Happy St Patrick’s Day one and all! This is a day of the wearing of the green & celebrating all things Irish. Possibly including green beer and ruining your good shoes. Take care out there today. Don’t hurt yourselves!…..The big news is about our friends Tool! The band has settled the complicated lawsuit that’s been a hindrance to the band since 2007, according to Yahoo! Music News. A friend of the band sued them eight years ago, claiming he had created artwork for the group and wanted credit and compensation for it. Then an insurance company Tool had hired for the sole purpose of protecting itself against such lawsuits turned around and sued the band itself over technicalities in the case. Tool countersued the insurer, with the case finally being resolved in their favor after seven years. Tool guitarist Adam Jones told Yahoo, “It got really ugly and shameful. This is a real simplification of the matter — but imagine paying auto insurance, getting into a wreck, and expecting the insurance company to cover you. And they come back to you and say, ‘Well, you drive an SUV and we don’t consider that an auto so we’re not going to cover you.’ And then they turn around and sue you because you want them to cover you. It’s crazy.” The legal issues prevented Tool from touring more and from working at a faster pace on the band’s long-awaited new album. But Jones said he had a good feeling when the case finally went before a judge. He explained, “I had a real feeling that things were going to go in our favor because the day the trial was supposed to start, the venue was changed on us,. We moved over to a North L.A. courthouse and we had a brand new judge who was fantastic.” The guitarist added that the new judge’s name was Randy Rhodes. (What are the chances??!!!) The guitarist also revealed the previously unpublicized news one of the members of Tool also had to deal with a medical issue, saying, “I’d rather let the person who dealt with the illness talk about it out of respect. But one thing was a really scary do-or-die, serious illness and that was really scary.” Jones said one song is completed musically for the band’s first album since 2006, with 10 more in various stages. He remarked, “I’m excited about everything we’re working on. Some of it’s really heavy, some of it’s complex and some is more atmospheric, but it’s definitely Tool. I think having this lawsuit out of the way should really speed of the progress of getting the album done.” Jones said he hopes the follow-up to 10,000 Days could be completed and released by the end of the year, but added the band is no rush. He admitted, “Everyone kind of has their own life, and the fire that burned in us when we were in our 20s isn’t there anymore. There’s still a fire, it’s just a different kind of fire . . . But I feel like every day we work on the songs is a productive day and we’re getting closer and closer to finishing them.” Actually it’s been more like 3,297 days since the last album. We are still patiently waiting! Be listening for Adam Jones on hardDrive and hardDrive XL in the coming weeks!…Head from Korn told PureGrainAudio the band will probably start work on their 12th album later this year, and if he has his way, it will be heavier and more uptempo than their last album, The Paradigm Shift. Seems like a great plan if you ask me! He also said he would like to tour less frequently (I don’t blame them. They’ve been working their butts off for almost 2 years now, non-stop.) So if they take a couple of months off after this last leg of their 20th anniversary tour is over, then that would be a good thing. I long for the days when they could pack arenas. I want those days to come back!….Pulse Of Radio reports Stone Temple Pilots have finally been able to drop the added “With Chester Bennington” from their name after settling their legal issues with former singer Scott Weiland. The band began working with Bennington in May 2013 after firing Weiland three months earlier, but an exchange of lawsuits over, among other things, the use of the band name was part of the reason why the “Chester Bennington” clause was tacked on for a while. No one is more excited about the news that Bennington himself, who told AltWire, “It’ll be fun to go out as just Stone Temple Pilots (laughs). That’s exciting, because it really bothered me to see ‘Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington.’ So I’m glad that’s gone and glad that that’s over.” The band will be touring next month and new music is in the wings. Bennington was asked how it compares to his debut with the band, the 2013 EP High Rise. He explained, “I think it’s a lot different. I really don’t like talking about music that people aren’t hearing because it’s hard to describe what the music sounds like, but it’s super energetic. The riffs are really cool and the playing has been really insane.” Bennington told us STP has a lot of flexibility these days about when and how it can release new music: “There are a few things working in our favor. One is that we’re independent and that we can kind of release music whenever the hell we feel like it, you know. If we went in the studio today and recorded a song, and it was finished, we can get it mixed and mastered and put that out as our next single. That being said, like, we have our eyes focused very, very keenly on taking as much advantage of the time that we have together as we can and being as productive in that time as we can, and then making the most out of what we produce.” Looking forward…..Halestorm plans to release a photo book called To Hale And Back in May 2015. The book, for which the band teamed with photographer and longtime friend Rob Fenn, will document the group’s career so far. Fenn has been traveling with the band since 2012 and a description of the book says that his pictures “capture Halestorm at their most intimate, their most vulnerable and at their most triumphant moments via his trusty lens, and unwavering eye.” The 272-page hardcover photo book is also described as “the storybook tale of one young band’s rise to superstardom, as well as the build-up to their highly anticipated new album, Into The Wild Life.” To order To Hale And Back, go here. In announcing the book on Halestorm’s Facebook page, singer Lzzy Hale thanked the group’s fans for getting them this far. She told us how much the fans mean to the band: “I get wonderful, wonderful, heartfelt letters about what our music and what we stand for means to everybody and that’s something that, when I was 13, I never even thought anybody would ever say that to me. So just know how much we really appreciate them enabling us to do what we love every single day.” Into The Wild Life arrives on April 14th. The first single, “Apocalyptic,” recently became Halestorm’s third Number One single at rock radio. After its current European tour ends, Halestorm will begin a North American jaunt on their Carnival Of Madness with The Pretty Reckless on April 22nd in Nashville….When Rise Against opened for Foo Fighters in Adelaide, Australia recently on one of the last shows of the Foos’ Australian tour, Rise Against invited Dave Grohl onstage to play drums with them on the song “Came Without Warning,” originally performed by the band Scream. Grohl played drums for Scream for four years, joining the Washington, D.C.-based hardcore band at the age of 17, touring the world and recording two albums with them before eventually getting the gig as Nirvana‘s drummer. Video footage of Grohl and Rise Against playing the song has been posted online. (Consequence Of Sound)…Thom Wilson, producer of the Offspring‘s breakthrough 1994 album Smash, passed away on February 8th although a cause of death has yet to be announced. After getting his start working on soft-rock albums by the likes of Seals & Crofts, Wilson became the go-to producer for punk rock records, getting behind the board for records from seminal acts like Bad Religion, TSOL, the Adolescents,Dead Kennedys, the Vandals, Social Distortion and many others. (Rolling Stone)…. The PRP announced System Of A Down has added two more North American dates to its upcoming world tour. In addition to shows in Los Angeles on April 6th and Quebec on June 18th, the band will now stop in Detroit on June 17th and Toronto on the 19th. The tour commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide and will feature System Of A Down’s first-ever performance in their homeland of Armenia, on April 23rd. See the full tour in detail on the Road Rage page. Watch their video announcement here on their efforts for Armenian justice…And finally today, let’s get your dance party ON with my friends Godsmack and their crew. Sully Erna, SHAKE THAT THING! LOL