Guitar One Magazine has conducted an interview with Dave Mustaine, Megadeth frontman. A sample of the interview is shown below:

Guitar One: When “The System Has Failed” came out, you said it would be the last MEGADETH album. What inspired you to change your mind?

Mustaine: “The System Has Failed” was initially supposed to be a solo album. I had left MEGADETH behind in 2002 and was going forward with my solo career. While I was in the studio, I got a call from my publishing company, and they told me that I owed my label another MEGADETH record. Until I gave them that they would own me as a solo artist. I didn't like the idea of someone owning my rights forever, so my solo career had to wait.

That album was going to be the last MEGADETH record, but when we went on tour the crowd response was really surprising. It just continued to grow. The timing seemed right for it. All these young guitarists were citing MEGADETH and my last band as their influences, and these guys were really talented. To have them paying homage to me was really flattering. As a result of that, a lot of people were coming out to see us. Gigantour infused a lot of interest in MEGADETH.

Guitar One: Did that praise affect your guitar playing?

Mustaine: I missed being that guitar player that everybody looked up to — not necessarily liked, but looked up to. That's a degree of how good you are. You're going to have people who love you and those who despise you. To the people who love me, I'm honored. To the people who despise me, I'm happy.

The last five years have been the best years of my career because I'm really cognizant and in the moment watching what is taking place. It's been a period of soul searching and introspection. I've gone back to that boy inside of me that loves to play things that make people go, “I hate you, Dave.” Glen [Drover, MEGADETH guitarist] said that last night when he was trying to play a riff I wrote. I wonder if I'm just supposed to be a writer and not a player because I always write stuff that's beyond what I can play. Usually when it's beyond what I can play I have my other gunslinger do it. Fortunately I've had some of the greatest talent in the music business on my side.

Guitar One: How did Glen become a member of the band?

Mustaine: I met Glen about three years ago after I saw a little snippet of him on the Internet. My spirit knew that Glen was the right guy. I could tell by the way he moved and how he has this interesting look that's almost Native American or Asian. He has the rock star vibe, too. As soon as I heard him playing, I said, “That's my guy!” I started talking with him and I noticed that he seems very shy until you put a guitar in his hand — then he's like Bruce Lee.

Guitar One: Glen fits in exceptionally well with the band. How does he compare to other guitarists you've worked with?

Mustaine: I didn't know that I could ever replace Marty Friedman. When Al Pitrelli came along, he was a good substitute, but he certainly wasn't a replacement. That period was so inane. Two people in the band didn't want to continue on and another guy thought it was his band and not mine. As far as I remember it, when the bus left METALLICA at New York and went to California, we didn't stop in Minnesota. MEGADETH is my band and always has been. Anyone who says that MEGADETH isn't me is a fool. It's as asinine as saying Ozzy Osbourne isn't Ozzy Osbourne. I'm a solo artist who has fantastic musicians and a band around me that plays under the moniker of MEGADETH. If the voice changed it wouldn't be the same. I can't tell you how I felt the first time I heard VAN HALEN with Sammy Hagar going, [sings the scat part of “Why Can't This Be Love?”] “do-doot, do-doot, do, do do do do-doot, do-doot, do-doot, do, do do do do-doot.” This was the iceman? Sammy, what happened to “This Planet's On Fire”? You can't change the voice.

I know our fans are very forgiving, and I know that the public is very curious about what is going on with MEGADETH right now. There was a period a few years ago when I compromised my direction. Around 2002 I looked at what I was doing and said, “I don't want to do this anymore.” That's why I broke up MEGADETH then. But now I refuse to compromise. I'm only concerned about my own music. I'm really excited about what's going on with this record.

Guitar One's entire interview with Dave Mustaine can be found in the May 2007 issue of the magazine. More information can be found at http://www.guitaronemag.com/.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

Black Label Society’s Zakk Wylde has recently given an interview with Glam-Metal.com, a selection of the interview follows:

Glam-Metal.com: Zakk, First of all I would like to commend you on your work with St. Jude Hospital.

Wylde: BLACK LABEL is donating a million dollars to the St. Jude Hospital for cancer research. The kids are the most important thing. We want to keep these little berserkers alive. You just do the right thing. These kids are our future. We are keeping “Blood Is Thicker Than Water” in the set for the kids. It is just one gigantic family.

Glam-Metal.com: Zakk, tell me about your special tribute to Dimebag during the piano set on the current BLACK LABEL SOCIETY tour.

