Today is Blink-182 Day – a fan-created celebration of the Californian rockers that's held annually on the 182nd day of the year.

Although an unofficial event, it's been recognised by the band themselves in recent years and they've flagged the day on their Facebook page this year too.

To mark the occasion – and while we wait for the 25th anniversary edition of Take Off Your Pants And Jacket on October 30 – I've picked out a number of Blink-182 products – everything from t-shirts and hats, to tote bags and concert posters.

Looking for rock-themed gifts?

• Gifts for Iron Maiden fans: Run To The Hills with our pick of perfect presents
• Best gifts for Ozzy and Sabbath fans: Our top picks
• Best presents for metalheads: Heavy-duty gift ideas

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery are hosting a one-day event in honour of late Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne.

Legacy of a Madman: A tribute to the Prince of Darkness – which is in addition to the Museum's ongoing Ozzy Osbourne: Working Class Hero exhibition – will take place on July 25 in the Industrial Gallery.

"Legacy of a Madman is a free memorial and legacy event celebrating the lives, music and cultural impact of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath," say the organisers. "Created in partnership with Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, the event brings together fans, musicians and the wider community to celebrate Birmingham's place as the birthplace of heavy metal and honour the artists who inspired generations around the world."

The event is being held in conjunction with a pair of guided walks, which will take participants through some of the most significant landmarks in Ozzy's story, before arriving at BMAG for two hours of live music.

The walk departs from BMAG at 10am on the 25th, with a second leaving at noon, and will visit the Black Sabbath Bridge and the Black Sabbath Bench, the Black Sabbath mural on Navigation Street, Ozzy the Bull at New Street Station, and the Crown Pub, widely recognised as the birthplace of Black Sabbath. The live music runs from 2pm to 4pm, and an after-party will follow.

The event's organisers include Children Of The Grave Bookings, an organisation dedicated to the preservation of Birmingham's musical heritage, and the UK branch of the Black Label Society, who organised the fan memorial held just days after Ozzy's passing in July 2025.

For more information, visit the Children Of The Grave Bookings Instagram page.

Hollywood superstar Javier Bardem has revealed that listening to Slipknot, Linkin Park and Bad Omens helped inspire his frighteningly intense performance as vengeance-seeking psychopath Max Cady in the new Apple TV+ remake of Cape Fear.

First screened in cinemas in 1962 with acting legends Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum cast, respectively, in the roles of attorney Sam Bowden and fresh-out-of-prison convicted rapist Max Cady, Cape Fear was remade in 1991 with Martin Scorsese directing and Robert DeNiro turning in a terrifying and unforgettable performance as Cady.

Only a brave or really foolish actor would attempt to out-do De Niro's acting masterclass in the 1991 version of the thriller, but Oscar-winning Spanish star Bardem says that listening to metal helped him get into the appropriate headspace to put his own stamp on the challenging role in the new 10-part Apple TV+ limited series.

"We absolutely went for a metal look, I loved that," the 57-year-old star tells Kerrang!

"I listened to five songs especially," he says. "Two from Linkin Park, Given Up, with the great Chester [Bennington], and Up From The Bottom from the last album, From Zero. I think [Emily Armstrong] is an amazing singer.

"She really brought it back," he continues. “Those two songs really express frustration and the fight for raising up from [one’s] own ashes that [resonates] with Max. And songs by Slipknot, Falling In Reverse, and Bad Omens. I’m so bad with the names of songs, but they were in my head all day long before doing anything and helped put me in the mood."

With that said, Bardem goes on to declare that he'd be listening to metal however his life had turned out.

"It's not that I use the music," he says. "It's that I can't live without it. It's what I listen to: when I drive, when I’m being driven, before I go to sleep... For me, metal is… a way of living."

Earlier this year, in an interview with Metal Hammer, Bardem revealed how Iron Maiden changed his life.

"I put my hand on the Number Of The Beast vinyl and I put it on, then life changed," he recalled. "They have the most amazing lyrics that really convey mostly everything that you can think of – philosophy, religion, politics, war, love, family, friends, metal... I mean, it’s fantastic."

Even if you haven't been one of the millions of people glued to their keyboards for the last few years for so much as a sniff of an update on the most highly anticipated video game sequel ever, chances are, you're aware that Grand Theft Auto VI is finally, finally mere months from release.

Two and a half years since the first trailer dropped, Rockstar Games finally made pre-orders available this week, with the game's much-delayed release date of November 19 surely set to stick.

The GTA series has a long history of absolutely smashing it when it comes to its soundtracks, with rock, metal, hip hop, pop, dance and even classical all richly represented at various points throughout the franchise. In that spirit, ranking every main entry Grand Theft Auto soundtrack from worst to best seems a nigh-on impossible task. But you know what? We're gonna try and do it anyway.

7. Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999)

Just like the original, Grand Theft Auto 2 features a brilliant, diverse array of original compositions, building on its parent game by adding in more radio stations that can be accessed depending on which area of the game you're driving through. The reason it's bottom of this particular list? Despite expanding the soundtrack size of the first GTA, the sequel still feels like a slight step back because of the outstanding soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto: London 1969, an expansion to the original that was released just a few months before. That bolt-on featured licensed music in a GTA title for the first time, so the hop backwards to a 100% original soundtrack felt like a missed opportunity. Still, GTA 2's music is hella decent in its own right.

6. Grand Theft Auto (1997)

Every great gaming franchise has a thoughtful, immersive soundtrack to match, and the original Grand Theft Auto's was a game-changer in every sense of the term. Introducing the ingenious idea of having an interactive, in-car radio that could switch between stations and, therefore, genres gave the game's open-world-ish feel extra depth and personality. It also added a hilariously unhinged layer to the game's controversial violence; gleefully smashing into cop cars while playing propulsive 70s funk jams felt like the kind of cheekily subversive chaos that was destined to be lapped up by a generation weaned on South Park and 'Stone Cold' Steve Austin. Rockstar would innovate even further as the series wore on.

5. Grand Theft Auto III (2001)

Featuring three hours of music that included both real world and fictional artists, GTA III's soundtrack felt like as much of a leap forward for gaming as its namesake's much anticipated jump into 3D. From lush instrumental tracks like Scary Movies to classical cuts from the likes of Mozart and Verdi, it packed in an impressively diverse selection of songs in its runtime. Plus, it gave many hip hop fans an introduction to Royce Da 5'9", who'd later find fame as one half of hip hop duo Bad Meets Evil, also featuring some fella named Eminem. GTA III's music would inevitably pale in comparison to what followed, but this was as forward-thinking as gaming soundtracks got in 2001.

4. Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)

After some 80s and 90s detours, GTA IV brought the series screeching back into the present day, and had a soundtrack to match. This was rarely as prevalent as with the introduction of the radio station Electro-Choc, which brought with it glitchy EDM cuts from the likes of Simian Mobile Disco, Deadmau5, Justice and K.I.M. There were plenty more fresh strokes being added, too: Liberty City Hardcore brought the rage courtesy of punk rock killers like Bad Brains, Sick Of It All, Cro-Mags and Murphy's Law (whose frontman Jimmy Gestapo presented the station). There were also rock anthems from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, plus a ton of hip hop, indie, pop, jazz and reggae. It lacked the stand-out anthems that felt title-defining like those offered by Vice City and San Andreas, but on a purely musical level, GTA IV still delivered the goods.

3. Grand Theft Auto V (2013)

GTA V did a particularly great balancing act that both tipped a cap to the nostalgic soundtracks of the sixth gen GTA titles while injecting a huge dose of contemporary, cutting edge whoppers. As well as getting stuck into the West Coast Classics Station and jamming Dr. Dre, N.W.A. and and Snoop, you could also switch on Radio Los Santos and enjoy fresh cuts by the likes of A$AP Rocky, The Game, Freddie Gibbs and Future. If rap wasn't your thing, you could still get stuck into old school hardcore, classic rock, modern electronica, millennial pop and much, much more. For sheer variety, it's hard to look past the latest entry into the series, and on that front, GTA VI certainly has its work cut out.

2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004)

Much like the game itself, San Andreas's soundtrack took the blueprint of its predecessor and built on it spectacularly. While the game's vastness and crazy amounts of character customisation/upkeep was a little too much for some, what was in no doubt was that its music absolutely slapped. Adding lashings of r'n'b, soul, country and reggae, San Andreas also made the most of its 90s setting courtesy of ringing in tracks from decade-defining heavyweights including 2Pac, Cypress Hill, Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden, Bobby Brown, Boyz II Men and many more. It made for an incredibly eclectic, bulletproof soundtrack that could appeal to music fans across the board.

1. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)

Capturing the feel of its mid-80s setting magnificently, Vice City doesn't just boast the best soundtrack of any GTA game, but one of the single best video game sountracks of all time. Anyone who picked it up at the time will never forget that first moment they jumped onto a moped and parped along blasting Billie Jean. With over nine hours of music across seven unique radio stations, players could hear heavy metal classics from Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest or Iron Maiden on V-Rock, switch over to Wave 103 for some synth pop bangers courtesy of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Tears For Fears and Blondie and then have a listen to Wildstyle for foundational hip hop anthems by legends like Grandmaster Flash and Run DMC.

All at the tap of an L1 button. GTA soundtracks have got even more diverse since then, but for creating the perfect soundtrack to a game set in a particularly iconic era for pop culture - as well as providing countless hits perfect for heists and high speed chases - Vice City remains GOATed. Oh, plus: that main theme is an absolute worldie.

Grand Theft Auto VI releases November 19. Pre-orders are available via Playstation and Xbox

We're now into the final day of Amazon Prime Day, but if you're quick, there's still time to get a sweet discount on a fresh pile of rock and metal t-shirts. We've already had a look at some brilliant Sleep Token merch deals, but if your loyalties lie elsewhere, I've got you covered.

Let's kick things off in the US, where you can get this Black Sabbath World Tour 1978 Sketch t-shirt with a 20% discount – down from $24.99 to £19.99.

If you're in the UK and have been enjoying seeing Metallica on the latest leg of their M72 tour and want a throwback t-shirt, then there's 30% off this ...And Justice For All tee, which is down from £20 to just £13.98.

There are loads of cut-price tees on Amazon, but let's focus back in on the US for a bit.

Def Leppard are one of the biggest rock bands on the planet and I can recall going into my local HMV back in 1987 and buying Hysteria on cassette. I also saw them on that tour in Edinburgh, but I'm getting side-tracked by nostalgia! If you want to display your love of that era of the band, then this classic Hysteria t-shirt is down from $29.99 to $23.99.

Prefer your rock a little more classic? Then how about this Led Zeppelin 1975 US tour t-shirt? It's down from $24.99 to $20.79 and it's one of my favourite designs in this list of Prime Day t-shirt discounts.

If you're after something a little more straightforward, then this AC/DC red logo t-shirt should fit the bill – and it's down from $25.99 to $20.79. Meanwhile, Motorhead fans can get their fix with this awesome Snaggletooth design, which has been reduced from $24.99 to £19.99 and it's a bona fide classic look.

Let's take a look at the UK side of things again, and you really can't go wrong with a Pink Floyd The Dark Side Of The Moon design. It's down from £24.99 to 18.99 for Prime Day.

We're still getting over the loss of The Prince Of Darkness so if you'd like to pay homage to Ozzy, you can get your hands on a Diary of A Madman tee at Amazon, with the price cut from £24 down to £20.28.

Another classic logo design is on display with this no-nonsense Linkin Park tee, with the price cut from £24.99 to £20.99 making it a must-have for fans of the band.

My final pick goes to the band of the moment: Rush. Geddy and Alex are on tour right now with drummer Anika Nilles and keyboardist Loren Gold – and the four of them are delivering spectacular shows. They won't be in the UK until next year, but while we wait, you can relive the good old days with this America 1977 Tour t-shirt – down from £24.99 to £20.99.

For more Prime Day discounts, take a look at Louder's Prime Day music deals page, our Prime Day turntable deals, and don't forget we're also collecting our favourite Prime Day vinyl deals too.

I’ll be totally honest with you, at least 25% of the clothes I own are Sleep Token-related. I went slightly nuts/bankrupt at the merch table during their late-2024 Take Me Back To Eden tour, last year at Download, and I even bought an ST tee at Primark last month, because that’s a thing now.

So, I was positively giddy when an email from Sleep Token hit my inbox announcing ‘Behold, Prime Day is here’. Now, Sleep Token aren't shy about merch drops (can we have a new tour instead please, lads?), but this sale is actually really decent: for a limited time you can save 15% off a range of Sleep Token clothing and merch for a limited time. I’ve also tracked down a 15% Amazon saving on Even In Arcadia double vinyl and a small discount on Sundowning on CD.

By ‘limited time’ I’m referring to the fact Prime Day is scheduled to end tomorrow (Friday 26 June) and currently there's no telling if these deals will stick around after this point.

I’ve been covering the Prime Day Music deals for a while now, but nothing brings me more joy than helping people save money on clobber relating to their (and my) favourite bands. And this one’s a doozy, so here goes.

The main thrust of the sale is clothing from Vessel and Co’s visually awesome Take Me Back To Eden era, featuring album art on everything from t-shirts and tanks, to hoodies and this rad iPhone case. You’ve got the characters from Granite, Rain and the album's title track to choose from. There’s also a couple of colourways for a cool This Place Will Become Your Tomb sigil design that is in my basket right now.

Elsewhere on the sale page, there’s some merch that I’ve not seen before - and isn’t actually on sale, dangit - but well worth checking out. In particular I love this stainless steel 30oz water bottle featuring the Sleep Token logo in Arcadia pink. There’s also a range of basic tees and hoods featuring the Sleep Token logo solo. There’s something for everyone here, and believe me when I say these prices are a fraction of what you’d pay at a show.

Get ‘em while they’re hot. Or as Sleep Token would say: Act with haste, nothing lasts forever.

Shop more Prime Day sales

• Amazon: Shop all the Prime Day deals
• Argos: Hundreds of sale items under £25
• Currys: Bluetooth speakers from £9.99
• EMP: Festival deals - Save up to 20%
• John Lewis: Up to 50% off AirPods
• Lego: Star Wars savings
• Nixon: Free shipping on the Nirvana watch

If you love metal and classic rock and love to collect things, then you need to check out the Funko Pop! range of vinyl figures.

There are a ridiculous amount of these pint-sized creations to discover, but to help steer you on your way, I've picked out a selection of some of my favourites that are on sale in both the US and UK this Prime Day.

One Funko Pop! Rocks legend that's on sale in the UK right now is AC/DC icon Angus Young which has been reduced from £22 to £14.04. There are many Funko Angus Youngs to find out in the wild, but this particular one is inspired by the cover art of the band's classic Powerage album.

In the US, meanwhile, Angus and the rest of the AC/DC gang are available in a single Funko box, complete with stage amps and cannons. Amazon has reduced the price from $160 to $130 and you can grab it right now.

Also in the US, Iron Maiden's mascot Eddie in his Night Of The Dead guise has received the Funko treatment, with the price down from $14.99 to $11.99.

Being a musician, filmmaker and producer to name but a few, there are many strings to Rob Zombie's bow, and he can now add Funko figure to his long list of achievements. His vinyl figure complete with zombie bandana is also on sale at Amazon, reduced from $14.99 to $12.49.

And that's not all, because The White Stripes’ Jack and Meg double pack is also down in price for Prime Day - from $23.99 to $14.02.

Back in the UK, there are plenty more Prime Day Funko discounts to be snaffled, including Ghost’s Papa Emeritus IV - down from from £13 to £9.94, and Guns N' Roses top-hat wearing guitar god Slash in all his Funko glory has been reduced from £13 to £8.90.

Much-loved Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury, wearing his iconic yellow military jacket from the band's 1986 Magic tour is also on sale, with the price cut from £11.90 to £9.52.

And if the hair side of mid-80's metal is more your thing, then this Funko figure of Jon Bon Jovi should be one for the collection. Wearing basically the same outfit as me when I saw Bon Jovi on the New Jersey tour back in the day, you can pick up the singer for £17.30, that's down from the usual price of £22.98.

For more Prime Day discounts, take a look at Louder's Prime Day music deals page, our Prime Day turntable deals, and don't forget we're also collecting our favourite Prime Day vinyl deals too.

Given that Fugazi have never shown any inclination whatsoever to sell merchandise, the launch of a news Fugazi x Vans trainers collection has raised eyebrows, and raised hackles online. Not least because this new collection has absolutely nothing to do with the Washington DC hardcore band.

"I’m guessing someone from vans will reach out to us," Dischord Records, the label co-founded and owned by Fugazi vocalist/guitarist Ian MacKaye posted on Instagram in response to Vans launching the line by offering free pairs of trainers to those showing up at Vans Le Marais in Paris.

The Fugazi that Vans are collaborating with is a Los Angeles streetwear company founded in 2018 by entrepreneur Trevor Gorji. In a hilariously over-the-top profile of the brand by NSS magazine, its described as "a brand that would defy norms and make luxury accessible without compromising on quality."

"Fugazi's success is not just about its products," the profile states. "The brand stands out for its narrative approach and commitment to the community... Each collection is accompanied by reflections on themes of authenticity, illusion, and resistance."

Forgive us if the irony here proves too much for you.

In case there was any doubt whatsoever that Gorji's company's collaboration with Vans is no in way affiliated with the band, Dischord Records also posted on the streetwear company's Instagram, "We have nothing to do with this to be clear."

When a skateboard company called Animus replied, "you should be, things change and no shame in the game, you deserve it", Dischord replied with a 'thoughtful face' emoji which here roughly translates as "Have you got the slightest fucking idea about our ethics?"

Capitalism, of course, abhors a vacuum, and if one of the most popular and inspirational bands from America's underground punk scene has zero interest in producing T-shirts, posters, hoodies or any other branded paraphernalia, then bootleggers have been only to happy to step in.

Type 'Fugazi T-shirt' into any search engine and you'll see scores of designs for sale on Amazon, Etsy and elsewhere. None are official merch, or in any way endorsed by the band, who have been on hiatus since completing a three-night stand at London's Kentish Town Forum in November 2002.

There is, however, one interesting outlier within the bootleg Fugazi T-shirt universe, a T-shirt bearing the slogan 'This Is Not A Fugazi T-Shirt'.

In the mid-90s, Ian MacKaye traced one of these 'fugazi' Fugazi shirts to a company in Boston, he revealed in an interview conducted for The Art Of The Band T-Shirt, and spoke with the main guy, telling him to desist.

