State Champ Radio Rock
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John Mayer is opening up about the possibility of marriage. During a recent episode of Kelly Rizzo’s Comfort Food podcast, the 46-year-old musician — who’s former girlfriends include Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Aniston and Cameron Diaz — revealed whether he’s interested in settling down someday and what he’s looking for in a […]
Calling all Smashing Pumpkins fans: You have a chance to become a member of the band. On Friday (Jan. 5), the rock band took to Instagram to announce an open audition process to replace former guitarist Jeff Schroeder — meaning anyone, including fans, can apply. “The Smashing Pumpkins are in search an additional guitarist. The […]
Corey Taylor has cancelled his previously announced North American solo tour. The Slipknot frontman took to Instagram on Friday (Jan. 5) to reveal the news, citing struggles with his mental and physical health. “For the past several months my mental and physical health have been breaking down, and I reached a place that was unhealthy […]
Billy Joel will spend 2024 on the road with some good friends, with the Piano Man slated to hit a number of stadiums across the U.S. with Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and Sting in between his ongoing residency at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Joel announced the new gigs on Thursday (Jan. 4), which he […]
Paramore announced Thursday (Jan. 4) that they are dropping out of this year’s iHeartRadio ALTer EGO show “due to unforeseen circumstances.” “The band apologizes for any inconvenience,” the group wrote in their statement on Instagram Stories, which you can read here. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Other than […]
Travis Barker and Alabama Barker had the ultimate father-daughter hangout on Wednesday night (Jan. 3), as the duo got inked up together. The rocker’s 18-year-old daughter took to her Instagram Stories to share a photo of her dad getting his tattoo done. while she sat and waited for her turn. “Tatted together,” Alabama captioned the […]
More than half a century after his first comeback, Elvis Presley is combing back, again. U.K. company Layered Reality announced this week that it is prepping an holographic AI concert special entitled “Elvis Evolution” that is slated to debut in London in November.
In a statement announcing the special event, immersive experience specialists (The Gunpowder Plot) Layered Reality promise that the mind-blowing “concert finale” featuring the King of Rock will feature a “jaw-dropping” performance and a “personal invite to the After Party.”
“The show peaks with a concert experience that will recreate the seismic impact of seeing Elvis live for a whole new generation of fans, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy,” reads a statement announcing the show. “A life sized digital Elvis will share his most iconic songs and moves for the very first time on a UK stage.”
The show promises to use Layered Reality’s patented blend of “technology, augmented reality, theatre, projection and multi-sensory effects” to reproduce the late rock icon for his first-ever shows outside of North America nearly half a century after Presley’s 1977 death.
“Elvis fans can look forward to a memory-making experience like no other. Through AI and groundbreaking tech you’ll be able to witness iconic Elvis performances as if you were really there, and celebrate defining moments in Elvis Presley’s extraordinary life and career,” the statement continues. “After the show, the central London venue will also host an After Party at its ELVIS-themed restaurant and bar with live music, DJs and performances.”
At press time the name of the London venue hosting the event had not yet been revealed. In a video tease, Layered Reality founder and CEO Andrew McGuinness promised that the show will go on a global tour after its London debut — reportedly hitting Las Vegas, Berlin and Tokyo as well — following a deal reached with the owner of the Presley estate, Authentic Brands Group.
“You’re going to go on a journey and really understand what Elvis went through during his life,” McGuinness said. “The end of this experience is a real crescendo, where you’ll see a life-sized Elvis in AI perform some of his biggest hits.” The Elvis AI show will follow on the heels of the hit London show “ABBA Voyage,” which digitally recreated the beloved Swedish pop band via digital avatars.
One of the best-selling artists in music history with over 500 million records sold worldwide, Elvis, who died at 42, has been everywhere over the past two years thanks to Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated biopic Elvis and Sofia Coppola’s Golden Globe-nominated Priscilla. The rock legend was also back in the Billboard Hot 100 top 20 over the Christmas holiday when his 1957 classic “Blue Christmas” hit No. 18 on the chart dated Jan. 6, 2024, marking the first time one of his songs has has charted since “Way Down” peaked at No. 18 in Oct. 1977.
Watch the preview clip below.
