When a mysterious show was announced last week for London's 100 Club by a band called the SPOTS — true fans knew what was happening,

And 300 of them packed into a Friday night in Oxford Street to witness Frank Carter and Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Steve Jones of the SEX PISTOLS play the incredible album "Never Mind The Bollocks" in full.

Superfans at the show included Noel Gallagher, Paul Weller, Bobby Gillespie, Damon Hill and Gary Kemp, who came to pay homage to some of the most influential music in history.

SPOTS, which stands for "Sex Pistols Secretly On Tour", was a name used by the original SEX PISTOLS to book gigs in 1977 under intense media scrutiny, when it was likely that SEX PISTOLS gigs would have been shut down by police.

Now armed with incendiary frontman Frank Carter, they brought mayhem to a venue that hosted some of the band's most famous gigs as they led the punk revolution.

"How many of you were here the first time around?" Carter asked before acknowledging his bandmates. "Put your hands together for the greatest punk band of all time."

These shows start past 100mph and only speed up. "Holidays In The Sun" and "Seventeen" kicked things off and soon Carter was crowd surfing and crowd walking, still somehow belting out lyrics as he roamed the room. They threw in the PISTOLS' cover of the MONKEES' "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone", before drummer Paul Cook declared "it's getting hot out there, we'll slow it down" for "Submission".

The crowd, a mix of young and old fans, quickly descended into a sweaty mess, lapping up the hits and embracing frontman Carter as one of their own.

The accelerator was pressed again for "No Feelings" and THE STOOGES' "No Fun", "Problems" and "EMI" almost bursting the room apart.

"From the bottom of my heart," said Carter in conclusion, "thank you very much for coming out. It's a dream come true."

"Anarchy In The UK" was a fitting coda, band crowd in harmony, an anthem for the ages.

When this lineup — featuring the GALLOWS singer — made its debut in 2024, the Standard wrote: "Carter and three of the original SEX PISTOLS members led the thronging, sweaty crowd through a night of unadulterated punk rock mayhem at Bush Hall." Louder described the show as: "Sheer joy. They should tour it everywhere. God save their mad parade."

The 100 Club itself played a central role in punk's history, including in September 1976 a two-day punk special, at which the SEX PISTOLS played on the first day with a bill including THE CLASH, SIOUXSIE AND THE BANSHEES and SUBWAY SECT.

Frank Carter and Paul Cook, Glen Matlock and Steve Jones of the SEX PISTOLS will play their first official 2025 gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

The week of Teenage Cancer Trust shows will kick off on Monday, March 24 March with the "rip-roaring punk rock redux" (The Guardian) of Frank Carter and Paul Cook, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock of the SEX PISTOLS, who will tear through their seminal album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols" with punk classics from "Pretty Vacant" to "Anarchy in the UK" and, of course, "God Save The Queen".

Original SEX PISTOLS singer John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten) has been estranged from the rest of the band after unsuccessfully attempting to block the use of SEX PISTOLS songs in "Pistol", a Hulu miniseries based on Jones's 2016 memoir "Lonely Boy" that dramatized the band's story.

Photo credit: Jemma Dodd (courtesy of The Outside Organisation)

In a new interview with the Mark And Me podcast, CLUTCH frontman Neil Fallon spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's follow-up to the "Sunrise On Slaughter Beach" album, which was released in September 2022. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, we're writing now. It's taken longer than I think we would've liked to have, but to be honest, we toured a lot in the past three years, like really grounded down. When you come home from tour, you don't wanna turn around the next day and say, 'Let's get together and write a song.' Gotta take a bit of a break. And we took off maybe four weeks and then got back together. And we get together maybe once, twice a week for four or five hours. But again, it's, like you gotta write a lot of garbage to get to the good stuff. And it seems the less premeditated it is, those are the songs that end up as part of the canon, almost the accidental songs. Those are the ones that seem to be the best."

Asked if he would ever consider releasing a solo album of material that doesn't exactly fit CLUTCH, Neil said: "I've written a handful of solo works, for lack of a better word, just because they never ended up in the hands of the band. Not because I'm keeping it a secret. It's just I listened to it and it's, like, I don't think this is gonna make a lot of sense, trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. And I don't have any interest in being in another band. I feel very satisfied with where I'm at.

"The only other thing I kind of occupy my time with is I've taken up oil painting, which I used to do when I was really young," he revealed. "And I find it to be a very good distraction from music, and a lot of times I come up with lyrics when I'm doing that instead of sitting down with a blank piece of paper. It's just another exercise to keep the creative brain in shape and not atrophy."

Earlier this month, CLUTCH announced the second leg of the "Full Ahead Flank MMXXV" North American tour. Support on the trek, which will launch on July 30 in Little Rock, Arkansas, will come from BLACKTOP MOJO and THE INSPECTOR CLUZO.

The first leg of "Full Ahead Flank MMXXV" will take place in June 2025, with special guests TYLER BRYANT & THE SHAKEDOWN and Nate Bergman.

CLUTCH will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its second record, the eponymous "Clutch", on extensive European and North American tours which will see the band play the record in sequence and in its entirety. Production, staging, and lighting will be designed especially to enhance the vibe of this ground-breaking release.

Released by Atlantic Records back in May 1995, the self-titled album afforded CLUTCH their first mainstream exposure, and spawned a trilogy of psychedelic-tinged singles still much loved by fans today: "Big News", "Spacegrass" and "Escape From The Prison Planet".

Later this year, Weathermaker will release this influential stoner classic on 180-gram vinyl. Full details are yet to be revealed.

CLUTCH has been writing new music on and off around its touring commitments, preparing for what will be the band's fourteenth studio LP. Although CLUTCH has confirmed it is working with producer Tom Dalgety once again, little else has been revealed so far including any expected timeline.

Fans keen for the latest titbits should sign up to CLUTCH's newsletter, News From The Doom Saloon, via their official web site. Its recent instalment exclusively revealed two working titles for new songs: "Church Of The Mountain Wolf" and "Wild Kingdom".

CLUTCH shares more in common with THE GRATEFUL DEAD, RUSH and THE ALLMAN BROTHERS than their heavy riffs and heady twists-of-phrase might suggest. Because like those bands, the supporters who adore CLUTCH are there for the experience, community, and authentic connection. To love CLUTCH is to feel a sense of ownership, membership, and belonging.

Seneca Valley High School classmates Neil Fallon (vocals),Tim Sult (guitar),Dan Maines (bass) and Jean-Paul Gaster (drums) share an unshakeable musical and personal bond now three decades strong. Shaped by the same region which birthed BAD BRAINS, MINOR THREAT and RITES OF SPRING, CLUTCH crafts hyper-literate and libertine jams informed by hardcore fury and fuzzy, athletic, stoner rock.

Live shows over the years include tours with SLAYER and SYSTEM OF A DOWN and more recent co-headlining treks with DROPKICK MURPHYS, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and MASTODON. Like SLAYER or IRON MAIDEN, CLUTCH outlasted rock bands anchored to "hit songs" and the pressure of replicating them. The foursome from Germantown, Maryland, isn't bound by trends. Across thirteen studio albums and assorted releases since 1991, they've earned a reputation as one of the best around.

In a new interview with The Rockpit, WHITESNAKE guitarist Reb Beach was asked if the band will resume performing live at some point in the not-too-distant future. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Look, it's all up to David [Coverdale, WHITESNAKE frontman]. I'll tell you what I know. David — was it three years ago now? — he called me two weeks before the SCORPIONS tour and he said, 'I'm just exhausted, darling. That's it. I'm exhausted and I just can't do it. I'm so sorry.' And he canceled the tour two weeks before. And then he sold his publishing for 50 million dollars around the same time."

Reb continued: "[David] told me to keep my equipment at his house, in case we do something else, if something could come up. 'But just leave enough so that you can tour, if something comes up.' And I'm, like, 'Great.' Well, it's been three years.

"I've always been under the impression that if [David] does do something, it's gonna be five nights in Vegas," Beach explained. "That he can do. But he does hate the traveling; it does exhaust him. So I don't see him going on another European farewell tour and ending that the way we should have, because it really was a shame how that whole thing ended. We all got COVID, and that was it."

Last July, WHITESNAKE and Bruce Dickinson bassist Tanya O'Callaghan was asked by Finland's Chaoszine if the Coverdale-fronted outfit will ever resume its farewell tour, three years after WHITESNAKE pulled out of its previously announced North American run with the SCORPIONS due to what was described at the time as Coverdale's "continued treatment for a persistent upper respiratory infection. She said: "We're hoping… We're hoping to finish the cycle at least, but I can't really speak fully for David because he's, as he says himself, never say never. But he's still recovering a little bit because that was a pretty intense tour run. And between rehearsals and everything, he had gotten sick and a lot of health stuff unfolded for him. But he's doing pretty good. He's really excited about doing the farewell DVD and the book, and all that will be hopefully next year, which is fantastic. And, as he says, never say never. Maybe we'll go out around that, but he wants to write and record some stuff. So WHITESNAKE is not finished… It's not over by any means. But I don't know what iteration it will be that is next. Maybe, hopefully, I hope we finish the tour cycle. I really, really hope we do 'cause it's a great group of people to work with."

In November 2021, Tanya officially joined WHITESNAKE as the replacement for longtime bassist Michael Devin whose departure was revealed a few days earlier.

In October 2023, Coverdale told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about WHITESNAKE's future plans: "Well, my band and I are in touch all the time. There is still a WHITESNAKE and there are still offers coming. I can't entertain anything until I get my physical aspect together.

"I had a fall recently, which I don't think helped my… I've got two torn rotator cuffs, which would certainly compromise my performance," he explained. "But arthritis, all this kind of stuff's kicking in.

"My heart goes out to Steven [Tyler] after the [2023 AEROSMITH tour] cancelation. It's so awful, getting older and having this burden of responsibility to try to be as good as you can so you don't disappoint anybody. And I know how he feels and I sent my love to him through our friends, mutual friends.

"But I can't commit to anything until I know how my health is," David added. "The last thing I wanna do is go on tour and have to do what happened last year, which was come home, tail between my legs. It was heartbreaking. And being sick for a year didn't really help matters."

In May 2023, Coverdale told Rockonteurs about his respiratory infection: "That was really bad. When these things get on your cords, that just closes you down entirely.

"I spent a fortune keeping the guys [in my band] as safe as we could; we called it the 'COVID bubble.' Private jet wherever we went. And still COVID came in and took some of the crew out. It was really challenging."

Coverdale also shot down the suggestion that the WHITESNAKE farewell tour will drag on for many years to come. "I know contemporaries of mine that have been doing a farewell tour for 20 years," he said. "That's not it. I'm [73]. It's a number that I see and go, 'Really?' Because most of the time I certainly don't feel like that kind of age that would be the perspective we had growing up, when 20 looked old, 25 was ancient. 30? You're kidding. It's just fascinating to look at."

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

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

In April 2023, Coverdale told "Rock Of Nations With Dave Kinchen And Shane McEachern" regarding the possibility of WHITESNAKE resuming its farewell tour in 2024: "It's not really a professional decision. It's literally a health decision.

"[In 2022] it took me seven months to get rid of a sinus infection that went so deep into my body… And then we discovered a secondary one, which is why I had to cancel the U.S. tour," he explained. "So all of that appalling antibiotics I had for three months, all the damage it did to my system, was a waste of time because this other infection was canceling it out. So I had to go on to heavier medications and steroids, and at the same time ignoring a torn rotator cuff.

"When I was onstage with Steve Vai at Hellfest [in France in June 2022], which turned out to be the last WHITESNAKE show — hopefully not the last WHITESNAKE show [ever] — underneath my shirt, my shoulder was taped up like I was going into the arena to face another gladiator," Coverdale revealed. "And you couldn't really tell. And thank God I could still fling the mic stand around. But as soon as I got signed off back in January, the infection had gone, I realized that we had to sort out the shoulder, 'cause that had been of secondary importance — minor compared to this, 'Am I ever gonna be able to sing again?' That's a big deal. It's something you wake up and almost take for granted.

"So, I'm getting a lot of approaches [regarding Las] Vegas residencies. I'm not quite sure about that. I feel I owe Japan. I feel I owe the U.S. I feel I owe South America. 'Cause I've been pretty successful for 50 years, and you can't buy that. It's people who've supported you to be in this position. It was a personal choice. I didn't wanna do a video going, 'Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, brothers and sisters of the 'SNAKE, thank you for 50 years. I'm done.' I wanted to be there.

"I wanted to retire in 2020," David added. "I thought the appropriate age for the singer of WHITESNAKE to step down was 69. But, of course, bloody COVID came [and ruined those plans].

"We have three to five years of projects here at my studio. So I'm certainly not finished with music. But my health will dictate whether I can take on [a full tour]. 'Cause it's incredibly physically demanding for me. I don't wanna do a half-assed [tour], standing-there stuff. I love telling my stories and moving and working."

Also in April 2023, Coverdale told Ultimate Classic Rock that the illness that forced him off the road in 2022 was "the worst sinus infection I've ever had in my life. And as a singer, I know them like fucking relatives of mine," Coverdale said. "This was one of the ugliest illnesses I think I've [ever] had. For seven months, I was taking ever-increasingly strong antibiotics and horrifying prednisone steroids."

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

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

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

According to TMZ, PUDDLE OF MUDD's Wes Scantlin was arrested earlier this week after allegedly getting into a physical altercation with his girlfriend.

Police were called to a Torrance, California apartment around 3:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 11. After talking to Wes and his girlfriend, officers determined the couple got into a verbal argument that allegedly turned physical. Additionally, the 52-year-old musician was found in possession of a small amount of a controlled substance.

Scantlin was arrested at 4:01 a.m. and was booked at 5:12 a.m., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff Inmate Information Center. He was charged with felony domestic violence and possession of a controlled substance. As of Saturday morning, he remained in a Los Angeles County Jail, with bail set at $90,000.

Earlier this month, Scantlin made headlines when he claimed he was "roofied" by an ex-bandmate before a disastrous PUDDLE OF MUDD gig at Daytona Bike Week.

Scantlin's latest legal problems come just eight months after he was arrested in Burbank, California for an outstanding warrant and a new charge of resisting arrest.

Wes had almost non-stop problems with the law, alcohol, finances and other issues, before claiming to have gotten sober in 2017. Scantlin said that he ended up going back to rehab and receiving treatment "because there's really nowhere else to go." He also credited his family and fans for giving him the strength to try to get better.

In February 2023, RadarOnline.com reported that Scantlin was arrested after he allegedly showed up at an old home he lost to foreclosure.

Prior to that, Scantlin was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in September 2017 after he attempted to board a plane with a BB gun. He pleaded no contest and was banned from LAX unless it involved traveling for work.

Less than two years earlier, in December 2015, Scantlin was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and had several previous busts that same year for driving under the influence.

Additionally, he was arrested at a Denver airport in 2015 for taking a joyride on a baggage carousel and taken into custody as far back as 2012 for an altercation with a flight attendant.

He also ended a number of PUDDLE OF MUDD shows in 2016 early with various meltdowns, including one in which he accused a fan of stealing his house.

Scantlin's latest arrest comes three and a half years after he made headlines when he walked offstage midconcert at the EPIC Event Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin after complaining about the venue's lights.

PUDDLE OF MUDD was formed in 1991 in Kansas City by Scantlin, the only original member still with the band. The group into the mainstream with 2001's "Come Clean", which yielded three hits — "Control", "Blurry" and "She Hates Me".

PUDDLE OF MUDD's latest album, "Ubiquitous", was released in September 2023 via Pavement Entertainment.

Former GUNS N' ROSES drummer Frank Ferrer has commented on his exit from the band.

On Thursday (March 20),Frank took to his Instagram to share the following statement: "The outpouring of love I have felt from the incredible fans of GUNS N' ROSES and my peers over the past 24 hours has been tremendous.

"I will have immense gratitude and love always for Axl and the band while at the same time, disappointment that this chapter came to an end.

"It has been an incredible 19 years. GUNS N' ROSES has given me life-changing memories and experiences.

"A huge thanks to management, the crew, and fans for giving me memories that I will cherish for my lifetime.

"I hope I see you all again soon!"

Frank, the longest-serving drummer in the band's storied run, first joined GUNS N' ROSES during a show in June 2006, helping anchor the rhythm section during subsequent tours, including their recent outings featuring the reunited trio of singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan. Ferrer's last show with the band took place November 5, 2023 in Mexico.

