What a great day we had yesterday with not only Richard Patrick from Filter stopping by the hardDriveRadio studios, but also attending his label’s listening party for the new Crazy Eyes album. Hosted by Matt Pinfield, I actually got a wonderful shout out from Richard from the stage! We’ve been buds since 1995! Hard to believe, but it is true! I’ve been there for the ups and the downs and right now, it’s a HUGE UP! He’s been through some rough times with the passing of his dad (on Dec 8th of all days!) and major back surgery, and as Friedrich Nietzsche said, “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” And man, has it ever. The forthcoming Crazy Eyes album, Richard’s 7th studio album, is one of his best works since Short Bus. If you loved the early Filter stuff, this will blow you away! Be looking for the video interview with Richard in a few weeks on the hardDriveRadio YouTube Channel!
BTW: at the Filter party, I was talking to the A&R rep for Wind Up Records and he told me both Young Guns and Crobot will be making their new albums here in the NYC area! Very exciting! Machine will once again do Crobot, while David Bendeth will twirl the knobs again for Young Guns! I have a feeling I will be seeing these fellows out and about in the Big Apple!
Look for Filter tour dates on the “Make America Hate Again” Tour with Orgy, Vampires Everywhere and Death Valley High in Road Rage.
Then it was off to the Muse concert at Barclays Ctr in Brooklyn. Now let me start by saying I’ve been to a TON of concerts in my long life, but NEVER have I seen such an amazing, unique, creative display in production as I had last night (ok, maybe Pink Floyd.) I mean, 3-D projected graphics, lights blazing, a turntable stage (ok, we’ve seen that before) and NO PYRO! (Thank you. I am losing my hearing already, don’t need anymore of that! LOL) And my ears are NOT buzzing today from the show being TOO loud! (You know that feeling with the bass is so booming, it’s like you are being hit by a soft mallet in the chest? I hate that!) Anyhow, the above shot from my iPhone 5 does not do the show the justice it deserves, but suffice to say, it was outstanding and no one sat down for the entire show! I must say, I haven’t been a huge Muse fan in the past and only saw them one other time in a club, but it sure has opened my eyes to how strong they are live and how much they freakin’ ROCK! When they leave the U.S., they have a 6 night arena stand in Paris! Amazing!
Meanwhile, The Pulse Of Radio reporting Muse frontman Matt Bellamy has apparently taken his interest in drones to a new level: according to NME, Bellamy has invested in a new drone racing league. Its CEO, Nick Horbaczewski said that his company plans to turn drone racing into the latest sports entertainment phenomenon. The league hopes to ape the success of franchises like Formula One and NASCAR, using drones, and has recruited Bellamy among their first investors. Muse named its 2015 album Drones and is currently on a world tour in which drones are part of the stage production.
Drones is Muse’s first concept album and drummer Dominic Howard told us the idea came up early on: “The ‘drones’ concept came in very early. Matt brought it into the rehearsal room when we first started kind of getting the tracks together and, you know, it’s something he had been reading about. You know, we discussed a lot about what we were trying to achieve, I suppose, with this album. I think we just had a bit more of a clearer idea of what we wanted to do. I mean, it wasn’t just, ‘Yeah, let’s get some songs together and just go and see what happens.’ I mean, we wanted it to sound a certain way.”
According to Horbaczewski, Bellamy is among a string of investors who have pumped a collective $8 million into the Drone Racing League (DRL) so far. The current North American leg of Muse’s world tour in support of Drones stops in Newark, NJ on Friday (Jan 29th) and closes out on Monday (Feb 1st) in Washington D.C. The band will be touring Europe from the end of February through early June.
It’s official: the name of Deftones‘ eighth studio release is Gore and the disc will be out on Apr 8th. The band confirmed the much-rumored name of the record yesterday (Jan 27th) with a 30-second teaser clip — which has since been blocked — that featured a snippet of new music before the title of the CD appeared onscreen.
Gore had been rumored as a title for some time and frontman Chino Moreno recently had some fun with the rumors by posting photos of Depeche Mode‘s Martin L. Gore and A Nightmare On Elm Street‘s Freddy Krueger character online with the title “Prayers/Triangles,” presumably the first single.
Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter once told us if it were up to him, the band wouldn’t even bother with album titles: “I’ll be the guy that’s constantly saying, ‘What do we need a f***ing title for?’ I just don’t, I’m over, you know, naming records and all this and that. You know what I’ve wanted to do with our records? I think it would be cool. I want to put a CD out, it would look and appear to you as a blank CD. Take all the imagery away from the front so you’re purely selling the music.”
The new disc features a guest appearance from Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell. (The track is killer!) Chino Moreno recently told Kerrang! about the new set, “The heavier stuff is a little faster, and the more quaint stuff is a little more lush. It’s extreme in both directions. It’s not happy-sounding. We’ve been enjoying our lives and it’s not coming from a place of anger, or depression, or anything like that. But there’s darker content on it.” Deftones will tour Texas in March and has some festival dates on tap for May. I look forward to seeing Chino at our RadioContraband Convention in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks!
Well, it appears the picture of who will be playing in the lineup for the Guns N’ Roses reunion may have just gotten a little clearer. Blabbermouth reports guitarist Richard Fortus and keyboard player Dizzy Reed, both members of more recent iterations of the group, have quit their side project The Dead Daisies. A statement issued by the Daisies said that both musicians left the band in order to participate in “a momentous project in 2016.”
Reed is the longest-serving member of the Guns lineup after singer Axl Rose. He joined the band as a touring member in 1990, during theUse Your Illusion era, and has played with most of the original members.
We asked Reed how he’s managed to stay in the band for so long: “I get asked that a lot and it’s really just, I just never really thought about doing anything else, you know, on sort of a permanent basis. You know, I kind of feel like I’m in Guns N’ Roses and that’s where I was meant to be.”
Fortus has been a member of the Guns N’ Roses lineup since 2001 and appeared on some portions of the band’s 2008 album Chinese Democracy.
Guns N’ Roses has announced four headlining performances in April, two in Las Vegas and two at California’s Coachella Festival, with original members Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan the only members confirmed so far. The rest of the lineup for the shows — and a potential tour later in the year — remains unclear, although Reed, Fortus, keyboardist Chris Pitman and drummer Frank Ferrer are all believed to be involved. The status of original members Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler remains unknown, although it appears that Use Your Illusion-era drummer Matt Sorum is not involved.
In Dirt “Briefs”:
Hellyeah has shared a snippet from their forthcoming DVD filmed in Australia. Watch it here. The band is also working on their new album and have joined forces with PledgeMusic. Check that out here! HELL YEAH!
Candlebox are back with a new album and line up. Disappearing In Airports drops Apr 22. For Disappearing in Airports, the band worked with producers Carson Slovak and Grant McFarland (August Burns Red, Everclear, Rivers of Nihl) with frontman Kevin Martin, Dave Krusen on drums, Adam Kury on bass and the addition of guitarists Mike Leslie and Brian Quinn, the recommitment to creating music that is ‘pissed and urgent’ as well as bringing a new energy to the live show is at this records’ core.
Candlebox will be embarking on a string of acoustic dates in through Feb with a world tour kicking off in April, including performances at festivals including Lollapalooza Chile, Welcome to Rockville and Carolina Rebellion. Tour dates in Road Rage.
And finally today, check out THIS line up! SEVENDUST, TRIVIUM and LIKE A STORM! Woof! I will be stomping my feet, waving my arms and shouting out loud at that one! See Road Rage!