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The Rolling Stone-hosted event took over the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
10/24/2025
Trending on Billboard The All-American Rejects have dropped off their new song, “Eggshell Tap-Dancer,” the third single off their upcoming album. The indie rock sweetheart playful new track follows the singles “Search Party” and “Easy Come, Easy Go,” which all dropped earlier this year. “‘Eggshell Tap-Dancer’ is about performing tenderness until your feet bleed,” lead […]
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Bruce Springsteen and Sony Music had different reasons for signing on to Deliver Me From Nowhere, the new biopic starring Jeremy Allen White as the Boss.
“I’m old. I don’t give a f–k what I do anymore,” Springsteen told Time. “As you get older, you feel a lot freer.” And while Sony was willing to do whatever Springsteen wanted to do, the label had other considerations, too: Its publishing company paid $500 million for Springsteen’s catalog in 2021, and one of the most powerful weapons it can deploy to boost streaming and revenue is a star-studded film. “The biopic is the cherry on top of the sundae, if you will,” says Sony marketing exec Monica Cornia. “Films bring more awareness to the artist brand and fans to the funnel.”
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Cornia, senior vp of marketing and partnerships for Sony’s Commercial Music Group, adds that the late-2024 Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown and the 2022 Elvis Presley biopic Elvis “created a new baseline for streaming” both artists’ catalogs. They had “double-digit growth post-release and have sustained elevated streaming levels to date,” adds a Sony rep.
Deliver Me From Nowhere focuses on 1982’s Nebraska — not the most commercial of Springsteen’s albums. But the star power from The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White as Springsteen and Succession‘s Jeremy Strong as his manager, Jon Landau, will “create a huge cultural moment,” says Cornia, which Sony can use as “the initial exciting point for us to start to lean in.”
Over the past five years, the music business’ most successful songwriters have sold their catalogs (and sometimes other assets) for astronomical sums. In 2020, Dylan received a reported $300 million to $500 million for the publishing of his 600-plus songs, and Paul Simon, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie, James Brown and many others followed with deals estimated between $90 million and $250 million. “Everybody who’s acquiring a catalog is looking for opportunities to find new audiences and tap into a fanbase that’s already engaged,” says Sophia Dilley, executive vp of Concord Originals, the indie-label division that co-produced last year’s HBO doc Stax: Soulsville, U.S.A., about the storied Memphis recording home of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave and others. “A natural place to do that is within the documentary or biopic space.”
After its November 2018 premiere, Queen‘s Bohemian Rhapsody biopic hit more than $1 billion worldwide in box-office sales over just five months, increasing the value of the band’s publishing and recording catalogs. In 2024, Sony purchased them for $1.27 billion.
Jeremy Allen White and Bruce Springsteen are seen on the set of “Deliver Me From Nowhere” on November 4, 2024 in Bayonne, New Jersey.
Bobby Bank/GC Images
Two months before the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen’s catalog streamed 15 million times per week. Afterwards, it spiked to nearly 62 million, and settled by the end of 2018 to 38.2 million, according to Luminate. By comparison, Dylan’s catalog drew 7.1 million weekly streams two months before A Complete Unknown, spiked to 19.5 million after the biopic and dropped to 12 million in February, also according to Luminate.
It isn’t just the biopic itself that sets the streaming bar higher for iconic artists like Queen, Dylan, Presley and Springsteen — it’s the marketing campaign and social-media activity surrounding the films. In Springsteen’s case on Friday (Oct. 24), the heavily advertised Deliver Me From Nowhere arrives with a new release geared to superfans, the five-disc box set Nebraska ’82: Expanded Edition, which includes Springsteen’s long-awaited electric version of the album and a performance film. “Our goal is to take advantage of the moment, but also to make sure we’re consistently marketing the catalog and the artist going forward,” Cornia says.
Concord, like many labels and publishers, plans similarly broad marketing campaigns for its upcoming biopics on Mississippi Delta bluesman Robert Johnson (release date unknown) and R&B keyboardist and Beatles collaborator Billy Preston (sometime in 2026). “The risk is it doesn’t have the longevity you want it to,” Dilley says, “But in the immediate, it definitely has an impact, because you’re spending money on a campaign, which helps audience awareness.”
