“Surrounded By Skulls”, the new video from U.K. death metallers THE ROTTED, can be seen below. The song comes off the band’s second album, “Ad Nauseam”, which was released last Halloween to high critical acclaim from reviewers and listeners alike. The CD features 11 tracks of fast, aggressive, honest and in-your-face punk-infused death metal sure to strike a chord with fans of NAPALM DEATH, ENTOMBED, EXTREME NOISE TERROR, MOTÖRHEAD and DISCHARGE. Since then, THE ROTTED has also released a seven-inch vinyl single, “Apathy In The UK”, through Hammerheart Records.
In other news, THE ROTTED has announced Scottish and Irish dates for September, with a cheeky one-off N.W. England show thrown into the bargain for good measure. In keeping with the band’s old-school values and ethics, entry to each show will be as low cost as possible, and in many cases, the support bands have been hand-picked by the band themselves to showcase the wealth of hard working, home grown talent in the U.K. extreme metal scene.
Troy Culpan of May The Rock Be With You recently conducted an interview with HELLYEAH singer Chad Gray. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
May The Rock Be With You: How pumped are you to get [the new HELLYEAH album, “Band Of Brothers”] out to people?
Chad: Oh, fuckin’ I can’t wait. I honestly believe that this is probably the record that people have been waiting for us to put out, since they heard that the members were getting together, but unfortunately for us, it was never really possible because of the other band and keeping things separate, you know what I mean? I didn’t want to play in both bands the same way, so HELLYEAH was more of a, “Hey, let’s get back to songs and music and do shit that we wouldn’t normally do in our other heavier bands,” you know what I mean? So, with MUDVAYNE being on hiatus and stuff indefinitely and doing back to back HELLYEAH records, it occurred to me that I need that for my life, I’m a metalhead, I need… I’ve got a killer job because I have a job where I can fuckin’ get up there and rage and fuckin’ release demons every single day. I need that balance in my life, I was really ready for this record and I wanted to write a heavy, a solely heavy record, my own style and Vinnie‘s [Paul Abbott, drums] own style and let us let HELLYEAH stand on its own ten legs.
May The Rock Be With You: The album seems to have taken on the best parts of all your past groups, which were, of course, there previously but it seems that you’ve found your strides now and it’s a monster. Was there a realisation of when that actually happened?
Chad: I think that what we did was, we just, we just fuckin’ quit being afraid of who we are. This is the first time that we actually went, “Fuck it — we’re gonna be ourselves.” I’m gonna be Chad Gray, I’m not gonna be Chad from MUDVAYNE, but I’m gonna be Chad Gray, and that was the Chad from MUDVAYNE, on a level, writing songs like “Alcohaulin’ Ass”, “Pole Ride” and “Hell Of A Time”, that shit was fun because I’ve never done it before, so I didn’t know if I could do it. Now I know I can do it, but I like darker imagery, I like deeper darker lyrics, I like more helpless songs and shit like that, that’s what I dig, that’s what I always did with MUDVAYNE is play heavy music. Vinnie‘s drum tone has gotten more open over the years, more focused, versus PANTERA where it was just fuckin’ in your face and up the middle and the kick beaters just hit you in the head. We said, “I want you to play like you play but I want that sound, too. Be Vinnie Paul, be the dude that fuckin’ everybody fell in love with.” You know what I mean? We don’t have to hide from that, I want to be Chad Gray that people fell in love with, I want Greg Tribbett to be Greg Tribbett. Let’s just get out of this exterior metal shit and get back to honest and just really, really, really play music and I think by us doing that, I think that’s given HELLYEAH that was kind of like a sidecar to all the other bands, or keeping us tethered to something else, we’ve kind of cut the cord because we’ve all come and brought our styles and sounds to the table, it allowed HELLYEAH to be its own thing. It made the people hush with the, “When’s MUDVAYNE coming back?” “When’s PANTERA gonna do a reunion?” blah blah blah blah, “When’s NOTHINGFACE ever coming back out?” “Is DAMAGEPLAN ever going to do anything again?” I mean, these are fuckin’ questions we hear every day… There’s a little bit of all those bands in what we’ve done and you can hear it throughout the record and it’s cool; we’re not plagiarizing anything. It’s the honest thing we’ve ever done. We are the dudes from those bands, we’re not stealing anything, we’re just bringing what we’ve done to the table under the umbrella that it’s HELLYEAH.
May The Rock Be With You: So, the name speaks for itself, but what was the decision behind calling the album “Band Of Brothers”?
