Ozzy Osbourne tells Metal Hammer that he is very proud of Black Sabbath’s new album, 13.
“I’ve not been this happy about an album in years,” says Osbourne. “I’m not trying to sell my home – if this record was just OK, I’d fucking say it. But honestly, hand on heart, it’s one of the best things I’ve done in my entire life.”
Ozzy also offers some thoughts on the situation surrounding original Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, who ruled himself out of the band’s reunion last year.
“It would have been great to have Bill – all of us said that,” adds Ozzy. “But you can’t expect someone of Bill’s age to be as agile as he used to be. He’s had heart attacks. If he’d turned up and played like he used to, or nearly as well, maybe we’d have worked something out…But we decided that if we were ever going to do this fucking album, you’ve got to be on the case. It got to the point where we said, ‘Are we just going to sit and wait for him to get off his fucking arse or what?’ We had to decide – we couldn’t just keep the fans waiting any fucking longer.”
Eddie Trunk appears in Time Out New York‘s story about NYC Metal 2013.
When asked what defines NYC metal? Eddie replied,” “As someone who has been a fan, supporter and personality for 30 years in this market for hard rock and metal, the place that screams NY metal more than anything is the now defunct club L’Amour in Brooklyn. From my earliest years seeing shows, I would venture to Bay Ridge from my home in NJ, over two bridges, getting home at 4am, just to hang and see the many great bands that played there. There was such a grit about L’Amour, but also a great sense of community with fellow metalheads. There was a point where I think the club became almost bigger than some of the bands that played there. Anthrax, Overkill, White Lion, Type O Negative and many others with area roots literally broke out of that club. L’Amour was as NY as metal got and I miss it almost every day.”
photo: Krista Schlueter
See the rest of Time Out New York‘s story on NYC Metal 2013 including Anthrax, Saint Vitus, Ross the Boss, among others, please clicking here.
The world’s most notorious band will be coming back to the world’s most notorious city this fall, when Mötley Crüe returns to Las Vegas. The rockers best known for going to the extreme will once again take over the stage at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino for an exclusive twelve show engagement September 18th through October 6th. The band blew away fans and critics last February with twelve over-the-top, sold-out shows.
Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am PST, however fans can join the brand new Mötley Crüe Fan Club to gain access to an exclusive general admission presale beginning tomorrow at 10AM PST!
Click here for information on how to join.
The fall shows will be an all-new production and the band is pushing their own envelope once again. The production will be designed exclusively for The Joint in partnership with AEG Live. There will be plenty of surprise elements for fans and a set-list full of hits.
“We are proud to have pioneered the Las Vegas rock residency last year and can’t wait to come back this year to take it over the top with a brand new show that will be unlike anything you’ve ever seen Mötley Crüe do before,” said Nikki Sixx.
“The guys had such a wild and successful run the first time around, I’m sure they will want to do everything bigger and better this time. We are extremely excited to see what the band brings to The Joint and Vegas during their second residency,” said Paul Davis, vice president of entertainment at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino “If some is good, more is better! That was our thought when we got serious about bringing the Crüe back to The Joint. The run went so well last time…..the show was awesome, the numbers outstanding and working with the band and their management was a pleasure,” said Bobby Reynolds, Vice President of Booking for AEG Live Las Vegas. “I’m honored to bring one of the most entertaining bands ever back to their element.”
Tickets, starting at $49.50 (plus applicable service fees), go on sale Friday at 10am at the Hard Rock Hotel Box Office, all Ticketmaster locations, online at Ticketmaster.com or charge-by-phone at 800.745.3000.
Mötley Crüe will perform 12 shows at The Joint. Show time is 9pm.
Wednesday, Sept 18th
Friday, Sept 20th
Saturday, Sept 21st
Sunday, Sept 22nd
Wednesday, Sept 25th
Friday, Sept 27th
Saturday, Sept 28th
Sunday, Sept 29th
Wednesday, Oct 2nd
Friday, Oct 4th
Saturday, Oct 5th
Sunday, Oct 6th
Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi discusses his ongoing battle with cancer as Black Sabbath’s new album 13 will be released.
