Bands Disbanded
▪Ark
▪Battlelore
▪Cathedral
▪Charon
▪Dismember
▪God Dethroned
▪Jag Panzer
▪Metalium
▪Skinless
▪Symphorce
Bands Reformed
▪At The Gates
▪Black Sabbath
▪Ministry
▪Morgion
Killed By Death
▪January 7 – Phil Kennemore, 57, bassist of hard rock outfit Y&T died of lung cancer.
▪February 6 – Gary Moore, 58, guitarist died of heart attack while on holiday in Spain.
▪February 23 – Phil Vane, 46, former vocalist for Extreme Noise Terror, was found dead.
▪March 8 – Mike Starr, 44, original Alice in Chains bassist was found dead in his home.
▪March 22 – Frankie Sparcello, bassist of Exhorder.
▪April 4 – Scott Columbus, 54, former Manowar drummer died due to unknown causes.
▪June 11 – Seth Putnam, 43, vocalist for Anal Cunt died from a heart attack
▪July 9 – Michael "Würzel" Burston, 61, former Motörhead guitarist
▪August 3 - Andrew McDermott, 45, former vocalist of Threshold died from kidney failure.
▪August 11 – Jani Lane, 47, former lead vocalist of Warrant.
▪November 2nd – Cory Smoot, also known as "Flattus Maximus", guitarist of Gwar died of a heart attack.
▪December 21, David Gold, 31, of Woods of Ypres died in a car accident.
Stats
-5000 new, full-length studio albums released.
-Increase in number of Metal books. Ace Frehely, Tony Iommi, Sammy Hagar, Glenn Hughes &, Tom Warrior all released autobiographies.
-Big year for reissues with multi-album reissue campaigns from Dying Fetus, Sabaton, Deep Purple, and Twisted Sister.
Events
Iron Maiden wins their first Grammy award in the category of Best Metal Performance for the song "El Dorado" from their latest album The Final Frontier.
After searching for over a year, DragonForce have finally found 23-year-old Marc Hudson as their new vocalist.
Paul Di'Anno (ex -Iron Maiden) has been charged with 8 counts of benefits fraud of £45,000 (53,000€, $72,000). He claimed to have nerve damage in his back and the Department for Work and Pensions got a tip from an anonymous tipper who said he was jumping around on stage. The Department for Work and Pensions gave him four and a half months in jail and took his property. He was released from jail in March 2011.
Manowar caused a blackout in Cleveland, Ohio while performing a sound-check on March 11. A whole city block lost electricity and was not back in service for another 24 hours. Manowar had backup generators so the show was able to continue.
Iced Earth have announced their replacement for Matt Barlow as Stu Block (Into Eternity).
Nevermore announce the departure of original members Jeff Loomis and Van Williams.
After some speculation, Kamelot vocalist Roy Khan announced his departure from the band.
Dream Theater announce their replacement for Mike Portnoy as Mike Mangini (ex-Steve Vai, ex-Extreme, ex-Annihilator).
Judas Priest to embark on their final world tour this summer, entitled Epitaph World Tour. Despite this, the band insist that they are not going to break up. However, founding member K. K. Downing later retires from the band. Judas Priest also stated "Having thought long and hard about how to proceed, Rob, Glenn, Ian and Scott unanimously agreed that they should go ahead with the tour and not let the fans down around the world". 31 year old British guitar player Richie Faulkner was announced as the replacement, but the press release did not state if it is on a permanent basis.
Nightwish is releasing a movie entitled Imaginaerum the same as their up-coming album. In a press release they described it as "a music fantasy - film based on the forthcoming Nightwish album of the same title and its 13 songs. The protagonist of the film is a songwriter with an otherworldly imagination. He is an old man who still thinks he's a young boy. While asleep he travels into his distant past where his dreams of old come back to him mixed to the young boy's world of fantasy and music. In his dreams the old man fights to find the memories most important to him.
Metalocalypse, the adults only Metal-themed cartoon series, gets renewed with AdultSwim for fourth season and reverts to original episode run-time of 11 minutes. 15 new episodes start in April 2012.
CARAS announce reintroduction of Heavy Metal award category for the Juno Awards.
JP got his iPod stolen, local law-enforcement agencies start nation-wide manhunt.
JP