Following the posting of their first single, Left For Dead, Operation Mindcrime is now streaming, The Fight, from their forthcoming new album, Resurrection, out September 23rd. Listen to the song below.
1. Ressurrection
2. When All Falls Away
3. A Moment In Time
4. Through the Noize
5. Left For Dead
6. Miles Away
7. Healing My Wounds
8. The Fight
9. Taking On The World (Feature Tim Ripper Owens and Blaze Bayley)
10. Invincible
11. A Smear Campaign
12. Which Side Your On
13. Into The Hands Of The World
14. Live From My Machine
Musicians Featured On Resurrection include:
– Geoff Tate – Vocals, Keyboards, Saxophone
– Kelly Gray – Guitars, Bass, Vocals
– Scott Moughton – Guitars, Keyboards
– Randy Gane – Keyboards
– David Ellefson – Bass
– John Moyer – Bass
– Simon Wright – Drums
– Scott Mercado – Drums
– Brian Tichy – Drums
– Tim “Ripper” Owens – Vocals
– Blaze Bayley – Vocals
– Mark Daily – Vocals
– Nick Greatrex – Guitars
Twisted Sister’s high-decibel anthems, raucous shows and memorable videos took the hard-rocking quintet from playing bars in the Seventies to headlining festivals in the Eighties. The band, which has sold more than 10 million records worldwide, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer with one final tour.
To honor this hairy, scary and legendary band’s legacy, Rhino will release a 19-song collection that spotlights Twisted Sister’s best, including the group’s biggest hits – I Wanna Rock and We’re Not Gonna Take It. In addition, the compilation will feature the band’s previously unreleased cover of Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild. Twisted Sister: Best Of The Atlantic Years will be available on August 28th on CD ($18.98) and digitally.
In 1982, after years of honing their craft in New York-area clubs, Twisted Sister released their debut album, Under The Blade. Produced by UFO bassist Pete Way, this hard-hitting rock ‘n’ roll manifesto exploded with riffs and street-tough attitude on What You Don’t Know (Sure Don’t Hurt You), I’ll Never Grow Up Now! and Sin After Sin.
The core lineup – singer Dee Snider, guitarists Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda, bassist Mark Mendoza and drummer A.J. Perro – returned a year later with the group’s Atlantic Records debut, You Can’t Stop Rock N’ Roll, which became the band’s first gold record. This new collection highlights three songs from the album: I Am (I’m Me), The Kids Are Back, along with the title track.
Stay Hungry was Twisted Sister’s third and best-selling album. Released in 1984 and produced by Tom Werman (Ted Nugent, Cheap Trick), the album went multi-platinum in the USA, with sales of more than three million. The album is well represented on Best Of The Atlantic Years with six songs: I Wanna Rock, The Price, SMF, The Beast, Burn In Hell and We’re Not Gonna Take It.
The second half of the compilation focuses on the band’s last two releases on Atlantic Records: the gold-certified Come Out & Play (1985) and Love Is For Suckers (1987). Among the highlights are: You Want What We Got, a cover of the Shangri-La’s Leader Of The Pack, Hot Love and Love Is For Suckers.
TWISTED SISTER: BEST OF THE ATLANTIC YEARS
CD Track Listing:
1. What You Don’t Know (Sure Can Hurt You)
2. I’ll Never Grow Up, Now!
3. Sin After Sin
4. You Can’t Stop Rock N’ Roll
5. I Am (I’m Me)
6. The Kids Are Back
7. I Wanna Rock
8. We’re Not Gonna Take It
9. The Price
10. S.M.F.
11. The Beast
12. Burn In Hell
13. Come Out And Play
14. Leader Of The Pack
15. The Fire Still Burns
16. You Want What We Got
17. Hot Love
18. Love Is For Suckers
19. Born To Be Wild – Previously Unreleased
Glenn Hughes says his upcoming solo album is the “heaviest” he’s ever made.
The singer and bassist will this week embark on his first-ever North American solo tour after he was forced to push back the planned March dates following his dual knee replacement surgeries in January.
But while he’s been planning those shows, he’s also been working on the follow-up to his 2008 album First Underground Nuclear Kitchen – and he says fans can expect some “aggression” when the record launches in November via Frontiers Records.
He tells Billboard, “It’s possibly the heaviest record I’ve ever made. I don’t want to confuse it with horns-up heavy – it’s not metal. But it’s definitely f–king heavy. It’s dense. It’s dark. There’s some aggression on this record. Every bloody track is begging to be played live.”
For his upcoming live dates, Hughes will be joined by guitarist Soren Andersen and drummer Pontus Engborg and he plans to play music from throughout his career, including tracks by Trapeze, Deep Purple, Hughes/Thrall and Black Country Communion.
