In a new interview with BBC Radio 6 Music, SMASHING PUMPKINS frontman Billy Corgan was asked if he ever got a chance to meet Eddie Van Halen and whether the legendary VAN HALEN axeman was an influence on his guitar playing. Billy responded (hear audio below): “Oh my God! For American guitar players, he was the supreme thing. He’s the one who pushed us to be better than we probably would have been.

“I was lucky because, around 1997 [or] ’98, there was a guitar magazine in America, and I went to them, and I said, ‘I’d really like to interview Eddie Van Halen,'” he continued. “And they said, ‘Why do you wanna interview Eddie Van Halen?’ I said, ‘Because I’d really like to introduce him to a generation of alternative guitar players.’ To me, he really is an alternative guitar player; I know he gets kind of lumped in the other way. And so they allowed me to basically have a four-hour interview with Eddie at his studio. I got to sit two feet away from Eddie and watch him play, and I’m telling you, it was like a religious experience. I mean, the man was so gifted, so kind.”

Corgan added: “I’ll tell you a quick story. Towards the end of the interview, I said to him, ‘There’s all those stories about the amp you used on ‘Van Halen I’ and tada tada da. I said, ‘Do you still have the amp?’ He goes, ‘Oh, yeah.’ He takes me around the corner, kind of near the dustbin, and he’s, like, ‘There it is.’ I go, ‘What about all the stories that you did all this special modification?’ He goes, ‘Oh, it’s not true at all.'”

Eddie died on October 6 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California at the age of 65. His wife, Janie, was by his side, along with his son, Wolfgang, and Alex, Eddie’s brother and VAN HALEN drummer.

The iconic VAN HALEN axeman died from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.

VAN HALEN was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.

Rolling Stone magazine ranked Eddie Van Halen No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.

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Ted Poley has a secret. It’s a whopper but it probably isn’t what you think.

Best known as the lead singer for the rock band DANGER DANGER (voted one of VH1’s all-time “hair metal” bands), Ted is a highly skilled, original and creative jewelry designer.

Ted has teamed with Novell and Continental Jewelry to commemorate this difficult, but what is sure to be resilient period of world history.

At this time of social distancing, when we are masking facial expressions so we can protect each other, we are speaking much more through our eyes. The one common feeling most shared is that we miss the physical human touch of others.

Ted took that emotion and turned it into a heartfelt collection of jewelry ideas.

Miss Your Touch is the easiest way of reminding someone how you would hold them close if you could. The design and that emotion are fertile ground for boundless ideas of expression.

“I created the Miss Your Touch concept so that during this time people can still express their closeness to their loved ones,” comments Ted. “This is a way to stay connected a tangible way to let the people you care about know that you are still close — despite the current distancing situation.”

Ted has sold millions of albums worldwide while touring non-stop for over 30 years. He is also known for singing lead vocals on and writing the lyrics for “Escape From The City” — featured prominently in SEGA’s popular Sonic The Hedgehog game series.

A portion of the designer’s proceeds will benefit local no-kill animal shelters. Proceeds from Novell and Continental Jewelry’s profits will benefit COVID-19 First Responders Relief Funds.

For more information, visit www.missyourtouchjewelry.com.

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A one-minute snippet of “Demon Fire”, a brand new song from AC/DC, is available below. The track is taken from the legendary rockers’ long-awaited comeback album, “Power Up”, which is due on November 13. The follow-up to 2014’s “Rock Or Bust” features AC/DC’s 2020 lineup of Brian Johnson (vocals), Phil Rudd (drums), Cliff Williams (bass), Angus Young (guitar) and Stevie Young (guitar).

“Power Up” was recorded over a six-week period in August and September 2018 at Warehouse Studios in Vancouver with producer Brendan O’Brien, who also worked 2008’s “Black Ice” and 2014’s “Rock Or Bust”.

