Sebastian Bach says that he has lost 35 pounds in the last five months.

The former SKID ROW singer shared the news of his weight loss in an Instagram post earlier day. He posted a shirtless mirror selfie and included the following message: "In the spirit of Ms @britneyspears , here is a picture of me just waking up today looking in the mirror.

"Why am I posting this? For one simple reason: I have lost around 35 pounds since August 2021. Am I exactly where I want to be? Not yet. Am I heading in the right direction? You better believe it.

"Rock n' roll does a body good! So does completely changing your diet and exercising as much as possible. #Yoga running and always remember that abs are made in the kitchen!

"I will be 54 years old in April. If I can do it, so can you! I am not letting up for anything."

In a 2011 interview with Guitar World, Bach stated about the amount of work that he puts into getting ready for a vocal performance: "I spend hours doing it. It's pretty much every day, and that's not even counting the hours I spend running to stay in shape. Doing sit-ups and push-ups and fucking all this crap. [Laughs] But I signed up to be the lead singer, so I know the rules. Nobody wants a fat lead singer. [Laughs]"

Bach recently completed a tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of SKID ROW's double-platinum, acclaimed album "Slave To The Grind". The trek kicked off on September 25 in Waterloo, New York and wrapped in San Diego, California on December 17.

Bach fronted SKID ROW until 1996, when he was fired. Instead of throwing in the towel, the remaining members took a hiatus and went on to play briefly in a band called OZONE MONDAY.

In 1999, SKID ROW reformed and, after a bit of shuffling over the years, featured a lineup consisting of bassist Rachel Bolan and guitarists Dave "Snake" Sabo and Scotti Hill, alongside drummer Rob Hammersmith and singer Johnny Solinger.

SKID ROW fired Solinger over the phone in April 2015, a few hours before announcing ex-TNT vocalist Tony Harnell as his replacement. Eight months later, Harnell exited the band and was replaced by South African-born, British-based singer ZP Theart, who previously fronted DRAGONFORCE, TANK and I AM I.
























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According to the New York Post, SLAYER guitarist Kerry King and his wife, Ayesha, recently purchased a condo in Tribeca, a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City, for $3.65 million.

The renovated 3,522-square-foot home was on the market for 45 days. It comes with $4,572 monthly common charges.

Check out pictures of the property at this location.

Ayesha King broke the news of the couple's move in an Instagram post last November. She wrote: "I suppose it's time to tell you all that the King and I have moved to NYC ( back home for me, excited to be near my family again ). I figured I'd beat some acquaintance's friend buddy who it heard it from a guy to announce it and think he's cool. I served my time on the west coast for 18 years. Time to be back in the best city on earth."

Kerry's SLAYER bandmate Gary Holt was one of the musicians who congratulated the couple on their new residence, writing in the comments section: " No fucking way!!! Congrats on the return home!" TESTAMENT guitarist Alex Skolnick, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, wrote: "Heck yes. C u guys around!"

It was reported back in April 2020 that Kerry and his wife paid $3.81 million for a home in a section of the Las Vegas Valley known as Enterprise. That 6,085-square-foot house has just been listed for $4.8 million.

In October, Kerry made headlines in the metal world when he said that SLAYER retired "too early." While recording a short video message to congratulate MACHINE HEAD on the San Francisco Bay Area act's 30th anniversary, SLAYER's founding guitarist said: "So, I hear congratulations are in order for my friends in MACHINE HEAD. Apparently, it's 30 years, which is quite an achievement. Not a lot of bands get there. We did, and then we quit too early. Fuck us. Fuck me. I hate fucking not playing."

SLAYER played the final show of its farewell tour in November 2019 at the Forum in Los Angeles. One day later, Ayesha 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, SLAYER drummer Paul Bostaph confirmed that he is involved in a brand new project headed up by Kerry King. The duo spent much of the last year and a half working on music with the hopes of recording it properly once the coronavirus pandemic has subsided.

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.




Slayer guitarist Kerry King rocks into $3.6M Tribeca crib https://t.co/rDGyfCxFko pic.twitter.com/eC9YmJumZX

— New York Post (@nypost) January 12, 2022

The sixth episode of "Psycho Schizo Espresso", a brand new podcast from IRON MAIDEN's Bruce Dickinson and Oxford University psychologist and best-selling author Dr. Kevin Dutton, has just been launched across all podcast platforms. Check it out below.

In this episode, Dutton and Dickinson chat to Andy McNab, the pen name of Steven Billy Mitchell, a former British Army soldier who has authored a plethora of fiction and non-fiction books and is a diagnosed "good" psychopath, about the unique mindset of special forces operatives, discuss what it takes to work undercover in highly volatile and suicidally dangerous war zones and how being a psychopath can definitely help. Kev and Bruce also delve deeper into Andy's psychopathic tendencies and hear how a trip to the pub one afternoon almost resulted in "a level of physical violence you never knew existed"; how Andy once met himself chatting up a couple of girls at a literary festival (and was delighted to observe himself doing rather well!); and how, in recent years, his ability to empathize with others has received a boost from a rather unusual source... emojis!

You can listen to "Psycho Schizo Espresso" wherever you get your podcasts, and the show is also available in Vodcast form on YouTube. Head to this location to find the podcast on your favorite platform.

