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Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner is a proud Minnesotan again after having spent 25 years living in New Orleans. So it’s not surprising he’s watching this year’s presidential campaign with even more interest since a home state horse, Gov. Tim Walz, is representing as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate on the Democratic ticket. (Pirner was born in Green Bay, Wisc., but grew up in Minnesota.)
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“I’m excited about it,” Pirner, who launched his music career in the North Star state drumming for the punk band Loud Fast Rules, tells Billboard from a stop during Soul Asylum’s recent Jubilee Tour with Stone Temple Pilots and Live. “There’s a certain amount of excitement in Minnesota going on. It’s funny to have a dude like that representing Minnesota ’cause he does remind you of a sports dad. There’s that, ‘Oh gosh’ kind of ‘aw shucks’ thing going on. I think it was a good choice because he seems like a nice complement to (Harris) in that good ol’ boy way or something. But he’s progressive and he’s well-liked.”
Pirner does not recall ever having met Walz, a music fan who signed a bill renaming a stretch of the state’s Highway 5 after the late Prince. But Pirner says he’s “ready to go out there and support the home team. Put my name in the hat.”
He’ll have to fit any support appearances into a busy schedule, however. Soul Asylum has concert dates booked into early November, including with the Juliana Hatfield Three, but most importantly the quartet’s 13th studio album, Slowly But Shirley, comes out Sept. 27. The 12-song set is the follow-up to 2020’s Hurry Up and Wait, its debut with Blue Elan Records, and reunites Pirner and company with Steve Jordan, the current Rolling Stones drummer who helmed Soul Asylum’s 1990 album And the Horse they Rode In On, a highly regarded set that was eclipsed two years later by the double-platinum Grave Dancers Union.
“When we first worked with Steve, we weren’t that great,” recalls Pirner, Soul Asylum’s only remaining founding member. “We were still learning how to play together. And since then I’ve sort of embraced most of the things that Steve had passed on to me from back then. So I kinda knew what he wanted and I wanted to give it to him, and I think it came together in a really organic sort of way that I think you can feel on the record — I hope you can, at least. It did mark a progression.”
Pirner adds that what Jordan and the band were looking for was “just excitement and not too much thinking about what you’re doing. It was more like capturing the band playing the songs off of each other and really listening to the other people in the band and trying to come across in a way that it felt new, fresh.” To that end Jordan had the group — Pirner, drummer Michael Bland, guitarist Ryan Smith and bassist Jeremy Tappero — tracking together in the studio to capture the energy and attitude of live music.
“We’ve tried just about every single way to record something over the years,” Pirner notes. “Working on the previous records the home studio became part of the picture, and you could also take things home and work on them. It depends on the song…but in this situation each song was approached with the same sort of method, which was ‘Get out there and play it!’ It was great ’cause watching Steve and Michael work together was one of those musical experiences I kinda live for. Steve is such a player’s player, and he’s such a vibe guy in a way that he understands the concept of trying to capture lightning in a bottle, and I think that’s what we were going for. We didn’t overplay anything and we tried to get things on the third take or so. It came together pretty quickly.”
Pirner says Slowly But Shirley‘s songs came together in a variety of fashions — some jammed out by the band in rehearsals, others that he “had been working in in ProTools and computers and messing around and cutting pieces of songs together.” One track, “High Road,” has been around “forever” before being finished off this time. The album is a mélange of Soul Asylum styles, from the jangle of “Freak Accident” to the punchy rock of “Freeloader,” “Trial By Fire,” “The Only Thing I’m Missing” and “Makin’ Plans,” to the cool groove of “Waiting on the Lord” and the mellow melodicism of “You Don’t Know Me.” There’s also a funky edge to “Tryin’ Man” and “Sucker Maker,” which Pirner credits to his time in the Big Easy and having Bland, who spent seven years playing with Prince, in the band.
“I think I was subconsciously trying to take things in a direction that was a little more funky or groovy or swingy or whatever — without forgetting that I’m dealing with a four-piece punk rock band,” Pirner explains. “That’s what’s always made punk rock so interesting is it does have this kind of ‘ignorance is bliss’ adventure to it, where it’s gonna come out sounding like your sh-tty band. But sometimes people try things they probably shouldn’t be trying, and something new comes out of that. It’s discovery, which is the beauty of music.”
Pirner is planning on a long cycle for Slowly But Shirley, including more headlining dates before the end of the year and into 2025. “We’ll play at the opening of a letter, as we used to say,” he notes. This year, meanwhile, also marks the 40th anniversary of Say What You Will…, Soul Asylum’s Bob Mould-produced debut album, and Pirner says that the passage of time has not been lost on him.
