Artist

In early 2014, James Kurdziel put the first single from U.K. duo Royal Blood into rotation on Buffalo, New York, rock station The Edge, where he serves as program director. That track, "Out of the Black," was instantly reactive. "Immediately the phone calls come in — 'What was that?'" Kurdziel remembers. "What was interesting was: a lot of times when we get those curiosity calls, it's people saying, 'What was that song you played that kind of sounded like Kings of Leon or Smashing Pumpkins?' You didn't get a lot of that with Royal Blood. This was: 'What was that? I don't know what it sounds like, I just know I like it.'"

So it's been for Royal Blood — an English twosome featuring Mike Kerr on bass and vocals and Ben Thatcher on drums — who will touch down stateside this fall in support of their second LP, How Did We Get So Dark?, and play major American venues as the opener for Queens of the Stone Age.

When the duo released their debut album in 2014, they incited the kind of mainstream fervor that has rarely flared for new rock bands in the last decade. The pair quickly racked up populist milestones — Royal Blood went No. 1 in the U.K., and spawned three top five entries on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Songs chart in the U.S. — as well as praise from some of rock's biggest names, new and old: Foo Fighters took them on tour, while Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page described their output as "music of tremendous quality." 

This was a remarkable turn of events for Kerr and Thatcher, who have known each other since the two were teens in South England and have been gigging in a series of going-nowhere-loudly bands for longer than that. Thatcher almost abandoned band life completely — "You'd travel up to Glasgow to play to three people, and they were the bar staff," he lamented in 2015 — but agreed to record with Kerr again after the bassist returned from a sojourn in Australia.

The two write incisive songs, occasionally swiping from the heavy-bore ebb and flow of 1970s blues rock but mostly conjuring a crystalline, brisk, no-frills smack primed for filling arenas with bodies in motion. They love lurching shifts that allow them to move suddenly from chugging and sludgy to vroom-ing and needle-nosed.

Kerr's bass, to everyone's delight, also serves up a guitar sound, pulling double duty as bludgeoning rhythm instrument and a source of squalling leads. "If you get him to play guitar, he just sounds like Jimi Hendrix; if you play it on bass, it sounds like Royal Blood," explains Jolyon Thomas, who co-produced the duo's new album. Few overdubs are added in the studio: Kerr mostly plays songs all the way through on a three-quarter sized bass with two guitar amps, a bass amp and a selection of pedals. "You get a lot more energy out of a smaller thing," Thomas notes, referring to Kerr's choice of instrument.

Add to that Thatcher's drumming: busy, hammering, authoritative. "It isn't all about the bass; there are big beats on there," Thomas says. "Big fills and big drum moments: you know it's coming; you anticipate it; everyone locks in together."

Though listeners took to Royal Blood's music in droves — the duo's first album was the fastest-selling rock debut in the U.K. since Noel Gallagher came out with his High Flying Birds project — Kerr remains modest when assessing his group's impact. The relative scarcity of mainstream rock acts, he reasons, "was working in our favor." "We came along at the right time, certainly in the U.K., as something new and exciting," he continues. "That has happened at different points in the past and will happen at different points in the future."

The band was catapulted into the whirlwind that boosts buzzy acts, touring furiously for two and a half years behind just ten tracks. "They're songs that we love, but we debuted a new one at Reading Festival in 2015 ["Hook, Line and Sinker"] and we were beyond happy to be playing something new," says Kerr. "We weren't ever expecting things to happen so quickly and so fast," he adds.

This set up Royal Blood, like many groups before it, for a second-album letdown. The routine that created the original batch of ear-perking songs had been destroyed by the churn of the next-big-thing machine. And total life upheaval was compounded by the pressure of people like Jimmy Page predicting "they're going to take rock into a new realm."

Aware of this potential pitfall, the duo moved cautiously when they started making How Did We Get So Dark?, trying sessions in England, Nashville and Los Angeles before hitting the studio in Brussels with approximately 50 song ideas. "It probably took a bit longer than we thought or were planning it to take," says Kerr. "But I think it was all the better for it. We needed a bit of a time out."

They recruited Thomas — who has credits on records by M83 and Daughter, and was assisting U2 with new music in 2015 — to help them make small alterations to their sound on How Did We Get So Dark? "We wanted to progress," Kerr says, but not end up making "a kind of weird reggae record." On multiple songs, he serves as his own backing chorus for the first time, stacking harmonies that add a lighthearted call-and-response element to the jarring riffs.

Originally, Royal Blood brought in backup singers with a background in soul and gospel to handle the harmonies, but according to Kerr, "it wasn't quite right."

"We thought about other singers and other textures," acknowledges Thomas, "but [Royal Blood's] just two guys, and as soon you move it away from that, it loses its character. It's like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards — there's a dynamic there, and they play off each other. If you took Jagger away, Richards would be really rough; if you took Richards away, Jagger would be really annoying. It's the same with them."

