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25 Sep 2024

Daryl Hall Gushes About Having ‘the Best Band on Earth,’ Concert Dates With Howard Jones

If you attend one of the upcoming Daryl Hall-Howard Jones concert in November, you’ll be treated to the same high-caliber musicianship that make’s Hall’s video series, Live From Daryl’s House, a must-see for music lovers.  

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“My band is the best band on Earth,” Hall tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast about guitarist and musical director Shane Theriot, keyboardist Greg Mayo, drummer Brian Dunne, bass player Klyde Jones, percussionist Porter Carroll Jr. and saxophone player Charlie DeChant. In each episode, the Live From Daryl’s House house band performs a handful of songs with a diverse group of musical guests who have recently included Jones, singer-songwriters Andy Grammer and Lisa Loeb, Robert Fripp, and Charlie Starr of the Southern rock band Blackberry Smoke. 

Most musicians would face a steep learning curve performing the songs, but Hall and his crew make it look effortless. The band is so good that, according to Hall, the members don’t rehearse together before taping. Instead, Hall spends a little time on the songs with Theriot, and each band member has the music at home. “We get together in that room, turn the cameras on, and that’s what you see,” he explains. 

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Take the episode with Fripp, the former King Crimson band leader who struck up a friendship with Hall in the mid-‘70s and produced 1980 album Sacred Songs. Hall says Fripp was blown away by performing with Hall’s band. Fripp joined Live From Daryl’s House for renditions of such songs as “You Burn Me I’m a Cigarette” (co-written by Fripp and Hall), King Crimson’s “Red,” David Bowie’s “Heroes” and “Babs and Babs” from Hall’s Sacred Songs. 

“[Fripp] said, ‘I have never worked with a band that didn’t take at least three or four days to even begin to learn these songs. You guys just played them,’” says Hall. “I mean, it flipped Robert out.”

The tour is like a traveling version of Live From Daryl’s House. After Jones opens the show with the Daryl’s house band, Hall, who’s supporting his latest album, D, will perform a set with the same band. Near the end of Hall’s set, Jones will join Hall on stage to trade vocals on each other songs and perhaps throw in a cover song or two. 

Hall and Jones were hitmakers at roughly the same time in the ‘80s. By the time Jones crashed the U.S charts in the mid’-80s with songs such as “Things Can Only Get Better,” “Life in One Day” and “New Song,” Hall was basking in the success of Hall & Oates’ 1980 album Voices, which contained “Kiss on My List” and “You Make My Dreams (Come True),” and 1981’s Private Eyes, which spawned the hit title track and “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do).” 

Until recording Live From Daryl’s House last year, Hall and Jones had never met. Now they’re prepping for a short tour together. “Howard and I get along really well, and I think he’s great,” says Hall.

The eight-date tour starts in Orlando, Fla., on Nov. 7, heads north to Evans, Ga., on Nov. 16, Nashville and Knoxville in Tennessee, and culminates in Atlantic City, N.J., on Nov. 23. Before the tour kicks off, Hall will perform a free, private concert on Oct. 31 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Daryl’s House Club venue and restaurant in Pawling, N.Y.

Listen to the entire interview with Daryl Hall, go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, Podbean or Everand. 

25 Sep 2024

Behind the Scenes of ‘V-U2,’ Sphere’s First Original Concert Film

On nights when there are no live acts playing Sphere Las Vegas, the venue’s Exosphere (its one-of-a-kind outer LED screen) reads, “U2 are not here.” However, five nights a week inside the immersive venue, U2 can be seen performing the best of their U2:UV residency that ran from September 2023 to March 2024 through concert film V-U2. Captured via the Sphere’s proprietary Big Sky camera system, the concert film is just as good as, if not better than, the Irish band’s actual show.  

Directed by U2’s The Edge and his wife Morleigh Steinberg, V-U2 brings a slew of firsts to the almost one-year-old venue and its content creation capabilities. The film – captured over three nights of the band’s sold-out residency at Sphere – is part of a growing slate of programming for Sphere Experiences, which run when there is no live residency or special event at the Las Vegas venue. Sphere Experiences also include the Darren Aronofsky film Postcard from Earth.  