“It doesn’t get easier,” he acknowledges. “It feels exactly like 40 years. It’s kind of a grind. It’s different when you’re starting out because you’re just excited about everything and you have a much higher tolerance level because everything is new. You’re living a fairly miserable experience, but it’s an adventure. I’m grateful for all of it; it’s just what I do and what I’ve always done and what I love doing. Sometimes it’s not fun at all, but I’m like, ‘Well, this is what I wished for my whole life, so shut up.’ And I much prefer this to digging a hole, I’ll tell ya that.”
Say it is so. Weezer announced on Thursday (Sept. 26) that they are hosting a special two-night screening of a live concert film shot in the midst of the current tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of their 1994 debut, commonly referred to as The Blue Album. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
Damiano David feels sorrow no more. The Måneskin frontman has embarked on his first solo project, releasing the song “Silverlines” — produced by Labrinth — on Thursday (Sept. 26).
“This song is a very special story to me,” the Italian artist tells Billboard of the emotional track that begins as a raw, stripped-back melancholy tune that fills with hope as it crescendos. “Sometimes, you hear a song and you think, ‘Oh my god, this song talks about me.’ … It was so amazing for me to get to work with such a huge artist and also on a song that, it’s basically describing my whole journey.”
According to David, singer-songwriter Sarah Hudson was already working on the tune with Labrinth when she came up with the idea to connect the two men and have the Måneskin rocker hop on the track, for which he helped pen the lyrics. And given the opportunity to collaborate with Labrinth — who has worked with the likes of Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, Nicki Minaj and more — he wasn’t about to say no. “If you have the chance to work with Labrinth, you don’t get precious! You just do it!” David laughs, praising his “extremely meticulous” producer and their “very easy” collaboration process. And he’s more than delighted with how “Silverlines” has turned out.
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“It was funny for me how [this] first song was actually, it was, like, all I hoped for,” he marvels of “Silverlines,” which finds him showing a vulnerable side that he had yet to share in his music with Måneskin. “It was like the lyrics are such a message of hope for me because it was exactly what I was aiming for with this record, and now that the record is finished, I look back to that song and it’s like, ‘Wow! That’s basically the last stop of my journey,’ and it’s so funny that it came at the beginning — like [it was] heaven sent.”
“There’s a level of vulnerability that I never reached and a level of honesty that I never managed to reach not because I was not being honest in the other songs,” he adds. “I had to dig deeper into myself in order to even get to this information and then be able to transform it into music.”
David explains that part of the reason he had not yet shared this more personal side of him in Måneskin was because he wanted to respect the band’s strong identity — which he credits as part of its success — and also the “role that was assigned to him,” but it wasn’t showing him as a whole person. “At one point I started to really suffer this very partial point of view of myself that I myself was giving to the world … I knew that I was the one choosing only to express that,” he shares, emphasizing that he takes responsibility for that, and is now, with his solo work, revealing a fuller picture of who Damiano David is. “Literally my brain and my body rebelled to me and forced me to actually kind of cut me open, cut myself open and show myself to the world.”
And that honesty is right there in his favorite lyrics from “Silverlines”: A smile/ I welcome you/ A darkness/ I’ve long forgotten you/ And peace belongs to me. “That’s what happened. This is the part that I share with the audience — it’s the public part of the work I’ve done,” explains David, who moved to Los Angeles in January, where he spent a few months by himself to figure out his priorities. “I of course did a lot of personal work and personal growing, and I cut some things out of my life and I replaced [them] with new, healthier, more beautiful ones. I think now things are better.”
Helping him pull back the curtain is the accompanying music video for “Silverlines,” a theatrical visual directed by Nono + Rodrigo that shows first the struggle, then the endless possibilities that await David. “One of the main topics of the whole thing is like, more than having the world,” he shares. “For me, it’s more like, from now on, it’s a white sheet and I’m able to actually … make my visuals become reality.”
And now that he’s sharing a closer look at himself with his solo music, the vocalist is excited to see what’s on the horizon, though nabbing a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 for “Silverlines” may not be at the top of his list. “I don’t want to be like a hypocrite and say I don’t care about the charts because of course I care! Everybody cares!” he admits. “But at the same time, the goal of this song is not topping the charts. I’m introducing myself to the world, so I don’t expect to be first from the first day. Actually, I don’t expect to be first any time. But I’m just very glad I have the opportunity to do this, and the results will come.”
