Rock
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In timing that was surely coincidental, iconic OG jam band the Grateful Dead unrolled their first post on TikTok on Thursday (April 20). The ultimate toker’s band celebrated the universally beloved smoker holiday with a compilation video of archival footage set to a live, remastered take of “St. Stephen” recorded at the legendary Fillmore West in San Francisco in 1969.
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The @gratefuldead account was launched in conjunction withe Rhino Entertainment and a release promises that it will “serve as an outlet to celebrate the decades of music, generations of community, and endless array of creativity that has woven the band and its fans into every new era of the world’s counterculture and consciousness.”
The first 30-second clip pulls together archival concert footage, candid scenes from “Shakedown Street,” handmade fan artwork and snippets of Deadheads spinning and showing off their customized vans. A release promises “much more exclusive content” in the offing on a near-daily basis in the future a month after the debut of the band’s music on TikTok in March, which allowed users to used the group’s recordings in their videos for the first time.
The Dead are just the latest heritage act to make their way to the TikTok universe, following on the heels of fellow old schoolers Pink Floyd, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, who’ve all joined since 2021. The GD spin-off band, Dead & Company, will play their final shows this summer, with the last gigs slated to take place at San Francisco’s Oracle Park on July 14-16.
Check out the first GD TikTok video here.
Someone call a doctor, because the price a bidder paid for Eddie Van Halen‘s iconic red, white and black-striped guitar from the “Hot For Teacher” video was sold for a song this week. According to auction house Sotheby’s, an unnamed bidder bought the instrument for $3,932,000 when the lot closed on Tuesday after bidding was initially estimated to land between $2-$3 million.
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“The legendary ‘Hot for Teacher’ stage used and filmed guitar, custom made by Paul Unkert of Kramer Guitars for Eddie Van Halen, including important innovations customized for Eddie’s evolving guitar technique,” the listing read in describing the instrument Sotheby’s dubbed “one of the most iconic guitars of the MTV era.”
For you six-string obsessives out there, the auction house dove deeper into the details of the instrument the late guitarist wielded in the salacious 1984 Van Halen video featuring the band members and their school-age doppelgängers lusting after their scantily clad instructors.
“Poplar double-cut ‘Strat’ style body, the top routed for a single double-coil Seymour Duncan humbucker pickup, volume control, Floyd Rose bridge with whammy bar, unvarnished 22 fret maple bolt-on neck (stamped ‘UNK’ on heel) with Kramer sticker on headstock, unvarnished body and headstock spray painted with Van Halen’s characteristic black and white abstract stripe design on a red ground,” it reads of the guitar EVH slashes at as he rips off one of his patented fleet-fingered solos while strolling across a row of desks.
But wait, there’s more. “Rear routed for the Floyd Rose’s three springs and stop, no pick guard or rear cover (as designed), screw holes on the back for Eddie Van Halen’s patented flip-up rest (for playing the guitar horizontally. Original case with tour and Warner Brothers tags.” The guitar, made of poplar wood, is believed to have been completed in 1982 and delivered to Van Halen in Jan. 1983, becoming his main instrument during 1983-1984.
As a bonus, the winning bidder also took home the white straitjacket and white gloves worn by Van Halen in the video. Van Halen died at 65 in Oct. 2020 after a long battle with cancer.
Watch the “Hot For Teacher” video below.
From its grim, cinematic observations about the apocalypse on opening track “Five Years” to the haunting reassurance that we’re not alone on concluding song “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a masterpiece that’s often hailed as one of the greatest albums of all time.
The glam rock classic, loosely based around the narrative of a red-headed, androgynous, extraterrestrial rock star, quickly elevated Bowie to superstar status in 1972. Fifty-one years later, Ziggy Stardust has received a spectacular reggae recasting: Ziggy Stardub, a new album by the Easy Star All-Stars, due April 21 on Easy Star Records. It’s the latest in the New York City-based independent’s series of reggae tributes to landmark rock and pop albums. Other titles include 2012’s Thrillah (based on Michael Jackson’s blockbuster Thriller) and the series’ best-selling release, 2003’s Dub Side of the Moon (inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon).