“What I like about Brendan is that he keeps you working when you’re doing a project with him,” Angus told Rolling Stone. “He’s talented himself. He knows his bass and his guitar and a bit of drums. And piano. He covers the spectrum for what we can do musically. It’s very good because you’re working with a musician, since he can apply that musical knowledge.”

Although AC/DC originally planned on releasing “Power Up” earlier this year, the pandemic forced the band to reconsider.

“We were hoping to get the album out before all this happened,” Angus said. “They were getting ideas together for packaging and video promo things. And then that virus thing came along. It kind of put everyone on hold.”

“Power Up” will be available in multiple configurations that will excite collectors and die-hard fans alike, including digital, CD, and deluxe versions. The limited edition, one-of-a-kind deluxe “Power Up” box is the ultimate fan package. Hit the button on the side of the box and watch the flashing neon AC/DC logo light up while the opening bars of “Shot In The Dark” blast out of the built-in speaker. Inside the box is the full CD package in a soft-pack with a 20-page booklet that features exclusive photos and USB charging cable allowing the box to remain powered up and on display. The vinyl LP will be pressed on 180-gram vinyl and housed in a gatefold jacket. Limited-edition variants of the LP will be available at select retailers nationwide, as well as the band’s online store. The album will be available on all digital platforms.

“Power Up” track listing:

01. Realize
02. Rejection
03. Shot In The Dark
04. Through The Mists Of Time
05. Kick You When You’re Down
06. Witch’s Spell
07. Demon Fire
08. Wild Reputation
09. No Man’s Land
10. Systems Down
11. Money Shot
12. Code Red

Ever since AC/DC completed the tour cycle for its 2014 album “Rock Or Bust” four years ago — a turbulent trek that weathered the forced retirement and eventual death of co-founder Malcolm Young, plus the departures of Johnson, Rudd and Williams — fans have wondered whether sole remaining founding member Angus Young would keep the band going or decide it was time for AC/DC to pack it in.

The legendary hard rockers postponed the last ten dates of their North American tour in 2016 after doctors told Johnson he faced a total loss of hearing if he did not stop touring immediately. He was eventually replaced on the road by GUNS N’ ROSES vocalist Axl Rose.

Rudd was ousted from AC/DC when he was sentenced to eight months of home detention by a New Zealand court in 2015 after pleading guilty to charges of threatening to kill and drug possession.

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METALLICA’s “Live & Acoustic From HQ: Helping Hands Concert & Auction” will be streamed live from the band’s headquarters in San Rafael, California on Saturday, November 14.

A preview clip, featuring METALLICA’s performance of the song “All Within My Hands”, is available below.

Says METALLICA: “This special acoustic show marks our second concert benefitting All Within My Hands and will include an auction with some awesome items! The best part? 100% of money raised from this event will go directly to help someone in need.

“The show kicks off at 2 p.m. Pacific Time, but don’t worry if you can’t catch it live. There are four ticket options available and each one allows you to watch the show as many times as you like within a 48-hour period once you start the stream.”

VIP Virtual Fan Ticket Bundle – $95 per ticket + shipping

Includes presence on Virtual Fan Wall for one song during the performance, one event t-shirt by fan favorite artist WolfSkullJack, the audio digital download of the show (MP3), and the ability to watch live as well as during an on-demand window following the event.

Audio & T-Shirt Ticket Bundle – $55 per ticket + shipping

Includes one event t-shirt by fan favorite artist WolfSkullJack, the audio digital download of the show (MP3), and the ability to watch live as well as during an on-demand window following the event.

Audio Ticket Bundle – $25 per ticket

Includes the audio digital download of the show (MP3), and the ability to watch live as well as during an on-demand window following the event.

Standard Ticket – $15 per ticket

Includes the ability to watch live as well as during an on-demand window following the event.

All Within My Hands is a 501(c)3 non-profit foundation established in 2017 as a way for the METALLICA family to give back to communities that have supported the band. Just this year, AWMH has donated $645,000 to COVID-19-related relief funds including Feeding America, Direct Relief, as well as to charities assisting those in the entertainment and hospitality industries suddenly without work. More recently the foundation donated $350,000 to aid those affected by the West Coast wildfires. Finally, the foundation’s Metallica Scholars Initiative is now in its second year, supported by a $1.5 million grant benefiting 15 community colleges across the country.

