Best Fender Play deals February 2022: find the biggest savings on our favorite online guitar lesson service

Take your guitar playing to the next level for less with these Fender Play discounts

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New VIXEN Bassist JULIA LAGE: 'It's An Honor For Me To Join' The Band

A week ago, longtime VIXEN bassist Share Ross announced that she was “taking a hiatus” from the band. Her replacement is Julia Lage, formerly of the Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian rock group BARRA DE SAIA and wife of Richie Kotzen.

During an appearance last Friday (February 11), on SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, Julia spoke about how she ended up hooking up with VIXEN, saying: “Share is taking a hiatus. She wants to do her thing [and focus on her real estate career]. She’s kicking ass. She’s gonna be writing and playing forever — I mean, she’s a badass artist and bass player, singer, everything, songwriter. So I got the invitation, and I’m, like, ‘Yeah, of course I’m gonna join. Of course.'”

Asked how the other members of VIXEN reached out to her about joining the band, Julia said: “Well, actually, funnily enough, before [guitarist] Britt [Lightning, a.k.a. Brittany Denaro] joined VIXEN, me and her tried to put together a band, right when she moved to L.A. But that didn’t work out, and then she joined VIXEN, and I was super happy for her. So, fast forward, she actually called me a few months ago and she told me about the scenario, and I was, like, ‘Yeah. I would love [to do it]. I mean, it’s an honor for me to join VIXEN.’ So that happened. And that was it. It was that quick. And I was just, ‘Okay. Sign me in. Where can I go?’ [Laughs]”

Lage also reflected on her first performance with VIXEN, which took place on February 8 at the pre-Monsters Of Rock cruise concert at Magic City Casino in Miami, Florida. She said: “[Share played] a little more than half of the set, and then [before] the last three songs, she stopped [the show] and talked about [her plans] a little bit and told everybody what’s gonna happen and introduced me. And then I stepped in and played the last three songs with them. And then actually she came back for the last song and sang along with us. It was just very nice. I thought it was very emotional too. It was a good way to transition.”

Pressed about whether her position with VIXEN is just a temporary one or she will join the band permanently, Julia said: “We didn’t really discuss that, but [Share is] taking her time. She might come back; she might [not]. I don’t know. Whenever they need me, I’m there for them. And I’m gonna do my best to honor her bass lines and everything. And I’m gonna be having with it, that’s for sure.”

When Ross made the news of her departure public at the aforementioned pre-Monsters Of Rock cruise concert, she told the crowd that “life got a little complicated” and that “something has to give,” resulting to her decision to “step away from VIXEN for a while.” She then introduced her “amazing” replacement and urged the VIXEN fans to “graciously” open their arms and welcome Lage to the group. At that point, Julia and her new bandmates launched into the track “Streets In Paradise” and played the last couple of songs of the set with Ross watching the proceedings from the side of the stage.

The only remaining member of VIXEN’s “classic” lineup is drummer Roxy Petrucci, who is also joined in the group by Lightning and singer Lorraine Lewis.

In January 2019, VIXEN recruited Lewis as its new lead singer following the departure of Janet Gardner.

Lewis had already performed with VIXEN in March 2018 in Durant, Oklahoma while Gardner was recovering from surgery.

Prior to Lewis’s addition to VIXEN, Petrucci, Ross and Denaro vowed to “expand upon the VIXEN legacy while remaining true to our musical roots.”

Gardner, Petrucci and Ross are considered to be part of VIXEN’s classic lineup, along with founding guitarist Jan Kuehnemund, who died of cancer in October 2013.

Gardner contributed lead vocals to VIXEN’s most commercially successful studio albums — “Vixen” (1988), “Rev It Up” (1990) and “Tangerine” (1998) — as well as the group’s latest release, 2018’s live album “Live Fire”.

It was announced at the start of the pre-party that Vixen had a big surprise during their show.
I’ve been to thousands…

Posted by Gary Allen on Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Vixen with NEW bassist.. Julia Lage-Oficial

Posted by Will To Rock on Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Vixen with their new bass player, Julia Lage! ?