Ferrer laid down drums tracks on five songs on GUNS N' ROSES' most recent studio album, 2008's "Chinese Democracy". He also appeared on the live portion of 2022's "Hard Skool" EP, with former drummer Bryan "Brain" Mantia appearing on the studio tracks and GUNS' ROSES' 2023 singles "Perhaps" and "The General".

During a May 2020 appearance on the "Appetite For Distortion" podcast, Ferrer was asked to name "the most challenging song to play" in GUNS N' ROSES' live set. He responded: "That's a really good question, because there's three eras in GUNS — there's the 'Appetite [For Destruction]' [era] with Steven [Adler], there's the '[Use Your] Illusion' [period] with Matt [Sorum], and then there's the Brain [Bryan Mantia]- Josh Freese 'Chinese Democracy' [era]. And all three eras are really unique. The 'Appetite' songs don't sound like the 'Illusion' songs — they don't have the same feel. So, the toughest part… I mean, in a weird way, it's almost kind of like all of 'em, especially from the Sorum-Adler era. And what I try to do as a groove drummer is try to sit somewhere in between both drummers, so you still have a punk rocky, off-the-rails kind of feel, but then a nice, solid, dependable foundation, like Sorum gives you. So, it's kind of challenging. Now, the 'Chinese Democracy' stuff is more straight ahead. The challenges I have with that is playing it more like Brain played them, even though I was able to add some stuff myself later on, once I joined the band."

He continued: "The toughest part is finding the right groove in between those two eras — the first two eras — I think. And I think especially with Slash [guitar] and Duff [McKagan, bass] in the band now, because it was their era — they wrote that stuff; it's their music — I'm able to find a nice spot where those guys are really comfortable playing the songs, but I'm also comfortable playing from my heart without being cerebral and having to think too much about the parts. So, I would say somewhere in between those two drummers."

Ferrer joined GUNS N' ROSES in 2006 as a temporary fill-in for Mantia. Before he knew it, Ferrer was a permanent member of GN'R, contributing to the "Chinese Democracy" album.

When not touring with GN'R, Ferrer played with a couple of side projects, THE COMPULSIONS and his personal band PISSER.

In 2016, Ferrer spoke to Music Radar about his approach to playing some of GUNS N' ROSES' classic songs. He said: "I really try to keep the spirit of the way the song was played. When we play the 'Appetite…' stuff, I try to have the push and pulls. Steven's [Adler] punk rock bits are great.

"Adler's playing was one of the greatest rock drumming performances in the history of music," he continued. "You can put it in the top ten. His playing on 'Appetite…' is perfect. Then with [Matt] Sorum, it's a little more tight and more reserved kind of playing. I do try to keep that spirit, though.

"I have tremendous respect for the drummers in GUNS N' ROSES. I love Brain [Bryan Mantia] so much. What Brain told me was to try and make the songs my own. I never forget that. Obviously my own personality comes through, especially on some of the funkier stuff. I might give a more New York hip-hop kind of feel to it."

On Thursday, GUNS N' ROSES announced the arrival of Isaac Carpenter, its newest drummer who will hit the road with the band throughout their 2025 European, Asian, and Middle East tour, headlining stadiums and festivals throughout the spring and summer.

Carpenter, born in Washington's Tri-Cities, is an accomplished American drummer and songwriter known for his dynamic contributions to alternative, hard rock, and beyond. He rose to prominence in 1995 by co-founding LOUDERMILK while in high school, only to be signed to Rick Rubin's label American. Carpenter's career spans an impressive roster of acts, including live and studio work with Duff McKagan's LOADED, AWOLNATION, Adam Lambert, the hardcore metal outfit BARBARIANS OF CALIFORNIA, A PERFECT CIRCLE, THE EXIES, OURS and BLACK LAB, in addition to his large session film and TV roster. Carpenter has made a name for himself by uniquely blending versatility and groove with crushing force and technical skill, cementing his reputation as a multifaceted drummer in the industry.

GUNS N' ROSES will launch the "Because What You Want & What You Get Are Two Completely Different Things" tour on May 1 in South Korea. The trek will hit the Middle East and Europe in late spring and early summer, concluding on July 31 in Germany.

In a new interview with U.K.'s Telegraph, METALLICA's Kirk Hammett addressed his "peacekeeper" reputation within the band, saying: "I have to say, I do have a temper. And I can butt heads with people. I butt heads with [METALLICA frontman] James [Hetfield] and [METALLICA drummer] Lars [Ulrich] occasionally."

Asked what they disagree on, Hammett said: "Oh, everything. It's just part of being in a band and being with someone for 40-plus years."

According to Hammett, he "equally as ornery as Lars and James" when he first joined METALLICA in 1983. "When I joined the band, I was right in there talking shit and doing crazy stuff, just as much as James and Lars and Cliff [Burton, then-METALLICA bassist] were. Sometimes prickly people turn on other people around them."

Elaborating on the toxic masculinity that "fueled" METALLICA in the band's early days, Hammett said: "We were like a gang of youths and just looking for somewhere to belong. I came from a broken home, James came from a broken home, Lars came from a broken home. The most well-adjusted person was Cliff Burton. We were all basket cases. But we created this thing called METALLICA that's been our refuge. It's been the one constant in our lives.

"My dad was a full-blooded Irishman who liked to drink and liked to scrap," he added. "He was always fighting people, even fighting his friends. He would get together with my uncles and it was just one big fucking toxic soup of masculinity, and that's what I came out of."

Despite his occasional disagreements with his METALLICA bandmates, Hammett said that he has no intentions of exiting the group. "Leaving METALLICA is not an option," he explained. "If I ever left METALLICA, everyone in the world would remind me that I used to be in METALLICA."

Hammett was a member of EXODUS's original lineup before replacing Dave Mustaine in METALLICA in 1983. In fact, Hammett was not only the person who came up with the EXODUS name, but also the first from the band to meet original EXODUS singer Paul Baloff and brought him into the group. With Hammett on guitar, METALLICA went on to record its debut album, "Kill 'Em All", later in 1983.

In a 1994 interview with Metal Hammer, Hammett said his EXODUS bandmates were less than happy about his decision to leave the band.

As previously reported, Kirk has partnered with Gibson Publishing to release "The Collection: Kirk Hammett", available in three premium formats now in The Metallica Store, on Gibson.com and in Gibson Garage locations. The 400-page luxury coffee table book explores Kirk's arsenal of guitars in unprecedented detail, including exclusive new interviews with Kirk conducted by Gibson editor-in-chief Chris Vinnicombe and director of brand experience Mark Agnesi. The book features photos from Ross Halfin, shot on location in Hawaii and Los Angeles, alongside rare images from the photographer's archives.

Photo credit: Ross Halfin

LifeMinute was recently invited into the home of MEGADETH leader Dave Mustaine, his wife Pamela and their daughter Electra to hear all about their visionary wine brand House Of Mustaine which uniquely blends music, culture, and fine winemaking, get a fabulous tour of their beautiful house, and, of course, get the scoop on the latest MEGADETH news. Check out the full chat below.

Asked what music does for people, Mustaine said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It depends. If you believe all of the colloquies about music, there's all kinds of sayings and stuff. The one that comes to mind first with your question is music soothes the savage beast. And I don't know who coined that phrase, but it's pretty accurate, depending on the type of music. Now, if you play modern metal with the guys that can't sing and they do the screaming bit, that's really understandable to me, 'cause they can't sing and they're making the best of what they can do."

Mustaine continued: "There was a period in 2000 where we had these bands called — I think it was 'nu metal', and they didn't do any solos. Well, why didn't they do any solos? They couldn't do solos. And thank God that genre went away. People started to learn how to do solos. I would say, if you're in a 'nu metal' band, you probably would be challenged even playing 'Johnny B. Goode' [1958 rock and roll classic by Chuck Berry]. So I'm glad that went away."

Asked if there are any newer bands that he particularly likes, Mustaine said: "Well, I like some of the older music because new stuff — I mean, all the good chords are taken. And if you think back when I started 40 years ago, the music playing field didn't have millions of kids sitting at home doing guitar riffs into their computer and then posting it online. There's good and bad with everything, and when people do things for their own art, that's great. But when you start seeing these manufactured records that bandmembers didn't play on, that's fraud. So, I like bands that really play what they do.

"One of my favorite guitar players is one of the simplest guys in the world — it's the guy from PINK FLOYD, David Gilmour," Mustaine explained. "He could do more with one note than some of the guys playing nowadays can do with 12. And it's just a matter of feeling — feeling. The guitar, you're touching it, so it's an extension of your spirit, your soul, and how you make it sound. If it's like [makes farting noise], that kind of stuff, well, you probably haven't bonded with the instrument yet. Playing a violin — violin has gotta be one of the most dreadful sounds ever when you're learning it, because the sound of it and rosin the bow and all that stuff is almost as bad as having someone practice on a wind instrument, like a sax or a clarinet."

Back in September 2022, Mustaine told the WSOU 89.5 FM radio station that he and his MEGADETH bandmates used to make fun of many of the nu metal bands that they were "forced" to tour with during the 1990s. "I can't tell you how much we would laugh about the bands that we were forced to take out on tour with us, especially during the nu metal period that we went through years ago," he said at the time. "You know, all these bands that wouldn't play solos and stuff."

One of the bands MEGADETH toured with three decades ago was KORN, whose singer, Jonathan Davis, told ExploreMusic in a 2011 interview that opening for the Mustaine-fronted act was a challenge. "It was hard touring with MEGADETH because at that time Dave Mustaine was really mean and just had attitude," Jonathan recalled. "It was scary being on there. I was drinking at the time and I got him drinking again, which I shouldn't have done, but that was Dave Mustaine and I was this young, little kid, and I'm like, 'That's Dave Mustaine and he wants to drink. I'll give him a drink.' I respected him and everything, but I kind of got my feelings hurt, because he was mean at times. I don't have any ill will towards the guy now, 'cause you know how it is — now you're older and you're wiser — but at the time it was really scary."

Mustaine previously gave his take on nu metal and how MEGADETH managed to survive the late 1990s in a 2011 interview with Metal Hammer magazine. When asked how he and his bandmates felt during those years, Mustaine replied: "Well, these days no one remembers about nu metal — all that shit that was out. No guitar solos. Everyone played with their pants down round their ankles, y'know? Most people in the music business, when something like that happens, they're dead. They don't have the capacity to reinvent themselves and if they do reinvent themselves and it doesn't work they don't have the catalog to rely on to pull them through. It was a bleak period, but we came through it."

In 2016, Mustaine took a jab at nu metal while speaking to Cry Of The Wolf about some of the bands MEGADETH shared the stage with before those groups made it big.

"The list is as long as my arm of people that have toured with us and have gone on to bigger success," he said. "STONE TEMPLE PILOTS, PANTERA, KORN, WHITE ZOMBIE — our audience is a real friendly and open minded when it comes to new bands. ALICE IN CHAINS was another band.

"It's a very difficult business, not everyone gets the opportunities that they should," he continued. "And when someone like me says, 'I'm not hiring you because you sell tickets; I'm hiring you because you sound good,' that is cool stuff.

"I look at talent that we want to take out on the road as something that I would want to hear. Because we will be out on the road and I have to listen to them night after night. I want to be able to enjoy myself just as much as you do."

Focusing on nu metal, Mustaine added: "During that whole period a couple of [decades] ago when no one was doing guitar solos, we had a couple of bands go out with us and I despised them. And the reason they went out with us was because the label said, 'You need to do this.' That was the worst part of my career during that whole nu metal thing. You know there were no solos because the guitar players weren't good enough to do solos."

In 2014, Mustaine told Faster Louder that he didn't have fond recollections of some of the younger bands that were coming up nearly three decades ago. "They had this wave of metal that came through in the '90s and it was called 'nu metal'," he said. "I don't know if you remember it but it was so bad. I would have rather had my eyelids pulled out."

Asked if LIMP BIZKIT and LINKIN PARK were two of the bands he was talking about, Mustaine clarified: "No, no. I can't even remember their names. LINKIN PARK, those guys are good at what they do. I have no problems with those guys. But I wouldn't call them nu metal. I'm talking about the bands that wouldn't do guitar solos. Guys who get out there and they'd do rhythms and stuff but they'd never do a guitar solo. It's like ... come on, play a solo. But apparently solos aren't cool.

"It's just funny because I come from the school of AC/DC and LED ZEPPELIN, and man, the riff had to be kick-ass, the lyrics had to make sense, and when it was time for the solo, the solo had to rip your face off," Dave explained. "And hey I may not be part of the family anymore, right at the forefront ... but I'm the crazy uncle."

Earlier this month, it was announced that the next MEGADETH album will be released via Mustaine's Tradecraft imprint with the Frontiers Label Group's new imprint BLKIIBLK.

MEGADETH is once again working with Chris Rakestraw, a producer, mixer and engineer who previously worked on MEGADETH's last two albums, 2022's "The Sick, The Dying... And The Dead!" and 2016's "Dystopia".

The upcoming MEGADETH album will be the band's first with new guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari, who joined the band a year and a half ago as the replacement for Kiko Loureiro.

Mäntysaari stepped in September 2023 for Loureiro, who announced earlier that month that he would sit out the next leg of MEGADETH's "Crush The World" tour in order to stay home with his children back in Finland. It was later revealed that the now-38-year-old Finnish musician would continue to play guitar for MEGADETH for the foreseeable future, with Loureiro seemingly having no plans to return.

Mäntysaari was born in Tampere, Finland and began playing guitar at the age of 12. In 2004, he joined the band WINTERSUN. He has also been a member of SMACKBOUND since 2015.

Photo credit: Ryan Chang

In a recent interview with Finland's Chaoszine, SAMAEL frontman Michael "Vorph" Locher spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's long-awaited follow-up to 2017's "Hegemony" album. He said: "The album is pretty much recorded. It's done, but Xy's [SAMAEL drummer Alexandre 'Xytras' Locher] still doing some adjustment with editing. We are looking for the mix. I mean, we were supposed to start mixing in January, but it didn't happen. So, it's gonna be before the summer, I will imagine, then mastering. So our plan is to release one song this year at least, and most probably the album next year then. It's not in the stone, but, yeah, that's the plan so far."

Regarding the musical direction of the new SAMAEL material, Vorph said: "Well, it will have a strong bond to 'Hegemony', but it's not the same. I mean, we kind of try to take advantage of the fact that we've done different things throughout the years. So we got some space that people will accept that this is SAMAEL. So we kind of try to enjoy that space. Some of the crowd, they enjoy [when a band sticks to a formula] — you know what you're gonna get. With us, it's a bit different, but it won't be a total surprise. There is no experimentation of things that we've never, ever done before, but the mix is different and there is a lot more guitar. It's a lot more guitar-oriented. So, yeah, that's one of the differences, I would say."

On the topic of SAMAEL's plans for the coming months, Vorph said: "We haven't planned any tour on this year. It's just gonna be [standalone] shows. We do this festival in Texas in March, and we go to Brazil. We've got three shows in Brazil, we've got two shows in Greece, some little festivals. But, basically, what we wanna do this year is finish the album. That's very much the priority. Let's hope it will happen. But I'm very confident about the material we got. It took us forever, but it happened during COVID, so we had a lot of time. We were listening the stuff together. So it was like a — I will not say a group material, because Xy's still doing all the music, but we were discussing it together, so I think it had the time to mature and to reach point where it should be."

When the interviewer noted that it is also "sometimes a little bit dangerous" when musicians spend too much time tinkering with recordings, Vorph concurred. "It is. It definitely is," he said. "I mean, all the work that Xy's doing now, for me it is not that important. Because he will play me the song and I'll say, well, 'Oh, the break there with the drums, that was not [there before], ah, it's cool, but does it make the song really better?' Ah, maybe [very little], but for him it's very important, especially because it took him so long, so he don't wanna miss one little thing… I'm a bit more, 'Let's do it.' He's really picky about everything."

Last December, SAMAEL guitarist Thomas "Drop" Betrisey took to his Facebook page to share a photo of Vorph and Xytras, along with acclaimed Swedish producer Daniel Bergstrand, and he included the following message: "The legendary Daniel Bergstrand traveled to Switzerland to produce the vocals for the upcoming SAMAEL album. The recording is now complete. New music in 2025! I can confidently say these tracks are outstanding!"

