Attention Deficit Delirium

GUEST BLOGGER: GAIL FLUG

Strange musical covers, mash-ups and parody have been around for years, but they are often regarded as a novelty. Other times, taking  samples of classic rock tracks into a new format has been called sacrilege — anyone remember “Come With Me”, Puff Daddy’ s re-creation of Led Zeppelin’s  “Kashmir”?  So it’s no wonder that the very idea of a band re-working Beatles classics in the style and lyrical content of Metallica would be met with skepticism, blasphemy and/or great interest.  Fortunately for one Midwestern quartet it’s been more of the latter due to solid musicianship, clever song arrangements and, above all, their keen sense of humor.

What started as spoof has given Beatallica — guitarist / lead vocalist Jaymz Lennfield, guitarist Grg Hammetson III, bassist Kliff McBurtney and drummer Ringo Larz — an international following with several albums under their belt (some available via download only), world tours and recognition from both the Metallica and Beatles camps. In fact, Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich came to their aid when they were having legal issues with Sony, who owns much of the Beatles catalog.

I was lucky to catch one of their shows  earlier this year and chatted with Jaymz Lennfield, who still seems quite amazed that this quirky mix-up of two musical giants has taken his band this far.  As a devoted metalhead who has adored the Beatles since I can remember, I found them to be one of the coolest and most entertaining bands I’ve seen in a while.


Were you in a band with any of the other guys before you were in Beatallica?
Not directly. I grew up playing in the same scene with Grg Hammetson, our guitar player. We’ve known each other about 20 or 21 years, since we were kids playing these crossover metal/punk type things back in Milwaukee, but I know that Ringo and Kliff used to play in the same spacey prog metal band together, and that was about eight or 10 years ago. So we’ve all played around but not always directly together. Milwaukee is a small scene, so you know who everybody is.

Are you more of a Beatles fan or a Metallica fan?
Just because of the era that I grew up in I’m definitely a metal fan. My avatar on our forum is me in KISS make up with a guitar when I was four years old. I wanted to be Ace Frehley. I’ve always been into metal and rock. It wasn’t until later that I started getting into Beatle-esque sorts of things. I was listening to Cheap Trick, which is a very Beatle-esque band with their vocal harmonies. A lot of the Beatles’ later stuff, the Paul McCartney stuff, has this early Americana flavor to it, a lot of vaudeville stuff. My grandma was a piano player and a dancer, and she started getting me into that side of life. Not that I dance, mind you, but at least [it opened me up] as far as expanding my knowledge base and learning that there was more out there besides “Calling Dr. Love”.

Did you listen to the Beatles a lot when you were growing up?
Yeah. Not a lot of my other friends did. It wasn’t until I reached high school that I met some guys who were really into that sort of thing. Both were guitar players around town, and we’d just hang out and do that. We were the weird guys with the basement parties that wanted to listen to Revolver instead of [Iron Maiden’s] Killers.

People don’t realize it all came from them.
Yeah. Kliff and I have this running gag at a show every now and then about what the first heavy metal song ever written was. I said it was “Helter Skelter”. He claims it was [Iron Butterfly’s] “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” because it came out a matter of months before. We have this Professor Kliff against Jaymz Lennfield war that goes on onstage. It’s pretty funny.

I would say it was “Helter Skelter”.
Then you would fail Kliff’s class.

“Grg and I save a file of stuff that’s called ‘We Hate You’. It’s just great because you get truly honest opinions of what’s on people’s minds.”