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The timing of Deliver Me from Nowhere and A Complete Unknown, after the Springsteen and Dylan catalog sales, is probably not coincidental, according to Alaister Moughan, founder of Moghan Music, a London-based company that specializes in valuations of publishing catalogs. Major artists who sell catalogs, and top companies that spend big money to buy them, are highly aware that a well-timed biopic can improve the songs’ future value. “The past five years in particular, when an artist is looking to sell their catalog, they’ve been quite strategic,” he says. “They’re tying in, ‘We’ll be interested in a biopic.’”
Still, the focus on the lesser-known Nebraska, rather than, say, Springsteen’s later blockbuster Born in the U.S.A., which made him a worldwide star, suggests Springsteen and the filmmakers are not focused on quick streaming revenue. “Maybe it’s more of a long-term view,” Moughan adds, “rather than, ‘We want the Bohemian Rhapsody of Springsteen this year.’”
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Brandi Carlile thinks she might have an problem with co-dependency.
She may well be the most decorated Americana artist in recent memory; she’s won 11 Grammys over the course of the last six years (among a whopping 26 career nominations) alongside a pair of Children’s and Family Emmy Awards and an Oscar nomination. She routinely sells out arenas and has been heralded by many as a singular live performer. She’s even sent four of her eight albums to the top ten of the Billboard 200.
But even still, the 44-year-old singer-songwriter says that she’s long felt a sense of “inadequecy” when it comes to both her everyday life and her career, thanks to what she deems a reliance on the companionship of others. It’s not hard to see why she might feel that way — Carlile is one of the most sought-after collaborators, with featured appearances on songs from modern pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Sam Smith, to musical legends like Elton John and Joni Mitchell.
“That’s kind of permeated my personality since I was a little girl. I don’t want to spend the night with myself, I don’t want to go have a meal with myself, I would never watch a movie by myself,” she tells Billboard on a video call. “My aversion to aloneness makes me feel a bit unevolved. Is my tendency to be with, to be in service to, to walk with other people really me being unevolved? Or is it just who I am? I guess I’m still pulling it apart.”
Those thorny questions rest at the center of Carlile’s remarkable eighth solo studio album, Returning to Myself (out today via Interscope Records/Lost Highway). Written and produced alongside pop-rock maestro Andrew Watt with additional work from The National’s Aaron Dessner and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, the album tracks Carlile’s own untangling of deeply personal insecurities around ego, legacy, politics and independence. A mid-life crisis has never sounded quite this poetic.
The artist says that her new album was born, oddly, from her lack of desire to get back to creating solo albums. “Part of me really didn’t want to do it. Part of me wanted to just go back to being knee-to-knee with all my collaborators and writers and producers and friends,” she says. “It’s incredibly affirming when the people that you idolized growing up are looking at you going, ‘You’re really good, you’re very, very good.’ And that could be an addiction in and of itself — you can very easily just live in that affirmation and never take another risk.”
Those idols include John, who Carlile released an entire duets album with earlier this year, Who Believes In Angels? Carlile recalls being 11 years old living in Washington state, where “there wasn’t an inch of my bedroom wall that didn’t have an Elton John poster on it,” citing her “profound” love for John and his music.
Then there’s Mitchell, who Carlile famously brought out for her first live performance in decades at the 2022 Newport Folk Festival before going on to organize a series star-studded “Joni Jam” concerts to reintroduce the world to one of the most influential musicians of the last century. Tanya Tucker is another decorated performer who Carlile re-centered the spotlight on after decades away, by producing her lauded 2019 album While I’m Livin’ and co-starring in her 2022 documentary The Return of Tanya Tucker.
The through-line between every collaboration with one of her “superheroes,” Carlile notes, is the presence of a cause for her to take up. “Tanya was not getting her flowers — she was getting a stigma that she certainly didn’t deserve. With Joni, she had her flowers, but she didn’t know it,” she says. “Even for smaller artists, like Brandy Clark, she wasn’t being seen for the genius she is in country music … there was always some cause, and then that cause has to intersect with musical undeniability. And in that case, you know, these people are an embarrassment of riches.”
But when beginning her work on Returning to Myself, Carlile wasn’t finding a cause. She had reached the proverbial mountaintop of her professional career, and was now left to try and find some new cliff face to ascend. She remembers one particularly hard songwriting session, where she, Watt and her band were sitting in an expensive studio space creating melodically fascinating passages, and she couldn’t find any words to put to them.
