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Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan said he is among the nearly 200,000 people in Los Angeles who’ve been forced to evacuate due to the historic wildfires burning around the city. The singer/guitarist posted a video on Thursday night (Jan. 9) of airtankers flying over the hills dropping water on a giant plume of white smoke in the distance.
“Footage I shot the other night of a fire near where we’d been temporarily staying,” wrote Corgan. “High praise for how the LAFD put this out; as the fire had spread from what you see here to the right and down the ridge. Please pray for everyone who has been hurt or displaced or lost homes and properties in this unprecedented situation.”
In an earlier selfie video, Corgan shifted the camera over his shoulder and noted that the white puffs behind him were not clouds, but smoke from the fires that have killed 10 people to date while destroying more than 10,000 homes and businesses and causing an estimated $57 billion in damage.
“I wanted to kind of give everyone a little message today, I’m feeling better. Thank you for all your well wishes,” Corgan said. “I’m out here in LA right now, and it’s kind of the apocalypse. I think about 1,000 structures built burned last night. People I know I’ve had to evacuate and it’s a pretty intense situation.”
Corgan noted that he and his family were safe where they were staying, seemingly out of the “zone of concern” in the midst of a number of raging fires (Hollywood Hills, Pasadena, Altadena, Sylmar, Calabasas) that are barely contained and which have been whipped up by near-hurricane strength Santa Ana winds in the city that has seen a fraction of an inch of rain over the past six months.
“We lost power last night and that was pretty intense because obviously, with the power out, it’s hard to get information and you know, you’re kind of almost fearful of going to bed, lest you miss an alert or something,” the Chicago-bred Corgan continued. “With this dry brush, the fires can move very quickly. So lots of love, of course, to all our friends and family that have been affected. The air quality where I’m at is not too bad. It hasn’t helped the recovering cough, but this at very minor against all this incredible and fearful devastation. So just wanted to give everyone an update, as I get tired of texting or writing things out, just seemed easier to put this in a video. So lots of love. Check in with you later.”
In the accompanying caption, Corgan also noted that he and his family had to evacuate the night before amid a situation he said was “at times chaotic,” revealing that one fire came within 250 yards of where they were staying. He also sent his thanks and love to the first responders who are tirelessly working to save homes and citizens in what has been described by many as an apocalyptic situation.
“Praying for everyone today as hopefully this can come under control for the entire area, which is vast in scope and so full of nature. The loss overall is awful and unspeakable and that is what I wish to highlight; as the fires touch every strata of society,” Corgan wrote.
The fast-spreading fires obliterated the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, with a growing list of celebrities sharing that their homes have been completely destroyed, including Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton, Tina Knowles, Diane Warren, Eugene Levy, Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag, Jhené Aiko, Milo Ventimiglia, Adam Brody and Leighton Meester, Billy Crystal, Brad Paisley and Anna Faris joining tens of thousands of others who’ve been displaced or lost their homes.
The Recording Academy and MusiCares have launched the Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort to support music professionals impacted by the crisis, making a combined pledge of $1 million to launch the effort.
See Corgan’s posts below.
Cast recordings are a crucial part of supporting a musical’s life, during its initial run on or off-Broadway, as well as far beyond that. While a show is running, a recording available on streaming platforms can reach a wide ticket-buying audience and thus potentially help increase its performing lifespan; the recording is also often the way that regional theaters first discover shows they might produce — which proves especially important to shows that have shorter lives on Broadway.
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But while shows have ample platforms for releasing their original cast recordings — from boutique labels specializing in theater to major labels getting in on the next big hit — a trio of journeyman theater musicians noticed a gaping hole in the market for a new kind of label: one that would support a show from its earliest writing stages all the way through is fully realized production.
That new label — aimed at amplifying new voices in musical theater as well as individual solo performers — is Joy Machine Records, co-founded and run by Ian Kagey, Sonny Paladino, Brian Usifer and Will Van Dyke.
