January 12, 2012 - FATES WARNING European tour dates announced; TOP DRUMMER cover story!
Thursday, 12 January 2012 03:42
Hey all!
First off, a belated Happy New Year to everyone out there - hope you all had a great holiday season. I had a pretty sweet New Year's as the BACH band played a 2-nighter with Guns N' Roses in Las Vegas. Not a bad place to be to ring in the new year!
Anyway, no rest for the wicked as they say - I'm about to take off for a string of U.S. shows with RIOT starting at B.B.King's in NYC on January 18 before we rock the boat as part of the massive 70.000 Tons of Metal cruise. We are also confirmed to headline this year's Headbangers Open Air in Hamburg, Germany on July 26. For updated tour dates go to the Official RIOT website.
March will be another month of heavy touring as I'm heading back to Europe with FATES WARNING. We have dates in 11 countries, including Bucharest, Romania, which I've never played before with any band, and close things out in Moscow - the first ever FATES show in Russia! Check out the full tour itinerary below and visit FatesWarning.com for links on how to purchase tickets. I've already mentioned the South American April dates with SEBASTIAN BACH and the exclusive ARCH/MATHEOS (don't forget to watch 'In the Studio' Part 3 from the A/M sessions on my YouTube channel!) engagement in Germany later that same month in my previous update (see below). The FW itinerary is as follows:
March 05 - Verviers, Belgium - Spirit '66 March 06 - Pratteln, Switzerland - Z7 March 07 - Paris, France - Nouveau Casino March 09 - Uden, Holland - De Pul March 10 - Reichenbach, Germany - Bergkeller March 11 - Aschaffenburg, Germany - Colos Saal March 12 - Bochum, Germany - Matrix March 14 - Munich, Germany - Backstage March 15 - Ljubljana, Slovenia - Orto Bar March 17 - Bratislava, Slovakia - MMC March 18 - Prague, Czech Republic - Rock Café March 19 - Budapest, Hungary - A38 March 21 - Bucharest, Romania - TBA March 24 - Moscow, Russia - KKZ
Last but not least, I was thrilled to get the cover story in the December 2011 issue of Poland's TOP DRUMMER magazine. Visit their website HERE and HERE for more info in Polish and a look at the cover!
December 1, 2011 - SICK DRUMMER cover story; 2012 live dates with Riot, Bach, Fates & Arch/Matheos!
Wednesday, 30 November 2011 21:10
Hey all,
Just wanted to turn your attention to the latest issue of SICK DRUMMER magazine which is online now at THIS location. The guys were kind enough to put me on the cover (a first for me!) and put together a marathon 20-page feature you can read on pages 56 through 77. I don't think I'll have to do another interview for a long time - just about anything you ever wanted to know about me as a drummer is in there. Thanks again, Ian!
My year is slowly winding down (doing local gigs and continuing work on a cool Danish prog metal project throughout December) but the first half of 2012 is already shaping up nicely and will keep me on the road quite a bit. I've got January U.S. shows with RIOT, pending European dates with FATES WARNING for March, February and April stints with SEBASTIAN BACH, and an exclusive headline gig with ARCH/MATHEOS in Germany at the end of April. For confirmed gigs see below:
RIOT: Jan. 18 - B.B. King's - New York, NY Jan. 19 - Jaxx - West Springfield, VA Jan. 20 - Montage Music Hall - Rochester, NY Jan. 23 - 28 - 70,000 Tons Of Metal Cruise (Miami to Cayman Islands and back)
SEBASTIAN BACH: Feb. 01 - Ziggy's - Winston Salem, NC Feb. 02 - Ram's Head Live - Baltimore, MD Feb. 03 - The Omni - Toledo, OH Feb. 04 - The Hayloft - Mt Clemens, MI Feb. 07 - Peabody's - Cleveland, OH Feb. 08 - Cubby Bear - Chicago, IL Feb. 10 - The Venue at The Hub - Fargo, ND Feb. 11 - Deerfoot Inn & Casino - Calgary, AB April 12 - Teatro Caupolican - Santiago, Chile April 13 - Teatro Flores - Buenos Aires, Argentina April 14 - Carioca Club - São Paulo, Brazil April 15 - Opiniao - Porto Alegre, Brazil
ARCH/MATHEOS: April 27 / 28 - Keep It True Festival, Tauberfrankenhalle - Lauda-Königshofen, Germany
Stay tuned for further gig updates!
Bobby
September 27, 2011 - ARCH/MATHEOS, BACH, RIOT, HALFORD releases; RIOT European Tour Confirmed!
Tuesday, 27 September 2011 05:10
Hey all!
Exciting times. Busy times.
A couple of weeks ago, ARCH / MATHEOS - 'Sympathetic Resonance', the first of 4 fall releases I'm on, came out and so far the response, both from fans and press alike, has been nothing short of amazing! It debuted at #13 on the Billboard New Artist Chart and at #36 on the Billboard Hard Music Chart and has also hit the international charts at #27 in Germany, #67 in Austria, and #78 in Switzerland. Nice!
