Podcasts
Page: 19
Peter Case hasn’t done a coast-to-coast tour with a band since 1989 — and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
Part of the reason is financial, the critically acclaimed singer-songwriter tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. His national tour in support of his second solo album, The Man With the Blue Post-Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar, was “a fun tour” but “a bad deal on a van that we’d rented,” and a few canceled shows for health reasons meant the outing lost money. So after talking to his agent, Case went back on the road as a solo act. This time, though, Case came home with more money than he spent.
The way Case sees it, musicians have long toured as solo artists for the financial benefits. “Part of the reason Woody Guthrie played solo all the time was because he couldn’t afford a band,” says Case, who released his 16th solo album, Doctor Moan, in January through Sunset Blvd. Records and is the subject of the 2023 documentary Peter Case: A Million Miles Away, directed by Fred Parnes.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Case, a native of upstate New York, was influenced by solo musicians since his formative days spent in San Francisco, where he went from busking on street corners to co-founding the band The Nerves in 1976, and later Los Angeles, where he co-founded The Plimsouls in the 1979.
“I came from a time when solo players were really a thing,” he says. “I remember going to see James Taylor in 1969, I think it was. He would just play solo, you know, and he’d be great. He was a really great guitar player. He had really good songs on his first couple albums. It was great. Or you’d see John Hammond Jr. and he’d be rocking the house, stomping his feet and blowing this incredible harmonica. He played 12-string guitar and he was great. I saw [American folk singer] Dave Van Rock. I saw [singer-songwriter] Laura Nyro play solo. I saw [blues musician] Lightnin’ Hopkins play solo.”
Case likens his first solo shows, at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, to “throwing a cat into a tub of cold water.” The audience at the intimate venue wasn’t going to be “blown away by the lights and the smoke and the volume” of his amplifier. All he had was his guitar and his songs. As the musician John Hiatt once told him, “When you play solo, it really plugs you into the worth of what you’re writing.”
Listen to the Behind the Setlist’s interview with Peter Case below, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeart, Amazon Music, Audacy, Podbay, Podtail and Audible.
On her new song “bad idea right?,” Olivia Rodrigo tries to talk herself out of a late-night reunion with her ex — with “talk” being the operative word. The latest taste of Rodrigo’s upcoming sophomore album GUTS (due Sept. 8) dropped last week, and the verses and chorus are almost exclusively spoken, with only a […]
Taylor Swift goes back to December all the time, and the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast crew goes back to The Eras Tour all the time — or at least twice. On the latest episode, Katie & Keith talk all about hitting SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., for Night 4 of Swift’s epic Eras Tour, just […]
It’s the first day of August, which has us thinking about Taylor Swift’s timely song “August” from her 2020 album Folklore. Folklore was surprise-released on July 24, 2020 — so just ahead of August that year — and in the Augusts since, we’ve seen the song re-emerge on various Billboard charts timed to the month. […]
Since the end of the 13-year conservatorship that controlled her personal and professional lives, Britney Spears has released two new songs: her “Hold Me Closer” duet with Elton John last year and, on Friday, “Mind Your Business” with will.i.am. On the latest Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about the new (or […]
Morgan Wallen‘s “Last Night” is currently spending its 14th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 — but does it have a shot at the 19-week record currently held by Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road,” featuring Billy Ray Cyrus? On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, we’re talking about the seemingly unstoppable […]
We always knew Taylor Swift was a mastermind, but she really outdid herself with the music video for her Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) “From the Vault” track “I Can See You.” Late Friday, Swift surprised Eras Tour concertgoers in Kansas City when she was joined onstage by the top-secret cast from the new visual: 2011 […]
It had been more than two years since we’d heard new music from Olivia Rodrigo, but that all changed first thing Friday when she released “Vampire,” the lead single from her Sept. 8-scheduled sophomore album GUTS. In a tight, under-four-minute package, the melodramatic new song transitions from a “Drivers License”-style piano ballad to a My […]
Toad the Wet Sprocket had “the most audacious” idea when they were asked to participate in a collection of Kiss cover songs. “We knew we were not going to out-rock anybody,” recalls singer Glen Phillips on Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “And so the idea was to just make fun of ourselves and do it as if it were like a young life campfire song. Turn it into a waltz. Just make it, like, distressingly Toad-sounding.”
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Rising to prominence in the days of college radio in the early ‘90s, Toad the Wet Sprocket defied the musical trend of the day — the grunge movement that spawned Nirvana, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden — to score a pair of platinum albums, Fear and Dulcinea, filled with hooky songs featuring with melodic counterplay. The Santa Barbara, Calif.-based band had more in common with the acoustic-driven music they’ve covered live — Crowded House and Indigo Girls — than the heavy, raw rock music that dominated rock radio and rose high on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Lending its distinctive sound to a classic rock standard was a stroke of genius, though. Toad the Wet Sprocket’s version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” for the 1994 compilation Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved is arguably the most memorable recording on a collection that features such luminaries as Garth Brooks (“Hard Luck Woman”), Lenny Kravitz and Stevie Wonder (“Deuce”), Anthrax (“She”) and Gin Blossoms (“Christine Sixteen”).
“[Kiss bass player] Gene Simmons loved it,” Phillips boasts.
“He has gone on the record as saying it’s not only his favorite song on that album, but it’s one of his top 10 favorite recordings ever,” adds bassist Dean Dinning.
“Rock and Roll All Nite” has never been in heavy rotation on the band’s set lists — one performance at The Metro in Chicago in 1994 can be found on YouTube — but one performance stands out in the band members’ minds. “Jon Bon Jovi actually came on stage with us at a big radio show in New York at Madison Square Garden and sang that with us,” recalls Phillips.
Even for a band that had just put two songs — “Walk on the Ocean” and “All I Want” — into the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, sharing the stage with the “Living on a Prayer” singer was surreal. “It was so strange to be out there,” says Phillips. “On the one hand, I feel like, man, we’re playing Madison Square Garden. This is cool. We’re winning! We’re doing all right here! And he walked on stage and it was, like, goosebumps.” Phillips recreates the roar of the crowd like a burst of white noise or, as Dinning describes it, a jet engine. “It was like, Oh, that’s how it feels to be a real rockstar,” Phillips says.
As for the performance of the 1975 Kiss classic, Dinning thinks it was well received. “It’s not really fair to judge because Jon Bon Jovi was on stage with us, but it seemed like the crowd reaction was good,” he jokes.
After an eight-year break from recording, Toad the Wet Sprocket released a new studio album, Starting Now, in 2021, followed by a bonus version of the greatest hits collection All You Want. The 19-track compilation includes an unreleased version of the track “Best of Me” from Starting Now that originally featured the legendary Michael McDonald on backing vocals. The 2023 version of “Best of Me” is the original, McDonald-less version.
“This is the band version of the song that almost went on the record,” says Dinning. “It’s nice to bring the song back to the sound of just of just the band without the guest. It was it was a track that we hadn’t released yet and it’s a great song and the version is great. And so we made it the single off this new All You Want project.”
Listen to the entire interview with Phillips and Dinning at Behind the Setlist on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music or Audible.
Dua Lipa announced the third season of her popular podcast, Dua Lipa: At Your Service, on Wednesday (June 28) with a slew of star-studded guests. Billie Eilish, BLACKPINK’s Jennie Kim, You star Penn Badgley, drag superstar Sasha Velour and relationship expert Esther Perel are all set to join the podcast as guests this season, which […]