Recordings of three unreleased early Green Day songs have been shared online. Check out ‘Stay’, ‘Maybe Forever’ and ‘Jennifer’ below.
The songs pre-date the punk icons’ debut album ’39/Smooth’, and were recorded live at the band’s opening gig for Killdozer at Berkeley Square on July 22, 1989.
The track ‘Stay’ by leaning towards their more gentle ballad side, then builds into a noisey rock crescendo. The song has often been called ‘World vs. World’ by fans in the Green Day community, and is said to have been written for an unreleased indie film by frontman Billie Joe Armstrong’s brother.
‘Maybe Forever’ meanwhile is taster of the band’s more emotive punk sound, while ‘Unknown Song’ (also known as ‘Jennifer’ and ‘Future Old Boy’ among fans) has more of a snarling and aggressive garage rock feel.
In 2016, Armstrong told NME that progress is well underway with the project, that HBO were behind it and that he’d be reprising his own Broadway role as the character St. Jimmy.
“That’s the plan right now, yeah,” said Armstrong. “We’ve got a green light from HBO, and the script is currently going through a couple of rewrites here and there, so I’m not sure when exactly we’re going to start shooting, but it’s definitely all systems go at the moment.”
BAD WOLVES frontman Tommy Vext spoke to Front Row Live Entertainment about the progress of the recording sessions for the band’s second album. “What we did, basically, is in the down time of last year, we would record a few songs here and there on the weeks that we had off [from touring],” he said on the red carpet of Monday night’s (January 28) premiere of the “Mind Over Matter” documentary film in Beverly Hills, California (see video below). “So now we’re coming into this year. John [Boecklin, drums] just finished in the studio in [Las] Vegas, and we’re 21 songs into the new record, of which I have sang only three. So I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
BAD WOLVES was one of 2018’s biggest breakouts, scoring a massive chart-topping hit with its cover of THE CRANBERRIES‘ “Zombie”.
Vext told The Pulse Of Radio not long ago that BAD WOLVES was capable of writing a diverse range of songs and moods. “I know a lot of great musicians have been in bands with singers that only scream, and so melody becomes something they’re not gonna do,” he said. “And then I’ve been in bands where they can’t play as proficiently as metal bands. So it’s kind of nice that we have created this well-rounded kind of group. Not only can we do all this different stuff, we’re all very much, like, into it.”
BAD WOLVES was formed in 2017, comprised of former members of DEVILDRIVER, GOD FORBID, DIVINE HERESY and IN THIS MOMENT. The band enlisted CRANBERRIES singerDolores O’Riordan to appear on its version of “Zombie”, but on the day she was scheduled to go into a London studio to record her vocals, she was found drowned in her hotel room bathtub at the age of 46.
“Zombie” surfaced on BAD WOLVES‘ debut album, “Disobey”, which came out in May 2018 and has also yielded the follow-up single “Hear Me Now”, featuring Diamante, which reached No. 2 on the rock chart.
Badflower vocalist Josh Katz hopes the songs on their new album OK, I’M SICK will make victims of abuse “feel understood.” Loudwire Nights host Toni Gonzalez recently spoke with the frontman about some of the themes on the record, from mental health to death to sexual abuse. See highlights of the interview transcribed below.
The song “Promise Me” is supposed to be the traditional love song on the record. And I thought so until we got to that line “Don’t make me face the truth that I’m dying soon / That we’re dyi
ng.” Do you feel like you look at everything through the filter of death, do you feel like you’re a little bit obsessed with death and where it stems from?
(Laughs.) No, I don’t think I’m obsessed with it, but I truly fear it. And I can say that, I can admit that with some confidence that I fear death and I fear getting older. I really value my youth and the way that I look and the way that I feel. I’m afraid of growing up and I’m afraid of dying, so I think that comes up as a theme pretty frequently. I don’t know if I would say “obsession,” I don’t think I’m obsessed with it. I’m not like one of those gothic guys who’s always wearing the Hot Topic stuff.
This is a serious question. Do you worry that songs like “Daddy,” which is about sexual abuse, will trigger survivors given how direct your songwriting style is?
No, I don’t worry that it’s going to trigger people. I hope that it’s going to make them feel understood, that’s the simple short answer of that. I think there’s this thing happening in society where people are afraid to be triggered and they’re afraid to talk about things and trigger warnings. I don’t really buy into it. I think that we need to not be afraid to confront the things that have happened to us or confront the things that are happening around us, and we need to be able to talk about them.
