Artist
Industrial icons Ministry are teaming up with hardcore hip-hop firebrands Death Grips for a North American fall tour. The incendiary outing kicks off October 13 in Worcester, MA, with stop-offs in major cities from coast to coast. Tickets for the whole trek will be available starting this Wednesday (Jul. 19) at 10 a.m. Eastern. Check out a full list of dates below.
Ministry's tour announcement arrives ahead of their 14th album AmeriKKKant, which is due out sometime this fall. Fans can pre-order the album and score exclusive ephemera — including vinyl and posters, instruments, album credits and even personalized birthday messages — via the album's PledgeMusic campaign. Earlier this summer, Ministry debuted the AmeriKKKant track "Antifa," a brutal tribute to alt-left activism, during their set at Glenn Danzig's Blackest of the Black festival. The band recently celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of their breakthrough album Psalm 69: The Way To Succeed And The Way To Suck Eggs, whose debauched secrets were detailed at length in Revolver last week.
Things are stirring over on the Death Grips front, as well. Earlier this year, the band dropped the 22-minute track titled "Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber Megamix)," and revealed that they were working on a new full-length, the follow-up to last year's Bottomless Pit. In the meantime, Death Grips members Zach Hill and Andy Morin released a new I.L.Y's album, Bodyguard, in May.
Jul. 21 – San Diego, CA – House of Blues San Diego !
Ju. 22 – San Luis Obispo, CA – Fremont Theater
Sep. 15-17 – Chicago, IL – Riot Fest
Sep. 20 – Christchurch, New Zealand – The Foundry Bar
Sep. 22 – Auckland, New Zealand – The Studio, Auckland
Sep. 25 – Perth, Australia – Astor Theatre
Sep. 26 – Hindmarsh, Australia – The Gov
Sep. 27, 29 – Sydney, Australia – Metro Theatre
Sep. 30 – Melbourne, Australia – Forum Melbourne
Oct. 01 – Brisbanem Australia – The Tivoli
Oct. 13 – Worcester, MA – The Palladium #
Oct. 14 – Philadelphia, PA – Electric Factory #
Oct. 16 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel #
Oct. 17 – New York, NY – Terminal 5 #
Oct. 19 – Silver Spring, MD – The Fillmore #
Oct. 20 – Cleveland, OH – The Agora Theatre #
Oct. 21 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE #
Oct. 23 – Detroit, MI – Royal Oak Music Theatre #
Oct. 24 – Columbus, OH – Express Live #
Oct. 26 – Minneapolis, MN – Skyway Theatre #
Oct. 27 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater #
Oct. 29 – Denver, CO – The Fillmore Auditorium #
Oct. 30 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Complex #
Nov. 01 – Seattle, WA – Showbox Sodo #
Nov. 02 – Portland, OR – Roseland Theater #
Nov. 04 – Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium #
Nov. 05 – San Francisco, CA – The Warfield #
Nov. 07 – Phoenix, AZ – The Van Buren #
Nov. 08 – Albuquerque, NM – The Historic El Rey Theater #
Nov. 10 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall #
Nov. 11 – Dallas, TX – Gas Monkey Live! #
! w/ Ho99o9
# w/ Death Grips
On July 14, 1992, Danzig released their third album, Danzig III: How The Gods Kill. As Danzig's first album to break into the Top 25 on the Billboard charts, How The Gods Kill offered definitive proof that ex-Misfit Glenn Danzig's latest musical endeavor was anything but your average solo project, instead it solidfied his status as heavy metal royalty. Many critics and fans regard it as one of the band's definitive albums, and rightly so; Songs like "Sistinas," "Dirty Black Summer," and the title-track are not so much essentials as they are herculean sonic feats that take Danzig's booming goth rock — already filled to the brim with diabolical riffs, turbulent tempos and overpowering confidence — and somehow amplify it to terror-inducing levels.
The same year that Danzig III dropped, Danzig and bassist Eerie Von made a now-classic appearance on "Headbangers Ball." After catching up with the band on tour in Germany, host Riki Rachtman whisked the two bandmates to an opulently-decorated, unequivocally creepy castle for an intriguing (and super awkward) chat. Come for insightful discussion on How The Gods Kill; Stay for the metal-as-fuck scenery, ceaseless sulking, and seething softly-spoken disses, like this one from Danzig himself: "Is this band called the Misfits or Samhain? No. It's called Danzig." Ouch. Check out the interview below.
Arch Enemy are gearing up to release their 10th studio album, Will of Power, on September 8th via Century Media. After unveiling the album artwork late last month, and dropping a cover of the Shitlickers' "The Leader (of the Fuckin' Assholes)" earlier this week, the Swedes have finally unveiled "The World Is Yours," Will of Power's debut single (which is also their first new music in over three years). It arrives accompanied by a ferocious music video directed by Patric Ullaeus, which finds Alissa White-Gluz and company performing the song against a backdrop of shadows, strobe lights and outer-space scenery. Watch below.
