In 1994, having left IRON MAIDEN for a time (he rejoined in 1999),Bruce Dickinson released his second solo album, titled "Balls To Picasso". Named in honor of the cubist pioneer whose representations of spherical objects were as squares, and reflected on the cover in graffiti style on a tiled bathroom wall, the album belied its irreverent title by solidifying Dickinson's reputation as a serious solo artist.

His first record with collaborator Roy "Z" Ramirez, and recorded with Z's band TRIBE OF GYPSIES, it went through various iterations before its release, produced by Shay Baby. The original album contained a number of classic tracks and live favorites from Dickinson, including the singles "Tears Of The Dragon" and "Shoot All The Clowns", alongside the much-loved epic "Laughing In The Hiding Bush", which was the original title for the album.

Yet despite its positive reception at the time, it never quite captured Dickinson's original vision which was even more expansive in scope and ambition. However, with the ability to revisit his solo catalog — and following on from Dickinson's hugely acclaimed album "The Mandrake Project" in 2024 — the brand new part re-recorded, remixed and newly mastered version of the album, now titled "More Balls To Picasso", reimagines it as a fresh and contemporary release; a roaringly full-throttle and ambitious collection of supremely crafted and realized songs.

Dickinson says of it: "While mixing all my catalogue into Dolby Atmos I had a nagging desire to revisit and reinvent the record. So putting more balls into 'Balls…' was a labor of love. Of course, we beefed up the guitars — courtesy of our 'Swedish shredder' Philip Näslund — and we added some really beautiful work by Adassi Addasi on 'Tears…' as well. Fellow Brazilian composer Antonio Teoli added some stunning orchestral arrangements, and in a unique contribution, added indigenous instruments from the Amazon (recorded by himself when he lived there!) at the beginning of 'Gods Of War'.

"'Shoot All The Clowns' gets the benefit of a horn section fronted by the Berklee College Of Music, and all of the record gets the benefit of the mix by Brendan Duffey, (who worked on 'The Mandrake Project'),with notes along the way from Shay Baby, the original father of the album."

Additionally, "More Balls To Picasso" includes two previously unreleased live-in-the-studio tracks, "Gods Of War" and "Shoot All The Clowns". It will be available as a splatter vinyl double album and tri-panel digisleeve CD album.

"More Balls To Picasso" track listing:

01. Cyclops
02. Hell No
03. Gods Of War
04. 1000 Points Of Light
05. Laughing In The Hiding Bush
06. Change Of Heart
07. Shoot All The Clowns
08. Fire
09. Sacred Cowboys
10. Tears Of The Dragon
11. Gods Of War (live in the studio)*
12. Shoot All The Clowns (live in the studio)*

* Previously unreleased

This summer, Dickinson will embark on his first extensive North American solo tour in almost 30 years in support of his current studio album "The Mandrake Project", with a setlist encompassing his entire solo career. "The Mandrake Project Live 2025" North American tour kicks off in Anaheim, California at the House of Blues on August 22 and takes the band across North America, including shows in New York, Los Angeles, Texas, Florida and Canada, with festival appearances at Rocklahoma (Oklahoma) and Louder Than Life (Kentucky),with more to be announced. The tour also includes a quick return to Brazil for the prestigious The Town festival at the City of Light in São Paulo.

Joining the IRON MAIDEN singer on the "The Mandrake Project Live 2025" North American tour will once again be his 2024 backing band, featuring Dave Moreno (drums),Mistheria (keyboards) and Tanya O'Callaghan (bass),alongside the group's latest additions, Swedish guitarist, songwriter and multi-platinum-credited producer Philip Näslund and Swiss session and touring guitarist Chris Declercq (who played on Dickinson's "Rain On The Graves" single). Roy Z is not part of the touring lineup.

Roy played guitar on "Balls To Picasso" and went on to produce, co-write and perform multiple instruments on Bruce's subsequent four solo albums, "Accident At Birth" (1997),"The Chemical Wedding" (1998),"Tyranny Of Souls" (2005) and "The Mandrake Project" (2024).

"The Mandrake Project" arrived on March 1, 2024 via BMG.

Bruce and Roy recorded "The Mandrake Project" largely at Los Angeles's Doom Room, with Roy doubling up as both guitarist and bassist. The recording lineup for "The Mandrake Project" was rounded out by Mistheria and Moreno, both of whom also featured on "Tyranny Of Souls" in 2005.

Dickinson made his recording debut with IRON MAIDEN on "The Number Of The Beast" album in 1982. He quit the band in 1993 in order to pursue his solo career and was replaced by Blaze Bayley, who had previously been the lead singer of the metal band WOLFSBANE. After releasing two traditional metal albums with former MAIDEN guitarist Adrian Smith, Dickinson rejoined the band in 1999 along with Smith.

As they continue slashin’ their way through the GOLDen age of the Silver Scream, playing to sold-out crowds across the US on their Silver Scream-A-Thon headline tour and at stadium dates with Metallica, Ice Nine Kills are celebrating yet another huge career milestone with the news that they have officially earned their first RIAA-certified gold single for the 2018 fan-favorite “A Grave Mistake”.



Inspired by The Crow and taken from their smash hit album The Silver Scream, the track has now surpassed 100 million streams, cementing its place as one of the band’s most resonant and enduring releases. Watch the official music video for “A Grave Mistake” below.

In an unusually worded, somewhat robotic statement, Ice Nine Kills creative mastermind and frontman, Spencer Charnas shares:

“I am filled with human emotions after ingesting the data that my musical ensemble has achieved a golden status for the very first time. Programmed with a hauntingly harmonic minor cadence, 175 bpm, and a 3/4 time signature, it sufficiently garnered more than half a million sales equivalents.”



Fans can also hear the band play the freshly minted gold single on their brand new live album, I Heard They Kill Live 2, available digitally here.

Captured during their sold-out home state show at the Tsongas Center in Lowell, MA on November 17, 2022, the record showcases the phenomenal energy of the band’s meticulously ferocious live performances, with an all-killer-no-filler setlist that spans the staggering array of mega-hits from seminal albums The Silver Scream and The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood.

Charnas adds further context with the following statement:

“Captured in optimal performance conditions during a sold-out operation in the geographical region of Massachusetts, this album contains high-energy sonic outputs calibrated for maximum efficiency. As a result, these auditory data files will undoubtedly prove supremely satisfactory to the devoted Ice Nine Kills user base, aka, the Cyclos!”



Tracklisting:

Funeral Derangements
Wurst Vacation
Hip To Be Scared
IT Is The End
A Grave Mistake
Ex Mørtis
Stabbing In The Dark
The Shower Scene
Farewell II Flesh
The American Nightmare
Welcome To Horrorwood

In live news, Ice Nine Kills have announced the Ice Nine Kills: Hell Of A Summer Tour, a brand new US headline run kicking off this August. Produced by Live Nation, the tour will bring the band’s twisted theatricality and cinematic carnage to arenas and amphitheaters across the country, closing out with a homecoming performance at Worcester’s DCU Center as part of the band’s annual Silver Scream Con.

The tour’s lineup spans a cross-section of modern heavy music’s most dynamic voices. From August 8 through August 31, Ice Nine Kills will be joined by Dayseeker, Kim Dracula, and The Funeral Portrait.

