Rock Hall
Lenny Waronker says his that receiving the Ahmet Ertegun Award at this year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be “very nice” but also acknowledges that “it scares me a bit.”
“What they’re going to be doing certainly will take the pressure off of having to get up and make a speech, ’cause I’m not going to have to make a speech,” the longtime record executive tells Billboard. “There’s going to be a lot of video and things like that. But when you get right down to it, it’s nice. It’s an honor and it’s important and it feels good.”
Two of his five children have followed Waronker into the music business – singer-songwriter Anna Waronker, who founded the rock band that dog, and drummer Joey Waronker, who’s worked with everyone from Beck to R.E.M. and will be on the road playing with Oasis this summer.
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The elder Waronker, 83, is being honored for more than six decades of groundbreaking work, as a producer as well as the former president of Warner Bros. Records and co-founder of DreamWorks Records, playing an instrumental role in the careers of artists such as Randy Newman, James Taylor, Rickie Lee Jones, Maria Muldaur, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Prince, John Fogerty, R.E.M., Rufus Wainwright and Elliott Smith. Since 2010 he’s been back at Warner working as a consultant or, as he puts it, “a senior A&R executive” who’s helped with projects by Jenny Lewis, Gary Clark Jr., Kimbra and more.
Being behind the scenes was part of Waronker’s DNA. Growing up in Los Angeles’ Pacific Palisades with childhood friend Newman, his father Simon transitioned from playing violin in the 20th Century Fox Orchestra to a contractor, then founded Liberty Records in 1955. “I was exposed to music at a very young age,” says Waronker, who spent summers at Liberty while attending the USC Thornton School of Music. He joined the company full-time after graduating, working for the label’s publishing division, Metric Music, where he produced song demos.
“The door really opened when my father started (Liberty). I grew up watching a record company being built and being part of it. I knew what was going on; when he would sign an act that I was familiar with I’d be excited, and when he lost an act…I got to understand that kind of disappointment.”
Waronker subsequently became one of Warners’ most prolific in-house producers, bringing Newman and Van Dyke Parks to the label and helming albums by Jones, Muldaur, Harpers Bizarre, the Everly Brothers, Ry Cooder, Arlo Guthrie and Gordon Lightfoot. He also worked on specific tracks for Taylor (“Shower the People,” “Mexico,” “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)”), Michael McDonald (“I Keep Forgettin’”), Clapton (“Forever Man”) and Stewart (“Broken Arrow”). Mo Ostin — who received the Ertegun Award in 2003 — made Waronker head of A&R in 1970 and company president in 1982.
“I had two careers, in a way,” says Waronker, who brought producers such as Ted Templeman (formerly of Harpers Bizarre), Russ Titelman, Gary Katz, Michael Omartian and others into the Warner ranks. As a producer himself, he notes, “I was pretty judgmental — which of course is stupid, but there you go.”
Ultimately, Waronker says he realized “I was surrounded by great artists, so I had to keep reminding myself, ‘Don’t worry. Keep your mouth shut when something’s going good.’ If I had some idea that could make a record better, say something. I had an enormous amount of respect for the artists; a lot of time it’s staying the hell out of the way when you’re dealing with the kind of people I was dealing with and being as supportive as you can.”
Waronker says he applied that philosophy in his executive roles as well. “When you’re around somebody like (Ostin), if you’re paying attention and listening and asking questions, you’re gonna do OK,” he explains. “(Ostin) wanted a creative community as much as a record company. The relationship part of that was a big, big reason for my having any success as an executive.
“It was a time for experimentation and learning about what you could and couldn’t do. In those days it wasn’t just about the hits; at least in my mind, signing an artist was important because it gave the creative community a sense of what the company stood for. We really took advantage of that, big time. When I think about it now it’s like, ‘Jeez, how did that happen?’ But if you have a point of view and you have strong beliefs about what you’re doing, who you work with, what the company stands for, and you’re right, the rest sort of takes care of itself.”
Prince was, of course, one of those prestige acts on the Warner roster — and one who made Waronker realize the value of standing back and letting the artist follow his muse. “He was incredibly focused, very strong. He knew what we wanted. Every once in awhile he would open up, but mostly he knew what he was doing and wasn’t interested in (outside) ideas. So it was one of those things where he had it and he wasn’t cut out to sit and listen to somebody else talk about his music, which is good and bad because everybody can use help. But he was amazing, what can you say?”
Waronker and Ostin presided over what was considered a golden age for Warner until the early ‘90s, when a corporate reorganization after the death of Time Warner chairman Steve Ross in 1992 led to them leaving the company in 1994. With DreamWorks, Waronker steered the company to nearly five-dozen gold or better albums and more than two dozen Grammy Awards before he left.
