VOIVOD guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour passed away Friday night (August 26) at approximately 11:45 p.m. due to complications from advanced colon cancer — so advanced that the disease had spread to his liver. D'Amour slipped into a coma Thursday night and died less than 24 hours later in the palliative care unit of a Montreal hospital, surrounded by family and friends. He was 45 years old.
Quebec City newspaper reported yesterday that D'Amour — who was diagnosed with colon cancer earlier in the summer — first entered the hospital for a routine operation, but several complications led his doctors to suspect more problems. Then the grim verdict was revealed: the cancer, already too advanced, was inoperable.
Only two months ago, D'Amour was in the studio working on the 14th album from the Canadian thrash-metal pioneers VOIVOD. More than two dozen tracks are believed to have been demoed for the CD, for which the group recently inked a deal with The End Records. However, the band were forced to put studio work on hold while bassist Jason Newsted (ex-METALLICA) was treated for tendonitis.
In a recent interview with Billboard.com, Newsted spoke about the material slated to appear on the group's next CD. "It's the most complete demos I've ever been involved in," he said. "[VOIVOD singer] Snake has already chosen his effects — exact timing of milliseconds for delay. We've had a long time to develop the demos, so there's about 23 or 25 songs that are absolutely listenable right now."
Newsted was a huge fan of VOIVOD before he was invited to join and he remains a great admirer to this day. "They created something a long, long time ago that may have been emulated many, many times since — but nobody can do it like the original," he offered.
Prior to his hospitalization, D'Amour laid down guitar tracks for a reunion CD from the legendary AUT'CHOSE, a '70s band from Montreal. That album is expected to surface next summer.
Metallica has named former Suicidal Tendencies/Ozzy Osbourne band member Rob Trujillo as its new bassist. Trujillo replaces Jason Newsted, who departed in early 2001, and will appear on the quartet's upcoming studio album, "St. Anger," due June 10 from Elektra. Longtime producer Bob Rock has played bass at sporadic concert experiences and in the studio with Metallica since Newsted's departure, and the group had been vague as to whether or not it was seeking a full-time fourth member.
Earlier this month, Metallica announced its North American Summer Sanitarium tour with Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, but evaded questions on the open bass position. The band's connection to Trujillo stretches back to 1993, when Suicidal Tendencies toured with Metallica, and a post on the band's Web site implies that Trujillo was present for much of the new album's recording sessions.
"When Rob came to San Francisco the first time and jammed with us, we all felt this incredible magic between the four of us," the band writes. "It was just something we could not describe, we all just knew it."
Additionally, drummer Lars Ulrich writes, "The last two years of just being the three of us have taught me soo [sic] much about myself, about James and Kirk and about Metallica. To welcome Rob into Metallica in 2003 after all the growth and soul searching we've been through for the last two years, feels ... awesome. Being at full strength again is at this moment indescribable."
Meanwhile, the band has confirmed 16 dates for the Summer Sanitarium tour, including a July 26 performance at the Hawthorne Racetrack in Chicago and an Aug. 9 date at the Coliseum in Los Angeles. Among the cities still awaiting dates and venues are New York, San Francisco, and Toronto. Updates will be posted on Metallica's Web site.
Metallica will embark on a brief tour of the European festival circuit before its North American outing, and continue to sprinkle in overseas dates throughout the summer. The group is pegged to play dates June 6 at the Rock Im Park festival in Nuremberg, Germany, and will travel between continents until a pair of gigs Aug. 22 and 24 at the U.K.'s Reading and Leeds festivals.
As for Newsted, the bassist has become a official member of veteran metal act Voivod. He also produced the band's upcoming self-titled album, which is due March 4 via Newsted's Surfdog imprint Chophouse Records.
The forthcoming VOIVOD CD, "The Multiverse", sounds "exactly like METALLICA meets VOIVOD," according to former METALLICA and current VOIVOD bassist Jason Newsted, who has just finished mixing the album for a tentative Mar. 4, 2003 release. "I have retained the distortion, the constant bass distortion — a little tighter — but it's still there for VOIVOD the way it always was as far as VOIVOD goes," Newsted told Canada's Chart Attack. "But, added to it, is the girth of the METALLICA bass, the 'Black Album' bass sound, those kinds of things that sound huge, huge, huge, an enveloping low end. So both things exist, something that was never there before for a VOIVOD album. Everything else is still intact. Drumming is still fucking crazy, double bass drums every song, Snake is back a full 110 per cent and Piggy's fucked up tunings, Piggy chords exclusive to Piggy… all of that is still absolutely alive."