The other adjustments Royal Blood make to their sound on How Did We Get So Dark? are more subtle. Occasionally the pair augments their ascetic drum and bass setup with a keyboard — a Fender Rhodes bass, according to Thomas, in keeping with the duo's bass-heavy sound. Two collaborators also helped out with songwriting: John Barrett from Bass Drum of Death is credited on two songs, and Patrik Berger, better known for his high-flying forays in the pop songwriting world (Robyn's "Dancing on My Own," Charli XCX's "Boom Clap"), added to album closer "Sleep."

In sum, these changes all add a bright patina to Royal Blood's whomping, cinderblock-dense core. The contrast between sheen and tooth-shaking sound is made more extreme by Kerr's morose vocals, which often dwell on imploding relationships — including his own, which fell apart following the success of Royal Blood — and their aftermath. The records opens "on a sinking ship with a heavy heart." "How did I become a lookalike of someone you used to love?" Kerr wonders. Little has changed on album closer "Sleep," which finds the singer in a jealous frenzy: "I just can't help myself/ Thinking you're with someone else/ Sick to the bone/ I don't wanna sleep." Kerr is not one for parsing lyrics, though he allows that "Sleep" appears to have struck a nerve: "From the minimal feedback I've seen online, it seems to have resonated with a few people."

Royal Blood have managed to achieve an increasingly rare balance, making heavy rock that is palatable to the mainstream. "There's a lack of riff-based music at modern day alternative radio," explains Ross Mahoney, Program Director for Las Vegas' X107.5 "You either go to the left and play a lot of Foster the People or pop stuff, or you go to the right and play more of the Breaking Benjamin or Three Days Grace stuff. [Royal Blood] walk that line." This puts them in a small group of bands — Mahoney also points to Highly Suspect and Deftones — that bring some weight to today's Alternative Rock airwaves. "It sounds so good cutting through," he adds.

Royal Blood's single "Lights Out" reached 1.4 million listeners through radio last week, according to Nielsen Soundscan. Once again, Kurdziel is seeing that the duo's single is causing The Edge's listeners to break their daily routine, call into the station and beg for more information on the band. "Almost the same thing happened [as it did when they released their first album]: you put the song on, and you get the calls, 'What was that?'" Kurdziel says. "You tell people it's the new Royal Blood. They go, 'Oh! Cool!'"

This year, Danny Wimmer Presents, the Los Angeles-based festival production and promotion company behind Rock on the Range, Monster Energy Aftershock Festival and other major rock events, launched their new video series "What Drives You?" As its title suggests, the franchise compiles interviews with noteworthy musicians about their sources of inspiration and motivation, presented alongside live footage from recent DWP-presented shows. Following March's inaugural installment featuring Korn's Jonathan Davis, DWP is back with another short video, this time starring Slipknot/Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor. Check it out below.

"What drives me?" Taylor ponders in the clip's opening seconds, answering the question with a query of his own: "What fucking doesn't drive me?" He then goes on to list some of his biggest motivators: his love for music, his struggles with personal demons, his duty to fuel the crowd ("the mob," to borrow Taylor's phrasing), and an insatiable desire to make art. "It's that need in me to create," he explains. "It's that need in me to explain. It's that need in me to reach out, react, empathize and have people reciprocate that feeling: to understand it, to relate, so you don't feel as alone." Taylor's interview is interspersed with scenes of his performance with Stone Sour at Las Vegas' T-Mobile Arena earlier this month (July 1).

Yesterday, Taylor announced the second-annual Ozzfest Meets Knotfest: a weekend-long merger of Ozzy Osbourne and Slipknot's respective festivals set to take place November 4-5, in San Bernadino, CA. The Iowa legends (who curated Knotfest, per usual) are not scheduled to perform; Instead, Taylor will hit the stage with Stone Sour, who released their sixth album Hydrograd last month. Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Prophets of Rage, Testament, Children of Bodom are just a few of the 40 bands slated to play the tag-team weekender.

Mastodon dropped by 'Conan' for an awesome performance of their single, "Show Yourself." Check out the video below.

The Atlanta-based outfit's 'Conan' appearance follows their European tour behind their latest album, Emperor of Sand. Mastodon also recently confirmed another run of North American dates with Eagles of Death Metal and Russian Circles for the fall, as well as a September benefit concert in Chicago, to support suicide prevention initiatives and mental health education. After that, they'll head to the U.K. for even more shows. Check here for a full list of dates.

