What Was Phish’s Most Dangerous Stunt?

Trey Anastasia talks with Ari Fink about the craziest stunts he has pulled with Phish live on-stage, including a hot dog mishap. Hear more from Phish Radio on our app!…

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TED NUGENT: The People Who Run ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME Are 'Rotten' And 'Dishonest'

Ted Nugent says that he hasn’t been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame because the people that run the organization are “dishonest” and “rotten.”

The conservative rocker, who been eligible for the honor as a solo artist since 2000, has enjoyed a remarkably successful and eventful musical career over the past five decades, but his music is increasingly overshadowed by his political outbursts.

Asked in a recent interview with Ruben Mosqueda of KNAC.COM why we have yet to see him in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Nugent responded: “Why am I not in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame? That has a lot to do with the fact that you can’t always explain why people are rotten. Why do some people violate other people and commit vicious crimes and lie?

“I would like to think about what is going on with the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame… I don’t take it personal,” he continued. “I think I’m in the ultimate Hall Of Fame. I went on stage a couple days in Abilene [Texas] with a great man Tim Montana. The Tim Montana band opened up for ZZ TOP to a packed house in Abilene. Tim Montana says, ‘We learned ‘Cat Scratch Fever’. Come up and play it with us.’ I asked Billy Gibbons if that was okay to do, and he said, ‘Oh yeah. I’d love to hear that.’ They introduced me and the audience went berserk. So don’t tell me what my Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is. I’m in the ultimate Hall Of Fame with real and true lovers of my music! There’s nothing more important than that.

“I’m not offended that I’m not there. But not because of me, but for the fans. Why isn’t a band like TRIUMPH in there, but Grandmaster Flash is?! That’s just dishonest. Why are Patti Smith, ABBA and Madonna in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but not STYX?! Are you kidding me?! You can only explain that is that the people who made those decisions are just plain rotten people. The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame should genuflect to Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, the Motown Funk Brothers. Are you kidding me?! How dare you put Grandmaster Flash, ABBA and Madonna in that?!

“I’m not angry that I’m not in there because I’m having so much fun that it’s stupid,” Nugent added. “I have a new album called ‘Detroit Muscle’ which is another authoritative, rhythm and blues rock and roll from the Motor City. I’m surrounded by guitars and amps and I play with a bunch of killer musicians. My music is a flamethrower of fun, positive energy and piss and vinegar. That’s the ‘real’ Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, since the people who run the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame have been dishonest.

“It would be an honor to be part of an institution that celebrates the founding fathers of rock and roll, like Chuck, Bo, Little Richard, James Brown and going back to Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and SAM & DAVE and Wilson Pickett. I would be honored to share that. What a middle finger to the ‘real’ heroes of rock and roll and rhythm and blues to put in those other people. Grandmaster Flash?! Really?! Why don’t we go down to Chuck Berry’s grave and piss on it!!! Are you kidding me?! That’s not a Ted Nugent presumption; that’s not an opinion… The evidence is overwhelming.

“You wanna know how to get into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame? You get ‘high’ with the board,” Ted said. “I don’t get high with anybody because I have campfires and I have the healing power of nature. I get high on high without poisoning my sacred temple. I call on God. I call on the good earth to help cleanse my soul and to help stimulate my very spirit.

“I know people say, ‘Nugent is a radical and he dodged the draft.’ That’s a lie. They say, ‘Oh, well, Nugent is a racist.’ That’s a lie. They say, ‘Oh, Nugent adopted a nine-year old-girl.’ That’s a lie. They say, ‘Nugent disrespected Native Americans.’ That’s a lie. Are you kidding me?! Around my campfires, we laugh till we cry about the attacks on me. They are just so stupid. Those people that say that are strangled by hate.”

Ted has railed against the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame a number of times in the past, including in a 2017 interview with the Q103 radio station in Albany. At the time, he stated about his exclusion from the institution: “Jan Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone [magazine] and the boss hog at Rock And Roll Of Fame, he hates freedom, he hates the Second Amendment, he hates me, because I’m on the board of directors — quite proudly — of the National Rifle Association for, like, twenty-six years with some of the highest votes except for Charlton Heston [NRA’s president]. And I couldn’t be more proud of that, ’cause the NRA is the ultimate family, grassroots organization that fights for the right to defend ourselves. What kind of numbnut would be against that? And so I’m on the board of directors of the NRA, Jan Wenner hates the Second Amendment, so that’s the only reason I’m not in the Rock And Roll Of Fame. And until they get their heads out of their ass, I’m more than happy to do what I do and do it with all the vim and vigor that I do it every night.”

