I am a massive David Cross fan, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard his story about the time he was in a celebrity poker tournament with Creed vocalist/wife beater Scott Stapp. I really don’t wanna give it away, because the less you know going into it, the funnier it is… so just listen. The entire clip is about five and a half minutes long, and every second is delicious.

Bonus: Cross also takes shots at Evanescence and P.O.D.

-AR

Thanks to The Binary Code‘s Jesse Zuretti for sending this to us!

Van Halen, featuring the young squire Van Halen (left); Mark Tremonti (inset)

The reason that Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti is the world’s luckiest guy is not cuz he gets to party with amazing singer Scott Stapp 24/7. Nay, Tremonti is Lord Luckynuts cuz he’s buds with Wolfgang Van Halen, who is the bassist of Van Halen. Which somehow means that Eddie Van Halen, also of Van Halen, trusts Tremonti enough to allow him a live preview of new Van Halen jamz.

Tremonti described Thursday his visit to 5150 (via Van Halen News Desk):

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Reader John Schwarz alerted us to the existence of the Epicenter Festival, and if you told me that the show’s bookers designed it specifically to make sure that no one from MetalSucks attended, well, I’d believe it. Look at this shitfest:

There are a handful of insanely popular, maddeningly terrible modern rock acts not on the bill — Nickelback, Korn, Linkin Park, Godsmack, Creed, and Hinder all come to mind — which is too bad, because if they were playing this fest, we’d be like one major earthquake away from being done with some of the worst bands in the history of sound. The only good news about this thing’s existence is that it has made me aware of several awful bands I didn’t previously know, so that now if anyone is ever like “Hey, wanna check out Skillet?”, I can respond, “Couldn’t you just hammer a rusty nail into my penis instead?”

-AR

From Classic Rock:

“Metallica still have the biggest selling album of the Soundscan era in America.

“Since 1991, when the Soundscan system was introduced to provide more accurate information on record sales, The Black Album has sold 15,620,000 copies.”

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So Alter Bridge have debuted their new video, “Isolation” (above), over at Noisecreep , and, put simply, it makes no fucking sense. The band apparently made the conscious decision not to turn “the video for ‘Isolation’ into a narrative matching the album’s theme,” and instead decided to produce what guitarist/war criminal Mark Tremonti calls “a tribute to the fans.” That’s really just rockstar-speak for “a clichéd life-on-the-road video,” which is fine, whatever. It seems like every arena rock band makes one of those sooner or later, so I guess it was just AB’s turn.

But I looked up the lyrics to the song because taking a track called “Isolation” and re-fashioning it as “a tribute to the fans” struck me being kinda funny. And, sure enough, the words to this particular song are so incredibly ill-suited for this purpose that we can only assume that no one involved in the making of this video thought that those very same fans would ever pay attention to those words. And that just makes the whole thing even funnier, because it means that Alter Bridge have paid tribute to their fans by assuming that their fans are all idiots.

In case you’re curious, here’s a sampling of those lyrics:

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So, I’m giving you guys an open invite to my place in Quincy, MA for tonight’s matchup between the Pats and the Jets. We’re playing cards, probably the re-release of NBA Jams, getting some Lynwood’s pizza, and enjoying ourselves. Don’t worry about finding my place; if I seepeople roaming my street with wings and team jerseys, then I’ll assume it’s because of this post and invite them on up.

Steelers-Ravens battled it out for first this week. More important than seeing who was going to be king of the AFC North was to see who was a better shower product. The Ravens’ Ray Lewis and his Old Spice body wash in one corner and the Steelers’ Troy Palmolive… Paramore… Pinkerton… whatever his name is, representing Head and Shoulders in the other. Polamalu takes this one just as he took the game. His late-in-the-game sack caused QB Joe Flacco to fumble, which, in turn, led to the game-winning touchdown. No worries though, Baltimore – you may have lost, but you did break Big Ben’s nose and nearly killed TE Heath Miller. Not too shabby.

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At least, it was my last time. I feel like I shaved years off my life drinking that crud. Yucky!

