This Week's Top 10

Here are the top 10 stories from this week's Day in Rock and the top Day in Rock digest stories

Avenged Sevenfold Explain Nightmare

Metalunderground recently spoke with Avenged Sevenfold's Johnny Christ about the death of James "The Rev" Sullivan, the theme of their new album, Nightmare, and other topics. Here are a couple excerpts:

Metalunderground: What does the new album "Nightmare" deal with and what can fans expect to hear this time around? This was written 100% with Jimmy. We started about a year ago and took about nine months to write. We were about a week away before his death and when he passed it kind of took the record to a darker place than it already was. It's definitely a heavier album than the previous ones. We had already planned on that, but obviously all of us are trying to make this more of a tribute to Jimmy. There are a lot of people out there who have lost somebody and we want to let them know they aren't alone. We wanted to pay a tribute to his legacy.

Metalunderground: The deaths in the music world recently have hit particularly close to home for Avenged Sevenfold with the passing of James "The Rev" Sullivan. How is the band doing after that loss? He's my brother. Jimmy's passing was a devastation to the rock world and even more so to us because we grew up together. His passing was more devastating to us as people than it was to us as a band. That guy was always there and the first one to get us together to hang out. Having him not here still doesn't feel real.
- read the full interview here

Dave Mustaine Explains Why He Punched Metallica's Hetfield

MetalSucks sent over an excerpt from Dave Mustaine's new autobiography "Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir". The excerpt is where Mustaine discussed the punch that led to Metallica firing him. The excerpt: The actual fight didn't happen right there. They call it a hang fire, like when there's an unexpected delay between the trigger of a gun being pulled and the actual discharge of the weapon. You know it's coming, and there's no stopping it. It's just a matter of time. James and I alternately cursed at each other and refused to speak, until eventually we were both in Ron's house, preparing to rehearse, and tensions boiled over. There was another round of accusations and insults, more cursing, more threats. "You keep talking like that, I'm going to punch you in the mouth," I said. "f*** off!"

In the middle of this exchange, Ron walked out of the bathroom and into the living room. He and James went way back, and despite the fact that James often treated him like sh*t, Ron instinctively defended his friend. "You hit him, you'll have to hit me first."

"Shut up and sit the f*ck down," I said. And then James jumped to Ron's defense. "You touch him, you're going to have to hit me first."

Jesus, I thought, what is this, some kind of f***ing game show? I realized I would have to make a decision. "Okay, you win," I said, and with that I threw a right cross that landed flush against James's face, turning his mouth into a pile of bloody Chiclets. - more on this story

Guns N' Roses Virtual Reunion

We know that a lot of our readers keep hoping for a reunion of the original Guns N' Roses. That's not likely to happen but we received word on Thursday about a virtual reunion via a new Mash-up EP. Here is the an info a reader sent over: DJ 5agge has combined Axl Rose's vocals from Chinese Democracy with tracks from Velvet Revolver (featuring Slash, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner) and Slash's new solo album.

The mashups contain elements of Axl Rose's vocals from "Prostitute," "Chinese Democracy," "If the World," "There Was a Time," "Scraped," and "Madagascar," as well as audio from Axl Rose's performance as DJ Tommy "The Nightmare" Smith from the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The instrumentation comes from Slash's "Beautiful Dangerous," and Velvet Revolver's "Slither" & "Messages," (an iTunes bonus track from the band's much-maligned 2007 release Libertad).

Axl's voice and Slash's guitar complement each other perfectly. You can tell by these remixes that a new album from Axl and Slash would totally rock and would beat anything either has done post 1993. - more info and download info here

Iron Maiden Deny Retirement Rumors

Steve Harris has set the record straight on Iron Maiden's future plans. Rock Radio reports that their fifteenth studio album, The Final Frontier, is not set to be their last studio release, the band have confirmed.

Speculation has been rife since they announced the record's title earlier this year – especially given mainman Steve Harris' frequent comments in previous years that they'd make 15 albums then stop.

"It's true that I've always said I wanted to do 15 studio albums. Well, I haven't always said that – I started saying it after the fourth or fifth album, but I didn't expect to do more than three when we first started.," Harris tells Metal Hammer. "There's probably a bit of mischief in the name, particularly on Bruce Dickinson's part. People are going to think it's either the last album or that we're Trekkies, or both. It's not like that really." - Bruce speaks up about his mischief here

Drunken Pennywise Assault

Alesana claim that Pennywise allegedly got drunk and attacked their tour manager and trashed their tour bus on Sunday night in Denver. "Just to clear the air of any rumors...Upon returning to our bus after a night out with friends, both our band and our tour manager were attacked blindly by two very drunk members of Pennywise," Alesana's Shawn Milke told Alternative Press.

"Alesana is a non-violent band and always has been. We do not encourage or willingly participate in any violent activities.," he continues. "The two guys entered our bus and, without any instigating on our part, began punching us and trashing our bus.

"We are eternally sorry that this event took place and had it not been for the Denver police showing up and restraining our assailants, the night could have been tragic. Luckily, no one in our camp was injured."

Altpress tracked down Pennywise for their side of the story - here

The Gaslight Anthem Expand Fall Tour

The Gaslight Anthem have mapped out more tour dates on their Fall North American headline tour.

