Rammstein's Till Lindemann in ICU with Coronavirus

According to German newspaper Bild, Rammstein's Till Lindemann is in intensive care in a Berlin hospital after being diagnosed with COVID-19.

On March 15, Till and his Lindemann band performed a concert in Moscow. Upon his return to his home country of Germany, he was hospitalized with an extremely high fever and he later tested positive for coronavirus. He was immediately sent to intensive care and placed under quarantine.

The 57-year-old Till, who was originally in critical condition, is now said to be feeling better and his life is no longer in danger.

Five Finger Death Punch postponed spring 2020 tour

Five Finger Death Punch‘s spring tour with Papa Roach, I Prevail and Ice Nine Kills has been postponed and rescheduled for the fall. The band said in a statement:

“The Five Finger Death Punch Spring 2020 U.S. tour originally scheduled to kick off in Sunrise, FL on April 8 and run through May 20 in St. Paul, MN is being rescheduled to fall 2020. The rescheduled new dates are listed below. Please hold on to your tickets as they will be honored accordingly. We thank you for your understanding. Be safe and stay healthy. We’ll see you soon!”

The new tour dates:

09/28 Sunrise, FL – BB&T Center
09/30 Atlanta, GA – Infinite Energy Arena
10/02 St. Louis, MO – Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
10/04 Birmingham, AL – Oak Mountain Amphitheater
10/05 Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
10/08 San Antonio, TX – AT&T Center
10/09 Houston, TX – Toyota Center
10/11 Fort Worth, TX – Dickies Arena
10/14 Denver, CO – Red Rocks Amphitheater
10/16 Portland, OR – Veterans Memorial Coliseum
10/18 Tacoma, WA – Tacoma Dome
10/20 San Diego, CA – Viejas Arena
10/22 Los Angeles, CA – The Forum
10/23 Phoenix, AZ – Talking Stick Resort Arena
10/25 Kansas City, MO – Sprint Center
10/27 Baltimore, MD – Royal Farms Arena
10/28 Newark, NJ – Prudential Center
10/30 Pittsburgh, PA – PPG Paints Arena
11/01 Camden, NJ – BB&T Pavilion
11/02 Worchester, MA – DCU Center
11/05 Chicago, IL – Allstate Arena
11/06 St. Paul, MN – Xcel Energy Arena
11/08 Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
11/09 Cincinnati, OH – Heritage Bank Center

Avenged Sevenfold offer free merch to incentivize fans to stay home

Avenged Sevenfold is incentivizing fans to stay home and practice social distancing during the current global coronavirus pandemic by offering up free merch.

The band said via Instagram:

“Starting tomorrow we will be joining our friends @WarrenLotas in incentivizing people to stay home for a full 7 days and self quarantine. We are developing a ‘Check-in’ webpage where you will upload a selfie at home when prompted by us via our IG STORY at a random time.

“Whoever successfully uploads a selfie with the PHRASE OF THE DAY written on a piece of paper within 30 MINUTES of that post, 7 days in a row, will receive a free t-shirt, hoodie or accessory from @A7XWorld. We have a chance to ‘flatten the curve’ and save countless lives.  We are all in this together.

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT BEING PERFECT: You can start your 7 days at any point so if you miss a check in just start again and you’ll be at 7 before you know it.

“In addition we will be CLOSING @A7XWorld for now. We encourage you to support your favorite independent artists, brands, and businesses during this time of uncertainty. #incentivizedquarantine“

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Starting tomorrow we will be joining our friends @WarrenLotas in incentivizing people to stay home for a full 7 days and self quarantine. We are developing a “Check-in” webpage where you will upload a selfie at home when prompted by us via our IG STORY at a random time. Whoever successfully uploads a selfie with the PHRASE OF THE DAY written on a piece of paper within 30 MINUTES of that post, 7 days in a row, will receive a free t-shirt, hoodie or accessory from @A7XWorld. We have a chance to “flatten the curve” and save countless lives.  We are all in this together. DON’T WORRY ABOUT BEING PERFECT: You can start your 7 days at any point so if you miss a check in just start again and you’ll be at 7 before you know it. In addition we will be CLOSING @A7XWorld for now. We encourage you to support your favorite independent artists, brands, and businesses during this time of uncertainty. #incentivizedquarantine

Un post condiviso da Avenged Sevenfold (@avengedsevenfold) in data: 18 Mar 2020 alle ore 6:49 PDT

Five Finger Death Punch's Ivan Moody is 2 years sober

Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody revealed that he's 2 years sober. You can watch the video below. We want to congratulate him on this important milestone.

Five Finger Death Punch's Zoltan Bathory about Ivan Moody: "He's as crazy as he's always been"

Five Finger Death Punch will release the new album "F8" on February 28. It is the band's first album to be completed after singer Ivan Moody's very public struggle with substance abuse took him to rehab several times.

Guitarist Zoltan Bathory told "Whiplash" that he initially had a hard time comprehending why some individuals are prone to develop drinking problems, while others are not.

