Man, Irma is making me extremely scared! My new house in the little town of Venice FL is in jeopardy….no flood insurance. OH PLEASE! Send prayers for Irma to die out once she hits land!
With celebs left and right donating to Harvey victims, people like Jimmy Fallon, ZZ Top, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, Mr Trump, now comes news Green Day pledged a donation of $145,456 (so far) towards the Hurricane Harvey relief effort yesterday (Sep 5th), while also giving an intimate live concert via Facebook that afternoon to raise even more money for the cause. Green Day was directly making its own donation to the health charity Americares, with additional funds raised by the Facebook performance going to Americares as well.
Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told us a while back it’s important for rock artists to stay connected to what’s happening in the world around them: “I think that rock stars, or whatever they like to call themselves nowadays, when they tend to get pretty big, a lot of people go way deep inside themselves and sort of shut out the world and kinda become disconnected with what is going on. I think it’s really important, especially in music, that you have to have some sort of connection and you have to be some sort of member of society to comment on it. Or else people are just sorta like, ‘Well, you’re just this whiny rock star, you know. What are you talking about?’”
The band are the latest musicians to offer financial aid following last month’s violent storm, which devastated large parts of Houston and killed 65 people across Texas and Louisiana.
Americares President and CEO Michael J. Nyenhuis said in a statement, “Americares is truly grateful to have Green Day’s support. Their generosity and dedication means so much to us, as we restore health and hope for those affected by Hurricane Harvey.” According to their site, Americares is in Texas now, distributing water, aid and mobilizing medical outreach with their local partners. (Thanks The Pulse Of Radio)
Blabbermouth is reporting Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Temple Of The Dog drummer Matt Cameron will release a new solo album titled Cavedweller on Sep 22nd. Cameron has also posted a preview of the nine-song album online, but has not offered any details about other contributors to the project.
#MattCameron pic.twitter.com/5farQs308k
— Soundgarden (@soundgarden) September 5, 2017
Cameron has played in previous side projects such as Hater and Wellwater Conspiracy, with which he has recorded three and five albums respectively. He has also contributed to numerous other projects and LPs by other acts, but Cavedweller will be his first official solo venture.
Cameron told us a while back when Soundgarden was first starting out, he and the other members of the band had many different musical influences: “In our scene up here in the Northwest in the ’80s and ’90s, we were sometimes considered to be the Rush of Seattle, just because we could sort of play our instruments maybe better than most bands (laughs). We never really tried to flaunt any musical chops, but we always had pretty diverse tastes. We had a lot of really cool influences amongst ourselves that we tried to infuse in the music.”
Cameron was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year as a 20-year member of Pearl Jam, although both Soundgarden and Temple Of The Dog — which reunited last year for a tour — are both now seemingly over following the death of singer Chris Cornell. BTW: In addition to all the projects in which he’s had a creative or songwriting hand, Cameron has also played on albums by Chris Cornell, Smashing Pumpkins, Queens Of The Stone Age, Peter Frampton and others.
Speaking of…., congrats to Queens of the Stone Age! Their seventh studio album, Villains, debuted at Number Three on the Billboard 200 album chart this week, moving 69,000 copies in pure album sales in its first week of release. Bizarrely, the Number One and Two releases, by rappers Lil Uzi Vert and XXXTentacion respectively, sold just 28,000 and 18,000 copies in pure album sales, but made up the difference in streams. So Queens Of The Stone Age had to settle for third place despite selling far more physical copies than either of the top two artists.
Although he’s enjoyed success with Queens Of The Stone Age, frontman Josh Homme told us a while back he doesn’t seek out fame: “I know I’m not the coolest thing since sliced bread. I’m not too worried about it. And having any modicum of fame only works when you’re trying to get a good table. For everything other than that, I’m just not convinced it’s that good for you.“
The first official single from Villains, “The Way You Used To Do,” is Number 12 on the rock radio chart. Josh Homme has been walking with a cane recently after aggravating an old knee injury while dancing his way through the video for “The Way You Used To Do.” The band will begin a lengthy North American tour with Royal Blood tonight (Sep 6th) in Port Chester, New York, wrapping up on Oct 24th in New York City.
