Month: March 2021

THE OFFSPRING singer Bryan “Dexter” Holland and guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman spoke to the 100.3 The X Rocks radio station about the band’s upcoming tenth studio album, “Let The Bad Times Roll”, which will arrive on April 16 via Concord Records. The follow-up to 2012’s “Days Go By” was produced by Bob Rock, who also worked on the band’s last two LPs.

Speaking about the long gap between “Let The Bad Times Roll” and the previous OFFSPRING album, Noodles said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We’ve been working on it for a while. Really, about two or three years ago, everything started really kind of clicking, and we had a really creative period — then and since, actually.

“We were hoping to have the record done probably five years ago, ultimately, and it just took longer to make something that we really felt was strong and representative of the band in the best light.”

Added Dexter: “I think that’s it. It had to feel right before we wanted to put it out. We’re not really under a deadline. We didn’t even have a label, actually — we were sort of floating out there. So it was a good time to just take our time and make the right record.”

Asked how hard it was for them to sit on those songs for so long without being able to share them with their fans, Dexter said: “There really is this feeling, when you have something that you’re really happy with… ‘Cause sometimes you go through a bunch of stuff that, ‘Oh, this song needs work. This needs work.’ When you have something that’s clicking, you’re, like, ‘Oh, man. I can’t wait to get this out.’ But you just kind of have to sit on it for a while. I mean, we basically sat on this since the pandemic started, ’cause we kind of thought, ‘This is probably not the best time to release a record, ’cause we can’t go out and tour, we can’t promote it, can’t be there to play it for the people,’ so we’ve kind of been sitting on it for the better part of a year. Although we kept on going back and tweaking it, and it actually got better over that year. But we decided, well, we can’t wait forever if we’re gonna put this out.”

Holland, Wasserman, drummer Pete Parada and new bassist Todd Morse wrote and recorded “Let The Bad Times Roll” in the last few years at various locations, including the band’s studio in Huntington Beach, California.

In December, THE OFFSPRING released the official music video for its Rock-produced cover version of “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”, a rock song originally sung by Darlene Love and included on the 1963 seasonal compilation album “A Christmas Gift For You” from Phil Spector.

Last April, THE OFFSPRING jumped on the “Tiger King” bandwagon by recording a cover version of THE CLINTON JOHNSON BAND’s “Here Kitty Kitty”, a song made popular by Joe Schreibvogel — better known as Joe Exotic, the “Tiger King” — through the Netflix docuseries.

STRYPER guitarist Oz Fox is “doing great” less than a month after he underwent the first of his brain surgeries to treat one of the tumors that were found in his head nearly three years ago.

STRYPER frontman Michael Sweet offered an update on Oz’s condition during an interview with Talking Metal that was conducted more than a week ago. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “[Oz is] doing great, believe it or not — he’s doing really great. Just a few days after his surgery, he was pretty much back to normal in terms of how he sounded, talking to him on the phone. He’s gonna be great, man; he’s gonna be fine. He’s heading home, I think, tomorrow. He wound up staying close to the hospital just in case anything were to happen. And he’s doing great, man. He’s in good spirits, and everything’s cool.”

On March 20, Fox made a Facebook post indicating that he had finally returned home following his surgery more than two weeks earlier.

Fox’s tumors — one by his ear and the other in the back of his brain — were discovered when he suffered his first seizure in August 2018 while performing with SIN CITY SINNERS at Harrah’s in Las Vegas. Over the past two and a half years, both tumors had grown and were posing a serious health risk to the guitarist, who turned 59 last June. Specifically, the tumor behind the ear, if it continued to grow, could have caused hearing loss, balance, vision and spinal problems, while the tumor in the back of Oz’s brain was in the area where left side of his arms, hands and body operate. Removing it could have affected the upper left motor function and potential ability to recognize faces and objects.

