Well, damn, it’s been a brutal weekend of highs and lows. Hope everyone is in a good place today, mentally, spiritually and physically. Let’s dig into the big moments from the weekend, starting with the rock worlds biggest love/hate relationship, the Grammys:
Tool won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance on Sunday night (January 26th) at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards, which were held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Tool was nominated for “7empest,” a track from its 2019 album Fear Inoculum.
Drummer Danny Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor accepted the award during the pre-telecast portion of the ceremony, in which dozens of Grammys were given out before the main show began at 8:00 p.m. ET on CBS-TV.
Chancellor told the press backstage that the band was pleased to win for this song in particular: “It’s great. I think it’s a song that we’re really proud of. Kind of pushed the boundaries a bit from our point of view. We were still being very experimental when we did this particular track. So that’s pretty satisfying to be able to kind of still go out there and be included in this group of musicians. So that’s great.”
In his acceptance speech, Carey said, “Wow! It kind of renews my faith in humankind that there’s long attention spans left out there that can listen to a 12-minute song.”
The other artists that Tool beat in the category included Candlemass, Death Angel, I Prevail and Killswitch Engage.
Rock artists took to social media on Sunday afternoon to express their grief and shock over the death of legendary Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant. The 41-year-old NBA basketball star and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna were among a reported nine people killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California on Sunday morning. There were no survivors
Five Finger Death Punch bassist Chris Kael wrote on Twitter, “Having a bad day? @kobebryant would gladly trade you. Shut the f**k up and have some appreciation for the life that you DO have. Life is short. Don’t take it for granted.”
Papa Roach tweeted, “In shock. Thanks for all you contributed Kobe. R.I.P.”
Paul Stanley of Kiss posted a photo of him and Bryant shaking hands, writing, “Kobe. Such A Shock. My Condolences To His Wife And Children. Very, very sad.”
Prophets Of Rage MC Chuck D wrote, “HE was ‘different’ . . . He sought to make a DIFFERENCE. He just got started & he created many paths.”
Andy Biersack of Black Veil Brides wrote, “Extremely difficult to process the passing of Kobe. He was not only a celebrated athlete but someone who was ubiquitous in pop culture for the last 20+yrs. For many of us it’s unfathomable to think such a central figure of our childhood has passed.”
Other artists who commented on the stunning news included Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, Bad Wolves guitarist Doc Coyle, All That Remains frontman Phil Labonte, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and many more.
Bryant played for the Lakers for 20 years and is considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He won five NBA championships, was an 18-time All-Star, was the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in the 2007-2008 season and is fourth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. He retired in 2016, having spent his entire career with the Lakers, and is eligible for the Basketball Hall of Fame this year.
Breaking Benjamin shared a new music video on Friday (January 24th) for “Far Away,” the one all-new song on the band’s new album, Aurora, featuring Cold‘s Scooter Ward on guest vocals. The LP itself, a collection of re-imagined versions of some of the band’s most popular tracks, also arrived on Friday.
Frontman Ben Burnley told us that “Far Away” is a fairly new tune and that it came together the same way all his songs do: “I wrote it recently. I wrote it in New York City, and I mean, the writing process to me is: I sit down and I write (laughs) and it comes out on its own. People always ask me, you know, what influenced it or what made, you know, whatever. Like, if I knew that, I would do that all the time. They just happen when they happen.”
Aurora also features guests like Adam Gontier of Saint Asonia, ex-Flyleaf singer Lacey Sturm and Michael Barnes from Red. Among the chart-topping hits included in new versions are “So Cold,” “Never Again,” “Torn In Two” and “Angels Fall.”
Breaking Benjamin kicked off a co-headlining 24-city tour with Korn last week that stops on Monday night (January 27th) in Quebec City and wraps up on March 1st in Fresno, California.
Ozzy Osbourne‘s ability to sing could be adversely affected by his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, according to medical experts.
Ozzy and his wife Sharon revealed that Ozzy was afflicted with Parkinson’s during an interview last week on Good Morning America, saying that he is treating the disease with medication.
Dr. Rachel Dolhun, vice president for Medical Communications at the Michael J. Fox Foundation For Parkinson’s Research, told Forbes that patients often experience difficulties with speech and swallowing while battling the disease.
She explained, “It does this by affecting the way the vocal cords and swallowing muscles actually move . . . This is really a core part of Parkinson’s for a lot of people and it becomes a very difficult symptom to manage.”
John Lehr, head of the non-profit Parkinson’s Foundation, concurred that that 89 percent of people with Parkinson’s experience speech or voice disorders, saying, “It makes just having a normal conversation, not even just singing, very difficult.”
