The Hella Mega tour might be over, but you can still “Rock and Roll All Nite” with Green Day.
Billie Joe Armstrong and company have officially released their cover of the KISS classic, recorded during their trek with Fall Out Boy and Weezer. You can download the cover now via digital outlets, and watch its accompanying video, featuring Hella Mega live footage, streaming now on YouTube.
When Green Day first debuted their version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” live, both Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley praised the performance.
The Hella Mega tour concluded this past Monday in Seattle. The European leg of the outing is set to kick off June 2022.
Alice in Chains guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell has released the title track off his upcoming solo album, Brighten.
While the previously released single “Atone” sounded very much cut from the same grungy cloth as Alice, “Brighten” feels more like a classic, bluesy rock n’ roll tune.
You can download the song “Brighten” now via digital outlets. Its accompany, surreal video premiered via Consequence.net.
Brighten the album arrives October 29. It’s Cantrell’s first solo outing in nearly 20 years.
Cantrell will launch a U.S. tour in support of Brighten in 2022.
In 2018, former Journey frontman Steve Perry returned to music with Traces, his first new solo album in 24 years. Now he’s set to release his first-ever collection of holiday tunes.
The Season, which is due out on November 5, features Perry’s renditions of eight classic yuletide tunes, including “Winter Wonderland,” “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “Auld Lang Syne,” “Silver Bells” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
“I hope when people hear this record, they’re teleported in the same way I was when I recorded all these songs,” says Steve. “I hope it brings them back to those golden moments with their loved ones and gives them that feeling of joy and connection and comfort that we all need so much.”
In conjunction with the album announcement, Perry has debuted one of the songs as a digital single, a jazzy, stripped-down rendition of “I’ll be Home for Christmas.”
“When I was recording vocals for ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas,’ as I was singing ‘Please have snow and mistletoe and presents under the tree’…I was emotionally thrown into standing in my grandmother’s house staring through the door that I always hung mistletoe and then I saw her beautiful Christmas tree in front of her living room window,” Perry notes. “I had to stop singing because it felt like I was really there…I was a bit stunned…Back Home for Christmas is where everyone wants to be!”
The Season, which you can pre-order now, is available in multiple formats, including CD, digital, streaming and vinyl. Various limited-edition colored-vinyl versions of the album can be purchased at Perry’s official online store, Target and Barnes & Noble.
Here’s the full track list of The Season:
“The Christmas Song”
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas”
“Auld Lang Syne”
“Winter Wonderland”
“What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”
“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”
“Silver Bells”
“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
Rolling Stones fans in the U.S. will have an additional chance to see the band on their upcoming 2021 No Filter Tour. The British rock legends have just announced that a second concert at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles has been confirmed for October 14, three days before the previously scheduled show at the venue will take place.
Tickets for the October 14 performance go on sale to the general public on Friday, September 17 at 10 p.m. PT via RollingStones.com.
Pre-sale tickets will be available for people who’ve signed up for the Stones mailing list starting Wednesday, September 15 at 10 a.m. PT. You can sign up for the mailing list at uk-umg.com.
The Rolling Stones’ U.S. tour leg, which now features 13 dates, kicks off September 26 in St. Louis and is mapped out through a November 20 concert in Austin, Texas. The trek will feature lauded session drummer Steve Jordan stepping for the band’s beloved longtime beat keeper Charlie Watts, who died August 24 at age 80. Jordan’s participation was arranged prior to Watts’ unexpected passing.
Meanwhile, in honor of Watts, the band is asking fans to share photos and memories of Charlie and of their favorite pieces of vintage Rolling Stones-related memorabilia, artwork and more, on Twitter and Instagram using the hashtag #mystonesmerch. The Stones also have been displaying many of the images on a fan wall that you can check out at digital.umusic.com/rollingstones.
This Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Vanilla Fudge drummer Carmine Appice has shared with ABC Audio his recollections of that awful day.
