Halloween Week on the XL! And we’ll have great Halloween tales of present and past from the likes of some very cool rock stars: Slash, Jared Leto from 30 Seconds To Mars, Rob Zombie, Nothing More, Tool, Alice Cooper, Korn, Halestorm, Godsmack and Metallica!! Do not miss a moment starting tonight! Speaking of Slash, did you see him on ‘The Talking Dead‘ last night?…..Well, Lou Brutus and Paulie Walnuts did the impossible! They KILLED it at Knotfest and interviewed a ton of bands for a Backstage @ Knotfest special edition of hardDrive and a week’s worth of hardDrive XL interviews. Can’t wait to share them! Have you been keeping an eye on the hardDriveRadio APP‘s Interact Live section? TONS of posts from Lou and Paul! Can’t wait to hear all the gory stories from the festival site! My UK gal pal Michelle got pix of the Slipknot set lists: Sunday:
Saturday:
And this on Clown’s drums:
We’ll have more shots tomorrow when Paulie returns and Lou uploads his pix! Many thanks to all the bands and their crews/management and the good folks at SGE for taking good care of my guys out in San Bernardino!…..Pulse of Radio posted: Foo Fighters unveiled a second new track from the band’s upcoming album, Sonic Highways, in conjunction with the premiere of the second episode of the HBO documentary of the same name on Friday (Oct 24th). Called “The Feast And The Famine,” the song was recorded at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA and inspired by the D.C. hardcore punk scene in which Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl started his career with bands like Dain Bramage and Scream. Grohl said about the D.C. scene in the episode, “The experiences I’ve had in this city, from the age of 14 years old, set this foundation for the rest of my life as a musician. The community, the support, the love that was here in the D.C. music scene has carried over into what I do now. The way that Foo Fighters work now, we’re like a family, and we try to treat everyone that way.” D.C. artists that appeared on Grohl’s hometown episode included Minor Threat/Fugazi frontman and Dischord Records co-founder Ian MacKaye, punk legends Bad Brains, Trouble Funk‘s Big Tony Fisher and hardcore punk producer Don Zientara. The Foos recorded the drums for the album with the rest of the band playing along live and re-recording their parts later. Drummer Taylor Hawkins told us about recording “The Feast And The Famine” that way: “When we did the song in D.C., Ian MacKaye was in the room with us when we got the drum track. And I went to his house the next day, and he’s like, ‘Oh, well, what are you guys doing now?’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, those guys are doing their guitars and bass and stuff.’ And he goes, ‘I thought you guys did it yesterday.’ He goes, ‘Sounded good to me. I wouldn’t have changed anything.’“ Damn, thought I had recorded 60 Minutes with Dave and Anderson Cooper on CBS, but the football game went long and DVR didn’t have the “brains” to adjust accordingly, so I got the first half hour on ebola. Thanks CBS. Now forced to watch with extra commercial interrruption online…. Avenged Sevenfold singer M. Shadows stars in a tutorial video for fans who want to learn how to play the band’s new mobile game, Hail To The King: Deathbat. The game came out two weeks ago after two years in development. Shadows told us what he liked most about the game: “My favorite part of the game would just be the overall concept that you get to walk inside our world. You know, I was looking at our album covers and I thought, ‘What would it be like for a fan to be able to walk into those album covers and to go explore in there?’ As a kid growing up, I would have loved to have something like this for Guns N’ Roses or Maiden or Metallica.” The game is available on the App Store and Google Play for $4.99, Hail to the King: Deathbat features classic Avenged Sevenfold tracks along with a new and original score composed by the band. Avenged Sevenfold also has a DVD in the works and will tour Southeast Asia in early 2015…..Pulse of Radio also reports Tool guitarist Adam Jones has posted a photo on his Instagram account, showing the band members together in a recording studio. What is striking and will be extremely interesting to fans is that the photo shows singer Maynard James Keenan alongside Jones and drummer Danny Carey. Keenan does not usually join the recording process until a substantial amount of work has already been done. Keenan said in an interview earlier this year, “I don’t write the music. They write the music. I wait for them to bring music to me. They tend to go back over and over stuff. It’s a long process.” Does this mean the music is done and the rest of the band is ready for Keenan to contribute? It’s unknown at this point, but Jones posted a caption with the photo that read,“#SmokeOnTheHorizon.” It’s been more than eight years since Tool released its last album, 2006’s 10,000 Days. Jones revealed last July lawsuits involving a former friend of the band and an insurance company had been putting a drag on the group both creatively and financially since 2007. The ex-friend claimed that he was owed money for artwork he had given the group, while the insurance firm — which was supposed to protect the band against such claims — sued the band for “technicalities” regarding the case. (Sorry, I am technically challenged and haven’t mastered copying pic from Instagram so you will have to look at Adam’s yourself!)….Shim Moore, former frontman of Sick Puppies, has surfaced and posted this message to his fans. Seems he was the last to know about his departure from the group! “On October 20th Sick Puppies announced that I was leaving the band. This was the first I had heard of it. The truth is that there was tension in the band after the many years of touring. I had hoped that some time apart would resolve these issues and lead us to the next phase of our career. It unfortunately seems that Emma and Mark have decided to move on with a new singer instead. It has taken a couple of days for me to respond because I have needed a bit of time to get over the news.
Emma, Mark and I have done the impossible together. We turned a bunch of songs and a dream into a reality, then traveled the world to show it to everyone. For that I will always be grateful to them. I am deeply saddened to have lost my band after all these years.
I am so touched by the messages from you all asking me if I will be continuing in music and the answer is obviously “Yes.”
Since the announcement I have been locked out of all the Sick Puppies socials and mailing lists so you won’t be able to hear about it through those sites. If you want to hear my new music, please follow and share my socials with your friends from the links below.
For those of you I may lose during this time, I will miss you.
For those of you who will stand by me, I will not let you down.
Please remember one of my favorite lyrics.
“Every new beginning, comes from some other beginnings end.’… I’ll be right here”…..Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder announced via the band’s Instagram account he will play a small, secret show at a yet-to-be-disclosed location in Seattle on Thursday (Oct 30th). The show will raise money to benefit research to cure Epidermolysis Bullosa, a genetic skin disorder that can cause a person’s skin “to tear apart, blister, and shear off their body” from a slight touch. Fans must donate $10 for a chance to win a pair of tickets, and fans selected to attend who aren’t in Seattle will get $1,000 in travel money. (Diffuser)….Black Veil Brides have released teaser clips for two new songs — “Last Rites” and “Stolen Omen” — taken from the band’s new album, IV, which arrives on Monday (Oct 27th). The first official single from the follow-up to last year’s Wretched And Divine: The Story Of The Wild Ones is called “Heart Of Fire.” (Alternative Press)…Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong, Alice Cooper, Blondie‘s Debbie Harry, Cheap Trick, Joan Jett and others performed last Thursday night (Oct 23rd) at a benefit for Little Kids Rock at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The event helped the organization raise money to bring instruments and music lessons to underprivileged schools. Armstrong and Cooper showed up later to play a set of covers at a surprise gig at East Village bar 2A to celebrate rock photographer Bob Gruen’s 69th birthday. Billie Joe performing “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” here…Birthdays being celebrated today: Scott Weiland turns 47. K.K. Downing (ex-Judas Priest) is 67, Kelly Osbourne is 30 and the great John Cleese of Monty Python fame is 75!