Bret Michaels Covers Lionel Richie and Diana Ross Hit

Based on the theme, "The tougher we test them, the more you love them," the campaign is directed at small business owners looking for durable, efficient cargo and passenger vans.

The centerpiece full-length music video shows Michaels serenading various Nissan vans as he joins Nissan technicians during vehicle durability testing at Nissan's Arizona Testing Center, a 3,050-acre facility in Stanfield, Arizona.

Check it out here.

Menza Takes High Road After Megadeth Frontman's Insult

Mustaine recently admitted he often received pleas from fans to bring Menza and ex-guitarist Marty Friedman back into the band - but dismissed the idea by stating: "That makes as much sense as somebody saying, 'Put a rotten tooth back in your mouth.'" He added that he'd seen comments from the drummer in the press and felt they were "unfortunate."

But while Menza accepts there appears to be no chance of a reunion, he refuses to raise the temperature in the debate. He says via Facebook: "A chance to celebrate the great moments of the past, together with our fans, doesn't appear to be on the cards."

He adds: "I had my time with Dave and it was great. I don't make it a point to back my former band members and diminish the memories of our great times together." More.

Judas Priest Tribute Fans With Never Forget

"We've said, and will always say, that we are eternally grateful to the fans for giving us the life of metal in Judas Priest," explains singer Rob Halford. "So this is a direct, pure acknowledgement to them in a very sentimental way�.this is a real proclamation of love from Priest to the fans that support us and we genuinely will never forget them."

Judas Priest will launch a North American tour in support of the new album - with special guests Steel Panther - on October 1 in Rochester, New York; the 6-week run will wrap up November 22 in Tacoma, Washington.

Check out the video here.

Peter Frampton Streaming New Song Friendly Fire

The seven-track work resulted from his collaboration with Cincinatti Ballet, based on live pieces he performed with them last year. Frampton recently said: "Writing for dance was a wonderfully freeing experience. There were no boundaries - we were able to push the composing envelope."

Hummingbird In A Box is his second collaboration with Gordon Kennedy, after the pair won a Grammy for 2006 release Fingerprints. He's currently on tour in the US with dates running until September.

Listen to the new song here.

Former Johnny Cash Home May Be Turned Into Rehab Facility

According to the Tennessean, the Hendersonville, Tenn., property, where the Cash family lived until their deaths in 2003, is being eyed for possible redevelopment as a residential medical facility.

Paperwork has been filed to rezone the area for use as an employment center of some sort - in this case a facility that is being touted as "high-end" and would focus predominantly on helping women with eating disorders, much like the property owner James Gresham's Illinois facility Timberline Knolls that treats women's eating disorders, alcoholism, drug addiction and more. More on this story.

Celebrating Jon Lord Preview Video Released

The tribute featured rock legends including Deep Purple members Ian Paice, Roger Glover, Don Airey and Steve Morse, Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, Glenn Hughes, Rick Wakeman, Micky Moody, Joe Brown and Alfie Boe.

Lord passed away July 16, 2012 at the age of 71 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. With Purple, Lord co-wrote many of the group's legendary songs, including "Smoke On The Water", and played with many bands and musicians throughout his career.

Check out the preview here.

Alice In Chains Streaming Would? From Guitar Center Sessions

Airing at 8 PM, the all-new program will see the band shares stories from their initial 1990s breakout, talk about their hiatus and re-emergence, and delve into what's in store for the future of the group.

"Would?" originally appeared on the group's sophomore album, 1992's "Dirt." The project peaked at No. 6 on the US Billboard 200 on its way to sales of more than 4 million copies in the States alone, making it the band's highest-selling album.

Check out the preview clip here.

Aerosmith Jam With Johnny Depp In L.A.

It's the second time in two weeks the actor/musician has teamed up with the Boston rockers: Depp joined in on their version of Tiny Bradshaw's "Train Kept A-Rollin'" at their July 16 hometown show in Boston.

"Big Ten Inch Record" originally appeared on Aerosmith's third album, 1975's "Toys In The Attic." The Los Angeles stop is part of the North Aerican leg of Aerosmith's Let Rock Rule tour, which sees the band on the road this summer with Slash.

Watch video of the jam here.

St. Vincent and Cloud Nothings Producer John Congleton Interviewed

At 37, Congleton has racked up an impressive list of credits that range from producing to mixing to engineering to drum programming for artists like David Byrne, Swans, Amanda Palmer, The Walkmen, The War on Drugs, Bill Callahan, fellow Texans Explosions in the Sky and his own band The Paper Chase. This year alone, he's worked on eight albums, producing three of the most well-received indie records of 2014, so far: Cloud Nothings' Here and Nowhere Else, Angel Olsen's Burn Your Fire For No Witness and St. Vincent's self-titled release, which is his fifth collaboration with the singer.