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“V-U2 was born out of a conversation with the band, ‘How do we memorialize this moment’” of U2’s historic Sphere residency, says Sphere Studios’ senior vp of capture Andrew Shulkind, who served as the film’s director of photography. “For 100 years of movie making, we’ve been telling stories through a rectangular lens. This is a different kind of storytelling. There’s no way to tell this story in a traditional way. You could cut it up, have wide-angle lenses, or have a choppy concert film, but nothing could recreate the Sphere experience.”  

Nothing except maybe the technology that makes the live sphere experience possible.  

“Coincidentally, we’ve been building cameras to capture other content [outside] the venue,” Shulkind says. “If we can tell the story of what it’s like to be in a sulfur volcano for Postcard or flying over Mont Blanc, why not tell the story of being inside Sphere [during a concert] with our very own technology?” 

When Shulkind was first commissioned to work at the Sphere in 2018, the company faced a dilemma of creating images sharp enough for their screens when off-the-shelf-cameras would not suffice. After pursuing different avenues, the Sphere team created the Big Sky camera in 2021. “The camera, lens and all its components are entirely internal technology on which we have 10 patents,” says Shulkind. “Nobody else needs that crazy level of resolution. Coincidentally, the game-changing technology has pushed the business forward.”  

The Big Sky technology debuted in Aronofsky’s Postcard from Earth, capturing the images and video required for the Sphere’s 16K x 16K immersive display plane from edge to edge. It also features the largest single sensor in commercial use—a 316-megapixel, 3” x 3” HDR image sensor capable of a 40X resolution increase over 4K cameras. Big Sky can capture content up to 120 frames per second in the 18K square format and higher speed frame rates at lower resolutions. 

V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film

V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film

Rich Fury/Sphere Entertainment

Using the same technology, producer Alan Maloney, U2, Sphere Studios and the venue, the teams collaborated to shoot over three nights of the 40-date residency (two in February and one in March) to create V-U2, the first film shot entirely on Big Sky cameras. 

Working for more than two months on the edit of V-U2 at the Sphere Studios Big Dome in Burbank, Calif. – with a quarter-sized version of the screen and haptic seats and sound featured in the venue – Steinberg (who is an accomplished director and choreographer that choreographed many of Bono’s moves for the Zoo TV Tour in the 1990s) and The Edge wanted to make sure the final product wasn’t just a concert film or a documentary, but a faithful recreation of the live with the most precise view of U2 possible, down to the details on their shoelaces. 

“Seeing the band like that—whether you’re high up or in the lower seats. That’s amazing for fans,” Steinberg says. 

However, from the director’s perspective, the medium posed significant challenges. “You can’t easily see your edits. You’re either looking through an Oculus [headset] or at a very low-resolution image on a monitor. You quickly learn what you might not be seeing and make compensations for that,” Steinberg says. 

One of the most complex production pieces was transforming the 100-minute U2:UV into the 82-minute V-U2. This called for interweaving the setlist of U2:UV with some of the classic covers performed throughout the residency, such as Elvis Presley‘s “Love Me Tender,” Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” and Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” 

The directors wanted to reflect the arc of the live show into the concert film and “also considered that this will be viewed by a broader audience, not just U2 fans,” Steinberg says. “People are coming to see what the Sphere can do. The first three songs of the film are a perfect example of that. However, we do ask the audience to sit through two songs where there are no [background] visuals [just a shot of the band]. Even if you aren’t a U2 fan, there’s much to enjoy and experience.” 

Steinberg says the film captures the best moments of the residency in new depth and sharpness, with a fresh perspective. The rendition of “‘The Fly’ is a brilliant piece in the film … the space morphs and gives the illusion of the room becoming square. It is a true use of the word ‘awesome,’” she says. “There are shots from the stage, looking out at the audience, which is a new perspective you don’t normally have.”  

The track “One” features a camera angle on Bono that Shulkind characterizes as the biggest close-up ever filmed. “The ability to show Bono in this very intimate moment during this intimate song that everybody knows was so powerful,” he says. “It blew everyone away.” 

