Archive News Oct 19, 2001

HATEBREED have issued an official statement regarding the recent cancellation of their involvement with the God Hates The World Tour, headlined by SLAYER, in order to concentrate on finishing up their major label debut, entitled Perseverance: “First off all, we as a band would like to sincerely apologize to everyone for dropping off the SLAYER tour. I don't think anyone can feel as truly horrible about this as us. It makes us sick to our stomachs but we HAVE TO GET OUR NEW ALBUM OUT! If we went on that tour it would have delayed the album to late April or possibly May! That's 6 or 7 months from now! We could not live with that. This album is what everyone has been waiting for and we are going to get out if it's the last thing we do! We are going to tour from Christmas on so don't worry! By the time most of you are reading this we will be in Long View Farms Studios with producer Matt Hyde [i.e. SLAYER, MONSTER MAGNET] finishing our album. Believe us! You wont be disappointed!”

SLIPKNOT have postponed the European, Australian and Japanese legs of their current tour due to the current political climate. Here is the group's official statement on the matter: 'Because of the international tensions, current conflict, and growing safety problems involving our country, we are postponing, not canceling, postponing our scheduled tours of England, Japan, and Australia. These dates will be made up in 2002 and all original tickets bought will be honored (so hang on to them),but right now, we feel we should stay close to home and within our families reaches in case of any major emergencies. We sincerely apologize for this and WE ARE COMING, but right now is the time to watch out for our loved ones. We encourage you all to do the same. We love you guys, and we'll see you soon.'

RAGING SPEEDHORN have cited the imminent birth of vocalist Frank Regan's first child as the reason for the cancellation of the group's support slot on FEAR FACTORY's upcoming European tour. As a result, the release of the band's forthcoming single has been pushed back to early 2002.

MACHINE HEAD will be issuing “Crashing Around You”, the first single off the group's Supercharger CD, in the UK on December 3rd. The full track listing for the CD is as follows:

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01. Crashing Around You

02. Silver (live)

03. Ten Ton Hammer (live)

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Also contained within the CD is the video 'Crashing Around You' as an enhanced element. All the live tracks were produced by Leif Edling (CANDLEMASS bassist and former Swedish Radio P3 DJ) and MACHINE HEAD and were recorded at Cirkus, Stockholm on December 2nd, 1999 by Swedish Radio P3.

Following his critically-acclaimed appearance in last year's Jeckyl &amp Hyde, former SKID ROW frontman Sebastian Bach will be starring in The Rocky Horror Show, another Broadway production, starting October 30th, with eight shows scheduled a week until January 6, 2002 (except November 8, 9, 10, &amp 11). For tickets, call (212) 239-6200.

COAL CHAMBER have completed mixing eight songs for their forthcoming third full-length effort, tentatively titled Dark Days, which is due through Roadrunner Records in early 2002. The remaining six tracks are expected to be finished by October 24th.

ORGY are currently in the studio writing the material for their third studio CD, which is expected to be recorded later this year and issued in the first half of 2002. In other news, the band is planning to release a live DVD in the next few months, featuring a live performance shot at the Chicago House Of Blues stop on the group's last tour. In addition to the live performance footage, the DVD will also feature the band's previously released videos, edited by ORGY drummer Bobby Hewitt, and never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage of the band rehearsing, recording and touring in support of their first two CDs.

SHEAVY will be traveling to Belgium in early November to record the group's next album, which is tentatively due in early 2002.

Due to a slight delay in the digipak manufacturing, the new MY DYING BRIDE album, entitled The Dreadful Hours, will now be released on October 29th.

WOLFEN SOCIETY, the acclaimed project featuring Lord Ahriman (DARK FUNERAL),Vincent Crowley (ACHERON),Kyle Severn (INCANTATION),and Thomas Thorn &amp Ricktor Ravensbruck (THE ELECTRIC HELLFIRE CLUB),will be releasing their mini-CD, entitled Conquer Divine, in late January 2002. In related news DARK FUNERAL's recently-issued third full-length album, entitled Diabolis Interium, reached position #5 on the Swedish Metal Chart.

Here is a message from ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian, as posted on the group's official web site at www.anthrax.com:” Comrades, where are all the superheroes? A little more than a month has passed since the attack on the World Trade Center and not a peep. What gives? Now we all know that NYC is home to many superheroes and villains. Where the hell were they? Off fighting another 'Secret War?'* (*Secret War is a trademark of Marvel Comics). I mean c'mon, between The Fantastic Four, The Avengers, Spiderman, Daredevil and Dr. Strange, who friggin' lives in Greenwich Village, nobody? Not to mention Wilson Fisk AKA The Kingpin who I'm sure had a huge financial interest at stake. Would he allow this to happen in his city? Hell no. Where was Shield? Were they all out of town? Even Luke Cage and Iron Fist? The friggin' Falcon? Anyone?