And Hughes says even though they’re going out on the road as a trio, there are no limits to what they can play live.
He adds, “If you have the right players, you can do anything. We’ll do 12 or 13 songs, and there’ll be some interplay. I’m a jammer – you won’t see the drummer wearing headphones or hear any instruments accompanying us on tape.
I jam, and I enforce that in all my songs. It’ll be slightly different each time we play. It’s been like that from Trapeze up until this moment, so I’m not going to change now.”
Hughes plans to record Black Country Communion’s fourth album with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Jason Bonham and keyboardist Derek Sherinian, which they aim to release next year. And he says the resurrected outfit will also perform live at some point – though he’s unsure whether they’ll tour extensively.
Hughes continues, “Black Country will be playing, but what I can’t say is how many shows, and where. I would think that’ll happen next summer. We all know Joe books a year ahead, and he’s been doing it for 30 bloody years.
I’m doing it on my own now, and I’m in love with playing on my own and going about my own business with my own band and own team. So I totally get what Joe’s doing. But we’ve spoken about doing the record and then we spoke about doing shows, and I would think we’d do some shows even if it’s not any kind of big tour.”
Further release details for the Black Country Communion album and Hughes’ solo record will be revealed in due course.
Glenn Hughes tour dates 2016
Aug 09: Annapolis Rams Head On Stage, MD
Aug 10: New York BB King Blues CLub & Grill, NY
Aug 12: Salisbury Beach State Reservation, MA
Aug 13: Shirley Bull Run Restaurant, MA
Aug 15: Buffalo Iron Works, NY
Aug 16: Syracuse Lost Horizon, NY
Aug 18: Sellersville Theater, PA
Aug 19: Albany Rascals, NY
Aug 21: Westland Token Lounge, MI
Aug 22: Battle Creek Music Factory, MI
Aug 24: Whitesburg Appalshop, KY
Aug 25: Chicago Reggies, IL
Aug 27: Chicago Reggies, IL
Aug 30: San Jose Ritz, CA
Aug 31: San Diego Brick By Brick, CA
Sep 02: Las Vegas Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill, NV
Sep 03: West Hollywood Whisky A Go Go, CA
From September 14th through the 25th, Hughes will be performing in South America and then headed to the UK for some dates in November.
Sully Erna–founder, vocalist, guitarist and songwriter for the multi-platinum rock band Godsmack, will release a new solo album, Hometown Life, on September 30th through BMG. Composed by Sully on piano and acoustic guitar and produced in his New Hampshire studio, Hometown Life offers a departure from the tribal, world music feel and experimentation on 2010’s Avalon; the new album’s 10 songs are more accessible, sonically and musically precise.
Listen to the new song and title track Hometown Life below.
“When I do a solo album, I write for myself,” says Sully. “It’s not for critics, radio or even fans. I like to explore different kinds of music that work together. A good song is a good song. I stopped categorizing a long time ago.”
A personal, confessional, raw work which takes yet another stylistic left-hand turn from the music he has created as front man for the multi-platinum rock band Godsmack, Hometown Life offers a wide-ranging glimpse of Erna’s eclectic musical tastes–from the singer-songwriter Billy Joel/Bruce Springsteen narratives of the title track and the bossa nova touch of Take All of Me, to the breezy island feel of Your Own Drum, the finger-snapping Motown bass lines of the bluesy Turn It Up, the country flavors of Different Kind of Tears and the wide-screen canvas of mini-symphonies Blue Skies and Forever My Infinity. All of them are tied together with Sully’s unflinching view of the emotional roller-coaster of his life, drawing us into an intimate space. Hometown Life explores Sully’s diverse musical touchstones from James Bay, new country favorites like Chris Stapleton and Brantley Gilbert to soul legends Ray Charles, Etta James and Amy Winehouse.
For Hometown Life, SULLY worked with the same musicians from Avalon with the exception of percussionist Niall Gregory. On two of the songs–Different Kind of Tears and Your Own Drum–Sully collaborated with Nashville-based tunesmith Zac Malloy, who has also written for Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Jake Owen, Skillet and Daughtry. “It was cool to see the same exact players sound completely different on this album,” SULLY says. “It just goes to show their musicianship and versatility. They can really pull off anything I ask of them.”
With Sully on piano, acoustic guitar and the stray bongo, Hometown Life was also a family affair, with his 71-year-old father Salvatore–who helped nurture his son’s own musical interest early on–playing trumpet on Turn It Up. It’s a song Erna describes as a tribute to the power of music, a blueprint for how a song “makes you get off your seat, tap your feet, feel the energy and let it pass through you.”