In June 2020, SAMAEL announced the addition of bassist Ales Campanelli to the group's ranks.

A former member of SYBREED, OBSYDIANS and THE ERKONAUTS, Ales had been playing with Betrisey for many years. He was no stranger to the machines-versus-humans music of SAMAEL and had known the band since its early black metal days.

Campanelli made his live debut with SAMAEL as part of Tohuwabohu, a worldwide, pay-what-you-want streaming metal event, in June 2020.

Ales joined SAMAEL as the replacement for Pierre "Zorrac" Carroz (SCARS DIVIDE, HEROD),who had played with the group since July 2018.

Longtime SAMAEL guitarist Marco "Makro" Rivao left the band in April 2018 "to do something different." Bassist Drop has since taken over guitar duties in the group.

"Hegemony" was released in October 2017 via Napalm Records.

In a new interview with Mark Sugiyama of Eclectic Arts Media, former THEATRE OF TRAGEDY and LEAVES' EYES frontwoman Liv Kristine was asked how she ended up working with special needs children near her current home in Switzerland, where she lives with her husband of nearly four years, Michael Hansen. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think I stumbled into it, but it's always been there because I grew up with children with special needs. My mother had some kind of a daycare place where children with special needs who couldn't, for some reason, enter a normal kindergarten. So I grew up with very special, beautiful children, even at my same age. And we were this gang, spending time together in nature 'cause I grew up on the countryside of Norway. So there was space enough to be free. These kids were like my brothers and sisters. And I do have one sister — she's seven years younger than me — and my mother didn't do the daycare thing then, but when I was very little, that was my daily life. And I didn't go to a kindergarten; I didn't enter a kindergarten myself because I chose — and I'm glad I was being asked back then — I chose to stay home, because I just had this beautiful childhood with freedom and seasons and other children to play with, really special young human beings. And so it's always been there. And then in 2016, when I was forced to leave LEAVES' EYES and there was this big bang, this big crash and breakdown, personal breakdown in my life, I had to start thinking about, how do I take care of my family financially? I needed to find a place to live. And a couple of years later, there was this period of COVID. I'm very lucky to have found my job within this area before COVID. So, I was safe then."

Circling back to how she landed her current gig working with children with special needs, Liv said: "I basically picked up the phone and called somebody 'cause I saw an advertisement, 'We need somebody to take care of one special boy in the autistic spectrum.' And that was just like that calling for me to, 'Okay, just give them a call and tell them who you are.' And I never studied within this field. I wish I could have done that, but I've been busy since then with special schools and special teachings. So it has become a part of me; life unfolded that way. And I just love it, just as music. I never studied music, and this work working with children and being a musician, that's what I did not study, but it happened to me. So, yeah, it gives me a feeling, it gives me the feeling that it's good the way life has unfolded because it has shown me the areas with which I truly resonate. I can be really authentic, and it's a great privilege, but you have to have courage to do this because I could be in another field, a field where you can earn a lot of money and you could be a rock star. But no, I chose something different, which is me. And I studied linguistics, so it has to do with what I'm doing today, both writing lyrics and working with children. So, it's beautiful the way things happened after the big crash. [Laughs]"

During the same chat, Kristine also talked about another big change in her life which is coming up later this year.  "It was just a half a year ago when we decided to move back to Norway 'cause currently we're living in Switzerland," she said. "And I used to live in Germany, for a period of 20 years, and my son was born in Germany, so it was, like, okay, moving to Switzerland, ooh, that was a big step. The bird had flown and mom was flying too. And now we're moving to Norway. And that was something I didn't really see. I was gonna spend a couple of more years with my family here in Switzerland. [I thought] it's not going to happen too soon, or that soon. And then all of a sudden, it was clear that things are falling together, the bits and pieces are making up that puzzle now. And the message is we're moving to Norway in July. So, yes, okay. But I tried to kind of push it away, like, 'No, it's not gonna happen now.' But it's happening. And it was great that I opened up my eyes because there are huge opportunities waiting out there. And we're even buying my dad's house at the fjord. My grandma, she's over the moon. She's turning 90 now, and she's over the moon, and she promised me to live for another 10 years. She wants to pass the 100 [mark]. So, lots of beautiful things happening. So I'm glad I opened up my eyes. [Laughs] We're moving to Norway."

Liv originally started teaching when her son Leon, who is 20 years old, entered primary school at age six. She and her ex-husband Alexander Krull (ATROCITY, LEAVES' EYES) chose a private school in Germany because they were often taking Leon on tour.

After her unceremonious departure from her former band LEAVES' EYES in 2016, and her divorce, Liv's life went into a tailspin and she lost her main income source.

Liv will release her seventh solo album, "Amor Vincit Omnia", on April 25 via Metalville.

The music on "Amor Vincit Omnia" was composed by the sought-after session and live musician Sascha Dannenberger, who was also responsible for the production in his SaDinTheBox Studio and the Twilight Sound Studio in Karlsruhe. The 11 tracks were mastered by Andy Classen at his Stage One Studio.

In a new interview with The Chuck Shute Podcast, SKID ROW drummer Rob Hammersmith spoke about the band's ongoing search for a replacement for singer Erik Grönwall. Erik, who was SKID ROW's fourth frontman since Sebastian Bach's departure, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in March 2021. As a result, he is immunocompromised, which made touring difficult. Regarding where SKID ROW stands at the moment with regard to finding a new vocalist, Rob said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We've been busy. We've been on the hunt, I guess we've been on the prowl, if you will, we have been on an active search since last year. So, having said that, we've had some really good candidates. We've had some really strong candidates that we have been in discussions with. We have actually been in a room with a handful of people. We've had a really good experience with a lot of people. That said, we are still in the midst of an active search, so we like to keep that storyline out there and remind everybody that we are still looking. So if anybody hears this, if there's anybody out there that thinks that they're right for it, it is still an ongoing search at this at this moment. But we've made a lot of progress. And it's amazing — to make the best of a situation like that, it's kind of awesome to see how many talented people there are out there. Whether or not they're right for us, it really doesn't matter. It's really inspiring. It's awesome to see how many talented people there are out there."

Asked if he and his SKID ROW bandmates are looking for a singer who is stylistically similar to the group's previous vocalists, including Bach, or if they want to find someone to take SKID ROW "in a different direction", Rob said: "We would be open to either of those scenarios. When you're dealing with a situation like ours, there's a legacy there. There's a history, there's a legacy, there is a particular component to what we do that a lot of people are very, very attached to, and we're aware of that, and we're grateful for that. It's a really wonderful situation to be in. So having said that, preserving the history and honoring the history is very important to us. But that's not to say — all of our favorite bands have evolved and they've changed throughout the years. So I would say we are open to either scenario that you're describing, but we do have to honor the history and so many important parts of the history of the band."

Regarding whether the singers SKID ROW has auditioned so far are established and well-known vocalists or if they are relatively unknown, Rob said: "A bit of both, a bit of both. So in regards to that, we are certainly not narrowing the scope of that in terms of who we're looking at and who would be a potential candidate."

Circling back to what he and his SKID ROW bandmates are looking for in a new singer, Rob said: "The way I've explained it to a lot of people, in my perception of the situation, it's a very specific gig. We're not claiming to be THE BEATLES, we're not claiming that we write the most complicated music that's out there, but it's a very specific thing. And then going back to the history and the legacy of the band, not only is it a specific thing, but it's a specific established thing. It's a pre-established sound. You're talking about an iconic catalog of music. For some people, they hold that catalog of music very sacred. So, you do have to find out what the balance of evolution, but honoring that and really giving the fans the experience that they're hoping to have. It's difficult. It's a balancing act, but you figure it out as you go. And everybody that we have been in a room with, as I said, there's some amazing people out there, amazing singers. And you can really see where every one of those people would bring something really cool to the table and bring something really cool into the mix. It's just the reality of a situation like this. It's a very specific gig."

Last July, SKID ROW bassist Rachel Bolan said during a question-and-answer session at the Days Of The Dead horror and pop culture-themed convention in Indianapolis that he and his bandmates were "taking our time" finding a new singer "because we have time. And we've got a couple guys on the radar that we're gonna audition," he revealed. "And there's also a couple of our friends that wanna do what Lzzy Hale did and sit in [on lead vocals] for a few [SKID ROW] shows. And that's fun too. That was so much fun doing those [four] shows [with Lzzy]."

In May 2024, Rachel confirmed to Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station that he and his bandmates had been talking to singers about potentially stepping in to replace Grönwall. He explained: "No one, really, with a name. But, yeah, we've been talking to a few guys that piqued our interest, for sure."

That same month, SKID ROW guitarist Dave "Snake" Sabo ruled out a reunion with SKID ROW's former singer Sebastian Bach telling The Hook Rocks podcast: "It's not gonna happen. And I say the same thing every time. I'm thankful that people have such an interest in wanting to see that happen, but I also have to reiterate that this is about being happy in the situation that you're in. So I'll speak for myself personally.

"First of all, I do need to say something too, is that the reason that this isn't happening is because there's three of us — myself, Scotti [Hill, SKID ROW guitarist] and Rachel — who've had conversations about this, and we've all been on the same page that we don't wanna go down that road again. We just — we don't.

"Rachel has taken a beating over this through the years," Sabo continued. "He's the one who's been blamed for this. 'Oh, it's Rachel's ego.' 'It's this and that.' No, that's a load of bullshit. That is not true. And I feel bad because he's really, really had to shoulder that blame and has never said anything derogatory or anything like that. But you know what? The truth of the matter is that Rachel, Scotti and myself have continually felt the same way, that we enjoy being happy in this band and we're really happy.

"It's been such a great experience for the last however, 35 years, everything, all the ups, all the downs, everything, but we just don't wanna revisit that particular aspect of our history," he explained. "I love the songs, [I] love a lot of the memories, [I am] not fond of some of the memories, but just as individuals and as a collective, that's just how we feel. So this is not on Rachel. And this has nothing to do with anyone's ego or anything like that. So that's just gotta be clear. Again, for anyone to sit there and make assumptions that this is Rachel Bolan saying 'nope,' it's not. It's the three of us, and we've all collectively sat there and just said that we don't wanna do it. We just don't wanna do it. And we wish everybody all the best."

Snake added: "We've been just ripped apart by ex-members of the band and stuff — ripped apart. Some really shitty stuff [has been] said about all of us. And we just choose not to [respond]. It's not who I am. It's not who we are. We won't go down that road. We just wanna play music and be happy. This has really never been about a monetary aspect of things because it's known that we've been offered a good amount of money to do shows together and to reunite [with Sebastian] and whatever, but it's just never been about the money, man. I choose my happiness, my willingness to continue to be a really good friend to my best friends and a really good husband and a really good dad and bandmate and person. And I don't wanna endanger that in any way. So the people that we choose to play with, those choices are made in order to keep those particular things in line for all of us."

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, 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. Theart was fired from SKID ROW in February 2022 and was replaced by Grönwall, who was previously a member of the Swedish hard rock band H.E.A.T.

Five years ago, Bolan also confirmed that he and his bandmates "were entertaining the idea" of reuniting with Bach following Harnell's departure. But Rachel shot down the possibility of a rekindling of his friendship with Sebastian, explaining: "Well… Here's the soundbite for Blabbermouth. I wouldn't say we were friends [when we were in a band together]. We were bandmates. You know what I mean? We're two very different people." Bolan added that he hadn't seen Bach "in years."

Six years ago, Bach was asked by Rolling Stone what it would take for SKID ROW to be reunited. He responded: "It would take those guys to realize that I have a lifetime manager. His name is Rick Sales. I've been with him since 2006. They don't want to deal with a guy like that. They want to give some singer who doesn't have a manager $700 to $800 bucks a week. I've got a team that's worked with me and don't allow me to get fucked around. I didn't have that team when I was 19 years old."

In response to Bach's statements about the earnings of SKID ROW's singer, Sabo told Rolling Stone in an e-mail: "I guess fact-checking isn't in his skill set… The five of us go on that stage as a band and we all get paid equally. We're in this together. There's no egos."

Sebastian went on to say that SKID ROW was "close to reuniting, but then it didn't happen. The fact that it didn't happen obviously makes me somewhat bitter, because life is only getting shorter, as the song says," he added.

"I wouldn't say 'came close,'" Bolan told Rolling Stone in an e-mail response to Bach's account of the reunion talks. "We entertained the idea. Snake and I went as far as talking with agents and promoters about money. But we quickly learned after a few text conversations, why we fired him in the first place. Nothing is worth your happiness and peace of mind."

Reunited California thrash metal pioneers DARK ANGEL have released a teaser video for their first new music in 34 years, due later in 2025 via Reversed Records. Check it out below.

Earlier this month, DARK ANGEL drummer Gene Hoglan was asked by Chile's PowerOfMetal.cl asked about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the band's long-awaited new album. He said: " Well, we are going to be debuting a couple of new songs, some new material, at these upcoming couple of South American shows that we have. I know we are playing Buenos Aires [in Argentina on March 21], and that's two nights before the Metal Beer [Open Air] fest [in Chile on March 23]. So, at both of those shows we are debuting some new material, and we're really excited to be able to play some new stuff after all this time. And hey, man, hopefully that's gonna lead to a whole bunch more stuff. And we're very excited to be unleashing some new material on the metal world."

Regarding the possibility of a new DARK ANGEL album being released this year, Gene said: "Boy, you never know. We're working and trying to make things happen. And so hopefully at some point — I've said this many times in the past — hopefully at some point we'll be able to give some kind of exciting update on progress of anything. And so hopefully we'll be able to do that somewhere in the near future. And everybody, keep your eyes peeled to DARK ANGEL. We'll see what happens."

DARK ANGEL was originally scheduled to play new music for the first time since 1991 during its January 29 concert at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California. However, that show ended up getting postponed due to the wildfires in the state.

In July 2024, DARK ANGEL officially entered the studio to begin recording its new LP. Two months earlier, Hoglan told Rocking With Jam Man that he had "been working diligently for the last couple of years on some projects that are gonna make DARK ANGEL fans really happy, I think. So, everybody, just sit tight," he said. "I just don't wanna nebulously announce something and then have circumstances beyond my control come along and make things delayed. I just wanna be able to be able to say, 'Yes, this is gonna be a solid date that we can announce for people, and we're gonna be able to stick to that date.' That's what I'm all about. So, keep your eyes and ears peeled, everybody."

Asked what it has been like making new DARK ANGEL music more than 30 years after the release of the band's last album, 1991's "Time Does Not Heal", Gene responded: "Well, that's one thing. It's like we had a choice. I had an entire DARK ANGEL album written that was ready to start getting recorded after the 'Time Does Not Heal' record, and circumstances occurred where the band just had to dissolve. So, I had a bunch of material written. And when [DARK ANGEL guitarist] Jim Durkin and myself — Jim is no longer with us, but when we put DARK ANGEL back together and we started talking about, like, 'What do we wanna do for the future? Do we wanna write some new material?' And 'I've got some ideas, Gene, and you probably have some ideas.' And I have a number of songs that I sent to Jim. And when Jim heard that — I sent it to him on a CD — he freaked out and he was, like, 'My God, here's our new album. This is gonna be our next record. Hell yeah.' And he got really excited about that material. But I was, like, 'Hey, Jim, tell you what. I feel really strongly about my writing chops, and the songs I'm hearing from you right now are crushing. So how about we just write new stuff, get together and start writing new material?' And so we kind of went that route."

He continued: "For my elements of what I wanted DARK ANGEL to sound like, Jim Durkin is a huge influence on my writing style. So I wanted this to have a lot of the Jim Durkin influence on it. In terms of riffs, there's not as many from Jim as we were hoping for, but Jim's entire presence is all over the new DARK ANGEL material that I've been working on. And he's a huge guitar influence on me, as well as a lot of people. So, there's definitely gonna be a pretty hardy Jim Durkin influence. And I just wanna write a kick-ass metal album. So what I've tried to do is not go back 35 years or 37 years or whatever, 'Darkness Descends' or even 'We Have Arrived', those early albums, or 'Leave Scars' or 'Time Does Not Heal', I've not tried to duplicate anything from any of those albums, but I tried to put myself in the mindset of what if DARK ANGEL just kept writing albums for the last 30-whatever years, 32, 33 years, where would we be at now? And so that has been my approach on the new DARK ANGEL material."

