The Sundance Film Festival, probably the most famous film festival in the United States and arguably all of North America (sorry, Toronto!), is now underway, which means there’s a lot of Hollywood wheelin’ and dealin’ going on right now. And one such wheel n’ deal comes in the form of Anchor Bay Films acquiring distribution rights to Nothing to Fear, the debut from Slash’s Slasher Films imprint. The horror flick stars Oscar nominee Thomas Hayden Church as “a charismatic but unbalanced man of the cloth.”

Details of the deal haven’t been publicly released yet, but based on my knowledge of Anchor Bay’s usual work, I’d say the fact that this is goin’ down tells us two things about Nothing to Fear:

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The musician John O’Brien, who passed away in August, was best friends with Dave “Slash Couldn’t Even Spell My Damn Name Correctly in his Autobiography” Kushner. And so the guitarist — unsurprisingly, the only member of Velvet Revolver to drop off the face of the planet when the band went on hiatus four years ago — organized a reunion of his most famous project for a memorial concert in O’Brien’s honor, which will take place on January 12 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles.

Yes, that means that Scott Weiland is going to be performing with Velvet Revolver again.

And while the gig is currently scheduled to be a one-off affair, now Kushner tells Rolling Stone that Weiland could ultimately end up coming back to the fold for good:

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In October, Axl Rose told That Metal Show that Duff McKagan’s Loaded featuring Duff McKagan was going to open some shows on GN’R current North American headlining tour. But then we didn’t hear anything else about it for over a month, so I think most people either assumed it wasn’t happening, or forgot about it all together.

But now it’s actually happening, and is happening this week, no less, in Seattle and Vancouver.

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Someone sent us the above via Twitter, but I already forget the guy’s handle. Sorry, dude!

In October, Axl Rose added “Estranged” back into Guns N’ Roses’ regular setlist for the first time since 1993. Even though everyone makes fun of that song’s ridiculous music video, it was a smart move — at the GN’R show in New Jersey I attended last month, the song got a roar of approval from the crowd the moment the band played it. Axl’s Nu-GN’R has mostly ignored the Use Your Illusion era for the past decade, which is foolish, because while the critics may not love those albums, they sold seven million copies each. People wanna hear those songs.

And Rose must get it; that same night I saw him Jersey, he also performed “Don’t Cry,” which he hasn’t done in awhile, and now, this past weekend, he suddenly broke out “Civil War,” too. You can check out video below; the band actually sounds pretty good, even if, Jesus H. Christ, something really does need to be done about Dj Slashba (note the unlit cigarette dangling from his lips).

Interestingly enough, Slash has been doing “Civil War” with his solo band (Myles Kennedy + a bunch of random dudes) since last year. By way of comparison, you can check out his Gun Without Rose version after the jump.

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In 2006, with a little help from Sebastian Bach, Eddie Trunk actually got Axl Rose to come on his radio show for, like, hours, which is obviously a pretty major coup, given that Rose usually only grants incomprehensible e-mail interviews. And the chat was incredibly entertaining, even if Trunk didn’t ask any of the burning questions Rose refuses to answer (e.g., “So, like, what the fuck, dude?” ), ’cause he did get Rose to lighten up and tell some great stories about David Lee Roth, Jimmy Iovine, and the classic days of Guns N’ Roses. (That’s just one part of the interview above; the rest is easy to find on YouTube.)

And I guess Rose was happy with the way things went, too, ’cause over the weekend he apparently granted Trunk another really long interview, this time for Trunk’s television program, That Metal Show. And while the full episode hasn’t been released yet, Trunk did reveal over Twitter that Rose said that Duff McKagan’s Loaded featuring Duff McKagan will be opening some future GN’R shows. (Actually, Trunk just said “Loaded will open shows,” but presumably he meant GN’R shows. Either that, or he has no sense of how context works.)

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Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.

Inspired by the ongoing disaster that is Lou Reed & Metallica’s Lulu, this week we asked our writers:

BESIDES METALLICA AND LOU REED, WHAT IS THE WORST COLLABORATION BETWEEN A METAL BAND/ARTIST AND A NON-METAL BAND/ARTIST? AND WHAT IS THE WORST ONE YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE IN YOUR WILDEST NIGHTMARES?

The MS staff’s answers after the jump!

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Here’s a great tip if you wanna get laid: follow around your alcoholic friend who girls actually like , and then, when said friend passes out, pick up his not-quite-sloppy-seconds! That’s what Axl Rose recently told some Paraguayan fans he used to, at least (video below), admitting that Slash (the drunk in question) was good for something besides accidentally writing the riff to “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” And let me be the first to congratulate Axl on proving, once again, that he is not at all creepy or weird or kinda sad. After all, it’s a well known fact that you catch more bees with someone else’s honey! LEGITIMATE SOCIAL SKILLS ARE FOR LOSERS!!!

