Scott Weiland In War Of Words With Filter's Richard Patrick

The 16-track project was spearheaded by Yes star Billy Sherwood and features an eclectic mix of music stars including Heart's Ann Wilson, 80s popstar Howard Jones, iconic singers Judy Collins and Helen Reddy, as well as Asia's John Wetton and more.

Tremonti says, "Probably towards the end of 'Human Clay', the second record, I think with all the pressures of 'you gotta come out with your next single', 'your sophomore album is going to be a failure if you don't do this,' 'your next single is not gonna do this,' 'you gotta stay on tour'... It was always... if you don't do this your career is going to be over kind of thing. So we were always pressured to stay on tour and put out this music... some people deal with that better than others.

"When you're the frontman of a band that's always in the spotlight and on top of it you are getting.. you know people are taking pot shots at you. I think it just kind of weighed on him and drinking turned to pills, turned to this and whatever.

"He was never really open about it. I think he would do his own thing and party but wouldn't tell us what he was doing. To me, I always thought he was drinking or on a painkiller because his back hurt. I think the painkillers because his back hurt turned into just doing what he got his hands on."

U2 issued Songs Of Innocence on vinyl for Record Store Day at the weekend. But some fans who bought the 2014 album at stores including Banquet Records in Kingston, London, discovered Tool's 1992 Opiate EP inside the sleeve instead.

"Get Behind Me Satan" was issued on vinyl for the first time on Record Store Day to mark the album's 10th anniversary. A limited-edition multi-colored version was available, with disc one on red vinyl and disc two on white vinyl. The project won a 2006 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.

In the spirit of bringing the event to anyone wanting to see it, the Pay-Per-View special, distributed by MultiVision Media, will be available on most satellite and cable providers, to watch in your home, on mobile devices, in venues, bars, and movie theaters nationwide (through Fathom Events).

And he wants to take the project as far as it can possibly go. Schon says via Facebook: "We are wrapping up Santana IV this week. Sounds amazing!

Al.com asked "In your audience you've got everything from Guns 'n' Roses diehards to guitar nerds who are there to watch your fingers. For the audience as a whole, what kind of overall experience do you try to create?"

Slash respond, "It's a very high-energy, loud, rock and roll band. I wouldn't say that it's necessarily what you'd call a retro thing. We're not trying to you know, sort of revel in old school for old school's sake. But it's stripped-down, it's not taking too much advantage of all the sort of new technology. We're not playing to any loops, we're not doing any kind of pre-recorded this, that and the other. It's just, we go out and actually play. But people seem to really dig it, and the new material goes over great.

"I think when we first started, a lot of people weren't sure what to expect. But we do sort of a mix of all the stuff from my whole catalog. And now that we've been doing it for the last five or so years, we've amassed a lot of fans of what this entity is, as opposed to seeing it because I'm going to play this song from the past, or whatever.

During part one of the two part special with King, he discussed his involvement with Megadeth during their early days and while he heaped praise on Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine's talent, he also explained that he "had Slayer's best intentions in mind" while playing with Megadeth.

King told Loudwire (as transcribed by Blabbermouth), "I was one of the lucky people - and there's certainly no offense against [current Metallica guitarist] Kirk Hammett; Kirk's a wonderful friend of mine - but I was lucky enough to see Metallica with [Megadeth mainman Dave] Mustaine. And I say that because it's just a rare thing to be able to say that. I saw them play with Woodstock [in Los Angeles], and I was so intringued by Mustaine, because he was just ripping on guitar and looking out that way somewhere. And I can't do that to this f***in day.

"So I was just blown away at his guitar playing. And to find out - I think it was through B.C. Rich, 'cause we all played B.C. Rich back then� I think it was through B.C. Rich I found out that Dave was inquiring if I would play [with Megadeth]."

He then explained his motivation for taking the gig, "At the end of the day, I thought, 'This is a gigantic learning situation.' And I also thought people would see me and know me from Slayer. 'Cause, I mean, we only went to the Bay Area; we only got up there. So I think if people saw me, it would at least make 'em think, 'Slayer.' So I had Slayer's best intentions in mind. I didn't go and say, 'Hey, I wanna be in Megadeth.' I don't know how anybody can be in Megadeth for more than a couple of hours, 'cause that guy's crazy."

The band now features former Motley Crue singer John Corabi, Guns N' Roses pairing Richard Fortus and Dizzy Reed on guitar and keyboards, guitarist David Lowy, bass player Marco Mendoza - who's previously played with Thin Lizzy and Ted Nugent - and drummer Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne).

Mendoza had this to say, "When we were in the writing process, the idea came up to write a song about Mexico and all the experience of it, having spent the first 15 years of my life there, I was obviously exited.

"The result was a rocking in your face anthem with a very strong melody and hook!! ''MEXICO.'' We had a chance to play it live a few times and you could see the positive reaction on the fans faces, this is a winner in my opinion!!"

