Month: March 2021

In a recent interview with Dr. Music, former QUEENSRŸCHE singer Geoff Tate looked back on his involvement with “Stars”, the 1985 charity single for famine relief released under the HEAR ‘N AID banner.

On May 20 and May 21, 1985, 40 artists from the metal community gathered at A&M Records Studios in Hollywood, California to participate in the making of a record called “Stars” as a part of a very special fundraising project spearheaded by Ronnie James Dio known as HEAR ‘N AID. The “Stars” single and a video documentary on the making of the record was used to raise money for famine relief efforts in Africa and around the world. These 40 artists — including members of MÖTLEY CRÜE, JUDAS PRIEST, IRON MAIDEN, QUIET RIOT, TWISTED SISTER, BLUE ÖYSTER CULT and even SPINAL TAP — along with hundreds of other volunteers, donated their time and talent over four months to make HEAR ‘N AID a reality. “Stars” was a plea for unity in the fight against world hunger.

Speaking about his experience recording “Stars”, Tate told Dr. Music (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Ronnie was very special. And he actually gave QUEENSRŸCHE its first start touring in Europe — invited us as special guests on his tour. He was an incredibly giving individual — especially when he liked a person or a group or somebody’s music, he was very supportive. And we had just finished our first European tour with them, and he called and asked if I’d be part of this project that he was doing. And I, of course, immediately said yes. I always said yes to Ronnie, whenever he wanted something. I had so much respect for him and his wonderful career; he was just a wonderful person.

“Anyway, I flew down to L.A. and walked into A&M Studios, and it was just a zoo — a madhouse,” he continued. “It was the most people I’d ever seen crammed in one building — hundreds and hundreds of people in the lobby and outside. It was pandemonium, actually. I got in somehow; I had the credentials — I picked them up at the front desk at the hotel. I got in there, and Ronnie met me at the door. He gave me a big hug and ushered me in. He said, ‘Okay, I’m glad you’re here. You’re just on time. We’re ready to have you do your vocal tracks. Are you ready? Or do you wanna warm up? Do you want something to drink?’ I walked into the recording studio part, and he showed me the microphone. And there was a chair and a table, and some water glasses. And the lyrics to the song were up there and headphones. And he goes, ‘Okay, sit here. We’ll do a couple of playbacks so you kind of get used to it and get your headphone volumes.’ He goes, ‘I’ll just be on the other side of the glass.’ I look over, and in the control room are all those people [that are featured in the photo on the cover]. I mean, Ted Nugent’s in there, and Rob Halford’s in there, and Neal Schon is in there, Jonathan Cain… The list goes on and on. Everybody that’s basically on the record is standing there. And I am just, like, petrified. This is my third time I’ve been in the studio in my life. I’m 25 years old, and it was really early on in my career. And I was so scared. And now I have to perform in front of these amazing, accomplished musicians who’ve done more in their life than I could ever dream of doing. Oh, God. I couldn’t even take off my sunglasses. You see every photo of me on that day, and I had my sunglasses on. I couldn’t live without ’em. I was hiding in my own scene, inside my own head. And then I hear Ronnie coming over the headphones: ‘Geoff, are you there? Are you there?’ [Laughs] I really wanted to take those headphones off and run away; I was so nervous. But he talked me through it and got me calmed down. He was the kind of guy that could always sense what was going on around him; he was pretty intuitive. And I think he was probably hip to the fact that I was scared shitless, as they say. But that’s the way I felt — just scared shitless.

“But it turned out okay, and everybody was cool,” Tate added. “We had a good time. And the record was great. So different and weird and strange, with all those guitar solos. What a way to make a song. But it was cool and different. And I was really proud to be a part of it. And I was really proud that [Ronnie] asked me to do it.

“And honestly, even though it was a monumental experience for me at the time, I didn’t really completely appreciate it till much later, and looking back on it and realizing, oh, this was a pretty incredible record. And what it did — it raised so much money and so much awareness from a whole different segment of society, which was really important.”

