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SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor has told Matt Pinfield of 95.5 KLOS’s “New & Approved” series that he is “starting to get the itch” to write his fifth book. “I’ve got a concept in mind,” he said (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). “It has to do with social media and the age that we live in — the ‘outrage’ age. And it’s starting to really kind of form in my head. I may actually write it soon. Because it’s really kind of out of control out there right now.

“I was reading about how Gen Z is trying to cancel Eminem because of one line that was in a Rihanna song that he did with her,” he continued. “And I’m just, like, is that where we are right now? I mean, at this point, you’re talking about the Salem witch trials. You’re talking about America in the ’20s where the KKK was a political force. You’re talking about complete condemnation without context or any rationalization for an action like that. And to me, that’s [what’s] most dangerous — when the mob decides that you’re gone. That is Caesar at the Colosseum, for god’s sakes. That’s when it’s dangerous. The level of censorship that we’re starting to see… And I’m not saying that certain things haven’t been said that easily offend people. However, the flipside of that is that you can’t even make a joke anymore — even in the cleanest of situations. [People] completely turn on you. And there’s not one hint of satire, there’s no hint of irony — it’s just all-out rage, and it’s all through this [shows his smartphone]. And that’s when it’s really greedy, that’s when it’s really dirty. It can’t be that way. If we can’t have a conversation, how the hell are we gonna communicate. And if we can’t understand the difference between metaphor and complete reality, then we’re in real trouble. And that’s where I’m leaning with the book.”

Roughly one-third of Taylor’s last book, 2017’s “America 51”, was dedicated to his derision for President Donald Trump.

Corey previously said that “writing a book” is “quite different” from writing songs. “With a book, I could just fucking vomit from the brain,” he explained. “But with music, at least for me, I like the confines of it, I like the structure. I love songs, I love getting in, being concise, getting people with a hook, blasting them… Whether it’s fucking angry or melodic, and then getting out and leaving them wanting more. So, to me, the book lets me unleash it and kinda take shit to its natural end, as far as that goes. Because my brain is fucked up. So I will take that as far as it will go until I kind of sit there and go, ‘I have no way to beat that to the fucking death anymore.’ And I kind of go from there. So it’s good to kinda have no rules, and rules. It’s refreshing.”

Corey, who is often referred to as the “Great Big Mouth” due to his outspoken views, told the 94.3 KILO radio station in a 2017 interview that he is not worried about possible fallout from his comments. “That’s part of being an American,” he explained. “I mean, nothing drives me more crazy than when somebody says to celebrities or whatever, ‘Why don’t you just stick to acting?’ And I’m, like, ‘What? Leave politics to you? Why don’t you stick to writing bad reviews in your mom’s basement? Just shut your mouth. I’m just as American as you are, I have every right to say what I want, and you can shove that kind of attitude straight up your ass.”

Last month, Taylor told the Arizona radio station 98 KUPD that he is planning to embark on a “social-distanced” three-week tour with his solo band in April-May.

Taylor’s debut solo album, “CMFT”, was released in October. Corey recorded the effort with his band consisting of Jason Christopher on bass, Dustin Schoenhofer on drums, and Zach Throne and Christian Martucci (STONE SOUR) on guitar. The LP was completed at Kevin Churko’s The Hideout Recording Studio in Las Vegas with producer Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with ANTHRAX, STEEL PANTHER and STONE SOUR, among others.

NYC black metal outfit Krallice blaze a new path on Demonic Wealth.
The post Listen: Krallice Continue to Evolve on “Demonic Wealth” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

A single-channel amp that aims to cop three different American-flavored voices.

THE OFFSPRING guitarist Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman spoke to Meltdown of Detroit’s WRIF radio station about the massive success of the band’s 1994 breakthrough album “Smash”. “Smash” was THE OFFSPRING’s third LP and is often credited, along with GREEN DAY’s “Dookie”, with the commercial resurgence and success of punk rock in the mid-’90s.

“That was a real crazy time for us, because we went from being a band for 10 years where we played underground clubs and traveled across country in a van, and nobody knew who were, to, all of a sudden, traveling all around the world and doing it full time,” Noodles said (see video below). “When ‘Smash’ came out, we were on the road for a year and a half non-stop pretty much. So it was different. Then we went back in the studio and made ‘Ixnay [On The Hombre]’, and everyone was expecting our sophomore slump even though it was really our fourth record. We tried not to react one way or the other — we tried not to prove our punk bona fides or pop/rock bona fides either: ‘Let’s just do what we do.’ And I think we did pretty well with that. And then [we] continued to tour. And then came ‘Americana’, which was huge too. And after that, it’s just been so fun.”

“Smash” has sold more than six million copies in the U.S. alone and 11 million worldwide. It remains the best-selling independent label album of all time.

The disc’s first single, “Come Out And Play”, hit No. 1 on the Modern Rock chart in 1994 and was followed by two more Top 10 hits in “Self-Esteem” and “Gotta Get Away”.

A 20th-anniversary remastered edition of the album was released tin 2014 by Epitaph on both CD and 180-gram vinyl, as well as in a special “collector’s box.”

