Chad Childers has been a music lover since his parents dragged him along to an Aerosmith/Bachman Turner Overdrive show as an infant. His love of music turned into a career in the mid-90s when he left a job in the Midwest as a librarian and moved to California to intern for Westwood One Radio. That led to work researching for Casey Kasem's countdown shows, writing and producing the alternative and active rock-related prep services SpinFax, The Fax, and Rip, Read and Rock as well as doing interviews across all music and entertainment formats.
After the demise of Nirvana, a distraught Dave Grohl hid himself away in a studio, recorded a bunch of demos on his own and slapped the name Foo Fighters on it to give it some anonymity. But soon everyone realized that the drummer from Nirvana really had some chops as a frontman and the self-titled release from the Foo Fighters struck a chord with listeners.
As a new brand of hard rock was making its resurgence in 1998, one of the leaders of the movement was the Boston-based Godsmack. With drummer-turned-frontman Sully Erna leading the way, the band definitely had a feel for how to meld rhythm and power.
While there were a ton of hard rock bands with notable frontmen in the mid-to-late '80s, there weren't many who held a candle to the vocal range provided by Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach. And Bach had a killer band to work with, as Dave 'Snake' Sabo, Scotti Hill, Rachel Bolan and Rob Affuso handled both full-on rockers and power ballads with skill.
It would take a pretty amazing frontman to fill the rage that Rage Against the Machine's members lacked without Zack de la Rocha, and that vocalist turned out to be former Soundgarden belter Chris Cornell. The new supergroup took on the name Audioslave and released a self-titled disc in 2002, very much living up to the lofty expectations that came with their backgrounds.
Disturbed unleashed a powerful new voice in 2000 when their debut disc 'The Sickness' arrived in stores. Yes, the band had the energy and the attitude you would want from a hard rock outfit, but with singer David Draiman, there was a rhythmic delivery unlike most of the group's peers.
In 2002, Corey Taylor and Jim Root took a lot of people by surprise by stepping away from the very successful Slipknot long enough to debut the new project Stone Sour. Even more surprising was the nature of the music, serving as a more hard rock record with Taylor's vocals coming through with clarity and showing a range not fully explored prior.
Dream Theater have spent the majority of 2013 behind closed doors working on their next studio album, but keyboardist Jordan Rudess took some time out to speak with Loudwire about the band's progress on their upcoming disc, how drummer Mike Mangini is adjusting to the group after one record cycle under his belt, the group's future tour plans and the fan-voted victory of Dream Theater's 'Images & Words' album in Loudwire's March Metal Madness. Check out our interview with Dream Theater's Jordan Rudess below:
Welcome back Queens of the Stone Age and all of their talented friends! It's been six years since the band last released 'Era Vulgaris,' and it's apparent that mastermind frontman Josh Homme hasn't lost his touch for fuzzed out amps blasting guitar rock. But the band's '…Like Clockwork' album also shows another side with a handful of moody, introspective piano-driven tracks that just add to the musical palette.
Young rockers Aaralyn and Izzy from Murp have garnered the attention of Jane's Addiction's Dave Navarro, who recently commented on Twitter about their cover of 'Mountain Song.' For those not in the know, Murp are definitely being raised to love metal, as evidenced by three years' worth of YouTube clips. And there's no doubt that the singer and drummer definitely "metal up" this Jane's classic.
The name of Sick Puppies' upcoming album is 'Connect,' and the band wanted to make sure they connected with listeners right off the bat with their lead single. The group recently revealed that the song that we be the introduction to their disc would be 'There's No Going Back' and now they're speaking about why that was the pick.