Rage Against The Machine fans will need to find another outlet to release their anger, because the ‘90s rock legends won’t be playing live again.
That’s according to comments posted by drummer Brad Wilk, and shared widely by RATM’s official X (formerly Twitter) page late Wednesday (Jan. 3).
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RATM pushes out a news story published by Blabbermouth and based on comments made by Wilk, who insists the band “will not be touring or playing live again.”
Earlier, Wilk shared his thoughts on Instagram. “I know a lot of people are waiting for us to announce new tour dates for all the canceled RATM shows. I don’t want to string people or myself along any further,” he writes.
“So while there has been some communication that this may be happening in the future… I want to let you know that RATM (Tim, Zack, Tom and I) will not be touring or playing live again.
“I’m sorry for those of you who have been waiting for this to happen. I really wish it was…”
RATM’s post is a curious one which, at the time of writing, wasn’t shared to the rockers’ Facebook or Instagram pages and fails to mention whether recording projects are still in the cards. Bandmates Zack de la Rocha (vocals), bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford (bass) and Tom Morello (guitar) have not commented.
The L.A. group was finally tapped for the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, after five tries. Internal band issues were obvious then; Morello was the only member to attend the induction ceremony at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
RATM released just four albums during their initial 1991-2000 run before reforming for live dates from 2007-2011 and again in 2019 for a string of shows that were first interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by de la Rocha’s leg injury.
LPs Evil Empire (from 1996) and The Battle Of Los Angeles (1999) both peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
RATM has made eight total appearances on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay, with three songs in the top 10 (all in 2000), including “Guerrilla Radio,” which peaked at No. 69 on the Hot 100.
Few songs, however, have the power and fury of RATM’s signature song from 1992, “Killing In The Name,” a record that connected with youths everywhere and sprayed enough energy to enable them run through walls.
When their name was called out for induction into the Rock Hall class of ’23, the band recounted, by way of a statement, how they put their rage into action.
They were, the statement reads, “A band who shut down the NY Stock Exchange for the first time in its history.
“A band who was targeted by police organizations who attempted to ban us from sold out arenas for raising our voices to free Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier and other political prisoners
“A band who sued the US State Department for their fascist practice of using our music to torture innocent men in Guantanamo Bay.”
And, “a band who wrote rebel songs in an abandoned, industrial warehouse in the valley that would later dethrone Simon Cowell ’s X Factor pop monopoly to occupy the number 1 spot on the UK charts and have the most downloaded song in U.K. history.”
It’s now an amusing piece of U.K. chart history that, following a public campaign, “Killing In The Name” became 2009’s coveted Christmas U.K. No. 1 – and in doing so killing the established tradition that the winner of X Factor would claim the prize.
Green Day kicked off 2024 in the most Green Day way possible: by taking another snarling lyrical swing at Donald Trump. The band tweaked the politically charged lyrics to the title track from their seventh studio album, 2004’s “American Idiot,” during their Sunday night (Dec. 31) set on ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest.
“I’m not part of the MAGA agenda,” singer Billie Joe Armstrong snarled from the stage, replacing the original line in which he stated that he was not part of the “redneck agenda”; click here to watch video of the moment. As the four-times indicted, twice impeached former president ping-pongs between court dates and campaign appearances, the latest lyrical slag from the veteran punk-pop trio was not a huge surprise.
Green Day have long spoken out about their disdain for the former reality star whose recent speeches have featured fascist-like phrases that have raised alarm among political pundits for referring to political opponents as “vermin,” language that echoed that used by Nazi leader Adolph Hitler. Back in 2019, the band didn’t hold back at the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, where they debuted the anti-MAGA line in “American Idiot.” At the 2016 American Music Awards Green Day took aim at the then president-elect while performing “Bang Bang,” where Armstrong chanted “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA,” in a nod to Trump’s endorsement by the KKK and the rise in racist attacks following his election.
As you might expect, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band who’ve proudly waved the flag of disdain for authority and authoritarianism for more than three decades drew the ire of some of those MAGA Nation followers, as well as X owner Elon Musk. “Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it,” the controversy-loving Tesla/SpaceX CEO tweeted.
