Author: Badlands Classic Rock

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have released two new songs from their new double album, “Cyr”, due on November 27 via Sumerian Records. The 20-song follow-up to 2018’s “Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.” was produced by singer-songwriter Billy Corgan. Check out “Confessions Of A Dopamine Addict” and “Wrath” below.

“‘Cyr’ is dystopic folly,” Corgan said in a statement, “one soul against the world sort of stuff, set against a backdrop of shifting loyalties and sped up time. To me it stands as both hopeful and dismissive of what is and isn’t possible with faith.”

THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have also announced “In Ashes”, a five-part animated series written by Corgan, featuring new songs from “Cyr”. Episodes one and two — “As The Crow Flies” and “Inspirations, Aspirations” — will arrive on September 25.

“Cyr” track listing:

01. The Colour Of Love
02. Confessions Of A Dopamine Addict
03. Cyr
04. Dulcet In E
05. Wrath
06. Ramona
07. Anno Satana
08. Birch Grove
09. Wyttch
10. Starrcraft
11. Purple Blood
12. Save Your Tears
13. Telegenix
14. Black Forest, Black Hills
15. Adrennalynne
16. Haunted
17. The Hidden Sun
18. Schaudenfreud
19. Tyger, Tyger
20. Minerva

“Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.” was SMASHING PUMPKINS‘ first album in over 18 years to feature founding members Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin and James Iha, along with longtime guitarist Jeff Schroeder.

Earlier this year, Corgan told Tennessean about SMASHING PUMPKINS‘ upcoming studio album: “When we got back together with James, we went in with Rick Rubin and did eight songs. It was put out as a formal album, but I said at the time — and I did mean it — in my eyes, it wasn’t an album. We didn’t approach it like we’ve approached every other album we’d ever done, which is more like making a movie.

“In many ways, this is the first real album [since the reunion] where we’ve hunkered down and made a classic, ‘Let’s throw it all at the wall and see what happens’ type of PUMPKINS record. I’ve been working on it for over a year.

“This is the first album since the album that came out in 2000, ‘Machina’, where me, James and Jimmy worked on something for a very long time,” he added. “It’s got a greater conceptual base, and it’s probably a wider swath of music. The last one was kind of like, ‘Let’s just jump in, record some stuff real fast, and let it be what it is,’ … so I’m excited about this, because we’re kind of back in the lane of taking a risk, and trying to bring something new to the table, as opposed to just aping what we’re known for.”

Philip Anselmo says that a PANTERA-branded beer “might” be announced soon.

The singer hinted at the possible availability of the alcoholic beverage while commemorating the 17th anniversary of “The Best Of Pantera: Far Beyond The Great Southern Cowboys’ Vulgar Hits!”, a compilation featuring an audio CD of 15 previously released tracks and one previously unreleased track, plus a DVD with 12 music videos, two of them live.

Anselmo took to his Instagram on Wednesday (September 23) to write: “The Best of Pantera was released on this day 17 years ago! What’s your favorite track? The beer bottle in this pic was a special promo item. We just might have a PANTERA beer announcement coming soon..”

Drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott and his brother, guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, formed PANTERA in the mid-eighties in Texas. The band recorded four independent albums before its 1990 major label debut, “Cowboys From Hell”, introduced a heavier sound and made them a favorite with metal fans. 1994’s “Far Beyond Driven” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 without benefit of a commercial hit single.

When PANTERA broke up in the early 2000s due to tensions between the Abbotts and Anselmo, the brothers started a new band called DAMAGEPLAN. But that came to an end on December 8, 2004, when Darrell Abbott was shot dead onstage at the age of 38 by a deranged gunman as the band performed at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio. Vinnie never spoke with Anselmo again after his brother’s death, reportedly feeling that some things Anselmo said about Darrell in the press may have set the killer off.

Drum-cam footage of ANTHRAX performing the song “Be All, End All” in 2018, with Jon Dette filling in for Charlie Benante, can be seen below.

For the past few years, Benante has been forced to miss certain shows on the band’s tour due to his continuing battle with carpal tunnel syndrome.

Charlie told San Antonio Metal Music Examiner about his inability to make all the dates on ANTHRAX‘s tours: “Unfortunately, we’re like athletes, and like athletes, they suffer from certain things. I suffer from carpal tunnel problems. But I try and do as much as I could when I can. So we still wanna keep the band… We don’t wanna disappoint people. So that’s why we do it that way.”

Charlie told San Antonio Metal Music Examiner about his inability to make all the dates on ANTHRAX‘s tours: “Unfortunately, we’re like athletes, and like athletes, they suffer from certain things. I suffer from carpal tunnel problems. But I try and do as much as I could when I can. So we still wanna keep the band… We don’t wanna disappoint people. So that’s why we do it that way.”

Dette first stepped in for Benante during ANTHRAX‘s appearance at the Soundwave festival in 2013 and at a number of European shows in 2014. Jon told “The Blairing Out With Eric Blair Show” how he initially got the call to sub for Charlie: “Actually, Jason Bittner from SHADOWS FALL, who was filling in for Charlie on [the 2012] ANTHRAX run, couldn’t do one of the tours that was coming up and called me and asked me if I would be available to do it. And I said, ‘Of course. It would be great.’ And the next day Charlie called me — which, Charlie is one my biggest influences ever, next to [Dave] Lombardo [of SLAYER], so it was kind of a surreal moment for me to get a call like that, saying, ‘Hey, can you help me out?’ Which, of course, I said, ‘Absolutely.'”

