Rock
Little Feat, the archetypal ’70s band originally formed by Lowell George — a guitar virtuoso fired from the Mothers of Invention by Frank Zappa — has survived years of breakups, drug problems and even George’s untimely death in 1979. Now, the band is ready to reintroduce itself in a new format.
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On Thursday (April 3), the current members of the beloved band announced the launch of Feat Fest 2025, a three-day festival taking place from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, New York A portion of the live shows will be recorded for an upcoming album.
“The town of Woodstock, NY, like most iconic spots on the American musical map, has become more than a place, it’s a feeling. The same could be said for the sound of Little Feat,” said Scott Sharrad, the group’s current frontman and lead guitarist, in a statement. “The connection of the band to this location goes all the way back to the 1960s and 70s … now it’s Little Feats’ turn to decamp, hang out a while and infuse the mountain air with some Feat Boogie.”
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Little Feat also announced the release of its new single “Midnight Flight” from their forthcoming new album Strike Up The Band, dropping May 9 via Hot Tomato. “I wrote this song in the winter of 2020,” Sharrad said. “It’s got that boogie feel that gets people up.”
Little Feat built a cult following in the late ’60s and ’70s as your favorite rock band’s favorite rock band, combining a sound that was part New Orleans rhythm-and-blues, part southern-rock with a healthy dose of country, funk, and jazz. The band has been cited as an important influence on everyone from Bonnie Raitt and the Rolling Stones to the 1975’s Matt Healy. Some of their most popular songs include “Willing,” “Dixie Chicken,” “Spanish Moon” and more. They have released a total of 16 studio albums and 10 live albums to date.
The current lineup of Little Feat includes founding member Bill Payne on keys, alongside Fred Tackett on guitars/vocals, Kenny Gradney on bass and Sam Clayton on percussion/vocals. Recently enlisted younger members include Sharrard and Tony Leone on drums, who both joined the group in 2020.
Tickets for Feat Fest go on sale Friday, April 4. Visit the band’s website for more information, and check out the official video for their new song “Midnight Flight” below:
Godsmack announced the departure of longtime guitarist Tony Rombola and drummer Shannon Larkin. The news was shared on Wednesday (April 2) in a lengthy statement revealing that both men had decided to retire from the band after nearly three decades of service.
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“We send this message to all of you to share some bittersweet news with you regarding a significant change in our journey together,” read the letter signed by founding singer Sully Erna and bassist Robbie Merrill and their two former bandmates. “After almost 3 incredible decades, two of our most cherished members, Tony Rombola and Shannon Larkin have decided to retire from the band permanently, on good terms, but for no other reason than to fulfill their desire to live a more simple and quiet life away from touring.”
Rombola joined the hard rock group a year after it was founded, replacing original guitarist Lee Richards in 1996 and Larkin signed on in 2002, replacing founding drummer Tommy Stewart.
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“This decision was not made lightly. Tony and Shannon have been such a big part of our history, bringing their unique talents, creativity, and passion that have shaped our music and our message,” the statement continued. “Together, we have experienced countless, unforgettable moments and heartfelt interactions with fans like you around the world. We are immensely grateful for every memory we’ve created together.”
According to Blabbermouth, in a since-deleted Facebook video, Larkin, 58, and Rombola, 60, confirmed they are doing okay, but that after many discussions with Erna and Merrill “we did quit the band last year… they understood that we didn’t want to tour anymore — that’s the reason — and we understood that they wanted to tour. And so we understood each other. And in the end, Godsmack’s out there touring and we are happily here living our lives.”
Erna said he and Merrill are excited to “explore new directions,” though they said they’ve not yet made any permanent decisions about the mens’ replacements. “We will be continuing this journey together, and we look forward to sharing the decisions we make with all of you as they happen,” the remaining duo said. In the meantime, Evanescence drummer Will Hunt and Dorothy guitarist Sam Doltun have been filling in on Godsmack’s ongoing 2025 world tour with P.O.D. and Drowning Pool, which will is slated to hit Berlin on Friday (April 4).
