David Ellefson’s longtime business partner Thom Hazaert was a guest on a recent episode of the “Talk Louder” podcast, hosted by veteran music journalist “Metal Dave” Glessner and lifelong hard rock/metal vocalist Jason McMaster (DANGEROUS TOYS). Speaking about what he has been doing in the nine months since he announced that he was retiring from the music business, Thom said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I just kind of laid low the last year. I didn’t really fucking do anything. I spent all this time doing all this Ellefson shit that just went in the fucking toilet. I wrote a whole another record. I got an investor to give us a ton of money to pay for ‘No Cover’ [the ELLEFSON band’s collection of covers] and to record a whole another record [of original material]. I spent six months writing that record. I was a little disillusioned so I sort of took some time off from creativity. But now I’m slowly dipping my toe back in.”

Asked if the ELLEFSON all-original album that he was working on with David will eventually see the light of day, Thom said: “Probably not, unfortunately. I had actually announced, before David’s whole issues last year, literally a couple of weeks before that, on Mark Mendoza’s [TWISTED SISTER] podcast, I had actually announced that [David and I] weren’t working together anymore; we just kind of went our separate ways. I had heart failure a couple of years ago from all the stress and dealing with all the bullshit, and I just was done with it. I died. At that point, you start reassessing relationships and situations in your life. And that’s exactly what I did. Certain things that caused me too much stress I had to sort of just move on from.

“But no, unfortunately, I really don’t [think the ELLEFSON album will ever be released],” Thom continued. “And the reality is the stuff was too heavy for David. He didn’t like it. David likes JOURNEY; David likes TOTO. And the record, I don’t wanna say it was ‘nu metal’ but it was very contemporary crossed with really heavy GUNS N’ ROSES. The reality is David just never really liked it. It was too contemporary for him; it was too heavy for him. David hates contemporary hard rock; it’s not his thing, really. I think musically, the pages we were on were just different. A cover record you can do, ’cause you’re just doing covers… I mean, it’s fucking awesome — the record [we were working on] is awesome, and the songs were awesome. There were some songs on it that I wrote pretty much straight out; some of it me and him wrote together. Some of it were little parts that he had that Andy [Martongelli, guitar] put together and then I kind of pulled them apart and [reworked them]. It was a lot of work; I put a lot of work into it and a lot of money… Some of the songs, I found out, after I spent tons of money working on them, he went and redid some of them with vocals with somebody else.”

Thom, who now says that his June 2021 retirement announcement was nothing more than “a venting post on Facebook,” added: “Look, I’m not gonna badtalk anybody, but I moved on from that situation,. And I love that record. I love the stuff I wrote with him. It’s literally some of the most brilliant shit I’ve ever written in my life lyrically.

“There was so much momentum and so much stuff, and David had his personal things that happened and whatever, which I never commented on and I won’t. That’s between him and his family.”

Hazaert went on to say that he was largely responsible for overseeing EMP Label Group, which issued “No Cover” and released music from a number of other artists.

“EMP was just my THC label with a different name slapped on it and David Ellefson’s credibility,” he said. “It’s all it was. I did all the work. I paid for everything. As much as people say it was David Ellefson’s label, it was my label and you were on the label and you know that. It was a partnership, but I did the work, I kept it alive, I kept it going. And I’m not gonna lie — that’s what fucking killed me. The stress and heart failure, that’s where it came from, man. Just out of my love for doing this and my love for the game.”

Ellefson stepped out of the public eye for several months beginning last May, just days after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist were posted on Twitter. At the time, Ellefson released a statement on Instagram denying all social media chatter that he “groomed” an underage fan. He also filed a report with the police department in Scottsdale, Arizona alleging unlawful distribution of sexually explicit images of him by unknown offenders. In the report, Ellefson admitted that he had been exchanging sexual text messages with a Dutch teenager, who captured a video of several of their virtual “masturbating encounters” without his consent and shared them with friends. (According to Ellefson, the woman was 19 at the time of their first virtual sexual encounter.) Within two weeks, he was fired from MEGADETH.

Two days after the videos and screenshots were initially leaked, Hazaert took to his Instagram to share a photo of him with his middle finger extended, and he included the following message: “This one goes out to the chatty fuckers trying to whisper that I had something to do with what happened to David. David Ellefson is a grown fucking man and fully and solely responsible for his own decisions and judgment. But know… #ISeeYouMotherfucker”.

When one person commented under Thom’s photo that David should be commended “for getting out in front of it like a real man should” and “own[ing] up to his behavior”, Hazaert responded: “absolutely.. which for the record.. I actually helped him do.”

Ellefson, who has lived in Scottsdale since 1994, is also an author and entrepreneur, holding the reins of EMP Label Group, Combat Records, Ellefson Coffee Co., and more, in addition to a diverse portfolio of brands and signature products. Ellefson was also inducted into the 2018 class of the Iowa Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame, just over the border from Jackson in Spirit Lake, Iowa.

