2012 Performers

Gates open at 6:30pm

July 12, 2012

Toby Keith

Clancy's Tavern by Toby Keith

Success can be a tremendous distraction, certainly for the successful and, in many cases, for those who would try to tell their story. For a number of reasons, Toby Keith is a prime example of both, but in very different ways. Recently and again named country music's top-earning country star by Forbes, the Oklahoma-based entertainer receives tremendous notoriety for presiding over a vast and growing enterprise of sold-out tours, chart-topping albums and singles, a rapidly expanding restaurant chain, a signature beverage and more.

At the same time, a small fraction of songs in his prolific catalog lead some to fervently politicize him despite a generally apolitical public stance. Whatever the causes, too often the descriptions applied to Toby Keith obscure the fundamental root of his success: Songwriting. Fortunately, time has a way of clearing those clouds, leaving hope that someday he will be known primarily and rightly as one of the finest popular songwriters of any era in any genre. That outcome is only possible, however, precisely because he has never lost that focus, never been distracted by the ups or the downs.

When his career could barely be called that, Toby Keith wrote songs. Struggling with a former label and fighting to regain a grip on his career, he wrote songs. Peppered with unwarranted criticism, he wrote songs. Showered with praise and awards, he wrote songs. And in many ways, it all goes back to a woman named Clancy, a club she owned and a grandson whose teenage summers there sparked a flame that has yet to even flicker.

The title track of Clancy's Tavern is almost a prequel to Toby's 2005 hit "Honkytonk U." "It's the same grandmother," he explains. "'Honkytonk U' talked about my mother putting me on a Greyhound and sending me to live with my grandmother for the summer, and how things took off from there. This one is more about the bar and what I saw there. The actual name of the place was Billy Garner's Supper Club, but her husband teased her and nicknamed her Clancy because she ran a tavern. Every line in the song is true. This isn't fiction."

Like each album before it, Clancy's Tavern documents the continuing and seemingly inevitable growth of Keith's skills as singer and producer, certainly, but even more as a writer. Consider the songs you won't hear on Clancy's Tavern: "Blue Enough (To Break A Heart In Two)," "Another She Ain't You," "Didn't Forever Get Here Fast?" and "Rattle Can Red." Well, they're actually not songs, just bits and pieces of lyrics from an artist whose gift for language and melody is so well-developed, his songs beget ideas and phrases that in themselves could be fully formed songs.

"That comes with writing your whole life if you stay after it," Toby says. "Sometimes when I write with guys who've been around longer than me they'll say, 'You're gonna have to give me a bit to get my chops up.' They might feel slow for the first day or two while they try to get in the groove. But I write all the time. I've never quit writing since I was 14 - haven't eased up one day. If I took off next year, stayed home and did nothing, I would still be writing."

Call it discipline, passion, obsession or all three, but that consistency is perhaps the greatest not-so-secret key to Keith's multi-faceted success. It makes the tours, albums, and related endeavors possible. "If you were a homebuilder and looked at the houses you built when you were 20 and looked at the ones you build today, you'd see they were much better - even than ones you were building five or six years ago. As a songwriter, your system gets better. Your vocabulary gets bigger. Everything that would help a songwriter increases. Plus, you live longer and have more time to stumble on good ideas."

Keith's creative process is well documented. In addition to his habit of recording song ideas on his phone, his co-writing efforts are ingrained in his annual schedule. "I have three or four guys I write with who come out on the road," he says. "There's an occasional person who comes once, but Rivers Rutherford usually comes out a couple weekends a year. Bobby Pinson and I are together probably 50 days a year. Scotty Emerick still comes around about two weekends and we do the two weeks together overseas on the USO Tour and have time to write there. Actually, 'Chillaxin' was written on a bus during a two-day stop in South Korea on our way to Afghanistan."

Each year's batch routinely yields more songs than Keith can use. Three of Clancy's Tavern's cuts - "Club Zydeco Moon," "I Won't Let You Down" and "I Need To Hear A Country Song" - were written for 2010's Bullets In The Gun. Three songs from the 2011 writing sessions will appear on Keith's next album.

"For the last decade, we've put out a single from a new album when we go on tour in the summer," Keith explains. "The album comes out in October, you get a couple more singles and we start over."

Saying "we" is no self-conscious affectation coming from Keith's mouth. In fact, one of the more interesting paradoxes of his artistry is the extent to which he is the central creative force on all levels but also highly collaborative. His familiar family of co-writers are only part of the story. Longtime engineer Mills Logan is regularly referred to as "my ears in the studio." Session musicians including Kenny Greenberg, who is also the bandleader for Keith's Incognito Bandito club shows, are encouraged to contribute in a best-idea-wins environment. Even this album's sole outside cut is testament to this almost communal approach.

"I don't remember who played it for me the first time, but it was so stupid I just died laughing," Toby says of "Red Solo Cup," which was written by Brett and Jim Beavers with Brad and Brett Warren. "What's great about this song is it does everybody the same way it did me: 'That's the stupidest song in the world and I can't get it out of my head.' I laugh every time I hear it. Sometimes it's good for the world to hear something like that.

"When I decided to record it, I called up the Warren brothers and the Beaver brothers. They wrote it and this song is real typical of those knuckleheads. But I didn't want to make this song my version of what they wrote. I wanted to make them part of it - record their song with them. We brought them in when we cut it, to play and sing background, so it really sounds like them." Sure enough, every note on the track is courtesy of the four co-writers and Keith.

Another indication of Keith's expansive mindset is the growing role of Bobby Pinson, who gets a "Wrangler-Producer" credit on Clancy's Tavern. "When we're tracking I'm always cutting the scratch vocal and all I hear is what's in my headset monitors. For years I've had Mills Logan behind the board and really relied on him, and he does a great job.

"When I write with Bobby, he says to call him when I cut his song because he wants to be there. He does a lot of producing and he'll say, 'I don't want to step on your toes or anything, I just want to be your other ears in here.' I never mind a songwriter coming in. They were there when we wrote the song and want it to sound as good as I do. Scotty comes in when we cut one of his songs, and that kind of input really adds to it.

"And if I write a song by myself, I'd usually cut it by myself. But Bobby was around so much that I started asking him what he thought sounded good on a song I wrote. He made a suggestion, we tried it and it didn't work. He suggested something else and it worked. He was in the control room on the talk back and I started firing ideas at him. He said he didn't want to produce the record or get any money for it, but he'd love to have some input when he's around. He may not show up every day, but days he's there he might run with it. It's pretty much two good friends beating and banging it out.

"When we did the credits I didn't know how to label him. I know one thing: he's a good wrangler, because that's what he did with it. So that's how we came up with that."

Even the album's chart-topping first single "Made In America" - wildly popular with fans and easily lumped into the jingoistic caricature by critics - reveals the unwavering honesty Keith brings to his music. "I've done so much patriotic stuff that I have people sending me and bringing me those kinds of ideas daily," he says. "And when I hear most of this stuff it's like, I've already done that. I've already done my warrior song - 'American Soldier.' I've already done my battle cry - 'Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue.' I've already done my fun uptempo - 'American Ride.' Then Bobby showed up here a couple summers ago and said he knows I get tired of hearing it, but he had one America idea he wanted to write.

"We got to talking about how when we were kids, if your car broke down your dad could take a wrench, WD40, bailing wire and a screw driver and about fix it. We jumped on that, started writing. I just couldn't get past thinking that my old man was that old man." If the song rings true, regardless of the perceptions, Keith is compelled to let it lead. And that devotion to truth is also manifested in his live performances.