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The quartet have musical theater bonafides in spades. Kagey is a Grammy-winning engineer and mixer who has engineered numerous Broadway cast recordings in addition to working in TV, film, and with artists including Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney; Paladino is a seasoned arranger and producer who most recently was music supervisor, arranger, orchestrator and conductor for Neil Diamond bio-musical A Beautiful Noise; Usifer is an orchestrator, arranger, music director, pianist, producer and composer who recently worked on the acclaimed (but short-lived) Swept Away and Huey Lewis’ The Heart of Rock and Roll musical; and Van Dyke is a Grammy-nominated producer, songwriter, music supervisor, orchestrator and arranger who was music director of Swept Away and is music supervisor/orchestrator/arranger for the long-running off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors.
“Our approach comes from our experience being on many sides of the table in that process, and understanding what it takes to see a show from inception through opening night and beyond,” says Usifer. “We approach every project with not only a high bar musically but an emphasis on kindness and transparency throughout the process.”
Joy Machine, which will be distributed by The Orchard, is launched as a full-service record label which will offer what it calls “three tiers of support for musical development.” As Van Dyke explains, “from the first piano/vocal demos through fully produced tracks,” Joy Machine’s team will “help producers think about budgeting for these recordings from the jump. That kind of awareness will also help teams build a cast recording into their budget to be able to fully preserve their final product.”
The label’s current and upcoming client roster includes The Avett Brothers’ original Broadway cast recording of Swept Away; Huey Lewis’ OBCR of The Heart of Rock and Roll; and solo projects with Joy Woods (currently starring as Louise in Gypsy on Broadway), composer Joe Iconis (Be More Chill), Corey Cott (a star of The Heart of Rock and Roll) and more.
Thus far, the team has recorded at Kagey’s own Renaissance Recording in New York for demos and smaller concept albums, and at the storied Power Station studios for original Broadway cast albums. (“They really know how to make a cast album and make it a seamless and un-chaotic experience,” says Usifer of the latter). Joy Machine is currently working on a concept album for the new musical Joy, meant to give audiences an insight into the show’s music before it ventures to Broadway.
01/10/2025
From international superstars to that Oasis reunion, it’s set to be a busy year for music lovers.
01/10/2025
There are a raft of unknowns about the upcoming Oasis reunion tour. We know that the battling Gallagher brothers have buried the hatchet and will be hitting the road around the world starting on July 4 for their first shows since 2009. But at this point we still have no idea who else will be joining singer Liam Gallagher and guitarist/songwriter and occasional vocalist Noel Gallagher, whether there will be new music from the siblings or what songs the duo will play when they hit the stage for one of the most anticipated get-backs of the decade.
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Well, now we (sort of) have a sense of which of their most iconic tracks might make the cut. Eschewing his typically snarky reaction to unsolicited speculation about the tour from fans, on Tuesday Liam gave a dream setlist posted on X a half thumbs-up.
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“It’s not far off,” Gallagher said of the question asking “is this setlist official?” The unsolicited rundown was filled with the roster of hits and fan favorites you’d expect, 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.”
Of course, there were some biggies missing from the rundown, including one of the band’s most beloved tracks, “Wonderwall,” as well as “D’You Know What I Mean,” “Roll With It” and “Go Let It Out.” In a follow, the same fan asked, “Liam Which solo song of yours would you include in the oasis live setlist if you could?”
Hopping right back into character, Liam gave a terse, one-word response: “None.”
In December, equally stoic older brother Noel tapped the brakes on suggestions that the tour might devolve into the type of haymaker-throwing, petulant chaos of the past, which at one point found a purportedly sick Liam sitting in the audience and heckling his brother after declining to participate in the band’s MTV Unplugged recording in London in 1996.
“No, it won’t be as raucous as back in the day, because we’re on the wrong side of 50 now, so we’re too old,” Noel said. “We’re too old to give a s–t now, so there won’t be any fallouts, there won’t be any fighting. It’s a lap of honour for the band.”
