Today's Day in Rock Stories

Aerosmith Star Shares Health Concerns As Band Ponder Tour

The new show will be legendary band's final U.S. concert of 2016 and will come on the heels of their performances at the Desert Trip festival in Indio, California on October 7 and 14, and their already-sold-out first show in Las Vegas on October 19.

The songs, "No Plan," "Killing a Little Time" and "When I Met You, will be featured on the first disc as they appeared in the show. A second disc will include Bowie's versions of the tracks along with the previously released 'Lazarus."

Puciato tells Metal Hammer (via Blabbermouth), "'Extended hiatus' would lead people to believe that we think we're gonna come back. We're breaking up. We're not going on an extended hiatus.

"This is a really weird thing to say, but we really still do love what we do; we don't love it any less, we don't love making records any less, we don't love being on stage any less. And that's the hard part - you're making a choice to stop doing something that you love, which sounds insane to people. But, really, what it's about is realizing that� Say if you're a painter, you don't just paint until you run out of paint, you don't just paint until your arm falls off; you make a decision that, at some point in time, you made the final brushstroke. Or if you make a movie, you don't just film until you run out of film or hard-drive space, you make a decision, artistically, to say, 'Even if I'm having the best time ever making this movie, this is the end.'"

He continued: "In the last few years, we've started to reach what felt like a thematic conclusion to our band, particularly Ben and I, where we realized that in our lives, psychologically, we were reaching a sort of a resolve and that we had used our relationship with one another and our artistic outlet together in The Dillinger Escape Plan to kind of work through a lot of things as people and as a couple of people on earth. And we started to reach this resolve, a thematic resolve, and it started to show itself in our music and in our lyrics, and I think we both just started to realize, like, 'Hey, if we're ever gonna draw a line and say that this is over, this seems like a good time.' And when we started to talk about it and the fear aspect of it went away - 'cause right away, there's this gut feeling of, 'Oh, sh*t! My safety net is being taken away' - once you got over that fear, I think we started to realize that this feels like a very empowering move, to be able to say, 'Hey, now you can look at The Dillinger Escape Plan as an artistic body, not just on an album-to-album basis.' You can look at the whole band artistically and say, 'This is what this was, and it had a beginning, and it had an end, and they did close the circle.' And it is this thing that you can look at as a whole instead of it just�

Now Scorpions report that Dee has taken Kottak's place in the lineup as a fully-fledged member of the band, and they've thanked their former sticksman for his service.

Scorpions say in a statement: "We would like to thank James for so many years of lasting participation in the band and personal friendship. We understand and respect his need for time as he makes his way through the final stages of his healing process.

Mustaine says that, while he is not a hip-hop fan, he is an admirer of Body Count frontman Ice-T and that he can't wait to hit the road in 2017. Mustaine tells Metal Hammer: "We're talking about a very large tour next summer with five bands on it with us. It's going to be more of a guest appearance than a direct support kind of thing.

"We've been looking at a lot of interesting acts, but for me I don't always try and pick out the flavour of the month - I have loyalty to my friends. I always thoughts that Body Count, while if not for everybody, I thought it was great.

Y&T frontman Dave Meniketti confirmed the news, saying: "It is with shock and sadness that I type this. Leonard Haze, the legendary drummer, and a guy I spent decades with creating great music together, has passed away at 61.

"This, just a few days after his birthday. I just woke up to this news, as I'm in Germany, and immediately called his wife, Kelly. She confirmed that Leonard had passed away in his sleep sometime between noon and 7.30pm on Sunday, September 11.

Portnoy says: "I'm so excited to make my ProgPower debut in 2017. Between 2001 and 2009 I wrote five very personal interconnecting songs with Dream Theater and I never got to play them live� until now.

They hit the road yesterday (September 12) on the Return To Roots tour playing the landmark album in full - and they say having fellow Cavalera Conspiracy members Marc Rizzo and Johny Chow onboard will make for a enjoyable experience.

Igor Cavalera tells Rolling Stone: "For me and Max, it's about having people that we love on the road with us. Marc, he was a massive Sepultura fan from day one, so it's been easy for him, while Johny had to go deep into the record to learn everything. But really, it's about enjoying ourselves, and having a nice time - that's why we chose those two guys to do this with us.

Max adds that an important part of playing live is hooking up with "people we like, and that we can count on" and adds: "When we created Cavalera Conspiracy, that was one of the things we talked about - how can we eliminate the stress factor that was present so many times in our career before and kind of ruined stuff for us.

NOFX frontman Fat Mike says: "I thought it was a long shot, but I sent our new song Oxy Moronic to my friend at Funny Or Die to see if they wanted to use it for something.