Here’s what else we did this week:

• The Human Abstract’s A.J. Minette kicked off his new MetalSucks column, Periphery’s Misha Mansoor checked in from The Legacy Tour, and The Red Chord’s Greg Weeks thinks that Scott Stapp will sore.
• We spoke to R. Loren of Sailors with Wax Wings and White Moth fame.
• We checked out the latest offerings from Deathspell Omega and Nekorgoblikon.
• Speaking of The Legacy Tour: if you’ve ever wanted to see what the blood in Revocation front man Dave Davidson’s head looks like, well, here’s your chance!
• We did our annual bitchfest about the Grammy noms.
• We got lost in a Map of Metal.
• We speculated about which label will land Between the Buried and Me.
• We were envious of the music criticism skills of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Jeff Tuttle.
• System of a Down are getting back together! Just don’t call it a reunion.
• We spent way too much time talking about Slipknot.

The third night of Heavy Metal Hanukkah is coming a little after 5 pm. Have a good weekend, folks.

-AR

I love T-giving!!! Tons of food, great family discourse fueled by alcohol, and classic throwback jersey football! With the Surgeon General promoting a vegetarian diet for the nation, I enjoyed as much ham and turkey as I could before Tofurkey becomes a national pastime.

Fights! Besides the scuffles between the Pats and Lions, this week saw a rare beast in the NFL known as a bench clearer. During the Tennessee-Houston game, Texans’ receiver Andre Johnson and Titans’ cornerback Cortland Finnegan decided to exchange pleasantries in the fourth quarter. The Texans were on their way to their first shut out in six years, which led to some heated exchanges on the line culminating in a helmet tossing punch fest. The two were ejected, and we’ll see how much money the fisticuffs will cost them.

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There’s nothing I love more than the cock-smashing brutality of a good death metal song, but variety is the spice of life. Sometimes you are not looking for slamming pitt riffment, you just want to get in your Ford F-150, roll down the windows, and blast some tunes that you can sing along to on the way to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch UFC with your bros — you just want some HARD ROCK! I’m not talking about the bluesy “dad’s barbecue soundtrack” of Aerosmith, Deep Purple, or Blue Cheer, but the kind of stuff you’d hear playing on the battered boombox towards the back of a basement print shop, coming from the radio of the truck that delivers some gravel for your new driveway, or pumping in the background of a National Guard recruitment ad.

Snobs turn up their collective nose at this highly-maligned genre, but it’s their loss. In my opinion, these bands have some of the best songwriting you’ll find, and the shows are always a blast. Sure, most of the fans are ignorant white trash, but they come to party and I can’t hate on that. The truth is that radio-friendly hard rock is ‘effing sweet,’ and I can’t get enough of it. In this post, I will share some of my favorite songs of the last decade or so– please post yours in the comments!

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Hey, remember a couple of weeks ago when Schmucky Erna from Godsuck called Scott Stapp from Suck* a “faggot,” and then called a guy who likes Stapp’s band a “faggot?” Well, he’s apologized. Sort of. But not really.

Here’s the first part of the apology:

“I would like to send my sincerest apologies to the members of Creed, Scott Stapp and any of our fans that I may have offended for an insulting and disrespectful comment I had made towards Scott Stapp and Creed at a show Godsmack recently played in Connecticut at Mohegan Sun. I have no excuses whatsoever.”

Okay, that’s not the best apology ever, but at least it’s on-topic. Maybe add a comment about you realize now that only children use slurs against homosexuals as an insult, and we can put all this nonsense behind us, right?

Except that’s not what Erna does in the next part of his apology. Instead, he shifts the blame back to Scott Stapp:

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Seriously, if you haven’t read Vince’s epic story about how MetalSucks Maniac “whiskey” won last week’s last week’s photo caption contest, you need to go read it now. It’s pretty amazing. Whiskey’s mom even left a comment! We like to think of MetalSucks as something the whole fucking family can enjoy together, so that warmed the cockles of our collective heart.

Here’s some other fun stuff that happened this week:

• We debuted a performance clip from the new Shadows Fall live DVD, the new Intronaut album, and a new Madball song. PHEW!
• We spoke to Jeremy Creamer from Daath, Johnny Plague from Winds of Plague, Adam Warren from Oceano, and Ashmedi from Melechesh. Oh, and Anso unveiled part one of his massive two-part interview with Atheist’s Kelly Shaefer.
• We checked out new releases by Salome, Madball, Woe, and Arson Anthem and Ender. And a DWARR reissue!
• Greg Weeks from The Red Chord said good-bye to Randy Moss and hello to men wearing pink tights, Sacha Dunable from Intronaut contemplated the legalization of recreational marijuana use in California, and Eyal Levi from Daath discovered DestinAsian.
• Sergeant D. celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Pantera’s Cowboys from Hell. Wait, what?
• We couldn’t figure out why everyone was so surprised that ICP are evangelical Christians.
• We found out the hard way that Attack Attack!’s music could be even worse than it already is.
• We took a slow ride on Metallica’s Lightning.
• We laughed at one shit stain calling another shit stain “a shit stain.”
• And, oh yeah! Gary Suarez took over the site for a day.

