Hottest Band News and Interviews

Band’s Good Morning Revival hits stores in March.

The City of Angels is known for a lot of things, but the Los Angeles River isn’t one of them.

Still, the flood-control channel, immortalized in all its garbage-lined cement beauty in movies like “Grease” and “The Italian Job,” was the inspiration for Good Charlotte’s “The River” and the location for the new single’s video.

“The symbolism of the L.A. River in the song is that it’s concrete, polluted, graffitied, and when you think of ‘baptism in the river’ [the chorus of the song], you think peaceful and serene, and that’s the whole vibe of the song,” guitarist Benji Madden explained on the set Tuesday. “This was the visual in our heads while we were writing the song.”

Deftones bassist Chi Cheng remains under a hospital’s care after sustaining injuries last week in a vehicular accident. According to the band’s spokesperson, Cheng, who has been in a coma since the crash, is feeling better, and more news on his recovery will be released sometime next week. Cheng’s condition remains stable; he’s started breathing on his own, and is starting to move his eyes underneath his eyelids. Earlier this week, Korn bassist Fieldy visited Cheng in the hospital. …

Travis Barker is “thankful to be alive” after the plane crash in Columbia, South Carolina, last month that left him and DJ AM severely burned and killed four others. The former Blink-182 drummer opens up about the accident in the new issue of US Weekly, reports The Associated Press.

“I hate planes,” Barker said in an interview with the magazine. “My biggest fear ever is to be involved in a plane crash, so when that happened … well, I’m just thankful to be alive! I’m just grateful to be here at all.”

Barker was released from a Georgia burn center last week and is now getting treatment at a Los Angeles-area hospital. Just days before, DJ AM had been released from the hospital and is now home recovering. The crash killed Barker’s assistant, Chris Baker, and his bodyguard, Charles Still, as well as the plane’s two crew members.

WYKKED WYTCH’s fourth album, “Memories of a Dying Whore”, was released through the band’s own label Perish Music. According to a press release, “Memories of a Dying Whore” was remixed by Eric Rachel (THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER, ATREYU, GOD FORBID) at Trax East Studios and was mastered by Alan Douches (UNEARTH, MASTODON, SHADOWS FALL) at West West Side Music in New York.

ROCKSTAR Energy Drink Presents ROCKSTAR TASTE OF CHAOS;

Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba: ‘Satanism’s Fun’

Angst-filled punks return with new disc, My Chemical Romance tour plans.

Matt Skiba, lead singer and guitarist for Chicago punk purists Alkaline Trio, feels that there are a lot of misconceptions out there regarding Satanism, and, as a longtime member of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, can tell you that it’s not all fire, brimstone and threats of eternal damnation.

Joan Jett is sentimental favorite at festival; attendance down this year.

The Warped Tour ought to consider hooking up with Baskin-Robbins as a sponsor next year. Because when the 12th edition of the longest-running U.S. summer festival touched down at the Riverbend Music Center on Wednesday, it served up 36 flavors — approximately 30 of which were variations of the punk taste of the past few years: emo.

With few exceptions, angsty, tattooed white boys with a lot to scream about ruled the day for the 11,000-plus fans who wandered among the eight stages and endless collection of band merch and sponsor booths. The exceptions were goth punks AFI, who drew the day’s biggest crowd with their dramatic dinnertime set, and old-schooler Joan Jett, who provided one of the few true cross-generational bonding moments for the many families in attendance.

Teresa Swanson’s sign said it all: “Come to Peoria!”

“We love AC/DC,” said Swanson, 44, of Chillicothe. “I’m a child of the ’80s.”

Peoria radio station WIXO-FM organized the rally in hopes of catching the attention of the band, which has not performed in Peoria since 1983.

Frontman discusses ‘saying goodbye,’ band’s landmark ‘From Yesterday’ clip.

Could 30 Seconds to Mars’ time be up? Never mind that the band is hotter than ever — singer Jared Leto is wondering whether they’ll last through 2007.

Musically and harmonically, emo chart-toppers Fall Out Boy run a pretty tight ship, delivering giddy pop-punk with precision. Yet while the sharp melodies and strong vocals of lead singer/tune-crafter Patrick Stump may account for a vast majority of the actual quality of the band’s songs, they only partially explain the group’s success.

After starting Evanescence in 1998 with Ben Moody, Amy Lee has certainly seen the band become a worldwide success and with multiple Grammy Awards, followed by multiple lineup changes, she also feels the band is becoming a stronger and tighter unit because they finally have passionate musicians in the band. After the success of the band’s debut album ‘Fallen’ which spent 43 weeks on the Billboard Top 10 and has since been certified 6x Platinum with more than 15 million copies sold worldwide, the band saw Moody depart due to creative differences and he was replaced by Terry Balsamo, formerly of the band Cold.