THIS JUST IN: Breaking Benjamin have revealed their next album will be called “Aurora,” and will arrive on January 24th 2020! The album will feature reimagined versions of their biggest songs, with special guests including Lacey Sturm (ex-Flyleaf), Scooter Ward (Cold) and Spencer Chamberlain (Underoath), to name a few. Speaking about Aurora, Breaking Benjamin’s founder/frontman, Ben Burnley, had this personal message to share, “This album is a celebration of our incredible fans; for those who have been there since hearing ‘So Cold’ for the first time in 2004, and the new ones who have joined us on this amazing journey along the way. We’ve always shared a unique emotional connection to our music with our fans, and this album attributes to those dark times and euphoric ones. From wherever you joined along the road to Aurora, this one is for you. Thank you.” The band will also hit the road with Korn starting Jan 23rd, check the Road Rage page for the full list of stops!
Good morning Radicals! Hope you all had a lovely weekend, and you’re geared up for Halloween, only a few days away! Let’s be honest, it’s the most rock and roll holiday! Ok, on to the news then…
Bad Wolves released its sophomore album on Friday (October 25th), titled N.A.T.I.O.N., along with a music video for the song “Killing Me Slowly.” In a new interview with Loudwire, Bad Wolves singer Tommy Vext revealed that the band recorded some cover songs for the new record but decided to leave them off.
Vext explained, “I wound up doing a couple of covers, and then we decided to not put a cover on the record because we didn’t feel it necessary, especially coming off the back of the success of ‘Zombie.’ We wanted to focus more on our original tracks.”
Bad Wolves broke through last year with a cover of the Cranberries hit “Zombie.” Cranberries vocalist Dolores O’Riordan was supposed to contribute to the track but died the day she was supposed to go into the studio.
Saying that the new album was “much easier” to make than their 2018 debut Disobey, Vext also cited Five Finger Death Punch and its guitarist Zoltan Bathory — who manages Bad Wolves — for creating an environment in which Bad Wolves could prosper.
Vext elaborated, “Zoltan saw in Bad Wolves a level of raw talent and musical capability and the message that we were coming out with and he kind of helped us mold the band into a unit . . . To understand what Five Finger and Zoltan are trying to accomplish, they’re investing time that they don’t need to in finding artists to reinvigorate the rock genre.”
Bathory told us a while back what he saw in Bad Wolves that inspired him to manage them: “For me, you know, it’s kind of a thing where you listen to a band and you look at them, and you look at the whole picture and you kind of know. There’s a DNA there, you know. There’s something they have and I can see that, you know. So I can help them and guide them so they’re not making mistakes that could be extremely costly later, and definitely slowing down the band and slowing down their progress.”
Bad Wolves will set out on a North American tour with Five Finger Death Punch, Three Days Grace and Fire From The Gods starting November 1st in Las Vegas.
Nine Inch Nails main man Trent Reznor has spoken out in a new Rolling Stone interview about the use of a sample of music from the NIN song “34 Ghosts IV” on Lil Nas X‘s massive hit single “Old Town Road.” The short section of banjo was originally heard on Nine Inch Nails’ mostly instrumental 2008 album Ghosts I-IV.
Asked about the sample, Reznor said, “At first, when you hear your stuff turned into something else, it always feels awkward because it’s something that intimately came from you in some way. You feel a little bit violated, you know?” He added, “And then you get over that, and you realize it has become something else . . . It’s very flattering.”
Referencing Johnny Cash‘s now classic cover of Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt,” Reznor continued, “The music from Ghosts that turned into ‘Old Town Road’ certainly didn’t come from as intimate a place as the song ‘Hurt’ did, but it’s still something that I remember what I was thinking about when we did it and then you hear it turned into this other thing — it feels strange at first. But I thought he did a good job with that.”
“Old Town Road” does credits Reznor and his Nine Inch Nails collaborator Atticus Ross as co-writers, and has since become the longest-running Number One record in Billboard‘s chart history.
