Rush Announce 40th Anniversary Tour

The Worsnop fronted group, which also includes Silvertide's Brian Weaver, former Sebastian Bach guitarist Jegg George, and former Revolution Renaissance drummer Bruno Agra, will be releasing their self-titled debut album on March 31st.

Worsnop offered the following explanation to fans about his decision to leave Asking Alexandria, "To all of my friends and fans: I would like to let you know that Asking Alexandria and I are moving forward in separate ways.

"Over the last eight years together we've done some amazing things and created something truly special. I now, same as then, want what's best for the band and at this point in time, that isn't me.

"Asking Alexandria will continue to tour throughout the year and will be working on a new album. I will always support and love Asking Alexandria and cannot wait to see what the future holds for them.

As we previously reported, the group will kick off the last leg of their "Final Tour" on July 22nd in Eugene, OR at Matthew Knight Arena and concluding with the final tour date of their career on December 31st in Los Angeles, CA at the Staples Center.

Nikki Sixx released these comments about the trek, "In some of the cities, we could only reach a fraction of the fans who wanted to come see us play last year because of ticket demand so we're coming back to those places to bring them our full production including the Cr�ecifly drum coaster, as well as all pyro and every other bell and whistle.

"Even despite the overwhelming fan demand we can only add so many new cities in North America because of our commitment to take the Final Tour global on our final year."

Guitarist Jerry Horton said last year: "We've got a bit of modern, heavy stuff, a couple of old things and some dynamic songs. We just went where the music took us - we're really happy with how it came out."

Taylor wrote the following tribute to Fowley, "I met Kim Fowley through my friend Ericka Clevenger. She and I were producing a web show together and we booked him as a guest. He walked up my driveway in a zoot suit with a cane and David Bowie face paint. I thought in an instant that they really broke the mold when they made this guy. He packed more shock-value into a casual conversation, an email or a voicemail, (which I always saved) than Alice Cooper, Kiss or Marilyn Manson have in their whole careers. He was walking, talking performance art. His cadence and hand-gestures drew me in immediately. His words and body language were clever and compelling all the time. I didn't want to miss anything he might do or say because it was all so amusing. But he wasn't a clown, because he was in on the joke. He knew that I knew how funny and outrageous he was, and it made me feel special, like I was in on it too.

"When he walked up my driveway and into my life, I was between projects and in desperate need of an inspirational spark. Over the course of a year, I found that in spades, in this legendary showbiz maniac that would become my 'Rock 'n Roll Grandpa'. Our phone calls were never less than 45 minutes long, like high-school kids, talking sh*t and trying to get a rise out of each other. In fact, he'd sign off at the end of each call with his phrase, 'be teenaged'. I made a habit of saying it back to him. A cancer-stricken man in his 70's, and a singer-guitarist in his late-20's reminding each other to 'be teenaged' is a pretty unforgettable exchange. I knew what he meant. It was his poetic way of saying 'stay motivated, work hard, don't lose the edge...remember why you became a musician in the first place'.

"The last time he was out and about without a wheelchair was at a party Ericka and I threw for our show Planet Rocke. He brought me a present that night, and gave it to me in front of everyone. It was a folder of unfinished lyrics, mostly hand-written, hand-picked for me from his vault, dating 1970's through early 2000's. He told me they were mine to do what I wanted with. Suddenly I had my hands full with a new project. I told him I wanted to start a band called The Fowleys. He screamed at me and said in no uncertain terms that he forbid me to use the name, and would sue me if I tried. I couldn't really understand why he was so opposed to it, so I tried to calm him down and ask for an explanation. The truth of his rejection turned out to be flattering and self-assuring. He told me 'You've already been in bands. Bands are too complicated. Bands don't last. Bands break up. Its your time to put your name out there and go at it alone.' He twisted my arm into making my first solo album.

"We kept in touch, once or twice a week. I went to see him when he was too sick to get out of bed, and I played him the finished songs. He was impressed and proud. It was really all the encouragement I needed to keep going. He married the lovely Kara and seemed very happy. When his health got worse he stopped taking calls. I knew he was in pain, but I also knew he had Kara by his side, and that his razor-sharp mind and dignity were going to be intact until the very end.

"A great blog in England singled out the song 'Time Stands Still', one of the first of Kim and my collaborations. They posted it for free download, and a few hours later I heard the news that Kim had passed. The timing was shocking, but also an exceptionally fitting tribute. The song reveals his sensitive, introspective side, that I count myself among the lucky few to have known.

