Rock
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Brand New have announced their first public performances in several years, marking the band’s official return to the stage.
The band, led by Jesse Lacey, had previously played a secret “Friends and Family” show in Nashville in December to benefit Make Life Skate Life. Now, fans will finally get the chance to see Brand New on stage again, in their first publicly ticketed concerts since 2017.
Though the band’s social media profiles have remained mostly inactive—with their last Instagram post dating back to October 2017—fans began sharing screenshots of emails they received on March 3, containing presale information for the newly announced concerts, as per LambGoat. The band’s official website also lists the dates and presale details, confirming their long-speculated return.
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The trio of shows will kick off March 26 in Dallas, Texas, before heading to Newport, Kentucky, on March 28, and wrapping up in Nashville, Tennessee, on March 29.
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Lacey, who previously addressed the sexual misconduct allegations against him, admitted in 2017 that he had caused “pain and harm to a number of people.”
The fallout led to Brand New canceling all remaining tour dates, and the band largely disappeared from public view.
During a solo performance at Eastside Bowl in Nashville on March 2, Lacey also publicly spoke for the first time about the passing of his stepson Miles, who died in 2021. The intimate set featured a mix of Brand New tracks and solo material, including a new song titled “Death.”
“I’m not gonna talk too much about this, but me and my wife Andrea lost our son three years ago. His name was Miles, and it was as hard as you can imagine,” he told the crowd. “Grief is a very hard thing to navigate, and I have found that for me, music lessens the poison of it.”
The moment was met with quiet support from the audience, as Lacey expressed gratitude to those who have helped carry the weight of his grief.
In the wake of their loss, Jesse and Andrea Lacey also founded Moms Skate Club, a charity dedicated to supporting mothers in the skateboarding community. Donations to the organization can be made here.
While no word has been given on whether new music is in the works, Brand New’s upcoming shows suggest that the band is testing the waters for a more significant return. With their influence still felt across the alternative and emo scenes, their live comeback is certain to be a major talking point in the months ahead.
Back in 2017, Brand New scored their first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200, displacing Kesha’s Rainbow. The group’s Science Fiction, their first new album in eight years.
The Offspring announced the dates for their Supercharged Worldwide in ’25 tour on Monday morning (March 3). The 34-date Live Nation-produced run from the Orange County, CA-bred punk stalwarts is slated to kick off on July 11 in West Palm Beach, FL at the iThink Financial Amphitheatre and include stops in Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Texas, Arizona, California and Utah before winding down on Sept. 7 at Ball Arena in Denver, CO.
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The shows will include support on all the dates from Jimmy Eat World and New Found Glory. A Citi presale for cardmembers will kick off on Tuesday (March 4) at 10 a.m. local time through Thursday (March 6) at 10 p.m. local time, with details here. An artist presale will begin on Wednesday (March 5) at 10 a.m. local time, with additional presales throughout the week ahead of a general on-sale beginning Friday (March 7) at 10 a.m. local time here.
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The tour is in support of the band’s 11th studio album, 2024’s Supercharged, which included their Billboard Rock & Alternative Airplay chart No. 1 “Make It All Right.”
Check out the dates for the Offspring’s Supercharged Worldwide in ’25 tour below.
