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."

DEEP PURPLE's "Rapture Of The Deep" turns 20 — and it's celebrated on August 29 with a complete remix and remaster, striking new artwork, plus a bonus CD/LP featuring never-before-released recordings via earMUSIC.

It's no secret that "Rapture Of The Deep" isn't the first album that comes to mind when listing DEEP PURPLE's classics — and while it was met with interest at the time, it gradually faded from view. Despite solid sales, the album arrived during a period when there was little spotlight on the world of classic rock, and over the years, "Rapture Of The Deep" developed into an overlooked chapter in DEEP PURPLE's rich discography.

It's equally true that this record, and the story behind it, marked a turning point — the quiet beginning of a run that would eventually lead to four consecutive No. 1 albums (2013, 2017, 2020, 2024) and the kind of success few bands experience even once, let alone decades into their career.

New insights by Kerrang! founder and Classic Rock magazine writer Geoff Barton pull back the curtain on a time when DEEP PURPLE were navigating an uncertain era in the music industry that saw the downfall of many once-great artist careers — and unravel the strange chemistry that gave birth to DEEP PURPLE's 18th studio album.

As bassist Roger Glover reflects: "We were going through a bit of a hard time when we started the songwriting and production of 'Rapture Of The Deep' and, strangely enough, we didn't have a record company at that point. Let's face it, we were a bit lost."

But from that uncertain moment emerged an album bursting with sharp songwriting, masterful playing, and pure DEEP PURPLE grit.

Now, newly mixed with the supervision of Glover, analog-mastered at renowned Chameleon Studios in Hamburg, and presented with bold new artwork, "Rapture Of The Deep" finally shines with clarity and color. "It's a new album now to me," says Roger Glover. Fans will hear it blooming for the first time.

This new edition also includes a bonus CD/LP featuring previously unreleased instrumental takes and studio rehearsals recorded during the songwriting process — providing a rare, unfiltered insight into the band's creative work in the studio. Captured on multi-track in 2005 and mixed for the first time in 2025, it's one of those rare instances where recordings resurface decades later from archives long thought lost.

Among the highlights is the track "Closing Note", a never-before-heard piece by then-guitarist Steve Morse — recorded during the album sessions and now officially released for the first time.

These tracks are available exclusively on all three physical formats — CD digipak, 3LP vinyl (black, 180g),and the strictly limited 3LP transparent sky-blue vinyl.

With DEEP PURPLE riding high on the success of their latest No. 1 record "=1", the time is right to (re)discover the album that set the path for DEEP PURPLE in the 21st century.

"Rapture Of The Deep" 20th-anniversary remix track listing:

CD + LP:

01. Money Talks
02. Things I Never Said*
03. Rapture Of The Deep
04. Clearly Quite Absurd
05. MTV*
06. Back to Back
07. Wrong Man
08. Girls Like That
09. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
10. Don't Let Go
11. Junkyard Blues
12. Before Time Again

* Not on original studio album

Bonus LP+CD

2005 Studio Jams & Rehearsals:

01. MTV
02. Money Talks
03. Back To Back
04. Before Time Began
05. Closing Note**

** Unreleased instrumental track by Steve Morse

DEEP PURPLE 2005 photo credit: Bruce Payne (courtesy of Atom Splitter PR / earMUSIC)

Former SEPULTURA members Max Cavalera (guitar, vocals) and Igor "Iggor" Cavalera (drums) will perform the band's landmark fifth album, 1993's "Chaos A.D.", in its entirety on a U.S. tour this fall. Support on the trek will come from FEAR FACTORY.

Tickets will go on sale this Friday, June 13 at 10:00 a.m. local time. An artist presale will be available using the presale code "BIOTECH".

Tour dates:

Sep. 18 - Louisville, KY @ Louder Than Life Festival
Sep. 20 - Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium w/ Slayer*
Sep. 21 - Liverpool, NY @ Sharkey's
Sep. 23 - Norwalk, CT @ District Music Hall
Sep. 25 - Ft Wayne, IN @ Piere's Entertainment Center
Sep. 26 - Des Moines, IA @ Val Air Ballroom
Sep. 27 - Hammond, IN @ Horseshoe w/ Lamb Of God*
Sep. 28 - St Louis, MO @ Red Flag
Oct. 01 - Denver, CO @ Gothic Theater
Oct. 02 - Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex
Oct. 05 - Sacramento, CA @ Aftershock Festival*
Oct. 07 - Anaheim, CA @ House Of Blues
Oct. 10 - Las Vegas, NV @ House Of Blues
Oct. 11 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Marquee
Oct. 12 - Albuquerque, NM @ Sunshine Theater
Oct. 16 - Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
Oct. 17 - Austin, TX @ Come & Take It Live
Oct. 18 - Dallas, TX @ Ferris Wheelers

* No FEAR FACTORY

Back in February 2023, Max spoke to Radioactive MikeZ, host of the 96.7 KCAL-FM program "Wired In The Empire", about the 30th anniversary of "Chaos A.D." The 55-year-old Brazilian-born musician, who spent much of the last decade celebrating the 20th anniversary of SEPULTURA's "Roots" and 30th anniversary of "Beneath The Remains" and "Arise", respectively, on tour all over the world, said: "Those albums, to me, they're kind of like kids. I like to celebrate their birthdays. I almost feel like I need to buy a cake and have a real birthday party on the day that the thing came out.

"Nah, I think we celebrate through the music, 'cause we're doing all these cool tours of celebrating the music," he continued. "Of course I'm not saying we're gonna do a 'Chaos A.D.' one, but if it happens, it'll be really cool… 'Chaos A.D.' opens with [my son] Zyon's heartbeat. It's a very special record. It's almost like a defining moment in metal, one of those records that kind of broke the mold, how metal can be. Because before 'Chaos A.D.' everything was super fast and aggressive, and I think with 'Chaos A.D.' we showed there's another way to make aggressive music, that's a little bit slower and more groove oriented, with stuff like 'Territory' and 'Slave New World' and 'Refuse/Resist'."

SEPULTURA was founded in 1983 by the brothers Max and Igor with Wagner Lamounier and Jairo Guedes Braga (known professionally as Jairo Guedz). Paulo Xisto Pinto Jr. joined just a few short months later and in 1987, with the departure of Jairo and addition of guitarist Andreas Kisser, the solid lineup of SEPULTURA was final. The band quickly became an influential force in heavy metal music thanks to its dynamic studio recordings and intense live performances.

The band was in the midst of a creative and commercial peak in 1993 when it released "Chaos A.D." with Max on vocals and guitar, Andreas on guitar, Paulo on bass, and Igor on drums. The record sonically sees the band transcend from their thrashing death metal aesthetic into a more eclectic output, showcasing groove-oriented paces, incorporating moody riffs, industrial soundscapes and even introducing hardcore punk elements throughout the record. With protest songs like "Refuse/ Resist" and the Jello Biafra-penned "Biotech Is Godzilla" spouting conspiracy theories, the politically charged lyrics aided in "Chaos A.D." becoming a breakthrough album for the band worldwide.

Although SEPULTURA has maintained a diehard fanbase in all parts of the world throughout the band's four-decade history, "Roots" and "Chaos A.D." were by far SEPULTURA's most commercially successful, having both been certified gold in the U.S. for sales in excess of five hundred thousand copies.

Regarding "Chaos A.D."'s visual representation, Max previously described its conception thusly: "'Chaos A.D.' was commissioned through Michael Whelan [whom] we already used on two albums before — 'Beneath The Remains' and 'Arise' — but 'Beneath The Remains' and 'Arise' were already existing paintings, and 'Chaos A.D.' was a brand new painting that was commissioned by us to Michael Whelan to create based on the name of the album. We gave it to him, and he came up with the body bag with the money upside down and all the electronic stuff going through the body bag and I think it was really cool."

CAVALERA performing CHAOS A.D. in its entirety this fall in the U.S. Special guest Fear Factory.

ARTIST PRE-SALE CODE:...

Posted by Cavalera Conspiracy on Monday, June 9, 2025

During LACUNA COIL's concert at Metalfest in Plzeň, Czech Republic on Friday (June 6),Sharon Den Adel of WITHIN TEMPTATION and Simone Simons of EPICA came on stage to surprise their colleague and friend Cristina Scabbia for her 53rd birthday by presenting her with a birthday cake. They also led the audience in a spirited "Happy Birthday" sing-along to mark the LACUNA COIL frontwoman's latest trip around the sun. Video of their appearance can be seen below.

Earlier this year, Scabbia was asked by Belgian Jasper how she initially felt about being featured on the cover of the February 2006 issue of Revolver where she was also included in the magazine's "The Hottest Chicks In Metal" article. She said: "The thing is that I never saw the malice in it. I always thought that it's actually a very powerful thing for a woman to be feminine. I love women power. I love to be empowered by who I am, and I don't want to hide myself because I'm a woman and if I show my legs that means I'm worth less. That's not my problem. So when I actually went on that cover of Revolver magazine, because I was the very first woman to to actually appear on that cover, for me, it was just the biggest honor because it was the first time that a magazine, an American magazine, would give a woman the pleasure of being on a cover. So for me, it was something that blew my mind back then."

Cristina continued: "I was just happy if more women could come on board of this women-fronted, the female-fronted band [movement], stuff like that, even if that's a definition that I never liked. Maybe because I was coming from a different world before LACUNA COIL — I was listening to a lot of dance and R&B music, so, for me, it was already normal to see women playing music and singing. It was nothing new. Metal was predominantly followed by guys because it was a more aggressive and heavy sound, but I never looked at myself as the different element or I am different or I'm worth less because I'm a woman. So it was never my personal problem. It is true that perception of people — you have to deal with it. You have to expect a reaction. Everything you do, everything you say, you have to expect a reaction. And I would never go over the line, showing myself, but that's because I don't want to do it. But I don't care about what other persons want to do, other women want to do with their body — it's up to them, and I'm not going to judge them, but for sure you have to prepare to a reaction as soon as you do something. It's discouraging that they only see the look of it, but I'm also sure that every woman included in those Revolver magazine 'Hottest Chicks In Metal' were talented as well. So at least we got attention back then. And I mean, it happened to ladies as well to look at a singer because he was hot or considered sexy a singer. So whatever. If you can use it as a tool to get attention and you're okay with it, as long as it's your decision, you can do whatever you want."

Two years ago, Cristina was asked as part of Jonathan Montenegro's "My 3 Questions To" series if she believes that women are being taken more seriously in the metal scene than they were three decades ago when her band was first formed. She responded: "Do I feel that things changed? Absolutely, yes. When I started, there were not so many bands with a female in the lineup. Metal was still a no-no for females, because it was a very male-dominated scene. Which it still is, but of course there are many more bands with a female in the lineup, which makes me happy even though we are still seen differently. I don't think that it will ever happen that we are going to be seen equally, and partially it is okay like this because we're different. I think that we are sort of a different world.

"What I don't like about being a female in a male-dominated world is the fact that very often we are judged by our looks, which I get it; many guys get the same," she continued. "But for women, it's kind of like… Let's say for the guys, if they have the look, it's a plus. For women, if they have the look, it's a plus in terms of media attention; it's a plus in terms of — I don't know — people drooling with you; but it doesn't necessarily add up to the potential you already have. And that is a shame, because people should not be judged by their looks. I understand that the look is first thing that you see, but it will cool if it will be possible to go beyond that, especially in music, where the instrument you play, the voice you're pushing out of your body and the feelings you're trying to convey with your music are the most important things."

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

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.

ICE NINE KILLS frontman Spencer Charnas is featured in the first episode of Fire With Fire, a new video series where Ryan J. Downey sits down with artists in the heavy music space for wide-ranging, in-depth conversations, where the importance of freedom of expression is the anchor. Created by Downey, the series is made in partnership with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and directed by Gus Black.

