Happy Friday Radicals! Today we have new albums out from New Years Day, Danko Jones and The Damned Things! Now, let’s take a look at the Dirt…
Motley Crue is apparently experiencing a surge in sales of downloads, streams and books following last month’s premiere on Netflix of the band biopic The Dirt.
Songs by the Crue were streamed 73.8 million times on Spotify and played nearly 30 million times at Apple Music, a spike of 599% on Spotify and 1,081% on Apple Music, according to the band’s management. Song sales also surged, with iTunes reporting 176,008 purchases, or a 1,330% rise when compared to the average 27-day period in the previous 12 months.
Drummer Tommy Lee remarked, “We knew the Motley Crue fans, who had made The Dirt book a New York Times bestseller, would be keen to see the movie after hearing it was coming for the past 15 years, but we weren’t expecting the new younger audience reaction to the movie and the music.”
Guitarist Mick Mars told us a while back that personality has a lot to do with the Crue’s appeal: “I think it’s something to do with the music, but I think it’s just the charisma, like what the (Rolling) Stones have or like Aerosmith has or like Kiss has or like the Beatles had. It’s the charisma of the four people together and, like, the music’s OK and it comes in and it’s a vital part of everything, but it’s just like seeing that together, you know what I mean?”
Motley Crue, who officially retired as a full-time touring act in 2015, did record four new tracks for the soundtrack of The Dirt, including the title track and a cover of Madonna‘s “Like A Virgin.” The band has no plans at the moment to break its word that it would never tour again.
System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian has recorded a new version of the classic 1977 Blue Oyster Cult song “Godzilla” for inclusion on the soundtrack of the upcoming movie Godzilla: King Of The Monsters. According to Rolling Stone, the members of Dethklok, from the show Metalocalypse, including Brendon Small and Testament drummer Gene Hoglan, also contributed to the track.
Soundtrack composer Bear McCreary, best known for his score for The Walking Dead, orchestrated the music for the soundtrack album, which is due out May 24th.
McCreary says the song is “perhaps the most audacious piece of music I have ever produced, jammed to the breaking point with orchestra, choir, taiko chanting, taiko drumming, heavy metal rhythm section, Gene Hoglan’s blistering double-kick drums, and Serj’s distinct vocals. It is complete musical madness.”
System Of A Down guitarist Daron Malakian publicly accused Tankian last summer of not wanting to record a new System LP, with Tankian responding that creative and financial issues with Malakian led to the 13-year stalemate. The band nevertheless has several live shows on tap for 2019, including headlining slots at Columbus, Ohio’s Sonic Temple festival and Chicago Open Air, both in May.
Slash will reportedly record guitar parts for some brand new Guns N’ Roses material this weekend at singer Axl Rose‘s studio in Malibu, California. The news of the recording session was broken in a social media post by Kruse Kontrol Amplification, which performs amplifier modifications for customers from the entire U.S. and Canada.
In the since-deleted Instagram post, someone representing Kruse Kontrol wrote, “Slash’s 1987 Silver Jubilee in the house! Dropped off by GnR producer Caram Costanzo himself the amp needs to be serviced and tuned up to sound stellar for this Saturday’s recording of new material at Axl Rose’s studio in Malibu.”
Costanzo was a co-producer on Guns N’ Roses’ last studio album, 2008’s Chinese Democracy, which featured only Axl from the band’s classic lineup. Costanzo also worked on “Rock The Rock,” the first new song from Axl in 10 years, which was featured in the TV show New Looney Tunes.
Slash, who will return to the road next week with his solo band Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators, recently told BelfastLive that work on a new Guns album could commence at the end of this year. Asked what the new Guns album will be like, he said, “I have no f**king idea. I really couldn’t tell you. It’s like anything else — you don’t know what it is until it’s done.”
Guns N’ Roses will head out on a short tour this fall and is already confirmed as one of the headliners at Kentucky’s Louder Than Life festival, scheduled for late September. This will mark the band’s first live show since ending its reunion tour in December 2018.
The Black Keys will release their ninth studio album, titled “Let’s Rock,” on June 28th. The duo shared details of the LP on Thursday (April 25th), along with a second new track from the set called “Eagle Birds.” That follows up “Lo/Hi,” released earlier this month.
“Let’s Rock” is the Black Keys’ first album in five years, following 2014’s Turn Blue. The band produced the album and tracked it live at singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville, where both he and drummer Patrick Carney live.
The pair went into the studio last September with no material and just started jamming, which Auerbach told us a while back is the way they’ve always done it: “We don’t rehearse, we don’t practice, we just go into the studio and we just start improvising and coming up with stuff, finding things we like, and then expanding on those ideas, and it’s just kind of trial and error. And then once we get the form of the song down, then we cut it, and we cut it live, start to finish, so that at the foundation of every song is a live performance.”
Although Auerbach and Carney have kept busy with other projects during their break, Auerbach told Rolling Stone it was easy for them to become the Black Keys again. He explained, “It’s this magic that happens with Pat and I. It was the same thing that happened when we were 16 and started playing, and magically, it just sounds like music. It was really awesome, having the break and then coming back and just playing with Pat again. It felt great.”
The Black Keys will embark on a North American tour this fall in support of “Let’s Rock,” starting September 21st at Life Is Beautiful in Las Vegas. Modest Mouse will provide support throughout the trek.
Back before we were broken-hearted?
04_30 pic.twitter.com/fVpggeNvmW— Angels & Airwaves (@AVABandOfficial) April 25, 2019
Angels & Airwaves shared a cryptic teaser Thursday afternoon (April 25th) on Twitter, in which a blurry promo photo of the band was paired with the caption, “Back before we were broken-hearted?” Additionally, the teaser includes what appears to be the date of April 30th.
Meanwhile, a few days ago, frontman Tom DeLonge shared on his Instagram account that Angels & Airwaves were doing some recording sessions. DeLonge had also mentioned last year that the members of the last Angels lineup — Ilan Rubin, David Kennedy and Matt Wachter — would be joining him on a new LP.
The former Blink-182 singer/guitarist told us that he originally conceived Angels and Airwaves as a way to change his own life: “You know, I wanted to be a better human being, and I kind of put all my puzzle pieces together, and as an extension of what Blink was, a band that really made people feel good and funny, I kind of transformed that into something that made people feel really good, but from the inside out, more of like an electricity that’s coming from in your soul, because it’s more of an…I wanted to make a band about this spiritual awakening.”
If a new album is on the way, it would be the band’s first full-length release since 2014’s The Dream Walker. The last new music to come out under the Angels & Airwaves banner was 2016’s Chasing Shadows, a new four-song digital EP that acted as a companion to DeLonge’s novel, Sekret Machines: Chasing Shadows.
Finally, we’d like to wish a Happy Birthday to former Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison and Incubus drummer Jose Pasillas! Have a great weekend everyone!