“At the time I was starting to get antsy and (then-Warner chairman) Tom Whalley asked me to come in as a senior A&R executive who could help the younger A&R people and get involved, and that idea sounded good to me,” Waronker remembers. “So I went there and I found that it was fun. I like the young A&R (staffers); they were all very open and incredibly respectful, and that felt good. If someone is struggling, I know what that’s like and I know what to say to them.
“What was surprising to me was the amount of knowledge (current Warner staffers) had about what made us tick in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, early ‘90s, whatever. They tried to hold onto as much of that as they could. Again, you get the right people — that’s artists, too — and you’re gonna be in good shape.”
The upcoming Rock Hall honor does have Waronker reflecting on his career, of course. But he doesn’t expect that will turn into something more, like a memoir. “Nah, I don’t want to do that,” he says. “If you’re going to write you have to tell the truth, and I just didn’t want to do that. I’m not good with dishing stuff. Most of these books are a good attempt at telling the truth, but having to tell the real truth, then it becomes my truth, and I’m not interested in it.”
The Rock Hall induction ceremony takes place Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and will stream live on Disney+, moving to Hulu the next day and an ABC special later. Performer inductees are Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Soundgarden and the White Stripes. Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon will receive the musical influence award, with Thom Bell, Nicky Hopkins and Wrecking Crew bassist Carol Kaye receiving the musical excellence award.
“To finally be the headliner and not the maid of honor or the freakin’ bridesmaid?” Cyndi Lauper says with a laugh over Zoom. “It was pretty good.” The Brooklyn-born pop/rock legend is talking about her first-ever headlining show at New York’s Madison Square Garden last fall, part of her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour. These goodbye shows — an invigorating blast of rock energy, pop balladry pathos and vivid art – have been met with rave reviews from fans and critics alike. After overseas legs in Europe, Australia and Japan, Lauper is bringing her tour back to the States (and Canada) this summer for 24 final North American dates, kicking off July 17 in Mansfield, Mass.
Selling out arenas like MSG was a huge part of the reason Lauper – who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this fall – wanted to do this farewell tour in the first place. While wrapping up mastering on a soundtrack companion to her 2023 career-retrospective documentary Let the Canary Sing, Lauper says that “everybody turned around and said, ‘Why don’t you do a farewell tour?’” The Grammy, Emmy and Tony winner was into the idea, but with a condition: “If I’m leaving, I would like to headline these places,” she recalls telling her team. “I don’t want to play theaters – I’m in theaters anyway,” she notes, tipping to the fact that she’s spent much of the last 15 years working in musical theater, between Broadway’s Tony-gobbling Kinky Boots and a long-gestating musical adaptation of the 1988 film Working Girl she’s still crafting with Theresa Rebeck.
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Now, for the tour’s North American swan song this summer, Lauper wants the chance to reconnect with fans in places she missed last fall. “I didn’t get to Philadelphia [last year]. I’m going to leave and not go to Philly?” she asks rhetorically ahead of a July 20 date in the City of Brotherly Love. “I wanted to say goodbye to everybody. I really do. That’s the end of this chapter.”
The final North American dates of her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour will feature some changes – including a setlist swap thanks to a famous fashion designer. Apart from alterations to the staging to accommodate outdoor venues, the Billboard Hot 100-topping singer is adding in some dance music for her fervent LGBTQ fanbase. “I am going to switch one song, because Christian Siriano said, ‘The gays want glamor.’ On Instagram, somebody wrote, ‘The gays love glamor, but they also love to dance. Would you mind just putting in a dance song from [the 2008 album] Bring Ya to the Brink?’ I thought that was really funny,” she admits. “So I said okay, fine.”
While it’s hard to quibble with an injection of upbeat dance music (just imagine if she sang “Sex Is in the Heel” from Kinky Boots? A stan can dream!) to the setlist, the show’s standout moments often come during her peerless ballads. “Time After Time” has found her duetting with guests like Sam Smith and Lucinda Williams, while “True Colors” and “Sally’s Pigeons” are staged in a way that’s as much performance art as pop music (Daniel Wurtzel’s “air fountain” factors heavily into those).
Lauper says it’s impossible for her to pick a standout moment from the shows, though – and she means that literally. “Once I step out there, I’m not there anymore because I’m in it,” she insists. “I used to work at Belmont walking the horses. I feel like one of those racehorses – you’re in it but you can’t think. You have to have one foot in reality and one foot in someplace else, and that place is where things come through you.” She once had a conversation with Prince about this very topic, which he likened to turning off a third eye. “He was like, ‘Part of you, you go out of your mind a little bit [on stage]. You’re not there. You can’t be, because if you are, then you have a third eye. And all of a sudden, whatever magic, otherworldly door it is that you’re knocking on is not going to open.’”
Accidents, however, can test that tenuous connection. Lauper describes one such incident during this tour’s “Sally’s Pigeons,” which features a white sheet undulating through the air thanks to an assortment of crisscrossed fans (not the flesh-and-blood type). “It’s so beautiful, right? Gorgeous. One time I saw that big sheet, it went right up — I had to look away because I was going to start laughing – it fell right on top of somebody. I saw everybody scrambling,” she chuckles. “It’s live, right? You don’t know what the heck (will happen).”
