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Sure, Carrie Underwood is the country star behind hits like “Before He Cheats” and “All-American Girl,” but turns out, she’s also a huge fan of nu-metal. In a clip from season 23 of American Idol, in which Underwood took over for Katy Perry on the judges panel alongside Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie, an 18-year-old […]
At this point, even Billy Corgan isn’t sure what is real life and what is fantasy. Since the Smashing Pumpkins singer appeared on Howie Mandel’s Does Stuff podcast in November and revealed that his stepmother once told him that comedian Bill Burr might be one of his half-brothers after Mandel accidentally put a photo of the stand-up instead of the rocker, things have gotten progressively weirder.
After the two men were then surprised by Mandel when he had them unexpectedly meet for the first time in person on his pod earlier this year, Corgan, 57, told People magazine that the meet-weird was not a bit, but actually the real thing.
“It was one of those rare moments where I think all three of us really didn’t know where it was going. And you see that, and that’s what makes it sort of interesting,” Corgan said of the episode Mandel dubbed “Family Reunion with Bill Burr & Billy Corgan.”
“There’s enough energy there that that’s why it’s not a bit, because it’s really about confronting something in a way that none of us really knew what that confrontation would lead to, and you see it play out,” he continued. “You see jokes, but you also see kind of like, oh, there’s something there.”
It was so real, in fact, that Corgan said some close friends still ask him about the interaction, and ask for receipts. “A really good friend of mine said to me, looking around, ‘Okay, now tell me the truth.’ And I said, ‘I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re related,’” Corgan said. “And then my friend said, ‘Well, I think you are.’ And I said, ‘Well, I guess it’s possible because he really does look like my father in a way that’s almost shocking to me.’ So then my friend goes, ‘Well then get a DNA test.’”
While Corgan has heard stories about his late musician father — William Corgan, who died in 2021 — allegedly having a number of children out of wedlock, the rocker said one of the intriguing things about the potential mid-life reveal of a half-brother in 56-year-old fellow chrome dome Burr is that there is no definitive answer for now.
“It’s taken on a life of its own. It’s sort of strange,” Corgan said. “It really started from honest things, which are, my father may have fathered 12 other children, and the facts of Bill’s life actually do match the story that I was told. There’s no invention there.”
Burr was audibly and visibly upset by the unannounced family reunion, lambasting his longtime friend Mandel, and almost walking out of the interview in protest. “He’s bringing it here, not because he’s trying to heal the bulls–t that we went through growing up. He’s getting here just for the f–king ratings,” Burr said of Mandel during the awkward appearance.
Mandel did eventually leave the room and the two men traded stories about the man they both described as their dad, though Burr initially was not able to let go of his anger about the surprise. Asking what Mandel thought was going to happen, Burr wondered, “Are we going to play catch? We’re both in our 50s!”
Mandel later apologized for the unexpected bit, saying on a subsequent pod, “I feel horrible and I’m sorry, Bill. I’m sorry, Billy. I only tried to do something good,” noting that at that point in early February he had not heard a “peep” from his longtime friend Burr.
Metallica will be seriously in your face come this Friday (March 14). The heavy metal legends announced on Tuesday (March 11) that their 2024 Mexico City show has been optimized as an immersive experience on the Apple Vision Pro headset. The concert featuring such beloved hits as “Enter Sandman,” “One” and “Whiplash” will be beamed […]
30 years since the Smashing Pumpkins released Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, frontman Billy Corgan is reimagining the record for a series of opera performances.
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The event, dubbed A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness, will take place in the musician’s hometown, with the Lyric Opera of Chicago hosting the event for seven evenings beginning Nov. 21. Tickets to the event go on sale from Friday, April 11.
The arrangements and orchestrations for the production are being undertaken by Corgan and James Lowe to craft “a new commission inspired by one of the greatest alternative albums of all time.” According to a description of the event on the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s website, Corgan and some unnamed special guests will team up with the Lyric Opera’s Orchestra and Chorus to offer a “completely new, sonic and visual experience” that provides the chance for fans hear the Smashing Pumpkins’ music “in a sumptuous new dimension.”
