Today's Day in Rock Stories

Pearl Jam Dedicate New Song's Live Debut To School Shooting Survivors

The band was on their way to a stop on their Touritto Supreme USA Tour with Cold Kingdom when the accident happened. Luckily no one was injured but the band lost all of their personal possessions in the fire.

An extra sweet item is an autographed drumhead that the band used while recording their album Hardwired...to Self-Destruct. An autographed copy of the Kill 'Em All reissue box set is also up for grabs.

Billed as "Joe Perry And Friends", the rocker will be joined at shows next month in Boston, MA, Hampton Beach, NH and Atlantic City, NJ by his Aerosmith bandmate Brad Whitford on guitar with Gary Cherone of Extreme handling lead vocals; the first two gigs will also include sets from special guests Charlie Farren (onetime lead singer of The Joe Perry Project) and former Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau's Engine Room.

The event marked the debut of guitarist Andy Sneap in the lineup following news that Glenn Tipton has retired from the road due to his battle with Parkinson's disease. The rocker, who co-produced the group's eighteenth studio effort with Tom Allom, is known for his guitar work in the UK metal outfits Sabbat and Hell.

The Mohegan Sun appearance featured the live debuts of three songs from "Firepower", including the title track, "Lightning Strike" and "Evil Never Dies", as well as "Saints In Hell" from 1978's "Stained Class."

The group delivered several vintage tunes for the first time in many years, including "Running Wild", "Grinder", Sinner", "The Ripper", "Bloodstone", "Angel" and "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll."

"Superstar," the most famous and recognizable song from the classic Andrew Lloyd Weber/Tim Rice musical, serves as the soundtrack for the trailer.

The 14-show series will begin at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland on May 17 and be followed by the group's first appearances in the UK in five years; stops in Germany, France and the Czech Republic will precede the trek's finale in Warsaw, Poland on July 8.

The new dates kick off on July 7th in Clarkston, MI at the DTE Energy Music Theater and will wrap up on July 20th in Bristow, VA at the Jiffy Lube Live.

"I am very, very deaf. I advise you all - all you rock-and-roll fans - take your f�ing earplugs to the gigs," the singer told a recent audience in Vegas (via The Mirror).

The upbeat song is new advance track from his forthcoming full-length, Last Man Standing, which is due to hit stores on April 29, two days after Nelson's 85th birthday.

The video shows high school students singing a cover of the song in the home of their choir director and mentor, Cheryl Valentine, 'Ms. V." Junior Justin Malone-Horton admitted that when the kids first heard the song, 'Half of us were like, 'This song is OK,' then a quarter of us were like, 'Oh My Gosh! Who did this?' Then, when we actually read the sheet music and did it, it just felt like a moment of togetherness."

At the end of the recording, when Ms. V asks what they think, the group calls it a 'bop," and one choir member explains, 'if you don't know what that is, a bop is a really cool song that we like."

According to the video's Youtube description, 'The streaming royalties from this video will go to Detroit School of Arts, who were also given a stipend for their participation and hard work in this project."

The clip can be streamed here and the band had this to say, "DAWN is very near and dear to our hearts for several reasons. The first and most obvious: it is our first album effort and we are extremely proud of the product we have created together.

For YouTube used Chris NG, that just wasn't going to work. So he utilized his hacking skills to upgrade his car to play something far better than that annoying door chime.

Cue Toto's "Africa." The Volvo enthusiast built a module that plays Toto's timeless 1982 jam every time he sticks the key into the ignition of his Volvo 240. Best of all, he's building more of them to share with the world.

Jump Ship was written more than two years before it was released on our Sometimes You Just Gotta Give It The Business album. As with all our songs we road test them before we go into the studio because we record live as a band and do not overdub. In a catalog of over 25 "A" songs that we play on tour Jump Ship has been in the set almost non-stop. Jump Ship is about re?ection, growth and not always following the "norms" and conditioning of our society. It's literally about Jumping Ship from the way we are told we have to be. We are not a band interested in preaching but the theme of change, growth and getting on with life pops up a lot. As with a lot of our songs we have found they have different meanings to many different fans and we love the room for individual interpretation. A lot of the time Ken and I can weave our two individual stories in one lyric, giving it two meanings from the start! Once Ken and I write the song on acoustic guitars. We bring it into the band and when everyone plugs in and plays it instantly becomes Hero Jr. Jump Ship was written in about 45 minutes. Ken and I had a basic chord progression and we knew we wanted to write our take on visual and print media and the control it has over the mass population. In addition to what we experience by reading the press and being a part of social media we travel over 150 days a year and we notice similar stereotypes in many of the people we work with and how they are a product of the "sheep" phenomenon. Through observation it's amazing how many people just "do" things because that's "what you are supposed to do". No thought. No introspection. No realization on how what you do will play out with others. I think the "Smoking dirty ashes" line and metaphor is a fun way of talking about the pointlessness of the way we receive and act upon information. It's my favorite line in the song. "Put it in a test tube" relates to the way the disseminators of information calculate the way the public will react to their information upon delivery. The test tube part was loosely inspired from a documentary I watched about how scientists "create" chemical essences for food companies to make their products smell like the "real" food. "When the rust divides and you're left in your own skin" is the point where you've had enough and you need to take the leap of faith and trust ("Look into the sky she's gonna answer with a smile") before you "Jump Ship". When Ken and I write we have that same "trust" and we are lucky to sit down, have a laugh and let the song compose itself. We have known each other for twice as long as we have been in a band and we can ?nish each others sentences the same way our guitars usually sound like one big fat guitar monster. Being in a band is awesome!