Good morning Radicals! Lots going on in the music world, so let’s dive in:
Foo Fighters, Nine Inch Nails, Billie Eilish and Beck are among the more than 140 artists who have signed a letter backing the Planned Parenthood campaign #BansOffMyBody. The initiative is meant to spread awareness about the wave of restrictive anti-abortion laws that are being passed in dozens of states across America.
The signed letter appears as part of an ad titled “Band Together, Bans Off” in the latest issue of Billboard magazine. Eilish said in a statement, “I’m proud to be standing up for Planned Parenthood as they fight for fair and equal access to reproductive rights. We cannot live freely and move fully in the world when our basic right to access the reproductive health care we need is under attack. Every person deserves the right to control their body, their life, and their future.”
Other supporters include St. Vincent, John Legend, The 1975, Carly Rae Jepsen, Queens Of The Stone Age, Sleater-Kinney, Demi Lovato, Haim, Nicki Minaj, Kacey Musgraves, Miley Cyrus, Alanis Morissette, Carole King, Chvrches, Death Cab For Cutie, Heart, Katy Perry, Phantogram, Portugal. The Man and many more.
Dave Grohl told us a while back that it’s okay for the members of Foo Fighters to be active politically: “We’ve never used this band as, like, a political vehicle. But when we go out and do something like support a candidate or support a cause, you know, we do that as human beings first. If a candidate that we all believed in asked us to give them some support, then we would do it. It wouldn’t necessarily be as the Foo Fighters, it would be as American citizens.”
Since January, more than 300 anti-choice bills have been filed in the US, with 24 of those already in effect. Planned Parenthood lawyers are working to delay one such law in Missouri, which would make abortion illegal even in cases of rape or incest.
Bad Wolves say their new album will see a more focused sound from the band compared to their 2018 debut Disobey.
The group’s sophomore disc, N.A.T.I.O.N., will be released on October 25th, with the band already releasing the preview track “I’ll Be There” and the official first single, “Killing Me Slowly.”
Frontman Tommy Vext explained, “We’ve honed it in and really delivered a more focused version of Bad Wolves’ sound. Basically, it’s like pouring steroids on everything we love about the first record to create an album that’s a roller coaster of emotional experience.”
Drummer John Boecklin added, “N.A.T.I.O.N. is definitely a big step in the right direction. We’re still evolving. It’s only our second record and I’m very excited about it.”
Vext told us not long ago that Bad Wolves was capable of writing a diverse range of songs and moods: “I know a lot of great musicians have been in bands with singers that only scream, and so melody becomes something they’re not gonna do. And then I’ve been in bands where they can’t play as proficiently as metal bands. So it’s kind of nice that we have created this well-rounded kind of group. Not only can we do all this different stuff, we’re all very much, like, into it.”
Bad Wolves are currently on tour in the U.S. with Papa Roach and Asking Alexandria. The lineup pulls into Denver on Tuesday (August 27th).
Ghost mastermind and lead singer Tobias Forge said in an interview with Loudwire Nights that he already has the concept for the band’s next album in mind — and that it came to mind just as the most recent Ghost LP, Prequelle, was about to come out back in June 2018.
Forge explained, “I’d say that there was a moment just about around the release of Prequelle where on one of the promo trips, it sort of fell in place to what I wanted to do with the next album.”
He continued, “Usually, there are a few things that go in tandem for me to sort of solidify an idea in my head and it doesn’t necessarily have to do with music. It’s more like a, ‘Oh, this is a title of the record,’ or, ‘This is a feel of the record’ and how that plays into what I want to do as a stage presentation.”
The Swedish musician added, “So, for a year, little over a year now, I’ve been fine-tuning that, and that is definitely taken shape and we’re sticking with that script, going into making the record at the beginning of next year.”
Before Forge enters the studio in early 2020, Ghost will embark on a North American tour this fall in support of Prequelle, starting on September 13th in Bakersfield, California and wrapping on October 26th in Glens Falls, New York.