Asked what kind of advice he would give to people who feel like maybe they can't express who they are, they can't get the things out of themselves that they need to let out, Spencer said: "I've been doing this for — God — since 2000, really. So, 25 years. And I think what I've learned over that course of time, and when the band started to really kind of take that turn of becoming the successful entity where, 'Hey, this can be my job and I can make a living from it,' was when I stopped worrying about what was trendy.

"I think back in the day when the band started, we were too concerned about, 'This kind of label is hot right now, so we should sound more like 'Band X', or, 'Is this breakdown heavy enough? Because this band is exploding,'" he admitted. "And I think as soon as we stopped worrying about what everyone else was doing and just did what I love and what's authentic to me, which is the punk inspiration, the metal inspiration, Broadway influences from shows like 'The Phantom [Of The Opera]' and 'Les Mis[érables]', and then incorporating, bringing in my other love, which was horror and kind of making sort of a melting pot of all those things, and again, just not really caring about what was popular at the time, that's when we started to see success. And that, combined with believing in yourself and having a do-it-yourself kind of mentality, not waiting around for the phone to call from a record label and just going out there and doing it and hustling and not being afraid to put in the work.

"Before we played concerts and tours like the Warped Tour, we were out there breaking into the tour with fake-made laminates and selling CDs to anyone who had a shirt of a band that we thought was comparable to us.

"So, yeah, you've gotta believe in yourself and be ready for a lot of rejection," he added. "But I always go back to when you're discouraged about whatever business you're in, you think about that when METALLICA started, no label would wanna sign them because they were too metal for the punk kids. And I think the first label that signed them was Megaforce, which was a very small label. And we all saw what happened with METALLICA. And then you think about [American film director, screenwriter and producer] Wes Craven. When he was sort of down and out, he had this idea for this film where a killer kills people in their dreams [the 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' franchise]. And he brought it to every major studio — Paramount, Universal, all the big dogs — and they all told Wes, 'It's an interesting script, but no one's interested in movies about dreams.' So this very small company at the time called New Line Cinema took a chance on Wes, and I think we all saw what happened there."

Spencer also discussed YouTube's censorship policy as it relates to horror-related content, especially as some of ICE NINE KILLS' music videos are homages to movies like "The Crow" and "Pet Cemetary". He said: "The censorship thing, especially with YouTube, is a big bummer, because if you do anything that's somewhat subversive or extremely violent, you get censored.

"The video like we did for 'A Work Of Art' and 'Terrifier', which is, in my opinion, now one of the greatest slasher franchises of all time, and we were so lucky to be able to be involved in it, to make the official video, it gets extremely restricted. So it kind of takes it out of being in the algorithms. It doesn't show up on certain searches. If you're trying to search for that particular video, you have to prove you're 18. So YouTube has sort of become the new MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America, which also runs the film rating system according to the Motion Picture Association]."

Asked if YouTube has offered a list of specific content which isn't allowed to be shown on the platform, Spencer said: "I think it's still a little bit that sort of vague thing. Certainly killing an infant, I believe, is in the bylaws. But we've done certain things like showing everything except those parts where you put a censored bar over. But, yeah, it's really difficult to be able to express what we want and not have it restricted. But with 'Terrifier', this is one of the glorious films of all time. I mean, to the point where when I was at the premiere, Tom Savini was sitting next to me, who's a special effects guru. He was considered and called for many years the 'sultan of splatter', he said, ''Terrifier' makes my 'Dawn Of The Dead' look like 'Bambi'.' So, with that particular video, we just had to let it all hang out. We wouldn't care if we're restricted. The video still has gotten millions of views, but obviously would be a lot more if it wasn't restricted. But, yeah, that was one of the most fun, entertaining videos I've ever had the pleasure of making. And having Chris Nelson, one of the greatest special effects makeup guys of our day, do the effects —this is the guy that did the 'Kill Bill' movies."

Ryan J. Downey is a longtime journalist whose credits include work with Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter and Marvel. He has written books, graphic novels, and liner notes for BLACK VEIL BRIDES, FALLING IN REVERSE, ICE NINE KILLS, ALICE IN CHAINS, PANTERA, TYPE O NEGATIVE, and more. He is the host of the MI Conversation Series at Hollywood's Musicians Institute, a former MTV News reporter, and served as senior editor for Alternative Press.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization whose mission is to defend and sustain individual rights to free speech, expression, and thought through a unique mix of public education campaigns, individual case advocacy, and policy reform efforts.

Charnas is the creative architect and front man of ICE NINE KILLS and one of modern metal's most visionary and recognizable figures. A lifelong horror obsessive and pop culture alchemist, Charnas has transformed ICE NINE KILLS into a multi-dimensional empire where music, cinema, and theatrical storytelling collide.

Under his leadership, the band's horror-themed concept albums "The Silver Scream" and "The Silver Scream 2: Welcome To Horrorwood" redefined the genre, earning Top 20 Billboard chart placements, global streaming success, and cult-like fan devotion. As a songwriter, performer, and strategist, Charnas has elevated ICE NINE KILLS beyond the stage, launching the Silver Scream Convention, immersive fan clubs, graphic novels, and now the Pretty Evil cosmetics line.

Known for collaborations with horror icons like Ari Lehman and Tony Todd, and for bringing theatricality back to live performance, Charnas has become a mainstay in both the metal and horror communities. Whether fronting the band on tour with METALLICA or creating blood-soaked beauty campaigns, he continues to push the boundaries of what a modern frontman can be.

Photo credit: Gus Black

In a new interview with Music Business Worldwide, Ozzy Osbourne's wife and manager Sharon spoke about 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's final appearance as a solo artist. Asked how the idea for "Back To The Beginning" came about, Sharon said: "Since Ozzy's illness, which has been six years, he's said his one regret is that he never got the chance to say goodbye to his fans and everybody that he's ever worked with. And then it was, like, 'Okay, how do we do this without Ozzy just performing for two and a half hours?', because Ozzy can't perform for two and a half hours anymore. So then I thought of having all the bands he's ever had relationships with perform and maybe do SABBATH songs and Ozzy songs. I started to ask really close friends, and they were, like, 'Sure, yeah.'"

She continued: "It became a celebration of the music. All the generations are going to be there that SABBATH and Ozzy have passed the torch down to. The only place that we could do it would have been Aston, because that's where Ozzy was born and grew up, which is right where the Villa ground is.

"There are two bands that we would have loved to have been there, but they couldn't because they're working that day," Sharon revealed. "And that was JUDAS PRIEST, a local band, and Angus [Young] from AC/DC, because he's always been a huge supporter of Ozzy's."

For "Back To The Beginning", BLACK SABBATH's original lineup — Ozzy, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward — will reunite for the first time in 20 years to headline the sold-out event. They'll be joined by metal's most iconic and influential acts — METALLICA, GUNS N' ROSES, TOOL, SLAYER, PANTERA, GOJIRA, HALESTORM, ALICE IN CHAINS, LAMB OF GOD, ANTHRAX, MASTODON and RIVAL SONS — all performing as part of this monumental moment.

After fans snapped up tickets to "Back To The Beginning" in just 16 minutes, it was announced that the event will be streamed worldwide. Fans will have access to the raw livestream from 3:00 p.m. on July 5, and will also have exclusive access to rewatch the concert in its entirety for another 48 hours.

For more information, visit www.backtothebeginning.com.

"Back To The Beginning" will be captured, produced and distributed by Mercury Studios ("One To One: John & Yoko", "American Symphony", "Metallica Saved My Life"),who are pioneering the way for premium, music-driven storytelling across film, television, podcasts and immersive formats. Mercury has partnered with Kiswe — the global D2C streaming partner behind the record-breaking BTS concert livestream — to deliver this moment of music history to fans across the globe.

The all-day event at Villa Park, produced by Live Nation, will be hosted and compered by American actor Jason Momoa, and feature a supergroup of musicians.

This past February, Sharon told The Sun that her husband is struggling to walk amid his battle with Parkinsons disease, but that his singing voice is "as good as ever". She said: "[Ozzy's] very happy to be coming back and very emotional about this.

"Parkinson's is a progressive disease. It's not something you can stabilize. It affects different parts of the body and it's affected his legs. But his voice is as good as it's ever been."

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.

According to Sharon, Ozzy, who paused touring "for now" in 2023 after extensive spinal surgery and rescheduled his "No More Tours 2" shows from going ahead several times because of illness, the pandemic and logistical issues, will not play any more shows after the Villa Park event.

"Ozzy didn't have a chance to say goodbye to his friends, to his fans, and he feels there's no been no full stop," she explained. "This is his full stop."

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) and Tom Morello (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE).

"It's an endless amount of people," said Sharon. "They're going to be doing some SABBATH songs, some Ozzy songs, and they'll all mix together. Different little groups will be coming on, but they're all icons."

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

"For Ozzy right now, it's definitely: 'I love you and good night'," Sharon told Reuters.

She added that Ozzy was doing well and excited about the gig. "It's stimulated him," she said. "He's very, very excited and very thankful that he can do it."

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.

Osbourne's previously announced European tour with guests JUDAS PRIEST, originally set for 2019 and then rescheduled three times, was officially canceled in early February 2023.

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.

Danish rock and rollers VOLBEAT kicked off their "Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide" last night (Saturday, June 7) at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

According to Setlist.fm, the setlist for the show was as follows:

01. Seal The Deal
02. Lola Montez
03. Devils Are Awake (live debut)
04. The Devil's Bleeding Crown
05. Sad Man's Tongue
06. Demonic Depression (live debut)
07. Fallen
08. Shotgun Blues
09. In The Barn Of The Goat Giving Birth To Satan's Spawn In A Dying World Of Doom (live debut)
10. By A Monster's Hand (live debut)
11. Black Rose
12. Wait A Minute My Girl
13. Better Be Fueled Than Tamed (live debut)
14. The Devil Rages On
15. For Evigt
16. Still Counting

Fan-filmed video of the performance can be seen below.

VOLBEAT's "Greatest Of All Tours Worldwide" is launching with a co-headline Canadian run with THREE DAYS GRACE and special guests WAGE WAR, which will be followed by headline treks in the U.S. with special guests HALESTORM and THE GHOST INSIDE, and Europe with special guests BUSH and WITCH FEVER, including a second show at Copenhagen's Royal Arena on September 20.

VOLBEAT is touring in support of its ninth album, "God Of Angels Trust", which was released on June 6 via the band's longtime label Vertigo/Universal.

With "God Of Angels Trust", the Danish band — which has scored ten No. 1 songs on the Billboard Mainstream Rock airplay chart, the most ever for a band based outside North America — has thrown caution to the wind, ignored comfort zones, and paid little heed to traditional songwriting in the search for something more immediate and surprising. The end result will thrill VOLBEAT's dedicated legion of fans.

"In the past, I've taken a long time to write and obsessed over so many elements of the songs before finishing them," says VOLBEAT guitarist/vocalist and main songwriter Michael Poulsen. "This time, I wanted to make a VOLBEAT record without thinking too much about it. Instead of following any kind of structure I said, 'Okay, there are no rules. I can do anything I want. I can start with a chorus or do songs that are just a bunch of verses stacked on top of each other. Anything goes.' That was freeing for me and made it exciting to write this album."

Poulsen's excitement to thwart convention is palpable throughout "God Of Angels Trust", a punchy, crunchy album that's undeniably VOLBEAT, yet marches to a fresh new metallic and melodic energy.

Poulsen started working on songs for the follow-up to 2021's "Servant Of The Mind" in the summer of 2024. VOLBEAT was taking a year-long break from touring to give Michael a chance to recover from throat surgery and to tour with his death metal band ASINHELL. Driven equally by his excitement to record a new VOLBEAT album and by his determination not to follow convention, Poulsen worked on songs for a mere three weeks with bandmates drummer Jon Larsen and bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen. Amazingly, they worked on a new song at every rehearsal. Three weeks into the process, VOLBEAT had arranged half of "God Of Angels Trust". That's when Poulsen decided that having no rules meant he could follow his muse wherever it took him, and he veered off on a different path. He and the band still wrote and rehearsed two songs a week, but they started composing more familiar rock songs that drew from traditional elements.

