DEEP PURPLE has taken to social media to show its support for the people of Ukraine. The British hard rock legends also confirmed the cancelation of their previously announced shows in Moscow and Kyiv.

PURPLE was scheduled to play Palace Of Sports in Kyiv on May 31, and Megasport Sports Palace in Moscow on June 4.

On Saturday (March 5), DEEP PURPLE took to Facebook to share the lyrics from the band’s Cold War track “Child In Time” and included separate statements from each member of PURPLE regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine which has resulted in at least 364 Ukrainian deaths and at least 759 injuries. However, according to the United Nations, the actual toll is believed to be “considerably higher.”

DEEP PURPLE bassist Roger Glover said: “Like many performers, we have occasionally performed private concerts for fans in various countries. We are an apolitical band and in no way, was our intention ever political. It was music. These days are different. We condemn Putin’s military for the atrocities to innocent men, women and children in Ukraine. and we apologize to our Russian and Ukrainian fans that the shows have been cancelled. We live in hope that we can fulfill those dates in the future.”

DEEP PURPLE keyboardist Don Airey said: “Watching the news that Russian missiles have just destroyed the Opera House in Freedom Square Kharkiv, where DP played almost exactly 20 years ago, memorable for Ian Gillan donning a tutu he found in a dressing room cupboard and proclaiming himself ‘Deep Purple in Frock’, for the gear arriving at 7pm and somehow the show starting at 8pm, for an old apparatchik single-handedly trying to make the young audience sit back down during the set with such zeal that he had a seizure, and next day on the way back to the airport my asking about a statue ‘Is that Lenin?’, Roger Glover replying, ‘Well it’s definitely not McCartney’. A different day today I have just written to Dmitri Medvedev, former President and now head of the Russian Security Council, returning the autograph he gave me at the dinner for DEEP PURPLE at the Gorky Palace in March 2011, in protest at his various statements post invasion.”

DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan said: “If speaking out means we shall never see our Russian friends again, then that is a big sacrifice, but nothing compared with never again seeing our Ukrainian friends who are being killed to satisfy the psychopathic ambitions of the Russian leader. I would like to see Russians on the streets in their millions, to show their disgust at the Ukrainian invasion, and I’d like to dream that very quickly, Russia can find some modern leadership that will bring them back into the world as friends. We have so much in common.”

DEEP PURPLE drummer Ian Paice said: “What’s happening is beyond distressing. It’s criminal and should be treated as such. The invasion of Putin’s army into Ukraine, (because that’s what it is), I hope will turn out to bring his ultimate downfall. And that someone who is ‘functioning mentally in the 21st century’, can lead the Russian people back into the fold.”

DEEP PURPLE guitarist Steve Morse said: “I’ve always thought music should be non-political, and cross every border as the universal language. As a citizen of a deeply divided country, one thing here that everybody agrees on is: Stop this attack on a Country who voluntarily disarmed their nukes to satisfy all the big players. Stop, lower your guns, turn back, help others on the way back!”

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.”

Putin’s military aggression has been described by U.S. president Joe Biden as an “unprovoked and unjustified attack” on Ukraine.

On March 2, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly denounced Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine and demanded the Kremlin immediately cease its military offensive and “immediately, completely, and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces from the territory of Ukraine.” In addition, dozens of countries referred Moscow to be probed for potential war crimes.

Sweet child
In time you’ll see the line
The line that’s drawn between
Good and bad
See the blind man Shooting at the…

Posted by Deep Purple on Saturday, March 5, 2022

SLIPKNOT frontman Corey Taylor has blasted Kanye West for announcing that his new album, “Donda 2”, would be released exclusively on the rapper’s $200 proprietary hockey-puck-sized streaming devices, which allow users to remix songs as they listen.

Kanye released four “Donda 2” tracks to his Stem Player on February 23 following a listening party and live performance in Miami the night prior. The next day, he released 12 more songs, calling the 16-track collection the “Miami Version.”

Taylor, who made headlines back in 2015 after he slammed West for claiming to be “the greatest living rock star on the planet,” commented on Kanye’s release strategy in a new interview with U.K.’s Metro. He said: “It’s like releasing all the parts for a car and sending them to people’s houses and going there, you got a free car, now you’ve got to figure out how to build the goddamn thing. You’re assuming that the audience has the access and same technology that you have but you’re a fucking moron for doing that. Are you serious? It doesn’t work that way. The thinking that that’s a smart thing to do just shows you how convoluted and off the fucking property Kanye West really is.”