Mostly, however, she’s able to stay in the magic zone – though she admits to fighting some serious nerves prior to that first headlining MSG show. “Before I went on stage at Madison Square Garden, I was thinking, ‘You idiot. You had all your friends come here, and if you fall flat on your face, everybody and all your friends are going to see.’ Then I said to myself, ‘No, be positive. Do not think like that.’ I was like, ‘You know, it’s only rock n’ roll, but I like it. Whatever.’”
Lauper did not, for the record, fall flat on her face, literally or metaphorically – I was there, and it was one of the best concerts I’d seen in years, both performance-wise and conceptually. Much of the tour’s aesthetic traces to Lauper’s love for art, museums and eye-popping fashion; the tour boasts original collaborations with Wurtzel, Siriano, Geoffrey Mac, Brian Burke and Yayoi Kusama. “When you’re moving and you have all that color, it’s like a painting,” Lauper says in her gloriously unrepentant Brooklyn accent – a tone one doesn’t typically associate with a hifalutin arts discourse. “[Kusama] wore her art, and for me in the ‘80s, that’s kind of what I was doing,” she says of the Japanese artist whose distinct polka-dot palette broke through globally around when Lauper catapulted onto MTV and the Billboard charts. “I could kick myself for not knowing in the ‘80s – I had no idea about Kusama. But I was on the hamster wheel and peddling so fast that I did not go to museums (back then), which was sad for me.”
While the 71-year-old icon makes time to experience art in her life these days, it’s hard to escape the sneaking suspicion that, unlike many musicians who can’t keep away from the grind, it’s the hamster wheel that’s following her.
Prior to the tour’s next leg kicking off in July, Lauper is still tinkering with the music for Working Girl. “I am short four songs that I gotta do before the tour, but I think I can do it,” she sighs. “June is pretty full. My God, everything happened at once,” she says, noting that she also needs to start prepping for her induction. “Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is on the eighth (of November), and (Working Girl) opens on the ninth. Wow. So, kill me now, right?”
Schedule overload notwithstanding, Lauper sounds honored to join many of the legends who inspired her in the Rock Hall’s ranks. “It’s a community of people, rockers that have changed the world,” she muses. “Here’s the thing: I still believe that rock n’ roll can save the world. I just want people to remember that we did make a difference. We can make a difference if we band together. We must come together as a community and make light and bring people together to make change, to do the good work.”
For Lauper, sharing her story in her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour is part of that. “I wanted to have people know who the hell has been singing to them all this time so they would have a connection. And maybe they would be inspired to look at their history, to understand themselves,” she opines. “Everybody has a different perspective. When you tell your story, it makes human beings closer. It makes communities. That’s very important. In the darkest time, remember – you write the chapters, you make light.”
He’s here to answer all your questions about how the Rock Hall works.
“Back in the day,” Chubby Checker tells Billboard from his home in New Jersey, “I said, ‘I don’t want to be in the Rock Hall when I’m dead. I want to smell my flowers when I’m here.’ And I’m smelling my flowers…a little late in the game, I would admit, but I’m still alive to see Chubby Checker in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”
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Eligible since the first Rock Hall class in 1986, the 83-year-old responsible for “The Twist” and other dance sensations will finally arrive in the shrine during the Nov. 8 induction ceremony in Los Angeles — on his first nomination, no less. That’s come as a surprise, even shock, to many fans since the news broke about Checker’s induction, but the South Carolina native (born Ernest Evans) says it’s not something he’s been fretting about over the years.
“It’s another milestone — and the beat goes on,” he notes.
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Nevertheless, Checker famously protested outside of the Rock Hall museum in Cleveland back in 2002, but he clarifies that it wasn’t simply about his exclusion from the ranks. “I wanted people to know that Chubby’s music was not being played, that’s all it was,” he explains. “The protest was, ‘Please play Chubby’s music.’ The best thing for any artist is to get his music played, and my music wasn’t getting played and I was a little upset about it. You can walk into the supermarket and hear (sings) ‘Bennie and the Jets’…but not ‘The Twist,’ and you look around the supermarket and every company’s got some kind of twist product, you know? I did it very nicely. I didn’t try to cause any problems. I never protested anything in my life except that.”
Checker will, of course, enter the Rock Hall with ample credentials as a groundbreaker and architect. Inspired to pursue music after seeing country great Ernest Tubb perform at a South Carolina fair when he was four years old, Checker and his family moved to South Philadelphia and he began singing doo-wop as a youth. Nicknamed Chubby by a boss at the produce market where he worked, he auditioned as a teen for American Bandstand host Dick Clark, whose wife Barbara added Checker as a surname as a salute to Fats Domino.
