Talking in the new issue of Metal Hammer, the lead guitarist, who joined San Francisco’s metal giants in 1983, explains that he loves his job too much to willingly walk away from it. He also considers making music professionally too great a blessing to abandon.
“I don’t believe in retirement,” he tells us. “Retirement is something that’s been forced onto people; I don’t believe musicians are allowed to retire!”
Hammett backs up his stance by looking back at musicians “in the 30s and 40s and 50s”, during which time he says “the goal was to die onstage”.
(Image credit: Future)
“This was the thinking of musicians of all musicians for the last century: because you’ve earned the right to be up there, you have to fulfil that responsibility to the very end,” he says.
He goes on to add: “Playing music is a gift, a blessing and a privilege. I love what I do and it’s magic – it helps people. So I can’t walk away from that.”
Hammett’s comments follow his recent declaration that he never wants to step down from Metallica, even if he continues to have the odd argument with the band’s co-founders James Hetfield (vocals/guitars) and Lars Ulrich (drums).
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“Leaving Metallica is not an option,” the guitarist told The Telegraph. “If I ever left Metallica, everyone in the world would remind me that I used to be in Metallica!”
Hammett released a coffee table book, The Collection: Kirk Hammett, via Gibson Publishing in March. The book features new pictures by longtime Metallica photographer Ross Halfin and explores the guitarist’s famously extensive collection of instruments. In 2017, he estimated that he owned around 150 guitars.
Metallica are currently touring North America and premiered their new documentary, Metallica Saved My Life, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City this week. The band will play a series of shows in Europe next summer. See dates and details below.
As well as the interview with Hammett, the new Hammer features an in-depth conversation with cover stars Babymetal about their collabs-heavy new album, Metal Forth. We also talk with Volbeat’s Michael Poulsen and The Conjuring actor Vera Farmiga about her new rock band, The Yagas. Order your copy now and have it delivered directly to your door.
May 09: Athens Olympic Stadium, Greece* May 13: Bucharest Arena Națională, Romania May 19: Chorzów Stadion Śląski, Poland May 22: Frankfurt Deutsche Bank Park, Germany* May 24: Frankfurt Deutsche Bank Park, Germany+ May 27: Zurich Stadion Letzigrund, Switzerland* May 30: Berlin Olympiastadion, Germany* Jun 03: Bologna Stadio Renato Dall’Ara, Italy* Jun 11: Budapest Puskas Arena, Hungary+ Jun 13: Budapest Puskas Arena, Hungary* Jun 19: Dublin Aviva Stadium, Ireland+ Jun 21: Dublin Aviva Stadium, Ireland* Jun 25: Glasgow Hampden Park, UK* Jun 28: Cardiff Principality Stadium, UK* Jul 03: London Stadium, UK* Jul 05: London Stadium, UK+
* Gojira and Knocked Loose support + Pantera and Avatar support
Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.
Last year, in front of 65,000 people in Germany, Shane Greenhall hit his stride. His band Those Damn Crows were on tour with Böhse Onkelz – virtually unknown in the UK, massive in their homeland – and mega-crowds were the norm. The Crows had German fans from past shows, but they still faced a mammoth task: converting an audience that wasn’t there for them. By this point they were accustomed to playing for thousands, and tens of thousands, across Europe. It was an intense period. They missed Wales. Arguably, though, it was the making of them as a proper big-stage band.
“I think I’m better being a bit uncomfortable,” singer Greenhall muses. “I think that brings out something in me, performance wise, a determination, this focus. I don’t get wound up in the emotion. It’s about proving yourself. I kind of like that battle.”
If there’s one thing Those Damn Crows do really well, it’s proving themselves when the odds are stacked against them. Resilience in the face of personal losses. Commitment to their fans. Closeness as a group with years of shared history, setbacks, the natural beauty and turbulent times of their home town.
On their new album, God Shaped Hole, they meet all that with some of their biggest music yet. A varied, taut, punchy selection (by turns meaty, pop-geared and dreamlike), it confronts the searches and existential fears we all go through at one point or another – relationships, religion, science, drugs, technology. The things we look to for meaning. For answers in uncertain times.
For Greenhall, after years of “overthinking everything”, there’s now a joy in not knowing.
“The best bit of this [life] is the process,” he says, “trying to work it all out, that’s what makes us human. There’s a danger of losing that, because AI can do so much now. But you won’t learn from life experiences unless you do it yourself.”
(Image credit: Rob Blackham)
Sitting across from us at a gastro pub in Laleston, a village in South Wales, Greenhall has a strapping but gentle presence – tall and barrel-chested, with big, tattooed arms, wearing a black cap and T-shirt. He orders fish and chips and a coffee, serious but relaxed on home turf. He knows all the bar staff (he and his girlfriend live locally), having grown up a short drive away in Methyr Mawr, close to the beach of Ogmore-By-Sea.
