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Peter Hook makes his feelings on a New Order reunion crystal clear

Megadeth drummer Dirk Verbeuren marked his 10th anniversary in the band this month with a new interview with Brazil’s TV Braba, touching on everything from his stunned reaction to first being asked to fill in, to why he considers frontman Dave Mustaine the architect of thrash metal.

“[Laughs] I didn’t believe it. My first reaction, of course, was disbelief,” Verbeuren said (transcribed by Blabbermouth). “But initially I was just filling in — the plan was that I was gonna do about a month of shows. And then, in typical Dave Mustaine fashion, after a week or so of shows, Dave comes to me on the tour bus, and he goes, ‘So when are you telling the guys in Soilwork that you’re my drummer now?’ That was his way of saying, ‘I want you to play in the band.’”

“So, of course, it was a very exciting time, and kind of bittersweet at the same time, because I’d been with Soilwork for 12 years and they were good friends of mine, but everybody was, of course, like, ‘Of course you have to do this.’ And, yeah, so it was a very special experience. And to this day, it’s been now — actually, this month it’s gonna be 10 years since I played my first show in Megadeth, and it’s still surreal to this day.”

“You have to know that I went to see Megadeth live in 1990, so I was, like, 15 years old at the time. It was one of the first shows I ever saw — it was ‘Clash Of The Titans’ with Megadeth, Slayer, Testament, and Suicidal Tendencies in Europe, where I lived in France at the time. And now to be in the band for 10 years and to kind of continue the legacy with great music — everything Dave has done is iconic, but also the amazing drum work of [former Megadeth drummers] Nick Menza, Gar Samuelson, Chuck Behler, all the guys that have been in the band since then, it’s truly an honor. In metal music, you can’t really go much higher than that legacy. And to me, Dave is the guy who invented thrash metal. He wrote a lot of the iconic early stuff that kind of defined what that genre sounded like, and you can recognize his riffs among a million riffs. He has such a unique style of playing to this day on the guitar that, to me, Dave is the ultimate rock god. Absolutely.”

Asked which Megadeth songs are hardest to play, Verbeuren pointed to the debut era. “I would say that all the songs on Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good! are quite difficult because not only are they played at breakneck speed, but Gar Samuelson, who was the band’s drummer at that time, had a very improvisational style, and so if you wanna replicate that, it’s quite difficult,” he said. Though he added: “People sometimes have the impression, like, ‘Oh, it must be so easy to play ‘Symphony Of Destruction’…’ No, they all have their own difficulties. When you play an hour-and-a-half set like we usually do, it’s truly a test of endurance and stamina.”

The full-circle Paris story is one Verbeuren keeps coming back to. “I saw Megadeth on the ‘Clash Of The Titans’ tour at Le Zénith in Paris,” he recalled. “And I have since now three times played with the band at that very venue. Every time I go there, it blows my mind because I’m, like, ‘I can’t believe I was here as a teenager seeing the band I’m now a part of.’”

On actually contributing music: in a September 2022 interview, Verbeuren revealed he brought riff ideas into the writing sessions for The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! that Mustaine actively encouraged — resulting in the song “Life In Hell” being built from one of his demos, with a riff of his also landing in “Night Stalkers.” “I didn’t anticipate that any of my stuff would go anywhere, because, I mean, c’mon, this is Dave Mustaine we’re talking about,” Dirk said. “Who am I on guitar compared to Dave Mustaine?”

Megadeth‘s self-titled album — Verbeuren‘s second full-length with the band — was released in January via Mustaine‘s Tradecraft imprint on Frontiers Label Group‘s BLKIIBLK label. Prior to Verbeuren joining, former Lamb of God drummer Chris Adler had recorded the drums on 2016’s Dystopia.

The post For MEGADETH’s DIRK VERBEUREN: “DAVE MUSTAINE Is The Guy Who Invented Thrash Metal” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

All throughout their new album Green World Image, Seattle post-punks Telehealth pull off a brilliant pastiche of B-52s-style party-time new wave, weaving their oblong neon punk-funk grooves full of extremely topical lyrics about the plight of living in our degraded modern culture. There’s more than a little Devo in their sound and their worldview. You…

The post Telehealth – “Yassify Me” appeared first on Stereogum.

Heavy-hearted indie rock trio the Pines Of Rome started in Providence, Rhode Island in the late ’90s. They released a couple of albums and played shows with like-minded acts like Songs: Ohia, Silkworm, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy before breaking up in the early ’00s. During the pandemic, the former bandmates got back in touch and…

The post The Pines Of Rome Announce New Album <em>When You Are As Full As The Moon</em>: Hear “Kali’s Tongue” appeared first on Stereogum.

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You’ve no doubt heard the saying, popularized by author Thomas Wolfe, “you can’t go home again.” There are an endless number of dissections about what that really means, but the gist is that nostalgia has colored memories enough that the home you remember wasn’t exactly like that. So it was with some curiosity I listened […]

(Andy Synn dedicates his first post-NWTF review to the Post/Sludge/Doom stylings of We Follow the Earth) Right now, in case you didn’t know. we’re in what’s called the “post Northwest Terror Fest slump”… which is where we’re largely reliant on DGR’s forethought in producing a bunch of reviews to cover for the fact that he […]

The post WE FOLLOW THE EARTH – FOAMDRINKER appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.