The band entered the studio with their longtime producer Jacob Hansen in the fall of 2024. As with the songwriting, Poulsen wanted to work quickly and rely on instinct, so they just plugged in and started to play. To keep the music sounding urgent and immediate, VOLBEAT recorded live in the studio, playing as few takes as possible before moving from one song to the next.

When it came time to add lead guitar, there was no question that VOLBEAT would tap Flemming C. Lund, who currently tours with the band and worked with Michael in ASINHELL. A mere 13 days after they started working with Hansen, VOLBEAT were finished.

As impressive as it is that VOLBEAT wrote and recorded an entire album in about five weeks, what's more incredible is that "God Of Angels Trust" sounds as fleshed out, eclectic, and fulfilling as albums that have taken 10 times longer (or more) to create. In the end, creating such a strong album so quickly was a tremendous challenge that demanded Zen-like calm, a joy for exploration, maximal creativity, and razor-sharp concentration to pull off.

"In some ways, it feels like we've come full circle," Poulsen explains. "If you start drawing a circle over an extended period of time, eventually you've going to get back where you started, and that's how I feel now. I've dealt with medical operations, lineup changes, and all these things, and now it feels like a rebirth. It doesn't feel like we're doing our ninth studio album, it feels like we're on our first album again and there's something really refreshing about that."

Living The Good Life because the Three Days Grace and Volbeat concert is TODAY!

You can still snag some tickets using the link below! ⬇️

🎫TICKETS | bit.ly/41tcmp3

Posted by Rogers Arena on Saturday, June 7, 2025

In a new interview with Sweden Rock Festival, rock legend and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee Glenn Hughes spoke about his upcoming studio album, "Chosen", which is set for release on September 5, 2025 via Frontiers Music Srl. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Every artist you talk to, [they say] 'it's the greatest thing I've ever done.' It's another extension of who I am. It's another chapter of who Glenn is. And I'm happy to announce that I'm really happy with the album."

Asked how he keeps his singing voice in such great shape at the age of 73, Hughes said: "People ask me every day. It's a big thing. All those years ago, maybe I was thinking about the next note I was gonna sing, and about 10 years ago I started meditating deeply, working with someone far away. And I learned about acceptance, letting go of the feelings and embracing fear and naming the fear. 'Hello, Bill. You are the fear. And today I'm gonna embrace you, and Bill, we're gonna be okay.' So now when I perform, I don't think of Bill. I think about no notes. I perform in the moment, never thinking about anything but this present moment."

As for his pre-show rituals, Hughes said: "Well, I've been doing press all day today [at the Sweden Rock Festival, where Hughes performed on Saturday, June 7 with BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION], which is quite unusual for me on show day. But I normally, at soundcheck, do a big soundcheck, but there's no soundcheck at festivals, as you know. So I'll just go do some meditation and do some vocal warmups. I need to do that. I think everybody that is a singer has to warm their voice up. So, for me, I step into a room and do my thing."

He added: "It's all mental. My mind is not my friend. So I tell my mind, 'No, no, no, no. I'm gonna be fine. Just leave me alone. I'm full of gratitude. Just let me be, let me be.' My voice tells me all kinds of things which aren't real. And we have them all the time. You do and I do. So, to me, I tell the mind, 'I don't hear you. Let me get up.' And every day of my life, I'm very grateful to have been given this gift to accept what is happening."

This past Friday (June 6),Hughes released the official music video for the "Chosen" title track.

Commenting on the new album, Glenn previously stated: "Songwriting is deeply personal to me, and l generally write and record when I have something to say.

"It's been nine years since I recorded my last solo album, 'Resonate'. There have been recordings and collaborations with other artists since 2016"

"When writing 'Chosen', I went back to my life drawing board, writing about the human condition, love, hope, faith and acceptance.

"I write about how I feel on the inside and not externally. My life is lived from within, in the present moment.

"It's an album of soul food, and I've never been so grateful, right here, on planet earth. Music is the healer."

This year will also see Hughes busy touring across Europe and South America, with "The Chosen Years" tour starting in Zoetermeer, Netherlands, on September 2 and ending on November 29 in Bogota, Colombia.

Hughes is a true original. No other rock musician has carved such a distinctive style blending the finest elements of hard rock, soul and funk. That astonishing voice is his calling card. He's known as a singer's singer. Stevie Wonder once called Glenn Hughes his favorite white singer.

After a nine-year hiatus as a solo artist, Hughes is back with "Chosen", his brand-new solo record: an album which presents Glenn in his most hard rockin' fashion. An explosive record that offers Glenn at his absolute best with a state-of-the-art album, both from a songwriting and production standpoint.

Glenn, a native of Cannock, England, absorbed all kinds of influences, including early British hard rock, THE BEATLES and, most importantly, American soul and R&B. The sleek Motown sound from Detroit and the gritty Stax/Volt sound from Memphis left their mark on him.

Hughes first found success in the early '70s with the band TRAPEZE before joining DEEP PURPLE in 1973 during a pivotal lineup change that introduced him and David Coverdale to the group. Despite initial skepticism, the revamped band silenced critics with the release of "Burn" (1974),a powerful album that revitalized PURPLE's sound and remains a classic. During this era, the band headlined the iconic California Jam in front of over 300,000 fans, toured the world aboard their private jet The Starship, and released two more studio albums, "Stormbringer" and "Come Taste The Band", before disbanding in 1976.

Glenn's first solo album "Play Me Out" was released in 1977. He joined former Pat Travers guitarist Pat Thrall to form HUGHES/THRALL, which released an acclaimed self-titled album in 1982. Throughout the '80s and '90s, Glenn Hughes made countless guest appearances (both credited and un-credited) as a vocalist, bass guitarist or songwriter on other artists' albums. The endless list includes — among others — Gary Moore, John Norum and Tony Iommi of BLACK SABBATH.

Since 1992, Glenn has started a prolific solo career with a dozen studio albums where he explored all the different sides of his songwriting and influences: from hard rock to funk and more contemporary sounds. He collaborated — among others — with such musicians as Chad Smith (RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS),Dave Navarro, John Frusciante and many others. He also founded or took part in some amazing musical alliances such as CALIFORNIA BREED (with Jason Bonham and Andrew Watt),BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION (with Joe Bonamassa and Jason Bonham) and THE DEAD DAISIES.

Glenn has collaborated with Robbie Williams on his new single "Rocket", which was released on May 22, 2025. The track also features a collaboration from Iommi and will be the first time Glenn has been featured on a record with Tony since 2005, when they released "Fused" together.

Glenn also recently joined forces with SATCHVAI, a new collaboration by legendary guitar icons Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, by writing and singing on their new single "I Wanna Play My Guitar".

"Chosen" track listing:

01. Voice In My Head
02. My Alibi
03. Chosen
04. Heal
05. In The Golden
06. The Lost Parade
07. Hot Damn Thing
08. Black Cat Moan
09. Come And Go
10. Into The Fade

Recording lineup:

Glenn Hughes – Vocals
Søren Andersen - Guitar
Ash Sheehan - Drums
Bob Fridzema - Keys

Image credit: unuce

Swedish hard rockers CRUCIFIED BARBARA played their first concert in more than nine years on Saturday, June 7 at the 2025 edition of the Sweden Rock Festival on Thursday, June 5 in Sölvesborg, Sweden.

According to Setlist.fm, the setlist for the show was as follows:

01. The Crucifier
02. Play Me Hard
03. Rock Me Like The Devil
04. Shadows
05. Sex Action
06. Feels Like Death
07. Into The Fire
08. Electric Sky
09. To Kill A Man
10. Everything We Need
11. Blackened Bones
12. My Heart Is Black
13. Killed By Death (MOTÖRHEAD cover)
14. In Distortion We Trust

Fan-filmed video of the performance can be seen below.

CRUCIFIED BARBARA's 2025 lineup consists of vocalist/guitarist Mia "Coldheart" Karlsson, guitarist Klara "Force" Rönnqvist Fors, bassist Ida "Evileye" Stenbacka and drummer Jannicke "Nicki Wicked" Lindström.

CRUCIFIED BARBARA will appear at around half a dozen more European festivals this year, including Resurrection Fest in Spain, Skogsröjet festival in Sweden and La Guerre Du Son festival in France.

From the release of their debut album "In Distortion We Trust" (2005) up until their split in 2016, CRUCIFIED BARBARA became known as one of Sweden's hardest-working hard rock bands, with countless touring miles across the globe. Whether playing in gritty rock clubs on four continents, under the spotlight of Melodifestivalen or on numerous festival stages, they consistently showed how hard rock should be done.

CRUCIFIED BARBARA is a band that has always walked its own path. A group unafraid of exploring both dark metal and heartfelt ballads, blending the soft and the heavy to create their own unique hard rock brew. Now, they're back to once again deliver that brew live, in a celebration showcasing the best from their four albums: "In Distortion We Trust" (2005),"'Til Death Do Us Party" (2009),"The Midnight Chase" (2012) and "In The Red" (2014).

In a recent interview with the Apex Lifestyles podcast, Karlsson stated about CRUCIFIED BARBARA's decision to reunite for its first live performances in nearly 10 years: "Actually we didn't talk for a couple of years after we split up, The break was mostly because of me; the other three [girls] kept playing in the band THE HEARD. And yeah, I just was hiding under a stone for a few years. And when I started to play again, I thought I was only gonna play the acoustic stuff because that's what I felt like. And then I was introduced to a process to come back to the stage and play first the guitar with DONNA CANNONE and then the bass with THE GEMS. And all of a sudden I found myself on these rock stages again. And then two years ago, we actually reached out and met, just had a beer and talked, and it felt really, really good to meet everybody. And it just was like a big relief to finally meet them again and talk. But we didn't talk about like playing or anything back then. We just wanted to hang out then. Now it was maybe [last] summer when I realized, like, I love playing music again, and there's nothing in the way. We felt like, why don't we just meet and rehearse and see how it feels and just play some songs together? And we did. And it just felt like coming home. Yeah. It was amazing."

She continued: "I love the girls and I missed them so much during these years. It's just been so much to process and now so much to work through. And, yeah, to get this chance was amazing. So we just felt like, yeah, why not do a reunion now when we all want to play together again? And I'm really happy. And people are surprised. [They ask], 'Are you the original lineup?' It's, like, yeah, of course. There is no other way to do CRUCIFIED BARBARA."

Regarding what CRUCIFIED BARBARA's plans are for the coming months, Mia said: "We wanna do shows and just have fun with it. And as long as it's fun, we're gonna keep playing."

In a January 2019 interview with France's Loud TV, Klara said that CRUCIFIED BARBARA's 2016 split had been a long time coming. "It had been kind of a hard time for a while, so it was time for us to move forward," she said. "It was just the next step in life — to quit the old and start fresh."

After CRUCIFIED BARBARA's breakup, Klara , Ida and Nicki joined forces with DEATHSTARS bassist Jonas "Skinny Disco" Kangur (on lead guitar) and burlesque performer, model and singer Pepper Potemkin in a new group, the aforementioned THE HEARD. THE HEARD's debut album, "The Island", was released in November 2018 via Despotz Records.

CRUCIFIED BARBARA announced its breakup in June 2016, two years after the release of the band's fourth album, "In The Red". The group explained at the time that "our lives have parted and we need to move on. The last years have taken its toll on all of us and the joy of playing together got lost somewhere along the way."

More recently, Karlsson has been the touring bassist for THE GEMS, the new band featuring former THUNDERMOTHER members Guernica Mancini, Emlee Johansson and Mona Lindgren. She has also pursued a solo career.

