Pulse – Rock Music News

A Los Angeles judge ruled in favor of The Offspring in their long legal battle with former drummer Ron Welty, who claimed he was owed millions in profits from from the band's $35 million catalog sale.

According to Rolling Stone, the judge wrote, "Judgment is entered in favor of defendants Offspring Inc. Plaintiff Ron Welty shall take nothing."

In a statement to Billboard, Welty's attorney Jordanna G. Thigpen vowed to continue the fight.

Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx is feeling invigorated being back on the road with the band -- so much so that he wants them to keep going far beyond their current tour with Def Leppard.

Blabbermouth transcribed some of his recent chat with Brazil's A Radio Rock, in which he said, "Tommy (Lee) just had his 60th-birthday party (last October) down in Mexico, and he invited a small group of his very good friends. And I was there, and a bunch of (hi) cool friends. All of our wives were there. John 5 came in. And it was just cool to be able to not talk business, be in rehearsal, get on the phone, talk about the photo shoot or the video. It was just hanging out, walking on the beach. And we had some sweet conversations."

Sixx went on to say, "Me and Tommy and Vince (Neil) had this conversation. I said, 'What are you guys doing for the next eight years?' And everybody's laughing: 'I don't know.' I said, 'Why don't we just keep going? Let's just take it to 50 (years since the band's inception, which will be in 2031).' So this isn't a final tour. What does that look like? I have no idea. I'm just telling you, you have the band saying, 'We're having a blast. Why stop?'"

Nikki Sixx admitted to us that choosing the perfect setlist sometimes proves harder than one might expect: "Obviously people want to hear the hits, y'know, and if you don't play the hits, you're being one of those artists that go, 'We only play the new music.' Then the fans are disappointed. If you don't play any new music, fans are disappointed. So it's a balancing act. You have to struggle with how much time you have. That's the other problem, y'know? It's like, you're playing a festival, how much time do you have to actually play?"

Florence Welch took to social media to tease cover of No Doubt's "Just A Girl" for season two of Showtime's Yellowjackets.

In a video clip, Welch is going through her wardrobe, pulling out a Yellowjackets letterman. She captioned the video, "So happy I got picked for the team this year."

Earlier this week, Dave Grohl volunteered with the non profit organization Feed the Streets by firing up a barbecue grill, cooking meat and serving them to the homeless at MacArthur Park in Los Angeles.

The organization posted a video, along with the caption,"On one of those wet and cold rainy days we received a text from none other than Dave Grohl (code name: Dolce & Gabana) — he said he heard about what we were doing and wanted to help out."

The organization continued, "We threw him into an upcoming activation. He spent 18 hours straight smoking brisket, ribs and pork — with a cooking crew. They stayed up all night and into the sunrise. The next day Dolce and his team, exhausted and sleep deprived — packed up the food and drove it to MacArthur Park. All they had to do was drop it off and leave, however they decided to stay and work the line — serve the BBQ with our crew until everyone at the park was fed. If that ain't a hero we don't know wtf is. Stay tuned, D & G will be back on the blocks to serve Yucca and Skid Row soon!"

Last week, Grohl fed more than 500 people at a homeless shelter in Los Angeles.

The 2023 lineup for Connecticut's Sound On Sound festival will feature headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Mayer, and Alanis Morissette and runs from September 30th through October 1st. Rolling Stone reported the festival will return to Bridgeport's Seaside Park and features such artists as Trey Anastasio Band, Gin Blossoms, Hozier, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Dispatch, Lord Huron, Mt. Joy, Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals, Steel Pulse, Joy Oladokun, Margo Price, Sammy Rae & The Friends, Cautious Clay, Deep Banana Blackout, Briscoe, Calder Allen, Snacktime, Kieran Rhodes, Julaim And The Serotones, among others.

Sound On Sound partner Howard Saffan was quoted in the official announcement as saying, "We are thrilled to bring the second annual Sound On Sound back to Seaside Park. Festival goers can expect to be wowed. The experience will be bigger and better this year from the acts, to the site, to the food and beverage offerings. We have turned the traditional festival upside down and created something really special for Connecticut."

No matter how exotic the locale, bassist Flea told us not long ago that the Chili Peppers approach each show the same way: "Y'know, with gigs, it's always the same for me -- some are fun, some aren't fun, but that doesn't really matter. Actually, serving the mighty tradition of performing for people is just something that I and we as a band care about deeply. So, no matter what the scene is, we're just in to go out there and tap in the source and reach into the most hardcore depths of who we are, to get what we can."

