Category : LATEST NEWS

GUITARIST ACE FREHLEY DISCUSSES FORTHCOMING COVERS ALBUM

Christa Titus of Billboard reports:

…[Guitarist] Ace Frehley is in the early stages of recording his next album, which is a covers project. The set follows up 2014’s Space Invader. The critically lauded album debuted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, surpassing the No. 26 peak of his 1978 self-titled solo debut. “The album’s going to be about my influences,” says Frehley. “I’m probably going to do a Rolling Stones song, a Who song, possibly a Led Zeppelin song, maybe a Beatles song. Stuff from bands that I grew up on and greatly influenced me. Those are the songs I’d redo, besides vintage KISS stuff and a Frehley’s Comet track.”

Frehley hasn’t thought to ask former Beatle Paul McCartney to join him in the studio if he does cover the Fab Four — Frehley chuckles at the idea — but he has put the ask out to guitarists Lita Ford, Slash and Mike McCready of Pearl Jam. “I was actually going to ask [former KISS bandmate] Gene Simmons to play bass on a track and sing with me. I haven’t gotten to that stage yet,” he says.

Frehley says he has done some overdubs and intends to track another six to eight songs, then pick the best 12 to focus on. The album’s track list isn’t solidified, but he says he’s “probably going to redo both Cold Gin and Parasite. On KISS records, I’m not singing lead. So I’m going to sing lead on them like I do live so there’s [studio tracks] out there with me.”

He doesn’t have a set idea about how he wants the updated versions of the songs to sound, either. “That’s something I don’t plan. I just go in and do it. Try a couple different ways. It’s obviously going to be a lot heavier than the original, and the production is going to be far superior because technology has advanced so much [to a] higher state since we tracked a long time a go in the ’70s. Those are going to be the major differences. Obviously, Peter Criss isn’t going to be playing drums on it. I’m going to be using my touring drummer, Scot Coogan.”

Since he enjoys working in the studio, in the future, Frehley would like to produce music for other artists besides himself. “I have a wealth of knowledge. I’ve worked with some of the greatest producers and engineers over the years, and it’s knowledge I want to share with a younger band,” he says. “I’ve learned so much from guys like Eddie Kramer and Bob Ezrin and miking techniques, the way to put together a song, layering harmonies. Even working with [former Kiss bandmate] Paul [Stanley] and Gene, I learned a lot about harmonies, because those guys are good at layering harmonies. It’s a lot of knowledge I’d like to pass on to another band.”

Read the whole feature at Billboard.

source: billboard.com

BILLBOARD REPORTS: WHAT YOU DIDN’T SEE ON TV AT VAN HALEN’S “JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE” APPEARANCE

Chris Willman of Billboard reports:

“I can’t think of a better place to do our first television ever,” David Lee Roth told the thousands of fans gathered Monday night on Hollywood Boulevard for a Jimmy Kimmel Live! set that was billed as the first TV performance since Roth rejoined the band in 2007. “Like they used to say on Ed Sullivan: If this goes well, we got a great career ahead of us, boys.”

By every standard but the cosmetic one, it went swimmingly indeed, with the band running devilishly through eight of their late ’70s/early ’80s greatest hits, two of which aired Monday on Kimmel, with a couple more set to be saved for Tuesday’s (March 31) show. But there was a nasty bit of business involving Roth’s nose that ultimately didn’t affect his performance, yet did leave home viewers baffled as it went unexplained on the ABC telecast.

If you ever saw Roth twirl the microphone stand like a drum major and wondered if he could hurt somebody with that thing, the answer is yes. “Ladies and gentlemen, I cut my nose on the microphone. I apologize,” Roth announced midway through the band’s opening number, Panama, leaving the stage for almost two and a half minutes to get it bandaged while Eddie, Alex and Wolfgang Van Halen vamped further through the tune in his absence. Naturally, no one in the crowd was thumbing a nose — so to speak — at a bonus Van Halen guitar solo.

“Let’s give it up! He sacrificed his nose!” bellowed Kimmel. Roth, upon his return, explained that he “f—ed my nose up on the microphone here, so I’m gonna wear the Band-Aid and we’re gonna start the whole thing all over for you. We’ll give you a little extra for your patience here. Work with us if you will… How do I look? Like f—in’ Hiawatha?”

None of that timeout made the broadcast, and with the boulevard-closing concert not even beginning until 10:30 p.m. on the East Coast, there wasn’t time for the show to think about cutting in an explanation. But the show’s editors did manage to use a few long shots of the pre-injury Roth doing his mic-stand gymnastics before cutting to the bandaged Roth by the time the first verse started.

The Van Halen Twitterverse exploded with speculation and gags once the East Coast airing began: “Is Roth wearing a Breathe Right strip?” “Did Eddie break David Lee Roth’s nose?” “I can overlook the Band-Aid David Lee Roth has on his nose but is he chewing gum?” (Yes.) Presumably, Kimmel will address the issue before Tuesday night’s performance footage.