Check out Godsmack’s announcement below.
Bruce Springsteen is really throwing open the vaults for his upcoming Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set. But, unlike the his 1998 four-disc odds and sods Tracks collection, The Boss’ sprawling sequel will contain seven previously unheard full length records. According to a release on Thursday (April 3), the 83-track collection due out on June 27 through Sony Music will “fill in rich chapters of Springsteen’s expansive career timeline — while offering invaluable insight into his life and work as an artist.”
In a statement, Springsteen said, “The Lost Albums were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released. I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.”-
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The box will include the lo-fi LA Garage Sessions ’83, described as a “crucial link” between the bare-bones Nebraska and the full-throated Born in the U.S.A., as well as the drum loop and synthesizer experimentation for the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions. The project covering the years 1983-2018 is a peek into 35 years of home recording and songwriting that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said provides insight into work that no one has heard before.
“The ability to record at home whenever I wanted allowed me to go into a wide variety of different musical directions,” Springsteen said. Some of that includes the “sonic experimentation” on “Faithless,” a film soundtrack he wrote for a movie that was never made, as well as the country-leaning, pedal steel-fueled sound of Somewhere North of Nashville, featuring songs such as “Repo Man,” “Tiger Rose,” “Silver Mountain,” “Janey Don’t Lose Your Heart” and the title track.
There’s also the “richly-woven border tales” on Inyo songs including “Indian Town,” “The Aztec Dance,” “Our Lady of Monroe” and “Ciudad Juarez” and the “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir on such Twilight Hours tracks as “Sunday Love,” “Lonely Town,” “September Kisses” and “High Sierra.” Another album, Perfect World, featuring the songs “I’m Not Sleeping,” “Idiot’s Delight,” “The Great Depression,” “If I Could Only Be Your Lover” and “You Lifted Me Up.”
Springsteen previewed the album on Thursday with the muscular, devastating Perfect World song “Rain in the River,” on which he sings, “Down at the water, I head my Marie/ She said, ‘Now Johnny, your love mean no more to me’/ Than rain in the river/ Than rain in the river.” He also posted a 90-second trailer for the album on Thursday morning, in which he says, “I often read about myself in the ’90s as having some lost period or something. And I really, really I was working the whole time.”
The rock icon explains that during the COVID-19 pandemic he “finished” everything he had in his vault, totaling 83 songs — 82 of which have never been heard before — including 74 that have never been heard before in any version.
The Lost Albums will come in limited-edition 9-LP, 7-CD and digital formats, with distinctive packaging for each previously unreleased record, as well as a 100-page cloth-bound hardcover book with rare archival photos, liner notes on each album from essayist Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction from Springsteen. A 20-track compilation entitled Lost and Found: Selections From The Lost Albums will be released on June 27 on two LPs and one CD.
Check out “Rain in the River” and the full track list for Tracks II: The Lost Albums below:
LA Garage Sessions ’83
1. Follow That Dream
2. Don’t Back Down On Our Love
3. Little Girl Like You
4. Johnny Bye Bye
5. Sugarland
6. Seven Tears
7. Fugitive’s Dream
8. Black Mountain Ballad
9. Jim Deer
10. County Fair
11. My Hometown
12. One Love
13. Don’t Back Down
14. Richfield Whistle
15. The Klansman
16. Unsatisfied Heart
17. Shut Out The Light
18. Fugitive’s Dream (Ballad)
Streets of Philadelphia Sessions
1. Blind Spot
2. Maybe I Don’t Know You
3. Something In The Well
4. Waiting On The End Of The World
5. The Little Things
6. We Fell Down
7. One Beautiful Morning
8. Between Heaven and Earth
9. Secret Garden
10. The Farewell Party
Faithless
1. The Desert (Instrumental)
2. Where You Goin’, Where You From
3. Faithless
4. All God’s Children
5. A Prayer By The River (Instrumental)
6. God Sent You
7. Goin’ To California
