Good morning Radicals! Hope your all having a great week so far.
Disturbed, Godsmack and Incubus will headline the 25th annual Rock Fest, set to take place from July 12th through the 15th in Cadott, Wisconsin. More than 65 bands will perform throughout the three-day event, including Rise Against, Halestorm, Seether, Bush, Black Label Society, Nothing More, Sevendust, Ace Frehley, Pop Evil, Beartooth, Adelitas Way, Red, Fozzy and dozens more. There’s still one band near the top of the bill that has yet to be revealed. And of course, what would Rock Fest be without our very own Lou Brutus? Lou returns to host once again!
Fans holding tickets for all three days will also be invited to a “bonus bash” taking place on Wednesday, July 11th.
The event is notably the first confirmed live show of 2018 for Disturbed, who have been off the road since completing the tour cycle last year for its 2015 album, Immortalized.
The Chicago-based band has yet to announce whether it will have a new LP out this year. Godsmack has also been working on a new studio set, its seventh, which will coincide this year with the 20th anniversary of Godsmack’s debut album.
Greta Van Fleet on stage at Sonic Boom Photo: Lou Brutus
Greta Van Fleet has been invited to perform at the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s 26th annual Academy Awards Viewing Party, to be held on Sunday, March 4th in Los Angeles. Guitarist Jake Kiszka said in a statement, “We were speechless when Elton called us. We are all big fans of his, so are very, very honored by this invitation.”
The group also revealed that every single ticket for the first leg of its 2018 North American tour, announced just last Wednesday, January 24th, sold out in less than five minutes.
Greta Van Fleet will kick off its 2018 tour at Indio, California’s Coachella Festival on April 13th, followed by a mix of headlining shows and other festival dates. The Michigan band rocketed to the top of the rock radio charts last year with “Highway Tune.” The track is taken from the Black Smoke Rising EP, which came out last April. Their latest single is “Safari Song.” The quartet is now in the studio recording its first full-length LP, with a late spring or early summer release expected.
We had the band in last year to play some tunes for us in the video studio, check it out:
Mastodon singer/bassist Troy Sanders told us how the band felt about finally winning a Grammy in the “Best Metal Performance” category at the 60th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday (January 28th) in New York City. Sanders said, “It’s pretty surreal. I think it’s great, just because the attention that you get, not only us, but all five bands that were nominated for this Best Metal category, it brings good attention to all of ’em, all those bands, us included.”
Sanders added, “We never started a band with the end result wanting to be a trophy or a Grammy Award (winner) — that’s the furthest thing on your radar when you find some friends to start a band with. So it was unexpected to get to this point, but now that we have gotten here, to get that kind of recognition, I think it’s nothing but positive.”
Mastodon got the nod for the song “Sultan’s Curse” from its 2017 album Emperor Of Sand, with the latter also being nominated for Best Rock Album. The band was nominated for three previous Grammys in the Best Metal Performance category — in 2007, 2012 and 2015 — but lost all three times.
Sanders said that he never felt disappointed when the band missed out on those earlier awards, explaining, “I kind of feel that’s a win right there, just to be nominated . . . We were just kind of happy to be there.” Emperor Of Sand was released last March and debuted at Number Seven on the Billboard 200 album chart. The disc contained the Top Five rock radio single “Show Yourself.” You can watch the full interview below!
Former Blink-182 singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge has published Poet Anderson: In Darkness, the second novel in the young adult trilogy that he is penning with Suzanne Young. The book follows up 2015’s Poet Anderson…In Nightmares, as well as the three-issue comic book series Poet Anderson: The Dream Walker.
The latest installment finds the title character working as a doorman in the “Waking World” and finding himself tormented by a failure in his dreamworld. In the “Dream World,” he is a Dream Walker, a guardian of the Dreamscape charged with protecting sleeping innocents from the nightmares that threaten both worlds.
In addition to the Poet Anderson books, DeLonge has collaborated with other authors on both young adult sci-fi novels like Strange Times: The Ghost In The Girl and adult-oriented sci-fi sagas such as Sekret Machines Book 1: Chasing Shadows, which is based on his UFO research.
DeLonge told us a while back he’s enjoyed working on the Poet Anderson books: “It was taking a lot of really great ideas and watching them evolve into much more than just an idea but into a tangible story that has a myriad of characters that are all very different, you know, weaving in and out of each other’s lives. And it’s really great to see how that process is done and to be a major part of it.”
DeLonge split with Blink in early 2015, citing his other pursuits in UFO research, film and publishing as reasons why he could not tour and record with the band. He has claimed to be in consultation with individuals within the defense and scientific community about the existence of UFOs and the use of recovered alien technology by the U.S. government.
That’s the news! Have a great day!
