DAVID DRAIMAN Says 'Vilify' Is 'The Perfect Song To Bridge People From DISTURBED Into DEVICE'
Trystan MacDonald of Lithium Magazine recently conducted an interview with DISTURBED/DEVICE frontman David Draiman. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
On how supportive DISTURBED fans have been in helping him launchDEVICE:
"I think I've always been able to count on the fans for support… I've never questioned that for a minute. Truth be told, if the proof wasn't in the pudding, it wouldn't happen. To a certain extent, I have their trust, and I cherish that, but eventually the music is going to have to live up to the hype."
On DEVICE's first single, "Vilify", which was released to the public on February 19:
"It's one of the biggest songs on the record [and] it has a stylistic bridge, if you will. I figure 'Vilify' is the perfect song to bridge people from DISTURBED into DEVICE. There is the familiarity of my melodic vocal delivery and there is the electronic element which is much more prevalent in DEVICE."
On how much creative control he had over the "Vilify" video:
"I stay away from that completely. Pretty much, ever since the 'Prayer'video, I never really get too involved in that too much. I got burnt pretty hard when MTV decided to ban the video I co-directed. Ever since then, I think, 'That way it's not my fault, it's somebody else's fault. I didn't write it!' [laughs] I'm still involved as an artist, but I'm not the guy who comes up with the ideas anymore. For DEVICE, in the future I may do it, but forDISTURBED, I don't want to do it."
Read the entire interview from Lithium Magazine.
"Inside Device":
"Vilify" video:
ROB ZOMBIE Says 'Venomous Rat' CD 'Was Conceived As A Concept Album'
"Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor", the eagerly awaited new album from ROB ZOMBIE, will be released on April 23 on Zodiac Swan/T-Boy/Ume. The CD was produced by Bob Marlette, who has previously worked with everyone from BLACK SABBATH and ALICE COOPER toWILSON PHILLIPS and LYNYRD SKYNYRD.
Asked what the story is behing the album's title, Rob told Revolvermagazine: "There's no real story behind it. I just thought of it one day. With every album I've ever made, we'll get it basically one hundred percent done and everyone will go, 'OK, what's the title?' And I'm like, 'I don't know what the fuckin' title is yet. It hasn't hit me.' And then one day I'll just blurt out, 'La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1!' or 'Hellbilly Deluxe!' It's the same with this one. I have it written down somewhere, but I don't remember doing it."
He added: "Truthfully, the whole record was conceived as a concept album. But I'm not really selling it that way. I was getting obsessed watching things like 'Tommy', 'The Wall', 'Quadrophenia', where you have a movie to go with the album and it's a whole big concept. So I thought I'd write this album with that in mind: That maybe one day — it could be a year, it could be 10 years — I could turn the concept of this record into a movie. That being said, nothing about the concept of the record will make any sense to anyone until it's a movie. The band doesn't even know the storyline. No one does, except me. But I won't discuss it because it'll all make sense someday. Or it won't. [laughs] lt doesn't matter. The songs work fine even if you don't know the concept."
Regarding his decision to include a a heavy-duty cover of GRAND FUNK RAILROAD's "We're An American Band" on "Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor", Rob said: "I've never recorded a cover song as a solo artist, and I only recorded a few with WHITE ZOMBIE [KISS' 'God Of Thunder', BLACK SABBATH's 'Children Of The Grave' and KC AND THE SUNSHINE BAND's 'I'm Your Boogie Man']. But you always wanna add new songs into your live show, so [Zombie's guitarist] John 5 and I would always sit in the back of the bus listening to stuff we could cover, but it was always like, 'Nah, that one's not right.' Cover songs are tricky. You gotta find just the right one. 'We're An American Band' hit us because it just felt so much like our life. We're a quintessential American band — everything that's right or wrong in Americana in one band. It wasn't like we were trying to say anything deep or meaningful. [laughs] It was just like, 'Yeah, we're in a rock band. Fuck you — it's awesome.'"
"Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor" track listing:
01. Teenage Nosferatu Pussy
02. Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Supertown
03. Revelation Revolution
04. Theme For The Rat Vendor
05. Gong Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga
06. Rock And Roll (In A Black Hole)
07. Behold! The Pretty Filthy Creatures
08. White Trash Freaks
09. We're An American Band (GRAND FUNK RAILROAD cover)
10. Lucifer Rising
11. The Girl Who Loved The Monsters
12. Trade In Your Guns For A Coffin
Zombie told The Pulse Of Radio what goals he set for himself in making the new album. "I wanted someone to hear it and go, 'Wow, I haven't heard that before,'" he said. "I wanted it to be just different. We really went out of our way with the sounds, so every song has a very different sound, a very different guitar sound, drum sound, just everything, where the sound, the actual sound becomes very important. You know, after all these years you want to still try to feel that you can break through new, creative areas in your own mind, and that's really what we're just trying to do, you know."
STONE SOUR: 'House Of Gold & Bones - Part 2' Track-By-Track Breakdown From COREY TAYLOR
A track-by-track breakdown of "House Of Gold & Bones - Part 2", the second part of STONE SOUR's two-album series, "House of Gold & Bones", by the band's lead singer, Corey Taylor can be seen below (courtesy of Australia's Music Feeds).
"House Of Gold & Bones - Part 2" will be released on April 9 viaRoadrunner Records. The albums were recorded at Sound Farm Studiosjust outside of the band's native Des Moines, Iowa with producer David Bottrill (TOOL, MUSE) at the helm.
"House Of Gold & Bones - Part 2" track listing:
01. Red City
02. Black John
03. Sadist
04. Peckinpah
05. Stalemate
06. Gravesend
07. '82
08. The Uncanny Valley
09. Blue Smoke
10. Do Me A Favor
11. The Conflagration
12. The House Of Gold & Bones
"Do Me A Favor", was made available digitally on February 12. Taylorgave The Pulse Of Radio a preview of what to expect from the song. "It's quite aggressive, and actually the label asked me if I would go in and tame stuff down and I was like, 'No.' I'm not doing that," he said. "This is going out the way it is and I'm not gonna touch it up. I'm not gonna have people looking for a song that doesn't exist. This is the way it is on the album, that's the way it's going to be when we put it out to radio."
When asked by ThisIsNotAScene what fans can expect from the second part of "House Of Gold & Bones", Taylor said: "Part 2 is much darker [than the first part], if I'm honest. Aside from it being a completely different album, it feels more like a soundtrack to a movie in a lot of ways, man. It's really thematic. There are themes from part 1 that reveal themselves and that come again, musically. There's actually stuff from part 2 that you'll hear that's on part 1 and you'll be like, 'Fucking hell!'"
He continued: "We essentially recorded these, and this is where technology is now, so you could have these in a playlist on your iTunesand play them top to fucking bottom and really get that experience while you read both parts. So it's some of our darkest music, our most intricate and complex music, some of the best fucking lyrics I've ever written, to be honest. Even writing from a narrative like that, it was so challenging. Plus, it's got some of our best songs on it."
The "Do Me A Favor" video was directed by Phil Mucci, whose clip forHIGH ON FIRE's "Fertile Green" was named best video of 2012 byRevolver.
"House Of Gold & Bones - Part 1" came out last fall.
Music is just one of the mediums used to tell the "House of Gold & Bones" story, and Taylor recently revealed details of the new project with Dark Horse Comics of the same name, which follows, and expands on, the story contained within the albums. With stunning covers fromJason Shawn Alexander (Empty Zone, Batman, Abe Sapien), this four-issue limited series marks Taylor's debut in the comics genre. The first issue of the series will be out on April 17.
Taylor recently told Billboard.com recently that the group is planning a world tour in 2014 during which they will spend two nights in each city and perform both halves of its "House Of Gold & Bones" double album in their entirety.
BUCKCHERRY Frontman: 'We Wanna Write Songs That Are Unforgettable'
Niclas Müller-Hansen of Sweden's Metalshrine recently conducted an interview with vocalist Josh Todd of Californian rockers BUCKCHERRY. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Metalshrine: What made you write about the seven deadly sins?
