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MEGADETH drummer Dirk Verbeuren spoke to “Todd Nief’s Show” about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2016’s “Dystopia” album. He said (hear audio below): “We had to push things back a little bit, but at the end of May, both David Ellefson [bass] and myself went to Nashville to go in the studio there with Dave [Mustaine], and we recorded drum and bass tracks for the record, which we’d been working on about a year and a half or so prior — we started, with Dave, working on song ideas and riffs. So the foundation for the album is done. Dave Mustaine is currently recording all the guitars — all the rhythm guitars. Kiko [Loureiro, lead guitar], at some point — he’s in Europe at the moment — is gonna come over and work with him on all the stuff. So it’s in progress.

“We recorded, actually, a lot of songs, and I’m pretty sure not all of them are gonna be on the album,” Dirk continued. “But the overall direction of the record is definitely — it’s gonna be a thrash album, it’s gonna be a metal album. It’s heavy — there’s a lot of heavy stuff. So I’m very excited about it.

“Old MEGADETH is kind of what I grew up with — and that’s not to discredit anything they did in their career, but that’s the stuff that touches me the most — so I wanted to bring that energy,” Dirk added. “And I was able to, because Dave being the frontman he is, let me try stuff, let me do stuff — he was actually encouraging me to go crazy in some parts and stuff. And I think that was a very exhilarating time to be able to do that. It was pretty surreal, actually, to be in the studio with those guys.”

MEGADETH’s new album is tentatively due in early 2021.

Mustaine recently told SiriusXM’s Jose Mangin that the upcoming MEGADETH album will be “up there with ‘Countdown [To Extinction]’, ‘Rust In Peace’ and probably ‘Peace Sells’ and ‘Dystopia’.”

The effort will be MEGADETH’s first to feature Verbeuren (ex-SOILWORK), who joined the band four years ago.

As previously reported, MEGADETH’s North American tour with LAMB OF GOD, TRIVIUM and IN FLAMES has been rescheduled for 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

METALLICA has posted another video as part of its new concert series, “#MetallicaMondays”, where the band is streaming a complete live show for fans on the group’s YouTube channel and on Facebook every week. The latest concert to be shared was recorded on June 13, 2004 at Olympiastadion in Munich, Germany.

The band’s setlist was as follows:

01. Blackened
02. Fuel
03. For Whom The Bell Tolls
04. Fade To Black
05. Frantic
06. The Memory Remains
07. Wherever I May Roam
08. St. Anger
09. Sad But True
10. Creeping Death
11. Damage, Inc.

Encore:

12. Harvester Of Sorrow
13. Nothing Else Matters
14. Master Of Puppets
15. One
16. Enter Sandman

Encore 2:

17. Dyers Eve
18. Seek & Destroy

Earlier today, METALLICA confirmed its return to the stage for the first time since the September 2019 “S&M²” concerts that opened Chase Center in San Francisco. METALLICA will be the first rock band to be featured in the Encore Drive-In Nights series, with a full set showing August 29 at hundreds of drive-in and outdoor theaters across the United States and Canada. The show will be shot specially for the Encore Drive-In Nights Series at a location near the band’s Northern California headquarters and will subsequently be edited and mixed by METALLICA’s award-winning production team to the highest standards possible. The concert, the band’s first show in nearly a year, will feature material from throughout their near-four-decade career and provide METALLICA fans with an intimate, unique and truly memorable concert experience.

In early May, the four members of METALLICA overcame social distancing to record a new version of their song “Blackened”, with each member separated in his own home. The split-screen video was posted to the band’s social media channels.

Back in April, drummer Lars Ulrich revealed in an online chat that the band could get together to write and record a new album while in quarantine.

METALLICA has been largely out of the public eye since last fall when the band canceled an Australian tour and announced that frontman James Hetfield was returning to rehab for the first time since 2002 to battle his addictions.

In March, METALLICA announced that its South American tour, which was originally planned for April, has been postponed until December. In addition, the band’s appearances at five Danny Wimmer Presents-produced festivals in May, September and October have been canceled: Epicenter in Charlotte, Welcome To Rockville in Daytona, Sonic Temple in Columbus, Louder Than Life in Louisville and Aftershock in Sacramento.

In a new interview with Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio statio, Don Dokken praised METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich whose band’s image took a tremendous beating in the eyes of music fans after METALLICA launched legal action against the pioneering music file-sharing service Napster in 2000.

“The Internet, especially Napster, they killed us,” Don said. “You bust your ass for nine months making a great record. You put it out on a Monday, and on Wednesday, it’s a free download. It hurt us financially.

“[Lars] took the bullet, and I give him high praise,” Dokken continued. “He had the balls to go up in front of Congress, and he was a soothsayer. Lars said, ‘If you allow this to keep happening, it will be the end of the music industry,’ and he was right — Lars was right.