“I was just in there watching money fly out the window, because I just couldn’t make the songs happen,” she says, grabbing fistfuls of her coiffed blonde hair as she recalls the stressful day. “I kept going to this little office space at the back of the studio and basically hiding from everyone. It was so destabilizing.”
In that office, Carlile noticed a purple Rhodes piano — “I think it was just there as decoration,” she offers — and sat down at it. She pulled up a poem on her phone that she had written weeks prior about wisdom and age, started putting a simple melody to it, and within 15 minutes had constructed the emotionally complicated track “A Woman Oversees.”
Writing lyrics separately from the music composition proved to be uncharted territory for Carlile — throughout her two decade career, Carlile routinely wrote her music and lyrics in concert with one another. In establishing a new precedent for the album, the singer-songwriter found that she was starting to deconstruct her own ideas about how music gets made.
“If there’s anywhere that I’m on thin ice with my ego, it’s trying to work in musical complexity where it isn’t needed. But when you have the words first and you’re now suddenly in the studio, the music has to be natural. It can’t be overthought, it can’t be intentionally complex,” she says. “I did a lot less in terms of the musical math on this album than I ever have before. I was really open to two-chord soundscapes, and I have to say, I’m finding it really emotionally fulfilling.”
Carlile is just as quick to credit Watt and Dessner’s work with her on the album for its sonic cohesion, noting that while the two had never worked together before, their collaboration on this album helped make it what it was. “I kind of Parent Trap‘d them,” she jokes. “I’m kind of culty, to the point where I’m like, ‘No, I need everyone to love each other and know each other! Will you guys come together on every song and show up in the studio and please be friends? Will you guys be friends for me?’ And they f–king did, man. It was amazing.”
When talking about Returning to Myself, Carlile keeps coming back to one other album in particular: Wrecking Ball, the 1995 magnum opus from Americana star Emmylou Harris. The projects may differ in tone and genre, but Carlile instead points to Wrecking Ball‘s larger cultural footprint as her true inspiration.
“She was trying to own the narrative and have some agency over who people believed Emmylou Harris was. The way that she asserted her Emmylou Harris-ness was to do something so unexpected sonically that it challenged the psyches and the ears of Americana listeners,” Carlile recalls. “That’s the ethos that really resonated with me. It wasn’t like I took a swing for that level of genius or refinement. It was more like I wanted to feel the same way.”
One of the most unexpected sonic turns Carlile makes on her new album arrives with its sixth track, the surging rock anthem “Church & State.” Amidst an album of plaintive, introspective folk songs, “Church & State” roars with rebellion and electrifying anger, as Carlile rails against the political powers that have tried to decide the future for her and her community.
The song was written largely on the night of the 2024 election, when Donald Trump won a second term in office. Carlile recalls the rage she felt as she watched the results come in. “I just saw my marriage hanging in the balance. Everything that my kids depend on in terms of feeling, and living within the legitimacy of our family, and how we walk through the world together,” she said. “I was just so, so angry, and stressed out, and I’m in need of some catharsis.”
She remembered a riff that one of her oldest friends and collaborators Tim Hanseroth had sent to her months prior. The two had joked about a time when Billie Jean King had once told Carlile, “‘We Are the Champions’ is too f–king slow, somebody needs to write a sports anthem that’s actually up tempo,” and Hanseroth made good on that promise with a pounding bassline that became the heartbeat of the song. “Writing that song was like I was running a mile; it just was coming out of me,” Carlile says.
The lyrics that came pouring forth concerned the “frailty” of right-wing politicians, reminding them that when their day comes, this will be how they’re remembered. She puts it much more succinctly in our conversation: “Time waits for no one, and no one stays a strongman forever,” she says with a smirk.
As they began to put the track together in a studio, Carlile pitched an odd idea to Watt, Dessner and her band. What if, instead of a guitar solo on the bridge, she simply performed a spoken-word rendition of an 1802 letter written by then-President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists Association? The choice may seem strange, but Carlile points to the famous missive for creating the oft-cited “wall of separation between church and state” that is fundamental to the functioning of American democracy.
“I think it might be the one of the most important pieces of text that has ever been introduced into the American political system. It is so timelessly wise, and it should offend no one — yet I know it will offend many,” Carlile says, before staring directly into her camera. “And if you’re offended by it, you are the problem. Period.”
