Mary Ouellette, SheWillShootYou.com Musicians have to get their inspiration from somewhere, and Shinedown singer Brent Smith says he owes a debt of gratitude to the ’70s television series ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’ and the singer of the show’s theme song, Waylon Jennings , for putting him on the path to music. Smith recalls in the ‘Beacon Moment’ video series (shown below), “I was about four years old and I had a love for the television show ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’ The funny thing was that I loved the theme song so much that my grandmother got me a 45 of just the Waylon Jennings song.” Smith says that his love of the song really helped define a passion early on in his life. He recalls, “I would play it just over and over and over and over again, and honestly I knew pretty much from that moment that I wanted to be a singer. It’s funny cause I would tell my parents, ‘I want to do what the man’s doing, like on the song.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, you want to be a guitar player or be in a band?’ and I was like, ‘No, I’m gonna be a singer.’” The vocalist says that from an early age, he knew music was his future. He explains, “It was very profound because the way I looked at it, even at a young age, I don’t feel I was ever desensitized to songs or the beauty of being an artist as far as creating songs and being a songwriter. I started writing songs when I was probably six, at least in my mind I did.” Aside from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard,’ Smith says his dad helped provide his soulful side, turning him onto the music of Otis Redding. The vocalist says that even though he loves rock, you can hear a bit of the Redding influence in his delivery. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/shinedown-bizarre-tour-rider-requests/” title=”Next: Shinedown: Bizarre Tour Rider Requests” align=”center”] Watch Shinedown’s Brent Smith Recalling His First Love of Music ?
Lucy Johnston, Getty Images The Melvins are in the midst of their ’51 States in 51 Days’ tour, attempting to set a Guinness World Record for fastest tour of the United States. Frontman Buzz Osborne has been keeping a tour diary at Spin.com , and had some interesting observations about previous tours with Nine Inch Nails and White Zombie . Playing Sioux Falls, S.D. on the tour reminded Osbourne of the last time the Melvins played there, which was with Nine Inch Nails in the mid ’90s. He remembers NIN smashing up the dressing room there, causing about $30,000 in damage. “This was NIN’s ‘Downward Spiral’ tour, which ended up being the bands zenith, meaning it was their biggest and most interesting album along with the biggest and most semi-interesting point in their career,” Osborne writes. “I honestly didn’t know much about NIN before this tour. I mean I knew they were popular with the MTV baby rock crowd and that they had sold a lot of records but I had never actually listened to one of them. Why would I? I usually have no interest in checking out what sort of bands the baby rockers dig. This is as a result of almost always hating whatever bands the baby rockers dig.” Osborne says at least Nine Inch Nails and their crew were nice to them during the tour. He can’t say the same about White Zombie, and unloads with both barrels. He describes it as the worst tour experience of his life, due mainly to a road manager dubbed ‘Mr. Mullet.’ “Mr. Mullet told us straight up that he was going to see to it that we got fu–ed over every night PA-wise in order to not piss off his boss, the swollen White Zombie dictator Rob Zombie,” Osborne recalls. “And it just went from there. He openly told us that Rob acted a prick to him, and that’s how life on the road was going to go for us as well. Perfect.” He goes on to say, “One insane thing after another every day for the whole tour. On one of the few times we actually got a soundcheck, Mr. Mullet came on stage and pulled the plug because Rob was eating and that we were to “shut the f–k up” because he didn’t like the “noise.” The ’51 States in 51 Days’ tour isn’t even halfway done yet, with plenty more tour diary entries to come. Hopefully Osborne will spill more great stories from the good old days as the tour progresses.
Ethan Miller, Getty Images As Metallica fans are anxiously awaiting the 3D debut of their favorite band on the big screen, they will get an early surprise to keep their interests piqued: a DVD/Blu-Ray release of a two-night residency in Quebec City filmed in 2009 during Metallica’s ‘World Magnetic Tour.’ Not only will fans get footage from Metallica’s most recent worldwide tour, but they also get to pick which night of the two-night stay is featured as the main setlist on the release. The release will include both setlists, but only one will be featured as the main set, while the other will be included in the additional bonus features on the disc. Fans can vote for their favorite set at Metallica.com . Voting will be closed Monday, Sept. 24, at 9AM PT. The setlist with the most votes will be the main feature of the release. The concert release is directed by Wayne Isham, the filmmaker responsible for music videos like ‘Enter Sandman’ and ‘I Disappear,’ as well as the video release of ‘S&M,’ among other Metallica projects. See the setlists below and make sure to cast your vote at Metallica.com ! Metallica ‘World Magnetic Tour’ – Quebec City – Setlist #1 ‘That Was Just Your Life’ ‘The End of the Line’ ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ ‘Holier Than Thou’ ‘One’ ‘Broken, Beat & Scarred’ ‘Cyanide’ ‘Sad But True’ ‘Turn the Page’ ‘All Nightmare Long’ ‘The Day That Never Comes’ ‘Master of Puppets’ ‘Damage, Inc.’ ‘Nothing Else Matters’ ‘Enter Sandman’ ‘Breadfan’ ‘Phantom Lord’ ‘Seek & Destroy’ Metallica ‘World Magnetic Tour’ – Quebec City – Setlist #2 ‘That Was Just Your Life’ ‘The End of the Line’ ‘The Four Horsemen’ ‘The Shortest Straw’ ‘One’ ‘Broken, Beat & Scarred’ ‘My Apocalypse’ ‘Sad But True’ ‘Welcome Home (Sanitarium)’ ‘The Judas Kiss’ ‘The Day That Never Comes’ ‘Master of Puppets’ ‘Battery’ ‘Nothing Else Matters’ ‘Enter Sandman’ ‘Killing Time’ ‘Whiplash’ ‘Seek & Destroy’