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It was, he says, an idyllic childhood. His father grew fruit and vegetables. In school years Shane played football for Bridgend Town. Crows drummer Ronnie Huxford, guitarist Ian ‘Shiner’ Thomas (‘Shiner’ is a hangover from adolescence, after an unfortunate collision with a lamppost) and bassist Lloyd Wood are all old school friends from the Valleys – guitarist David Winchurch was “a townie”. They all still live locally, and their bonds with the area run deep.
“I get homesick really quickly these days,” Greenhall admits. “There’s no substitute for home. I can go to amazing places, and we have as a band, but there’s just something about Wales. I just love it.”
There’s sadness, though, in these images. The suicides that drew national attention to Bridgend in the 00s. The death of Greenhall’s father, his first musical role model, from cancer. Similar losses suffered by his bandmates. Yet there’s a sense that their home town has their back; friends and family who keep them as down-to-earth as they all are, whatever successes happen elsewhere.
“But that won’t ever stop us from having drive and aspirations,” he adds. “I remember saying to Ronnie, before the band had even done anything: ‘Look, man, if I’m in this, I’m in, there’s nothing else.’ That’s the only way I do things.”
Those Damn Crows – No Surrender (Official Video) – YouTube
Greenhall grew up in search of God – or rather, his dad did. A naturally sociable guy, Greenhall Snr took his children to different Christian churches and befriended the local Mormons.
“He called himself a spiritual man, as opposed to religious,” Shane explains, “but he went through all this navigating, like, is there a god? What type of god? So I was always around this idea of a god, this idea of a higher being, and a better way to be a human being.”
In some ways that search has lingered. Grieving for his father left a fingerprint on all his songs. He habitually listens to podcast theories about the universe, technology, the nature of people. As someone who never really stops writing music (on the go, at home watching TV…) it’s been easy to filter these things into his band’s new songs, some based on demos and voice notes from years ago.
“The truth is we know very little,” he muses. “Yet with that information we could be on the verge; I think with AI in particular, we could cross a line where we can’t go back. It could be a real positive thing, or super-negative.”
Earlier in Those Damn Crows’ lifespan, Greenhall wrote a song called God Shaped Hole. It was never released, but the title stayed with them all. Come 2024 – with debate about unpredictable world leaders, conflicts and technological advancements reaching a new apex, alongside seas of individual crises in an increasingly complicated world – it felt like a timely sentiment. One that spoke to global concerns as well as hopes, fears and questions on a more intimate, personal level. The ‘god-shaped holes’ in all our lives.
“That’s it,” he says. “Because you can’t control the bigger things, but if you apply that in your own way of thinking and being, I guess you’ve got a chance to dream any world you want. You can decide what you want to do.”
Those Damn Crows – The Night Train (Official Video) – YouTube
The Dali-esque album cover contains an image for each song. No Surrender, a beefy ode to never giving up, is the tree. Gorgeous, Stone Temple Pilots-esque grunge anthem Dreaming is the figure rowing a boat up a road (dream logic, like flying off a building or running through sinking sand – here a metaphor for making what you want of reality). The metallic Let’s Go Psycho is the jester, a character from a disturbing DMT (dimethyltryptamine, a powerful psychedelic) trip that Greenhall experienced years ago.
Following a powerful dream about his late father and grandparents, he’d wanted to regain that feeling of connection – of answers that seemed clear in the dream, but faded upon waking. “They were holding hands,” he recalls of his grandparents in the dream. “They were so in love. And all I used to remember [was] my grandma and my granddad bitching to one another; they were really heavy smokers.”
DMT ingested, it all got very macabre. After three puffs, Greenhall felt himself falling into a dungeon, the Hindu deity Ganesha in one cage, a jester hurling insults from another. “And this jester is saying: ‘You’re pathetic, you’re an idiot, you thought you could come here and get all the answers…’ and other horrible things. I felt like I was trapped in this place for years,” Greenhall stops, then laughs, “until I heard my friend’s voice saying ‘I think you took too much!’”
Initially that experience left him lost. In time, though, he revisited it with a sense of acceptance. Facing the murky sides of life with open eyes.
“We’re almost fuelled by fear right now of the unknown,” he says, Disco Inferno playing over the pub speakers. “But I think that’s a good place to be. You can’t react until you know. For someone who overthinks everything, that’s been quite freeing. So I’m almost more relaxed now. I’m still curious, always will be. But it’s more [about] gratitude now than ever.”
He thinks about this, then: “But at the same time I do think about my kids a lot, thinking: ‘What world are they gonna grow up in?’”
Those Damn Crows – Dreaming (Official Video) – YouTube
On the God Shaped Hole cover, Still is represented by a man on a pew. The album’s closing track – a deceptively simple ballad, its gentle, major-key fragility complemented by heartbreaking lyrics – it’s strummed on an old £120 Fender guitar that Greenhall had had for years. An effective vessel for one of his darkest memories.