Due to contract differences with the labels, the “Stars” song and album weren’t released until New Year’s Day, 1986, and were only ever made available on vinyl and cassette. But Ronnie’s wife and manager Wendy Dio has said in recent years that she is continuing her efforts to correct that.

Wendy previously revealed that one of the reasons the HEAR ‘N AID reissue was taking so long to come out was the “legal stuff” that needed to be taken care of. “You can always get the bands to do something, but it’s the legal licensing of talking with the record labels they’re on and the management and so on, to get something off the ground,” she said. “So we’re hoping to do that.”

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Moscow’s apex death metallers Gosudar offer a terrifying glimpse of their forthcoming debut full-length, Morbid Despotic Ritual, out this May on Rotted Life Records.
The post Track Premiere: Gosudar – “Awakening of the Realm” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi has dismissed the notion that rock is dead, saying that there will always be a market for “good music.”

While rock and roll has been king of the music world for decades, in the past few years, it’s been unseated by the growing popularity of hip-hop. This has caused many pundits to proclaim the genre “dead” from an industry perspective, noting that it has been eclipsed in all measures by pop, hip-hop, and EDM.

A few years ago, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons told Esquire magazine that “rock did not die of old age. It was murdered. Some brilliance, somewhere, was going to be expressed and now it won’t because it’s that much harder to earn a living playing and writing songs. No one will pay you to do it.”

A number of hard rock and heavy metal musicians have weighed in on the topic in a variety of interviews over the last several years, with some digging a little deeper into Simmons’s full remarks and others just glossing over the headline.

Iommi, who is currently promoting the deluxe editions of BLACK SABBATH’s “Heaven And Hell” and “Mob Rules” albums, spoke about rock’s supposed diminishing status during a recent interview with Greg Prato of Consequence Of Sound. Addressing the whole “rock is dead” debate, Tony said: “I don’t think rock is going to die. That’s been said for years. I mean, how many times I’ve heard that statement over the past 50-odd years? It’s quite a lot, really.

He continued: “I think good music is not going to go. There’s always going to be a market for it. There are going to be an amount of bands that fall by the wayside — as there always is, there always will be. But there are certain bands that are going to stick out and going to be there. You’ve got METALLICA up there — they’re not going to go away. They’ve got a lot of fans and they’ve got a great fanbase. There are a lot of bands out there. No, the music is not going to go away.”

The “rock is dead” argument has popped up again and again throughout the years, including in 2018 after MAROON 5 lead singer Adam Levine told Variety magazine that “rock music is nowhere, really. I don’t know where it is,” he said. “If it’s around, no one’s invited me to the party. All of the innovation and the incredible things happening in music are in hip-hop. It’s better than everything else. Hip-hop is weird and avant-garde and flawed and real, and that’s why people love it.”

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Taylor Momsen, lead singer/songwriter of the band THE PRETTY RECKLESS, was a guest on the latest episode of “Mind Wide Open”, the IGTV series and podcast hosted by Chris Cornell’s daughter Lily Cornell Silver.

“Mind Wide Open” aims to “help destigmatize the conversation around mental health,” according to a press release. Guests include mental health professionals, public figures, peers, and others who will share their stories and struggles, as well as provide knowledge and insight.

Taylor and Lily talk about their dual experiences with loss and how music pulled Taylor out of a dark place emotionally after she suffered two major losses of friends. The first was Chris Cornell, whom THE PRETTY RECKLESS was on tour with at the time of Chris’s passing.

She and Lily share a special connection over that loss, as Taylor says: “It’s a little bizarre to speak to you, because it started with your father, losing him. We were opening for SOUNDGARDEN, which, to me, was the highest of highs. Respect is not the right word; I love your father, I love their music, I love SOUNDGARDEN so much, to my core that I still don’t know how to put it into words. To be on that tour opening for them was just the most incredible honor and experience of my life. Obviously, it ended tragically.”

