To celebrate the release of their new record, Quitter, we caught up with Tunic’s David Schellenberg to find out what five heavy records changed his life.
The post Five Heavy Albums that Changed My Life with David Schellenberg of Tunic appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

Dave Lombardo says that he misses the “energy” and the drumming “style” of SLAYER.

The 56-year-old drummer discussed his former band while commemorating the 35th anniversary of arguably the greatest and most influential thrash album of all time, “Reign In Blood”.

Reflecting on the classic effort, Lombardo told Metal Injection: “I look at that album as a masterpiece. And it’s one of those albums that will stand the test of time. It’s brilliant. The fire, the energy that that album has. I don’t hear that in other records. I don’t know if it’s because I’m listening to a band that I was part of that I have this perspective that’s objective. But you know, it’s brilliant and I’m very appreciative … I think that album will forever be like the epitome of thrash music and part of a historic time in music history.

“You know, that energy, I miss that and I miss that style of playing,” he continued.

“SLAYER is different. SLAYER is different from MR. BUNGLE and the other thrash bands I played with. SLAYER had a certain energy that’s unlike anything else. And so that definitely is for me one of the greatest metal records ever made.”

“Reign In Blood” was released on October 7, 1986 through Def Jam Recordings. The album was the band’s first collaboration with record producer Rick Rubin, whose input helped the band’s sound evolve. Kerrang! magazine described the record as “the heaviest album of all time,” and a breakthrough in thrash metal and speed metal.

“Reign In Blood”‘s release was delayed because of concerns regarding its graphic artwork and lyrical subject matter. The opening track, “Angel Of Death”, which refers to Josef Mengele and describes acts such as human experimentation that Mengele committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp, provoked allegations of Nazism. However, the bandmembers stated numerous times they do not condone Nazism, and are merely interested in the subject.

On the topic the controversy surrounding “Reign In Blood”‘s lyrical content, SLAYER guitarist Jeff Hanneman previously said, “‘Angel Of Death’ was a big problem. I remember getting a phone call after the album was done: Sony wasn’t going to release it. I remember being at home, pissed, throwing things. What the fuck? I didn’t think anything was wrong with ‘Angel Of Death’ or anything else we did, it’s a documentary! There’s no ‘Heil Hitler’ or ‘white people rule,’ it’s a documentary; grow up, people. It took months before they picked it up again. Finally, we got signed by a distributor.”

“Reign In Blood” was SLAYER’s first album to enter The Billboard 200 chart (at No. 94). The LP was certified gold by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association Of America) on November 20, 1992 for sales in excess of 500,000 copies.

In a 2009 interview with Filter magazine, SLAYER frontman Tom Araya stated about “Reign In Blood”, “On that first album [together], Rubin made sure that he recorded. He wanted to duplicate what he was hearing.” Guitarist Kerry King added, “It was the first time you actually heard SLAYER in its pure ferocity, and it made a big difference. One funny thing about that album is if it came out today, no one would give a shit. They’d say, ‘That’s cool.’ But at the time it came out it made such a difference. People still reflect on that as a poignant time, where shit changed.”

Lombardo, who splits most of his time between crossover pioneers SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, horror-punk icons MISFITS, hardcore supergroup DEAD CROSS and the aforementioned MR. BUNGLE, was effectively fired from SLAYER after sitting out the group’s Australian tour in February/March 2013 due to a contract dispute with the other bandmembers. He has since been replaced by Paul Bostaph, who was previously SLAYER’s drummer from 1992 until 2001.

Shortly after his dismissal, Lombardo said that he discovered that 90 percent of SLAYER’s tour income was being deducted as expenses, including fees to management, costing the band millions and leaving them with about 10 percent to split four ways. While he and Araya hired auditors to figure out what had happened, Lombardo said he was never allowed to see any of the information obtained.

A few years ago, King said that “when Dave was in [SLAYER] this last time, I figured I’d be on the stage with him until one of us fell off the stage, dead. Things change. He got some bad advice and listened to some bad advice, gave us an ultimatum ten days before we went to Australia [to do the Soundwave festival tour]. And I said, ‘I can’t have this over my head.’ And I feel bad for Dave to this day; I really feel bad for him because he shot himself in the foot. Maybe he thought he had the upper hand, but you ain’t gonna get me.”

SLAYER played its last-ever show on November 30, 2019 at The Forum in Los Angeles.

