Blabbermouth reports that singer Michael Starr (real name Ralph Saenz; ex-L.A. Guns) of parody band Steel Panther tells The Tennessean that, despite the band’s cult band status, “now, with where we’re at with 25 employees, trucks and buses, there’s a lot riding on what comes out on our CDs. Plus, we’re getting a lot of pressure to write clean stuff from people surrounding our camp, so they can make money off of what we’re doing,” he adds. “They’re like, ‘Look, we need a serious record from Steel Panther.’ From day one, we said, ‘No. We’re not doing that.’ ”
Starr explained the band’s attitude in a 2012 interview with Billboard.”We just have fun. We’ve always had fun. We’re guys that obviously are just comedic all the way to the core. We just decided, ‘Hey, let’s have fun and not take ourselves seriously.”
He continued, “And you know what, dude? I’m glad that we did it this way, because now I’m happy. This is who I am, y’know? We have the [different] names but we’re not putting on, like, an act. I don’t have to act like some other dude. I get to be myself and people dig it. Even people that laugh at us are still fans, which is really cool.”
Having wrapped a highly successful run as main support for Judas Priest in North America last month, Steel Panther is currently on a North American headlining run, which began in Charlotte, North Carolina. Following the North American headlining dates, the band will be play a series of “Threesomes,” two three-night residencies, one in their hometown of Los Angeles and the other in nearby Las Vegas, at the cities’ respective House Of Blues venues in February.
Steel Panther’s third album, All You Can Eat, sold around 13,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 24 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores on April 1 via Open E/KLS.
Read more at http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/steel-panther-has-no-interest-in-making-serious-album/#7mLRF2qdiYby8IES.99
Black Star Riders has releases a lyric video for the song, The Killer Instinct, from their forthcoming album of the same title, due in February. Listen to the song below.
To read more about this release, please click here.
Monday, December 15, 2014 — Anthrax, along with producer Jay Ruston, is currently in a Los Angeles studio recording the follow up to their 2011 Grammy-nominated, critically-acclaimed album, Worship Music.
The band – Charlie Benante/drums, Frank Bello/bass, Joey Belladonna/vocals, Scott Ian/guitars and Jon Donais/guitars – has been writing and demo’ing new songs over the past few months and plans to record well into January. The as yet untitled album, the band’s eleventh full studio collection, is set for a 2015 release (Megaforce Records).
This video clip below was filmed the first day of recording.
As previously reported, iconic bassist Bob Daisely (Ozzy Osbourne, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Gary Moore, Uriah Heep) had written an open letter, via his Facebook page, to Classic Rock stating that an award presented to Ozzy Osbourne for his record Blizzard of Ozz disrespected former band members Randy Rhoads, Lee Kerslake and Daisley, himself, by not properly acknowledging their contributions to the album.
Daisley shares his current correspondence with Classic Rock below.
“To Classic Rock’s ‘editor’, Mrs. Llewellyn: In response to your recent article, why didn’t you have the courtesy and honesty to include my reply to Classic Rock? Here it is again:
Classic Rock: Thanks for your response, I had no desire to ‘cross swords’ with anyone, I just needed to vent my frustration and disapproval of how things were handled. I understand that not all members of bands receive an award each for an album, and thanks for giving specific examples. I also understand that budgets don’t allow for people to be flown around the globe to attend award ceremonies. Yes, I saw that Ozzy mentioned Randy, which he often does, but if an award was made for Randy as well, why wasn’t it presented publicly and ceremoniously to the Rhoads family members? The award, which was in fact in bubble wrap, was given to Kelle and Kathy on their way out, it was Kelle who put it in a paper bag. Kelle told me that the way that they were slipped the award was, in his own words, ‘like a drug deal’. As you must be aware, Lee Kerslake and I have been repeatedly omitted from acknowledgement and recognition for our considerable part in the ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ album, so when Ozzy is filmed being honoured and acknowledged, Randy’s award is given ‘on the sly’, and Kerslake and I are ‘left out’ yet again, perhaps you can understand the frustration and added insult to injury that it causes. Maybe it would’ve been a nice gesture to mention the four band members this time, instead of just two, and stretch to giving all four band members an award, instead of just two. Thanks, Bob Daisley.
No, I’m not ‘irate’, as CR put it, I was, however, astounded at the lack of respect shown in regard to 3/4 of the band The Blizzard of Ozz. Yes, it was a month after the CR awards that I made my first statement, no one at CR had the courtesy to inform me that the album that I co-wrote, played on and co-produced had even been given an award; I found out from Kelle Rhoads, Randy’s brother, who wasn’t too impressed with the way that they were ‘presented’ with Randy’s award, which is obvious in your photo of them – empty tables and people clearing up while a woman looks on with her hand on her hip; every picture tells a story, don’t it?
