had taught me as a child. The reception of my new found life was mixed. As I went on a journey of amends, I was embraced by some and rejected by others. I was told that without religion I couldn’t possibly have changed. They were wrong, I had changed.


“The rule of the papacy has long cast judgment on those seeking change outside the constructs of religion or faith. This song is an anthem for the undamned, unfallen, and unredeemed. Rebirth is not a battle between heaven and hell, but a battle between mind and body."


 -Daniel Fenton, Voltagehawk





While recording at Electric Thunder Studios with Geoff Piller, Mastering by Brian Lucey at Magic Garden Mastering (Black Keys, Ghost, Arctic Monkeys, Dr. John, Marilyn Manson) the band put together an energetic, fast paced, melodic opener set and quickly found themselves supporting national touring acts including Beasto Blanco (Chuck Garric of Alice Cooper), The Pink Spiders, Goodbye June, Toke, and Duel.


Continuing on its mission to fuse melodic Nashville songwriting sensibilities with raw Rock and Roll power, Voltagehawk is excited to release its debut full-length 13 song space epic Electric Thunder.


Electric Thunder follows a young heroine's journey through space and time as she comes to realize she is the only translator for the most important message Earth has ever received.

Finnish death metal band Torture Killer has provided an update on their new EP:


"It's now been nine years since our last release, Phobia (2013) - after a long creative dry season, as we were approaching the end of the decade, we finally had some fresh ideas for new Torture Killer music. Going back to the analog recording was something that had been on the back of our minds for some time. When we heard that Santeri (the guy who recorded Phobia and I Chose Death) had left the business - it was the time to explore that path. Now or never. None of us liked where the modern production had gone, and if the best of the best, our idols couldn't get it right... what did we have to lose? In February 2019 we entered Astia Studios with hopes to come out with a new, all analog EP. The beginning of a nightmare that would last for the next two years.


Some of the unorthodox approaches of recording that were done during the Astia sessions were instantly apparent when listening to the final mixes. We let our guard down at a moment when we should've known better. Rather than having a ready-to-go master in our hands, we had a reel of sub-bar level recording that had cost us the amount of a full length album. I'd burn that reel in an oil-barrel before having anyone else hear it the way it was. A disappointment like that takes the life out of you for months. You don´t even want to think about it. But as the months rolled on, we started to look for options where to fix the problems we had. Analog studios are few and far between. The ones that could run the reel we had were even fewer. But at the end we found a place, and in January 2020 we entered JJ Studios.




While we fixed the original flaws of the Astia sessions, we still struggled with the mix and at the end decided we had no choice but the let go of the all-analog dream and mix the EP ourselves with a help of a friend, Taneli Hatakka, who runs a home studio near the place we live. During the winter months of 2021 we finally finished the EP.


Like I said earlier, it´s been a nightmare, but it was worth it. We took a financial hit but fuck it. It's the end result that matters. Love the songs on the EP, love the sound and can´t wait for you to hear it.


Right now we are waiting our label to announce its release. Why the wait then? Because of the comeback of the vinyl format, all the pressing plants have a line of 4-6 months for all releases. We have an amazing cover art for this done by our old friend, Wes Benscoter, the same guy who did our cover art for Swarm! - and we want this done the right way - CD and LP. More news as they come.


So, in conclusion, thanks for sticking with us - we are still here and are about to drag you into the void."


(Picture by Toni Forssell, courtesy of Torture Killer's official Facebook page)


 

Kid Rock has threatened to cancel concerts on his upcoming tour if venues require fans to show proof of vaccine or potentially have other COVID-19 safety protocols in place.

In a Facebook video, Kid Rock assured fans that he and his team did extensive research and are confident that they hadn't booked a gig at a venue with a hard vaccine mandate.

"If there are any venues — I'm not aware of any — they're gonna be gone by the time we get to your city," he said. "If they're not, you don't have to worry, you'll be getting your money back — because I won't be showing up either. If you think I'm going to sit out there and sing 'Don't Tell Me How To Live' and 'We The People' while people are holding up their fucking vaccine cards and wearing masks — that shit ain't happening."

Kid Rock did not clarify whether he would play shows at venues where a negative COVID-19 test is required. However, according to Rolling Stone, several arenas where he is booked to perform — including PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey, and the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts — require proof of vaccine or a negative COVID test from within 72 hours.

Kid Rock's U.S. tour with FOREIGNER and GRAND FUNK RAILROAD will kick off on April 6 at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, making stops across the U.S. in Nashville, Boston, Chicago, and more before wrapping up with two shows in Detroit. JASON BONHAM'S LED ZEPPELIN EVENING will appear on select dates on the 24-city "Bad Reputation Tour", with a special appearance by Trey Lewis at all shows.

Earlier this week, Kid Rock released three new songs: "We The People", "The Last Dance" and "Rockin'". The most controversial track of the three, "We The People" features the chorus of "Let's go, Brandon," conservative code for "Fuck Joe Biden" (born when a NASCAR reporter misheard a crowd, reporting that they chanted in support of racer Brandon Brown when they were actually chanting expletives toward the U.S. president), and also takes aim at the mainstream media, CNN, TMZ, Twitter and Facebook, as well as mask mandates and COVID-19 restrictions.




New video message from Kid Rock regarding the upcoming tour, vax mandates, new music, and MORE. '

For tour info go to https://kidrock.com

To hear the new music go to https://smarturl.it/KR-NewMusic

Posted by Kid Rock on Thursday, January 27, 2022