Rock
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09/21/2024
The best and worst of the album that had George W. Bush’s ears burning.
09/21/2024
New York City has no shortage of cover bands, but few of them can boast surprise appearances from The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, Robert Randolph, The Roots’ Black Thought and Jimmy Fallon.
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It helps, of course, that the cover band in question is anchored by Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt (guitar, vocals), Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Chad Smith (drums) of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and longtime Saturday Night Live Band fixture G.E. Smith (guitar), with Ivan Bodley (bass), Seneca Black (trumpet), Crispin Cioe (sax), Bob Funk (trombone), Charlotte Lawrence (vocals), Ben Stivers (keyboards) and Jared Tankel (baritone sax) rounding out the group.
The band’s nondescript name — Smith & Watt Steakhouse, the product of a jokey 10-second brainstorm – speaks to its casual, unambitious origin. When the Chili Peppers’ two-year Unlimited Love Tour wrapped up in July, Smith headed to the Hamptons to reenergize – but after a few weeks, he found himself getting restless in the sleepy seaside town. “I’m a musician – I love to play music,” he tells Billboard, sitting on a sunny balcony at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan. “I don’t want to miss out.”
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The cavalry arrived when Watt, a frequent collaborator and close friend of Smith’s, found himself in the same area with a bit of free time. “We have this insane musical connection, and we love playing live together. We have this musical bromance,” Watt tells Billboard, seated next to Smith. “Naturally, we want to jam together.”
After pulling together a rock band of musical ringers and creating a setlist spanning their favorite artists (Prince, The Police, Sam & Dave, Fleetwood Mac, to name a few), Smith and Watt took the stage at Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, N.Y., on Aug. 20 and ripped through an all-covers set that had the Hamptons hot spot bumping.
“(The venue) is small — we broke it,” Smith says with a wide grin. “And then at the end of the night, this gentleman decides to come up on stage.”
Gentleman, while certainly accurate, is a bit of an undersell. Sir Paul McCartney, who had been watching the entire show side stage with his family, made a completely unscripted decision to hop up and join them on a cover of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
“I actually whispered into his ear (after that song), ‘Go play drums and show them how much of a badass you are,’” recalls Watt, who has spent time in the studio with the rock icon. “He shrugged me off and goes, ‘I’ll tell you what. One more number. [singing] She was just seventeen!’”
Naturally, McCartney’s surprise performance of The Beatles’ “I Saw Her Standing There” at a 250-capacity venue made headlines and waves across social media – and sent more than a few folks into a FOMO spiral. When Watt was backstage at Pearl Jam’s Madison Square Garden show on Sept. 4 (he joined them onstage that night), tour promoter Peter Shapiro started griping about how sad he was to have missed that once-in-a-lifetime show. After chatting with the entrepreneur, whom Watt calls “a modern-day Bill Graham,” he decided to give Smith a call: “What are you doing Wednesday?”
For its second show, the Watt & Smith Steakhouse headed to Brooklyn Bowl – one of several venues owned by Shapiro — on Wednesday (Sept. 18). And while none of that night’s special guests can lay claim to British knighthood, it was an eclectic, hard-to-resist roster: A loose, all-smiles Chris Robinson shimmied in front of Smith’s drumkit while belting the Faces’ “Stay With Me”; Black Thought rapped Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” and freestyled over the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog”; and Robert Randolph flexed his slide guitar mastery on Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” before leading the band through an impromptu, off-setlist “Purple Haze.” As for Jimmy Fallon’s full-throated take on the Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues”? It might not place him in the same category of musical excellence, but there was something undeniably special about watching The Tonight Show host let it all hang out onstage just 20 minutes before turning 50. (FWIW, his vocals were a solid cut above what you’d hear at any given karaoke bar.)
Andrew Watt and Chris Robinson perform onstage with Smith & Watt Steakhouse at Brooklyn Bowl on Sept. 18, 2024 in New York City.
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“Watt & Smith Steakhouse rides again,” G.E. Smith quipped of the cover band’s Brooklyn Bowl gig. Depending on schedules, that ride could turn into a cross-country trek. When asked about future gigs for the Steakhouse, the RHCP drummer pauses. “Yeah. We’ll see what happens,” Smith says, firing up a fresh cigarette (fittingly, the lighter he uses is a piece of promo merch for Eddie Vedder’s 2022 solo album Earthling, which Smith played on and Watt produced).