Fox discussed his health during a January 17 interview with SIN CITY SINNERS manager Jason Green. Speaking about his procedure, Oz said: “I’ve got a great team of people, great team of doctors that are very specialized. They do hundreds of these procedures a year. They’re gonna open up the skull. The good thing is the [first] tumor [they will operate on] is towards the outside of the head, towards the outside of the brain, which it’s easy access — they don’t have to go too deep to get to it. And they did all testing on me to make sure that wherever they go in there, they won’t damage any of my functions. They did some really extensive testing — something called an fMRI, Functional [Magnetic Resonance Imaging], and they had me think about things, they had me actually act like I was playing guitar, and I had to hum backgrounds while I was playing, ’cause I couldn’t move my head or my jaw. I had ’em play a STRYPER song, and I just kind of played to it and acted like I was playing guitar and tried to imagine what I was playing. And then they would see where the brain functions were while I was doing all that. And after they checked everything and went through it, they figured out that all of my activity for playing and singing and all that was nowhere near the tumor. So there’s a good chance I’ll retain all of that. But there’s still always a risk. You never know with the brain. They seem to think I’m gonna be okay after the procedure, but it’ll take time to recover, ’cause you may have some bleeding, some brain swelling — all that kind of stuff.”

Asked if the surgeons would only work on one of his tumors during the initial procedure, Fox said: “They have to work on the right-brain low-grade tumor — they’re gonna work on that first — and if all goes well with that, [there will be a] six-week recovery time, and then I can start working on the left one [behind the ear]. For the other side, it will be a bit different. They have to go into a different part of my skull here. They’ll have to cut a portion of my skull out to get into that area, and then, of course, replace it again. I’ll have steel titanium plates in my head and all that crazy stuff. The only thing about this one is it’s so close to the audio nerves that I could lose my hearing. They say it affects nerves on the side of my face here, so that could be a problem. I’m already feeling numbness around my mouth.”

Oz went on to say that his medical team initially tried “doing some other things that were non-invasive” without the desired results. “We were trying to get the tumors to shrink by using different methods that they say are proven to help do that,” he explained. “But that didn’t work — they still grew. And so now we’re, like, we’d better go in and take some action — get working on cutting them out. Otherwise, if [the tumors] get too big, they won’t be able to help me. Again, the left ear, when they work on this tumor, there’s a good chance I could lose my hearing, or the nerves going to my balance part of the ear, the cochlea. If that happens, then I will have to really recuperate in a way where my right ear would take over for my balance, which it’s amazing that the brain can do that.”

According to Oz, he may be out of commission for several months after his second operation.

“It’s gonna be a journey,” he said. “I may be recovering for a while — maybe through summer. Hopefully I’ll be recovered by the end of summer. If anything happens where I’m not, then, oh, well. We’ll see how it goes.”

Fox said that he is realistic about the risks involved with the operation and the likelihood of any complication, including death.

“The worst thing that could happen is something could go wrong and I could pass,” he said. “Well, if that ever happened, in whatever situation — I could die driving a car, getting in a wreck somewhere or somebody running into me. But because of my [Christian] faith, I know where I’m going, and I have a belief in eternity with my soul. And because I’ve followed Christ for so long now, and I have a full-on relationship — I’ve surrendered my entire life to him — the promises that he gives in his words are that I have a better place to go to after this. I’ll basically be changing addresses with my soul. That’s the mindset I have.

“Nobody wants to ever leave their family or things that they invested in years, but when it’s your time, it’s your time,” he reasoned. “So that doesn’t scare me. I mean, we could go down in a plane. [Laughs] So, you never know. And I’m certainly not afraid of that — I’m not afraid of death. The only thing I think I’d be… Well, I don’t even wanna say it… There’s not fun ways to die, let’s put it that way. [Laughs] If it’s quick, it’s better. [Laughs]”

Last October, Fox was briefly hospitalized after suffering another massive seizure.

Within weeks of Fox’s original August 2018 seizure, STRYPER toured Australia and Japan as a three-piece, and later recruited Howie Simon (JEFF SCOTT SOTO, GRAHAM BONNET) to fill in while Fox was unable to go on the road.

Made it home!