8. The Western Sea (Instrumental)
9. My Master’s Hand
10. Let Me Ride
11. My Master’s Hand (Theme)
Somewhere North of Nashville
1. Repo Man
2. Tiger Rose
3. Poor Side of Town
4. Delivery Man
5. Under A Big Sky
6. Detail Man
7. Silver Mountain
8. Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
9. You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
10. Stand On It
11. Blue Highway
12. Somewhere North of Nashville
Inyo
1. Inyo
2. Indian Town
3. Adelita
4. The Aztec Dance
5. The Lost Charro
6. Our Lady of Monroe
7. El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
8. One False Move
9. Ciudad Juarez
10. When I Build My Beautiful House
Twilight Hours
1. Sunday Love
2. Late in the Evening
3. Two of Us
4. Lonely Town
5. September Kisses
6. Twilight Hours
7. I’ll Stand By You
8. High Sierra
9. Sunliner
10. Another You
11. Dinner at Eight
12. Follow The Sun
Perfect World
1. I’m Not Sleeping
2. Idiot’s Delight
3. Another Thin Line
4. The Great Depression
5. Blind Man
6. Rain In The River
7. If I Could Only Be Your Lover
8. Cutting Knife
9. You Lifted Me Up
10. Perfect World
Billboard Women in Music 2025
Bruce Springsteen is seemingly gearing up to release another massive collection from his vaults. After teasing on Instagram on Tuesday (April 1) that “what was lost has now been found,” The Boss posted the official teaser for what appears to be another career-spanning project on Wednesday (April 2) via another Insta post with the caption #TheLostAlbums.
The accompanying video featuring black and white footage of Springsteen, 75, playing an acoustic guitar was accompanied by an untitled instrumental track and the words Tracks II, leading to a website (lostalbums.net) with a studio card from the singer’s L.A. (and Colts Neck, N.J.-based) Thrill Hill Recording studio featuring the dates 1983-2018.
While no additional information was available on the project at press time — including a release date or track listing — the project appears to be a sequel to Springsteen’s 1998 four-disc, 66-song box set Tracks, which covered the years 1972-1995. That sprawling collection featured never-before-released songs, b-sides, demos and alternate versions of released tracks from throughout his career, including an acoustic version of “Born in the U.S.A.”
The original Tracks spanned from early demos recorded in 1972, before the release of his 1973 debut, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. through such landmark releases as Born to Run, The River, Born in the U.S.A., Tunnel of Love and 1992’s Human Touch.
Based on the dates from the Lost Albums site, the new set seemingly picks up right before the 1984 release of Born in the U.S.A. and runs all the way until just before 2019’s Southern California pop LP Western Stars. That period covers a dozen releases, including 1992’s Lucky Town, 1995’s The Ghost of Tom Joad, 2002’s The Rising, 2009’s Working on a Dream and 2012’s Wrecking Ball, among others.
It was unclear at press time when the set will drop, though the promo video features Thursday’s (April 3) date at the top. Back in December, Springsteen’s team teased that, “upcoming releases in 2025 include a look back at Springsteen’s storied recording career, featuring never-before-heard material.”
Springsteen has talked about recording much more material than fans have heard, telling Variety in 2017 that he and the E Street Band have “made many more records than we released. Why didn’t we release those records? I didn’t think they were essential,” he said of projects including the mythical electric version of his landmark bare-bones 1982 Nebraska album, which will be the focus of the upcoming Jeremy Allen White-starring biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere.
“I might have thought they were good, I might have had fun making them, and we’ve released plenty of that music [on archival collections over the years],” Springsteen added in the Variety interview. “But over my entire work life, I felt like I released what was essential at a certain moment, and what I got in return was a very sharp definition of who I was, what I want to do, what I was singing about. And I still basically judge what I’m doing by the same set of rules.”
Springsteen and the E Street Band will kick off their European tour on May 14 with the first of three shows at Co-Op Live in Manchester, U.K.
