Howdy, people! Happy Friday!
Many thanks to Saint Asonia’s Mike Mushok who did our second Saint Asonia App Chat this week on the new hardDriveRadio APP! We are so happy fans get to talk to their favorite artists on this platform. Hope you get a chance to join in on the next one. We are looking to get our Kiwi friends, Like A Storm, to do one on Aug 10th! Stay tuned for the start time! And today, their debut album is out!
The band is the brainchild of former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier and Staind guitarist Mike Mushok, with Gontier telling us the music doesn’t quite sound like either band: “I’d say it’s some of the heaviest stuff that I’ve ever written, some of the heaviest riffs and heaviest music that I’ve ever, you know, sang on top of, that sort of stuff. And it’s also got a couple of the most straightforward acoustic guitar-vocal tracks. So it’s kind of all over the place, but really it’s mainly, you know, heavy.”
Saint Asonia also includes ex-Dark New Day bassist Corey Lowery and former Finger Eleven drummer Rich Beddoe. The group’s first single, “Better Place,” is currently Number 10 on the rock radio airplay chart. Mushok said about the new disc, “I’m really proud that we created such a cohesive body of work. I hope when people hear it they want to see a show! That’s why you do it.” The group played its first live show at Rock On The Range in Columbus, OH in May, and will kick off its first North American tour on August 14th in Oklahoma City. A fall trek as guests of Seether is also on the calendar.
Yesterday, we hung out with the guys from Atreyu: Alex Varkatzas, Brandon Saller, Dan Jacobs, Travis Miguel and Porter Marc McKnight. and had a great time. It was great catching up with the entire band after their 4 year absence. (I didn’t see them last year when they did their first shows at Aftershock and Knotfest.) Saw pix of Alex’s family. His son Lukas is adorable! Their new album, Long Live, drops Sep 18th and be listening for Atreyu on hardDrive XL the week of Aug 10. Their new tune “Do You Know Who You Are” will be our Smash or Crash tune that week! So Atreyu fans, get out to vote!
I love this! A video surfaced yesterday (July 30th) of 1,000 musicians, dubbed “The Rockin’1000,” playing the Foo Fighters hit “Learn to Fly” as a way to ask the band to come and play in Cesena, Italy .Foo Fighters responded via their Twitter account, writing, “Che bello, Cesena,” which translates to “How lovely, Cesena” or “How nice, Cesena.” The band, however, did not commit to performing in the town. A previous fan attempt to get the band to play in Richmond, VA, by raising money through the sale of tickets, was met with success as the band performed there last September.
Meanwhile, frontman Dave Grohl denied rumors that the Foos were already signed up to headline next year’s Glastonbury Festival in the U.K. after missing last month’s event due to Grohl’s broken leg. Grohl told Q magazine, “I read all of those articles saying we confirmed for next year and just laughed. Total f**king bulls**t. Of course, I’d love to come back and play Glastonbury! But don’t believe everything that you read, kids . . . ”
The Foos will begin the next leg of their North American tour on August 12th in Edmonton, Canada. After breaking his leg in a stage fall in Sweden last month, Grohl has played the first part of the trek while seated on a light-up throne on a dolly track with his leg in a cast.
Well, today the 11th annual Lollapalooza opens in Grant Park, Chicago, IL. Headliners are Metallica, Florence & The Machine and Sir Paul McCartney. Can’t get there? No problem. Watch it live here.
Pulse of Radio reporting a story from The PRP Deftones singer Chino Moreno invited a fan onstage in Toronto on Wednesday (Jul 29th) to sing “Passenger” with him, after Moreno spotted the fan holding up a sign asking if he could come up and perform with the group. The fan handled the parts originally sung by Tool‘s Maynard James Keenan on the studio version. This is the second time in recent weeks that a major act invited a fan onstage to sing in the Canadian city, with Foo Fighters doing the same thing not long ago.
Faith No More has released a live video for the song “Superhero,” taken from the band’s first studio album in 19 years, the recently released Sol Invictus. The performance in the video was captured during a gig at the Fillmore in Detroit. Faith No More’s North American tour continues tonight (Jul 31st) in Raleigh, NC.
Celebrating birthdays: Today: M Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold is 34, John 5 from Rob Zombie’s band is 44 and JK Rowling is 50. Saturday: Dan Donegan of Disturbed is 44, Chuck D of Public Enemy is 55 and Coolio is 52. Sunday, Wes Craven is 76. Have a killer weekend!