Happy Monday Radicals! Hope everyone’s got their taxes filed by now, due date is tomorrow! Here’s what’s up in music news today:
Stone Sour guitarist Josh Rand has revealed in a statement issued on Sunday, April 15th, that he sought treatment earlier this year for “an alcohol and Xanax dependency” which forced him to sit out the band’s last tour. Rand wrote, “As many of you may already know, in January of this year I made the difficult decision to step away from the Canadian leg of the Stone Sour tour. “I hit a personal breaking point and it was imperative that I address it.”
Rand continued, “My high anxiety and desire to feel comfortable in my own skin over the years led to an alcohol and Xanax dependency. That, along with aggression issues, made me feel miserable and I just could not continue to live that way. Thankfully, with the support of my band, family, and friends I was able to come home and seek help. Now (three months later) I’m doing well, but still a work in progress.”
He added, “I want to sincerely thank all of you for your thoughts, prayers, and positive words. It means a lot to me.” Rand last performed with Stone Sour on the ShipRocked cruise in mid-January before stepping away for what were at the time unspecified issues. Stone Sour enlisted a temporary replacement for its Canadian tour, with singer Corey Taylor later saying that Rand would rejoin his bandmates on April 27th at the Welcome To Rockville festival in Jacksonville, Florida. Stone Sour is touring in support of its sixth studio effort, Hydrograd, which came out last June and features the chart-topping rock radio hit “Song #3.”
Although 2018 marks the 20th anniversary of Godsmack‘s self-titled debut album, the band is not going to commemorate that milestone. With the group just about to release a new album called When Legends Rise, singer Sully Erna told us that the quartet wanted to focus on the present and not the past: “With this record coming out as strong as we feel it has, we actually kind of got away from that. We don’t really want to promote the 20th year thing. Maybe we’ll revisit that in 25 years. But right now, you know, it’s about this record and it’s about focusing on this album, and that kind of became the theme.”
When Legends Rise, Godsmack’s seventh studio LP, arrives on April 27th. The first single is called “Bulletproof.” The new disc follows up 2014’s 1000 Horsepower and is the band’s first release through BMG after splitting with its longtime home, Republic/Universal. Godsmack will perform at several music festivals this spring and summer, before launching a tour with Shinedown on July 22nd in Clarkston, Michigan.
Disturbed has posted a video update from its latest sessions at the Hideout Recording Studio in Las Vegas, where the band is recording its seventh studio album. The new disc will follow up 2015’s Immortalized, which ended a four-year hiatus for the quartet and was its fifth album to enter the Billboard 200 chart at Number One.
Singer David Draiman revealed more than a year ago that Disturbed was planning to record an acoustic EP, explaining, “That’s something we’ve wanted to do for years that we just never had the time or the opportunity to.” It’s not clear, however, if those plans have been shelved for now in favor of a full-length album.
An acoustic EP now could capitalize on the success Disturbed has had with its cover of Simon & Garfunkel‘s “The Sound Of Silence,” a massive hit off Immortalized that introduced the band to new audiences. Unlike Immortalized, which Disturbed worked on in secret for the better part of the year, the band is documenting its latest project from the start. Prior to the arrival of Immortalized, Disturbed had been on hiatus since the fall of 2011, after completing the touring cycle for its previous studio effort, Asylum, and issuing a rarities collection called The Lost Children.
The Offspring guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman told Detroit radio station WRIF that the band’s 10th studio album is now likely to come out this fall. Noodles said, “This record is taking us a long time, but I think it’s gonna be well worth the wait. We’ve been in the studio working a lot recently with Bob (Rock, producer) and finishing it up. We’ve got about 10 songs done, a couple of more that just need lyrics. And then we may do one or two more and it’s gonna be a done deal.”
The Offspring’s last studio effort, Days Gone By, came out in 2012, while the band last issued a single, “Coming For You,” in January 2015. A second new Offspring track called “Sharknado” debuted in 2016 on the soundtrack of the movie Sharknado: The 4th Awakens.
The Offspring recently announced the “Never Ending Summer” tour, which will team them with 311. The summer amphitheater outing will kick off on July 25th in Mountain View, California and hit 29 cities across North America before wrapping up on September 9th in Wichita, Kansas.
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea has set a title and publication date for his long-awaited memoir, which he first announced in 2014. Titled Acid For the Children, the book is set to arrive on shelves September 25th. The book is described by Grand Central Publishing as focusing on Flea’s “fascinating life story, complete with all the dizzying highs and the gutter lows you’d expect from an L.A. street rat turned world-famous rock star.”
The book will detail aspects of Flea’s life and career such as his move from a “normal” upbringing in the suburbs of New York to a bohemian life with a jazz musician stepfather in Los Angeles, his young, rebellious life on the streets of L.A., the beginning and evolution of his complex friendship and collaboration with Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis, his experiences with hard drugs, and the formation and creative journey of the Chili Peppers themselves.
Flea said about his memoir four years ago, “I love literature deeply. I view books as sacred things, and in writing my story, I’m going to do my best to honor the form that has played such a huge part in shaping who I am.” Kiedis published his own autobiography, titled Scar Tissue, back in 2004. Red Hot Chili Peppers spent much of 2017 touring in support of their 11th studio album, 2016’s The Getaway, and are currently taking some time off.
Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell spoke backstage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony about late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, to whom Cantrell and Heart‘s Ann Wilson paid tribute on Saturday night, April 14th, by performing a cover of Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” at the event. Cantrell told reporters, “Chris was a friend for many years and an incredible artist, a wonderful human being. And I’ve always been inspired by his work ethic and talent, and his band, Soundgarden, they were a big influence on us. It’s obviously very sad.”
Cantrell continued, “I still don’t really know how to really discuss it personally, but I think at this point it’s time to maybe focus on the type of man that he was and the type of human being and the type of artist. He had incredible depth. Our bands helped each other in the early days. We were all under the same roof, with Susan Silver managing them, Kelly Curtis managing Mother Love Bone and then Pearl Jam, and they jointly managed us. We were all in the same little office above the central tavern, and that was home base. I’m gonna miss him immensely, but I also celebrate his life and his life’s work.”
Asked how he came to be involved in Saturday’s tribute, Cantrell said, “Ann called me and said she was thinking about doing something for our friend, and asked me if I would join her. And anytime she calls, I’m there. And if it’s for Chris, of course, absolutely.”
An edited version of the Rock Hall ceremony will air May 5th on HBO at 8:00 p.m.
Cornell was found hanged in his room at the MGM Grand Detroit hotel in May 2017, following a Soundgarden show at the city’s Fox Theatre. The death was ruled a suicide. His family has questioned the medical examiner’s ruling, saying that he had a prescription for Ativan and that a higher than recommended dosage may have caused him to experience suicidal thoughts.
Looks like an exciting moment for Killswitch Engage! The band reposted an instagram pic from singer Jesse Leach, showing him with guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz and former singer Howard Jones, now of Light the Torch. Seems Howard stopped by to record some tracks with the band, so hopefully we’ll have a duet from Jesse and Howard coming to our ears soon! That’ll be amazing, I’m sure!
That’s a wrap for today! Make it a great one!