Durkin died on March 8, 2023 at the age of 58. An original member of DARK ANGEL, Durkin played on the band's first three albums — 1985's "We Have Arrived", 1986's "Darkness Descends" and 1989's "Leave Scars" — before departing the group in 1989. He was part of DARK ANGEL's lineup when the band reformed in 2013, and had been playing with them, on and off, ever since.

Prior to his death, Durkin had been sitting out some of DARK ANGEL's gigs. He was replaced at the shows by Hoglan's wife Laura Christine, who has since joined DARK ANGEL as a permanent member.

DARK ANGEL released two albums with Don Doty on vocals — the aforementioned "We Have Arrived" and "Darkness Descends" — before he exited the group and was replaced by Ron Rinehart (after a brief stint with Jim Drabos in 1987). The band issued two more studio LPs — "Leave Scars" and "Time Does Not Heal" — before calling it quits in 1992.

Hoglan previously talked about DARK ANGEL's upcoming LP in May 2023 in an interview with Friday 13th. He said at the time: "Jim and I, we had gotten together a number of times to write some new material for DARK ANGEL. And we weren't able to get it down on tape too much. If DARK ANGELhas any new material, there's a song that he's got on there that is pretty darn DARK ANGEL-esque.

"In tribute to Jim, DARK ANGEL's new material will have a ton of his spirit all over it — his feel. Whether he actually wrote stuff on the new stuff or not, his spirit is very there. His imprint is felt throughout thrash metal, I feel. Even before I was in DARK ANGEL, I'd see Jim's influence on bands. Absolutely. So his legacy will live forevermore in the realm of extreme metal. His style will always be a part of DARK ANGEL, absolutely, big time."

Asked how the next DARK ANGEL album will compare to the band's previous efforts, Hoglan said: "Well, I can't really even comment on the fact that there might or might not be an album yet. But put it this way — if I were to have any new DARK ANGEL material, I would want it to be an extension of where the band is at now and where I'm at now. And I would probably approach the writing of it in a way as if DARK ANGEL never disappeared for a decade, two decades, three decades, or whatever it's been. It's just like we just kept doing what we do, and this would be where we're at right now. Which I would want to be putting out the most savage, heaviest material that DARK ANGEL could. And I'm no slouch with writing psychotic, heavy material. So I would be very, very excited with where DARK ANGEL's new material would be if that would be able to confirm."

DARK ANGEL press photo courtesy of Metal Beer Open Air

In a new interview with Dennis Huff of Las Vegas, Nevada's KOMP 92.3 FM radio station, Glenn Danzig elaborated on his recent comment that he is not planning on recording any more new music. Glenn said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "What I've always said, when I have something to say, I'll go into the studio and record it. Right now I really don't have that much to say musically. I've put out so many records, with all the kids, just — when I say kids, I mean people — just downloading stuff instead of buying it, from a business standpoint, you can't make any money 'cause it costs X amount to record a record. And I'm not gonna do some stupid Pro Tools record in somebody's living room. So it comes down to, if I have enough stuff soon, maybe, but right now, no… It's not a good business model, if you know what I'm saying."

Asked if it might be more worth his while if he puts out a single or a small EP, Glenn said: "That's what I'm thinking. If I can find time to actually — 'cause right after these [DANZIG] shows [in late March], that'll be it for DANZIG shows for a while. I've got some MISFITS shows I have to do in 2025, but then after that, pretty much I wanna do some other stuff. So, we'll see. In that amount of time, if I write some more songs, then maybe I'll do like an EP or something."

Earlier in the month, Glenn was asked by Abe Kanan of the 98 Rock radio station about the fact that he is now playing sporadic live shows with both DANZIG and the MISFITS. Refencing the fact that MISFITS have been active on the live front since the initial comeback performance by Danzig, Jerry Only and Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein at the 2016 Riot Fest, Glenn said: "It worked out that way for a reason, I guess. Everything happens for a reason — that's how I think — and so when it's meant to happen, it happens. And so it ended up happening, and people should enjoy it while we're still doing it, because I've always said, when I can't do it anymore, I won't go on there and do it. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna go up there and pretend to play and have tapes or whatever. I'm not gonna do that. So if it ever becomes that, where physically or vocally I can't do it, I won't do it. So, people should go check it out now, 'cause you never know what's gonna happen. The world could end tomorrow. It's a crazy world right now."

When Kanan noted that DANZIG's songs might be harder to sing, but the MISFITS shows probably "take more energy", Glenn said: "The DANZIG songs have a greater vocal range than the MISFITS songs. So, yeah, the DANZIG songs are more difficult to sing, that's for sure."

Asked if he can ever foresee a new MISFITS album coming out, or a new song, Glenn said: "Maybe a song. Not an album." As for a new DANZIG album, Glenn said: "No. [Laughs] Look, people now just wanna download your stuff for free, and they don't understand that it costs money to go in a studio and record a record. So it's not really a great business model to go and record a record and then not be able to recoup your money that you spent making the record. So, with DANZIG, it might be like the MISFITS — maybe I'll record a song or two and just release it, and it won't cost that much."

He continued: "In the beginning, the MISFITS only released singles. We couldn't afford to put out an album. But a lot of the punk bands, that's how it was — you couldn't afford to do an album, especially if you were underground. You weren't on a big label, [so] you could only afford to do a single. So maybe I'll do that for DANZIG, and maybe we'll do it for the MISFITS. We'll see."

During a recent appearance on Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn spoke about DANZIG's upcoming string of rare live shows on the U.S. West Coast, set to take place in late March. Support on the trek, which will include cities DANZIG has not played in many years, will come from DOWN, ABBATH and CRO-MAGS. Asked if the upcoming dates will be all that DANZIG will do this year, Glenn said: "I don't really like going on tour. As you can see, I'm only doing six shows. So just trying to get me to go and do a bunch of shows — I don't mind doing a one-off here or there or whatever, but doing a bunch of shows, riding around on the bus, I've said it before… I know that we had to make up a Phoenix show last time that had to get canceled because we there was a bus shortage. And so basically in order to get a bus, we had to move all our first dates on the tour to the end of the tour. And there wasn't an available venue in Phoenix that time period. We'll make up the Phoenix show. And then we had a lot of fans asking why we haven't come up to the big Northwest and San Francisco. So we're trying to make that up. And it'll be it for a while."

Danzig also talked about the changes in touring since his early days, saying: "Well, everything's more expensive. The last time I went out — I think it was 2022 or 2023, again just a handful of shows — and prices on buses and gas had just gone [way up]. And then this last time we went out in 2023, they went up three times what we normally pay. And this time it's even crazier. So, I think it's also become really hard for a lot of bands to go out there and tour. I've said it before — a young band just going out there, they would have to go out in a van, well, kind of how we did back in the day with DANZIG and SAMHAIN and the MISFITS. I mean, we would go out in a van. It was all we could afford."

Asked if he enjoyed touring in a van at that time, Glenn said: "No. No one loves being in a van with a bunch of other people and a limited amount of space. I'd have to be driving, too. A lot of times we'd have the stick shift, and me and maybe one other person in the van would know how to drive a shift. So I'd have to drive most of the time also. You're driving and you're loading equipment in and you're doing everything, pretty much."

He added: "But anyway, I'm looking forward to these shows. It's been a while. And hopefully all the fans will be digging it. And I'm sure they'll have a great time. The lineup is insane. So, I don't know what else we can do except come out there and knock you on your ass."

Asked if there is any new DANZIG music on the horizon, Glenn said: "No." He went on to clarify that he is "not even focused on touring," explaining that he is "just doing six shows. And if that's touring, then what I used to do must have been mega touring," he said. "I mean, we used to go out for three, four, five, six months at a time."

Circling back to the possibility of new music, Glenn said: "The whole music thing and recording and everything, it's just changed dramatically where people really don't buy physical product anymore. They just wanna download it for free online. So there's really no incentive to new music, unless I'm in the studio and I do something and I wanna give it away for free to everybody. I don't know if that's a great business model."

Asked if he still enjoys writing music, Glenn said: "Yeah, of course. But I write lots of different stuff.

"I don't see the music industry changing at all. So I don't know if I'm ever gonna record again, at least DANZIG stuff," he admitted. "Maybe at some point. I don't know right now."

DANZIG tour dates with DOWN, ABBATH and CRO-MAGS:

March 21 - Las Vegas, NV - The Virgin Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas
March 22 - Lincoln, CA - Thunder Valley Casino Resort
March 25 - Seattle, WA - Wamu Theater
March 26 - Portland, OR - Moda Center-Theatre of the Clouds
March 29 - Los Angeles, CA - Kia Forum
March 30 - Phoenix, AZ - Arizona Financial Theatre

DANZIG's latest album, "Black Laden Crown", came out in May 2017 via Evilive Records/Nuclear Blast Entertainment.

Danzig released a collection of Elvis Presley covers, "Danzig Sings Elvis", in April 2020 and has been focusing on making films, including "Death Rider In The House Of Vampires" and his feature film directorial debut, "Verotika".

When it debuted at the Cinepocalypse festival in Chicago in 2019, "Verotika" was compared by some reviewers to Tommy Wiseau's "The Room", the so-bad-it's-amazing drama which is considered one of the worst movies ever made.

Glenn has been talking about the end of his touring career since at least 2015. At that time, he told Cleveland Scene: "I love being on stage and that's the great part of touring. I'll always do that. It's the bouncing around on a bus. That's the part I hate."

When DANZIG, the band, grew out of the MISFITS/SAMHAIN lineage in 1987, Glenn went into the new project with even grander ambitions and a long-term design. Between 1977 and 1987, the MISFITS' horror-punk morphed into the darker, occult-steeped SAMHAIN. When producer and record mogul Rick Rubin showed interest in signing SAMHAIN to his Def Jam label and producing their first record, the band yet again evolved, and DANZIG was born.

In a new interview with the Not These Two Fucking Guys podcast, P.O.D. frontman Paul "Sonny" Sandoval spoke about his recently released book, "Son of Southtown: My Life Between Two Worlds", in which he talks about walking a unique path between being in a world-famous rock band and his long-held faith as a born-again Christian. Regarding the fact that P.O.D. is often labeled a "Christian rock" band, Sonny said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We come from the hardcore scene where it was never broken down like that, because everybody is about something. Whether you're vegan or whether you're straight edge or animal rights, social justice issues, whatever — that's what I love about hardcore, is you have the right to say what you wanna say, no matter what. And we don't have to agree, but we all respect it because it's you — it's passionate; you love it. So once we came into the rock and roll scene, it was a little different."

He continued: "We never came out and said, 'Oh, we're a Christian band.' We were just kids and I was new in this faith. And we had that mentality: 'Well, hey, if this is what I'm about and I love God and I wanna scream it, then I'm gonna do it.' But I don't think it was until we got into the mainstream — which I don't think we were ever really meant for the mainstream. Thank you that we get to still tour 33 years later and we've made a living off doing this, but for whatever reason, we got into that mainstream and we've always been just an underground type of group. And maybe it was too much for most people, but in the rock and roll industry, I think we all love our sex drugs and rock and roll, and so whenever you come out with a positive message or something that's a little bit… I come from reggae music and bands that have something to say and that speak life. But maybe that doesn't really mix with metal and rock and roll. I believe it should."

Sonny added: "I think that my faith is offensive to a lot of people. And so a lot of times I feel like people are trying to put us in a box because they're trying to say, 'Well, don't listen to them' or 'They're not as good as this band or that band because they have Christian beliefs' or whatever. But that's never been the forefront of what we do. But that's why I write a book, that's why I have conversations with people, because I love sharing my faith. I'll never compromise or back down from what I believe in, but the music was to reach everybody and to make everybody smile. I'm not telling you how to live your life. There's no agenda here. I'm just trying to be me and be authentic. But I think we get put into a category. And, unfortunately, I have my own problems with the institution of Christianity, so it sucks when I get lumped into this religious hypocrisy that's been happening for decades and centuries. Stuff that I absolutely hate, I'm getting lumped into this, and so I always feel like I have to defend myself."

When the interviewer noted that the members of P.O.D. always had that mindset that they "just wanted to reach a bigger audience", Sonny concurred. "When I got asked to be in this band, I didn't know that there was Christian music," he said. "That's like saying, 'Hey, do you know a Christian mechanic I can go to, because I'm a Christian…' And I don't give a damn if he's a Christian or not; I want him to fix my car or my kids' car. I don't want my kid's car stalling on the freeway when he drives or she drives. So I don't really care what you believe in — fix my car. But I get it. I guess as we went along, we did see that there was a Christian music industry and there's a Christian industry over here and there's all this stuff. But to us, that's — I mean, whatever. That's not something we ever wanted to be a part of. We just wanted to make music for anybody to listen."

"Son of Southtown: My Life Between Two Worlds" was released on February 25 via Baker Books.

In a separate interview with Chuck Armstrong of Loudwire Nights, Sandoval stated about his book: "This is such a fast-forward look. I can honestly write four more books with just the details alone, and the stories alone, which are great. It's rock and roll. But as you kind of read through the book, it's, like, I never intended to be in rock, or I never intended to do this for a living. It just wasn't until I found my faith that I wanted to be vocal about it. I just wanted the people around me to know that I changed.

"My love for Jesus, it's not what the world thinks," he explained. "We've done such a bad job at painting the picture of Jesus, and that's to our own fault. Being Christians, sometimes we come off as we've got it all figured out, and that's not the case. That's not why we have faith. We need a savior; we need God. And when I discovered Jesus, it was just something I wanted for my friends and in my community. And when I was asked to be in this band, I said 'no' at first, 'cause it's not something I wanted to do, but I knew it was a way to just be vocal about the things that I believed, and obviously that took off to what it is.

"But, yeah, I live in the real world of rock and roll, and I've never denied my faith, but also I've never lived rock and roll either. [Laughs] It's everything they say it is — it's all the temptations, it's all the promises of this and that. And I guess maybe now as we've gone through it and look in hindsight, even now, I wouldn't change it for the world. I wouldn't take anything that this world has to offer. This world is temporary, and so I just wanna hold on to the things that I love, and, again, it's my faith, my family, my friends."

After Armstrong suggested that many Christians struggle with their faith from time to time, Sonny said: "Yeah, for sure. But that's what faith is. And I think it's been wrapped up in such a religious bubble that it's given people such a bad taste. And I guess when you're young, you think you have your whole life ahead and you don't think about all those things, but as you get older and my age and life starts to change — the Bible says to set your heart and mind on things above, set your heart on the eternal.

"I mean, let's just call it what it is," he continued. "If none of it is real, then I lose nothing. You lose nothing. You know what I mean? We die, we go to sleep and that's it. Life is over. We lived a great life. And I wouldn't change it. But because I do believe, I believe that there is eternity, I believe that there's a heaven and a hell. And that's not to scare anybody. I believe if God created us, he created us for more than just this temporary life. And so — whatever. It's food for thought. I'm not preaching to anybody, but if there is an afterlife, I wanna be on the right side. That's all."

Armstrong went on to describe "Son of Southtown: My Life Between Two Worlds" as an inspiring read even for those people who don't share Sonny's faith, to which the singer said: "I've tried to do this my entire career where I'm not trying to preach to anybody and tell them how they live. I'm just sharing my story, and my story is undeniable. You're never gonna convince me that there isn't a God, that he doesn't love me and that he's not for us and that we've been created for a purpose and a reason. I need to know these things. I wanna believe that there's a God that is love and that he created me for a reason and that he has a plan for my life, not only on this life, but eternal.

"I get it," Sonny added. "I understand when someone says, 'Man, I'm sick of Christianity. I'm sick of religion.' And I get it. I'm sick of a lot of that stuff too, man. But that is not the Jesus of the Bible. And once I discovered who the Jesus of the Bible was, I fell in love with him, and he's as punk rock as they come. He's as hardcore as they come. He's as rebellious as they come. But people, especially us in the States, we have this Westernized view of this European Jesus that is just fragile and just — I don't know, man — weak. And that's not who Jesus was, man. He was badass."

Born and raised on the streets of Southtown, two exits from the Mexico border, Sandoval was always going to go his own way. And as frontman of the platinum selling nu metal band P.O.D. — a group too Christian for the world and too secular for the church — he has broken every mold, defied every expectation, and reached into the hearts and minds of hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to belong to something but never felt like they fit in.

In "Son of Southtown: My Life Between Two Worlds", he shares how he lived on the edge between two worlds, a line he has attempted to walk with integrity.

