Former MANOWAR guitarist Ross “The Boss” Friedman has once again blasted re-recorded versions of the band’s classic albums, saying they were “never gonna be as good as the original.”

A founding member of MANOWAR, Ross recorded six albums with the band before leaving after 1988’s “Kings Of Metal”. His work with MANOWAR included such classic LPs as 1982’s “Battle Hymns”, 1983’s “Into Glory Ride” and 1984’s “Hail To England”.

Friedman discussed MANOWAR’s decision to re-record its classic albums during a recent interview with Rat Salad Review. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I think the first thing that they should have done and he [MANOWAR leader/bassist Joey DeMaio] didn’t do… I mean, if you’re gonna do a classic old record that pretty much put your band on the map, why don’t you just get the original lineup back? For ‘Battle Hymns’, he could have done it; he could have had the original lineup: me, Donnie [Hamzik, drums], Eric [Adams, vocals] and Joey. And having another guitar player and having detuned the songs, it’s just not the same; you’re not gonna recreate that same vibe, that same magic, that same chemistry that was on the first record. And ‘Kings Of Metal’ as well. Scott Columbus was the drummer, but we know Scott is not with us. But he still could have gotten either Donnie or Rhino. It’s just not the same. And the excuse was, ‘Oh, we’re doing it for the sound, make the sound better.’ You’re not gonna get it; it’s not gonna be the same. The results, it’s never gonna be as good as the original — never. And I’ll tell any band that. You’re not gonna get the same results; it’s just never gonna happen.”

Asked what the reason was that he wasn’t asked to participate in the re-recordings of “Battle Hymns” and “Kings Of Metal”, Ross said: “[Joey and I] don’t talk. I’ll put it like that. They’ll figure it out on Blabbermouth. All the geniuses there, the haters, everybody there, they’ll get it.”

Earlier in the month, Friedman was asked by Sofa King Cool about the chances of him reuniting with MANOWAR for a tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of “Battle Hymns”. Ross said: “You wouldn’t say that I don’t have a good relationship with my old partner, but it’s just not there. I’m not saying things can’t magically patch up. But [Joey] doesn’t want any part of me telling him what he should be doing. And it’s okay. I’m happy with my band, I’m happy with DEATH DEALER, I’m happy with THE DICTATORS. Hopefully I’m gonna be very, very busy. I don’t have to be in a band with a tyrant.”

This was not the first time Friedman had been critical of his former band and DeMaio in particular. Last September, Friedman told Waste Some Time With Jason Green about the circumstances surrounding his exit from the group more than three decades ago: “When a band gets big and the money hits, greed, avarice and evil takes place. A guy that I thought was my partner wasn’t,” he said, referring to DeMaio. “So he wanted me [out]. He goes, ‘You’ve gotta go.’ I go, ‘Really? I’ve gotta go why? I’ve gotta go why? We’re equal partners, 50 percent. Why do I have to go? Why don’t you go?’ The whole thing is he was so — his antics and his bullshit was so insane that I had it up to [my neck] with him. When you have it up to [your neck] with someone, you’ve just gotta go, ‘Get the fuck outta here. I can’t take this anymore.’

“[It was] ego, greed, avarice, evil [that caused me to depart],” he explained. “When [Joey] met me, I had already four major albums. He had done zero. Joey DeMaio was nobody. When he met me, I had already done four. I had no will to fight him. If I were to fight him, I would have killed him. He’s just a fucking pariah… You can’t live with that. My heart couldn’t take it. I can’t take evil. And I know people are gonna be… [It’s gonna be] hard [for them] to hear that, but I’m better off now. I really am.”

Ross went on to say that he had never been approached about returning to MANOWAR. As for whether he would consider playing with the band again, he said: “Well, if the financial arrangements were right. But [Joey is] the kind of scumbag that would never have that… I’ll never say no, but you never know. I just called him a scumbag, so… It’s not gonna happen. He’s secure in the fact that MANOWAR are mediocre fucking pieces of shit right now. What they’re putting out to the public [is] just terrible.”

