Disturbed pictures from Rolling Stone

Smoking Section: AC/DC, Bob Dylan, The Stills

Sweet vindication! Last year in this column, AC/DC singer Brian Johnson promised that they’d tour in 2008. Well, he wasn’t kidding. Soon they’ll begin rehearsals in a secret location, before hitting U.S. arenas in late fall. We heard this news at the Sony HQ on New York’s Madison Avenue, before hearing all 15 tracks of the band’s earthshaking new Black Ice, recorded in Vancouver in just eight weeks with Brendan O’Brien. On it, Brian wails about skies on fire, blood in his eyes, storms raging, lightning flashes, hard rain and pretty women. Angus Young shreds throughout (we dig his slide work on “Decibel”), and the rhythm cats — Malcom Young, Cliff Williams and Phil Rudd — are solid as a rock. The first single is “Rock ‘N Roll Train”; “She Likes Rock ‘N Roll” will be a stripper anthem; and “War Machine” (our favorite) will tear you to pieces. ***** In Chronicles Vol. 1, Bob Dylan tells about a trip to Princeton, New Jersey, where, accompanied by his “obstreperous” buddy David Crosby, he received an honorary degree. The ceremony was a bummer — the speaker pissed off Bob by introducing him as “the authentic expression of the disturbed and concerned conscience of young America.” Dylan ended up writing “Day of the Locusts” about the trip. The S.S. recently had the pleasure of meeting Crosby and asked him for his side of the story. “I did something that I do to people: I got him really high,” said Crosby. “When we got there, there was an altercation between Bob and the Princeton people, who insisted that he wear a robe. I had to convince Bob to stay and do it.” In return, Crosby made it into “Day of the Locusts.” “There’s a line that goes, ‘The man standing next to me, his head was exploding,’ ” said Crosby proudly. “That’s me!” Crosby also told us that CSN are working on a new album with Rick Rubin, featuring covers of their favorite songs. “James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, the Beatles, people that we love,” says Crosby. “And Dylan, of course.” ***** We loved the Stills

Published: 2008-08-15
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Smoking Section

Tour Preview: Disturbed Promise New Songs on Intimate Tour Before “Mayhem”

David Draiman and the rest of his Disturbed band mates are eager to play songs from their recently completed fourth album Indestructible to live audiences. Unfortunately, they can’t, as contractual obligations are preventing the band from playing the majority of their new material live before the album’s June 3rd release date. “Isn’t that horrible, how things have become,” Draiman tells Rock Daily from his home in Chicago, just hours before Disturbed piled into a tour bus for the long ride down to Little Rock, Arkansas, for the tour opening show. “It would really nice to see how a crowd reacts to the new songs early on, but there’s too much dependency on that first week sales number and you can’t sacrifice any of the impact of that.” Fortunately for fans, the band does have a few surprises planned, including two already-released Indestructible songs they’re allowed to play, “Perfect Insanity” and “Inside the Fire,” a never-before-played-live b-side titled “Hell” and the live debut of the their contribution to the Transformers soundtrack “This Moment.” Plus, the smaller venues and smaller markets the current tour touches upon invigorate the band. “It’s going to be very intimate. We’re going to try to make it special,” Draiman says. “It also enables us to get back to grassroots. This is who we are. We started as a small club band. It’s a different type of energy.” It won’t be until the launch of the Rock Star Mayhem tour that Disturbed can finally unleash Indestructible in all its live glory. Draiman has long professed that the band’s songs take on a second life in the live setting, and is looking forward to see the Indestructible material’s metamorphosis. The traveling festival also features Slipknot, Mastodon, Machinehead and more. “It’s a very, very talented bill, and being around that m

Published: 2008-04-28
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, On Tour

Picture: Festival News: Stone Temple Pilots and Linkin Park in Toronto; Ozzfest Docked in Dallas?

