Good morning Radicals! We’re hard at work prepping for Sonic Temple this weekend, but we still have some time to check in on what’s up in the news:
Shinedown has announced a new round of fall North American tour dates on its 2019 “Attention Attention” world tour, beginning September 17th in Roanoke, Virginia and ending on October 19th in Boise, Idaho.
Papa Roach, Asking Alexandria and Savage After Midnight will support the headliners on most of the dates. A fan club pre-sale starts on Wednesday (May 14th) at 10:00 a.m. local time, with general ticket sales launching on Friday (May 17th), also at 10:00 a.m. local time.
Bassist Eric Bass told us it’s not the size of the venue that matters but the audience response: “It depends on the crowd. You know, looking out over a sea of people will never get old. But then, the first time we ever went to the U.K., we played a place called King Tut’s Wah-Wah Hut in Glasgow, and there were 250 people there and that show sticks out in my mind. There’s something special about that as well. It’s just, it’s an energy thing for us and it’s whoever’s bringing the energy to us, we’re gonna give it back. I don’t really look at it as the size of crowds, I look at it as the passion in the audience.”
You can check the Road Rage page for the full list of dates.
Hellyeah singer Chad Gray and guitarist Christian Brady told Kilpop in a new interview how it felt to play live again last weekend, nearly a year after the death of the band’s larger-than-life drummer, Vinnie Paul Abbott, who died last June at the age of 54 from heart disease and related issues.
Brady remarked, “Why don’t you just take all of the emotions that you think someone can feel, and that’s where we’re at right now . . . We’re happy and excited to play together again, happy and excited to be on stage together again, terrified to be on stage together without our f**king brother, even though we know he’s here (in spirit).”
Hellyeah played its first show since Vinnie’s death last Saturday (May 11th) in Las Vegas, with Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga making his debut as the former Pantera drummer’s replacement.
Gray said about Mayorga’s involvement, “He’s been rehearsing six hours a day for a month and a half . . . He’s just helping us carry this torch for Vin. And that’s his job. He’s such a brother, though, man — he’s such a beautiful human being. We had a very short list of people, and it was just, like, nobody can sit on that kit that didn’t respect who Vinnie Paul (was) and vice verse. And we nailed it.”
Not long before his death, Vinnie laid down the drum tracks for Hellyeah’s sixth album, Welcome Home, which will be released on September 27th. A video for the title track is due out this Friday (May 17th). The band will hit the road this summer.
In This Moment has set Mother as the title of its new album, tentatively due out in August. Guitarist Chris Howorth told Wisconsin radio station (and hardDriveRadio affiliate) Razor 94.7/104.7, “This is our heaviest record since (2012’s) Blood . . . Now that it’s all done and I’m hearing it as one thing, I’m, like, ‘Damn! This is really heavy.’ So I think a lot of our fans are gonna really like that about it.”
Regarding the inspiration for the title, Howorth added, “It’s Mother in the sense of Maria‘s (Brink, In This Moment singer) a mother, mother Maria, but also Mother Earth. Mother is the key to life.”
Howorth also spoke about the band’s new stage show, which the band premiered earlier this month at the Welcome To Rockville festival in Florida. He explained, “We’ve always been theatrical; we wanted to take it up a notch. And it’s almost like a little Salem village come to life on stage. We have another dancer with us now. There’s three girls in addition to Maria, so there’s four of them up there now, which is really cool — it adds a whole another dimension to the show.”
Maria Brink told us a while back that the stage show has become an integral part of what In This Moment does: “The visual show to me has become so important. The music is the heartbeat of everything and I like the visuals to be just as large and just as big, and we’re really trying to create this show that nobody is bringing — all kinds of cool, really exciting stuff.”
In This Moment has a number of shows scheduled through the rest of the year, including summer festival appearances in the U.S., dates with Disturbed in early fall and a European tour in November.
Photo credit: Anna Shinoda
Talinda Bennington, the widow of late Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, recently opened up in a recent ABC News podcast about her husband’s mental state before his 2017 suicide.
Talinda revealed, “We just thought he was okay. I can’t emphasize (that) enough. If you knew Chester, you would know that he was in a good place, in such a good place.”
Talinda also reflected on how her life changed after Chester’s death, explaining, “It went from living one life to living another in a split second. And to leave who I was before the phone call behind and step forward with a strength and confidence I didn’t even know I had — I did that because of my children. I had to do it for them.”
After a period of grieving, Talinda then decided to become an advocate for mental health awareness and a voice for Linkin Park fans, saying, “They were reaching out, saying how sad they were and how they didn’t think that they could go on because Chester couldn’t. And I knew that’s the last thing Chester would have wanted.”
Chester Bennington committed suicide at his home in the Los Angeles area on July 20th, 2017. He was 41 years old and father to six children.
Finally, we want to Wish a Happy Birthday to Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory! Have a great day!