After BLABBERMOUTH.NET published Ross’s comments from the Waste Some Time With Jason Green interview, he sent a short statement conveying a more conciliatory tone. “I would like to apologize to MANOWAR, the fans and Joey for the insult,” he wrote. “If anyone knows me, you know that’s not my style for saying things like that. I violated my own rule. Again, I am truly sorry.”

Ross later expressed his remorse further in an interview with Italy’s TrueMetal.it, explaining that he never should have allowed his original comments to reach the general public.

“Let me say right from the start it came out of my mouth and I take full responsibility for what I said,” Ross said. “But I usually edit all my interviews. Journalists will send it back to me. Jason Green is a good guy, and he said, ‘I will send it back to you and we’ll go over it.’ ‘Cause you never know if you want it to go out to the public. For some reason, I never did that in this situation with that interview. I know part one I did, and part two I didn’t, for some reason. Now, if I would have saw that, do you think I would have let that out? No. But you know something? People say things, and sometimes they just say things. And I definitely said that.

“Let’s just say MANOWAR’s music now is different,” he continued. “I’m not gonna say what I said; I’m just gonna call it different. It’s different from my six records, the band that was playing when I was in the band. That’s all I’m gonna say.

“And as far as my attack on Mr. DeMaio, well, that’s my business with him. And I aired it, and I shouldn’t have aired it — calling him the ‘s-bag’ word. And it was quite unprofessional of me. And I violated my own rule. My own rule being… I always knew this. My father told me when I first started — God rest his soul — he goes, ‘Ross, if you don’t have anything good to say about someone, don’t say it. You’ll do better in life.’ If I didn’t have anything good to say, I shouldn’t have said it. And it was unprofessional of me.

“I still think that MANOWAR is different, and I have my issues with Joey,” Ross added. “But as far as everything else, I do apologize for my unprofessionality.”

Ross was one of the pioneers of both punk rock and heavy metal. First crashing on the scene with THE DICTATORS and with such classic albums as 1975’s “Go Girl Crazy!”, 1977’s “Manifest Destiny” and 1978’s “Bloodbrothers”, Ross helped trailblaze punk rock (just to put it all in perspective, “Go Girl Crazy!” arrived a full year before the RAMONES’ debut, and two years before THE CLASH’s and SEX PISTOLS’ debuts). By the end of the ’80s, Ross had reconnected with his DICTATORS bandmates in MANITOBA’S WILD KINGDOM, which served as a bridge between his love of punk and metal, as heard on the group’s popular 1990 debut, “…And You?” Throughout the remainder of the decade, Ross also played with such groups as THE HELLACOPTERS and THE SPINATRAS, before THE DICTATORS reunited, which resulted in several new releases starting from the late ’90s all the way through the early 21st century. Also around this time, Ross joined forces with former of BLUE ÖYSTER CULT drummer Albert Bouchard in the band BRAIN SURGEONS. With Ross’s main focus turning to metal music at this time, two additional projects were launched — DEATH DEALER and his solo outfit, ROSS THE BOSS.

Ahead of the 2022 installment of “The Metal Tour Of The Year” kicking off next weekend, LAMB OF GOD has joined forces with MEGADETH to record a cover of the MEGADETH classic “Wake Up Dead”, featuring MEGADETH leader/founder Dave Mustaine along with appearances from all three other members of the current lineup of MEGADETH. The song will be released everywhere digitally tomorrow (Friday, April 1), but you can hear it all day long today on SiriusXM Liquid Metal with Jose Mangin.

Says LAMB OF GOD in a statement: “We hope everybody enjoys this one and we can’t wait to see everyone on the road soon!”

The 2022 leg of LAMB OF GOD’s “The Metal Tour Of The Year” with MEGADETH will kick off on Saturday, April 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada and hit a further 21 cities before wrapping in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Sunday, May 15.

