MEGADETH’s Chris Broderick and Dave Ellefson are currently conducting a six-date Jackson Guitars mini-tour and giving clinics across the US. Some footage from the clinics has surfaced online and you can see a selection of clips below:

“Public Enemy No. 1” performance before the clinic in Jackson, NY:

Answering fan questions:

Lick of the day:

Answering fan questions:

You can pre-order a copy of the band’s upcoming albums, TH1RT3EN, by clicking this link.

OPETH played a show in San Fransisco the other day and as per our previous DREAM THEATER news post, Sound Spike were at the show in San Fran to document the show. Check out some shots from the concert below and click here to see the full gallery.

Click here to check out OPETH’s UK tour dates in November 2011.

DREAM THEATER played a show in Atlanta on the 19th of October and Sound Spike was there to document the gig. You can see a selection of those photos below and be sure to check out the full gallery by clicking this link.

DREAM THEATER are touring the UK in February 2012 and you can find those dates on our Tour Page. You can also find out more details about DREAM THEATER‘s latest album, A Dramatic Turn Of Events, by clicking this link.

Jeremy DePoyster of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA spoke to Lithium Magazine about the new album Dead Throne, amongst other things, and you can see an extract of that interview below:

Mike: You just mentioned touring your recent release – Dead Throne, your fourth studio effort. Did you approach this album any differently than your past efforts?

Jeremy: I would say we approached it extremely different, in every kind of way. We’ve always just kind of roughed it out when it came to writing new material, just at people’s houses or we’d rent space in Ohio when we all lived there. This time we set aside a six week block in Kansas and another four week block in Chicago, in between our different tours to really focus on the writing. We wanted to go in to this album super prepared. Some of the songs were things that Chris had written on his laptop over the past year of touring. We took a lot of that stuff and gave it a band-twist, and then wrote some other songs just as a band in the rehearsal studios. And by the time we got to the studio we had all of these songs that we thought were all finished demos. And Adam (Dutkiewicz) ripped those demos all apart and really made some working songs out of a lot of them. This was something we’ve never had before. We tend to go into record with what we think is almost the final product, and Adam kind of ripped our final product apart and made it way better, so it was kind of cool.

Mike: He’s quite a musician. I think he hears things differently than a lot of other producers would. I was kind of curios to hear what you think he helped bring out of the Devil Wears Prada with this fourth album?

Jeremy: It was insane, you know? I think that he managed to bring who we wanted to be as a band, rather than just who we were at the time, which was a cool thing to experience.

Mike: You get to do the quote unquote ‘clean singing’ on TDWP material, correct?

(Laughter)

Jeremy: Yes, that’s me.

Mike: Has this always been the way?

Jeremy: Um, yes. I think that when I joined the band they were starting to split the duties up between a few of the other guys. When I joined the band, we were all like kids playing in a basement. I think I was eighteen and the oldest member at the time was twenty. I had been in another band before around town; we all had. I joined playing guitar and I brought Andy with me because he was a friend and could play bass. And they found some demos of this other band that I was in after a while and were surprised that I could sing. This quickly turned into, “You SHOULD sing,” and it kind of went from there.

Mike: There is a track on Dead Throne called ‘Constance’ that features Tim Lambesis of As I Lay Dying. How did you get him involved on this new album?

Jeremy: We’ve known those guys for years now. We haven’t done any real tours with them. Not to say Warped isn’t a real tour, but it’s kind of a rolling festival. We did Warped with them and kind of hit it off with those guys. We had like a Bible study at different times together. Tim has always been a really rad dude and has been a real inspiration to us over the years. We had a couple of ideas for people that we wanted to sing on the record and Tim was always the first choice on the list. Mike hit him up, and he was going through this whole process of trying to adopt a baby with his wife and he wasn’t sure if he was going to have the time to do it. We all felt that if there was a reason to not have time, that’s about as good as it can get, right? So we weren’t sure if he’d be able to fit it in, and we had Mike record it just as a back-up. Then I got married in May, and we were all at the wedding house and an email came in saying we should listen to this version of ‘Constance’ and it had Tim singing over our music and we all couldn’t believe how amazing it sounded. It was pretty cool.

You can read the full interview by clicking this link and pick up a copy of Dead Throne over at this location.