“No Cover” was released in November 2020 via earMUSIC (Europe) and Ward Records (Japan). The effort was made available in conjunction with Ellefson’s revived Combat Records, which issued the album in North America via Amped.

Fan-filmed video of QUEENSRŸCHE’s March 12 concert at the Fox Theater in Oakland, California can be seen below.

The band’s North American tour as the support act for JUDAS PRIEST kicked off on March 4 at Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois and will conclude on April 13 at FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

QUEENSRŸCHE was originally set to support SCORPIONS on their rescheduled “Sin City Nights” Las Vegas residency in March-April 2022 but pulled out of the dates in order to take part in the JUDAS PRIEST tour. SCORPIONS have since tapped SKID ROW as the new opening act for the Vegas residency.

Last November, QUEENSRŸCHE singer Todd La Torre discussed the band’s tour with PRIEST in an interview with Canada’s The Metal Voice. Regarding QUEENSRŸCHE’s decision to withdraw from SCORPIONS’ Vegas residency and do the PRIEST tour, Todd said: “The SCORPIONS, we really like them as people. We’re friends with them and we’ve gotten to tour with them several times. It’s one of those things where it’s, like, ‘Gosh, what do you do?’ People that aren’t in the business don’t understand how things work sometimes.

“I think it’s great for [QUEENSRŸCHE] to go out with [JUDAS PRIEST]; the optics are great. And we’re very honored to have gotten that.”

Last October, QUEENSRŸCHE’s Michael Wilton confirmed that returning guitarist Mike Stone will contribute guitar solos to the band’s next studio album.

Since last May, Stone has been handling second-guitar duties in QUEENSRŸCHE, which announced in July that longtime guitarist Parker Lundgren was exiting the group to focus on “other business ventures.”

Stone originally joined QUEENSRŸCHE for the 2003 album “Tribe” and stayed with the band for six years before leaving the group.

For the past five years, Casey Grillo has been filling in for QUEENSRŸCHE’s original drummer Scott Rockenfield, who stepped away from the band’s touring activities in early 2017 to spend time with his young son.

In early October, Rockenfield filed a lawsuit against the band’s fellow original members Wilton and Eddie Jackson (bass), alleging, among other things, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and wrongful discharge.

QUEENSRŸCHE spent the last two months recording its new album for a tentative late 2022 release.

IRON MAIDEN singer Bruce Dickinson has wished his bandmate Steve Harris a happy 66th birthday.

During the question-and-answer portion of his March 12 spoken-word show at the House Of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada, Bruce was asked by a couple of different audience members if he had wished Steve a happy birthday earlier that day. He then proceeded to lead the crowd through a rendition of “Happy Birthday” in honor of the founding MAIDEN bassist, who formed the band in 1975.

Since its inception nearly five decades ago, MAIDEN led the wave of British heavy metal music and became a global institution. Over the course of 47 years, the band has come to embody a spirit of fearless creative independence, ferocious dedication to fans, and a cheerful indifference to critics. IRON MAIDEN has built a following that reaches every culture, generation, and time zone. With over 90 million album sales, more than 2,000 live performances in 63 countries, tens of millions of fans and 17 studio albums of unerring quality, IRON MAIDEN has more than earned its proudly held status as one of the most influential and revered bands of all time.

One of the world’s most storied musicians, Dickinson has been MAIDEN’s internationally acclaimed lead singer for more than 40 years, and aside from the decades spent delivering high-octane performances with his larger-than-life persona, Bruce has lived an extraordinary off-stage existence too. A true polymath, Bruce is, or has been, an airline pilot and captain, an aviation entrepreneur, a beer brewer, motivational speaker, film scriptwriter, twice-published novelist, radio presenter, TV actor and a world-class fencer.

Dickinson’s two-month North American spoken-word tour kicked off on January 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and will run through the end of March.

Bruce’s spoken-word show is split into two parts. The first section sees him take a humorous and often satirical look at the world from his own very personal perspective, treating the audience to private insights into his drive and ambition, peppered with plenty of MAIDEN anecdotes, and a myriad of other experiences encompassing not just the giddy heights but also the extreme lows, as told first-hand in his inimitable anarchic style, punctuated with photographs, videos and sometimes even erupting into song a cappella, to illustrate a point. The final section of the evening is devoted entirely to the aforementioned question-and-answer session, with the opportunity to pose questions on any subject whatsoever. As Bruce’s answers are all completely improvised — the more left-field and quirky the question, the more interesting and compelling the response is likely to be.

BLACK STAR RIDERS frontman Ricky Warwick spoke to Ireland’s Overdrive about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s follow-up to 2019’s “Another State Of Grace” LP. He said: “The album is actually finished right now and is currently being mastered. There are fourteen new tracks on it and we worked with [producer] Jay Ruston who did ‘Another State…’ here in L.A. and it’s sounding great. Of course, this was the first BSR album without Uncle Scotty [guitarist Scott Gorham] which was strange. He’s been on the phone every now and again, checking in on things and I’ve sent him over the tracks to get his approval and whatnot. We definitely missed his presence in the studio, but I think we’ve adapted and brought everything down to a four-piece.

