Good morning Radicals! Here’s a fresh dose of music news for you:
With the Guns N’ Roses tour barreling ahead, co-founder Izzy Stradlin is nowhere near the reunion tour. He made a statement to The Wall Street Journal and wrote: “The current GNR tour has been a great success for the guys. My nonparticipation was simply – not being able to reach a happy middle ground through the negotiation process. That’s life. Sometimes things don’t work out.”
The touring lineup includes singer Axl Rose, guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan and an occasional guest appearance by drummer Steven Adler. Stradlin has not taken part in any shows on the tour.
Joining Rose, Slash and McKagan on the “Not In This Lifetime” tour are drummer Frank Ferrer, keyboardist Dizzy Reed, guitarist Richard Fortus and second keyboardist Melissa Reese.
There are unconfirmed reports claiming that Stradlin turned down a five-figure fee to play at the April 2016 reunion shows. Stradlin was a major contributor to the band’s classic 1987 debut LP “Appetite For Destruction” and the two “Use Your Illusion” albums in 1991, but quit the group that same year.
The guitarist has maintained a low profile over the years, resurfacing periodically to make several surprise appearances at GNR shows, including during the band’s residency in Las Vegas in 2012.
In a recent interview, singer Jeff Gutt was asked if there is any song from the Stone Temple Pilots catalogue that is “off limits” for him to sing – out of respect for the band’s original frontman, Scott Weiland. Referring to the rest of the group, Gutt replied, “Well, that’s more up to these guys, but I have a particular thing with “‘Sour Girl,” just because I feel it’s written… it’s a personal message, so I don’t know… To me, that one’s a little off limits. But other than that, I’m game.”
Drummer Eric Kretz was there as well and said of Gutt, “When he came into the audition, man, he nailed it. He actually came in and sang “Piece of Pie.” Now we get to pull out stuff in concert that we haven’t really busted into in about 20-something years.
The band’s first studio recording with Gutt was released in March.
Regarding how Stone Temple Pilots narrowed down the tracks they wanted each vocalist to tackle during the audition process, Kretz said: “It’s a tough thing, ’cause we wanted to give people a variety of songs to choose from, because some people’s voices were great for “Interstate Love Song,” but then when they got to “Dead & Bloated,” they just couldn’t hit it. Or something like “Piece of Pie,” whereas Jeff could actually hit everything.”
STP recently did its first round of dates in support of the new album and will join forces with BUSH and THE CULT for the first time this summer for the tri-headlining, Revolution 3 Tour. The North American amphitheater trek begins on July 18 in Nashville and will hit an additional 19 cities over six weeks before concluding in Phoenix, Arizona on September 2. Each group will perform a full set in a different order each night. You can see all the stops on the Road Rage page.
But in a new interview just last week, Davis spouted profanities about hating the internet and firmly denied the use of outside writers. He backtracked and stress he wasn’t talking about writers, but working with a “couple of producers” instead.
He commented, “We’re writing everything. And when I get done with this [solo] tour, I’m gonna go back, I think, in July for a couple of days and start working with them.”
Davis heads to Europe next month in support of his new disc. And later this year, Korn will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of their classic album, Follow The Leader, by playing three U.S. concerts at the end of the summer.
The 20th anniversary shows will take place on September 12 in San Francisco, September 13 at the Palladium in Los Angeles, and September 15 at the Pearl Theater in Las Vegas. It has yet to be confirmed, but it is likely that Korn will perform the album in its entirety at those shows.
Follow The Leader was a massive commercial breakthrough, debuting at #1 on the Billboard album chart, selling five million copies in the U.S. and yielding two hits singles in “Got The Life” and “Freak On A Leash.” Korn plans to embark on a full tour of some kind in 2019, although no further details have been revealed.
Godsmack frontman Sully Erna is speaking out against cell phones at concerts, but he says it’s because of the fans that he feels this way. He said, “I really want the fans to be able to experience the show as they should and not through this little four-inch screen in their hands.
He said, “I mean, I get it. I know that sometimes it’s your only opportunity to go to a show, it’s your first and only time you’re gonna see this act. But there’s also something really magical that happens when you don’t have that and you can just absorb it and sit in the moment and be able to immerse yourself into the performance and the show,”
From his point of view, when he saw iconic acts like TOTO, Tom Petty, Elton John, or Joe Walsh, he didn’t even think to pull out his cell phone. He commented, “I was just so hypnotized by the performance and the songs that meant so much to me. And I think there’s just something really amazing that happens when you allow that to happen.”
Five Finger Death Punch had a huge week on the Billboard 200 chart, as their seventh studio album, And Justice For None, debuted at # 4. They last landed in the Top 10 (at #2) with Got Your Six, in 2015.
This marks the first time they’ve had an album available on Spotify for the first week of release. In a radio interview, bassist Chris Kael said, “The other years, they didn’t count streaming towards physical sales and album sales. But now, they’ve gotten together and streaming actually counts towards album sales. So this is the first time we’ve actually gone in – guns blazing on every single platform. Whether it be physical sales, your vinyl, all that stuff, streaming, Apple Music, everything. It’s all available now right out of the gate.”
The Billboard chart ranks the most popular albums of the week based on multi-metric consumption, which includes traditional album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA).
A look at the numbers shows it launched with 71,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. in the week ending May 24, according to Nielsen Music. Of that sum, 60,000 were in traditional album sales. According to Billboard, the group’s only studio album to miss the top 10 was its debut effort, The Way Of The Fist, which topped out at #107 in 2008.