Arch Enemy guitarist Michael Amott (who co-wrote and co-produced "The World Is Yours" with the help of drummer Daniel Erlandsson) says he's proud of Will of Power, and can't wait to take it on the road. "We had a blast recording together with the full band in the south of Sweden, and then mixing with Jens Bogren [Opeth, Dimmu Borgir, At The Gates], who did a superb mix and mastering in my opinion, even surpassing the epic sound on our previous record, [2014's] War Eternal," Amott says. "People that have heard this song in particular are saying it's got the classic anthemic Arch Enemy vibe going on, and I think they might be right about that."
Arch Enemy are keeping busy in the weeks leading up to their latest LP with a slew of European summer festival appearances scheduled through mid August. On September 15, one week after Will of Power's release, they'll embark on a trek through Eastern Europe, with support from Ukranian groove metal outfit Jinjer on most dates. Europen and North America legs will follow, although the band has yet to offer specific details regarding dates, cities, or venues.
July 06 – Ballenstedt, Germany – Rock Harz Festival
July 07 – Viveiro, Spain – Resurrection Fest
July 12 – Dunaújváros, Hungary – Rockmarathon
July 15 – Gavle, Sweden – Gefle Metal Festival
Aug. 04 – Snina, Slovakia – Rock Pod Kamenom Festival
Aug. 05 – Ostrava, Czech Republic – Ostrave v Plamenech
Aug. 07 – Majano, Italy – Festival Di Majano
Aug. 08 – Dornbirn, Austria – Conrad Sohm
Aug. 10 – Villena, Spain – Leyendas Del Rock
Aug. 11 – Vagos, Portugal – Vagos Metal Fest
Aug. 12 – Leeuwarden, The Netherlands – Into The Grave
Aug. 13 – Walton-On-Trent, UK – Bloodstock Open Air
Sept. 15 – Innsbruck, Austria – Music Hall *
Sept. 16 – Linz, Austria – Posthof *
Sept. 17 – Ljubljana, Slovenia – Cvetlicarna *
Sept. 18 – Belgrade, Serbia – Dom Omladine *
Sept. 20 – Bucharest, Romania – Quantic Club Open Air Stage *
Sept. 21 – Sofia, Bulgaria – Universiada Hall *
Sept. 22 – Athens, Greece – Piraeus 117 Academy *
Sept. 23 – Thessaloniki, Greece – Principal Club Theater *
Sept. 25 – Bratislava, Slovakia – Majestic Music Club *
Sept. 26 – Warsaw, Poland – Progresja *
Sept. 27 – Vilnius, Lithuania – Loftas *
Sept. 29 – Riga, Latvia – Melna Piektdiena *
Sept. 30 – Tallinn, Estonia – Rock Café *
Oct. 01 – Helsinki, Finland – The Circus
Oct. 03 – Minsk, Belarus – Re:Public
Oct. 04 – St. Petersburg, Russia – Aurora
Oct. 06 – Novosibirsk, Russia – Otdyh
Oct. 08 – Yekaterinburg, Russia – Tele Club
Oct. 10 – Moscow, Russia – Yotaspace
Oct. 11 – Samara, Russia – Zvezda
Avenged Sevenfold have just unleashed a fiery new song, "Dose." The trippy track was originally intended to appear on their latest album, The Stage, but it was ultimately cut from its track listing. Avenged Sevenfold teased the song via a special level in the hack-and-slash video game "Dungeon Hunter 5," which culminates in a showdown with a boss character inspired by last fall's LP. The band's latest sonic offering comes in the wake of two covers released earlier in the summer: a reimagining of the Mexican folk song "Malagueña Salerosa," as well as an epic take on Mr. Bungle's "Retrovertigo." Check out the video for the song below.
According to Avenged Sevenfold frontman M. Shadows, "Dose" was musically conceived as a sequel to The Stage's orchestral highlight "Roman Sky," but later morphed into a tripped-out metal song, inspired by a modern urban legend. "The lyrics were inspired by an unsolved mystery that dates back to the 1950s about an airline traveler who, if you believe the story, supposedly fell into our dimension from another," he explains. "According to reports, he showed up in a Tokyo airport with a passport from a country that didn't exist anywhere on a map. He was detained for questioning, but mysteriously vanished from a room guarded by immigration officials, taking with him all evidence of his existence. It ties into the theory that there are infinite possibilities of our lives being played out across space and time. [I] Don't know if the story is true, but I'm fascinated by that kind of stuff and thought it'd be a fun idea for a song."
"The Dose" arrives smack-dab in the middle of Avenged Sevenfold's North American tour behind The Stage. In addition to headlining shows in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, California and elsewhere, the band has been tapped to open for rock gods Metallica, with support from Gojira and Volbeat on select dates.