“Ziggy Stardub is like taking David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars band [bassist Trevor Bolden, guitarist Mick Ronson and the sole surviving member, drummer Michael “Woody” Woodmansey] on an airplane traveling back to Jamaica in the late 1970s; what would happen if we did that? People aren’t used to hearing music they are familiar with in a totally different light, but hopefully, they’ll come along for that ride with us,” explains Michael Goldwasser, the producer and arranger of Ziggy Stardub (and the other Easy Star tribute albums. Goldwasser is also a co-founder of Easy Star Records with Lem Oppenheimer, Eric Smith and Remy Gerstein, and is bandleader, producer and multi-instrumentalist for the Easy Star All-Stars). “All of our tributes start with great source material because it always comes down to the songs, and the great artists we work with.”
Each of the featured vocalists on Ziggy Stardub brings their distinctive styling to Bowie’s powerful, otherworldly lyrical imagery. British lover’s rock crooner Maxi Priest delivers a smooth, soul-inflected rendition of the “hazy cosmic jive” that is “Starman,” Ziggy Stardub’s first single; veteran Brooklyn/Jamaican singer Carlton Livingston’s joyous take on “Star” incorporates a rollicking ska tempo mixed with 1950s rock n’ roll; “Hang On To Yourself,” featuring Fishbone, Johnny Go Figure and Living Color’s Vernon Reid, fuses early digital dancehall sonics into soaring rock riffs; Macy Gray offers a gritty interpretation of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”; and British reggae band The Skints bring the requisite crunching guitars to “Ziggy Stardust.” Representing a younger generation of Jamaican singers, Mortimer’s exquisite vocals capture the essence of “Soul Love” and Naomi Cowan integrates a “rock and rollin’ bitch” persona into her gorgeously trippy reading of “Moonage Daydream,” complemented by Alex Lifeson’s blistering guitar lead.
As a teenager in England in the 1970s, David Hinds — lead singer/songwriter and founding member of Grammy-winning British reggae band Steel Pulse — describes David Bowie’s influence as inescapable. Even so, he never heard “Five Years” prior to Easy Star presenting it to him. To gain a greater understanding of Bowie’s artistry while recording the song, Hinds abandoned his usual approach to executing melody and syncopation. “Steel Pulse is all about rhyme, bounce, singing on a particular rhythm; with the Bowie song, it was about expressing word by word, phonic by phonic, syllable by syllable, without that being too overdone,” Hinds tells Billboard. “In making that effort, I experienced what Bowie was about, and I just hope justice was done to the song.” The restrained anger in Hinds’ vocals conveys Bowie’s striking, poetic vision of Armageddon, punctuated by the evocative lyric, “Five years, that’s all we got.”
Ostensibly, there’s little sonic overlap between reggae’s roots rock and British glam rock, yet Goldwasser’s nuanced, layered arrangements and crisp production create an expansive common ground, seamlessly meshing the originals’ celestial impressions with signature Jamaican sounds, including thunderous basslines, bubbling keyboards and flying cymbal drum patterns. “When working within the framework of a song with an established melody and harmonic structure, I consider what to include or interpolate; that’s why the tribute albums take longer than the original albums I have produced,” says Goldwasser. “I put in many interesting details to give the listener something different to focus on each time. I treat these tribute albums with reverence and humor: music should be fun, but I have reverence for the original material, and anyone listening will recognize both of those facets.”
Goldwasser’s admiration for the original songs and his meticulousness in transforming them into finely sculpted reggae tracks for Easy Star tribute albums has turned many rock fans into reggae enthusiasts. “Before the release of Dub Side of the Moon, we got hate from people on Pink Floyd and classic rock message boards who said things like ‘Dark Side of the Moon is sacred, how dare they?’ After the album came out, on those same message boards, people said ‘Easy Star did a great job.’ People have told me that listening to our tribute albums got them into reggae. That’s part of Easy Star’s mission: to break down barriers. If you can open your mind and your heart to different music, you can open your mind and your heart to different people.”
The Revivalists reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart for a third time with “Kid,” which jumps to the top of the April 22-dated survey.
The song is the band’s first leader since “All My Friends,” which ruled for three weeks in 2018.
Previously, the band led with “Wish I Knew You” for two weeks in 2016.
