Following on the heels of this year’s massive Rock On The Range festival lineup, three more of the spring’s signature rock events have rolled out their lineups as well. First up is Welcome To Rockville on Apr 29th and 30th at Jacksonville’s Metropolitan Park in Florida. The Saturday bill is headlined by Soundgarden, A Perfect Circle and The Offspring, with Mastodon, The Pretty Reckless, Pierce The Veil, Highly Suspect, Eagles Of Death Metal, All that Remains, Starset, Dinosaur Pile-Up, Crobot and more on tap.
Sunday’s Welcome To Rockville bill features Def Leppard, Chevelle and Papa Roach, with support from Alter Bridge, Seether, Three Days Grace, In This Moment, Gojira, Motionless In White, Nothing More, Rival Sons, Beartooth, Every Time I Die and others. For more on Welcome To Rockville, go here.
Meanwhile, the Fort Rock festival will take place the exact same dates, Apr 29th and 30th, in Fort Myers, Florida, with many of the same bands pulling double duty and showing up there as well. The headliners will be reversed, with Def Leppard, Chevelle and Papa Roach leading the charge on Saturday in Fort Myers as Soundgarden, A Perfect Circle and The Offspring headline on Sunday. For more info on Fort Rock, go here.
Chevelle drummer Sam Loeffler told us a while back why he enjoys playing festivals: “From my perspective, it’s really fun because, when you’re on a tour, you’re usually with the same one or two or three bands for, like, months at a time. And so if you didn’t have those festivals and things like that, you wouldn’t have a chance to go and see a bunch of your friends in other bands, and make new friends in other bands. In that sort of sense, it’s like us going to a concert, so that’s pretty cool.”
Tickets for both Welcome To Rockville and Fort Rock begin going on sale today (Dec 6th) with special price deals and VIP packages available.
One week after the two Florida events, the seventh annual Carolina Rebellion festival will showcase a slightly different look, as Avenged Sevenfold will join headliners Soundgarden and Def Leppard at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina on May 5th, 6th and 7th. The festival’s four stages will also include sets from A Perfect Circle, Korn, The Offspring, Volbeat, Papa Roach, Three Days Grace, Seether, Chevelle, Highly Suspect, The Pretty Reckless, Sum 41, Skillet, In This Moment and many others.
Presale tickets and layaway packages, as well as hotel, camping and VIP packages are available for purchase now at CarolinaRebellion.com. The Carolina Rebellion public on-sale date is Friday, Dec 9th at 10:00 a.m. EST. Beginning at that time, ticket prices will increase.
All three festivals, along with Rock On The Range, are part of the “World’s Loudest Month” concert series, which also includes events later in May and June.
Metallica frontman James Hetfield was asked in a new interview with Canada’s Jam! Music how touring has changed for him in the 14 years since he got sober in 2002. Hetfield, a father of three teenagers who has been married for almost 20 years, responded, “It’s not a tour of bars and strip clubs anymore. It’s actually, ‘Hey, there’s a great restaurant or here’s a really cool, whatever, there’s a car show in town.’ Getting out and doing stuff. I love just walking too. Just kind of get lost in the city. So yeah, priorities have certainly changed.”
Hetfield told us a while back how much he appreciated playing shows after he won his sobriety: “Now I can really feel what great energy is created by it, I really understand the whole family feeling around it, how everyone contributes to that. Everyone, the crew, puts into it. They’re dedicated. They fly the flag and they’re really into what we do. They believe in us. And when I go out there and represent all of those people, it’s a great feeling.“
The heavy metal legend also discussed his three kids — 18-year-old Cali, 16-year-old Castor and 14-year-old Marcella — and their love for music, saying, “They thrive on it. I love watching them listen to music. They like everything and anything. Whoever’s sitting shotgun is the DJ. And the kids are in the back most of the time. So my wife, she likes anything that’s dance. She loves not so much house or club stuff, she likes like K.C. and The Sunshine Band, anything that gets them boogying.” James and his family recently moved to Colorado.
Hetfield even admitted that he thinks K.C. and The Sunshine Band is “fun music,” adding, “My kids love it too . . . (my youngest daughter) just loves everything and she knows every song on every station. It blows my mind.”
Asked how long the band can keep going after 35 years together, Hetfield mused, “We don’t know. We’re pioneering this ourselves. And we’re making it up as we go along. It will reveal itself, however it does. If one show somebody can’t get up and perform then we kind of know.”
Metallica’s first album in eight years, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, came out last month and went to Number One in 57 countries, including the U.S.
Guns N’ Roses have announced a new set of summer stadium dates for North America. See Road Rage for the details!
Red Hot Chili Peppers have released a music video for “Sick Love,” the latest single from the band’s 11th studio album, The Getaway. The animated clip, which was conceived and directed by singer-songwriter Beth Jeans Houghton, follows a young woman who leaves her home in Sydney, Australia to pursue her dreams in Hollywood. Naturally it doesn’t quite work out and she gets caught up in the city’s dark side. All four members of the band show up in the video, with singer Anthony Kiedis getting busy with the woman only to meet a ghastly fate himself.
The track features music legend Elton John on piano, with Elton and his longtime lyricist, Bernie Taupin, given a songwriting credit on it because of the similarity in the verses to the melody in Elton’s 1974 hit “Bennie And The Jets.”
Guitarist Josh Klinghoffer told Diffuser, “The song that he plays on was a song that we were working on for awhile before we started recording it, and it just sounded like Elton was involved somehow, someway, So we thought we should just invite him down and see if he likes it and wants to play on it.”
Drummer Chad Smith added about Elton’s appearance on the record, “He was kind of nervous, it was actually really kind of cute. When he came in, he looked for somewhere to sit really quick, and he sat down.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers recently expanded their 2017 North American tour, confirming 27 additional dates beginning on Apr 12th in Washington, D.C. and concluding on June 30th in Chicago. This follows the previously announced initial leg that kicks off on Jan 5th in San Antonio and ends on March 18th in Vancouver, BC.
Keith Wallen and Jasen Rauch of Breaking Benjamin in studio here in NYC
Ben Burnley and Breaking Benjamin have started the process of working on a follow-up to 2015’s Dark Before Dawn, which was the band’s first studio album in six years. They’re in New York City writing songs for a new record before they embark on a U.S. tour early next year. Frontman Ben Burnley and guitarist Jasen Rauch shared images from the studio online.
AFI announced tour dates and posted a new track, “Aurelia,” from their forthcoming 10th studio album, AFI (The Blood Album). See Road Rage for more!