Good morning Radicals! Here’s what’s up in music news today:
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl served as a cook this past weekend at the Beached Pig, a barbecue joint in the Studio City area of Los Angeles. The newly opened eatery is part of the Valley Urban Market, an outdoor food court co-founded by Grohl’s wife Jordyn.
Dave was stationed at the smoker all day, running meat to and from the food truck that was doling out pulled pork sandwiches and tacos, and even making a run to the supermarket down the street to pick up tortillas in the early afternoon.
Dave revealed that he has been obsessed with cooking barbecue style ever since he was in Nirvana, explaining, “When Nirvana became popular, the first thing I did is I bought a beach house in North Carolina and spent years up there, and I just ate pulled pork like f**king crazy from the time I was 22 to about 25 years old.”
When asked the secret to great barbecue is, Dave joked, “I’m not gonna f**king tell you that,” before admitting, “I think one mistake a lot of people make is that they just over season their stuff. Pork loves salt. Salt loves pork. You get nice salt on a good piece of pork and let the smoke hit it right and then it’s f**king delicious.”
Dave will be on smoker duty again this Saturday (September 29th), before heading back out on tour with the Foos — where he’s likely to cook up some burgers backstage at Cal Jam on October 6th.
Stone Temple Pilots singer Jeff Gutt recalled the first time he rehearsed with the band two years ago in a new interview with Oklahoma radio station (and hardDrive affiliate) Rock 100.5 The KATT. Gutt called the practice session “a little awkward,” explaining, “It felt like I needed their permission, in a way, to take ownership of the songs — I couldn’t just walk in and do it; it would have felt wrong to me.”
Gutt continued, “It was more of a personal thing about getting to know them as people and them getting to know me and then pretty much letting me know it was okay to go do that, ’cause to take the reins on something like that, you really need their blessing, so to speak.”
Guitarist Dean DeLeo told us a while back what made Gutt the right choice for the band: “When we started getting shoulder to shoulder and started writing, and preparing for a new record — you know, he didn’t have the gig at the time, but when we sat down and worked together and wrote, it was very evident he had a good sensibility of what the song needed and what the song wanted, and that’s what really, really interested us. Plus the guy’s through and through a great singer, you know.”
Gutt also recalled getting a call from his predecessor in the group, Linkin Park‘s late Chester Bennington, with whom Gutt had been friendly since 2001. He remarked, “We did a couple of those private showcase things, and Chester actually called and asked if he could come to the first one, ’cause he wanted to see my first performance with STP. So he was on my guest list.”
Stone Temple Pilots and Seether will hit the road together this fall on a co-headlining tour, beginning on October 23rd in British Columbia.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has told Metal Hammer magazine that he is open to the idea of eventually releasing a solo album. Hammett explained, “I have so much material sitting around that’s obviously not Metallica stuff, and that pile gets bigger and bigger.” He added, “I still feel I have so much to give Metallica. When that feels more complete, maybe I’ll think about doing that other stuff.”
Hammett told us a while back that coming up with music is not a problem for Metallica as a whole: “We’re a band that never has a shortage of ideas. You know, you hear about these bands that are like, oh, they’re sitting in the studio and they don’t have any songs, what are they gonna do? That’s not Metallica. Metallica’s problem is the total opposite: we have too many ideas, which ones are we gonna use. And so that’s pretty much how it stands with us.”
As for what fans might expect from a Hammett LP, the guitarist hinted, “It would not look like a metal album at all. It’ll be something so weird and far-ranging in styles, but cohesive at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if all of us did some solo, independent, autonomous sort of thing. I think it’s healthy, and if anything, when you come back to the band, you’d come back with more enthusiasm.”
Hammett told Rolling Stone that he last contemplated doing a solo album after the band suspended work in 2001 on what became the St. Anger album, when frontman James Hetfield took nearly a year off to get sober and reconcile with his family. Hammett recalled, “I had a bunch of music I was sitting on. I was going to ask Lars (Ulrich, Metallica drummer) to play drums on it.”
