Michael Buckner, Getty Images Motley Crue ‘s Vince Neil was among many rock acts speaking out via their social networks late last week after the tragic school shooting in Connecticut , but the rocker got a little hot under the collar after a number of his followers debated his call for gun control. His initial tweet was a simply put, “Sad day today. Prayers to all the families. Gun control!!!” While Neil definitely meant to put the focus on the tragic events of the day, there were enough of his followers that latched onto the final comment about gun control that he felt the need to respond. In a series of tweets that followed, Neil admonished those who chose to address that part of his comment. His Tweets on the matter can be read below: Sad day today. Prayers to all the families. Gun Control!!! — Vince Neil (@TheVinceNeil) December 14, 2012 Why is everyone so concerned with guns? What about the CHILDREN that were MURDERED today! Get your priorities straight!! Come on people!! — Vince Neil (@TheVinceNeil) December 14, 2012 I did say gun control but I didn’t think 90% of you would care more about your gun than dead children!!! — Vince Neil (@TheVinceNeil) December 14, 2012 FUCK YOU to EVERYONE who puts guns in front of kids!! Do not come to ANY shows! You are sick!! — Vince Neil (@TheVinceNeil) December 15, 2012 Neil knows firsthand about the loss of a child at a young age as his daughter Skylar Neil died of cancer at the age of 4 back in 1995. The Friday elementary school shooting resulted in the loss of life of 20 young children and six staff members, as well as the shooter’s mother at a nearby home. The 20-year-old shooter killed himself at the school. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/connecticut-school-shooting-rock-musicians-condolences/” title=”Next: Read Rocker Reactions to the Connecticut Shootings” align=”center”]
Jo Hale, Getty Pictures Slash has been keeping busy of late while focusing his energies on another offshoot of his music career. The guitar great confirmed his participation in the upcoming ‘Band Fuse: Rock Legends’ video game in a new Twitter posting . Video games like ‘Rock Band’ and ‘Guitar Hero’ were great in both drawing attention to a wide variety of bands and in some cases providing an entry point for some beginners to explore their interest in playing an instrument. However, one common bone of contention amongst those who play music for a living was that these games were not quite what the real experience was like. That’s where ‘Band Fuse: Rock Legends’ comes in. The game boasts “industry standard tablature animated for an authentic experience.” Between one and four players can take part at the same time, playing along to the music as it would typically be read by musicians as they learned themselves. Slash says in his posting, “Hands down, best guitar game.” In addition, musicians like Slash, Zakk Wylde and bass great Bootsy Collins have filmed their own tutorials within the game teaching the players how to play certain tracks. But don’t worry about keeping up with these real life master musicians, as the game supports all skill levels — from the first-time player to professional musicians. The game features 55 songs on the disc from acts like Rush , Pantera , Pearl Jam , Jane’s Addiction and more and much like some of the guitar video game predecessors, there is a career mode where you advance to different challenges the better you perform. The ‘Band Fuse: Rock Legends’ video game is expected for Xbox and PlayStation 3 this coming spring. You can watch a trailer for the game below. Watch the Trailer for the ‘BandFuse’ Video Game [button href=”http://loudwire.com/slash-deftones-tool-stone-sour-join-ozzfest-japan-lineup/” title=”Next: Slash Joins Ozzfest Japan Lineup” align=”center”]
Carlos Muina / Hulton Archive Express Newspapers, Getty Images Danko Jones is one of the more outspoken musicians in rock and his viewpoint and willingness to speak out has made him the perfect guest columnist for the Huffington Post. This past week, the world lost music great Ravi Shankar who died at the age of 92 and Jones decided to dedicate this week’s column to remembering the sitar icon and Beatles collaborator and relating it to his own experiences with music growing up. Jones reveals that he came from an academic family and that he and his parents rarely saw eye-to-eye on his passion for music, but while they didn’t always agree, one moment of bonding came when they took him to see Shankar at a young age. He explains, “I’m very grateful to my parents whether they realize it or not. I’m grateful to them for instilling me with a set of morals that I use as a compass to this day. I’m grateful for their love and care and their best intentions for me at all times. And I am grateful for that night they took me out, to stay up way past my bedtime, to see Ravi Shankar play with Alla Rakha at the Minkler Auditorium which used to be part of the Seneca College Newham Campus in Willowdale, Ontario when I was eight-years-old.” The singer recalls, “I do remember that I was so not psyched to be in the audience before the show started. I saw a few long hairs and figured it must be a rock concert of some sort, but knew my parents HATED rock music, so it was confusing … My most vivid memory of watching this intimate performance, in basically a glorified college lecture hall, is watching Shankar play on the floor with his eyes closed — which I found mildly impressive — with his trusted tabla player, Alla