In between “Friends” and “Kid,” The Revivalists appeared on the chart twice, paced by the No. 2-peaking “Change,” the other of its four top 10s, in 2019.
Concurrently, “Kid” bullets at its No. 3 high on Alternative Airplay. There, it’s the band’s top-charting song since “Wish” ruled for a week in 2017; in between those hits, the group notched its other of three top 10s, “Friends,” which rose to No. 7.
On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “Kid” rises 5-4 with 4.1 million audience impressions, a 10% boost, according to Luminate. The band’s best is “Wish” which peaked at No. 2.
The Revivalists’ new Adult Alternative Airplay No. 1 follows the solo sojourn of lead singer David Shaw, who released an eponymous album in May 2021. “Shaken,” a song from the set, hit No. 21 on the chart that January. He told Billboard ahead of the project’s release, “From the beginning, this album was all about self-exploration and the joys that come from finding strength and confidence in places that might not have been accessible before.”
“Kid” is the lead single from Pour It Out Into the Night, The Revivalists’ upcoming fifth studio album and first since 2018’s Take Good Care. The new LP is due June 2.
Are you ready for some… emo?! The NFL announced on Wednesday (April 19) that Fall Out Boy will join metal legends Mötley Crüe and bass thumper Thundercat at next week’s NFL Draft Concert Series. The series of shows will take place next week at the 2023 NFL Draft in Kansas City from April 27-29.
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FOB will be first on the field, hitting the stage after the conclusion of the opening round of the draft on April 27, followed by the Crüe, who will headline after round 3 on April 28. Day three will feature bassist/singer Thundercat, during which the NFL said he will curate a special performance that will “pay tribute to the rich music history and the legacy of jazz in Kansas City.”
All the performances will take place at the Draft Theater in front of the city’s iconic Union Station. General admission fan viewing will be on a standing-room-only, first-come, first-served basis on the North Lawn of the National WWI Museum and Memorial; the lawn will stay open during the draft and for general fan viewing of the Draft Concert Series, which is free with registration.
The performances will be streamed in full here and live on the NFL Facebook and YouTube pages each night. Parts of the performances will also be televised on the NFL Network and ESPN.
Grammy-nominated singer and KC native Oleta Adams will perform the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” and country singer Brittney Spencer will sing the National Anthem live from downtown during the opening festivities. KC-based party band Lost Wax will be the house and at the Draft Theater and perform between draft selections each day.
When Richard Wayne Penniman died on May 9, 2020 of bone cancer, he had long retired from the public eye. COVID was gripping the nation and the world was in various stages of lockdown. At the age of 87, the pandemic gave the man better known as Little Richard a chance to once again grab the spotlight.
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With everyone at home and online, the news of his death introduced younger generations to the grandfather of rock and roll. His death also sparked interest in his life by producer, director and former label executive Lisa Cortés. She looked for films or documentaries on him and found… nothing. Shocked that such an iconic figure didn’t have one, she decided to make one.
The Academy Award nominee and Emmy Award-winning producer and director of documentaries such as All In: The Fight for Democracy (2020) and The Remix: Hip Hop Fashion (2019) is not new to filmmaking. Still, she questioned how to approach telling the story of a person who was larger than life.
“My process was to start with the source, which was Richard,” Cortés says, calling Billboard from a hotel room in Chicago. “I read his biography [The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Quasar of Rock by Charles White] which was a lot of fun and very colorful. One of the things that became very apparent as I was doing research was this idea that Richard put forth of not feeling that he received his due, his recognition for his contributions. I knew then that I wanted Richard to narrate his story. I wanted to give the microphone to Mr. Penniman. Specifically, to give him agency that he felt had been denied to him at times.”
Cortés’ film, Little Richard: I Am Everything, was acquired by Magnolia Pictures after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and begins streaming on Prime Video, Apple TV and several other platforms Friday (April 21). Its story is told through archival footage of Little Richard performances and interviews, as well as by those who knew and worked with him. The film follows him from his childhood in Macon, Georgia, through the many ups and downs of a long and storied career. It adeptly reveals the layers that influenced the person who became the performer no one could ignore. It is also the story of rock and roll’s birth, queer culture, and being a Black gay man in America.