He added: “When you’ve got that much money and that much people around you telling you exactly what you want to hear, your concept of reality just goes right out the fucking window.”

Addressing the steep “Donda 2” price, Corey noted that inflation is “fucking batshit” worldwide and added, “People can’t afford their fucking apartments for fuck’s sake. It’s not right. It’s just so pompous and ridiculous.

“If we [SLIPKNOT] did that, we would be fucking demonized but I guarantee people are looking at him like he’s a genius, and it’s, like, for fuck’s sake, pull your head out of your ass, put it on CDs and just fucking give it to people. If you want to do that, put it together in a way that people can actually listen to it. It’s such fucking horseshit.”

When Kanye first announced his new album more than three weeks ago, he wrote on his Instagram: “Donda 2 will only be available on my own platform, the Stem Player. Not on Apple, Amazon, Spotify, or YouTube,” adding that his reason for making his new music exclusive to the gadget had to do with how artists are paid when their songs are streamed on those platforms.

“Today artists get just 12 percent of the money the industry makes,” he wrote alongside a clip from the new album. “It’s time to free music from this oppressive system. It’s time to take control and build our own. Go to stemplayer.com now to order.”

Less than two years ago, Corey offered some surprising words of support to West, whose behavior had been increasingly erratic, including divulging deeply personal details about his family and marriage. In July 2020, West announced that he was running for president, and he delivered a lengthy monologue at a campaign event, during which he told the crowd he and his then-wife, Kim Kardashian, considered having an abortion when she was pregnant with their oldest daughter. The rapper then went on multiple Twitter tirades, alleging that Kardashian and her mom Kris Jenner had tried to “lock him up,” and claiming that he had been considering divorcing his wife.

Taylor later told “Loudwire Nights” that he was “worried” about West’s public comments, adding, “That’s not the normal behavior of someone who is… That seems like someone who’s having a mental break, to be honest. It sounds like someone who is borderline. I don’t wanna say it’s a borderline personality disorder, but it almost feels bipolar. When you exacerbate it with fame and money and all of these different things, people have a right to be concerned. He’s got a family; he’s got people who care about him and worry about him.

“It’s one thing to laugh about it from afar; it’s another thing to watch a breakdown happening in real time, especially with someone who is loved by so many people, and a lot of his actions are taken very seriously,” Taylor added. “So when he says some of that shit, people take him seriously. It’s like [then-President Donald] Trump — people take what he says very seriously, and that’s a danger. So we have to be very, very careful and watch what’s being said.

“I just hope that he gets the help that he needs, let’s put it that way.”

Four years ago, West told The New York Times that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2017.

West had previously compared himself to visionaries in the fields of art, fashion, technology, sports and business.

During a 2013 concert in Paris, the outspoken rapper called himself Picasso, Steve Jobs, Walt Disney and Basquiat.

MÖTLEY CRÜE’s Nikki Sixx says that he doesn’t understand why PEARL JAM’s Eddie Vedder felt it necessary to “take a swipe” at his band.

A month and a half ago, Eddie gave an in-depth interview to The New York Times to promote his recently released solo album and he discussed a variety of topics, including what “ripples” of change he believes the Generation X / alternative rock culture of the early ’90s may have been responsible for.

“You know, I used to work in San Diego loading gear at a club,” Vedder said. “I’d end up being at shows that I wouldn’t have chosen to go to — bands that monopolized late-’80s MTV. The metal bands that — I’m trying to be nice — I despised. ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ and MÖTLEY CRÜE: [expletive] you. I hated it. I hated how it made the fellas look. I hated how it made the women look. It felt so vacuous.”

The PEARL JAM singer continued: “GUNS N’ ROSES came out and, thank God, at least had some teeth. But I’m circling back to say that one thing that I appreciated was that in Seattle and the alternative crowd, the girls could wear their combat boots and sweaters, and their hair looked like Cat Power’s and not Heather Locklear’s — nothing against her. They weren’t selling themselves short. They could have an opinion and be respected. I think that’s a change that lasted. It sounds so trite, but before then it was bustiers. The only person who wore a bustier in the ’90s that I could appreciate was Perry Farrell.”

A few days after Vedder’s interview was published, Sixx took to his Twitter to respond to Eddie’s comments, writing: “Made me laugh today reading how much the singer in PEARL JAM hated @MotleyCrue. Now considering that they’re one of the most boring bands in history it’s kind of a compliment isn’t it?”