Beginning September 2, pop-punk cult icons Mest will also join the bill, continuing through the final dates in Florida. The September 13 show at Silver Scream Con will feature Dayseeker, The Funeral Portrait, Mest, and a very special guest appearance by A Loss For Words, closing out the run in chaotic style.

“Time to check out our version of ‘Black Betty’. It’s an old working blues song that’s been covered by a few artists over the years, and one of John Corabi’s favorite songs on Lookin’ For Trouble,” begins an update from The Dead Daisies. “We tried a whole new take on it! Hope you like it!”



The Dead Daisies just released their new album, Lookin’ For Trouble, via Fame / Malaco Records. They have followed up with an updated European / UK tour schedule, which is available below.

June
14 – Bilbao, Spain – Music Legends Fest
17 – Essen, Germany – Zeche Carl
19 – Apeldoorn, Netherlands – Gigant
20 – Bremen, Germany – Modernes
21 – Dessel, Belgium – Graspop Metal Meeting
23 – Nürnberg, Germany – Hirsch
24 – Leipzig, Germany – Hellraiser
25 – Krakow, Poland – Hype Park
27 – Bratislava, Slovakia – Majestic
28 – Spalene Porici, Czech Republic- Basinfirefest

August
13 – Belfast – Limelight
14 – Edinburgh – Corn Exchange
15 – Newcastle – NX
16 – Wolverhampton – KK’s Steel Mill
19 – Cardiff – Tramshed
20 – London – Islington Assembly Hall
21 – Holmfirth – The Picturedrome
23 – Newark – Stonedead Festival

In celebration of their majestic "Castles & Eagles" headline shows in September 2025 at the Zénith in Paris, Nantes and Toulouse, British heavy metal legends SAXON will release "Eagles Over Hellfest" on June 13, 2025 via Silver Lining Music. The release will feature the audio recording of their live show from Hellfest 2024, a show that embraced all the best aspects of the famous 1980s concerts in terms of incredible song selection and epic set design.

The live album will be available as a double audio CD set along with the band's latest studio album, "Hell, Fire And Damnation", and as a standalone double vinyl and digital release.

From "Strong Arm Of The Law" to "Power & The Glory" and "Denim And Leather" to "Hell, Fire And Damnation", all of SAXON's greatest anthems have been revisited on "Eagles Over Hellfest", an unmissable collection showcasing SAXON's exemplary career devoted to heavy metal.

A performance video of "Heavy Metal Thunder", taken from "Eagles Over Hellfest", can be seen below.

SAXON frontman Biff Byford comments: "'Heavy Metal Thunder' is a classic that always goes down well live. It's from our new release, 'Eagles Over Hellfest', which we recorded at the French festival on our 'Castles & Eagles' show last year. It was great to close the evening after METALLICA's set!"

"Eagles Over Hellfest" track listing:

CD 1

01. The Prophecy
02. Hell, Fire And Damnation
03. Madame Guillotine
04. Fire And Steel
05. There's Something In Roswell
06. Kubla Khan And The Merchant Of Venice
07. Pirates Of The Airwaves
08. 1066
09. Witches Of Salem
10. Super Charger

CD 2

01. Hell, Fire And Damnation (Live at Hellfest)
02. Motorcycle Man (Live at Hellfest)
03. Power And The Glory (Live at Hellfest)
04. Madame Guillotine (Live at Hellfest)
05. Heavy Metal Thunder (Live at Hellfest)
06. Dallas 1 PM (Live at Hellfest)
07. The Eagle Has Landed (Live at Hellfest)
08. Strong Arm Of The Law (Live at Hellfest)
09. And The Bands Played On (Live at Hellfest)
10. Denim And Leather (Live at Hellfest)
11. Wheels Of Steel (Live at Hellfest)
12. 747 (Strangers In The Night) [Live at Hellfest]
13. Crusader (Live at Hellfest)
14. Princess Of The Night (Live at Hellfest)

In a recent interview with Stefan Nilsson of Roppongi Rocks, Byford was asked about a possible follow-up to SAXON's 24th studio album, "Hell, Fire And Damnation", which came out in January 2024 via Silver Lining Music. He said: "We're actually doing some work on [the next SAXON LP] today. Mostly the ideas come from Brian [Tatler, guitar], Doug [Scarratt, guitar] and Nibbs [Tim Carter, bass], musical ideas. And my job is just basically to arrange everything, to write lyrics and come up with the melodies. Just those three things, really. But, yeah, so I leave it up to the boys to come up with the guitar riffs. And it's really down to me whether I like them or not. It's just how it is. It's worked really well for lots of years, so if it's not broke, then don't fix it, is what we say. So I think we'll probably start recording the next album in November, if everything's ready to go, and possibly finish it in January. So [it will] be out next year sometime."

Regarding how SAXON has managed to stay relevant for nearly five decades, Biff said: "I think you have to keep trying to write great songs and not fool yourself into thinking that something's great when it's not. It's quite easy to do that when you've been around a long time. So, yeah, I think keeping the quality high — not quantity— quality is always great. So, yeah, always trying to write songs that you like yourself and keep your fingers crossed that people like it as well. So I think the last 10 years we've had a good roll, had some great albums, and our fanbase has changed slightly. A younger fanbase now, as well as the older fans as well, so we're very lucky to have that, really, to be relevant still. But I think our music's a lot to do with that, and our attitude, 'cause we don't give a fuck, basically."

On the topic of how DIAMOND HEAD guitarist Tatler — who joined SAXON in early 2023 as the replacement for Paul Quinn — is working out, Byford said: "He's doing great. He wrote a few songs on the last album; [the] 'Hell, Fire And Damnation' [title track], that's mine and Brian's song. I think with Brian, because he's not really had a platform to put his music on, he's enjoying himself because he comes from a slightly different mental space because he's never had as much success as he probably should have had. So he's making up for it now, really. I mean, apart from the three songs that METALLICA recorded of [DIAMOND HEAD's] — they were gonna be big, but it didn't quite happen in [the early 1980s]."

Byford added: "It was a no-brainer, really, to ask Brian [to join SAXON]. And Brian was my only choice. We had a lot of people who wanted to be the guitarist in the band. But Paul Quinn is a hard act to follow. And you have to have somebody with a bit of a special something that… It surprised a lot of people, which surprised me because it's a no-brainer, really. It's going well. And he is having a great time. And he plays well with Doug. There's no problem there. So they play well together."

Asked how important it is for SAXON to continue to release consistently strong new studio albums this far into the band's career, Biff said: "I think it's always important to try and have a new album be great because you're never gonna write an album as popular as 'Wheels Of Steel' or 'Denim And Leather', because that's how it was in those days. It's just they're classic albums. And the secret is to not try to write another 'Wheels Of Steel' or 'Strong Arm Of The Law'. It's just to write where we are now. And it was surprising how big the album was, actually. We're still selling tons of albums all the time, particularly vinyls. But we've turned into a bit of a streaming band now, which is quite new for us. But I think that's probably because a lot of younger fans are streaming. Well, they'll buy the vinyl and then they'll stream it as well. But who cares? Just get the music — steal it, borrow it. It makes no difference. Just get hold of it and listen to it."

As a result of Quinn's decision to step back from touring with SAXON, the band canceled its April 2023 South American tour as well as the appearance at the Monsters Of Rock cruise. Quinn has since been replaced on the road by Tatler.

