Month: March 2021

A modern take on the sounds of classic echo machines.

MESHUGGAH appears to have commenced the recording process for its new album.

Earlier today (Friday, March 19), the Swedish extreme tech-metal pioneers shared an Instagram photo of their drum setup at a recording studio, but didn’t offer any other details.

MESHUGGAH’s latest album, “The Violent Sleep Of Reason”, came out in 2016 and resulted in a “Best Metal Performance” Grammy nomination for the song “Clockworks”. The disc was produced by the band and was engineered by Tue Madsen of Puk Studios in Kaerby, Denmark.

Last October, MESHUGGAH drummer Tomas Haake confirmed to Knotfest.com’s “Mosh Talks With Beez” that the band had spent much of the downtime during the COVID-19 pandemic working on material for a new album.

“Since March, we all kind of separated, and Jens [Kidman, vocals] took all his stuff and started working from home,” he said. “And me and Dick [Lövgren, bass], the bass player, we usually work a lot together, but he also worked separately since then. But at this point, we’re back together, and we’re trying to hammer it out.”

According to Haake, working remotely hadn’t posed any huge any problems for him and his bandmates so far.

“By now, Internet is so fast, even huge files — like gigabyte files — you can just send ’em back and forth; it’s not really a big problem,” he explained. “So we’ve been able to keep working. But it’s still at a fifth or a tenth of the pace that you normally would have when you’re working together [in person]… Just changing one riff… Every single little thing you’re trying to do or adjust within a song or an idea takes days instead of maybe hours when you’re sitting together at the studio.

“If you’re a band that kind of jam up stuff or you kind of write together as a band in the rehearsal space or whatever, it would obviously be very different, if you can’t do that. We’re not really that type of band, and we haven’t really been that type of band since the early ’90s, mid-’90s. So for us, it’s not that big of a deal. We write separately a lot of stuff. And Mårten [Hagström, guitar], he lives up north — he works at home on his stuff. Me and Dick, the bass player, we work on stuff here, usually together. Jens works separately from us and so on.

“Since we program drums — that’s kind of how we do demos nowadays. We don’t go into the studio and record demos, like we used to. So for us, programming drums and recording into the computer and doing it that way, that’s kind of how we’ve been doing it for so long now. So, fortunately, I would say, this hasn’t really hampered us that much, other than just the time aspect of things.”

Speaking in more details about the MESHUGGAH songwriting process, Tomas said: “It does take us quite a bit of time with each album. And we’re also very easily distracted. We don’t write on the road. Some bands, you see they have gear set up in their bus and they’re constantly writing. We’re not that type of band. We really need to just have time completely off and preferably not even a gig date in the calendar. That way, we can kind of relax and get into the writing and get into that modus.”

Asked how far into the writing process for the new MESHUGGAH album he and his bandmates were, Haake said: “I think we have most of the material for the new album. It takes a long time for us between each album, and this time, due to COVID as well, it’s gonna be longer than usual, I think. Right now, we’re aiming at a release in late ’21. Then the question mark right now is, is touring even gonna happen at that point? And if not, do you release the album or do you hold off with it and try to make money some other ways, like doing live shows on the Internet or whatever? So, yeah, it’s time consuming, for sure. We tend to scrutinize everything we do a lot, too, so… I think, to some degree, you just turn kind of insane over time when you try to do this thing, because we always try to challenge ourselves and we always try to find something that [we] haven’t done before. But we’ve done this for 30 years now, so it’s harder and harder to find what’s special with this — like, ‘This riff, is it cool enough? Or what’s going on?’ So you tend to kind of overly scrutinize things. And sometimes you just kind of paint yourself into a corner with that kind of thinking. And sometimes you even realize, ‘I can’t even listen to this. Why would we release anything like this? It doesn’t even make sense.’ So you have to find kind of a balance. What’s a good balance of a song or an album as far as technical aspects? And what do people wanna hear? What do we wanna hear? And hopefully we can get to some kind of good level of mix in that. But that’s always an aspect too. And definitely with the years that we’ve put into it, we definitely feel like we’re more and more locked. It just gets more and more narrow. With each album, you’re just kind of in a tighter and tighter space.”