Posted by Melissa Corcino Petersen on Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Good night ladies! @OfficialVixen at @MonstersCruise pre cruise party! #monstersofrockcruise pic.twitter.com/aP7BgwQ9Nl
— monstersofrockcruise (@MonstersCruise) February 9, 2022

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Dark Funeral's Lord Ahriman channels sinister riff magic in this brutal playthrough of Let the Devil In

Watch the lead single from the Swedish black metallers’ upcoming album, We Are the Apocalypse, in all its six-string glory

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Dan Swanö on STEEL, the Short-Lived Supergroup With Members of Opeth and Edge of Sanity

Producer legend Dan Swanö tells the story of Steel, the obscure heavy metal supergroup he formed with Opeth members during the recording of their Morningrise LP.
The post Dan Swanö on STEEL, the Short-Lived Supergroup With Members of Opeth and Edge of Sanity appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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THE WINERY DOGS' Third Album Likely Won't Be Released Before 2023

During an appearance last Friday (February 11) on SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, guitarist/vocalist Richie Kotzen spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the third album from THE WINERY DOGS, his power trio with legendary bassist Billy Sheehan (MR. BIG, TALAS, DAVID LEE ROTH) and drummer Mike Portnoy (DREAM THEATER, AVENGED SEVENFOLD). He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “All my lead vocals are done. All my guitars are done. The only thing that I didn’t do is some of the record-making things — like sometimes you might wanna double a certain guitar line or Mike has to do some percussion stuff. And then Billy and Mike need to put their singing on there. But other than that, my lead vocals are done and my guitars are done, so I’m kind of done with it. [Laughs]”

According to Richie, fans shouldn’t expect to see the as-yet-untitled THE WINERY DOGS LP in 2022. “I think more realistically [it will be released] to start off next year,” he said. “The thing is that we want to be able to tour the record, so just to put it out and not have a tour in place doesn’t really serve us so well. So I think to do it right, management wants to do it the right way, so it would be next year.”

Asked how many songs THE WINERY DOGS recorded for the new album, Kotzen said: “That exist now, there are 10. But we did actually talk about maybe getting together again, just ’cause we like spending time together. So I don’t know if there’s gonna be more. But there’s 10 that I’m very happy with, and I think people that like the band will be happy with it as well.”

Last month, Richie told “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” about the musical direction of the new WINERY DOGS material and how it compares to the band’s first two albums: “Well, you know, we never discuss direction; we just go and write and see what comes out. But in sitting back and listening to it, as it is now in its current state, it reminds me more of the first album than the second album, only because on the second album, I think, the production, we went into a few different directions. Some of the songs — I don’t know — I think we explored some territory on the second record that didn’t exist on the first record. And this stuff, to me, sounds a little more raw, I guess you’d say — maybe more true to what the band sounds like live, like a trio. It might be ’cause I didn’t really do a lot of overdubs — it’s really just guitar, bass and drums. Like I said, I don’t know where it’s gonna end up, ’cause there’s still plenty of opportunity for me to totally fuck this thing up. Nah, I think it’s gonna be good; I think people are gonna like it. I play it in my car here and there, and I like it. Like I said, it’s just a matter of getting their voices on there — some harmonies — and some percussion. Maybe a couple of little guitar [bits] — maybe I’ll double a couple of lines here or there; that sort of thing. But I’m trying to keep it pretty raw, pretty power trio-sounding.”

THE WINERY DOGS were founded in 2012 after Portnoy and Sheehan — who initially aimed to collaborate with former WHITESNAKE and BLUE MURDER guitarist John Sykes — reached out to Kotzen, who played with Sheehan in MR. BIG from 1997 to 2002. The group’s self-titled debut reached No. 27 on the Billboard 200 after selling more than 10,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week of availability. The initial sales of follow-up effort “Hot Streak” were even better, as the album debuted at No. 30 in late 2015 after shifting 13,000 equivalent album units in America during its first week of availability.

