Category : LATEST NEWS

IN THIS MOMENT ANNOUNCE TOUR DATES AND CREATE A NEW MEANING FOR THE WORD “WHORE”

Southern California’s female fronted hard rockers, In This Moment, have just launched their latest single Whore to radio. The single is from the band’s latest Century Records release Blood.

The album was released in August of 2012 where it debuted at #15 on the Billboard Top 200 selling over 20,000 copies the first week. Blood marks the band’s highest chart debut of their career. While Whore has been getting traction at radio stations across the country, it was more important for the band to create a message that conveys the true intent behind the use of the word. Singer Maria Brink created the term Women Honoring One another Rising Eternally to give new meaning away from the derogatory connotation of the word.

“I am so proud and excited for the world to hear Whore!!!! This is an honest and raw movement that needs to be heard!!!!!!” exclaims singer Maria Brink. “The message behind this song is taking back control. It is about taking the power from a disgusting and degrading word and turning it back around on the accuser. It’s about self empowerment, love, and liberation.”

The imagery the band has created around the release of Whore is just as provocative as the word itself, yet all goes back to the important message the band has created. Singer Maria Brink explains, “I decided to pose nude for the visual art for Whore to evoke a raw vulnerable emotion. The word WHORE written down my back, and the dunce cap symbolize me placing myself on the stake for those who are suffering and I can only hope to encourage at least one person to find the self worth and love they deserve to transcend out of a painful situation into a beautiful one. It is about finding our power and taking a stand. We are resilient beings and need to realize our incredible strengths. I will not bow down to others perceptions of me; I will only rise in the name of art, love and music. “

Guitarist Chris Howorth adds, “One of the best things about the song Whore is all the feelings and thoughts that the word alone provokes and that’s great but at the end of the day it’s just a word, the only power it really has is the power that we give it. It’s really just about taking the power back from the word, and when you get past all the controversy of the word you have a bombastic rock and roll song with crushing guitars and huge drums that will have you screaming whore at the top of your lungs! Listen with your heart!”

In This Moment are returning to headline status this Fall hitting the road on the first-ever Hellpop Tour. The tour will also feature Motionless in White, Kyng, and All Hail The Yeti, in support. The tour begins October 24th in Tempe, AZ at the Marquee and runs through November 27th when it wraps up at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, CA. The 25 city trek will make stops in Houston, TX, Orlando, FL, Atlanta, GA and Salt Lake City, UT to name a few. In This Moment will also be playing a special Halloween show in Shreveport, LA on October 31st which will be a spectacle not to be missed. The band recently created a teaser video for HellPop which can be seen here. Tickets for all shows are currently on-sale.

In This Moment began in Los Angeles in 2005, when Brink and Howorth met at an open jam. Their debut album, Beautiful Tragedy, landed the band on the 2007 and 2008 editions of Ozzfest. Their first collaboration with Kevin Churko came with the release of 2008’s The Dream – earning them a slot on the 2009 Warped Tour. Their third album, A Star-Crossed Wasteland (2010) was their highest-charting album until the release of their latest album Blood (2012) took the distinction. The album was released last August where it debuted at #15 on the Billboard Top 200 selling over 20,000 copies the first week. Blood marks the band’s highest chart debut of their career. To date, the album has scanned over 185,000 units and has spawned the singles Blood and Adrenalize.

In This Moment is Maria Brink (vocals), Chris Howorth (lead guitar), Travis Johnson (bass), Randy Weitzel (rhythm guitar) and Tom Hane (drums).

Hellpop Tour Dates:

DATE CITY, STATE VENUE
Oct. 24th Tempe, AZ The Marquee
Oct. 25th Albuquerque, NM Sunshine Theater
Oct. 26th Lubbock, TX Lonestar Amphitheater
Oct. 27th San Antonio, TX Backstage Live
Oct. 29th Houston, TX Warehouse Live
Oct. 30th Abilene, TX The Lucky Mule
Oct 31st Shreveport, LA Margaritaville Resort Casino (A Halloween Evening With)
Nov 2nd Tampa, FL Cuban Club
Nov 3rd Orlando, FL Club at Firestone
Nov 5th Jacksonville, FL Brewsters Megaplex
Nov 6th Atlanta, GA The Masquerade
Nov 8th Stroudsburg, PA Sherman Theater
Nov 9th Clifton Park, NY Upstate Concert Hall
Nov 10th New York, NY Best Buy Theater
Nov 11th Boston, MA House of Bluess
Nov 13th Niagara Falls, NY Rapids Theatre
Nov 15th South Bend, IN Club Fever
Nov 16th Milwaukee, WI The Rave
Nov 17th La Crosse, WI La Crosse Center Arena
Nov 20th Omaha, NE Sokol Auditorium
Nov 22nd Salt Lake City, UT In The Venue
Nov 23rd Boise, ID Knitting Factory
Nov 24th Reno, NV Knitting Factory
Nov 26th San Francisco, CA The Regency Ballroom
Nov 27th Los Angeles, CA Club Nokia LA

For more information, please visit www.inthismomentofficial.com.

