Good morning Radicals! Here’s what’s going on in the world of rock and roll!
Green Day‘s next project won’t be its 13th studio album but a graphic novel. Titled Last Of The American Girls, the pro-feminist story was authored by Green Day members Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool, with illustrations by Frank Caruso.
Named after a single from the trio’s 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown, the graphic novel will arrive October 29th. A product description stated, “Celebrating true rebel girls — girls who push back, girls who use their voice, girls who say no — Last Of The American Girls takes on both the establishment and the upwardly mobile, espousing an infectious spirit that has never been more relevant.”
Green Day has never shied away from political material, but bassist Mike Dirnt acknowledged a while back that not every musician feels the same: “You know, there’s a comfortable zone. Maybe the people aren’t comfortable in their political views. They don’t want it to become a debate every time they have an interview, or turn it into career suicide. But I’ve always been taught that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, just a stupid answer.”
Armstrong told Blunt that the book was originally about his wife, explaining, “Then I started getting into more of my own beliefs — anything from a little book of conspiracies to playing vinyl records or something. It’s sort of about an empowering, sort of subterranean kind of lifestyle, but at the same time there’s a new era coming in with the way we all need to live.”
Green Day kept a low profile for much of last year, although Armstrong hinted to fans on Instagram in December that he was writing new songs. The group’s last LP was 2016’s Revolution Radio.
Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger was asked at the 30th annual SOCAN Awards on Monday night (April 1st) if he ever gets tired of performing hits like “How You Remind Me.” Kroeger replied, “People say all the time, they’re always asking me, ‘Do you get sick of playing the hits?’ . . . I always say, when I play the first note and everybody starts singing along at the top of their lungs, how could you be? No. Not even close. It’s the most wonderful thing.”
Kroeger continued, “I wrote a song that everybody wants to sing along to, and it’s just amazing, and I’m so grateful. I’m grateful to the song, and I speak of it as that — it’s an entity. And it’s done so many wonderful things for me. Not having to eat Kraft Dinner for the rest of my life — unless you choose to, which I often do — is amazing.”
Kroeger recalled a while back when the group realized it had a major smash on its hands with “How You Remind Me”: “Soon as the record company got that weird look in their eye. You know, there’s like these dollar signs in all their eyes, and they were just thinkin’, ‘Sales sales sales.’ No, we never really…I think we, we’re slow learners. I think it was not until it actually really started climbing up the charts, on several different charts, in several different countries, we all sort of went, ‘Hey, I think we can stop flippin’ burgers.”
Kroeger was honored at the SOCAN Awards as the “Most Performed Songwriter.” The Canadian performance rights organization held its annual event at the Sheraton Centre Hotel in Toronto.
Nickelback is continuing to tour in support of its ninth album, Feed The Machine, which was released in June 2017.
The movie in which Metallica frontman James Hetfield makes his dramatic acting debut will premiere on Netflix next month.
Titled Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, the film arrives on the streaming service on May 3rd and tells the true story of notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, played by Zac Efron, and his longtime girlfriend, played by Lily Collins, who at the time had no knowledge of Bundy’s horrific crimes.
Hetfield plays officer Bob Hayward, a no-nonsense Utah highway patrol veteran who was the first law enforcement officer to arrest Bundy in 1975 after pulling the killer over and discovering burglary tools in his car but wisely suspecting much worse. While Hetfield has played himself in other films and television productions, this is his first dramatic role taking on a different character.
The film was directed by Academy Award nominee Joe Berlinger, who co-directed and produced the controversial 2004 documentary Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster, which chronicled Hetfield’s battle with alcoholism and the band’s near-demise as they struggled to make a new album.
Metallica produced its own movie in 2013, Metallica: Through The Never, a hybrid concert film and sci-fi thriller. Hetfield told us at the time how the idea for the movie first came about: “We had wanted to make a 3D movie, and then we had wanted to tour this stage that was a ‘best-of,’ that had all of the greats of all of our other tours, and then they morphed together. It’s like, ‘Well, why not film it before you tour it?’ And then it became this whole other thing: ‘If we’re gonna make a movie, I want it to be this,’ and ‘Why don’t we have a story in there?’ And then we just started to run with it, and it became more unique than we had ever thought.”
Hetfield’s bandmate, drummer Lars Ulrich, has also acted in small roles in a handful of films, while Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo produced a documentary on legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius.
Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil was asked by Rolling Stone to name his favorite albums from the so-called “grunge” music scene that originated in Seattle in the mid-1980s and catapulted acts like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden itself to commercial success and critical acclaim.
Rolling Stone recently compiled its own list of the “50 Greatest Grunge Albums,” with one EP and four LPs from Soundgarden making the cut. The band’s third studio effort, 1991’s Badmotorfinger, was second only to Nirvana‘s Nevermind on the list.
Asked for his thoughts on the “grunge” genre, Thayil said, “I think for a number of years, most of the Seattle bands avoided the term ‘grunge.’ It’s kind of hard to recall what might be considered grunge or what might have been referred to as metal or pop or punk. I think the easy way to define it would probably be: ‘Seattle-area music of a particular community and genre during a particular period of time from the mid-80s to the mid-90s.”
Thayil told us a while back what he missed from those days: “I think I miss that sort of camaraderie that was shared with other bands in the music community. I mean, that kind of started disappearing when all the bands started getting bigger and hitting the road. Of course, it is easier now with email and cell phones, but sometime in the ’90s that really changed and I kind of miss that sense of community that we had in Seattle back then with a dozen or so bands.”
Here are Kim Thayil’s favorite “grunge” albums:
Nirvana — Bleach (1989)
Green River — Dry As A Bone (1987)
Melvins — Gluey Porch Treatments (1987)
U-Men — U-Men EP (1984)
Malfunkshun — various tracks
Skin Yard — Hallowed Ground (1988)
Mudhoney — Superfuzz Bigmuff (1988)
Tad — God’s Balls (1989)
Screaming Trees — Clairvoyance (1986)
Alice In Chains — Facelift (1990)
Pearl Jam — Ten (1991)
The Cult will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its classic 1989 album Sonic Temple on June 15th at the Greek Theater with a bill that is based loosely on singer Ian Astbury‘s pre-Lollapalooza1990 “A Gathering Of The Tribes” festival. The band will be joined by support acts Prayers, Zola Jesus and Vowws.
Tickets for the show go on sale Friday (April 5th) at 10:00 a.m. PT. As with other shows on their May and June 2019 tour encompassing the U.S., U.K. and Canada, the British group will perform a show that’s focused on the core songs from Sonic Temple, some of which have not been performed since the album was originally released.
Sonic Temple, an LP that brought together alternative and hard rock audiences, will be reissued in a 30th anniversary edition by Beggars Banquet Records later this year. The disc features the singles “Fire Woman,” “Edie (Ciao Baby),” “Sweet Soul Sister” and “Sun King.”
The Cult is still led by Ian Astbury on lead vocals and Billy Duffy on lead guitar. The band’s last album, Hidden City, came out in 2016.
Finally, we want to wish a Happy Birthday to Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach, Social Distortion guitarist Mike Ness and Greta Van Fleet bassist Sam Kiszka! Have a wonderful day!