Last September, Mike told “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” about the new WINERY OGS music: “I would say somewhere [between the first and the second albums]. It’s hard for me to have that real perspective that anybody listening does ’cause when you’re writing and recording it, it all becomes important to you. It’s hard to tell; it’s hard to have that perspective.

“The first album is just song after song after song — there’s no moments of weakness at any point — whereas ‘Hot Streak’, I guess, we did some more experimental stuff, songs like ‘Spiral’ or ‘War Machine’, songs on the back end that were more kind of experimental things,” he explained. “So I would say, if I had to compare it, it’s probably more like the first album because we also consciously decided to stop at around 10 or 11 songs. ‘Cause both the first album and ‘Hot Streak’, I think, had 13 or 14 songs. People like you and I, we love everything, we love music and we dig in, but for a lot of people, the attention span for a 14-song album could be a bit much. So when writing this album, we decided, let’s just come up with 10 or 11 that are really super strong. Nothing too experimental, nothing too off the beaten path from what people expect from THE WINERY DOGS. So I think everything on this album is super strong from top to bottom.”

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Remembering Alexander Dumble

Howard “Alexander” Dumble was about as close to a guitar mystic as you can get. He was an eccentric recluse as well known for the mythology surrounding his creations as for the amplifiers themselves. The list of players who have relied on his creations carves a through line of the history of modern electric guitar styles. Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jackson Browne, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, John Mayer, Sonny Landreth, Joe Bonamassa, and dozens of other A-list players found their sound through a Dumble amp. On January 17th, Dumble passed away at his home in Turlock, California. Not many people really knew Dumble on a close personal level. Considering his deference to interviews and media, he could have probably passed through any Guitar Center relatively unnoticed. But Larry Thomas, former CEO of Fender and Guitar Center, was a close friend. “The definition of a genius is someone who knows more about a subject than anyone else. His genius was being able to turn what he heard in your playing into an amp that made it better.” And that skill goes far beyond the schematic.Kenny Wayne Shepherd remembers when he brought an amp to the workshop for repair: “After popping open the circuit he would jump around with a multimeter and would almost instantly know how to fix it. There are probably other amp techs that would understand those readings, but Dumble was the only one in the world who knew what those readings should be.”“I think his greatest satisfaction came from creating technology that translated into art by the individual artists he specifically tweaked his designs for.” ­– Sonny LandrethIn the mid 1960s, while still a teenager, Dumble got a job designing amps for Mosrite. Semie Moseley was impressed by the talented youngster and proposed a partnership. “He offered to go in with me to build 10 amplifiers. He bought the parts and paid me $90 a week—for about four weeks, and then I had to work for free,” Dumble told Guitar Player in a 1985 interview. The Ventures were one of Mosrite’s biggest endorsees and caught wind of the new amps but declined to use them. Dumble said, “It was a little too much rock for them.” These piggyback amps might be the rarest Dumble creations of all and it’s believed that only one or two are still in existence. In the late-’60s, a lengthy tour playing bass for Canadian singer/songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie (who was unaware at the time of his talent for creating amps) helped Dumble open his first workshop.There was an ad-hoc audition process if a player wanted to commission a Dumble amplifier. In order to even get the opportunity to meet with the builder, a player would need a recommendation from someone in Dumble’s trusted circle. Then, if they were invited, the audition could be simply playing for him during a casual hang, or he might ask for a CD. “Alexander really only wanted to make amplifiers for the very best players in the world,” says Thomas. It didn’t seem like fame was a deciding factor either—Dumble would turn down requests from big-name players. “He treated his amps like they were his children,” says Bruce Forman. Back in 2019, Forman brought Dumble a 1966 Fender Vibrolux for his two most popular mods: RockFonicks and Ultra-Phonix. “He wanted them out there making music.”Those lucky enough to pass the “audition” and spend time with Dumble would often comment on his amazing touch on the instrument. During one of his visits to Dumble’s shop, Shepherd would find himself on the receiving end of a subtle guitar lesson. “He would always ask permission to show me stuff,” remembers Shepherd. These gentle “lessons” would inevitably lead to impromptu jam sessions—some of which Shepherd recorded for his own benefit. “If I didn’t record those licks he showed me, I would have forgotten them 30 minutes later.”The one guitarist who’s most synonymous with the sound of a Dumble is Robben Ford. For nearly 40 years, Ford has been the caretaker of an Overdrive Special that, in his hands, has become the benchmark for classic Dumble tones. His latest live album, Live at Yoshi’s ’96, became an unintentional tribute—not only are the tones visceral and huge, but the cover features a plain image of the most famous Overdrive Special around. Ford purchased the head for $1,200 when Dumble was set up at The Alley in North Hollywood. “Alexander told me that watching me play my early ’60s Fender Bassman inspired him to create the Overdrive Special,” remembers Ford. With the rise of Ford’s career in the ’80s and ’90s, word began to spread about Dumble’s builds—and his eccentricity. “One of the final tests Dumble would do on amps would be to remove the tubes and drop it out of a three-story window. If it worked after that he knew it was finished,” mentions Ford.