How did this all happen, combining the Beatles and Metallica?
We all love having fun, and April Fools’ Day brings about a time in Milwaukee for a festival called Spoof Fest, where local musicians do parody and satire of other musicians and bands that they like. So one year we were doing the works of Muttallica, and I was James Hetfield in Muttallica. To up the ante a little bit we started making these MP3s of just fun songs that we did for April Fools’ Day, and we handed them out at the show. This festival is 17 years old — I book it, so it’s one of my babies — and this thing got onto the Internet without us knowing it. Some guy put it up on the Internet because he was a Beatles radio host, and he got a hold of me six months later. He said, “Hey, you don’t know who I am, but do you want to come out and meet me for a drink?” I said, “I’ve got a girlfriend, dude.” He was like, “No, I want to talk to you about your band.” I was like, “I’m not in a band, man.” “You are now.” He showed me all this e-mail that his radio show was getting and said we needed to write some more tunes. Those were the simple beginnings that lead to more drastic middles and uncharacteristic ends.

What was Metallica’s initial reaction to this? I know that Lars has pretty much been in your court.
They were first turned on to it when they were touring Europe with the St. Anger stuff, and a reporter from the UK sat down with them presumably to talk to them about their tour, and a couple of questions in he presses play on a boombox that’s got our CD in it. He asked, “Have you heard of these guys?” They didn’t know what it was. Three weeks later they’re in Italy somewhere, and a reporter sits down, asks if they have heard of us, presses play on a CD and it’s us. They thought it was a little weird, so they started doing some recon about what we were all about. At first they may not have been put off but were certainly skeptical about what this was all about because no one had ever done anything like it before, and all of a sudden it’s getting out and almost getting a little bit out of control. We didn’t even know what it was all about.

When did it officially become a band?
We did this second group of songs, just myself and our old guitar player; we did all the drum, bass, guitars and vocals. We put that on April 1st again, as a sort of anniversary gift to the Internet. We thought just in case we should get a bass player and a drummer, just in case. Several weeks later we got flown to El Paso, Texas to headline a festival, so it didn’t take long for us to start playing once we released that second set of MP3s. From there people started writing and blogging about it and asking us to come here and there, and [people] in Europe got a hold of us and asked us if we were interested in doing a Euro tour. We were like, “Yeah, what do we got to do?” We toured Europe twice before we were even signed, and it’s because of the power of the Internet. At that time it was the rise of MySpace — now it’s declining — but things like that, just viral networking.





It kind of comes full circle because the way that Metallica got signed was through tape trading. These days it’s like instant tape trading online.
Back then it would’ve taken three weeks for a tape to go from a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy to get from New York to San Francisco, and then the quality isn’t good. Now you put it on the Internet, and it’s instant and irretrievable. That could be to your benefit or to your disadvantage if you’re not careful with it, and I think a lot of people forget that. Once you do something you’re out there now, and it’s a permanent record. We try to be cognizant of that with the way we handle ourselves and what we do on the Internet. We want to serve as an example of the good things that the Internet can be. There a lot of bad things out there of what the Internet can be now because people don’t know how to handle powerful technology. Even people who write into the Beatallica Facebook [page] — there’s a guy out there who shall remain nameless who has been writing in pretty consistently over the last two weeks. He hates us. I keep thinking to myself, “You know, dude, every time you post on our Facebook you’re putting yourself out there for thousands upon thousands upon thousands of Beatallica fans who will infiltrate your page.” And they do. There was this other guy from Pittsburgh who was railing on us on our MySpace, and five minutes later another group from Pittsburgh wrote in on our MySpace and was threatening this kid. This kid looks like he was a little touched in whatever way, and there was this guy going, “We are going to kill that fucking kid!” We find it funny. Grg and I save a file of stuff that’s called “We Hate You”. It’s just great because you get truly honest opinions of what’s on people’s minds.

Are you hated or loved by more Metallica fans or Beatles fans?
We’re hated by more Metallica fans. If people get really incensed, they’re generally going to be a Metallica fan, but if people are really passionate about loving the band they also tend to be Metallica fans. We’re just finding that the metal/rock side of life has a lot more spit in them either way. The Beatles fans tend to be a little bit more mellow. If they don’t dig it they kind of just let it go, but if they do dig it, they tend to be a little bit more calm in their demeanor. I think you can be a fan or not a fan of something, and it doesn’t have to rule your life. It’s good to have passion about music — I understand passion about music, everyone in this band does — but it doesn’t completely control our lives. It runs them to an extent, but there’s plenty of music out there I don’t like. But I’m not hacking on Lady Gaga’s message board.

