South Carolina’s Egyptian-themed death metal titans NILE will embark on a European tour in the fall of 2022.

NILE mastermind Karl Sanders comments: “I am absolutely on fire with the news that NILE will be returning for touring in Europe with Massive Music. Fuck yes. Metal will take place!”

Added drummer George Kollias: “It’s time to conquer Europe again and I couldn’t be more excited! This will be a great tour. We are super hungry to tour Europe again and we are looking forward to see all out fans there!”

Tour dates:

Nov. 02 – POL – Poznań – U Bazyla
Nov. 03 – GER – Berlin – ORWO Haus
Nov. 04 – GER – Bochum – Bochum (End Of Days Fest)
Nov. 05 – BEL – Louvain-la-Neuve – Ferme du Biereau (Mass Deathtruction)
Nov. 06 – UK – London – The Garage
Nov. 07 – UK – Manchester – Rebellion
Nov. 08 – UK – Glasgow – Slay
Nov. 09 – UK – Belfast – Limelight 2
Nov. 10 – UK – Dublin – Button Factory
Nov. 11 – UK – Coventry – HMV Empire
Nov. 12 – FR – Lille – Tyrant Fest
Nov. 13 – FR – Nantes – Warehouse
Nov. 14 – FR – Paris – La Machine du Moulin Rouge
Nov. 16 – GER – Trier – Mergener Hof
Nov. 17 – FR – Lyon – CCO
Nov. 18 – FR – Marseille – Jas Rod
Nov. 19 – FR – Tarbes – La Gespe
Nov. 21 – SP – Pamplona – Totem
Nov. 22 – SP – Madrid – Cool Stage
Nov. 23 – POR – Porto – Hard Club
Nov. 24 – POR – Lisbon – RCA Club
Nov. 25 – SP – Sevilla – Custom
Nov. 26 – SP – Murcia – Gamma
Nov. 27 – SP – Barcelona – Boveda
Nov. 29 – CH – Luzern – Shuur
Nov. 30 – ITA – Milan – Slaughter Club
Dec. 01 – ITA – Rome – Largo Venue
Dec. 02 – ITA – San Dona di Piave – Revolver
Dec. 03 – SLO – Ljubljana – Orto Bar
Dec. 04 – A – Wien – Szene
Dec. 05 – GER – Munich – Backstage
Dec. 07 – HOL – Zwolle – Hedon
Dec. 08 – HOL – Rotterdam – Baroeg
Dec. 09 – HOL – Helmond – Cacao Fabrik
Dec. 10 – GER – Bad Oyenhausen – Druckerei
Dec. 11 – GER – Hamburg – Gruenspan
Dec. 03 – SLO – Ljubljana – Orto Bar
Dec. 04 – A – Wien – Szene
Dec. 05 – GER – Munich – Backstage
Dec. 07 – HOL – Zwolle – Hedon
Dec. 08 – HOL – Rotterdam – Baroeg
Dec. 09 – HOL – Helmond – Cacao Fabrik
Dec. 10 – GER – Bad Oyenhausen – Druckerei
Dec. 11 – GER – Hamburg – Gruenspan

NILE guitarist/vocalist Brian Kingsland sat out the band’s recent U.S. tour in order to spend time with his newborn son. Filling in for him was Scott Eames (THY ANTICHRIST, NEVALRA). Featuring support from INCANTATION, SANGUISUGABOGG and I AM, the trek kicked off on February 3 in Nashville, Tennessee, visiting several major cities before wrapping in Spartanburg, South Carolina on March 12.

Originally hailing from Greenville, South Carolina, international death metal legends NILE have become one of the most revered names in the worldwide heavy metal scene today, combining extreme traditional and technical death metal styles with their trademarked blend of Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern soundscapes and historical mysticism.

NILE’s ninth studio album, “Vile Nilotic Rites”, was released in November 2019 via Nuclear Blast. The disc was recorded and produced by Karl Sanders at Serpent Headed Studios in Greenville, South Carolina, with the exception of the drums which were recorded at Esoteron Music Studios in Athens, Greece with engineering handled by Jim Touras and George Dovolos. The album was mixed and mastered by Mark Lewis at MRL Studios. For the album artwork, the band returned to artist Michal “Xaay” Loranc who had worked with the band for over 10 years.