“It is thrilling to collaborate with Lyric head John Mangum, my musical partner James Lowe, and all of the artists at Lyric in reimagining this very special and historic album, and to discover how Lyric’s full operatic treatment is helping me experience my own compositions in powerful new ways,” Corgan said in a statement.
“Opera and rock both tell stories of heightened emotions, and I am excited for both fans of my music and traditional opera fans to hear some truly inspired work; for the balance here is to honor both traditions in a magisterial way.”
“Next season is filled with a tremendous range of lavish and powerful opera productions that we are excited to share with our audiences,” added Lyric Opera of Chicago President and CEO John Mangum. “I’m just as excited about the special performances like ‘A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness’ that open the aperture and expand the definition of opera and what an American opera company can be.”
First released in the U.S. on Oct. 24, 1995, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness was the Smashing Pumpkins’ third record, and their first double-album. Though often described as a concept album (with Corgan himself referring to the album as “The Wall for Generation X”), the record was a departure in terms of what the band had crafted on the previous efforts, with Corgan telling Billboard in 1995 that the somewhat grandiose 28-track release was still a “song-based album.”
The efforts of the band were rewarded at the time, with Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness managing to become the Smashing Pumpkins’ first release to debut atop the Billboard 200 (despite the increased price resulting from its two-CD format). The record also garnered seven nominations at the 1997 Grammys, including album of the year and best alternative music album, ultimately winning best hard rock performance for lead single, “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.”
A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness Dates
November 2025: 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30
Jack White has once again turned his focus to U.S. politics, putting President Donald Trump and Elon Musk in his sights at a recent performance.
White is currently in the midst of his global No Name tour, which has seen him perform a number of concerts in areas as diverse as central America, Asia and Oceania in recent months. As Consequence of Sound points out, Feb. 18 saw White wrapping up a brief run of gigs in Canada and the northeastern U.S., closing out the dates with two nights at the Roadrunner in Boston.
During his main set, White shared a rendition of his 2018 single “Corporation,” which originally featured on his third solo album Boarding House Reach, and typically begins with the line “I’m thinking about starting a corporation. Who’s with me?”
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In the version played in Boston, White switched up the lyrics to offer a sharp-tongued takedown of Musk, leaning on the Tesla CEO’s involvement in the current administration after debuting the new line, “I was thinking about becoming an oligarch, who’s with me?”
“I was thinking about taking government subsidies and starting my own electric car company. Who’s with me?” White sang. “I’m thinking about not being elected. Never holding a public office. Never serving one day of military service. But somehow having the authority to control parts of the U.S. Government. Who’s with me?
“I’m thinking about not being properly vetted by the Supreme Court or Congress, just doing whatever the hell I want because some fucking bloated asshole orange fucking gorilla who’s failed at every business he’s ever ran wants me to be his golf cart partner!”
This isn’t the first time that White has changed his lyrics to reflect his distaste towards Trump. Previously, The White Stripes sold “Icky Trump” shirts during the President’s successful 2016 campaign, altering the title to their 2007 song “Icky Thump” in the process. In 2018, White performed the song with new lyrics that specifically called out the President by name.
More recently, White reacted to Trump’s 2024 election win by sharing a lengthy social media post in early November to express his disbelief at the state of U.S. politics.
“Americans chose a known, obvious fascist and now America will get whatever this wannabe dictator wants to enact from here on in,” he wrote. “It’s absolutely dumbfounding that this con man succeeded in pulling the wool over so many Americans eyes not once, but twice.”
White has since returned to the road since his February performance, appearing in Europe and the U.K. before his current Japanese leg. However, he’s yet to perform “Corporation” again since the Boston show.
Legendary rock outfit Guns N’ Roses are plotting their return to India after a 12 year absence, working with Indian concert promotion company BookMyShow Live. The band’s return is scheduled for May 17 at Mahalaxmi Racecourse — typically used for horse racing — in Mumbai. Live Nation, the band’s global tour promoter, is co-producing the […]
New Breaking Benjamin material is on the way — but the band hasn’t been in a rush. “We still have the attitude [that] you’re only as good as your next album,” guitarist Jasen Rauch tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “We’re still trying to dodge the sophomore slump going into record [No.] 7.”