Wylde: We got the piano out. Everybody just chants Dime for twenty minutes. We are doing “In This River” for Dime. The piano songs break up the set. I love doing the unplugged set. Last time, I talked to Dime was when he was up in Boston playing with DAMAGEPLAN on the East Coast. They were making their way to Seattle and the West Coast. The last thing I ever got to say to Dime was “I love you beyond forever.” We were always trading guitars. Dime said, “Wait till you see what I got you. Wait till you see it.” I ended up getting the guitar after Dime passed away. He never got the chance to go, “Dude, did you dig your guitar?” We would always exchange guitars and stuff like that. Dime was awesome.

Glam-Metal.com: What are your thoughts on metal today? You are really one of the first guitarists to make guitar solos popular back again. Musical trends have come and gone, but you never changed your guitar style. You follow in the Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen guitar-shredder style.

Wylde: Without a doubt, guitar solos are back again. There are a bunch of bands that are doing solos now. It is always one of those things where eventually what is old is new again. It is usually like a twenty-year cycle. Even with fashion, or what people are wearing, music is the same thing. It is always funny when you see it. Do you know what I mean? I grew up on classic rock like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen. There are only two types of music, the crap and the good.

You can read the entire interview at Glam-Metal.com (scroll down to the end of the BLACK LABEL SOCIETY Poughkeepsie, NY concert review).

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

Machine Head’s current album ‘The Blackening’ has entered the U.K. album chart at position No. 16, and has also entered the Dutch album chart at position No. 26, blabbermouth reports.

In the U.K. you can get a limited edition album pack featuring an extra track… Machine Head’s version of Metallica’s ‘Battery’, also included is a DVD featuring a documentary of the making of the album and a collector’s slipcase.

A video interview with frontman Robert Flynn conducted by Scuzz TV has been posted online at YouTube.

That's right. Be the 4000th subscriber to Roadrunner's YouTube channel and win. You'll receive a copy of Crackdown for the XBox 360 which includes an official invitation to join the exclusive Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta.

Plus you'll get Killswitch Engage's DVD {SET THIS} WORLD ABLAZE which contains all the band's videos, 75 minutes of live performances, behind the scenes footage from throughout the band's career and tons of interviews.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

www.killswitchengage.com

Trivium have been super-busy over the last few days. Paolo dropped in to let everyone know about their first headlining tour across Europe with labelmates Sanctity, as well as Gojira and Annihilator. Paolo's also featured in Bass Player magazine this month, and the Trivium web site has scans. Roadrunner Italy brings us this interview with Paolo as well, shot during the Iron Maiden tour. Puregrainaudio.com also has an interview with Trivium posted.

Of course, the biggest news is that Trivium have joined the FAMILY VALUES TOUR! They'll be joining Korn, Evanescence, Flyleaf and a host of others for a tour across the country in dozens of cities.

http://www.trivium.org

Blabbermouth reports a recently conducted video interview with Trivium’s Matt Heafy has been posted online at PureGrainVideo.com (note: video player at the top of the video section uses a playlist format).

Also posted online is a live video of the guys performing ‘Ember to Inferno’ last year, to view the video go to the Underground Video Television web site.

Killswitch Engage’s Howard Jones and Mike D’Antonio have given a video interview on Altitude TV’s ‘Metalogy 101’, the 4 minute interview has been posted online at YouTube.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

Posted on YouTube is a video clip of the recent performance of 3 Inches Of Blood with Slipknot’s Joey Jordison, the guys performed ‘Trial of Champions’ in New York City. You can view the clip at this location.

The forthcoming 3 Inches Of Blood album ‘Fire up the Blades’ was produced by Joey Jordison and the cover artwork has been posted online here.

SOURCE: BLABBERMOUTH

Blabbermouth reports Within Temptation’s Sharon Den Adel recently talked with Norway’s Metal Express Radio, where she addresses some misconceptions, an excerpt follows:

Metal Express Radio: You have released the new album, “The Heart Of Everything“, surprisingly fast since your prior release. How come?

Sharon Den Adel: This time we did two things differently than in all the other years. We didn't have to re-release “The Silent Force” album over and over again, which always takes a longer time and a longer period of promotion and takes away time from writing new songs. So we had the first simultaneous release for “The Silent Force” and that gave us more time to write this time. Besides that, we had a lot more inspiration somehow. I don't know why, but after we finished “The Silent Force” we still had a lot of ideas. Our heads were still full of music, so we started to write quite quickly, which ended up being a new album in two and half years, which is pretty fast for our reputation (laughs) because normally there's four years in between our albums. It was really nice for us. Also, it's nice to focus on music instead of always promotion and doing the re-releases all over the place.

