MetalSucks

Uberdrummer Josh Freese is getting ready to release a new solo album, Since 1972 (Freese’s YOB, natch), and is apparently determined to one-up his former boss Trent Reznor for the “Rockstar Adapting to a Changing Market in the Coolest Fucking Way Imaginable” award. Now, it’s entirely possible that Freese is just joshin’ around (sorry, couldn’t resist) – but even if he is, he’s funny as fuck. Here are the various price levels for purchasing Since 1972, and what Freese is (allegedly) offering for said price levels… I don’t even have to make any jokes here because Freese has done all the work for me:

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At least according to this, erm, “press conference” video for the set of recently announced Puscifer shows in Las Vegas.

The best thing about this video is the personification of the d-bag, frat boy Tool fan at 2:45. Nailed it, right down to the long-sleeve-under-a-short-sleeve T. You all know we love Tool ’round the MS Mansion, but that set of d-bag fans needs to go.

-VN

There’s a rumor going around that Billy Howerdel’s Ashes Divide have broken up. To which I say: HUH?

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With Ashes Divide, essentially a one-man solo project in band form, former A Perfect Circle collaborator Billy Howerdel has stepped out on his own. While Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright lacks the dynamic and immediacy that Tool’s Maynard James Keenan brought to the band, the album is certainly strong enough to prove Howerdel’s mettle as an able songwriter. Still, something about the ambitious artistry Howerdel seems to be getting at falls short, leaving Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright a bit on the short end of the straw and ultimately a tad disappointing.

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After three Perfect Circle records with Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, Billy Howerdel is set to embark on his own journey with the brand new outfit Ashes Divide, essentially a solo project assembled around himself NIN-style. A few weeks back MetalSucks was fortunate enough to be able to speak with Billy, who was one of the more articulate and intelligent interview subjects we’ve spoken with to date. Billy told us about the long writing and recording process for the new record Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright (April 8th, Island/DefJam), the personal battles contained therein, working with a slew of guest musicians, and stepping out on his own from underneath Maynard’s shadow. The full interview transcript, after the jump. Click to read more…

It hasn’t even been two full years yet since Tool released their most recent album 10,000 Days, so we can expect to wait at least another 2 years before we get the next record, right? Well, maybe not. Apparently Maynard told MTV.com that the band is about to enter the rehearsal studio to begin writing for a new album.

For a band who usually takes 4-5 years between albums this comes as a shock. For a fan who’s used to waiting 4-5 years between albums this comes as a welcome surprise — or does it? Maybe part of what makes Tool’s mystique so awesome is the fact that we always have to wait… so… long… for new Tool music. But really, we can hardly complain. Without a A Perfect Circle holding things up (Billy Howerdel will release a new record under the name Ashes Divide in April without Maynard) there’s no reason they shouldn’t begin making a new album. And news that the band will soon begin writing doesn’t mean much; first they have to start writing, then they have to write, then they have to record, then mix, then master, then… you get the point. It’ll be at least another year before we get new Tool music.

But still; get excited! New TOOL! After all, they are the best band currently walking the planet Earth.

-VN

While Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan has been busy dicking around with V is for Vagina (haha, get it?), the real brains behind A Perfect Circle has been busy on a new project, Ashes Divide. Billy Howerdel, always the mastermind behind A Perfect Circle in that Reznor/NIN kind of way, will be releasing the Ashes Divide debut Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright this Spring. Unsurprisingly the music we’ve heard from the band’s MySpace page sounds a whole lot like APC — and this is great news if you ask us. Supposedly their first single “The Stone” is burning up the radio charts, and it’s a damn good track, but who needs radio when we’ve got the Internet?

Matt Pinfield recently sat down with Howerdel in the most Zen of settings for an interview about Ashes Divide. The following clip and more can be viewed at the Ashes Divide YouTube channel.

-VN

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Dude, remember Matt Pinfield? The last time I saw him was at least four ago, when he was hitting on my friend after her band Morningwood played a showcase. I kind of thought he’d retired or died or something.

But not so! He’s alive and just did an interview with Billy Howerdel about his new project, Ashes Divide (As much as I like Howerdel, I refuse to do the lowercase “a” and “d” thing. Sorry, Billy.). It’s a good interview, but I’m kinda peeved that Pinfield never appears on camera with Howerdel, since it denies us the sight gag of a Pinfield looking like Howerdel if Howerdel, y’know, ate the other members of A Perfect Circle.

