Woohoo! One more day before the LONG weekend break! I am psyched!… Newcomers Stars in Stereo and Throw The Fight have been added to the hardDrive Live/Monster Energy Outbreak Tour with headliners Bullet For My Valentine and Black Veil Brides. SinS were also on the first leg of the hardDrive Live Tour earlier this year! See www.harddrivelivetour.com for more on these bands and to get tickets to the previously announced dates. More shows are in the works and will be announced in a couple of weeks!….. Our friends Five Finger Death Punch and Rob Zombie kicked off their co-headlining run on the 2013 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival on Saturday night (June 29th) in San Bernardino, California. Although Five Finger’s new album, The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell, Volume 1, arrives later this month, the band did not introduce any new material into its set. Guitarist Zoltan Bathory told Rolling Stone the group would start playing new songs later in the tour. The Wrong Side Of Heaven . . . is the first half of a two-record set and is due out July 30th. The second part will arrive sometime this fall. Singer Ivan Moody told us before the tour started Five Finger Death Punch was going all out with its stage show on this trek: “Come on, we’re onstage with Zombie. Like, it’s got to come out powerful and I want people to walk away and go, ‘Did that just happen?’ I mean, we’re going beyond the bounds on this, man, and I’m talking pyro, concussion bombs — I mean, it’s just gonna be stupid.” Watch these two webisodes from the band as they prep for the opening day of Rockstar Mayhem! One and Two. Speaking of 5FDP, they are the latest headliner to join the lineup of the 2013 Monster Energy Aftershock Festival, who will join the bill on Sunday night, Sep 15th with Avenged Sevenfold. Korn, Shinedown, Papa Roach, Volbeat, Skillet, Device, Buckcherry, Halestorm, In This Moment, All That Remains, P.O.D., Pop Evil and many more are on the festival as well! Other new additions to the show are Filter, Thousand Foot Krutch, We As Human, Miss May I, Butcher Babies, Eye Empire and Testament. The two-day festival is set for Sep 14th and 15th at Discovery Park in Sacramento, CA… Speaking of my friends .Avenged Sevenfold, guitarist Synyster Gates is going to give a master class in playing guitar to 10 lucky winners through a contest sponsored by Guitar Center and Schecter Guitar Research. The winning guitarists will be flown out to Los Angeles to attend the class, and will also receive a Schecter Synyster Gates Special electric guitar, a behind-the-scenes tour of the Schecter factory and an Ernie Ball accessory prize pack. Gates, who helped come up with the idea, said, “Avenged Sevenfold has always been a band that champions musicality. I’m passionate about the art of guitar, and this master class is the perfect opportunity to help further the skills and careers of like-minded musicians.” Guitarists interested in participating must download one of seven signature Avenged Sevenfold tracks at a special site and add their best original guitar performance to it. The videos will be posted, shared and judged on overall performance, authenticity, originality, technique, and style. Submissions will be accepted from July 15th to Sep 15th and will be ranked on social network sites, with Gates finally selecting the 10 winners personally. Check out more here. (Thanks Pulse Content)… The judges for the 2013 Ernie Ball Battle of the Bands in conjunction with the Rockstar Energy Uproar Tour have been announced. They include Alice In Chains’ Jerry Cantrell and Duff McKagan of Loaded, Walking Papers and of course, formerly of Guns ‘N Roses, and producer Jay Baumgardner. Hit www.rockstaruproar.com to register your unsigned band! The winner will receive a whole bunch of prizes, including a recording session, gear and be heard on hardDriveRadio and be interviewed by Lou Brutus! Cool stuff!…..Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl showed up to perform a cover of Queen and David Bowie‘s “Under Pressure” with Chevy Metal, the cover act that is a side project of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. The show was part of a celebration marking the 60th anniversary of the California city of Costa Mesa. Chevy Metal also played covers of Van Halen‘s “Panama,” the Rolling Stones‘ “Miss You,” the Knack’s “My Sharona” and the Vapors‘ “Turning Japanese” at the Costa Mesa Fairgrounds during their weekend set, with Grohl calling the group his favorite band. (Daily Pilot/Ultimate Classic Rock)…The daily music performance schedule has been announced for Rob Zombie‘s Halloween-themed horror event, “Great American Nightmare,” which runs every Thursday through Sunday from October 10th to November 2nd at FEARPlex in Pomona, California. Not surprisingly, Zombie himself will headline the closing night’s performances, while 3Oh!3, Eagles Of Death Metal, Powerman 5000, the Vandals and others have all been added to the lineup. In addition to 15 mights of music, the event will feature three separate haunted house attractions featuring state-of-the-art scares, along with screenings, food, DJs and more. Meanwhile, the DVD and Blu-Ray of Rob’s The Lords of Salem film will be released Sep 3rd. Hint: make sure you are a hardDriveRadio Radical! We’re cooking up something pretty cool for ya!…Baby lullaby cds are the big thing these days. I get so many of the “Rockabye Baby” cds I always send them along to my rockstar friends who are expecting. The cds have lullaby versions of tunes from everyone from Van Halen to Green Day. But now there’s one for TOOL! Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star, the company which creates “beautiful lullaby versions of your favorite artists,” will release “Lullaby Versions Of Tool” on July 16 via Roma Music Group. Love it!.….Joey Jordison (might I say, “new look” Joey Jordison) spoke with Classic 21 radio station (out of Brussells, Belgium) about his new project, Scar The Martyr, at this year’s Graspop Metal Meeting, which was held last week (Jun 28-30) in Dessel, Belgium, and you can watch the video here. I must say, I was having a hard time recognizing him! (Thanks Blabbermouth)….Thoughts and prayers go out to Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead, who is laid up in a hospital in Europe where he was fitted for a defribullator for his heart (Slash also has one-it regulates the heart beat) and is undergoing procedures to relieve pain he suffered when he bruised his hip in a fall, resulting in a hematoma (a serious black & blue). He is recovering slowly and all of Motorhead’s scheduled shows have been cancelled. We wish him the best.
