What John Bonham really thought of Ginger Baker
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John Bohnam is the eponymous thunder of drums. With Led Zeppelin he changed the game for rock ‘n’ roll drummers, hurtling his sticks like Thor’s hammer and ensuring that the drumkit wasn’t something that merely tapped away in the background.
The likes of Neil Peart were inspired by the famed “big triplets” Bonham bashed out on his “giant bass drum”. Continuing to inspire younger sticksmiths today, Matt Helders of the Arctic Monkeys opined: “I’d have to say that John Bonham is my favourite drummer of all time. He’s somebody that I always come back to. The reason why I picked this record purely comes down to a fill he does at the end of the ‘Moby Dick’ solo — before the band comes back in. It gives me chills, and that’s no exaggeration. I can hardly even express what it does to me. It’s perfect, absolutely perfect.”
Alas, even heroes have a hero and the late Bonham is no different. One of the first favourites to turn his head was Gene Krupa and he remained obsessed with drumming ever since, exclaiming: “I’ve always been obsessed with drums. They fascinate me. Any other instrument – nothing.” However, despite putting drums towards the centre of the stage, the stuff Krupa was playing wasn’t quite ‘Moby Dick’ and Bonham had his eye on a hybrid.
“People hadn’t taken much notice of drums before Krupa,” Bonham explains in the book In Their Own Words. “And Ginger Baker was responsible for the same thing in rock.” Continuing, he added: “[Baker] was the first to come out with this ‘new’ attitude — that a drummer could be a forward musician in a rock band, and not something that was stuck in the background and forgotten about.”
If Baker had ever complimented anyone else in his vitriolic lifetime, then he too may have admitted that Krupa was in the welter of his influences, which is something Bonham seems to hint at when he explains: “I think Baker was really more into jazz than rock. He plays with a jazz influence. He’s always doing things in 5/4 and 3/4 tempos. […] Ginger’s thing as a drummer is that he was always himself.”
Another point on the biography of Bonham, A Thunder of Drums, sees a special mention of The Graham Bond Organisation as one of his favourite bands during his formative years as a sincere music lover, the drummer of which was, of course, the aforementioned uber-iconoclast, Ginger Baker. He explains that this early period was when he found Baker most appealing as he bristled through four-stroke ruff’s as though he was simply keeping time.
The duo later crossed over during their careers, operating simultaneously but in extremely different circumstances as Baker departed to Africa to team up with Fela Kuti and Bonham toured the world pioneering a new brand of rock. At the time, Baker (unsurprisingly) never took too kindly to the comparisons between them. In his memoir, Hellraiser: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Drummer, Baker writes: “John Bonham once made a statement that there were only two drummers in British rock ‘n’ roll; himself and Ginger Baker. My reaction to this was: ‘You cheeky little bastard!’”
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Music: The When We Were Young Festival Lineup Is Every Emo Kid’s Dream
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The When We Were Young Festival is bringing all of your favorite bands from your former (or current, I don’t judge) emo years to one place. It all goes down on October 22nd at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.
Here are just a few of the MANY bands on the lineup: My Chemical Romance . . . Paramore . . . A Day to Remember . . . Bring Me the Horizon . . . Jimmy Eat World . . . Avril Lavigne . . . AFI . . . Taking Back Sunday . . . and The Used.
It’s only one day so it’ll be 12 hours of music from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. You can register for presale at WhenWeWereYoungFestival.com. Tickets go on sale on Friday . . . prices for general admission start at $225 and VIP cabanas are $12,500.
Read More HERE
Tour news: Lilys, Fitz & The Tantrums, The Head & The Heart, Goose, more
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Here’s a roundup of recent tour news. Check the Tour Dates category for more.
LILYS
Shoegazey indie rock greats Lilys start their short West Coast tour this week, hitting San Francisco (1/19), Sacramento (1/20), Long Beach (1/21), Pioneertown (1/22) and Los Angeles (1/23). The band has been on a reissue campaign of late, and they refer to this tour as “5 nights/6 albums,” and should be pulling from across their ’90s output for their setlists. Their lineup for this tour includes band founder Kurt Heasley backed by Don Devore (Collapsing Scenery) on guitars and synths, Evan Weiss (Girls, Sparks) on bass, Chris Colley (School of Seven Bells) on percussion, Matty McDermott (Nymph) on “cosmic pedal steel,” and Alex Craig on guitar. Tickets for the whole tour are here.