In an interview with Revolver earlier this year, Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor discussed "Show Yourself" at length, revealing that the song almost didn't make Emperor of Sand's final track listing. "I kind of was not wanting to even put 'Show Yourself' in there at first," he explained. "I was not really into it. I liked it, but I thought it was too catchy and too easy–but then when I saw the scope of everything I realized there was a lot of density on the record. Every song had six or eight working parts, so 'Show Yourself' is like a nice breather from the rest of it."

On the surface, a band like Cannabis Corpse probably shouldn't have lasted as long as it has. A weed-themed death-metal act bursting with inside jokes isn't exactly something that should have longevity outside of a record or two. The fact that the band — which features members of Municipal Waste, Six Feet Under and Black Dahlia Murder — has been kicking since 2006 (and have released three LPs and three EPs) is truly a testament to their songwriting ability. And it's hard to argue with the material that they produce: scorching death metal with nods to past legends (whether in musical tribute or in jest). 

The tributes continue with their new song "In Dank Purity" (hello Monstrosity) from their forthcoming LP Left Hand Pass (hi Entombed), which is due via Season of Mist on September 8th. Musically, the new track is no laughing matter: the putrid death metal cut uses start-stop rhythms and alternates between blasts and a d-beat-y gallop to bring home its worm-ridden point. So pack the bowl and inhale "In Dank Purity" deeply, available for the first time below. And check out the lyrics for the track while you're down there. 

Left Hand Pass is currently up for preorder via the label. Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

"IN DANK PURITY" Lyrics

"Watching, waiting…
The wretched art that soon I'll be creating
is placating my abhorrent evil lust
my illness in the stillness
is worsened by voices so relentless
I can't resist their hideous and unyielding commandment

My victim's home alone, its late at night…
I have been studying her every movement
Smoking weed she did not notice me
sneaking into her dark apartment

So close I can smell her lovely skin
Bloodcurdling murder will soon begin
The gleam of the knife raised above my head
fills me with remorse it will be stained by bloodshed

I FEEL!
A wave of sick pleasure as I begin stabbing her
MURDER!
Gore showers on me I am filled with ecstasy
I FEEL!
A wave of sick pleasure as I begin stabbing her

ALL IN DANK PURITY

Gagging on blood, a quick struggle
her whimpering only makes me chuckle
I try to savor each and every moment
euphoric my face locked in an evil grin
I shall unlock the beauty deep within
her lungs still contain the smoke of her final toke

Insane, Psychotic
each slash and stab i find very erotic
A monster reveling in depravity
I can not control these urges
or when the demon inside reemerges
This violence is the only thing thats real within myself

I FEEL!
A wave of sick pleasure as I begin stabbing her
MURDER!
Gore showers on me I am filled with ecstasy
I FEEL!
A wave of sick pleasure as I begin stabbing her

ALL IN DANK PURITY

Not done yet, so frantic i've become obsessed
breaking the ribs to open up her chest
Take time to admire the heavenly organs
cannot wait to poke a small hole in her lung
 inhale the smoke inside this pretty one
my repugnant vision is now done..."

It's well-known amongst Ministry fans that the band's 1992 breakthrough album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, which came out on July 14th, 1992, was created in a whirlwind of drug-fueled turbulence, outrageous debauchery and multiple brushes with death.

At the time, it seemed highly (with an emphasis on high) unlikely that frontman Al Jourgensen would still be alive by the end of the album tour, which included a legendary slot on Lollapalooza 1992 that also featured Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Ice Cube and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Defying the odds, Jourgensen and his bandmates — guitarists Mike Scaccia and Louis Svitek, bassist Paul Barker, drummer Bill Rieflin — not only lived through the tour, but Barker and Svitek lasted until 2003's Animositisomina before quitting the band due to irreconcilable differences.

But no matter how dysfunctional the relationship eventually got between Jourgensen and Barker, the two managed to set aside enough of their differences over a two year period between 1991 and 1992 to create and record their breakthrough fifth record Psalm 69. While the album is most commonly called Psalm 69, the full title was Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs. The latter part of the name came from a line from Aleister Crowley and was a reference to the "69" sex position (succeed was a pun for "suck seed"). And the only actual text that appeared on the album artwork was  ΚΕΦΑΛΗΞΘ, which is Greek for "Head 69." 

The album became Ministry's most popular release, spawning the singles "Jesus Built My Hotrod," "N.W.O." and "Just One Fix" and going platinum in December 1995. Ironically, the band's label Sire/Warner Bros. were initially convinced the album was a failure and struggled with Ministry during the entire creation of the record, even though they reluctantly agreed to double the initial $750,000 advance for the release.

When I was working with Jourgensen to compile his memoir — Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen — the band's frontman documented, in unflinching detail, the chaos and decadence that went down during the creation of Psalm 69 (as well as the dozens of other episodes of conflict, mayhem and creativity that have occurred over the rest of the band's career).