Regarding the musical direction of the new MESHUGGAH material, Tomas said: “Of course, we have a certain framework that we still wanna sound like MESHUGGAH, we wanna have that signature sound, we want people to be able to — even if they haven’t heard the song [before] — in the best-case scenario, it’s, like, ‘Oh, that’s gotta be MESHUGGAH,’ even if it’s a brand new thing. So hopefully that’s something we’re aiming at. But with that said, as far as the music goes, we try to [do] kind of the opposite of what AC/DC has been doing for 40 years. So we’re not trying to write the same album over and over. And whether we succeed with that or not, that’s more up to our fans and other people, but that’s definitely the aim. We try our best to kind of find new grips within the framework of what we’re supposed to be, I guess. ‘Cause we don’t wanna really step out of that either. We’re not looking to be another band all of a sudden or something that we haven’t been or that is not true to kind of what we’re doing.”

Haake said that MESHUGGAH has fared better during the coronavirus-related music shutdown than most other artists.

“We know a lot of bands that just had their album out or just finished something and were just about to go on tour, and this [pandemic] happened,” he said. “So, of course, we feel with ’em — that’s no fun. We were fortunate enough [in that] we just kind of finished the tour run for [MESHUGGAH’s last album] ‘The Violent Sleep Of Reason’, so we’re just writing. We played a lot the last few years, so we had a good amount of cash in the bank to keep us afloat for a while, so we’ve been really fortunate in all this compared to a lot of bands that are just — they’re done. What are they supposed to do?”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Meshuggah (@meshuggah)

Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON are currently mixing their eighth studio album for a tentative fall 2021 release. The follow-up to 2017’s “Emperor Of Sand” was recorded at West End Sound, which is located inside of Ember City, the rehearsal facility that members of MASTODON manage in Atlanta. Helming the effort is Grammy-winning producer/mixer/engineer David Bottrill, who has previously worked with MUSE, DREAM THEATER and TOOL, among many others.

In a new interview with Talking Metal, MASTODON guitarist Bill Kelliher stated about working with Bottrill (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Honestly, I hadn’t really heard of him before last year. We were kind of tossing around who we were gonna use for the new record. We have a couple of different producers that we like; I mean, we’ve liked everyone we’ve used in the past. But I think, with this record, we kind of were just, like, ‘We might need somebody new — somebody really fresh and brand new.’ And we got on the phone with David, and we had a couple of other people we had been talking to. With COVID and everything, a lot of people just weren’t available or willing to come to Atlanta.”

He continued: “When we got on the phone with David, he seemed like a great guy. He already had some of the demos, so he had all kinds of notes. That’s what you need a producer for — someone who kind of thinks outside the box. The four of you have been playing the same songs, demoing the same songs for so long, you’re kind of, like, ‘Is this even good anymore? I can’t really tell. Does it need something? I’m kind of lost.’ It’s like you can’t the forest through the trees. You’re, like, ‘What’s what? Everything’s upside down.’ So he came in and he was diligent. He had all kinds of notes written out. He had done his homework. And he was, like, ‘For this song, I have this idea. For this song, I have these ideas.’ And he kind of spouted them off to us on the phone. And I said, ‘Are you willing to come to Atlanta and work with us here, sight unseen, at our studio?’ And he was, like, ‘As long as the studio’s got the certain equipment that I need, and it’s a decent-sized room and everything…’ We had done a lot of other records there with other bands. And he was willing to come down.”

Kelliher admitted that he initially “wasn’t really into trying anything new, but the more I thought about it, I was, like, ‘You know, this record is really special, and it’s different, and times are different right now.'”