“All these people say, ‘Oh, man, it’s METALLICA. They’re rich. They’re famous. What do they care if some people download their stuff for free? They’re making millions.’ That wasn’t his point. If I spent a year painting a painting, an oil painting, a year of my life and all the materials, and I get it done, and I go to sell it at an art gallery, and I show up, and somebody outside the gallery’s got 80 copies of it on a poster for five bucks, that’s not fair. It’s my art, my music. You have no right to take my art and give it away.”

METALLICA sued Napster after the band discovered that a leaked demo version of its song “I Disappear” was circulating on the pioneering music file-sharing service before it was released.

In May 2000, Ulrich famously delivered a literal truckload of paper to Napster Inc., listing hundreds of thousands of people who allegedly used the company’s software to share unauthorized MP3s of METALLICA’s songs.

METALLICA representatives compiled the more than 60,000-page list of 335,435 Napster user IDs over one weekend in response to Napster’s promise to terminate the accounts of users who trade material without permission. Real names were not included in the list.

In later years, METALLICA embraced digital music: in December 2012, the band made all of its studio albums, as well as various live material, singles, remixes and collaborations, available on Spotify.

On Sunday (August 9), TOOL drummer Danny Carey spoke to SKINNY PUPPY founding member cEvin Key (a.k.a. Kevin Crompton) about how he and his bandmates have been spending their coronavirus downtime. He said (see video below): “TOOL hasn’t been jamming. We’ve been just kind on hiatus. Nothing’s really been happening. But I think it’s time. We kept hoping that we were gonna get back out, so we were just kind of, ‘Hey, enjoy this while it lasts,’ but now it’s looking like it could go to the rest of the year, so we need to get the lead out and start functioning — maybe knock out another EP, at least, or something like that. We’ve never really done that since our first release — done an EP — so I thought it would be kind of nice to do something like that. We don’t have a record deal anymore — we’re free agents — so we can kind of release whatever we wanna release now, which is a good feeling.”

Carey also talked about the TOOL songwriting process, explaining: “It’s a slow process for us to compose our tunes, ’cause we really don’t have a songwriter, like a Neil Young or something like that. We just get in there and jam, and these jams can take off in all these different directions, and that’s when we’re all kind of pushing weirdness on each other. We always keep the tape rolling the whole time, so then we just find the cool bits and go, ‘This would fit good with this.’ We all take the tapes home and listen to ’em and then show up the next day and then have little meetings to talk about how it’s gonna develop or what direction it can go. Sometimes different time signatures can feed into other ones. It’s weird. It’s always hard to kind of figure out how things fit together, but they do. It’s almost like a commitment — if we’re all feeling it, then we can make it fit together. It’s definitely a band vibe that makes the songs come together in the end — all of us feeding into this pot. It’s a good process, but I wouldn’t recommend it to the faint of heart [laughs], ’cause it’s time consuming. It takes us a long time to write. And it sounds like us in the end, so I’m happy about that.”

According to Carey, TOOL missed out on some major touring opportunities this year as a result fo the COVID-19 crisis. “We got in some pretty good touring, luckily, right after the new year, and come March, we were just taking off on about a 10-show run, and then we were gonna have a little break and then start the biggest American tour we’ve ever done,” he said. “So that was a heartbreaker when all that hit the fan. So we’re just kind of in suspension now. We have dates held in November and December, but it’s highly unlikely that’s gonna pan out. We’re kind of at the mercy of the NBA and the NHL at this point. If they start having games, then we’ll get to tour, because it’s pretty much the same venues we do our gigs in. We’re waiting and hoping. If not, we’ve got some stuff held over in Germany and all over Europe in January and February, so I’m hoping that will come through, if nothing else.”

On its recent tour, TOOL has been playing two-and-a-half hour sets, with vocalist Maynard James Keenan spending the entirety avoiding the spotlight, singing mostly from the shadows, on a set of risers at the back of the stage.

The setlist drew from all of TOOL’s five albums, with 2019’s “Fear Inoculum” and 2001’s “Lateralus” getting around four songs each.

TOOL’s lineup continues to consist of Keenan, Carey, guitarist Adam Jones and bassist Justin Chancellor.

The band has been promoting “Fear Inocolum”, which came out in August 2019.

TOOL was honored with a Grammy in the “Best Metal Performance” category in the pre-telecast ceremony at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards in late January at Staples Center in Los Angeles. TOOL was nominated for “7empest”, a track from “Fear Inoculum”.

TOOL already had three previous Grammy Awards under its belt: “Best Metal Performance” in 1997 and 2001 for “Ænima” and “Schism”, respectively, and “Best Recording Package” in 2006 for “10,000 Days”.