VIDEO REMOVED DUE TO TECHNICAL ISSUES – ED. 

Ashes Divide’s debut album, Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright, comes out March 18 on Island Records. The band’s first single, “The Stone,” is out now and can be heard by clicking here.

-AR

I’ve made it clear before that I’m excited about Ashes Divide, the new Maynard-free project from A Perfect Circle mastermind Billy Howerdel; now that I’ve heard “The Stone,” the first single from their forthcoming debut Keep Telling Myself It’s All Right, my curiosity has peaked.

The song basically sounds like APC with Howerdel on vocals – which isn’t that much of a surprise, given that Howerdel wrote and recorded most of APC’s music, and that APC skinsman Josh Freese is handling drum duties (Maynard’s eleven year old offspring, Devo – I imagine he’s named after one of the approximately 2,436,758 bands with which Freese has played in the past – will play cello on the album).  And that’s just fine with me, ’cause, well, I really liked APC.

Keep will come out in March; in the meantime, if you’ve yet to hear “The Stone,” check it out on Ashes Divide’s MySpace page.

-AR

I don’t know what the consensus is on A Perfect Circle these days, now that they’ve been gone a few years; personally, I loved them (okay, maybe not eMotion, but definitely their first two albums). Were they as good as Tool? Of course not (who is, really?). But they were fuckin’ great, and the two times I got to catch them live, they killed.

So I’m glad to hear that APC mastermind Billy Howerdel has a new solo project, Ashes Divide, and that they’ve signed to Island Records, who will release their debut album sometime in March. Howerdel, you may recall, was once a guitar tech to the stars (he’d done work for Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, of course, and was working on GN’R’s Chinese Democracy right before APC took off) who practically won the lottery when Maynard James Keenan heard some of his demos and decided to front his band.

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So there’s this thing on MySpace interview show now called Artist on Artist. If you can’t figure out what it is – well, get to a doctor, because you can probably be declared a legal ree-ree and get a handicapped sticker for your car or something.

ANYWAY, we’ve gotten press releases about these interviews in the past, and usually we don’t really find them worthwhile – personally, I couldn’t think of any possible celebrity combination more full of shit than Michael Moore and Tom Morello… until they got Chester Bennington to interview Nikki Sixx. Yeah, I’m sure those two had lots of interesting, totally non-self-involved things to say.

But now they’ve got an interivew with Maynard and Patton Oswalt, and that gets me pretty excited. Oswalt is, for better or worse, probably best known as the rat in that last Pixar flick – but he’s really a truly brilliant stand-up, who has a great routine about how “If you listened to metal in the 80’s, then you’re gay.” Which is probably true.

But I digress. Here’s Oswalt’s interview with Maynard… enjoy!

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-AR

The Pulse of Radio reports [via Blabbermouth]: Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan says that he recently worked on a new song with drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford of Audioslave and Rage Against the Machine. Although Wilk and Commerford were rumored to have played on Keenan’s upcoming Puscifer album, the singer told The Pulse of Radio that the collaboration took a somewhat different shape. “They found themselves not working with (singer Chris) Cornell after the last Audioslave record and they wanted to know if I was interested in starting a band. And I said ‘No, I’ve got this other thing going on and two other bands to boot.’ But what I suggested to them was that they should start their own band and have me sing a song, and have some other singers sing a song. I think on some level they agreed, and so that’s what we kind of did. I went in and we wrote a song together and right now they’re currently trying to record that song, and I’ll go sing on it.”

Audioslave was enough. And now this? Do we really need another bad supergroup collaboration? Do we really need ANOTHER project that will delay the making of more Tool music??

-VN

You guys are all taking Maynard’s side project Puscifer WAY too seriously. Guys: it’s a side project. Side projects are meant to be outlets for the band members’ other musical desires, so they can get their willies out through their side projects and not have these other influences muck up their main band. It’s shit like this that just proves how creative and diverse Maynard is. What’s more, Tool is STILL TOURING after a year and a half on this record, multiple times around the world. So will you people shut the fuck up already? Thank you. Somewhere Maynard is laughing at all of you because his humor has sailed WAY over your heads, you stupid fucks. You’re the same people who tell Axl and me when we hand out MetalSucks stickers at shows, “But dude, I love metal!”

ANYWAY… Here’s the video for Puscifer’s “Queen B,” which further proves that the whole project is at least partially tongue in cheek.

-VN

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