VOLBEAT's 'Beyond Hell/Above Heaven' Album Certified Gold By RIAA

VOLBEAT's fourth album, 2010's "Beyond Hell/Above Heaven", was officially certified gold in March by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) for sales in excess of a 500,000 copies.
Over the past few years, more and more people have stopped paying to download or physically own albums and started instead consuming music on platforms like Spotify, YouTube and Apple Music. As a result, effective February 1, RIAA started including on-demand audio and video streams and a track sale equivalent in gold and platinum album award. The modernization of the program's album rule follows a similar update made to digital single certifications in 2013, when the RIAA first added on-demand streams to its digital single award. Collectively, this now means that the program's iconic benchmarks — 500,000 (gold),1,000,000 (platinum) and 2,000,000 plus (multi-platinum) — count both sales and streams for single and album certifications.

After a comprehensive analysis of a variety of factors — including streaming and download consumption patterns and historical impact on the program — and also consultation with a myriad of industry colleagues, the RIAA set the new album award formula of 1,500 on-demand audio and/or video song streams = 10 track sales = 1 album sale. RIAA's digital single award ratio was also updated from 100 on-demand streams = 1 download to 150 on-demand streams = 1 download to reflect the enormous growth of streaming consumption in the two plus years since that ratio was set. Just as RIAA announced when setting the initial formula in 2013, the analysis and the determination of a formula is based on comparative consumption patterns, not marketplace value.

"Beyond Hell/Above Heaven" was reissued in July 2011 as a deluxe edition featuring the original album as well as a DVD called "Return To Tilburg" that was filmed at a concert on February 24, 2010. The show was a makeup date for a November 2009 gig in the Dutch city at which VOLBEAT frontman Michael Poulsen passed out on stage after roughly thirty minutes due to illness.

The Danish group had begun to crack the U.S. market thanks to the success of "Fallen", the Top 15 rock single from the "Beyond Hell" album. Poulsen told The Pulse Of Radio that the song has a special significance to him. "It's a song I wrote for my father," he said. "I lost my father [in June 2008]. It's a very emotional song for me. He was the biggest VOLBEAT fan, you know; he almost knew more about VOLBEAT than I did. He was definitely proud and, you know, it's always great to be able to do your parents proud of what you're doing."

VOLBEAT will release its sixth full-length album, "Seal The Deal & Let's Boogie", on June 3. The CD's first single, "The Devil's Bleeding Crown", was made available last week along with an official lyric video.

Rob Caggiano, who joined VOLBEAT on guitar in February 2013, co-produced "Seal The Deal & Let's Boogie" just as he did the previous record, 2013's "Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies".

VOLBEAT will return to the road this spring with a string of dates scheduled around their first-ever performances at California's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 15 and April 22.

The two-week run of shows will kick off with an intimate "Evening With Volbeat" gig at the Roxy in West Hollywood, California on April 13.