Chris was and remains a huge inspiration for Taylor and her band and it hit them hard. The other loss which was a tipping point for Taylor was the death of her best friend and producer Kato Khandwala, who passed in April 2018.

Taylor remembers: “I was starting to write music and had a couple of songs that I was really proud of. I was calling our producer Kato, who is much more than just our producer; he was my best friend in the entire world, essentially the fifth member of the band… There would be no THE PRETTY RECKLESS if I had never met Kato… As soon as we started to put plans in motion, I got the call that Kato had died in a motorcycle accident. That was the nail in the coffin for me, where I just spiraled downward so quickly into depression and this dark hole with no light that I didn’t see a way out of.”

Taylor says that there was a point where she could no longer listen to music as it made her feel sorrow and grief and how over the course of months, she worked through it. She slowly started listening to her favorite music from her childhood and was able to feel joy instead of sorrow.

They also dive into how these experiences influenced Taylor in writing her band’s new album, “Death By Rock And Roll”.

Throughout the conversation, Taylor tells Lily the road she took to come back from heartbreak and loss by creating music.

Taylor says: “If you’re standing on a frozen lake, and you’re on one side and have to get to the other side, it’s going to seem like an impossible task. If you just look down and just put one foot in front of the other foot, pretty soon you’re going to turn around and be closer to the other side than the side you started from, and that’s living.”

Taylor explored the idea of starting over by just listening to every artist she ever loved from the beginning, starting with THE BEATLES and moving through decades of music to bring back the joy she always felt from music and she eventually was able to crawl back.

She added: “Talking to people about mental health is the first step on the road to healing. It was a pleasure discussing these things with Lilly Cornell Silver, who is bravely working to shed light on the stigma of mental health.”

Lily is continuing on her mission to destigmatize the conversations around mental health and is quickly being recognized as a public mental health advocate. “Mind Wide Open” and Lily have been featured in Rolling Stone, Alternative Press, Maria Shriver’s Sunday Paper, Variety, NME, ET, and the Seattle Times, among many others.

“Mind Wide Open” will continue as an IGTV series with new shows every other Tuesday at 12 noon ET and is now also available as a podcast on Spotify and Apple, and on YouTube with subtitles available in Spanish and English.

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After more than a decade in hibernation, the time has come to shine a fresh light on DIVINE HERESY via the first-ever vinyl releases of “Bleed The Fifth” and “Bringer Of Plague”. M-Theory Audio will be reissuing both albums from the metal supergroup — featuring members of FEAR FACTORY, MORBID ANGEL, BAD WOLVES and NILE — exclusively in North America on May 21. The group’s 2007 debut “Bleed The Fifth” will be released on black-and-white haze vinyl, while 2009’s “Bringer Of Plagues” will be offered on smoke-colored wax. Each record will also include additional bonus tracks not contained on the original CD releases. The first pressings of both albums are limited to 300 copies and are available for pre-order now at www.m-theoryaudio.com/store.

“These two albums have never been available on vinyl till now,” explains guitarist Dino Cazares. “I’m so happy to finally have them released, be prepare for sonic devastation.”

After temporarily parting ways with FEAR FACTORY — the influential, gold-certified industrial metal band he co-founded — in 2002, guitarist and extreme metal pioneer Dino Cazares (also of BRUJERIA and ASESINO) began laying the foundation for a new project that would combine metallic aggression, muscular precision and melodic accessibility. Initially joining forces with acclaimed drummers John Sankey (DEVIL YOU KNOW, DEVOLVED) and Nicholas Barker (CRADLE OF FILTH, DIMMU BORGIR) to write, Cazares eventually completed the album with drummer Tim Yeung (MORBID ANGEL, VITAL REMAINS, HATE ETERNAL) and vocalist Tommy Vext (BAD WOLVES, SNOT), Cazares’s vision was realized, and DIVINE HERESY was born.