So it was Ozzy who invited the Rhoads family to the ceremony? If CR had an award made for Randy, why wasn’t it CR that invited them? No, ‘Bob didn’t have a go at the Osbournes’, as CR stated, with your ‘what Bob does best’ remark, I was ‘having a go’ at the way that the ceremony was handled by Classic Rock, I even added, ‘I don’t begrudge Ozzy receiving his award’. What is it that CR ‘does best’?…
You selectively chose statements from my fans that were anti-Sharon, instead of any of the hundreds of supportive comments that didn’t even mention her, and then you posted my ‘thank you’ to fans instead of my response to CR. How manipulative and deceitful, that sort of sensationalist ‘journalism’ is devoid of anything to do with the album that was being awarded. You chose to attack me rather than acknowledge my response to CR and deal with the issue, and many of the fans didn’t like that. Blizzard of Ozz fans are passionate about the music and musicians on both albums, consequently Sharon is not a popular figure amongst them, she made her own reputation, and it has nothing to do with her gender, but everything to do with her actions. I didn’t even mention her.
So Sharon complimented one of your journalists on their T-shirt, well golly gosh, yes, that puts her up there with Gandhi and Mother Theresa, that must’ve been life changing for them.
There was a time when Classic Rock employed good journalists, those who used their knowledge of the history of Rock to write in-depth articles about music and musicians. It now seems that Classic Rock, a once great magazine, is in danger of turning into what would more appropriately be named ‘Classic Crock’. Now go and powder your nose CR, the brown is showing through.
AC/DC just announced the first string of 2015 touring dates, but for now, they all European stops.
These new dates come in support of the band’s latest album, Rock or Bust which debuted in the Top five of the U.S. album charts after its December 2nd release.
AC/DC Rock or Bust World Tour dates:
May:
5: Arnhem, Holland – Gelredome
8: Nuremberg, Germany – Zeppelinfeld
10: Dresden, Germany – Ostragehege
14: Zeltweg, Austria – Red Bull Race Track
16: Hockenheim, Germany – Hockenheimring
19: Munich, Germany – Olympia Stadium
23: Paris, France – Stade de France
29: Barcelona, Spain – Estadio Olympic
31: Madrid, Spain – Estadio Vicente Calderon
1: Dublin, Ireland – Aviva Stadium
4: London, England – Wembley Stadium
9: Imola, Italy – Autodromo
12: Gelsenkirchen, Germany – Veltins Arena
15: Roskilde, Denmark – Roskilde Festival Site
17: Oslo, Norway – Valle Hovin
19: Stockholm, Sweden – Friends Arena
22: Hameenlinna, Finland – Open Air Park
25: Warsaw, Poland – National Stadium
additional source: ultimateclassicrock.com[Ed’s note: Thank you to David S. who insisted I post these dates ;)]
Let’s try something here. Here’s a song called Hot and Ready, by the band UFO. Give it a listen.
If this doesn’t rock your ass off—if you’re thinking, “Ehhh, maybe, I’m not sure”—then go back to nursing your IPA and nodding along to the Mountain Goats or Sam Smith or whoever. I can’t help you. But if you have the correct opinion—if you wonder, “Holy shit, that is an amazing solo, and it’s just the opening riff? Who is that?”—then you have uncovered one of rock ‘n’ roll’s greatest secrets.
In the annals of rock history, tucked way behind your Zeppelins and Floyds, just trailing your Big Stars and Thin Lizzys, but just ahead of your Raspberries and Budgies, there resides a band that only die-hards and full-on music geeks seem to truly appreciate (or even know): UFO.
At the height of their mid-’70s heyday, this hard-living, ass-kicking, spandex-wearing quintet rocked like few have dared to rock, even if few dared to rock alongside them. They boasted a haughty, combative frontman with great pipes; a hedonistic, polka-dot-pants-wearing bass player who made Keith Richards look like Debby Boone; and simply one of the best hard-rock guitarists of all time. They should have ruled the era when the amps were loud, the Camaros fast, the mullets magnificent and unironic. UFO put out five good-to-brilliant studio records that stand toe-to-toe with any of the great albums of that era; then, in 1979, they released their masterpiece, Strangers in the Night, a powerful, punishing live album with the visceral impact of a Jack Lambert clothesline tackle.
“The album is incredible, absolutely incendiary,” says former Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, now a solo artist who records as the Nightwatchman. “It captures a great band at the height of their powers…I don’t weep for UFO, They made some really great records, and their live album is one of the greatest albums of all time. No one can take those points off the board.”
Eddie Trunk, the nationally syndicated DJ and host of VH1’s That Metal Show, concurs “Strangers in the Night is pretty much my favorite album of all time. And by all accounts it really is live, making it even more amazing.”
But these cock-rockers flew too close to the sun. Right now, 35 years after their epochal live record, UFO are getting set to put out a new album (A Conspiracy of Stars, their 22nd studio release) that most likely won’t be downloaded (or even pirated) by the millions (or even the hundred-thousands) when it’s released in March. And yet they soldier on, dutifully playing smaller clubs and mid-day festival slots and the occasional ribfest, with their awesome past unjustly consigned to the dustbin. UFO are your favorite hard-rock band’s favorite hard-rock band, but they command recognition from almost no one else. Which is wrong. Because UFO in their prime were awesome, and the story of how they got there is even … awesomer.
 of parody band Steel Panther tells The Tennessean that, despite the band's cult band status, )
