Today's Day In Rock News!

Today's Day in Rock Stories

Guns N' Roses Add 15 Dates To North American Reunion Tour

Guns N' Roses are returning home for more North American dates for their Not In This Lifetime Reunion tour this fall. The announcement was a day later than expected but on Thursday the band revealed fifteen additional U.S. stops for the trek.
The reunited lineup of the legendary band featuring Axl Rose, Slash and Duff McKagan have added one stop to their previously announced summer North American stadium tour and have now extended the trek into the fall with 14 additional U.S. arena shows.

The new dates begin with an August 5th show in Little Rock, AK at the War Memorial Stadium, followed by the kick off the fall leg on October 8th in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center.

The band will be concluding the epic run with a two night stand in their home town of Los Angeles first with a November 24the show at the Staples Center followed the next night with a concert at The Forum. Read more here.



Rolling Stones Guitarist Recovering From Lung Surgery(hennemusic)

Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood has revealed that he is recovering following surgery to remove a small lesion from his lungs that was discovered during a routine screening.
The rocker - who turns 70 next week - is expected to make a full recovery ahead of the band's fall European tour as no additional treatment is necessary.

"I'm so grateful for modern screening which picked this up so early," Wood said of the discovery and medical procedure, "and would like to thank all the doctors who treated me."

The Rolling Stones will begin the No Filter European tour at the Stadtpark in Hamburg, Germany on September 9. here.



Linkin Park Singer Reacts To Corey Taylor's Remarks

Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington has made headlines recently with his bashing of fans that have been critical of his band's change in musical direction but now appears to be taking remarks made by Corey Taylor about the controversy to heart.
Taylor is currently promoting the new Stone Sour album and during an interview he was asked about Bennington's harsh reaction to 'sell out' accusations. Corey said, "I understand where he's at. God, I would've never say it the way he did, but you get frustrated and you want people to embrace the evolution. At the same time, you should probably be very, very fortunate that people this far along the line still love that music you made."

Bennington took to Twitter earlier this week to react to the Slipknot frontman's advice. He said in a series of tweets, "Just heard Corey Taylor's response to something I said in an interview and I agree with him. I do appreciate our fans. I'm human and sometimes take things too personally. Most of our fans have been very positive lately. Some... not so much.

"Either way... there is a lot of passion on both sides and I am grateful to all of our fans. Corey is a good dude and I appreciate him too. Time to recalibrate my perspective. So I say to all of our fans... Thank you and I love you all. Peace, love and happiness."



Iron Maiden Didn't Know If They Had A Future

Iron Maiden founder Steve Harris is thrilled that frontman Bruce Dickinson is in top form following his recent cancer battle and admits that he feared for the band's future during the ordeal.
The legendary band continues to be one of the most popular bands in the world, selling out arenas and stadiums during their epic tours. They are preparing to launch the North American leg of their The Book Of Souls World tour and Harris says that Bruce's cancer has not had the impact that the band once feared.

Steve tells The Express & Star, "Right from the first show, and even in rehearsals, he was singing really well. He's really happy where he's at with his voice, and so are we. Obviously, there was no guarantee he was going to get back in top form, but he really has. He's singing as good as or better than ever.

"Two years ago we didn't know if we had a future, to be honest. It was very serious. The main thing was whether Bruce was going to be OK - that was first and foremost. Once you get on from there, you think, 'Wow, have we still got a future or not?'

"It affects everybody, not just us but people who work for us and everything else. It's a big responsibility weighing on you. At the end of the day, we're just really happy to be here. You never know how long you can carry on for."




New Mix Of Beatles Sgt. Pepper's More Precise Says Martin(Gibson)


Back in 1967, Beatles producer George Martin spent three days mixing the stereo version of the band's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. But he spent three weeks mixing the mono version. That's one of the reveals from NPR's recent conversation with Giles Martin, son of the legendary soundman.
The younger Martin, who spearheaded the 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper's reissues project, also talked about bringing Ringo's drums to life and about the weight of expectations for such an undertaking.