“In making documentaries there’s always twist and turns, things that you find out — like being introduced to [pioneering transgender rights activist and performer] Sir Lady Java,” Cortés says. “In telling this story I did go into it with a desire to center his amazing contribution. Through research and our interviews and archival footage we show people that when he arrived on the scene in 1955, there was really no one like him. He might have been influenced by artists like Sister Rosetta Tharpe or Brother Joe May, or [Little Richard co-writer and piano player] Esquerita, but he brings innovation on multiple levels through his musicality, lyrics, through the way he dresses and presents himself, through the way he messes with gender fluidity.”
When she began her two-year journey of making the documentary, Cortés had the music and the visual of the man Little Richard presented. “But I didn’t know all of the things that made up Richard, and all of the people who he was generous with and helped,” she explains. These people included a young Jimi Hendrix, who played guitar in Richard’s band, as well as Richard introducing Billy Preston to the Beatles when they were in search of a keyboardist for their debut album, and in 1955, sending an unknown singer named James Brown to perform as Little Richard when he couldn’t. The latter stunt worked because people didn’t know yet what Little Richard looked like.
Cortés interviewed over two dozen people, including Mick Jagger, Billy Porter, John Waters and Tom Jones, as well as a number of scholars. “They’re there, as you can see in the film — oftentimes to be in conversation with him to question what he presents as fact — but we as an audience might have a different perspective on,” she says.
In allowing Little Richard to tell his story in the film, there was a theme that permeated throughout: Appropriation and obliteration.
“Why is it that we know Elvis and Pat Boone’s covers of ‘Tutti Frutti,’ and see Elvis as the King of Rock and Roll, and we don’t put Richard on that same platform?” Cortés wonders. “I’m interested in this idea of, ‘Why do we elevate an Elvis as a culture and not elevate a Little Richard?’ By not elevating a Little Richard, by the erasure of the tremendous scope of his innovation and cultural impact … it’s a discredit [to him].
“This film is like my testimony of, ‘This is why Little Richard is the bomb’ — because you might not know, but way back when, he started so many things that affect music and culture now,” she continues. “You do not have a Prince if you don’t have a Little Richard, and I would dare say you don’t have a Lil’ Nas X. These artists are incredible in their own right, but they are part of the progeny, the imagining of, ‘I’m going to be the prettiest person out there in my presentation.’ This intersectional… this interSEXional… conversation that he brings is still happening now. He is not in the past tense, and even though his physical being is no longer with us, he is still with us creatively and socially.”
Little Richard: I Am Everything – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be released on Varèse Sarabande Records digitally on June 16, with CD & LP releases to follow.
In March, Fever Ray released their first new album in over five years, Radical Romantics. The project arrived as a welcome return for the artist, also known as Swedish singer Karin Dreijer (half of the sibling duo The Knife), as they explore the idea of love by questioning, deconstructing and rebuilding the concept in their own intriguing way.
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Filled with 10 metallic synth-pop tracks, which see-saw between atmospheric and industrial, Radical Romantics follows Fever Ray’s 2017 album, the acclaimed Plunge. In support of the new set’s release, Fever Ray will set out on the There’s No Place I’d Rather Be Tour, their first trek since 2018. The U.S. leg kicks off May 1 in Washington, D.C.
In the latest edition of Billboard’s 20 questions, Fever Ray discusses their most memorable recent show at “a wonderful punk venue,” how they celebrated the album’s release (and who they dressed up as… spoiler: it’s from one of their music videos) and much more.
1. What’s the first piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
The first record I bought was a 7” with Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night.” I thought it was the best thing I’ve ever heard. I still like it.
2. What was the first concert you saw?
I don’t remember — my dad took me to some, I guess. But I went to my first festival when I was 15, Hultsfredsfestivalen, in 1990. 22 Pistepirkko I remember [them playing]. That was a great show.
3. Who made you realize you could be an artist full-time?
I guess I realized it myself when I started to make money out of it. I’ve done it the past 20 years now. Before that I had other jobs as well.
4. What was your first job?
I was cleaning hotel rooms.
5. Whose career path continues to inspire you most?
I think I get inspired by people who are passionate about what they do, who keep on learning new things, who understand how to combine work with relationships, friends, family and manages to take care of themselves. It can be in any profession.
