Six stories. Friday morning. One side of the scene is dealing with fallout; the other is stacking wins big enough to shake stadium concrete.
This is the quick hit: apologies, album rollouts, family moments on a massive tour, studio standards, hardcore in a fast-food campaign, and Metallica doing Metallica numbers again.
The common thread is scale. Old choices get louder when a band grows, new singles have to earn attention before the album lands, and even the weirdest brand campaigns now know heavy music can move more than a niche crowd.
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Parkway Drive bassist apologizes over past rap lyrics
Parkway Drive bassist Jia O'Connor has apologized after an ABC News investigation resurfaced rap songs from before his time in the band. The report tied those songs to a wider look at the early-2000s Byron Bay scene and the treatment of girls and women around it, so this is not just an old-lyrics story drifting back through social media.
O'Connor said he was ashamed of some of the material and described it as the work of insecure teenagers copying shock-rap language without understanding the damage. That does not erase the lyrics, and it does not settle the larger conversation around Parkway Drive's old circle. The news is ugly and straightforward: a current member of a major metalcore band is now answering for something from before that band became a global name.
DevilDriver push "Dead in the Water" from Strike and Kill
DevilDriver have released "Dead in the Water," the next track from Strike and Kill. The album is due July 10 through Napalm Records, and this one follows "Dig Your Own Grave" in the rollout.
The second song starts to show the shape of the record. Napalm is selling Strike and Kill as DevilDriver leaning back into melodeath edges, blackened atmosphere, and the groove-metal stomp that made the band useful in the first place. "Dead in the Water" is not a curveball. It sounds like Dez Fafara and company trying to make the new record feel mean, direct, and recognizably DevilDriver.
Amy Lee shares a Metallica moment with her son
Amy Lee's Metallica story is not an announcement. It is better than that: it is a parent talking about the exact second her kid understood why this music gets under people's skin.
In a new interview, Lee talked about Evanescence opening for Metallica on the Australia and New Zealand leg of the M72 tour last year. Metallica let her bring Evanescence's grand piano into the Snake Pit, which already says plenty about how much room the headliner gave them. But the part Lee kept coming back to was her 11-year-old son standing inside that stadium world while "Nothing Else Matters" played and rain started coming down.
The detail saves it from turning into generic nostalgia copy. Her son was at the right age, in the middle of a giant Metallica show, watching the whole thing happen from a place most fans will never stand. Lee saw him get it. Anyone who found heavy music through one overwhelming live moment knows exactly what she is talking about.
Korn's Ray Luzier calls out studio repair culture
Korn drummer Ray Luzier gave younger drummers the kind of advice that sounds obvious until you hear how many modern records avoid it. Practice. Play for real. Do not build your whole identity around what can be fixed after the take.
His complaint was aimed at players relying on studio cleanup instead of learning how to make the part feel right going in. Coming from Luzier, that lands because he is not arguing against precision. He is a drummer who knows clicks, studios, and big-production rock. Editing has a place. It should not replace feel, time, or the ability to sit behind a kit and actually deliver.
Taco Bell puts hardcore into "Feed the Beat"
Taco Bell's latest "Feed the Beat" class includes Terror, LANDMVRKS, Dying Wish, Guilt Trip, Locked Shut, Combust, Sumo Cyco, and a pile of artists outside heavy music. The program has been around since 2006, and it has moved from helping touring bands eat on the road into putting selected artists near advertising, app campaigns, and wider brand placements.
The pairing looks strange from the outside. Hardcore and fast food do not exactly feel like natural neighbors. For those bands, the practical side is money and reach: groups that usually live in clubs, festivals, vans, and algorithm scraps get another route to paid exposure. Nobody needs to pretend a corporation is part of the scene to understand why working bands take that opening.
Metallica stack another M72 attendance record
Metallica set another attendance record on the European leg of the M72 tour, this time in Bologna, Italy. The band said more than 47,000 fans packed Stadio Renato Dall'Ara, giving this leg its sixth record-breaking crowd.
M72 is not a fresh first-year tour anymore. Metallica have been running this cycle for years, with the no-repeat weekend setup, rotating support, and the giant in-the-round production. A lot of legacy bands would be coasting by this point. Metallica are still finding cities where the demand is big enough to rewrite venue numbers.
That is Friday's stack. For more quick hits, tour movement, and scene weirdness, hit the full Rundowns archive.
