If you’ve read the About Me section of this website, you will note that I used to be in a metal band called Wasted. We were a bunch of Metallica wannabes at the time and to be honest, we sounded more like a cross between Venom and a bunch of pissed mates doing their best to be metal.

One cool thing we did was a Metallica medley at a bunch of gigs with a mixture of new and old songs including St. Anger (it had just come out). Recently the guitarist and singer dug out an old VHS tape of one of these gigs and hastily uploaded it to YouTube. I’m proud to say I’m about to post it here. I’m semi-relieved I didn’t suck as much on drums as I thought I did…

First of all, many apologies for not posting on here for a while. I’ve been off rebuilding the website for my band after a lineup change. Whilst I get back into the flow of posting stuff again I thought I’d put up a video of me I recorded yesterday playing Alice in Chains’ song ‘Black Gives Way to Blue’ on piano.

I learnt most of this by ear so I don’t know if it’s 100% accurate but it’s good enough for me… The original song has Elton John playing piano on the recording which was a collaboration I never saw coming. Anyway hope you enjoy it, leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Read more

So on Saturday I was most fortunate to attend the second day of the Sonisphere festival. I’d only known I was going since the day before and ended up on Anthrax’s guest list but in my opinion the second day had the most enticing line-up of bands. What I thought I’d do is talk through the bands I saw and how good there were. Some were great, some not so and one performance will remain in my memory forever. So without further ado, let’s crack on… Read more

Last month, I made a post about some of the atrocious Metallica covers out there on the interweb. This time I thought I’d post some great tracks where metal covers pop music (I’m not biased, honest!). Some of these are genius, here are my top three…

Korn – Another Brick in the Wall
On paper, it sounds awful. Surely Korn should never even go near Pink Floyd? I was pleasantly surprised by this one and right now, I want to go for a drive with this cranked up.

Listen to Korn cover ‘Another Brick in the Wall’

Volbeat – I Only Wanna Be With You
Now this I like. Two completely different genres of music and it works. Danish rock band Volbeat take on Dusty Springfield and win. Good for you – and your hairstyles…

Listen to Volbeat cover ‘I Only Wanna Be With You’

Firewind – Maniac
Now this is the Edam of pop covers. Let’s be honest, Firewind are as cheesy as it gets when it comes to metal, but put this with Michael Sembello’s 1983 classic ‘Maniac’ and you have white Stilton drizzled with Brie. I promise you two things. 1) You will really enjoy this. 2) You will need to wash afterwards. Enjoy.

Just a quick shout to say that my band Le Monnier are currently offering downloads of our album ‘Cynic Sister’ for just 99p!

If you’re from the US or an EU country you can also get the album for $0.99 and €0.99 respectively.

Check out www.cynicsister.com for more details.