Eddie Van Halen's son Wolfgang took to social media to slam online rumors that he would be replacing his late father in a reformation of the band.
The rumor began with a Facebook Wolfgang Van Halen Fan Page sharing a post that said, "there is a good strong possibility that the band is no over (like it or not) this is the word that is being talked at the VH camp.
"Sammy Hagar: Vocals, Michael Anthony: Bass Guitar, Alex Van Halen: Percussion and Wolfgang Van Halen on guitar. It has been mentioned that Eddie Van Halen told his son and brother, I give you my blessing......"
Wolfgang blasted a tweet of the post. He said, "This is just a sh*tty lie attempting to capitalize on these awful times. Please stop with this. Anyone peddling this sh*t is not only hurting the fans, but hurting me and my family."
AC/DC have unleashed a brand new music video for their song "Shot In The Dark". The track is the lead single from the legendary band's forthcoming album.
The new record will be entitled "PWR/UP" (a.k.a. Power Up) and is scheduled to hit stores on November 13th. It is the follow-up to the band's 2014 album "Rock Or Bust".
The band premiered The video via YouTube on Monday morning (October 26th) and prior to the revealing the clip the shared a video of the group and director David Mallet discussing the clip and previous videos. Watch that here.
The current band lineup features original lead guitarist Angus Young, longtime frontman Brian Johnson, drummer Phil Rudd, bassist Cliff Williams and rhythm guitarist Stevie Young. Watch the new video here.
Megadeth bassist and cofounder David Ellefson says that late Apple CEO Steve Jobs saved the music business after he convinced the label heads to change their business model to begin selling music online via Apple's iTunes stores.
Prior to the launch of the iTunes music store in late April of 2003, the major record labels attempted various other strategies to sell music online and battle piracy, but without success.
Ellefson made the comments about Jobs after he was asked about the current struggles in the business during an appearance on theFIVE10 podcast (listen here).
He was asked how he manages to stay relevant with the ever changing music industry. David replied, "I think you just roll with the punches. I remember when the whole Napster thing was going on, and Lars, in particular, of Metallica was fighting the good fight, and they were absolutely right.
"And I remember our manager saying, 'Oh, don't jump into that controversy. You've gotta be careful.' And I said, 'F*** that. They're wrong. They're stealing our music. They are wrong, and Lars is right.' Unfortunately, it was an unwinnable battle. It's like looting, somebody just opened the front door of Walmart, and everybody ran in and stole everything. So even [Metallica] had to just sort of back off and let it take its course.
Ellefson then went on to praise the Apple cofounder and what he did to help turn things around for the music business at the start of the century. "Thank God for our pal Steve Jobs who, in my opinion, saved the music business.
"Even though it was self-serving 'cause he wanted to sell iPods - 'Hey, I've got a device. How do I get the music on there?', but Steve, to his credit, in his time away from Apple, he had made friends with Geffen and Katzenberg and all these guys down in Hollywood, and he understood Hollywood. He understood the film business, the music business, so with him being a computer guy, he rallied it together.
"I still buy everything on iTunes. I subscribe to Apple [Music]. I don't subscribe to Spotify. I don't give them my money, since they don't give me very much of my money. But Apple pays well, so thank you, Apple. And I buy all their products, and I own their stock. So I'm an Apple guy, through and through."
Within The Ruins have released a music video for their new song "Black Heart," which is the title track to the band's forthcoming album that is set to hit stores on November 27th.
Vocalist Steve Tinnon had this to say, "We're extremely excited to release the video for the title track to our new album, Black Heart! We really enjoyed making this one and getting to tell a bit more of the story behind the music.
"It's a very angry, personal song, and a lot of the tracks stem from what it's about. It's an important track in regards to the overall theme of the record, and we couldn't be happier with how the video turned out!" Watch the video here.
Co-founder of The Lumineers, Wesley Schultz, has shared an introduction video for the release of his debut solo album, "Vignettes," which is set to be released this Friday, October 30th.
Wesley had this to say, "The way I envisioned this album, was as if you had all these songs represented by little houses on a street, and then a tornado ripped through the town and tore them all the way down to the studs and foundation... that's what you'd have with every one of these songs after I re-imagined them. I was also trying to create something that doesn't ask anything from the listener - it's simply a companion, a friend in both good times and bad. Like how I listen to James Taylor's greatest hits, often, and it just seems to soothe me." Produced by longtime collaborator Simone Felice (whose work includes The Lumineers' CLEOPATRA and III) and produced, mixed and engineered by David Baron at Sun Mountain Studios in Boiceville, NY over five breakneck sessions last month, the album features Schultz on guitar and vocals, backed by Baron on piano and special guests including famed backing singer Cindy Mizelle (Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews Band), The Felice Brothers' James Felice on accordion and harmony vocals, the UK-based vocal duo, The Webb Sisters (Tom Petty, Leonard Cohen), and acclaimed singer-songwriter Diana DeMuth, the latter featured on a stellar duet rendition of Bob Dylan's "Boots of Spanish Leather."
