STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis passed a kidney stone earlier today (Tuesday, January 18) — less than a week after having his appendix removed.

Kidney stones, which are hardened or calcified deposits of certain minerals, salts, and other materials, develop in the kidneys themselves before traveling through the ureter and into the bladder, where they are ultimately passed from the body in the urine.

Lewis shared the news of his kidney stone in an Instagram post. He wrote: “Laying here recovering from having my appendix out. On top of that, I’ve had a kidney stone SLOWLY snaking it’s way through me for the last 4 days. After intense like-I’ve-never-experienced-pain, I successfully passed this kidney stone today.”

Lewis was scheduled to play in Davenport, Iowa last Friday (January 14), Inman, Kansas on Saturday (January 15) and in Springfield, Missouri on Sunday (January 16) but had to pull out so that he could recover after being diagnosed with appendicitis and undergoing surgery.

Lewis, an outspoken rocker who reinvented himself as a solo country artist in the last decade, made headlines in September when he urged his fans to chant “Fuck Joe Biden” during a STAIND concert in Pennsylvania.

Widely considered to be one of the most politically conservative musicians in rock, Aaron told the Anchorage Press in a January 2020 interview that he considered the first Donald Trump impeachment by the House Of Representatives as the clearest representation of what’s wrong with America these days.

Lewis was a staunch critic of President Barack Obama, telling a crowd at one of his solo concerts in 2016: “Barack Obama should have been impeached a long fucking time ago. Every fucking decision he makes is against the Constitution, it’s against what’s good for our fucking country, and he is truly the worst fucking president that we have ever had in the history of this fucking country.”

That same year, Lewis told Billboard that he would support Trump in the U.S. presidential race, even though he was “disappointed” by the real estate mogul “with the bickering and the name-calling.” Lewis added that he voted for Senator Ted Cruz, Trump’s closest competitor in the Republican nomination race, in the Massachusetts primary.

Lewis’s new solo album, “Frayed At Both Ends”, is due on January 28.

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Hear new death metal duo, Kontusion, get primitive, ugly and violent on their raw new self-released EP.
The post Track Premiere: Kontusion – “Rotting With Sickness” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Chloe Trujillo and New Zealand-born musician Mark Dalbeth have released the official music video for their collaborative song “Mana”. You can check it out below.

Chloe, wife of METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo, has been forging her career as a solo artist and Dalbeth was part of the highly respected Australian rock act BELLUSIRA.

Born in Paris, France, Trujillo has immersed herself in the art/music world from a young age. Her music is infused with anything from rap, metal, gypsy and blues. She first got her visa through performing in New York City cabarets and musical theater. From there, she was invited to Los Angeles by Gail Zappa to record the Frank Zappa cover “The Torture Never Stops”.

Mark made the move to Australia and started rock outfit BELLUSIRA, who went on to release two notable albums and move to America briefly under management from Will Hunt (EVANESCENCE). The band toured the USA a few times and had Koichi Fukuda from STATIC-X take over guitar duties. Once that project came to an end, Mark decided to stay in America and continue his musical pursuit.

Chloe and Mark met in early 2021 when asked to be a part of the Global Green charity event held at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. After connecting online and having a mutual respect for each other’s music, Trujillo and Dalbeth suggested the idea of doing a collaboration. The track “Lightning Strikes Twice” was the outstanding result. The feedback from the single was strong and they both enjoyed working together so much that they decided to continue to work together under the banner CHLOE TRUJILLO & RAV MEDIC.

ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian was joined by his 10-year-old son Revel Young Ian on drums as they performed a rendition of the SEPULTURA classic “Roots Bloody Roots” for an Instagram video which Scott shared earlier today (Tuesday, January 18).

Scott captioned the video: “ROOTS BLOODY ROOTS!!! Garage jam with my man! Next time I’ll turn the guitar up and yes, it’s a 7-string.”

Revel is apparently a gifted multi-instrumentalist who previously joined the FOO FIGHTERS on stage in September 2019 at the Bourbon & Beyond festival in Louisville, Kentucky to perform “Everlong” on guitar when he was just eight years old.

Back in 2014, Ian told Horns Up Rocks that his then-three-old son was a big fan of METALLICA, THE BEATLES and AC/DC and that he could already tell the difference between Bon Scott’s voice and that of Brian Johnson.

“He knows a lot of the stuff that he hears or sees in the house,” Scott said at the time. “But what’s really cool is that he actually recognizes and knows the difference between Bon Scott and Brian Johnson, which is pretty cool, I think, for an almost three-year-old. Anytime AC/DC is on, he’ll go, ‘That’s Bon singing.’ And then when it’s not Bon, he’ll say, ‘That’s not Bon singing.’ He knows. That’s pretty cool, I think.”

Asked whether metal musicians should be parents, Ian said it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He added: “I think you have to take that on a case-by-case basis. I couldn’t say enough about having a child; I think it’s the greatest thing ever in the whole world. But I do think that there are a lot of people on this planet, not necessarily metal musicians, that shouldn’t be parents.”