To date, Oasis have announced 41 dates on their reunion Live ’25 outing, which will launch with a run of stadium dates in the U.K., followed by a North American run in August and September and dates in Asia in October, before moving on to Australia and South America; the tour is currently slated to wrap-up with a Nov. 23 date at Estadio MorumBIS in São Paulo, Brazil.
See the dream setlist below.
Many bands that rose to prominence in the ‘80s have turned into oldies bands, tied to a moment in history and profiting from fans’ love for nostalgia. Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith of Tears for Fears haven’t fallen into the stagnant rut that has captured so many of their contemporaries. More than four decades after forming in Bath, England, in 1981, Tears for Fears is producing some of its best material.
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Orzabal and Smith began their creative resurgence in 2022 with their first studio album in nearly 18 years, The Tipping Point, which reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales and Top Alternative Albums charts. In October, the band continued its hot streak by releasing four new songs as part of a live album, Songs for a Nervous Planet.
“It’s because we care,” Smith tells Billboard‘s Behind the Setlist podcast when explaining the caliber of the band’s recent songwriting and recordings. “We don’t want to do bad work. We still have a desire to get better. I don’t think that’s ever going to leave us. We look at other artists and still wish we were that good. That will never leave us, because we’re never going to become that good, I don’t think. There’s always going to be someone that’s better than us, without question. So when you still have that desire, you’re going to continue to do good work because you are continuing to try and achieve something better than you’ve done before. And that’s what keeps us going.”
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Songs for a Nervous Planet is the audio complement to a live concert film, Tears for Fears Live (A Tipping Point Film), that was given a brief release in theaters in October before being made available online. Recorded at the FirstBank Amphitheater — a former quarry that provides a spectacular backdrop — in Franklin, Tenn., the film captures the band performing at the top of its game. “Everyone that had come to see the show said it was amazing,” says Smith. “We get a limited view of it because we’re looking the other way. So we agreed to record it. And the reason being that we felt the band was the strongest they’d ever been — or we had ever been, should I say. And we were playing great. We sounded great. We were singing better than we ever had, playing better than we ever had. So it seemed like a good time to do it.”
The four new songs make Songs From a Nervous Planet, as Smith puts it, more like an EP with 18 live bonus tracks rather than a live album with a few new songs. “The record company wanted us to do a couple new tracks,” says Smith. “We felt that was kind of a way of saying, ‘Add some throwaway tracks.’”
Instead, they went into the studio and emerged with “four tracks that we felt really strongly about,” says Smith. The Songs for a Nervous Planet opener, “Say Goodbye to Mum and Dad,” perfectly captures the political and environmental tension of the day (“It’s no life, this island of fear/ When tomorrow comes, we’ll brave the wild frontier”). “The Girl That I Call Home” is a love song for Orzabal’s wife with a catchy melody (“Princes adore you/ They cower before you/ You’re the girl that I call home”). The stirring “Emily Said” is classic Tears for Fears: a complex song structure that doesn’t distract or become superfluous.
To Orzabal, the new songs “hold up brilliantly” to the band’s deep catalog of beloved songs that includes “Mad World” from the 1983 debut The Hurting and “Shout” from the U.S. chart-topping 1985 album Songs From the Big Chair. He’s particularly proud of “Astronaut,” a song that mixes disillusionment with a space travel theme (“I don’t belong here/ I got one eye on a different world”), which didn’t make the cut for The Tipping Point. “It didn’t quite fit, for whatever reason just didn’t feel right,” says Smith. “A lot of these things are not easy to articulate, because it’s just a feeling you have of what works, what doesn’t work.”
But “Astronaut” was “perfect” for Songs for a Nervous Planet, says Orzabal. “The whole imagery of the astronaut and the field of sunflowers [seen on the album cover], the continuity in the videos with the astronaut and his girlfriend, always featuring them, is superb.” In a couple decades, he adds, “Astronaut” will be “a huge hit for someone — not us, but for someone.”