In a new interview with "Reckless" Rexx Ruger of Pod Scum, FEAR FACTORY's new singer Milo Silvestro was asked what the experience has been spending most of the last couple of years on the road with such an internationally acclaimed metal act. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Oh, it's going great. It's been an interesting, crazy journey and [I'm] so stoked to be here still. It's been two years and a half almost. We toured the world. We [had] crazy experiences, had the privilege of playing with a lot of favorite bands of mine, and it's crazy."

Asked if it is correct to say that FEAR FACTORY is working on a new album right now, the band's first with Silvestro on vocals, Milo said: "Yes, correct. So we are currently working. I'm here at Dino's [Cazares, FEAR FACTORY guitarist and main songwriter] to record the vocals for the new album. So, we're currently working on it."

Describing his involvement in the songwriting process for the new FEAR FACTORY material, Milo said: "Well, fortunately enough, I'm so thankful to Dino for the fact that he has given me a lot of creative space into the album. So, not just vocally, but instrumentally speaking. I'm laying down a lot of ideas for keyboards and synths, which is part of my background. I have a background of like electronic music composer, soundtrack composer, so I'm using a little bit of that skill of mine. And vocally, yeah, of course, I'm writing all my lyrics and stuff, and of course we discuss concepts with Dino, because, of course, he also has a lot of ideas about concepts and stuff. So watch a lot of movies and we talk about, 'We should talk about this. We should talk about that.' So it's a really cool collaboration of different minds. Pete [Webber], our drummer, he's recorded two tracks on drums so far, and he is laid down some cool flavors and fills here and there. Tony's [Campos] playing bass on the album as well, so it's a badass team at work right now."

Regarding what the reception has been like so far from fans to the fact that he replaced original FEAR FACTORY singer Burton C. Bell, Milo said: "Well, fortunately enough, the very majority of the fans are loving this new lineup of FEAR FACTORY. And I'm so thankful to all the fans for being this supportive, because it's not something you take for granted for sure, because you are replacing not just an iconic singer, but an iconic lineup in general. Every member in the classic FEAR FACTORY lineup [was] iconic in their own way. So, it's kind of like trying to — I don't wanna say rebrand, but literally giving different faces to an established brand. So, it's definitely not easy.

"The comments that make me the most happy are the ones from the skeptical people, people going, like, 'I used to be skeptical, like, who the fuck is this new guy? But then I heard him and I'm, like, oh, I'm all in,'" Milo continued. "So, that makes me so happy, 'cause it means that they didn't accept you just because it's FEAR FACTORY. They listened to it, they maybe went to the show and they liked it and we changed their minds. So I feel really accomplished [when they say stuff like that]. Of course, the hating is always gonna be there, but we are lucky that we have like a very minimum part. It's literally, like, 30, 40 people in the whole world, and mostly on Facebook. We rarely get hate on Instagram. For some reason, Facebook, it's becoming a platform of hating."

Silvestro also talked in more detail about how FEAR FACTORY songs come together, particularly as it relates to his vocal approach. He said: "Dino is very musical. He has really musical ideas. The rhythms he has in his mind, rhythmic patterns, they're really inspiring for not just drums, of course, that are typically locked with the guitars, but a lot of other things. Sometimes his riffs can inspire my vocal rhythmic patterns. And being myself primarily a percussionist and a drummer, I love to write syncopated, groovy vocal patterns for screaming vocals. I wouldn't say 'rap', but because, of course it's not the FEAR FACTORY style, but still groovy, heavy vocals. Even PANTERA and bands like that, they're called groove metal because there is some groove aspect in the vocals. So, I feel like I added a little bit of that in the new album, which is definitely the style I always [gravitated toward]. If you listen to [my previous band] DEAD CHANNEL, there's a lot of that. I grew up also with singers like Dez [Fafara] from COAL CHAMBER and Corey Taylor from SLIPKNOT. They have crazy flows when they do heavy vocals. So, there's definitely a little bit of that, without straying too much from Burton C. Bell's style rhythmically. But most of it, it came out from my ideas, most of it came out from inspiration from Dino's riffs. So, yeah, most of it starts from Dino's riffs. So, when he writes the chorus, I start writing melody to it. Sometimes I even pick up the guitar and I'm, like, 'Oh, I have this chorus in mind that could fit this melody that I have in mind.' So it can start from everything."

Last June, Cazares told Primordial Radio about the chemistry of the musicians in FEAR FACTORY's current lineup: " At the moment, [it's all] smooth sailing. And it's been great. Everybody's on point. Pete Webber's on drums. He's sick. He came from a thrash metal band called HAVOK. Killer drummer. We call him Pete The Feet. Milo Silvestro — new kid on the block. He came straight from Rome, Italy. He sounds like a young Burton, you know what I mean? [He sounds like Burton did] back in the day. He sounds amazing. He's probably the most musically talented in the band. And then Tony Campos, my old friend. He's been with the band since, like, 2015. He comes from a band called STATIC-X. He's been my mate for 30-plus years, and it's always good to play with him, and I'm glad he's with us."

Dino continued: "It's a great place right now. We are trying to avoid any of that drama. And luckily we have for the past year and a half since we came back."

Asked what is left for FEAR FACTORY to do, Dino said: "New record with Milo Silvestro. That's what we're gonna do next. New record. And then conquer the world again."

Silvestro's addition to FEAR FACTORY was officially announced in February 2023.

In a separate interview with Brutal Planet Magazine, Dino was asked whether Milo is a "good lyricist". Cazares responded: "Oh, yeah. He's got some other little projects that he works on and the lyrics are really good. So we're not gonna have any issues with that. That was one of the main things that a lot of people have been complaining — not complaining, but the Internet type of bitching. It was, like, 'Okay. Yeah, he could sing great live. He could do all the songs great live. But what's it gonna be like when he does the record? How's his lyrics gonna be? How's this gonna be?' Relax. It's all gonna be good. Don't worry."

In the fall of 2023, Dino told Nyva Zarbano that Milo "brings obviously a freshness that FEAR FACTORY needed. The last singer that we had [Burton C. Bell], obviously he had a lot of vocal issues and he really couldn't sing or do any of this kind of heavy touring," he explained. "It just was a big setback for us. So bringing Milo into the band, obviously he's got a great voice, he's very talented, he's a multi-instrumentalist. He could play more than one instrument. The kid's very talented. Of course, the story is I found him on the Internet. He was releasing videos of him doing FEAR FACTORY covers and he was posting them on all the FEAR FACTORY fan sites. And I saw him there, and I was, like, 'Okay, that's really got my attention.' But we had many people audition, but he was the one that really stood out. And he's a huge fan of FEAR FACTORY. And he pretty much learned from listening to our older vocalist. So he learned a lot of his stuff. And so, I mean, if you close your eyes, you think it's the original singer."

Speaking to Australia's "Everblack" podcast, Cazares was asked if Silvestro was "getting more comfortable" with his position as the frontman of the long-running California metal act. Dino responded: "Oh, yeah. I mean, from the first day, we talked about a lot of stuff. Before the tour started, we rehearsed, and we were, like, 'Okay, these are the kind of things that we've done before. And I think you need to do this, this, this.' And he goes, 'Okay.' So then the first day [of the tour] comes, he just goes wild. And I'm, like, 'Oh, shit.' I was, like, 'Calm down.' I go, 'You don't need to go insane everywhere. Just focus on singing, focus on getting everything, giving the crowd all equal attention,' blah, blah. There's certain things you just gotta teach him a little bit, right? And so he pretty much nailed it the first day."

FEAR FACTORY played its first headlining concert with Silvestro and touring drummer Pete Webber on May 5, 2023 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California.

Earlier in 2023, FEAR FACTORY completed the "Rise Of The Machine" U.S. tour as the support act for STATIC-X marked the Cazares-led outfit's first run of shows with Silvestro and Webber.

Prior to being named an official member of FEAR FACTORY, Webber had been filling in for FEAR FACTORY's longtime drummer Mike Heller who was unable to play with the band due to "scheduling conflicts."

FEAR FACTORY's latest album, "Aggression Continuum", was released in June 2021 via Nuclear Blast Records. The LP, which was recorded primarily in 2017, featured Cazares, Bell and Heller.

In September 2020, Bell issued a statement officially announcing his departure from FEAR FACTORY, saying that he "cannot align" himself with someone whom he does not trust or respect, apparently referring to Cazares.

Bell later told Kerrang! magazine that his split with FEAR FACTORY had been a long time coming. "It's been on my mind for a while," he said. "These lawsuits [over the rights to the FEAR FACTORY name] just drained me. The egos. The greed. Not just from bandmembers, but from the attorneys involved. I just lost my love for it.

Photo credit: Stephanie Cabral

The squintyt4e_2 channel on YouTube has uploaded video of QUEENSRŸCHE's entire June 5 concert at the Corning Preserve at Riverfront Park in Albany, New York. You can now watch the clips in the YouTube playlist below. (Note: After each song, the YouTube player automatically jumps to the next song in the playlist.)

According to Setlist.fm, the setlist for the show was as follows:

01. Queen Of The Reich
02. Operation: Mindcrime
03. Walk In The Shadows
04. The Lady Wore Black
05. Breaking The Silence
06. I Don't Believe In Love
07. The Mission
08. Warning
09. Behind The Walls
10. Take Hold Of The Flame
11. Silent Lucidity
12. Jet City Woman
13. Screaming In Digital

Encore:

14. Empire
15. Eyes Of A Stranger

In a recent interview with Sonoridades Inc., QUEENSRŸCHE guitarist Michael Wilton spoke about the band's lead singer Todd La Torre, who joined the group in 2012 as the replacement for QUEENSRŸCHE's original vocalist Geoff Tate. Michael said: "[Todd has] helped keep us relevant. He's a great songwriter, but he's not just a vocalist and a lyric writer. He's a drummer. He can play guitar. He can speak to you and communicate to you as a musician, not just a singer. I mean, he grew up in Florida in the metal era, and he's got a lot of that influence, but he's very melodic as well. And he's got a killer voice. So I think it's just something that in the evolution of post-QUEENSRŸCHE, it's, like, we are still doing it and kicking ass. And hopefully we'll have something new out in the future."

Regarding the progress of the songwriting and recording sessions for the follow-up to 2022's "Digital Noise Alliance", Michael said: "Right now we're writing. We're doing so much touring right now, it's hard to figure out where we will have a block of time to make an album. But before we went to Europe, we brought Zeuss [Chris Harris], our producer, down to Florida, and we worked on some ideas. We just started writing. And that's where we're at right now."

Wilton also talked about QUEENSRŸCHE drummer Casey Grillo, who joined the band in 2017 as the replacement for the original QUEENSRŸCHE drummer Scott Rockenfield. He said:  "[Casey is] an amazing player and he brings so much to QUEENSRŸCHE. He respects the songs, but he's such a dynamic player. He's very talented, and he helps in the writing process as well. So, yeah, he's been in the band over five years, six years, or whatever it is, seven, and, yeah, he's great."

In October 2021, Rockenfield filed a lawsuit against Wilton and bassist Eddie Jackson, alleging, among other things, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and wrongful discharge. A few months later, Wilton and Jackson filed a countersuit against Rockenfield, accusing him of abandoning his position as a member of the band and misappropriating the group's assets to his own personal benefit. That dispute has since been settled out of court.

This past April, La Torre was asked by Chile's iRock.cl how QUEENSRYCHE's sound has changed since he joined the group 13 years ago as the replacement for Tate. He responded: "I think that the band kind of got its sound back, more of the roots, the heavier kind of sound that QUEENSRYCHE was known for early on. There was a long period of time where the music got more adult contemporary and less hard rock and heavy metal and progressive and all of the different elements that QUEENSRŸCHE was kind of known for. So I think me being in the band — I mean, it could have been any other singer — has allowed these guys to completely write whatever they wanna write without it being turned down as being too heavy, for example, 'cause that had happened."

