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THE GAYS ARE IN THE VILLAGE

Posted on February 12, 2008

SANCTITY ? A little bit gay?

Well no one is saying the band is a little bit gay? or are they?

And what would RR achieve by such claims?

Intrigued?

Take a look at those Sanctity videos

DREAM ROCK SHOW

Posted on February 12, 2008

Blabbermouth reports Dream Theater are to be guests on Bruce Dickinson’s (Iron Maiden) BBC 6 Radio Show named, ‘The Rock Show’ on 26th May. You can listen to the show live via the internet between 9:00 p.m. and 12:00 a.m. (midnight) U.K. time (between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. EST) at BBC.co.uk.

Systematic Chaos’ is the forthcoming release by Dream Theater is due

LIVE WIRE

Posted on February 12, 2008

Dave Mustaine, Megadeth frontman has new custom-built Line 6 guitar amps, a video clip showing Dave Mustaine explaining and showing the amps during the recording of their forthcoming album, ‘United Abominations’. You can view the seven-minute clip at this location.

A new video for the now retitiled ‘A Tout Le Monde (Set Me Free)’ featuring Lacuna Coil’s Cristina Scabbia is available at Megadeth.com. An interview with Cristina talking about her appearance on the track is available here.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

A CRUSADE OF AMAZEMENT

Posted on February 12, 2008

I just have to start out this update by saying that our fans in the UK and Ireland never cease to amaze me, we can't thank you enough for showing us yet another great time in both countries!!!

So we are here at the Pavilions venue getting ready for our long over due first concert in Plymouth. Sanctity just hit the stage as I am typing this, and I must say they have really come into there own since we first met them back in 2004. As many of you know they had a wreck in there van/milk truck thing coming around the corner from Rock City in Nottingham, so each night we have been taking one or two of the guys on our bus while the others have been staying on the production crew's bus. It's been great having them on the tour and now on our bus!

Since we are close to the end of UK leg of the tour, I wanna thank a few people on behalf of all of us. First off, it's been awesome touring with Gojira the last few months, they are one of the most friendly and amazing bands we have toured with and look forward to the next time we can share the stage with them, hopefully again soon! Next, the production crew (the people that set up all the lights and PA) have been killer, they are the true heroes of the tour because without them we all wouldn't hear or see shit at the shows. Lastly, all the catering crew must be thanked for feeding the entire tour, without them we would all be eating mystery meat Kebabs every night!!!!

We are going to have shit loads of pictures, videos and all that good stuff documenting this tour and we want to share it all with you all who make it possible for us to be doing this, so check all the Trivium sites often to see how the tour is going. The first part of the tour may be coming to a close, but we still have many more amazing shows to play!!! See everyone in Europe very soon!!

Paolo

www.trivium.org

SAUCE N’ SOUR

Posted on February 12, 2008

Corey Taylor, Stone Sour mainman has recently given an interview with Fuse’s ‘The Sauce’. Corey talks about the forthcoming plans for Stone Sour, playing in Russia and what the fans can expect from the special edition CD/DVD of “Come What(ever) May“. You can catch the video on YouTube.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

MUSTAINE ROCKS

Posted on February 12, 2008

Dave Mustaine, Megadeth frontman, recently gave an interview with Mydenrocks, Blabbermouth reports. You can view a selection of their chat below:

Mydenrocks: I love the intensity on the new CD [“United Abominations“]. Did that intensity come out natural or did you gear your writing to high intensity material?

Dave Mustaine: I didn't go into making this record with any pre-conceived notions. I was just so disillusioned with the record business after what happened with Capitol and Sanctuary Records. After going over to Sanctuary, I thought “Hey, this is different. These guys undersand. They're metal people. My God, they manage IRON MAIDEN.” It ended up being more of the same difficulties I had with Capitol. Both labels had difficulties with the songs and issues with the songs that really couldn't be solved. Going over to Roadrunner when we went in to do this record… so far it's been…there's been some ups and downs. I think alot of that translated into the intensity on the record. There was stuff that was going on in my personal life that even transcended the difficulties from working with a corporation. When you're trying to do something like create art, the nature of art if very un-corporate. Do you follow me? I'm not necessarily anti-corporate. When you're trying to pitch a song to a corporate entity, it's kind of like trying to explain an orgasm to a virgin. Both sides have different points of view. You can't really get an artist to think like a corporation, but it's automatically thought that you will think like a corporation by default. So some of the energy on the record is there because there was seemingly the same syndrome that has been the same with me the whole time I've been a recording artist. There's also a refreshment there that really excited me and fortunately for me all of the beuracratic stuff is out of the way. The art side is starting to show through. I'm really excited about what the future holds for me with the label and what my gift has been given to me about being able to play guitar and sing.