"He played it for some people and next thing I know, they asked if they could make a video for it. Funny Or Die made a f***ing video for NOFX! How cool is that? Plus, they recruited a bunch of their comedian friends to be in it too."

Director Bradly Schulz adds: "I could go on and on about how fun it was to work with a band I've loved for over 20 years, but this is punk rock. So forget it.

One of the band's Nameless Ghouls says: "We're very proud of it. We're obviously thrilled to be able to play something new. This is a short, to-the-point little gem right at the jugular."

It is not clear whether the track will appear on Ghost's upcoming fourth album. Last month, a Nameless Ghoul said the band are "too funny" to be taken seriously by metal purists.

The Ghoul said: "I do think to a certain degree that we are misunderstood. We started off doing this with the intention of becoming this small horror rock band. It was supposed to be entertaining.

Tompkins says: "Hexes represents a vivid dream and distant memory - one of holding onto the secrets between two people. "To maintain the intimate and personal nature of the concept, we knew we needed a video director who didn't simply understand the lyrics, but who could connect to the intensity of the music, and was willing to work closely together in creating the right visuals."

The result is the collaboration with George Laycock of Blacktide, shot on several locations including the replica International Space Station module at Leicester's National Space Centre.

Donahue's daughter Kristina Donahue Daly says: "Dad suffered an ischemic stroke with hemorrhagic conversion. Every doctor who's looked at his chart is amazed that he survived. So, for that, we're truly grateful.

"However, he has global aphasia, which makes it incredibly difficult to communicate and is, as you can imagine, very frustrating. His occupational therapist said she'd never before worked with someone with his level of aphasia.

The band say of the album: "It tries to capture this feeling of being trapped in mental mazes and not being able to fully experience happiness, basically. How is this struggle visualized in your own mind and how do your surroundings react to the behavior caused by it.

"Where the EP Monsters deals with strategies on how to escape the negative thought patterns, Inmazes is more about the distance these thoughts can create between people."

They'll head out on the road across Europe with Katatonia and Agent Fresco - a run of dates which kick off later this month. Vola say: "We are exceptionally excited about joining Katatonia and Agent Fresco on tour around Europe.

Johnson says: "Ever since I was young, I've played piano and acoustic guitar in my private life. This type of music has always been a part of me, but I never showcased it on any kind of bigger level, like a full acoustic record.

He tells Gearphoria: "We're about 17 songs into it. We're just wrapping them up. We've got to do vocals and some guitar - slowly but surely. We're going to release it early next year - whether that's February or early spring. This thing is coming out, even if I've got to leak this f***ing thing."

He believes the Big 4 of thrash shows in 2010, along with Slayer and Megadeth, was the focal point that led to a return to form with 2011 album Worship Music and this year's For All Kings.

Up until then, Anthrax had been struggling in the wilderness as they tried to secure a permanent frontman between John Bush, Joey Belladonna and Dan Nelson. Classic-era vocalist Belladonna returned full-time for Worship Music.

Bello tells Metal-Rules.com: "This band has new life. It's like a resurgence. Even before Worship Music it really started with the Big 4 tour.

"Let it Rain" is a special track for us, which is why it also became the title of our EP. We wrote the track during a time where we were trying to figure out a lot of things. We were new as a band, and were trying to find our style and our chemistry. We all quit our day jobs and basically said, "screw everything, let's just make music. We'll figure out the rest." As much as that was amazing and we were writing music 12 hours a day, it was also pretty stressful since New York is expensive and a lot is required of you all the time.

The mix of 12-hour rehearsal/writing lockdowns, mixed with a lot of partying and 4:30 PM winter sunsets got into our heads a little, I think. It was one of those moments where you stop and ask yourself, "what am I doing with my life? Am I going to legitimately lose it and go crazy?" But deep inside, we all knew we were doing what we wanted to be doing, and pursuing our dream. And that's a big part of what "Let it Rain" is about: even if things are crazy and seem out of place, stick to what you're doing if you know deep down that it's what you want to be doing. It's not always easy to pursue who you are and what you want, and it's never what you imagined it would be. But for people like us, it's just not an option. It's just what we do. When you look at it without judgment and expectation, it's all beautiful.

The track has a bit of a critical angle as well as a motivational one. The message "let it rain" is about letting things be as they are: when life is messing with you, it can be like getting caught in a rainstorm. It doesn't help to get mad at the sky. You just gotta roll with it, let it rain. The song critiques people who get caught up with judgment, fear, expectations, and is a shout out to those who learn to love and accept harshness and challenges at face value. It was probably around 7 A.M when we started writing the track. Honestly, it could've been 5 P.M. and we wouldn't have known the difference in our jam space with no windows. We had nothing else to do, and nothing else we'd rather be doing. It was an amazing time.