Official podcast description: "If psychology was a country, then it would be the world's top tourist destination bar none. It's an enchanted territory with something for everyone: from aliens to drug lords, from serial killers to conspiracy theories. Join intellectual explorers Bruce Dickinson and Dr. Kevin Dutton for an Indiana Jones style adventure through some of its most far-flung corners as they delve into the psyches of rock icons, sporting superstars, and special forces soldiers and get the latest tips and insights from some of the most respected thought leaders and brain scientists on the planet. If you've ever wondered whether psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman really exist outside the imaginations of Hollywood screenwriters and film directors, why ghosts only seem to appear at night, and about the true meaning of the Book of Revelation's most enduring and enigmatic mystery — 666, the number of the beast — then welcome aboard Flight Psycho Schizo Espresso and observe the 'fasten seatbelt' sign!"

Dutton explained how the idea for the podcast came about: "Not long after meeting Bruce, it became instantly clear to me that we shared a number of wide-reaching interests and that we should channel that into a podcast. 'Psycho Schizo Espresso' is certainly a journey of exploration for the both of us, and we are sure our listeners are going to learn a lot from our guests. Whether from the music industry, academia or elsewhere — you may, for instance, share our interest in psychopaths, both good and bad — this is certainly a podcast that we feel everyone will enjoy and should go and subscribe to straight away."

The Haunted guitarist Ola Englund has shared a new video to his YouTube channel, this time featuring himself learning how to play the Pantera classic "Becoming".


Englund: "One of those Pantera songs I never bothered learning. It's time! Brinf out the whammy! Guitar is tuned to standard D but with a tuner set to 425hz. Guitar tone is Archetype Plini and my DIMED Impulse Response."










Englund released his second solo album, Starzinger, earlier this year. Mixed and mastered by Clawfinger’s Jocke Skog, Starzinger follows-up Englund’s debut solo album, Master Of The Universe, released in early 2018 and features Delta Empire on drums along with a number of guest appearances, including guitar virtuoso Jeff Loomis (Arch Enemy, Nevermore).


Check out a playthrough video of "Balegmah" from the album featuring Loomis in action.





Portraying the artwork of Costin Chioreanu (Paradise Lost, At The Gates, Emperor), Starzinger sees Englund merging influences of prog with '80s rock and metal.





Tracklist:


"Stars & Ponies"
"Cringy AF"
"Space Invaders"
"Demon(etized)"
"Bane of Skeletor"
"Bluesy McBluesface"
"Balegmah"
"Sun & The Moon"
"A Bid Farewell"


Stream Starzinger in full below:





"I’m extremely excited to see the release of my second solo album Starzinger, this album being a little bit more metal oriented than my first Master Of The Universe album. It’s a weird feeling because it’s basically just showing the current state of me and where I am in life. Hoping that the people that follow what I do can see the parallels. This one is for you," says Englund about this new effort.


With over 300K subscribers on his tech/music Youtube channel, over the last few years, Ola Englund has also built a strong reputation in the music scene by playing in several bands, most prominently in Feared and The Haunted. Just recently Englund also founded his own guitar company called Solar Guitars, which was meet with great success and currently sponsors artists like Exhorder, The Haunted and At The Gates.

BMG continues presenting a new series of limited edition vinyl pictures from Uriah Heep, with the release of Demons And Wizards and The Magician’s Birthday on February 25. The artwork for each picture disc has been meticulously worked on, retouching the original art and creating a true visual feast. Both albums feature the original and reimagined artwork of Roger Dean, who is widely seen as one of the masters of 12" album cover art from this time.


Originally released in May 1972 Uriah Heep’s fourth album, Demons And Wizards, includes the singles "The Wizard" and "Easy Livin’" and led Rolling Stone magazine at the time to write “..one hell of a first rate modern rock-band”. A mere six months later in November 1972 Uriah Heep released their fifth album, The Magician’s Birthday, which contains the hits "Sweet Lorraine" and "Spider Woman". Demons And Wizards and The Magician’s Birthday both went gold in the States, entering the Billboard Top 40, ensuring years of concert dominance for the band throughout the ‘70s.


Both albums contain the original audio recorded in Landsdowne studios.




Pre-order Demons And Wizards here. Pre-order The Magician’s Birthday here.





Demons And Wizards tracklisting:


A-Side:
"The Wizard" (2017 – Remaster)
"Traveller In Time" (2017 – Remaster)
"Easy Livin’" (2017 – Remaster)
"Poet’s Justice" (2017 – Remaster)
"Circle Of Hands" (2017 – Remaster)


B-Side:
"Rainbow Demon" (2017 – Remaster)
"All My Life" (2017 – Remaster)
"Paradise" (2017 – Remaster)
"The Spell" (2017 – Remaster)





The Magicians Birthday tracklisting:


A-Side:
"Sunrise"
"Spider Women"
"Blind Eye"
"Echo’s In The Dark"
"Rain"


B-Side:
"Sweet Lorraine"
"Tales"
"The Magician’s Birthday"


Uriah Heep are one of the “big four” rock bands, along with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, and certainly one of the most intriguing bands both musically and lyrically, to emerge from heavy rock. Evoking an era when prog, hard rock and heavy metal co-existed in an era of glorious, boundary-breaking music, Uriah Heep rose from inexperienced studio musicians with everything to prove to bona fide limo inhabiting rock stars.


After selling over 40 million albums worldwide, over the years Uriah Heep have influenced many different metal bands around the globe, among the most popular being Dio. Bands including A-ha, King Diamond, Krokus, Demons & Wizards, Fifth Angel and Axel Rudi Pell have all cited Uriah Heep as a band of personal influence, while W.A.S.P, Tesla and Blackmore’s Night have all covered the band’s songs.


Uriah Heep continue to tour until this day with founding member Mick Box and their extensive European tour for 2022 features 61 dates across 28 countries, tickets available here.