"Of course, he wanted to do a deal," MacKaye said. "And, of course, the answer was still no. Still, we had a nice chat. He was curious why we didn’t want to sell shirts, and after I explained our position, he seemed to respect it. About one month later, a friend at a record store alerted me to the ‘This is not a Fugazi t-shirt’ shirt. I traced it back to the same Boston dude. What a smart motherfucker he was!"

"I called him up," MacKaye continued, "and said, Okay, you’re funny and you’re creative, so let’s see how creative you are with accounting. I asked him to choose an organization doing good work in his community and give them what would amount to the band’s royalty for the shirts. I think he chose a women’s shelter up there, and as far as I know he sent them money right up until he quit the business."

In 2013, a writer for defunkd followed up on the story, and learned that the owner of the T-shirt company did indeed honour his pledge to MacKaye, and donated money from every shirt sold to a women's homeless shelter in Boston named Rosie's Place.

Gamers around the world have been drooling with anticipation since it was announced that The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time is being remade for the Nintendo Switch 2, with the release date pencilled in for some point this year.

The original game was released for the N64 console back in 1998 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made, and while we patiently wait for further details to emerge, there's plenty for Zelda fans to get excited about this Prime Day, including a price drop on the Lego Great Deku Tree. The recreation of the Ocarina Of Time favourite is down from $520.92 to £459.

Be warned though, Prime Day comes to an end just before midnight tonight (June 26) so if you see something you like, grab it fast!

The Lego Nintendo Deku Tree is made up of 2500 pieces, so it should keep you entertained for a while. Not only that, but this Lego model can be turned into either the Ocarina Of Time version, or the Breath Of The Wild version. It also comes with three Link minifigures and Princess Zelda.

Speaking of Link's first outing on the original Switch console, The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild- Creating A Champion book has been reduced from £47.99 to £28, and it's an essential addition to any Zelda fan’s bookshelf. It features 424 pages of sketches, illustrations and commentary related to the award-winning video game.

Speaking of books, The Legend Of Zelda Encyclopedia has also had a price cut – down from £33.50 to £27.01. It's a comprehensive 320-page bible dedicated to the iconic series. And you can even carry a Zelda memento around with you, thanks to the super-cute Korok key-chain which is down from £12.54 to just £9.90.

If you’re exploring Tears Of The Kingdom on your Nintendo Switch, you can light up the Depths with this lovely Heart Container light. It has a Prime Day discount of 20%, with the price chopped from £24.99 to £19.89. It gently pulses when switched on too and is powered by batteries or via the included USB cable.

Back to the US, and gamers who have yet to experience the sprawling Tears Of The Kingdom can now do so with a 25% discount on the Switch 2 edition. Amazon has cut the price from $79.99 down to $59.99.

Stateside gamers can also pick up a digital code for the brilliant and imaginative Echoes Of Wisdom on Switch 1 for $39.99, reduced from $59.88. In the In the UK, you can pick up the cartridge edition for less too - down from £49.99 to £36.99.

While we wait for the Ocarina Of Time remake, you can show your love of the game with 15% off this classic t-shirt. Amazon have cut the price from $19.99 to $16.99 – and it’s available in a variety of colours.

My final pick goes to the Manga collection Twilight Princess Complete Box Set which spans 11 volumes. The Master Sword has been taken to the list price and it's now down from $129.99 to $101.33.

Global Beatles Day takes place on June 25 - a fan-created event that celebrates the anniversary of the first international satellite TV broadcast of The Beatles classic All You Need Is Love, which was beamed to an estimated 400 million people live from Abbey Road Studios back in 1967

And with the Prime Day savings n full swing, it seems only right to highlight some of The Beatles discounts that are available on Amazon right now - including massive savings on the The Beatles: Get Back hardcover book. The 240-page volume has been reduced from $60 to $23.24 in the US, while in the UK, it's down 68% from £40 to just £12.75.

The Beatles may have split up in 1970, but the legendary four-piece seem to be as popular now as they ever were. And with loads of discounts available for Prime Day, I've highlighted some of my other favourite deals below.

If you’re in the US, there's a nice saving on The Beatles: 1967-70 vinyl box set, which has been reduced by 16% from $75.98 to $64.12.

American fans also have access to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band short-sleeve t-shirt which is down from $22.99 to $18.39 – and if you think you know everything about the George, Paul, John and Ringo, you test your knowledge with the officially licensed Beatles Trivial Pursuit game – down from $21.99 to $17.49. With over 600 themed questions, answering everything is going to take you a very long time indeed.

Across in the UK, you can get your hands on the The Beatles: Yellow Submarine graphic novel which is down in price from £26.99 to £21.99.

The 8CD Beatles Anthology Collection is also on sale for Prime Day, with Amazon taking the price down from £87.32 to £76.02. The collection includes a total of 191 tracks, including live songs and studio outtakes.

My final pick foes to this Abbey Road hoodie which Amazon have cut from £33.99 to £28.78. It's available from sizes S- XXL and you can order it in a variety of colours.

These are just some of many Beatles-themed discounts this Prime Day and to discover even more bargains, head on over to Louder's Prime Day music deals page which we're updating throughout the week. And don't forget to visit our pages highlighting the best Prime Day turntable deals, and we're also collecting our favourite Prime Day vinyl deals too.

A week after Jack Osbourne defended news that there are plans to launch an Ozzy A.I. avatar project, the son of the late Black Sabbath singer has now responded online criticism for attending the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House this week.

The mixed martial arts competition was held on the South Lawn as part of the USA's 250th anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence. By absolute coincidence, the big-budget gathering coincided with the 80th birthday of President Donald Trump.

Jack attended the occasion with his wife Aree, and posted a number of photographs on his Instagram account along with the caption 'Ultimate Date Night'. It quickly drew vicious criticism from people drawing assumptions about his political affiliations and suggesting that his father would disapprove.

On June 17, Osbourne posted a video addressing the comments made about him and his late father on his official YouTube channel.

"Some of the comments I've been getting are completely insane. And like, what the fuck, I went to a sporting event – that's it," says Jack. "I didn't go and throw my hat in the ring for political office. I wasn't there going to endorse a politician or some kind of, you know, foreign affairs issue. Nothing. I literally went to the White House to go see UFC.

"I have been into combat sports my entire life," he continues. "So when I got invited by Dana White to attend the fight at the White House, of course I would go. Any person out there who would get an invite would have gone. I'm sorry. There was no one I could think of that would have been like, 'No, I'm not doing that because I don't approve of, you know, orange man or whatever the fuck.' It's ridiculous."

Osbourne believes that the sporting event was not political and treated the invite for what it was. Other celebrities spotted that evening included Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and boxer Tyson Fury.

"It was a fucking fight at the White House," he clarifies. "Who gives a fuck? And in fact, when I was there with my wife, I looked over at one point and I was like, 'Hey, why aren't why does this not happen more often? It would be amazing to have sporting events at the White House.' In fact, there are politicians back in the day that did used to do that. So, just food for thought."

Many of the comments we've read suggested that his late father would not have attended the event, and repeatedly brought up the subject matter of Sabbath's anti-war song War Pigs as an example.

"As far as the people bringing my father into this saying, 'Oh, Ozzy would not approve. He's rolling over in his grave.' Shut the fuck up," You did not know my father. You did not know where he stood with things. Yes, he wrote a song called War Pigs. Sure, anti-war song. He wasn't anti-UFC. He wasn't anti- going to an event at the White House. He was anti-war. Sure, fair enough.

Jack was quick to point out that Ozzy did his part in entertaining the troops on USO tours and visiting soldiers convalescing at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

"To bring my father into this to say he would or wouldn't approve is completely insane," he concludes. "I simply attended a sporting event for a sport that I have a great amount of respect for and something that's been a part of my life since I can remember. So, deal with it. I'm sorry you weren't invited."

A new Pulp documentary film, Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?, will be streamed exclusively on Mubi later this year.

Directed by Garth Jennings (Sing, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), the 90-minute film promises to chart the Sheffield band’s “extraordinary journey from obscurity to cultural touchstone”, according to a press statement.

The press release goes on to say that the documentary, which is narrated by frontman Jarvis Cocker, "fuses the brilliantly choreographed stage spectacle of Pulp's biggest ever arena show – part of the global tour for More, the band's first album in 24 years – with four decades of colourful, never-seen-before archival material", and that it will serve as "a vibrant tribute to a band of brilliant misfits, whose unique blend of irony, rebellion, and razor-sharp social commentary resonated with generations of listeners and helped define an era of British culture."

The film will be accompanied by Live!, a new live album which doubles up as the film’s soundtrack.

"A concert is an event where songs come back to life," says Jarvis Cocker. "That’s why this album is called Live! It’s both a statement of fact (it’s a recording of a live band) & a challenge (come on! Everyone come alive!)."

Live! will be released via Rough Trade on August 28, and will be available on double vinyl, double CD and via digital streaming services.

No date has yet been announced as the first screening date for Pulp: What Do You Do For An Encore?

The band are set to play festivals and arena shows this summer.

Jun 02: Mexico City Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico
Jun 06: Bogotá Movistar Arena, Colombia
Jun 08: Santiago Movistar Arena, Chile
Jun 12: Buenos Aires Movistar Arena, Argentina
Jun 25: Berlin Tempodrom, Germany -
Jun 27: Berlin Tempodrom, Germany
Jun 29: Cologne Palladium, Germany

Jul 02: Beauregard Festival, France
Jul 04: Les Eurockéennes, France
Jul 06: Paris, Zenith, France
Jul 08: Lyon Les Nuits De Fourviere, France
Jul 11: Mad Cool Festival Madrid, Spain
Jul 18: London Southbank Centre, UK
Jul 31 All Together Now, Ireland

Aug 28: Manchester Wythenshawe Park UK
Sep 05: End Of The Road festival UK

By this point, we’re familiar with the concept of the spit ’n’ sawdust garage-blues duo. But Patrick Carney (drums) and Dan Auerbach (vocals/guitar) can stake a solid claim as originators of the format, launching The Black Keys in Akron, Ohio at the turn of the millennium, and finding their voice (alongside some revved-up covers of Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside) on 2002 debut album, The Big Come Up.

The pair’s history as music aficionados and vinylcrate magpies is writ large on the Keys’ latest album Peaches!, and Carney is happy to go deeper down the rabbit hole over a cigarette.

The first music I remember hearing

The first song I can remember being obsessed with was Electric Avenue by Eddy Grant. I’ve met a couple of other people around my age who also said it was a track that opened their eyes. There’s just something magical about it. In the video, he’s revving up a motorcycle. And it’s got, like, a modulating Minimoog bass line. Ever since then the fuzzy grind of a Minimoog has always done something for me.

The first song I performed live

Dan and I started with Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside songs, but the first time we played a rock’n’roll song, it was The Beatles’ She Said She Said. We were too young to know that covering The Beatles is not something you’re supposed to do. My dad gave me Revolver one year for my birthday, and that song just always stuck out to me.

The greatest album of all time

There’s been times when I thought it was London Calling, and other times when I thought it was The Dark Side Of The Moon or the White Album. But today, if I had to turn someone on to a record, I’d say Television’s Marquee Moon. There’s no singles or hits on it. But it’s just this melodic, wonderful thing, with two guitars interweaving in a way that’s not just shredding. There’s very few albums like that, and even that band was unable to create that magic before or after.

The songwriter

Bob Dylan. There’s definitely some hooks, but I think there’s a magical quality about his poetry. He had a run that was kind of unrelenting for about twenty years, into the late seventies, and I actually really enjoy a lot of his recent albums. My favourite is the Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3. I love a song like Santa-Fe, where you can barely even tell what he’s saying. I like the demo quality of it. It’s not precious, it’s capturing a feeling

The guitarist

Marc Ribot, maybe. My uncle played with him in Tom Waits’ band, and when Rain Dogs came out I was five, and my dad would play it all the time. So I grew up with his guitar playing. I love the tone that he gets, even on his acoustic stuff. I like a musician who, when they pick up an instrument, you can tell from the first note it’s them playing.

The singer

I think I’m gonna go with Al Green. He has a run of albums that started in, like, ’71 through about ’75, including Al Green Gets Next To You and Let’s Stay Together. I like the Hi Records sound and the Willie Mitchell production. There’s something about that era of Memphis, post-Stax, that I’m very fond of.

The best band I've seen live

There’s been moments when I’ve just been floored, and a lot of that happened when I was a teenager. The first time I saw Beck, in ’96, was pretty powerful. He’s a total showman and has songs that translate well live. It was at a place in Cleveland in front of, like, seven hundred people on the Odelay tour. It was a kind of supernatural experience.

My cult hero

In my book, there’s a ton of bands that even if they’re highly rated, they’re still underrated. Then there’s a lot of bands that are just way fucking overrated. I think Modest Mouse is underrated. If you listen to their first four albums, it’s kind of fucked up what they did there. And they were only kids. I think they were seventeen or eighteen when that first record came out.

My guilty pleasure

I’m kind of interested in late-period Italian disco. And some of that stuff can be borderline cheeseball.

The anthem

I think (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction is designed that way. It’s the Stones’ first great song. It starts a long pattern of them making great singles. It sounds ahead of its time. It’s one of the first songs to use a fuzzbox – and I’m a sucker for a fuzzbox.

My Saturday night party song

It might be The Slits’ cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine. A buddy played it for me a couple of years ago and I was like: “Yeah, this is just familiar enough”. But then it transforms towards the end into a pretty solid groove. It walks that line between postpunk and disco, which is always fun.

The song I want played at my funeral

Maybe everybody should make a death playlist that gets unsealed when they die. But I wouldn’t put sad songs on it. I think a good song to play at a funeral is Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem.

Peaches! is out now via Easy Eye Sound/Warner

Father's Day will be with us on Sunday, June 21 so if you've been struggling for ideas, I've picked out 15 products that should cover your music-loving, pop-culture-obsessed dad - and if you're quick, everything here should be delivered before the day itself.

I've covered a range of budgets: from £12.99 - £199.99 and included a Slayer vinyl box set, a brilliant portable turntable from the experts at Audio-Technica, a Sleep Token colouring book, a pair of SHOKZ headphones, a brilliant JBL portable speaker, a Metallica t-shirt and whole lot more.

So dive in and hopefully I've given you some inspiration for your dad this Father's Day.

More gift ideas

• Gifts for Iron Maiden fans: Run To The Hills with our pick of perfect presents
• Best gifts for Ozzy and Sabbath fans: Our top picks
• Best presents for metalheads: Heavy-duty gift ideas

The first billion-dollar franchise in gaming history, Guitar Hero made a new generation of kids want to pick up an instrument. It also made Slash, the cover star of the third entry, a celebrity all over again. In 2010, Classic Rock looked back on how the Guns N’ Roses guitarist became just as famous among gamers as he was rock fans.

In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell identified and explored “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point,” at which something cool becomes something global, something unstoppable, a cultural touchstone.

Speak to any A&R man, any journalist, any ad exec, look in your record collection or at your pile of DVDs, watch a TV show like Shark Tank/Dragons’ Den, and you’ll discover lots of good stuff that never reached the Tipping Point, that never went global, that remain instead small and generic pleasures.

Guitar Hero, a simple, clever computer game that distilled the essence of playing a musical instrument down to the push of a button, and that has become a revenue stream so great that it might yet forge a new and unseen future for the flagging business of flogging records, nearly didn’t reach its Tipping Point. It nearly didn’t tip, it nearly didn’t become the first single game in history to generate one billion dollars in revenue; it almost didn’t become the entry point for a new generation of kids to get into guitars and guitar music.

That it did is one of the more remarkable success stories of the new century, and at its centre is a man who hasn’t seen the inside of too many boardrooms over the years.

Guitar Hero was devised by video game company called RedOctane, who had created some hardware for an arcade game named Guitar Freaks, which was a hit in Japan, and liked the idea of producing a version for home gaming. They partnered with a developer, Harmonix Music Systems, and made the first version for around $1m. Their hunch was good: the inaugural edition of Guitar Hero, which had a metal-style logo on the box and a hand-held controller shaped like a Gibson SG – the guitar favoured by AC/DC’s Angus Young and Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi – was a hit. It won awards, was called ‘probably the greatest rhythm game ever invented’. RedOctane realised that the guitar-shaped peripheral was what they called ‘the magic sauce’ – the little extra ingredient that made the game special.

The 47 playable songs it featured were expanded to 64 for Guitar Hero II, which became the fifth-biggest selling game of 2006. It was now available for both Playstation 2 and X-Box 360 platforms, the latter version came with a Gibson Explorer-shaped controller. The key to its expansion was the arrival of big name bands like AC/DC and Aerosmith, Van Halen and Guns N’ Roses.

“We’d hit the sweet spot,” said developer John Tam. “They [the bands] understood that we’re not going to embarrass their music, we’re going to actually pay homage to their music and get it to the point where people are going to understand their music in a totally different way than they’ve ever experienced it before.”

The franchise was now worth serious money, but it still hadn’t tipped. It wasn’t a brand known to the man in the street. The game meant nothing outside of gaming circles. Then a company called Activision bought RedOctane, paying $100m to acquire Guitar Hero. A few months later, Harmonix was purchased by MTV Networks (they would go on to develop the rival Rock Band game). With Harmonix gone, the third edition of the Guitar Hero franchise was developed instead by Neversoft, an Activision subsidiary whose team had become so obsessed with the first editions of Guitar Hero that they spent their weekends off playing it.

While the template was set, the game still lacked the extra edge that would push it beyond its natural boundaries of hardcore gamers. Guitar Hero had real songs by real bands, but the game featured no actual rock stars, relying instead on a series of avatars created for the purpose – avatars with faux rock star names like Axel Steel and Izzy Sparks. The company decided to address the issue for the third edition.

Slash, the man who would ultimately ‘tip’ Guitar Hero into popular culture, had already encountered the game, and was at best ambiguous about its pleasures.

