State Champ Radio genre rock
Page: 15
Trending on Billboard
Just days after the death of Limp Bizkit co-founder bassist Sam Rivers at age 48 of undisclosed causes, TMZ is reporting that a spokesperson for St. Johns County, Florida Fire Rescue said they responded to a call on Saturday (Oct. 18) for a “nonresponsive person in cardiac arrest.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
At press time no official cause of death had been announced and the gossip site added that a spokesperson for the St. Johns County Sheriff’s office said that deputies responded to what is referred to as an “attended death” at Rivers’ address, meaning a call in which the deceased was a patient under medical care for a serious or life-threatening illness likely to result in a near-term death.
Billboard reached out to the St. Johns Country Fire Rescue and Sheriff’s offices — as well as Limp Bizkit’s spokesperson — for comment, but had not heard back at press time.
Rivers, 48, was diagnosed with liver disease in 2011 due to excessive drinking and received a liver transplant in 2017 after taking a temporary leave from the nu-metal band in 2015, before returning in 2018.
Singer Fred Durst posted an emotional tribute to Rivers on Monday saying, “it’s so tragic he’s not here now” and admitting that he’d gone through “gallons and gallons of tears since yesterday and I’m thinking, ‘my God, Sam’s a legend,’ you know? He did it. He lived it.” Earlier, the band — which also features guitarist Wes Borland, DJ Lethal and drummer John Otto — released a joint statement paying tribute to their beloved compatriot.
“Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player — he was pure magic,” the group said. “The pulse beneath every song, the calm in the chaos, the soul in the sound. From the first note we ever played together, Sam brought a light and a rhythm that could never be replaced. His talent was effortless, his presence unforgettable, his heart enormous.”
At press time it appeared the band planned to carry on with its planned late 2025 Gringo Papi South American tour dates, which will resume on Nov. 29 at Explanada del Estadio Banorte in Mexico City before moving on to Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina before winding down on Dec. 20 in Sao Paulo, Brazil; no replacement for Rivers has been announced yet.
Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information click here.
Trending on Billboard
The government has been shut down for more than three weeks, the president just took a wrecking ball to the White House and more than 40 million Americans are potentially a month away from losing their food assistance unless Congress acts soon. Those scenarios, and many more, are why frequent Donald Trump antagonist and punk prodder Ken Casey says we need to focus on the real problems in the country, not who is performing the halftime show at next year’s Super Bowl.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
The Dropkick Murphys lead singer is the latest artist to fully back Bad Bunny‘s booking for what is traditionally one of the most-watched televised musical performances of the year, telling Rolling Stone that he hadn’t really listened to the global superstar’s music, but became a fan after watching Benito chew up the scenery in Happy Gilmore 2.
“I will go to the mat for that guy,” Casey said of his support for Bad Bunny in the wake of his hilarious turn in the cameo-packed Adam Sandler sequel. “God bless his heart. He is a true, true American” he added of the Puerto Rican singer who is an American citizen. The latter comment was a pointed asterisk seemingly aimed at the many MAGA supporters and Trump administration figures who have bashed the Benito booking, including Sec. of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, who has threatened a heavy ICE presence at the Feb. 8 game in Santa Clara, Calif.
“[This administration] just wants to control everything, every narrative,” Casey said of Trump 2.0. “There’s way bigger problems in the world than who is at the halftime show at the Super Bowl,” warning that, “if you don’t get involved now, you might lose your chance to get involved.” The latter comment came after an estimated seven million Americans turned out over the weekend for massive “No Kings” protests across the country decrying the authoritarian actions of the current administration.
Casey was also speaking out to shine a light on his drive to mobilize the punk community to join him in supporting Home of the Brave, a nonprofit founded by former Republicans to speak out against the Trump administration and lend a voice to those whose lives have “been directly harmed” by its actions.
The singer will join the org’s advisory board, taking his place alongside board members including frequent Trump antagonist George Conway, former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and D.C. Metro Police Dept. officer Michael Fanone (who was injured in the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by Trump supporters), former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice and former Trump 1.0 deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews.