As it turned out, “David had a lot to do with steering the direction of a lot of the sounds and how it went, and he was a pleasure to work with,” Bill said. “A couple of times a week, we talk. And he’d come over for dinner, and we’d all hang out. He’s just a down-to-earth guy and very approachable.”

Elaborating on Bottrill’s approach in the studio, Kelliher said: “I think 90 percent of being a good producer is really having a degree in psychology, almost. ‘Cause when you’re dealing with fragile egos… We’re band guys, we’re musicians, we pour our heart and soul into a musical riff, and it really means a lot to us. It’s just heartbreaking if somebody’s, like, ‘I don’t like that riff. That riff sucks. That’s not gonna be in the song.’ You can’t say that. You have to circumvent the obvious, like, ‘Man up and get rid of that riff. Write something better.’ And that was one of my first questions: ‘How do you deal with if there’s certain people in the band that might be more sensitive than others?’ And he’s, like, ‘I’ve worked with so and so and so and so.’ He’s, like, ‘I’m just a big fan of your band, and I just wanna make your best record that we set out to make.’ And he just had a really good way with words without insulting anybody’s creativeness. He was firm. And we basically tried everything. He said, ‘I don’t have a problem with trying anything at all. If you’re gonna do it, do it with gusto and just go for it and try it. If someone [goes], ‘Hey, I wanna try to sing here,’ ‘Hey, I wanna try to play a solo here,’ hey, let’s try it. Maybe it doesn’t fit, but we never know until we try it. So we all just kind of [went into it] with open minds, and the result is amazing. It’s the fullest-, biggest-sounding record we’ve done so far.”

Bill went on to say that MASTODON and Bottrill are “halfway through the mixing” process for the new LP. “[David will] mix a song every couple of days, and he’ll send it over to us in Dropbox. And we all listen to it. I go listen to it in the car, I listen to it in my studio, I listen to it on all kinds of different speakers to make sure that all the things and little details that I wanna hear are there. And we just kind of give him pointers and notes, like, ‘Hey, the snare needs a little more treble in this part,’ or, ‘I wanna hear the kick drum more right here,’ ‘Turn down the vocals in this chorus.’ And he’ll be, like, ‘Okay.’ He’ll get all the notes in Dropbox. Technology is pretty cool. He gets all the notes, and then he turns it around an hour later. He mixes everything in Pro Tools, so I think it’s pretty easy just to save, that’s the way it was, and then go back to something [when needed].”

Asked when fans can expect to hear the new MASTODON album, Kelliher said: “Well, I was hoping for summer, but I think the powers that be are pushing it back till October maybe — September [or] October.”

MASTODON’s new disc will mark the band’s first collection of new material since the death of longtime manager Nick John and the passing of tour manager Bob Dallas.

MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor recently told Full Metal Jackie’s syndicated radio show that he and his bandmates wrote more than two albums’ worth of material in the months leading up to the recording sessions for the new LP.

MASTODON’s latest rarities collection titled “Medium Rarities”, was released in September. The compilation includes a new song called “Fallen Torches” as well as a bevy of classic covers, soundtrack contributions, instrumentals, B-sides, and live recordings on one complete package for the very first time.

“Emperor Of Sand” debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. That LP was nominated for the 2018 Grammy Award for “Best Rock Album,” and its opening track, “Sultan’s Curse”, won the Grammy Award for “Best Metal Performance.”

Last year, MASTODON wrote and recorded a new song called “Rufus Lives” for inclusion in the latest “Bill & Ted Face The Music” movie.

The pedals are born out of collaborations with Skreddy Pedals and Wren and Cuff.

This week’s new releases springs forth with the latest releases from Mare Cognitum, DVNE, Enforced and more!
The post Five For Friday: March 19, 2021 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Grammy executive producer Ben Winston has defended The Recording Academy for the way it recognized Eddie Van Halen at this year’s Grammy Awards.