“He was a mystery, to all of us.”­– Robben FordAbout 10 years after obtaining the first Overdrive Special, Ford put in an order for another one to keep in Europe. Originally, this was going to be a 50-watt model because Ford was looking for ways to keep the stage volume down, but that didn’t last long. “Turns out I was addicted to 100 watts in a live situation,” says Ford. “How do you get headroom and tone? Dumble.” Several years ago, Ford was going through a divorce, moving to Nashville, and was looking to sell the second ODS. Knowing Dumble’s general dislike of the secondhand market for his amps, Ford reached out and brought up the idea, offering to split the proceeds. “He made this amp. I’m just the salesman,” said Ford. After agreeing to a 60/40 split, Dumble connected Ford with a buyer, who would occasionally help Dumble acquire components for his builds. “Dumble told me not to send a check and just have his cut be a ‘credit’ with the new owner. He was a mystery, to all of us.”His off-the-grid lifestyle forced Dumble to frequently look at alternate payment arrangements with clients. One of the early users of his amps was singer/songwriter Christopher Cross, who was brought in by Bonnie Raitt. Cross and Dumble decided on two KT88-loaded heads (a first for Dumble at the time) with matching 2×12 cabinets in orange suede for a clean sound and an Overdrive Special with a 4×12 cab for a lead sound. Naturally, Cross needed a way to switch between sounds easily. The solution was based around a pair of Japan-made Strats that were modified by Valley Arts. Each guitar only had a middle and bridge pickup and was outfitted with a heavy-duty switch—imagine the massive switches on the back of vintage Fender amps. An oversized cord went to a blue two-space rack unit that housed mechanical relays to control which amp was engaged. “I really couldn’t afford to mess around with pedals at that time,” says Cross. At the time, Dumble was living in a house owned by Jackson Browne and Cross headed up there to pay for the custom relay box. “When I asked him what I owed him, he handed me a torn-out page from a Sears catalog,” recalls Cross. Dumble had circled a washer and dryer unit and told Cross that if he bought those for him, they were square.Several companies tried to partner with Dumble to bring his amps to a larger market. “He created an entire industry that he didn’t participate in. Alexander never cashed in on that. He steadfastly had a code of conduct he lived by until the very end,” says Joe Bonamassa who currently has a stash of four Overdrive Specials and a Fender Vibrolux with the UltraPhonix mod in his collection. According to Bonamassa, Dumble is “by far the most innovative circuit designer of all time” and, naturally, that led to the boutique amp boom.Probably the closest Dumble ever got to working with a larger company was when Thomas pitched the idea of Fender licensing one of his designs. The two had a lot in common and shared a deep love for Leo Fender and his designs. Early discussions revolved around doing a Dumble-approved modded Twin or Deluxe Reverb. Thomas also mentions that pedals were also a possibility. “I have a few of the [amp] prototypes,” says Thomas. “Simply put, one roadblock was we couldn’t really figure out how to pay him.” After spending a few years on the project, it ran out of steam. Thomas last saw Dumble in October when they met for dinner the night before he moved to Turlock. “He was in a really good space,” says Thomas.“His amps were superheroes.” – Henry Kaiser“His wish was that once he was gone there would be no more Dumble amplifiers,” says Ford. “Most people want to leave behind a legacy, but he didn’t want that.” Health issues prevented Dumble from doing much work over the last six months of his life, but a few projects really excited him. Slash had recently connected with him for a build, and he was in talks to make an amp for Keith Richards.During our talk, Larry Thomas held up a framed turret board populated with the components of an old Fender 5E3 Deluxe circuit. It was a Christmas gift from his friend, Alexander Dumble. The solder joints were impeccable. Around back was an inscription describing how the Tru-Ohm resistors and Allen-Bradley capacitors had been carefully harvested from older amplifiers. Dumble’s handwriting—even carved in the back of a frame—is unmistakable. It was a work of art that he made for his friend celebrating their shared love of a particular old amp.Alexander Dumble’s contributions—both direct and indirect—will stand alongside names like Leo Fender and Jim Marshall. For years to come his designs will be analyzed, discussed, and copied, much like his heroes. Even though many will never get past the market price for his creations, Dumble might have said it best back in ’85, “There are hundreds, perhaps thousands or millions, of valid guitar tones. When the air becomes electric, that’s the right sound, no matter what the one is.”Dumble Amps: 10 Guitarists on the Late Legend’s Designs