“I was on the Gibson tour bus with the Gibson guys for a meeting and I had my wife and kids with me,” he says. “You know how little kids are at a meeting, so I was looking for something for them to do, and they had Guitar Hero. So I figured out how it worked and got it working for them and realised they had all this cool music that you don’t hear all the time. Anyway, the Gibson people realised that I was sort of like intrigued by this game so they sent me one to my house. I have a little office at the back of the house with a TV set in it, and I hooked it up. I got obsessed with the fucking game! I had to beat the game. I think I spent the better part of a week in that room, not taking calls, missing out on dinner. That was on ‘medium’. Next I started on ‘expert’. I started going through that – same fucking songs over and over only a lot faster. I was about halfway through, and I thought, you know what? This is embarrassing. So I unplugged it and put it in the closet. About a week later, Guitar Hero called and asked me if I’d be interested in working with them in developing the game.”

Slash wrestled with the idea. “I’m not a real video game guy,” he admits. “You get asked to do things a lot, and my first reaction is to ask, ‘Is this cool or not cool?’ You can’t do everything that people put in front of you because a lot of it’s lame, and I have a bad tendency to just go for whatever. But I sort of analysed it for a second and I guess what happened was, initially, I didn’t think it was all that cool, but the fact that I was so into the game itself, I was sort of won over. I went and met with them anyway.”

Even so, there was no immediate rapport between the parties. “The meeting was in one of those big boardrooms with all these executives,” says Slash, “and I think there was one guy in there who really knew who I was. Activision has all of these different levels because it’s a multi-billion dollar company and it’s made up mostly of executives. Apparently they didn’t really want to meet me because they didn’t know what to expect. It’s funny, actually, because five years ago I probably would have scared the shit out of them but I had it together when I went in this time. Went in sober and all that kind of stuff.”

When it came to discussing the specifics, things were woolly too, as Slash remembers. ‘They really didn’t know what they were doing when I first went in there. They had this idea of having an individual sort of representing the game. They wanted someone who was going to be the guitar hero. I think it was down to a couple of people. We sat and talked about it and we wanted this character in the game that was going to be me, and there would be these battles. All that was fine and dandy but I have to admit, when I signed on to do it, it was only the nerdy kid in me that made me say yes. Everything else about me said, no, don’t do it.”

In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell writes: ‘Things can happen all at once, and little changes can make a huge difference. That’s a little bit counterintuitive. As human beings, we always expect everyday change to happen slowly and steadily, and for there to be some relationship between cause and effect. And when there isn’t – when a movie made on a shoestring budget ends up making hundreds of millions of dollars for example – we’re surprised. I’m saying, don’t be surprised. This is the way social epidemics work.’

The little thing that made a big difference for Guitar Hero III was not the presence of Slash in the game – after all, it also features another rock star, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine – it was the box that the game came in. Slash’s avatar, all top hat and cool curls, was front and centre. All of a sudden, the game had a face recognisable to a demographic that extended way beyond gamers.

“I didn’t know it had come out,” Slash says. “I never saw the box. What happened was, we were doing the Velvet Revolver tour for the second record [Libertad], we were about to do a US tour and I asked them if they would be interested in supplying me with a bus, because I was taking my family out with me. I needed my own bus for that. They could paper the bus. They were like, ‘Okay, cool’. It showed up in Boston. I went to get something to eat, and walking back to the hotel I see this fucking huge picture of me on the side of the bus. I was like, ‘Jesus Christ, how am I supposed to travel around in that?’ That’s when I first got exposed to what the image on the box was going to be like. It was pretty overwhelming. I mean, Tom Morello’s in the game too. It was not so much being in the game; it was having my image on that fucking box.”

The game hit stores in October 2007, carrying the sub-title Legends Of Rock, another subtle parent-persuader. It featured 73 songs, and was available across Playstation and Xbox platforms, and this time Wii, PC and Mac too. Activision called it “our largest product launch ever”. It made $100m in its first week, and in the remaining months of 2007 became the year’s biggest-selling game. Activision could barely meet the Christmas demand. Six months later, when the thing had really tipped, it had sold more than eight million copies. As of the middle of 2009, Guitar Hero III had exceeded one billion dollars in revenue, and is now said to be the second-biggest selling computer game of any kind since 1995.

The by-product of all of these sales has been the impact on the life of the man on the box. “I have a specific story that will sort of shine a big bright light on that fact,” says Slash. “A friend of mine who’s a producer, he’s got, I guess, a six-year-old little boy. I went over to their house, and I’d never met his little boy. I went over there, and the kid lost his mind. ‘You’re the guy from Guitar Hero’. He couldn’t get over it. A bit later on that night, he came over to me and went, ‘Hey, do you play real guitar too?’ I try not to pay attention to all of that going on, but the biggest change in my day-to-day existence was the acknowledgement of kids under 10 years old.”

Ironically, for a platform that has produced a new, unexpected and much-needed revenue stream for the dying business of selling music, Slash didn’t actually make much money from Guitar Hero.

“For me, personally, when I signed up to do it, that particular game really took off,” he explains. “The game wasn’t as big before that. It was a little more under the radar when they called me up. And I did it for a pretty modest amount of money. There was no offer of a royalty or anything. Now after the fact, I’m like, fuck…

“It’s definitely changed the way we look at selling records, because as the record business goes into decline, the gaming business has been selling a lot of music. That’s been an interesting development for sure. If you’re in a band, the luckiest thing you can have is a guy from Activision or from the Rock Band people come along and say, we’d like to chronicle your career. There is a lot of money in it.”

Enough money, in fact, to make it a key part of the promotional strategy of many bands. Slash’s friends in Metallica, for example, began work on the Rock Band version of their 2008 album Death Magnetic just days after they had finished recording it.

“It’s nothing like playing the guitar. I’ll be the first to tell you that,” says Slash of the game and its success. “I was off the road and wasn’t doing anything when I got exposed to Guitar Hero II. When I hung around for that week, I wasn’t jamming or anything. I got physically used to playing it. When they sent me the new one with me on it, it showed up and I didn’t take it out of the box for probably three or four months. My security guard was over at my house and he wanted to see how it worked. I’d been touring, I’d been playing guitar every day for however long – probably close to a year – and I took it out figuring I was probably still good at it from before. Because I’d been playing real guitar, when I plugged it in and played it, the difference was such that I could not play Guitar Hero. I would have had to have practiced. There’s nothing similar apart from the way that you hold the guitar.”

And yet, in spite of that, it has a strange and magnetic appeal to it that is reinvigorating rock music and the rock business.

“It’s a work of genius because it works,” says Slash. “When you design something you can come up with all kinds of crazy ideas, but it’s when it really hits a nerve that it becomes a sort of phenomenon. It’s done a couple of cool things. It’s opened kids’ eyes and ears to a lot of music they never would have been exposed to, great rock’n’roll stuff that’s just generations away from them. It’s been spearheading a rock revival for kids, it really has. The other thing is, one of the big questions I got asked when I first got hooked up with Guitar Hero was, as expected, ‘Oh, it’s just more mindless gaming. It’ll kill the guitar industry’ and all this other naysayer crap. But in the course of a pretty short amount of time, it turns out that statistically, more kids were picking up the guitar as a result of Guitar Hero.”

Not a bad legacy for an old boy in a top hat who doesn’t care much for computer games.

Originally published in Classic Rock Presents Slash, March 2010.

Linkin Park are teasing fans with details of a new movie on their merchandise.

The band, who are currently touring Europe, have printed unshattermovie.com inside their tour T-shirts, which has led to speculation among fans as to what the movie will be about.

Those curious enough to investigate the URL – the name of the domain owner has been protected – will currently see the band's circular logo from 2024 and nothing more.

A sticker can also be spotted in the corner of an Instagram story countdown to their appearance at Rock am Ring in Nürburg, Germany this evening (June 5).

The band – who recruited vocalist Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain in time for their eighth album – recorded a song titled Unshatter which was featured on their 2024 album From Zero and released the following year as a single.

A simple Google search suggests it could be the highly-anticipated filmed show which took place at the Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil, on November 15, 2024. The concert footage, with an additional documentary, was slated for release the following year but was consequently postponed.

While pulling this story together, an Instagram post from LPLive showing the URL has since been removed.

The band's European shows run until June 30, where they play Zürich's Stadion Letzigrund. Catch them at the following shows and festivals.

June 5: Nürburg, Rock am Ring, Germany
June 7: Nuremberg, Rock im Park, Germany
June 9: Vienna, Ernst Happel Stadium, Austria
June 11: Munich, Allianz Arena, Germany
June 12: Munich, Allianz Arena, Germany
June 14: Donington Park, Download Festival, England
June 16: Lyon, Groupama Stadium, France
June 19: Santiago de Compostela, O Son do Camiño, Spain
June 21: Lisbon, Rock in Rio Lisboa, Portugal
June 23: Madrid, Auditorio Miguel Ríos, Spain
June 24: Madrid, Auditorio Miguel Ríos, Spain
June 26: Florence, Visarno Arena, Italy
June 28: Werchter, Werchter Parklife, Belgium
June 30: Zürich, Stadion Letzigrund, Switzerland

If you subscribe to Netflix, chances are the streaming platform has politely suggested you might want to watch their latest drama. It was, after all, executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer, the twins responsible for Stranger Things.

The show is called The Boroughs – and spoiler alert – it features a gang of boomers trying to solve the mystery of a monster who's terrorising their gated community in a New Mexico desert. If we're being lazy, imagine kids from Stranger Things are now of a pensionable age and they're pooling their energy for one more adventure.

That said, it's very watchable. And like The Duffer Brothers used the title track of Metallica's 1986 iconic album Master of Puppets as a narrative hook in Stranger Things, the creators of the show – Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews – are doing it in a far more genteel way with a 1975 Bruce Springsteen song and potentially introducing Bruce Springsteen to a new generation.

Early on The Boroughs, Thunder Road – the opening song from Springsteen's third studio album – plays while the show's main character Sam Cooper (played by Alfred Molina) watches his wife Lilly (Jane Kaczmarek) collapse after suffering a stroke. The traumatic event haunts him throughout the story and, after beginning to settle in his retirement community, decides to revisit the song during a pivotal moment in the show.

Throughout the episodes, his adult daughter Claire (Jena Malone) repeatedly yet gently requests that he dig out his mother's vinyl copy from storage, as she wants it as a keepsake.

Sure, everyone loves Bruce Springsteen, and there comes a moment in a person's life when his kitchen sink dramas set to music speak to them. But why did the show pick this song in particular?

"Partly because it had never been done before and everyone thought we were crazy for trying," show co-creator Will Matthews tells Decider "Thunder Road has never been used in any show or movie specifically. Bruce, in general, is very hard to get and so everyone thought that that was nuts. But also, everyone agreed it was the perfect song."

It is, too, and it had to be, really.

Thunder Road opens the most important album of Springsteen's career. The critical acclaim of his first two albums – 1973's Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and it's The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, recorded and released the same year – was not reflected by sales other than on the East Coast.

If his third album flopped, Springsteen would be dropped by Columbia. His manager negotiated a bigger studio budget and although the sessions were "gruelling", Springsteen and his band emerged with an album that reflected a country reeling from the Vietnam war, political scandal and a litany of disappointments.

“The songs were written immediately after the Vietnam War,” Springsteen told Brian Hiatt, author of Bruce Springsteen: The Stories Behind the Songs. “And you forget, everybody felt like that then. It didn’t matter how old you were, everybody experienced a radical change in the image they had of their country and of themselves. The reason was, ‘you were changed.’ You were going to be a radically different type of American than the generation that immediately preceded you, so that line was just recognising that fact."

And four decades after writing the song on a piano, Springsteen's own take on the song changed during his Springsteen on Broadway show.

"There's nothing like that moment in your life of being young and leaving some place," he said. "All that youthful freedom, you finally feel untethered from everything you've ever known: your past, your parents, the world you've gotten used to and you've loved and hated. Your life laying before you like a blank page.”

It makes perfect sense, then, that this song was hand-picked by The Boroughs creators from the millions written and recorded. Sure, it's about the dreams of escaping a dead-end town, but It's a song that will have a deep emotional resonance with people like Sam Cooper who are navigating the depths of grief while attempting to honour their ghosts by living life to the full.

The Boroughs is available to stream on Netflix.

A trailer for Frampton, the upcoming documentary about Humble Pie guitarist and solo star Peter Frampton, has been released. The film, which has been made to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his breakthrough live album Frampton Comes Alive, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City today (June 4).

Frampton follows the guitarist's career from his early days with The Herd to his recent battles with the muscle-wasting disease Inclusion-Body Myositis (IBM), and features contributions from Ringo Starr, Bill Wyman, Tom Morello, Joe Bonamassa, Mike McCready, Vince Gill, Sheryl Crow, Alice Cooper, Herb Alpert, Kate Hudson, Cameron Crowe, Roger Daltrey, Chris Lord-Alge, Tommy Shaw and Nancy Wilson, in addition to Frampton and his family.

"Drinking too much, too many drugs... and then a car accident!" says Frampton, reflecting on the period after Frampton Comes Alive and the near-fatal 1978 car crash that almost ended his career.

"He was the golden god," says Nancy Wilson. "They don't give you the handbook for that."

Frampton is directed by Rob Arthur, who's been Frampton's bandleader for more than two decades and has previously worked on videos for the Doobie Brothers, Dave Mason, Damon Johnson and Orleans.

"One of the blessings for me was that everybody we wanted to interview said yes," Arthur tells GoSeeTalk. "It says something about him [Frampton] right there, you know? It would have been incredible to talk to Jerry Moss, it would have been incredible to talk to Steve Marriott, but these people are gone.

"But we got Herb Alpert instead of Jerry Moss, and that's pretty damn good. Herb was very happy to do this, and I was out of my skin, just 'I'm talking to Herb Alpbert! He's the 'A' of A&M. Oh my god.' You know, it was incredible for me."

Frampton premieres this evening at 8pm at the OKX Theater at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan. For more information about the film and other screenings, visit the official website.

In 1984, Robert Fripp dissolved the then-current lineup of King Crimson after three albums. Discipline, Beat and Three of a Perfect Pair might have been well-received, but the ever-restless Fripp felt that the quartet – completed by Adrian Belew, Bill Bruford, and Tony Levin – had fulfilled its original artistic purpose.

Besides, he wasn't happy, later telling Prog magazine that recording of the third album had been "the most awful record-making experience of my life, and one I would never choose to repeat."

The following year, Fripp released the 20-minute Network EP. He undertook a tour of UK record shops, including a stop at Rough Trade in West London, where he discussed – among other things – his recordings with Police guitarist Andy Summers, the abandoned album he worked on with Brian Eno and Scott Walker, and his sporting exploits. And, most peculiarly, he was the focus of a documentary made by BBC South.

Robert Fripp: New York – Wimborne, which has recently resurfaced online, was broadcast on September 3, 1985. The film, presented by late BBC DJ Anne Nightingale as a BBC2 Late Night in Concert film, follows Fripp as he attends a variety of events, including a marketing conference at Polydor Records in London, where he presents Three Of A Perfect Pair to the assembled marketeers.

"It's time that King Crimson extended itself," Fripp tells them. "We would like a new audience, so that we can get away from the expectations of our reliable audience. New music, new audience. This is what you can do for us."

The film also spends some leisurely time with Fripp in his hometown, Wimborne in Dorset, a place he describes as the "centre of the universe". It's where Fripp was given his first guitar, a cheap Manguin Frere acoustic, in 1957. It's where he made his first public appearance, playing second violin in the Kathleen Gartell Corfe Mullen School of Music Junior Orchestra, in 1959. And it's where, in 1961, he formed his first band, The Ravens.

In the Wimborne footage, Fripp visits a family gravestone, enjoys afternoon tea with his mother, and watches neighbourhood band Sports Day rehearse in their front room. He also offers advice to a young band called Social Science during a record signing at Square Records, a store that's been trading on Wimborne High Street since 1974.

"If you want to be successful in music in England, you have to live in London," says Fripp. "I'm very sorry to say that you cannot do it from Wimborne. You have to go and live in London for seven years. Resign yourself to it. They are not going to come to you. Even trips on the river or tea at the Yew Tree Cafe will not seduce the industry to come here."

Asked if Social Science should send demo tapes to record companies, Fripp doesn't hold back.

"It'll do nothing at all," he advises. "10,000 tapes a week arrive. Don't send a tape. Take a tape. Put a face on the name. You'll still be rejected 99 times out of 100, but nevertheless, go there with it. And it'll take time."

It's not known if Social Science moved to the capital, but it appears that they never released anything, so it must be assumed they failed to heed the great man's advice. And so Robert Fripp remains Wimborne's greatest musical export, although stoner metal pioneers Electric Wizard and folk-rock icon Al Stewart might beg to differ.

"We used to take the bus together when he was 15, and I actually took 10 guitar lessons from him," Stewart told Prog in 2021. "He taught me all these jazz chords that I never used again in my life."

Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde has spoken out against fans who film live shows on their mobile phones, accusing them of feeling "entitled" to carry out a "weird compulsion" that's often at odds with the wishes of the musicians they're watching. In a letter to fans posted on social media, Hynde goes on to compare those who film concerts to "monkeys wanking."

"What is it with people and their phones?" asks Hynde. "Why do people have to know how many steps they take every day? What difference does it make?

"But my real question is: Why do people have to film or take pictures at concerts or museums? Why?"

Hynde goes on to describe a discussion with country icon Emmy Lou Harris, in which both artists expressed their despair over the fact that fans often ignore "no camera" requests from musicians, with some going as far as to smuggle phones into venues where they're meant to be sealed in a locked pouch for the duration of the performance.

"It's like a weird compulsion that people can't control," says Hynde. "It reminds me of monkeys wanking in full view of the people standing around their enclosure. And frankly, in that case, people deserve to be wanked at because monkeys should not be in an enclosure in the first place. However, an artist on a stage?

"No one seems to be able to understand why artists don't like it. If you've ever had a mosquito buzzing around your head when you're trying to go to sleep, you will get a vague idea of what it's like to have people filming your show or taking photos while you're on stage.

"After having the conversation with Emmy, the minute her show started at the Albert Hall, a guy in front of me started filming it on his phone. So the concert was obscured by the bright light of his phone throughout the whole show. (Someone did eventually tell him that he was being rude and his filming was distracting. His response was, 'mind your own business')."

Hynde goes on to describe an occasion in which her enjoyment of actor Sarah Snook's Tony Award-winning, one-woman version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was spoiled when a patron in the front row began filming the performance. She also says she no longer goes to museums after attending a Van Gogh retrospective marred by fans more determined to take photographs of the paintings on display than to actually look at them.