In response to fans’ tweets, Sixx compared Vedder’s vocal technique to singing with “marbles in your mouth”, and wrote to a PEARL JAM fan who tweeted in defense of Vedder: “Remember there were zillions of brown haired bands for brown haired fans…..Go find them. You will know them by the bored look on their face.”

Nikki elaborated on his PEARL JAM comments during a recent interview with Brazilian entrepreneur Paulo Baron and music critic Regis Tadeu. In a chat that was recorded on February 25, Sixx initially broached the subject while discussing how he has evolved as a songwriter since MÖTLEY CRÜE’s inception more than 40 years ago. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I’m not trying to be the guy that wrote [the CRÜE song] ‘Bastard’ [from 1983’s ‘Shout At The Devil’ album], ’cause I’m not the guy that wrote ‘Bastard’. I wrote that song about somebody that ripped us off. I am the guy that if you fuck with me, I will fuck with you back. And that’s what that song is about. You take a swipe at my band; I’ll take a swipe at your band. You try to hurt my family, which is my band; I will try to hurt you. That’s not something to be proud about. [Laughs]”

Asked specifically about his PEARL JAM criticism and why he felt compelled to respond to Vedder’s comments, Nikki said: “I remember going to MTV with [a copy of] ‘Nevermind’ before it had come out, NIRVANA. Me and Tommy [Lee, CRÜE drummer] were on there. We were, like, ‘Hey, you guys gotta check out this band. You gotta check out this band.’ And they were bands that were coming. I remember having a cassette — I think it was demos; it might not have been; it might have been early recordings — for RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, and I remember telling everybody about that.

“We’ve never been afraid to embrace music changing because that’s the whole idea behind music,” he continued. “If you listen to ‘Too Fast For Love’ and then you listen to ‘The Dirt’, you’re, like, ‘Well, it’s the same band, but it has grown.’ So we never had a problem with that.

“My only thing is, you wanna take a crack at my band, I’m probably gonna say something back. But what I don’t understand is why’s the guy even talking about my band? He’s a successful guy.

“Listen, let’s face it: the guy flies around in private jets; he lives in a mansion in a gated community; he sells out stadiums; and then he dresses at the thrift store and tries to pretend some guy in the ’90s. Don’t take a swipe at my band, dude. I mean, I’m at least being honest.”

Back in 2019, Sixx spoke to U.K.’s Kerrang! spoke about how the rise of grunge in the early 1990s forced most hard rock bands off the radio and MTV, with album and tour sales plummeting. Asked if it was fair that CRÜE was lumped in with bands such as POISON and WARRANT, Nikki replied: “I have to say that I don’t think that NIRVANA and PEARL JAM killed the bands you mention, I think that they killed themselves. They were making copycat music. We, on the other hand, simply imploded.”

He continued: “Forget about the lifestyle for a minute — the thing that ultimately allowed us to pull ourselves through was the music that we made, and how good we can be when we really put it together. Every great band has hills and valleys; they start at the bottom and if they’re lucky they make it to the top of the mountain. But eventually you have to go down. Very few bands are lucky enough to become popular and stay popular forever. That’s just the way music is — it changes, technology changes, fashion changes, and social outlooks change. But again, today a lot of bands are just so fucking safe.”

Upon release in September 1991, NIRVANA’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” wreaked confusion upon the hair metal vanguard, putting an end to an era dominated by glamorous, androgynous and sparkly rock stars who absolutely saturated the radio waves and were almost exclusively what aired on MTV.

Former MÖTLEY CRÜE singer John Corabi told Newsday in a 2014 interview that the CRÜE album he sang on was a commercial disappointment because the music scene had changed, with hair metal brushed aside for grunge. “Everybody was listening to ALICE IN CHAINS and SOUNDGARDEN,” Corabi said. “At that point, we were considered passé.”

According to Corabi, CRÜE’s ill-fated 1994 American tour ” was a nightmare. We weren’t selling tickets. It was just horrible,” he said.

After working with Corabi for two years on a follow-up album, “Generation Swine”, CRÜE dropped the singer and reunited with Vince Neil.

Despite Neil’s return, “Generation Swine” sold poorly when it was released in 1997.

Nikki Sixx photo credit: Jason Shaltz of SiriusXM / Eddie Vedder photo credit: Danny Clinch