Welcome back Radicals! Hope you’ve all had a splendid New Year celebration, and maybe a couple extra days off before you go back to the grind! We’re back at it for another year of kick-ass music, interviews, and Lou Brutus’ very own book! 2020 is going to be awesome. Let’s delve into the mornings music news, shall we?
Rage Against The Machine has been confirmed as one of the headliners for the 2020 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival. The event will take place over two back-to-back weekends — April 10th through the 12th and April 17th through the 19th — at Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.
Other headliners are Travis Scott and Frank Ocean, while the lineup of acts also includes Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke, alt-pop star Lana Del Rey, hip-hop artists Lil Uzi Vert and Megan Thee Stallion, Bishop Briggs, Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, Fatboy Slim, FKA Twigs, Hot Chip, Lil Nas X, Rex Orange County, Run The Jewels, The Hu, Yungblud, Cardi B and many more.
Rage Against The Machine’s appearance at this year’s Coachella was first revealed in November when an Instagram account with the handle “rageagainstthemachine” shared a list of 2020 dates. Other shows on the schedule included late-March stops in El Paso, Texas, Las Cruces, New Mexico and Phoenix, Arizona.
Guitarist Tom Morello told us a while back why Rage Against The Machine’s appeal has endured: “It’s a product of the very unique personalities and chemistry of the four guys in the band. None of us could have made songs that sound like this without the other three. It was an absolutely unheard-of combination, both musically, ethnically and, in Zack’s lyrics, the point of view expressed in his lyrics was one that had never been heard on the radio before.”
The first Coachella weekend is sold out, with the second weekend pre-sale slated to begin on Monday (January 6th) at noon PT.
Five Finger Death Punch has debuted “Full Circle,” the second single from the band’s forthcoming eighth studio album, F8.
Guitarist Zoltan Bathory told us that he thinks F8 strikes the perfect balance between the band’s established style and some new sounds: “Even for us, it’s kind of like, ‘Wow, this sounds like us but it isn’t.’ It is different. And I think that’s one of the most difficult tasks for a band. You did seven albums, this is number eight, right? How do you still progress? How do you give something new to the fans, but not derive too far from who you are? So it really feels like this is the best album we have done so far.”
“Full Circle” follows the LP’s first single, “Inside Out,” which closed out 2019 at Number Nine and climbing on the rock radio charts. F8 is the eighth studio LP from Five Finger Death Punch and follows up 2017’s And Justice For None. It’s due out on February 28th.
The band recently announced the dates for a new spring North American tour. The trek kicks off on April 8th in Sunrise, Florida, winding down on May 20th in St. Paul, Minnesota. Papa Roach, I Prevail and Ice Nine Kills will join Five Finger Death Punch on the upcoming road trip.
Foo Fighters shared a cryptic photo and a little bit of music — really just drums — on Thursday night (January 2nd), the second time in the past week that the band has hinted about new music.
The latest pic is a black and white photo of a disassembled drum kit on some steps, paired with about a minute of audio of a simple drumbeat. Along with it were the hashtags #FF2020 and #FF25 — this year, 2020, will mark the 25th anniversary of the Foos self-titled 1995 debut.
On New Year’s Day, the band tweeted out a similar photo — this one of a microphone set up in a bathtub — along with the same hashtags.
Frontman Dave Grohl and other members of the band have been hinting that a new studio LP is underway in recent months. The Foos’ last full-length LP was 2017’s Concrete And Gold, which entered the Billboard 200 album chart at Number One.
Drummer Taylor Hawkins has told us before that a new Foos record can get underway at a moment’s notice: “You never know with Dave. He could, you know, say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go play with Josh (Homme) from Queens Of The Stone Age for six months, you know, and I’ll see you then.’ Or he might go, ‘I wanna get started right away on the next record!’ It all depends, like, what he’s motivated to do at that time, you know — if he wants to go play drums and forget about being the leader and the songwriter, or if he just can’t wait to do another record.”
Meanwhile, the Foos continue to roll out a series of archival EPs as part of the lead-up to the band’s quarter-century celebration. This latest one, titled 00959525, dates back to 1995 and features six tracks, including a cover of Ace Frehley‘s “Ozone.” The EP also contains studio versions of the tracks “Winnebago,” “Podunk” and “How I Miss You” plus a pair of live recordings from the BBC.
In other news, Grohl and fellow Nirvana members Pat Smear and Krist Novoselic got together on Saturday night (January 4th) at The Art of Elysium charity’s annual benefit gala in Los Angeles to play a five-song set of Nirvana’s hits, with Beck, St. Vincent and Dave’s 13-year-old daughter Violet handling lead vocals.
New video on Monday!! pic.twitter.com/EfKJM19rMO
— Ozzy Osbourne (@OzzyOsbourne) January 3, 2020
A new video from Ozzy Osbourne is coming on today for the song “Straight To Hell,” and the Prince of Darkness shared a teaser for it over the weekend in anticipation of its arrival.
“Straight To Hell” is the second single from Ozzy’s forthcoming album, Ordinary Man, which will be released later this year. The track features a guest appearance from Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash and follows up the LP’s first single, “Under The Graveyard.”
Ordinary Man is Ozzy’s first solo album in 10 years and was recorded in around four weeks while Ozzy recuperated last summer from illness and surgery. The album features producer Andrew Watt on guitars, Guns N Roses’ Duff McKagan on bass and Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ Chad Smith on drums.
Ozzy scrapped his entire 2019 schedule early last year, as he recovered from surgery to repair an injury sustained while dealing with his bout of pneumonia. The European leg of his “No More Tours 2” trek have now been rescheduled for the fall, with the North American dates set to launch in May.
A judge in the Supreme Court of the State of New York strongly indicated on Friday (January 3rd) that a motion to dismiss percussionist Chris Fehn’s lawsuit against Slipknot would be denied and the case would be allowed to proceed.
Attorneys for Slipknot and Fehn, who was fired from the group last year, gathered before Justice Melissa Anne Crane on Friday morning to argue motions to dismiss sought by the defendants.
The first motion, filed by several Slipknot-related business entities, sought to dismiss the case “for failure to state a cause of action.” A second motion, filed by percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan and singer Corey Taylor, asked the court to dismiss the case based on “lack of personal jurisdiction.” Both motions were denied.
Fehn filed suit against Taylor and Crahan, the band’s business manager Rob Shore and his business management company Rob Shore & Associates in early 2019. Fehn alleged that Taylor and Crahan enriched themselves at his expense and that of the rest of the band. Fehn also named several Slipknot-related businesses in his suit.
Fehn is seeking a past accounting of the band’s finances during his time with them to establish potential damages. No date was set for any further hearings, but a scheduled compliance conference date is set for June 18th.
New Years Day vocalist Ash Costello has confirmed that she is now engaged. Jered Boeving proposed to the singer on New Year’s Eve at Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Costello and Boeving have been dating for less than a year after initially crossing paths in 2016. Costello broke the news in an Instagram post, crediting Jered with turning her 2019 “from a nightmare to a dream.” New Years Day’s latest full-length album, Unbreakable, came out in April and features the single “Shut Up.”
Finally, it was this day in 1953 that the world was blessed with Malcolm Young, who, along with his brother Angus, would form one of the most influential rock bands of all time, AC/DC. Malcolm passed away in 2017, so raise a glass and crank up the tunes in his memory today!
