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Regional Justice Center’s sophomore full-length Crime and Punishment is our grinding face-peeler of the week.
The post Blast Worship: Regional Justice Center appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Former GUNS N’ ROSES drummer Matt Sorum has partnered with Brazil’s Companhia Brasileira de Cerveja Artesanal (CBCA) to produce his own beer called simply The Drummer.

Sorum discussed his latest business venture during a recent appearance on the “Rock On The Rocks” video podcast. Holding a bottle of the beer, Matt said (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “This is an American lager, but it’s actually made in Piracicaba, Brazil. It’s a Belgian distillery down there that’s amazing — made out of an old sugar cane mill. I went down there to Piracicaba, and the guys, they love rock and roll. And they’re, like, ‘We wanna make you your own beer.’ And I’m, like, ‘Okay. What are we gonna call it?’ And I was, like, ‘Let’s call it the Portuguese name for drummer, which is ‘O Baterista.’ And they go, ‘No. Let’s call it ‘The Drummer’.’ So I got online. There was no Drummer beer. And I’m, like, ‘The Drummer.’ I thought it was a cool name.

“So this an American lager, and then I’ve got an IPA coming,” he explained. “And I’ll have an IPA and the American lager out. There’s 12 Bristol Farms stores [carrying it] right now [in the U.S.], and next year we’ll go wider with it — distribute it everywhere, I hope.”

Regarding the concept for his beer, Sorum said: “You see a lot of rock and roll guys doing alcohol, and I don’t want it to be a rock and roll beer, per se. I wanna describe it as, drums are sort of the heartbeat of energy and rhythm in general. I think we all have rhythm in our life, whether we know it or not. We’re speaking in rhythm right now; we’re walking in rhythm. Everything we do transcends through our heartbeat. We’re all rhythmically connected.

“My whole pitch behind the beer is ‘find the rhythm in life.’ We’ve got really cool webisodes we’re gonna start dropping, and they’re all about that. If it’s a surfer, he finds a way; if a guy’s a skateboader… Everybody that finds any kind of movement that really inspires them, it’s rhythmically based. And the drummer sets the tone for that. And that’s the idea we have behind it.”

As previously reported, Sorum’s long-awaited autobiography, “Double Talkin’ Jive: True Rock ‘N’ Roll Stories From The Drummer Of Guns N’ Roses, The Cult, And Velvet Revolver”, will now arrive on September 7, 2021 via Rare Bird Books after being delayed several times due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Matt’s co-authors Leif Erickson and Martin Svensson previously co-wrote Samantha Fox’s “Forever”.

Sorum, who replaced Steven Adler in GUNS N’ ROSES, recorded the highly successful albums “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II” (both 1991) and “The Spaghetti Incident” (1994). He also supported the group on the “Use Your Illusion” tour and can be heard on GUNS N’ ROSES’ “Live Era: ’87-’93” (1999) and “Greatest Hits” (2004).

Sorum has said in the past that a GUNS reunion tour should have included both him and Adler, with each playing the songs they recorded with the group. Sorum was inducted as a member of the band into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April 2012.

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Turn your speakers up to 11—it’s time to rock with Portland’s finest, Hippie Death Cult.
The post Track Premiere: Hippie Death Cult – ‘Red Meat Tricks’ appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Geezer Butler has confirmed that he is featured on a previously unreleased Ronnie James Dio-era BLACK SABBATH song titled “Slapback” which was uploaded to YouTube several days ago.

Gary Rees, the stepson and executor of the estate of SABBATH’s longtime keyboardist Geoff Nicholls, shared the track last Friday (March 5), writing in an accompanying message that he had found it on a cassette tape that contained other material recorded during SABBATH’s 1979 songwriting sessions for the following year’s album “Heaven And Hell”.

Asked in an interview with SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” on Monday (March 8) if he knew anything about this purportedly unreleased tune, Butler said: “Yeah, that was one of the songs that we did before I left,” referring to the fact that he exited SABBATH for a short time during the “Heaven And Hell” sessions while he was dealing with some personal issues. “It’s probably the reason I did leave. [Laughs] It was just one of those songs that didn’t make the grade.”

Asked if he in fact played bass on the recording that was uploaded to YouTube, Butler said: “Yeah, that was right before I left. It was just a one-off thing. We just jammed it and didn’t think anything more of it. It didn’t really work.”

