New Metallica Album.com

You’ve all probably seen them a couple hundred times. Guitar Hero commercials directed by Brett Ratner, featuring sports stars and supermodels in a parody of Tom Cruise’s famous Risky Business scene. And if you’re like myself, you can’t stand them and immediately change the channel before anyone slides their goofy asses onto the screen.

In preparation for the brand new Guitar Hero: Metallica edition, though, two more commercials were filmed using the same basic premise, but these commercials are actually pretty entertaining.

The first commercial will most likely only be funny to sports fans and college basketball fans. Instead of the mega-star athletes and models, the commercial features legendary (and older) college basketball coaches: Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Rick Pitino, and Bob Knight. After these gentleman do their best Risky Business slide is when Metallica shows up and it gets pretty funny — especially if you’re familiar with Bob Knight and his infamous temper.

The second commercial is all about Metallica and it really needs no description — you just have to watch it.

Guitar hero: Metallica will feature 28 of the band’s songs as well as 21 songs from other bands hand-picked by Metallica such as Alice in Chains, Motörhead, System of a Down, Slayer, Foo Fighters, Judas Priest, Bob Seger, and Lynyrd Skynyrd

Yesterday, Rock Daily was watching the UNC Tar Heels bulldoze the Blake Griffin’s Oklahoma Sooners on their way to a Final Four spot when suddenly a TV time-out led to the above commercial, which left us perplexed for the remaining five minutes of the game. Like previous Guitar Hero ads, famed coaches like Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, UNC’s Roy Williams, Louisville’s Rick Pitino and noted hothead Bobby Knight donned tidy-whities while paying homage to Risky Business, fake-playing Guitar Hero to Bob Seger’s “Old-Time Rock N’ Roll” just like Michael Phelps, Alex Rodriguez, American Idol finalists David Cook and Archuleta and Heidi Klum before them.

However, the curve ball here is an out-of-nowhere appearance by Metallica, whose own Guitar Hero game was released yesterday (Rock Daily talked to James Hetfield about the game at SXSW.) Together, the juxtaposition of college coaches and heavy metal icons make for the strangest pairing ever in a commercial. We get it, March Madness is going on, Metallica has a game out, but the whole synergy just seems so weird, especially when James Hetfield says, “It means you’re gonna have to put on some pants, pops.” Still, we can watch Rick Pitino cluelessly play drums with only one hand all day, so someone please make a .gif out of that.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has moved its TV home to Fuse, giving Dave Weier a challenge in the weeks leading up to the induction Saturday in Cleveland.

Weier, vice president of talent and music at the cable channel, must try to interest Fuse’s young viewers in an event that many of them might dismiss as being for relics only. At the same time, he’s trying to entice older rock fans who wouldn’t know Fuse favorites Paramore or Avenged Sevenfold if the bands were playing in their basement.

“I’m inspired by it,” Weier said. 

Fuse signed a three-year deal to televise the annual induction ceremony, ending the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 12-year relationship with VH1.

VH1 was a music channel with its primary focus on older rock fans when the initial deal with the rock hall was made. But as it shifted to more lifestyle programming, live coverage of the induction ceremony was shunted off to VH1 Classic. (more…)

More than two dozen Detroit-based bands were in Austin, Texas, through last weekend as part of the South by Southwest Music Convention, the annual gathering of bands, business and media types and music fans that featured more than 1,000 performances.

Traditionally, the festival is a place for independent bands to get noticed by the industry professionals and media gathered to scout talent. But a not-so-secret Friday night performance by metal gods Metallica stole some of that independent thunder.

The godfathers of thrash were secretly listed on the official schedule as Volsung, a metal band from Norway.

But word quickly spread about the group’s performance, which was tied to the release of a new Metallica “Guitar Hero” video game. When thousands of fans gathered to see them perform at Stubb’s — a venue in the heart of the SXSW clubbing district — it left some lesser-known independent artists to perform in half-full venues. (more…)

Metallica’s first video game will be released in multiple flavors for all the major video game consoles available March 29, 2009.  Which will you be buying?

Wii,  PS2,  PS3,  or X-Box

Activision Publishing Inc.’s “Guitar Hero Metallica” will be the primary sponsor on the No. 8 Chevrolet driven by Aric Almirola for this weekend’s Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia.

This marks the third NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race this season that the video game has sponsored the team.

Comented Aric Almirola: “I cannot say enough about what the partnership with Activision has meant to me and the guys. They make the coolest video games out there, especially ‘Guitar Hero’. It really has been an awesome experience. I’ve been giving my ‘Guitar Hero World Tour’ set a workout over the last few months and I can’t wait to play as METALLICA. I know all the guys on the team are huge METALLICA fans, so you can bet that we’ll be rocking out this weekend!”