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“Why the superhero rant? Because it's still so unreal to me. Unimaginable. I've read comics, sci-fi, and horror my whole life and this tops them all. I've seen all the bad Jerry Bruckheimer movies. Nothing compared to this. What happens when reality becomes more 'fantastic' than fantasy? And when I say 'fantastic' I don't mean good. What happens? Things change. Our lives change. Our way of life as Americans changes. America the beautiful. Still can be. America the trusting, caring, send us your poor, tired etc… No more.

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“They got us. The bad guys. On our turf. On American soil. Did you ever think this would happen? That 19 guys with boxcutters and pocket knives could do more damage to our country than whole nations could? They couldn't even make that into a Seagal movie. Too unbelievable. This many people haven't been killed on American soil in one day since the Civil War. Those were soldiers. These were innocents. Innocents killed because of the distorted ideology of madmen. Nihilists posing as Muslims. They distort the ideology of a religion to fit their needs. Hiding behind and lying in their God's name.

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“Bin Laden and the Taliban said that 'Jihad has been declared against the infidel (us),whose power and influence thwart the triumph of Islam, and whose success and example - indeed, whose very existence are an affront to the true faith.'

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“So why were we attacked? I read an article in the paper by a guy named Charles Krauthammer who put some things in perspective. I'll do my best to get this across without butchering it. Stay with me. I'll get to the band and the G3 stuff etc. soon.

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“So why were we attacked? 'Poverty and destitution in the Islamic world? Grievances against the West? America? Israel? Anti-colonialism, rising against their oppressors? Reading conventional notions of class struggle and anti-colonialism into Bin Laden, the Taliban and radical Islam is nonsense.'

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' 'If poverty and destitution, colonialism and capitalism are pissing off radical Islam, explain this: In March, the Taliban went to the Afghan desert where two great monuments of human culture, two massive Buddhas carved out of a cliff over 1500 years ago, and blew them up.

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' 'Buddhism is hardly a representative of the West. It's hardly a cause of poverty and destitution. It's hardly a symbol of colonialism.

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' 'No. The statues represented two things: and alternative faith and a great work of civilization. To the Taliban, the presence of both was intolerable.

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“ 'In places like Afghanistan, religion has been turned by some into a kind of nihilism, where people wish to destroy themselves and destroy their past and their culture, to be pure. They are enraged about the world and they wish to pull it down.

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' 'This kind of fury and fanaticism is unappeasable. It knows no social, economic, or political solution. You can't converge with this position because it holds that your life is worthless and your beliefs are criminal and should be extirpated.'

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'Basically, they're right, everyone else get f.cked.

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Now it really gets good. This Krauthammer guy pulls no punches. How could he with that name?

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' 'In it's nihilism, its will to power, its celebration of blood and death, its craving for the cleansing purity that comes only from eradicating life and culture, radical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism.

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' 'The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the 1500 year old Buddhas, it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone and steel. They had to be destroyed.

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' 'This worship of death and destruction is nihilism of a ferocity unlike any since the Nazis burned books, then art, and then whole peoples. Goebbels would have marveled at the recruitment tape for al Qaeda, a two hour orgy of blood and death: image after image of brutalized Muslims followed by images of desecration of the infidel - mutilated American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of the USS Cole, mangled bodies at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Throughout the soundtrack endlessly repeats 'with blood, with blood, with blood.'

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Now it gets deep.

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' 'Bin Laden appears on the tape to counsel that 'the love of this world is wrong. You should love the other world…..die in the right cause and go to the other world. In his Oct. 9 taped message, al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith gloried in the 'thousands of young people who look forward to death, like the Americans look forward to living.

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' 'Once again the world is faced with a transcendent conflict between those who love life and those who love death both for themselves and their enemies.

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' 'Which is why we tremble.

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' 'Upon witnessing the first atomic bomb explode at the Trinity site in Alamogordo New Mexico, J. Robert Oppenheimer recited a verse from the Hindu scripture 'Bhagavad Gita': 'Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.

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' 'We tremble because for the first time in history, nihilism will soon be armed with the ultimate weapons of annihilation. For the first time in history, the nihilist will have the means to match his ends.