Four songs from the 2010 Incognito Bandito show at New York's Fillmore are bundled with a deluxe edition of Clancy's Tavern. Again, Keith's honesty rears up: "He's courageous," bandleader Kenny Greenberg recently told a Nashville songwriter of the tracks. And the accomplished studio musician would certainly be one to know that one of the first rules of putting live music on record is to clean up the mistakes. But Keith wasn't having it.

"People put so much work into an album to make it the best it can be, but we don't do jack to the Bandito stuff," Keith says. "We let them go exposed - no overdubs, no vocals, nothing. We take live tracks, Mills does a mix on them and we stick them on the album. That's exactly the way they sounded that night, except the mix is perfect."

He trusts the performance, he certainly trusts the songs and, ultimately, he trusts the music. For those reasons and those reasons alone, Clancy's Tavern will be another in a long line of successes. And somewhere, Toby Keith, undistracted, is writing another song.

Brantley Gilbert

Stop and listen to any of Brantly Gilbert's lyrics and you know a little about him. Listen to his albums and you will feel like family.

Brantley Gilbert was born and raised in the small town of Jefferson, Georgia, just outside of Athens city limits. It is that upbringing and small town influence that Gilbert credits toward allowing him to cultivate his unique sound. Gilbert's taste in music always swayed toward a southern country rock feel, but his true-to-life testimony of heartache, trials, triumph, and success found a home in country music.

Gilbert's career began on the stage: Night after night, he played acoustic sets at various venues in his hometown and slowly began to notice familiar faces in the crowds. Gilbert soon realized that his acoustic shows - however intimate - didn't satisfy his audience's thirst for his rock-infused country music. "We went from these acoustic shows to a bona fide Country- Rock-Soul show that is wide open," says Gilbert. "Even when we play a ballad, it's high energy."

While on the road the past five years, Gilbert has built his brand through his compelling lyrics and dynamic live show - a combination that attracted a strong underground band of believers who shared Gilbert's passion for life and music; pretty soon his following had taken on a life of its own. As Gilbert tells it, "[W]e don't have fans, we have friends. I like to think that those people in the crowd are just like me. They listen to the songs, they get the meaning and get the purpose and they get something out of it." It is this rabid fan base that became the first members of what is now known as the BG Nation.

These dedicated fans and their insistence on new music from Gilbert encouraged him to bring his unique style to Nashville, Tennessee where he soon signed with Warner/Chappell Publishing and began to develop music for a debut album release on an independent record label.

On March 16, 2010, the rising star released his sophomore album, HALFWAY TO HEAVEN, the follow-up to his debut national release, A MODERN DAY PRODIGAL SON. The sophomore effort peaked at #2 on iTunes Country Album Charts, and at #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers Album Chart for all genres.

"The Best of Me," a song from Gilbert's first album was recorded by Country superstar Jason Aldean and earned a spot on his iTunes release WIDE OPEN. Then, in August 2010, Brantley's song "My Kinda Party," became a #1 smash for Aldean, as well as the title track to Aldean's platinum-selling album. The superstar's latest single, "Dirt Road Anthem," was also written by Gilbert. "It's an honor that someone like Jason would want to record one of my songs," says Gilbert. "It's a big step for me as a songwriter and I couldn't have asked for a better artist to perform the song. After all, he is a Georgia boy!"

As tour dates multiply throughout the South, Gilbert's fan base continues to expand. The rising star's Facebook post see views of 7 million a month and his MySpace page has garnered more than 16 million total song plays- a number that has brought him to the #1 spot on MySpace Music Charts for both Country and Southern Rock. He also continues to sell out venues throughout the country - proof that the BG Nation is relentlessly growing.

In February 2011, Gilbert passed another career milestone when he signed with Big Machine Label Group's imprint The Valory Music Co. -- home to superstars Reba and Jewel as well as #1 chart-topper Justin Moore. Brantley Gilbert's first single on The Valory Music Co. debuted in the Top 40 at Country radio on its official impact date - an impressive feat by a new artist. Gilbert is currently in the studio with award winning producer Dann Huff working to finish his first album on The Valory Music Co. for a late summer release.

"I've realized that life can be very short, and everyone should take advantage of it," says Gilbert. "If you're gonna live, do something with it. Make it great."

Emerson Drive

A decade of great music and over a million miles of life on the road have brought Emerson Drive to the spot that many artists dream of, a Grammy-nominated country band with a bright future. After 10 years the members of Emerson Drive are excited to have reached this career milestone and can't wait to see what the next 10, 20 or 30 years will bring.

"We have been playing music our entire lives," explains lead vocalist Brad Mates. "None of us can imagine doing anything else. We belong together on that stage each night. It's exciting for us to see what we have accomplished so far and to be planning for the next decade. This tour is still just the beginning!"

Emerson Drive has been a part of the country music scene since they signed their first record deal with DreamWorks Records Nashville in 2001. The band's first two singles, "I Should Be Sleeping" and "Fall Into Me," peaked in the Top 5 on the Billboard charts and quickly became fan favorites but it was the career-changing song "Moments" that gave the band their first #1 single in the USA. Emerson Drive has been honored with awards and/or nominations from the Academy of Country Music, Country Music Association, Canadian Country Music Association, CMT, Dove Awards, Grammy Awards, Inspirational Country Music Association, Juno Awards, Music Row Magazine and Campus Activities Magazine. The band has toured with Toby Keith, Shania Twain and Big & Rich among other artists.

The Decade & Driving Tour celebrates the ten years of great music that began with Emerson Drive's debut single, "I Should Be Sleeping," and continues today with their most recent single release, "Let Your Love Speak," from their DECADE OF DRIVE: THE HITS album.

"This tour is a celebration," comments lead vocalist Brad Mates. "We have spent 10 years out on the road sharing our music with country fans across North America. We can't wait to take the party back out on the road."

Please visit www.emersondrive.com for more information including a complete list of tour dates.

Gates open at 6:30pm

July 13, 2012

John Mellencamp

Born October 7, 1951 in Seymour, Indiana, John Mellencamp fell in love with music at an early age and was gigging in local bars and fronting a soul band by the time he was 14. His professional music career began in earnest in 1976 when MCA Records released his first album, The Chestnut Street Incident. His manager dubbed him Johnny Cougar out of his belief that nobody would buy a record by anybody named Mellencamp. John protested but was overruled and eventually, of course, reclaimed his birth name as his public name.

After releasing a few albums, he broke out in 1979 with his first hit, "I Need A Lover" In 1982 his fifth album American Fool was the year's best-selling album on the strength of two huge hits, "Hurts So Good," and the number 1 single "Jack & Diane,"?? The albums that followed in the 80's, Uh-Huh, Scarecrow, Lonesome Jubilee, and Big Daddy, were released under the name John Cougar Mellencamp. Hit singles during this period included "Crumblin Down," "The Authority Song," "Small Town," "Rain On The Scarecrow," "Lonely Ol Night," ""R.O.C.K. In The U.S.A.," "Paper In Fire," "Check It Out," "Cherry Bomb," "Pop Singer," and "Jackie Brown."

Mellencamp took the music on the road with a band that many considered the best in the business, playing approximately 1,000 shows around the globe during decade. In 1985, John's concern for the plight of the American farmer, which had been voiced in theScarecrow album, brought him together with Willie Nelson and Neil Young in launching Farm Aid. It became an annual event and has helped make people aware of the issues farmers face and how they affect on the entire nation.

By the early 1990's "Cougar" was finally gone from John's name and a string of successful albums as John Mellencamp--Whenever We Wanted, Human Wheels and Dance Naked (including the number 2 single "Wild Night")--were released. In 1991 John made his film debut, starring in and directing Falling From Grace, a modest box office success that was well received by critics.

