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MassConcerts has announced that the 14th annual New England Metal & Hardcore Festival will take place the weekend of April 20-22, 2012.

The New England Metal & Hardcore Festival, the largest and most successful metal festival in the United States, has presented some of the biggest and up-and-coming artists in the metal and hardcore music genres over the past 13 years.

The following artists will perform at next year's event:

Friday, April 20

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER
THE ACACIA STRAIN
OCEANO
ALL SHALL PERISH
NILE
SKELETONWITCH
LIONHEART
FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE
FIRST BLOOD
MOLOTOV SOLUTION
THE CONTORTIONIST
REIGN SUPREME
CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE
FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY
INCENDIARY
PALEHORSE
HOUR OF PENANCE
LEGION
RELENTLESS

Saturday, April 21

[Headliner to be announced January 2, 2012]
OVERKILL
IWRESTLEDABEARONCE
PROTEST THE HERO
PERIPHERY
BANE
SHIPWRECK
CRUEL HAND
ABORTED
BLACKGUARD
THE MONGOLOIDS
BELGARDOR
SYSTEM DIVIDE
NAYSAYER
THE GREENERY
DIAMOND PLATE
ROTTING OUT
EXPIRE
ELITIST
TRUMPET THE HARLOT
MANNERS
MALEFICE

Sunday, April 22

KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
EVERY TIME I DIE
VANNA
FOR TODAY
CHELSEA GRIN
SLEEPING GIANT
STICK TO YOUR GUNS
ATTILA
ON BROKEN WINGS
MYCHILDREN MYBRIDE
FOR THE FALLEN DREAMS
TEXAS IN JULY
UPON A BURNING BODY
VOLUMES
LIKE MOTHS TO FLAMES
HUNDREDTH
NO BRAGGING RIGHTS
COUNTERPARTS
GIDEON

Commented KILLSWITCH ENGAGE singer Howard Jones, "Yup, trouble's brewing.

"It's been great to have time off, but now it's back to business.

"All the guys in KILLSWITCH ENGAGE are truly excited to be playing New England Metal & Hardcore Festival again. It's like old times: hanging out with your friends, but they have mustaches now.

"Come on out, bring a friend and let's make some sweat!"

Tickets for the festival will go on sale Friday, December 16 at 10 a.m. Ticket prices are: $40 (Friday), $45 (Saturday), and $40 (Sunday) or $115 (three-day pass).

For more information, visit www.metalandhardcorefestival.com.

Jared Sagal of Rockerrazzi recently conducted an interview with the Chicago alternative hard rock trio CHEVELLE. You can now watch the chat below.

CHEVELLE's sixth album, "Hats Off To The Bull", sold 43,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 20 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD was released on December 6 via Epic Records.

The album's first single, "Face To The Floor", with its hypnotic, grinding riff, is one of the most explosive songs of the band's career. The track — which rails against the corporate corruption of Bernie Madoff and Wall Street — debuted at #2 on the iTunes Rock Singles chart the week of release.

"It's an angry song," revealed lead singer Pete Loeffler. "The lyrics are about all the people who have been taken advantage of. I reference Bernie Madoff and his Ponzi scheme. He raked people over the coals, stole and is a terrible person. One day, these people have everything, and the next day it's completely gone."

This past summer, CHEVELLE hunkered down in a Los Angeles studio with producer Joe Barresi (QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, COHEED AND CAMBRIA). During the sessions, nothing was off limits, and boundaries were non-existent. Rather than simply subscribing to a tried-and-true formula, they made a conscious effort to incorporate new sounds and textures into their patented airtight anthems. As a result, "Hats Off To The Bull" is one of the group's most infectious and impressive offerings to date.