“That’s what it should be, good music,” he says, recalling the more expensive gear they tried recording the song on. “It doesn’t matter what instrument you use, what producer, what studio you’re working in. If you’ve captured something, you’ve captured it.”
This particular ‘something’ happened 10 years ago. A lot had come to a head. Greenhall’s first marriage was over, and his father had died. His music career was yet to happen. For a while, a part of him went somewhere else. On Still he sings: ‘No one will know if I disappear.’
“I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he remembers. “I didn’t know I was going to be touring, didn’t know I was gonna be writing my own music. I felt like I’d failed, like I’d let my children down. My life was literally gone – that’s how it felt.”
One night, he drove to the edge of a cliff at Southerndown Beach in South Wales. Much of his childhood was spent running riot on the dunes there. His father’s memorial bench sits a few paces away at Dunraven Castle. He walked to the edge and looked down.
“I’ve told almost no one this, because it sounds like I made it up,” he half-laughs nervously. “It’s pitch black, freezing cold. My car lights are on, beaming out to the sea, and I get out of the car and I can’t, I’m not…”
He searches for the right words, as many who have contemplated suicide do.
“I’m not sitting here talking about depression. I had no idea what I was doing, so it wasn’t a premeditated thought. I was just…” he shrugs. “I don’t know, I didn’t feel like I was going there to do something. But at the same time, if it happened, I didn’t care. I wasn’t thinking of the consequences. I could feel the wind sort of swaying me, and I thought: ‘Yeah, I’m going to.’”
Those Damn Crows – Glass Heart (Official Video) – YouTube
Greenhall was 13 when his own parents divorced. It changed his relationship with his younger siblings, putting him in a protective authority position. “I became like ‘the man of the house’. It killed my sister and brother when my mum and dad split up. That’s why it [my own divorce] hit me so hard, because I didn’t want that for my family.”
But then, out of the blue, a huge seagull landed on his car. Greenhall tried to shoo it away, but it didn’t budge. For three minutes it stood, fixing him with a piercing stare. It was enough to shift Greenhall’s focus away from the cliff edge. From that night onward he became conscious of certain turns in his life – the presence of something like fate.
“You know, it could have gone anywhere, but he sat on my bonnet, and he looked at me as if to say: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Honestly, this bird was fucking enormous.” He shakes his head. “It’s just all these little nuances of life, something else happens and puts you in a different mindset, completely. If you’re lucky enough to stick around, these experiences change your life. And if you can have a few of them that don’t break you – that can break you as a person, but not break your spirit – I think that’s a good thing.”
Our empty plates are taken away. A group of women with birthday balloons arrive at another table, otherwise we’re the only customers. “I think that’s the best thing we can do as human beings: look at something slightly differently,” he concludes. “Yes, it’s a shame it did happen, but what can we do about it? How can you think about it differently? That’s an amazing power to have.”
Those Damn Crows – Still (Official Video) – YouTube
Afterwards, Greenhall drives me to the train station, en route to rehearsals at the Crows’ headquarters on the outskirts of Bridgend. On Sundays they all play football nearby, when time allows. We talk about the industry, the recent Trump/Zelensky fall-out, his 18-year-old daughter’s musical ambitions.
“She loves all the West End musicals stuff,” he says proudly. “She’s finding her voice but, man, it’s… There’s very few people that make me cry every time. Every time she sings, it’s like that. It’s amazing seeing her having the bug.”
At the Crows’ Cardiff Arena show last year, Greenhall met his daughter’s eyes from the stage. All his children were in the balcony. Emotions ran high.
“Afterwards my youngest son said: ‘Dad, I can’t believe how cool you are!’ And then my daughter was hugging me, saying: ‘I’m so lucky to have you as my dad.’ I was like: ‘Holy shit, this is unbelievable. Waited my entire life for this.’”
His face breaks into a smile. “It don’t get better than that.”
On the train station platform it’s quiet and still. Grey skies are punctuated by tall cranes, seagulls swoop overhead. An enormous one lands on the footbridge.
God Shaped Hole hit number one on the UK album chart on April 18, 2025.
Polly is deputy editor at Classic Rock magazine, where she writes and commissions regular pieces and longer reads (including new band coverage), and has interviewed rock’s biggest and newest names. She also contributes to Louder, Prog and Metal Hammer and talks about songs on the 20 Minute Club podcast. Elsewhere she’s had work published in The Musician, delicious. magazine and others, and written biographies for various album campaigns. In a previous life as a women’s magazine junior she interviewed Tracey Emin and Lily James – and wangled Rival Sons into the arts pages. In her spare time she writes fiction and cooks.
You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.
“You deserve more,” the posters promoting tonight’s concert at the O2 Arena read. It’s pretty fortunate, then, that Pulp are giving us plenty of that. Last week, Jarvis Cocker’s Britpop-era misfits released their first album in 24 years, aptly entitled More, and now London is getting a pair of back-to-back concerts, each one offering two sets of gloriously awkward anthems.
