Good morning Radicals! Had a great time at Gramercy Theater last night watching The Used absolutely wreck the place! Very excited to hear their upcoming album “Heartwork” in April! Let’s dive into today’s news:
Ozzy Osbourne and Nine Inch Nails members Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are among the musicians scheduled to speak at the 34th edition of the South By Southwest music, film and media conference in Austin, Texas.
Ozzy and his son Jack will take part in a conversation with comedian, radio personality, author and actor Jim Norton, while Reznor and Ross will join executive producer and writer Damon Lindelof to discuss their composing work on the HBO series Watchmen.
Dates and times for all speakers are available on the festival’s website. South By Southwest will take place from March 13th through Match 22nd.
Ozzy will release his first solo album in 10 years, Ordinary Man, on February 21st. Nine Inch Nails will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on May 2nd. Reznor and Ross, who have been scoring films and TV series for the past decade, will probably play Nine Inch Nails shows later in 2020, and plan to work on a new NIN album.
Godsmack is aiming to support local music students in New Hampshire by involving them in two events this weekend, including the filming of the band’s latest video, for the single, “Unforgettable,” from the group’s current album When Legends Rise.
First, frontman Sully Erna will speak to middle school students on Friday (February 14th). The following day (Saturday, February 15th), Godsmack will invite more than 300 students to join the band for a performance of their new single “Unforgettable” at the SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Erna’s talk at Gilbert H. Hood Middle School in Derry, New Hampshire will focus on the challenges he’s faced and how music saved him, while encouraging the young musicians to continue to pursue their dreams. The day will end with the band teaching “Unforgettable” to the students in preparation for the following day’s filming.
When we asked him a while back if Godsmack’s career has been more good times or bad, Erna replied: “I gotta say more good times. You know, it can get rough out there though, so there is a lot of crap that goes along with it, man. You know, and it’s not so much bad times, it’s really just a lot of hard work, and it really grinds you out there, you know. Touring takes a lot of years off your life.”
Godsmack had previously recruited 20 students from Hood Middle School to join the band in the studio during the recording of “Unforgettable” and provide vocals on the song’s chorus. These same students performed the song live on stage with the band at a show in Gilford, New Hampshire last August.
Pre-sale tickets for the tour will be available Wednesday (February 12th) at 10:00 a.m. local time, while public sales start on Friday (February 14th) at 10:00 a.m. local time.
Rival Sons have been touring behind their sixth studio album, Feral Roots, which has scored major rock radio airplay with the chart-topping “Do Your Worst” and the Top 20 follow-ups “Too Bad” and the new “Shooting Stars.”
Singer Jay Buchanan told us that anything that brings more attention to the band’s music is good by him: “If it’s gonna bring more people to what we’re doing, and it helps us get a larger audience, makes us more successful, gives us the opportunity to get back in and make more records, play to more people, all of that is beneficial. The more success that we get, the more people that come around and wanna listen to rock ‘n’ roll or come to our shows or whatever — thank you. Yes.”
Deftones have announced their first full U.S. summer tour since 2017. The trek, with guests Gojira and Poppy, kicks off on July 27th in Portland, Oregon, and continues all summer until wrapping up in Denver on September 5th. Tickets go on sale this Friday.
Singer Chino Moreno said in a statement, “We’re super excited to have Gojira spending the summer with us, and Poppy will be a really fun addition as well. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone this summer. It’s been a minute.”
Deftones guitarist Stephen Carpenter told us a while back that playing live is the best part of being in a band: “It’s all good, you know. We’re just doing what we enjoy. I mean, playing shows is, next to writing our own music — we actually only write new music to play shows, ’cause we actually enjoy playing the shows the most. I think that’s what everyone’s true passion is, you know, the fact that we get to play our own music for people that enjoy it.”
Deftones have spent the last couple of years throwing their own festival, Dia de los Deftones, at San Diego’s Petco Park. The event has included Chvrches, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and more.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo‘s side project, The Wedding Band, will perform on Sunday, March 8th at the Senate in Columbia, South Carolina. The group, which also features Ugly Kid Joe singer Whitfield Crane and Bad Wolves guitarist Doc Coyle, will be joined by Queens Of The Stone Age drummer Jon Theodore and others. The Wedding Band last performed in July 2019 at Cosmo Music in Richmond Hill, Ontario, where they played cover versions of such classics as AC/DC‘s “Highway To Hell,” Billy Idol‘s “White Wedding,” Black Sabbath‘s “War Pigs” and the Ramones‘ “Blitzkrieg Bop.”
In This Moment vocalist Maria Brink performed her first-ever solo piano lounge set on this year’s ShipRocked, which set sail from February 1st through February 6th on board Carnival Valor, departing from New Orleans, Louisiana with stops in Key West, Florida and Cozumel on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Fan-filmed video footage of Brink’s appearance — which included renditions of songs by Radiohead, Billie Eilish and In This Moment — has been posted online.
That’s a wrap! Be sure to head over to the Road Rage page for all the new concert dates from your favorite hardDriveRadio bands!