John suffered a mild heart attack while touring in 1994 in support of Dance Naked. This forced him to take a break from his music career, but he returned strong in 1996 and released Mr. Happy Go Lucky, which featured the hit "Key West Intermezzo" (I Saw You First). Healthier and happier, he returned to touring in 1997 and continued to write and record frequently. Releases included 1998's John Mellencamp, 1999's Rough Harvest, 2001's Cuttin Heads, and 2003's Trouble No More . Hit singles during that time ranged from "Your Life Is Now" to "I'm Not Running Anymore" to "Peaceful World." John continued to tour throughout 1999, 2001, 2002, 2005 and 2006.

He received the 2001 Billboard Century award in recognition of all that he had accomplished over the course of his career and was honored with the Woody Guthrie Award in 2004. Previously, he was awarded a Grammy and had been nominated a total of 11 times.

Words & Music: John Mellencamp's Greatest Hits was released in 2005. It was his first career-spanning collection and featured 35 of his biggest hits plus two new songs, one of which, "Walk Tall," was backed with an award-winning video that condemned discrimination. It was followed in January of 2007 by a new studio album, Freedom's Road. It featured the hit song "Our Country." Bowing at number 5, it was the highest debuting album of his career and led to a Grammy nomination for "Our Country" in the best Solo Rock Performance category. By that summer, he had already begun working on his next album. His first collaboration with producer T Bone Burnett, Life, Death, Love, and Freedom was released in July 2008, with John and the Mellencamp band commencing on a corresponding summer tour that included a stop in Australia in the fall.

A career landmark occurred on March 10, 2008, when John was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame by Billy Joel at the annual induction ceremony in New York City. He hardly rested on his laurels with the release of Life, Death, Live and Freedom (an acclaimed live disc containing most of the songs from Life, Death, Love, and Freedom), and John's participation in a 2009 summer-long tour with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.

During days off during that tour John recorded, No Better Than This, again produced by T Bone Burnett. He recorded at sequentially at historic facilities in the American South: The First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Sun Studio in Memphis, and in Room 414 of the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio where Robert Johnson, the enigmatic blues shaman has recorded more than 70 years earlier with Mellencamp's songs recorded on a 55 year old mono tape recorder using just one microphone. The album was released in August of 2010, and its production and the tour that spawned it are documented in It's About You, a documentary film by Kurt and Ian Markus that premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in March of 2010.

The release of No Better Than This was preceded by a few weeks by the four-CD box set, On The Rural Route 7609 made up mainly of versions of some of his classic songs other then the well known ones in general release. These included two particularly innovative tracks from two iconic individuals not generally associated with music recordings: race relations expert Dr. Cornel West, who dramatically recited the lyrics to "Jim Crow," and Academy Award-winning actress Joanne Woodward-John's favorite actress-who likewise provided an emotionally charged reading of the lyrics to "The Real Life."

Work continues on John's hugely ambitious "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County" musical theater collaboration with Stephen King--a project that has been in the works for 10 years. To recap, the story, which involves domestic turmoil will reach the public in two forms. It will be released as an innovative three-disc package featuring a two-disc radio play style performance, a disc containing only performances of the songs and a book version of the script. The set is being produced by T Bone Burnett. The story also will be featured as a Broadway style stage production. The stage production is scheduled for April 4 through May 13th, 2012 at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, GA.

Meanwhile, John also continued his other career activity: painting. Having first come to New York with the intention of studying painting if his music career aspirations didn't pan out, he started painting in earnest in the 1980's as a way to be creative in a more self-contained manner. His style has evolved over the years as evidenced by several gallery shows and published portfolios, and in recent years he has increased his output by completing nearly over 100 new works.

John has said many times in interviews that you will never meet anyone luckier than John Mellencamp. He is grateful for the support of those who have enjoyed his work and career over the years. If he has any advice to offer, it is to be tenacious: John's found that far too many people quit too soon in the face of early disappointment. While his own early efforts may have been faltering, he stayed with it--and that tenacity has been rewarded with the successes that continue to the present.

John Mellencamp continues to live and work in Bloomington, Indiana. He is the father of two sons Hud and Speck and three daughters, Michelle, Teddi Jo and Justice.

Cowboy Junkies

With the March 27 release of The Wilderness, Volume 4 of The Nomad Series, Cowboy Junkies mark the conclusion of an ambitious schedule of four releases over an 18-month period. The group's Michael Timmins says of the new CD, "The title, The Wilderness, in some odd way seemed to define what these songs were actually "about": fragility, emptiness, loneliness, beauty, chance, loss, desperation - the delicate balancing act that makes up a life. They are about being lost in the wilderness of age, the wilderness of parenthood, in the wilderness of just trying to find meaning and substance, happiness and truth in ones day to day life. They are about standing alone in middle of it all, breathing in the cold still air and wondering."

The preceding album, Sing In My Meadow, a collection of songs recorded over a four day period that evokes the psychedelic, blues-inspired forays the band is fond of exploring on stage was hailed by Metromix as "showing yet another side of one of the most versatile, underrated bands of the last 25 years."

The first volume of the series, Renmin Park, released in 2010, was inspired by Michael Timmins' two-month stay in China with his family in '08 and was called "their most ambitious yet" by The Boston Herald. Demons (2011), the second in the series, is a collection of songs by the late Vic Chesnutt which Canada's National Post called "...a celebration of both the Junkies and Chesnutt and one of the year's best albums."

Cowboy Junkies were formed in Toronto in 1985 after guitarist and songwriter Michael Timmins and long-time friend and musical partner, bassist Alan Anton, recruited Michael's sister, singer Margo Timmins and brother, drummer Peter Timmins to join them.

The band recorded its blues-inspired debut album Whites Off Earth Now!! (1986) and released it on their own Latent label. Touring the US in support of the album, they traveled extensively through the South and Southwest, soaking up the music of;

Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Jimmie Rodgers and others, which provided the inspiration for the band's second effort, The Trinity Session. The Trinity Session, the band's seminal album, is a melancholic mixture of blues, country, folk, and rock featuring a collection of originals, covers and traditional songs.

For more than 20 years, Cowboy Junkies have remained true to their unique artistic vision and to the introspective, quiet intensity that is their musical signature, creating a critically acclaimed body of original work that has endeared them to an audience unwavering in its loyalty. Albums like The Caution Horses (1990), Black Eyed Man (1992), Pale Sun, Crescent Moon (1993), Lay It Down (1996) and more recently, Open (2001), One Soul Now (2004), Early 21st Century Blues (2005) and At the End of Paths Taken (2007) chronicle a creative journey reflecting the independent road the band has elected to travel.

The band has appeared on countless major television shows in North America from Saturday Night Live to Late Night with David Letterman and the Tonight Show. Their music has been featured in dozens of television programs and feature films.

Cowboy Junkies returned to Toronto's Church of the Holy Trinity for a day in November 2006, joined by Ryan Adams, Natalie Merchant and Vic Chesnutt to revisit the repertoire of The Trinity Session in celebration of its 20th anniversary. The resulting film, Trinity Session Revisited, released as a DVD/CD in January 2008.

The Sheepdogs

"It's an isolated city," begins Ewan Currie, vocalist and guitarist for Saskatoon, SK-based rock and roll outfit The Sheepdogs about how their home base in the Canadian prairies shaped his band's sound. "It really gave us the freedom to do our own thing; we never felt the need to be a part of an existing scene or trend."

Some listeners may argue that the sounds soaring from their speakers while listening to the band's latest EP, Five Easy Pieces, or preceding full-length, Learn & Burn, are familiar relics of decades past, and they'd be right; however, it's the manner in which The Sheepdogs borrow bits from classic, psychedelic, and boogie rock iconoclasts like Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Allman Brothers, and The Grateful Dead and mix them with modern rock sensibilities that really sets them apart.