Last September, NILE announced that it had signed a worldwide contract with Napalm Records.

Photo credit: Francesco Desmaele

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DEEP PURPLE members Ian Paice (drums) and Steve Morse (guitar) were guests on a recent episode of the “Hangin’ & Bangin’: Artists On Lockdown” online show, where they were joined by Vinny Appice (BLACK SABBATH, DIO), Carmine Appice (OZZY OSBOURNE, VANILLA FUDGE) and host Ron Onesti. During the wide-ranging chat, they discussed the musical and lyrical inspiration for the 1972 DEEP PURPLE classic “Smoke On The Water” which has served as the quintessential heavy rock guitar riff and a metal-melody primer for burgeoning rock guitarists everywhere.

Although the backing to “Smoke On The Water” was the first track laid down for the “Machine Head” album in Montreux, Switzerland (while the Swiss police hammered at the door at 2:00 a.m. to try and get the noise stopped), in the ensuing chaos of being evicted from their temporary studio and washing up in the corridors of the Grand Hotel (where they built a studio in the corridors using old mattresses and egg cartons for sound-proofing!), the tape was almost forgotten — until an engineer pointed out that they were one track short of an album. The band only roughed it out as something to play to their Montreux host and hero of the fire, Claude Nobs, who told them it was far too good to leave in the can.

Reflecting on how the song came about, Paice said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “When we started to record the [‘Machine Head’] album, the casino had already burnt down. And that was where we were gonna do the record… It was just a blackened ruin, and so we had to try and find somewhere else to record. And the guy who ran the festival said, ‘Look, you can track in this ballroom.’ So we set up in the ballroom. And we were just trying to get a sound together. And Ritchie [Blackmore, DEEP PURPLE guitarist] had this riff. ‘Let’s try the dah-dah-dah song.’ ‘So how are we gonna start it?’ I said, ‘Try the riff and I’ll just do a hi-hat thing and let it build up.’ And this was an echoey old ballroom. Montreux, at that time of the year, had sort of gone to sleep. It’s a summer resort — no skiing there; it’s too low. But it’s got the lake and all the rest of it. So by 10 o’clock, the whole village is comatose. And then this rock band starts up in this echoey old ballroom. Anyway, we’d been at it for about 10 minutes and then the police… We saw these blue lights go flashing by the door. We were just finishing a take; I think we got two takes done or something like that. Anyway, [producer] Martin Birch said, ‘Don’t let anybody in.’ The roadies were holding the door till we finished the take. The cops came in and said, ‘That’s it. You can’t do any more.’ So we had to move again. And we eventually went to the Grand Hotel which is a hotel that was shut for the winter. And we forgot about that track. We were just getting a sound. And when we finished the record, we found that we were a few minutes shy; it wasn’t long enough for an album. We had a track that could have gone on; it was the ballad, ‘When A Blind Man Cries’. But Ritchie wanted the slowest song on the record; he wanted it all to be up. So [we thought], ‘What about that track we did in the ballroom? [Let’s have a] listen to it. It sounds all right. It sounds okay.’ There were no words yet, so Ian [Gillan, PURPLE singer] and Roger [Glover, PURPLE bassist] went away. And Roger looked back at his notebook and he was writing down his impressions as we saw the flames going up. The downdraft from the mountains pushed the smoke down across the lake. ‘Smoke On The Water’, that’s where the title came from. I said, ‘Why don’t we write a song about the making of the record?’ And so that’s how ‘Smoke On The Water’ got completed, and that’s how it ended up on the record. Otherwise it would have just been lost as a soundcheck.”

