On May 14, Groovey of Groovey.TV conducted an interview with ICED EARTH guitarist/mainman Jon Schaffer at Summit Music Hall in Denver, Colorado. You can now watch the chat below.
Asked what he plans to do during ICED EARTH's break following the band's appearance at the Wacken Open Air festival in August, Schaffer said: "I have to have neck surgery. It's the second cervical fusion. I had the first one 14 years ago. And, ironically, we did Wacken, like, three and a half weeks after that, and I was in a neck brace and shit. But this time, there is no chance for me to do it and heal up through the summer because of what it takes. So, I mean, basically, early September, I'm going under the blade again and I'm gonna get this fixed. 'Cause it's rapidly gotten worse. I would say since the recording of [ICED EARTH's new album] 'Plagues Of Babylon' is when it really started to get bad. It's been bothering me for a long time, but now it's getting to the point where it's actually affecting my hands and my shoulders and it's really not good. A little break would be good, because it's not just the performing of ICED EARTH, it's the whole thing. It's a 24-7 job, so it's just gonna be good to be able to take a few weeks and not hear the words 'ICED EARTH' for awhile or anything and do some stuff with my daughter and have some good quality time. So that alone will recharge the batteries, let alone getting the neck situation fixed up."
"Plagues Of Babylon" sold around 6,300 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 49 on The Billboard 200 chart.
The band's previous CD, "Dystopia", opened with around 6,100 units back in October 2011 to enter the chart at No. 67.
ICED EARTH's 2008 effort, "The Crucible of Man (Something Wicked Part II)", registered a first-week tally of 6,700 to debut at No. 79.
"Plagues Of Babylon" was recorded at Principal Studios (KREATOR, IN EXTREMO, GRAVE DIGGER) in Senden, Germany and was mixed at NHow Studios in Berlin, Germany. Guest vocals on "Highwayman" were laid down by VOLBEAT frontman Michael Poulsen and SYMPHONY X/ADRENALINE MOB singer Russell Allen. Guest vocals on "Plagues Of Babylon", "Among The Living Dead", "Democide", "Resistance" and "If I Could See You" are by BLIND GUARDIAN vocalist Hansi Kürsch. The cover and additional artwork was created by Eliran Kantor (TESTAMENT, ATHEIST, HATEBREED).
Jon Dette (SLAYER, TESTAMENT, ANTHRAX) is sitting behind the drums for ICED EARTH's current tour, taking over for Raphael Saini, who filled in during the summer 2013 festivals, the recording of ICED EARTH's new album, and the club leg of the VOLBEAT 2013 tour.
Dette made his live debut with ICED EARTH on November 6, 2013 at O2 World in Berlin, Germany.
ICED EARTH last year parted ways with drummer Brent Smedley for "personal family reasons."
BLACK SABBATH bassist Geezer Butler recently spoke to Time Out Dubai about the possibility of the band releasing another studio album to follow last year's reunion CD, "13". "We've still got four tracks left over from ['13'], so maybe we'll fill in the other four or five tracks and put out another album. If it's right. We wouldn't do it just for the sake of it, or the money or whatever. But yeah, maybe."
Butler also talked about SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2012. "Tony is probably healthier than everybody else now, after all the stuff they've done to him," he said. "He's really done well, he's definitely in remission now."
Regarding founding BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward, who was originally announced as part of the band's reunion album and tour in late 2011, but bowed out in early 2012 over a contract dispute, Butler said: "We started off with Bill Ward this time around and it just didn't happen… To be blatantly honest, he just couldn't do it anymore. He was thinking that we could take, like, ten years to do the album, whereas we knew we only had so long to do it and get out on tour, while you're still good at what you do. Bill was a bit unfit, and ironically in hospital with intestinal problems, so he'd have had to leave the tour anyway if we'd gone out with him."
He added: "I love Bill — we all love Bill. It's a horrible thing he couldn't complete [the album]. SABBATH is SABBATH, it's the four of us. We were almost going to call the album '75 Percent' at one time [laughs], because that's what it felt like. Especially when [RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE's] Brad Wilk came in drumming — that was [producer] Rick Rubin's idea to bring him in, and we thought if we're bringing a brand new drummer, why can't we have Bill? But Rick Rubin said, 'We can't be in the studio forever waiting for Bill to get it right.'"