Even after that mishap, Roth seemed in as jolly a mood as ever, with his perennially poop-eating grin visible all the way back to Orange Avenue — as was a half-revealed, heavily tatted torso that, at 60 years old, you could still bounce a dime off. Roth also became probably the first person ever to reference both Gazzari’s and the Masquers Club from the stage of a Hollywood Boulevard concert. The former was in reference to the Sunset Strip club “around the corner” (just a slight exaggeration) where Van Halen got their humbler start. The latter was the 1930s-era “club behind the Chinese” (a better use of geography) whose longtime showbiz motto Roth approvingly referenced: “We laugh to win” (or “We laugh to win, baby,” as Roth inevitably amends it).

That slogan works just as well for Van Halen as it did for the long-gone Masquers, as the band remains the one great hard rock group ever to get as much mileage out of a knowing, almost sophisticated mirth as from shredding. Dance the Night Away could be Laugh the Night Away with Roth in the lead — though, as his solo career showed, he needs Eddie as his half-amused, virtuosic straight man to pull off his gigolo-ing. At Monday’s show, he pulled a “hot stuff” woman up from the audience to dance and then manically pushed her around the stage in his version of a tango. It was a funny, one-sided variation on the Dancing in the Dark schtick that so many classic acts do, but served as a reminder that you’re always glad Eddie, Alex and (now) Wolfgang are around for the push-back.

Unlike their previous reunion tour, this one won’t be behind a new studio album –in their hour set Monday, the band didn’t try interesting anyone in anything post-1984 — but the chemistry is still so powerful that freezing themselves in amber doesn’t seem like a remote possibility. Some Van Halen historians were imagining what kind of “How could you do this?” words might have been exchanged after the show. But this version of the group holds such an otherwise unoccupied niche in rock ‘n’ roll that music fans can only hope Dave and Eddie are talkin’ ’bout love, now and forever — closing numbers notwithstanding.

Van Halen’s Jimmy Kimmel Live concert set list:

Panama
Runnin’ With the Devil
Eruption”/”You Really Got Me Now
Hot for Teacher
Dance the Night Away
Unchained
Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love

To watch video performances of Panama and Runnin’ With The Devil, click here.

source: billboard.com

ANTHRAX: NEW CD UPDATE, VOLBEAT AND TOUR DATES

Anthrax, five-time-Grammy-nominated, Platinum-selling, and card-carrying-member of The Big Four, will begin the set-up of its brand new album when the band hits the road late next month. First up, a six-week-plus North American trek that will include 24-dates with Volbeat, as well as appearances at five major outdoor festivals – Northern Invasion (outside of Minneapolis), Rock On The Range (Columbus, OH), Rocklahoma (Pryor, OK), and the San Antonio and Kansas City Rockfests. Dates start in Denver, CO on April 24 (the complete itinerary is below).

On this first leg, Anthrax will play a “fan favorites” set, comprised of band classics such as Anti-Social, Madhouse, Caught In A Mosh, I Am The Law and Indians. The set will also feature one brand new song, Soror Irrumator (Lords of The Rock), Anthrax’s contribution to HBO’s Game of Thrones Catch The Throne Mixtape, Vol II which was made available on March 17th and is already getting airplay on hard rock radio. Anthrax’s Bello, Benante and Ian are massive fans of the show, so having been asked to write a song for the Mixtape was an enormous thrill. You can hear Soror Irrumator (Lords of The Rock) (and the entire mixtape) for free on Soundcloud and iTunes.

Anthrax’s new album follows the band’s 2011 Grammy-nominated, critically-acclaimed Worship Music that featured the return of “classic era” vocalist Joey Belladonna, was named one of the best metal albums for 2011 by countless media outlets, and provided the band with the rock’n’roll comeback story of the year. The new album is also the recording debut for guitarist and newest band member Jon Donais. “Jon’s been great,” said Scott Ian. “So far, he’s played lead on at least seven or eight of the tracks, and they all sound amazing.”

The writing process for the new album began as far back as late 2013 when Benante began exchanging suggested riffs and other musical ideas with Bello and Ian. With producer (and “sixth member of the band”) Jay Ruston, formal writing sessions began last Fall, culminating with about 20 original songs, almost twice as many as the band had ever brought to the recording studio in the past.

Anthrax – Joey Belladonna/vocals, Frank Bello/bass, Charlie Benante/drums, guitarist Jon Donais and Scott Ian/rhythm guitar – started recording the new album in November last year. According to Benante, “Worship Music started a new chapter in our career, and it has served as an inspiration for this new album. Worship was made up of a lot of different types of songs, some thrashy, some very mid-90s Anthrax-sounding, but this new one is really thrashy.”

Said Bello, “The thing about Anthrax…we have this heavy, thrashy music and Joey’s powerful and melodic vocals. I love heavy music, but I also love melody, so the challenge is to blend them together so they sound like Anthrax, and I think we’ve done a really good job of that, especially on this new record.”

