Former Judas Priest guitarist K.K. Downing has formed a new band, which he has dubbed KK’s Priest. The group is set to release its debut album later this year.
The band’s lineup touts other notable ex-Priest members including singer Tim “Ripper” Owens and drummer Les Binks. The lineup is rounded out by Tony Newton (Voodoo Six) on bass and A.J. Mills (Hostile) on guitar.
Owens fronted Judas Priest in the late ’90s after Rob Halford left the band. He recorded two studio albums — 1997’s Jugulator and 2001’s Demolition — plus two live albums before Halford returned to the band. Binks played drums on 1978’s Stained Class and Killing Machine, as well the legendary live album Unleashed in the East.
“Forging ahead with KK’s Priest was not only inevitable, but was essential for me to perform and deliver everything that is expected from me and KK’s Priest,” Downing said in a press release. “Due to the massive demand and overwhelming support from fans around the world, I feel this is where I belong, and a set combining the true, classic songs and sound of Priest, together with great, newly forged metal tracks, is what fans can expect when KK’s Priest takes to stages around the world.”
Downing was a founding member of Judas Priest, helping to form the band in 1969. He left the legendary metal outfit in 2011 over a breakdown in his working relationship with the band.
Last November, Downing played a one-off show with Owens, Binks, Mills, and Megadeth’s David Ellefson, performing Judas Priest classics and deep cuts. The show led to the formation of KK’s Priest, which signed to Explorer1 Music for their forthcoming debut album, due out later this year.
Check out fan footage of that initial performance alongside Ellefson below.
Alice in Chains guitarist-singer Jerry Cantrell has begun working on his first new solo album in 18 years. He also revealed that Alice in Chains are taking a year off.
Update – March 11th: Jerry Cantrell has entered the studio to record his new solo album, sharing a photo on Instagram of his wide array of guitars with the caption, “It’s time to make the Raawwwkkk!!!” See the image at the bottom of this post.
“There’s gonna be some cool things happening this year,” Cantrell said in a video interview with Gibson Guitars. “I’ve already done a couple of shows in L.A. in December with a great group of friends. My friend helped me put together a really cool group of people, and we did a couple of solo shows.”
The “unplugged”-style shows featured Cantrell alongside some notable musicians, including The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato on vocals. The setlists were heavy on Cantrell’s solo material and his compositions for Alice in Chains.
Now, following those shows, Cantrell is finally ready to the record the follow-up to his 2002 dark opus Degradation Trip.
“I’ve been in this band, in Alice in Chains since 1987, so 33 years,” Cantrell continued. “And that’s always been my first love and my commitment, but I did have the opportunity to make a couple of solo records, and since we started the band back up, I really didn’t have the opportunity to revisit that.”
Cantrell added, “[Alice in Chains] just finished touring in September off of Rainier Fog, and we generally take about a year off when we’re done touring anyway — just give it a rest for a second and then get it reinvigorated and focus on what’s new. So we’re gonna take a year off, so I thought I’d maybe do some shows and I’m working on some music as well. And there’s gonna be some exciting things. I don’t wanna say just yet what’s happening, but I can tell you that there’s gonna be some cool shit happening this year.”
In a separate interview with People TV on the red carpet of the recent MusiCares event honoring Aerosmith, Cantrell said, “I’m working on a new record myself,” and reiterated his intent to focus on his own material.
“When I’m with Alice, I’m with Alice, and that takes the majority of my time,” he said. “This year, we’re taking a little time off, so… If you liked any of the solo work that I did or the work with Alice, I’m sure you might like some of this stuff, too.”
See both video interviews with Jerry Cantrell below.
Mr. Bungle’s recent reunion shows were certainly been a nostalgic trip for fans. For the late Dakota Young, the band’s second concert in Brooklyn even served as a final, symbolic resting place.
At the February 11th show at Brooklyn Steel, Young’s ashes were thrown onstage by his friends. Video footage shows the ashes — wrapped in a pair of Young’s underwear — flying through the air, leaving a trail of dust and exploding in a puff as they hit the stage.
As MetalSucks reports, Young had purchased a ticket to the Mr. Bungle show, but died unexpectedly. His friends took it upon themselves to scatter his ashes onstage next to Mr. Bungle’s star-studded touring lineup of Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, Trevor Dunn, Anthrax’s Scott Ian, and ex-Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo.