In a new interview with Rocking With Jam Man, legendary drummer Carmine Appice was asked if he ever thought anything as crazy as the coronavirus lockdown and the pandemic would happen during his lifetime. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “No. I think it’s all political. But we won’t get into that. It went to the election. I think it was all planned. But anyway, we won’t get into that.”

Asked if he enjoyed having a break from playing shows during the pandemic, the 74-year-old musician said: “No. I made do of it. But I didn’t enjoy it. I would have rather been playing gigs. I used to do 60 gigs a year, and last year I did four. This year [I will end up playing] maybe 18, if they all happen. We still don’t know. Like when we did me and my brother’s gig, we had one gig in the middle that was blown out because of COVID. So, hopefully they won’t be blown out, and everybody’s getting vaccinated. And nobody even knows if the vaccination is really a vaccination or something to kill everybody.

“I had to get vaccinated to travel,” he revealed. “But it’s crazy; it’s all crazy. This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. In all my years, I’ve never seen anything this crazy.”

Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of molecular microbiology and immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CNBC that COVID-19 vaccines “are extremely safe,” noting that the risks of the side effects from the vaccines are significantly lower than the health risks posed by the virus. “COVID, on the other hand, is deadly, unpredictable.”

COVID-19 vaccines have been studied in humans for more than a year now, and more than 185 million people have been fully vaccinated in the United States alone. There are several robust safety monitoring systems in place for these vaccines that can detect the very rare adverse events.

Fully vaccinated people are 29 times less likely to be hospitalized because of the virus compared to those are unvaccinated, according to a study released by the CDC.

Research shows that fully vaccinated people experience milder symptoms and are half as likely to develop several symptoms in the first week of illness compared to unvaccinated people.

Appice is the original drummer of VANILLA FUDGE, with whom he still records and performs today. He has also played with CACTUS and BECK, BOGERT & APPICE, in addition to spending stints in the bands of Ozzy Osbourne and Rod Stewart, co-writing the latter’s No. 1 hit “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” Carmine was named the 28th greatest drummer of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Appice is widely considered to be one of the most accomplished showmen in rock and is the recipient of numerous awards, including dozens of gold- and platinum-selling records. Carmine has broken new ground in every aspect of his career as a performer, as a teacher, and as a writer, and he continues to inspire drummers and listeners throughout the world with his originality and his unwavering dedication to the art of drumming.

Carmine’s autobiography, “Stick It!: My Life Of Sex, Drums, And Rock ‘N’ Roll”, was released in May 2016 by Chicago Review Press.

Under the moniker APPICE, Carmine and his brother Vinny released “Sinister”, their first joint studio album, in October 2017 through SPV/Steamhammer.

METALLICA played its classic self-titled album, commonly known as “The Black Album,” in its entirety during its headline set on September 26 at Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, Kentucky.

METALLICA performed the LP as part of its second headline set of the weekend at Louder Than Life, which hosted tens of thousands of people at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

After opening with three non-“Black Album” songs — “Hardwired”, “The Four Horsemen” and “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” — METALLICA performed the album’s closing track, “The Struggle Within”, and went through the entire LP in reverse order, finishing the main set with album opener “Enter Sandman”. The band then returned for a two-song encore consisting of “Blackened” and “Creeping Death”.

For its first show on September 24, METALLICA played a 16-song set that spanned its entire catalog, including “Whiplash”, “Harvester Of Sorrow”, “The Memory Remains”, “Master Of Puppets”, “Battery”, “Fuel” and “Seek & Destroy”.

METALLICA’s setlist for Sunday, September 26 at Louder Than Life festival at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, Kentucky:

01. Hardwired
02. The Four Horsemen
03. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
04. The Struggle Within
05. My Friend Of Misery
06. The God That Failed
07. Of Wolf And Man
08. Nothing Else Matters
09. Through The Never
10. Don’t Tread On Me
11. Wherever I May Roam
12. The Unforgiven
13. Holier Than Thou
14. Sad But True
15. Enter Sandman

Encore:

16. Blackened
17. Creeping Death

Professionally filmed video footage of METALLICA’s “My Friend Of Misery” performance from the September 26 concert can be seen below.