Raw and uncut, this memoir tells his true story of growing up in the gritty beauty south of San Diego, his early musical influences and big breaks, his rise to fame and many hardships and struggles along the way.

Readers will get an inside glimpse into stories of performing in cornfields at the Cornerstone Music Festival to rocking MTV's "Total Request Live" with Carson Daly to playing in New York City just weeks after 9/11, and every unglamorous moment in between. His story will inspire readers to always be totally and uniquely them, without apology and without compromise — but with passion and integrity.

Sandoval is the lead singer and lyricist of the multi-platinum band P.O.D. (PAYABLE ON DEATH) and cofounder of THE WHOSOEVERS. He is a product of Southtown, the southern part of San Diego that approaches the border with Mexico. He is the founder and president of the Youth Of The Nation Foundation, which reaches out to children from underprivileged neighborhoods and gives them the opportunity to find their self-worth and value. Sonny is married to his high school sweetheart, Shannon, and they have three children.

In a new interview with Angela Croudace of Australia's Heavy magazine, CRADLE OF FILTH frontman Dani Filth was asked what his thinks about the fact that some people view his band's music as "blasphemous". He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's only blasphemous to certain people. It's pigeonholed, really. Well, I don't really view it as that, as such. I mean, if you're not confined by religion, this sort of thing doesn't really enter into everyday life. So, are you actually being blasphemous, if you don't think you're being blasphemous? If you're blasphemous to one religion, surely that would be blasphemous to all religions, which it evidently isn't, because all religions essentially are different, but they just argue about God's messenger. They can never decide which one's the true. Well, they can, but it's always theirs. [Laughs]

"So, no, I don't really give a shit about religion," he continued. "I do love the iconography and I love the fact that… There are good messages in it. I just think that time has just worn out the message. I think there's just too much blood, too much misery in religion's name to warrant it being regarded as a modern thing. I mean, surely nowadays everybody can see the world is not flat and the world wasn't born 2,000 years ago or 4,000 years ago or 6,000 years ago. And the dinosaurs weren't part of the Bible… What I'm saying is, it's ridiculous, the notion of it all. The message, I get it. But the notion of it being still valid today, it just makes no sense. In an age of science, it makes no sense. So, that being in mind, it's totally invalidated in my opinion. And I don't give a two shits about it… I respect it — don't get me wrong, I respect people's belief. It's the belief that's the most important part of it, and I respect that. [But all the rest is] utter garbage."

CRADLE OF FILTH's infamous T-shirt featured a masturbating nun and a back print proudly proclaiming the slogan "Jesus Is A C**t".

CRADLE's most iconic piece of merchandise was first released in 1993 and spent most of the ensuing decade as a lightning rod for arguments about freedom of speech, and was the cause of several arrests for public indecency.

The "Jesus Is A C**t" shirt has been a source of controversy for more than three decades, with the CRADLE OF FILTH members previously warning fans about wearing the shirt in public.

In 1996, a CRADLE fan was arrested in London for wearing the T-shirt; he was found guilty of committing "Profane Representation under the 1839 Act" and was fined £150. A year later, the group's drummer was arrested for creating a public disorder and resisting arrest in Dover as he and his bandmates attempted to leave the country for a gig in the Netherlands. In 2008, the shirt was officially banned in New Zealand by the country's office of the chief censor, which stated that, "The injury to the public good that is likely to be caused by the availability of this T-shirt originates from the manner in which it associates an aggressive and misogynistic meaning of the 'harsh, brutal and generally unacceptable' word c**t with Jesus Christ, and depicts an image of a chaste woman engaging in sexual activity."

CRADLE OF FILTH will release its 14th studio album, "The Screaming Of The Valkyries", on March 21 via Napalm Records.

CRADLE OF FILTH will co-headline the 2025 edition of the North American "Chaos & Carnage" tour, featuring fellow co-headliners DYING FETUS, as well as FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, NE OBLIVISCARIS, UNDEATH, VOMIT FORTH and CORPSE PILE.

ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian spoke to Guitar World magazine about his band's participation at the upcoming "Back To The Beginning" charity event on July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, United Kingdom. The concert will mark the original lineup of BLACK SABBATH's last-ever performance and Ozzy Osbourne's final appearance as a solo artist. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE guitarist Tom Morello will serve as the "musical director" at the show.

Ian told Guitar World that he first heard about this historic event from Morello. "I texted him back and said, 'Dude, yes! Whatever it is, I'm in. What's going on… what the hell?'" Scott said. "He said, 'As soon as I have more information on what song and who you're playing with, I'll let you know.' Then he said, 'We're just starting to get this together now. Sharon [Osbourne] asked me if I would be creative director and help put it all together.' A couple of days later, he sent me a list of people involved, and I saw there were other bands involved. I said, 'Okay,' because I had no idea; I thought it was just gonna be like SABBATH and Ozzy, and then maybe a bunch of all-star lineups. I saw other bands but no ANTHRAX, so I'm like, 'Well, shit, I'm already involved…' I said, 'How about getting ANTHRAX on this? I'm not the only SABBATH fan in the band.' Tom said, 'Let me get right back to you…' Literally, like five minutes later, he said, 'You're in."

Regarding what fans can expect from "Back To The Beginning", Ian said: "I'm on a couple of other SABBATH songs as well, in one of the all-star lineups that I get to be in. I don't know how any of the production stuff is working.

"They're going to have seemingly 200 different things going on before SABBATH gets on stage — but I don't have to worry about that stuff. I just have to know the songs."

"Back To The Beginning" sold out in less than 10 minutes last month. The concert will mark the first time that the original lineup of BLACK SABBATH — Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward — have played together in 20 years.

Also set to appear at the event are METALLICA, GUNS N' ROSES, TOOL, SLAYER, PANTERA, GOJIRA, ALICE IN CHAINS, HALESTORM, LAMB OF GOD, ANTHRAX and MASTODON.

In addition, there will be a performance by a "supergroup of musicians" including Duff McKagan and Slash (GUNS 'N' ROSES),Billy Corgan (THE SMASHING PUMPKINS),Fred Durst (LIMP BIZKIT),K.K. Downing (JUDAS PRIEST),Jake E. Lee (OZZY OSBOURNE),Wolfgang Van Halen (VAN HALEN, MAMMOTH WVH),Andrew Watt, Chad Smith (RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS),David Ellefson (MEGADETH),Vernon Reid (LIVING COLOUR),Whitfield Crane (UGLY KID JOE),David Draiman (DISTURBED),Frank Bello (ANTHRAX),Jonathan Davis (KORN),Lzzy Hale (HALESTORM),Mike Bordin (FAITH NO MORE),Rudy Sarzo (OZZY OSBOURNE, QUIET RIOT),Sammy Hagar, Scott Ian (ANTHRAX),Sleep Token II (SLEEP TOKEN) and Papa V Perpetua (GHOST).

Ozzy — who hasn't played a full show since late 2018 — announced his last-ever performance on February 5.

Proceeds from the "Back To The Beginning" show will support Cure Parkinson's, the Birmingham Children's Hospital and Acorn Children's Hospice, a Children's Hospice supported by Aston Villa.

The original lineup of BLACK SABBATH last performed in 2005. Since then, SABBATH has played in partial reunions but never in its original lineup.

The legendary BLACK SABBATH frontman was diagnosed in 2003 with Parkin 2 — a very rare genetic form of Parkinson's. During a TV appearance in January 2020, the singer disclosed that he was 'stricken" with the disease which occurs when the nerve cells of the body degenerate and levels of dopamine are reduced. Dopamine is an essential chemical that is produced by these nerve cells which send signals to different parts of the brain to control movements of the body.

Ozzy's health issues, including suffering a nasty fall and dislodging metal rods placed in his spine following a quad-bike accident in 2003, as well as catching COVID-19 three years ago, forced him to cancel some of his previously announced tours.

While Osbourne's health issues forced him to scrap most of his live appearances, the musician said he would return if his condition improved.

Despite his health problems, Osbourne has performed a couple of times in the last three years, including at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in August 2022 and at the NFL halftime show at the season opener Los Angeles Rams and Buffalo Bills game in September 2022.

During an appearance on the March 19 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", legendary Swedish guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen was asked about his decision to step into the world of health and wellness with his latest creation: the Yngwie Malmsteen's Force multivitamin supplement gummies. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): " Well, in order for you to be in good health, you need to take supplements. And I've always done that. And so the reason I put my line out is because I want other people to do it too. And it really works. I highly recommend it.

When host Eddie Trunk noted that it's a "nice move" for Yngwie to go the "health-conscious" route instead of doing what many other rock musicians have done by releasing their own lines of liquor or beer or weed, Malmsteen said: "Well, because that's what I do. I don't drink. I don't do drugs. I don't believe in it. Listen, if you wanna do that, go ahead. Be my guest. But I prefer not to do it. And also I think it's great to let people know — take your vitamins, and it really works."

According to a post on the Swedish musician's official merchandise webstore, "Yngwie's focus on peak performance extends beyond music and into personal well-being. His new line of multivitamin gummies is designed for those who, like him, demand the best from their bodies. With his bold stage presence and a lifestyle fueled by passion and intensity, Yngwie knows the importance of maintaining energy and health. These multivitamin gummies are packed with essential vitamins and nutrients, providing the perfect boost to keep anyone feeling powerful, focused, and ready to conquer the day. Yngwie believes that 'feeling good and healthy is vital,' whether you're shredding on the guitar or managing daily life. These gummies are formulated to support a strong immune system, enhance energy levels, and promote overall wellness, all in a tasty, rockstar-approved form."

The gummies are packaged in bottles of 50 and come in three favors: cherry, raspberry and strawberry. Each bottle costs $39.99.

In an August 23, 2024 post on his official Facebook, Yngwie shared a picture of his guitar along with three of his vitamin gummies, and he included the following message: "The secret to my force over the past forty years isn't what you'd think… vitamins. I am super health conscious, I wake up early, play tennis take my vitamins, drive my cars spend time with my family and make music for you guys".

As previously reported, Yngwie will release a new live album, "Tokyo Live", on April 25 via Music Theories Recordings. The concert was recorded at the Zepp DiverCity, Tokyo on May 11, 2024 as part of Yngwie's 40th-anniversary world tour.

Malmsteen's breathtaking technique takes center stage of the 100-minute concert while being cocooned by exquisite musicianship throughout. The setlist tracks Malmsteen's illustrious career, from "Hiroshima Mon Amour" and "Evil Eye" and through his remarkable solo career with "Rising Force", "Far Beyond The Sun", "Arpeggios From Hell" and "Seventh Sign" all the way up to his most recent material taken from 2021's "Parabellum", with "Wolves At The Door", "Relentless Fury", "(Si Vis Pacem) Parabellum", not to mention rousing renditions of "Paganini's 4th" and "Smoke On The Water".

Only four of the songs on "Parabellum" featured vocals. The album title is Latin, translating as "Prepare For War".

After working with some of the top hard singers of the past four decades, Yngwie now handles much of the lead vocals himself in his own band, backed by a lineup that includes keyboardist Nick Marino, bassist Emilio Martinez and drummer Kevin Klingenschmid.

The name of Yngwie Malmsteen has always stood for uncompromising excellence. In a career that now spans more than 40 years he has proven himself to be a unique artist. You can try to categorize him in any way you wish. But the manner in which this supreme Swedish craftsman has continually developed his music makes Malmsteen sublimely transcend any definition you attempt to impose.

He now has a catalogue of 22 solo studio albums, each of which has much to commend. Malmsteen's artistry has always clearly incorporated a healthy virtuosity, but his talent goes well beyond a comprehensive control of the guitar. The man is a fine composer and, on recent releases, has also showcased a strong vocal presence and now, with only this fifth live release, it captures four decades of relentless fury and blissful artistry of one of the true greats.

https://www.malmsteenmerchandise.com/

Posted by Official Yngwie Malmsteen on Monday, November 18, 2024

DED — Joe Cotela (vocals); Adam Adamcik (guitar); Kyle Koelsch (bass); and Matt Reinhard (drums) — returned last fall with the ferociously gritty new single "Rockstar". They are now gunning for a huge 2025, as evidenced by their latest single "Until I Die", featuring Chris Motionless from MOTIONLESS IN WHITE.

"'Until I Die' is a statement about drawing a line for my life," says Cotela. "It's me separating myself from the bullshit. It's my mission statement to do everything in my power to be the change that I want to see in the world while I am here. It was such an honor to have Chris on this track as a fan of his body of work and as a friend. We met on tour together and he was such a big champion of DED. He's true blue just a great human which made him perfect to be on this song. He murdered his parts on this and added a ferocity that only he could have done."

"Rockstar" and "Until I Die" have served as a welcome return for DED, which released its second full-length album, "School Of Thought", in October 2021.

The band is also revitalized by signing with indie powerhouse UNFD, home to ERRA, CROSSFAITH, IN HEARTS WAKE, INVENT ANIMATE, and more.

Having burst on to the scene with their debut "Mis-An-Thrope" and its follow-up, "School Of Thought", Phoenix band DED take no prisoners. The band embodies elements of nü metal, hardcore, punk, and rock with pop sensibilities, hooks, and choruses, cloaked in some of the most dense and guttural sounds you'll hear. DED's unexpectedly soulful music is about bringing hope, relief and self-awareness, often speaking to and about the young generations that are contending with many deeply embedded issues in today's society. Rather than the nihilistic, anarchical hellraisers DED might seem to be upon first glance, they're actually mythical heroes desperately trying to save society, not take it down. Joe Cotela (vocals),Alex Adamcik (guitar),Kyle Koelsch (bass) and Matt Reinhard (drums) are building a community by offering comfort in times of despair. With "Mis-An-Thrope", DED took the rock world by storm, generating over 25 million streams making several Billboard chart appearances including No. 1 on the Alternative New Artist chart and No. 3 on the Top New Artist Albums chart. Singles "Anti-Everything" and "Remember The Enemy" reached Top 20 at Active Rock Radio with SiriusXM's Octane naming DED "Artist Discovery Of The Year" and "Anti-Everything" landing in the station's Top 10 for 2017. The band were also nominated by Loudwire for Best New Artist. "Anti-Everything" also made impressive strides at servicing appearing on Spotify's U.S. Viral 50 twice and various playlists across Apple Music, Amazon and Pandora. The band also toured with KORN and STONE SOUR.

They followed with "School Of Thought". Touring-wise, DED lit up festival stages including Aftershock, Louder Than Life, Rocklahoma, Carolina Rebellion, Rock On The Range and ShipRocked and have toured with IN THIS MOMENT, BLACK VEIL BRIDES, and more. They also enjoyed their highest-charting radio hit with "Kill Beautiful Things", which was Top 15 and the second longest-running song on the airplay charts in 2022, with four million stream and 1.7 million YouTube views.

Ultimately, DED blaze their own trail as they cathartically stare down various beasts — both existential and innate — proving that there's a way to live through the struggle and come out stronger, happier, and more aware of how we look after ourselves and each other. The band is now signed with UNFD, with two ridiculously head-turning singles under their belt.

In a new interview with Steve Mascord of White Line Fever TV, Kip Winger spoke about WINGER's recent announcement that it was embarking on "farewell" tours of Australia and Japan in 2025. Asked what he will miss about playing with WINGER, Kip said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Listen, I've been well-known my whole life. But I was never, like, 'Hey, I'm a rock star' or anything like that. It's very matter of fact to just talk to people. What I'll miss is playing with these guys that I really love so much, but I'm very excited to move on to this other world that I'm really inspired because I'm hearing so much of the music.

"At some point I'm gonna play a final show with the band," Kip explained. "I don't know when it is. But that's not to say I might not do a cruise or something. I don't really know. I'm not going, 'Hey, this is the last show we're ever gonna do' because… Well, hey, KISS did it for 10 years, so… [Laughs]"

Asked if he has any thoughts about where the last WINGER show will be, Kip said: "I do have some thoughts about it, but nothing's totally worked out yet. So as soon as I know, I'll let you know."

Regarding the possibility of guests coming up for the final WINGER concert, Kip said: "That would be cool. I did think about that, but it depends on the location, like where we would be. So I don't know yet."

Kip also talked about how his daily routine will change once WINGER has stopped touring. He said: "Well, the biggest thing is the traveling. If you do 40 gigs in a year, and sometimes we do more than that, you have twice that many days on each end traveling. So, you spend half of the year of your life sitting in an airport, and it really… Listen, we're not a huge band — we don't fly around in our own Learjet — so it tends to take a toll on you. And then, all of a sudden, all my personal goals just end up drifting away in an airport somewhere in Chicago. So my life will be different in that way."