All those things together would be enough to satisfy any fan, but when the velvet curtain inside the venue peels back, it reveals just how extra Sheffield’s finest are being. In front of a mammoth video screen is a four-tiered staircase of a stage, plus an expanded lineup with a string section. Then, Cocker rises out of the floor during opener and recent comeback single Spike Island, one verse of which sees him sing, “I was born to perform.”
For 135 minutes (interval not included), that showmanship never dips, with classics, deep cuts and new tracks getting showcased with equal pomp. Of course, the crowd is nowhere near as electric for the likes of Tina as it is for Disco 2000, but everything is presented as a spectacle. This Is Hardcore finds Cocker lounging on a throne-like armchair, Sunrise sees a ‘sun’ made out of lightbulbs ascend, and Got To Have Love uses the backdrop to hammer home its spell-along refrain.
Through it all, Cocker treads the line between magnetic rock star and affable everyman. He bounds around the stage and flails his seemingly elastic limbs, while sporting his now-signature charity shop chic. At intermittent points, he tosses fudge and grapes to people near the front.
Before Help The Aged, the singer admits he’s muddled the setlist. But, he turns it around, blaming the mix-up on getting older to connect with the song’s themes and encourage some ‘help’ singing. It’s that ability to blend honesty with crowd-pleasing pop chops that’s made Pulp so special for so long, and it continues through Farmers Market (dedicated to Cocker’s wife on their anniversary) and an all-acoustic Something Changed.
After a fan vote adds Party Hard to the running order for the first time since 2012, the latter half of the second set is a conveyor belt of hits. Do You Remember The First Time?, Babies and, naturally, Common People prove to be tonight’s peaks, as it sounds like everyone in attendance knows every line to each number. Pulp pledged to give people “more” – but, after such a maximalist extravaganza, it feels like we’ve received “the most”.
Set 1: Spike Island Grown Ups Slow Jam Sorted For E’s And Wizz Disco 2000 F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E. Tina Help The Aged Farmers Market This Is Hardcore Sunrise
Set 2: Something Changed The Fear O.U. (Gone, Gone) Party Hard Acrylic Afternoons Do You Remember The First Time? Mis-Shapes Got To Have Love Babies Common People
Encore: A Sunset
Contributing Editor, Metal Hammer
Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Metal Hammer and Prog, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, NME and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.
A new Elvis Presley box set, celebrating his 90th birthday this year, is scheduled to arrive this summer. The collection will feature 89 tracks, just one shy of that birthday milestone, recorded during his final decade.
Sunset Boulevard will comb through Presley’s vault of recordings from the first half of the ’70s, when he and the TCB Band rehearsed for live performances in Los Angeles and laid down songs at the city’s RCA Studio C.
Of the 89 tracks found on the upcoming set, more than half have never been released in the U.S. The five-CD Sunset Boulevard is out on Aug. 1. You can hear an alternate version of 1972’s “Burning Love,” Presley’s last Top 10 hit now.
Following his 1968 comeback television special and the release of recordings made in Memphis in 1969, including his final No. 1, “Suspicious Minds,” Presley began performing regularly in Las Vegas, sparking a new wave of popularity before his 1977 death.
In March 1972 and March 1975, Presley spent seven days recording material that became singles and appeared on albums such as 1973’s Separate Ways and 1975’s Today.
Among the songs recorded during the sessions are late-period classics “Burning Love” and “Always on My Mind,” both featured on Sunset Boulevard in master and alternate takes. Between the two Los Angeles sessions, Presley recorded at Memphis’ Stax Studios.
What’s on Elvis Presley’s ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Box Set?
The upcoming box set includes a disc of the newly mixed master versions of all 17 songs from the two Los Angeles sessions from the ’70s; a second CD features 17 outtakes and alternate recordings from the 1972 and 1975 sessions.
Like last year’s Memphis box, a collection of 1969 recordings, overdubs have been removed from the tracks, so only Presley’s vocals and the live band recordings are present.
The last three discs of Sunset Boulevard are filled with rehearsals Presley and the band performed in Los Angeles before concerts in 1970 and 1974.
The July 24, 1970, rehearsal spans one and a half CDs and includes songs that run through Presley’s career, from “That’s All Right” to “Love Me Tender” to “Don’t Cry Daddy.”
The final part of the set is taken from the rehearsal on Aug.16, 1974. It features newer songs from Presley’s repertoire, including “Promised Land,” “If You Talk in Your Sleep” and a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival‘s “Proud Mary.”
You can see the track listing for Sunset Boulevard below.