"A lot of producers have a X, Y and Z way of doing a record. That's not the way I work," Congleton told Radio.com over the phone. "Mainly because I think that's unfair to the artist, but also boring to me. I might as well go work at a bank if I'm going to do the same thing all the time."

Unlike other producers, Congleton doesn't think it's interesting to have an overt style. "Just picking over everything and making it exactly how I want it, that's so boring. I'm just gonna have a bunch of records that sound the same," he said. "It's also not particularly playing its part in the nexus of music that you're just sort of destroying a style that an artist has cultivated throughout the years." Instead Congleton says his goal as a producer is to capture that feeling he had when he was 13 years old, back when he felt like his favorite music just fell out of the sky. "It just felt like it just happened as opposed to created," he explained.

Congleton considers himself to be a "spectrum producer," meaning he will take on whatever role the band needs him to just as long as the record sounds good. Sometimes a band comes into the studio and has tortured themselves over every note so Congleton's job is to record as much as possible and use his ear to decide which takes are best. Other times, Congleton is like an additional band member, co-writing music or acting as a session player, something he prefers not to do. "The moment I play something, I become one of the musicians and I sort of have some weird preciousness about it," he explained. "It f-ks with your brain too much."

Congleton mixed the latest Strand of Oaks record, HEAL at his Dallas studio, Elmwood Recording with singer Timothy Showalter asking him to take "broad strokes," knowing if there was something he didn't like, he could send it back. Congleton sent what would become the final product to Showalter in just five days.

"I'm not a technically minded person so I have no idea how he made [HEAL] sound that good," Showalter said, before offering up a well-thought explanation, "You could tell there was compassion in his mixing. It wasn't a job. It wasn't, 'Oh this band is paying me, I'll just go through the motions.' It was actively being involved and actively making artistic choices, not just technical choices."

A lot more here.

Andy Grammer Gets Honest About His New Album 'Magazines or Novels'

"Back Home" is the lead single off Grammer's sophomore album, Magazines or Novels, out Aug. 5. The follow-up to his 2011 self-titled debut, this time around Grammer took inspiration from artists like Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Drake and Coldplay with their honest lyrics. While he likens his debut to a first meeting, Grammer said Magazines or Novels is more like a best friend that he shows his scars and wounds to.

"What I was finding was the music that I was listening to, people were sharing of themselves in a deeper way. A lot of the albums that I've been really into are like, 'Oh man. That doesn't make him look like a perfect human. That actually shows his warts and his scars and for some reason I'm super drawn to him now because he shared that or she shared that with me,'" Grammer explained.

"That was the biggest shift. I'm going to try to go more after humanity and more after honesty and hopefully people will feel that and it will pull them in the way I've been pulled into other artists. It was a little scary to go after exactly what I wanted sonically because I knew it was such a departure but I love it. I think people will follow you if it's what you love."

Where Grammer's debut was mainly written on piano and guitar for a street crowd where he performed in Santa Monica, Calif., Magazines or Novels was written while on tour with acts like Train who were playing in front of big crowds. And, performing a song for arena audiences is very different than for those passing by on the street.

"How do you mirror your life, even the dark interesting parts, and keep people bobbing their heads?" he asked rhetorically. "I think I did it. I hope."

Songs like "Holding Out" are just one example of Grammer's blatant honesty. What he calls the most honest song on the album - which details saving his virginity for that special someone "with a little bit of prayer, a little bit of porn sorry" - he said many friends who heard the song said he shouldn't cut it.

"It's almost like they are reading a diary entry," he admitted. "It's uncharted territory which is really, really fun. Anytime you're doing art like that where it's like, 'I haven't heard anybody say this s-t.' Has no one said this because it's super scary and I'm going to get destroyed for it or because it's really awesome, new, uncharted territory? Anytime I hear songs that are so honest, whether they make the person who's singing it look good or not, there's a level of honesty that resonates with people. They'll forgive whether you look cool or look like a dick if it's honest. There's something that rings true about honesty in music. That's what we're all looking for." A lot more.

Meghan Trainor Studies Beyonce

"Oh, I watch Beyonc� videos every day with my friend at home," Trainor told Radio.com over the phone from Los Angeles. "That's the one performer I study a lot. I'm not saying I am her though, she's perfection."

The Nantucket, Mass. native who now calls Nashville home is getting ready for a daytime appearance on Live with Kelly and Michael, which is set to happen in the next few weeks. Her excitement over her TV debut has translated into her spending as much time as possible rehearsing. "They got me dancing," she said. "I've never danced before. So it's like, 'Oh man, I've gotta learn to be Beyonc� for a second.'"