"I highly recommend his memoir 'Lord of Garbage'. I read it in a day. It's a well-crafted expose into not only his larger-than-life rock n roll caricature, but his humanity and empathy. Rest in Peace Rock n Roll Grandpa. Stay teenaged."

They were due to deliver two concerts in California and one in Washington - but they report: "Jake and the band wanted to play very much and apologise to their fans. Jake is now receiving treatment and he hopes to be back in action shortly."

It was a particularly hard blow to take as Dukes had only an hour earlier received some great news - that his other band Generation Kill was to team up with rap icon Darryl 'DMC' McDaniels.

Dukes bumped into DMC at the airport as he waited for his flight back to New York following Rock On The Range. The pair discussed collaborating on a song, but eventually decided to do an entire album together - produced by Guns N' Roses guitarist Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal.

Dukes says: "The last Exodus show I ever did, I leave and I get married. I'm on my honeymoon and Darryl calls me on Friday morning at 9am and I was like, 'Ah sh*t I'm gonna work with DMC. He's a Hall Of Fame Artist, this is an outstanding moment. Look how weird my life is.'

The Dio, Rainbow, Black Sabbath and Heaven And Hell frontman died on May 16 2010 from gastric cancer. Now the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up And Shout Cancer Fund, which was co-founded by his widow Wendy, will hold three events to raise cash for the charity which supports research into prostate, colon and stomach cancers.

The weekend gets underway on May 15 with the Celebrity Rock N' Bowl tournament at the Pinz Bowling Center, Studio City, California. Bands including Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, Yes, Anthrax and Metallica have donated signed pins which will be auctioned on the night to raise cash for the fund.

The following day, a free public memorial service will be held at Forest Lawn, Hollywood. Former bandmates of the vocalist are expected to speak at the event and play music from Dio's career. The weekend wraps up on the 17th with a motorcycle ride and barbecue named in his honor.

He tells Full Metal Jackie: "There are just certain songs that we just cannot wait to play live that you just know are going to be part of the show. You just have a weird sense of it.

"It's kind of like when we finished Dead City Radio, and that when we play it, it gets as big of a cheer as if we played Dragula or some old song. You just have that moment in time where you feel like you've hit that same nerve with a song. This record has a lot of that."

He tells Talk Is Jericho: "What I'm proud of with being in Metallica all these years is being able to play the Black album in its entirety - songs that were never played live like The Stuggle Within. Even songs like Orion - we play that a lot now. That was a song that hadn't really been played, along with Dyers Eve from �And Justice For All.

He tells Spotlight Report: "It is obviously going to be different without them. We spent five years together with them in that lineup. That's a long time.

"We did multiple live albums with them, two studio albums, we toured together - so it's a bit like some family members are gone. Especially through the holidays I've kinda been a little sad about it.

Now he tells FaceCulture: "One of the funny things about the internet is how quickly a lie can become a rumour can become a fact. It was just some guy who went on a website - I've never met him, he pretended he knew me - and he said something like 'Steven Wilson said the next project he's going to do is a Porcupine Tree album.'

Frontman Adam Warren says: "It's basically a concept album but it doesn't follow a linear storyline. That's something that's very predictable so I like to stay away from that and mix things up.

"It came from songwriting," he tells the Broward/Palm Beach New Times. "The Black Crowes don't write songs anymore. They don't think of the present or the future. I like making albums and playing concerts. I was sitting on two EPs' worth of written songs."

Growing impatient, the singer revived the Chris Robinson Brotherhood - originally launched during the Crowe's 2010 hiatus - and released its third album, "Phosphorescent Harvest", last year.

"The Black Crowes were a rebellion," explains the singer. "This is a pragmatic reaction to how I feel. The only revolutionary thing we're doing is staying out of the music business. There's Olive Gardens and Red Lobsters in music. We just don't eat there. We're grassroots."

Chris' comments follow a statement issued by brother/guitarist Rich on January 15 announcing the end of the Crowes. "It is with great disappointment and regret that after having the privilege of writing and performing the music of The Black Crowes over the last 24 years, I find myself in the position of saying that the band has broken up," said Rich. "I hold my time with the Black Crowes with the utmost respect and sincerest appreciation. It is a huge swath of my life's body of work."

And Johnson says the fact they've recorded two albums in just two years shows how committed they are to the creative process. He tells MetalTalk: "I guess more than anything I just have this ongoing feeling of pride in all the guys and everybody's hard work. Because I'm sure you can appreciate that at any time in music, it's not the easiest thing in the world to crank out two records in two years.

