Category : LATEST NEWS

EDDIE TRUNK DISCUSSES HIS NEW BOOK AND HIS DISDAIN OF THE TERM “HAIR METAL”

Chad Bowar of About.com recently interviewed very own Eddie Trunk. Portions of the discussion appear below.

Q: Is a second book like a second album, where you have your whole life to do the first one, but only a few months for the second one and a lot more pressure and expectations?

A: That’s a great question. (laughs) Certainly the expectation is there for people who have the first book. The first book was incredibly well-received by most people, more so than I think me or my publisher ever envisioned. All the elements
that people loved about the first book: the layout, the mix of photos versus text, the personal stories, the playlists, all the anecdotes; they are all there. This book is a sequel in the truest sense of the word.

The big difference of course is this one has 35 chapters on bands that were not in the first book. I really wanted to include many of these bands in the first book, but I ran out of space. I hope it lives up to the expectations and the precedent that was set by the first book. Obviously, as you move into another 35 bands, not every one is going to be a household name. But a lot of people are looking forward to reading about some of the more off-the-radar bands. And there’s plenty about established bands, as well.

Q: Was there an artist or artists that people complained weren’t included in the first book that you were able to put in this one?

A: I didn’t really hear from so many people about bands that weren’t in the first book. I did hear from a lot of people about bands that were in the first book that they were kind of surprised about. An example of that would be Bon Jovi. Younger people especially don’t quite understand the connection that Bon Jovi had with this scene when they first came on it. If you’re not my age (I’m 49), you might not understand that they were very much a part of the hard rock/metal scene early on, and have evolved past it. Billy Squier, same story, from book one.

There were a couple of bands that I’m personally very close to that weren’t included in the first book that are in this one. People were like, “I can’t believe you didn’t include Overkill in the first book.” Overkill is a band that I was personally very close to from the beginning, being they were a Jersey band, and they are still friends to this day. One of the guys said, “Jesus, we’ve known this guy for 30 years and didn’t make his book!” (laughs).

It was nothing personal, I love Overkill. But each book has to be a balance between bands I feel are important to include, bands I feel are important to include because of my personal relationship with them, and there are bands that I’m a really big fan of that maybe weren’t ever all that popular, but I want to include. So it’s got to be a balance. Obviously you have to have some name bands in there so that the book sells and enough people recognize the names. Then there are those bands that I love and want to talk about. So I’m happy to say Overkill is in this book, as are Testament, who were a big part of my early years in the music industry. Same with White Lion. I have a huge history with those guys. In this book I was able to include those guys and get their stories out.

Q: One band that’s included in the book that you have championed is Y&T, who I think are very underrated.

A: I’ve always loved Y&T. As a kid I used to go see them at clubs like L’Amours in Brooklyn in the early ‘80s. I’ve seen them so many times over the decades. I think Dave Meniketti is one of the great singers and guitar players who doesn’t get the accolades he should. I was really glad to be able to include them. One of the things that happened with the first book that I hope happens with this book is that you have the big bands that everybody knows like Ratt and Whitenake. But you also have Y&T and Riot and Angel, bands that maybe not everybody knows. That is something I hope people get turned onto through the book. Everything I’ve ever done is about sharing music that I love and maybe getting people to discover stuff they didn’t know about.

Q: Some classify Y&T as “hair metal,” a term you do not like and have talked about on your show. Do you have a problem with it if it’s used as a term of endearment?

A: I’m not the thought police (laughs). I just say how I feel about things. Why I was vocal about that is that mostly younger people that didn’t grow up in the times where these bands were crucified, don’t realize that was born as a derogatory term. It was a statement that was applied to these guys that really hurt them for decades. I had Jake E. Lee on That Metal Show recently, and he said he couldn’t get gigs throughout the ‘90s because every time he’d go in for an audition, bands would say, “There’s that hair metal guy.”

Read more at About.com.

DEF LEPPARD’S “VIVA! HYSTERIA” TO GET THEATRICAL RELEASE ON OCTOBER 2ND

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On October 2nd, Def Leppard’s Viva! Hysteria will be shown in movie theaters across the country. To find a screening near you, please visit fathomevents.com.