(Photo - Richard Stow)

Canadian bashers, Sven Gali, will release their new album, Bombs And Battlescars, in late May via RFL Records. The band's cover of the Triumph classic, "Spellbound", will be available digitally on February 4.


Back in December, Triumph shared the video below, featuring Sven Gali's performance of "Spellbound", originally featured on Triumph's 1984 album, Thunder Seven. The footage was filmed at Metalworks Studios, the legendary recording studio in Mississauga, Ontario, established in 1978 by Triumph's Gil Moore.







"Spellbound" will be included on Bombs And Battlescars.


In regard to the new album, Sven Gali drummer Dan Fila recently revealed: "We are very pleased to announce that Andy Curran (Coney Hatch / bass) will be producing two tracks on the upcoming SG record. Working with Andy throughout the pre-production process has been a great experience."





Updates to follow.


Sven Gali lineup:


Dave Wanless – Vocals
Andy Frank – Guitars
Shawn Minden – Bass
Sean Williamson – Guitars
Dan Fila – Drums

In a new interview on A Discussion With Dean Cramer, TWISTED SISTER guitarist Jay Jay French spoke about record labels' reputation as crooks who rip off artists at every turn. He said: "Rock and roll, let me be clear, is a criminal enterprise. The record labels are criminals. It's simple as that. They're just legal criminals. So when you're in a cesspool of criminality, whether it's obvious criminality, in other words, whether it's blue-collar criminality where someone is threatening your life with a gun or it's white-collar criminality, you're dealing with criminals. So you're dealing with the sleaze, the lowlives, the lying. You don't believe any of this shit 'cause everyone lies. So you kind of have to get used to it."

French previously discussed music's long history of record companies taking advantage of artists in an April 2021 interview with Canada's The Metal Voice. At the time, he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "There's two levels of a rip-off. One is contractual rip-off, which is just — that's just the nature of the game; that's how it is, like it or not. And the other is somehow that management's really taken from you. Now, I'd say most bands don't understand the record company deals that they sign, and they don't understand how small the percentages are. I mean, THE BEATLES were making a half a penny a single and six cents an album with the royalties. I think that JACKSON 5, I think most Motown acts were making two, three, four, five cents an album.

"There are clauses all over the contract," he continued. "I do a talk on this. I said, 'How much money do you make on a million-selling record?' And this is by contract — no one's stealing from you; this is just the way the contract's written. If you look at a contract back in 1984, and let's just say, for the sake of this example, the band made a dollar a record, which is very high, but let's suppose the band got a dollar a record. And you sold a million records, and you have a platinum album on your wall. And friends go, 'Oh man, a million records. You must be really rich.' But what does that really mean? Well, in the contract, to begin with, the contract says it's 15% free goods, which means the record label is allowed to not pay you on 15% of record sales, 'cause they supposedly sent it to the press for reviews, except if you're on a million-selling record, you're not sending 150,000 albums out for review, but you can claim that you can. So, they withhold royalties on 15%, which is $150,000. So now your million is basically $850,000. On top of that, there's a breakage fee of 10%, because… Records haven't broken since Moby Dick was a minnow, but back when shellac records were made, it was in the contracts; that's another 10%. So that's 25% off the top. So right away, you're not being paid on a million [copies]; you're being paid on 750,000 [copies]. Then there's a 20% container charge to make the record or the CD, so they subtract that. So automatically 45% of the royalty-bearing records are now gone, okay? Now you're [left] with $550,000. Well, suppose you made a video. Then that gets subtracted. Suppose there's recording costs, which is another $300,000. And then there's promotion costs for the record, which is probably $100,000 if the record is successful. You're down to what? $200,000? You take the $200,000 and you send it to your business manager and your manager, they take out 20% and 5%. And maybe the band is left with $100,000, $150,000. A five-man band breaks it up, [and] it's $30,000 each before taxes. You get the mathematics here?"

French added: "Contracts were designed to make the record companies money. Now, in defense of the label, labels sign a hundred bands, [and] 95 [of them] fail, so they make their money off the 5% that succeed, and they make a lot of money. However, it is the only business in which you pay back the label and then you still don't own the product. That's the biggest problem I have with the theory of record labels. If the band wasn't charged back the cost of making the record, then I'd say, fine, okay. But if you're making me pay you back and I still don't own it... You know, Taylor Swift brought this to light to people, and people said, 'Oh, this is so terrible. Taylor doesn't own her music.' No one owns their music. This isn't new. This is the way it is. It's the way it's always been. THE BEATLES don't own their albums, and THE ROLLING STONES don't own their masters. A couple of artists do, but generally, 99% [don't]."

TWISTED SISTER called it quits in 2016 after completing a farewell 40th-anniversary tour. The band's last-ever concert took place in November of that year — 20 months after the passing of TWISTED's longtime drummer A.J. Pero.

French's new "bizoir" — part memoir and part business primer — "Twisted Business: Lessons From My Life In Rock 'N' Roll", was released in September via RosettaBooks.

Revocation has completed the follow-up to their 2018 album The Outer Ones, which is due out sometime this Fall. The new album will be Revocation's first since the departure of guitarist Dan Gargiulo in 2020, who played on everything from Chaos Of Forms in 2011 up to The Outer Ones.

"Happy New Year heathens, album #8 is completed and is due out in the fall," said the band. "This is our most diabolical record to date, we can’t wait to share more with you all when the time comes 🤘"

Revocation will hit the road with Cannibal Corpse, Whitechapel, and Shadow Of Intent starting this February.