I guess the good news is, he didn’t yell at anybody this time.

-AR

[via Metal Insider]

To help promote their upcoming tour, on October 11 Judas Priest will release The Chosen Few, their umpteenth career retrospective, and one which does not feature any new material. The Chosen Few does have a hook, though — I mean, beyond the fact that the band members appear on the cover only as silhouettes, I assume at least in part to downplay the fact that a certain key member is no longer in the group.

No, the hook  (and this is actually a neat idea) is that the band has let a lot of other celebrity musicians — including Ozzy, Lemmy, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kerry King, Slash, and Vinnie Paul  – choose which songs would appear on the collection. And, yeah, it’s interesting to know that Zakk Wylde is way into “Grinder,” and and that Randy Blythe and David Coverdale might actually have something to talk about at a cocktail party, and that Joe Satriani likes his Priest heavier than I might have suspected.

But like I said, there’s no new material here, so I can’t quite imagine why anyone would want this album anyway. The coolest thing about The Chosen Few is seeing which dude chose which song, and you can do that after the jump. So, look, we just saved you ten bucks.

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Slash’s latest “They paid me so I showed up” gig is apparently going to be an appearance on Comedy Central’s Roast of Charlie Sheen, which filmed last week. I was kinda hoping that the Slashter might try his hand and making a few jokes at Sheen’s expense — I mean, it’s not like he’d have to write his own bits or anything, he’d just have to get up and deliver what was written for him — but the below clip suggests that he’s just gonna play guitar. Not the worst thing in the world but not the most exciting, either.

Metal Insider notes that Comedy Central has been using Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” in promos for the roast, and, indeed, Sheen and Slash do appear on a train… although Slash doesn’t play the song, I guess either ’cause he didn’t want to, or ’cause the execs at Comedy Central didn’t wanna hafta pay any further licensing fees.

ANYWAY, these roasts are often pretty funny, so Slash or not, this thing might be worth watching. It airs this coming Monday, September 19.

-AR

Even if I haven’t exactly been thrilled with Slash’s post-Guns N’ Roses output, I never thought his guitar playing got bad; listening to No More Tears over the weekend, I was struck (again) by the fact that Zakk Wylde’s playing has become a parody of itself, but Slash still seems to have an endless arsenal of killer guitar solos left in him. If the dude could just get Izzy Stradlin to write him some decent songs, I have little doubt that the man would be able to turn me back into a fanboy faster than you can say “Saul Hudson.”

Case in point: “Kick it Up a Notch,” a new song Slash has recorded with a couple of cartoon characters. And, no, I don’t mean Axl Rose and Scott Weiland.

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The most recent album by Jane’s Addiction, 2003′s Strays, was a big-budget, big-production heavy rock record that kinda flopped despite its awesomeness. Since those distant days, Jane’s members have flirted with a full reunion (momentarily counting longtime hold-out Eric Avery as a returned member), with ex-Guns N’ Roses/current Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagen (he came and went within weeks), and with total futility (via singer Perry Farrell’s lame project The Satellite Party, featuring his wife and Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt).

So, along with my fandom, Jane’s has my curiosity about their new stuff — not just for the abovementioned travails, but also ’cause the album is a Rich Costey production (Mastodon, Muse, Cave In) and is the beneficiary of creative goosings by TV On The Radio dude Dave Sitek. I don’t care about TVOTR, but I’ve surmised that a dose of noisy post-rock might be good medicine for trio of moribund freak-rockers whose attempted return to glory was a safe, anthemic rock radio record. And now I see that my diagnosis is accurate, so far: Just listen to their thunderous, cacophonous new jam “End To The Lies” and its nipply new video (above, NSFW; audio only here). The jam is on fire! Turn it up!

-ADF

Jane’s Addiction’s fourth album The Great Escape Artist is out August 23 on Capitol Records.

Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash tells a funny story about his first listens to Aerosmith’s Rocks album. That day, he’d planned some afternoon doobage/canoodling with a comely young lady only to have his attention devoured by that then-new and always awesome Aerosmith record. I imagine him on her bed, shushing her and batting away her caresses — all because Rocks was totally rocking his world for the first of a billion times. I get that. Horny hotties come and go; an instant connection to timeless music is bigger.

And the very same thing happened to me Saturday night! Just replace Slash with hunky me (mental image note: I play lefty), his sexy chick with this chatty mess from my neighborhood, and Aerosmith’s Rocks with The Time Of No Time Evermore by Dutch occult rockers The Devil’s Blood.