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GEL (with SPACED and TAKING MEDS)
NJ’s Gel and Buffalo’s Spaced are two of the most promising new-ish hardcore bands around, so it’s very exciting that they’re playing some shows together this February in NJ, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. More info here. Gel also have dates with the great Taking Meds in February, and those happen in Philly, Syracuse, Holyoke, and Amityville. More info here.
MAN ON MAN
MAN ON MAN (M.O.M.), aka Roddy Bottum and Joey Holman, were supposed to start their tour on Wednesday at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus, but with Omicron still raging, they’ve rescheduled the first part of the tour for April. The Brooklyn show is now happening on 4/12 at Saint Vitus, with stops in Richmond, DC, Durham, Atlanta, Orlando, Miami, and New Orleans. Shows in Nashville and New Orleans will be announced soon. Before that, they’ll be on tour around SXSW, including shows in San Francisco, Vancouver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and more. All dates are here.
HAMILTON LEITHAUSER CAFE CARLYLE RESIDENCY
As he’s done before, Hamilton Leithauser is making good use of his wardrobe full of suits by playing a residency at NYC supper club Cafe Carlyle. There are 10 shows between March 15 and March 26 and tickets are on sale.
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GOOSE
Goose have a full tour schedule for the first half of 2022, including West Coast dates this month and February, and East Coast dates in March. They’ve also just announced a big NYC show happening June 25 at Radio City Music Hall. Head here for all dates and listen to their new song “Borne” below:
MUDHONEY / MEAT PUPPETS
Grunge and punk greats Mudhoney are currently working on their 11th studio album, and they’re hitting the road this spring, including dates with Meat Puppets.
OSEES
OSEES will be back on the road this fall for a North American tour that has them bringing along San Francisco creepy droners Bronze for the whole tour; post-punk trio Automatic will also join for the West Coast dates.
SLIPKNOT
Slipknot are gearing up for their anticipated seventh album, which Corey Taylor recently confirmed is coming in 2022, but first, they’ve announced their lengthy Knotfest Roadshow 2022 tour. The first leg includes support from fellow alternative metal bands In This Moment and Jinjer, while the second leg features hip hop legends Cypress Hill and industrial rap group Ho99o9.
CLUTCH / EYEHATEGOD / THE SWORD
Clutch will be on tour this spring, with the first leg (March 16 - April 10) with Eyehategod and Tigercub, and the second leg (April 27 - May 22) with The Sword and Nate Bergman. All dates are here.
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THAO
Thao & The Get Down Stay Down officially called it quits last year, but Thao continues as a solo artist, and she’s just announced a spring tour with her solo band.
AMBER MARK
Amber Mark has expanded her 2022 tour and has added two more Brooklyn shows at Music Hall of Williamsburg on May 21 and 24. (The 5/20 MHOW show is sold out.) Head here for all dates.
WHEN WE WERE YOUNG FESTIVAL
The 2017 California festival When We Were Young has returned, and moved to Las Vegas, and has a very Hot Topic lineup that includes My Chemical Romance, Paramore, Avril Lavigne, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, Taking Back Sunday, Glassjaw, Manchester Orchestra, Thursday, Alkaline Trio, and many more.
JAWBREAKER
Jawbreaker will take Dear You on a 25th anniversary tour. (The 1995 LP turned 20 in 2020, the year all concerts were cancelled, and as the band says, “The last two years don’t count.”) The tour includes two-night stands in NYC, San Francisco, and Chicago, as well as individual nights in Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, and Denver, and Jawbreaker have lined up an amazing cast of openers, varying by date: the similarly named Jawbox (who also just announced their own headlining tour, including a 3-night residency in NYC), Built to Spill, Descendents, Smoking Popes, Face to Face, Best Coast, Team Dresch, The Linda Lindas, and Worriers.
JAWBOX
In addition to dates with Jawbreaker, the similarly named Jawbox will play a couple headlining shows in March, followed by more headlining shows in July.