Kip continued: "Listen, interruption is the death of creativity. So my focus is to get myself into a place where I can be 100 percent creative and keep it rolling because it's really difficult to have it all broken up so much. And I've written every kind of rock song possible. I've made my final statement on the last WINGER record. And a lot of people think that's, like, if not our best record, it's close to being our best, along with 'Pull'. And I kind of brought back the original guys and put the original logo on and gave it a nice full circle. So, there's nothing else that Reb [Beach, WINGER guitarist] and I could do with WINGER that wouldn't just be, like, 'Okay, let's write another one of those' or 'another one of those.' And now I'm in this whole other mentality where the sky's the limit and I've got 30 more years of expressing myself in a world of things that haven't been done by me."

WINGER issued its seventh studio effort overall in 2023, the appropriately titled "Seven". Kip is also a respected and successful symphonic composer, having issued recordings under the name C.F. Kip Winger, while Reb has been a member of WHITESNAKE since 2002, and drummer Rod Morgenstein has served as a professor at Berklee College Of Music (in addition to playing in a variety of other more jazz-fusion-based projects).

WINGER formed in the late 1980s and soared to immediate success with its 1988 self-titled release. The album spawned the hit singles "Seventeen" and "Headed For A Heartbreak" and achieved platinum sales status. "Winger" also stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for over 60 weeks where it peaked at #21. Their next album, "In The Heart Of The Young", also achieved platinum status behind the singles "Can't Get Enuff" and "Miles Away". The change in musical climate of the mid-'90s, compounded with unprovoked ridicule on MTV's popular "Beavis And Butt-Head" show, led the band to go on hiatus in 1994. In 2001, WINGER reunited and has not looked back since. Kip also earned a 2016 Grammy nomination for the classical album "C.F. Kip Winger: Conversations With Nijinsky", recorded with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra.





𝗪𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗥 𝗔𝗨𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗙𝗔𝗥𝗘𝗪𝗘𝗟𝗟 𝗧𝗢𝗨𝗥
💨 𝗢𝗡 𝗦𝗔𝗟𝗘 𝗡𝗢𝗪 & 𝗦𝗘𝗟𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗙𝗔𝗦𝗧

ℹ️ 🎫 bit.ly/wingerau25

The anticipation for Winger in Australia is sky high. Catch the original line up of the band on Australian soil for the first and last time ever in a show that will give Aussie fans the chance to witness Winger in their full glory, as they bid farewell with an explosive, career-defining setlist that promises all the hits, classics and deep cuts that fans have cherished for years.

Special guests: Shotgun Mistress

✈️ 𝗧𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗹 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱

🗓️ Melbourne - Fri 4 April - 170 Russell
🎫 bit.ly/wingermel25

🗓️ Sydney - Sat 5 April - Manning Bar
🎫 bit.ly/wingersyd25

🗓️ Adelaide - Sun 6 April - The Gov
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🗓️ Brisbane -Tue 8 April - Princess Theatre
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🗓️ Perth -Thu 10 April - Magnet House
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⭐️ VIP Upgrades may be purchased from wingertheband.com

ℹ️ 🎫 bit.ly/wingerau25

Posted by Silverback Touring on Monday, March 3, 2025

WINGER OVER AUSTRALIA APRIL, 2025 TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT ALERT!!!

Legendary hard rock band Winger is set to electrify...

Posted by Utopia Records - Home Of Metal on Thursday, February 6, 2025

🔥 WINGER 🔥
Farewell Japan Tour 2025
🎥 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wso9Yh5JQdk
🎥 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Taxd5-d1Lp4

🔥 KIP WINGER 🔥
▶️ Booking : http://metallianprod.com/kipwinger/

Posted by Metallian Productions on Sunday, March 9, 2025

Provogue will release "Gary More Live - From Baloise Session" on May 23. The album will be released on CD/Blu-ray, 2LP blue and also marble yellow flame (web exclusive) as well as being available digitally. Check out the live video for "Since I Met You Baby" as a first taster.

We didn't know it then, but when Moore took the stage for the Baloise Session on November 13, 2008, he was less than three years away from his untimely passing at the age of 58. Yet this very special performance — captured for the "Live - From Baloise Session" — reminds us that the guitarist played with untouchable skill and molten soul, right to the end.

It's hard to imagine a finer showcase for Moore's cask-seasoned talent than Baloise Session. Far from the mud and melee of a traditional festival, the event held in Basel, Switzerland — formerly known as AVO Session — is an intimate encounter with A-list artists, where discerning music-lovers sit at lamp-lit tables modelled on the vintage after-hours clubs of New York, soaking up the set with no distractions.

From Ray Charles and James Brown to Elton John and Eric Clapton, an invitation to the Baloise Session is the stamp of an all-time musical great — and there's no doubt that Moore belongs in that number.

Gary Moore at full throttle was simply the greatest spectacle in rock 'n' roll. From his formative years out on the boards of late-'60s Dublin with SKID ROW, through his '70s gunslinger shifts for THIN LIZZY — on to an ever-evolving solo career that rewrote the book for blues, rock, metal and more — the Irishman attacked every show like it was both his first and last, shrugging off his hallowed reputation and earning his place amongst the greats all over again.

One setlist could never contain it all. "Live From Baloise Session", however, is a fist-tight, fat-trimmed distillation of everything that made Moore the blues master, hitting all the marks you'd hope to see from a late-period live set by this deathless artist.

With no fuss or fanfare, the bandleader — flanked by Pete Rees on bass, Vic Martin on keys and fabled THIN LIZZY drummer Brian Downey — walks from the wings, plugs his Les Paul into twin Marshall stacks and fires up "Oh, Pretty Woman" (the fiery Albert King cover that was a highlight of "Still Got The Blues"). As a statement of intent, it's stinging, and as Moore soothes and strangles his first solo of the night, you're reminded of Joe Bonamassa's sage observation: "Gary's approach to soloing was like placing a brick on a car's gas pedal — the brick would go down, and he would never stop!"

Strapping on a Gibson ES335, Moore then tears into his own "Since I Met You Baby" (a spring-heeled groove from 1992's "After Hours", whose studio version featured a guesting B.B. King).

This vintage Baloise Session performance serves as a reminder of all the Irishman did in his lifetime to leave his beloved genre in the best health. The likes of Gary Moore will not come again, but while this deathless music plays, he still walks amongst us, his power undimmed.

"Gary More Live - From Baloise Session" track listing:

01. Oh, Pretty Woman
02. Since I Met You Baby
03. Thirty Days (To Come Back Home)
04. I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know
05. Don't Believe A Word
06. Still Got The Blues
07. Walking By Myself
08. The Blues Is Alright

SWEET — one of the most legendary, influential, and enduring names in the history of rock music — will have the absolute collector's album "Platinum Rare 1" available in regular stores for the first time on May 23 via Metalville Records.

"Platinum Rare 1" contains extremely rare recordings by the four original SWEET members.

The legendary glam/hard rock band continues to thrill fans all over the world to this day. Over the years, SWEET have sold more than 55 million records and reached 34 No. 1 chart positions.

The songs on "Platinum Rare 1" come from the private archive of SWEET guitarist Andy Scott and were personally selected by him.

Fans of the band will be thrilled with this collection of rare and alternative takes and mixes. Many of the songs on the album have never before seen the light of day on a regular SWEET release.

"Platinum Rare 1" is an absolute enrichment for every true fan of SWEET.

Track listing for SWEET's "Platinum Rare 1":

CD1

01. Ballroom Blitz (Rough Mix)
02. IDC Jam
03. Midnight To Daylight (Outtake)
04. Show Me The Way (Alternative Mix)
05. Log One (That Girl) (Brian Vox)
06. Cover Girl (Band Demo)
07. Love Is Like Oxygen (Instrumental)
08. Windy City (Band Demo)
09. Falling In Love
10. Yesterday's Hero
11. Live For Today (Rough Mix)
12. New Shoes

CD2

01. Rebel Rouser (Steve Vocal)
02. Fire Engine
03. Blockbuster (Rough Mix)
04. Play All Night (Brian Vox)
05. Strong Love (Outtake)
06. Teenage Rampage (Rough Mix)
07. California Nights (Band Demo)
08. Hellraiser (Rough Mix)
09. Where Do We Go From Here
10. Silverbird (Band Demo)
11. Maggie
12. Lettres D'amour (Band Demo)
13. Lost Angels (Extended Rough Mix)

In a 2021 interview with VWMusic, Scott stated about SWEET's place within the rock and glam history: "I think we were probably underrated, and though we have respect from our peers, the other bands and musicians, I feel that if the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame came knocking, it would be a shame, almost too late, as I am the only one left. But hey, the legacy lives on."

Regarding SWEET's influence on the 1980s hair metal era, Andy said: "When bands like MÖTLEY CRÜE broke through, it was like looking at a snapshot of SWEET ten years on. The music was heavier and more reminiscent of our albums and B-sides than the singles. But in cultural/fashion terms, it is a direct line, a pure connection."

Three members of the original SWEET — Brian Connolly, Steve Priest and Mick Tucker — have died while Scott's version of the group still tours the U.K. and Australia.

Andy (guitars/vocals) is joined in his version of SWEET by Paul Manzi (lead vocals),Lee Small (bass guitar/vocals),Tom Cory (guitars/keys/vocals) and Adam Booth (drums/percussion).

Before he died, Priest had the right to use the SWEET name in the U.S. and Canada, whereas Scott toured a version of the group in the U.K. The pair were estranged for decades, but resumed contact in the 2010s.

In a recent interview with Skratch N Sniff, FINGER ELEVEN lead vocalist Scott Anderson shared insights about the band's journey, including FINGER ELEVEN's latest single, "Adrenaline", and the group's upcoming album. Scott opened up about touring with CREED on their "Summer Of '99" tour in 2024, his love for bands like IRON MAIDEN and GENESIS, his experiences as a father, and the moment he realized that "Paralyzer" and "One Thing" were destined to be massive hits.

Regarding "Adrenaline", which marks a fresh chapter for FINGER ELEVEN as the first taste of the band's upcoming studio album under FINGER ELEVEN's new recording deal with Better Noise Music, Anderson said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "The new single, I'm excited about it only because there was a promise of, like, 'Oh, okay. This song has a lot of energy.' But for the song to cross the finish line, to complete it and keep that energy up and not lose what's special about whatever demo you were working on, that's what I like most about it.

"We went across the U.S. with CREED last year, and a song like that, you kind of feel, like, okay, it can hang in a giant venue," he continued. "FINGER ELEVEN very often tries to make big music. And so it kind of passed the litmus test there. And it's got this nice kind of hype song quality about it and I really enjoy it."

Anderson added: "The new album is going to have quite a few of those. There's a lot of rockers on the new record. And there's a few kind of songs in between and then there's a mellow tune, but they're all of a really crazy quality, which I'm so excited to let everybody finally hear. And they will be able to hear it very soon — sometime this year."

Asked how the fact that FINGER ELEVEN hasn't released a studio album since 2015's "Five Crooked Lines" changed the writing process, if at all, Scott said: "One of the greatest things that that kind of time can give you is some objectivity. You can take a look at a song and go, 'Oh, okay, that's really good. But you know what? It needs work. This part is not working.' And the scary process of opening up an idea and hoping that it gets better through that, I mean, you've gotta do it. And if you work on a new song and it loses its luster of the newness, then you come back to it and go, like, 'Okay, I see exactly what this is. Let's figure out how to make it better.' And we've been doing that. We haven't necessarily taken a break as a band through those 10 years. It's just that every single one of us has a family now, and there's all kinds of stuff that has taken priority. But we've been making music, believe it or not, all the way through this. So when it came time to say, 'Okay, it's time to put a record out' — it's a very democratic process — we all sat down and said, 'Okay. Let's look at this list of songs and what are our favorites and should we work on. And let's just go one by one.' And we're finally almost done."

Regarding FINGER ELEVEN's label switch from Wind-Up and Concord Music Group to Better Noise Music, Anderson said: "I suppose when you're with a label and then, depending on the size of the label, you've got more resources, but then you have more people sort of keeping tabs on what you're doing. So it's a double-edged sword. So, the nice thing is we've been our own sort of producers, A&R guys throughout most of this process. And now I think we're about to give a label a really, really strong piece of ammunition, sonically, so to speak. And so I'm proud.

"Sometimes you'll deliver a record and you might not get the support that you're looking for," he explained. "There's a million reasons why a song hits or it doesn't hit. But I've got a really great feeling about our team now. And it's so strange to say at this point in my career. It's, like, oh, okay, this is a very, very strong record. I think it's going to surprise a lot of people, just because you go, 'Okay, these guys have been around for a minute,' and you can tell that we still care a lot. And it doesn't matter what I say. You've just gotta listen to the record and go, like, 'Oh, okay. I get it.' It's not just a slapdash pile of songs. We're still pretending like we're 17 and this is the most important thing in the world."

Upon its release last August, "Adrenaline" was one of the most added tracks in the U.S. In Canada, it achieved the No. 1 most added spot for two consecutive weeks.

FINGER ELEVEN is the alternative rock band originally from Burlington, Ontario and now based mostly out of Toronto. They are one of the best-selling Canadian bands of all time, have released a series of consecutive hit albums and become among the greatest live bands to ever emerge from the great White North. "The Greyest of Blue Skies", their debut, broke FINGER ELEVEN into the international mainstream, achieving gold status in the United States and platinum in Canada, and smashing the first single "One Thing", across the radio and Billboard charts. Their 2007 album, "Them vs. You vs. Me", launched the single "Paralyzer", setting radio records in the U.S., peaking at No. 1 internationally and going five times platinum, the band's second million-plus seller. They won the Juno Award for "Best Rock Album Of The year" the following year and set an incredible run at rock radio, with an unbeaten 14 weeks at the top spot. "Life Turns Electric", was nominated for a Juno Award for "Best Rock Album Of The Year". "Five Crooked Lines" continued to electrify audiences the world over and their 2023 "Greatest Hits" includes their biggest smash hit in a decade, "Together Right", which topped the radio charts for an amazing five-week run.

FINGER ELEVEN consists of Scott Anderson (vocals),James Black (lead guitar, backing vocals),Rick Jackett (rhythm guitar),Sean Anderson (bass) and Steve Molella (drums).

Photo credit: Jesse Milns

In a new interview with Geoff of the Gas Masks & Hand Grenades podcast, guitarist Chris Caffery and drummer Jeff Plate of reactivated American progressive metallers SAVATAGE spoke about the band's upcoming 2025 live shows. Joining them in SAVATAGE's current lineup are Johnny Lee Middleton on bass, Al Pitrelli on guitar and Zak Stevens on lead vocals. Asked if SAVATAGE will perform a lot of the Jon Oliva-era material on the tour, considering that Jon himself won't take part in the performances, Plate said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Zak is our lead vocalist. Zak sang all this stuff in other incarnations of the band." Caffery added: "Well, on the 'Edge Of Thorns' tour, they were still doing plenty of older SAVATAGE music and same with the 'Handful Of Rain' tour. And then when we even got to 'Dead Winter Dead' and 'The Wake Of Magellan' tours, Zak was still singing a lot of those songs and then splitting them with Jon. If you watch 'Japan Live ['94]' and you watch some of the videos of us at festivals, Zak was singing a ton of that stuff. Zak is a badass, man.

"Zak's not gonna sit there and try to imitate Jon Oliva; he never did," Caffery explained. "And that was evident with how they went with what vocals were on the 'Edge Of Thorns' record. I'd seen Criss [Oliva, late SAVATAGE guitarist and Jon's brother] a lot then when they were trying to figure out what to do with who was gonna replace Jon. And they had had options that sounded like him. And I think that was Criss's biggest concern at the time was he had said, 'Look, nobody is gonna sound like my brother.' So they had gotten Zak, and [TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA founder and SAVATAGE producer] Paul [O'Neill] and them, they produced 'Edge Of Thorns' and went with that direction. And Zak sings everything. Like I said, he's not trying to be Jon Oliva — nobody can ever be Jon Oliva, man."

Jeff concurred: "There's no voice like Jon and there's no presence like Jon either.