Jul. 14 – Cadott, WI – Rock Fest Amphitheater ***
Jul. 16 – Toronto, ON – Rogers Centre ^
Jul. 18 – Gilford, NH – Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion ***
Jul. 19 – Montreal, QB – Parc Jean-Drapeau ^
Jul. 28 – Mountain View, CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre +++
Jul. 29 – Los Angeles, CA – Rose Bowl +
Jul. 31 – Sacramento, CA – Golden 1 Center +++
Aug. 03 – Albuquerque, NM – Isleta Amphitheater +++
Aug. 04 – Phoenix, AZ - University of Phoenix Stadium +
Aug. 06 – San Diego, CA – Petco Park +
Aug. 09 – Seattle, WA – CenturyLink Field +
Aug. 11 – Salt Lake City, UT – USANA Amphitheatre +++
Aug. 12 – Nampa (Boise), ID – Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater +++
Aug. 14 – Vancouver, BC – BC Place +
Aug. 16 – Edmonton, AB - Commonwealth Stadium+
*** w/ Volbeat
+++ w/ A Day To Remember
^ w/ Metallica, Volbeat
+ w/ Metallica, Gojira
Amon Amarth have unveiled an epic visual for "The Way of Vikings," off last year's record Jomsviking. Directed by Polish production studio Grupa 13 (who previously oversaw videos for the album's singles "First Kill" and "Dawn's First Light"), the cinematic clip pays homage to the 1920's crime drama "Peaky Blinders." Here, in the seedy underbelly of Birmingham, England, the five-piece — clad in dapper period garb, as opposed to their typical all-black attire — serve up the sountrack to a grueling, bloody cage match. As Amon Amarth tear through the Jomsviking highlight in a boxing gym, we see a litany of shady characters (gamblers, grifters, gentlemen and gangsters), and of course, one hell of a fight, complete with slow-motion action sequences. (Alas, the band don't get in on the brawl.) Watch below.
Amon Amarth's latest video arrives one day before they hit the road for another run of shows behind Jomsviking. The trek kicks off in their native Sweden, with an appearance at Gefle Metal Festival. From there, they'll head out to play Chicago Open Air festival (the only North American date on their itinerary) before finishing the leg in Europe and the U.K.
Jul. 14 - Gavle, Sweden - Gefle Metal Festival
Jul. 16 - Chicago, IL - Chicago Open Air
Jul. 25 - Tolmin, Slovenia - Metaldays Festival
Jul. 27 - Tel Aviv, Israel - Theatre Club
Jul. 29 - Istanbul, Turkey - Rock Off Festival
Aug. 02 - Vienna, Austria - Jolly Roger Festival
Aug. 04 - Kostrzyn nad Odra, Poland - Przystanek Woodstock
Aug. 05 - Wacken, Germany - Wacken Open Air
Aug. 06 - Colmar, France - Foire Aux Vins
Aug. 07 - Majano (Udine), Italy - City Festival
Aug. 09 - Villena, Spain - Leyendas Del Rock
Aug. 11 - Derbyshire, UK - Bloodstock Open Air
Aug. 12 - Leeuwarden, Netherlands - Into The Grave
Aug. 13 - Kortrijk, Belgium - Alcatraz Festival
Aug. 17 - Dinkelsbuhl, Germany - Summer Breeze
Aug. 18 - Moravsky Krumlov, Czech Republic - Rock Heart Festival
Aug. 19 - Zvolen, Slovakia - More Than Fest
Aug. 21 - Pratteln, Switzerland - Earshaker Day
Aug. 23 - Budapest, Hungary - Barba Negra Open Air Show
Aug. 25 - Giessen, Germany - Kultursommer
Aug. 26 - Sulingen, Germany - Reload Festival
Aug. 28 - Kiev, Russia - Sentrum
Aug. 29 - Minsk, Russia - Re:Public
Aug. 30 - St. Petersburg, Russia - A2
Aug. 31 - Krasnodar, Russia - Arena Hall
Sept. 02 - Yekaterinburg, Russia - Tele Club
Sept. 04 - Samara, Russia - Zvezda
Sept. 05 - Moscow, Russia - Yotaspace
Back in June, Trent Reznor revealed that Nine Inch Nails had two EPs on the way, the first of which he intended to release in advance of July 23's headlining set at Los Angeles' FYF Festival, the band's first live performance since 2014. Today, the man's staying true to his word with the announcement of Add Violence, the band's latest extended-player. Arriving July 21 via Capitol, the five-track offering marks the second entry in a planned trilogy of EPs, arriving in the wake of December's Not The Actual Events (which marked longtime collaborator Atticus Ross' first release as an official Nine Inch Nails member).
Additionally, Reznor and Ross have dropped off "Less Than," the EP's infectious first single. The glitched-out rager is classic latter-day NIN: a taut, industrial-tinged rock anthem which hearkens back to 2008's similarly hook-laden album The Slip. Give "Less Than" a listen below.
Nine Inch Nails' FYF performance precedes a handful of North American festival dates taking place later this summer and fall: New York City's Panorama, Chicago's Riot Fest, and Sacramento's Aftershock Fest.