Billboard Women in Music 2025
Creed have added some dates to their upcoming Summer of ’99 reunion tour. The hard rockers who are gearing up to spend July and August on the road with 3 Doors Down, Daughtry, Big Wreck and Mammoth WVH, announced five new shows this week, including an August 23 stop in Mt. Pleasant, MI, as well as gigs in Cincinnati, OH (Aug. 24), Providence, R.I. (Aug. 27), Manchester, N.H. (Aug 28) and Halifax, NS (August 30).
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A Live Nation pre-sale for the new dates will kick off on Thursday (April 3) at 10 a.m. local time (code DANCE), followed by a general on-sale on Friday (April 4) here.
The upcoming run of North American shows is a follow-up to last summer’s smash reunion tour of the same name, with the party slated to kick-off with a pop-in at the Stagecoach Festival on April 26, followed by the proper tour launch on July 9 at Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY. In addition, the Scott Stapp-led group will join Nickelback in East Troy, WI, for this year’s edition of the Summer of ’99 and Beyond Festival at Alpine Valley Music Theatre on July 18 and 19.
The lineup for the second edition of the nostalgic festival will also include Live, Daughtry, Tonic, Our Lady Peace, Lit, 3 DoorsDown, Sevendust, Mammoth WVH, Hinder, Vertical Horizon and Fuel. The shows will be the first time Creed and Nickelback have shared a stage since 1999.
“Thirty years in, it’s been a blessing to pick up right where we left off with longtime fans and to meet the next generation for the first time,” Stapp said in a statement. “It’s been an incredible ride, and we aren’t done, so here’s to a ‘Summer’ that never ends. We’ll see you on the road.”
Check out the updated tour poster below.
Billboard Women in Music 2025
Ecca Vandal just had her “pinch me” moment on tour with Limp Bizkit. While opening for the nu-metal icons on their Loserville European tour, the Melbourne-raised punk-pop force was joined on stage by none other than Fred Durst himself.
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The moment went down in Frankfurt on March 31, as Vandal performed her latest single, “Cruising to Self Soothe.” Mid-set, Durst made a surprise entrance to sing alongside her, to the roar of the crowd.
“Make some noise for Fred Durst,” she shouted, adding, “What a f—ing honor!” Later, she posted a clip of the performance on Instagram with the caption: “Cruising with Fred Durst.” The Limp Bizkit frontman responded with a smiling emoji and fire emojis.
Durst has long been a fan of the genre-defying South African-born artist, previously calling her new single “legendary.” “Cruising to Self Soothe,” released in late February, is Vandal’s first new music of 2025 and follows her support slot for IDLES earlier this year. The gritty, empowering track explores personal strength and liberation in the face of isolation.
“This song is about cultivating your inner strength when navigating life on your own, even when it feels a bit isolating,” she explained. “It’s about that pivotal moment when you recognise that you’re stronger without the people who were weighing you down.”
Vandal continued: “Even when others are waiting for you to fall, you’re still rising — stronger than ever.”
The Loserville tour, featuring support acts Karen Díó, Bones, N8NOFACE, and Riff Raff, wraps up tonight at the Accor Arena in Paris. Vandal has been a standout opener throughout the run, bringing her explosive stage presence to a whole new audience.
After four years without solo releases, Vandal returned in 2024 and 2025 with new music and continued collaborations with acts like Birdz, Illy, DZ Deathrays and Void of Vision. Her self-titled debut album dropped in 2017.
There were times during the October 2023 making of their new album, Who Believes in Angels, out Friday (April 4) that Elton John wasn’t sure that he and his good friend Brandi Carlile could carry on.
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For example, as tensions in parts of the Middle East exploded following Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s retaliation in Gaza, John felt creating music was futile.
“Brandi was staying next door to my house, and she came around for breakfast and the newspapers were on the table,” John recalls over Zoom. “It was Gaza, the hostages, and I was in such a bad kind of funk — I just said, ‘I don’t know how we can write an album at this time when there’s so much crap going on in the world.’”
Carlile listened and then literally took their conversation and wrote “A Little Light” with such lyrics as “With the papers on your plate/ I see the sorrow in the headlines/ And the worry on your face.” The song goes on to acknowledge the difficult times, but to also find ways to “sing into the darkness.” The pair recorded the song later that day. While the album’s 10 songs don’t directly reference current events, “hopefully it’s an album that’s really ripe for these times. I really believe it is,” John says.