Album Preview: Mudvayne Reinvents Itself, Says Nu-Metal Will Be Back

When Mudvayne releases its fourth studio album The New Game in November, the record will be new to fans but a year and a half old for the band. Having the tour for its previous record and with vocalist Chad Gray and guitarist Greg Tribbett joining forces with Pantera’s Vinnie Paul in Hellyeah, the band opted to sit on the album as opposed to rushing it out to the market — a good choice, considering the set’s shift towards bigger choruses and more accessible melodies. “There’s a bit of pop mentality to the way we like to write together, and maybe we’ve gravitated towards that over the years,” bassist Ryan Martinie tells Rock Daily. “There’s friendlier songs, where we’re not alienating the listener. Maybe we didn’t want to alienate ourselves either.” When the band decided the time wasn’t right to release The New Game, they reconvened and cranked out another batch of songs — a whole new album’s worth. While those songs won’t make it into the live show yet, the next record could see the light of day as early as spring 2009. As one of the last bands standing from the nu-metal pack at the turn of the millennium, the band survived by not overplaying its initially cartoonish visual component and discouraging members to grow dreadlocks. Martinie isn’t sure why some bands failed and others can still release platinum albums, but warns about one of the least-likely nostalgia movements in music. “You have a band like Disturbed that’s still around and writing great music,” he said. “The ‘nu-metal’ genre was the uncool thing to listen to for a while, and I think it will come back around. People will say, ‘I forget that I loved that song so much.’ People will come back to it, maybe like they do with Eighties songs or bad Nineties pop.” Related Stories: • “Dimebag” Darrell Honored at Ozzfest • Mudvayne Tour Dates • Mudvayne Unmask For Lost and Found

Published: 2008-10-23
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News

Picture: Stone Temple Pilots Roll Out the Hits for Return at Rock on the Range Festival

In The Studio: Disturbed’s David Draiman Talks “Indestructible” New Album

For Disturbed singer David Draiman, the past few years have been tumultuous. “I had a motorcycle accident, and I had my garage burn down with most of my vehicles,” Draiman tells Rolling Stone. “And I’ve had really bad relationships that I’ve been in and out of. They’ve left their mark.” That mark, and how Draiman bounced back from all the bad times, can be heard in the lyrics on the band’s self-produced fourth album, Indestructible, which is due next spring. After bouncing around other album titles, the band chose Indestructible because it’s a comment on both Draiman’s struggles and the band’s perseverance in an industry where so many of their musical peers continually disappear into obscurity. To match the tenacity of the lyrics, Draiman asked his bandmates to “give me your darkest, nastiest, aggressive tribal rhythmic shit you can.” Draiman also underwent much-needed surgery for a deviated septum, which made his breathing easier and helped amplify what was already considered to be one of the best voices in the genre. While the band hasn’t decided upon a final tracklist—that’ll come after the mixing stage—Draiman opens up about some of the songs will that definitely wind up on the album. Most obviously, there’s the title track, which Draiman calls “an anthem for soldiers” — specifically American soldiers fighting overseas. “It’s meant to be something that would make them feel invincible, take away their fear, make them strong,” says Draiman. “And that’s what this whole body of work on this record does. It’s music to help you feel strong.” Spotlighting the band’s darker side, there’s “Deceiver,” inspired by one of those “really bad relationships,” and the Edgar Allan Poe-esque tale “Inside The Fire.” “That’s a real racy song,” Draiman admits, ̶

Published: 2007-11-22
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, In the Studio

Rock Reality Show Recap: Pepa Searches for a Real “Whatta Man” on “The Salt-N-Pepa Show”

Every week on The Salt-N-Pepa Show, two MCs from the late Eighties try to prove they don’t hate each other (and the rap game), while our Rock Reality Show Recaps attempt to prove we don’t resent VH1 for exploiting the heroes of our youth. Here’s our take on the second episode: Thirty Minutes in Four Sentences: After a double-date disaster with one of Pepa’s bad-boy love interests, Salt embarks on a quest to find her fellow MC the perfect man. Salt sums up her opinion of Pep’s love life by sighing, “Pep and men … good Lord” while Pep squirms under her pal’s judgments. The two hire a professional matchmaker who interviews half a dozen men, all of whom Salt rejects, instead choosing her friend, a youth pastor, as Pep’s suitor. In the end, Pep fires Cheryl as a matchmaker, sticking to her conviction. “I believe in my record ‘Whatta Man.’ I want ‘Whatta Man.’ ” Disowning the Shoop: In a last-ditch effort to find Pepa this mythical man, Salt invites her pastor friend over to dinner for an evening of quiet desperation. After using her thighs to help open a wine bottle in an outfit that lets the girls breathe, Pepa grills Salt about the incoming suitor, disturbed with a premonition that he was hairless and “round.” When the bashful pastor finally does show up with neither a body like Arnold nor a face like Denzel and pick-up lines about God smiling when he made Pepa, she drags Salt inside the pantry for an angry one-on-one. “I knew he was round. I knew it.” And when Pastor Mark brings up his disapproval of shoop before marriage, Pepa chokes on her food — evidently the dinner has run its course. While Salt spies out the house window, Pepa’s suitor was rebuffed for a good night kiss and left way more woman than he could handle banging on Salt’s front door for a word with her matchmaker. Whatta Band: While the duo were too busy looking for a litt

Published: 2007-10-23
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock Reality Show Recaps

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