With 100 million records sold worldwide, Def Leppard continues to be one of the most potent forces in global rock. For the past 30 years the band has been a top box-office draw, consistently selling out arenas worldwide.

Over the course of their career, Def Leppard produced a series of classic groundbreaking albums and with the release of Hysteria the band set the sound for a generation of music fans and artists alike.

Released in August 1987, the album went on to sell over 20 million copies worldwide, spawning seven hit singles including Pour Some Sugar On Me, Love Bites, Women, Rocket and the album’s classic title track. Hysteria was produced by Robert John “Mutt” Lange and following its release the album reached Number 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 chart in the U.S. and also Number 1 on the U.K. Album chart.

Hysetria has earned critical acclaim from a number of sources including Q Magazine, who voted the release as one of the greatest albums of all time, and Rolling Stone Magazine, who included the collection on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

For the first time ever, Def Leppard played Hysteria in its entirety during an eleven-show residency which started on March 22nd, 2013 at The Joint in the Hard Rock Hotel And Casino in Las Vegas. The band played also under the fictitious name of Ded Flatbird (which came about after someone once mispronounced Def Leppard as “Dead Flat Bird”). Two different opening sets of 35 minutes on each of the nights. The band showcased some fan favorite and rare songs from the early years of the band besides playing a selection of their greatest hits, highlighting classic material from throughout their career. The Viva! Hysteria show featured an elaborate set design created only for Def Leppard’s Las Vegas residency.

Known for legendary big-scale arena shows, Def Leppard will bring their over-the-top production to your house as Viva! Hysteria is their first full live show shot in HD released commercially. It will be released on October 18th in Europe and October 22nd in North America in three formats: 2CD+DVD Deluxe edition, DVD and Blu-Ray.

Viva! Hysteria track listing:

CD 1:

Women
Rocket
Animal
Love Bites
Pour Some Sugar on Me
Armageddon It
Gods of War
Don’t Shoot Shotgun
Run Riot
Hysteria
Excitable
Love and Affection
Rock of Ages
Photograph

CD 2:

Ded Flatbird Set#1:

Good Morning Freedom
Wasted
Stagefright
Mirror Mirror (Look Into My Eyes)
Action
Rock Brigade
Undefeated
Promises

Ded Flatbird Set#2:

On Through The Night
Slang
Let It Go
Another Hit And Run
High ‘n’ Dry (Saturday Night)
Bringin’ On The Heartbreak
Switch 625
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DVD adds bonus content – Acoustic Set:

When Love and Hate Collide
Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad
Two Steps Behind You

DVD / Blu Ray menu includes:
– Viva Hysteria
– Ded Flatbird Night 1
– Ded Flatbird Night 2
– Acoustic Set
– Photo Montage

KILL DEVIL HILL POST THEIR VIDEO FOR “CROWN OF THORNS” ONLINE

Revolver magazine reports:

Kill Devil Hill–the supergroup featuring former Pantera and Down bassist Rex Brown and former Black Sabbath and Heaven & Hell drummer Vinny Appice–will release their sophomore album, Revolution Rise, on October 29th through Century Media Records. In anticipation, the band has teamed with Revolver to premiere new song Crown of Thorns. watch the clip below.

For more about Kill Devil Hill, please visit s: killdevilhillmusic.com or facebook.com/KillDevilHillMusic.

source: revolvermag.com

ROB ZOMBIE AND KORN ANNOUNCE CO-HEADLINING ARENA TOUR, THE “NIGHT OF THE LIVING DREADS” KICKS OFF NOVEMBER 3RD IN RENO, NV

Heavyweights Rob Zombie and KORN have announced a co-headlining arena tour–the “Night Of The Living Dreads tour–beginning Sunday, November 3rd in Reno, NV and encompassing 17 dates across the U.S (see full itinerary below) before wrapping November 26th in Bethlehem, PA. With both artists known for delivering electrifying performances filled with sonic thunderbolts and dark intensity, fans can expect the roofs to lift off arenas across the country For a full list of tour dates and ticket links, visit robzombie.com/tour-dates or korn.com/events.