In a 2020 interview with Songfacts, Gillan was asked what the “few red lights and a few old beds” are that he sings about in “Smoke On The Water”. He responded: “That’s the hotel we moved into — the Grand Hotel — after the casino burned down during the Frank Zappa concert we were at. And that’s what the song is all about. We ended up at the Grand Hotel, and it was very bright, so we changed the light bulbs. We got some red light bulbs, and we used the bed mattresses as sound baffles. We set the gear up in the hallways and the corridors of the hotel, and THE ROLLING STONES’ mobile truck was out back with very long cables coming up through the windows. We tried to re-create an atmosphere in a technical sense the best we could. And when we went to write the lyrics, because we were short on material, we thought it was an ‘add-on track.’ It was just a last-minute panic. So, the riff and backing track had been recorded on the first day as a kind of soundcheck. There were no lyrics. The engineer told us on the last day, ‘Man, we’re several minutes short for an album.’ So, we dug it out, and Roger and I wrote a biographical account of the making of the record: ‘We all came out to Montreux…’ et cetera, et cetera.

“That’s how it ended up on the album,” he explained. “It never got played on the radio for a year because it was too long. It was only when a guy from Warner Bros. came to see a show and saw the reaction of the crowd. He ran back to the studio and did an edit of three and a half minutes, and it got played for the first time on the radio. That was a year after the album release. It would never have gotten played if we hadn’t done the edit.”

Asked how he feels about that song today, Gillan said: “Like all the narrative songs, you can place yourself there. It’s fantastic — I love singing it. It’s such a groove. And the important thing is everyone in the audience is so involved in the song, and of course, they know every word and the groove. It’s a shared experience. It’s like a congregational euphoria. It’s amazing. It’s fantastic. I love it.”

DEEP PURPLE’s latest album, “Turning To Crime”, came out in November via earMUSIC. The LP contains DEEP PURPLE’s versions of great rock classics and musical jewels — including songs originally recorded by Bob Dylan, FLEETWOOD MAC, Bob Seger, CREAM and THE YARDBIRDS — carefully chosen by each member of the band.

DEEP PURPLE played two gigs in Florida last month but currently has no other U.S. shows scheduled for this year.

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Former JUDAS PRIEST guitarist K.K. Downing spoke to “The Cassius Morris Show” about the fact that he has been nominated for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction for the third time. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “You kind of blow hot and cold with it because when you think of the people that are still not in there but when you think of the people that are in there, it’s a bit of a conflict for me. And it’s all a bit weird. But there are certain awards that you can achieve in your lifetime, like a Grammy — I’ve got one; I’ve got three nominations for Grammys. And when all’s said and done about that situation, it’s still kind of nice to have something on the mantel piece you can look at and hopefully you can pass it on and say, ‘K.K. was here.’ It’s kind of something to look at.”

He continued: “These kind of accolades, I think it’s better to have them than not to have them, I suppose, when you get later on in life, as I am. With the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, would I like to join the other people that are in there — great names? Yes. But if it came down to it, I’m just as happy to sit out here with the other great names that are not there also, if that makes sense.”

JUDAS PRIEST was previously on the ballot for Rock Hall induction in 2020, but failed to receive enough votes to make that year’s class.

Having been eligible for induction since 1999, PRIEST was also on the ballot for the 2018 class of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but was ultimately left out of the inductee list.

On February 2, it was announced that JUDAS PRIEST is among the nominees for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s class of 2022. Inductees will be announced in May. The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 2022 induction ceremony will take place this fall. The date, venue, and on-sale information will be announced later.

Once again, the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame has named the individual bandmembers that will enter should their group get inducted.

For JUDAS PRIEST, they picked current members Rob Halford (vocals), Ian Hill (bass), Glenn Tipton (guitar) and Scott Travis (drums), along with former members K.K. Downing (guitar), Les Binks (drums) and late drummer Dave Holland.

Regarding what his expectations are for the induction ceremony should PRIEST get chosen for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’s class of 2022, Downing told “The Cassius Morris Show”: “I think the big thing for me is, and I don’t know how it works with the induction ceremony and all of that… That’s another thing, because, obviously, there’s gonna be people [being inducted] there that are not gonna be there, which is all a bit kind of strange. Obviously, with the great drummer of the age, Dave Holland, he’s no longer with us; he’s passed away. And he will be a part of it. So I suppose it’s quite an emotional kind of experience, really. But I think that it’s something that… I suppose it’s a historical moment… I guess it’s the big one, really. So we’ll see what happens.”

