How about our NFL players? Surely this will spark more conversation, but I believe in the right to free expression. That’s American, after all, isn’t it?
Blabbermouth and The Pulse Of Radio reporting Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo and bassist Robert DeLeo say that things are “looking good” for the band, nearly two years after the passing of original singer Scott Weiland and two months following the death of Weiland’s replacement, Chester Bennington. During an interview on Los Angeles radio station KLOS on Friday (September 22nd), the DeLeo brothers were asked about their search for a new singer. Robert replied, “It’s top secret right now, but we’re working on it,” with Dean adding, “It’s looking good, man. Looking good. New music. And it won’t be too long.”
STP has been without a vocalist since November 2015, when Bennington — who joined the group in early 2013 — departed to spend more time with his main band Linkin Park. Weiland, who reunited with the group in 2010 after an eight-year hiatus but was dismissed in 2013, died in December 2015 of a drug overdose while on a solo tour.
STP last performed live, with Bennington on vocals, for a one-off reunion performance in California in March 2016.
The band held an open call for singers last year, reportedly receiving thousands of submissions and narrowing that down to a handful of prospects with whom the group members got together to jam. Two of the names that have been widely circulated among fans are one-time X Factor contestant Jeff Gutt and Filipino vocalist John Borja. Gutt reportedly rehearsed with the group last May, while Borja recently applied for a U.S. work visa and has hinted at joining the band.
The DeLeo brothers are currently promoting the 25th anniversary expanded reissue of STP’s debut album, Core, which arrives this Friday (Sep 29th) — 25 years to the day of the LP’s original release.
Papa Roach paid tribute to Chester Bennington at their show in Vienna, Austria recently. During their song “Forever, ” they wove in a bit of Linkin Park‘s “In The End,” having the crowd join in the singing of the popular Linkin Park song as well. Frontman Jacoby Shaddix said at the end of the song, “We love you Chester Bennington, rest in peace,” adding, “If there’s anybody in the house tonight who is walking through some darkness, please don’t be afraid to put your f**king hand out and go, ‘Yo, I need some f**king help.’ It takes courage, you know what I’m saying? But you guys, every last one of you guys are worth this life.”
The PRP and The Pulse Of Radio report Prophets Of Rage have released a statement claiming their new music video for “Hail to the Chief” has been restricted from YouTube to certain users due to age restrictions, calling it an “egregious violation of our right to free speech.” The statement said, “We consider censorship in any form to be an egregious violation of our right to free speech. We were shocked to see that YouTube has placed an age restriction on viewing our ‘Hail To The Chief’ video, something no other media outlet has done.”
The band added, “Furthermore, one can watch Saddam Hussein’s execution with no age restriction, can watch a car kill innocent bystanders in Charlottesville, but one cannot watch a politically minded video?? We question this decision by YouTube and demand free and unrestricted access to the video immediately.”
The “Hail To The Chief” video takes a scathing view of the Trump Administration, incorporating photos of Trump hotels, the White House, images of victims hanging from nooses, shots of Donald Trump and Mike Pence glad-handing with Vladimir Putin and more.
Guitarist Tom Morello told us that Prophets Of Rage is not just about an anti-Trump message: “It heightens the stakes, in that the threat of environmental or nuclear disaster is closer now, but there was injustice before Donald Trump and there will be injustice after Donald Trump. However, there was also resistance to injustice before Donald Trump and that resistance will continue past him. We just have to look at our moment in time and weave our convictions into our vocation.”
MC Chuck D wrote online about the clip, “Pay Attention is what the Prophets Of Rage latest video is saying. Don’t let a new Fascism appear wanted, normal or sane.”
Prophets Of Rage made their live debut in May 2016 in Los Angeles and released their self-titled debut LP on September 15th of this year. They next play at the Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky on Oct 1st. Tom Morello will appear, I believe, tonight on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
NME says Marilyn Manson said in a new interview with NME that he’d be interested in running for office — but only as Johnny Depp‘s running mate. Although Depp has shown no indication that he wants to run for president, he’s already got a willing vice president in Manson. Asked what their policies would be, Manson replied, “We’d set new holidays for sure. Johnny Depp Day, Marilyn Manson Day. I wouldn’t live in the White House — it’s too white and too stupid-looking.”