Nugent added: “Hey, write this down. My name is Ted Nugent. I am the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame Eat me!”

Asked if he would show up for his Rock Hall induction if he eventually got the nod, Nugent said: “Oh, hell yes! And you know what I would do? I would lead… I’ve seen a lot of the ceremonies, and they’re so moving. All of us that love music, how do you not just shed a tear of joy when you see Bob Seger and certainly ZZ TOP and Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and James Brown… Are you kidding me? These are the gods of the soundtrack of our quality of life. But you know what I will do? And I will do it. I will lead the most important moment in the history of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, because I will get on bended knee and I will say a prayer for Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and THE VENTURES and James Brown and Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding and the Motown Funk Brothers and THE BEATLES and THE [ROLLING] STONES and THE KINKS and Howlin’ Wolf and Buddy Guy and B.B. King and Freddie King and Albert King… you know what I’m saying? Because Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is paying tribute and homage to geniuses who gave us the ultimate soundtrack for our American Dream. I’m all in, man, I’m genuinely moved, and I’m glad there is a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.”

Nugent went on to reiterate his belief that that rappers and non-rock artists like Madonna don’t belong in the Hall Of Fame. “I mean, why don’t you just piss on Chuck Berry’s grave, you know what I mean?” he said.

According to Ted, the fact that both Patti Smith and Grandmaster Flash have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is the result of “political correctness,” which he calls “a self-inflicted and embarrassing scourge.” He added in a mocking tone: “Yeah, Grandmaster Flash is rock and roll. And I’m a gay pirate.”

This past July, Nugent resigned from the board of the NRA after 26 years, saying he was stepping down “due to constant scheduling conflicts.”

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KIX Guitarist RONNIE YOUNKINS Is 'Working Hard On His Rehabilitation'

KIX has offered an update on guitarist Ronnie Younkins, who is unable to tour with the band because he has been placed under house arrest after repeatedly getting in trouble with the police. Ronnie is being temporarily replaced by Bob Paré, an accomplished musician who studied at the Music Institute in Los Angeles and taught music theory and guitar at several institutions, including Western Maryland College and Maryland Institute of Music.

Earlier today — one day before Ronnie’s 63rd birthday — KIX posted the following statement via social media: “Hey KIX fans! Thanks to everyone who has been asking about Ronnie. Straight away, we want to wish him a very Happy Birthday!

“Ronnie has been working hard on his rehabilitation and he is still on the long road to recovery. We speak to him often and he wants to thank everybody for the overwhelming outpour of well wishes and support. We love him and can’t wait to welcome him back to where he belongs when he is 100% ready.

“We thank Bob Paré for stepping in and doing an amazing job. There is so much that goes on with KIX both on and off stage, and Bob has been a tremendous addition to the band in all ways. Sometimes fans don’t see that part, so we wanted to give Bob all the credit he deserves for doing his best to fill some very big shoes while Ronnie works on his recovery, his family and his well being.

“We truly appreciate your continued patience and support. We look forward to the day that Ronnie is fully recovered.

“Happy New Year and Thanks! The godamn KIX band!

“#kixband #ryfo #ronnieyounkins”.

Last month, KIX singer Steve Whiteman addressed Younkins’s current condition in an interview with “The Chuck Shute Podcast”. He said: “Last I spoke to [Ronnie], he’s working, like, two normal jobs. He’s still living in a rehabilitation clinic, and he still has a ways to go. Even when he’s set free to go out into the world, like he did before, we still have to make sure that he’s gonna be able to stay clean and sober. But right now he seems like he’s doing really well. He’s following all the rules and he’s doing everything he can to get his life back in order.”

Steve went on to say that Ronnie was sober for 20 years before relapsing and spiraling back down into addiction.

“He got Hep C, and he had to use intravenous needles to battle the Hep C, before the newer treatment came out,” Whiteman said. “And we all think that that just kind of took his mentality back to the days when he was using. I mean, that’s speculation, and you’d probably have to ask him that, but it seems like that’s when things flipped for him.”

Whiteman previously discussed Younkins’s battle with addiction in a June 2021 interview with Sonic Perspectives. At the time, he said: “It’s been an up-and-down adventure with Ronnie over the past five or six years. Sometimes he doesn’t show up to gigs, and Brian Forsythe has to take over and play all the parts. Then he comes back for several months and does really well, only to fall off the wagon or get in trouble with the police. This last time, he got into trouble with the police and is currently in a halfway house under house arrest. That’s the biggest reason he is not out with us now. We were looking at Bob Paré a couple of years ago when Ronnie was going through a bad stretch, but Ronnie bounced back. When he shows up, he does great, so we didn’t make the move back then. This time we were forced to.”

