“This has been 15 years in the making.” That’s how the press release read yesterday on this amazing tour for 2018! A Day To Remember continued, “Celebrate with us and special guests Papa Roach, Falling In Reverse and The Devil Wears Prada in February and March. We’ll be playing our favorite songs from our full catalog so you won’t want to miss it!” See Road Rage for the complete list of shows!
How cool! Pearl Jam found an awesome way to promote their new live CD/DVD. “Let’s Play Two” is a a live album and concert documentary about their 2016 performances at Wrigley Field. Since the shows were during the Cubs’ championship season, they’ve now created an (8 bit browser) baseball game online. It’s a homerun hitting contest set at Chicago’s Wrigley Field where you can choose animated members of Pearl Jam to play the game.
If you win, you get an autographed Cubs baseball and a customized bat. You can also check out the Pearl Jam’s Twitter feed to play, too.
Rhonda’s Kiss, an organization that helps cancer patients in need, last month announced that Jane’s Addiction will headline the third annual benefit concert on Friday, Dec 8 at the Palladium in Hollywood, CA. The L.A. based collective The Hellcat Saints — Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains), Josh Freese (Devo, Nine Inch Nails), Billy Duffy (The Cult), Dave Kushner (Velvet Revolver), Franky Perez (Apocalyptica), Scott Shriner (Weezer), and many more — will open the show. Proceeds from the concert event will benefit the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute and further the mission of Rhonda’s Kiss, supporting programs to assist cancer patients, and helping those who receive a cancer diagnosis make ends meet during treatment. If you’re in the LA area, tickets for the one-night-only concert are available here.
Blabbermouth reporting Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett recently spoke with Metal Magnitude about his collection of vintage movie posters, many of which were recently on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA in an exhibit called “It’s Alive! Classic Horror And Sci-Fi Art From The Kirk Hammett Collection”. The full chat can be streamed above. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):
On collecting:
Kirk: “There’s a whole field dedicated to restoration and preservation of movie posters, and there’s a complete field of experts that all they do is restore and preserve movie posters for museums, for collectors, for business and whatnot. I’m connected to all the best people, because I want all the best work done on my posters. I don’t do that stuff myself — I was told not even to attempt to do anything like that myself because I’d probably do more harm than good — but knowing that there’s incredible people out there, when I find a movie poster and it’s, like, tattered, and it looks like it’s about to fall apart into a million pieces, I know that I can take it to someone who can put it together and, like a Frankenstein monster, piece it into something that comes alive again.
“There’s posters that when I first started collecting 25 years ago, I only dreamed of having, because there was no known copies of it. I used to dream of having a ‘Frankenstein’ three sheet and a ‘Mummy’ three sheet, and I have them now, and it’s amazing. It just goes to show that if you’re patient enough and you stay in a hobby long enough, good things eventually show up. Good things happen.”
Kirk: “For me, the collection, I’m always looking to expand it. I’m always on the hunt for future stuff, so whenever people ask me about the collection, the very first thing I ever think about is, ‘What are my plans for recent acquisitions?’ That’s what I think about first — ‘How do I contribute to the collection?’ The idea is to bring this collection all over the world in whatever way we can, to get it seen by as many people as possible.”
On Metallica‘s immediate future:
Kirk: “We’re going to be on tour for the next couple years. Hopefully we won’t take eight years to put out another album. Things are moving ahead on that, and right now, our main thing is to make it through the tour in one piece.”
Hammett released a coffee table book in 2012 called “Too Much Horror Business” that featured photos of his extensive collection of monster and horror memorabilia. He displayed a portion of his collection in the “Kirk’s Crypt” exhibition during the 2012 and 2013 Orion Music + More festivals. Kirk is also known as the Fear FestEvil horror convention organizer.
In other Metallica news, I absolutely love this story that music is the connection to the world! 
Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen presented Indonesian president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo with a signed box set of Metallica‘s seminal third album Master Of Puppets during a state visit earlier today (Tuesday, Nov 28) at the Bogor Palace in Indonesia. In return, Jokowi, gave Rasmussen a rencong (traditional dagger from Aceh), according to The Jakarta Post.
“Prime Minister Rasmussen understands my favorite [music],” Jokowi said of the Masters Of Puppets expanded reissue, which was made available earlier in the month.
The LP has been remastered for the most advanced sound quality and was made available in various physical configurations, including Standard LP, Standard CD, three-CD Expanded Edition, and Limited Edition Deluxe Box Set. It was also made available available digitally as a Standard CD, a three-CD Expanded Edition and a Digital Deluxe Box Set. Bonus content in the set ranges from previously unreleased demos, rough mixes, interviews and live tracks to a 108-page hardcover book, DVDs, handwritten lyrics and more.
Jokowi‘s copy of the Masters Of Puppets box set came with the signature of drummer Lars Ulrich, who was born in Denmark. The album itself was recorded in Copenhagen between September and December 1985.
The 56-year-old Widodo, who served as governor of Jakarta before being elected president in 2014, attended Metallica‘s August 2013 concert in the city — 25 years to the day after the release of the band’s fourth album, …And Justice For All, and more than 20 years after their tumultuous first show in Indonesia.
