Here’s a totally accurate chronology of my Lacuna Coil fandom: I heard a killer LC jam on the radio and was awed by singer Cristina Scabbia. Then I saw a band photo and got awestruck this time by Scabbia the woman. Then once fourth album Karmacode came out in 2007, my awe umbrella’ed out to include the songwriters of Lacuna Coil and, upon 2009’s Shallow Life, also their producer Don Gilmore.

But here’s where I’ll get all Oprah: Though a huge fan of Scabbia’s voice and a forged-by-nature respondent to her wealth of physical charms, I find the most awesome Scabbia is not the singer or the super-fox; she’s most awesome at being a bud, an honest dude, and a great chat. When we connected last week to talk about Dark Adrenaline, the once-delayed sixth Lacuna Coil album (out tomorrow), she effortlessly plowed through abstract questions and hasty analogies, and totally got the vibe of my persistent nagging about sales, producers, and artistic integrity. It was awesome!

Click to read more…

In case both my headline and the above video are somehow confusing to you: yes, during this past Saturday night’s stop on his current solo tour, Corey Taylor did indeed reveal that Slipknot will be touring the U.S. this summer, and he did say that “there will be another Slipknot album,” although “we’ve still got a couple of years before” said album gets made.

Click to read more…

Yeah, I don’t think this gonna come as a galloping shock to anyone, but in case there was ever any doubt, the above tweet from Slipknot’s Corey Taylor has ostensibly announced an upcoming Slipknot U.S. tour.

I think this was pretty much inevitable. Maybe the band’s future was legitimately in doubt immediately following the tragic passing of bassist Paul Gray, but as soon as they announced European gigs, it was only a matter of time until U.S. shows were announced. In fact, I’m going to continue to stand by my prediction that there WILL be another Slipknot album as well.

Look: I’m not even trying to say anything negative about Taylor or Slipknot. I’m a Slipknot fan, and I’ve never hid that fact. When they tour the U.S., I’ll be stoked to go see them — they put on a fun show. I’m just saying, this news is about as surprising as the fact that the sun came up this morning.

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

Slipknot performed as part of this past weekend’s Athens edition of the Sonisphere festival. It was their their first show since the untimely passing of Paul Gray last year, and, therefore, their first show with former guitarist/current bassist Donnie Steele. And I think a lot of people were wondering how they would handle the transition; obviously, the band needed to pay tribute to Gray, but how would Steele appear on-stage? Would he Gray’s costume, the way Tommy Thayer basically pretends to be Ace Frehley when he plays with Kiss, or otherwise be given his own mask, the way Vinnie Vincent was given his own character when he was in Kiss?

Well, the answer is, “Neither.” The ‘Knot opted instead to have Steele stand off-stage, while Gray’s empty outfit stood by the drumer riser, scarecrow-like, for the duration of the show. And that might seem like kind of an odd decision, but, really, there’s no good or “right” way to handle a situation like this; there was going to be a certain amount of tension in the air no matter what, y’know?

You can check out more footage from the show, and the band’s complete set list, at Metal Insider. Meanwhile, there’s still no official word on whether or not there’s gonna be another Slipknot album, but I would bet a lot of money in favor of it happening.

-AR

The Revolver Golden Gods Awards will air on VH1 later this month (or something… I know we got a press release but I was too lazy to read it), and it will be interesting to see that, because I was there, but I didn’t actually see very much of the show. I saw the schmuck from Asking Alexandria drop his mic two seconds into “Youth Gone Wild,” and I saw some of Avenged Sevenfold’s performances with Duff McKagan and Vinnie Paul, and I saw enough of Chris Jericho performing “For Whom the Bell Tolls” to consider throwing myself over the balcony and ending the awards in spectacular fashion (sometimes, sacrifices must be made for the greater good). But by and large I was too busy snorting coke in the bathroom with a girl who fucking swore to me that it wasn’t a herpes sore that lying bitch! to be bothered.

So one thing I had absolutely no idea even transpired was the below montage paying tribute to the five guys who died in the past year that are relevant to the readers of Revolver, which is to say, not Phil Vane or Frankie Sparcello.

But I shouldn’t be a jerk about it, it’s really a very touching video.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

Corey Taylor and Joey Jordison have basically been contradicting one another in the press for months, with Jordison telling anyone who will listen that Slipknot will live on without Paul Gray, and Taylor telling anyone who asks that he’s not so sure. Now Metal Insider tells us that, in a recent video interview (above), Jordison has gone so far as to say that not only will Slipknot continue with Gray, but if necessary, it will continue without Taylor, too:

“You know what?! That’s for him to answer. As far as I’m concerned, Slipknot’s my baby and I have a bunch of songs written. And I’m in rehearsal right now with all the guys and it’s completely on fire. Donnie [Steele, Gray's replacement]’s doing a great job. And as far as Slipknot’s concerned, it’ll always exist — with or without [Taylor]. So that’s it.”