From the always silky-smooth three-part vocal harmonies prominent in tracks like "Why?" or the single "I Don't Know" through to the dual-guitar interplay and pulsing rhythmic beds found on, well, pretty much every tune, The Sheepdogs don't so much bring listeners "back in time" as they do weave the past with the present for an undeniable aural experience that appeals to audiences of all ages.

That appeal was recently proven when The Sheepdogs, via 1.5 million public votes, were declared the winners of a contest that found them as the first unsigned band to grace the cover of iconic rock rag Rolling Stone and, subsequently, landed them a deal with Atlantic Records. To the many that first caught wind of this decade-defying musical force surrounding that swirl of media attention, they may seem like something of an overnight success, though in reality, The Sheepdogs are anything but.

"Being from a small town, we were all looking to get out there � maybe try some new things," says bassist Ryan Gullen about how he, Currie, drummer Sam Corbett, and guitarist Leot Hanson first came together to make music. All fans of the same kind of meat-and-potatoes rock and roll from the past, as well as its resurgence in the music of acts like The White Stripes or Kings Of Leon, it was their mutual musical mindsets that made for an undeniable chemistry. "It came from a very honest place," continues the bassist. "We weren't trying to be anything specific," and with time, the band would only grow tighter and more comfortable with their sharpening sound.

Over the years, The Sheepdogs have trekked across Canada in their beaten-down van playing as many new cities as possible. The shows themselves were usually smokin'; the circumstances surrounding them often weren't. "It was such a challenge pushing through roadblock after roadblock," recounts Gullen, recalling the trying times of indifference from the industry. "We could rock any crowd we played to," he says, but seemingly couldn't shake the stereotypical struggles of the touring rock band. Those struggles often emerge in Currie's lyrical content, along with musings from ladies, love, and loneliness through to isolation, drugs, and other demons.

Since having their unshaven mugs showcased in Rolling Stone and onstage at Bonnaroo, though, it seems the band has finally found their break and are ready to capitalize on the opportunity. "It used to be that we wanted to quit our day jobs and just make music," says Currie of the band's aspirations. "Now, it's about hitting the road, playing some kick-ass shows, and getting ready to impress people with a new record."

That full-length, expected in 2012, will surely cement the fact that, though they've had a bit of luck on their side, the only thing responsible for The Sheepdogs' recent slew of success is the sweat they've left onstage and the sweet, sticky throwback tunes that share their infectious grooves with anyone taking them in.

Gates open at 6:30pm

July 14, 2012

Iron Maiden

30 years, 80 million album sales, close to 2000 live performances, countless satisfied customers and now 15 studio albums of unerring quality and power: Iron Maiden have more than earned their proudly-held status as undisputed heavy metal champions of the world.

Founded by bassist Steve Harris in the mid '70s, Iron Maiden were already firmly established as heavy metal's brightest hopes when they stormed the world with their third album (and first with vocalist Bruce Dickinson) The Number Of The Beast in 1982. Unstoppable throughout the decade that followed, Maiden recorded and toured relentlessly with seven new studio albums and seven World Tours in the '80s alone , cementing their reputation as the hardest-working band on the planet and further strengthening a unique identity and remarkable relationship with their fans.

With the unmistakable figure of band mascot Eddie adorning every album cover, T-shirt and backdrop, Iron Maiden created a world of their own; one that welcomed fans from every culture, creed and social sphere with a guarantee of heartfelt conviction and unprecedented professionalism.

A five-piece band for the first 20 years of their career, in 1999 Iron Maiden became a six-piece, and established the ultimate Iron Maiden line-up of Bruce Dickinson on vocals, Steve Harris on bass, Nicko McBrain on drums and "the three amigos" -- Adrian Smith, Dave Murray and Janick Gers - on guitar. This line-up has scaled breath-taking new heights and become increasingly fearless and boldly creative since the release of the Brave New World album in 2000.

With both 2003's diverse and ingenious Dance Of Death album and its dark and daring follow-up, 2006's A Matter Of Life And Death, they dazzled fans and critics alike. With each successive tour, whether revisiting classic songs from their first few albums or playing A Matter Of Life And Death in its entirety, Maiden accrued countless new admirers, momentum building all the while.

This brave new Maiden era reached an astonishing zenith during the band's Somewhere Back In Time Tour that began in February 2008 and initially took the band 50,000 miles around the world in 45 days, flying in their own specially chartered Boeing 757, Ed Force One, piloted by Bruce Dickinson, a qualified airline captain, traversing the planet, from India to Costa Rica, Australia to Argentina, Sao Paolo to Tokyo. Along with tours of Europe and North America, the Somewhere Back In Time tour saw Maiden play 89 concerts in front of two million fans in 38 countries on five Continents, forging new relationships with countries they had never performed in before and strengthening ties with nations that had long been part of Maiden's global family. This unique undertaking was celebrated in 2009's widely praised, award-winning Flight 666 movie, and subsequent DVD release which topped the music DVD charts in 25 countries.

Proudly refusing to take their collective foot from the accelerator, and picking up their first ever Brit Award along the way for Best British Live Act 2009, Iron Maiden are now back with a brand new studio album, just over a year on from the end of that mammoth tour. The Final Frontier is the band's 15th album in 30 years and it is plainly one of the strongest and most wildly inventive things they have ever produced; a 76-minute tour-de-force of soaring melodies, thunderous heaviness and astonishing compositional bravery it looks certain to be regarded as a new landmark in the band's career.

Alice Cooper

Without Alice Cooper, there might never have been the NY Dolls, KISS, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Motley Crue, Slipknot or Rob Zombie ... maybe not even David Bowie, or at least not Ziggy Stardust. The iconic hard rocker, who literally invented the concept of the rock concert as theater, returns to what he does best on Along Came a Spider (SPV Records), the 25th studio album of a long and illustrious career which began in 1969 with the release of Pretties for You on Frank Zappa's Straight label.

From his first solo album, 1975's Welcome to My Nightmare through releases such as 1994's The Last Temptation and 2000's Brutal Planet, concept albums have been a specialty of Alice's, and this time he spins the story of a serial killer who imagines himself as the most predatory of all insects, trapping his prey, killing them, then enveloping his eight victims in silk, taking a leg from each of them. A web of intrigue, wrapped around some serious hard rock.

Co-produced by Alice with the team of Danny Saber [Black Grape, Rolling Stones, Ozzy Osbourne, David Bowie] and Greg Hampton [Bootsy Collins, Buckethead], songs like the opening "I Know Where You Live" and "Vengeance Is Mine," featuring a snaking metal guitar solo from Slash himself, evoke such classic Alice anthems as "Is it My Body," and "Under My Wheels" along with landmark albums like Love It To Death, Killer and School's Out. There's also a patented rock ballad in the tradition of "Only Women Bleed" and "I Never Cry" with "Killed by Love." Along Came a Spider features Cooper's touring band of drummer Eric Singer, bassist Chuck Garric and guitarists Keri Kelli and Jason Hook. Songwriting was handled by Alice with Saber, Hampton, Garric, Kelli and a few friends including former band member Damon Johnson and Warrant's Jani Lane.

Along Came a Spider has elements of serial killers such as Hannibal Lecter, Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, Sweeney Todd and Psycho's Norman Bates with Alice himself taking the central part, acting out the murderer's diary -- challenging reality by Alice Cooper inhabiting the identity of a serial killer who imagines himself a spider. As he has in the past, Alice chronicles a classic battle between good and evil, with inevitable results.

"Evil should get punished," says Alice. "It should never win. And that, to me, is what's most satisfying. I may love Darth Vader when I watch Star Wars, but I feel relief when he finally gets what's coming to him."