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich told the San Francisco Chronicle that the band is not “taking the easy out” on its two upcoming shows with the San Francisco Symphony, sequels to the 1999 concerts that yielded the S&M album and home video and will be filmed as well.
Asked whether the band will stick with the original setlist from its first shows with the orchestra 20 years ago, Ulrich replied, “I guess there’s a part of me that wants to say, ‘Wait and see.’ But anybody that knows Metallica would know that we are going to mix it up.”
Ulrich continued, “I don’t want to get into too many details of what we’re going to do. The surprise factor isn’t one we get a chance to utilize too often anymore, but people that know Metallica know that 20 years later we can’t resist the urge of mixing it up and adding some twists and turns to it.”
The upcoming concerts with the San Francisco Symphony will take place on September 6th and 8th, commemorating the grand opening of the city’s new Chase Center venue. The shows will feature the first live orchestral arrangements of S&M songs in 20 years, as well as songs written and released since the original show.
Fans who can’t be there to see it live will have the opportunity to see the movie when it is shown one night only, on October 9th, in more than 3,000 movie theaters around the world.
Hellyeah guitarist Tom Maxwell was asked in a new interview with Consequence Of Sound what he missed most about Hellyeah drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, who passed away in June 2018 at the age of 54 from heart disease. Maxwell replied, “Just him. Just all of it. Him as a whole. There’s so much to that guy, and not just his kindness and selflessness. He was in no way narcissistic or self-absorbed.”
Maxwell continued, “He was about everybody else and making sure everybody was happy and content and taken care of. He was just brutally kind and a wonderful human being. If you can imagine what it would be like to be around Santa Claus, that’s what he was like. He brought that kind of joy.”
Hellyeah recently completed its first tour since Abbott’s passing, which marked the debut of Stone Sour drummer Roy Mayorga as Vinnie’s replacement. Maxwell said about Mayorga, “It was already a relationship that was established, and he and Vinnie were friends and respected each other, and that was really important for us, that we got somebody that Vinnie liked and knew. And it was somebody fans liked, too, and he’s killing it and doing a great job.”
Hellyeah’s 18-city headlining summer outing kicked off on July 23rd in Atlanta and culminated in a special celebration on August 17th in Dallas.
The band’s new album, Welcome Home, will be released on September 27th and includes Vinnie Paul Abbott’s final recordings with the group.
Slipknot singer Corey Taylor has revealed in a new interview with Trunk Nation that the name of the unreleased album recorded by him and three other members of Slipknot during the sessions for 2008’s All Hope Is Gone album is Look Outside Your Window.
Taylor described the 11 songs, which are said to be more psychedelic than Slipknot’s usual fare, as “experimental,” adding, “They’re very solemn, very energetic, very artistic. For people who are used to a certain way of Slipknot sounding, this doesn’t sound anything like that. It’s much more of a rock vibe. Honestly, it’s much more of a Radiohead vibe, to be honest.”
Taylor said that the band has been “trying to find a way to release those songs for God knows how long,” explaining that they were originally supposed to be released simultaneously with All Hope Is Gone, but that the plan never quite came together.
Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan has hinted that the songs may finally surface during the cycle for the band’s new album, We Are Not Your Kind, although guitarist Jim Root told us he’s not sure how they’ll be presented: “I’m not really 100% sure what’s gonna happen with that material. I don’t know if we’re gonna try to release it separately, or if maybe in the future that stuff will end up on upcoming Slipknot records. That’s something we haven’t really spoken in great detail about, so I guess we’ll see what happens.”
Root, Taylor, Crahan and DJ Sid Wilson were the members involved in the Look Outside Your Window recordings. The latest Slipknot LP, We Are Not Your Kind, arrived on August 9th and became the band’s third Number One debut in a row on the Billboard 200 chart.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to We Came As Romans guitarist Lou Cotton! Have a great day!