Checker imitated Domino, Elvis Presley and other poplar singers at the time for a 1959 single called “The Class,” after which Clark suggested he take on “The Twist,” which was written by Hank Ballard — based on dances he saw teenagers doing in Tampa, Fla. It was only a modest success for him and his band, the Midnighters. Adding dance moves to his performance, Checker took the song to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 during September 1960 and then for a second time in January 1962 — the only single to do that until Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” decades down the road.
“‘The Twist’ gave us what we have on the dance floor — and is still giving us that,” says Checker, who despite his Philadelphia roots was a supporter of the Rock Hall being built in Cleveland, in deference to pioneering radio DJ Alan Freed. “Before (‘The Twist’), Elvis and Little Richard and Bill Haley and Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly, they were doing the swing to their songs. Then Chubby Checker comes along and…the whole world changed.” Checker followed “The Twist” with other dance songs, including “Pony Time,” “The Fly,” “Limbo Rock,” “Let’s Twist Again” and a resurrection of the late ‘40s dance “The Hucklebuck.”
“Chubby Checker never left the dance floor,” he says. “I used to call myself the wheel that rock rolls on, because anyone after Chubby Checker who had a song that you could dance to, they were in my world, that I brought to the dance floor. Dancing to the beat is what we brought, and it’s still there — no matter what it is. It’s called the boogie, and the boogie is still going on. Someone once said, ‘Chubby, you want to do a disco song?’ ‘Why? I did that already.’”
In all, Checker has had 32 songs (and seven top 10 hits) on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2008 Billboard honored “The Twist” as No. 1 on the Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs list, which it held until the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” took the honor in 2021. Nevertheless, Checker notes, “it will always be the No. 1 song. There will be a number two No. 1 song, a number three No. 1 song, but (‘The Twist’) was the first and will always be the first.”
“The Twist” has also been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry. The Rock Hall honored “The Twist” in 2018 by inducting the single as part of a new initiative — a practice that has not been repeated since.
Checker has no intention of recording anything new — “How am I gonna invent the wheel twice?” he asks — but still performs regularly. And that continuing demand, he says, has mitigated any disappointment he may have felt while waiting for his Rock Hall induction.
“Listen, I’m a blessed human being,” Checker says. “In spite of everything, my dreams come true every day. Every time I go on stage my dream comes true, my dream is renewed — that’s what keeps me going. I’m a blessed man in this world.”
Cyndi Lauper is bopping into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and she couldn’t be happier. “I’m humbled to be in the company of so many of my heroes – Aretha, Tina, Chaka, Joni, Wanda, to name just a few,” she shared in an Instagram post on Sunday (April 27), after the class of […]
Joe Cocker‘s older brother Victor had something of a front row seat for his sibling’s first steps toward the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame while they were growing up in Sheffield, England.
“We had a little skiffle group — this was when Joe was only around 12 or 13 and I was a teenager,” the elder Cocker, who still resides in England, tells Billboard. “He used to love and come and listen, and once or twice he sang. It just made him so excited, really, the idea of performing. He had a very natural talent. He always had a powerful voice, and a really soulful voice.”
That voice — and Cocker’s accomplishments over a 46-year recording career prior to his death in 2014 at the age of 70 — will be honored on Nov. 8 when he’s inducted into the Rock Hall some 32 years after he first became eligible.
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Best known for Billboard Hot 100 hits such as “Delta Lady,” covers of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “She Came In Through the Bathroom Window,” “You Are So Beautiful” and the chart-topping “Up Where We Belong,” a Grammy Award-winning duet with Jennifer Warnes from An Officer and a Gentleman, Cocker will be one of seven performers voted into the shrine, joining Chubby Checker, Bad Company, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Soundgarden and the White Stripes. Cocker, a first-time nominee whose induction received public support from Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, also finished fifth on the fan ballot with more than 232,000 votes.
“I was really surprised,” says Cocker’s widow Pam. “I voted every day and watched his standing on the fan vote. ‘Long overdue’ — those were my daughter’s first words when we heard the news.”
Vic Cocker, meanwhile, is “quite thrilled” by the induction news. “It’s an important piece of recognition for Joe, I think. I think he would have been really delighted about it, so I’m really pleased. And of course he grew up in that age where the first generation of members of the Hall of Fame were his heroes; he was part of the second wave, so to be recognized there with his heroes and those of the second wave — like the Beatles, who he knew, and so on — would’ve delighted him.”
Pam Cocker adds that while her husband “wasn’t obsessed with the fact he wasn’t in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, he did want it. But he didn’t prioritize it. He was always surprised at what other people were not in it more than himself.”
Because he was at university and then married, Vic Cocker watched his brother’s ascent from a distance. “When he found Ray Charles, of course, that was a big thing for him,” the elder Cocker remembers. “Then (keyboardist) Chris Stainton came along and they had (the 1968 single ‘Marjorine’) and then ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ was the big change. I used to get so wound up when I’d go to see him; I just wanted him to succeed, really. It was such a thrill seeing him go and get better and better and more and more famous.”
