Billy himself had tested positive for the virus and shared during an interview that DiGiorgio has been sick for a couple weeks and tested positive as well.
The singer spoke with Diabolus In Podcastica and said, "Steve, our bass player, just tested on Thursday, he got his results back, and they're positive. And that's after a couple of weeks of being sick.
"So it made us think, 'Are we still contagious?', even though the doctors and the CDC told us that, 'Go ahead and go to the store. Go out. Wear a mask.' But you just don't know. We don't know if we're ill or not."
Frontman Ian Gillan broke the news to fans via the band's Facebook page. He wrote, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction...well, not exactly in this case; more cause and effect, where the latter is often greater than the former.
"Distribution lines (the physical sales of CDs, vinyl, cassettes (?) etc) and retail outlets are closed until The Dreaded Lurgy gets indigestion [that is a term that comes from the Goon Show that Gillan is calling the Covid-19 coronavirus.]
"Therefore, as there are still so many of us who love to hold a new record in our hands, and following advice from our magnificent label, we have decided to delay the release of Whoosh until August.
"During my quarantine I'm listening to a lot of music and guessing that it's the same for many of us during this scary disruption to our lives.
"We know, don't we, that music will play a big part in our celebrations as we step back into the light.
"But, health comes first, so I must stuff my excitement about sharing Whoosh with you back into a box for a little while.
"Stay well and follow the light..."
"As promised, here's a little gift from our Skynyrd family to yours," says the band on social media. "We want thank everyone for making this possible. Stay safe and God bless."
Written by Gary Rossington, Johnny Van Zant, Rickey Medlocke and Tom Hambridge, the tune takes its title from the group's ongoing farewell tour, which opened in the spring of 2018 and currently has dates scheduled into October. Check out the song and grab the download linkhere.
The group has also announced a new release for the record. It will now be hitting stores on July 3rd. Frontman Dani Winter-Bates had this to say about the new track, "It's about how hiding your symptoms often makes them worse.
"This song is about appearing as the version of yourself that you want people to see you as. I feel like I'm getting to a point where the 'me' I show people is the real me, but there was a large portion of my life where I couldn't do this." Watch the video here.
The new digital reissue will be released on April 10th by Craft Recordings and will feature the original album along with five previously unreleased live acoustic tracks.
The unplugged versions of the album tracks will include "Hey There Delilah," "Revenge," "Breakdown," "Take Me Away," and "All That We Needed."
In other news, the band will be appearing on ABC's The Bachelor Presents: Listen to Your Heart on Monday, April 13th at 8:00 pm EST / 7:00 pm PST.
See the tracklisting and watch the lyric video here.
The footage features Jett and the band members connected via video from their individual locations for the song, which was written by Bruce Springsteen and recorded by Jett as the title track to a 1987 film of the same name featuring the rocker alongside Michael J. Fox.
"Light Of Day" reached No. 33 on the US Billboard Hot 100 following its original release. Jett is currently scheduled to join Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Poison for a summer stadium tour of the US, with shows set to begin June 18 in Jacksonville, FL. Watch the videohere.
Dubbed the Light In The Attic & Friends at Home, the event will feature new performances from artists from the LITA catalog along with others from the around the globe who will be covering songs from the label's catalog.
The label will be distributing 100% of all donations towards MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund, assisting those in the music community affected by the Coronavirus pandemic.
The artist lineup for Light In The Attic & Friends at Home includes Texas soul queen Barbara Lynn, Fred Armisen, British folk legend Michael Chapman, Jarvis Cocker, Italian composer Gigi Masin, Devendra Banhart, Brazilian great Marcos Valle, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Sandy Dedrick of The Free Design, Inoyama Land (Kanky Ongaku), Alex Maas (The Black Angels), Money Mark, Singer-songwriter Lynn Castle, Gruff Rhys (Super Furry Animals), Leonard Sanders of the Supreme Jubilees, Azar Lawrence, Grant & Frankie Olsen (Gold Leaves / Arthur & Yu), Beach Boys lyricist Stephen John Kalinich, Mark Lightcap (Acetone), Sessa and Ben Gibbard.
The show can be streamed here.
Back in April 2018, we traveled west to play some shows in Texas, Arizona, California, and back in Texas. Anyone who has ever traveled west on Interstate 10 knows how desolate it is between San Antonio and El Paso. We love it. We love the wide open spaces, and an 80 mile-per-hour speed limit ain't bad either. On our return trip, we were somewhere between El Paso and Ft. Stockton, Texas. We started seeing these billboard signs about "The Thing." Don't miss "The Thing" at exit such and such. Well we finally decided we should see "The Thing," so we pulled onto the exit ramp, and all we saw ahead of us was a rather beat-up looking gas station. Nothing else around. However, at the bottom of the ramp was a man standing with a cardboard sign that read "Please Don't Pass Me By." It was a pretty powerful image and statement. We stopped and went inside to see "The Thing," and I honestly can't remember a Thing at all. When we left, we gave the man at the end of the ramp some cash and got on our way.
For the next 100 miles or so, the man at the end of the ramp really stuck with us, and we started talking about him. We headed on to a super cool town in Texas called Marfa, where we stayed in an old railway station master's house. We had a couple of days of down time there, so we wrote "Will You Pass Me By." Afton and I have been incredibly lucky in that we have so many folks who have helped us along our journey with our music. "Will You Pass Me By" is a tribute to all of those folks, and a song we genuinely love to sing at our shows.
This song was one of the first songs we recorded for the album. Afton and I recorded a version of the song with acoustic guitar, vocals, and some tremolo guitar. A few months later when Matt Crouse came to lay down drum tracks, he overdubbed the drums to the tracks we already had. We then flushed the song out with some bass, organ, and Wyatt Espalin on the fiddle.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself right here!
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