Jul. 23 – Los Angeles, CA – FYF Fest
Jul. 30 – New York, NY – Panorama
Sept. 15 – Chicago, IL – Riot Fest
Oct. 21 – Sacramento, CA – Aftershock Fest
We've got good news and bad news, Tool fans. First, the good news: According to bassist Justin Chancellor, the prog-metal stalwarts' new album is 90% done! Now. for the bad news: Tool's definition of "done" is very different from everyone else's.
In a recent interview on "The Joe Rogan Experience," Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan revealed that the band's long-awaited 10,000 Days follow-up is still a long ways out, a delay he attributed to the band's meticulous songwriting approach. "Nothing is tracked yet, nothing is completely finished," he said. "There's a couple songs that I think are finished now; I can start working on those, but nothing is actually recorded."
Keenan continued, "My desire to move forward: 'Go go go, get things done!' I'm always butting heads with the guys in the band to get those things done, and it's just not their process. It took me a while to go, 'This is not personal, this is just the way that they have to do it. And I have to respect it, and I have to take my time and let them take their time.'"
The frontman went on to explain that, while he and his bandmates have indeed been hard at work on new material, their constantly fluctuating creative process has prevented them from nailing down the songs themselves. "If this thing is done done done, and I can start writing words and music on it, great. But I've had instances where I've started to write stuff, and by the time I actually got it around and back, and actually listening and whatever, the song had gone in a completely different direction," he said. "So everything that was written melody-wise or lyric-wise was completely irrelevant now, and I have to start over." In other words, don't rush them.
Keenan continued, "I mean, I can sit there in that room, and be with them in that room, but their process is so tedious and so Rain Man, that I just can't, I just start fucking folding in on myself. I'll be right back, I've got to go take five years to plant a vineyard, because you'll still be right where you were when I left. But it's a great thing, what they're doing is wonderful. I completely back what they're doing. There's no other way for them to do it. For me, I can move much more quickly if you will let me help you. I've written a few songs. In fact, I was involved in many of them, the ones that we've done, so we can do that. But I think this is what they need to do. I'm OK with it. You got to get a little friction in there, so I have to come in and puff my chest out a bit and be aggressive: 'Let's move it, guys.' That worked for a minute, and we definitely made traction, but if I were to do that every day, it would just become a part of the friction, more friction instead of getting anything done."
So there you have it. Like they said on Twitter earlier this year, the band has no plans to drop an album in 2017. The same goes for A Perfect Circle, who also have a long-awaited full length on horizon, not to mention a North American tour planned for the fall.
Megadeth's career has been marked by plenty of monumental achievements, and high among those many triumphs is 1992's Countdown to Extinction. The band's fifth full-length album, it stands as the band's topmost charting record — it debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 2 — as well as their best-selling effort, certified double Platinum for more than two million units moved. It also spawned one of their best-known songs, and certainly their biggest single — the menacing but also incredibly melodic, "Symphony of Destruction."
Released on July 14th, 1992, Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction album came at a pivotal moment in the band's career. The thrash pioneers, led by former Metallica man Dave Mustaine, debuted in 1985 with the ferociously raw Killing is My Business… And Business is Good! By their fourth album, 1990's landmark Rust in Peace, they were arguably the most combustible and chops-crazed speed-metal unit around, seemingly without peer in their fiery mix of technical skill and tight-as-nails songwriting.
Rust in Peace, which had featured the debut of Megadeth's classic Nineties lineup — Mustaine, stalwart bassist David Ellefson, virtuosic guitarist Marty Friedman and drummer Nick Menza — became their first platinum-selling record, and the band started packing arenas across the U.S. and Europe on the 1990-1991 Clash of the Titans tour, co-headlined by Slayer. After Metallica hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts with their self-titled 1991 effort, Mustaine sensed that the time was ripe for Megadeth to make a similar bid for mainstream glory.
The result was Countdown to Extinction, which filtered Megadeth's trademark thrash aggression and insane instrumental acrobatics through a sharper-focused and more radio-friendly lens. The riffs were more immediate, the choruses catchier and the arrangements more direct and hard-hitting. The songs themselves were also more varied, from the straightforward hard rock of "Symphony of Destruction" and "Skin o' My Teeth," to the lush melodicism of "Foreclosure of a Dream" and the title track, to the jagged thrash-'n'-roll of "Sweating Bullets" and "Ashes in Your Mouth." Lyrically, Mustaine and Co. dug into plenty of hot-topic subject matter: the Gulf War ("Architecture of Aggression"), economic upheaval ("Foreclosure of a Dream," which featured a sound bite of President George Bush's famous "Read my lips" quip), political chicanery ("Symphony of Destruction) and the evils of canned animal hunts ("Countdown to Extinction"), among others.
Mustaine has called Countdown "a turning point" for Megadeth, and indeed it was. "With Countdown to Extinction, Megadeth went from being a flavor of the month to a bona fide supergroup," the singer wrote in his 2010 autobiography, Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir. "The album sold half a million copies very quickly, then a million, and it just … kept … going."
