Heavy Music News
“Rock for Relief” Virtual Benefit Concert to Feature Corey Taylor, Lzzy Hale, Alice Cooper, and More
Corey Taylor, photo by Antonio Marino Jr. A bevy of notable rock musicians are coming together for a good cause. Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale, Bush’s Gavin Rossdale, and more will perform during the “Rock for Relief” virtual benefit show, while Alice Cooper and others will conduct interviews. “Rock for Relief” is being organized by United Stations Media Networks and Storic Media Podcast Network, with proceeds benefitting Feeding America’s COVID-19 Response Fund. The streaming event airs this Friday, July 3rd, at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT, and will rebroadcast immediately following at 11:00 p.m. ET / 8:00 p.m. PT. In addition to Taylor, Hale, and Rossdale, the performance lineup includes ex-Eagles guitarist Don Felder, George Thorogood, Alter Bridge’s Myles Kennedy, Filt...
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda Announces New Album Created with Fans on Twitch
Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park has announced a new solo album, which he crafted on Twitch along with input from his fans. The new LP, called Dropped Frames, Vol. 1, will arrive on July 10th through his own Kenji Kobayashi Productions label. The album owes its creation to Shinoda’s daily Twitch livestreams, in which he made music four days per week. Instead of making an album on his own, Shinoda reached out to fans on his Twitch channel to get their feedback. “Dropped Frames is just as much about the live channel as it is about the ‘album,’” Shinoda said in a statement. “The collection of songs is a highlight reel of the tracks I make on the channel, but a big part of the experience is the stream itself. When I start, I usually have very little idea of where it will go.” He added, “What ...
Robert Trujillo: Metallica Are “Excited” About Material for New Album
Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo offered some more insight into the band’s creative process while social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic. Previously, drummer Lars Ulrich had said the band were sharing song ideas over email and Zoom. Trujillo filled out the picture, stating that he’s upgraded his home recording gear and that each member has focused on honing their home studio, working together albeit independently. “We communicate every week, which is really great, so we have our connection intact,” Trujillo told The Vinyl Guide Podcast. “And what we’ve started doing is basically just really concentrating on our home studios and being creative from our homes and navigating through ideas and building on new ideas. And that’s where we’re at right now. We’re excited about cultivati...
Evanescence Unveil New Song “The Game Is Over”: Stream
Evanescence, photo by P.R. Brown Evanescence have shared the second single from their upcoming album, The Bitter Truth. The new song, “The Game Is Over”, showcases the band’s heavier side, with chugging guitars and driving drums accompanying Amy Lee’s vocals. “The Game Is Over” follows lead single “Wasted on You”, which arrived in late April. As of now, no release date has been set for The Bitter Truth, which will mark the band’s first album of new material since 2011’s self-titled effort. As for the message of the new tune, Lee stated, “This song is about being sick of the facade. The disguises we wear for others to make them feel comfortable, the inside feelings being so different than what we show on the outside to fit within the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable, or what’s not g...
Refused Share New Song “The Ballad of Buck Ravers” from Cyberpunk 2077 Video Game: Stream
Refused have released a new song, “The Ballad of Buck Ravers”, under their video game guise Samurai. The hardcore punks will appear as the fictional band in the upcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077, which is now due out on November 19th. “The Ballad of Buck Ravers” is the third Samurai track we’ve heard following “Chippin’ In” and “Never Fade Away”, both released last year. Fortunately for Refused fans, the band only changed in name for Cyberpunk 2077, which took the idea of The Shape of Punk to Come quite literally, even tabbing Refused to be its in-game band. Musically, this is classic Refused, with frontman Dennis Lyxzén shouting and wailing above aggressively smashed chords: “Lost another day to pointless drudgery / The slow chipping away/ Of my autonomy”. Refused’s vision of 2077 sounds...
Rammstein Drummer’s Early East German Band Had Two Government Spies in Its Lineup
Drummer Christoph “Doom” Schneider was an active member of the East Berlin music scene prior to the formation of Rammstein in 1994. In the ’80s, he was the drummer of new wave act Die Firma (The Firm), and it turns out he had two government spies in his band. When asked by Metal Hammer about playing music prior to the take down of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Schneider recounted his time in Die Firma. The band’s music had dark goth influences, indicative of his latter work with Rammstein, featuring protest lyrics that were poignant, if incriminating, given who might be listening or in the case of Die Firma, literally singing them. “Die Firma was like a new wave punk band,” Schneider said. “The style was a little dark, with gothic influences. We had lyrics that protested against the system...
