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Arthur Fonzarelli could have had a way different vibe if the team behind beloved 1970s/early ’80s sitcom Happy Days had gone with their second choice. At least according to The Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz, who told People magazine that back in the day he auditioned for the role of the jukebox-smacking, shark-jumping bad boy with a heart of gold.
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After his run on The Monkees (1966-1968), the last surviving member of that American fab four said he was on the hunt for a role that would break him out of the mop top drummer cage, so in 1973 he auditioned for the role of Arthur “The Fonzie” Fonzarelli, the leather jacket-wearing greaser next door who became the break-out star of the show.
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“I almost got it,” Dolenz, 80, said. “Supposedly it was between me and Henry [Winkler]. He remembers it too. The story I heard is that he was in the waiting room, saw me come in, and thought, ‘Oh s–t, I’ll never get this — Micky Dolenz is here!’ So we laugh about it now. He’s a good friend and a brilliant talent.”
While Yale School of Drama grad Winkler came into his audition with plenty of stage experience and roles in the indie movies The Lords of Flatbush and Crazy Joe, Dolenz was already a seasoned TV pro by the time he auditioned for Happy Days. At 11, he got the lead role of Corky in the adventure series Circus Boy, which ran on NBC for one season before jumping to ABC for another short run in 1957. A young Dolenz then scored a few TV roles in the late 1950s and early 1960s — credited as Micky Braddock — before being cast as Micky on The Monkees alongside Michael Nesmith, Davy Jones and Peter Tork.
When that show ended, Dolenz decided to focus on directing and producing, realizing that his gig as the spacey, floppy-haired drummer would likely get him typecast like his father, George Dolenz, an actor he said got pegged as a “swashbuckling romantic lead in sword-fighting movies” such as The Purple Mask and Sign of the Pagan.
“After Circus Boy, I went to a few auditions as a 12-year-old, and the minute I walked in, they’d say, ‘Circus Boy’! That’s just typical in this business. I knew it was par for the course,” said Dolenz, who added that after the Monkees it was more of the same. “‘What are you doing here? We don’t need any drummers!’” he said casting directors would tell him.
Following his pivot to a number of small movie roles and voice work on dozens of cartoons in the 1970s, “I’m a Believer” singer Dolenz said he has no regrets about the one that got away. “Oh my God, he’s just so good,” he said of Winkler, who parlayed his iconic role into a fifty-plus year career on TV (Mork & Mindy, Arrested Development) and movies (Night Shift, The French Dispatch). “I was definitely not as good as he was. Come on — he was The Fonz! He had that New York, New Jersey thing down. I’m from Southern California. It wasn’t gonna happen!,” Dolenz said.
Dolenz is going on tour this summer with his Songs & Stories tour, which mixes his iconic hits with stories about fellow L.A. legends such as Joni Mitchell, David Crosby and Jim Morrison. The tour is slated to kick off on August 11 at the Ocean City Music Pier in Ocean City, NJ.
K-Pop boy band ENHYPEN dropped their sixth mini album, DESIRE: UNLEASH, on Thursday (June 5), an 8-track collection of upbeat dance pop tunes produced by Grammy-winner Cirkut (Katy Perry, Lady Gaga). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The EP opens with the midtempo tune “Flashover” and features […]
This May, only a handful of pop stars made major movement on the charts — including one with a historically huge Hot 100 album bomb, and one with a rare runaway breakout smash for 2025 — but we still saw some big names making big waves, with massive new tours and game-changing news announcements. And […]
Madonna is giving the people what they want. The singer announced on Thursday morning (June 5) that she will release the long-rumored Veronica Electronica collection, an album featuring rare and unreleased remixes of songs from her beloved 1998 Ray of Light album. The eight-track LP will be released digitally and on silver vinyl on July […]
Like David Lee Roth’s drum riser leaps or Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar arm swing, Benson Boone‘s backflips are seemingly going to be part of his stage show until his ortho, or insurance company, say otherwise. So it was no surprise that Boone’s acrobatic signature came up not once, but twice on The Tonight Show on Wednesday (June 4).
