Good morning Radicals! We’re one day away from Friday, so let’s make it count! Here’s what’s going down in the world of rock and roll:
Dave Grohl has shot down rumors that he will make an appearance on the next album from Queens Of The Stone Age. The reports of his involvement began circulating earlier this summer, when ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons said in an interview, “Just one month ago I was making a record with Queens Of The Stone Age, and Dave Grohl was also taking part and he decided to have a big barbecue.”
But Grohl denied that he plays on the LP, telling NME, “You know, I never f**king mentioned that I’m on the new Queens record. I’m not on the new Queens record. You know what Josh (Homme, Queens frontman) and I have been doing together? Riding motorcycles and eating waffles. That’s it.”
Grohl added, “I wish I was on the new Queens album. I f**king love playing with Josh. He’s one of my best friends, but at the moment it’s just motorcycles and waffles.” Grohl did play drums on the band’s 2002 album Songs For The Deaf, and also contributed drums to five songs on 2013’s …Like Clockwork.
Meanwhile, Grohl has hinted that Foo Fighters could debut a new song at this weekend’s Reading and Leeds festivals in England. Noting that it’s the Foos’ seventh appearance at the event, Grohl remarked, “We could bust out the same set that we played in 1995. We could come out on stage with new songs. We could come out on stage and do a chronological history of the band, in reverse. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to do it.”
Both Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins have hinted that there is new Foos material in the works. The band’s most recent LP, Concrete And Gold, came out in September 2017.
Tool bassist Justin Chancellor was asked in a new interview with Australia’s Tone Deaf if he was ever concerned that the band would actually complete and release a new album.
Chancellor replied, “Absolutely. I would say it was never a real threat, but more out of frustration. There were some dead ends we went down, and I’m talking working on stuff for a year or two, and then getting really frustrated . . . We had those moments where we really had to step back and take a break from each other and then seriously wonder whether we were ever going to get through it.”
Chancellor added, “But somehow, we really know how rare and perfect our situation is. We really respect it. We know we’re not just going to step out and step into something else of similarity. So I think everybody really values what we have, and will always come back to that place and give it another go and really try and keep it together.”
Chancellor was asked a while back whether the members of Tool work separately on new songs, or create them together: “Both. We all bring in lots of ideas, and we jam ’em a lot, and we tear ’em apart, and put them back together, and sometimes in the process, we come up with spontaneity and a completely fresh, new idea.”
Tool’s first LP in 13 years, Fear Inoculum, will arrive on August 30th. A limited edition of the 85-minute, seven-song disc will come with a four-inch HD screen featuring exclusive video footage, a USB charging cable, a two-watt speaker and a 36-page insert book.
A determined Slipknot fan may have finally figured out the identity of “Tortilla Man,” the mysterious new percussionist in the band whose name has been kept a closely guarded secret.
After Slipknot guitarist Jim Root gave a recent interview in which he described Tortilla Man as “a world-class pianist” and “a great percussionist” who is “schooled in music,” Reddit user Les Connelly did some digging and has now gone public with his findings.
According to Connelly, Tortilla Man is multi-instrumentalist Michael Pfaff, who played keyboards in Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan‘s side project Dirty Little Rabbits. Pfaff was apparently introduced to Crahan years ago by Slipknot DJ Sid Wilson. Pfaff has a similar build and height as Tortilla Man, and Redditors have found that Pfaff’s family members are following “#tortillaman” and other hashtags on social media related to the mystery musician.
Tortilla Man joined Slipknot three months ago, replacing longtime member Chris Fehn and making his debut in the video for the single “Unsainted.” Crahan refused to reveal his identity in a recent interview with Kerrang! magazine, saying it was “nobody’s f**king business.”
Tortilla Man has been on the road with Slipknot this summer as the Iowa band supports its newly released sixth studio album, We Are Not Your Kind.
Bad Wolves will release “Killing Me Slowly,” the first official single from the band’s upcoming second album, this Friday morning. The track will arrive at rock radio stations at 9:00 a.m. ET.
