GODSMACK Drummer Says Singer's Voice Is 'Back To Normal'
According to The Pulse Of Radio, GODSMACK drummer Shannon Larkingave Loudwire an update on the condition of frontman Sully Erna, whose strained vocal cords forced the band to cancel most of its European tour earlier this summer. Asked how Erna's voice was doing, Larkin replied, "He's doing fine and he only needed two weeks until they said that his voice would be completely back to normal and that was three weeks ago. We did a couple fly-in shows last week, just two shows, and he sang great, and everyone was really excited and ready for this tour."
Explaining what happened on the European trek, Larkin continued, "The problem was, at this point we're not spring chickens anymore. The problem was he would have tried to sing the rest of the tour. We were afraid, and he was afraid that it could permanently damage his vocal cords to where his voice would change or he wouldn't be able to hit notes that he hit before. That was probably the biggest bummer of the decade I've been in this band for all four of us to have to come home from a tour."
GODSMACK will hit the road later this month as part of the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival. They will share the bill with SHINEDOWN,STAIND, PAPA ROACH and others. The jaunt gets underway on August 17 in Kansas.
GODSMACK will also be one of the headliners on the ShipRocked 2012 cruise this year, taking off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida in late November for five days. Larkin said that GODSMACK will perform two completely different shows on the cruise, but has not decided what each one will be.
The drummer added that Erna needed some convincing to do the cruise, explaining, "Yeah, he kept saying, 'I'm not a boat guy.' I said, 'I'm not a boat guy either' . . . We convinced him basically by saying look man, we had a fantastic time, we've already been there and done that, and there wasn't any kind of weirdness on the seas. On those boats it doesn't even feel like you're moving, it's like you're on land, so there's no seasickness or anything like that."
DISTURBED Frontman Working On Autobiography
DISTURBED frontman David Draiman has revealed via Twitter that he has written the first three chapters of his forthcoming autobiography. According to the singer, the book's release will coincide with the arrival of the debut album from DEVICE, his new industrial-style collaboration with former FILTER guitarist Geno Lenardo.
In January 2011, Draiman gave a lengthy interview to the Jerusalem Post in which he spoke in detail about his Jewish upbringing, spending part of his childhood and teen years in Israel, and how he confronts anti-Semitism among rock fans. Draiman recalled, "I came (to Israel) many times as a kid with my family. I think the first time I was six. I used to come here for summer camp a couple times in my childhood, and I spent the year after high school here studying at Neve Zion yeshiva."
Draiman told The Pulse Of Radio that during his year of religious study, his life could have taken a very different course. "The level of study that I was at, I was probably only about two or three years away from being ordained as a rabbi, so I really needed to figure out in my head where I wanted to go with things," he said. "And I just couldn't do it habitually anymore. I grew a very strong dislike for the organized aspect of religion over the course of time."
Draiman also told the Jerusalem Post that he attended five different Jewish day schools as a teenager, including the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study in Milwaukee — where he was asked to leave after the first year.
The singer admitted that the strict religious code at the school led him to rebel, revealing, "I'd set my friends up on dates with girls that I knew, in defiance of the school . . . Or I'd smoke a little bit of weed here and there, I'd get my buddies high, so I was the drug dealer on campus even though that's not what I was doing."
Asked by the Post about running into heavy metal fans who are anti-Semitic or sometimes even neo-Nazis, Draiman replied, "I'm incredibly defiant against neo-Nazis and skinheads," adding that he convinced one fan who used to come to the band's early shows in Chicago to get a swastika tattoo removed from his head after he learned that Draiman was Jewish.
A song called "Never Again" on DISTURBED's latest album, "Asylum", deals with the Holocaust and calls out people who deny it.
DISTURBED went on an open-ended hiatus last fall, with Draiman saying at the time that all four members wanted some time to pursue other endeavors. "We've got other things that each of the band members wanted to pursue individually, outside of DISTURBED," he said. "There's other businesses we have, there's other interests. We've got futures hopefully to help cultivate for our families and our children, and they can't all revolve specifically around DISTURBED."
DISTURBED has not indicated when it plans to return, although all four members say they're likely to come back.
Aside from Draiman, DISTURBED bassist John Moyer has branched out recently by joining ADRENALINE MOB, a new group also featuring ex-DREAM THEATER and AVENGED SEVENFOLD drummer Mike Portnoy.
STAIND: 'Live From Mohegan Sun' DVD Preview Clip
The first official live CD from STAIND, "Live From Mohegan Sun", was made available by Eagle Rock Entertainment on July 10, and will be followed by the DVD and Blu-ray release on August 14. This concert was recorded and filmed in high definition at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Montville, Connecticut on November 25, 2011.
Raw, uncompromising, loud, and totally, energetically exciting, STAINDpulls out all the stops in this sixteen-song set. Singer/guitarist Aaron Lewis, lead guitarist Mike Mushok and bassist Johnny April pummel through a career-spanning set that includes "It's Been Awhile", "Not Again", "Eyes Wide Open", "Right Here" and "So Far Away". DrummerSal Giancarelli gives a swift kick and a solid boost (replacing original drummer Jon Wysocki who left the band in May 2011).