Butler was also full of praise for producer Rick Rubin, calling their working relationship "incredible — it's just like having a fifth member." He added: "Tony came out with tons and tons of riffs, we picked out what we liked, about 40 riffs that Tony had that we thought were worth doing. And then Rick came in and narrowed that down to 14 songs, and it's just like having someone who sees you from the outside after all these years. He didn't want us to come out with a typical heavy metal album. He said ‘when you started there was no such thing as heavy metal, so forget what's come after you, and go back to what you were before that, before METALLICA and all those bands, and just do what you did back then, that experience, play live in the studio as if you were onstage in a little club,' and that's what we did."
BLACK SABBATH is scheduled to end the touring cycle for "13" with a massive July 4 gig at London's Hyde Park, and according to Iommi, it could be the last time SABBATH ever plays live. Iommi told Metal Hammer, "It could be the last ever SABBATH show. I don't want it to be, but there's nothing really planned touring-wise after that show, so for all we know that could be it, really."
Iommi admitted that even if SABBATH does tour again, he does not want to travel as extensively as the legendary group did in the past year. He explained, "To be honest, I don't want to be touring to this extent too much longer, because it makes me feel so bad."
Iommi had to return home for treatments every six weeks during most of the "13" tour, but said that it's now a matter of waiting to see whether the disease comes out of remission. He revealed, "I'm at a stage now where I have no support, which means I have to see whether the cancer is coming back or if it's still there or what. I just don't know. It's a bit of a worry. After we finish this tour, I'll go in and have scan, so we'll see what that shows up."
"13", the first SABBATH album to feature Butler, Iommi and singer Ozzy Osbourne in 35 years, debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. and U.K. album charts last year.
The band has not hinted if it will make another studio album, and Ozzy told The Pulse Of Radio last year that he was fine with the possibility of "13" being its last one. "For whatever reason, if we don't do another studio album, this is where I would have liked to have been at the end of SABBATH, my days with SABBATH," he said. "But life has a funny way of twisting things around, and if we do do anothe
Fan-filmed video footage of San Francisco Bay Area metallers MACHINE HEAD performing a brand new song, "Killers & Kings", live for the first time yesterday (Saturday, May 17) at the Scion Rock Fest in Pomona, California can be seen below.
MACHINE HEAD entered GREEN DAY's Oakland, California's JingleTown Recording compound on February 9 to begin recording its new album for a late 2014 release via Nuclear Blast Entertainment. MACHINE HEAD frontman Robb Flynn recently stated about the band's new material: "I would say… that the songs are as epic in scope [as those on 2007's 'The Blackening'], if not more so, except where 'The Blackening' was more epic in the guitar department, this is more epic in the EVERYTHING department. Strings arrangements, keyboard arrangements, massive vocal layering (one track, 'Sail Into The Black' has 40 tracks of vocals), drum overdubs, and, of course, the standard MACHINE HEAD quadruple tracking of the guitars."
He added: "I want to reiterate, I don't feel this record sounds like 'The Blackening'. It feels like we're still moving forward. If I HAD to compare it to another record of ours, it may be closer to 'Through The Ashes Of Empires' in one aspect only, the simpler song arrangements. It's still what I would just call classic metal, but we've simplified beats, simplified riffs, taken the unnecessary complicated-ness of something and made it simple. I've even applied that to my lyrics, where I've stripped out a lot of extra words ('the's,' 'and's,' etc), and invented a lyrical technique I call 'clustering,' where you cluster vowels or cluster 'plosives' ('K's,' 'T's,' 'Ch's') together to make it sound heavier, or flow better. It doesn't read all that poetically, but in the song it sounds really cool. I've also really worked hard on sharpening up my rhyme schemes, finding clever places to place rhymes, instead of the usual place at the end of a line, or even again, 'clustering' rhymes. It makes an abstract concept like 'Killers & Kings' (which references 20+ Tarot Cards, and that I'm very proud of the end result) to have a real meaning. Out of that stripped down musical landscape, we've then taken that new (to us at least) 'extra space' and added in layers of strings, layers of dark, ambient keys, layers and layers of vocals, and it sounds HUGE."