"I wanted to cry," Hynde says. "My conclusion is: If Jesus Christ were to walk into a room, the first thing everyone would do would be to pull out their phone. Can someone please explain?"

Not us, Chrissie. Not us.

Perfect Crime, the unreleased Guns N' Roses documentary filmed during the band's Use Your Illusion tour between 1991 and 1993, has been leaked online.

The film, which has long been considered a holy grail among Guns N' Roses fans, has appeared online as a 38-minute rough cut, having remained unseen since it was originally completed – reportedly 90 minutes long – in 1994. It documents one of rock's most famously chaotic tours, and features behind-the-scenes material and previously unseen live footage.

The version leaked online includes footage of aftershow parties with waiters dressed as Roman legionaries, fans in various states of undress, a pig served on a platter and lederhosen-clad dancers, plus Axl Rose receiving treatment from an osteopath on an airport taxiway.

Also included are interviews, footage of Izzy Stradlin and Slash jamming in a hotel room, Rose singing The Skyliners' Since I Don't Have You in the studio, Duff McKagan being stretchered offstage after being hit in the head by a bottle, and live performances of two complete live songs filmed at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in October 1992.

"This is what I always wanted to do," says Axl, interviewed as Guns N' Roses played Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand, in February 1992. "I always knew it was going to happen. I never gave up hope. We've seen so many cats come and go in Hollywood that gave up. And it's hard. It's very difficult."

"We all know each other, and we've known each other for so long, it's hard for us to sit back and go, 'Hey! We're in the biggest rock band in the world!'" he continues. "It's not like that. We're still us, and we've got more albums to make, and we've got more shows to do."

Guns N' Roses are just about to begin the European leg of their 2026 tour, with dates in the US, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand to follow. Full dates below.

Guns N' Roses 2026 Tour

Jun 04: Gliwice PreZero Arena Gliwice, Poland
Jun 06: Gliwice PreZero Arena Gliwice, Poland
Jun 10: Dublin 3Arena, Ireland
Jun 13: Donington Download Festival, UK ∞
Jun 18: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
Jun 20: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
Jun 23: Berlin Uber Arena, Germany
Jun 25: Berlin Uber Arena, Germany
Jun 28: Antwerp AFAS Dome, Belgium
Jul 01: Paris Accor Arena, France
Jul 03: Paris Accor Arena, France

Jul 23: Raleigh Cater-Finley Stadium , NC *
Jul 26: Saratoga Springs Saratoga Performing Arts Center, NY *
Jul 29: Tinley Park Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre , IL *
Aug 01: Hershey Hersheypark Stadium , PA *
Aug 05: Toronto Rogers Stadium, ON *
Aug 08: Shakopee Mystic Lake Amphitheater, MN *
Aug 12: East Rutherford MetLife Stadium, NJ *
Aug 16: St. Louis Busch Stadium, MO *
Aug 19: Kansas City Morton Amphitheater, MO #
Aug 22: Las Vegas Allegiant Stadium, NV >
Aug 26: Edmonton Commonwealth Stadium, AB >
Aug 29: Vancouver BC Place, BC >
Sep 02: San Diego Snapdragon Stadium, CA >
Sep 05: Pasadena Rose Bowl, CA <
Sep 09: Arlington Globe Life Field, TX +
Sep 12: Ridgedale Thunder Ridge Nature Arena, MO #
Sep 16: San Antonio Alamodome, TX +
Sep 19: Atlanta Truist Park, GA

Nov 29: Adelaide Grand Final, Australia ≠
Dec 02: Townsville Queensland Country Bank Stadium, Australia ≠
Dec 05: Brisbane Suncorp Stadium, Australia ≠
Dec 08: Newcastle McDonald Jones Stadium, Australia ≠
Dec 11: Melbourne Marvel Stadium, Australia ≠
Dec 14: Sydney Engie Stadium, Australia ≠
Dec 17: Auckland Eden Park Stadium, New Zealand ≠

* with Public Enemy
# with The Barbarians of California
> with The Black Crowes
< with Ice Cube
+ with Pierce The Veil
≠ with Airbourne
∞ festival date

Find Guns N' Roses tickets.

Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein, otherwise known as the composers for the original music for the hit TV series Stranger Things, not to forget members of the synth prog outfit S U R V I V E, have announced a live European tour where they'll be delivering a definitive performance of the entire Stranger Things saga.

At the same time, Invada Records UK and Lakeshore Records release two volumes of double vinyl albums for Stranger Things 5 — Original Score From The Netflix Series on July 15. The 95-track collection includes the score to Season 5 Volume 1 and Volume 2 as well as the music from the finale.

The Invada Records versions (for World excluding the Americas) are V.1 ion Metallic Bronze coloured vinyl and V.2 in Metallic Silver coloured vinyl, both versions are housed in a gatefold sleeve and printed inner with full colour photos.

Lakeshore Records' versions are 2xLP on Blue Smoke coloured vinyl with gatefold jacket and full colour printed sleeves.

Pre-order Invada release.

Pre-order Lakeshore Vol. I.

Pre-order Lakeshore Vol. II.

You can see the full list of live shows and ticket details below.

Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein Stranger Things European tour dates

Jun 26: ITA Fiastra Fiastrapalooza Festival
Jun 28: BEL Brussels Ancienne Belgique
Sep 3: SRB Belgrade Drugstore
Sep 5: SPA Barcelona Paral·lel 62
Sep 8: SPA MadridThe music Station PRÍNCIPE PÍO
Sep 12: POL Sopot Brasswood Festival
Sep 14: BUL Sofia National Palace of Culture
Sep 16: SVK Bratislava Majestic Music Club
Sep 19: GRE Athens Hellenic Cosmos
Sep 21: IRE Dublin 3Olympia Theatre
Oct 31: FRA Nantes Le Lieu Unique
Nov 4: UK Belfast Ulster Hall
Nov 7: UK Birmingham Town Hall
Nov 9: UK London EartH Theatre
Nov 14: POR Braga Theatro Circo
Nov 16: GER Berlin Theater Des Westens

Get tickets.

Before they were filling arenas with sprawling, cosmic soundscapes, seashell-shaped backdrops, and the scent of drifting patchouli, progressive rock legends Yes were just five ambitious London musos chasing sonic alchemy.

Formed in 1968, they set out to smash the boundaries of the late-sixties underground. And, by-and-large, they succeeded, aided in no small part by Jon Anderson's angelic voice, Chris Squire's Rickenbacker bass rumble, Peter Banks' jazzy fretwork, Tony Kaye’s driving organ, and Bill Bruford’s intricate, thrilling drumwork. This early incarnation wasn’t yet the symphonic beast of the seventies, but they were a fierce, high-energy live act, fusing the melodic muscle of The Beatles with fiery bursts of proto-prog.

Their self-titled 1969 debut, and 1970’s Time And A Word, showcased a band testing the limits of their own ambition, blending original material with heavily rearranged, symphonic covers of The Beatles, The Byrds, Simon & Garfunkel and Leonard Bernstein. The music was breathless, unusually complex, and surprisingly raw.

These formative years might have lacked the sure-footed ambition that resulted in later, long-form masterpieces like Fragile and Close To The Edge, but they laid the foundations of all that followed. And by the time The Yes Album arrived in early 1971 – with Steve Howe replacing Banks – all the building blocks were in place. Well, apart from cover artist Roger Drean. He arrived later that year.

How much do you know about Yes's early years? Try our quiz below, and let us know how you got on in the comments. And don't cheat. We're watching.

Kate Bush's directorial film debut, the anti-war animation Little Shrew, is now a prize-winner. The four-minute film, which was released in late 2024, picked up the Animation prize at this year's Carmarthen Bay Film Festival in Wales.

“How wonderful! Little Shrew is incredibly excited that she’s been awarded such a huge honour,” said Bush. “Thank you so very much from her, myself and all the team. We are over the moon!”

​"What an incredible year it has been for the Carmarthen Bay Film Festival," says festival curator Stifyn Parri. "This year’s success has been beyond anything I could have imagined – most notably because a lifelong inspiration of mine, Kate Bush, shared her remarkable work with us by entering her film."

Little Shrew, which is soundtracked by an edit of Bush's 2011 track Snowflake, depicts a shrew making her way across a bombed-out city and was inspired by Ukraine's military conflict with Russia.

"It's been such a long period of peace we'd all been living through," Bush told the BBC when the film was released. "And I just felt I wanted to make a little animation that would feature, originally, a little girl. It was really the idea of children caught up in war. I wanted to draw attention to how horrific it is for children.

"And so I came up with this idea for a storyboard and felt that, actually, people would be more empathetic towards a creature rather than a human. So I came up with the idea of it being a little shrew."

Little Shrew was written and directed by Bush, while Nicolette Van Gendt provided the animation. The film has now been screened at several BAFTA-qualifying events, making it eligible for entry into the BAFTA awards (the UK equivalent of the Oscars).

Bruce Springsteen has paid tribute to Stephen Colbert on the second-to-last edition of The Late Show. The show, which has been hosted by Colbert for 11 seasons, will be retired after a marathon final episode this evening (May 21).

The Late Show was officially cancelled due to financial pressures, with broadcaster CBS stating that the program was losing tens of millions of dollars annually.

However, the decision sparked significant scepticism, with many claiming the decision was politically motivated. The cancellation was announced just days after Colbert mocked a $16 million settlement paid to US President Donald Trump by CBS's parent company, Paramount, calling it "a big fat bribe."

"I am here tonight in support of Stephen, because you're the first guy in America who's lost his show because we've got a president who can't take a joke," says Springsteen. "And because Larry and David Ellison [the father and son duo who serve as the financial backer and CEO of Paramount] feel the need to kiss his ass to get what they want.

"Stephen, these are small-minded people who've got no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about. This is for you."

Springsteen then plays a haunting version of Streets of Minneapolis, his song honouring the memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two civilians shot and killed by ICE agents in the city.

The final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert airs on Thursday, May 21, at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT. It will be replaced by Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen.

The metal-inspired soundtrack for 1993 shoot-’em-up Doom entered the Library Of Congress’ National Recording Registry last week, joining music by the likes of Metallica, Beyoncé, the Beatles and Bob Dylan. In 2024, Hammer interviewed designer John Romero, Bury Tomorrow bassist Davyd Winter-Bates and Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor to find out how the game was created – and why it made such a lasting impact on heavy music.

In January 1993, upstart US game developers id Software put out a press release announcing a game that would revolutionise the world. According to the press release, it was set in a scientific research facility where “wave after wave of demonic creatures are spreading through the base, killing or possessing everyone in sight”.

Gamers would play one of four off-duty soldiers. “As you stand knee-deep in the dead, you must eradicate the enemy and find out where they’re coming from… the safest place is behind a trigger.”

The hyperbole didn’t stop there. Such was id’s confidence in the game, they proclaimed that they “fully expect it to be the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world”. They had a striking name for this soon-to-be released classic: Doom. The only problem? Its creators had yet to write a single line of code for it.

Not that the devs at id were worried. They’d already upended the industry the previous year with the anarchic Wolfenstein 3D, a dark, blood-soaked, shoot-the-Nazis counterpoint to Mario and Sonic, with cutting-edge audio that allowed players to feel the impact of every bullet they fired into the bad guys. That game, like its yet-to-be-written follow-up, had been created by a team that worked and partied together in a small housing complex in Mesquite, Texas.

Unlike such corporate counterparts as Electronic Arts, id Software’s informal office was more like a university hangout. These four 20-somethings spent their days laughing, coding and blasting metal late into the night as they tinkered with game engines and pushed computer tech to its limits. John Romero, who co-founded id in 1991, was the lead designer on Wolfenstein 3D.

“We were all total metalheads, and that attitude really started coming through,” says John, speaking to Hammer via Zoom. “There wasn’t a game that was that violent, the crazy speed… it was genuinely shocking.”

But it was nothing compared to what John and the id team had in mind for Doom. Sending players straight into the depths of Hell, the vision for id’s gnarly demon-slaying epic was to bring their favourite metal album covers to life. Hitting shelves and shareware sites in December 1993, Doom was an instant phenomenon, matching Wolfenstein’s first-month sales in just one day.

One-upping Wolfenstein’s sense of speed and combining it with a uniquely hellish brand of futurism, it was unlike anything else in videogames. Bury Tomorrow bassist Davyd Winter-Bates remembers booting up Doom’s iconic title screen as a young kid.

“I had to get my uncle to buy it for me,” he says. “After Wolfenstein 3D, I thought shooters couldn’t get any better, but Doom really blew me away. The weapons, the soundtrack, the speed… it was just super-, super-cool.”

How did id wind up creating the most metal videogame to ever hit the medium? For John Romero, metal wasn’t just a soundtrack, it was his life. Moving from the US to England as a computer-loving teenager in 1983, it was here that he fell love with the genre.

“I used to be in the back of the bus going to high school, and they’d have a giant boombox,” he says. “I’d crank it all the way up and play Accept until everyone’s head was banging!”

He was a budding singer, even trying out for a metal band. “But it didn’t work out because they wanted me to scream,” he says. “So I stuck with programming.”

Metal’s loss was gaming’s gain. When John and his id colleagues began working on Doom, their only thought was, “This is gonna be the best game in the world.”

As Pantera blasted out of the id office speakers, something took shape that was darker and more violent than anything ever released before. Doom felt like it was written in blood. Its giddying speed, unrelenting violence and terror-inducing sense of momentum were an adrenaline-pumping shotgun blast to the face, while its demonic imagery, metal-inspired cover art and scalpel-edged logo was metal brought to (virtual) life. All it needed was a killer soundtrack to match.

“It wasn’t ever like, ‘Hmm, what kind of music should we use?’” says John. “It was so obvious that it was metal.”

The only snag was that id’s longtime composer, Bobby Prince, wasn’t a metal fan. Instead, he loved jazz. Cue John and the rest of id going full School Of Rock and giving him a crash course in the genre.

“We sat him down and said, ‘Right, let’s talk about metal,’” says John. “Between us, we had all the bases covered – prog metal, thrash etc. We gave him CDs from Pantera, Slayer – different groups that had certain sounds that would be really cool to translate to MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface]. Alice In Chains, too. Even though that was kind of grunge, Jerry Cantrell was a badass metal guitarist.”

This intensive programme of homework paid off. Listen to the still-iconic soundtrack today, and the thrash influence clearly punches through the virtual instruments. The metallic MIDI bleeps and bloops added a mosh-ready feel to the carnage.

“Bobby did a really great job making the music,” John says. “Even today when people talk about how metal Doom was, they still remember what it was like to hear those songs back in the day and how crazy that was, because you just didn’t have anything like that. But today… it’s horrible!” he adds with a laugh.

For the young Davyd Winter-Bates, that “horrible” soundtrack changed him forever. “I played Doom before I was even properly into metal,” he says. “I was listening to all those 8-bit riffs, like, ‘This isn’t pop music!’ I think a lot of my love of real heavy thrash riffs comes from slaying beasts in Doom.”

As Doom’s legend spread, its influence inevitably fed back into the metal world. “Gwar were nuts about Doom!” John Romero recalls excitedly. “It was like, ‘Holy crap!’ Rammstein played Doom all the time, too. Doom massively influenced the creation of that group.”

One of Doom’s most famous fans was Trent Reznor, who became obsessed with the game on tour. Such was his fandom, that the Nine Inch Nails leader would collaborate with id to create the soundtrack to Doom’s landmark follow-up, Quake. Abandoning its predecessor’s apocalyptic hellscape for a more gothic castle-style locale, Quake swapped Doom’s gore-splattered approach for shuffling undead, oppressive atmospherics and a deeply unsettling brand of supernatural horror.

“I knew when we were making Quake that what it needed was disturbing industrial music,” John recalls. “We thought, ‘What if we had Nine Inch Nails do the soundtrack?’ Who didn’t love NIN? The Downward Spiral was brilliant.”

Coincidentally, id and NIN shared an agent, though John and his colleagues didn’t know that at the time. One of the company’s business guys reached out to the band to see if they would be interested in getting involved.

“They go, ‘Holy shit, we play Doom all the time!’” says John. “And then Trent comes out to see us.”

John recalls that, at the time, he had lingering doubts about whether NIN could pull it off. “I was like, ‘That’s fucking cool, but can they do no lyrics? Can they just make an unsettling thing?’ Because their sound is great, but it’s also very high-energy industrial, can they do something that’s not as high energy?”

The finished soundtrack proved they could. “The Nine Inch Nails soundtrack was so good,” says John. “I needed Quake to be a deeply unsettling and violent world where you don’t feel safe, and they matched exactly that aesthetic.”

Quake may have redefined 3D videogames when it was released in 1996, but much like its cast of formidable demons, Doom refused to die. A successful sequel, Doom II: Hell On Earth, landed in 1994, its code allowing fans to constantly mod new single and multiplayer maps into the game. Two more spin-offs, Final Doom and Doom 64, arrived in 1996 and 1997 respectively.

Like so much connected with metal culture before it, Doom became embroiled in controversy. In 1999, two teenagers, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, shot and killed 12 students and a teacher at Columbine High School in Colorado, before turning their guns on themselves. The media picked up on the killers’ love of Doom, making it a scapegoat for the shootings alongside Marilyn Manson.

By the mid-2000s, Doom’s popularity had finally been superseded by other games. Doom 3, a reboot of the original game, was released in 2004, but fans didn’t respond well to its slower-paced take on survival horror. Yet this brooding behemoth refused to stay buried. In 2016, 12 years after the last instalment, Doom emerged roaring once more in the shape of a reboot that reimagined its demonic limb-blasting for a new generation of gamers and metal fans alike.

John Romero was no longer involved with id Software, but the Doom reboot enlisted Mick Gordon, an Australian musician and acclaimed videogame composer, to work on a soundtrack that would become as iconic as the original. He was blown away by how the developers working on the new version had nailed the feeling of the original game. Yet the people behind the game had one significant request.

“One of the pre-conditions of working on Doom was, believe it or not, no metal. Nothing,” he told PC Gamer in 2016. “You’d think it’d be the opposite, right? The worry was that it would be corny.”

Thankfully, Mick sneakily incorporated more and more guitar into his compositions, morphing an unsettling electronic soundtrack into something with the teeth to match its snarling demons. The end result was a brutal, low-tuned, riff-filled sonic assault: a sophisticated realisation of what Doom could have originally sounded like.