GRAMMY® Award-winning multi-platinum hard rock innovators KORN–Jonathan Davis [Vocals], James “Munky” Shaffer [Guitar], Brian “Head” Welch [Guitar], Reggie “Fieldy” Arvizu [Bass] and Ray Luzier [Drums]–will be touring in support of their 11th studio album, The Paradigm Shift, due in stores and via digital retailers on October 8th on Prospect Park. The video for the album’s Top 10 Active Rock track Never Never premiered on Vevo (9/6) and can be viewed below:

A rock icon and auteur filmmaker of unlimited vision, Rob Zombie has continuously challenged audiences as he stretches the boundaries of music, film, and publishing. In April, the seven-time GRAMMY® nominee released his fifth solo album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, on his new Zodiac Swan label through T-Boy Records/UMe. The album debuted at Number 7 on the Bill board 200, and has spawned two Top 10 Active Rock singles, Dead City Radio and the New Gods of Super Town and Zombie’s current Top 10 spin on Grand Funk Railroad’s anthemic We’re An American Band. The song’s lyric video can be viewed below.

On his upcoming co-headlining tour with KORN, Zombie notes, “Some of the best times we’ve had on the road have been touring with Korn, so we’re thrilled to be doing it again!” Jonathan Davis adds, “We’ve had a lot of fun touring and playing with Rob Zombie over the years. It’s been a while and those shows were so much fun. We’re really excited about doing it again.”

These tour dates come on the heels of KORN announcing the return of their Family Values Festival–a one–day spectacular taking place Saturday, October 5th at the 1st Bank Center in Denver, Colorado with Hollywood Undead, Asking Alexandria, Machine Gun Kelly and Beware of Darkness–as well as their current cross-country record release “launch dates” tour (with support from Asking Alexandria and Love And Death) taking the band through October 12th when they wrap in Las Vegas.

This fall, Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare — the ultimate Halloween music and horror event – will terrify fans every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from October 10th through November 2nd at FEARPlex in Pomona, just outside Los Angeles. Zombie will headline the closing night of music performances (November 2nd) during this bone-chilling experience combining the most advanced haunted house attractions with a not-to-be-missed music festival from top hard rock/metal, rock alternative, EDM, and Latin artists. The music lineup includes: Eagles Of Death Metal, Goldfinger, 3OH!3, The Used, Ozomatli, Beware Of Darkness, Butcher Babies, Ghost Town, Andrew WK, Motionless In White, Powerman 5000, TSOL, The Dickies, The Vandals, and Wallpaper. Visit www.GreatAmericanNightmare.com for more details.

Night Of The Living Dreads, featuring Rob Zombie and KORN, tour dates:

November:
3 Reno, NV Grand Sierra Resort
5 Yakima, WA Yakima Valley Sundome
6 Butte, MT The Butte Civic Center
7 Salt Lake City, UT Maverik Center
9 Bismarck, ND Bismarck Civic Center
10 Rapid City, SD Rushmore Plaza Arena
12 Casper, WY Casper Events Center
13 Sioux City, IA Tyson Event Center
15 Oklahoma City, OK Chesapeake Energy Arena
16 Wichita Falls, TX Kay Yeager Coliseum
17 Corpus Christi TX Concrete Street Amphitheatre
19 Springfield, MO O’Reilly Family Center
20 Cedar Rapids, IA US Cellular Center
22 Grand Rapids, MI Deltaplex
23 Huntington, WV Big Sandy Superstore Arena
24 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
26 Bethlehem, PA Bethlehem Events Center

“EDDIE TRUNK’S ESSENTIAL HARD ROCK AND HEAVY METAL VOLUME II” IS OUT TODAY

Eddie’s multi-city tour, complete with signings, radio events and giveaways, and more kicks off tonight (September 24th) at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square with a signing open to the public from 6:30 p.m. – 8:30p.m., and then a private party to follow. We’ve also taken over the digital marquee in Times Square for today, which will broadcast the book and signing info to thousands.