As part of this year's Record Store Day on April 19, MACHINE HEAD released a 10-inch vinyl single, with the A-side containing the "demo" version of "Killers & Kings". The B-side is a cover version of the track "Our Darkest Days" from one of MACHINE HEAD's favorite bands, IGNITE. Other songtitles set to appear on the new MACHINE HEAD album include "Beneath The Silt", "Eyes Of The Dead" (formerly "Ojos De La Muerte") and "How We Die".
MACHINE HEAD's next album will be the band's first with new bassist Jared MacEachern, who replaced Adam Duce last year.
"Killers & Kings" performance:
"Killers & Kings" demo version:
Michael Christopher of Vanyaland recently conducted an interview with legendary rocker Alice Cooper. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Vanyaland: Let's talk about the film. There have been so many run-of-the-mill documentaries over the years on musicians. What convinced you that "Super Duper Alice Cooper" would be different?
Alice Cooper: [Banger Films] came to us and we saw that they did with "Flight 666" for IRON MAIDEN and they said, "We don't want to do a talking-heads documentary where Elton John talks and then this guy talks; we want to make it linear, we want to make it the story of Alice but graphically, the whole way through. If you're going to do a documentary on Alice Cooper, it's got to be as theatrical as the character." I totally agreed with that and I loved the idea of them cooking up the Jekyll-and-Hyde connection with Alice Cooper and myself, and the fact that I talk about Alice Cooper in the third person — he's a character I play. And it was absolutely the right story; I never knew where Alice ended and the other Alice began; and that was a big gist of the documentary, that gray area. Then the alcohol involved, where does Alice start and where do I end? And it was like that from the very start. It was a really good story, and the drama behind it, the fact that here was a band that wasn't supposed to make it. Everybody hated us except for Frank Zappa and THE DOORS and bands like that. Making it to the top, almost self-destructing and then coming back; so it had a bit of a "Rocky" story to it.
Vanyaland: What sticks out most to me is how raw it is, especially with the uncomfortable parts, but you're on record saying they were some of your favorite topics to talk about.
Alice Cooper: I found the uncomfortable parts the most interesting. When they interviewed Dennis [Dunaway] and Neal [Smith], the original guys from the original band — we couldn't find Mike [Bruce], he's hard to find — the easiest thing to have done was to edit out what they say, so we look good. I said I'd rather hear their opinion of why the band broke up.
Vanyaland: Yet you're all still on good terms.
Alice Cooper: To this day we remain the best of friends. We're sitting together at Tribeca [Film Festival] watching it and all of us were squirming in our seats because everybody had a different version of why we broke up. Then there's the cocaine part, because I always denied any drug use because I thought it was so uncool to for Alice to be into drugs; it was so stereotypical that I wanted to avoid it. But when that part comes up, you have to be honest with it. That was uncomfortable for me, but at the same time it was powerful. The Tom Snyder footage of the skeletal Alice Cooper was really powerful, it was really scary.
Vanyaland: Your next recording project is a covers album [which also includes several new songs written specifically for the project]. Over the years, quite a few artists have covered your songs; CREED, MEGADETH — even Etta James. Are there any that stand out to you, either because of how different the interpretation, or because of how bad it is?
Alice Cooper: Music, to me, is so much just a piece of clay that, "Here's the verse, here's the chorus, here's the lyrics — let's see what you guys do with that." Joan Jett did a great cover of "Be My Lover". Dio did a cover of "Welcome To My Nightmare" and did an amazing version of it. Roger Daltrey did "No More Mr. Nice Guy". Every time somebody does one of your songs, I feel totally complimented that out of all the songs recorded, they would pick those songs — one of my songs — to do. I'm always really interested to hear what their take is on it. I can tell you one of the greatest thrills of my life is I went back to see [Paul] McCartney and his band. I went backstage and they were kind of warming up and I walked into the room and they all went into "Under My Wheels". There's McCartney playing bass on "Under My Wheels" and I went, "Wow." That, to me, is such a compliment the fact that he even knows that song.