The legendary VAN HALEN axeman was included in Sunday night’s “In Memoriam” segment at the 63rd annual Grammy Awards, where The Recording Academy paid tribute to musicians who died in the past year. At one point in the segment, Eddie Van Halen’s name flashed across the screen over a clip of him shredding a guitar solo while a spotlight shone on his iconic red-white-and-black guitar.

Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, later revealed in a social media post that he was approached by the Grammy producers to perform his father’s signature guitar instrumental “Eruption” during the broadcast but that he declined. He also expressed his disappointment that Eddie was shown for only “15 seconds in the middle of four full performances for others we had lost.” Wolfgang added: “What hurt the most was that he wasn’t even mentioned when they talked about artists we lost in the beginning of the show. I know rock isn’t the most popular genre right now (and the academy does seem a bit out of touch), but I think it’s impossible to ignore the legacy my father left on the instrument, the world of rock and music in general. There will never be another innovator like him.”

In a new interview with Variety, Winston confirmed that Wolfgang was asked to appear on the program and he explained the reason Van Halen ended up not getting a longer tribute during the event.

Ben said: “We had a call with Wolfgang before the show, and I asked him if he’d be willing to come on and play. He felt he didn’t really want to do that, and I offered up eight or nine guitarists who maybe could. But instead, he felt like we should play a video of Eddie himself, because nobody could play like him, so that’s what we did.”

He continued: “I would have loved for it to be longer than it was, but Eddie was the only person in the whole ‘In Memoriam’ to play their own music, with no other faces being seen. I felt that was an appropriate tribute to him, but if Wolfgang didn’t, I’m sorry about that, of course.

“It’s such a horrific thing to lose a parent. We did the best that we felt we could.”

The Recording Academy regularly comes under fire for failing to include musicians who died in the past year, largely due to the time limitations of the broadcast. More than 800 names were considered for inclusion this year, according to Variety. On its web site, The Recording Academy included all of those names on a more comprehensive list, noting that the televised “In Memoriam” segment is meant to only highlight some of the artists who died this year, not necessarily all.

Eddie passed away in October at the age of 65.

VAN HALEN was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked Eddie Van Halen No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

#GRAMMYs pic.twitter.com/fZK9oPUBVR
— Wolf Van Halen (@WolfVanHalen) March 15, 2021

A federal judge on Friday (March 19) refused to release jailed ICED EARTH guitarist Jon Schaffer as he awaits trial in Washington in connection with the siege on the U.S. Capitol.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui ordered the 53-year-old musician, who resides in in Edinburgh, Indiana, held without bail on six federal criminal charges related to his alleged involvement with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Schaffer, who is being held in the Washington D.C. Jail, appeared before Faruqui for a video teleconference earlier today.

Court documents show he was originally scheduled to appear before the court on Thursday, but was unable to due to processing at a D.C. jail.

Less than two weeks ago, Schaffer’s attorneys filed a motion to dismiss the charges against the guitarist for his involvement in the insurrection. Court documents filed on March 9 requested that he be released immediately under the claim that the government has violated the Speedy Trial Act, which establishes maximum time periods for different stages of a federal criminal prosecution. Since the Speedy Trial Act required the government to file an information or an indictment within 30 days of Schaffer’s arrest, the “complaint must be dismissed,” Schaffer’s attorneys wrote.

Schaffer waived his preliminary hearing as well as his rights to an identity hearing and production of a warrant in late January in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, court documents state. He was then transported by a United States marshal to Washington, D.C. where government lawyers and Schaffer’s legal team have mutually agreed to handle all proceedings.

Two months ago, government lawyers asked the judge to not offer Schaffer a bond when he goes in front of U.S. magistrate.

Last month, a man resembling Schaffer was seen in security footage from the U.S. Capitol riot that the House impeachment managers obtained and submitted as evidence for former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. The clip in question, which was released by CNN on February 15, shows rioters charging through a breached entrance and engaging and pushing officers. Schaffer can be seen near the front of the mob, wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, a tactical vest and black leather fingerless tactical gloves, and pointing his finger while yelling at the officers.