V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film

V-U2: An Immersive Concert Film

Rich Fury/Sphere Entertainment

“We had to shrink it down a little bit. It was even bigger,” Steinberg says of the stunning image that showcases Bono in grand detail. “The camera then slowly pulls back, revealing the band. The moment extends into an infinite view of the room, with everyone in the audience holding up their lights.” 

The sound of the audience from the original live events also played a critical role in developing the concert film. Captured on crowd mics placed through the venue during the live shows in February and March, the audience can be heard during the film – between and over songs – responding to the band’s performance. “So much of that rawness and bits of unexpected magic parallel the imaging side,” says Shulkind. “You hear the show’s little imperfections and human aspects.” 

V-U2 is set to play regularly as Sphere Experiences continue to be created. While it is not yet determined whether every band in residency at Sphere will get their own film, the content has been collected at Phish and Dead & Company shows and will be captured during the Eagles’ current run.  

“We will continue to capture every band that comes through,” says MSG Entertainment’s executive vp of live Josephine Vaccarello. “Everyone who comes into our venue is learning how to play with the tools we have in the toolbox differently. We’re continually trying to figure out how we innovate and how we continue to grow, and this was one of the ways.” 

“Every Sphere show is a unique moment in time,” Shulkind says. “We’re still figuring out what that looks like for other shows. It’s an endless journey of discovery because we’re learning how this new medium works.” 

25 Sep 2024

Bunnie XO Shares Snippet of Love Song Jelly Roll Wrote for Her

Bunnie XO continues to be Jelly Roll’s muse!

The Dumb Blonde podcast host took to TikTok to share a snippet of one of her husband’s unreleased love songs. “He wrote me a new song,” she captioned the video, which features scenes of the couple having fun and spending time together. “Woman, without you on my lips/ I’d just be a man doing things I know I should quit,” Jelly is heard singing in the clip, which you can watch here.

The couple first met back in 2015, when Bunnie watched Jelly Roll perform at Sin City’s Country Saloon in Las Vegas. They tied the knot a year later, in August 2016.

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While it’s not yet confirmed, the unreleased track will seemingly appear on Jelly Roll’s upcoming album, Beautifully Broken, out on October 11. He previously released Whitsitt Chapel in June 2023. The album peaked at No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200, reached No. 2 on Top Country Albums and took the No. 1 spot on Top Rock Albums. The star also nabbed 2024 Grammy nominations best new artist and best country duo/group performance for “Save Me,” his collaboration with Lainey Wilson, which peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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The net profits from every pre-order of Beautifully Broken made via his website will go to organizations who are helping those who are facing challenges with mental health and addiction struggles. The four organizations who will benefit are Wounded Warriors Project, Folds of Honor, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Shatterproof.

25 Sep 2024

Watch Maxo Kream & Tyler, the Creator Take It Back to the ‘Cracc Era’

Texas’ Maxo Kream and Cali’s Tyler, the Creator team up for a Big Western Showdown.

Directed by Karim Belkasemi, the duo keep it simple, yet stylish for the “Cracc Era” music video as they rap over Tyler production fitted up in a studio with a white backdrop. The beat harkens back to the Odd Future boss’ older style and will be easy to replicate on a lunchroom table top like “Grindin’” by The Neptunes. Tyler’s verse is short, but his voice goes perfect with the beat as he spits, “N—a two-tonе, two-door, watchin’ Juno, you know/Who them is when you see n—s in them Unos” and handles chorus duties. Maxo, on the other hand, raps a longer verse in his signature cadence and displays some intricate wordplay. “My Hoover Crips your Ruger clips/Like Ludacris, I throw a bow/I finish him like Liu Kang, I want the brain like Al Snow,” he raps before talking about his “jackin’” days.

Maxo and Tyler have great chemistry and probably should consider working together more often. This is their second collaboration, with the first being 2021’s “Big Persona” from the Texas rapper’s Weight of the World album.