“In our relationship, we like to eat,” Watt says. “The point of this band is: we’re going to come to some cities, play in your smallest club and go out to your nicest restaurant.”
Ultimately, the band (which continues Smith’s legacy of meaty side projects, from Chickenfoot to Chad Smith’s Bombastic Meatbats) is an excuse for Smith, 62, and Watt, 33, to hang out, eat out and rock out.
“He’s my best friend in the entire world,” says Watt, who acknowledges that part of him will “forever” be the RHCP fanboy who snagged a post-concert pic with Smith as a teenager, years before the two became musical brethren.
“For me, he could be my son,” Smith says with a belly cackle. “There is an age difference.” (Case in point: the first show Smith attended on his own was KISS in 1975, one of the concerts immortalized on Alive!; Watt’s was none other than the Red Hot Chili Peppers with openers Queens of the Stone Age and the Mars Volta in 2003.) “But when it comes to us, especially our musical thing, we have very, very similar likes and tastes,” says Smith. “It’s such a lucky thing when that happens.”
Plus, Watt & Smith Steakhouse gives the former – who can wail like Roger Daltrey, sneer like David Bowie and growl like Gregg Allman – a chance to step out from behind the boards and up to the mic. “This guy is a performer and loves it,” Smith says. “You better go see the Steakhouse – you never know what’s on the menu.”
How do you take one of classic rock‘s most ominous tunes and make it somehow even more foreboding? Just ask Ice-T to give it a spin. The veteran rapper’s hard-rock side project, Body Count, released a radically made-over version of Pink Floyd‘s iconic tale of isolation and medically induced paralysis, “Comfortably Numb,” on Friday (Sept. 20), with new spoken word lyrics from Ice and backing vocals from Floyd singer/guitarist David Gilmour.
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“Body Count’s version of ‘Comfortably Numb’ is quite radical, but the words really struck me,” said Gilmour, 78, in a statement of the new take on one of the emotional centerpiece songs from Pink Floyd’s iconic concept album The Wall. “It astonishes me that a tune I wrote almost 50 years ago is back with this great new approach. They’ve made it relevant again. The initial contact from Ice-T was for permission to use the song, but I thought I might offer to play on it as well. I like the new lyrics, they’re talking about the world we’re living in now, which is quite scary. Ice-T and Body Count played in London recently, sadly I couldn’t make it, but if another opportunity came up to play with them, I’d jump at it.”
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Ice-T makes the song his own with a radical reworking in which the only remaining lyrical bits are the “Hello… is anybody out there?/ Can anybody hear me?” refrain sung by Gilmour. Instead, the MC talk-sings a new narrative about fearing for humanity’s future as well as chronicling the dual ravages of perpetual war and strife and time’s inexorable march toward death.
“We’re in perpetual war, and that’s the only law/ Can I change it? I doubt it/ So I write songs about it/ I was young once but now I’ve grown old/ Right in front of your еyes you’ve seen my life unfold,” Ice-T narrates in an ominous tone over screaming guitars and a funereal beat. “I had no choicе as I became the underdog’s voice/ A young black kid… look what the f–k I did!/ When I’m gone there’ll be someone to carry on/ We can give in, give up, or we can stay strong/ How accepting of the bullshit we’ve all become/ This whole world is… comfortably numb.”
The original song featured music by Gilmour and haunting lyrics by the guitarist’s estranged former bandmate, bassist/singer Roger Waters.
In a statement, Ice-T said, “For me ‘Comfortably Numb’ is an introspective song — it’s me acknowledging that I’m older now. I’m telling the younger generation, you’ve got two choices: you can keep the fire burning or you can give up. It’s me trying to make sense of what’s happening, but also pointing out that we’re all in a place where we don’t have to face reality. We’ve got flat-screen TVs and popcorn, and we can just sit back and watch the chaos of the world like it’s a TV show. It doesn’t feel real until it shows up at your door. I’m a little numb, too—we all are.”
