In the late 70’s, early 80’s most bands weren’t playing songs that dealt with controversial material. Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper are most credited for playing darker content while other bands going in to the 80’s were singing about sex, drugs and well, rock and roll. Sure AC/DC was on the highway to hell but it wasn’t quite heavy enough for people that really wanted to be pushed over the edge. Sabbath had some dark songs and kept it extremely heavy without playing really fast. There really wasn’t any American bands brave enough to go that route…until Slayer.
 

Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo released a statement (to Blabbermouth.net) concerning the recent death of fellow Grip Inc. band mate, Gus Chambers’ who sadly committed suicide two weeks ago.
“I am still coming to the realization of the recent news. We had lots of laughs writing recording and touring. He was an amazing lyricist and performer. Another loss for the music world. I will always remember ‘Gas’ Chambers as one of the greatest metal sounding vocalist. I am so glad we were introduced and chose him to be the singer in GRIP INC. There were good times and bad times …read more

I talked about Grip Inc. awhile back. A great band. Highly under-rated and under-publicized. I don’t know how this took so long to hit the wires, but it appears that Gus Chambers took his own life last weekend (October 13th). A huge and saddening surprise to a lot of people, especially his friends, fans and band mates throughout the years. The crazy part is that absolutely nobody saw this coming. Suppressed inner demons get the best of some of the brightest personalities without showing any signs. No further details into his death have been released yet. You can read some …read more

I can honestly say that I have not been to as many Metal shows as some people, but the ones I have been to have been some of the most memorable moments in my life. The last show I was at was the ATR show at the beginning of this month and I’m sure your all tired of hearing me talk about that by now. While it was an awesome show it is not number 1 on my list but it’s in the top ten. Ozfest 97 was a great experience seeing Black Sabbath, Pantera and a bunch of …read more

Good evening and welcome to the first August edition of Metal Shavings. Lets get to it!
Warp Tour organizer, Kevin Lyman submitted a letter of apology to the Osbournes for the comment he made about 2007’s “Free” Ozzfest…Punk-ass!