The group’s first record, “Bleed The Fifth” — produced by former MACHINE HEAD/SOULFLY guitarist Logan Mader (GOJIRA, DEVILDRIVER) and featuring cover art from Joachim Luetke (ARCH ENEMY, KREATOR, DIMMU BORGIR) — was released in 2007 in North America via Century Media Records and by FEAR FACTORY’s longtime home, Roadrunner Records, in Europe — received rave reviews from the global metal press. Metal Hammer called DIVINE HERESY “a quintessential 21st Century American metal band,” while Kerrang! raved that the album “couldn’t be more metal if it hung a massive V around the neck of the Eiffel Tower while gargling liquid mercury.” The album also featured a guest appearance from guitarist Marc Rizzo (SOULFLY, CAVALERA CONSPIRACY, ILL NINO) and bassist Tony Campos (STATIC-X, PRONG, MINISTRY). After adding bassist Joe Payne (NILE), the band supported the album’s release by touring extensively alongside the likes of KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, ALL THAT REMAINS, STATIC-X, ARCH ENEMY, DARK TRANQUILLITY, SHADOWS FALL and CHIMAIRA, as well as appearing at Australia’s Soundwave festival.

Unfortunately, DIVINE HERESY’s initial lineup splintered in 2008 when Vext was let go, and Cazares, Yeung and Payne quickly rebounded with new vocalist Travis Neal (DIRGE WITHIN, THE BLOODLINE) and released their second album, “Bringer Of Plagues”, in 2009. The record also saw the band’s sound augmented by keyboards from Rhys Fulber (FRONTLINE ASSEMBLY). Produced by Mader once again, and featuring artwork from Anthony Clarkson (DEVIN TOWNSEND, KATAKLYSM, HYPOCRISY), the album — which cracked the Billboard Top 200 upon its release — was heavier than its predecessor, with AllMusic describing it as “a head-down, hair-pinwheeling metal album” and Kerrang! praising its “thunderous, jaw-dropping intensity.” The band returned to the road with gusto, touring with the likes of MOONSPELL, GIGAN, AFTER THE BURIAL and 36 CRAZYFISTS, but soon after Cazares rejoined a new-look FEAR FACTORY, DIVINE HERESY went on hiatus.

M-Theory Audio’s upcoming reissues of “Bleed The Fifth” and “Bringer Of Plagues” will mark the first time that DIVINE HERESY’s furious sounds have been issued on vinyl. The track listings for both albums appear below.

“Bleed The Fifth” vinyl track listing:

01. Bleed The Fifth
02. Failed Creation
03. This Threat Is Real
04. Impossible Is Nothing
05. Savior Self
06. Rise Of The Scorned
07. False Gospel
08. Soul Decoded
09. Royal Blood Heresy
10. Closure
11. Purity Defiled (bonus track)
12. Creator Defied (bonus track)

“Bringer of Plagues” vinyl track listing:

01. Facebreaker
02. The Battle Of J. Casey
03. Undivine Prophecies
04. Bringer Of Plagues
05. Redefine
06. Anarchaos
07. Monolithic Doomsday Devices
08. Letter To Mother
09. Enemy Kill
10. Darkness Embedded
11. The End Begins
12. Forever The Failure (bonus track)

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Former LAMB OF GOD drummer Chris Adler says that getting the call to play with one of his favorite bands, MEGADETH, was a life-changing experience.

Adler played drums on MEGADETH’s latest album, 2016 “Dystopia”, and took part in most of the band’s live shows in support of the CD between January and May of that year. On those shows in late 2015 and early 2016 where Adler was unable to perform with MEGADETH, he was temporarily replaced by Tony Laureano (ex-DIMMU BORGIR, NILE, ANGELCORPSE), the veteran extreme-metal skinsman who had worked as the band’s drum tech since 2011. Since May 2016, MEGADETH has utilized the services of Dirk Verbeuren, the Belgian-born-and-now-Los-Angeles-based drummer who had previously played with SOILWORK for more than a decade.