Alanis Morissette always expected to be a musician, but never imagined the fame that would accompany it -- especially after the meteoric success of her 1995 Jagged Little Pill collection, which has sold over 33 million albums to date: "The surprise element maybe wasn't there as much because I had always envisioned myself touring the planet and playing songs. So that aspect felt very natural to me. I think it was the side effects of fame that I wasn't quite prepared for. It was my not being able to leave my hotel room in certain cities because there were people in the hallway waiting. Or coming back to my hotel room after a show and knowing there had been a ton of people in my room because they had access to the key."

The general on sale for the Sound On Sound festival begins on Thursday, March 9th, at 12 noon ET, via soundonsoundct.com.

Portugal. The Man is lending the new single "Dummy" to Taco Bell's late night menu campaign.

Billboard reports that the lead single from the band's upcoming album, Chris Black Changed My Life, appears in a new spot advertising the chain's $5 Cravings Trio.

Additionally, lead singer John Gourley and drummer Jason Sechrist appear in a separate three-minute clip about how eating Taco Bell sustained them during the lean years.

The Edge is promising a revitalized-sounding U2 for its next studio set. The band will drop its new 40-track Songs Of Survival collection on March 17th -- but have already begin plotting their next move, which will feature "big electric guitars."

During a chat with The Telegraph, the guitarist explained, "I'm not sure U2 are going to turn into AC/DC exactly. I'll still be trying to find ways to use the instrument that are new and unfamiliar. But I'm absolutely convinced that the guitar is going to be front and center within mainstream music culture in a year or two, and I want to be part of that revival. . . I don't think there's any chance of the future drying up! I've been working on (other) new stuff in parallel that's much more vital and requires a U2 band sound to fulfill it."

The Edge laughed as he touched upon his connection with Bono, which along with the rest of the band, marks one of rock's most long lasting and dedicated partnerships: "Of course Bono gets too much for me sometimes! I'm sure I drive him mad, as well. If that wasn't the case, I think we would be doing a disservice to each other, because it's in the realm where we push each other, challenge each other, annoy the hell out of each other, that you know there's something going on. If you never get to that place, dude, you don't really have a proper ­creative relationship."

Regarding drummer Bram van den Berg sitting in for Larry Mullen, Jr. during the band's upcoming Las Vegas residency following his back surgery and recovery, The Edge said, "No one is more disappointed than us that Larry won't be joining us in Vegas. . . We made a commitment. In the history of U2, you can count the shows we've missed on the fingers of one hand. . . The people who are going to miss Larry the most, I think, will be Bono, Adam (Clayton) and myself. It'll be strange to turn around and not see him behind us after all these years. But the shows will be amazing."

The Edge told us that U2 has never been comfortable resting on its laurels and has always felt most natural when stepping out on a limb: "In some ways that sense of jeopardy is a good thing. I would hate if we ever lost our great ability to screw up. It's an important part of what the band is. We've never fallen afoul to the risks of becoming too professional or, indeed, over-rehearsing (laughs). Those two things we've managed to avoid up 'til now."

Kid Rock is set to perform four arena shows this year as part of his No Snowflakes tour. The trek will kick off on June 24th in Austin, Texas with Chris Janson and will make stops in Fort Worth, where Marcus King will open. Then on July 1st, Kid Rock will perform in Nashville and Travis Tritt will open and the final show will be in Detroit with Grand Funk Railroad as the opener.

Corey Taylor says his new solo LP CMFT 2 will be "the best rock album of this year and the next." The Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman told NME, "I can't wait for people to hear this album. It chews up that first record and spits it out. It's more dialed in with everything people expect from me, so it's got hints of 'CMFT' but there are also hints of Slipknot, Stone Sour and all the stuff I've done in my acoustic shows. It's got everything for everybody."

He added, "People are going to f*cking lose it."

CMFT 2 is due out in September.

Plans are said to be in the works for a major "Live Aid-like" benefit concert in support of the Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to The Sun, organizers are hoping to attract Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, U2, Adele, Florence And The Machine, Noel Gallagher, the Killers, and Pink to play London's Wembley Stadium on June 24th for a massive, globally televised concert.