Whiteman clarified: “I’m not saying that Ronnie is out of the band. We are just saying [he is not gonna tour with us] until he gets it together [and] his family and these people that are helping him say he is good to go. We are not going to bring him in until he is ready. He has shown in the past he can’t be sober on the road. Being out there in a rock and roll band is a very bad environment.”

He added: “We have a long history of 40 years together. You want to give him the benefit that he is going to recover and do well. There have been so many times over the last five or six years [when] we didn’t know if he was going to make it.”

Four years ago, Younkins opened up about his drug addiction, saying that his “disease had gotten worse” after he relapsed several years earlier following two decades of sobriety.

Younkins missed a KIX concert in Pennsylvania in March 2017 when the rest of the group was unable to reach him. He was eventually found “not in great condition and very upset,” according to TMZ. A month later, his bandmates revealed that he was “headed to a rehab facility” and promised that his spot in KIX would be “waiting for him” once he was ready to resume playing with the group.

While Younkins was in rehab, he took time out to join his KIX bandmates for a performance in June 2017 at the Sweden Rock Festival, where he gave a wide-ranging interview to Metal Rules that also touched upon his continued battle against substance abuse.

Speaking about his health, Ronnie said: “My disease has gotten worse. I had 21 years of sobriety at one point. Got sober and cleaned up in 1989, but I’d get on… A long story short, what led me back out was complacency in my program. I wasn’t doing enough of my work for the AA program like I did in the early years. Then,I went on Hepatitis C treatment, or they should call it punishment, the old one that has many side effects, in 2010. One of them being insomnia, and the doctor put me on Ambien, and it fucked me up. It’s a sleep drug, and I got hooked on it, and then I wasn’t working the program, like with my mom’s death — I worked through that at ten years sober. I worked through that with my sponsor. [My] dad died, like, in 2012. Some other shit had happened, and I worked through [it], and some serious things happened.

“We all have issues,” he continued. “We all have shit happen in our lives and, you know, I worked through them in the program, but my when my father died, and I was complacent in the program, and I was already high on this fucking Ambien. I said, ‘Fuck it.’ And, I went out, and I started doing heroin and cocaine again within a month after my dad’s death, and it’s been nothing but downhill since. I’ve been through two rehabs, [in] 2014 [and] 2015.”

Drug and alcohol rehab statistics show that the percentage of people who will relapse after rehab and even a period of some recovery ranges from 50% to 90%.

Most people do not manage to quit their addiction with their first attempt. They may try and fail a number of times before they manage to secure lasting sobriety.

For addicts that fall back into drug use, there is no guarantee that they will ever be able to stop again; their relapse may turn out to be a death sentence.

Over time, the life of the addict tends to deteriorate. This means that when people relapse, they may be going back to a life that is even worse than before.

Younkins added that he was “grateful” to his bandmates for standing by him through all his problems. “I love those guys in the band,” he said. “They’ve been my brothers, all of them, and Brian’s been a big help, because he’s in the program as well, and yeah… So, I just want to get my shit together once and for all on a daily basis.”

Bob was a session musician for several independent label releases, and has spent most of his long career performing live in the Maryland and Washington, D.C. area with various bands, including FORCER, EVER RISE, PROJECT: EUPHORIA and, most recently, the RUSH tribute band SUN DOGS with KIX bassist Mark Schenker.

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RIK EMMETT Says Upcoming Memoir Will Tell More Of His Side Of The Story Of What Happened With TRIUMPH

TRIUMPH guitarist/vocalist Rik Emmett spoke to Dr. Music about his upcoming memoir and how it will compare to the band’s documentary, “Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine”, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Rik said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “People are gonna get the memoir. Is it gonna be warm and happy and fuzzy? Ehhh… I think they’re gonna get real Rik Emmett, so they’re gonna get some truth that might hurt, or that they might go, ‘Ooooh, shit. I didn’t realize that he was like that. I didn’t realize Rik was that kind of guy.’ But I’m not afraid anymore to speak truth. What am I saving it for? [Laughs]”