“When I’d finished the chemo and the radiotherapy, I went to see the doctor again for my regular blood tests,” he tells Guitar World. “I said, ‘So it’s gone now?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s not going to go. You’re not going to get rid of it. But we can treat it and work with it.’ I got all dismal, because I thought it was gone. He said there was a 30 percent chance of it going away, but I was probably going to have this for life. Now I get treatments to keep it from spreading.”
“So every six weeks I go in for an infusion of Rituximab, which is one of the four ingredients when they give you the chemo. It takes a few hours, and it makes you feel a bit crap inside and a bit sick. But a couple weeks after, I start perking up again. So that’s how we are working it with the shows. I go out, then come back and go into the hospital for more treatment, more blood tests and all the rest of the rubbish. And then we do it all over again.”
Read more in the July issue of Guitar World.
Black Sabbath’s 13 will be released on will be released on June 11th.
Black Sabbath North American Tour Dates:
Jul 25th Houston, TX Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion
Jul 27th Austin, TX Frank Erwin Center
Jul 29th Tampa, FL Live Nation Amphitheatre
Jul 31st W. Palm Beach, FL Cruzan Amphitheatre
Aug 2nd Bristow, VA Jiffy Lube Live
Aug 4th Holmdel, NJ PNC Bank Arts Center
Aug 6th Detroit, MI DTE Energy Music Theatre
Aug 8th Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Arena
Aug 10th Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
Aug 12th Boston, MA Comcast Center
Aug 14th Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre
Aug 16th Tinley Park, IL First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
Aug 18th Indianapolis, IN Klipsch Music Center
Aug 22nd Vancouver, BC Rogers Arena
Aug 24th Seattle, WA Gorge Amphitheatre
Aug 26th San Francisco, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View
Aug 28th Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
Aug 30th Phoenix, AZ US Airways Center
Sep 1st Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
Sep 3rd Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles Sports Arena
*Previously announced date.
^On sale Friday, May 3rd
+On sale Saturday, May 4th
~On sale, Friday May 10th
>On sale TBD
Stone Temple Pilots accuse former frontman Scott Weiland of misusing the band’s name to further his solo career and want a judge to strip the rocker of his ability to use the group’s name or songs.
A lawsuit filed on May 24th in Los Angeles accuses Weiland of being chronically late to concerts while the group was together and having his lawyer attempt to interfere with the airplay of the group’s new single Out of Time.
Weiland and Stone Temple Pilots parted ways in February, and the 45-year-old singer said at the time that he learned that he was no loner in the band from a statement released to the media.
The suit sheds light on the band’s breakup, accusing Weiland of interacting with band mates only through lawyers or managers and showing up late to the group’s 2012 shows. It cites Weiland’s addiction struggles and poor performances as detriments to the band’s earning potential.
“The band endured much strife and lost significant opportunities because of Weiland,” the suit states.
The lawsuit claims the band owns the rights to the name Stone Temple Pilots, and the band’s songs, copyrights and trademarks. Wieland has used many of the band’s hits in his solo shows, the lawsuit states. The band wants a judge to block him from even calling himself a former member of the band.
The band has been reconstituted with Chester Bennington of Linkin Park taking the frontman role.
The lawsuit claims that Weiland’s lawyer called the head of programming at KROQ, a Los Angeles modern rock station, and said if the station played Out of Time it would be infringing on Weiland’s rights.
“Enough is enough,” the band’s lawsuit states. “Without relief from the court, Weiland will continue violating STP’s rights, misappropriating STP assets and interfering with the band’s livelihood.”
The lawsuit states the band entered into agreements in 1996 and 2010 that state that no former members can use the Stone Temple Pilots name.
The band’s hits include Vasoline, Interstate Love Song and Plush, which won a Grammy in 1993 for best hard rock performance with vocal.
Weiland alluded to lawyers getting involved when the band’s statement about his departure was released.
