NEWS FLASH! Van Halen bassist Wolfgang Van Halen will play bass on the HARDDRIVE LIVE TOUR in the solo touring band of Creed and Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti on a number of upcoming tour dates. Van Halen, who started with Tremonti on last night (Sep 11th) in Rhode Island, tweeted, “An abrupt change of plans has left me playing bass with @MarkTremonti tomorrow! I’ve got some tunes to learn!” Tremonti himself tweeted: “Due to personal reasons, (regular Tremonti bassist) Brian Marshall won’t be with us on this tour . . . the amazing @WolfVanHalen will be joining us!” Tremonti and Wolfgang have been friends ever since Creed opened some shows for Van Halen in 1998. WOO HOO! Even more reason to get out and get your tickets NOW! www.harddrivelivetour.com! Mark is in town tonight at the Highline Ballroom! Looking forward to meeting Wolfie! …I know some really exciting news about the next Halestorm single and I have to just say it out loud to myself because I was SWORN to secrecy. But it is so cool and, honestly, I have been pushing for one of these singers to be working with Lzzy for ages, so I am doubly excited! News coming next month for sure!….Pulse of Radio reports Rob Zombie‘s new movie, The Lords Of Salem, had its world premiere on Monday night (Sep 10th) at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Zombie’s fifth live-action feature was screened for critics, the public and potential distributors. The Playlist called it Zombie’s “most accomplished,” “most ambitious” and “most unnerving” film, although Bloody Disgusting labeled the low-budget movie a disappointment, saying Zombie’s script was “littered with problems” and questioning his decision to cast his wife Sheri Moon Zombie as the lead. (What movie hasn’t seen the ups & downs of critics, eh?) The plot of the film deals with a curse placed 300 years ago on the residents of Salem by a coven of witches who were put to death, and how that curse returns to terrorize the city’s modern-day inhabitants. No word on a theatrical release yet….Speaking of horror, Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett spoke recently with the San Francisco Chronicle about his upcoming book, Too Much Horror Business – The Kirk Hammett Collection, which is due out in October. The oversized 228-page hardback book documents Hammett’s love of all things related to the horror genre and features more than 300 photos of items from the collection of horror memorabilia he has accumulated over the years. The book also includes three lengthy interviews with Hammett, who also wrote the captions for many of the photos. Hammett told the Chronicle, “I’ve been into (horror) stuff since I was five years old . . . My love for this stuff is insane and totally obsessive-compulsive. It’s just one of those things. I’m still waiting to outgrow it or get tired of it or get bored with it. But it does not seem to happen.” The guitarist figures that he may have the second best horror memorabilia collection in the world, but until now only his family and close friends have seen it….The first concrete date for the heavily rumored Led Zeppelin live CD/DVD from 2007 has been posted by London’s The Sun, citing a November 22nd release date. The paper — which is hardly the most reputable resource for rock release schedules — posted that the show, which was captured during Zeppelin’s reunion show on December 10th, 2007 at London’s O2 Arena, will be released on CD, DVD, and Blu-ray disc on November 22nd. Yesterday (Sep 11th,) the band posted the audio introduction from “Good Times, Bad Times” in a YouTube post on its official Led Zeppelin Facebook page. The tune served as the opening number for the 2007 one-off reunion. I can’t wait to see this! 🙂 …Sum 41 are doing a tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their second album, Does This Look Infected? (Love that title!) The month long tour starts Nov 2nd and runs through Dec 9th…Happy 60th to Neil Peart of Rush. Happy 32nd to former Chevelle bassist Joe Loeffler (How ya doin’ Joe!) and Happy 32nd to Ozzy’s guitarist Gus G.
