As the band put the finishing touches on a twelfth studio album that’s expected later this year, Scott Ian, the guitarist and last remaining co-founder of the New York thrashers, sets the scene for a five-date British and Irish tour in November with fellow metallic progenitors Kreator from Germany and Bay Arena bangers Testament.
Having Kreator and Testament on this bill should make for a great tour.
Yeah. We had an amazing UK run last fall, so to come back again with something even bigger is very exciting. We’re pumped, man!
What is the essence of a good thrash-metal gig?
It’s the excitement it brings. I just love the anticipation of standing in the pit and waiting for a show to start. I still remember being down on the floor at The Ritz [in New York] in 1987, a minute from Slayer coming on stage, and the energy in the air was palpable. What would the first song be? There’s no better catharsis than being at a thrash-metal show, screaming along with the band and banging your head.
After the decades the genre has spent in the mainstream, is it now almost comical to remember the way purists turned up their noses at thrash? Some insisted it was “just a noise”, and that it would go away.
This story is from the June 2024 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the June 2024 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Joan Armatrading
The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.
EVER MEET LEMMY?
He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.
IN THE BEGINNING
With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.
High Rollers
When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.
THE NAME OF THE GAM
When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.