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It’s been a long break since record No. 6. Breaking Benjamin’s last album of new material, Ember, came out in 2018; Aurora, an album with new versions of old material, came out in 2020. At this point in the band’s two-decade-plus career, Rauch says, they can take their time to get things right.
The recently released song “Awaken” is a case study in Breaking Benjamin’s deliberate pace. Rauch says the first demo for “Awaken,” released in October 2024, was recorded in either 2020 or 2021. The lyrics were changed “three or four times.” The song’s key changed. The band tried out different tempos. And the verses were written twice. “Sometimes you’ve got to put brakes on it and be like, ‘It’s just not ready. It’s not there,’” he explains.
As for a new full-length album, Rauch says a new Breaking Benjamin album will be released in 2025. After six albums for Hollywood Records, the next album will be released through BMG, just as the band’s recent single, “Awaken,” came out through Benjamin Burnley Recording — Burnley is the band’s founder and singer — and was licensed to BMG.
Working with BMG has also given the band the freedom to not rush through writing and recording new material. And with three platinum and two gold albums since 2002, Breaking Benjamin is at a point in its career where it doesn’t need a label to invest the kind of resources required for a younger, developing band. “They’re already walking into an established product,” says Rauch. “They’re helping us get to the next step — whatever that is — with new music. And that’s been a cool, refreshing experience for us.”
Breaking Benjamin is co-headlinging the Awaken the Fallen Tour with Staind from April 26 to June 1. The band will also perform this summer at Rocklahoma in Prior, Okla., on Aug. 30, and Louder Than Life in Louisville, Ky., on Sept. 19.
Listen to the entire interview with Jason Rauch using the embedded Spotify player below, or go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, Podbean or Everand.
Peter Wolf has been thinking about writing a book “for a long time.” But making a new solo album is what really prompted the former J. Geils Band frontman to get serious about it.
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Wolf is “about 80 percent” finished with the album, which will be his first since 2016’s A Cure For Loneliness. “It occurred to me that my solo recordings, a lot of them went unnoticed, and I realized that if I put this out with the way things are these days, it can turn to vapor quite easily and be another lost solo effort,” Wolf — who’s just published Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses (Little, Brown) — tells Billboard. “So I thought, ‘Well, maybe now is the time to write that book I’ve been talking about for decades.’ I think if the book connects with people it would even put the wind beneath my wings to finish the record and put it out.”
Wolf also received a meaningful push from writer Peter Guralnick, best known for his acclaimed biographies of Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke and Sun Records founder Sam Phillips. “He read some of the things I was writing,” Wolf recalls, “and he said, ‘Y’know, Pete, you better finally do this book ’cause a lot of the people you’re gonna want to have read it might not be with us at the pace you’re going.’ That was a profound statement for me.”
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While it tracks from Wolf’s childhood to the relatively present day, Waiting on the Moon is not a standard, linear memoir. Rather, it’s a collection of stories — and a fascinating, good-humored one at that — as the New York-born Wolf regales readers with his Forrest Gump-like life of encounters with the famous, starting with a chapter titled “I Slept With Marilyn Monroe,” in which Monroe literally fell asleep on a 10-year-old Wolf while both attended a screening of the Jules Dassin film He Who Must Die at a local movie theater. (Not to worry; Monroe was with then-husband Arthur Miller and Wolf’s parents were on his other side.)
From there it’s off to the races as Wolf recounts his interactions and relationships with blues heroes such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker (sometimes in his Boston apartment) as well as Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon and Harry Nilsson, Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin and more. He crosses paths with music biz luminaries such as Ahmet Ertegun, Bhaskar Menon, Jon Landau and Dee Anthony, gets on the wrong side of Alfred Hitchcock by declining an offer of an alcoholic drink and finds himself being courted for a part in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ.
Eleanor Roosevelt, Louis Armstrong, Andy Warhol, onetime roommate David Lynch, Julia Child and Tennessee Williams are also among Wolf’s encounters in the pages.