DRUMMER BILL WARD SAYS HE HAS A NEW ALBUM CALLED “ACCOUNTABLE BEASTS” IN THE WORKS

Sick Drummer Magazine caught up with original Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward to talk about his fine art project and new music. Read about Ward’s new music below.

SDM:…Will we maybe be able to hear you behind the drums again anytime soon, regardless of who it may be with?

BW: I think the soonest it’s going to be is probably on an album we are trying to finish right now. We’re in the final mix and some of the tracks are mastered. It’s an album called Accountable Beasts and I’ve been working on and off with it for about five years. I play seven or eight of the drum tracks on it, have put a lot of really hard work into it and I wrote most of the material. I am quite pleased with the amount of work I’ve put into the album to date and I’m hoping it will come out at some point in the near future. I can’t say definitely, but I can say that we are working on the final mix and I kind of have a goal behind that, which is let’s get this thing finished and mixed as soon as possible. We are working on that right now, in fact this very day, to go into the studio and so on and so forth. Setting up our dates, studying my mix sheets, and working out final over-dubs if any need to be done. We have some of the material which is already what I like to call “master-mixed”, it’s board mixed and we don’t need to touch it, it just goes to mastering. There’s nine songs on the record I believe, so that would be the first time you’d get to hear me drumming again, at least at this point. We have other projects that are going on as well, but it’s a bit too early to tell yet.

SDM: You said you wrote most of the material, would that be guitar as well?

BW: Yes. Well, I don’t play guitar but what allows me to be able to work with guitar is that I have an incredible guitar player. He’s so open-minded that when I take my keyboard notes to him, I’ll just play a little bit of the melodies and such. I love working with melodies and I can work out a lot of the different parts, so when I do that my lead guitar player is extremely amicable. We put our ego’s outside the door and it’s like… ok! let me see what we can achieve here. Let me see if I can produce these things you’re trying to get at. It’s a very good working arrangement and he sounds absolutely great on the record, he’s fuckin’ rock-n-rolling! I mean, it’s really good! I obviously like it and I hope everybody else will, but it’s definitely a good piece of work.

Read the entire interview at Sick Drummer Magazine.

source: sickdrummermagazine.com

SLASH CALLS EDDIE TRUNK AN “ICON AND A HERO TO ARTISTS AND FANS”

Tris McCall of the New Jersey’s Star-Ledger has written a feature story about Eddie’s new book, Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Vol. II. Portions of the article appear below.

“[The publishers of my first book] were a little caught off guard because the first edition of the book did so well,” says the lifelong New Jerseyan. “We were blown away by how impactful it was, and by how many people loved it and said they learned something from it. The publisher ran out of copies and had to print more. We didn’t have anything like a proper tour scheduled.”

The second edition resembles the first. Once again, Trunk has chosen to highlight 35 of his favorite bands or musicians, filling the chapters with histories, personal stories of his encounters with them and playlists of hits and deep cuts. There’s an appendix for further listening and an introduction by a hard rock luminary: In this case, Slash, lead guitarist for Guns N’ Roses, who calls Trunk an “icon and a hero to artists and fans alike.”

Yet volume two is a very different book than the original. The first Essential was heavy on household names — Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Black Sabbath — and contained a loving tribute to the frequently maligned KISS, Trunk’s first rock heroes. By necessity, the new book goes deeper, examining the careers of rockers who never became huge stars, but whose musicianship, longevity and innovation demands respect: secretive Blue Öyster Cult, uncompromising Manowar, the influential, unheralded Glenn Hughes, the pioneering Lita Ford (one of the few female lead guitarists in mainstream metal history).

Many of the stories, in this book, are sadder and, ultimately, more affecting. Trunk tells of trying to make peace between the two principal members of Dokken — musicians who had everything to gain by putting aside their differences, but who couldn’t do it. He tells the story of Angel, an innovative and theatrical but now largely forgotten hard rock group lost in the shadow of their label-mates KISS.

Many groups are sidelined by the grunge-rock movement of the ’90s. Others — such as Extreme, a group that Trunk passionately defends — are burdened by an unrepresentative hit single. Even in the 1980s — the glory years of pop-metal on MTV — the relationship between hard rock and the mainstream was always strained. A few bands broke through to a mass audience. But some equally talented ones have long been consigned to the fringes.

“The big metal events reinforce the perception that all of these bands are coming back,” says Trunk, who has hosted the massive Rocklahoma festival in Pryor, Oklahoma, for the past few years. “That may be, but you also have to peel away the layers and look at it objectively. That huge show might be the only gig that band gets all year. Or they’ll be out there, 10 in a van, playing shows where they’re third-billed. All the respect and credit in the world for doing that, but the reality is that while some big bands are doing better business than ever, other great ones are hurting.”