Last month, Hill and Halford told Billboard that they would be happy to stand alongside Downing at a hypothetical Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction later this year. “It’s not a problem to us, no,” Hill said. “Ken was an integral part of this band for a very, very long time. He deserves to be there along with the rest of us.” Halford predicted that, “It won’t be as awkward as Ace [Frehley] and Peter [Criss with KISS’s Rock Hall induction]. I don’t think it’ll be awkward at all. I think you have to let all of that go because it’s the night that matters. It’s the moment that matters — but, again, the proverbial saying, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

In 2019, Halford was asked by Fox Sports 910’s “Freak Nation” if fans could expect to see any of the former PRIEST members joining the band on stage during a hypothetical Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction. He responded: “With something like the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, there’s a tinge of ‘what if’ [and] ‘whatever.’ It’s an open book.

“I know what you’re alluding to, and as I’ve had to [say] in the past, it’s just a case of ‘wait and see,'” he continued. “But it’s a celebration, and it’s 50 years of PRIEST, and, man, it’s gonna be great. Should we get in, it’s gonna be amazing.”

After host Kenny Sargent brought up the original KISS lineup’s controversial 2014 Rock Hall induction which was at least partly overshadowed by the musicians’ decision not to perform, Halford said: “[PRIEST is] not the first band that this has happened to, and on the day, some things turn out the way a lot of people want ’em.

“I was thinking about this the other day,” Halford added. “And this thing came into my head: ‘Jim, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or of the one.’ Spock [in] ‘Star Trek’. When he goes in the radiation room. Isn’t that great? … That’s a t-shirt, or an inspirational card.”

Downing previously told Rockin’ Metal Revival that there is a very good chance that he would perform with his former bandmates again if PRIEST gets the nod. “Oh, I think absolutely,” he said. “I mean, why wouldn’t you, really? It’s a special thing. We’re all of an age now. These opportunities only come once in a lifetime. And it seemingly takes a lifetime to get into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I’ve always said, there’s no such thing as a young legend, right? [Laughs] So, while we’re still here, it would be great to receive that accolade and put on a great performance and put that one to bed.”

Downing left PRIEST in 2011 amid claims of band conflict, shoddy management and declining quality of performance.

In 2019, Downing said that he reached out to JUDAS PRIEST about taking part in the band’s 50th-anniversary tour but that their response was that they were not interested in including him in the celebrations.

In 2018, Downing revealed that he sent two resignation letters to his bandmates when he decided to quit JUDAS PRIEST. The first was described as “a graceful exit note, implying a smooth retirement from music,” while the second was “angrier, laying out all of his frustrations with specific parties.”

Downing later said that he believed the second letter was “a key reason” he wasn’t invited to rejoin PRIEST after Tipton’s decision to retire from touring.