July 11 — West Palm Beach, FL @ iThink Financial Amphitheatre
July 12 — Tampa, FL @ MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre at the FL State Fairgrounds
July 15 — Alpharetta, GA @ Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
July 16 — Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park
July 18 — Virginia Beach, VA @ Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater at Virginia Beach
July 19 — Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
July 20 — Scranton, PA @ The Pavilion at Montage Mountain
July 22 — Syracuse, NY @ Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater at Lakeview
July 23 — Toronto, ON @ Budweiser Stage
July 25 — Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
July 26 — Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Music Center
July 27 — Clarkston, MI @ Pine Knob Music Theatre
July 29 — Camden, NJ @ Freedom Mortgage Pavilion
July 30 — Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center
August 1 — Bethel, NY @ Bethel Woods Center for The Arts
August 2 — Holmdel, NJ @ PNC Bank Arts Center
August 3 — Wantagh, NY @ Northwell at Jones Beach Theater
August 13 — Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
August 15 — Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
August 16 — Tinley Park, IL @ Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre
August 17 — Maryland Heights, MO @ Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
August 20 — Ridgedale, MO @ Thunder Ridge Nature Arena
August 22 — Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
August 23 — The Woodlands, TX @ The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion presented by Huntsman
August 24 — Austin, TX @ Germania Insurance Amphitheater
August 26 — Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
August 27 — Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre
August 29 — Inglewood, CA @ Kia Forum**
August 30 — Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
August 31 — Wheatland, CA @ Toyota Amphitheatre
Sept. 3 — Auburn, WA @ White River Amphitheatre
Sept. 4 — Ridgefield, WA @ Cascades Amphitheater
Sept. 6 — West Valley City, UT @ Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre
Sept. 7 — Denver, CO @ Ball Arena
** no Jimmy Eat World
Beck is hitting the road this summer for another run of orchestral shows. The “Saw Lightning” singer announced the run of nine North American gigs in which he’ll team up with local symphony players on Monday (March 3), following a pair of well-received orchestral gigs at New York’s Carnegie Hall and L.A.’s Hollywood Bowl last summer.
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The upcoming run of shows with support from Molly Lewis are slated to kick off on July 15 at the Westville Music Bowl in New Haven, CT with the Westville Philharmonic providing support, followed by stops in Montreal, a two-night stint in Toronto, as well as gigs in Cincinnati, Chicago and Colorado Springs and Morrison, CO before winding down on July 29 at the Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in San Diego.
According to a release, Beck will be accompanied by “native orchestras for nine shows in eight cities in the U.S. and Canada — as they unite to reimagine a body of work that includes hits and deep cuts from classic Beck works including the multi-platinum Odelay, world-tripping Mutations, somber and reflective Sea Change, and GRAMMY Album of the Year winner Morning Phase, plus a share of surprises.”
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Pre-sale and other ticketing information is available here. A general on-sale will kick off on Friday (March 7) at 10 a.m. local time (except for the Chicago show).
Before he hits the road for the orchestral gigs, Beck will play the star-studded 2025 Love Rocks NYC benefit show on March 6 at New York’s Beacon Theatre alongside Cher, Alicia Keys, Kate Hudson, Phish’s Trey Anastasio, Mavis Staples, Michael McDonald, Peter Frampton and more.
The singer released his 14th studio album, Hyperspace, in 2019, which featured the singles “Saw Lightning,” “Uneventful Days” and “Dark Places.”
Check out the dates for Beck’s 2025 North American orchestral tour below.
July 15 – New Haven, CT @ Westville Music Bowl (with The Westville Philharmonic*)July 16 – Montreal, QC @ Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier (with L’Orchestre Métropolitain*)July 18, 19 – Toronto, ON @ Roy Thomson Hall (with Toronto Symphony Orchestra *)July 21 – Cincinnati, OH @ PNC Pavilion at Riverbend Music Center (with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra *)July 23 – Highland Park, IL @ Ravinia Festival (with Chicago Symphony Orchestra *)July 26 – Colorado Springs, CO @ Ford Amphitheater (with Colorado Symphony ^)July 27 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre (with Colorado Symphony ^)July 29 – San Diego, CA @ The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park (with San Diego Symphony *)
*Conducted by Edwin Outwater^Conducted by Christopher Dragon
Justice and Tame Impala’s collaboration “Neverender” lands both acts their first No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, leaping three places to top the March 8-dated tally.
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For electronic duo Justice, “Neverender” is its first No. 1 on any airplay-based chart. The tune previously became its first entry on any radio ranking since “D.A.N.C.E.,” which peaked at No. 25 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay in 2007.
Meanwhile, “Neverender” marks the first Alternative Airplay ruler for Tame Impala, the project of Kevin Parker, in his eighth appearance. Parker, who first made the list with the No. 8-peaking “Elephant” in 2013, has two previous No. 2s in “Lost in Yesterday” (2020) and as featured, alongside Bootie Brown, on Gorillaz’s “New Gold” (2023).
