Happy hump day! We’re gearing up to head out to Rock Fest in Cadott Wisconsin tomorrow, but until then, let’s delve into the music news of the day:
— Maynard J Keenan (@mjkeenan) July 16, 2019
Justin Bieber‘s wife, model Hailey Baldwin, has slammed Maynard James Keenan‘s behavior as “very childish” after the Tool frontman reacted negatively to a news report that Bieber was a fan of his band.
It all started last Thursday (July 11th) when Bieber took to his Instagram account to post some of the lyrics to Tool’s track “The Pot,” asking his followers if they knew which song the lyrics were from. After Consequence Of Sound published an item headlined “It’s Official: Justin Bieber Is A Tool Fan,” Keenan responded, writing “#bummer.”
Baldwin has fired back at Keenan, writing on Twitter, “He expressed he was a fan of your music. Grew up listening to your music. You must be unhappy with yourself that you want to make people feel small who express their admiration for you. Very childish and hurtful thing to do. I hope u find security within yourself. Sad place to be.”
Seemingly replying indirectly, Keenan later tweeted out the video for the band’s 1992 track “Hush,” which is about censorship.
Keenan told us a while back that fans often miss Tool’s sense of humor: “If people haven’t noticed and picked up on the comedic side of Tool by now, then they’re just not paying attention. It’s always been in there. All you’ve got to do is look at some past photos of prior tours. We were like the Peg Bundy and Tina Turner of rock.”
Tool’s long-awaited new album is scheduled for release on August 30th. The band has been playing two new songs, “Descending” and “Invincible,” at its recent shows.
Korn singer Jonathan Davis and guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer have both said this week that the band has been quietly recording and stockpiling cover tunes for an eventual album.
Davis explained to Live Nation, “We got, like, four or five (covers), we just got to get enough to make a record and we’ll probably do it sometime. But every time we do it, the manager comes, like, ‘They’re useless. Why would you put that out? We’re doing the album cycle here, it’s something you do on the side.’ We’ve got some really good covers man, we can do covers good. I hope one day that comes out.”
Shaffer told us a while back about the band’s approach to recording other artists’ songs. “It’s a process in the recording studio. It’s meticulous. It’s gotta be mathematic. Do we want to use that original line, or create a minor kind of sounding, spookier thing that still won’t affect the body of the song and keep the respect of the original artist in it, but giving it the, you know, essence of Korn.”
Shaffer said in a separate interview, “There’s a handful of cover songs that nobody’s ever heard before,” while Davis added, “We’ve been talking about the cover album forever. But it’s making its way because each year we kind of add to the pile of it.” Neither musician divulged which songs the band has recorded. They’ve previously released covers of War‘s “Low Rider,” Cameo‘s “Word Up” and Pink Floyd‘s “Another Brick In The Wall,” among others.
Korn’s new album, The Nothing, arrives on September 13th. The band will embark on a co-headlining amphitheater tour across North America this summer with Alice In Chains, starting on Thursday, July 18th in Del Valle, Texas.
Stone Temple Pilots frontman Jeff Gutt has confirmed to Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon that the band has completed work on a new album. The disc is expected to arrive in 2020 and will be Gutt’s second with STP after joining the band two years ago. His recording debut with the group was on its self-titled seventh LP, which arrived in March 2018.
Although Gutt had previously hinted that the new disc would be an acoustic record, he clarified to Rock Talk that there were “no rules on it having to be acoustic or anything, (but) it has a vibe to it, and it’s beautiful. It’s all new songs.” He added that the new effort was “definitely different . . . It’s a very beautiful record.”
The band will wait to release the new disc until after it reissues its 1994 second album Purple in September, in commemoration of the album’s 25th anniversary.
STP apparently intended to record only a few new songs, but Gutt explained, “It turned into a full record, ’cause we had so much creativity happening at the time. So we just made a whole record.”
STP and Rival Sons will co-headline a North American tour this fall. The 12-city trek will kick off in Baltimore on September 13th, wrapping up in the band’s former hometown of San Diego on October 9th.
Skillet has released the official music video for “Legendary,” the first single from the band’s upcoming 10th studio album, Victorious. Skillet frontman John Cooper told Billboard about the track, “‘Legendary’ is kind of fun because it sounds like Skillet, but it’s actually a little different for Skillet as well. That opening guitar riff isn’t like anything we’ve ever done on guitar. It’s a little bit bluesy, a little bit rock.”
Cooper added about the song’s subject matter, “The general message of ‘Legendary’ is to make your life count. You’re going to have a lot of hard things in your life. Sometimes it will get you down, but you need to make your life count. You are only here for so long on earth, so every day fight to be legendary.”
Cooper said that the song also has a more personal meaning for him, explaining, “It’s to all the people who said that Skillet would never make it. They said we were too Christian. We were too pretty. We had too many girls in the band, too many keyboards. It’s too musical. It’s too this or too that and 23 years later and 10 albums later, we’re very unlikely people to still be doing music.”
Victorious is out August 2nd and the band will start a headlining tour that same month, with support from Sevendust, Pop Evil and Devour The Day.
Finally, join us in wishing a Happy Birthday to the legend, Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler, along with Thousand Foot Krutch singer/guitarist Trevor McNevan and Fever 333 frontman Jason Butler! A great day to all!