“It was a proud moment,” says Sully, who also channeled his great-uncle, a famed composer from Sicily, in several of the songs which feature symphonic strings, like Blue Skies, Forever My Infinity, Father of Time and Falling to Black.
Hometown Life allows an inside glimpse at Sully’s vulnerability on a personal level, and he attributes much of his honesty and inspiration for this album to the love of his life, Sarah. “We’ve definitely gone through some complicated times and fought for what we have. And I’m really grateful to have her in my life. We have a very special and unique kind of relationship that most people can only dream of having. And I wouldn’t put that second to anything! These songs are about exposing my inner thoughts, laying myself bare, being honest and expressing genuine emotions… about dark times and positive ones.” Some songs offer fatherly advice, like the percussion-heavy Your Own Drum, an admonition to his teenage daughter to follow her own muse and not be afraid to be different, or trying to deal with life’s hurried pace, as in the rhythmic tick-tock of Father of Time. On the soaring Blue Skies, Sully reaches out to his loved ones and asks them to acknowledge the man and father he has become from the immature boy he once was.
As for how his solo career fits in with his “other band,” Sully is circumspect. “Godsmack is a very energetic, aggressive, powerhouse rock band. It’s for those moments when you want to scream and stomp your feet. My solo stuff is a lot more vulnerable, the grown-up version of who I am and how I process. It’s about finding acceptance for the things that don’t go right in your life, being appreciative for all the memories, good or bad. Sometimes these experiences can be very painful, but I do get some beautiful songs out of it. I’m just happy to be blessed with a gift that enables me to channel this stuff and vent it through my music.”
Hometown Life does just that, revealing sides of Sully Erna only hinted at in Godsmack, “That’s the whole point,” he explains. “The people who have followed me and can appreciate it, I encourage them to explore. All my albums–including the ones with Godsmack–are like musical journals, diaries of what I’ve gone through in my life at the time. I’d love to reach a whole new audience with this. Music has helped me get through some tough times. That’s when I write, when something affects me emotionally, happy or sad.”
“For all those things we’ve ever done/Give us our chance to prove our love,” sings Sully on the album’s closing track Falling to Black.” He describes it as “a beautifully sad song,” which offers a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. The same could be said of Hometown Life. As Sully himself puts it in Your Own Drum, “There’s no shadows/If you don’t have light.”
Track listing for Hometown Life:
1. Hometown Life
2. Your Own Drum
3. Different Kind Of Tears
4. Take All Of Me
5. Don’t Comfort Me
6. Turn It Up!
7. Blue Skies
8. Forever My Infinity
9. Father Of Time
10. Falling To Black
Jason Newsted has announced a series of dates with The Chophouse Band, kicking off Friday September 2nd in Crystal Bay, Nevada.
The Chophouse Band began in 1992 when six-time Grammy-Award winning, RnR Hall of Fame bassist, Jason Newsted founded The Chophouse Studio and record label in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Following the success of Metallica’s 1991 Black Album, The Chophouse Studio was conceived by Newsted to assemble friends and comrades from other established bands to have a special place to enjoy and play pure music for music’s sake during breaks and downtime, from rigorous touring schedules and agendas.
Now, after 25 years of playing host to a diverse array of talent from varying genres, The Chophouse Band is finally sharing the musical flavors that have been cooking in these exclusive sessions and personal projects, serving up recipes of purity and authenticity, blending styles, encoring creativity and testing musical boundaries.
The roster of The Chophouse Band numbers in the dozens from coast to coast, and every show will feature select and surprise guests, with artists such as Chris Barnett, Guillermo Gonzales, Mike Hughes, Tom Jordan, Brian Kehoe, Joe Ledesma, David Lopez, Jesus Mendez, Mike Ramos, Brian Sagrafena, Angeline Saris, Chris Scianni, Amir Tal, Rob Tucker and many others.
Jason Newsted and The Chophouse Band Tour Dates:
Sept 2 Crystal Bay, NV @ Crystal Bay Club / Crown Room
Sept 7 Santa Cruz, CA @ Moe’s Alley
Sept 8 Mill Valley, CA @ Sweetwater Music Hall
Sept 10 Napa, CA @ Silo’s
Sept 17 Sebastopol, CA @ HopMonk Tavern
As previously reported, Testament will release their 11th album Brotherhood Of The Snake on October 28th through Nuclear Blast records.
The band have released the artwork for the cover, which can be viewed below.
Guitarist Eric Peterson told Metal Maniac Video Magazine that the new album is “very diverse, epic – there’s nothing on there that breathes commercial and I think for 30 years of recording music and trying different formulas, I think we’ve found a formula that is very metal.”
Earlier this year, Testament frontman Chuck Billy said the Brotherhood Of The Snake was inspired by the connection between religion and aliens.
