Alternative Music

In a new interview with The SDR Show, former GUNS N’ ROSES and current SIXX:A.M. guitarist DJ Ashba weighed in on the notion that rock is dead, promoted mostly in recent years by KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “In my honest opinion, and I could be wrong… Everybody’s, like, ‘Rock’s dead. Rock’s dead.’ Rock isn’t dead at all, but I think it would be thriving way harder right now if we would all just kind of open our minds and be willing to collaborate with different genres. You know, METALLICA doing a song with Dolly Parton. How fucking random and cool [would that be]? “Everything always comes back in cycles. It’s just not gonna come back as the rock we grew up on. It could sound li...

The official music video for DEF LEPPARD‘s new single, “Kick”, will make its online debut this Friday, March 25 at 7:00 a.m. PDT. The clip was helmed by Anuk Rohde, a Berlin-based director with Spanish roots, who has demonstrated her capacity for creating a distinctive visual language in music videos she has directed for Alice Merton, SE SO NEON, RAMMSTEIN and others. “Kick” is the first single from DEF LEPPARD‘s upcoming album, “Diamond Star Halos”, which will arrive on May 27 via UMe. The follow-up to 2015’s self-titled LP is available for pre-order now in multiple configurations, including a deluxe edition, 2-LP vinyl, digital formats and more. Exclusive bundles including newly designed album merch have also launched. “KickR...

SKID ROW has parted ways with singer ZP Theart and has replaced him with ex-H.E.A.T. vocalist Erik Grönwall (pictured). Grönwall will make his recording debut with SKID ROW on the band’s upcoming album, “The Gang’s All Here”, due on October 14 via earMUSIC. The LP’s first single, the title track, will be made available on Friday, March 25. A snippet of “The Gang’s All Here”, which received its world premiere earlier today (Wednesday, March 23) on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, can be heard below. SKID ROW said in a statement: “It’s a new era for SKID ROW. With a new album, a new single and a world tour, we’ve added a new voice. Welcome powerhouse vocalist Erik Grönwall, formerly from the band H...

Why Tintoretto? The 16th-century painter for whom Dan Bejar titled “Tintoretto, It’s for You,” the strangest and most electrifying song on Destroyer’s 13th album, was known for his furious brushwork, according to Wikipedia. It is, of course, a tacit admission of insufficient research to be quoting from the free encyclopedia in the second sentence of a review, but in this case a throwing up of hands seems in keeping with the spirit of the work. Bejar, Destroyer’s voice and mastermind, said in a recent Pitchfork interview that the reference to Tintoretto is inscrutable even to him, but that it has something to do with skewering his own youthful pretension: “a vague recollection of me throwing around Tintoretto as a painter I liked in my 20s, just such utter bullshit.” It would be just as dis...

SKID ROW has parted ways with singer ZP Theart and has replaced him with ex-H.E.A.T. vocalist Erik Grönwall (pictured). Grönwall will make his recording debut with SKID ROW on the band’s upcoming album, “The Gang’s All Here”, due on October 14 via earMUSIC. The LP’s first single, the title track, will be made available on Friday, March 25. A snippet of “The Gang’s All Here”, which received its world premiere earlier today (Wednesday, March 23) on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, can be heard below. SKID ROW said in a statement: “It’s a new era for SKID ROW. With a new album, a new single and a world tour, we’ve added a new voice. Welcome powerhouse vocalist Erik Grönwall, formerly from the band H...

In a new interview with “Chris Akin Presents…” , TESLA guitarist Frank Hannon was asked if there are any plans for the band to work on a full-length album following the release of the “Cold Blue Steel” single, which came out last August. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Right now, after we did the ‘Shock’ album [in 2019] and the way things are right now, we’re only gonna concentrate on one song at a time. We’re pushing late 50s, mid 60s in our age, and the bottom line is there’s no need to put the pressure on a deadline of you’ve gotta fabricate 10 songs by the first of June and force it. So, we’re not gonna do that. We’re gonna just write songs as they come and as we feel them, and put &...

TWISTED SISTER singer Dee Snider spoke to Tom La Vecchia of Armchair MBA about how the rise of grunge in the early 1990s forced most hard rock bands off the radio and MTV, with album and tour sales plummeting. Asked if he saw Seattle bands like NIRVANA and SOUNDGARDEN slowly gaining popularity of at the expense of 1980s metal, Dee said: “Well, no one saw it coming, but I was already dead and semi-buried before grunge hit. TWISTED arrived in the early ’80s and then we hit our stride in the mid-’80s and by the late ’80s, the band had broken up. I had a band called DESPERADO [with former IRON MAIDEN drummer Clive Burr and ex-GILLAN guitarist Bernie Tormé] that got shelved by Elektra Records; a lot of money we spent on that record. So I was sort of already removed as a ...

Fan-filmed video of QUEENSRŸCHE‘s March 20 concert at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park in Cedar Park, Texas can be seen below (courtesy of YouTube channel DeadMike.com). QUEENSRŸCHE‘s North American tour as the support act for JUDAS PRIEST kicked off on March 4 at Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois and will conclude on April 13 at FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. QUEENSRŸCHE was originally set to support SCORPIONS on their rescheduled “Sin City Nights” Las Vegas residency in March-April 2022 but pulled out of the dates in order to take part in the JUDAS PRIEST tour. SCORPIONS have since tapped SKID ROW as the new opening act for the Vegas residency. Last November, QUEENSRŸCHE singer Todd La Torre discussed the band’s tour with PRIEST in an ...