First full week of November! Let the countdown to winter begin!
Ghost frontman Tobias Forge, who performs as Cardinal Copia, hinted in a new interview with Oklahoma City radio station (and hardDrive affiliate) 100.5 The KATT that the band may release an EP of new material in 2019. Although Ghost has previously issued two EPs consisting mostly of cover songs, Forge said that may not be the cast this time. He explained, “My intention is not to release just another EP of covers. There might be something else coming out next year, maybe, that might have been recorded already, that won’t be covers.”
Forge also discussed the possibility of releasing a live album or concert film, saying, “If the production on the live front gets to the point where I want it to be, and if we happen to play two dates at a venue that caters to the full production and it’s somewhere geographically where there’s an audience who is very, very, very avid and very lively, I would love to record a film . . . it’s definitely on my to-do list.”
Ghost recently kicked off a massive North American headlining tour that will feature the band’s most elaborate stage show yet, with the band playing two arena dates in Los Angeles and New York. Forge told us a while back that Ghost enjoys coming to America: [“We always love touring America, it’s always fun. Touring Europe and North America is very, very different. It helps that it’s the same language everywhere. You can stop anywhere and just go out on the street and talk to anybody. America’s always treated us very well too. It is truly a, it’s a wild place, and you guys like rock ‘n’ roll.”
Ghost is continuing to tour in support of its new album, Prequelle, which was released in June. The latest single is “Dance Macabre.”
An attorney for late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell‘s doctor has responded to the lawsuit filed against him by Cornell’s widow Vicky. Late last week, Vicky sued Dr. Robert Koblin for malpractice, accusing the physician of over-prescribing drugs that eventually caused her husband to commit suicide. Vicky and her two children, also named in the suit, are seeking unspecified damages.
Koblin’s lawyer, James Kjar, said in a statement, “Dr. Koblin is a competent and conscientious doctor who enjoyed an excellent physician/patient relationship with Mr. Cornell and other members of his family. The experts I have consulted with believe Dr. Koblin’s treatment was within the standard of care in this community and were not a substantial factor in causing Mr. Cornell to commit suicide.”
In the lawsuit, Vicky claims that Koblin prescribed 940 doses of the anti-anxiety drug Lorazepam, a.k.a. Ativan, as well as Oxycodone during the last 20 months of Chris’ life, without examining him, performing lab studies or doing anything else to determine if her husband was in danger.
According to the claim, “the unmonitored use of such excessive amounts of Lorazepam . . . was known to increase the risk of suicide because it can severely impair judgment, thinking and impulse control and diminish the ability of a patient to think and act rationally.”
Chris was pronounced dead in the early morning hours of May 18th, 2017 after being found unresponsive in his Detroit hotel room after a Soundgarden show the previous evening. The 52-year-old had sedatives and an anxiety drug in his system, but died by hanging himself. According to the medical examiner, the drugs didn’t contribute to the cause of death.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has defended the sound of the band’s …And Justice For All album, calling it, “The result of instinctive choices that were made along the way to make it work.” While considered a classic, the band’s 1988 fourth studio LP has been criticized almost since the day it was released for the lack of any bass guitar on the record. Jason Newsted’s playing is virtually buried in the mix — and Ulrich is generally regarded as the one responsible.
Speaking with Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke during a 90-minute interview in Pittsburgh to promote the release of a 30th anniversary box set of the album, Ulrich said, “It was all about balances . . . Nobody sat there and said, ‘We’re gonna have a record that’s gonna be mixed this way.’ We weren’t capable of thinking at that level. So a lot of it was a result of what I think were sort of balancing points along the way to just make it all work for the big picture.”
Ulrich added, “I think it’s important to say that it wasn’t planned that way. We didn’t sit there and go, ‘A year from now, we’re gonna have a record that sounds this particular way’ . . . it’s just the result of instinctive choices that were made along the way to make it work.”
In a 2015 interview with Ultimate-Guitar.com, one of the producers who mixed …And Justice For All, Steve Thompson, revealed that Ulrich was the culprit for the lack of any bass guitar on the record. He explained, “We had to get the drum sound up the way he had it. I wasn’t a fan of it. So now (Ulrich) goes, ‘See the bass guitar?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, great part, man. (Newsted) killed it.’ He said, ‘I want you to bring down the bass where you can barely, audibly hear it in the mix.’ I said, ‘You’re kidding. Right?’ He said, ‘No. Bring it down.’”
