After flirtations at the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony and on the same year’s Welcome 2 My Nightmare album, Alice Cooper and the members of his original band — guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway and drummer Neal Smith — are working together again on new music for the shock rocker’s next album.
“Neal Smith and Mike Bruce and I wrote five songs in Phoenix,” Cooper tells Billboard. “Dennis wrote four or five songs in Connecticut. You never know what’s going to make it on an album, but I think we’ve got a lot of stuff that has a good chance of being there.” Members of Cooper’s current band are also contributing songs for the set, which has led to a welcome plethora of material. “I don’t care where a song comes from; If it fits the idea, what the album’s going to be, then we go with it,” Cooper says. “We’ll see which ones make the album.”
Cooper also has in mind performing again with Bruce — who’s recovering from recent hand surgery — Dunaway and Smith (original guitarist Glen Buxton died in 1997) after playing together last year to promote Dunaway’s memoir Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group. “I would have no problem with that,” Cooper says. “In my show, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a segment where certain guys come in. We do that anyway already; If Dennis is in town he comes up and plays with us. If Neal’s in town he’ll come up and play ‘School’s Out’ or something like that. Same with Mike. He’s really getting back into shape.”
New Jersey, get ready to rock harder than ever. The second annual Rock Carnival will take place on September 30th, October 1st and October 2nd in Lakewood, NJ at First Energy Park, home of the Lakewood Blue Claws.
As with its inaugural year, which drew a staggering 50,000+ attendees, the second annual Rock Carnival will feature classic carnival rides and entertainment, the most delicious food truck offerings, high-action Professional Wrestling, beer gardens pouring the tastiest of brews, and of course… the best in local, national and international rock and heavy metal music performances. This year will introduce a “Classic Rewind” Friday Night concert, featuring some special performances from 2015 performers, returning to the event they loved.
Three-day general admission and reserved seat Weekend Packages for this year’s Rock Carnival go on sale Friday, May 13th at 12:00pm Eastern time. Three-day “Early Bird” general admission passes start at $95.90 and weekend reserved seat tickets start at $119.99. Get your tickets at TicketFly.
Skyboxes, reserved seats, daily general admission and VIP experiences (presented by SoundRink) will be available on June 7th.
The first wave of Rock Carnival live music entertainment to be announced is topped by single-day headliners Twisted Sister, whose performance will mark their official farewell show for the U.S. northeast. With over 2 million records sold, Twisted Sister is undoubtedly one of the biggest heavy metal bands to emerge from the tri-state area, hitting the big time in 1984 with their hit tracks We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock. Since then, Twisted Sister have never wavered as pop culture icons – from their never-ending MTV/VH1 music video rotation and coverage that remains to this day, to standing up for the rights of musicians everywhere during their highly-publicized battle with the PMRC in 1995, to their resurgence over the last two decades with countless performances and iconic frontman Dee Snider’s A&E Network TV show Growing Up Twisted. The band closes its career close to where it all began in Lakehurst, NJ where they played many shows early on in their career. This performance at Rock Carnival will mark the end of an era for heavy metal and Twisted Sister – tri-state area fans, don’t miss your chance to see the band at their final area performance!
Twisted Sister’s JJ French states, “As 2016 marks the end of our live performing career, Twisted Sister is looking forward to returning to the Tri-State NYC area for the final time to the Rock Carnival at First Energy Park in Lakewood, NJ on Oct 1, 2016. In celebrating our 40th anniversary and our farewell to live performing, we are bringing our “40 & F*ck It” worldwide farewell tour one last time to the area that created us!”
Other top hard rock and metal artists already confirmed to perform at Rock Carnival include Overkill, Ace Frehley, Monster Magnet, Fuel, Tom Keifer’s Cinderella, Dokken, Texas Hippie Coalition, Doro, Four By Fate, Killcode, Jester and American Angel. Several more Rock Carnival performances will be announced soon, taking place on multiple stages including two main festival stages, side by side, on the field. Fans will have general admission access to the stadium field. The event will feature the Birch Hill stage, a very popular performance area and craft beer section.