Carlile knows there will even be some in her own fanbase who would prefer that she not speak out on political topics. But she says she cannot afford to stay quiet, especially when her existence is at-issue in the current administration. “We have no choice but to wake up and be political every day because we’re women and we’re gay and this is how we now have to live our lives in this country,” she says, exasperation punctuating each word. “There can be no ‘shut up and sing’ as an option for me, that’s just not possible.”
Even with its sonic left-turn, “Church & State” still finds itself fitting into the rest of Returning to Myself, as it finds Carlile re-examining and reaffirming her own relationship to religion and politics, the same way she re-examines her relationship to age on the emotionally bare “Human,” or reaffirms her marriage on the loving ballad “Anniversary.”
But there’s still the question of her “cause” for Returning to Myself — for an artist who has moved forward with a clear sense of purpose on each one of her projects, collaborations and performances, what principle guided Carlile through this latest phase of her career?
A pregnant pause forms as Carlile considers her answer. “I dropped out of school at 16, and I moved away from home at 17, I immediately had to work in order to survive. I had no skills and no driver’s license, and all I could do to make a living and pay for my rent was find places that would let me sing live,” she says, her brow furrowing as she thinks back to her earliest performing days. “As long as I can remember, I have had to make music my job.”
She smiles as she corrects herself. “There was a time, though, when I was a teenager and I could just sit on my bed and cry and just feel this magnetic draw into the magic of music. I hadn’t felt that feeling for a long, long time, and I could barely remember what it even was,” she says. “I needed to go back to that bedroom before the hustle and figure out what I loved about this. What can I unlearn about song structure? Can I become innocent about this again? So my next steps are going to be to find and stay in that innocence for as long as I possibly can.”
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Former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley was laid to rest in an intimate, private ceremony in the Bronx on Wednesday (Oct. 22) attended by family, friends and the three other founding members of the greasepaint rock band, singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, bassist/singer Gene Simmons and original drummer Peter Criss.
SiriusXM host and Frehley friend Eddie Trunk posted about the event on Instagram, including the program for the memorial service honoring the beloved guitarist who died last Thursday at age 74 featuring a quote from John 14 1-3, 27 which concludes with: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
In the accompanying note, Trunk wrote, “It has been an emotional couple of days to say the least saying farewell to a rock icon and long time friend. All of the services went as well as they could and were attended by a small group of family and close friends, including the 3 surviving original members of @kissonline.”
Trunk said it was an honor to be invited, see old friends and make a few new ones while celebrating the rock icon who co-founded KISS in New York in 1973 along with Stanley, Simmons and Criss. He also noted that there will also be a public event in the future to pay tribute to the musician known for his Spaceman persona, fiery guitar solos and irreverent sense of humor.
“His family did give me the okay to pursue a tribute show / fan celebration at some point,” said Trunk. “That’s something I feel , and many others feel, is deserved and should happen. There is nothing at all to share yet on this, but when there is you will for sure know about it. I think it’s important for Ace’s legacy, his fans, and the countless guitar players he influenced. Again when there is real news and a real plan on this I’ll let you know. For now crank up the music and remember and celebrate Ace for all he gave us and left us with.”
In another post, Trunk added that Frehley was buried in a cemetery in the Bronx, where he grew up and close to where his parents are buried, per his request. In addition to the KISS trio, Trunk said some of Frehley’s solo bandmates were on hand as well, though no fans attended the “very small, private” memorial or burial. That’s why Trunk re-iterated that he’s trying to pull together a public fan memorial, something he said Ace would have “loved… I think he deserves that.”
Trunk said he spoke to Ace’s wife, daughter and niece after the service to discuss the idea and they “fully endorsed” the effort, which he stressed is in its very early stages of planning. “I do have a close team of very, very heavy influential musicians who I’m talking to about it right now and when we have anything more concrete to tell you of course I’ll let you guys all know and get the word out,” the radio veteran said.
Frehley died on Oct. 16 at his New Jersey home of undisclosed causes, with his spokesperson attributing his passing to a “recent fall at his home.” TMZ reported on Thursday that the Morris County, New Jersey medical examiner’s office is conducting a series of exams to determine the musician’s cause of death, including a toxicological screening and external body exam, with results due in several weeks.
