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Cheetah Chrome, founding guitarist with legendary Cleveland punks the Dead Boys, has died at the age of 71. The news was confirmed by the band in a social media post.

“We are incredibly sad to announce the news of the passing of our beloved friend and bandmate Cheetah Chrome,” the band wrote. “Cheetah was a true original, an architect of the punk rock movement. A one-man hurricane tearing up the musical landscape with his feral guitar riffs and manic energy.”

Chrome – born Eugene Richard O’Connor in 1955 – joined cult Cleveland proto-punk band Rocket From The Tombs in 1974, before hooking up with vocalist Stiv Bators, guitarist Jimmy Zero, bassist Jeff Magnum and drummer Johnny Blitz to form the Dead Boys the following year. In 1976, encouraged by Joey Ramone, they moved to New York and became a fixture in the nascent CBGB scene.

“We realised that there were a lot of people like us out there,” Chrome told Classic Rock. “Why it didn’t occur to us earlier, to just jump in the damn van and get a gig out of town… we weren’t rocket scientists, we were the Dead Boys.”

📸 Tom Hill/Getty by @louderposts

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As Metallica prepare to become the first metal band to host a residency at Las Vegas venue The Sphere, we cast an eye over their entire discography of original studio albums (sorry, no covers projects or live releases allowed!).

But which are YOUR favourites? by @louderposts

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John Lennon’s Imagine album is 55 years old today. Most famous for its title track, which was re-released and became a worldwide hit after Lennon’s murder in 1980, Imagine is far less saccharine than strangers to the album might, um, imagine.

There’s How Do You Sleep?, Lennon’s petty attack on McCartney, the obsessive Jealous Guy (later a hit for Roxy Music), the Wes Anderson-approved pop of Oh Yoko! and the caustic, more-relevant-than-ever, Gimme Some Truth – an angry plea for honesty in public debate, that’s been covered by Pearl Jam, Billie Joe Armstrong, Generation X, Anti-Flag, the Wonderstuff, Primal Scream & more.

“I’m sick and tired of hearing things/From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocritics...” it goes, “I’ve had enough of watching scenes/With schizophrenic, egocentric, paranoiac, prima-donnas/All I want is the truth/Just gimme some truth.”

55 years on, that’s what we’re still asking for. by @louderposts

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Watching footage of Jimi Hendrix setting fire to his guitar onstage, 15-year-old Devon schoolboy Matt Bellamy had an epiphany: “I suddenly realised that music didn’t have to follow rules but could be full of chaos,” Muse’s frontman recalled. “Essentially, we approach music the same way Monty Python did comedy.”

Eight consecutive UK number one albums testify to Muse’s mainstream appeal, but not since Queen has there been a major league British rock band so wholly unfettered by notions of taste and restraint, an attitude wholeheartedly endorsed by Brian May, a long-time fan. “I like the way they let their madness show through,” Queen’s guitarist once stated. “That’s always a good thing in an artist.”

“Most bands are scared of ridicule - we embrace it,” Matt Bellamy told me 20 years ago.” But some of the best ideas come from having the fearlessness to go with the silliest ideas.”

Muse’s ten studio albums ranked from worst to best, on Louder.

📸 Tim Saccenti by @louderposts

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Linkin Park released Numb, on this day in 2003. It went to no.11 on the US Billboard Chart and 14 in the UK singles chart, but today the video is the most-viewed rock video on YouTube with 2.7 Billion views. Does it deserve to be? by @louderposts

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Hole’s third album, Celebrity Skin, was released on this day in 1998, sharing its title with a porn magazine that specialised in nude or semi-nude celebrities.

Courtney Love had just had an acclaimed acting role in The People Vs Larry Flynt as Althea Flynt, the wife of the porn baron, and the album is full of references to the dark side of fame and the exploitation of women (Awful: “They know how to break all the girls like you/And they rob the souls of the girls like you”).

What do you think of it? by @louderposts

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Tony Iommi has recalled his last ever conversation with Ozzy Osbourne – the night before the Prince of Darkness’ death.

The Black Sabbath frontman died on July 22 of last year, just weeks after his Back To The Beginning retirement show held at Villa Park in his hometown of Birmingham.

Sabbath guitarist Iommi spoke with Ozzy on the phone the night before his passing and says the singer was exhausted.

Iommi tells Loudwire Nights: “I spoke to him the night before he passed.

