Good Friday, y’all! Had a great interview yesterday with Chris Motionless from Motionless In White. Was cool hanging out with him and I am always happy to watch a new band develop, especially as quickly as they have. Be listening for the interview in the coming days on hardDriveRadio…..Hopefully the expected severe thunderstorms won’t put a damper on tomorrow’s Mayhem stop in Saratoga Springs, where I plan to catch up with Zoltan from Five Finger Death Punch, Rob Zombie and Bran from Mastodon. Fingers crossed Mother Nature will spare us!… Speaking of Mr Zombie, he has released a lyric video to his cover of, “We’re An American Band.” The rocker has asked for fans to be a part of the video for the record. He wants singers, bands, cheerleaders, athletes, hard-working, hard-drinking, hard-rocking people! The submission may end up in a special fan version of the “American Band” video. To submit clips or get more info, visit www.sharethevenom.com. ….Nine Inch Nails have unveiled the four covers to be featured on the various versions of their new album Hesitation Marks. The band made the revelation on their official website (www.nin.com) on Wednesday (July 17th.) Each of the covers feature artwork by Russell Mills — the man who designed the cover for their 1994 album The Downward Spiral. Mills released a statement saying, “This renewed collaboration very quickly suggested massive potential for the strange and the familiar to collide and collude in works that I hoped would encapsulate, by allusion, suggestion, metaphor and association, the conceptual ideas imbued in the album as well as in the undertow of its sonic world. I’ve tried to make works that obliquely allude to the essence of the subject matter, to its emotional core. I hope that they will invite multiple readings.” Hesitation Marks will be released in Sep 3rd. The four different covers will be featured on the digital, deluxe CD, standard CD, and vinyl versions of the album….From speaking with friends and fans, I know there is a huge split in opinion about Stone Temple Pilots Dean and Robert Deleo‘s decision to oust Scott Weiland. Some people think the band should not continue without Scott, while others, like myself, have realized Scott will never change and in order for the band to be successful, Scott had to be shown the door. In a radio interview, Robert explained you get to a point in your life where your BS meter starts running down to a certain kind of tolerance and it wasn’t just a musical decision, but it was a business decision. The band has since replaced Scott with Chester Bennington. Robert said, “It was a quality of life decision and that really what it’s about. That’s where we wanted to be. Chester is a person that’s really surrounded by good fortune and that’s something you want to be around. It’s no longer three guys in a room, trying to make a record or trying to get a tour together — it’s four guys in a room.” Dean added they wanted to be able to fulfill their commitment through the band too. He continued, “Robert, Eric and I, we want to be able to come to town and give you everything we’ve got and it was getting to a point where we were unable to do that.” Maybe that will shed some light on what really has been happening. Bands are like a marriage. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t…..Slash is set to release a soundtrack album for the motion picture, Nothing Left To Fear. In a press release, the guitarist, who co-produced the film, explained that it has been equally intriguing for him to be involved with producing, writing and performing the music in the film. He said, “Film scoring prompts me to engage different styles of writing and guitar playing that don’t always present themselves when I make Rock n Roll records.” Ironically, a year ago, Slash said he was looking forward to seeing how the film was going to turn out. He said, “It’s (a) really good production team, the special effects people are great, the cast is great, the story’s great — everything’s great about it. And it will be interesting to see where this particular one, how it comes out and where it goes, ’cause we’re planning on doing two a year.” The film is due in select theaters on Friday, Oct 4th and will be available on Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand on Tuesday, Oct 8th….Speaking of films, Metallica will offer fans a first look at footage from its upcoming 3D movie, Metallica Through The Never, on Friday night (July 19th) during a panel presentation at Comic-Con in San Diego. Frontman James Hetfield told us how the idea for the movie first came about: “We had wanted to make a 3D movie, and then we had wanted to tour this stage that was a ‘best-of,’ that had all of the greats of all of our other tours, and then they morphed together. It’s like, ‘Well, why not film it before you tour it?’ And then it became this whole other thing: ‘If we’re gonna make a movie, I want it to be this,’ and ‘Why don’t we have a story in there?’ And then we just started to run with it, and it became more unique than we had ever thought.”….Hard to believe, but 33 years ago today, AC/DC released Back in Black, their first album with Brian Johnson on vocals. Hopefully they are having cake and a couple of beers somewhere today!….Last night, I caught Alice Cooper‘s NYC stop on his current tour. No support band, just Alice and his great band which include Orianthi, the female guitarist who shreds! I got to meet legendary producer Bob Ezrin, who has produced everyone from Kiss and Cooper to Deftones and Pink Floyd! He told me he’s discovered a new band called Not In The Face and he’s quite high on them. Check ’em out online….Celebrating birthdays: Friday: Brian May of Queen turns 66! Robert Flynn of Machine Head is 45. Saturday, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden is 49 and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam is 47. …Have a great weekend. See ya Monday!