Listen to the interview with Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith in the embedded Spotify player below, or listen at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeart, PodBean or Everand.
This summer’s Bonnaroo Festival will feature headline sets from Luke Combs, Tyler, the Creator, Olivia Rodrigo and Hozier. The June 12-15 mega fest on the ‘Roo Farm in Manchester, TN will also feature sets from John Summit, Dom Dolla, Avril Lavigne, Glass Animals, Vampire Weekend, Justice, Queens of the Stone Age and an “Insanely Fire 1970’s Pool Party” SuperJam curated by Remi Wolf.
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This year’s edition will also introduce the first-ever ‘Roo Residency, which will find prolific Australian rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard playing three sets over three days. Also performing on the fest’s 10 stages over four days: Marcus King, Insane Clown Posse, Goose, The Red Clay Strays, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Megadeth, Wallows, Foster the People, Nelly, GloRilla, Mt. Joy, RL Grime, Beabadoobee, Tyla, MJ Lenderman, Modest Mouse, Raye, Royel Otis, Dispatch, Aly & AJ, Action Bronson, Role Model, Natasha Bedingfield and BossMan Dlow, among many others.
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Tickets for the festival will go on sale on Thursday (Jan. 9) beginning at 10 a.m. CT exclusively here, with guaranteed lowest-priced tickets available during the first hour of sales (10-11 a.m. CT). In addition, fans looking for a heightened experience can opt for GA+ tickets, with unlimited access to the Centeroo GA+ lounge, as well as VIP and Platinum options featuring close-in and on-field viewing areas and other perks; click here for more information on VIP and Platinum tickets.
Among the new elements added this year is the “Infinity Stage,” described as a “one-of-a-kind” venue created in partnership with Polygon Live that will feature “spatial sound, synchronized lights and an unprecedented three-dome, open-air design to create the world’s largest, most immersive 360-degree live music experience.”
Check out the full Bonnaroo 2025 lineup below.
Alt-folk duo The Lumineers have announced that the release date for their upcoming fifth studio album, Automatic, which is due out on February 14 on Dualtone. The Denver group comprised of singer/guitarist Wesley Schultz and drummer Jeremiah Fraites previewed their follow-up to 2022’s Brightside on Tuesday (Jan. 7) with the LP’s rollicking first single, “Same Old Song.”
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“Hey Mama would you pay my rent/ Would you let me crash in your basement/ ‘Cause anyone of us could make it big or could end up dead on the pavement/ And if i was to die/ If the plane went down and you survived,” Schultz sings over Fraites’ insistent, metronomic beat.
The track then soars to a yearning, aching peak on the chorus, on which Schultz keens, “Same old song/ We sing the same old song/ We sing the same old, same old song.” The song’s release was accompanied by a video directed by filmmaker Anaïs LaRocca (Hundred Waters), in which the pair perform it on a soundstage backed by evocative VHS-like videos echoing the lyrics.
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In a statement announcing the album, Schultz said it marks 20 years of his songwriting partnership with Fraites. “The album explores some of the absurdities of the modern world, like the increasingly blurry line between what’s real and what’s not, and the variety of ways we numb ourselves while trying to combat both boredom and overstimulation,” he said, noting that the LP was recorded in “less than a month.”
The statement adds that the album will find the duo “traveling new sonic and thematic terrain with their most raw and personal collection thus far.” It notes that it was recorded with Woodstock, NY-based producer/songwriter/ keyboardist David Baron, who “outfitted Woodstock’s Utopia studio like the legendary Abbey Road facility, installing both vintage and cutting-edge gear,” where the pair performed the song “as a unit, leaving fewer opportunities to fix mistakes, or refine the sound.”
To capture that live magic, they outfitted the studio with two sets of drums, three pianos and an array of amps, guitars and vocal mics, “allowing the musicians to pivot and capture as much as possible with minimal delay.”
