Stereo Warning

Ozzy Osbourne talks to us about his fascinating autobiography, "I Am Ozzy." It turns out that there are many things he'd do over, but he's got no regrets. Oh, and that lawsuit against Tony Iommi? "That's my wife's department," he says, adding that he wouldn't rule out playing with Tony on stage again some day. And that's good news for Black Sabbath fans!

How did you go about writing this book?
Chris would talk to me and ask me what was your childhood like and then he'd find something interesting of what I was saying and he'd go 'can you elaborate more on that incident'. He would pull stuff out that way. I didn't actually put pen to paper; if I'd done that I'd still be on page one, you know? It was quite easy actually.

So you didn't write it all in pencil like Sharon said?
No, I did it all through Chris.

Why write it?
A lot of people through the years have asked 'when are you ever going to write a book'. There's been a lot of unauthorized books written about me. I just decided to do it, you know.

Continue reading "Ozzy Osbourne Talks Drugs, Sex & Alcohol (Sorry, No Bats) -- Interview" »

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Metallica performed live "Suicide & Redemption," the Grammy-nominated instrumental track from their latest album, "Death Magnetic" for the first time in the band's history at tonight's show in Copenhagen. James Hetfield, in announcing the song, asked Lars Ulrich whether he should tell the crowd the song title, then said he wouldn't, because "it's a stupid title anyway." He did eventually mention it after finishing the song. The show, the fourth out of five the band is playing in Copenhagen, also featured another seldom played Metallica song, "Dyer's Eve." It was a messy but very fast rendition of the "...And Justice For All" crowd favorite, which Hetfield seemed to bring to a satisfactory conclusion only through sheer willpower. During the encore, the band stopped playing their Merciful Fate medley after messing up repeatedly through the first two verses, but it was unclear if the screw-ups were on purpose or not.

Posted by lusson at 10:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ozzy sues Tommy Iommi for keeping all the cash from Black Sabbath t-shirt sales. Isn't this a bit late? I mean, Black Sabbath has been around for 40 years and now Ozzy finally realizes he hadn't gotten any t-shirt cash? Come on...

Here's what Ozzy had to say to justify himself:

Continue reading "Ozzy Osbourne sues Tony Iommi for Black Sabbath T-shirt money" »

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We're super psyched that Mike Patton and Faith No More are getting back together. So psyched, in fact, that we're republishing our interview from last year with Mike in which he talks about the last year or so in Faith No More's life, when things weren't going so well. At the time, Mike told us he would never be a part of a FNM reunion. We're glad he changed his mind!

So check out what he had to say after the break. See you at the shows!

Continue reading "Mike Patton talks about Faith No More reunion" »

Posted by lusson at 09:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is the final piece of the interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica. Enjoy !

Where do you see the music business going?
It's an interesting time right now. A lot of defining things will happen for the next decade but it's not settled yet. For the next record we can do whatever we want. We look at all options but it's too early to say. By the time the next Metallica record rolls around who knows what the landscape will be. It goes back to communicating with the fans -- a few options would be to cut out the record company. Their biggest function is being a bank. When you don't need them to pay for stuff you don't really need a record company. You can go with independent distribution or do it over the internet. I'll figure it out in five years. Now it's interesting to see what Trent is doing, what Radiohead is doing, but it feels like everything is in transition right now.

Continue reading "Lars Ulrich from Metallica -- interview part 3" »

Posted by lusson at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here is part II with Lars from Metallica. Check back tomorrow for the final installment.

Rick Rubin said he wanted you to go back to the mind set you had when you write Master of Puppets. How do you go back to that 80s mentality, where do you go to find that hunger?
I've always struggled with this concept that you have to be hungry to make a good heavy metal record. I'm not saying it's wrong but I don't know how applicable they are to us. We make fine records at home in our backyard where it's comfortable. With rick, he set the bar maybe higher than it's been set for a while and we were up for that just to challenge ourselves. It took a while to get to that place where we would feel comfortable revisiting some of the things we've done before. I purposefully tried to steer our band as far away from that as possible for many years out of fear of repetition and of cheapening the previous work by getting too close to it again. Rick found ways to make us feel comfortable about doing that again. It also coincided with the 20th anniversary of the Master of Puppets record, which we relearned and played on a nightly basis. As we got close to that record again and Rick was slowly steering us in that direction it started thawing away at that wall, that fear of repetition. It's been surprisingly efortless to go back to some of that stuff. Not as difficult physically or mentally as I anticipated.

Continue reading "Lars Ulrich from Metallica interview - part 2" »

Posted by lusson at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's the interview with Lars we promised. It's gonna come in installments, so check back for parts II and III.

At this level in your career, you hardly need any more publicity. Why still keep such a busy schedule and do these interviews?
It's a way of communicating with the fans. You choose your path early on and it was pretty clear for us early on that the bands that we idolized were more accessible. The people I idolized were on the level and were accessible. We've always prided ourselves and enjoyed being accessible. It's okay to sit and talk about what you do. You choose to answer the questions you want, and the ones you don't want to you come up with a silly, smart-ass or sarcastic comment and find a way around it. I don't mind it.

The kids are definitely interested in what you have to say and you work hard to give your fans a lot of access into the inner workings of Metallica, probably more so than any other band.
Maybe more so than they should have, ha ha ha. But it's the path we've chosen. People sit there and talk about the movie (Some Kind of Monster, ed.) but once you open yourself up you have to deal with that. Either you open yourself up and its carte blanche or you shy away. Our path has been the carte blanche accessibility, for better or worse, warts and all as they say.

Continue reading "New interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica - part 1" »

Posted by lusson at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One of our journalist friends is lucky enought to have been granted an interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica and he's been nice enough to agree to ask him a few questions on behalf of readers of Stereo Warning. So leave your questions for Lars in the comments to this post and then check back in a week or so to find out what answers Lars gave. Pretty cool, huh?

Posted by lusson at 05:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (14) | TrackBacks (0)

Is Lars Ulrich a happy man?
Ha, ha. Yes, Lars Ulrich is a very happy man. It’s going well. We’re driving hard and it hasn’t gotten any easier just as I’m getting up there in age. But as I like to say, if you ever hear me complain, smack me over the head. I have some wonderful children and a girl I’m very happy with and a father and a family and three guys in a band that I actually can talk to. We can hang out in the same space. When we’re in the same city we stay in the same hotel, ha, ha, now that’s luxury.

Have you learned to deal with the restlessness you are also known for?
Remember who you’re talking to. I still have a very frenetic energy. But I’m less restless today because of two or three things: kids, the fact that I’ve become older and… shit, we’ve been doing this for 27 years. When you’re in your 20s you don’t stop long enough to embrace what you do but 20-25 years later it’s a different story. I’ve gotten better at opening my eyes, look around me and just be for a moment.

Continue reading "Metallica: Lars Ulrich interview" »

Posted by lusson at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So enjoy, and keep watching this space, cuz we're gonna publish an interview with Lars Ulrich from Metallica that one of our friends has translated from a Danish magazine. Stick around!

Posted by lusson at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)