I’d agree, but I would just also add that you don’t know necessarily when a song is gonna come on the radio, you don’t know when you’re gonna flip over. I know you don’t care about radio play, this may or may not get radio play given the subject matter. I just think that you just could come across it without being mentally prepared.
Sure, and you know what, too? I did think that about “Ghost” when it came out. I thought, “I don’t know if this is gonna be right for the radio, I don’t know if this is the right kind of thing that we should be putting in peoples’ faces constantly.” And then I was proven wrong, and I think it’s the fact that I was proven wrong with “Ghost” is why I feel so strongly about saying, “No I’m not afraid of triggering people,” because I’ve now had experience with this, where I had a song that I thought could be triggering and people could take negatively and people could point their fingers and say horrible things about me as the songwriter of this. I thought that would’ve happened or that could’ve happened and it didn’t. People just said, “Thank you for saying what I can’t say.” I think a song like “Ghost” would be even worse as a trigger. “Daddy” is a song about sexual abuse, and if that triggers somebody’s memory of that, that’s horrible for them to have to feel like they’re reliving it. With a song like “Ghost” it could a much worse outcome, being triggered by that, and that wasn’t the case. I think people are a lot stronger than we give them credit for.
Listen to the full interview above.
OK, I’M SICK is available everywhere today. Stream the album below.
Greta Van Fleet on Why It’s Time to Stop the Zeppelin Comparisons
Frontman Josh Kiszka also looks ahead to Grammy night – and reveals who he wants to sing with at the award show
Greta Van Fleet frontman Josh Kiszka was sleeping in during a rare day off in December when his phone suddenly started blowing up. “I didn’t put together what was happening,” he says. “I thought the pope had died or something.” Pope Francis was fine, but Greta Van Fleet had just been nominated for four Grammys, all related to their 2017 EPs Black Smoke Rising and From the Fires. “These are some of the first songs we ever released,” says Kiszka. “So it’s kind of shocking. I didn’t expect us to get any nominations.”
The nominations were the culmination of an incredible year for Greta Van Fleet that saw the Michigan hard-rock revival band go from playing clubs to selling out three consecutive nights at 5,000-seat theaters like the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago and the Fox Theater in Detroit. “We’re seeing nearly triple the amount of people in the audience than we saw at the start of 2018,” says Kiszka. “It gives us a huge sense of accomplishment.”
But along the way, they became one of the most polarizing young bands in America, with many critics saying they sound way too much like Led Zeppelin (“The poor kids from Frankenmuth, Michigan, don’t even realize they’re more of an algorithmic fever dream than an actual rock band,” read a scathing review on Pitchfork in October). Robert Plant joked that Kiszka’s voice reminds him of “someone I know very well . . . they are Led Zeppelin I” — which Kiszka says he took as a compliment. “That’s lovely,” he says. “You can’t put that more Robert Plant than that.”
That attitude has helped the band brush off detractors: Kiszka swears he didn’t even read the Pitchfork review. “It’s unfortunate they’d be putting that energy out into the world, but it’s their prerogative, I guess,” he says. “Ultimately, I’d like to think that there’s substance to what we’re doing.” That said, he does think it’s time that people stop making the Zeppelin comparison. “Obviously we hear the similarity,” he says. “That’s one of the influences of ours. But at this point it’s like, ‘Okay, we’ve acknowledged that. Let’s move on.’”
Kiszka and his bandmates have moved on by beginning to think about their next record, even if they’re going to be busy touring for the foreseeable future. “We’re setting some ground work for the next album,” he says. “We hope to get an album out this year. This time, we feel less pressure than we did before the last one. We can’t wait to explore a little more of the Greta Van Fleet universe.”
They are also anxious for Grammy night to come around, though Kiszka is tight-lipped about the possibility of them performing at the show. “There’s been a little talk,” he says, “but it’s been very brief and I don’t really know what is going to happen.” Young bands are often teamed up with older acts at the Grammys and if that happens, Kiszka says his dream is to play with either Florence and the Machine or Chris Stapleton. “I’ve also always wanted to play with Paul McCartney,” he says. “Getting the chance to play ‘Let It Be’ with him one day would be amazing.”
In the meantime, however, his life is a never-ending series of hotels, bus trips and backstage dressing rooms. “There are times you literally wake up and have no idea where you are,” he says. “We’re getting along great. We’re getting strong. Being family helps, especially in the way we can communicate onstage and in the studio. And for right now, we aren’t feeling any sense of exhaustion. We’re anxious to get back in the studio and explore and be creative.”
VAN HALEN’S DAVID LEE ROTH CRITICIZES EX-MEMBER FOR UNEXPECTED REASON
Legendary Van Halen singer David Lee Roth spoke in an interview with Joe Rogan during the recent episode of Joe’s podcast on Youtube.
David has shared what he really thinks about former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar.First of all, Roth jokingly criticize Hagar, and said (transcriped by Alternative Nation):
“All of Sam’s lyrics contained love. Why can’t this be love? I ain’t talkin’ about love.We’ll be back with more fighting after this. (Laughs)
Come on, who do I jog with? I don’t. Who is my running partner? (Maniacally laughs)”
Rogan said “Yeah, Runnin’ With The Devil”, Roth continued:
“Questions in love are great, classically, that’s [Frank] Sinatra, but I’m not well adjusted. Nobody in my job ever was, much well kept it this long, and I faced it and embraced it, like a Brazilian storm, you follow?
It’s all right there in the lyrics, even using classic lyric parlor tricks, like taking a very sad lyric and positioning it against a happy piece of music. This music is romping, it’s heavy metal, and the lyric is she’s crying.”
Later then, Rogan talked about Hagar as follows:
“There’s nothing wrong with the Sammy Hagar thing, but it moved into a mall crowd,it was a different sort of vibe. It was a good vibe for a lot of folks, but it was a different vibe.
I don’t have anything against Sammy Hagar, I think he’s wonderful, I always loved that song Can’t Drive 55, he’s got some great shit. But I never listened to Van Halen with Van Hagar, it was an end of an era for me.”
Roth added:
“It was two different folks. I wanted to be the art project, not just wear one.”
Click here for the source of the statement. (Alternative Nation) Listen to the entire interview below.
TOM MORELLO REVEALS UNTOLD TRUTH ABOUT CHRIS CORNELL AND AUDIOSLAVE’S “LIKE A STONE”
During a recent intervie with Eddie Trunk from SiriusXM Radio, former Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello has revealed why Chris Cornell didn’t want to play guitar.
Here’s the statement:
“He didn’t want to play guitar. He wanted to sing. He was like “show me some music” and for us it was great. In the four RATM records there are exactly zero chord changes. It’s like the James Brown formula. It just keeps coming back to the one…it’s relentless the riffs and grooves. And so, with Chris’ melodic vocals it was a wonderful challenge for us as musicians to make a musical backdrop that would allow him to shine.
So it pushed us tremendously as artists to create songs like “Like A Stone” and “I Am The Highway” and some of the other stuff that was well outside of what we’ve done before. It was one of the most fertile periods of my musical life when we that debut Audioslave record.”
He also shared a story about Chris Cornell’s contribution to “Like A Stone”, and said:
Sometimes we give him a guitar and say “Gives us a Spoonman dude!” and he’d be like “it’s okay, I’m cool.” He didn’t want to do it (laughs). He did write some parts though. Like the bridge of “Like A Stone” is his.
He had a deep chordal and Beatles-y backdrop which is very different from my world. Some of his writing was very counterintuitive to how my fingers go.
So every Audioslave show, including [at the tribute show], I have to have a cheat sheet of how the “Like A Stone” bridge chords go on my amp because I can never remember it.”
Pearl Jam and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron is teasing a mysterious new recording project with Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins and Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne. Cameron has shared two videos on his Instagram story of the trio working on music in Sun Valley, CA. Hawkins fronted a one off Soundgarden reunion performance in Los Angeles at the ‘I Am The Highway’ Chris Cornell tribute show in Los Angeles last month. The Melvins were the first performers at the show, introduced by Soundgarden’s surviving members.
Cameron has posted himself playing many guitar riffs with the hashtag #DadRock in recent months, with many fans hoping he was writing new Pearl Jam song ideas, but could it be for a project with Hawkins and Osborne? We’ll have to wait and see. Cameron released his debut solo album Cavedweller in 2017, and Pearl Jam have reportedly done some work on a new album since then, releasing the new song “Can’t Deny Me” in 2018. The band have been quiet since wrapping up their 2018 tour last fall, announcing no plans for their new album after Eddie Vedder said the next time they’d play together would be in a studio.
Hawkins has worked on numerous side projects of his own, including Chevy Metal and Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders. Foo Fighters are set to tour in Europe this summer.