With regards to the upcoming album's lyrical content, Newsted explained, "It's [Snake's] own thing because of the translation from French. The direct translation cuts through all the shit. The thing is that no person that speaks English as their first language would write it that way because of the way we've been programmed. And when we hear it back so plainly, it's kind of like Yoda-speak, but way more intelligent. Because he doesn't use the little in between words that you would know from knowing the English language first — ands and ares and all these things — he goes boom, boom, boom. All the words next to each other, they can create sentences and/or phrases that mean five different things. On one of his best vocal performances, he says 'It's so good to see you again.' And I know what he means and we all know what he means. He's actually singing about the power of the music and what it does to people. But when he says that line, he's saying it to Michel, he's saying it to me, he's saying it to the crowd, he's saying it to the music, he's saying it to the microphone, he's saying it to his mind, he's saying it to the paper and pencil. I mean it's fuckin'... it's like that."
Jason Newsted has officially joined Voivod on bass. The and will enter the studio in October to record their 13th album, which is scheduled for a March 4th release. There are rumors that Jason will also join the band for the tour.
VOIVOD guitarist Denis D'Amour (a.k.a. Piggy) will be collaborating with Holland's THE GATHERING on the latter's next full-length release, which is scheduled to be issued in October. According to THE GATHERING drummer Hans Rutten, “Piggy will do a solo on a yet-to-be-titled song. The whole band are all big admirers of VOIVOD. CD's like Dimension Hatross, Nothingface, and Angelrat are all timeless classics.” Prior to the release of the above-mentioned CD, THE GATHERING will issue a 30-minute album, entitled Black Light District, in June via the group's own Psychonaut Records.
Here are some of the latest sales figures for various current and catalog metal/hard rock releases in the US (in total units sold to date since the albums were issued), as reported by Soundscan for the week ending February 24th, 2002:
AMEN - Amen: 16,353 AMEN - We Have…: 15,789 ANTHRAX - Sound Of White Noise: 511,105 ANTHRAX - Stomp 442: 114,974 ANTHRAX - Volume 8: 77,858 BIOHAZARD - Urban Discipline: 204,799 BIOHAZARD - State Of The World Address: 198,663 BIOHAZARD - Mata Leao: 51,377 BIOHAZARD - New World Disorder: 50,936 BIOHAZARD - Uncivilization: 18,835 C.O.C. - Wiseblood: 141,383 C.O.C. - America's Volume…: 52,170 CANNIBAL CORPSE - Gallery…: 51,164 CANNIBAL CORPSE - Bloodthirst: 36,128 DESTRUCTION - All Hell Breaks Loose: 3,080 DESTRUCTION - The Antichrist: 1,692 DREAM THEATER - Awake: 272,044 DREAM THEATER - Falling Into Infinity: 142,167 EXODUS - Force Of Habit: 52,262 EXODUS - Another Lesson In Violence: 7,241 GLASSJAW - Everything You Ever…: 35,306 HALFORD - Resurrection: 60,275 HALFORD - Live Insurrection: 24,478 JUDAS PRIEST - Jugulator: 108,009 JUDAS PRIEST - Demolition: 40,945 ICED EARTH - Something Wicked…: 40,336 ICED EARTH - Horror Show: 29,838 IRON MAIDEN - Brave New World: 233,706 KING DIAMOND - Spider's Lullaby: 29,214 KING DIAMOND - Voodoo: 32,785 MERCYFUL FATE - Dead Again: 22,195 MERCYFUL FATE - 9: 20,729 KREATOR - Violent Revolution: 2,351 MACHINE HEAD - Burn My Eyes: 144,465 MACHINE HEAD - The More Things Change…: 114,648 MACHINE HEAD - The Burning Red: 133,421 MACHINE HEAD - Supercharger: 41,622 MEGADETH - Youthanasia: 890,015 MEGADETH - Risk: 303,472 MEGADETH - The World Needs A Hero: 191,852 MORBID ANGEL - Formulas…: 42,819 MORBID ANGEL - Gateways…: 30,372 SEPULTURA - Chaos A.D.: 450,365 SEPULTURA - Roots: 355,471 SEPULTURA - Nation: 54,160 SKINLAB - Bound, Gagged…: 14,756 SKINLAB - Disembody…: 35,324 SLAYER - God Hates Us All: 170,411 SOIL - Scars: 112,614 TESTAMENT - Low: 112,365 TESTAMENT - Gathering: 50,301 VOIVOD - Outer Limits: 21,355 VOIVOD - Negatron: 8,044 VOIVOD - Phobos: 3,687
FOO FIGHTERS mainman Dave Grohl (ex-NIRVANA) recently posted a message on the band's site describing the experience of working with MOTORHEAD mastermind Lemmy on a song called "Shake Your Blood", which will appear on an upcoming album by Grohl's metal side-project PROBOT. In his diary message, Grohl makes obvious his clear admiration for the rock'n'roll elder, referring to him as "the coolest person I've ever recorded with in my entire life…He is God. He is the reason. He is the last man standing and no one even comes close. That guy is a true rock 'n' roller. Everyone else is just trying. I can't even begin to explain how f.cking life-altering a day in the studio with Lemmy really is. He walks in, kicks the sh.t out of a song and then he's gone… like the goddamned Lone Ranger."