The Black Album is one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed records of all time. Its 1991 release not only gave METALLICA its first No. 1 album in no fewer than 10 countries, including a four-week run at No. 1 in the U.S., its unrelenting series of singles — “Enter Sandman”, “The Unforgiven”, “Nothing Else Matters”, “Wherever I May Roam” and “Sad But True” — fueled the band’s rise to stadium headlining, radio and MTV dominating household name status. The album’s reception from the press was similarly charged, building over the years from the top 10 of the 1991 Village Voice Pazz & Jop national critics poll to becoming a constant presence in the likes of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time. The album’s impact and relevance continue to grow — as proven by one indisputable fact: The Black Album remains unchallenged as the best-selling album in the history of Nielsen SoundScan, outselling every release in every genre over the past 30 years.

To commemorate its 30th anniversary, the Grammy-winning, 16-times-platinum-certified Black Album received its definitive re-release on September 10 via the band’s own Blackened Recordings.

“Metallica” was the first of four collaborations with producer Bob Rock, with whom the band clashed throughout the recording of the disc.

METALLICA previously performed The Black Album in its entirety at a number of European festivals in 2012.

Original BLACK SABBATH drummer Bill Ward has told U.K.’s Metro in a new interview that he is “in contact” with the other members of the band, nearly five years after they completed their final tour without him. “I talked to Ozzy [Osbourne, SABBATH singer] two nights ago,” he said. “A lot of things have crossed between us and there’s new boundaries that I’ve had to build, but I don’t think any less of them. I’ve been working with Tony [Iommi, SABBATH guitarist] since 1964 when I was 16 years old. They’re my brothers and I love them.”

As for the possibility of him reuniting with SABBATH again at some point in the near future, Ward said: “As far as I’m concerned, the book’s never closed with SABBATH. I’m writing like a demon, I’m living life.

“My biggest contention has been, ‘Let’s make another album,'” the 73-year-old added. “Nothing live necessarily, because I’m looking at what I can realistically do. The way I play the drums, it’s becoming tougher as I get older. I haven’t spoken to the guys about it, but I have talked to a couple of people in management about the possibility of making a recording. Which I can do safely, even with COVID around. I can lay track at my studio in Los Angeles. I’m very open-minded about doing something like that.”

Bill was on board for the SABBATH reunion when it was first announced 10 years ago, but backed out soon after. The drummer later claimed that he sat out the recording and touring sessions because of unfair contractual terms, although the members of SABBATH have hinted in other interviews that he wasn’t physically up to the task.

All four original members of SABBATH were present when the band announced its reunion in late 2011. But Ward split from the group in 2012, citing an “unsignable” contract, and Ozzy, Tony and bassist Geezer Butler carried on with their Rick Rubin–produced “13” LP and extensive international touring without him.

This past March, Bill admitted to SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” that he no longer had the “chops” and the “ability” to perform with BLACK SABBATH. “I have to be back to 60 years old to be able to do that,” he said.

“I would love to do a studio album with SABBATH, with all the original members,” he continued. “I’m just saying that — I’m just floating that out there. But I’m not done. So, the other three might be done, and I respect that, but no, I’m not done. I think as long as we all exist [laughs] and we’re still breathing in air, I think we have every possibility of making some great music together.”

Ozzy told The Pulse Of Radio during SABBATH’s last tour that Ward was not in shape to participate. “Bill Ward has got the most physically demanding job of the lot of us, ’cause he’s the timekeeper,” he said. “I don’t think personally he had the chops to pull it off, you know. The saddest thing is that he needed to own up to that, and we could have worked around it, whether we had a drummer on the side with him or something.”

It was rumored that SABBATH wanted to bring a second drummer on the road to share duties with Ward, something that Iommi confirmed in 2017 during a question-and-answer session about SABBATH’s “Ten Year War” box set.

In February 2017, SABBATH finished “The End” tour in Birmingham, closing out the quartet’s groundbreaking 49-year career.

“The End” was SABBATH’s last tour because Iommi — who was diagnosed with lymphoma in late 2011 — can no longer travel for extended amounts of time.

In 2015, Ward released his first solo album in 18 years. Titled “Accountable Beasts”, the record can be purchased on iTunes.

In November 2017, Ward’s band DAY OF ERRORS released its first two songs, “Day Of Errors” and “Blaspheming At Creation”, via iTunes, Spotify, Amazon MP3 and Google Play. Two more tracks, “Dark” and “Ghost Train”, followed in 2019.