The song will appear on Body Count’s upcoming studio album, Merciless, due out on Century Media Records on Nov. 22; the collection is the follow-up to the hardcore group’s Grammy-winning 2020 LP Carnivore.
Listen to Body Count and David Gilmour’s “Comfortably Numb” below.
For Seether frontman Shaun Morgan, it’s more exciting to be bringing out a new album — The Surface Seems So Far, which drops Friday, Sept. 20 — than it is to be celebrating the band’s 25th anniversary.
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It has been that long since Morgan formed Seether, as Saron Gas, in his native South Africa (bassist Dale Stewart joined in January of 2000 and has remained since). During the interim the group has released nine studio albums and netted 26 top 10 singles on Billboard’s various rock charts, including 10 No. 1 Mainstream Rock Airplay hits with the new album’s first single, “Judas Mind.” Seether was also Billboard’s No. 1 Active Rock Artist and Heritage Rock Artist in 2011, the same year “Country Song” was the top Active Rock song of the year.
“Sometimes it feels like 25 minutes, sometimes it feels like 250 years,” Morgan tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in Nashville — where, he acknowledges with a chuckle, “I’m 45 now, so it’s been a long time and I’m starting to feel it in the bones, all the respective ailments that slowly creep in with age. There’s always that reality check to let you know you’ve been doing it for awhile.
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“I guess for us the most exciting thing is still to be able to do it…at this level and with this kind of enthusiasm and this kind of fan base. Thankfully so far we’ve managed to keep on trucking and keep the band moving forward. That in itself, I think, is the achievement I focus on.
“I’ve toured many, many years with many, many bands that no longer exist, and they were bands I thought were better than us. We’ve certainly weathered some genres and trends and seen some go and return, and we’ve just sort of been trucking away in the background. Somehow we’ve managed to keep ourselves around and be relevant on some level.”
Seether’s continuing connection with its audience isn’t hard to figure out. The music remains a kind of timeless, high-powered brand of heavy rock, steeped in well-established traditions of classic grunge, metal and, occasionally, punk. As a lyricist, meanwhile, Morgan wears his proverbial heart on his sleeve, unafraid to mine dark emotions all the way back to early favorites such as “Fine Again,” “Gasoline” and “Broken,” the worldwide breakthrough single when it was re-recorded with Evanescence’s Amy Lee for 2004’s Disclaimer II album.
“I just try to write what I like to listen to and what I like to play and what makes me feel something on an emotional level,” Morgan explains. “I don’t try to overthink it; I just write what I’m feeling every time we do an album and try and write music that helps me get through situations, or darker days I guess. I try and always represent the music and myself in an honest and real way and be as vulnerable as I can without being trying to give away too much. I try and be as vague as I can, lyrically, so people can apply the songs to how they’re feeling and maybe get something out of it that way.
“So all of that combined would contribute maybe, to the fact we’re still here.”
Fans likely won’t have trouble relating to the 11 tracks on The Surface Seems So Far, either.
Written during an 18-month period during which Morgan’s wife gave birth to their third child, the songs stem from “a lot of existential crisis moments” he was experiencing during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, which came just a few months before the release of Seether’s last album, Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum.
“Obviously 2020 was a wash, and 2021 and ’22 weren’t much better,” Morgan explains. “I’d been told by the powers that be that I was not a relevant or important person and my livelihood was not important for a very long time.” And while he wasn’t sorry that “I got to sit and be with family and really enjoy being a dad and a husband,” Morgan also faced “moments of self-doubt and the genuine anguish of wondering, ‘OK, what’s next? Is this all that there is? Do I have to find something else I want to do for the rest of my life, where I feel more fulfilled and maybe don’t feel quite so expendable?’ There were many times I thought about quitting, yeah.
“Those were the biggest issues for me in writing this album.”
Those heavy questions can be felt throughout The Surface Seems So Far as Seether — Morgan, Stewart drummer John Humphrey and guitarist Corey Lowery — steam through the leaden dynamics of songs such as “Try to Heal,” “Same Mistakes,” “Semblance of Me,” “Paint the World,” “Dead on the Vine” and “Illusion,” while “Walls Come Down” stands out as a more melodic counterweight.