Castronovo is joined by former Whitesnake guitarist Doug Aldrich and Night Ranger bassist Jack Blades in the trio, and they'll launch their self-titled debut album on February 23 via Frontiers Records.

The sticksman and singer tells UCR: "I never really had the confidence to pull it off. When I got the call from my manager saying, 'Hey, do you want to do this?' at first I thought I was playing drums.

"Then I found out. 'Oh no, you're lead singing!' It was almost like a bait and switch. But it came out really cool, and I'm grateful for the chance to do this."

The launch comes after the Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and Albion Band icon celebrates his 70th birthday on January 26 (Monday). Twangin' n'a-Traddin' Revisited will include two tracks on top of the original list of 1950s and 1960s songs which inspired Hutchings to become a musician.

Building work on the establishment began last summer, with the Blues Foundation saying the premises would "pay tribute to the great blues men and women, giving them and their music the validation they deserve."

Hall Of Fame inductee Waterman co-founded the Avalon Productions blues agency and was manager of Buddy Guy, Junior Wells and others before becoming a full-time writer and photographer.

The festival - which is in its fourth year - will take over most of Camden's venues, pubs and bars for their biggest event yet. The full list of bands announced for Camden Rocks 2015 include:

And Larsson reveals that rather than a mix of rock and blues on the upcoming release, their new material will have a different feel. She tells Metal Express Radio: "The next album is going to be more like 60's soul funk. We've already started to work on the second album in the studio and we hope it's going to be better than the first one."

Metallica were presented with custom-made Metallica-Sharks jerseys before they hit center ice, with drummer Lars Ulrich performing the ceremonial puck drop.

The Sharks have been using Metallica's 1983 classic, "Seek & Destroy", as their entrance music for a long time. "Who would have thought back in 1982 when we wrote that song that that song would have that kind of mileage on it?", said Ulrich. "And even to, obviously, be able to write a song and have your name associated with a piece of music that plays that kind of role in so many people's lives all over the world."

"And in this particular case, the fact that the Sharks come out through a giant shark mouth and the smoke and the fire and the music and the energy in the building and so on, it's obviously, it's one of your proudest moments. It's a very cool thing to be associated with."

"It sets a tone," adds James Hetfield. "The sound quality - not the best - but that's all we knew in '83. But I love the fact that someone has taken our song and is still using it like that. And it's synonymous with Sharks hitting the ice, coming out of the mouth, through the teeth, and then the smoke. Very awesome."

They say: "Imagine slamming this gem into your NES - Metallica's One, Slayer's Reigning Blood, Megadeth's Sweating Bullets and Anthrax's Madhouse in 8-bit chip tune music. We also took inspiration from each tracks' video, so look out for iconic scenes."

The Big 4 performed together for the first time in 2010, and the moment was captured on DVD. They delivered a total of 14 shows with the last taking place in New York in 2011. Future gatherings appear unlikely due to the challenges of reaching agreements between all four bands.

"It was a real privilege to make this album," said Dylan. "I've wanted to do something like this for a long time but was never brave enough to approach 30-piece complicated arrangements and refine them down for a five-piece band... I don't see myself as covering these songs in any way. They've been covered enough. Buried, as a matter a fact. What me and my band are basically doing is uncovering them. Lifting them out of the grave and bringing them into the light of day."

The black and white clip, which features a cameo from Christopher Abbott, best known for his role as Alison Williams' boyfriend Charlie on Girls, trails members of the band in the hours leading up to one of their performances.

The video comes in time to promote the track before it sees another release as a 7-inch single on Record Store Day that will be paired with b-side "What Is That."

Joining Sweet & Lynch are bassman James Lomenzo (ex-Megadeth, White Lion, Black Label Society) and former Whitesnake drummer Brian Tichy. "When I was approached to help put together an all-star line-up, I instantly thought of George Lynch," says Michael Sweet.

"George is one of the most talented guitarists out there and a 'bucket list' player for me. He wrote riffs/basic ideas and I wrote melodies, lyrics and arranged and completed the songs. I knew that we would complement each other's style.

"When you add the amazing rhythm section of Brian Tichy and James Lomenzo, you just can't go wrong with this line-up. It really is a special project and I'm honoured to be a part of it!"

The band have just confirmed the last run of US shows they'll play before winding down their live career at the end of 2015. And Home Sweet Home - written in 1985 and reputed to have launched a flurry of soundalike power ballads in the years since - takes pride of place at the end of each show.