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Tame Impala boasts two No. 1s on Adult Alternative Airplay: “Lost in Yesterday” and “Is It True,” both in 2020.
“Neverender” gives Alternative Airplay its second and third newcomers to the top spot on the chart in 2025. Almost Monday snagged its first leader in early February with “Can’t Slow Down.”
“Neverender” reigns in its 25th week on the ranking and just over 10 months after its April 25, 2024, release.
Concurrently, the song bounds 22-11 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart with 2.9 million audience impressions, up 37%, in the week ending Feb. 27, according to Luminate.
On the most recent Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (dated March 1, reflecting data Feb. 14-20), “Neverender” appeared at No. 9 for a sixth total week; it reached No. 8 in May 2024. In addition to its radio airplay, the song earned 826,000 official U.S. streams last week.
“Neverender” is on Hyperdrama, Justice’s fourth studio album and first since 2016’s Woman. The former bowed at No. 1 on the Top Dance Albums chart in May 2024 and has earned 84,000 equivalent album units to date.
All Billboard charts dated March 8 will update Tuesday, March 4, on Billboard.com.
There are many things one is certain to see and hear a dance music mega-festival: fireworks, kandi bracelets, trance, house, bass, techno, wild outfits and the wide expanses of skin they reveal. No one, however, would ever expect to see rock icon Jon Bon Jovi.
And thus it was a shock when the superstar turned up onstage during Armin van Buuren‘s set at Ultra Music Festival Miami last March. He’d made his first ever trip to Ultra to help the Dutch trance legend debut his remix of Bon Jovi’s classic “Keep The Faith,” the title track and lead single from the band’s 1992 album, which was the group’s fifth studio LP.
Bon Jovi fans will understand why van Buuren’s edit worked so well, with the original six-minute anthem possessing the same sort of simmer, slow build/big-ass release structure that defines so many dance music hits.
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But talking to Billboard over Zoom while on a family ski vacation in the Dolomites, van Buuren says he was “super nervous” about how the dance crowd might receive the remix, and also how die-hard Bon Jovi fans might respond to his update, which isolates the vocals and piano stabs, using them to assemble a giant build created around the punchy “faith!” lyric and sleek, frenetically arranged synth stabs. In fact, everyone liked it a lot — with the remix getting an official release today (Feb. 28) on van Buuren’s venerable Armada Music and UMG Recordings.
“Bon Jovi songs have had some unique and epic moments over the years, but this is truly ahighlight,” Jon Bon Jovi says in a statement. “Armin is a total pro, and I was thrilled to work with him on the track. I had such a blast at my first Ultra, the crowd was absolutely electric. Thanks to Armin forhaving me.”
Here, van Buuren discusses how the dance version of “Keep the Faith” came to be, and why — in the case of Jon Bon Jovi — he was very happy to meet his idol.
What are your early memories of Bon Jovi?
Bon Jovi was literally everywhere, especially in the Netherlands; he was super popular. The way we consume music is now radically different now of course. We all have all these beautiful apps and [streaming platforms] but back in the day, it was all record stores and vinyl and the top 40 radio show and, Bon Jovi was the cool dude. He always looked so cool in pictures. I remember buying his records at my local record store and driving home with them and adding another CD to my collection.
How did you first link with Jon Bon Jovi to get the project going?
I met up with his manager, who was a friend of a friend, in L.A. … That’s how the conversation started. I asked “Can I try something?” They asked which song, and I said, “Keep The Faith.” It turned out that the first demo was a home run, and I didn’t actually change much after the very first idea. I lined up all the stems. I got a groove going. I tried updating the sounds without alienating the song, because the guitars and the song structure is already amazing. It’s a very effective song. The structure is very straightforward and very powerful, very energetic. So that made it fairly easy.
Of all the Bon Jovi classics, why did you pick this one to remix?