Metallica kicked off the 2018/2019 U.S. leg of the “WorldWired” arena tour on September 2nd in Madison, Wisconsin. The band is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, which arrived in November 2016.
Slipknot has put out a casting call for a new music video, inviting fans to a shoot in Los Angeles on Friday, October 5th. The message did not provide any more details about the clip, but was captioned “Slipknot 20th Anniversary,” presumably referring to the 20th anniversary of the release of the band’s self-titled 1999 major label debut album.
Fans wanting to participate in the music video shoot are being asked to e-mail their name and age to slipknot20th@gmail.com. Those who are under the age of 18 will need to provide a copy of their parent/guardian’s photo identification and a release form signed by the parent/guardian.
Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan recently hinted to the Des Moines Register that the band will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its self-titled debut LP in 2019. Asked whether the group had any plans to mark the milestone, he replied: “Oh, for sure.”
Singer Corey Taylor told us that no one expected Slipknot to be around as long as it has: “I can’t believe it. I mean, it’s funny too because I’ve seen so many ‘next big things’ come and go, and I kind of look around and I’m like, ‘Wow, we’re still here.’ I mean, I can remember every time we put an album out, somebody would write us off. And we just kept getting bigger and bigger, and for me it feels really good to have not only proved so many people wrong, but to have proved ourselves right.”
The masked nine-piece band also has plans to regroup early next year and begin working on its sixth studio album, which will follow up 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter.
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder was apparently one of the loose inspirations for Bradley Cooper‘s performance as country-rock star Jackson Maine in the upcoming film A Star Is Born. Cooper, who also directed the movie, even sought out Vedder for advice, telling Yahoo! Entertainment, “I went up to Seattle and spent four or five days with him and I asked him 9,000 questions . . . he gave me minor, little things that only musicians know about what to do, just aesthetically and the inner workings.”
Cooper maintained that his character was “an amalgamation, on a subconscious level” of Vedder and other musicians, but that Vedder himself thought the movie was a bad idea. Cooper revealed, “(Vedder) thought it was crazy I was going to do this movie. He was like, ‘What? Bro, don’t do that.’”
Cooper told Variety earlier this month that the look of the concert scenes in the film were inspired by a Metallica performance he added a few years ago. He explained, “I’m a huge fan of Metallica. About six years ago I was at Metallica concert (standing behind the drum kit) and I saw the scope of it . . . and thought, wow, this composition is incredible and that’s what it feels to be on stage, to be a rock star. So in the movie you’re always on the stage.”
A Star Is Born stars Cooper as an alcoholic musician who discovers and falls in love with a struggling young singer played by pop superstar Lady Gaga, whose career begins to take off just as that of Cooper’s character starts to decline. This is the fourth version of the story, which was previously filmed in 1937, 1954 and 1976.
This year’s Louder Than Life festival, which was scheduled to take place this weekend (September 28th – 30th) at Champions Park in Louisville, Kentucky, has been canceled. Heavy rain during last Saturday’s (September 22nd) Bourbon & Beyond festival caused flooding and turned areas of the park into mud pits that were ankle-deep in spots. The city declared the park unsafe, canceling both the second day of Bourbon & Beyond and all of Louder Than Life. The fifth installment of the latter was set to feature Nine Inch Nails, Alice In Chains, Godsmack, Deftones, Five Finger Death Punch, Breaking Benjamin, Shinedown and many more.
Slash had a response in a new interview to fans complaining about the $999 price tag for a deluxe 30th anniversary box set reissue of Guns N’ Roses‘ Appetite For Destruction. He said, “We wanted to put everything in there that we’re aware of. There was stuff we had in the can that no one has ever heard . . . A lot of people were complaining about the price of it, but there’s so much stuff in there. And the box itself is this wood thing that’s hand-done in leather. It’s really cool.”
Finally, we’d like to wish a Happy Birthday to 3 Doors Down frontman Brad Arnold and former Of Mice and Men singer Austin Carlile! Have a lovely day!