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Maxo seems to be gearing up to dropping an album this year. He’s been keeping a steady pace, releasing a handful of singles and got some features in to keep the pen sharp, most notably “H Town Texas” with Big Tony and “Talkin In Screw” with That Mexican OT.

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Earlier this year, he lost his father and began a weight loss journey. He’s down more than 75 pounds and looks forward to making some noise with his next project. A single produced and featuring Tyler is a good start.

25 Sep 2024

5 Questions With Andrew Batey of Side Door Ventures: AI, Superfans and What He’ll Cut a Check For

Andrew Batey is best known to the music industry as the founder of streaming fraud prevention company Beatdapp. But for the last six years, Batey has been simultaneously building up a venture capital firm called Side Door Ventures. “I always wanted to just be viewed as a founder, but Beatdapp is probably my last company,” says Batey, a serial entrepreneur, who has also built companies in the restaurant and digital marketing industries. “I started thinking about where I want to transition to eventually, and I believe it’s investing.”

For the last 15 years, Batey says he’s mentored hundreds of companies at different accelerators, which is where he got the itch to start stepping into the investor role. After years of angel investing to check his aptitude, he realized, “I feel like I’m really good at picking the right companies.”

Side Door quietly launched in 2018 and comprises 14 different smaller funds covering a wide array of disciplines — space travel, blockchain, manufacturing and more. Investors are also interested in music and entertainment, too, though Batey says it needs to be something he believes he can grow “by 100x” and “there are not that many” entertainment startups that fit that bill. To date, he’s made investments in companies like SpaceX, Pipe, Plaid, Varda and EtherFi, as well as music-related startups like JKBX and the now-defunct superfans app Renaissance, which he felt particularly passionate about.

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In total, Batey says Side Door has averaged 61% gross internal rate of return across all funds since its launch and has over 100 companies in its portfolio.

Now that Beatdapp has established itself as an industry leader with partnerships with Universal Music Group, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Beatport, SoundExchange and more, Batey is ready to talk about Side Door Ventures for the first time.

Why are you making your press debut, six years into Side Door Ventures?

To talk about it too early seemed like a giant, “Look at me! Look at me!” And that’s not really what a founder needs — a founder needs help. I’ve always just felt comfortable being the neck that moves the head, but I’ve lost my ability to be stealthily leading this, the more checks we’ve written.

In the beginning, a lot of startups just thought I was a founder. As soon as we had that founder-to-founder rapport, the person would just start sharing all these things that he wouldn’t have shared with an investor. But none of them were deal breakers. I found the transparency actually really great. There was a strength in meeting a founder at their level, without them knowing you’re the investor.

I named the fund Side Door Ventures because they never saw it coming when I would meet with the founder. They just thought I was mentoring them, and then I would suddenly be like, “I’d like to write a half million dollar check.”

It really favored us well because I wasn’t convincing them why they needed our money. I gave them advice and mentorship first, and then told them I wanted to write the check and that’s the exact thing they want. Many want someone that’s going to be helpful, and not someone just writing a check. In really tight funding rounds where people get pushed out, we often got into them early on when we should never have been.

But the cat’s out of the bag, and I’m ready to just own it.

What makes Side Door Ventures different from others in the field?

Fundamentally, the way we’ve been billed as a fund is entirely different than everyone else. We intentionally started with small funds that are $10 million to $30 million each. We have 14 funds overall.

When I started the fund, I had a big family that offered to give me $100 million to get started, and they wanted to know what my strategy would be. I always felt that big funds are really hard to return. So my strategy was, Why don’t we make a bunch of smaller funds of higher return multiples that traditionally perform better?

When I started talking to fund managers, though, they thought it was crazy. They’re like, “Institutions won’t bankroll that — a pension fund wants to have a check size of at least $10 million.” If you’re building a fund to please people covering their ass, you’re not building a fund for optimal returns. And if I was building a fund for optimizing returns, and if this was my money, I would go the opposite way and make a bunch of small funds. So my customer investor is totally different than most. My customers are high net worth individuals and families who care more about the returns, and less about whether I check a box.

