During Mammoth’s April Fool’s Day (April 1) set in Cincinnati, OH, Wolfgang Van Halen decided to prank the audience by teasing a Van Halen cover. However, it was all part of a Rick Roll featuring a partial cover of Rick Astley‘s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” You can see footage of that below:
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Bret Michaels To Perform At 2026 NFL Draft In Pittsburgh
Bret Michaels (Poison) has revealed that he will be performing during the NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, PA. The singer will join rapper Wiz Khalifa at the Draft Theater near Acrisure Stadium on April 24. Country singer Kane Brown will also perform on April 25.
Michaels commented:
“I cannot be more honored, excited, and fired up to perform at the Pittsburgh 2026 Draft. As a Western Pennsylvania native and lifelong Steelers and NFL fan, this is a dream come true. As a young diabetic searching for hope, football, music, family and friends inspired me to stay positive and never give up. Sharing the stage with my friend Wiz Khalifa makes this even more special. This will be a ‘Black And Yellow’ meets ‘Nothin’ But a Good Time’ celebration, and we will bring 1000% energy to the stage for the fans and the city of Pittsburgh.”
Tim Tubito, NFL senior director of events and game presentation, also added:
“Bringing the Draft to Pittsburgh gives us a chance to tap into a city with a deep connection to football and music. This year’s event brings together artists with strong regional roots and global appeal to create memorable moments onstage throughout Draft week.”
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Watch Bush Take Part In NPR’s “Tiny Desk Concert Series”
Bush recently performed at NPR‘s headquarters in Washington, DC as part of the organization’s “Tiny Desk Concert Series.” You can watch that set below:
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Finger Eleven Premiere “The Mountain” Video
Finger Eleven have premiered a new video for their song “The Mountain.” This track is from the band’s latest album “Last Night On Earth.”
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Arch Enemy’s Daniel Erlandsson On Alissa White-Gluz’s Departure: “It Came To An End Naturally”
During an interview with Igor Miranda, Arch Enemy drummer Daniel Erlandsson further discussed the departure of vocalist Alissa White-Gluz. According him, her time in the band “came to an end naturally.”
Erlandsson said the following:
“The story that was official was that, like she said, she left to do her solo stuff. Now I think she has started her own band instead. We had a long, lasting relationship together, and I guess you could say that it came to an end naturally. It was good and it worked out really well — until it didn’t anymore. That’s all I can say about that. Some fans take that [the hard way] — it’s kind of a difficult thing to accept. I know what it’s like when your favorite singer quits, but there’s no reason that you can’t like both sides. You can still be a fan of Arch Enemy and Alissa, if that’s the case. So I think it’s all gonna work out for the best for everyone.”
He continued when asked if her exit was expected:
“It’s kind of difficult to say, because I think it was something that you could feel it was leading up to a point. Everything was leading up to a point, and once it finally happened, it was not a surprise.”
Erlandsson also shared his thoughts on the band’s new singer Lauren Hart:
“I think the response has been overwhelming. I could not expect that it would go that well, actually. It seems like the fans, they see something in Lauren that they really like, and it kind of connects a little bit to [former Arch Enemy singer] Angela [Gossow]. Her style is kind of similar to that of an Angela. The response has been overwhelmingly good. And now we’re playing the first few shows [with Lauren] as well, and you can tell that the vibe inside of the room or the atmosphere inside of the room is electric. And it’s really cool. It’s almost like we’re starting a new era of the band now, which is kind of funny because we’ve been playing for — what is it? — 30 years or something.”
He went on to say:
“I think that we’re looking forward now into the future. And we are imagining what kind of songs we can have, and the next album and so on. I think we’re looking forward, if anything, and everybody’s very excited about it. And since the interest in this has been so good, I think we’re looking forward to touring a lot, first of all and just showing that we are a strong live band still, and if not even better. So that’s the priority right now.”
He added:
“Right now she’s joining her favorite band. She told us that [Arch Enemy’s 2001 LP] ‘Wages Of Sin’ was a very important album for her, and that’s the album that made her want to become a vocalist. And we were lucky that she was not in a band… She still had a band called Once Human, but as it turns out, they hadn’t been very active for a number of years, and she was just ready to join when we got in touch with her.
We as a band have been going for a long time, and we toured the world many times, but now when she’s coming in, she’s doing these shows with us, and you kind of get to see the whole experience through her eyes, if that makes sense. Everything is a little bit new and fresh, and it brings a certain freshness and positivity to the band as well.”
He also confirmed more new music is on the way:
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like I said, everything happened really fast when she joined. We were lucky to be able to squeeze out ‘To The Last Breath’, that song. And now we have these tours in front of us. But the priority is gonna be working on more music and release an album definitely at some point, hopefully even next year.”