"You know, one of the criticisms of the stereo of Sgt. Pepper was that you couldn't hear Ringo," he said. "Now we can have kick drum, because if you think about that time in 1967, there was a protection [system from producers and mastering engineers] with records then, so you didn't get the needle to jump out of the groove. We've done a great vinyl cut of this, which we did half-speed, so it's a much more precise cut. We still use the same techniques, we've just developed them."

Martin later added: ""You're challenged by this weight of expectation, but the joy is actually just finding how great Geoff Emerick's engineering was, how great my dad was as a producer, how organized the recordings are and, you know, the beauty the arrangements--and how great the Beatles were at playing." Read more here.





Pantera's Rex Brown Changes Direction With Solo Album


Rex Brown is best known as the bassist for iconic metal group's Pantera and Down but he is changing musical direction his forthcoming debut solo album "Smoke On This".
The new record is set to hit stores on July 28th and Brown recorded it in Nashville with his old friend and Music City based guitarist and songwriter Lance Harvill.

Rex revealed in the album announcement that music direction would be different from the genre he is best known for. "We're not going to necessarily cater to metal fans, but the guys who grew up with Pantera, a lot of them love all the same stuff that I grew up on, too. This is just something else I'm doing for fun, man. And musical Freedom. Fun has to come into it or I'm not going to do it. I've had a tremendous career and now I feel like I'm thirty years old again. This has given me that freedom I needed."

He expanded on that them in an interview earlier this month with The Silk And Steel Power. "I wouldn't say it sounds like classic rock, but I would say I was influenced by it. Yeah, I had a really good time. I had a really good friend in Lance Harvill and we wrote a bunch of songs, starting putting a team together and created this chemistry in the studio and it started coming together. We said, 'Well, we'd better put something together.'"




Muse Frontman Matt Bellamy Reveals Details For New Release(Radio.com)

Muse are set to release a compilation called Origin Of Muse later this year, and frontman Matt Bellamy has given more detail about what the album contains.
"We're going to put out something actually, this year," Bellamy said in a new interview. 'We're working on it. It's probably going to be a limited edition, like, package of the first two albums put together, but with all the songs and demos that we made around that time."

'We're hopefully gonna put that out this year," he added. "We're going to call it Origin Of Muse because it's basically the story musically of how we got to the Origin Of Symmetry album." Read more here.



U2 Says 'Worst Of Humanity' Behind Manchester Attack(Radio.com)

During their Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance this week, Irish rockers U2 addressed the terrorist bombing attack on fans at a Manchester, England Ariana Grande concert that left 22 dead and many more injured.
"[The terrorists] hate music, they hate women, they even hate little girls," Bono said during their appearance on the late TV show on Tuesday night. "They hate everything that we love. And, you know, the worst of humanity was on view in Manchester last night.

"And so was the best, as people took perfect strangers into their hands and queued up for blood banks. Manchester has an undefeatable spirit, I can assure you."

The band posted the interview on its official Twitter account with the hashtag #Manchesterstrong. Read more here.




Lindsey Buckingham And Christine McVie Release Studio Video


Fleetwood Mac icons Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie have released a new making of video for their forthcoming self-titled collaborative album.
The "Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie" is set to hit stores on June 9th and the duo have released the new promo video featuring footage from their sessions at The Village Studios in Los Angeles. Watch it here

Buckingham and McVie will be supporting the album by launching a North American tour on June 21st at Chastain Park in Atlanta. The trek will visit various cities before concluding on July 27th in Denver at the Paramount Theatre. See the dates here.




Billy Idol Announces Limited Edition Triple Disc Set


Billy Idol fans are getting another chance to get their hands on the limited edition triple vinyl disc "BFI LIVE!" package with the release of a new second pressing.
The 16 track package was originally released as a numbered limited edition set for Record Store Day 2016 which quickly sold out but fans now have the opportunity to buy the new, non-numbered pressing, from Idol's online store here.

