Happy Valentine’s Day to you! Love is in the air, and so is rock and roll!
Foo Fighters main man Dave Grohl revealed in an interview at the Pollstar Live conference in Los Angeles why the band had to pull out of performing at the grand opening of the Fillmore New Orleans on February 15th and 16th. Grohl explained that he finally underwent a much needed surgery roughly a week ago on his left arm.
The singer. guitarist and drummer told host Michael Rapino of Live Nation, “This is something I’ve had to deal with for a long time and it’s not the end of the world but I did have to have surgery on my arm because I need it to pay the rent. I knew I had to fix my arm at some point and I went ahead and did it.”
The Foos have nothing booked until the rescheduled New Orleans gigs in May, leading Grohl to joke, “It’s funny having surgery because you actually get a little bit of rest. Right before they wheeled me in, the guys said ‘Hey, we’re going to give you something that’s going to make you feel really good’ and I thought I finally get to take a nap.”
But Grohl added that playing live was the secret to his band’s success, saying, “The excitement of seeing live music, of seeing people on stage, that will never go away. We don’t sell a 10th of the records that we sold 20 years ago, but we sell out f**king stadiums in a lot of places . . . You have to establish a base and be faithful to them.”
Drummer Taylor Hawkins told us a while back that the Foos have actually been bigger in other parts of the world than America at times: “As a band, we’ve always actually been a little bit bigger outside of America. England, we do really well and Australia we do really well and a lot of parts of Europe we do well. And we do well in America, but mainly in the big cities, you know. We’re not huge necessarily in the Midwest and places like that because, frankly, America’s big.”
Dave Grohl also had nothing but praise for teen singer/songwriter Billie Eilish during his Pollstar Live interview, saying. “My daughters are obsessed with Billie Eilish. The same thing is happening with her that happened with Nirvana in 1991. People say, ‘Is rock dead?’ When I look at someone like Billie Eilish, rock and roll is not close to dead!”
Late Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington’s 22-year-old son, Jaime Bennington, will sing guest vocals with his father’s first band, Grey Daze, who have announced plans to re-record their old material. The Phoenix-based act has also enlisted help from Korn guitarists Brian “Head” Welch and James “Munky” Shaffer, P.O.D. frontman Marcos Curiel and Bush guitarist Chris Traynor, as well as guitarist Ryan Shuck, Chester’s bandmate in Dead By Sunrise.
Grey Daze posted a picture of Jaime in the recording booth earlier this week, writing, “Chester would have been so very proud of his son Jaime Bennington. We had Jaime sing along with his father last night at NRG Recording Studios and his voice is great! Sounds a lot like his father and we were all very proud to be a part of it.”
Chester described Grey Daze in a 2001 interview with Revolver magazine as “early-’90s-style rock,” adding, “It wasn’t pop rock, it wasn’t heavy metal. It was in between grunge and good rock. We didn’t know what we were doing.” He explained that the band tried “really hard” for eight years and made two albums, explaining, “We all wanted to make it, but we all wanted to make it for different reasons.”
In an interview that same year, Chester told us about one of the last regular jobs he held down before Linkin Park broke out: “I got this job with a plastics company making an enormous amount of money. I was the most highly paid house sweeper, floor sweeper, and stocking person and inventory taker in the planet. I think I made a record of like almost $2,000 in, like, 10 days, and I decided I can’t do the job anymore because I felt like an idiot doing it (laughs).”
Chester went on to record seven albums with Linkin Park and sell tens of millions of records around the world before committing suicide in his Los Angeles-area home in July 2017 at the age of 41.
Hellyeah has reached out to the band’s fans for help with the artwork for its upcoming new LP. The group has asked fans via Instagram to submit photos of themselves with late drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, saying, “We want you to be a part of our upcoming album art! Go to the link in our profile to post a photo of yourself with Vinnie Paul.”
Fans are encouraged to post photos with Abbott on Facebook. The photo should only include two people, the person submitting the picture and Abbott. No pics containing more than two people in a photo will be accepted, and by submitting the photo, you grant Hellyeah all rights to the image in perpetuity.
While there’s still not a release date for the effort, Hellyeah announced last November that it would release a new album in 2019. The LP will feature Abbott’s final work with the group. The beloved drummer had already laid down his parts when he died of a massive heart attack last June at the age of 54.
Abbott was left off the Grammy Awards’ “In Memoriam” segment during last Sunday night’s (February 10th) telecast of the awards ceremony, which drew criticism from Halestorm‘s Lzzy Hale along with members of Alice In Chains, Fozzy and others.
Skillet frontman John Cooper has officially launched his own podcast, called “Cooper Stuff,” which is available on Skillet’s YouTube channel, iTunes and other platforms.
Cooper intends to post a new episode each month. With the podcast launching just before Valentine’s Day (Thursday, February 14th), the theme of the debut segment sees Cooper taking an honest, no-holds-barred approach to what makes a successful relationship, in this case his 21-year marriage to Skillet keyboardist Korey Cooper.
John explained about the new project, “I started the ‘Cooper Stuff’ podcast for multiple reasons — it’s a more in-depth look for the fans into who I am and what I think, but it’s also meant to be comic relief for an increasingly angry and stressed out world. I want to talk about living life in a really simple way. I want to share the Biblical foundations for the reason I hold these beliefs.”
The singer, bassist and devout Christian added, “It’s not actually that complicated to be civil to those who disagree with you — to be fair and honest — and to treat others the way you want to be treated, all while seeing the brighter side of life.”
Cooper has told us before that he’s always met different kinds of fans at Skillet shows: “Our shows consist of lots of different kinds of people (laughs). In an autograph line, you could have somebody come up and say, ‘You guys are f-ing amazing, man, you blew my face off,’ and cursing and ‘sign my boobs!’ And then the next person comes up and is like, ‘Man, what you guys do for Jesus is so cool, keep it up.’ All kinds of people at our shows. Never thought I would hear the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘f-ing’ in the same, you know, back to back.”
Skillet is currently working on its 11th studio album, scheduled for release later this year. In the meantime, the band will hit the road with Breaking Benjamin in March and April, before heading out on a trek through the Russian Federation.
That’s a wrap, we got The Glorious Sons stopping by the studios today, that’ll be awesome! Hopefully we can get ’em to play some acoustic songs for us!