Brian has been touring with Scarratt, Carter, Byford and drummer Nigel Glockler since mid-2023, but continues to be a member of DIAMOND HEAD.

Byford and Quinn are the sole remaining original members in SAXON's current lineup.

Originally from South Yorkshire, England, SAXON has gone on to sell about 23 million albums and has produced such classic songs as "Denim And Leather", "Princess Of The Night", "Wheels Of Steel" and "Power And Glory".

"Hell, Fire And Damnation" was produced by Andy Sneap (JUDAS PRIEST, EXODUS, ACCEPT) and Byford, with Sneap mixing and mastering.

The mighty Saxon unleash 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕹𝖎𝖌𝖍𝖙 (𝕷𝖎𝖛𝖊 𝖆𝖙 𝕳𝖊𝖑𝖑𝖋𝖊𝖘𝖙) taken from the upcoming Eagles Over Hellfest release!...

Posted by Silver Lining Music on Friday, April 11, 2025

A TRIUMPH fan named Cindy Lefebvre has publicly shared her Facebook Live video of the Canadian rock legends' three-song reunion performance — consisting of the tracks "Allied Forces", "Fight The Good Fight" and "Lay It On The Line" — on Friday (June 6) at the Rogers Festival At The Final, a free outdoor concert in the ICE District ahead of Game 2 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Check it out below.

Bassist Mike Levine did not take part in Friday's reunion show, but three other Canadian musicians joined guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett and drummer Gil Moore for the set: guitarist Phil X, drummer and keyboardist Brent Fitz and bassist Todd Kerns. Phil X, whose real name is Theofilos Xenidis, is a member of BON JOVI and a former member of TRIUMPH, while Fitz and Kerns are both members of SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS.

Levine explained his absence from TRIUMPH's reunion performance during a Toronto in-studio interview Friday with SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk". He said: "In the land of where medicine is free, it takes long times to get specialist appointments. And I've been waiting for four months to see this guy. And my [doctor] appointment was booked for [June 6] at 11:00 a.m. — this morning. And I couldn't get out of it. It's one of those that I had to go to."

Prior to Friday's set, TRIUMPH's last performance took place at an invite-only event in November 2019 in front of a couple of hundred "superfans" at MetalWorks studio in Mississauga (a suburb of Toronto),Ontario, Canada where Moore, Emmett and Levine played a three-song set consisting of "When The Lights Go Down", "Lay It On The Line" and "Magic Power". It marked TRIUMPH's first performance in 11 years, as well as its first as a pure three-piece power trio in 31 years. Portions of the performance were included in TRIUMPH's 2021 documentary "Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine", which was produced by Banger Films and directed by Sam Dunn and Marc Ricciardelli.

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.

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.

TRIUMPH is a celebrated Canadian rock power trio that rose to prominence in the late 1970s and 1980s with a blend of hard rock anthems and spectacular live performances. Formed in 1975 in Toronto by Emmett, Levine and Moore, TRIUMPH has sold over 15 million albums worldwide and earned 18 gold and nine platinum certifications in Canada and the United States. Its sound — marked by Emmett's virtuoso guitar work and the group's soaring vocals — produced classic rock staples like "Lay It On The Line", "Magic Power" and "Fight The Good Fight", helping define arena rock for a generation.

By the early 1980s, TRIUMPH was headlining arenas on international tours, renowned for its elaborate, high-tech live shows featuring state-of-the-art lighting, lasers, and pyrotechnics. After a decade and a half of relentless success, the band's legacy grew in the ensuing years, and earned the band some of Canada's highest honors. Among their numerous awards, TRIUMPH was inducted into the Canadian Music Industry Hall Of Fame in 2007, into the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame in 2008, and into Canada's Walk Of Fame in 2019. Today, TRIUMPH continues to inspire new generations of fans around the world. From humble origins in the '70s to sold-out arenas and hall of fame accolades, TRIUMPH's career is a true rock and roll success story — a triumph in every sense of the word.

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In a recent interview with The Horror Nerd, 1980s hard rock queen Lita Ford was asked if she ever thought, as a young, up-and-coming rock and roll star that decades later she would be "literally a rock and roll legend". She responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I never wanted to do anything else and I never saw myself doing anything else, so I kind of did. I kind of saw a little bit of the future. Not to say that I can predict the future or anything, but I just felt like I see me. I know who I am. I get it. I'm going there. I'm doing it. This is who I am. And this is really the best part of my life, is getting to play music for everybody."

Asked if she felt at any point in her life that the rock and roll lifestyle maybe wasn't for her, Lita said: "Oh, yeah. Well, the rock and roll lifestyle will, and always does, try to get the best of you. And sometimes you've just gotta reel yourself back in and just say, 'No, I'm not having it. Not going there. I'm not doing it.' It's hard to stay healthy on the road. And it's hard to keep yourself physically fit and feeling good enough to perform these shows. But I have a great team and a great band, and they help me and I help them, and together we help each other stay fit and rocking."

Regarding what one piece of advice she would give to a young up-and-coming musician who is looking to break into the business and has the same dreams of making it big, Lita said: "Well, it's a hard piece of advice, because it's really more than just a piece. Things are so different now in 2025, and the digital world has kind of taken over everything. And I didn't come from that world. So it's good to be a little bit of a street gutter rat and get out there and jam with people and go to some nightclubs and listen to your favorite musicians and learn as much as you can from them instead of Googling it or watching it on YouTube or whatever: 'Oh, I can Google the guitar chords to my favorite song.' But that doesn't mean you know how to play it. It comes from the heart and soul, and those kind of things don't teach you a lot of that. So it's good to just be a street rat and a gutter rat and get out there and get down and dirty and sweat and play guitar and play drums and sing your ass off. It helps."

She added: "There's a lot of things that have changed over the world, through the decades, but that's how I learned. And if I had to give anybody a piece of advice — and it's a hard way, it's not the easy way, but it is the way, when you learn how to feel and everything, the music in your heart and soul. That's what does it for me."

Ford recently completed work on her long-awaited new studio album, tentatively due before the end of the year. Ford's upcoming follow-up to 2012's "Living Like A Runaway" was once again helmed by guitarist/producer Gary Hoey, who contributes some guitar playing to the disc.

In May 2022, bassist Marten Andersson (STEELHEART, LIZZY BORDEN, LYNCH MOB) officially joined Lita's touring band. Andersson replaced Marty O'Brien who became the touring bassist for DAUGHTRY.

In January 2021, Lita told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" that her new album contains "some of the best guitar playing" she has heard "in decades." She added: "And I'm not blowing smoke up my own ass, but Gary and I just nailed it with the guitar playing on this record.

"I'm a huge fan of people like Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter from Alice Cooper's 'Welcome To My Nightmare'. I mean, there's some really great duo guitar players — [JUDAS PRIEST's] Glenn Tipton, K.K. Downing… Those guitar players don't exist anymore — they just don't exist. If you wanna hear them, you have to go back in time a little bit and dig them up into your favorite library, favorite music catalog. But I think Gary and I really nailed it on this next record. It's, like, oh my God. I'm crying — I'm just, like, crying listening to this stuff. It's so badass."

Ford's last release was 2016's "Time Capsule", a collection of songs that were recorded by Lita in the past, but never before made available.