Rakha, beating out rhythms by his side.” Jones continues, “No matter how many great bands and great shows I’ve witnessed over the years, there’s no show that carries the weight of this one. And even though I didn’t appreciate the moment while it was happening, I remembered that feeling 15 years later when it hit me like a thunderbolt. My mind was being expanded and my music tastes widening, and I had seen Ravi Shankar . I remember sitting in my room kicking myself for not taking it all in properly. Even when I found out Shankar had passed away late this past Tuesday, it took me a full 10 minutes to remember that I had indeed seen him perform all those many years ago, so surreal is the memory.” Jones says he never had a chance to see Shankar perform again, but his love for classical Indian music grew over time to the point where he took a World Music class at York University. He adds, “When my father made a trip home to New Delhi one year, I begged him to bring back as much Shankar music as he could fit in his luggage. I think the request surprised him but he gladly obliged. Coming from a household where academia was valued above all else and seeing the quiet sting of disappointment in my parent’s eyes when I chose a musical vocation, they can’t deny that by exposing me to Ravi Shankar at such an early age they were complicit in this rock ‘n’ roll thing I call a ‘job.’” To read more of Danko Jones’ columns, check out his Huffington Post archive here [button href=”http://loudwire.com/danko-jones-just-a-beautiful-day-exclusive-video-premiere/” title=”Next: Watch Danko Jones’ ‘Just a Beautiful Day’ Video” align=”center”]
Roswell For the better part of the last year, Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl has been building the buzz while compiling and editing footage for his ‘ Sound City ‘ documentary about the famous Los Angeles music studio and the Neve console where many of rock’s great albums have been made. Now fans can really get excited as the full cast for the film and details of what songs were recorded for the movie’s soundtrack have been revealed. Audiences got their first taste of the ‘Sound City’ soundtrack Wednesday night (Dec. 12) when the surviving members of Nirvana joined Paul McCartney onstage at the 12-12-12 Hurricane Sandy benefit to perform ‘Cut Me Some Slack.’ The tune was just made available online and will serve as the lead single from the soundtrack. In addition to McCartney, Grohl teamed up with members of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Queens of the Stone Age , Rage Against the Machine , Foo Fighters, Kyuss and Cheap Trick , as well as singers Stevie Nicks , Rick Springfield, Trent Reznor , Lee Ving and Corey Taylor and violinist Jessy Greene to record songs for the soundtrack. You can currently pre-order the disc here ahead of its March 12 release date. As for the film’s cast, it includes hard rock and metal performers such as Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins , Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffe, Pat Smear, and Nate Mendel, Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic , Slipknot and Stone Sour ‘s Corey Taylor, Metallica ‘s Lars Ulrich , Rage Against the Machine’s Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk, Nine Inch Nails ‘ Trent Reznor, Queens of the Stone Age’s Joshua Homme and Alain Johannes, Ratt ‘s Stephen Pearcy and Warren DeMartini, Heaven and Hell ‘s Vinny Appice and Fear’s Lee Ving. On the alternative side, the film features The Pixies ‘ Frank Black, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Levon Been and Weezer ‘s Rivers Cuomo, Brian Bell and Pat Wilson. There’s also classic rock representation from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, Fleetwood Mac ‘s Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood and Lindsey Buckingham , REO Speedwagon ‘s Kevin Cronin, John Fogerty and Pat Benatar guitarist Neil Giraldo. Plus, there’s ’70s and ’80s pop stars like Rick Springfield and Barry Manilow involved. The film features session musicians like violinist Jessy Greene and drummer Jim Keltner as well as producers and engineers Rick Rubin, Butch Vig, Joe Barresi, Chris Goss, James Brown, Keith Olsen, Jim Scott, Ross Robinson and Nick Raskulinecz. In addition, console maker Rupert Neve, who is responsible for the board that most of the records were made on, appears in the movie, as do Sound City staffers Sandy Skeeter, Shivaun O’Brien, Paula Salvatore and Tom Skeeter. The ‘Sound City’ film is due for digital release on Feb. 1. ‘Sound City’ Soundtrack Track Listing: 1. ‘Heaven and All’ – Dave Grohl with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Robert Levon Been and Peter Hayes 2. ‘Time Slowing Down’ – Dave Grohl with Queens of the Stone Age’s Chris Goss and Rage Against the Machine’s Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk 3. ‘You Can’t Fix This’ – Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Rami Jaffe and Taylor Hawkins with Stevie Nicks 4. ‘The Man That Never Was’ – Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel and Pat Smear with Rick Springfield 5. ‘Your Wife Is Calling’ – Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins and Pat Smear with Queens of the Stone Age’s Alain Johannes and Fear’s Lee Ving 6. ‘From Can to Can’t’ – Dave Grohl with Slipknot and Stone Sour’s Corey Taylor, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and Kyuss’ Scott Reeder 7. ‘Centipede’ – Dave Grohl with Queens of the Stone Age’s Joshua Homme, Chris Goss and Alain Johannes 8. ‘A Trick With No Sleeve’ – Dave Grohl with Queens of the Stone Age’s Joshua Homme and Alain Johannes 9. ‘Cut Me Some Slack’ – Paul McCartney with Nirvana’s Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear 10. ‘Once Upon a Time … The End’ – Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Rami Jaffe with violinist Jessy Greene and drummer Jim Keltner 11. ‘Mantra’ – Dave Grohl with Queens of the Stone Age’s Joshua Homme and Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor [button href=”http://loudwire.com/dave-grohl-sound-city-documentary-sundance-premiere/” title=”Next: ‘Sound City’ Film’s Sundance Premiere + Trailer” align=”center”]