THE OFFSPRING’s tenth studio album, “Let The Bad Times Roll”, 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.

John Cooper, the frontman and bassist for the Grammy-nominated Christian rock band SKILLET, has spoken out against “cancel culture,” calling it “very frightening.”

Cancel culture is the idea that someone, usually a celebrity or a public figure, whose ideas or comments are considered offensive should be boycotted. These people are ostracized and shunned by former friends, followers and supporters alike, leading to declines in any careers and fanbase the individual may have at any given time.

Addressing the cancel culture issue on his “Cooper Stuff” podcast, Cooper said (see video below): “How does that work when Christians are making art, when Christians are making film? How do you make art in a world that wants to cancel you for, maybe, the art that you would make? Now, SKILLET hasn’t been canceled yet, which is wonderful. I hope we don’t get canceled. Could that happen? I don’t know. I didn’t think Dr. Seuss would get canceled,” referring to the fact that six Dr. Seuss books will no longer be published because they “portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” according to the business that preserves the author’s legacy.

“I’m of the feeling that we Christians, and we conservatives… I think we need to begin to spend your money on the things that you believe — buy things from people of like mind,” Cooper continued. “I’m telling you — I never thought that I would be the one saying it. That makes it sound like we want our own little Christian bubble — Christian candy, Christian chicken, Christian barbecue sauce, Christian shoes, Christian music, Christian books… I could go on and on. I never thought that I wanted to live in that bubble, and I do not wanna live in that bubble. But things are changing.

“A few weeks ago, some people came at me on Twitter and things, and they were, like, ‘John’s talking about government censorship. This isn’t government censorship.’ So I tried to make it clear. You’re right — it’s not government censorship; that’s not what I’m talking about. The government doesn’t need to censor something if we create a culture where you’re not allowed to say certain things. If we create a culture that does that and there’s no incentives — if businesses yank your stuff, if book publishers yank your stuff. I even said that as an example a while back. If you’ve got a publisher that drops you. You’ve written a book, [and] your publisher drops the book because they don’t wanna be associated with you — you’ve just said hate speech, or whatever you’ve done. Well, now there’s going to be incentive for Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Books-A-Million, whoever, there’s gonna be incentive for those companies to also drop your book. So let’s just say that I wrote a book, and then my publisher said, ‘I’m dropping John Cooper’s book,’ and they drop the book because it’s — I don’t know, whatever — hate speech. Well, what if Barnes & Noble says, ‘We’re not dropping the book.’ Well, now Barnes & Noble gets hammered from Twitter, from the social justice warriors, from the hyper-left folks, because they are supporting hate speech. So now Barnes & Noble also has to drop the book, because they have to virtue signal. So if they don’t drop the book, then they’re not woke anymore. They need those ‘woke cookies.’ Well, if Barnes & Noble is gonna get woke cookies, then Books-A-Million needs to get woke cookies. And if Books-A-Million gets woke cookies, you know Amazon needs woke cookies. So if you’ve created a culture where freedom of speech is so disincentivized that you’ve got publishers, book stores — everybody — who doesn’t want anything to do with you. Now Twitter wants to ban you too, ’cause you’re hate speech. Then there are no platforms for you to get your stuff out. This is very frightening. The government doesn’t even need to do anything. The government doesn’t need to crack down on you, because they’re, like, ‘Why would we crack down when culture is doing it?'”

Back in January, Cooper criticized Twitter for permanently suspending former president Donald Trump’s account, suggesting it was a form of censorship, and that it amounted to an attack on freedom of speech.

Cooper’s recently released debut book, “Awake & Alive To Truth (Finding Truth In The Chaos Of A Relativistic World)”, 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.

Polish black metallers Nekkrofukk summon the goat-demon on new doomy track “Devil’s Blood Injekktion.” Death and destruction streaming only at Decibel!
The post Track Premiere: Nekkrofukk “Devil’s Blood Injekktion” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

TESTAMENT guitarist Alex Skolnick has teamed up with ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Bentante, along with singer Jennifer Cella (TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA), rhythm guitarist Randy McStine (MCSTINE/MINNEMANN), bassist Mark Menghi (METAL ALLEGIANCE, BPMD) and keyboardist Harry Waters to record a quarantine cover of Stevie Nicks’s “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”.

Alex uploaded the video to his YouTube channel and wrote in an accompanying message: “Just in time for #internationwomensday, a classic song that’s quite relevant today in which a woman tells it like it is (sometimes we need to just stfu & listen, amirite?). Originally by Stevie Nicks from her 1981 debut solo album ‘Bella Donna’, where she was joined by all of TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS (except for the great session bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn who played bass just on this one track). Here we have our same band that did ‘Rhiannon’ (see vid a few months back), which was so fun to do and well received that we thought we’d continue. As before, Stevie’s part is channeled by the one & only Jen Cella, with Randy chiming in as Tom Petty (the late great, may he RIP) and the lineup augmented with Hammond B3 played by McNally Waters keyboardist Harry Waters, also a veteran of recent tours with his father (whom you may have heard of, his name’s Roger).

