Love starting my day out talking about this guy! The Pulse Of Radio says Dave Grohl recently was the guest on photographer-director Sam Jones’ interview series Off Camera, where he discussed Nirvana’s quick rise to fame, the pitfalls involved and his transition from drummer to frontman for Foo Fighters. Grohl said, “Unfortunately, Nirvana became too big too quick. Bands are like families that go through uncomfortable growing pains, and if it happens all at once, it’s just too much to handle.”
Grohl also remembered how he felt immediately after Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain died and how that led him to create Foo Fighters. He explained, “When Kurt died, I woke up the next day and thought, ‘I’m lucky to be alive’ . . . It was a profound revelation I had the day after he died and it changed everything. It honestly changed so much of my life that I felt the most important thing was just appreciating being alive, good day or bad day. But after Kurt died, I really felt that way, like, “Okay, I’m gonna try this. What do I have to lose? I’m gonna start this band and then I’m gonna be the singer.”
Dave also revealed he didn’t have any formal music training. Watch here. And what happened to rock bands here. And here’s Dave’s advice to new & up and coming bands.
Another favorite is this guy. And Slipknot and Stone Sour vocalist Corey Taylor has taken aim at the annual Grammy Awards, calling the event a “popularity contest” in an interview with Finland’s Radio Rock. Slipknot has been nominated seven times and won once, with Taylor saying, “I know a lot of people who put a lot of stock in it, but I keep telling them, ‘We’ve been nominated now like, God knows how many times. We won once. Cool. It’s a popularity contest — that’s all it is.’”
Slipknot won Best Metal Performance in 2006 for the song “Before I Forget” and is up again for the same prize this year, this time for its track “Custer.” The band will compete against Lamb Of God, Ghost, Sevendust and August Burns Red for the prize.
Taylor remarked, “If it were just about the music, you would see more metal bands — not including us — nominated in other categories, and you just don’t . . . It’s like everybody lives and breathes by whether or not they’re gonna get this tiny statue. Why? So it can sit on a shelf and collect dust?”
Taylor told us a while back that other things are more important milestones in the band’s career: “Taking the Number One spot and really earning it, and really proving that we’d earned it, that was big. Every plaque that we’ve ever earned, I mean those are like just dug in footholds in the mountain that you climb. And then every show that we’ve sold out, that we never thought we would, just to be global the way we are — it makes you sit back and go, ‘Wow. Really?’“
He added to Radio Rock, “The real reflection of where you’re at is walking on that stage and seeing a massive audience lose their minds — that’s what it’s all about. You can take those statuettes all day long. I don’t care. It’s cool to win, but I’m not gonna f**king die if we don’t win a Grammy.”
Slipknot is nominated in both the “Best Rock Album” and “Best Metal Performance” categories at the 58th annual Grammy Awards, which will be held on February 15th in Los Angeles and broadcast on CBS at 8:00 p.m. ET. Slipknot is currently on tour in Europe and Taylor has indicated that his other act Stone Sour will begin work on a new album when Slipknot comes off the road. (Thanks The Pulse of Radio.)
Tonight, Breaking Benjamin and Starset are at Irving Plaza in NYC, both on this cool acoustic tour. I will be sitting down with the boys and possibly a special guest. Stay tuned!
Was on the hotLine yesterday with Matt Tuck of Bullet For My Valentine! He’s so stoked to be on his British Invasion Tour with Asking Alexandria and While She Sleeps. The whole crew and line up are British and Matt’s very proud of the fact that this is one of only tours like this to ever hit the states! I’d be proud, too. There are so many killer bands out there from the U.K. that are just starting to get recognized over here, including Mallory Knox, who were on the Van’s Warped Tour last year. News fact: Britain declared a formal end to hostilities with its former colonies, the United States Of America, on this date in 1783.
Deftones posted a teaser for their new album, Gore. The single, “Prayers/Triangles” will be serviced to radio today! Listen for it this weekend on the world famous hardDrive with Lou Brutus!
Blabbermouth reporting New York rock act Rev Theory has inked a worldwide deal with Another Century. In addition, the band has exclusively partnered with WWE and WWE Network to have a brand new track, “We Own The Night,” as the official theme song to NXT‘s hit series “Breaking Ground”. Rev Theory is also hard at work on its much-anticipated new full-length album, to be released later this year.
“On behalf of the entire band, it’s awesome to know that our careers have come full circle,” says vocalist Rich Luzzi. “We actually released our first album with Robert Kampf and the Century Media team. We are excited and we feel at home again with our family at Another Century, a family that truly understands and is passionate about rock music and Rev Theory. Bring on 2016!”
And lastly, but not leastly, Blabbermouth also reporting Metallica frontman James Hetfield recently did voiceover work for the hit animated series “American Dad.” The show, which originated on Fox but now airs on TBS, featured Hetfield an as a water polo coach also named “James Hetfield.” The running gag is that the coach claims he is not James Hetfield from Metallica, even though he looks and sounds exactly like him, and makes constant references to the band. Some of Metallica‘s music — including the songs “Master Of Puppets” and “All Nightmare Long” — is used in the episode which aired, unbeknownst to us, on Sunday!
Hetfield told Collider in a 2013 interview he loved “American Dad.” He said: “I don’t watch a lot of TV. Our kids just discovered that there is such a thing as TV. They thought they were watching it the whole time, but we were putting DVDs in. [Laughs] I like the cartoon shows. I love ‘Family Guy’, I love ‘American Dad’, I love stuff like that. It’s another level. It’s hilarious. It makes me laugh.”