Good morning Radicals! Hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend. Let’s get back into the swing of things with a look at the music news for the world of rock:
Tool appears to finally be embracing digital streaming after being one of the industry’s last major holdouts. The band’s legendary 1991 demo tape, titled 72826, surfaced Friday, July 12th on YouTube, Apple Music, Google Play and Pandora, although not Spotify at press time. It marks the first time a Tool release has been available to stream online.
The demo contains six songs, all of which eventually surfaced on the band’s 1992 debut EP Opiate and its first full-length album, 1993’s Undertow, including “Sober,” “Crawl Away” and “Hush.”
Singer Maynard James Keenan told us a while back that the way the band writes music left a lot of material unfinished over the years: “You know, the way we construct the music is basically from the ground up. It doesn’t come from a concept or an idea initially, it comes from a total feeling of four people in a room making noises and evolving on that level. There’s a lot of little projects that we’ve done that you’ve never even heard, because if it didn’t move all of us on a certain level, it just never got recorded.”
Back in 2017, it was reported that Tool planned to make its back catalog available on streaming platforms ahead of the release of its new album. That long-awaited disc, the band’s first since 2006, is due out on August 30th.
Fans are speculating that the release of the demo is just the start, with Tool potentially planning to share its entire catalog via streaming ahead of the new LP’s arrival.
— Maynard J Keenan (@mjkeenan) July 12, 2019
In other news, Keenan has responded to a news report that pop singer Justin Bieber is reportedly a Tool fan. Last Thursday, July 11th, Bieber took to his Instagram account to post some of the lyrics to Tool’s song “The Pot,” asking his fans if they knew which song it was from. Keenan responded simply by writing “#bummer.”
Korn frontman Jonathan Davis admitted in a new interview with Kerrang! that family problems have kept him from reaching his “full potential” on the band’s albums in the past.
Davis, who lost estranged wife Deven to drugs last August, explained, “I haven’t had a chance to reach my full potential on Korn records for years, because I’ve always been so busy with stuff at home — taking care of my son Zeppelin, who’s got Type 1 diabetes, and Deven had really bad mental illness that I was hiding and dealing with.”
The singer continued, “I did the best I could, but I never could put myself 100 percent into it. Sitting down and working out what I was going to do with this record was a process, and this is the longest I’ve ever taken making a record.”
Korn’s new album, The Nothing, arrives on September 13th and follows up 2016’s The Serenity Of Suffering. Davis said the new LP is a “completely different beast” from its predecessor, adding, “There’s some songs that have got 20-something vocal tracks on it — I went full-on Queen and ELO . . . I was really into making the vocals sound amazing.”
Stitched Up Heart plans to release one new song each month until the band’s upcoming album Darkness arrives in early 2020. Singer Alecia “Mixi” Demner told Loudwire, “It’s gonna be a little unique for the rock community, because it’s not gonna be the way that albums are usually released. We’re gonna try something kind of a little different to give people music consistently, like an every month you get a new song kind of thing.”
Demner added, “I’m really excited about how it’s gonna roll out. We’re just trying something new, I think that with streaming and everything that’s going on, this might actually help.”
Stitched Up Heart has already issued two singles this year, including “Lost,” which features frontman Sully Erna from recent tourmates Godsmack.
Demner added that the band’s new LP is finished, mixed and mastered, saying that the group recorded some 70 songs for the project. She was not sure whether the unused tracks will appear on future releases or not.
Another Grammy! Great performance from @RivalSons yesterday, thanks guys. @GeezerButler @BillWardDrums pic.twitter.com/51Wkpq831x
— Tony Iommi (@tonyiommi) May 12, 2019
Black Sabbath was among the recipients of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award from the Recording Academy last May 11th, during a special presentation ceremony and concert in Los Angeles called the “Grammy Salute To Music Legends.” But while three of the band’s four founding members – guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward — attended the event, singer Ozzy Osbourne was not there.
Now Ozzy’s wife and manager Sharon Osbourne has explained his absence, saying she was “pissed off” over the Recording Academy’s treatment of Sabbath. Speaking with Celebrity Access Encore, Sharon explained, “They gave them a Lifetime Achievement Award, but wouldn’t give it to them on the (CBS) TV show that we all know as the Grammy Awards . . . not to put them on the proper show, it was, like, ‘How dare you?’ I was so angry. I just thought, ‘F**k you. I am not going to give you the honor of having Ozzy at your s**tty ceremony.’”
The “Grammy Salute To Music Legends” was taped for airing this fall on PBS as part of the channel’s Great Performances series. Also honored at the event were Dionne Warwick, Sam & Dave, George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic, Billy Eckstine, Donny Hathaway and Julio Iglesias.
Rival Sons performed a medley of Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” “Changes” and “Paranoid” for Iommi, Butler and Ward at the event.
Puddle Of Mudd will release its first album of new material in a decade, titled Welcome To Galvania, on September 13th. The band has shared a new single as well, called “Uh Oh.” The new disc follows up 2009’s Volume 4: Songs In The Key Of Love And Hate, as well as a 2011 covers collection called re(disc)overed.
Frontman Wes Scantlin said, “This album has been a long time coming. I’m just so happy to finally get it out there for my fans. I hope the new music inspires my fans to live their lives. I’m just trying to crawl under people’s skin and help them through their life musically.”
Scantlin told us a while back that he never has any expectations about how well a new LP will do: “I’m always staying neutral until I just kind of see how it goes. ‘Cause being a musician, and struggling for, you know, the majority of my life as a musician, you know, I set myself up for a lot of hardship. So as time goes on, you feel like you don’t want to jinx yourself, so you stay slightly neutral the majority of the time.”
Puddle Of Mudd broke into the mainstream with 2001’s Come Clean, which yielded the three massive hits “Control,” “Blurry” and “She Hates Me.” The band ended up selling more than seven million albums worldwide.
But the past decade was marked by one scandal after another, as Scantlin abandoned shows mid-set, got into standoffs with cops, missed court dates, and was arrested multiple times on various DUI and misbehavior charges.
Last year, Scantlin said that he finally got his life together and went back to rehab, crediting his family and fans for giving him the strength to try to get better.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to System of a Down bassist John Dolmayan, and drummer Marky Ramone. We also want to send some love to the family of Deftones bassist Chi Cheng, who was born today in 1970.