The Lumineers are slated to kick off the tour in support of the album on Saturday (Jan. 11) with a gig at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA at the iHeartRadio ALTer EGO show, followed by their own headlining gig at the Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, ON on February 16.
Watch the “Same Old Song” video and check out the Automatic track list below.
Automatic track list:
“Same Old Song”
“Asshole”
“Strings”
“Automatic”
“You’re All I’ve Got”
“Plasticine”
“Ativan”
“Keys on the Table”
“Better Day”
“Sunflowers”
“So Long”
It’s T-minus 177 days until the kick-off of Oasis‘ eagerly anticipated reunion tour (but who’s counting?). And while we still don’t know if the formerly battling Gallagher brothers will release any new music to coincide with their first dates in over 16 years, guitarist, sometimes singer and songwriter Noel Gallagher will be back in our ears soon courtesy of his contribution to the latest track from the British supergroup Mantra of the Cosmos.
In the follow-up to their debut 2023 single, “Gorilla Guerilla,” the group featuring Happy Mondays/Black Grape members singer Shaun Ryder and dancer/maracas player Bez, Who/Oasis drummer Zak Starkey and Ride/Oasis guitarist Andy Bell, will drop “Domino Bones (Get Dangerous)” on January 19.
The song — which is credited as “featuring Noel Gallagher” — will debut on that date at the legendary Cavern Club in Liverpool, when the band’s members will perform it live for the first time. The single will be sold exclusively at their Cavern Club appearances in the form of a limited-edition 7″ red or blue vinyl single.
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“Just when you thought pop music had got a bit too sensible, a bit too clean and tidy, a bit too safe, then maverick spirits collide and create something as devilish and delicious as you would have hoped and prayed for… That something is Mantra of The Cosmos; the new supergroup comprising some of the most influential British artists of the last 30 years,” reads a statement from the club. “We are delighted to be hosting the band for two special shows to kick off the new year in style.”
The group is slated to perform afternoon and evening shows on the 19th, which will also feature DJ sets from Bez and Bell, though at press time it was unclear if Gallagher will join them for the gigs. According to NME, Gallagher described the group as “like Dylan, Dali and [Allen] Ginsberg on a rocket ship to the moon to have it with the Clangers.”
Starkey — son of Beatles legend Ringo Starr and a veteran drummer who has also played with the Lightning Seeds, Johnny Marr and the Healers and his dad’s All-Starr Band — said the new six-minute song that is named after Bez’s first band is like “‘Free Bird’ for Mods,” in reference to the iconic Lynyrd Skynyrd jam. The magazine said Gallagher provides vocals on the chorus, with Ryder taking on the verses, Starkey on drums, guitar, bass and keyboards and Bell ripping an extended guitar solo.
“It’s not every day that the greatest songwriter of my generation – not to mention Shaun, the greatest beat poet of our times – sends a tune to me, and I was in a daze for a bit cos it’s not something you want to f–k up! It came together great – everyone digs it!” said Starkey, who played on Oasis’ last two studio albums, 2005’s Don’t Believe the Truth and 2008’s Dig Your Own Soul. “Noel loves Shaun. He texted me to say: ‘Do you know what you’ve got? The British Bob Dylan’ – and he’s not f–king about because now I’ve witnessed what Shaun does. Noel calls him the ‘king of lyrics.’”
The gigs will be a kind of homecoming for Starkey, as the Beatles famously got their start playing gigs at the Cavern Club, though, ironically, despite his years of gigging, he’s never been there. “There’s a great deal of family heritage at the Cavern aside from the Beatles my parents courted there… who knows I may have even been conceived there,” Starkey said.
In addition to “Gorilla Guerilla,” to date Mantra of the Cosmos has also released the single “X (Wot You Saying?),” performing both songs during their Glastonbury Festival debut in 2023. According to NME, there are more singles from the group due out this year.