Asked in a new interview with Saint Virus Bar how he landed the MEGADETH gig, Chris said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’m in L.A. I’m recording drums for [LAMB OF GOD’s ‘VII: Sturm Und Drang’ album]. We had been on tour in 2005 with MEGADETH. And I get a call really early in the morning — like, six in the morning. And it is [MEGADETH leader] Dave Mustaine’s guitar tech, a guy named Willie G who I became good friends with along the tour; a great guy. And Willie’s, like, ‘Hey, your phone’s gonna ring in about five minutes, and you should answer it.’ I’m, like, ‘Okay. Sure.’ And the phone rings in five minutes, and it’s Dave. And Dave’s, like, ‘Hey, I enjoyed touring with you. Good chat now and then.’ He’s not a particularly social guy on tour, but we did hang out a couple of times for breakfast or whatever. And he’s, like, ‘There’s a lot of people that I really trust that tell me you’re somebody that I think I should be talking to right now. I’d really like to go back and make a pretty sick thrash record, and I’m interested in having you be a part of that, if you’d like to be.’ And it was a ‘Candid Camera’ kind of moment. ‘Is something happening?’ It really was the band that changed my life, and now I’m on a phone call that’s about to change my life again.”

Dirk was recommended for the MEGADETH job by Adler, who called Verbeuren “probably [one of the] top three drummers in the world.”

During a July 2016 press conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Mustaine said that Adler was never a full-time member of MEGADETH and was merely “a session guy” for the “Dystopia” album and some of the subsequent shows. “It was what you could call ‘work for hire,'” he said.

Four months earlier, Mustaine told the South Orange, New Jersey radio station WSOU that he “thought it was really inspiring being around [Chris] and his positive energy and really optimistic outlook towards life and music in general. It was good for me [and] it was good for the band.”

In a 2015 interview with “The Jasta Show”, Chris stated about the songwriting sessions for “Dystopia”: “When I first heard the demos, it was well played and it was drum machine, drum samples and stuff, and it wasn’t really, kind of, my style of playing. It felt like, kind of, what had been going on before, where it was just [hums a basic beat]. And I really wanted to not have to do that. And so, right away, I brought that up [to Dave]. I said, ‘Listen, I’m thankful that you’re calling me. But are you calling me because somebody is telling you to call me, or are you calling me because you’ve heard what I’ve done and you want me to do some of that — at least some of that — on your record. Because this stuff that’s on here is not… that’s not cool.'”

Adler went on to say that Mustaine was open to suggestions during the songwriting process. “For example, we did a [cover of a] song called ‘Foreign Policy’ by FEAR — and old punk rock tune — and it was fun,” he said. “And it’s a punk rock tune. But as we soon as we learned it… We learned it and played it in one day. And I’m throwing in a ton of double bass. And he stops the song in the middle. He’s, like, ‘Woah woah woah. What’s with the double bass? It’s a punk rock song. What are you doing?’ I was, like, ‘Yeah, it’s a punk rock song. But FEAR was a punk rock band. MEGADETH is a metal band. This is MEGADETH. Let’s do this the MEGADETH way.’ And we kind of moved on to other things. And the next day he came back in. He said, ‘You know what?! I was thinking about that last night. You’re right, man.’ He was, like, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s make it MEGADETH.'”

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Hear Jerusalem’s Karkait bring forth its potent mix of black metal anguish and angular grindcore on Yevul
The post Full Album Premiere: Karkait – ‘Yevul’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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The Coda Collection features seven hours of video documenting AC/DC’s various eras in addition to an in-depth collection of essays, along with a never-before-published interview with the band’s co-founder and driving force, the late Malcolm Young. In the newly unearthed interview, Young discusses growing up in Australia, being influenced by the blues, the group’s early shows, how he meshed with his brother Angus as a guitar player, how Bon Scott fit in with the group, and more.

