This seems right for this long holiday weekend, doesn’t it? Hope your Labor Day weekend is labor-free!
OK, so in the news today…..
Disturbed are enjoying one hell of a year since the release of their Immortalized album. The Pulse Of Radio reports the band watched the record enter the Billboard album chart at Number One to become the group’s fifth chart-topper in a row. With the album also going platinum, plus a massive tour and three Number One singles under their belts as well, singer David Draiman told us he couldn’t be more pleased with the response to the band’s “comeback”: “I hoped and I dreamed, but I will say in all honesty that what has actually transpired has exceeded my hopes and dreams. It’s really been amazing, people’s reception to the record, to our touring, to the three singles that we’ve had out thus far…we’re blown away. We hoped for a positive reception, but we didn’t expect anything like this, so it’s really just overwhelming and we couldn’t be more grateful.“
Disturbed went on hiatus at the end of 2011, with Draiman and the other members of the band all pursuing other projects for several years before returning in 2015. Draiman told Quebec’s Fight+Music the quartet is performing in peak mode since coming back, saying, “It’s been amazing — the fire has been stoked. We’re performing at a level that I personally believe is unprecedented in our careers. The crowds have been amazing, huge.”
Disturbed’s three Number One singles from Immortalized are “The Vengeful One,” “The Light” and their crossover smash cover of Simon & Garfunkel‘s “The Sound Of Silence.” Their current single is “Open Your Eyes.” The band, who are on a break right now, will begin a new round of North American tour dates on Sep 23rd in Las Vegas, where they recorded Immortalized with producer Kevin Churko. It was Kevin’s idea for the band to cover “The Sound Of Silence”, BTW! The tour ends in Sacramento, CA one month later, at Aftershock. Tomorrow, Happy 45th Birthday to Disturbed’s drummer Mike Wengren!
Here’s some more info on Avenged Sevenfold from Loudwire. Singer M. Shadows told the website the band’s ongoing legal battle with its label, Warner Bros Records, over its announcement in late 2015 it was leaving the label, has not been settled yet. Shadows explained, “There hasn’t been a resolution with that . . . We left because every single person at the label — not every single person, the radio department is still intact. But the people that signed us, the A&R people, all the people that had to do with the high up at the company didn’t know who Avenged Sevenfold was or cared at this point. So we had to leave.”
Shadows added, “It had nothing to do with anything other than if you’re at a place where they don’t care about your band, then you have to do somewhere where they do care about your band.” (editor’s note: It pains me to read that statement because I know first hand how much that label cared about the band, ESPECIALLY the radio department. But hey, I am just an outsider looking in.)
Warner Bros. sued the band in early 2016 for breach of contract, claiming that the group owes the company one more studio effort and a live CD/DVD. The dispute with the label may have also played a role in the abandonment of the band’s long-delayed live DVD, This Is Bat Country. Shadows said, “The reality is the DVD just never got there. The DVD was never quite good enough to come out in our opinion. So I don’t know what’s happening with it right now. I know it’s still on the cutting floor. We’re still trying to make tweaks to it, but then there’s also the Warner Bros. thing. We’re not with Warner Bros. anymore and they own the rights to that footage.”
Shadows told us Avenged Sevenfold never wants to release anything to its fans that it doesn’t deem top-notch in quality: “I really want to do better in terms of quality output. I don’t want to have any little areas where you’re just like, ‘Eh.’ When people don’t like a record, I want to come back with the next one and just smash ’em with something amazing. Everyone’s not gonna love everything but I think for us, I really want to keep the high quality output.”
Avenged Sevenfold opened for Metallica in Minneapolis last month and has a string of headlining and festival dates on tap for this fall. The band has been working on its seventh studio album, its first with new drummer Brooks Wackerman. But the band has not set a release date for the disc and has not indicated how far along it is in recording. But don’t be surprised if new music rears it’s little head before we know it!
System Of A Down from the stage back in April 2015 in L.A.
System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan posted two Instagram photos showing bassist Shavo Odadjian and guitarist Daron Malakian rehearsing. Are they jamming? Writing? Who knows?! But it would be great to have them back again! It appears they are practicing in their rehearsal space, along with the hashtag #letsdothis. Singer Serj Tankian does not appear to be present in the pictures, but the three instrumental members of the group are jamming together again. Whether this is for a new tour or possibly the recording of new music remains to be seen. System Of A Down last toured in the spring of 2015 on the Wake Up The Souls Tour, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The tour included a free concert in Republic Square in Yerevan, Armenia on Apr 23, 2015, System’s first show ever in the band members’ ancestral country.
This is interesting from The Pulse Of Radio. An IndieGoGo fundraising campaign has been launched to raise money for the completion of The History Of Metal And Horror, a new documentary that explores the evolution of both heavy metal and horror and how the two genres have complemented each other over time. Among the artists interviewed for the film are Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor (before he quit smoking!), Metallica‘s Kirk Hammett, A Nameless Ghoul from Ghost, Alice Cooper, members of Avatar, Twiggy Ramirez from Marilyn Manson‘s band, Korn‘s Jonathan Davis and many more.
Strangely enough, Hammett — who has staged his own horror convention, has his own merch line and owns a vast collection of memorabilia — told us a while back that he prefers to keep his passion for horror separate from Metallica: “I’m really trying to like keep them separate — my musical career and my horror career. It’s really important that one does not bleed into the other, because they’re two completely different things. And even though they’re two of my main passions, horror movies and music, I still feel the need — just out of respect for, you know, my other bandmates — to keep it separate.“
Also interviewed for the film were horror icons like Hellraiser star Doug Bradley, the late Gunnar Hansen from the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Sid Haig from The Devil’s Rejects and more.
According to Brave Words, the documentary explores the evolution of both heavy metal and horror and features metal artists discussingtheir greatest fears, favorite horror films, past and current influences, their own involvement in horror films and more. The horror stars and musicians will also offer insight into why heavy metal and horror work well together.
Temple Of The Dog released a new remastered version of “Hunger Strike.” The new version appears on the 25th anniversary reissue of Temple Of The Dog’s self-titled debut album, which will come out on Sep 30th. The collection, newly mixed by Brendan O’Brien, will be available in four configurations, including a four-disc Super Deluxe set, a double LP, a two-CD Deluxe, and a single CD. (Blabbermouth)
And let’s leave you with this. Have a great weekend. See ya next week! Be sure to listen for hardDrive‘s special edition, Cover It Up,” this weekend! Tell yer friends! We’ve got exclusive premiere cover song music you are gonna dig!