Blabbermouth reporting members of Disturbed, Alice In Chains, Metallica and other acts have all agreed to participate in the launch of the “I’m Listening” campaign for mental health awareness and suicide prevention. The campaign includes a two-hour on-air special that will be broadcast live from Seattle on World Suicide Prevention Day this Sunday (Sep 10th) at 10:00 a.m. ET nationwide. The campaign will also include suicide prevention PSAs, on-air promos and live conversations on selected radio stations.
The two-hour live special will focus on personal stories from artists and celebrities while offering help and resources to listeners via a live call-in option. Artists scheduled to appear during the special program include members of Metallica, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, William DuVall from Alice In Chains, Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, David Draiman from Disturbed, Jack Antonoff from Bleachers and others.
The topics to be discussed include what everyone can do to prevent suicide, how to talk to friends and family about mental health and suicide, what to do if you or someone you know is struggling with depression, how to get involved in suicide prevention in your local community and where to go to learn more about the cause.
Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, who has been outspoken about his struggles with mental illness, said, “Mental health and suicide prevention is a critical topic . . . This is a universal issue that does not exclude a single living person, and we need to come together to create awareness.”
Mental health and suicide have become front and center issues in the music industry in recent months, following the suicides of Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell.
Here are some statistics according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
-Approximately one in five adults in the U.S., or 43.8 million people experience mental illness in a given year.
-One in five youths aged 13–18 years old experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life.
-Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and the only one in the top ten that is on the rise. Among those aged 10-24, suicide is the third leading cause of death.
If someone you know is going through a crisis, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741-741.
Blabbermouth also reporting he official video for Powerman 5000‘s new single, “Sid Vicious In A Dress” is out. The song is taken from the band’s upcoming album, New Wave, which will be released on Oct 27 via Pavement Entertainment.
New Wave is Powerman 5000’s eleventh official release since forming in 1992 and continues the strides and success, from their platinum-selling album Tonight The Stars Revolt! to their most recent chart-topping single in 2014, How To Be A Human.
Vocalist Spider One stated about “Sid Vicious In A Dress”: “I suppose at its simplest it’s a twisted love song, but really it’s about loving what hurts you, what is bad for you. Staying when you should run. Over the years, Sid Vicious has become the poster child for chaos and self-destruction. I just took that and put it in the form of a beautiful girl. The title of the song kind of says it all.”
Regarding the overall sound of the follow-up to 2014’s Builders Of The Future, Spider One said: “We went a bit dirtier on this one. Ripped it up more than the last couple of records. One of the goals was to recreate the noise of the live show. Keep in the chaos.”
On the topic of the new album title, Spider said: “New Wave? Are we a new wave band? Well, I would say that we have always had more in common with DEVO than DIO.”
Powerman 5000’s legacy continues to push the boundaries of rock, metal, industrial, rap and punk to create innovative and groundbreaking releases time and time again. With songs like , and “Sid Vicious In A Dress,” the new album is sure to please longtime fans, as well as turn the heads of many more to come.
“New Wave” track listing:
01. Footsteps And Voices
02. Hostage
03. Sid Vicious In A Dress
04. David F**king Bowie
05. Cult Leader
06. No White Flags
07. Thank God
08. Die On Your Feet
09. Get A Life
10. Run For Your Life
Breaking Benjamin have announced a fall tour. This acoustic tour begins the end of September and continuing through November. The Breaking Benjamin Presales will be on sale starting today (Sep 06) at 2pm EST, with the American Express presale beginning at 3pm local time at www.breakingbenjamin.com. The public on-sale will go live on Friday, Sep 8th at 10am local time.
The band is putting the finishing touches on their new album, which they began work on last December in NYC. Currently the band is touring Europe. See all the new dates in Road Rage.