The pair wrote, "We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever in that area. While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in re-locking Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future.

She writes, "Zakk is still on this roller-coaster. One day blood thinners [which are used to prevent clots from forming in the blood, are] too high... next day they don't even register in his blood."

On what it was like for Godsmack off stage on the Crue Fest 2 tour: Erna said, "I will tell you, it's been the most dramatic tour we've ever been on. I mean, talk about just craziness, man. Sometimes egos run high, man, and there's definitely been some rock-star garbage on this tour that just have never seen in our career. Every band � from Black Sabbath to Aerosmith, Rush, Metallica... you name it... They've always... I don't think there was ever a threat, you know what I mean?! Like who's gonna dwarf Metallica anyways? But there's always just been this mutual kind of like, 'We wanna put on a great show, so bring your bells and whistles, bring your show, so between you guys and us, we can make these people get a bang for their buck.' And that's really what entertainment has always been about. And so, I've never been in a position before where we felt we had to really protect this thing; it's kind of like a dog with a bone � you put us up against a wall and we're gonna come out swinging."

That night, the Sunset Strip Music Festival will kicked off with a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne at the House of Blues. Osbourne will also close the Sunset Strip Music Festival when he performs Saturday, September 12, 2009.

The Root of All Evil contains a selection of completely re-recorded tracks from the band's first three albums Black Earth (1996), Stigmata (1998) and Burning Bridges (1999), reenergized and upgraded by the band's definitive line-up. The new record will be available in the US on October 6th, via Century Media Records.

Sorry For Partyin', the band's 10th album, hits the stores on October 13, and immediately following the tour, Bowling For Soup departs for the UK where its Party In Your Pants UK Tour 2009 kicks off on October 17 in Glasgow, Scotland. Additional dates in Japan, Australia and the US will follow later this year and into 2010.

Opening acts on select dates include State Radio, Kottonmouth Kings and one show with Slightly Stoopid. Tickets go on sale for a number of markets starting Friday, September 11.

For this auspicious occasion, Anvil - guitarist/vocalist Steve "Lips" Kudlow, drummer Robb Reiner, and bassist Glenn Five - will perform the song that many consider their anthem, "Metal On Metal," which is included as a bonus track on the This is Thirteen limited edition vinyl. The band members will also get a little couch time with O'Brien.

"hold" was song number 5 in our long list of non titled songs. We had not named any songs until song number 12 maybe? Big mistake. A song has no identity with a number. The only reason I would remember this song being song number 5 was because it was a big brother to song number 4. We wanted to write 2 songs that were very different in feel but carried over common themes. Song 4 is what became "lighters" on the record. In the end we completely changed the key and tuning of lighters and it no longer had the attachment to hold any longer. That is when this song changed completely.

The whole beginning to the song was very different than it is now. It was more upbeat and much more happy sounding. Lame. There were a lot of dark menacing sounding moments throughout this song. So we thought it would be better to start the song sounding like the end of the world. The sound that starts the song even though sounds like bass is actually guitar with a whammy wah octave down. I put a ton of fuzz and distortion until it sounded like my amp was going to explode. After we stumbled on this, it was over. The song rewrote itself. I love going from this really dark verse right into a bright huge chorus. This song was not even intended to go on the record at first. We recorded hold as a test to see how we were feeling with the direction of the new songs. Since it was in the first batch of new songs we wrote we were way more excited about the later songs. But in the studio this song came to life with each new layer. The drum sounds were great. The bass sound was so dirty and cool. The guitar sounds were so mean. Vocals turned out so nice. Next thing we knew, the song had turned into our first single.

Live the song has grown as well. During our video shoot for this song I decided to instead of my tele use a fender baritone. So throughout the day of shooting I would noodle around on the baritone and figured out how to play "hold" in that tuning. So now since then, we have an extra guitar Player for the nice bright chimey guitar parts and I am playing all the real low disgusting sounding parts. So with one baritone working the low end with the bass, another more bright sounding rhythm that leaves it wide open for all of hippy and his lead lines. Makes the song sound even bigger with all these layers to it.

It is funny how a song that we didn't even think would be on the record became one of our favorites. That's the thing, sometimes in the studio everything can change...this time for the better.