Before reading any further, please note well: the following is a rumor only, and MetalSucks has not been able to substantiate it.

A site called MetalTalk.net is saying that they “have just been informed by a reliable source that Sharon Osbourne has fired Bill Ward.” They’re also claiming that this same source informs them that Tommy Clufetos from Ozzy’s solo band will be Ward’s replacement on Black Sabbath’s forthcoming summer shows.

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The Mikael Åkerfeldt + Steven Wilson collabo project dubbed Storm Corrosion has been fueling Internet boners for months (years?) already. Two of prog metal’s great writers together in one band! Blackwater Park Part II! Imagine all the possibilities!

But Wilson dropped a bomb sure to deflate many a stiffy in a recent interview with StarsDie.com [via Metal Injection], in which he revealed that the first Storm Corrosion record — gasp! — will not be very heavy at all:

It’s very hard to describe this music as it is so different from most things around right now (at least as far as I know). I said it was the ‘opposite of metal’ because I think a lot of people might have assumed from the two people involved that this would be some kind of progressive/metal thing, but in fact it’s quite a minimal album with a lot of space and beauty, orchestral and organic, hardly any drums and no distorted guitars — ‘twisted beautiful’ is the best way I can describe it.

Oh no!!! No distorted guitars!! No growled vocals!! NOT EVEN ANY DRUMS!!!!! NOT METAL. Herpaderpa derp derp. I can just feel the IMN nerd rage percolating behind your keyboards from here. Spill it all in our comments section as per usual.

-VN

All signs pointed towards a new Probot record this year, whatwith recent news of Dave Grohl collaborating with such metal luminaries as Ratt’s Stephen Pearcy and Warren DeMartini and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor, but now it appears that’s not the case.

Taylor recently gave an interview to Artisan News Service at Zakk Wylde’s Celebrity Roast [above, via Metal Injection] in which he revealed that Grohl is working on a documentary about Sound City Studios — the legendary California studios where Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Slipknot and many others recorded groundbreaking albums — and he’s recording some kind of companion project on the original Sound City mixing console (now housed elsewhere) to go along with it.

It’s not quite a new Probot record but it still sounds pretty cool, yeah? The Grohl + Ratt combo in particular turns me on.

-VN

I admit I don’t really know much about Jenna Haze — I’ve watched my fair share of pr0n but usually go for the more amateur stuff, ya know? — but there’s no doubt about it, she’s a fine lookin’ chica! And the guy who now gets to bang her not just once on camera for all to see but every night in the privacy of his own home is one Greg Puciato, Shroomy McShroomerson himself, of The Dillinger Escape Plan. The story was first picked up by Metal Injection from a link on Jenna’s Instagram page.

Check out that pic above; what a fine looking couple! Despite Greg’s supremely sculpted physique that’s pretty hard not to notice if you’ve ever seen the DEP live, I never really thought about him this way because, ya know, metal dudes are metal dudes, but Greg is quite the hunky, slick looking gentleman! All jokes aside, it can’t be easy to have your relationship in the public sphere so we wish Greg the best in his newfound tabloid lifestyle.

-VN

When ex-Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy announced an unlikely collaboration with John Sykes (above left, the guy who wrote Whitesnake’s huge album), it was easy to be of two minds: On the one hand, Portnoy had reactivated the long-dormant Sykes, which is awesome; but, jeez, the Portnoy-Sykes affair also set a roadblock before any potential reunion of Blue Murder, Sykes’ awesomely awesome supergroup with drummer Carmine Appice and farty Tony Franklin. That’s a bummer.

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UPDATE, 4:29 p.m.: MSN/Terrorizer/Decibel scribe Adrien Begrand tells us via Twitter, “I can confirm the Meshuggah tour, I talked to Tomas [Haake, Meshuggah drummer] last night. It’s happening in May.” HOLY SHIT! Major props to Adrien for the info. Follow him on Twitter to thank him, okay?