OPETH are currently on tour in the US and whilst in Los Angeles, Fredrik caught up with Metal Assault. They discussed the new album, touring and much more. You can hear that interview below:

With every new album of theirs, Swedish progressive metal masters Opeth have always come up with something new and different, and quite often, something that takes everyone by surprise. The latest album, Heritage, falls in this category and with it Mikael Akerfeldt and co have proven once again that there are no bounds to their creativity.

Catch OPETH at one on their UK dates – details can be found by clicking this link. You can also pick up a copy of Heritage over on this page.

TRIVIUM have been teasing fans by posting images and snippets of footage in the lead up to the premiere of their new video for ‘Built To Fall’. You can see the images that the band have posted on their Facebook so far and a clip that they posted today, below:

TRIVIUM‘s ‘Built To Fall’ is being released as a digital single on the 4th of December and you can find out more about that by pointing your mouse in this direction.

SCUZZ TV are hosting a MACHINE HEAD themed weekend over on their channel this weekend and as well as having videos and short features seeded throughout the day, they are also showing a selection of special features, which you can find out more about below:

Machine Head: Social Meltdown!
Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn answers fan questions sent in via our social networks and counts down our viewer Top 5 MH videos!

Machine Head: Top 10 Videos!
We countdown the 10 greatest Machine Head videos, as decided by you!

Robb Flynn’s ‘Best of RR Records”
Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn takes over the airwaves with his pick of the best of Roadrunner Record videos!

Machine Head Mix Tape
As part of Machine Head weekend we’re mashing up a mix of music videos and live tracks in this unmissable Machine Head Mix Tape!

Robb Flynn’s ‘Thrash ‘Til Death’
Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn is VJing his ultimate metal playlist in Thrash Til Death!

Robb Flynn’s ‘Top 5 Guitar Gods”
Machine Head’s Robb Flynn presents his favourite guitar gods!

They are also running a competition to win a Phil Demmel Jackson Guitar and tickets to each of the MACHINE HEAD UK shows in December.

The special features are as follows:

FRIDAY
21:00AM Robb Flynn’s ‘Top 5 Guitar Gods’
22:00AM Robb Flynn’s ‘Best of RR Records’
23:00AM Machine Head: Top 10 Videos!
00:00AM Machine Head Mix Tape
01:00AM Robb Flynn’s ‘Thrash ‘Til Death’

SATURDAY
21:00AM Machine Head: Social Meltdown!
22:00AM Robb Flynn’s ‘Thrash ‘Til Death’
23:00AM Robb Flynn’s ‘Best of RR Records
00:00AM Machine Head Mix Tape

SUNDAY
21:00AM Machine Head: Top 10 Videos!
22:00AM Robb Flynn’s ‘Best of RR Records
23:00AM Machine Head: Social Meltdown!
01:00AM Machine Head Mix Tape

You can watch Scuzz on the following channels:
SKY Channel 374
Freesat 503
Scuzz TV info

MEGADETH’s upcoming album, TH1RT3EN, is drummer Shawn Drover’s third album with the band (he joined in 2004, along with his guitarist brother Glen) and it’s a great vehicle for him to demonstrate facility in a variety of styles; there’s some thrashy material as furious as anything on 2009’s Endgame, but there’s a lot of melodic, anthemic music, too, like first single “Public Enemy No. 1.” We reached out to Shawn to find out how he feels about playing with prodigal bassist Dave Ellefson, what he feels he brings to classic MEGADETH material onstage, and more.

This is the second in a four-part series of interviews with all four members of MEGADETH, leading up to the release of TH1RT3EN on the 31st of October – enjoy!

How do you feel the Big Four show at Yankee Stadium went?

It was awesome! We’re the first hard rock/metal bands that have ever played Yankee Stadium as far as I know. I know Eminem and Jay-Z had played Yankee Stadium previously, but as far as I know we are the first metal bands to play Yankee Stadium, so that in itself is quite an achievement and quite a great thing for metal. The show itself was fantastic, the place was packed—it’s Yankee Stadium, you know? I wouldn’t even put that on my bucket list, it’s such a monumental thing that I didn’t think I would ever play something like that in my lifetime. Madison Square Garden, yes, of course we’ve played that, but Yankee Stadium was quite an honor, I’ve gotta say.

How did recording TH1RT3EN compared to your previous experiences doing Megadeth records?