"We're gonna be very respectful of the entire catalog," he continued. "Obviously, there's some stuff that Zak probably isn't gonna be comfortable singing that we're not gonna do. We've got so much material. I mean, there's four albums with Zak. Plus, as we mentioned, you know, Zak was singing a lot of this stuff on the 'Edge Of Thorns' tour, and even the 'Handful Of Rain' tour. He can handle this… So we're gonna be able to cover all this ground. But trust me, we are going into this knowing full well that there's gonna be a lot of speculation and people are gonna be looking at us very closely.

"This band is going to be awesome, and the vocals are gonna be awesome and it's gonna be pretty cool."

Elaborating on what made Jon's vocal approach so distinctive, Chris said: "His tone is insane — it's just so unique and so different. But then again, so was his brother's guitar tone. There are very few guitar players where you listen to a period of time and you [hear] a type of sound. Yngwie Malmsteen had a sound, Eddie Van Halen had a sound, Dimebag had a sound, Criss had a sound. Unfortunately, he had passed before SAVATAGE with him alive really had a chance to get to a point where everybody viewed him as a household name. Because when people go, 'Well, he's the most underrated guitar player in history.' I said, 'No, I disagree with that. I think everybody who knows who he is rates him fine. He's the most recognized and unknown [guitarist].' It's that kind of thing with Jon. I mean, that voice is just so identifiable. You can't listen to anybody else and go, 'Who is that?' You know right away that that's Jon. But in that same respect, so does Zak. When he sings, you know it's Zak Stevens. Even when we would do SAVATAGE songs that Zak sang on with TSO, nobody sounded like Zak until Zak came [and sang those songs]. Other people sang the notes and did a great performance of it — don't get me wrong — but when you hear Zak, there's a tone in that voice and there's a personality to that voice. And he's singing great. I mean, I'm really excited for him because of the fact that his journey with SAVATAGE had a different placement than everybody else's, when he had taken his time away. So I'm really excited for him to go back and get to be Zak Stevens with SAVATAGE again. He [was] a really important part of the band's history with 'Edge Of Thorns' and 'Handful Of Rain' and 'Dead Witner Dead' and 'Japan Live' and 'The Wake Of Magellan'. I mean, that's a big chunk of music, man. That's more music than a lot of big bands' whole careers."

Last month, Caffery talked to Italy's Poisoned Rock about some fans' complaints that SAVATAGE's comeback doesn't include Jon Oliva, SAVATAGE's founding vocalist and keyboardist, who in 2023 suffered a T7 vertebra fracture in three places, a severe injury that has left him relying on a wheelchair. Additionally, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and Ménière's disease, conditions that have further complicated his health. Chris said: "[Jon] was the one who told us to go do it, really. He kind of wants this thing to happen as much as anyone. And he was the first one to say we were gonna be working on a new record. And then he had his health issues come up and we kind of paused things and the ability to do these shows happen. And Jon wanted us to go do it.

"I remember speaking to [Jon] right before we were about to leave for the TSO [TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA] tour [in late 2024]. And I was, like, 'You know, Jon, I've never done a SAVATAGE show without you.' And we were getting kind of emotional talking about his brother [late SAVATAGE guitarist Criss Oliva] and things in our lives and our families and people we lost and everything like that. And he just looked at me and he said, 'Will you go play this fucking music?' So that explains everything.

"[Jon] wants to be there," Chris said. "And I think if anything, it's gonna inspire the powers that be to get with him and heal him and get with us in any way, shape or form that he can. And I know he's gonna be at our rehearsals and he's working with us on the sets and he'll be working on the production and everything else we do. And hopefully we can add him in somehow through the video screens, if we record something or whatever. But we will make sure he's there, and he is always there. I mean, it's Jon's band, basically. He just physically is not able to fly and travel right now. And I know that he wants to be there.

"I know Jon," Caffery added. "He's one of the strongest people I've ever met in my life. And he's had a whirlwind of hits on him. His wife had passed, his father passed, his son-in-law passed, Paul [O'Neill] had passed away. He had multiple sound engineers and band members from JON OLIVA'S PAIN and all these — he's got so many so many reasons to push himself to stay there and be there and get out there and do this. And I think that, like I said, he's the strongest person that I've worked with in this business, physically and emotionally. And I just think that… I know the Mountain King, and we'll get him out there with us when he can."

Earlier in February, Pitrelli told Barbara Caserta of Italy's Linea Rock about Jon's absence from the SAVATAGE comeback: "There's people who are gonna complain and I understand their complaint — I get it. The two original members, Jon and Criss — well, Jon is not healthy enough to do this this year. And we're gonna do everything in our power to make sure he can come back, 'cause I want the Mountain King to come out and be amazing, not just be there for the sake of being there. And he doesn't wanna be there unless he can do a spectacular job. Now, Criss Oliva passed away 35 years ago. I have no control over that.

"I know that if you enjoyed the 'Dead Winter Dead' and 'The Wake Of Magellan' tours that we had done, and everybody seemed to have, albeit Jon Olivawas with us, then come out and see for yourself," Al continued. "Don't live in disappointment now. Come out and see it, and if you hate it, then I'll buy the ticket back from you. [Laughs] I don't know what to tell you."

Pitrelli added: "There's always gonna be people who are purists, and I respect that, and I understand that completely.

"We're going to present and articulate this music in an outstanding manner, and I hope everybody enjoys it. And for the people who are like, 'Ehhh', just give us a chance, no pun intended. Let us show you what we're working towards and we can carry on the tradition. I think the songs will supersede everything else. When Zak digs in and starts singing all of Zak songs, everybody's gonna just go, 'Wow, that's amazing.' And we will represent the Mountain King songs the best that we can.

"We know we're going up against some haters," Al concluded. "That's okay. But I'm gonna spend more time thinking about the positive side of it and all the people that are just so excited to come see us. And if in the audience, there's a couple of people with their arms folded, we're gonna work real hard to convert you guys over. Give us a shot. Give us a shot. We'll see what happens."

Asked if there are any plans for SAVATAGE to release new music in the not-too-distant future, Al said: "Jon Oliva and Paul O'Neill were constantly writing together — constantly — up until Paul's passing. So there's a lot of unfinished material or demoed material that's kind of sitting around. I know that some of the other guys in the band have gotten with Oliva and were kicking the tires, if you will, on some new material.

"I couldn't give you an answer as to any recording coming out in the near future, only because we're so concentrated on making this world tour so amazing. I would prefer not to confuse anything right now. I just wanna focus on what we have to do, and let's get through this together and see what happens.

"Everybody would love to put a new record out, new material out, but this is not the time," Al added. "This is the time to come out and just show the world this band is better than it was three decades ago."

Zak joined SAVATAGE in 1992 as the replacement for Jon Oliva. Zak sang on four albums with the band — "Edge Of Thorns" (1993),"Handful Of Rain" (1994),"Dead Winter Dead" (1995) and "The Wake Of Magellan" (1997) — before departing in 2000, allowing Jon to return. Both Jon and Zak took part in SAVATAGE's 2015 performance at Wacken Open Air, which marked the band's first, and only so far, appearance on stage since they went on hiatus back in 2002.

SAVATAGE's last album release, "Poets And Madmen", in 2001 was highlighted by Jon's return as lead vocalist, replacing Zak, who left the band citing family reasons, and the departure of Pitrelli, who accepted an offer to join MEGADETH in 2000. Pitrelli did record solos for some songs prior to his exit. Another very limited U.S. tour followed, supported by FATES WARNING in the early shows, and then NEVERMORE for the remainder. Around this time, Jon chose Zak's replacement in the form of Damond Jiniya (DIET OF WORMS). Damond performed Zak's parts on tour, with Jon having an increased vocal role in proceedings.

In September 2021, Jon Oliva was arrested on the west central coast of Florida for driving under the influence as well as possession of a controlled substance. Police charged Oliva with possession of cocaine, which is a felony, and DUI, which is a misdemeanor. Oliva was reportedly arrested again in July 2023 on another cocaine possession charge.

Back in 2016, Jon announced on social media that he suffered a stroke in April of that year. At the time, he said: "It was not as serious as it could have been, but it did leave me with some physical recovery challenges often associated with strokes."

Despite his health issues, Jon said that he didn't regret the way he had lived his life. He wrote: "I lived the rock 'n' roll lifestyle since I was 18. It's all I knew and I enjoyed the ride very much. But there comes a time in everyone's life where you have to step back and make some life-changing decisions... which I have."

Shortly after SAVATAGE's reunion performance at the 2015 Wacken Open Air festival in Wacken, Germany, Oliva claimed that he felt better than he had in 20 years because he had "stopped drinking and eating" in preparation for the concert. He explained: "It's my voice that's freaking me out, because, even when I was in my late 20s, early 30s, doing songs like '24 Hours Ago' were always really hard to do. And, of course, I didn't realize that it was all the drugs and alcohol I was doing. But, after doing that, getting my act together and stuff, singing '24 Hours Ago', it's actually easy now. [Laughs]"

In addition to his work with SAVATAGE, Oliva is well known for co-creating the aforementioned classical music-meets-prog rock and pyro act TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA alongside O'Neill. Oliva has reportedly remained involved in TSO's activities even after O'Neill's April 2017 death of an accidental drug overdose.

Jon's brother Criss, who was one of the founding members of SAVATAGE, was killed in October 1993 by a drunk driver when he and his wife Dawn were en route to the Livestock festival in Zephyrhills, Florida. The driver of the other car was found to have a drunk driving record of seven prior DUIs and having a blood alcohol content of .294 percent.

Photo credit: Josh Ruzansky

In a recent interview with Neil Jones of TotalRock, NEW YEARS DAY singer Ash Costello was asked how long she and her bandmates plan on staying on the road in support of 2024's "Half Black Heart" album before they "start to move forward on to the next thing." She responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We've already moved forward. Yeah, already. The music industry is becoming more and more fast paced as attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. So, the years of waiting two to three years between records are over. So now it's already time to move on to the next thing."

Asked if that puts pressure on her and her bandmates as artists, to have to keep delivering content and deliver music to the world, Ash said: "No. We love being creative. So, we're creative all the time. So it really doesn't disrupt our regular programming."

After Jones noted that music is becoming less tribal and less categorized, which gives bands like NEW YEARS DAY "a wider palette to pull from," Ash concurred. "I feel like 2024 was a big year for genre bending, thanks to musicians like Jelly Roll and Poppy, and FALLING IN REVERSE is a big one when it comes to genre bending," she said. "I think now my mindset, if I ever cared before, that is all gone. I don't care at all. My new outlook on this next chapter of writing music is, like, there's nothing to lose, so let's go nuts. Let's just go nuts. Whatever feels good, let's just do that."

Regarding the progress of the songwriting sessions for NEW YEARS DAY's next album, Ash said: "We've only talked about new music. We're in the listening-to-things-that-get-us-excited phase, 'cause if there's music that gets us excited, then that's generally the kind of music we're gonna gravitate towards. So that's — we're in the baby steps."

As for the lyrical inspiration for NEW YEARS DAY's new music, Ash said:  "Bad-bitch energy is gonna be the theme of the next record. I'm just so in a fuck-it phase, and I think this is a really good thing to be as an artist, I'm just so 'no fucks given' at this point that I'm just excited to go in there and see what comes out."

NEW YEARS DAY announced "Half Black Heart" in late 2023, following the release of the "Vampyre" and "Secrets" singles. The record also featured the band's 2022 hit "Hurts Like Hell" and later single "I Still Believe".

Kerrang! magazine counts NEW YEARS DAY among an elite handful of bands inspiring the next generation. Led by "the vibrant force of nature that is frontwoman Ash Costello," NEW YEARS DAY unleash anthems of discontent and empowerment, delivered with gothic flair and theatrical bombast.

It's a sound that crashed into the Mainstream Rock Top 40 for the first time in 2019 with a Top 15 rock radio-charting single "Shut Up" followed up by the cathartic "Hurts Like Hell", which finished 2022 as one of SiriusXM Octane's Top 25 songs of the year.

"Victim To Villain" (2013),"Malevolence" (2015) and "Unbreakable" (2019) deeply resonate with listeners who cherish them as timeless keepsakes, marking different times in their own personal evolution. It's because Costello, who skillfully conjures horror and comic book aesthetics as allegory, is one of them.

In a new interview with La Hora Del Vértigo By Stairway To Rock, LACUNA COIL singer Andrea Ferro was asked if he and LACUNA COIL co-vocalist Cristina Scabbia have ever thought about releasing a solo album. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "No, no. I mean, we talk about it for fun, but we never really feel we want to do it, because I see sometimes some bandmembers, they do side project that they sound very close to what they do with their band, and that doesn't make any sense to me. If I wanna do something else out of LACUNA COIL, it wouldn't be the same. If I had to do same, similar kind of music, then it wouldn't be — otherwise it wouldn't make sense. If I do another gothic metal, or whatever, band with some other people, that doesn't really interest me. And I think it's the same for Cristina. So if she would do something different, probably she would do something very different. But I don't think we have the will to do it. I mean, it takes a lot of time, a lot of energy. You need to find other people to work with. And LACUNA COIL is taking already a lot of time of our lives. So to make another side project, it'd be very, very challenging. Maybe one song you can do it, one project, yes — we've done it and she's done it — but to do a full solo album would be something very hard, very challenging, I think."

LACUNA COIL's latest album, "Sleepless Empire", was released on February 14, 2025 via Century Media Records.

Inspiration to create "Sleepless Empire" came during the sessions for "Comalies XX" (2022),the acclaimed remake of LACUNA COIL's breakthrough third record "Comalies". Writing and recording took place in northern Italy between Milano (the band's hometown) and Como, where SPVN Studios are located. As with their previous albums, production was done in house with LACUNA COIL bassist Marco "Maki" Coti Zelati at the helm, and artwork was hand curated by the talented Italian artist Roberto Toderico. Two other very special talents enrich the album, namely the guest vocalists: LAMB OF GOD's Randy Blythe on the song "Hosting The Shadow" and NEW YEARS DAY's Ash Costello on "In The Mean Time".

Last October, Italian guitarist/producer Daniele Salomone confirmed that he has joined LACUNA COIL as the replacement for the band's longtime guitarist Diego Cavallotti.

Salomone made his live debut with LACUNA COIL on August 4, 2024 at the Rockstadt Extreme Fest in Râșnov, Romania.

In June 2024, LACUNA COIL announced Cavallotti's departure. Diego, who joined LACUNA COIL in 2016, initially as a fill-in guitarist following the exit of Marco "Maus" Biazzi, later said in a social media post that "this decision is not the result of my dissatisfaction or desire to explore new opportunities."

Cavallotti and Salomone played together in the Italian metal band INVERNO, which released its debut album, "Stasis", in December 2023.

In a new interview with Scott Itter of Dr. Music, TRIUMPH guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett, who completed radiation treatment for prostate cancer more than a year ago, spoke about his reluctance to return to full-scale touring. The 71-year-old Canadian-born musician said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I had a cancer issue that I had to deal with, and I think I dealt with that. And I've got arthritis now that I'm sort of trying to figure out how to cope with it.

"The road becomes a place where it costs you a lot in the 22 and a half hours that aren't the show, that you're bouncing around and you're in planes and trains and automobiles and hotels," he explained. "And there's all of that stuff. And I am at that age and stage where, do I need to do it for the money? No. Do I need to do it for the ego? I don't think I do. I honestly don't. Which is not to say that I wouldn't enjoy it if I did. I would enjoy that. I'm an old showbiz show off kind of class clown idiot. So that 75 to 90 minutes, man, there's a part of me that I was wired and made to be that. But when I don't go out and do it, and I've had several years of that now, I kind of go, 'Eh, I don't miss it.'

"Life is such a beautiful, rich, wonderful kind of thing still, despite having to go to the hospital every day for radiation or whatever," Rik added. "You see people that are in way worse circumstances than me, and so you go, 'Okay, what have I got to complain about? Nothing. Nothing.' I've had an incredibly lucky, blessed life, and it continues to be so."

Last month, Emmett revealed that he was recently hospitalized with a nasty case of food poisoning.

In a March 2024 interview with Thomas S. Orwat, Jr. of Rock Interview Series, Emmett was asked about his health. He said at the time: "The prostate cancer, I think, is under control and being treated. And I'm taking some medications that follow along after having the radiation. I'm getting some arthritis things that are starting to happen. And it was getting into my hands, which was worrying me a little bit. I've been playing, pushing myself to play a little bit more guitar every day. And I think it actually helps."