The 42-year-old Grammy winner, who is launching a summer tour where most tickets are priced at $20, said he’s scalping about 1,000 tickets from each show to make up for the cheaper regular price.
“I’m in the scalping business, but you know what? We told everyone. A lot of artists have been doing this for years behind fans’ backs, taking all these backdoor deals,” he said. “We look at StubHub and other places and see what they’re selling them for and we just undercut them.”
Kid Rock’s $20 Best Night Ever Tour begins June 28th in Bristow, Va., and the Detroit native, who released his debut album in 1990, said he likely scalped secretly on past tours.
“I’m sure we have,” he said. “I can’t say for sure, but I’m not going to say that we haven’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if we did.”
Kid Rock’s discount ticket pricing is leading a change in tours where scalpers play a major role as the marketplace for secondary sources for tickets continues to grow, especially in a summer when key acts like The Rolling Stones, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z are on the road.
Ticketmaster’s North American President Jared Smith said Kid Rock’s deal, which he completed with Ticketmaster partner Live Nation, is a first of more to come, though they might not be as risky as Kid Rock’s plan, which also includes $4 draft beers and $20 T-shirts.
“I absolutely believe that we’re starting to see the real acceleration of some really healthy things in pricing that are going to create new opportunities for fans to come and experience it in a really special way,” Smith said.
A small way that artists have been able to control scalping is through paperless tickets, which only allows the buyers of the tickets to use them at shows and are not allowed to resell them. Smith said paperless tickets, which launched five years ago, accounts for “about 1 percent” of the tickets at Ticketmaster.
“It hasn’t grown necessarily as a percentage of the total tickets that we sell, but we certainly see more artists employing it,” Smith said. “When it really first started, it was kind of looked at as a tool to use across the entire seats in the arena, but it’s really become a tool for the best seats in the house. Increasingly we see artists using it very, very targeted for like the top 500 seats in the house or the top 1,000 seats.”
Bruce Springsteen, Keith Urban, New Kids on the Block, Radiohead, Rascal Flatts, Selena Gomez, Muse, Miley Cryus, Iron Maiden, Atoms for Peace and Eric Church are among the acts using paperless tickets.
StubHub, the largest reseller of tickets, said business is booming thanks to the top acts on the road as well as summer festivals. But the company, which has a partnership with AEG, knows the idea of paperless tickets hurts their business.
“That limits a person’s right to resell or transfer or to just give away their ticket. We do not support that because we believe in a fan’s right to do whatever they want with their tickets,” said Alison Salcedo, the head of U.S. Communications for StubHub. Fan Freedom, an organization that supports the rights of ticket holders, echoed StubHub’s thoughts on paperless tickets.
“I don’t see any reason why nontransferable tickets need to be the solution,” said Joe Potter, the CEO of Fan Freedom, which is financially supported by StubHub. “Scalpers get tickets through pre-sale and fan club memberships.”
Ticketmaster isn’t against the idea of reselling tickets, in fact they resell concert tickets online.
“More often or not tickets are underpriced, that’s why you see so much resell activity,” Smith said. “What we try to do is make sure it’s done very transparently.”
Ticket holders are allowed to sell tickets at any price on sites like StubHub and ticketsnow.com, that’s why Kid Rock isn’t selling tickets for the first two rows at his shows. He’s randomly pulling fans from the nose bleed sections to enjoy his concert from the venue’s best view. And the first 20 rows at his shows are seats offered through paperless ticketing.
“We really don’t know what we’re going to make yet. We were doing estimates on it and they’re already going through a lot of these numbers, and it looks like it’s going to be a good summer,” he said of what his potential tour earnings.
Kid Rock, whose tour openers include ZZ Top, Uncle Kracker and Kool and the Gang, is playing the same venues he’s performed at in the past, but he said he’s filling up more seats and selling tickets faster. Even scalpers have approached the performer to cut deals.
“I’ve had people in the scalping business come at me already and try to make side deals like, ‘I can make you thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash if you’ll just flip a few of these tickets our way for certain shows,'” he recalled.
