Good morning Radicals. We hope all our listeners in Panama City, Florida are recovering well!
Foo Fighters closed out nearly 18 months of touring behind their ninth studio album, Concrete And Gold, with a show on Tuesday night, October 23rd in Calgary, Canada. The show was a make-up date for a previous gig that was postponed when Dave Grohl was taken ill. But the Foos made up for that by letting the city say goodbye to the band before they go on their next hiatus between recording projects.
The Foos also played an acoustic benefit show in Los Angeles last weekend to raise funds for the L.A. Children’s Hospital, with Pharrell Williams also on the bill. Then Grohl and his daughter Violet performed at another benefit over the weekend, this time in a backyard to raise money for homeless aid organization Stella Socks.
The Foos also found time to invite country act The Brothers Osborne onstage with them on Monday night, October 22nd in Edmonton for a run through Tom Petty‘s “Breakdown,” in honor of the late rocker who died a year earlier.
Nothing else is on the books for the Foos at the moment, except for two gigs in New Orleans next February and two festival dates the following June. Grohl himself and some friends will debut his 23-minute solo track “Play” live at Warren Haynes‘ annual Christmas Jam on December 8th in Asheville, North Carolina. All proceeds from Christmas Jam will go to the Asheville area Habitat for Humanity.
Fans of young rock act Greta Van Fleet are irate over a review of the band’s debut album, Anthem Of The Peaceful Army, that appeared on the music website Pitchfork. Senior Editor Jeremy Larson gave the LP a rating of 1.6 out of 10, calling it “an interminable 49-minute drag,” while saying, “Each song here could be written or played by any of a thousand classic rock cover bands that have standing gigs at sports bars and biker joints across America.”
That set fans off on social media, with Twitter even briefly spotlighting the response. One fan wrote, “@GretaVanFleet don’t listen to what pitchfork says, the album is very good. At the end of the day, you guys are living the dream and they’re behind a computer screen.” Another remarked, “That Pitchfork review for Greta Van Fleet’s album is one of the most pretentious things I’ve ever read.”
Greta Van Fleet released Anthem Of The Peaceful Army on Friday (October 19th). The Michigan quartet’s first full-length LP follows two EPs and the overnight success of their first single, last year’s “Highway Tune.”
According to Hits Daily Double, the album is currently scheduled to sell between 70,000 and 75,000 total units first week, which will be quite an impressive outing for any young rock band in 2018.
Earlier this month, the band announced a massive 2019 world tour in support of the new disc. After a series of shows in New York, Chicago and Detroit in November and December, the outing starts in late January overseas. The first North American leg gets underway on May 7th in Miami, winding down on June 4th in Madison, Wisconsin.
Although Skillet frontman John Cooper is preparing to release the debut EP from his new metal side act, Fight The Fury, Cooper told Consequence Of Sound in an interview this week that the next Skillet album is on the way — but just delayed a bit. Cooper explained, “As of seven weeks ago, we were supposed to be releasing a brand new Skillet record in October. And six months before that, we had planned to release the new album this past January. Now, we’re not going to release it until next year.”
Saying that Skillet’s 10th studio effort is nearly done and will arrive next summer, Cooper was asked about its musical direction. He replied, “I do think the new album is going to be a bit heavier, but we’re going to have those arena anthems and also some duets with Jen (Ledger, drummer) and me, which our fans love. I’m excited for it.”
Fight The Fury’s EP, Still Breathing, is due out on Friday (October 26th), with Cooper describing it as heavier musically and lyrically than the faith-based Skillet. He explained, “I’ve had tons of people on social media ask me, is this still Christian? I didn’t expect anybody to ask that, but since Skillet is Christian, that makes sense. I think that for me, Fight The Fury is not a Christian band, but I want to be really clear to say that I’m still a Christian and my faith is very important to me.”
The first single from Still Breathing is called “My Demons.” Fight The Fury will tour Russia in December, while North American live plans are yet to be announced.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has told Sotheby’s auction house in a new interview that his lifelong love of horror movies has been an influence on his guitar playing and musical creativity. Hammett explained, “Heavy metal and horror movies come from the same sources, they come from the same seeds, they have a lot of the same imagery and subject matter and whatnot.”
Hammett added, “For myself, part of the appeal of horror movies is coming in contact with my own mortality but not having to pay the price. Or, like, reliving a death or something without having to go through the actual experience. Bringing yourself to a point where you’re maybe in a state of fear, but for your own pleasure.”
