AMON AMARTH's JOHAN HEGG Blasts UFC For Failing To Ban Russian Fighters: 'I Have Now Canceled My Fight Pass'

AMON AMARTH frontman Johan Hegg has blasted UFC president Dana White for failing to ban Russian fighters from completing on upcoming cards amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

UFC’s long-awaited return to the United Kingdom this month is set to be headlined by up-and-coming British prospect Tom Aspinall and Russian heavyweight contender Alexander Volkov.

Although the Russian fighter has reportedly received the necessary documents to compete in the U.K., the status of his bout against Aspinall remains unknown.

On Monday (March 7), Hegg took to his Twitter to write: “As long as @ufc allows Russian fighters to compete and make money, while children die in Ukraine, @ufc will not get my money. I have now cancelled my fight pass. Athletes represent their country and regime. Allowing Russian fighters to compete is to support Putin.”

AMON AMARTH’s music video for the song “Mjölner, Hammer Of Thor” featured ex-UFC champion Josh Barnett as The Berseker and former fighter Shanie Rusth as Shield Maiden. Also featured were WWE wrestlers Erick Rowan as Thor and Viktor as Demon Henchman.

In a 2019 interview with MMAWeekly.com, Hegg stated about how he got into combat sports: “Actually it was my wife, Maria, who introduced me to combat sports. She’s done some boxing in the past and is currently a yoga teacher and has developed a special kind of yoga for athletes. Currently she’s working with a couple of MMA fighters, Örebro Hockey, the local Swedish Hockey League team in our hometown, and a couple of other hockey players in Sweden. A few years back, my wife and I were in New York when I was promoting our previous album, ‘Jomsviking’, and there we met Josh and his girlfriend at the time, Colleen [Schneider], at a dinner. The day after, we met up with them at a gym, and they tried yoga with my wife, and in exchange they offered to train MMA with us the next time we were in L.A. So next time we were there we met up with them and trained, and I had a blast.

“I’ve played hockey and soccer, but honestly this is perhaps the most fun I’ve had training. I was never really into fighting or martial arts before. I mean, I had seen MMA fights and all, but I honestly wasn’t that interested, but training with Josh changed all that, and I’ve been training ever since. Now I follow both UFC and Bellator, as well as watch other organizations like Cage Warriors, if there is an interesting fight.”

Less than a week ago, Hegg denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has called for peace to be restored in Europe. The 48-year-old Swedish death metal musician took to his Twitter to write: “My lyrics are often about glorious battles & brave warriors, but they’re just stories, sometimes based on history. That doesn’t mean I condone war as a matter of solving conflicts. War is never a solution to any dispute. It can only generate more animosity & hate between people.

“Right now Putin has invaded the Ukraine, a democratic, sovereign state, and though this is far from the only weaponised conflict in the world, it has affected me deeply. I thought we as Europeans were passed this, especially considering our troubled past.

“My hope is that Putin will end this attack on Ukraine, & that peace will be restored in Europe. My fear is that even if this happens, it will take a very long time for trust to return between Russia & the rest of the world. I stand with Ukraine & all Russians who oppose this war.”

On February 24, Russian president Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in Ukraine. Putin made the announcement during a televised early morning speech, peddling accusations of Nazi elements within Ukraine to justify the attack on his western neighbor, a move that experts slammed as slanderous and false. (Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost three family members in the Holocaust.)

The Russian leader called for Ukraine’s “demilitarization and denazification” and warned other countries that any attempt to interfere with the Russian action would lead to “consequences they have never seen.”

As long as @ufc allows Russian fighters to compete and make money, while children die in Ukraine, @ufc will not get my money.
I have now cancelled my fight pass.
Athletes represent their country and regime. Allowing Russian fighters to compete is to support Putin.
— Johan Hegg ?? (@AmonJohan) March 7, 2022

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Watch: IRON MAIDEN's NICKO MCBRAIN Performs 'Wasted Years' With ADRIAN SMITH And RICHIE KOTZEN

IRON MAIDEN drummer Nicko McBrain joined Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen’s project SMITH/KOTZEN on stage earlier tonight (Tuesday, March 8) at Islington Assembly Hall in London, United Kingdom to perform the MAIDEN classic “Wasted Years”. Video of his appearance can be seen below (courtesy of Eonmusic).