Finally, though, it is beauty that defeats the beast, as the Spider falls in love with one of his intended victims in "The One That Got Away" and "Killed by Love," before a surprise twist ending worthy of The Twilight Zone.

"Every album I've ever done has been guitar-driven rock & roll," says Alice about Along Came a Spider's heavy metal edge. "Danny Saber and Greg Hampton are both guitar players. They know all the classic Alice music and began referencing favorite moments before we even started to record. That's when I first realized this could become a really special Alice album. I know my fans are going to love it."

The seeds for Slash's emblematic guitar solo on "Vengeance is Mine" were planted when Alice and Slash shared a dressing room at a NARAS event in L.A. earlier this year. Old friends who have known each other since 1986 and 1987 when a young Guns N Roses opened for Alice, and have appeared on each other's albums occasionally, the subject of the new album came up.

"I told him to play what he wanted to," says Alice. "And he came in and just blew it away. I had total confidence he would nail it. I wanted him to do what he does. And he did. It was a guitar hero moment."

Speaking of Guitar Hero, Alice acknowledges that the game of the same name has introduced a whole new generation to his music. "Every nine-year-old I run into tells me, 'I can play 'School's Out' and 'No More Mr. Nice Guy.'"

With a schedule that includes six months of every year on the road, Alice Cooper is bringing his own brand of rock psycho-drama to fans both old and new, and enjoying it as much as the audience does.

Known as the architect of shock-rock, Alice (in both the original Alice Cooper band and as a solo artist) has rattled the cages and undermined the authority of generations of guardians of the status quo, continuing to surprise fans and exude danger at every turn, like a great horror movie, even in an era where CNN can present real life shocking images.

With the Stones-like swagger of songs like "Catch Me If You Can" and "I'm Hungry," Alice plumbs his roots in twisted garage-band rock & roll. "Before we recorded a single note as Alice Cooper, we were playing stuff we learned from the Animals, the Yardbirds, the Who and the Stones in bars," he recalls. "There's always a lot of their influence in my songwriting."

Of course, if you ask Alice about HIS influence on so many artists, when you recount the story of how a young Johnny Rotten auditioned for the Sex Pistols by singing "I'm Eighteen," or you try to list the many bands that have followed through the doors he opened, you might get told "don't blame me for all of them!"

As he heads back out on the concert trail again this year now that Along Came a Spider is unleashed, Alice insists he's still motivated to continue touring and making albums, as well as making time for such side projects as Cooper'stown (his Phoenix-based restaurant/sports bar), his Alice Cooper: Golf Monster book, and his Nights With Alice Cooper nightly radio show, syndicated domestically and worldwide on over 100 stations.

"If there's nothing standing in my way, why not?," he shrugs. "It's what I love doing. And no one puts on a show as good as ours, musically and visually. I'm glad to be an elder statesman, and a healthy one. I look to guys like Ozzy, Iggy and Steven Tyler as fellow survivors. We're carnivores, not dinosaurs. We eat whatever bands are in our path."

With his influence on rock & roll long since acknowledged, there is little that Alice Cooper hasn't achieved in his remarkable career, including platinum albums, sold-out tours and any number of honors and career achievement awards.

Along Came a Spider, the 25th album of a remarkable career with uncountable highlights, may require him to make more room on the mantelpiece for yet more hardware."

Bleeker Ridge

Orillia, Ontario's Bleeker Ridge had a good seven years of dedicated rehearsals, songwriting and gigs before landing a dream record deal with Roadrunner Records Canada and cutting an album, Small Town Dead, with legendary producer Bob Marlette (Shinedown, Default, Seether, Airbourne), chockfull of hooky hard rock anthems. That kind of woodshedding might not seem unusual, except the band formed when they were kids.

The melodic hard rock quartet is comprised of two sets of brothers - lead singer Taylor Perkins 21; guitarist Cole Perkins, 19; guitarist Dan Steinke, 19; and drummer Dustin Steinke, 20 - who met in 2003 at a local jam night in Lagoon City (pop. 3000). They went from playing Joe Walsh and Jimi Hendrix covers to writing originals, which they released on two independent CDs.

But the songs on their label debut, Small Town Dead, recorded at Henson Studios in Hollywood and Bob's home studio in Woodland Hills, California, shows a band whose musicianship and songwriting skills belie their years. Radio and arena ready, they include the riffy soulful title-track; the confrontational "Easier Today;" heavier groove, "Sixteen Hours;" searing power ballad, "In Our Hands;" and sentimental stunner, "You Would've Liked It."

"We've always been more into songwriting than anything else, even when we were 13," says Taylor. "When we're writing songs, we're always looking to say, 'That's cool,' and making the songs huge. We're all about trying to come up with rock 'n' roll songs that can still be melodic and heavy and touch people with the lyrics."

All 12 songs on Small Town Dead were penned by Bleeker Ridge, including four co-writes that started with the band, "In Our Hands;" "Pick Me Up;" and gentler "Still Standing" with Dave Bassett (Shinedown, Sevendust); and southern-styled kicker, "Sick of You," with Tyler Connolly of Theory of a Deadman.

"Three years ago, we decided to write a song that we think we can hear on the radio," recalls Dan. "That song, 'In Our Hands,' took a shape that we'd never thought about doing before. We sent it to Dave and he was like, 'Holy shit.' We had like 16 different versions, but that was the song that changed the whole perspective of writing for us."

"Small Town Dead," is the album's first single and is a particularly personal lyric for Bleeker Ridge that resonates for anyone who grew up outside a big city. "From talking with friends and kids I meet, I find that being in a small town like mine, everyone has the same outlook - there's never anything to do," Taylor explains. "You can go watch a movie, then go break things [laughs]."

There's also a song for all those kids who have finally left school behind and aren't looking forward to growing up and getting out in the real world. "Trust the words I am speaking / Don't let it bring you down / 'cause now we're falling forward / Everyone tells me that the party's over," Taylor sings in the inspirational anthem "From Now On."

He also wrote some beautiful words in "You Would Have Liked It," lamenting the loss of a girlfriend, wife or loved one who is unable to share in life's defining moments, a theme quite advanced for a 21-year-old that can definitely tug at people twice his age.

With these new songwriting skills - something many people in the music industry were waiting for them to develop before they were willing to commit to the band - Bob Marlette was excited to work with them. He had first seen Bleeker Ridge six years ago at a showcase in Toronto, but felt they needed to mature. Later, by sheer coincidence, he was producing a band whose management mentioned the new act on its roster - Bleeker Ridge. He couldn't believe it.

"Bob's a legend," says Dan. "Everything I've ever grown up listening to this guy's had a part in doing. Just being around him makes you want to be a better musician."

Now Bleeker Ridge is itching to get out on the road, the obvious next step for four guys who made the most of small town dead and curbed the boredom by playing in a rock band. "It's been five or six years of writing songs and it's all been leading up to this moment of getting on the bus and just going for it," says Dan. "That's what we live for - playing shows."

Gates open at 1:00pm

July 15 Afternoon, 2012

Hedley

www.hedleyonline.com

Hedley, one of the biggest and brightest bands in Canada, returns with Storms, the group's fourth album. It is a raw and riveting, emotionally-complex record, which finds the Vancouver pop act more open and more driven than ever before.

"There was a lot going on in our own lives, some pretty serious issues, but we found ourselves drawing strength from adversity and deciding to fight on," says Jake Hoggard, the group's singer and principal songwriter, who also produces two tracks on the album. "We're such a close band of brothers that when someone falls, you pick them back up, and what this record's about is perseverance - storms can be absolutely wretched, but, in the end, even the worst of it comes to pass."