Elvis Presley, ‘Sunset Boulevard’ Track Listing Disc 1 – The Masters 1. Burning Love 2. Always On My Mind 3. Where Do I Go From Here 4. Separate Ways 5. For The Good Times 6. It’s A Matter Of Time 7. Fool 8. T-R-O-U-B-L-E 9. And I Love You So 10. Susan When She Tried 11. Woman Without Love 12. Shake A Hand 13. Pieces Of My Life 14. Fairytale 15. I Can Help 16. Bringin’ It Back 17. Green, Green Grass Of Home
Disc 2 – Outtakes Highlights 1. Separate Ways – Take 25 2. For The Good Times – Take 3 3. Where Do I Go From Here – Take 2 4. Burning Love – Take 2 5. Fool – Take 1 6. Always On My Mind – Take 2 7. It’s A Matter Of Time – Takes 1–3 8. It’s A Matter Of Time – Take 4 9. Fairytale – Take 2 10. Green, Green Grass Of Home – Takes 2 and 3 11. And I Love You So – Take 2 12. Susan When She Tried – Takes 1 and 2 13. T-R-O-U-B-L-E – Take 1 14. Tiger Man 15. Shake A Hand – Take 2 16. Bringin’ It Back – Takes 2 and 3 17. Pieces Of My Life – Takes 2 and 3
Disc 3 – July 24, 1970 rehearsal 1. That’s All Right 2. I Got A Woman 3. I Got A Woman 4. The Wonder Of You 5. I’ve Lost You 6. The Next Step Is Love 7. Stranger In The Crowd 8. You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ 9. Something 10. Don’t Cry Daddy 11. Don’t Cry Daddy 12. You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me 13. Polk Salad Annie 14. Bridge Over Troubled Water 15. I Can’t Stop Loving You 16. Just Pretend 17. Sweet Caroline 18. Love Me Tender 19. Words 20. Suspicious Minds 21. I Just Can’t Help Believin’ 22. I Just Can’t Help Believin’
Disc 4 – July 24, 1970 rehearsal (continued) 1. Tomorrow Never Comes 2. Mary In The Morning 3. Twenty Days And Twenty Nights 4. You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ 5. Just Can’t Help Believin’ 6. Heart Of Rome 7. Heart Of Rome 8. Memories 9. Johnny B. Goode 10. Make The World Go Away 11. Stranger In My Own Home Town 12. I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water August 16, 1974 rehearsal 13. If You Love Me (Let Me Know) 14. If You Love Me (Let Me Know) 15. Promised Land 16. Promised Land 17. Down In The Alley 18. Down In The Alley
Disc 5 – August 16, 1974 rehearsal (continued) 1. It’s Midnight 2. It’s Midnight 3. Your Love’s Been A Long Time Coming 4. Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues 5. Softly As I Leave You 6. Softly As I Leave You 7. I’m Leavin’ 8. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face 9. Proud Mary 10. If You Talk In Your Sleep 11. If You Love Me (Let Me Know) 12. If You Love Me (Let Me Know) 13. The Twelfth Of Never 14. Faded Love 15. Just Pretend
Reissue Roundup: Spring Sets From Pink Floyd, Frank Zappa and More
The best archival recordings, box sets and expanded LPs from the past three months.
You laugh… but the ’70s were a golden era for car design. Scratch that—bold car design.
Everything felt heavier back then. The features were outrageously clunky, and the print ads made the average American look like they were either gearing up for a cruise around the world or a shootout with fugitives at a sketchy truck stop. And honestly, it was all so cool.
Maybe you were crammed into a Chevy wagon for a family road trip, zigzagging down Main Street in your Pinto, or dreaming of the day you’d pick up Marsha in your Camaro after band practice. Cars of the ’70s had a lot of attitude—and so did the print ads (the kind you’d find in your dad’s magazines hidden out in the woodshed).
Back in the gritty ’70s, safety features were minimal at best, gas was relatively cheap, and the family car not only had wood paneling, but it also had no cup holders (that was what your little brother was for) and a back seat where only pesky Cousin Oliver was allowed to sit.
Sure, the vehicles of today may be sleeker, and even drive themselves (but they still don’t fly!), but not unlike your average McDonald’s, they’ve lost a little bit of that flair that made cars ’70s cars so, well, ’70s.
LOOK: The Best Car Ads of the 1970s in One Nostalgic Gallery
From the Pinto to the Civic, get ready to relive the days of manual windows and two-door wagons as we flip through some of the most iconic car print ads from 1970s magazines.
Adventures were plentiful in the domain of your family’s patriarch who saw no use for rules – unless he was the one making them. From rusty tools to a stack of filthy magazines, Grandpa’s garage was a land of mystery and danger.
Larry Busacca, Getty Images / Epic / BackToTheBeginning.com
Here’s your chance to not only add the new reissue of Ozzy Osbourne‘s Scream album to your vinyl collection, but also receive a livestream code to view the upcoming Back to the Beginning farewell concert for Ozzy and Black Sabbath featuring some of rock and metal’s biggest names. This latest Ozzy-related offering comes courtesy of the Loudwire Nights and Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio shows.