Frehley’s family announced his death last week in a statement, writing, “We are completely devastated and heartbroken. In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”
The band also released a statement honoring Frehley, which read, “We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley. He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy. Our thoughts are with Jeanette, Monique and all those who loved him, including our fans around the world.”
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Dion DiMucci considers his new album, The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher, to be “like a concert” experience.
“I thought I would just let it run like a concert,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and proud son of the Bronx tells Billboard via Zoom, sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap shortly after the team was eliminated from the playoffs. “That was my vision; if I had to do a set with a band, I’m gonna do these 16 songs, in this order. It’s the perfect concert.”
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher — Dion’s fourth album released within the last five years with Joe Bonamassa’s Keeping The Blues Alive (KTBA) Records label — is not simply a compilation, however. As Dion notes, “some of (the songs) are new, some of them are redos that I felt I could do better versions of.” Based on his January book of the same name, it includes six fresh recordings — some of older favorites such as Tom Waits’ “Serenade” and his own “Abraham, Martin and John,” for which Dion recently released a video — along with previously released collaborations with Bonamassa, Eric Clapton (who wrote a foreword in the liner notes), Mark Knopfler and Sonny Landreth, plus signature Billboard Hot 100 hits “Runaround Sue” (No. 1), “The Wanderer” and “Ruby Baby” (both No. 2).
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Dion penned the brand-new songs — “New York Minute,” released in January, and “Mother and Son,” inspired by Michelangelo’s Pietà — with good friend Mike Aquilina, an author who specializes in Catholic Church history and has been writing with Dion since Tank Full of Blues in 2012; he co-wrote Dion’s 2023 book, Dion: The Wanderer Talks Truth (Stories, Humor & Music). Dion also salutes his late Little Kings bandmate Scott Kempner, also of the Dictators and Del-Lords, via new recordings of “New York Is My Home” and “In a Heartbeat of Time,” which Kempner co-wrote; the former, from the 2016 album of the same name, is a version of the track before Paul Simon added his guest vocal to the recording.
“When I get down into it, I really love that blues thing,” Dion, 86, explains. “That John Lee Hooker thing, just that groan. I love expressing myself with those three chords, even two chords; it doesn’t have to be very fancy. I just love the thing grooving. The beauty of rock ‘n’ roll is repetition, the beauty of repetition and the groan and the groove and the communication of the words. It’s very simple.”
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher album is an outgrowth of the book project, Dion’s third. Co-authored with Adam Jablin and sub-titled Conversations on Life, Recovery, Faith and Music, it’s a loose collection of stories and concepts, housing high-minded concepts, anecdotes and lists of favorite books and performers.
“The book was events in my life that I’m reflecting on, all these little stories I have, and it comes with a life lesson,” says Dion, whose first memoir, The Wanderer: Dion’s Story, was published in 1988. “So then Bonamassa and (KTBA) co-founder Roy Weisman said, ‘Let’s get an album, something compatible with the book.’ At the time I was doing the audiobook, and I just had a ball doing that ’cause you could have songs (play) in the stories, just coloring or complementing. (The album) developed out of that.”
One of the most striking inclusions is “Abraham, Martin and John,” an elegy written by Dick Holler about the legacies of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy during 1968. Dion’s recording reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year and was certified gold. It went on to be covered by a number of other performers, including Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles and Bob Dylan.
The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher re-recording of it is a more intimate treatment with just Dion, a guitar and strings along with atmospheric backing vocals arranged and performed by Robert Florczak. “I wanted it in the set,” Dion explains, referring to the album’s setlist concept. “If I do a set, then ‘Abraham, Martin, and John’ has to be there, so I did it for that reason. And when I gave it to Roy Weisman he said it really struck a chord in him; he said, ‘Dion, this song is 57 years old. There are people who never heard it. I would like to release it as a single.’ And we had David Niles do the video, which is my favorite video I’ve ever done. Now, I tell ya, it seems almost timely for this song, ’cause it’s troubled times. But I didn’t even think of that when we were putting it together. It was never meant to be a political song…. It’s about a state of love and it plays so much into that speech Bobby Kennedy gave back then; he was saying love conquers all if we could understand rather than be understood, or if we could love rather than be loved, all that high-minded stuff. You can’t have cable news thinking like that, because then there’d be no shows.”
