Heavy Group announces the return of the Heavy Music Awards (HMA) and the arrival of its spectacular new home for 2023, the OVO Arena Wembley on Friday 26 May. Since its inception in 2017, the HMAs has recognised the most influential and groundbreaking creatives in the heavy music landscape and certified itself as a staple of the heavy music awards calendar, with a move to OVO Arena Wembley now cementing the event as the largest rock music awards ceremony ever.
I assume it’s easy to look back at the aughts and be dismissive of the entire decade particularly from the perspective of metal or punk fan. Nu-Metal was slowly being phased out as any goodwill from the previous decade had eroded and acts like Simple Plan and Good Charlotte made everyone realize that maybe the idea of Pop-Punk was a mistake. But those who kept their ear close to the ground knew better than to become jaded. Hard rock was alive and well and young bands were doing very exciting things. Young bands like Between the Buried and Me with their seminal Alaska (Victory Records 2005/Craft Recordings 2020).
Heading into the newly renovated Worcester Palladium, I didn’t really know what to expect. I have been coming to shows here for years, all the way back to 2005 to be exact. And to be honest, I had grown accustomed, even fond, of the “hole-in-the-wall” look of it all. Both upstairs and down. Continue reading
Living With Lions have released their new album, Island, out today via Redfield Records. We caught up with frontman Chase Brenneman to learn about his favorite concert memory in his life.
It’s hard to fathom that Good Charlotte has been around for over twenty years – it doesn’t seem that long since the Maryland natives were the one band to really thrive in the pop-punk MTV explosion of the early 2000’s with the very successful The Young and The Hopeless (Epic/Daylight). They’re released a number of hits since then, the Madden brothers took time off for a side project, got married to Hollywood darlings, and came back with 2016’s Youth Authority (MDDN) to much praise from old fans, and not so much from others.
The Costa Mesa OC Fairgrounds once again played host to Travis Barker’s music and tattoo convention, 11th annual Musink Festival, a Danny Wimmer Presents shindig.Continue reading
Returning once again to the OC, where American culture collides, Travis Barker’s 11th Annual Musink Festival takes over the OC Fair & Event Center in Orange County, CA on March 16th, 17th, and 18th. Presented by KROQ radio, headling the event will be Barker’s own blink-182, Descendents, Lil Yachty, Machine Gun Kelly, Good Charlotte, hundreds of tattoo artists, the Low ‘N’ Slow Car Show (showcasing the best selection of custom rides, American classics, and lowriders in SoCal on display), daily tattoo contests, and more. Tickets are on sale now at the link below. Continue reading
Already featuring a massive lineup of bands, Download 2017 has added 20 more names to the roster with Devin Townsend Project, Code Orange, Max & Iggor Cavalera playing their ‘Return To Roots’ show, Sick Puppies, rapper Machine Gun Kelly, Sikth, Suicide Silence, Ty Bryant And the Shakedown, Krokodil and many more announced. Continue reading
Australian metallic hardcore crew I Killed The Prom Queen are enjoying their time on the Vans Warped Tour, in support of their latest album Beloved. While on the tour, they quickly learned about the other fellow Aussies who will be taking part on the tour with them.
Guitarist Jona Weinhofen spoke about some of his fellow country people, and how he detects if that person is actually Australian. “I know there are but I can’t remember the names. They’re bands I don’t know personally. It’s the thickest accents. You can hear it within ten meters from where you are.”
Being that he is currently situated in the United States, he found himself getting more in touch with his Australian roots. He shared his thoughts on staying true to that plus how he sees his home country from afar.
“Honestly since moving away from Australia, I think I found myself a little more patriotic. It’s one of those things – you don’t know what you’ve got until you’ve lost it. It goes with the place you’re living as well. When I moved to America – I love it here in California. There’s so much opportunity, beautiful weather all the time and so much cool stuff to do all the time, but I did find myself missing certain things about home and that made me appreciate things about my home country a little bit more”.
“If you hear me around Warped Tour putting on a thick Aussie accent, that’s me trying to regain my patriotism,” he said, with a smile.
In recent years, he also spoke about another band he is very familiar with – Deez Nuts. The band features two former members of I Killed The Prom Queen – frontman JJ Peters and bassist Sean Kennedy. Weinhofen explains the connection between the two bands and his thoughts on his former bandmates’ new venture.
“He was our original drummer, JJ Peters. He was in the band with the reformation in 2011 and when we wanted to go full time again, he was already doing Deez Nuts full time. They have a huge following in Europe, so he left Prom Queen to focus on Deez Nuts. We’re totally cool with that. Our old bass player Sean Kennedy left the band for personal reasons and joined Deez Nuts the second time.”
“The Aussian music industry, especially with the heavy music with punk rock, hardcore – is quite incestuous. Everyone knows everyone, everyone’s played in everyone else’s bands. Our bass player Ben [Coyte] played in Deez Nuts. Our singer Jamie [Hope] played in Deez Nuts. I played one show with Deez Nuts. Everyone’s good at maintaining friendships no matter what band’s doing what.”
I Killed The Prom Queen’s newest bass player comes out of Day of Contempt, a veteran of the Australian hardcore scene. “Our bass player Ben used to be the vocalist of this band called Day of Contempt from Adelaide. We basically grew up and they were our idols. They were the Adelaide band we had to play with. I think they were the first Adelaide band to sign to an overseas hardcore label, the first Adelaide/Australian hardcore band to really come over and tour the US hard. I know they did some tours with Terror, Bleeding Through, 18 Visions and even Good Charlotte. They did some really good tours. They were a band we always looked up to. When he approached us to join the band, we were like ‘duh – let’s do this!’ “