First, in the cold open, host Jimmy Fallon met Boone backstage and bragged that he can also pull off Benson’s signature trick. “You know, I can actually do a back flip too,” Fallon said. “Yeah, I just kind of jump and turn around all the way in the air. Just kind of always had a knack for it, if that makes sense. Flippity Floppities is what I call them.”
Boone appreciated the gesture, but warned Fallon that he doesn’t have to flip out to impress him, adding that he wouldn’t want the host to hurt himself. Fallon laughed it off and promised it was “very easy” for him, as the camera cut to a stunt double hurling himself backwards into a table covered with snacks and crashing out after zero rotations.
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Later in the show, Boone said “there’s no guaranteed flips” when Fallon asked if the iconic move would be part of Boone’s upcoming arena tour. When Fallon wondered if Boone practices and plans out his flips, the singer sighed and said he didn’t, since he’s been doing the trick his whole life. “I’ve been doing them forever,” he said. “Like, if you knew me growing up and you saw a video of me now and you hadn’t seen anything else — if you went to preschool with me and then you just had not heard the name Benson Boone since them — and then you see a video of me doing a backflip, you’d probably be like, ‘He’s still doing this?’”
So, of course, at Fallon’s request, he stepped up onto the host’s desk and pulled off a perfect one to the studio audience’s delight.
The 22-year-old also singer sat on the couch and played a game where he gave one-word reactions to some of high highest highlights from his breakthrough last year. For instance: the Grammys (“whooo!” with crotch grab and a “wow, that’s tight”), Coachella (“crowd”), MTV VMAs (“it was very sparkly”), Eras tour (“whoa!”), Lollapalooza (“I still don’t think I can spell it”) and the American Music Awards (“… moonbeam ice cream…”).
He then joked about trying to gin up some buzz on the internet for “Mystical Magical,” the first single his upcoming sophomore album, American Heart (June 20) by attempting to make the confounding “moonbeam ice cream” lyric a meme. “Nobody knows [what it means], I don’t know,” he said of his hope to spark some interest in the album by teasing the intriguing phrase. “So it went downhill quick. People started doing ‘what is ‘moonbeam ice cream?’… I hate Benson Boone!’” he said, admitting that even with the hate it kind of worked out for him.
Boone returned later in the show to perform the American Heart single “Momma Song” accompanied by a string quartet, crooning the moving ballad on a sundown-colored stage with zero flips. He will play CMAC in Canadaigua, NY on Thursday night (June 5) and New York City’s Governor Ball on Friday (June 6).
Watch Boone on the Tonight Show below.
Miley Cyrus says she knew she was going to win her first Grammy last year for “Flowers” when she saw another “MC” in the crowd. “The reason that I never got a Grammy before was because it was never my compass. It was not my North Star,” the singer told Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night’s (June 4) show.
That’s why she was so genuinely surprised when she did win, even though she almost didn’t make it because she got stuck in traffic in the rain on the way to the broadcast. “Once I saw Mariah Carey I knew I was going to win,” she said. “Because I had this whole idea in my mind of, like, the butterfly and that metamorphosis. And she is the butterfly. Her [1997] album Butterfly has been such a North Star for me. And so when I saw her I kind of knew I was going to win because that was… it was an M.C. to M.C. I knew I had to get it.”
The singer once again described how her new Something Beautiful album was almost a very different kind of project until her old pal Harrison Ford stepped in with some sage advice when they met up at the Disney Legends Awards ceremony last summer. He asked her what she was up to, so naturally Cyrus pulled out a PDF with her grand plan for Something Beautiful, which at that point included her dream tour of “magical places” for a project then called Somewhere Beautiful that would have had her playing shows in the forest or in front of the pyramids.
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“And he looked at it and goes, ‘Looks expensive… not sure if it’s worth it,’” she said, adding that she took the note to her management, who 100% agreed.
The pair talked about running into each other at the SNL 50 special earlier this year, with Cyrus, 32, admitting that she was a “little bit nervous” before the show “because everyone that I’ve ever looked up to or watched on TV or loved was there.” Cyrus performed a stunning cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” with Tonight Show house band the Roots and Brittany Howard on the show and she said Fallon looked “crazy” before his breathless opening musical bit.
