Def Leppard Star Vivian Campbell's Cancer Returns

"Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play," Van Halen tells Billboard. "Before we'd go on tour, he'd come over with a video camera and I'd have to show him how to play all the parts."

Eddie also downplayed Anthony's role in the Van Halen sound, saying "Mike's voice is like a piccolo trumpet. But he's not a singer. He just has a range from hell. Mike was just born with a very high voice. I have more soul as a singer than he does. And you know, people always talk about Mike's voice on Van Halen songs, but that's a blend of Mike's voice and my voice. It's not just him."

For his part, Anthony took the high road when asked by Billboard to react to Eddie's claims. He said, "I am proud to say that my bass playing and vocals helped create our sound. I've always chosen to take the high road and stay out of the never-ending mudslinging, because I believe that it ultimately ends up hurting the Van Halen fans."

Hagar, however, was not so kind in issuing a statement of his own defending Anthony, who he has continued to work with in Chickenfoot and The Circle. "It's really irritating to see them go after Mikey," responds Hagar. "Mikey didn't do anything - ever - to Van Halen. Mikey was the most loyal guy in the band. He was the first guy there at rehearsal, the last guy to leave, the guy that was� the first guy at the gig, the guy that flew the� carried the banner, the flag, the VH banner� he carried it every night. And the horseman with the flag, the flagman on the horse in the calvary. That was Michael Anthony, okay?! [He was] a hundred percent dedicated. [He] never did anything to hurt those guys. And they try to hurt him again, and again, and again.

"For Eddie to say he had to show Michael what to play and had to teach him all those songs, that is the biggest line of bullsh*t I've ever heard in my life," Hagar continued. "I was in that band for eleven years, and there was never a video camera involved of Eddie showing him what to play. Eddie would tell him what to play once in a while, and say, 'No, Mike, don't play with that many notes. Just stay on one note - boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom - so that I can f*** up and nobody will know it.' It was that kind of sh*t.

"And I am telling you straight up, especially on the '04 reunion tour, if Mike would have played any more than one note, it would have been showing that Eddie wasn't playing the right chords again and again and again; I couldn't sing to 'em, you couldn't play bass to 'em. So� that is a lot of bullsh*t.

"I don't know why they go after him like that," he added. "He doesn't deserve it. He's one of the greatest rock and roll bass players ever in the world. Michael Anthony is Top 5 rock and roll bass player in the world. Any bass player will tell you that, any musician will tell you that. Listen to him play on The Circle. He ain't going 'boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom' unless it was called for.

Percussionist Shawn 'Clown' Crahan recently said the follow-up could arrive as early as 2017, but frontman Corey Taylor expects it to be a little later than that.

Taylor tells Rock Sverige: "We're gonna finish touring and then we're gonna take a couple of years off again to let everything chill. I'm gonna go do my thing, everybody else's gonna go do their thing.

He tells Planet Rock: "Record companies were a gift from heaven. Yeah, they're greedy, but they wanna make money just like you do. But they gave you money - millions. And if it wasn't for record companies, there'd be no Sex Pistols, there'd be no punk, there'd be no nothing. There would be punk, but it would be in a small club. It would never become huge.

"Record companies gave bands money that they never had to pay back. If the band failed and the records were a complete disaster, the advance money was all yours. What other business would give you that? If you go to a bank and they give you a million dollars, and your business goes under, they don't care it failed - they want their money back."

The band's first album in six years is issued on September 11 via Nuclear Blast and is their first since the death of guitarist Jeff Hanneman. They recently unveiled the album artwork and the contents of the limited edition Metal Eagle boxset version.

Rolling Stone this week repeated a long-standing story that, when the Joe Perry Project later supported Rush, frontman Geddy Lee made sure they were well-treated and told the guitarist: "I would never want anyone to feel the way we did when we opened for you." Lee says he doesn't remember the conversation, but that Perry apologised.

Now the guitarist has responded, telling Rolling Stone: "Frankly, I don't remember playing with Rush." But he adds: "The competition between bands was stiff, the competition between crews even stiffer, so I don't doubt Geddy's word."