Nine years ago, Lita released an autobiography, "Living Like A Runaway: A Memoir", via Dey Street Books (formerly It Books),an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

German techno metallers, Electric Callboy, performed at the Rock Am Ring festival in Nürburg, Germany on June 6th. Pro-shot video of their entire set can be viewed below.

Setlist:

“Pump It”
“MC Thunder II”
“Elevator Operator”
“Spaceman”
“Still Waiting” (Sum 41)
“Hypa Hypa”
“Revery”
“Everytime We Touch” (Maggie Reilly)
“Crawling” (Linkin Park)
“Hurrikan”
“MC Thunder”
“Mindreader”
“Ratatata”
“We Got The Moves”

In a new interview with My Weekly Mixtape host Brian Colburn, DROWNING POOL guitarist C.J. Pierce spoke about the upcoming 25th anniversary of the band's debut album, "Sinner", which was certified platinum within six weeks of its release in 2001, while the CD's first single, "Bodies", was one of the most frequently aired videos on MTV by a new band. Asked if DROWNING POOL has anything in the works to mark the occasion, Pierce said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We have a lot of stuff in the works and a lot of things that we're working towards now, things that we're still putting together — a lot of amazing ideas. We wanna do everything and anything, first and foremost [as a] hats off to [original DROWNING POOL singer] Dave Williams, who was a part of the making of the 'Sinner' record and kind of the foundation of our sound that you know with 'Bodies'. So, we have a lot of stuff, man.

"I went to storage when I had some time off, cleaned out some stuff, and I have a lot of music and cassette tapes and stuff we did that we didn't finish," Pierce revealed. "We have a lot of songs with Dave that just were not recorded professionally, if you will. So, we've been talks about maybe getting some of those songs to put 'em out there, 'cause you can get his voice off the cassette tape now with all this cool, fun technology — still his voice, not this A.I. stuff. But we have songs, a few of them that we would like to finish. There's songs that we haven't played live. I don't think we played 'The Game'. 'Break You' is another one that we did. So all things Dave Williams, man. We wanna make the show all about that. And again, it's just fun. I haven't gone through everything yet, but I found a lot of video and a lot of music that we just never got around to putting out yet. We were in super writing mode before we even did the 'Sinner' record."

Asked if there is any chance of a 25th-anniversary deluxe version of "Sinner" being made available in 2026, C.J. said: "Yeah, definitely, man. There's definitely gonna be that, with all this stuff on it. We're just kind of narrowing it down to what we wanna put on it. I wanna put everything out, especially the video. I had so much video back then. The Hi8 cameras came out. And we did a lot of stuff locally — right before we got signed, we did some touring. Actually, with (HED) P.E. — we got to open up for them here locally. Same thing with SEVENDUST. And with KITTIE — [I] love KITTIE, love that band. And so I have a lot of stuff, as long as they're cool with it, just to get it out there, just us raw, all that stuff. Kind of pre-'Sinner' days, if you will, on the local scene… So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that we have to put out there… There's definitely video that I have that we haven't released, and [drummer] Mike [Luce] and [bassist] Stevie [Benton] as well. So I wanna get all that out, have a big package with that. But the fun, exciting stuff is just a handful of songs that I think we could probably either just clean off, keep it how it is on a cassette tape, or we can — us three, Mike, Stevie and myself — can redo the music and put the vocal on top to kind of polish it up. I'm cool either way. We did a handful of cover songs too. We did 'Day Tripper' from THE BEATLES, and I have that as well recorded that nobody's ever heard. That was fun just hearing Dave do it… I forgot we even did it until I heard the tape. And there's also earlier versions of 'Bodies' and 'Tear Away' that are a little different. I think some of that might be out there, some of the old demo versions, but if not, I still have those. Just stuff for the hardcore fans, man. We have stuff that's still signed from Dave Williams in storage, a handful of things. It's gonna sit in storage and collect dust, man. I'd like to get that out to the hardcore fans. So we have a bunch of posters that are still signed and some of the older CDs and stuff too, man."

DROWNING POOL has released two singles in the past year, "Madness", which came out in April, and "Revolution (The Final Amen)", which arrived in September 2024. "Revolution (The Final Amen)" was the first piece of music PierceLuce and Benton completed with singer Ryan McCombs in 13 years.

In a recent interview with Thomas S. Orwat, Jr. of Rock Interview Series, Pierce confirmed that DROWNING POOL is planning to tour in 2026 in celebration of the 25th anniversary of "Sinner". "We definitely wanna start [touring] here in the States and do all next year, promoting a lot of that," the guitarist said. "And hats off to Dave Williams and do him right and do a lot of things that we haven't done that fans haven't heard. We have a lot of stuff we're putting together for the package and a lot of material that we still have with Dave Williams — and, again, respect to him — to get to the hardcore fans that like to hear it, just all that stuff out. So we're putting that together now. The solid plans haven't been laid out yet, but we will be doing the anniversary tour next year in the States, and then probably the following year go back to Europe and do it there as well."

Asked if DROWNING POOL would consider playing the entire "Sinner" album for the 25th-anniversary tour, C.J. said: "We're definitely gonna be doing that, and then more songs on top of that. The last song that we wrote with Dave was a song called 'Heroes Sleeping'. We've been talking about playing that live. We have a song called 'Break You', that song on 'The Scorpion King' soundtrack and stuff. So there's different things. We did [a cover of] 'The Game' for Triple H, MOTÖRHEAD's 'The Game', and it's something else we hadn't played live. So things like that that we haven't been able to do, all Dave Williams-oriented.

"I've been going through storage lately and there's a bunch of songs that we have that were finished demo-wise, but we never like got to like record 'em for real," Pierce revealed. "So I have a lot more material than I thought I had. So it's also gonna be fun to get out… We're gonna go through — Mike, Steve and myself — and pick out some choice songs that we think would be worthy to get out to the hardcore fans and maybe even possibly play those live. So, again, this is my dream list of what I'd like to do. We're gonna get together as a band, and we'll see all what works best for us for the tour."

The release of "Madness" came on the heels of DROWNING POOL's European tour with GODSMACK. The trek included stops in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Austria, Germany, the U.K. and more.

DROWNING POOL will play Inkcarceration festival 2025 on Friday, July 18 and Alcatraz festival in Kortrijk, Belgium in August. In addition, DROWNING POOL has announced a U.K. and Ireland tour with SPINESHANK and special guests (HED) P.E. in November.

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

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

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

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

Photo courtesy of O'Donnell Media Group

In a new interview with Nic and Big J of the Boise, Idaho radio station 100.3 The X Rocks, vocalist Johannes Eckerström of Swedish metallers AVATAR spoke about the band's upcoming tenth studio album, which will be released later in the year. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It's our tenth album. That's a high number, and I don't think many bands on purpose would phone it in at this point. But I think certainly there's a risk of taking things for granted. And maybe just looking at the trip that we had to make to make this album and to have it make sense making an album, it can be harder and therefore more important than ever the further you go to find a reason, why is this important to us right now? Why does this one matter to us? Why does it matter to us to get to do another one? What do we wanna put on there that we are really passionate about right here right now? And I think we nailed that.

"I'm trying to think about the different songs and different directions it goes," Johannes continued. "There are all these things that we haven't done before. I get to pretend that I'm Elton John, meaning that I've been playing a bit of piano. But now I get to do it while drums are being played, so I feel I'm in the band — finally, after all these years, I'm in the band. So that's something. And work with outside musicians for stuff, orchestral things and all that, taking that to the next level. I don't think this is a prog album, really, but some of our most clearly progressive parts ever are probably on this album.

