Good morning Radicals! Here’s a fresh dose of music news to start your day:
Disturbed drummer Mike Wengren said in a new interview with Milwaukee radio station (and hardDrive affiliate) 102.9 The Hog that the band did not make a conscious effort to come up with another song on its new LP Evolution that would have the potential to repeat the crossover success of its triple-platinum smash “The Sound Of Silence.”
But Wengren added that the song’s success made fans more receptive to softer material from the group. He explained, “The success of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ definitely opened the door for us in that regard. But that wasn’t something that we necessarily wanted to chase (on Evolution). I think that being able to put some balance on this record was more of an artistic thing for us. I think if we were trying to chase something . . . I just don’t think it would work. Everything for us has always gotta be done naturally and come from the heart.”
Evolution, Disturbed’s seventh studio album, will arrive on October 19th. Last week the band shared the official music video for “Are You Ready,” the first single from the LP. The new disc follows up 2015’s Immortalized, which contained the Simon & Garfunkel cover that became the quartet’s biggest hit yet.
Immortalized was Disturbed’s fifth Number One album in a row and ended a four-year hiatus for the group.
Hey Freaks, I’d like to do something.I want everyone who has ever struggled with mental health to #RaiseYourHorns take a pic, tag and share it. The more of us that put it out there,the less alone we will all feel & we will be one step closer to breaking the mental health stigma! pic.twitter.com/lAFwxf128y
— Lzzy Hale (@LZZYHALE) August 16, 2018
Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale launched an informal social media campaign last week in which she asked fans to take a photo of themselves with the hashtag #RaiseYourHorns, as a way of both showing that they had grappled with mental illness and letting others that were dealing with these issues know that they are not alone.
Hale’s initiative was inspired by the death of Huntress vocalist Jill Janus, who took her own life last week at the age of 43. Speaking with Kerrang! about the campaign, Hale stated, “Honestly, it was kind of a whim of mine — I wasn’t trying to start anything. I wanted to do something for the community and the people I talk to every day online . . . When you think about how lonely it must’ve been to have been hiding all those things (Janus) was feeling, it breaks your heart.”
Hale added, “What I’ve learned from talking to people online is that there are so many people who feel that way. No one is alone in struggling with their mental health, and, in fact, I think those of us that struggle with it are the majority . . . I thought it’d be easy for people to take a picture, tag their friends and show everybody that people aren’t alone in feeling this way.”
The response to her campaign has been “amazing,” according to Hale, who also remarked, “When situations like Jill’s death come up, you can either respond negatively or try to put a little hope out there . . . If these silly ideas I have on the internet serve to calm one person down about their feelings, then I’ll be happy.”
British act Bring Me The Horizon has released a new single called “Mantra,” with singer Oli Sykes telling BBC Radio One about the track, “It felt like the first thing we wanted to show people upon our return.” But when asked if the single’s arrival meant that a new album was imminent, Sykes replied, “I don’t want to say. We’re definitely working on stuff. We’ve got something exciting to announce in the next few days.”
Sykes said the music he and his bandmates are working on is “completely different” from 2015’s That’s The Spirit album, hinting, “We want to be a heavy band, but not in the way you think of heavy.”
The singer told us a while back that the band made a conscious decision to start going in different musical directions: “I think that just comes with going in with the mindset that we’re gonna do anything and we’re not gonna rule anything out and not gonna be worried about what people say or how people react to it. That is one of the reasons we wanted to move away from the metal genre and not be held back by those restrictions.”
Prior to the new song’s premiere, Bring Me The Horizon launched a mysterious campaign, including a billboard reading “Do You Want To Start A Cult With Me?” — a line that ended up being one of the lyrics in “Mantra.”
The promotional campaign also saw the band starting a web site, joinmantra.org, with an initial message that read, “There are those who will say that only after a lifetime of sacrifice and good doing can the soul be free — that God demands conditions in the freedom and that some have the power of making mankind slaves.”
Stone Sour guitarist Josh Rand has admitted that staying sober on tour has been more challenging than he expected. Speaking with Des Moines radio station Lazer 103.3, Rand revealed, “I’m a guy that needs structure. And there was definitely times when the temptation was there, and it was a challenge. But I have a great support group within the band and the people that work for us, and then my fiancée came out midway through, so that was the extra support. But it was a little bit more difficult than what I thought going into it.”
Rand left a Stone Sour tour last January to get treatment for an alcohol and Xanax dependency. After finishing treatment in April, Rand admitted that he was first prescribed Xanax eight years earlier for anxiety related to flying. He explained, “Over the course of the last couple years, I started drinking and when we started touring, I was basically day-drinking. But not drinking to get messed up, but just to maintain, I guess. Or to be able to cope, to have this buzz.”
Stone Sour spent this past spring and the early part of summer playing select shows in the U.S and completing a European tour which included appearances at some of the biggest rock festivals on the continent, including Rock Am Ring and Hellfest.
The band will release a deluxe edition of its sixth studio album, 2017’s Hydrograd, on August 31st. The two-disc set will contain the original LP along with a total of 13 additional tracks, including unreleased covers, B-sides, live recordings and alternate versions of songs from the album.
Trent Reznor-photo credit: Ramona Rosales (Village Voice)
Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have been tapped to compose the score for Mid90s, a new film coming out later this year that will mark the directing debut of actor Jonah Hill. The coming-of-age tale, which stars Sunny Suljic, Lucas Hedges and Katherine Waterston, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 9th before opening in theaters October 19th.
It was revealed last month that Reznor and Ross are also scoring a film called Waves from director Trey Edward Shults. The pair previously collaborated on acclaimed film scores for The Social Network, Gone Girl, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Patriots Day and Before The Flood, as well as Ken Burns’ series The Vietnam War. They won both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for The Social Network.
Reznor told us a while back that writing music for films has not been that difficult: “That idea of starting in a visual place has made it kind of easy — I find it hasn’t been that much of a struggle to start to think in terms of scoring for picture, because now I have the picture to see instead of me creating it in my head and it’s not that far of a stretch in terms of the strategy working here.”
In June, Nine Inch Nails released Bad Witch, the third in a series of records that Nine Inch Nails has issued over the past two years, including 2016’s Not The Actual Events and 2017’s Add Violence.
That’s Dirt! Have a great day!