Today, its legacy is not only cemented, but also continues to grow. In 2012, Megadeth released a deluxe reissue of the effort to mark its 20th anniversary, and a corresponding tour saw them playing the entire album in concert, marking the first live performances of tracks like "Architecture of Aggression," "Psychotron" and "Captive Honour." What's more, the sound of Countdown to Extinction can be heard reverberating in the music of myriad modern-day metal titans like Avenged Sevenfold (compare their 2013 song "Heretic" to "Symphony of Destruction," for starters).
"I knew we had a record that could alter the landscape of heavy metal," Mustaine wrote in his book, and in small but noticeable ways, with Countdown, Megadeth did just that. Here are 10 things you might not know about the band's classic fifth LP.
1. Countdown to Extinction was the first album the notoriously addiction-prone Dave Mustaine made "stone sober"
Rust in Peace is often thought to be the record where Megadeth kicked their myriad addictions. But in reality, Dave Mustaine didn't truly embrace clean living until Countdown to Extinction, as he explained to Guitar School in 1993. "When we recorded Killing is My Business... And Business is Good!," he said, "I was doing pot, coke, and heroin. For Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?, it was speed, coke, and heroin. So Far, So Good... So What? was me on heroin and freebase. I was addicted to cigarettes for Rust in Peace. But our new album, Countdown to Extinction, is me pure. I was stone sober."
2. The album was recorded smack in the middle of the 1992 L.A. riots
Megadeth began tracking Countdown to Extinction at The Enterprise studios in Burbank, California, on January 6th, 1992. They were still there four months later when the Los Angeles Riots, set off in the wake of the acquittal of four LAPD officers accused in the beating of Rodney King, shook the city. The riots, which lasted six days and resulted in 63 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries, not only altered the environment around the studio — Mustaine reported seeing tanks and national guardsmen lining the streets — it also affected the band's actual working process. "A curfew was put in place, which meant suddenly I was working banker's hours, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.," the singer recounted in Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir. "Not so good for making a record, a process that typically involves nearly round-the-clock devotion."
3. "Sweating Bullets" was written about a crazy person … but that crazy person was not Dave Mustaine
Given its classic opening couplet, "Hello me/It's me again," as well as the fact that the song is matched with an iconic video featuring a plethora of Dave Mustaines, "Sweating Bullets" is commonly thought to be about Mustaine himself. And in interviews at the time of its release, the singer even said as much. But as Mustaine more recently revealed, "Sweating Bullets" was actually written about a "crazy friend" of his then girlfriend (and later wife), Pam. "They would go to parties all the time," he told Rolling Stone earlier this year. "Her friend would freak out and get in the car and drive off and then I'd get a call from my wife and she'd say, 'Eh, she left me again,' and I'd have to get in the car and come get her. And you think it'd be the other way around having a rock-star boyfriend, at the time, that he'd be calling you to come and get him. So I wrote 'Sweating Bullets' about her friend."
4. The song also inspired a particularly potent cocktail
Pantera's Dimebag Darrell was no stranger to enjoying a good drink or three (nor was he a stranger to Megadeth, whom he almost joined a few years before Countdown). And for many years, Dime's beverage of choice was his own personal concoction, the Black Tooth Grin, the name of which came from a lyric in "Sweating Bullets." Recalled Mustaine to Billboard, "There's a line … which goes, 'Some day you, too, will know my pain/And smile its black tooth grin.' And [Pantera] ended up making a drink called 'Black Tooth Grin,' which was evidently a glass full of Jack Daniels and a splash of Coke, instead of vice versa." Dime's love for the reverse Jack and Coke was so deep that he eventually had the name permanently inked on his body. Said Mustaine, "I remember when we were in Amsterdam and he came up to me in the hallway going, 'Dave! Dave! Look, man! Look at my new tattoo — it's a Black Tooth Grin!'"
5. Countdown to Extinction was kept out of the top spot on the Billboard 200 by Miley Cyrus' dad
Just a year after Metallica topped the charts with the Black Album, Mustaine was gunning for his own No. 1 record with Countdown. And he would have gotten it … had it not for Billy Ray Cyrus, whose "Achy Breaky Heart" was causing a line-dancing sensation across America, and whose debut album, Some Gave All, was firmly ensconced in the top slot. Instead, Megadeth album sales had to settle for No. 2. "When I saw the results," Mustaine told the A.V. Club in 2011, "I was mad. I wasn't sitting back and going, 'Yep, it's good to be two.' I wanted that No. 1 spot, and we were fighting for it, and the bummer was the guy we were fighting with. It was Billy Ray Cyrus, 'Achy Breaky Heart.' And all those fat fuckin' housewives in the Midwest, and this guy with this funny haircut, and that song, it just resonated with the American people and people bought into it, and there was no shaking it."