An unnamed source told the paper, "It's going to be huge, properly A-list and on a global scale. It's something people have wanted to do for a while, but a date has now been nailed down and booked at Wembley Stadium. Invitations to perform are going out thick and fast to the biggest names in the business. Of course, there is an awareness that at relatively short notice many superstars will have prior commitments. But they're optimistic that a number of those they've spoken to are already on board."

The insider went on to say, "For bands like U2 and Bono, who are pretty outspoken about their views on war and conflict, it feels like a great opportunity to keep hammering home the severity of the situation out in Ukraine."

We caught up with Bono a while back and he explained why U2 remains as socially active as they are: "One thing I'm very sure about is that I am a spoiled-rotten rock star. I am over-paid, over-nourished, and over-dressed (laughter). And I'm sure the work that the band have done is some kind of Catholic guilt -- but it's working, so we'll continue with it."

Over the weekend, Fall Out Boy revealed a track list for their upcoming album and actor Ethan Hawke is featured on a song called "The Pink Seashell."

A couple of years ago, bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz told NME ,that it was inspired by a moment in Hawke's 1994 film, Reality Bites. At the time, Wentz was planning to record it for a solo album, but it ended up on the new Fall Out Boy album instead.

The group recently announced a 29-date-tour, that runs June through August. The new album, So Much (For) Stardust, will be out on March 15.

TL;DR:

On Friday (March 3), Travis Barker updated fans on social media following surgery on his broken ring finger.

Along with a slideshow of pictures from a hospital bed, he wrote: "It was a hard decision to make but ultimately I couldn't continue to play the drums without it." The drummer said his finger would have dislocated again without the operation for his torn ligament.

On Saturday evening, he posted a video of himself and wife Kourtney Kardashian sharing a night out. He had his hand and arm wrapped in gauze, but seemed to be feeling great.

Blink-182 postponed their world tour after Barker's injury, which happened during rehearsals last month. He originally tried to continue and then injured it again a couple of weeks later.

Blink's global trek was set to start in Latin America next week, but has now been pushed back until Barker fully recuperates.

TL;DR:

Billie Eilish says she has a tendency to believe what she reads on the internet and that's why she deleted all social apps from her phone.

In an interview with Conan O'Brien she talked about how the internet has affected her and how she got pro-active about it, and said, "I don't look at it anymore."

She explained that when she became famous during adolescence, and lies were being written about her, that's when it began to have a negative effect.

She admitted that it was "stupid to believe it." She describe it as "small white lies that goes over everyone's heads, but everyone believes."

Even though she took the apps off her phone, she still occasionally shares something. Last week, it was photos of her horseback riding, sunbathing, taking a drive, and just relaxing in general.

TL;DR:

• Billie Eilish says she has a tendency to believe what she reads on the internet and that's the reason she deleted social apps from her phone.
• When she became famous during adolescence, that's when it began to have a negative effect.

Guns N' Roses, Elton John, and Arctic Monkeys have been announced as the headliners to England's famed Glastonbury festival.

Among the other performers set to play the grounds of Worthy Farm, Pilton in Somerset, England between June 21st and June 25th are Blondie, Lizzo, Yusef/Cat Stevens, the Chicks, Lil Nas X, Lana Del Rey, Chvrches, Manic Street Preachers, Fatboy Slim, Maneskin, and Texas, among many others.

Guns N' Roses co-founders Slash and Duff McKagan have decades of history together and Slash told us a while back that he and Duff have always had an undeniable chemistry. "When we first met, Duff came in with, for one, just the greatest f***ing work ethic and a kind of personality that's just totally resilient, which sort of mirrors what I'm about. And then as far as being a player, he has an approach that just goes right in sync with what I do as a guitar player, and we just hit it off as friends, as musicians, ever since the beginning, and it stayed all the way through this whole time."

The Glastonbury performance will mark Elton John's final UK appearance. Elton maintains that it's album sales and concert tickets sold that lets him know he's doing right by fans: " I'm not a person who cherishes Grammy's and things like that. I'm a person who cherishes gold records and platinum records because means that people have paid their hard-earned money to buy something that you've made and the other things are just, y'know, superfluous little trinkets."

In a recent interview, Halestorm's Lzzy Hale explained how 2022's "Back From The Dead" is both the band's both most personal and universal album to date. According to Blabbermouth.net, she said, "Not just because of the pandemic, but I think that as I'm getting older and with each album, I made it my mission to be more unapologetic about myself, about the things that I go through and be very honest and truthful about my triumphs but also the darker sides of myself."