Check out Damiano David’s debut solo song, “Silverlines,” and its video below:
On Thursday (Sept. 26), just two days before the third annual Soundside Music Festival, headliner Foo Fighters dropped off the lineup. “Foo Fighters will no longer be appearing at this weekend’s Soundside Music Festival,” read a statement on the band’s official Instagram account. The cancellation comes just two weeks after frontman Dave Grohl revealed on […]
The long wait is over: The Cure have released their new song in over 16 years and confirmed the release date for their upcoming 14th album.
“Alone” will appear on the upcoming LP Songs From a Lost World, which is set to be released Nov 1, 2024 via Polydor/Fiction. Listen to the track below.
The track appeared as the opening song on the band’s Shows of a Lost World global tour throughout 2022 and 2023. The album has been long in the making, with its original release dates mooted for 2019. The album’s tracklist will be revealed in the coming weeks on the band’s social media channels.
Speaking about the song, frontman Robert Smith said that “Alone” was “the track that unlocked the record; as soon as we had that piece of music recorded I knew it was the opening song, and I felt the whole album come into focus.”
He added: “I had been struggling to find the right opening line for the right opening song for a while, working with the simple idea of ‘being alone’, always in the back of my mind this nagging feeling that I already knew what the opening line should be… as soon as we finished recording I remembered the poem Dregs by the English poet Ernest Dowson. That was the moment when I knew the song – and the album – were real.”
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Songs From a Lost World was produced by Smith and Paul Corkett, who co-produced The Cure’s 2000 album Bloodflowers. The album features contributions from Smith, Simon Gallup (bass), Jason Cooper (drums), Reeves Gabriel (guitar) and Roger O’Donnell (keyboards). The latter recently announced he’d been diagnosed with rare and “aggressive” blood cancer a year ago, but added that “I’m fine and the prognosis is amazing”.
In recent weeks the band had been teasing the release of Songs From a Lost World to fans via mystery postcards and puzzles. Smith has been revealing details of the LP for many years, and speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 2019, he blamed himself for some of the delays. “I keep going back over and redoing them, which is silly. At some point, I have to say that’s it. It’s very much on the darker side of the spectrum,” Smith added.
“I lost my mother and my father and my brother recently, and obviously it had an effect on me. It’s not relentlessly doom and gloom. It has soundscapes on it, like Disintegration, I suppose. I was trying to create a big palette, a big wash of sound.”
A new production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet will be soundtracked by Radiohead’s 2003 album Hail to the Thief.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief will see “Shakespeare’s words and Radiohead’s album illuminate oneanother in thrilling new ways as the music becomes a critical part of the narrative” a press release reveals. The production will include a cast of 20 musicians and actors performing the album live onstage during the play.
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has collaborated with Tony and Olivier award-winner Christine Jones and Olivier award-winner Steven Hoggett for the production.
Hamlet Hail to the Thief will premiere at Manchester’s Aviva Studios, home of Factory International, in Manchester on Apr 27 and will run there until May 18, 2025. The production then transfers to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford Upon Avon, England from June 4 – 28, 2025. Tickets for the production go on sale on October 2; more details can be found here.
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Speaking about the new arrangements of Hail To The Thief, Yorke said in a statement that it was an “interesting and intimidating challenge”. He added: “Adapting the original music of Hail To The Thief for live performance with the actors on stage to tell this story that is forever being told, using its familiarity and sounds, pulling them into and out of context, seeing what chimes with the underlying grief and paranoia of Hamlet, using the music as a ‘presence’ in the room, watching how it collides with the action and the text. Ghosting one against the other.”
Hail To The Thief was released in 2003 by the British band amidst the fallout of the invasion of Iraq and was critical of President George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’ following 9/11. The album landed at No.3 on the Billboard 200 and at No.1 on the U.K.’s Official Album Charts and its artwork, which is incorporated in the play’s promotional poster, was created by frequent collaborator Stanley Donwood.
Speaking in 2003, Yorke said that the album’s lyrical content was influenced by “the rise of doublethink and the rise of general intolerance and madness, and feeling very much like individuals were totally out of control of the situation” and that “the force of the music gave me licence I think to explore all these things, really”. It spawned three singles, “2+2=5”, “Go To Sleep” and “There, There”.
Jones, who has previously collaborated with Hoggett on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the stage adaptation of Green Day’s American Idiot said that William Shakespeare’s play, written between 1599 and 1601, aligned with their love of Radiohead’s record.