I'm really proud of this record and I spent a lot of time developing my drums parts to do the music Jim (Matheos) wrote justice. I've just uploaded 'In the Studio - Part 2' of the A/M sessions on my YouTube channel so check that out. Speaking of videos, we recently shot a promotional video for the song 'Midnight Seranade' with director David Brodsky of MyGoodEye at a church in New Haven, CT so look for that in the near future.
Up next is the new SEBASTIAN BACH record, 'Kicking & Screaming', which is coming out in North America today, September 27, as a matter of fact. This is a totally different animal from A/M - just balls out straight ahead rock, with a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure. The whole album is streaming on AOL right now. We did this one with producer Bob Marlette (Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Shinedown) out in L.A. (check out the EPK on the Frontiers YouTube channel for a behind-the-studio-scenes and Sebastian's Flickr page for photos of it all) where we also shot 3 promotional videos; the first video/single, 'Kicking & Screaming', is up for your viewing pleasure.
On the livefront, RIOT will be touring Europe with the mighty Hammerfall starting in less than a month. This should be a great tour for us and the timing couldn't be any better as the new album, 'Immortal Soul', will hit the streets that same week over there (North America will get it November 22). Go to the Official RIOT website for all the latest news. Exact tour dates are as follows:
Last but not least, there's the HALFORD - 'Live At Saitama Super Arena' DVD / Blu-Ray (out October 10) which is available for pre-order. Go to RobHalford.com for more info and watch the trailer HERE.
I'll leave you with an interview I did with Kelley Simms where I talk about all - or most - of the above. Read it HERE. OK, gotta pack up some more house and get situated in the new place before we jump into RIOT rehearsals for the tour!
Catch y'all later!
Bobby
November 3, 2011 - U.S. Tour Dates with SEBASTIAN BACH!
Thursday, 03 November 2011 12:30
OK, now that I'm almost done moving into the new place it's time to hit the road again for a bit. Going out with SEBASTIAN BACH for a string of U.S. shows on the East Coast in support of the new record, 'Kicking & Screaming', which came out just over a month ago. You can catch us at the following venues starting tomorrow night:
Nov. 04 - Jaxx Nightclub - Springfield, VA Nov. 05 - Starland Ballroom - Sayreville, NJ Nov. 08 - Showcase Live - Foxboro, MA Nov. 09 - Chameleon Club - Lancaster, PA Nov. 10 - Irving Plaza - New York, NY Nov. 11 - Penn's Peak - Jim Thorpe, PA Nov. 12 - The Asylum - Portland, ME
Nov. 19 - Comcast Theatre - Hartford, CT + Nov. 20 - Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza - Wilkes-Barre, PA + Nov. 23 - Times Union Center - Albany, NY + + indicates support for Guns 'N Roses
Don't forget to check out the other new CDs and DVDs I'm on - ARCH/MATHEOS - 'Sympathetic Resonance', RIOT - 'Immortal Soul' (U.S. release date is November 22), and the HALFORD - 'Live At Saitama Super Arena' DVD.
Well, the Arch/Matheos album release is inching ever closer - less than a month away now! - and I thought I'd give you a bit of background info on the genesis of it all from my point of view to go along with some footage I took in the studio.
Jim and I continued to exchange files and I worked on the material throughout 2010 between my busy touring schedule with Halford and Sebastian Bach. The writing and demos were all done by the end of the year and in January of 2011 I was scheduled to fly to Connecticut to record my drum tracks at Carriage House Studios, which is where a lot of Fates recordings have taken place over the years.
In early 2010, Jim started sending me demo versions of material he was writing. I began working things out, recording my drum parts at my studio in San Antonio, and sending files back to him. Shortly after I started working on the songs, John (Arch) got involved in the project and things started to change a bit (in a good way, of course). John's vocals made the songs more clear to me and he even extended various sections (of certain songs) to fit his vocal style.
Everything was good to go but when the fly date arrived I wasn't sure if I was going to make it up to CT due to the crazy snow storms that were pounding New England at that time. But, after re-scheduling my flight and changing my departure date, being on stand-by on another flight, and arriving at a different airport than originally planned (aarrgghh!), I made it to Carriage House Studios after all! After all that hassle, Johnny Montagnese made me feel very welcome at his studio for what was going to be my first time working with long time Fates Warning engineer Phil Magnotti. It was an awesome 3 days working with Phil, Jim, and John. Luckily, I remembered to set up my flip video camera and got some footage of the drum recordings. Just wish I had more than one angle.....
It's been a while since I've posted any new videos on my YouTube channel, and with the sneak preview of the 5-minute 'Stained Glass Sky' edit being out there and getting people excited, I thought this would be a good time to share this drum footage of the song. Check it out HERE! I have enough footage of a few other songs to fill another clip or two. I'll post those shortly after the 'Sympathetic Resonance' release on September 13.