In a video announcing his board membership, Casey says, “I’m so outspoken about what Trump’s doing to America because I have a platform, the band has a platform,” noting that the Murphys’ message of support for worker’s rights and social injustice has been consistent over 30 years. “If we’ve been outspoken even in times nowhere near as drastic as this, why would we not step up our level of activism as the stakes raise?”
Casey admits that speaking out against Trump has probably cost the band fans, but expressed hope that maybe things will “come around” some day, adding that he’s not afraid to call out the silence from other bands because if the Murphys can influence one band, or 10 fans, or 100 fans, to change their minds the movement could gain critical mass.
The Murphys have definitely not been shy about their feelings about their dislike for Trump, dedicating their single “First Class Loser” to the former reality star in July during a Warped Tour show in Long Beach, Calif. where they played videos tying the President to teen sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein. Earlier this year the singer also called out a fan for waving around a “true Nazi edition” MAGA hat at one of their St. Patrick’s Day shows in Boston in March, then slamming “rat and a coward” Trump against just weeks later.
The right-wing mediasphere and the Trump White House have been lashing out about the Bunny booking, with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski calling the pick “shameful,” and Trump dubbing it “absolutely ridiculous.” Amidst the ongoing government shutdown, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson took time to say that tapping Benito was a “terrible decision,” while claiming that the reggaeton megastar who is tied with Taylor Swift for having the most No. 1s on the Billboard Global 200 of any solo artist as lacking appeal to a “broader audience.”
Trending on Billboard
After a 2025 edition was called off six months to go , the Sick New World festival will be back in 2026 with two huge one-day concerts in Las Vegas and Fort Worth, Texas, with System of a Down headlining both events.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
The Vegas show will take place on April 25 at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, and in addition to SOAD, the show will feature Korn, Bring Me the Horizon, Ministry, AFI, Evanescence, Acid Bath, Underoath, Coal Chamber, Knocked Loose, Cypress Hill, KMFDM, the Melvins, Filter, Clutch, Danny Elfman, Marilyn Manson and others.
Fans can sign up now for a pre-sale for the Vegas date that kicks off on Thursday (Oct. 23) at 10 a.m. PT.
The Forth Worth show will take place at Texas Motor Speedway on Oct. 24 with SOAD at the top of the bill, along with Deftones, Slayer — celebrating 40 years of Reign in Blood — Evanescence, Ministry, AFI, Underoath, The Prodigy, Mastodon, Knocked Loose, Power Trip, Down, Melvins, Orgy, Filter, Kittie, Snot, P.O.D. and many more.
Fans can sign up now for a pre-sale that starts on Friday (Oct. 24) at 10 a.m. CT.
Sick New World debuted in 2023 at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds with SOAD as its headliner along with fellow hard rockers Korn, Deftones and Incubus and a similar mix of metal, industrial, hardcore and goth rock. It returned the next year with SOAD again at the top, joined by Alice in Chains, A Perfect Circle, Swans, Primus, Code Orange and Knock Loose, among others.
The 2025 edition, which was to feature Metallica and Linkin Park, was slated to take place in April of that year, but was cancelled in Nov. 2024 due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
Check out the full lineups below.
Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information click here.
Trending on Billboard
Rod Stewart has a few grandchildren, but YUNGBLUD isn’t one of them (despite what the punk rocker used to think).
While guesting on Capital FM on Tuesday (Oct. 21), YUNGBLUD opened up about how he mistakenly believed that the iconic singer-songwriter was his grandfather for about a decade. “So, basically, my mum never had a dad,” he said on the radio program. “My nan was always a very imaginative lady, and my nan would lie to me.”
“She’d put me in a foot bath and lie to me and say that Rod Stewart was my grandfather for, like, my formative years,” YUNGBLUD continued, laughing. “So up to about 9 years old, I thought Rod Stewart was my grandad.”