It’s weird—speaking for myself, but I think I can say that for pretty much everybody, the record was a very easy process. I’m not really sure why. Everything went very smoothly, we just rolled along and got things done at a very quick pace. We had about nine weeks between tours to record this record, and we really pulled it off. We’re ecstatic about the results of the record. We think it’s a great record, and we hope the fans will as well. I think the biggest difference between this and United Abominations, Endgame before it, and so on and so forth, is how easy it was. There is no special reason why. Everything just seemed to click. Songs came together very well and very effortlessly, and it was just a really enjoyable record for us to make. Certainly on my behalf, that’s for sure.

Did having David Ellefson back after a long absence contribute to that ease?

You know, I don’t think that contributed to the record being easier. He had a lot of input on the riffs we used, but we all did, we all fed off of each other. Dave [Mustaine] has such a library of riffs that he’s recorded on tour, riffs that we’ve recorded on previous tours. He just keeps everything on file, so he’s got such an abundance of riffs, partial songs, finished songs, all sorts of things he can choose from that we never have an issue like, “oh, we don’t have enough material.” We always have more than enough material. Which is a great thing to have. So it’s not the reason the record was easier to make, but I’ll tell you what, it was great being on a record, for me personally, with both Daves. He was one of the ones that started the band, and having him back in the band and back on the record is certainly a great thing in my opinion. I’m loving it. We get along very well, and I’m glad he’s back in the band.

Did you find it easy to establish the chemistry with him as the other half of the rhythm section?

Yeah. We clicked. It’s funny, the first time David came down to Arizona to rehearse with us, this was just before the Rust in Peace tour that we were going to do—and I’ve met him several times before, but this was the first time we’d ever gotten in a room and jammed together and stuff. He plugged in, and we started playing tunes, and right away everything just locked in. Not that it was any better or any worse with James LoMenzo or James MacDonough, they were fantastic as well, but there was something about performing with someone who was on those records and performed the original bass parts. For the most part, I’m emulating other drummers and trying to bring their nuances to songs that I haven’t played on. It was cool to play with someone who had played on pretty much all the records for the first 20 years of the band, to play all those old classics again and have the original bass player and guitar player play on that stuff.

When you play songs from before your tenure in the band, do you try to emulate them as closely as possible or do you try to throw in some of your own identity?

I keep a pretty close. There are certain things here or there, certain things I feel are not as important—like if there is a certain drumroll on a song, or something that’s really integral to the song, I would never change anything like that. But there are a few things here or there where I try to add a little of my own flavor to it while not deterring from the original recording. We try to keep things as close as you can get to the original recording. It’s almost impossible to have everything note perfect and jump around on stage and headbang and all that crazy stuff. I try to keep it as close as I can just out of respect to the previous drummers and out of respect to the fans who want to hear stuff close to the record.

When writing the new material, do you come up with the drum parts yourself?

In the studio, it’s a collaborative effort. When we are tracking, I’ll get in there and play a track to it, and then we’ll listen to it—myself, the producer, and Dave—we’ll all sit down and talk about it, and sometimes they’ll have ideas like “why don’t you add to this part, or why don’t you do this instead of that” and we talk about it. If I feel very strongly about something, and I know the way that I played it is better than the way that they’re suggesting, I’ll speak up about it. But in the end, it’s a collaborative effort. It all stems from the track that I lay down, we just change certain parts. Sometimes we change parts more than others, and some we barely change it at all from my original idea. At the end of the day, it’s a collaborative effort between the three of us. I look at it as three heads are better than one, because sometimes they’ll come up with an idea that’s better than the one I originally had in mind. At the end of the day, we want to service the song. I want the song to be as good as possible and play what the song requires.

Interview by Jeff Treppel.

Pre-order your copy of TH1RT3EN by clicking this link…

Our friends over at Classic Rock are running an awesome track by track over on their website, which was filmed with KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD a few weeks back. Kenny gives us insight into how the tracks for How I Go were both written and then picked for the album, as well as what each song means to him. You can check out the first part by clicking this link. Stay tuned for part 2 and 3, coming soon!

ALTER BRIDGE have revealed another of their stunning webisodes and in today’s clip you can see what Scott gets up to on a rare day off for the band. You can watch the clip below and be sure to check out the band live at one of their UK tour dates in November! You can also pick up of the recently released AB III.5 by clicking this link.