6. How did your hometown shape who you are?
I lived in the same place from 6 to 18 — it was sort of out in nowhere, outside Gothenburg. There were small streets with the same exact houses in straight rows. Only houses and a lot of forest around. There was a tennis hall, too, so everybody played tennis. Except our family, although my sister started to do that later. I guess music was a way to find a space where I could be me, a way to understand that there’s something else than this.
7. If you could see any artist in concert, dead or alive, who would it be?
I would have loved to see Eurythmics around the Savage album. And Cyndi Lauper when she released “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.”
8. What’s the best or favorite concert you have seen so far this year, why?
I haven’t seen so many unfortunately, cause I’ve been working too much with the tour. But I saw Sarah Parkman a few weeks ago in Gothenburg. She has an incredible voice, it was a great show.
9. What’s the last album you listened to in one sitting?
Bendik Giske’s Cracks, I love it.
10. What’s your favorite album of all time?
Around the World in a Day with Prince.
11. How did you celebrate the release of your third album, Radical Romantics?
We had a big party in Stockholm with many great DJs and performances — people said afterwards it was like a queer reunion after the pandemics. I was there as Demonalisa from the “Even It Out” video.
12. What song on the album was particularly challenging to write?
I think writing is always a mix of easy and light — some days everything is clear and some days everything’s a struggle. I work office hours, mostly. I think routines are the best way to get things done, even though routines also van be a struggle. Days when you don’t get ideas, you just practice — practice a new instrument, practice vocals, practice a new plug-in. You just have to stay in it.
13. You’ve long worked with your brother, and he’s a co-writer on several tracks here. What’s the key to working with family?
I have no idea. I’ve never thought of it like that. I don’t think of family as something blood-related either; family are the people you keep close. It’s six years between Olof and I, so we didn’t share much as kids. I had a strong urge quite early to break out from there, I moved out when I was 18. So it was later we started to do things together — he had started making music by the computer and we played around with it one summer. That’s how it started.
14. If you had to pick one lyric that you have thought about or revisited most since the album released, which one would it be and why?
I think they all mean a lot to me. It’s interesting to perform them live now — you have to learn to live with them. When you write them and record them, you just think about how to tell this specific story, once. But now, you have to make friends with them in another way.
15. What’s your karaoke go-to?
I am too shy to karaoke.
16. What show of yours stands out as being particularly moving or memorable?
My recent one was den Atelier in Luxemburg. We didn’t have any expectations — it’s a bit of a strange city, very clean and a lot of money. Then we played at a wonderful punk venue and the audience was just amazing, we had such a good time.
17. What’s your favorite book?
My oldest kid made me re-read Kathy Acker lately, who I love.
18. What’s your favorite film or TV show?
I love so many films. Those by John Waters are new favorites.
19.. What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
You have to make friends with yourself. Treat yourself like your own best friend.
20. What remains at the top of your professional bucket list?
I am very grateful of everything that’s happened already. When finishing an album I always think of the last album I’ve made like the very last I will make, that I might do something completely different next time. I don’t have a professional bucket list. I’d like to keep working and collaborate with fun people, there’s a lot of things that needs to be widened and explored.
Rancid slammed back to life on Tuesday (April 18) with the galloping title track from their upcoming 10th studio album, Tomorrow Never Comes. “No judge, no jury, no civil rights/ Show up on the line, get ready to fight/ Run the streets and seize the night/ Mow ’em f–king down/ Everyone know it’s all about hate/ Take control, go eliminate,” singer Tim Armstrong bellows on the song over the veteran California punk quartet’s signature galloping drums, shouted gang backing vocals and slashy guitars.
Produced by Bad Religion guitarist, Epitaph Records founder and longtime collaborator Brett Gurewitz, the song is the first taste of the 16-track album due out on June 2nd on Epitaph as the follow-up to 2017’s Trouble Maker. The bull-rushing tune was accompanied by a frenetic black and white performance video co-directed by Armstrong and music video legend Kevin Kerslake (Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers) in which co-vocalist/guitarist Lars Frederkisen bellows the chorus, “Don’t you tell me about tomorrow/ Cause tomorrow will never come/ Gonna cheat, steal, and borrow/ Cause tomorrow never comes/ Tomorrow tomorrow (Tomorrow never comes)/ Tomorrow tomorrow (Tomorrow never comes).”