He continued: "I love the old classic stuff. We perform all the songs in the standard tunings like they were recorded, so there's nothing downtuned that changes the way they sound. I think that's helped contribute to kind of the resurgence of the band. But we just write songs, and sometimes I think, 'Oh, I wanna write a masterpiece of a song like 'Roads To Madness'' or a great song like 'Take Hold Of The Flame' or — I don't know — songs off of '[Operation:] Mindcrime', for example. But we all have a great time and the chemistry in the band is perfect. We all are super, super close. We all get along off the stage so well that it really kind of… I think that the contribution that I bring in is the jokes, the laughter, the creativity with music and art idea, artistic ideas with album covers and video concepts and that kind of thing. I don't know. That's the best way I could answer it, is I'm just one fifth of QUEENSRŸCHE. But the band is in a very healthy state."

Regarding how he sees the future of QUEENSRŸCHE, Todd said: "Oh, man. I kind of see the future as kind of what we're doing still. A lot of bands have retired, and we're still out there. There's nothing in the future that I see of the band retiring. I mean, we play about a hundred shows a year. So probably more of the same — just performing live shows, writing new songs and making new records and promoting our art that way. But, I mean, really it boils down to the live concert. That's really what we are now."

In a separate interview with Brazil's Monsters Of Rock, Todd was asked which "unexplored musical directions" he would like to see QUEENSRŸCHE go in on the band's upcoming follow-up to "Digital Noise Alliance". He said: "[We're] kind of [doing] the same thing as what we've been doing. I mean, we don't go in writing a record with a preconceived idea. We just get in a room and [go], 'Hey, show me your guitar parts. What do you have in your mind?' And we kind of all get together in a room and just see what happens in real time. So as far as unexplored musical directions… Personally, I'd love to hear more clean guitar on the next record, maybe some more spacious stuff, some more clean guitar. Orchestration is always fun to work with. It's very huge and cinematic sounding. So those are fun things to play with. Maybe some different percussion things would be interesting to play around with again.

"But, gosh, after 40-plus years, I think without completely changing the band, the band's style of music, I don't know that there's really any too much unexplored musical directions," he continued. "I mean, QUEENSRŸCHE's kind of done a lot within the large space that QUEENSRŸCHE has to run around in. I mean, if we were to do something — we wouldn't write a hip-hop song, we wouldn't write a death metal song. So within the confines of what QUEENSRŸCHE kind of is, as diverse as it as it is, I don't know what kind of unexplored musical directions there would be. On the next one, I mean, I would love to, like I say, play around with some other clean guitar sounds, maybe some more interesting percussion things — like the song 'I Am I' had some really neat percussion things going on."

Guitarist Mike Stone, who rejoined QUEENSRŸCHE in 2021, contributed guitar solos to the band's latest studio album.

Since late May 2021, Stone has been handling second-guitar duties in QUEENSRŸCHE, which announced in July 2021 that longtime guitarist Parker Lundgren was exiting the group to focus on "other business ventures."

Stone originally joined QUEENSRŸCHE for the 2003 album "Tribe" and stayed with the band for six years before leaving the group.

📢 NEW DATE ANNOUNCEMENT!! June 5th from 5pm-8pm at Albany Events in Albany, NY!! This is a FREE concert and ALL AGES...

Posted by Queensrÿche on Monday, April 28, 2025

In a recent interview with J.J. Caithcart of Different Stages Radio, Brent Fitz spoke about the status of the songwriting and recording sessions for the next SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS album. The drummer said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, we're working on it. So, Todd [Kerns, SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS bassist and backing vocalist] and I are gonna — well, we're all gonna get back together after the summer, late summer. And we've been working on it in Florida with our producer, [Michael] 'Elvis' Baskette, who has been out in Florida for many years."

Brent continued: "Slash has the greatest work ethic of any musician I've ever worked with. So, we got busy. We toured together in 2024, and then we were out doing other things, and then Slash did a blues record and tour. And then, as soon as that was done, we got right into the studio in L.A. He has an amazing working studio. We can be busy there in L.A. We did that for a month, and then we went out to Florida and recorded most of all the bed tracks, the music parts of it. So we're still gonna finish… [SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS frontman] Myles Kennedy will come and work on all the vocal stuff. And he's been out busy doing his own solo tours.

"This is the new normal," Fitz added. "Everybody's in so many different projects and bands. And Slash is, obviously, in a little band called GUNS N' ROSES, so they're on tour right now. He's over in, I think, Asia or Bahrain. They're covering a lot of new territory, it seems.

"So we'll all get together. We'll get back end of the summer after all the TOQUE shows and stuff," Brent said, referencing the Canadian rock band that he and Kerns are both members of. "And it'll be great to get out to Florida and continue finishing the record. And then releasing — I don't know. Probably not till next year, though."

Asked if there is a working title for the upcoming SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS album, Brent said: "Nothing. No, no. It's always gonna be a Myles thing, or Slash, just songtitles and lyric ideas. I will say that what's fun is when we do write these songs, and this'll be our fifth record together, but we always have comedic working titles. And Todd's usually good — Todd and Slash — good for coming up with things that won't be the final title, 'cause obviously with lyrics with Myles, it'll be something completely different. But we usually just give something a title so we can go, 'Hey, let's work on that song.' 'What song?' 'Oh, the song in E.' No, we'll give it a title. But over time we've had these goofy titles, I'll just say, that sometimes they stick. And to this day, some of our songs, I go, 'Oh, it's called 'Wicked Stone'.' And I'm, like, 'But it used to be something completely ridiculous.' And I still think sometimes when I look at our setlist live, I go, 'Oh, that's the 'Elephant Disorder' song.' It's just funny how… We have a whole bunch of goofy working titles for the songs right now."

This past January, Kennedy told Heavy Consequence about the next SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS album: "As far as the progress goes, I think a lot of it is well on its way. I have to get my vocals recorded. Just have to find a window of time to do that in between the touring and whatnot. I have my vocals written and melodies and lyrics and all that stuff. I just need to get in to the studio and knock it out."

He continued: "As for the direction of the record, it's still riff-based rock 'n' roll with a heavy dose of the blues element that Slash brings, like only he does. It's some really great stuff. I think it's going to be another fun one to tour live."

In December 2024, Myles told SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" that "the demoing and all that, the writing" for the next SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS album "was done before I even embarked on this last [solo] tour. The easy part is the recording; the hard part is the writing. Slash and I were — he was sending me demos of the tunes. Then I was spending time with him, coming up with melodies and lyrics. And so that's all done — I think with the exception of one song. Now I just have to find a moment to get in the studio and all that, knock that out. But I will say that just even in the demo process and where we stood there before they went in to actually make the record musically, it is really exciting stuff. I'm really, really stoked about where this one's going. It's gonna be cool."

Asked if he writes any of the music for SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS or if he is mostly in charge of coming up with the lyrics and the melodies, Myles said: "Yeah, most of what I'm doing is lyrics and melodies. Occasionally if something comes in and I'm, like, 'Hey, can we change this chord progression for the sake of the melody?' But it's interesting 'cause more so on [2012's] 'Apocalyptic Love', when I played guitar on that record, there was a little bit more of, 'Hey, try this part. See what this sounds like, if we utilize this to help the arrangement somehow.' But it's funny — I was thinking about that the other day, and I was just, like… It just highlights how cool [Slash] is. I [was] coming in, it was [my] second record [with Slash] and I've got my guitar, and I'm, like, 'What do you think? What if we tried this?' And I'm, like, 'You're sitting there with Slash. He doesn't need any help, man.' But he was so cool and so accommodating. But as the years have gone on and we've made all these records, one thing that continues to amaze me is just how much he understands, not just the riff thing, but coming up with chord progressions that really lend themselves to coming up with compelling melodies for me. It's, like, he knows how to sequence the chords where it's gonna really leave room for a melody, which I appreciate. And, like I said, occasionally I'd be, like, 'Hey, can we try a G here instead of a D 'cause I hear the melody doing this?' Or I'll send the melody back and he'll go, 'I'm gonna change this chord because I feel like it suits the melody better.' I'm, like, 'Great.' So yeah, he totally gets it."

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS entered the studio in November 2024 to begin recording its fifth album.

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS kicked off "The River Is Rising - Rest Of The World Tour '24" on January 23, 2024 with the band's return to Mexico City's Pepsi Centre WTC. The group's 24-song setlist included the live debut of a deep GUNS N' ROSES cut, "Don't Damn Me", featuring Kerns on lead vocals.

Support on various dates of SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS's "The River Is Rising - Rest Of The World Tour '24" came from MAMMOTH WVH.

Prior to the launch of "The River Is Rising – Rest Of The World Tour '24", SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS last performed in February and March 2022 as part of a U.S. tour.

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS' latest album, "4", was released in February 2022 via Gibson Records in partnership with BMG.

"4" was Slash's fifth solo album and fourth overall with his band featuring Kennedy, Fitz, Kerns and guitarist Frank Sidoris.

SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY & THE CONSPIRATORS released "Live At Studios 60", their first-ever double live LP, for the 2022 Record Store Day. The effort contained a performance of "4", plus four additional songs from the group. Recorded live in Los Angeles at Studios 60, the "Live At Studios 60" double LP exclusive Record Store Day release was limited to only 2,250 copies. The full concert featured all the songs from "4". Additional performances of the group's Top 5 rock radio hits, including "You're A Lie", "World On Fire", "Anastasia" and "Driving Rain" are also included in the double vinyl package.

For "4", Slash and the band traveled across the country together to Nashville, Tennessee and recorded the new album at the historic RCA Studio A with producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, John Prine, Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile),revealing a stunning new sound and style all captured live in the studio. Cobb shared the band's desire to lay down the tracks live, in the studio including guitar solos and vocals — a first for the group.

Slash released a blues album called "Orgy Of The Damned" in May 2024 via Gibson Records.

In the summer of 2024, Slash brought his brand-new "S.E.R.P.E.N.T." festival to cities across the U.S.. On all dates, Slash performed alongside his blues band featuring bassist Johnny Griparic, keyboardist Teddy "ZigZag" Andreadis, drummer Michael Jerome and singer/guitarist Tash Neal.

Photo credit: Ross Halfin

BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION, the supergroup featuring legendary vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes (DEEP PURPLE, BLACK SABBATH),guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Jason Bonham (LED ZEPPELIN) and keyboardist Derek Sherinian (DREAM THEATER, ALICE COOPER, BILLY IDOL),kicked off its spring/summer 2025 European tour last night (Friday, June 6) at Amager Bio in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The band's setlist was as follows, according to Setlist.fm:

01. Sway
02. One Last Soul
03. Wanderlust
04. Crossfire
05. Song Of Yesterday
06. Save Me
07. The Outsider
08. Faithless
09. Red Sun
10. Cold
11. The Crow
12. Stay Free

Encore:

13. Sista Jane
14. Black Country
15. Mistreated (DEEP PURPLE cover)

Fan-filmed video of the concert can be seen below.

The trek is a combination of headline shows in the Germany, The Netherlands, Austria and Czech Republic, as well as festival appearances such as Sweden Rock and Poland's Rock Legends.

BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION is touring in support of its fifth studio album, "V", which came out in June 2024.

Resonating with the band's signature fusion of hard rock and soul-stirring blues, "V" stands as a testament to BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION's growth and mutual admiration, symbolizing their commitment to producing music that is authentic, heartfelt, and reflective of their shared experiences and vast musical expertise.

"This band allows me to embrace all of it," comments Bonamassa. "It's funny because the four musicians up here — everybody brings a certain thing to this that’s very specific. Every part is irreplaceable. For me, it's about playing old-style rock guitar, loud."

Hughes adds: "We make music for the five of us. We make music that we love and like, hoping it registers with everyone else. We don't make it for record companies, or this guy or that guy." Sherinian credits producer Kevin Shirley for keeping the band's creative energies focused, adding, "We've got to give Kevin Shirley massive credit because he controls. He keeps it all flowing."

