Good morning Radicals! Hope you thanked a Veteran yesterday for their service, and we hope everyone is safe from wildfires today!
The wildfires raging in California have claimed the lives of at least 25 people at press time, left entire towns and thousands of homes destroyed, and displaced tens of thousands of residents. Among those are a number of celebrities and several prominent rock artists.
Tool guitarist Adam Jones and his family were forced to flee, the fate of their home uncertain. Jones wrote on Instagram, “Thank you for all the concern love and support. This is crazy & heartbreaking. God bless all those affected by these horrific wildfires. I hope our home survives. If not — it’s just ‘stuff’ and I have my best friend Korin & our 2 boys safe & sound.”
Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst was less fortunate, reporting that his house had burned down, while Limp Bizkit guitarist Wes Borland shared footage of a burning house and wrote, “My pedalboard, 2 guitars, 2 amps, a 2×12 cabinet, several other pedals and misc equipment were inside this house.” It’s unclear whether the house was owned by Borland, or if it was Durst’s house.
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and his family also were forced to evacuate their Malibu home, although the house was apparently saved from the flames. Flea wrote, “My house might have burned down last night were it not for my friend Eric (in the second pic) who defied the evacuation orders and stayed up all through the night armed with his wits and a garden hose, and put out all the little fires at my house and my neighbors, saving our asses.”
Flea added, “Times like these we have to do everything we can to help each other, listen to each other, step up for our neighbors. Empathy is everything, our greatest trait.”
A number of musicians also took to social media to criticize Donald Trump, who inaccurately blamed the wildfires on poor forest management and threatened to cut federal funding to the area. Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose wrote, “It’s a lack of federal funding that’s at the ‘root’ of the purported forest mismanagement. Only a demented n’ truly pathetic individual would twist that around n’ use a tragedy to once again misrepresent facts for attempted public/political gain at other’s expense.”
Trump’s comments were also blasted by Motley Crue‘s Tommy Lee and, in a more professional capacity, by California officials, fire experts, the Pasadena Firefighters Association and the California Professional Firefighters union.
Ghost frontman Tobias Forge, who performs as Cardinal Copia, was asked in an interview with the Sacramento News & Review if he was in fact a Satanist. Forge, who has performed in the band as an “anti-Pope” figure and has immersed the group in occult imagery, answered, “From a strictly Christian point of view, if that means believing in a physical, half-man, half-ram living in the underground, no, I don’t believe there is such a thing. I’m not the opposite either.”
Forge continued, “I’m sure in the eyes of the beholder, if I was put in front of true god-fearing Bible-thumpers, I would probably be regarded as a Satanist . . . just because I’m not a god-fearing Bible-thumper. But the concept of Satanism has many, many forms.”t
The singer outlined how the rise of the Church of Satan in the 1960s led acts like Black Sabbath, Coven and Black Widow to use Satanic imagery in their music, saying, “At the end of the day, heavy metal, black metal, all that is based upon that cultural Satanism . . . from that point of view, I would definitely say that culturally, I am definitely, for lack of a better way of putting it, I’m a devil-liking kind of guy.”
He added, “But I wouldn’t sacrifice a baby to a half-ram that I believe to be living in the underground. And I would never ever encourage anyone to do that.”
Forget told us not long ago that macabre themes and dark subject matter are things that are close to his heart in real life: “Horror and the devil and heavy metal and all that, that’s in my blood. That itself was never a commercial add-on. In my opinion, it’s very sincere and it’s very much part of me. As fictitious as everything seems, like a charade and like a facade, it’s actually very much those things that I grew up with and things that I like seeing myself.”
Ghost is currently in the midst of a lengthy North American tour in support of its fourth studio LP, Prequelle.
All That Remains guitarist Oli Herbert died from drowning, his widow Beth revealed on Facebook. The 44-year-old guitarist went missing on October 16th and was found dead in a pond near his home in Connecticut. Beth wrote that an autopsy and toxicology report determined that her husband drowned after apparently ingesting antidepressant medication and sleeping pills.
She explained, “Oli was apparently self-treating for manic-depression that has run in his family for several generations. Anti-depressants were found in his system, as well as a sleep aid. The psych meds found in his system were the same ones that a close relative has been prescribed for a long time, so he knew what to hunt down for the ‘treatment.’”
Beth continued, “Seeing how he was not going (and WOULDN’T GO) to a doctor to get diagnosed with the issue and was not being prescribed the medications and monitored on them, it explains his occasional erratic behavior here at home.” She asked that anyone who knew where her late husband was getting the drugs he was taking should contact Troop C of the Connecticut state police.