METALLICA and All Within My Hands are committed to running an organization of the highest integrity where expenses are kept to a minimum and are paid for entirely by the band, the board, and friends who have worked with the band over many years and are excited to help in this mission. As always, 100% of proceeds from this year’s “Helping Hands” event — tickets, fees and auction items — will go directly to help those in need, with METALLICA and the foundation covering all production costs and expenses.

In early May, the four members of METALLICA overcame social distancing to record a new version of their song “Blackened”, with each member separated in his own home. The split-screen video was posted to the band’s social media channels. That same month, Ulrich told Swedish talk show host Fredrik Skavlan that he and his bandmates were “sending ideas to each other via e-mail and via Zoom and [trying to] make music in these unusual situations.”

In August, METALLICA broadcast a show to hundreds of drive-in and outdoor theaters across the U.S. and Canada, as part of the “Encore Drive-In Nights” series. The concert was filmed nearly three weeks earlier, on August 10, at the Gundlach Bundschu winery, about a 30-minute car ride from the band’s headquarters in San Rafael, California, and was subsequently edited and mixed by the band’s award-winning production team to the highest standards possible.

We’re getting closer to the Helping Hands Concert & Auction! The show streams worldwide on Saturday, Nov 14 and all proceeds from ticket sales benefit @AWMHFoundation! #HelpingHands2020
Get Your Ticket ➡️ https://t.co/2go2Bcb5O9
Helping Hands FAQ ➡️ https://t.co/EXVwec8Ft5 pic.twitter.com/qB7DyH1hbG

— Metallica (@Metallica) October 30, 2020

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SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor has launched a charity campaign today via Propeller to benefit the Sweet Relief COVID-19 Fund. Fans can enter today for a chance to win tickets to a private, socially distanced, secret performance from Taylor in Los Angeles on November 5 by donating $5.00 to the fund at this location. Proceeds raised from the ticket lottery will be donated to Sweet Relief’s COVID-19 Fund aimed at supporting musicians and music industry workers affected by the coronavirus. Five winners will be selected on November 4, each of which will be able to attend the intimate performance with a guest, while one additional winner will also receive an Epiphone Les Paul Special VE, Vintage Edition Electric Guitar signed by Taylor.

To enter for a chance to win, fans can go to this location.

Corey’s debut solo album, “CMFT”, was released on October 2 via Roadrunner Records. Taylor recorded the effort with his band consisting of Jason Christopher on bass, Dustin Schoenhofer on drums, and Zach Throne and Christian Martucci (STONE SOUR) on guitar. The LP was completed at Kevin Churko’s The Hideout Recording Studio in Las Vegas with producer Jay Ruston, who has previously worked with ANTHRAX, STEEL PANTHER and STONE SOUR, among others.

“I love what I’ve done in the past, I love the projects that I’ve been attached to, but this, honestly, was probably the most enjoyable album that I’ve done since the first SLIPKNOT album,” Corey told Kerrang! magazine. “There was such a sense of, ‘We’re doing it together.’ I hadn’t felt anything like that for a really long time, man. People grow apart, relationships become fractious… people stop liking each other sometimes, in certain bands, you know? But with this, it was totally different, because we were all friends before that. We just happened to all play together, and then we formed a band around that friendship, and it all really galvanized it.”

On “CMFT”, Taylor touches on lifelong influences ranging from hard rock to classic rock, punk rock to hip-hop.

