James Hetfield has confirmed that Metallica have completed recording their 10th album and it’s now in the mixing stage.
Additionally, he believes that fans won’t feel let down after waiting eight years for the follow-up to Death Magnetic.
Speaking earlier this month, Hetfield told NBC Sports, “We’re mixing it now. Hopefully by fall it’ll be out and hitting people’s ears.
He added, “We’re super-stoked about it. It’s been a long time coming. The next album is exactly what it’s supposed to be, so we’re excited about it.”
Lars Ulrich has revealed this week that a planned extended release of Metallica’s 1982 demo No Life ’Til Leather has been delayed as a result of unpredicted legal issues.
additional source: Metal Hammmer via teamrock.com/news
Shelby Hartin of the Bangor Daily News spoke with Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott. Key quotes from the feature article appear below.
On how the band has managed to transcend generations:
“If I knew the answer to that, I would bottle it and sell it. If you catch people at a certain age and don’t mess up, you can keep them forever. Like Bowie had me forever. Mott the Hoople had me forever. Queen, T. Rex — all these bands that I caught when I was 12 or 13. You know, they were my bands. And all you can hope for is that we were the same for the generation down from us and that we were one of the bands that they clinged on to.”
Speaking about the band’s camaraderie:
“The fact that we’ve actually managed to stay together without beating the crap out of each other is miraculous. We’ve had plenty of things put in our way. It gives you perspective. When your first guitarist is kind of sacked, or asked to leave, because he has an enormous drinking problem, your other guitarist eventually dies of [an addiction], and your drummer, in between, loses an arm … those kinds of things that would split lesser bands, or lesser incidents that would split even better bands — we don’t really take them as seriously as most people would, because when you’ve had those obstacles, they kind of pull you together and give you perspective. We’re really fortunate that we’ve been on the same page, pretty much every day since we’ve been together. We’ve wanted to be as positive and uplifting as we can and make music that makes people smile.”
Talking about how the group’s music has endured through the the years:
“With us, it’s like pop rock, and I say that for all the best reasons, because we’re a rock band and we’ve done pop hit singles. At the peak of our power, we were rubbing shoulders with the likes of Janet and Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Celine Dion. We were the sore thumb in the top five. I thought that was fantastic, because we were representing rock in a pop environment. That meant that our music was more accessible than most rock bands and that’s because we were embracing more than rock. Most rock bands just listen to rock music, but we were listening to everything from the Beach Boys to Kate Bush to Tom Waits to R&B and Motown. We grew up just liking songs. I think that’s why we gravitated toward each other. We were never afraid to really like that song by Jackson 5 or by Marvin Gaye. … That’s all part of why we are who we are. We just want to entertain and have fun with it. It’s just where we came from. Our upbringing led us in that direction, and there’s no shame in that. There’s no harm in having a band that entertains. That’s what people want to see.”
Los Angeles’s Rainbow Room Bar & Grill has been a haven for rock’s elite. Located right near some of Hollywood’s most famous concert venues, the Rainbow has been the hang out of Led Zeppelin, Elton John, John Lennon and many more. But there is no rocker more synonymous with the bar than the late Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, who is having the newly renovated patio of the bar named after him.
The patio of the Rainbow Bar and Grill is being renovated and renamed, “Lemmy’s Lounge.” It was his favorite bar to hang out and he could always be spotted there, cigarette in hand with a Jack & Coke, all the way until his death in December of 2015. The focal point of the patio will be his favorite bar stool and a life-size bronze statue worth $20,000 of the late rocker will be erected.
Guitar icon Michael Schenker was recently interviewed on Eddie’s Sirius/XM show, Eddie Trunk Live. Highlights from the discussion appear below as transcribed by blabbermouth.net.