Posted by Oz Fox on Saturday, March 20, 2021

JANE’S ADDICTION frontman Perry Farrell has told iHeartRadio’s Jason Rockman in a new interview that he is hopeful there will be a 2021 edition of Lollapalooza’s flagship event in Chicago. “If we can all stay on course, get vaccinated, stay socially distanced and masked up, maybe — please, God, maybe — we’ll get to go to Chicago in early August in one capacity or another,” he said. “If it’s not a giant Lollapalooza, it might be a half-capacity Lollapalooza or no Lollapalooza. But I want there to be a Lollapalooza in some capacity so bad. But we can only respond to the people. If the people are getting it right and we’re flattening out and we’re going away from COVID infections, there’s hope. I listen to Joe Biden, when he thinks July 4th could be the first time we’ll have a small celebration. I’m gonna say that my first small celebration will be in August, and I wanna have it in Chicago.”

Lollapalooza was created by Farrell in 1991 as a farewell tour for JANE’S ADDICTION. Since its dissolution as a touring festival in 1997, Lollapalooza has become one of the biggest destination festivals in the world.

Last August, JANE’S ADDICTION played two songs during Lollapalooza’s Lolla2020 livestream, a free four-night broadcast event that took place on the original dates of the festival. Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Chris Chaney reunited for their first public appearance in three years to perform “I Would For You” and “Stop!”

Farrell is currently promoting “The Glitz; The Glamour”, a 35-year retrospective of his life, music and art that looks into his world outside the works of JANE’S ADDICTION and PORNO FOR PYROS — focusing on 68 tracks worth of Perry’s alt rock rarities and innovative artistic explorations. The retrospective is served up in the form of a vinyl and collectible box-set and is an art piece in its own right — in collaboration with fine artist Zoltar, this offering firmly puts Farrell’s stake in the ground as the “godfather of alternative rock.”

In addition to the deep groove vinyl recordings, the box-set includes a Blu-ray featuring 12 uncompressed Dolby Atmos mixes from “Kind Heaven” and three previously unreleased Atmos mixes, a photographic memoir hardcover book, a bandana, plus two exclusive Zoltar prints. “The Glitz; The Glamour” is out now via Last Man Music. Visit www.perryfarrell.com for more information.

WARRANT guitarist Joey Allen spoke with Darren Paltrowitz — host of the “Paltrocast With Darren Paltrowitz” — about how he and his bandmates have been spending their downtime during the coronavirus pandemic. Asked if there has been any talk of WARRANT making a follow-up to 2017’s “Louder Harder Faster” album, Joey said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We talked about it last year when this whole pandemic started, and we were, like, ‘Should we do something now? Should we do something live on the web? Should we do a new record?’ And everybody was just, like, you know what? We’ve been at this since I got back in the band, Steven [Sweet, drums] came back in the band, since 2004, so that’s roughly 16 years where we just haven’t taken a break from the road or making a record; I think we made three records in that time. So it was just, ‘Let’s take a break and go away.’ We don’t wanna do anything that’s gonna harm the brand. We just haven’t gone away. So we went away. And now we’re firing up to come back.”

Allen went on to say that he and the other members of WARRANT are “stoked” to return to the road. “We just wanna get back out and play,” he said. “We’ve worked really hard. We’re working hard right now getting ready to go back out and play.

“We don’t rehearse usually; we just keep touring. As long as we play two or three gigs a month, we don’t have to rehearse,” he continued. “Well, it’s been 13 months, 14 months since we’ve played a gig, and we’re gonna have to rehearse for the first time in years — maybe the first time in a decade, at least. So we’re setting up the first rehearsals, which will be before our first gig going back in. So it’s fun. It’s exciting.”

Last May, WARRANT guitarist Erik Turner told the “Talking Metal” podcast that the group was “throwing some ideas around” for a new LP. He said: “I’ve been sending Robert [Mason, vocals] some riffs, and Robert’s been working on songs. I’ve got a song going with Jerry [Dixon, bass]. So it’s a slow, long process for us, but the seed of a new record has been started. Now, that doesn’t mean the seed will grow into a record. We’ve got a long way to go. We don’t have one finished song. We’ve got a couple of things cooking, and we’re actually sending ideas around back and forth to each other.”

“Louder Harder Faster” was recorded with producer Jeff Pilson — a veteran bassist who has played with DIO, FOREIGNER, DOKKEN and T&N, among others — and was mixed by Pat Regan, except for the song “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink”, which was mixed by Chris “The Wizard” Collier (FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, PRONG, LAST IN LINE).