Next week is CMJ here in New York! If you’re in the area and looking for some awesome metal, check out our handy guide to all the festivities — including not one but TWO showcases sponsored by MetalSucks. We’re not gonna lie — we are going to be very hungover and tired next week. But that just means we’ll be crankier than usual. We’ll still be here with lots of debuts, interviews, and other assorted nonsense. Bring your mom! It’ll be fun.

-AR

It feels wrong to root for someone at the Special Olympics; I mean, all the kids are trying so hard, so no matter who the victor is, everybody wins, y’know? And that kind of how I feel about Sully Erna going out of his way to insult Scott Stapp, and people who like Creed. I appreciate the effort, but I can’t take a side.

So. Blabbermouth, correctly assessing the intelligence and vocabulary skills of your average Godsmack and/or Creed fan, explains that Erna “used a derogatory term for a homosexual male to describe Creed singer Scott Stapp” during a concert at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut this past weekend. (Actually, “faggot” might be that rare multi-syllabic word that Godsmack and Creed fans all know, but I appreciate Blabbermouth’s efforts to keep the playing field even.) Apparently, Erna wanted all the fans to mosh during the band’s final song, and I guess for some reason he decided referencing Creed was the best way to motivate the crowd, telling them that if they didn’t make a big enough ruckus, he would tell subsequent audiences who came to the tour “that Mohegan Sun had a bunch of fucking dead-ass pussies on the fucking floor and maybe you should be going to see a Creed show or some shit like that.” Then, spotting a fan who I guess likes Godsmack AND Creed (holy shit am I glad I’m not friends what that guy), Erna taunted him, “You’re flipping me off? What, you like Creed? You like Scott Stapp? He’s a faggot. Faggot.”

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When it comes to music (and other things really), I tend to play devil’s advocate. If everyone is shitting on a certain band, for some reason, I become more attracted to that band and seek them out. I don’t know what it is about my personality, but I think it stems from the same perspective that inspired me to write the antagonistic blog about rethrash. It may be a character flaw, but I’m sure it has something to do with a need to be an individual. From what I gather, this website is inhabited mainly by “true” metal heads. What I define as “true” are people whom are purists in the realm of metal and usually scoff at any band or trend that reeks of premeditated commercialism or an overt play for popularity, and who usually demand a certain level of musicianship and underground credibility. These fans usually hate every Metallica record after …And Justice For All, and for that matter always prefer any particular band’s older releases, which usually have a more raw and unrefined recording quality, as well as more abstract, less traditional song writing. For example, they will prefer Carcass’s Necrotiscim to Heartwork, or Morbid Angel’s Blessed Are The Sick to Domination. Oh yeah, and these guys gave up on In Flames and Soilwork years ago.

I have a good deal of that purism in my bones, but it always seemed short sighted and close minded. You have no idea how many arguments the Adler brothers from Lamb of God and I have gotten into over the merits of a particluar Metallica or Megadeth record. If you even bring up Disturbed or Limp Bizkit on MetalSucks, it is mocked and disregarded 100% of the time. I think metal heads often have a sheep mentality because of the fear of being viewed by their peers as less credible for liking bands that aren’t considered “true” or “real” enough. We all have guilty pleasures, but the real question is “Why should we feel guilty about something we enjoy?”

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So apparently Ozzfest is coming back this summer, and is coming back as a traveling tour again (as opposed to the one-off fest it was in 2008). And that’s all well and good, only… who’s gonna be on the bill?

Mayhem, which is basically Ozzfest 2.0, has already scooped up a lot of big-name bands for the summer, including many who have played multiple past Ozzfests – namely Korn, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Atreyu, Shadows Fall and Hatebreed, the latter of whom I think have been on something like 90% of all Ozzfests ever.

Add to that other Ozzfest alum like Chimaira, In This Moment and Norma Jean, and some bands the kids today all seem to like, such as Winds of Plague and They Who Shall Not Be Named, and, well, that’s a whole bunch of potential mainstage and second stage draws right there.