2/18 Center Stage – Atlanta, GA
2/19 The Ramkat – Winston-Salem, NC
2/20 Baltimore Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
2/21 Reverb – Reading, PA
2/22 The Roxian – Pittsburgh, PA
2/24 Brooklyn Steel – Brooklyn, NY
2/25 The Palladium – Worcester, MA
2/26 Anthology – Rochester, NY
2/28 The Majestic – Detroit, MI
3/1 The Vic – Chicago, IL
3/2 Skyway Theater – Minneapolis, MN
3/4 The Gothic – Denver, CO
3/5 Metro Music Hall – Salt Lake City, UT
3/7 Showbox – Seattle, WA
3/8 Hawthorne – Portland, OR
3/10 Ace Of Spades – Sacramento, CA
3/11 The UC Theatre – Berkeley, CA
3/12 The Observatory – Santa Ana, CA
3/13 The Belasco – Los Angeles, CA
3/14 The Van Buren – Phoenix, AZ
3/15 Sunshine Theater – Albuquerque, NM
3/17 Vibes Event Center – San Antonio, TX
3/18 White Oak Music Hall – Houston, TX
3/19 Amplified Live – Dallas, TX
3/21 Red Flag – St. Louis, MO
3/22 Mercury Ballroom – Louisville, KY
3/23 Iron City – Birmingham, AL
3/25 Jannus Live – St. Petersburg, FL
3/26 Revolution – Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Former BLACK SABBATH singer Tony Martin says that he has no idea what is going on with the proposed reissues of the albums he recorded with the band.

BLACK SABBATH released six albums with Martin on vocals: "The Eternal Idol" (1987), "Headless Cross" (1989), "Tyr" (1990), "Cross Purposes" (1994), "Cross Purposes Live" (1995) and "Forbidden" (1995). Eventually, Martin and his "Forbidden"-era bandmates were ousted when guitarist Tony Iommi reunited with SABBATH's fellow original members.

Martin discussed the possibility of the LPs from his era of SABBATH being reissued in a brand new interview with Canada's The Metal Voice. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We had a guy in BLACK SABBATH called Geoff Nicholls. He was the keyboard player. He died four years ago. And when we [were] at Geoff Nicholls's funeral service, I bumped into Tony Iommi there, and he said, 'I've got loads of stuff to play you. And we have to get together and see if we can write some new songs. And then maybe we can re-release the Tony Martin-era albums.' And I thought, 'Well, that's cool. Okay. Whatever.' Then the phone went dead for ages — months and months and months and months. So I called him back and he said, 'Come over to the house and we'll talk about it.' So I said, 'Okay.' So I went to his house and he said, 'We can't do it.' And I went, 'What?' He said, 'We can't do it.' I said, 'Why not?' He said because there's an agreement with the guys of SABBATH that they can only release something [new] under the SABBATH name if it's the original SABBATH members. Nobody else can record anything [new] under the SABBATH name…. What he said was what we can do is reissue the albums. We can't add anything to it. So what we're expecting, if he ever gets around to it, is for the Tony Martin-era albums, apart from 'Eternal Idol', 'cause that's owned by someone else, to be reissued. Remixed probably in the case of 'Forbidden', but I think it'll just be as it was… [We can add] only stuff that's already been recorded at the time."

According to Martin, he has already found loads of recordings in his personal collection that would be perfect for inclusion on proposed issues of the SABBATH albums from his era of the band.

"I've searched through… I've got hundreds of tapes — things from the writing sessions," he said. "I've got the tapes when Eddie Van Halen was with us writing on 'Cross Purposes'. I sent that over to Tony. That appeared on YouTube; I don't know how that got out. But I've got all sorts of stuff like that. And I thought that was the kind of thing that they would reissue the albums with. But I have no idea. You probably know more than me."

Six years ago, Iommi told I Heart Guitar that "it's a shame" that "it took a lot for people to accept" Martin as SABBATH's vocalist. "It's taken all these years later for people to say, 'Oh blimey, that was a good band with good singing.' So it took a long time to get people to really realize how good it was."

In 2018, Iommi spent time in the studio remixing "Forbidden" for a future release. The LP, which features Martin, drummer Cozy Powell and bassist Neil Murray, is often regarded as SABBATH's worst studio recording.

In a 2012 interview with Über Röck, Martin said that he was "surprised" to see Iommi criticizing him in the guitarist's "Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven And Hell With Black Sabbath" book (referring to the Martin period, especially the touring phase following the release of "Cross Purposes" in 1994, Iommi lambasted his former singer as "unprofessional" and having "no stage presence"). Martin said: "I mean, they never said anything to me. Surely, if you've got a problem, the first person you should say something to is the person that's in the band with you... It sounds like a really stupid thing to say, as they didn't say anything to my face — and, if that's the case, then more fool them for not saying anything, because, you know, we could have fixed it. I said to them, endlessly, that if there was anything they wanted changed, done differently, just to say and we could fix it, but clearly, they didn't, they hadn't got the guts to, obviously, and to write about it in a book afterwards seems a bit daft to me. I'm not bitter about it, but it is surprising... It seems a bit stupid to say that after the event."

Original SABBATH singer Ozzy Osbourne filed a lawsuit against Iommi in May 2009, claiming that Tony illegally took sole ownership of the band's name in a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Osbourne sued Iommi for a 50 percent interest in the "Black Sabbath" trademark, along with a portion of Iommi's profits from use of the name.

The Manhattan federal court suit also charged that Osbourne's "signature lead vocals" are largely responsible for the band's "extraordinary success," noting that its popularity plummeted during his absence from 1980 through 1996.

Lawyer Andrew DeVore argued that Osbourne signed away all his rights to the BLACK SABBATH trademark after he quit the band in 1979.