Produced by Shirley, "V" marks a monumental chapter in the band's storied career, embodying a renewed spirit and an evolution of their unmistakable sound. Shirley captures the essence of the band's journey, stating: "For a band that started out as a collection of the best practitioners of their instruments, they very quickly found a unique sound. This time around, it has more purpose, the riffs are tougher, and there are hooks! Yes, hooks! It's the most cohesive record, full of soul and grit, and I think this is the one that's going to be the benchmark for BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION." Glenn agrees: "In my opinion, we had the best time recording this record at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, tons of fun and a magical recording. Meet you inside the music.”

"Stay Free", the lead single, is a powerhouse track that blends hard rock's raw energy with a heavy dose of blues, channeling the spirit of legends like AC/DC and LED ZEPPELIN. It sets the tone for what fans can expect from "V" — a testament to the band's dynamic synergy and creative evolution.

Since their debut in 2010, BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION has delivered a series of critically acclaimed albums, each showcasing the group's ability to fuse British blues-rock with American soul in a way that captivates audiences worldwide. Their return with "V" reaffirms their status as rock royalty and showcases their growth as musicians and storytellers.

Shirley's insight into the recording process highlights the unique chemistry and camaraderie within the band. "When we convened in 2023 to start recording the album 'V', it really was like picking up the day after the most recent gig," Shirley reflects. "The camaraderie is immediately evident. Once they start playing, everyone is deadly serious, and the music sounds like this band, and nothing else sounds like it."

"V" is a milestone that celebrates the journey, talent, and vision of BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION. As the band embarks on this new chapter, they invite fans old and new to join them in experiencing the depth and power of "V".

During an appearance on an August 2023 episode of SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk", Hughes stated about the musical direction of the new BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION material: "It sounds like BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION. There's not too many left turns, there's nothing happening that's weirdly different. We followed a vibe of the first four albums, so it it's an extension, but it's really a progression, if you can call it a progression. Everybody's playing out of their skin. The vibe in the camp has never been so friendly and fun. It's a really, really great vibe in the band. And we had a great time at Sunset Sound [studios] in Hollywood. And I can't wait for you to hear it."

Bonamassa told "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk" about the new BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION album: "The thing about BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION, whether you like the way we sound or not, when we all get together, it has a very specific thing that it does. Everybody brings a very specific thing to the table, and it's a special band."

According to Joe, he brought the BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION members back together to make the follow-up to "BCCIV", which was released in September 2017 and marked BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION's first studio effort since 2013's "Afterglow". "I was the one that kind of initiated the text, be, like, 'Hey, is there anybody interested in doing a fifth one?'" he said. "And Derek got back to me. Jason got back to me pretty quickly. And Glenn called me and said, 'I can't do anything until this DEAD DAISIES situation goes one way or the next.' And I said, 'Fair enough.' So when Glenn left THE DEAD DAISIES [in 2022], that was kind of the green light for us to get back together."

Regarding the songwriting process for BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION's fifth album and how it compared to that on the band's previous efforts, Joe said: "This was the same. I went over to Glenn's house about six times and we hashed out some ideas — pretty rough, loose ideas. Nothing in stone. And so I had a playlist on my phone, voice memos, BCC 1 through 10. And that was it. So, so day one, we just [said], 'Okay, let's start with BCC 1.' And we sat in the courtyard at Sunset Sound — they have this really nice courtyard with a bunch of chairs — and we sat out there with an acoustic guitar and a couple of things and we just bashed out the arrangement. We were, like, 'Okay, that's cool.' We went in, played it three or four times and that was it. Nobody charted anything; we just kind of memorized it and did it. And we would go into the control room, listen a little bit, maybe tweak something, but once it fired up and after the second day, we really hit our stride, going, 'Okay, the band's back.' 'Cause we hadn't played together in six years."

As for the recording process for the new BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION disc, Joe said: "There's not a lot of overdubs. I rarely double the guitars, 'cause Glenn's bass sound is so big and distorted, you know what I mean? It's, like, why do I need to double the guitar? Same thing with Derek. It's almost like playing in the band FREE. All of the sound comes from the four of us. And Jason takes up a huge amount of bandwidth; he's such a big drummer."

In a September 2022 interview with Andy Hall of the Des Moines, Iowa radio station Lazer 103.3, Bonamassa stated about what it is about a "band situation" that appeals to him, considering he has spent most of his career as a solo artist: "I like nothing more than to be a member of a band and playing guitar. I don't have to front it; I don't have to sing all the time. And it's a lot less pressure than being the front person. Being the person in front is a special skillset. You have to be an entertainer. You can't just sit up there and stare at your guitar and go, 'Wow. Look, I can play guitar pretty good.' That's not gonna fill the theater. You have to put on a show. And to put on a show requires being an entertainer. So being in a band, the sum of the parts is greater than the single entity. So this thing where Glenn co-fronts BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION, I can just sit back and play rhythm guitar and watch him do his thing. He's a legend. And then conversely, Glenn doesn't have to sing all night; I'll sing three or four [songs]. So we kind of spread out the whole workload a little bit."

BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION's inception took place when Hughes and Bonamassa fused their styles on stage in Los Angeles for an explosive performance at Guitar Center's King Of The Blues event. With the help and guidance of Shirley, they further added to their rock lineage by recruiting Bonham and Sherinian.

In a 2017 interview, Hughes talked about the chemistry between the BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION members, especially since all the musicians have had successful careers prior to launching the group.

"This band was meant to be," Glenn said. "It was formed out of a friendship with Joe and I. We got the [other] guys to come in, and it's always been a strong brotherhood. And we're just very lucky and fortunate to have met. I've known Jason since he was [a kid]. I just think that these four guys in this band are the right guys to play in the band."

Press photo in tour poster by Rob Bondurant

In a new interview with Get On The Bus, former VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony was asked if he had any career regrets. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "The only regret that I have is how things, unfortunately, turned out for VAN HALEN… It's a culmination of everything that happened or whatever, because when VAN HALEN was really firing on all 12 cylinders, we're living the dream, it's the fairy tale or whatever, and the first time it ended when [original VAN HALEN singer David Lee] Roth left the band, luckily Sammy [Hagar] joined the band and it was like a rebirth. And, obviously, the band was even bigger at that point or whatever.

"But the only regret I have is the way it all ended," he continued. "It should have gone out with a fricking bang that shook the world, and it was more like a whimper, the way everything ended.

"Unfortunately Eddie [Van Halen, VAN HALEN guitarist] and I never [made amends] — we had some issues, and I'm sure that if he had not passed when he did that we would've reconciled or we would've really calmed all that stuff down, because I did hear, and I've talked to Wolfgang [Van Halen, Eddie's son and Anthony's replacement in VAN HALEN] about it, that they were planning on coming to all of us and putting together a big reunion tour with all of us," Anthony added. "And at that point in Ed's life, I think he was a little bit more, like, 'Hey, the past is the past. Let's all… Fricking water under the bridge,' that whole bit. But, unfortunately, it was not to be."

Back in May 2024, Anthony was asked by Sally Steele if he had a chance to speak to Eddie Van Halen before the legendary guitarist's passing in October 2020. He said: "No, unfortunately, Eddie and I never had a chance to really settle any differences that we had in the past or whatever. But at the end of 2023 here, Wolfgang, he played the House Of Blues out here [in Las Vegas] [with his new band MAMMOTH WVH] and I went to the show as his guest. And we talked, we sat and talked, and there was a lot of closure for me there. Valerie [Bertinelli, Wolfgang's mother and Eddie's ex-wife] was there. So it was a great night. Besides the fact that Wolf is a great guy, great musician, his band kicks ass. But, yeah. So at least we were able to do that."

When Sally noted that Michael is "friends now" with the guy "who took [his] job" in VAN HALEN, Anthony said: "Yeah. Oh, yeah, we've always been friends. I think in Wolfie's mind… And Eddie, he wanted to play with his son. The way I kind of feel is that Wolfgang probably wasn't excited, really, about being in VAN HALEN. That's why in his band, he doesn't play any VAN HALEN, 'cause he wants to carve out his own niche. But just to be able to get up and play with his father, I can totally understand that. But no, I love Wolfie, man. I hadn't seen him in, like, 20 years. I went to the show, it was great. We had a great time, great hangout."

Asked if he saw it coming that Eddie was "grooming" Wolfgang for the bassist gig in VAN HALEN, Michael said: "No, no. I didn't see him grooming him for my job. 'Cause [Wolfgang] played drums. That was his first instrument that he played. And he knew a couple of chords on guitar 'cause in 2004 when we did the VAN HALEN reunion tour, Wolfie came out and actually strummed a couple of chords with [Eddie] at some of the shows. But being Eddie Van Halen's kid, you're gonna be a multi-instrumental person anyway."

In January 2024, Wolfgang spoke to Loudwire about what it was like to reconnect with Michael at MAMMOTH WVH's December 8, 2023 concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. The MAMMOTH leader said: "He's family. It was long overdue. I think we had planned that at least since I've been touring and it just worked out and it was very wonderful to see him. [I] love that my mom [Valerie Bertinelli] was there [and] my uncle Patrick who is also part of the MAMMOTH team; he goes way back with them. It's really nice to have that little reunion."

A few hours after MAMMOTH WVH's concert in Las Vegas, Wolfgang took to his social media to share a couple of backstage photos of him with Michael at the House Of Blues, and he included the following message: "Ran into an old friend at the @mammothwvh show in Vegas tonight. (Love ya, Mikey)"

Michael shared a video of the MAMMOTH WVH concert and a backstage photo of him and Wolfgang, and he wrote: "Went to see MAMMOTH WVH last night here in Vegas, and they threw it down! Love ya Wolf, so great to see ya! (Proud of you brother!!)" Asked by a fan how long it had been since he and Wolfgang last met, Michael replied: "First time in 20 years."

In an interview with New York's Q104.3 radio station conducted prior to the House Of Blues show, Wolfgang said he was looking forward to meeting Michael. "I'm gonna be seeing Mike in Vegas, so I'm stoked to give him a hug," he said. He also said that he was "stoked" that Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani and Jason Bonham were planning a 2024 tour focusing largely on VAN HALEN music. "Yeah, that's super cool, man," he said.

Back in November 2020, Wolfgang was asked by Steve Baltin of Forbes how he dealt with all the negativity he was subjected to online after it was announced he was stepping in for Anthony on VAN HALEN's reunion tour with David Lee Roth. He responded: "I don't think it was a personal thing. I think it was their love for Michael Anthony, it had nothing to do with me as a person. It's just that they would have much rather seen him without realizing the back story of how [the reunion] probably wouldn't have happened without me because Dad felt incredibly uninspired and, especially when he was sober, he had a monumental anxiety issue and having me there made him more comfortable and creative. Now that people are starting to learn the truth behind everything so many people understand and actually apologized directly to me on Twitter, like, 'Hey, man, I hated you before, but I realize that I actually never really knew you. I just hated you for a reason outside of your control and I just wanted to apologize. I feel terrible.' That's a really big thing for people to do, especially on the Internet. So I've been really touched by how kind people have been that may have been rude to me in the past. It all rolled off my back anyways. But it takes a big person to admit when they're wrong. And these people are certainly doing that in droves and I can't believe it."

After Baltin pointed out that Eddie Van Halen made it clear in a 2009 interview that the only way that tour was happening was because he was so happy to tour with his son, Wolfgang said: "Yeah, it was incredibly important to him and I don't think people really took his words to heart, I don't think they really believed it. They wanted to look to the negative. In this day and age it's always about the cynical reaction and everything, so the true meaning behind what he was saying never really resonated."