Erlandsson also addressed previous rumors regarding Angela Gossow’s return:
“I can totally relate to the fans, ’cause in that whole process online, a lot of fans believed that she was actually coming back. And I can relate to that because I’m a fan of other bands as well, and you wanna see your heroes back in the bands. But the thing is that she got really tired of touring and she decided to do what she likes even more, and that’s being a manager. And that’s still the case. I don’t think she would actually enjoy the touring life anymore. And as us bandmembers, we already know this, we know that she wouldn’t be happy touring. So it’s kind of strange to imagine that fans imagine that she’s coming back when we know that it wouldn’t work. But I agree — it would be super cool to see her back on the stage… It kind of blew up on social media when fans were suspecting that she might be coming back and she received an incredible amount of love from fans all over around the world. And that’s why I think she actually seriously considered it.”
[via Blabbermouth]
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Woman Under Investigation For Stalking Ghost’s Tobias Forge
According to Aftonbladet, a woman in her 40s is currently being investigated after allegedly stalking Ghost’s Tobias Forge. She was recently charged with harassing the frontman.
The woman was repeatedly sending messages, letters, and Swish money requests to the singer between July and October of last year. He initially ignored the various forms of contact and tried to block her on SMS and WhatsApp. However, she eventually sent him a phone.
Forge said the following about the mobile device:
“I didn’t want to keep it in my home, so I put it out on the balcony before handing it over to the police. I’m fairly used to people trying to contact me but over the years I’ve had about a dozen stalkers.
However, none have done anything as invasive and frankly threatening as sending a mobile phone. It wouldn’t have been good if, for example, I lived at a secret address. With that phone, I reached my limit.”
He went on to say that he has met numerous fans, but does not recognize the woman. Despite this, she claims they met 16 years ago and stayed in contact. She also believes they got engaged.
Notably, Forge is not seeking any money and has no desire to ruin her life:
“I’ve had devoted followers before — most are fairly harmless — but there’s something about this that feels unusual. I don’t want to make her life worse. I just want her to leave me alone and not harm anyone else.”
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W.A.S.P. Frontman Blackie Lawless Reveals Title Of His Upcoming Autobiography
During an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, W.A.S.P. frontman Blackie Lawless discussed his upcoming autobiography. He also revealed that the book will be titled “Tales From The Square Mile.”
Lawless said the following:
“My head has really been into this book that I’ve been working on. And it’s really consumed most of my time. And it’s been way more work than I ever thought it was gonna be. It’s easily as much work as making a record, but probably more, because I’ve been working on this now for five years.
Since we came home [from tour] last November, I have really, really buckled down and started working on this. I’m probably halfway done now, but the amount of research that it took to get a lot of these stories correct is really time consuming. And I find that there will be times where it’ll take me six, seven hours to write two paragraphs because of the amount of research that’s going on. Because when I first started this, like probably everybody else, I would’ve thought it would’ve been my singular story. And that seemed reasonable at the time. But the more I got into it, the more I realized it was not just my story.”
He also explained the title:
“What it’s about is that square mile that I was living in in Hollywood at the time, and the influences that the town itself would have on not just me, but the music industry overall, and we are all tied to it, whether we know it or not. Because the way the movie studio systems were set up in the ’20s, ’30s and ’40s had a direct influence on what the record companies would be later. So all this research, like I said, that went into to uncovering a lot of what I’ve been doing has just taken an enormous amount of time. But the little nuggets that I’ve discovered that I think people will find interesting for me were fascinating when I would uncover them. And there’s a lot of goofy coincidences that have happened in it too, the things that have been uncovered. So, like I said, I think it’s gonna be an interesting read when people see it. It’s not your gonna be your typical rock and roll book by any stretch.”
He continued when asked if he had an enlightening moment when reflecting on his earlier years:
“Oh, man. Well, when you write a book, especially something like this, you realize you saved yourself about 40 years of being on a psychiatrist’s couch because the rabbit holes that you have to go down… It’s really revealing, because we have surface memory of events that have happened in our lives, but it’s not until we go to really start digging deeper at any specific event that might have happened in your life. You think you remember it, and you do on the surface, but it’s not until you start really going back to wherever that event may have happened in your head and you start looking and visualizing everything that was going on at the time. And man, I’m here to tell you, there’s a lot of stones that you uncover that some are good and some are not so good. But I’ve come to the understanding that this is not a book I could have written 20 years ago, because I wasn’t in the headspace to write it. So it’s been — as the old Grateful Dead song says, ‘What a long, strange trip it’s been.’ It’s been that.”
He also added the following when asked about the most challenging part of the book:
“Childhood. Because that too is where you start going down these rabbit holes and things that you think… It reminds me of the old Peter Gabriel song, ‘Digging in the dirt to find the places where we got hurt.’ My dad was in the construction business, and we traveled a lot when I was a kid. I ended up going to 13 different schools by the time I graduated. So I was constantly the new kid. And it’s hard to make friends. And the friends you do make, as soon as you make them, you’re gone again. And that ended up having quite a bit more of an impact on me growing up than even I gave it credit for. And as men, or as boys, we were constantly being tested by the older kids and stuff like that. So there was a lot of brutality that went on with it. But I would say in a word, childhood.”
[via Blabbermouth]
Metal Anarchy 
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