Bored of all your usual nights out in London? Launching on Halloween, a brand new rock night begins at the Mean Fiddler in London! We’re told the main floor will rock to the sounds of classic rock (here’s your Slipknot, System Of A Down, Fear Factory, Machine Head etc), and upstairs will be mkaing your ears bleed to the tunes of Hatebreed, Killswitch Engage and so forth. It’s a mere 퉌£4 bribe to the doorman to get in, with loads of special offers, drinks promotions, free giveaways… and promises to be the biggest rock night in London! So if you like your music heavy, make sure you head down and show your support!

Chimaira: They are touring Europe right now with Ill Nino and Spineshank. Word is, things are going great. Word is also that Chimaira drummer Andols is amazing. “Every day he gets up and disappears into the city,” tells Chimaira’s Chris Spicuzza. Would Andols be sight seeing, perhaps? No, no, no, no, no…”seeking fast food,” Chris continues. “Somehow he has found a McDonalds in almost every city.” Hey, when in Rome…

A special CD + DVD package for the debut Stone Sour album is released on Oct 20th. It features a massive 5 bonus tracks + all the band’s videos + a previously unseen live clip of ‘Tumult’. It’s available from: HMV – 퉌£2 off with your ‘Download 2003’ discount card. VIRGIN MVC MUSIC ZONE ROADRAGE STORES

Hard-Rock Clown Finds His Inner Softie NEW YORK TIMES October 15, 2003 By NEIL STRAUSS LOS ANGELES, Oct. 14 – The moment that the self-titled debut CD from To My Surprise wins the listener over is when the guitar solo kicks in on the first track, “The World’s Too Small.” This is chiefly because it is not played on an instrument, but is sung with nonsense words like “bwaaa bwa bwa.” Beyond that, the song is a quirky alternative-rock hit-to-be in the tradition of bands like Cake, the Presidents of the United States of America and Harvey Danger. It may come as a bombshell to anyone who listens to this eclectic album that To My Surprise is the latest side project from a Slipknot member. For those who haven’t been following hard rock for the last five years, Slipknot is one of the most extreme and aggressive popular rock bands today: nine men from Des Moines who dress in jumpsuits and scary masks and grind out aggressive, mostly tuneless new-metal. If there is a concert that parents don’t want their children at, it is probably a Slipknot show. So far its members’ unmasked side projects have included the horror-movie metal of the Murderdolls and the shout-along thrash of Stone Sour. Earlier this year two murder suspects said that they listened to Slipknot for motivation before stabbing a friend to death. For these and other reasons, finding a kinder, Gentler project influenced more by the Beatles than Korn is such a shocker, especially considering that To My Surprise is the spawn of not just a Slipknot member but the band’s founder, unofficial leader and chief instigator, Shawn Crahan, who dresses as a clown and beats a percussion contraption onstage. “I’m now only concerned with making songs and speaking to people,” Mr. Crahan said, speaking by telephone this week. “I want to speak to Wall Street people. I want to speak to businessmen who push insurance. I want to talk to the teachers. I want to go to colleges and give seminars. I want to sit down with kids in classrooms and have them challenge me. I want to communicate because I’m 34, and I’ve been shutting out communication and pushing it away.” He said his new attitude was inspired in large part by the transformation of the country and its consciousness after 9/11, which sent him into a period of deep self-evaluation. “There’s not one person today who doesn’t understand that we’re living in a different world,” he said. “And I’m not ashamed to say that I’ve been a boy. And I’m getting better in my mind and I’m getting healthier.” “I went out in front of 60,000 people, and I felt isolated from them,” he continued, adding that he had “mass quantities of power to make a difference” but that he took advantage of “not a moment of speaking to make a difference.” In Slipknot there were lyrics like, “How many times have you wanted to kill everything and everyone?” Songs by To My Surprise like “Blue” are a world away, with optimistic choruses like, “Blue belongs in the sky/ And not on you or I.” Mr. Crahan is one of contemporary rock’s most interesting characters. When he communicates, he is preternaturally intense, always evaluating the world, his life and his work and attaching a profound cosmic significance to it all. His change of direction does not mean that he is leaving Slipknot to become a social worker. He is currently working on a new Slipknot CD. One of the other reasons why the To My Surprise album was so unexpected was that Mr. Crahan was considered the least musical member of Slipknot, pegged as a percussionist with little musical aptitude who helped drag the band to popularity through sheer force of will. Rick Rubin is executive producer of the CD, released by Roadrunner Records. “I pushed him really hard to sing on this album,” said Brandon Darner, who sings and plays guitar on the CD. “I’m like: `You have a voice. Who cares if people think it sounds good or not?’ I think he has one of the coolest voices of anyone that’s out there.” Unlike Mr. Crahan, Mr. Darner, 26, is hardly a music veteran. He continues to run a janitorial business in Des Moines with his wife. But music has always been his dream. Influenced by musicians like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen and early Billy Joel, he said, he has had the ambition since he was 15 to “write one of the greatest albums of all time.” This made it hard for him to keep a band together, he said, because members were more concerned with playing clubs and living the rock lifestyle than actual songcraft. To My Surprise has never played a live show, though it intends to. Mr. Darner first met Mr. Crahan seven years ago, and the two have been friends since. The balance they strike in To My Surprise is that Mr. Darner craves order and planning, while Mr. Crahan pushes him toward spontaneous experimentation. (To My Surprise’s third member, Stevan Robinson, was brought in later in the process for extra guitar and vocals the band has no bassist.) A result is a diverse CD of pop songs that have been pushed off balance. On the slow-trudging “Say Goodbye” Mr. Crahan comes on like Trent Reznor in “Hurt.” At the other extreme “Sunday” takes the Doors dirge “The End” and turns it into a chirpy, upbeat pop song that sounds more like it came from “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Fishing for singles that wouldn’t come as a shock to fans, Roadrunner chose one of the few hard-rock songs on the CD, “In the Mood,” in which Mr. Crahan addresses the events of 9/11 (“We erect buildings to hit airplanes”) and recognizes his role in the band (“I’m in the mood to ruin a melody”). There is not one song on the CD that sounds like another one, which the members say was partly the intention. Between songs they changed most of the instruments and equipment in the studio. Clearly Mr. Crahan has discovered and brought out a talent in Mr. Darner. For his part Mr. Darner says his life will never be the same. “Since I’ve gotten home,” Mr. Darner said of returning from recording with Mr. Rubin in Los Angeles, “I know now that I have to make music to live.” You can read the whole story HERE