When it’s time crossover death/thrash, Florida’s Intoxicated will crossover death/thrash hard.
The post Video Premiere: Intoxicated – ‘Walled’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

In a new interview with “The MetalSucks Podcast”, Tommy Karevik spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for KAMELOT’s follow-up to 2018’s “The Shadow Theory” album. The singer said (hear audio below): “We’re kind of far down the line, to be honest. We have a lot of music written, a lot of ideas. I think what we need to do right now is to kind of pick and choose what we want. We have too many songs, too many ideas, and we have to kind of narrow it down. And that’s a really good place to be, because that’s not usually where we are at this point. So that’s better. It’s further down the line than we usually are. So that’s really good.

“It’s cool, because you start seeing everything shaping up,” he continued. “We’ve always been adamant about having a story — not necessarily a lyrical story, but a story where it feels like a roller coaster. There’s not too many of one type of song — it’s always moving and shifting in shape. So it’s kind of like a journey or a movie — you wanna have something that grabs people; you wanna have something different.”

KAMELOT’s new DVD and Blu-ray, “I Am The Empire – Live From The 013”, will be released on August 14 via Napalm Records. The 21-song set set was recorded at 013 in Tilburg, Netherlands and includes more than 100 minutes of live music and multiple exclusive extras, including backstage interviews of all guests, bandmembers and fans. Featured guest musicians include Alissa White-Gluz (ARCH ENEMY), Elize Ryd (AMARANTHE), Charlotte Wessels (DELAIN) and Lauren Hart (ONCE HUMAN).

“The Shadow Theory”, was released in April 2018 via Napalm Records. The follow-up to 2015’s “Haven” was helmed by acclaimed music producer Sascha Paeth and mastered by Jacob Hansen. Guests on the album include Hart, Jennifer Haben (BEYOND THE BLACK) and Sascha Paeth. The cover artwork was created by Stefan Heilemann.

The first official book by and about KAMELOT, “Veritas: A Kamelot Legacy”, marking the 30th anniversary of the founding of the band, will be released later this year via Rocket 88.

British heavy metal legends IRON MAIDEN have paid tribute to Martin Birch, who died on Sunday, August 9. He was 71.

The British music producer, whose nickname was Headmaster, was perhaps best known for his 11-year stint with MAIDEN, serving as the producer and engineer of such classic albums as “Killers”, “The Number Of The Beast”, “Piece Of Mind” and “Somewhere In Time”.

Earlier today, MAIDEN bassist and founder Steve Harris said about Birch: “He was just absolutely brilliant. He wasn’t just a producer, he was a hands-on engineer too, so he knew how to get a great sound. He was also fantastic at motivating people; he just had a knack of getting the best out of you. He was also a really nice man, great fun with a terrific sense of humor and that made him easy to work with. We all got along with him really well and the whole band is very saddened by today’s news.”

Added singer Bruce Dickinson: “To me, Martin was a mentor who completely transformed my singing: he was a psychotherapist and, in his own words, a juggler who could mirror exactly what a band was. That was his special talent as a producer. He was not a puppeteer, he did not manipulate the sound of the band, he just reflected it in the best possible way. Apart from all of that, he was a wonderful, warm and funny human being.

“Martin and I shared a passion for martial arts — he for karate and me for fencing which gave us another bond too.

“I’m so very sad to hear this news. It’s incredible that he has passed away at such a young age for a man who was so full of life.”

MAIDEN manager Rod Smallwood said: “He was a fantastic guy who always shared a mutual respect with the band. He never, ever, let us down in the studio. He was a true gentleman and he will be hugely missed by everyone in the MAIDEN family.”

IRON MAIDEN albums produced by Martin Birch:

1981 – Killers
1982 – The Number Of The Beast
1983 – Piece Of Mind
1984 – Powerslave
1985 – Live After Death
1986 – Somewhere In Time
1988 – Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
1990 – No Prayer For The Dying
1992 – Fear Of The Dark
1994 – Maiden England ’88

Birch, who began his career in the late 1960s as an engineer, also worked on recordings for DEEP PURPLE (“In Rock”, “Machine Head”), RAINBOW (“Rising”, “Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll”), WHITESNAKE (“Saints & Sinners”) and BLACK SABBATH (“Heaven And Hell”, “Mob Rules”). He retired in 1992.

Speaking with Classic Rock about “The Number Of The Beast”, Birch said: “I had the same feeling on ‘The Number Of The Beast’ as when we did DEEP PURPLE’s ‘Machine Head’. It was the same kind of atmosphere, the same kind of feeling, like, something really good is happening here.

“I remember we spent ages getting the vocal intro to the title track right. We did it over and over and over until Bruce Dickinson said, ‘My head is splitting. Can’t we move on and do something else and come back to this?’ But I wouldn’t let him do anything else until he’d got it perfect. It drove him crazy.”

’90s fans, Narrow Head are here so you no longer need to pretend that any of the Helmet, Quicksand or Smashing Pumpkins reunion material is actually good.
The post Miss ’90s Alt-Metal? Then Get to Know Narrow Head appeared first on Decibel Magazine.