Obviously, “Living on a Prayer” is the biggest Bon Jovi track. But [his team] said, “We’re okay with [anything] except that one, because it’s been done.” I got that, and his repertoire is humongous.
The great thing about “Keep the Faith” is that it was easy to translate into my EDM world, which always has a BPM challenge. It was 128 BPM, and obviously we sped it up. We made the tempo faster to fit my set. The original, compared to my version, doesn’t really feel a lot faster. When I started working on the mix, I told everybody to let me first get a draft version going, to make sure everybody was happy with the rough idea.
Also, for myself, I asked, “Is this going to persuade a crowd going crazy at Ultra Music Festival? All of a sudden they hear all these guitars coming in and Bon Jovi onstage. How am I going to translate that into an Ultra world, which obviously is very challenging?” People at Ultra have a certain expectation. Dance music has a certain sound.
How did you actually get Jon onstage with you at Ultra?
[While I was making it] I wasn’t even sure if Jon Bon Jovi would be up for doing a live performance, because he had problems with his vocal cords. But I didn’t know that at the time. His manager told me there was a chance [he would come], and that she’d ask him. He actually lives close to Miami, so I asked if we could persuade him to come to Ultra Music Festival.
Apparently, he’s not very enthusiastic about remixes — but he called his manager after he got the first draft of the remix and said, like, “This is insane. I love it so much, and I want to perform this live, but I can’t sing.” Then when he showed up at Ultra. We had time to take photos backstage. We had time to chat a little bit. He even gave me a gift. It was incredible.
What did he give you?
He gave me a very special limited edition Bon Jovi jacket that I still haven’t touched to this day. I’m afraid to wear it. He was very, very nice. I mean, it’s rare, you know — I’ve met quite a few superstars in my career, and was lucky enough to work with a few superstars in the studio, and there’s always this disappointment a little bit after. You know how they say, “Don’t meet your heroes?”
But with Jon Bon Jovi it was the other way around. He was super nice. He was super humble. He was very interested in what I was doing, and he was like, “I don’t know much about the dance music world, but tell me.”
That’s so cool.
And then the climax story, obviously, is that he came onstage. I told [the crowd], “He’s my childhood hero. Here he is, Mr. Jon Bon Jovi” — and completely non-planned, he started actually singing along with the song, which was so random and so great. But he couldn’t really sing, because his doctor strictly forbade him from using his vocal cords, because he just had a massive surgery on his vocal cords. So I was like, “What? He’s singing!” That was the cherry on top. But I was afraid, because I was like, “What if he hurt his vocal cords? What if he hurt his throat?”
We agreed that he was just going to come on, say a few words, we would vibe to the drop, and that’s it. But he sang along, and that’s super special.
Did he say anything after about what compelled him to start singing?
I didn’t meet him straight after, because he left and my performance lasted for another hour. But I texted him after, like, “So dude, you just started singing.” He’s like, “Yeah, I don’t know. Spur of the moment.”
I mean, that has to be a big compliment though.
Well, at that point he hadn’t been on a big stage for a while, so maybe he felt the energy. But you have to imagine, for me, Ultra Music Miami is always one of the most important gigs of the year. I get Bon Jovi on stage, and I’m super nervous, because I’m playing something completely new — which is always a bit uncomfortable with the crowd, because they don’t know what to expect, and they don’t know what you’ve created. And then he comes on. It was a climax, absolutely.
The remix seemed very well received in the moment, and then well received online when the performance video was posted to YouTube. Did you feel that momentum as you were playing it?
Yeah, but I was a little bit afraid. I mean, Bon Jovi has a lot of really big fans. Like, fans that follow him around. He’s a superstar. It’s kind of like ruining one of his paintings, in a way. It’s so out of my world. I was just afraid that people would be upset for kind of ruining the original song, because I have so much respect for the original. The the way it was produced and the way it was mastered, it just sounds so great. It’s a timeless record.
But then I keep telling myself that this is not supposed to replace the original version, it’s just an addition and my interpretation of his great work with the band. I think it adds to the lifespan of the song, and I hope a young generation will appreciate this.