He adds that the Cockers’ mother, Madge, was particularly engaged in his brother’s career, while their more stoic father was a bit more reserved about it. “He very much thought (Cocker) was crackers sometimes,” Vic recalls with a laugh. “He never went to a performance, whereas my mum used to go and see Joe sing.” Harold Cocker did help his younger son deal with Inland Revenue tax issues in the U.K., however, while Vic recalls finding a six-figure check for royalties from 1970’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen album that his brother never deposited.
“I think he’d decided he was going to split with A&M (Records) and he didn’t want to be obligated to them or something,” Vic Cocker says. “When I gave it to him many years later he goes, ‘God, what was I thinking?!’”
The family was also surprised by the spasmodic physical performing style that became a Cocker trademark — which many first witnessed in the 1970 Woodstock documentary. “That was something that developed…and became a little more extreme, yeah,” his brother says. “Nobody ever really commented on it. What he did was up to him, really.” He was nevertheless “upset” by Joe’s drug addictions, however, though he gives him credit for ultimately cleaning himself up.
“He did most of that himself,” Vic says. “He just had a quiet time at home. I remember he went to Scotland and did some fishing. I challenged him as to whether he was on heroin, because I’d heard rumors he was, and he told me he wasn’t and showed me his arms were clean. Afterward he admitted he was taking it another way…but he got himself off that on his own. He had a fantastic constitution, which in some ways was his savior but it was also his downfall in that he could abuse it.”
In addition to the Rock Hall induction, Cocker received an honorary doctorate from Sheffield Hallam University in 1995, and during 2017 he was named to the Order of the British Empire (OE). His last album, Fire It Up, came out during 2012.
All of the Cockers are planning to attend the induction ceremony in November and are anticipating, in Pam’s words, “a brilliant evening.” Vic expects that gratitude will be expressed to the musical peers who helped push Cocker to this point.
“I thought it was exceptional for them to put that amount of time into recognizing Joe and supporting him,” he says. “There were quite a lot of the sort of British rock n’ roll establishment who liked Joe. They’d seen him perform and were always impressed by him, I think. They recognized what he had.”
As those who learned they will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year receive congratulatory messages from numerous friends and colleagues, the seven artists who were passed over for induction are likely get messages from friends and supporters along the lines of “you were robbed” or “you’ll get in eventually.”
If you missed the announcement on American Idol on Sunday night (April 27), Bad Company, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Outkast, Soundgarden and The White Stripes are this year’s inductees in the performer category. Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon are set to receive the musical influence award; Philly Soul producer Thom Bell, English studio pianist/organist Nicky Hopkins and studio bass guitarist Carol Kaye will receive the musical excellence award; and producer and executive Lenny Waronker will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
The other seven nominees in the performer category were denied admission to the Rock Hall – this year, anyway. Oasis and Mariah Carey were both passed over for the second year in a row. Both were surprising snubs – Oasis is reuniting for a global tour in 2025; Carey’s profile, never low, has been boosted in recent years by her status as the uncontested Queen of Christmas. Of the other passed-over artists, Joy Division/New Order were previously on the ballot in 2023; this was the first time on the ballot for The Black Crowes, Billy Idol, Maná and Phish.
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The voters showed no love for brother acts this year. Oasis includes Liam and Noel Gallagher; The Black Crowes includes Chris and Rich Robinson.
Maná was vying to become the first rock en español act to make the Rock Hall. Joy Division/New Order was vying to join the short list of two related acts being inducted in tandem, following Parliament/Funkadelic in 1997 and The Small Faces/Faces in 2012.
Phish, which won this year’s fan vote, has never landed a Hot 100 hit, but the band is a powerhouse live attraction, as evidenced when it played the Sphere in Las Vegas in April 2024.
Idol was a mainstay of early MTV – as was Lauper, who did get in. In an interview with Vulture, Idol said of his guitarist Steve Stevens, “Because of our special relationship, if I get in, they will induct him as well.” This would have echoed Pat Benatar’s induction three years ago, where the Rock Hall inducted both Benatar and her husband and musical partner, Neil Giraldo. But it’s academic, as Idol didn’t make it this year.
Critics and pundits are already weighing in with their opinions, but we want to hear from you: Which of the seven artists who were nominated in the performer category, only to be passed over, do you think constitutes the biggest snub? They’re listed here in alphabetical order. Vote!
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There’s an aspect to the late Warren Zevon finally being honored by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame that strikes his son, Jordan Zevon, as very much on brand.
“It’s a comedy of how it seems like the minute that I gave up on it, he got nominated (in 2023, for the first time ever),” the younger Zevon tells Billboard. After his father, who died in 2003, didn’t get in, “I’d gone back to giving up on it, and now he’s in. I think that’s kind of perfect.”