Osbourne's lawyer, Howard Shire, called that agreement a "red herring" that was "repudiated" when the singer rejoined in 1997 and took over "quality control" of the band's merchandise, tours and recordings.

In June 2010, Ozzy told The Pulse of Radio that the lawsuit between him and Tony had been settled and that everything was okay between them.

Martin's new solo album, "Thorns", will arrive on January 14 via Battlegod Productions and Dark Star Records. Among the guest musicians appearing on the LP are Scott McClellan (who helped write the album), Danny "Danté" Needham (VENOM), Magnus Rosén (HAMMERFALL), Greg Smith (ALICE COOPER, RAINBOW, BLUE ÖYSTER CULT) and Martin's youngest son Joe.

The surviving members of SOUNDGARDEN have paid tribute to vocalist/bassist Burke Shelley of legendary Welsh rockers BUDGIE who died on Monday, January 10 at the age of 71.

SOUNDGARDEN was one of several high-profile groups who covered BUDGIE classics over the years: The Chris Cornell-fronted outfit's take on "Homicidal Suicidal" was released in 1992 as the B-side of the "Outshined" single and was included on the 2014 compilation album "Echo Of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across The Path".

Earlier today (Wednesday, January 12), Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd took to Instagram to write: "We are so sad to learn of the passing of Burke Shelley, the founding vocalist, bassist, keyboardist and songwriter for the influential and heavy UK rock band, BUDGIE.

"BUDGIE were early pioneers of blues based metallic rock, and were contemporaries of BLACK SABBATH. They never achieved the same degree of notoriety and success in the United States, but amongst rock musicians they were revered. They made their impression upon SOUNDGARDEN who covered their song, 'Homicidal Suicidal' for the Friday Rock Show BBC sessions in 1992. This track is included on 2014's 'Echo Of Miles: Scattered Tracks Across The Path'.

"Burke Shelley was 71 years old.

"Peace eternal Burke; you will be missed."

The news of Burke's passing was shared Monday by his daughter Ela. She wrote on Facebook: "It is with great sadness that I announce the death of my father, John Burke Shelley. He passed away this evening in his sleep at Heath Hospital in Cardiff, his birth town. He was 71 years old. Please respect the family during this time.

"With love, His four children: Ela, Osian, Dimitri and Nathaniel."

Two years ago, Shelley said that he was suffering from aortic aneurysm — a dangerous and abnormal swelling of the main artery that supplies blood to the body. He was also batting Stickler syndrome, a genetic disorder that can cause serious vision, hearing and joint problems. At the time, he told Wales Online that he turned down surgery because of the risk that it would cause irreparable spinal damage.

"I want to live what life I have left and not be crippled," he said. "I've got faith in God and have no worries about where I'm going. So I'll just go when He decides to take me and, in the meantime, I'll carry on doing what I want to do. Simple as that."

Shelley said the surgery he had in 2010 for aortic aneurysm resulted in damage to his diaphragm, leaving him unable to sing properly.

Often thought of as a cross between BLACK SABBATH and RUSH, the underappreciated outfit has influenced countless acts, despite enduring countless line-up shifts throughout their history.

The group originally formed in 1967 in Cardiff, Wales, comprised of Shelley (vocals, bass), Tony Bourge (guitar) and Ray Phillips (drums), and by the early 1970s they'd inked a deal with MCA Records.

This early lineup remains BUDGIE's most definitive, due to the fact that it spawned three of the group's finest albums — 1971's self-titled debut, 1972's "Squawk" and 1973's "Never Turn Your Back On A Friend" — while the group's quirky song titles became somewhat of a trademark for the trio (such ditties as "Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman", "Hot As A Docker's Armpit", "In The Grip Of A Tyrefitter's Hand" and "You're The Biggest Thing Since Powdered Milk").

Despite building a sizeable following in their homeland (while never breaking out of cult status stateside), Phillips left the group prior to their fourth album, 1974's "In For the Kill!", replaced by newcomer Pete Boot, which would in turn set off a flurry of steady lineup changes over the years for the group (the only constant BUDGIE member from the beginning was Shelley). Further releases were issued throughout the '70s, including 1975's "Bandolier".

Shelley and company would remain together for a few more years before splitting up quietly by the mid-'80s. But almost as soon as they disbanded, several high-profile groups began covering BUDGIE classics, including METALLICA ("Crash Course In Brain Surgery" and "Breadfan"), IRON MAIDEN ("I Can't See My Feelings"), while back in their early club days VAN HALEN was known to cover the title track from "In For The Kill!"
























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Finnish symphonic doom / death metal band Depressed Mode have released a new single, "Death Walks Among Us". The track is taken from their upcoming third studio album, Decade Of Silence, which is set to be released on May 6th 2022 via Inverse Records.


Vocalist Otto Salonen comments: "This song is the opening track of our upcoming album. I composed the song 12 years ago, right after our ..For Death album (2009). We recorded a demo of this song back in 2011, and after that the band went silent. I’m really happy that we recorded it for our new album, and hope you all like it as much as we do! It represents the more death metal side of our album."


Check out "Death Walks Among Us" below. Pre-order Decade Of Silence here. 







Depressed Mode was established in 2005 by composer Otto Salonen. Signed a contract with Firebox Records for two albums in 2006. First album, Ghosts Of Devotion, was released in 2007, and received really good reviews throughout the media. The second album, ..For Death, released in 2009, was a success, and a step towards more symphonic death/doom metal, with great reviews as well.


Otto Salonen begun composing DM’s third album in January 2020. The lineup for the new album consists of Otto Salonen, Teemu Heinola, Henri Hakala and Iiro Aittokoski. Veronica Bordacchini from Fleshgod Apocalypse took over the female vocals for the third album.