Mydenrocks: Was there any comromising on the new songs or did you end up having 100 percent artistic freedom?

Dave Mustaine: Put it this way….there were decisions that I had made in the beginning stages that weren't resonating with me. When I had talked with the A&R person at the label, who was assigned to me, we were in agreement about a lot of things that deep down I just didn't feel right about. I kept perservering though. We knew the songs had to be lyrically re-approached to properly convey what I was trying to say — if you confront an enemy head on, you're going to have a battle. But, sometimes, you have to come sweeping in from the flank in order to win. I had to use that same concept for several different points of view in order to get my ideas across lyrically. I would be doing a disservice to myself if I said I didn't have artistic freedom.

Mydenrocks: Are you planning on breaking out alot of the new songs live once the record comes out?

Dave Mustaine: We don't even choose songs from a record to play live until after a record comes out. As it is right now we're playing “Washington Is Next!” and “Sleepwalker“. We started playing those two songs live because before we went into the studio we wanted to do some work on them. We played them live a couple of times and they became popular, so they've stuck. Somebody had bootlegged “Washington Is Next!” and put it up on YouTube, so it got popular from that. “Sleepwalker” was a song we gave to our fan club to give them a little tidbit of what was coming. We also played “Gears of War“. But “Gears of War” was something that was released intentionally as a demo for Microsoft's Xbox Gears of War game. We had sponsorship from Microsoft it was quite an honor to be working with them. We finished the song off because of that game. It didn't have lyrics for the game — it was just music. When Microsoft heard it, they loved and wanted it on the game. I thought it would be great. I said to our manager at the time “Tell them we'll write the lyrics and call it 'Gears of War'.” Microsoft said it was too late to get it in the game with lyrics, but we could do whatever we wanted to do with the song. I thought that was great of them and we finished off the song. It was really, really exciting being involved with an Xbox game.

Mydenrocks: What are you touring plans beyond the HEAVEN AND HELL tour? Will you tour the states later in the year to really push the new release?

Dave Mustaine: We tentatively have dates booked for this summer over in Europe. July and August are off time unless one of those crazy things happend like “Hey! You want to do a song for the new James Bond movie?” If something crazy were to happen like that, we jump on it. Other than that though, we're just going to take some time off. We are looking at going back out in the states at some point. but, that's not confirmed yet because we've got the rest of the world to tour. So far all we've got on the books is Europe, but I would like to hit the South Pacific, South America, Africa, etc.

Mydenrocks: What's your take on the current metal scene? I read your not too fond of some of the newer bands using loops, etc.

Dave Mustaine: There is use of ProTools on this record. I'm not going to say that on this record we didn't take advantage of the new techniques. Someone thought that I had recorded the new record on tape and I was like “Dude! I'm old, but not that old! Come on now…” I just think that it's really sad with bands that are capable of playing and they just get lazy. Especially, when it comes down to an epic part of a song and you can tell they could do it but they just don't do it. In certain circumstances, with anybody, if you have a part that's got a mistake and your stuff is packed up, you're doing the mix and notice a mistake – you have to correct the mistake. At that point, it's a given to do something where you drop in a note or a small loop to fix it. For the most part, I hear alot of these newer metal metal bands that heavily use looping and stuff like that. Thank God those bands are starting to go away. For me I think the beauty of metal is that it's a way of life. It's not something we've converted to — it's just that's who we are. The fans haven't changed that much except maybe their appearance. When I first started playing, you looked at all these guys who were wearing a denim vest and they would have all the names of all the bands they liked on there. That was pretty much enough to getting an MMPI (personality information) on them. It was easier to identify a metal fan back then.

Mydenrocks: Don't take offense to this, but let's face it MEGADETH had a downturn there for a few records and you lost some fans. However, after people get to hear “United Abominations“, I think you will win those fans back and then some. You really nailed a homerun and this is the record MEGADETH fans have been waiting on for along time.

Dave Mustaine: Thanks! I can respect what you're saying. I don't take offense to it at all. There was a decline after “Risk” and I know that. That's the nature of my career. There was another writer involved that was part of MEGADETH and his manager was really trying to control the band. Ultimately, it cost him his partnership with his partner, cost him his relationship with MEGADETH, and broke up a great lineup. Hopefully, the metal fans will like this. This is a true MEGADETH record.