Long considered one of the Rock Hall‘s most egregious exclusions by fans and peers alike, Zevon — who passed away at the age of 56 from mesothelioma — will receive one of two musical influence awards at this year’s induction ceremony on Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. (Hip-hop trio Salt-N-Pepa is the other.) The honor is selected by the Rock Hall and not by voters, and it comes 30 years after Zevon was first eligible for Rock Hall consideration.
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During his career, which included 13 studio albums, the Chicago-born Zevon was celebrated as a songwriter as well as a performer. Linda Ronstadt in particular had hits with his “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me” and “Hasten Down the Wind.” Zevon’s greatest success was 1978’s Excitable Boy, his lone platinum release and the home of “Werewolves of London,” which peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. He also collaborated with three-quarters of R.E.M. on 1990’s Hindu Love Gods, while his final album, 2003’s The Wind, was recorded after his cancer diagnosis and released just two weeks before his death; featuring guest appearances from Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Tom Petty, Emmylou Harris, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Ry Cooder, Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam and more, it won a pair of Grammy Awards.
Zevon’s acerbic and highly literary songcraft set Zevon apart from others in the Southern California rock scene of the ‘70s, and he periodically collaborated with writers, serving as the musical director of the Rock Bottom Remainders, an ad hoc band that included Stephen King, Amy Tan, Matt Groening and more. Billy Joel, meanwhile, supported Zevon’s 2023 nomination by writing a letter to the Rock Hall recommending his induction. Zevon also filled in for Paul Shaffer on David Letterman’s late-night TV shows, and Letterman turned over his entire hour for Zevon’s final interview on Oct. 30, 2002.
“In the same way you’ll hear Philip Seymour Hoffman called an actor’s actor, to musicians (Zevon) is a musician’s musician,” notes his son, who’s a singer and songwriter himself. “He was in his own separate box. It’s that Stravinsky influence and classical background he had…that made him think a little different than everyone else. I’ve had instances where I’ve had to cover his songs and you go, ‘Wait, he went to THAT chord? That’s the wrong chord,’ but it works.
“When you listen to an artist who does that it makes you think, ‘I should think a little different, too, not use the same four chords and change the melody, as it’s been done throughout history.’ It makes you think more musically, about going deeper and darker, maybe.”
The younger Zevon is confident that his father would “be very happy in the company of the musical influences,” and being recognized by the Rock Hall in any capacity. “He didn’t scoff at credit or adulation,” Zevon notes. “Just because he was outside of the mainstream he didn’t necessarily hate everybody in the world and in the music industry. He would’ve appreciated it. He liked people coming up to him and telling him they were fans of his music. He liked when other musicians acknowledged him. I think he would’ve definitely felt some pride in that.”
Zevon says that, given his history, his father being honored at a Los Angeles induction ceremony is also appropriate. “He was definitely one of those guys,” Zevon says, referring to the well-populated community that included Ronstadt, Jackson Browne and a great many others. Who will participate in Zevon’s honor is still to be determined, but Jordan Zevon is planning to touch base to at least celebrate the news with Browne, Joel, Henley, longtime Zevon collaborators Waddy Wachtel and Jorge Calderon, and Minnesota Governor and 2024 Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, an outspoken fan.
Zevon was recently celebrated with a pair of Record Store Day releases — a reissue of the Hindu Love Gods album and the box set Piano Fighter — The Giant Years, featuring the three albums he released for that label 1991-95. Jordan Zevon says both will eventually receive wider release, while there’s more coming, as well.
“We’re working around a project around (1982’s) The Envoy and getting that out. There’s some live stuff that’s been bootlegged here and there, so we’re trying to get official releases to put out. We just want to get everything on real high-quality vinyl and make sure the collection is complete and treated with care.”
Kim Thayil says that even before Chris Cornell‘s death in 2017, the members of Soundgarden would have conversations about the band being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“Sometimes ideas have been tossed out — sometimes as a lark, just general chatter among buddies, and sometimes as a more serious, sincere thing,” the guitarist tells Billboard. “We would joke around like, ‘Hey, if we ever got in the Rock Hall, what special thing would we do? Who would we want to induct us?’ We’d throw out all sorts of things; some of it was bulls–t clowning around, some of it was serious.
“So we’ve given a little bit of thought to it.”
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Thayil and company are definitely thinking more seriously about it now that, after two previous nominations, Soundgarden has been named as part of the Rock Hall’s class of 2025, which will be inducted on Nov. 8 in Los Angeles. First and foremost, he’s happy the Seattle band’s time has finally come.
“I felt fairly confident that there was absolutely no reason why we wouldn’t qualify for induction — from how I appraised the work we did and from what I received over the years from our peers and the music industry,” Thayil says. “I’m much more appreciative now, especially when I saw the response people have given me when they learn about the nominations.”
