Good morning. The Pulse Of Radio reporting the rock world reacted in horror to the tragic events that occurred in Las Vegas on Sunday night (Oct 1st), when a 64-year-old white male named Stephen Paddock opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on thousands of people attending an outdoor concert in a nearby parking lot. At press time, 59 people had been killed and 527 wounded, with Paddock reportedly taking his own life before a SWAT team burst into his hotel room. Police have yet to determine a motive for Paddock’s killing spree. He reportedly had as many as 19 guns with him in his hotel room, while more weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition were found at one of his two Nevada homes.
Musicians took to Twitter to express their disbelief and shock. Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan wrote, “Waking up 2 this awful Las Vegas news. So sorry for those of you who have lost loved ones. This is so damn heartbreaking.”Stone Sour‘s Corey Taylor, who has lived in Las Vegas, said, “Just woke up to the horrible news about Las Vegas. Checking on friends & family now. Shocked.” Papa Roach tweeted, “In disbelief about the shooting in Vegas. Praying for the victims and families.” Avenged Sevenfold guitarist Zacky Vengeance tweeted, “Waking up to such awful news needs to stop. I wish we could all just respect life and enjoy the ride together.” Jason Aldean was performing at the three-day Route 91 Harvest country music festival across Las Vegas Boulevard from the Mandalay Bay when the shooting erupted.
It’s so frightening and so senseless. I’ve been to a couple of rock festivals in that lot. I’ve stayed in the Mandalay Bay. It just won’t have the same good memories for me anymore. Pray for Las Vegas.
Speaking of, Avenged Sevenfold has confirmed the details of an early 2018 North American headlining tour with Breaking Benjamin and Bullet For My Valentine. The trek will begin on Jan 12th in Nashville with shows booked so far through Feb 11th in Fargo, ND. The band’s fan club, Deathbat Nation, will get the first chance at tickets with a pre-sale today (Oct 3rd), followed by a Ticketmaster pre-sale on Thursday (Oct 5th), with whatever’s left going on sale to the general public on Friday (Oct 6th). See Road Rage for all the dates.
The band has stated that Canadian dates will be announced next week and more North American dates are coming soon. The tour is the group’s first headlining venture in support of its latest album, The Stage, which came out in October 2016.
Avenged has designed an elaborate new stage show based on the album and singer M. Shadows admitted to us that it’s geared toward indoor venues: “This is a much more cerebral approach to kind of expressing ourselves onstage instead of just doing the tried and true stuff. That being said, when we do festivals and stuff, obviously you can’t bring that stuff and have the same impact. When that happens, we’ll probably flip the switch and go back into the pyrotech stuff. But it’s been kind of a discussion that we want to stay inside arenas and try to really curate what our audience is seeing, trying to give people an experience indoors.“
Avenged was originally going to headline this summer, but the band changed its plans after getting offered a support slot with Metallica on the latter act’s stadium run.
How much do I love Lzzy‘s haircut?!!!! TONS! As reported yesterday, the members of Halestorm recently opened up about the making of their new album in an interview with our Detroit radio station WRIF. The group is working in a Nashville studio with producer Nick Raskulinecz on its fourth effort, which is due out in early 2018. Asked about the status of the sessions, guitarist Joe Hottinger said, “We’ve got a few songs started, a few finished, and . . . I don’t know. We’re touring now.” Drummer Arejay Hale added, “We’re gonna wrap up the rest of it when we finish the tour. We’re just gonna go right back in the studio and keep going until it’s done.”
Hale told us a while back that Halestorm never has firm concepts for a new record before they start making it: “I guess the pattern that we’ve kind of followed, or fell into I should say, ’cause there’s never really a plan in this camp, has been we don’t really know, you know, how the record is gonna develop until we get into the studio.”
The band members also said that they have been writing some new material on the road to add to the songs that were composed in the studio and recorded already. Halestorm hit the road two weeks for a month-long combination of headlining shows and festivals. The band next stops in Akron, OH on Tuesday (Oct 3rd).
The band’s last LP, 2015’s Into The Wild Life, was criticized by some fans for veering too far into pop music territory. But I have a feeling this next one is gonna blow us all away! Can’t wait to hear it!
I have to agree with him, and as I recall, their guitarist said the same thing! Deftones frontman Chino Moreno told Revolver in a new interview the band is thinking of starting to write music for its ninth studio album, saying, “We might start writing music. I’m thinking of going in the next couple months and staying with Stephen (Carpenter, guitarist) for a few days . . . Trying to think of different ways of writing music from scratch.”
Moreno continued, “On our last record, (Carpenter) didn’t have as much to do with the writing process as I would have liked for him to have. The idea this time is to just go hang out with him for a couple weeks at his house and just record him playing guitar, take some of the riffs, whatever he makes, organize stuff.”
Moreno called Carpenter’s guitar playing “one of the most — if not the most important part — of Deftones, what we do.” Carpenter admitted last year in an interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com that he “didn’t want to play” on the band’s last record, 2016’s Gore, saying, “It wasn’t the style or the sound I was hoping we would take. It wasn’t what I was expecting or wanting.” Moreno described Carpenter around the same time as the “odd man out” while the band recorded Gore, although he added it “wasn’t our intention to exclude him.” Carpenter, however, dismissed speculation at the time that he would leave the band, which toured for more than a year in support of Gore.
I got an update on Marilyn Manson‘s condition. He broke his ankle in two places and is probably having surgery in L.A. as we speak from this fall with a set piece at his show on Friday night in NYC. So now, will HE have to borrow the famous THRONE from Dave Grohl in order to do the rest of his tour dates? Wonderers are wondering. We also hear the tour dates they had to postpone are in the process of being rescheduled. So if you were one of the ticket holders, you can hang on to the ones you have til further notice or redeem at point of purchase.
Sons Of Texas have been added to the Alter Bridge-All That Remains-Man The Mighty tour. Find all the dates, including their hometown headline stop in McAllen, TX at the Cin El Rey Theater, Dec 16, in Road Rage.
And last, but not least, rock legend Tom Petty died Monday of a cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, his longtime manager, Tony Dimitriades, has confirmed to People. He was 66.
The manager released a statement, saying: “On behalf of the Tom Petty family, we are devastated to announce the untimely death of of our father, husband, brother, leader and friend Tom Petty. He suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu in the early hours of this morning and was taken to UCLA Medical Center but could not be revived. He died peacefully at 8:40 p.m. PT surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends.”
According to TMZ, EMTs were able to find a pulse when they found Petty, but the hospital found no brain activity when he arrived. A chaplain came to administer last rites and a decision was made to pull life support with a “do not resuscitate” order from his family.
Three-time Grammy Award winner and 202 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Tom Petty charted albums in the Top 5 on the Billboard Top 200 chart in each of his five decades as a recording artist. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers‘ most recent release, Hypnotic Eye, entered the chart at No. 1. The band released its debut album in 1976 and has since sold over eighty million records. (Thank you, Blabbermouth.)
Celebrating life today, Lajon Witherspoon of Sevendust is 45 and Tommy Lee of Motley Crue is 55.