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Ten days after dropping its latest album, ‘Deadbeat,’ the Australian psychedelic rock band staged its first proper concert since March 2023.
10/28/2025
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Bruce Springsteen is, of course, the musical focus of the newly released film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, adapted by director and screenwriter Scott Cooper from Warren Zanes’ book, with Jeremy Allen White starring as The Boss. But astute viewers will see some other familiar, and perhaps surprising, rock ‘n’ roll faces in the production.
Scenes depicting Springsteen joining a “local” band at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, New Jersey, feature an all-star lineup assembled by the film’s music producer, Dave Cobb. The band is led by Jay Buchanan of Rival Sons and includes Greta Van Fleet’s Jake Kiszka on guitar, Sam F. Kiszka on bass, keyboardist Bobby Emmett from Jack White’s band, and Nashville drummer Aksel Coe.
Their gut-bucket renditions of Little Richard’s “Lucille” and John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom,” both performed with White and recorded at New York City’s Power Station, are featured on the soundtrack, set to release Dec. 5, along with a non-movie rendition of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You.”
It captures the Greta guys during a bit of down time for the band. Sam Kiszka has been producing, working with artists like Langhorne Slim and Hannah Wicklund, while Jake launched a new group, Mirador, with Chris Turpin of Ida Mae. Their self-titled debut came out in September, followed by a tour, with a European leg starting Nov. 3 in Amsterdam.
The random casting begs the question: what are these guys doing in a film about Bruce Springsteen? Luckily, Jake Kiszka was on hand to tell Billboard how it all came together.
Have you seen yourselves on the big screen yet?
I haven’t, man, but we want to get back to Michigan and take my grandma to the cinema that she took us to as kids to watch it. I can’t wait for that.
So how did it happen?
It’s interesting. It began through Dave Cobb; he produced the last Greta album (2023’s Starcatcher) and was helping me produce this current Mirador record. We were sitting around on the dock out by the water at his house in Savannah (Georgia) and he said, “I’ve just been working on this Deliver Me From Nowhere film about Nebraska and Springsteen,” and he said the director, Scott Cooper, was looking for a young band who could be the house band for the Stone Pony during this era of Springsteen. And Scott said, “I’m really looking for a young, sort of hop rock ‘n’ roll band like Greta Van Fleet.” And Dave’s like, “Well, I know someone… Why don’t we just ask those guys?” He as me and then he needed a bass player and guitar player, so Sam and I sort of stepped up to the plate. That’s how it began.
Not something you say “no” to.
Definitely. It was completely unexpected, but there’s been so many opportunities like this that come across through the grapevine. A lot of this stuff it’s like, “OK, that’s cool, but we’re touring” or doing a record, whatever we’re busy with at the time. This came through and it was like, you definitely can’t say no to this because Bruce Springsteen is such a big influence on us. This is definitely not something we had foreseen happening, but it was irresistible. It was a fascinating thing to do, the intersection between film and cinema meets music.
What was the sequence of events as you got into the project?
The first step was recording. We went to the Power Station in New York, where (E Street Band attempts at) Nebraska and a lot of the Springsteen stuff was recorded, and we did the whole thing there. Jeremy came in as well. It was really rough and tumble; we maybe got two or three passes on each song. The idea was we were gonna record (more) at the Stony Pony while we were filming, so we were under the impression of, “OK, let’s give this a go, git it our best, and ultimately have another go at it when we’re on the set and filming.”
Which wound up not being the case?
What happened is Bruce heard what we had recorded (in the studio) and he was so enamored with it and loved it so much that Scott Cooper decided we were gonna use those recordings from the Power Station in studio, which is quite cool.
What were your impressions of working with Jeremy on a musical level?
It was interesting for him because he’s an actor, so this was a totally different world. And he blended into it so well. I think he had reservations about stepping onto that (music) world, maybe some subtle level of intimidation. I know I was certainly intimidated when I walked onto the film set, and he was probably just swimming. But he did some live vocals, which is incredible; Jay is obviously just a remarkable rock ‘n’ roll singer, so Jeremy came in and stood next to jay, and it was impressive to see him step up to the plate fearlessly like that.
Did you give him any pointers during the process?
Being able to show Jeremy how to play harmonic was really interesting and cool. I was kind of asked by (Cobb) if I could teach Jeremy a bit of harmonica for the film, so I bought him a chromatic scale of harps to use. I’m not entirely proficient as most harmonica players, but I knew enough from my father playing blues harmonica, so I was able to show him some stuff.