Other songs on the album include “Mud, Blood & Gold,” “New American,” “Drop Dead Inn,” “Magnificent Rogue,” “Hellbound Train” and “When the Smoke Clears.” Rancid will kick off a European tour on June 2 at the Slam Dunk in Rimini, Italy that will keep them on the road through a June 25 show in the Czech Republic before hopping back to the U.S. for a Sept. 9 show at the Louder Than Life Festival in Louisville, KY and a gig at the Aftershock club in Sacramento, CA on Oct. 8; click here to see the list of tour dates.
Watch the”Tomorrow Never Comes” video and see the full track listing below.
Tomorrow Never Comes tracklist:
1. “Tomorrow Never Comes”2. “Mud, Blood, & Gold” 3. “Devil In Disguise” 4. “New American” 5. “The Bloody & Violent History” 6. “Don’t Make Me Do It” 7. “It’s a Road to Righteousness”8. “Live Forever” 9. “Drop Dead Inn” 10. “Prisoners Song” 11. “Magnificent Rogue” 12. “One Way Ticket” 13. “Hellbound Train” 14. “Eddie the Butcher” 15. “Hear Us Out” 16. “When The Smoke Clears”
Imagine if the classic 1995-1997 lineup of beloved battling Brit Pop band Oasis had stayed together and continued making music. Now you don’t have to thanks to the British band Breezer, who spent their pandemic lockdown writing and recording an album that taps into the classic everything-all-at-once sound and fury of Oasis’ landmark first three albums: Definitely Maybe (1994), (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995) and Be Here Now.
AISIS is a mind-expanding 8-song album that eerily mimics the Gallagher brothers’ sound on tracks written and recorded by Breezer in the group’s style, with the original singer’s voice later replaced by an AI vocals in the style of Oasis singer Liam Gallagher.
“AISIS is an alternate reality concept album where the band’s 95-97 line-up continued to write music, or perhaps all got together years later to write a record akin to the first 3 albums, and only now has the master DAT tape from that session surfaced,” reads a note from the band. “We’re bored of waiting for Oasis to reform, so we’ve got an AI modelled Liam Gallagher (inspired by @JekSpek) to step in and help out on some tunes that were written during lockdown 2021 for a short lived, but much loved band called Breezer.”
While some labels and artists are hurtling in a panic to stop AI versions of their music — with a fake Drake and The Weeknd viral hit quickly pulled from streamers this week — notoriously cantankerous vocalist Gallagher responded to a fan’s question on Wednesday (April 19) about whether he’s heard it and what he thinks. Yes, he said, he had, and in classic Liam fashion he added that he’d only heard one tune but that it was “better than all the other snizzle out there.”
Better still, in response to another query about his thoughts on the computer-generated Liam, the perma-swaggering singer proclaimed “Mad as f–k I sound mega.” He’s not wrong, as songs such as the bullrushing openers “Out of My Mind” and “Time” perfectly capture peak Oasis’ signature mix of swirling guitars, hedonistic fury and Liam’s snarling, nasally vocals. The psychedelic rager “Forever” and expansive ballad “Tonight” nail songwriter/guitarist/singer Noel Gallagher’s stuffed-to-exploding arrangements and Beatles fetish, amid such spot-on touches as the sound of the tide washing out, layers of sitar and a lyrical nod to Mott the Hoople’s David Bowie-penned 1972 smash “All the Young Dudes.”
As any Oasis fan knows, AISIS is as close as anyone is likely to come to an actual reunion of the group that split in 2009 after Liam left, setting off more than a decade of acrimonious back-and-forth between the famously battling singer and brother Noel as each has pursued their respective solo projects.
See Gallagher’s tweets and listen to AISIS album below.
Not the album heard a tune it’s better than all the other snizzle out there— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) April 19, 2023
Mad as fuck I sound mega— Liam Gallagher (@liamgallagher) April 19, 2023
A month after three nine-year-old children and three adults were murdered at Nashville’s Covenant School in a mass shooting, some of the city’s biggest names have signed a petition imploring the state General Assembly to pass “common sense gun legislation.”
