YouTube Simple. Sweet. Badass! There’s nothing too out of the ordinary for the first video from the band known as Newsted as ‘Soldierhead’ is a traditional performance clip, but it packs a powerful punch. Jason Newsted and his new group offer up a rapid fire, hard-hitting performance of ‘Soldierhead’ that shows exactly what they’re all about and serves as a bit of a proving ground before the band ever hits the concert stage. After watching the video, there should be increased anticipation for whenever Newsted takes the stage. The bassist-frontman exclusively tells Loudwire, “I think [‘Soldierhead’] probably came to me in like 10 minutes and I got the main riff down and then the lyrics just came to me and I said ‘this is going to be the one’ and I had it done by that night and it just showed up, because I keep chasing it, man.” As expected with that title, the track comes from a particular point of view. Newsted added, “‘Soldierhead’ is for all of our military service personnel guys and girls … You hear such crazy stories about all of that and I met so many thousands of soldiers in my life traveling around the world and they’ve always been so supportive of the metal, so that’s my tip of the hat to them. I’m glad that everybody loves the song for what it is, because it can represent something for all of us as they represent us.” ‘Soldierhead’ is featured on Newsted’s debut ‘ Metal ‘ EP, which is available now via iTunes . Watch Newsted’s ‘Soldierhead’ Video [button href=”http://loudwire.com/jason-newsted-touring-wont-charge-meet-and-greets/” title=”Next: Jason Newsted Shares His Thoughts on Touring” align=”center”]
RCA There is some essential listening about to hit fans on February 2013, and here is a guide of the rock and metal albums you need to check out next month. Welsh metalcore giants Bullet for My Valentine are set to release their fourth studio album, ‘Temper Temper,’ on Feb. 12 … of course right in time for Valentine’s Day. The band ventured all the way to Thailand in order to track the record, purposely taking themselves out of their comfort zone for the writing and recording process. Brutal death metal legends Suffocation will bash your skull in with ‘Pinnacle of Bedlam’ in February with an album that successfully captures the heaviness of their live performance better than any of their past efforts. Maynard James Keenan ‘s Puscifer will also unveil new material in February with the collective’s next eclectic opus ‘Donkey Punch the Night.’ Other releases for Feb. 2013 include The Bronx’s ‘IV,’ Buckcherry ‘s ‘Confessions,’ Shai Hulud’s ‘Reach Beyond the Sun,’ RED ‘s ‘Release the Panic’ and many more. February 2013 Music Releases: Feb. 5: Blind Guardian, ‘A Travelers Guide to Space and Time’ (Box Set) The Bronx, ‘IV’ Deep Purple, ‘Slaves and Masters: The Deluxe Edition’ Misfits, ‘Dead Alive!’ (Live Album) Placebo, ‘Once More With Feeing: Singles 1996-2004′ RED, ‘Release the Panic’ Feb. 12: Bullet For My Valentine, ‘Temper Temper’ Pissed Jeans, ‘Honeys’ Feb. 19: Buckcherry, ‘Confessions’ Misery Index, ‘Live in Munich’ Motorhead, ‘Catch Scratch Fewer’ (Live Recordings) Portal, ‘Vexovoid’ Puscifer, ‘Donkey Punch the Night’ Shai Hulud, ‘Reach Beyond the Sun’ Suffocation, ‘Pinnacle of Bedlam’ Wednesday 13, ‘The Dixie Dead’ Feb. 26: Darkthrone, ‘The Underground Resistance’ Krokus, ‘Dirty Dynamite’ Saxon, ‘Sacrifice’ Stratovarius, ‘Nemesis’
Liz Ramanand, Loudwire After a massive tour with Lamb of God and In Flames, Hatebreed will kick off this year with a headlining tour in support of their sixth studio album, ‘The Divinity of Purpose,’ due out on Jan. 29 Hatebreed’s headlining tour will feature support from Shadows Fall, Dying Fetus and the Contortionist. When we caught up with frontman Jamey Jasta, he spoke all about the upcoming tour, past tours and how their fans influence their future touring schedule. Jasta also spoke about the new label they’re on, his view on the Randy Blythe trial and much more. Check out our interview with Jamey Jasta below. Congratulations on your new label home, Razor & Tie. How would you describe the process of working with this label in order to put out this new album compared with past labels in general. I think any time you put out a record, you just want to have the best team of people, and we’ve been very lucky that every label we’ve worked with always had a great team of people. Unfortunately, a lot of those people lost their jobs throughout the years because of the way that the industry has gone and because a lot of people just expect to get the records free – they can just go online on blogs and get the records for free, they don’t have to buy it. With