Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington have announced they’ll be hitting the road with their new line up. The tour begins September 4th in Bethlehem, PA, with several North America dates to follow. Platinum rock band Filter will be supporting the shows.
Pre-sale for VIP packages that include collectible merchandise and a meet & greet with the band are on sale tomorrow, July 16th at 10:00am. For further info and to purchase VIP packages, go to http://bit.ly/STPVIP General admission tickets will go on sale Friday July 19th at www.stonetemplepilots.com/tour-dates/
STP members Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz made their live debut with Chester Bennington at KROQ’s Weenie Roast in May. Since their surprise performance, the band has been busy working on new music for an upcoming EP to be released this fall.
In an effort to take control of the way they will be delivering new music in the future, STP will release the upcoming EP via their own label, with distribution through ADA (Alternative Distribution Alliance).
“We’re very ambitious about the future of making music,” said Robert DeLeo. “The process and intention of creating it is so much more gratifying.”
The debut single from the new STP lineup, Out of Time is currently Top 5 at Active Rock radio and climbing fast.
“We’ve been writing new material and visiting songs from our early albums,” says Robert. “ It all feels new again and we’re excited to get out and play a solid set of songs both old and new.”
STP with Chester Bennington (and Filter opening)
Sept 4 Bethlehem, PA @ Sands Bethlehem Events Center Sept 6 Sayreville @ Starland Ballroom Sept 7 Atlantic City, NJ @ House of Blues Sept 9 Boston, MA @ House of Blues Sept 10 Huntington, NY @ Paramount Sept 13 Oklahoma City, OK @ Downtown Airpark (w/ Motley Crue) Sept 14 Newkirk, OK @ First Council Casino* Sept 17 Sunrise, FL @ BB & T Center (FLA Panthers Event) Sept 18 Orlando, FL @ House of Blues Sept 20 Columbia, SC @ Township Auditorium Sept 21 Ft Myers, FL Shockwave Festival – Jet Blue Park Sept 24 Midland, TX @ La Hacienda Event Center Sept 26 Tempe, AZ @ Marquee Sept 27 Las Vegas, NV @ Freemont Street Experience*
Nov 1 Biloxi, MS @ Hard Rock Live* * Filter will not be appearing on this show
According to Jay Smith of Pollstar, when it comes to the Top 50 Worldwide Tours, Bon Jovi was the top earner.
Bon Jovi grossed $142.1 million. With an average ticket price of $95.60, the band played 60 shows in 58 cities, sold a total 1,486,726 tickets and achieved an average gross of $2,450,476 per show.
Another New Jersey act captured second place. With an average ticket price of $107.19, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band’s total tickets sold was 969,504 for 31 shows in 21 cities. The group’s average show gross was $4,948,700 for a total gross of $103.9 million.
A total gross of $87.7 million was enough to put The Rolling Stones in the No. 3 position on Pollstar’s Top 100 Worldwide Tours chart while the same figures enabled the band to capture the top slot on our Top 100 North American tours. Sporting a heart-stopping average ticket price of $346.09, the original bad boys of rock played 18 shows in 11 cities, grossed an average of $7,969,276 per show and sold 253,296 tickets overall.
Taylor Swift followed the Stones in North America, capturing the No. 2 position with a $58.5 million total gross. Ms. Swift earned her money by doing 37 shows in 27 cities, averaging $85.11 per ticket and $2,164,879 per show.
Fleetwood Mac appearing in the third position on Pollstar’s mid-year North American Tours reminds us that the band’s absence from the concert stage only fueled fans’ desires to hear those classic songs performed live one more time. Scoring a total gross of $58.1 million during the first six months of the year, the band played 42 shows in 42 cities with an average ticket price of $107.80, resulting in an average per-show gross of $1,383,333.
But the above figures, while fun to show & tell, merely offer a peak at the concert industry’s past six months. What you really need to do is feast your eyes on all the data contained within Pollstar’s Top 100 Worldwide and North American Tour charts.
Justin Tedaldi of the Examiner spoke with guitarist/vocalist Richie Kotzen. Portions of the interview appear below.
Examiner: Last year you were supposed to play a solo show at the Iridium in New York, but it was cancelled because of a health problem. Is everything okay now?