As previously reported, PROBOT's upcoming CD will include a dozen-or-so tracks featuring some of metal's most celebrated and respected vocalists, including Lemmy, Cronos (VENOM), King Diamond (MERCYFUL FATE/KING DIAMOND), Tom G. Fischer (ex-CELTIC FROST), Snake (VOIVOD), Eric Wagner (TROUBLE), Tom Araya (SLAYER), Max Cavalera (SOULFLY), Mike Dean (C.O.C. ), Wino (ex-THE OBSESSED) and Lee Dorrian (CATHEDRAL). Among the tracks that are set to appear on the effort are the following:
01. Dictatorsaurus (feat. Snake) 02. Centuries Of Sin (feat. Cronos) 03. Access Babylon (feat. Mike Dean) 04. Sweet Dreams (feat. King Diamond) 05. Ice Cold Man (feat. Lee Dorrian) 06. My Tortured Soul (feat. Eric Wagner) 07. Big Sky (feat. Tom G. Fischer) 08. Emerald Lies (feat. Wino) 09. Shake Your Blood (feat. Lemmy)
In related news, FOO FIGHTERS are scheduled to perform at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, which starts February 8th and runs through February 24th. The FOOs will be making their appearance on February 11th.
VOIVOD have finally confirmed the return of original vocalist Snake (aka Denis Belanger) and addition of former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted to the group’s current recording line-up, which is completed by drummer Away (aka Michel Langevin) and guitarist Piggy (aka Denis D’Amour). In the following official statement posted on the group’s web site at www.voivod.com, Away outlines the band’s upcoming recording and touring plans: "Early this year, VOIVOD split up. After a few months on hiatus, Denis D'Amour and Michel Langevin decided to reunite with original singer Denis Belanger, aka Snake, after a 7-year absence. VOIVOD is aiming to have a new record out in 2002 and will definitely make the summer festivals for 2002. Jason Newsted will play bass and co-produce the new studio album. A live bass player is yet to be announced. Michel Langevin and Denis D'Amour are sad to see [former bassist/vocalist] Eric [Forrest] go and treasure the music they made together but look forward to the future. They are also excited to have Jason's involvement as he has been a long time supporter and friend. There have been many obstacles, as in all careers, but the future certainly looks good for VOIVOD." —Michel Langevin. As reported here back in June, VOIVOD’s upcoming studio album will be co-produced by Brian Dobbs (i.e. MANMADEGOD, ECHOBRAIN), and it will likely surface in mid-2002, at the earliest. Source: BLABBERMOUTH.NET
According to a reliable source close to the VOIVOD camp, the recording line-up for the group’s upcoming studio album will include former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted and returning original frontman Snake (aka Denis Belanger) alongside founding members Away (aka Michel Langevin; drums) and Piggy (Denis D’Amour; guitars). A strong possibility also exists that Newsted will produce the upcoming album himself or co-produce it with veteran knob-twiddler and sometime Bob Rock engineer Brian Dobbs (i.e. MANMADEGOD), who had worked with Newsted on his ECHOBRAIN project and is said to be looking to do more co-production work with the four-stringer. Although former VOIVOD bassist Blacky’s recent return to the Montreal area after a several-year stint in Vancouver had fueled rumors of a reunion of the group’s original line-up, it now appears that no such reformation will be taking place, and it looks almost certain that Newsted will contribute to the songwriting for the band’s forthcoming CD, which will likely get recorded at the end of the year. As many fans will undoubtedly recall, Newsted is no stranger to the VOIVOD camp, having previously co-written the song “M-Body”, which appeared on VOIVOD’s 1997 opus Phobos. Source: BLABBERMOUTH.NET
Reliable BW&BK sources have reported that VOIVOD have parted ways with singer Eric Forrest. The band may reform later this year or they may call it quits.