There were also internal challenges. John had come off his final world tour and was exhausted from the multi-year trek, at times throwing temper tantrums in the studio as the frustration to create something vibrant and new. “Nobody wants another Elton John album like the other 35 [I’ve made],” he says. “This one had to have energy, and it had to have a statement saying, ‘Listen, I’m nearly 78 and I’m gonna be really sounding powerful,’ and that’s what I wanted.
That’s why in addition to working with his longtime partner/lyricist Bernie Taupin, he brought in Carlile, “because she was capable of pushing me,” John says. “I’m capable of pushing her. And then in the middle, you’ve got Andrew Watt, who was the most excitable, incredible producer. The start of the album was difficult. I was not well, I was tired. I wasn’t in a good mood. And for the first three or four days, it was touch and go whether the album would happen.” (For the first time, John allowed cameras to capture the recording process for a forthcoming documentary.)
The turning point was creating the nearly seven-minute album opener “The Rose of Laura Nyro,” which begins with an extended majestic, driving instrumental intro before bursting into John and Carlile’s vocals intwining in tribute to the legendary songwriter.
“Bernie gave the lyric to me. We’ve both been huge Laura Nyro fans all our life. We remember lying on the floor in my parents’ apartment and listening to [Nyro’s 1968 classic] Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. She was such a great writer, and she changed tempos. I felt possessed by her when I wrote that melody,” John says. “Brandi rang me that evening from the car, as she was leaving the studio, and said, ‘You won’t believe it, but it was her birthday.’” Nyro, who died in 1997, received a writer’s credit on the song along with John, Taupin, Carlile and Watt.
From that point on, the creative process was like an express train, John says. Despite—or perhaps because of the elevated self-imposed pressure—John’s playing and vocals sound vigorous and spirited throughout the set. “You should have seen it. It was it just pours out of him,” Carlile says. “You can’t believe it when you’re witnessing it. I’ve known him for 17 years, but I never saw him like that.”
Both Taupin and Carlile delivered lyrics to John, who would set the words to melody, as he has for decades with Taupin.
Their styles are similar enough that John says it felt no different whether he was writing to Taupin’s or Carlile’s lyrics. “Not at all,” he says. That’s in part because Carlile has absorbed Taupin and John’s songs since she was 11 and Taupin is one of her biggest influences. “I really realized it on this project just how natural that is for me,” says Carlile. “The way Bernie behaved toward me during this process was incredibly inspiring. You can really tell that he’s raised daughters. He was just so kind to me, even though I was helping to do his job,” she says. “He would take me for dinner, and we’d get steaks and drink whiskey sours. We would talk about Elton and then he would give me a lyric and trust me with it.”
With Watt and Taupin, the pair wrote and recorded the album at Los Angeles’ Sunset Sound Studios over a three-week period, joined by a core band composed of Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Pino Palladino (Nine Inch Nails, Gary Numan and David Gilmour) and Josh Klinghoffer (Pearl Jam, Beck).
Carlile goes toe to toe with John in showing off a harder musical edge on the album, propelled by a Sunburst Les Paul electric guitar John gifted her a few years ago after she had sent John another ballad and he wanted to give her incentive to rock out.
“I know she can write those beautiful Americana songs like she’s done on all her albums,” John says. “I love those things, but I wanted to push her to say, ‘Hey, you’re capable of doing so much more and varying stuff, because there’s nothing you cannot do.’”
Carlile first played the guitar at a show at famed outdoor amphitheater The Gorge in Quincy, Washington, near where she lives. “Then I started writing songs on it and it really did change the trajectory of my songwriting,” she says.
The album’s rock feel is especially evident on second track, “Little Richard’s Bible,” a bluesy, rollicking, piano-pounding up-tempo tune with lyrics from Taupin about Little Richard, another major influence on John, that is followed by the life-affirming “Swing for the Fences,” which features a belting lead vocal by Carlile and a video that depicts a beautiful gay love story.
