Good morning Radicals! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and you’re reasy for another week of kick-as rock and roll with hardDriveRadio! Let’s get things rolling!
Shinedown has released a video for the new song “The Human Radio,” taken from the band’s sixth studio album Attention Attention. The new clip starts with images of a mysterious woman, the band members and a naked figure from the back, all reflected in a watery shimmer. As the band performs under spotlights in a large room, the clip depicts a row of young adults walking in a line like sheep, smartphones in hand and headphones inserted in their ears. Meanwhile, the mysterious woman wanders through various settings until she reaches an epiphany of her own.
The clip is in line with the overall theme of Attention Attention, a concept album which addresses a society both enabled and blinded by technology and the decline and rise of an individual in that society.
Frontman Brent Smith said, “In a lot of ways, Attention Attention is a warning to people and society. Don’t lose your human side. Technology is great, but don’t lose the fact that you are a human being.” The new disc is due out May 4th and “The Human Radio” follows the first single and video from the LP, “Devil.”
Shinedown is currently on a headlining tour with support from In This Moment that next stops in Modesto, California on Monday night (April 9th). Co-headlining runs with Five Finger Death Punch and Godsmack are on tap for this spring and summer.
Ghost has shared a new three-minute video titled “Introducing The Cardinal.” In the clip, the band’s “new” leader meets an aged Papa Emeritus Zero and Sister Imperator after arriving from behind a door, bathed in red light. The new Papa is named Cardinal Copia and apparently isn’t a part of the Papa Emeritus bloodline at all. He sports a thin mustache and has heterochromia iridum, a condition where the iris of one eye is a different color than the iris of the other eye.
Ghost also gave a private, three-song acoustic performance on Friday night, April 6th, in Chicago, where Cardinal Copia made his live debut and the band also delivered a live version of “Rats,” the upcoming first single from the Swedish band’s fourth studio LP.
The last Papa, Papa Emeritus III, was forcibly taken from the stage during the final show of the band’s Meliora tour cycle last fall. Papa Zero arrived to announce the beginning of “the Middle Ages.” Of course, all the Papas — except the elder Zero — are the same man, Ghost founder and vocalist Tobias Forge.
The new Papa will next perform on May 5th as Ghost kicks off a run of North American dates in Riverside, California. The “Rats On The Road” trek, as it’s called, will be in support of the group’s fourth album, which is tentatively due in June. “Rats” is expected to arrive later this month.
Korn frontman Jonathan Davis began his solo tour in support of his forthcoming new album Black Labyrinth on Friday (April 6th) in Portland, Oregon. Davis’ set was weighed heavily in favor of the new LP, along with songs he wrote for the soundtrack of the 2002 movie Queen Of The Damned and a cover of Neil Diamond‘s “Love On The Rocks.” He did not perform any material from Korn’s catalog.
Korn drummer Ray Luzier is among the musicians serving as a member of Davis’ live touring band on the trek. Black Labyrinth will be released on May 25th and features the single “What It Is.” Davis next plays tonight, April 9th, in Vancouver, British Columbia and has dates booked through mid-May.
Five Finger Death Punch is streaming a new track called “Fake,” taken from the band’s new album And Justice For None, which will be released on May 18th. Fans who pre-order the LP will receive a digital copy of “Fake” now and two more new songs on April 20th and May 4th. The long-awaited set is available as a standard 13-track physical CD, a deluxe physical CD featuring three bonus tracks and exclusive artwork, and a vinyl set also containing the three extra tracks and special gatefold artwork.
Tremonti has shared the official lyric video for “A Dying Machine,” the title track of the band’s fourth studio album that’s due out on June 8th. The LP is based on a story by singer/guitarist Mark Tremonti that he is turning into a full-length work of fiction with sci-fi author John Shirley, which they hope to release alongside the record.
Slash will headline the “Concert For Conservation” at the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Association Beastly Ball on Saturday, May 19th at the Los Angeles Zoo. The Guns N’ Roses guitarist and longtime zoo patron will be joined by Heart‘s Nancy Wilson and others. The fundraising event will showcase the zoo’s commitment to saving animals from extinction.
Former White Zombie bassist Sean Yseult has criticized Rob Zombie‘s decision to release a live recording of the group’s Astro-Creep: 2000 album, saying that “it’s kind of lame when band members do that.” The ex-White Zombie frontman and his solo group played the classic 1995 LP live in its entirety at the 2016 edition of the Riot Fest in Chicago, issuing it as a concert LP. Yseult told the Talk Toomey podcast, “I don’t see his need to keep repeating the past. It’s songs that we all wrote that he acted like he was miserable in the end. And why not do something new? I don’t know.”
Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has now attached music to the images he posted on Instagram last week, giving fans a preview of what his new project The Longshot will sound like. Several fans on Instagram noted that one of the tracks Armstrong posted sounded very similar to Green Day’s 1994 commercial breakthrough hit, “Longview.” You can watch the clips here and here.
The singer-guitarist began teasing the new act by sharing the series of Instagram posts with his 1.8 million followers. The posts pointed to the act’s private Instagram page, which stated that its debut album, Love Is for Losers, is “coming eventually sooner or later. Probably sooner.”
Armstrong has played with several side projects over the years, including Pinhead Gunpowder, Foxboro Hot Tubs and The Network. The latter two essentially consisted of all the members of Green Day plus additional musicians. Armstrong also recorded a collaborative album with Norah Jones in 2013 called Foreverly. Green Day has been on a break since completing the tour cycle for its 2016 album Revolution Radio.
Kid Rock has announced the “Red Blooded Rock N Roll Redneck Extravaganza Tour.” The trek kicks off on August 3rd in Bangor, Maine and will hit 15 cities nationwide before wrapping up on October 12th in West Palm Beach, Florida. Check out the full list on the Road Rage page. Tickets and VIP packages for the tour will go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, April 13th at 10:00 a.m. local time, with fan club members able to purchase tickets starting tomorrow, also at 10:00 a.m. local time.
The tour will showcase songs from Kid Rock’s latest album, Sweet Southern Sugar, although Rock told us a while back that record sales are less important to him now than touring and playing live: “At this point it’s about putting people in seats, you know. It’s about live. We’ve seen this. The days of making money selling records like we were used to when it first came out are not there — and I’m not necessarily upset about that. To me, live is everything, always has been.”
Rock, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, recently completed his “American Rock ‘N’ Roll Tour.” Rock was forced to change its name from “The Greatest Show On Earth” after being sued by the owners of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The singer was inducted on Friday night, April 6th, into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the WrestleMania 34 weekend festivities. Rock has performed at several WWE events throughout his musical career, including WrestleMania 25 in 2009 and Tribute To The Troops in 2012.
That’s Dirt! Have a great day everyone!