For every small fund we have a slightly different iteration. We have one with the state of Michigan which is just focusing on manufacturing, advanced materials and mobility — things that the state of Michigan has talent resources for. We have a web3 fund which focuses on blockchain. We have a seed fund which is focused on seed investing. We have a European fund focused on European college students, specifically. I don’t know any other funds doing it like this.

Most Billboard readers know you as the founder of Beatdapp. Given that background, do you have interest in investing in companies that are complementary to what Beatdapp does?

Because of Beatdapp, I have views on where the industry could still use a lot of help, and I probably have some unique data insights about where there’s juice to squeeze. But I view Side Door and Beatdapp as entirely separate. We don’t have any of the same investors, so I don’t take money in one entity and then bring it to the other. It’s a fully firewall situation where we have different investors, different teams, different everything.

If there is anything that I’m too privy to because of my work outside of Side Door — let’s say that I have a relationship with founders of a company — I generally sit out of the investment committee and let the rest of the committee decide so that there’s no bias going into the decision making.

I love music and entertainment. It’s a big part of my background, so I obviously want to invest in things that are in that sector. But the majority of all music companies exit for under $15 million. The reality is that music is not the best venture-backable investment, which means that there are very few companies that meet the sort of the requirements to warrant a venture capital investment from us.

We have a bunch of funds, but they’re all basically investing in things we think could [provide] 100x [returns]. So if you’re a music startup valued at $20 million, how many companies have exited that are over $2 billion? The answer is probably only a handful — like Spotify.

That means one of two things. I either have to catch you way earlier, like in your first round, or you need to be such an outlier that I believe the market will move in your direction. For example, we invested in JKBX. Why? If you think about JKBX as a trading entity and the fact that it’s more of a fintech play than it is a music play, you could see a platform getting traction. Now, will they make it or not? Only time will tell. But they have the profile to potentially be worth billions of dollars if they can build that habit formation and become another asset type.

You have mentioned before that you learned a lot from investing in a superfan company, Renaissance, which ultimately went bust. Monetizing the superfan is such a hot topic in the music business right now. What did that experience teach you about the viability of superfan-related startups?

We see 7,000-8,000 deals a year, and I cannot think of another case where I saw a consumer-facing application that was as sticky with their fans as Renaissance. They had a million downloads — all organic, no marketing. They had 47% day-90 retention, meaning 47% of all users stuck with it after 90 days, which is insanely good. I think the average user launched the app 21 times per day — that’s like Instagram level.

The problem is that I don’t think they knew how to fully monetize it. Artists didn’t want to pay for it, labels didn’t want to pay for it. There wasn’t a big enough venture-backable business there. It was more of a $10 million to $15 million business, but how do you make that a $100 million business? They were struggling to figure out what could be scaled.

If this company who had the viral, organic growth and absolutely crushed it couldn’t figure out how to get those customers to pay, and couldn’t figure out how to get artists to pay, and couldn’t figure out how to get labels to pay, then how are any of these other fan apps going to make money?

The only way I think you can build a successful “superfan” business is by owning the merch pipeline itself — basically, you need to be the one that’s vertically integrated. You need to be integrating and selling the actual goods yourself so that you can build enough margins in there to support the business. If you were just a third party marketplace for all these other goods and services — like posters and tickets and merch — I don’t think there’s enough money there. I don’t believe that’s scalable.

This summer, the major labels filed a lawsuit against two AI music startups, Suno and Udio, and in early September, it was revealed that the use of AI music was instrumental in the scam alleged in the $10 million streaming fraud lawsuit. Do you see this affecting people’s confidence in AI music startups?

It could affect consumer confidence, but I do not think it will dissuade investors. The reality is, investors aren’t afraid of breaking things. Where a lot of people are mad because the status quo is changing, a lot of investors see that as a positive — as they say, “Volatility breeds profitability.”

However, what will succeed here is whoever comes up with a business model where everyone wins and it’s convenient for consumers, and they enjoy the experience. I haven’t seen one that wins yet. I haven’t seen a business model where consumers actually like it.