Mason replaced original WARRANT frontman Jani Lane in 2008 and has brought a degree of stability to the band after Lane’s unceremonious departure and subsequent 2011 death.

DREAM THEATER keyboardist Jordan Rudess spoke to Metal Wani about the writing and recording process for the band’s upcoming follow-up to 2019’s “Distance Over Time” album. He said: “I’ve gotta say I laid down what I think, sonically speaking at least, are the best keyboard tracks of any DREAM THEATER album. And I guess there are different factors that have influenced me and the reason I’m expressing that. One is we learn so much from every album that we do, and we take those lessons into serious consideration, and so when we go to do the next album and the next album, there’s always something that we feel we can do better.

“Everything we went for, we took the time to make it a little bit more special,” he continued. “Instead of finding the usual DREAM THEATER pads sound or whatever, I’d be, like, ‘You know what? Let’s find something a little bit cooler. Let’s get something more sonic.’ And so we would take the time and go, ‘Yes, that’s it!’ Or, like, you’re looking for a drone. [And we’d be, like] ‘Let’s add some movement to the drone.’ Just something.”

Jordan went on to agree with DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Mangini’s recent comment that the band’s upcoming LP will be more “energetically unrelenting” than most of the group’s recent efforts.

“I said to John [Petrucci, guitar] one day after working and reviewing one of the tracks,” he said. “We were leaving or walking out to the parking lot, and I was saying, ‘You know, John. This is crazy, but here we are. I’m, like, 64 years old. You’re a little bit behind me, but we’re getting older.’ And people ask me nowadays, ‘Do you feel yourself slowing down? What’s going on?’ And I’m, like, ‘No. I don’t.’ And like I said to John, ‘When I listen to this album, it’s like we’re 20 years old or something. What is happening? What kind of vitamins are we eating?’

“I’m really proud of us, ’cause everybody — not one guy, everybody across the board in this group — is vital as ever,” he continued. “When you hear this album, you’ll know exactly what I’m [talking about]. You’ll be, like, ‘Oh my god. I see what he’s saying.’

“James [LaBrie] is doing vocals now, and I was listening to something that he just put together — kind of the final rough mix; it’s not mixed, but it’s just a rough mix, if you will — and I was, like, ‘Holy shit. People are gonna freak out.’ I can’t wait to share this album.”

Earlier this month, Petrucci told Metal Injection about the making of DREAM THEATER’s new album: “Everybody just came to the table to play. Everybody is on fire. The best ideas and best playing. And so the album, it’s lit up. There’s definitely a lot of energy and excitement to it. I’m really pumped about it.”

“Distance Over Time” marked DREAM THEATER’s first album for for Sony Music’s progressive imprint InsideOut Music. The group spent the past 25 years recording under various labels in the Warner Music Group system, most recently Roadrunner Records, which released five albums by the band between 2007 and 2016.

DREAM THEATER recently released its ninth career live album, “Distant Memories – Live In London”. Recorded at DREAM THEATER’s sold-out show at the Apollo Theatre in London, the live release documents the band’s world tour in support of “Distance Over Time” and the 20th anniversary of their seminal concept album “Metropolis Part 2 – Scenes From A Memory”.

On Saturday, March 27, NIGHT RANGER performed at SeaWorld’s Seven Seas Food Festival in Orlando, Florida. Fan-filmed video footage of the concert can be seen below (courtesy of YouTube user “concertsrock”).

All theaters and stadiums at SeaWorld Orlando are operating at limited capacity with modified seating to allow for proper physical distancing.

Last fall, NIGHT RANGER commenced the songwriting and recording process for its as-yet-untitled new studio album. Due later this year via Frontiers Music Srl, the LP will be the follow-up to “Don’t Let Up”, which was released in March 2017.

Songwriting started with the three original members Jack Blades (lead vocals/bass), Kelly Keagy (lead vocals/drums), and Brad Gillis (lead and rhythm guitars) meeting and putting their initial ideas together. The recording then began, with Eric Levy (keyboards) and Keri Kelli (lead and rhythm guitars) joining the process. The plan, subject to change, was to deliver the record to Frontiers in the first few months of 2021 for a tentative summer release.