On AC/DC’s early days in the early 1970s:

Malcolm: “All we were doing is trying to entertain people. When we started as a band, we were told by club owners, ‘We want people to dance so they drink more.’ That’s how we cut our teeth — getting people hot and sweaty and drinking. We stayed on that same thing. People paid money for tickets and we’ve never forgotten that. Anything after that was a bonus. We were just a club band. As things evolve, you evolve with it.”

On discovering music growing up in Australia:

Malcolm: “You felt cut off from the rest of the world in the early ’60s. You got the hits from America two months later. We had all these mini-stars who dominated the TV. We got the Top 20 on the short-wave radio, Radio Luxembourg. We’d tune in to find what was really happening in the music world. We saw THE BEATLES on TV in Glasgow before they had a hit and before we left for Australia. Six months later, we found out about them when they hit big. It took about six months for it to catch on in Australia.”

On how blues influenced him:

Malcolm: “I’d heard Chicago blues from my brothers. One of them, John, loved BIG BILL BROONZY. You start picking up other names from the albums and listening to them. We could relate to that music. It doesn’t seem a lot these days, but when a family uproots itself and moves to the other side of the world because your dad couldn’t get a job, you didn’t feel part of the system, if there even was a system. It was a bit of a struggle in many ways. We related to what the blues singers were saying. They could make you laugh. It was just about everyday life, and that pushed a button. We just fell right into it.”

On the first step towards forming a band with Angus:

Malcolm: “We never really played together. I was more into THE BEATLES and [THE ROLLING] STONES, and Angus was more into the heavier stuff, [Jimi] Hendrix and CREAM, with the lead guitar. I used to listen to songs as songs — the drums, the vocal, the music side of it. I tended to pick up on the chords, the whole picture around the guitar. It just happened at one point when I was putting together a band. We were going to get a keyboard player, but I got Angus instead. [Laughs] Angus had his own band, a little rock outfit, but they just packed it in. He told me they were finished, and I said, ‘Come down tomorrow and have a bash.’ We were going to play rock ‘n’ roll; it was simple as that. When Angus came in, it was a big piece. He hadn’t come into his stage act yet. George and my sister helped him a lot with that. They said, ‘You gotta have a gimmick, Angus.’ They thought a good act always had something people could relate to. My sister said, ‘Why don’t you get your school uniform with the shorts?’ She knocked that up for him and this little guy became larger than life. Believe me, he can fire up. It’s not an act. He takes it on full. I don’t think anyone could become that intense method acting. That’s what people expect and he does it. Even I don’t know how he gets himself into that state.”

On AC/DC’s early shows:

Malcolm: “We had a good thing with the clubs. Rowdy, mad, brawling Aussies… It made Angus do it more. By the end of the night, everyone was won over. He wore the outfit, but he could play that guitar. We used to go to clubs and check out what was going on, and none of them were playing music that was getting people up and rocking and dancing. People would dance to the records between the bands. We thought, this is rock ‘n’ roll. [THE ROLLING STONES’] ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ would come on the jukebox, and the dancefloor would be filled. All the bands were doing that hippie period of music, that hippie hangover stuff. They didn’t have a clue. It was just wide open for us. The very first show, the very first song we did, we had them won over. We’d play ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ and jam in the middle, drag it out, some Little Richard, ‘Great Balls Of Fire’, a couple more STONES tracks. Stuff we all roughly knew. Have a quick bash, and we just bluffed our way through. As long as they were up dancing, we were doing our job. The more they dance, the more they drink. Everyone was really happy. Everywhere we played, we were getting offers for residencies. The band was up and running. Melbourne, which is a bit like L.A. and London in size, there were people calling us in Sydney asking about the band. We were moving up quickly. At the time we weren’t fazed. It was like, ‘Oh, good, another gig.'”

On how he meshed with Angus as a guitar player:

Malcolm: “I was more into the chord thing, the complete song, rather than the individual part. I was glad in a way, because I was more of a melodic player. Angus was more into the rock world. Straightaway I said, ‘This is great.’ There was never any question. I thought Angus, it’s pointless for me to play solos. It was never a brotherly squabble, but the opposite, because we just wanted to do good as a band.”

