Holy crap, dude. Did you hear about this awesome new tour? It’s gonna be rad, dude. It’s Desaster with Throwdown, Airbourne, and Trivium are the headliners. It’s called the “Close Your Eyes” tour, ’cause if you close your eyes, you’ll think you’re at some awesome show with Venom, Pantera, AC/DC and Metallica. For reals, dude!

What’s that, dude? Oh, you don’t know Desaster? Yeah, they’re these totally smart black metal dudes. Like, while those chumps in Sigh were off recording a tribute to Venom, this band just made an album that sounds exactly like Venom – and they don’t have to pay any of the royalties! I know, dude, it’s totally sick, isn’t? Totes sicko.

Cool, dude. So I’ll see you at the show. And, hey, did I mention the best part? Each ticket comes with a free blindfold! WICKED!

(one and a half out of five horns)

-AR

Walking the fine line between hardcore and metal, Throwdown have always been one of those bands that have divided listeners; there are those who think they’re too metal, those who think they’re too hardcore, and, with the release of last year’s endlessly listenable Venom & Tears, those that think they sound too much like Pantera.

The band doesn’t seem to care very much about the complaints of sixteen year old Blabberbrats, though, and judging by the reaction of the crowd durning their recent headlining stint here in NYC as part of their Scum of the Earth (with Soilwork and War of Ages), their fan base doesn’t particularly care, either. Soft spoken, easy going, and bearing something of a passing resemblance to the actor Jason Mewes with his long blond hair hanging out from beneath a black knit skull cap, guitarist Mark Choiniere was cool enough to sit down with me just hours before hitting the stage to talk about touring, fan reaction to the band’s musical shifts, line-up changes, playing guitar solos for the first time, and lots more. Read the full transcript after the jump.

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Often when a band loses some of its core members for replacements the remaining outfit is a lumbering, bland replication of itself. Not so for Sweden’s Soilwork, whom, despite losing both key guitarists within the span of the past year and a half who wrote and played on the bulk of their recorded output, are still the well-oiled killing machine they’ve always been in the live setting. Last Tuesday’s show (March 18) with Throwdown and War of Ages at the Gramercy Theater in New York City proved that even without some of their key members Soilwork are still relevant and still great, the reigning Kings (well… Princes, maybe) of Swedish metal.

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Axl and I will be at tonight’s Soilwork / Throwdown show (aka Scum of the Earth tour) at New York’s Gramercy Theater. We’re a bit bummed Through the Eyes of the Dead dropped off the tour, but what can you do? I’m always excited to see Soilwork (though personally I believe they should be the headliners), and as for Throwdown, Revolver editor Brandon Geist summed it up succinctly on the Revolver Blog: “… of all the gazillions of bands that have tried to ape Pantera over the years, only Throwdown, on that record [Venom & Tears], have done it right.”

If you’re at the show, come say hi. I have a big beard and Axl wears glasses. We look Jewish. We may also be hanging out with these assclowns.

-VN

All That Remains will tour next year with Chimaira (pictured above left in winter coats). That’s a pretty good bill – I’d say you should never, ever, under any circumstances miss a chance to see Chimaira live, and I’m told that All That Remains are good live, too, except that I’ve seen them twice and they haven’t been that great either time. But I guess I’d give them a third chance.

Alas, Five Finger Death Suck will be the openers. I guess we can at least be grateful that since they’re going on first, it will be easy to miss them.

Meanwhile, Throwdown (pictured above right, also in winter coats – be proud of me for choosing a theme and sticking with it) are doing a tour with Soilwork and Through the Eyes of the Dead. War of Ages will be the openers; for anyone unfamiliar with them, they’re an above average metalcore band and probably the best Christian metal band this side of post-Luti-Kriss, pre-Ross Robinson Norma Jean.

ANYWAY, I’m sure you can find tour dates through the usual channels, as I’m way too lazy to post them here.

-AR

For people who really, really, really love Throwdown, The Gauntlet is currently hosting all of twenty seconds of the band’s new video for the song “Holy Roller.”

Since the album from which the  song comes, Venom & Tears, sounds exactly like Pantera, I was kind of hoping the video would look exactly like a Pantera video, too – y’know, lots of dutch angles and light bulbs exploding and guitar-neck P.O.V.s. Alas, it just looks like most other metal videos these days.

The entire video will apparently debut in two weeks. I don’t know what the point is of previewing twenty seconds of a music video two weeks in advance, but hey, whatever.

-AR

We usually try and stay away from reposting the email rants of industry guru Bob Lefsetz, but this one struck a chord (no pun intended), and besides, it was actually a response to a Lefsetz post, not a rant from the man himself. This one was from Throwdown frontman Dave Peters — a man whose presence we’re quickly learning strengthens the intelligence of the metal gene pool as a whole — and was reposted by Lefsetz in his newsletter:

Bob,

I play in a metal band. We have sold around 200k records across 3 releases. We’re not ‘huge’ by any stretch but do alright and live off (and ON subsequently) the road. Fans and friends ask me all the time how I feel about “stealing music.” I just told someone yesterday “I have a hard time seeing it as stealing…when I don’t see any money from cd sales to begin with. What are they actually TAKING from me?”

If you want to squeeze an opinion on theft out of me, ask me about the dude that grabbed our tshirt off the table tonight in Detroit or better yet.. ask me about record contracts.

I encourage our fans to acquire our album however they please. The philosophy I’ve adopted is that if you’re supporting disc sales, you’re keeping the old model around longer…the one that forces dudes like me to tour 9 mos/year if they want to make ends meet with a career in music. If you wanna really support a band, “steal” their album….help bury the label….and buy a tshirt when you show up at their show and sing every word.

Dave Peters

Throwdown

And there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth.

-VN