Rock Carnival producer John D’Esposito says, “This year’s line-up far exceeds our expectations.” He adds, “The incredible new layout, amenities and resources are sure to enhance the Carnival experience for our fans and their families.”
More carnival details, per-day line-ups and other entertainment will be announced soon. For more information, visit therockcarnival.com.
Ruben Mosqueda of Sleaze Roxx spoke with our very own Eddie Trunk. Highlights from the interview appear below.
Sleaze Roxx: You’re working with AXS. You’ll be part of Reel To Real which will be airing a number of documentaries and you’ll be adding some commentary within the airing. Is that accurate?
Eddie Trunk: That’s 100% accurate. In fact, I have been getting the word out to people of exactly this. There’s people who say “Eddie you have a new show on AXS and I’m switching cable providers!” I appreciate the sentiment, but the truth of the matter is that I’m just hosting the documentary series called as you stated Reel To Real.
AXS commissioned about 20 documentaries of all genres — anything from hard rock to classical piano. I wrote the scripts for all the movies. I tell the viewer what the movie is all about. I then come on again toward the middle of the movie and give the viewer some information. I then come in toward the end of the movie and thank the viewer for watching and in some cases, I give updated information. Some of the movies are over 10 years old.
It’s really great working with these guys. I worked with them on a few things when they were still called HD Net. I wanted to work with them but since I was under contract with VH-1 Classic, I couldn’t do it but when it was announced that That Metal Show wasn’t going to continue (on VH-1 Classic), AXS approached me about contracting with them to do this series. I understand that AXS is running the promos right now. I can’t even see it because my cable provider doesn’t carry AXS [laughs]!
Sleaze Roxx: So you wrote all the scripts for the documentaries?
Eddie Trunk: So, for 12 of the 20, I wrote my own copy. AXS wanted my own words. I’ll give you an example. One of the films is Jason Becker’s ‘Not Dead Yet.’ I reached out to Jason and asked him if there was anything that he wanted to say in terms of an update. Jason sent a nice note that he wanted me to read for the viewers. Then there’s the film about the murder of Dave Navarro’s mother. Again, I reached out and spoke with Dave and asked if he’s like to say anything to the audience about the film. I’m a huge documentary fan. I’m an even bigger fan of music documentaries. There were some that I had viewed before but then there are films like the Navarro one that I had no knowledge of. There’s one about a classical piano player which I didn’t know existed. While I’m not a classical piano fan, I found the story very interesting. It’s a very cool project to be a part of.
Sleaze Roxx: Tell us about the pilot that you shot recently and the progress with that?
Eddie Trunk: I got the call from a guy that I’ve known for a very long time when he heard about the cancellation of That Metal Show. He’s a producer by the name of Don Magni who has stuff that’s been on MTV, VH-1 and public television. He said “I’m a big fan and I want to help you in any way possible.” Don basically lent me his staff and his facility and resources to shoot this pilot. We shot the pilot at Iridium which as you know is Les Paul’s club and it’s wired for sound and performance.
I’ve always wanted to do something similar to The Actor’s Studio but for music, in fact, that was the original concept for The Metal Show but it evolved into what you saw on TV. I went back to that idea with this pilot…I called my friend of 30 years — Ace Frehley — who was in town to promote his latest album. He loved the idea. I should have the final edit of the show any minute or by the end of the week. Then it will go to my agent who will shop it to various outlets. He’s very confident that someone will pick it up. The biggest challenge in making this show is that I need to trim it down to 48 minutes and Ace and I spoke for two hours and 20 minutes! That was agonizing to do! The whole conversation was a pot of gold in my opinion.
Sleaze Roxx: You’re also working on a new book but this time around, it’s your autobiography.