So how is Roadrage going? Word from the road, from Chimaira’s Chris… “So far this Roadrage stint has been amazing. Chimaira is beyond stoked with the turn out and the crowd reaction. Craziest crowds so far are UK, Tilburg, & Hamburg. We spend our days waking up late, trying to find showers, clean toilets, and good meals. Chimaira is fat and loves to eat. There hasn’t been any serious pranks yet…. just a ton of trash talking. All the bands love to bust balls (insult each other for fun)…” Check out a mini interview package with the Roadragers on Kerrang TV over the next 2 weeks at the following times: Week 1 11/10/2003-17/10/2003 7.25 11.25 15.25 19.25 Week 2 18/10/2003-24/10/2003 8.25 12.25 16.25 20.25

If by any chance, you will be in (or can get to) San Francisco, California, on October 17th… you now have plans for the evening. When the day turns from blue to grey, and descends into the shades of night, we suggest you leave your business unfinished, bite the bullet and get your ass to San Fran venue The Pound in the presence of your friends. And if you can’t make it, wipe your tears…!

Day off? What better to do than play another show! Spineshank & Chimaira have just confirmed a bonus off-Roadrage date… for all the lucky folks way up there in Dundee (in bonny Scotland), and whoever else can get to Dundee on November 1. You can now catch Spineshank & Chimaira at the Dundee Reading Rooms on Saturday November 1. Tickets on sale very soon!

More news from the Hatebreed stable… this from the RR UK Press Office: HATEBREED release ‘The Rise of Brutality’, the much-anticipated follow-up to ‘Perseverance’, through Roadrunner Records in the UK on 10th November 2003. Coming across as something akin to Sick of It All in a backyard brawl with Slayer, Hatebreed meld walls of devastatingly crunchy guitars and savage steamroller rhythms. The band developed a formula that included the best parts of death metal, thrash-punk and NYC hardcore and made this album in the same way they crafted their first demo in Connecticut nearly 10 years ago. They gathered in a basement and jammed, narrowing it down to just over thirty minutes of passionate, sing-along ready musical exorcism. “The first time we jammed out ‘Live for This’ and I sang it, I got chills,” frontman Jamey Jasta reports. The band streamlined every song into a savagely potent, surgically precise and ferociously driving anthem without losing one drop of the band’s trademark bile. “The vocals are a little bit lower and the approach a little bit more in your face and maniacal,” he says í¢ä‰åñI also tried to enunciate more.í¢ä‰åŒ He adds, “We wanted to make this one a little more brutal than Perseverance but at the same time catchier. It’s a good balance.” HATEBREED’s particular brand of ‘balance’ means Jasta having to juggle leading a band, managing several up-and-coming acts, hosting a show for MTV2 (Headbangers Ball in the US), raising a family, running a label imprint and booking shows. It’s baffling how he can still find time to provide a much needed voice to his vast hardcore constituency, but he does. As “You’re Never Alone” proudly declared, “..this is for the kids who have nowhere to turn.” “I had people within my closest circle of friends, when I played them that song, say to me, ‘Don’t you think that’s a little cheesy dude?'” Jamey says. “But that’s how I feel. I don’t care who thinks it’s cheesy.” “I was one of those kids, when my father was locked away in the hospital and my mother was working at night, that’s what I did. I listened to hardcore.” í¢ä‰åñI know there are a lot of kids that don’t have problems and they like Hatebreed, too,” he concludes. “I’m just trying to make music that’s fulfilling to me, but I definitely consider the people that rely on this stuff to maybe just get them through a traffic jam or get them through a hard time, or maybe just give ’em a half-hour of enjoyment.í¢ä‰åŒ HATEBREED continue to tour the US, bringing an early taste of their new music to loyal fans. They embark on the RISE OF BRUTALITY tour that they will headline, then head out on the JAGERMEISTER U.S. tour with Slayer afterwards. UK shows beckon in 2004.

So, the European Roadrage 2003 tour is underway. The first photos from the first show in Portsmouth are posted… check out CHIMAIRA, ILL NINO, and SPINESHANK. More photos to come. So how was the show? Off the hook, according to you… “Hey I just want to say thank you for putting on the best show in the world. I went to see it at Rock City last night I loved every minute of it. I did not want it to end. Please do the same next year! I am really happy because I got to touch the lead singer of SPINESHANK and ILL NINO. So that made my night special – it was a dream come true!” ~Jessica Gunter “Hey, Roadrage rocked! Thanks very much for putting on such a brilliant gig. It went really well and how cool was Chimaira splitting the crowd into two!? Thanks! ~Lee Swinford Thanks for the emails Lee, Jessica… send us in your address for a little Roadrage something in the mail.