"An ethos I had for a while, a mantra almost going around was when writing to make the choices and also about what to write and stuff is just trust what's beautiful," he explained. "'Cause I believe the subconscious speaks whatever needs to actually say that might not make sense at the given moment when you're doing it, but if you find it beautiful as you create it, once upon revisiting, it's very likely to mean exactly what it needed to mean. So there's a dream factor to this album, letting the subconscious speak through imagery that I picked up in dreams. There's a surrealness to it, therefore. And all these groovy, lofty words being said on something that is between 40 and 45 minutes of kick-ass heavy metal and hopefully always with ambition forever and ever and ever when it's AVATAR that it's songs that you haven't heard yet."

Earlier this month, Eckerström told Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station about the lyrical inspiration for the first single from AVATAR's upcoming LP, "Captain Goat", which came out in May: "Well, that's the weird 'twilight zone' in which AVATAR exists. AVATAR, as far as a heavy metal band, we really intend to be first and foremost a good time. But at the same time, the writing comes from the whole concept of finding dark rooms in your soul, in your brain, in your mind and open the doors into those forbidden places and kind of air it out, and hopefully by keep on doing this and try to force yourself to be honest with who you are and where you're at with each album, maybe get closer and closer to some kind of sense of truth. And that side of it, yeah, it's a dark endeavor, but then I also believe… I don't know. I believe it's healthy… It's that duality of what AVATAR is as a band."

Asked why "Captain Goat" was chosen to be the first single from AVATAR's upcoming album and how it relates to the rest of the LP, Johannes said: "It relates poorly to the whole album because AVATAR doesn't write the same song twice. So that's by design, but it just shows that a lot of things are different this time, as they should be and as they always are. [As for] how we choose [the first single from an album]… Well, it kind of reveals itself over time. You just kind of circle back to the people in the demo stage of things while writing and doing the pre-production, what you get excited about then. And already at that stage, there was a lot of excitement about this song as a potential single, as a standout track in that kind of way. 'Cause it's a balance."

He continued: "We always, obviously, try to only put good songs on an album and they're all there for a reason. And then it's just a fact of life that some of them are good in a more direct way, I guess. And this, I think, is a very direct song. And whatever people felt at the demo stage of the song comes back when rehearsing it and it comes alive where we really start playing it together — real drums and everything in the room. 'Cause while writing, we use a lot of drum machines so you can just boom, boom, boom. Everybody can sit and do ideas in their own little corner. So therefore rehearsing is the first time you get to really feel what it feels like being people playing this song before entering the studio and doing it properly there. And in each and every step of this, there's been something — just one of those songs that were something to it. And, again, I think it stands out in what we usually do, but it's at the same time built on billing blocks that is part of the way we do our heavy metal."

Eckerström declined to reveal the title of AVATAR's upcoming album, but he said: "It's a beautiful title. It really ties it together. It invokes mystique and tempting you to break taboos. It lures you into a forbidden place because you see a little light in the dark there, somewhere in the middle between the trees, and that is what the title is all about. And when you see the title, you're gonna go, like, 'Ah.'"

AVATAR will embark on a U.S. tour this fall with support from ALIEN WEAPONRY and SPIRITWORLD. Additionally, there are forthcoming tours supporting IRON MAIDEN and METALLICA, along with the band's biggest show ever in Mexico City.

Photo credit: Johan Carlén

MNRK Music Group has announced the acquisition of metal label Prosthetic Records, along with its extensive catalog of groundbreaking releases. This strategic move marks a bold expansion of MNRK's commitment to heavy music, as Prosthetic Records will now operate under the esteemed MNRK Heavy umbrella.

The acquisition kicks off an exciting new chapter with upcoming releases from chaotic hardcore/mathcore band PUPIL SLICER and the genre-defying experimental math/noise rock outfit GOD ALONE.

Scott Givens, MNRK's SVP of rock and metal, says: "Prosthetic Records has been a trailblazer in the metal scene. This acquisition is a strategic step in MNRK's continued investment in heavy music and aligns perfectly with our vision for MNRK Heavy."

MNRK Heavy plans to amplify the legacy of Prosthetic Records through a dynamic strategy that encompasses digital platforms, physical formats, and special releases. Fans can look forward to anniversary reissues, meticulously remastered editions, and curated collections that celebrate the label's storied history.

As part of the integration, select artists will transition within the MNRK family, while new talent will join the expanding roster — ushering in an era of bold creativity and sonic exploration.

Founded in 1998 by friends and metalheads E.J. Johantgen and Dan Fitzgerald, Prosthetic Records has been a driving force in the metal world, with landmark releases from influential acts including LAMB OF GOD, THE ACACIA STRAIN, SEPTICFLESH, VENOM PRISON and many more.

Prosthetic released the first two albums by LAMB OF GOD, the first two albums from ANIMALS AS LEADERS, numerous albums by Active Rock mainstays ALL THAT REMAINS and introduced the world to THE ACACIA STRAIN and North America to GOJIRA.

In a new interview with Oran O'Beirne of Ireland's Overdrive, DARK ANGEL drummer Gene Hoglan spoke about the reunited California thrash metal pioneers' upcoming first new album in 34 years, "Extinction Level Event", which is due later in 2025 via Reversed Records. Asked if he ever thought DARK ANGEL would release another full-length record after 1991's "Time Does Not Heal", Gene said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I will be honest: I did not expect DARK ANGEL to ever be returning. And then about a little over a decade or so ago, when the talks came around [about a DARK ANGEL reunion], I had some free time in my schedule, and the talks were coming around, like, 'Hey, what does everybody think about maybe doing some shows?' I always got offers. When I'm over in Europe, or anywhere, with STRAPPING YOUNG LAD or TESTAMENT or whoever, all the promoters would come up to me and say, 'Hey, man, if you ever wanna put DARK ANGEL back together, man, we're here for it.' And so I'm, like, 'Duly noted.' And then, when the time in the schedule was freed up in order to do so, we reached out and started doing that.

"I've mentioned it in a number of interviews where [late DARK ANGEL guitarist] Jim Durkin and myself, we got together and he let me in on a few ideas and songs and riffs and demos and things that he had put together in case DARK ANGEL was ever gonna record ever again," Gene continued. "And I got so excited with it that I was, like, 'Oh my God. DARK ANGEL, we're writing new stuff. We're gonna record a new record real soon. It's gonna come out.' And it took a decade. So, I take full responsibility for blabbing way too early about it. But now we are at the point where the album is complete, and we've kept it real cloak and dagger over the years; we've been working on it for some time. And we wanted to be able to have it way closer to its 'releasability', I suppose, rather than just… 'Cause I knew it was gonna take us a while to get it started and then completed. I knew that was gonna be a lot of time in between the inception and completion. So we just took our time with getting the album to this point where it's at, to where we could announce it."

Hoglan added: "Yes, later this year, in 2025, we're gonna have a new DARK ANGEL record, unless something goes tragically wrong, but everything's moving according to plan. So we're at that point. I'm really excited about the new record. I dig it. I'm really happy with it. We're all really happy with it. And from every aspect of the album — the music, the lyrics, the performances. Ron's [Rinehart] vocals are crushing on it. The artwork is killer. Myself and my artist, Cain Gillis, we took a lot of time getting this artwork together. It's a pretty special release, and we're really excited for it, man. I'm stoked to be able to release it."