Manson added that Donald Trump “doesn’t worry me any more than any of the other Presidents. The only President I ever voted for was Barack Obama. Just because I thought it was such a unique period in history that I wanted to do it just so that I could say I’d done it. I didn’t really think that my vote would make a difference.”
The singer admitted that he didn’t vote last year “because I’d have had to get up early.”
Manson once told us what would impress him in a presidential candidate: “If a politician were to assert himself and say, ‘Look, I’m a phony, I’m going to take your money, I’m going to have sex behind my wife’s back, but I’ll try my best to get what needs to be done done,’ that would be the person I’d vote for. Because it would be someone who was honest and wasn’t trying to fool you full of their bulls**t.”
Manson’s 10th studio album, Heaven Upside Down, will be released on October 6th. The first single is called “KILL4ME.” The singer will kick off a North American tour on Wednesday (Sep 27th) in Silver Spring, MD.
The Pulse Of Radio says Smashing Pumpkins founder and frontman William Corgan has hinted at a reunion of the band’s original lineup, but insisted that there’s no firm timetable for it happening. Corgan told Rolling Stone that the idea of a reunion tour has been “knocked about,” but added, “There’s certainly gears that turn and things get waved around, but until it’s inked, I’m in the dark as much as anybody . . . But I’ll say this and I mean it: If we never play a note together again, that’s okay. I’m way, way more interested in the fact that we have peace with each other. I’ve reached the point in my life where I’m not in a hurry to get to anything. If it’s there, great. If it’s not, cool.”
Corgan confirmed last year that he had repaired his friendship with original bassist D’Arcy Wretzky after not speaking with her for nearly two decades. With drummer Jimmy Chamberlin back in the band since 2015 and guitarist James Iha joining them onstage for the first time in 16 years in early 2016, speculation has been rampant about a reunion of the original lineup.
Discussing why the band fell apart in the first place, Corgan remarked, “We were in a pressure cooker for 13, 14 years. We were literally together almost non-stop for a long time. We did a lot of work and we put ourselves through some crazy s**t . . . it was like that for a long time, and now that that’s over, and the family thing is resolved, it’s awesome.”
The original Smashing Pumpkins lineup last played together on Apr 24th, 1999 in Los Angeles. Corgan’s new, acoustic solo album, Ogilala, is due out Oct 13th. Iha appears on two tracks, marking the first time he and Corgan have recorded together in 17 years.
And, as predicted, Billboard reporting Foo Fighters‘ new album, Concrete And Gold, moved 127,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release to debut at Number One on the Billboard 200 album chart. Of that sum, 120,000 were in traditional album sales. Foo Fighters previously topped the chart in 2011 with Wasting Light. Seven of the band’s albums have landed in the Top 10, including 2014’s Sonic Highways, which debuted at Number Two.
And finally today, The Pulse Of Radio says Buckcherry singer Josh Todd will take his new band Josh Todd & The Conflict out for its first-ever tour this fall, a co-headlining trek with Hinder that will also feature Adelitas Way on two-thirds of the dates. The Conflict will kick the tour off on its own on Oct 19th in San Juan Capistrano, California, with Hinder joining in El Paso, Texas on Oct 21st and Adelitas Way climbing aboard in Johnson City, Tennessee on Nov 4th. Wayland will also be a support act on the jaunt, which comes to a close on Dec 3rd.
Adelitas Way frontman Rick DeJesus told us a while back that it takes a while to bond with your tourmates: “You really don’t become friends with a lot of bands ’til the first, like, two or three weeks in. The first week is always kind of everyone feeling each other out, the crews feeling each other out…it’s about feeling out the right situations first, and then I think after everybody gets everyone’s patterns down, you start interacting with each other, bumping into each other, and then by the end of tour no one wants to leave.”
Adelitas Way is promoting the upcoming release of its fifth studio album, Notorious, which is due out Oct 20th. The title track has just hit the Top 40 at rock radio. Josh Todd & The Conflict just released their debut disc, Year Of The Tiger, on Friday (Sep 22nd), while Hinder is supporting its latest LP, The Reign, which was released back in August.
Strangely enough, support act Wayland has the highest charting song on rock radio right now, with “Through The Fire” lodged at Number 31 and climbing. The band’s new album Rinse And Repeat also arrived on Friday.