MetalSucks

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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Rob “Blasko” Nicholson has quite the impressive metal resume. He’s played with Prong, Danzig and Rob Zombie, he’s played (and still plays) with Ozzy mothafuckin’ Osbourne, and he’s got his own roster of management clients. I first met Blasko at the CD release party for In This Moment in the Summer of 2008 (he was there because he manages ITM… I was there for the open bar), and despite the fact that MetalSucks had done nothing but trash the band in the weeks leading up to that album’s release, Blasko was super-cool, friendly, totally down to earth, and had nothing but praise for MetalSucks. That’s the kind of guy Blasko is… he gets it.

Blasko’s latest project is Heavy Metal Karaoke, a project with guitarist Tommy Victor (Prong, Danzig, Ministry) and drummer Tommy Clufetos (Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent) that gives the average fan a chance to go up on stage and sing metal classics with a real, live band. I caught up with Blasko just before the Thanksgiving holiday to ask him about Heavy Metal Karaoke, working with Rob Zombie and Ozzy, the Zakk Wylde / Gus G. situation (I couldn’t resist), Blasko’s work in management, and the state of the metal industry in general. Our chat, after the jump.

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So unless you spent your summer someplace where there’s no internet or any way to get metal news, you should be aware that Zakk Wylde a) has been replaced by Firewind’s Gus G. as Ozzy’s new guitarist and b) got the news when Ozzy did an interview announcing he was parting ways from his longtime axe-slinger, because apparently Ozzy and Sharon are too chickenshit to actually pick up the phone and make a difficult call. And so it would be completely within reason for Zakk to have nothing but terrible things to say about all parties involved – in fact, I kinda expected him to do just that. This is the man, after all, who threatened to kill Dave Grohl just for writing some riffs for Ozzy, and who basically attacked a journalist who repeated a rumor that Wylde’s pal Mike “Metal Mets” Piazza might be a homosexual.

But Wylde is actually taking the news really well, or, at least, he’s putting on a good face. From a recent interview with MusicRadar.com (via Blabbermouth):

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First, let’s just talk about how we arrived at this place we currently find ourselves:

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I wasn’t even gonna report on this because, at this point, it’s barely news – I mean, we’ve known for awhile now that Gus G. from Firewind is Ozzy’s new guitarist. But so many of you e-mailed us this morning that I guess I have to write about this.

Randall Amps has jumped the gun somewhat by announcing that, yes, Gus G. is Ozzy’s new guitar player, and, yes, he will make his debut with Ozzy tomorrow at Blizzcon. Here are some random, uncollected thoughts:

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It’s 4 pm, and right about now we’re either interviewing someone or other or watching Job for a Cowboy. Either way, I hope we’re having a fun time.

Here’s what happened in MetalSucks Land this week:

• We’re streaming Iron Age’s The Sleeping Eye in its entirety!
• Current Coheed & Cambria/former Dillinger Escape Plan drummer Chris Pennie discussed metal with us.
• Daath’s Eyal Levi is home for tour and very busy blogging for us.
• Our girl Grim Kim visited Birmingham, England, the birthplace of metal.
• We checked out the latest releases from Assjack and Dysrhythmia.
• It looks Ozzy has hired Firewind’s Gus G. to replace Zakk Wylde. And that got us thinking about the legacies of former Ozzy axe slingers Jake E. Lee and Joe Holmes.

Have a good weekend, everybody. I know I will.

-AR

Several of you justifiably called out Axl yesterday for dissing Jake E. Lee in his post about Ozzy’s probable new guitar player, Firewind’s Gus G. Lee could definitely shred, and although his  contribution to the Ozzy legacy ultimately doesn’t stack up against Rhoads or Wylde, he did write the killer riff for “Bark at the Moon” which is actually one of my favorite Ozzy riffs ever.

So whilst making sure I had my historical facts straight here, I managed to turn up this nugget from the Wikipedia page for Badlands, the band Jake E. Lee formed after being fired by Ozzy:

After touring with Ozzy Osbourne in support of the Ultimate Sin album, Lee was fired in a telegram from Sharon Osborne while working on one of his muscle cars back in Los Angeles. Lee was completely caught off guard at the time of his firing and was under the impression he had a solid working gig with the Osborne camp.

Heyo! Sound familiar? Maybe Sharon will officially lay the gauntlet down on Wylde via Twitter. That’d be classy.

Here are Badlands performing “Highwire” live. Lee shreds. And that’s Ray Gillen on the mic, who’d just been let go from Black Sabbath upon forming Badlands with Lee.

-VN

Here’s something else Zakk Wylde can hear about for the first time over the internet.

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