What was filming at the Stone Pony like?
That was really incredible. What was really interesting was we had played the Stone Pony; Greta had done the outdoor summer venue (May 18, 2019), so it was interesting coming back and knowing the place and history. We’ve done late-night television and stuff like that, but this was a very different experience. Being there on this major motion picture set, this big production with Bruce Springsteen hanging around on set and Steven Spielberg coming by and Danny Clinch shooting (photographs), it was like an alternative universe. Ultimately it was quite overwhelming.
You got to hang with Springsteen?
He was just there on set. He was going to catering and stuff, hanging out with everybody, with the extras and us. It was a really casual experience. He was really humble and sort of exceeded expectations of meeting one of your heroes… just the most beautiful and incredible human being. There was a lot of time on the set I got to talk to him… about Nebraska and his career and early life. It was an unreal experience.
Were there any nuggets of wisdom or insight you took away from it?
I suppose so. We talked about Nebraska a lot. It’ s my favorite Bruce Springsteen record, so I was talking to him about recording demos… and how they tried to re-record (the songs) with the E Street Band and they couldn’t recapture the magic of the demos. That was really fascinating, that the record is just that demo. It’s just unbelievable. So certainly a takeaway for me was that they don’t all have to be polished records. You don’t need to get something perfect; sometimes it’s about the humility of it, the purity of it. That stuck with me.
Sam has a speaking line in the movie. Did you play rock, paper, scissors for that?
That was interesting. Scott was like, “Hey, we’re gonna shoot this scene, you’re leaving (the Stone Pony) with Bruce. You want to hang out, maybe play next week. Just shoot the shit. Make up the lines” — improvise, basically. We had no idea what we were we gonna say. It was me and Jay and Sam, and (Cooper) was like, “Action! We’re rolling,” and we were just flying by the seat of our pants. Whatever came out came out. I don’t know what made the film yet.
You’re going from the film to back on the road with Mirador in Europe. Are you happy with the way things are going for that band?
It’s been really incredible. I’ve been somewhat overwhelmed by the response — and so immediately as well. The shows are sold out. There’s that kind of intensity and fuel that has fanned the fire of Mirador in someways that’s really elevated the band and the performances. It’s happening with leaps and bounds rather than inching its way forward. So I’m quite happy with it — astounded, actually. We’ll probably record another record within the year, or next year. Definitely between Greta and Mirador, there’s a lot going on.
What’s next for Greta?
This next year is going to be exciting and filled to the brim with surprises. There’s something stirring. The curtain will fall and the black smoke will rise and… that’s all I can say right now.
Trending on Billboard Guns N’ Roses have issued a statement addressing frontman Axl Rose’s apparent outburst during the band’s Oct. 18 concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina. During the opening number “Welcome to the Jungle” at Estadio Huracán, Rose was seen kicking the bass drum, throwing his microphone toward the drum kit, and walking offstage after […]
Trending on Billboard Volbeat scores a milestone No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, jumping two spots to the top of the Nov. 1-dated survey with “Time Will Heal.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news It’s the 12th leader for Volbeat and second in a row, following “By a Monster’s Hand,” which reigned […]
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Evan Dando is squeezing a lot of work out of himself and his band the Lemonheads these days.
On Friday (Oct. 24), the group releases Love Chant, its first album of new material in 19 years. It follows the publication earlier this month of Dando’s Rumors of My Demise: A Memoir, and he reports he’s already at work on two more albums, a collection of Townes Van Zandt songs as well as the next Lemonheads set.
“I want to just keep working as much as possible ’cause we had such an extended stay away from doing anything — so why not do lots of things now?” Dando tells Billboard via Zoom from Nashville, where he’s recording the Van Zandt album. “I go through phases and stages — circles and cycles, as Willie Nelson would say. It’s a great feeling,” he continues, touching up a small painting during the discussion. “I have the urge to create like never before.”
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Though they’re out during the same month, Dando resists tying the memoir and the album too closely together. Love Chant’s personal (and at times autobiographical) lyrics, he says, “are what I always do,” so he feels the two projects “put the whole story in perspective a bit, but more in a general way.” Nevertheless, Dando continues, “I always dreamt of a time when I’d be putting out, like, two or three things all at once. I remember when Johnny Cash did that, three things at once or something, I thought, ‘yeah, that’s a way to go,’ especially when you’re a little bit older. Why not do a bunch of things at once. That’s really smart.”