Vanyaland: So you doing something similar is your way of complimenting artists and the songs you love.
Alice Cooper: I have never done a covers album. We all started as a covers band — even THE BEATLES. Instead of picking just a bunch of songs, what about doing all my dead drunk friends? All the guys I drank with that died; Jim Morrison and I used to drink, Jimi Hendrix and I used to drink, THE SMALL FACES, T.REX, Harry Nilsson — all those guys were buddies of mine. So I said, let's do an album about the Hollywood Vampires, our drinking club. There are just so many songs that you could go to. [Producer] Bob Ezrin loved the idea and it's pretty much done now, but I don't think it will see the light of day until next year because we've got the MÖTLEY CRÜE tour for 72 shows and we don't have the time to wrap a show around the covers album until next year.
Read the entire interview at Vanyaland.
TRIPTYKON — the occult/avant-garde metal project formed by former HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST singer, guitarist, and main songwriter Tom Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom Gabriel Warrior) — has canceled its appearance at the Maryland Deathfest on May 22.
Says Fischer in a statement: "The greatest surrealist artist of our time, H.R. Giger, died in a tragic accident on Monday, May 12, 2014. In the wake of Giger's death, his closest friends are gathering to comfort his widow, Carmen, and to assist her in organizing Giger's funeral and his memorial service. I am one of those friends.
"We are all still attempting to deal with the shock of this unexpected and extremely painful loss.
"For 30 years, H.R. Giger has been my mentor. As I wrote in my eulogy, a few days ago: 'At a time when almost everybody ridiculed, ignored, or even obstructed the music the then almost completely unknown Swiss underground band HELLHAMMER was creating, Giger listened to us, talked to us, and gave us a chance.' The result was CELTIC FROST's 'To Mega Therion' album which, in turn, was the basis for all subsequent collaborations between us.
"In all of his work with CELTIC FROST and TRIPTYKON, H.R. Giger was immensely generous, in spite of repeated objections of mine and countless attempts to convince him to accept proper compensation for his amazing contributions.
"I have also been an assistant to H.R. Giger and his wife for seven years. I have long seen them as very close friends, even as family. We have experienced many challenging events together, and we have repeatedly taken care of each other in every conceivable manner.
"I thus simply cannot and do not wish to fail to attend H.R. Giger's private funeral, and to take part in the subsequent public memorial service, to be held in one of Zurich's largest churches. Moreover, I am an integral part of the group of Giger friends who are currently involved in the difficult task of arranging these events. I cannot possibly just be a recipient. In a moment like this, I have to and wish to give as much as I possibly can.
"It is an extremely unfortunate coincidence that these unexpected and tragic proceedings collide with TRIPTYKON's planned appearance at Maryland Deathfest on May 22. We are thus regretfully forced to withdraw from the festival. Within TRIPTYKON, we discussed the possibility of playing the concert without me, with a close friend of ours filling in on guitar and vocals. The other members of the band did not see any merit in performing as an incomplete lineup, however.
"Withdrawing from Maryland Deathfest was not an easy decision to take by any means. We are disappointing our audience and the promoter of the festival, it contradicts our sense of commitment, and the band's reputation will suffer damage. We were looking forward immensely to TRIPTYKON's return to the U.S. After a lengthy and expensive petition process, the U.S. authorities granted us the required U.S. work permits last week. Moreover, a U.S. crew had been hired, and flights and hotels for band and crew had already been booked.
"In 1985, during CELTIC FROST's very first tour, I was forced to cancel three concerts due to overstrained vocals. I vowed to never let such a thing happen again and took the appropriate steps. Ever since then, I have never again been the reason for a cancellation of a concert by either CELTIC FROST or TRIPTYKON. There have been instances, in Paris and London for example, when I went onstage with CELTIC FROST in spite of flu and substantial fever, in order to avoid letting down the band's fans.