“Paying attention to the lyrics, I became aware of how many songs from Hail to the Thief speak to the themes of the play,” Jones says. “There are uncanny reverberances between the text and the album. For years I’ve wanted to see the play and album collide in a piece of theatre; eventually I shared the idea with Thom, who was intrigued.
Radiohead released their most recent album A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016 and the band members have worked on new projects ever since. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood’s The Smile will release their third studio album Cutouts on XL Recordings on Oct 4.
The band’s bassist Colin Greenwood recently revealed that the band had recently reconvened to rehearse but shared no news of imminent music.
In less than a month, a genre-spanning batch of legends will join the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of its Class of 2024. On Wednesday (Sept. 25) morning, the Rock Hall revealed the list of performers and presenters who will be on hand at the Oct. 19 ceremony.
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Take a deep breath: Busta Rhymes, Dr. Dre, Demi Lovato, Dua Lipa, Ella Mai, James Taylor, Jelly Roll, Julia Roberts, Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Lucky Daye, Mac McAnally, Method Man, Roger Daltrey, Sammy Hagar, Slash and The Roots will all be present at the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio (which isn’t too far from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s Cleveland headquarters).
It’s not yet known which performers and presenters are attached to which 2024 Rock Hall inductees. The Class of 2024 includes Mary J. Blige, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Foreigner, Peter Frampton, Kool & the Gang, Ozzy Osbourne and A Tribe Called Quest in the performers category. In the musical influence category, Alexis Korner, John Mayall and “Big Mama” Thornton will be inducted; all three pioneers are deceased, with Mayall dying at the age of 90 this July, just three months after his induction was announced.
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Additionally, Jimmy Buffett, MC5, Dionne Warwick and Norman Whitfield enter the Rock Hall in the musical excellence category. Suzanne de Passe will be given the Ahmet Ertegun Award.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2024 induction ceremony will livestream on Disney+ on Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. ET. ABC will air a primetime special featuring the evening’s biggest moments on Jan. 1, 2025, at 8 p.m. ET, which will be available on Disney+ and Hulu on Jan. 2.
Official have released the official cause of death for late Crazy Town singer Seth “Shifty Shellshock” Brooks Binzer. According to a statement from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office on Tuesday (Sept. 24), Binzer, 49, died as a result of the combined effects of the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine. The manner of death was ruled “accidental.”
The Medical Examiner’s office said Binzer was found unresponsive at a Los Angeles-area home on June 24 and after a postmortem probe, his cause of death was certified on Tuesday. The “Butterfly” singer’s passing as a result of an accidental overdose came after years of substance struggles for the rap-rock group’s frontman.
After Binzer’s death, group manager Howie Hubberman said in a statement, “Seth Binzer, after struggling with addiction and Crazy Town’s rapid success with ‘Butterfly’, never was able to reach out on a more successful level to deal with his addictions. We all tried, but ultimately we all failed, or Shifty would still be here.”
Binzer was born on Aug. 23, 1974 and met Crazy Town co-founder Bret “Epic” Mazur in 1992. The pair fleshed the group out with members Adam Goldstein (better known as DJ AM, who died from an accidental overdose in 2009), guitarist Charles “Rust Epique” Lopez (who died in 2004), guitarist Antonio Lorenzo “Trouble” Valli and drummer James “JBJ” Bradley Jr. The band’s Nov. 1999 debut album, The Gift of Game, peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 on the chart dated March 3, 2001, and remained on the tally for 34 weeks.
The LP’s first two singles, “Toxic” and “Darkside,” didn’t chart, but their third effort and best-known track, the uber-catchy “Butterfly,” ran all the way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles charts, where it held the top spot for two weeks. The band broke up less than a year after the Nov. 2002 release of follow-up album Darkhorse. With a rotating roster of members Crazy Town reformed several times in the years after, but were never able to regain their early career momentum.
In 2023, Crazy Town were booted from a tour with HedPE after an intra-band brawl between Binzer and co-vocalist/guitarist Bobby Reeves.
Linkin Park are going back back to the start. The rock band dropped the hard-hitting new single “Heavy Is the Crown” on Tuesday (Sept. 24), a rager that will be the official anthem for the League of Legends World Championship. The follow-up to the band’s first new music in seven years — the previously released […]
Halestorm and I Prevail’s collaboration “Can U See Me in the Dark?” is the newest No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, rising a spot to top the tally dated Sept. 28. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The song becomes Halestorm’s seventh No. 1 and […]