The album was recorded and mixed at Ansa Studio by Teemu Heinola and Otto Salonen during 2021.


In autumn 2021 Depressed Mode signed a deal with Inverse Records for Decade Of Silence. The album was mastered by Mika Jussila at Finnvox Studios Helsinki.


Photo by Jamppa Lamminpää

German power metal legends Helloween have released an official lyric video for “Skyfall”, a track from their new self-titled album, which landed at #8 on our BravePicks 2021 countdown.


Says the band: "The tension now grows, we're getting so close, enter the ship, start the engine and open the gates - to watch the official lyric video of 'Skyfall' (Album Version) below!"







Helloween's new self-titled album is available via Nuclear Blast. Head here to order Helloween in your format of choice.





Tracklisting:


"Out For The Glory"
"Fear Of The Fallen"
"Best Time"
"Mass Pollution"
"Angels"
"Rise Without Chains"
"Indestructible"
"Robot King"
"Cyanide"
"Down In The Dumps"
"Orbit"
"Skyfall"


Bonus tracks Mediabook & Vinyl:
"Golden Times"
"Save My Hide"


Bonus tracks Earbook:
"Golden Times"
"Save My Hide"
"Pumpkins United"


“Down In The Dumps” lyric video:





"Robot King" lyric video:





"Indestructible" lyric video:





"Rise Without Chains" lyric video:





"Angels" lyric video:





"Mass Pollution" lyric video:


   


"Best Time lyric video:





"Fear Of The Fallen" lyric video:





"Skyfall" video:

During a recent appearance on "Whiplash", the KLOS radio show hosted by Full Metal Jackie, DISTURBED frontman David Draiman spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to 2018's "Evolution" album. Regarding what it has been like for him and his bandmates to regroup in person after such a long time apart and once again launch the creative process, he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET) : "There's really nothing that replaces it. It was a continuing theme of conversation over the course of the week that we had together between our couple of shows we played in Indiana [in early November] and our performance over in Daytona for [the] Welcome To Rockville [festival]. There really is no substitute. There isn't. The energy and that realization when you've got something. Compare it to fishing, and you finally land a big one. [Laughs] It's incredibly, incredibly exciting. And we were on fire. [We came up with] six new song ideas, [and we have] two in our back pocket, and more potentially being worked on this upcoming weekend. We're very, very excited."

As for the musical direction of the new DISTURBED songs, Draiman said: "The material is somewhere between 'The Sickness' and 'Ten Thousand Fists' as far as where I would identify it as sonically. It's rhythmic, it's pummeling, it's anthemic, it's polysyncopated. It's meat-and-potatoes DISTURBED."

David also discussed DISTURBED's apparent decision to pursue a more aggressive musical approach on its next LP compared to "Evolution", on which nearly half the songs were either acoustic or semi-acoustic.

"It's a different sort of itch you're scratching," he said. "You can have the satisfaction that comes with, let's say, playing with your children peacefully somewhere and you can have a different sort of satisfaction in engaging in full-contact football with your buddies. It's just a different feel. They're both equally as gratifying but sometimes you just get a little taste more for one than the other. And right now we are definitely — we've got our teeth dug in to that style. We were dying to do the more aggressive stuff. We wanted to go back home. We wanted to go back to the 'groove so hard that you can't stop bobbing your head' kind of stuff. So, we're there, and we're loving it."

Prior to DISTURBED's appearance at Welcome To Rockville, Draiman told Lou Brutus of HardDrive Radio that the band will likely do things slightly differently with the upcoming release. "The way that I see it happening is we're probably not gonna put out something in the traditional full-length; we're probably gonna be doing two separate releases," he explained. "So we'll probably have one geared for release — if everything works as planned — by the fall, and then maybe something the following year as well." When Brutus asked Draiman to clarify if that means that the next DISTURBED release will be an EP, David said: "Define it what you want, but it would like five or six songs at a pop — something like that.

"We live in an environment right now and in an age where people's consumption of music has been very soundbitish and very track-driven and very single-driven," he continued. "And there's definitely some beauty towards continuing to try and [make] things like concept records and telling a long story over the duration of a series of songs — there's huge merit to that — but I think that when you write 10 songs and three of them actually get worked at radio and maybe, if you're lucky, the fans are really familiar with half the record and the rest ends up sitting on a shelf, and if you do end up pulling it out one day, it's like an obscure, weird moment during the set, and it's almost like gratuitous for yourself. I don't wanna do that anymore. I wanna make everything count. I wanna make sure that we get the biggest bang for everything we're putting out there. I think that that should be easily attainable. It seems to be where the environment is going, and it seems to be — whether we like it or not — what the digital age has funneled us into."

DISTURBED performed live for the first time in nearly two years in late September as one of the headliners of the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky.

In March 2021, DISTURBED's "The Sickness 20th Anniversary Tour" was officially canceled. The amphitheater tour, with very special guest STAIND and BAD WOLVES, was originally slated to take place in the summer of 2020 but was rescheduled to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was eventually scrapped altogether.

"The Sickness 20th Anniversary Tour" was supposed to celebrate the 20th anniversary of DISTURBED's seminal album "The Sickness". On this tour, the band was expected to perform songs off the album, as well as tracks from "Evolution" and DISTURBED's extensive catalog.

In September 2020, DISTURBED released a cover version of Sting's 1993 single "If I Ever Lose My Faith In You".

Frontiers Music Srl announce the release of Finnish hard rockers Rust N' Rage's new album, One For The Road. Produced by Jimmy Westerlund (One Desire), One For The Road will be released on March 11.