“I was talking to my wife about this the other day — I was, like, ‘Fuck! There’s nobody for me to hide behind!'” Corey told Kerrang! “It’s easy to take risks when you have the benefit of a well-established name — and by that, I mean the bands that I’ve been in for 20 years. But I also feel like I’ve earned the right to put something out there and throw people for a loop — not only with the things that I’ve done with both bands, but the guest spots that I’ve done with several bands: everybody from TONIGHT ALIVE to Zakk Wylde to Tech N9ne. I mean, I’ve really spread out, in a cool way. I’ve never sequestered myself to one corner of the genre; I’ve never allowed myself to be painted into a corner. And I think because of that, people’s minds are a lot more open when they hear that I’m putting something out. They’re gonna come into it with this mindset of, ‘Okay, I don’t know what the fuck I’m about to hear. This should be interesting. I think by doing that, that really sets the tone for your career.”

Earlier in the year, SLIPKNOT canceled all of its previously announced summer 2020 tour dates, including the “Knotfest Roadshow”, Knotfest UK and Knotfest At Sea, due to the coronavirus pandemic which is sweeping the globe.

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This week’s new release highlights include new music from Carcass, Kyrios and Draconian.
The post Five For Friday: October 30, 2020 appeared first on Decibel Magazine.

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GONE IS GONE, the project featuring MASTODON’s Troy Sanders, AT THE DRIVE-IN’s Tony Hajjar, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE’s Troy Van Leeuwen and guitarist-keyboardist Mike Zarin, will release its new album, “If Everything Happens For A Reason…Then Nothing Really Matters At All”, on December 4 via Clouds Hill. The LP was produced by Hajjar and Van Leeuwen and is the culmination of ideas and seeds of songs that the band has been working on over the last three years. Lockdown has allowed the band to hone in on these cinematic, dark but also uplifting songs and led to them releasing a number of singles throughout 2020, ahead of this release.

Hajjar says: “I definitely had some strong ideas coming into this record. My idea was to make a record that could be played by all of us in a certain fashion or even just one of us with some electronics. I really wanted the record to live in many forms. We feel that we accomplished that… It is a record that pushed us creatively. We expressed ourselves fully without any barriers or fear of what people would think.”

Sanders adds: “I feel it is our most solid and interesting release to date. As musicians, we always seek to explore new sounds and push ourselves to create unique moods and atmospheres. In our eyes and ears, we have achieved this.”

“If Everything Happens For A Reason…Then Nothing Really Matters At All” track listing:

01. Resfeber
02. Say Nothing
03. Everything Is Wonderfall
04. Wings Of Hope
05. Sometimes I Feel
06. No One Ever Walked On Water
07. Death Of A Dream
08. Crimson, Chaos and You
09. Breaks
10. Payoff
11. Force Of A Feather
12. Dirge For Delusions

The official music video for “Breaks” can be seen below.

GONE IS GONE’s debut album, “Echolocation”, entered Billboard’s Heatseekers Chart at No. 3 back in January 2017.

Hailed by Clash as “a crisp, compact document, one laced with energy and sweeping songwriting,” “Echolocation” was produced by the band and mixed by Ken Andrews (BECK, A PERFECT CIRCLE).

GONE IS GONE was formed by multi-instrumentalist Zarin and Hajjar, who previously collaborated on various film trailer projects for Sencit, Zarin’s music production, licensing and supervision company. Together they’ve put together a wildly diverse sound production resume that includes trailers for the Internet-breaking television series “Stranger Things”, Christopher Nolan’s 2010 sci-fi thriller “Inception”, multi-Emmy-winning television series “Game Of Thrones” and the Marvel Comics blockbuster film “X-Men Apocalypse”, to name but a few. They brought in Troy Van Leeuwen, known for his work with QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, FAILURE, A PERFECT CIRCLE, EAGLES OF DEATH METAL and SWEETHEAD, who, in turn, brought in Troy Sanders from multi-Grammy nominees MASTODON.

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Atlanta progressive metallers MASTODON are preparing to enter the studio to begin recording their next album. The follow-up to 2017’s “Emperor Of Sand” will mark MASTODON’s first collection of new material since the death of longtime manager Nick John and the passing of tour manager Bob Dallas.