CroMags.com Assault and weapons charges against Cro-Mags founder and former bassist Harley Flanagan have been dismissed, reports the website New York Natives . The charges resulted from a melee that took place at the CBGBs Festival back in July, with Flanagan and members of the band’s current lineup coming to blows and a knife fight factoring into the legalities. In a video interview seen below, Flanagan states, “I’m very glad to have all this behind me … It wasn’t until I was in the hospital that I realized that I was the one getting charged with attacking them, which was a surprise to me. I thought we were all going to get charged with having a fight or whatever. I didn’t see how it could make sense that one person could attack a room full of people. It didn’t make sense then and it makes no sense now, cause it just didn’t happen and that’s basically why I’m getting off today is because they had a lot people making statements then saying that I did this and I did that, but it all started falling apart because they were all giving conflicting statements.” At the time, it was reported that Flanagan allegedly assaulted bassist Michael Couls and another victim, William Berario, at the festival with a hunting knife. Watch Harley Flanagan’s Post-Trial Interview [button href=”http://loudwire.com/cro-mags-founder-harley-flanagan-busted-for-stabbing-biting-current-members-at-nyc-gig/” title=”Next: Read Our Initial Report on the Cro-Mags Altercation” align=”center”]
Liz Ramanand, Loudwire The Black Veil Brides army continues to march strong, especially with the band’s third studio album, ‘Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones,’ due out on Jan. 8. Loudwire had the opportunity to catch up with Black Veil Brides frontman Andy Biersack after her surprised 20 fans with his presence at a listening party in New York City. Biersack talked in-depth about ‘Wretched and Divine’ and how circumstances in his personal life helped with the creation of the new album. ‘Wretched and Divine: The Story of the Wild Ones’ is a very epic sounding album name. What does the title mean to you personally? Growing up, I wasn’t like the kid in ‘Breakfast Club,’ but I was like the weirdo like “Don’t let your kids around that guy” – I had like a James Dean complex when I was a kid and I wanted to be this rebel person but it wasn’t because I wanted to rebel against things it was just that my inclinations were more towards rock ‘n’ roll, leather jackets and that kind of stuff. I wasn’t a kid who got into trouble, I didn’t get into drugs as a kid but just the way that I looked and my interests made me into this social pariah. So at a young age I was already fascinated by the social dichotomy of if someone looks a certain way or someone has certain interests they can be labeled as a bad person without any actual knowledge of who they are. The older I got, I started to realize more it’s not necessarily that any of us are inherently bad or good, you just kind of carve your own way and you are your experiences and your surroundings and what you grow up in. I think on any given day somebody could help out a homeless person and cuss out somebody that cut them off in traffic and I think that everybody has that inside them, it’s just how you live that balance – so I think everbody is ‘Wretched and Divine.’ Our band also, we’re a very polarizing band in opinion – people either tend to love us or hate us, there’s not really anything in between. We like to think of ourselves and the people that support us as people on the fringe, we don’t care to be part of one group or another. We kind of exist on our own bubble so to speak and with that I think that may be where the title came from. Can you talk about the brand new single ‘In The End’ musically and lyrically? The song probably came about two or three weeks after my grandfather died. I was very close with my grandparents and through the course of writing the song, I started to think more and more about – just from my personal perspective because everyone in the band has their own feelings on when songs are written. But when I was sitting outside writing lyrics to it, I was feeling — I’m not a religious person but I grew up in a religious family. I went to the funeral for my grandfather, a person that I love very much and everyone is speaking about how he went to heaven and how he’s in heaven. I always fight with that because I would love nothing more to believe that my grandfather is in the clouds playing Xbox 460 or whatever awesome stuff they have up in heaven but I can’t. I remember sitting around in my grandmother’s house afterwards and everbody’s doing what you do after — you all go back somewhere and you talk about the great stories of the person that died and that came to me very clearly: Whether you believe or