Music News

Kiss will headline Download Festival 2015.
Gene Simmons and his bandmates Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer have been confirmed as the third act to headline the annual British rock festival on June 14, 2015, marking Kiss' second appearance at Download, having previously performed in 2008.
Following the announcement, bassist Gene said: "To all our fans - our intention is to get on that stage, blow the heavens to smithereens and take no prisoners."
Playing on the final night of the festival, Kiss will be supported by the legendary metal band Motley Crue.
It will be the final time Motley Crue perform at a UK festival, having announced that they will stop performing as a band in 2016.
Slipknot and Muse have been named as the other two headline acts for Download 2015, with shows on Friday June 12 and Saturday June 13 respectively.
In an official statement, Muse - who have never performed at Download before - said: "We're really looking forward to Download. We've never played the festival before so it's going to be really special."
Other acts on the bill include Judas Priest, Slash, Enter Shikari and Marilyn Manson.
Tickets for Download Festival 2015 go on sale on Thursday, November 20 at 9am.

Noel Gallagher "didn't put that much effort" into his new album.
The 47-year-old rocker recently completed his album 'Chasing Yesterday' - which comes out next March - but claims he only put about "75 percent" of his total effort into the LP because he got distracted.
He said: "This time I did the record in London, I mean crikey it's difficult to focus and make it. I didn't put that much effort into the album, I can only give it 75 percent at one time.
"People say, 'I gave it 100 percent,', and I'm always only giving it 75 percent. People ask me, 'Why do you say that?' And I say I have to keep a bit for the after show. I can't be leaving it all on stage."
The former Oasis star also revealed he and his wife Sara MacDonald's sons Donovan, seven, and Sonny, four, prefer to listen to U2 rather than his.
Speaking on 'The Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show' on Absolute Radio, the 'In the Heat of the Moment' singer explained: "Donovan and Sonny are massive U2 fans. It's a recent thing ... Donovan is a very good friend of Bono. It's a long story. But when that album came out with all the furore surrounding it, Donovan said, 'Lend me your iPod. Let me run my ears over this album.'
"And he's become a super-fan. Him and his mate Bono are having a bit of a loving across the ocean. It's fun to watch. I actually thought that I would be the one to turn him on to stuff like that but it's like he's bored of me now."

One Direction's music has "grown up".
The 'Steal My Girl' hitmakers have just released their fourth album 'Four' and say it is the record they are most proud of.
Harry Styles said: "We've kind of grown up over the last few years. The music has kind of evolved with us.
"I think this is the album we're most proud of."
Meanwhile, Harry - who is joined in the band by Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik and Liam Payne - also praised his ex-girlfriend as a "very good" songwriter, but refused to confirm speculation her track 'Out of the Woods' is about their brief relationship, which ended in January 2013.
Asked how he felt about the song, he told 'Access Hollywood': "We all write from personal experience, so it would be hypocritical to say that she can't and she is very good at what she does."
However, the 20-year-old singer admitted he had "been in" the woods at some point.
His bandmate Liam asked: "When were you in the woods?"
Harry replied: "I've been in some woods before."
Meanwhile, 'Four' is expected to knock Taylor's '1989' off the top of the Billboard 200 chart next week.
Insiders predict the album will sell over 420,000 copies in the week ending November 23, taking the second largest debut week of the year behind the 'Shake It Off' star's 1.287 million for her latest LP.
The One Direction record will be announced as number one on November 26, ending Taylor's three-week chart reign.

Bob Geldof wants to release Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran's solo versions of 'Do They Know It's Christmas Time?'.
The artists taking part in Band Aid 30 - which is raising money for the Ebola crisis in West Africa - recorded vocals for the entire song, with their lines chosen at the end and the organiser was so stunned by some of the performances, he wants to release them as stand-along tracks.
He said: "There has to be individual versions of this. I was staggered by the voices.
"With Sam's version, Ed's version, you're just going to go, 'Wow'. They do it so different to what's in my head."
And Bob also praised the "passion and rage" of Sinead O'Connor's version of the track in an interview with Capital FM.
Earlier this week, Bob reacted angrily during a TV interview on Sky News when quizzed by newsreader Jayne Secker about the hypocrisy of certain musicians taking part in the single due to their history of tax avoidance, retorting, "I think you're talking b******s".
The Boomtown Rats singer and the collection of singers on the single have now been defended by showbiz commentator Rick Sky, who insists it is a great thing that they chose to give up their time to help the fight against Ebola.
During an appearance on Jeremy Vine's show on BBC Radio 2, the BANG Showbiz Managing Director said: "Yes there are loads of questions about tax, but we're straying off the point. I'm sure these people are donating themselves and the fact these people are giving their time is important. If you work out how much Bono is worth, if he spends a day in the studio that's worth a lot of money to him. I'm happy for Bono to give a million pounds to this cause and I wish he would. But we're picking on a group of people and castigating them for doing good, if you keep on castigating people they won't do good in the end. Millions and millions of people donating a pound each is maybe better than Bono donating a million pounds himself. Ultimately, Geldof has got up off his backside and has done something and hopefully we're getting somewhere."