More than four years ago, Wolfgang revealed that his father had contemplated a "kitchen-sink" VAN HALEN tour that would have included Anthony, as well as vocal turns from both Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth. There was even talk about bringing back Gary Cherone, who sang with the band on one poorly received album, 1998's "Van Halen III".

"It was my idea," Wolfgang told the Houston, Texas radio station 94.5 The Buzz. "Over the years, I'd been talking to Dad and introducing the idea of, like, 'Hey, hear me out. But this would be really cool. What if we had Mike come back and I could open?' And over the next year or so, he started to warm up to the idea, and he was into it. And then we started joking around with the idea of the kitchen-sink tour — everything but the kitchen sink — and just get everybody. Get Hagar, get Cherone, get Roth, Anthony, and we'd all get up on stage and just have a party. And we even spoke to Irving Azoff, the band's manager, and he got really excited about it, and hit up Anthony. I think that's how the rumors got out. But by that time, Dad's health was in such a decline that we were kind of waiting until we could over this hump to [where] we can get back to it, and we never got to that point, unfortunately."

According to Wolfgang, the original plan was for him to personally contact Michael and ask him to come back to VAN HALEN. "Unfortunately, Irving hit [Michael] up before I had a chance to," he said. "The plan was for me to [reach out to him]." Wolfgang went on to say that he was also the one who called Roth in 2007 to get him to return to VAN HALEN for a reunion tour.

In early 2019, a rumor surfaced that the classic VAN HALEN lineup would reunite that summer for a run of stadium shows. This would have been the first time that Michael, Eddie, David and Alex Van Halen performed together since 1984.

The rumors originally started with Roth, who hinted to Vulture that VAN HALEN would be playing stadiums with Anthony back in the lineup.

VAN HALEN and Anthony had not been on good terms for more than a decade, with Anthony not invited to join the reunion with Roth that began in 2007. The subsequent two tours and studio album, "A Different Kind Of Truth", featured Wolfgang on bass.

Anthony took a pay cut and signed away all of his rights to the band name and logo in order to participate in VAN HALEN's 2004 tour, which featured Hagar.

Eddie died in October 2020 at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. The iconic VAN HALEN axeman died from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.

In a new interview with Finland's Tumma Nuotti, former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate was asked to name the "funniest 'Spinal Tap' moment" of his career, a reference to the classic 1984 film mockumentary "This Is Spinal Tap" and the fact that many bands have talked about having experienced similar situations that the members of SPINAL TAP found themselves in. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, my 'Spinal Tap' moment would be the scene in the movie where — I can't remember the characters' names, but the guy's complaining about backstage in his dressing room with the sandwich meat [SPINAL TAP guitarist Nigel Tufnel complaining about the deli tray; see scene below]. I saw the reality of that, the real one.

"Before the movie came out, I was on tour with WHITESNAKE, and [WHITESNAKE leader] David Coverdale was having a meltdown in his dressing room regarding the same issue about the catering and the meat didn't fit the sandwich," Geoff continued. "And I swear, somebody heard that and they wrote that into the 'Spinal Tap' movie years later, because it was the exact same scene.

"At the time, I remember I was very young and I remember thinking, 'Why is [Coverdale] upset about that?'" Tate added. "But the older I get, I really understand that he wanted it done — he wanted his dressing room set up the way he wanted it to be set up. It makes it better and easier for him, and that's why he has it there. And so it wasn't done right. And so he was letting his guy know that he wasn't gonna take it anymore. [Laughs]"

As previously reported, "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues", the sequel to "This Is Spinal Tap", will receive a theatrical release on September 12.

"Spinal Tap II: The End Continues" reunites director Rob Reiner with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer as they reprise their iconic roles as the legendary heavy metal band SPINAL TAP in this long-awaited sequel.

Reiner has returned to direct and write, and original stars/writers Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are reprising their roles as Nigel Tufnel, David St Hubbins and Derek Smalls, respectively. Reiner will also return as the documentarian Martin "Marty" DiBergi.

In the sequel, the fictional heavy metal group reunites after a 15-year hiatus for one final concert. Music legends Elton John, Paul McCartney, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood are all set to make cameos.

The "Spinal Tap" sequel will also see the return of Fran Drescher, who will reprise her role as the band's publicist, Bobbi Flekman, from the original 1984 movie. The film will also feature newcomers John Michael Higgins, Jason Acuña, Don Lake, Nina Conti, Griffin Matthews, Kerry Godliman, Chris Addison, Brad Williams and musician Paul Shaffer.

"This Is Spinal Tap" has become a cult classic since its first theatrical run 41 years ago. The film was produced independently on a shoestring budget of $2.25 million by a company owned by the four creators, Reiner, Guest, McKean and Shearer. Two years in production, the film was released in 1984. It soon became a cult favorite and spawned a genre that has come to be known as "mockumentary," inspiring many subsequent filmmakers. Phrases from the film's script have entered the general lexicon, including "none more black" and "it goes to 11," the latter phrase exemplified by the Tesla car, whose audio system's volume control goes to 11, as does that on the BBC's iPlayer.

Its reputation as one of the 20th Century's most enduring comedies has increased exponentially in the ensuing years. The film has garnered international praise and acclaim, having been included in "best ever" lists such as The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made; Total Film's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time list; Entertainment Weekly's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time where it appeared on the "Just Too Beloved to Ignore" list; and achieving the coveted No. 1 spot on Time Out London's 100 Best Comedy Movies list.

In 2002, the film's lasting appeal led the U.S. Library of Congress (the world's largest cultural collection),to designate it as a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film.

Although "This Is Spinal Tap" was first released in 1984 in the U.S. and U.K., the band SPINAL TAP was actually created in the late 1970s. The band's rock musician characters "Nigel Tufnel" and "David St. Hubbins" were created by Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, with Harry Shearer creating bassist "Derek Smalls." SPINAL TAP's comedic sole claim to fame was as "one of England's loudest bands." Performing as their beloved stage personae in the company of a rotating cast of percussionists willing to risk the kit (as so many of their predecessors have been accident prone),SPINAL TAP has toured the world multiple times since the film's release. Hundreds of thousands of SPINAL TAP sound recordings have been sold over the ensuing decades and the film has been released on scores of video formats through the years.

In 2019, the band's creators concluded a new agreement with Universal Music Group. The band's recording of a full-length SPINAL TAP album featuring songs from the film is still available for physical sale, download and streaming today from UMG.

"This Is Spinal Tap" was released to little fanfare with some viewers convinced the bumbling dinosaurs — who had a knack of losing drummers in freak accidents — on screen were a genuine band. But word of mouth about the smartly observed film, which took a pop at bands such as STATUS QUO, LED ZEPPELIN and BLACK SABBATH, spread and it became a sleeper hit.

According to the Belfast Telegraph, McKean, Guest and Shearer prepared several scenes with Reiner but then ad-libbed. At the end of filming, they had more than 40 hours of footage, which was edited down to a more manageable form.

When "This Is Spinal Tap" was released, not everybody got that it was a "mockumentary." U2's The Edge immediately embraced it, saying: "I didn't laugh, I wept. It was so close to the truth." Ozzy Osbourne didn't understand it, saying the first time he watched it, he thought it was a real documentary. Early home video versions of the movie reportedly even had a disclaimer at the start and finish of the movie stating the band didn't really exist.

DEMON HUNTER has released a brand new single and music video, "Light Bends".

Like last month's "I'm Done", the "Light Bends" music video was directed by DEMON HUNTER frontman Ryan Clark. Both songs were produced by Clark and guitarist Jeremiah Scott, mixed and mastered by Chris "Zeuss" Harris (ROB ZOMBIE, HATEBREED, QUEENSRŸCHE) and arrive via the band's own label, Weapons MFG. "I'm Done" and "Light Bends" are available on all streaming platforms.

"Light Bends" is the seventh standalone single since the arrival of DEMON HUNTER's eleventh studio album, "Exile", in October 2022. It follows "The Brink", "Some Of Us", "Worlds Apart", "Black Stained Glass", "Falling Apart" (with SET THE SUN) and the aforementioned "I'm Done".

"Exile" was DEMON HUNTER's first album issued on Weapons MFG. It debuted at No. 9 on Billboard's Album sales chart; No. 1 in Christian sales; No. 3 in Hard Music and Independent; and No. 4 in Rock.

Scott produced and mixed "Exile", which boasted guest appearances from Max Cavalera (SOULFLY),Tom S. Englund (EVERGREY),and Richie Faulkner (JUDAS PRIEST). Darren Craig (SLIPKNOT, Rihanna, Kanye West) directed the first music video for the album, "Freedom Is Dead".

DEMON HUNTER will appear at this year's Louder Than Life (Louisville) and Aftershock (Sacramento) festivals.

Photo credit: Tyler Byars

Canadian rock legends TRIUMPH reunited for a three-song performance — "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.

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 (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "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.

In a new interview with CooperTalk, legendary rock vocalist Graham Bonnet (RAINBOW, ALCATRAZZ, MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP) spoke about how he takes care of his singing voice, particularly now that he is approaching the age of 80 (Graham turned 77 last December). He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "When I come off stage, I still have a speaking voice, and if I can still speak, then I know that I've used my voice properly and not harmed it in any way. 'Cause it's so easy to abuse yourself by doing all that stuff, silly notes and whatever. So I try to think, 'You don't have to do that.' I'm thinking about my breathing, the way the notes come out. And I see that note in my head, and I know if I can hit it, I have to take a really deep breath, make sure that I'm pushing that note out. So I've been very, very careful and not drinking too much coffee a day and all that kind of thing. And then if I can speak, as I said, after the show, I know I did it properly. I didn't just sing for the sake of singing and messed it up by showing off by, screaming, let's say. So I've been very lucky.

"What happened was, actually, about — I don't know — it must be about 10 years ago, I went to my throat specialist and he said, 'Your right vocal cord has collapsed,'" he continued. "And he said, 'It needs pumping up again, basically.' So I said, 'Oh, really?' So he injected it — I don't know if it was cortisone or something — and as I said, this was, like, 10 years ago, and he said, 'Try singing now.' And I said, 'Oh my God.' I said, 'I sound just the way I used to.' I said, 'Well, near enough.' And he said, 'Yeah, you're gonna be better now.' He said, 'You'll still have that scarring a little bit on your right vocal cord, but it's not gonna affect your singing voice.' And it's helped a hundred percent.

"We've been doing shows for the past — how long have we been out? — a couple of weeks. So we've just got back, and I tell you on every show we've done, I get these people coming back to me and going, 'How the fuck do you sing the same as you used to?' I get that. And there've been recordings of our latest [gigs] — people film all the time at clubs on their phones, and it sounds awful, I know. But they come backstage afterwards, a meet-and-greet thing, and they just say, 'How do you do it? How do you do it?' I said, 'I don't know. I've just been very, very lucky.' And I think it's the way you're built."

Asked how he feels about audiences making cellphones part of their concert experience nowadays, Graham said: "That's the fricking problem, 'cause especially in Japan — well, we see [fan-filmed footage of] concerts from Japan, and they love to sing with you. And if they've got the phone [out recording the show], you hear all this [singing]. I'm going, 'Holy crap. I'm so out of tune.' And Beth-Ami [Heavenstone, who is a member of Graham's band as well as his girlfriend] says to me, like, 'That's not you. That's them. It's the person with the phone that's singing with you.'

"I never really watch those things, but if it's being recorded properly, then I'm okay, if it's a proper kind of setup," he explained. "But from a phone, it sounds bloody awful most of the time. And the band sounds terrible. It sounds like we're all in different fucking key or whatever. It's weird. But it doesn't really put me off. I expect it. It's part of the bloody job now. But I know that some performers… I think it was — who was it? — I think it was Ted Nugent. I think it was him who said, 'No phones. Please leave your phone at the door if you're gonna come see me.' I mean, this was a while ago when those phones came out with a fucking camera. And I mean, everybody's doing it. You see people in restaurants — as soon as they sit down, the fucking phone comes out. They're not talking to each other. Things like that. It's a different world now."