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AVENGED SEVENFOLD’s Synyster Gates and Johnny Christ recently decided to surprise one of their fans by hand delivering a signed guitar directly to the fan’s house. A video recap of their visit was uploaded to Christ’s YouTube channel and can now be seen below.

Earlier this month, AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows confirmed to Metal Hammer that the band will complete the recording of its eighth studio album next month. “In January, we’re going in to finish the strings on the record,” he said. “The record’s been recorded for a year, but we haven’t been able to put the real strings on it, because we couldn’t fly out to Prague. When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren’t sitting next to each other, they can get out of tune, and we have just finally got to a place where we can use this 70-piece orchestra as we intended. We finish the record in February, mix it in March.”

Regarding the musical direction of the follow-up to 2016’s “The Stage”, M. Shadows said: “There are so many influences… We’re very influenced by Kanye West. The thing about Kanye is that he is pulling from such great soul music. I didn’t grow up with that stuff — my dad listened to BOSTON and Alice Cooper [and] I didn’t get that taste of black music and old soul. So, diving deep into jazz musicians… We’re not trying to do a jazz record, but the chord changes and progressions are so eye-opening to us.”

AVENGED SEVENFOLD kept a low profile during 2019. A blood blister on M. Shadows’s vocal cords forced the band to cancel a summer 2018 tour with PROPHETS OF RAGE and THREE DAYS GRACE.

“The Stage” was surprise-released in October 2016. The release of the disc, which was announced the night it went on sale, earned the lowest sales of an AVENGED SEVENFOLD album in 11 years. It sold 76 thousand copies in its first week, 73 thousand of which were physical.

“The Stage”, AVENGED’s debut for Capitol, sold less than half as many copies in its first week as the group’s two previous efforts, 2010’s “Nightmare” and 2013’s “Hail To The King”.

This week Demo:listen premieres the massively crushing debut EP from Brazilian death metal quartet Rotborn.
The post Demo:listen: Rotborn appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen’s project SMITH/KOTZEN will kick off its U.S. West Coast tour on Thursday, January 20 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California. Joining Smith and Kotzen as part of their touring band is Richie’s wife, internationally acclaimed bass player Julia Lage, formerly of the Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian rock band BARRA DE SAIA. With a strong pedigree in rock, Lage has played alongside the likes of Pat Travers, Elliot Easton (THE CARS), Nuno Bettencourt (EXTREME) and Mark McGrath (SUGAR RAY). In addition, SMITH/KOTZEN has enlisted drummer Bruno Valverde of ANGRA for the U.S. West Coast dates.

In a brand new interview with Metal Edge magazine’s “Another FN Podcast With Izzy Presley”, Richie stated about how the short tour came together (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “What happened was it was all just by timing. Nathalie [Dufresne-Smith, Adrian’s wife] and Adrian came into town, and Adrian said, ‘Hey, we’re gonna be there for a couple of months. You wanna write some more songs?’ And we did get together and we did about seven things that are in the works; we have some demo stuff that are in the works. And then we started thinking, ‘Man, we’re here. Why don’t we play?’ Julia was in the house and we were talking about it. And it just kind of — boom. It just made sense. ‘Let’s go. Call Bruno.’ And we put it together. It was real easy.”

Adrian added that fans can definitely expect to hear more music from SMITH/KOTZEN, which released a full-length album and an EP during 2021.

“We started writing with a view to doing another album, and then we got sidetracked on dates,” Smith said. “Like Richie said, we’ve got six or seven things. It’s just taking where we left off with the EP — just writing as we do.

“I don’t wanna change the world,” he added. “I just wanna make good rock music. It’s n there, and you’ve just gotta do it. You just have to do it, really. It’s one of those things.”

SMITH/KOTZEN West Coast tour dates:

Jan. 20 – Whisky A Go Go – West Hollywood, CA
Jan. 22 – Count’s Vamp’d – Las Vegas, NV
Jan. 23 – Brick By Brick – San Diego, CA
Jan. 26 – Goldfield Trading Post – Roseville, CA
Jan. 27 – The Siren – Morro Bay, CA
Jan. 28 – Ventura Theatre – Ventura, CA (postponed from Jan. 15)

There will be local support for each show in the U.S.

For all on sales and ticketing information, go here.

SMITH/KOTZEN’s eponymous debut album was released globally through BMG in March 2021 to media and fan acclaim, charting No. 10 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart in the U.S., Top 20 in the U.K. as well as in other major markets such as Germany, Japan and Canada. A follow-up EP, “Better Days”, featuring four new tracks was released on November 26 in conjunction with international Record Store Day’s Black Friday event.

Smith is best known as one of IRON MAIDEN’s principal guitarists, having also enjoyed success as a solo artist. Kotzen is the frontman for THE WINERY DOGS as well as having been the guitarist for both MR. BIG and POISON during his long and acclaimed career, which has to date seen him release more than 20 solo albums. Both artists are also prolific songwriters.