Schaffer was photographed wearing an “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member” cap during the insurrection. The Oath Keepers describe themselves as an association of former law enforcement and military personnel dedicated to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But the Anti-Defamation League describes it as “a large but loosely organized collection of right-wing anti-government extremists who are part of the militia movement, which believes that the federal government has been coopted by a shadowy conspiracy that is trying to strip American citizens of their rights.”

Schaffer was held in the Marion County Jail for nearly two months after surrendering to police on January 17. He made his first court appearance the following day.

Just hours after the insurrection, ICED EARTH fans recognized Schaffer in a photo released by federal investigators.

Schaffer is believed to be one of at least 400 people who are being investigated by FBI officials over their roles in the insurrection.

More than 250 criminal cases have been filed so far. Charges include unauthorized access, theft, damage to government property and assault on law enforcement officers.

QUEENSRŸCHE singer Todd La Torre spoke to Jeff Gaudiosi of MisplacedStraws.com about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the follow-up to 2019’s “The Verdict” album. The group’s next disc will apparently mark the QUEENSRŸCHE recording debut of Casey Grillo who replaced original drummer Scott Rockenfield in 2017.

“We’ve been doing really heavy writing sessions,” Todd said. “We’ve got 20 or 25 song ideas in front of me that I have to start writing lyrics and melodies for now. Michael [Wilton, guitar] and I think Eddie [Jackson, bass] might be — I know Eddie’s trying to get his vaccine, I think, within the next week or two, where he’ll feel comfortable traveling. But our producer, Zeuss [Chris Harris], will be coming down. If Parker [Lundgren, guitar] can make it…. He’s got a really busy guitar shop that he’s been running, his own business. So, we’re gonna be reconvening again in another month. We’ve got a ton of song ideas for the next record. And hopefully we can get in the studio by the end of the year, and sometime next year put out a new record. That’ll make sense anyway, because there’s no point in putting a record out this year when you’re not gonna tour. So that’s what’s happening with QUEENSRŸCHE right now.”

Asked to confirm who will play drums on the upcoming QUEENSRŸCHE album, Todd said: “I suspect that Casey will be drumming on the record. In my opinion, he deserves to play on the record. Scott hasn’t communicated with us. And the guy that shows up every day is the guy that’ll be playing drums. So, that’s the short end of it. Casey shows up for writing, he shows up to record, as needed. And he’s involved in this record, writing and tracking demo ideas for us. And he’s the guy that shows up to tour. So in every sense of the word — who’s drumming for QUEENSRŸCHE? I mean, you see who’s drumming with us so…”

This past January, Rockenfield shot down suggestions that he quit QUEENSRŸCHE or retired from playing music. The drummer, who hasn’t performed with QUEENSRŸCHE since early 2017, took to his Facebook page to say that fans “have not been given the facts by any means” and implied that he would offer more details at a later date.

Scott’s comments marked the first time he has publicly addressed his status with QUEENSRŸCHE, which has used Grillo for touring purposes since April 2017.

The drum tracks on QUEENSRŸCHE’s latest album, “The Verdict”, were laid down by La Torre.

Last year, former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate expressed his doubt that Rockenfield will ever play drums again, telling Metal Rules that Scott “has a lot of medical problems and things like that now.” In 2019, Tate told 88.1FM WESU’s weekly syndicated radio show “Noize In The Attic” that he was “pretty sure” Scott “didn’t leave” QUEENSRŸCHE of his own accord. “I can tell you that there’s lawsuits involved; I know that,” he said. “He’s in kind of a really dark place, and I hope he gets some help, ’cause he’s really unraveled, you know? In my opinion. It’s too bad — he’s an incredibly talented drummer, and unfortunately, he never was happy with that. It wasn’t good enough for him.”

Todd’s debut solo album, “Rejoice In The Suffering”, came out on February 5 via Rat Pak Records.