Kotzen: Yeah. Since then I’ve done three tours, so I’ve been good on that, but you know, I’m still very cautious and aware of what happened there—it’s kind of like a perfect storm. It was a real weird thing; I quit smoking, I stopped drinking, and I started rehearsing for that tour, which was a European tour, and then like you said, I planned on coming back to the East Coast….I started drinking coffee like a maniac, and somehow I didn’t really know this until [later], but I developed an acid reflux issue from the coffee…
I went on the tour, and the agency—they had booked against my wishes, but they booked me anyway—at one point in the tour seven shows in a row, and that really did me in….I couldn’t sing at all, and for the next show, I took my daughter to that show and she sang half the set for me because I just couldn’t sing. And I went to the doctor and he told me that I hemorrhaged my vocal cord. And he said, “If you try to sing now, you will ruin your voice.” So I cancelled the East Coast, and then about a month later I went back and he said, “Your vocal cord is fine, but you’re showing signs of acid reflux.” And so that’s a whole other issue, but it was a real odd series of events. And I went back to smoking and I started drinking again, and I did another tour for a month in Europe, and my voice was better than it had been in years. At this point, I don’t know what the hell to think [laughs].
Examiner: Are all the songs on the new Winery Dogs album co-writes between the band members?
Kotzen: Technically, no. But we decided to make this an equal band, so anytime a song comes into the band, we share equally in the song. But there’s maybe four or five songs that I had written previously that I had brought in that became Winery Dogs songs. I was fine with that arrangement, because I haven’t been in very many bands; I’ve always done my solo thing, but when I was in bands, I had the strength of being in Poison. The one thing I liked about them is that the record that I did with Poison [1993’s Native Tongue], the majority of the music was written by me and Bret Michaels. However, we shared everything equally, and that really helped the morale of the band, especially out on the road.
In Mr. Big they didn’t do that, and on the second record I made with Mr. Big [2001’s Actual Size], that started to become an issue. It created tension, and from the beginning of this band, I knew—because I’m a singer and I’m the guitar player—that in the end I would end up carrying a lot of the weight…I’m going to hear melodies as a singer and I’m going to want to write the words and sing; it’s only natural and normal. I knew from my experience with two different bands that work in opposite ways that this would truly be better for what we’re doing. And then also in the end, there’s a song on the record that Mike Portnoy wrote lyrics to and I sang on as well. Everybody contributed to it.
Examiner: Did any of the ideas Billy and Mike had from their aborted collaboration with John Sykes make the record?
Kotzen: No. It wouldn’t have been possible for them to have some, because there never really was a collaboration with John from what I understand. What was explained to me was that they had the concept of recording together, and they actually did go to his studio, and what they ended up doing was playing on his songs that were already written, and they never really played together; he never really picked up a guitar and hashed out riffs. It would have been impossible for any of those ideas to have cross-pollinated.
Examiner: Your good friend Eddie Trunk, the host of That Metal Show, always rants that it’s mind-blowing how you’re virtually unknown in this country, at least as a household name musician. What do you think it is about the rest of the world that “gets” you?
Well, I don’t know. I really appreciate all the accolades, but it’s hard for me to comment on that, you know? Because the reality is—here’s an interesting bit of trivia. Recently our press person, they wanted us to go into our Facebook and do analytics. I think I have maybe 70,000 likes on my page, or whatever it is. It’s not a lot in terms of popular musicians, but it is what it is. So in the breakdown, the number one territory that had the most likes was Brazil. What do you think number two was?
Examiner: Japan?
Kotzen: The United States. And Brazil beat the United States by 300 likes. I don’t know how to stop that. I think that what happens is, it relates to touring, which is consistent across the board for a lot of acts. In other words, the United States, I can play B.B. King’s; I’ve played B.B. King’s before, and we had a respectful number of people in there for someone of my level, but there’s not a lot of places like that where you can draw numbers, and so if you tour in Europe, it’s small, the distance between the countries, and they’re still really pumped up to go to rock shows.
So if I can put 600 people in B.B. King’s, that’s cool, but also if I go to Rome I can put four to five hundred people in a room….I think what the reality is, is that I’m not mainstream in the United States but I’m not mainstream anywhere. It’s just that when I tour, I tend to tour in a foreign territory because the people there are more inclined to go to the show; there’s more shows for me to do. Now, Brazil is a different story and I don’t know why. My girlfriend lives in São Paulo when she’s not here, and she’s always calling and saying, “Oh, they’re playing your sing on the radio!” [Brazil], for some reason, has become my largest market. But I was surprised to see on the analytics that the United States was number two. And Japan was way down the list—Italy was number three. So you never really know who’s listening, but it comes down to where the likes are at; where do you get all this play? So that’s how you book a show.
Examiner: What was it like working with Gene Simmons on his 2004 solo record?
Kotzen: That was f—in’ great. I love Gene. He’s just one of the coolest people I think I’ve ever met. He’s funny, insightful, and just a great, great person. I got to meet his kids, who were great, and I’ve been to his house a couple of times. I just jammed with him recently [in L.A.] for [the] Wounded Warrior [Project]; he did a thing and I played a couple of songs—I didn’t know what the f— I was playing, so I hope I didn’t piss anyone off—which was very fun. He’s a great person; I love Gene.