Here, we present seven of the most outrageous incidents of the Psalm era: 

Psalm 1: Drugs, Drugs, Drugs
By the time Ministry were done touring for their 1989 album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, Jourgensen, his ex-wife Patty and guitarist Mike Scaccia were all nursing voracious drug habits. "I was shooting up, smoking crack and drinking Bushmills laced with acid," Jourgensen says. "And it was a cycle that I'd repeat 10 times a day, at least."

The addictions cost the band about $1,000 a day, which they happily paid for with their $750,000 advance from Sire/ Warner Bros. for the follow-up to The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. At the time, Jourgensen was fed up with the protocol of the music industry and felt he had fallen into a creative rut. 

"What I was doing wasn't art anymore," he says. "It wasn't fun. It was procedure. Since I wasn't enjoying what I used to love I decided to rebel harder than ever and push the limits to their utmost extremes. Mikey and I were shooting speedballs, blending smack and coke in the same syringe so you don't nod off and you don't get wired. And then we'd sit around and record walls of white noise for hours on end."

Psalm 2: Al Jourgensen and Gibby Haynes' Build a "Hotrod"
One day when the Butthole Surfers were in Chicago — where Ministry were working on the record — Jourgensen invited frontman Gibby Haynes to come to Wax Trax Studios to collaborate.

"Gibby came in absolutely shitfaced," Jourgensen says. "He couldn't even walk. We set him up with a stool, gave him a microphone and a fifth of Jack and played this thrashy, redneck rock track we were fucking around with. Gibby babbled this incoherent nonsense, knocked over the whiskey and fell off the stool. We propped him back up again and tried again. 'Bing, bang, dingy, dong, wah, wah, ling, a bong!' He slurred shit like that for a while then — crash! — back on the floor. We went on like that for take after take and got nothing but gibberish with a few discernible words, like 'baby,' 'gun,' 'trailer park,' 'around' and 'why, why, why!' Finally, Gibby passed out and it was up to me to turn all that babbling into a track.

"It was like pulling a diamond ring out of a septic tank," Jourgensen adds. "I edited the song on my two-track at home and I spliced so much tape to make his gobbledy-gook sound like words. Even in my fucked up state, I had the rock-steady hands to conduct delicate brain surgery. I cut tape all night long and three weeks later it started sounding pretty good. I added these samples about drag racing, put in these crazy backwards effects, racecar sounds, a thrash beat [guitarist] Mikey [Scaccia's] riff. Mikey added these wild blues solos, then I added the nonsense spoken word intro to go along with Gibby's moronic lyrics."

When Ministry's record label started getting anxious and pressuring Jourgensen about what he and his bandmates were doing with their $750,000 advance, he delivered his collaboration with Haynes — now christened "Jesus Built My Hotrod" — because that's all he had.

"They hated me to the point of viciousness," Jourgensen says. "They had given me all this money and this was all I had to show for it. They became hell-bent on my destruction. I got this phone call: 'We gave you $750,000 and you send this nonsense back to us. What are we supposed to do with this?' They hated it. I was like, 'Well, either double down or not, man. Cut us loose now if you want. I don't care.' So they took the bait and doubled down, which was cool because we actually got the record company to pay us $1.5 million to make this fucking record!"

Psalm 3: Run-in with Rollins
When Lollapalooza came to Chicago in 1991 on the first year of the festival, Jourgensen went to check out his former roadie Trent Reznor's band. The Rollins Band were opening the main stage that year and when Jourgensen went backstage to congratulate Reznor he bumped into muscle-bound vocalist and media celebrity Henry Rollins, whose band was sharing a bus with Nine Inch Nails. 

"Rollins looks at me and says, 'Get out of here, you piece of shit. I hate junkies,' " Jourgensen recalls. "I know Henry Rollins is supposed to be this he-man who lifts weights, takes off his shirt and shows his muscles offstage, but I didn't know if the guy could fight or not, and frankly, I didn't care," Ministry's frontman explains. Determined to defend himself regardless of the cost he sprung into action. "I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just took a giant swing at him a caught him with a right hook to the jaw," Jourgensen says. "His eyes widened with surprise and he went down and then a bunch of guys split us up. He didn't even get a shot in and he never came after me or bothered me again. 

Psalm 4: The Junkies Versus the Book Club
While Jourgensen, his wife, Scaccia and possibly other members of Ministry's entourage were battling crippling drug habits, bassist Paul Barker, drummer, Bill Rieflin and vocalist Chris Connelly — drug-free individuals who Jourgensen nicknamed "the book club" — began to take more control over the day-to-day activities of the band, even though Jourgensen insists he and Scaccia were still responsible for the bulk of the usable creative output.