Was it always clear that it would become an official release?
No, not at all. I mean, it’s very difficult, because it’s signed to Universal. It’s a major record company, so you have to really ask politely. That’s why it took a year after the performance to come out. Because he had a documentary coming out, he had an album coming out, and obviously his release schedule can’t be interfered with, so you have to be very delicate.
But that’s all up to management, and I wasn’t involved in that, but that’s the reason why it took a year. The track was done. We haven’t really changed a lot from the version I did at Ultra. We’re thinking about maybe [releasing] another more commercial or radio-friendly version — but the version we’re releasing now is the version pretty close to the version that I did at Ultra Music Festival Miami, because there’s so much demand for it.
R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe has made it clear over the years that the beloved indie rock godheads are definitely done. But on Thursday night (Feb. 28), the original quartet were back on stage together for just the second time since their split in 2011 to play a high-spirited version of their 1984 classic “Pretty Persuasion.”
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The totally unexpected moment came during a show by actor Michael Shannon as part of his latest tour with Verbow singer/guitarist Jason Narducy performing full R.E.M. albums, in this case the group’s 1985 Southern Gothic jangle classic Fables of the Reconstruction. Not only did Stipe take the stage with former bandmates guitarist Peter Buck, bassist/singer Mike Mills and long-retired drummer Bill Berry on tambourine, but they did it at the 40 Watt Club, the legendary 500-capacity venue in their hometown of Athens, Georgia that has been the launching pad for dozens of local bands and a favorite haunt for R.E.M.’s members over the years.
In a thrilling video posted by the 40 Watt, Stipe, wearing red shades and sharing the mic with Mills and Narducy, belts out the lyrics “It’s gone and won/ Hurry and buy/ All has been tried/ Hurry and buy,” as the packed-in crowd jump and clap and, of course, hold up their phones to capture the once-in-a-lifetime moment.
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It was only the second time that Berry has performed alongside his former bandmates since leaving the group in 1997 citing a desire to quit touring after suffering a brain aneurysm on stage in Switzerland in 1995. R.E.M. soldiered on after Berry’s departure and released five more albums as a trio before calling it quits for good in 2011. They had not all been on stage together since until last year when they stage a surprise get-back at the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame induction to perform another of their most iconic anthems, “Losing My Religion.”
Though the 40 Watt is in a different spot now, it has long been an incubator for the local music scene, hosting a number of prominent hometown indie bands (Pylon, Love Tractor, Gudalcanal Diary, Drive-By Truckers, B-52s, Widespread Panic, Vic Chesnutt) over the years, as well as acts that went on to global stardom that popped in for early gigs or serious underplay shows, including Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, as well as Iggy Pop, Run-DMC and Snoop Dogg, among countless others.
And while the second surprise reunion by R.E.M. in a year surely stirred excitement among fans, Stipe has made it clear that their performing and recording days are over. In a 2021 interview with WYNC’s All Of It, Stipe responded to a question about a possible third act by saying, “That’s wishful thinking at best. We will never reunite. We decided when we split up that that would be really tacky and probably money-grabbing, which might be the impetus for a lot of bands to get back together. We don’t really need that. And I’m really happy that we have the legacy of 32 years of work that we have from 1980 to 2011.”
R.E.M.’s last full concert was in November 2008 in Mexico City. Since then the only other time they’ve performed was at a private party for their manager, Bertis Downs, in 2016.
Check out the video of R.E.M. playing “Pretty Persuasion” below.
Neil Young has added a major festival date to his upcoming summer run with new band the Chrome Hearts. Young, 79, will headline a July 11 date at the annual BST Hyde Park summer concert series in London, where he will be joined by “Peace Train” singer Yusuf/Cat Stevens and Van Morrison, with more support acts to be announced later.
American Express U.K. card members can grab tickets now through 9 a.m. on March 5, with a BST Hyde Park pre-sale slated to open at 10 a.m. on Monday (March 3) and a general on-sale kicking off at 10 a.m. on March 5; all times GMT.
