Good morning Radicals! Let’s see what’s happening in the word of rock and roll this morning:
Halestorm has announced a second leg of its North American tour that will showcase all female-fronted hard rock outfits, including co-headliners In This Moment. Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale said, “After the announcement of our tour with In This Moment, the response was so great that we decided to do another run together! It’s going to be so much fun to tour with our good friends! See you all on the road!”
The first leg of the tour kicks off later this month on April 30th in Houston, Texas, with dates through May. The new dates begin July 27th in Kansas City, Missouri and run through the end of August.
New Years Day and Stitched Up Heart will join the first leg of the tour, while New Years Day will return for the second leg. Halestorm is currently finishing up its fourth studio album, which will follow up 2015’s Into The Wild Life. In This Moment is touring behind its latest LP, Ritual, which arrived last July. See all the dates on the Road Rage page.
Metallica‘s All Within My Hands charitable foundation announced yesterday that its first day of service will take place on Wednesday, May 23rd, with the band and the foundation inviting fans across the United States to volunteer for a day at the community food banks the band supported during last summer’s North American tour. In cooperation with Feeding America, Metallica made contributions to its local partners in each city the band visited during its 2017 stadium tour. With the aim of continuing to support the fight against hunger, Metallica is encouraging fans to give a few hours of their time on May 23rd to make a difference.
Metallica has posted a list of participating food banks along with more information about how to sign up to pitch in that day. Each registered volunteer on May 23rd will receive a special All Within My Hands T-shirt commemorating the foundation’s first united day of service. Volunteers must register in advance and walk-ins will not be accepted.
For those who do not live near one of the food banks listed on the site or are unavailable on this day, the band encourage visiting FeedingAmerica.org to find a local food bank in their community. Metallica launched All Within My Hands last year with the aim of assisting and enriching the lives of members of the communities who have supported them for so many years, as well as encourage participation from fans and friends and facilitate volunteerism among the Metallica family.
The 2018-2019 North American leg of Metallica’s “WorldWired” tour will kick off on September 2nd in Madison, Wisconsin, with dates scheduled through March 13th in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Each ticket purchase will be accompanied by a physical or digital copy of the band’s 2016 LP, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct.
The sons of Stone Sour and Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor and Slipknot percussionist M. Shawn “Clown” Crahan have launched their own band. Video footage of singer Griffin Taylor, drummer Simon Crahan and two more unnamed bandmates performing Slipknot’s “The Devil In I” and “Dead Memories” in their rehearsal space has been posted online.
Crahan told us a while back that he could envision a time when one of his two sons took over his job in Slipknot: “My oldest boy, when I do skip, he’s gonna take over my slot. He was sitting on the stair in diapers wearing my mask with sticks while we were downstairs trying to learn how to be a band. So when I leave, it won’t be like I died and my son came in and tried to fill my place. I’m gonna bail, but I’m gonna hand over the throne and say, ‘Hey, I can’t do it anymore. You do it. You’re my blood.’”
Corey shared a stage with Griffin last July when the younger Taylor, then 14 years old, came onstage to sing Stone Sour’s “Song #3” with his old man. Corey told a Wisconsin radio station at the time, “First of all, he’s a natural. He’d never done anything like that before. We didn’t even practice on stage with him . . . I’d never felt that kind of pride in my life, man. I was, like, ‘Oh, you’ve got the Taylor curse now, dude. You’re screwed.’”
Griffin was born in 2002 to Corey and his first wife, Scarlett. He also has a daughter by a previous relationship. Crahan has four children with his wife Chantal, to whom he’s been married since 1992.
Stone Sour is touring in support of its latest album, Hydrograd, while Slipknot is in the process of writing new music and plans to release its next LP in 2019.
System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian‘s long-dormant side project, Scars On Broadway, will release a brand new single and video on April 23rd. The track will mark the first new music from Scars since the song “F**king” came out in 2010. The band itself, now rebranded Daron Malakian And Scars On Broadway, has undergone a complete overhaul, with none of the members from the group’s 2008 debut — including System drummer John Dolmayan — appearing on the new song.
Malakian explained the personnel changes in an online post, saying, “Nobody quit. When I first started Scars, I always said that it would be different lineups from album to album. Depends on the type of direction I want to take. Different musicians work for different styles. That is partly why I added my name in front of the band’s.”
Malakian told us a while back that he likes to write music in as many different styles as possible: “I never considered myself as being someone who just plays heavy metal or just plays rock. I’m interested in so many different kinds of styles that purposely, I really want it all to come out in my style, and I think all those different styles make up my style. And so I’m not afraid to go into a little bit of direction that’s not what’s expected of me, I guess.”
Scars On Broadway has just the one LP to its credit so far and last performed in 2012 as the opening act for Deftones in Los Angeles. The group has only played live sporadically over the years: a headlining trek in 2008 was canceled, with Malakian citing his lack of enthusiasm and “his heart not being into touring” as the chief reasons behind the decision. The guitarist later explained that he thought it was “almost too soon” for him to go on the road after System Of A Down went on hiatus in 2006, also citing issues in his personal life that “made it impossible” for him to tour. System Of A Down, which has toured intermittently since ending its hiatus in 2011, has some shows coming up this spring but has not released new music in 12 years.
A Perfect Circle pays tribute to pop culture icons who have left us in the band’s new song, “So Long, and Thanks for All The Fish.” Singer Maynard James Keenanreferences the deaths of Gene Wilder, David Bowie, Muhammad Ali and Carrie Fisher on the track, which is the latest single from APC’s upcoming LP, Eat The Elephant. Keenan told Rolling Stone how so many recent celebrity deaths inspired the track, explaining, “The immediacy of social media made it more impactful with more of a rapid fire to be able to see that list every day of people that you were familiar with over the years passing . . . at the age of 53, you start to take it pretty seriously.”
Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong‘s new band, The Longshot, made its live debut on Friday, April 13th at Oakland’s 1-2-3-4 Go! Records. The show followed on the heels of The Longshot’s debut self-titled EP, which made its way to stores and streaming services last week. Armstrong revealed the act to the world earlier this month on Instagram.
Five Finger Death Punch apparently spent the weekend filming the official music video for the song “Sham Pain.” A couple of photos from the video shoot were shared on Instagram by guitarist Jason Hook, who wrote in an accompanying caption that making videos with his band “can be somewhat unpredictable.” “Sham Pain” is taken from the group’s seventh album, And Justice For None, which will be released on May 18th.
Finally we;d like to wish a Happy Birthday to Maynard James Keenan of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer! Maynard is also Lou’s featured artist all this week on hardDrive XL!