"I was a mess, but thank God for Mikey," Jourgensen says. "He was wasted all the time, but still productive. And the success of 'Jesus Built My Hotrod' gave Mikey a second wind. He came up with all the riffs for "N.W.O." "Just One Fix" and other thrash-based riffs. I just added my production and some movie samples to make it cool. But Barker saw this as his opportunity to take over. Ministry started getting out of my hands as my baby the more Barker took over. It became corporate and then I became more rebellious than ever when it came to my own self-destruction. I felt cornered now. I had all these people running my life and I was taken over. Ministry was taken over for a few years by the book club. And that's OK; it needed to be because I was useless. I was completely whacked out of my mind on drugs so I figured I'd put it to the guy that's not whacked out of his mind on drugs and put it in his charge, and that would be Barker. For about three years he assumed the main identity of Ministry and did all the interviews and promotion because I was unable to walk from mixing board to the front door without falling down. Seriously, that was my downward spiral."

Psalm 5: Chased Out of Chicago
It takes a lot for a band to be drummed out of town by the Chicago industrial rock community, but that's exactly what happened to Ministry while they were working on Psalm 69 at Chicago Trax. Jourgensen and Co. were doing the best they could to be productive considering some of the main members of the band were incapacitated by chronic narcotic use. But Jourgensen's out-of-control drug habit wasn't what got him ostracized by the locals. In a way, Jourgensen's exile was inevitable. It wasn't just the vast quantities of substances he was doing that turned people against him it was the debauchery that was happening at Chicago Trax while he was nodded off that sealed his fate.

"It didn't have anything to do with me," he insists. "A doorman would tell a girl, 'If you give me an extra $1,000, I'll let you in there all night and you just go right up to Al and give him a blowjob. He's the one in the bubble chair.' People were overdosing in front of me or swallowing their tongues. I'd be all junked out, trying to rationally deal with this shit: stabbings, thefts, all kinds of mayhem. Then somebody died, but not on my watch." 

Someone threw a heroin birthday party for Jourgensen and two of the attendees were Jourgensen's tattoo artist Guy Aitchison and his friend Lorri Jackson, a local poet. While Aitchison was still hanging out Jackson left the party with a heroin dealer and overdosed. "I got fuckin' blamed for it," Jourgensen gripes. "I had nothing to do with it. She showed up at my place, met this guy, left with him and shot up with him and died in his house, not my house. But the press attacked me, everyone was giving me the evil eye, the cops were watching me. The heat was on. I literally got drummed out of Chicago and I'll never forgive the people who treated me like a serial killer after this girl died."

Psalm 6: The Book Club Moves the Junkies to a More Productive Location
Pressured to leave Chicago, Barker convinced Jourgensen and the rest of team Ministry to relocate to Shade Tree Studio in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Barker's aim was to get Jourgensen away from his Chicago drug buddies and into a healthier, more productive environment. But he miscalculated Jourgensen and Scaccia's willpower.

"Barker was too stupid to find a place more than 90 miles away," Jourgensen says. "So me and Mikey just wound up driving the 90 miles twice a week to hook up with our dealers, jonesing all the way there and risking getting arrested on the way back. We had a couple of close shaves with the law, where we were pulled over and we hid our stash behind the ashtray, popped the vents out, put our stuff in there and clicked it back in just  as the cops came up to us with a flashlight." 

The Wisconsin studio was owned by Cheap Trick, whose guitarist Rick Nielsen later became one of Jourgensen's close friends. But being outside of Chicago and in an unfamiliar location just emphasized the cavernous gulf that had developed between Ministry's two main men.

"We weren't a unified team anymore by any stretch of the imagination," Jourgensen says. "Me and Mikey were in one camp. Barker, Atkins and Connelly were in another camp. But the funny thing is that we were the scumbags, yet we were the ones coming up with all the fucking songs. They treated us like shit and tried to give us a schedule to follow. It was like, 'Hurry up, we're off schedule.' I was like, 'Schedule? What Schedule? We're wasted, I'll work tomorrow.' That was the beginning of the big split in the band. We were all fucked up and they were all freaked out because we were the creative force of the band and, hey, if the junkies didn't produce, they didn't eat."

Psalm 7: Al Jourgensen and William Burroughs Join Forces for a "Fix"
For the song "Just One Fix," Jourgensen included audio from speeches and readings given by legendary writer and junky William S. Burroughs. When Ministry finished the album and their label were seeking clearances for the samples, they had a problem. No one seemed to be able to clear the Burroughs samples. Wary of a lawsuit, the label tried in vain to reach Burroughs' camp, which delayed the release of Psalm 69 by two months. When Burroughs' manager James Grauerholz read an article in which Jourgensen explained the delay he became incensed and tracked down Ministry's frontman. "He called me and said, 'Nobody asked us for sample clearance. We never said you can't use that stuff. As a matter of fact, why don't you come to Lawrence, Kansas where Bill lives and we'll do new stuff.' "

Thrilled with the idea, the band, representatives from Ministry's label and management and a video crew headed to Burroughs' home to record new audio and shoot a video. Everyone arrived on time except Jourgensen. He was three days late. "There were a couple reasons I kept Bill waiting," he explains. "First, I had to finish up a Revolting Cocks mix that I was already late doing because we had been working on Psalm 69."