the way that the industry has changed, some of the people from previous labels have moved to Nuclear Blast in Europe and to Razor & Tie in America and they’re a company that’s actually growing as opposed to shrinking. It feels good that we have a good team of people behind us and we’re looking forward to getting this record out and touring in support of it – that’s all you want, you want people that like the band, people that care about the band. We’ve been lucky with pretty much every label has had those people and now we’re continuing with that. Stoked to hear about your tour with Shadows Fall along with Dying Fetus and The Contortionist – how would you describe your relationship with these bands? Well I’m happy for Shadows Fall right now. I feel like their last record is one of their best records and we’re labelmates – when I see people from New England, people from Connecticut, Massachusetts doing well, I’m really happy. They went on the Killswitch [Engage] tour. It’s just cool to see, we all kind of came up together at the same time and we haven’t toured with Shadows Fall since ‘The Rise of Brutality’ tour in 2004, so it’s going to be nice to do this again. With Dying Fetus, we actually had them out with us in 2009 and I got to say they’ve just been one of the best bands that we’ve had out with us. Not only do they bring a great crowd and a lot of people that are more into that really brutal East Coast death metal sound, so our fans and their fans work well together, but also they are pleasure to have on the road with us. The Contortionist are a newer band and they’re on eOne Records, a label that Hatebreed has worked with and that I worked with on my Jasta album so it’s cool to help them out – that’s a good band with a different sound that compliments the tour. Any plans you can talk about after the this tour with Shadows Fall? Yeah, ‘The Divinity of Purpose’ tour, the pre-sales are really good, so we’re thinking about adding another leg, like a short two week leg to get to the cities that we’ve missed – especially cities that we missed on the Lamb of God tour and the ’10 Years of Perserverance’ tour. The first show we’re doing is in Flint, Mich., and it’s almost sold out, so when that show sells out we’ll be able to add say a show in Toledo which is like 90 minutes away from Flint – so now we’ll be able to add other cities for a second leg I think. It’s not definite yet, it’s not 100 percent, but I don’t feel like withholding the info helps me either. I do think if fans know how much buying a ticket in advance helps, especially in our case it can be the difference of adding the second leg or not. I think everybody who saw us on the Lamb of God / In Flames tour, they’re all tweeting us, saying, “Why don’t you do a headlining set?” Well this is your chance. I would love to add a New York City show, a Philly show, a Toledo show, a Cleveland show – there’s a lot of places that we missed on the Lamb of God tour and on this first leg that we could hit. I saw you guys on that Lamb of God tour when you came to New York City and it was just mindblowing. That was one of the best shows of the tour and because of that show we were like, “Okay let’s do Long Island on the first leg of ‘The Divinity of Purpose’ tour but now I could see, maybe we could do Brooklyn or maybe we could do Starland Ballroom. That’s the thing, there’s a lot of options for us but it really relies on the promoters and the demand from the fans – if Long Island sells out, we can add Brooklyn, if Allentown, Pa., sells out we can add the Starland show or maybe even an Irving Plaza show. So it’s important for fans to know to push your promoters and get on social media – that’s really how the Flint show got booked. Our Detroit show was the same night as Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson and even though it was the same night as that we still over 1,000 people at our show. That just goes to show how die-hard our fans are and a lot of people were from Flint and a lot of people were like, “You got to come back to Flint,” and we booked the show because they told the promoter they wanted to see us. That show is going to be sold out in advance so we’ll be able to add Toledo like I said. It’s a good thing when fans are super proactive. Also wanted to get your view and thoughts on the whole situation with Randy Blythe and if it ever came up in conversation with Randy during the tour, especially since his trial date was announced. I just want Randy to be cleared, I want his name to be cleared so the band can go on and tour the world. I just hope that he gets a fair trial. I think soon, we will go back into