She continued, "Because the more that you give of yourself to the world and to other people, the more positivity that you actually get back from everybody. And I think that that's one of the most beautiful things about being a songwriter and being a lyricist is that you can kind of be a voice to the voiceless and you can be inadvertently there for someone, even if you don't know them and you've never met them. So this is, I guess, what I'm trying to put out into the world. It's very true and near and dear to my heart, and I'm just so glad that it can, even in a small way, help somebody else."

The Rush reissue series continues on April 28th with new and expanded editions of the band's beloved 1982 Signals album, which was the follow-up to their watershed 1981 Moving Pictures collection.

Signals - 40th Anniversary will be available to fans in three distinct configurations, including the Super Deluxe Edition, a one-LP Picture Disc Edition, and a Dolby Atmos Digital Edition. The limited edition Super Deluxe box features eight lithographs of Neil Peart's original hand-drawn lyrics for each song on Signals, and is only available through the official Rush online store.

Rush released Signals, their ninth studio album, on September 9th, 1982. It peaked at Number 10 in the U.S., hitting Number Three in the UK, and snagging the top spot in their native Canada

Signals spawned three singles -- "New World Man," which peaked at Number 21 and marks the band's sole Top 40 hit to date in the States, the iconic "Subdivisions," which hit Number Five on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and "The Analog Kid," which reached Number 19 on the same list.

While promoting Signals, the band's late-drummer and lyricist Neil Peart shed light on how he wanted to frame the story behind "Subdivisions": "It's a common background for each of us and I, kinda, think it's, like, a background for a lot of our audience, too. For all its blandness -- and it's so easy to satirize, y'know, which is a trap I wanted to avoid. It's always been a constant stock joke or skit, or something, to satirize the suburbs and the mentality of it and all and of course, it's as diverse as people are, really, when you come down to it. But it has its own set of values and set of background parameters."

Metallica's James Hetfield is set to star in the upcoming dark western thriller The Thicket, which is based on Joe R. Lansdale's novel of the same name. According to Deadline, the film is produced by Game of Thrones album Peter Dinkage, who also stars in the film as Shorty.

Shorty is a bounty hunter enlisted to find a woman who has been kidnapped by a violent killer. The movie, which is set at the turn of the 20th century, follows Shorty and his fellow trackers as they travel into a violent and chaotic place known as the Big Thicket.

Production of the film is underway in Calgary, Canada.

After dropping their new single, "Dummy," earlier this week, Portugal. The Man just announced that the band plans to tour. They've also released a few details about an upcoming album.

Chris Black Changed My Life, which is due out June 23rd is dedicated to the band's late friend and honorary band member, Chris Black, who died in 2019.

So far, they've announced only five tour dates, but they're big ones… Bonnaroo, Red Rocks, New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland. Tickets are on sale now.

Seven guests are featured within the 11 new tracks, but their identities are being kept a secret for now.

TL;DR:

• Portugal. The Man will play Bonnaroo, Red Rocks, New York City, Los Angeles, and Portland.
• Chris Black Changed My Life, which is due out June 23rd is dedicated to the band's late friend Chris Black.
• Seven guests are featured, but their identities are being kept a secret for now.

U2 bassist Adam Clayton shed light on the group's new album, Songs Of Surrender, which is set for release on St. Patrick's Day, March 17th. He touched on the impetus for the 40-track collection, which is a companion piece to frontman Bono's memoir Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, telling Mojo: "It was very much a Bono and Edge project. It started out being, 'How could we do something that mirrored the chapters in Bono's book?' The songs had to show some sort of perspective and development. So, something that may have been maybe better conceived as 15 or 20 songs started to mushroom into these 40 tunes."

Clayton said that U2's scrapped album -- Songs Of Ascent -- has been totally pushed aside for a raucous new vibrant collection: "We are turning the amps on. I certainly think the rock that we all grew up with as 16 and 17-year-olds, that rawness of those Patti Smith, Iggy Pop records. . . that kind of power is something we would love to connect back into."

Despite the enormity of U2's concerts, The Edge told us a while back that part of the key to the band's success as a live band is that it never allows itself to become too polished: "It's ultimately, to steal a phrase or to re-coin a phrase, you can take the guys out of the garage, but you can't ever take the garage out of the guys. And I think we still have a little bit of that in us."

Extreme will release its first album in 14 years, titled, Six, on June 9th, according to Ultimate-Guitar.com. The band has just dropped the set's first single, titled "Rise."