Nevertheless, he acknowledges, his own enthusiasm for the Rock Hall honor took some time to evolve.“I kinda came from a subculture of rock that didn’t quite get what all the fuss is about,” Thayil tells Billboard. “Back in the ’80s, ’90s, when the Hall started, I probably was not alone in being part of a punk rock or indie metal scene that had an aversion to the idea. It was kind of hard to wrap my head around both a qualitative appraisal and a quantitative assessment.”
His view changed first after Cornell inducted Seattle rock precursors Heart into the Rock Hall in 2013, and then later after friends from Nirvana and Pearl Jam (including Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron) were inducted during 2014 and 2017, respectively.
“Chris lived the experience and said the enthusiasm of the fans was eye-opening for him, and understanding how important that was — and Matt seconded it,” Thayil explains. “In so many ways the fans got some kind of validation by having a band that was important to their heart and that they championed get (the honor). I know I felt that way about bands I believed in, whether the MC5 or the Ramones or Kiss.
“Chris explained that to me, and that kind of changed things. Plus I heard this from the Nirvana guys, the Pearl Jam guys, other friends and other bands. So it really changed my perspective.”
And Thayil is confident that Cornell — who died by suicide in May of 2017 following a concert in Detroit — would “definitely be stoked” about Soundgarden being inducted.
“He’s the one who convinced me how appreciative the fans and our peers and the Soundgarden community — that includes the people that we work with and work for us — would be about it,” Thayil says. “He realized how important that was, and he understood that would be important to us because it’s important to people who cared about us and helped us and supported us all along.
“That’s how I believe Chris would respond to this. I think he’d be very appreciative and thankful to all the people who have believed in him and believed in the work he did and the work that we all did, collectively.”
Thayil says Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd are both “very happy” about the induction news, and the guitarist is also pleased that original bassist Hiro Yamamoto — who was with Soundgarden from 1984 to 1989 and played on its first two EPs and first two albums — is being included in the induction.
“It’s the classic lineup and the foundational lineup,” Thayil says. “[Yamamoto] was really enthused, too. You have to reflect upon our formation and all the hard work, just the weird things we went through — walking miles and stapling posters to telephone poles for a gig 40, 50 people will be at, the van tours — not just of the U.S. but in Europe — sleeping on floors in Motel 6. It’s a long way, and I enjoy sharing and seeing enthusiasm from my bandmates and our people in the Soundgarden community — management, crew, everybody. It’s great.”
During its 34-year run, Soundgarden released six studio albums, including the six-times platinum Superunknown in 1994, and won two Grammy Awards. The group was the first of the so-called Northwest grunge bands to sign with a major label (A&M Records in 1989) and spearheaded a movement out of Seattle. The late Cornell also released five studio albums and joined members of Rage Against the Machine in the band Audioslave during Soundgarden’s 1997-2010 hiatus. Its final release to date was King Animal in 2012.
Thayil, Cameron and Shepherd have played together only a handful of times since Cornell’s death, including at a charity tribute concert for him during January 2019 and as part of the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert in September of 2022, both at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif.
Soundgarden’s previous Rock Hall nominations came in 2020 and 2023, and Thayil says Cornell’s absence has always been top of mind when the honor has been broached.
“It’s a high bar, not just technically, but emotionally,” he acknowledges. “There has to be a reverence for the missing brother and founder, and there also has to be reverence for the legacy — both for Chris’ work and Chris’ creativity, as well as the regard and reverence we have for ourselves collectively and for each other. Some suggestions have come out; I’m not prepared to share that, but I’ll just say it’s a higher bar than the usual composite of guitarists and drummers or singers.”
Also lurking, of course, is the specter of seven unreleased Soundgarden recordings that were the subject of legalities between the band and Cornell’s widow, Vicki Cornell. The matters were settled during the spring of 2023, but there’s no word about plans to release that material. “Certainly the catalog will continue to be addressed,” Thayil promises. “It’s been kinda shelved for a few years, but it will be addressed.”
In the meantime, Cameron is currently on tour with Pearl Jam, and work with Thayil in the band 3rd Secret — which also Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic and others — has so far released two albums. Thayil also guests on albums for a variety of other artists, which he’ll continue as Soundgarden prepares for November’s festivities.
“We always wanted to be the kind of band for our fans that we looked up to and inspired us — that’s always been a context in which Soundgarden understood its own work,” Thayil says. “We wanted to be that kind of band would make decisions with regard to that community that had supported us or that we had worked to build, and I think we did a great job of that.”
Chubby Checker, whose “The Twist” was a global smash in 1960, has been eligible for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame since the first class was inducted in 1986, but he was never even nominated until this year. Despite having been ignored for decades, he made it in his first time on the ballot.
So did first-time nominees Bad Company, Joe Cocker and Outkast, as well as Cyndi Lauper and The White Stripes, who had each been nominated once before, and Soundgarden, which had been nominated twice before. These seven acts were all inducted in the performer category.
The inductees were announced by Ryan Seacrest on ABC’s American Idol on Sunday night (April 27).