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MELVINS' BUZZ OSBORNE: 'Guitar Players Are Some Of The Most Conservative People On The Face Of The Planet'

MELVINS frontman Buzz Osborne recently appeared on the podcast “Side Jams with Bryan Reesman” to talk about his love for golf, photography, and collecting comic books. He addressed how he prefers public courses and how his approach differs from other players. He also spoke about his approach to street photography.

Buzz on his unusual style of golfing: “I have a really odd way of playing golf. Normally you carry 14 clubs, I carry 9. I have a weird way of playing. I dumb it down in a lot of ways that they wouldn’t really teach you to do, sort of akin to the way Jimi Hendrix is considered the best guitar player in a lot of areas. But there isn’t one single thing that he does guitar playing wise that any teacher would ever teach you because it’s so outside the box. He’s the best, but no one would ever teach you to do it the way he does which to me is insane. It’s like, if he’s the best wouldn’t you teach people to play the way he plays, but they’re too conservative. Golfers are too conservative. Guitar players are some of the most conservative people on the face of the planet. If you try to get them to do something left of center, that’s just not gonna happen. It’s never made any sense to me. I never understood it. By and large, I never took guitar lessons. And I never really took golfing lessons either. And so far, so good.”

On people viewing golf as elitist: “I’m usually going on tour doing 80 to 120 shows a year, so during that time I don’t golf at all. And this time [during the pandemic], I didn’t have that. So I’m playing the best golf I’ve ever played by far. As far as my game goes, now I’m at a level where I’m playing tournaments and all kinds of things like that with a bunch of squares. People who are not from the music world at all. I’ve made lots of friends in the golf world that have nothing to do with music at all, and what we have in common is an intense love of golf. And people have this idea that it’s these country club assholes. Okay, do I look like a country club asshole? Or that I want to be a country club asshole? Or that I could mix easily with these people? I hate them every bit as much as anyone does. Outside of that, I want nothing to do with them. The only thing that’s good about a country club is their golf courses. But the people who are there and the vibe, I want nothing to do with. I’m a public course, muni course guy, and I’ll be fine with that the rest of my life. I have no interest in rubbing elbows with those fucking jerks, nor do I want to try to pursue that in any way.”

On his approach to photography: “When digital came in is really when I put [together] all of my aspects of photography that I loved. I really put that to good use because now I can take as many pictures as I want and stand there and look at it right now. ‘How’s it look?’ I used to have to take a picture of something in five different ways in five different settings to try to figure out if it was gonna work or not. Now I could sit there and nail that thing exactly how I want it and walk away. I’m definitely a street photographer. I don’t think I would do really well in a studio. I did take the cover of Revolver about a year ago. I had a picture of Mike Patton. So I could kind of prove that I could do that which is nice. That was outside. But street photography is my thing. I have an Instagram account, @realkingbuzzo, that’s solely just me showing my photography. That’s it. No pictures of me, no selfies, no pictures of me with drunk celebrities or anything like that. It’s just pictures that I take.