The Ozzy Scream reissue arrives just in time to mark the album’s 15th anniversary. The original album arrived back in 2010, yielding such standouts as the singles “Let Me Hear You Scream,” “Life Won’t Wait” and “Let It Die.”
Ozzy’s 11th studio album was the lone record to feature guitarist Gus G., while he was surrounded by a lineup that also included bassist Rob “Blasko” Nicholson, keyboardist Adam Wakeman and drummer Tommy Clufetos (though producer Kevin Churko also handled some drumming on the record).
But the Scream vinyl is only part of the package as we’re also including streaming codes that will allow you to catch the July 5 Back to the Beginning concert celebrating the legacy of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath. The farewell performance by both acts will also feature supporting sets from Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Gojira, Halestorm, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Mastodon and Rival Sons as well as a who’s who of rock and metal special guests performing in supergroups throughout the day. With the concert sold out, the livestream is the best option to catch this once in a lifetime historic moment.
So here’s the deal. Loudwire Nights and Ultimate Classic Rock Nights are giving away five grand prizes of the Scream reissue vinyl and the Back to the Beginning livestream codes. Then, in addition, five more people will win access to the Back to the Beginning livestream code only.
Simply use the entry form provided at the bottom of this post and provide your contact details for the chance to be selected from the entries to win the Scream vinyl and Back to the Beginning livestream prize. But you’ll want to make sure to act now while you can. This contest ends on Monday, June 23, so fill out your entry now.
Vivian Campbell said he’d buy his stem cell donor a beer or three after confirming his cancer was in complete remission for the first time since his diagnosis in 2013.
The Def Leppard guitarist said he’d endured a difficult time in his battle against Hodgkin’s lymphoma after a transplant of his own stem cells failed to work, and a previously-planned donor didn’t work out.
He’s now preparing to take part in the band’s summer tour, after having been replaced by bandmate Phil Collen’s guitar tech, John Zocco, at some recent shows.
“I’ve been very lucky, actually,” Campbell told Eddie Trunk on Sirius XM’s Trunk Nation. “I got an early diagnosis… and 10 years ago I did an autologous stem cell transplant, which means using my own stem cells. That didn’t work. The cancer kept coming back.”
He said his health had “really got bad” in recent years, admitting “it was the first time in having to deal with it that I was seriously concerned about it. And the doctors told me really my only chance for of cure was to do a donor transplant.”
Preparing for the procedure involved “very hardcore chemo,” Campbell reported, with surgery planned for Thanksgiving last year. “I lost my donor 10 days beforehand – so that was a kick in the nuts,” he said.
“But I was very fortunate that they found me another one in December. And on New Year’s Eve, I went into hospital. I was in for about three and a half weeks, and I did what has turned out to be a really, really successful transplant.
“I did a PET scan in the middle of April, and I’m 100 percent clean – completely in remission for the first time in 12 or 13 years. And I’m obviously overjoyed. You couldn’t ask for more than that.”
He said of his donor: “There are 10 genetic markers, and this donor was 10 out of 10. A young man, actually. I don’t get to know who he is for a couple of years, but a 21-year-old man… [T]hey always prefer a youthful donor. Obviously, I’m gonna buy him a beer — or two or three!”
Viv Campbell Reveals What Unknown Stem Cell Donor Went Through
Campbell agreed that it was a testament to the unknown man’s character that he’d “put his name on the donor registry, for no reason other than he’s a good person… there are a lot of good people out there, I’m glad to say.”
Speaking from his own experience, he explained that donor procedure “causes a lot of discomfort and bone pain,” continuing: “It is a pretty heavy lift, and I’m just glad there are some great people in the world.”
The guitarist confirmed he was looking forward to meeting the stranger – if it ever happens. “After two years, they give you the option to contact your donor, so you can reach out to them. I would imagine in this day and age it’s via e-mail.
“If they wanna correspond with you they can… they don’t have to. But obviously, it’s a life-saving proposition, so I’d certainly want to express my gratitude.”
The Best Hair Metal Album of Every Year From 1981-1991
As its name suggests, this tour will focus on music from the earlier portions of Costello’s career, ranging from his 1977 debut My Aim Is True to 1986’s Blood & Chocolate. Joining Costello is Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher and returning guest Charlie Sexton.
Costello’s set highlighted early classics of his catalog like “Alison,” “Watching the Detectives,” “This Year’s Girl,” “Pump It Up” and others.
You can view a complete set list, plus fan-filmed video from the show, below.
“You can expect the unexpected and the faithful in equal measure,” Costello said of the tour in a previous press release. “Don’t forget this show is ‘Performed by Elvis Costello & the Imposters,’ an ensemble which includes three people who first recorded this music and two more who bring something entirely new. They are nobody’s tribute band. The Imposters are a living, breathing, swooning, swinging, kicking and screaming rock and roll band who can turn their hands to a pretty ballad when the opportunity arises.”