"We're a melodic hard rock band, but we wanted to expand on what that means. It's really important to be aware of what you've done already,” said drummer and Pete's brother Sam Loeffler. “We never want to write the same song twice. Pete writes 300 days a year. Joe encouraged us to try different instruments and techniques and he pushed us to continually play everything until it was right too. There are so many nuances as a result." Those nuances come through loud and clear as a talk box echoes through the hard-hitting title track, reverb adds schizophrenic vitality to "The Meddler", and an organ colors the acoustic "Won't Be Left Out" with ethereal flourishes.

On Thursday evening, February 16, GUNS N' ROSES played a private, invite-only show at Hiro Ballroom that closed out New York Fashion Week. A number of celebrities attended the concert, including Matt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso, who sat in a VIP section with Chelsea Clinton, Justin Timberlake, Sienna Miller and Tom Sturridge, Taylor Momsen, Alexandra Richards, Jared Leto, Evan Rachel Wood, Danny Masterson, Mario Sorrenti and the Winklevoss twins.

GUNS N' ROSES reportedly hit the stage on time and played "Welcome To The Jungle", "It's So Easy" and "Mr. Brownstone" as part of a set that went well past 2 a.m.

According to Women's Wear Daily, two men in the crowd got into a fight minutes before the show started and ended up getting whisked away by security.

After GUNS N' ROSES took the stage, a member of the audience threw a glass. Axl Rose stopped singing and yelled to the offender, "You little [bleep], you want to throw a glass?"

"See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya," said Rose, as GN'R guitarist Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal ran after the perpetrator.

In addition to sole original member Axl Rose, the current lineup of GUNS N' ROSES includes guitarists Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal, Richard Fortus and DJ Ashba, bassist Tommy Stinson, keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman and drummer Frank Ferrer.

The original five-piece group, along with drummer Matt Sorum and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, will be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland on April 14.

According to The Pulse Of Radio, AEROSMITH frontman Steven Tyler has been in Los Angeles this week to do interviews promoting the new season of "American Idol", which will be his second as a judge on the hit talent show. Speaking at a press conference for the Television Critics Association, Tyler was asked about the progress of the new AEROSMITH album. "All of it's been written, but I gotta lay lyrics on it and I haven't had a lot of time," he said. "But what I've listened to so far just knocked me out. I know a good song, I know what's gonna get played on the radio, I'm not that pretentious to say I think we've got hits, but I think we've got something, and that's all that matters."

AEROSMITH began work on its first all-new album since 2001 last year, with the rest of the band working on music while Tyler made his "American Idol" debut.

The band has been working with producer Jack Douglas, who collaborated with them on classic early albums like "Toys In The Attic" and "Rocks".

Guitarist Joe Perry recently wrote on Twitter, "People have said when we play the rough tracks it sounds like it's from the '70s but for me, it's too early to tell."

Meanwhile, Tyler also said at the TCA press conference that sales of AEROSMITH's back catalog were up 260 percent since he began appearing on "Idol".

The 11th season of the series will begin with its two-night premiere on Wednesday, January 18.

Jesse Capps of RockConfidential.com recently conducted an interview with RATT frontman Stephen Pearcy. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

RockConfidential.com: I know you've been working on your new solo album, "Sucker Punch", and a few other projects, but it almost seems like 2011 was a year to kinda chill out a little.

Pearcy: When I started recording "Sucker Punch", I decided I was going to take my time and not gonna push to get it out at any particular time. I didn't want any pressure when it came to when it would be released. I did release three sample singles and did a video but the real deal is going to be finished soon enough. I still have yet to record a few songs and solos, but all of a sudden we moved into writing the new RATT record. It's interesting because some of the songs I wanted on my solo record were actually written for the new RATT record. Warren [DeMartini, guitar] and I are actually in writing mode for the new RATT record right now. It's coming along amazing, actually. We've got some great stuff on the table right now. This new RATT record is gonna be strong. I'm glad I waited with these songs. "Sucker Punch" will be out way before the RATT record as not to interfere.

RockConfidential.com: Did you ever have doubts there would be a new RATT record this year?