Eddie Trunk: [Long pause] Yeah. I started it a couple months ago. It started off pretty well but I got completely sidetracked with everything I just told you about. I pretty much put it on the back burner though I did manage to write two chapters. No one has read them but I will say that the publisher of my last two books is very interested in it. I have another publisher that is also interested in the book. I’d like to write at least two more chapters then work forward from there. Like you said, it isn’t going to be like my first two books. It will be my story. I promise there will a lot of great behind the scenes stuff. I would like to write it completely on my own and not use a co-writer. I was hoping to have it out by the end of 2016 but as it looks like now, it’s unlikely.
Sleaze Roxx: What do you make of musicians taking to social media and battling trolls? We’ve spoke about Paul Stanley in the past blasting people on Twitter. It seems that Sebastian Bach was pulled into the vortex over a negative concert review in Atlanta recently.
Eddie Trunk photoEddie Trunk: I heard a little bit about that. Not that much to tell you the truth. Baz is a very emotional guy; I’m not surprised that he got caught up in that. These guys are human. [Some] tune that all out and let it roll off their back and others react and shoot back! I do that myself at times. I go through my Twitter feed and 99.9% of them are good people who say constructive and positive things or at the very least in a nice way. Listen, it just takes one person to say something really absurd that rubs you the wrong way and you respond. That’s what they are looking for. We’ve all done it. We’ve all been there. This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time that Sebastian will go down that road.
There’s a side of me that really likes it when these guys fire back. I think you just have to be careful that you don’t do it so much. That is what those people are looking for — acknowledgement…What gets me is when someone pops off about something that has no merit whatsoever. I’ll give you an example. Recently, someone posted that the reason ‘That Metal Show’ wasn’t on the air was because “Eddie wants too much money! Eddie’s demands are too high!” I just laughed at that! Where does someone even come up with something like that?! It has nothing to do with me [laughs]! There’s a crew of 40 people that the show employs. It’s about the budget, the cost of producing the show — it’s not about me.
In the case of Sebastian for the most part, he really does sing fairly well. I don’t know maybe the guy had a bad night. Again, I don’t have a problem firing back. Just don’t do it all the time otherwise people will bait you.
Band performance times have been announced for the tenth edition of Rock On The Range, May 20th, 21st & 22nd at MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus, OH. Red Hot Chili Peppers, hard rock titans Disturbed (who have returned after a 4-year hiatus), and rock icon/filmmaker Rob Zombie top an incredible Rock On The Range 2016 music lineup that’s packed with rock royalty such as Deftones, Shinedown, Five Finger Death Punch, Bring Me The Horizon, A Day To Remember, Megadeth, At The Drive-In, Lamb Of God, Sixx:A.M., Hellyeah, Pennywise and more, along with rock’s hottest developing artists.
Rock On The Range sets the standard for American rock festivals. In addition to three stages of music, Rock On The Range features more than a dozen of rock’s favorite comedians in the ROTR Rolling Rock Comedy Tent – including Grammy-nominated Jay Mohr, Big Jay Oakerson, Nate Bargatze, Craig Gass, and Bethany Dwyer, plus a special Saturday night That Metal Show Live (based on the VH1 Classic show) with Eddie Trunk, Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine. Other onsite experiences include The Music Experience, a Craft Beer Village featuring top breweries from the region, the Rock On The Range 10th Anniversary Photo Retrospective, and new art installations.
In honor of Rock On The Range’s milestone anniversary in the city of Columbus, the festival received awards of recognition from both Columbus Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and the City Council, as well as a resolution from the Franklin County Board of County Commissioners. These commendations acknowledge the over $140 million in economic impact the festival has contributed to the city over its 10 year existence. Says Danny Hayes, CEO of Danny Wimmer Presents, co-producers of Rock On The Range, “Columbus has been an amazing home to America’s largest rock festival for the past ten years. We look forward to continuing this great partnership with the city.”
