WOW! It’s actually RAINING here! Hard! Florida has been in a drought state recently and I am glad to have a day of gray skies. Too much sun is just, well, okay.
I knew this news was imminent, I just was surprised at the details. The Pulse Of Radio announced A Perfect Circle has announced it has signed a new worldwide recording deal with BMG Music. The band is currently in the studio working on material for a new full-length album, to be released later in the year. The last full-length set from A Perfect Circle, a collection of cover songs called eMOTIVe, arrived in 2004, while the band’s last collection of all-original material, Thirteenth Step, came out in 2003.
Since then, A Perfect Circle has been largely inactive on the recording front for 13 years, with only a new song titled “By And Down” surfacing in 2013. The band’s previous albums were released through Virgin Records.
The group, which toured in 2010 and 2011, will embark on its first full-fledged tour in six years starting on April 6th in Las Vegas. The schedule will include sets at the Welcome To Rockville, Fort Rock and Carolina Rebellion festivals in late April and early May, along with a closing night stop at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on May 7th.
Guitarist Billy Howerdel told Billboard fans may get to hear some new music on the tour, saying, “We’re not promising anything, but I have every intention of doing my best to have us playing some new tracks during this run.” Singer Maynard James Keenan has also reportedly starting laying down vocals for the long-awaited new album from his main band, Tool, although the release prospects for that remain uncertain at the moment. And Billy told me back in January the plan was to have vocals recorded last month in LA for APC.
Pearl Jam are celebrating their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with a video montage set to their classic single “Alive.” The band’s official videographer, Kevin Shuss, wrote about the clip, “To celebrate Pearl Jam’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I made this video to look back at the band’s first 25 years . . . Can’t wait to see what the future holds.” The clip contains footage from throughout the band’s career and features many of the guests who have joined them onstage over the years, including Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Keith Richards and more.
Pearl Jam and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron spoke for the first time about the recent controversy over Pearl Jam’s upcoming induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which will include just two of the band’s five drummers. Cameron, one of the two going in, told Italian publication Rockol about the situation, “Things are out of my control, I have no idea what will happen with the drummers. I just know that the ones who enter the Hall of Fame will be me and Dave Krusen. It is an honor. It will be fun.”
Krusen was Pearl Jam’s original drummer and played on its debut album Ten, while Cameron has been with the band since 1998. The other three drummers — Dave Abbruzzese, Jack Irons and Matt Chamberlain — were invited to attend but will not be inducted during the Apr 7th ceremony in Brooklyn, NY.
According to Alternative Nation, Cameron was also asked by Rockol how work on the next Soundgarden album was going, to which he replied, “Very well, although we started working on it rather slowly because of Chris (Cornell)’s commitments, but also mine. We recorded demos of six, maybe seven songs, and now we will write the same number. We carved out some time to write before entering the recording studio.”
While juggling his duties in Soundgarden and Pearl Jam can be demanding, Cameron told us not long ago that he worked even harder in the early days of his career: “You know what? I’ve actually been a lot busier in my life. When I was in my 20s, I used to play in a bunch of different bands at once and it’s just part of the job of being a drummer — sometimes you’ve got to do a little juggling. But I’m certainly happy to do it.”
In recent months Soundgarden has reissued its classic albums Badmotorfinger and Ultramega OK in new deluxe editions, with the latter remixed entirely. Soundgarden’s last all-new studio album, King Animal, came out in Nov 2012. Pearl Jam’s most recent effort, Lightning Bolt, arrived in Oct 2013. Read the full story at Alternative Nation here and here.
Blabbermouth is reporting items from Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett‘s extensive collection of horror and sci-fi art will go on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA this summer and fall. The exhibit, titled “It’s Alive! Classic Horror And Sci-Fi Art From The Kirk Hammett Collection,” will feature 90 works that highlight the history and evolution of horror and sci-fi films and how they impact modern society and contemporary fears. The exhibition will run from Aug 12th through Nov 26th, and will include film posters as well as collectible electric guitars, monster masks and sculptures.
Themed sections of the exhibit will include “The Undead,” “The Collector,” “Classic Tales,” “Other Realms,” “Women And Power” and “Mad Science.” Published in tandem with the show will be a 120-page exhibition catalogue with 90 color illustrations, titled It’s Alive! Classic Sci-Fi And Horror Movie Posters From The Kirk Hammett Collection.