Pearcy: I'm always writing anyway, but some of those songs were going to be presented for the RATT record. I thought we were gonna get into it sooner so I thought, "Fuck it, I'll just start a solo record," to keep busy. It's been a few years since the last solo record. I just like to keep up on the writing. Some of the songs I had ready for the solo record will end up for the new RATT, which is great. That's what I was writing them for in the first place. There's this feeling when RATT gets rolling. We know when it's time. I'm glad we started writing when we did. A few days ago Warren had this idea. He started playing a riff right outta the box. What the hell is that!? He said it was something he quickly recorded before he really woke up. He had a thought for this riff and had to put it down. I grabbed it and we started building a song around it and it's amazing. It made the hair stand up on the back of my arms. Holy shit!

RockConfidential.com: Has the entire band got together for a writing session yet or how do you guys do that?

Pearcy: We just decided that Warren and I would set the foundation for what we want to present. We literally went back to basics. We found a small room, got the acoustic guitars and the cassette decks. It's the same format we wrote "Out Of The Cellar" with. We don't need Pro Tools and drum machines. We don't need the big studio yet, although it's right next door. You never know when it's the final lap, ya know? We really want this thing to stand up on its own. [RATT's 2010 album] "Infestation" was great but we didn't quite hit it. This time we want to make sure we hit it right on the mark.

RockConfidential.com: What do you think held you back on "Infestation"?

Pearcy: There were just so many ideas coming from all over the place, from everybody in the group, right away. Then we went into pre-production almost immediately. Songs were just comin' at us. Some songs didn't get recorded that should have and some songs didn't get developed the way they should've been. This time we're making sure the "t"s are crossed and the "I"s are dotted.

Read the entire interview from RockConfidential.com.

KISS played a free concert last night (Friday, March 30) at Woldenberg Park along the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans is part of a full slate of festivities throughout the college men's basketball championship weekend.

The band's setlist was as follows:

01. Modern Day Delilah
02. Shout It Out Loud
03. Deuce
04. Hotter Than Hell
05. Let Me Go, Rock 'N' Roll
06. Shock Me
07. Calling Dr. Love
08. I Love It Loud
09. 100,000 Years
10. Love Gun
11. Black Diamond
12. Detroit Rock City

Encore:

13. Lick It Up
14. Rock And Roll All Nite

Video footage of the performance can be seen below (courtesy of KissOnline.com).

KISS last performed in New Orleans during the 2009 Voodoo Experience in City Park.

KISS has completed recording its new album, "Monster", for a summer release. Songtitles set to appear on the CD include "It's A Long Way Down", "Back To The Stone Age", "Shout Mercy", "Out Of This World", "Wall Of Sound" and "Hell Or Hallelujah".

Speaking to VH1 Radio Network's Dave Basner following the March 20 press conference at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California to officially announce details of KISS' summer co-headlining tour withMÖTLEY CRÜE, KISS vocalist/guitarist Paul Stanley stated about the band's new CD, "'Monster' is really the culmination of everything this band has been in the past and where we're going. When we did [2009's] 'Sonic Boom', it was a big task for us because we were saying, 'How do we define who we are today without losing who we've been?' So, that was a tall order for us, but once we got that under our belts, we wanted to go back in and 'Monster' is far, far beyond anything we've done in terms of 'Sonic Boom' and yet it's right up there with some of the best stuff we've done. It's KISS."

So is there a single coming soon? Paul told VH1 Radio Network when to expect it and if it has a name.

"It should be right around the time of the tour," he said. "It does have a name but we haven't chosen it yet. I think our problem right now is that we have 13 great songs and any one of them has possibilities."

In a 2011 interview with Classic Rock magazine, Stanley stated about the band's decision to return to the studio so soon after releasing "Sonic Boom", "I wasn't interested in making an album unless I was in charge and no one agreed to it half-heartedly. The band's all there, all the time, and we cut the tracks all facing each other in the same room. Chemistry and camaraderie, that's essential. That's what made [2009's] 'Sonic Boom' so great, and this album is thunderously better."

AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson hopes the band will return to the studio later this year to begin work on the follow-up to the hugely successful 2008 album "Black Ice".

During an appearance on a recent edition of "The Cowhead Show", the American radio program hosted by Mike "Cowhead" Calta, Johnson revealed that health issues were affecting one of his bandmates, which may have put new album plans temporarily on hold. "One of the boys is a little sick and I can't say anything, but he's getting better," Brian said. "He's doing wonderful. Full recovery fully expected."

The singer added, "It's a wonderful thing when we get in a room. Whenever the boys get back together, I get all excited. The boys, after a while, pick the guitars up, Phil [Rudd] will make his way to the drums, Cliff [Williams] will pull his bass out and then all of a sudden this noise comes out and I sit there with just this big old grin on my face."

AC/DC earned AUD 131.4 million (approximately USD $127 million) in 2009-10 (up from AUD $105 million [approximately USD $102 million] the previous year) to land at the second place on a list of Australia's richest entertainers, according to Business Review Weekly magazine.

AC/DC was honored in the "Top Boxscore" category at the Billboard Touring Awards, which were handed out at a special reception in New York on November 4, 2010. The awards were primarily based on global box office numbers reported to Billboard Boxscore from October 1, 2009, through September 30, 2010.

In a brand new interview with the QMI Agency, AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for the band's long-awaited new album, which is tentatively due later this year.

When asked about the sound of AEROSMITH's new material, Perry said, "It definitely has a feel like some of the early stuff. We've tried to bring that back. People are always asking for something that sounds like the old stuff, but you can't rewrite 'Mama Kin' or 'Same Old Song And Dance'. All you can do is go in and start from the same place you started when you made those records. So we just went in with (producer) Jack Douglas and we all worked on the record. There's a song or two that the band helped write, and Tom (Hamilton, bass) wrote and Brad (Whitford, guitar) has a track on there. So from that point of view, it's a lot more like an early AEROSMITH record. We were all in the room when we were pulling these songs together and recording them. Every way that we used to make our records, that's what we did to get this to where it is. Right down to what we're doing now, which is going over the tracks and bringing them up to speed. Steven [Tyler] is finishing up the lyrics and we're just going to put the finishing touches on it."

During a recent interview, Tyler stated about the new AEROSMITH album, "All of it's been written, but I gotta lay lyrics on it and I haven't had a lot of time," he said. "But what I've listened to so far just knocked me out. I know a good song, I know what's gonna get played on the radio, I'm not that pretentious to say I think we've got hits, but I think we've got something, and that's all that matters."

AEROSMITH began work on its first all-new album since 2001 last year, with the rest of the band working on music while Tyler made his "American Idol" debut.

The band has been working with producer Jack Douglas, who collaborated with them on classic early albums like "Toys In The Attic" and "Rocks".

Perry recently wrote on Twitter, "People have said when we play the rough tracks it sounds like it's from the '70s but for me, it's too early to tell."

Meanwhile, Tyler also said at the TCA press conference that sales of AEROSMITH's back catalog were up 260 percent since he began appearing on "Idol".

The 11th season of the series began with its two-night premiere on January 18.

AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry spoke to RollingStone.com about the status of the recording sessions for the band's new album, tentatively due in September.

"It's really close," Perry said. "We've started to mix. We've mixed a couple of the songs already, but I guess this week we're really kind of rolling into mix mode. We have a couple of tracks left to finish up, just to put some overdubs on, but we're kind of going from the final, final recording tracks to mixing this week."

