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Tuesday, Mar 24, 2020

Julian Woolsey


Good morning Radicals! Hope you’re all social distancing, and keeping healthy. What we’ve feared has come to pass, so you might want to sit down…

The Sonic Temple, Welcome To Rockville and Epicenter festivals, all of which were scheduled to take place in May, have been canceled due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Promoter Danny Wimmer Presents issued a statement saying, “We are crushed to say that Epicenter, Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple are being canceled due to the governmental restrictions on mass gatherings. We respect these directives and recognize they are in the best interest of the greater good, as well as the health and safety of our fans, musicians, partners, and staff.”

Wimmer promised the events would return in May 2021. Ticketholders for the 2020 festivals can get either a full refund, exchange their purchases for tickets to the 2021 editions or exchange their passes for another one of our 2020 festivals.

Metallica, who were scheduled to headline Epicenter and Rockville, confirmed the cancellations itself but added that it could now join the Louder Than Life festival in September, which has added an extra date on the 17th of that month. Many other acts from the canceled festivals will tentatively appear there as well.

Metallica wrote, “For now, go hang with your significant others, kids, pets, parents . . . most importantly, stay safe.”

Dave Grohl told Mojo in a new interview that the recording sessions for the upcoming Foo Fighters album were haunted.

The band recorded its 10th studio LP in a 70-year-old house in Encino, California, with Grohl revealing, “When we walked into the house in Encino, I knew the vibes were definitely off but the sound was f**king on. We started working there and it wasn’t long before things started happening.”

The Foos’ main man said that the band would come back to the studio to find the guitars detuned, the settings on the engineering board changed, tracks missing and new tracks — often just an open mic recording an empty room — appearing on the recording software.

The group attempted to document the phenomena by taking video of the studio when they weren’t there, with Grohl saying, “We started to see things on the nest cam that we couldn’t explain.”

Grohl says he asked the homeowner about the house’s past, but is not allowed to reveal what he learned. He explained, “I had to sign a f**king non-disclosure agreement with the landlord because he’s trying to sell the place. So, I can’t give away what happened there in the past but these multiple occurrences over a short period of time made us finish the album as quickly as we could.”

Foo Fighters bassist Nate Mendel told us a while back how the band’s songwriting process works: “It’s really been pretty consistent over the years. Dave writes the songs, and about half the time he’ll do a demo on his own, and the other half of the time he’ll come in and just play it on guitar. Then (he) shows it to the band and then we sit around and play it and figure out, you know, what kind of song is it gonna be. Is it a country song? Metal song? You know, what the dynamic is, arrangement, tempo, that kind of stuff. We help him finish it out.”

The band has yet to announce a title or release date for the new album, which will mark the band’s 25th anniversary. Other events commemorating that milestone, including a spring tour, are on hold for now due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shinedown guitarist Zach Myers has implored young people to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously and practice social distancing.

In an interview with Rock Feed, Myers urged young people to heed the advice of health authorities, explaining, “I see people going, ‘Well, I’m 25 years old. I’m gonna be fine.’ No, dude, it’s not about you. It’s about that you can get it, not even know you have it, dude, and you can get someone else sick, who has diabetes, or has a respiratory infection, and you can hurt these other people.”

Myers added, “I’m not one of those dudes who s**ts on the youth, man, ’cause I was the youth once. And when we were doing it, people thought we were idiots. But at the same time, you can miss a Friday night, you can miss a Saturday night going out. Use this time to do something — better yourself, better your home. I think people are afraid to be alone, and I think people are afraid of themselves.”

Other rockers who have asked fans to follow safety guidelines include Nickelback‘s Ryan Peake and Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford.

Shinedown recently postponed its “Deep Dive” tour dates from spring to summer. The newly rescheduled trek will now begin on July 31st in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Godsmack drummer Shannon Larkin has confirmed that the band is working on material for the follow-up to 2018’s When Legends Rise album.

In a video message shared via the Twitter account of SiriusXM, Larkin said, “We’re spending our time right now trying to write some new music for y’all, because we can’t tour right now. So we hope that everybody’s staying safe during this pandemic. All of our tours and shows are canceled for the time being. But this is gonna get better.”

Singer Sully Erna told us a while back that Godsmack stays on top by evolving musically: “We have to grow and we have to expand and we have to try new things, you know. I mean, you can’t find the magic unless you experiment and explore new ideas. But there are some people that are just like, you know, in that thing where they want us to sound like the Awake record every single record, and I just can’t do it.”

Godsmack landed three Number One singles from When Legends Rise on the charts. The title track, “Under Your Scars” and “Bulletproof” all topped the rock radio chart, while “Bulletproof” was also the most-played song at rock radio in 2018.

Linkin Park has announced what is likely to be the first of the Hybrid Theory 20th anniversary activities it has planned for this year. On Tuesday (March 24th), the band members will react via a livestream to previously unseen live footage from a 2001 concert. That event will take place on YouTube starting at 2:00 p.m. ET. Earlier this month the band said it had some “special things planned” this year to celebrate its debut album turning 20.

Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to Hinder drummer Cody Hanson! Stay safe out there!