6. Megadeth didn't want Countdown to be merely great — they wanted it to be perfect
Rust in Peace presented Megadeth as a band that played thrash metal with unmatched precision. But Mustaine's fixation on technical and sonic exactitude was pushed to even more extreme ends on Countdown to Extinction, resulting in some unusual recording techniques. "When we had the guitars patched into strobe tuners, we'd bend up until where the tuner would stop dead if we were doing any solos with bends in them," Mustaine told ARTISTdirect.com in 2012. "It was crazy stuff like that." Added Marty Friedman, writing on MartyFriedman.com: "[Countdown] was an unbelievably difficult album to make. [Producer] Max Norman, Dave Mustaine and myself are all uncompromising perfectionists and when you get the three of us together in the studio doing guitars, it turns into a 'let's make it even more perfect' competition. At the end of the day, the record was damn near perfect, but making it was tedious and painstaking."
7. The album's success caused Marty Friedman to take a flying leap.
Mustaine and Ellefson collaborated on the lyrics to the sinewy hard rocker "High Speed Dirt," which took its title from a phrase for what happens when a sky diver's parachute fails to deploy, resulting in the unfortunate jumper hitting the ground at high velocity and potentially causing death. A skydiving enthusiast (he demonstrated his skills on a memorable 1992 episode of MTV's Headbangers Ball), Mustaine had remarked in an interview that year that parachuting had "replaced a lot of the addictive feelings I used to have." He added that Marty Friedman remained the only member of the band who had yet to complete a jump, but that the guitarist pledged that "when the album goes platinum, he'll do it." As Friedman later wrote on his website, "The damn thing went double platinum!!" And so he fulfilled his promise. "When I hit the ground, I remember saying that I wanted to do it again," the guitarist reported of the experience, "but after about a day or so I realized that once was enough."
8. The Ellefson family farm inspired the words to "Foreclosure of a Dream"
David Ellefson was the primary writer behind the lyrics to "Foreclosure of a Dream," which addressed the impact of Reagan-era agricultural policies on family farms. The bassist, whose parents had had their farm in Minnesota foreclosed upon, told Songfacts.com, "It was speaking specifically about the hardships that the farmers were having, that started when I left home in 1983 when I went to California. So it was a three-year time when we saw Farm Aid and really the implosion of the farming community that was largely based on Ronald Reagan's policies." The song's title, meanwhile, had come years earlier. "[It] was a title that we saw back in 1986 when Dave [Mustaine] and I went back to my mom and dad's farm in Minnesota," Ellefson explained. "And we saw on TV, there was a title that said 'Foreclosure of a Dream' or 'Foreclosure of the Dream' — something like that." He continued, "Fast-forward to 1991, we're writing what would become Countdown to Extinction, and Dave says, 'Let's use that title.'"
9. Megadeth's 1993 tour was briefly interrupted when Dave Mustaine required treatment at a rehabilitation facility
Mustaine may have been sober when Megadeth began recording Countdown, but as the band got deeper into their tour in support of the album, he was, as he recounted in his autobiography, "well on my way to becoming a mess." In time, Mustaine began drinking again, and soon cultivated a daily Valium habit. A Japanese tour in the spring of 1993 was cancelled when Mustaine entered a rehab facility in Arizona, where he underwent seven weeks of intensive impatient treatment and counseling. After the band resumed the Countdown tour, Megadeth's management instituted a strict policy that required the band members to pledge to abstain from all drugs and alcohol on the road, as well as sign a confidentiality clause forbidding any discussion of events that occurred on tour or in the studio. It was, Mustaine explained in his autobiography, "extreme measures to deal with an extreme problem."
10. Countdown to Extinction gave Megadeth their biggest hit … and also led to an identity crisis.
Countdown to Extinction's mainstream success, combined with changing trends in hard rock and heavy metal in the Nineties, led to several years where Megadeth found themselves somewhat adrift. "It basically started after Countdown to Extinction where the logo changed, our look changed," Mustaine told Bonfire Shows in 2016. "We were supposed to start growing facial hair, [and were told], 'Take the points off your 'M' letter on your logo, get rid of your mascot and stuff.'"
Mustaine continued, "You've gotta remember, Countdown came in at No. 2. So we thought, Wow! This feels great. Now we're starting to get some direction. This is how you'll be great. You listen to people who have some credibility. And we did, but it didn't work. So it took a little while for us to sort stuff out and for me to figure out where it is that we went off-roading, so to speak. And I think we're there right now. We're happy. Everybody's jamming."
As Arch Enemy prepare to drop their new album, Will to Power, on September 8th via Century Media Records, the melodic death metal group have released their rendition of "The Leader (of the Fuckin' Assholes)." Stream their version of this venomous 62-second track — which was originally recorded by Swedish hardcore punk rockers the Shitlickers in 1982 — below.
Will to Power was co-produced by guitarist Michael Amott and drummer Daniel Erlandsson and mixed and mastered by Jens Bogren (Opeth, At the Gates, Dimmu Borgir).