Then there’s the mini-fests like Summer Slaughter. I can’t tell you which bands we already know are booked for some of these tours without betraying a lot of people’s confidence, but I can tell you that some great bands are now no longer available for Ozzfest.

And, oh yeah, Megadeth, Slayer, and Testament are now doing their American Carnage tour in the summer, so they’re out.

So who’s left? After the jump, I’m going to play my favorite game: it’s called “over-think about something incredibly unimportant.”

Before we proceed, it’s worth noting that I’m going to try and be semi-realistic when moving forward with some barely-educated guesses about who’ll be playing Ozzfest. If a band already has summer tour dates booked, I’m going to assume they’re not avail, although I acknowledge that they could cancel those dates in favor of playing for a bigger crowd. And I’m not even going to bother with bands like Pig Destroyer, Sigh, and Salome – bands that will play Ozzfest right around the time Joey Belladonna’s solo band plays four sold-out headlining shows at Giants Stadium. Also, obviously not all of these bands are gonna end up on the bill – these are just bands I think could end up there.

And so, without further bullshit…

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A reader known only as “Jonas” sent us the below video of 55 Escape, a Norwegian band whose biggest influences seem to be Korn and Linkin Park, not Enslaved and Immortal.

Here’s why I find this band kind of interesting. (And moving forward, please be aware that “interesting” and “good” are not the same word.) When you think about it for a second, nu-metal seems to be a predominantly American phenomenon. Off the top of my head, I’m having a hard time even naming a nu-metal band from any part of Europe, never mind Norway. Jeff Killed John were British, but they didn’t get famous ’til they swapped the nu for core and rechristened themselves Bullet for My Valentine. Am I forgetting a really, really obvious band? Korn, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Disturbed, Godsmack, Evanescence, Staind, Static-X, Creed, Hed P.E., Snot, P.O.D., Puddle of Mudd, Drowning Pool, Saliva, Coal Chamber, Methods of Mayhem, 40 Below Summer, Sevendust, Ill Nino, Dope, Papa Roach, Soil, The Union Undergound… ALL AMERICAN. What the hell? No wonder the terrorists hate us.

Anyway, thanks to these sperm clots for doing their part in making America look good. Hoo-rah.

-AR

Seriously. Because every time Vince or I make a snarky comment about the band or vocalist Myles Kennedy, one of you gets your panties in a twist. And while one of you gets your panties in a twist pretty much no matter what anyone at MetalSucks says about any given band, for some reason the outcry of support for Alter Bridge particularly irks me.

Yes, this band is better than Creed, but so is shingles. And Kennedy is a better singer than Wife Beater McGee, so but so was the dude singing on the subway this morning. Neither of these assertions negates the fact that Alter Bridge is boring, paint-by-numbers corporate rock. I just cannot take this shit seriously.

So if one of you Alter Bridge apologists has a legitimately good argument as to why I’m not giving this band a fair a shake, I’d love to hear it. Is there something really sophisticated about the music that I’m just not hearing? Are Kennedy’s lyrics, like, overwhelmingly moving or something? The whole thing is just way over my head, I guess.

I solicited suggestions for good Alter Bridge songs over Twitter, and longtime reader Richaod recommended this track “Blackbird.” I admit that it’s far better than I was expecting, but I also wanna be upfront: there is nothing about this song that makes me think I will ever feel any desire to listen to it again.

-AR

Every now and then, something happens to make me feel like there really is some justice in the world.

So while it looks Limp Bizkit are going right back to being the mega-stars they never deserved to be in the first place, at least Creed – possibly one of the most worthless musical acts, like, ever – aren’t doing so hot.

From a recent news report on the band’s recent concert in Birmingham, Alabama:

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Fresh off the heels of the announcement that Creed will be reuniting this Summer (sigh…), Myles Kennedy — aka the actually-quite-talented singer 3/4ths of Creed hired to replace Scott Stapp in their new band Alter Bridge — issued a press release clarifying the future of that band. Thankfully MetalSucks is here to cut through the bullshit and give you the real skinny; we sent the offending press release over to the gifted MS Mansion Monkeys to parse, and the following is what we got back (our snarky commentary in bold:

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Now I have no choice but to kill Scott Stapp’s grandma.

-AR

… would sound better than Scott Stapp singing.

-VN

[Thanks: Geoff H.]