The punk trio Green Day is the 48th act to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, joining acts such as Nirvana, R.E.M. and the Clash as first-ballot honorees. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Bill Withers, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and Lou Reed will join them in the class of 2015 being inducted April 18 at Cleveland’s Public Hall.
In addition, Ringo Starr will be honored with the Award for Musical Excellence and the “5” Royales will receive the Early Influence Award.
The Smiths, Nine Inch Nails, Kraftwerk, N.W.A, Sting and Chic were among acts on the ballot that did not make cut.
A voting body of more than 700 artists, historians and members of the music industry chose the 2015 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performer inductees. To be eligible for nomination, an individual artist or band must have released its first single or album at least 25 years prior to the year of nomination. The 2015 nominees had to release their first recording no later than 1989.
Induction ceremony presenters, performers and broadcast information as well as additional details about the week of events leading up the show ceremony will be announced at a later date.
Want to see Anthrax’ Charlie Benante, Scott Ian and Frank Bello, Megadeth’s David Ellefson, Testament’s Chuck Billy and Alex Skolnick, Sepultura’s Andreas Kisser, Death Angel’s Mark Osegueda, Mike Portnoy, Chris Broderick, Troy Sanders, and John Tempesta all jam on the same stage? If you live in the Anaheim, California area, you’re in luck. It has been announced that all the aforementioned metal musicians will be gathering together on the evening of January 21st at the House of Blues in Anaheim, under the name of Metal Allegiance, which will feature an evening of various classics being performed by different line-up configurations. Also of note is the cost of the tickets are being kept quite affordable, and can be purchased at Ticketmaster or at the House Of Blues Anaheim box office. Two Metal Allegiance participants, Megadeth bassist David Ellefson and ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, chatted with BraveWords correspondent Greg Prato about how this union happened, and what fans can expect.
BraveWords: How did the idea come about to do Metal Allegiance, and how did you all get involved in the project?
David Ellefson: “This whole thing started back with the Big 4, when we did those shows. And it developed out of the bass clinics me and Frank (Bello) were doing, which were really unprecedented in metal music. I think for a period, we were seen as competitors, and what the Big 4 and Clash of the Titans did was it broke down the competition and brought us all together as comrades. And Metal Allegiance was born out of that. It started with me and Frank, Mike Portnoy, and Charlie Benante, and then we just started calling all the guys in the neighborhood – Scott Ian, Kerry King, Phil Anselmo, etc., and it spread. The real launch of Metal Allegiance as an entity started on Motörhead’s Motörboat back in September. Then Megadeth had to step aside because there was a health issue there. And all of a sudden, it was, ‘Well, we’re all going to be on the boat. Let’s make this happen.’ And that’s when it started. And it’s really blown up beyond anything we’ve probably imagined it would – just because it’s so much fun. And the fans love seeing all these guys on stage at the same time, jamming with each other. Different combinations playing a whole bunch of different songs that we were just kind of winging on the fly. It was just such a great spirit about it. And I think when fans were like, ‘Metal Allegiance was one of my favorite things on Motörboat,’ that’s what they’re talking about – this impromptu, very unscripted moment that happened. I’ve talked to a lot of fans, and they’re like, ‘We couldn’t believe you guys came out (and played)’ – more and more people kept coming out. It was kind of like the Grammys of heavy metal.”
BraveWords: So both of you have played previously with Metal Allegiance, right?
Mike Portnoy: “Well, Metal Allegiance – as it’s now called – has only done the Motörboat shows, but David and I, and Frank Bello and Charlie Benante and Kerry King and Phil Anselmo, we’ve done this under a different name in the past. We’ve done five shows through the years as a thing called ‘Metal Masters.’ But this is basically taking that same idea and moving it forward, and it’s going to evolve and develop into all different places in the years ahead.”
BraveWords: How different is it playing as part of an all-star band compared to a full-time band? Is it a lot looser?