In a new interview with the 93X radio station, MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor said (see video below): “We’re drilling the new material to record mid-November. We’re going for realsies mid-November, so we are just drilling it.

“For me, I have to play each song, like, a thousand times — or at least I want to,” he explained. “I want to feel like I exhausted every fill possibility, every rhythmic possibility — leave no stone unturned, as far as the percussive aspects of the music. And there’s also discovery, guitar-wise, ‘That’s not really working. We have to do this.’ Before we get in there with any kind of producer, we want to have pored over it tirelessly. And then when we go to really record it, that’ll be like the easy part, ’cause we’re so prepared. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re just going through that stuff at the moment.”

MASTODON’s new rarities collection titled “Medium Rarities”, was released in September. The compilation includes a new song called “Fallen Torches” as well as a bevy of classic covers, soundtrack contributions, instrumentals, B-sides, and live recordings on one complete package for the very first time.

“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.”

Earlier in the year, MASTODON wrote and recorded a new song called “Rufus Lives” for inclusion in the latest “Bill & Ted Face The Music” movie.

“Bill & Ted Face The Music”, which reunites Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves in the title roles for the first time since 1991’s “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey”, was released in August.

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EVANESCENCE’s Amy Lee has criticized President Donald Trump for continuing to downplay the severity of the coronavirus, saying that we need a leader “who accepts that it is real and it is killing people.”

Earlier today, Lee took to her Instagram to share the following message: “For anybody out there who hasn’t voted yet, for anybody who isn’t motivated enough or feels like one voice doesn’t matter: we need you. We need to heal. We cannot defeat this virus without a leader who accepts that it is real and it is killing people. Nearly 1/4 million of us have died and it’s not going away by ignoring it. We are better than this. It’s time to move forward together in reality. In truth. We desperately need change. Every voice counts. Use yours!”

Trump has repeatedly downplayed the severity of the coronavirus pandemic and often contradicted public health experts and members of his own administration about the dangers of the virus.

Thousands of Trump supporters regularly attend his campaign rallies around the country, many of them held in defiance of crowd restrictions designed to stop the virus from spreading.

Some states have fined venues that host Trump rallies for violating caps on crowd size.

On Thursday, Trump one again downplayed the virus at a rally in Florida, telling people that if they got infected with the virus they would “get better,” just as he did. He also said he would not shut down the country again.

“We’re never going to lock down again…. We’re open for business,” Trump said.

Trump’s Democratic rival Joe Biden criticized the president and vowed to bring responsible leadership to the U.S. after months of the White House downplaying the virus’s danger.

“I’m not going to shut down the economy, I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m going to shut down the virus,” Biden said at his “drive-in” rally in Florida on Thursday.

Last May, Lee said that she was ” angry, horrified” and “ashamed” over the murder of George Floyd in police custody as well as President Donald Trump’s response to the subsequent protests and riots.

Just three months earlier, Lee opened up about her political views for the first time, explaining that she couldn’t “stand by” and keep her mouth shut while her “country’s freedom is taken away.” He decision to speak out was apparently prompted by the GOP-controlled Senate’s vote to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment without calling witnesses.

She wrote at the time: “I do not accept lying, cheating or bullying from my government… Accepting this abuse says it’s okay for our leaders to lie to us, cheat on us, make decisions without our input, and silence us when we try to speak up. This isn’t about your policies or beliefs, it’s about our freedom.”

Lee added: “I will never bow down to a dictator.”

In August, EVANESCENCE released a new single, “Use My Voice”, which was written to celebrate the power of speaking out in order to promote more justice in the world. The track, featuring contributions from THE PRETTY RECKLESS’s Taylor Momsen and HALESTORM’s Lzzy Hale, was chosen by HeadCount in the USA to encourage voters to register, check their registration, or find out about their remote voting options amid the COVID-19 pandemic at UseMyVoice.org.

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❤️✌️ #vote #voteforchange
A post shared by Amy (@amylee) on Oct 30, 2020 at 7:28am PDT

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