The current Rock On The Range performance schedule is as follows (subject to change):
Friday, May 20th:
Monster Main Stage:
1:05 PM Sick Puppies
2:15 PM Sevendust
3:30 PM Bullet For My Valentine
4:50 PM Sixx:A.M
6:15 PM A Day To Remember
7:55 PM Shinedown
9:35 PM Disturbed
Stage Two:
11:45 AM Monster Truck
12:30 PM Avatar
1:40 PM Enter Shikari
2:55 PM Trivium
4:15 PM Asking Alexandria
5:40 PM Machine Gun Kelly
7:10 PM Megadeth
Stage Three:
11:45 AM Cane Hill
12:30 PM We Came As Romans
1:40 PM Andrew Watt
2:55 PM Miss May I
4:15 PM Memphis May Fire
5:40 PM Butcher Babies
Rolling Rock Comedy Tent:
6:15 PM Adrian Cosby
6:30 PM Jay Snyder
6:45 PM Mike Baldwin
7:00 PM Bethany Dwyer
7:20 PM Jay Mohr
Saturday, May 21st:
Monster Main Stage:
1:10 PM P.O.D.
2:20 PM Saint Asonia
3:35 PM Pop Evil
4:55 PM Steel Panther
6:15 PM Hellyeah
8:05 PM Five Finger Death Punch
9:45 PM Rob Zombie
Stage Two:
11:50 AM Lacey Sturm
12:35 PM Aranda
1:45 PM Texas Hippie Coalition
3:00 PM Issues
4:20 PM Parkway Drive
5:40 PM Ghost
7:20 PM Lamb Of God
Stage Three:
11:50 AM Citizen Zero
12:35 PM Jelly Roll
1:45 PM Wilson
3:00 PM New Years Day
4:20 PM Crown The Empire
5:40 PM Clutch
Rolling Rock Comedy Tent:
6:15 PM Madison Malloy
6:30 PM Craig Gass
7:00 PM That Metal Show Live with Eddie Trunk, Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine
Sunday, May 22nd:
Main Stage:
1:05 PM Highly Suspect
2:15 PM The Struts
3:25 PM Death From Above 1979
4:45 PM Wolfmother
6:10 PM Bring Me The Horizon
7:50 PM Deftness
9:20 PM Red Hot Chili Peppers
Stage Two::
11:45 AM BOTB winner TBA
12:30 PM The Glorious Sons
1:40 PM Hands Like Houses
2:50 PM Red Sun Rising
4:10 PM Anti-Flag
7:05 PM At The Drive-In
Stage Three:
11:45 AM Silver Snakes
12:30 PM Code Orange
1:40 PM Wild Throne
2:50 PM The Shrine
4:10 PM The Sword
5:35 PM Between The Buried & Me
Rolling Rock Comedy Tent:
6:25 PM Chad Zumock
6:40 PM Jay Armstrong
6:55 PM Bill Squire
7:10 PM Nate Bargatze
7:30 PM Big Jay Oakerson
Doors open at 11:00 AM each day.
Tickets for Rock On The Range 2016 sold out more than two months in advance, marking the fourth consecutive year that tickets sold out in advance for the largest and most acclaimed rock festival in the United States. A monumental 120,000 “Rangers” from all 50 states and around the globe were in attendance over the three days of the 2015 festival.
Download the Rock On The Range mobile app (available for FREE via iTunes and Google Play) for festival information and band performance times.
Stephen Ambrose, an expert in the field of audio and the founder of Asius Technologies who offered to help Brian Johnson return to the stage, says he will meet the AC/DC singer next week, reports blabbermouth.net.
Ambrose, who invented in-ear monitors, an advanced earbud used by professional musicians on stages around the world, released a video message last week in which he expressed hope that Johnson would consider utilizing his new patented in-ear technology that safely delivers a louder, more spacious and richer sound while minimizing the risk of hearing damage.
Now Ambrose says he will meet with Johnson on May 17th to discuss the situation. He says, “Due to everyone’s tremendous support, Brian and I spoke yesterday. What a gracious man. He and his wife invited me to visit them next week.
If anyone deserves to benefit from my research, it’s Brian, who has been giving incomparable performances for years despite increasing hearing loss.
I’m going to do my utmost to see if our new hearing breakthroughs can help him, and If I am at all successful, I’m sure Brian will let everyone know; he really cares about people and would like to help.
