Good morning! Did you watch the last Tonight Show with Jay Leno? I did for a bit. It’s melancholy to see the passing on of tv personalities, especially with that show. God, I remember Jack Parr & Johnny Carson in that role. That’s it, I am old!…. Pulse of Radio says Halestorm, Corey Taylor and Metallica lead the lineup of artists who have contributed tracks to This Is Your Life, a tribute album to late Black Sabbath and Dio vocalist Ronnie James Dio due out April 1st. The 14-song collection also features covers of classic songs featuring the late singer from Motorhead, Scorpions, Anthrax, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford,Killswitch Engage, Tenacious D and more. Proceeds from sales of the album will go to the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund. The set is produced by Dio’s longtime manager and wife Wendy Dio. Ronnie James Dio was one of the most influential heavy rock vocalists of his time, singing for Rainbow, Black Sabbath and his own self-named band in a career than spanned decades. He died of stomach cancer in 2010 at the age of 67. Stone Sour and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor shared his feelings about Dio at the time of his death: “When I got that news that he had passed away, man, it seriously — it broke my heart. It broke it in two. Because honestly, I just feel like there will never be another Ronnie James Dio. He had such a pure voice — and still singing his ass off. I just know he’ll be missed, and I will miss him as well.”….If you’ve been listening nightly to hardDrive XL with Lou Brutus, then you know Metallica’s Kirk Hammett is our Featured Artist of the Week and you’ve been hearing him discuss his festival. Underway this weekend in San Francisco is Kirk Von Hammett’s Fear FestEvil, a three-day horror convention founded and hosted by the lifelong horror fan. The event kicked off on Thursday (Feb 6th) and lasts through tomorrow (Feb 8th), and Hammett told us what he envisioned for it: “I’ve gone to San Diego Comic-Con, and I was just struck by how all it really is is a bunch of stuff to look at and a bunch of stuff to buy. What I wanted to do with my convention is I wanted it to be an experience, you know. I wanted it to be interactive, I wanted it to have ambiance and atmosphere, and I wanted it to be unique and thrilling, and that’s what we’re trying to do here.” Fear FestEvil will feature vendors, “Kirk’s Crypt” private tours, panels, signings, special guest appearances and more. Also on tap are performances from hardcore metal acts Exodus, Death Angel, Carcass and Orchid. Hammett has confirmed that he will join Exodus and Death Angel onstage for their encores. Among the weekend’s guests are Slash, The Walking Dead producer/makeup artist Greg Nicotero, legendary Dawn Of The Dead makeup man Tom Savini, Halloween star P.J. Soles, Friday The 13th star Kane Hodder, Re-Animator star Barbara Crampton, Sara Karloff, and many others. Hammett, a lifelong horror fan, released a coffee table book in 2012 called Too Much Horror Business that featured photos of his extensive collection of monster and horror memorabilia. He displayed a portion of his collection in the “Kirk’s Crypt” exhibition during the 2012 and 2013 Orion Music + More festivals….My boys Korn has released a music video for “Spike In My Veins,” the latest track to emerge from the band’s current album, The Paradigm Shift. The song attacks both the NSA’s vast surveillance of the American people as well as our culture of information overload. Singer Jonathan Davis said, “We are all so caught up in watching crazy media on the internet and TV that we are manipulated into ignoring that our privacy has all but disappeared.” (Rolling Stone) 2014 marks Korn’s 20th anniversary as a recording artist. I want to go to the party!…Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach and his bandmates have launched a campaign to raise money for Leach’s aunt, who is battling bile duct cancer and needs funding for her treatments. Bassist Mike D’Antonio has designed a new T-shirt, with all proceeds going to the medical fund for Leach’s aunt. Pre-orders for the shirt are being taken at http://bit.ly/1fMKQGu …Don’t mess with Queens Of The Stone Age during their show. That’s the takeaway from an incident that occurred on Tuesday night (Feb 4th) in St. Petersburg, Florida when an over-enthusiastic fan jumped onstage and tried to make himself part of the show. That didn’t go over too well with frontman Josh Homme, who stopped singing, grabbed the intruder and threw him off the stage. Homme then launched into a two-minute rant against the fan, saying, “I don’t care if you love me. You can stand right there, dude. You’re lucky I didn’t f*** you up.” (Diffuser)…And check out the latest hardDrive Unplugged session with Redlight King. We just posted “Born To Rise” on our YouTube Channel and you can see it on the home page, too!…..Lots of birthdays this weekend! Today: Happy 46th to Sully Erna of Godsmack, Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland is 39, Ashton Kutcher is 36, Chris Rock is 49, Robert Smigel (Triumph the Comic Dog) is 54 and James “The Blacklist” Spader is 54. On Saturday: David “Phoenix” Farrell of Linkin Park is 37, Vince Neil is 53, Seth Green is 40 and Nick Nolte is 73. Sunday: Joe Pesci is 71, Rachel Bolan (Skid Row & recorded with Stone Sour) is 48 and Pearl Jam’s namesake, Mookie Wilson, former Mets center fielder, is 62.
