Good morning Radicals! One day away from Independence Day! Here’s your music news:
Halestorm has released the official “visualizer” video for its new single, “Black Vultures.” The track is taken from the band’s fourth studio album, Vicious, which will be released on July 27th. “Black Vultures” follows up the first single and video issued from the new LP last month, “Uncomfortable.”
Singer/guitarist Lzzy Hale told us that the band spent a lot of time working on the songs for the new album during and between tours: “We had, you know, multiple versions of every song. We would come back from a tour and be like, ‘Ooh, what about this, you know, like, let’s go back and listen.’ So we really got to like kind of get inside these songs before we release it. And then usually we’re like, as we develop it live, we’ll be like, ‘Oh, we should have done that. We should have done that.’ So like, this time we’re like, we’ve gotten to the final versions of these songs by now.”
Vicious will arrive on July 27th and follows up 2015’s Into The Wild Life. Among the other tracks on the album are “Skulls,” “Buzz,” “Do Not Disturb,” “Conflicted,” “Killing Ourselves To Live,” “Heart of Novocaine,” “Painkiller,” “White Dress,” “The Silence” and the title track.
Halestorm will embark on the second leg of its U.S. tour showcasing all female-fronted hard rock bands on July 27th in Kansas City, Missouri. Other acts on the bill include In This Moment and New Years Day.
Video clips and images have surfaced from the public memorial held for late Pantera and Hellyeah drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott at rock venue The Bomb Factory in Dallas on Sunday (July 1st), including a report from a local CBS-TV outlet.
Pantera tour manager Gus Sykes said, “We’re not mourning Vinnie. Of course, the world is sad that he’s gone . . . but Vinnie’s memory will live on through his music.” Local radio personality Cindy Scull added, “Whoever thought this would happen to Vinnie Paul? He’s such a legend, he’s the most superpositive, easygoing, greatest guy ever.”
The stage at “Vinnie Paul: A Public Celebration Of Life” was decorated with flowers from various rock stars and other celebrities, including Kid Rock, comedian Carrot Top, Black Sabbath‘s Geezer Butler and bands such as Disturbed, Anthrax, Slayer and Alice In Chains. Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon sent an arrangement in the shape of a drum. The flowers surrounded Vinnie’s drum kit.
Sunday’s public event also included emotional tributes from a number of Vinnie’s fellow musicians, some of whom appeared in person while others sent short video speeches expressing their affection for the fallen drummer. Several thousand fans waited in near-triple-digit heat, in a line that was nearly two blocks long by the time the doors opened, to pay tribute to the drummer.
Vinnie passed away on June 22nd at his home in Las Vegas at the age of 54. The drummer’s death “did not appear suspicious,” according to the official police report. Sources close to Vinnie told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he suffered a “major heart attack,” but that information has not been corroborated yet by an official source.
Gavin Rossdale says that Bush will enter the studio later this year to make a “super-heavy” new LP. The singer/guitarist told Des Moines radio station Lazer 103.3, “I just like heavier music. When we made the last record, it was in the middle of a certain time, and it was a little bit more . . . a different time going on for me.” He added, “It’s really fun to go in the studio and just do some good, heavy music and sing to that. I still sing the same way, but the music is just heavy and richer.”
The band’s last effort, 2017’s Black And White Rainbows, was recorded after the frontman went through a divorce with pop star/reality TV judge Gwen Stefani in 2015. Rossdale himself was also appearing as a judge on the U.K. version of The Voice.
Rossdale remarked that the band’s new songs are “full of resistance and opinion and energy.” The 52-year-old frontman told us a while back what the biggest challenge was for him and Bush these days: “To me it’s just the challenge of making a record and being in music and, like all of us, desiring to be current and relevant to ourselves. You know, you have to challenge yourself, and think, ‘Well, what do you write about at this point?’ You know, if you’re 21, you write a different thing than if you’re 31 and so forth.”
Bush will join forces with Stone Temple Pilots and The Cult for the first time this summer for the “tri-headlining” Revolution 3 Tour. The North American amphitheater trek begins on July 18th in Nashville and will hit an additional 19 cities over six weeks before concluding in Phoenix on September 2nd. Each group will perform a full set in a different order each night.
The Smashing Pumpkins played a show last Thursday night (June 28th) at the house in Los Angeles at which they filmed the original video for their 1995 hit “1979,” only for police to arrive and shut the show down after receiving complaints from other nearby residents.
Performing on a stage in the backyard, the band did manage to play a 14-song set for fans who attended the Studio City-area residence for the “1979 House Party,” but parking issues in the residential neighborhood became an issue. Also, despite advance notice that the event would be happening, there were noise complaints, which led to police being called to the house and the show being stopped.
Frontman William Corgan later offered “apologies to those in Studio City for the disturbance of our nihilistic noize,” adding, “‘Twas a full moon and something just gets into the blood. And respect to the police, who let us finish the set. Mendacious as our conclusion was.”
The semi-reunited classic Pumpkins lineup also played a warm-up show last Wednesday night (June 27th) at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the first full-length concert to feature Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin since December 2nd, 2000. The band will launch a North American tour on July 12th in Glendale, Arizona.
Dave Grohl has hinted that a secret, unannounced gig played by the surviving members of Nirvana with special guests, following the band’s induction earlier that night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, may end up seeing the light of day.
At Nirvana’s 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, the band’s surviving members — Grohl, bassist Krist Novoselic and touring guitarist Pat Smear — reunited to perform four songs, as Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, Joan Jett and Lorde each took a turn on the mic.
The trio later turned up at a Brooklyn club called St. Vitus, where they were joined by Jett, Clark, Gordon, J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and John McCauley of Deer Tick for a longer show. Grohl told Rolling Stone, “When we realized that we were going to do it, I just called the people from my production company and said, ‘We need to film this,’ and we loaded some cameras in there and and shot it without knowing what would ever come of it. But it would be a shame for that evening to be only a memory and we’ve got it. And it was f**king great.”
He added, “It was cathartic and everybody involved, I think, understood that they were part of something like a dream . . . It really was amazing. It was something else. Someday, I’m sure everybody’ll see it.”
Foo Fighters begin the summer/fall leg of their 2018 North American tour this Friday (July 6th) in Columbia, Missouri, winding down on October 18th in St. Paul, Minnesota. The band is touring in support of its 2017 LP, Concrete And Gold.
Finally, we’d like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach! Have a wonderful day!