I am truly humbled and honored to meet this man, and I wish to sincerely thank everyone who helped. Fingers crossed; please pray for our success next week.”
Ambrose created the ADEL (Ambrose Diaphonic Ear Lens) technology to solve the 77% increase in hearing loss recently attributed to all personal listening devices. By utilizing a revolutionary second ear drum to take the pounding, ADEL technology absorbs the harmful pneumatic sound pressures caused by all personal listening devices and provides a much safer and higher fidelity listening experience for everyone. Formal studies conducted at Vanderbilt Medical Center confirmed that personal listening devices modified with ADEL technology sound louder at lower volumes than anything else on the market. ADEL delivers sound the way it was always meant to be heard — bass sounds deeper, midrange is clearer and highs sound richer than ever.
Johnson issued a statement on April 19th in which he detailed the hearing problems that forced him to stop touring. While he promised to continue recording, he couldn’t say whether he would ever perform onstage with AC/DC again.
Looking forward, he said, “My entire focus is to continue medical treatment to improve my hearing. I am hoping that in time my hearing will improve and allow me to return to live concert performances. While the outcome is uncertain, my attitude is optimistic.”
On December 31st, 2015, legendary rock icons Mötley Crüe completed their 35-year touring career as a band with a spectacular final concert at Staples Center in their hometown of Los Angeles, CA, just 10 miles from the Sunset Strip where the band’s infamous and decadent career first launched.
The band thrilled the sold-out arena with performances of such mega-hits as Kickstart My Heart, Girls, Girls, Girls, Home Sweet Home and Dr. Feelgood. While not everyone was able to see their final show live, Crüe fans can now catch all the action when Fathom Events, Live Alliance, Eagle Rock Entertainment and Tenth Street Entertainment present Mötley Crüe: The End in select U.S. cinemas on Tuesday, June 14th, 2016 at 7:00 p.m. local time for only one night. In addition to the epic concert footage, cinema audiences will be treated to behind-the-scenes footage of the band’s last global tour.
Tickets for Mötley Crüe: The End can be purchased beginning Friday, May 13th, 2016 online by visiting FathomEvents.com or at participating theater box offices. Fans throughout the U.S. will be able to enjoy the event in nearly 250 movie theaters through Fathom’s Digital Broadcast Network. For a complete list of theater locations visit the Fathom Events FathomEvents.com (theaters and participants are subject to change).
In January, 2014, Mötley Crüe held a press conference announcing their Final Tour, complete with a “cessation of touring” agreement signed by all members prohibiting any and all future live engagements under the Mötley Crüe name. Mötley Crüe’s two-year concert trek, saw the band — Vince Neil (vocals), Mick Mars (guitars), Nikki Sixx (bass) and Tommy Lee (drums) — perform across five continents (North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia) for a total of more than 164 shows in 72 markets grossing over $100 million. Known for their over-the-top production, Mötley Crüe did not disappoint for their last show ever on New Year’s Eve: from massive, cutting-edge pyro, including Nikki Sixx’s bass guitar spitting fire over 30 feet into the air, and Tommy Lee’s “Crüecifly” drum roller coaster, amongst many other spectacular elements. Lead singer, Vince Neil, delivered an emotional, “thank you” speech to the audience, while the band supplied next-level, high-octane fueled energy, ringing in the New Year on stage with thousands of balloons raining down on the crowd. The grand finale of the show included a blow-out performance of their hit single, Kickstart My Heart with Nikki Sixx and Vince Neil floating above the audience in far-reaching “cherry-pickers.” Leaving fans in tears, the show concluded with an emotional encore rendition of Home Sweet Home from the second stage riser in the center of the audience.
Fathom Events CEO John Rubey said, “We’re excited to bring the opportunity for Mötley Crüe’s legion of supporters to experience their Final Show and relive the magic one more time. Filled with their hard-rock anthems and unforgettable stage presentation, this show is not to be missed.”