As for how Oli ended up in the pond, Beth later explained, “One of the drugs can have a hallucinogenic effect, also restlessness. Oli kept wanting to go outside that night before he disappeared and he kept walking towards the pond, which is a pitch black part of our property as well as very slippery. Add to that fact that it was raining that evening. Apparently he left the house after I went to bed so I couldn’t stop him and bring him back inside.”
Beth also addressed the sudden cancellation of the public memorial service for Oli, which was supposed to be held on Sunday, November 11th in Worcester, Massachusetts. She wrote: “As far as why the memorial was cancelled; concern for my personal safety and home due to numerous threats to both is the reason.”
Meanwhile, All That Remains has named guitar virtuoso and YouTube personality Jason Richardson as a temporary member of the band’s lineup for its December tour of Europe with Sevendust. All That Remains will be touring in support of its ninth LP, Victim Of The New Disease, which came out last week and features Herbert’s last recorded work with the band.
Singer Phil Labonte said, “Losing Oli has been a tremendous blow to the core of All That Remains, but I know he wouldn’t want anything other than for us to continue. He loved this record so much — it’s some of our best work. We look forward to sharing the music with everyone — seeing our fans from the stage. From where Oli loved most. It’ll be cathartic. We’ll need it to be.”
Mastodon guitarist Brent Hinds has finally explained why he was missing from the 2018 Grammy Awards ceremony last January, at which his band walked off with the prize for Best Metal Performance for the song “Sultan’s Curse.”
His bandmates Brann Dailor, Bill Kelliher and Troy Sanders were at the event to collect the Grammy, but there was no sign of Hinds and no explanation for his absence. There was speculation that he had been banned after being kicked out in 2015, or that he had even been asked to leave again.
Hinds has now revealed why he wasn’t there, saying on Instagram that he was the victim of a hit and run after doing some recording for the soundtrack of a friend’s film. He explained, “I was lucky enough to live through playing a little bit of guitar on the soundtrack on January 23, 2018, and that’s why I couldn’t attend the Grammys. I was involved in a hit and run on my motorcycle that ended me up in (the hospital).”
He continued, “I got absolutely no shout out from my best friends/bandmates. I know they love me and just be having stupid nervousness, but still! Here’s a few photos of the results.”
Hinds sustained some road rash on his face and was also given a neck brace, although he did not say whether he sustained other, more serious injuries.
In the brand new issue of Metal Hammer magazine, AVENGED SEVENFOLD singer M. Shadows was asked if it “really annoys” him when certain music web sites types “blow things out of proportion.” He responded: “It annoys me when something cool or relevant happens and it doesn’t get written about. Then, other times, they will take one line from some random interview and blow everything out of proportion. Blind follow the blind. If one web site picks it up, then they all have to. Why not write your own articles? I wish press and fans cared more about the songs than other bullshit that comes along with it. A lot of records and bands are successful or fail based off initial sentiment. For instance, you see one article with a strong opinion all over the place and it dominates the narrative. I wish people would think for themselves. There’s not a lot of that going on these days.”
Back in November 2016, M. Shadows hit out at “web sites that depend on clicks for revenue” over their coverage of the No. 4 debut of the band’s latest album, “The Stage”, on The Billboard 200 album chart. The surprise release of the disc, which was announced the night it went on sale, earned the lowest sales of an AVENGED SEVENFOLD album in eleven years. It sold 76,000 copies in its first week, 73,000 of which were physical.
He wrote at the time: “One thing I have noticed in the last couple of years is that websites that depend on clicks for revenue tend to love weaving narratives that benefit their bottom line. You see it largely in politics and now you see it in metal. I admit that I think these websites are entertaining and don’t hate or even dislike the people that run them or their visitors. None of this is to be taken too seriously but when I am sent the same articles over and over that are meant to sell their false narrative about A7X, then I think it’s time for the band to speak up.”
“The Stage”, AVENGED‘s debut for Capitol Records, sold less than half as many copies in its first week as the group’s two previous efforts, 2010’s “Nightmare” and 2013’s “Hail To The King”.
The group made the album available at midnight on October 27, 2016 with almost no promotion beforehand, save for the arrival of a new song one week earlier.
“The Stage” was re-released as a “deluxe edition” in December 2017.
Finally, we’d like to wish a Happy Birthday to Megadeth bassist David Ellefson! Have a great day! Thank you to all our Veterans!