Tune in this Sunday, March 29 at 1:30 p.m. EST to the FOX network and watch Almirola at the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500.  Source

Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted is excited about his trip to Cleveland, Ohio, in two weeks. And why shouldn’t he be? The band he spent 15 years slapping his bass for, the mighty Metallica, will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 4th, and for the first time in nine years, “the Black Album band will be back together and mow the shit down,” as he puts it.

That’s right. Newsted has confirmed for Rolling Stone that he’s going to be onstage with the band he left back in 2001, along with guitarist James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett, and the man who replaced him, bassist Robert Trujillo. Newsted says former bassist Ron McGovney will also be on hand for the honors, as will Ray Burton, the father of the man Newsted replaced, the late Cliff Burton.

“There’s three bass players getting inducted, and James, Lars and Kirk,” he says. Former guitarist Dave Mustaine, who now fronts Megadeth, will not be inducted, however. “Its not my decision. I have nothing to do with that. It was decided by the band, and I think it was just a hard-and-fast rule… anyone who has recorded on any Metallica recordings that have been released to the public as an official release were invited to the induction. So, that’s kind of that.” (more…)

GameStop announced today it will host events on Saturday, March 28, 2009, at approximately 400 of its U.S. stores in celebration of the midnight launch for Guitar Hero: Metallica. Likewise, more than 2,600 stores on Sunday, March 29, will open early at 9 a.m. to begin their celebration of the video game release.

GameStop, the world’s largest video game and entertainment software retailer, has created several fun activities to commemorate the launch of this next edition in the successful Guitar Hero family. These activities include:

– Guitar Hero in-store tournaments – test your fretting skills on songs from the Guitar Hero series.

– “Air Guitar” challenges – show off your best pull-offs and hammer-ons to popular Metallica and Metallica-inspired songs. Since true air guitar is an art form, not an actual skill, GameStop customers will vote on the winners in each participating store. (more…)

Are you pretty good with photoshop? Do you like creating desktop wallpapers?

Well, if you answered “yes” to both of those questions then HERE is your chance to have your creation judged by Metallica themselves and then prominently posted on both the Band’s website and in the Wallpapers download section of guitarhero.com. That’s it. Nothing tangible but hey, who cares about “stuff” right?

Official contest info:

It’s time to take that fancy finger work from Guitar Hero, and use it to create a desktop wallpaper in celebration of the upcoming launch of Guitar Hero: Metallica! The Metallica Wallpaper Contest challenges Community Members to creat a unique, creative, and attractive Guitar Hero: Metallica related Desktop Wallpaper! We’ll be providing you a handful of art assests to work with, and the rest is up to you. 15 of the best wallpapers will be chosen by the Guitar Hero Team (made up of members of the Neversoft Team, and the Guitar Hero Community Management Team), and those top 15 wallpapers will be sent off to Metallica, who will judge your art and pick the overall best desktop wallpaper! (more…)

Metallica will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, according to Billboard.com. The announcement was one of several about inductions at the upcoming ceremony, which will be held on April 4th at the Hall’s Public Auditorium in Cleveland. Guitar legend Jeff Beck will be inducted by Led Zeppelin guitarist and Yardbirds bandmate Jimmy Page, while Run-DMC will be inducted by Eminem and Bobby Womack will be honored by Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones.

The members of Metallica have been friends with Flea for some time. The band performed at a benefit for his Los Angeles music conservatory last May.

Lead guitarist Kirk Hammett told Billboard.com about Flea, “It’s cool that he’s not in a heavy metal band but is a well-respected musician you might not expect.” (more…)

Earlier this month, Metallica were forced to cancel a show in Stockholm, Sweden, when frontman James Hetfield was hospitalized with a stomach bug and dehydration.

A few days after the cancellation, Hetfield posted an apologetic message onMetallica’s Web site, explaining that he was taken down by — of all things — “a bad oyster.” 

It all seemed rather humorous (especially since he’s fully recovered), so when MTV News sat down with Hetfield last week at South by Southwest — hours before Metallica stomped through Stubb’s for a not-so-secret “secret” show — we had to ask about that oyster. Because, wow, that must’ve been one monstrous mollusk.

“The oyster that took down Metallica,” Hetfield laughed. “Well, yeah, it was at the very last show of the very last leg [of Metallica's European tour], and there’s a few places where we’re able to do doubles, which is awesome, and this last one was in Sweden, in Stockholm. (more…)

European Summer Vacation, part 2,347 will end on August 2, so that can only mean one thing … more dates in the U.S. and Canada! We just rocked Austin at SXSW and are super psyched that we’ll be back in North America visiting our friends in the Fall as the World Magnetic Tour keeps rolling on. We had an amazing time on the last run in ‘08 and early ‘09 and we are so ready to do it again!

Tickets go on sale either April 4 or April 11 – please see dates below and keep watching here for more information about on sale times and support acts. 

So here’s how the rest of our 2009 looks:

(more…)

Release Date: October 28

 2008