“My goal was to make a book of short stories, treat each chapter like its own short story,” explains Wolf, who was an art student and radio DJ in Boston as well as a musician — first with the Hallucinations, then with the J. Geils Band starting in 1967. He fronted the latter to multi-platinum worldwide fame with Freeze-Frame in 1981, which topped the Billboard 200 in 1982 and produced the six-week Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 “Centerfold” that same year. After being asked to leave the group in 1983, Wolf kicked off a solo career with 1984’s Lights Out (its title track hit No. 12 on the Hot 100). “There was no timeline. I wasn’t concerned, in a way, about the beginning, middle and end; each story has its own beginning, middle and end. And I didn’t want this to be a kiss-and-tell book; I just wanted to write about these incredible people that I had the privilege to meet and to get to know to certain degrees and capture that.”
Wolf adds that “the two subjects I didn’t want to write about was my marriage to Faye Dunaway and the J. Geils Band,” but both are there — particularly the former, whom Wolf has been loath to discuss in this kind of detail during and after their marriage from 1974-79. “Faye was this very determined, talented person and we loved each other,” Wolf says. “I was just trying to bring her, and our relationship, somewhat to life and all the adventures we shared in it. I didn’t talk about it (before) because I would talk about my music, talk about the records, and all the other stuff was kind of private. But I was writing about the adventures in my life, and certainly she and I shared many of them. I was very surprised how quickly the stories came out.
“Of course there’s regrets; one has regrets and wishes they could do things differently, and I think I’ve expressed that in all the chapters. Some were silly, stupidities that I’ve made, and I don’t try to disguise those. It all flowed through naturally once I got into the crux of it.”
‘Waiting on the Moon’
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The J. Geils Band, meanwhile, is treated as a through-line in the book until a later chapter in which Wolf writes about explicitly about how it came apart at the peak of its career.
“It was a great shock to me, and it was a sea change for me,” says Wolf, who was part of Geils reunion tours from 1999-2015. The book also includes a vivid retelling of him being beaten up in a London pub while on his way to the band’s performance at the 1989 Pinkpop Festival in the Netherlands. “I tried to write honestly about it, my experience of it all and how I felt. I was committed to the band; it was my life, and even with my marriage to Faye our careers always came first. In other chapters you can see how hard I tried working to keep the band relevant and moving ahead, so of course when things did fall apart it was a very painful thing for me. What I didn’t add in the book that I was asked to leave the band in 1968 because they felt my vocal abilities were holding back the band.”
Wolf has recorded an audio version of Waiting On the Moon and has a handful of author appearances planned this month, starting Tuesday (March 11) at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., and including stops in New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Philadelphia and Connecticut. He did, however, cancel a planned March 21 stop at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. “due to the egregious firing of staff by the new administration.”
Wolf is also planning to get to work on the album, working with “the same cast of characters” who helped with his last few albums. “I think it’s got some really memorable songs, and I took a long time in putting it together,” he says, adding that he foresees a return to performing as well. “Yeah, that’s what I do. But the book really required a sabbatical. It’s like making a really good record that you’ve got to hunker down and commit to.” A reissue of the J. Geils Band’s 1972 concert album “Live” Full House is also slated for this year, according to Wolf.
Also on the future docket may be an induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, which has eluded the J. Geils Band over the course of five nominations between 2005-2018. Wolf has inducted Jackie Wilson and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at previous ceremonies, and while he notes that “it’s a situation I have no control over” he makes it clear that it’s something he’d like to see happen, eventually.
“Yes, it would be a nice honor,” Wolf says. “I do feel the Geils Band contributed a lot in the AOR period of rock n’ roll. Not unlike the Stones we introduced a lot of people to (artists) like the Contours and Otis Rush and Muddy Waters and doo-wop… yet the Geils band has been looked over. I think we worked very hard for 17 and a half years, and I think we made some kind of contribution. But, to quote a Johnny Mathis song, ‘it’s not for me to say.’”
Wolf’s author appearance schedule for Waiting On the Moon includes:
Tuesday, March 11th: Harvard Bookstore at the First Parrish Church, Cambridge, MA
Wednesday, March 12th: The Strand, New York, NY
Thursday, March 13th: Bookends Bookstore, Ridgewood, NJ
Tuesday, March 18th: Writers on a New England Stage at The Music Hall, Portsmouth, NH
Thursday, March 27th: Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Tuesday, April 8th: RJ Julia Booksellers, Madison, CT
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds are plotting a global live stream of their Bob Dylan-approved performance at Paris’ Accor Arena in November.