Meanwhile, Bad Wolves have just shared a video for “I’ll Be There,” the first song previewed from the upcoming LP. The group’s sophomore studio effort is titled N.A.T.I.O.N. and is expected out before the end of the year. It will follow up last year’s debut, Disobey.
Disobey came out in May 2018 and featured a massive breakout hit with a cover of the 1993 Cranberries classic “Zombie.” The song was originally scheduled to feature a guest appearance from Cranberries frontwoman Dolores O’Riordan, but she was found dead in her London hotel room the morning of her recording session.
Disobey also yielded the single “Hear Me Now,” featuring Diamante, which reached Number Two on the rock chart.
Beartooth has announced the upcoming release of a new EP titled The Blackbird Session EP, which the group recorded at Blackbird Studio in Nashville. The four-song EP contains country-style covers of a number of the band’s tracks, including “Disease,” “You Never Know,” “Afterall” and “Clever,” with a video for “Clever” now available.
Beartooth frontman and mastermind Caleb Shomo commented, “When the idea came up to do acoustic sessions, immediately my mind went to family holidays — constantly surrounded by singing old hymns and harmonies on harmonies. The idea of taking Beartooth in a direction of my first musical moments in life felt right. The songs came out better than I could have ever imagined.”
The band has recorded acoustic versions of its songs before and Shomo told us a while back that the idea didn’t appeal to him at first: “Acoustic versions in general, I think we were all pretty against, and we were like, ‘This is just gonna be weird to try and translate it.’ But after trying it, it turned out really cool. I love doing it because I get to sing not just literally hollering as loud and as high as I can the whole time, which is cool. It’s just fun to play acoustic stuff sometimes. It’s just a change of pace.”
Shomo said that working at Blackbird had a major impact on the EP, explaining, “The love I have for that place goes beyond any studio in existence. The rooms are the best in the world, the gear is the best in the world, the consoles . . . All of this would be enough to make it feel like home, but the icing on the cake is the people who work there. Every time I walk in, it’s nothing but good vibes and hard workers.”
The band utilized lap steel guitars, violins and female vocalists for the EP, which will be out on September 13th. The band next plays on September 8th in Concord, Virginia at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival and starts a tour with A Day To Remember and I Prevail on September 27th in Louisville, Kentucky.
Ozzy Osbourne has spoken with Rolling Stone about his recovery from an injury he sustained while coming back from his recent bout of pneumonia. Ozzy fell at his Los Angeles home, aggravating years-old injuries from an 2003 ATV accident that required surgery.
The Black Sabbath singer explained, “For the first, say, four months, I was absolutely in agony. I was in agony beyond anything I ever experienced before in my life. It was awful. I’m taking physical and occupational therapy classes, but the progress is very slow. They say it’s going to take at least a year. I’m hoping that I’ll be okay and ready to go by January. I’m really keeping my fingers crossed.”
Ozzy had surgery on his spine and neck, saying about his stay in the hospital, “I cannot describe to you the helpless feeling that I had. I had to use (a walker) to go for a pee. I had to have nurses, day and night. Just being in hospital is enough to drive you nuts. I thank God I didn’t paralyze myself when I had that accident. I wouldn’t be here now. I would have jumped off the f**king roof — or fell off the roof, whatever.”
Since his latest accident, he has developed blood clots in his legs and is now on blood thinners. He remarked, “It’s scary stuff . . . From 40 (years old) to 70 was okay and suddenly you get to 70 and everything caved in on me.”
The Ozz told us a while back that he never imagined being around this long: “Let me tell you, when I was 20 I was going, I’d go, ‘I’m gonna die by 40.’ And that was all right until I was 39 and a half.”
Ozzy postponed all his 2019 tour dates as a result of the fall, with plans to resume his “No More Tours 2” trek in January of next year. He is hopeful he can make it, saying, “We’re just keeping our fingers crossed. It’s like making a sculpture. You chip away at it and it turns into this thing. You have to resculpture your life again.”
Finally, we wish that Layne Stayley of Alice in Chains was still around to celebrate his birthday today. He had an amazing voice, and helped define the sound of one of the greatest bands of the 90’s. Enjoy this flashback…