He’s also pleased that The Rock ‘N’ Roll Philosopher gives him a chance to revisit guitarist collaborations, which appeared on previous albums.
“I did ‘Cryin’ Shame’ with Sonny Landreth,” Dion says, “and that guy, man, kills me every time. He’s ridiculous. It’s just thrilling. ‘Dancing Girl’ with Mark Knopfler, I love his sound; he just hurls me into a higher reality, another dimension, and it’s just all in his hands. And ‘If You Wanna Rock and Roll’ I did with Eric Clapton. I was totally surprised when I called him to play on his; he wrote me emails telling me how he grew up with my music, and I was like, ‘Wow.’ We became friends and he did this and it was so great; I called him and said, ‘Eric, you sound like you’re 19 on this song.’ He said, ‘I stood up. I wanted to do a good job in the studio.’”
In the meantime, Dion is looking at a proposed documentary that he says might involve a couple of performances back in New York, and he’s keeping tabs on The Wanderer jukebox stage musical, which debuted during 2022 and is now working on further financing to take it to Broadway.
As for another album, Dion says, “I’m always working on something. Like I said, I do like the blues thing; it’s in my head that it grooves and it has a mantra to it. I like that. But when I get my guitar and get in there, whether it’s a Phil Spector or Michael Omartian production, or Wayne Hood or myself, it’s all Dion music. When I did gospel music, it’s all Dion music. If it’s just me and the guitar, without the window trimmings, it’s just Dion music. So whatever I do, that’s what it’ll be — Dion music.”
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The Foo Fighters are gearing up for their next era. After teasing a typically hard-hitting new song earlier this month with a brief fist-pumping instrumental snippet, the veteran Dave Grohl-led band dropped the blistering “Asking For a Friend” single on Thursday morning (Oct. 23).
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The song opens with a gentle guitar figure and Grohl singing, “Save your promises until we meet again/ You can save all your promises until the bitter end/ What is real, I’m asking for a friend/ What is real, I’m asking for a friend.” Then, as is their wont, the loud-quiet-even-louder band explodes into a giant riff mania, with Grohl howling, “Or is this the end?” as the song picks up steam.
Over pounding drums and layers of guitar, Grohl pleads, “Lay your worry down/ Save your promises til we meet again/ Save all your promises until the bitter end,” later wondering, “when you’re alone, am I a part of you?/ Am I a part of you?,” before assuring, “You’re not alone/ I am a part of you/ When I’m apart from you.” The four-and-a-half-minute song’s see-saw journey explodes at the three-minute mark, picking up the pace and launching into a blitz of howling Grohl vocals and a barrage of speed-metal-like riffs as it sprints to a close.
At press time a spokesperson for the band had not returned Billboard‘s request for confirmation that former Nine Inch Nails drummer Ilan Rubin plays on the track, though artwork for the song posted by the band on their Instagram on Wednesday (Oct. 22) included Rubin’s photo alongside the other members.
The dark rocker is a follow-up to the more upbeat previous one-off single, the emotional “Today’s Song,” and, after playing a series of intimate club shows with Rubin, the group also announced the first dates of their 2026 Take Cover stadium tour, their first run of stadium gigs since the 2023-2024 Everything or Nothing at All run.
The tour is slated to kick off on Aug. 4 at Rogers Stadium in Toronto and then hit Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Nashville, Washington, D.C., Fargo, N.D., Regina, Saskatchewan, Edmonton and Vancouver before wrapping up at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. Queens of the Stone Age will open all the dates except for the Fargo stop, with Mannequin Pussy and Gouge Away also lined up to perform on select dates. A release announcing the shows suggested that “many more shows” are on the horizon.
A general on-sale for all shows will launch on Friday (Oct.31) at 10 a.m. local time, with details available here. Fans can sign up for an artist pre-sale now through Sunday (Oct. 26) at 11:59 PT.
In a lengthy Substack post announcing the shows and the new song, Grohl wrote about finding inspiration for the track while in Japan staring at the majestic, cloud-shrouded Mt. Fuji. “As the clouds slowly clear and life comes into view, there are many reasons to be grateful. And humbled. I know this and I feel this everyday,” he wrote.