“Laura Nero was a gay icon, Little Richard was a gay icon — and then we got ‘Swing for the Fences,’ which is about gay people,” John says. “So the first three tracks on this album are really about stating who we are. How great we’re celebrating the people who paved the way for us!”
The openly gay John, 78, and Carlile, 43, can’t help but wonder how different their childhoods may have been if they had had a song and video like “Swing for the Fences” to guide them and make them feel less alone when they were younger.
“It would have been unbelievable to have that. Unimaginable probably for Elton,” Carlile says. “I remember the first gay kiss I ever saw on television was in the ‘90s on the Roseanne show. Her sister Jackie. And I remember there were all these warnings on Channel Five: ‘You couldn’t have this on TV.’ And I was like, think about if I had had a video like ‘Swing for the Fences’ and how for life affirming that would have been.”
The album closes with the elegiac “When This Old World Is Done With Me,” a moving piece about death sung by John. John broke down in the studio when he realized what the song was about. “It sort of crept up on me. I was writing the verse, and I think, ‘This is pretty,’ then I got to the chorus, and I realized what it was,” he says. “When you get to certain age, you think about mortality because I have children, I have [husband] David [Furnish], and I was so happy with that song. I did it all in one take, voice and piano, and it came off really well. I don’t want it to be the last song people hear about me. I’ve got more songs in me than that.”
In fact, John says he hopes this album is “the start of something,” and the pair continuing to record together, but adds there are no plans — and further states that Carlile should do her own album next, “because we don’t want to become Steve and Eydie,” he says, jokingly referring to ‘60s pop duo/married couple Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.
John has a bigger goal for his friend that he hopes this album will help accomplish. “My ambition for her with this album was to break her internationally. She’s a well-known artist in America, but in the rest of the world, she has a lot of work to do,” he says. “She came to England last year. She played Hyde Park with Stevie Nicks. She blew people away. She did the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, got five-star reviews everywhere. And so, this album hopefully will open all those doors that she deserves to walk through and become the international artist that she should be.”
Carlile sighs appreciatively upon hearing John’s declaration, and says she knew “on some level” that was John’s plan. She’s writing a solo album now, and confesses she feels “chordically anemic” without him there to assist with the music. But almost a year and a half after finishing the album and working with John and Taupin, she is still on a high.
“I don’t think it’ll ever really catch up to how incredibly life affirming this has been for me,” she says. “I’m gonna have to really think about it for the next 10 years.”
Issues between Lou Gramm and Foreigner — especially with band founder Mick Jones — have been well-documented over the years, especially after Gramm’s final departure in early 2003. But in the wake of Foreigner’s “life-changing” induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last October, Gramm has a new attitude.
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“Ever since (the induction) it felt like, personally, I had to find a way to let go of some of the things I’ve been holding onto for years — and, like the song says, let it be,” Gramm tells Billboard. Gramm, who was Foreigner’s original singer in 1976 and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame with Jones in 2013, has been making occasional guest appearances with Foreigner since 2017. After singing a pair of encore songs with the band on March 15 in Clearwater, Fla., it was announced that Gramm will be joining the group for an eight-date Historic Farewell Tour run through Mexico and South America that starts April 28 and includes shows in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.
Kelly Hansen, Foreigner’s frontman since 2005, will not be part of those concerts, with guitarist Luis Maldonado taking his place and planning to sing some of the repertoire in Spanish. “It’s a hackneyed sentiment, but it’s true — life’s too short,” Gramm says of his latest return to the fold. “And a lot of the things that are blown up and made big deals about are easy enough to get over and humble yourself and reach out a little bit, ’cause what you’ve been mad about for the past 20 years is not a monumental thing.”
Gramm and Jones have both acknowledged a sometimes volatile relationship as a songwriting tandem and bandmates during the former’s three tenures with Foreigner, often related to the dynamic of Gramm as a junior partner in the equation. More recently there was a dustup over ownership of demo recordings the two made during the early 2000s. But the Rock Hall induction, which Jones missed due to his continuing battle with Parkinson’s disease, clearly softened Gramm’s outlook.