Read more at NJ.com

Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, Vol. II will be released on September 24th, but it available for pre-order at Amazon.

THE AQUARIAN WEEKLY SPEAKS TO EDDIE ABOUT HIS NEW BOOK, “EDDIE TRUNK’S ESSENTIAL HARD ROCK AND HEAVY METAL VOLUME II”

Tim Louie of The Aquarian Weekly spoke with our very own Eddie Trunk about his new book, Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Volume II.

The Aquarian: Being a huge fan of the first book, I just got through the second book, and you didn’t miss anything on this one either.

Eddie: For me it was really frustrating with the first book—as great as it came out—to have to leave a lot of bands that I wanted to write about out, and I didn’t intend to do that. If you noticed in the first book, there’s actually a section in the back that says “More Essentials.” Those little paragraphs back there were intended to be full sections, but I was told because of space limitations, I had to cut a bunch of bands out. So, even when I was writing the first book and finishing that up, it was in my mind that I will mention these bands, but they will get full treatment in my next book, and that’s exactly what I ended up doing. And I’d say that almost every one of the bands—if not all of the bands—got the full treatment in this book, and there’s obviously more than that.

One of the biggest things that people loved about the first book was the format. It was easy to read and it wasn’t this big, overwhelming autobiography that you needed to take a month out of your life to get into. They can skim it, they can read it, some people loved the “Playlist,” some people loved “Did You Know?,” some people loved the personal stories, the photos, whatever. So this book is in every sense of the word, a sequel. It’s the same publisher, the same art director, it’s the same format; it’s just, obviously, 35 bands that weren’t featured prominently in the first book.

The Aquarian: I thought the book was supposed to be called More Of Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock And Heavy Metal…

Eddie Yeah, it’s actually now called Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock And Heavy Metal: Volume II. It was originally going to be called More, but I changed that because I just thought it would be cooler to come up with Volume II. You know, there was Van Halen II, Led Zeppelin II, it’s just a cooler thing, I think, so that’s the way we went with it, but there’s also a section in the back of this book where there are 20 bands that didn’t make this one. So who knows if there is a three somewhere down the line, but just like book one, it’s a mix of different things and it’s also what’s always been important to me, and that’s variety in hard rock and metal. Everything is in there from Warrant to Marilyn Manson. So, if you liked the first book, there’s nothing not to like in this book, and most people that I talk to really love the first one, so we’ll see what happens.

The Aquarian: I know this book isn’t even out yet, but do you think you have enough for a third book?

Eddie: I think so. I mean, this book still has a lot of big names in it. The one thing that will happen with a potential third book is it will probably get a little bit more obscure. A lot of people will probably be into that, myself included, but there’s also a concession you will have to make with the publisher, who obviously wants named bands that people are gonna pick up and recognize and want to buy the book and read about. So if I get too deep and I write about 35 bands that really a lot of people never heard about, then that’s going to be reflected in the interest from the publisher and the sales.

I guess I haven’t really thought about it because this book was a lot of work and I’m just glad that it’s finally coming out, but I think that when the time is right and I set my sights to it, I really think that I can easily come up with another 35 bands or so.

Read more at The Aquarian Weekly.

Join Eddie on his book tour at Barnes And Noble in Morris Plains on September 25th and Barnes And Noble in Staten Island on September 26th.

Eddie Trunk’s Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Volume II will be released on September 24th.

SAXON TO RELEASE “UNPLUGGED AND STRUNG UP” IN NOVEMBER

Saxon will release a new album called Unplugged And Strung Up on November 18th

The 14 song disc features orchestral, acoustic and re-recorded versions of some of their classic songs.

The band says, “We re-evaluated, re-worked and re-energized the likes of The Eagle Has Landed and Crusader by introducing orchestral dynamics to offer added dimension. Frozen Rainbow, from our 1979 debut, gets a stunning acoustic reprisal which transports it into a power ballad to be proud of; while Red Star Falling soars and sweeps through emotions with its orchestrally-arranged dovetail.”

A digipak version of Unplugged And Strung Up will also include 2002 album Heavy Metal Thunder, which featured 13 re-recordings.

Unplugged And Strung Up track list:

1. Stallions of the highway (Remix)
2. Crusader (Orchestral version)
3. Battle Cry
4. The Eagle Has Landed (orchestral version)
5. Red Star Falling (orchestral version)
6. Broken heroes (orchestral version)
7. Call To Arms (orchestral version)
8. Militia Guard
9. Forever Free (Re-recorded version)
10. Just Let Me Rock (Re-recorded version)
11. Frozen Rainbow (Acoustic version)
12. Iron wheels (live acoustic version)
13. Requiem (Acoustic version)
14. Coming home (acoustic version)