Ultimate Guitar recently caught up with Stone Sour guitarist Josh Rand, who talked about the benefits of learning how to play bass. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

Rand: ""I still write on bass sometimes. When I write on guitar, its very riff-driven. When I write on bass its more of a groove thing and its more about finding a pocket. I still enjoy playing bass a lot. When I started on it, it impacted my guitar playing because I was trying to learn a bunch of Billy Sheehan stuff and it really strengthened my hands. So when I was trying to do all these harmonized runs that he does in Mr. Big or David Lee Roth's band, when I took those licks over to the guitar, it wasn’t that difficult.

"If you can do that stuff on bass and you pick up a guitar, it just comes naturally. So I really put in a lot of hours studying Billy Sheehan’s body of work and that really carried over to guitar. I feel like it gave me that finger strength and dexterity and it made the guitar a lot easier had I not done that, I don't know that my progression and learning would have been so quick on guitar."

Read more here.

Stone Sour has released this 360° performance video of "Taipei Person/Allah Tea", filmed live at The Troubadour in Hollywood, CA. The track is featured on the band's Hydrograd album (Roadrunner).

Stone Sour will be returning for three additional UK dates in 2018. These will be the band's only UK dates next year.

Frontman Corey Taylor: "We’re excited to return to the UK for a second time in support of Hydrograd. These are Stone Sour’s only UK dates in 2018 and we’re happy to include two cities we didn’t play in December. Stone Sour are building towards our future, so come out in June and have a fucking good time with us!"

Dates:

June
17 - Manchester, UK - O2 Apollo
18 - London, UK - Roundhouse
19 - Nottingham, UK - Rock City

Pick up your tickets from all usual agents and online at here.