The game itself was a hit, shifting two million copies in its first year on sale, and Mick’s crushing soundtrack – a mix of industrial, djent and extreme metal – became a success in its own right. He even ended up performing a track from it live at the 2016 Game Awards, backed by drummer Matt Halpern of prog metallers Periphery.

“Mick is obviously immensely talented, and obviously loves Meshuggah, like everyone should,” says Periphery guitarist Misha Mansoor, an avid fan of the Doom reboot. “I remember hearing that soundtrack and playing that game and just thinking it’s so awesome that something like this could happen, because this is not the safe choice. Generally, first-person shooters have heavy electronic elements or dark industrial elements, so players think they’re gonna get electro, and then when it hits, it’s a metal riff. And that’s so cool.”

Bury Tomorrow’s Davyd Winter-Bates sees Mick Gordon’s soundtrack as being just as important to late-2010s metal as the original was to the early-90s scene.

“Yes, it can be a gateway to more people liking metal, but, at the same time, those extra soundscape elements also show us what that genre can do,” he says. “The only problem I have with that soundtrack is sometimes the riffs are too good, and they distract when you’re playing.”

And John Romero? The Daddy of Doom himself was blown away by the soundtrack. “I love it!” he enthuses. “It was really awesome. Mick Gordon did such a great job.”

As with the original Doom more than two decades earlier, the reboot’s influence bled into the metal world. Misha Mansoor says he saw an upswing in interest in djent and tech metal from people who might not have otherwise encountered it.

“It was a perfect storm, because Mick did a really, really great job with the soundtrack,” he says. “People got to experience what metal could be, as opposed to this sort of watered-down impression of what someone thinks it is. When someone gets to experience that in earnest, you can have those ‘Oh shit!’ moments where everything clicks, and it becomes your gateway drug.”

Mick Gordon himself has become a go-to collaborator for metal bands. Bring Me The Horizon enlisted him to work on 2020’s Post Human: Survival Horror album. The composer has also worked with the likes of Architects, Motionless In White and Monuments, while the 2016 iteration of Doom and its acclaimed 2020 sequel, Doom Eternal, influenced Bury Tomorrow’s 2023 album, The Seventh Sun.

“Part of what makes that soundtrack so good is everything that’s going on – from the squelching to the shooting, to the reloading to the voiceovers – it all ties in,” says Davyd Winter-Bates.

“On our last record, we started to do that with things like chains and sirens, weird things that we would just be like, ‘Hey, we should put this noise on there!’ I really liked the idea of pulling in things that aren’t necessarily instrumental into our music. Adding in those things comes from playing games like Doom.”

John Romero’s time working on Doom may have come to a close long ago, but his love of the series and for metal has never left him. Now living in Galway, Ireland with wife and fellow game developer Brenda Romero, he still attends as many metal gigs as he can. Recently, he’s contributed to Iron Maiden’s Piece Of Mind comic book, celebrating the band’s 1983 album.

Right now, John and his studio, Romero Games, are working on an all-new shooter that’s shrouded in secrecy. Whether or not it’ll have the same impact as Doom remains to be seen, but the legacy of John’s blood-soaked art continues to reverberate in the worlds of gaming and metal alike.

This article originally appeared in Metal Hammer issue 386, May 2024. The eighth Doom game, Doom: The Dark Ages, was released by Bethesda last year.

A 99-year-old woman has been recognised by Guinness World Records after becoming the oldest person to crowd surf at a concert.

Pauline Kana, who was born in August 1926, is famous online as "Gangster Granny" through the videos of her grandson, Ross Smith, who has amassed nearly 25 million followers on TikTok. The pair first went viral in 2013 when Ross filmed himself blocking a basketball shot from his grandmother, a clip that went viral on the short-lived video platform Vine.

The pair's latest escapade took place during a show by country star Bradley Gilbert at the Austin County Fairgrounds in Bellville, Texas, earlier this month. After being introduced by Glibert, Kana is passed through the crowd on some sort of gurney – onlookers could be forgiven for thinking she's being medevaced – before the crowd engages in a lively chant of "Granny! Granny!"

"I did it!" exclaims Kana, after receiving her Guinness Award. "I’m the greatest of all time!"

"Thank you to all the 20,000 people for making this happen," says Smith. "I still have chills listening to that Granny chant. What an iconic and funny moment."

"It still feels so new to me," Kana told PressPass in 2022. "My generation didn’t have TV or the internet, only radio. To go from obscurity offline to this place where people seem to know my name has been a whirlwind in the very best way.

"I’m not interested in fame, but I do love that I now have the opportunity to connect with so many new people all across the world and hear their stories while sharing our own. I could never have expected or even wished for this chapter of life, but I wouldn’t change it for the world."

The upcoming He-Man movie, Masters Of The Universe, will premiere tomorrow (May 18) at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, but fans eager for a taste of Daniel Pemberton's soundtrack will be delighted to learn that two tracks are already available.

The two pieces – different versions of a composition called Eternia – both feature Brian May, and may include what may be the most epic soloing from the Queen guitarist in decades. Composer Pemberton says the soundtrack is the "most maximalist score ever", and Eternia – named after the fantasy planet that serves as the film's main setting – certainly lives up to the billing.

"Ah! Here it is!" exclaims Brian. "I only just discovered this is out! We have the power!"

Pemberton has previously worked on several blockbuster soundtracks, including Project Hail Mary. Spider-Man: Into/Across the Spider-Verse, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.

May revealed he was working with Pemberton in February, promising the movie "will make a lot of people smile a lot" and revealing that "yes, my ol' Red Special [his famous, hand-made guitar] is all over it!"

May previously contributed to the soundtrack of the 1996 film Pinocchio, and three years later composed the soundtrack for Alexandre Aja's post-apocalyptic sci-fi film Furia. Of course, Queen also provided the soundtrack to the 1980 science fiction movie Flash Gordon, with May composing the film's iconic theme music.

Masters Of The Universe stars English actor Nicholas Galitzine as Adam Glenn/He-Man, 30 Seconds To Mars frontman Jared Leto as the evil sorcerer Skeletor, and Idris Elba as Man-at-Arms. It's on general release from June 5.

A Trick of The Tail, the seventh studio album from Genesis, is 50 years old this year. To celebrate the band are on the cover of the new issue of Prog Magazine as we explore how they survived the departure of Peter Gabriel and set sail on a new and even more successful journey.

And Prog has teamed up with the band to offer fans this world-exclusive limited edition bundle, featuring a really cool Genesis A Trick Of The Tail t-shirt you're not going to find anywhere else, along with a bespoke cover of issue 170!

It's unavailable in shops or on merch stands, numbers are limited and the only place you can get the bundle is here, from the Prog online store! Get yours here!

“There was a lot of luck to have a singer in the band who was good enough to take over from Peter,” Tony Banks recalls in the new issue, “and that’s why fans had no trouble in recognising Phil as ‘the man.’”

“I was always aware Phil was waiting in the wings, but I never thought he would want to leave his drums,” adds Mike Rutherford.

As well as Genesis, the new issue of Prog features Yes, Hawkwind, Clannad, Devin Townsend, Bruce Soord, Crown Lands, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien, The Claypool Lennon Delirium and loads more.

Read all about the new issue of Prog here.

Get your exclusive Genesis A Trick Of The Tail t-shirt here.

Mötley Crüe have completed their highly anticipated appearance on the finale of the latest series of American Idol, performing two Crüe classics with the 2005 series winner, country star Carrie Underwood.

The unlikely pairing tackled truncated versions of Home Sweet Home and Kickstart My Heart. And while Underwood's vocal left little room for criticism, footage of the performance does appear to confirm that Vince Neil – who revealed in 2025 that he's suffered four strokes in recent years – is no longer operating at full capacity.

Underwood has a history of dalliances with rock music and regularly performs Guns N' Roses' Welcome To The Jungle during her solo sets. She has also performed Motörhead's classic hit Ace of Spades and Ozzy Osbourne's much-loved power ballad, Mama, I'm Coming Home, in concert.

Last year, she teamed with an American Idol contestant to cover Drowning Pool’s nu metal banger Bodies, and in 2009, she was responsible for the series' end theme, another cover of Home Sweet Home.

In July, Mötley Crüe will embark on a mammoth Carnival Of Sins tour, celebrating the band's 45th anniversary as well as the 20th anniversary of the original Carnival Of Sins tour, which took in 118 shows in 2005-2006. Support will come from Tesla and Extreme. Full dates below.

Mötley Crüe Carnival Of Sins tour 2026

Jul 17: Burgettstown The Pavilion at Star Lake, PA
Jul 18: Buffalo Darien Lake Amphitheater, NY
Jul 20: Clarkson Pine Knob Music Theatre, MI
Jul 22: Toronto RBC Amphitheatre, ON
Jul 24: Gilford BankNH Pavilion, NH
Jul 25: Bangor Maine Savings Amphitheater, ME
Jul 27: Camden Freedom Mortgage Pavilion, NJ
Jul 29: Saratoga Springs Saratoga Performing Arts Center, NY
Jul 31: Holmdel PNC Bank Arts Center, NJ
Aug 01: Mansfield Xfinity Center, MA
Aug 03: Bristow Jiffy Lube Live, VA
Aug 12: Alpharetta Ameris Bank Amphitheatre, GA
Aug 14: West Palm Beach iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre, FL
Aug 15: Tampa Credit Union Amphitheatre, FL
Aug 17: Charlotte PNC Music Pavilion, NC
Aug 19: St. Louis Hollywood Casino Amphitheater, MO
Aug 21: Shakopee Mystic Lake Amphitheater, MN
Aug 22: Tinley Park Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre, IL
Aug 24: Cuyahoga Falls Blossom Music Center, OH
Aug 25: Cincinnati Riverbend Music Center, OH
Aug 27: Grand Rapids Acrisure Amphitheater, MI
Aug 28: Noblesville Ruoff Music Center, IN
Sep 08: Kansas City Morton Amphitheater, MO
Sep 10: Dallas Dos Equis Pavilion, TX
Sep 11: Houston The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion, TX
Sep 13: Albuquerque Isleta Amphitheater, NM
Sep 16: Phoenix Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, AZ
Sep 18: Chula Vista North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre, CA
Sep 19: Long Beach Long Beach Amphitheater, CA
Sep 21: Salt Lake City Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre, UT
Sep 23: Wheatland Toyota Amphitheatre, CA
Sep 24: Mountain View Shoreline Amphitheater, CA
Sep 26: Ridgefield Cascades Amphitheater, WA

Get Mötley Crüe tickets.

Oh, the nights I have spent desperately back-combing, lipsticking and bra-lessly throwing my legginged limbs around indie discos alongside other similarly gawkish, blunt-fringed Debbie Harry wannabes. Her look, her style and her attitude were everything I admired while growing up.

And even though I eventually (reluctantly) realised I would never quite achieve such illuminating finesse, I can thankfully say she shaped my life in a multitude of other ways. Her fusion of different genres has totally moulded my music collection, and her iconic cool is visible on the covers of so many of my favourite albums – take PJ Harvey’s glampunk stance on the 4-Track Demos artwork, MIA’s Pop Art pout on the front of Kala, and Karen O’s defiant fist punch on Fever To Tell. Without Harry, my CD collection would be a grumpy selection of ashen angst, a box of brutish nothingness.

She was the face of the 70s, 80s, of pre-MTV music videos and of Warhol’s iconic prints, but, crucially, behind that classically beautiful face there was one hell of a character. Not one to rely on those Himalayan-proportioned cheekbones, it was Harry’s distortion of stereotypes, her costumes and confrontational use of sexuality, that really defined her as a true artist. At a time when female musicians were either stern and serious or sedate and submissive, Debbie Harry opened the floodgates for frontwomen who could be both extraordinarily sexy and credible.

In the 80s, you could see flecks of the Blondie frontwoman in Stevie Nicks, while Bananarama’s injection of feminism into the glossy mainstream was very Debbie-esque. Without Harry, 90s Britpop would have exclusively been a mass of floppy fringes, sun-shee-ine overbites and egotistic lad rock. There would have been no Sleeper, Elastica, Republica, Kenickie or Garbage: Shirley Manson, a huge fan and now friend/confidante of the star, once welcomed Harry onto the stage as “the most beautiful girl in any room, in any city, on any planet”.

The late 90s were ignited by the cartoon playfulness of the likes of Gwen Stefani, snatching the bleach blonde baton from Pammy Anderson and her troop of regressive Baywatch fembots. And who could forget PJ Harvey’s PVC/crimson-lipsticked era, using her fetishistic stylings as a declaration of empowerment and general shit-hottness. We can thank Debbie for that too. And the most blatant of all Harry homages were clear in the platinum glare of Courtney Love and Madonna.

In the noughties, we reaped the rewards of Debbie’s influence on female frontwomen. Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, who exclaimed to Harry during a face-to-face interview in Dazed & Confused, “You’re so fucking amazing!”, was easily one of the most enigmatic and important stars of that decade. Karen fuses punk attitude with a playful glint in her eye. She is confrontational yet adorable. She is breathtaking to see at the front of the stage, throughout all of her different musical incarnations and costumes. She is clearly indebted to Debbie’s very groundbreaking existence.

As I look through my record collection, it is smattered with artists who must have been cajoled by Debbie’s devilish defiance. The Scando section is littered with the surreal and veiled kookiness of Fever Ray and Björk, while the elegant swagger of The Cardigans’ Nina Persson is easily traceable.

There’s the sexual ambush and New York nastiness of Peaches, Beth Ditto’s molten-hot snarl, Crystal Castles’ Alice Glass with her smoky eyes and atomic punk attitude, MIA’s kaleidoscopic sounds, Róisín Murphy’s fashionista disco and theatrical costumes, Allison Mosshart’s rock‘n’ roll strut, Florence Welch’s ability to beguile and beseech in a satin gown.

Then you’ve got your pop heavyweights: Lady Gaga, her sultry raps and her dark roots peeking through a Marilyn bleach, Katy Perry and Nicky Minaj’s bubblegum pinup stylings, Lily Allen’s Ariel falsetto, not to mention the sass of Kylie at her very best. And they’re still coming: Hayley Williams, Sleigh Bells’ Alexis Krauss, Lykke Li, Uffie, Lovefoxxx, Marina & The Diamonds, Santigold, Sia, Charli XCX, Miley Cyrus, Halsey, St. Vincent...

Call me melodramatic, but I believe the music world would be a dried-up, tumbleweed-riddled desert if it weren’t for Debbie Harry. No Riot Grrrls! No gyrating Madonna hips! No Karen O pudding bowls! No butt-naked Beth Ditto! No dresses made out of meat! No Courtney Love Twitter outbursts! No Courtney Love! No fun.

She is the most iconic and influential frontwoman ever to have graced our paths. An artist who ensured all Hollywood-esque popstarlets, femmepunks and superstars sparkled in her comet’s tail. She is exhilarating to watch, to listen to, to admire.

Before Debbie Harry was launched into the mainstream, on one end of the scale, you were smothered by Olivia Newton-John’s tear-soaked pillow as she assured she was ‘hopelessly devoted to you!’, before Siouxsie Sioux’s mic stand would come hurtling past.

It wasn’t quite the eclectic pick ‘n’ mix we’re exposed to in 2026. You see, not only was Blondie’s trailblazing musical influence paramount to the way music sounds now, but Debbie Harry’s existence was integral in forming the place of the female in popular music as it stands today.

Whether Debbie Harry’s music is playing or not, she remains ubiquitous on every stage, pressed up against every railing at any venue and most importantly, inside every ecstatically grateful geek’s music collection.

This original version of this feature appeared in Classic Rock presents Blondie, published in June 2011.

It's May 4 and that means it's officially Star Wars Day - a day in the cosmic calendar where fans of the long-running sci-fi classic gather to watch all sorts of content from a galaxy far, far away. That's made easier this year with this cracking limited-time deal on Disney+ - the home to the entire Star Wars saga.

But if you already have a sub and are looking for a gift for a fellow Star Wars fan or a treat for yourself, I've picked out 15 Star Wars-themed items that will go down easier than Boba Fett into the sarlacc's massive maw!

There's collectable figures, video games, board games, mugs and more - and as someone who saw the original the first time around, I think these are great fun.

Read merch ideas

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Forty years after its original release, and with a TV reboot in the pipeline, Highlander stands as one of the great cult movies of the 80s – an epic fantasy involving sword-wielding immortals doing battle across centuries, with a memorable soundtrack by Queen. In 2019, Classic Rock talked to director Russell Mulcahy about swordfighting, accents and Freddie Mercury’s breakfast-making skills.

Russell Mulcahy remembers attending a typically opulent party at Freddie Mercury’s West London mansion, Garden Lodge, sometime in the mid-80s. After the festivities wound down, Mulcahy crashed in one of the singer’s many guest rooms. He was woken the next morning by the bedroom door opening. It was the host, in ebullient mood.

“He went, ‘Come on dear, come downstairs, I’m making you breakfast,’” Mulcahy tells Classic Rock. “And so I’m in his kitchen, just him and me, he’s making me eggs and bacon. I’m sitting thinking to myself, ‘Freddie fucking Mercury is cooking me breakfast. Wow.’ It was so surreal.”

Mulcahy was no stranger to working with stars of the Queen singer’s calibre, even if they weren’t normally frying up a couple of rashers of Danish for him. The Australia-born filmmaker had made his name as the wunderkind director behind groundbreaking promo videos for the likes of Duran Duran, Elton John and Rod Stewart before graduating to full-length movies.

His first film had been low-budget homicidal-pig-in-the-outback horror flick Razorback, released in 1984. But it was a very different film two years later with which he made his name – and provided his entry to the world of Queen.

Highlander was a time-hopping sci-fi fantasy in which a group of immortal beings battled each other with large swords, each ultimately trying to decapitate the rest. If the premise sounded preposterous, the cast list was anything but – it starred rising French actor Christopher Lambert as the film’s protagonist, 15th Scottish clansman Connor MacLeod, and former James Bond Sean Connery as his mentor, a Spanish-Egyptian buccaneer named Juan Sánchez-Villalobos Ramírez.

It also had a solid gold soundtrack featuring five new songs from Queen, whose career was back on a vertiginous post-Live Aid upswing. The songs would appear later that year Queen’s new album, A Kind Of Magic, an unofficial soundtrack to the movie that would become the band’s most successful studio album of the decade.