He continued: “I was doing an interview the other day talking about the documentary. And the guy was saying, ‘Oh, so we’re gonna get a true insight.’ And I go, well, let me make sure that you understand this. You’re gonna get a documentary made by Banger Films, and that’s essentially Sam Dunn and Marc Ricciardelli. And those two guys, they know what they’re doing — they’ve done plenty of these: RUSH and IRON MAIDEN and ZZ TOP and Alice Cooper, and you name ’em. But they’re gonna tell a story. They know that, as a filmmaker, that’s what they need to do — you need to sort of tie everything to a story. So the story of TRIUMPH is gonna be the story that they decide to tell. And it’s gonna be based on whatever footage they have available and whatever they decide [the angle should be]: ‘Ooh, Rik quit the band at its height,’ and, ‘The band disappeared overnight.’ And I go, ‘Well, that’s not what it felt like to me. That’s not my story.’ And when my memoir comes out, there’ll be an opportunity for me to tell more of my story as opposed to the one that’s the TRIUMPH story that Banger Films is telling you in a rockumentary. Which is not to say that [the documentary is] not great — it is great — but it’s their story. And my story isn’t [drummer] Gil Moore’s story, and my story isn’t [bassist] Mike Levine’s story, although there was a story that was the three of us.”

Produced by the aforementioned Banger Films, “Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine” is a Crave original documentary that was previously described as “a celebratory, exhilarating thrill ride through the history of one of rock’s most unsung acts.” The film covers TRIUMPH’s humble beginnings as staples of the GTA circuit in the mid-’70s to their heyday as touring juggernauts, selling out arenas and stadiums all across North America with their legendary spectacular live shows — and way beyond.

Last year, Emmett told The Metal Voice about the making of “Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine”: “There’s a surreal nature to it — you’re going back in your life, and they’re reminding you of things that you’d completely forgotten,” he continued. “And you’re going, ‘Oh, yeah.’ And then they’re digging deeper, and they’re going, ‘So, when the band broke up…’ And you’re going, ‘Okay, this hurts, actually.’ I don’t wanna have to go back to that, because the rise and the fall and the rise again, it’s the fall that hurts. I don’t wanna go there. I thought I’d put all this behind me. It was ugly, heavy baggage.”

Emmett also talked about a “really extraordinary thing” Banger Films did while working on “Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine”. “They flew in fans from all over the world,” he said. “They created an event. And the fans didn’t know that we were gonna actually play three songs. So, they brought ’em all to the warehouse, and they’re wandering, and they’re looking at this TRIUMPH museum-y kind of thing. They’ve got dummies with my old spandex jumpsuits on. And then they send them down and they were gonna show them a few little clips on a scrim. The scrim drops and there we are and we play. And these are the people that love us the most. And there was only a couple of hundred of ’em. But it was so intense; it was so amazing. And, of course, they’ve got, like, 15 cameras around the room capturing every angle of this. And then you go, ‘Oh my God. This is heavy duty.’

“So it’s really good,” Rik added. “It really gets to the heart of, you’re a band, you create some music, you make a connection to people, and then here’s these people, you’re the soundtrack to their lives, and it matters to them. So they love you. I could get up there and fart, and they would go, ‘Yeah! Great!'”

The aforementioned invite-only event was held in November 2019 in front of 300 “superfans” at MetalWorks studio in Mississauga (a suburb of Toronto), Ontario, Canada. Emmett, Levine and Moore played a three-song set that marked TRIUMPH’s first performance in 11 years, as well as its first as a pure three-piece power trio in 31 years. The tracks played were “When The Lights Go Down”, “Lay It On The Line” and “Magic Power”.

Moore, Levine, and Emmett formed TRIUMPH in 1975, and their blend of heavy riff-rockers with progressive odysseys, peppered with thoughtful, inspiring lyrics and virtuosic guitar playing quickly made them a household name in Canada. Anthems like “Lay It On The Line”, “Magic Power” and “Fight The Good Fight” broke them in the USA, and they amassed a legion of fiercely passionate fans. But, as a band that suddenly split at the zenith of their popularity, TRIUMPH missed out on an opportunity to say thank you to those loyal and devoted fans, a base that is still active today, three decades later.

Back in 2016, Moore and Levine reunited with Rik as special guests on the “RES 9” album from Emmett’s band RESOLUTION9.

After 20 years apart, Emmett, Levine and Moore played at the 2008 editions of the Sweden Rock Festival and Rocklahoma. A DVD of the historic Sweden performance was made available four years later.