Chad: I think it started with the song. I wrote the song first and the more we started thinking about it, the more we just felt like we were… We’d seen a lot of success in our other bands and the way that we feel in HELLYEAH is that we all kinda feel like underdogs, you know what I mean? And you’ve gotta be careful when you bag an underdog in to a corner — you know what I mean? — because they come out fuckin’ fighting, and I think that was kind of our attitude with this record that we had this underdog kind of vibe to us because we felt feisty, we felt fuckin’ we were salty about shit, we just wanted to refocus our anger and fuckin’ frustrations and fuckin’ helplessness and bring it to the table and do it together and that really is what we are, we are fuckin’ bros. I’d lay down in traffic for those guys and they’d do the same for me, you know what I mean? It’s like fuckin’ militant, it’s like going in to battle, there’s only five of you facing the world, there’s only one way you’re going to win that war. That’s the fight, that’s the first wave, the second wave is you’re gonna have each other’s backs no matter what you know what I mean? I think that’s just the vibe to it, and the more I’ve even thought about it and we kind of agreed on that as the name of the record, the more that I really thought about it and standing on stage and looking out and playing songs for the kids with their fists in the air and fuckin’ whatever, I think that “Band Of Brothers” is more about the metal community than it is, almost even the five of us are a band of brother in itself but really we’re just five dudes in a much larger band of brothers and that band of brothers is the metal fuckin’ community. We all fight and go to the grave for something that we believe in very, very strongly which is music and it’s heavy and it’s relevant to our society that we create for ourselves.
On July 5, 2012, Sam Hatch of WWUH radio’s “The House Of Zazz” program conducted an interview with Karl Sanders of South Carolina-based extreme technical death metallers NILE. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below.
“The House Of Zazz” airs Tuesday nights from midnight to 3:00 a.m. on 91.3 FM in Hartford, Connecticut, and is streamed live on www.wwuh.org.
NILE‘s seventh full-length album, “At The Gate Of Sethu”, sold 3,800 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 131 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD landed at position No. 2 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.
NILE‘s previous album, “Those Whom The Gods Detest”, opened with 3,500 units back in 2009 to enter The Billboard 200 chart at No. 160.
Other “At The Gate Of Sethu” first-week chart positions:
“At The Gate Of Sethu” was released in Europe on June 29 and in the U.S. on July 3 via Nuclear Blast Records. The follow-up to 2009’s “Those Whom The Gods Detest” was once again produced and mixed by Neil Kernon, who has previously worked with NEVERMORE, CANNIBAL CORPSE, QUEENSRŸCHE and DEICIDE, among many others. The CD artwork was handled by a true genius of darkened visuals, Seth Siro Anton (SOILWORK, PARADISE LOST, SEPTICFLESH).
DEF LEPPARD vocalist Joe Elliott and guitarist Phil Collen recently spoke to Fuse about some of their craziest tour stories, including an encounter with a Polish witch and performing in a Moroccan cave; their history with the musical “Rock Of Ages”, including visiting Tom Cruise on the film set; and their decision tore-recorded two of their biggest hits. Check out the footage below.
SLIPKNOT guitarist Jim Root rejoined the band on stage last night (Friday, July 13) at the Tampa, Florida stop of the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival after missing several dates of the tour because a burst appendix. A statement issued by the rest of the group said that Root had been seriously ill for the past few weeks and that the situation could have been life threatening.
Fan-filmed video footage of last night’s concert can be seen below.
SLIPKNOT‘s stint on the Mayhem tour is the band’s first U.S. trek since the May 2010 death of bassist Paul Gray.
The tour also features SLAYER, MOTÖRHEAD, ANTHRAX and others on the bill.
Following the end of the tour, the group will headline Knotfest, two festival dates put together by the band itself on August 17 in Council Bluffs, Iowa and August 18 in Somerset, Wisconsin.
SLIPKNOT will tentatively enter the studio sometime in early 2013 to begin recording its fifth album. In the meantime, a greatest hits collection called “Antennas To Hell” arrives on July 24.
Los Angeles based Hard Rock sensation HOTEL DIABLO has signed a worldwide deal with SCARLET RECORDS for the physical release of their full length debut ‘The Return To Psycho, California’.
The band formed in early 2011, when vocalist Rick Stitch and guitarist Alex Grossi had just come off a grueling world tour with original Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler in support of his tell-all biography. Upon returning home, Alex and Rick both departed the Adler camp in search of a fresh project and when they played a one-off gig in Hollywood with powerhouse rhythm section Mike Duda and Mike Dupke, everyone in the room had the same, excited feeling. The chemistry was undeniable!
Hotel Diablo’s full length debut ‘The Return To Psycho, California’ was produced by Gilby Clarke (Guns N’ Roses, Rockstar Supernova) with additional production by underground LA producer Matt Starr, and will be available worldwide starting September 25th. Legendary Los Angeles rock station 95.5 KLOS exclusively debuted ‘Bury You’, the first track released off of the album, to an overwhelming response in June of 2012.
Entertainment One (Bush, Chickenfoot, Black Label Society) will be distributing the CD in the US .
“We are very excited to be working with Scarlet Records” says guitarist Alex Grossi “In the past couple of years they have really grown to become a major force in the European rock and metal market, and coupled with the muscle of E1 here in the US we feel that ‘The Return To Psycho, California will reach the audience it was meant to” .
The album is also available digitally via iTunes, Amazon and other online music retailers.
THE ROCK ALCHEMIST – Italian Rock Band from Turin with a strong sonic identity that blends modern rock with progressive, hard, alternative, and pop elements!
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
for September, with a cheeky one-off N.W. England show thrown into the bargain for good measure. In keeping with the band’s old-school values and ethics, entry to each show will be as low cost as possible, and in many cases, the support bands have been hand-picked by the band themselves to showcase the wealth of hard working, home grown talent in the U.K. extreme metal scene.
Metal Shock Finland (World Assault ) 