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Hello and welcome back to another Dojo. This time I’m going to be talking about the joy of using varispeed in your tracking productions to give your music a different timbral shift and open you up to some very creative possibilities.Varispeed is essentially a way of controlling pitch by adjusting playback speed. In pre-digital days, turntables and tape machines used different speeds for both recording and playback. Turntables had three speeds: 78, 45, and 33 1/3 rpm, and pro tape machines had three standard choices for starters: 7 1/2, 15, and 30 ips. In essence, if you record a fast passage at a slow speed, once it’s played back at normal or standard speed the pitch and tempo will go up. We’ve all heard the chipmunk effect—high pitched, helium-tinged vocals achieved by recording at a slow speed and playing back at normal speed. But there are more interesting and subtle ways to use varispeed.My three favorite examples are Les Paul’s “Caravan” (on 1950’s The New Sound), the piano solo played by George Martin on the Beatles’ “In My Life” (Rubber Soul), and the Beatles’ “Rain,” the B-side of “Paperback Writer” (which is my favorite single the Fab Four released). The first two examples use varispeed on various tracks within a normal-speed mix. With “Rain,” however, the entire mix was shifted down in pitch (and tempo) after it was recorded at a faster tape speed! It was also the first Beatles song to feature reversed vocals, which occur at the end. For fun, try singing along with this song and you’ll feel like you’re in audio quicksand. It’s almost impossible to match Lennon’s words exactly because all your consonances will have to be slower than normal.With old school varispeed, pitch and speed (transients and tempo) are tied together.I want to make a distinction here: It’s important to know the difference between time stretching (changing the duration or speed of an audio signal without affecting its pitch) and pitch shifting (changing the pitch without affecting the speed). With old school varispeed, pitch and speed (transients and tempo) are tied together. This means the transients, formants, and overtones of all recorded material (an instrument, a vocal, or even a mix) are shifted. Which leads to an intriguingly unnatural sound, not possible in the real world. How can we do this in our DAW? For starters, make sure your DAW of choice has a varispeed function or setting. I’m going to show you how I do this in Universal Audio’s LUNA (which is free with an interface hardware purchase).We need to do some prep work to start. Let’s assume you are recording a guitar/vocal at 100 bpm in the key of E (try singing and playing a 16th note palm-muted rhythm part on your guitar). Now, do the same thing again, but make a “varispeed” version of it by speeding the tempo up and playing/recording it in a new key. You can compare the differences when done. That should help your ears adjust to the concept.Before you begin, calculate the transposition to tempo ratio. I use a great app on my phone called musicMath ($5.99 street) to do this. For this example, to transpose up a minor third (from E to G) the new tempo is 118.92 bpm [Fig.1].Next, change the tempo in your DAW to 118.92 bpm, and then play/sing it again in the key of G (up a minor third) [Fig.2]. If you’re not sure where the chords are in the new key, use a capo at the 3rd fret and play the same chords you’ve been playing. Personally, I like playing without a capo because the voicings are different and the sound will be as well. More fun!Now, render/bounce the new performance and import it back into your DAW session. Next—following the cue of “Rain”—enable the varispeed function in your DAW [Fig.3] and change the tempo to 100 bpm. If you look at what I’ve circled, you’ll see that the mode is set to “tempo” and the warp is set to “varispeed.” Your particular DAW may be different, so make sure your speed/tempo and pitch are linked. Otherwise, when you slow the tempo back down to 100 bpm, the recording will still be in the key of G, but slower. As usual, I invite you to come to bryanclarkmusic.com to watch this technique in action. Have fun and try this on everything! Until next month, namaste.

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In a new interview with Metal Mayhem ROC, MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor reflected on his band’s recently completed U.S. tour with OPETH. The trek kicked off on November 16 in Asheville, North Carolina and concluded on December 5 in Denver, Colorado.

Brann said: “We dipped our toes in touring. I think it went pretty well. But there was still a lot of… The omicron variant has just been popping off, so there was a lot of tickets sold that people just didn’t come; they just stayed home. So it was kind of crazy. I mean, the shows were great and they were pretty packed, but the promoters noticed that people were buying tickets and just not coming, because they were just frightened of being… Obviously, our industry is the last one to come back. It’s, like, ‘Let’s get thousands of people together in a room and put ’em real close to each other.’ So if you’re nervous about COVID, that’s not gonna be for you. Plus, there’s still a lot of people that are unvaccinated and don’t wanna get vaccinated. Most concerts, you have to prove that you are vaccinated to be able to get in there. So it’s still kind of difficult at the moment.”

Dailor also confirmed that MASTODON has more shows booked later in the year following the recently announced second leg of the band’s co-headline tour with OPETH. The North American jaunt resumes on April 21 at Place Bell in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, stops in major markets coast-to-coast, and comes to a close on May 11 at Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, California.

“We’ll go over and do the summer festivals,” Brann said. “Just fingers crossed that some crazy variant doesn’t show back up and shut everything down again. But I think it looks like everything’s turning in the right direction to where we’re gonna be able to go do that in the summer. And then I don’t know from there.”

Two months ago, Dailor revealed that he contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, immediately after the fall 2021 U.S. tour with OPETH. “Right when I got home from tour, I had COVID — like the day I got home,” he told Art Of Rock. “I tested positive. I got pretty sick, actually. I was sick for a couple of weeks. I was down and out. But I guess the good news of it was it didn’t happen while we were on tour and it happened when I got home. So I was, like, ‘Oh, I’m sick.’ And I had the opportunity to be sick and I didn’t have to get on stage and play and stuff, which I’ve done with the flu many times; it’s one of the worst feelings ever, but you’ve gotta bring the music to the people. It doesn’t matter how you feel — do it.”