UPDATE #2, 5:10 p.m.: The PRP now tells us that you can watch the video in which the tour is discussed online right here. The part of the video with the relevant info comes at roughly the 31:40 mark.

Meshuggah just completed a live Q&A video session, and according to reader Dan Wolfson, the band did, indeed, say there was going to do a U.S. tour with Decapitated and Baroness.

We don’t have confirmation of this yet, but if it’s true… holy shit, what an amazing line-up that would be. Unusual, sure — Baroness seem way outta place there, no? — but awesome.

More details as we get ‘em. In the meantime, fingers crossed…

-AR

Uh… whoops.

The full line-up for this year’s Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival isn’t scheduled to be unveiled until tomorrow — but a rep for Ibanez has now confirmed that the rumor that Slipknot will be one of the headliners on the this year’s installment of the tour. I don’t know if it was an accident and the guy didn’t realize he wasn’t supposed to say anything, or if he’s a marketing genius and he realized that letting the cat out of the bag early would get thousands of metal fans across the web to watch a video about the product he’s selling, but whatever I guess.

You can check out in the video below; the confirmation of Slipknot’s participating in the fest comes at about the ten second mark.

A source close to the festival told us over the weekend that several of the other rumored acts, including Slayer and Anthrax, will, indeed, also be on the this year’s bill. I guess we’ll find out for sure when the roster is officially announced tomorrow.

-AR

[via The PRP]

Another day, and another prog metal news break picked up by Heavy Blog‘s finely tuned ear to the social network ground: TesseracT bassist Amos Williams has posted bass tabs for the track “April” on his Facebook page. That news in and of itself isn’t especially noteworthy since “April” appeared on 2011′s One, but the tabs are labeled “Perspective EP,” fueling speculation that TesseracT are preparing an acoustic release.

But speculate no more: the band’s label just issued an update in which the acoustic EP was confirmed, citing the acoustic session TesseracT filmed with Metal Injection last year as inspiration to release re-worked, unplugged versions of old songs (plus a new cover). Here’s that Metal Injection Unplugged session:

Worth noting: the new EP will be the band’s first recording with new vocalist Elliot Coleman. Rumors abound that TesseracT are working on a proper new record for release in 2012 as well, so get excitebike, ’cause s’gonna be a big year for the Tess!

-VN

Last week, rumors started swirling that there was gonna be a North American tour with Mastodon, Opeth, and Ghost, and, oh hey, wouldn’t cha know it, on Thursday, Mastodon’s Troy “Everyone in This Band’s Name Starts with the Letter ‘B’ Except for Me” Sanders confirmed it during an interview with a Belgian radio station, telling them –

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Well, here’s some exciting news.

When we last heard from King Diamond more than a year ago, he had just undergone triple bypass open heart surgery, and therefore understandably had to take “a break from music and the music business altogether until further notice.”

Well, presumably he’s doing much better now and is getting ready to make his big comeback, because according to a posting on His Majesty’s official website earlier this week, The King has just hired ICM’s Nick Storch to book North and South American tours for him, and Paul Ryan at The Agency Group to book his tours in the rest of the world. Which would certainly imply that he’s getting ready to hit the road again — I mean, why hire those dudes, let alone release a statement announcing their hiring, if he wasn’t gearing up for touring?

And the statement gets even teasier as it goes on: “There’ll be a lot more great news coming the next couple of weeks,” His Highness himself says. “It’s been difficult keeping everything under wraps, but soon it will all be out in the open.”

So, yeah. Nothing official, but that sounds like a tour tease if ever there was one.

Hopefully we’ll know more very, very soon. ‘Cause a King Diamond tour would be ssssswwwwweeeeetttt.

-AR

Earlier this week, rumors began to circulate about the line-up for the 2012 edition of Summer Slaughter, and if they’re even kinda-sorta true, the package tour may have put together its best bill ever. Now, The PRP is reporting unconfirmed rumors about the line-up for the 2012 edition of Mayhem Fest, and it sounds like the organizers of that tour ain’t slouching, either: Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, The Devil Wears Prada, As I Lay Dying and Whitechapel are all said to be possibilites for this year’s installment of the festival.