Click to read more…

At long last, Slipknot have announced who will be taking the late Paul Gray’s spot as their new bass player… at least for the time being. And it’s someone hardcore Slipknot fans already know! Here’s the statement from the band’s official website:

For their upcoming shows in 2011, Slipknot has asked Donnie Steele to fill in for Paul Gray on bass. Donnie, as some may recall, was the original guitar player in Slipknot and had actually reconnected with Paul in recent years. Said the band on their decision, “Donnie was in the band at the very beginning, and rather than get an outsider, we thought it would be a fitting tribute to Paul to play with someone from within the family. Donnie was great friends with Paul and we can’t think of a better way to celebrate his memory than with someone who was there with us at the very beginning. The eight of us are looking forward to being onstage again and honoring Paul’s legacy with our families in Europe and Brazil this summer.”

So there ya have it. Whether or not Donnie ends up back in Slipknot on a full-time basis remains to be seen, but for now…

-AR

Thanks: Hetal Bhatt

So all this “We’re making a new album!”/”No we’re not!” back-and-forth between the members of Slipknot — specifically, drummer Joey Jordison (pro-new album) and vocalist Corey Taylor (anti-new album) — was already pretty baffling before the band started announcing tour dates for next summer, especially given that these announcements came roughly 24 hours after Taylor’s latest assertion that there’s no new ‘Knot on the horizon. ‘Cause if the band is booking gigs, then there MUST be at least SOME communication either between the band members or directly or at least via their handlers, which would suggest that someone could either tell Jordison to shut up, or tell Taylor to shut up, or tell them both to shut up.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Over the weekend, Taylor once again took to Twitter to try and clear things up for his fans, and, in doing so, once again only made things muddier:

Click to read more…

Slipknot is annoying as all fuck, and worse, the Iowan nonet makes me look like a shitty prognosticator. Or at least a victory-drunk prognosticator, ‘cuz after correctly predicting in 1999 that Slipknot’s debut would net Roadrunner a first platinum sales award, I then guessed that the band would bring extreme metal to mainstream media. Which hasn’t happened, unless you grant a technical allowance for a metal band whose intrusions into radio and TV are, by extreme standards, too pussy even for my little cousins. I blame Corey Taylor, who has vaulted sanity and perspective straight into Anselmoian delusion.

Click to read more…

So it was just yesterday that I was commenting on how Joey Jordison keeps going around saying there’s gonna be a new Slipknot album despite the death of Paul Gray, and how Corey Taylor keeps basically saying he’s not sure yet, and how maybe these two should call one another and, y’know, discuss it before making any more comments in public — especially now that  Jordison is promising that plans for a new Slipknot offering are “already in motion,” and that all the other members of the band are “really involved in the process.” In fact, I even predicted that Taylor would say the exact opposite very, very soon:

“That sounds pretty definitive, and saying that ‘everyone’s really involved’ in the creation of a new record more than implies that Taylor is now fully onboard. But I wouldn’t be at all shocked if next week Taylor says he knows nothing about continuing on with Slipknot. I hope that doesn’t happen, ’cause it blows to keep yo-yoing the fans’ excitement like this… I’m just saying that, as always, past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior.”

Well, hey, guess what? I must be psychic or something, ’cause mere hours after my post went up, Taylor tweeted the following messages:

Click to read more…

Back in July, our Number One Homie, Rob Pasbani, wrote a typically droll piece for Metal Injection. Entitled “Slipknot Vocalist Says It’s Too Early To Talk About Band’s Future; Drummer Talks About Band’s Future,” it pointed out that while ‘Knot vocalist Corey Taylor was running around saying he was unsure about the group’s future in the wake of bassist Paul Gray’s untimely passing, drummer Joey Jordison was running around assuring everyone that the band would live on.

And even though you would think that  in the intervening time, someone would notice the contradiction in statements and politely tell Taylor and Jordison to either a) figure out if the band is really going to continue or not so they don’t keep contradicting one another in public, or b) start telling everyone who asks about it “no comment” so that they don’t look foolish, this continued throughout August, when Jordison told a reporter that “There will be another Slipknot record, of course,”and into September, when Taylor told a different reporter, “I’m very conflicted about whether or not I want to do anything with Slipknot, because to me, Paul was such an integral part of the band… it just doesn’t make sense [to continue without him].”

Click to read more…

I’d wager that Joey Jordison and his Murderdolls will never, ever perform the above song live again.

From Slipknot’s official website:

Click to read more…

Buried in a press release about Whitfield Crane doing a guest gig/Dio/Peter Steele/Paul Gray multi-dead-musican tribute show with Costa Rica’s Sight of Emptiness* was this awesome news from Mr. Crane:

“It’s ON — UGLY KID JOE is back. We are talking about doing shows next year, in addition to studio time. I’m stoked.”