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It’s not hard to come up with theories as to why Slash has gotten so lame over the years — aging, sobriety, marriage, fatherhood, pacemaker, Fergie, etc. — but has anyone ever considered that Slash just might not be real? I mean, I know a truly silly number of people who have been Slash for Halloween over the years (both Vince and myself have done, in case you’re curious), and the reason is, he’s both recognizable and incredibly easy to imitate. Get a dark, curly wig, a top hat, and a cigarette, wobble around drunkenly, and, every now and then, remove a piece of paper that says “MY LEGACY” on it, place it on the ground, drop trou, and poo. Presto, you’re Slash.

But has anyone ever considered that the reason Slash has gotten so lame, and is so easy to impersonate, is because he’s not real? Y’know, like Santa. Like, maybe Slash seemed a million times cooler when I was a kid because my mom was Slash and my mom did an awesome job because she wanted her little gift from God to be happy, but now every time I see Slash it’s just some out of work record executive trying to bring back the good old days, or, worse still, Dj Ashba?

This is the theory that South Park posited on Wednesday night (about Slash not being real, not Slash being Dj Ashba in a disguise), with rather amusing results. (Two words: “Vunter Slaush.”) I can’t for the life of me figure out what spurned on Trey Parker and Matt Stone to include this storyline, although, yes, it does seem like Slash is always in too many places at once. I also feel like these guys lampooned Slash once before — I distinctly remember him being in some All-Star Charity Concert on a past episode — although I can’t seem to find that episode now, so maybe I’m imagining it.

ANYWAY, here are the clips from the episode relevant to Slash, courtesy reader Hetal Bhatt… you can watch the full thing here. In case you need some context for these clips, basically, the boys are trying to get Slash to play the half-time show for their new sports league, the Crack Baby Athletic Association. Yep yep.

-AR

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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]

‘Cause I just found their new singer.

He’s young, he’s talented, and he recognizes that JESUS IS THE LORD, a message which somehow got lost in previous VR tunes like “Pills, Demons & Etc.,” “Dirty Little Thing,” and “Just Sixteen.”

OMG SLASH PLEASE HIRE THIS KID RIGHT NOW HE IS SO FREAKIN’ AWESOME!!!

-AR

[via Badass]

Here’s an interesting excerpt from a recent interview with Sammy Hagar that was conducted by Forbes, your leading source for rock and metal news:

“I was asked at one time to be in Mötley Crüe. I was asked at one time to be in Pantera by their mangers. I was asked to be in Velvet Revolver when Scott Weiland quit and went back to the Stone Temple Pilots. I was waiting to be asked to be in Led Zeppelin to say no, since they were the greatest band on earth and no could replace Robert Plant. I was asked to be in Aerosmith and I said no. Certain bands and certain front man singers are more difficult to replace than others. Steven Tyler and that band have stayed together for forty years and you don’t to walk into something like that. They had one moment years ago, when they replaced Joe Smith, but it’s still always been Steven at the front of Aerosmith. You don’t replace that. When I came into Van Halen, it was easy because Dave wasn’t a great singer, but he was a good front man. In those times, I was selling out the same arena’s they were so it was like the combination of two forces and it worked but it’s a rare thing. We were all lucky that the fans accepted it and it got bigger. I would avoid bands that are going to break up pretty soon.”

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So I was hanging out on the smoking balcony at the Revolver Golden Gods on Wednesday night when I spotted a few of the below promotional cards scattered on a nearby table.

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Duff McKagan, vocalist and lead guitarist of Duff McKagan’s Loaded, bassist for Velvet Revolver, and former bassist of Guns ‘n Roses, took to the interwaves (via phonerview) to slam the “reality” television show Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.

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Well, according The Haunted’s Facebook page, that is:

Obviously this just an April Fools’ joke… but I would actually be all-for Dolving stepping into Scott Weiland’s shoes. As The Haunted’s latest album, Unseen, proves, Dolving has a great voice for hard rock, and he’s actually got cred.

Alas, it will never happen… but a fella can dream, can’t he?

-AR

Thanks to Fantasyoosh for the tip!

Crave Online has premiered Duff McKagan’s Loaded’s new video, “Dead Skin,” and in this case, “dead skin” seems to be a clever metaphor for “clothing.” Because the best parts of this video have Mrs. Duff, the almost unfairly beautiful former model/current designer Susan Holmes, stripping away various articles of clothing. Not that I’m complaining  – the rest of the video is pretty boring.

On a less lecherous note, it’s nice to see drummer Isaac Carpenter (formerly of Loudermilk) getting so many close-ups. Humorously enough, Loudermilk started out as a Guns N’ Roses cover band, .22s N’ Tulips, and now Carpenter actually plays in McKagan’s band. Guy’s an awesome drummer, so he deserves any success that comes his way.

-AR