More problematic to Jourgensen were the travel plans that had been booked for him. He was scheduled to fly out on the 23rd, but he refused to take a plane because he was superstitious about traveling on that day. So Jourgensen compromised and agreed to travel by car with a friend from Chicago.

"We stopped off in Kansas City, knowing we didn't have enough dope to last us our trip," Jourgensen says. "We figured Bill would probably want some. We went to this ghetto neighborhood and drove around looking for someone on a corner or something.  We got chased out by the cops because we were two white guys in this ghetto area — it was pretty obvious what we were trying to do. So we said, 'Fuck it. Let's just go to Bill's house.' We drive down to Bill's, knock on his door and he answers. The first thing he says is 'Are ya holding?' He didn't even say hello.  Then he said, 'I can smell a junkie a mile away.' We only had enough to keep ourselves from getting sick. So I was like, 'No,' and he slammed the door in our face."

Figuring the key to admission at the Burroughs estate was smack, Jourgensen drove 35 miles back to Kansas City and cruised the ghettos again. This time he found a kid on a street corner who sold him $800 worth of heroin. Pleased with his success, Jourgensen headed back to Burroughs' house.

"We knocked, he opens the door and is like, 'Oh, it's you again.' He knew he had to do a video with us for 'Just One Fix.' He had already agreed to it. We were like 'No, no, no. It's different this time. We scored. We're holding.' He says, 'Come on in.' We go into Bill's living room and right away he goes to the bedroom. Bill was like a giddy little kid because his manager James usually prevented him from using. He was strictly on this methadone program. He wasn't shooting and he hated coke. So James would keep him on the straight and narrow. But James had the flu and Bill was taking advantage of this – kind of like daddy's away so I will play. We go to shoot up and he brings out this, like, Pulp Fiction 1950s' leather belt with 1950s' needles – really old school. It was comical. We had our little normal needles and he had this elaborate setup. We all shoot up and pass out for a while. I still haven't said anything to this guy and he hasn't said anything to me. Then I wake up and I see a letter from the White House — the fucking White House — on his table, unopened. I was like 'Bill, you got a letter from the White House.' He is like 'Eh, so what? It's junk mail.' I said, 'Are you going to open it?' He said, 'No.' I asked if I could open it. He said, 'Whatever you want to do.' So I open it and it is a letter from Bill Clinton saying he wanted Bill to come do spoken word at the White House. I was pretty impressed by that. I was telling him that and Bill says, 'Who's the president now?' He didn't even know it. He didn't know it was Clinton. Not a fucking clue. And he didn't give a shit. When I read him the letter he was like, 'I never heard of Bill Clinton.' He said he wouldn't go and he never did." 

Uninterested in contemporary politics, Burroughs spoke at length about his garden, griping about the raccoons that were destroying his petunias. "He said he would try to shoot the animals with a pellet gun but they always got away. He wasn't allowed to own a real gun because he accidentally shot his wife back in the 1950s. So he was trying to kill these raccoons, but the pellet gun didn't fire fast enough. I said to him, 'Bill, you're on the methadone program, right?' And he said, 'Yeah, so what?' And I said, 'Well, why don't you put out methadone wafers for the Raccoons to eat. That way, maybe it'll slow them down enough so you can get them with your pellet gun.' "

That was pretty much the end of the conversation, so Jourgensen and his friend headed to the hotel to meet up with the band and video crew. The next day they showed up at the location for the "Just One Fix" video shoot and Burroughs wasn't there yet. Four hours later he arrived with a broad smile on his face.

"William Burroughs was the grumpiest bastard I had ever met," Jourgensen says. "He never seemed happy about anything. But he was in a great mood from the moment he walked in. He comes up to me and he says, 'You're an astute young man. Your idea was magnificent. I shot two stoned raccoons today!' Right away, I was on Bill's friend list and it was a short list. And all because he took my suggestion of feeding these raccoons methadone wafers so he could slow them down and shoot them. Up until the time of his death, he would call me about once a week and we'd talk. But the real reason for his call was to bitch at me for doing coke. His exact quote was, 'Why would a person do a drug that keeps you up all night twitching? Stick to heroin, kid.' "

Born Ronald James Padavona in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the man who would become Dio developed a love of music at a young age, honing his unique singing voice through a combination of opera study (especially the work of tenor Mario Lanza) and the breathing techniques he'd picked up playing the trumpet. Dio broke into the heavy metal consciousness in the late '60s and early '70s through his work with the Electric Elves, and later Rainbow, his baroque-flavored heavy metal band with Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore.