As reported by the Tennessean (story is paywalled), artists including Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris, Amy Grant, Rodney Crowell, Kelsea Ballerini, Mickey Guyton, Michelle Branch, Shane McAnally, Martina McBride, Maren Morris, Margo Price, Lucinda Williams, Jars of Clay, Jason Isbell, Ben Folds, Allison Moorer and dozens of others sent a letter to the Tennessee General Assembly this week asking legislators to pass extreme risk protection laws (also known as “Red Flag” laws) and to strengthen requirements about the safe storage of firearms.
“Gun violence in Tennessee is not inevitable,” the group said in the letter. “We are not hopeless, and we will not accept inaction. This does not have to be our normal and we ask that you stand with us! We know that gun safety laws work. Policies like extreme risk protection laws and secure storage of firearms can save lives. And we ask that you keep your session open until these policies are put into place.”
Crow and Grant were also reportedly joined by Ruby Amanfu and Will Hoge on Tuesday (April 18) to deliver the letter to state lawmakers before the upcoming scheduled end of the current session.
“We need to put the safety of our children above politics and special interests,” read the group’s letter. “We appreciate Governor Lee taking steps towards creating a safer community against gun violence, however we believe these are only the first steps in improving the safety for our children and Tennesseans. It’s time for you to pass effective measures that will keep guns out of dangerous hands before the shooting starts.”
The nation’s latest mass school shooting has once again led to calls for the passage of common sense gun legislation, with TN Gov. Bill Lee saying last week that he will sign an executive order strengthening background checks for buying firearms in his state as well as calling for the red flag law that would allow emergency court orders allowing police to temporarily confiscate weapons from those deemed a risk to themselves and others.
The Tennessean reported that the term “red flag law” is considered anathema in gun-rights circles, with the National Rifle Association sending out a call to supporters this week asking them to tell their lawmakers that they oppose the kinds of extreme-risk orders that have been passed in such conservative states as Florida, which passed one after the 2019 Parkland School shooting that left 14 students and three adults dead.
“Anything that’s pushed to a later agenda just loses momentum,” Christian singer/songwriter Grant said in a nod to the support for new gun legislation in the wake of the shooting at the private Christian elementary school. “There’s too much pain to lose momentum… As songwriters, there’s not a song when you show up at 10 a.m. — you just talk until the ideas come together. There is a force in communication, especially when it’s a shared goal. By the end of the day, you’ve got a chorus. You actually can create something out of nothing with the right kind of concerted effort, and it can be game-changing.”
The letter came from Voices for a Safer Tennessee, a nonpartisan group formed in the wake of the Covenant shooting that is reportedly heavily lobbying lawmakers behind-the-scenes. In addition to the letter, the group staged an event in Nashville on Tuesday night where thousands of people linked arms to form a human chain that stretched from the Tennessee Capitol to the hospital where victims of the shooting were transported on March 27.
See the list of artists who signed the letter below:
Allison Moorer
Allison Russell
Amy Grant
Ben Folds
Ben Rector
Brandy Clark
Brittany Howard
Brittney Spencer
Charlie Worsham
Devon Gilfillian
Drew & Ellie Holcomb
Emmylou Harris
Gabe Simon
Hayes Carll
Jason Isbell
Jars of Clay
Jess Ray
Jimi Westbrook
John Tibbs
Kacey Musgraves
Karen Fairchild
Kelsea Ballerini
Kelsey Waldon
Ketch Secor
Langhorn Slim
Leah Blevins
Lola Kirke
Lucie Silvas
Lucinda Williams
Lydia Luce
Madeline Edwards
Maggie Rose
Margaret Becker
Margo Price
Maren Morris
Martina McBride
Mat Kearney
Matt Maher
Maxi Diaz
Michelle Branch
Mickey Guyton
Miko Marks
Nick Howard
Patrick Carney
Paul McDonald
Rodney Crowell
Ron Pope
Ruby Amanfu
Ruston Kelly
Ryan Hurd
Sarah Buxton
Sarah Jarosz
Shane McAnally
Sheryl Crow
Sierra Hull
Sista Strings
Sixpence None the Richer
The Brook & the Bluff
The Cadillac Three
The Wood Brothers
TJ Osborne
Will Hoge