Metal Express Radio: Do you feel any pressure during songwriting due to the big success of the previous albums?

Sharon Den Adel: No, because we've always had success with albums before. The thing that you do have is more of the artistic pressure like, “Can I write a good new song again that I'm totally happy with?” And, it's always the question. At the moment, I'm totally empty after writing so many songs and I think the rest of the band is as well. We really need to reload now again to have new ideas. I'm glad that I don't have to write at this moment, because I think we emptied ourselves completely with the last album. (Laughs)

Metal Express Radio: The new album seems heavier than “The Silent Force” with more guitars this time …

Sharon Den Adel: Yeah, I totally agree with that. That was also one of our own aims … again, it was a natural development. The last time we were very orchestral and we also wanted to have the guitars very much up there with “The Silent Force“, but the thing is that they didn't really work well together when we had the mix for that album. That was the first time that we had such a big production and sometimes you get some problems and one of the problems we had was that the orchestra and the guitars were too much in the same frequencies, so we had to make a choice between the guitar and the orchestra. We had to put the guitars a little bit down because it was the first time for us that we could work with big choirs and an orchestra and it was like a big dream for us. So, we chose a little bit more orchestra than the guitar sound, but for this new album we wanted to do it differently, so we could have both really out there. Besides that, we also wrote more songs that were riff-based. There were a lot of riffs and a lot of experimental things in there. Also the mandolin and the distorted cello, so we did a lot more things and more experimenting in a way.

Metal Express Radio: You have just released a single “What Have You Done?” that features Keith Caputo (LIFE OF AGONY). How did you end up going for this one?

Sharon Den Adel: Well, it's not something we choose normally. It's more a thing of the record company. But, I have to say that it also had our approval very much because we like that song and we thing that it's refreshing for WITHIN TEMPTATION, again because we never sang a song with a male vocals outside of the band. Of course, Robert was used to be growling on the early albums, but he's a member of the band. So, we thought that it was a nice song with a lot of energy and that's one of the reasons it was released as the single.

Metal Express Radio: How did you hook up with Keith?

Sharon Den Adel: We were at a festival in Holland many many years ago and we saw LIFE OF AGONY playing. They were playing the first album they had out called “The River Runs Red” and we got totally swept away especially by Keith, but also of course by the whole band because it was such a cool performance and such nice music. We always remembered his voice and that made such a huge impression on us, so when we made this song we thought of him to have as the male voice for the song. We just called him and asked if he was interested in doing this song together with us. He was like, “Well, I know your band, but LIFE OF AGONY is very different from WITHIN TEMPTATION, but send me the song and if I like it I'll call you back and we'll see what we can do.” He called us back pretty fast, “Hey, I like the song, let's do it.” (Laughs) So, we just recorded the songs a couple of weeks later and the voices matched very well together. It turned out great and you can hear him doing a lot more variety than what he's doing in LIFE OF AGONY, which is of course a little bit different style of singing.

Metal Express Radio: WITHIN TEMPTATION used to come out with a live DVD after each studio album, supported by a tour. Are you planning to do it with the new material as well?

Sharon Den Adel: Yes, because our lives are going so fast because we are always so busy, and for me personally, the reason to bring out these DVDs is that when I get old and grey in a chair surrounded by my grandchildren, they'd probably be like “Could this be grandma?” (Laughs) It's like a memory for us as well as for the fans, and I think it's very nice to put all our memories on a DVD. I think that's the best thing after the CDs, because it's so nice to remember all the good times you had together. So, I'd like if we continued recording and releasing DVDs of our future tours.

Metal Express Radio: Won't you be bothered by the fact that maybe in the USA you'll be compared to bands like EVANESCENCE even though you have been on the scene for a much longer period?

Sharon Den Adel: Yeah, you're totally right, but that's going to happen anyway. We just make the music we like and we've been doing it for a very long time like you just said, and we're not gonna change ourselves because another band had more success, because it's not about success and competition. Both bands sound different, but it's easier for some people to compare. When we go to France and to Finland we get compared to NIGHTWISH (laughs) and when we go to Italy we get to compared to LACUNA COIL, or when they come to Belgium or Holland they get compared to us, so it everybody has the same problem and everybody gets to compared to each other and we don't mind that. It's logical in a way and it's something we get used to anyway.

Read the entire interview at www.metalexpressradio.com.

3 Inches Of Blood and Daath both stopped by in London last weekend to deliver some fantastic performances on Friday and Saturday night.