3/1 Shinedown (pictured above) announces that they will donate $1 for every ticket sold for “The Revolutions Live U.S.” tour to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Shinedown is a long-time mental health advocate.
3/2 Steve Mackey, Pulp bassist and a music producer, dies of an undisclosed illness at age 56.
3/4 “Welcome To The Circus” is #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart. The track is from Five Finger Death Punch’s ninth studio album “AfterLife.”
3/5 Original Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington dies at the age of 71.
3/8 Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody celebrates his fifth year of sobriety. He nearly died due to an alcohol-related seizure and went to rehab five times before it finally stuck.
3/8 Dark Angel guitarist Jim Durkin passes away at aged 58. Durkin was one of the main songwriters on the band’s first three albums – “We Have Arrived” (‘85), “Darkness Descends” (’86) and “Leave Scars” (‘89).
3/9 Former Bad Wolves vocalist Tommy Vext is ordered by a California appeals judge to pay $97,500 to his ex-girlfriend Whitney Johns to cover her legal fees stemming from a ’21 domestic violence case in which Johns was granted a two-year restraining order.
3/10 Panic! At The Disco play what vocalist Brendon Urie says is their final show. It’s at the AO Arena in Manchester, England. A couple months earlier Urie announced the band was ending after a twenty-year run.
3/10 Saxon announces that guitarist Paul Quinn has decided to step back from touring. Quinn, a Saxon co-founder, will continue to record with the group.
3/11 Machine Gun Kelly and Mod Sun take home the award for Worst Director at the 43rd annual Razzies (Golden Raspberry Awards) for their work in “Good Mourning,” a film about movie star London Clash (MGK) after he wakes up to what he believes is a “break-up text” from the love of his life and it goes downhill from there.
3/11 Bad Omens score their first #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart with “Just Pretend.” The track from the band’s third album, “The Death Of Peace Of Mind,” takes 27-weeks to reach the top.
3/11 Alexisonfire’s “Otherness” wins the Rock Album of the Year honor at the Juno Awards (Canada’s Grammys).
3/12 Slash (Guns N’ Roses) announces the launch of BerserkerGang, a horror production company in partnership with genre professionals.
3/12 Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen suffers a head injury after an unprovoked violent assault by a teenager at a South Florida hotel. Allen is there for a co-headline concert with Mötley Crüe. The suspect is arrested, charged and released after posting bail.
3/13 Nickelback is inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame during the Juno Awards in Edmonton, Alberta.
3/13 Jim Gordon, a drummer for Eric Clapton, George Harrison and others, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had a lifelong battle with mental illness, dies from natural causes at California Medical Facility in Vacavillle, CA. Gordon was a member of Clapton’s Derek & The Dominos and was a credited co-writer of the ‘70 hit “Layla.”
3/14 Queen guitarist Brian May is knighted by King Charles during an investiture ceremony at Buckingham Palace. He is made a Knight Bachelor for his “services to music and charity.”
3/14 Metallica announce they’ve acquired a majority interest in Furnace Record Pressing in Alexandria, VA. Metallica produced over 900,000 vinyl records in ‘22, mostly at Furnace.
3/15 A federal judge dismisses a copyright lawsuit that claimed Nickelback’s ‘06 hit “Rockstar” was ripped off from an earlier song by Snowblind Revival musician Kirk Johnston, who claimed Nickelback’s song mirrored a song he’d done called “Rock Star.”
3/15 Tickets go on sale for The Cure’s first North American tour since 2016 but it goes sideways quickly. Fans are upset after realizing that Ticketmaster’s fees eclipse the price of the actual ticket in some markets. The Cure’s frontman Robert Smith says he is “sickened” by what he calls “a greedy scam.” Subsequently, he gets Ticketmaster to agree to issue partial refunds to ticket holders over ‘unduly high’ fees.
3/15 Fozzy frontman and wrestling superstar Chris Jericho gets a street named after him by the city of Winnipeg, Canada for “being a great ambassador” for the city.
3/17 Former Hole singer Courtney Love publishes an article in the Guardian, a British daily newspaper, titled “Why Are Women So Marginalized by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?” “If so few women are being inducted into the Rock Hall, then the nominating committee is broken. If so few Black artists, so few women of color, are being inducted, then the voting process needs to be overhauled,” Love writes. “Music is a lifeforce that is constantly evolving – and they can’t keep up.”
3/17 NCAA bans Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” The Virginia Tech Hokies Women’s Basketball team has used the song, with permission from Metallica, as entrance music. The NCAA ban for March Madness is to keep the venue, Virginia Tech’s Cassell Coliseum in Blacksburg, VA, ‘neutral’. No matter. Virginia Tech fans respond by loudly chanting the lyrics to “Enter Sandman” instead. The Hokies beat Chattanooga 58–33. 2023
3/18 Linkin Park’s “Lost” is #1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. The band’s ninth #1 on the survey – it’s first in eight and a half years – features vocals by the late Chester Bennington.
The song is on the 20th anniversary reissue of “Meteora” (pictured).
3/19 Neil Young’s posts “Concert Touring Is Broken.” He criticizes Ticketmaster for its long-held monopoly on concert ticket sales – high ticket prices and ticket fees – which have reached up to 30% for some artists. “Artists have to worry about ripped off fans blaming them for Ticketmaster add-ons and scalpers,” writes Young on his website.
3/21 Bruce Springsteen is among 11 artists and organizations who accept the 2021 National Medal of Arts at the White House. The award is the nation’s highest accolade for artistic achievement. The ’21 National Medal of Arts ceremony was one of a backlog of events that were postponed throughout the pandemic.
3/22 Failed Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake once again undertakes an unauthorized use of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” In a tweet after the Arizona Supreme Court declines to hear most of Lake’s challenge of her 2022 defeat, she lifts four lines from the song. Petty’s estate slammed Lake the previous November after she used the same song in a video.
3/22 Wayne Swinny, Saliva guitarist and co-founder, passes away from a brain hemorrhage at age 59. The band is on the Pittsburgh stop of its Spring Mayhem Tour.
3/25 U2 becomes the fourth band to have a Top 10 album on Billboard’s in five straight decades. Released earlier the month U2’s “Songs Of Surrender,” re-recorded versions of some of U2’s biggest songs, debuted at #5 on the chart. AC/DC, Def Leppard and Metallica are the other three.
3/25 Former Iron Maiden vocalist, Blaze Bayley, suffers a heart attack. He is listed in stable condition.
3/27 Red Hot Chili Peppers take home Rock Song of the Year (for “Black Summer”) and Alternative Artist of the Year honors at the 10th annual iHeartRadio Music Awards in Hollywood. Papa Roach is named the Rock Artist of the Year. Papa Roach receives the Rock Artist of the Year award.
3/30 To kick-off baseball season the New York Yankees use My Chemical Romance’s “Welcome To The Black Parade” in the team’s promo video. Band member Frank Iero writes being a Yankees fan runs in his blood, so “it is a special honor for his music to be featured in the video.”
3/31 The Cure’s frontman Robert Smith continues his battle with scalpers who get around Ticketmaster’s transfer limitations to inflate concert ticket prices. Smith confirms that approximately 7,000 tickets purchased using fake accounts or listed on resale sites have been canceled. “Original fees paid on those tickets will be donated to Amnesty International and the tickets themselves will be resold to fans,” posts Smith.
3/31 The roof of the Apollo Theater in Belvidere, IL collapses just before Death Metal band Morbid Angel is scheduled to perform. One person was killed with dozens hospitalized – five suffer severe injuries. The Belvidere Police Department says 260 people were in the venue at the time as a heavy storm rolled through the area.