Have you heard anything from the estates of the various Beatles or the surviving Beatles?
Everything has to be run through the mill. We have legal folks that have contact with various licensors from the Beatles. I pretty much deal with Metallica directly, which is cool. Some of it goes well with the Beatles camp, and some of it is a little bit trickier because not all of the Beatles catalog is owned by one person or one company. If it’s their cup of tea, then they’re cool and things come to pass, but if it’s not their cup of tea it’s little bit more of a fight. We have songs that have been denied and things that have been delayed. That’s just the nature of the beast and will continue to be with this band.

I’ve noticed that a majority of what you tackle is Lennon/McCartney stuff.
It’s just the way that it is, and we know that it’s going to be like that. Nothing is easy with this band. We have just grown to accept that, as unfortunate as it may be. But we also know that the things we do accomplish — what we have done and will do — nobody has done this before. This is a band entity that had not been taken on until we came along, so in some ways this is pretty groundbreaking stuff — the way that music is look at and interpreted, the way that legal arrangements and partnerships have been made. It’s a different beast, and it’s a different beast live, too. When you see it actually happening front of you, and you’re hearing it, it’s a different sort of band. That’s what makes it really fun.

“We have songs that have been denied and things that have been delayed. That’s just the nature of the beast and will continue to be with this band.”

When you guys are writing, what comes first, the Beatles song or a Metallica song?
It depends. It can be a riff, it could be a lyrical line, it could be a song title. We just submitted a bunch of these titles that we would like to start working on, so it depends on what inspiration strikes first. The first Beatallica song was written around a riff, the second Beatallica song was written around a song title. There are different ways to create.

Are there any Beatles songs you tried to work with that just didn’t happen?
Oh yeah. We were working with a tune called “Within You Without You” that just hasn’t gone yet.





How did the concept for “All You Need Is Blood” come up?
It was a message to the fans. Initially that was going to be put out on Valentine’s Day in one of these past years, and then we started doing these translations of the song. [Editor's note: There are fourteen versions of the song in different languages on the single.] People would send us translations upon request, and we swore them to secrecy on it. They would translate it as they wanted to translate it, so their translated lyrics are not necessarily my American English lyrics. If they wanted to put in some of the things about what is going on their own culture or what pisses them off or people that they think are posers, they’re in the song, and it’s is another great example of how interactive Beatallica can be. I sang that stuff verbatim, and hopefully they would send in a phonetical translation along with their lyrics so I could at least get close. It was fun and was a challenge.

So you have no idea what you were singing, to an extent?
Relatively.

How has doing this band affected you as a musician?
It makes you better. You have to learn to work within multiple parameters. The vocal imitation makes you a different sort of singer. It’s not like I walk around talking or singing like that all day. I wasn’t even in a rock band before I was in Beatallica. I was playing acoustic music. All of that stuff makes you a better musician — at trying to be creative, at trying to be clever, not school grade funny. It’s a higher level of intelligence and fun, but yet it needs to be accessible. You don’t want to be a geek about it. You want to make it accessible to the listener. I think the more that we do it, the better we get at it. The mash-ups on the Masterful Mystery Tour CD is some of our best stuff. It’s fun and it’s sonically good, and that’s the idea that we’re looking for. Any band wants to be that, and we’re like any other rock band. We compose, we play and do anything that any other rock band does. It’s just that we’re a little more bizarre than other rock bands.

I think any form of parody has to be clever to be successful. Did you see the Simpsons episode parodying the Beatles history?
Oh yeah.