The vinyl only "BFI LIVE!" features live recordings of a number of classic songs that were captured during Billy's Kings & Queens of the Underground Tour back in 2014 and 15. Read more here.




Paramore Rock New Song On 'The Late Late Show'(Radio.com)


Paramore are currently on the road promoting their new album "After Laughter" but the band made time to swing through James Corden's Late Late Show studio.
They performed "Told You So," the second single from their daring new album, which takes inspiration from the Talking Heads and other '80s New Wave acts. Their set was awash in red light and Hayley Williams continues to toy with jerky, David Byrne-tinged dance moves.

After Laughter marks an interesting departure from the pop-punk aesthetic that brought Paramore to renown. As their tour continues to grow, fan response to the new material seems overwhelmingly positive. Watch the TV appearance here.



Cold War Kids Cover Alice Key's 'No One'


Cold War Kids' recent Spotify Singles series performances of their single "Love Is Mystical" and an cover of Alicia Key's "No One" have now been released.
Frontman Nathan Willett had the following to say about the cover, "I was walking around Times Square with "No One" fresh in my mind and heard a woman yelling, 'we got news war- you're not rich enough baby-' and her words felt both poetic and true.

"With a song this iconic and familiar I felt like adding her words made the lyrics fresh and related to a lot of conversations we're all having right now about how to be hopeful in discouraging times." Stream the session here.



Bush's Unaired Jimmy Kimmel Live Performance Goes Online(hennemusic)


Bush performed their single, "Mad Love", on ABC-TV's Jimmy Kimmel Live on May 22, and video from the late night program is available online.
In addition to the lead track from their seventh album, "Black And White Rainbows", the group also delivered an online exclusive performance of "Nurse" from the record.

The follow-up to 2014's "Man On The Run" was written, recorded and produced by frontman Gavin Rossdale. "Everything I've ever written has been personal, since the days of [1994's debut] 'Sixteen Stone,'" Rossdale tells the Chicago Sun-Times. "It's a very pure thing to write a song and somehow manage your emotions, but I don't like when things are so pessimistic. I wanted this to be a balanced record and somewhat positive, too."

Bush are currently in the middle of a spring tour of North America in support of the project; the three-month run will wrap up in Bethlehem, PA on August 12. Watch the TV performance here.




The Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh Warns New Documentary Not Complete(Radio.com) The new Grateful Dead documentary, Long Strange Trip, has a limited theatrical release yesterday and today (May 26th) before streaming on Amazon Prime beginning on June 2nd.
Though Amir Bar-Lev directed and Martin Scorsese produced the four-hour long film, the band's bassist Phil Lesh told Rolling Stone "it's only telling part of the story."

"The Grateful Dead is sort of a phenomenon that you cannot encapsulate in any one medium or any one event or any one film or recording," he says. "It's great as far as it goes, but it's not the whole story."

Lesh has only seen parts of the doc, but mused that trying to tell the band's story from the outside is like a "blind man feeling a leg and saying it's a tree." Read more here.



Motley Crue Launch PledgeMusic Campaign For Girls Reissue(hennemusic)


Motley Crue have launched a PledgeMusic campaign in support of the expanded 30th anniversary reissue of their 1987 album, "Girls, Girls, Girls", ahead of its release on August 25.
Alongside the project - which will feature five unreleased tracks - the band are offering a variety of bundles and packages for the set, including colored vinyl, commemorative poster/lithograph, vintage t-shirt, vinyl test pressings, a limited-edition, numbered drum head, a flexi single and more.

"It's hard to believe 'Girls, Girls, Girls' already turned thirty this year," says bassist Nikki Sixx. "We went against the grain with this album when it first came out in 1987. The music and lyrics reflect what was going on in the streets of Los Angeles at that time.

"A big thank you to all the fans who have made the album stand the test of time. It's really cool to now see a new generation of fans exploring and digging 'Girls, Girls, Girls' three decades later." here.