“I tried a few guitars, including my LPs, SGs, but this AS sig ESP lemonburst just captured the right tone & sustain in this case. Original guitarist Mike Campbell (currently playing with Stevie in FLEETWOOD MAC) is someone not always as appreciated as he should be in guitar scenes, as his playing is not technically complicated, but it’s nonetheless brilliant. I tried to capture the spirit of his original licks and, add a little bit of my own flavor but not deviate from the original too much (what Mike C did was perfect for the song, as usual).

“Enjoy the tune and for goodness sake, people (I’m not gonna tell you again): STOP DRAGGIN’ MY HEART AROUND!!!”

SYSTEM OF A DOWN’s Serj Tankian has admitted that he doesn’t care for his bandmate John Dolmayan’s opinions on American politics.

Last year, Dolmayan praised former U.S. president Donald Trump and accused Democrats of “demonizing” the real estate mogul and “blaming him for everything under the sun.” The drummer also called Democrats “the true bigots” who “fought to maintain slavery” and were “directly responsible for 70 plus million abortions, a large majority of whom were black.”

Tankian discussed his relationship with Dolmayan, who is also his brother-in-law, during a recent interview with Consequence Of Sound. He said: “We’re very good friends, we’re family, and he’s my drummer in my band, so, of course, we’ve talked about many, many different things, including political views. When you don’t agree with someone after a while about a certain topic … look, it doesn’t mean that we don’t agree about other stuff. We agree a lot about Armenian stuff, for example, a lot about family stuff, a lot of other things, a lot of personal stuff. But when it comes to American politics, we happen to be on the polar opposite ends of it, and we’re both very passionate and vehement about our views, which is fine.”

Serj continued: “I love and respect John very much, but I don’t love and respect his American political views. And that’s fine. And I can live with that and he can live with that because we respect and care for each other. And it’s really just that. Have we talked about it? Yeah. But do we talk about it often? No, because there comes a point where when you don’t see eye to eye on something, you just rather talk about something else.”

Last September, Dolmayan defended his reasons for voicing his political views that are ideologically opposed to those of Tankian, telling the “Deviant Gentlemen” podcast: “SYSTEM OF A DOWN has a legacy of being left-leaning, which isn’t always the case. Serj, of course, is responsible for the lyrics, but they didn’t always represent the band in the way that we maybe wanted [them] to. There’s four individuals in the band. I don’t speak for any of the individuals except for myself, and neither does Serj. But because he had that platform of writing lyrics, the perception was out there that that’s how the band felt at all times, where I don’t even think Serj necessarily felt those ways at all times. You’re supposed to have diversity of opinion even within your own mind, and you should judge things based on information that’s presented to you.

“If you’re a SYSTEM fan and you gravitate towards the music, you enjoy the music, but you don’t necessarily agree with the perceived message, well, where do you go?” he continued. “If you think that Serj is the mouthpiece of the band, which he is, as far as vocally, but not necessarily for ideology, then you have nowhere to go. So I wanted to present a different view and to give kids out there who think differently and who are critical thinkers, not necessarily following the norm, that there is a different option, you can think differently, it’s okay to have diversity of opinion, as long as it’s done peaceably.”

Asked if he has been approached by anybody in the music industry and told to tone down his political rhetoric on social media, John said: “No. My manager, he was just, like, ‘Look, maybe you guys are going a little too far’ — for both Serj and I. And we did have a private text conversation between me, [our manager] and Serj. And again, I think Serj views himself in a way where he’s really doing the right thing. And he really does care about people. And he does a lot for individuals and our nation as well. He’s really trying to help people, Serj. I believe he’s a good person, inherently. But again, it’s that moral high ground that they think they’re on — that perceived moral high ground. It kind of blinds them to being open about ideas they might be wrong on.”

Last year, Dolmayan supported Trump’s claim that his administration had done more for the African-American community “than any president since Abraham Lincoln.” Meanwhile, Tankian had called for Trump to resign and described him as “completely useless” over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

SKID ROW bassist Rachel Bolan has just received his first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

The 57-year-old rocker, who lives in Nashville, took to his Instagram to share a photo of him getting the shot, and he wrote in an accompanying message: “Guess what I got! One down. One to go. It was incredible easy and impeccably organized. Hopefully this puts us one step closer to being on stage safely. #vaccinate #shots #follow”.

A new poll from the Pew Research Center showed that more than two-thirds of U.S. adults plan on getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

The poll, released on Friday, found that 69 percent of adults say they are going to receive the coronavirus vaccine.

The Pew poll showed that 19% of adults have received at least one dose of the vaccine, 32% say they will definitely get the vaccine and 17% say they will probably get it.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has estimated that about 70-85% of Americans would need to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity.

America’s two main vaccines have shown 95% efficacy against the coronavirus.

As of late January, the CDC discovered that only 11 per 1 million people experienced severe reactions from the Pfizer vaccine, and only 2.5 per 1 million people who received the Moderna dose.

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, which became available in the United States earlier this month after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave it emergency use authorization, was tested with new variants of COVID-19, and has shown to be effective against them; Pfizer and Moderna were tested prior to the emergence of these variants.

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