Friends of mine that are not into the Beatles as much as I am find it funny, even though they don’t quite get the joke. I think even people who don’t know the Beatles stuff might like you because it’s arranged very cleverly and is very musical. But if you know Metallica and know the Beatles, it just makes it that much greater.
If you know them, then you get the inflection of the humor more. The music tends to be the more intelligent side of the mash-up, and the lyrics tend to be the more humorous side of the mash-up. Plus we’re putting in our own stuff. We’re putting in our own lyrical phrases and working with time signatures and phrasing on guitars and drums and everything. We definitely put in our share of writing.

Which Beatles member would you want to be with on a desert island?
George Harrison, if it were a deserted island. If I were kicking around Manhattan, it would probably be with [Paul] McCartney. It depends where you are.


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Attention Deficit Delirium, in conjunction with Buena Vista Home Entertainment, has given away one Blu-ray set of Lost: The Complete Collection.

The following subscriber, picked through a random lottery, has won:

Steve Kidd
Franklin Lakes, NJ

Congratulations to Steve and a special thanks to Buena Vista Home Entertainment!

Thank you to everyone for reading Attention Deficit Delirium!

Exciting horror and sci-fi giveaways are in the works for October! Stay tuned!




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“Lost: The Complete Collection” Blu-ray Giveaway!




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Elizabeth Mitchell: Hero. Villain. Mom.





Oh joy, it’s back to school time. Those hallowed high school halls are heaven for some, hell for others and a chance for all to reflect on our ever-deteriorating educational system. But hey, think of it this way — the good old days of education weren’t always so good.

Don’t believe me? Check out my latest MSN Movies feature, “Be Cruel To Your School,” which examines reforms on both sides of the teachers’ desk, from the Fifties through to today. The story was inspired by the Twisted Sister song “Be Chrool to Your Scuel,” which included the lyric: “Be cruel to your school/’cause you may never get another.” The song’s controversial video, which featured a high school invaded by flesh-eating zombies, was banned from the airwaves in 1985. Luckily the movie Dance Of The Dead took the premise into feature-length territory in 2008 with hilarious results.



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GUEST REVIEWER: KATE KOTLER, Founder/Editor-in-Chief of Geek Girl On The Street.


Mondo Urbano from Oni Press is hard to quantify upon first read. The trade paperback, released this past July, takes the reader through the first four of Rafael Albuquerque, Eduardo Medeiros and Mateus Santolouco’s mini-comics: PowerTrio, Overdose, Cabaret, Encore and Bonus Track. Centered around the Kurt Cobain-esque character Van Hudson and his band De-Mo, this first trade lays out the groundwork for the storyline and characters to further develop in future issues.

The story is an age old one: nerdy, wanna be musician buys a possessed guitar and makes a deal with the Devil. The Devil then transforms aforementioned nerdy, wanna be musician into a Rock God, making him rich and famous beyond his wildest expectations. Of course, as with any “possessed by the Devil” story, there is a hefty price to pay and a life is lost in the process…but that clearly is to come in later Mondo Urbano issues.

Sex, drugs and rock n’ roll is as good a theme for a graphic novel as any, and with an endorsement from legendary horror writer Stephen King on the cover, I had nothing but the highest expectations for this book.

Thankfully, it did not disappoint.

Although the dialog is a tad disjointed — which I attribute to the process of translating the book into English from Portuguese — the stories are complex yet pretty easy to follow, and it’s clear to see how they are all eventually going to come together. The tales explore themes of friendship, dying love and the good fortune that comes with being in the right place at the right time. Spun together to occur on the night that Van Hudson mysteriously commits suicide, the characters developed in each chapter profoundly feel the impact of Hudson, his deal with the Devil and De-Mo’s rise to fame that alters the course of each character’s life.

The artwork is pretty cartoon-ish (which is fine with me), the black and red on green gives the book an overall sense of something being wrong, or off –- a sickly hue, if you will –- indicating an artistic theme to the book which matches its story development.