Regarding the musical direction of the new DARK ANGEL material, Gene said:  "This is gonna be a very DARK ANGEL-esque record. And a lot of people are asking me, like, 'Hey, is this gonna sound like 'Darkness Darkness'? Is it gonna sound like 'Leave Scars' or 'Time Does Not Heal' or 'We Have Arrived'?' Which album is it gonna sound like?' And I'm, like, man, it's gonna sound like DARK ANGEL. No DARK ANGEL album has ever sounded like another one. So in keeping in that spirit, that mode of evolution, this is an evolution in progress. So this is where DARK ANGEL is gonna sound like DARK ANGEL. But I feel, in my opinion, I know what's good metal and I also know what's like kind of generic and just kind of, 'Oh, man. Nice try, guys.'

"We approached this record's production in a totally different manner than any production of these days," Gene revealed. "This is not a gridded, heavily edited and sterile-sounding record. We tried to make this just as lively and just like a band jamming as much as possible. So it will not sound like every other album that is just… There's no sound replacement on the drums. This is room tones. This is real — just the way we did it back in the day. It's real. All we tried to do is we tried to make it sound better than any other DARK ANGEL album. And that's the only thing I really feel like any band can compare itself to.

"I love all the metal bands — all the EXODUSes and KREATORs and SODOMs and POSSESSEDs and everybody, but I can't go listen to their stuff and go, 'Hey, we've gotta compare our stuff to them and make sure that [we sound similar to them].' I won't do that," Hoglan added. "We are DARK ANGEL and we stand on our own. And I will stand behind everything that we ever do, definitely. So, there you go."

DARK ANGEL has released two new singles so far, "Circular Firing Squad" and the "Extinction Level Event" title track.

The "Extinction Level Event" title track was written by Durkin a decade ago, long before he suffered from severe liver disease, and, to the surprise of everyone, passed away in 2023. It was recorded and mixed at the Armoury Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, executive produced by Hoglan, produced and engineered by Rob Shallcross and mixed by Mike Fraser.

On the topic of the musical direction of the new DARK ANGEL material, Gene told "The David Ellefson Show": "We just tried to write a kick-ass metal record. We tried to write a kick-ass DARK ANGEL record. For it to sound like any of our other records was not important. We just tried to kind of focus on, like, 'Hey, what kind of DARK ANGEL record would be coming out if DARK ANGEL never stopped putting out albums this whole time? Where would DARK ANGEL be at right now in 2025?' And so this pretty much encapsulates where we're at. It's a pretty aggressive record. It's pretty ferocious. I'm really into the record, and I'm into the artwork. I think the artwork is killer. We got great artwork for it. And if people disagree with me, then that is your opinion. Absolutely, you have the freedom to do that. I have the freedom to work this band however we want. We get to do whatever we like with this band. And we tried to make a real ferocious record."

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.

Hoglan told "The David Ellefson Show" that "Extinction Level Event" is "in a lot of ways a huge tribute to Jim Durkin. His style is all over it," he explained. "Laura Christine, our new guitarist, her style is all over it. She's becoming the new writing partner. I've always written a vast majority of the material, and Laura's influence is massive on it. And she writes the coolest riffs I know… And so there you go there. And we're just really excited to be able to have a new release to talk about. And I figured the next new big pile of touring cycle is gonna involve this new record. And we're really excited about it. And we hope people dig it. There you go."

Earlier in May, Gene told "The Zach Moonshine Show" about the "Extinction Level Event" title track: "About a decade ago or so, when we got back together and we started playing some shows and the vibe was so cool and everybody was just having a great time and we had all kind of grown up into men, as it were, we were just having a great time together, and Jim took me aside one time, he was, like, 'Hey, man, I have this song that I wrote pretty recently.' And it was just, like, 'If we ever get a chance to do any kind of recording with DARK ANGEL or do any kind of DARK ANGEL stuff, this is my most DARK ANGEL-esque song that I've got.' And I was, like, 'Hey, man, lay it on me.' And I was just so blown away by it. It was just so killer, so catchy, so Jim Durkin-like. So that song there, as well as another one that he had in the works, just got me so pumped that I just happened to do an interview pretty recently after that, and I was, like, 'Yeah, man. We're gonna record a new record. Yeah, it's gonna be coming really soon.' And like I said, it's taken over a decade. But here we are, and our first track, 'Extinction Level Event', is out there."

As for why "Extinction Level Event" was chosen to be the first single from the upcoming LP, Gene said: "All the tracks on the album, any one of them could have been our first release, but this is one of the more… well, we have a lot of savagely blistering tracks on this record. This is one of them, and it was just so kick-ass DARK ANGEL, such a DARK ANGEL-type song that we didn't release this first one because Jim wrote it and this was kind of his last, final entire song that he left with us. It just kind of worked out that way. It's, like, this is a really kick-ass track and it's got a cool title and all the artwork that goes along with the album goes along with this. So there you go."

The "Extinction Level Event" artwork and layout was designed by Cain Gillis, with concepts by Hoglan.

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 was asked by Rocking With Jam Man 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 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. 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."

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.

Photo by Alex Solca

Robert Trujillo and Kirk Hammett performed a rendition of "Pull The Plug" by Florida death metal pioneers DEATH during METALLICA's June 8 concert at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

Earlier today, bassist Terry Butler, who was a member of DEATH when the original version of "Pull The Plug" was recorded for the band's "Leprosy" album (1988),took to his Facebook page to share a video of Hammett and Trujillo's rendition, and he included the following message: "Last night Rob & Kirk played a snippet of Pull the Plug !! Glad to see them give props !! It's the thought that counts !! Pretty damn cool ! #death #chucklives".

"Pull The Plug" was part of the fun and unusual feature METALLICA added to its shows on the band's recent tours: at each stop, Hammett and Trujillo have been covering songs from some of their musical heroes — often choosing songs that are far removed from the band's traditional metal sound. The "doodles," as the band refers to them in their setlists, are pared-down interpretations — just bass and guitar and sometimes Trujillo singing.

In a November 2021 interview with MMA Junkie, Trujillo spoke about his doodles with Hammett. The METALLICA bassist said: "Some of my proudest moments were with Kirk on the last European tour, playing in these massive soccer stadiums and playing songs that were sort of native to those cities or even those countries. So we would take a song and learn it by an artist from that country. I'll just give you one example. In Paris, France, [at] Stade De France, we played a song by an artist known as Johnny Hallyday. Eighty-five thousand people. Nobody knows what we're gonna play — kind of like street musicians. Lars [Ulrich] and James [Hetfield] are taking a break. We walk out there. He's got his guitar; I've got my bass. It's almost like, 'Where's the hat?' Where do they put the money? Literally like that — stripped down, naked. And we get out there and we start playing a song called 'Ma Gueule' by Johnny Hallyday. I'm telling you — people were in shock, but in a good way. And it was tears and smiles, and it made the news. But there was a lot of this that happened through all the different countries and cities throughout Europe where we would choose an artist, cover that artist and play that song — sometimes two and a half minutes to three minutes. I'm singing in the [native] language, so it gets real challenging. We're talking about Romania, we're talking Poland, we're talking Spain and Portugal and Sweden — I sang in Swedish. That, to me, was one of the highlight moments of my entire existence as a musician, especially in METALLICA, because I don't even know if I could ever do that again. Sometimes I think about it and I go, 'Man, you were crazy. Kirk and I were crazy.' That happened just before the pandemic. We were doing that in these football stadiums. Those were called the duets — these were the duets. The duet moments overseas — huge for me personally."

