Big Drum Thump

Seriously. You can actually own Vinnie’s first cell phone, purchased for him by his late brother Dimebag. It’s apparently been stored away in a shoe box for the last fifteen years, and if you’re lucky enough (i.e., rich enough) to have the winning bid, you can stick this piece of “heavy metal history” in your very own shoe box for fifteen more. The winner gets not only the autographed phone but six batteries, a charger, a car charger cord, and the satisfaction of knowing you helped Vinnie get rid of “this fucking Star Trek cell phone made by Motorola.”

The current top bid is $400. The auction ends on January 19, so there’s plenty of time to take out a loan.

[via Music Radar]

The vid below features stupendous Daath drummer Kevin Talley recording a tune for the band’s upcoming album, The Concealers. Got your double devil horns ready?

[via Blabbermouth]

You know, we’re really up on this whole new media, Web journalism thing, but somehow we missed this fabulous Lars Ulrich interview that was published a whole 18 days ago. It consists entirely of fan questions, good ones like “Your girlfriend, Connie Nielsen, is smokin’ hot. Is she with you more for your money or your fame?” and “You once joked that Metallica’s video collection should’ve been called 15 Years of Bad Haircuts. Who has rocked the all-time worst do?” Our favorite, though, has got to be this one:

When you toured with Guns N’ Roses in 1992, what was the most batshit insane thing you saw Axl Rose do?

Axl’s a friend, and I don’t want to compromise that. But as for “fun” crazy: He wrote his [half] brother, Stuart, a $25,000 check every day to throw these lavish theme parties. It was like, we’re in Indianapolis, so there were Formula One cars everywhere, with all the girls dressed up in pit-crew uniforms. It was decadence at the highest level I’d ever seen, a Caligula kind of outlandishness. There were orgies, sure. Was I involved? Yes. Well, I was in the same room—we’ll leave it at that.

[via PerezHilton]

According to Rhythm magazine, Joey Jordison and his broken ankle are now in drum-slaying shape and scaring the hell out of the Japanese. The band released the following statement today:

After numerous flights we arrived in Nagoya, Japan two days ago. Joey is on fire and we had a killer rehearsal with the full band. Tonight is the first—it’s on! We just shot a video for “Dead Memories” that we’ll be unleashing to the world in the next couple weeks. This one is psychological—you’re in for a journey. We’re just starting a world tour—so we hope to see all of you.

A whole lot of fans think so (nearly 13,000 so far have petitioned to have Death Magnetic remastered…and you know how goddamn lazy people are about activism), but Lars predictably disagreed yesterday on Blender‘s blog:

Listen, there’s nothing up with the audio quality. It’s 2008, and that’s how we make records. [Producer] Rick Rubin’s whole thing is to try and get it to sound lively, to get it to sound loud, to get it to sound exciting, to get it to jump out of the speakers. Of course, I’ve heard that there are a few people complaining. But I’ve been listening to it the last couple of days in my car, and it sounds fuckin’ smokin’.

Somebody told me about [people complaining that the Guitar Hero version of Death Magnetic sounds better]. Listen, what are you going to do? A lot of people say [the CD] sounds great, and a few people say it doesn’t, and that’s OK. You gotta remember, when we put out …And Justice for All, people were going, ‘What happened to these guys, this record? There’s no bass on it. It sounds like it was recorded in a fuckin’ garage on an eight-track.’ And now …And Justice for All is sort of the seminal Metallica record that supposedly influenced a whole generation of death-metal bands. The difference between back then and now is the Internet.

The Internet gives everybody a voice, and the Internet has a tendency to give the complainers a louder voice. Listen, I can’t keep up with this shit. Part of being in Metallica is that there’s always somebody who’s got a problem with something that you’re doing: ‘James Hetfield had something for breakfast that I don’t like.’ That’s part of the ride.

I will say that the overwhelming response to this new record has exceeded even our expectations as far as how positive it is. So I’m not gonna sit here and get caught up in whether [the sound] ‘clips’ or it doesn’t ‘clip.’ I don’t know what kind of stereos these people listen on. Me and James [Hetfield] made a deal that we would hang back a little and not get in the way of whatever Rick’s vision was. That’s not to put it on him – it’s our record, I’ll take the hit, but we wanted to roll with Rick’s vision of how Metallica would sound.

At least not anymore. He also doesn’t hate Dave Mustaine, though that’s probably just because MegaDave tends to be so freakin’ ridiculous:

I keep coming back to the statistics, which are interesting: he’s never played on a Metallica record, he was in the band for 10 months, 25 years ago! That’s an amazing statistic when you think about it, and still Metallica is such a prominent part of his existence. That’s just mind-blowing, because he has made some of the best heavy metal records of all time. It blows my mind.