In 1979, he left the project and enlisted as Black Sabbath's vocalist, replacing fired frontman Ozzy Osbourne. He and the band recorded three albums together before parting ways at the end of the '80s, paving the way for Dio's eponymous band, and later Heaven and Hell, a group with current and former Black Sabbath members. Following a battle with stomach cancer, Dio died on May 16, 2010, at the age of 67.

Between his free-wheeling victory yell – the quintissential "Heavy Metal Scream" – his popularization of the now-ubiquitous gesture known as the devil horns and his cadre of kick-ass albums, Dio bequeathed the metal world some of its greatest treasures. More importantly, he helped popularize the genre as a form of deathly, riff-filled dramaturgy: opera at its most aggressive and caustic, a titanic heart to match his bandmates' hulking instrumentals. Black Sabbath's October 17, 1980 performance at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, in Hempstead, New York being one of the greatest testaments to Dio's strength as a frontman and a force of nature (It's chronicled on the 1981 tour movie Black and Blue), we're celebrating Dio's birthday with a trip down memory lane. Watch him lead Sabbath in a performance of the self-titled track from 1980's Heaven and Hell above.

Last year, Ozzy Osbourne and Slipknot joined forces for Ozzfest Meets Knotfest, a historic two-day event that combined the artists' respective metal festivals into one Godzilla-sized weekender attended by an estimated 75,000 people. Today, the legends have announced the festival's return. Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Prophets of Rage and Deftones are but a handful of the 40-plus bands playing the second-annual Ozzfest Meets Knotfest. The music and camping festival will be held November 4-5 on the Glen Helen Ampitheater & Festival Grounds in San Bernadino, California. Tickets will go on sale July 14 on Ozzfest and Knotfest's websites. Check out the full lineup in the poster below.

Osbourne's headlining set at Ozzfest Meets Knotfest marks his first solo appearance in the Los Angeles area in over six years. The Black Sabbath frontman will be joined by guitarist Zakk Wylde, keyboardist Adam Wakeman, bassist Rob Nicholson and drummer Tommy Clufetos. Prophets of Rage, Deftones, Children of Bodom, Baroness, High On Fire and Orange Goblin will also perform during the Ozzfest portion of the festival on Saturday.

In a departure from last year's Ozzfest Meets Knotfest program, Slipknot will not be performing during their self-curated Knotfest portion; Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson will headline in their stead. Nevertheless, the Iowa band will be well represented, with a performance by frontman Corey Taylor's side band Stone Sour. "Knotfest was never supposed to be exclusively about Slipknot," he said of this year's installment. "It was always about the things that fueled the spirit of Slipknot: music, art, passion, insanity and the tribes that give it power — so it would make sense for Knotfest to carry on these ideas, even without Slipknot."

Slipknot's co-founding percussionist, Michael "Clown" Crahan, concludes: "It's that incredible time again, where Ozzfest and Knotfest meet up to bring all music fans together for two days of rock & roll." To fans, he offers the following instructions: "Let's not forget the beautiful culture we are involved in and the history that is being written."

Marilyn Manson is preparing to release his tenth album Heaven Upside Down sometime later this year. He's set to hit the road in Europe later on this month, beginning with the Budapest Park Open Air festival in Budapest, Hungary on July 12. Today, Manson has expanded that trek even further: He's just announced the tour's North American leg. The outing kicks off September 27 in Silver Spring, MD, and will conclude in late October, with back-to-back shows at Las Vegas' House of Blues; A few weeks later, Manson will embark for another round of dates in Europe and the U.K. Check out his full itinerary below.

For the most part, Manson has kept mum on details regarding Heaven Upside Down, which was originally expected to come out in February before being pushed back to this summer, and later, fall. Last November, he released a NSFW video for new single "SAY10" (also the LP's working title at the time); The grim clip finds Manson ripping pages out of a Bible and beheading a suited man who strongly resembles Donald Trump.

Speaking with Dazed last year, Manson described his follow-up to 2015's The Pale Emperor LP as "a combination of Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals in feeling," adding: "It's by far the most thematic and over-complicated thing that I've done. In a way, it's deceptively delightful to strangers – It's like the old saying, that the devil's greatest secret is that people don't believe he exists."