As with all good graphic novels or comic books, I was pissed when I was done reading it because each story ending left me hanging and wanting a resolution for the characters. So I’m pretty stoked to read the next installment, “Ed’s in Trouble,” which is due out in 2011.  If you haven’t checked out this latest offering from Oni — which is being touted as the “next Scott Pilgrim” – heavy words, dudes — I do recommend picking it up and giving it a read.


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While I was visiting Monte-Carlo back in June, I wandered by an elegant apartment complex that housed an art gallery on its second floor. An intriguing display outside of the front window caught my eye, with the surreal imagery of photographer Franck Doat luring me back in the next day, when his exhibit first opened. I managed to have the gallery to myself for a little while just prior to the arrival of the artist himself, who came in to do a television interview for a local station.

Doat speaks French and little English; I speak English but have regrettably become very rusty with my French. Regardless, I was able to express my admiration for his work and traded contact information and was later sent the images you see below. The images in the exhibition were evidently shot in or near Paris and Beirut.

Much of Doat’s work has that strange, distorted look one experiences when spying one’s reflection in a funhouse mirror, and many of his images give curves and fluidity and breathe life into chiseled or constructed objects with sharp edges (like statues and buildings) that allow you to look at them in a trippy new light. Many of his photographs feature duplicated images that have been warped or anthropomorphized in the same way, hence the title of this story, although clearly he offers other perspectives as well. You can see for yourself below. (I have captioned the photos with my own tongue-in-cheek words. Hold your mouse pointer over the image for the title.)

During our brief chat, Doat told me he would like to come to New York. Hopefully we’ll be seeing his work in Manhattan soon. It’s far more engrossing to absorb it in person. By the way, it turns out that Doat also paints and is a sculptor as well.





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Who: Jacoby Shaddix, lead singer for Papa Roach.
What: The Top 5 MP3s in his iPod right now.
Where: Northern California.
Latest Album: Time For Annihilation…On The Record & On The Road



1. THE BEATSTEAKS “Demons Galore” — The meter, the tempo and the aggression behind the track just gets me off.

2. THE PRODIGY “Spitfire” — That’s another song that gets me pumped up before the rock show. I like that band.

3. HARD-FI “Middle Eastern Holiday” — They’re kind of like a new version of the Clash. They’re from the UK, they’re badass. They’ve just got that grimy attitude with a little dance raga sound to it.

4. WEEZER “Troublemaker” — That’s me and my son’s theme song when we’re together. It’s the jam. He just jams out in the back of the car every time when I’m playing it. It’s cute.

5. SOCIAL DISTORTION “Highway 101″ — That’s just a put-the-top-down, cruising type song. I think Mike Ness is a great storyteller. If you break it down, they are one of the most influential punk rock bands.


Live versions of Jacoby’s picks: The Beatsteaks, The Prodigy, Hard-Fi, Weezer and Social Distortion.



Other Digital Playlists:

Chuck Billy




Hansi Kürsch




Floor Jansen




Clint Lowery





GUEST BLOGGER: GAIL FLUG



Long before the Internet, downloading and file sharing, a new release from a popular band was exciting and met with great anticipation. I have fond memories of my parents bringing home the Beatles’ Abbey Road and listening to it for the first time in my brother’s bedroom. (Not sure if it was the exact day it came out, but I’m sure it was close. My folks were good that way.) Throughout my teen years and beyond, music remained a major part of my life, and I would badger local record stores every day to ensure that I bought a new album within days of its release. Even when I started getting advance copies of releases — a perk of being a journalist — it was still a thrill to crack open an album jacket or jewel case from a band I loved.

But now that music and other entertainment have gone digital, a great part of that pleasure is missing. Although it is quite amazing that downloading allows music and video to be available instantly at our fingertips, am I showing my age by thinking that listening to this format alone de-values music? Do people who are truly passionate about music feel that files on an iPod are the equivalent of owning a piece of vinyl or a CD?