The performance, titled Wild God – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Live in Paris, captures Cave and his bandmates as they perform the final date of their U.K. and European tour in support of 2024’s Wild God. Taking place on Nov. 17, the 22-song show largely leaned upon the nascent Wild God album, peppered with tracks from the band’s extensive back catalog.
“With Cave’s electrifying stage presence and a powerful band featuring Warren Ellis, George Vjestica, Colin Greenwood, Jim Sclavunos, Carly Paradis and Larry Mullins, plus a four-piece gospel-inspired vocal section (Wendi Rose, T Jae Cole, Miça Townsend and Janet Ramus), Nick Cave led a high-intensity, emotionally charged performance in front of 20,000 fans,” a description of the stream reads.
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Notably, the November concert saw the band gaining a high-profile blessing when Bob Dylan took to his sporadically-active social media account to Tweet a message in support of the show.
“Saw Nick Cave in Paris recently at the Accor Arena and I was really struck by that song ‘Joy’ where he sings ‘We’ve all had too much sorrow, now it the time for joy’,” Dylan wrote. “I was thinking to myself, yeah that’s about right.”
Cave himself took to his own Red Hand Files website to respond to Dylan’s message, labeling it “a lovely pulse of joy that penetrated my exhausted, zombied state.”
“I felt proud to have been touring with The Bad Seeds and offering, in the form of a rock ‘n ’roll show, an antidote to this despair, one that transported people to a place beyond the dreadful drama of the political moment,” he wrote.
“I was elated to think Bob Dylan had been in the audience, and since I doubt I’ll get an opportunity to thank him personally, I’ll thank him here. Thank you, Bob!”
The Wild God – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds Live in Paris concert will be streaming from April 7 via the ARTE Concert YouTube channel and their own ARTE.tv website. North American fans will be forced to wait, however, with the broadcast available from June 1. “We assure you that your patience will be rewarded!” ARTE guaranteed on social media.
Ubiquitous rockers Imagine Dragons have extended their reach even further, with their music officially touching down on earth’s moon.
Last month, it was revealed that ambitious space startup Lonestar Data Holdings was planning a rocket launch to land the first data center on the moon. If the launch was a success, then one of its first orders of business was to transmit a song back to earth, with Imagine Dragons’ Starfield theme “Children of the Earth” chosen as the lucky track.
“Our goal is to inspire the next generation of kids to be excited about the future of space and technology, which is why we chose ‘Children of the Sky’ as the first song in history to be broadcast from the Moon,” Lonestar investor Ryan Micheletti said in a statement at the time.
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Notably, the plan to put music on the moon isn’t exactly a new one. Just last year, the Odysseus craft landed on the moon, bringing with it digitized recordings of musical icons such as Elvis Presley, Marvin Gaye, Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Sly & the Family Stone, Bob Marley, Janis Joplin, The Who and many more. However, the goal of broadcasting music back to earth from the moon was set to be a first time occurrence.
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The Athena spacecraft was launched on Feb. 26 with a planned landing date of March 6. Upon initial news of the touchdown, Inon Zur (who composed “Children of the Earth” with Imagine Dragons), took to social media to express his gratitude. “Success, we’re on the Moon!” he wrote. “Following Athena’s touchdown on the lunar surface, our friends at Lonestar successfully transmitted ‘Children of the Sky’ song and lyrics to their data center on the Moon. The song will now be on the Moon…forever!!”
However, on Friday (March 7), it was reported that the Athena lander (built by Texas company Intuitive Machines), did indeed land on the moon the day prior, albeit on its side and 820 feet short of its intended target. The result was largely the same as the Odysseus’ last year, where a hard landing compromised a landing leg and resulted in an early end to the mission.
Similarly, Intuitive Machines have since stated the most recent mission has officially come to an end due to the failed landing. “The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission,” the company said in a statement.
As a result of the failed landing and the premature end to the mission, Imagine Dragons have ultimately not managed to obtain the honor of having the first song broadcast to earth from the moon. Meanwhile, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus has claimed the company may hold off on attempts for a third lunar landing which is currently scheduled for 2026.
