A7X Promo Image

Avenged Sevenfold’s drummer, James Owen Sullivan aka  The Rev has died today Dec 28th 2009 of “natural causes” at his home in Southern California. He was only 28 years old.
Though he reportedly died around 1pm this afternoon, reports started surfacing online around 8pm PT. At 9:27pm PT Avenged Sevenfold confirmed the sad news with a statement on their official Facebook page:

It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we tell you of the passing today of Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan. Jimmy was not only one of the world’s best drummers, but more importantly he was our best friend and brother. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Jimmy’s family and we hope that you will respect their privacy during this difficult time. Jimmy you are forever in our hearts.

We love you.

M Shadows, Synyster Gates, Zacky Vengeance and Johnny Christ

Everyone at RSB wishes their condolences to A7X.

For music, pictures, and other info on Drive A check out their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/drivea

Also, today is WDBYM’s second birthday! Can you believe we opened on this day two years ago?

We’ve recently interviewed/photographed Lacuna Coil, The Fall Of Troy, and Quiet Drive.. Those interviews, as well as the others on the schedule, will be posted around the end of the month when our merger is finished.

Everything should be back in order by Nov 1st.

On Tuesday night I had the pleasure of checking out The Ataris concert at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Though I’ve enjoyed their music for quite a few years, I’d never seen them live before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.   After sitting through three opening acts of the local variety, The Ataris took the stage.  I must say that I was impressed.  Wether you were a huge fan of their music or not familiar with them at all(like the friend that I brought along with me), their performance was fun and captivating.

The band played a nice mixture of new and old songs.   During their biggest mainstream hits (”Boys Of Summer” and “In This Diary”) everyone in the venue sang along, and there was even some attempted moshing from some unlikely looking people.

All in all The Ataris put on a great show, and with ticket prices for under $20 you’d be crazy not to go check them out when they play your city.

Check out our pictures from the concert now up in the photo gallery: http://rockstarbaby.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=34

For Ataris Tour Dates in the USA, New Zealand, Australia, and Jakarta check out the bands Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theataris

enjoy!

Vain’s Of Jenna burst onto the rock n roll scene in 2006, after being discovered by Bam Margera on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip and subsequently being signed to his record label, Filthy Note Records. Vain’s Of Jenna later went on to lend their song “Don’t Give A Damn“ off their debut album “Lit Up Let Down“ as the theme to MTV’s 2007 hit show “Bam’s Unholy Union“ (they even appeared in two episodes).

Vain’s Of Jenna just released their second full length album, “The Art Of Telling Lies“ on Itunes earlier this week.  I had the chance to meet up with them in dark alley way behind a venue in Tempe, back in July.  Here is the interview as follows:

S: Please introduce yourselves…

JP: I’m JP [White] and I’m the bass player in Vain’s Of Jenna.

Nicki: I’m Nicki Kin and I’m the guitar player.

S: So tell everyone about Vain’s Of Jenna…

JP: Well, we’re a rock n’ roll band [that] formed in Sweden in 2005. We moved here to America a couple of years ago to play our music because we think that Sweden is kind of boring and we always wanted to go here. We’re basically here as a rock n roll band that kicks ass.

Nicki: We’re just a rock n roll band on tour and ready to fuck shit up. Nah, just kidding.  Yeah we’re, uh, JP said it and I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

JP: Yeah, a good rock n roll band, from europe.

S: So tell me about coming to LA and playing your first gig at CrueFest…

JP: Well it was very exciting because we played at the Whiskey A Go Go which was like a really famous club in the 60’s, 70’s , 80’s, 90’s whatever and we were really excited to play there because all of our heroes had played there you know. It was just a good time.

Nicki: We’d formed the band like fucking, six months earlier and that was the first show that was ever booked for our band.  We got to go to LA after six months of being a band, it was like a dream come true playing at the Whiskey.

S: Your first full length album, “Lit Up Let Down”, came out in 2006, when do you plan on releasing your next album?

JP: Right now we don’t know yet.

Nicki: It’s already done. It’s recorded and done, everything is done so we’re just waiting.

S: Do you have a title for it yet?

JP: Ehh, no we have a couple of different ideas, but we don’t have anything 100% yet.  But we have a couple of ideas that are pretty cool.

S: Do you want to tell us any of them?

Nicki: No

JP: No not yet, you have have to —

Nicki: We’re gonna fucking post it on myspace and shit.

JP: Keep your eyes open.

S: What direction are you going for with the new album?