THE HEAD AND THE HEART
The Head and The Heart have announced the “Every Shade of Blue Tour” that kicks off May 20 in St Petersburg, FL, and will have Shakey Graves, Dawes and Jade Bird joining at select shows along the way. The tour includes an NYC show at The Rooftop at Pier 17 on June 6 (w/ Jade Bird) and a Los Angeles show at The Greek on August 20 (with Dawes). All dates are here:
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FITZ & THE TANTRUMS / ST. PAUL & THE BROKEN BONES
Fitz & The Tantrums will be on a co-headlining tour this June with St. Paul & The Broken Bones, with Seratones on the first half and Devon Gilfillian on the latter half. Dates include NYC-area shows at Asbury Park’s Stone Pony Summer Stage on 6/11 and Canandaigua’s CMAC on 6/14. Head here for the full tour schedule.
FUTURE ISLANDS
Future Islands are set to kick off their 2022 on the road next month, with dates in Europe, the UK, Canada, and the US. They’ve just added some NYC shows.
ANIMALS AS LEADERS
Instrumental trio Animals as Leaders will be on tour this spring, playing two sets every night, including playing their new album Parrhesia in full. Stops include NYC’s Irving Plaza on April 10 and L.A.’s Theatre at Ace Hotel on April 22. All dates are here. Parrhesia is out March 25 and you can check out a track:
HIGHER POWER (OPENING FOR BOSTON MANOR)
UK grungy hardcore band Higher Power are gearing up for their anticipated new album, which will feature recent single “Fall From Grace,” and while most details on that are still TBA, they did just announce a return to North America. They’ll open Boston Manor’s April/May tour, which also includes Trash Boat.
THE CHURCH
The Church are one of the many great ’80s alternative bands lined up for L.A.’s Cruel World Festival in May. Ahead of that, the band will tour.
RENATA ZEIGUER
Brooklyn musician Renata Zeiguer has announced a new album, Picnic in the Dark, which will be out April 8 via Northern Spy, and she’ll be on tour with Summer Salt around the same time.
KING HANNAH
UK band King Hannah will release their debut album in February and will be in NYC and Austin for SXSW in March, and they’ve also just announced a proper North American tour to follow.
Slipknot’s Knotfest Roadshow comes to Reading on April 2 and State College on May 18 with different lineups
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Slipknot’s Knotfest Roadshow comes to Reading on April 2 and State College on May 18 with different lineups
From a press release:
Today, the multi-platinum masked metal maniacs in Slipknot announced the 2022 iteration of their infamous Knotfest Roadshow Tour.
Produced by Live Nation, the 38-date North American tour will take place over two legs, both headlined by Slipknot and each containing a stop in Pennsylvania. The first leg, featuring special guests In This Moment and Jinjer, kicks off in Fargo, North Dakota on March 16 and hits 17 cities before wrapping up in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on April 17. It comes to the Santander Arena (700 Penn St., Reading) on Saturday, April 2.
The second leg, featuring Cypress Hill and Ho99o9, begins on Wednesday, May 18 at the Bryce Jordan Center (720 Curtin Rd., State College) and runs a further 17 cities before culminating on Sunday, June 18 in Chula Vista, California.
Tickets for all shows go on sale this Friday, Jan. 21 at 10 a.m. at knotfest.com.
“It feels so good to get back out on the road with our culture. Get ready for a brand new experience. See you soon,” Slipknot percussionist Clown shared.
Frontman Corey Taylor added, “Even with everything going on in the world right now, we’re still extremely excited to come back out in the states with two different, exciting packages. Whether it’s In This Moment and Jinjer or Cypress and Ho99o9, we pride ourselves in bringing our fans the epicenter of our music and art. Come celebrate with us, and try to stay as safe as we will be.”
2021 marked a banner year for Slipknot. Making a triumphant return to the road, their Knotfest Roadshow Tour sold out amphitheaters across the country, bookended with the record-breaking Knotfest Iowa and the biggest headlining show of their career, Knotfest Los Angeles at Banc of California Stadium, where they debuted their first new music in two years – the furious “Chapeltown Rag” taken from their highly anticipated new album, expected to release this year. In addition, they topped the bills of multiple, internationally renowned festivals, including Riot Fest, Rocklahoma, Inkcarceration, Welcome to Rockville, and more.