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Track Premiere: Mayan Bull (ft. members of Trappist & Despise You) “Kid Cleveland”

Hear L.A. trio Mayan Bull — featuring members of Trappist, Despise You and Kevarra — take an instrumental departure.
The post Track Premiere: Mayan Bull (ft. members of Trappist & Despise You) “Kid Cleveland” appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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All Hail Virologist Timothy Sheahan: Metal Militia — Pandemic Division

That’s right — Timothy Sheahan is not only one of coronavirus’ fiercest foes, but also a punk-hardcore metalhead in extremely good standing.
The post All Hail Virologist Timothy Sheahan: Metal Militia — Pandemic Division appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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GENE SIMMONS Shares Video Of Tree Planting On His Las Vegas Estate

After KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons bought a nearly 11,000-square-foot estate in Henderson, Nevada’s Ascaya luxury community and an adjacent half-acre lot for $10.8 million in May, he planted 137 trees on the parcel. Earlier today, the 72-year-old rocker shared video of the process to cover the adjacent vacant land with trees, saying “it was all done in two days.” Check out the clip below.

Five months after buying the Southern Nevada estate, he put it on the market in October for $14.95 million, but that price came down on November 17 to $13.5 million. Among the improvements Simmons made to the Las Vegas house is installing all new floors and ripping up wall-to-wall carpeting in some of the rooms.

Speaking to TMZ about his decision to sell the home only five months after buying it, Gene said: “First I bought it because Mr. Biden [U.S. president Joe Biden] and Mr. Newsom [California governor Gavin Newsom] are looking to raise taxes to the point where if I work really hard to earn a legal dollar, I may get to keep 35 cents. So, California has become untenable. So I’d rather leave the money to my family and to charity and so on, so I wanted to move to Las Vegas. No income tax, no state tax, no local tax, no inheritance tax, beautiful place, great. Except for one thing — my family doesn’t wanna go there. They’re not gonna put up with the heat, and down the street, there’s strippers and stuff like that. They don’t wanna deal with any of that.”

He continued: “I bought [the house] for 8.6 [million], then I bought the property next door for 2.4 [million] and planted 137 trees. So, guys, I can this for 25 or 30 million, but I’m blessed. I’d like to meet the person that’s gonna wind up buying the place because I don’t wanna just hand it over to some knucklehead. I want you to enjoy it and have a good life.”

According to Gene, his wife and their two adult children prefer to stay at the family’s other homes, an extensive portfolio which includes a modern lake house in Whistler, British Columbia, a home in Malibu and two houses in L.A. that Gene bought for the Simmons kids, Nick and Sophie.

“They’re not fans of 115-degree weather,” Simmons told The Wall Street Journal.

Because of KISS’s touring schedule and his business travel, Gene said he never spent more than a few weeks total in Las Vegas. He went on to say that he had no regrets about selling the property so soon after the purchase, adding: “How many houses do you need anyway?”

According to TMZ, Simmons purchased a mansion in Beverly Hills, California in October for $10.5 million. The home occupies more than 7,000 square feet of living apace and an additional 1800 square feet of “sleek deck space.” The sophisticated design allows for scenic views from the expansive kitchen, dining, living room, four bedrooms and five bathrooms, upstairs library/gallery space and a sliver of glass in the home theater. The home is one half solar powered, using roof panels to heat the pool and radiant heated floors.

In September, Simmons sold his Los Angeles mansion for $16 million, almost a year after he first put it on the market for $22 million. He later relisted it for $25 million after it never sold and he reportedly invested a lot of money in making improvements.

Gene bought the Los Angeles property back in October 1986 for $1,337,500.

Simmons has been very vocal about his desire to leave California for some time due to wanting a quieter lifestyle and to get away from being listed on celebrity maps or having to deal with Beverly Hills tour buses. He also said that part of the reason he and his wife listed the two-acre property in Benedict Canyon because the home had become too big for the both of them since their children had grown up.

Gene and Shannon were married in 2011 after dating since 1975.

Gene, Shannon and their kids all appeared on the reality TV series “Gene Simmons Family Jewels” from 2006 until 2012.

About a year ago, I bought the property next door to the Vegas house. Decided to cover the adjacent vacant land with 137 trees. It was all done in 2 days. Watch! pic.twitter.com/HUFLG4I9FO
— Gene Simmons (@genesimmons) December 29, 2021

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STONE TEMPLE PILOTS' ROBERT DELEO Tests Positive For COVID-19: 'It's The Crud'

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS bassist Robert DeLeo has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The 55-year-old musician revealed his diagnosis in an Instagram post earlier today. He shared a photo of a positive COVID-19 test and he wrote: “Well, like so many others this virus has come to pay me a visit. Yes, double lines… Jackpot! Except this time you don’t win anything but a nice chunk of time by yourself doing the ‘q’ word. Omicron, Robotron, Lexicon, whatever they wanna call it, it’s the CRUD! A new year is upon us and I hope and pray everyone stays healthy and safe. Let’s all make this new year a positive and forward moving experience filled with everything we all love!”

