Good morning Radicals! Here’s some music news for your eyeballs:
Metallica has been named as one of the headliners of the 17th annual Austin City Limits Music Festival, marking the first time that the metal legends will appear at the long-running event. Joining Metallica at the top of the bill will be Paul McCartney, Arctic Monkeys, Childish Gambino, Travis Scott and Odeska, while other artists confirmed to perform include Greta Van Fleet, Deftones, Hozier, Chvrches, The National, Father John Misty, Janelle Monae and many more.
More than 125 acts will perform on eight stages during both weekends of the event, scheduled for October 5th through the 7th and October 12th through the 14th at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. Three-day general admission tickets for both weekends are on sale now at www.aclfestival.com, with VIP and hotel packages also available. Single-day tickets and packages will go on sale later in the year.
Metallica’s Austin appearance will fall right in the middle of a 34-date North American leg of its “WorldWired” tour that begins on September 2nd in Madison, Wisconsin. Drummer Lars Ulrich told us what he’s most concerned with when playing on a big stage: “When you’re playing on a stage that size, it’s really important to kind of always know, you know, where’s James and it’s just about eye contact. The hardest thing that we do actually is playing — when we play indoors we play in the round, and a lot of times when we’re in the round I can’t see any of the other three guys. That’s when you really have to sort of rely on your instincts and your intuition and so on.” The band has played 20 shows in Europe since early February and has another five dates booked between now and mid-May.
— Alice in Chains (@AliceInChains) May 1, 2018
Alice In Chains has teased the arrival of new music both onstage and in a weird new video clip that the band has shared online. During its tour opener in Boston last week as the group’s new North American trek got underway, guitarist Jerry Cantrell reportedly announced that a new song would be arriving this week, adding that “no further details have been made public at this point.”
The band is not playing any new material on its current road trip. Cantrell told Guitar World about the upcoming LP, “It’s not that we were keeping it a secret — we just didn’t want to say a whole lot about it until we had something to say. And we certainly have something to say with this one. It’s a f**king strong record.”
Additionally, the band posted a teaser clip on Twitter although the strange image did not feature new music. The quartet’s sixth studio LP is expected to come out this fall and follow up 2013’s The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here.
Alice In Chains next plays on Thursday (May 3rd) in Washington D.C., finishing up the first leg of the tour on May 19th in Philadelphia. After hitting Europe and Israel, the band will start a second leg on August 22nd in Vancouver that comes to a close on September 15th.
Rage Against The Machine and Prophets Of Rage drummer Brad Wilk revealed in an interview on the Let There Be Talk podcast that he auditioned for Pearl Jam in 1991 before the band’s debut album Ten was released. Wilk recalled, “They go to England to mix Ten, which Tim Palmer was doing, I get a call from Eddie (Vedder), ‘We just lost our drummer, I’d love for you to come up and meet everybody. I’m going to send you the tape of the songs.’
Wilk continued, “I’m like s**tting my pants, I’ve never been out of the country, I’ve got to go get my f**king passport, I’m listening to the songs, I’m super young (23 years old) and thinking, ‘This is my break, this is my time.’ I go to Europe and we play together, me and Eddie have this history, and we’re bonding over in Europe, but to the others I’m just the new guy.”
Pearl Jam’s original drummer Dave Krusen, who played on Ten, had bowed out of the band already due to drug issues. Wilk continued, “Long story short, I go there, and I just don’t click musically, mostly with Jeff (Ament), who is an incredible bass player, awesome guy, and this is a classic case — it doesn’t matter how good you are, chemistry is everything. It just wasn’t clicking . . . I just wasn’t the guy.”
Wilk said he stayed with the band for about a week until finally heading back home.
Later in 1991, he co-founded Rage Against The Machine with guitarist Tom Morello, singer Zack de la Rocha and bassist Tim Commerford. When that group broke up, Wilk, Morello and Commerford stayed together and launched Audioslave in 2001 with Chris Cornell on vocals. Wilk, Morello and Commerford have continued to play together in Prophets Of Rage alongside MCs Chuck D and B-Real. Wilk also played drums on Black Sabbath‘s 2013 studio album, 13, the first Sabbath effort in 35 years to feature founding members Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler.
The mysterious Guns N’ Roses website GNR.fm has added a countdown clock that is set to hit zero at midnight ET this Friday (May 4th). In addition, the site now features a map of the world with various cities lit up and a radio transmission featuring the rare early Guns track “Shadow Of Your Love.” The site came online earlier this week with the message “Destruction Is Coming” on the homepage, in tandem with a London billboard featuring the cover art from Appetite For Destruction, leading fans to speculate that a deluxe reissue — or a reunion of the original band lineup — could be underway.
Nothing More and Bad Wolves will play some off-dates from their upcoming tour together with Five Finger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin this summer. Eyes Set To Kill will join the two bands on those dates. Bad Wolves’ debut LP, Disobey, comes out May 11th. The newly confirmed shows are (subject to change):
- July 23 – Reno, NV – Cargo
- July 28 – Tucson, AZ – Rialto Theatre
- August 5 – Fayetteville, AR – George’s Majestic Lounge
- August 10 – Myrtle Beach, SC – House Of Blues
- August 19 – Montreal, QC – Corona Theatre
- September 2 – Lexington, KY – Manchester Music Hall
- September 5 – Quebec City, QC – L’Imperial Bell (no Bad Wolves)
A 68-year-old woman named Jenny Darren recently took the stage on Britain’s Got Talent and absolutely crushed a version of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell.” Darren walked onstage in a demure outfit before peeling it off to reveal a black shirt, leather skirt and boots. It turns out that Darren began singing at the age of 12 and socialized with members of Led Zeppelin and other acts before getting her own chance to open for AC/DC in 1977. She also recorded a version of “Heartbreaker” before Pat Benatar had a hit with it and recorded a total of 10 albums, returning to her rock roots in 2015 and cutting a collection of cover songs in 2017.
Gibson Brands Inc, the maker of some of America’s most famous electric and acoustic guitars, has filed for bankruptcy. The Nashville-based company announced Tuesday, May 1st that it is filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy and working on “re-focusing, reorganizing and restructuring” by shedding some of its side businesses and concentrating on its original mission of selling musical instruments.
Gibson CEO Henry Juskiewicz said in a statement, “Over the past 12 months, we have made substantial strides through an operational restructuring. We have sold non-core brands, increased earnings, and reduced working capital demands.”
The “non-core brands” that the company has shed in an effort to lessen its massive debt include an audio and home entertainment business that Gibson acquired for $135 million from multinational tech firm Phillips in 2014. The purchase was made as a bid to broaden the company’s presence among music fans, which the company says will now “be wound down.”
Gibson will continue to operate during its reorganization and bankruptcy proceedings, thanks to agreements it has reached with shareholders and noteholders. The company’s debts are somewhere between $100 million and $500 million while its annual revenue fell by nearly half a billion in the last three years. It owes money to at least 26 other companies and vendors.
Gibson is not the only iconic musical brand affected by a dramatic fall in the sale of guitars overall: Fender is also in debt while leading instrument retailer Guitar Center is barely surviving. The reorganization could lead Gibson, which also manufactures other well-known brands like Epiphone and Kramer, to focus squarely on its instruments business and hopefully inspire new generations to pick up guitars again.
That’s a wrap, have a great day!