Nicki: I don’t know, we have a lot of more time now to write the songs and stuff. It’s more a diverse album, the songs are a little bit different from each other.  Like this one more funky song and this one, I don’t even know it’s hard to tell because we wrote it all. It’s just a fucking great rock n roll album

S: You’re currently on tour here in the United States, but earlier this year you did a massive tour of Europe.  Do you prefer playing shows in Europe or here in the US?

JP: We like both, like the crowd has been really good in Europe, and it’s always been good here.  We can see it grow, like every time we come back to Arizona, the crowd has been bigger and bigger every time.

Nicki: We like Europe because we hadn’t been there in two years, we hadn’t played there in two and a half years, so it was cool going back to Europe and playing there, so it’s all the same I guess.  Just playing live is great and wherever we do it is fun.

S: What’s your favorite song to play live?

JP: Right now it’s the new songs.  You know like all the new stuff is really fun to play.  The old stuff is really nice to, I like to play “Hard To Be Vain” because the crowd gets going, you know with that song, and it’s nice to see people jump up & down and clap their hands.

Nicki: “Noone’s Gonna Do It For You” is still a really fun song to play.  And a new song called “Everybody Loves You When You’re Dead”.

S: What’s your craziest tour story?

[They both laugh]

JP: There has been a lot of crazy tour stuff thats gone on.  I don’t know I need to think about the craziest.  Right now it’s like a total brain freeze. I might come up with something later.

Nicki: It’s hard to remember the most crazy stuff, is really hard to remember.

JP: Sometimes we can’t tell because we were so fucked up.  But time we had five girls,  this time in Houston, and they rented the whole upper level of the Radisson, we had all the rooms up there, because they were like rich as fuck, and we were like yeah,  it was like were dwarves and stuff too on these one wheeled bikes and stuff, we had this like this circus up there.

Nicki: Yeah that was weird.

JP: We woke up the next day like, with all the people in clown suits.  That was a weird thing, that was a crazy moment.  There were a couple of others, but I can’t remember.  Thats Houston.

S: Sounds pretty weird… What’s the coolest thing you’ve got to do because you’re in Vain’s Of Jenna?

JP: Tour in a tour bus all over the states.

Nicki: Everything we get to do is cool, I think.  Touring is what we love to do.

S: Who do you credit as having influenced the band the most?

JP: All lot of bands.  Like Nirvana, Guns N Roses.

Nicki: The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Queen.  So much from fucking Beethoven, to fucking Slayer.

JP: Elton John, and whatever.  Like a lot.

S: What do you currently have planned for Vain’s Of Jenna in the near future aside from releasing the album?

JP: Touring, touring and touring.

S: Are you planning on doing another tour in the fall?

JP: I hope so. I think we’re going to do as much touring as we can right now, just play everywhere we can. Just kill it.

S: Do you have any bands that you plan on touring with?

Nicki: We don’t have anything really booked yet, but we’re going to have to wait till we release the album and then hopefully something going to come up.  But right now we’re playing shows around LA, Arizona, and stuff like that.  It’s not really a tour right now, just spread out dates wherever.

S: Do you have anything else you want to let your fans know?

Nicki: Just check out the new shit, and thanks for the support so far.  Hopefully you guys like the new shit.

JP: Just keep updated on myspace.com/vainsofjenna and you’ve got the latest news right there.

For more information on Vain’s Of Jenna you can check them out at www.myspace.com/VainsOfJenna.  Their new album “The Art Of Telling Lies” is now available on iTunes.

Check out our interview with Meg & Dia on our youtube channel.

(this video is currently down due to our re-formatting all of our interview videos. It should be back up shortly)

There are 30 new images of The Used from their St. Patrick’s Day concert tonight at Tempe Beach Park in Tempe Arizona in the photo gallery.

There are 17 new images of Meg & Dia from the Take Action Tour’s stop in Tempe, Arizona on March 11th, in the photo gallery.

There are 17 new images of Cute Is What We Aim For from the Take Action Tour’s stop in Tempe, Arizona on March 11th, in the photo gallery.

Look for more pictures from the Take Action Tour, an interview with Meg & Dia,  an interview with The Academy Is, and a video of The Used preforming their new song to be posted in the next few days.

There are 26 new images of Avenged Sevenfold, from their concert Friday in Glendale, Arizona, in the Photo Gallery.   Look for a show review to be posted soon. (click the image above to view the photos)

NOTE: Our old photos from 2007 & 2008 will all be back up by next week.