“It’s funny; this is the first album we’ve done that doesn’t have an acoustic (track) on it, which I didn’t realize until we were done,” Morgan notes. “I wrote about 20 songs and we ended up recording about 13 of them. But there was never really a thought about what I wanted it to sound like. Whenever I start writing for albums it’s sort of a fishing expedition; I don’t know what I’m doing and I have no direction, so I just start writing and the direction reveals itself to me.
“And the most powerful emotions of the past few years for me were certainly rage and anger, and in this particular snapshot of my life most of it was, ‘I need to get rid of this frustration and this anger,’ and that leads to heavier music, obviously.”
The Surface Seems So Far marks Morgan’s third consecutive album as producer, too, a task he first found “daunting” but that he’s grown more comfortable with over time. “There’s only one producer I worked with who I felt the experience was positive and I learned something from, and that was Brendan O’Brien,” who produced Holding Onto Strings Better Left to Fray in 2011 and 2014’s Isolate and Medicate. Morgan explains that, “I came out the other side of those albums with him and thought, ‘OK, I’ve learned enough about songwriting from him. I’ve learned enough about producing from him, the approach of making an album from him, and I’ve learned from the either guys what I DON’T want to do, so lemme give it a shot and see how it works out.’ And because of that these past three albums are actually the first time a high percentage of me is proud of how they sound.”
That said, Morgan doesn’t rule out working with someone else in the future.
“I’m not opposed to it,” he says. “I always had in my mind there would be this trio of albums I’d produce, and they’d all kind of be in a similar vein and have a similar kind of theme or a similar kind of sound, and when the next album comes it’s gonna be a brand new chapter…and maybe have somebody else come in and give me an opinion again from an outsider’s perspective. We’ll see.”
For now Morgan and Seether are excited to be getting back on the road. Dates have just started with Skillet, running into October with some festival stops (Louder Than Life in Louisville, Rocktoberfest in Oceanside, Calif. and Aftershock in Sacramento) and more ahead for 2025. The new album will be fresh, of course, but Morgan predicts that “‘Judas Mind’ will definitely be in the set list, and I might want to play ‘Illusion’ ’cause it’s one of my favorite songs on the album and is on the streaming platforms, so people can know it. You do want to play the songs that fans are there to see, right? So I do want to play all the classics, so to speak, and once the album’s been out a little longer we can start to play more of those songs and get a feel about those from the audience.
“We’re just happy to be getting back on the road, man. We are a touring band, and we haven’t been able to do as much in the last few years, so we’re really ready for this now.”
Linkin Park‘s recent reunion has sparked a lot of complicated feelings and opinions, the latest of which comes from late vocalist Chester Bennington’s mom.
In interviews with Rolling Stone published Thursday (Sept. 19), Susan Eubanks shared that she feels “betrayed” by the entire ordeal, alleging that no one in the band told her that they had plans to reunite, much less that they were adding Dead Sara’s Emily Armstrong as its new lead singer. “They told me that if they were ever going to do something, they would let me know,” she told the publication. “They didn’t let me know, and they probably knew that I wouldn’t going to be very happy. I’m very upset about it.”
Instead, Eubanks says she learned of the news — which Linkin Park announced via livestream Sept. 5 with plans to release a new album, From Zero, and embark on a tour — on Google, after which she tuned in to the stream to find Armstrong singing Bennington’s part in one of the band’s songs. “I’m just going to say it, [Armstrong was] screeching her way through a very high note,” she said, adding that she immediately clicked off and started crying.
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“I feel like they’re trying very hard to erase the past,” Eubanks continued. “They’re performing songs that Chester sang. And I don’t know how the fans are taking it, but I know how I take it. And having [Armstrong] singing my son’s songs is hurtful.”
Eubanks also alleged that guitarist Mike Shinoda used to threaten to replace Bennington with a female vocalist — whose range might be more naturally suited for Linkin Park’s songs — when her son was still alive. “He often put Chester down,” she claimed of Shinoda. “He said Mike told him at rehearsal that, ‘If you decide you’re leaving, we’re going to replace you with a girl.’ And Chester was dumbfounded and hurt.”
