MetalSucks

With Velvet Revolver on what is starting to look like a permanent hiatus, Slash has been off recording a Santana-style all-star solo album with lots and lots of famous collaborators. It’s actually kind of a brilliant idea, and you wonder why he didn’t do that instead of Slash’s Snakepit Mach 2, a fun band that was really never gonna pay off for him.

Now Slash has announced his first solo offering: a two-track Japanese (and thus “internet,” whether Saul Hudson likes it or not) single called Sahara, which will offer both that song, with some Japanese dude I’ve never heard of on vocals, and… a re-recording of “Paradise City” with vocals by Cypress Hill and Fergie.

Fergie.

Click to read more…

Last night a reader known simply as “Tim” e-mailed us to say that Glenn Danzig played drums on Hollywood Undead’s Swan Songs.

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted. Was this true? How come no one had said anything ’til now? So I investigated…

Click to read more…

Tonight, Gavin Rossdale will be playing New York’s Gramercy Theatre as part of a May/June U.S. tour supporting his 2008 solo effort Wanderlust. Those of you familiar with this record or its corresponding singles know that the former Bush frontman has departed significantly from the raucous yet melodic post-grunge of his old band, opting for a softer, essentially adult contemporary sound not entirely dissimilar to Chris Cornell’s post-Audioslave offering Carry On. While this description likely wont appeal to you metal maniacs (I sure as hell didn’t buy it), here are a few reasons why you should load up on alcohol and catch one of the upcoming dates.
Click to read more…

To quickly recap: back in February we heard about this insane offer Josh Freese was making with regards to his new solo album, Since 1972. Basically, for twenty grand you could hang out with Josh, Maynard James Keenan and Mark Mothersbaugh, plus have Josh write some songs about you with you singing/playing back-up, plus you got like a foot massage and to choose some clothes from Josh’s closet or some shit. It was an insane offer, and one that I assumed no one would ever actually take him up on.

But someone did take Josh up on that offer.

And that someone is nineteen fucking years old.

Click to read more…

Josh Freese e-mailed music biz guru Bob Lefsetz to give a somewhat more in-depth explanation of the awesome, hilarious package deals he’s offering for his new solo album, Since 1972. Once again, I’m just gonna go ahead and print this in its entirety, since Josh does just fine without me adding my two cents…

Click to read more…

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:

Click to read more…

So remember last month when Axl posted a rant about Trent Reznor’s selection of Lostprophets’ drummer Ilan Rubin to fill the drummer’s throne left vacant by the recently-departed Josh Freese? Axl was understandably miffed that a member of the sucktastic Lostprophets would be replacing a legendary member of NIN, but it turns out (as many of you posted) that the kid is actually a phenomenal player.

Not only can the kid beat the shit out of the drums, but he’s got a solo project — dubbed The New Regime — in which he plays every instrument and sings. That’s fucking impressive. What’s more, it’s actually good, and can be summed up in one word thusly: Muse. And I mean that in the best way possible, because Muse is one non-metal band that all metalheads should learn to love.

-VN

[The New Regime on MySpace]

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

Click to read more…

Trent Reznor talks almost as much shit about other musicians as Kerry King does, but it’s usually excusable as a) he’s hilarious, b) he’s right and c) he’s so much cooler than most rock stars that even if he’s wrong, it’s still not very bothersome. For example, I once read an interview where Reznor said he remembers exactly where he was the first time he heard Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know,” and that remembering where you were when you first heard that terrible song was his generation’s equivalent of remembering exactly where you were when you found out JFK had been killed. Now, that’s obviously melodramatic (and ironic, considering that Reznor’s one-time collaborator Dave Navarro played guitars on that song), but it’s also totally hilarious.

So. Drummer extraordinaire is leaving Nine Inch Nails, and Reznor has hired twenty year old (!!!) Lostprophets drummer Ilan Rubin* (pictured above) to take Freese’s place.

Click to read more…

Crustcake has posted this hilarious new clip for the just-released NIN surprise single, “Discipline.” We’re assuming that the video is fan-made, although an awful lot of love went into it in a pretty short span of time – I mean, that’s about as good a cheap crappy animated Josh Freese as you’re gonna get. Given Trent Reznor’s enthusiasm for memorable music videos and viral marketing, could this be the real deal?

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/I1ZMKfFHU3U" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-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.

Click to read more…