Metal News For The Week of April 24, 2009
NEW RATT ALBUM DUE LATE 2009
Stephen Pearcy is getting ready to hit the the studio with RATT. Ratt are now looking for a producer for their new CD. THe band will feature Guitarist Warren De Martini, Stephen Pearcy ,Carlos Cavazo on lead and rhythm guitar, Robbie Crane on bass and Bobby Blotzer on drums. The members of Ratt have been writing the last couple months and the band will perform a few shows  before they start recording, then hit the road through 2010. The new album is set for a fall 2009 release on Loud & Proud/Roadrunner Records.

 
TWISTED SISTER ALBUM RELEASE DATE PUSHED BACK
The release date for the 25th Anniversary of TWISTED SISTER's Stay Hungry album has been pushed back to Tuesday, June 30th. The remastered Stay Hungry features ten never heard before songs originally demoed for Stay Hungry, five early demos of songs from Stay Hungry, one brand new song, one rare radio spot using 'SMF' as the music bed. Stay Hungry bonus tracks: 'Death From Above' 'Prime Motivator' 'Were Not Gonna Take It' 'Death Run' ' This One's For You' 'SMF' 'Were Coming On' 'Call My Name' 'Burn In Hell' 'Pay The Price' 'What's Love Without You' 'Our Voice Will Be Heard' 'You've Got To Fight' 'The Price' 'Stay Hungry' '30'. Guitarist Jay Jay French commented about the reissue recently: "A couple of years ago, while playing to 80,000 fans in Quebec after not playing there since 1984, it struck me just how important our album Stay Hungry had become. It broke sales records in eight countries and the videos made us international stars. Canada especially had gone crazy for the album and bought it at a much greater proportional rate against US sales then any album in recent memory."

 
IRON MAIDEN TO RELEASE NEW STUDIO RECORD
IRON MAIDEN's nes album will be the band's fifteenth studio record, and they face a challenge to follow up their last effort, 2006s 'A Matter of Life and Death' which was received well critically and saw the band tour playing the whole album. Speaking at the premiere of the band's documentary film Iron Maiden: Flight666, Adrian Smith added: "There's always a bit of pressure to follow up the last album, in a way it's good because it motivates you. "We never get complacent; we always try our best for our own sake as much as anything else. As far as pressure for another album, we just do what we do - we've been doing it long enough now, we know what we're doing [laughs]"

 
ALICE IN CHAINS IN RECORDING NEW STUDIO CD
Latimes.com is reporting:

The daily ritual is always the same: nine guys kneeling around a pile of money in Studio B at Henson Recording Studios in Hollywood, shouting, cheering and moaning as a pair of dice rolls across the carpet, delivering moments of euphoria and defeat. The members of ALICE IN CHAINS are among the group, briefly distracted from their final week of sessions for the band's first album of new material in nearly 14 years. Against the wall is an impressive row of vintage electric and acoustic guitars. Incense is burning and a U.S. flag hangs over a sound partition. But for the moment, the rock will have to wait.

Guitarist Jerry Cantrell looks up from his pile of cash and smiles. "Compared to how we used to have fun," he says, "this is pretty tame." The low-stakes game is Left, Center, Right, and many $5 bills change hands before it's over. The day's winner is producer Nick Raskulinecz, laughing now as drummer Sean Kinney grumbles something about the man's take of "two hundred bucks in the last two games."

The real challenge is still ahead, as the three surviving members of Alice in Chains - Cantrell, Kinney and bassist Mike Inez - work to complete new songs as a band for the first time since the death of singer Layne Staley from a heroin and cocaine overdose in 2002 at the age of 34. Their album, still untitled and set for release mid-September on Virgin/EMI, will be another case study of a major group continuing after the loss of a key member. AC/DC managed the transition successfully back in 1980, while others have failed to match their earlier triumphs, including INXS (whose search for a new singer was turned into a 2005 reality TV show) and classic rock acts QUEEN and THE DOORS.

"I don't think we ever intended to do anything," says Cantrell, 43, his thick, blond beard marking the months of preparation and recording that has gone into the new album. "With the passing of Layne, all possibility of that went out the window, probably in my mind and everyone else's too."

Source: Latimes.com

 
SEBASTIAN BACH ON CELEBRITY REHAB?
The New York Post is reporting that Sebastian Bach of Skid Row fame, DMX and Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss will will join the cast of VH1’s Celebrity Rehab on the show’s third season.

Celebrity Rehab stars Dr. Drew (host of the syndicated radio show Loveline) and different celebrities each season. The show tracks the stars through 21 days of detoxification, treatment and group therapy at a residence in the Los Angeles area.

Source: BW&BK