LAMB OF GOD recently entered a California studio with longtime producer Josh Wilbur (KORN, MEGADETH, GOJIRA, TRIVIUM) to record some of its brand music, tentatively due later in the year.

LAMB OF GOD’s upcoming effort will be the follow-up to the band’s self-titled album, which was released in June 2020 via Epic Records in the U.S. and Nuclear Blast Records in Europe. That LP marked LAMB OF GOD’s first recordings with Art Cruz, who joined the band in July 2019 as the replacement for the group’s founding drummer, Chris Adler.

“Lamb Of God” was recorded with Wilbur and included special guest appearances by Jamey Jasta (HATEBREED) and Chuck Billy (TESTAMENT).

Ahead of the Metal Tour Of The Year kicking off next weekend, we’ve joined forces with Megadeth to record a cover of the…

Posted by Lamb of God on Thursday, March 31, 2022

(HED) P.E., CRAZY TOWN, ADEMA and FLAW will join forces for the “Nu Metal Madness” U.S. tour, set to take place in July. The 20-date trek will kick off on July 6 in Denver, Colorado and end on July 30 in Reedley, California.

Tour dates:

July 06 – Denver, CO @ The Venue
July 08 – Hobart, IN @ Hobart Art Center
July 09 – Columbus, OH @ King of Clubs
July 10 – Fort Wayne, IN @ Piere’s
July 12 – Mechanicsburg, PA @ Lovedraft’s
July 13 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Crafthouse
July 14 – Towson, MD @ The Recher
July 16 – Laconia, NH @ Granite Music Hall
July 17 – New Bedford, MA @ Vault Music Hall
July 19 – Flint, MI @ Machine Shop
July 20 – Kansasville, WI @ 1175 Sports Park
July 21 – Lombard, IL @ Brauer House
July 22 – Harrison, OH @ Blue Note
July 23 – Detroit, MI @ Harpos
July 24 – Arnold, MO @ 21 Rock
July 26 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Sunshine Studios
July 27 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Liquid Joe’s
July 28 – Las Vegas, NV @ Backstage Bar
July 29 – Santa Ana, CA @ Observatory OC
July 30 – Reedley, CA @ Wakehouse

Headliners (HED) P.E. recently released their new video for “Across the Universe” featuring Ipcus Pinecone from VILLEBILLIES and ELEPHANT ROOM. The song is the latest single from (HED) P.E.’s new album “Califas Worldwide”, which dropped last month on Suburban Noize Records.

On “Califas Worldwide”, (HED) P.E. collaborated with different bands and producers from around the world and melding it with their trademark G-Punk sound. Califas is a Hispanic nickname for Southern California, a moniker that perfectly describes (HED) P.E.’s Huntington Beach G-Punk sound as it melds together with artists from around the world to create the unholy union of “Califas Worldwide”. The album features guest appearances by Angelo Moore of FISHBONE, H.R. of BAD BRAINS, Norwood Fisher of FISHBONE, Peter Distefano of PORNO FOR PYROS, and more.

(HED) P.E. are the pioneers of the G-Punk sound, which fuses together punk-rock, metal, hip-hop and reggae. The band has toured the world for 20 years sharing the stage with the likes of SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, KORN, Tech N9ne, TOOL as well as the original BLACK SABBATH on the iconic Ozzfest tour. (HED) P.E. experienced a creative resurgence after signing with Suburban Noize Records in the early 2000s and was instrumental in developing the booming underground scene.

Spearheaded by a team of Seth “Shifty Shellshock” Binzer and Bret “Epic” Mazur, CRAZY TOWN combined hip-hop’s lyrical attitude with the grooves of an alt-rock record. The combination yielded the group a number one hit in 2001, when “Butterfly” topped the Billboard 100 and helped push the band’s debut effort, “The Gift Of Game”, to platinum status and main stage slot at Ozzfest. The group’s sophomore effort, “Dark Horse”, was released in 2002 and produced the rock hit “Drowning”. In recent years, CRAZY TOWN frontman Shifty Shellshock garnered widespread attention for his appearances on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab” and “Sober House” reality shows.