After forming in 2004, the band signed a deal with Universal Music Canada and released their self-titled debut album and entered the stratosphere of bonafide Canadian pop superstars.

From sold-out arena shows cross-country to the group's 15 Juno nominations, Hedley's intense musicianship and penetrating lyrics have made them something like a wildly popular cult act. Indeed, few bands share such a close relationship with their fans or can match the group's illustrious achievements: three consecutive double-platinum certificates; 1,000,000 downloads; 10 straight videos reaching number one on the prestigious MuchMusic countdown. In 2010, Pollstar even named the act one of the 100 top touring artists in the world. Hoggard, however, says his group takes nothing for granted.

"I never want to assume that because someone's our fan, that they'll love whatever we're doing. I understand that no one has any obligation to listen," says Hoggard, who calls performing a hometown show during the closing ceremony at the 2010 Olympics one of highlights of a highlight-studded career. "When you start going, 'Our fans will eat this shit up,' you slow down and get less attentive, less hungry, and that's the one thing I could never do. We don't make music because we want to. We make music because we have to, and I think that's what the listener will take away from our new album."

The new album, Storms, produced by long-time collaborator Brian Howes, is at once fiercer and more melodic than any of the band's previous work. Anthems and ballads, love songs and confessions, the record is real and raw and already striking a chord with their fans, as evidenced with the sales of "Invincible". Released in August, the record's touching first single has proven to be the group's fastest-selling digital track of all-time.

After playing together for nearly a decade, the group - with Dave Rosin on guitar, Tommy Mac on bass and Chris Crippin playing drums - is tighter than ever on Storms, and more groove-based, something that Hoggard credits to the group's deepening personal relationships.

"We're brothers now and we feel far more unstoppable because we've been through a lot. We've been really angry with each other and unsure of our future together, but all of those elements make up the complexity of a family," says Hoggard, adding that lyrically, he paid far more attention to detail on this record, taking up to 30 different takes in the studio and spending 15-hour marathon recording sessions to perfect each song. "You can say, 'through thick and thin,' but it's hard to practice that when you're in the muck. On Storms, we found our energy by getting through the tough times - that's what bonds you - and it pushed our song writing and our playing, to a place where I don't think it's ever reached before."

As usual with a new disc from Hedley, the record is jam-packed with both get-your-lighter-out slow songs and hard-driving rockers, and songs like "Heaven's Gonna Wait", "One Life" and "We Are Unbreakable" are sure to appease the disparate tastes of both radio station programmers and long-time fans. Storms, which fans have been clamouring for since last year's remarkable The Show Must Go, also features the unique and dynamic collaboration between Hoggard and Babyface, the Grammy-winning R&B superstar. The two collaborated on "Stormy", which became the near-title track of the record.

"We worked hard to develop the melodies and the performance and Babyface really made me feel comfortable with developing the soul aspects of the song," says Hoggard, who spent three weeks writing in Los Angeles. "In the end, he was such a great and inspiring guy to work with. When it was over, he actually thanked me for letting him help out on one of my very favourite new songs."

In today's hit-driven market, Storms is unique because it was intentionally built as a full-length concept album. From the first notes of "One Life" to the epic 8-minute album closer produced by Hoggard "I Won't Let You Go (Darling)", Storms is a cohesive work of melodic inspiration, drawn from the real lives of its creators.

According to Hoggard, it's a record the band spent its entire career working towards.

"We're more sure of ourselves on this record than ever before. It was a very natural and gradual progression, but we're confident now of who we are and where we're headed," says Hoggard, adding that this momentum will certainly spill over into the group's now-legendary live show. "Everything has led up to now, and I feel like the group's finally found our stride."

Storms is the sound of a confident band that's peaking on all fronts - eleven tight pop tracks mastered to utmost perfection combined with the celebration of enduring some of life's toughest challenges. The themes on the record - survival and dedication, love and loyalty - are certain to resonate with the ever-growing legion of Hedley fans.

"This is a record that I think a lot of people are going to be able to live their life by - that things go up and down, but we have the strength within us to carry on," Hoggard says. "I live and breathe every note on this album and want everyone to know that within us, we all have the constitution to endure."

with special guests BIG WRECK

www.bigwreckmusic.com

The first question after a long absence necessarily has to be 'why did you go away?-which belies how happy fans are to see Big Wreck return. The truth is the details have grown hazy over the last decade and neither Ian Thornley nor Brian Doherty recalls precisely what brought about the shelving of their band. Sure, there were outside pressures and there was a machine whose component parts were no longer in sync. The simple answer on why Big Wreck is back owes to a rekindling of the friendship of these two musicians, who didn't speak for years and, once they did, the guitars came out. "I just missed him," says Ian frankly. "I called him just to hang out but of course knew the chemistry would be there." Brian echoes the sentiment: "We got together and started doing the same things as when we first met, on personal and musical level. It seemed to make complete sense."

Returning to that place where like-minded musicians communicate is to return to the wellspring of inspiration and creativity. With Big Wreck, that translates into an outpouring of rock music that is direct from the subconscious heart, and lives in the interplay of controlled horsepower and unbridled virtuosity. Big Wreck remains faithful to the Big Rock playbook but isn't necessarily interested in the "so big it will eat your children" flavours of today. "I went for all the good stuff that's missing on rock records these days," says Ian in describing the recording process. "I wanted to avoid falling into the formulaic cookie-cutter trap. That's not going to interest me so how can it interest the listener? I have to go with my gut, which means longer songs, intros and bridges which explore strange territories, more room for breathing and a different dynamic range or sonic palette altogether." While contemplating the next studio sessions, Ian was listening to Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac and Thin Lizzy, finding a love of the textures in clean guitars against dry drums for creating a sonic backdrop that's rarer today.

As important as finding a more natural approach to the aural landscape, Ian was also committed (and unencumbered!) to approach the recording technique in a way that would offer least obstruction. "The first Big Wreck was recorded really quickly, almost like high-performance demos. When we got signed, that's what they put out and it worked," he recalls. Albatross would be best served by following this same template: written free from outside influence, recorded fast in the studio to match the vibe that Ian wanted to capture. "There's no other word for it other than 'vibe' - it may be a cliche but you know when it's there and you definitely feel its absence when it's not."

Albatross was recorded over a period of four weeks in mid-2011 at Vespa studios in Toronto with producer Eric Ratz (Billy Talent, Cancer Bats). "Working with Eric is really easy and really fast. I worked with him on Come Again and it was a great experience in the studio-we're like-minded, we get along, we appreciate the same sorts of sound. I don't want too many opinions in the studio and his I trust." For a trusted ally outside the studio, Big Wreck relied on Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Rush), producer of Thornley's Tiny Pictures, who extended his services as an 'executive producer' to Albatross. The band would send him songs in progress and he would return suggestions for possible avenues down which to proceed. "Nick's a great song doctor. With Time, that was a song made of three songs which had to be sewn together like Frankenstein's monster, only much prettier."

Looking back at the recording studio, says Brian, is something of a blur. "It was lightning fast. Ian had so much already written that I just had to come in, pick out some guitar parts and, before you knew it, I was done! It was crazy fast but not stressful at all. It was great to be back in that scenario and to see Ian work in the way that he likes best. So reminiscent of those first Big Wreck days."

So what about the songs themselves? It can safely be said that Big Wreck of 2012 follows naturally from where their songbook left off a decade earlier. "Some of these songs [on Albatross] have been kicking around since then. A riff here and there, a melody that was just looking for its home - especially true of Albatross [the song]. That main lick has been with me a long time, working some sort of Rod Stewart Maggie May vibe. Do What You Will has had different lyrics in its various incarnations but it has remained with me as I won't deny I have a soft spot for beer-chugging rock anthems." Ian has an admitted soft spot for Led Zeppelin and All Is Fair treads a not-dissimilar path. "I've always been honest and open about my feelings for Mr. Page," grins Ian.