It wasn’t until he and his grandmother were out grocery shopping one day that he finally learned the truth. “I remember by the checkout, I picked up a Rod Stewart CD,” YUNGBLUD recalled. “[I was], like, proper quivering lip, like, ‘Nan, when’s granddad coming home?’ And everyone at the checkout started laughing … And that was the day I found out Rod Stewart was not in fact my grandfather.”
But while there’s no “blud” relation between YUNGBLUD and Stewart, it sounds like the latter is down to welcome the former into the family. According to the “Parents” musician, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer sent him a sweet DM after finding out about the childhood delusion.
“He says, ‘Alright my wee grandson!’” YUNGBLUD said of the exchange. “And I was like, ‘Rod Stewart, man.’”
The interview comes about a month after the release of YUNGBLUD’s collaboration with Aerosmith, “My Only Angel,” which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard‘s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. The track will appear on a joint EP the two rock acts are working on.
Watch YUNGBLUD explain how he thought Stewart was his grandfather for the first 10 years of his life above.
Trending on Billboard
Janelle Monáe has been sharing her music and acting with fans for years — but it seems that the performer has been holding out on us when it comes to another unlikely talent.
While chatting with Lucy Dacus for Rolling Stone‘s “Musicians on Musicians” series, Monáe claimed to have traveled back in time (no, really). The subject first came up when the two artists where discussing their shared love of Halloween, with the Boygenius star shouting out her past Pete Davidson, Ariana Grande couple’s costume with partner/bandmate Julien Baker.
“I’ve always loved transforming,” the Knives Out: Glass Onion star offered. “I think when I saw David Bowie — I did. I traveled back into the 1970s, and I saw him do Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. It was incredible.”
Looking bewildered, Dacus replied, “You … traveled back?”
“Yeah, I was backstage,” Monáe answered earnestly. “And I was like, ‘This is what I want to do.’ And so I jetted back to the 2000s, and I was like, ‘I can have the musical, make the music, create the lyrics and create community around transformation and being queer.’”
Feeling perplexed? You aren’t the only one. Many of the comments on the video centered around the Hidden Figures actress’ cosmic confession, with one person writing, “can’t believe i was here for janelle’s coming out as a time traveler.”
“lucy’s face as janelle’s comes out as a time traveler is priceless,” another viewer commented.
The “Musicians on Musicians” convo comes a few months after Dacus dropped her album Forever Is a Feeling, which followed the success of Boygenius’ Grammy-winning debut LP, The Record. Monáe last released a full-length in 2023 with The Age of Pleasure.
The multi-hyphenate is now working on writing a screenplay, which they also spoke about with Dacus. “The goal has always been to write, star in, do the soundtrack, produce,” Monáe said of the project. “A lot of things, I know, but I have to fully realize an idea, and I know that I will not stop until I get this. I wish I had some sort of pipe that I can push in my brain. Because the time that it takes … You have the idea, and to realize it, you gotta talk to all these people. I’m just like, ‘I see it!’”
Watch Monáe and Dacus’ full conversation above.
Pete Townshend has a simple description of The Who’s turbulent split with longtime drummer Zak Starkey: “It’s a mess.”
In a new interview with i Paper, the legendary guitarist and songwriter opened up about the chaotic sequence of events earlier this year involving Starkey’s firing, rehiring and eventual departure. Starkey, a veteran session and touring drummer, had been part of The Who’s lineup for nearly 30 years.
“I will miss Zak terribly. But quite what the story is, I don’t f—king know. I really don’t know,” Townsend admitted.
The confusion began in April when Townshend and The Who frontman Roger Daltrey made a “collective decision” to part ways with Starkey, who is the son of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Days later, Townshend reversed course, stating Starkey was “not being asked” to step down. But just a month later, Townshend again changed his stance, saying, “The time has come for a change,” signaling the end of their long-running collaboration.
Trending on Billboard
Shortly after, Starkey offered his own version of events, claiming he hadn’t been “fired” but had instead “retired to work [on] my own projects” ahead of The Who’s The Song Is Over farewell tour.
The fallout appears to have been sparked by a misstep during the band’s charity performances for the Teenage Cancer Trust at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March.
