Blink 182, Motion City Soundtrack Albums In The Works

Blink-182 frontman Mark Hoppus says the band has already written a number of new songs, but don't expect a follow-up to 2003's self-titled smash before the big reunion tour this summer.

"We started writing a few months ago and got well into the writing process, but now we've kind of put the recording of the next album on hold and are doing rehearsals for the upcoming tour," Hoppus told Billboard.com.

After a four-year hiatus, Hoppus, Travis Barker and Tom DeLonge appeared on stage at the 2009 Grammy Awards and announced their reformation as Blink-182.

Hoppus has also been busy in the studio with Motion City Soundtrack, producing the band's fourth album - and major-label debut - for Columbia Records. Hoppus last worked with the group on it's sophomore release, 2005's "Commit This To Memory."

"I think that 'Memory' is a really great record," Hoppus said. "For me, it encapsulates what Motion City Soundtrack is and can do. Now they want to make a record that's along those lines but pushes it even further."

As for the Minnesota-based electro-pop band's new material, Hoppus says fans will hear a heavier, more experimental side of the group. "There's an edge on this record that I'm really excited about getting into," he said. "But it still has all the catchiness of everything that I personally love about Motion City Soundtrack. As a fan, it's really exciting to get to work with them again and help them flesh out this new vision of themselves."

With a long-standing friendship and mutual respect, Hoppus does not rule out the possibility of taking Motion City Soundtrack out on tour with his newly reunited Blink-182. "We're still booking the Blink tour for this summer, so we'll see how that all ends up working out," he said. "I would love to tour with Motion City. They're a really cool band to tour with and they're great live, so I wouldn't be angry at that."

As for his full plate, the 37-year-old bassist/producer isn't complaining. "I felt like I had a couple of years to kind of relax, and I love those years, but there's a lot going on right now and it's a lot of fun."

Blink 182 To Tour With Weezer This Summer?

Buzznet.com is reporting that the newly reformed Blink-182 will be hitting the concert circuit this summer with Weezer being their main supporting act.

The site claims that an "inside source" confirmed to them that the rumors of Blink-182 and Weezer touring this summer were in fact true. No tour dates have been announced nor have any labels confirmed the possible "Blinker" tour ("Bleezer" tour? "Wink" tour?), but it wouldn’t be the first time that either band has paired up with another huge act for a set of tour dates.

Blink-182 has co-headlined along the likes of No Doubt and Green Day (another band they were rumored to be touring with this summer) while Weezer participated in the "Foozer" tour with the Foo Fighters in 2005.

In other Blink-182 tour news, bassist Mark Hoppus posted a snapshot of a possible setlist for the upcoming tour. The picture can be seen here. Fan favorites such as "Dammit," "All The Small Things," and "The Rock Show" are all present along with more songs spanning their entire catalog.

Additionally, Blink-182 is working on a new record which is likely to be released in early 2010.

Iron Maiden Planning New Studio Album

According ot Bang Media International, Iron Maiden will start work on its next album this year. The group hopes to have a new album out and be back on tour in 2010.

Guitarist Adrian Smith told Bang showbiz: "At the end of the year we'll be writing again, rehearsing and recording at the beginning of next year. Then we'll be back out on the road again next year. Kevin Shirley [producer] will be working on it with us and we'll probably be doing it somewhere where we've done a lot for recording in the past."

The next Iron Maiden 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 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]"

Green Day: Release Date For Follow-Up To American Idiot

Reprise Records will release Green Day’s long-awaited eighth studio album, entitled 21st Century Breakdown, on Friday, May 15th, 2009. The album is the best-selling trio’s first studio album since 2004’s two-time Grammy Award-winning punk-rock opera American Idiot, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard chart, spawned five hit singles, and went on to sell more than 12 million copies worldwide.
21st Century Breakdown is divided into three acts: "Heroes And Cons," "Charlatans And Saints," and "Horseshoes And Handgrenades," and follows a young couple, Christian and Gloria, through the mess and promise of the century so far. Songs include "Know Your Enemy", "21 Guns", "East Jesus Nowhere", "Before The Lobotomy", and "Restless Heart Syndrome." In a recent feature, Rolling Stone called the album "even more ambitious than American Idiot" and "a record of die-hard punk ideals…tightly scripted, continually ascending classic-rock excitement."


Singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tre Cool have been at work writing, arranging, and recording 21st Century Breakdown since early 2006 and are currently making finishing touches with producer Butch Vig, who is known for his work with Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, and many others.

The first single from 21st Century Breakdown is "Know Your Enemy," which will impact radio and be available for purchase from all online retailers this April.

Dream Theater: New Album Title, Track Listing

Progressive metal veterans Dream Theater have set "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" as the title of their tenth studio album, due on June 23 via Roadrunner Records. In addition to the standard-version CD, the effort will also be available on vinyl LP, as well as a three-disc, special-edition CD that will include the full album, a CD of instrumental mixes of the album and a CD of six cover songs, the titles of which will be revealed at a later date.

Six weeks prior to the June 23 street date, Roadrunner will release one cover song per week through digital retailers.

Dream Theater commenced work on "Black Clouds & Silver Linings" — the band's second for Roadrunner, following up 2007's "Systematic Chaos" — in October of last year.

Drummer Mike Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci are once again at the helm as producers, while Paul Northfield mixed the record.

"Black Clouds & Silver Linings" track listing:

01. A Nightmare to Remember
02. A Rite of Passage
03. Wither
04. The Shattered Fortress
05. The Best of Times
06. The Count of Tuscany

A video for the first single, "A Rite Of Passage", will be shot in late March.

Mike Portnoy played a one-minute "teaser" for the band's forthcoming album on the February 27, 2009 edition of Eddie Trunk's "Friday Night Rocks" radio show on New York's Q104.3 FM. The clip is available for streaming here.

Portnoy previously stated about the upcoming CD, "Imagine a Dream Theater album with 'A Change Of Seasons', 'Octavarium', 'Learning To Live', 'Pull Me Under' and 'The Glass Prison'... all on one album... Could You Handle It?? Excited? I sure am!!!!"

The band will embark on a world tour in support of the album beginning in Europe throughout June which will be followed by the second edition of the band’s "Progressive Nation" tour featuring Zappa Plays Zappa, Pain Of Salvation and Beardfish throughout North America in July/August.

Mike Portnoy will guest on "Eddie Trunk Live" on Sirius (channel 19) / XM Radio (channel 53) on Monday, March 16. The program airs from 6:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m. EST.

Dream Theater's "Chaos In Motion 2007/2008" double DVD set sold just under 9,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 2 on the Top Music Videos chart.

Blink-182's Mark Hoppus Discusses Reunion

Blink-182's Mark Hoppus Discusses Reunion

One of the biggest news stories in the past few weeks has been about the reunion of pop-punk legends Blink-182. The band ended four years of silence when they reunited on stage at 51st Annual Grammy Awards and announced that they were making music again. Since then the band has updated their website with new photos and merchandise as well as announced that they are working on their first new album in almost six years and will be touring this summer.

Scott Heisel of Alternative Press sat down with bassist and vocalist Mark Hoppus to get the hairy details on how the band came to reunite and what the future holds for them.

Here are some excerpts from the interview:

Alternative Press: So when did talk of a reunion first commence?

Mark Hoppus: Probably a couple weeks after we first started talking. I dunno, maybe it was longer than that. But I remember sitting in our studio--me, Travis and Tom [DeLonge, guitar]--and we were just talking and hanging out. Tom had just kind of come out to L.A. for the day, and I remember he said, "So, what do you guys think? Where are your heads at" And I said, "I think we should continue with what we've been doing for the past 17 years. I think we should get back on the road and back in the studio and do what we love doing."

Was that feeling mutual or was there some trepidation?

There wasn't any trepidation. I think all of us had come to the point that we wanted to continue with what we started. It was just a natural thing. It's been, knock wood, a really positive experience so far. Everybody's in a really good place, everybody is really supportive of each other and it's probably the most supportive we've been as a band in a really, really long time.

What was the first song that you guys played once you got back together in one room?

We still haven't. We haven't been in the same room playing instruments together at the same time. The way that we're writing songs now is coming up with different ideas. We're still in the beginning stages of writing the album. We have a handful of songs that we have in many stages. I have probably 10 different song ideas that I've brought to the table, and Tom has a bunch of ideas, and Travis has ideas. So we kind of start off with something that maybe I'll work on in the studio for a while and I'll show it to Tom and he'll jump on that. Same with Travis. But we haven't sat down as a band together and been three people in a room playing the songs together.

