After last Friday here in NYC, I understand what it must be like in the Frozen Tundra. Green Bay, you played your hearts out. But those injuries (not the mention the conditions) didn’t help. But my New Orleans Saints prevailed and how about that Colt Comeback? Sorry to all my KC fans, it was a tough loss for sure. Onward and upward this weekend, I just hope my Saints can get by Seattle….So this year, hardDriveRadio welcomes a new sponsor, VH-1’s That Metal Show! And guess who’ll be on their first show this year? M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold, Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society and Jason Hook of Five Finger Death Punch will guest on the premiere episode of VH1 Classic’s centerpiece in original programming, “That Metal Show”, which is returning for its 13th season this month. The acclaimed hard rock/heavy metal talk show, hosted by Eddie Trunk, Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine, kicks off the latest season on Jan 18….Evanescence singer Amy Lee is reportedly suing her longtime label, Wind-Up Records, for at least $1.5 million over unpaid royalties and other alleged misdeeds, according to TMZ. Lee has also alleged in her lawsuit that the company attempted to sabotage the band’s career by assigning them to under-qualified promotion executives who lacked fresh ideas on how to market and promote the group. TMZ did not cite its sources for the report, nor did it obtain any official statements from either the label or Lee, who is seeking over $1.5 million in back royalties. Evanescence is actually no longer part of the Wind-Up roster. Back in November, Wind-Up sold most of its back catalog to the Bicycle Music Company and Concord Music Group, including the entire catalogs of Evanescence, Creed, Seether and others. Evanescence, whose third, self-titled album debuted at Number One on the Billboard 200 when it came out in 2011, has sold 25 million records worldwide….Now THAT’S METAL! Pulse of Radio reports in addition to hosting his first horror convention next month, Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett has revealed he will perform at the event as well. The three-day event, called Kirk Von Hammett’s Fear FestEvil, will feature performances from hardcore metal acts Exodus, Death Angel,Carcass and Orchid. Hammett has confirmed that he will join Exodus and Death Angel onstage for their encores. Both Exodus and Death Angel are veterans of San Francisco’s legendary Bay Area thrash metal scene that became famous in the early Eighties The Fear FestEvil will take place on Feb 6th, 7th and 8th in San Francisco and will feature vendors, “Kirk’s Crypt” private tours, panels, signings, special guest appearances and more. Among the guests already confirmed are Slash, The Walking Dead producer and makeup artist Greg Nicotero, legendary Dawn Of The Dead makeup pioneer Tom Savini, Halloween star P.J. Soles, Friday The 13th star Kane Hodder, Re-Animator star Barbara Crampton, Sara Karloff, and many others. Check out a teaser for the festival here….Pulse of Radio also reports Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has revealed he is writing and will publish a memoir later this year. According to Audio Ink Radio, Barker announced on his Instagram page the book will document his entire life story and history with bands like Blink, Box Car Racer, the Transplants and Plus 44. Barker said, “I got a memoir I’ve been working hard on and it’s turning out awesome. It’s been very therapeutic for me to get this all out and into a book and hopefully it can inspire people and help many as well.” No doubt the book will also touch on the September 2008 plane crash that killed four and left Barker with severe burns over a large area of his body, as well as the overdose death a year later of his friend and fellow crash survivor DJ AM….I often thought the notion of Tom Morello filling in for Little Steven in the E Street Band was not gonna be a piece of cake for my guitarist friend. Tom had filled in for Steve during their Australian dates, when he was in production for his Netflix series Lilyhammer (very funny by the way…watched a few episodes over the weekend) last year, and now 2014 will see the addition of Tom Morello for their upcoming South American and more Down Under dates. Morello is prominently featured on Springsteen’s new album, High Hopes, due out on Jan 14th. Tom spoke about prepping himself for last year’s shows, recalling to Rolling Stone, “Bruce gave me a list of 50 songs, and just to be clear, my strength is not learning music. I’ve never been particularly good at that. There are some guitar players that are virtual jukeboxes. I am not one of those. I had a list of 50 songs and three months before the tour was to begin, I buckled down and got to learning those 50 songs. It was a challenge and a great learning experience. I really got inside Bruce’s catalog and saw the internal workings of his songwriting.” When asked if Springsteen ever called out a tune he didn’t know, Morello laughed, saying, “Oh, dude! Those 50 songs were just for the first show! I had three months to learn 50 songs, and before the second show he texted me seven new songs to learn. I had about an hour and 45 minutes to learn those. And the next day it was a few more. Sometimes he takes requests from the audience. People wrote those signs. Finally, I just relaxed. I think there were 10 shows over the course of that Australian tour. We played 78 songs in that time. I think I got 77 of them right.” Morello went on to say that even though he’s played some incredibly intense shows over the course of his career, the three-and-a-half hour E Street Band concerts were truly punishing: “In the hotel bar after one show we were comparing notes. I was like, ‘Rage Against The Machine shows were exhausting, but the band never played longer than one hour and 20 minutes in its history.’ They were cardiovascularly exhausting shows, but the Bruce shows are orthopedically exhausting.” Tom, it’ll keep ya young! LOL….. Over the holidays, it was announced Jared Weeks left Saving Abel to start a solo career (wait, I thought he left to join Hinder?) and Scott Austin has replaced Weeks in the Corinth, MS based band. Scott is from Trash The Brand….Happy 61st to AC/DC‘s Malcolm Young!