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MXR’s Blue Box has always been an outlier on the octave-pedal scene. One of the company’s earliest offerings, it drops a guitar signal by two octaves and blasts it with fuzz. Despite remaining active in the MXR stable throughout much of its history, the Blue Box is mostly celebrated in the deepest pedal-nerd hang sessions once all the classic fuzz, overdrive, and delay pedals have been discussed and things get weird.The new Poly Blue Octave significantly expands upon the Blue Box by adding improved polyphonic capabilities, phase modulation, and a fuzz that works independently of the octave and modulation effects. It maintains the quirky personality of the original while opening avenues for players that need more flexibility than a dedicated octave-down pedal can offer. With four separate octave voices and expression pedal control, there’s a wild world of interactive sound waiting to be discovered inside the pedal’s sparkly blue enclosure.​More Knobs, More PossibilitiesMuch of the charm of the original Blue Box comes from its simplicity. With just output and blend knobs, it’s easy to use and doesn’t take long to figure out. The Poly Blue Octave has three times as many knobs as a Blue Box. But the controls are still simple and self-explanatory. Five of the six knobs are level controls: wet/dry, sub-1, sub-2, oct+1, and oct+2. The modulation knob turns the modulation effect on and increases the rate as you sweep clockwise. (All octave voices and fuzz are modulated when it is engaged.) LED-illuminated buttons switch on the fuzz and toggle between monophonic and polyphonic modes. The wet/dry knob also functions as the fuzz volume when the fuzz button is engaged and held down for a few seconds. An expression pedal jack allows players to fade between settings and ramp up modulation speed with an expression pedal oruse an external foot switch to activate and switch between fuzz and clean or polyphonic and monophonic modesWooly and WoozyThe Poly Blue tracks well, so at clean settings, it’s easy to evoke baritone and bass sounds. The fuzz circuit, meanwhile, is full-bodied, so I approached fuzz settings by starting with a dry sound and adding octaves to taste. With the fuzz applied in polyphonic mode, the higher octaves soar, with the oct+2 creating a whistle-like tone in higher registers. I used sub-1 at almost implied levels to bulk up my sound further. Lower position playing gets muddy with sub-2 settings, especially when it’s used in conjunction with sub-1, so using a bass cabinet is a smart proposition if you intend to use a lot of low notes. Turning off the fuzz, of course, makes the low-end sounds less chaotic.Monophonic mode sounds truest to the old Blue Box and has a thicker voice. It also either tracks less steadily or responds more sensitively to overtones in my guitar signal. So I had to carefully tweak octave-level settings to tread between flavorful fuzz and blown-out mayhem. But when I got it just right, I was thrilled to achieve crushing tones that rival the Rust Never Sleeps version of “Hey Hey, My My.” Adding modulation to these settings in monophonic mode generates a phase effect that induces serious additional wooziness.Express ExcessCreative possibilities expanded when I hooked up my expression pedal to the Poly Blue Octave. Polyphonic mode evokes faux-organ vibes from the get-go. And by setting the expression pedal to fade-in a lower octave and increase modulation speed, I felt like Jon Lord taking a solo break at Budokan. If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is.While you can also use an expression pedal to turn the fuzz mode on and off or switch between a monophonic and polyphonic modes, you cannot smoothly fade between those modes as you can with, say, the modulation rate. Even so, the ability to have clean or fuzzy signals at either end of a heel/toe sweep, combined with other effects means extremely different preset sounds are possible.​The VerdictThe Poly Blue Octave captures the spirit of the original Blue Box but transforms it into something much more flexible and full of possibilities. I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear that the two-octave-below setting blows more than a few speakers—it might even require a warning label. But for users who approach the Poly Blue Octave with a creative, open mindset and look beyond simple octave pedal functionality, the deranged fuzz tones, modulation, and expression pedal capability will mean many unexpected sounds. MXR Poly Blue Octave Demo | First Look