Looking at the music that both you and Tom have made since Blink went on hiatus, is there a specific song that Tom wrote that jumped out at you as a really good song?

I thought that "The Adventure" was a really cool song. I thought that was a cool jam.

Are the new Blink-182 songs you're working just general song ideas, or did you think of them specifically for Blink?

The songs that I'm bringing to the table are song ideas that I've been working on for the past couple of years. I think that it's the same with Tom and Travis as well. And that's kind of how we've always worked-everyone brings their initial ideas to the table, but the magic happens when the other two people get their hands on an idea and change it into something better than it was. That's something I've always loved about Blink: I can have an idea and the final result is so different from where I thought the song was going. The way that Travis deals with arrangements and rhythms and different ideas that he brings to the table is something that I would never think of. It takes all of our ideas to a higher level. Same with Tom. He'll come up with an idea for a song and for me, personally, if I write something, I love handing it to Tom and Travis and seeing what they do with it. That's the strength. There's this battle within Blink-182 with these ideas and what everyone brings to the table, and there's this tension--not in a negative way--but this pulling of ideas between the three of us that's exciting to me.

Have you made an official decision on what the future of (+44) will be?

I don't consider it done. We'll never say never with anything. As soon as you say, "I'm not gonna do that anymore," you find yourself in a situation where you wanna do that. Shane [Gallagher] and Craig [Fairbaugh] are awesome guitarists and great fun to play in a band with, so we definitely won't say that the band is done. But obviously, for the foreseeable future, all of our energy is going into Blink-182. This isn't a temporary thing. We aren't even calling it a reunion. It's more of a continuation. When I hear a band are doing a reunion, it just sounds fake to me, and that's not how we are with this. Everybody's putting 100 percent of their effort into continuing what we've always done. It's not like we're just gonna do a tour and then call it for a while and then do another tour and then call it for a while. We're just continuing Blink-182 as we always have.

Ideally, when would you like to have the new record out?

Hopefully in 2009. That's what we're talking about and everything is moving so much faster than I ever even imagined that it could possibly happen. A couple months ago we were barely talking and now we're six songs into a new album and planning a tour and things seem to be falling into place. So I don't know when the record will actually be out. We're still discovering. It's been very comfortable to be back working as our band--as Blink-182. It's gonna be a process, but it's been a very positive process. We don't feel pressured to have an album out by a certain date. We're just gonna record on our own terms until we have album that we absolutely love.

The full interview can be. read here.

After announcing their reunion on live television, the band posted the following message on their site:

"Hi, we're blink-182. This past week there've been a lot of questions about the current status of the band, and we wanted you to hear it straight from us. To put it simply, we're back. We mean, really back. Picking up where we left off and then some. In the studio writing and recording a new album. Preparing to tour the world yet again. Friendships reformed. 17 years deep in our legacy. Summer 2009. Thanks and get ready..."

Slash Commences Recording Solo Album

Slash Commences Recording Solo Album

Former Guns N' Roses and current Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash has commenced recording his debut solo album with Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails) on drums, Chris Chaney (Jane's Addiction) on bass, and Eric Valentine (Smash Mouth, Third Eye Blind, Good Charlotte) in the producer's chair. Slash says, "I know you're saying, 'Didn't Josh play with Axl's Guns N' Roses?!' He did in the '90s for a while but left after a couple years, so I don't know if it counts much. Besides, that doesn't undermine that he is an amazing drummer."

Regarding which singers will guest on his upcoming CD, Slash said, "Unfortunately, I can't divulge that info yet, but you'll know soon enough. I will say, however, that they are fantastically talented songwriters who it's been an honor to work and write with, to say the least."

Slash's wife Perla Hudson said in a video interview at Rockerrazzi.com that both Ozzy Osbourne and Fergie will make guest appearances on her husband's upcoming solo album. Slash himself told The Pulse of Radio that he was still working out the guest list. "I'm using different singers for each song, so we're figuring out which song goes with which person and I'm not sort of divulging the list of singers, but they're all well-known singers and...sort of, you know, like I go and play on a lot of other people's records, so I'm just making a record and gonna have people come play on this one, you know."

Slash left Guns N' Roses in the mid-'90s, forming Slash's Snakepit before later assembling Velvet Revolver with several other ex-members of Guns N' Roses and Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland.

Velvet Revolver is currently searching for a replacement for Weiland, who was dismissed last April.