Good morning Radicals!
Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor spoke with Rolling Stone earlier this week on his involvement with Apple Music, the new streaming service from the maker of iPod and iTunes. Reznor has the position of Chief Creative Director at the new service, and to celebrate the launch, he has released some previously unavailable instrumental versions of the albums “The Fragile” and “With Teeth.” While his involvement with Apple Music has taken up much of his time lately, Reznor admits he has been “messing around with some things,” adding, “It’s not a record I’m trying to finish in a month. It’s more just feeling around in the dark and seeing what sounds interesting. It’s nice to do that every few years to try and reinvent and discover and try to learn about yourself and what feels exciting to you as an artist.” Might we be getting some new NIN next year? I hope so!
In a recent interview with California Rock News, Hellyeah frontman Chad Gray talked about their latest single “Hush“, which Gray wrote about the violence he experienced at home while he was growing up: “I think the whole overall mantra of that song is ‘You’re not alone.’ That’s a very powerful line, because, going through that part of my life, I did feel alone, and I think a lot of people that are in that situation, they see it happening, but a lot of people don’t wanna disrupt the family. So, as fucked up as it is, they keep quiet about it. Or maybe they don’t have anyone to tell. Or if they did have someone to tell, what happens if you tell someone… The way the world works sometimes, you come in, they yank you out, they put you in a foster home, your mom and dad are gone, and it completely breaks the family. So they keep quiet and just deal with it, rather than speaking out about it and telling somebody that they can trust about it, to kind of keep it within the family, and maybe have some sort of an intervention. And I think what I kind of wanna do is just to provoke that, ’cause I’m quite sure that that happens in the metal community. And we’re here to protect each other — I think. I fully believe in metal family and metal community, and I think that we are here to help each other. For every action, there’s a reaction, right?! So, like, some shit goes down and something gets heavy or whatever, if I can provoke to somebody that listens to our music just that second thought. Like, ‘Hold on a second.’ You know what I mean?! Maybe there’s something between here and there that resonates in them and they go, ‘Count to ten. Walk out of the room.’ That song, to me, is part of my story, part of my past…” You can watch the entire interview video here. (thanks to Blabbermouth for the transcript.)
Guitar legend Slash has expressed his dislike of the current state of the music industry. Talking with Radio Nova in Finland, he said: “I think the music business itself sucks. It’s turned into a very corporate, materialistic… I mean, even artists are trying to conform to the record industry now. It used to be the artist was for the artist and there was a conflict of interest between the creative artist and the record company wanting to make a lot of money, and eventually they’d sort of work it out. Because then, they used to develop artists, and now it’s just like Top 40 — everybody’s trying to be Top 40. Even heavy metal bands are trying to be Top 40. So it’s not a big turn-on, like it was for me in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s where it was exciting and there was a sense of rebellion and whatever. So I just do what I do, which is completely against the grain of what the industry is all about. But, as a whole, it’ll get better eventually. It always has its ups and downs.”
KORN drummer Ray Luzier, THE WINERY DOGS/MR. BIG bassist Billy Sheehan and former ANTHRAX singer Neil Turbin performed a cover version of the DEEP PURPLE classic “Highway Star” last night at Lucky Strike in Hollywood, California. The trio was accompanied during the performance — which was part of the weekly “Jam Night” at the venue — by guitarist Mayuko Okai. Check out the video here. (Thanks Blabbermouth!)
Rockers celebrating birthdays today: Rocky Gray, drummer for Evanescence and We Are The Fallen is 41, former Bush bassist Dave Parsons turns 50! Congrats all!