Good morning Radicals! Here’s what’s up in today’s music news:
Lzzy Hale of Halestorm at Sonic Boom (photo credit: Lou Brutus)
Halestorm singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale spoke about the #MeToo movement in a new interview with The Blairing Out With Eric Blair Show that took place last week in Anaheim. Asked for her opinion of the movement, which has inspired countless women to share stories about experiencing sexual abuse and harassment, Hale said, “As a woman in this industry, I understand the daily struggle; I go through it myself. I’ve dealt my entire career with sexist and condescending people. At the same time, I was raised by parents who didn’t really put any limitations to my dreams or to my aspirations.”
She continued, “I’ve never felt like I was viewed as somebody that’s just there to pretty up the band or a marketing gimmick; it was always I’m just kind of one of the dudes. So when those things happen to me, I do kind of brush it off or you internalize . . . I think that it’s great that there’s more awareness of the things that just go on every day, all the time. And I’ll continue to support my peers in the rock and roll industry and music and whoever else needs me to do it.”
Hale told us that generations of female musicians have faced the same challenges in a music industry dominated by men: “You know, you hear stories about trying to get your record played on radio and, you know, trying to break into anything. You’d get a gig and you know, you’d have the choice, like: ‘Okay, do I sit on this guy’s lap to get my record played?’”
Asked on the Blair show about Halestorm’s upcoming fourth album, Hale answered, “It probably is the heaviest record we’ve put out, but at the same time, we always consider it just a natural progression of who we are . . . I’m not the same person I was on the last record. And so we’re moving forward.”
The new Halestorm effort is tentatively due out this spring and will follow up 2015’s Into The Wild Life. The band is on tour with Stone Sour and next plays in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada on Wednesday. Check out all the upcoming shows on the Road Rage page.
Korn frontman Jonathan Davis will embark on a solo tour in early April. We’ve got the dates for you on the Road Rage page! The trek, which will run through the end of June, will include a number of European festival appearances in addition to hitting mid-sized venues in North America. The tour kicks off on April 6th in Portland, Oregon, with the North American portion ending on May 18th in Boston.
Davis will be promoting his new solo single, titled “What It Is.” The song is included on the soundtrack to a new film called American Satan, which came out last Friday. Davis has also been preparing his debut solo album, expected out this summer. Davis has quietly been compiling ideas for this solo effort since 2007, often writing and recording while on the road.
He told us a while back to expect something different from what he does with Korn: “It’s a really dark, heavy Peter Gabriel vibe. Korn’s more intense and pumping in your face, this is more dark and, I don’t know how to explain that vibe, like, I’d say like Peter Gabriel’s vibe. It’s just that big, open, world music style vibe, different instruments you and I really haven’t heard, and there’s electronic stuff going on…I’m really excited about it.”
Another day, another twist in the ongoing drama over the new Tool album: after a fan posted on Twitter that the LP was set to come out this summer, singer Maynard James Keenan replied with a terse post that read, “Not. Coming out this summer. Not.” This followed an earlier exchange in which another fan claimed that Keenan suggested that both the new Tool and A Perfect Circle records were imminent. The vocalist shot back, “Only said new APC.”
While this doesn’t refute them outright, Keenan’s comments throw a little cold water on drummer Danny Carey‘s tone of optimism in recent interviews, in which he has said the new album will “definitely” be out this year and completed in “the first half . . . if things go as planned.”
Keenan’s tweet could simply mean that the disc will be out in the fall, or if you want to be really hopeful, this spring. Carey alluded to the latter possibility when he told Ireland’s Overdrive, “It’s all coming together really well. We’ll be hitting the studio again very soon and have a couple of gigs in May, so hopefully we’ll have the album out before that. It’s wishful thinking at this point.”
At least Keenan does seem to be working on the LP with the rest of Tool’s members — guitarist Adam Jones stated on Instagram earlier this month, “Music is done. Lyrics coming in hard.” Tool has not released a new collection of songs since 2006’s 10,000 Days, while Keenan’s other group, A Perfect Circle, last released a full-length album in 2004.
Metallica co-manager Peter Mensch has explained in a new BBC documentary series how the band was able to triple ticket prices over the last few years without upsetting fans. Speaking on the second episode of the show, titled Hits, Hype & Hustle: An Insider’s Guide to the Music Business, Mensch recalled that the arrival of Napster and other file-sharing services impacted record sales dramatically and forced musicians to hit the road to make money.
Mensch explained, “Demand went through the roof and ticket prices soon followed. We hadn’t made a record in years. This is just what we do — we play in front of our fans. Rock bands have always had to bring it to the fans. We did some tests in the last couple of years. We realized the top price for a Metallica ticket could be much higher than it used to be, and we charged it — and there was no audience pushback on it . . . The ticket price thing has changed everything.”
Mensch told Music Week last month about the success of Metallica’s latest LP, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, and last summer’s sold-out North American stadium tour, “They hadn’t put out a record in eight years, it was quality music and then they went and played a bunch of quality shows . . . in America where they just completed an absolutely sold-out stadium tour, they hadn’t played in eight years.”
Metallica’s “WorldWired” trek was the fifth-highest grossing tour of 2017, with 1.5 million tickets sold and $153 million earned. The band was also the top-selling rock act of the year and had the third best-selling rock album. Metallica will resume touring next month with a new round of European dates.
That’s a wrap, have an awesome day!
