Rock News

REPORT: GUITARIST LEAVES RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

Guitarist John Frusciante has left the Red Hot Chili Peppers for the second time, according to a report at MusicRadar.com. A source told the website that guitar player Josh Klinghoffer has been rehearsing with the group for "a couple of months now," adding, "Mentally, John checked out a long time ago. He's interested in doing his own thing, his own albums -- the whole big rock band machinery just doesn't appeal to him anymore." Frusciante left the band once before, in 1992, after the massive success of their 1991 breakthrough album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. He got addicted to heroin at the time, but eventually kicked his habit and rejoined the group in 1999.


Muse have unveiled 14 more dates for their upcoming 2010 North American tour, following the six shows initially announced last week. The trek now stretches from late February to mid-April, with general ticket sales beginning on Saturday (December 19th) and fan pre-sales going on all this week, starting Tuesday (December 15th) at 1:00 p.m. local time. This will be the British trio's first full-length jaunt here in support of its fifth album and biggest U.S. release, The Resistance.

Muse has always been known as a dynamic live act and bassist Chris Wolstenholme told us that he thinks their early albums went unnoticed in the U.S. because their label at the time didn't bring the band over to tour: ["I mean, for us at the time, we always knew that playing live was such a massive part of this band, and a big part of how we were gonna turn people onto the band, was to go out and play live, and the record company we were with at the time, I think they were kind of holding out for this kind of big radio hit that, you know, we kind of knew wasn't gonna happen. You know, we weren't really that kind of band at the time. So, you know, we were very frustrated because we wanted to get out and tour and tour and tour, because it was working everywhere else."]


Green Day will follow the Beatles as only the second group to get their own special edition of the Rock Band video game franchise. The Green Day game will arrive for Xbox 360, PlayStation and Wii sometime in 2010, according to both a press release and an announcement made by the band at Spike TV's video game awards. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong said in a statement, "We've worked with the Rock Band team in the past year to enable our fans to play tracks from 21st Century Breakdown, and we're excited to now be working on a game, spanning our entire career. We want people to fire this up, choose their favorite Green Day tracks, and play along with us as Rock Band avatars so they can feel what it's like to perform onstage as Green Day."