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' 'Which is why the war declared upon us on Sept. 11 is the most urgent not only of our lives, but in the life of civilization itself.'

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“Whew. Lots of good points. Look up the words you don't know.

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“Bin Laden, the Taliban, and these Islamic radicals should come out and show their true faces. The faces of murderers and cowards. The face of oppression. Stop hiding behind religion. As a matter of fact, everyone could learn a lesson from that. Stop hiding behind religion.

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“The truth and beauty that exists in the words of the big books of Christianity, Islam and Judaism is there. They've just gotten lost in a game of telephone that's been going on for thousands of years.

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“The way they are carried out today is an abomination of what they were intended to be.

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“Where is the love?

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“All I can see is hate. All I can see are exclusionary elitist clubs. All I can see is alienation. All I can see is thousands of years of death caused by organized religion. It 's the only thing the communists had right.

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“I'm not advocating destroying faith. I say destroy the houses. Who needs 'em?

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'One more thing before we get to the funny.

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“How come after McVeigh was arrested we weren't in Michigan and Idaho and these other 'countries' harboring terrorists waging a sustained war against the evildoers? Evildoers. Every time Bush says that I feel like he's talking about Lex Luthor. Comics again.

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“I can see it now. One of these media types that have been quoting us from our site will print somewhere, 'Scott Ian, lead singer of Anthrax wants to know why Lex Luthor is sending out anthrax envelopes.'

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“I AM THE RHYTHM GUITAR PLAYER. CAN YOU READ THAT?

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“Some asshole from some thing called the Adequacy Org. e-mailed us demanding that we change our name. The guy is clueless. He talks about our new album called Spreading The Disease, calls us Grind Core, Death Metal and Speed Metal. He thinks we named the band last week to 'take advantage of this horrific situation.' Last week…..twenty years ago……. No big difference there. What a jackass. There was a link to click on to automatically e-mail us if you agreed with him. Out of 500 e-mails last week there were six people that did it.

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“That was the only negative thing we've gotten. You people out there have been overwhelmingly supportive. Thank you so much 'o loyal ones. We don't want to change the name. We don't want anyone else to die.

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“We're just like everyone else. People ask me how I feel about this. It sucks. I'm scared. Confused. Stressed. I'm sad that we live in a world where humans would do this to each other. When I learned about anthrax twenty years ago there was never any thought or talk about bio-warfare. Why is there bio-warfare? Why was it ever even an idea? Let's throw anthrax at each other. Fucking insanity. I just wish this would go away. I would feel the same even if my band weren't called ANTHRAX.

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“Are you still with me? I know this is a long one but hey, my column.

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“It was fun going through the pre-9/11 e-mails. So much excitement about the tour. Great reviews from people that saw the first few shows. All your G3 lineups of which Dimebag, Zakk, and the girl from KITTIE and the one where some guy said nobody. No G3, it's gay. Those were my favorites. Oh, and the guy that sent in the actual lineup. Maybe he thought I was asking who was on G3 last year. That one made me laugh. Back a little further many of you wrote in with your feelings about Joey Ramone. Thanks for your thoughts. So many of you want us to come and play. So to all of you in Germany and England and Scotland and Ireland and South America and France, Spain, Italy, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Holland, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, South Africa, Israel, Egypt, Indonesia, New Zealand and especially Australia (I get the most requests from you),we'll be there. (I know there are more countries. These are the ones that constantly ask for us to come). We've got nine songs. We're gonna write a few more and then record the record.

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“We never addressed the Paul Crook situation and it kind of got lost with all the chaos of the last month. I promise to post Paul's letter. There's no schism. Paul is great. We are great. I apologize for the lameness on our part for not letting you guys know sooner. Thanks for being so positive and cool.

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'We'll also fill you in on Rob Caggiano.

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'Things will hopefully get back to some semblance of normality and we'll start to pound you with all the info you could ever want. Song titles, video from the studio, etc.

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“That's it for now. Lots more soon. And no more history lessons. I hope.

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“Drinks for all my friends, Scott

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“PS: We're playing Nov 28 at Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC with TWISTED SISTER. It's a benefit.

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“PPS: Next Friday (the 26th) I interview OZZY on the Rock Show. Wait until you see my costume.

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“PPPS: The new Stephen King/Peter Straub sequel to The Talisman is awesome.

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“PPPPS: Conan just ripped us. Said, 'the guys from the band ANTHRAX have said that their name isn't so cool. They also said their new jobs at Pizza Hut aren't so cool either.' I like Conan. He's like a week late though. Leno did it last week. At least they're joking about it.'

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