Billboard has reached out to Linkin Park’s reps for comment.
Linkin Park’s reunion follows a seven-year hiatus that came after Bennington’s death in 2017. While some fans are happy to see the group back at it again, others took issue with the addition of Armstrong, be it her perceived inability to fill Bennington’s shoes or her past affiliations with Scientologist and convicted rapist Danny Masterson. The latter issue lead Armstrong to release a statement Sept. 6 distancing herself from the That ’70s Show actor, emphasizing that she hasn’t spoken to him since supporting him at a single court date in 2020.
Another person who’s spoken out against Linkin Park’s reunion is Bennington’s son Jaime, who also claims the band didn’t consult him ahead of its reunion and slammed Armstrong’s involvement as “quietly erasing [his] father’s life and legacy in real time.” Later, Jaime said that he’d received abuse online from Linkin Park fans in response to his comments.
For Eubanks, a better way forward would’ve been leaving Linkin Park’s previous work in the past. “Don’t put [Armstrong] out there to sing Chester’s songs and then act like this was always the way it should have been,” she told Rolling Stone. “Now you can just put out new songs. But don’t bother to put out Chester’s songs with Emily singing them.”
After three weeks at No. 2 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart, Surf Curse’s “Disco” rises to No. 1 for the first time, reigning on the tally dated Sept. 21.
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The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity from Sept. 9-15. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50.
“Disco” takes over the top spot from Clean Bandit’s Zara Larsson-featuring “Symphony,” which drops to No. 3 after reigning for three weeks.
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The dominant trend sparking the rise of “Disco,” which was initially released in 2019, continues to be a dance challenge. Though it usually features two people, with one leaning in toward the other for a few beats with the other leaning back, and vice versa, the trend has also seen three or more dancers in the same video – and sometimes even just one.
“Disco” concurrently debuts on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 91, Surf Curse’s first appearance on the ranking. It also lifts 18-17 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs. In the week ending Sept. 12, it earned 5.4 million official U.S. streams, up 20%, according to Luminate.
Behind “Disco” comes a slew of songs new to the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s top 10, including three debuts. Topping that group: BabyChiefDoit’s “Rollin’,” which bows at No. 2. “Rollin’” marks the Chicago rapper’s first chart appearance, buoyed mostly by lip-synchs set to the song’s “Don’t slip, don’t trip, don’t fall/ Come to the crib and take off your drawers” lyric.
Released in 2023, “Rollin’” has scored strong subsequent streaming gains, leaping 211% to 481,000 listens in the week ending Sept. 12.
STAR BANDZ’s “Bigger Better Badder” starts at No. 4, another rapper making one of her first chart appearances. The similarities to BabyChiefDoit don’t stop there; “Bigger Better Badder” has also risen thanks to lip-synch clips highlighting the song’s “bigger, better, badder” refrain.
In the week ending Sept. 12, “Bigger Better Badder” accumulated 193,000 official U.S. streams, a leap of 353%.
The final top 10 debut of the week is from a veteran artist: Ashanti’s “Rain on Me,” which breaks onto the ranking at No. 5. Where did the 21-year-old song, which peaked at No. 2 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart in 2003, come from? Mostly from users posting photos, clips and memes from the long-running Nickelodeon series Henry Danger, which aired for five seasons between 2014 and 2020.
Though the streaming gains of “Rain on Me” are not as substantial as the preceding two songs, it’s nothing to sniff at: 676,000 streams in the week ending Sept. 12, up 15%.
Level’s “Dumb D*#k,” which features Ms. Trill, isn’t a debut, but it’s already in the top 10 in its second week on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, leaping 32-6. Released in 2016, “Dumb D*#k” did not appear on a Billboard chart until its TikTok Billboard Top 50 appearance, thanks to a dance trend.
And then there’s Chappell Roan’s “Casual.” So far, the The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess cut had been a meager presence on the chart; after debuting at No. 44 on the Aug. 17 survey, it returned at No. 48 on Sept. 7 and remained there Sept. 14.