From here, the tour will make stops all across North America, with dates scheduled through Oct. 22.
Watch Elvis Costello Perform ‘Watching the Detectives’ in Seattle
Watch Elvis Costello Perform ‘(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes’ in Seattle
Watch Elvis Costello Perform ‘Brilliant Mistake’ in Seattle
Elvis Costello & the Imposters, 6/12/25, Seattle, Washington, Set List: 1. “Mystery Dance” 2. “Possession” 3. “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” 4. “Green Shirt” 5. “Waiting for the End of the World” 6. “Watching the Detectives” 7. “Brilliant Mistake” 8. “Man Out of Time” 9. “Poisoned Rose” 10. “Opportunity” 11. “This Year’s Girl” 12. “Party Girl” 13. “Wonder Woman” 14. “Every Day I Write the Book” 15. “Alison” 16. “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea” 17. “Pump It Up” 18. “Radio Radio” 19. “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”
Elvis Costello Albums Ranked
Even with a career spanning more than four decades, many collaborators and several record labels, his discography has had way more hits than misses.
By their very nature, remix albums carry the weight of both their source material and the expectations of a “new” record. More often than not, the original music culled for remix collections is always better, and the result isn’t so much a new album as it is a set of old songs restructured and recontextualized as the artist readies their next proper LP.
The Cure is no stranger to the remix album. In 1990, after the success of Disintegration, they released Mixed Up, which featured remixed songs from their first decade. A sequel, Torn Down, played catch-up with the preceding quarter century in 2018. Both albums served a purpose, closing chapters for the group.
Mixes of a Lost World has a different purpose: to extend the life of the 2024 comeback LP Songs of a Lost World while offering new perspectives on the album’s eight songs. Unlike its predecessors, though, Mixes of a Lost World enlists big-name producers and remixers to overhaul the tracks, each receiving multiple remixes. Unsurprisingly, the mostly club-ready mixes turn out to be just as much about the remixers as it is the Cure.
Conceived and curated by Robert Smith, the album features new mixes by Daniel Avery, Four Tet, Paul Oakenfold and Orbital, among others. They each spin the music through their distinct filters, allowing the band’s originals to occasionally peek through the screens they lay on top of and beneath the foundations. The viewpoints may be different, but nothing here surpasses the tracks found on Songs of a Lost World.
Still, some of these new mixes reveal textures and layers not initially apparent on the 2024 LP, such as the menacing darkness hiding in the corner of “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” pushed to the forefront of Oakenfold’s “Cinematic” remix, and Shanti Celeste’s rippling “February Blues” reworking of the melancholic “Alone,” Songs of a Lost World‘s best song. Others (Sally C, JoyCut) merely turn a few knobs in other directions, while meera’s “All I Ever Am” dispenses of the Cure altogether. Smith has said there won’t be another 16-year wait for Songs of a Lost World‘s follow-up. Until then, Mixes of a Lost World continues the comeback buzz.
The Cure Albums Ranked
Gloomy, gothy, punky, poppy – this multidimensional band’s albums are among the best of the era.
It’s Prog‘s brand new Tracks Of The Week! Six brand new and diverse slices of progressively inclined music for you to enjoy.
It was a close-run race last week with French prog metal quartet Schrodinger and Lancastrian rockers Wytch Hazel battling it out between them. It looked like the latter had triumphed but a late Gallic surge saw Schrodinger come through as winners at the last minute, with Gwenno back in third place.
The premise for Tracks Of The Week is simple – we’ve collated a batch of new releases by bands falling under the progressive umbrella, and collated them together in one post for you – makes it so much easier than having to dip in and out of various individual posts, doesn’t it?
The idea is to watch the videos (or listen if it’s a stream), enjoy (or not) and also to vote for your favourite in the voting form at the bottom of this post. Couldn’t be easier, could it?
We’ll be bringing you Tracks Of The Week, as the title implies, each week. Next week we’ll update you with this week’s winner and present a host of new prog music for you to enjoy.
If you’re a band and you want to be featured in Prog‘s Tracks Of The Week, send your video (as a YouTube link) or track embed, band photo and biog to us here.
CHIMPAN A – WICHITA LINEMAN
There’s no denying what an amazing song Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman is, not least Glenn Campbell’s popular version. UK pop prog duo Chimpan A have decided to cover the song, bringing a new wistfulness and depth to it as part of their campaign as they build up to the release of their latest album, M.I.A. Vol. 1 on August 29 through Tigermoth Records. The album’s a defiantly old school reaction to the ‘TikTokification’ of music, as the pair see it, while the covers the band are releasing ahead of the album are what the duo – Magenta’s Rob Reed and singer Steve Balsamo – see as “untouchable sacred cows!”
