Good morning Radicals! Here’s the latest from the world of rock and roll:
Tool drummer Danny Carey cited the influence of Led Zeppelin‘s John Bonham, jazz legend Tony Williams and Rush‘s Neil Peart on his own style when he accepted Tool’s Grammy on Sunday night (January 26th) for Best Metal Performance.
Later on backstage, Carey spoke in particular about Peart, with whom he was friends before the latter passed away earlier this month: “Neil just kind of, he was so defined and he was such a precise composer in the way he played that that was a big influence on what I wanted to do with the band — to be in a band that did compositions, and it wasn’t just jamming and stuff like that. So luckily I found the right bandmates to do that with.”
Tool won the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for “7empest,” a track from its 2019 album Fear Inoculum. Carey and bassist Justin Chancellor accepted the award in the pre-telecast ceremony. The other artists that Tool beat in the category included Candlemass, Death Angel, I Prevail and Killswitch Engage.
Tool is currently finishing up the most recent North American leg of its world tour in support of Fear Inoculum, and will head to Australia and New Zealand next month before kicking off a new round of dates here on March 9th in Spokane, Washington.
Ozzy Osbourne said on the red carpet at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night (January 26th) that he’ll move forward with his “No More Tours 2” trek if he’s “well enough.”
Making his first public appearance since announcing his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, Ozzy told CBS’s “Grammy Red Carpet Live” pre-show about his tour, “If I’m well enough, I’ll work towards it. I’m having physical therapy every day, five days a week. I’m trying, doing the best I can. Neck surgery’s not easy.”
Ozzy had neck surgery to correct an old injury that he aggravated earlier this year, forcing him to stay off the road for all of 2019. He received his Parkinson’s diagnosis last February, around the same time. He admitted to CBS, “This last year has been hell for me.”
Kelly Osbourne, who was by her 71-year-old dad’s side, said that she is proud of her father’s progress. She remarked, “Seeing how far Dad’s come this year and how far he’s come in the last week alone has just been incredible. I think coming out and telling his truth has been a weight lifted off of his shoulders . . . his physical therapist is saying how far you have moved forward in this last week is insane.”
Ozzy will head to Switzerland in April to see a specialist about his condition, and is then scheduled to resume the North American leg of tour this spring. His first new solo album in 10 years, Ordinary Man, is due for release on February 21st.
Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament, his brother Barry and art directors Jeff Fura and Joe Spix picked up a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package on Sunday night (January 26th) for their design of the 2018 box set compiling the work of late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell.
Jeff Ament, longtime friends with Cornell, said backstage that working on the set was very emotional for him: “I mean, I first got a call, like, only about five or six weeks after he passed, and so it felt too soon, at that point, to be thinking about that. So it took us a few months and I asked for a few months for us to come up with some images. And more than anything, like, we wish he was here accepting the, you know, this with us.”
Ament played with Cornell in Temple Of The Dog. His pre-Pearl Jam acts Green River and Mother Love Bone were cornerstones of the Seattle grunge scene along with Soundgarden and Mudhoney.
The Cornell box set compile selections from Soundgarden, Temple and his band Audioslave, as well as his four solo albums and various other recordings. Cornell committed suicide in May 2017 at age 52.
Ament and the rest of Pearl Jam will release a new album, titled Gigaton, on March 27th.
Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan says that the unreleased album recorded by four members of the band back in 2008 was originally scheduled to come out this past Christmas, but will now arrive sometime during the band’s current touring cycle.
Titled Look Outside Your Window, the 11 psychedelic-flavored songs were written and recorded by Crahan, singer Corey Taylor, DJ Sid Wilson and guitarist Jim Root at a separate studio during the sessions for its 2008 LP All Hope Is Gone.
Crahan, who revealed the existence of the music in 2018, told NME, “Look Outside Your Window is a very unique art piece on its own. So it’s sort of timeless, in my opinion . . . It’s really a piece of the imagination that’s missing that people might really need. So, hopefully on this cycle somewhere.”
Crahan added, “It was scheduled for Christmas. I just quit asking, because I don’t want it to interfere with (the current Slipknot album). And mainly because of what it is. It needs its own space . . . it’s just gonna come out, and people won’t even know. It’ll just be this thing that happens. I’m looking forward to that, though.”
One of the songs from Look Outside Your Window, “‘Til We Die”, surfaced on the digipak of All Hope Is Gone, but the rest have yet to see the light of day.
Slipknot is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, We Are Not Your Kind, which was released last August.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to Trivium frontman Matthew Heafy! Have a wonderful day!
