Bolan writes on Facebook, “To all the haters, trolls and keyboard-banging dipsh–s – if you don’t like me or Skid Row, stay off the f–king page. I’m sure there’s something more constructive you can do with your time, like Pornhub or something. There you can satisfy yourself without being face to face with someone. That’s what you do best, right?”
Harnell has expressed a similar sentiment, posting, “If you don’t like the videos or other career stuff I post then don’t comment on my page. Go to some other page with people like you and hate on me or whoever. At least I’m out there working and doing my best!”
After the lineup change had been exclusively revealed on Eddie’s Sirius/XM show, Eddie Trunk Live, Bolan admitted that the band had already started working with Harnell before dismissing Solinger.
He said, “At certain times you just get the feeling someone isn’t putting 100% into things. And Skid Row is very important to the rest of us. And we wanted to carry on with quality performances and quality songs, so we decided to make a change.”
Harnell will appear on the third EP in the band’s United World Rebellion series later this year, and hopes to make a full-length album in 2016.
With the title and release date just announced for Slayer’s Repentless, due out September 11th (Nuclear Blast), today the thrash icons announce their heaviest release ever – literally – Repentless, Metal Eagle Edition. Made of aluminum alloy, measuring 15″ X 17″ X 3″ and weighing in at a hefty seven pounds, the Metal Eagle Edition will house a deluxe digipak of the new Repentless CD plus exclusive bonus content to be detailed soon. The limited (only 3000 copies worldwide) and numbered Metal Eagle Edition will be a direct-to-consumer item and available exclusively via the Nuclear Blast mail-order online stores. Pre-orders are available now, so log onto nblast.de/SlayerRepentlessEagle for purchasing info.
The highly-anticipated Repentless is Slayer’s 11th studio album, the first since 2009’s critically-acclaimed, Grammy-nominated World Painted Blood and the first with producer Terry Date (Pantera, Slipknot, Soundgarden). The band – Tom Araya/bass, vocals, Kerry King/guitar, Paul Bostaph/drums, and Exodus/Slayer touring guitarist Gary Holt, who recorded lead guitar parts for about a half-dozen of the album’s new tracks – started recording Repentless in March 2014, and made the track Implode available as a free download in April of that year. The band continued to record between September 2014 and mid-January 2015 at Henson Studios in Los Angeles. For the album, Implode was completely re-recorded from the ground up, and When The Stillness Comes, used as an instrumental track in a Scion commercial, got a revamped intro and all new vocals.
Repentless also includes Piano Wire, an unfinished song from the World Painted Blood sessions written by Hanneman. About the track, Rolling Stone wrote that it “…begins with an eerie guitar line before evolving into a full-on-doom (and classic Slayer) riff onslaught…” King put it this way, “When I hear it, I think ‘Jeff.’ It sounds like a Jeff Hanneman song.”
The 12-track Repentless is, according to those who have heard it, a sonic assault of brutal, ominous, lightening-fast and heavy-as-hell music with lyrics that unmask what Slayer knows best – the terror, the corruption and the societal turmoil that dominates our world.
“The new album sounds like Slayer,” said Araya. “In the past, our fans have always known what to expect, this time they don’t. But we really like it, and I don’t think the fans are going to be disappointed.”
As is expected from Slayer, the band will support the release of Repentless with extensive touring across the globe, beginning this summer when the band headlines the Mayhem Festival. That tour begins June 26th at Sleep Train Amphitheater in San Diego, CA. The complete tour schedule is posted below. To watch a video teaser for Repentless, please click here.
June:
13 Bonnaroo, Manchester, TN
16 Paramount, Huntington, Long Island NY
17 Paramount, Huntington, Long Island NY
19 State Theatre, Portland, ME
20 Amnesia Rock, Montebello, Montreal
(Mayhem headline dates):
26 Sleep Train Amphitheatre, San Diego, CA
27 San Manual Amphitheatre, San Bernardino, CA
28 Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA
30 White River Amphitheatre, Seattle, WA
July:
1 Idaho Center Amphitheatre, Boise, ID
3 Ak-Chin Amphitheatre, Phoenix, AZ
4 Isleta Amphitheatre, Albuquerque, NM
5 Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Denver, CO
7 Harrah’s Council Bluffs, Council Bluffs, IA
8 Eagles Ballroom, Milwaukee, WI
10 Kilpsch Amphitheatre, Indianapolis, IN
11 DTE Energy Amphitheatre, Detroit, MI
12 First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, Chicago, IL
15 Molson Canadian Amphitheatre, Toronto, ON CANADA
17 Susquehanna Bank Arts Center, Camden, NJ
18 First Niagara Pavilion, Pittsburgh, PA
19 Xfinity Theatre, Hartford, CT
21 PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ
22 Meadowbrook (Bank of NH Pavilion), Gilford, NH
24 Jiffy Lube Live, Bristow, VA
25 Xfinity Center, Boston, MA
26 Nikon at Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY
29 Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood, Atlanta, GA
31 Whitewater Amphitheatre, San Antonio, TX
Former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar has laughed off David Lee Roth’s claim that performing songs from the Red Rocker’s era would present a credibility issue.