Trainor is in high demand since her body-acceptance anthem "All About That Bass" took the internet by storm earlier this month, thanks in large part to its pastel painted video featuring women and one man - Sione Kelepi, better known as Vine star SioneMaraschino - with all the right junk in all the right places getting their groove on. The track has since crashed onto the chart, earning the No. 54 slot on the August 2 Billboard Hot 100, an impressive 30-spot jump since it debuted at No. 84 just a week ago.
For most music fans, Trainor seemed to come completely out of nowhere, but in actuality she's been making music since she was 13, producing her self-penned tracks with GarageBand on the Mac she begged her dad to buy her. By 18, she landed a deal with the Nashville publishing house, Big Yellow Dog, a pleasant surprise for the young songwriter. "I got to be a pop writer on a country publisher," she said, before noting that her most notable songwriting credit is a country song, "DJ Tonight" by Rascal Flatts.
But even though she's been hard at work, this newfound fame is completely unexpected since Trainor didn't plan on pursuing a singing career until she turned 25. "I told my father, 'I'm going to be a pop star, but not yet. I gotta get in good shape and get sexy, because sex sells. I'll wait until I'm 25 and can handle it,'" she remembers. But she got a little ahead of schedule.

Trainor's debut track came out of a writing session where she decided to stop thinking about what would be right for the artist and simply write something honest. "That's your first song to say, 'Hey, I'm a little chubby, but I love myself,' that was a scary thing to do," she said. "I got a lot of support from a lot of people and it's really helping me and my confidence." One of those people was L.A. Reid - head of her label, Epic - who heard the song and immediately told Trainor it was hers, and only hers, to sing. The track has since become an anthem for all those who don't feel like they fit the perfect beauty mold. "I tear up all the time when I see young girls write about it," she said. "It's amazing." More.

Kongos On Turning South African Success Into U.S. Radio Hit

Having moved to Arizona more than 15 years ago, the foursome began mailing their music around the world in hopes of radio airplay. Finding open arms and radio play in their homeland, the band toured extensively for years in South Africa. But it wasn't until years later that their single took hold on American radio. Only thing is, it wasn't the song they expected.

Kongos' keyboard and accordion player, Johnny Kongos, spoke to Radio.com about their long road to overnight success. Radio.com: Was it a long journey to get "Come With Me Now" to the level it is now?

Johnny Kongos: The long story is that we wrote the song in end of 2007 and in 2008 we started playing it out live. So it's longer than even the two-year story. We knew the song had something because we trust our instincts. If a song makes us get up and move and get really into it then we trust that instinct. The road to having it become a big single in America was a bit of an accident because we had started to go with "I'm Only Joking," but then Denver picked up "Come With Me Now" and just kind of ran with it. We had to basically follow the momentum of that. The song had already done really well in South Africa. It was hugely popular across all different formats out there. At that point we were pretty convinced it had something but the American radio thing is a tough and difficult thing to crack into.

But for most bands, it's impossible to get the attention of radio. Why you? We ask ourselves that question. Like why was� cause we had sent the song around and people had heard the song in 2011 and 2012. Why was it the end of 2013 that it clicked for whatever reason? It's definitely just a huge element of luck and timing� why certain songs click and others don't and at what time they have to click. I think there was a certain point with "Come With Me Now" where the momentum became so great that then it was given the full shot to gain the exposure it needed. Once KROQ picked it up it was kind of game over. KROQ is such a massively influential station still that all the rest of the dominoes fell in line once that happened.

In the more than two years before the song took off, were you considering getting real jobs? Occasionally every now and then everyone in the band would have a thought about that and it was quickly dismissed because the thought of that is too terrible for a bunch of lazy musicians like us. If nothing had happened with "Lunatic," "Come With Me Now" and "I'm Only Joking," we definitely had another album or two that we would've given a full shot to. Like, it definitely wasn't over. We started to work on and write a lot of new material.

Before the boys in the family formed a band, did you ever have normal jobs? We've always had the band as the main focus with odd jobs. I did a lot of web design work and Danny did photography. He used to shoot portfolio stuff for models which isn't a bad side job. We made bar mitzvah videos for friends of ours and shot them all MTV Cribs style and did that for a while. We just did odd jobs so we could focus on the music. And also we were really fortunate to have a dad who was in the business and who was willing to support us long beyond where most parents would have been like, 'all right, that's it. You guys are done. Either go to college or get a job."

How do you decide where to put "Come With Me Now" in your live set? Right now we're playing it last I'd say ninety-nine percent of the time because people just don't know most of our material yet so I think it would be really, really hard to follow that song if we played it too early on in the set. They need to just hear more of the album to get into it. Even "Come With Me Now' is not necessarily the most simple song that people just immediately hear. There's a friggin' accordion and a slide solo and this weird African-influenced beat. But now I guess cause the song's doing so well everyone's like, 'oh cool it's a hit.' But it wasn't necessarily the first time people heard it. It's funny� People always ask if we're sick of these songs yet.

Are you? Not really. We always wanted these songs to be heard and given a shot so this is totally more than we could have hoped for right now. You know, I'm sick of hearing the song. [laughs] Because we've heard it through the entire writing, recording, rehearsing, all that. But playing it live every show is always exciting.

Read the rest of the interview here.

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