On the recent release of the 50th-anniversary deluxe editions of Scorpions’ classic albums:
“It’s not 50 years. It’s actually 50 years in 2020. I would count when the first Scorpions album was made, not when the first time somebody had an idea, ‘Oh, I’ll make a band called the Scorpions,’ They played the hit parade [with] completely different people in the band; [it had] nothing to do with the Scorpions who recorded the first album. So it’s rubbish to have a Scorpions box 50-year celebration. It’s not 50 years yet. 50 years is in 2020.”
Discussing his strained relationship with his brother, Scorpions guitarist, Rudolf Schenker:
“I’m happy that Rudolf enjoyed his success. I always supported Rudolf’s success. I always said to people, ‘As long as Rudolf is happy…’ He got what he wanted, I got what I wanted, [and] that’s all fine.
Look, you put all the pieces together. [Scorpions] released a 50-year box; it’s not 50 years. Then they tell the people they’re gonna stop playing, and then all of a sudden they make a record [2015’s ‘Return To Forever’]. It’s all bulls–t. They have become numb and dumb, and old and bald. It has nothing to do with music anymore.
You know, Rudolf never knew how to write music. [On] Lonesome Crow, I was the only songwriter; I wrote basically all the music. And Rudolf learned everything from me that I did. I’m seven years younger than him. When I was 23, Rudolf was 30 and they hadn’t even started in America. When he was 33 years old, Blackout became a hit.
“When I left the Scorpions, I went to UFO, and basically the Scorpions copied everything UFO did. If you listen back to the records, you can hear very clearly that always every time we did a record…. They even hired the same art designer. Rudolf completely adopted my image and he is going overboard with it. He wants to distort reality…He’s playing a game — a really stupid game. If you study this whole thing, you will clearly understand what happened.
Why would Rudolf ask me if he can play the black-and-white guitar? And why would he ask me if I would give my songwriting credit of Coast To Coast to him? And then he plays those two songs on every concert for the next 35 years. Figure it out. I was generous enough to give him that, because he’s my brother. But I’m finding out that they fabricated a story on what happened [during] the Lovedrive period, which is a lie.”
He continues:
“He’s a wannabe and a trick master…But, if you are so addicted to success and if you have screwed up in such complicated ways to become a success — if you have to cheat and stuff like that, or fabricate in order to get to where you wanna get — it’s nothing to do with me. I play music; I’m an artist. For me, it’s all about music. Scorpions don’t write their own songs. They have lost it completely. For the last 23 years, they’re cutting out [formerdrummer] Herman [Rarebell]. Herman and Francis [Buchholz, former bassist], they are responsible for [their] ’80s commercial success, the political success that they had with Wind Of Change; Herman and Francis were part of it. They’re cutting them out wherever they can. They don’t make them part of awards — nothing. They are just three greedy people. For the last 23 years, they haven’t done anything that is worth talking about. All they have done is…milking the past…
I’m very disappointed in Rudolf…And so I stay away from him as far as I can, because I don’t know what else he’s got up his sleeve to justify things. He’s a trick master, and he’s a wannabe. And that’s it. He can do whatever he wants. He can enjoy his life on every level that he wants. But I stay away from him. I’m his younger brother. He’s basically bullying me and he’s doing with me whatever he wants.”
Eddie’s interview with Michael Schenker is now up as a podcast, and can be downloaded, here.
Michael Schenker’s Temple Of Rock’s CD, DVD and Blu-ray, On A Mission: Live In Madrid was released on April 27th in Japan, April 29th in Europe, and May 6th in North America through Inakustik.
Led Zeppelin’s rock veterans Jimmy Page and Robert Plant sat solemnly next to their attorneys Tuesday morning as a jury was selected downtown for a federal copyright trial where they are defending their 1971 epic Stairway to Heaven against claims that they lifted a key riff from another band.
The rock icons wore suits and both had their long hair pulled back in ponytails.
The jury was evenly split between men and women and varied considerably in age, with some appearing to be in their 20s and others in their 50s or 60s.
…At issue is whether the British band nicked Stairway’s famous opening passage, which evokes centuries-old Renaissance folk music, from L.A. rock outfit Spirit. The two bands shared some concert billings when Led Zeppelin was in its infancy.