“[Daltrey] came in four bars early,” Starkey told Rolling Stone in June. “But he just got lost. He blamed it on the drums being too loud, and then it got made into this huge social media thing.”
In his interview with i Paper, Townshend addressed the same performance.
“I couldn’t see anything wrong. What you see is a band who haven’t played together for a long time. But I think it was probably to do with the sound. I’ve lost my sound man as a result,” the iconic musician said.
He continued, “I think Roger just got lost. Roger’s finding it difficult. I have to be careful what I say about Roger because he gets angry if I say anything about him at all. He’ll be sacking me next. But that’s not to say that he sacked Zak. It’s a decision Roger and I tried to make together, but it kind of got out of hand.”
Despite the turmoil, Starkey says he would return to The Who if asked.
“Of course I would,” he told Rolling Stone. “I said to Pete, ‘Thirty years. In the 30 years, you put the bar so f—kin’ high. What the f—k do I do now?,’” he said. “The Who, you just don’t know what’s going to happen. If you think something is going to happen, the opposite happens. If you second guess Pete, he will play the opposite. You have to go with whatever you’re doing, and not think.”
Patrick Walden, former guitarist for the British rock band Babyshambles, has died at the age of 46.
The band, fronted by Pete Doherty, announced Walden’s passing in a social media post on Friday (June 20). A cause of death was not disclosed.
“It is with deep regret and sadness that we share the news of Patrick Walden’s death,” the band wrote on Instagram. “We feel very fortunate to have known/loved and worked with him and we kindly ask for respect and privacy during these difficult times.”
The statement was signed by Doherty and fellow band members Mick Whitnall, Drew McConnell and Adam Ficek.
Babyshambles was formed in 2003 by Doherty after his departure from The Libertines due to substance abuse issues. Walden, a London native, joined as lead guitarist, alongside McConnell on bass and Gemma Clarke on drums.
In addition to his guitar work, Walden co-wrote several songs on Babyshambles’ 2005 debut album, Down in Albion, including “Pipedown,” “Loyalty Song” and “F—k Forever,” which peaked at No. 4 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart.
Before joining Babyshambles, Walden played in various bands including Fluid, the Six Cold Thousand and the White Sport. His time with Babyshambles was brief, ending in 2005 amid struggles with drug addiction and a legal case involving his girlfriend that resulted in a brief jail sentence. The charges were later dropped.
Walden was replaced by Whitnall for the band’s sophomore album, Shotter’s Nation, which dropped in 2007. Though he never officially rejoined the group, Walden occasionally performed with Babyshambles at select shows over the years. The band has reunited sporadically during Doherty’s solo performances.
Doherty had previously hinted at a potential reunion tour to mark the 20th anniversary of Down in Albion, though it was unclear whether Walden was expected to be involved.
“It is on the cards,” Doherty told NME in December 2024. “We will get back together and get in a room with the instruments and play through the old songs, then get on stage and do it. But it’s the ‘who’ and the ‘when’ that needs to be worked out. I think we’ll just keep that one on the horizon and deal with that one next year. Before then, I’ve got a new collection of songs which I’m putting out on my own label, which is tidy.”
Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill have been playing music together for some 48 years, most of them in Simple Minds. Kerr assures us that familiarity has bred fondness; he even says the “parallel story” in the band’s 2023 documentary Everything Is Possible is “the friendship of Charlie and I, which is quite remarkable because usually in long-working relationships in music people hate each other after 20 years. But Charlie and I still go on. There’s a great friendship there.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Despite that, Kerr tells Billboard that it’s not always a lovefest between frontman and guitarist, either, as Simple Minds is in the midst of its first full-scale North American tour in seven years. “We’re still able to have our rows and our fights. We’re not always on the same page,” Kerr acknowledges, adding with a laugh that, “We had a screaming match last week and everyone around us…. First of all they said, ‘I’ve never heard such a f–kin’ intense screaming match,’ so afterwards Charlie and I felt embarrassed. Y’know, usually it’s not even (about) a thing. You’re not on the same page, and it’s frustrating. Someone will just say the wrong word, and it triggers.
