Guns N’ Roses fever strikes NYC! The band seems to be dropping hints they plan to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its landmark 1987 debut album, Appetite For Destruction — but what shape that commemoration will take remains hidden for now. Ads have begun to pop up around New York City featuring the record’s artwork with the hashtag #APPETITE30TH.
The record turns 30 this Friday (Jul 21st) and Guns N’ Roses is scheduled to play an intimate show on Thursday night (Jul 20th) at New York’s famed Apollo Theater, so it would not be unreasonable to guess that the group might play the album from front to back for the first time in its history at that gig.
Among the Appetite anniversary ads popping up around town is a particularly notable one in Times Square at the corner of Broadway and W 43rd St, along with one right outside the Apollo on W 125th St in Harlem.
It is not clear what else the band may have in store for the record’s anniversary. A show featuring all five of the original members seems like only a remote possibility at this point.
Guitarist Slash told us a while back what he’s most proud of when it comes to Guns N’ Roses: “The most proud I am would have to be just the sense of accomplishment from getting from these sort of nomadic gutter rats that we definitely were, to manage to get from that point and make a record and go out and start touring and doing all that stuff and then to actually succeed, to have that record succeed, it was definitely an accomplishment that I’m very proud of.”
Guns N’ Roses’ current “Not In This Lifetime” tour features three members of the classic Guns lineup — Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and singer Axl Rose — backed by three musicians from later lineups and one new member. The trek, which kicked off in Apr 2016 and is still going, is the most popular and highest-grossing global tour of 2017 so far, according to the mid-year report from live entertainment trade Pollstar. The tour has grossed $151.5 million worldwide and Guns was the only group to sell more than one million tickets so far this year. (Thanks The Pulse Of Radio)
According to a press release, Nine Inch Nails have unveiled a new song called “This Isn’t The Place” from their upcoming EP Add Violence, just days ahead of the record’s release on Friday (Jul 21st). The song begins with an eerie arrangement of synths, drums and a bit of piano, with the music building and receding under Trent Reznor‘s vocals.
“This Isn’t the Place” follows the previously released Add Violence song, “Less Than.” The five-track project marks the second installment in Nine Inch Nail’s three-part EP series. The first, Not The Actual Events, arrived last Dec. The third is yet to be titled but is expected to arrive by the end of the year. Reznor has said that all three EPs will connect to tell one story, explaining on Beats One Radio last week, “We thought it might be interesting to split the record up into three parts that come out and have their own moment of attention — each of which are stylistically a bit different.”
The last full-length NIN album, Hesitation Marks, came out in 2013. Nine Inch Nails will begin a string of live shows tonight (July 19th) with a warm-up gig in Bakersfield, CA at Rabobank Arena, to be followed on Jul 23rd by the FYF Fest in Los Angeles. Other concerts are scheduled throughout the summer and fall.
Earlier this week, Reznor revealed the back cover of the Add Violence EP, saying online that it was possibly “important.” The photo of various readouts and knobs on some kind of machine includes a dial marked “Presence,” which some fans have taken as a reference to “The Presence,” an otherworldly manifestation haunting a dystopian future America on Nine Inch Nails’ 2007 concept album Year Zero. In other words, could Add Violence be connected to Year Zero?
My good pal Full Metal Jackie interviewed another good pal, Sully Erna of Godsmack on her radio show Whiplash out in LA. Blabbermouth reporting she spoke with Erna on Sunday night on her show on 95.5 KLOS.
Speaking about how his songwriting process has evolved over the years, Erna said: “Interestingly enough, if anyone knows anything about Godsmack, we’ve always been kind of a tough-edged band — really good music for extreme sports and being in the gym and anything like that: football, motorcross, whatever. We even have a lot of Army and Navy and marines that come to our shows and just tell us stories about how it got them through really tough times when they had to fly over Iraq and Afghanistan and whatever, and do their job… jobs that they didn’t really wanna do. They turned up the music and just did what they had to do, and it helped them get through something that would have been naturally pretty difficult to do. But now we’re getting to a place where the band has been around for twenty years. We’re very blessed and lucky to still have a career and have fans out there that care about us. And we wanna be smart as well. And, by the way, I’m not that young, angry kid that I used to be once. I’m a lot older now, I have a daughter of my own, I’m in a good place in my life. I don’t have a whole lot to really be stressed out about or mad. And so the music has to evolve with that. Everything that I’ve ever done in music was always based on something that affected me on an emotional level — it was never made-up stories; it was always based on my life to some degree. And so now where things are a little bit brighter and a little bit better, we’re not gonna write about flowers and ice cream, but I certainly think that it’s gonna have a little bit more positive of a message and I definitely think it’s even gonna have a little bit more of a commercial edge to it. Because we’re older now, and we wanna kind of continue to write and play music that we also enjoy and not always have to be in ‘screamo’ mode and chugging away.”