Original frontman Roth was recently asked whether he’d ever sing tracks originally delivered by Hagar. He replied, “Good, bad or in the middle, you know Roth means it – the other guy doesn’t. That’s why it sold half as well. Why would you bring that into the proceedings?”
Now Hagar, speaking on his radio show, has fired back by saying, “The boys are out on tour – happily doing well, I hope, but they’re not playing any Van Hagar songs. My buddy Diamond said it was something about a quality issue. I laughed. I’m cracking up. Sometimes the guy says the wackiest things.”
He continued, “But there’s a lot of truth in that, a quality issue. You think about that. Think about them with Diamond, singing this next song – it would definitely be a quality issue.”
He then plays a live version of Van Halen’s Right Now, delivered by Hagar’s current band The Circle.
Van Halen recently released their first live album with Roth, without any studio edits, which drew criticism from Hagar. They’ll begin a US tour in July.
Slayer’s split with producer Rick Rubin came after his label offered an “insulting” deal for their 11th album, says guitarist Kerry King.
Repentless, out through Nuclear Blast on September 11th, is their first without Rubin since 1985’s Hell Awaits.
Singer Tom Araya says that, despite the perception that the band made the split, it was the producer who cut the connection with his label American Records.
Slayer previously said the switch took place because the band wanted to foster a more direct connection with fans.
But King tells The Metal Hammer Magazine Show’s Alexander Milas, “Solidarity is far stronger than jumping ship and going somewhere else. I thought we’d still be on American – but when we got the offer from American, I was insulted. That to me just said, ‘Good luck, you’re not gonna have good luck here anymore.’ So we found our new friends at Nuclear Blast. I think this is gonna be a nice little progression going forward.”
Araya adds that Slayer didn’t end the 28-year relationship with Rubin. “It was more like he broke the news to us,” the frontman says. “When we started this record it was on the pretext that we’d be working with Rick – but things didn’t pan out. We’ve sort of moved on.”
Repentless is also the band’s first album without late guitarist Jeff Hanneman – and Araya admits some followers have resisted the idea of continuing without the co-founder. “The fans are pretty ruthless, man, and with social media it’s bad,” he says. “People have opinions. Some are positive, and a lot of them are pretty fucking negative. It’s hard to believe – especially considering these people are fans of the band.”
But he adds: “Nothing that I or Kerry say will change what some of these people think or feel.”
As previously reported, Trixter with release their new album Human Era on June 5th in Europe and June 9th in North America. The band is streaming a song entitled, Midnight In Your Eyes from the album, listen to it below.
To learn more about Human Era, get Trixter tour dates and to listen to the album’s opening song Rockin’ to the Edge of the Night, please name.
Former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach has described bass player Rachel Bolan as “the band’s Bill Ward.”
Bach – who was fired by Skid Row in 1996 – says Bolan is the only member of the band who has a problem with him. Comparing the situation to the one that exists between Black Sabbath’s estranged drummer Ward and frontman Ozzy Osbourne, Bach hints that jealousy could be at the heart of Bolan’s dislike of him.
He tells Metal Injection, “I’ve talked to all of those guys except the bass player, and he is the one that has it in for me. Some of these musicians like to use this term “lead singer’s disease,” and I think that’s a way of dealing with the extra attention that the frontman gets. And it’s not just Skid Row — it’s Aerosmith, Van Halen, KISS and Black Sabbath. I guess Rachel is, like, the Bill Ward of Skid Row. I think that’s really what it is. Because I haven’t given that guy any reason to dislike me in 19 years.”
Skid Row eventually replaced Bach with singer Johnny Solinger, who was himself replaced by former TNT frontman Tony Harnell this year.
Meanwhile, former Skid Row drummer Rob Affuso says he has tried many times to get Bach and Bolan back on terms and to reunite the classic lineup of which he was also a part.
Affuso tells the Jim Chinnici Radio Show, “I have tried, unsuccessfully, three times, to get it back together, to try to get Rachel and Sebastian in a room and talk. And, inevitably, either Sebastian would say something stupid two weeks prior and then piss Rachel off or whatever. I don’t wanna say ‘stupid’, but he’d say something to piss Rachel off. And then Rachel would be, like, ‘Well, fuck you.’ And that happened, like, literally three times. And the one time I thought it was about to happen, and it just fell apart. I don’t see it happening, I really don’t. I’ve tried.”
, today the thrash icons announce their heaviest release ever - literally - Repentless, ... )