He continued: "It's an interesting thing that music is therapeutic on a certain level, but it's also physically, it can be therapeutic for me, not just mental. And certainly in terms of just dealing with the whole idea of getting older and having things starting to go wrong physically, it's, like, well, that's not gonna slow me down in terms of being creative and having fun and doing the things that I wanna do as a creative person. So, I'm writing, I'm playing, I'm feeling good."

When Orwat noted that Emmett looks "no older than 40 years old", Rik replied: "Well, I think I'm lucky that I was able to keep most of my hair, although in the last stages of being a touring act — in 2014, 2015, 2016 — I started to have some anxiety issues and I started to lose patches of my hair. It's called alopecia areata. And I was losing a little — the size of a silver dollar. You go, 'What's happening there?' And then you become very good and artful at combovers. But some guys are 20 and they start turning into Patrick Stewart [with his trademark bald look]. You know what I mean? And I'm lucky in some regards. Now, my mom and my mom's mom, they were both young-looking women into their old age, and people would always say, 'No, you can't be. Really? Oh, wow. You don't look it.' So I think I was lucky that I inherited that. So I think luck has a fair bit to do with that. I don't think that has anything to do with the way I've been taking care of myself, 'cause I don't really think I've been taking care of myself."

Emmett went public with his prostate cancer battle in November 2023, telling John Beaudin of RockHistoryMusic.com: "I have to take medications and stuff. I've just had another biopsy done. I'm gonna find out in a couple of weeks whether or not it's gonna have to come out or stay. Men my age, everybody should be getting checked regularly. You've gotta try and stay ahead of it. And I am ahead of it. But my dad had it for, like 20 years at the end of his life. I'm hoping I've just got that slow-growing kind of…

"There's a statistic — I think it's like 80 percent of men's bodies when they're old, when they do autopsies, they have some form of prostate cancer," Emmett, who was promoting his then-just-released memoir, "Lay It On The Line - A Backstage Pass To Rock Star Adventure, Conflict And Triumph", explained. "It's just if you live long enough, you're probably gonna get it. So it doesn't freak me out. It would freak me out if somebody sat me down and said, 'Yeah, it's moved. We're finding it in other places now.' 'Cause I've been there with my brothers and my mom. And you go 'Well, that's not good. How much time have I got?'"

Although prostate cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer found in men and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men, it can also be one of the most treatable forms of cancer.

If elevated PSA (prostate-specific antigen) is identified early, there are treatment options that have been shown to extend survival. It is important for men to be informed about different treatment options and their side effect profile so that they can have educated treatment conversations with their doctor.

On average, approximately one in seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime.

Both JUDAS PRIEST singer Rob Halford and RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE bassist Tim Commerford have spoken out publicly about their prostate cancer battles.

Emmett, who quit TRIUMPH — acrimoniously, in 1988 — over music and business disputes, went on to pursue a solo career, while TRIUMPH carried on with future BON JOVI guitarist Phil X for one more album, 1992's "Edge Of Excess", before calling it a day the following year.

Emmett was estranged, both personally and professionally, from the two other members of the legendary Canadian classic rock power trio for 18 years before they repaired their relationship.

"Lay It On The Line - A Backstage Pass To Rock Star Adventure, Conflict And Triumph" came out in October 2023 via ECW Press.

Gil Moore (drums),Mike Levine (bass) and Emmett formed TRIUMPH in 1975, and their blend of heavy riff-rockers with progressive odysseys, peppered with thoughtful, inspiring lyrics and virtuosic guitar playing quickly made them a household name in Canada. Anthems like "Lay It On The Line", "Magic Power" and "Fight The Good Fight" broke them in the USA, and they amassed a legion of fiercely passionate fans. But, as a band that suddenly split at the zenith of their popularity, TRIUMPH missed out on an opportunity to say thank you to those loyal and devoted fans, a base that is still active today, more than three decades later.

After 20 years apart, Emmett, Levine and Moore played at the 2008 editions of the Sweden Rock Festival and Rocklahoma. A DVD of the historic Sweden performance was made available four years later.

In a new interview with Brent Porche of Philadelphia's 93.3 WMMR radio station, GHOST mastermind Tobias Forge spoke about the band's upcoming album, "Skeletá", which will arrive on April 25 via Loma Vista Recordings. Tobias said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Yeah, it is a record that is introspective to a further degree, I guess, than especially the previous record [2022's 'Impera']. Just to be clear, I do believe that most artists usually create a new record based on where they were on the previous one — not as a counter-reaction, but usually there's something that you wish to achieve that you maybe didn't on the previous[ one] or you wanna change something or just fill your… At the end of the day, what you're doing is basically you're filling your repertoire with hopefully songs that you didn't have before. But thematically, I usually have some sort of thematic guideline when I write, first and foremost for myself in order to make sense of what the new record is so it's not too whimsically just about everything at the same time. But where 'Impera' was very much not only extroverted, but exteriorly reflecting on bigger society, social issues, and also, as the title implies, imperial structure and its ultimate demise, it didn't feel very productive to continue down that and make an 'Impera 2', talking about the continual demise of… I was more attracted to the idea of this this record that was more shining a light in inside and making a record about healing aspects of being essentially a human being in whatever structural design, because at the end of the day, most humans are surprisingly alike and display the same abilities to sentiments. And these sentiments are usually quite basic. And that idea was attractive to me — making a record that had a song about hope, had a song about hate, had a song about love, acceptance and all these things."

Earlier in the month, Forge told Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station about GHOST's new single, "Satanized": "Yeah, it's a fun video and it's a upbeat, fun track. It's a song about being in love and how that can potentially be mistaken as demonic possession, but in reality this song has nothing to do with demonic possession."

Asked why he picked "Satanized" to be the first single from "Skeletá", Tobias said: "It's funny because as I was making the record, I didn't really put much like regard into trying to write… Of course, as a songwriter, you always try to write as good songs as possible, but there wasn't a whole lot of, like, 'Oh, I'm gonna write a hit song.' So I was more interested in sort of making a bunch of songs that I was gonna put cohesively into an understandable and entertaining album. And wise with experience over the years where I've delivered records to the people that work with me, and I'm, like, 'This is the song. This is the single. This is the hit.' And more than often, it ends up being, like, 'Oh, no. We believe in that song instead.' Okay. So finally I've sort of given up a little bit on that. So I just sort of gave the record and I'm, like, 'You guys choose what you wanna do.' And then I'm sort of holding my thumb a little, crossing my fingers, hoping that that maybe they they'll hear what I hear. And to my big surprise, they came back with 'Satanized'. And I was, like, 'I couldn't be happier. I have a really funny video idea for that one. I never thought that you would go for that one,' simply because it's like…"

He continued: "To me, I am a huge fan of '70s music. That's a very simplified way of saying that, but I'm a big fan of SCORPIONS from the '80s, but also the SCORPIONS from the '70s, which sometimes, I guess, a certain age group might not be aware that that SCORPIONS was a band in the '70s, and they released several records. Those records are a little bit different from the '80s records, when they sort of became a '80s hit rock band. And 'Satanized' definitely had more of a SCORPIONS '77 stomp that I really liked about the track. And somehow, therefore, I guess, I wasn't like putting that as a hit-single fan favorite, or a favorite that way. I thought I was gonna work my magic to make that song a big song, the same way that we did with 'Mary On A Cross' once upon a time, when that was regarded as this 'B' track that was just for fun. And I was, like, 'I think that that song is actually quite good. We're gonna play it every show we're playing.' And it took years before it became what that became."

Circling back to the fact that his record company seemingly had the same vision for "Satanized" as he did in terms of the song's potential, Forge said: "I was overwhelmed and overjoyed with the synchronicity, because I have done that mistake before where I have conceived a record, conceived a track, have an idea for a video for a track, and then the powers that be want another kickoff. And then that leads to a discussion, and then more than often, the reasoning as to why you go with another track might be perfectly understandable, but all of a sudden my idea is just not worth the piece of paper it's written on, because it simply doesn't work if it's not in a… Sometimes the crux of being conceptual, sometimes your ideas are simply too conceptual and too based on presentation and stars aligning. But in this case, we ended up with fluency, which was cool."

"Satanized" was described in a press release as "an avalanche of infectious hooks and harmonies is buoyed by a hypnotic shuffle, as the narrator succumbs to dark forces within and without, helplessly acknowledging their own blasphemy and heresy as it inexorably consumes them." By the time the song's opening lines "There is something inside me and they don't know if there is a cure" have moved from the inner monologue of the possessed to the ears of the hapless listener, it will already be too late: You will have been "Satanized".

The "Satanized" music video introduces the new character who will be fronting GHOST for its 2025 touring cycle: Papa V Perpetua.

GHOST's sixth psalm, "Skeletá", is its most unflinchingly introspective work to date. Where previous GHOST albums dealt largely with chronicling and/or observing outward facing subject matter — such as "Impera"'s meditations on the rise and fall of empires and its predecessor "Prequelle"'s evocations of the ravages of era-defining plagues — "Skeletá"'s lyrics render the distinct individual emotional vistas of each of its 10 songs in one-on-one fashion, at times as if in a dialogue with oneself in a mirror. The end result is a singular collection of timeless, universal sentiments, all filtered through a prism of a uniquely personal point of view.

GHOST has also launched an interactive element dubbed The Satanizer, a first-of-its-kind music video experience for fans who wish to be "Satanized." Developed in partnership with Jason Zada (Elf Yourself),The Satanizer will morph its users into characters featured in the song's melodramatic video. With a quick upload of your photo, The Satanizer will send out a personalized music video clip featuring the participant, who can in turn share via social media that they too have been "Satanized."

"Skeletá" track listing:

01. Peacefield
02. Lachryma
03. Satanized
04. Guiding Lights
05. De Profundis Borealis
06. Cenotaph
07. Missilia Amori
08. Marks Of The Evil One
09. Umbra
10. Excelsis

Forge performed as a "new" Papa Emeritus on each of the band's first three LPs, with each version of Papa replacing the one that came before it. Papa Emeritus III was retired in favor of Cardinal Copia before the release of 2018's "Prequelle". In March 2020, at final show of GHOST's "Prequelle" tour in Mexico City, Mexico, the band officially introduced Papa Emeritus IV, the character who fronted the act for its "Impera" (2022) album phase.

As previously reported, GHOST will embark on a world tour in 2025. The European leg of the trek will kick off on April 15 in Manchester, United Kingdom and conclude on May 24 in Oslo, Norway. The North American leg of GHOST's 2025 tour will launch on July 9 in Baltimore, Maryland and wrap up on August 16 in Houston, Texas.

The physical home video of GHOST's worldwide Top 10 box office smash feature film debut "Rite Here Rite Now" was made available on December 6, 2024.

The At The Movies project – launched by Pretty Maids guitarist Chris Laney due to the COVID-19 pandemic – caught fire over the course of 2020, resulting in two albums’ worth of ’80s and ’90s movie soundtrack cover songs.

The core At The Movies players are:

Björn “Speed” Strid (Soilwork, The Night Flight Orchestra) – lead / backing vocals
Linnéa Vikström Egg (Therion, Thundermother) – lead / backing vocals
Chris Laney (Pretty Maids) – guitars
Allan Sørensen (Royal Hunt, Pretty Maids) – drums
Morten Sandager (Pretty Maids) – keyboards
Pontus Norgren (HammerFall) – guitars
Pontus Egberg (King Diamond) – bass.

Speaking with BraveWords about The Night Flight Orchestra’s new album, Give Us The Moon, Strid looked back on his At The Movies experience.

Strid: “It was Chris Laney’s idea, and he was telling me ‘I’m so bored, I want to do something.’ He had the idea of making hard rock and metal versions of ’80s soundtrack songs. I asked him if he was sure: ‘Hasn’t that been done already?’ We decided to try it out, and we started with the Rocky song, ‘No Easy Way Out’. We released it, and people went absolutely bananas over it. I didn’t think it would be that exciting for people, but then we started talking about doing another one. It became a thing where we would release a new song every Thursday, and people were sitting there waiting for it. People were genuinely happy about it, so it felt like we were on a mission. As a singer it was a big challenge to take on; ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ by John Parr is some tough singing. And everything was in the original key.”

“There were plans at first to maybe do festivals,” Strid reveals, “but things opened up and Pretty Maids started touring again, Linnea joined Thundermother, I have Soilwork and The Night Flight Orchestra going again. Maybe some day in the future, I don’t know. It would be cool.”

The Angel And The Dark River, My Dying Bride’s third studio album, was released in 1995 and is considered to be among the highlights of the whole doom metal genre; the opus itself being a significant breakthrough release for the band.

The album was recorded at the infamous Academy Studios (Paradise Lost, Anathema, Cradle Of Filth) in Yorkshire, UK, with long-time associate, Mags. Expanding upon the strong mix of atmosphere and heavy doom riffing of previous albums, The Angel And The Dark River was full of sprawling emotional epic tracks with flowing dynamics, which also saw My Dying Bride venturing further into clean vocal territory and to great acclaim.

A limited pearl sunrise vinyl edition with 2025 Air Studios half-speed master will be released on April 18 via Peaceville. Pre-order here, or here.



Tracklisting:

Side A
“The Cry Of Mankind”
“From Darkest Skies”
“A Sea To Suffer In”

Side B
“Black Voyage”
“Two Winters Only”
“Your Shameful Heaven”

My Dying Bride has been one of the foremost & consistent leading lights in doom metal since their debut album, As The Flower Withers, was released on Peaceville Records back in 1992. Influenced by acts such as Celtic Frost and Candlemass, the band’s heavy atmospherics have carved a huge worldwide following over the years to stand at the pinnacle of the genre, and remain one of the most instantly distinguishable metal bands.

German company Aviationtag, which specializes in upcycling scrapped airplanes, has created a limited run of one-of-a-kind tags made from the fuselage of Ed Force One, the moniker given the plane that served IRON MAIDEN on its 2016 "The Book Of Souls" world tour. This special edition celebrates the spectacular and storied history of IRON MAIDEN's legendary "flying tour bus," the Boeing 747 Ed Force One.

Ed Force One was not merely a mode of transport; it became a flying symbol of IRON MAIDEN's global touring legacy. The aircraft, a Boeing 747-400 with registration TF-AAK, was instrumental in carrying the band, its crew, and an impressive array of stage equipment on their epic 2016 world tour, "The Book Of Souls".

Bruce Dickinson, IRON MAIDEN's legendary frontman and licensed pilot, was more than just the voice of the band — he also personally took the controls of Ed Force One during the tour. Reflecting on the aircraft's unique presence, he summed up its legacy: "She always behaved like the Queen Of The Skies that the 747 will always be. There will never be another to occupy her throne. The power, the noise of those 4 engines, the featherlight touchdowns (not my fault — blame good design) and her airborne elegance put the 747 in a unique category."

A new video accompanying the product launch can be seen below.

A detailed interview with Dickinson is available exclusively in a booklet, which is included as a special supplement with every Ed Force One Aviationtag.

In Zurich, Ed Force One truly stood out. While the jets belonging to chancellor Angela Merkel and president François Hollande were parked nearby and appeared almost miniature in comparison, Ed Force One captured everyone's attention. Its larger-than-life presence and undeniable rock 'n' roll charm set it apart, underscoring why this iconic aircraft remains a symbol of global aviation history.

The Aviationtag x Iron Maiden Edition is carefully crafted from upcycled material of the iconic Boeing 747 TF-AAK, which was scrapped in 2024. The tag's front proudly displays the legendary Ed Force One logo, while the back features the unmistakable image of Eddie, IRON MAIDEN's iconic mascot. This design not only celebrates the aircraft's storied past but also bridges the gap between aviation heritage and rock 'n' roll culture.

Tobias Richter, CCO at Aviationtag, states: "We have been working on this project for over two years, and we're proud to finally present our Aviationtag x Iron Maiden Edition. Ed Force One is one of the most famous aircraft in the world, and this edition captures its enduring legacy in a truly collectible form."

With this exclusive Aviationtag edition, fans can now hold a tangible piece of aviation and rock history in their hands.

Each tag is sized around 1.5 by 3.5 inches (35 by 88 millimeters) and retails at €66.66 (around $73) on Aviationtag's web site. The price point is a nod to 666 and the IRON MAIDEN classic "The Number Of The Beast".

For more information and to purchase, visit www.aviationtag.com/ironmaiden.