“I hope he was watching the show,” says Gramm, who’s not in touch with Jones directly anymore. “It was a great experience and…a real honor for what all of us, and especially Mick, have accomplished. Our creative partnership was really excellent. I think we were all very proud.” The new bonhomie extends to his relationship with Hansen as well. “We didn’t have a very good relationship before, either, but it’s good now,” Gramm confirms.
“I’m glad he feels that way,” Hansen says in a separate interview. “Hopefully we’re gonna be having a lot of the original guys come on stage here and coming out for our 50th anniversary, which is next year. That’s kind of full circle. We like that energy, and I think everyone understands of how fortunate we all are to have been part of this legacy and enjoy the commonality of this legacy.”
Gramm, for his part, says he’s up for joining Foreigner for more of its 2025 dates in North America and certainly plans to be part of the 2026 activities, which will also mark the 45th anniversary of 1981’s six-times platinum 4 album. “I don’t think there’s any contrivance or people questioning the reason why I would be up there with that band,” Gramm says, noting that the current edition, active since the mid-2000s, “is something Mick wanted to do after we parted company, and he did a great job and they’ve done a great job over the last two decades of keeping the name up there and flying the flag. They deserve a lot of credit.”
The current Foreigner performed during the Rock Hall induction ceremony, backing guest singers Demi Lovato (“Feels Like the First Time”), Sammy Hagar with Slash (“Hot Blooded”) and Kelly Clarkson, with Gramm, on their Billboard Hot 100 topper “I Want to Know What Love Is,” on which original keyboardist Al Greenwood and second bassist Rick Wills sang backup. “There was a lot of awesome talent that I enjoyed listening to,” Gramm recalls, though he acknowledges that, “I wasn’t crazy about the fact I was in the dressing room while ‘Hot Blooded’ and some rockers were sung by other singers — great singers, of course, but I made no bones about it that I wanted to sing a rock n’ roll song. While I really I like (‘I Want to Know What Love Is’), it wasn’t my favorite song to sing that night. But singing with Kelly Clarkson made it so special. She’s such an awesome singer, and we did a very good job together.”
Foreigner’s other big news during 2024 was the release of “Turning Back the Time,” an archived 1996 track, for a new compilation of the same name. Gramm says there’s more where that came from, including another unreleased song, “Fool If You Love Him,” that he recently recorded some fresh vocals for. “For every Foreigner album we always recorded three or four songs more than we needed, and we usually chose 10 songs and rest were either done or almost done but were excellent,” Gramm says. “They fall by the wayside on times like this. There doesn’t seem to ever be a lack of material.” Jones, who stopped touring with Foreigner some years ago, has been working with Marti Frederiksen on both existing and new material, and Hansen confirms that “there’s a bunch of stuff in several states of completion, it’s just a matter of having time. Maybe for me, being not on the road as much, might afford some more time to finish some of those.”
Hansen revealed his plan to dial down touring when the Historic Farewell Tour was announced in fall of 2022, and while he’ll be out with Foreigner through the summer he’ll also be sitting out a fall run in Canada, with Geordie Brown from the Foreigner stage musical Juke Box Hero joining. In a statement Hansen explained that “some residency issues have forced me to limit appearances outside of the USA this year,” and he’s not offering specifics beyond that cryptic explanation.
“I made the statement because that’s the statement I wanted to make,” he says. “I know what it might sound like…I don’t feel like I want to go into details about my residency issues, but that’s the reason.” Hansen adds that, “It’s fine, and I’m happy doing everything that I can do. But, yes, there will come a point in time eventually where I won’t’ be doing this.” At the moment, he intends for that to be after the 2026 dates.
“Plans sometimes change, but those are the plans,” Hansen notes. “Listen, I never say never, but I’ve been in this business just about 50 years. I’ve had my time in here, and in the business, and the entertainment business is not the easiest business in the world. I really want to be able to live my life outside of being on the road nine months a year. I want to be able to do other things in my wife, with my family, while I still can. And I don’t want to be out there doing these songs at less than the standard that we’ve set, ever.”