This past November, MASTODON was announced as one of the “Best Metal Performance” nominees at the 64th annual Grammy Awards, which will be held on April 3 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The progressive metallers were nominated for their song “Pushing The Tides”, the first single from their latest album, “Hushed And Grim”, which came out in October.

The follow-up to 2017’s “Emperor Of Sand”, “Hushed And Grim”was recorded at West End Sound, which is located inside of Ember City, the rehearsal facility that members of MASTODON manage in Atlanta. Helming the effort was Grammy-winning producer/mixer/engineer David Bottrill, who has previously worked with MUSE, DREAM THEATER and TOOL, among many others.

The “Hushed And Grim” artwork was created by longtime MASTODON collaborator Paul Romano, who also designed the sleeves for “Crack The Skye”, “Blood Mountain”, “Leviathan” and more.

“Emperor Of Sand” debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. That LP was nominated for the 2018 Grammy Award for “Best Rock Album,” and its opening track, “Sultan’s Curse”, won the Grammy Award for “Best Metal Performance.”

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On Saturday (March 5), model, dancer and actress Diana Lynn conducted an interview with former MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson at the PA Horror Con at the Delta Hotel by Marriott Allentown Lehigh Valley in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania. You can now watch the chat below.

Speaking about his involvement in the upcoming feature-length documentary “This Was My Life: The Story Of Nick Menza”, which is described as an “exploration of the late MEGADETH drummer’s life,” Ellefson said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Nick Menza, who many know [was] the drummer of MEGADETH for the decade of the ’90s — ’89 [to] ’98 — he left the group in ’98 and then he passed away onstage playing with another former MEGADETH guitar player, Chris Poland; they had a band together. And they were playing at the Baked Potato in Studio City [California], which is a jazz nightclub. Nick’s dad, Don Menza, a very esteemed saxophone player — he played the theme of the ‘Pink Panther’, if you remember that movie — so it’s interesting, ’cause one of his friends, Don Randi, owns the Baked Potato. So the two Dons kind of grew up together in the business. Don’s son Dave Randi and Nick Menza and I used to go mountain biking together. So it’s kind of fun little North Hollywood/Studio City consortium of kind of the who’s who in the jazz world.

“So, yeah, Nick passed away,” David continued. “So we’re doing a documentary film that I’m co-producing. And what’s fun is… When we stated making the soundtrack, Nick’s got all these drum tracks that he had recorded… I didn’t realize how prolific Nick was after MEGADETH. I knew a few things that he had done. But now that I have the key to the vault and I’m listening to the stuff, I’m, like, going, ‘Wow.’ There was a lot of stuff that he did. So I grabbed a bunch of friends. I thought, ‘We should just write some new stuff over these drum tracks.’ So that’s what we’re doing. And it’s really fun to write songs with Nick. Even though Nick’s no longer with us here on the earthy plane, he left behind some great tracks. So we’re writing songs to them. So this will be this new kind of soundtrack to go along with the movie, as a companion. And so Nick is the co-writer. And the whole purpose of doing it is not only to honor Nick’s life, because he has so many fans that it’s kind of nice to tell the whole story of his life, but also the proceeds from it will go to his family. He’s got two boys, so that’ll go to kind of help them out and just kind of keep money in the pipeline for Nick. So it’s a labor of love.”

“This Was My Life” will be the first-ever film to memorialize Menza’s legacy and celebrate his life exactly how it was. It is described in a press release as “an unflinching exploration into the life of one of the most successful thrash-metal drummers of all time, authorized by the Menza family. From his childhood all the way through to the end of his life Including a true blow-by-blow account of the repeated failed attempts of the classic ‘Rust In Peace’ lineup.”

“This Was My Life” will feature rare and never-before-seen photos and video footage from Nick’s archived VHS tape collection, personally filmed by Menza himself from 1988 through 1991. Included will be exclusive content showcasing Nick working at the studio, personal home movies, casual time and party time with his fellow bandmembers, as well as other well-known artists of the era that Nick toured with.