Singer Neil tells Rolling Stone: "When I'm singing it I'm like, 'This is the last time I'm playing this song to these guys.' Sometimes I start to choke up a little bit if I think about it too much."

This year promises to be another sprint for the 64-year-old Gibson Les Paul playing legend, with an Aerosmith tour slated for summer and more. Although Perry had a plethora of guitars, including the 1959 'Burst once also owned by Slash that Gibson recreated in 2013 as the Joe Perry 1959 Les Paul, we recently asked him if there's a Holy Grail instrument that's eluded his grasp. His reply: a 1968 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, like the one he owned when Aerosmith recorded their 1973 debut album Aerosmith, featuring their breakthrough hit "Dream On." Take it away Joe:

"I'm still looking for a '68 Goldtop. The first Les Paul I bought was a '68 Gold top. Now that's a sought-after Les Paul, but I only paid $300 or $400 for it at the time. I'd love to have that guitar back - especially looking like it did before I scraped the gold off of it. I've got a couple of Goldtops that are close, but that particular guitar is the one. One of the rumors is that after they stopped making Les Pauls in '60 or '61, and then started making them again in '68, Gibson had a lot of parts left over. If that's true, a lot of those pieces of wood were just sitting around the factory and got used. And the pickups were great.

"I think the first Goldtop I got had mini-humbuckers, but I've seen pictures where I'm playing one with P-90s, so I'm not sure which Goldtop was the very first one I had. I was trading guitars a lot back then. We called them 'midnight trades.' If somebody had a guitar I liked at the moment, I would just trade - that and a bag of pot. One night we played a show with the New York Dolls, and I remember trading Johnny Thunders a guitar for a two-pickup TV model with P-90s. I loved the way it sounded, and I had something he liked, so we just swapped. That went on all the time."

The blues-fuelled alt-rock outfit describe the record as "a document of New York City" and "a chronicle of grit, terror and love." They add: "It's all here - the hustler and the trust fund baby, the moshpit casualty, the celebrity chef, the crooked cop, the struggling artist, the sucker MC, the forgotten sex workers and last-chance Cinderellas.

"Within these grooves are cold-water tenements, blue-chip galleries, dingy Avenue B studios - and the last real warrior poet whose dark magick brings garage rock ghosts back from the grave!"

"25 years of black metal history collide with eons of devastation and destruction among human beings", say the band's label. "The result is an ugly, furious album true to Marduk's sinister legacy and true to the essence of black metal."

The song "Time Slips Away" is probably one of the most sentimental and retrospective songs we've ever written. We were actually on the road with Schuyler Fisk and were staying at her family's farm in Virginia when we wrote it. The family has an incredible old home on a large plot of land with rolling hills, horses and a pond. We fell in love with their place and Virginia in general, hence the lyric "and I never knew what true love was until I touched down in Virginia." Actually, all of the lyrics from the songs are lifted directly from the pages of our own life stories. For example, when we were teenagers we used to frequently drive 2,000 miles to Los Angeles simply to play shows at the Whisky and Troubadour with our rock band at the time. From that experience you get the lyrics "with 2,000 miles to go," "driving to life unknown," and "I never knew what freedom was until I drove to California."

The lyric "I never knew where I belonged until I woke up in New Orleans" is a reference to the feeling we got when we returned to that great city after having moved to Los Angeles 5 years prior. Our band Hydrovibe had just gotten a song in the movie Saw III, which put us out on our first real U.S. tour. The first show of the tour was the House Of Blues in New Orleans. We were excited because not only is the New Orleans area Heather's home, it also used to be one of the strong stomping grounds for Hydrovibe before we moved. We were also additionally excited because we were introducing our drummer and bass player to the city as well. When we hit the stage at the House Of Blues, there were around 650 lovely screaming people in the crowd�. and we were absolutely BEAMING! After the show, we went out and had a big time in the city (as one does). The next morning we were recapping what a great experience it was, and so was spawned the lyric "I never knew where I belonged until I woke up in New Orleans."

The lyric "we're so far from those places and the songs of yesterday" is really just a commentary on how far we've come in our career� and how much ground we've covered - both physically and musically. And finally, the lyric "the players keep changing, but the song remains the same" is a commentary on all the changes that have taken place in our careers - personnel, labels, management, agents, band members, etc. Our career is always in a state of evolution, but at the core we are very much the same as we always have been - point us toward the stage and we'll sing our hearts out for you.