The new album is also the first to feature guitarist Jeff Loomis (ex-Nevermore). The axman joined Arch Enemy in 2014 after the band parted ways with Nick Cordle. Amott said of Loomis, "Jeff is one of the best guitar players in the metal world in my opinion, as well as being a long time friend. I look forward to tearing it up on stages around the world together."
By the time guitarist Domenic Romeo joined long-running hardcore band Integrity in 2015, it wasn't a surprise that founding vocalist / mainman Dwid Hellion would choose the A389 Recordings honcho to help with their next album. But that definitely was in neither's mind when they first became acquainted. Romeo and Hellion's first interactions occurred back in the mid '90s via some emerging, futuristic "mail without a stamp" technology. Romeo was so stoked about Integrity that he tracked down Hellion's e-mail, and began pestering the musician with questions.
"Dom would write to me and ask me questions and I wasn't sure how to take it," Hellion recalls. "I wasn't so interested in talking to some kid who wanted to discuss my records, but eventually he wore me down."
Romeo's persistence ultimately paid off, and their talks lead to a lasting friendship, collaboration across A389 and their collective recorded output, and a partnership that would last decades, culminating in Dom's addition to Integrity.
So how exactly did Domenic Romeo transition from Integrity fanboy to becoming an integral part of the legendary band? Below, Dom details his musical growth and discusses his contributions to Integrity's new LP Howling, for the Nightmare Shall Consume, which is out this Friday, July 14, via Relapse Records.
REVOLVER How did you meet Dwid Hellion?
DOMENIC ROMEO When I was in my late teens, I used to ride my bike across town to my buddy's house because he had the internet. Victory Records had this Real Audio player that would let you preview the band's songs, and I remember not really being impressed with any of the bands except like Bloodlet and a few others. But when I heard Integrity, I was floored — It was like nothing I had ever heard before. The song "Systems Overload" was in there and it had these huge riffs and the singer sounded like he swallowed glass. It was the hardest thing I had ever heard.
So me and my friends would save our money from the week, and head to the city on the weekend and blow our paychecks on buying records. I remember seeing Systems Overload at that time, getting it back home and being blown away. We just thought "there are solos on everything" — sort of like if your house is infested with roaches, you just keep finding solos. [Laughs] It was awesome, some of the coolest shit I had ever heard.
It totally changed my life. At the time, I was in this band called Day of Mourning and it totally shaped what I wanted to do with that band. I was a kid that was into horror movies and metal, not gym shorts and youth crew, so Integrity just spoke to me. I was too weird for the metal scene and too weird for the hardcore scene. Integrity was the voice. Even now, that's Integrity's key demographic.
Anyway, [1996's] Humanity Is the Devil came out and I looked through the liner notes and there was an email address in there. I remember sending an email, which I didn't even know how to use at the time, just knew it was like a "letter without mailing it." I would bike to my friend's house, 30 minute ride each way, just to email him everyday. I was just punishing him, question after question, punishing him with questions about the band. I was from Canada, so I didn't know about the band pre-Systems Overload material because those records weren't as widely distributed. So when I did find out about the earlier stuff and traded videos and tapes with others, I just absolutely punished him. He was a complete dick to me for a little while [Laughs] but I think he realized that I wasn't just trying to punish him, but that I was really excited. We hit it off eventually and he sang on a Day of Mourning record. Then from there, our friendship went on. He would go on to do a lot of stuff for A389, recorded and design-related.
It's funny because the way that you speak about Integrity is similar to the way that Phish fans or Grateful Dead fans are. Trading all of the videos and tapes, just incessant on owning everything.
Absolutely. It's a really special thing. It's been a part of my life for decades now whether that is doing their records or doing shows or just plain punishing Dwid.
From what I understand, you did a brief stint with Integrity in the early '00s?
So they came through on the To Die For tour and one of their guitar players quit, so I offered to play. I learned all the songs and bought a plane ticket to move to Cleveland. Unfortunately, my father was really ill at the time and it was getting really bad, so I had to leave the band. It broke my heart, but family first.
Eventually Pulling Teeth came around, and it was my main outlet. He was a big help with that and with A389 Records in general, with visuals, merch, layouts and guest vocals … he pops up on several LPs in some shape or form.
In 2007 you also played with him, correct? At an A389 Anniversary Bash.
Yes, we called it the Blackest Curse. Basically, it was my birthday and I asked Dwid to play the bash with a backing band. He said sure, but we couldn't call it Integrity. It was basically when Dwid was between different eras of the band. Pulling Teeth ended up being the backing band, which is kind of funny because it's a pretty similar lineup years later.
We've talked everyday for decades, so when the opening came again, I offered to play. Eventually I told him that if he wanted to do this, I'd love to write a record. By the time it happened, I hadn't been playing guitar in years because I had kids. I got together with Joshy [Brettell] from Ilsa, after playing a short stint with them live, and eventually write riffs to send to Dwid. He liked them and we ended up with 20+ songs that eventually was pruned down to make the album.