Watch New York death metallers — and recent Decibel Flexi Series stars – Undeath deliver another installment of their video reports from their first U.S. tour.
The post Undeath Unleash Part II of ”Undeath: Life on the Unroad” Video Tour Diary appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

KIX drummer Jimmy “Chocolate” Chalfant suffered a heart attack at his home on the evening of Wednesday, September 29 and was rushed to the hospital. He had immediate surgery to insert two stents in his heart then another surgery the next day for another stent. Good news is he is feeling way better, has been discharged from the hospital and is doing well resting at home. However, he may have a bit of a road in front of him for cardiac rehab to allow him to make a safe and full recovery.

KIX remains committed to playing all shows that are currently booked. The band states: “We want to stress that NO shows are being cancelled or postponed. We are committed to fulfilling ALL of our contractual obligations. With Jimmy’s blessing, we would like to announce that Will Hunt (EVANESCENCE, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, SLAUGHTER) will be taking over drum duties for the upcoming Monsters On The Mountain in Pigeon Forge TN on October 15th. Will is excited to perform with KIX and we are lucky to have such a seasoned veteran able to step in last minute. For all other shows post Monsters On The Mountain, we would like to announce that our good friend John Allen (STONE HORSES, CHILD’S PLAY, SR-71) will be sitting in on drums until Jimmy is able to play again.

“Jimmy asks that the fans throw their full support behind our temporary drummers. He is fully dedicated to improving his health and he intends to be back on his throne in his rightful place as soon as physically possible.”

KIX was founded in 1977 and released its first, self-titled album on Atlantic Records nearly 40 years ago. Their breakthrough came with 1988’s “Blow My Fuse”, which sold nearly a million copies, thanks to “Don’t Close Your Eyes”. The band continued to ride the hard-rock wave until 1995, when KIX took a hiatus. Nearly 10 years later, KIX reunited and started touring regionally. A 2008 performance at the Rocklahoma festival led to more gigs and the release of a live DVD/CD called “Live In Baltimore” in 2012.

In 2014, KIX released its seventh full-length album, “Rock Your Face Off” (Loud & Proud Records), the band’s first studio effort since 1995’s “Show Business”.

KIX guitarist Ronnie Younkins is currently unable to tour with the band because he has been placed under house arrest after repeatedly getting in trouble with the police. He 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.

NEW YORK, NY (October 6, 2021) KIX drummer Jimmy “Chocolate” suffered a heart attack at his home on the evening of…

Posted by Kix Band on Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Check out some new/old goods from these local San Diego legends!
The post Discovering and Digging Through Run For Your Fucking Life’s Archives appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

In a new interview with Landry.Audio, Swedish multi-instrumentalist Peter Tägtgren addressed his decision to quit LINDEMANN, his collaborative project with vocalist Till Lindemann of German industrial metallers RAMMSTEIN. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “I can just tell you this: it was great when it was, and it wasn’t great when it wasn’t — put it that way.”

He continued: “[Till and I] had a dynamite chemistry. We just had to look at each other and then we started writing music. It was that easy. The easiest part was the studio work. We could have spit out hundreds of songs every year because we had so many ideas, and we really clicked.

“So, yeah, it’s sad,” Peter added. “We could have been one of the biggest bands in the world if we kept on going, I tell you that. It was insane.

“I was taking care of the music, and he was taking care of the image. And in between there, we helped each other, kind of.”

This past July, Peter told the “I Ask No One” video podcast that the final tour he played with LINDEMANN “was not really my cup of tea at all, to be honest. And that’s why we’re not playing anymore together. So [Till] can go on with his stuff; I go on with my stuff. To keep it very simple.”

Last November, Tägtgren and Lindemann confirmed that they were ending their collaboration on the LINDEMANN project.

LINDEMANN’s second album, “F & M”, was released in November 2019. The follow-up to 2015’s “Skills In Pills” was once again produced and mixed by Tägtgren.

“Skills In Pills” reached gold status in Germany and was entirely in English. On the second opus, Lindemann went back to singing exclusively in German.

LINDEMANN had received some criticism due to its use of pornography during its second album cycle, with the music video for “Platz Eins” described by one site as “full-on art porn — slick and stylish, weird and experimental, and definitely X-rated.”

LINDEMANN released a concert film, “Live In Moscow”, in May on Blu-ray. The set included professionally filmed video footage of LINDEMANN’s March 15, 2020 performance at Moscow, Russia’s VTB Arena.