The Brooklyn, New York, native says he was living in California at that time, and he recalls that he was sick that day and was watching on television as the Twin Towers collapsed after terrorists flew passenger planes into the buildings.
“I have this condition with really bad nosebleeds, and I had one that day, and I was just watching the news,” he remembers. “I was laying around and I saw the towers go down.”
Appice continues, “[M]y anxiety level was through the roof, ’cause I was living in Brooklyn when those things were going up, and every time I’d come into the city, I’d see them get higher and higher…And now they were gone. Freaked me out.”
Carmine admits that after the first plane crash, “I thought…’What kind of idiot flies a plane into the tower’…I thought it was like an accident. And then when the second one hit, I said, ‘Whoa!…This is no idiot, this is planned.'”
Appice reveals that he actually visited the Twin Towers two weeks before the attacks, while he was in New York for a concert with his band Cactus.
“For some reason, [guitarist] Jim McCarty wanted to go down to the towers,” he recalls. “[The band] went down to the towers after the gig. It was late, like one o’clock in the morning…and we just looked up at the towers and there was nobody around…And then we went home to California. Two weeks later, bam, they’re gone.”
Earlier this week, Vanilla Fudge released a new single, a cover of the Supremes classic “Stop in the Name of Love.”
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in 2018; Lester Cohen/Getty Images for NARAS
Lindsey Buckingham, who’s preparing to release his new self-titled solo album next week, has a lot to say about his 2018 dismissal from Fleetwood Mac in a new Los Angeles Times interview.
It’s been reported that Buckingham was fired from the group after Stevie Nicks gave Fleetwood Mac a “him or me” ultimatum following an incident at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year gala. Buckingham told the Los Angeles Times that he was disappointed that band mates Mick Fleetwood and Christine McVie didn’t have his back in that conflict, while suggesting that financial concerns may have been a factor.
Lindsey maintains Mick has “never quite gotten to the point where he’s financially stable all the time,” adding, “He’s been married and divorced many times. He’s just not smart with his money.”
As for Christine, Buckingham reports that she sent him an email after his firing that read, “I’m really sorry that I didn’t stand up for you, but I just bought a house.” Lindsey also posed that Stevie wanted him out of the band so she could garner more attention and more control of the group’s direction. “I think she saw the possibility of remaking the band more in the Stevie Nicks vein,” he maintains.
The Los Angeles Times informed Nicks about Buckingham’s comments, and she sent a message in response, saying that Lindsey’s version of the events surrounding his firing “is factually inaccurate.”
She continues, “To be exceedingly clear…I did not demand he be fired. Frankly, I fired myself. I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being.”
Nicks says “many lengthy group discussions” followed, and Fleetwood Mac “found a new path forward with two hugely talented new members,” referring to Mike Campbell and Neil Finn.
Wolfgang Van Halen isn’t backing down from the top of the Billboard charts.
The son of the late Eddie Van Halen — and one-time Van Halen bassist — has earned his second number-one hit the Mainstream Rock Airplay ranking with “Don’t Back Down,” the latest single from his Mammoth WVH solo project.
Mammoth previously reached the Mainstream Rock Airplay peak earlier this year with “Distance,” Wolfgang’s tribute to his iconic father, who passed away in October 2020.
With “Distance” and “Don’t Back Down,” both of Mammoth WVH’s first two singles to appear on Mainstream Rock Airplay eventually grabbed the top spot on the chart. The last artist to accomplish that feat was The Glorious Sons, who hit number one with their first Mainstream Rock Airplay entry “S.O.S. (Sawed Off Shotgun)” in 2019, and then again with “Panic Attack” later that year.
You’ll find both “Distance” and “Don’t Back Down” on the self-titled debut Mammoth WVH album, which dropped in June. Wolfgang is currently on tour in support of the record playing headlining shows and opening for Guns N’ Roses.
