We recently posted an item about how a growing number of major bands, including Metallica, Judas Priest and Gojira have chosen to release animated videos over performance-based clips. Now, Heaven and Hell (a.k.a. Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio) have joined the pack. The band's video for "The Bible Black," the first single from their new album The Devil You Know (out tomorrow) features cartoon imagery of a bored angel who discovers an evil book and plummets into Hell, where he meets the cartoon version of Sabbath and Dio. The clip was produced by Joseph A. Russo II and James A. Fino of 23d Films, Inc. and directed by Ben Ceccarelli. Click "more" to watch the video, stream the full album and hear our podcast interview with Dio and bassist Geezer Butler. Read more...
photo by Jon Wiederhorn
You say your mounted double-edged battle axe fell off the wall last week and landed on your laptop, leaving you without digital communication for several days? Drag man, but don't worry. You can catch up on everything you missed on last week's Blog right here.
Our exclusive podcast was with Heaven and Hell (a.k.a. Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio). Unfortunately, we were unable to reach guitarist Tony Iommi since the old geezer was hanging out in England when his bandmates were in New York, but we did hook up with bassist Geezer Butler and vocalist Ronnie James Die who told us all about their new album The Devil You Know. Click "more" for the rest of the week's highlights. Read more...
They returned from the grave in 2007 to write and record three new songs for the greatest hits album Black Sabbath the Dio Years. They had such a good time working together again for the first time in 12 years that they scheduled a gig at New York's Radio City Music Hall, which was filmed for the CD and DVD "Live From Radio City Music Hall." Then Heaven and Hell started touring and wound up co-headling the Metal Masters with Judas Priest.
During that whole cycle, they played their three new songs, but relied more heavily on their three previously released studio albums, Heaven and Hell (1980), Mob Rules (1981) and Dehumanizer(1992) -- to the chagrin of no one. After all, these were classic albums which have had substantial influence and impact upon the metal community. But if Heaven and Hell were to continue to grow, everyone knew they'd need to do a new album. (click "more" to listen to our interview with Heaven and Hell vocalist Ronnie James Dio and bassist Geezer Butler.) Read more...
Over the past year, thrash metal veterans Testament have put on some dynamite shows, both as headliners and opening for Judas Priest, Heaven and Hell and Motorhead on the Metal Masters tour. But as accomplished and proficient as they've become, they were, perhaps, even more aggressive, hungry and explosive 20 years ago, as evidenced by the worldwide premiere of the full-length, 10-song Live at Eindhoven '87 album, which comes out April 14 on Prosthetic Records. (click "more" to hear a track from the album and read liner notes penned by guitarist Alex Skolnick) Read more...
photo courtesy of www.photobucket.com
We've almost reached the end of 2008, and we gotta say it was a good year for metal. The genre continued to grow and diversify, as best exemplified, perhaps, by the top headbanging fest of the year, Rockstar Energy Mayhem. In a single day of Mayhem, fans could witness mainstream extreme metal (Slipknot), mainstream regular metal (Disturbed, Five Finger Death Punch), power metal (Dragonforce), lumbering prog/doom metal (Mastodon), contemporary thrash (Machine Head), deathcore (Job For a Cowboy), pre-deathcore/hardcore (The Red Chord), alt-metalcore (36 Crazyfists), female-fronted metalcore (Walls of Jericho) Christian metal/hardcore (Underoath) and hard rock (Airbourne, Black Tide). Read more...
Tags 2008, ac/dc, Gojira, guns-n-roses, Headbangers Ball, Heaven-And-Hell, heavy-metal, Judas Priest, Metal Masters, Metallica, Motörhead, Rockstar Energy Mayhem, Slipknot, Testament
Heaven and Hell presented Resurrection Award at Metal Hammer's Golden Gods Ceremony
After this final interview clip with Heaven and Hell, we're all out of footage, which is just as well because the band is all out of shows -- at least for now. Obviously, we'll hear more from them when they finish their next studio album, which -- not so coincidentally -- is what they discuss in our last interview clip. Click "more" to watch. Read more...
Deathcore fan Barack Obama learning to make devil horns
Hopefully, by now most of you have signed up to be part of the MTV Community. If you haven't, you might wanna get your ass in gear -- especially if you want to submit comments to HeadbangersBlog.com or take part in this week's "You Vote Counts" and help determine what video from the last "Headbangers Ball" returns for Saturday's show.
Just scroll to the bottom of the screen and sign up. It’s easy, and all submitted information is confidential. In addition to being able to post comments, MTV Community members will receive access to music and video premieres we can’t offer on the Blog. One thing about the sign-up sheet, though. People are getting a little tripped up by the box asking for the users “Profile URL.” So, here’s what to do.
Under "Profile URL" just type something to identify you — preferably some word that includes a couple numbers. That will then be attached to a long URL address that will be your private address for the site.
We now return to our regularly scheduled post -- "Your Vote Counts." On Saturday, we aired some pretty big premieres by Hatebreed, Underoath, The Sword and Carnifex. Choose one of them or someone else from the list below. The act with the most votes will win a return slot to Saturday's episode. As always, past winners are not eligible and neither are videos from old albums. In other words, only pick from our list. Voting runs between now and 2 p.m. on Wednesday. Click “more” to see the complete list.
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Ready for more from our video interview with Heaven and Hell? Today, the band also known as Black Sabbath with Dio discuss their unsung 1992 album Dehumanizer (which was included in the recently released box set Black Sabbath The Rules of Hell) and touring in the best and worst of times. Read more...
VH1 caught up with Heaven and Hell to talk to the band about the Metal Masters tour and the recent box set, Black Sabbath The Rules of Hell, a collection of all of the albums singer Ronnie James Dio recorded with Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler. Here's part one of three, in which the band members discusses their set list for Metal Masters and how, like a good wine, they've only improved with age. Read more...
What Testament singer Chuck Billy probably looked like at Metal Masters
Note to package tour bands: If you're not one of the top two acts on the bill and you want to play to as many fans as possible, be sure to post your correct set time on your MySpace.
For Saturday's Metal Masters show at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey we trusted Testament's MySpace to let us know what time the band took the stage. Yeah, we definitely should have called the band's publicist or checked with the venue, but considering how ambitious and responsible Testament usually are we figured if they listed their set time as 8 p.m. then that's what time they'd start their performance.
That being the case, we decided to get to the venue by 7:45, but since the parking lots were full by the time we arrived, we had to walk about a quarter mile. And right at the stroke of 8 p.m. we hear music echoing from the arena. Since we were still a block and a half away, it was hard to make out exactly what song Testament were playing, but it sounded kinda like... "The Mob Rules" by Black Sabbath. Read more...