You can read the entire interview at Mydenrocks.

A SYSTEMATIC EXPLAINATION

Posted on February 12, 2008

Blabbermouth reports in a recent interview by CausticTruths.com with Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy. Check out a selection of the chat below:

On the group's songwriting:

“I don't know if we've ever had one song that could really sum up what DREAM THEATER is about because there are so many sides to the band. I guess the big epic songs are always the ones that tend to show all of the different sides. So I guess if I could only play one person one song, if they had 25 minutes to spare, I'd play both parts of 'In The Presence Of Enemies' from the new record because that's really going to show the full spectrum. Usually the shorter songs, something like just 'Forsaken' or 'Constant Motion' isn't going to really give the big picture. It'll just give you a little taste of one side of what the band is.”

On the group's new deal with Roadrunner Records:

“Well, our contract finally ended with Atlantic. You know, we had been signed to them for 14 years and they picked up every option for each album. So there was no getting away. As hard as we tried! (laughs) We had them for the duration of that contract and once it ended we had different options out there. But I think the whole corporate, major label corporate thing left a sour taste in our mouth. It served us well on one level. It surely got us a lot of exposure but on another level we were always a small fish in a big pond. And yes we're kinda the big fish in our own little progressive empire, yeah. But in the mainstream world, you know, I don't think the label ever did crap for us with marketing and promotions. So when it came time to look for a new label we were definitely scared off to any of the Warners or Sonys in that whole kind of approach.

Roadrunner has really proven themselves as an amazing label that has major label status and promotion and marketability but at the same time a real independent spirit. And if you look at what they've done with bands like OPETH and SLIPKNOT or STONE SOUR to NICKELBACK to MACHINE HEAD, you know. It was obvious from their roster that they really cherish the bands for what they do and just did their best to market and promote those bands for what they do. And that seemed like the perfect place for us.”

On the band's new album, “Systematic Chaos“:

“It's seven completely independent songs with independent ideas and independent musical themes. You know, 'Octavarium', 'Six Degrees'… and 'Scenes from A Memory', they all had big grand themes and concepts, but with 'Systematic Chaos' it was nice to just, you know, have individual tracks to work with.”

You can read the entire interview at CausticTruths.com.

THE BLACKENING OF METAL

Posted on February 12, 2008

Robb Flynn recently gave an interview with Midwest Metal, an extract of their discussion follows:

Midwest Metal: MACHINE HEAD has always had its share of longer songs. However on “Through the Ashes of Empires” you seemed to take it a bit further. Now on “The Blackening” there's some of the longest songs you've ever done. I know you don't start off with a nine- or ten-minute idea, when do you say when or when do you just finish a song? How does it build?

Flynn: Yeah, there's no grand vision, that's for sure (laughing)! Wouldn't be awesome to just sit here and say, “Yes, I have this grand vision of a ten-minute song and here it is.” But it doesn't work like that. Basically it just builds and we'll be in the rehearsal room and be totally “Beavis and Butthead”… “Yes! that part rules, no, that part sucks.” It is as simple as that, kinda. After doing this for so long we've also learned that initial impressions are not always going to be initial impressions. There's some stuff on the album that I did not like at all when it was first written, but that can change maybe as you get more familiar with it or put something in front of or behind it. With these long songs, if you listen to them yeah, they're long but in a lot of ways there's still a conventional song structure. It's still very much like a pop song in the classic sense of what a pop song is where there's verse, bridge, chorus etc. With us it's just there's a lot of other parts and transitions, so instead of going back to what we did earlier in the song we try to interject something new into the song. But while, I guess building the song we'll be in the practice name dropping bands left and right, like “We need a JUDAS PRIEST part here or an ALICE IN CHAINS part there,” and it usually doesn't work but it get us trying different things and seeing what works. If you look at a song like “Clenching…” there's a good five minutes in the middle of the song where it goes in a bunch of different directions. We bring it back to the second verse and that goes to the build up and ultimately goes into the chorus as that's the part where I finally say “Clenching the Fists of Dissent“…so it takes a while to get there. So getting there, as arcane as it sounds, it's just what feels right. We started writing that song in May of 2006 and I was still working on things up until November, I mean there was a day of drum tracks done and I was still trying different things, having Adam [Duce] play six different bass lines, getting rid of things that didn't fit, extending things that needed extending.