Like I said, these are currently unconfirmed rumors, and even The PRP says that “a grain (or more) of salt should be taken” with ‘em. But can you imagine if that line-up is real? I actually think the bill has been on the weaker side for Mayhem for the past couple of years, but even with The Devil Wears Prada (who are horrendous) and Whitechapel (who aren’t horrendous but just really are not my thing) on the tour, having Slipknot, Slayer, Motorhead, Anthrax, and As I Lay Dying all on one show would make it unmissable. And I have to imagine that those would all be mainstage acts, which means there would still be X number of potentially awesome slots available on the secondary stages.

The actual, official line-up will be announced on January 25, so this time next week, we’ll know whether or not these rumors were not really rumors at all. Fingers crossed…

-AR

Out of all of the big summer package tours, Summer Slaughter has easily become our favorite; it’s so much fun every year that we’re even willing to forgive the to-be-expected presence of some bands we can’t stand (e.g., Oceano, As Blood Runs Black, etc.), because the rest of the line-up built around them is usually so fantastic that having a few built-in beer breaks isn’t the worst thing in the world (as opposed to some of SS’s competitors, where the beer-break-to-cool-band ratio makes the whole endeavor just not worth it). So, yeah, we’re on the edge of our seats to see who makes it onto the bill this year.

To that end, prog metal social network czar Alkahest of Heavy Blog has done it once again, today with some pretty juicy rumors about the lineup for Summer Slaughter 2012.

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Last week Vince posted the above totally epic picture of Trivium playing foosball against Ghost, and while we all had a good chuckle at the time, what we didn’t realize was that the stakes of the game were actually incredibly high. See, the winners got to go open for Mastodon and Opeth, while the losers had to open for.. Asking Alexandria. Brutal, right?

A source tells us that Trivium were incredibly confident in their foosball skills, but, alas, it may have been hubris: they lost, and do, indeed, now need to go be on a tour where they are not only going to be playing support for Asking Alexandria, but will find Dir En Grey, I See Stars, The Amity Afflication, and “Shitstain on the Ass of the Universe” alums Motionless in White as their tourmates. You know things are bad when the band you’re most stoked to be on tour with are Dir En Grey, for the simple reason that at least they don’t speak English, and will therefore most likely not bother you.

I’m not going to post dates for this wretched hellspawn of a trek, but you can get ‘em here if you really need to. Meanwhile, that awesome sounding Mastodon/Opeth/Ghost tour is still technically just a rumor, but we’ll post more details as we get ‘em.

-AR

The musician John O’Brien, who passed away in August, was best friends with Dave “Slash Couldn’t Even Spell My Damn Name Correctly in his Autobiography” Kushner. And so the guitarist — unsurprisingly, the only member of Velvet Revolver to drop off the face of the planet when the band went on hiatus four years ago — organized a reunion of his most famous project for a memorial concert in O’Brien’s honor, which will take place on January 12 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles.

Yes, that means that Scott Weiland is going to be performing with Velvet Revolver again.

And while the gig is currently scheduled to be a one-off affair, now Kushner tells Rolling Stone that Weiland could ultimately end up coming back to the fold for good:

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UPDATE, 1:22 PM: Now the band has confirmed that they are, indeed, breaking-up. Thanks to The PRP for catching the story. Original post follows…

I don’t know how we missed this, but shortly before MetalSucks went on hiatus last month, Lambgoat reported a rumor that Oceano were breaking up — which is great news if, say, you’re a petty little fuck like me, who wishes ill will on people whose greatest crime is making music that you don’t personally enjoy. And then yesterday those rumors picked up some steam when Oceano vocalist Adam Warren — who has apparently parted ways with his deathcore cohorts — made the following statement, which a) strongly implies that Ocean are indeed calling it quits, and b) makes reference to Howard Jones’ just-announced split with Killswitch Engage:

“I’m shocked, but well… If Killswitch can go on after 9 years and 3 albums without Mr. Jones on vox…. Why couldn’t a certain band with out me? (2 albums and a mere 3 years) Just sayin.”

