Hmmm. To quote Men At Work, “Who Can It Be Now?” The Pulse Of Radio via Alternative Nation says Foo Fighters main man Dave Grohl revealed in an interview with BBC One the band’s just-announced new album, Concrete And Gold, will feature a “bunch of guests,” including some “that will really surprise you.” Pressed further, Grohl added, “There’s one who is probably the biggest pop star in the world and — I’m not kidding — sings backup on one of the heaviest songs on the record and we’re not telling anybody who it is.”
Fans have been speculating online who the “biggest pop star” could be, with most agreeing on Adele. The British superstar has close ties with producer Greg Kurstin, who has not only produced her music, but was behind the board for Concrete And Gold.
Grohl also spoke about the recording sessions in the interview, saying, “Without telling anybody, we’ve been in the studio for the last six months and we made the biggest sounding Foo Fighters record we’ve ever made.” The Foos frontman continued, “Honestly, I think it’s going to take a lot of people by surprise. Every band says it’s the best record they’ve ever made, but wait til you hear it. It’s definitely the hugest thing we’ve ever done.”
Grohl told us in the past that his approach to songwriting is basic: “It’s pretty simple with this band. If there’s a melody and there’s a good lyric, then we’ve got ourselves a song in a couple of minutes. If we could throw it together, and get an arrangement together, and put it down on tape, that’s kind of what we do best, you know: that simple, melodic rock that gets stuck in your head.“
Concrete And Gold will arrive on Sep 15th. The first single and video, called “Run,” is out now. Foo Fighters will celebrate the release of the album with a fall North American tour. They kick it off on Oct 7th with Cal Jam 17, a full day’s worth of music headlined by the Foos and also including Queens Of The Stone Age, Cage The Elephant, Liam Gallagher, Royal Blood, The Struts, The Kills and a dozen more acts. The rest of the tour begins on October 12th in Washington D.C. and will last through December. Tickets will go on sale at 10:00 a.m. local time on June 26th.
Yesterday, I shared the info on this via Rolling Stone, and today I am sharing this 2015 video of the late Chris Cornell performing the Johnny Cash rendition of the Soundgarden tune, “Rusty Cage.” which will appear on the upcoming Cash album, Johnny Cash Forever Words: The Music.Meanwhile, a number of Hollywood stars and musicians have joined together behind Chris Cornell‘s planned “Keep The Promise” campaign. Prior to his death last month, Cornell had made plans to donate all proceeds from his song “The Promise” to refugee-related charities. Cornell had penned the song for the movie of the same name, which stars Christian Bale and deals with the Armenian Genocide. Actors Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Jennifer Lopez, Elton John, musician Serj Tankian and more, including Cornell‘s close friend Josh Brolin, have lent their support in a new video for the campaign, which also features Cornell himself (via People.)
Love me some Mastodon! Apparently they loved touring with Eagles Of Death Metal and Russian Circles SO much, they decided to put together a fall leg of the tour. See all the dates in Road Rage and watch the music video for “The Motherload” above. I understand the next radio track off their spectacular Emperor of Sand album will be “Steambreather.” Listen for that later this summer.
Slipknot has been hard at work on a new project! Blabbermouth reporting today the band has unveiled a clip performing the song “Vermillion” at the 2015 Knotfest show in Mexico City. The footage is taken from the group’s upcoming concert documentary, Day Of The Gusano, which MusicScreen will premiere on more than 1,000 theater screens across the world for one night only on Sep 6th.
Directed by Slipknot’s own M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan, Day Of The Gusano documents the Iowa act’s first-ever visit to Mexico in Dec 2015 and features exclusive interviews with Slipknot’s members as they discuss the importance of their fan base and the band’s long-awaited first-ever show in Mexico City. The 90-minute documentary also chronicles the rabid devotion of the group’s Mexican fans and features the band hearing personal stories from some of them, all interspersed with footage from the group’s Knotfest México concert.
Crahan has directed several of the band’s previous home video releases and a number of its videos. He told us a while back how he goes about putting together the pieces for their DVDs: “I look for the thing that makes me taste and smell and gets me excited, you know. I look for those things to start it off, and once I have a few of those, then I get going. And then the plot goes from there.”
Confirmed cities and ticketing for the screenings will be announced in July, while a retail release for the film has yet to be determined. Slipknot’s touring cycle in support of 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter ended last November. The band is beginning to write new material but does not expect to get into the studio until sometime in 2018.
Meanwhile, that darn Corey Taylor. He is DA MAN! Here he is visiting Aaron Foley, a fan who was severely injured in an accident. Foley was struck by a pickup truck, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. A huge fan of all of Taylor‘s projects, Foley had met the singer several times in the past, including at the video shoot for the recently released song “Fabuless.” With the help of a local radio station, Aaron‘s mother reached out to Taylor to set up a personal visit to her son.
Much to Aaron’s surprise, Corey turned up at the hospital, rendering Aaron speechless. The rocker, who is currently on tour with Stone Sour, spent nearly an hour chatting with Aaron, with the entire visit captured in the video clip which has since been posted on YouTube.
Nothing More has released a new single, “Go To War,” off their forthcoming album, The Stories We Tell Ourselves, due Sep 15th. Be listening for the song the weekend of Jul 1st on the weekend edition of hardDrive!
Meanwhile, the band announced a huge tour for the fall with Hell or Highwater, As Lions and My Ticket Home. See Road Rage for all the deets!
Finally today, my old pal, Tater Johnson, formerly of 10 Years, reached out to share what he is up to. I asked him to send me some info to share with you all.
Ryan “Tater” Johnson a founding member of the band 10 years 1998-2016 has stepped away from the radio rock world for his solo project named Tyler. He records, mixes, and produces himself and really enjoys getting to be the architect. “I’m a big fan of fight club, I came home from a lifetime of work and touring and realized a lot of things in my life were very wrong and toxic. Tyler is my journey moving forward.” Ryan plays everything in his debut album lessons and he is putting it out himself independently for now he says but he’s got some interest from some real big dogs in the business. “I’ve met everybody spending over a decade touring the states and the world. I dream big, real big” and went on to brag about getting kicked outta a punk band in high school in knoxville Tn because they said he dreamed too big. He went on to say the Pennywise guys loved that fact. Especially as 10 years played before them and they watched the set, same with noodles from The Offspring. “I played that riff from keep em separated riff while he was side-stage. What a trip, that moment I’ll never forget” Go check out this artist vision. https://m.facebook.com/tylersbunnyrabbit/