It’s AC/DC Day in the hardDriveRadio studios! Excitement abounds as Cliff WIlliams and Angus Young drop by today and next week, Brian Johnson and Angus will also return to do even more chatting! Looking forward to this! I am trying to remember last time I was able to talk to Angus. It was back when they were still on Elektra Records, and that was some time ago. Although I did see them on the opening night of the Black Ice tour, they did not see people backstage after the show (and we even went all the way down to Scranton, PA for that show as I recall!) Anyhow, make up time today! Meanwhile, Pulse of Radio reported this morning on a story on the band that ran in yesterday’s USA Today. Angus Young and Cliff Williams addressed the legal problems of drummer Phil Rudd in a new interview with USA Today, saying that the drummer is “not the Phil we’ve known from the past.” Rudd was arrested on Nov 6th and charged with attempting to arrange a murder, threatening to kill and possession of meth and marijuana. Although the first charge was dropped, he still faces seven years behind bars for the others. Williams said getting Rudd to the studio for the recording sessions of the new AC/DC album, Rock Or Bust, was “tough,” with Young adding, “It put us in a difficult situation. It put us in a spot where we couldn’t move forward. Does the guy show up? Is he reliable to do his job in good shape? We’ve always been a solid, reliable unit.” Young continued, “Phil created his own situation. It’s a hard thing to say about the guy. He’s a great drummer, and he’s done a lot of stuff for us. But he seems to have let himself go. He’s not the Phil we’ve known from the past.” The guitarist did not want to delve into whether drugs were involved in Rudd’s seeming decline, adding, “I don’t know the exact situation . . . I can only say, from our perspective, that the guy needs to sort himself out.” AC/DC issued a statement last week on Rudd’s arrest, saying that this absence will not affect the Dec 2nd release of Rock Or Bust and the band’s upcoming tour. Drummer Bob Richards sat behind the kit for the filming of the videos for singles “Play Ball” and the title track, but it is not known whether he will join the band on tour if Rudd cannot. Hey, I know someone who’d gladly take up the slot. His name is Dave Grohl!!!!…..Speaking of, Foo Fighters FINALLY are announcing their U.S. tour on Tuesday. They’ve already announced dates for Australia and New Zealand, and late spring dates in England, Scotland, as well as Rock Im Park & Rock Am Ring in Germany in June. We hear Dave wants to recreate his band Foo Fighters’ first ever tour to celebrate their 20th anniversary next year! The band first performed publicly in February 1995, before heading out on a tour of tiny U.S. venues supporting rocker Mike Watt. Now frontman Grohl tells Q magazine his next planned project for the band is to recreate their first trip out on the road by performing at the same venues in 2015. He adds, “We still like each other. Still, to this day, if the band needs to be somewhere and three vans show up to drive us, we all get in the one van.”….Pulse also posted this. Nickelback‘s new album, No Fixed Address, apparently contains some surprising new sounds from the Canadian rock radio kings. According to a review from Canada’s QMI Agency, the group’s eighth studio offering features a heavy dose of electronics, some dance rhythms, a more extensive use of keyboards than before and a guest appearance from rapper Flo Rida on the song “Got Me Running Around,” which also features a horn section and a Latin flavor. The review also hints that frontman Chad Kroeger‘s wife, pop singer Avril Lavigne, makes an appearance on “She Keeps Me Up,” writing, “If that isn’t the missus on backup vocals, it’s close enough for rock ’n’ roll.” Kroeger told us making each new record different is what keeps things interesting for the band: “When we get in the studio to take on the daunting task of making a Nickelback record, all the band members have such diverse tastes in music that it’s a lot about keeping us happy. We don’t want to get onstage and play the same kind of music for two hours. We like to make sure that everybody in the band is happy and that seems to be keeping the fans happy.”….News on my friend from Florida, Creed and Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti. In a new interview with Classic Rock, he said bassist Brian Marshall and drummer Scott Phillips — who all play in both bands — have not spoken with Creed singer Scott Stapp since the end of the band’s 2012 tour. Tremonti explained, “We haven’t spoken with Scott since the last tour years ago. Me, Flip and Brian haven’t talked about doing it, we’re just content with doing Alter Bridge and we’re busy as hell doing the Tremonti stuff.” Tremonti continued, “I’ve got a full plate at the moment and I’m perfectly happy with where I’m at. There’s no plans (for Creed) right now.” The guitarist is currently at work on the second album from his solo band Tremonti, which will follow up 2012’s All I Was….Kid Rock has announced that he will release a new album titled First Kiss on February 24th, 2015, with an extensive summer tour to follow. The new disc follows up 2012’s Rebel Soul and is the second in a row that Rock has produced himself, with the recording done at his own home studio in Michigan. Rock told us a while back his secret to writing great songs: he told us that the best way to do that was to keep things simple: “Listen to Steve Miller, ‘Keep On Rockin’ Me Baby.’ It’s the simplest song on Earth. Go try and write one. It’s the most difficult thing to do. You know, it’s easy to, you know, make a crazy, have a two-piece band with a guitar player and a drummer and make something wacky that sounds crazy and it’s a new sound, this, that and the other — go write a song that’s gonna resonate forever and ever. It’s the most difficult thing to do.” Fans can look for a new single hitting the airwaves at the beginning of 2015. Rock’s 10th studio disc is his first for Warner Bros. Records after his last six records appeared on the Atlantic label. Both are part of Warner Music Group. According to a press release, Rock went into the studio immediately after completing a round of spring festivals to harness some of the energy from playing those shows as well as his 2013 $20 Best Night Ever Tour, on which all seats were just $20….And finally today, Slipknot singer Corey Taylor weighed in on the recent “rock is dead” statements made by Kiss bassist Gene Simmons during a recent interview with a Texas radio station. Taylor said, “I love the fact that we had the highest sales in a first week for a metal band (with new album .5: The Gray Chapter) the whole year. To be honest, I’m proud of that . . . You don’t always need a platinum album to relate that to success so, with all due respect to Mr. Simmons, he needs to get out more.”…Celebrating birthdays! Today: Tobin Esperance of Papa Roach is 35, Blink 182’s Travis Barker is 39, Josh Silver of Type O Negative is 52. Saturday: Chad Kroeger of Nickelback is the Big 4-0!