“Queen’s music was the icing on it,” says Mulcahy, as he prepares to look back at this cult classic. “I couldn’t have hoped for a better band.”

How did you get involved with Highlander?

I had done videos for Duran Duran, who were on EMI. And EMI were connected to Highlander in some way. So they sent me the script and I read it and totally fell in love with it. I went for a meeting and it went fantastically, and they said, “OK, great, you’re in.” And that was that.

How did you pick Christopher Lambert for the leading role?

Well, we were sitting around going, “Who’s going to play the Highlander?” And the obvious list of the usual Top 20 in-demand actors from that time got passed around. Then I was flipping through this magazine and I came across this photo of Christopher from Greystoke, the Tarzan film. He had the most incredible eyes – they had this eerie immortality about them. So we met him, he loved it… and that’s when we found out he could hardly speak a word of English! So we had a French guy playing a Scotsman and a Scotsman playing a Spaniard. (Laughs) Who cares!

The real-life Scotsman would be Sean Connery. What was he like?

I remember going off to meet Sean, who had read the script, at the Savoy Hotel in London. I get to the door and my knees are shaking, I’m pissing my pants, I’m petrified. All I can think is, “Oh my god, I’m going to meet 007.” And the doors opens and there’s this six foot three man standing there. He invites me in, we have a coup of tea and sandwich, and he turned out to be the most wonderful, wonderful gentlemen. He was into it a hundred per cent.

It’s a fairly crazy plot. Did he tell you what he saw in it?

Yes, it was a crazy story, this fantasy that spanned centuries. But the thing that grabbed me, and grabbed everyone, was that there was a tragic romance to it. This guy MacLeod falls in love with a girl in Scotland in the 1500s. He can’t get old and die, but she does. So he can never really fall in love again. It was this wonderful tragic love story.

What was it like working with Connery?

It was fantastic. I remember we got on a small plane to go up to Glencoe in Scotland, where we were filming. He gets in there, hands me a little glass, pulls out a bottle this very special Scotch someone had made for him. He said, “You’ve got to try some of this, laddie”, and he gives me a shot. My god, this thing must have been 300 per cent proof or whatever the fuck it was. I was singing the blues all the way up to Scotland.

What was the shoot itself like?

Brilliant fun, but there was one hairy moment. The was one sequence featuring the Kurgan [the film’s towering barbarian villain]. It was the big entrance, where he bashes through the door of this fort and says, “Where’s the Highlander?”

Clancy Brown, the actor who played The Kurgan, was meant to leap from the stairs and cut this table in half. But this was Clancy’s first day of filming with Sean, and he was so nervous. As he bashed through the door, he didn’t cut the table straight down like he was supposed to, he swiped across it. This candelabra went flying over the crew, the sword breaks and a shard flies over Sean’s head. At which point Sean quietly walked off the set.

Poor Clancy’s in the corner, going, “What the fuck have I done?” Sean’s in his trailer, he’s taken his costume off, and he says to me, “You need to talk to this young lad, because that’s not what we rehearsed.” And him and Clancy had a chat. Clancy was so apologetic, but Sean understood, and everyone was the best of friends again.

Clancy Brown was the perfect person to play The Kurgan – big, menacing, strange-looking…

He was totally into it. There’s a bit in the film where his head is shaved, and he was totally into that. He would sit there, taking bits of pins and sticking them into his costume. I went, “What are you doing?” And he says, “It’s all part of the ritual man, Kurgan’s ritual.” I’m, like, “Okay, whatever, sounds good…”

Can we talk accents? What instructions did you give to people, given that none of the actors were from where there characters were meant to come from…

With Sean we both agreed we didn’t want to force any accents. When you get Sean Connery, you get Sean Connery. He didn’t attempt to do any Spanish-Egyptian thing. That would have faked it out a bit – I mean, come on, it was Sean Connery. The rationale is addressed in the movie. There’s one scene where a cop says to Christopher Lambert, “You talk funny, where you from?” And he replies, “Lots of different places.” These guys have lived hundreds of years. They’ve probably lived in every bloody country in the world.

How did Queen’s involvement in the soundtrack come about?

I loved Queen, I was a huge fan of their music, and I really loved the soundtrack they had done to Flash Gordon. So we contacted them and I think they were a little sceptical at first, but we invited them over to the edit studio in London and we showed them 20 minutes of cut footage – six or seven different scenes. All the band came over, and they came out and said, “That’s really cool.” So I thought we’d get one song out of them. But two days later we got the message back that they all wanted to write a song: Freddie wanted to write as song, Roger wanted to write a song, so did Brian and John. I ended up getting five songs in the end, which was amazing.

Were they your first choice? There’s a rumour that Marillion were in the running to do it.

I think there was some talk of Duran Duran being involved early on. I love Duran Duran, but we wanted something with a heavier edge. Queen had that, but then they also gave us a song like Who Wants To Live Forever, which was just beautiful. I also got Freddie to do New York, New York, which he didn’t want to do: “Oh god, come on…” I had to convince him. There’s a snippet of it in the film, where MacLeod crosses the bridge at the end.

What was Freddie Mercury really like? Did you get to see a different side of him ?

He was the most wonderful man. Actually, I was just living round the corner from his house in Earl’s Court at that point, so I’d go and see him for lunch and just sit and chat and laugh. We became good friends. Same with Roger and Brian,.

Did you stay in touch with them?

Yes, especially with Freddie. We became really close friends. We’d go out and see opera and ballet – he loved that stuff. He also became friends with John Taylor from Duran Duran. Me and Freddie and John would go out with Roger Taylor from Queen. Or they’d turn up at my place and we’d play cards until 4am.

Were you happy with the finished movie?

The studio didn’t meddle with me too much. The American version is different – they cut out a few scenes, like the French scene, where he keeps getting stabbed by thee guy. They also cut the World War 2 scene where he [McLeod] saves the girl who becomes his secretary later in the. Cutting it out was ridiculous – you didn’t understand why Lambert was so passionate about here. He viewed this woman like his daughter.

How do you look back on Highlander these days?

It was a complete delight, because I loved the genre. I loved the romance of it, the scope of it, I loved the music, the costumes. And when we filmed in Scotland, the Scots themselves were magnificent. I’m delighted that people are still talking about it.

Originally published in Classic Rock Presents: Queen

Guitar prodigy Grace Bowers has quit YouTube, complaining of the "old-ass creeps" among her followers on the channel.

The 19-year-old, who counts Brian May, Eric Clapton, Slash, Chris Martin, Nancy Wilson, Devon Allman, Margo Price, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Susan Tedeschi and Dolly Parton among her fans, initially came to prominence on social media, amassing more than 400,000 followers on Instagram and 60,000 on YouTube, but it appears she's had enough of the latter.

"Bye, YouTube," she said, in a now-deleted post. “I’m deeply uncomfortable with the amount of old men here. I’m no longer interested in playing blues or whatever the hell keeps attracting y'all. I'm done.

"Too many old-ass creeps. To the people who were kind, sorry others ruined it, I appreciate you. I’m making music for my own generation now, quit comparing me to dead people of the past."

Bowers has wiped all the performance videos from her YouTube account, and only the audio tracks from last year's acclaimed Wine On Venus remain, alongside some single releases.

Earlier this year, in an interview with guitar.com, Bowers expressed her frustration with social media.

“Nothing pisses me off more than someone throwing a label on me," she said. "I’m 19! The music I play now versus the music I played when I was 16 or 17 is vastly different.

“People get upset about that. I’m like, think about when you were 16… You were probably a different person. That’s what kind of sucks about being on social media all the time; I’ve grown up in front of so many people.

In the same interview, Bowers also distanced herself from the blues, the music that initially brought her to many people's attention when her cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Lenny / Scuttle Buttin went viral.

"I feel like there’s such a movement right now with hardcore and punk," she said. "Rock bands are coming back. You have Geese and Yungblud… it’s super-inspiring to me. I’m like, ‘What can I add to this?’ What I have is not straight-ahead rock; it’s very modern-sounding."

Grace Bowers' next show is at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this Thursday. Full dates below.

Grace Bowers tour dates 2026

Apr 30: New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, LA
May 14: Menlo Park The Guild Theatre, CA
May 15: Healdsburg Wine & Food Experience, CA
Jun 27: North Charleston Coliseum, SC *

Jul 10: Rotterdam North Sea Jazz Festival, Netherlands

Jul 18: Ottawa Bluesfest, ON
Aug 15: Fairport Hoochenanny Whiskey Festival, NY

* Supporting Chris Stapleton

Find Grace Bowers tickets.

Pink Floyd collaborator Polly Samson, wife and creative partner of David Gilmour, has a London photo exhibition featuring images of the creation, recording and live performance of Gilmour's Luck and Strange album.

Novelist Samson was the chief lyricist on Pink Floyd albums The Division Bell (1994) and The Endless River (2014) as well as on Gilmour’s On an Island, Rattle That Lock and 2024's Luck and Strange. During the creation of Gilmour's fifth and most recent solo album, Samson took photographs showing the progression of the creation of the album from conception to recording and from release to live performance, which were published last year in the book David Gilmour - Luck and Strange - Studio/Live. A selection of these images will feature in Samson's new exhibition, Polly Samson - Between This Breath and Then, hosted at the Leica Gallery London.

A synopsis for the show reads: "Firmly rooted in the literary world with five highly acclaimed and widely-translated works of fiction published to date, Samson has been documenting concert tours, on film and digital, for over twenty years. Her sixth book, Luck and Strange Studio/Live is a full throttle photographic ‘trip’ providing fertile and vivid ground for her inaugural show with Leica. The work offers an intimate perspective not only on the recordings and performance of an album but also on the creative process formed between two longstanding artistic partners – herself and the book’s key subject David Gilmour.

"Like her lyrics that have shaped some of contemporary music’s most resonant recordings, Samson here brings a similar sensibility to the photographic medium - there is a definite emotion that cloaks the work, deeply and sometimes darkly.

"The show begins with a portrait of the artist, David Gilmour and their dog, reflected in a large mirror, placed in a misty landscape, setting the tone for the viewers’ journey and experience which is all about atmosphere rather than spectacle. Light is king throughout her work, sometimes going to the extreme of only working with candlelight rendering intimate the brightest of recording studios. A quiet exchange of glances or familiar unspoken communication and trust is documented steadily in parallel with explosive moments of energy and the pure magic of being alive.

"Samson’s framing of image reflects her background as a writer; there is a narrative weight while remaining open, suggestive and sometimes playful – one cannot help but wonder when you look at the image ‘Muse and Magpie’ what that story is and there certainly is a very personal one. The exhibition explores questions of authorship and presence — who stands behind the lens, who occupies the frame, and how creative identity is both individual and shared.

"Through encountering this exhibition we discover a different facet of Samson’s practice, expanding her multidisciplinary oeuvre and foregrounding photography as a natural extension of her storytelling voice."

The exhibition at the Leica Gallery is open until May 7. More details here. And you can see a selection of the images alongside commentary from Samson here.

A Boston man has gone viral for walking into bars, ordering a drink, and classifying them as Bob Seger-friendly or not.

Brian Daly has spent several months on the project, which started when a friend filmed him asking to hear Seger at Charlie's Kitchen, a dive bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The bar was unable to comply, but the clip went viral, an idea was born, and Daly pivoted from reviewing local food outlets to dedicating his social media exploits to the search for bars happy to play the Detroit veteran.

"Bob Seger is absolutely timeless. He speaks for everybody," Daly tells the Detroit News. "It's working class, it's the old guy sitting at the bar, reminiscing about the old times. Bob Seger has his own sound, and he's developed his own messaging. He's just a badass dude that any American can get behind.

"When I think of Bob Seger, I think of driving to hockey practice as a second-grader, and my dad putting a Night Moves cassette in his truck. Seger reminds guys my age of being a kid, because our dads would play that stuff for us."

Since Daly's lightbulb moment, he's asked the question, "Is it a bar... or is it a Seger bar?" at dozens of different venues, and now awards Seger Bar stickers and plaques to establishments that have complied with his requests. He's even launched a range of merchandise, all of which is currently sold out.

In the few short months since that first film, Daly has been mentioned on the popular sports and pop culture show Bar Stool Sports, asked his Big Question at TD Garden – home of the NBA's Boston Celtics – and at the 5000-capacity Veterans Memorial Stadium in Quincy, MA. He's even filmed a Seger Bar segment with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey.

"I said from the beginning, I won't stop until I'm able to actually sit down with Bob Seger, ideally playing darts, hopefully having a beer," says Daly. "People always ask, 'What would you talk to him about?' And I always say the same thing: 'Absolutely nothing.' I wouldn't even mention the fact that I know who he is.

"I would just shoot the shit with him, and I wouldn't even fan out to him. I would want the full guy-at-the-bar, random-conversation experience from Bob Seger. Until I get that, I'm not gonna stop."

Brian Daly can be found on Instagram and TikTok. Bob Seger retired in 2019.

Few bands arrived with the force or mystery of Led Zeppelin. When Jimmy Page – desiring more than the regular work of a successful London session musician – assembled the group in 1968, few could have predicted just how quickly they would reshape rock music.

The late 60s had already delivered much: The Beatles, the Stones, folk rock, the blues boom and psychedelia. But Zeppelin brought something heavier, darker and more electrifying. They were like their predecessors, but also completely unlike them. They were more majestic. It was as if they arrived on pedestals. The 70s? In truth, they started the day Zeppelin released their debut album in January 1969, a full 12 months ahead of schedule.

Joining Page on his quest were singer Robert Plant, the original golden rock god, blonde of hair and bare of chest, with a voice from Olympus. Bassist and arranger John Paul Jones had the musical chops to match his guitarist. And drummer John Bonham? He was John Bonham. Enough said.

In just a few short years, they went from a hastily assembled touring band to the most exciting live act on the planet, swiftly moving from theatres to arenas and beyond to stadiums, with performances that were loud, loose and eye-wateringly lucrative. Led Zeppelin were the 1970s. At least for a while.

But how much do you really know about Zeppelin’s beginnings? Like the critically acclaimed Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary, this quiz dives into the dawn of one of rock’s greatest bands. Let us know how you got on in the comments.

A rare colour video of Led Zeppelin miming to Good Times Bad Times, the opening track on their 1969 debut album, has been found in the University of Georgia's digital archive.

The footage was originally captured in February 1969 at Thee Image Club on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach, Florida. A low-quality, black-and-white film of the band performing Communication Breakdown at the club has been circulating for years, but the Good Times Bad Times clip is in colour and has not been seen for over half a century.

Both videos were reportedly filmed for The Rick Shaw Show, an MTV-type show in Miami featuring the latest rock'n' roll songs being lip-synched by local performers and touring musicians. Hall would later become a VeeJay on The Now Explosion, a show in Atlanta, GA, that featured dancers performing to popular songs, with wild video effects employed to make the clips more psychedelic.

Footage from The Now Explosion has been archived by the University of Georgia's Walter J. Brown Media Archive & Peabody Awards Collection, where the Good Times, Bad Times clip was discovered by a Led Zeppelin fan, alongside film of Three Dog Night performing Try A Little Tenderness and James Brown miming I Got You.

"I requested digitisation of about a dozen items that had Zeppelin song titles in the description," says the fan, who goes by the name of Zep Head. "There was Whole Lotta Love, Communication Breakdown, Good Times Bad Times, What Is and What Should Never Be and Living Loving Maid all set to kids dancing. Immigrant Song was set to stock footage of a downhill ski race!

"Then there was this. I was floored! Surely we've all seen the black-and-white Communication Breakdown promo video shot in Miami in Feb 69. That grainy video. Turns out they mimed two songs that day. And Good Times Bad Times was shot in colour!"

The video, which features perhaps the clearest available colour footage of Jimmy Page's iconic Dragon Telecaster, is embedded below.

Kansas have reacted to the use of their classic song Carry On Wayward Son during a sketch on the long-running variety show Saturday Night Live over the weekend.

In the sketch, entitled Husbands (see below), a group of girlfriends (played by Chloe Fineman, Sarah Sherman, Ashley Padilla, Jane Wickline and Veronika Slowikowska) introduce their husbands (played by SNL host Jack Black, Kenan Thompson, James Austin Johnson, Andrew Dismukes and Tommy Brennan) to each other for the first time.

While the women fret in the kitchen about what their husbands in the room next door might be up to, the men, after an awkward start, break into song. Led by Black, they're swiftly committed to performing Carry On Wayward Son together, their inability to converse defeated by their shared love of the music – and a secret costume fetish. Male loneliness epidemic? What male loneliness epidemic?

"Everybody I know is sending me the clip," Kansas guitarist Rich Williams tells Vulture. "It’s another feather in our cap that adds to our legacy. We’re still out there and working, but to be acknowledged by an institution like Saturday Night Live? Wow."

"I’ve seen so many parodies and interpretations of our work," he continues. "A capella, jug bands, all kinds of stuff. So when I first watched the sketch, it made sense to me that they would go in that direction. But still, I was like, Wow. It keeps going and going. We got a lot of airtime, and that was fantastic.

"It made me think back to recording our second album, Song for America, and how both Kansas and Saturday Night Live were born almost at the same time. They were about a year after our first record, so we have a lot of shared history in Americana in general. To be acknowledged in a sketch in a funny way felt nice. It wasn’t mocking us. It was very cool. And Jack Black is one of a kind. He’s very serious, but he’s very talented. He’s a jack of all trades."

Carry On Wayward Son, written by then-Kansas guitarist Kerry Livgren, reached No. 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1977 and has gone on to become a much-loved fixture on classic rock radio.

"It’s an autobiographical song,” Livgren told Classic Rock in 2016. "Parallel to my musical career, I’ve always been on a spiritual sojourn, looking for truth and meaning. It was a song of self-encouragement. I was telling myself to keep on looking, and I would find what I sought."

Chip Monck has quite a story to tell. The lighting designer for Monterey Pop in 1967 and Woodstock two years later, he emceed the latter and was responsible for what might be rock's most infamous onstage warning: "The brown acid that is circulating around us is not specifically too good."

Five years later, he got a job hosting Speakeasy. This music discussion show, produced by advertising agency J Walter Thompson, was shown in over 100 markets and played host to a stellar list of guests, including Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Bill Wyman, Dr John, Peter Gabriel, Alvin Lee, Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, John McLaughlin, Dave Mason, Jackson Browne, Steve Miller, Bonnie Raitt, Tom Waits and Frank Zappa.