Look at the Drake–Weeknd guy [anonymous TikTok user Ghostwriter and his song “Heart On My Sleeve,” which used AI to deepfake Drake and the Weeknd]. His song was listened to millions of times, but it also had a pretty equal number of listeners. What that means is people were only listening to it one time or so and then leaving. It was a novelty. It wasn’t something that people saw longterm value in. Until there’s a product that people see longterm value, it’s not going to work.

25 Sep 2024

Diddy & Kim Porter’s Kids Say Rumors About Her Death Are “False”

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Ever since Diddy was officially indicted by the Southern District of New York for his alleged crimes of sex trafficking and more, conspiracy theories about the disgraced mogul’s past lovers, artists and associates have flooded the internet. One in particular involving the late Kim Porter is hitting a little too close to home as far as Diddy’s children are concerned.

According to TMZ, the children that Diddy shares with Porter are taking exception to the long rumored notion that Diddy had something to do with her untimely death. Though talk of Diddy somehow playing a role in Porter’s passing in 2018 has been a topic of conspiratorial discussion for years—she was allegedly preparing to release a tell-all book before she died—the rumor once again gained steam after authorities indicted the Bad Boy founder on September 16.

Looking to quell anymore talk of Diddy having a hand in her death, sons Quincy and Christian, and twin daughters Jessie and D’Lila, took to social media on Tuesday night (Sept. 24) to address the subject and called the conspiracy theory both “hurtful” and “false” as they asked everyone to fall back on such allegations.

Per TMZ:

In a joint statement, they say it’s been hard to reconcile how their mom Kim was taken from them too soon, but they quickly dismiss any unfounded or unproven theories Diddy was involved in her death … writing, “The cause of her death has long been established. There was no foul play.”

Remember, Kim died suddenly in 2018, and an autopsy revealed her cause of death to be pneumonia. However, in the wake of Diddy’s arrest and federal indictment, some people — fans and even Quincy’s estranged biological father, Al B. Sure! — have called for Kim’s death investigation to be reopened.

Al straight up said this week he thinks Kim was murdered … a theory he tied to a new book — called “Kim’s Lost Words: A Journey for Justice From the Other Side” — allegedly containing Kim’s journal entries from the time she was with Diddy.

Still, Diddy and Kim’s children say that the book in question is a bunch of malarkey and that anyone suggesting that Kim wrote the words in that book are capping big time while saying “We are deeply saddened that the world has made a spectacle of what has been the most tragic event of our lives.”

Will people on social media actually respect the wishes of the kids? Probably not as we all know that the internet is a lawless environment where anything goes these days.

What do y’all think about Diddy and Kim Porter’s kids asking everyone to fall back on this particular conspiracy theory? Let us know in the comments section below.

25 Sep 2024

Tarte’s TikTok Famous Sculpt Tape Aims to Be a ‘Makeup Artist in a Tube’: Here’s Where to Buy It

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Many beauty products promise to give you glowing, bronzed or defined features, but rarely can you find one piece of makeup that can do it all. TikTok has seemingly done the impossible, though, and discovered a contour wand by Tarte that has gone viral for its claims of being a “makeup artist in a tube.” Now, the makeup brand has expanded the line with two additional shades, bumping it up to a total of 13 colors to pick from.

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Labeled a dupe for the Charlotte Tilbury Contour Wand, Tarte’s Sculpt Tape has beauty lovers including TikToker Tatianna Anesa raving over the wide range of shades you can choose from (compared to Charlotte Tilbury’s two options), and how it “blends really, really beautifully.” The user gave a full review of Tarte’s contour wand — especially noting the texture — in a video that’s racked up almost 5,000 views.

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“It’s subtle, but it’s definitely giving me that sculpted, bronze face,” Anesa says in the video.

Keep reading to shop Tarte’s contour wand below.

brown tube of tarte sculpt tape with gold cap

Tarte

Tarte Sculpt Tape

Makeup enthusiasts can now choose from 13 shades of the Tarte Sculpt Tape depending on how sun kissed they’d like to appear. Rather than pick up a darker shade of foundation, the contour wand was created specifically to define your face using a liquid formula. To apply, just squeeze the tube and fill the foam applicator, then apply dots to the desired spots on your face and blend.