“The lyrics I write tend to go along with the way the music sounds, and this new music is very angry,” Ian added. “Lots of people said that Worship Music was a return to the roots of the band…well, this record is even more so. Unlike Worship Music, we wrote this new album with a line-up, with Joey in the band, and that has made all the difference in the world. Joey being a part of the band again, going on five years already, it definitely feels like a unit. Everything that was great about him on Worship is there even more on this new record.”

“I know that there are a lot of expectations out there for this new album,” Bello admitted, “but that doesn’t really affect us because we write the way we write. We’re all from New York, so we love a challenge, and while I’m happy to have people say that Anthrax is back and that Worship Music was the best album of our career, we raised the bar on this one, I think we have the goods with the new songs, and I’m proud to say that. At the end of the day, all you can do is have it come from the heart, do your best, and hope that people like it. That’s what we did with Worship Music, and look what happened.”

Anthrax’s new album, as yet untitled, will likely be released later this year.

Dates for Leg One of Anthrax’s 2015-2016 tour are as follows:

April:

24 1stBank Center, Denver, CO*
25 Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, Rapid City, SD*
27 Spokane Arena, Spokane, WA*
28 Adams Center, Missoula, MT*
29 WaMu Theatre, Seattle, WA*

May:

1 Revolution Place, Grande Prairie, AB*
2 Rexall Place, Edmonton, AB*
3 Calgary Stampede Corral, Calgary, AB*
4 SaskTel Centre, Saskatoon, SK*
6 Brandt Centre, Regina, SK*
7 Ralph Englestad Arena, Grand Forks, ND*
9 Northern Invasion Festival, Somerset Amphitheatre, Somerset, WI
10 WJJO MayDay MayLay, Alliant Energy Ctr. Memorial, Madison, WI
12 General Motors Centre, Oshawa, ON*
13 TD Place, Ottawa, ON*
14 Quebec Colisee Pepsi, Quebec City, QC*
15 CEPSUM Montreal, Montreal, QC*
17 Rock on the Range – Mapfre Stadium, Columbus, OH
18 Dow Events Center, Saginaw, MI*
19 Ford Center, Evansville, IN*
20 Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, IL*
22 Tyson IBF Events Center, Sioux City, IA*
23 Rocklahoma/Prior Creek Music, Pryor, OK
24 Rockfest, AT&T Center, San Antonio, TX
25 Baloonfest, Wet & Wild Water World, El Paso
27 Verizon Grand Prairie, Dallas, TX*
28 Bayou Music Center, Houston, TX*
30 Rockfest, Liberty Me. Park, Kansas City, MO
31 Outdoors at Pop’s, St. Louis, MO*

June:
2 Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY*

* Volbeat dates

For more information, please visit anthrax.com.

VAN HALEN PERFORM “PANAMA” AND “RUNNIN’ WITH THE DEVIL” ON “JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!”

As previously reported, Van Halen performed live on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night (March 30th). Watch their performances of Panama and Runnin’ With The Devil below.

Kimmel stated that six thousand fans lined up on Hollywood Boulevard to see the band. Unfortunately, Roth reportedly had to call an abrupt stop to Panama, when he announced that he had injured his nose on his microphone. “Let me get this taped up,” Roth said, making an apologetic exit from the stage. “How do I look? Like fucking Hiawatha, right?” Roth joked.

The band is promoting their new live concert album, Tokyo Dome Live In Concert, which is out today (March 31st). Van Halen have also announced tour dates starting July 5th in Seattle, WA and wrapping up on October 2nd in Los Angeles, CA. To view their entire tour schedule, please click here.

Also, in honor of Van Halen appearing on the show that night, Kimmel asks during a man-on-the-street segment, “Do you have a Van Halen tattoo?”

Van Halen will be back tonight on Jimmy Kimmel Live! for their second night of a two night appearance on the show.

LED ZEPPELIN PREMIERE NEW VIDEO FOR “TRAMPLED UNDER FOOT”

Led Zeppelin have teamed with media and technology company Interlude to produce a groundbreaking interactive video to the previously unreleased rough mix of Trampled Under Foot, which goes by the early working title Brandy & Coke. The video can be viewed now at ledzeppelin.com/video.

Through this immersive music video, Led Zeppelin fans will be able to see beyond the façade of one of rock’s most iconic album covers, Physical Graffiti , and step inside the building through each of the 16 featured windows. Until now, no fan has had so many ways to explore and see a music video come alive. By selecting one of the featured 16 windows, the audience can enter into the room and will discover events that pay homage to the window illustrations on the original artwork. Featuring archival footage, such as the band’s full Earl’s Court performance of the song, original animation and more, Interlude technology allows viewers to follow and interact with characters from room to room without disrupting the flow of the song.

Brandy & Coke (Trampled Under Foot – Initial Rough Mix) is featured on the newly released deluxe edition of Led Zeppelin’s legendary album Physical Graffiti , which is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary. Certified 16x platinum in the U.S., Physical Graffiti is generally regarded as one of the greatest double albums of all time with the original 15 tracks representing a creative tour de force that explored the band’s dynamic musical range. Led Zeppelin released a deluxe edition on February 24th.