Author Archives: Simo

Damned artwork

I die every time I hear about Anthrax‘s Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano being involved in a supergroup which also consists of one half of Fall Out Boy. That’s just damned sad. But I guess they found some comfort in at least knowing for sure who their singer is. You know, Keith Buckley… I knew this and I  didn’t even have to cross-reference and check it several times, which is a luxury both of these guys don’t have back in Anthrax.  Anyway, was the humor in this post not bad enough for you so far? It’s okay, because it’s time to throw Conan O’Brien in the mix. Since your head will most likely explode if I continue, let me stop with lame joke attempts (we should leave that to Conan himself now that he has a new job) and explain the missing link between the two.

Remember that infamous “I’m with Coco” picture that stormed the internet right after Conan lost his employment? Well, Mike Mitchell, the guy behind it just announced via Twitter that he will, in fact, be in charge of The Damned Things‘ album artwork. So there’s a slight chance that this album will at least be tolerable to look at, if not to listen to.

Continue reading to see the tweets in context.

Slash should write for us…

When it comes to making fun of Guns N’ Roses and Poison, we thought we were actually  good. Guess what? Slash is better.

Few excerpts from the interview Classic Rock Revisited conducted with our new hero:

Classic Rock Revisited: [One of the] singers I would have loved to have seen on your solo album . . . is Axl Rose.

Slash: You know, I will be honest with you, even at the sake of it going public, when I was in the middle of this process there were a lot of singers names who flew through my mind during the process. You are living in Singer Land so all you are thinking about is singers. The thought of him crossed my mind at one point. I thought, “Axl could sing the shit out of any of these songs.” I, obviously, never made the phone call because I wanted to put the record out in this millennium.

Classic Rock Revisited: Legend holds that you tried out for Poison but didn’t make the cut. Is that true?

Slash: Yeah, I did. I was living in L.A. and I had just gotten done working in a band with Axl, actually, called Hollywood Rose. Steven Adler was in that band as well. I just quit. I told Axl I couldn’t handle it anymore and I walked. That was right after the first time Axl and I ever worked together. Matt, the original guitar player for Poison, who was actually a pretty cool guy, had gotten his wife pregnant or they were getting married or something like that. He was moving back to Pennsylvania. He goes, “You should try out for Poison.” I hated Poison but in those days you did whatever you had to do to keep moving. Being very ambitious, as I was, I went and auditioned for Poison. I ended up being one of two guitar players left that they were going to pick from. I remember kicking the shit out of the songs they had. There was no denying that I could play them but there was an issue about makeup and stuff. Bobby Dall asked me what kind of shoes I was going to wear. I was like, “What?” It was kind of obvious that this was going to go nowhere. As I was walking out of the audition, C.C. Deville was walking in. He had on pancake makeup and a ton of hairspray. I actually remember thinking right then, “That should be the guy.” The next day I got a call from Bobby and he said, “You know, you are great and all but I think we are going to pass on you and go with this other guy.” It was C.C. and it really did make all the sense in the world. I was in a couple of bands after that and then we started Guns N’ Roses.

Read the entire interview here.

Incoming: Severed Fifth

What do you get when you combine metal and too much time spent on a computer? No, it’s not Linkin Park‘s new 8-bit pop album. Yes, it is this site. But it’s also Severed Fifth, a one-man band and music project started by Jono Bacon.

“Founded by Jono Bacon in 2008, Severed Fifth blends together Bay Area thrash with British metal, all the while infusing their wide range of influences, and delivering a tight, competent, rhythmic attack that has a constant heavy undertone. “

If you wonder where the computer part kicks in (besides the computer program that kicked the double bass drum on the first album), it luckily has less to do with music, and more to do with this:

“Led by founder Jono Bacon’s philosophy, Severed Fifth  make all their music freely available under a permissive license, helping to bring their fans closer to the band, and encouraging fans to use Severed Fifth content in their own creative work.”

To translate it from geek, it means that everything Severed Fifth releases is free. Free as in “you don’t have to wait for 60 seconds on Rapidshare to download it”. Yay.

Over the past few months Jono has been busy recording second Severed Fifth album, Nightmares by Design (to be released October 11th), assembling a live band under the assistance of Chris Kontos, and making their live debut. We hope he also replaced the plugin used for drumming on the first album.

You can check the band out on their official website (where you can download the first album of course… No fear of RIAA attached) and see the new album cover and a few band photos after the jump.

Remember who plays what in Korn?

It’s a sad day for Korn when their highest talent is also the newest addition to the band’s not so solid line-up. They can only wish they were as lucky with guitar players as they were with drummers, though.

Ray Luzier, the only non-original band member who doesn’t have to play behind amps during their live shows (because he plays behind the drum-kit) was recently interviewed by Roadrunner Italy, and discussed various things, including his musical influences. Let me drop you a spoiler: Don’t expect to hear anything about David Silveria. Watch the video after the jump.

Alice in Chains learned their lesson

Looks like the experimental (and lame) interactive video concept for Acid Bubble, which we previously covered didn’t work too well for Alice in Chains, because they’re already out with a new video! To make matters ironic, it’s actually called Lesson Learned. We’ll just leave it at that.

Don’t be fooled though, the guys didn’t let the fact they needed a boring regular video stop them from being creative, because the newest one is made entirely using stop-motion animation. Oooooooh. Make the jump and see it for yourself but be warned, because it could be labeled NSFW. Actually, if you’re at work you probably shouldn’t be on this page anyway…