The “Slapback” upload came a month and a half after Rees shared a previously unreleased rehearsal recording of BLACK SABBATH playing the “Heaven And Hell” title track during the same sessions. That recording featured Nicholls on bass due to Butler’s absence during the initial writing stage for the LP.

Butler went on to say that it’s “incredible” to see both these recordings see the light of day more than 40 years later. “And it’s quite good quality as well,” he said. “I’ve heard the two songs from the Geoff Nicholls thing. It’s reasonable quality.”

Dio joined SABBATH for the first time in 1979 and quickly found kindred spirits in Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward. When “Heaven And Hell” was released in April 1980, the album was met with effusive reviews for the band’s return to form on metal masterpieces like “Neon Knights” and the title track. The LP reached No. 9 in the U.K. and No. 28 in the U.S., where it was also certified platinum.

Released on March 5, “Heaven And Hell: Deluxe Edition” added several bonus tracks that have never been made available in North America, including versions of “Children Of The Sea” and “Die Young” recorded live in 1980 in Hartford, Connecticut. The set concludes with live rarities like “E5150” and “Neon Knights” that originally appeared in 2007 on the Rhino Handmade’s limited edition collection “Black Sabbath: Live At Hammersmith Odeon”.

In a recent interview with Songfacts, Iommi was asked how the songwriting compared to when Dio was the singer in SABBATH as opposed to Ozzy Osbourne. He responded: “It was different. With Ozz, we tend to jam usually, and then Ozzy would sometimes be in the room, sometimes he wouldn’t. And sometimes he’d hear something and go, ‘Oh yeah,’ and start singing something to it. It depends on what periods. We’d play and come up with a format for a song, and then he’d listen to it and start coming up with a melody. With Dio, he was a little bit more involved because he played an instrument [bass] and was more musical. And that’s not knocking Ozzy, because Ozzy was great at what he did, but Dio was a little more involved. I could sit down quietly and play something to Ronnie, and he’d say, ‘Yeah, I like that.’ He’d start singing, and then go, ‘Can I go through a change now? What about that note there? Oh yeah, that’s good.’ We’d work together and bounce back with each other.”

Nicholls died in January 2017 after a long battle with lung cancer.

Geoff, who played keyboards on all of SABBATH’s albums between 1980 and 1995 and toured with them, was reportedly in remission from cancer at the time of his death but succumbed to the side effects of chemotherapy.

Nicholls’s first appearance on a SABBATH album was on “Heaven And Hell”. Although his main role with SABBATH was on the keyboard, Nicholls also played some rhythm guitar at concerts. In addition to not always being credited as a full member of the band, Nicholls rarely appeared on stage during SABBATH shows and would instead play on the side of the stage or backstage.

Nicholls’s involvement with the band ended when Adam Wakeman (a member of Ozzy Osbourne’s solo band) was chosen to play keyboards during SABBATH’s 2004 and 2005 tours as part of Ozzfest.

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In a brand new interview with I Ask No One With Kevin Re, LAMB OF GOD frontman Randy Blythe was asked if he ever got any piece of advice from METALLICA’s James Hetfield when the two bands toured together more than a decade ago. He responded (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “James is a cool dude. I got sober on a METALICA tour — I got sober on a METALLICA tour in Australia. And I’ll just say that James Hetfield helped me out a lot with that. Actually, four of give guys on METALLICA’s crew were sober. Three of us actually got sober on that tour and have been sober to this day. And that was over 10 years ago.

“James is a good dude, man,” he reiterated. “The last time I saw James was in Oakland when we took C.O.C. out, and James showed up and played a song with C.O.C. He hung out for a little bit. He had driven a Tesla. He had this super-fast fuckin’… He’s like a gearhead. We were backstage at this place in Oakland, and I was, like, ‘Woah! That’s a fucking expensive-looking car. I wonder whose car that is.’ And then somebody [said], ‘Oh, that’s James’s.’ And I was, like, ‘Duh.’ He’s a total gearhead.

“He’s a good guy, man — a really good guy with a really good heart,” Blythe added. “I love him to death.”

Randy went on to praise Hetfield’s bandmates, saying, “All the guys in METALLICA were nothing but absolutely lovely to us — absolutely lovely. People will be, like, talking [crap] about their later music or whatever. And it’s, like, ‘Did you write ‘Master Of Puppets’? No, you did not. Shut the fuck up.’ You know what I mean? Or, ‘Did you write any classic records that will go down in rock and roll history? No, you did not. They did. So shut the fuck up.’