Today, the band has released a new single and video from the album, "Prisoner". Watch the video below, and pre-order/save One For The Road here.


Through lots of hard work and gigging, Rust N' Rage have been starting to make a name for themselves in their home country of Finland. With energetic live shows and anthemic songwriting, this rock n’ roll-quartet is ready to introduce themselves to the world more than ever before. Be sure to stay tuned for their Jimmy Westerlund produced debut album, which will be chock full of anthemic, hard rocking, melodic tunes.




Coming from a small town in Finland called Pori, Rust N’ Rage is made up of four guys who all live for a similar cause: Rock n’ Roll. While individually practicing a lifestyle of hard rockin’ and playing their hearts out around their small town, it didn’t take long for Vince, Johnny, Jezzie, and Eddy to meet and realize they had a shared musical vision. Their musical influences originate from the '80s, with their idols being such legends as Guns N’ Roses, Judas Priest, Mötley Crüe, Dokken, and the like. Rather than merely be the sum of their influences though, Rust n' Rage concentrates their songwriting on being separate from their influences, while still maintaining those awesome hard rock riffs and high-pitched vocal screams.


In 2020, things started rolling for the band, having found a new manager and a new producer to help them get their musical vision properly recorded. Based on the strength of their newly created/recorded singles, the band caught the interest of Frontiers Music Srl, who have signed them to a worldwide deal. Signing with Frontiers is an opportunity to release their music to a global audience and to show the world what they are made of. Stay tuned for more exciting things to come from these Finnish rockers in 2022.





Tracklisting:


"Prisoner"
"Ghost Town"
"One For The Road"
"The Future Is For The Strong"
"Heartbreaker"
"Hang ‘Em High"
"Ride On"
"I've Had Enough"
"Unbreakable"
"The Throne"
"Moving On"


"Prisoner" video:





Lineup:


Vince - Vocals
Johnny - Guitar
Eddy - Bass
Jezzie - Drums

Canadian rock icon Lee Aaron, who is known primarily as a solo artist and songwriter, recently went on the podcast "Side Jams with Bryan Reesman" to talk about her new music as well as outside interests like interior design, art, special education, and neuroscience. She also revealed that she is working on her autobiography.

"I have been writing memoirs off and on for about a decade," she told "Side Jams". "But now I've actually gotten serious about putting them into a book form, and actually going back and addressing incidents throughout my childhood that shaped me to become the artist that I ultimately became. Going back and delving into some of that stuff is like therapy, it's kind of hard. My plan at this point is to have the book released sometime in 2022. But it'll be ready when it's ready. It has to be right. My husband is a writer as well. He used to write for a couple of different publications up here in Canada. He's my greatest critic, my greatest champion, and my best editor. So I've been reading him things as I go along, and he said, 'As long as your story keeps moving forward, that's the most important thing.'"

Lee revealed that before music she was enrolled at Humber College in Toronto in the early 1980s to study interior design, but then she went on the road and her music career took off. But she has maintained that interest.

"I just became very interested in aesthetic, and I guess that kind of relates to performance and stage clothes and the way your stage looks and the lighting and the whole vibe," she explained. "I gotta be honest, I don't want to talk a lot about my childhood, but I felt that there were there's a lot of things I couldn't control when I was a kid. So as I got older, the idea of being able to control my environment became extremely important to me. And so, in the '80s, I had this house in the Toronto area. I had all black leather furniture, obscure Picasso prints all over the wall, the marble table, the halogen lamps. I had this dining room table that was sort of propped up on this unique brick design with glass. Friends would come in my house and they'd go, 'People live here, right? It's not a museum.' At that point, I had no children. So what I can tell you is that after becoming a mother, all of that just went out the window. You want your house to look nice? Forget it. There's just dog hair balls and little fingerprints on everything, and so I had to really get over some of that after I had children. But it is something that's important to me. Now my daughter is kind of into it as well. I have redecorated her room four or five times. When she was a little kid, it was this beautiful purple with angel pictures on the wall. Then she got into Tinker Bell, and I literally painted this whole collage of Tinker Bell on her wall. And then she went hot pink with an Audrey Hepburn black and white picture on her wall. She's had some different things, so she's kind of like a mini-me. Then she had the surf room, all surfing stuff. Now it's just plain white with little garden lights hung across the wall."

Another one of Lee's non-musical interests is drawing and painting which she still does. Back in high school, her 11th grade are teacher thought she was talented enough to skip 12th grade art and go to a grade 13 class. (Ontario had a 13th grade for students who wanted to go to college.) Lee made the leap to the grade 13 class, but her instructor there marked her down and was unnecessarily tough on her.

"He marked me so hard," she recalled. "I was so upset. I went from getting high 90s to getting like 72. He had it in for me. He lectured me. He thought there were essential concepts taught in grade 12 that you just aren't allowed to skip. [He had] no belief in natural talent, he was a by the numbers guy. 'You need to learn this finger drawing concept before you're allowed to draw this, and you've missed that portion of it.' I found it a bit of a difficult art year, that's for sure."

She soon after got sidetracked by music, but she did draw the first Lee Aaron logo. "It's kind of cheesy, but my new logo that I had designed two albums ago kind of hearkens back a little bit to that. I said, 'Let's bring some of the old Lee Aaron vibe back.'"

Aaron was one of the first women in Canada to navigate the male-dominated waters of rock 'n' roll, pioneering the way for a significant number of artists. Her 1989 album, "BodyRock", which was certified double platinum in Canada, was proclaimed by Chart magazine as "one of the 20 most influential Canadian albums of the '80s, with artists like Avril Lavigne, Alanis Morissette and Shania Twain under Aaron's influence."