Proof positive I am not alone in this way of thinking: I was among the many Iron Maiden fans that attended a “Two Minutes To Midnight” Sale at Looney Tunes in West Babylon, New York last week to purchase the band’s new album The Final Frontier as soon as it was available to the public. The ages of those online (in the store, not on their PC) ran from old school fans like me who have been following them for decades, to those in their late teens and twenty somethings who likely discovered the band from their parents’ collections, YouTube or elsewhere. I’m sure there would have been teens and even tweens there if the event weren’t happening so late. (The band’s recent Madison Square Garden show was attended by generations of fans.) Most customers at Looney Tunes purchased the album in at least two if not all of the formats — regular CD, deluxe CD and a double-disc vinyl set — resulting in over 50 sales in less than an hour. According to store manager John Ramacca, it was expected that several hundreds more would be sold by week’s end in addition to back-catalog and other Maiden-related merchandise. (Store owner Karl Groeger later reported that the store sold over 300 CDs total for the week, plus vinyl sales. “Digital who?” he quipped. The album ultimately debuted at #4 in America, Maiden’s highest chart position in America ever.)

Despite what the industry believes, there are still people out there that want to purchase music in a format they can have and hold in their hands. A prime example is Capitol Records underestimating the popularity of the re-mastered Beatles box sets. The marketing concept was brilliant: a Wednesday release on 9-09-09, the same day as The Beatles Rock Band video game. Months and months of advertising and promotion preceded the date, which was circled on fans’ calendars around the world, yet Capitol failed to believe that the biggest band in the universe would generate sales. They produced only 10,000 copies of the in-demand Mono box — when Amazon.com ordered 40,000 alone — and the Stereo box sold out at most chains in hours. It wasn’t a matter that stores didn’t order it; major chains received copies in the double digitals at most while, according to John, independent stores like Looney Tunes were not even sure they were getting any until they actually arrived. Fortunately, Capitol announced prior to the 9-09-09 release that they would produce more of both box sets and harmony was restored in Pepperland.

Music sales are indeed down from years past — yes, in part due to illegal downloading — but today there is more competition for consumers’ dollars for entertainment. Video games, iPhones, overpriced concert tickets, cutting-edge gadgets and even gourmet coffee habits have taken a share of the cut. At the same time, according to Soundscan, sales for vinyl — the ultimate opposite of digital technology — are up 33% from 1.8 million in 2008 to 2.5 million last year. That’s still a niche market, but ultimately for a majority of people, the tangible music formats of vinyl and CD are still the desired formats as they provide packaging, superb sound quality and a sense of permanence. Many digital music files offer substandard audio, and all of them are only as safe as the device they are stored on. Like email, they can be deleted with the touch of a keystroke. And listening to an iPod in less than optimal conditions does not do many songs justice.

As someone who loves music and still owns and treasures the first record they owned, I’m glad younger generations are learning that what may become the soundtrack to their lives should be more than a series of zeros and ones on a machine that fits in their back pocket.


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One of my favorite Eighties fantasy movies — okay, really one of my favorite ever — is the sword ‘n’ sorcery spectacle that is Krull. Released in the summer of 1983, amid the frenzied activity of both the post-Conan fantasy boom and the Stars Wars-inspired sci-fi wave, this was an over-the-top cinematic epic that combined Errol Flynn-like swashbuckling with (then) modern sci-fi/fantasy action, storytelling and effects. It was also rather tongue-in-cheek, featured future stars Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane, had some fantastic, surrealist set design in the Black Fortress and offered up a stirring score by James Horner. And let’s not forget the Glaive, that flying, five-pointed, bladed weapon with intense laser power that was a driving gimmick in the story.

La-La Land Records recently reissued the Krull soundtrack in a limited edition, two-disc version, and it is essential for any fan of the film. Despite some people today deriding this movie as cheesy, it is a hell of a lot of fun, and part of that is due to Horner’s rousing compositions. At the time the composer was still a relative newcomer to the Hollywood scene, although he had already written and conducted the scores for Wolfen, The Hand, 48 Hrs. and Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. We now know him as the man responsible for the music in Titanic, Avatar, Aliens and Field Of Dreams, among many others.