Joining Smith and Kotzen as part of SMITH/KOTZEN’s touring band is Richie’s wife, internationally acclaimed bass player Julia Lage, formerly of the Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian rock band BARRA DE SAIA. With a strong pedigree in rock, Lage has played alongside the likes of Pat Travers, Elliot Easton (THE CARS), Nuno Bettencourt (EXTREME) and Mark McGrath (SUGAR RAY) and VIXEN. In addition, SMITH/KOTZEN has enlisted drummer Bruno Valverde of ANGRA for its U.S. West Coast and European dates.

In a recent interview with Metal Edge magazine’s “Another FN Podcast With Izzy Presley”, Richie stated about how the short tour came together: “What happened was it was all just by timing. Nathalie [Dufresne-Smith, Adrian’s wife] and Adrian came into town, and Adrian said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be there for a couple of months. You wanna write some more songs?’ And we did get together and we did about seven things that are in the works; we have some demo stuff that are in the works. And then we started thinking, ‘Man, we’re here. Why don’t we play?’ Julia was in the house and we were talking about it. And it just kind of — boom. It just made sense. ‘Let’s go. Call Bruno.’ And we put it together. It was real easy.”

Adrian added that fans can definitely expect to hear more music from SMITH/KOTZEN, which released a full-length album and an EP during 2021.

“We started writing with a view to doing another album, and then we got sidetracked on dates,” Smith said. “Like Richie said, we’ve got six or seven things. It’s just taking where we left off with the EP — just writing as we do.

“I don’t wanna change the world,” he added. “I just wanna make good rock music. It’s n there, and you’ve just gotta do it. You just have to do it, really. It’s one of those things.”

SMITH/KOTZEN’s eponymous debut album was released globally through BMG in March 2021 to media and fan acclaim, charting No. 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart in the U.S., Top 20 in the U.K. as well as in other major markets such as Germany, Japan and Canada. A follow-up EP, “Better Days”, featuring four new tracks was released on November 26 in conjunction with international Record Store Day’s Black Friday event.

Smith is best known as one of IRON MAIDEN’s principal guitarists, having also enjoyed success as a solo artist. Kotzen is the frontman for THE WINERY DOGS as well as having been the guitarist for both MR. BIG and POISON during his long and acclaimed career, which has to date seen him release more than 20 solo albums. Both artists are also prolific songwriters.

EXCLUSIVE: Nicko McBrain joins Smith Kotzen on stage in London #ironmaiden #wastedyears #Smith Kotzen

Posted by Eonmusic on Tuesday, March 8, 2022

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LACUNA COIL's CRISTINA SCABBIA Reflects On Her COVID-19 Battle: 'The First Week Was Not Fun'

LACUNA COIL frontwoman Cristina Scabbia spoke to Spain’s The Metal Circus about her recent battle with COVID-19. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I got it in December. I spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve alone at home. Yay! [Laughs] Actually, it was not that bad, because I am a very independent person, so even when I’m alone, I’m fine. And I am not a huge lover of Christmas and New Year’s Eve anyway. Of course, I missed my family, but at the same time, I was, like, ‘I have everything I need. I have a TV, I have a computer, I have a microphone, I have all the outlets that can keep me busy,’ so I cannot complain.”

Asked if she got very sick after she was diagnosed with the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, Cristina said: “The first week was not fun. Two days were pretty bad because I had a high fever for not even a day — a fever that went down with medicines. But it hits every person differently, and the way it hit me was not on the throat. For example, a lot of people suffered throat and coughing. For me, it was just like normal coughing. The throat was okay. I had a sense of small and taste; they never went away. But for a week I suffered. Like, my nerves were hurting — from the back into the legs. I couldn’t find a comfortable position in bed, so I couldn’t sleep because I would keep waking up because I had, like, nerve pain. Like sort of a sciatica, but double — not only on one side; on the other side as well. It was pretty bad. Then the second week I had sort of a congestion, so I was talking very nasally. But overall, I was okay.”