fundraising mode, we did really good beforehand. We did a couple Hatewear shirts for him if people want to support they can go to Hatewearinc.com – we will go into fund-raising mode again to help with any costs of the trial. We’re trying to arrange a benefit show, as well. It’s just been crazy because we did the tour and a lot of bands came together and donated guitars and things for his legal funds. We’re just hoping for the best outcome but really if you want to help as a whole – when you go to a show respect everbody at the show, respect security, respect people. People know that I’ve been saying this even before Lamb of God was around, I’ve been saying, “If somebody falls pick them up, if somebody dives, catch them” and we all have to be more responsible for that. We want shows to be an experience of value and positive experience at that. 2012 marked the tenth anniverary of ‘Perseverance.’ Why do you think Hatebreed has persevered throughout the years and been a powerful force in a crazy industry such as this one. I just think it’s because we haven’t changed the recipe too much. I think we’re reliable as a go to band if you’re looking for something heavy. I think we have a good catalog of good, solid, heavy songs and that’s all we wanted to be – we wanted to be like the Ramones of crossover or the AC/DC of metallic hardcore. We just wanted to keep it simple, keep the formula to the point. We’re just out here emulating the bands that we grew up listening to, giving our own take on it, our own approach. We’re lucky that it’s been meaningful to people and that’s what we want to do – we want to make sure that even though the songs are simple and short that they have meaning and that the lyrics hit home. Even if some of the fans don’t want to listen to the lyrics but just want to rock out to the songs, that’s there too and we want to be that institution that you can go to. Maybe it’s not something you listen to everyday but when you want to hear something hard and heavy I hope that Hatebreed is the band that people want to go to. Hatebreed’s ‘The Divinity of Purpose is available for pre-order on iTunes. VIP packages to the band’s upcoming tour can be purchased here . [button href=”http://loudwire.com/lamb-of-god-in-flames-hatebreed-sylosis-rock-new-york-city-with-vigorous-show/” title=”Check Out Photos of Hatebreed Performing in NYC” align=”center”] Watch Hatebreed’s ‘Put It to the Torch’ Video
Photo by Ty Watkins Metal Band of the Year was one of the closest categories in the 2012 Loudwire Music Awards, but during the final moments of voting, metalcore titans As I Lay Dying surged ahead to claim the win. As I Lay Dying took a comfortable lead over bands such as Anthrax and Machine Head early in the voting, but one band that they couldn’t quite shake was Lamb of God. After many lead changes made the possible result too close to call at times, As I Lay Dying fans rallied together and launched the band into a slick first-place finish, earning over 28 percent of the votes. Congratulations to your 2012 Metal Band of the Year champs, As I Lay Dying. Watch out for them in 2013 on a co-headlining tour with the Devil Wears Prada. See the full voting results below and click on the red button to find out the next winner: [button href=”http://loudwire.com/myles-kennedy-vocalist-of-the-year-2012-loudwire-music-awards/” title=”Next Winner: Vocalist of the Year” align=”center”] Voting Results: Sorry, you need to have javascript running to see this poll.
Mary Ouellette, SheWillShootYou.com In an incredibly close race that saw multiple lead changes throughout the entire voting process, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi narrowly beat out Slipknot / Stone Sour singer Corey Taylor for Rock Titan of the Year in the 2012 Loudwire Music Awards. The legendary axe-man and master of the riff was diagnosed with cancer early in 2012, and although it stopped the majority of Black Sabbath’s tour dates, one thing it never stopped was Tony Iommi. Despite the lymphoma diagnosis, Iommi continued writing for Black Sabbath’s massively anticipated next album, ’13,’ laying down guitar lines that will surely blow us away once its released in June 2013. Congrats to Tony Iommi. For his bravery and dedication to heavy metal, fans have voted the Black Sabbath legend their 2012 Rock Titan of the Year. See the full voting results below and click the red button for the next winner: [button href=”http://loudwire.com/marilyn-manson-rock-album-of-the-year-2012-loudwire-music-awards/” title=”Next Winner: Rock Album of the Year” align=”center”] Voting Results: Sorry, you need to have javascript running to see this poll.
