RUSH released Clockwork Angels in July of this year and for those of you who didn’t know, it’s a concept album about the story of a young man who flees a land designed to function in perfect mechanical order. The concept reflects the philosophy of the band’s drummer and lyricist Neil Peart and in a rare interview with Canadian website Macleans, Neil talks about musical integrity, freedom and his fight to escape precision. Check out some extracts from that interview below:

Q: Thirty-eight years ago you joined Rush, and the next day you went shopping for instruments for your first tour. What are your memories of that time?

A: I remember all of us riding in the truck down to Long & McQuade [a music store in Toronto]. What a young musician’s dream, to say, “Look at those chrome drums. Look at that 22-inch ride cymbal. I’ll have those.” It was one of those unparalleled exciting days of your life.

Q: Did you feel you were embarking on a great, lifelong journey?

A: No, nothing like that. When I was young, my ambitions were very modest. I thought, “If only I could play at the battle of the bands at the Y, that would be the culmination of existence!” And then the roller rink, and you work your way up branch by branch. Whereas if you’re [thinking], “I want to be a rock star”—those kind of people just want to know how they can start at the top, and they’re doomed not even to get to the bottom.

Q: That said, the hero of Clockwork Angels, called Owen Hardy in the novelization [by friend and science fiction writer Kevin J. Anderson, to be published in September], says, “I can’t stop thinking big.”

A: Ah, the classic dreamer, and one of the lovely distinctions that Kevin and I wove over the character with reflection to our own pasts. When I was in the band J.R. Flood in St. Catharines, where we were doing pretty well, I said to my bandmates, “Let’s go to London [England].” I did, on my own, but it surprises me to this day that no one wanted to go with me. I went hungry and wasn’t finding fame and fortune as quickly as I’d fantasized, but there was nothing daunting to me at the time. Like Owen, I did stumble into things, and a trail of events that could not have happened otherwise in one sense led me toward the person I am today. I lived away from home for the first time; I got a real job and proved myself in a workday situation, and thus I was never afraid anymore. As crises came up later on—“Oh, we have to compromise, and the record company wants to do this,” I’d be like, “No, I don’t have to.”

Q: It seems as though now, with your full-length concept album, Clockwork Angels, you’re swimming against the musical tide.

A: Yeah, but it grew from the bottom up. The reverse is how we worked in the ’70s: I would think of a grand plan and then build the pieces to fit it. This started as a simple [idea]—the steampunk image and aesthetic I liked, I suggested to the guys as the basis for some kind of extended work. It built up to [the album] piece by piece by organic expansion. All the music was created by Geddy and Alex jamming in the studio, and many of the lyrics were just extemporized over email. There’s so much life experience in this story—it’s not just a far-blown fantasy. Wish Them Well [offers] a very mature response to the world that it took me a long time to learn. In a lot of our early stuff, my lyrical inspiration was anger, for sure. [laughs] There’s still a lot I’m angry about, a lot of human behaviour that’s appalling and despicable, but you choose what you can fight against. I always thought if I could just put something in words perfectly enough, people would get the idea and it would change things. That’s a harmless conceit. With people too, you constantly think, “If I’m nice to people and treat them well, they’ll appreciate it and behave better.” They won’t, but it’s still not a bad way to live.

Q: Clockwork Angels deals with concepts of fate, circumstance, and free will, which you’ve been writing about throughout your career. What are your thoughts on these issues now?

A: I remain the optimist: you just do your best and hope for the best. But it’s an evolving state of mind. I still totally believe in individual rights and individual responsibility and in choosing to do good. On the liberal side of things, they go to an extreme of how people need to be led, and they can’t handle freedom. Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won’t. I wish it were so, and I live that way. I help panhandlers, but other people are, “Oh look at that—why doesn’t he get a job?” While I believe in all that freedom, I also believe that no one should suffer needlessly. A realization I had lately: it is impossible to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Republican. It’s philosophically absolutely opposed—if they could only think about what they were saying for a minute. That’s when you get caught up in the webs of what people call themselves and how they behave. You just become adaptable and try to lead a good life in ways that make sense, regardless. Because I know at the end of it, if I’m going to meet Jesus or Allah or Buddha, I’m going to be all right.

Click here to read the full interview on the Macleans website.

Click here to order a copy of RUSH’s latest album ‘Clockwork Angels’.