Last month, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS scrapped the remaining shows on their tour — including an appearance at the Welcome To Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, Florida — after a “member” of the band’s “organization” tested positive for COVID-19.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS features three original members — Robert DeLeo, guitarist Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz.

Singer Jeff Gutt, a 45-year-old Michigan native who spent time in the early-2000s nu-metal act DRY CELL, among other bands, and was a contestant on “The X Factor”, joined STONE TEMPLE PILOTS after beating out roughly 15,000 hopefuls during an extended search that began more than a year earlier.

Original STONE TEMPLE PILOTS singer Scott Weiland, who reunited with the group in 2010 after an eight-year hiatus but was dismissed in 2013, died in December 2015 of a drug overdose.

Chester Bennington, who joined STP in early 2013, departed nearly three years later to spend more time with his main band LINKIN PARK. Bennington committed suicide in July 2017.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS released their first all-acoustic album, titled “Perdida”, in February 2020. The disc was Gutt’s second with STP. His recording debut with the group was on its self-titled seventh album, which arrived in March 2018.

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GEORGE LYNCH Says He Was The One Who Suggested To JOHN 5 To Release Album Via Series Of Videos

George Lynch says that he was the one who originally suggested to John 5 to release an album via a series of music videos, one song at a time, before unleashing the full-length effort.

In 2019, John 5 adopted an interesting approach to issuing his “Invasion” LP — instead of releasing it all at once; he made it available one song at a time, with an accompanying music video, on the first day of each month for several months, before dropping the album in July of that year.

During appearance on “Guitar Autopsy”, the video podcast hosted by Rusty Cooley, Lynch discussed the idea of releasing a series of singles a couple of months apart before unveiling the full album. After Rusty floated the prospect of making individual songs available prior to the release of the actual LP, Lynch said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I had that exact same thought a few years ago, and I was talking to John 5. I was at [a studio] in Burbank and John was there. There was a little studio there, a guitar-centric studio, and he was working in there. And I was talking to him and the engineer about that idea — that actual same idea, what you just said. I was, like, put out a song a month, you buy the song a month, and we’re gonna have a video for each song. And then, at the end of the year, we’ll take those 12 songs and we’ll repackage it and resell it as a CD and get paid twice and do this whole thing with a bonus track and all this stuff. He turned around and did exactly that. Not that it was my proprietary idea, but it just kind of [was], like, ‘Wow.’ Then I remember going back in there and him telling me about it like it was his idea. Or no — it was his engineer who was telling me about it. ‘Yeah, man, we’re gonna do this thing…’ I go, ‘Yeah, that’s kind of what I was telling you about, like, a year and a half ago. But that’s cool.'”

Lynch added: “I never ended up doing it. And I wondered how it worked out for him — if that actually was a smart way to go. Because the downside is you’ve gotta be promoting and marketing everything for a whole year versus a regular record album cycle, [which is] 30 days now, or 45 days or something.”

Back in 2019, John 5 told “Wired In The Empire” that “releasing a new song and a new video every month” was something he had “been working on for a long time.” He added: “I think it’s a really great way to do something like that. It keeps the record alive and keeps people interested in what’s going on with everything so a record doesn’t die in a month or something. It keeps the record alive for a little while and it’s wonderful. It really has been working out well. The songs — we’ve been having a lot of fun playing them and we’ve really been having a great time.”

Over the past four years, Lynch has appeared on recordings by THE END MACHINE, KXM, ULTRAPHONIX and SWEET & LYNCH. He released his first-ever full-length instrumental album, “Seamless”, in August via Rat Pak Records.

John 5’s latest solo album, “Sinner”, came out on October 29 via Big Machine Records. The LP was produced and mixed by Barry Pointer at Riott House Studio in North Hollywood.

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Darkest Waves: Five 2021 Favorites from Transylvanian Recordings

Oakland DIY label Transylvanian Recordings made a lot of waves this year. Listen to some of our favorite Transylvanian albums from 2021 before the new year.
The post Darkest Waves: Five 2021 Favorites from Transylvanian Recordings appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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