During a June 2020 appearance on "Drinks With Johnny", the Internet TV show hosted by AVENGED SEVENFOLD bassist Johnny Christ, Trujillo stated about how the idea for the "doodle" came about: "We were in Europe — this wasn't the last European tour, but the tour before that. We were in Amsterdam, and we had tried a couple of... There was a duet moment, where we were supposed to play a METALLICA song that's maybe, like, a deep cut, so we'd play 'I Disappear' or something, and we started noticing that we weren't getting the result we wanted. It was, like, we'd go up there and we'd start playing, like, 'Eye Of The Beholder' or something, and then the crowd's expecting James [Hetfield, METALLICA frontman] to come out and sing, and it's, like, 'Man, this ain't working.' They were feeling like it was a prelude moment, and I started thinking, 'We've gotta do something different.' So Kirk came out this one night, and he started playing that song by CHIC ['Le Freak'], and it totally caught me off guard. And I'm, like, 'Oh, damn. Okay, I see where he's going.' He's walking out to the front of the snake pit playing this funk jam. He got me the first night, 'cause I didn't exactly know the bass line, so I improvised it. And then the second night, I got it."

He continued: "So it kind of started there for a split second, though we were still doing the METALLICA deep cuts. And then we got to Europe, and we were in Amsterdam, and one of our management team members suggested, 'Why don't you play [a song by the Dutch rock band] GOLDEN EARRING, 'Radar Love'? Check that out.' And we were, like, 'Really?' So I started played the bass line, and then the crowd started singing, and it was, like, 'Hold on a minute. There's something here.' So then we started to kind of formulate some local bands from each city. Like, one of the highlight moments was in Prague [Czech Republic — we played a country song called 'Jožin Z Bažin' [by Ivan Mládek], which was huge. And then we played, in Barcelona, a gypsy kind of flamenco acoustic song, by an artist called Peret — it's called 'El Muerto Vivo', And I'm singing in Spanish, I'm doing my best, and the people went nuts. And we go, 'Hold on. We've got something here.' So what we ended up doing… We came out of that tour — we scraped through it; it wasn't perfect, but we scraped through it. And then when we got home, we did some U.S. dates, we did all that, but we knew we were going back to Europe where it really worked. I said, 'I'm going deep.' So I did a bunch of research, and I researched every single city, even Estonia, and I found out what cool either punk, alternative, country — it didn't matter the style — and I learned the fucking language, and I did the phonetic with the lyric, and we went out and did full arrangements. I'm talking about if there was an accordion solo, Kirk was playing it. So we did our homework, and we really, really went into it. I was going to [Kirk's house in] Hawaii to work with him on the arrangements. I spent, like, five days there strictly on the [songs]. We weren't even surfing, we were just 'boom.' So we put a lot of hard work in it. I mean, we were surfing a little bit, but that wasn't the priority. We were actually really spending time on this.

"So I would say on that last tour run, 'cause we were in these massive stadiums, sold-out shows… And every night was great, but there was a handful of grand slams where people were crying and it was this heavy… Like, you're paying tribute to somebody in, like, Moscow, who is like the David Bowie of Moscow, and people are just, like, 'Oh my god.' They don't know what they're gonna get. All of a sudden, we surprise them, and they get what they didn't expect. [Playing a song by] Johnny Hallyday in Paris, at Stade De France, [in front of] 85,000 people. So to be up there and to feel that energy and emotionally connect with the crowd on that level was special. But it was such hard work. I don't know how we [pulled it off].

"I was meeting with people, like, I would even sometimes do it by phone, and I'd be there for two hours getting the language pronunciation right. So it was a lot of work… And sometimes you'll take some beatings," he admitted. "I remember a couple of the shows when we first started doing it, man — beatings, bro; beatings… I remember, there was a couple of 'em, but there was one… It was in Pennsylvania. It was like college — it was over where Penn State is. And holy cow, man. I thought we would play like the fight song for Penn State. Man, we got, like, 10 seconds into that thing, and nobody cared. It was, like, 'Oh my god.' And I stopped playing — I literally stopped playing. I was so embarrassed. And Kirk kept playing. And then, luckily, we kind of went into a METALLICA… Like, in the U.S., we would parlay it with a local song — these are U.S songs — and then we would always kind of justify it by going into a METALLICA [track], like 'Dyers Eve' or something. Just like, 'Okay, we screwed that up, but we got this.' So it was kind of our savior in the States."

In 2019, Hammett told Cosmo Music about his live "doodles" with Trujillo: "We never really know what the response is going to be. You have to understand, we're going into a country; we're picking some song that's seemingly random and abstract to us, and we're learning this song that we've never heard before from this artist that we've never heard before, and we're taking a chance and playing it in a stadium in front of 60,000 people, and we're hoping that we make the right choice. The last, I would say, three legs [of the tour], we've been hitting it out of the park, but before that, there were some growing pains. There have been a few times we've picked the wrong song and played it and people go, 'Huh?' We'll go into a place like Indianapolis, and we'll play a song by an obscure punk band called THE ZERO BOYS, because we think they're cool... We played the hell out of it, and it was really cool, but we looked out at the audience, and they were just like, 'Huh?' Rob and I always tell each other and people don't recognize it, it's not the end of the world as long as we play it well, and they're entertaining in the way we play it, so we have that to fall back on... We were in Nashville, and we played a Loretta Lynn song... The next day, we got a message from Loretta Lynn, who said she was actually at the show with her family and was so tickled when we broke into her song. She said she might think about covering one of our songs sometime, but in the meantime, we should do more of her songs."

Not every artist that has been spotlighted in the "doodle" has been flattered by the Trujillo/Hammett version of their music. Former CELTIC FROST frontman Tom Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom G. Warrior) was not impressed with the rendition of the group's "The Usurper" that Hammett and Trujillo performed during METALLICA's May 2019 concert in Zurich, Switzerland. "They butchered it, and it was humiliating," Fischer told Rolling Stone. "Why don't they leave their millionaire fingers off it? They've long lost the ability to play true metal in my opinion. Maybe I should go onstage and do a really miserable version of [METALLICA's] 'Hit The Lights' with, like, 200 mistakes to set the balance."

Last night Rob & Kirk played a snippet of Pull the Plug !!
Glad to see them give props !!

It's the thought that counts !!
Pretty damn cool ! 🤘🏻🤘🏻
#death
#chucklives

Posted by Terry Butler on Monday, June 9, 2025

SPINESHANK vocalist Jonny Santos has confirmed to Rock Feed that a new song from the reunited band will arrive in the coming weeks. "We're literally in the studio trying to finish right now," he said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). "The song has been recorded. Right now it's in the final process of being edited. We're gonna actually start listening to roughs this week."