Elena Di Vincenzo/Archivio Elena Di Vincenzo/Mondadori via Getty Images
Genesis‘ upcoming tour is called The Last Domino?, but the question mark at the end of that phrase should be an exclamation point, as far as Phil Collins is concerned.
Phil appeared on BBC Breakfast on Thursday along with band mates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford, and said flatly, “We’re all men of our age, and I think to some extent, I think [this tour] probably is putting [the band] to bed. I think just generally for me, I don’t know if I want to go out on the road anymore.”
Phil, who’s 70, has been sidelined by a number of serious health problems; his son Nicholas will be playing the drums on the tour this time around. Asked if he’s still able to play, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer admitted, “No. No. I would love to but…I mean, I can barely hold a stick with this hand, so there are certain physical things that get in the way.”
He added that his condition is “very frustrating, because I’d love to be playing up there with my son.”
During his I’m Not Dead Yet solo tour, which ran from 2017 to 2019, Phil sat on stage and sang while Nicholas played drums, although he did play a cajón — a percussion instrument played with the hands — at some shows.
The Last Domino? tour will be the first time Genesis, which has been in existence for more than 50 years, has toured together since 2007. The trek kicks off in the U.K. next week, and if all goes according to plan, it’ll come to the U.S. in November.
Ben Gibson/Courtesy of Rocket Entertainment; David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
When Elton John announced Wednesday that he was going to be in an UberEats commercial with rapper-singer Lil Nas X, we didn’t expect to get three separate commercials — and three sets of fabulous costumes to boot.
Each ad is part of UberEats’ ongoing “Tonight I’ll Be Eating” campaign, in which celebrities detail what they’ve ordered and had delivered via the online platform. The first one, “Rides,” shows Elton riding a coin-operated kiddie rocket ride, while Nas is on a similar one in the shape of a horse.
After each singer describes their food order, Elton asks Nas to loan him some money to gets his ride started, but Nas doesn’t understand him because Elton uses the British slang words for money: “bones,” “lolly” and “bangers and mash.”
Finally, an exasperated Elton says, “I don’t have any money!” to which Nas responds, in a British accent, “You don’t LOOK broke!”
The second clip, “Mayo vs. Ketchup,” features Elton announcing that he’s ordered a club sandwich with fries, with mayo on the side. Nas, who’s sitting in a clump of flowers wearing a Louis XIV-style wig and playing a sitar — because why not? — responds, “Mayonnaise? On fries?” Elton responds, “A little judgy, don’t you think?” to which Nas adds, “That’s weird.”
In celebration of today’s 50th anniversary of the release of John Lennon‘s classic solo album, Imagine, and his enduring peace anthem of the same name, a segment of the song’s lyrics has been projected digitally on buildings and structures in select cities around the world.
The lyrical phrase “IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE LIVING LIFE IN PEACE” has appeared as a digital projection in London on the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral; in Lennon’s hometown of Liverpool, U.K., on the Liver Building and the Museum of Liverpool; and on remnants of the Berlin Wall in Germany.
The lyrics also have been posted on billboards in New York City’s Times Square, and in Tokyo near the historic Nihonbashi bridge.
Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, whom John credited with co-writing the song’s lyrics, said about the projections, “John would have loved this. ‘Imagine’ embodied what we believed together at the time. We are still together now and we still believe this. The sentiment is just as important now as when it was written and released 50 years ago.”
As previously reported, a number of events and activities have been planned today to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Imagine album and song. As part of the celebration, John and Yoko’s experimental 1971 film Imagine will be screened today at 2:30 p.m. ET at select theaters or online for free. Fans also will be able to check out the movie, which was restored and re-released in 2018, at Amazon Prime’s music-themed streaming service The Coda Collection.
Also, U.K. radio presenter Tim Burgess will host a special edition of his popular Tim’s Twitter Listening Party at the same time as the Imagine film screenings.
Visit JohnLennon.com to find out more details about the various planned commemorations.