Singled Out: Cold Roses' Staying Alive Ain't Easy


Philly rockers Cold Roses are gearing up to release their new album "Escape to Anywhere" on July 21st and released the single "Staying Alive Ain't Easy" today. We asked frontman Rob Clancy to tell us about song. Here is the story:
"Staying Alive Ain't Easy" was written on a cold winter's night (no, seriously). A state of emergency had been declared in the city of Philadelphia for the pending blizzard, rendering one pretty much confined to their place of residence until further notice. As the night gradually fell and morning began to stir, I was somewhere between blissful sleep-deprivation and a healthy dose of cabin fever, when I started getting the itch to write. Knowing that I wasn't about to leave my apartment anytime soon, I locked myself in a room with my guitar and after about 45 minutes, "Staying Alive Ain't Easy" was finished. I had a very basic idea of a verse melody going into it, but that was about it. The lyrics, chorus, and middle-eight all seemed to just flow out all at once. Usually when a song sort of metaphysically happens like that, I tend to be skeptical of its validity, but with this one I remember thinking, "It feels like there's something here."

I was at the point in my life where I was asking myself a lot of the major questions: "What is my purpose?" "Where am I going?" Basically, "What in the hell am I doing with my life?" Of course, one of the under-stated beauties of life is the search and the journey to find those answers. Thinking about all of this and what was going on in my life at the time, the words "staying alive ain't easy" just kept popping up in my head. It basically summed up everything I was experiencing and delivered it in a very direct way. The very notion of what it takes to really stay alive will invariably be different depending on whom you ask. It's a struggle that I think everyone can relate to in some way; but you have to keep moving on, to swim and not sink, to take every guaranteed obstacle of life in stride. To not just sit around and wait for things to happen on their own because tomorrow, everything could change. It's a sentiment that has been expressed throughout human existence and hasn't changed much, only the physical world around us has.

I wanted to create a situational story with a more observer-style narrative using different characters and scenes that would take the personal aspects of what I was expressing in the song, and convey it in different ways. I set the song in my hometown, Philadelphia. I mention the Broad Street Line, which is one of the two subway lines in the city that I used to take nearly every day. Ninth Street is a popular street near where I used to live in South Philly. It's home to the famous Italian Market (there's far more to it than just Rocky training montages, I promise) and a place where I've spent many long nights. Same goes for Ray's Birthday Bar, people are falling out of there all the time and I can't say that I haven't been subject to the occasional misstep myself.

The song was recorded during the sessions for our new album, Escape To Anywhere. I got a call from these guys in Los Angeles, who would later become our record label, saying they'd heard and loved our previous record, No Silence In The City, and wanted to meet. So I grabbed my guitar, stuffed a duffel bag with clothes and jetted off to the west coast. I met them at the studio and played them a couple songs I had been kicking around. By the time I got to "Staying Alive Ain't Easy," they all got up and off their chairs unanimously, urging that song to be the first single release.

In the studio, the song started taking on a life of its own. We recorded the basic tracks the same way we always have; no track-by-track recording, no click track, just us performing it live with the tape rolling. Cold Roses - straight, no chaser. Once we had the sonic foundation, we were then able to start experimenting with various layers of sound and instrumentation. Definitely one of the pivotal differences with this track versus anything else we'd done up to that point, was bringing in other groups of musicians to play on it. We had a live string quartet and full horn-section come in, which allowed us to expand past our usual saxophone/trumpet combo, ushering in a very unique flavor that certainly contributed to the overall aesthetic and vibe of the track. We went from straight, no chaser to a Sazerac.

Overall, it was a labor-intensive but truly enjoyable process, creating and recording "Staying Alive Ain't Easy," particularly because I feel it represents a growing point both within myself and the band. We were in a different city, a different studio, working with new people and recording new songs. There were a lot of other adverse elements surrounding us, but it forced us to get out of our comfort zone and to evolve. I think that very notion in and of itself is reflective of the song's overall sentiment. The desire to move forward despite the constraints around you, to live for the moment without forgetting the past or ignoring the future. To live the life you've envisioned for yourself and the world around you. It "ain't" always easy, but nothing worth fighting for ever is.