The GRAHAM BONNET BAND's third studio album, "Day Out In Nowhere", came out in May 2022 via Frontiers Music Srl.

Graham was joined on the LP by longtime bandmates Beth-Ami Heavenstone (bass) and Conrado Pesinato (guitar),as well as keyboardist Alessandro Bertoni and drummer Shane Gaalaas. "Day Out In Nowhere" also saw performance and co-writing guest appearances from Jeff Loomis (ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE),John Tempesta (THE CULT, WHITE ZOMBIE),Mike Tempesta (POWERMAN 5000),Roy Z (HALFORD, BRUCE DICKINSON) and Don Airey (DEEP PURPLE, RAINBOW).

Bonnet is a hard rock legend with a pedigree to back that statement up. His solo offerings and stints with RAINBOW, MSG, ALCATRAZZ and IMPELLITTERI prove he is one of the finest rock vocalists and songwriters of his generation. From his late 60s into his 70s, Graham has written and recorded some of the best albums he's ever done, including a reunion album with GRAHAM BONNET'S ALCATRAZZ called "Born Innocent" in 2020, along with three records with his GRAHAM BONNET BAND: 2016's "The Book", 2018's "Meanwhile, Back In The Garage" and the aforementioned "Day Out In Nowhere".

In 1979, Bonnet auditioned for the frontman position in RAINBOW. With his James Dean image, the choice of Bonnet to replace Ronnie James Dio was subject to some questions. However, once the band heard Bonnet sing, they knew they had their man. With Bonnet at the mic, they recorded the "Down To Earth" LP, which became one of RAINBOW's most successful releases.

Graham moved on from RAINBOW in the early '80s to work on his solo career. He also played with MICHAEL SCHENKER GROUP, recorded several albums with ALCATRAZZ and had a short stint with IMPELLITTERI.

Fan-filmed video of ACCEPT's June 3 concert at the Gröna Lund amusement park in Stockholm, Sweden can be seen below.

The band's setlist was as follows, according to Setlist.fm:

01. The Reckoning
02. Humanoid
03. Restless And Wild
04. London Leatherboys
05. Midnight Mover
06. Straight Up Jack
07. Demon's Night / Starlight / Losers And Winners / Flash Rockin' Man
08. The Abyss
09. Breaker
10. Shadow Soldiers
11. Princess Of The Dawn
12. Metal Heart
13. Teutonic Terror
14. Pandemic

Encore:

15. Fast As A Shark
16. Balls To The Wall
17. I'm A Rebel

In a recent interview with Mark Strigl, ACCEPT guitarist Wolf Hoffmann was asked if the band's longtime producer Andy Sneap will be involved with ACCEPT's upcoming 50th-anniversary album. Wolf said: "He will not be on this one, because he asked for a year off from us. I asked him, I begged him to produce his album, but then we found a good buddy of his. His name is Zeuss [Chris Harris]. He's producing it."

Hoffmann continued: "[Andy is] kind of part of the family now, but he's been touring so much with [JUDAS] PRIEST [as that band's touring guitarist], and he's been working so much in the studio last year. I think he did SAXON, he did PRIEST, he also did DREAM THEATER — he's done a bunch of stuff. So when I said, 'Hey, can we work this year again?' He said, 'Man, can I please have a year off?', which is understandable."

Regarding ACCEPT's upcoming 50th-anniversary tour, which is expected to launch at the end of the year, Wolf said: "It's gonna be a retrospective of the whole 50-year career and, of course, it's gonna feature a lot of the important stuff from the '80s and some deeper cuts. And we're gonna perform with guest singers and guest players, and it's gonna be super exciting, like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. You only have one shot at a 50-year anniversary… I don't think we'll get a chance for another one."

Asked what continues to drive him creatively to keep making new music with ACCEPT, Wolf said: "Well, we're still hungry. I still have the energy and I still have the passion for it, so I don't ever feel like I'm at this point where I've kind of had enough or I wanna retire or anything like that. I'm still full force in it, man. And so is everybody in the band. And that is, I guess, what keeps us motivated and what keeps it going. And it's a lot of fun to create stuff that actually means something to the fans. It would be one thing if we were releasing albums and everybody said, 'You know what? Just play the old songs. We don't really need any new stuff.' But the opposite is true. People are really eating the stuff up, and they're really, really happy and they're respecting the fact that we are still working so hard. So the old songs and the new songs kind of live side by side when we perform live. I mean, at one point the classics are always gonna be the classics and they're gonna be featured on radio more and that sort of thing. But when it comes to live performances. I think the fans really appreciate the fact that we play new stuff."

Sneap produced ACCEPT's last six studio albums: "Blood Of The Nations" (2010),"Stalingrad" (2012),"Blind Rage" (2014),"The Rise Of Chaos" (2017),"Too Mean To Die" (2021) and "Humanoid" (2024).

Zeuss has previously worked with ROB ZOMBIE, HATEBREED, QUEENSRŸCHE, SHADOWS FALL, DEMON HUNTER, OVERKILL and REVOCATION, among many others.

Four months ago, Hoffmann told Metal Talks about ACCEPT's 50th anniversary: "Yeah, it's a funny thing. I joined this band when I was 16 and just never left. And here I am all these all these years later, coming on a 50th anniversary, which is crazy. But yeah, it's definitely something that we're very proud of. And not every band is lucky enough to be around for this long and to still be in the business and to still be touring to still have fans.

"I think ACCEPT, we're very fortunate in the way that we achieved the impossible," he continued. "We had a change of lead singers 15 years ago with Mark Tornillo, and things are better than they've ever been for us. I mean, the last few albums have been phenomenal, the touring is going great, we have sold-out shows everywhere. So, I mean, we are really, really fortunate, and I'm fully aware of that. And yeah, to mark the occasion, we're gonna have a special tour. We're gonna release a new album with — we're gonna re-record some of the old classics and some of the deeper-cut songs from back then with guest people, guest singers, guest guitar players, and we're gonna bring this out on the road in '26. So we're working on that for the next year or so.

"This is a milestone that needs to be celebrated properly, and what better [way to do it]?" Hoffmann added. "I mean, we only have one chance for a 50th anniversary. I don't think I'll get another one. With all optimism, I don't think I'll be around 50 years from now, or the fans will be, so we might as well have this opportunity and make use of it. And it's gonna be fantastic. I know it. We're gonna play some songs we've never played before, and it's gonna be great."

Last November, Wolf told The Adamantium Podcast about ACCEPT's upcoming 50th-anniversary album and tour: "Well, I can't tell you too much yet, because it's too early and right now we're featuring this tour [promoting ACCEPT's latest album, 'Humanoid'], so let's focus on that. But I can tell you it's gonna be a huge thing because turning 50 is a big deal."

Wolf continued: "We have always shied away from all these, I would call them little anniversaries, because, really, we could have done a [celebration of] 20 years of this album, 20 years of that album, 30 years [of some other album]. Every year is something to celebrate. I mean, when you have 15 albums or 16 or 17, something always happened 20, 30, 40 years ago. It's always a round number of years. So we could have done that for a long time. There's people who do it all the time. We always said, 'Nah, we'd much rather feature the current album and then make a new one after that and stay current.' But, man, with 50, that's where I gotta say this is the one — this is the big one. There won't be another one… And also, quite honestly, we're getting up there in age a little bit, and I'm not quite ready to retire, but you never really know. Honestly, at some point, we could all say this might be our last tour. You never really know. Somebody might get sick.

"50 is a big deal, and we're gonna really celebrate it properly," Hoffmann added. "It's gonna be a completely different show with a lot of surprises. That's all I know. So we've got a year of planning to do and then executing and stuff."

Last summer, Wolf was asked by Metal Journal why he and his bandmates decided to announce that they will embark on a 50th-anniversary tour in late 2025 when they still had plenty of touring to do last year in support of their latest album, "Humanoid". He said: "Things like that take time. People have asked me for the last two years: 'Are you gonna do an anniversary thing?' Everybody wants to know. So I finally said, 'Okay, we're gonna do it.' And it's gonna be massive, man. It's gonna be a huge surprise with all the guests that we're gonna have. And I think it's gonna be completely different from anything we've ever done before. So I think it's gonna blow people away. But that doesn't take away from this tour that we have coming up, because, first of all, it's gonna be another year or more before we even go on this next tour. So if you like the new album, 'Humanoid', and if you love ACCEPT, you've gotta see this tour, no matter what. It's gonna be definitely a highlight anyhow."

On the topic of whether there was any talk about possibly announcing a farewell tour to coincide with ACCEPT's 50th anniversary, Wolf said: "We've been doing it for a long, long time. And I honestly don't know how long I can do this. I mean, nobody knows what the future will bring, and it has crossed our mind, absolutely. So, it might be that we go off with a highlight like this and then just really say, 'Okay, this was it.' I don't know yet, to be honest."

Regarding whether former ACCEPT members Udo Dirkschneider (vocals) and Peter Baltes (bass) will be invited to take part in the 50th-anniversary tour, perhaps just in the form of a guest appearance at select shows, Wolf said: "Yeah, of course, of course. That doesn't mean they're gonna [show up]. We have to wait and see. Of course, everybody [is invited]. The door is always open for anybody to join us on this, because it's gonna be a retrospective of all the 50 years of ACCEPT, and whoever wants to participate is more than welcome. Yes, sure."

Asked if he will call Udo and Peter directly to ask them to participate in the tour or if he will wait for their call, a visibly irritated Wolf said: "Can you shut up already? You're not gonna get me to talk about it. I'm sorry, man. I know it's a nice try. Everybody wants to know these things."

Wolf also talked about ACCEPT's plan to release a special album in early 2026 that will cover the band's entire musical history. The anniversary LP will contain a carefully curated selection of the best ACCEPT songs from the last five decades, re-recorded — partly with well-known surprise musical guests and colleagues — as well as with some rare tracks that have not been played so often before. He said: "I can't tell you anything yet, because it's way too early. I can just tell you it's gonna be a massive thing. And I don't really wanna get into it yet because I'm not really here to talk specifics about it. It's still in the planning stages. It's gonna be amazing. I think it's gonna be some really big names that are gonna be participating in that. And you'll have to wait. Sorry. It's just too early."

As for whether ACCEPT has already "selected" the guest musicians who will appear on the album, Wolf said: "Yes, we have selected a lot of it. Not all of it, but we have selected a lot."

Over the past five decades, ACCEPT has sold millions of albums and inspired countless musicians. Their energetic live performances and iconic albums such as "Balls To The Wall", "Restless And Wild" and "Metal Heart" have left a lasting mark on the heavy metal genre. Hoffmann's guitar style and musical vision have made the band one of the most respected on the heavy metal scene.

After a hiatus in the band's career, Wolf was introduced to New Jersey singer Mark Tornillo in 2009. The chemistry and fit between them was so remarkable, ACCEPT reformed and almost immediately rose to global success with chart-topping albums. ACCEPT continues to be celebrated for each of their new records with Mark, who is now the longest-reigning frontman of ACCEPT, placing the Hoffmann-Tornillo partnership firmly in the Metal Hall Of Fame.

For decades, ACCEPT has been recognized as a guarantee of high quality and each of their albums has reached the top of the charts, delivering energy, melodies, killer riffs and an impressively powerful stage presence for 50 years.

ACCEPT and KK'S PRIEST recently joined forces for a summer/fall 2024 North American tour. The run began on August 31, 2024 in Los Angeles, California, visiting a slew of major cities in the USA and Canada — such as Toronto, Montreal, New York and Nashville — before coming to an end in San Francisco, California on October 7, 2024.

Tornillo joined ACCEPT in 2009 as the replacement for Dirkschneider, who was the band's original lead singer. Mark can be heard on ACCEPT's last six studio albums.