But “Casual” zooms 48-9 on the latest tally, becoming Roan’s first TikTok Billboard Top 50 top 10 (let alone top 40, for that matter). That’s because of a new trend featuring creators uploading photos and video following the prompt of “casual things we did before we started dating”
“Casual” has peaked so far at No. 59 on the Hot 100, coming on the Aug. 24 rankign. It appears at No. 72 on the most recent survey.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
The Eagles paid loving tribute to their late friend and collaborator J.D. Souther on Wednesday (Sept. 18) in a heartfelt message posted just a day after the singer/songwriter/actor died at 78. “We have lost a brother, a friend and a brilliant collaborator, and the world has lost a great songwriter, a pioneer of the Southern California sound that emerged in the 1970s,” the veteran easy rocking band wrote. “J.D. Souther was smart, talented, well-read, and in possession of a wicked sense of humor. He loved a good meal, a good movie, and a good Martini … and he loved dogs, adopting many, over the course of his lifetime.”
The band — whose current lineup includes founding singer/drummer Don Henley, as well as guitarist Joe Walsh, bassist Timothy B. Schmit and guitarist/vocalists Deacon Frey and Vince Gill — continued with an homage to the versatile Souther’s many loves and contributions to their legendary songbook.
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“Born in Detroit and raised in the Texas Panhandle, he was a student of the deep roots of the best American music – from country, to jazz, to classical, as well as ‘Standards’ from the Great American Songbook – and that knowledge and appreciation informed his work,” they wrote. “He was a crucial co-writer on many of our most popular songs, including, ‘The Best of My Love,’ ‘New Kid in Town,’ and ‘Heartache Tonight.’ J.D. also collaborated on many of Don Henley’s solo works, including ‘The Heart of the Matter,’ ‘Little Tin God,’ ‘If Dirt Were Dollars’ and ‘Talking to the Moon.’”
According to a statement on his official website, John David “JD” Souther — also known for his collaborations with Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor, Dan Fogelberg, Bonnie Raitt, Roy Orbison and for his acting roles in My Girl 2 and Postcards From the Edge — died peacefully at his home in New Mexico on Tuesday. Souther’s longtime friendship with Frey resulted in his collaborations on many Eagles songs, including “James Dean” and “Doolin-Dalton,” helping to make Souther — whose voice bore an eerily similar tone to Frey’s — a staple of the 1970s California country-rock scene.
“We mourn his loss and we send our condolences to his family, his friends, and his many fans around the world,” the Eagles added. “He was an extraordinary man and will be greatly missed by many. Adios, old friend. Travel well.”
Former Eagles guitarist/vocalist Don Felder also posted a tribute, writing, “It is with heavy heart to start the day with the news of JD’s passing. The invisible Eagle has left the nest. His writing contribution and vocal contributions to the music industry has been a blessing to the whole world. He will be missed but his songs will live on forever.”
Souther was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2013, but never reached the pinnacle of success with his solo work as the Eagles’ lofty heights, landing his biggest chart success with his 1979 No. 7 Billboard Hot 100 single “You’re Only Lonely.”
Donations in Souther’s honor can be made to the Best Friends Animal Society.
Welcome to history, Green Day. The pop-punk trio celebrated a major career milestone this week when their breakthrough third studio album, 1994’s Dookie, was certified double-diamond. With that honorific, the group’s major label became just the 13th album ever to be RIAA certified for sales of more than 20 million units in the U.S., joining […]
The road goes on forever for Metallica. The veteran rockers announced on Thursday morning (Sept. 19) that their M72 world tour will stretch into a third year when they play 21 North American dates from April-June.
The shows will kick off on April 12 in Las Vegas with a festival gig at the NV Sick New World @ Las Vegas Festival Grounds before a run up north for a two-night stand in Toronto, then back down for a double-down stand at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, a pair of appearances at the Sonic Temple festival in Columbus, OH, followed by stadium shows in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Atlanta, Tampa (their first visit to the city in 15 years) and Houston before winding down with gigs on June 27 and 29 at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver. The run will also include a pair of Bay Area hometown shows on June 20 and 22 that will be their debut gigs at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
Openers on the run will include Pantera, bass player Robert Trujillo’s former band, Suicidal Tendencies, as well as Limp Bizkit and Ice Nine Kills. Two-night tickets for the new No Repeat Weekends and tickets for single-night gigs will go on sale on Sept. 27 at 10 a.m. local time, with a fan presale kicking off on Sept. 23 at 10 a.m. local time; click here for ticketing information.