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“The project has always been a joy,” enthuses Balsamo. “I love the collaboration and bringing together amazing musicians and crashing them into each other to see what happens. Rob is such a fabulous producer, really understanding sound and he is really able to get the most emotional impact out of the songs and what the musicians bring to The Chimp’s table. It always comes down to songs, so songwriting is the backbone of the project, but what we’ve tried to do is deconstruct and mess with the process. It was all a kind of chance, or synchronicity.”
Whispers Of Granite is a new duo comprising of Trude Eidtang, previously known for her work with Norwegian prog rockers White Willow and pop proggers When Mary, along with German proggers Frequency Drift’s keyboardist and composer, Andreas Hack. The pair’s debut album, Liquid Stone, is out through Apollon Records on July 4.
As a mirror to the album, which offers a unique fusion of melancholic folk, indie and progressive rock, Spirals is a delightfully atmospheric and melodic piece, fired on by Eidtang’s expressive vocals and Hack’s instrumental deftness of touch.
You can’t have failed to notice young guitarist and singer Leoni Jane Kennedy these past few months. Aside from featuring highly in the new Band/Artist category in Prog‘s recent Readers’ Poll and featuring in the Limelight section, she’s been out on the road performing with both Solstice (filling in while Ebony Buckle toured her own thing) and as a member of The Anchoress’s band. Jesse is her latest single, a sultry ode to friendship, taken from her debut solo album Synthetic.
“Jesse and I would always sit for hours in his car after the pub and chat away about anything and everything, or sit around a fire with some beers and tequila, talking about life stories and emotions through different experiences and how amazing but devastating everything can be all at once,” Kennedy explains. “It was really important to me that this music video captured our friendship and JJ has done an incredible job again! A tear was brought to my eye thinking of all the years we’ve spent hanging out and being mates – to see this on the big screen was so beautiful. Jesse and I both truly felt a sense of honour seeing this as although we’re generations apart in age, it’s never stopped us from being so totally vulnerable, open and honest with each other about absolutely everything. It’s a friendship I will value for the rest of my life and to have it encased in a short film is so incredibly beautiful.”
“Jesse” – Leoni Jane Kennedy (Official Music Video) – YouTube
East Anglian musician Ruebes has spent time with local act The Brink as well as drummer with Pink Floyd tribute Pure Floyd, but it’s as an artist in his own right that he sees his future and he’ll release his debut solo album, Inanna’s Garden, on his 25th birthday on June 23, from which comes the bright and breezy Tomorrow Isn’t Here. Interested parties can get the album via officialreubes@gmail.com.
Placing his sound firmly in pop prog territory, mixing the likes of Peter Gabriel, Nik Kershaw and Toto with prog rock riffs and synth sounds like Genesis, Marillion and It Bites, Ruebes says, “I’ve had a lot of comments that it sounds in the realm of Steve Lukather, Peter Gabriel, It Bites and John Mitchell.” Now it;s over to the listeners…
Tomorrow Isn’t There (Official Music Video) – YouTube
With two renowned bassists in their line-up – former Soen and Testament man Steve Di Giorgio and Jeroen Paul Thesseling – you’d expect prog metal/fusion outfit Quadvium to have a pretty low-end sound, and indeed they do on Adhysia, tken from the band’s recently released debut album Tetradōm, out through Agonia Records. Add in Dutch drummer Yuma van Eekelen (Our Oceans) and American guitarist Eve (Myth Of I), you have something quite intriguing. The excellent animated vuideo from Romanian artist Costin Chioreanu merely adds to the appeal. For fans of instrumental progressive metal fusion – and fretless bass!
“We had an intention many many years ago to make some music together… to feature two predominantly multistring fretless bass players playing in duet form,” both Di Giorgio and Thesseling reflect. “That is to say, neither being rhythm bass & lead bass nor some trading off hot solo licks mess. But easier said than done! While hanging out, we exchanged some thoughts about how it would be to form a group to support our bass-ic needs. At that time, it was just a spontaneous idea, but over the years, the topic was brought up again and again. This vision was blurry at best, and it took us a long time to not only imagine how to feature the bass in this way.”
QUADVIUM – Adhyasa (Official Music Video) – YouTube
Belgian psychedelic post-rock trio Psychonaut can pack a hefty musical punch and take the listener on a more introspective journey, often both together in a single song. As is the case with new single Endless Currents, which is taken from the band’s upcoming album World Maker, an album recorded during a period of personal change for the band members – guitarist/vocalist Stefan De Graef became a father while his own father was diagnosed with terminal illness – which informed both the band’s outlook and sound.
“In the face of life’s soaring highs and desolate lows, World Maker is direct and brave without sacrificing any of Psychonaut’s raw power, creative innovation or inimitable musical depth,” says the band’s label. “Where their previous full-length offerings have charted grand introspective courses through time and space, World Maker is breathtaking in its uncompromising clarity: a father singing to his newborn son as a son bids his own father farewell.”
Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.