…And Justice For All was Newsted’s first full-length album with Metallica after he replaced late bassist Cliff Burton in 1986.
The mother and a classmate of the real-life high school student who was the basis of the classic Pearl Jam song “Jeremy” have commented on both the incident that inspired the track and the song itself.
It was January 8th, 1991 when Jeremy Wade Delle shot himself in front of his classmates at Richardson High School in Texas, and nearly 30 years later his mother, Wanda Crane, and a fellow student, Brittany King, were interviewed about the tragedy by Dallas ABC-TV affiliate WFAA.
Crane remarked, “That day that he died did not define his life. He was a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin, a grandson. He was a friend. He was talented.” She later recalled hearing the news of her son’s death, saying, “I was in my office at work. I didn’t believe it. I was in shock. Not my son. I was going to pick him up that afternoon at school.”
King, who was 16 at the time, was present in the classroom during the shooting and recalled, “Shock and fear went into my mind. All the students kinda ran into the back of the room and huddled.” She added, “This was a big wakeup call. Like, you know what? Life is not all hunky-dory all the time. Real things, tragedies happen. It made me grow up pretty quick, literally overnight.”
When asked about the Pearl Jam song, King admitted she was not a fan, saying, “I was angry at them for writing that song. I thought, You don’t know. You weren’t there. That story isn’t accurate.” Crane did not comment on the song.
Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament told us that the band members have always had their own interpretations of their songs: “Sometimes there’s something kind of magical and mystical about just forming your own idea on where the feeling’s coming from or where the words are coming from. Sometimes it can be this really crazy kind of dark place, and sometimes it can be a place that probably has nothing to do with, you know, what Eddie’s talking about or whatever. It’s your own story, you kind of formulate it into your own thing.”
The song “Jeremy” was featured on Pearl Jam’s 1991 debut album, Ten, and became the band’s first huge commercial hit, peaking at Number Five on the rock and alternative airplay charts. After an initial video for the song was rejected by the band’s label. Epic Records, and MTV, a second clip directed by Mark Pellington was filmed and won several prizes at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year.
Ozzy Osbourne‘s wife and manager Sharon allegedly claimed in an interview with British tabloid The Sun that she drugged Ozzy in order to confirm her suspicions about his extramarital affairs when her husband’s cheating first came to light in 2016.
Sharon recalled, “I was a broken woman. He sent me an email that was meant for one of his women. Then he took his sleeping pills. I put an extra two in his drink . . . and asked him everything, and everything came out.” She continued, “He would have never told me the truth, ever. He was ashamed, afraid. I knew how long. I knew who it was. I knew what he was thinking and then, you know, you leave.”
Although Ozzy initially told Sharon that the affair with celebrity hairstylist Michelle Pugh was over, that wasn’t the case — and in fact Sharon said he was seeing five other women as well, including the family’s cook and a masseuse. Sharon said, “Only then did he come out and say, ‘I’m an addict. I can’t help it.’”
After Ozzy’s affairs were made public in May 2016, Sharon briefly left him while he underwent therapy for sex addiction. Sharon and Ozzy later reconciled and even renewed their vows. But she told The Sun, “I don’t trust him. I worry about that. I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. Nothing in the world hurts like infidelity. Nothing.”
Ozzy is currently on a break from his “No More Tours 2” world tour as he recovers from surgery for an infected hand. He’ll headline a special New Year’s Eve edition of Ozzfest at the Forum in Los Angeles, along with Rob Zombie, Jonathan Davis, Marilyn Manson and others.
Badflower will release its debut full-length album, titled OK, I’m Sick, on February 22nd, 2019. Lead singer Josh Katz said about the set, “There’s a lot of heavy lyrical content — honest, no filter, very emotive. We really weren’t trying to impress people on a musical level; We were just trying to be genuine and make something that sounded right and felt right.” Badflower recently hit the top of the rock radio chart with the first single from the disc, “Ghost.”