Zoltan said: "For the longest time, I didn't understand alcoholism. And for anyone who's not drinking or is not around people who are alcoholic or have this problem, I had the reaction that probably most people [have]: 'Why can't you just stop? Goddamn! Just stop drinking.' And I had to learn, I had to understand that it's not that simple. And I actually had to make that conscious decision that this is like my little brother, Ivan. And he's struggling. And so many times, I wanted to choke him, but it's my little brother. And it's a really weird emotional state seeing somebody that you care about destroying their lives. And they destroy everything else and everybody's lives around them. It's pretty bad when you have to witness that, especially when you have to live with somebody. And I wanted to understand, and I wanted to help. And I realized, actually, I [needed] to get a quick education in what I'm dealing with, how do I make a difference here? And so really quickly I learned it's actually not as simple as 'just stop.'"

Bathory continued: "What makes somebody an alcoholic [is] that their body breaks down alcohol differently than others. And if you put alcohol in somebody's body like that, automatically they're gonna have cravings and it's just a chemical process — they just can't stop. So I had to actually learn that it is a disease in some way. And I had to learn and I had to understand and I had to sort of adopt and figure out a behavior how I can deal with this. And there is this thing where I can't force him, or anyone, to do anything. He had to come to the conclusion and he had to make this decision himself, to get sober and get off the juice, and you can't really make this decision for anyone. The education part was that, 'Okay, then I have to become a chess player here and somehow and Jedi mind trick him somewhere or someway make him see that life can be better on the other side.' It's a lot of that. And in the end, we succeeded — he went to rehab many, many times and finally he succeeded. He didn't give up, and I think it's one of the best things that ever happened."

According to Zoltan, band's newfound stability has had a dramatic effect on the band's ability to develop long-term goals as opposed to merely living in the moment.

"The focus changes. Before, our focus was on survival. The focus was just making another day, surviving another day. All of a sudden, you have a longer runway — you can plan much, much further out, and you can probably keep that plan. So I think one of the most important things, besides that we are friends and we are a family again and we don't have any immediate issues and immediate problems, is that we can really sit down and make plans and talk about, what do we want? What are we gonna do? And how we wanna do it. And what's the next step? And this time, all those things are actually realistic — realistic, because we can accomplish them, because now everybody's focused.

"Ivan is the singer — he's the key part of this whole thing. Without him, I just don't really see this would work. I can't plan something without him, without his input or without knowing where he's gonna be or what he's gonna be doing. Now that changed. He's part of that process as well, and we can see that and actually plan out things and talk about things of the future. We can actually operate as a real band versus [how it was before when] it was just a daily balancing on the wire, like, 'Holy cow!' [Laughs] Like, 'Where is Ivan?' 'Ah, he just burned down the tour bus.' 'Oh, okay. Then I guess we have to get another one.' This daily crazy stuff that was happening."

He added: "A lot of people ask me this, actually: 'Ivan got sober. And is that taking his edge away?' I'm, like, 'Make no mistake: he's as crazy as he's always been. He's just sober. So now he's planning to burn down a tour bus. Before, it was an accident.'"

Watch Five Finger Death Punch perform 'The Tragic Truth' live for the first time

Five Finger Death Punch performed 'The Tragic Truth' live for the first time during the show in Prague. You can watch the video below.

Five Finger Death Punch's Ivan Moody: "I’d have died if I finished 2016 tour"

Metal Hammer interviewed Five Finger Death Punch, you can read some excerpts below.

In November of 2016, Moody took the stage at a show in Worcester visibly emotional with the band eventually cutting their set short. Not long after, it was revealed that All That Remains singer Phil Labonte would finish out the run.

Moody required a stint in rehab. Zoltan Bathory recalls, “We were running off the rails and we were like, ‘OK, we can’t keep Ivan on the road because he’s going to fucking die. He has to go to rehab. Whatever it takes.’”

Moody adds, “At first, man, I was fucking livid, but Phil’s a blessing, man. That guy saved the day for me. If I would’ve finished that European tour, I’d have died on the plane ride home.”

The following year another incident occurred when Moody didn't start the show with band while on tour in Europe. Bad Wolves' vocalist Tommy Vext, who had stepped in at the beginning of the night, would eventually fill in for Moody during the European dates as well, while another rehab stint was in order.

“I didn’t want to quit,” Ivan recalls. “To me, drinking was fun and it was part of the life and it was just something that was a part of me. So I figured as long as I didn’t hinder on anybody else’s good time, it didn’t fucking matter. And what I didn’t realize is that it was killing everything around me. It was like putting gasoline on a lawn and expecting it to grow back.”

Moody credits both Korn's Jonathan Davis and Judas Priest's Rob Halford for some tough love and support as he continued his battle with sobriety.

Moody said that eventually a close friend pointed out how he had everything he'd ever dreamed of and that's when it finally set in what was on the line. "Holy shit, I’ve got everything I ever wanted and more. What’s wrong with me? Why do I get all this?" said Moody. "It really fucked me up, man. I don’t understand why some people get access to the universe and other people feel like they’re meant to just be stagnant and fail. It hurts, man. When I watch people I love so much just deteriorate in front of me and I can’t do anything about it… why in the fuck am I in this position and nobody else gets to see that light? It’s taken a lot for me to understand that the position I’m in is meant to benefit other people.”

Now Moody is on a healthier path, and it's showing up in the music. Producer Kevin Churko says, “His range is different now than when he’s drinking, and stronger in many ways. It’s benefited him in almost every way. He shows up on time. He shows up.”

Moody also isn't shying away from his battle, using it to fuel some of the new music. “To hear this takes me to places that I’ll never be able to escape. This is as raw as I’ll ever be. It’s painful as a motherfucker to hear some of it because it’s still so fresh,” says the singer.