Examiner: Did he pick you for that album?
Kozten: I don’t remember how that happened. Somehow I had that studio, he was looking for a studio, and somebody knew him. I had met him in the past, but I don’t remember how he came to my studio. But he came there with a DA-88 cassette tape, and nobody uses that format anymore, and he wanted to listen to stuff. I was panicked…so I had to go rent one for him, and I got that, and we hit it off, you know. We worked in my studio and then he asked me to do some stuff for him and play on some things, and it was fun. He’s a great guy.
Hookers & Blow, the band led by Guns N’ Roses keyboardist Dizzy Reed has announced a string of July dates including a Hollywood launch party for their new clothing line at the legendary Whisky A Go Go on Wednesday, July 24th.
Also performing will be A.L.I.V.E.! — An all-star tribute to 70s era KISS, featuring Rex Brown (Pantera, Kill Devil Hill), Ron Bumblefoot” Thal (Guns N’ Roses), Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Foriegner) and Mark Zavon (Kill Devil Hill).
Hookers & Blow recently completed a four show residency at The Whisky with guest musicians that included members of Marilyn Manson, The Cult, Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P., Ignite, Ace Frehley and more.
The band is currently solidifying a fall Hollywood residency which will be will announced in the coming weeks.
Hookers & Blow July Shows:
18 – Columbus, OH – The Shrunken Head 19 – Akron, OH – The Rock Factory 20 – Philadelphia, PA – THE Blockley 24 – Hollywood, CA – The Whisky A Go Go **Clothing Line Launch Party/Rex Brown of Pantera’s Birthday Bash**
Philip Anselmo has put together a series of, well, intimidating but humorous video clips in anticipation of his Technicians of Distortion tour that begins on July 31st. The clips instruct fans as to what Anselmo expects of them at the shows. So far, two have been made available, and you can see them below:
Philip’s first-ever solo album, the “loud and chaotic, brutal and beautiful to hear all at once” Walk Through Exits Only, is released this Tuesday, and you can stream the entire album NOW at RevolverMag.
With one more date to be announced, Anselmo’s Technicians of Distortion tour dates are as follows:
July: 31 Cain’s Ballroom, Tulsa, OK
August:
2 Wooly’s, Des Moines, IA 3 First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 4 House of Blues, Chicago, IL 6 House of Blues, Cleveland, OH 7 The Intersection, Grand Rapids, MI 9 Royal Oak Music Theatre, Royal Oak, MI 10 Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, ONT Canada 11 Heavy MTL Festival, Montreal, QC Canada 13 The Palladium, Worcester, MA 14 Upstate Concert Hall, Clifton Park, NY 16 Best Buy Theatre, New York, NY 17 Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA 18 The Fillmore, Silver Spring, MD 20 The Masquerade – Heaven Stage, Atlanta, GA
Alice Cooper tells Billboard he’s “three-quarters of the way through” a covers album that will focus on what he calls “the time period of the Hollywood vampires,” the hard-partying crew of the early- and mid-70s that included the likes of John Lennon, the Who’s Keith Moon, Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr and “honorary” guests such as T. Rex’s Marc Bolan and Keith Allison of Paul Revere & the Raiders. The set will also include Sunset Strip forebears such as the Doors’ Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Bob Ezrin, who produced several of Cooper’s 70s best-sellers as well as 2011’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare, is working on the set.
“We’re really happy, all of us, everyone involved in the covers because it’s pretty much what we wanted to do,” Cooper says. “We specified a certain time period and said, ‘Let’s stay within that. Let’s not move it around too much.’ We don’t want to be doing cover songs from the 80s and 90s when the Hollywood vampires kind of thing was more ’73, ’74, ’75.”
“We have September off, so we’ll probably take that time and just finish it,” Cooper notes. “I think we could finish the whole thing in September and it’ll be out, I would say, by early spring.”
Cooper, meanwhile, is still buzzing about [his tour] dates with [Marilyn] Manson, which he says were “great. Y’know, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know him personally. I’d heard nothing but horror stories. Johnny Depp is one of his best friends; Johnny said he can be a handful, but I think Johnny talked to him and kind of backed him off a little bit. But (Manson) was nothing but respectful, a total pro. Honestly, it was a real flawless tour. I think we made converts of his audience, and there was an older audience that came that was suspect of him but liked him. So both of us benefited from this tour — the elder myth and the new myth. It really did work, and I’m sure we’ll do it again.”
Stone Temple Pilots with Chester Bennington have announced they’ll be hitting the road with their new line up. The tour begins September 4th in Bethlehem, PA, with several North America dates to follow. Platinum rock band Filter will be supporting the shows.