don’t believe in an actual physical afterlife, you cant deny that there is a certain element of an afterlife in the legacy that someone leaves. A bunch of people sitting around a room talking about how wonderful this person was and how positively they affected their lives is always going to, in a sense, be heaven — heaven on earth. I think heaven and afterlife is for the living, it’s for the people that continue on and remember that person and if you’ve done something that is substantial in your life then you can leave a legacy and do something positive. It obviously applies to the storyline and this battle and being at the end of it and not having won or loss — just knowing that you did something for what you thought was right. Artists such as Bert McCracken from the Used and William Control are on the album. What did these other musicians bring to the table? With this we were doing something so different than anything we’ve done before, it opened itself up to inviting friends and different people in. In the past we never really had guest vocalists but this felt like it was bigger than just the five of us – it’s almost like doing a play and you only cast you and your friends, you have to have stuff that exists outside of the base where the story was written. If anything else, it was bringing people in that had different perspectives and different sounds so that we could play more with the sonic level of the record and have different sounding things. Can you talk about the F.E.A.R spoken word parts of the album and the idea behind those sections of the disc? I’ve sort of just like the whole Orwellian, dystopian future – I like the idea that it doesn’t seem to crazy or far off that there could be someone who is this omnipotent, omniscient power that tells you what to do. I think that people always make the metaphor pretty readily with television or media brainwashing and the people with the tinfoil on their heads think that everything’s brainwashing them. So, if you were to have a situation where it’s an all sweeping political, religious, psychological just this entity that exists on every level to where you get your food, you get your God and you get your health from this one entity and they kind of control everything — that just always interested me. I like the idea of having the narrative told through the perspective of the bad guy more than anything else. You rarely ever hear something narrated through the villain’s perspective and it was fun. If nothing else, this record boils down to stuff that I just thought was fun and cool and what we could have fun with as a whole. Where did the idea of the Black Veil Brides film ‘Legion of the Black’ come from? Again just fun, honestly it was as simple as just the childishness of “We should do a movie” and then the reality of, “How do you do that and how do you get the financing for that?” We were very fortunate to have great friends Patrick Fogerty and Richard Villa, who have worked with us from day one. Richard does our artwork and Patrick has directed every video I have done since I was 17 years old and so they have a lot of friends and were able to pull a lot of favors and we were able to agree with the label on a budget. So instead of doing these promotional videos, we decided that we would do a cohesive film to compliment the album because it is this larger than life kind of thing. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/black-veil-brides-unleash-video-for-in-the-end/” title=”Check Out Black Veil Brides’ Video for ‘In The End'” align=”center”]
Jason Merritt / Frazer Harrison, Getty Images On Dec. 11, sitar virtuoso and essential Beatles influence Ravi Shankar passed away. The news was learned by many the next day, inspiring many tributes and condolences in response to Shankar’s death, including a special shout-out from Guns N’ Roses during their Dec. 12 performance in New Delhi, India. During the massive Guns N’ Roses concert, singer Axl Rose took a moment to memorialize Shankar with one quick sentence: “We dedicate this show to Pandit Ravi Shankar, who passed away today.” Shankar, a three-time Grammy Award winner, was admitted to Scripps Memorial Hospital in San Diego, Calif to undergo heart valve surgery on Dec. 6. Shankar had been complaining of breathing difficulties after the surgery, ultimately passing away five days later at the age of 92. The Shankar family released their official statement on Shankar’s death shortly after his demise: It is with heavy hearts we write to inform you that Pandit Ravi Shankar, husband, father, and musical soul, passed away today, December 11th, 2012.?As you all know, his health has been fragile for the past several years and on Thursday he underwent a surgery that could have potentially given him a new lease of life. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of the surgeons and doctors taking care of him, his body was not able to withstand the strain of the surgery. We were at his side when he passed away. We know that you all feel our loss with us, and we thank you for all of your prayers and good wishes through this difficult time. Although it is a time for sorrow and sadness, it is also a time for all of us to give thanks and to be grateful that we were able to have him as a part of our lives. His spirit and his legacy will live on forever in our hearts and in his music. Sukanya & Anoushka Shankar [button href=”http://loudwire.com/best-guns-n-roses-songs/” title=”10 Best Guns N’ Roses Songs” align=”center”]