"This album is pulling from a lot of different threads of my past. 'My City in Ruins,' 'Boots of Spanish Leather,' 'The Ballad of Lou the Welterweight,' those are all songs I was covering in bars, way back when I was living in Brooklyn in 2008. That was within days of when I'd written 'Ho Hey' and 'Life In The City' and 'Flowers In Your Hair,' all in this same little apartment. It was a rich time for me creatively and these covers were sort of informing my songwriting, just studying all these different artists.
"I was introduced to a lot of music through other artists, listening to their covers and then going backward. So part of this record is the joy of exposing something that you know is beautiful, while trying to make it your own so that they both can stand on their own two feet. It's almost like you're showing people your personal playlist, your inspiration.
"You try to make your own medicine sometimes. I think music is medicine. For me, the intention in making VIGNETTES was so simple - what would I listen to right now, in these times? And this music is what I felt like I needed." Watch the introduction video here.
Wolfheart have released a music video for the new single "Horizon On Fire". The track comes from the band's latest studio album, "Wolves Of Karelia," which hit stores this past spring.
Frontman Tuomas Saukkonen had this to say, "Of the entire album, 'Horizon on Fire' is the song that best underlines how outnumbered the Finnish army was with only 32 tanks against over 2500 Russian tanks, 114 aircrafts against Russian 3800 aircrafts and manpower almost three times the enemy during one of the coldest winters of those times.
"I was born in the Karelian region and my father's family farm is only 7km from the border that was drawn after the war, so I also have a very strong personal connection to those historical events. So, lines like below were written purely to honor the sacrifice of the generation that fought the war.
"In the shelter of the woods
Edges of lakes and fields ages have stood
Winters fury on our side
We can't be defeated
We have to hold the line
"This lyric video was done by our graphics guy, Nikos Stavridakis of VisionBlack, who has done all of our album graphics for the previous three albums. We wanted to give him a bigger role and get him involved in our video production too so he could bring the album graphic work into life in video format, and underline the Finnish Winter War theme even more deeply." Watch the video here.
Signal 13 have released a music video for their latest single "All Fired Up." The track comes from the band's 'Destination Unknown' EP and is the follow up to their previous singles/videos "Dirty" and "Stay With Me." chorus.
The band had this to say, "The song is built around this blues-rock riff that everyone really liked and it came together quickly after that. Vicky had lyrics already written and immediately integrated them into the music. As soon as we started playing the main riff, she said 'This is All Fired Up!' and jumped right in with the lyrics.
"Vicky will tell you it's about decisions and committing to move forward or back, but there is more to it than that. I don't want to give it all away but it is much deeper if you listen closely, with some Robert Johnson inspiration going on."
They said of the video, "We wanted to do something different than we have done before. While 'Dirty' was a performance video, it was very basic, with no stage, just two lights, and it fit the song.
"For this, with shows being shut down for so long and not being able to have people see us live, we wanted to give everyone the full show - big and bold and capturing us live.
"Vicky designed the stage herself and the production company really brought it to life. It was a big production for us - a fully custom designed multi-tiered stage, tons of lights, lots of cameras and different angles. It was a long day and we were having fun behind the scenes so folks hopefully get to see who we are a bit off the stage." Watch the video here.
Belfast rocker Simon McBride just released his third EP "Trouble" last week and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the title song of the new effort. Here is the story:
So this may seem a little depressing at the start, but the song meaning is actually positive, and it's just a coincidence that it is being released in 2020, which is quite a troubled year. 'Trouble' came very quickly to me, as I remember one day sitting watching the news and there was nothing but depressing issues. There were homeless kids, broken relationships and war, and more. Later that day, I was with several people that were in my life at that point, and they were just moaning and complaining about simple, stupid things but had no real sense of care for mine or other people's issues. This really annoyed me. I was like a volcano about to explode with ideas, so I decided to make something positive out of this and put it into a song, and I suppose this is how most songs happen anyway.
The song talks about kids with no homes, people with broken hearts. But the bigger element to the story is that we all have problems that we will overcome, so we shouldn't get too stressed about the simple things, as there is always someone far worse off than you or me. Instead of being negative, always try to be positive as I say in the song 'Don't be the curse, be the cure.' I try to be upbeat all the time no matter what gets thrown at me and try to leave all my heartaches at home. Don't get me wrong - sometimes it's tough but life's too short and I have a lot more fun these days being positive.
In regard to the music, I literally picked up the guitar and played the first thing that came to mind and what you hear on the track is what I played that day. Everything with this song fell into place very quickly. Sometimes, when you are on a roll with a subject, inspiration just kicks in massively. It seemed quite a strong fit to be an R&B type of song, as lots of that style is based around similar topics.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here and learn more about the EP here
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