The gig will be Young’s first at BST Hyde Park since a 2019 co-headlining gig there with Bob Dylan. Young’s show will join a growing roster of 2025 BST Hyde Park headliners, which also include Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Zach Bryan, Noah Kahan and Jeff Lynne’s ELO.
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The addition of the Hyde Park show expands the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer’s burgeoning 2025 road roster, after this week’s announcement of the dates for the first leg of the European/North American Love Earth tour, which is slated to kick off in Europe on June 18 at Dalhalla in Rättvik, Sweden before moving on to gigs in Norway, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.
The tour will then hit the U.S., beginning with an August 8 show at PNC Music Pavilion in Charlotte, N.C., before moving on to Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto, New York, Chicago, Denver and Vancouver, with the last currently scheduled date set for Sept. 15 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles; a spokesperson said more date will be added to the run later.
Young will be accompanied on all the shows by the Chrome Hearts band, featuring his longtime collaborator keyboardist/organist Spooner Oldham, as well as Promise of the Real members Micah Nelson (guitar/vocals), Corey McCormick (bass) and Anthony LoGerfo (drums). The group released the grungy anthem “Big Change” in January. Young debuted the Chrome Hearts band last year and has said an album from the group is tentatively slated for release in April.
Check out the poster for Neil Young at BST Hyde Park below.
As might be expected from a project titled Nothing with a two-part “Hell Suite,” the third album from revered psych-dance outfit Darkside deals with some heavy themes. But, as guitarist Dave Harrington explains, “you can at once have the feeling of ‘we’re living in hell’ – and the funky catharsis of music.”
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Such is the dichotomy that drives Darkside’s first album in four years, a record that mirrors the uneasy state of the world today, while responding to it with some of the most vibrant material of the group’s decade-plus career.
Four years ago, Darkside returned with Spiral, its second album, and first since its seminal 2013 debut, Psychic. Now, propelled by the expansion from duo to trio with the addition of drummer Tlacael Esparza, the group is back again, in just half the time – and will embark on its first North American tour in a decade this March.
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Harrington and Jaar formed Darkside in the early ’10s, and have known Esparza for about that long: For years, Esparza played around Brooklyn in various bands led by Harrington, and in 2014, he toured Mexico with Jaar. But it was a series of gigs in Amsterdam, years later in October 2019, that catalyzed Darkside’s eventual growth into a trio. Harrington, Jaar, Esparza and the saxophonist Will Epstein had convened in the Netherlands for an all-improv residency as Bladerunner and, Esparza says, “every night, we would talk about shapes and sounds and colors and ideas, and then we’d go and play something.”
While Spiral wouldn’t be released until summer 2021, it was already mostly completed by those Dutch shows – but when Harrington and Jaar began contemplating what came after for Darkside, in the studio or on the road, it was natural to give Esparza a call. In September 2022, almost exactly eight years since Darkside had played a gig, it returned to the stage, now with Esparza in tow, with two L.A. shows — which it followed with a 2023 European tour. To introduce its new lineup to fans who hadn’t caught those concerts, Darkside released Live in Spiral House, a collection culled from summer 2022 rehearsal sessions, in 2023.
“Tlacael joining Darkside changed the band’s DNA completely,” Jaar tells Billboard by email. “Playing with him was incredibly inspiring and exciting, and we almost immediately got the idea to make the next record by applying what we learned at Spiral House in L.A. and during the first tour we did as a trio in Europe in 2023.”
With “Tlacael in the mix, we just hit a stride,” Harrington says. “We just started working on [Nothing] because we were on tour and we had some days off, and rather than sit around or go to the museum or something, we set up camp in a recording studio. We love making music together, and when we had the opportunity for the three of us to be in the same place at the same time, we jumped at the opportunity to keep making music.”
But with its members spread across the globe – Harrington in L.A., Esparza in New York, and Jaar overseas in London – those fortuitous alignments of time and place weren’t particularly common. Nothing‘s sessions totaled about three weeks, but took place over about a year, in Paris and Los Angeles. But it’s the band’s “unconventional ways,” Harrington says, that drive it creatively.