The tour features support from Fake Problems as well as The Menzingers, Rival Schools and Bridge and Tunnel on select dates

The tour kicks off September 4 in Lincoln, NE, and will continue through the first half of October, including a headline appearance in New York City at Radio City Music Hall on September 30, before culminating with The Gaslight Anthem's October 9 appearance at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin, Texas. - more on this story

Slipknot's Jordison Better Than Mike Portnoy, Neil Peart, Travis Barker and Nicko McBrain

Rock Radio has good news for maggots: Slipknot and Rob Zombie drummer Joey Jordison has been voted the best drummer of the past 25 years in a poll which received over 100,000 votes.

Drumming magazine Rhythm ran the popularity contest, which also features Mike Portnoy, Neil Peart, Dave Grohl, Travis Barker and Nicko McBrain in the top ten.

Rhythm says of Jordison: "Lightning fast yet supremely technical, Joey has proved himself equally adept outside Slipknot, having worked with Korn, Zombie, Murderdolls and more, as well as stepping in to save the day when depping for Metallica's Lars Ulrich at Download 2004. - more on this story

Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper Tour Dates

The rumors have been confirmed: Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper will reunite for The Halloween Hootenanny Tour featuring the Gruesome Twosome with special guests Murderdolls.

The tour kicks off in Los Angeles at the Gibson Amphitheatre on Thursday, September 30th (please see below for tour dates). The pair recently shared the stage for a highly-successful, sold-out limited North American run earlier this year and have long been fans of one another, as well as good friends.

Drummer Joey Jordison will be doing double-duty on the dates, playing drums with Rob Zombie, as well as playing guitar with his own band, special guests Murderdolls. - more on this story

Singled Out: Toadies' Feeler

Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today Mark Reznicek from Toadies tells us about their new album "Feeler," which finally hits stores today after a dozen year wait. It's quite a story; we now turn it over to Mark:

In August of 1996, we finished two years of solid touring for our debut album, Rubberneck. During the course of those two years, the album had gone gold and then platinum. Way beyond our wildest dreams. So, after the tour was over, we parted ways with our guitar player Darrel and held auditions for a new guy. Eventually we chose Clark, and began writing and rehearsing songs in earnest. Every so often, we'd submit demos of our latest batch of songs to our label, and finally they determined we had enough songs to go in the studio and record an album.

So, in January of 1998, we went into Pedernales Studio in Spicewood, Texas (outside Austin) with producer Paul Leary (of the legendary Butthole Surfers). This was in the early days of ProTools, a new-ish technology without much precedent. After a month and a half, with the basic drum and bass tracks done, we moved to Austin's Arlen studio for overdubs. During this time, SXSW was going on, and a lot of our friends from various DFW bands came into town (like Baboon and Caulk), and we hung out and partied and went to a few rock shows. It was a nice break from the tedium and tension of the studio.

By this point there had been several disagreements with the producer and his manager (who also happened to be our manager, too). This led to arguments with both of them and between all of us in the band. It seemed like there was a lot of pressure to create this follow-up to our big million-seller, and everyone was feeling it. Finally, around the end of March or early April, the album was completely recorded. All that was needed was a "big name" to mix it (the label wanted a "big name" to attach to it). Somehow in the midst of all this, the label decided that they didn't hear a single in the fifteen tracks we had recorded (that they'd already approved!). The entire recording, as well as the last year and a half of our lives, was down the tubes.

Eventually we came up with some new songs, rearranged a few of the songs from the Austin sessions, and recorded Hell Below/Stars Above, the long-awaited (by us anyway) follow-up to Rubberneck with Rob Schnapf and Tom Rothrock, the production team we had worked with on Rubberneck. By the time the label got around to releasing the album in Spring 2001, 7 years had passed since our last album, a lifetime in the music industry. We went on tour, only to find that a substantial portion of our fan base had moved on. After a few months, our bass player Lisa decided she'd had enough and announced she was quitting the band. A day or two later, Todd, our singer (and the guy who started the band in the first place) announced he was breaking the band up. So in a roundabout way, Feeler was the album that broke the Toadies back.

Well, a few years later we were asked to reunite for a special, high-paying gig. We did it and it was fun, and then we all went back to what we were doing (I was playing in a country band, Todd had started another band, and Clark was editing film out in California). The following year, we were offered another tidy sum to reunite again, which we did and which ultimately led to a full-on reunion: a new album, a new tour, and even some new fans thanks to our inclusion in the Guitar Hero II game.

Talk would always come back around to that rejected album from 1998. By this point it had been leaked out onto the internet, and was traded and discussed by our fans, who often asked when we were going to release it. After some discussion, we decided it would be better to re-record our favorite songs from that session rather than just mix the old tracks from 1998. So, in late Spring of 2010, we got together with Rob Schnapf (who had already done Rubberneck and Hell Below with us) and recorded the best songs from that long ago era, with a few lyric and arrangement tweaks. And so the album that was meant to be our 2nd became our 4th, Feeler, and is finally seeing the light of day in the Summer of 2010.

Grab more info about the album and more - right here

Religious Play Mistaken for Metal Concert

With a band name like Lamb of God this was bound to happen sooner or later. Some fans in Arizona were excited to hear that Lamb of God was performing in Tempe. The only problem is the announced Lamb of God is a religious play, not the metal band.

The band issued this statement to clarify things: "Lamb Of God would like to officially denounce any buzz of a show that they have been rumored to be playing in the near future.

The band will not be performing in Tempe, AZ at said show. The event is a religious play being performed in Tempe, and is NOT related to the band Lamb Of God at all, whatsoever."

If you want to see the metal band, Lamb of God, here are their latest - dates