The cover photo for the film was shot by Los Angeles music photographer Alex Solca and designed by Brazilian artwork designer Alcides Burn of Burn Artworks.

Late in the evening on May 21, 2016, Nick collapsed after suffering a heart attack during a concert with Chris Poland and Robertino “Pag” Pagliari in their band OHM: at the Baked Potato in Studio City, California and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner said Menza died of hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

https://youtube.com/user/76DianaLynn https://instagram.com/76dianalynn?r=nametag

Posted by Diana Lynn on Sunday, March 6, 2022

David Ellefson is coming to PA Horror Con!
David Ellefson is best known for his long tenure as the bassist for American…

Posted by PA Horror Con and Film Festival on Friday, February 4, 2022

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PRETTY MAIDS singer Ronnie Atkins, who is battling stage four cancer, spoke about his condition during a recent interview with “The Bay Ragni Show”. Reflecting on how he was first diagnosed with the disease. Ronnie said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “When I first got it… I knew there was something wrong during the summer of 2019. I had back issues for years, but I had this kind of non-pain, strange pain. It’s something you know yourself if there’s something wrong. My mother had the same thing, and she died of it. I was 22, actually; my mother was 57. So I went to the doctor, and he said, ‘I think you just struck a nerve or something.’ I said, ‘We should check it out.’ And they sent me off. And then, the very same day, they said they found a spot in the lungs. Then I had to go through the whole thing. I had two biopsies, having a needle stuck into my lungs. It was just a very bad experience.”

He continued: “I’d been smoking for 40 years at the time — or 35 years at that time. I actually quit smoking, but I’d been a heavy smoker for years. And I also had my share of alcohol; that’s no secret. And those two things combined is deadly. But I lived a fucking rock and roll life. I don’t regret my life, because I had a great life; I had a great run. And that’s also what some of the songs [on my solo albums] are all about. We take everything for granted. That’s what life is all about. That’s what we do — when we’re good and we’re healthy — and that’s the way it should be; we shouldn’t walk around thinking about death. So when I finally was told it was cancer, I wasn’t surprised. But then again, I had some panic attacks. It took me a long time to kind of cope with it. But music helped me through it.”

Asked if it’s difficult for him to talk about his cancer battle now, Atkins said: “When I did [my] ‘One Shot’ [solo] album [in 2020], it’s maybe a little bit more emotional and melancholic and reflecting than [my upcoming] album [‘Make It Count’] is, but this album is as well ’cause it’s still in my head. But I was kind of weak when I did that album in the summer of 2020. When we did this one. I kind of learned how to cope with it — if you can ever learn to cope with it. You’ve just gotta be realistic and say, ‘Okay, it is what it is.’ I can’t change that. I can just hope that science can prolong my life as much as possible. I do everything I can myself… Well, I don’t. I train every day. I still have a glass of wine and a beer and stuff like that. I don’t smoke anymore, of course. So I hope that with the help of the higher powers and the good doctors and science that I’ll be allowed some more years in life ’cause I’ve got a lot more to offer.

“I’m very realistic about the situation, so I can talk to people,” he explained. “People come and say to me, ‘But you look good.’ I had immunotherapy and that kind of fucked things up in my body, but I was never really sick from the chemo and the radiation and the immunotherapy. Sometimes I was, but basically when I look at a lot of other people with cancer, I’ve been very fortunate. So I basically have been feeling good — as good as I can.”

After being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2019, the now-57-year-old Atkins underwent at least 33 radiation and four chemotherapy treatments in the fall of that year before being declared cancer-free. In October 2020, he announced that his cancer had returned.

In a 2013 interview with Myglobalmind, Atkins joked that the secret to keeping his voice in shape was “twenty cigarettes a day and little drink now and then.”

Formed in early 1982 by Atkins and guitarist Ken Hammer, PRETTY MAIDS’ third album, 1987’s “Future World”, is still today regarded as a “classic.”

During the ensuing years, PRETTY MAIDS continued to release albums usually followed by European and Japanese tours.

PRETTY MAIDS’ latest album, “Undress Your Madness”, came out in November 2019 via Frontiers Music Srl.

“Make It Count” will be released on March 18 via Frontiers Music Srl.

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