Also, keep an eye out over the next week for 15-second commercial spots which will be airing on on VH1 Classic and can be viewed below.

Other Eddie news includes a metal pinterest board and Spotify playlists featuring band “discographies” from the book. Tour dates, playlists, and more are up on the blog.

EDDIE TRUNK DISCUSSES 30 YEARS IN RADIO, BANDS HE WOULD LOVE TO SEE MAKE A COMEBACK AND WHAT BAND MEMBER HE WOULD LOVE TO REPLACE

Justin Tedaldiof the Examiner spoke with our very own Eddie Trunk. Portions of the interview appear below.

Examiner:This year you’re celebrating your 30th year in radio. What does that mean to you?

Eddie: To have survived in radio for 30 years is pretty remarkable. Even more remarkable is to have been able to do it in the same market I’ve lived in my whole life. Most people who are in radio that long can rattle off 15 cities that they’ve worked in, and I’m lucky enough to say that [my] entire stretch has been New York and New Jersey….Even more rewarding for me is that I’ve been doing what I love in radio….I truly believe that you have to bring more content to the table to survive in radio than saying, “There was AC/DC and here’s Journey,” because computers can do that. The little secret about what’s going on in radio right now that a lot of people don’t know is that a lot of rock radio stations that they’re listening to [has] a live local DJ, [but] they’re not—they’re hearing a piped-in DJ that could be across the country somewhere through a computer….I still love doing radio; radio’s still probably my greatest passion.

Examiner: What ambitions are you working on?

Eddie: I would like to continue to grow in radio, and by that I mean more outlets, more time, more opportunity….I’d love to be on better hours, I’d love to be on more radio stations, you know? People don’t really understand how syndication works in radio. They think that if someone has 100 radio stations they think, “Wow, look how many people they have listening.” The truth of the matter is that you could have somebody with 10 radio stations that has 10 times the audience of the person with 100 radio stations just because of what markets those stations are in: how many people are listening to those stations? What hours are the show on? We navigate through the industry to try to make things bigger…I still would love one day to do a full-time afternoon radio show that’s an extension of what I’m doing now. I don’t know if I’ll ever get that opportunity, but I would love to….I still feel that after 30 years, there’s still a lot that I want to do.

Examiner: You’ve mentioned people you’d love to have as guests on That Metal Show like Jimmy Page, Ozzy Osbourne and Eddie Van Halen. What are some burning questions you’ve been saving up?

Eddie: Oh, boy. With Eddie Van Halen, I’d just love to get to the bottom of his issues with Sammy Hagar. I know Sammy and I love Sammy and he’s been on my shows many times, and people think that I have some bias against the [David Lee] Roth years and that I’m a Hagar guy, which is completely not the case. I was a Sammy Hagar fan long before he was ever in Van Halen, though. I find it interesting, because Eddie Van Halen has this huge catalog of music, huge songs, that nobody else can sing but Sammy Hagar, and that unless a fence is mended with Sammy and that he finds a way to someday work with him again, there’s an entire generation of people—who that’s their Van Halen—who are never going to hear those songs live again. I think people forget that there’s like a dozen huge hit songs that, let’s be honest, David Lee Roth couldn’t sing in his wildest dreams—no pun intended with Dreams, but there’s another song. So I would love to know how he feels about that and about leaving, you know, an entire era of the band on the shelf, with so many huge, iconic, important songs.

So that would be something that would come to mind to ask him, but I have no idea what his response is. I’d just love to get to the bottom of that, and also see if he takes any personal responsibility in the falling apart of that band, because I saw the reunion tour with Sammy [in 2004], and Eddie Van Halen was whacked out of his skull or whatever. I mean, he was playing different songs from the rest of the band. Everyone who saw it knew it was a disaster. So I’d love to kind of pick his brain a little bit about that period and see what he’s thinking and going forward if he thinks there could ever be a way to reconcile so that material could be revisited again.