Calling the song “undeniably hooky,” Reznor was asked why he has not spoken up about the Nine Inch Nails component before. He explained, “I don’t feel it’s my place to play any kind of social critic to that.” He added, They asked if I wanted to do a cameo in the video, and it was flattering, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I don’t feel like it’s my place to shine a light on me for that. I say that with complete respect . . . I don’t feel it’s for me to step in there and pat myself on the back for that.”
Reznor and Ross have been focusing on scoring work lately, composing the music for the new HBO series Watchmen and the upcoming film Waves.
Tool has finally released its first studio album in 13 years, but that doesn’t mean singer Maynard James Keenan is done with recording studios for a while. One of his other bands, Puscifer, posted a photo on Instagram of Keenan laying down vocals for the group’s next LP, due out sometime in 2021.
Keenan first revealed he was working on new Puscifer material back in July, prior to the late August release of Tool’s highly anticipated fifth album Fear Inoculum. With Tool touring in support of that disc, Keenan was able to take advantage of their dates in California and Arizona to record vocals for Puscifer.
The last Puscifer album, Money Shot, came out in 2015. The act and its revolving lineup has existed in some form since 1995 but only began making records in 2007. Keenan told us a while back that its live shows can be unpredictable: “The goal is to build Puscifer where you’re not, you don’t know what to expect. Leave your expectations at the door, just like come in and enjoy a show. If you walk in and we do two AC/DC albums back to back, in our interpretation, as long as there’s a show to go along with it, that’s the kind of audience we are trying to build. As long as we are entertaining, and the songs are executed great and, you know, there’s something to see, that should be okay if you’re a Puscifer fan, ’cause you got to be the one that saw that show.”
Keenan also toured last year with A Perfect Circle, which released its long-awaited fourth studio LP Eat The Elephant. As for Tool, the band next plays in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Tuesday (October 29th).
The 25th anniversary of Green Day‘s breakthrough 1994 album Dookie was last February but the band may finally be getting around to celebrating it. The band recently announced a one-off performance in Madrid, Spain on October 30th at the intimate La Riviera club, and soon after rumors began to surface on Reddit that a performance of the Dookie album in full would occur.
Now, it looks like frontman Billie Joe Armstrong is confirming the speculation, posting on his Instagram story a close-up view of the Dookie artwork with a Spanish flag added to it. He also posted on the fan account @greendayitalianrageandlove, sharing a winking eye emoji and asking, “Would you like to hear the entire Dookie live?”
It’s not known if there will be any additional Dookie dates. Green Day is also playing in Seville, Spain on November 2nd. The band will launch a major tour next summer with Weezer and Fall Out Boy as all three acts gear up to release new albums.
Last month Green Day shared the music video for its new single, “Father of All…” The track is set to appear on the trio’s 13th studio album, also titled Father of All…, which is due out February 7th, 2020 and follows Green Day’s 2016 LP Revolution Radio.
Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain‘s famous green cardigan, which the late singer/guitarist wore for the band’s MTV Unplugged taping, sold for $334,000 at auction on Saturday (October 26th). That established a new record for the most expensive sweater ever sold at auction, while more than doubling the garment’s sale price from just four years ago.
The olive green sweater — complete with missing button, a burn hole and several stains — last sold for $137,500 in November 2015 through Julien’s Auctions, the same company that sold it Saturday.
Ahead of this weekend’s auction, the sweater had already surpassed its $200,000 minimum bid and then blew past the item’s $300,000 pre-auction estimate. The sweater was accompanied with a handwritten letter of authenticity from Jackie Farry, Frances Bean Cobain’s nanny and a close friend of Courtney Love, who gifted Farry with the sweater following Kurt’s death in April 1994.
Meanwhile, another Cobain item sold for even more at the same auction: his custom-built Fender Mustang guitar, used by the Nirvana frontman on the In Utero Tour, went for $340,000. The guitar, which was previously kept at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, came with a handwritten letter from Love stating that the instrument was one of her husband’s favorites.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to Nothing More singer Jonny Hawkins and Rob Zombie drummer Ginger Fish! Have a great day!