The 2022 tour will be part of Live Nation’s Live Stubs initiative, which provides digital collectible NFT ticket stubs to ticket holders. Live Stubs will automatically be included with tickets purchased for the tour. Fans will also be able to view, share, gift, trade, and resell their live stubs at livenation.com.
Slipknot sit alongside musical institutions like Metallica and Iron Maiden as one of a select few bands whose legacy is secured within heavy music’s elite. The group emerged at the end of the 20th century from the American Midwestern town of Des Moines, Iowa and quickly established themselves as the most enigmatic, provocative, and aggressive music collective of the modern era. 1999’s eponymous debut album is widely viewed as a modern day classic and was honored by Metal Hammer magazine as the “Best Debut of the Last 25 Years.” The release racked up double RIAA platinum certification in the United States, with many of Slipknot’s subsequent releases achieving platinum status both in the U.S. and around the globe.
To date, the band has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards (winning in 2006 for “Before I Forget”), as well as scoring 12 platinum and 41 gold album certifications around the world, plus over 3.2 billion YouTube views and counting. Slipknot’s fan base is as unwavering as it is ubiquitous – the group’s most recent studio album, 2019’s “We Are Not Your Kind” debuted at No. 1 on the official album charts of 12 countries around the world, including the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada, and Mexico and in the Top 5 of an additional 12 countries, including Germany, France, and Sweden.
Knotfest is Slipknot’s own self-curated, international destination festival brand, currently held in the U.S., Japan, Mexico, Finland, Germany, Colombia, and Brazil. Designed as an immersive, unforgettable “dark carnival experience,” the event invites fans into Slipknot’s apocalyptic underworld where stunning visuals, fire breathers, and nightmarish creatures on stilts set the stage for an intoxicating and memorable weekend of live music.
Since coming to life in 2005, gold-selling hard rock provocateurs In This Moment have presided over a diehard fan base under the watch of “mother” figure and frontwoman Maria Brink, joined by co-founder and lead guitarist Chris Howorth, bassist Travis Johnson, guitarist Randy Weitzel, and Kent Dimmel. As millions convened upon the group’s otherworldly and unforgettable concerts, they quietly emerged as an influential and impactful band. To date, the quintet has garnered two gold singles – “Blood” and “Whore” – and one gold album, “Blood” (2012). The latter notably launched a trifecta of Top 25 entries on the Billboard Top 200 with “Black Widow” (2014) and “Ritual” (2017). Bringing their total stream tally well past 200 million as of 2020, “Ritual” elevated them to new creative and critical peaks as well. In a 4-out-of-5 star review, Kerrang called it “their best vehicle to date,” and Alternative Press claimed, “Maria Brink is the Lady Gaga of the metal world,” and went on to add, “‘Ritual’ flourishes as the metal love child of art-pop, gospel, Morrissey, and Johnny Cash that the world didn’t know it needed until now.”
Between selling out headlining tours coast-to-coast, the group performed in arenas everywhere alongside Disturbed (including the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre in 2019) and appeared at countless festivals, from Welcome to Rockville to Sonic Temple. Along the way, they assembled their seventh full-length, the aptly titled “Mother” (Roadrunner Records) with longtime trusted collaborator Kevin Churko (Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch). Whereas “Ritual” hinted at a bluesy sonic sorcery, “Mother” breathes the activating mantra of an unbreakable spell, commenced on first single “The In-Between,” which was nominated for a Best Metal Performance Grammy in 2020.
In less than 12 years, four-piece progressive groove metal wrecking machine Jinjer has taken the world by storm, emerging as one of the biggest burgeoning names within heavy metal and a rags-to-renown success story. Hailing from the war-torn province of Donetsk, Ukraine, this musical oddity has excelled against all odds since fleeing in 2014, never ceasing to push forward in an ever-changing musical landscape. Officially marking the start of the band with awe-inspiring vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk joining in 2010, they launched with cult-embraced albums “Inhale, “Don’t Breathe,” and “Cloud Factory” before skyrocketing to fame and viral acclaim with the game-changing single and video for “Pisces” from 2016’s breakout “King of Everything,” which maintains its status as one of the most reacted-to metal videos on YouTube to this day.