Parent Teacher is the musical endeavor of NYC-based Richard Spitzer. A few weeks back, he announced his new album Tricks For Meds with the release of exceptionally titled lead single “Timeline Rabies.” Today he’s got another new track, “Narcissists,” which allows me a fresh opportunity to extend an endorsement. Tricks For Meds is a great…

The post Parent Teacher Announce New Album <em>Tricks For Meds</em>: Hear “Narcissists” & “Timeline Rabies” appeared first on Stereogum.

Korn guitarist James “Munky” Shaffer gave an update on the band’s long-awaited follow-up to 2022’s Requiem in a new interview with Igor Miranda of Rolling Stone Brasil — and the short version is: it’s taking a while, and it’s intentional.

“It’s taking a fucking long time,” Shaffer said (transcribed by Blabbermouth). “We’ve gone through… I swear to God, we’ve written probably almost 40 songs, and gone through ’em, and rewrote ’em, and got rid of ’em, and tore ’em apart, and rebuilt ’em. And it’s been quite a long process because we’re very critical about what we do now. We’re very particular, because we wanna keep our original sound. You can’t really get away from that — when we start playing, it sounds like Korn, especially with all five of us.”

“And Ra [current Korn bassist Roberto Díaz] has actually been such a great addition to bringing a lot of energy in the rhythm section. And Ray [Luzier, Korn drummer] and him play really well together. And it’s fun to watch those guys work out parts, because they do some stuff that I wouldn’t think of. That’s been a big part of this writing process, is those two working together, because they’ve never worked together on a record,” Shaffer continued. “Obviously, they’ve worked together on the older songs and stuff. But I think that working on the older songs, those two, learning the rhythm parts, has really given some insight to what is on the back catalog, and they’ve brought a similar vibe into the newer stuff that we’ve written, and that is exciting.”

As for the direction: “We don’t wanna release something mediocre,” Shaffer said. “As an artist, you don’t wanna paint the same picture over and over again. You wanna add some flavor, add some color, add something new so it feels fresh, so the listeners still get a classic sound, but with fresh takes on things. So, it still sounds like Korn, for sure. There’s no heavy electronics, or you’re not gonna get anything too far out of left field. It’s still very guitar-driven and bass heavy.”

The extended writing timeline traces back to the pandemic and the touring explosion that followed. After COVID killed the planned The Nothing tour cycle, Korn went into lockdown mode and recorded Requiem — then spent the years since making up for lost road time. “We had quite an extensive touring schedule, especially after COVID,” Shaffer explained. “We were excited to get back out on the road… I think it’s just been a lot of touring and us taking our time to release something that… We didn’t wanna release something mediocre. I think we took a page out of the book of Metallica on that.”

Shaffer also addressed the prolonged absence of original bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, who stepped away from touring in June 2021. “On the last couple of records, he was kind of checked out, and trying to get him engaged was a little bit difficult,” Munky said. “He would always just kind of leave… He just kind of lost his ambition, I guess. But it’s okay. It happens. Everything goes in cycles. We’re definitely not mad at him or anything. We want him to be happy, and it didn’t really feel like he was happy being a working musician at the time. So it was a mutual sort of… I still use the word ‘hiatus’. I think he needed a break.”

“We work our asses off. Even when we’re not touring, we’re writing music or we’re working on things,” Shaffer added. “I just don’t feel like he had it at the time, or just had a lot of other personal stuff happening too. He wasn’t happy. It was obvious. And at the end of the day, he’s our brother, and we want him to be happy.”

On Fieldy‘s current state: “I’ve heard he’s doing well. I haven’t spoke to him personally in probably a few months. But, yeah, I see his kids. His son is playing bass and he’s doing a band, and I think Fieldy‘s been helping with that. He looks like he’s doing better, honestly, which makes us all feel great.”

In the meantime, Korn surfaced a new track — “Reward The Scars,” released in April as part of the Diablo IV: Lord of Hatred expansion pack soundtrack and debuted live at Sick New World festival in Las Vegas. The song marks their first new music since Requiem‘s release in February 2022, which entered Billboard‘s Hard Rock Albums chart at No. 1. The full new album remains in progress.

The post KORN’s MUNKY SHAFFER on New Record: “It’s Still Very Guitar Driven and Bass Heavy” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

In the ’90s and ’00s, the Denver-based band 16 Horsepower perfected their own grandly gothic form of country-rock. They were obsessed with religion and apocalypse, and frontman David Eugene Edwards had a leathery gravitas — like a version of Nick Cave who was actually American, rather than just one that was obsessed with American iconography. 16 Horsepower broke up in 2005, and Edwards kept going with his side project Wovenhand. Next week, he’ll release Mercurial Silence, his second solo album. But now, 16 Horsepower are back together, playing shows.

The post 16 Horsepower Reunite For First Show In 22 Years appeared first on Stereogum.