“Street photography to me is constantly looking for something that would be a good picture. It doesn’t matter what it is. I’m constantly looking for it — an angle on it that’s funny, or that I think is beautiful or weird. I’m constantly looking for that stuff. I just can’t help it. Constantly. It doesn’t matter if it’s with my regular cameras or with my phone. And iPhones take unbelievable pictures, far beyond what people imagine.”

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EP REVIEW: Bleed The Dream – Foreign Hands

Chances are you’ll probably have a good idea of what FOREIGN HANDS sound like from their artwork alone. The Delaware five-piece’s entire aesthetic is so intensely steeped in early 00s…

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Alt-J's Joe Newman: “I'll never be a John Mayer. I'm one of those people that just explores the guitar – I'm on that journey now”

The songwriter reveals how a newfound appreciation for YouTube guitarists, gear and the instrument itself informed Alt-J’s latest folk-leaning effort, The Dream

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Report: MÖTLEY CRÜE And DEF LEPPARD's 'Stadium Tour' Adds Las Vegas Date In September

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, MÖTLEY CRÜE’s long-awaited “The Stadium Tour” with DEF LEPPARD, POISON and JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS will close on September 9 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada. Previously, the trek was scheduled to end on September 7 at Oracle Park in San Francisco, California.

“The Stadium Tour”, which was originally planned for 2020 and later moved to 2021, will now kick off on June 16 in Atlanta, Georgia.

This past December, Nikki Sixx said that MÖTLEY CRÜE is still on track to finally launch its long-awaited reunion this year. The bassist addressed the status of “The Stadium Tour” while answering a fan question on Twitter. Responding to a fan who wrote, “I’m hopefully going to see The Crue in Houston Tx Aug 2022!”, Sixx said, “We 100% plan on touring in 2022. See ya at the show.”

In October, Sixx told Germany’s Radio Bob! that he and his CRÜE bandmates will “start rehearsals in May” for “The Stadium Tour”. “I start training in December,” he said. “Now it’s down to hard work, getting ready, getting the band into rehearsal.

“We rehearse really hard because we will take a song like ‘Dr. Feelgood’ and while we’re building the show — let’s just say the show is… all the lights are moving, they’re green and they’re slowly moving — we’ll build a whole intro in and design the lights and the lasers around that,” he explained. “So it’s a long process and tedious. So we go to rehearsal and we might need to build in those 32 bars. And then we’ve gotta work with the lighting and the laser company. And then we’ve gotta make sure everything is organized so we get our count-ins for where we need to be onstage. So there’s so much going on.”

When it happens, “The Stadium Tour” will mark the CRÜE’s first live dates since wrapping its 2014/2015 farewell tour. CRÜE toured with POISON back in 2011 and DEF LEPPARD teamed up with POISON for a string of road dates in 2017, but the upcoming jaunt marks the first time all four acts have hit the road together for an extended tour.

As of January 30, 2020, “The Stadium Tour” had already grossed $130 million from one million tickets sold, plus another $5 million worth of VIP seats, according to Billboard.

Tickets ranged from $150 to $400, not counting some varied pricing that reflected demand as part of “dynamic pricing.”

In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of concerts and festivals have either been postponed or canceled, as social distancing and self-quarantining make performing live music and attending live shows all but impossible.

U.S. officials have repeatedly urged Americans to heed what federal, state and local officials are asking of them in order to curtail the spread and dampen the impact of the virus on the population.

MÖTLEY CRÜE’s last studio album was 2008’s “Saints Of Los Angeles”, which was followed by a 2009 “Greatest Hits” compilation.

In 2018, MÖTLEY CRÜE recorded four new songs for “The Dirt” movie, including the single “The Dirt (Est. 1981) (Feat. Machine Gun Kelly)”, “Ride With The Devil”, “Crash And Burn” and the band’s own spin on Madonna’s “Like A Virgin”.

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