STONE SOUR are set to release their upcoming album ‘House of Gold and Bones Part One’ on the 20th of October, with its follow-up, ‘House of Gold and Bones Part Two’, being released early next year. The two albums tell the tale of a young man at a crossroads between staying in adolescence or facing the challenges of adulthood. COREY TAYLOR spoke to Rolling Stone and explained:

“Each song tells a different part of the story, but it’s so unique unto itself. That was one of the things we really wanted to go for; we didn’t want to do a batch of tunes that all sound alike. We wanted to make sure each song had its own soul, basically.”

The band recorded the two part albums simultaneously at Sound Farm Studios in Iowa, which is the same place SLIPKNOT recorded their fourth album, All Hope Is Gone. Comic book fans will be pleased to hear that the House of Gold and Bones project will also include an accompanying comic book series, which will be released around the same time as each album release:

“It’s looking like we’re gonna release the comics in, like, a four-issue miniseries. So the first two issues will be part one and then the last two issues will be part two. And we want to really try and keep it on a timeline where they come out, right around the time that Part Two comes out. It’s basically a visual representation of the short story that I wrote. I’m not sure who the artist is going to be; there are a couple of different guys I want to work with, but it’ll be fun for me.”

Click here to read the full interview on RollingStone.com.

Check out Gone Sovereign/Absolute Zero from House Of Gold And Bones Part One by clicking here.

The Australian hard-partying, mischief makers THE AMITY AFFLICTION have taken a different approach to premiere their new video for ‘Chasing Ghosts’, by allowing their fans to decide when they get to see it by helping to ‘unlock’ it, simply by tweeting #ChasingGhosts.

The more tweets containing the #ChasingGhosts hashtag it receives, the closer fans get to uncovering the clip hosted on http://www.chasingghostsunlock.com and they can watch the progress in real time, building even more anticipation for their new album – also called ‘Chasing Ghosts’ – ahead of its October 1st release date.

The real beauty of it is that Amity fans worldwide can work together to help unlock the clip.

The clock starts from 10.00am, Wednesday Morning EST on Aug 15 via http://www.chasingghostsunlock.com.

THE AMITY AFFLICTION’s oft paradox of fun-loving attitude (and song titles) combined with dark but empowering anthems has endeared the band to a growing legion of fans who travel great distances to see them, tattoo the band’s lyrics and artwork on their bodies and voice their devotion all over social media. What better way to premiere their latest video, than by letting their fans decide when it happens?

‘Chasing Ghosts’ is out on October 1st through Roadrunner Records.

http://www.chasingghostsunlock.com

http://www.facebook.com/theamityafflictionofficial
http://www.twitter.com/amityaffliction
http://fuckyeahtheamityaffliction.tumblr.com

AT THE SKYLINES are set to release their debut album ‘The Secrets To Life‘ on Roadrunner Records on the 8th of October this year and fans can now pre-order a copy of the album from Play.com, exclusively signed by the ATS guys! Click here to pre-order your copy of AT THE SKYLINES’ upcoming album ‘The Secrets To Life’ and see below for the tracklist:

Hush
It’s Cherried
Shady Dreamin’ (Tension)
143 Princess
Let’s Burn This
Turbulence
Chapter 7
The Amazing Atom
Clear Eyes, Full Hearts
Forgiveness (Release)

Check out some acoustic versions of album tracks that the guys have been performing on tour in the US and watch this space for further AT THE SKYLINES news!

Watch this space for more details on when the AT THE SKYLINES album release!

Chris and Willie Adler from Virginia metallers LAMB OF GOD were interviewed by FaceCulture when the band were in Europe recently and they’ve just uploaded that 5-part video interview. Watch as the guys discuss the point where their music became profitable and they could give up jobs like being a sous chef to follow their dreams of being in a band – they also touch upon their mum being a musician and what albums that upset their parents, coming up with new material, the motivation to play in a band and so much more! Check out all 5 parts below:

Pick up a copy of LAMB OF GOD’s latest album ‘Resolution’ by clicking here.

TRIVIUM frontman Matt Heafy has jumped aboard the FaceCulture train and taken part in one of their ace filmed interviews that they do. Matt spoke about everything from touring and discovering new food, what he does to fill his time outside TRIVIUM and much more. Check out the 3-part interview below:

Man in the hat SLASH used to be a keen BMXer before he started playing guitar and BBC Radio 5 Live decided to speak to him about why the BMX was his main love before the guitar. Check out the clip below or alternatively, watch it on the BBC 5 Live website by clicking here.