I don’t know what’s up with burying reunion news in press releases about other shit, but all I can say about this particular reconciliation is: YES!!! (Note: Apparently this news has been on the band’s MySpace page since May. I’d like to thank every one of you fuckers who e-mails me every day to tell me about your friend’s awful unsigned band, to tell us to post about something we’ve already posted about, or to express anger over my hatred towards Parkway Drive for not making any mention of this news. Sheesh.)

Click to read more…

The big question since Paul Gray died last month has been, “Will Slipknot go on without him?” On the one hand a member passing away is obviously a huge emotional trauma for a band to have to cope with, and Gray was, at least as I’ve always heard it, a key songwriter for the group; on the other hand, bands persevere in the face of tragedy all the time, and there’s already another potential bass player in the band (and I suspect they could make do without a second percussionist/third drummer/whatever) if they didn’t want to bring someone new into the fold.

But – no shocks here – Jim Root, guitarist and guy who gets to sleep with Cristina Scabbia, says the band hasn’t even discussed it yet. From an interview posted on the official Sonisphere site:

Click to read more…

I feel icky just writing about this.

When a young guy like Paul Gray passes away so suddenly, and he’s a rockstar, and he’s a rockstar who has been arrested for crashing his Porsche while in possession of needles, cocaine and weed, your mind, unfortunately, goes pretty much right to one place: “He overdosed.” And after Drowning Pool’s Dave Williams and Evile’s Mike Alexander both died young, and everyone said “overdose,” and then it turns out they didn’t overdose, well – you don’t wanna jump to any conclusions. You wanna wait for the doctors to do their thing and tell you why the guy passed away.

Which is all well and good. But now TMZ (there’s that icky feeling again) has obtained the 911 call an Urbandale hotel employee placed on Monday after finding Gray’s body, and the employee reports seeing a hypodermic needle and a bottle of pills in Gray’s room, and even speculates that Gray died from an OD.

Click to read more…

There are really two questions on the mind of every Slipknot fan right now: “How did Paul Gray die?” and “Will Slipknot go on without him?” And, unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that either question is getting answered just yet.

Slipknot, Gray’s widow, Brenna, and his brother, Tony, held a press conference yesterday, but the question of Slipknot’s future wasn’t addressed – which makes sense. These guys are clearly grieving, and to even think about whether or not to try and replace their friend is probably just too much right now. So the press conference basically amounted to Brenna, Tony, and various members of the band eulogizing Gray. It’s sad and it’s touching and there isn’t really much else to say about it.

Meanwhile, Metal Insider reports the immediate results of Gray’s autopsy were inconclusive – although there are no signs of foul play, and it could take four to six weeks for the toxicology reports to be delivered. Consequently, the cause of death is “still under investigation” by the Urbandale, IA police force.

-AR

Slipknot always take extended breaks in-between albums; that downtime is usually used for Corey Taylor to go do something with Stone Sour, Joey Jordison and Shawn “Clown” Crahan to go play with/produce whomever the hell they’re playing with/producing at the moment, and the rest of the band to pretty much fall off the face of the planet. Not to be rude or anything, I mean, maybe the other six dudes in the band all have very their own musical side-projects, but I’ve never heard about any of them, which isn’t a great sign.

But Slipknot percussionist Chris Fehn (a.k.a. “The one whose mask has a Pinocchio schnozz“) is getting in on the action now: Lambgoat reports that he is now the new bassist for Will Haven. So, hey, lookit that! He can do more than hit a garbage can with a baseball bat and jerk-off his nose. Killer.

Click to read more…

What the fucking fuck are these fucking Behind the Player DVDs? It seems like Blabbermouth posts a new story about them every hour on the hour. As far as I can tell, they’re just the same bullshit instructional videos that musicians have been releasing for years and that .001% of the population actually buys. Marketing-wise, I can’t tell if it’s a good idea or a terrible idea to launch the series by releasing new DVDs with Duff McKagan, Munky, Fieldy, John 5, Paul Gray, Blasko, Tommy Clufetos, Shannon Larkin, Mike Inez, Ringo Starr, Max Weinberg, The Captain and Tennille, Vanilla Ice, Tupac Shakur, Frankenstein’s Monster, Elliot Gould, Murderface, Bob Loblaw, Dick Cavett, Joey Fatone, and Rerun from Good Times all at once. But it’s happening.

In any case, we haven’t received a single press release about these DVDs here at the MetalSucks Mansion. So whomever is sending out said press releases obviously isn’t cool.

-AR

Let the haters hate: Slipknot are a good band, and, more than that, they’re a good band that has show substantial growth from album to album – and their most recent release, All Hope is Gone, is no exception. Sonically, the record is something of a codification of everything the band has ever done, which means the Stone Sourisms (clean vocals, reasonably radio-friendly alt-rock anthems, moody power ballads, etc.) of Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses are here once again. Whether or not that’s a good thing, ultimately, will depend solely on the tastes of the listener.

Click to read more…