Manos Spanos

ZAKK WYLDE On RANDY BLYTHE, ‘Unblackened’ And Next BLACK LABEL SOCIETY Album

Anthony Morgan of Metal Forces recently conducted an interview withBLACK LABEL SOCIETY frontman and ex-OZZY OSBOURNE guitaristZakk Wylde. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below. On the paperback release of his book, "Bringing Metal To The Children": Zakk: "The book all started from me and Eric [Hendrikx, co-author] just sitting around, talking, like any of the guys. It'd be like me and you sitting at the bar, talking about 'You're not gonna believe what happened the other day,' and this and that. It's the music business, where there are no rules [laughs]. There's no qualifications; you don't have to have a Master's degree. You just show up and you're there, but that's where you get the cast of characters, and that's where you get all of the comedy man. Like I always say, it's unimportant people making important decisions. They have no business doing what they're doing, but that's how it gets run. Anywhere else, if you wanna apply for a job welding or being a brain surgeon or any of that, you have to have a degree and you have to have a license, and everything like that [laughs]. Not in the music business, though. But yeah, it just came out of funny stories and us just laughing our balls off, talking about how ridiculously goofy the music business is. That's how the book came about, me saying 'You've gotta write a book about all this crap someday.'"

MOTÖRHEAD Frontman’s Health Issues Force Concert Cancelations

According to Soundsblog.it, MOTÖRHEAD canceled this past Saturday's (June 22) appearance in Austria at the See-Rock festival and the June 25 show in Milan, Italy, due to an unspecified "haematoma" suffered by the band's frontman, Lemmy Kilmister. The news was first broken by the See-Rock festival web site, and then the promoters of the Milan show confirmed the health issue. A haematoma is a localized collection of blood outside the blood vessels usually in liquid form within the tissue. It can happen on any part of the body, with different degrees of heath consequences. It was revealed in the latest issue of U.K.'s Classic Rock magazine that \Kilmister recently had a defibrillator fitted — an operation to put a device in his chest to help his heart beat normally — after experiencing "heart problems."

SLAYER’s KING: ‘I Don’t Think We Should Throw In The Towel Just Because JEFF’s Not Here’

The surviving members of California thrash titans SLAYER have opened up to Guitar World magazine about the passing of the band's founding guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who died on May 2 from alcohol-related cirrhosis of the liver, a result of a lifetime of drinking. "Jeff was always a drinker," former SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo tells the publication for its August 2013 issue. "He always had a Coors Light tall can in his hand. Always." "Jeff and I always drank," SLAYER guitarist Kerry King adds. "They called Steven Tyler and Joe Perry the Toxic Twins. We were the Drunk Brothers." He laughs. "The difference being that I don't wake up in the morning and need a beer. Jeff didn't know how not to drink."

Queens of The Stone Age
…Like Clockwork

In the past two decades post rock and alternative rock made a strong impact on the music industry. In 1998, Queens of the Stone Age released their debut album with Josh Homme, the band’s vocalist, guitarist and main composer on the front line. The band created a huge fanbase, especially in the USA, recording busily for a decade and on. Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age returned to release their sixth full-length record ‘…Like Clockwork’. In this album, Joey Castillo, the band’s drummer got fired and Dave Grohl (Homme’s close friend) replaced him as a session musician. The band continues with four members in its line-up and a darker (as Josh states) new music record.

Aosoth
IV: An Arrow in Heart

Plainly stated, IV: An Arrow in Heart has captured a sound that is gloriously cacophonous but still painfully musical. With a hazy backdrop of white noise, French black metal band Aosoth channels a primitive tone that is unrelenting, but skillfully intertwined with inconspicuous lines of melody. The melodic portions are just as crucial and prevalent as the dissonant ones and they work together to make the album appealing but unsettling. Ignoring cues from fellow French bands, Aosoth has not bothered to follow in the footsteps of Deathspell Omega, Anorexia Nervosa, or Blut Aus Nord. Their sound is entirely their own, and each musician does a spectacular job in their department. Vocalist MkM, bassist Inrvi, and guitarist and drummer Bst are all extremely talented and mesh together well.

NILE Drummer GEORGE KOLLIAS: Solo Album Update

NILE drummer George Kollias is at 9800 Studios in Athens, Greece with with engineer Antonis Kontozoglou putting the finishing touches on the pre-production for his upcoming solo album. Kollias is scheduled to begin laying down drums for the CD on July 15. He says: "[I am] really happy with the songs so far." A new video update from the studio can be seen below. Kollias' solo album is primarily set to show off some of George's craziest metal drumming to date, is being completely written and recorded by George, including the guitars, bass, keys, vocals, and percussion. It will also feature a DVD of the recording process. Hudson Music last year released George's "Intense Metal Drumming II" instructional DVD. Produced independently by Kollias, and appearing on the Hudson Ltd.label, this brand-new two-disc set comes four years after George's first instructional DVD release. Since then, Kollias has become known as an international authority on extreme metal drumming, and this DVD is a must-have for anyone interested in this topic.

U.D.O.: ‘Heavy Rain’ Video Released

"Heavy Rain", the new video from U.D.O., the German metal band led by former ACCEPT frontman Udo Dirkschneider, can be seen below. The song comes off U.D.O.'s new album, "Steelhammer", which was released on May 24 via AFM Records. The CD was produced by Dirkschneider andFitty Wienhold. Guitarist Igor Gianola recently left U.D.O. and was replaced by Finnish axeman Kasperi Heikkinen. U.D.O. last year announced the addition of guitarist Andrey Smirnov to the group's ranks. He replaced Stefan Kaufmann, who left the group for health reasons. Stefan will continue to work with U.D.O. behind the scenes and produce other bands at his Roxx studio.

NEWSTED: ‘Heroic Dose’ Song Available For Free Download

"Heroic Dose", a brand new song from NEWSTED — the new band led by former METALLICA, VOIVOD and FLOTSAM AND JETSAM bassist Jason Newsted — can be downloaded for free at this location. The track comes off NEWSTED's full-length debut, "Heavy Metal Music", which will be released on August 6 in North America via Chophouse Records/Collective Sounds and August 5 in Europe through Spinefarm Records. Jason told Billboard.com the 11-song album will be very similar to the band's debut EP, "Metal", which sold around 6,200 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 62 on The Billboard 200 chart. "The EP was always intended to be the primer, a sampler of what was to come on the LP," he said. "It's all metal all the time. It's not all fast, but it is all heavy." "Heavy Metal Music" track listing:

NINE INCH NAILS: ‘Hesitation Marks’ Track Listing Revealed

NINE INCH NAILS' new album, "Hesitation Marks", is scheduled for release on September 3. The follow-up to 2008's "The Slip" will contain 14 tracks, including first single "Came Back Haunted", the video for which is being helmed by acclaimed filmmaker David Lynch. According to RollingStone.com, "Hesitation Marks" will feature guest appearances by a number of musicians, including guitarist Lindsey Buckingham of FLEETWOOD MAC; bassist Pino Pallidino, who is currently a touring member of THE WHO; and KING CRIMSON's Adrien Belew, who recently left NINE INCH NAILS just a few weeks after he was announced as a new member of the Trent Reznor-led group.

Manos Spanos

Manos Spanos (Metalpaths' co-editor-in-chief), eight years in this site but still can't be characterised as a metalhead.