“Since our return to the stage in San Luis Obispo five weeks ago, we have been reminded of why we love and are forever devoted to doing this Foo Fighters thing,” he continued. “From reconnecting as a band and staring at a list of 30 years worth of songs to brush off, to reimagining versions with the incredible blessing of the one and only Ilan Rubin behind the drums, to reuniting with our amazing fans and blasting them with everything we’ve got (no matter the size of the venue) because we would not be here without them, we have the most solid core. And the sun is finally rising over the horizon.”
The post also touched on his long friendship with QOTSA singer/guitarist Josh Homme and the many special moments they’ve had together over the past 33 years as they gear up to rock stages together again. “I have shared some of my life’s most rewarding musical moments with my dear friend, Josh. A lifelong bond that goes far beyond the sound we’ve made together,” Grohl wrote. “So it is with great happiness that we can share this next chapter together with his almighty Queens of the Stone Age.”
Then, seemingly teasing that the band has follow up to their 2023 album But Here We Are in the works, Grohl warned fans to “take cover,” adding, “But none of this would be complete without new music to share from Pat [Smear], Nate [Mendel], Chris [Shiflett], Rami {Jaffee], Ilan and I. ‘Asking for a Friend’ is a song for those who have waited patiently in the cold, relying on hope and faith for their horizon to appear. Searching for ‘proof’ when hanging by a wish until the sun shines again. One of many songs to come.”
Check out the Take Cover Tour poster and listen to “Asking for a Friend” below.
Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.
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Following the death of founding KISS guitarist Ace Frehley last Thursday at age 74, the Morris County, New Jersey medical examiner’s office is conducting a series of exams to determine the rocker’s cause of death. According to TMZ, a rep for the examiner’s office said that though an autopsy was not performed on Frehley’s body, the guitarist know for his on-stage Spaceman persona is undergoing a toxicology screening as well as an external body examination to determine how he died; the final cause of death will not be announced until after the toxicology report is completed, which could take several weeks.
At press time a spokesperson for the medical examiner’s office had not returned Billboard‘s request for confirmation on the TMZ report.
Frehley’s family announced his death last week in a statement, writing, “We are completely devastated and heartbroken. In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth. We cherish all of his finest memories, his laughter, and celebrate his strengths and kindness that he bestowed upon others. The magnitude of his passing is of epic proportions, and beyond comprehension. Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”
At the time, TMZ reported that Frehley had been on life support after suffering a brain bleed following a fall at home several weeks earlier. The rock star had canceled a planned performance at the Antelope Valley Fair in Lancaster, California, after suffering what at the time was described as a “minor fall … resulting in a trip to the hospital.” A statement on his Instagram at the time said Frehley was “fine, but against his wishes, his doctor insists that he refrain from travel at this time.”
Less than two weeks later, Frehley’s team announced that he would be canceling all of his remaining appearances for this year “due to some ongoing medical issues.”
Frehley co-founded KISS in 1973 in New York along with singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, basist/singer Gene Simmons and drummer/singer Peter Criss. He remained a core member of the greasepaint rockers’ lineup through 1982 and later returned for the band’s blockbuster reunion tour in 1996, staying on through 2002.
The group known for their elaborate, glittery costumes, character makeup and bombastic rock anthems released some of its most successful albums during Frehley’s tenure, including 1977’s Love Gun and Alive II, both of which charted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.
“We are devastated by the passing of Ace Frehley,” read a post from the band following Frehley’s death. “He was an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier during some of the most formative foundational chapters of the band and its history. He is and will always be a part of KISS’s legacy. Our thoughts are with Jeanette, Monique and all those who loved him, including our fans around the world.”
KISS will be honored at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors taping on Dec. 7 — and airing Dec. 23 on CBS — with Frehley becoming be just the third person to receive the honor posthumously.
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Bono and The Edge of U2 accepted the 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize on behalf of the band on Tuesday. The award was presented for embodying the legacy of the legendary folk singer. The event was held at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma – and marked the first time Bono and The Edge had been there since a U2 tour stop in 1981 to promote the band’s debut album, Boy.
The 2025 Woody Guthrie Prize celebration was hosted by the Woody Guthrie Center. Preceding the award presentation, Bono and The Edge participated in an onstage conversation about art and activism with producer and musician T Bone Burnett.
“Our favorite protest songs always had a sense of vision, something to aim for. … You don’t talk about the darkness, you make the light brighter,” The Edge said, adding: “I believe music can actually change the mood of the room and actually shift a culture.”
