Music Saves Lives is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization [1] and is listed in the IRS publication 78. [2] Established in January 2006 by founder Russel Hornbeek in Seal Beach, California. Music Saves Lives has educated students and encouraged over 250,000 summer blood donations from youth under the age of 25. This organization has been honored by the American Red Cross Blood Services six years in a row for organizing the largest national collection of blood from youth ages 16–25 during the summer months of June, July and August. [3] [4]
Music Saves Lives has attributed its record setting blood donor recruitment to reaching students in "lifestyle" music partnering. Each summer Music Saves Lives partners with the largest summer concert tour that has 17 years experience, the Vans Warped Tour. [5] Young blood donors receive a music related incentive, such as a meet and greet with a notable band, music downloads, and backstage VIP passes distributed by the blood centers.
Since 2007 the Gibson Guitar Corporation has teamed up with Music Saves Lives and donated several guitars to be designed by various artists (Mike Oncley, Ryan Seaman, Cory Burke, Josh Kenyon, Colby Nichols, Andrew Holder, Sara Antoinette Martin, signed by bands (Bad Religion, Pennywise, Coheed and Cambria, Reel Big Fish, NOFX, Bouncing Souls, Thrice, Katy Perry, Meg and Dia, Jacks Mannequin) and then auctioned off to support the non-profit.
In 2011 Music Saves Lives and Smorgasbord Productions created the first full-length animated public service announcement(PSA). This PSA animation featured the band 3oh!3 and the animated cast from "Supa Pirate Booty Hunt" and adult style cartoon featuring a booty loving pirate and his side kick Daniel the Turtle. [6] The PSA animation entered the Burbank International Film Festival and won six film festival awards for: Best Character Design / Best Production Design / Best Art Direction / Best Sound Editing / Best Voice Acting / Best Writing (Animation / Original) [7] [8]
In January 2012, rapper Coolio represented Music Saves Lives in the Food Network reality series Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off . [9]
At the 2012 Comic Con Event, Music Saves Lives premiered the second Smorgasbord animation production called "Metal In My Shell" with metal rock star, and lead singer in the band Megadeth, Dave Mustaine. Dave Mustaine shares a rock off with character Captain Zack to prove that he is god of all metal, while promoting a life saving message about donating blood. [10]
Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrumentals and aggressive musicianship made them one of the founding "big four" bands of thrash metal, alongside Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. Metallica's current lineup comprises founding members and primary songwriters Hetfield and Ulrich, longtime lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo. Guitarist Dave Mustaine, who formed Megadeth after being fired from Metallica, and bassists Ron McGovney, Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted are former members of the band.
Megadeth is an American thrash metal band formed in Los Angeles in 1983 by vocalist/guitarist Dave Mustaine. Known for their technically complex guitar work and musicianship, Megadeth is one of the "big four" of American thrash metal along with Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer, responsible for the genre's development and popularization. Their music features complex arrangements and fast rhythm sections, dual lead guitars, and lyrical themes of war, politics, religion, death, and personal relationships.
Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good! is the debut studio album by American thrash metal band Megadeth, released on June 12, 1985, by Combat Records. At the beginning of 1985, the band was given $8,000 by Combat to record and produce its debut album. The band was forced to fire their original producer and produce the album by themselves, after spending half of the album's budget on drugs, alcohol, and food. Despite the poor production, the album was a well-received effort that obtained strong reviews in various music publications. Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good! played an essential role in establishing thrash metal as an authentic subgenre of heavy metal music. It explores themes of death, occultism, and violence.
Rust in Peace is the fourth studio album by American thrash metal band Megadeth, released on September 24, 1990, by Capitol Records. It was the first Megadeth album to feature guitarist Marty Friedman and drummer Nick Menza. The songs "Hangar 18" and "Holy Wars... The Punishment Due" were released as singles. A remixed and remastered version of the album featuring four bonus tracks was released in 2004.
David Scott Mustaine is an American musician. He is the co-founder, frontman, primary songwriter and sole consistent member of the thrash metal band Megadeth. Mustaine has released sixteen studio albums with Megadeth, sold over 38 million records worldwide, with six albums platinum-certified, and won a Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance in 2017 at the 59th Grammy Awards, for the title track of their fifteenth studio album, Dystopia.
David Warren Ellefson is an American musician, best known for his long tenure as the bassist for thrash metal band Megadeth.
"Peace Sells" is a song by American thrash metal band Megadeth from their 1986 album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, written by Dave Mustaine. The song was released as the band's second ever single in November 1986. "Peace Sells" was the group's breakthrough hit, and is regarded as one of the best songs in the history of heavy metal. Since 1985, the song has since been a constant at Megadeth concerts. According to David Ellefson, it became quickly apparent when playing the song live prior to recording the album that "Peace Sells" would be a hit. In 2006, VH1 ranked "Peace Sells" at number 11 on their list of the "40 Greatest Metal Songs" of all time. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked the song number nineteen on their list on the 100 greatest heavy metal songs.
Blood: The Last Vampire is a 2000 Japanese animated action horror film directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo, written by Kenji Kamiyama and produced by Production I.G. The film premiered in theaters in Japan on November 18, 2000.
Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is an American web series created by Burnie Burns with his production company Rooster Teeth. The show is based on the setting of the military science fiction first-person shooter series and media franchise Halo. It is distributed through Rooster Teeth's website, as well as on DVD, Blu-ray, and formerly on the El Rey Network and Netflix. The series initially centers on two opposite teams fighting in an ostensible civil war—shown to actually be a live fire exercise for elite soldiers—in the middle of Blood Gulch, a desolate box canyon, in a parody of first-person shooter video games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its premiere on April 1, 2003. The series consists of eighteen seasons and five mini-series. Red vs. Blue is the second longest-running animated webseries of all time, behind Homestar Runner. The nineteenth and final season is scheduled to premiere in 2024.