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There are six other inductees this year in other categories. Salt-N-Pepa and Warren Zevon are set to receive the musical influence award; Philly Soul producer Thom Bell, English studio pianist/organist Nicky Hopkins and studio bass guitarist Carole Kaye (who was part of the fabled Wrecking Crew of top L.A. studio musicians) will receive the musical excellence award; and producer and label executive Lenny Waronker will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
Sadly, several of these people didn’t live to see their inductions. Hopkins died in 1994 at age 50; Zevon in 2003 at 56; Chris Cornell of Soundgarden in 2017 at 52; and Bell in 2022 at 79.
Checker had to wait even longer for induction than Cher, who was finally inducted last year, 59 years after Sonny & Cher’s breakthrough smash “I Got You Babe.”
With Outkast and Salt-N-Pepa both being inducted this year, this is the sixth consecutive year that one or more rap acts has been in the induction class.
With Lauper, Salt-N-Pepa, Meg White of The White Stripes and Carol Kaye being inducted this year, this is the fourth consecutive year that four or more female acts were in the induction class.
Bell won the first Grammy Award ever presented for producer of the year, non-classical, in 1975. By coincidence, Waronker was among the other nominees in the category that year. Waronker was also nominated for record of the year that year for producing Maria Muldaur’s classy and sexy “Midnight at the Oasis.” Waronker’s many other hits as a producer include Gordon Lightfoot’s Hot 100-topping “Sundown,” Rickie Lee Jones’ “Chuck E.’s in Love” and Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” which Dawes performed as the opening song on this year’s Grammy telecast.
Carol Kaye, 90, is this year’s oldest inductee. Checker and Waronker are both 83, but will both be 84 by the time of the Nov. 8 induction ceremony.
All of the artists who were induced in the performer category have landed top five albums on the Billboard 200. Three of them reached No. 1: Bad Company (Bad Company, 1974), Outkast (Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, 2003) and Soundgarden (Superunknown, 1994). Three more reached No. 2: Chubby Checker (Your Twist Party, 1962), Joe Cocker (Mad Dogs and Englishmen, 1970) and The White Stripes (Icky Thump, 2007). Lauper climbed as high as No. 4 twice, with She’s So Unusual in 1984 and True Colors in 1986.
Both of the artists who are receiving musical influence awards made the top 10. Salt-N-Pepa reached No. 4 with Very Necessary in 1994. Zevon hit No. 8 with Excitable Boy in 1978.
Lauper won the Grammy for best new artist in 1985. She’s the sixth artist who was a past winner of that award to go on to a Rock Hall induction.
Outkast won the Grammy for album of the year in 2004 for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. André 3000 was nominated again in that category at this year’s ceremony for New Blue Sun.
Two of the inducted acts are duos – Outkast (André 3000 and Big Boi) and The White Stripes (Jack White and Meg White).
The other seven nominees in the performer category were denied admission to the Rock Hall – this year, anyway. Oasis and Mariah Carey were both passed over for the second year in a row. Both were surprising snubs – Oasis is reuniting for a global tour in 2025; Carey’s profile, never low, has been boosted in recent years by her status as the uncontested Queen of Christmas. Of the other passed-over artists, Joy Division/New Order were previously on the ballot in 2023; this was the first time on the ballot for The Black Crowes, Billy Idol, Maná and Phish.
The voters showed no love for brother acts this year. Oasis includes Liam and Noel Gallagher; The Black Crowes includes Chris and Rich Robinson.
Maná was vying to become the first rock en español act to make the Rock Hall. Joy Division/New Order was vying to join the short list of two related acts being inducted in tandem, following Parliament/Funkadelic in 1997 and The Small Faces/Faces in 2012.
Phish, which won this year’s fan vote, has never landed a Hot 100 hit, but the band is a powerhouse live attraction, as evidenced when it played the Sphere in Las Vegas in April 2024.
Idol was a mainstay of early MTV – as was Lauper, who did get in. In an interview with Vulture, Idol said of his guitarist Steve Stevens, “Because of our special relationship, if I get in, they will induct him as well.” This would have echoed Pat Benatar’s induction three years ago, where the Rock Hall inducted both Benatar and her husband and musical partner, Neil Giraldo. But it’s academic, as Idol didn’t make it this year.
The 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction will be live on Saturday, Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater at L.A. Live in Los Angeles. The 2025 ceremony will once again stream live on Disney+, with a special airing on ABC at a later date and available on Hulu the next day. The 2024 ceremony aired on New Year’s Day.
Here’s the full list of 2025 inductees:
Performer Category
Bad Company
Chubby Checker
Joe Cocker
Cyndi Lauper
Outkast
Soundgarden
The White Stripes
Musical Influence Award
Salt-N-Pepa
Warren Zevon
Musical Excellence Award
Thom Bell
Nicky Hopkins
Carol Kaye
Ahmet Ertegun Award
Lenny Waronker