Looking for that perfect Valentine’s Day card for your love? Well, if they are a Def Leppard fan, the band has got you covered.
Just in time for the romantic holiday, the rockers are selling Valentine’s Day cards featuring five different poses, with lyrics from the band’s hits placed in a heart. Professions of love include “pour some sugar on me,” “let the love begin” and “love and affection.”
“Send some Leppard love with these classic Def Leppard valentine cards!” the band suggests. “Vibrant, fun, and smoking hot, these valentines are the perfect way to show your affection.”
The cards are available for purchase at leppardvault.com and can be purchased individually, or in five- or 10-card packs.
When Billy Corgan famously sang “the world is a vampire” on The Smashing Pumpkins‘ “Bullet with Butterfly Wings,” he apparently really did mean the whole world.
The Pumpkins are headed all the way to Australia to stage their The World Is a Vampire festival. The touring event will make stops in 10 different Australian cities in April and will also feature Jane’s Addiction on the bill.
If you’re looking to see Corgan and company a little bit closer to their hometown of Chicago, The World Is a Vampire festival will also take place in Mexico in March. Interpol and Turnstile will be on the lineup.
Meanwhile, The Smashing Pumpkins have been releasing new music from their three-act “rock opera” album, Atum. The first two parts are out now; part three arrives April 21.
Zakk Wylde and Judas Priest have shared their support for Ozzy Osbourne following the Prince of Darkness’ announcement earlier this week that his European and United Kingdom tour dates would be canceled. He said Wednesday that his touring days have ended.
The Black Label Society frontman, who’s also long been the guitarist in Ozzy’s live band, has posted an all-caps tweet reading, “Everybody is praying & rooting for you.”
“Your strength, resilience & heart of a lion is one of the many reasons you’re a hero to me & millions around the world,” Wylde continues. “When you are ready to roll-we roll. I love you Oz.”
In their own tweet, Rob Halford and company add, “We send all our love and support for Ozzy.” Priest was also set to be on the bill for select dates on Osbourne’s tour.
“[We] thank our fans in the UK and Ireland especially for your loyalty by standing with us,” Priest says.
The long-delayed tour was originally set for 2019; it was initially postponed when Ozzy came down with the flu and then again when the metal legend suffered a fall in his home, which required extensive surgery and recovery time. The outing was supposed to finally take place in 2023 after a pandemic-related postponement, but was canceled for good this week due to Ozzy’s continued physical ailments from the fall.
“Never would I have imagined that my touring days would have ended this way,” Ozzy said.
The late Warren Zevon is one of this year’s nominees for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the news left his children pretty emotional.
“When I first saw it, tears came to my eyes first and then sort of the shock of it being 20 years later since he passed away,” daughter Ariel tells Billboard. “It feels like a significant moment for the Zevon family.” Son Jordan adds, “I’m excited. I had to wake up at 4:50 in the morning to get the news firsthand, so I’m very caffeinated and possibly a little dizzy, but I’m excited.”
As for how they think their dad would have taken the news, Jordan says, “There’s this misconception that dad wouldn’t have cared.” He added, “It’d be like, ‘Hey Johnny, hey Ariel, guess what?!’ It would have been, ‘It’s a big deal.’ It was his business. He wanted to be good at it. You want to win, you know, best plumber of the year.”
Ariel says she feels like her father’s music resonates with a lot of people these days, noting, “I would say that’s a good sign of somebody who probably deserves to be recognized, for a contribution to the arts, just generally speaking.”
“I just think the quality of the music and the songwriting, it’s such a different level, and I think that he put so much care into it,” Jordan adds. “And commercial put aside, quality-wise he still kept writing some songs that I think are just really, truly amazing, throughout his career. I just think he is pretty f–king good!”
Singer/songwriter Graham Nash was born in Blackpool, England. He first gained fame in the early 60s as a member of the Hollies, and then in 1968 he teamed with Stephen Stills and David Crosby to form Crosby, Stills & Nash, with Neil Young joining them a year later. They performed their second-ever gig together at Woodstock. Their first album as a foursome, 1970’s Déjà Vu, went to number one.
Nash has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice:as a member of Crosby, Stills, & Nash in 1997, and again as a member of the Hollies in 2010. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours List for services to music and to charity.
Nash is scheduled to start a new tour on April 12 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
It’s been a six-year wait that for fans has felt longer, but Bruce Springsteenand the E Street were back on stage in Tampa Wednesday night treating fans to a set filled with a mix of new tracks and classic cuts.
Fans were treated to several songs off 2020‘s Letters to You album, including the title track, “Ghosts,” “House of a Thousand Guitars,” “Burnin’ Train” and a solo acoustic version of “Last Man Standing,” which The Boss dedicated to his former Castiles bandmate George Theiss, who passed away in 2018.