Mike Portnoy: “It’s totally looser. This is all about camaraderie. In all of our other bands and our normal ‘day jobs,’ those are our careers, and you have to make career moves and career decisions. This is just for the fun of it. There’s nothing at jeopardy, there’s no career decisions that need to be made – financially or creatively. It’s a bunch of guys that are metalheads and metal fans, and we’re all friends with each other, and we do it just because we love this music and we have a good time with each other. That’s it. That’s where it began and that’s what is all about. I said this on stage at the last one, but it’s the truth – all of us on stage and behind the stage are having as much fun as the people in the audience. We look out into the audience and we see a sea of metal fans. And all of us on the stage and backstage are the same. We’re hanging out backstage, watching everybody else jam, having a good time, getting psyched to see the different configurations of players going on at any given time. We’re hearing these cool songs being pulled out of the setlist. It’s basically we’re just metalheads and metal fans doing it for the fun of it.”
BraveWords: Do you find you still pick up new things by playing with other musicians?
Mike Portnoy: “Of course. I mean my God…not to go there, but that was the entire reason why I left Dream Theater. I spent 25 years playing with the same guys, playing the same style of music. And I needed to branch out and do different styles with different people. So to me, to answer your question, you have to play with other people to grow. Change and getting that different inspiration and different personalities is what you absolutely need in order to develop and grow. And that’s been my mission statement for the past four years, with everything I’ve been doing.”
BraveWords: Who are you looking forward to playing with most at this upcoming show?
David Ellefson: “There’s the winter NAMM show coming up, and there’s a whole cast of characters that are going to be there. Because winter NAMM is an international event – artists from all over the world are going to be there. And we’ve already got a beat on a couple and reached out to a few of them. It’s going to be a really, really cool show. And metal week is kind of this interesting crossroads, because we have two versions of it we can do – we can do this big ‘celebration,’ where everybody in the house is there. Like at NAMM and ShipRocked. We’re getting asked now to do some other territories outside of the United States. Those open up other opportunities to different people to participate, and that’s the whole part of the Metal Allegiance – what you hear is metal and pledge allegiance and be a part of it! It’s something that’s open to the entire neighborhood, y’know? It’s not some exclusive little club. What’s fun about it is you realize pretty quickly that people who are inclined to participate in something like this, in the past when we’ve done certain jam sessions with guys like Kerry King showing up – and I’ve played with Kerry over the years and we’ve all been friends with him – I would never think he would be a part of something like that. But certain people are like, ‘I’d love to be a part of that.’ I think that the personalities and just the general feel-good nature of it is that keeps a pretty wide door open for everybody to come in and hang out with us.”
Mike Portnoy: “And you never know who is going to jump up, too. You have the guys who are part of the Metal Allegiance – there’s the core group and the guys that play all the shows, but then in the past, Geezer Butler came up and played with us, Steve Vai came up and played with us. You never know what special guests can pop up and end up jamming at any given moment.”
BraveWords: I was impressed by the low cost of the tickets, compared to how expensive tickets are nowadays to most rock shows.
David Ellefson: “Yeah, for sure. It’s funny – Megadeth in the past, we’ve been the kings of the ‘low dough shows.’ In fact, at times over the years, I remember promoters saying that, ‘Let’s do a low dough ticket,’ and the next thing you know, 5,000-10,000 people show up, because they’re metalheads, man. Metalheads…granted, a lot of them are grown up and live in the suburbs, and some of our bands have been around a while, at its core, it’s a lot of young people. And young people are in school and it’s the middle of the school year, and people don’t have jobs and stuff. We want to make it something that’s fun for everybody to come out. You hate to make money the reason that people have to say ‘No.’ So we tried to take the money part out of it.”
BraveWords: More shows after this one at the House of Blues?
David Ellefson: “Yeah, we’re going to be doing ShipRocked – about a week later, actually. The first week of February. And then there’s also quite a few other cool little things that look like they’re developing in 2015, as well.”
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.
 of parody band Steel Panther tells The Tennessean that, despite the band's cult band status, )