With their anticipated 2019 follow-up “Micro” and its groundbreaking successor “Macro,” Jinjer climbed further, achieving massive benchmarks in international touring, charting, streaming, and media recognition while snatching radio No. 1s at NACC and SiriusXM’s “Devil’s Dozen” in the U.S. After releasing their first live album “Alive in Melbourne” a year later (filmed just days before the pandemic hit in March of 2020), the band triumphed again with their most personal offering yet, 2021’s “Wallflowers.” Boasting 20 international magazine covers, countless sold-out international tour dates, and multi-millions of cross-platform streams on first singles “Vortex” and “Mediator” within just weeks, the album landed at No. 1 on both the U.S. Billboard Top New Artist Album chart and Canada’s Hard Music album chart, No. 2 on the U.S. Hard Music album chart, and within the Top 10 in several additional countries. “Wallflowers” is a sonic pressure cooker of technical musicianship and emotional fury, and Jinjer promises to bring this energy and more to the stage upon their return to North America in 2022.
Three decades ago, B-Real, Sen Dog, and DJ Muggs sparked a trip that left popular culture stoned, stunned, and staggering in anticipation for more. Naming themselves after a local street in Los Angeles, Cypress Hill burst on the scene in 1991 with the release of their self-titled debut album. The singles “How I Could Just Kill a Man” and “The Phuncky Feel One” became underground hits, and the group’s public pro-marijuana stance earned them many fans among the alternative rock community. They followed their debut with “Black Sunday” in the summer of 1993, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200, garnered three Grammy nominations, and went triple platinum in the U.S. As a result, Cypress Hill became the first rap group to have two albums in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 charts at the same time and are the first Latino-American hip-hop group to achieve platinum and multi-platinum success.
Since the release of “Black Sunday,” Cypress Hill has put out seven more albums, including 2018’s critically acclaimed “Elephants on Acid.” They made history once again in 2019 when the group was honored with their very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2021, they released “Champion Sound.” Produced by Black Milk, the single appears on the soundtrack of “MLB RBI Baseball 21” and is also the featured song for the band’s partnership with Montejo Cerveza. 2021 also saw Cypress Hill celebrate the 30th anniversary of their self-titled debut with a Sony reissue on vinyl, seven-inch box set, and a reissue across all DSPs that includes eight unreleased tracks, as well as a graphic novel and their very own Stance socks.
Cypress Hill continues to be busier than ever in 2022. The band will release a new album this spring and have already dropped three singles, “Champion Sound,” “Open Ya Mind,” and “Bye Bye.” Their “Hits from the Bong” documentary, which is part of Mass Appeal’s “Hip Hop 50” franchise in partnership with Showtime, will also be released this year.
Ho99o9 (Horror) is a volatile conflagration of digital hardcore punk, gritty trap-infused hip-hop, then cross-contaminated with explosive elements of industrial, electronic, metal, and noise. The experimental avant-garde project originated in New Jersey with Yeti Bones and theOGM and is currently joined by drummer Billy Rymer of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Ho99o9 has built a cult-like following over the last decade, perpetually blazing around the globe, laying waste with their legendary, visceral live performances. Their completely unique and uncompromising style has created its own lane for the future of heavy alternative music.
Read NEPA Scene’s review of Slipknot’s 2019 Knotfest Roadshow performance in Scranton here and see photos of In This Moment performing with Disturbed in Wilkes-Barre later that year here.
10 of the Biggest Reasons Rock + Metal Bands Broke Up
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Being in a band can be as grating as it is gratifying.
From lackluster record sales and other industry hurdles to unsatisfying creative choices and interpersonal conflicts, there’s only so much turmoil a group of people can take. Eventually, at least one member might just feel the need to end things and move on.
As the following 10 picks prove, not even the greatest acts are immune from such consequences. Whether due to conventional causes or something more atypical, staying together was simply not in the cards for them (well, at least for a time, as a few eventually reunited).
10 of the Biggest Reasons Rock + Metal Bands Broke Up