VOLBEAT Bassist Leaves Tour; THE DAMNED THINGS' JOSH NEWTON Steps In

April 19, 2011

Danish metal rock 'n' rollers VOLBEAT have issued the following update:

"Due to recent developments, our bassist and friend Anders Kjølholm has taken a necessary break from the U.S. tour and returned home to Denmark to be with his family. Everyone is doing well, and we ask that you understand this is a personal matter and give Anders and his family the privacy they need. Filling in for Anders and pulling double duty will be our good friend Josh Newton from THE DAMNED THINGS (and EVERY TIME I DIE). We want to thank Josh and THE DAMNED THINGS camp for stepping up and helping us out."

VOLBEAT's latest album, "Beyond Hell/Above Heaven", was certified gold by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI) (The Federal Association of Music Industry) for sales in excess of 100,000 copies in Germany.

In a recent interview with Christina Fuoco-Karasinski of Soundspike, VOLBEAT guitarist/vocalist Michael Poulsen stated about "Beyond Hell/Above Heaven", "It's our new release and style-wise we're doing pretty much the same as we did on the three previous albums, flirting around with a lot of different styles. It's not easy to say what kind of style VOLBEAT actually is. You have so many different elements from punk and metal and rockabilly and country. For us, it's never been important to be 100 percent one genre or one style."

When asked about how VOLBEAT came up with its unique sound — which has been described as a cross between METALLICA and ELVIS PRESLEY — Poulsen said, "Mostly my parents would play all music from the '50s. We were listening to Elvis, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino and Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, all the legendary singers from the '50s. They were listening to them all the time. All those kind of melodies, they were always spinning in my head. Even though as a teenager I was really dedicated and hooked on heavy metal, it seems like later on all the melodies form the '50s continually showed up in my mind. So, it was very natural to mix it all up."

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