“But here’s the good news; at the end of the day there’s no scars, no wounds. We get up the next day and everything is fine. How amazing that we’re still so passionate about it. How amazing that we still care. How amazing we’re in the rehearsal room, trying to make it as great as it can be for our audience, and how amazing the next day we go to breakfast with each other.”
Trending on Billboard
During its current trek, whose U.S. leg wraps up Saturday (June 22 in Noblesville, Ind.), Kerr, Churchill and the latest incarnation of Simple Minds have been supporting their new concert album — Live in the City of Diamonds, which came out in April — and the 40th anniversary of an eventful 1985 that included: the Billboard Hot 100-topping single “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” from the hit film The Breakfast Club; a performance at Live Aid that summer; and the band’s best-selling studio album, Once Upon a Time, which came out that fall.
“It was beautiful,” Kerr recalls. “It was so unexpected in a sense. You had the movie, you had the song, Live Aid, MTV, ‘Alive & Kicking’ [a No. 3 Hot 100 hit], the Once Upon a Time album itself…and lo and behold, 40 years later we’re still here talking about it. That’s what 1985 felt like to us.”
Simple Minds was famously ambivalent about recording “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” which was written by producer Keith Forsey and Steve Schiff for the John Hughes-directed film. The group had already planned to make an aggressive assault on the U.S. market in the wake of its 1984 album Sparkle in the Rain and was confident “we had songs up our sleeve” for what would become Once Upon a Time.
“Then out of nowhere these phone calls start to come in about this movie, and the record company thinks it would be a good thing to bridge to the next album,” Kerr recalls. “We were like, ‘Yeah, we want to do it,’ then ‘Oh, hang on a minute. They want us to record someone else’s song? That’s not what we do; we’re credible artists. We write our own songs, and we’ve got some good ones in the pipeline, so we’re not sure about that.’ But after meeting the people involved we decided to do it.”
The key, Kerr adds, was that his band found a way to make the song its own. “I’m not taking anything away from the song and Keith and the guys who came up with the music. You can find the demo of the song online; it’s a good little song. But Simple Minds, what we brought to it was 10 years of playing live, and we put our heart and soul into it and we put our lifeblood into the record. It would’ve been a different song if OMD did it, or the Psychedelic Furs — it would’ve been a different record, rather. So it’s not our song, but it is our record.”
Simple Minds will follow the North American tour with a jaunt through Europe, starting June 27 at home in Glasgow, where the band plans to play Once Upon a Time in its entirety. That trek wraps up July 27 in Italy, after which Simple Minds plans to return to working on a new studio album — the follow-up to 2022’s Direction of the Heart — which Kerr, Burchill and company began working on before hitting the road.
“We’ve got a whole bunch of songs up our sleeves,” Kerr says. “They’re not finished yet, but the backing tracks are down, the rough mixes. So we’re excited. People might say, ‘What’s the impetus?’ because obviously records don’t sell like they used to and there’s a limited appeal for new stuff no matter whether you’re Bruce Springsteen or whoever you are. But this is who we are. This is what we do. It just goes on. It’s all about creativity and you have it in you and you’ve got to get it out. That’s the same now as it’s ever been, and for us every time you do something new you’re still using those muscles. It’s like a chapter to a book; it seems to refresh the rest of the story and stops you from calcifying.”
The artist born Chris Comstock, known to millions of fans as Marshmello, has a long history with pop-punk as both a fan of the genre and through his ‘Mello collabs with A Day to Remember and Yungblud.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Now, Comstock is taking off his helmet and digging deeper into the scene with his new pop-punk band, Underbrook. The six-man group released its debut single, the driving, anthemic “Heads Up” on Friday, (June 20.)
Trending on Billboard
“This isn’t a nostalgia play — this is who I’ve always been at my core,” Comstock said in a statement. “Underbrook is about channeling the emotions and chaos that shaped me, and giving them a voice through the music that first made me feel understood. ‘Heads Up’ is just the beginning.”