Scabbia, who confirmed she was fully vaccinated when she contracted COVID-19, went on to blast people who refuse to get the shot because they can still get the disease and pass it along, even if vaccinated.

“Well, that’s a hard topic because I get really, really angry, in a way, when I talk about this,” she said. “Because I trust science. A lot of my friends are scientists, biologists, virologists, so I talk to them constantly. And to see people that have no idea about medicine, including me, because I never studied science or any type of matters related to science, thinking that they know everything about how a vaccine works, what’s in there, long-term risks, trials, it’s very depressing. Because now on Internet, everybody’s an expert after watching a couple of videos on YouTube or a web site created the day before from a person that you don’t know. Yet again some people [are] more willing to believe a person that they have no idea about instead of a whole community, a worldwide community, of doctors. And this is really depressing to me because we’re in 2022 [and] we should be open about that and, most of all, we shouldn’t make something that helps our health politic. A lot of people are confusing politics and the vaccine. I mean, we’re still in between a pandemic — we’re right through a pandemic; we’re getting out, but we’re still in it — so we should trust who can help us to get out of this pandemic. So no YouTubers, no streamers, no unknown people on Internet; we should trust doctors because they’re studying the matter. They know what a virus is and they know how to fight it. They got together with other doctors around the world to solve the problem. Instead, all the other things are coming out. ‘Oh, it’s just for money.’ ‘Oh, it’s a political thing.’ ‘Oh, they want to control us.’ And I’m, like, how do they control you? You have this [lifts her smartphone]. You’re writing on Facebook. They know your cellphone. They know where you live. They know what you eat. They know when you go to the bathroom. Yet again, you think that they’re gonna be controlling you putting 5G with the vaccine. And I’m, like, ‘Really? Really?’

“So the only thing that I can say is that it was very clear from the very beginning that the intent of the vaccine was to keep the bad symptoms down,” Scabbia continued. “It wasn’t intended to, ‘You’re never gonna get COVID.’ Because they’re still studying it.

“There is always an answer, a clear answer for very [anti]-vaxxer that I talk to. Yet again, they don’t accept it. They like better to trust strangers or a fake study on a picture that everybody can manipulate. But no, [they think] it’s easier to manipulate a whole community of doctors around the world [who] don’t know each other.”

Last month, LACUNA COIL entered the studio to begin recording “a very special project.”

Back in June, Scabbia told Revolver that she and her bandmates didn’t use the coronavirus downtime to work on new music. “We didn’t want to force the fact that because we were home, we had to write music,” she explained. “We always thought that to write music, you need to be inspired. And inspiration comes from the outside, comes from experiences that you have, things that you live. At least this is valid for us.

“Everything we do in a regular life, in a normal life enriches us and gives us input that we can put in our music,” she said. “And also we like to write together. So, if Marco [Coti Zelati, bass] creates the basis of the music together with the other musicians in the band, then Andrea [Ferro, vocals] and I jump in with the lyrics and vocal lines. But we do that together. We need to enter in songwriting mode. So we didn’t really like the fact that we had to write separately just because we have to put a record [together] because it’s quarantine. Now we are starting to collect ideas ’cause we feel a little bit happier.”

Scabbia continued: “We didn’t want anything connected to the negativity of the pandemic… That’s why I used my time to do something completely different. Because I know that what I did that it’s completely different from what I usually do will make me start again to do what I did before with passion — with the same passion. I was just afraid that if I would have used all the downtime making music when I didn’t really want to, it would have had a negative influence on me. And it would have been, like, ‘I really don’t want to do that.’ And I also wanted to prove to myself that, yeah, music is main passion. I love what I do for a living, and I hope that I can do it until the day I die. But I also wanted to show myself that I can be capable of doing something else as well.”

Last summer, LACUNA COIL released a new live album, “Live From The Apocalypse”, via Century Media. The effort was recorded at the band’s special September 2020 livestream event where LACUNA COIL performed its latest album, “Black Anima”, in its entirety.

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