Van Halen Split Brought Members Closer Together

The pair worked together during Hagar's two spells with Van Halen, but they really hit it off as friends once Hagar had left the fold entirely in 2005. Anthony tells the Niagara Gazette:

"It wasn't until after Sammy left Van Halen that we connected on a personal level. We have a lot in common beyond the music, we love the beach and we love cars, and when you have common interests it reflects in the music you play together." More on this story.

Queen Woken Up By Adam Lambert And May Continue On

May tells Eddie Trunk: "I think he's woken us up - and just in time. There's a big call to do more shows now. So, there's a good possibility that we will do more shows. I think, beyond that, we'll just see."

When Mercury died in 1991, May harboured no ambition to ever perform as Queen again. But with Lambert proving an able frontman, he feels it's right that the music is given centre stage again.

He adds: "It's a great place to be. I feel so fortunate to be going out there. I never thought it would happen again. When Freddie went, I thought 'That's it. We did that. It was a great life. Now, it's time to have a different life.'

More including a full stream of the interview here.

Def Leppard's Rick Allen Reflects On His Comeback From Arm Loss

The sticksman's return took place at Monsters Of Rock in 1986, a year and a half after the near-fatal accident he was convinced had ended his career. Allen tells MusicRadar:

"Donington is a crossroads in my life. That was where it all changed for me. It was really scary; I didn't think I could pull it off. But to feel the warmth of a crowd like that - just feeling the sense that they wanted me to succeed and feeling that encouragement - was just incredible. What a moment."

The 1984 crash pushed Def Leppard to breaking point, forcing a long delay before the launch of career-defining album Hysteria. Allen was only able to play again after a period of intense recovery sessions and the building of a unique drumkit on which foot pedals replaced the parts he used to play with his arm.

He remembers: "It took years and years to make the damned thing. Then me going through my trials and tribulations set the whole thing back even further. It felt like a huge task at that moment in time. I guess I felt somewhat overwhelmed at the prospect of having to do all of these songs." More on this story.

Ace Frehley Rocks New York Groove With The Roots

During the show, the pairing played snippets of that song, plus Ace's solo tune, "Rip It Out", his 1977 KISS track, "Shock Me", and "Gimme A Feelin'", the lead single from his forthcoming album, "Space Invader."

Due August 19th in North America (August 29th in Europe), the project marks Frehley's first new solo album in five years. Check out the performance of "New York Groove" here.

Motley Crue Release Country Version of Looks That Kill

Due August 19, the project sees a variety of country artists covering Motley Crue tracks, including performances by Rascal Flatts, LeAnne Rimes, Florida Georgia Line, Darius Rucker, Gretchen Wilson and more.

Last month, Motley Crue kicked off their 2-year farewell tour with special guest Alice Cooper. Check out a stream of Laura Jenkins' version of "Looks That Kill" here.

Slash Wanted New Video To Be Specifically Dark But Specifically Fun

The provocative promo features everything from sex to arson, and although the guitar hero is happy with the results, he admits he had some concerns when he read the original idea from director Laban Pheidias.

Slash says: "The video for World On Fire is definitely a little bit edgy. Compared to what most people are doing these days it might be a little risqu�. The actual plot line is something that you'd have to watch - it's self explanatory but pretty entertaining.

"I wanted something that was specifically dark but specifically fun. Definitely something that you couldn't play on regular TV. We interviewed a bunch of different directors and got treatments from them on the song.

"The guy who wrote and directed it had an idea we thought was cool. As long as it's not too frat-boyish, is the thing I was concerned with. When I went down to the studio to shoot my cameo he definitely had the right vibe, so I'm very happy with it."

Check out the interview and the video here.

The Haunted Streaming New Song Time (Will Not Heal)

Frontman Marco Aro rejoined the band in 2013 - 10 years after ending his fist spell at the helm. He has described the new album as his best ever work with the band.

Lead guitarist Ola Englund, who joined the band last year, says: "Time (Will Not Heal) is one of those songs that came together naturally and wrote itself. With its stomping drums, riffs and Marco's screaming, it's one of my first contributions to The Haunted and I hope you will dig it."

Stream the song and check out the album art and tracklisting here.

Soundgarden Black Hole Sun Lullaby Preview Goes Online

Due August 19, the collection features lullaby versions of seven tracks by the Seattle rockers, plus "Hunger Strike" from the 1991 self-titled album by Temple Of The Dog - the tribute organized by Chris Cornell in honor of his late friend and Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood.

According to the company, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Rock Star was born for the parent that wants to pass along their biggest passion to their child, music. The company transforms popular music into instrumental lullabies perfect for babies, yoga or just relaxation." More on this story.

Steve Rothery Releases Live Old Man Of The Sea Video

Marillion guitarist Rothery recently said: "They're some of the finest musicians I've ever worked with and the concert was an unforgettable experience." He adds of the clip: "This is one of my favourite live tracks from the album."

Live In Rome is launched on August 25 via InsideOut Music, with studio album The Ghosts Of Pripyat to follow in September, featuring guest appearances by Steve Hackett, Steven Wilson and Don Airey.

Watch the video here.

Porter Robinson Discusses His Worlds Album

From the resurgence of deep house to the hip-hop influenced bass rumbles of Flume and the kitchen-sink experimentalism of artists like SOPHIE and myriad of alternative sounds in between, electronic dance music has moved beyond the visceral, hands-in-the-air euphoria of prime time big-room bangers that power festival main stages.