Head Together was created by layering, over and over, vocals that almost - but not quite - line up. "I wanted to hear what it would be like to do 20 vocal lines on top of one another and then begin picking notes over top, in-between and around." Putting new spins on old forms is a never-ending process of discovery. "You Caught My Eye has to be the most straight-up blues song I've ever done, which actually gave me lots of opportunity to play within that structure for solo'ing, different lyrical approaches and more. The guitar sound came first and everything else followed."

Beyond the impact of their recordings, Big Wreck retains a legacy of an exceptional touring band who deliver on stage true to all the great rock legend and lore. "We're getting incredibly impatient," admits Brian. "Take a group of guys like us and put them on the road for weeks, playing 5-6 nights a week, and it's a matter of what that can become. You can come see Big Wreck in a club and appreciate the Rock 'n' Roll party side and have a ball AND I think there's a lot to listen to in terms of musicianship and songwriting. There's a lot to offer and if an audience can work with that, this will be great."

So Albatross is the same Big Wreck, only different. Fresh yet familiar, there's no mistaken the voice, the virtuosity of playing, the pen from which it pours forth. Ask Ian Thornley if Big Wreck of 2012 is the Big Wreck that called it a day back in 2002 and he sees this as the natural extension of what he's been doing for decades now. "It's still the same thing. I'm still looking to get off and get that feeling. I'm still searching for the perfect thing. I hope I never find it."

Big Wreck fans may argue that they've found what they've been looking for these last ten years.

U.S.S.

Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker

"You are now, all of you, answering a call." Their sound is as hard to describe as their name is to say. Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, better known as USS, are like a campfire afterparty with a jungle-rave vibe, progressively two-stepping their way to a dance folk cuddle.

Pure intention is the scope they aim through, eliciting dance-floor eruptions is what they're known for. Science rap on breakbeat tracks anyone? Ash Boo-Schultz and Human Kebab hail from the towns of Markham and Stouffville, ON., respectively and respectfully. Although they attended rival high schools, vocalist/guitarist Ash and hypeman/turntablist extraordinaire Kebab didn't collide until years later. While employed by the same local golf course, fate ushered them both into a beer fridge that needed reorganizing. A sudden alchemy filled the air between the artists. It was love at first random concept - the catalyst moment to their self-proclaimed "long, drawn-out, overnight success." The memories are many. In 2008, the band maimed mainstage at 102.1 The Edge's Edgefest alongside Sam Roberts, Linkin Park and Stone Temple Pilots. Next was the World Electronic Music Festival, playing alongside drum n' bass pioneers Andy C., Mickey Finn and DJ SS. Crossing into 2009 and over the US border, USS veered to the infamous Viper Room in Los Angeles and then showcased the legendary Mercury Lounge in New York City. That spring, they shattered the Sonic Boom Festival in Edmonton to the frenzy of 11,000 fans. A spot at the Toronto International Film Festival, three successful western Canadian tours, two CASBY Awards for Best New Artist and Favourite New Single, a Canadian Independent Music Award for Favourite Group of the Year, a Canadian Organization of Campus Activities Award for Best Emerging Artist, and even an Applied Arts Magazine Award for album packaging for Questamation, along with global digital sales have the world embracing the strange they want to see. The wide scale audience singalongs and dancefloor pandemoniums are sure to continue. USS are singing and scratching up new storms, alongside producer Tawgs Salter (Lights, Elliot Yamin, Josh Groban). The studio's secluded sanctuary allows for frequent intermissions of wandering the woods, wishing on stars, and quiet moments of self-reflection. "Uplifting lyrics on ska - plus jungle music - equals immune system support." - Ash Boo-Schultz Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have discovered that upbeat, positive music relaxes the inner lining of the arteries and reduces blood pressure. When science meets spirit, you're being the strange you want to see in the world. Welcome to USS and the soundtrack of possibility.

July 15 Night, 2012

The Offspring

Dexter Holland (vocals, guitar), Noodles (guitar), Greg K (bass) and Pete Parada (drums) are The Offspring, one of rock's most exciting and enduring bands. The band have just finished an album with producer Bob Rock for a Summer 2012 release. The Offspring have performed over 1000 shows across the globe and are known for their many hits including "Self Esteem," "Come Out And Play (Keep 'Em Separated)," "The Kids Aren't Alright" and "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid."

Simple Plan

Pierre Bouvier (Vocals)
Chuck Comeau (Drums, Backing Vocals)
David Desrosiers (Bass, Backing Vocals)
Sebastien Lefebvre (Guitar, Backing Vocals)
Jeff Stinco (Lead Guitar)

One day last year, Simple Plan's Pierre Bouvier and Chuck Comeau were sitting in the recording studio trying to come up with lyrics for a track they planned to include on their new album, Get Your Heart On!. Not only did they want to write a song about the emotional power music can have in one's life, they also wanted to capture the sentiment behind the thousands of pieces of mail the band receive at their Montreal headquarters each month from fans all over the world who write to express what Simple Plan's music has meant to them. As Bouvier tells it: "These letters are pretty overwhelming and humbling at the same time so we wanted to somehow pay homage to those fans. We were sitting there going, 'I don't know, what do you think they would say?' and Chuck says, 'Why don't we just ask them?'" The following message was posted on Comeau's Twitter feed: "We decided to write a song about you guys...Can you tell me how our music has made you feel through the years?"

"Within seconds, the responses started coming in," Comeau recalls, still marveling at the moment. "It was a deluge, like a hurricane of answers." Based on those Tweets, Bouvier and Comeau constructed what is perhaps the first song ever written entirely via Twitter: the poignant album closer "This Song Saved My Life." "Every word is taken from the hundreds of messages we got from our fans," Comeau says. It's a tribute to these loyal souls (25 of whom showed up from all over the world at a studio in Vancouver to sing on the track after the band tweeted an invite) who have faithfully followed the Canadian quintet since its inception in 1999, through three studio albums, two live albums, and tours to nearly every corner of the globe, including visits to Russia, Israel, Poland, Jakarta, Estonia, South Africa, and The Philippines, as well as extensive sold-out headlining tours of the U.S. and their native Canada.

Simple Plan's connection with its fans has translated into a string of hit singles, including "I'd Do Anything," "Addicted," and "Perfect" from their 2002 double-platinum debut No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls, "Welcome To My Life" and "Untitled (How Could This Happen To Me)?" from 2004's platinum Still Not Getting Any..., and "When I'm Gone" and "Your Love Is A Lie," from 2008's Simple Plan, which debuted in the Top 3 in Mexico, Brazil, Japan, and Canada, Top 10 in Hong Kong, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Australia, and Germany, and Top 20 in Spain, Finland, and France. Overall, Simple Plan have sold nearly four million albums in the U.S. and Canada and more than 7.5 million albums worldwide.

Now the band are back with Get Your Heart On!, a gloriously fun, boundlessly melodic slice of poppy modern-rock that finds Simple Plan returning to the revved-up energy of No Pads and Still Not Getting Any after taking a slight detour with a darker, more beat-driven sound on their previous album.

"We love and are very proud of our third album and I feel like it was a record we had to make because we wanted to do something different," bassist David Desrosiers says. "But now it's time to get back to the high energy songs. We were really itching to have a batch of fast-up tempo songs, because they are really fun to play live."