Dando, who now resides in Brazil, says Love Chant — produced by Apollo Nove (Bebel Gilberto, Rita Lee, Seu Jorge) at A9 Audio in Sao Paulo — was drawn from a cache of more than 30 songs written during the years since the Lemonheads’ self-titled 2006 album. The Lou Reed-esque “The Key of Victory,” for instance, came from a groove on a tape Dando found of himself playing it for nearly 45 minutes. The buoyant “Cell Phone Blues,” meanwhile, has also been around for a number of years and is described by Dando as “one of those songs that was like a dare — ‘I dare you to put that one out!,’ and it wound up through various things we did in the studio, good enough to make it.” “Roky,” meanwhile, is a homage to the late psychedelic rock hero Roky Erickson that came from a sound check jam after Dando and the Lemonheads learned about Erickson’s death on May 31, 2019.
“I am especially proud of this record. We’ve never had so much fun making a record,” he says.
Ultimately, Dando hopes, “we’ll get a trio (of albums) out of this. I like to work in two- or three-record phases, like the (Rolling) Stones did when they went from Let It Bleed to Beggars Banquet to Sticky Fingers. (Love Chant)’s kind of like my Some Girls; that was their redemption, ’cause that record was so good, and this is the same way ’cause I think we got a bunch of records out of the one session, just like they did.”
As Love Chant comes out, Dando is still promoting Rumors of My Demise, a frank and illuminating account of his eventful life co-written with Jim Ruland. Dando pulled few punches. He addresses his upbringing, the impact of his parents’ divorce, his fascination with Charles Manson, sleepwalking issues, his struggles with pop stardom (and being a particularly good-looking pop star) after the Lemonheads hit it big during the early ‘90s, his battles with the music business and his well-documented drug use and the trainwrecks that caused in his life and career.
The book also delves into his creative process as well as Dando’s Forrest Gump-like relationships with assorted celebrities (Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Milla Jovovich, Elizabeth Moses and others) and a non-relationship with Courtney Love, despite, Dando writes, her attempts otherwise. Dando was particularly dismayed that onetime Nirvana member Pat Smear, a friend, told him that Kurt Cobain believed Dando and Love had an affair; “‘Oh God,’ I thought, ‘Kurt Cobain went to his death thinking I’d slept with Courtney.’ I wanted to be honest and talk about whatever,” Dando says. “I have a difficult time shutting my mouth, anyway, so the book — why any different? I guess I was always, in the back of my mind, ‘No, don’t hold back. Just say it and worry about the consequences later, and we’ll see what happens.’”
Dando — who married video director Antonia Teixeira last year — has given up hard drugs such as heroin and crack but still imbibes in the occasional marijuana, LSD and mushrooms. “I don’t know if being completely sober is something I ever want to be,” he confesses in Rumors of My Demise — the title a reference to the many rumors about Dando’s death that have surfaced over the years. Despite all the sordid experiences, however, he came away from the book feeling like “the story’s not over yet, which is nice.” And even in his worst years, he adds, he was confident that would be the case.
“In the back of my mind I was always, like, ‘I’m gonna get through this somehow,’” Dando says. “I had a feeling about it, and it did happen. I’ve been lucky that I generally get a lot of good will from people, people doing nice things for me. But I was literally underneath this tsunami of death, fate or whatever, and skipped out of the way just in time. But I knew in my heart, ‘I’m gonna get out of this situation,’ and I did.”
Among his conclusions, Dando claims he’s “not famous anymore” and writes about coming to terms with what he calls the “elder-statesman era” of the Lemonheads.” While he feels he’s “turned into the grunge relic I was always afraid I’d become,” he is unconditional about his gratitude for being able to make music his life’s work — then, and now. “We’ve been around so long that it’s almost like a grudging respect — like the ugly building or the old hooker that just won’t go away, so people have to deal with it,” Dando says. “I love that. It’s a very human quality, this dogged refusal to give up.”
Dando is now jonesing to write more. “I’d like to write a ‘real’ book about something besides myself,” he says — if not fiction than a proposed “field guide to soft drinks” or other music topics. “I called up (the publisher) once, last minute, and was like, ‘Could we change the whole thing? Can I just write about other bands?’ and they were like, ‘Uh…no,’” he recalls with a laugh. “But I wanted to be a writer since I was a teenager, so I hope there’s more.”
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.”