While other groups might hole up at a studio for weeks or months at a time when making an album, Darkside’s process is “one of always having this time to go back to our own musical worlds, develop things, get curious about new things and then show up again as a band,” says Harrington, calling that “certainly the story of this record, and maybe the story of all three records.”
With Nothing, Jaar and Harrington both applied the extra-Darkside projects they pursued after Spiral. In 2023, Jaar released Intiha, an abstract collaboration with the composer Ali Sethi, and last year, the Chilean-American producer released Piedras 1 & 2, two ambitious LPs tackling Chilean history and Palestinian erasure. Meanwhile, in 2021, Harrington – who begins our Zoom call noodling on a trumpet in his studio, before revealing his “SCARLET > FIRE” sweatshirt, a reference to a famed Grateful Dead song pairing – formed the mildly meta jam band Taper’s Choice with bassist Alex Bleeker (Real Estate), drummer Chris Tomson (Vampire Weekend) and keyboardist Zach Tenorio (Arc Iris). Taper’s Choice has toured regularly since, and jam luminaries like Phish’s Mike Gordon and ’60s Dead member Tom Constanten have sat in with them.
It follows, then, that on Nothing, Darkside has increased both its lyrical depth and jam quotient. At one point in our conversation, Esparza praises a particularly sunny moment in album standout “Are You Tired? (Keep On Singing)” as “the most Jerry [Garcia] part of the record,” and when previewing Darkside’s upcoming shows, Harrington says its 2013 track “Freak, Go Home” has become “almost our ‘Dark Star,’” referencing the song the Grateful Dead would often expand well over the half-hour mark. “Sometimes, when we’re really on one, it’ll turn into a 30- or 40-minute excursion,” he says with excitement. “When we play it live, it barely sounds like the riff – I mean, just barely.”
The deep history between Darkside’s three members, not to mention some of their musical inspirations – Harrington cites his and Esparza’s shared affinity for the jazz drummer Brian Blade and legendary kraut-rockers Can – made its turn toward jamming more or less inevitable. Knowing each other for so long, “you’re used to talking, you’re used to hanging out, you know what they like to eat – and then you go to play music and that’s all kind of in there,” Harrington says. (The philosophy extends to Darkside’s lighting director, who Esparza says “is an improviser as well” and responds to the band in real-time.)
But despite Darkside’s increasingly improvisational bent, Nothing is also another step forward for Jaar’s singing and lyricism – although, he notes, “I’m not a singer. Nor a lyricist, strictly speaking. I’m first and foremost a music producer.” In Darkside sessions, “The vocal elements arrive as drum parts or guitar riffs do and they are often collaged and worked on like we work on percussion. That being said, sometimes, rarely, an inspiration comes and I’ll play the part of singer, but it always involves a lot of acting, it’s a character.”
On Nothing, where Jaar ends and this character begins is ambiguous – but the album’s bold declarations, from “I did it for the time of my life and the thrill! I did it for the money! I did it for the rush!” (“SNC”) to “Look at the window, it’s hell out there” (“Hell Suite (Part II)”) are more categorical.
“We live in hell,” Esparza says as he surveys the album’s themes, “but we can experience the joy and serenity and happiness of being with our loved ones and living life. I think that that’s felt throughout the record.”
“The U.S.A. is the single most dangerous country in the history of this planet, and it’s currently led by the head honcho of a global white supremacist terror ring,” Jaar warns. But, he adds, “this hellish landscape has been made by human hands, and so it can be unmade by human hands too. If I have optimism, it’s in that.”
If you’ve seen A Complete Unknown, or gone to see Bob Dylan in concert over the past few decades, or checked out the the Nobel Prize winner’s social media feeds recently then you know that the rock and roll bard’s factory setting is inscrutable.
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Which, kind of, explains Dylan’s latest inexplicable Instagram missive: a no-context re-post of a 2016 in-store performance by Machine Gun Kelly at Park Ave. CDs in Orlando, FL in 2016. Why MGK? Why this clip? We will never know, but both Kelly and his good pal, singer/producer Mod Sun, were beyond pumped at the unexpected shout-out. (Check out the post here).
