Alternative Music

Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen‘s project SMITH/KOTZEN will kick off its U.S. West Coast tour on Thursday, January 20 at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood, California. Joining Smith and Kotzen as part of their touring band is Richie‘s wife, internationally acclaimed bass player Julia Lage, formerly of the Latin Grammy-nominated Brazilian rock band BARRA DE SAIA. With a strong pedigree in rock, Lage has played alongside the likes of Pat Travers, Elliot Easton (THE CARS), Nuno Bettencourt (EXTREME) and Mark McGrath (SUGAR RAY). In addition, SMITH/KOTZEN has enlisted drummer Bruno Valverde of ANGRA for the U.S. West Coast dates. In a brand new interview with Metal Edge magazine’s “Another FN Podcast With Izzy Presley”, Richie stated about how the short tour cam...

AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s Synyster Gates and Johnny Christ recently decided to surprise one of their fans by hand delivering a signed guitar directly to the fan’s house. A video recap of their visit was uploaded to Christ‘s YouTube channel and can now be seen below. Earlier this month, AVENGED SEVENFOLD frontman M. Shadows confirmed to Metal Hammer that the band will complete the recording of its eighth studio album next month. “In January, we’re going in to finish the strings on the record,” he said. “The record’s been recorded for a year, but we haven’t been able to put the real strings on it, because we couldn’t fly out to Prague. When an orchestra have to social distance and they aren’t sitting next to each other, they can get...

RATING: 8/10 New York City based VRSTY are a musical representation of the diverse city they call home. Their debut full-length “Welcome Home” is an extraordinary mélange of genres; a seamless combination of R&B, pop, rap, rock and metalcore. Fans of ISSUES, MEMPHIS MAY FIRE and RAIN CITY DRIVE (formerly SLAVES), will adore Joey Varela‘s velvety yet powerful vocals. What’s more, he and his bandmates — Javy Dorrejo (bass), Chris Cody (drums) and Paul Gregory (guitars) — may very well have just outdone those acts with this release. “Welcome Home” is a turning point in modern music, blurring the line separating the underground and the mainstream. Genres traditionally seen as opposites are woven together seemingly effortlessly in every track. And while o...

RATING: 8/10 With their 20th anniversary due to hit the books this year, COMEBACK KID could be forgiven for mellowing out a little. Instead, the Winnipeg hardcore crew have defied logic and the tides of time once again: somehow, they sound even more pissed off, energetic and unstoppable on “Heavy Steps” than they did on the intermittently experimental “Outsider” five years ago. There is plenty to be pissed off about right now, of course, but the inspirational intensity that made COMEBACK KID stand out from the start is still much in evidence. “Heavy Steps”, their seventh album, takes them back to the streamlined hostility of old, but with a bigger and harder-hitting production than ever before. If things are fucked, this album seems to be saying, then we...

ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian was joined by his 10-year-old son Revel Young Ian on drums as they performed a rendition of the SEPULTURA classic “Roots Bloody Roots” for an Instagram video which Scott shared earlier today (Tuesday, January 18). Scott captioned the video: “ROOTS BLOODY ROOTS!!! Garage jam with my man! Next time I’ll turn the guitar up and yes, it’s a 7-string.” Revel is apparently a gifted multi-instrumentalist who previously joined the FOO FIGHTERS on stage in September 2019 at the Bourbon & Beyond festival in Louisville, Kentucky to perform “Everlong” on guitar when he was just eight years old. Back in 2014, Ian told Horns Up Rocks that his then-three-old son was a big fan of METALLICA, THE BEATLES and AC/DC and that he could alr...

Chloe Trujillo and New Zealand-born musician Mark Dalbeth have released the official music video for their collaborative song “Mana”. You can check it out below. Chloe, wife of METALLICA bassist Robert Trujillo, has been forging her career as a solo artist and Dalbeth was part of the highly respected Australian rock act BELLUSIRA. Born in Paris, France, Trujillo has immersed herself in the art/music world from a young age. Her music is infused with anything from rap, metal, gypsy and blues. She first got her visa through performing in New York City cabarets and musical theater. From there, she was invited to Los Angeles by Gail Zappa to record the Frank Zappa cover “The Torture Never Stops”. Mark made the move to Australia and started rock outfit BELLUSIRA, who went...

STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis passed a kidney stone earlier today (Tuesday, January 18) — less than a week after having his appendix removed. Kidney stones, which are hardened or calcified deposits of certain minerals, salts, and other materials, develop in the kidneys themselves before traveling through the ureter and into the bladder, where they are ultimately passed from the body in the urine. Lewis shared the news of his kidney stone in an Instagram post. He wrote: “Laying here recovering from having my appendix out. On top of that, I’ve had a kidney stone SLOWLY snaking it’s way through me for the last 4 days. After intense like-I’ve-never-experienced-pain, I successfully passed this kidney stone today.” Lewis was scheduled to play in Davenport, Iowa last F...

Jeff Scott Soto appears to have reactivated his project with David Ellefson, three months after the singer said their collaboration was “on hold” while the former MEGADETH bassist was working through the fallout from his sex video scandal. Last March, Soto and Ellefson announced that they had been collaborating on some new material under the moniker ELLEFSON-SOTO. The ELLEFSON-SOTO version of the RIOT classic “Swords & Tequila” was simultaneously released across all digital streaming outlets via Ellefson‘s Combat Records. In October, Soto was asked in an interview with Dr. Music if the rest of the material he recorded with Ellefson will eventually see the light of day, Soto said: “I’m hoping it will at some point. I’ve given David, as man...