Lee's 1984 album "Metal Queen" was the first of six albums to appear on leading independent label Attic Records. Aaron's CV also includes ten Juno Award nominations and three Toronto Music Awards for "Best Female Vocalist."

Lee's latest studio album "Radio On!", was released in July 2021 via Metalville Records.

Not even a year after their third album Unlocked & Reloaded, Sainted Sinners return with their newest collection of songs under the bands own motto The Essence Of Rock N’ Roll. With their new effort, Taste It, the band continues their creative flow, powered by the great chemistry between the five internationally known and experienced musicians.


The diversity that made their previous album Unlocked & Reloaded stand out within the bands own catalogue is now further evolved on Taste It. The band has released the new single "Good Ol’ Company". Check out the official video below.







Tracklisting:


“Against The Odds”
“One Today”
“The Essence Of R’n R”
“Out Of Control”
“Never Back Down”
“Good Ol’ Company”
“Down & Dirty”
“On And On (Chained)”
“Losing My Religion” (R.E.M. cover, CD bonus track)
“Coffee, Whiskey & Rock’n Roll”
“Heart Of Stone”


"Good Ol' Company"





"Against The Odds"





Sainted Sinners are:
Jack Meille - Vocals
Frank Pané - Guitars
Ernesto Ghezzi - Keyboards
Rico Bowen - Bass
Berci Hirleman – Drums

During an appearance this past Monday (January 10) on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", guitarist/vocalist Richie Kotzen spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the third album from THE WINERY DOGS, his power trio with legendary bassist Billy Sheehan (MR. BIG, TALAS, DAVID LEE ROTH) and drummer Mike Portnoy (DREAM THEATER, AVENGED SEVENFOLD). He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "THE WINERY DOGS record, I would say, is probably 85 percent done. I've got all my guitars done and all my lead vocals and a couple of harmonies here and there. But basically now, what I'm looking to do, and what we're looking to do, is to get Mike to do some percussion and we want Billy and Mike to do their vocal harmonies — you know, get their voices on there. And then once they do their harmonies and whatever percussion Mike wants to do, then I'll take it back and maybe tweak a few things, and maybe I'll do a couple of overdubs here and there. And it'll be done before you know it. I think it's gonna be done pretty quick."

Asked if the new WINERY DOGS album will be released in 2022, Richie said: "That I don't know. We didn't really discuss when we're gonna release it. And the thing is, like a lot of acts, I'm sure, THE WINERY DOGS is such a touring-type thing — I think a lot of the magic with that group comes together on stage — and so we wanna make sure that when we set this up that we can get out in front of people and play. And now, obviously, it's a little choppy trying to organize all this. I think once the thing's done and we can sit back and listen to it and it's mixed and we can go, 'Okay, this thing is done and ready,' then we're gonna come up with a plan on how to release it and when to release it. But to guess at it, the soonest, I think, would be, like, the end of this year, beginning of next year. I think that's realistic — to set it up right and make sure that we have a way to get it out there."

As for the musical direction of the new WINERY DOGS material and how it compares to the band's first two albums, Richie said: "Well, you know, we never discuss direction; we just go and write and see what comes out. But in sitting back and listening to it, as it is now in its current state, it reminds me more of the first album than the second album, only because on the second album, I think, the production, we went into a few different directions. Some of the songs — I don't know — I think we explored some territory on the second record that didn't exist on the first record. And this stuff, to me, sounds a little more raw, I guess you'd say — maybe more true to what the band sounds like live, like a trio. It might be 'cause I didn't really do a lot of overdubs — it's really just guitar, bass and drums. Like I said, I don't know where it's gonna end up, 'cause there's still plenty of opportunity for me to totally fuck this thing up. Nah, I think it's gonna be good; I think people are gonna like it. I play it in my car here and there, and I like it. Like I said, it's just a matter of getting their voices on there — some harmonies — and some percussion. Maybe a couple of little guitar [bits] — maybe I'll double a couple of lines here or there; that sort of thing. But I'm trying to keep it pretty raw, pretty power trio-sounding."

THE WINERY DOGS were founded in 2012 after Portnoy and Sheehan — who initially aimed to collaborate with former WHITESNAKE and BLUE MURDER guitarist John Sykes — reached out to Kotzen, who played with Sheehan in MR. BIG from 1997 to 2002. The group's self-titled debut reached No. 27 on the Billboard 200 after selling more than 10,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week of availability. The initial sales of follow-up effort "Hot Streak" were even better, as the album debuted at No. 30 in late 2015 after shifting 13,000 equivalent album units in America during its first week of availability.

Last September, Mike told "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about the new WINERY OGS music: "I would say somewhere [between the first and the second albums]. It's hard for me to have that real perspective that anybody listening does 'cause when you're writing and recording it, it all becomes important to you. It's hard to tell; it's hard to have that perspective.

"The first album is just song after song after song — there's no moments of weakness at any point — whereas 'Hot Streak', I guess, we did some more experimental stuff, songs like 'Spiral' or 'War Machine', songs on the back end that were more kind of experimental things," he explained. "So I would say, if I had to compare it, it's probably more like the first album because we also consciously decided to stop at around 10 or 11 songs. 'Cause both the first album and 'Hot Streak', I think, had 13 or 14 songs. People like you and I, we love everything, we love music and we dig in, but for a lot of people, the attention span for a 14-song album could be a bit much. So when writing this album, we decided, let's just come up with 10 or 11 that are really super strong. Nothing too experimental, nothing too off the beaten path from what people expect from THE WINERY DOGS. So I think everything on this album is super strong from top to bott