“He said to me, ‘I really feel tired and really worn out’. I said, ‘Well, you’re bound to really, it’s been a lot of stress and pressure and stuff like that’.

“And the next thing, the next day, gone.”

Iommi admits he has struggled to accept Ozzy is no longer around and that, at times, he still feels his presence.

📸 Getty by @louderposts

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Metallica’s fourth album came out on this day in 1988.

Then bassist Jason Newsted has said that he was “f*cking livid” when he heard…And Justice For All album for the first time and discovered that James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich had approved a mix which rendered his contributions to the album almost inaudible.

Having joined Metallica in the wake of Cliff Burton’s tragic death in 1986, Newsted was excited about making his mark on his full-length recording with the band. When he heard the final product, however, he couldn’t believe it. “Are you kidding me? I was ready [to go] for throats, man! I was out of my head, because I really thought I did well,” he admitted. “And I thought I played how I was supposed to play.”

Producer Flemming Rasmussen was as surprised when he heard the final mixes and speculates that the bass sound might have been part of Newsted’s initiation into the band.

“What they hated most about Jason was that he was such a Metallica fan,” he says. “So every time they asked him anything, he just did it. So I think they took it down just to piss him off, because they were expecting him to say, ‘Can you turn the bass up?’ And he probably never did. That’s why the bass is so low.”

Whatever the reason, Rasmussen says it’s a pity because Newsted did a great job.

He adds: “As one of the few people in the world who has heard the bass on ...And Justice for All, I can just say Jason did a hell of a job. They sound really good. They are really good bass tracks.”

Lars Ulrich says they weren’t trying to piss off anyone. “No, it wasn’t intentional,” he said. “Justice… was the James and Lars show from beginning to end, but it wasn’t, ‘Fuck this guy — let’s turn his bass down.’ It was more like, ‘We’re mixing, so let’s pat ourselves on the back and turn the rhythms and the drums up.’ But we basically kept turning everything else up until the bass disappeared.” by @louderposts

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Andy Williams, former guitarist for New York metalcore innovators Every Time I Die and professional wrestler, has died aged 48, it has been reported.

Williams collapsed while performing in a wrestling match at an event in Pennsylvania yesterday, Saturday September 5, according to TMZ. No official cause of death has been confirmed.

📸 Andy Williams performing with Every Time I Die at Download Festival, 2015. (Photo: Adam Gasson/Future) by @louderposts

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Soundgarden always did confuse people.

Formed in 1984 with the express aim of being “Black Sabbath without the parts that suck”, the group had a polarising effect on the Seattle rock community, who couldn’t quite decide whether their dirgey Sabbath/Stooges/Zeppelin inspired-sound was intended as a lusty celebration of classic rock or a straight-faced piss-take. Naturally, Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil never apologised and never explained.

When the group quit America’s most respected punk rock label SST to become the first band from their peer group to sign to a major label (A&M), suspicions of their motivations and intentions only intensified. And that’s before anyone had heard their new music.

Given the context in which it was made, and the career moves which subsequently followed – most notably the quartet’s decision to tour with Guns N’ Roses in 1991 – it has become fashionable to claim that Louder Than Love was Soundgarden’s attempt to edge closer to the rock mainstream. This is revisionist nonsense.

Read Paul Brannigan’s feature on Louder now. by @louderposts

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Freddie Mercury was Britain’s first Indian rock star. This fact and the nature of his sexuality were the two areas of his short life about which he would be intentionally obscure. Although he was born on the East African island of Zanzibar on September 5, 1946, his parents were both Indian; they were Parsees from Gujarat. Mercury would often make note of his Persian roots, but the Parsees had been driven from Persia a thousand years before.

They landed on the Gujarat coast and populated its greatest city, Bombay. Every Patel in the world can trace their roots to Gujarat. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of the men: “They have light olive complexions, a fine aquiline nose, bright black eyes, a well-turned chin, heavy arched eyebrows, and thick lips, and usually wear a light curling moustache.” Sounds familiar, somehow.

📸 Steve Jennings/Getty by @louderposts

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25 years ago, Toxicity transformed System Of A Down from cult oddballs into a powerful unifying force. A quarter of a century later, it stands as one of modern metal’s most significant albums – a success story shaped by riots, bans, controversy, turmoil and the kind of world-altering event that no one could see coming.

Read the explosive story behind SOAD’s game changer (link in stories). by @louderposts

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