Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl on Sesame Street; David Ellerfson discusses Metal Allegiance and Megadeth; and LA Guns’ Phil Lewis talks genuine chemistry with Tracii Guns.
Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl to Appear on 50th Anniversary Season of ‘Sesame Street’
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl is ready to play one of the most famous streets in the world — Sesame Street. Grohl already has spent time in the Muppet universe, having appeared on ABC’s 2015 update of The Muppets as well as making a cameo in the 2011 film The Muppets, as a fill-in drummer for The Moopets cover band. Now, he’ll transition from spending time with Animal, Kermit and Dr. Teeth to hanging out with Big Bird and a few of his friends.
Though details surrounding Grohl’s appearance remain under wraps, Foo Fighters Live tracked down social media photos suggesting that Grohl will at least share some screen time with two of the most popular muppets — Big Bird and Elmo. Read more at Loudwire.com
DAVID ELLEFSON: ‘METAL ALLEGIANCE Is About Not Repeating What I Do In MEGADETH’
Ladies In Rock recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson about METAL ALLEGIANCE, the all-star project that also features TESTAMENT lead guitarist Alex Skolnick, SONS OF APOLLO drummer Mike Portnoy and Mark Menghi. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). On whether METAL ALLEGIANCE has already found their sound or it will change over time: David: “I think the beauty of METAL ALLEGIANCE is that it will always continue to evolve. On some level, it’s a hard rock and metal album obviously, but, metal is a very wide category and as much we’re of a similar age group and Alex and I both play in definitive thrash bands with TESTAMENT and MEGADETH, there is certainly a whole wide variety to what metal music is. The metal from the ’70s, the ’80s, into the ’90s and now the modern-day metal, black metal, doom metal, nu metal, thrash metal, power metal, so it’s nice that we can evolve it. I think on this, bringing Max Cavalera in on ‘Voodoo Of The Godsend’ — Max, to a large degree, SEPULTURA was kind of the, they combined thrash and especially nu metal once Max started doing SOULFLY, so we had a little bit of a flavor of that in there. I also like that this album comprises largely of guests from outside the U.S.A. with Floor, Johan, Max, who lives by me in Phoenix, he really represents Brazil. I think this album, more than anything, plants a lot of international flags in it.”
On the writing process for “Power Drunk Majesty”: David: “The thing we changed a little bit on this record is the first six songs Menghi, Sknonick and Portnoy wrote back in New Year’s of 2016/17, then a few months later, me, Portnoy and Skolnick got together and wrote the second batch of songs and we intentionally broke it up because as much as me and Mark are bass players, we both write very different and we knew that it would help create kind of a real showcase of what the four of us do together. We discovered on the first album that when Menghi came in, he had sort of a PANTERA and (BLACK) SABBATH vibe to his compositions. I obviously bring thrash stuff, but I also like to do things beyond just thrash. I get to already do that in one of the greatest heavy metal bands in the world, which is MEGADETH. For me, METAL ALLEGIANCE is about doing some things outside of just playing the type of thrash and metal that I do with MEGADETH. For me, METAL ALLEGIANCE is about not repeating what I do in MEGADETH. I already get to do that there, so for me, I think writing songs like ‘Voodoo Of The Godsend’, the bass parts and the music for ‘Impulse Control’, those things. Also, a lot of lyric stuff. Things like ‘Power Drunk Majesty’ and ‘The Accuser’, were songs that I initiated the lyrics to. I get to have a really nice lyrical contribution. Usually, I’ll start a lyric and I’ll send it right over to Menghi and he and I will start collaborating on the lyric ideas. Regardless of who plays on a song, me or Mark, it’s kind of like we both touch each other’s songs. I wrote lyrics to a lot of his songs and he ended up having contributions into the music for some of the songs I wrote. It’s really a cool collaboration that Menghi and I get to have, both being the bass players in the band.” Read more at Blabbermouth.net
L.A. GUNS frontman Phil Lewis says the band’s next studio album will sound like BLACK SABBATH but “blacker,” alluding to a possible heavier or darker style than found on their most recent LP, “The Missing Peace”. In an interview with Midlands Metalheads Radio prior to the band’s September 4 concert at Robin 2 in Wolverhampton, England, United Kingdom, Lewis was asked what type of venues he prefers to play considering L.A. GUNS have played to various crowd sizes throughout their career: “My favorite gig and me Tracii were talking about it, my favorite gigs are the theaters, like the 2,000-seater theaters like Hammersmith Odeons, that size. Clubs are alright and arenas are alright. Arenas are a little bit impersonal, but they stroke the ego, everybody loves it. Or if it’s me playing acoustic guitar in front of 50 people. It’s all the same.”
On the topic of his relationship with Guns, with whom he reunited in 2016 after a 14-year break, Lewis said: “Clearly, there was something missing in both of our lives. This record (‘The Missing Peace’) has proved that it is a genuine chemistry. It’s not something that was formulated to make a few quid — it’s real. And it was important for us to prove that we weren’t doing a nostalgia tour. It was really important for us to do a new record. We decided when that came out and it proved we are a real, legitimate band and we’ll do another one. A lot of bands from our era, they stopped making records 30 years ago. It’s never going to happen. We just have to keep going. It’s what we do. It’s what we enjoy. It’s a challenge and how we thrive.” Read more at Blabbermouth.net
Leave a Reply