He continued: “Me and my drummer recently just said… We made an agreement, we were, like, ‘I think we’ve come up with every combination of chugging that we can.’ We call it the Morse-code effect. I’m, like, ‘Dude, I honestly can’t think of any more combinations. I’m done with chugging. I think now we’re just gonna focus on writing really well-written songs.’ And that’s what I’ve been kind of focused on for the last so many years. And due to that, I listen to a lot of great songwriters — Elton John, Michael Jackson… whoever it is that has been legendary and iconic. And I try once again to absorb and learn from them so we can put out the best record we can due to the year and the day and age that we’re in.”
Asked what the hardest part of writing music is for him, Erna said: “I think it’s the challenge. It’s just the challenge of getting up every day and putting in your time. That’s complicated. When the ideas come and everything’s flowing, it’s almost effortless. And if anybody’s out there who’s creative, who’s an artist, I would highly recommend that you YouTube Elizabeth Gilbert‘s TED talk on ‘Your Elusive Creative Genius’. She’s the lady who wrote the book ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. She does a TED talk, and she does this amazing speech on how to take the pressure off yourself, because, as artists, it’s no wonder that we become manic-depressive, alcohol addicts. We’re always trying to beat our last thing, we’re always wondering if our best days are behind us and if we’ve already done our best work and how do we top our last record or how do I put on a better performance as an actor or as a book writer. So we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. And I really think people who are interested in this kind of thing should really watch this talk. It’s very, very inspiring; it changed the way I work. But for me, that’s what it is — that’s the hardest part: just going there and doing your job and hoping that your genius shows up and that brilliant things happen.”
Sully also confirmed that Godsmack is hoping to release a new single in the first few weeks of 2018 before following it up with a full-length album by early spring. He also recently walked back his previous comments that Godsmack intends to commemorate the band’s twentieth anniversary in 2018 with a massive world tour that could feature the group playing its self-titled 1998 debut disc live from start to finish.
On Friday, we heard devastating news about Adrenaline Mob‘s horrific vehicle accident in Florida that injured several and killed bassist David “Z” Zablidowsky. Blabbermouth reporting according to Times Leader, Adrenaline Mob‘s tour manager, Jane Train, remains in critical condition in a Gainesville hospital, four days after a crash that killed the band’s bassist and injured several others.
A close associate of Train, whose real name is Janet Rains, told the Times Leader: “She is not in a coma; however, she is not fully conscious. She had surgery (Monday) morning and did very well. She is in very good hands. Please pray for her and the entire Adrenaline Mob family.” The 48-year-old Train is best known as lead singer of ’80s cover band M80.
The accident occurred near Micanopy early Friday afternoon when a tractor-trailer veered off Interstate 75 and struck the group’s RV, which had pulled off the highway with a flat tire. The band was traveling in the RV and a van that was pulling a covered trailer.
According to Gainesville.com, a total of nine people were in the vehicles. One died, six were taken to area hospitals, and the other two declined medical treatment. The majority of those injured were listed in serious condition and one was in critical condition. Those injured were taken to UF Health Shands Hospital and North Florida Regional Medical Center.
Robert Dressler, 45, of Plains, who was the band’s soundman on the tour; and Jason McCole, 41, of Wilkes-Barre, who was driving the RV, were also injured.
Adrenaline Mob singer Russell Allen posted a message over the weekend in which he revealed that he helped pull Train and McCole from the wreckage before the RV became engulfed in flames. Allen sent special thanks to passer-by and Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick Dumon for his “bravery in assisting me.”
Adrenaline Mob was scheduled to play Friday night in St. Petersburg. The band was touring in support of its third studio album, We The People, which was released on June 2 via Century Media. The follow-up to 2014’s Men Of Honor was the first release to feature Zablidowsky and drummer Jordan Cannata.
Our thoughts and prayers go out the families, friends and fans.
Celebrating life today, Brian May of Queen is 70!