"Live From Mohegan Sun" track listing:
01. Eyes Wide Open
02. Falling
03. Right Here
04. Throw It All Away
05. Spleen
06. Fade
07. Failing
08. So Far Away
09. Crawl
10. For You
11. Paper Wings
12. Outside
13. Not Again
14. It's Been Awhile
15. Mudshovel
16. Something To Remind You
The "Something To Remind You" performance from "Live From Mohegan Sun" can be seen below.
STAIND plans to go on hiatus after completing the touring cycle for its self-titled seventh album, according to Billboard.com. But Lewis says that the band is not breaking up, telling The Pulse Of Radio that it's just time for a breather. "We've got this next tour and we might do something next year and then, you know, we're going to take a little break for a second," he said. "We're not breaking up. We're not gonna stop making music. We're just going to take a little hiatus that really hasn't ever been taken in our career."
STAIND will co-headline this summer's Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival tour, which begins on August 17 in Bonner Springs, Kansas.
Source: Blabbermouth.net
Foo Fighters, Black Keys & Band of Horses to Perform at Global Festival in NYC’s Central Park
Foo Fighters, The Black Keys and Band of Horses are a few of the artists donating their time to perform at the Global Festival, a concert event to raise money and awareness about global poverty. The performance will take place in Central Park in New York City on September 29. The event is scheduled to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly Meeting, where international leaders will discuss policies to reduce worldwide poverty by 2015.
"We are very proud to be lending a hand to such a creative, important event and are looking forward to adding to the noise in the big park and helping the effort toward reducing the global shame of deep poverty," said the Foo Fighters in a joint statement.
Fifty-four thousand tickets will be given away by lottery, but you’ll have to perform a number of charitable deeds or donate money to enter the drawing for your ticket. Visit GlobalFestival.com for more information.
Green Day Previews New Songs at "Secret Show" in Los Angeles
Fans who attended Green Day’s “secret show” at the Echoplex in Echo Park, CA, on Monday night got their first listen to new music from the band’s upcoming trilogy, ¡Uno!,¡Dos! and ¡Tré!
During their set, the band performed several new tracks including “Nuclear Family,” “Kill the DJ” and “Wild One.” Fan-filmed footage of some of the performances can be seen on YouTube.
While ¡Uno!, is set to arrive in stores on September 25, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! are slated for release on November 13, 2012 and January 15, 2013, respectively.
Serj Tankian Talks System of a Down Tour, Says Band Is “Tighter Than Ever”
Last week, System of a Down kicked off their two-week string of North American dates with Deftones. Frontman Serj Tankian says that touring with SOAD is a welcome break from working on his many solo projects.
“I call it summer vacation because there’s so much going on with my other work and then you come to the System camp and it’s like relaxing,” Tankian tells ABC News Radio. “We just have shows to play, hang out, make jokes. We barely do soundchecks and we just go in and play awesome and we’re tighter than ever and the audience is happy and so it’s been really fun.”
Tankian added that fans need to see the band now while they can because he’s unsure if they will be scheduling any tour dates next year. “As far as touring, we get offers here and there,” explains the singer. “We haven’t really looked at next year as of now; so I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with System of a Down next year, but if we get offers we’ll look at them.”
The singer also noted that at the moment, he has no plans to record a new album with SOAD anytime soon. “We haven’t really talked about doing anything new with System, we’ve just been enjoying the no pressure, have fun kind of touring that we’ve been doing together and everyone’s working on their stuff,” reveals Tankian. “I know [guitarist]Daron [Malakian]’s got another [Scars on Broadway] record that he’s gonna put out and so in time I think we’ll get to [a new SOAD album] but for now I think we’re just doing our own thing.”
Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez Says The Afterman Is “The Origin and Tale of Cyrus Amory”
Coheed and Cambria fans will get their hands on the next chapter of The Amory Warsstory when the band releases their double-CD sixth studio album, The Afterman, in October. Frontman Claudio Sanchez says that upcoming release will tell an important part of their continuing sci-fi saga.
"It's still in the Amory Wars mythos,” Sanchez tells Rolling Stone. “Basically, as a broad stroke, it's the origin and tale of Cyrus Amory, the namesake of the mythology."
Sanchez added that the album’s first single will be “Domino: The Destitute." "'Domino' is a scene in the story where the Afterman explores the energy source, the Keywork," reveals the singer. "In the Keywork, he finds out it's not comprised of these kinds of elements -- it's actually almost an afterlife. And your energy in life echoes in death. So, if you're a horrible human being in life, your energy as part of the Keywork is horrible."
The album’s first installment, titled The Afterman: Ascension, will be available on October 9, while the second album, The Afterman: Descension, is slated for release in February 2013.
Five Finger Death Punch Hopes to Start Recording New Album in January
Five Finger Death Punch has been steadily working on new material for their fourth studio album. Guitarist Jason Hook says that he hopes that the band will start recording the forthcoming release in about five months.
“[We’re] probably going to be working on new material all the way up until the new year, and then we'll start tracking in mid-January," Hook tells Billboard.com.
While Hook reveals that the band has about “six to eight songs worked up” for the new album, he notes that the band usually likes to write a lot of material before they head into the studio. “If you come in unprepared you get what you get, but if you do a decent amount of preparation, then at least you have options," explains Hook. "If we need 10 killer songs, I'd rather have 30 songs to pick from than have eight and need two desperately at the end. I don't want to make records in a panic."