Even before this, Ozzy admitted a while back that his voice doesn’t always hold up these days: “Sometimes it blows out. I do the best I can. Sometimes I sound terrible, and sometimes it’s good, you know. But I’m only human. I mean, I’m honest about it, you know.”
The singer received the Parkinson’s diagnosis last February after several other health issues derailed his 2019 tour plans. Ozzy expects to resume touring this spring behind his new album, Ordinary Man.
Stone Temple Pilots have canceled their upcoming acoustic tour after lead singer Jeff Gutt suffered what was described as a “severely herniated disc.”
A statement from the band said, “Doctors have advised immediate surgery, along with several weeks of recovery time and physical therapy. Gutt is expected to make a full recovery, and the band hopes to reschedule the acoustic tour later this year.” Refunds are available at the point of purchase.
The 15-date tour was set to begin on February 5th in Vancouver, British Columbia. Two tours scheduled for later in the year — an Australian trek with Bush and Live and a North American summer jaunt opening for Nickelback — remain on schedule.
The band’s tour was in support of their acoustic album Perdida, out February 7th. The LP is Stone Temple Pilots’ second with Gutt, who they hired in 2018 to succeed Scott Weiland and Chester Bennington after those singers’ deaths.
Disturbed singer David Draiman said in a new interview with Philadelphia radio station WMMR that the next leg of the band’s current touring cycle will focus on the 20th anniversary of the band’s 2000 debut album, The Sickness.
Draiman revealed, “This entire touring cycle — this section of the touring cycle, if you will — is going to be celebrating the 20th anniversary of The Sickness, so you’ll be getting a lot more material from the record. You’ll be getting some surprises . . . We definitely want to pay tribute to what started it all for us, and we’re looking forward to really digging deep.”
The Sickness was originally released in March 2000 and remains Disturbed’s biggest-selling disc, with more than five million copies sold. The CD contained the singles “Stupify,” “Voices” and “Down With the Sickness.”
Guitarist Dan Donegan told us a while back that the band never expected the LP or its signature song to do as well as they did: “I think ‘Down With The Sickness’ was like the seventh most downloaded song that was recorded in the ’90s. It was like in a list of like four Michael Jackson songs and Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ and we were in the Top 10 of those songs. And I was just blown away by those statistics. Those are big numbers there. I mean, we’re just overwhelmed to think that we could go from a garage band in the south side of Chicago to selling a lot of albums and having a fan base and making a career out of it.”
Disturbed has been touring behind its latest album, Evolution, which came out in October of 2018. The band recently released a music video for the song “Hold On To Memories.”
Dirty Honey‘s newly released cover of the Aerosmith song “Last Child” probably got the best endorsement it could last week when Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton wrote on Twitter, “Just heard Dirty Honey’s version of ‘Last Child.’ Really good!!”
Dirty Honey covered the song for the Amazon Originals series, available only on Amazon Music. The original version was released on Aerosmith’s classic album Rocks.
Dirty Honey vocalist Marc LaBelle said about the song, “Aerosmith has been a huge influence on our band, and ‘Last Child’ is a staple in our live set, so to be tipping our hat to the band is really special.”
Last week, Dirty Honey embarked on the first leg of its 2020 “Rolling 7s” North American tour. The 25-date, coast-to-coast trek hits Huntsville, Alabama on Monday night (January 27th) and will wrap up in four weeks on February 28th in Los Angeles.
Marilyn Manson touring bassist Juan Alderete has been in a coma for more than two weeks after suffering a serious injury in a bicycle accident. According to his wife, Anne, the 56-year-old musician sustained serious head trauma in the form of a traumatic brain injury.
Anne wrote at Instagram on Friday night (January 24th), “Juan was in a solo (no cars, other people) and very serious bicycle accident on 1/13/20 not far from our home. He — as always — was wearing a helmet and protective clothing but sustained serious head trauma in the form of a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI); his form of TBI is Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI) and as of today, he remains in a coma.”
Anne added, “The only prognosis is to wait and see, as the brain is a complicated organ and the outcomes for DAI patients has a range as wide as the sea . . . please keep Juan in your thoughts.”
Alderete was previously the bassist in Racer X and the Grammy-winning band The Mars Volta, which he joined in 2003 and stayed with until they disbanded in 2012. In November 2017, Alderete filled in for Marilyn Manson bassist Twiggy Ramirez at the Ozzfest Meets Knotfest festival, and has been Manson’s bass player on tour since.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy birthday to Mike Patton, singer for Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Tomahawk, and so many more! Have a great day and hug the ones you love!