In the wake of the California Jam – the landmark 1974 one-day festival held at the Ontario Motor Speedway in California – Monck hosted two musicians who'd played at the event. Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne and Deep Purple keyboardist Jon Lord were joined in the studio by Ian Hunter from Mott The Hoople, who were in California to play shows with Aerosmith.

Footage from the broadcast has rarely surfaced in the half-century since, but Ritchie Blackmore has come to the rescue, with 45 minutes of footage appearing on the guitarist's YouTube channel this week.

In the show, the three men are entertained by Wendy Waldman, the former singer of Los Angeles folk-rockers Bryndle, and discuss a variety of subjects, including Purple's reputation as the world's loudest band, Ian Hunter's then-new book Diary Of A Rock'n'Roll Star, and Ozzy's first experiences touring the USA.

"We got off the plane, and I was expecting gangsters," says Ozzy. "I was so terrified to go out, I stayed in my room for a week. I wouldn't go out because I was so frightened."

Monck also asks the musicians about the effect of the rock'n'roll lifestyle on their lives,

"I wouldn't be doing nothing else," Ozzy reveals. "It's like living in pain, but also living in the most incredible high in the world. I had to go and see a few head doctors now and again, because it was getting too much. It takes you from one life to another."

Speakeasy was short-lived and didn't make it into 1975, but Monck went on to work with Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Muhammad Ali and dozens of other big names. He served as the lighting designer for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and for Pope John Paul II's visit to the city three years later.

In 2024, Monck's archive was accepted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum in Cleveland, OH.

Amazon's Big Spring Sale kicked-off last week and will run all the way through until Tuesday, March 31. We've already seen some brilliant savings on rock and metal t-shirts, a huge saving on a Rush box set, heavy discounts on Sony headphones and there's even a 74% saving on a NordVPN package which comes with an Amazon Gift Card worth $50.

But my head has been turned by a bunch of Star Wars merch that would struggle to fit into the Millennium Falcon's smuggling compartments.

I've been a fan of the films since I saw the original movie at the cinema back in the misty days of 1977 and I've picked out 12 of my favourite Star Wars-shaped discounts that have me salivating like a hungry Rancor.

There's collectables, video games, board games, books and more - just remember that the Big Spring Sale will be coming to an end in the next few hours - so stay on target and let the Force guide you to a nice deal.

Oh, and don't forget that Disney+ is home to the entire Star Wars universe so if you want to binge all the films and spin-offs, grab a subscription and settle down with a bucket of popcorn.

Earlier this month, Amazon UK held its first sales event of the year - now it's the turn on Amazon US to get in on the action with the Big Spring Sale rolling from March 25 through until Tuesday, March 31.

Among all the sweet discounts of vinyl, CDs, speakers, turntables and headphones, there's loads of savings on rock, metal and general music-themed t-shirts.

I've had a look through what's on offer and picked out 12 of my favourites which you can find below - and that includes 20% off the timeless Guns N' Roses Appetite For Destruction Skull Cross tee. I had one just like this back in the day but this print is available in a number of color variations.

“FUUUUCK!”

Lars Ulrich screams into James Hetfield’s face, but the frontman doesn’t flinch. It’s an extraordinary moment in the documentary Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster, as the tension that’s been ratcheting up between the pair for decades comes to a shocking climax.

For co-director Joe Berlinger, it was also a scene of great cinematic merit. “From a filmmaking point of view, when your intention is to capture raw human emotion, it was pure gold,” he says.

Some Kind Of Monster was an intimate portrait of a band working through an interpersonal crisis that had been bubbling under the surface long before the cameras started rolling. By early 2001, Metallica’s management company, Q Prime, were aware of fracturing relationships in the band, and had drafted in psychotherapist and ‘performance enhancement coach’ Phil Towle, to help ease relations as they prepared to make their eighth record. His first meeting with Metallica took place at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in San Francisco, but the smooth introduction he had intended on making did not go as planned.

“Jason came in and said: ‘I’m leaving’,” remembers Phil. “He asked me to go to the room adjacent, where I listened to him railing against the bandmates for 10 minutes. And that was chaos. I decided at some point to knock on the door and say, ‘May I come back in? This is exactly why I’m here.’ And Lars said, ‘Let him stay.’ And we started the process, which was an awkward, challenging moment.”

In a statement, Jason cited “private and personal reasons” for his departure, and “the physical damage I have done to myself over the years while playing the music that I love”. A series of interviews for Playboy, conducted two months earlier but published in March 2001, also revealed that James had forbidden Jason from releasing music with his side-project, Echobrain. “The band were stunned, and a fight ensued, and there was a lot of conflict in that first session,” Phil recalls.

The group therapy continued regardless, and during this period documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger flew over from New York. He had been in talks with Metallica about doing a film that could be released as pay-per-view content, or as a bonus featurette on the CD for their next record, but now Lars told him there might not even be a new record because Jason had quit the band. When Lars also explained they were working with a performance enhancement coach, Joe’s artistic interest was piqued; would they allow him to film the sessions? Incredibly, the band said yes.

“I remember sitting in this nice lounge room of a hotel suite, with these icons of metal, of male testosterone, opening up to each other and exploring how they feel,” Joe says. “There was a little bit of reluctance from James, but as I got to know him better, I’d say it’s amazing that he opened up on that first day with the camera in front of him.”

The session also had a therapeutic effect on Joe; he realised he wanted to continue documenting the process, and after splitting with his longtime filmmaking partner, Bruce Sinofsky, he felt compelled to reach out and bring him into the project. Filming stepped up as Metallica moved into the empty barracks at the Presidio, a former military base in San Francisco, with emotions still running high. After one particularly intense disagreement, James slammed the door behind him and did not come back.

Instead, the frontman checked into rehab. Phil knew that he would be doing intensive therapy there, and was determined that the sessions between himself and Kirk, Lars and returning producer Bob Rock should continue so the band could connect more easily when he returned.

Lars dived deep into his own past. In a segment that held a mirror up to the drummer’s perfectionism, he played demos to his father. In an astonishingly open scene, he also met with Dave Mustaine, who told him how hurtful it was to be fired from Metallica and that he missed “his little Danish friend”. He also, however, alluded to the fact that the absent James was yet to reach out.

“It was a very touching moment for them, and it was the beginning
of some healing, and also they left the meeting with some unfinished business too. It wasn’t all nicey-nice, right?” says Phil. “But I think Lars realised that there were things he wishes he could have done differently with Dave.”

Following Some Kind Of Monster’s release in 2004, Dave condemned the scene and said he had asked for it not to be included, citing unhappiness with the final cut and describing the unsettled mood he was in during filming, two days after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. However, he had already signed a release form, granting the filmmakers legal permission.

“I think two years later when he saw the scene and 9/11 was now a thing of the past, and people weren’t spiritually awake the way we were that first week, he regretted perhaps participating,” says Joe. “But I think that’s a shame. I think he is very strong and human.”

James returned from rehab with new ground rules: he would only work on their album between noon and 4pm. Resentment flared between him and Lars; was Lars allowed to listen to songs after James left for the day, if he didn’t change anything? Why couldn’t Lars just do what he wanted anyway? That frustration exploded via the sweary drummer’s most notorious utterance of one simple word: “FUUUUUUCK!”

“These guys are waiting for James. Waiting, waiting, waiting – not only waiting, but wondering whether James was ever going to come back. They were scared it was over,” explains Phil. “And when James comes marching back and says, ‘I can’t work between certain hours and certain hours’, Lars was really pissed off. Like, ‘What the fuck? We’ve been waiting for you, and you’ve controlled us for 10 months.’ And he probably felt that James had controlled them for more than 10 months, right? So this was the collision of years of frustration.”

Because of the outburst, because Lars already had a reputation for running his mouth off, and because of the recent media attention surrounding his battle with file-sharing service Napster, some fans began to turn on him.

“Lars was not being an asshole, he was just somebody who was expressing the pent-up anger he had felt,” says Phil. “And James was saying, ‘Look guys, I have to work with my family, maintain my sobriety and maintain my composure.’ So that collision was scary, but it was necessary.”

To Joe’s mind, the overarching issue was that Metallica were trying to reconcile how to make music without indulging in the practices that had earned them the ‘Alcoholica’ tag in their younger years. “I think living that ethos of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll in their 40s wasn’t working for them,” he says. “A lot has been said about the tension between James and Lars, but I think the larger issue is that the band was wanting to continue to make music, but they didn’t want to live that life that made them famous.”

Following the bust-up, work on what would later be titled St. Anger gathered speed, alongside their journey of self-reflection. Encouraged by their work with Phil, the band had started contributing lyrics collectively, but there’s one moment when the coach himself offers a suggestion, which is highlighted in the film. “That to me was a crossing of the line,” says Joe.

Not long after, James rounded on Phil and accused him of becoming too attached to a future with Metallica, suggesting it was time to terminate their involvement with each other. Caught off guard, Phil is visibly teary-eyed and shaken.

There was some background to this encounter, says Phil. A year or so earlier, he and Metallica had agreed to part ways – but then Lars had called and asked him to stay. He’d been under the impression that the partnership would continue, and admits it was difficult to hear he was no longer needed.

“The unhealthy part of me is guilty of wanting to hold on to something, because this was like a family to me,” says Phil. “It was like something I had never experienced before, personally and professionally. No person in my work gets to be with a group of people, almost every day, for 12 hours a day. The embedment makes it difficult for an ending like that. Then it was done on camera, in contradiction to what I thought was agreed upon. So that was a moment when I fumbled the ball.”

After fans saw Some Kind Of Monster, some cast Phil as the villain of the piece – criticism that was difficult to stomach, especially as he had no right of reply. But last year Lars publicly stated that Phil saved Metallica – and Joe agrees.

“I think the misperception is that he had his hooks in the band for fees and he was just looking to milk the situation,” says Joe. “I don’t think that’s the case at all. I think he’s a caring human being who wears his heart on his sleeve, and did great work in the band, and it got to the point where his job was done, and he had a hard time saying goodbye. But in having a hard time saying goodbye, he unwittingly gave Metallica the tools they needed once again to come together as a brotherhood.”

St. Anger was released on June 5, 2003. Reactions were mixed, with widespread criticism over the album’s production, in particular Lars’s snare sound. But when Some Kind Of Monster followed six months later, fans were shown how lucky they were to still have Metallica at all.

“Prior to making it, I would have told you that the role of the documentarian [during filming] is to observe, but not affect or change the outcome,” says Joe. “But what’s interesting about the Metallica film is that Lars said the cameras were like a truth serum. He felt that the therapy would not have worked if there weren’t cameras there to record it. And so while I don’t want to take credit for the salvation of Metallica, I do think Some Kind Of Monster really helped them work through their issues.”

The film was a true first, taking viewers into the private lives of one
of the world’s biggest bands, as well as showing metal musicians – with their reputation for bravado – being vulnerable with the aid of a therapist. There might be sensational scenes and occasional bursts of levity, but Joe says fans have told him it helped them to address alcohol problems, and bands have thanked him for allowing them permission to be human.

By making Some Kind Of Monster, he and Bruce, who passed away in 2015, captured an incendiary time in Metallica’s history and reimagined what a music documentary could be and do.

“When some people dismiss this film as Spinal Tap, I find that deeply offensive, because I think these guys were brave and honest and dealt with real issues that all creative people go through,” says Joe. “If you think it’s a real-life Spinal Tap, you’ve totally missed the point of the film.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 355 (November 2021)

This year's Mother's Day takes place on Sunday, March 15, but rather than go down the usual flowers and chocolates route, why not pick out something with a bit of a rock and metal edge instead?

I've picked out a pile of present ideas that will hopefully give you some inspiration when it comes to choosing a great gift for your mother, and that includes a cracking Slayer vinyl box set, a Megadeth blanket, vampire tear candles, skull-emblazoned cushion covers and a timeless AC/DC t-shirt that's available in a range of sizes and colours.

It's also worth noting that in the UK, Amazon are currently holding their Spring Deal Days shopping event that runs right through until March 16, giving you plenty more gift options for Mother's Day.

Read more

• Best gifts for metalheads: Heavy-duty gift ideas
• Gifts for Ozzy and Sabbath fans: Check out our top picks
• Present ideas for Iron Maiden fans: T-shirts, vinyl & more
• 12 must-read music books: Ozzy, Lemmy, Slash!

Jim Steinman was one of rock’n’roll’s great visionaries, a raging maniac with a head full of noise, romance and death. As a composer and producer, he brought the drama of Broadway and the scale of opera to almost everything he touched. He was Richard Wagner in a leather jacket, Phil Spector without the homicidal tendencies, the power behind the throne who refused to stay hidden.

Born in New York in 1947, Steinman was weaned on rock’n’roll, girl groups and musical theatre. By the late 1960s he had summoned up his own creative touchstone in the shape of The Dream Engine, a fantastical dystopian sci-fi musical written as a college project, that would provide source material for many of his later songs.

It was another musical, More Than You Deserve, that marked the biggest turning point in his life. Among the cast was a hulking, wild-eyed Texan named Marvin Lee Aday, known to friends and family alike as Meat Loaf. The two of them hit it off and decided to work together. It would be the making of them both.

The story of how Meat and Steinman spent two years getting laughed out of every record label office in New York while hawking the album that eventually became Bat Out Of Hell has passed into legend. Even the album’s eventual producer, Todd Rundgren, found Steinman’s outrageous vision ridiculous. “When I heard the record, I rolled on the floor laughing,” Rundgren later said. “It was so out there.”

Of course, Bat Out Of Hell was released eventually, and became phenomenally successful and swept all before it. It did more than make Steinman wealthy – it was a springboard for his greatness. Throughout the 80s and 90s, he put his stamp on albums and songs by such a diverse range of artists as Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, the Sisters Of Mercy, Celine Dion and, of course, his old friend and sometime enemy Meat Loaf. He was a master recycler, using and re-using parts or whole songs for different artists – everyone he worked with became part of the Jim Steinman Extended Universe.

Steinman’s ambitions in his later years were thwarted by illness, and when he died in 2020 the world became a less epic place. “When I sang Jim’s song, everyone stood on their feet and went crazy,” Meat Loaf said after his passing. He was referring to a single number from the musical they did all those years ago, but he could have been talking about Steinman’s whole career.

...and one to avoid

Walking down Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip now, as the milky winter daylight casts spectral fingers across the low, flat rooftops and the constant stream of cars snake their way west, you’ll notice the sidewalks are quiet.

If you want to get even the remotest hint of rock’n’roll in your veins, then it’s a long walk to the far end of Sunset where the squat Rainbow Bar & Grill building still sits. Lemmy is set in effigy at the end of the bar where he once spent so many happy hours drinking and playing the slots.

Walk through the bar and into the dark red restaurant, letting your eyes adjust to the low light. It’s so quiet in here now, but in 1987, infamous bands like Guns N’ Roses and Mötley Crüe partied here, drinking beer and whisky and eating slices of pizza as their female friends disappeared beneath the large, round table tops to kneel before them. Occasionally, a stray, stilettoed shoe sticking out from under the long tablecloth would topple an unsuspecting waiter as he passed by, and the band’s raucous laughter would follow him down.

“Slash was a friend and we sat down with Guns N’ Roses to discuss them doing the film, so I was pretty sure they would be the closing band in the movie,” recalls director Penelope Spheeris today.

The film in question was The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, the second in a trilogy of films that Penelope helmed through the 80s and 90s charting Los Angeles’ cultural underbelly. Part I (1981) focused on Hollywood’s then-burgeoning punk scene, and 1998’s Part III (arguably the strongest of the three) looked at the hardcore scene growing up around the droves of homeless kids living on the margins of society in and around Hollywood. It’s Part II, however, that has gone down in infamy.

Released in 1988, the film shone an unblinking light on the clubs and bands that were making a noise in the glam metal scene that engulfed the Strip in 1987 and 1988. Throw a can of Aqua Net around in those days and you would hit at least half a dozen singers with backcombed hair and a ‘z’ or an ‘x’ in their name just waiting for that elusive big break.

And even though Guns N’ Roses did have a singer with an ‘x’ in his name, the band eventually declined to take part in the movie.

“I met with their manager the day before we were supposed to shoot their performance and for some still-inexplicable reason, he backed out,” says Penelope with a sigh, speaking on the phone from Los Angeles. “That was very disheartening for me. I loved their music and I knew they were going to blow up.

“I distinctly remember, I wanted W.A.S.P. and Guns N’ Roses. I don’t recall exactly why Blackie [Lawless] didn’t want to be in the movie, but I do recall as a second choice I went for [then-W.A.S.P. guitarist] Chris Holmes and for obvious reasons, I am very glad I did.”

Part II is a fascinating series of vignettes of self-delusion, excess and some truly awful make-up, but there is nothing more fascinating (well, at least in the way a house fire or car crash is fascinating) than watching Chris Holmes being interviewed on a floating chair in a swimming pool, while decked out in full stage gear, completely out of his head on vodka.

At one point, as if things aren’t unhinged enough, his mother turns up poolside to berate him for his behaviour. He is part man-child and part Cookie Monster, but mostly vodka, and in a movie that often floods the lens with the grotesque, he is truly something to see.

“When Guns N’ Roses ditched out, I was fortunate enough to recruit Megadeth,” says Penelope. “I had done a couple of music videos with the guys and Dave Mustaine and I were friends, so he agreed to be the closing band in the film. I was finally able to get some heavier music in the movie.”

Penelope had originally intended for Part II to focus on heavy metal, until the producers pushed her towards glam. Although Part I wasn’t widely seen (the VHS copy Dave Grohl managed to snaffle was, he said, like getting hold of contraband. Ironically, the film has since been inducted into the US Library of Congress National Film Registry), Penelope was moved to make Part II as Los Angeles was changing before her eyes.

“In the mid-80s there was a dramatic shift in the scene on the Sunset Strip,” she says. “One night I was hanging out and I was amazed at the influx of metal fans. For me, it’s all about the study of human behaviour and preserving a moment in music history. Had it been strictly my call, the bands would have been more hardcore, heavier heavy metal.

“However, the producers found the glam side of metal more entertaining. And I guess it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, because people seem to get a giggle out of that lighter side of metal, the hair metal. The premise for all the Decline… movies is that the bands that perform must be relatively unknown, and they were.”