You can also take advantage of the buildable formula that allows you to apply makeup on top or underneath. When you’re done, the cap twists and locks into place to avoid any spillage.

TikTok isn’t the only place fans are praising the makeup product, either: Tarte reviewers can’t seem to get enough of the bronzer, saying it “melts right into your face” with each use.

For more product recommendations, check out ShopBillboard‘s roundups of the best makeup bags for travel, makeup tools for beginners and freckle pens.

25 Sep 2024

Riley Keough Says Mom Lisa Marie Presley Died ‘Of a Broken Heart’

Warning: This story contains mentions of suicide.

Lisa Marie Presley‘s death at 53 last year was attributed to a small-bowel obstruction the only child of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley suffered several years after weight loss-related bariatric surgery. But in a new interview with People magazine, Presley’s daughter, Daisy Jones & the Six star actress Riley Keough, said her mother’s passing was also due to a heavy emotional burden she carried.

Keough said that her brother Benjamin’s death by suicide in 2020 at age 27 had a profound effect on Presley. “My mom tried her best to find strength for me and my younger sisters after Ben died, but we knew how much pain she was in,” said Keough, 35, of Presley, who in addition to sharing Riley and Benjamin with ex-husband Danny Keough also had 15-year-old twins Finely and Harper with ex Michael Lockwood.

“My mom physically died from the after effects of her surgery, but we all knew she died of a broken heart,” said Keough. The People interview is packaged with an excerpt from Lisa Marie’s posthumous memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown, which is due out on Oct. 8. Presley had begun work on the autobiography before her death, with Keough stepping in to finish the book by listening to the hours of tape her mother had recorded before putting her stories into print.

“This extraordinary book is composed of both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voice, a mother and daughter communicating across the transom of death as they try to heal each other,” reads a press release about the book. “Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other — the last words of the only child of a true legend.”

According to People, in the memoir Presley — who had previously told the magazine that she would never “move on” from her son’s death — says she and Keough healed their broken hearts by “helping people. One kid wrote to Riley and said, ‘I didn’t kill myself last night because of what you said it would do to my family and those that are left behind. So thank you.’ That helped me. That brought me up.’” Keough said that her brother’s death was “incredibly difficult to write about, as was my mom’s descent into addiction. And her own death, of course.”

The actress cautioned that the book is not strictly about grief, but also about the “very human experience of love, heartbreak, loss, addiction and family. [My mom] wanted to write a book in the hopes that someone could read her story and relate to her, to know that they’re not alone in the world. Her hope with this book was just human connection. So that’s mine.”

Keough will discuss the book in an upcoming Oprah Winfrey special from Elvis’ Graceland, An Oprah Special: The Presleys – Elvis, Lisa Marie and Riley, that will air on CBS and Paramount+ on Oct. 8.

25 Sep 2024

Yes, Chappell Roan Is Voting for Kamala Harris — No, She Won’t Endorse Her: ‘Voting Is All We Have Right Now’

Chappell Roan is making her position as clear as possible, once and for all. In a new TikTok video posted Wednesday (Sept. 25), the “Good Luck, Babe” singer offered one final explanation for her stance on the upcoming presidential election.

In the clip, Roan says while she will be voting for Kamala Harris to become the next president of the United States, she will not endorse the vice president since she does not support some of her policies. “I’m voting for f–king Kamala,” she said in her video. “But I’m not settling for what has been offered, because that’s questionable.”

The new clip comes after a quote Roan gave to The Guardian went viral, in which she said that she didn’t “feel pressured” to endorse a candidate in the 2024 election because “there’s problems on both sides.” Many of the singer’s fans criticized her take, saying that former president Donald Trump and the Republican Party posed a much greater threat to the country than Harris or the Democrats.

While Roan addressed the lack of context in the quote in a TikTok posted on Tuesday evening (Sept. 24), she started her new video saying that she “woke up … to people skewing it even more” and made it abundantly clear why she would not endorse any candidate.

“Obviously, f–k the policies of the right — but also, f–k some of the policies on the left! That’s why I can’t endorse,” she said. “There is no way I can stand behind some of the left’s completely transphobic and completely genocidal views … F–k Trump, for f–king real, but f–k some of the s–t that has gone down in the Democratic Party that has failed people like me and you, and more so Palestine, and more so every marginalized community in the world.”

Roan also went on to explain that “endorsing and voting are not the same thing,” which is why she said that she would be casting her vote for Harris. “Actions speak louder than words,” she said. “Voting is all we have right now in this system, so I encourage it, yet again. Vote for who, in your mind, is the best option for what we have right now, because it’s all we can do. Yes, one’s obviously better than the other. But Jesus f–king Christ, I hope you don’t have to settle for what we have and put your name behind someone that you don’t fully, fully trust because of their blatant actions.”

Over the last few months, Roan has explained on multiple occasions that she does not support the Biden administration’s support and funding of Israel’s continued attacks on Gaza and the Palestinian people. During her set at Governors Ball in June, the singer said that she turned down an invite to perform at the White House for Pride Month because “we want liberty, freedom and justice for all.” In her cover story for Rolling Stone, she went on to explain that she originally planned to accept the invitation and read Palestinian poetry instead of performing as an act of protest.

Elsewhere in that interview, Roan also explained that she would be using her vote in 2024 to “protect people’s civil rights, especially the LGBTQ+ community,” while adding that she felt “lucky to be alive during an incredibly historical time period when a woman of color is a presidential nominee.”

For those hoping that the singer would even further explain her thinking on this issue, Roan made it clear in the caption of her TikTok video that this will be her last statement on the matter. “Im done talking about it. If you dont get what im saying from this, its a lost cause,” she wrote. “And im not forcing you to agree with me. This is my statement. Have a good day.”

Watch Chappell Roan’s TikTok video below:

25 Sep 2024

Joaquin Phoenix Was ‘Sick’ With Nerves Over Singing With Lady Gaga, ‘Joker 2’ Director Reveals

Singing with Lady Gaga on the set of Joker: Folie à Deux was no joke for Joaquin Phoenix.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly published Wednesday (Sept. 25), director Todd Phillips revealed that the film’s star actor was “sick every day” with nerves about pulling off his vocal numbers alongside one of the most renowned modern singers. The pressure was especially on, considering Phoenix had to dive into shooting the Joker sequel’s musical numbers as soon as nine days into production — but luckily, Gaga was able to help him through it.

“The truth is, they gave each other pointers,” Phillips told the publication. “He’d give her pointers about acting; she’s been in movies, but he’s Joaquin Phoenix. She gave him tips about music because she’s Lady Gaga. It’s what movies should be: a giant collaboration.”

The filmmaker also shared that the 13-time Grammy winner’s notes to Phoenix were “a little more specific” and along the lines of, “You’re not hitting the note there.” “There’s less room for interpretation [with singing],” Phillips added.

Trending on Billboard

Even so, Gaga has said before that she and Phoenix were aiming for less polished vocals to give their characters — Harley Quinn and Joker, respectively — more authenticity. “I’m a trained singer, right? So even my breathing was different when I sang as Lee,” she told Empire in July. “When I breathe to sing on stage, I have this very controlled way to make sure that I’m on pitch and it’s sustained at the right rhythm and amount of time, but Lee would never know how to do any of that. So it’s like removing the technicality of the whole thing, removing my perceived art-form from it all and completely being inside of who she is.”

The “Rain on Me” singer — who recently announced a companion album for the film, Harlequin — has also said that Folie à Deux isn’t necessarily a musical, despite featuring multiple elaborate song-and-dance numbers led by the film’s two stars. Phillips is on the same page, and while speaking to EW, he clarified that the distinction isn’t because he’s “afraid of the term ‘musical.’”

“Most of the times I’ve ever seen a musical, I walk out feeling better than I did when I walked in,” he said. “On this movie, I’m not sure it’s the same thing. I wouldn’t want to be misleading and say you’re going to be whistling the songs from this movie on the way to your car after you see it.”