“You got a little out of breath,” she teased him. “We’re working on that… I’m getting you snatched for the summer.”
Part of that work included Miley teaching Jimmy how to dance in stacked heels after he praised her for a video in which she rehearsed the choreo for her song “Easy Lover” in what he said were the highest heels he’s ever seen. “If I were rehearsing this show… I’m in sweatpants,” he said, as Miley warned, “Not once I get you that summer body.”
Admitting he needs help to get that beach ready, Miley busted out a little treat she brought for the host: a pair of black chunky boots with four-inch heels. “Stage one: a chunky booty,” she said as she presented the shoes. “Which by the way, is your new drag name. Here you go, Miss Booty.”
Fallon was game, so he slipped on the boots and came out from behind the desk to learn the steps to the “Easy Lover” dance, teetering on the heels and getting a lesson on why you need to rehearse in the shoes you’re going to perform in.
The companion Something Beautiful film will be in theaters for one night only on June 12.
Watch Cyrus on The Tonight Show below.
SEVENTEEN found their way back to The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday (June 4) to perform “Thunder,” the lead single from their just-released fifth studio album Happy Burstday. The off-site performance takes place in an industrial warehouse, and it starts with THE 8 answering a ringing payphone branded with the logo of The Kelly Clarkson […]
Cardi B, Bhad Bhabie & Lily Allen have all made accounts on the platform.
It’s an understatement to say it was a dream come true for Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying to write and record the new song “Great Rainbow” for the 70th anniversary of the Disneyland Resort.
The Grammy winner tells Billboard he’s a “Disney stan, deep down.” But Hoying didn’t stop with one song: He can be heard throughout the new Disney California Adventure Park nighttime spectacular World of Color Happiness!, including harmonizing on new renditions of familiar Disney favorites like “I 2 I” (from A Goofy Movie) and “Nobody Like U” (from Turning Red).
World of Color Happiness! is a razzle-dazzle show that, per Disney, “explores happy through a kaleidoscope of emotions,” as told through visual projections on choreographed fountains enhanced with lighting, lasers, flames and of course, a musical soundtrack.
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The entire show, staged on Paradise Bay, is hosted by Joy and the other Emotions from the animated film Inside Out 2, while a pre-show moment kicks off with The Muppets – who, like Disneyland, celebrate their 70th anniversary in 2025. (In the show, Boyz II Men are heard singing The Muppets’ iconic tune “The Rainbow Connection.”) Then, following the show, Hoying’s soaring “Great Rainbow” is heard in full while the fountains and lights in the Bay dance along to the tune. The track was created by an army of more than 100 musical individuals – including an orchestra, choir and a team of production technicians and wizards.
Much of the music from World of Color Happiness!, including “Great Rainbow,” can also be found on the recently released album from Walt Disney Records, Music From Disneyland Resort 70th Celebration.
So what does it feel like for Hoying to quite literally be part of a show at a Disney park, where his voice is heard by guests most every night?
“I don’t even have the words to accurately explain. It is such a dream of mine. There’s videos of me at [age] 3 singing ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ [from The Lion King] for anyone that would listen. I am such a Disney stan, deep down. I know the catalog through and through.
“To help create the soundtrack to such amazing memories that kids get to have – it’s just a dream,” he adds. “It gives me a sense of purpose and fulfillment that’s really, really meaningful.”
Hoying found his way to World of Color Happiness! thanks to his work on Walt Disney World’s Epcot spectacular Luminous: The Symphony of Us. That show, which premiered in December 2023, featured a song Hoying co-wrote (with A.J. Sealy and Sheléa, performed by Sheléa) titled “Heartbeat Symphony.” Perhaps surprisingly, the song was selected for the show in a “blind” audition, so to speak, where the writers were not revealed during the initial selection process.