Hammett, an avid collector of classic horror and sci-fi movie posters, spoke with Sotheby’s to mark the auctioneer’s offering of an extremely rare poster for the 1932 movie The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff. The poster, for which bidding ends at noon ET on Halloween, could fetch between one and $1.5 million.
Hammett has staged two editions of his own horror-themed festival, while also amassing a huge collection of memorabilia and publishing a book about it. But what about getting into the horror movie business? Hammett told us that it’s bound to happen: “I think eventually that’s probably where I’m gonna go. I’m waiting for the right scenario and, you know, being in Metallica and financing two movies ourselves, I’ve learned that when it comes to making movies, it’s better to use someone else’s money. If someone wants to give me like four or five million to make a horror movie, I’ll make one. I’ll do my best to produce it, I’ll do my best to direct it, I’ll certainly want to score it.”
Metallica is currently in the midst of a North American tour that brings the band to Philadelphia on Thursday night, October 25th.
Guitarist Jake E. Lee, who was a member of Ozzy Osbourne‘s band between 1983 and 1987, said he was approached by producer Kevin Churko to rejoin the group following Ozzy’s decision to use someone other than Zakk Wylde for 2010’s Scream record.
Lee told Eonmusic, “To be honest, I haven’t listened to Ozzy in a long time, so I don’t know which albums (Churko) did, but I know he did a couple of albums with Ozzy . . . he initially contacted me because he also lives in Las Vegas, about what it would take for me to come back and play with Ozzy.”
But Lee said that a dispute over royalties stopped the idea from ever going any further, explaining, “Those talks didn’t last long. I mean, basically, I said; ‘Look, all I want is songwriting credit for the stuff I wrote on Bark At The Moon, that’s all.’ If they do that, I’d be happy to, you know, see what could happen with Ozzy and me, all these years later. But, yeah, that was never going to happen.”
Lee was supposed to be the permanent replacement for Ozzy’s guitarist Randy Rhoads, who died in a 1982 plane crash. Lee spent five years in Ozzy’s band, contributing to 1983’s Bark At The Moon album and 1986’s The Ultimate Sin. He exited the Ozzy fold in 1987 and was replaced by Wylde, who has been playing with Ozzy for the better part of the past 30 years.
Ozzy told us a while back what he wants out of a guitarist: “When I audition guitar players, I go, ‘I don’t want to know how fast you can play, I don’t want to know if you can stand on your head and play it through your butt, or whatever — just give me a riff that’ll make a kid want to go out and buy a guitar.’ Simple, but effective — how more simple can you get than ‘You Really Got Me’?”
Ozzy currently has Zakk Wylde back on the road with him for his “No More Tours 2” trek, although the tour was temporarily derailed earlier this month when Ozzy had to undergo surgery for a hand infection.
Rage Against The Machine and Prophets Of Rage guitarist Tom Morello has joined forces with MasterClass, an online education company that allows users to learn directly from leading instructors in their fields. Morello will offer his first online class on electric guitar exclusively through its platform.
In his class, Morello will teach students a wide range of guitar techniques including how to build a guitar riff, how to create a multi-layered song from scratch, and how to uncover and unleash one’s creative voice. Enrollment for the class is $90 for lifetime access to a single class, or $180 per year for the All-Access Pass, which grants unlimited access to all new and existing classes.
Morello, whose resume also includes Audioslave, a stint with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and several solo projects, is best known for the pioneering guitar sound he developed in the early 1990s as part of Rage Against The Machine’s then-unheard-of combination of heavy rock and politically ferocious hip-hop.
Morello told us a while back that he never imagined Rage’s unorthodox sound could succeed: “I had literally zero expectations. It’s very different now, like, everybody’s got Lil Wayne and Metallica in their iPod. That was not the case in 1991. They were opposing musics. And to combine traditionally black and white music and then to have a multi-ethnic band, and then have the lyrical content — I didn’t think that we would be able to book a club show.”
Morello said about his class, “I wanted to teach a guitar class that will make your playing meaningful to you. In my MasterClass, I will provide the building blocks for every student to create an authentic, artistic self on the electric guitar.” He intends to share his signature techniques while teaching students to create their own musical style.
Morello recently released his debut solo album, The Atlas Underground, which features collaborations with Marcus Mumford, Big Boi, Portugal. The Man, Gary Clark Jr., Steve Aoki and others.
Finally, we’d like to wish a Happy Birthday today to Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer (and Will Ferrell look-alike) Chad Smith, Flyleaf guitarist Jared Hartmann and legendary Judas Priest guitarist Glenn Tipton!
