Good morning Radicals! Here’s the latest in music news:
A benefit concert in memory of late Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell, billed as “I Am The Highway: A Tribute To Chris Cornell,” will take place at the Forum in Los Angeles on January 16th, 2019. Hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the show will feature performances from Foo Fighters and Metallica, as well as appearances from Cornell’s former bandmates in Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple Of The Dog and more.
Proceeds from the show will benefit the the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation as well as the Epidermolysis Bullosa Medical Research Foundation (EBMRF). Tickets go on sale to the general public this Friday (November 16th) at 10:00 a.m. PT.
Metallica said in a statement, “In May of 2017 we lost one of the most unique, distinctive, and game-changing voices in rock with the passing of Chris Cornell. We were lucky enough to get to know Chris during the 1996 Lollapalooza tour with Soundgarden and we were honored to call him a friend and an inspiration . . . Join us as we pay tribute to a true one-of-a-kind talent.”
Cornell was pronounced dead on May 18th, 2017 after being found unresponsive in his Detroit hotel room. Soundgarden had played a show earlier that evening. The 52-year-old had sedatives and an anxiety drug in his system, but died as a result of hanging himself.
Chevelle singer/guitarist Pete Loeffler and drummer Sam Loeffler have spoken candidly in a new interview with Loudwire about their estrangement from their brother and former bassist Joe Loeffler, who left the group in 2005 and was replaced by the Loefflers’ brother-in-law, Dead Bernardini.
Sam said, “Our first record came out in 1999, so technically he was only with us for about six years of our career. And even then, he was never really there at all. He never wrote anything. He wasn’t even in the room when we wrote. He never wanted to be part of the creation of the songs. He just learned all his parts in the studio and showed up when he had to do whatever his part was.”
Pete added, “That kid . . . We literally have not spoken to him since he said, ‘You’re going to hear from my lawyer.’ I was like, ‘Huh?’ So he can kiss my ass.” The breaking point came for the other two Loefflers when Joe refused to tour overseas. Pete explained, “It was a pretty negative, harsh thing, but the reality is we never had a good relationship. You just have those people in your family or in your life that you just never really got along with. He never got along with us.”
Although Joe claimed that the band fired him, Sam told us at the time that Joe had quit before and finally had his bluff called: “The easiest way for me to say it and what seems to be the most truthful is to say Joe hated being in a band. That is absolutely the truth and that affected everything. It affected all of us. You know, after 10 years of doing it, it was just like, ‘Dude, I can’t take anymore. Somebody’s got to deal with it. Get over it. Do something.’”
Chevelle recently issued a collection called 12 Bloody Spies: B-Sides And Rarities. The set features rare and previously unreleased songs from throughout the band’s career, right up through the trio’s 2016 album The North Corridor. The group is currently at work on a new LP.
Ghost frontman Tobias Forge, who performs as Cardinal Copia, said in an interview with El Paso, Texas radio station KLAQ that his original character of Papa Emeritus could return. Forge explained, “One thing that I’m looking forward to is having a pope back in the lead . . . Cardinal Copia is not the leader yet; he’s working his way up. And I’m definitely also looking forward to him possibly becoming the real deal.”
Forge added, “I’m okay with the Cardinal . . . But I’m definitely looking forward to, in the future, where he could also have his additional papal robes. And I think that, given the right production setting, there’s definitely a lot of things that we can do that will be even more theatrical, more gags and more things changing.”
Forge told us a while back that he knew early on that Ghost would be a theatrical act: “This is not just like a T-shirt band. This sounds like something that would be theatrical and, you know, over the top, so this must be like a theater band — yeah, and then we started like, very quickly it was like, there should be a pope, and it should be like a nameless band that should be in it, big church, and it quickly ramped up to where we had to make a decision where this is not just something that we can just wing at a bar.”
Forge performed as a “new” Papa Emeritus on each of Ghost’s first three albums, with each version of Papa replacing the one that came before it. Papa Emeritus III was retired in favor of Cardinal Copia before the release of the band’s latest album, Prequelle.
All That Remains Phil LaBonte Photo: Lou Brutus
All That Remains singer Phil Labonte said in a new radio interview that he was “shocked” by the passing of his bandmate Oli Herbert, who was found dead on October 16th in a pond near his home in Connecticut. Herbert drowned after apparently ingesting antidepressant medication and sleeping pills.
Labonte told hardDrive affiliate, Detroit’s WRIF, “I was shocked. He was 44 years old, and he wasn’t really a big partier. He would go hang out with people and stuff, but he didn’t really do a lot of drinking . . . He didn’t do drugs, he didn’t really drink a lot. He would smoke pot once in a while, but that was the extent of it. And so, yeah, it was a big shock. And we’re still processing it and trying to figure out how it is that we move forward and what that means and stuff. So . . . it sucks.”
Labonte confirmed that All That Remains will “definitely” carry on without Herbert, explaining, “We’re gonna continue on. The band is not gonna end. It’s gonna be different and it’s gonna be weird. We’ve got someone that’s filling in for this European trip that we’ve got coming up at the end of the month. And he is the guy that Oli would have wanted to fill in, to replace him. And then we’ll start looking for a full-time replacement, I assume, shortly.”
All That Remains has just released its ninth studio LP, Victim Of The New Disease, and Labonte said, “We don’t wanna let the (new) record be pushed aside. Oli would have wanted us to play the songs. He was excited about the way the record sounded and he was excited about a lot of the stuff on it, so he wouldn’t want us to stop. So we’ve just gotta figure out what that actually looks like and how we do that.”
All That Remains will embark on the previously scheduled European tour with Sevendust this December. Guitar virtuoso and YouTube personality Jason Richardson has come on board to fill in on the upcoming trek.
Finally, we’d like to wish a Happy Birthday to Papa Roach bassist Tobin Eperance, Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker and former Type O Negative keyboardist Josh Silver! HBD to all!