Some of Trump’s MAGA minions joined Musk in denigrating the group, with one X poster calling them “punk rock sellouts,” while Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist director and Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo quipped “punk rock is pro big government” and right-wing troll Catturd wrote, “nothing says ‘punk rock’ like Government bootlicking, millionaire sellouts playing on ABC.”
The move should not come as any surprise considering that during their 2017 tour, Armstrong would often shout “F–k you, Donald Trump!” during performances of “American Idiot.” And, after Trump’s mugshot was released following his indictment for attempting to interfere with Georgia’s election process in the 2020 presidential race, GD released an “ultimate Nimrod” shirt with the scowling image of the one-term president on it as a benefit for the victims of last year’s devastating Maui wildfire.
There were, of course, plenty of GD supporters who applauded the band’s prime time takedown, with one noting that the original songs were aimed at another Republican commander-in-chief, George W. Bush during the Iraq War. “To the bi–hes b–ching: Green Day was never on your side. ‘American Idiot’ came out in 2004, who was president then? EXACTLY. That album was a middle finger to Dubya, you were just too stupid to realize it,” they wrote. Another wondered if those complaining about the Trump dump were ever really paying attention. “Why did Green Day have to insert politics into their performance of ‘American Idiot’ is a truly incredible sentence to read,” one X user wrote.
See Musk’s tweet below.
Green Day goes from raging against the machine to milquetoastedly raging for it 🤣🤣— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2024
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Members of the band Moe. said they were in a state of “profound shock and sadness” on Monday (Jan. 1) after a deadly car crash outside their New Year’s Eve show at the Kodak Center in Rochester, NY that killed several.
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According to WABC, police are investigating the incident as a possible act of terrorism. The incident took place around 12:50 a.m. as around 1,000 people were leaving the band’s Dec. 31 show. Rochester Police Department officers were helping fans navigate the crosswalk outside the venue in the early morning hours when a Ford Explorer ran into a Mitsubishi Outlander that was pulling out of a nearby parking lot.
The force of the crash reportedly caused the two vehicles to plow through a group of pedestrians as well as two other vehicles, with a large fire breaking out as a result that took nearly an hour to extinguish, according to the report. Once the fire was extinguished, first responders reportedly found at least a dozen gas canisters in and around the Expedition, prompting a response from the Rochester Police Department’s Bomb Squad and Joint Arson Task Force, as well as the FBI.
Two people in the Outlander were killed and the unnamed driver was taken to Rochester General Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, while a number of other pedestrians and a Rochester police officer were also struck by vehicles; one of the three pedestrians was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries while the other two are reportedly in non-life-threatening condition.
On Tuesday morning (Jan. 2), Syracuse.com reported that the total death toll had risen to three, including the alleged driver of the Expedition, whom the New York Post identified as Michael Avery, who reportedly died at 8 p.m. on Monday night.
The band released a statement in response to the crash, writing, “Last night’s events outside the Kodak Center have left us all in profound shock and sadness. On a night that was meant for celebration and togetherness, we are faced instead with a tragedy that defies understanding. Our hearts go out to the family and friends of those who lost their lives, and our thoughts are with those who were injured.”
Moe. thanked the first responders and venue staff for their “swift and courageous” actions securing the safety of fans, as well as their fans, the Famoe.ly, for their support and resilience. “In these moments of confusion and grief, we stand together in solidarity,” the note continued. “We believe in the power of music to heal and unite, and it is in this spirit that we will continue to move forward.”
According to WABC, at press time authorities were still not sure that the crash was a deliberate act of terrorism, but are investigating it as such until they can determine a cause of the accident. Law enforcement sources told the station that reported Expedition driver Avery was from Syracuse and that he drove his own vehicle to the Syracuse airport, where he rented an extra-large SUV. The Post additionally reported that Avery allegedly rented a hotel room in Rochester, where investigators are said to have found a suicide note.
At press time Billboard was unable to reach a spokesperson for the Rochester Police Department for additional information on the incident.
Investigators are reportedly combing through the Expedition driver’s social media, as well as interviewing friends and family in search of additional information that might provide clues about why there were so many gas canisters in the vehicle.
See the band’s full statement below.