Corey Taylor Responds to Slipknot Tribute Band’s Craigslist Ad Seeking New Singer
Corey Taylor is one of the hardest-working dudes in metal, but apparently he has time to consider a gig impersonating himself in a Slipknot tribute band. The singer actually responded to a Craigslist ad from a Slipknot tribute act seeking a new vocalist. Taylor has his hands full with Slipknot and Stone Sour, not to mention his upcoming solo album, and his work as a best-selling author. But the fact of the matter is that he fits the description in the Craigslist ad to a tee. And, with his bands currently sidelined from the road due to the pandemic, perhaps he’s looking for some new ventures to conquer. The Craigslist ad is titled “Established Slipknot tribute seeking accurate, dedicated Corey Taylor.” It comes from New Jersey-based Of the (Sic), who promote themselves as the “most accurate...
#MetallicaMondays: Watch Metallica’s First-Ever Show in Colombia
Metallica’s weekly concert-streaming series #MetallicaMondays continues with a 1999 show in Bogotá, which marked the band’s first-ever gig in the country of Colombia. The 20-song set at Simón Bolívar Metropolitan Park featured a healthy helping of songs from “The Black Album” and other staples. The trek was dubbed the “Garage Remains the Same Tour” in support of Metallica’s covers compilation Garage Inc., and the show included a rendition of the Misfits’ “Die, Die My Darling” that appeared on the LP. As the band wrote on Instagram while announcing this week’s stream, “#MetallicaMondays takes a trip back to 1999! We dug through the dusty, old VHS tapes in @larsulrich’s vault to uncover Live in Bogotá – May 2nd, 1999, which happens to be the first gig we ever played in Colombia.” Of cou...
Unlocking the Truth Break Up as Frontman Malxolm Brixkhouse Launches Solo Career
Unlocking the Truth, the young metal sensations who first created a buzz playing the streets of New York City, have broken up. In turn, frontman Malcolm Brickhouse has started a solo career as Malxolm Brixkhouse, and is supported by his bandmates one final time on his new single “Phantom”. The young band first made a name for itself when a video of one of its street performances went viral on YouTube. The trio, made up of young teenage and pre-teen musicians, went on to play Coachella and Warped Tour, and opened for such acts as Guns N’ Roses, Queens of the Stone Age, and more. In 2014, Unlocking the Truth inked a $1.8 million record contract with Sony, but negotiated their release from the contract a year later. They eventually released the album Chaos independently in 2016, but never qui...
Primus Reschedule Rush Tribute Tour for 2021
Primus (photo by Johnny Perilla) and Neil Peart of Rush (photo via Wikipedia Commons) Primus have rescheduled their tribute tour in honor of prog-rock legends Rush. Bowing to coronavirus concerns, the trek will now take place in the summer of 2021. With this tour, the band’s goal is simple: travel across North America performing Rush’s beloved 1977 album A Farewell to Kings in its entirety. The “A Tribute to Kings Tour” opens in Texas in June, swings eastwards through New Orleans and Orlando, and travels up the East Coast and across the Midwest before finishing along the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, they’ll be supported by Wolfmother, The Sword, and Battles. If you don’t already have tickets, you can get them here. While it takes on extra meaning after the death of leg...
Sevendust Return with Cover of Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried to Live”: Stream
Sevendust are back with a cover of Soundgarden’s “The Day I Tried to Live”, their first new recording since their acclaimed 2018 album, All I See Is War. Singer Lajon Witherspoon pointed to the song’s timeless lyrics as one of the main reasons the band decided to cover the Soundgarden track, which originally appeared on the 1994 album Superunknown. “Soundgarden is such an important band to all of us in Sevendust and this love for them goes all the way back to when we were starting,” said Witherspoon in a press release. “We discussed trying to do one of their songs and our producer Elvis [Baskette] suggested ‘The Day I Tried To Live’.” The frontman continued, “When I first heard it, I thought the lyrics were timeless. The lyrics are about trying to experience new things and c...
Sammy Hagar Clarifies Comments About Going Back on Tour: Only When It’s “Safe and Responsible”
Sammy Hagar made headlines recently when he said he’d “rather personally get sick and even die, if that’s what it takes” to get the concert industry going again amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the veteran rocker is clarifying the extreme portion of his comments, while also saying he does want to get back on the road this year, if possible. For more context, Hagar’s longer quote in Rolling Stone read, “This is hard to say without stirring somebody up, but truthfully, I’d rather personally get sick and even die, if that’s what it takes. We have to save the world and this country from this economic thing that’s going to kill more people in the long run. I would rather see everyone go back to work. If some of us have to sacrifice on that, OK. I will die for my children and my grandchildr...