For Porter Robinson, falling into the circuit of main stage marquee DJs determined to keep crowds dancing happened almost by accident. After an early single topped the Beatport charts, an ambitious promoter hit the young producer up with an offer he couldn't refuse.

"My origins, my roots are not as a DJ," Robinson explained during an interview with Radio.com. "I didn't go out watching DJs, I didn't go to clubs, I was seriously 15 years old in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, just at home writing electronic music for many, many years. Then I had a song I released that was a Beatport No. 1 and I started getting requests to go DJ. This guy was like, 'I'll pay you $500 to come to Portland and DJ my party.' I was like, well, let me learn how to DJ and I will do that for you. For one reason or another, my DJing happened to go really well. Not to say I wasn't proud of the music I was making at the time, but I almost feel like I chanced into it. I just kept taking the opportunities that were given to me and doing my best at all of them."

For his beautifully crafted studio full-length debut, Worlds, Robinson has pushed the boundaries of his sound well beyond the confines of big-room bangers to explore a dazzling array of sounds and emotions across the album's 12 tracks. Among the album's intriguing highlights comes in the form of "Flicker," a track that has roots in the late Detroit hip-hop production legend, Jay Dilla.

"I very much love chipmunked-up soul beats. Just late Jay Dilla-t stuff," Robinson explained. "I think that the reason I love soul samples is because of the Daft Punk Discovery album, which remains my favorite album of all time. So when I heard the same style of records in a hip-hop context I was really, really in love when I was younger. I was messing with soul samples and made this little beat just for fun, at least I thought. Then I'd made this MP3 of taking a bunch of titles I had in a notepad and ran them through a Japanese text to speech program and it spit out this basically nonsensical Japanese text and I cut it up into this little rap and I was just so charmed by that. It's the two sides of me, very much� that's one of my favorite songs on the album." More on this story.

Kimbra Wants You To Love Or Hate Her Music

Kimbra (full name Kimbra Lee Johnson) must be quite happy then with the very mixed, but very extreme reaction her latest single, "90's Music" has received over the past four months.

Look through the over 1,700 comments for that song's video and you'll find that while some people are very sure Kimbra is a member of the Illuminati, most others are struggling to decide whether the track is a "Lady Gaga rip-off" or a "manic feast of frenzy for the senses" or "an overproduced POS." But the most common opinion from those who choose to publicly voice theirs is that they like the track, it just took some time to come to that conclusion. "It's definitely a polarizing song for a lot of people," Kimbra said laughing. "But I think it finds its way under the skin."

With shout-outs to Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, R. Kelly, Nirvana, TLC and Aaliyah, the track's lyrics focus on that not-so-bygone era we all seem to have a particular fondness for, but the sound is something from the future with Kimbra's staccato delivery sounding almost alien as she questions nostalgia and its place in our memory.

"That's the deeper side of that song," she explained. "We change and we grow and we remember time, but we remember it completely differently, you know? We look back and it comes back slightly skewed and therefore we are changed by it and feel differently about things in our past."

Kimbra says she chose the track as the first single off her upcoming album, The Golden Echo, because it sets up this record as one that's not necessarily going to follow all the rules. "I wanted to introduce the idea of playfulness," she explained. "I think of it as a statement song."

A lot of the playfulness on her sophomore album - out August 19 on Warner Bros - stems from collaboration. Not much of a surprise being that Kimbra's most successful work to date is Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know," a collaboration that earned her two GRAMMYs in 2013 including Record of the Year.

Kimbra now lives on a farm in Silverlake, CA where sheep graze outside her window, but her gramophone statue still sits in Australia, packed away in storage like a lot of her previous apartment. "I don't know where to put it, I don't want to have shrine or anything," she said. "It's a bit of an awkward thing to work out. I'll have to think about it and find a nice place when I get it back." more.

Singled Out: Body Language's 4 Real

In the summer of 2012, I was visiting my father, who was battling cancer at the time. Near his house in Gloucester, MA, there is an amazing record store called Mystery Train that we would frequent and buy as much vinyl as we could take home. On this particular visit, he wasn't much up for a trip to the record store, but we drove by and I ran inside to pick up a few albums of a very specific artist that I had on my mind. We got back to his home and played those records. This one song came on that had the most gorgeous string and wind section on it, and I told him, "That is the most amazing arrangement I've ever heard, I'm going to sample this song."

When I got back to Brooklyn, I immediately spliced up the song and programmed a beat and played it for Angelica the next day. Upon first listen, she freestyled the first verse, chorus and post chorus. I knew when she ripped through that chorus that we had something very special. After the session, I was really excited and called and told my dad about it. He was really intrigued and said, "please send me this song when you're done with it". He actually did pester me for the song a few more times, but he passed away only several months later. In the months leading up to his passing, I just wasn't able to write much more than I had, so it stayed in our little song vault.

We managed to finish this song in the spring of 2014 with Matt finishing off the writing and programming. Angelica's lyrics regarding the power of friendships really seemed to resonate with the situation, because when the song was conceived, there seemed to be very little comfort to be found in life. We all lean on each other in the toughest of times and this song was literally that helping hand.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the group and the EP right here!

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