Following is a montage of Krull clips set to some of the score. (Admittedly it uses key scenes, so proceed with caution. You could also simply listen.) Experience the power of the Glaive and the majesty of a young James Horner!






Thankfully Futurama has been given a second shot at weekly series life, and because it already amassed a sizable collection of episodes with its previous five seasons (if you include those four recent feature-length movies), the mirthful, animated sci-fi spectacle celebrates its 100th episode tonight. It also happens to be the sixth season finale. Having caught some of the new episodes already, it’s obvious that the writers still have fresh ideas, whether parodying the cult of Apple (if that’s how you view it) or hypothesizing how outer space cats were actually the aliens that brought advanced technology to mankind (hey, it could have happened).

Here are two sneak peeks at tonight’s episode, which airs tonight at 10 PM EST on Comedy Central and includes a great cameo by Devo. And here’s to 100 more!



Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Preview – 100th Delivery
www.comedycentral.com
Futurama New Episodes Big Lake A New Comedy from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay




Futurama	Thursdays 10pm / 9c
Preview – The Devo-lution Revolution
www.comedycentral.com
Futurama New Episodes Big Lake A New Comedy from Will Ferrell and Adam McKay




Attention Deficit Delirium keeps expanding in new directions. This month we posted a story by our second guest blogger (Gail Flug); other writers will be contributing in the future. A new A.D.D. logo is being planned. The Lost Blu-ray box set giveaway received a hearty response, and more giveaways are planned for October.

Here are the Top 10 posts for August 2010. Feel free to catch up on the ones you missed!


1. Emilie Autumn’s Personal Asylum, Parts One and Two — Nine months after being posted, this story keeps drawing in thousands of readers every month. I guess we should plan a sequel soon.



2. Becoming The Ghost — A.D.D.’s interview with Ewan McGregor for his film The Ghost Writer has benefited from Google searches on everything from his role as a young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy to his association with director Michael Bay.


3. Joe Satriani Talks Solo Album, New Chickenfoot Songs, Politics — The fastest growing and largest new story in A.D.D.’s history continues drawing in readers during its third month in the Top 5. Satch fans are loyal!



4. Chester Bennington In “SAW 3D” Trailer — The buzz seems to be building on Chester Bennington’s appearance in the forthcoming SAW 3D movie. We’ll see how much of a goremeister he has become.



5. Corey Taylor Explores The Seven Deadly Sins — The Stone Sour/Slipknot frontman’s first book, espousing his views on the Seven Deadly Sins, is due out around spring 2011, and many fans are intrigued.



6. Iron Maiden’s Janick Gers Talks Festivals, Fish And The Final Frontier — The long-time Maiden guitarist spills about the storm swept remnants of the Finnish Sonisphere festival, the band’s new album and working with ex-Marillion singer Fish on his amazing solo debut, Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors.


7. Ville Valo’s Tragic-Romantic Ecstasy — This video collection of HIM singer Ville Valo’s collaborative projects spans metal to pop to Finnish folk and is essential listening for his devout fans.



8. Digging Deeper With The “Vampire Diaries” Stars — The CW’s worldwide cult hit has been luring fans to A.D.D., particularly this star-powered interview from the 50th Annual Monte-Carlo Television Festival. Fangs for the attention!


9. Rob Halford: Back To The Future — With a career that has spanned four decades, the Metal God always has something to talk about. In this case: the making of British Steel, Judas Priest’s rumored star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame and his thoughts on rockin’ out in middle age.


10. Queensrÿche’s Scott Rockenfield Talks New Album, New Label — On a recent tour stop in NYC, drummer Rockenfield dished about the band’s forthcoming album, and he provided an unusual Digital Playlist as well.





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