Tool Dissectional Tool founding member and sole guitarist Adam Jones has received a tremendous amount of praise for his musical work, but the talent of the guitarist ventures far past the auditory. Adam Jones is also an accomplished animator, makeup artist and set designer, having worked on major flicks such as ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘Terminator 2′ and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 + 5′ among others. As Tool began to become more popular, Jones harnessed his talents to create official music videos for the band, which have remained stylistically unique and unmatched in terms of hypnotic quality for two decades. Whether or not Tool is your musical cup of tea, the videos directed by Adam Jones stand alone as not just accompaniments to a song, but as legitimate visual masterworks even if stripped of their music. Below are all seven Tool videos directed by Adam Jones. ‘Sober’ (1993) Adam Jones’ first visual creation for Tool was for ‘Sober,’ the band’s first video offering from their 1993 full-length ‘Undertow.’ Jones used his masterful stop-motion skills for the dark piece, and ‘Sober’ became the first in a long line of videos that purposely do not feature any of Tool’s band members and use bleak color schemes. Jones collaborated with Fred Stuhr to create the video, but for nearly a decade afterword, Jones took sole creative lead. ‘Prison Sex’ (1994) The second and final music video from Tool’s ‘Undertow’ album was crafted for the song ‘Prison Sex.’ Not only was the ‘Prison Sex’ clip a visual and conceptual achievement in the world of music videos, but also cemented Adam Jones’ talent as a video’s sole director. Despite the clip’s prowess, MTV actually banned ‘Prison Sex’ for what was considered to be disturbing imagery. ‘Stinkfist’ (1996) Tool began to earn legendary status as a band after the release of ‘Ænema’ in 1996. It must have been a difficult task to choose the first single from the record, but Tool went with ‘Stinkfist’ and thus, created another video. Purposed in heavily blue and purple, the clip showcases sand-based humanoids swallowing nails and strip their skin to reveal a contrasting layer. Although the video for ‘Stinkfist’ received heavy airplay on MTV, the music channel changed the title to ‘Track #1′ in an attempt to avoid controversy. ‘Ænema’ (1997) The title track for ‘Ænema’ acted as the muse for Jones’ final video coming from the record. The progressive theme of otherworldly human figures continued with ‘Ænema,’ with an added water concept reflecting the lyrical content of the song. Although the song’s visual accompaniment is yet another fascinating use of Adam Jones’ animation skills, the bleak and confusing nature of ‘Ænema’ leaves the viewer to create their own interpretation of the video’s meaning. ‘Schism’ (2001) Arguably Tool’s most popular and accessible song, ‘Schism’ was chosen as the leading single for the band’s 2001 masterpiece, ‘Lateralus.’ This next chapter in Tool’s videography used similar color patterns and humanoid figures from their earlier works, but ‘Schism’ is the band’s most lifelike clip to date. Although the track is well over seven minutes long, the demand for Tool allowed for the video to attain heavy rotation. There is nothing that sucks you in quite like a Tool video, and ‘Schism’ is no exception. ‘Parabola’ (2002) ‘Parabola’ is not only Adam Jones’ longest Tool clip to date (due to its inclusion of lead-in track ‘Parabol’), it is also his first foray into creating a Tool video with help from artist Alex Grey. The video features two suited human figures, reminiscent of the ‘Ænema’ video, cutting up fruit before vomiting up a black substance. A massive amount of interaction occurs throughout the short film, all moving towards the beautifully multi-colored discovery of the ‘third eye,’ representing a sense of enlightenment and one-ness with the universe’s collective consciousness. ‘Vicarious’ (2007) Tool’s most recent clip for ‘Vicarious’ is the sole music video from their 2006 album, ’10,000 Days,’ and is both slightly and massively different from the rest of Jones’ work. Continuing the use of slow movement, humanoid figures and the art of Alex Grey, Tool’s video for ‘Vicarious’ is their most colorful and technologically complex clip to date. The video’s infinite and almost 3D nature is a major trip in itself, but when accompanied by the music of Tool, your third eye suddenly seems unblocked and squeaky clean. [button href=”http://loudwire.com/tool-upcoming-album-more-than-halfway-done/” title=”Next: Tool’s Upcoming Album ‘More That Halfway Done'” align=”center”]
YouTube What better way to celebrate your birthday than with the launch of a new online merch store! That’s exactly what guitar legend Zakk Wylde did for his 46th birthday today (Jan. 14). In the very funny promo video below, directed and edited by Matt Zane and backed by Black Label Society’s ‘Overlord’, Wylde is shown waking up on his birthday cuddled with his signature guitar and surrounded by chips and beer at his Doom Crew Headquarters, where he’s in for a hard day’s work. After working in a pressing plant, Wylde states in the clip, “People always ask me what I’m doing when I’m not playing music, somebody’s got to make the f—ing t-shirts.” Check out the new merch store here , and watch the video below to get a limited-time discount code. Black Label Society are also due to film a new live DVD titled ‘Unblackened’ in March. The shoot will take place at Club Nokia in Los Angeles, Calif., on March 6. The special show will include BLS songs, plus tunes from Wylde’s solo album and his Pride & Glory project. The band plans to strip the songs down for an acoustic performance that will feature a four-piece string section, pedal steel guitar and special guests on select tracks throughout the set. Check Out Zakk Wylde’s Birthday Video [button href=”http://loudwire.com/five-insane-zakk-wylde-guitar-moments/” title=”Next: Five Insane Zakk Wylde Guitar Moments” align=”center”]