Stef Fink – who was the music producer for Luminous and World of Color Happiness! – invited Sealy and others to “blind submit” songs for Luminous. Sealy called up Hoying (whom Fink did not know personally at the time), and the pair submitted a track, which was among the songs the Disney team initially selected for consideration. Then, Sheléa teamed with Hoying and Sealy, and the three tinkered with the track and added Sheléa’s vocals to the demo, and Disney ultimately selected the song for the show.
So when it came time for World of Color Happiness! to begin production, the relationship Hoying and Fink had built with Luminous graduated to a new level. Knowing that World of Color Happiness! was going to be a “more vocal-forward and a more pop-forward show,” Fink thought of bringing Hoying into the creative process. “I like to surround myself with people who are smarter and musically better than I am, so I was like, ‘Scott, what are you doing?’”
On this show, Scott “stepped into so many different roles creatively, by himself and alongside me,” Fink says. “He’s not just a singer on the show and he’s not just a vocal arranger – he really informed a lot of our fun decisions, along with our incredible creative director Steve Davison and our entire team over at Disney Live Entertainment.”
The creative synergy between Fink and Hoying extended to the new song “Great Rainbow,” which the pair wrote and produced together, with Hoying singing the track alongside an orchestra and choir.
Recording the song with a live orchestra was “one of the best parts of the whole experience and why I have so much respect for the Disney Music team, because they don’t cut corners,” Hoying says, stressing the lengths Disney will go to for authenticity and accuracy in their music production.
“It’s so cool to work on a project that has so much integrity for music. … I don’t get to record with an orchestra very often – obviously, Pentatonix is a cappella – and it was so magical. As magical as you’d think it’d be. I was just bawling [in the studio] to the point where I was like, ‘All right, it’s kind of cute to cry for a second, but now it’s kind of getting crazy.’ [Laughs] I was just so moved. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard.
“And the concept of the show is about connection, and to see 70 people who all dedicated their life to their instrument come together and play an arrangement that I worked on and they loved to play, and it made this beautiful sound… and I was like, ‘Humans, we’re all connected!’ I was just in my feels and just going through it. It was just magical.”
ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus is working on a new musical using artificial intelligence. According to Variety, during a talk at SXSW London on Wednesday (June 4), the 80-year old Swedish pop legend said he’s tapping into AI because he believes it is an excellent creative tool.
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“Right now I’m writing a musical, assisted by AI,” Ulvaeus said, noting that he’s about three-quarters of the way through the creative process on the unnamed project, the follow-up to the hugely successful pop quartet’s avatar stage show, Voyage.
“It’s fantastic. It is such a great tool,” Ulvaeus raved of AI. “It is like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame. It is really an extension of your mind. You have access to things that you didn’t think of before.” Unlike many in the industry who fear that AI is an existential threat to their existence and the traditional creative process, Ulvaeus is aware of the bugs in the system, which he said have helped him to merge AI with his already formidable songwriting skills.
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“It’s lousy at [writing a whole song]” and “very bad at lyrics,” he said about his AI helpmate, which has allowed him to navigate through some creative dead-ends. “You can prompt a lyric you have written about something, and you’re stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style,” he said. “You can ask it, how would you extend? Where would you go from here? It usually comes out with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea.”
Ulvaeus is part of an eclectic lineup for 2025 SXSW London, whose lineup includes Erykah Badu (as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown), Tems, Mabel, Alice Glass and many more. Penske Media Corporation (which also owns Billboard) and the film and production company MRC invested in SXSW in 2021 following the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic; two years later, Penske took majority ownership of SXSW.
The AI project, whose ultimate form has not yet been announced, is part of Ulvaeus’ ongoing partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, the company behind the ABBA Voyage production. The Voyage virtual residency opened in London in May 2022 and is slated to run through January 2026. The show is a combination of 10 live performers and digital avatars of the four ABBA members, who have not performed live since their split in December 1982; the group, which also features Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, released their first album in 40 years, Voyage, in November 2021.
Though Ulvaeus is happy to use AI in the creative process, he is also adamant about fighting for artists’ rights in the rapidly evolving digital age. “These AI models wouldn’t exist without the songs that we wrote,” he said.
