Good morning Radicals! Let’s get you through the mid-week slump with some tasty music news nuggets:
Photo by Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Metallica has announced a new donation of $100,000 to help wildfire relief efforts in the state of California. The band made the donation through its All Within My Hands non-profit foundation, which was launched in 2017 to help creating sustainable communities by tackling the issues of hunger and workforce education.
Wildfires have continued to ravage parts of both Northern and Southern California, consuming tens of thousands of acres, displacing thousands and knocking out power. Metallica is donating $50,000 to organizations in northern California and $50,000 to organizations in the southern part of the state.
Metallica released the following statement that read in part, “Sadly, for the third year in a row, communities we have called home throughout the state of California are again experiencing the tragedy left in the wake of wildfires . . . We would also like to encourage you to join us in supporting those in need as well as the first responders who have been working tirelessly to keep Californians safe.”
Metallica also donated $100,000 toward wildfire relief efforts in California and headlined a wildfire relief concert in San Francisco two years ago.
Australian metal band Parkway Drive will release a documentary film entitled ‘Viva The Underdogs’. The film will be shown in Australian cinemas on January 22. More information on other territories to follow.
“We have always taken pride in doing things our way,” says vocalist Winston McCall. “For over fifteen years we have stayed true to ourselves in a world of extremes. We are not the story of shooting star super stardom, we are not the overnight breakout success, we will never be viral and we sure as hell won’t break the internet. But we have a vision, and we have lived for it, worked for it, bled for it, grown for it and broken for it. We have sacrificed everything and compromised nothing. This is an honest insight into what it takes to survive as the underdogs. Thank you for being part of the story”
‘Viva The Underdogs’ features over a decade of behind the scenes personal footage, coupled with unprecedented access to the bands most explosive live tours and world’s biggest music festivals. The film gives an incredibly honest and candid look at Parkway Drive’s journey; the good-times, battles, triumphs, and sacrifices.
Trent Reznor has told Rolling Stone in a new interview that he and collaborator Atticus Ross plan to make new Nine Inch Nails music as soon as they are finished with their work on the scores for HBO’s new Watchmen series and the upcoming Pixar movie Soul.
Reznor explained, “Right now, we are finishing up Watchmen, and we’re working on the Pixar film that we are doing. And we have plans for Nine Inch Nails stuff, but we haven’t got down to doing it because literally every minute of the day for the last several months has been working on score stuff. But the plan is to do stuff, yes.”
Reznor and Ross last released new Nine Inch Nails music in a series of records released over three years: Not The Actual Events in 2016, Add Violence in 2017 and Bad Witch in 2018.
Reznor said he wished he could have done the same kind of release with the 1999 album The Fragile, remarking, “If I could put The Fragile out again, I’d break it into two albums . . . 20 years ago, it was a little self-important to drop something of that length and density on people, but the last three mini-records we put out were actually one album. The music, I felt, in no way was dumbed down.”
Reznor and Ross have also decided to release the soundtrack of the nine-episode Watchmen series in three parts on vinyl. The first arrived on Monday (November 4th), while the next two will surface on November 25th and December 16th.
Reznor told us a while back that writing music for films or TV shows has not been that difficult: “That idea of starting in a visual place has made it kind of easy — I find it hasn’t been that much of a struggle to start to think in terms of scoring for picture, because now I have the picture to see instead of me creating it in my head and it’s not that far of a stretch in terms of the strategy working here.”
Tom DeLonge‘s Angels & Airwaves have announced a new round of winter tour dates while sharing a music video for the new song “Kiss And Tell.”
The trek kicks off on December 4th in Phoenix, taking a short break around the holidays before resuming in early January. The current schedule stops for now on January 26th in Norfolk, Virginia.
As for “Kiss And Tell,” DeLonge said about the song, “We wanted to create a sound that had electronic elements right alongside classic rock and pop-punk melodic structures. Lyrically, this song is specifically about balancing on the edge of a razor blade. Doing something you’re not supposed to be doing, and although you might die while doing it, it’s still very much keeping you feeling alive.
Hatebreed frontman Jamey Jasta has announed a new album for his solo band “Lost Chapters Vol 2.” The album will arrive on December 13th. The album contains a number of collaborations with artists from across the rock and metal worlds, including Matt Heafy of Trivium, Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage, and Howard Jones of Light the Torch! Pre-orders are available at http://www.martyrstore.net/ You can listen to the song “When the Contagion is You” with Matt Heafy here, and “Strength to Draw the Line” with Jesse Leach here.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to Living Color singer Corey Glover and Bad Religion singer Greg Graffin! Have a wonderful day!