Bono credited Bob Dylan for leading U2 to Guthrie’s music. “Bob Dylan really did bring us to the place where the song was an instrument to open up worlds. And the world of Woody Guthrie, I wouldn’t have entered if not for Bob.”
Bono also alluded to the current challenges confronting America. “America is the greatest song still yet to be written. The poetry is there but it’s still being written… don’t imagine it will continue to be extraordinary on its own, that if you fell asleep and woke up in twenty years, the world would be fairer or freer. It won’t, that’s not the way it works.”
When speaking with Burnett about the songwriting process relative to protest songs, Bono said, “You can’t write a song to order.” He read lyrics to a song that is a work-in-progress, written about the killing of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in July by an Israeli settler.
Bono and The Edge surprised attendees with a six-song performance, including two songs in which they included snippets of Woody Guthrie songs (“Running to Stand Still” with a snippet of “Bound for Glory) and “Pride (In the Name of Love)” with a snippet of “Jesus Christ”). Other U2 songs in their set were “Mothers of the Disappeared,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “One” and “Yahweh.”
Guthrie’s granddaughter Anna Canoni and Woody Guthrie Center director Cady Shaw also spoke at the event. “Woody and U2 have been aligned for decades,” Canoni said. “Whether it is protesting against war and violence, standing up for humanitarian rights, singing about greed, corruption and injustice.”
The event served as a fundraiser to support the Center’s educational programs, public concerts, exhibitions and the legacy of Woody Guthrie. The event was presented by the Harper House Music Foundation.
The Woody Guthrie Prize seeks to recognize artists who reflect Guthrie’s belief that music can be a force for social justice and change. Previous honorees include Tom Morello, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, Kris Kristofferson, John Mellencamp, Chuck D, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen and Pussy Riot, as well as groundbreaking TV producer Norman Lear.
Guthrie’s most famous song is “This Land Is Your Land,” which he wrote in February 1940 in response to what he felt was the overplaying of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” on the radio. Guthrie died in 1967 at age 55 from complications of Huntington’s disease. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as an early/musical influence in 1988 and received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy in 2000.
U2, which also includes Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr., has won 22 Grammys, more than any other group or duo in history. Their Grammy collection includes two awards for album of the year, two for record of the year and two for song of the year. U2 was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 and were recently named Fellows of The Ivors Academy, the highest honor in British songwriting.
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The Cult have announced that they will be taking a hiatus following the conclusion of their current North American tour.
In a statement shared with Billboard by frontman Ian Astbury and guitarist Billy Duffy, the band announced that they’d be taking a long break from touring to focus on other creative endeavors.
“Mother Nature has a cycle of change and evolution that is inevitable,” the statement began. “The moon’s phases change, tides rise and fall. Change is necessary for creation and rebirth. It is with this in mind that, following the remaining dates on our current North American The Cult/Death Cult 8525 Tour, we have decided to step away from touring for an undetermined amount of time. We have toured extensively over the last few years and we shall now shift our focus to writing, recording new music, and exploring other projects that shall be revealed over time. It is a time for us to turn inward to recharge our spiritual batteries.”
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The Cult went on to add that they have five more shows left in their tour, and that they look forward to celebrating them with their fans.
“When we return to the stage, it shall be with an even stronger fire and energy that we will share with all of you. Ours is a communal bond, and it will not be broken, simply paused. Until then, we have five remaining shows on this current tour, culminating at The Shrine in Los Angeles on Oct 30. Please join us for what has been an incredible celebration of 40 years of The Cult and Death Cult.”
Additionally, Astbury and Duffy shared their own individual comments at the end of the statement.
“It’s been a beautiful three years celebrating our music with The Cult family around the world. Now it’s time to go home and spend time with our own families, and create some new music,” Billy wrote.
Meanwhile, Ian added, “My deepest gratitude to all who attended and immersed themselves in our world. I am deeply grateful to be connected to our Cult family as we ready ourselves for our final five shows for some time, and we take the opportunity to dive deeper into our next creative adventures. More shall be revealed. Blessings to you all.”
Founded in 1983 under the name Death Cult, the British group shortened their name to The Cult in January 1984. The British rock group have dropped 11 studio albums, with their most recent, Under the Midnight Sun, arriving back in 2022.
Read the full statement on their Instagram below.