“What I remember was that someone in their production staff approached us over the phone and asked if we were interested in being in a movie about the Strip and the LA music scene,” says Nadir D’Priest, singer with London, a band that was not only a staple of the late-80s West Hollywood bar scene, and the starting point for a host of musicians including Nikki Sixx, Blackie Lawless and Izzy Stradlin. London were one of the most animated and gleeful acts to perform a short live set specifically for the second Decline… movie.

“It was nice to be part of the film, and I thought the movie was fucking great,” says Nadir. “I couldn’t believe that I was watching myself and our music on the giant screen – all that hard work had paid off. We had no complaints about it. My grandmother and my mom both attended the premiere at the Cinerama Dome [in Hollywood]. We were all completely hammered and riding around in a black limo.

“And it captured that whole scene; vibrant, colourful and loud! It seemed like there was a party every night in the Hills or on the east side of Hollywood. I remember all the girls on Sunset in their miniskirts, hair as high as possible, like exotic birds of paradise. The music scene was vibrant, busy, complicating, toxic, fun, destructive and basically an all-round good time! It will never ever be as it was; just awesome memories.”

“It was metal madness,” says Penelope. “You couldn’t even walk down the sidewalk. You could barely drive down Sunset Boulevard because drunk people would spill out into the street and you had to be careful not to run over them. A couple of my drunk-stoned friends actually did get hit. Luckily, they lived and partied on, like good headbangers do.

“There was no social media back then, so everyone passed out flyers to promote their bands. It was a feeling of exuberance, both guys and girls high as hell and looking for love, or at least a good lay.”

Alongside London, W.A.S.P. and Megadeth, Faster Pussycat performed for the cameras, as did Odin and Seduce (both wilfully committed to the idea of stardom or nothing, they might have changed their thinking on that now). Aerosmith talked cocaine, Poison remembered the days before fame, Kiss’s Paul Stanley did his interview from his bed (with three doting and doe-eyed ladies draped over him like wet towels on a deckchair) and Lemmy was shot from a distance, the city’s skyline framed behind him.

“For me, the most powerful moment is when Dave Mustaine is reading the lyrics to In My Darkest Hour [from 1988 Megadeth album So Far, So Good… So What!]. That seemed so significant to me,” says Penelope. “It represents the true nature of what great metal lyrics could be. And the instrumentation that went along with those lyrics gives it even more impact.

“Probably the most comedic moment in the film is when the outgoing ‘beauty queen’ at Gazzarri’s [nightclub on the Strip where both The Doors and Van Halen once played] says she is going to continue her ‘actress-ing’. And that moment when the fans are being patted down by security. Back then, the bouncers were looking for booze flasks or spiked jewellery that could be used as weapons. It was a sign of things to come. Now they have to look for real weapons. Unbelievable.”

Penelope would take some of Decline…’s tainted magic with her when she went on to direct 1992’s Wayne’s World (her biggest commercial hit) and her excellent, if rarely screened, 2001 Ozzfest documentary, We Sold Our Souls For Rock ’n Roll.

“It was totally decadent, indulgent and made the last days of Caligula look tame,” she says, 80s LA lights still burning Day-Glo red and green in her mind. “It’s dreary now. Tourists flocked in; the club owners saw the opportunity and catered to them. The real music fans and the good bands kind of faded away. It’s sad, but I’m glad I was there to experience it. And I’m glad I could capture it on film.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer issue 323 (February 2020)

The estate of late AC/DC frontman Bon Scott have announced a "robust event and merchandising plan" to celebrate what would have been his 80th birthday on July 9. The announcement comes on the anniversary of his death in 1980.

The products will include a collaboration with German studio specialist Neumann, limited edition silver and gold bars bearing Bon’s name and likeness from the Perth Mint, an artwork from renowned artist and Mental As Anything frontman Reg Mombassa, and a new Bon Scott figurine from Knucklebonz.

The Knucklebonz figurine will be based on images from AC/DC's Powerage tour in 1978, following previous editions that celebrated 1979's Highway To Hell edition and the 1976 It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock N Roll).

Elsewhere, the Dixxon Flannel Co will produce a limited-edition Bon Scott shirt in 'Heritage' tartan, Copa Football Jerseys will launch a 'Bon 80' football shirt, and a range of Bon 80 merch will be available from the Bon Scott online store.

In addition, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is providing Bon Scott video content to his official YouTube channel, which will also host a series of interviews with fans, including Rick Springfield, Bruce Howe (from Bon's pre-AC/DC band Fraternity), Sammy Hagar and Anthrax's Scott Ian.

"I was a Bon Scott fan," says Hagar. "I mean, when I first heard his voice, I said, as a singer this guy's cool. I like the way he sings, he's giving it all. He was always on the edge of his voice cracking. Just one more step and he would lose it. You know? It's like a car driver on the edge in a race and just, almost lose it at every turn. And that's how you win a race.

"So, I really liked that about him. Finally, in 76 or 77, shortly after the Montrose thing, I was on a show with AC/DC, a little 2000-seat theatre or something, and I was opening and I was really excited about that. He was really animated. And, I watched the whole show. I just loved him. I loved his demeanour. Bon was the kind of person that every guy in rock and roll loves. He's just the coolest guy."

“Bon’s attitude, demeanour and front man swagger gave him the Everyman persona that the world loved him for," says Rob Halford. "His voice, look, and on-stage character drew us all in - there’s an unmatched uniqueness that solidifies Bon's legendary status in rock'n'roll.”

"Bon Scott was the coolest singer ever – the vocal delivery, the tongue-in-cheek double entendres and the magnetic personality," says Lars Ulrich. "Those early AC/DC records – Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Let There Be Rock, Powerage, Highway To Hell – are just fucking timeless."

“Watching all those early videos like Jailbreak and stuff, it’s the best," adds Josh Homme. "I mean, AC/DC have got to be in my top one and a half favourite bands of all-time. Bon Scott could sing about rock‘n’roll, which is a hard thing to do and take seriously.”

Bonfest, the International Bon Scott Rock Festival, will take place in Kirriemuir, Scotland on May 1-3, while the third annual Bon’s Birthday Bash will take place in New York City on July 6.

Songs by Slipknot, Papa Roach, The Offspring and more have been added to the soundtrack of videogame Battlefield 6.

According to a report by The PRP, Slipknot’s Duality, Papa Roach’s Last Resort, The Offspring’s The Kids Aren’t Alright, Silly Goose’s Cowboy and Limp Bizkit’s Rollin’ (Air Raid Vehicle) are among the songs which have been added to the second season of the online first-person shooter game, which kicked off on Tuesday, February 17.

They’re available to players who pay for the Battlefield Pro Pass, which grants access to a radio station that plays music in various in-game vehicles. Rounding out the package is I’m The Problem, the title track of the 2025 studio album by country star Morgan Wallen.

Battlefield 6 launched back in October and was an instant success, amassing a peak concurrent player count of 747,000 the day it came out. Limp Bizkit partnered with composer Henry Jackson to put together the soundtrack of the game, which featured fellow nu metal acts such as Godsmack and Drowning Pool during the first season.

To promote the release, Limp Bizkit released their single Making Love To Morgan Wallen, to which the country musician’s inclusion this time around is likely a reference. They also put out the song Battlefield: The After-Party, a reworking of the Battlefield theme.

In an interview published on the Hollywood Records YouTube channel, Jackson explained how Limp Bizkit joined the project. “In a really early meeting, I just threw out, ‘Does anyone got a sentence or key word?’,” he remembers (via Rolling Stone). “And I guess, it not being a romantic comedy – it being a video game – the word that came out straight away was ‘destruction.”

He added: “There was a lot of aggression techniques in the engineering and [production]. It’s not polite.”

Season two was supposed to drop last month, but it was delayed so that the developers could “develop and refine” it following fan feedback.

Producer Phil Girette told TechRadar: “Season two is definitely bigger than what we have done in season one. We have the maps, we think they’re going to be quite strong. We have the additional gameplay mechanics. We have popular vehicles coming back like the Little Bird. There’s a whole new addition in REDSEC [a battle royale-style gaming mode] itself as well.”

Making Love… and The After-Party may well be followed by more Limp Bizkit music, as the band confirmed last spring that they were in the studio. Their last album, Still Sucks, dropped in 2021, 10 years after its predecessor, Gold Cobra.

Meanwhile, Slipknot are set to release a new project entitled Look Outside Your Window after much delay on Record Store Day, April 18. The melodic rock release features singer Corey Taylor, DJ Sid Wilson, guitarist Jim Roots and percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan and was recorded during the sessions for 2008’s All Hope Is Gone.

Monday, February 16, 2026 marks Presidents' Day in the US - a day that was originally established in 1879 to honour the birthday of the first US president, George Washington, who was born on February 22.

Originally called Washington's Birthday, the name was changed in 1971 to Presidents’ Day and it now takes place on the third Monday every February - and with it being a federal holiday, many online retailers cut prices on a whole range of products to mark the event.

I’ve picked out a selection of excellent deals on everything from portable CD players and headphones, to Funko collectables and t-shirts which you can find below.

But before you scroll down, I've got to give a massive shout-out to Hot Topic, who currently have a site-wide sale on offering up to 70% off a huge range of clothing, collectables, pin badges, quirky gifts and more. There's only a limited time left, so grab something straight away if you see something you love.

If you're a fan of tv and film streaming services, YouTube TV has a nice offer over Presidents' Day. Sign up now, and you'll save $46 for your first two months. That's down from the usual monthly price of $82.99 to $59.99. You also get a 10-day free trial thrown in for good measure.

Presidents' Day deals

• Amazon: Daily deals and more
• Best Buy: Major tech savings
• Guitar Center: Up to 30% off for Presidents' Day
• Hot Topic: Up to 70% off site-wide
• Lego: Savings on family favourites
• Marshall: Massive Loud For Less sale
• Target: Deals on headphones and speakers
• Walmart: Tech picks and more

You wait 40 years for Iron Maiden to make it to the big screen, and then three appearances happen all at once. First, The Trooper popped up in the (movie-length) finale of Stranger Things in January, then Number Of The Beast stole the show in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. Now, Maiden are back for a third bite of the pie as Killers appears on the soundtrack to Corin Hardy's new horror movie Whistle.

Released this Friday (February 13), Whistle follows a group of high schoolers who discover an Aztec death whistle that, when blown, summons death for all who hear. So naturally, someone blows it and bloody, gloriously gory mayhem ensues - watch the trailer below.

Basically, think Nightmare On Elm Street crossed with Final Destination with a bit of It Follows and The Monkey chucked in for good measure. Sound good? It is!

Hammer caught up with director Corin Hardy to talk about the movie's killer, genre-blurring soundtrack and just how important music is to this film - including a mammoth hundred-plus song playlist the director made to help actors and crew get into the Whistle spirit - which you can listen to at the bottom of the page.

It seems appropriate for a movie about a cursed instrument to have a plot-relevant soundtrack…

Corin Hardy: “I always used to make compilation tapes when we did that, and now I make playlists. When I got to making Whistle, first thing I did was put together a few-hundred song playlist called DEATH LIVES that was basically bands that were part of the vision I was having. That involved music from the 70s, 80s and 90s in a mix of genres but a lot of rock, goth and metal, as well as a lot of electronic music and techno stuff.”

And what happened with that playlist?

“I sent it out to the cast and crew. Basically, I just said, ‘If you fancy listening to where my head was at…’ I think it just helps form this movie I was making. That was the start point and then I even started working things into the script with specific bands and songs I would hope to get into the film. I’ve actually made that playlist public, so you can listen to that as well as the digital soundtrack and we’ll also have a vinyl score release [coming this Friday] because that was made by Doomphonic.”

How important was the music to the story?

“I’m trying to make a movie that is timeless, but also a nod to classic horror movies of the 80s like Nightmare On Elm Street and The Lost Boys but also The Breakfast Club. If you think of those movies, you’ll also have music you’ll instantly think of – Don’t You Forget About Me in Breakfast Club, Cry Little Sister in Lost Boys… The movie is set now but I wanted to work certain types of music in.”

So what decided which songs would make the final cut?

“I was actually inspired by this post I’d seen on Twitter, when I was on that platform once upon a time. It was a woman who said her dad had died, but he’d left her his record collection. So each day she posted some album artwork and said she was getting to know him through that, which I thought was so brilliant and moving.

I really identified with that – my brother Robin [Guy, drummer for Rachel Stamp] died a year and a half ago and we had a very close bond. He drummed in various rock and punk bands and he got me into music – he got me into Iron Maiden when I was eight years old. So this idea of connecting with someone through music was really important.”

And that literally comes up in the film.

“Yeah! With Chris – the character Dafne Keen plays – her father has left her this jacket and record collection. So she’s introduced in the movie listening to this collection of albums, getting to know him through it. What we hear in the movie is rooted in her character. That was my starting point, but I was looking for opportunities in the script for sequences.

This was before we started shooting too, so like Joey by Concrete Blonde is playing on the record player in the script. It’s pretty dangerous to do that because you don’t know if you’re going to curse it and never actually get the track. I’d done music videos for The Prodigy and I wanted to get bands that would identify into this kind of movie.”

Is there a theme to the songs?

“There’s something in all of the bands’ lyrics that is relevant to Whistle or to death, like Omen by The Prodigy. It’s about a death whistle that when you blow it, it calls upon your future death to hunt you down. But there’s a commentary about death, life and mortality going on. I’d heard the band CHVRCHES – more of a sort of modern, electronic band who have a retro sound and they had a song called Final Girl. It just felt so made for a horror movie – like something you’d hear in Nightmare On Elm Street 4 in 1989 or something.”

How did you get bands to sign on?

“I reached out! I’ve known Gunship for a while through Dan Haigh, because back when I did music videos, I did some for Fightstar and also gave my voice to a song of [Gunship's] called Cthulhu. They’d done a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time that felt heartbreaking, which helped tap into this character Rel [Sky Yang], who is an outsider, artistic weirdo type. He’s obsessed with this character called The Revenger, and is like me when I was 14. So I tied some bands in to different characters.

There’s a Tiger Army track, Dark And Lonely Night that worked really well and I wanted to use that because over the years I’ve been flagging different tracks and thinking, ‘I’d love to get this in a movie.’ Then finally, there’s a romantic scene where the lead character is alone in her bedroom, trying to contact this girl through a message and there’s a lot of longing, uncertainty and romance going on and that Tiger Army track is perfect – it sounds like Elvis as a gothic vampire.”

Were there any songs that didn’t make the final cut?

“A few. There was a Suicidal Tendencies song I wanted to use, Type O Negative too. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, we can’t find a place for it. I wanted to try and get Rachel Stamp, my brother’s band, in and I’ve always loved this song of theirs called Witches Of Angelholm which has such a groove in the guitar riff and the lyrics, ‘Hey little girl…’ which worked perfectly for the Harvest scene.”

How did Maiden come into the picture?

“Iron Maiden were my first love, the first band I got into in the world of rock and heavy metal. I always was like, ‘I want to feature a Maiden track’ and had got to know them and their management, we’d done things together like carving pumpkins for the Eddie videogame. I contacted them and they’re very particular about who gets to use their music. This year they’ve got Number Of The Beast in [28 Years Later] The Bone Temple, The Trooper in Stranger Things and now Whistle has Killers.”

Have you seen those others?

“Oh yeah. They’ve got the best scene in The Bone Temple!”

Maiden have a good presence in the film even before they show up on the soundtrack…

“What Maiden stands for as a band was relevant to this strength that Chris as an individual has. I didn’t want it to just be, ‘She’s the goth weirdo and she listens to goth weirdo music.’ She’s got a number of tastes going on. But Maiden are actually quite symbolic for Chris through the film – she’s into that stuff and has this Live After Death vinyl early on in the movie, but then you’ve got characters like Ellie (Sophie Nélisse) who is very safe and set in her ways early on, but when those characters come together they become like Ying and Yang where they need to work together to fight this terrible death whistle curse. So when you see a Maiden t-shirt pop up [later in the movie], it’s a subtle hint things are changing.”

It’s wild that Maiden haven’t really featured in movies or TV for years and have now been in three big projects in as many months.

“Well yeah! I think they’re in Demons [1985 horror directed by Lamberto Bava], but it was a real honour [to get them for the soundtrack]. I actually got The Duellists in Gangs Of London too, which is also featured for a good reason.”

You mentioned The Revenger earlier – that’s something you created for this movie… it’s very The Crow, isn’t it? You were attached to that movie for a few years, would you still want to try making your vision?

“I did like three years of pre-production, nearly making The Crow. It was more of an opportunity [in this film] to say something about Rel. Originally in the script, Rel was obsessed with The Green Lantern, but when I read that it was like, ‘I’m not a massive Green Lantern fan’ so suddenly I don’t identify with the guy as much. Plus, we wouldn’t be able to clear The Green Lantern.

So without spoilers, with his arc it made more sense for him to take on characteristics of this character he’s obsessed with who’d be like The Punisher or The Crow. So we got to design a new superhero! I was amazed to clear the name ‘The Revenger’, which was pretty cool. I knew there’d be things like him sitting on the roof in the rain, so it’s a gravitation towards the kind of costumes and things I knew and did growing up.”

It feels like there’s a lot of brilliant easter eggs in the film.

“Absolutely. There’s one key sequence that stood out to me, which was a real challenge to do. It definitely took inspiration from Wes Craven’s Nightmare On Elm Street where Tina gets dragged up to the ceiling, or Johnny Depp gets sucked into the bed.

But there was also a bit of American Werewolf In London going in – the transformation scene where we see it happen right in front of your eyes. So we wanted to have a transformation sequence using different techniques like prosthetics, animatronics, puppetry, contortionists, wire work… all these visual effects to create an illusion that feels visceral and immersive.”

No spoilers, but my hand still feels weird after seeing it.

“That was actually done with a real, in-camera animatronic that they built!”

Is there a future for Whistle as a franchise?

“The mythology felt too simple and effective to not want to tell more stories within it. With something like this, while you’re making it – all the way through to the edit – you’re honing and exploring what it is. In some ways this is the first story of this death whistle, but with this mythology it could be in different time periods, settings and whatever. Given the opportunity, I’d be excited about doing more stories in this world."

WHISTLE is released in cinemas in UK and Ireland from February 13. The official WHISTLE SCORE by Doomphonic will also be released on digital platforms February 13. The Vinyl through MUTANT will be released soon.