The Australian outfit played an instrumental set in Dessau, Germany, for fans who were unable to change travel plans in time. But they won't appear as planned at Graspop in Belgium today or at the Southside Festival in Germany tomorrow.

Northlane said last night: "Marcus had been feeling increasingly ill over the last few days, causing us to seek medical assistance. It was revealed he had an issue that needed to be operated on immediately due to a high risk of the problem getting worse.

"This concept was birthed out of my curiosity about what a cat really does at night while we are asleep," explains Skinner. "Where do they go? Cats have a very mysterious myth to them and I thought it would be cool to explore that, as little nocturnal heroes.

"I decided to put a sort of Joseph Campbell hero myth spin on it and add some Jodorowsky psychedelia as well. I'm more than excited about the way it came out! I love it!"

And as well as the more refined edge to the new material, he says it'll be "aggressive" and "dark" keeping fans of the band's heavier work happy. Mustaine tells Guitar World: "I think a lot of people are gonna be happy, because the music is really aggressive again. There's nothing too out of the ordinary on the record. I think probably the most noticeable thing will be how my playing with the San Diego Symphony affected some of my guitar work.

University of Queensland honours student Leah Sharman and Genevieve Dingle, doctor of psychology, deliberately angered test subjects by asking them to recall frustrating or irritating events in their lives. They were then given the option of listening to 10 minutes of music of their choice, or spending the same time in silence.

They report that those who listened to heavy music became "inspired" and "mellow" after their listening sessions. Sharman says: "It was interesting that half of the chosen songs contained themes of anger or aggression, with the remainder containing themes like isolation and sadness.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of his death after a drinking session in London. Head tells Classic Rock's Rod Yates: "The very first time I met Bon he was a worker, mowing lawns and picking up rubbish. He'd work really hard, fast and efficiently - I thought, 'Wow, this guy has got direction in his life.'

"You could see he wasn't your average person, no matter what he did. He also had a sense of humour. He'd be cracking jokes and doing funny things. He worked hard, he was funny and he had a good sense of ethics."

Head remembers how Scott went out of his way to find unusual ways of doing things. "If there was as staircase he wouldn't walk down the stairs, he'd slide down the bannister. That sense of being a clown stayed with him - it's one of the main things about AC/DC.

Vocalist Andrea Ferro tells TotalRock in a new video interview clip from this year's Download festival: "By the time we record it, promote it and put it out, it's going to be two years from the previous one.

"We have a lot of music right now, and we're just starting with the vocals. We're going to keep going, recording at the end of the year and release it next year. That's the plan."

In the clip for Black Water, the band are seen in the studio and onstage. Thunder had to cancel a gig in Paris this week after frontman Danny Bowes was struck down with a viral infection.

It is their first album to feature Dutch duo, vocalist John Cuijpers and drummer Hans Zandt. The lineup is rounded out by guitarists Tino Troy and Andy Burgess, along with bassist Chris Troy.

King tells Fuse: "Paul's a machine. I don't worry about him at all. He would never have been out of Slayer if he didn't quit twice. It was never over anything personal. He was always my friend so it was very easy for him to come back and be a part again."

Eight of the chart-toppers were released during the first half of the 1970s, with only Crimson's In The Court Of The Crimson King and Rush's Moving Pictures coming from other decades.

And only eight later-generation prog acts make the magazine's top 50 - The Mars Volta at number 25, Opeth at 28, Dream Theater at 29, Tool at 33, Porcupine Tree at 39, Meshuggah at 42, Marillion at 47 and Ruins at 49.

Singer Vic Fuentes says: "This first single, The Divine Zero, goes out to all of our incredibly supportive fans out there who have been waiting for it. There is nothing more special to us than being able to share new music with all of you, and this is the very first glimpse into our upcoming album.

The band issued the Zombie EP in 2010 and they say they learned lessons that have been used in making Space.

Vocalist Mike Hranica says: "We learned a lot from the Zombie EP. We wanted each song on the Space EP to have a specificity about it, to have its own identity separate from the others, to have its own sound, but still have them all united in concept. We talked about a lot of different themes, but 'space' just felt right.

