Good morning Radicals! Hope everyone had a lovely weekend. It’s quite over here on the east coast, so staying indoors with the AC on is the plan all day. Here’s some music news to keep you cool in the meantime:
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl was a guest on Thursday night’s (August 2nd) edition of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, where he gave the host a most unsettling gift: Grohl’s own severed head. The gruesome artifact was from a Halloween edition of Kimmel that Grohl guest hosted last year, on which Grohl had his head chopped off by Alice Cooper as part of a skit. Grohl thanked Kimmel for letting him host the show by giving him the head as a present.
Grohl revealed that after Alice beheaded him on the show, he took the prop head home, saying, “I scared my kids with it, I scared the housekeeper with it, and it got to a point where I was like, ‘I need to get this thing out of my house.’”
After receiving the grisly keepsake, Kimmel quipped, “I think I’m going to give this to my mom.”
While on the show, Grohl also spoke about the forthcoming mini-documentary Play, in which he plays a 23-minute song on seven different instruments. He also recalled jamming with Prince back in 2011 on Led Zeppelin‘s “Whole Lotta Love” when the late singer played a residency at the Forum in Los Angeles.
Guitarist Slash has not ruled out the possibility that the current version of Guns N’ Roses will record new music. Asked on Trunk Nation if the group has considered going into the studio, Slash responded, “It’s been talked about. I think everybody wants to do it, and we’ll just see what happens. We’ve been busy doing this running around the planet.”
Slash was referring to the “Not In This Lifetime” tour, which has been going on for two years and features three-fifths of the original Guns lineup. He revealed that the original plan was to only play five shows, explaining, “Axl (Rose, singer) and I got together, and we talked for a while and so on, and we thought it would be cool to do these Coachella dates, because we (got) offered to get back together and do Coachella every year for years, and we obviously didn’t do it (before). So now that we were on good terms, it seemed like a good idea.”
He continued, “So that was the basic focus — just to do those two shows and a couple of warm-up shows, so we did the Troubadour, one show in Vegas, in Mexico and the Coachella gigs. And that went so well, and everything just fell back into place. So we said, ‘Okay, we’ll do this U.S. run that they’re offering us,’ and then everything just snowballed from there.”
Slash said that reconnecting with Rose after nearly two decades of estrangement was “huge,” adding, “I know these guys, I know these songs, but something about it was not really reminiscent of, say, the Use Your Illusion tour. So it felt really fresh and new.” Slash also praised newer band members Richard Fortus on guitar and Frank Ferrer on drums, as well as Rose for his “amazing” vocals nightly.
Guns N’ Roses is on a break now and has just one date on its schedule for the rest of 2018, on November 25th at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in the United Arab Emirates.
Five Finger Death Punch bassist Chris Kael has revealed in a celebratory Instagram post revealing that he has been sober for six months. He wrote, “Cheers to sobriety!” under the photo, along with the hashtags #SixMonths #SoberAsF**k #LivingLifeOnLifesTerms #S**tYesSon.
Kael revealed earlier this year that he had been abusing alcohol and cocaine, until finally checking into rehab. He explained in one post, “I got hit HARD with depression combined with drinking and cocaine that had definitely gotten the best of me. I hit an incredibly depressing low in February, realized that things were no longer in my control, gave myself to the universe and sought help in rehab here in Vegas.”
Kael is the fourth member of Five Finger Death Punch to embrace sobriety, with singer Ivan Moody going to rehab last year following a string of onstage meltdowns and other bizarre behavior. Drummer Jeremy Spencer and guitarist Jason Hook are also sober.
Moody told us that finding sobriety has given him a whole new lease on life: “I’m just so happy to be away from the clutches of it. I just didn’t want my legacy to be that of a few others that I don’t even have to name, where I was controlled by a substance, or a liquid for that matter. My life is too precious to me. It’s night and day, man, and I’m really, really proud to be sober.”
Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor will headline the music portion of Fozzy singer and professional wrestler Chris Jericho‘s Rock ‘N’ Wrestling Rager at Sea, a wrestling and music-themed cruise that will feature both iconic figures and fresh faces from each industry. The cruise sails from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas, from October 27th through the 31st.
In addition to Taylor, the music portion of the cruise also includes Jericho’s band Fozzy, former Motorhead guitarist Phil Campbell’s band Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons, as well as heavy rockers Kyng and the up-and-coming band The Stir.
The cruise will also feature one of Jericho’s recent in-ring opponents, international wrestling superstar Kenny Omega, plus matches between wrestlers from the Ring of Honor and Impact Wrestling promotions. Special guests include legends Mick Foley and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.
Taylor and Stone Sour will play a few warm-up gigs later this month before joining Ozzy Osbourne on the North American leg of his farewell tour, beginning August 30th in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The band will also release a two-disc deluxe edition of its latest album, Hydrograd, on August 31st.
Fozzy is touring in support of its seventh studio album, Judas, which has yielded a Top Five rock radio hit in the title track.
The Smashing Pumpkins were joined by a number of special guests for their 30th anniversary performance on Thursday night, August 2nd at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. Deftones singer Chino Moreno, Killers members Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer, AFI vocalist Davey Havok, Courtney Love, Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook and Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath appeared throughout the three-hour show.
McGrath performed his band’s hit “Fly,” along with a cover of Judas Priest‘s “Breaking The Law.” Courtney Love came onstage for takes on her band Hole‘s “Celebrity Skin” and “Malibu” and stuck around for “Bullet On Butterfly Wings” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Moreno performed “Bodies” and “Snail,” while the members of the Killers sat in for the Pumpkins classic “Cherub Rock.”
The Pumpkins also played New York City’s Madison Square Garden last week and frontman William Corgan wrote about it on Instagram, saying, “It was as big a night as the Smashing Pumpkins have ever had in our 30 year history. And none of it would have been possible without the faithful who’ve defended us through thick and thin, stood by us in the lean times . . . that night was just as much for you as it was for the band onstage.”
The “Shiny And Oh So Bright” North American arena tour is the Pumpkins’ first in nearly 20 years to feature founding members William Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin. Longtime Pumpkins guitarist Jeff Schroeder, bassist Jack Bates, and keyboardist Katie Cole are also taking part.
Greta Van Fleet has shared a “vertical video” for its new single, “When the Curtain Falls,” with the angle and a Super 8 filter giving the clip a deliberately vintage look. The song is the first single off the band’s highly anticipated debut full-length album, which is expected to arrive this fall. A title and release date have not yet been announced for the disc.
Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda has released a video for the instrumental song “Brooding,” taken from his recently released solo LP Post Traumatic. Shinoda will spend most of August playing shows in China, Thailand, Japan, France and the U.K. He recently said he was “open” to the idea of doing shows in the future with Linkin Park, but added, “I’m just taking it one step at a time and keeping my mind open to the possibilities.”
Prophets Of Rage guitarist Tom Morello has released the official music video for his solo song “We Don’t Need You.” The track, which features a guest appearance by Vic Mensa, is taken from Morello’s upcoming solo album, The Atlas Underground, which arrives on October 12th. Morello recruited a number of other guest artists to appear on the 12-track LP, including Portugal. The Man, Cage The Elephant singer Matt Schultz, X-Ambassadors, Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath, Marcus Mumford and many more.
Alter Bridge has released a performance clip from the band’s upcoming concert set Live At The Royal Albert Hall Featuring The Parallax Orchestra. The track, “Words Darker Than Their Wings,” is a song from the group’s 2010 ABIII album that had never been previously performed live until the two shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall at which the set was captured. The 21-song Live At The Royal Albert Hall… will be available on Blu-ray, DVD, CD and vinyl on September 7th.
That’s a wrap for today, have a great one!