So that sounds promising, right?

Alas, it ain’t so.

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Italy-based label Frontiers Records released two of 2011′s awesomest glam metal records, Sebastian Bach’s surprising Kicking And Screaming and Forevermore by Whitesnake, one of this year’s very very awesomest (read here). So Frontiers was already hot when two Tuesdays ago Beggars & Thieves’ new record We Are The Brokenhearted came out. The jam I heard was sweet and holy fucking shit that’s Jake E. Lee doing the solo and and AND appearing in the funny “Right Now”-style video (above at 2:17, with cameos from members of Slaughter, King Kobra, Kiss, Keel, plus a lady with huge jammerz and Kevin Churko).

Lee’s appearance in the video falls in line with recent rumors of an imminent-ish return from near-invisibility with a new project, which is an exciting prospect turned mega-exciting by his great performance on this B&T song and his seeming good health. I’m always begging anybody who has ever been in Lee’s proximity for contact info and it looks like the B&T team is next on my list. Which is a relief in a way cuz I was contemplating asking Paul Gilbert to introduce me to his Racer X bandmate and onetime Badlands drummer Jeff Martin in hope that he has Lee’s number. That sounds like a longshot but it’s not even close to my most desperate gambit so far for an interview with the dude. Jake CALL ME.

-ADF

Get Beggars & Thieves’ new album We Are The Brokenhearted here.

Well, I guess technically we don’t know that for 100%. But the fest’s organizers have just released “a TEASER from a mystery headliner,” and if that’s not Howard Jones’ voice, than my name is Phil Labonte.

Listen to the teaser here and decide for yourself.

But let’s be real, it’s Killswitch Engage.

-AR

Who is Tool’s webmaster? The guy’s been writing for the band’s official site with verbose, oddball rants for years, part Tool updates and part literary masterpieces designed to send us Toolheads down a million rabbit holes simultaneously. If I ever meet the guy I’m gonna give him a big hug for doing such great work, then I’ll slap him in the balls for being such a conniving jerk!

Speaking of which: some sites reported yesterday that Tool are working on their new record with 10,000 Days engineer/mixer Joe Barresi, citing a post on Tool’s website that referenced using a Studer A827 “Gold Edition” analog tape recorder (pictured above). Here’s the thing: I’m pretty sure said webmaster is actually talking about the Volto! recording sessions. That’s Danny Carey’s side project. D’oh!

Actual Tool information that can be gleaned from said webmaster’s cryptic ramblings: 1) writing sessions are progressing nicely and a new music video for one of the new tunes is already in the works. 2) a tour this winter/spring is a possibility, with Texas (SXSW?), Los Angeles and Australia being name-checked specifically.

So, yeah… that happened.

-VN

The ink is barely dry on Van Halen’s new record deal with Interscope. So, of course, it’s time to start speculating about the actual contents of the band’s new record, which will be their first with David Lee Roth in almost three decades, and their first with Fatty Ding Dongs Van Halen ever. And who better to speculate than Sammy Hagar, a dude who hasn’t been in the band in six years and hasn’t recorded with them in sixteen?

Hagar has never been shy about discussing his old band (although, in his defense, it’s obviously difficult to be a former member of one the biggest acts in rock history and not get asked about that group on a regular basis), and in a new interview with  Rolling Stone, the current Chickenfoot singer reveals that while the new Van Halen album will contain material none of us have heard before, that doesn’t mean it’s actually new:

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Robin Leach — yes, that Robin Leach — reports in the Las Vegas Sun that Mötley Crüe “will play a nearly monthlong series of three- and four-night concerts a week” at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas… I’m assuming at The Joint, that hotel and casino’s own 4,000-person-capacity venue. The news has yet to be confirmed by any representatives from the Hard Rock or The Crüe, but it seems plausible.

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