The Oasis Live ’25 tour is scheduled to kick off on July 4 at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales and is currently slated to wrap on November 23 in Estádio do Morumbi in São Paulo, Brazil.
The BeachLife festival is returning with another eclectic lineup and plans to open a permanent venue inside of its beachfront footprint.
The six-year-old festival celebrating Los Angeles’ oceanside South Bay neighborhoods returns May 2-4 with top headliners Lenny Kravitz, Sublime and Alanis Morissette. Beachlife is Kravitz’s first show in California since 2019 and precedes a recently announced five-show Las Vegas residency Aug. 1-9 at Dolby Live. Also booked on the bill are Train, O.A.R., Pretenders, CAKE, Mt. Joy, Jackson Browne, The Beach Boys, Marcus King, Aloe Blacc, Sugar Ray and more.
“We are especially excited this year to announce what we believe is a truly unique lineup and experience in music festivals — curated not by genre, but by culture, vibe, and that feeling of enjoying the beachlife with friends,” says festival founder and owner Allen Sanford in a statement provided to Billboard. “We have something for everyone, from world-recognized superstars to local celebrity, and every artist on this lineup has a reason and a story on how they connected with BeachLife Festival.”
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This year’s festival will also include the opening of the California Surf Club, a 21,000 square-foot restaurant and membership-driven music club located on the beachfront festival grounds. Slated to open in February, the California Surf Club is a bar, grill and music venue that overlooks the main during BeachLife.
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This year, the festival will launch Captain’s Plus, a new ticket experience which will include an opportunity to dine at the California Surf Club during the festival and enjoy a meal crafted by the venue’s award-winning chefs. The California Surf Club is divided into two buildings — one serving as a public-facing restaurant/bar and the other a membership-based club.
Tickets for the BeachLife Festival are on sale now at the festival’s website. GA tickets start at $169 for a one-day pass and $409 for a three-day pass.
See the lineup for the BeachLife Festival below:
BeachLife Festival
Courtesy Photo
My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way is expanding his artistic profile in another new direction. The emo band’s singer and creator of the comic-book-turned-Netflix-series The Umbrella Academy will be one of the voices of an upcoming Stern Pinball machine honoring the 50th anniversary of OG role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
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The news was announced over the weekend by Stern in an Instagram post promising that pinheads across the world will be “brought on an epic and thrilling journey as they adventure into the forgotten realms, featuring iconic enemies including a red dragon, gelatinous cube, mimic, Sammaster the lich, Xanathar the beholder, an owlbear, and locations including those in Faerun such as Arabel and Westgate.”
Plus, the game will feature what Stern calls the “most advanced animatronic dragon in pinball, Wrath the relentless,” who “breathes fire” by coughing up pinballs.
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In addition to Way’s unspecified role, the Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye game will feature music by beloved video game composter Cris Velasco (Battlezone, Borderlands), as well as voice work from Clerks director Kevin Smith, Star Trek actor Michael Dorn, game designer Luke Gygax (The Lost City of Gaxmoor), director Chris Prynoski (Metalocalypse), Dethklok singer and actor/comedian Brendon Small and video game voice actors Matthew Mercer (Final Fantasy VII Rebirth) and Laura Bailey (Mass Effect 3) among others.
The comments on Stern’s post were a testament to how geeked players are for Way’s contribution to the game, with a number dying to know what character he plays, while others commented, “GERARD!!!!,” “I’m Not Okay [three fire emoji]” and “Gerard way??? As in thee Gerard way??? As in my chemical romance Gerard Way? As in comic book creator Gerard way??? As in the artist Gerard wayyy?? AS IN MY IDOL!!!”
At press time Way had not confirmed his role in the game.
The contribution from Way adds to Stern’s expansive rock-related game games, which include ones dedicated to Metallica, Iron Maiden, Rush and the Foo Fighters.
Check out the D&D announcement below.