Frontman Gary Cherone spoke about the new track explaining, "Musically, it's aggressive. Lyrically, it's a cautionary tale on the rise and fall of fame. You get seduced into it. Once you're on top, they'll rip you apart and tear you down. That's the nature of the beast."

Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt went on to say, "When Eddie Van Halen passed, it really hit me. I'm not going to be the one who will take the throne, but I felt some responsibility to keep guitar playing alive. So, you hear a lot of fire on the record."

Blink 182 has postponed first leg of their reunion tour due to Travis Barker's injury. Barker injured his finger last month, first hurting it while rehearsing for the upcoming concerts with the band. Barker is undergoing surgery on the finger this week.

Tom DeLonge said in a Instagram video, "Travis needs to go in and have surgery on his finger, and we have to get that well, and we have to get that strong before we can do anything else."

He described Barker's accident as "a freak accident that no one saw coming."

Kiss has announced its final string of shows, which will culminate over two nights -- December 1st and 2nd -- at New York's Madison Square Garden. Kiss will kick off its final North American tour on October 29th at Austin's Moody Center.

There has been no word as to whether co-founders Ace Frehley and Peter Criss will appear at the final New York shows.

The band posted a testament on its official Kissonline.com website, which reads:

The absolute final shows of our final tour, 'The End Of The Road Tour,' will kick off this October and culminate in a massive show in the city where it all began. New York City has been a part of our ethos and storyline for more than four decades, so we felt it fitting to culminate our career on stage at Madison Square Garden.

Kiss was born in New York City. On 23rd Street. Half a century ago. It will be a privilege and honor to finish touring at Madison Square Garden, 10 blocks and 50 years from where we first started!

During a new chat with Classic Rock, Paul Stanley was pressed about the persistent rumor that he's actually visibly lip-syncing substantial parts of the band's shows, to which he said, "Ha. Well, that's just nonsense, of course. And the idea that we need to explain or clarify what we do is nonsense. I sing every song. Any band that's out there with a big show knows that you have to be coordinated and there has to be syncing with the technology, the lights and the pyro and everything, so the idea that you'd go out there without a click (track) to lock you in is just ridiculous."

He went on to say, "And does it really matter? I've seen bands that are considered the greatest in the world and I'm saying to my wife, 'Who's playing that beat on the drums?' As long as what's going on is honest, why gives a f***? Things evolve over time, and it's a different world now than it was 30 or 40 years ago. Do we really need to put everything under a microscope when people are having the best night of their lives? I won't do it."

Paul Stanley told that as excited as he is to perform with Kiss, wrapping up the band's life on the road is far from being a heartbreaking event for him: "There's nothing bittersweet about this tour -- it's all sweet. What I've been given and what we've accomplished, and how we've been rewarded is indescribable. And look, I'm not Yoda -- I'm gonna say the end of something is the beginning of something else. I'm not going to change who I am and I'm not going to change my trajectory, and everything will go on."

Gene Simmons explained that even 50 years on -- no one puts more into their performance than Kiss does: "I wear seven, eight-inch platform boots. Our outfits -- mine, I don't know, weighs at least about 40 pounds. I gotta spit fire and fly through the air and do all that kind of stuff; so if you put (Mick) Jagger and Bono -- who are both great -- in you stick 'em in my outfit, they'd pass out in a half-hour. We are the hardest working band in show business period."

JUST ANNOUNCED: Kiss North American tour dates (subject to change):

October 29 - Austin, TX - Moody Center
November 1 - Palm Springs, CA - Acrisure Arena
November 2 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl
November 6 - Seattle, WA - Climate Pledge Bowl
November 8 - Vancouver, BC - Rogers Arena
November10 - Edmonton, AB - Rogers Place
November 12 - Calgary, AB - Scotiabank Saddledome
November 13 - Saskatoon, SK - SaskTel Centre
November 15 - Winnipeg, MB - Canada Life Centre
November 18 - Montreal, QC - Centre Bell
November 21 - Ottawa, ON - Canadian Tire Centre
November 22 - Toronto, ON - Scotiabank Centre
November 24 - Knoxville, TN - Thompson-Boling Arena
November 25 - Indianapolis, IN - Gainbridge Fieldhouse
November 27 - Rosemont, IL - Allstate Arena
November 29 - Baltimore, MD - CFG Bank Arena
December 1, 2 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden