genre rock
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Lucy Dacus has some mixed feelings about her newly minted public profile. “My dream is that I could play huge shows where [the crowd] knows every word,” she says, “we can connect after the show — and then I can wipe everyone’s mind of myself once they leave.”
The lack of Men in Black-esque technology notwithstanding, it’s easy to see why Dacus may feel that way. After spending the majority of her career as a cult artist with a tight-knit fan base in the indie scene, the singer-songwriter broke big alongside her friends Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker with The Record in 2023. Their supergroup, boygenius, sold out arenas, led Billboard’s Top Rock Albums chart while also earning a top 10 debut on the Billboard 200 and dominated the rock categories at the 2024 Grammys, winning three awards.
As she prepares her first solo release since the band’s breakthrough, Dacus, 29, still struggles with her shift from underground phenom to rock headliner. “Honestly, I don’t like being culturally relevant,” she says with a giggle. “I don’t like being somebody where people think they need to have a ‘take,’ in either direction.”
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Yet even in that discomfort, Dacus exudes a confidence that feels new for her. Forever Is a Feeling, her fourth studio album (out March 28 on Geffen Records), takes the sound that Dacus has painstakingly crafted over the last decade and broadens it as her most lush collection to date.
Going into the creation of Forever Is a Feeling, Dacus says she “knew the scope was going to be different” for this album. That process included honing what she wanted to sing about. Whereas her past albums confronted loss and childhood trauma, the new set focuses almost entirely on romance. The first proper track off the album, “Big Deal,” finds Dacus reminding a doomed lover just how important they are; “Talk” traces the shifting dynamics of a relationship to its near end; and album closer “Lost Time” is one of the boldest love songs of her career, on which she declares, “I notice everything about you.”
Meredith Jenks
That line also encapsulates a key part of the singer’s songwriting process: Since she broke onto the scene with 2016’s No Burden, Dacus has always thrived at transforming specificity into universal lyrics. “Once you focus on one thing and one person, it actually recontextualizes everything else, and you realize that every detail is its own universe,” says Dacus, who recently revealed that she and her boygenius bandmate Julien Baker are in a relationship. She then quotes a line she read in one of Susan Sontag’s journals: “Love is noticing.”
With Forever Is a Feeling marking Dacus’ major-label debut on Geffen, the singer’s new music is striking a chord with mainstream listeners. “Ankles,” the project’s exhilarating lead single, earned Dacus her first solo entries on the Adult Alternative Airplay and Rock & Alternative Airplay charts. “She writes songs that are potent and timely but will endure for years to come,” says Matt Morris, executive vp of A&R at Interscope Geffen A&M. “The success of ‘Ankles’ at radio is a very deserved accomplishment for an artist who has already been so influential and continues to break new ground with this album.”
The set also finds Dacus continuing to evolve as a producer, after she recently helmed singer-songwriter Jasmine.4.t’s debut, You Are the Morning, alongside her boygenius bandmates. “A lot of [producing Jasmine’s album] was about advocating when it comes to being less experienced in the studio,” she explains. “It’s about helping develop a language and asking folks, ‘What do you want? Here’s how to say it.’ I want to continue to help hold the emotional space of saying, ‘Do us the favor of being a control freak.’ ”
Meredith Jenks
That experience speaks to Dacus’ larger goal of late: using her newfound platform to create good. Shortly after the Trump administration began rolling out its anti-trans policy agenda, Dacus took to her social media and called for any of her trans fans hosting fundraisers for gender-affirming surgeries to share their campaigns so that she could donate $10,000 in $500 increments to those in need of help.
There’s a reason Dacus made that pledge in public. “Ten thousand dollars is not that much in the grand scheme of things,” she says. “But I wanted there to be a list of links on my profile so that if anybody else wanted to do what I was doing, then they could scroll through and donate as well. If other people are jumping in, then that can really matter.”
It’s that sense of renewed purpose that shows how far Dacus has come as a leading voice in rock — even if, as she points out, she is the “guinea pig” of the boygenius bandmates as the first of the trio to release a solo project since The Record.
“I feel really gratified when putting my albums out means something to someone else,” she says with a warm smile. “I wouldn’t do this if it didn’t matter to some people.”
Lucy Dacus photographed on March 5, 2025 in New York.
Meredith Jenks
This story appears in the March 22, 2025, issue of Billboard.
LONDON — Following the controversial ticket sale for Oasis’ reunion dates in the U.K. and Ireland this coming summer, the CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) has said that Ticketmaster may have “misled” fans over pricing for the shows.
In August 2024, the Gallagher brothers announced their reformation for 19 stadium shows, their first since their split in 2009. The tour will begin on July 4 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, before heading to North America, Asia, Latin America and Australia in the ensuing months
The ticket sale process drew huge demand, but some fans complained of unclear pricing for tickets after long waits for the opportunity to purchase passes. An update to the CMA’s ongoing investigation highlights that Ticketmaster UK may have breached consumer protection law, by “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium.”
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The update adds that demand meant that cheaper tickets sold out first, but that the release of more expensive tickets for similar places in the stadiums meant that “many fans waited in a lengthy queue without understanding what they would be paying and then having to decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected.”
More than 900,000 tickets were sold for Oasis’ long-awaited reunion tour, but the pricing strategy proved controversial when standard standing tickets advertised at £135 plus fees ($174) were re-labelled “in demand” and changed on Ticketmaster to £355 plus fees ($458).
Following the furore, Oasis issued a statement saying they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale of tickets for the initial dates. The CMA launched an investigation in September to examine whether Ticketmaster had used “unfair commercial practices” to pressure fans into paying higher prices for tickets.
Ticketmaster denied the use of the so-called ‘dynamic pricing’ method, with the company’s U.K. director Andrew Parsons telling MPs in February, “We don’t change prices in any automated or algorithmic way.” He added that all prices are determined by artist teams and promoters SJM Concerts, MCD Promotions and DF Concerts, all of which have links to Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s owners.
The report acknowledges that since the opening of the investigation, “Ticketmaster has made changes to some aspects of its ticket sales process,” but that the CMA “does not currently consider these changes are sufficient to address its concerns.” The report does not directly comment on the alleged ‘dynamic pricing’ model, but cites other concerns around clearer sale practises.
The CMA says that, “Following a formal investigation, the CMA is now consulting with the ticketing platform on changes to ensure fans receive the right information, at the right time.”
In a statement to Billboard U.K., Ticketmaster U.K. said, “We strive to provide the best ticketing platform through a simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience. We welcome the CMA’s input in helping make the industry even better for fans.”
Downing Street responded to the report (via the BBC) by repeating a quote given by culture, media and sport secretary Lisa Nandy following the news that the government announced plans to cap the value of resold tickets for live events like music. “The chance to see your favourite musicians or sports teams live is something that all of us enjoy… But for too long fans have had to endure the misery of touts hoovering up tickets for resale at vastly inflated prices.
“We’ve also seen cases where a lack of transparency has meant customers have been caught unawares by last minute price rises for high demand events.”
Elton John is preparing to release his new collaborative album with Brandi Carlile next week, but a new interview has seen the prolific artist reveal the upcoming record left him confronting his mortality.
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John and Carlile’s new record, Who Believes in Angels?, is set to release on April 4, with singles such as its title track and “Swing for the Fences” arriving in the lead-up. While announcing the record, John explained it hit hard on both sides of the spectrum, describeing it as equally “one of the toughest I’ve ever made” and “one of the greatest musical experiences of my life.”
In a new episode of the Smartless podcast which was released to subscribers on Tuesday, March 25 – John’s 78th birthday – the musician revealed that the album’s closing track hit closer to home than previous songs due to its rather pertinent themes.
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“I wrote a song at the end of the album and I just get the lyrics, Bernie Taupin’s lyrics,” John explained “I’m writing the verse, like, ‘Oh, this is really pretty.’ And then I get to the chorus and of course it’s about my death.
“When you get to my age, which is near 100, you think, ‘How much time have I got left?’” he continued, before his thoughts turned to husband David Furnish and sons Zachary and Elijah. “You’ve got children, you’ve got a wonderful husband, you just think about mortality. And so when I got to the chorus, I just broke down for 45 minutes – and it’s all on film.”
The sessions were recorded as part of the film Elton John: Never Too Late, which was released in October to widespread acclaim. The titular “Never Too Late” will also be released on Who Believes in Angels? and was recently up for best original song at the Academy Awards.
“I want everybody to see it because it’s really human, like deeply flawed and embarrassing,” Carlile added. And the kind of shit that you do when you forget that there is a camera on is what’s really interesting.”
The forthcoming episode of the Smartless podcast, which officially releases to all listeners on March 31, also sees John reflecting on his earliest days as a solo musician. “I never imagined myself as a solo artist,” he explained. “When I was in my group, Bluesology, I took the big risk of going up to Liberty Records saying, ‘I want to write songs, I’m so fed up with playing in a band that doesn’t want to go anywhere, and I can sing too.’”
Longtime Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham has teamed up with former bandmate Mick Fleetwood once again, with the pair reuniting in the recording studio recently.
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News of the pair’s musician reunion was detailed by Swedish producer Carl Falk, who took to Threads recently to share a photo from the studio where Fleetwood has been working on a new solo album. The sessions have ostensibly also seen Fleetwood working with The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel.
“Slightly unreal moment to sit with Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood to play Lindsey the album we have been working on,” Falk wrote. “And to see his genuine happiness for Mick to finally do his own album and offering to play guitar and to sing on it. Can’t wait to finish this one.”
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Another post shared by Falk captured Buckingham in the studio with his guitar in hand. “Mick and Lindsey together again, what a flawless guitar player,” the caption wrote. Currently, no official details from Fleetwood have been announced in regard to the content or release of the forthcoming album.
Fleetwood served as one of the founding members of Fleetwood Mac alongside guitarist Peter Green and bassist John McVie, serving as the group’s percussionist for the entirety of their career. Buckingham joined as guitarist and vocalist alongside singer Stevie Nicks in 1974, completing the band’s most famous lineup, which also included McVie’s then-wife Christine.
Buckingham departed the group in 1987, but rejoined in 1997 as part of the band’s classic lineup reunion. Buckingham remained with the band until the 2018 announcement he would no longer be touring as part of Fleetwood Mac.
“I have sadly taken leave of my band of 43 years, Fleetwood Mac. This was not something that was really my doing or my choice,” Buckingham later explained during a live concert. “I think what you would say is that there were factions within the band that had lost their perspective.”
“It harmed the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build,” he added of the group’s decision, “and that legacy was really about rising above difficulties in order to fulfill one’s higher truth and one’s higher destiny.”
The guitarist was replaced by former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers member Mike Campbell, and Crowded House’s Neil Finn for the band’s final years. Fleetwood Mac would officially split in 2022 following the passing of Christine McVie.
Buckingham’s departure from Fleetwood Mac occurred almost a year after the release of Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie, an album which featured the band’s lineup with the exception of Nicks. Until 2025, it was the most recent collaboration between Buckingham and Fleetwood.
Garbage announced the dates for their first U.S. tour in nearly a decade on Tuesday (March 25). The 31-city Happy Endings run is slated to kick off on Sept. 3 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando and hit Atlanta, Nashville, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Denver, Seattle, Vancouver and San Francisco before winding down on Nov. 2 at the Van Burn in Phoenix.
The fall tour will follow the upcoming release of the band’s eighth studio album, Let All That We Imagine Be the Light, which will drop on May 30. Tickets for the tour will go on sale on April 4 here. Singer Shirley Manson said in a statement last month that the follow-up to 2021’s No Gods No Masters will flip that LP’s rage into a more optimistic outlook.
“Our last album was extremely forthright. Born out of frustration and outrage – it had a kind of scorched earth, pissed off quality to it,” Manson said. “With this new record however, I felt a compulsion to reach for a different kind of energy. A more constructive one. I had this vision of us coming up out of the underground with searchlights as we moved towards the future.”
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She added, “Searching for life, searching for love, searching for all the good things in the world that seem so thin on the ground right now. That was the over-riding idea during the making of this record for me – that when things feel dark, it’s best to try to seek out that which is light, that which feels loving and good.”
The band that also features original members producer/drummer Butch Vig and guitarist/keyboardists Duke Erikson and Steve Marker recently wrapped a South American tour and have a pair of dates in Mexico in early April. They were forced to cancel the rest of their 2024 dates in August after Manson required “surgery and rehabilitation” for an undisclosed injury she suffered on tour in Europe earlier in the year.
Check out the tour promo poster and full list of Happy Endings Tour dates below.
Sept. 3 — Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock CaféSept. 5 — Pompano Beach, FL @ Pompano Beach AmphitheatreSept. 6 — St Petersburg, FL @ Jannus LiveSept. 8 — Atlanta, GA @ The EasternSept. 10 — Nashville, TN @ The PinnacleSept. 12 — Cleveland, OH @ Agora TheatreSept. 13 — Detroit, MI @ Masonic Cathedral TheatreSept. 16 — Philadelphia, PA @ Franklin Music HallSept. 17 — Washington, DC @ The AnthemSept. 18 — Boston, MA @ RoadrunnerSept. 20 — Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn ParamountSept. 23 — Pittsburgh, PA @ Stage AESept. 24 — Toronto, ON @ HistorySept. 29 — Chicago, IL @ The Salt ShedSept. 30 — Newport, KY @ MegaCorp PavilionOct. 1 — Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live!Oct. 3 — Madison, WI @ The SylveeOct. 4 — Minneapolis, MN @ First AvenueOct. 6 — Kansas City, MO @ Midland TheatreOct. 7 — Dallas, TX @ The Bomb FactoryOct. 12 — Denver, CO @ The Mission BallroomOct. 15 — Seattle, WA @ Paramount TheatreOct. 18 — Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory SpokaneOct. 20 — Vancouver, BC @ OrpheumOct. 21 — Portland, OR @ McMenamins Crystal BallroomOct. 23 — Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain WineryOct. 24 — San Francisco, CA @ The WarfieldOct. 26 — Reno, NV @ Silver Legacy Resort CasinoOct. 29 — Salt Lake City, UT @ Rockwell at The ComplexOct. 31 — Las Vegas, NV @ The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas – The ChelseaNov. 2 — Phoenix, AZ @ The Van Buren
Mumford & Sons could have done the usual promotional run to get fans hyped for their upcoming Rushmere album, the folk rock trio’s first in seven years. And while singer Marcus Mumford will surely sit down for some interviews and the band have booked a run of intimate promo gigs in New York and the U.K. through April 3, one of the things the group’s frontman tells Billboard they wanted to do this time around was find a way to deeply connect with fans where they already are.
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“We’re full of songs at the moment — we spent two years in the studio writing [and] this first batch is Rushmere — and it’s encapsulating the spirit of our band in a lot of ways. That made us look back a bit at some of the collaborations we’ve had, some of the records we’ve made, EPs… it’s a lot of music,” says Mumford of the group’s half dozen EPs and four studio albums since 2008.
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So, with their follow-up to 2018’s Delta due out on Friday (March 28), Mumford, bassist/drummer Ted Dwane and keyboard player Ben Lovett will help celebrate Tuesday’s (March 25) launch of their first dedicated SiriusXM channel, Mumford & Sons Radio, with a special event for their die-hards. On Thursday (March 27), the trio will give North American fans a chance to call in and ask questions during a live Q&A session, followed by a live performance in the SiriusXM studios.
“When the SiriusXM team suggested it we leapt at it,” Mumford says of the channel he promises will feature hand-picked songs from across the band’s catalog, as well as some of their favorite collaborations with artists including The National’s Aaron Dessner on the Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” and “special moments” with Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell, among others.
“It was fun to look through our previous recordings, like, ‘oh s–t! I forgot about that song!’,” Mumford says of the culling process. “But we had to draw lines through some of [the songs] because you can’t put them all on.” The limited-run channel is the latest such offering from the satellite radio giant, joining temporary ones from Mary J. Blige and Lady Gaga earlier this month, as well as quick-hit channels featuring the music of Maxwell in February and Billy Joel in January.
“We put some real effort into it… we sat down to talk about our songs for far too long!,” says Mumford about the band interviews that will be featured on the channel along with DJ sets in which he can geek out over playing favorite artists such as Mk.gee and talk about how much he loves Gracie Abrams and Kendrick Lamar. There will also be some pleasant surprises, including songs Lamar producer Sounwave worked on for Mumford’s self-titled 2022 solo album.
“There are also some heavier moments, like when we really plug in and go electric with Gang of Youths, or we do a cover version of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’ via Johnny Cash and then plugged back in again,” Mumford promises of the surprises that will pop up alongside songs by other artists that have influenced and inspired the group. The channel will also tap into Mumford & Sons’ long association with SiriusXM with replays of their 2015 SiriusXM exclusive performance at New York City’s McKittrick Hotel, their 2019 show at Stephen Talkhouse in the Hamptons and other in-studio sets from over the years.
Mumford & Sons Radio will be available in cars on channel 79 through April 8 and on the SiriusXM app through April 24.
Stephen Graham has said that he was left in tears after receiving a message from Bruce Springsteen, who praised the British actor for his performance in Deliver Me From Nowhere. The upcoming biopic, which stars Jeremy Allen White as a young Springsteen, follows the seminal artist during the making of his 1982 LP Nebraska, with Graham playing the Boss’ late father, Douglas “Dutch” Springsteen.
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After filming wrapped, Springsteen shared an emotional exchange with Graham. He texted the Adolescence star to let him know that his turn as his father, with whom he had a complex relationship, had moved him. Speaking on Edith Bowman’s Soundtracking podcast, Graham said Springsteen had sent him “the most gorgeous texts I’ve ever had in my life”. He went on to explain that, at one point, the role required prosthetics that he had to rip off before hopping on a flight.“I’m racing to get to the airport, and I got this text, and it was so beautiful,” Graham continued. “It just said: ‘Better than any award that I could ever receive in my life’. He’s an icon. He’s a hero. He’s a working-class hero. He’s an icon to thousands, to millions. And his text just said, ‘Thank you so much. You know, my father passed away a while ago and I felt like I saw him today and thank you for giving me that memory.’
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“I was crying reading the text, do you know what I mean?” Graham added. “Oh mate, it was beautiful. You couldn’t ask for anything more, you know, to share that with someone was gorgeous. He’s a lovely man.”He went on to reveal that Springsteen was also a fan of cult classic TV show This Is England – in which Graham plays lead antagonist Combo – and that they’d had conversations about Springsteen’s book, Born To Run, in which he detailed his complex relationship with his father.Elsewhere, Graham has received widespread praise worldwide for his work as a shell-shocked dad on the Netflix drama, Adolescence, which centers on a teenage school boy and his arrest for suspicion of murdering a female classmate.
Wet Leg performed two intimate shows in Brighton and London earlier this week (Mar. 23 and 24), ahead of their return to festival stages this summer. Over the weekend, the Isle Of Wight band – comprising Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers – teased the surprise gigs at Green Door Store and at the Moth Club in the capital via social media.
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Tickets sold out upon release, though the shows were initially announced without revealing the band’s identity and shared under the pseudonym Uma Thurman – with the caveat the real actor “will not be in attendance.” Wet Leg then confirmed their involvement by sharing a link to the Moth Club date.
According to images shared across X/Twitter, the shows saw the band play an 11-song set, including a slew of unreleased tracks, with titles including “Dragonfart,” “Beans” and “Lovestruck.”
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The live debut of new music comes after the band took to Instagram last week (Mar. 17) to announce their return, and share a 30-second teaser of upcoming material to their Stories. On stage, they donned black wigs and suit attire in the style of Thurman’s character in Pulp Fiction, Mia Wallace. Watch a clip from their performance below.
The duo will follow the Brighton and London dates with two U.S. shows. They will play the Market Hotel in Brooklyn on Mar. 31 and The River in LA on Apr. 8. They are inviting fans to a pre-sale on March 28, for which further details can be found here.
Posting on Instagram they wrote: “Hey there neighbor been a while hasn’t it? Why dont u [sic] come on down to the bottom of our garden? It’s about time we had ourselves a little gathering…just a couple of special nights in NYC US and LA US.”Wet Leg’s last full-length release was their 2022 self-titled debut LP. It earned them two Grammy Awards for best alternative music album and best alternative music performance at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2023, they won a BRIT Award for group of the year, as well as scooping the best new artist prize.
Over the coming months, they are set to headline a bevy of U.K. and Irish festivals including Green Man and Wilderness, while they also have appearances confirmed for Glastonbury, TRNSMT and BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend in Liverpool.
Bruce Springsteen has joined the all-star lineup for Wednesday night’s (March 26) all-star tribute to Patti Smith. The Boss will make the trip to Carnegie Hall in New York for the sold–out People Have the Power: A Celebration of Patti Smith show celebrating the 50th anniversary of Smith legendary 1975 debut album, Horses.
In addition to Springsteen, the show will feature appearances from R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs, Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde, Sharon Van Etten, the Kills’ Alison Mosshart, director Jim Jarmusch, Scarlett Johansson, Kronos Quartet, Ben Harper, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karon O, former Sonic Youth singer/guitarist and solo performer Kim Gordon, Sean Penn, Angel Olsen, Courtney Barnett, Interpol’s Paul Banks, Maggie Rogers, Glen Hansard, Michael Shannon, Jesse Malin, The National’s Matt Berninger and others.
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The house band will be lead by Smith’s longtime bassist/keyboardist Tony Shanahan, who will be joined by Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, Bob Dylan guitarist Charlie Sexton and Rolling Stones drummer Steve Jordan.
In addition to celebrating the Horses anniversary, the show will also mark the 20th anniversary of City Winery founder and CEO Michael Dorf’s “Music Of” series, which spotlights the work of legendary rockers and benefits nonprofit organizations focused on music education; since 2004, the annual Carnegie Hall series has donated more than $1.8 million to such groups. General admission tickets are sold out, but VIP tickets are still available here.
Springsteen and Smith’s relationship also stretches back nearly half a decade, when the Boss was struggling to figure out how to finish his song “Because the Night” and his engineer, Jimmy Iovine — who was also producing Smith’s 1978 album Easter at the time — suggested he give it to Smith. She worked it over and adding new lyrics in honor of her husband, the MC5’s Fred “Sonic” Smith, and it became her highest-charting single to date, hitting No. 13 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Smith will also be hitting the road for a Horses anniversary tour, slated to kick off in Dublin, Ireland on Oct. 6 and criss-cross Europe for a month before landing in Seattle on Nov. 10 for a run of shows that will keep her on the road through a Nov. 29 gig in Philadelphia.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has confirmed he’s preparing his debut solo album, clarifying that the project is set to be a genre-shifting creation.
Hammett confirmed the record while speaking to Rolling Stone ahead of the release of the book, The Collection: Kirk Hammett, which shows off his large collection of vintage guitars. The discussion featured a number of revelations, including word that Hammett was finally working on a full-length solo record.
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“I’m just actively getting ideas together for my [first] solo album,” Hammett explained. “I guess the best way to describe it is it’s gonna be a fusion of all sorts of styles…. All of a sudden I’m writing classical progressions, and all of a sudden I’m writing more heavy stuff and all of a sudden I’m writing like a funk thing….
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“There will be vocals because the songs that I wrote scream for vocals this time around,” he adds. “So I’m like, okay, who’s gonna be doing the vocals? I don’t know. I hope I’m not—I already have too much to do on stage… I have an instrumental piece that to me sounds like it’s 2000 years old called ‘The Mysterion.’ It’s based on all this stuff that I’ve been reading, the ancient Greek texts, and it’s amazing to me because I wouldn’t have had this instrumental if I didn’t start reading these ancient texts.”
Hammett, who has been the guitarist of Metallica since the departure of Dave Mustaine in 1983, first issued a solo release in 2022 by way of the Portals EP. Described as “a collection of gateways to myriad musical and psychic destinations,” the four-track, 27-minute instrumental work showed off a new side of Hammett, while still finding itself rooted in the work he had risen to fame with as part of Metallica.
Almost one year later to the day, Metallica released their eleventh studio album, 72 Seasons, which became their first not to peak at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 since 1988’s …And Justice for All. Despite their ongoing touring schedule, Hammett told Rolling Stone he’s already in the process of writing riffs for the band’s next album as well.
“I have 767 new ones for the next album,” he explained. It is such a nightmare going through this stuff, too. And I’m the one responsible for all of it and I can’t do it…. I don’t foresee us starting the next album for at least another year because we’re still finishing the 72 Seasons tour.
“Once we fully finish this and go to all the outlying places like Asia and Australia and New Zealand, I think we’re gonna take a little bit of a break, not too much of one, and then we’re gonna get right back into it.”
Metallica’s current touring schedule wraps up following their performance in Auckland, New Zealand on Nov. 19.