A loss for Led Zeppelin could mean millions of dollars in royalties going to the estate of Spirit guitarist and songwriter Randy Craig Wolfe, aka Randy California, for one of the most recognized and played recordings of the rock era.
It’s the highest-profile infringement case to make it to the courtroom since last year’s suit in which R&B-soul singer Marvin Gaye’s family was awarded $7.4 million by a jury that decided pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ monster hit Blurred Lines had infringed on Gaye’s Got to Give It Up. A judge later reduced the award to $5.3 million.
The common ground between Stairway to Heaven and Taurus largely comes down to a 10-second musical theme that appears 45 seconds into Taurus, an instrumental from the band’s 1968 debut album, which is similar to the opening acoustic guitar pattern on Stairway. That song was released three years before Stairway to Heaven surfaced on Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, commonly referred to as Led Zeppelin IV.
Zeppelin surviving members — Page, Plant and John Paul Jones – and their legal team are expected to argue that the similarity is nothing more than coincidence between musicians working in a field rooted in commonly used and reused musical ideas. Or they may attempt to cite earlier precursors to both songs from the public domain, which could render moot the Wolfe estate’s copyright claim.
Page, Plant and Jones are all included as witnesses in court filings and are expected to testify. The judge has dismissed Jones as a plaintiff.
The case is being closely monitored in the music business because it involves not only one of the most recognizable songs in the rock repertoire, but also one of the most lucrative. In 2008, Conde Nast’s Portfolio estimated that “Stairway to Heaven” had generated $562 million in publishing royalties and record sales since its release.
Led Zeppelin’s lawyers said both bands simply relied on a “centuries-old, common musical element” that is not protected by copyright law. Klausner disagreed, saying he found that “the similarities here transcend this core structure.”
For jurors, it will not be as easy as simply listening to full recordings of the two songs. Because copyright law protects only the composition that a songwriter submits in writing to the country’s copyright office, jurors will hear a stripped-down version of “Taurus” that is likely to make parallels between the two songs less pronounced.
Dunsmuir, the new project featuring Clutch singer Neil Fallon, former Black Sabbath drummer Vinny Appice, Fu Manchu bassist Brad Davis, and The Company Band guitarist Dave Bone are set to release their self-titled debut album July 22nd through Hall Of Records. Presales will begin July 8th and will be released digitally exclusively on iTunes. The LP will have a limited pressing of 1,000 copies and will include a signed lithograph poster of the album cover. The LP will be available exclusively at indiemerch.com/Dunsmuir. The first single at radio will be Our Only Master.
Dunsmuir has released three 7” vinyl singles to date. The fourth and final 7” is slated for release June 15th with a very limited run of only 500 pieces and WILL NOT be re-pressed.
When asked about the album, Appice explains “This album is pure simple heavy ROCK that ROCKS!”
“This record is an intense collaboration of four minds all set on “destroy”. says Bone. “It’s been a few years in the making and now ready to erupt. Raw and in your face, we hope you like it hot!”
“Dunsmuir has given us the opportunity to explore some of our favorite heavy metal influences” adds Davis. “We strove to create something I hope will inspire a lot of head banging all over the world.”
Fallon adds “We turned out some serious metal on this record and it shreds. The concept behind the lyrics is comprised of 10 tales from the survivors of a shipwreck. What had been intended as a scientific expedition, quickly deteriorates into a struggle to survive both the natural and supernatural world.”
Dunsmuir Track Listing:
1. Hung On the Rocks
2. Our Only Master
3. The Bats (Are Hungry Tonight)
4. What Manner of Bliss?
5. Deceiver
6. …And Madness
7. Orb of Empire
8. Church of the Tooth
9. The Gate
10. Crawling Chaos!
Dunsmuir is:
Neil Fallon – Vocals/Guitar
Dave Bone – Guitar
Brad Davis – Bass
Vinny Appice – Drums