Foreigner is also setting up an Australian tour in addition to next year’s 50th anniversary shows. A documentary project is in the works to commemorate the landmark. The Juke Box Hero musical, which has been previewed in Alberta and Toronto, is slated to go into production during 2026 as well.
You never really know how much your fans have missed you until you go away for a while. Even now, nine months after Oasis shocked the world by announcing that they would be reuniting for a summer 2025 stadium tour that nobody thought would ever happen, songwriter/guitarist and occasional lead vocalist Noel Gallagher finds it hard to believe how big a deal it all is.
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According to NME, in an interview with one of the magazine’s former photographers, Kevin Cummins, for his new book Oasis: The Masterplan, the elder Gallagher admits that the mad dash to secure tickets for the band’s first gigs since 2009 shocked him. “I thought it’d be a big deal, but I was a bit taken aback by just how much of a big deal it was,” Gallagher, 57, said.
In an effort to beat the bots and scalpers, the band fronted by Liam Gallagher teamed with Twickets for a scheme meant to block re-sellers posting tickets for profit, warning that those purchases would be cancelled. During the frenzied pre-sale, though, frustrated fans described being in queue for hours on end and often ending up empty-handed for the initial run of U.K. and Irish dates.
In October, Ticketmaster said it would investigate the matter and cancel roughly 50,000 resale tickets that were deemed to have been purchased using techniques that were forbidden for the tour. Those methods typically used by scalpers and bots, included purchasing more than four tickets per household, per show, and using multiple identities to buy up tickets.
Then, in March, the UK’s CMA (Competition and Markets Authority) said that Ticketmaster may have “misled” fans over pricing for the shows; Oasis later issued a statement saying they had no “awareness that dynamic pricing was going to be used” in the sale of tickets for the initial 19 dates. An update to the CMA’s ongoing investigation revealed that Ticketmaster UK may have breached consumer protection law, by “Labelling certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ and selling them for near 2.5 times the price of equivalent standard tickets, without sufficiently explaining that they did not offer additional benefits and were often located in the same area of the stadium.”
Though at press time neither the make-up of the rest of the band nor the expected set list has been revealed, Noel may have tipped his hand at which songs will make the cut when Cummins asked him to name his favorite Oasis song. “Can I have more than one? ‘Supersonic’, ‘Some Might Say’, ‘Live Forever’ and ‘Rock’n’Roll Star,” Gallagher said of a handful of the band’s most beloved, frequently performed, songs.
In January, Liam responded to a fan’s dream setlist, telling them “it’s not far off,” when they asked if the unsolicited rundown was “official.” The list had pretty much what you’d expect based on the band’s past setlists, including such live staples as: “Acquiesce,” “Some Might Say,” “Lyla,” “Shakermaker,” “The Hindu Times,” “Cast No Shadow,” “Slide Away,” “Supersonic,” “Morning Glory,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Live Forever” and “Champagne Supernova.”
Last month, the band announced that a film documenting the Oasis Live ’25 tour would be created and produced by BAFTA- and Oscar-nominated writer/producer/director Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders, Spencer, Dirty Pretty Things) and directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace (Meet Me in the Bathroom, Shut Up and Play the Hits). No release date has been announced yet for the untitled film and no further details were revealed about the content of the project that will be distributed by Sony Music Vision.
Oasis have announced 41 dates so far for the tour, which will kick off on July 4 with the first of two shows at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, before criss-crossing the U.K. in advance of a North American run beginning August 24 in Toronto; the tour will then move on to Mexico City, South Korea, Japan, Australia and South America.
One of Kurt Cobain‘s most iconic instruments is about to go on display for the first time in Europe. The Royal College of Music London announced that its “Kurt Cobain Unplugged” exhibit — which opens on June 3 and runs through Nov. 18 — will feature the late Nirvana singer’s rare Martin D-18E guitar, which […]