Anthrax To Tour with Volbeat 2015

Anthrax will hit the road in Spring 2015 with Danish/American rockers Volbeat.  Dates announced are as follows:

Apr. 24 – Denver, CO @ 1STBANK Center
Apr. 25 – Rapid City, SD @ Rushmore Plaza Civic Center
Apr. 27 – Spokane, WA @ Spokane Arena
Apr. 28 – Missoula, MT @ Adams Center
Apr. 29 – Seattle, WA @ WaMu Theatre
May 01 – Grande Prairie, AB @ Revolution Place
May 02 – Edmonton, AB @ Rexall Place
May 03 – Calgary, AB @ Calgary Stampede Corral
May 04 – Saskatoon, SK @ SaskTel Centre
May 06 – Regina, SK @ Brandt Centre
May 07 – Grand Forks, ND @ Ralph Englestad Arena
May 12 – Oshawa, ON @ General Motors Centre
May 13 – Ottawa, ON @ TD Place
May 14 – Quebec City, QC @ Quebec Colisee Pepsi
May 15 – Montreal, QC @ CEPSUM Montreal
May 18 – Saginaw, MI @ Dow Events Center
May 19 – Evansville, IN @ Ford Center
May 20 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
May 22 – Sioux City, IA @ Tyson IBF Events Center
May 27 – Dallas, TX @ Verizon Grand Prairie
May 28 – Houston, TX @ Bayou Music Center
May 31 – St. Louis, MO @ Outdoors at Pop’s
Jun. 02 – New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom

Additional shows will be announced soon.

Pre-sale details and more info are available here.

Sonic Highways Features Bad Brains

The great HBO series Sonic Highways, in which they follow the Foo Fighters to different cities to tap into that city’s musical sound and history, visited Washington, DC in their second episode.  The DC punk scene had a profound effect on Dave Grohl, who grew up in nearby Virginia.  Prominently featured throughout the episode was Bad Brains.  The episodes are available via OnDemand and HBO To Go.  Check out a clip here:

Johnny Winter Video: Death Letter

Check the last video the great Johnny Winter made.  NPR has recently featured the video in its First Look segment.

Check it out HERE.

Bad Brains – Salad Days

Dave Grohl is putting together a film about the birth of the DC punk movement. The legendary Bad Brain shall be featured.  Here’s the trailer:

Grinder Blues New Single Featured in Revolver

Revolver knows what’s up. They decided they needed to cover the release of Grinder Blues newest single and video Burn the Bridge.  Check out the coverage below:

Grinder Blues, featuring King’s X’s dUg Pinnick, will release their self-titled album on October 14 via Megaforce Records. In anticipation, the band has teamed up with Revolver to premiere their new song and music video for “Burn the Bridge.” Check it out below and let us know what you think in the comments!

Bassist-vocalist dUg Pinnick said, “I love the video! It happened so fast, it was fun, no stress.”

Drummer Scot Bihlman said, “The making this video was a blast. We wrote this blues/rock song to be straight to the point. There is definitely no fat structurally to cut away on this tune. Heavy riff, and heavy topic. We filmed it in Los Angeles at a cool warehouse that set the tone for the song. For the look of the video I added a 32 inch kick drum that is big, proud, and fits the production of the record. The sound is massive! We all agreed that we wanted to push a lot of air, on this record, and kept it very raw.” [read more and see video HERE]

Anthrax Releases Chile on Hell 9.16.14

Get ready to mosh in the privacy of your own home, because multiple Grammy-nominated, Platinum-selling thrash masters ANTHRAX have announced the release of “Chile On Hell,” a live-in-concert DVD that is set for a September 16, 2014 release. “Chile On Hell” was filmed at the Teatro Caupolican in Santiago, Chile on May 10, 2013, and features Anthrax – Joey Belladonna/vocals, Scott Ian/guitar, Charlie Benante/drums, Frank Bello/bass and Jon Donais/lead guitar. The band performed an extended set that featured songs from Anthrax’s entire catalogue – all the fan-favorites including “I Am The Law,” “Indians,” “Madhouse,” “Caught In A Mosh,” “The Devil You Know,” and “I’m Alive.” “Chile On Hell” will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray, was recorded in 5.1 Surround Sound, and will retail for $16.98.