“I’m very excited about the album, and we’re looking to release the first single this coming September,” Ricky continued. “We’ve also signed a new deal with Earache Records and the album is expected to be released in January 2023 and we’re gonna hit the ground running.”

Regarding BLACK STAR RIDERS’ decision to change record labels, Ricky said: “We fulfilled our obligations with Nuclear Blast and they did a great job. We were with them for four albums. I’m still part of the Nuclear Blast family with my solo stuff, which is great. We just decided that with all the change that was happening with the band, particularly with Scott wanting to step back, we just decided to make new changes all round.”

Gorham was in BLACK STAR RIDERS for nearly a decade, having formed the band in 2013 with other THIN LIZZY members after deciding to write and record new music under a new moniker. BLACK STAR RIDERS’ original lineup was completed by Warwick, guitarist Damon Johnson, bassist Marco Mendoza and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso.

BLACK STAR RIDERS announced Gorham’s departure last September, with Warwick saying in a statement: “We are very sad to see Scott go, but we discussed a very heavy world touring commitment on the new record and Scott decided he wanted to concentrate just on THIN LIZZY — and being the legend he is, none of us can blame him.”

Gorham discussed his decision to leave BLACK STAR RIDERS in a recent interview with “The Hook Rocks!” podcast. He said: “It was right in the beginning of the whole pandemic thing. I know Ricky wanted to do an album straight off the bat. And I said, ‘Well, I can’t and I won’t get on a plane right now, for god’s sakes. We’ve got this thing raging around all of us. It’s kind of impossible.’ And I did not wanna do an album by Zoom; I didn’t even wanna contemplate on that. Plus, I did wanna start concentrating on THIN LIZZY, to get out there and show people these really great songs. So I thought it would be unfair to try to really put a hundred percent concentration and effort into one and then the other is kind of flailing there on the side. So I thought, well, I’ve done four albums with BLACK STAR RIDERS. I love ’em and I love the guys. I’ve proved the point with BLACK STAR RIDERS. Now it’s time to concentrate a little bit more on THIN LIZZY and see what we can do.”

BLACK STAR RIDERS said that they would not seek a replacement for Gorham and would instead carry on as a four-piece, with Ricky handling a lot of the guitar parts alongside Christian Martucci, who joined the band after album number three in 2018.

In a new interview with Elliott Fullam of Little Punk People, guitarist and founding member Tomi Koivusaari of Finnish melancholic progressive metallers AMORPHIS was asked for opinion on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, He responded: “This madness, it’s totally, totally a madman’s work, this thing. And I feel bad for Ukraine, of course, and I feel bad for those Russians who don’t support this. I feel like it’s one madman’s work. And, of course, as a Finnish [citizen], we have a long border with Russia and we have a history with Russia. So, of course, this makes me, like, worried, of course, like, what’s happening in the future and if the whole world would go mad someday or something. So it feels like that. But I hope this ends, like, very soon, because… I cannot even find the words to describe [what is going on]. But it’s a depressing thing.”

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.”

On Friday (March 11), Finland’s president Sauli Niinisto urged Putin during an hour-long telephone call to establish an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine and to allow the evacuation of civilians via humanitarian corridors.

Earlier this week, Niinisto said Finland would review its security policy to decide whether to join NATO.

In a poll commissioned by Finnish broadcaster YLE, more than 50% of Finns supported joining the Western military alliance.

AMORPHIS released its fourteenth studio album, “Halo”, on February 11 via Atomic Fire Records.

I’ll admit it: The Kubrick fanatic in me made it impossible to ignore the HAL 9000-inspired Acorn TMA-1. But I would love the sound of this thing if it looked like an egg carton. Acorn calls the TMA-1 a four-stage transistor fuzz, which is generally shorthand for “Big Muff.” The circuit board looks the part. And certainly, the TMA-1’s biggest voice is as brutish as the nastiest Big Muff. But it’s also highly tunable. The tone knob ranges from doomy to garage-psych ’66 sizzly. There are plenty of growly sub-maximum gain settings to work with, and a ton of volume on tap, too.But the TMA-1 transcends simple big-fat-fuzz status—and earns the right to its near $200 price tag—thanks to its clipping options. The four clipping diodes and two mode switches mean you can select between germanium diode clipping and silicon diode clipping at two different points in the circuit’s gain stage—or opt for a terrifying bypass of the clipping stage entirely that makes the TMA-1 preposterously huge. Clipping options yield a super-wide range of tones that vary drastically in output volume and span textures from fizzy to all-germanium settings that can yield dynamic medium-high-gain overdrive to massiveness that’s best measured in megatons. Construction quality, by the way, is superb inside and out. And if you can overcome fear of the TMA-1 becoming malevolently self-aware, you might never want to turn it off.Test Gear: Fender Telecaster, Fender Telecaster Deluxe with Curtis Novak Wide Range pickups, Rickenbacker 330, Fender Tremolux, Magnatone Starlite