Midwest Metal: The intro is cool as it's not the typical “metal intro,” it definitely sets a mood and that mood pretty much keeps its presence throughout the album.

Flynn: Ah, the intro (laughing)! The intro was so massive, it had to become its own song…and when I say that I mean it took up like 86 tracks so we had to focus on it like a separate track as the song didn't have the room for it. The intro was originally going to be a bunch of samples kind of like a “Real Eyes, Realize” kind of vibe but with anti-war samples and pro-war samples, stuff like that. We did all the legwork as far as getting all the samples but the task of arranging everything just became so overwhelming and daunting, I mean we were supposed to be in the middle of editing all this and I told Vinny [Wojno] I had this idea.

Before I get too far, we had a mix of the intro done in England by Colin (Richardson) but it just really didn't work, Mark Keaton had a family situation so he wasn't available so Vinny and I mixed it. So anyway I told Vinny I'm going to set up a microphone, go into the booth and just scream a bunch of crazy shit and hopefully some of it would work (laughing). We'd been working on it for days at that point, fifteen tracks of snare, six tracks of kick drums, four acoustic, five tracks of electric guitar, but above it all I wanted this narrative. So I went in and screamed, some of it is lyrics but most of it was shit from the top of my head and we did a few takes like that. After the fifth Vinny said the last one gave him chills so that was all I needed to hear and this was January 2007.

Midwest Metal: So you're writing songs, writing lyrics, producing songs, playing guitar and basically never leaving the studio. How were you able to separate yourself from all of these things, I mean say at night and it's time to leave weren't you just neck deep in it all?

Flynn: Well, the producing thing is not that hard to separate; it's just kind of like I go at it with a certain vibe in mind and I'll sit there and wait until I hear it. Drum wise, we did so much pre-production and I threw so many fucking crazy ideas at Dave [McClain] that we had all things drums narrowed down. Dave nailed, I'd say, 98% of all the drums in a day and a half…which for me was just incredible…I mean he was doing ten minute songs and nailing them on the second take, things like that make producing pretty easy!

Midwest Metal: What songs were the toughest for you, be it guitar playing or singing?

Flynn: Well, the three toughest were “Farewell to Arms“, “Clenching…” and “Wolves” just because there's a zillion fucking riffs. “Wolves” I have to say was incredibly tough, we double-track all the guitars on both sides so that shit has got to be tight as hell, and those thrash riffs caused a lot of tracking and re-tracking and tuning and re-tuning. Another thing about that song was when we went in the studio; I had no idea where I was going with the song. I had a few random lyric ideas but thought all of them sucked, even the vocal patterns weren't going anywhere. At one point it was going to be an instrumental, we loved the music but it just wasn't coming together. A lot of things right around this time started to, uh, well time wise we were running a little slower than we wanted to, so that was building, right? So again at that time we realized just how much more had to be done, how much more layering of things and really we had a lot more to do than we thought…

Read the entire interview at www.midwestmetalmagazine.com.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

WASHINGTON IS NEXT

Posted on February 12, 2008

Dave Mustaine, Megadeth frontman ahs posted the following update on the official Megadeth website:

“I am starting the pack for the road and really look forward to playing in the States for you again [as part of the HEAVEN AND HELL tour with MACHINE HEAD]. I know that the boys are packing and pacing back and forth too right now, and we can probably all count the hours before we take the stage again.

“This segment of the tour 'promises' to allow more time for us to play to you, so those of you who saw the Canadian leg, and had concerns about our set-length can 'come on down' and join us if you missed us. Also, as some of you have seen on Megadeth.com and myspace/megadeth, we have a new and beautiful video with Cristina Scabbia [LACUNA COIL] for 'A Tout Le Monde' and I hope you like it. We are happy with it, and this all came out of an idea to re-do this for a 'b-side for Japan.' And while the title change was not my idea, believe me, being able to see a label excited is nice.

“And now it is time to get serious about this record. We are doing some final maneuvers with our last stretch of promotion before the release, and I have been busy on the old 'dog and bone' with Andy Sneap working on our edit for the single 'Washington Is Next!'

“Ah, the inner workings of the guessing games we have to play.”

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

ELECTRIC SCARS

Posted on February 12, 2008

Corey Taylor, Stone Sour/Slipknot frontman has recently spoken with Koyote of 103.7 KRZR in Fresno. Corey talks about the the J

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