Royal Blood have postponed more tour dates due to illness.
The rock duo - made up of Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher - have been forced to pull out of more shows in mainland Europe after Mike fell ill with "severe tonsilitus".
According to NME, the pair - who previously cancelled shows in Portsmouth, Oxford and Bristol - have now been forced to pull out of gigs in Milan, Barcelona, Lisbon and Madrid, following "medical advice".
They released a statement saying: "Customers are advised to retain their tickets and await further information with regard to rescheduled dates which will be planned and announced as quickly as possible. We wish to sincerely apologise to all ticket holders for the inconvenience and disappointment this has caused."
The band's missed UK tour dates have now been rescheduled for December and early January.
Royal Blood have also signed up to support Foo Fighters during their UK stadium tour next summer.
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl recently admitted he was "genuinely excited" by the band.
He said: "I saw some live footage of them, and I was so excited to see a band that was heavy, had riffs, had songs, and could really perform, and an audience that was genuinely excited to watch them play."

Wretch 32 wants to release an album every year.
The 29-year-old rapper's last LP, 'Black and White', came out in 2011 and has his next record 'Growing Over Life' ready to go.
Wretch insists he'd rather not wait and instead he'd be happy to have an annual release, regardless of how many copies it sold.
He exclusively told BANG Showbiz: "Every year I have two hours worth of material which should be two albums, this is my offering to the world, and I feel like every year I don't put one out, I'm not complete as a person because I'm not doing what I'm meant to be doing.
"Everything's got to have this strategy in this day and age. I think everybody's afraid of having an album that sold 200,000 and then doing the next one which doesn't do as well and I never really got into this to be in that frame of mind about sales projections."
The pop star - whose latest single '6 Words' is out now - has even contemplated giving away his music online, but he thinks if he did "leak" his tracks the act itself would overshadow the songs.
When asked whether he'd considered leaking his tracks, he said: "Yeah, many a time but the sad thing about that is it's an injustice because the focus is always more concerned on the word 'leak' than the music.
"It's not on the music, on the album, it's just on the event that's happened because it's shocking to people to hear that. I don't really want to be known for that, that's what always stops me."

Muse will headline Download Festival 2015.
The 'Plug in Baby' hitmakers will make their debut appearance at the rock event on the second night, Saturday 13 June, and are looking forward to taking to the stage in Donnington Park.
They said in a statement: "We're really looking forward to Download. We've never played the festival before so it's going to be really special."
Joining Muse on the main stage on the Saturday will be Faith No More, while Marilyn Manson has been confirmed as second stage headliner that night.
The trio join the previously-announced Friday acts of Slipknot - who will close the main stage - Judas Priest, Five Finger Death Punch and Black Stone Cherry.
The final headliners are expected to be announced later this week.
Slipknot were unveiled as Friday headliners yesterday (17.11.14), and said they were delighted to be returning to the festival for a third time.
Frontman Corey Taylor said: "Being invited back to Download always feels like coming home. Headlining Download, for the 3rd time, feels like the culmination of a life's dream. It's an honour, a privilege and we're all looking forward to it."
The 2014 festival saw Avenged Sevenfold, Aerosmith and Linkin Park top the bill.

Charli XCX wants to create a musical "empire".
The 'Boom Clap' hitmaker loves writing her own music and also penning tracks for other artists and wants to extend her reach as far as possible.
She said: "I'm going to build an empire. I'm always writing for someone else. I want to be someone who has her fingerprints all over the pop charts."
The 22-year-old star insisted that, while she doesn't make punk music, she considers her ethos to be punk and incorporates elements of the style into her sound.
She told the new issue of Seventeen magazine: "I don't make punk music - I make pop that's inspired by elements of punk.
"For me, as a person, am I punk? In the sense that I do what I want and I enjoy going against the norm, I suppose I am."
And Charli insists she isn't worried about coming across as cool but would rather be "nice and fun".
She added: "When you're growing up I think there's this idea that the coolest people are the ones who are really rude and feverish. But I've come to realise that isn't cool.
"I think the best people are the ones who are just nice and fun. This is really cheesy, but you only have one life - why spend most of it pretending to be cool?"

Coldplay's 'A Sky Full of Stars' was inspired by Katy Perry.
The group's singer, Chris Martin, was fascinated by the way the 'Roar' hitmaker maintains a similar chord sequence with a "groove" on top and used a similar approach when writing the single.
He explained: "I'll tell you the truth: I was listening to a lot of Katy Perry.
"A lot of her songs have the same chord sequence the whole time. Your body feels comfortable with them and then the melody's changing on top so there's a groove you really get in to and then also you're kept interested... So I was like, 'That's an amazing way of doing songs.'"
And as well as the pop singer, Chris' love of electronic dance music (EDM) also played a key part in putting together the song.
Speaking on a new Beat x Beat webcast produced by Beats by Dre, he added: "That song really ended up being inspired by EDM, which some people turn their nose up and then you go to see an EDM thing and people are together and having the best time.
"So I was like f**k it! I love that stuff. So I wanted to have a song that comes from that world."
However, the 37-year-old musician had to enlist the help of Avicii to help get the song to sound the way he wanted it to.
He added: "But in terms of, 'I'd really like to jump up and down to this,' we don't really know what we're doing...
"He did a full Avicii version, we did a full Coldplay version, and we spent weeks weaving it all together."