NIGHT RANGER stated: “What this world needs now is to come together through music and NIGHT RANGER is on it! We are excited to create a new studio album with our great partners at Frontiers Music. Our biggest problem is that we have so many songs, we’re trying to figure out which ones to leave off! Rock and Roll baby.”

With more than 17 million albums sold worldwide, over 3,000 live shows performed, NIGHT RANGER’s popularity is fueled by an impressive string of instantly recognizable hit singles and signature album tracks such as “Sister Christian”, “Don’t Tell Me You Love Me”, “When You Close Your Eyes” and the anthemic “(You Can Still) Rock In America”.

Richie Kotzen was the featured guest on BBC’s “The Rock Show With Johnnie Walker” during the “Rock God” segment. Cooper picked Prince and stated about his choice: “One of my favorite artists of all time growing up was Prince. What really drew me in was once I realized that he was basically the mastermind behind everything I was hearing. The guitar player, the singer, the songwriter, the drummer — oftentimes the engineer, producer, arranging. And then, on top of it, his performing was just — nobody performed like him.

“I did have the privilege of going to his house years ago,” he continued. “He rented a house in Los Angeles. And a buddy of mine that worked with him got invited to an Oscar after-party. And so there I was hanging out with all these people at Prince’s house. And I was in the living room. They had everything set up. A band was playing, but the stage was low. And I was in the back, so I couldn’t totally see who was up there. I knew Prince was up there. And my buddy says to me, ‘Hey, did you see Stevie Wonder is here?’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t see him. But someone was in there singing the hell out of ‘Superstition’.’ And my buddy’s, like, ‘You idiot. That was Stevie Wonder.'”

Kotzen is currently promoting the debut album from his collaborative project with IRON MAIDEN’s Adrian Smith. Recorded on the Turks & Caicos Islands in February 2020, produced by Richie and Adrian and mixed by Kevin “Caveman” Shirley, SMITH/KOTZEN’s nine-track opus is a consummate collaboration between these two highly respected musicians who co-wrote all the songs and also share lead vocals and trade off on guitar and bass duties throughout the record.

In February 2020, Kotzen released his 22nd solo album, “50 For 50”, via his own custom label, Headroom-Inc. The three-disc collection is just what the title implies: a collection of 50 previously unreleased compositions produced, performed and written by Kotzen in honor of his birthday. It’s the follow-up to his critically acclaimed “Salting Earth” album, which came out in April 2017 via Headroom-Inc.

James Durbin says that he was “no longer inspired” prior to his departure from QUIET RIOT.

Durbin recorded two studio albums with QUIET RIOT — 2017’s “Road Rage” and 2019’s “Hollywood Cowboys” — during his three-year stint with the group. In September 2019, QUIET RIOT parted ways with Durbin and replaced him with Jizzy Pearl. Pearl previously fronted QUIET RIOT from 2013 until October 2016, when he was briefly replaced by Seann Nichols, who played only five shows with the group before the March 2017 arrival of “American Idol” finalist Durbin.

During a recent appearance on “Vox&Hops”, the podcast hosted by Matt McGachy, frontman of extreme metal band CRYPTOPSY, Durbin stated about his departure from QUIET RIOT (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “We just couldn’t come to an agreement on moving forward. The album-making process wasn’t something I really enjoyed, because we were just kind of making throwaway records, and I just don’t like doing that. So it was kind of that. But we just couldn’t come to a new agreement. I really wanted to make music and really put a focus on making new music and good music.

“My involvement on [making music with QUIET RIOT] was I would just get given instrumental tracks that there was no changes — you couldn’t change anything — and I just had to write to it,” he explained. “And sometimes that was easier said than done. On ‘Road Rage’, when I first joined the band, Seann Nicols had written all the songs, but then when I joined, I had, like, two weeks to write all brand new lyric and melodies for the whole record — and record. I had to write it and record it. And by that point, they were, like, ‘Just send us dry vocals. We’ll mix it in.’ They literally just dropped in the dry vocals and printed the record. They put no effects; they put nothing on it. Which is just, like, oh my God. [It was] my big debut with them. It’s a classic rock record — it’s more like a HUMBLE PIE record. But when I recorded it, it sounded like MOUNTAIN. It sounded like good classic rock — really wet vocals. I did a lot of harmonies and harmony sections and everything and really dug my heels into that.