“Santiago was the perfect place to film the show for this,” said Anthrax’s Charlie Benante. “When we’d played there in the past, we’d finish our set, play our encore and go back to the dressing room. But every time, the fans would continue to scream and cheer and clap. I mean, they went on and on, they wouldn’t stop. One time Scott and I walked out to the side of the stage just to watch what was going on in the audience, it was intense. Why wouldn’t we want to film a DVD in front of an audience like that?

“Plus,” Benante continued, the time was right to do this DVD.” The band was in the home stretch of a three-plus-year campaign to record and support Worship Music and the Anthems EP, a period of time that was loaded with high points: the return of “classic era” vocalist Joey Belladonna, Worship Music making the band’s highest chart debut in two decades, the series of Big Four shows – Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Metallica, the four bands that wrote the speed and thrash metal road map – that culminated in the September 2011 Big Four spectacular at Yankee Stadium in the band’s home town of New York, “Anthrax Day” declared in the Bronx, becoming the first metal band to have its music (“Got The Time”) played on Mars, two Grammy nominations, and sold out shows in every corner of the globe. “We wanted to finish on a high note,” Benante continued, “we didn’t want to look back and regret that we didn’t record the live show.”

“Chile On Hell” was produced by Jay Ruston and filmed by City Drive Entertainment Group and DC3 Global. The DVD’s cover art was designed by Stephen Thompson who partnered with Benante to “redesign” the artwork from last year’s Anthems EP.

Scott Ian Spoken Word

Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian will release Swearing Words in Glasgow, a spoken word DVD, on 11.11.14

“I’ve always loved musicians like Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins, who have the balls to do spoken word performances. It’s just them and the mike. There’s no band to make them look good or cover up their mistakes. They’re alone, naked. It’s seemed like a really cool thing to do, but I’m not especially political and while I’m interested in a lot of different subjects from good food to great comic books, I’m not enough of an expert in any one area to get onstage and talk about it like I know any more than anyone else.

Then over the past five years or so I’ve been lucky enough to become really good friends with some great comedians, like Brian Posehn and Patton Oswalt. We’d sit around and swap stories, and I realized they were as interested in the stories I have about my bands Anthrax and S.O.D., the people I’ve been lucky enough to cross paths with — like Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead, Gene Simmons from KISS, the late Dimebag Darrell from Pantera and cutting my teeth alongside the guys in Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth – as I was in their jokes.

The thought of doing spoken word still terrified me, but they helped convince me that I’ve had a bunch of really stupid, funny, tragic and triumphant experiences over the last 10 years or so and that if I could write them all down or at least put them into some sort of order, I’d have at least a couple hours’ worth of material that Anthrax fans, and anyone who likes nerdy (nerdy meaning cool) shit like Star Wars, Stephen King, drinking and sports might want to hear.

Still, being able to sit with my friends in a bar and tell entertaining stories was a long way from standing in front of a paying crowd telling stories that would hopefully entertain them. And, I had no idea how to go about actually booking a show. I just had this big idea that I could do speaking shows and eventually it’d happen.

And it did. Anthrax fans have always been loyal and supportive and that has allowed me to act like a rock star for more than 30 years. So, I wanted to reach out first to my fans to help finance this one-of-a-kind DVD that reveals more about me, my sense of humor and my bizarre career than anything you’ve ever read or seen.”

— Scott

Bad Brains at Afropunk Festival 2014

Bad Brains joined Cro-Mags, Body Count, Straight Line Stitch, Unlocking the Truth and more at the Afropunk Festival, held in Brooklyn’s Commodore Barry Park.

Read the full account of the mayhem via Loudwire HERE.

R.I.P. Johnny Winter

The Megaforce family would like to pass along condolences to the Winter Family.  Johnny was a true pleasure to work with and he will be greatly missed.

Ben Harper,Eric Clapton, And More Team For Johnny Winter Album

“Blues legend Johnny Winter will release a new studio album, Step Back, September 2 via Megaforce Records. The album, the followup to 2011’s Roots, will find Winter exploring a more aggressive vintage-blues style.

The album also will feature a host of special guests, including Eric Clapton, Ben Harper, Billy Gibbons, Joe Perry, Dr. John, Leslie West, Brian Setzer and Joe Bonnamassa….(READ MORE)