Watch a Mr. Bungle fan throw his dead friend’s ashes (wrapped in a pair of his underwear) up on stage during the band’s show, as fitting a final resting place as we can imagine. R.I.P. Dakota Young. pic.twitter.com/ePY4BJupI4
Norwegian experimental act Ulver are set to release a new studio album later this year. In the meantime, the band just shared the music video for the one-off single “Russian Doll” — a synth-driven song in the vein of their recent material.
Far from the harsh black metal of their early days, “Russian Doll” sees Ulver diving headfirst into dark synthpop. Humorously and ironically, the video’s “metalhead” protagonist (Annija Raibekaze) can be seen dancing to the song while wearing a shirt for Ulver’s perennial 1995 black metal LP, Bergtatt: Et eeventyr i 5 capitler.
“Although this is pop music in our heads, the images and connotations in the lyrics are probably far away from what one usually associates with this genre,” singer Kristoffer Rygg said in a press release. “It actually began with some images and memories from the movie Lilja 4ever by Lukas Moodysson; a dark and disillusioning film about human trafficking in the Baltic.
“‘Russian Doll’ refers to the babushka, we began to think about this figure in the extension of Lilja 4ever and Eastern Europe,” Rygg continued. “The doll became an object, an object of desire, which we mixed with mise-en-abyme — a composition technique that places pictures, or stories for that matter, inside each other. In this context we see it as a kind of vicious circle, unfolding inwards.”
Those with a studious eye will notice the video’s setting of Thamesmead, London, where A Clockwork Orange and Aphex Twin’s legendary “Come to Daddy” video were both filmed. The track was mixed by Michael Rendall and Martin “Youth” Glover.
Watch the video and check out Ulver’s upcoming live dates below. Get tickets here.
Ulver 2020 Tour Dates:
04/28 – Paris, FR @ Alhambra
04/30 – Nijmegen, NL @ Doornroosje
05/01 – Utrecht, NL @ Tivoli
05/02 – Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz
05/03 – Berlin, DE @ Lido
05/04 – Wroclaw, PL @ A2
05/05 – Warsaw, PL @ Progresja
05/06 – Poznan, PL @ U Bazyla
05/07 – Prague, CZ @ Akropolis
05/08 – Budapest, HU @ Dürer Kert
05/09 – Vienna, AT @ Szene Wien
05/11 – Antwerp, BE @ Kavka
05/12 – Bristol, UK @ SWX
05/13 – London, UK @ Fabric
05/14 – Leeds, UK @ Stylus
08/14-16 – Las Vegas, NV @ Psycho Las Vegas
Don’t expect any roses or heart-shaped boxes from Machine Head. The thrashers just released the self-described “anti-Valentine’s Day” song “Circle the Drain”, along with a 30-minute documentary about the making of the track.
The song is partly inspired the exits of guitarist Phil Demmel and drummer Dave McClain from Machine Head in 2018. Frontman Robb Flynn also drew from recent personal experiences — the separate divorces of two friends — when writing the obvious breakup song.
“The song is inspired by an acquaintance of mine who returned from Afghanistan only to have his relationship fall apart with his girl,” Flynn said in a press release. “She had messed around on him, then got paranoid about him messing around on her, and drove him crazy. We had a conversation on Valentine’s Day and he said to me, ‘They were just circling the drain…’ The phrase struck me. A few days later, I incorporated it into the song I’d been working on. … The irony that he and I had the original conversation on Valentine’s Day, and we are now releasing it on Valentine’s Day isn’t lost on me. It really is the anti-Valentine’s Day song.”
Always openly honest, Flynn continued: “It was a strange parallel with my life at the time, having recently had two band members quit, and even more bizarrely, two long-time couple friends of my wife and I, also divorced. It was breakup season, and it played out with friends taking sides, people not being invited to certain events anymore, social and emotional pressure, and all the typical stuff that happens when a relationship goes bad.”
Flynn worked with drummer Navene Koperweis on the recording, which is co-produced by Flynn and Zach Ohren. It’s the second in Machine Head’s pseudo “singles series” following “Do or Die” last year. At that time, Flynn declared the band would release a steady stream of singles instead of a full-length album.