Santos also addressed the reason he and the rest of SPINESHANK's 2025 lineup — drummer Tommy Decker and bassist/vocalist Robert Garcia and new recruits Tommy Decker, Jr. (Tommy Decker's son) and Jason Hager (ex-CHIMAIRA) on guitar — have decided to release one track as opposed to focusing on making a full-length record. "People are, like, well, why are we only doing one song?' Jonny said. "'Cause we don't know. We haven't put a record out in 12 years. "Cause let's face it, the SHINESHANK thing right now, [the upcoming tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of SPINESHANK's sophomore studio album] 'The Height Of Callousness', this is nostalgic. We're not out there pumping a new record. We're celebrating one of our best records. That's what we're doing. So what we decided to do is… Do we wanna do a new record? 'Cause now we have little Tommy playing guitar, which is fucking awesome; he shreds. And we've got Jason Hager; everybody knows Jason. He's from CHIMAIRA. So we get these two new guys, and they obviously wanna do a new record. But five months ago, we didn't even know people even cared about SPINESHANK. So let's hold on here a second before we start putting new records out. I said, 'Let's do one song. Let's put this song out there. We'll get it out to the masses, and let's see how it's received.' That's gonna tell us right there — I feel it'll tell us if we are just a nostalgic act, that people just wanna come hear the hits and feel like they're 18 again, or we put this new song out. Does it trend? Does it fucking blow up? Then that will indicate right there, 'Okay, guys, let's go do a new record and start putting new songs out.' And I think that's a fair way to look at it instead of just assuming that since we're doing well and shows are selling out right now, that we're just gonna put an album and everybody's gonna love it."

Regarding the musical direction of the new SPINESHANK song, Jonny said: "Well, I will tell you this much. It's got all the elements that is what is SPINESHANK. One of the biggest complaints we had on the last SPINESHANK record was fans were, like, 'It's not electronic enough.' And I saw that. I felt that in a way. There was a lot of programming on that album; we were just using organic sounds as the loops and stuff. But I understand what the fans meant. So this time around, the SPINESHANK recipe, if you will — the song's gotta have energy. It's gotta be heavy. It's gotta be catchy. It's gotta have a hook. I don't care. I fucking love singing in fucking metal songs. All those people out there [who say], 'That's lame that you sing' — fuck you. You've gotta bring girls to the show too. So you've gotta have energy. It's gotta be heavy. You've gotta have a hook. And with SPINESHANK, it's gotta have that electronic aspect and that dirty, nasty, electronic aspect. Very industrial — 'Antichrist Superstar' [MARILYN MANSON] industrial. I love when you have a cool loop. Distort that motherfucker. So it's that whole ATARI TEENAGE RIOT dirtiness to it."

As previously reported, SPINESHANK will team up with THE UNION UNDERGROUND for the "25 Years Of Rebellion & Callousness" tour this summer.

This commemorative, co-headline trek, with special guests ADEMA and SICKSENSE, will celebrate the 25th anniversaries of "The Height Of Callousness" and THE UNION UNDERGROUND sole studio LP, "…An Education In Rebellion".

The first leg of the tour will launch on July 10 in Austin and will see the two bands perform their respective album in full, with a few extra surprises.

When SPINESHANK's return was first announced, Decker said in a statement: "We are beyond excited to be able to celebrate 25 years of 'The Height Of Callousness'. This is the record that defined us as a band and changed our lives. We can't wait to play all of these songs and share the memories with all of you who lived it with us."

Santos stated: "We are extremely excited to celebrate the return of SPINESHANK for the 25th anniversary of 'The Height Of Callousness' tour and get to share this milestone with the people who were there back then, and the new fans that never got the chance to see us play. Truly an honor!!!"

Garcia said: "It's amazing that 25 years later people still react to 'The Height Of Callousness' the way they do. We're excited to get out and play these songs again, see old friends, and threw down for all the new fans who never got to see SPINESHANK the first time around!"

Decker, Jr. said: "I've been on tour with these guys since I was a little kid, watching them perform every night from the side of the stage. I can't believe it's come full circle and I get to share the stage with my dad and the rest of the guys who I consider my family. I was 4 years old when this album came out and seeing all the fans still show love to this album is crazy!"

Hager stated: "I am beyond excited and honored to be a part of the return of SPINESHANK, for the 25th anniversary of 'The Height Of Callousness' tour. They're not just one of my favorite bands, but have been great friends, ever since they generously, and selflessly helped us (CHIMAIRA) out, during our early days. I'm looking forward to seeing you all, out on the road, and excited about what the future may hold."

After releasing three successful albums ("Strictly Diesel", "The Height Of Callousness" and "Self-Destructive Pattern"),performing on countless world tours (including appearances on Ozzfest and the Download festival) and a Grammy nomination in 2004, the band went on a hiatus.

SPINESHANK's fourth album, "Anger Denial Acceptance", was released in June 2012 via Century Media Records. The CD was produced by SPINESHANK guitarist Mike Sarkisyan and drummer Tommy Decker and mixed by Mike Plotnikoff (PAPA ROACH, BUCKCHERRY).

SPINESHANK's third LP, "Self-Destructive Pattern", was released in September 2003. The album's lead single, "Smothered", was nominated for a Grammy in the category of "Best Metal Performance".

This past April, Jonny told the "Talk Toomey" podcast about the possibility of SPINESHANK releasing new music to coincide with the upcoming tour:  "We never got a chance to really go out on a high note. And so when we first started getting ready to do all this, doing another record wasn't really even talked about. It was more of just, like, 'Hey, let's just go out and do ['The Height Of Callousness'] in its entirety' and give the band its warrior's death, if you will — going out on a strong note instead of just falling into obscurity.

"Now it's gotten to the point… So right now I'm in the studio finishing up some edits and mixing the first SPINESHANK song since 2012," Santos explained. "So we have one new song coming out. Because I think the way that we feel that we'll know is, let's see how this SPINESHANK song does. If it's accepted well and people are excited about it, if it does well, then maybe there could be another album in the works. Or if anything, maybe even an EP. Who knows?"

Referencing the resurgence of "nu metal" in recent years, Jonny continued: "It's kind of weird how — it's uncharted territory. It's, like, is this here to stay? Is this gonna be a staple in heavy music or is this just a fashion fad for kids today? So I think once we release this new song and tour for the better part of this year, then I think we'll know if we're gonna put a new record out next year or not. I would like to, but I only wanna put a record out if it's gonna matter. I don't wanna put a record out if nobody's gonna give a shit."

Elaborating on his reluctance to release a full-length collection of new material, Jonny said: "Not comparing us to the size of THE ROLLING STONES or anything, but if I was gonna go see THE ROLLING STONES, I'm not too concerned with anything that they've done post 1979. You know what I'm saying?

"I think you hit a certain point in your career as a band when you have a legitimate and constant following that people just wanna go hear the hits.

"I've noticed, I'll put music out or whatever, and people are, like, 'Oh, man, it doesn't sound like 'The Height Of Callousness'.' It's just, like, dude, me putting out the same record twice is not gonna make you young again," he said. "Because that's how it is.

"Very few bands can get away with putting the same record out. AC/DC's done it. SLAYER's done it. But it works — that works for them, and it's fucking awesome. But for me, it doesn't.

"The thought of putting a new SPINESHANK record out there, it's exciting. But at the same time, we're gonna see how this goes.

"We're going into this with no expectations. This is really fun for us to do, and I think it's a chance for a lot of people that have become SPINESHANK fans in the last decade or so that have never seen us to get to see us. And being that 'The Height Of Callousness' was by far our best-received album, I can't think of a better record to do in its entirety out of our catalog."