The concept was inspired when Braide and Soan, who'd been members of The Producers with Trevor Horn, wanted to work together again. Braide says: "I started writing songs last November about dualism - ego death and the fight between the fake self and the real self. These songs started pouring out so I got in touch with Ash.

Island appears on their album The Illusion's Reckoning, set for launch on October 5. It features musicians Dave Kilminster, Chris Johnson, Alex Cromarty and Stu Fletcher.

Findlay recalls feeling a "huge wave of healing energy" as she heard Kerzner's instrumental track for the first time. She tells Prog: "A lush, mysterious, musical cocktail of uplift and joy was playing out before me. It somehow rang with a tiny hint of wistfulness and seemed to perform a series of inner resets. Through a slightly teary haze I realised this band was to be no ordinary collaboration."

Kerzner adds: "We enjoyed making the video on a sunny day at the beach. The weather, the location, and Heather and I having fun on camera represented the good vibes and layered meaning of the lyrics.

He tells Kerrang: "It's a relief. We've always put out things and we don't know what the reaction is gonna be. But it is nice seeing something that gets received so well.

"I'm kind of wondering when the shoe's gonna drop and somebody's just gonna bash the sh*t out of this. Like, it's too good, the reaction. But no, it's fine. Great."

Gould adds that Faith No More are working on future touring plans to follow their 2015 dates, which currently run up to October. But they won't commit to more than they can handle. He says: "I think there will be some stuff, but we're doing this now in steps.

He left his Oklahoma home to study physics, but spent much of his time touring the blues clubs of Chicago's Southside, picking up pointers for what would be a five-decade career In music.

They will be launching the tour in support of fifth album Tragedy Will Find Us. The follow-up to 2013's The Difference Between Hell And Home is to be launched on July 24 via Pure Noise Records.

They'll cross England and Scotland before delivering three gigs with three different setlists at London's Dome, Barfly and Underworld. Frontman Keith Buckley says:

"If you've ever been to an Every Time I Die show in the UK, you'll understand why we want to spend almost an entire month playing shows there. Intimate venues, cold pints, good mates. Don't miss out - these gigs will be ledge."

Burnley tells Loudwire: "Unfortunately, I've gotten no answers from the medical community whatsoever. So I'm still very sick and I've tried everything i could to get to the bottom of my health issues, but the medical community hasn't helped me to find the answers.

"I'm pushing through because it is either lay down and give up or get up and play music for my fans. If I go down, I'll go down doing what I love for the people I love."

"(Untitled V)" inadvertently ended up being a kind of love-letter to 90s rock. The intro riff was something that our new guitar player, Eric, came up with at home and then emailed to everyone. It had a dirgy Soundgarden quality to it that everyone liked, and we had actually covered a Soundgarden song ("4th of July") a few years before. As we worked on it, the song developed a weird alternating major/minor tonality that reminded everyone of Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile.

In the studio, we just threw in any and every ridiculous stunt we could think of. The song sprouted a bunch of unruly improvised guitar noise and barbershop quartet vocals and became something else entirely. We knew it would piss off some of our longtime fans, but it was just one of the most fun-to-play things we've written. Harmonically, it's new territory for the band, but still feels familiar because of how it harks back to the music that we loved when we were kids, just picking up guitars for the first time. It has an exuberance to it that's new for us.

It also spawned one of the more memorable lyrical motifs on Quintessential Ephemera, the repeating choral line "made out of nothing..." which in many ways encapsulates what the whole record is about. There's a lot of meditation on how transient and empty our digital lives are, how we spend all this time sculpting and curating online identities that have no basis in reality, and how we consume so much online media that we end up totally inert and never excited by anything. Eric originally wrote the line as "I came to find basically nothing," but during the demo process, Matt kept incorrectly singing "made out of nothing" over and over. Eventually, we liked the 'wrong' version enough that we kept the line in the song, and had everyone sing it together as a 3-part harmony. Because we could.