“METALLICA does not have to carry anyone out as openers,” he continued. “Their shows sell out before the openers are announced. They don’t have to do that. They carry bands out that they wanna give a shot [to]. And you’re definitely playing to a METALLICA crowd when you [are opening for them], so you’ve gotta keep that cognizant. These people are there to see METALLICA, so you’d better bring your fucking A-game. But they’re super fucking cool. And it’s not like when you’re backstage where it’s, like, ‘Oh, METALLICA is over there. Don’t look at them,’ whatever. It’s, like, you see ’em — they’re just regular fucking human beings.”

LAMB OF GOD will issue a three-disc deluxe edition of last year’s critically acclaimed self-titled album featuring the full record with two bonus tracks and a live version of the album, along with a DVD performance of “Lamb Of God” on March 26 via Epic Records.

Pre-orders for the set are available now, along with the bonus track “Ghost Shaped People”. The live CD and DVD portion of the deluxe edition features the first of LAMB OF GOD’s two ultra-successful live stream events from September 2020, in which the band performed their critically acclaimed, self-titled album “Lamb Of God” in full, plus an encore of four songs, including “Ruin”, “Contractor”, “512” and the debut live performance of “The Death Of Us”, a new song the band wrote and recorded in quarantine for the “Bill & Ted Face The Music” movie and soundtrack. The DVD includes a new director’s cut with bonus material.

KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons has once again repeated his claim that rock is dead, saying that the current business model “just doesn’t work.”

While rock ‘n’ 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.

Simmons spoke about rock’s supposed diminishing status during a recent interview with Consequence Of Sound. Addressing the whole “rock is dead” debate, Gene said: “The point is, yeah, rock is dead because if we play the game from 1958 until 1988, which is 30 years, you had Elvis [Presley], THE BEATLES, THE [ROLLING] STONES, PINK FLOYD, and on and on and on. And you can go to the heavy part of it, which is METALLICA, [IRON] MAIDEN, if you want to put KISS in there, that’s fine. AC/DC, on and on and on. Even U2, Prince, [David] Bowie, EAGLES. And then you get to disco stuff, and Madonna, and that stuff, and Motown, of course. And then from 1988 until today, who’s the new BEATLES? I’ve heard a reaction of FOO FIGHTERS, one of my favorite bands, but you’re kidding yourself. There’s also the boy bands: NSYNC, ONE DIRECTION, BTS, and [sarcastically] XYZ, PTA, and good for them that they’ve got success. Don’t kid yourself. As soon as those girls are gonna grow a little bit older, that’s going to go away. It’s like sugar: you taste it, it gives you that little energy boost, and then it’s gone forever and you don’t care. But don’t kid yourself, it ain’t THE BEATLES. They don’t write songs, they don’t play instruments, it ain’t that. And we all love Elvis; [he] never wrote a song in his life. There’s just nothing that compares to THE BEATLES. The reason for that is not because there’s a lack of talent, but because young folks, that kid living in his mom’s basement, decided one day that he didn’t want to pay for music. He wanted to download and file share. And that’s what killed the chances for the next generation of great bands. The fact that the music was for free. So nowadays new bands don’t have a chance.”

He continued: “It’s like flowers — people water them and make sure there’s enough sun and all that stuff. And as soon as you take your eyes off and you don’t water the flowers, they will die. And people wonder why there aren’t beautiful flowers. Well, because you don’t water them. You get what you pay for. So nowadays, if you download a song, the artist will get 1/100th of one cent. Even Spotify … the artist sees very little of that. So you get what you pay for.

“Rock is dead — you bet your ass it is — not because the talent isn’t there, but because the business model just doesn’t work,” Simmons added. “And so that leaves live performances. And I really hope once this vaccine takes hold — you better get shot up twice — that people go out to the local clubs and see all the new bands and support new bands. Like a baby that’s on the floor, go up there, pick that baby up and coddle it, give it love, because those new bands need your love.

“It’s not going to affect me. I make a living, but the new bands need the love and attention. Don’t just go see METALLICA and Taylor [Swift] or KISS. On the weekends, go to a place that’s got live music. And I don’t mean guys that press a button and do EDM. That’s fine, too. But that guy, if you put an instrument in his hands, wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it — never wrote a song, wouldn’t know what an A minor, A major or a seventh is. You need to support the new generation of talented people who are musicians and writers and so on. Don’t let the robots take away everything.”

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.”

A few years ago, 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.