Jul. 20 – Budapest, Hungary – Budapest Park Open Air
Jul. 21 – Katowice, Poland – Metal Hammer Festival
Jul. 22 – Dresden, Germany – Junge Garde
Jul. 24 – Tolmin, Slovenia – Metaldays 2017
Jul. 25 – Rome, Italy – Rock In Roma
Jul. 26 – Verona, Italy – Villafranca Castle
Jul. 28 – Oulu, Finland – Qstock 2017
Jul. 31 – Moscow, Russia – Stadium Live
Aug. 02 – Kiev, Ukraine – Sport Palace
Aug. 04 – Wacken, Germany – Wacken Open Air
Aug. 05 – Utrecht, Netherlands – Tivolivredenberg – Ronda
Aug. 06 – Lokeren, Belgium – Lokerse Festival
Aug. 10 – Avenches, Switzerland – Festival Rock Oz'Arenes
Aug. 12 – Landerneau, France – Fete Du Bruit
Sep. 27 - Silver Spring, MD - The Fillmore Silver Spring
Sep. 29 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
Sep. 30 - New York, NY - Hammerstein Ballroom
Oct. 02 - Boston, MA - House of Blues - Boston
Oct. 03 - Huntington, NY - The Paramount
Oct. 05 - Toronto, ON - Rebel
Oct. 08 - Columbus, OH - Express Live!
Oct. 10 - Chicago, IL - Riviera Theatre
Oct. 11 - Milwaukee, WI - Eagles Ballroom
Oct. 17 - Tulsa, OK - Brady Theater
Oct. 19 - Denver, CO - Fillmore Auditorium
Oct. 20 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Complex
Oct. 23 - Oakland, CA - Fox Theater
Oct. 27-28 - Las Vegas, NV - House of Blues
Nov. 14 – Stockholm, Sweden – Annexet
Nov. 15 – Elsingnore, Denmark – Hal 14
Nov. 16 – Hamburg, Germany – Sporthalle
Nov. 18 – Munich, Germany – Zenith
Nov. 19 – Prague, Czech Republic – TIP Sport Arena
Nov. 20 – Vienna, Austria – Gasometer
Nov. 22 – Turin, Italy – Pala Alpitour
Nov. 23 – Zurich, Switzerland – Samsung Hall
Nov. 25 – Berlin, Germany – Velodrom – UFO
Nov. 27 – Paris, France – Accor Hotels Arena
Nov. 28 – Eindhoven, Netherlands – Klokgebouw
Nov. 28 – Dusseldorf, Germany – Mitsubishi Electric Halle
Dec. 01 – Nancy, France – Le Zenith
Dec. 02 – Brussels, Belgium – Forest National
Dec. 04 – Manchester, UK – O2 Apollo
Dec. 05 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy
Dec. 06 – Wolverhampton, UK – Civic Hall
Dec. 08 – Newport, UK – Newport Centre
Dec. 09 – London, UK – SSE Wembley Arena

Last Monday night, July 3, Gary Meskil, the frontman and bassist of New York crossover thrash outfit Pro-Pain, was the victim of a robbery and near-fatal group assault while on tour with the band in Brussels, Belgium. According to an account of the incident posted to the Pro-Pain Facebook page, Meskil's assailants robbed the musician of his cash, credit card and passport before assaulting him, striking his head with an ice-pick. He is currently in a Belgian hospital recovering from his injuries, which include severe head trauma, multiple fractures to the face and jaw and significant blood loss. Brussels police have identified several suspects in the attack and have confiscated at least one weapon, according to local reports.

One week later, Meskil's condition has stabilized, his loved ones say. While he's currently "resting comfortably," the bandleader will require surgery for his wounds. Meskil offered his account of the attack to Het Nieuwsblad's Tom De Smet, subsequently published by Blabbermouth:

"Last Monday, I went out with Adam [Phillips, Pro-Pain guitarist] in Brussels. Adam returned to the hotel in the Stalingradlaan in the center of Brussels, and I went for a beer in a bar nearby, around midnight. At the table next to me, there were some young guys and we started talking. It was all very friendly. Just a nice chat. After a while, I went to the bartender to pay my bill. When I returned, two of the guys I had talked to bumped into me. Then I realized that they took my wallet. I confronted them and they start hitting me. They got help from four others. They used an ice pick to hit me on the head. They kept on kicking me after I had fallen to the ground. They robbed me of a lot of money: the fees of several shows. I lost eighty percent of my blood. The doctors said that I was lucky to make it. They even had to remove glass from my eyes, because they kicked the glasses I was wearing. My jaw is broken, and I will need multiple surgeries. I don't know when I will be able to sing again. It can take weeks, possibly even months."

In the wake of last week's attack, two members of Meskil's family have set up a GoFundMe drive to cover $20,000 in medical and dental expenses not covered by the musician's insurance. Those who contribute to the fund, which has raised over $11,000 as of today, will be listed in the credits for Pro-Pain's next album. "We appreciate your kindness and generosity at this difficult time," Lisa and Gary Jr. said in the campaign description. Click here to pitch in.

Best wishes for a successful, speedy recovery, Gary!