“I know Kevin [DuBrow, QUIET RIOT’s original singer] was a big fan of, and really inspired by, Steve Marriott from HUMBLE PIE, as am I, so I was really digging into that Steve Marriott thing. And it was just all washed away. And some tracks got dropped in the wrong section, and that happened on both records. It was not my circus, not my monkey. That was the catchphrase those guys in the band kept throwing back and forth at each other. ‘Not my circus, not my monkey. We’ve just gotta sit back.’ If you make a suggestion, it’s, like, ‘What do you mean?’ And you play it side by side, and they still don’t get it.

“This is just part of the job. Sometimes you’ve gotta push paper. [And] it’s very hard, especially if you’re not inspired,” Durbin added. “And, really, I just was no longer inspired. I still enjoyed playing the live shows and everything and doing all that stuff. And I just wanted to spend more time with my family. I wanted a week off during the summer to go on our annual camping trip, and that just blew up and turned into a bigger deal than it needed to be.

“It’s funny — everything ended up getting canceled for 2020, and we were able to go on our camping trip anyway. We got our cake and we got to eat it too. We got to extend our trip. It was great. And I got to make this killer record out of it.”

Despite everything that’s happened, Durbin said that he doesn’t look at his stint with QUIET RIOT as a bad time. He added: “I wish those guys all the best in the world. I think it’s great that Frankie’s [Banali, late QUIET RIOT drummer] wish was for the band to continue, ’cause Chuck Wright [bass], Alex Grossi [guitar], Jizzy Pearl and Johnny Kelly [drums] are all killer musicians and they work great together. Alex and Chuck have been playing together for, like, 15 years. And Johnny is so reminiscent of Frankie’s playing. It’s just great to know that he was handpicked by the guy. The last four months of touring that I did in the band was with that lineup, sans Jizzy, and sometimes Mike Dupke on drums. But it was great.”

Banali resurrected QUIET RIOT in 2010, three years after the death of founding member and singer DuBrow.

QUIET RIOT went through two vocalists — Mark Huff and Scott Vokoun — before Pearl’s first three-year run with the band.

QUIET RIOT announced in September that it would carry on touring following Frankie’s death a month earlier.

QUIET RIOT initially featured the late guitar legend Randy Rhoads and went through some early lineup shifts before securing the musicians that recorded “Metal Health”.

Durbin released the debut album from his solo band, DURBIN, “The Beast Awakens”, on February 12 via Frontiers Music Srl.

John Cooper, the frontman and bassist for the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band SKILLET, was interviewed on a recent episode of the “Undaunted.Life: A Man’s Podcast”. You can now listen to the chat below.

Asked what he would say to someone who says that Satan works through rock music, thus Christians shouldn’t play rock music, he responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I would say Satan can work through just about anything. I would say that music is created not by the Devil; [it is] created by the Lord. All things were created by God. So instead of thinking that the Devil owns a genre of music, I would say capture that music and bring it back into subjection under the lordship of Christ.”

As for what he would say to someone who says it is sinful for Christians to have tattoos, Cooper said: “I understand why Christians think that, because of the Old Testament. I would say it probably takes a little bit of a longer explanation of Old Testament law and what it meant. But a short version would be there are some things in the Old Testament that were a picture of something in the New Testament. There are some things that are not pictures, like murder — we don’t murder, we don’t steal, so and so forth. Dietary restrictions, things like that, were a picture of something.

“Here’s what God wanted: God wants to make his people set apart and holy unto his name,” he continued. “And I don’t think that God does that any longer from the way that we look; he does that now because of Christ’s work on the cross, his resurrection, and he sanctifies us, which sets us apart from the sinner and the pagan.”

Cooper recently published his first book, titled “Awake & Alive To Truth (Finding Truth In The Chaos Of A Relativistic World)”. It “tackles the reigning philosophies of our day of post-modernism, relativism, and the popular view of the goodness of man-and combats these viewpoints by standing on the absolute truth of the Word Of God,” the book’s description reads.

In various interviews over the years, Cooper has said that he “always had faith in God” and that his mother was a “Jesus fanatic.” He also claimed that he was willing to put his career on the line to take a stand for Christ.