Good morning Radicals! Here’s a fresh dose of music news for you today:
Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan Moody has taken a few minutes to respond to his critics. Moody dives into the infamous comments section of Blabbermouth.com to respond in a fashion similar to Jimmy Kimmel‘s “Mean Tweets.”
Guitarist Zoltan Bathory said in a new interview with Detroit radio station WRIF that newly sober singer Ivan Moody was given a wake-up call by the deaths of a number of musicians in the past few years, including Soundgarden‘s Chris Cornell and Linkin Park‘s Chester Bennington.
Bathory said, “Everybody knows (Moody) had a little bit of a rocky road in the last couple of years, and he’s looking at all those bands and all the musicians that are no longer here. And that’s kind of how he came to get sober — by saying, ‘Hey, man, I don’t wanna go that way’ . . . He’s sober now — completely sober — and he seems to be happy.”
Bathory continued, “He has a totally new outlook on life, so it’s actually pretty amazing.”
Bathory has said in several interviews that he himself was the only member of Five Finger Death Punch who did not have to deal with addiction issues at one point or another.
He admitted that it took him some time to understand what Moody and his other bandmates were dealing with: “It took me some time and it took me some patience because I didn’t really understand. I don’t really have any kind of addiction other than I’m a workaholic. It took me some time to understand that actually alcoholism is a disease. So it took me some time and some education, and it got me to the place that I can be patient and I can be supportive.”
Moody recently admitted in an interview with Green Bay radio station Razor 94.7 FM that he nearly died due to an alcohol-related seizure and went into treatment after that.
The new Five Finger Death Punch album, And Justice For None, came out last Friday, May 18th. The band will kick off a co-headlining tour with Breaking Benjamin on July 16th in Seattle.
Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ said this past weekend in a new interview with radio station WRKZ 99.7 The Blitz that the band will probably start working on its eighth studio LP this fall. Christ explained, “Right now we’re excited for the rest of this summer tour, and then we plan on pretty much hitting the ground running as soon as we get back and finish this tour in September. Probably September or October, we’ll start really getting into the writing of a possible new record. And it’ll be exciting. Not sure what it’ll be.”
Christ added that the band members are working on their own ideas at the moment, saying, “Right now, it’s probably a little bit more of getting our own ideas and just writing by ourselves in our studios and stuff at home. And then we’ll probably throw all of those ideas away when we come up with what kind of idea we’re gonna do.”
The new Avenged Sevenfold album will likely arrive in 2019 and will follow up 2016’s The Stage. Singer M. Shadows told us a while back that the group never rushes to make a new record: “A lot of times, bands are putting things out too quickly for my liking. I think bands need to go home, be inspired, have something to say, something to write about. You want adventurous records. I think those take time to really curate. For us, we need to go home, we like to be off the radar, we like to spend time with our families, and then when the inspiration comes, you put a record out.”
Avenged Sevenfold will tour North America this summer with Prophets Of Rage and Three Days Grace.
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl admitted in a new interview with GQ that he still finds it difficult to listen to the music of Nirvana, the band that gave him his first commercial success but ended with the suicide of singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain in April 1994. Grohl explained, “When Kurt died, every time the radio came on, it broke my heart. I don’t put Nirvana records on, no. Although they are always on somewhere. I get in the car, they’re on. I go into a shop, they’re on.”
Grohl added that his memories of making the Nirvana albums he played on are as vivid as ever, saying, “I remember everything about those records; I remember the shorts I was wearing when we recorded them or that it snowed that day.”
Although he has achieved vast success on his own terms with Foo Fighters, Grohl remarked that he could not have done it without the experiences he went through in Nirvana. He said, “I was 21 . . . I thought I knew everything. And being in Nirvana showed me how little I really knew. They were some of the greatest highs of my life, but also, of course, one of the biggest lows. Those experiences became a footing or a foundation on how to survive.”
Grohl launched Foo Fighters in late 1995, a year and a half after Cobain’s death, and has recorded nine albums with the group. Foo Fighters will resume their current North American tour in support of the band’s 2017 LP Concrete And Gold on July 6th in Columbia, Maryland.
Korn singer Jonathan Davis told Los Angeles-area radio show Whiplash that guitarists James “Munky” Shaffer and Brian “Head” Welch are working with outside collaborators on material for Korn’s 13th studio album. Davis explained, “Munky and Head have been writing with different people for a while now, getting songs together . . . when I get back from (my solo) tour, I’m gonna jump right back in and write some more with them. And then we’ll start working on the record probably late this year.” Davis is on the road now in support of his new solo disc, Black Labyrinth, which is out this Friday, May 25th. (Thanks Blabbermouth!)
Running From My Shadow (feat. @grandsonsucks) /// Thursday. #PostTraumatic pic.twitter.com/sNfQLUBJB2
— Mike Shinoda (@mikeshinoda) May 22, 2018
Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda will share the music video for his current solo single, “Running From My Shadow,” this Thursday, May 24th. Shinoda has posted a clip from the video on social media. The singer will release his new solo album, Post Traumatic, on June 15th with guest appearances from Deftones frontman Chino Moreno, rapper Machine Gun Kelly and others. (Hat tip to The PRP!)
Rob Zombie has released some set photos from Three From Hell, his upcoming sequel to House Of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. The shots don’t reveal much but seem to indicate that the title trio is now in prison. Zombie’s posts also confirmed that Sid Haig will return in the role of Captain Spaulding. Zombie recently wrapped filming on the movie but a release date has yet to be determined. (Thanks MetalSucks!)
That’s a wrap! Enjoy your day!