Mary Ouellette, SheWillShootYou.com Nikki Sixx is a man who wears many hats. Not only is he the bassist and songwriter for Motley Crue and Sixx: A.M. , he’s also a radio host, author and master of social media. During some downtime from Motley Crue’s current tour with KISS, we caught up with Sixx on the phone for an interview that we’ve divided between Loudwire and our brother site Ultimate Classic Rock . See what he told us about the band’s new single ‘Sex,’ his Twitter rant against Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine and what lies ahead for his band Sixx: A.M. in the following Q&A. And for more on Motley Crue’s tour with KISS, as well as their plans for new music, click on the button at the bottom of this article to read Ultimate Classic Rock’s portion of the interview. Have you been happy with the reaction to the new song ‘Sex’? Yeah, you know what I’m really happy about? We wrote the song, we recorded it and we recorded it old school. We just got in a room, pounded it out, did a few of the dubs, had some fun with some synths, with some good sound to thicken it up. Vince did his vocals and we mixed it pretty quick and we had a choice, so [we decided] “Let’s not go pounding radio, the old-school way … let’s let people discover it the way that they discovered us when we were kids, the way they discover bands even now.” You hear about it, someone talks about it, someone plays it for you, e-mails it to you, so that was really exciting. Radio stations wanted to pick it up and play it, there was no agenda on our part and then the audience, a lot of the time, was hearing it for the first time the night of the show. People would say, “Dude when you were in Chicago, you know you sold 10,000 copies and when you’re in Detroit ,you sold 9,000 copies of the song,” because they’re hearing it live and they’re going, ‘Wow this is cool, new Crue, how come I never heard this?’ You and Tommy Lee in particular are very active on Twitter. Do you enjoy it as much as you seem to and is there anything you’ve tweeted that you regret? Of course. You know, I’ve done a few things. Because it’s an artist doing it, because it’s a human being doing it, it’s not an assistant or the management company, or the record company tweeting for you. You’re going to say s–t that’s going to ruffle feathers or you’re going to stay stuff that’s really personal and other people can really relate to it. That’s what I like about it, I’ve embraced it. In the beginning, when Twitter first came out, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I want to be that open,’ but as [my radio program] Sixx Sense became such a huge part of my life, I became willing to be more and more vulnerable and just laying my life open on the radio show. Twitter didn’t feel as so scary to me. I was like, “I don’t know if I want people to know what color socks I’m wearing today,” and in the end, if something happens to me, like what does that have to do with this life? And what I found out is that it has everything to do with everyone’s life because we’re kind of all doing this at the same time, in real time. One of the things that for me that was really interesting is when [Megadeth frontman] Dave [Mustaine] was saying maybe assinine statement about America turning into Nazi America. I mean, I reached for my phone and I said, ‘This guy’s a f—ing a–hole’ and he is, you don’t say that about your f—ing country. But I was able to say that and I had a lot of people go, ‘Hey man, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and Nikki you’re in the wrong,’ and ‘That guy should be thrown out of the country,’ and other people [wrote] ‘He shouldn’t be thrown out of the country, he’s entitled to his own rights’ and it just went on and on and on and I didn’t take any of it personally. What I did was I took it in and went, ‘This is great! This is like a world conversation,’ and I was able to have my opinion and that guy has a right to have his own opinion, whether he wants to think that about our country. I don’t think that about our country but I have strong opinions on other stuff and I’ve had people come after me. It is a cool, cool thing and you can be real on it and in there’s times when you can also say, ‘Guess what? We got tickets up for sale!’ What does the future hold for Sixx: A.M.? The biggest plan that we have is to make our third record. We have had the obstacle of touring because of Motley Crue and because DJ [Ashba] is playing guitar in Guns ‘N Roses and [singer] James [Michael] is producing. It’s like every time I’m available, DJ’s on the road, or every time DJ’s off the road, I’m touring or James is in the middle of a record. I don’t believe there will be any touring on this [past] record and we’ve already starting writing ideas, except we haven’t actually gotten together. We’re gonna do the record and that album has to without a doubt have a tour. [button href=”cool http://ultimateclassicrock.com/nikki-sixx-interview/” title=”Next: Nikki Sixx Talks KISS Tour + New Motley Crue Music” align=”center”]
In the latest edition of Duff McKagan‘s column for SeattleWeekly.com, the Velvet Revolver / Loaded / ex-Guns N’ Roses bassist explored the topic of depression. Having never suffered clinical depression in his life, McKagan found himself in a dark mindset after Sept. 11, 2001, when the monumental terrorist attack on the World Trade Center changed McKagan for the worst. McKagan begins his article with the line that surely everyone can
Losing a talent competition to a tap-dancing cowgirl might bring some rockers down, but for siblings Lzzy and Arejay Hale, all it did was cement the idea that they were born to be performers. In a new interview with Beacon Audio, singer Lzzy Hale discusses the moment that helped shape the outcome of the rest of her life and she points to their very first live show as the official
Sebastian Bach has turned around some pretty solid records in the last few years, but the next words he writes may not be for a new album. The singer tells the Macomb Daily that he’s been approached to write a book about his life story. The vocalist predicts that if he accepts the offer, his memoir could “make Motley Crue‘s ‘The Dirt’ look clean.” He adds, “It seems like such