Asked how it felt to be playing with ANTHRAX, Dette said: “It’s amazing, man. The first day that I started playing drums — a lot of people may or may not know this — the first album I ever got from the day I got my drum set was ‘Fistful Of Metal’ [by ANTHRAX], and literally, the first song I ever tried playing on drums was ‘Metal Thrashing Mad’. Actually, I [was] hanging out with Charlie and I told him that this morning, and he was, like, ‘Really?’ And I’m, like, ‘Yeah, really.’ [laughs] ANTHRAX, METALLICA and SLAYER, they were such a foundation of my style growing up, and I’ve been privileged now to actually play for two of those bands [ANTHRAX and SLAYER]. It’s a very natural thing for me to play, but at the same time, seeing the back of their heads on stage, and Joey [Belladonna] is looking at me and he’s singing, and I’m just, like, ‘This is great.’ I guess you can say that I play with a lot of passion when I’m with those bands, ’cause it’s just absolutely passion and just an amazing experience.”

PEARL JAM guitarist Mike McCready has commented on the protests that have gathered across the country after a Kentucky grand jury opted to indict only one of the three Louisville police officers in the March raid that led to Breonna Taylor‘s death.

Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was sleeping in her apartment on March 13 when cops burst in while serving a search warrant as part of a drug investigation. It has been widely reported that the officers were executing a ‘no-knock’ warrant. With this type of warrant, officers do not have to identify themselves.

On Wednesday, a grand jury indicted former Louisville police officer Brett Hankison on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree in connection with the fatal shooting of Taylor.

Within hours, protests and anger over the outcome mounted, with demonstrators demanding more serious charges, as well as the arrests of the three officers involved.

Earlier today, PEARL JAM‘s official Twitter account shared the following message from McCready:

“The charging of Breonna Taylor is egregious and lacking in justice. Wanton endangerment charges the officer for the bullets that did not hit Breonna Taylor, and does not charge the officers for the bullets that took her life. This charge does not value her life and continues to validate the broken system that does not support those most in need, especially communities of color.

“Although I do not agree with violent protest, I am a white person who benefits from racism, and deciding what is an appropriate way for communities of color to react is not my place or the place of any other white person. What I believe my job as a white man is, is to be an ally to communities of color, work at being antiracist, and listen to help effect change for communities most in need.”

In a new interview with Consequence Of Sound, MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine discussed the dispute over the songwriting credits to the band’s iconic “Rust In Peace” album. In Mustaine‘s book “Rust In Peace: The Inside Story Of The Megadeth Masterpiece”, which details the making of the record, former MEGADETH guitarist Marty Friedman and current MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson both take issue with the fact that Mustaine is credited as the sole songwriter for the majority of the LP’s tracks, even though they felt they had contributed to the songwriting process.

Dave told Consequence Of Sound (see video below): “The thing that bothered me is in the beginning of my career, these guys came into the group and I would sing solos to them and they would learn ’em and put their spin on it. And I always said, ‘We’ve got three ways we do things: your way, our way and then my way.’ We go in and we do a solo, and if I listen to your solo and I don’t like it, I’m gonna say, ‘I don’t like it. I like this part, but I don’t like it.’ And then we do it our way. And then, if I listen to it and I say, ‘You know what? It just isn’t working. I want you to do this.’ And then that’s my way. And I’ve always tried to do it that way to really include these guys to give them a sense of ownership and tenancy, because I believe it’s gonna make them feel stronger about their performance and the music.”

In the “Rust In Peace” book, Friedman makes it clear that he felt he should have gotten some credit for helping craft the material for the final album.

“The main way songs were written in MEGADETH was that Dave [Mustaine] would have a riff and he would play it with me, Junior [David Ellefson] and Nick [Menza, drums],” Marty said. “We would be his backup band for this riff, and while he was working out the riffs, he had the luxury of us playing it and adding whatever we did. None of that stuff was written on his own; it wasn’t like he came up with a riff, an arrangement, and said here it is, learn it, go record it. It was all being created with all four of us giving his ideas life. To not get writing credit for that, I believed at the time, was unfair because when you are the only name listed as writer on the song, that implies that you came up with the song, you wrote the whole song yourself, and people played it and recorded it the way you wrote it. But that was not the case. He had the luxury of hearing these riffs being born in front of him and changed and worked on and arranged with the three of us around him at all times.”

He continued: “But I was happy to be there in the first place and was not going to make waves. I had absolutely nothing to do with the establishment of MEGADETH, the first three albums, all of the work that they did, all of the dues that they paid, all of whatever it took to get to where they got. In a sense, I was reaping the benefits of that without contributing, so I thought that was kind of the trade-off. So I was happy to work with Dave writing these riffs and not get credit for it. But as far as the actual songwriting goes, I feel like a bigger part of the process than what you see with the names.”

“Rust In Peace: The Inside Story Of The Megadeth Masterpiece” came out on September 8 via Hachette Books. The book was ritten by Mustaine with veteran rock journalist Joel Selvin.