Machine Head are currently on tour for the 25th anniversary of their debut LP, Burn My Eyes. The show features two Machine Head sets, one featuring classic members and another with the band’s new everyday lineup. As Heavy Consequence can attest from catching their recent New York City show, it promises over two and half hours of Machine Head. Pick up tickets here.
Listen to “Circle the Drain” and watch the two-part “making of” documentary below.
Black Sabbath‘s 1970 self-titled debut features one of the most iconic album covers of all time. With its enigmatic cloaked figure standing against a stark wooded setting, the artwork would come to define the aesthetics of heavy metal: dark, ominous, and macabre. For many years, the identity of the mysterious woman who appears on the cover was not known. Now, both she and the designer are speaking about the cover for the first time.
After staying mute on the topic for years, artist Keith “Keef” Macmillan offered the history of the album cover in an interview with Rolling Stone, revealing the secrets of metal’s most mysterious sleeve.
Macmillan, who was a in-house album designer for Vertigo Records, was tasked with Sabbath’s debut. Influenced by surrealists such as René Magritte, Macmillan played the album off a quarter-inch master tape before conceiving the concept for the cover.
He then found his model, Louisa Livingstone, who was 18 or 19 years old at the time of the shoot. For the location, Macmillan chose the Mapledurham Watermill, a 15th century structure in Oxfordshire. He took the shot on Kodak infrared aerochrome film, designed for aerial photography, giving it a pinkish hue.
“Nowadays it’s very much more modernized, beautified, and touristed,” he said of the location. “Then, it was quite a run-down and quite spooky place. The undergrowth was quite thick and quite tangled, and it just had a kind of eerie feel to it.”
Livingstone, whose identity remained a mystery until now, vividly recalls how “cold and dark” the setting was, as the shoot took place early in the morning. Neither Macmillan or Livingstone remember the exact the date of the shoot, falling somewhere between the November 1969 recording sessions and its February 1970 release.
“I had to get up at about 4 o’clock in the morning, or something as ridiculously early as that,” Livingstone said. “It was absolutely freezing. I remember Keith rushing around with dry ice, throwing that into the pond nearby, and that didn’t seem to be working very well, so he was using a smoke machine. But it was just one of those very cold English mornings.”
In addition to the smoke, Macmillan brought other props, including a taxidermy crow and a live black cat — supposedly what Livinstone is often speculated to be holding, though she doesn’t remember the cat. But Macmillan said he borrowed it from a friend and Livingstone was holding it in the shot.
“I think it might just be the way my hands are there,” Livingstone said, stating that she was merely keeping her hands warm. “I’m sure I could remember if it was a cat.”
While not a Sabbath fan herself, preferring rock bands like the Rolling Stones, Cream, and The Beatles, Livingstone was impressed with the cover art final.
“When I saw the cover, I thought it was quite interesting, but I thought, ‘Well, that could be anybody,’ so it’s not like I got any kind of ego buzz out of it,” Livingstone said. “But, yeah, I thought it was a very nice cover.”
She added: “Black Sabbath is just not my kind of music. I feel awful for saying it, because it’s probably not what people want to hear, but it isn’t particularly my kind of music. When I got the album, I gave it a listen and moved on.”
Black Sabbath themselves also favored Macmillan’s evocative final sleeve; however, the inverted cross on the inside gatefold drew ire from both the band and the conservative press.
“I love the front cover,” drummer Bill Ward said. “I thought it was mysterious. It’s kind of like where we kind of hung our hats, to be honest with you. All that was fantastic to me. I hated when I opened up the middle part and somebody put an upside-down cross in it.”
Black Sabbath’s debut album turned 50 years old on Thursday (February 13th). See our 50th anniversary retrospective on the iconic LP, and watch our exclusive video below. In the clip, members of Iron Maiden, Rage Against the Machine, Disturbed, and more discuss Sabbath’s impact in celebration of 50 years of the band’s music.
Moon Destroys is the latest project from ex-Torche guitarist Juan Montoya and ex-Royal Thunder drummer Evan DiPrima. The duo just announced their debut EP, Maiden Voyage (out March 27th), and shared the lead single, “Blue Giant”, which features guest vocals from Mastodon’s Troy Sanders.
Sanders signature howl is immediately heard on the track, which dips into the sludge and stoner metal of Montoya and DiPrima’s previous bands. Heavy grooves and repetition guide the track through its four-minute runtime.
Montoya and DiPrima initially began jamming together over a decade ago. Their instrumental project Stallone released some singles in 2010 before DiPrima left to concentrate on Royal Thunder.
“Evan and I met up when we worked at an instrument store,” Montoya told Kerrang!. “I heard him messing around on the drum set, and I thought, ‘Let’s hang out.’ I was playing with Monstro at the time, but I wanted to do something locally to keep my chops up. Early on, we weren’t writing songs so much as performing musical exercises. We were trying to do it without any planned music, and it got to a point that it was pretty good.”
Sanders involvement also stemmed from Montoya’s time at the same music shop. Moon Destroys didn’t decide on guest vocalists until recording the EP, but Sanders was a fitting choice given the band’s sonic direction.
“Troy’s brother Kyle used to be in [Monstro] with me,” Montoya said. “We worked in the same music store, so they would always invite me to family parties and Thanksgiving because I couldn’t go all the way back home to Miami. We’re family. So with Troy, I felt comfortable to ask him. … So I hit him up one day and asked him to do this song. I gave him the title, and gave him the idea of giants in space, some kind of sci-fi thing. He gave it a twist of giant whales, returning home, swimming through the galaxy.”
The EP includes some other notable guests. Cynic’s Paul Masvidal lent his vocals to the song “Stormbringer”, which also features some synth by The Sword’s Bryan Richie.
See the full tracklist and EP artwork, and stream “Blue Giant” below. Preorders are available via Moon Destroys’ Bandcamp page.
Maiden Voyage EP Artwork:
Maiden Voyage EP Tracklist: 01. At the End of Time
02. Blue Giant (feat. Troy Sanders)
03. The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean
04. Stormbringer (feat. Paul Masvidal)
05. The Edge of Forever
“What a year this is going to be! First, sold out stadiums, then we get to go on tour with the mighty ZZ Top!” Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott said in a press release. “Having been an admirer of the band for a lifetime it’s gonna be a real pleasure to finally do some shows together…maybe some of us will get to go for a spin with Billy [Gibbons of ZZ Top] in one of those fancy cars.”
Hitting mostly smaller markets, the tour starts on September 21st in Albany, New York, at the Times Union Center before routing across the South and Midwest. It wraps up on the Northwest on October 18th in Spokane, Washington.
Added Gibbons: “We’re excited about hitting the road with Def Leppard this fall; we’ve been fans of theirs since forever. We’ve been at this for 50 years now and the forthcoming run with them underscores that the good times are really just beginning. Joe Elliott is always welcome to ride ‘shotgun’ with us and we won’t even ask him to pay for the gas.”
It will be a busy 2020 for Def Leppard. They’ll only have a short break after their tour with Mötley Crüe, which ends on September 5th.
See the newly announced dates below. Tickets for the fall tour go on sale via Ticketmaster on February 21st, with presales beginning February 18th. Fan can also pick up tickets to all of Def Leppard’s upcoming dates here.
Def Leppard 2020 Tour Dates:
06/18 – Jacksonville, FL @ TIAA Bank Field ^
06/21 – San Antonio, TX @ Alamodome ^
06/23 – Kansas City, MO @ Kauffman Stadium ^
06/25 – St. Louis, MO @ Busch Stadium ^
06/27 – Minneapolis, MN @ U.S. Bank Stadium ^
06/29 – Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium ^
07/02 – Cincinnati, OH @ Great American Ballpark ^
07/03 – Cleveland, OH @ FirstEnergy Stadium ^
07/07 – Miami, FL @ Hard Rock Stadium ^
07/09 – Orlando, FL @ Camping World Stadium ^
07/11 – Charlotte, NC @ Bank of America Stadium ^
07/14 – Arlington, TX @ Globe Life Field ^
07/15 – Houston, TX @ Minute Maid Park ^
07/19 – San Francisco, CA @ Oracle Park ^
07/23 – San Diego, CA @ Petco Park ^
07/25 – Phoenix, AZ @ State Farm Stadium ^
08/09 – Atlanta, GA @ SunTrust Park ^
08/11 – Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium ^
08/13 – Buffalo, NY @ New Era Field ^
08/15 – Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Park ^
08/16 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PNC Park ^
08/18 – Milwaukee, WI @ Miller Park ^
08/20 – Detroit, MI @ Comerica Park ^
08/22 – Washington, DC @ Nationals Park ^
08/23 – Queens, NY @ Citi Field ^
08/25 – Boston, MA @ Fenway Park ^
08/26 – Boston, MA @ Fenway Park ^
08/28 – Chicago, IL @ Wrigley Field ^
08/30 – Denver, CO @ Coors Field ^
09/02 – Seattle, WA @ T-Mobile Park ^
09/05 – Los Angeles, CA @ SoFi Stadium ^
09/21 – Albany, NY @ Times Union Center *
09/23 – Virginia Beach, VA @ Veteran United Home Loans Amphitheater *
09/25 – Knoxville, TN @ Thompson Boling Arena *
09/26 – Brandon, MS @ Brandon Amphitheater *
09/28 – Orange Beach, AL @ The Wharf Amphitheater *
09/30 – Bossier City, LA @ CenturyLink Center *
10/02 – North Little Rock, AR @ Simmons Bank Arena *
10/03 – Tulsa, OK @ BOK Center *
10/05 – Wichita, KS @ INTRUST Bank Arena *
10/07 – Omaha, NE @ CHI Health Center Omaha *
10/09 – Grand Rapids, MI @ Van Andel Arena *
10/10 – Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena *
10/12 – Grand Forks, ND @ Alerus Center *
10/15 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Vivint Smart Home Arena *
10/17 – Portland, OR @ Moda Center *
10/18 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Arena *
^ = w/ Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett
* = w/ ZZ Top
Louisiana man Holden Matthews, 22, will be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison for burning three Baptist churches last year. In his guilty plea, Matthews, who played bass in the band Vodka Vultures, admitted to burning the churches in order to “raise his profile” as a black metal musician.
According to the Department of Justice, Matthews’ plea stated that he burned the churches “because of the religious character of these buildings, in an effort to raise his profile as a ‘Black Metal’ musician by copying similar crimes committed in Norway in the 1990s.” All three churches had “predominately African-American congregations.” Matthews will be sentenced on May 22nd and faces a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison, and a maximum sentence of 70 years.
“Holden Matthews made a conscious decision to randomly target and destroy churches within his own community,” Special Agent in Charge Bryan Vorndran said in a statement. “His atrocious actions inflicted severe pain and grief upon these congregations, as well as all of St. Landry Parish.”
Matthews’ crimes attempted to copy those of convicted murderer Varg Vikernes and late Mayhem guitarist Euronymous — the central figures of the Norwegian church burnings of the early ’90s — as depicted in the 2019 movie Lords of Chaos. Matthews had previously made white-supremacist jokes online and interacted with church-burning memes featuring Vikernes.
It’s not only recent incident of such a copycat crime. Last year, a New Zealand black metal drummer was charged with burning two Mormon churches, also eerily similar to the Norwegian burnings.
Denver thrash metal band Havok will release their fifth studio album, appropriately titled V, this spring. The band has unveiled the artwork and tracklist for the 11-song LP, which is setting up to be one of Havok’s most experimental to date.
“A lot of experimentation went into the writing and recording of V,” vocalist and guitarist David Sanchez said in a press release. “The album offers the same intensity that we’re known for, but with a few twists that may surprise people. The music is dense with lots of different intertwining parts and we’re beyond excited to release our best-sounding record to date.”
V, which arrives on May 1st, was engineered, mixed, and mastered entirely by Mark Lewis, whose prior credits include work with Cannibal Corpse and The Black Dahlia Murder.
The album also marks the band’s first recordings with new bassist Brandon Bruce. “I am really excited about this record and to be playing bass with Havok,” Bruce said. “We really focused on structure and songwriting while maintaining the heavy riffs and brutal music the band is known for. I’m proud of how it turned out and can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”
Further details, including the lead single and album pre-order, are coming later this month via Century Media. See the tracklist and Eliran Kantor’s album artwork below.
V Artwork:
V Tracklist: 01. Post-Truth Era
02. Fear Campaign
03. Betrayed By Technology
04. Ritual Of The Mind
05. Interface With The Infinite
06. Dab Tsog
07. Phantom Force
08. Cosmetic Surgery
09. Panpsychism
10. Merchants Of Death
11. Don’t Do It
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