Exodus is an American thrash metal band formed in 1979 in Richmond, California. Their current lineup consists of guitarists Gary Holt and Lee Altus, bassist Jack Gibson, drummer Tom Hunting, and lead vocalist Steve "Zetro" Souza. There are no original members left in Exodus other than Hunting, who has departed from the band twice, in 1989 and 2004, but rejoined in 2007. Exodus is also notable for including a then-unknown Kirk Hammett, who was the band's lead guitarist from its inception to his departure in 1983, when he left to join fellow Bay Area thrash metal band Metallica as Dave Mustaine's replacement. Holt has been most consistent member throughout various lineup changes and breakups, and is the only member to appear on all of Exodus' recordings. Much of the band's career has also been affected by feuds between both band members and record companies, two extended hiatuses, deaths of former band members and drug addictions.
3OH!3 is an American electronic music duo from Boulder, Colorado, made up of Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte. They are best known for their single "DONTTRUSTME" from their album Want, which reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100. Their second single, a remix of "Starstrukk" featuring Katy Perry from Want, was a top ten hit in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Finland, Poland, and Australia. They gained further recognition by featuring Kesha on the song "My First Kiss", which was made the lead single from their album Streets of Gold. The album later peaked at number seven on the Billboard 200.
Chel White is an American film director, composer, screenwriter and visual effects artist. In his independent films and music videos, White is known for his stylized, often experimental use of images, unusual animation and narratives depicting an outsider's perspective. He often adopts darkly humorous and poetic sensibilities to explore topics of love, obsession and alienation; with dreams and the subconscious being his greatest influences. He describes his own work as “stories and images that reside on the brink of dreams, or linger on the periphery of distorted memories.” A Rockefeller Fellow, Chel White has made three films based on the work of Peabody Award-winning writer and radio personality Joe Frank.
The scene subculture is a youth subculture that emerged during the early 2000s in the United States from the pre-existing emo subculture. The subculture became popular with adolescents from the mid 2000s to the early 2010s. Members of the scene subculture are referred to as scene kids, trendies, or scenesters. Scene fashion consists of skinny jeans, bright-colored clothing, a signature hairstyle consisting of straight, flat hair with long fringes covering the forehead, and bright-colored hair dye. Music genres associated with the scene subculture include metalcore, crunkcore, deathcore, electronic music, and pop punk.
"Starstrukk" is a song recorded by American group 3OH!3. It is their third single and their second single to be released from their second studio album, Want (2008). A radio-only and the deluxe album version has been released featuring singer Katy Perry. The version featuring Perry had considerable success worldwide, peaking within the top ten of the charts in Australia, Belgium (Wallonia), Finland, Poland, the Republic of Ireland, and the United Kingdom. It is the follow-up to their debut single "Don't Trust Me".
Crunkcore is a musical fusion genre characterized by the combination of musical elements from crunk, post-hardcore, heavy metal, pop, electronic and dance music. The genre often features screamed vocals, hip hop beats, and sexually provocative lyrics. The genre developed from members of the scene subculture during the mid 2000s. Notable crunkcore artists include Brokencyde, Millionaires, Dot Dot Curve, Family Force 5, and Blood on the Dance Floor.
Lorenzo Fonda is an Italian filmmaker and multi-media artist and artist based in Italy. He is recognized for his eclectic use of multi-media techniques and often surreal storytelling. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 2021.
Triggerfish is a computer animation film studio based in Cape Town, South Africa and Galway, Ireland. The studio is best known for its animated feature films Adventures in Zambezia (2012), Khumba (2013), and Seal Team (2021), as well as the work they have done on television specials created for UK producers Magic Light Pictures. In 2016, Stick Man was awarded the Cristal for best TV production at the Annecy International Animation Festival. In 2017, Revolting Rhymes again won the Cristal for best TV production at the Annecy Festival, and was nominated for the Best Short Film (Animated) Oscar at the 2018 Academy Awards. In 2019, Netflix announced that Triggerfish would produce its first African animated TV series. In 2020, Zog won the International Emmy for Best Kids Animation. In 2021, The Snail and The Whale won Best Special Production at The Annie Awards, while Triggerfish received the Mifa Animation Industry Award at Annecy for "the pioneering role that the company has played in animation in South Africa, and Africa most widely.” In 2022, their third film, Seal Team, made the Netflix Top 10 Films global list for its launch week.
The Burbank International Film Festival (BIFF) is an annual film festival held since 2009 in Burbank, California, United States. It was founded by Val Tonione, and awards are distributed to filmmakers that have focused on social and environmental issues.
Murder in the Front Row is a documentary film which chronicles the 1980s Bay Area thrash metal scene. The documentary premiered on April 20, 2019. Directed by Adam Dubin and produced by Jack Gulick and Rachèle Benloulou-Dubin, the film contains over fifty interviews with various metal stalwarts, and is told through a mix of first-person interviews, animation and narration by comedian Brian Posehn. The film was released on DVD and digitally on April 24, 2020.
"In My Darkest Hour" is a song by the American thrash metal band Megadeth. It is the sixth track from their third studio album So Far, So Good... So What! It was released as a promotional single in 1988. The song is frequently performed live by the band. The song was featured in the documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, where it received a music video as well as featuring on the films official soundtrack released under Capitol. Dave Mustaine has said that the song has one of his favorite solos that he has written.