HIM AND SLIPKNOT MEMBERS ANCHOR ALL-STARS SHOW

The Roadrunner Allstars took the stage Thursday night (Decmeber 15) at the Nokia Theater in New York City in perhaps the biggest metal event ever held. Members of Slipknot joined with members from bands spanning the Roadrunner label’s 25 year history to celebrate its quarter century birthday and to promote the new album, Roadrunner United: The All-Star Sessions.

The event drew a wide variety of celebrities from American Idol runner-up Bo Bice to Max Weinberg drummer for Conan O’Brien’s late night show and the E-Street Band. One of the highlights was Ville Valo of HIM, who wasn’t even on the collection, taking the microphone to sing the classic Type O Negative song, “Black No. 1.” Valo described why he accepted the offer.

“That’s one of the milestones, I think in that kind of music, and one of the milestones musically for the whole Roadrunner thing. So they knew I’ve got the baritone so they wanted me to do that song, and I’m real glad being here.”

One of the captains for the project, Machinehead’s Robert Flynn, talked about the competition between him, Slipknot’s Joey Jordison, Dino Cazares, and Matt Heafy for vocalists to sing their original Roadrunner Allstars songs.

“I basically started envisioning who I wanted, but there was no guarantee that I was going to get the singer that I wanted. All the captians were writing for who ever they [wanted, so people picked the same guys. It was great for the singers. They just went, ‘Oh, your song sucks. I’ll take you! (laughs) going to go with I wanted, I envisioned Howard, Max from Sepulture and Tim Williams from V.O.D. and Corey Taylor from Slipknot.”

The All-Star metal band featured several variations of members who had only played together for the album. The parings featured songs from Slipknot, Biohazard and several original tracks fron the Roadrunner United album.<