Hammett, a lifelong horror fan, staged two editions of his own horror convention, Fear FestEvil, in recent years. But he told hardDriveRadio his schedule with Metallica has put the project on ice for now: “Fear FestEvil is something that I intend on doing again in the future, when I actually have more time. It’s something that I’m very hands-on about, and so I’m just going to just chalk this one up as, we’re not going to do it next year, maybe we can do it the following year, but we’ll definitely do another one, or two or three.“
Hammett is currently on tour with Metallica in support of the band’s latest album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, with the trek expected to last throughout the rest of 2017. Hammett released a coffee table book in 2012 called Too Much Horror Business that featured photos of his extensive collection of monster and horror memorabilia. He also displayed a portion of his collection in the “Kirk’s Crypt” exhibition during the 2012 and 2013 Orion Music + More festivals curated by Metallica.
I love Mastodon! The band releases its seventh studio album, Emperor Of Sand, today (Mar 31st). Bassist Troy Sanders from the Atlanta-based band told us about the meaning behind the album’s cryptic title: “We believe that sand represents time, and this record is themed around the idea of time, and over the past couple of years what time has meant for us as a band has been extremely precious, and we focused on how we deal with what time we had to work together, to create together. It’s what we have to work with at the moment, and we just felt that that captures what the four of us have been dealing with for the past couple of years.”
Emperor Of Sand follows up 2014’s Once More ‘Round The Sun and features the rock radio single “Show Yourself.” Mastodon kicks off a spring U.S. headline tour in support of Emperor Of Sand on Apr 14th in Missoula, MT, with support from Eagles Of Death Metal & Russian Circles. The tour also includes stops at several festivals, including Carolina Rebellion on May 5th.
Each pair of tickets purchased online for Mastodon — excluding festival dates and a May 6th gig in Philadelphia — includes a choice of a physical or digital copy of Emperor Of Sand that can be redeemed on the set’s release date. Mastodon will perform on the ABC late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday night, Apr 3rd, with an in-store performance scheduled for Apr 4th at Amoeba Records in Hollywood, CA.
Rolling Stone‘s three-and-a-half star review of Emperor Of Sand calls it Mastodon’s “most ambitious” set in years, saying that at its best it’s a “glorious metal miasma.” Exclaim gave it an 8 out of 10 rating, calling it “at once emotionally powerful and musically arresting.” Yes!
Papa Roach have posted two more new songs from their forthcoming Crooked Teeth album, due May 19th. Check them out above. I am so psyched for the band. This record is really great. They worked really hard with new producers RAS and Colin, who are primarily pop writers/producers who have helped the band look at the way they write and record in a new way. Still Papa Roach. Probably drawing from their roots. Fans will dig for sure!
According to Blabbermouth, the new music on Eleven Seven Music will be available digitally and physically, as a standard (10 tracks) and deluxe (10 tracks + 3 brand new tracks + 16 Live tracks Live at the Fillmore Detroit) editions.
“The first time we met up with RAS and Colin, they said that [2000’s] ‘Infest’ was on constant rotation when they were growing up and they wanted to bring back some of that fire,” says Jacoby Shaddix. Adds Furlong, “The whole idea was to take the classic elements of Papa Roach that everyone loved and revamp them into a modern version of the sound through the creative process, and we ended up with a bold, courageous and more adventurous version of Papa Roach.”
The Furlong/Brittain production team worked to bring in elements of music from different genres and parts of the world, and pockets of rhythm people associate more with rap or reggae, while still staying true to Papa Roach‘s sound. “The people who have wanted to hear me rap for years are gonna love some of the viciousness on this record,” Shaddix proclaims.
From the instantly infectious nature of the title track to the atmospheric sheen of the moody ballad “Periscope” (featuring Skylar Grey) and the acoustic/ hip-hop rock mashup of “Sunrise Trailer Park” (featuring Machine Gun Kelly adding a verse to Shaddix rap) “Crooked Teeth” displays the various sides of Papa Roach and illustrates why they’ve managed to remain relevant while other musical trends ebb and flow. “We didn’t go into this album with the intention of trying to write radio singles,” guitarist Jerry Horton explains. “This collection of songs was really about bookending everything that we’ve done prior to this album and reintroducing Papa Roach to people who didn’t realize the depth that we have,” says drummer Tony Palermo.
In many ways making Crooked Teeth reminded Shaddix of the band’s earliest days, well before they sold millions of albums and became a household name. “When we were in the rehearsal space I wasn’t thinking about who I needed to impress, I was thinking about how much I love making music with the guys in this band.” “It [the album] feels honest and pure and that’s all we could hope for,” adds bassist Tobin Esperance.
Finally today, those miserable hackers out there have a new one. A “CRITICAL CHROME UPDATE” they are putting out there. Appears to be legit, it ain’t. SO don’t fall for it. Luckily for me, I haven’t mastered the opening the zip files so well, so THANKFULLY, I didn’t execute it or I wouldn’t be here today…….
Celebrating life today, my friend Angus Young of AC/DC. He turns 62 today!