One of the first songs written for Get Your Heart On! was album opener "You Suck At Love." The chorus' instantly catchy melody and tongue-in-cheek punchline resonated with fans immediately when the band unveiled the song during a string of memorable performances at last year's Bamboozle Roadshow and was a key moment for the new album.

Guitarist Sebastien Lefebvre explains: "This band comes alive on the road. That's where we've earned everything in terms of our fans. We really wanted to keep the energy up there, have a lot of fun with these songs and make sure they came across that way while playing them live. When we played 'You Suck At Love' at those shows, it just felt right. So this time, we thought it'd be nice to have more songs that hit you in the face. It kind of became a theme while we were writing the album."

Which is not to say that Get Your Heart On! isn't musically diverse. "Summer Paradise," featuring Somali-Canadian rapper K'naan, is a lilting, reggae-influenced tune, while "Gone Too Soon" is a heartfelt piano-driven ballad. As with all of Simple Plan's albums, the thoughtful, slower-paced songs balance out the rowdier moments, which are plentiful here. Produced by Brian Howes (Puddle of Mudd, Boys Like Girls), Get Your Heart On! is packed with high-velocity, super-charged songs like "Loser of The Year," "Last One Standing," "Freaking Me Out," (featuring All Time Low's Alex Gaskarth), and "Can't Keep My Hands Off You," which Bouvier and Comeau co-wrote with one of their musical heroes, Rivers Cuomo, who also sings on the track. "Working with Rivers and having him actually appear on 'Can't Keep My Hands Off You' was a dream come true for us," Bouvier says. Other highlights include the hands in the air, arena-ready anthems "Anywhere Else But Here" and "Astronaut," as well as "Jet Lag," a churning duet with British pop singer Natasha Bedingfield.

"Jet Lag," which addresses the toll that distance can take on a relationship, and "Astronaut," about feeling isolated and longing for someone who understands you, are strong examples of how Simple Plan has stretched itself lyrically, retaining the emotional relatability that is the band's trademark, while showcasing how dedicated they are to the craft of songwriting. "'Astronaut' is a more somber and deep song for us," Bouvier says. "It feels like a very pivotal track for our band and for this album in that it's about what our fans tell us they feel, which is wanting to connect with other people like them."

The band members feel they wrung their best work out of themselves by approaching the writing process differently this time around. "On our second album, we wrote 12 songs and each one was on the album," Comeau says. "We probably had 40 ideas, but never completed them. This time, we forced ourselves to finish every idea, so we ended up with around 70 songs." From there, the band narrowed it down to 30, and finally to 11 that are included on Get Your Heart On!.

"We treated every song like it was a possible single," guitarist Jeff Stinco says, "which is why the album took us a bit longer to make than we had anticipated. But it was so worth it because there isn't one thing we would change. We poured everything we had into making it."

"We're really proud of this record," Bouvier says. "And I think our fans are going to love it. Yesterday, we listened to it all the way through and I tweeted, 'I can't wait for you guys go hear this, because it's going to blow you away.'"

Papa Roach

Papa Roach wage war every time they pick up their instruments.

It's a war for musical integrity. It's a war for their fans. It's a war for rock 'n' roll. The California quartet's latest release, Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road captures that war on stage and in the studio, showcasing nine live renditions of Papa Roach classics and five newly recorded tracks. From blistering live versions of "Last Resort" and "Scars" to the syncopated stomp of new single "Kick in the Teeth" and "Burn," this is the ultimate Papa Roach experience, placing listeners right up against the barricade ready to be blown away. Due out August 31 via Eleven Seven Music, Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road signals the next chapter in the Papa Roach saga.

Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road gives listeners two sides of the Papa Roach experience-the uncontainable live explosion and the unforgettable studio charm. About this unique collection, frontman Jacoby Shaddix comments, "This is a look back at our career through the live songs, and it's also a statement that we're here to stay. For us, Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road is the perfect connection between the road and the studio. In addition to capturing our show, we crafted new material that takes fans on a ride."

That ride begins with the arena-ready "Kick in the Teeth." The first single pummels and pulverizes with a razor sharp riff and an invigorating hook that's impossible not to sing along to. Working with producer David Bendeth (Breaking Benjamin, Paramore) in his New Jersey studio, the band channeled their live fire into the new tunes.

Tobin Esperance (bass) elaborates, "The new songs preserve the intensity we've always had, but at the same time they sound like anthemic rock 'n' roll. We don't ever lose that energy or the groove. These tracks will sound good in your car stereo or in an arena. That's what Papa Roach does. We want to rock you everywhere." The band's resident basher Tony Palermo adds, "We get off on playing live. Anybody that's seen us knows we don't just stand around. Jacoby's commanding the crowd every night, and it's madness in the best way possible."

The live show remains a crucial element of the Papa Roach legacy. Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road's nine live songs were recorded on the band's highly successful co-headline run of arenas with Shinedown in December 2009. These versions of "Between Angels and Insects" and "Hollywood Whore" find Papa Roach at their most raw, riveting and real. The band has shared bills with the likes of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Guns N Roses, Avenged Sevenfold, Eminem and Shinedown and played the main stages of OZZfest and Crue Fest, and their live show has made even the most jaded rock fans believers.

Releasing a combination album of live and new tracks is a novel concept for any band-even one such as Papa Roach that's never stopped pushing the envelope. Papa Roach solidified their identity as a hard rock contender in 2000 with their breakout debut, Infest. Since then, they've sold over 10 million albums worldwide and destroyed crowds everywhere. Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road spans their catalog-2002's Lovehatetragedy, Getting Away with Murder in 2004, The Paramour Sessions in 2006 and Metamorphosis in 2009-and it includes live recordings of their 7 Top Ten rock singles "Last Resort," "Forever," "Getting Away With Murder," "Scars" and "...To Be Loved."

The new material truly stands out though. Whether it's the industrial-tinged metallic assault and battery of "Burn" or the contemplative, catchy ballad, "No Matter What," Papa Roach continue to evolve seamlessly. Esperance explains, "We don't have a linear sound; there are so many different personalities in the band, and they come through in the music. Our songs will either make you want to fight, fuck or dance."

Continuing to smash boundaries, fans even came up with the album's name at the band's request. "On Twitter, I told fans that I wanted something different for the title," says Shaddix. "I asked, 'What captures Papa Roach?' People were coming back with a lot of lyrics from our songs. This one kid posted Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road -which is a lyric from 'Crash'-and that rang a bell. Before we go on stage, the last thing we scream in our huddle is Time for Annihilation. That's exactly what we do every night."

The band is now annihilating independently thanks to their partnership with Eleven Seven Music. "We've got total control," exclaims Esperance. "We're working together with a team who shares the same ideals that we do as a band, and we don't have to ask for permission for anything. This is our first record cycle as an independent band, and we couldn't be more thrilled."

In addition, there's a very special hidden track on Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road with a message personally recorded by Shaddix, encouraging fans to do their part to fight hunger and homelessness. On the track, Shaddix encourages fans to take out their phones and text a number for WhyHunger in order to donate $5 to the organization. WhyHunger has been fighting hunger and poverty around the world since 1975, and the album's hidden track is a shout-out reinforcing this crucial cause. Last year, the band auctioned off a VIP experience at every show that supported WhyHunger, but the message at the end of the album says it all.

Papa Roach still aren't completely alone. There's a legion of fans that's an undeniable part of their story. Shaddix goes on, "I hope this album inspires people that have never seen us live to come be a part of the raw energy that is Papa Roach. Papa Roach isn't just four guys on stage; Papa Roach is four guys on stage and a fucking arena full of people. That's what it's about for us. Everybody is part of this gang we have. You don't have to be in the band to be in the fucking gang." This gang is about to take over rock 'n' roll when the clock strikes Time for Annihilation...On The Record and On The Road.