The group features Comstock on lead vocals, along with drummer James Brownstein and Hayden Tree, who’s also the lead singer for Crown the Empire, on bass. Josh Strock, who’s written and produced for artists including Motionless In White, Fever 333 and Machine Gun Kelly, is on guitar alongside fellow guitarist Danny Couture, a writer and producer for acts including Bring Me the Horizon, 24kGoldn and Marshmellow, and the group’s third guitarist Jake Torrey, who has written and produced for Linkin Park, Twenty One Pilots and Yungblud.
Of his and the band’s influences in pop-punk and alt-rock, Comstock cited “everyone from New Found Glory, to The Story So Far, to Two Door Cinema Club and The Strokes. We all listen to a wide range of music, but we can all agree that we love those bands. That DNA definitely made its way into Underbrook.”
While there aren’t yet details about the next Underbrook release, the band’s Instagram account suggests there’s more on the way in advising to “get to know us.” The account also features clips of the group in the studio.
Listen to “Heads Up” below:
Mötley Crüe recruited Dolly Parton for a duet version of their classic single “Home Sweet Home,” streaming now. Parton joins in on the chorus of the power ballad, and takes the lead on the second verse.
The reimagined “Home Sweet Home,” released Friday (June 20) and available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and more here, will be featured on From the Beginning, an upcoming Mötley Crüe singles collection spanning four decades of music to be released via BMG on Sept. 12, 2025 — the date that also kicks off the group’s 10-show residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM in Las Vegas, which runs through Oct. 3.
At 12 p.m. ET on Friday, a music video for “Home Sweet Home” paying homage to the original visual premieres on YouTube.
Trending on Billboard
In a joint statement about the collaboration with country queen Parton, the band writes, “‘Home Sweet Home’ was first released in 1985 as a single from our Theatre of Pain album. For an icon like Dolly Parton to sing on a song that has not only meant so much to us but to all the fans through the years, is a career high that means a lot to us. We couldn’t be happier to celebrate the 40th anniversary of ‘Home Sweet Home’ in this special way, and we’re excited to share this version of the song with all the Dolly and Mötley fans around the world.”
A portion of proceeds from Mötley Crüe and Parton’s new “Home Sweet Home” will benefit Covenant House, a nonprofit organization that provides safe shelter, meals, hope and more to youth who are experiencing homelessness.
“That we were able to unite with Dolly to raise awareness for homeless youth and the amazing work of Covenant House, which provides them safe housing and care, makes it even more special. We hope you’ll enjoy ‘Home Sweet Home’ featuring Dolly Parton as much as Dolly and we enjoyed creating it,” Mötley Crüe says.
Mötley Crüe feat. Dollay Parton, “Home Sweet Home”
BMG
“It was an honor and a joy working in the studio on Mötley Crüe’s 40th Anniversary re-release of ‘Home Sweet Home,’” says Parton. “I was so pleased that they would ask me to sing on such a classic.”
From the Beginning will be released on Sept. 12 via streaming services in standard audio and Dolby Atmos audio and can be pre-saved here. It’ll also be out on standard CD, a two-LP set alongside the CD, plus two-LP exclusive variants at Walmart, Target and Amazon.
See the album track list and cover below.
1. “Live Wire”2. “Take Me to the Top”3. “Shout at the Devil”4. “Looks That Kill”5. “Too Young to Fall in Love”6. “Smokin’ in the Boys Room”7. “Home Sweet Home”8. “Girls, Girls, Girls”9. “Wild Side”10. “Dr. Feelgood”11. “Without You”12. “Kickstart My Heart”13. “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”14. “Same Ol’ Situation (S.O.S.)”15. “Primal Scream”16. “Afraid” *LP ONLY17. “Saints Of Los Angeles”18. “The Dirt (est. 1981)” 19. “Dogs Of War”20. “Cancelled” *LP ONLY21. ?Home Sweet Home” (feat. Dolly Parton)
Mötley Crüe, ‘From the Beginning’
BMG