Josh Todd: Because it's timeless, and I've struggled with moderation my whole life, along with other things. I think everybody has things, and I think everybody struggles with addiction at some point in their lives and they have to moderate. It's difficult, because if something feels good, you just wanna keep doing it.
Metalshrine: Being in the business that you are, it must be much more difficult doing things in moderation since you come across a lot of this all the time.
Josh Todd: Yeah, but when you're on the other side of it… I've been sober for 18 years and when you see people doing stuff, it's not attractive, you know. You see things from a different perspective and it's not very attractive, so it's not that hard.
Metalshrine: Looking back on the first album back in '99, how would you compare the band today to the band back then? Besides being older and wiser and so on.
Josh Todd: Well, it's been a different lineup, but this lineup is the one we always wanted. We've been together now for eight years and we've done over a thousand shows and we still get along really great. It was just a different band for those first two records.
Metalshrine: Being on the road and you spend a lot of time together, is it hard staying good friends or does it just come easy? You see each other all the time. Is there a lot of friction?
Josh Todd: Nah, there's no friction. I mean, you do get tired being around each other and that's just normal. The key is that when something bothers us, we just talk it out and that's what we do. We get right to the point when it happens. If you have problems and they itch for too long, they become bigger than they originally were when they started and that's when you start not getting along. We just address things when they come up and we have a good time.
Metalshrine: You've done a lot of videos. Is it still fun and is there a need for videos these days?
Josh Todd: Yeah, it's another marketing tool, but it's not like it used to be, of course. There's not a forum for it, but you can't control the market anymore because there's the worldwide web. There's no MTV and you don't have to wait for a record, you just get on the Internet and get it. They have access to their artist from their rooms. It's just a much different world than it used to be, so you just have to roll with that and deal with it accordingly. We always concentrate on making records.
Metalshrine: When you sit down to write songs for an album, is there ever the thought of writing a song that could make it onto radio or don't you think about that at all?
Josh Todd: Well, yeah, we wanna write songs that are unforgettable and I think a hit song is unforgettable and that's why it becomes a hit. Everybody likes it and it resonates with them and they remember it and wanna hear it again. When you hear a BUCKCHERRY record, we always have big hooks and that's something we're always into, so if it doesn't move us, it doesn't go on the record.
Metalshrine: You became a father when you were 23. Did that in any way stand in your way of doing what you were doing? Did you sacrifice family in any way?
Josh Todd: I sacrificed a lot. It motivated me, because at that time in my life, I was in a bad place. I had a massive alcohol and drug problem at the time. I had no money, so my first child, my daughter, was a turning point for me in getting my life together. I didn't want her to see me fucked up, like I experienced when I was a kid so that was a big motivating factor. All it did was make me get better as an artist. I always tell her that, that she was the turning point.
Read the entire interview from Metalshrine.
Source: Blabbermouth.net
Soundgarden to Release King Animal Demos for Record Store Day
Soundgarden will be releasing something special for this year’s Record Store Day initiative.
On April 20, the band will drop a limited-edition 10” pink vinyl album that features six demos recorded during the sessions from their first album in over 15 years, King Animal. In addition, the record comes with a free download card so you can enjoy the tracks on your digital devices.
Each Record Store Day, a wide variety of artists release limited-edition album reissues, new singles and rare and unreleased materials -- all on vinyl -- to support independent record stores.
Godsmack’s Sully Erna to Make Acting Debut in Feature Film, Army of the Damned
Sully Erna is getting ready to make his silver-screen debut. According to Blabbermouth.net, the Godsmack frontman has scored a role in an upcoming feature-length horror film, Army of the Damned.
The film’s plot revolves around “a group of local cops in a sleepy town” who are being filmed for a reality TV show. Erna is slated to play one of several police officers in the flick that has to fight for his life after the group responds to a dangerous domestic disturbance call.
A release date for the film has yet to be announced.