A guy like Jimmy Page, I’d love to just get to the bottom of what his visions were with [Led Zeppelin’s] recent reunion five years ago, and what his plan is going forward. I was able to do some digging and found out that, of course, everybody knows Steven Tyler was considered to go and sing with them when [Robert] Plant didn’t want to do it—Myles Kennedy was there for a little bit—and just kind of peel away a little bit more about that and the thought process and if there’s any resentment towards Plant for not being able to play, not playing that stuff. And of course, there’s all the old stuff—guys like that, you could get good stories forever from the early days. But I’m just kind of curious of some of the more recent developments to get a handle on how that stuff all went down and what they’re thinking going forward.

Examiner: You mentioned that if the circumstances were different, you would have had a very different interview with Axl Rose on TMS. What are some of the things you would have liked to ask him or know more about if you could have another round with him?

Eddie: I’d love to get more into the dissolving of the original band. Axl’s touched on things before, drug abuse and what have you, but I’d love to get more into his head about how all of that fell apart, and more specifics about what exactly went down and how this thing unraveled, and how you had one of the greatest, iconic hard rock bands ever and how it could have imploded so quickly, and from his perspective what he saw. I certainly could have been tougher on him about the late stage times. I did mention it to him in that interview, but he said something like, “We’re working on it, and we’re trying” and this and that, but I could have peeled the layers a little more….

Examiner: What bands would you most like to see make a comeback?

Eddie: I’ve gotta be honest, even though they’re friends and I respect what they’re doing separately, I really would love to see Skid Row again with Sebastian Bach and Rob Affuso, their original drummer. I respect what they’re doing individually and like it, but I really think that that’s a band that burned way too quick, and are still relatively young enough that they could put on a great, energetic show. And they’re a band that got progressively heavier as their career went on, and I’d love to see them kind of embrace that. I think we need an edgy, over the top, in-your-face kind of hard rock band again, and when that band was on its game they were a force to be reckoned with live, and I’d love to see if they could put whatever issues exist behind them and get out there and really just give this genre a real good kick in the ass again. I know that there’s a ton of interest, especially outside of America, in that happening, but I also know that it’s not even close to a reality, having talked to the guys firsthand about it, for a huge host of reasons….There’s a lot of division, still, [among] the certain parties in that band. It’s unfortunate, because I think that they could really do some damage if they could pull it together one more time.

And the other thing I’d love to see one more time, selfishly, everyone knows how much I love the band UFO; same scenario there, I love the current lineup, I think Vinnie Moore’s brilliant in that band, but I would love, and I would go any part in the world one more time, to see the Strangers in the Night lineup, and that’s one that’s a little bit more urgent. The core of the band is in their mid-60s now, and you don’t really know how much longer they all have, so it would be great to see that one more time. I already told me wife [laughs], if that show happens anywhere in the world, I have to go; I’m getting on a plane and going. It’s probably my number one thing I’d love to see one last time.

Examiner: [If] you can replace any [band] member—where do you think you’d see yourself having the most fun?

Eddie: Wow. The most fun would probably be fronting Van Halen, you know? The most fun would be David Lee Roth in 1980 to ’82 or something. The ultimate party hard rock band. Guys and girls loved them equally. That would be the ultimate sort of thing to do, I think. The other person to be would be Joe Perry or Steven Tyler. Those guys are both eternally cool and eternally youthful in what they can still do at their age with their band at this point in their career is pretty unbelievable live. But I always thought that Joe Perry, there’s nothing not cool about the guy, he just exudes coolness and he’s a great guy, too. As crazy as it sounds, I’ve gotten to know him and be friendly with him. Those are the icons to me. And of course, to have been a member of the original KISS would be incredible. To dress up like that and be part of a stage show like that, to do such groundbreaking theatrics, to make what I think are some really good records that are overlooked a lot of times, that would be equally phenomenal.

Read more at the Examiner.

Eddie’s new book, Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Volume II is available for purchase today (Sepetmber 24th).