WOW! Thank you for participating in the live App Chat with Adam Gontier last night on the new hardDriveRadio APP! We had a great number of Saint Asonia fans on board and Adam answered so many of your questions! If you liked that, then stop back tomorrow night when guitarist Mike Mushok will be on the app. 8 PM Eastern tomorrow, Thu Jul 30. We love bringing the artists to you!
Today, Saint Asonia hit the hardDriveRadio studios to do acoustic performances of new tunes, and interview with me. Looking forward to seeing them. Their debut self-titled album drops Friday. Today, the band has released one more song from the disc, called “Fairy Tale.” The collection of veteran rockers from bands like Three Days Grace, Staind and Finger Eleven has already released several other songs, including the band’s debut single, “Better Place.” A video for the latter tune will also make its debut on Friday Hit www.saintasonia.com for links to pre-order the cd.
My buddy Foo Fighters main man Dave Grohl told Q magazine he is doing his own physical therapy for his broken leg along with what the doctors ordered. Grohl said, “Ever since I started playing the drums my right calf muscle has been twice the size of my left from stomping the hell out of my kick drum pedal. Now it looks like a sad little chicken wing so I’ve been doing a little bit of my own rehab therapy lately, which is air drumming along to Led Zeppelin three times a day.” Well, I actually heard that rehab taking place at CitiField in the drum room before our interview. Dave is a maniac. And what if not a drummer’s kick stand to rehab a broken leg! The man’s a genius!
One thing that Grohl told us he is not doing during his recovery is writing any new songs: “Gus, our tour manager, said, ‘Did you want me to put your guitar in the room with you?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ And I sat there staring at it like, that’s the last thing I want to do right now. If I were to write a record right now, it would be a frustrated, depressing mess. No way! I want to write songs that make people boogie — I couldn’t even walk! So no, I have not hit some creative stride.”
Grohl said in a recent interview that he initially envisioned the throne flying above the crowd, saying, “At one point, that chair, we thought about putting these cables on that chair, and like flying around the stadium on one of those spider cam things. I was like, ‘You know what, I already have one f**king broken leg. Maybe I’ll just stay put.‘” The frontman also hinted at Foo Fighters taking a break at the end of 2015, saying, “The hardest part about touring is being away from home. At this point, we have families, we have kids . . . This year is maybe one of the biggest years of touring we’ve ever done. Right now we go up to I think November, after that, we might take a little bit of a break, no pun intended.” The Foos next play in Edmonton, AB on Aug 12th.
Deftones kicked off a co-headlining tour with Incubus last week, but don’t expect to hear any new songs on the trek. Although the band has nearly completed work on its eighth studio release, singer Chino Moreno told us why fans will have to wait a little longer to hear the new material live: “We contemplated it a little bit, we talked about it. But with, you know, YouTube and things like that, it’s like, by the time people hear the real recorded version, a live version recorded on someone’s camera phone will be people’s first idea of what our new record sounds like. I really don’t think we wanted to take that step yet. But yeah, it is sort of hard ’cause we’re sitting on all this material that we’re really excited about and really want to play.”
The new Deftones album is scheduled to be released on September 25th and will follow up 2012’s acclaimed Koi No Yokan, although the new disc’s arrival could be pushed back to November. Keyboardist Frank Delgado told Diffuser the record does not have a title yet, adding that the band has worked on this album at a much more relaxed pace than before. He explained,”For the last couple of records, we went in and we started writing and we didn’t stop until we finished the record. This one we took our time and it was a good pace . . . It allowed us to think about things longer as opposed to get something done by a deadline.”
As previously reported, Deftones has tapped Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell to lay down a guest guitar solo on the new album. Deftones play festivals in Toronto today (Jul 29th) and Silver Springs, MD on Friday (Jul 31st) before rejoining with Incubus in Gilford, NH on Saturday (Aug 1st).
Tool singer Maynard James Keenan‘s other band, Puscifer, will release its third album, Money Shot, on Oct 30th. The outfit has issued a first single called “Grand Canyon” along with an accompanying video. Keenan said, “It’s extremely satisfying to witness simple conversations and ideas transform into completed sonic landscapes. And to have these stories go above and beyond the initial ideas makes my grumpy heart swell three sizes.”
We asked Keenan a while back how he manages to juggle all his projects, which also include his wine business and, of course, Tool: “You just have to make sure that you’re doing one at a time. When I’m onstage I’m doing whatever project it is, that’s what’s happening onstage. Offstage, I can be on the computer, working on digital aspects or information aspects of the other projects. If I’m in the winery making wine, I’m making wine — it’s pretty separated in that way. But again, it’s just a matter of time management and not wasting a lot of time on extra stuff that doesn’t matter.”
Keenan’s son Devo and Primus drummer Tim Alexander appear on the new Puscifer album, alongside Puscifer regulars like Carina Round, Jeff Friedl and Matt McJunkins. Puscifer has existed in some form since 1995 but only began making records in 2007. The act’s last full-length album was 2011’s Conditions Of My Parole. Tool, meanwhile, will play its first confirmed concert of 2015 on Halloween (Oct 31st) at a one-day music festival called Monster Mash in Tempe, AZ.
Pulse Of Radio reporting Metallica is the subject of a new comic book biography called Orbit: Metallica. Published by StormFront Media, formerly Bluewater Productions, the book chronicles the formation and early history of the group and joins the company’s line of biographical comics that also includes books on Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Miley Cyrus, Prince, Hillary Clinton, Michael Jackson and more.
The StormFront list of comics includes books featuring current events, biographies of the famous and the infamous, and a growing fiction line. Writer Michael L. Frizell said he’s never written about an artist “with such a rabid fan base as Metallica,” while artist Jayfri Hashim, who counts himself as one of those fans, said, added, “Many people get it wrong when they say Metallica is a rock band. They’re not. They are the very definition of a metal band. They were daring, innovative, and the story of their beginning fascinates me.” Print copies of Orbit: Metallica start at $3.99 and can be ordered at www.comicfleamarket.com. Digital copies can be downloaded on Wowio, ComiXology, DriveThru Comics, Google Play, iTunes, Kindle and more. Metallica headlines at Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival this Saturday night (Aug 1st).
Saw the Rise Against-Killswitch Engage show smack dab in the middle of NYC’s Central Park’s Summerstage last night. What a great show! KSe slayed it! Sort of a hometown event for frontman Jesse Leach, who lives not far from the famed open space. They ripped through their greatest hits. Then Rise Against, whose cd The Black Market has to be one of my favorites of this year, showed NYC what they’ve got. The crowd was in their hand and they soaked up the love (and the sweat) like a sponge! (Man, it was so hot out there! I was drenched!) Anyhow, Rise Against announced yesterday they are having such a great time with Killswitch, they’ve added another month of shows in Nov. See Road Rage. Check out this full concert from Rock In Rio from Rise Against.
Happy 62nd today to Geddy Lee of Rush!