Good day! General on-sale tickets are available right now for the 2015 hardDrive Live Tour with Trivium and Tremonti! You must grab them! This will be THE biggest club show of the fall. Two titans of hard rock and heavy metal. It’s ridiculous that so much talent is on ONE STAGE! www.harddrivelivetour.com.
Well, surprising news hit yesterday about the departure of Arin Ilejay from the drum kit of Avenged Sevenfold. Arin has been with the band for 4 years. Ilejay has been the second drummer to sit behind the kit for Avenged Sevenfold since the death of founding member James “The Rev” Sullivan in December 2009.
Avenged Sevenfold recorded its 2010 effort Nightmare with ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, who was Sullivan’s favorite drummer. Portnoy toured for several months with the band, but by early 2011, he was out. The group brought in Ilejay, who started out as a touring member but played on 2013’s Hail To The King, Avenged’s second straight Number One album.
The group issued a statement saying, “We are writing this to inform you all that we will be moving forward without Arin Ilejay as our drummer. Arin has been nothing but a positive energy and monster drummer for us over the past four years. We love the guy and always will. We are and will always be grateful to him for helping us to move forward through some very dark times. Creatively though, we felt we needed to move in a different direction.”
The band added, “While we can’t say more at this time, we are excited for the future and looking forward to sharing our plans soon with the greatest fans in the world. As always we appreciate your understanding and unwavering support.”
Apparently Loudwire did a poll asking people who should replace Arin. Overwhelming votes are in for Joey Jordison, former Slipknot drummer. Wouldn’t THAT be interesting! Joey is an excellent songwriter and depending on the direction A7X is intending to go on, this could be interesting.
Disturbed has released a lyric video for the title track to its sixth studio album, Immortalized. The CD is headed for an Aug 21st release and singer David Draiman gave us his thoughts on the title: “Immortalized is hopefully what music does for everyone, in terms of emotions, in terms of experiences, in terms of being people who create it. There’s nothing that can lock a memory in your mind more distinctly than with a piece of music. It’s so easy to remember something so vividly and so perfectly when you score it to something.”
Disturbed has also released the sixth in a series of behind-the-scenes webisodes chronicling the making of the new disc. The album ends a four-year hiatus for the band and features the current Top 10 rock single, “The Vengeful One.” Immortalized is available for pre-order everywhere and follows 2010’s gold-certified Asylum, Disturbed’s fourth consecutive Number One on the Billboard 200 album chart. Disturbed has yet to announce tour plans behind the new record. The band will play its first show in four years on Aug 21st at the House of Blues in the band’s hometown of Chicago.Be listening this weekend for your chance to win a trip for two to see Disturbed at their comeback show!
Meanwhile, Disturbed will join the “Boz Bros Ride” Charity Motorcycle Ride hosted by racing champs Ben & Eric Bostrom Wed Aug 05 at Sturgis City Park, Sturgis, SD. It’s all part of the 75th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. Other celebrity riders will participate as well. In a statement, Disturbed said “We’re looking forward to Sturgis and the Boz Bros Ride. Good times and a great cause. Live to ride, ride to live.”
If you have DirecTV you got to watch Wednesday night’s Alternative Press Music Awards live from the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH. Rob Zombie, Weezer, Halestorm and others were among the performers and winners at the second annual event. Zombie won the Vanguard Award and was joined for a performance of White Zombie‘s “Thunderkiss ’65” by Motionless In White. After receiving his award, Zombie recalled in his acceptance speech the very first review he ever got in Alternative Press. According to Zombie it read, “This is the worst band ever. Ignore this band.” He went on to thank the magazine and the fans “for ignoring the review.”
Other performances were Halestorm with Corey Taylor doing Temple Of The Dog‘s “Hunger Strike” and its own “Love Bites (So Do I).” Weezer closed out the four-plus hour show with “Go Away” off last year’s Everything Will Be Alright album, followed by the band’s classic “Buddy Holly.” Other highlights included the first live performance by Sum 41 in three years, featuring a guest appearance from Run-DMC‘s Darryl McDaniels, and Panic At The Disco’s orchestra-backed cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
Winning awards were Baltimore pop-punk act All Time Low, as the evening’s big winners, with three awards for best bassist, best drummer and most dedicated fans. All Time Low kicked off the show with a medley of punk classics by Nirvana, Green Day, Jimmy Eat World, Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy, while singer Alex Gaskarth and guitarist Jack Barakat served as the show’s hosts. Other winners included Issues for Artist of the Year, Black Veil Brides for Album of the Year, Bring Me The Horizon for Best Video for “Drown” (note: see their new video for “Throne” here) and The 1975 for Best International Act. Best Guitarist to Tony Perry of Pierce The Veil and Best Live Band to A Day To Remember. Congrats to all!
Speaking of The Corey Taylor, the Slipknot singer has confirmed that the band is considering writing and recording a double concept album to follow last year’s .5: The Gray Chapter. During the question-and-answer period of his recent solo performance in Los Angeles promoting his book, “You’re Making Me Hate You,” Taylor said, “We’ve been talking about a double concept album, which I don’t know if we could . . . But it’s an interesting idea. So they told me to start thinking of an idea for a story. So we’ll see what happens.”
Taylor told Lou Brutus Slipknot definitely has plans to return after the current cycle for .5: The Gray Chapter ends: “Yeah, there’ll definitely be more. I think we’re gonna do the usual thing where, you know, we’ll probably tour until summer next year, and then we’ll take some time off. We all have things that we do in our lives that we’ll take time to go and do, and when it feels right to come back, we’ll come back.”
Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan said recently that he would love to see the band record a double concept album in the vein of Pink Floyd‘s The Wall and the Beatles‘ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Taylor’s other band, Stone Sour, recorded a double concept album in 2012, House Of Gold And Bones.
Oh, and have you checked out the new Lou Brutus and Corey Taylor video interview on the hardDriveRadio YouTube channel. It’s right here!
Of Mice And Men frontman Austin Carlile has posted a couple of updates on Twitter about his recovery from two recent surgeries. Carlile went under the knife in June to correct problems he was experiencing as a result of having Marfan syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects the connective tissue in the body and can lead to defects in the heart and even death if not properly managed.
After being in recovery and physical therapy for the past month, Carlile has now posted last Saturday (Jul 18th) was his first day “out of the house” and that he was “getting closer to 100% with every passing week.” He also wrote about his three-times-a-week physical therapy, “Have to keep pushing. Nothing comes easy.” Let’s keep sending him positive vibes for a speedy recovery!
Have a great weekend, y’all! Go get those hardDrive Live Tour tickets right now and tell your friends!!!