The announced dates for the trek will kick off on August 20th in Salisbury, MA at Blue Ocean Music Hall and conclude on August 30th in Morristown, NJ at the Mayo Performing Arts Center.

Hayward's tour will also be making stops in Boston (August 21st), Harford (Aug 25th ), Bethlehem (Aug 26th), Alexandria (Aug 27th) and Annapolis (Aug 29th).

He had this to say about the tour and his band, "We are so looking forward to this tour. Julie Ragins [keyboardist/background vocalist], Mike Dawes [acoustic guitar], and I have been overwhelmed by the reception of our live shows during this last year in the USA.

"To hear every nuance of my acoustic guitars (they are on the road for the first time) and our voices in these venues is a joy. And the USA, like me, is discovering what a fabulous guitar player Mike Dawes is, and I look forward to hearing him play every night too."

Hayward will be touring in support of his live DVD, CD, and Blu-ray "Spirits�Live - Live At The Buckhead Theatre," which was released this past summer by Eagle Rock and premiered on PBS last month and is scheduled for re-airings for the rest of the year.

"It is a very Americana, fun summer song that reminds me how much I love music with a sublime video feel of hanging with the fans," says Michaels. "I wrote this song with my good friend and fellow Pennsylvanian, Luke Laird, who is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter of hits like Little Big Town's 'Pontoon', Eric Church's 'Talledega' and Luke Bryan's 'I See You.'"

The show was directed by Ryan Mackfall, mixed by Lewis Johns and was recorded at the London venue on April 24 2014 where they played their 2005 album in full.

The album, their first with drummer Mitch Keith Morris, was released in October via Magic Bullet Records. Frontman Nathan Opposition said the follow-up to 2013's Deathlike would "enlighten the fools and give the enlightened something to listen to."

Alan Morse, Dave Meros, Ryo Okumoto, Ted Leonard and Jimmy Keegan will be supported on the dates by UK outfit Synaesthesia - who are working on their second album - and Hungarian band Special Providence.

It's described as the latest part of their trilogy about life that started with 2010's Phlegethon, dealing with childhood, and continued with last year's In Crescendo, which looked at the end of youth.

Label Sensory Records say: "Musically it sees the band exploring new territories and pushing the extremes of its sonic soundscape, with a darker atmosphere and a more progressive attitude.

The project traces the career of the Athens, Georgia band who formed in 1980 and helped bring alternative rock into the mainstream. The group tells their story in their own words, through three decades of performances and interviews R.E.M. gave to MTV channels in the USA and around the world. "It was a typical Athens story," says drummer Bill Berry. "Four guys meet at a party and want to play other parties and drink beer and have fun."

One thing you might not be surprised by however is the steep price tag of $4.495 million, according to the Trulia listing, where you can also take a virtual tour.

Sweet Disorder! - which was produced by Tim Kerr at Battletapes in Nashville, Tennessee - will be released on July 24 through Sub Pop. It comes backed with the B-side, Stars.

Says frontman Lee: "This song is about disrupting systems that have proven to fall short of, if not completely undermine, their purported missions - criminal justice, mental health, the church, language - for the sake of realigning them with those missions.

There is some disagreement among us as to wether "Pyre" is an optimistic song or not. The main character in the song and the video is a man without a face and playing an old, ruined guitar, just the body and the instrument. He's an archetypal everyman, a nobody but someone we can all imagine, perhaps a busker, who is also an observer and social commentator and aside from the crowd.

The scene is very dark, dusty air. Underneath his paper bag with smiling mouth and eyes painted on, but do we know how he really feels? The main guitar figure has a flavour of Morricone's old Western soundtracks, so in the video we see the action play out in an old Wild West type American town.The people surrounding our main man, they're also wearing a paper bags although unlike him, they wear unhappy depressed expressions.

They start to chase him unrelentingly "chase tight as if I'm gold" as they can't stand his shining smile. Imprisonment, physical pain and public disapproval don't stop him smiling. The people, with faces twisted in rage, cart him away to a dark square with a pyre burning at its centre. "They usher me off to the place of my end, though still can't help laughing through the crowd".

They push him toward the pyre, still smiling, he starts walking into the fire. Among the assembled people someone starts smiling because of the presumed man's death. So it starts a massacre between those with the angry look and those who start smiling in a weird manner. The night falls. They're all dead, the smoke has almost completely dispersed.

We see the pyre surrounded by hundreds of ember-looking-alike corpses. The man is sitting on a ash heap, playing his guitar and singing "night buries shame in the corner where liars kneel and pray until there's nothing more to hide".

There are few interpretations of the song, most obviously our brave hero stuck to his smile, beat the odds and won out in the end, while those in the crowd all died, but we'd like to also entertain the idea that he might have been a dangerous and provocative figure, creating dischord/division and bringing out the worst in people.