He added, "I've been wanting this record to come out for years, but there's a reason for everything and the timing for this is just right. The pressure for this to be what everyone hopes it's going to be is enormous and I'm starting to feel a little bit of that heat. We've talked about doing a new record and it's kind of like the boy crying wolf the last bunch of years...I just have to wipe out all the expectations that everybody has because we've always done every record on its own, taking its own place, not looking at it in the context of the last record or the next record or whatever is going on in the world or whatever. It's just about getting in and trying to do what we do best and that's it. I'm definitely feeling some of that weight. It's really about keeping the doors locked and finishing this up without letting any of that get to us."

With regards to the musical direction of the new material and how it compares to the last album, "Just Push Play", Perry said, "Let's say they're polar opposites. The whole attitude of making this record and the way that we went about it is so opposite. I mean, the band stayed in the room and everybody had riffs, songs. I can remember writing some of the riffs 20 years ago; they've been kind of bubbling under. Steven [Tyler, vocals] and I would look at each other and go, 'We gotta use that one,' and they'd always end up somewhere. A lot of these riffs that we love, that are really part of our inner Aerosmith lexicon, are now songs, finally. So the whole process was different. The record's gonna sound modern and hi-fi. We're not sitting around going, 'We're gonna do 'Night In The Ruts' again or 'Rocks' again.' We want to make a modern-sounding record, but the main thing is the energy that the early records had."

Perry also revealed that AEROSMITH will appear on "American Idol"'s May 23 season finale to perform their new single.

Read more from RollingStone.com.

Tim Louie of The Aquarian Weekly recently conducted an interview with rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Aquarian Weekly: What song do you look forward to performing live when you're on that stage?

Rob: It's all a blur to me, truthfully. I don't really care. For me, the fun of songs is the songs the crowd likes the most. Truthfully! I mean, every once in a while, it's fun to play something new and add a song into the set that we haven't played in a lot because I've played certain songs so many times, it is almost a blur. Like, there will be times when I'm playing a song and I literally won't remember and I'm like "Is this the first verse or the third verse?" It just goes by in my mind like such a blur. We've been playing the song "Pussy Liquor" off of the "House Of 1000 Corpses" soundtrack for a while, and that's always probably the most fun moment just because it was such a ridiculous, almost throwaway song that has now become so popular. Everyone used to request it, but we would never play it because I thought they were kidding. So then we started playing it and it's become a show highlight. It's pretty funny.

The Aquarian Weekly: You're heading into the studio in June. Who does the majority of the songwriting? Because I know that you're an amazing songwriter, but you also have John 5 on guitar, who is an amazing songwriter as well…..

Rob: We do it all together! Really, the process is everybody is separate right now. Everybody is off on their own, writing bits and pieces. No one will ever go, "Here's a finished song!" I mean, maybe they will, but it will never remain that way. It will get ripped apart, and put all back together. So, everyone just comes in, and the more stuff they present the better. We may use it, we may not use it, but a good way to start it is with John. He'll come in and say "I have like 25 different things going and stuff, so…"

The Aquarian Weekly: Is it difficult for you to go from director mode into producer mode when it comes to the music?

Rob: Sometimes it's difficult to make the switch because you're so caught up in one world and then you make the switch to the other. Luckily, the tour in between is almost the mind eraser. I've been working on the movie for a long time, and am pretty much in that mode. Then if I had to go in to make a record, I might not be thinking in that right mindset or space. Yeah, by going on tour, for whatever we're doing—four weeks or whatever — that'll get us all back crazy into music and the camaraderie of the band. So we'll come right off the road and right into the studio and it will be good.

The Aquarian Weekly: Are you going to produce this new record or do you have a producer in mind?

Rob: Um, I'll probably produce it, I guess. I don't know what's going to happen. We have engineers we like to work with, and maybe other people come in and produce a couple songs. I'm gonna do this one in a different sort of way because I want this record to be really special. So, I'm kind of just like, "Whatever it takes!" If the producer is great, and after a couple of songs, he's burnt out, we'll bring in somebody else for more songs. Whatever it takes to get a great record!

Read the entire interview from The Aquarian Weekly.