Good morning Radicals! Here’s a fresh dose of music news to start your day:
Congratulations to Breaking Benjamin, who have reached the top of the rock radio chart for the ninth time in their career with “Torn In Two,” the latest single from the band’s sixth studio album, Ember. The track is also the second consecutive single from the LP to hit Number One, following “Red Cold River” earlier this year.
“Torn In Two” has topped Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Songs airplay chart, becoming the sixth track by the band to hit Number One on that survey as well. It is also the band’s fourth chart topper in just over three years, following “Never Again” in 2017 and both “Angels Fall” and “Failure” in 2015.
Burnley told us a while back that consistency has been the key to Breaking Benjamin’s success: “I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. I just want to write good music that’s gonna stand the test of time and I try to do that. Whether I accomplished that is another thing, but at least I try to do that. And I think fans are noticing that the band hasn’t changed just because I’m the main songwriter, I always have been, and my process — it’s not gonna change. All I’m gonna try to do is just write really, really good songs and bring the Breaking Benjamin sound to another level.”
Breaking Benjamin recently wrapped the summer portion of its North American outdoor amphitheater tour with co-headliners Five Finger Death Punch. The two bands will hit the road again this fall and winter, this time in arenas, starting November 6th in Wichita, Kansas.
Badflower will make its network television debut on tomorrow night, Thursday, September 20th, when the Southern California act will perform its smash single “Ghost” on The Late Late Show with James Corden. “Ghost” has hit Number Three on the rock radio chart this week, while the accompanying music video has surpassed 2.4 million views.
With its grim subject matter, Badflower frontman Josh Katz told us he never expected “Ghost” to become a single: “I’ve never tried to kill myself, but I think about it and a lot of people think about it, and I just had this vision that I really wanted to write a song that wasn’t about, ‘Like, woe is me, my life is so terrible and here’s what…’ — you know, it wasn’t just a sad song. I just kind of wanted to dive into the details of what that would feel like, like the actual feeling and the thoughts you might have in your final moments right before you die.”
Badflower is currently on the road supporting From Ashes To New, while later this fall the group will join up with A Perfect Circle on select dates and support The Wrecks on a U.S. tour. The band will also perform a number of headline shows and appear at numerous music festivals.
Badflower has been working on its first full-length album, although a release date and title for the LP has yet to be announced.
Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo has denied claims by his estranged wife that he was ever abusive to her. According to TMZ, DeLeo pushed back against the accusations leveled by Jenn DeLeo in newly filed court documents.
Among the claims that Jenn made when she filed for divorce last June was that he allegedly admitted to adultery and made violent threats to her in front of the couple’s six-year-old daughter, June. Jenn also claimed that Dean began abusing drugs and alcohol shortly after she gave birth to June in 2012, and once took the child into the ocean, where she nearly drowned, while he was “completely inebriated.”
Jenn also claimed that Dean physically assaulted her after he came to in their garage after a night of binge drinking, nearly killing her. She also claimed he has attempted to strangle her multiple times over the course of their relationship.
In his new filing, Dean stated that Jenn’s cheating allegations are false, and insisted that he has been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol since 2013. He also insisted that the story about taking the child into the ocean while drunk was a lie. Dean attached declarations from his teenage son, ex-wife and current girlfriend, all of whom vouch for him as a father who has a strong bond with his children.
Stone Temple Pilots and Seether will hit the road together this fall on a co-headlining tour, beginning on October 23rd in British Columbia. STP are touring behind their latest self-titled effort and first with new singer Jeff Gutt.
readjusted some pieces and it’s actually looking pretty squared up now. I also did some color correction because the coloring from so many different light sources was driving me crazy lol #PostTraumaticPuzzle pic.twitter.com/eQrXSyOSGp
— LinkinBert (@bombalurina03) September 15, 2018
Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda has reportedly been sending random pieces of ripped paper to fans in the mail. Shinoda recently tweeted that he wanted 50 fans to send him their home addresses. It was unknown at the time what his intentions were, but fans are speculating that pieces went to one person from all 50 states.
Reddit users have begun compiling the pieces into an image which seems to point toward some sort of tour with alternative hip-hop artist K. Flay, who also appears on one of Shinoda’s new songs, “Make It Up as I Go.”
It was recently announced that the Linkin Park member would headline the 2018 Monster Outbreak tour, which kicks off on October 10th in Montreal. Shinoda will be out in support of his recently released solo album Post Traumatic.
Some of the new LP was inspired by the death more than a year ago of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington. The latter was found dead in his Los Angeles-area home on July 20th, 2017 after hanging himself. Linkin Park headlined an all-star tribute concert for Bennington last October in Los Angeles but has not announced any future plans for recording or touring.
Smashing Pumpkins frontman William Corgan told Beats One in a new interview that there are vast amounts of previously unreleased music from the band in the archives that he’s excited to finally release thanks to the strength of both vinyl and digital music sales.
Corgan explained, “I’m really excited by the re-rise of the vinyl record shop and the fact that there is there is this beautiful balance now between vinyl releases and streaming services. We’re going to just start unloading the archives — and we have archives for decades.”
Asked about the extent of the archive, Corgan replied, “You can’t even imagine,” while drummer Jimmy Chamberlin added that there were “hundreds of songs,” all in a finished state.
Corgan remarked, “It’s insane how much work there is. We could literally never record another song and have a release every two months for the next 20 years. Easy. There’s alternate versions, there’s live versions, there’s acoustic versions. So we’re going to actually kill people with content.”
Before digging into the vaults, the Pumpkins will release a new album titled Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun on November 16th. The eight-song LP is the band’s first in over 18 years to feature founding members Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, along with longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder.
That’s a wrap, have a great day everyone!