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The M72 tour kicked off in Amsterdam in 2023 and has played to more than three million fans to date, highlighted by their No Repeat Weekend tradition, in which each night of their two-night stands feature totally different setlists and support acts.
Check out the dates for Metallica’s M72 2025 North American shows below:
April 12 — Las Vegas, NV @ Sick New World @ Las Vegas Festival GroundsApril 19 — Syracuse, NY @ JMA Wireless Dome *April 24 — Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre *April 26 — Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre +May 1 — Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium *May 3 — Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium +May 7 — Blacksburg, VA @ Lane Stadium *May 9 — Columbus, OH @ Sonic Temple @ Historic Crew StadiumMay 11 — Columbus, OH @ Sonic Temple @ Historic Crew StadiumMay 23 — Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field +May 25 — Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field *May 28 — Landover, MD @ Northwest Stadium *May 31 — Charlotte, NC @ Bank of America Stadium *June 3 — Atlanta, GA @ Mercedes-Benz Stadium *June 6 — Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium +June 8 — Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium *June 14 — Houston, TX @ NRG Stadium *June 20 — Santa Clara, CA @ Levi’s Stadium +June 22 — Santa Clara, CA @ Levi’s Stadium *June 27 — Denver, CO @ Empower Field at Mile High +June 29 — Denver, CO @ Empower Field at Mile High *
* Pantera and Suicidal Tendencies support+ Limp Bizkit and Ice Nine Kills support
Just days after the future of the band was thrown into question following singer Perry Farrell‘s on-stage attack on guitarist Dave Navarro, Jane’s Addiction dropped a swoony new song on Wednesday morning (Sept. 18). The moody, ballad, “True Love,” fits firmly in the briefly reunited group’s signature dreamy ballad mode, with lyrics chronicling the first, exciting shoots of passion.
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“When I first felt true love/ I was very young,” Farrell sings over Navarro’s chiming, hypnotic guitar in the nearly four-minute track that taps into the group’s classic shamanic rock vibe. “I tried to describe it to my friends/ You’re floating over something that’s way over your head/ Wading in the waters of true love/ Basking in glory of true love.”
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The release comes three months after the group issued the charging “Imminent Redemption,” single, which marked the first new song from the original band lineup in nearly 35 years. It also comes in the shadow of an ugly scene last Friday in Boston when Farrell, 65, appeared agitated on stage before shoving Navarro and then punching his longtime bandmate in the chest in a shocking scene that led to the cancellation of the reunited lineup’s first tour in 14 years as well as the announcement of an indefinite hiatus.
At press time a spokesperson for the band had not returned Billboard‘s request for information on whether “True Love” was another one-off from the legendarily quarrelsome alt-rock group — which also features drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Avery — or another preview of a what would be their first new studio album in 34 years.
In the wake of incident in Boston, the band issued an apology to fans, followed by a statement from Navarro, Perkins and Avery citing what they deemed the “mental health difficulties” affecting Farrell, as well as a personal mea culpa from the singer, who called his behavior “inexcusable.” In addition, Navarro apologized to opening acts Love & Rockets and Crawlers on Tuesday, specifically calling out the former band made up of ex members of Bauhaus for the “terrible outcome” of the tour that launched in August and was slated to run through mid-October.
The two new songs appeared to presage a return to form for the 1990s alt-rock group who released two classic studio albums during their short late 1980s-early 1990s run, 1988’s Nothing’s Shocking and 1990’s Ritual de lo Habitual. Jane’s broke up following a farewell tour as part of 1991’s first Lollapalooza festival, with Avery long acting as a hold-out in subsequent reunion tour; he was replaced by Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Flea on a 1997 tour and Martyn LeNoble and Chris Chaney on subsequent outings. The original four members got back together for a 2008 world tour, though Avery split again in 2010 before the release of the band’s fourth studio album, The Great Escape Artist, before returning to the fold again in 2022.
Listen to “True Love” below.
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