“I am happy and satisfied with the concert,” Widodo said after the performance. “No one got out of control. We showed them that Jakarta citizens are all dignified. We could rock the night away in an orderly fashion.”
Back in May 2013, Widodo had to turn over his autographed Metallica bass guitar to the government temporarily, while authorities determined whether the instrument was merely a gift or a violation of ethics rules. Widodo received the bass from bassist Robert Trujillo, but had to give it up to the state within 30 days, according to laws regarding gifts to state officials. Widodo has professed love for heavy metal bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Lamb Of God and Napalm Death in the past. Gotta LOVE that! mm/ (Thanks Blabbermouth!)
Blabbermouth also says Alter Bridge vocalist Myles Kennedy was recently interviewed by James Geiser of Antihero Magazine. The full chat can be streamed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):
On Alter Bridge‘s recent performances with a 52-piece orchestra at London’s Royal Albert Hall:
Myles: “You know, why not? We just thought, ‘It’s been 13 years — what haven’t we done?’ We felt that a fair amount of our catalog would work well in that environment, thinking that strings and all of the dynamics you could incorporate… being able to paint a musical canvas with that as well as just guitar, drums and bass would be really fun. I have to say, it far exceeded our expectations. We weren’t really sure how the whole thing would be received or how it would go, but I remember the first day of rehearsals, I had a lot of goosebumps — a lot of hair-raising moments where it was obvious they were bringing something really magical to the entire process, which we loved getting to experience.”
On whether the band plans to do any similar shows in the future:
Myles: “I would love that. After we did those two shows, we definitely got to talking, and I think everybody agreed that we need to find a way to do this again, though there are a lot of things we’d need to do to make that happen. It’s a lot of people to take out. It’s different when you have a four-piece band versus a big orchestra, but if we can make it work logistically, I’m sure we will approach it in the future. There’s just something about hard rock and metal with that very symphonic, orchestrated element that just seems to work. You can’t say that about every genre of music, but I feel like with some things, it’s like chocolate and peanut butter — it just goes together well.”
On how he juggles his various musical commitments:
Myles: “It’s certainly been busy, and that’s a good thing. In 2017, as a musician, if you can stay busy doing this, you’re very fortunate. The traveling part of it, if you ask most any touring musician, it’s probably high on the list as far as what’s difficult — not to be a whiner, but that part of it can kind of, just from a physical side, can beat you up if you’re not sleeping right, not eating right. But with that said, you get to play music; you get to get up on stage; you get to connect with the fans; and hopefully that will refill the well, so to speak. If you’re feeling a little haggard from road life, then that energy will hopefully will fill the tank, so it kind of balances itself out.”
On where he thinks his work ethic comes from:
Myles: “It’s a delicate balance. There are days when I wish I could clone myself, but somehow, I’ve managed to make it work. I think at the end of the day, a lot of it has to do with a love for music, and when I’m not doing music, I’m kind of lost. We just did this tour overseas, and it was fun, and we came back and I told myself since I’d recently finished my solo record, I didn’t have to worry about writing for that or putting a ton of energy into that. I’d been working pretty diligently between touring and writing all year, and I was like, ‘When I get home, I’m going to try to power down — I’m going to try and kind of balance myself out a little bit.’ It was fine for the first few days, but then I discover that I start going a little crazy if I don’t have music in the mix, so that really didn’t last too long. Before I knew it, I had a guitar or was doing something that involved music. It’s my bliss — it’s just me following my bliss.”
On his 2018 plans:
Myles: “The plans are still getting ironed out. I’ve been talking with Slash about seeing what’s going to come next. I definitely have plans to release the solo record next year and tour on that. It will be another busy year.”
On his upcoming solo debut, “Year Of The Tiger”:
Myles: “The solo record is definitely different from pretty much anything I’ve done. That was intentional. I think there was a part of me that was really longing to express music a little differently, and strip things down musically and try some different instrumentation. I really wanted to make a record about the vocal, so with that said, you do things differently. I stripped away the high-gain guitars and the big wall of sound — the bombastic elements so that the vocal would really be featured. Lyrically, it tells a story — the whole record is about 1974, which is the year my father passed away when I was a kid. It basically documents my father dying and then what came after that with my mother and brother and I, and how we kind of had to start over. It’s kind of a concept record, really. There are elements in there where I’m really letting people in, and I think the music was just telling me that that’s what needed to happen. I felt like as I was creating the chord progressions and the instrumentations and thinking about how this was going to sound, I felt like it just had to be a really honest record, and was just not going to try to hide behind anything. It will be interesting — I’m excited to put it out there, but it’s definitely kind of a new frontier for me.”
Kennedy will release Year Of The Tiger via Napalm Records in the spring. The 12-song effort was helmed by Alter Bridge‘s longtime producer Michael “Elvis” Baskette.
Year Of The Tiger will feature a guest appearance by drummer Zia Uddin of The Mayfield Four, a group Myles descries as his “first real national touring band” back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Alter Bridge is continuing to tour in support of its fifth album, The Last Hero, which came out in 2016. The group is expected to take most of 2018 off from the road while the bandmembers focus on other projects. Writing for the follow-up to The Last Hero will begin next year, with tentative plans to release the effort in 2019.
