The first few dates for Disturbed’s Music as a Weapon tour with Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil and Chimaira have been confirmed, they are:

March 21st in Waterloo, IA @ MC Elroy Auditorium
March 23rd in Oklahoma City, OK @ Ford Center
March 31st in Grand Prairie, TX @ Nokia Theatre
April 14th in Baltimore, MD @ 1st Mariner Arena
April 15th in Lowell, MA @ Tsongas Arena
April 18th in Portland, ME @ Cumberland County Civic Center
April 28th in Pittsburgh, PA @ Petersen Events Center
May 2nd in Detroit, MI @ Cobo Arena
May 8th in Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center

Full tour schedule will be announced on January 27th.

Slipknot begins its first solo headlining tour in support of the band's latest album, All Hope Is Gone, on Friday (January 23rd) in St. Paul, Minnesota. Frontman Corey Taylor told us that fans who saw the group on last summer's Rockstar Energy Mayhem festival trek will get a different show this time around: "I mean, obviously we'll have as much time as we want. We put a whole new stage set together. We're getting away from the pyro. We're going way more visual this time. We're incorporating a lot of video, a lot of, like, really cool elements, but we're not, it's not gonna be hokey."

Taylor added that it's important for Slipknot to do something new every time it goes out on the road: "Nobody wants to do the same thing over and over, and we're a band that we work harder when we know the concept is real, and when we know it's important and it's vital. So for us, it's important to get out there and just do a new show every time, every time, every time, and really try to bring something different, because we've got people still coming to see us for, you know, after ten years, and we just want to try and give something special."

The 33-city tour will run through mid-March and feature Slipknot's first-ever gig at New York City's prestigious Madison Square Garden. Joining the bill as opening acts will be Trivium and Coheed and Cambria.

Slipknot's latest release, All Hope Is Gone, has been certified gold for moving more than 500,000 copies since its arrival last August. It was also the band's first Number One debut on the Billboard chart.

As the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus prepares for the February 3rd release of its new album, Lonely Road, the punk act also continues to be actively involved with a large number of charities and social issues such as domestic violence and teen suicide prevention. Singer Ronnie Winter formed the Guardian Angel Foundation to make their efforts more effective, with LiveDaily.com reporting that the non-profit has raised more than $200,000 for various schools and families.

Winter told us why he and the band have such a strong interest in the charitable work that they do: "We're just normal people and most normal people on this earth actually do care about other people, and they do do good things for other people for no reason because it just seems like the right thing to do. So if anything, we're just trying to be normal and not be so concerned with some other things that a lot of people get distracted with when fame and money come into the picture. We're just trying to stay exactly like we were."

Winter told LiveDaily that he started the Foundation so that "whenever we found a family, or a school, a lady who's basically needed help because of a domestic violence situation, this way we can actually help them, put the money in their hand without (dealing with) any kind of red tape."

The newest phase of the Guardian Angel Foundation focuses on underfunded high school music programs, with the group planning to identify and help fund them around the country.

Lonely Road will follow up the band's 2006 platinum debut, Don't You Fake It. One of that CD's singles, "Face Down," dealt with domestic violence.

The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus is on tour now and plays Friday night (January 23rd) in Toledo, Ohio.

A musician and independent label owner in the U.S. has drawn attention to the similarity between one of his album covers and that of the new U2 record, No Line On The Horizon. According to NME.com, Taylor Deupree pointed out at his blog, 12kblog, that Specification: Fifteen, a 2006 album he did in collaboration with electronic artist Richard Chartier, used the same photograph by Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. Deupree wrote, "OK, come on people, do some research before you release an album cover ... Both covers feature a photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Specification: Fifteen was created directly in conjunction with Sugimoto and his retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, so before people run off about how cool the new U2 cover is, show them ours first."

Deupree added, "Naturally, when something we have slaved over, fought for recognition over, is so easily undone by pop culture, it feels a bit cheap. What for us is one of the greatest achievements in a career thus far is simply a phonecall for U2."

The musician later seemed put off by the controversy his remarks caused online, writing, "Aren't there more important things to worry about now? Stop wasting your time here. Go do something that matters." He also said that he should not have suggested in his original post that U2 "ripped off" his cover, adding, "'Rip off,' it seems, can't be done unless U2 was aware of our cover, which I highly doubt they were."

Album cover designer Shaughn McGrath told Music Radar, "I've just heard about that album and its cover. But I think we're doing something different with Sugimoto's image, something uniquely connected with this latest body of work from U2."

The photo depicts a a body of water meeting the sky, with U2's cover adding an equal sign across the center of the picture.

No Line On The Horizon is due out on March 3rd. First single "Get On Your Boots" hit radio and iTunes earlier this week.