"It is thus utterly against my nature and my own professional demands to be the cause for TRIPTYKON's first cancelled show. But these are truly extraordinary circumstances, caused by the death of a truly extraordinary artist and friend. I hope our audience will understand, and I apologize sincerely. And I am extremely grateful for the incredible understanding and goodwill extended to TRIPTYKON by the promoter of Maryland Deathfest."
TRIPTYKON's second album, "Melana Chasmata", was released on April 15 (one day earlier internationally). The CD was made available through a collaboration between TRIPTYKON's own label, Prowling Death Records Ltd., and renowned metal giant Century Media Records. This is the same label partnership already responsible for CELTIC FROST's final album, "Monotheist" (2006), HELLHAMMER's "Demon Entrails" demo compendium (2008), and TRIPTYKON's debut album, "Eparistera Daimones
Iconic PANTERA and DOWN vocalist Phlip Anselmo joined KILL DEVIL HILL, the band featuring his former PANTERA and DOWN bandmate Rex Brown on bass, on stage yesterday (Friday, May 16) at the Rock On The Range festival in Columbus, Ohio to perform the PANTERA classic "Mouth For War". Video footage of the performance (courtesy of WGRD.com) can be seen below.
Anselmo recently joined DOWN's Revolver Golden Gods tourmates BLACK LABEL SOCIETY on stage at a couple of shows to perform the PANTERA classic "I'm Broken" as an encore.
During a September 2013 interview with Artisan News, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY mainman Zakk Wylde was asked about the possibility of a hypothetical PANTERA reunion with him filling in for the late "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott on guitar. "It'd be up to [former PANTERA members] Vinnie [Paul Abbott, drums], Phil and Rex — they're the guys that make everything happen," he said. "So if they were all gonna do it and honor Dimebag and [if they said to me], 'Zakk, would you wanna honor Dime and do Dime's parts?' Of course, I was a pallbearer for him — I laid him to rest — so, of course, I'd say, it would be a beautiful way to honor him and stuff like that. And to celebrate all things PANTERA and what they achieved. 'Cause they changed the game, as far as extreme metal goes. I mean, they're the kings of it. But it's up to the fellows. Then it would just be me woodsheddin' 25-8, learning all of Dime's parts, you know what I mean?! Yeah, but like I said, as far as I'm concerned, it would just be honoring Dime. Like with the Yankees, you honor… everybody's wearing Thurman Munson's '15' for that day, just because we're honoring Thurman's greatness. So it's the same thing, man."
Asked about the likelihood of a PANTERA "reunion" with Wylde filling in for Dimebag, Vinnie Paul told the Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas radio station 97.1 The Eagle Rocks in March 2012: "I spent two hours with Zakk, sitting down — a really great talk about… [Zakk] calls [Dimebag] 'the old man.' I mean, [Zakk] and my brother were so tight. If [a PANTERA reformation] ever were to happen, [Zakk] would be the guy [to step in for Dimebag]. But I honestly think, out of respect for my brother, we should just leave the 14 amazing years PANTERA had be. We're all happy doing our own thing. We have to continue living and do other things."
Dimebag's longtime girlfriend Rita Haney in 2011 called on Vinnie and Anselmo to settle their differences in honor of Dimebag, who was shot and killed by a crazed gunman while performing with DAMAGEPLAN at a Columbus, Ohio rock club in December 2004.
Vinnie, who is Dimebag's brother, and Anselmo have not spoken since PANTERA split in 2003. But the relationship got even more acrimonious when Vinnie indirectly blamed Philip for Dimebag's death, suggesting that some remarks the vocalist had made about Dimebag in print just weeks earlier might have incited Dimebag's killer.
Speaking to Fuse News, Anselmo said about the possibility of a PANTERA reunion with Wylde filling in for Dimebag: "For me, really, I think it would mean a lot for Rex and Vince and myself to sit down and, I guess, bury the hatchet where we can be on more friendly terms. And, you know, I think it would mean a lot to the fans."
He added: "Without Vince, there's not any PANTERA reunion at all; it's useless. But he damn well knows my door's wide open. He needs to bust out the keys and unlock his, man. I'm waiting, but I'm not holding my breath."
