Happy Friday Radicals! Lots of great music news today, chief among all is the release of the new Slipknot album! YES! Let’s dive in…
Slipknot releases its sixth studio album and first in five years, We Are Not Your Kind, on Friday (August 9th). Singer Corey Taylor told us a while back that he remembered when LP releases were “events”: “It used to be albums were something you looked forward to. You counted down those days. And now kids can just hit a button and it’s like, ‘I have it.’ You know, there’s nothing special about it anymore.”
While 2014’s .5: The Gray Chapter introduced an entirely new rhythm section to the band, We Are Not Your Kind features the arrival of just one new member — an unnamed percussionist who replaced Chris Fehn earlier this year.
Guitarist Jim Root told Rock Sound that he is “surprised” fans haven’t been able to figure out the identity of the band’s newest member, who fans have nicknamed “Tortilla Man.” Root remarked, “I’ve met this guy before, I know who he is, but he’s really kind of elusive, even around our camp. I’ve had some people tell me, ‘Don’t tell us who he is. We’re having fun trying to figure it out!’ So I’m gonna keep my mouth shut about all of that and see what happens. Eventually someday someone’s going to figure it out.”
Slipknot’s other percussionist, founding member Shawn “Clown” Crahan, refused to reveal the identity of the band’s mysterious new ninth member in an interview with Kerrang! magazine, saying it was “nobody’s f**king business.”
Chris Fehn sued the band in March, claiming he hadn’t been properly compensated for his years of touring and recording with the group. Fehn, a member since 1998, was officially dismissed from the band earlier this year.
Slipknot’s “Knotfest Roadshow” North American headlining tour kicked off late last month. The band plays the Iowa State Fair in its hometown of Des Moines, Iowa on Saturday night, August 10th.
Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix spoke candidly about his struggle to get sober and the issues that drove him to alcoholism in a recent radio interview. Speaking on Philadelphia’s WMMR-FM, Shaddix revealed that he’s now seven-and-a-half years sober, but that came after years of repeated relapses.
He explained, “I grew up and didn’t know how to deal with my emotions and my feelings of the dark experience that happened to me as a child and the brokenness that I carried from that . . . Trauma affects people in a lot of different ways, and you’ve gotta find a way to deal with it. I’m still unpackaging all this stuff from my youth and coming to peace with it.”
Shaddix said that his family was homeless when he was just an infant, and that his father, a Vietnam veteran, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. He remarked, “The trauma doesn’t end on the battlefield; people carry that trauma home. Soldiers got families, and you see how it affects the family and the kids.”
The singer spoke with us a while back about the way war impacted his family: “It just sucks ’cause, like, you know, war affects the world in so many different ways. My father’s a Vietnam veteran and, you know, it pretty much just f**ked my family up ’cause my father, you know — hand-to-hand combat, killing men, women, and children and all that s**t does something to you. And that pretty much directly, like, affected me ’cause it destroyed my family.”
Shaddix said that nowadays he encourages fans and others to speak up about their issues and seek help, adding, “I guarantee there’s somebody around you that wants to help you . . . do not be silent about your struggle.”
Papa Roach is spending the summer touring with Asking Alexandria and Bad Wolves in support of its latest album, Who Do You Trust?
I Prevail currently has the Number Three track at rock radio with “Breaking Down,” but the band has just been awarded a platinum certification for another song entirely.
The Michigan act has just been handed a platinum award for sales of its cover of Taylor Swift‘s “Blank Space,” which came out in 2014 and appeared on I Prevail’s debut EP, Hearts And Minds, as well as the Punk Goes Pop Vol. 6 compilation album.
The group initially released the song and video on YouTube in late 2014, where it went viral and eventually crossed over to rock radio. The song reached Number Nine on the rock radio chart.
I Prevail vocalist Brian Burkheiser told us that the band wouldn’t rule out another left-field cover like “Blank Space” if the right one came along: “The beautiful thing about the Taylor Swift cover was, you know, I think the lyrics and the whole vibe of the song really just worked to be transferred. So if a cover ever does come along in the future, you know, we’re not gonna say we’ll never do another cover, but right now I think we’re just really honed in on kind of the original music.”
Back in 2017, Burkheiser addressed the mixed response to the success they have found with the track. He said at the time, “Never once said the cover didn’t help launch us into success, but so many f**king bands have had covers blow up and then fallen off. If we had covered 20 songs, I could understand being labeled a ‘cover band,’ but we have one cover and 20 original songs.”
One of those original songs, “Breaking Down,” is currently Number Three. The track is taken from the band’s latest album, Trauma.
Bring Me The Horizon will team up this fall with Sleeping With Sirens and Poppy for the “Threesome Tour.” The trek gets underway on October 10th in Phoenix and concludes on October 29th in Miami. You can see the full list of dates on the Road Rage page.
Bring Me The Horizon is touring in support of the critically acclaimed Amo album, which features the singles “Medicine” and the Top Five rock radio hit “Mantra.”
Singer Oli Sykes said recently that the British band is already playing with ideas for its next album, even though it just released its last full-length LP, Amo, in January. He explained, “I think we spent a long time on Amo — like nearly over a year. The one vibe that is floating around is, ‘Let’s never do that again, it was too long.’ . . . We’ve started to think about writing and when we want to, and basically never having to get back to the studio and write for six months.”
Finally, join me in wishing Pop Evil frontman Leigh Kakaty a Happy Birthday! Have a great day and a lovely weekend!