On being in a band with his brother:

Malcolm: “It’s not that dramatic. We have our moments. That’s what we do, knowing each other all our lives. But it’s got a lot of big pluses. Brothers do fight, but there is a closeness too. Within the band, a little bit of aggro rears its ugly head. But it’s certainly not a major problem for AC/DC. During the making of the albums, it’s the worst, because everyone is under a bit of pressure. You’re in a confined area and things happen. We’re pretty lucky overall with that, though.”

On how Bon Scott fit in with the group:

Malcolm: “Bon basically took charge, to be honest. He was older and he’d been around in another band. He was the man of experience. We’d written one or two songs, and he encouraged us to write more. He’d say, ‘I’ve got an idea about that motherfucking wife I’ve left: ‘She’s Got Balls’.’ We’d already written some tracks, but when he came in, we had the voice of experience. We kept our ears wide open. He pushed us a little further. The first singer [Dave Evans], people cheered when he left, so we could jam. He was so bad. Bon was in a week later. He had songs, ideas, motivation. He’s serious. We were happy to be with someone like that. We were just happy to be playing. He had bigger plans.”

Check out the full conversation at this location.

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GARBAGE will release its seventh studio album, “No Gods No Masters”, on June 11 via Stunvolume/Infectious Music. The record’s debut single, “The Men Who Rule the World”, and its accompanying mixed media video — created by Chilean film director, animator and painter Javi Mi Amor — are out today.

“This is our seventh record, the significant numerology of which affected the DNA of its content: the seven virtues, the seven sorrows, and the seven deadly sins,” says the band’s frontwoman Shirley Manson of the album and its twists and turns from capitalism and lust to loss and grief. “It was our way of trying to make sense of how fucking nuts the world is and the astounding chaos we find ourselves in. It’s the record we felt that we had to make at this time.”

“The Men Who Rule The World”, the opening track of “No Gods No Masters”, is a protest song — a searing indictment and call to arms critiquing of the rise of capitalist short-sightedness, racism, sexism and misogyny across the world. It’s a clear statement of intent from a band who still believe in the power of dissent, setting the tone for the rest of the record.

Produced by GARBAGE and long-time collaborator Billy Bush, the seeds for “No Gods No Masters” were planted in summer 2018 in the desert in Palm Springs. The quartet — Manson and bandmates Duke Erikson, Steve Marker and Butch Vig — convened at a home belonging to one of Marker’s relatives and sketched out the skeleton of the album over two weeks, jamming, experimenting and feeling the songs out. They then took those demos and went their separate ways before connecting in Los Angeles to finish the record.

GARBAGE will unveil a deluxe CD/digital version of “No Gods No Masters” featuring covers of classic tracks by David Bowie, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen along with rare GARBAGE originals. The deluxe version also features new voices, with appearances from Screaming Females, Brody Dalle, Brian Aubert, John Doe and Exene Cervenka. The album will also be in record stores starting June 12 as part of RSD Drops and will be available in limited edition pink vinyl, featuring alternate cover art.

Since releasing their eponymous debut album in 1995, GARBAGE has blazed a unique sonic trail, garnering critical acclaim and amassing a passel of hits as well as seven Grammy nominations along the way to 17 million albums sold.

“No Gods No Masters” track listing:

01. The Men Who Rule The World
02. The Creeps
03. Uncomfortably Me
04. Wolves
05. Waiting For God
06. Godhead
07. Anonymous XXX
08. A Woman Destroyed
09. Flipping The Bird
10. No Gods No Masters
11. This City Will Kill You

Deluxe Edition (bonus tracks)

12. No Horses
13. Starman
14. Girls Talk (feat. Brody Dalle)
15. Because The Night (feat. Screaming Females)
16. On Fire
17. The Chemicals (feat. Brian Aubert)
18. Destroying Angels (feat. John Doe & Exene Cervenka)
19. Time Will Destroy Everything

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