“His passing would leave me as the last surviving member of my first band, so it’s kind of like standing on the tracks with the hot light of an oncoming train bearing down on you,” Springsteen told the crowd, according to the Asbury Park Press. “It brings a clarity of thought and a purpose that you might have not previously experienced.” He added, “At 15 it’s all hellos. At 73 it’s a lot of goodbyes. That’s why you have to make the most of right now.”
The set list also included two songs from Bruce’s Only the Strong Survive solo album, “Night Shift,” and “Don’t Play That Song,” along with lots of old favorites, including the opener “No Surrender,” “Rosalita,” “Born to Run,” “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Glory Days” and more, along with some deeper cuts like “Kitty’s Back” and “E Street Shuffle.”
The Boss ended the night with another solo acoustic performance, the Letters to You track “I’ll See You in My Dreams.”
Next up, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s bring the tour to Atlanta, Georgia on Friday.
David M. Benett/Hoda Davaine/Dave Benett/Getty Images
In addition to being a rock star, Paul McCartney is a husband and father, and those are two roles that are very important to him. In a new post on his website, the Beatles legend responds to a Twitter question about what the two roles mean to him, noting they are “two completely different things.”
“As far as being a dad is concerned, I’ve always just tried to give my kids a bit of guidance, if they seem to need it – but that was mainly when they were younger,” he explains. “Now that they are older, they’re guiding me! They don’t need so much guidance these days but if there’s ever a problem, I’m very happy to be the guy they come to.”
He adds, “You’re just there to help, and I suppose have fun with – we do have a lot of fun. Now they’re older we can have a drink together, for instance!”
As for being a husband, he says the most important thing is “just trying to be good to my wife Nancy (Shevell) and trying to be considerate and romantic.” And it sounds like Nancy can expect something special later this month.
“I completely overdo Valentine’s Day! I mean, there’s not just one card, there are cards hidden around the room, and sometimes things even spill into the next day – it’s completely silly,” Sir Paul says. “If there’s an excuse to have some fun, I overdo it!”
McCartney adds that he likes to be helpful to his wife, noting, “I’m always very happy to be the person Nancy relies on, and to be her strength when she goes through tough times. I am very proud, in fact, to be ‘The Guy’ there.”
Back in December, a woman named Julia Holcomb filed a lawsuit in California accusing Steven Tyler of sexual assault, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, although at the time she didn’t specifically name the Aerosmith frontman in the suit. Well, that’s changed.
Holcomb initially listed the defendants as Doe 1 and Does 2 through 50, but now Rolling Stonereports the complaint has been amended to include Tyler’s name.
In the suit, Holcomb claims she and Tyler were together for three years starting in 1973, when she was 16 and he was in his 20s. She noted the rocker got her mother to grant him guardianship over her, which allowed her to live and travel with him. Holcomb claims she “was powerless to resist” the rock star’s “power, fame and substantial financial ability,” and that he “coerced and persuaded” her into believing their relationship was a “romantic love affair.”
Although Tyler wasn’t named in the initial suit, it was quickly associated with the rocker because Holcomb had talked about her relationship with him in the past. The suit also used quotes about the relationship from Tyler’s memoir Does the Noise in my Head Bother You?
Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees is lending her voice to a campaign to end cruel animal testing. The rocker has written a letter to Japanese conglomerate Ajinomoto Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of monosodium glutamate, or MSG, to urge them to stop doing tests on animals.
“I know that Siouxsie and the Banshees fans around the world—including the thousands who attended our final concert in Japan 20 years ago—will be just as appalled as I was to learn that thousands of dogs, gerbils, guinea pigs, fish, mice, pigs, and rabbits have been tormented and killed in cruel experiments since the 1950s,” she writes in a letter to Ajinomoto CEO Taro Fujie on behalf of PETA U.K. “Japan is a beautiful country, which I have visited many times, but these shameful experiments are a stain on its reputation.”
PETA argues that the tests being conducted are neither relevant to human health nor required by law, with Siouxsie adding, “As a major manufacturer, [Ajinomoto] should be leading the way with compassion, not falling behind. Please, stop being spellbound by bad science and end these cruel tests immediately.”
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for SeriousFun Children’s Network
John Mellencamp is set to kick off his Live and In Person tour this weekend, and one member of his band will certainly look familiar to longtime fans. The “Small Town” singer announced on Instagram that singer/multiple-instrumentalist Lisa Germano is joining him on tour for the first time in 29 years.
Germano toured and recorded with Mellencamp for seven years, appearing on such albums as 1987’s The Lonesome Jubilee, 1989’s Big Daddy and 1991’s Falling from Grace. Her fiddle playing can be heard on such songs as “Paper and Fire,” “Cherry Bomb” and “Check it Out.”
The Live and In Person tour is set to kick off Sunday with a two-night stand in Bloomington, Indiana. The tour has him playing multiple nights in several cities, including Nashville, Chicago and Minneapolis, including four nights at New York’s Beacon Theater. The tour wraps with a pair of shows in South Bend, Indiana, on June 23 and 24. A complete list of tour dates can be found at Mellencamp.com.