So let's step back a little, because you also ran A389 Recordings, which is responsible for several Integrity releases. How did it feel going from being that nerd on the bike to being the bossman of sorts?
It was such a huge accomplishment for me. Such a milestone. Before that A389 dabbled in this and that, and I'm proud of all my releases, but that was so important to me. Such an iconic record, A389-23, the Walpurgisnacht EP. From there it was just easy to do — we're pretty efficient when we work together.
During your time with A389, what record do you think you are most proud of releasing? Something that you didn't have any say in as a musician.
That's a tough one. So many great ones. Well I think there are two ways to look at it. I'm so proud to have released bands like Full of Hell, Young and In the Way, Nothing, Xibalba, Noisem, Iron Reagan, so many great young bands. These bands have gone on to do some incredible things, but it all started with A389. That said, I'm also really proud to do a record by Eyehategod. What a true "what the fuck" moment.
What is your favorite Integrity record? Why?
Seasons in the Size of Days, hands down. It's just perfect. It has a colder tone. The production is better. Integrity always had that perfect fusion of metal and hardcore, but Seasons leans more toward metal. This really nailed in a darkness, with the artwork and photography and everything. It's a mood. When I put that record on, I feel like I'm in some dark basement, in a castle or something.
So going from fan to collaborator with Dwid, when the time came did you have any trepidation about joining the band?
I was a little nervous because it's big shoes to fill, plus I hadn't been playing in a few years. I figured that the worst-case scenario was I could try and write some songs and nothing would come of it. No big deal. The ideas just came though, and things started producing themselves in layers and fast. The entire record felt like a stream of consciousness, almost like it wrote itself. It's pretty weird.
We all have our records that we go back to constantly. Do you feel like you go back to Integrity less now that you are part of the band?
You would think that, it's just a weird thing … it's still my favorite band. All of the Integrity albums are still on my iPod. It's fun for me, still. Integrity is such a massive and varying body of work that has had so many people contributing bits to it, that it's just like a quilt. I'm honored to add my little part to the quilt. The story just keeps going. It's awesome.
Going into the new Integrity LP, it had been six years-plus since you had actually recorded an LP, Funerary by Pulling Teeth. In that time you had kids, were hyper-focused on the label, and went through a lot of changes. Did you have your guitar by your side that entire time?
No. And I just really didn't have time to play, so I sort of stopped playing for a while. But my second kid really liked to hear me play, so that kind of got me back into playing. Then once I decided that I would play with Integrity in 2015, I sort of focused and started to get back into it.
Old Integrity influence is all over this new LP, yet there are other influences that rear their head — everything from Iron Maiden to Randy Uchida to Pulling Teeth, obviously. What was in rotation in the months leading up to this record?
When it comes to how I approached this record, I didn't want to rewrite the past, but I also wanted to honor it. The thing with Relapse is we knew we were going to reach another audience, so I wanted them to know the band's history while moving forward at the same time.
As far as what I was listening to in the time leading up to the record … honestly, I tried not to listen to anything. I didn't want to pollute it. I listened to a lot of weird Armando Sciascia and Alessandro Alessandroni, as well as a lot of jazz. I needed music that was going to clear my head out and leave it a blank slate, nothing that would latch on. Sort of like a purge. I got in the zone from that.
It's funny you mention Iron Maiden, because that was the first concert I ever went to. They are one of my all-time favorites. Integrity is my favorite though, since I first heard them. I think that some of the guitar parts on Seasons and some of Humanity, I'm more in sync with that on Howling.
I will disagree with you on the fact that ambient music is a purge. I do think that if there are a few things that ambient music is very good for — slow-burn pacing and dynamics. Lots of crescendos and drama.
Absolutely. It's cinematic, and you really have to invest the time to reap the reward. I dabble in every genre of music, as far as being a listener. There is something of merit to everything. For a while when I was doing the A389 distro, I would have all these noise records and would have a hard time describing them. Then one weekend I got really into noise music and realized the rewards of those records are the fact that the more you listen, the different layers of things you hear. That's pretty much what we did with the Integrity record too in that repeat listening reaps rewards.
Did you have any other goals for the record in approach or aesthetic?
I think one goal that we had came from Dwid's and my love for Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, particularly how when you listen to Led Zeppelin IV, there isn't a single other song on that record that sounds anywhere near "Black Dog." Every song sounded different, but it still sounded like Zeppelin on every song. That was the angle we kind of decided on, every song should be different but every song should sound like Integrity. I just wanted to try different things and still keep it in the Integrity world.
So once you went back into writing again, do you think that writing riffs was easier for you because of that time away?
Yeah. I think that time caused them to subconsciously build up in my head. Every band I've ever been in, I've thought of a riff while walking down the street and have recorded it into a tape recorder or my phone. So I feel like I ignored that part of my brain for years and then once I tapped back in, it all kind of started spewing out again.
The funny thing is my entire career I've always said to myself, "God, I hope this riff doesn't sound too much like Integrity." Now I don't have to worry about that.