“you having a phone is so rad,” Kelly wrote in the comments on the post, with Mod Sun adding, “This is my favorite thing that’s ever happened on the internet.” Other commenters also weighed in with a mix of excitement and confusion, writing, “Bob probably thought this was [A Complete Unknown star] Timothée Chalamet so he reposted it,” “Think MGK has now won against Eminem. The greatest poet of all time has just reposted him,” “I love when Dylan fans get riled ’cause he throws a curveball,” “Bob respectfully what the f–k is this” and “Not a fan of MGK, myself… Genius sees genius. This guy can spit and it seems at least one person named Bob can hear it clearly.”
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While Dylan has posted some on-brand messages lately, including a tribute to his friend and late bandmate Garth Hudson last month following the death of The Band’s longtime keyboardist, the MGK love is in keeping with his out-of-left-field online activity. Earlier this year, the 83-year-old folk rock legend joined TikTok just days before what was slated to be a ban of the app, posting a kind of career retrospective clip, followed by a half dozen other archival videos.
Over on X, the past four months have found Dylan musing about seeing a Nick Cave show in Paris and being impressed by the singer’s moving track “Joy” and giving props to “brilliant actor” Chalamet’s role in A Complete Unknown, predicting that the actor would be “completely believable as me. Or a younger me. Or some other me.”
Classic Dylan.
He’s also paid tribute to another old bandmate, late rockin’ blues giant Paul Butterfield, and, last week, posted another tribute, this time to late bluegrass/country great Don Reno.
And if you scroll through the rest of his Instagram feed, over the past two months, mixed in with promos for his ongoing Rough and Rowdy Ways world tour, you’ll see an archival video of Les Paul introducing late Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen at a Les Paul tribute show in 1988, a random Ricky Nelson performance clip, a snippet of director Fritz Lang’s 1952 noir romance Clash By Night starring Barbara Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe and a live performance video of beloved guitarist Django Reinhardt.
Mix in a post of the classic Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man” and a reading of the “Last Testament” of the outlaw (and older brother of Jesse) Frank James.
What does it all mean? Who knows? But in the immortal words of Dylan: “don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”
Hatebreed’s longtime bassist Chris Beattie has confirmed his departure from the band, calling the decision “uncalled for” and suggesting that “misleading and wrongful statements” were involved in his exit.
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The news comes just days before Hatebreed is set to take the stage at Knotfest Australia, where Slipknot will headline across three cities. Beattie, who co-founded the hardcore outfit in 1994, addressed fans in a statement on Feb. 27.
“I just want to take the time to let everyone know that I am doing just fine and I sincerely appreciate everyone who has reached out,” Beattie wrote on a social media post.
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“I was under the impression a joint announcement would be agreed upon in advance, but since that was not the case I wanted to address your concerns in my own post,” he added.
Beattie also clarified that he did not choose to leave the band and implied that the circumstances surrounding his departure may not have been transparent.
“At this time I am unable to discuss the specifics surrounding my departure from Hatebreed on November 13, 2024,” he continued. “However, I want to clarify that the decision to leave the band was not mine and that my departure was uncalled for and based on misleading and wrongful statements that will be subject to future actions.”
Hatebreed has not issued an official response to Beattie’s claims. The band is still scheduled to perform at Knotfest Australia, with stops at Melbourne’s Flemington Racecourse on Friday, Brisbane Showgrounds on Sunday, March 2, and Sydney’s Centennial Park on March 8. The lineup also includes A Day to Remember, Babymetal, Slaughter to Prevail, Polaris, and more.
Beattie, who has been with Hatebreed since their early days in the Connecticut hardcore scene, was a key part of the band’s sound across eight studio albums. While he has not specified what his next move will be, his comments suggest he may not be stepping away from music entirely.
For now, Hatebreed moves forward without one of its longest-standing members, while fans await more details on what led to the split.